Real Live Chicken, Real Live Monkey

Most or all of this will be pretty obvious stuff. That's where I'm a Viking.

But it's gonna be fun. For me anyway. Just get a chicken and a monkey, put em in the Octagon & see what happens.

I can't believe this picture exists. Thank you HabzHockey.

 

Okay, now... Time to get serious. I'm going on the record. When it comes down to the question of a real live chicken and a real live egg, the egg came first.

 

I got science for this. And you can too. But first the incumbent belief:

 

Genesis (that's in the Bible, in the unlikely event that you don't know) lays out a scenario in which the chicken comes first. The author (Moses, I think) doesn't mention the chicken by name, but does make a sweeping reference to the birds of the air, the fish in the sea, and everything that creeps on land; chickens fall within that category.

God then saw to it that all these critters would multiply. For chickens, that means eggs.

 

So the chicken arrived first. Simple.

 

Future Nobel Laureate.

Evolution is a theory better misrepresented than an Iranian citizen.

In Chapter 1 of "On the Origin of Species," the author (Darwin, I think) lays out something a little harder to swallow - the idea that the egg came first. 

 

Apparently it had been demonstrated earlier that "unnatural treatment of the embryo causes monstrosities; and monstrosities cannot be separated by any clear line of distinction from mere variations." (from the experiments of Geoffrey St Hillaire).

 

In other words: If you dose an embryo with radiation, alcohol or any other thing it shouldn't have, it'll turn out different than if you'd left it alone.

 

Our boy Charlie was inclined to take it a bit further, theorizing that variations in progeny could more commonly be attributed to variations in male and female reproductive elements. Not in the overall organism, but just their naughty bits (since they're the most fragile bits; ever been kicked in the nuts? You know...).

 

In other words: Mutations are also the natural result of changing environments and the effects of same on the parents of the mutant. They're just not nearly as dramatic as what happens when you blast a first-term pregnancy with gamma rays.

Hulk SMASH puny natural selection!

 

Most of these mutations served no useful purpose at the time, and led nowhere (or to the mutant's early death).

 

The underwhelming minority of these mutations gave the mutant in question an advantage for survival over its brothers and sisters. It's just luck, for lack of a better word.

 

This wouldn't have mattered much, since in less than a hundred years they would all be dead anyway. But the mutant chronologically stood a better chance of reproducing, passing its unique advantage down to its progeny.

 

It's a little thing, but it helped.

 

From there, Darwin theorized that these mutations continued to sort out who survived what over the course of millions of years, blah-blah-blah-you-know-the-rest-of-it.

 

At no point anywhere in the theory of evolution did Charlie Darwin indicate that a monkey gave birth to a human. That would be stupid.

 

Doesn't care about Nobel Prize.

  

We're not monkeys. Almost nobody believes we are. Evolutionists and Creationists can agree on this. I reckon that's where the common ground ends.

 

Good news though: Did you know there are people out there who believe in God and Darwin? Better still, they believe in the Judeo-Christian God, and - having actually read and thought about both the Bible and On the Origin of Species - see no reason to choose between the two.

 

It's all straw anyway, according to your best theologian.

 

Creationism is not a requisite for belief in a Prime Mover, but a crutch for the gullible git. Not stupid people, but credulous.

 

It isn't an insult. Ignorance isn't something you can't change about yourself. It's harder to change this kind of ignorance if you don't trust reason though.

 

Evolution is all but proven. And by "all but proven," I mean it is proven if you believe that your senses and reason can be trusted.

 

If not, there's no sense in argument and no reason to speak.

 

Answer: Moses, David, Solomon, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter and Paul... and probably a few Greek & Roman converts too. Go back to bed and have another prophetic dream.

 

Join us next time, when our hero takes on Theocracy vs Secular Dictatorship... and wins, because they're exactly the same thing!

 

See you in another present...

 

Born for Blackjack

There are no guarantees.

Whatever you do for a living, it's a gamble. Especially if you're a professional gambler.

Even if you grow potatoes for a living (for which the odds of success are significantly better), you still risk blight, drought, flood, tornado, fire, and the Wrath of God.

 

I've heard it called the most honest job in the world.

What the brain says, the gut does not believe. That's one of the reasons we have professional gamblers like Steven Spielberg, Stephen Harper and Stephen King. The odds of success for any of them were really bad, but they rolled anyway and eventually won.

If only he could quit while he's ahead...

What worked for others probably won't work for you. That's one of the reasons we have people you've only heard of because their your coworkers, classmates or kin. They've decided on a safer game, and play it well enough to make it work.

Distance in rear-view may be further than it appears.

Then you get people who can't play the safe game, but lack the courage to play for big stakes.

As much as they can reasonably describe the world, they don't trust their own description. They must not, because that description and their interactions with the world don't add up.

 

Look at this for 3 minutes:

 

By my own behavior, you'd never know I wrote and narrated that.

I love Hip Hop. The culture, not the records on the radio. I love how the collaborative nature of it brings together some of the most surprising works of art.

The obvious and classic example...

 

I also love how it used to be that you ran a narrow but distinct chance of getting stupid rich off it. Odds of success have gotten a little better lately, but at the cost of diminishing the potential return.

 

These guys got next.

 

As a kid & right through to my twenties, I wanted nothing else but to be part of exactly this kind of thing. Was on the way too - writing, performing, recording & reaching out. Even made national radio and TV for it. Not bad for a dorky little shit from up north.

Then I fucked up by going to college. That's a mistake for anybody who goes without knowing how it relates to what you wanna do with your life.

All fell apart in 1995 when the symptoms reached a breaking point. Symptoms for what, we didn't know. Just knew something had gone really wrong. I thought it was the world. Turned out to be my brain.

This is what dropping out felt like.

This is closer to what happened. 

Without getting into it again, here's a quick recap: A lot of years got wasted not knowing. A lot more got spent trying to know why, and how to deal. The last few have been the best so far.

Then this happened:

They keep telling me it was my idea. All I said was "mixtape."

 

From the mixtape came the idea to hold open auditions. From that came the idea of a charity fundraiser for Mike "Piecez" Prosserman's child, the UNITY Charity. One of my fellow studio interns got hold of Mindbender and brought him on board. The legendary Brownman Ali somehow got involved, to my delight. Mic Boogie agreed to host. Big Spesh K, Robbie G, and a heap of TO locals turned in some wicked performances.

 

It was totally out of control, yet somehow good things were happening. More than a year later, they're still happening. I'm glad to have been a part of this, and my small contribution has - with my gratitude - been blown way out of proportion.*

  

Weekly showcase resumes in 2012.

 

It's good to be appreciated for what you love doing, and what you flatter yourself to think is the one thing you're really fucking good at.

 

I took a lot home from it. I have the knowledge that I started a ball rolling that has brought some good and talented people together, who are now making awesome music, fun videos and lots of other cool stuff.

 

I also have the CD, a hard-copy reminder that I did something awesome.

  

Got the memories of production, promotion & the big event, and all the skills that came with em.

 

But when the curtain comes down, you're still flat broke.

  

No, no, no... flat BROKE, not flat BED.

 

Getting a job is easy. Keeping the job is easy. Becoming indispensable is easy. Keeping my head together on the job...

 

It becomes a question something like this: "Do I leave now on good terms, or wait til I become I liability and they're glad to see me go?"

 

How do I know that's the choice? Unvarying precedent. Except with the studio, but that's not what you'd call a livelihood. Internships don't pay.

 

Good news: The internship equipped me with a mountain of knowledge. Most of it's good, and some of it's unpleasant (like the realization that it doesn't pay the bills). But hey... I learned how to EQ properly, a few better uses for delay effects, and I can blog now.
 

It's something to do. Thank you Mr Jones.

 

Bad news: The thing I'm good at (the thing I can do well without losing the important kind of sanity) doesn't pay the bills.

 

Yeah, I've signed up with a very nice A&R company with a really solid reputation, but every week is a craps shoot. There are no guarantees that it will ever pay off. It hasn't so far anyway, and it isn't cuz I'm slouching. Cuz I ain't.

 

Life doesn't come with guarantees. There are good odds and bad odds. Good odds come with low risk and low (but reasonable expectations of) return. Bad odds come with high risk and often without return.

 

Sadly, for me good odds also come with diminished motivation, depleted mental energy, lack of hope for the future, complacency, and inevitable mental collapse.

  

 

Born for Blackjack, but the House keeps winning.

Doesn't matter. I keep playing. I don't know if the odds change every time I lose or not. Don't really care. Gotta play the next round. If not, what's the point in hanging around?

See you in another present.

*I made some beats & dropped some vocals. That ain't work to me.

Logic's Labors Lost (or "Use It to Lose It")

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end."

                                   - Vulcan Proverb

I get reminders every so often that life is not abstract. It doesn't usually stick with me, which is why I get reminders every so often. Sometimes the reminder stays with me just long enough to miss a chance for abstraction to be relevant.

Sometimes I have to walk through the abstract to remember what's practical. That's what I'm doing today. Sorry.

It's a cold and lonely walk, but I prefer it to the consequences of not going... consequences known colloquially as "incapacity for parallel reasoning," and "bliss."

We humans are (among other things) reasonable and logical creatures. Hell, we invented logic. Our supposed mastery of technology indicates a measure of rational thought, even if our use of technology often indicates the lack of it.

Case in Point. The Japanese won't surrender, so logically...

Like all sciences, logic is a tool. There are certain tools for certain jobs, and using the wrong tool for the job results in broken tools and shitty work. You don't try to use a socket wrench as a hammer any more than you would use the Theory of Evolution to explain the cause of a volcanic eruption.

Well... You could, but the answer would make less sense than a second-season Kids in the Hall sketch.

To better understand the universe, a few brilliant bastards have - over the last several hundred years - come up with a reliable way of asking the universe about itself, and of understanding the answers it gives us. That's science, which is divided into the various scientific disciplines (mathematics, biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy and the endless list of subcategories and children thereof).

Not a comprehensive list. Do not attempt.

The sciences all theoretically dovetail somehow (although from what I can gather, nobody has quite succeeded in explaining how physics can be unified, let alone all the sciences). They all ask very different questions, but ask them the same way & interpret the answers the same way: logically.

Funny thing about logic is, it is itself a science, and the unifying factor between all the other ones. Without logic, science goes straight to hell. Even mathematics - the universal language - has limits to what it can describe. With Logic, all things are possible.

All things but consensus.

Logic reduces all things down to the irreducibly simple and undeniable - the Axiom. From there you can understand patterns of galactic movement, the great diamond machinery of the sky. You can see without seeing the intricate relationships between atomic microcosms - galaxies so small they can hardly be said to exist at all.

We didn't invent the wheel. We reverse-engineered it.

It will also lead you to the realization that galaxies and molecules are in many ways the same, with perhaps only a difference of scale or point of view - a significant difference for us, negligible for science.

Same goes for the axel. Reverse engineered.

It isn't all fun though. Logic tells us things we don't want to hear. It can summarize your circumstances and tell you to do unpleasant - even unconscionable - things to change them.

Case in Point 1: I'm in college and I hate it. Been here two weeks, and already realize I'm categorically in the wrong fucking place. Already spent 15,000 borrowed dollars to find myself surrounded - with a few notable exceptions - by cynics, fascists and idiots (all different people, btw). Logic gives me 3 options: Walk, Die or Stay the Course.

I stay the course until I want to die. Then I walk.

I'm pretty sure there was another option, but damned if I know what it was.

Logic might tell you it's a good idea to buy lottery tickets if you're poor. It might tell you that you need to find a job/better job/big score before you lose your home/family/right to gamble.

It can tell you that your enemy is about to destroy you, and that you have to kill him and his whole family to survive.

Worse yet, it can be wrong about any of those things. After all, logic isn't really anything more than a comparison of premises. Unless you're completely psychotic, you know what it's like to suddenly realize one of your premises is wrong.

"Phelps residence. Who's calling and why does God hate you?"

You thought you'd get a good job on graduating with a highly specialized and somewhat impractical degree.

You thought the lottery's odds were better.

You thought your neighbor had WMDs.

You didn't realize you were the cynic/fascist/idiot.

Without meticulous and conscientious application of the scientific method, logic also goes straight to hell.

See you in another present...

Yin and Yolk: Tao of a Bad Egg

Pop Quiz.

What comes first: Chicken or Egg? Man or God? Love or Marriage? Greed or Jealousy? Violence or Hate? Chemical imbalance in the brain, or whatever other thing it is that has you all fucked up?

Is the world depressing? Or have I just been looking at it through suck-colored glasses?

No, no... Not "colored glasses that suck"

15 years ago my academic career was derailed because my brain stopped working.

I came to the sudden realization that my entire epistemology was based outside reality, in symbols and metaphors hitherto taken for granted as demonstrable fact. I didn't even really know what that meant yet, but it stopped me dead for a year.

Good thing it happened though.

On the plus side, total mental breakdown afforded me the opportunity to start over and see the world as beginner. Not as a child though. I think "eyes of a child" implies curiosity and hope. No, just a beginner. Or maybe a re-beginner is more to the point.

In other words, I was starting over but I still drank a lot.

And because you can't cry yourself to sleep on crack.

This breakdown had been a long time coming. I'd been a little off for most of my life already. Just needed a little push to break through and see it for myself.

 

Can't just take somebody's word for it?

A crazy person will also usually face derision. The real reason and the perceived reason will invariably be different, but who cares? Knowing won't make it suck any less.

It's a real chicken-and-egg thing, since nobody who ever tormented me bothered to explain why. In fairness, I stopped asking after the first kid said "because I hate you." 

I still don't really know for sure if I was ill and then tormented, or made sick by torment. They've both been constants since before I can remember.

So what came first? Was I already depressed before my first day of school, or was school the thing that knocked my brain out of balance? Did I trigger the OCD by falling into weird compensatory patterns that lead nowhere, or was there some other catalyst?

He doesn't know either. And he's a bit of an expert.

I'll let you know as soon as I know. Meantime, hold your breath for Dr Dre's next album.

I know, I know... He's busy being the second-best producer in the world. I say second; Quincy Jones is still alive.

Is it really important why it's there? It's there. Deal with THAT part.

In the last three years or so I've learned that OCD can be channeled the same way anger can. Anger found an outlet through music and writing. OCD found an outlet in attention to detail (which is great for production). Depression... Well, so far that's been useless.

However, I can now take what I've learned about it and - by re-presenting it in the light of (at least partial) recovery - extend some sort of hope to somebody in the Pit. That's useful, no? 

End of the day, it doesn't matter what came first. Eggs come out of the chicken, and you fry em up and eat em. If the eggs stop, you fry the chicken. Same thing.

Now ask me about my friend Arpad.

See you in another present.

A Mathematical Theory for Dubstep

Heard it said that Dubstep is just a bunch of noise, arranged in frenetic, low-tempo 4/4 rhythms, created by gremlins who don't know a bassline from a bathtub.

And they all hate this guy for some reason.

This is historically inaccurate.

Dubstep (DS) actually began when a few raving Drum & Bass (D&B) fans stopped dropping MDMA and started going through their parents' metal records (HM) while on the Marijuana (mj).

Just guessing there, but listen to some of that ruckus again and tell me I'm wrong.

For those who need a mathematical formula:

(D&B - MDMA + HM) x mj = DS.

Q.E.D.

Which is weird, since music is built on a framework that can be described through mathematics, and yet everybody knows axiomatically that HM > DS.

Go on, prove me wrong.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are not those of Blogspot, Google, Viacom, or blah-blah-blah... Hell, they aren't even really mine. As more perceptive readers will understand, I talk out of my ass sometimes. I think it's funny, and so far people seem to agree.

So if you're a fan of Dubstep or D&B and this pissed you off, go get a sense of humor. Or don't. It's none of my business.

Thieves of Crazy - or - Why Rock Stars Suck

When people pretend to be mentally ill, it's really annoying to those of us who actually are.

It's usually part of an act, attached to something like a career in music. You know what I'm talking about.

Generally the guise of illness is presented one of two ways: the happy maniac, or the over-sensitive quasi-prophet. Those are real conditions, but not nearly as much fun as it looks like.

Then you get the real thing.

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain is remembered by many as a gifted songwriter who wasted his talent on whining and self-pity. That's probably because a lot of other "artists" heard his real shit and copied the life out of it. Turned it into a parody.

Cobain was actually sick in the head. He had a chemical imbalance that made him depressed all the time. That doesn't detract from his art, but it might explain some of it.

Don't care. He wrote kick-ass songs and sang em right from the bottoms of his feet to crown of his tortured little head. Anybody who co-opted his suffering as a gimmick was - in ignorance or indifference - complicit in his death.

 

"Hey Mom! Look! A Kurt Cobain Inaction Figure! Can we ask if they have the one with no head?"

Michael Jackson

I don't know what the hell was going on in Michael Jackson's head, but it was painful and it was real. People forget that a lot. And it got him into some serious trouble.

He could have cashed in on songs about being abused and dehumanized. He didn't. Had plenty of material available for it, but had other ideas.

He went the way opposite to that of Cobain for the most part, reigning as the king of a musical genre dedicated to glossing over pain and focusing on something like happiness.

Jackson's catalog of work isn't devoid of evidence that he suffered, but he seemed pretty hell-bent on a Disney-type worldview. Not my thing, but I'll be the first to say he was really good at it.

He also had a thing for the macabre, and it periodically found an outlet. But even that was tempered to the level of Teen Wolf.

Okay, maybe not quite Teen Wolf...

With regard to conditions like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, I can only stand back in awe and wonder at how people with em get through the day.

And you know, lots of superstars have em. Comedians are notorious for bipolar disorder (especially funniest ones). Some of the best lyricists are a bit delusional. I hear Mozart was psychotic. My favorite painter of all time cut off his own ear to impress a girl.

THAT is crazy.

Then there are gimmicky, self-absorbed twats presented as artists, with gimmicky quirks presented as torturous mental illness. Not naming names; you know who and what you are.

No matter how hard I try to hold off and give em the benefit of the (narrow margin of) doubt, it's really hard not to judge them harshly. Each one (in ignorance I'm sure) makes himself a parody of genuine suffering, and makes it harder for people to feel compassion for the truly mentally ill. Because now the mentally ill look like gimmicky, self-absorbed twats to the untrained eye.

Why do it? Why would you take away the seriousness of somebody's pain and turn it into an everyday costume?

People dig weird artists, and many forms of mental illness are still romanticized. It's the obvious answer, and the most disappointing: If you can be that romantic maniac (romaniac?), you can sell more of whatever you're selling, as long as it's art.

Daniel Johnston

I challenge you to watch the documentary about his life and not have your mind blown. This is a story of survival and relentlessness. Not just for him, but for his family.

A lot of things dovetailed to make DJ who he is today - a 40+y/o savant who lives with his parents. I say savant; sedated crazy person might be more accurate, if not charitable. I say it with nothing but love.

During his stint as a professional recording artist, he appeared to be an outwardly peaceful man with a few odd (but honorable) obsessions.

He also had a penchant for sabotaging himself in the most surprising ways. I won't recount em here; watch the movie.

Once in a while, he would lash out unexpectedly. With a boiling combination of religious conviction and paranoia, he has been known to bean people with pipes, and seize control of small aircraft in mid-flight with the goal of nose-diving into the ground. These episodes are rare, more so now that he's medicated.


While most people can't relate to that, his songs continue to resonate with many. He replicated his first album one-at-a-time on a cassette deck, and that's the album for which he's still the pride of Austin's independent music scene. People run into him in the street and are starstruck... when they recognize him.

He's also an accomplished artist in the visual field as well. His simple drawings are featured in gallery exhibitions (stuck right to the walls with Scotch tape), and bought up voraciously by private collectors. The honesty and total absence of guile carry over from his lyrics to his drawings, and people appreciate it.

"Circumstances"

No name given.

As far as I know, this is one artist whose particular brand of crazy hasn't been copied. Could be for any reason. Maybe this is something you just can't fake.

I'd like to think people are at least smart or decent enough to recognize something so undeniably sacred. Sometimes the crazy in a person is just enough to hook in some admiration (as in the case with Kurt Cobain) or generate contempt (for many, this was Michael Jackson). Other times it's so complete, all you can do is stand in awe of the one who lives with it every day.

His Opus Vitae, recorded in a garage on 2 stereo cassette decks.

See you in another present...

Canada's Got a Load in Its Pants.

You know, I watch a lot of Canadian TV and spend more time at my computer than I should. You'd think I would have heard or read about The Highland Company's 2400-acre Melancthon Township Limestone Quarry, the fact that all that land is prime farmland at the heads of two major river systems, and that it wasn't supposed to be subject to an environmental review. Considering this has been going on for over a year now.

Nope. Just found out a couple weeks ago. Weeeeeak.

Does this kind of policy direction have anything to do with the rising cost of food and the disappearance of clean water?

It's is starting to get under my skin. Canada's approach to the Alberta Tar Sands has already pissed off the rest of the civilized world. We somehow justify selling asbestos to developing countries. The fiasco surrounding security for the Toronto G20 Summit (and the way the subsequent investigation was handled) made us an international laughing-stock. Now our newly-elected majority Conservative government is about to push through a bunch of previously-failed legislation employing anti-crime measures that are statistically proven to be ineffective. Even Texas is warning us that this crime bill is going to weaken our country.


TEXAS.

To our credit, we've got Occupy movements in Canada (which at least indicates that we're not all completely apathetic, despite what voter turnout tells you). But our Occupy protestors seem devoid of concern for what's happening in our own country. Events in the US definitely have an impact on our lives here, and it's good to show solidarity with the oppressed in other countries, and call our biggest trade partner on its bullshit.

We have our own heap of bullshit though. And it could fertilize the Mojave Desert. Let's turn our attention to that for a minute.

I support the Occupy movement in the USA on principle, and in practice. I support the Canadian Occupy movement on principle. I'd like to be able to support it in other ways too.