The Long Awaited…Jim of Seattle

I’d like to talk to you today about a friend of mine whose CD I’m just getting to know. I spacebooked and tweeted about it about a week ago (or more), and I shall probably mention it again (for sure). In addition to this, my pal Tom Giarrosso passed it along on HIS spacebook so that’s a good example of how passing the love along is meant to work. Let that be a lesson to us all, gremlins.

Now … This particular project is the first, brand new release from a musician I know from Song Fight! called Jim of Seattle. You should go look into this, because Jim is an exceptional musician who has created an amazing piece of Art. He is not the only “Jim” in Seattle, but as far as I am concerned after just an inital perusal of this material so I could get started enough to write a bit to you so you could go quickly and get this recording – he might as well be!

Jim is not new to the music industry, as you will no doubt figure out. This is the caliber of work I’d like to feel under my wings when I make a release and finally say “BOOM! Look at this! I have made sticky sound that will last for generations!” So not only is this thing just plain charming and important – Jim is a musician’s musician.

For Jim this has been a real journey. You’ll grok that if you read the interview between Jim of Seattle and Green Monkey Records President Tom Dyer (you can also see a fun photo there of Jim with a bike and a pigeon, and other nifty photos of Jim doing cool stuff. I rather enjoyed these because for a while I remember internalizing Jim’s SongFight avatar photo, even though I KNOW he does not look like the guy in the Earnest movies! I like seeing pictures of people that I know from the internet though. If you read my blog you know that I am creepy.).

Anyway, yes, there’s a special kind of energy hearing a recording from someone who has taken the time to reveal their vision to the world with such deliberate intent after a lifelong trip through many other musical avenues. So this recording IS pretty intense. And it HAS been a long time coming.

You can preview the recording at CD Baby (linked up there too, by that iTunes link); and there is a small sample of it on the Green Monkey Records website where you can hear three tracks in entirety -

{EDIT/1-19-2012: You can hear more than THREE tracks, actually. I went back and checked after my original posting of this blog and saw it! On the player there is a small dragbar to the far right of those first three tracks (like one on a browser). Scroll down with it. Voila! There are several more songs and you can actually hear them all!} -

-one of which is the track that is also featured in the video ‘Laboratory Rat.’

The video is creepy and slightly horrifying (in a compelling and thought-provoking fashion), but … it’s … CUTE …somehow… Because there are drawings of all these “oooOOOOOooo” things (he made the video with Bill Lieren). Icky scary creepy CUTE drawings. And that’s all I’m going to say. No more spoilers.

From what I can tell in initial passes through Jim’s work – there’s a presence of intriguing juxtapositions. Little sonic ironies and pointed statements amidst moments of endearing delight. Really, I would say the listener is very musically well taken care of – Jim does know how to make you a spectator in a performance space. He has the background for this. But you have to hear it for yourself to really FEEL the Whole Thing, because he is just not Like anyone else, even if they are skilled at arranging pop songs into lush arrangements. He is different because HE is different. This doesn’t sound like orchestral showboating, this sounds like a lot of FUN.

I think this is why I like Jim, and why I was so pleased to encounter him at Song Fight in the first place and so happy every time he showed approval of anything I did in MY work. It’s because I GET that feeling of having a broad range of styles and of having just a LOT to say. Really, this should be appealing to most people as creators OR listeners or both … because at your CD collections they are just that – collections. Why would there not be a range of style and feel within one artist? The best sound-stories have an Album’s Entirety in mind, even if they are conceptual and able to be interpreted by the listener. I still feel I need more time alone with this recording from start to uninterrupted finish (mainly because I still do need to finish and hear All of The Bits). But I bet it stacks up through both skimming and deeper sonic inquiry.

Hearing developing cohesive complexity in someone’s work like this gives me hope that perhaps a thing like this is an accomplish-able goal! It’s exciting. It makes me realize that I can grow A Representative sound myself, over time, even if it is Range-y. There need to be more recordings like this, and I think this every time I hear something Quirky and Fun, and Beautiful.

On a personal note, there’s some titles here that I am happy to have heard before while participating in the Song Fight! contest – and I am inspired to see them more fully developed. This makes me want to hear more realized recordings of SF titles from others. But this recording is pretty special and I’ve been waiting for it

DEFINITELY check this out for yourself. Also, the first 100 copies will be signed. Order now!

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(this is a first in a series of Promontion-ary “Reviews-that-are-Gushy.” most of them horribly late. i am fortunate to have a few Talented Friends whose work I have really enjoyed, so it has been a time of Great Creativity.)

Complications in Social Networking: Why I Beat It & Took a Little Breather

1. I am friends with the Pope. Pals. Buds. Homiest of Homies. On…uh… the Sacred Spacebook so, I’m his North Star, and he’s my Cardinal Effort (I’m not really, but that would be really pope-dope, and I grew up Catholic so I get to make jokes because I come from a long tradition of doing so and I can use the Church for object lessons. This is a Cautionary Metaphor. I humbly offer it here for the ben-a-dict-efit of all (#boo #aStretch).

2. Anyway, I posted this status update and the Bishop of Rome commented on it in a way that made me look a little Vroom-Vroom. Nothing I couldn’t banter back. Just a little zoomzy, you know, kinda a bit racy..? #nervouslaughter

3. but it just so happened that my friend David Beckham (not THE David Beckham…this is ANOTHER Mr. Beckham. I have not linked him because he’s very shy and he said I could use his name but not link his page) …wellll – Mr. Beckham “liked” the post. So I hoped that our dear Pontiff’s good natured and spicy fun using me as humor’s sacrificial lamb wouldn’t be taken amiss. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m a silly filly. Also notable was an additional “like” by Mr. Beckham’s friend Arthur Miller (not the playwright – he is no longer with us, but Mr. Miller the distiller is).

4. BTW, the post was something random concerning gardening, or life on the farm; like about Oats or something. No. Not my friend John. As an aside, I don’t talk about John anymore because we got into an argument about copyright infringement so I put Mr. Oats in one of my filtered groups (not Mr. Oates, he’s AWESOME!). Mr. Oats ALWAYS has an opinion and so do all his friends and frankly; I am CONSTANTLY getting sucked in and it’s a TOTAL time waster and before you know it, sure as donuts make your keyboard sticky, you’ve ka-spacebooked away your practice time.

5. Well, if you add all your Squa-squa-networks together, it just ka-escalates … so don’t go thinking that things are any better on The Google or Twitter or anything. It’s not. You have to show some restraint. Which brings me back to my story.

6. My friend Michael Jackson (no! not THE Mr. Jackson, although I know how it would be easy to be confused, because my friend has a warped sense of humor and posts profile photos of THE Michael Jackson and Inspirational Quotes about just looking at ‘…the man in the mirror’ before judging others. All that so that you can get your guard down and then he ruins it by posting some gross haiku like: do you wanna see, what I can do, baby girl… to your P.Y.T. ) – yeah … this friend got pretty bad himself in my post. His Holiness (or “Eggs 16,” as we call him during bowling) had already started the ball rolling and back and forth we went about me “sowing my wild oats” and then the ante was up when Mr. Jackson had to say something dirty about a plow and then all hell broke loose. I think friend pope made one more comment, and that was all good old MJ needed! Thank goodness no one made a dirty comment about Mr. Oats!

7. But see, I’ve been hoping that David Beckham would interact on my page for forever! So I was in panic about the post going in this snurly direction. I mean, I like saucy references to farm equipment as much as the next person – but you can’t go back and re-filter posts! Privacy Controls at the Sacred Spacebook are CRAP! I think it’s some kind of Advertising Related Conspiracy or something, although Mr. DJ Ranger Den (that’s my Old Man) thinks I have the paranoia. But I am sure you, oh Fair Fourth Wall, do get it about wishing your friends would be on Better Behavior and consider that like Mr. Miller the distiller seeing and liking your post because of Mr. Beckham’s news feed – you have a friendship with people like His Holiness as well. God can totally read your comments.

8. But on I go with Damage Control! I say “ha ha… I kinda shut the barn door on all THAT” or “we could argue about this till the brown-chicken-brown-cows come home” or something silly-yet-jokingly-validating to Lighten the Mood. It would have worked with Eggs, because he gets Family Values and would have reassessed my concern for the whole congregation of Postal Participants. Usually, I can trust MJ too. But something was off with him today and he kept going WAY over the line, taking the post in The Wrong Direction. And by then I was fearful that I was Offending People.

9. Example. I’ve been worrying for months about my great-great Aunt Berniecey Telulah McMegaphonezalo (not an actual aunt. She might know the pope though). I had concern that she and perhaps other members of my family would see some of my more unsavory friends posting Heavens-Knows-What on my page or making Unsavory or Controversial Comments. And I feel bad, like I am ashamed of my friends. How dare me!

10. In support of a dear friend of mine, Winslow, I liked the International Alliance of GLBTNinjas (this page blogged about here for Entertainment Porpoises only) page a couple months ago. I was afraid of Raised Newsfeed Eyebrows, but did it anyway – because we should be proud of our friends’ and support them when we can. But I feared conservative family would sanction me for my interest and support of “alternative” lifestyles – although I have to say, for the people living them, alternative to WHAT? Alternative to being yourself? But then there is the counter-fear of offending my friends with The offense of the Offended, therefore offending people who just want to see LOLcats and Gangnam Style (you know you wanna watch this again ……).

As well, if you tell people you’re into Ninjutsu, then are you, really, in fact, truly interested in Ninjutsu? Or are you just interested in it like hipsters are interested in the Zombie Apocalypse and flash mobs? Are you just jumping on a bandwagon to say, “hey I’m cool because I support THAT…”? Such things prey on my mind. But I know that even with a light sneeze, I am sure to offend someone merely by being ill and posting about it – as I am in this meta-metaphor being an attention seeking sneezer who is not sensitive to people with REAL illnesses and people may come to Question the Path I may take to the recovery of my common cold. And really, what makes MY cold more common than YOUR cold?

11. All of my friends, however, were included on my innocent post discussing farming. It was actually intended for the interest of David Beckham (again not the football star and I also meant Mr. Miller the distiller, not the playwright) and my ex-boyfriend’s old uncle who actually is an Amish farmer and ventures onto the internet sometimes (he isn’t an orthodox man, and who are you to judge what people do in their spare time??). But it felt weird to worry over what these two might think of the degenerating morality in Michael Jackson’s comments (how could I possibly “like” a person like MJ when he made such RUDE comments? What was wrong with me?!). AND to worry about a wide cross section of people varying from my ex’s Amish uncle (who I shouldn’t even be CONCERNED with, OMG! why am I even FRIENDS with an ex anyway???), to Auntie Telull-lie, to poor David Beckham, to a Mr. Oats who probably wouldn’t even see the post but if he heard about it would know I had friends of “Questionable Nature” AND that I was filtering him!

So I deactivated my account for the good of everyone and the good of Farming and the good of Family Values and Progress and indeed, America and also World Peace too – and the children and all things green and Lasting; and when I decided to creep back onto the Spacebook, I deleted the post Post-haste-ily even though I was upset about doing so because it started out with such an interesting cross-section of people liking and commenting Upon it … and at the beginning I was successful at bringing it out of Yucks-ville. I was proud of that. I haven’t posted again until recommending an album for a friend (that’s the truth!) and I live in fear that someone will ruin that for me (also true…)

But at least some of us are mutual friends with the Pope. My goal was that as diverse as is our audience, we “get” that just because we are engaging in microbloggery, we do not need to act like we are raised in barns. Which is rather funny because as you have probably gathered, you cannot trust that Human Nature will not escalate these problems even though you can Wholly See that some conversations are really meant for more Private Eyes.

Atropos Remembers Her Lover

all of a sudden
I saw my hands were old.

they’d aged three decades in as many months

i know how much a ferryman should cost.
(enough to know how much, he still expected…

lots)

a universe of starry skin cells
all interconnected
time stretched out like a stranger …

all of a sudden
my soul felt cold.

I’d forgotten that I had a soul.
They told me such was not
my right to stretch and hold

my hands lacked lines once, for a while
the body underneath them
honey over polished stone

time stopped!
…all a sudden
and it was as if your arms
were made of gold.

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ps. THIS is a good old entry and another fitting poem for now.

Slippage-B-Gone

1. this morning I am wearing Charming Pyjammas (A word I refuse to argue with the Spelling Faeries over). I took a photo, for your perusal.
2. my brainstormy list of things to do is disorganized and frightening and it’s really no wonder I sit around drooling a lot.
3. New hair tomorrow! No idea what color I will be…
4. It is time for Autocorrect and me to have a STERN set of HARSH WORDS about It PREEMPTING everything I say-dammit. I clearly look Silly and Incomp-a-toad. And I donut like this. Not one tiny bait.
5. My friend that does my hair thinks my music is great but that I’m a Writer, really. It’s a good time for a hair appointment…
6. Billy and the Psychotics got reviewed at Song Fight by Jim of Seattle. If you don’t know what this means I shall just tell you that it was really cool and told me a lot, some of which I already knew. I got some ideas on how to solve The Problem (Me vs. Consistently Writing a Melody/Hook). Solving the problem is HARD. I did better this week (we’re active at songfight.org); also managing to pull off not sounding like the Mucinex Faerie.
7. My piano is tuned!!! YAY!!! I had something bloggy to say about Mr. Nick Litterski, whose name is Difficult to Spell; and I think it had something to do with his fixing of the sustain pedal and all the hilarious innuendo one can gather when you are using exciting and inventive techniques to make sure one does not suffer from continued pin slippage which affects the sustain pedal’s ability to perform. The proffered solution indeed rose to the occasion; my pedal is working smoothly thus far, and I am acting like a real tool right now in this blog. I think I even said “that’s what she said” before “I am totally blogging this!” Anyway, back in six months to check for the tightness of tuning pegs. I’m totally in the wrong field. Or maybe not, as I am both a lyricist, and a cad.

EXCUSES WITH FRIENDS: Part TWO

I am achieving MORE unrighteousness in the Words with Friends-friends game. I can only say I’m sorry, and offer these excuses, which are that they wouldn’t take these perfectly fine words which are good and great and are Spelt correctly. So don’t get out the rieth of legad and beat me with it. Flarg.
(see THIS previous entry for context CLUEZ)

GLOSSARY PT. 2 (via the XONDORIAN ROYAL INTERGALACTIC EMBASSY)
[not in alpha-bet-soup-ic-al order...]

lauuv
a more dastardly sort of trowel

pimay
a sure footed and lithe water bird with a long, beak that gets into absolutely EVERYBODY’s business.

le
yet ANOTHER note to follow sol,

Zitth
Xondor’s second moon. A Very Suspicious Place, indeed.

Quegad
both the plural and singular form of the mysterious rock creatures of Zitth

qued
a quorum of Quegad

li
yet ANOTHER drink with jam and bread.

biocene
the geological epoch in which bacterial life began to form

theel
a strange substance best not discussed.

vaceby
grandma abhors a vaceby.

bisec
the vein that runs across a well pumped gym member’s upper arm at a finer workout establishment

Vaces
flower arrangements with spy-eyes.

Theid
The ruling body of the Eomen (who are clarvoiant magic users)

Rieth
SEE “Legad”

Legad
a place of good spelling. See “The Rieth of Legad”

THE RIETH OF LEGAD
The stick that you hit people with who don’t spell real good.

ilmet
an ear-creature. but it’s not really gross or anything. no really. it sounds worse than it is.

Bitti
Legal trouble of the intergalactic sort.

xealew
a tuber similar to a potato, but purplish.
*****************************************

in conclusion, here is a photo of me getting all Nur Ein-y on everybody’s hiney. So LOOK OUT BELOW (i.e….where I am coming from!!!)

discipline

1. Moderation
2. Nutella
3. laundry :/
4. MEMORY !!!!!!!!!
5. tracks. today.
6. cleaning. finally.
7. nur EIN!!
8.

DISCIPLINE

9. filters
10. practice.

bunch of stuff.

1. I am SILLY behind on my blog-thing-lets. And music-stuff-lets. Also my house is a mess, and I got food poisoning trying to make cookies. I cleverly neglected to tell my roommate this, and he does not read my blog (this will be the one time he does, and then he will say something about me eating raw cookie dough because I strutted around like a Superdough Eating Cookie Hero (what?!?!)). oh! that reminds me! I forgot to put up the photos of Couch Kitty and I that I took when we were trying to get the vocals done for ‘It Always Gets Better.’ I am SOOOOO forgetful!!!

2. I have:
-Blogathon coming up at the end of April.
-Nur Ein coming at the middle of April
-ongoing stuff happening with Psychotics because it’s going too well not too keep going on with it.
-stuff I really need to finish that I’m in the middle of doing for some other online friends that they’ve probably lost all hope of me ever completing. This is for like three different projects.
3. I have a million blog entries to tag. I tagged some poems in my blog with the tag “poetry” and immediately people started looking at my blog. Activity on my blog increased by a substantial amount. I started thinking “I wonder what would happen if I started including photographs and tagging and tweeting and doing lots of stuff for ALL my entries ALL the time and just really linking stuff really well and publicizing things a lot better.” I realized I may be onto something there because my content, I think, is of pretty high quality and people seem to have a good time dealing with me when forced to hang out in my Precidence. That’s not even a word, but that is how the oatmeal sprinkles, my ducklings.
4. I’m just not that much of a hat person anymore, I realized yesterday.
5. Here is a photo of fluffy’s book which I am reading. more news on that when I have finished it. I was very excited when it came in the mail:

I am really incredibly tired and should tag and link this up. So I’m going to sacrifice any further content for cool-a-bility. Which is killing me. Well, I’ve linked up. So I will now make up a word.

Florkus.

EXCUSES WITH FRIENDS

I am behind in words with friends. This is because I am compiling a Dictionary of Unfairness. This is being posted here, and was also posted on my page at Facebook. not on my “official Facebook page,” which is sort of a shame, or even on my blog Facebook page, which honestly I don’t really know why I have one. I feel like I should produce Original Content for that, but the thought of this makes my earlobes wobble.

It doesn’t. But you believed me for a second….

Anyway… I’m sorry if you have to read this twice. Except, on reflection, I’m not really; I went back and rewrote this introduction so you the reader would know that I do very much Care. Also, I think reading a dictionary will do you a heap of good. It’s time to learn, goblins.
(I called y’all goblins on spacehook too – if there’s any Y’all here…)

WORDS WITH FRIENDS, UNFAIRNESS-ED they TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE COUNTED and WOULD HAVE on XONDOR my HOME PLANET.
(not necessecelery in order, because it doesn’t “go” as well that way.)

Adaht
similar to the tango

Heisune
phase of moon

Hemoni
a forest of mean, mean trees with bad attitudes.

Teele
one of the smaller units of Xondorian currency

Thule
a tool similar to a hammer and a chisel

Eleth
a tool often used in combination with the Thule.

Tuleh
a Courtship dance

Ethele
a non-reactive, and indeed, tasty and nutritious chemical compound native to Xondor which tastes of butter and chocolate. It nonetheless becomes flammable when combined with the milk of Earthling cows.

Leethe
A native Xondorian biped resembling a lavender colored ostrich with spindly legs and Rather Flat feet. With a long Slender neck like a giraffe and long floppy ears.

Leethi
The plural form of Leethe

Apa
a small colorful bird about the size of a cherry that lives symbiotically on the lush fur of the Leeth.

Peuma
How you bid farewell to a gambler who has won the Center Sweep. Never while either party’s back is turned.

Eomen
a guild of clairvoyant magic sages and tellers of fortunes making their home in and around the Squirkesian wetlands in strange, difficult to find houses.

Mapol
The proper term for a grouping of leethi
as in
… ‘a Mapol of Leethi migrating through the Great Hemoni during Second Triple Heisune is considered an auspicious sign by the Eomen.’

vonc
a light swear word, often used as a replacement for other more vulgar terms.

smoat
my husband says this is a carbohydrate attack. I think that’s a stretch

nohovump
when something is really quite a stretch

zive
a Baroque danse similar to the Sarabande, except that one can moonwalk to it.

epemey
the amused, yet mildly agitated apathy preceding feelings of truly affronted and pre-revolutionary Vigor and Zeal.

ps. I’m thinking of doing something with my notes, and perhaps even all these lists. we may discuss this, you (my adorking public) and I, (who am me (WHAT?!?)) on this here blogittyblogMCblogaDongaDingDong.

#putmeoutofmymisery.

Overlord-in-Training

1. interesting discussion on Facebook about how the gentle manipulation of humans may be a positive thing…hmmm. I will get back to you on this.
2. I have two tasks to complete. Then there will be NO EXCUSE not to move on to the FINAL FRONTIERS of ROOM CLEANSING and COMPUTER DOMINATION…
3. my bathroom is atrocious. I’m seriously from a poisonous species. You do not want to know me. No. Get out. I am serious. It’s better this way……(cue sadViolins)
4. I’m thinking of avoiding the Internet but that actually feels ill-advised and irresponsible. Addictive Internet behavior and compulsive negativity does not mean one needs to quit blogging and withdraw one’s President-ence. I just need to go back to the practicing.
5. I have a thought that I might like to bake this weekend, so that Cake-like-Birthday-product may be had. Also Birthday boy (birthdays last a week!) will get to pick his dessert..
6. We are going on a barbecue trip tomorrow (Saturday). We’ll most likely make a video as well we haven’t done that in forever. I know I keep saying that, but No! I mean it!, and it is True! …you mark my words … you mark my words …
7. I will now take a short pause to rub my hands together nefariously. I will take a photograph of myself doing so, ever mindful of the fact that on Twitter we are talking mildly about Narcisstic ReTweeting. When I am Queen, we shall retweet EVERYTHING I decree. Even my BLINKING shall be reTWEETABLE.
8. Calm down. OMG…I’m totally KIDDING. I have no idea what kind of mood I’m in …but NO…everytime I type something into Twit-deck, I do NOT require an advertisement for a magic iPhizzle. No THANK you, green-egg-icon-space-bot. Gettenzie-a-life!!!!!
Here is my Fetching Series of Photographs, oh People of the Screen….gaze and B A-Mazed.

(Really, I just end up laughing at my own stupidity at the end, as my Hatched Plan does not come to Fruition.)

[LATER EDIT.... did I spell "narcisscisstictytic wrong? Probobably. Oh whale. This is the way the detergent gets in our cherry soda. Flarg.]

useful words I made for a slow day

1. fl’anger: little tiny flurffs of passive aggressive steam let off online; to take the pressure off (not to be confused with a FLANG{ER}, which I think is a sound effect used by the combination of infinitesimal delay and chorus-type things to vary the tops and bottoms of your envelope, I think… it can go WHRONNNNG if you like.)
2. flurff: a unit of emotion
3. sklorg: the sense of nauseating unfairness that crushes your soul when someone has metaphorically eaten your adorable chocolate bunny; and the entire World is cheering them on Whilst it is being Done to you.
4. zwip: a philosophy of happy calm realism that allows one to roll with all Punches.
(husband wants to know if there shall be a book called ‘Zwip and the Art of Motorcycle Repair’)
5. shoggs: shoes that have suffered a Dastardly Puddle Invasion
6. blurgged: you sat in a puddle. In jeans. So this describes you now.
(I didn’t though. I just thought I’d clarify! Nor did I step in a puddle)
5. stoozered: “Jay said ‘Den go to bed’ and she was right ‘cuz I’m *stoozered*…but I finished my work anyway…” (jay did not say that in this Particular Instance but would have had she thought to Do So)
this means too tired to work but Pressing on to the Finish.

those are some words. there will be more later. I am sleepy now.
Here is a medium -sized photo of a little Lego farmer being abducted by aliens for your Viewing Pleasure…