16 Year Old Me Doesn’t Rage…And Hates Hippies

I had two initial thoughts upon hearing the new Clutch album, Earth Rocker, for the first time last night.

The first one was: “These lyrics are cheesy, even for them.”

Followed immediately by: “But damn! This album rocks!”

Luckily the first in no way detracts from the second. In fact, Clutch’s lyrics have often tended to the side of that magically delicious food that my doctor now tells me I should avoid, as it’s bad for my cholesterol; it’s one of the the things that endears me to them, actually. Luckily, my doctor suggested no such restrictions on my listening habits as he did my dietary habits.*

I was more glad for my second thought, as I had thought their previous album was a little lacking in this respect, and I’d seen enough examples of other bands that have been around as long as they have—20 years at this point—start to lose their edge after a while. It’s understandable to a point, especially for hard rock bands, as the energy that sustains that edge is easier to muster up when you’re in your 20s than when you’re in your 40s. (Note: I don’t believe the same to be as universally true for heavy metal bands, as energy and aggressiveness are defining characteristics of that genre; whereas there are plenty of sackless “hard rock” bands who’s only primary defining characteristic is a distorted guitar.)

In thinking about the new Clutch album, it got me further thinking about the style of music, and other bands that I’ve listened to that I could most closely equate with them. And I came up with two (at least one of which Clutch fans are going to hate me for): Rage Against The Machine and 311.

The RATM comparison is probably more obvious, but I include 311 because the quality that I feel all three share that none of the other bands I ever listened to regularly at some point in my life ever did is that all three are (or were, in 311′s case) hard rock bands with a solid and definable groove. While all three bands have it, all three stem from different influences: Clutch from blues and blues rock, RATM from hip-hop (although this stemmed largely in part to Zack de la Rocha’s vocals), and 311 from reggae.

What I found myself wondering, once I reached this conclusion, was why I’ve found Clutch more endearing for a longer period of time than I did the other two.

The answer: those cheesy lyrics.

All three bands have some excellent music, albeit to differing degrees. And 311 only up until their self-titled album, which in retrospect I find to be the clear delineation of when they started to suck (much like Metallica’s black album or when the Red Hot Chili Peppers wrote “Under The Bridge). But Rage Against The Machine were busily raging against whatever social or political shortcomings struck their ire at any given time, which was never something that interested me (not to mention exhausting, even just to listen to). Even to this day, where I have a slightly elevated interest in such things, I still strongly tend more to a “live your own life and laissez-faire” style lifestyle. You’d think that’d land me square in the camp of 311′s reggae-hippie philosophy. But while there’s one aspect of hippie culture I can identify with (the pot), generally hippies are just plain annoying. Amber is NOT the color of my energy.

Meanwhile, while sometimes straying into territory that RATM might cover, when their at their best Clutch are singing about Camaros, Dokken, playing music loudly, and being tougher than the devil. All things that are just…well, cool.

If you think that sounds like 16-year old me talking, you’re not entirely wrong. Some of this might be a backlash to when I discovered RATM and 311, which was in my college years, which was a time where discovering new music you thought was cool came with the caveat of also hoping that others thought you cool for liking it. It was that period of time where claiming you liked a band prompted self-reflective questions like: Will people ridicule me for liking this?, or Will having this album in my collection get me laid?

Luckily, this was a phase I eventually grew out of, returning more to my teenage years reasons for liking music: because I just fucking liked it. 16-year old me played music loudly and like Dokken, and while I neither owned a Camaro nor was tougher than the devil, these were things I’m sure I would have aspired to at that age.

So maybe I like the new Clutch album because it brings me back to those good old days. Or maybe I like it because it just rocks. Either way it doesn’t matter. I just like it, and that’s all I care about.

—

*Not that I’m particularly paying much attention to said dietary suggestions.

I’m Alive And Well…Where Am I?

Wow! It’s been almost an entire year since my last post. I guess I’ve been what you could call…what’s the word?…slacking. I’ve got no excuses. I suppose I could try to say I have reasons, but in this case, reasons would just be excuses with some attempts at arguments to support them.

I suppose what it really comes down to has been a matter partly of nerves and partly of motivation.

The nerves come in because as I’ve done this less and less as time has gone on, I’ve felt more and more like I had nothing really to say here. Nothing interesting to talk about. For a while I’d try to write. I’d sit in front of the computer, looking at a blank screen, listlessly typing a sentence here, a paragraph there, and then deleting it all, thinking it total garbage. As anyone who follows a creative pursuit—writing, music, art, etc.—knows, this kind of block can be very frustrating, and very disheartening. You question yourself. Have I lost what little muse I’ve had? Why bother continuing if it’s going to be this hard? I’ve played guitar for a lot longer and more consistently than I’ve ever tried any kind of writing, and I’ve gone through plenty of these down periods with my playing. And I’ve had these same questions then, too. But I’ve never thought about giving that up, and the reason is simple: because even in those down periods I’ve always wanted to play; I’ve always enjoyed it. Writing is a whole other animal for me. It’s never been as easy, even in the good times, which has made it easier to not do. But even then, there’s always been that slight itch, somewhere down deep to get back to it, to try it again. Because in those rarer moments when it does work, man does it feel good!

Stephen King says that to be a writer you must write every day. He never specifies that you have to write well, but you must write. I don’t consider myself a writer, and by his definition I’m obviously not one. But I see his point. Writing is like a muscle—any creative art is really—and if you don’t exercise it, it atrophies. I don’t know how long this will stick for. Maybe a few weeks, a few months, maybe no longer than this post. But that itch has been a little stronger recently, and I’m thinking why not try to give that muscle a little exercise. Who knows, maybe I’ll get back to the point where I enjoy it again.

And that leads me to the motivation part. It’s easy to lose motivation when something’s hard to do. It’s easy to allow yourself to get distracted by what’s on the TV, what funny Youtube video is making the rounds this week, a night out. So what I need to find for myself is that motivation. For anyone that follows me on the social medias, I’m obviously motivated enough for 140 characters on a Twitter or some pithy posts of Facebook. Maybe TOO motivated at times. But brevity is easy. Fleshing out thoughts into something blog-worthy requires a little more work. But thoughts I have, and plenty of them. Maybe it’s time to give them some air, some light and water, and some room to grow. Hell, it wasn’t very difficult for me to spew out this particular work of sub-genius. And they don’t all need to be high literature—looking over some of my more recent (relatively speaking) posts, they’re have been some about pornography and my $240 boots (both of which are still part of my life). And I’m OK with that.

So internets, hopefully I’ll see you soon. Until then, it’s Miller time!*
———-

* By “Miller” I obviously mean a glass of Basil Hayden on the rocks.

Dad Porn

Before the age of the internet, growing up in the suburbs as an adolescent teen there were basically four types of pornography in my life.

1) Scrambled HBO porn. This was for those of us who’s parents that didn’t want to pay for those cable channels that showed the good stuff late at night. It was different back in the day, not like now. Nowadays, if you don’t pay for a channel, it’s just black when you try to go there. Back then it was scrambled. Which meant that you could hear it, but couldn’t see it…except for that occasional shot of what might have been a scrambled nipple. Back then, that was enough. But who are we kidding, back then a slight breeze was enough.

2) Woods porn. A time honored tradition of finding dirty magazines that someone, usually the older kids, would leave in some hiding place in the woods. Near my house, that hiding place was in a hollowed out log in the small patch of forest by the end of my street. That’s where I saw my fist copy of Oui magazine, pages all stuck together from what I hope were just the elements. I don’t know if I’m ashamed or proud to admit that when I grew older, I carried on the tradition of woods porn, by leaving some selections of my own in that same hollowed out log.

3) Friend’s older brother’s porn. Everyone had a friend who had an older brother. And that brother had porn. You know who you are, and you know what it was. Miami Spice II.

4) Dad porn. This was the ultimate myth. The legend that your dad had porn hidden somewhere in the house, which, if you could find it, would be yours to enjoy. I know in some cases this was true. In the case of my own dad, it either wasn’t, or his hiding spot was too clever. I know this because I searched for it one day.

I searched high and low, all over the house. In the workroom, behind the boiler, in the closets, under his bed. And then, in his nightstand drawer, a discovery! No, not porn. But for a teen of that age, something almost as interesting: a gun.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. My dad actually had a bunch of guns. Some rifles, and a couple pistols. And to be honest, I’d grown up with and shot most of them. But this was a gun I didn’t know about. I’d never seen it, and that made it exciting. For the most part, all his other guns were locked up in a gun closet, with the ammunition locked up in a lock box in another room. He was extremely safe about things like that.

Mostly.

Because this was also the man who would shoot at the squirrels on his bird feeders with a BB gun from his bedroom window. Also, the same man who shot me in the leg with a BB gun. On purpose. As he sent me out on a Boy Scout rifle range to put up some targets, I suddenly felt in my leg what felt like the Mothra of bees stinging me in the leg. I yelped and turned around to see him lying on the ground, pointing the gun at me. “I’m just testing the range,” he said.

The range was perfect.

You’d think that a man who was OK with shooting his own son would be kind enough to leave him some easy to find slaps around the house, but no. I had to walk all the way down to the woods at the end of the street. Because back in the day, that’s just what you had to do. Nowadays I imagine that if that same log is still there, and still being used for the same purpose, it’s by kids with a laptop and some stolen WiFi, and they probably don’t even realize they could be sitting on top of a cache of magazines so weathered by time and the elements that the most they might hope to see is a scrambled nipple.

Let’s Get This Over With

15 years ago, as the clock was nearing midnight, I spent my New Year’s Eve dancing on the seats of a booth at Bill’s Bar. I felt damn good, on top of the world…or at least one small vinyl piece of it. At 22 years old, and newly into my drinking career, Bill’s was an education for me. (For example: that night I learned that even an apparent “sure thing” can be lost to the gods of drunken vomiting, as I watched her run for the bathroom and out of my life forever.)

15 years later, with an upcoming New Year’s weekend that promises to easily eclipse that night at Bill’s, I feel I’m more looking forward for it to be over than looking forward to it. It’s funny how times change. Don’t get me wrong, I have some pretty excellent plans—in fact, the entire weekend is more or less booked—but I’m not looking forward to the tiredness, hangovers, and generally feeling crappy that’s going to fall in between.

I suppose it’s only right to cap off what seemed like a pretty busy year with a pretty busy weekend, but it does leave me wishing for the easier NYE celebrations of the past few years: an apartment, some drinks, friends, and the inevitable late night INXS dance party. Simple. Cheap.

I suppose that’s a factor as well: the money. This is going to prove to be an expensive weekend, I’m sure. But at least it’ll be a lot of money spent over the span of three days.  Not like those days gone by when I would spend $50 to get into Axis (which didn’t include drinks save for that mythical “free champagne toast” at midnight which never seemed to materialize), or the one time I spent $75 to get into Avalon. (The highlight of that otherwise unmemorable night was not the 30 second welcome in the new year speech made by special guest, Ron Jeremy, but the beeline he immediately afterwards made for the door with a blonde bimbo in tow and I’m sure some ridiculous appearance fee in the bank.) Those types of options still abound, and I’m glad I’m no longer interested in them.  I’m quite happy with the $14.75 ticket price for my evening, and even that could have been $10 had I not been too lazy to walk 20 minutes to the venue and buy the ticket there instead of buying it online.

So what am I doing this weekend? I’m glad you asked.

Friday night starts off with a pre-New Year’s Eve party at some friends’ apartment in Quincy. Cost: the price of one 12-pack of beer. That will be followed up with some hair rocking with Backstage Pass over at the Varsity Club. Cost: depends on how much I drink from their often disgusting tap lines and how many times the word “shots!” is uttered.

Saturday night consists of a New Year’s Eve pre-party (not to be confused with the pre-New Year’s Eve party mentioned above) at some friends’ apartment in Arlington. Cost: nothing. From there, it’s off to the Middle East for Mellow Bravo, Cocked n’ Loaded, Township (who coincidentally happen to currently be my three favorite bands in Boston), and two other bands I know nothing about. Cost: my sobriety, my shame, my voice.

Sunday will consist of gathering up about 20 of our closest friends for the second annual pig roast at Citizen Public House in Boston, because there’s no better cure for two days’ accumulated hangover than by stuffing yourself full of delicious pig, sides, and of course more booze.  Cost: all the remaining money in my bank account, plus a second mortgage taken out on a house I don’t even own yet.

Monday, I predict, will consist largely of a quiet contemplation into the nature of vomiting and how to prevent it.

Who have I become?

That’s what I wonder as I look at myself in the mirror tonight. It’s almost like I don’t recognize myself. I search myself, my past, my life and wonder what could have brought me to this point? I never thought I’d be the guy wearing $240 boots.

Yes, you heard that right: $240.00 boots. Not a typo, no misplaced decimal points. Not counting my suit, they’re the most expensive item of clothing I own.

But what could have persuaded me to buy them? Generally speaking, I don’t spend a lot on clothes; it’s usually not my thing. Hell, half my wardrobe is probably from Target. And the last pair of boots I bought? $12 from a Portland, OR thrift store, plus maybe another $10 for the sole liners at CVS, because with $12 boots, no matter how cool they looked, you shouldn’t be surprised at getting $12 comfort.

What it comes down to is really a couple of factors. I do expect that boots that I spent that much on (here, by the way, in case you’re feeling similarly inclined to drop big bucks on footwear: http://www.thefryecompany.com/) to be durable and last me quite a while. There is a two year warranty, so I can reasonable expect them to last at least that long. I do expect them to be comfortable, although I was fairly warned that these do take a little while to break in, a fact that I can attest to in that they didn’t become comfortable until after a few days of wearing them — up until that point I was hobbling around in them like Forrest Gump before he learned to run; now my feet feel like leather-encased superheroes. And the most important factor of all, let’s face it, they just look cool:

So here I am, a new man. A man in $240 boots.

From Boston to Austin

You’re welcome, Austin.

For what? For the two days of rain I brought with me, after your approximate 500 days of drought and heat. I know it was only five minutes of inconsistent, inconvenient light patter, but based on your recent past history it must have seemed like the biblical flood. And more importantly, it wasn’t enough to even remotely spoil my trip. Not that it was likely to.

This was my second trip to Austin, and I’ve now seen two very different sides of that town. The first time was a few years ago, and while fun, I equate it to if you came to Boston and spent your days only downtown and your nights at the bars of Faneuil Hall. Not necessarily a terrible time, but not the way I’d choose to spend my days. That’s what comes from not knowing the city, anyone in the city, or a way to easily get around the city.

The second time, this past weekend, I was going to visit my ex-roommate. She lived in a different area of the city, had a car, and has better taste. So I got to see more of the city with a native (albeit a relatively new one), and stuff more in line with my interests nowadays.

Stuff like food. And in Austin that means food trucks. I kid you not when I say that they are everywhere. On street corners, outside the bars, grouped together in vacant lots in what are known as “trailer parks”. And holy shit, Robin!, there’s some good food there. Take, for example, exhibit A:

These corn wrapped bits of heaven were courtesy of Torchy’s Damn Good Tacos. Truth in advertising.

Although this isn’t food, it is the back stove burner to the street corner shack that we got a four meat plate of damn good barbeque:

I’d like to claim that the meal was so delicious that it caused me to forget the name of the place, but in reality it was because I was drunk (more on that later).

There was also a fantastic late night banh mi (not pictured).

Luckily there was actually time enough in the day to some other things aside from eat. I mean we had to do something in those hours it took us to get hungry again. The Austin City Limits festival was going on this past weekend. Three days of music featuring the likes of Stevie Wonder, My Morning Jacket, Coldplay, Fleet Foxes, Arcade Fire, and dozens of others. We didn’t go to that. Instead, we spent much of our Saturday at Ditch The Fest, an alternative to ACL featuring all local acts, which took place over five bars and over about 12 hours from 2pm until 2am. During the day we saw a of bands, from what could only have been child prodigies with an average age of 11, to alternative, to punk, to boring indie to these guys:

BK & Mr. E

And:

Total Unicorn

This day long festival made for a day long drinking extravaganza. I did mix it up with some bourbons (especially as most of the bars seemed to have Bulleit available) and some local brews, but a large part of my day, and indeed weekend, was spent with the state drink of Texas:

Sunday held a little bit of a lot of things. I had my first (and probably only) healthy meal, saw a little more of the city (hill country and the river), watched some football (while Sara did some work), played some ping pong (badly), and saw a country band until far too late in the night (considering I had to be up at 5am the next morning to head to the airport). But the hangover was worth the eight seconds I managed on old Bessie:

The Tale Of The Quincy Cougar

It’s Friday night, Backstage Pass on stage at the Varsity Club, the air is thick with the sounds of 80s rock.

It’s Quincy.

This was a show I was on the fence about attending, as it was a particularly busy Friday evening. It was already my third set of plans for the night, after North End dinner with the family and a few hours spent at a shark week party. But in a decision made partly based on the fact a buddy of mine who lives up the street was going alone and partly based on a few bourbons on the rocks, I decided to make the trip.

And it was probably for the best that I did, as I saved my buddy from being mauled by the most dangerous of predators: the Quincy cougar.

Midway through the second set, I turn and see my buddy, standing by the bar, being stalked by the Quincy cougar and her cougar friend, as anyone who is familiar with the Quincy cougar knows they often travel in packs, often parroting their mantra of “recapturing the old magic”. Fear would be a strong word to describe the look on my buddy’ face, but discomfort certainly is not. In a decision based partly on his marital status and partly based in multiple Sam Adams, I decided to step in and deflect said cougar’s advances.

As the events played out, it was obvious that my strategy was strong. Or maybe it was my musk. Before I knew it we were dancing to the band. By “dancing”, I mean my moving accordingly as she performed the Quincy cougar mating ritual of rubbing her hindquarters against me. But as it turns out that this particular specimen was more forward than the typical Quincy cougar, not generally a subtle animal to begin with.

I didn’t remember doing the test tube shots until reminded about it the following day.  Most likely it was due to the events that followed.  Shortly thereafter she must have decided that things were not moving fast enough her, as she took my hands and put them where she wanted them.

Why yes, those are your breasts.

And maybe it was the multiple drinks talking, but those buttocks felt surprisingly supple.

I figured this would be the end of the trip she was taking my hands on across her body, but no: there was one more stop.

Hello, Quincy cougar’s vagina!

Score?

Like Backstage Pass’ second set, the mating ritual ended shortly thereafter; my work of taking “one” for the proverbial “team” successfully completed. The Quincy cougar turned and walked away, giving the front of my jeans a complimentary squeeze as she walked past. And that was the last  saw of her.

I know you may have wished for a more exciting end to the story, but perhaps it was for the best as it was painful enough to type this blog with all these open sores on my hand. Perhaps I should see a doctor, but first check out my new theme song:

A Litany Of Complaints

A word of advice, my friends: Never turn 36. If at all possible, skip the 36th year, go right to 37. Trust me, 36 is not a good ‘un.

That’s because 36 is the year where the body really starts falling apart. I can tell you this from experience. Since I’ve turned 36, just about half a year ago…

- I’ve had a god two months of consistent sore throats.

- One of which led to an ear infection, my first in more than 20 years, which led to my first ever trip to the emergency room for myself.

- The worst 3 months of winter asthma.

- The first time really suffering from allergies, including two recent attacks that had me looking like Quasimodo on a bad day.

- A pinched ulnar nerve that currently has two of the fingers of my left hand feeling numb/tingly. I’ll be sleeping in an elbow brace until that heals.

- Assorted additional aches and pains.

I’m a realist. I knew that the good times and good health of youth doesn’t last forever. And since I’m of the age where a corvette purchase and a college aged girlfriend would occasion no more than a knowing glance and a whisper of “Mid Life Crisis,” I realize that I am now in my middle age. But I do now somewhat find myself nostalgic for those carefree days when a headache was just a headache, rather than a reason to rush to WebMD and look up all their information on brain tumors.

Perhaps this is something I should try to handle with dignity, but if I’ve gone 35 years without that trait, I don’t see how I’m going to start now. Old dogs, new tricks, you know. But if I don’t plan to handle my voyage into elder statesmanship with any kind of grace, the least I can do is to do so with humor.

And at least I still have my hair.

Now where are those college girls?

I want to go to there

It’s official, I have my first vacation plans for the year. Well, it’s part vacation plans, part work, but it’s going to take me coast to coast in the last week of May and the first week in June.

First up, I’ll be heading to sunny…beautiful…San Diego! This is going to be for a work conference. Now, if I’ve never told you about my work conferences, they are great ways for me to see the country on the company dime. So far, for conferences I’ve been sent to Orlando (Disney World) and multiple times to Las Vegas (adult Disney World). I’ve actually been to two separate conferences for work, both multiple times. The first is the HDI conference, which stands for Help Desk Institute. This conference usually ends up being pretty fun, relevant to my job, and usually a pretty good time.

The other is the ACORD/LOMA conference, which is typically too boring for me to care about spelling out the acronyms for you. My trip to San Diego is for this second conference, and it largely consists of my standing in my company’s booth and answering questions about what my company does to vendors who are trying to sell us stuff. I don’t enjoy this conference as much because it has a lot less to do with my actual job. So you may be asking why it is I’m going. It is because, now having now had a couple years experience with this conference, I now have a much better idea how to maximize this experience for myself. This will consist of not attending any of the conference sessions, which two years’ experience has taught me have no discernible benefit to my actual job, and merely just doing my time in the ‘B booth. This will amount to approximately 10-12 hours of my four days there. The rest of my time I intend to spend on myself. And there are some seriously huge pros that factored into my decision to go to this conference:

1) It’s in San Diego. I’ve never been to San Diego. I’ve wanted to see San Diego. And what better way to do so than on the company dime.
2) I can watch San Diego Padres games from the rooftop bar at my hotel that overlooks Petco park. Think of them as extreme bleacher seats that combine two of my favorite things: beer and drinking beer outdoors. The view looks something like this:

3) The closing night party for the conference is on board here: http://www.midway.org/. This will combine my never having been on an aircraft carrier along with the aforementioned beer and drinking beer outdoors. This equals win.

All in all, I think this negates the cons of a generally boring conference.

From San Diego, I will be flying directly to Savannah, GA and driving out to Pine Mountain, GA with the family for this: http://www.masterswaterski.com/. What better way to spend Memorial Day weekend than with the 52 annual waterskiing and wakeboarding competition. I think it will be wonderfully hokey and entertaining, and I want to see primarily two things: waterskiing pyramids and wipeouts. I aim to have both those desires satisfied.

From Pine Mountain, my parents will start their journey north, back to Norwell for the summer, and I will return to their house in South Carolina for a week of relaxing. I’ve done this vacation a couple times before in the past few years and I’ve really enjoyed it. It typically involves a lot of sitting around, some trips into Savannah, Charleston, and now Beaufort (now that I know where the bars are), grilling, cold drinks on the back porch, and a whole lot of doing nothing in particular. As in past years, I’ll invite some people down, and am hoping some folks will take me up on it.

All in all, this is going to add up to two weeks out of the office. Long enough that I will probably forget how to do my job. But that’s not such a bad thing, is it?

The New Sneaker Theory

I’ve probably explained my New Sneaker Theory before, but if not it’s simple and goes like this: Upon buying a new pair of sneakers, you can immediately run faster.

This is a theory I put a lot of thought and fieldwork into as I was growing up. Admittedly there wasn’t much in the way of actual quantitative scientific measurement, but the results were obvious nonetheless. Upon running down the street in a new pair of sneakers the house blurred by a little more quickly, the friction burns on my face seared a bit more deeply. Maybe I wasn’t exactly faster than a speeding bullet in new sneakers, but it was a closer race.

I bring up the New Sneaker Theory because I wonder if it will convert into the New Computer Theory. Because I have one. That’s right, I’m typing to you on my brand new entirely excellent (if somewhat overpriced) MacBook Pro. And I’m super excited because I love new stuff. And who knows, maybe now I’ll be able to…compute? faster.

Does not compute? Hell yes it does!

Initial results speak for themselves. My fingers are leaving smoke trails as they fly over the keyboard. I’m spell checking via telepathy. I am the internet!

You can do a lot with new computers.

However, the one problem with new computers is setting them up. I got my new MacBook on Monday and it took me until Thursday to get it (mostly) set up. By which I mean: installing software, configuring software, and moving data over from my other two computers. You really don’t realize how much virtual stuff you amass over the years until you have to move it all. Who knew that all those 1s and 0s required so much mental heavy lifting. To be fair, some of this was additional clean up work that I didn’t exactly need to do, but decided to since it seemed like a good time. This included neatening up (tagging, adding album artwork) my iTunes and reformatting my external hard drive to be a true backup drive for the new machine.

But now I’m good to go. Mostly. There are still a few more softwares I want to install, but I need to get my hands on them first. Then I’m hoping the real benefit of the New Computer theory might manifest. While moving stuff around, it gave me an opportunity to look at some of the stuff I had laying around in my virtual closets and junk drawers. I found a plethora of old story ideas I started and never finished, some of which, while not great, I thought at least showed promise. I might try and revisit them and see if I can do anything with them. Also, once I decide upon a new recording software, I plan to start recording some rough demo ideas for a new band. I’m hoping the act of doing so is as easy as writing the sentence was. Unfortunately the recording software I used on my Dell is not Mac compatible, so I need to get a new one, and I’m hoping the learning curve will be a lot less steep this time around as I have some experience in the general type of software. I have a few options that I’m looking into and hope to decide soon.

Until then, I’ll just be enjoying my new computer.