Another week in the can, so to speak. It’s been busy, with lots of stuff going on at work, and getting school started with the youngest child, all a challenge since current conditions have us all doing our thing from the house. But, we’re managing, in particular, me, through tons of sinus issues in the early part of the week.

Most of the rest of this is promo; good and useful promo, but promotional material nonetheless:

Won’t belabor the point, because when Thursday’s work is finished, my four-day Labor Day weekend starts, and for the last half-decade or so, that means Dragoncon!, DC, of course, due to current conditions, is also happening online and virtually. This means I’ll be spending time with my friends enjoying music and laughs, though I’ll largely be sitting by a computer, tv, or phone for most of it.

Doesn’t mean that it’s not still exciting or significant, especially since I’m getting to engage a bit as me, as opposed to my beloved role as the bassist for the Humdingers. For example, as indicated in previous posts, I’ve got a solo “Fresh Faces” set on Sunday, and I’ll be on a panel on Saturday to talk about musical collaboration using the internet in the age of ‘Rona. I expect I’ll also be a voice in the chat rooms during my friends’ performances throughout the weekend, and checking out some of the “main” programming on Dragoncon Virtual, which is running three channels of programming highlighting cool stuff from all the tracks, along with a bunch of classic stuff from past years.

As for the places where I’m likely to be, the filk track calendar is a great place to look for all kinds of great things, though specifically, I am officially scheduled for the following:

• Saturday, 1pm: “Starting A Band Online”, along with Metricula and Leigh Tyberg
• Sunday, 4pm: “Fresh Filk Debuts”, short solo set along with a bunch of other awesome people

I also expect to pop in for at least a couple of the nightly “open filks” to play a tune or two.

These, and all the other excellent things on the track can be enjoyed live in a bunch of places, including the Filk Track FB Page and Youtube channel. Like I’ve said previously, if you wanted to check out this crazy thing but were intimidated by the crowds and such, this might be your year to get a taste.

Anyway, tunes (not self-promotion). Not my favorite mix out of Spotify this week, but there a couple of highlights, like the classic there at #12, and there’s always an appropriate surprise, like the title of #7:

1. “Jo Jo’s Jacket” – Stephen Malkmus
2. “Lay Lady Lay” – Ministry
3. “Vampire Girl” – Jonathan Richman
4. “In The Meantime” – Spacehog
5. “Rise” – Public Image Ltd.
6. “One Word” – Brian Eno, John Cale
7. “America (You’re Freaking Me Out)” – The Menzingers
8. “Hologram” – Tacocat
9. “Oblivious” – Aztec Camera
10. “Whole Wide World – Alternative” – Wreckless Eric
11. “De-Luxe” – Lush
12. “Birth, School, Work, Death” – The Godfathers
13. “Cough Syrup” – Butthole Surfers
14. “Beercan” – Beck

So, in most normal years, right about now I’d likely be wrapping up work things to take a couple of days off to head down to Atlanta with almost 100,000 of my closest friends for Dragoncon where I’d get to play rock star with my buddies the Blibbering Humdingers, though given the realities of the day, that’s not happening this year, because, well, y’all know why.

This doesn’t mean Dragoncon isn’t happening, of course. Like most large gatherings this year, it’s going virtual, which isn’t exactly the same, but all my friends will be there anyway, and I don’t have to lug equipment up and down 20 flights of stairs half a dozen times to play gigs. It also means that the programming will be open to pretty much anyone who’s curious, streaming on all the social media platforms, so if you were ever curious about what this crazy thing is all about, now’s your year to get a taste from the comfort of your own home!

While I won’t be playing with the Humdingers this year (since we’re in different states and all), the rest of them will be doing a set for the Dragoncon Filk Track, along with the usual friends like Mikey Mason, Foot Pound Force, The Misbehavin’ Maidens, the Brobdignagian Bards, Tom Smith, and…um, me.

Yes, as I’d indicated ’round these parts before, I recorded a solo set for Dragoncon this year, and my piece will be included in the Fresh Filk Debuts “panel” streaming live at 4pm on Sunday, September 6th. This is exciting unto itself, because I get to do my own thing for this huge event, but I also get to share my “stage” with some other excellent performers, collaborators, and friends like Jonah Knight, Sunnie Larsen, Harlequin’s Shadow and DJ McGuire.

It’s an honor and a privilege to be asked to do my thing at this, one of the biggest fan events in the United States, and get to play some music with my friends even if we can’t quite be together in person to make each other laugh and drink overpriced hotel rum punch.

We’d all love it if you checked it out!

Not much to say about the week, really. Accomplished a few things, encountered more than a few frustrations, pressed on through it all because I’m a goddamn professional, and, as it appears will come to pass as I write this, will make it through to the end mostly unscathed.

Did most of it through the veil of consistent headaches, thanks to allergies and a glasses rx that’s no longer cutting it (I’ve got an appointment for my overdue eye exam scheduled), especially as I spend eight or nine hours a day staring at a screen writing emails and editing endless memos and forms to accomplish the people’s day-to-day business while the folks in charge put on cult-of-personality infomercials and skirt the Hatch Act by campaigning on public property.

I’ve been keeping tabs, of course (as I did last week, when the other team had their turn), because I dig this sort of thing, and also because, as a citizen, it’s my responsibility to stay up to date on the issues of the day, and I’ll die on the hill of insisting “responsibility” as being just as important as that other “r” word people insist on claiming loudly when they’re out being super-spreaders as long as I have breath or electrons to do so.

For me, political conventions are interesting, but ultimately not the kind of thing that changes my mind on issues, but I understand how people who are just starting to pay attention* to things rely on it to get a sense of the candidates. I liked the way the the Democratic party did some things last week, adapting to the reality of Life in the Time of ‘Rona™ and creating something interesting out of the limitations; it wasn’t perfect, but I hope things like the roll call vote that let us see the diversity of place and person across the United States sticks around. It was certainly way more compelling than drunken proclamations from the convention floor in tacky straw hats that’s been the standard of recent memory.

Otherwise, it’s been the usual sort of life. Got some exercise, read some books, y’know. I did have a birthday on Sunday that I didn’t make a big deal of (it was fine), and I played some music online with my friends, which was nice as well. The immediate future looks about the same, frankly, but as I’m just repeating myself, I’ll shut up about it.

…other than to say that I pre-ordered Bill & Ted Face the Music for home streaming (because there’s no way I’m going into a theater right now; it’s not worth it) for the weekend, because I’m a person of a certain age that has very fond memories of watching the original in high school, and there are worse things than nostalgia, and this one seems as if it’s hitting on a lot of the same mid-life crisis concepts that are in the forefront of my experience right now. Station.

Speaking of tunes, here’s this week’s output from Spotify’s “Weekly Discovery” playlist it generates for me. Some neat older stuff in here, with Billy Idol’s old band at #1, and the Ramones at their punk-by-way-of-Phil-Spector best with a catchy bit of topical political commentary at #6, plus a welcome reappearance of a certain band at the end that I still know nothing about, but every time they pop up I go down the rabbit hole of their output, because it’s catchy as hell and right in my wheelhouse:

1. “Kiss Me Deadly” – Generation X
2. “In Between Days” – Ben Folds
3. “Brave Captain” -fIREHOSE
4. “Can’t Stand It” – Wilco
5. “Vapour Trail” – Ride
6. “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” – Ramones
7. “In Quintessence” – Squeeze
8. “Jolene” – Cake
9. “Brand – New – Life” – Young Marble Giants
10. “Low Self Opinion” – Rollins Band
11. “This Charming Man” – Death Cab for Cutie
12. “Coldsweat” – The Sugarcubes
13. “Blown to Bits” – Charly Bliss

* – I don’t totally understand, however, how someone can not pay attention, but that’s probably my privilege speaking, as I’m not working three jobs (if I haven’t lost them due to current circumstances) in order to make rent, and thus have other things that are more pressing. Eliminating that sort of thing is why I pay attention. It’s the people at least a well off as I am who don’t bother that I really don’t get.

So, it’s finally Friday. Been a long week for a number of reasons, though I don’t really feel like talking specifics; it’s either dull, or not my place to say. Ups and downs; it’s what we got.

I do come into today feeling a little bit more optimistic than is typical of me lately. Headlines the last couple of days have been inspiring, historic, karmic, and tinged with schadenfreude. The world’s still going to shit, of course, though it might not always be that way. Best we can hope for.

The weekend ahead should be pretty typical, apart from my participation in PossumCon II, the virtual version of my friend Larry’s usual musical house party birthday bash, in the evenings, playing a few songs over the interwebs with friends. I think it’ll be cool.

Otherwise…well, you all know what it’s going to look like by now…

So, tunes. Spotify’s been generating some interesting mixes for me lately; lots of new guitar tones to emulate, and out-of-the-mainstream song titles and band names like at #s 1 and 10. It’s cool, and oddly appropriate, because that’s the world we live in:

1. “Ghost With A Boner” – Diarrhea Planet
2. “Misbehavin’ 1989” – Aimee-Leigh & Baby Billy
3. “All I Really Want” – Alanis Morrissette
4. “Web in Front” – Archers of Loaf
5. “Deathwire” – Rough Francis
6. “The Void” – Martha
7. “Feral Cats” – Protomartyr
8. “Waves” – Hum
9. “Purity of Heart” – Krill
10. “Normal People” – Fucked Up
11. “Dancing” – Katie Dey
12. “Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled) – Amyl and the Sniffers
13. “Worthless Chorus” – Bars of Gold
14. “Love Is The Law” – The Suburbs
15. “Ride a White Swan” – T. Rex

Tuesday was the first day in what feels like quite a while that I saw the sun, and it was terribly welcome. After some ups and downs in the virtual office (decent forward progress of the “two steps forward, one step back” variety), I racked the bike and put almost seventeen miles under me on the Capital Trail. Just getting outside and moving felt good; especially after most of a week of rain, flash flood warnings, and skies the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.

I am hoping to do the same Wednesday afternoon, and right now, as I type this, the weather report is mostly encouraging, though it wasn’t last night. I’m hoping I can get a quick ten or so in at least before the showers and afternoon thunderstorms come around.

This evening, alas, would, in better times, feature the Open Mic at Castleburg, but given 2020 in America and all it entails, it’s not happening. It’s the right and responsible choice, of course, but I still miss it. This’ll be the seventh month running that conditions prevent this from happening. After trying weekend live music for a couple of weeks last month, it just didn’t prove viable to maintain proper safety standards when popular acts were playing, and in those cases, folks weren’t sharing microphones.

As a middling substitute, I might do a short live stream tonight if conditions warrant – pop a Castleburg pint can (got some Queen’s Garde in the fridge at the moment) and play a couple of tunes in front of the webcam. It ain’t perfect, though it could serve.

We make due. Take the joy where we find it, and muddle through the rest. It’s all we can do. “It is what it is.”.

The weekend was long, both too long, and not quite long enough, and I’m totally cool with embracing that contradiction.

Our attempt to provide some sort of adventure for the newly-minted teenager was enjoyed by the kid, though we didn’t budget our time particularly well. We hit the craft store and the second-hand book store to find some neat gifts, but we got started a little too early to transition smoothly into our dinner plans (once again, food truck time!). So, we killed a little bit of time at a couple of breweries near the brewery where the food truck was going to be, chatting with a few friends, and watching the skies for rain, before eating our gourmet macaroni and cheese (again) under a temporarily sunny sky at dinnertime.

I feel a little weird about the kid’s birthday becoming a pub crawl, but whatever. She had fun.

Rest of the weekend was wet and mostly unpleasant. Stepping out of the car at the grocery store into five inches of rushing water in the parking lot while wearing canvas sneakers wasn’t cool, but eventually I hit that place where I just didn’t care that I was wet anymore and squelched my way through the grocery shopping. Otherwise, it was laundry, a bit of quality time with the television, and then sitting down at the computer in the evening with the guitar to do the Dragoncon Filk Track online music circle, which was sparsely attended, but pleasant nonetheless, and I made sci-fi comedy music legend Tom Smith laugh with one of my tunes, so I’m calling it a win.

Sunday, I watched movies and made cajun food, then couldn’t get to sleep at a reasonable hour, thanks to the deaf cat’s buzzsaw snoring, but I’m alive this morning and working magic with PowerPoint, so I must have gotten enough.

As for the week ahead, nothing particularly noteworthy. Hoping the world dries out so I can get outside some more and put some miles under me, hoping the budget process at work sorts itself out and I can get my program needs funded, and keeping myself sane in this profoundly weird and depressive time in human history.

SBCL (Separated by a Common Language, or any of these things).

I work in public sector information technology, which means that TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) run rampant; it’s one of this career path’s joys. I’m pretty sure if I felt like putting in the effort, I could probably knock out a paragraph or three in perfect grammar, composed solely of acronyms.

What can I say, I have a particular set of skills.

Sometimes, though, those skills can be limiting. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on scheduling a test with a new software system that wants to interface with our bit of ancient code. Back and forth, back and forth, everybody talking past each other.

This morning I finally figured out why: we’ve been using the same acronyms, but referring to completely different things. Once I figured that out, we quickly came to happy arrangement (or at least a better understanding of each other – the arrangement is still in flux because of all kinds of other externalities). It actually took a bit of a load off; and I’ve been carrying a hell of a load these last couple of weeks (as anybody who reads this space can attest). Said load isn’t gone, by any stretch, but a bigger-than-I-thought piece of it has been mostly disposed of.

Which leaves me with some mental processing cycles to deal with all kinds of other crap, like mono-directional HDMI to DP cables, and how going one way costs three dollars and going the other way costs $85. Guess which one I need? I came up with an alternate solution, but really? All I want to do is attach a monitor I had lying around to my laptop to extend my screen real estate. Geez.

Oh well; it’s been a week. Beyond the stuff above, I’ve been doing some really tedious work stuff: horribly authored online training, and spinning webs of bullshit for a justification document for something that’s already been approved at the highest levels, but some bureaucrat needs to get one more lick in on an issue that I’ve been enlisted to clean up.

There’s been some better stuff, though. Before the rain started, I knocked out 50 miles or so of solid trail time on the bike, have mostly got my recording/streaming/home computer rig (and the lovely spouse got her sewing space back, just in time to take on a lucrative side project for a bit of cash) back after moving the eldest out last weekend. I was able to successfully record my short set for the Dragonon Filk Track virtual panel/content stuff Wednesday night, which took 15 minutes, and the rest of the hour involved a very welcome conversation with the track director, who’s a wonderful friend who in the best of times, I only get to see one or two times a year. I think we both needed it.

Oh, yeah, there was that whole announcement on Tuesday. As I indicated in the past, I like Senator Harris just fine, and I think she’ll do a great job as VP. Also, she seems to have the competition flustered a bit (even if she was the obvious front-runner for quite a long time), as their opposition thus far has been disjointed and falling back on the stereotypical attack lines; it took less than six hours for “Most Liberal Member of the Senate™”* to get trotted out, as well as the usual misogynistic crap we all expected. I think she’ll be good for the ticket, and I like having her on deck for 2024. GenX has maybe one shot, at best, to be represented in the White House (there just aren’t enough of us); I think Kamala will do our slacker, latchkey generation proud.

This weekend? Eh. Who knows. I do know that it’s going to be a little longer than average, because I’m taking Friday off (hence this piece posting Thursday); partially because I need a mental health day, and because a kid only turns 13 once. We pulled a limited, socially distanced surprise thing at the dance school earlier this week before class, but we’re working on making the day sorta special in this especially crappy time.

Anyway, tunes. Spotify wandered a little off the usual path this week on the Discover Weekly, though, y’know what? I’m okay with it; there’s some good stuff there. Plus, I admire the chutzpah of that band at #2 naming themselves that:

1. “Monkey Trick” – The Jesus Lizard
2. “Who’s My Eugene” – Tropical Fuck Storm
3. “Boxcar” – Jawbreaker
4. “Sensitive Artist” – King Missle
5. “Millersdale” – William Doyle
6. “Anna” – Mdou Moctar
7. “These Are The Days” – Lift to Experience
8. “When I Get Up” – Tim Heidecker
9. “System Preferences” – Tera Melos
10. “Battle of Who Could Care Less” – Ben Folds Five
11. “Oh Slime (live) – Fishmans
12. “Minnesota Girls” – The Shackeltons
13. “Horripilation” – Do Make Say Think

* – This is so standard, it’s practically expected. Jim Inhofe or Ted Cruz would get called this if they, in some demented timeline, ended up on the Democratic presidential ticket.

A big chunk of my weekend involved actually getting some miles under me, and took me, for the first time in a few months, out of my typical 25 mile radius of my living room. It was, at least, novel, even if it consisted primarily of pandemic theater, manual labor, and a sore ass.

Addressing the title, first the 30; That’s about how many miles I biked this weekend; as is my habit. fifteen miles on the Capital Trail each on Saturday and Sunday mornings. As I say, it’s my happy place, my therapy, and my time for me. Worked the muscles, breathed the fresh air safely distanced from everybody, and encountering some of the local wildlife, including a mother turkey and her six chicks (which I’m informed are called poults, which was new to me) out for a walk along a spur trail between markers 42 and 43, which was kind of neat.

As for the rest, much of that was hauling the eldest’s huge pile of posessions out west to install in her apartment lodgings for the fall semester. It’s a long, dull drive, regardless of the route, not easy on the behind or calves, especially when giving up leg room to boxes of stuff. The campus itself is trying its best to address pandemic conditions, though a lot of it, like the temperature checks and waiver signing at the gate, is mostly theater. We remained masked, and heaved all kinds of stuff up stairs, and got the stuff inside and the emotional support fish set up well within our assigned move-in window and left the kid to arrange her gear at her leisure.

As a reward for our efforts, the lovely spouse and I took a small detour on the way home to enjoy a beer and the delicious food from The Return of the Mac food truck on the patio at Steam Bell, who does a pretty good job of making sure that proper pandemic guidelines are followed (as do all the breweries in town, really – it’s a refreshing change from regular retail establishments), and doesn’t tweak our virus anxiety.

Apart from my ride on Sunday morning, we spent much of the rest of the day working to get the back room in order to once again be the sewing and music space rather than the kid’s crash space, which was more work than we would have liked, as the kid is not, shall we say, particularly fastidious about cleanliness. This adventure also involved a trip out to several of those above-lamented retail establishments to obtain some gear for storage, and running all over creation to find a cheap curtain rod to fit the window (apparently curtain rods in the 36 inch range are the new toilet paper), which I finally found, not particularly cheap, at the hardware store.

I also did all that shopping while wearing my Elizabeth Warren campaign t-shirt, which isn’t necessarily the wisest or safest thing to do in a southern Walmart on the edge of the suburbs. Nevertheless, I persisted, and survived (probably helps I’m a tall 200+ pound man), receiving only a few dirty looks, and couple of surreptitious thumbs-up and whispers of “I love your shirt.” I like to think I validated a few people’s closely held politics in this pocket of conservatism. Also, I’m kind of a jerk like that sometimes; if these conservative asshole types can flagrantly not wear masks (or wear them incorrectly) as a political statement, they can look at my damned t-shirt advocating for candidates with progressive policies and social welfare.

Mostly the usual on tap for the coming week; work, bike, and spend some time getting my studio space back up, as I’m supposed to record my set for virtual Dragoncon one evening this week (I guess I should decide what songs I’m going to play, huh?) and maybe hash through some plans for a project I’m due to work on with a friend.

Oh – we watched the 2015 “Jem and the Holograms” film on Netflix on Friday night; we have opinions. It wasn’t “bad”, per se, just kind of bland, but it made some odd directorial choices that didn’t work (like editing in social media videos of random people to try and set tone), and kind of got lost trying to find it’s audience. It obviously wanted to court the youth market, but the only people at all familiar with this property are greying Xers who watched it on weekday afternoon latchkey tv. They put in nods to the trappings of the show (quoting theme lyrics in dialogue, general character looks, etc), but mostly, what they ended up was kind of a rehash of the Josie and the Pussycats” movie without all the campy self-awareness, and didn’t start hitting the fun, weird crazy stuff until the end, setting up for a sequel that will never happen, as it only grossed $2.3 million at the box office on a paltry $5 million dollar budget.

The Misfits’ songs were better, anyway.

It’s been a week; certainly. Glad to see it mostly behind me.

There actually hasn’t been all that much to report since the storm kinda fizzled earlier this week. Been just rainy and humid enough to scuttle most of the bike riding, but I spent a couple of nice enough afternoons hiking a local park, resting the cycling muscles a bit (which are kind of strained) and working the other kind, just for variety. Changing things up a little can be refreshing, I guess, or at least novel.

Been pretty typical otherwise, really. My body has consistently been waking me up around 5am, so that’s when I start working, which gets me done a little earlier in the afternoon. I can send emails pulling strings to shake program bits loose any time; might as well get myself a shot at taking advantage of a few more hours of daylight if the option’s there.

Beyond that, I’ve spent a little time with my books, watched a couple of movies, watched the headlines in abject horror, and had a couple of beers to numb the pain into a vague sort of ennui.

For the weekend, there’s some car time in the mix moving some things from one place to another, but otherwise, it should be typical as well. Looking forward to snagging some more fresh melon at the farmer’s market on Saturday morning, because I’ve finished all that I had. Perfect breakfast, that.

In any case…tunes. That first one there’s a welcome one; I wore that cassette out in high school; killer riff. As for the rest, the spotify algorithms seem to think I need some noiserock shoegaze in my life, along with some decent power pop. It does kind of speak to me in terms of next-level mixing ideas for future recordings, assuming I don’t just pay the kid’s paramour to do it, because there’s some serious studio wizardry working in that brain.

Also, the song called out in the title? It’s a pretty decent punk tune, but maybe little on the nose:

1. “Decadence Dance” – Extreme
2. “Bird is Bored of Flying” – Mastersystem
3. “Future Mixtape for the Art Kids” – Beach Slang
4. “Fake Plastic Trees” – Trampled By Turtles
5. “Kimmy” – Antarctigo Vespucci
6. “Asshole Pandemic” – Pkew Pkew Pkew
7. “I Think We’re Alone Now” – Billie Joe Armstrong
8. “Wasted on the Senate Floor” – Emperor X
9. “Take on Me” – Cap’n Jazz
10. “Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues” – McClusky
11. “Sick Jam” – Chris Fleming
12. “It’s Catchin Up” – Nomeansno
13. “More Than Love” – The Prize Fighter Inferno

Oh yeah, it’s another Bandcamp Friday, so if you were holding out on picking up my record, World’s Okayest…, today would be a good day, as they’re waiving fees, so I (and any other artist you’d care to support) get all the money from the sale. Just sayin’.

As I type this Isaias is working it’s way up the East Coast, and is likely to drop 4-6 inches of rain all over us here in the center of the Commonwealth, and a bit more on my friends to the East, as well as all the states north and south. Yay.

Rain’s been coming down since 8pm or so Monday night, nothing too bad so far, though the power was out for a few hours in the evening. As I type this Tuesday morning, it’s likely to be heavy through the afternoon, with high winds, thunder and lightning, and all the good stuff we get this time of year when named storms decide to roll up the coast.

I got several automated calls from the office last night (this is the benefit of certain public sector jobs; we have our own emergency broadcast system) about the general event, as well as a “facility is on a two hour delay, don’t show up early” message, although that barely applies because almost all of us are teleworking anyway because of the ‘rona.

Such is life. Why not dump a tropical storm on us along with everything else? What’s one more thing? Bring it on, as they say. All I ask of the universe is that if it sees fit to knock down a tree on my house, do it in a way that gets me a new roof with minimal other property damage, okay?

I fully expect work to be spotty today, given the storm situation, with the predicted intermittent power outages, and inconsistent phone and internet services. I haven’t cancelled my weekly staff with my team yet, but it’s probably going to happen. But, since I’ve been up since five am because I’m weird like that, I’ve already gotten the “must-haves” done for the day.

To close this on a lighter note (rather than the current semi-sarcastic tone), after I worked yesterday, the youngest and I went out to a not-quite-as-local-as-usual park (because my closest local trail is closed for two weeks for renovations/improvements) and hiked three miles or so in the woods counting squirrels. On our drive back, we were listening to The More Perfect Union, a political podcast my friend DJ is a part of, and they were, as one would expect, talking about Biden’s potential VP pick, including a significant segment about Congresswoman Karen Bass, who’s been the “dark horse” pick by the media this week. While this was going on, the kid asked:

“Isn’t she the one who killed her husband?”

Which proves, I guess, that Netflix is really in charge, right Cats and Kittens?