so, i need to leave around 7:00 to do a compost drop-off, which is a little later in terms of compost drop-offs; i need to swing by staples after and get some ink. hopefully, they have the right type. i still haven't fixed my bike, so getting to best buy requires a bus ride...i need to prioritize that, but it won't be until after i figure out my odsp situation....

i'll need to get some groceries on the way back, and then do some beginning of the month cleaning stuff. that may actually take two days, but then i'm clear for weeks and weeks.

i've got the first five of these songs mixed. they're all instrumentals. i'm only going to remaster vocals for about five of these (there's 22).

i've decided on the output:

1) inrinterpreted will be the final and mostly instrumental versions. i'm going to have to cut a couple for the final, as it's going to be around 100 minutes (i'll have them up for download). i'll probably cut the instrumentals and the covers.
2) there will be an electronic soundscape disc composed of just the ry30, jx-8p and digital additions. i'm enforcing a strict "no guitars or bass" policy. this will be an ep. it exists somewhere between tangerine dream and very early autechre.
3) i've pulled out three songs that i consider to be of extra importance - confused, schizoid and "mom". they will each get singles with multiple remixes. i'll be working on these last.

i'm not going to be focusing on the "continuity" tracks for this, because they've already been split out - between inrisampled, warning and the 0th ambient works, they are all available somewhere else.

there is one song - "too cold" - that i do not have source material for. that tape would have also had "exit" on it. i simply don't know where it is; chances of finding it are essentially zero. as i stated somewhere else, it's actually remarkable how much of this stuff i DO have...

so, the mixing should be no more than a week. i'm going to assume each single will be around a week. so, this should be up around the end of july or the beginning of august. i'm going to wait to upload this, it's just the nature of it...

so, that means i'm renumbering...

package sent. now, i wait.

i should be able to get enough of a start on this project tonight to be able to get a feel as to how it's going to work itself out.

Sure There’s a Catch…

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. 

This is an interesting issue for me to approach, because the reality is somewhat circular. I’ve presented myself to several professionals looking for a longer term diagnosis (which is truly what I was seeking as I embarked on this path; please see the attached document, with my first write-up), and they’ve been unable to determine any symptoms. I’m left with no option but to agree that I am not demonstrating symptoms. However, there’s a catch – I am not demonstrating symptoms because ODSP has left me stable and happy, by allowing me to immerse myself in my art. If I’m not demonstrating symptoms, I should not qualify for ODSP; but if I lose the ODSP, I will again begin to demonstrate symptoms, and need to go back on ODSP.

See, the truth is that I truly am unstable – a glance at my unwritten biography would demonstrate that clearly. I have been without an address several times, and am prone to absurd behaviour when placed under stress. I’ve been fired repeatedly, and unable to find a job for many years. I really should be grounded. Yet, my concern for my safety appears rational to the professional observer. Hence, requests for diagnosis are misunderstood as evidence of stability.

Rather than try and obfuscate, I believe I should be honest: I am not just currently stable and happy. I am actually currently more stable and happier than I’ve ever been in my life. My prerogative to argue for stasis is consequently not merely a desire to prevent the inevitable collapse I will face should I be denied ODSP, but to actively argue for it as the best case scenario for me. It’s almost an appeal for benevolence.

I think that, when discussing an individual’s qualification for disability, there are three perspectives to analyze. The first is whether the applicant is able to work. The second is whether the applicant is able to find work. The third is whether the applicant desires work. I believe that these issues are not disconnected, but are very interrelated and that the causal forces acting between them can be very complex.

One way to see that this is true is to look at the results of my cra application in 2008. I wrote several tests for this application and did very well on the ones that were “competency” related. My GCT2 mark was actually exceedingly high; I earned a mark of 80/90 on this test, in a competition where the minimum pass was 51/90. When I went in to the interview, they told me it was the highest mark they’ve ever seen on that test. This would appear to indicate not just competence but possible excellence. Yet, my grade on the situational judgement test (a workplace behaviour test) was so poor that I was removed from the competition. I failed that test twice more over the next few years. Together, that indicates that I would have likely been capable of performing the task asked of me, and perhaps even of excelling at it, but that I would not have been able to adjust to the workplace environment – and consequently could not be hired. In fact, I actually agree with the combined results, as it fits my experience of frequent firings and infrequent attendance at school, even while my performance was strong and my grades were high. While other employers may be less rigorous in their hiring, they seem to be able to intuitively understand this about me and avoid me as a result of it. It does then follow that my anxiety is a block; when I’ve been forced to try and get around it because I have no other choice but to get around it in order to pay rent and bills it nonetheless continues to flag me as a problem and either make me an unviable candidate or a swiftly terminated employee. I consequently can’t work because I can’t find work because of the condition.

The gender dysphoria is not insignificant in piecing this together, as it is one of the dominant causes of the anxiety. This works on two levels – both on the level of unrealistic expectations and on the level of a self-consciousness that manifests itself as a lack of confidence, which is devastating in context. Even when I was living as a male, it was something that was easily “figured out”, which created some pretty bad attitudes and behind-the-back murmurings. I don’t feel there’s an answer to this. My gender/body combination remains at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

I claim I am happy and stable on ODSP, but did I ever seek labour? I have teenager memories of being excited about saving money up to get certain things. My first major purchase was a cd burner in 1998, back when such things were still novel. I worked two or three jobs at a time over the summers of 2002 and 2003, and while it was hectic I was happy to contribute to my education. I worked for Microsoft over 2006 and legitimately enjoyed it; I was able to take that money to get my own apartment and buy some recording gear. Employment provided me with financial independence and control over my means of production. So, the answer is an unambiguous yes: I have actively sought and enjoyed labour in the past.

However, in time, prejudicial attitudes began to sink in – and it’s a contribution to the anxiety. My interests have converged to things that are outside any kind of concept of wage labour. For many years, I’ve looked at employment very cynically, with the understanding that I’m wasting my time somewhere doing something I don’t care about with people that don’t respect me. Over 2007 and 2008 (the last time I was employed), I called in sick repeatedly – often because I just couldn’t get up to go in due to anxiety and depression. I would also leave work early due to depression, which tended to manifest itself in powerful headaches and short tempers. I have not experienced any of these problems over the last two years; I have been stable and happy. Alas, that catch-22…

Yet, do I not want to work, to contribute? Well, let’s reverse the question around. I think there are two reasons why people might want to work. The first is for the benefit of society - altruism. The second is for personal gain - individualism. But what is personal gain? A stock broker may argue that it is about capital accumulation, whereas an athlete may argue it’s about being the best. As an artist, I find these things actually overlap more than they contradict – the art is made both for me and for everybody else. Expression for the sake of expression is the most valuable form of personal gain, and asking challenging questions is the thing I’m most suited to do in society. If the goal is to maximize personal gain through contributing to society, I don’t think that work is the way to do that; I think that art is the way to do that.

Yet, how did I get there? How did I decide that expression is personal gain? Why not competition, or accumulation, or material wealth? Well, in all of these cases the root cause is the same: its sexual dominance. The use value of a car is hardly worth its price; nowadays I walk most places, but I’ve never had a need for such a thing, between bicycles and city busses.  If anything, it puts the car owner into an impossible loop: they need to go to work to pay for a car that they only use to go to work. It’s running on a treadmill; except, it isn’t, because a car is a status symbol, and that status symbol is a tool to compete with peers for the sexual interests of others. Competition, accumulation and materialism are often blamed for the violence we experience in our society, but they are merely masking the sexual motives underlying their fetishization. As an individual who has undergone voluntary chemical castration, these motives are not valid to me. Rather, my motives for personal gain are largely intellectual – and no labour, at any salary, can appeal to me on this level. Nor can I hide this reality from interviewers – it is a part of the visible anxiety that sets in. So, I cannot work because I can’t find work because I don’t want to work because of the condition.

I believe that humans are malleable creatures and that I could no doubt be conditioned out of this, but to what end? Is it worth the state’s time and energy to put a hopelessly apathetic personality type through therapy so that it can flip burgers for minimum wage? Excuse me for being jaded by the prospect…

So, what happens if I get this renewed? Well, I have a lot of art to work on, and would continue to apply myself to it over thirty hour work days of happy, strenuous and productive labour. Its value is perhaps unclear, but I think I can make a bigger difference to society through my opinions than I ever can through wage labour, and I’m certain I’ll be happier and more stable that way. What happens if this is denied? It is exceedingly unlikely that I will be able to find employment, and if I do I will no doubt be very unhappy. I will likely become very depressed and completely unstable; a suicide attempt is not unlikely, which will generate further documents which will get me back on odsp - until I’m stable again, no doubt.

Rather than forcing me to continue to rebuild these sandcastles on the beach after every tide, I propose that you allow me to rebuild further from shore by granting me the longest disability term that you can. For me, this is really the only workable solution to my problems, and removing the solution will accomplish nothing but bring them all back again.

well, i got the disc done up to 2000, which is the bulk of the adds. now, i just need to clean the page up a little over the second part of 2013, and the first part of 2014. i wanted to do this anyways - it's actually why i jumped backwards. but, it's going to be another day or two.

i have an appointment tomorrow. it's late enough in the day that i don't have to worry about getting up early, but it's going to cut off most of the day.

right now, i need to eat.

pj’s was not the best venue for white lung, as the sound was reliant on an in-house tech that didn’t get it

i've been to lots of bars with disengaged sound techs, and they end up flagging themselves. it's less as a place to avoid, and more as a disappointment that the band you like is playing x rather than y. you deal with it.

pj's is a different animal, as it seems to have an *over*-engaged sound tech. i have less experience with this phenomenon, but it seems like it's a greater concern. a disengaged sound tech lets the band make it's own mistakes, which at least gives them control of their own presentation. but, an over-engaged sound tech can turn the band you've gone to see into something else entirely.

white lung is a band that thrives heavily on the guitarist's upper range. he's not a lead player, he's just a very talented punk guitarist. this plays off heavily with the dramatic and generally harsh vocal delivery, which is more in the mid range, and the busy but metronome-style drumming. generally, you get a fairly clean split - bass on the bottom, guitars up top and vocals in the middle.

so, to hear the sound tech drown the guitars in bass and bury the vocals altogether is to have him make sound decisions that really aren't in his realm to make. he seemed to interpret them as some kind of doom/metalcore act, rather than as the very melodic hardcore punk band that they are. what makes them special is that detail in the upper range. so, it kind of sucked to hear it almost entirely drowned out by flooring the bass - as one would mix a modern metal band.

the singer was visibly and vocally perturbed that people weren't getting into it. but, we couldn't really hear it. all we could hear was that muffled bass. i mean, imagine people showing up at a dance cub and getting a triangle beat instead of a big bass, or people showing up at a folk festival and getting metal riffs. you'd expect it to foster a disconnect.

i knew the songs well enough to fill them in mentally, but the content just wasn't cutting through the mix. and, i've seen enough youtube clips to know that this isn't a general problem on their end.

as for the band itself, i think they've hit the point in their career where they need to make some bold moves. they had a good groove going on with sorry, but it's started to turn into a formula. you can only write the same basic song so many times before it starts to seem unnecessary - i'd argue that sorry is a developing classic, but what that means is that there's not any really good reason to listen to another record (or three) in the same style. that's going to piss some people off, but the other option is people slowly tuning out.

i'm left to conclude that i need to be careful with this venue. but, i don't want to dissuade people from checking out the band. at the very least, the aforementioned record is very notable and something very much worth looking into.

ironically, obliterations were better live than i had expected from sound samples - largely because the mix was better, with the vocals turned down and the guitars given some more chunk. see, the tech made the right choice with these guys.

i mean, the mixing decisions didn't relieve it of it's boneheadedness. but, they softened it to the point that it made me think more of a modern take on soundgarden or pearl jam than yet another converge-influenced bro-rock band - which is what i was expecting.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/06/13.html

i'm straining my memory, here. hard. and it's coming out incoherently.

all the evidence seems to suggest i picked a slew of pedals up in early '00. but that doesn't make any sense, because i got bribed into going to university by being told i could quit my job. so, how did i buy these effects, if i had no income?

but, if i bought them earlier - the fall of '99 - then why wasn't i using them? or was i using some of them? it's the creamy dreamer that i'm not sure of.

i remember borrowing my friend's fab tone and using it as a boost, and i think that's why i got the creamy dreamer. but it's just very unclear.

worse, i remember going down to songbird and buying them, and in some cases i even remember it being cold out. this does suggest the winter of '99/'00.

but it's just not making sense.

strange truth: i may actually have receipts in the boxes. yeah, it's weird, but it's true. i'll check that out...

i was thinking abut hitting insect ark tonight, but i'm kind of waiting to see if the rain is going to clear up, and even then i'm not convinced it's going to be an exciting show. i tend to prefer punkier types of live shows, due to the higher energy. there's plenty of exceptions, i'm just....still thinking about it.

white lung tomorrow is a for sure.

but this disc is taking longer than i expected, and i'd like to get it moving, too. it's at least all structured, i just need to get the data in.

a quick late night jolt in and out of detroit to see speedy ortiz

i'm not so vain...

speedy ortiz was a good show, even if i got a little lost in my head for parts of it. there were some parts that made me laugh, like how the bros in the audience seemed to like the idea of a song about being the boss, completely missing the feminist undertones; overtones, actually. there were some parts that made me cringe, and there were some parts that were just enjoyable to cave into.

i walked in a little uncomfortable with some of the messaging, and walked out convinced that i've been maybe living in a safe spaces bubble as of late. i think i can get how the frustration of playing for an audience that doesn't really understand what you're saying can get irritating, and might lead to some misguided reactions. as they say, every force has a counterforce. i think my analysis is accurate and needed to be stated, but i'm a little more sympathetic than i let on, after actually observing the reality.

that said, sadie also demonstrated a little bit of tyranny, stopping to yell at her visibly perplexed drummer for "trying to tell me a secret that i don't understand". seems to me like a purge is coming...

various shades of truth, from different perspectives; often, there's value in several of them.

this is a band that's been highly touted by the press for quite a while and is the rare act to get this kind of hype that actually deserves it. they're working in a kind of frankenspace between math rock and pop rock that i think has only scratched the surface of what it could be, and could end up being pretty important, in the long run. it needs expansion in both directions to get to a space that few people have really delved into since sonic youth got dropped from geffen. but it really has massive potential.

in the short run, they're a tight band and i do recommend getting out to see them if you get the chance. it's just maybe not the best idea to assume that the riffs bring certain very out of date attitudes with them; maybe, instead, you should listen to what the songwriter is actually saying.

 i wasn't very impressed with either of the opening acts (palehound, alex g).

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/shows/2015/06/04.html

that took longer than i meant it to, but i have the template for inri001 down, meaning the next few should be relatively quick. i need to get groceries and pills some time today; otherwise, this should be a good week-long no smoking project.

i'm still debating the speedy ortiz show tonight. musically, the new record is really quite solid. i'm just sifting over my mind whether or not i'm badly misinterpreting some of the lyrics. i'm borderline old, now, and i need to remember that young people (and university aged people are now "young", in my perspective) are sometimes less precise than they intend to be, and/or overlook things. as a borderline old person, it's my responsibility to be patient rather than contemptuous.

there's a born gold / braids show on sunday, as well. the headliner is purity ring, but they are too poppy for me tastes. i've seen braids a few times, and missed born gold twice in 2011 - once when i was late for a braids show (which was very much not intentional) and once when i skipped grimes at a small bar in ottawa, thinking it was just a bit too poppy and her career probably wasn't going anywhere. if i go to speedy ortiz, i will probably not attend that show.

there's two more shows on the 12th and 13th that i willalmost certainly attend.

right now, i'm actually almost thinking i just need an excuse to make myself look nice and get out of the house for the night, before i settle in for the week. i haven't been anywhere since late april, and i *did* get a relatively large amount done in may. it's maybe time to get out of the house a little.

meaning, i should probably try and get a few hours of sleep in now and decide when i wake up.