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for fanclub members only: BEWARE THE BLACK SAUCER MEN!

march 24, 2005

<ritual primal scream> UAAAAHG GHAAAAAGH AUUUAAA AAAGGHAAAH!!!!! </ritual primal scream>

first interview 1:00 - 1:18 PST. absolutely no idea how it went. guess i'll find out tomorrow. the journey of a thousand miles begins etc......

okay, let's have a vote: who thinks this place needs one of those cheesy guestbook things? Or barring that, a BB like everybody else seems to be doing these days? an "online community"? [ecch, there's that "C" word people from Berkeley love so much...]

if i were clever i would install some sort of comment script like haloscan here...but although i am indeed very clever, since this is my 'blog...i am lazy. this is the 'blog which is full of unwashed laundry and dirty dishes. and no haloscan. sorry. use your GD'd email ferchrissake.

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march 23, 2005

okay...i now have an amazon wishlist. go there to see what a f?!king degenerate i am. yes: i am a secret progger. except not so secret to those who know me.

i am noting that the main weblog page has become a splash page of sorts, and this archive page is the place where i post updates. somehow that may be cognitively dissonant, or even "wrong". ah well, c'est la vie.

i just had an idea. well - two ideas. i think what i'm going to do is create a "links" link in the navigation menu, so that it's not buried on the "info" page but accessible sitewide. then, i think i will create a "lyrics" link and separate it from the "sounds" page. i'll keep links to lyrics next to sound file links of course, just for completism's sake, but i'll give the lyrics their own individual page [they already have their own directory].

this is the kind of crap that webmasters do. the singer in me is all like, sitting on the carpet of the rehearsal studio, drawing insulting cartoon caricatures of the drummer in his lyrics notebook, wondering when the impromptu sectional is going to end so he can start singing again.

in other news...an editorial opinion/review

juliette lewis: almost as good as O, and nowhere near as good as H.

what the f?!k is it w/ hollywood actors thinking they can all of a sudden be rock singers? it shows a certain disrespect, it does. if only most of them were half as good as lemmy kilmeister is an actor. face it, he is an anomaly - even frank sinatra, who may have been the next best thing to jesus christ as far as singers are concerned, was a fucking crap actor. which one would never expect, from his phrasing alone, but there you go - it's a different discipline. the best actor in the world isn't automatically a singer, you have to work at it on a whole other level. same thing with singers trying to be actors.

actors who try to sing in rock bands, much like rock singers who try to be actors, come off as stilted - as poseurs - as dilletante wanna-bes - as stereotypes - as not really getting it. with very, very few exceptions. believe it or not, people like lemmy k., russell crowe and courtney love are in a small minority of successful cross-platform performers because they are complete artists. [also, lemmy may not be human.] i do not mention polly harvey because f?!k man...hal hartley. hal fucking hartley. he could turn a fucking trash can into a shakespearean actor. which is not to say that polly harvey is a trash can. her acting was quite bearable. she seemed to have made some sort of effort, which is remarkable.

at least shatner and nimoy knew they were a joke. and hasselhof had the good sense to do it in another country, one that's culinarily challenged and had more or less self-destructed its own culture long ago.

writers who think they are musicians are bad enough. at least they can laugh at themselves. mike moorcock and mick farren have only drugs to blame; stephen king did everything short of posting a banner above the stage eight feet high that said "we are not musicians!" i respect such humility. and i daily search my soul for grounds for believing that i might actually be a real writer. i do not take it for granted.

what sparks such vitriol you ask? my favorite ever, EVER punk rock band being indentured to back a hapless posette acting like a lead singer for an indy film that never happened...so she dragged them on the road to pretend to be a band in the clubs.

and she SUCKS. she sucks worse than a black hole. like a suppurating gunshot wound. she is in fact absolutely 'orrible. and the band was diminished as a result. you could see the pain in their eyes as they went through it.

you'd think they would know better, having not only scored for film, but also having cameoed as a club band in a major film.

sad about the actress/posette, because i truly liked her as a thespian. no more...no more. if i so much as see an advertisement with her face in it - i'm tearing it up.

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march 17, 2005

happy birthday p.

i finally found the scraps of paper with my most recent lyrics that have music set to them, so some time this evening i will upload them as HTML documents and add them to the "lyrics" directory. sound files will of course follow ASAP.

if you are one of the lucky few to have in your possession e. rader/blind watchmakers digital media files of any kind that you do NOT see here at BWM.com, please let me know as i would like to make them available here.

as i have mentioned before, i am in the midst of changing day jobs, and desperately need any leads you can throw my way. you may refer to my portfolio for resume, work samples, etc. there are also writing samples here.

thanks for your help. your continued support ensures the continued existence of chez rocco, where you [well, some of you] may stop over free of charge in our bohemian digs on your way through seattle, enjoy a home cooked gourmet meal and a soak in our luxurious hot tub. chez rocco: B & B to discerning touring rock bands and other itinerant artists since 2001.

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march 15, 2005

so...here's the thing.

back in, oh, what was it...when i got my first "real" job in my life, at the age of 34, by which i mean i was not standing behind a cash register and i actually had people working under me, and was thought to be "managing" something...so about six years ago or slightly less, i designed my very first web site, the prototype BWM site, at a free hosting service with ads called Xoom.com. there were lots of cute fonts, loud colors, and embedded wav files. sorry.

anyway, not long after that, let's say for the sake of argument around 2000, i started my very first blog at [now Google-owned] Blogger.com. i ranted, i raved, i linked. it's still there, somewhere, probably.

then a supportive fan with her own web space heard my cries of frustration with Blogger and offered to host me. i bit, and for a few years i let the world know about my madness. i wrote about all the important things. politics. sex. religion. pets. gender dysphoria. rock and roll.

then our host became semi-reliable, and just in case my hostess moved to another server, and gave me space there. i was making enough money to float her a twenty here and there every few months, for her patience. for awhile being the master of 2 domains, i made one strictly political, the other strictly personal. i ranted. i raved. i linked.

recently, unreliable server space no. 1 went completely south, 100%. i may have a partial archive of it somewhere. today, i have been completely unable to log in to blog no. 2, even to get web mail or delete spurious comments. i fear that the hostess, wonderful lady that she is, is busy doing far more important things.

which leads me to this place, for which i have paid my friend gene a nominal sum of my own pocket change to inhabit, with my "real" name/identity, and which heretofore has solely existed as a sort of info portal/e-commerce site for my rock band leader/poetry chapbook publisher hats.

not much chance of server blackouts here [knock on wood] as gene actually answers his email, although there have been upgrades that have temporarily locked me out for 2-3 days. the usual one might expect when doing things at a delightfully bargain price.

did i mention that there isn't any server-side dynamic publishing technology [as lovely as all that can be] here to speak of? that i'm simply uploading re-edited HTML documents? like "they" did in the "olden days"?

sure it's a pain in the ass. it's a pain in the ass like making your own greeting cards, which my wife does most beautifully. it's far from cost-effective or efficient. it does, however, give one the satisfaction of complete control.

in the next few months i may, in fact, attempt to figure out how to start my very own cgi directory, etc. etc. ad nauseam. maybe even get myself a creative commons ™ thingy. it's all so very fucking marvelous, to be sure, as r. crumb might say.

but for now, i will continue to attempt to construct a mnemonic memory circuit using stone knives and bear skins.

spock out.

[return to alpha]

march 10, 2005

uploaded extremely rough sketch first dump of return to zero. lyrics here. vocal melody is mine; i decided to take 50% of the non-lyric writer's credit since the rest of the song is one bass note and a bunch of samples. tony, if you need more than that plus producer's credit...send an email to the complaint department, baby. uh, but you should know tony came up with the title. so maybe i should give him the framed double platinum when it arrives.

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march 7, 2005

NEW 'MUSICIANS WANTED' AD HERE - contact us at info [at] blindwatchmakers [dot] com

[ed. note: i may never live down the fact that, however briefly, i mentally transposed rick buckler and bruce foxton.]

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march 5, 2005

man, F?!K getting a "better job". there's only one job i'm good at. [besides writing concert reviews really well...]

get your ass over to the live concert review of The Girlfriend Experience at Studio 7 in Seattle, 3/4/2005.

these guys are doing what i want to be doing.

in a little while i will post another ad - perhaps slightly more attractive than the self-effacing piece of crap i posted a few weeks ago.

march 04, 2005

uh, that 'get a new job' thing i was talking about?

sooner? okay? thanks.

earlier that same day...

today's mood: either blandly lugubrious or lugubriously bland

you wanna know what's great about blogging the hard way, like this, without a huge cgi interface? just typing a bunch of HTML into a text editor and uploading it? [call it handblogging if you will]...

what's great, what's awesome about it is...

no freaking comment or trackback spam.

i am also currently ruminating over the meaning of mister sharkey's brilliant opus regarding the nature of friendship.

it's true. hell - percy & slim wrote a song about it too. not as catchy though. all those damme "carnatic melodies" and all that.

as always, if you haven't a clue what i'm talking about — don't worry, if i explained it, you wouldn't be that excited.

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march 03, 2005

hooray for the "latest trunk build" of firefox! my div{overflow:auto} mouse wheel scrolling woes are wealed! huzzah.

except...on my mac, which does not enjoy the having of a mouse wheel, the up/down arrows will not scroll within the div. so, it's either buy a new mouse unicycle, or...

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march 01, 2005

while we are waiting for the next interesting BWM-related thing or things to happen...guys, i need a new job. badly. i know i wanted to start my own web design & consultancy business but i need a new source of income STAT. the current situation is destroying my quality of life due to stress.

if this is anybody at work or my boss reading this...uh, hi.

what i'd really like is a PAID WRITING POSITION. and NOT ad copy if at all possible. a copy editor position would be great. telecommuting would be greatest.

[return to alpha]

apropos of nothing...why does this div {overflow:auto} thing NOT function with a mousewheel? huh? can someone explain THAT to me???

of course, in order to explain that to me, you would need to understand, or more importantly, to care.

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february 28, 2005

that's me on the bus
sorry for the outage. everything should be back to normal now.

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february 26, 2005

a few additions to the sounds page. not new, but maybe new to you.

also, sounds and SOP now have.....PAYPAL™ BUTTONS! that's right -- you can now literally throw money at this mad misadventure. isn't capitalism heartwarming?

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february 25, 2005

for those of you who are curious...
some other trouble i've been getting myself into.

not to mention this.

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february 24, 2005

TADA - i have at long last XHTML-validated the SOP page and, somehow, have managed to sufficiently beat into submission that damned self portrait that was making the whole page invisible in IE. i don't know whether i have enough patience left to squeeze out of my soul, to help me jump through one more flaming hoop to make this web site IE compliant. !@#!$!?!!@#%!

now to go and do the same thing throughout the rest of this atrocious web site...

in other news...maybe this is just lame, but i was excited to [belatedly] discover the "div {overflow:auto"}" tag today, the results of which you will now see in the "div id='main'" sections.

i am sure 13 year old designers have known how to do this for, like, ever.

geek geek geekity geek.

assuming the S.O.P. page is no longer broken in your browser, go there. i am adding something in increments. something free of charge. take advantage of it while you can.

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january 29 2005 - IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR PUGET SOUND MUSICIANS

UPDATE: Never mind, too late now, the show is like this weekend or something. You people suck. Just kidding. Sort of.

MUSICIANS NEEDED.

i need guitar, bass, and drums for a half hour opening slot in 5 weeks in Olympia. Possibly at a small club down there, possibly at another unannounced location, supporting some friends of mine who are on tour.

thank you for your time.

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