WESTWORLD

Tomorrow will begin another journey to Western Pennsylvania to visit my family, this time for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Snacks will be eaten and movies will be watched on the train ride and similar revelry will continue at my destination accompanied by my parents and my sister.

I really wanted to create this post in order to make some connection between the movie WestWorld and my family's town of Somerset, PA, but the analogies are escaping me for the moment. What would be the murderous steely-eyed rogue robotic cowboy in my reality? Everything else might fall into place though. The Pennsylvania countryside is obviously playing the role of the vacation destination as in the film, and the nostalgia of the Holiday will surely absorb me into the past as did the amusement park in WestWorld to its visitors. At some point, however, my companion will be slain by a soulless Yul Brynnar who doesn't take kindly to strangers, and I will dart about in a world that turns out to be even less familiar when its mask is removed and I am faced with the very real underpinnings of a realm that has been exponentially refusing my control.

Perhaps I'm being chased from theme park to theme park already, only to end up in WestWorld where I'll melt the face right off my predator. I'm being hunted away from CityWorld by a permanent struggle with job loss and recent incompetent clients. The good news is that no matter how exhausting the chase, I should be able to come out on top. Then it's on to Futureworld!

MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES PT.3

My "Multiple Personalites" posts (pt.1 & pt.2) are always about my musical interests. I've found that I'm a fan of many styles of music, and each style has found me at some specific time in my life; therefore, music represents my many moods, tastes, and my range of selectivity. In this particular entry I'll do a brief review of my own original music project: Iceax.

I began making computer music around 2000. My girlfriend at the time had this little editing program called SoundEdit16 on her imac. SoundEdit was a basic soundwave editing program and I quickly became obsessed with staring at the black and white waveform and cutting and pasting things all over the place for hours on end. I started out importing individual tracks from CDs and extracting samples from them to make gritty minimal beats and 16-bit melodies. I later upgraded to using the program Reason for sequencing more original sounds to form sections of "songs." I would take those parts back over to SoundEdit to layer the individual tracks to complete my tune. Long story short: I never really knew what I was doing, but the results of the experiments yielded a unique sound I would call my own.

The name Iceax was conceived to describe the project as being cold/soulless (electronic) music that is chopped up, frankensteined, and given new life. Iceax (along with several other options) was a name originally intended for another music project which included my good friend Jiri Seger. We rejected the name to become the short-lived, inspired and absurd duo TwoBillionaires. Iceax songs were made frequently between 2001 and 2008 and album after album consisted of some 60+ songs. I also very nerdily crafted protoype CD jewel case cover art and liner notes for at least 4 Iceax albums- not including the "Best of.." album! I created Iceax strictly for the entertainment of a few choice friends and myself and in that way it succeeded. Iceax has not entirely been laid to rest, but I just don't find the time for it anymore and in the last years of Iceax, it evolved into some of my other solo digital music projects. From a totally biased point of view, Iceax songs have maintained their integrity and I enjoy listening to even the oldest and rawest ones still to this day! I hope you might enjoy it too.

SOUNDS OF TOMORROW TODAY!

These are a couple of extraordinary tracks by some ridiculously original and creative musicians/composers that I am currently enjoying on the daily. Fantastic to draw along with these songs!

Makunouchi Bento- The River Who Drinks All I've Had. From the album Swimé

Deanimator for horn and electronics by Marcus Fjellström, performed by Sören Hermansson

AT THE CENTER: SELF

Hello, Everyone! I haven't blogged in a while, so I hope you're pleasantly surprised to find this post. I have been overwhelmed as usual these days. Keep in mind, I'm never overwhelmed with the typical suffocations of the average person; I still don't have a job and I don't have a ton of appointments to reach or anything. No, my days remain filled with very serene moments that have fortunately allowed me time to draw and ponder away endlessly (oh, and watch boxed set after boxed set of Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs.) I am not taking my "time off" for granted and I've managed to stay in good health, eat well, and maintain a relatively positive comportment. During my pseudo-spiritual quest I have absorbed much about my friends personalities in comparison and contrast to my own personality and I've come to a temporary conclusion that we're all selfish and self-centered in our own ways. To not come off as insulting or debasing I will have to clarify my observation with an example of conversation from last night between my friends and me.

My friend Joe had stated that he feels like he upholds the true definition of being a nihilist. He doesn't care about the politics of life or really much at all. Aside from his bleak vision, he's very intelligent and can make very poignant observations about how things work. It seems as though in order to function as a nihilist you must point out who the fools are and avoid being played as a fool at the same time... by those same fools who greatly outnumber you. Yes, Joe is rooting for the great cosmic catastrophes to catch up with mankind and add a little perspective to our goofy daily dawdling obligations (say that 10 times fast.) I can't blame him for bearing a sinister yet blithe smirk while realizing how much he couldn't care less.

My other friend John proudly pounded his fist on the table to enter the schism, sat up straight and proclaimed that he knows what is right and what is wrong. He's very sure of what his responsibilities are in life and he holds onto it all quite dearly. John is kind of an emotional scrap-booker, an historian, and innately old-fashioned. I pointed my finger first at him to bestow the accolade/accusation of being self centered. I saw his personality as stubborn; kicking and screaming into the future and unswayed by temptation or opposing theories. Joe helped convince John of being self centered, and I then reminded Joe of his own claim to be the only real nihilist he knew of. To assume you are the only one of something, that sounds pretty self centered indeed!

The three of us do get along very well though, and sometimes our dynamic works entirely on the fact that we're so different from each other. I'm, at my best, a Devil's advocate who refuses to be labeled as Agnostic. I'm often hypocritical and I don't usually have the patience to study any of the subjects I find interesting. Excitability rounded off by a little stoicism keeps me foolishly wishing on shooting stars.

Joe, John, and I can all agree that we are somewhat certain that our individual life experiences radiate and concentrate with ourselves at the center, and that we are each a part of the other's unique experience. Why then shouldn't we be selfish and self centered? Even if our forms of compassion change, or our ideals are influenced into new realms of understanding, we always rely on our personal truths to provide us with some sort of reality. Maybe this behavior is the default interface between the human mind and what we call sanity. Maybe there is a powerful collective consciousness yet to be tapped into. Maybe we're all just jerks who share a laugh every now and then. Who knows? Some of us don't care at all. Some of us are certain there is a reason to care. Some of us will just keep dreaming.

YOU HAVE TO BE PRETTY DUMB TO LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE

A couple of nights ago I was approximately where I am as I'm typing this; in the guest bedroom of my parents house surfing my life away online when something about the guest bed's amish quilt snagged a corner of my brain. It is certainly a quilt. Not a marvelous quilt, and it certainly does not clash with the rest of the room's decor. As a matter of fact the entire room is tied together nicely with a quaint little theme supported by a harmless color palette. I wouldn't say the room bores me or offends me, but I'm not impressed. Don't get me wrong, I succumb to the wholesomeness of my family visits. It's all so cozy and there shouldn't be a promise of fanfare in this type of situation, but speaking of fanfare I may have to toot my own horn to make any sort of a point from here on.

I'm smart. Sure I make bad decisions and have atrocious opinions about things that mix me in with the other asses in society, but I'm smart (according to my average after 4 separate IQ tests taken over 5 years), and I feel I have perceptive skills that help actualize my art abilities as well. My friends are more proof of my intelligence, because my friends are all of above average intelligence! We think. We create. We observe and communicate with each other this world around us. My friend John and I have often wished to have our 'curse of smarts' lifted so we could be more care-free in life. Our ringtones on our cell phones would become both our greatest concern and our greatest source of entertainment. A simpler life where shiny things can hold your attention as long as the shiny thing wants. I hope I'm making myself clear.

A tactic for maintaining sanity in life may be seeing the world with rose colored glasses, but my pair may be a shade less rosey than some. I grieve for the ignorance of man and desperately filter as much of the barrage of "entertainment" flung at me daily from the bowels of those producing and editing their bizarre stripes of pleasure.

So I can't help but wonder how far down the rabbit hole our smart curse can take us. Perhaps, not far. Perhaps the more you understand, the less dazzling everything becomes. The fantasy peels away and Alice would be no longer curious about her new psychedelic surroundings, instead she would have written the laws of the land. That would make for a dull 3D movie, don't you think? Maybe this is why I'm contemplating the tan and brown fabrics of my mother's amish quilt; I'm categorizing everything and filing it away to be understood more than simply appreciated. The everyday world is being filtered this way by me. I wonder if scientists who study mind boggling data about our universe do the same thing. How else do their heads not explode if a phenomenon didn't reveal itself to be a bit jejune after all. Think about it, or don't if you want to care about who just won this season's America's Got Talent (it wasn't the 10 year old who could sing good.)

FRESH AIR

Somerset, Pennsylvania is not where I grew up; However, it's where my parents live. I've been visiting them here for a week now and I'll be here one more week before diving back into the thick of Philadelphia. In Somerset, the stars are out at night, the air is fresh, and there's a breeze at this time of the year that paints your entire body with that fresh air, and it's just as wonderful as it sounds.

I come here to relax and at the same time, in small increments, I provide some relief for my family from their daily burdens of work, work related phone calls, household tasks, darting here and there for groceries or other errands, and frequent stress due to miscommunication between my parents and my sister (whom lives here with my parents.) It's interesting that I find it relaxing out here when my family and their neighbors and the denizens of Somerset, PA still manage to not find enough hours in a day to fulfill all their obligations. I suppose it allows me to realize the false sense of importance most people in this country place on their own actions. You have an appointment here, you have to go there, and you have to look good doing it, or at least gain some pride along the way while sacrificing a little integrity. I'm getting ahead of myself and I apologize for the shade of bitterness I'm beginning to cast * Deep breath * Exhale * ah. That's the stuff.

My mother, of course, misses me and always hints that I could move into town, to be closer to her, sometime in the future. I never could. I'm a fish out of water when I'm here, and over the past 11 years I've evolved to live in the swamp of the city. I would suffocate out here amongst pick-up trucks, trashy festivals, fat Christian children and other such wildlife comprising the landscape. The oxygen is nearly pure, though, and I'll be sure to come up for air every now and then.

Somerset County Dairy Princess.

SKREAM

Dubstep has slowly been infecting the United States via the UK. In my opinion, no one does it better than Skream! His latest album Outside the Box is amazing. Headphones a must.