re-boot , re-fresh - Page 2

Nah, I looked up the link (youtube.com/watch?v=zLRYREmJqho) - it was Jane Doe.

Yeah, I heard about Ultrapop but haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. I'm planning to get a new gym subscription and get back in there so I'll give it a shot once I do. I have almost only been listening to dark/bittersweet/depressing (alt-)country/blues music, especially the work of Jason Molina (RIP) since basically the beginning of the year. Last time I was this obsessed with someone was probably Tupac when I was 15. I highly recommend you explore his body of work, especially as someone who has gone through the struggles that you have. You might find something rare there to connect with. Sadly, he died from alcoholism-related organ failure at 39.

I just realized now that my aux portal on my phone is likely unworkable beyond replacing it. I tried a new pair of Apple buds and it works better but still doesn't stay connected. That just means I will use my portable amphitheater in the car now because I am too lazy to fix it. Since Apple is annoying it will require buying a special screw driver and suction cup to open the damn iPhone up to fix it. I obviously can not afford a new iPhone. I was thinking of going with a flip phone that only has texting and calling next but I do value Spotify, Signal, and Weather apps. Oh well, the only thing that changes is that the music will not be as loud now but that is probably a good thing for my ear drums.

I have been approaching a blues + country + bluegrass phase for a minute now. I was going to a legendary diner here every night (morning) where I would get some food + coffee and draw or talk to people. I met some interesting people there and found out Sturgill Simpson (Won a grammy for best country album whatever that is worth) worked there who my friend knew. My friend S suggested I get back into it and practice Johnny Cash songs again and he has a music studio at his place. I mostly practice neo-soul, alt-r&b, 90s prog metal but my voice is actually best suited for blues and country. Some Johnny Cash songs are dead easy, some are like holy shit double black diamond, and I can't sing some of them because I can't sing that low vibrantly enough. But, yeah, I need to practice blues and country so this is good timing. My range is low Johnny Cash but not bottom to Little Dragon. S also told me I need to start writing my own songs and learn the guitar even if it is just a couple of chords. Then, I went to the psych ward and the nurse I got a long with the best was playing blues on loop all the time. I have a page full of new artists (for me). Anyways, S is at his other home base opening a restaurant but he will be back after the summer heat so I want to be prepared.

My voice is similar to Jason's so that's what I've been doing. I've learned pretty much all the chords that he usually plays (I used to play metal and had never needed to learn them) and I'm still learning how to sing while playing. It's challenging but fun to see small improvements.

I've listened to about an hour now of "Jason Molina 101" curated by Secretly Canadian who I believe was a later record label and I am very pleased. I usually don't like being introduced by the "THE ESSENTIAL X" playlists but his discography is so large and all over the place (in terms of bands he played with, etc.) that it just felt like the thing to do. I suppose from here you already set me up with Eight Gates and The Lioness and I'm sure Jason will spike it home no matter what I pick.

That's a good playlist for sure.

Also, LOL @ Tupac at age 15. Good company. I was more of a Biggie guy but of course I appreciated Tupac.

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My uncle and aunt are visiting. I love them but it has been brutal at times. Getting drunk last night and chattering about all the same things they always chatter about. Then, this morning getting caffeined up and more of the same. I swear we have literally chattered about every topic already in a foggy past sometime. No one mentions anything about it they just chatter away politely. I feel obligated to endure at least some of it but while I'm listening to Jason Molina and typing it does not seem that impolite to just take back some time for myself.

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I think my next road trip will be Memphis and Nashville.

Man, I have plenty of blues / country material in my life but it is fucking difficult to sit down and write a song. In some ways it is easy to just literally tell a story about my life but to actually make it great and combined with a good guitar or piano. I played some piano and guitar as a young buck so I have the basic fundamentals but in all honesty I can barely play. Sad.

I bought a guitar because I wanted to play Shine On You Crazy Diamond pt. 1 - x by Pink Floyd and also John Mayer on Frank Ocean's Channel Orange. My Uncle who has played guitar is whole entire life and can play just about anything stopped trying to play John Mayer because it is too difficult for him...

Jason Molina grew up in a single wide trailer in Lorraine, OH. I was born on Lake Erie too and grew up in a similar city. This is the heart of the rust belt from Detroit to Lorraine to Cleveland to Akron to Canton to Massillon to Youngstown to Pittsburgh. The Cuyahoga River has caught on fire 13 times. Columbus, OH missed most of this manufacturing. It caught wind to F.I.R.E. (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate) quite early and with the large university there provided a lot of action. I wanted to go to Northern California. Stanford, UC–Berkeley, or Reed College. I got a decent enough scholarship to Ohio State University and it seemed to be the only reasonable option for me so I went there. I think that is the case for a lot of Ohio residents. It's either scholarship to Miami University (which I did not like) or scholarship to Ohio State University which I was conditioned to like from an early age.

Most of those manufacturing jobs are long gone now. Columbus still has AK Middletown which is one of the elite steel mills in the world. Cleveland still has ArcelorMittal Cleveland East which again is one of the elite steel mills in the world. Car manufacturing is gone. Even in Pittsburgh there is only 1 blast furnace left when they used to have 13. The US Steel building is now the UPMC building. I think that I would rather those manufacturing jobs come back in order for AI to complete the factory jobs and we figure something out as a nation or globally. The fact that those jobs currently don't exist mean we the people have zero leverage and we are at the mercy of the totalitarian rulers. The only union I know of to have any sort of leverage anymore are the United Steel Workers and their population dwindles lower and lower as the years past. My main account which was a massive account in 2014 with fantastic equipment is not open today and will likely have zero chance of re-opening certainly if it remains an ArcelorMittal holding. 2 state of the art casters, 1 bof, and they just could not figure out a way to make it profitable. Apparently, there is no way to compete with some of the fully fully integrated mills in China where there are no safety or environmental regulations and the biggest reason is that the labor force is bordering on slave labor benefits. One lives at the mill, eats at the mill, and works at the mill for minimum benefits. For many it is better than starving and struggling for margins from rice farming in near by villages. Hyundai steel probably does a better job of any steel mill on the planet. It is entirely integrated from extracting the iron from the ground to making the steel that goes directly into Hyundai cars, hotels, re-bar, whatever Hyundai needs it makes itself. Hyundai's only "downside" is that it pays its workers more fairly with wages and benefits. Even so, many steel working jobs are dangerous, dirty, and difficult. Many of those jobs could easily be replaced with AI and as long as those steel workers could retain dignity and respect for themselves with some sort of income I don't see why we don't automate everything as fast as possible with out putting our existence in danger. And, I don't see why we don't cut out wood. Let's make our houses out of steel, re-bar, concrete. Why are wood floors status symbols when there are composites that are better. Why do we still parade around fur coats, leather purses, and leather heels?

Besides a lost time of being stuck between having the guts to play poker for a living and just flat out fooling around at a hopeless "real job" after university I experienced the emptiness so bad that it jolted me to fled to Buenos Aires. I have not been to my hometown since.

"They never say to come home
Never say to come home"

I had to dig through quite a lot to get to my electric guitar in the closet. Only to find that it was (obviously) horribly out of tune. Maybe it is a bad omen that I couldn't find the auto-tuner and was too lazy in that moment to tune it with my piano. I bought another auto-tuner but I have been jonesin' to play. I already took my psych meds so I am not going to do anything of too much value the remainder of tonight's wakefulness but I hope that tomorrow I will be motivated to tune my guitar to the piano. Any self respecting guitar player should be able to accomplish that with ease. Even though it sounded like shit I hit some chords and even that felt good. There is definitely something to adeptly hitting the right finger placements and producing a great sound. I like how in Spanish they say that one "touches" the guitar. Toco guitarra = I play the guitar but it really means I touch the guitar. Tocar = to touch.

You can download a tuner app on your phone... obviously...

I'm learning spanish myself and been playing guitar as well.

Recently made the error of saying jugar guitar instead of tocar but my teacher didn't correct me for some reason.

I got the Fender app so we will see how it works after my morning walk. I am a massive fan of the Snark tuners that you clip on to the guitar so we will see.

To touch the guitar is much more romantic and Spanish and don't forget that it is guitarra which is said with some flare as they roll the rr. They also take sun. Llevo Sol. Which I always liked Sol better than sun. The ll in llevar is also said quite sexily in Buenos Aires where I learned to speak Spanish. "jsh"evo sol.

I am not saying fire your teacher but that is disappointing. The little differences like that are what make the Spanish language beautiful for me.

Yea I know it's guitarra I did say guitarra at the time idk why I said guitar here. That's not to say my Spanish isn't shit though.

My teacher is portena. I know a bit about the accent and some lunfardo words. I still haven't made up my mind about Argentines. Also I managed to piss off my teacher so might have to fire her.

Porteño / Porteña

But, when I was in Buenos Aires no one ever used these terms. I was Yankee ("jshahn-kee) o Rubio. Buenos Aires folk more or less despise USA people for good reasons. They can also be quite cynical. Yankee was like whatever silly "American" you have to prove yourself here. I was in the same category as the IMF, World Bank, and Dick Cheney until I proved otherwise. Just some rat coming down to take advantage of Argentina's currency problems. Which in some part was true. Buying a litre of Stella Artois for $1 or the best wine and steak dinner I've ever eaten for the price of the Outback Steakhouse is definitely a bonus but I was betting on the culture which turned out to be outstanding. As soon as I dove into the culture and got to know the people "yankee" was nothing more than a funny joke. I had nothing to do with George W. Bush or handing over millions of dollars to dictators to torture and disappear people at will. The US-backed dictators then took those loans and put the money into off shore accounts so that the decimated people were the ones left with the debt.

Maybe the woke crowd would protest for Porteñx.

I haven't spoken to too many people about this but my brother-in-law is Colombian and jokes that woke white people came up with it and that it is not too difficult to use neutral words within the Spanish language. I find myself saying Latinx generally though now although especially for my brother-in-law's sister and husband and children where their first language spoken in the household is mostly Spanish using Latinx just seems a bit silly. Even more silly speaking to their 60 yr old parents that don't really speak English. I have never met someone with Spanish as their first language that came here to the USA tell me that they preferred Latinx. It's not like I really have much at stake as I rarely speak Spanish anymore. At the end of the day no Spanish speaker has ever corrected me saying latinx and no one has correct me saying latino/latina... *shrug*

Also, I don't know if you can really make up an opinion about Argentines by seeing 1 teacher every now and again from Buenos Aires. Argentina is a massive country and even Buenos Aires is a very diverse large city. Growing up in a rough neighborhood in La Boca versus a penthouse apartment in Recoleta vs a chill spot in Palermo Viejo or Colonia vs San Telmo. Even the city of Rosario only a few hours a way from Buenos Aires is quite a bit different. Mendoza, Barrio Noche, even just past Rosario is Gaucho Territory and I never went South of Buenos Aires but there are beaches and then quite a bit of land in the Patagonia area.

Lol how can u just blame Argentina's problems on right wing regimes.

Peron, kircherners were horrible for that country. At least with menem/macri seems like country was in the right direction. Really Argentina failed when the juntas lost control of the country.

"Also, I don't know if you can really make up an opinion about Argentines by seeing 1 teacher every now and again from Buenos Aires"

Yea that's why I said I haven't made up my mind. It's not just based on that teacher, for example Italians in general are kind of tilting

Argentina is a massive country and even Buenos Aires is a very diverse large city. Growing up in a rough neighborhood in La Boca versus a penthouse apartment in Recoleta vs a chill spot in Palermo Viejo or Colonia vs San Telmo. Even the city of Rosario only a few hours a way from Buenos Aires is quite a bit different. Mendoza, Barrio Noche, even just past Rosario is Gaucho Territory and I never went South of Buenos Aires but there are beaches and then quite a bit of land in the Patagonia area.

Yea... I'm not like trying to compete/show off in who is the most knowledagble about Argentina lol. I know a pretty good amount of stuff...

Whatever dude.

Thanks for the smart phone auto tuner tip. I got my guitar all tuned up today and played for 30 min. It was fun. My fingertips still find certain chords easy and others not so much. There is a lot of work to be done if I want to write even the most simple blues song from scratch.

Cool dude. I've taken up classical guitar. It's pretty enjoyable so far, been doing it about 2 months now. I rather like the finger style more so than strumming and I like that I don't have to sing and that the strings aren't made of steel.