Blues Project: Acoustic Previews...

These videos are acoustic versions of some of the songs I've been recording with my esteemed colleague, Michael Dunston, for our forth coming album of blues covers. We don't have a name for ourselves or the album yet [because we don't care about thinking of names as much as we care about playing music], but the album should be out in the next few month; early 2011.

"Big Fat Squid" - As seen on "Brak presents 'the Brak show' starring Brak"

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" - Hank Williams

"Built for Comfort" - Howlin' Wolf

"Stormy Weather" - Harold Arlen & Leo Reisman's Orchestra

Sultry Sultan

Sometimes I see published images that are just a few quick pen strokes from being truly completed... While flipping through a coloring book at work a few months ago I came across one such image. The look of sheer ecstasy and rapture on sultans face says it all.

Its terribly low quality, as I took this picture with my computers web cam, but I think you can still get the gist alright.

Blues Project

A few months ago, I got this great notion, to get the blues... I started finding old ass blues standards I liked and recording them. I got my close friend Michael Dunston involved, as he is the king of sultry guitaring and an audio engineer of great talent. Since then, the two of us have got about seven or eight songs at or near completion. In another few months, we will have a whole album worth of blues material. This post is pointless, as at this point, I am not yet ready to speak at lengths about the material on the album... I am excited however, and couldn't contain my enthusiasm much longer. In summation, look forward to having your sphincter blown out at the sonic gravity of our heavy hearted blues...

Painting...

This is a painting I did a few months ago... It was at the University of Tampa for the last few months, as it was in the UT Alumni art show, and then I didn't bother to go back and pick it up from the school for another month or two. But now it's home again, so perhaps I'll get around to finishing it. Originally I had intended there to be at least twice as many of the blue figures pulling on the yellow persons strings... Maybe I'll get around to adding some more...

Get What You Give

No Parking:

I fractured my clavicle a couple of days ago, and as such, have been eating a good bit of pain killers. A thought crossed my mind today and I found it to be so hilarious, in my drug induced euphoria, I spent about ten minutes making it in photoshop...

Drawing @ Work

Sometimes when I'm bored at my place of occupation, Rigatoni italian restaurant in south Tampa, Florida, I take some time to relax and draw in the host book. I took some pictures recently because I figured one or two of them would be worth posting.


Hari-kiri because of no restaurant reservations... Death before dishonor, ha ha ha...


"Chia" business man ?


I think I saw a drawing like this in my friend Cory's notebook. I liked it, so I imitated it...


The cook at work drew a green shirt on this guy whom I had intended to be topless. He also gave him a drum stick as well for some reason?


I always wished I had stalks...


Random...


Stalks and Pincers... a dream come true.


Pollo Retardo I


Pollo Retardo II


Furclops


And my personal favorite, "Sword and Sorcery Dog"...

Some old videos...

I recently stumbled across a couple of videos of me singing and playing guitar from about two years ago. They are particularly sentimental to me, as I had recorded them exclusively for the purpose of e-mailing them to my girl friend Julia, whom I was courting at the time. In an effort to force myself out of the crazy, self contained universe I've created in my head, I put these up here. I imagine i would have been terribly embarrassed in the past about how bad I suck as a singer/guitarist or how lame I am in general as a person. As it stands though, these videos are old, and I don't really give a fuck what any body else thinks anymore. Haha, on that note... enjoy:

Julia

I think this song is a bit high for my vocal range, hence my eyebrows furrowing up into a grotesque expression of stupidity through out the duration of this song. Hilarious and by far my favorite thing about this...

First day of my Life

On second thought, maybe I just do the Cro-Magnon brow when ever I sing & play? Who knows, it's not like I usually watch myself, haha...

Beat to the Punch Again...

I was in a store the other day and saw the coolest thing in the "one dollar" aisle:



Immediately I thought: "I should throw a party and provide everybody with free 'drugs' to enjoy"



The next time my guests had a bowel movement, it would hilariously resemble something more like this:



Unfortunatly, somebody else already had that Idea and it turned out something like this: Boston Ravers Hospitalized

New Animation & an Art Show

Above is something I've been working on for a few weeks here and there while I have been teaching my animation classes at that summer camp. It was made using that free, open source software called "Pencil", I talked about in a previous post, since that is what we were using at camp. Because of that, the quality suffers versus something I could do on Flash... One of my old UT professors contacted me today though and told me I should submit something to the UT Alumni Art show, so I slapped credits and music and on it and turned it in. It is not necessarily what I would consider "finished", but it's good enough for now I suppose. I also submitted a painting, but that too wasn't finished, and I hadn't taken a photograph of it yet. I'm kind of excited because it's my first show in 2010. Perhaps I'll post some photographs from the show on Saturday or something. Opening night is Friday at 7:00 @ the Scarfone-Hartley gallery on the UT campus. Come on over and enjoy the free wine while it lasts!

Metrocon 2010

I don't know why, for some reason the right side of the video gets cut off. You can just click on it though, to watch it play in youtube....

I recently attended Metrocon for the first time, Florida's largest anime convention. Held in Tampa Bay's convention center, it was a mecca for all things cartoon, video game, anime, Japanese, and just nerd in general. I must say I left the event feeling perfectly charmed, like I'd finally stumbled home. The thing about it that I found most touching was looking into the faces of the people there that were there cosplaying. For those unaware, cosplay is defined by Urban Dictionary as "Literally "Costume Play." Dressing up and pretending to be a fictional character (usually a sci-fi, comic book, or anime character)." Looking in to the [real] eyes of these awesome, super flamboyantly costumed people, I realized, underneath their costumes, they are just like you or I. Most of these people lead quiet, unassuming lives. It was as if, for one weekend, all the shy, quiet nerds of the earth could come together and be loud crazy freaks. It was great to see so many people with such an interesting culture come together and celebrate. This is a sentiment I can truly appreciate; When you are that fucking weird, it's great to know that there are other people like you out there, that you are not alone....

Oil Spill Documentary

This is a rough outline of some ideas that I sent out to some friends, maybe someone smart will step up with good ideas to sculpt this in to more than just a generic project...

Focus
-The facts about the oil spill, timeline
-Follow Oil Spill through Florida
-Effects of the oil spill on a local community [Tampa bay]
-Effects on local Business
-Who is Profiting?

“Characters” [for interviews]
-Business Owner
-Beachfront property owner
-Person being compensated for losses
-Recent retiree to Clearwater area, [ruined retirement dreams]
-A child
-Homeless [person from opposite caste than Beachfront owners]
-Artist on the artist walk at pier 60?
-Charter Boat Captain?

Interview Questions
-How has this affected you personally? [Past]
-How do you think it will affect you? [Future]
-What do you think will happen to the oil?
-How do you think the recovery will go? How long?

Staff
-Mike Dunston - Camera, Editing, Music, Excel Spreadsheet Stuff, webmaster
-Drake Arnold - Camera, Edit, Music, Graphics/Animation, webmaster... graphs, charts
-David Arnold - Executive Producer... Project Guru, Camera Man, Business Master
-Dave Arnold III - Head of Research, webmaster... Facts Checker, Research Master
-Cory Cook - Sound and Lighting... Technical Wizardry,

Oil Spill to do list
-Dedicated website, either unique domain url or blog / tumblr
-Find Investors?
-Book ritz resort motel
-Set up more interviews
-Develop contact list
-Get film release forms / Clip Board Materials

Documentary Chronological Shot Sequence [Rough Draft]
Opening credits - start with chaotic news casts to build up a sense of the magnitude of disaster?
Pre Intro - People saying poignant things, enigmatic [at this point] because the movie hasn't been set up yet
Intro - Tell about oil spill, go over timeline of events so that viewers know exactly what events occurred and what is being discussed. Created using royalty free footage of the disaster from news and media outlets.
Interviews 1 - First session of interviews, people’s earliest responses, etc.
Filler 1 – Talk about economic impact local/state… tourism, etc. Who is gaining from this tragedy?
Interviews 2 – Peoples continued responses to the oil spill
Filler 2 - Talk about other stuff, Ecological Impact, Environment, animals, Mental and physical health of residents
Interviews 3 – Final session of interviews
Filler 3 – What people are doing to help, looking to the future.
Documentary Statement – We make some sort of point about what ever it is we are trying to say, whatever we have been building up to.
Closing Statements – One last powerful “quote” from each interviewee’s, [maybe same “quote” from the preintro, but now that it’s in context it makes sense]
End Credits

Contacts
-Jane?
-Susan?
-Markus – Local Artist
-Kendra Kelly- Directed an Enviornmental Non-profit group about the gulf
*** *** 2804
kckelly2@*******
-Adam Freeman Local news reporter for channel 10
***-***-7046
adfreeman@******

To be filmed
- Interview Footage
- Consecutive shots from same vantage points of beaches?
- Same shot from balcony of Ritz resort room 30
- Pier 60, Nightly local Artists walk on the pier…

Michael Brainstorm Session
-Try to find people in the process of getting compensation from BP as opposed to the way BP makes it seem easy peasy. Stipulations, rules and regulations are strict and show people struggling to get funds for months.
-BP executive yacht playboy dude gets replaced by Mississippi homeboy guy that wants to appease his fellow down south redneck boys
-Animal rescue services… call them …show people at the source, not what is glossed over by the major media outlets. Bursts of animals moving in shore, away from contaminated water, etc…
-One set of initial questions, establish most interesting “characters”. Their story will be the most interesting… follow up with making their story as a “character” part of the over all story
- Follow increments, as they hear more news, what the environmental and economic impact will be. What the general consensus about the people will be. How things are affected.
-Health issues, physical and emotional. Anxiety from local people who are effected by the day to day news. Physical health, carcinogenic, food supplies contaminated… basic health issues associated with toxic sludge washing up on your shore
-Dead and dying endangered sea Turtles… Turtle eggs relocated to avoid species loss
- Someone that just moved, life dream to retire from NY, NJ to Clearwater… their ironic, sad retirement story…
-Charter Boat Captains-craigslist ad-

Kill yourselves now, why wait?...

Even the greatest religions of the past are now no more than mythology. There is no purpose, no reason, nothing to cling to in this abysmal existence... There is no karma... You never get back what you've put in... May our ever expanding sun gobble us up all the sooner...

DVD Authoring Nightmares

I've been trying to make a DVD with all of my videos on it recently. I don't know enough words to properly convey the complete and utter rage I've felt from this project. It started maybe two months and about ten versions of my DVD ago. My first very basic DVD was created using IDVD. I almost instantly realized the program was lacking in about every department and probably couldn't handle the scope of the project I was trying to undertake here. Mind you, it's about 30 videos, plus a lot of my other art, all my music and all kinds of retarded other stuff. After a couple of days I ditched my first project and did some snooping about on the interwebs and came to realize I already had a much more powerful DVD author software installed on my computer. Having the Adobe CS4 Master collection installed, I naturally already had Adobe Encore CS4 installed too. I next proceeded to commit myself to learning every aspect of Encore, burying myself in video tutorials and help manuals. After two long laborious weeks later I had created my first ultimate DVD project. Just as I was putting the finishing touches on it, through a freak accident I lost the project file it's self. The DrakeArnoldDVD .ncore file... I almost flipped out and spent many hours trying to figure out a way to get it back. I downloaded lots of applications that could revive files on a mac after they had already been emptied out of their trash can graveyard. No luck availed itself to me. I was going to have to rebuild the entire project from scratch.
As chance would have it though, I still had all of my source files for the project. I only lost the project file it's self but I still had all the reference files. This made rebuilding the project a good deal quicker. I already had all fifteen of my menus prepared [or some unreasonably huge number of menus for a dvd] and ready in Adobe Photoshop .psd file format. After another several days I had rebuilt the project yet again in all of it's awful glory.
You know, at this point I don't even remember exactly what happened. I just know that it didn't work. I think I kept getting errors while in the midst of the burning process. I remember trying everything I could to fix the error message for hours. I remember scouring forums, help topic pages, manuals, and everything for some solution to the error i kept getting. I kind of remember everything I read saying basically that I'd have to just rebuild my project yet again. I took a few days off so that I wouldn't rip my hair out, scream and cry uncontrollably. When I went back to start the project again I was terribly pissed and disgusted with what happened last time and that lead me to try rebuilding on my PC, as opposed to my Mac. I spent another week building up the project and putting everything back together again. The more I worked the more sluggish and unresponsive Encore would be. It got to the point where I couldn't even keep working because the program would freeze and quit unexpectedly every time I tried to open the project file or work for more than five minutes. Thats when I knew I would have to re-re-re-re-rebuild my DVD project. I wanted to lay down and cry and weep and grovel and moan I was so sad about it. What a bunch of fucking bullshit.
I was determined not to fuck with Adobe Encore CS4 again as I had just recently had an overwhelming amount of problems with it. I did more research and came to the conclusion that Apple DVDStudio Pro was probably my best bet and the most professional option I had. Once again I set about the tedious task of learning every in and out of yet another professional grade DVD authoring software. A few days and many tutorials later I was ready for action. I was impressed with what I saw about DVDSP and ready to start working on what I thought was a decent program. In a rush to finally complete my ever ongoing DVD project I literally rebuilt my same exact project from Encore in DVDSP. I used jpegs of the psd menus and just built it exactly the same. Through yet another one of those freak accidents, my dvd turned out to exceed the capacity limit by like 2 gbs. I was pissed but nothing could stop me. I went out and bought dual layer DVDs. I burned a few test copies and they actually worked [well, sort of]. After reviewing the test copies I knew there were a lot of little problems that I needed to fix. I also realized that my DVD wasn't really some 6.7 gbs like DVDSP's disc capacity gauge was telling me. I also thought about it and was like "Why am I using static images for my menu backgrounds, when I could really pimp this DVD out with motion menus. I burned myself about five copies of that version of my DVD just so I felt like my time wasn't completely wasted. Then I took another few days off from the project so that I wouldn't kill myself and everyone I loved and bury us all in the giant hole that was then in my back yard.
Fresh as a spring chicken, I took off kicking ass and taking names on still yet another version of my DVD project. Motion Menus, redesigned layouts, no more labyrinthine layout of 15 menus. Sweet, beautiful and simple. [I had so many menus before because all of my music was organized in the menus. Now It is all included as bonus DVD-ROM content, which makes a lot more sense anyways, that way you can copy the mp3's from the dvd on to your computer.] And only 3.6 Gbs this time like I knew it should have been. [I don't know why that disc gauge was reading like that on my old project, it was like it wouldn't update the gauge, even if I removed assets from my project]. I was ready to go. It took my quite a few days, but I was finally putting the finishing touches on my newly revamped DVD project last night, actually. Everything was set and ready to go. I had finally done it. I popped a blank DVD in to my external DVD drive [because I had to run out and buy an external DVD drive over the duration of this project as mine had died], and started the build/format process. Everything was running smoothly and then at 59% completion I received an "internal muxer error"...
I about lost it. I spent the rest of last night searching for ways to correct an internal muxer error until finally I had to go to bed to get up for work today. I just got home from work and the top of my list was venting frustration about this hell I have gone through. Writing this helps me feel as if I have gotten it off my chest, even though I know that no one will ever read this. It would be excruciatingly boring for the 99.99% of people out there who have never tried to author their own DVD. I can't help it though, I just want to scream off a mountain top "Fuck this cruel existence, if there is a God he must be laughing, and this shit isn't funny" I can't fucking take this stupid shit anymore.
Making a DVD is about as exciting for me as creating and ordering my business cards was. Not Very. It is something that needs to be done in order to promote myself and gain exposure, but there is nothing creative or fun about this. In total I am sure I have spent hundreds of hours working on this. My hours. Precious hours. Hours in between when I wake up, go to work, go to sleep, repeat. This shit has been my life for months. I need to get back to doing creative shit immediately because this is driving me fucking mad!!!

Wow... okay... I feel a lot ... better now. This has been a really long post, but I really needed to vent my frustration. I think it's time to grab my meager pittance of bread and water for the day and then start doing more google searches for "Internal Muxer Error"... ::sigh::

Junk Mail

There is a never ending supply of junk mail that comes to my house every day. My mail box is always cluttered with it. Half of the time it is addressed to some previous resident or just to some generic "Neighbor", "Friend", or "Current Resident". Whether it be magazines, bills, news letters, advertisements, or other various local publications, more often than not it includes some sort of prepaid postage / self addressed / business reply envelope. You might not know what I'm talking about, but I'm sure you've seen them before. They look just like this:



The point I'm getting at is this; We throw these envelopes away with the rest of our junk mail constantly. Use a crayon to draw a picture of your pet cat, write an angry letter to the company that takes all your money each month, send a picture of your family, photocopy your ass, at the very least, put something in it. What a tragic waste it is not to put something in it. They are already addressed... You don't have to pay for postage... All you have to do is stick something in it and it's ready to be sent home. I know what you are thinking, "What good does this do me?". Well its true it might not do you very much good to do this, but think of it as charity work. I'm sure it is someones job to open those envelopes. Someones poor, sad, wretched, miserable existence day in and day out. Think how it might brighten their day, and perhaps it will brighten your own...

the Braille Project

The best crackpot idea I've ever come up [within the last few days]... Braille... What a powerful word... a heavy word. A perfect name for the most bad ass band ever. A band full of blind people. They're an instant internet success. Bands with a gimmick always succeed. They're fame and popularity rise quickly. A few months later, it is uncovered that they aren't actually blind, they were just pretending to be blind for the publicity. Outrage sparks across the nation. Blind people everywhere unite on the internet to blast the band, calling them the lowest form of scum. Blind people everywhere demand satisfaction, in the blogs, on the forums, in their facebook groups, etc. It is picked up by the 24 hour news cycle during their endless quest for news, even when there isn't any new news to report. When the cry for blood [or at least a public apology] is at a fever pitch, the news breaks again. Braille isn't even really a band. It's an anonymous group of 50 to 100 people. And that is where you, gentle reader, find your moment to shine. I can supply the music, fake band photographs, lyrics, whatever. All I need is a shit load of people to help me plaster the internet for a few month with Braille pages, fan art, and general conversation of how awesome they are. Then those very same people a few months later are the ones, pretending to be blind, saying the band is totally offensive shit heads.

Now you might be thinking, "Why would I want to be doing that for the next six month?". The answer is simple. It's a big fuck you to anybody and everybody. To the dumb ass news stations, reporters, and journalists, if it were ever covered in the main media. To the band wagon jack off's who got swept up in the Braille mania and loved the band / had Braille trapper keepers or whatever. To the people who really were offended by the prank, for being to goddamn serious and not appreciating a joke. Just for the hell of trying to pull off a big stupid hoax. It's so crazy it could possibly work. It could be a huge inside joke and we're all laughing like hell at all the retarded people who don't know the truth. Because it is a fine piece of performance art with profound underlying messages, and you could be a part of it. Too bad no one really reads this... I'll never have an army of fake Braille fans...

Summer Job...

I got a job teaching little kids at a summer camp. It is quite refreshing and pleasant. I am teaching classes on "Video Game Programming", Animation, and Comic Book art. It is my first experience with teaching and I am finding that I rather enjoy it. The programs we are using are open source, which is great because they are free, so the kids can download them on their home computers as well. For animation we are using a program called Pencil. It is a lot simpler than Adobe Flash and I think it will be easy for the kids to pick up. I am also really excited about the application we are using to make games. It is called Scratch. It is wonderful for children [and adults like me] because it is what is called "Visual Programming"... That is to say, as opposed to writing long lines of script to make codes for your game, you just snap together color coded lego blocks that represent the scripts. I am terrible at programming but I was still able to learn how to program games and teach a class about it with literally a day or two to prepare myself. I have tried programming games in Flash before and it is very difficult for me. Flash's programming language is called action script, and I try to use it as little as possible, because I am bad at it, haha. It is so easy to learn because you can download other peoples projects from the scratch website and see how they put together their code to make their finished projects. You can also use scratch to do other things like, animations, simulations, interactive art, and more. Although it is difficult to make very professional looking games with Scratch, I think it is still a very valuable learning tool for anyone who is interested in learning some basic principles about programming. Perhaps in the next few weeks, if I get around to posting my Scratch games on my website, I will update this blog with a link to them, so the lone one or two readers I have can play them.

Vanilla Sky, hahaha

I've taken to wearing a mask lately, and it can be surprisingly fun to have two faces...

may 25th

Happy Birthday to me

Back Breaking

I think I've dug as deep as I'm going to get,
you just can't dig through water...

Rap Song

Listen to "Bang Bang"

DrakeArnold.com

What the hell is there to say about this? It will probably haunt and embarrass me for years to come. Since I can't write sincere and genuine lyrics, I guess at least this way I get to write something.

Bang Bang

Yeah son, I like bitches and cars,
Staying out drinkin' like a supa star.
I jumps in muh ride even when I been bingein',
Nothin' like duh feel o' that combustible engine
I care about the rims on my means of conveyance.
I gots new 22" 's, only twelve easy payments.
Done fucked so many hoe's I gots triple gonorrhea, 
And in the next line I use an ona-mona-pea

Bang Bang goes dah sound o' my gat.
You best believe dis gangsta come strapped
So you don't even wanna step to me
or you're fuckin' with the 813, bitch.

I talk like a pimp, I limp when I walk,
Keep my piece loaded, in the drawer with muh socks,
and even though I'ma hard gansta dude,
I still represent the pink and baby blue,
My style carries from the west coast to atlantic,
Hoes go down on me like I was duh titanic.
Gottsa pitbull in my yard with a mouthful of rabies
All I ever feed it... ...is babies.

Bang Bang goes dah sound of my gat.
I'll suffocate you with my giant nutsack
So you don't even wanna step to me
or you're fuckin' with the 813, bitch

Y'all know me, my name is lil' git,
Also like the Titanic, I hit ice, and shit.
If you fuck around with me, I'm gonna impale ya
with the same dick I use on the female genitalia.
Yeah, all the bitches love me,
I gots lottsa chittlins and std's
but thats cool I don't care I just kick it in my palace
and all you busket haters can just suck on my phallus

Bang Bang goes dah sound o' my gat.
You best believe dis gangsta come strapped
So you don't even wanna step to me
or you're fuckin' with the 813, bitch.

pointless

i hit water today...
it makes me feel hopeless
i need to keep digging deeper
but it just keeps filling in with water

business as usual

i was digging a hole last night
i can't remember who had started it
it was the hole I've always talked about
the shovel broke while I was digging
after that I used my hands
i could never make it deep enough

Lyrics I just recorded...

Part of it is a recipe, part of it is just random nonsense. Quite a few of the words aren't even real words, I just modified them or made them up so they would be the right amount of syllables. After my pronunciation comes in to play, it is all completely unintelligible. I believe the title translates to "Gibberish Souffle". I really wish I was multilingual, but this is ok with me too....

Soufflé au Charabia

Ehtwah, bien le fromage blanc,

Dans un saladier, mélangez au faucette,
Le fromage, blanc les juan,
Johnés, d'oeufs, et la crèmé.

Ajouater un pince, de sel et la poivréon.

Lycéens, se déguisent et Les,
Défilent dans les rues pour demander,
De l'argent, aux passants,
Ou bien leur jeter de la,
De la farine, De la farine et des œufs.

Verser dans la moule, que et la farine,
Mettez au four préchauffé, Quand il est sorti une du fou,
Se former la croute, à soufflé beurré,
Mettez au qui doit monter, Quand il est sorti du fou,
Servez-le, immédiate - ment chaud, sans - le démouler.

Vous souhaitant, une santé de fer,
Une cuisine d'enfer et des d'œufs,
il m'a dit que, bientôt on allait mettre,
Tout le monde sous, Prozac face la peur.

Lyrics...

I've been trying to write lyrics a lot lately... That's why I posted those other two lyrics yesterday. I've been thinking about it a lot. I hate trying to write poetry and lyrics. I like to write and speak more elaborately than is necessary. I'm always long winded. Lyrics need to be concise, and make a point with out using very many words... I try to turn all of them in to five paragraph essays. Also, i'm either preachy or whiny or... I don't know, it's awful. On many levels, for many reasons. I'm always trying to ram an opinion down your throat, I can never just write about "winter concrete reflection" or some stupid abstract bullshit. I've thought before of ways to get around this problem. Writing more whimsically like Keller Williams approach or They Might Be Giants... [Speaking of them, I'm going to see Keller tonight & I just saw They Might Be Giants" last night too, Thats pretty random... or synchronistic, depending on how you feel about the universe.] Anyways, whimsical to the point of novelty would be a good route to try too. I think some novelty bands our hilarious [obviously, if you know TMBG] Writing humorous lyrics like Tenacious D would just be lame to me... Flight of the Conchords does it so much better, but still, too cheesy... I've thought about finding a poet friend like Trey Anastasio from Phish and just adapting their poetry into lyrics. That would be just swell. Except I've got so many of my own words ripping my head apart. I personally quit writing poetry years ago because it was all awful, so I can't adapt any of my own. A few years ago I learned how to play a couple of the David Bowie cover songs performed by Seu Jorge from the movie "the Life Aquatic". That was fun because he sings in Portuguese. I just wrote down the noises and gibberish it sounded like he was saying and sang that instead. So perhaps making up my own language and just singing guttural noises would be fine. Perhaps singing more like an instrument and less like a human would be on point too... Who needs lyrics when you pretend you mouth is a saxophone? Ideally, I would like nothing more than to write lyrics like Bright Eyes. His stuff is so amazing, beautiful, poignant, & over all inspiring. A true storyteller.... That's never gonna happen though, his lyrics are too great... I need to figure out something quick though, because until i write some crappy lyrics I feel is worth my awful singing voice, I'm stuck in a musical rut with several new recordings... well, thats it for now, probably more crappy lyric attempts soon enough though, I hope...

The second song I attempted to sing on...

Watch the video I made for it...

Daily Programming

Everyone is a robot, we’re all exactly the same
Everyone is a zombie, we’re all the walking dead
That is exactly how they want for you to be
And we chose to be this way. We choose it every day

And it’s all our own faults
We’ve got no one else to blame
We all brain wash ourselves
Each and every single day

So say goodbye to dead religions we don’t heed them anymore
And so goodbye to our government, we don’t need them anymore
The only opiate of the masses, our the television gods
And the only regime to rule us, our are corporate overlords

Even the best people I know
Have given up all their soul
And they choose to fill that void
By watching the television

So fill your mind with advertisements, buying trash will make you happy
And fill your hearts with scripted characters; choose their company over friends and family
Give up all of your potential and replace it with complacency
Or choose to take a stand right now, and just turn off your T.V.

Cause its all your own faults
You’ve got no one else to blame
We all brain wash ourselves
Each and every single day

Each and every single day
Each and every single day
Each and every single day
Each and every single day

The first song I recorded vocals on...

Click here to listen to this song!
Click here to listen to other music

If the battle wasn’t won

I lie in bed drifting off to sleep,
Listening to the wave’s crash upon the beach.
I am but a drop of water in
the endless oceans of humanity.

I’m just one person, what difference can I make…
Am I merely dreaming, or am I awake…
How can I give back, for all that I take…
Will anyone cry for our sake…

I stand on a shore carved out by the tide.
The sky falls dark, the water turns to ice.
I am but a grain of sand on
the endless beaches of time.

I’m just one person, what difference can I make…
Am I merely dreaming, or am I awake…
Would I make changes to anything I’ve done…
Or would I just give up, if the battle wasn’t won…

If the battle wasn’t won…
If the battle wasn’t won…
If the battle wasn’t won…
If the battle wasn’t won…

We're all just people, yet we can change the world.
I won’t just give up before my wings unfurl.
I’m not just dreaming and these are not facades.
I’ll never give in; I will fight against the odds.

And if the battle is lost, than it was worth the fight.
It is better to die with answers than live with questions

I will fight against the odds.
I will fight against the odds.
I will fight against the odds.
I will fight against the odds.

Something, something... a plunger!

Today is the day for internet updates, woot! I added a new song to my website, and I even made a status update on the insufferable facebook. Didn't write anything of value or meaning... Never do... I don't have anything to update this blog with, & i don't even know why I started it, but the good news is... only three or four random crazy stalkers will ever read this, so I can be a little bit more liberal with my tongue... I've been feeling crazy lately... the only reason I ever made a website was for art. I wonder if I'll make any good art ever? I look over this crap and feel embarrassed. I should just leave my old website as an archive for all my old crappy art and make a new website that highlights the five or so good things I've ever made. Life has been hectic lately and I find myself scraping my fingernails against the walls. I'm always surrounded by people, yet always a miserable lonely wretch. I wish i knew what the hell was wrong with me... This is unsatisfactory and I'd rather bitch about shit to my journal. I'll probably remember I updated this blog in a week and feel compelled to delete this post. Until then, god bless your creepy souls, three or four stalker people... You'res all I gots....