Holiday Odds and Ends pt. 2

Can you believe in all the years that I have lived in Austin I had never visited the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue until this past Christmas?



Some 10 years ago my X and a bunch of friends and I stumbled up and down the grassy knoll near Town Lake (now called Lady Bird Lake) trying to find this thing. We were drunk verging on hung over and had been dancing into the wee hours of the morning hence the excursion was not a success. I think we all eventually collapsed under the bridge and tried to blend in with the transient population that night--never mind the plethora of PVC leather and velvet we wore.

In retrospect, I have no idea how we missed it because the thing is huge. My brother waned a pic with good ole Stevie (in case you're a poor soul who doesn't know who he is, Stevie Ray Vaughn, a TX boy, was one of the greatest blues guitarists who ever lived, an inspiration to many rock gods and unfortunately had his life cut short after a tragic helicopter accident after a show in 1990)so Christmas morning, the family set out to Lady Bird Lake on a mission to get the photo and because none of us were drunk (perhaps a tad greasy in the stomach from breakfast at IHOP, but certainly not drunk) we succeeded!



It was a beautiful Christmas day with blue skies, cool crisp winds and bright sun out. A lot of people were walking up and down the lake (which is really a river...too complicated to go into) with their dogs or kids. A lot of other people were paying their respects to Stevie...Apparently the statue is one of the most visited landmarks in Austin, TX next to the capitol building and the UT Tower where Charles Whitman shot down a bunch of students back in the 50's. Anyhow, mom wanted a pic with Stevie too. Here she is snuggling with him:



So of course I had to take a pic too. I asked him to make me a rock god and maybe rub off some of that stage persona onto little ole me. I also asked him if I could have a pony:



(as T just pointed out a second ago, if he made me a rock god, I could easily afford my own pony, so why bother asking for one?)

On the way back to the car, T spotted some beautiful black swans in the lake and I took it as a good omen:


**
Christmas Eve dinner was lovely. Instead of going with a fancy schmancy roasted goose or ham or turkey...I decided to go with store bought tamales this year with guacamole, rice, beans and a big salad since I wasn't in the mood to cook an elaborate meal. Mom make curry empanadas that went really well with everything. As always, Jbro helped me in the kitchen as T took photos:



My best friend Shawn was in town and joined us for dinner. Of course no get together in my household is complete without a good ole fashioned jam session after the meal. Since I bought my brother a new Vox tube amp for Christmas we just had to try it out to make sure it sounded right and all. (For the record, he's getting a stick of gum for his birthday since I spoiled him and went over budget....he's my brother. He's talented. He deserves good gear so I don't mind...)

I think Shawn had a good time:


Brown Dog enjoyed the music as well:


Momma was dancing:


Shawn's looking pretty hot here:


Family pic:


And of course one with my best friend:


***
So, we've got a New Year's party coming up and then a few more days off. Unfortunately, I've been doing contract work a good bit during the break. However, I haven't been so busy that I haven't been able to socialize. Lots of friends in town. Lots of parties. Lots of food and lots of music. Till then, enjoy images of my brother doing a lyrical jazz routine to Benny Bennassi:

icons and Shawn

Shawn looks like a cross between Kurt Cobain and Ville Valo here:


Hot goth or bar fight survivor? Not enough sleep or rocking guy-liner? Not sure, but it's a bad ass pic.

So is this one:


I've been wanting to switch out our user photos on the Adzuki Bean Stash Mp3 blog for some time and these were images he took with his iBook a while ago. Following his lead I then took a series of web cam stills with my own iBook:






I must say though, Shawn looks a heck of a lot better than me in headphones. Instead of looking like cool and legit recording artist, I look like a kid with a MacBook recording shit in the bathroom (which is precisely what I am). You'll have to traipse on over to the blog itself to see which pic I chose.


But enough of me. I'm devoting the rest of this post to one of my closest and oldest friends who happened to turn 31 a couple of days ago.

There he is to the left in his glorious graduate school pic. For whatever reason the Old Navy T cracks me up. It's just so not him. Unfortunately, you can't see his dark blue eyes in the photo, but look at the lovely nose of his... people pay money for a nose like that. Anyhow, I digress...

It's a misconception that I met Shawn back in grad school. We actually knew each other during undergraduate studies where both of us were math majors at the University of Texas at Austin and shared a Topology class together back 1998. What made the class special was that it was taught Moore-Method style where us hopefuls were given a handful of axioms and then with minimum guidance from the professor would be expected to solve theorems from scratch on the board each lecture. One of the best classes ever and to this day I probably retained the most from Topology I.

It functioned on the whole "learning through trauma" principle where one tends to remember things they've struggled through. Moore Methodology totally feeds on the stereotypical insecurities of die-hard mathematicians and their need to outsmart one another which in of itself creates maintainable trauma due to the competitive nature of the classroom. Hrm, I'm getting a bit philosophical here, so compare it to getting stripped naked in front of your classmates and made to do the chicken dance, but with the odd sense of euphoria injected at the end of your bought with humiliation...I suppose if you're kinky there's no difference between the two situations, but you get the point. Anyway, with the way class was structured, math talent and general intelligence levels were blatantly apparent and the very first thing that I noticed about Shawn was that he was definitely one of the sharpest students in the class. Nothing could phase him. He could prove these problems in his sleep.

From there, I can't quite remember how or why we stuck together for so long. I'm sure mix tapes had something to do with it as well as the common obsession for all things Nine Inch Nails and Trent related (Nine Inch Nails problem sets were a common theme in our math handouts when we were TAs. I also still have the Trent Reznor sack puppet Shawn made me). Maybe it was because I thought his "Bruce the Shark" videos were cool. We shared a love of music, visual arts, macabre, of course mathematics and let's not forget that both of us always seemed to be chronically depressed all the time.

I can tell you that the more I got to know him, the more I came to understand the term polymath.

Over the years we have given each other a gazillion reasons not to ever speak to each other again and managed long stretches of time where we both truly utterly hated one another, and yet our camaraderie has always managed to mend itself and become something that's much more profound and loyal than most of my other friendships with people. We're super blunt with one another. We've exchanged nights where we've cried for the other person. We divulge secrets and insecurities that no one else is privy to. However, we've never slept together, never "gone out" or dated because we both realize that we're too similar for any romantic path to ever work out. Crossing the carnal bound destroys the beauty of this unconditional devotion we share, but realistically the real reason is that we'd drive each other mad and probably murder each other or commit joint suicide.

With all that said, if you ask either one of us, "Do you love each other?" the answer is a completely effortless "yes."

So, happy birthday, Mr. Soon-to-be Dr. Shawn Westmoreland. Oh yeah, and please work on that "Fire Exit" demo because it's fucking long overdue, damnit!

On mix cds

I love mix CDs. When I was a kid, we had mix tapes. I doubt there were such things a mixed phonographs though, so I don't know what my mom used in her youth...

They tell you a lot about the person who gave you one and likewise, can serve as a means to express yourself. I recently got a kick ass mix CD from none other than Tim Young all the way from London for the purposes of an upcoming Contrast Podcast show:


Contents will be revealed close to the show's airing.

Over at the NIN forum Echoing the Sound we do CD exchanges as well and I have to say I've discovered a lot of "new" music I instantly liked through this activity. The collection of international stamps and packing material is a source of entertainment as well.

This is the best avenue for such an expression of individuality. I call these types Category I. You're only loosely related to the one you are sending the item to (in the above case pod casters and NINers), because it's an organized event there's no expectation of reciprocation, and most importantly, physical distance protects you from the emotionally damaging eye roll or reactive violent punch that indicated that your person had the thought "Motherfucker. What kind of shit is this?" after scanning the track listings.

Now with close friends and family, these perks are meaningless because if they really did think to themselves, "Motherfucker. What kind of shit is this?" they'd tell you to you face, but probably wouldn't punch you. Furthermore, you're most likely aware of what they want in the first place. You get the picture. This is Category II

As a side note, my close friend Shawn got a whole freaking Mp3 blog and pod casting site from me. That's how special he is. Seriously, that's the whole reason why the Adzuki Bean Stash got started in the first place. Shawn and I would religiously trade music on a regular basis until he was shipped off to Kansas for grad school and it got to be an expensive hobby. Now you know. He's Category Alpha.

So here's the grey area (which can border on uncomfortable). You've either got a new friend or acquaintance that you do interact with and you need to make a mix CD for them. These guys are Category III Either they've asked you for new music, or you want to perk their interest with some of your demos, maybe they're getting it as a low steaks gift (who doesn't like new music?) or perhaps you want to open their eyes to the wide new world of underwater drumming...whatever the reason. You may not know their tastes well enough to compile something that you feel confident that they'd like.

On the other hand, they're not close enough to tell you if they don't like it. Upon asking them if they liked what they heard, they'll usually give you a cringy-looking smile and go "Oh, it was...nice."

Or, they just ignore you for a while and hope you forgot that they ever got the CD to begin with. That's the small issue.

I was discussing with a buddy at work about a bigger problem that has cropped up in the past with this Category III demographic: the potential mishaps involving lyrics and song title interpretations on their end.

I'm sure you've all been there before. You're getting to know Person A and for whatever reason you felt the great need to put NIN's "Closer" on there. Because you were lazy you ended up duplicating the exact same mix CD for Person B whose birthday you forgot and then all of sudden in the middle of a board meeting...

Person A blurts out: "I think it's vile that you want to fuck me like an animal!!"

Person B: "Wait, you gave me the same song as Person A? I thought we had some sort of connection going...."

Person A: "You're disgusting. I don't want you drinking any of my honey that's in my hive! And I don't care about your scraped up knees."

Person B: "I thought I got you closer to god. You mean to say you didn't really want to go to bible study with me? I thought you were falling apart on the inside. I thought you were asking me to make you perfect...and you go and give someone else the same song???"

Person A: "You bet your existence is flawed...asshole."

You see how these things go. It's just a song with a good beat and nasty lyrics but then the whole fun of it all gets messed up with over-interpretation. I'm just trying to give you a mix CD out of the goodness of my heart, not to fuck with your mind or subliminally plant messages of lust or tell you I'm suicidal, dammit!

Then you get those who are truly confused as to why you gave them one in the first place or why you gave them so many songs. This is definitely awkward and comes about when you misread the gift-taking-acceptability-factor of an individual. Because I love making mix CDs, I have a bad tendency to over deliver. Someone people happily accept things from you (Category III.1), a small but appreciated number are prone to reciprocate (Category III.2) and the there are those who think you're trying to get something out of them (Category III.3). Unfortunately with the Category IIIs this is a necessary thing to evaluate and oddly mix CDs are the perfect avenue for such a test.

Anyhow, with me it's easy. The more music you get, the more I like hanging out with you. So yeah, Shawn's earnings take the cake. The goal is to be a Category Alpha with someone.

As for Jay and his 3 cd b-day gift, one for each decade I rationalized, we're gonna have to wait and see what his reaction is if any. His initial response was completely unreadable as if he forgot he's gonna be officially old in a few days. In the 3 seconds I interacted with him, I did parse through all the lyrical content in my head to make sure it wasn't as "stupid" as Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" (That's his opinion. Although I argue that Jay *is* Snow Patrol. Watch the video). I did not however, check for potential smut. I felt like I didn't need to check but given that his inscrutable verbal response was "3 cds?" I'm biting my nails a bit.

I just pray he doesn't freak out during a web developer's meeting.