Return of the Ghost of Los Blues Guys

You, of course, already know of the legendary Los Blues Guys, the band that nearly everyone was in, a decade or so ago.

I'd like to tell you the most important thing about Los Blues Guys:

We didn't suck nearly as bad as you remember.

I was fooling around with some old cassettes and some recently-acquired audio hardware and software today. I thought it might be fun to find a live LBG performance and see what I could do to it with modern software.

This is the first and only song I played, on the first cassette I picked up:

Texas Flood

It was the kick-off song for our second set at ArmadilloCon in 1992.

I can promise you that you've paid good money to hear worse music. We were at the height of our unnatural powers.

It's being hosted by my nice friend Bradley Denton (sick of that phrase already, aren't you, Brad?)

Vocals and drums by Bradley, bass by Casey Hamilton (I think), and guitar-wankery by, well.... me. I'd like to warn you that there's a lot of loud drum playing and vocals, and especially, guitar-wankery in this song.

It's raw as sushi. Brad sounds amazing, IMHO.

The tape was incredibly messed up. A buzz that was louder than the music, and cassette hiss like a cobra spitting at you. I got rid of those. The mike was at the back of the ballroom, so it picked up every bit of crowd chatter to be had. I couldn't get rid of all of that without badly messing up the overall frequency curve. Sorry about that. Would have done better if I'd had more time.

I kept the process simple, quick, and dirty, so you'll hear it much as the original audience did.

I have complex memories about Los Blues Guys. I always felt stressed, anxious, and vastly under-rehearsed every time we got up. We didn't carry off every song on wings of creative genius, to say the least.

But sometimes we rocked the house.

******************
Software tools used:

Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 10 for recording, de-hissing, and noise-reduction.

Reaper 1.37 used for editing and processing. There will be much more here about Reaper from me in the future. It's a mind-blowing app that you will soon own if you have any desire whatsoever to make music with your computer.

VST audio-processing plug-ins: Voxengo VoxFormer, TLS Maximizer, TLS Pocket Limiter, Voxengo SPAN.
******************

Pathogens

This administration has fought aggressively against oversight of their corporate cronies, chief among them Halliburton, whose share price has soared as billion-dollar contracts have been thrown at them. And now we are learning that Halliburton has been providing contaminated water to our soldiers over there.

Go here. Watch the video. It's sickening, the kinds of things they are getting away with. This has to stop.

A sky thick with stars

(image via NASA: Saturn eclipsing the sun, taken by the Cassini probe. In the larger image, you can see Earth just outside the main rings, to the left of the planet.)

(Also, an apology to Caroline, for encroaching on your Saturday. Yesterday I procrastinated, and then we had unexpected visitors for dinner, so I didn't get my post out on time.)

My love affair with science began in second grade, when one of my classmates' dads took several of us to a local park one summer night to do some star gazing. He had a telescope set up; looking back, it was probably about a four-inch reflector. All I knew then was that it was big and black, and perched precariously on a tripod, and we weren't supposed to touch it, but just step up on the foot stool, lean very carefully over the viewer, and peek through.

First he showed us Saturn. He pointed it out to the naked eye and told us that was a planet, and explained how a planet was different from a star. I remember looking at that faint white fleck about halfway up the sky. It was pretty unremarkable, really. Just another dot among many. But when I peered at that same fleck through a glass, I thought I was going to pee in my pants from excitement. It was no fleck -- it was a world! With rings! And its own moons!

And then came Mars. That little yellow speck, it was actually orange, and it had ice caps! And then the moon, my God, it looked so big, and all those craters! Some of the craters even had craters in them! It was like I could almost reach out and touch it! We were all so excited, we crowded around and asked for multiple turns at the scope.

While we were still reeling from this new reality, talking excitedly among ourselves, he turned the scope to the deep sky, and showed us just how many stars are really out there. I’d thought I knew – I’d looked up at the sky many times at night. But I hadn’t had a clue. The sky was thick with stars. Every tiny inch of space up there was swimming in them, all piled one on top of the other, stretching out forever in all directions.

And every single one of those dots was a sun. And every single sun might have its own worlds, each with their own moons, each possibly with their own life forms. Perhaps there was even a creature somewhere out there, peering back at me through a glass. I thought my brain was going to explode.

For me, science, and its spiritual sibling, science fiction, have always been a source of hope -- a hope grounded in reality, based on persistence, patience, and competence. No matter how grim things might seem, I could look up at the stars and know that there is a whole universe of discovery and possibility out there.

Jack Williamson gave us that. He lived in a land of big skies and big ideas, and he had an optimism annealed by unblinking integrity and a love of humanity. He supported aspiring writers -- I will never forget the time that he came to a reading of mine, simply to support me. I'll never forget his generosity of spirit.

One time, you know, a meteor landed in his back yard. I thought that was pretty cool. If you live to be ninety-eight, the odds accumulate that weird things will happen to you.

He will be sorely missed.

Postscript: I fear that my mention of Jack feels rather tacked-on. I had most of this post mentally composed and ready to write before learning of Jack's death. I had been reflecting on my love of science, technology, and SF, and how it has seen me through this past twelve years of our country's slow creep toward fascism. However bad things got, I could look up at the stars at night, and believe there were other times and other places where things were better. Faint echos of Susan Palwick's FLYING IN PLACE -- escapism is a very valuable device, when things seem grim.

But for me, Jack Williamson does stand for the best and brightest in science fiction. He was a renaissance man: educated in the arts and in the sciences, a creature of the enlightenment, a believer in the ability of rationalism and its fruits to help us solve many of our societal ills. People say he was a gentleman, and that's exactly right, but that label seems a poor approximation to describe his unfailing kindness and his thoughtful engagement with the world. His influence looms large among us in science fiction, both fandom and prodom. We are far better for his having lived.

The Twelve-percenters

(I’ve been told by friends that no matter how good the situation is, I always look for the cloud around the silver lining. They may be on to something . . .)

I should be happy. I should be freaking delirious. But I’m not. I’m cranky.

Yeah, I know, the Dems took the House and the Senate. We took six governorships and got Rummy fired.

And heaven knows watching The Little Dauphine mince to the presidential podium as if he’d just been kneed in the nads by a significant part of the voting public and then watching him having to make nice with the same Democrats he’s been shitting on for the better part of six years . . . yes, that was gravy.

And yet, I am not filled with joie de vivre.

The reason is, well, lemme ‘splain . . .

See, down here in the Lone Star state, we had a five-way race for governor.

The current governor, Rick Perry a.k.a. Governor Good-hair was being challenged by four competitors: Chris Bell (boring) (D), Carol Keeton Strayhorn whatever-the-heck-her-name-is-now-as-she’s-been- married-more-times-than-Erica-Kane (I), Kinky Friedman (I wear a black cowboy hat and smoke a big cee-gar so you know I’m quirky) (I), and the Libertarian Guy who pulled 1% of the vote and couldn’t get an invite to the only debate between the other four yabos (L).

Here’s how the voting shook out:
Perry: 39%
Bell: 30%
Strayhorn: 18%
Friedman: 12%
Random
Libertarian
Guy: 1%

A whopping 61% of voters didn’t want Rick Perry in office. But there are no runoffs in Texas, so we’re stuck with him. (Perry’s the kind of well-dressed, impeccably-coiffed guy who you just know uses too much JOOP! cologne to cover up whatever his real man–scent is, no doubt, a cross between the hot fetid smell of sexual deviation and the corpses of his political foes.)

Now the reason Strayhorn (former (D), former (R), now (I)) was running as an Independent instead of as Republican (aside from her personal loathing for Perry) is that she needs political power like a junkie needs a dime bag. With Perry in her way as the Republican candidate, Strayhorn bolted from yet another political party to run for office. She’s spent 30 years as a career politician and ran her campaign as an “outsider.” The mind reels.

And then there’s Kinky.

I’m not here to debate Kinky’s motives for running. Perhaps he genuinely thought he could make a difference. But in the grip of his fevered ego he failed to see that he was in no way suited for the job.

The problem with dewy-eyed political wannabes like Kinky and his campaign manager’s former boss, Jesse Ventura, is that they don’t understand that governing is harder than running for office and getting your picture taken. Governing is damned hard work -- even in the weak governorship we have in Texas. But the governor has a powerful bully pulpit and putting the guy who filed ethics charges against Tom Delay in charge of that bully pulpit might have, you know, Sent A Message.

Kinky ran the “Kinky: Why the hell not?” campaign and sadly a whopping 12% of voters here bought it. Enough voters that had they voted for Bell, Texas would have a Democratic governor right now. Imagine how Dubya would’ve been walking had that happened.

Sour grapes? You bet your ass.

Kinky is a buffoon. A professional buffoon. He led a band called the Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys which I think is hilarious. But I don’t find it hilarious when the same guy is cracking wise about how to fix the manifest problems in this state. We’re 50th in just about everything, except executions where we’re number one with a bullet . . . okay, lethal injection, but you see where I’m going. I think Kinky was concerned about these issues, but you have to know how to fix problems and how to implement those fixes. (And, no, his Five Mexican Generals Initiative, no matter how he cares to spin that statement now, doesn’t count.)

I watched the debate between these candidates and let me say, none of them covered themselves in glory. Strayhorn was jaw-droppingly bad. When asked, she couldn’t name the newly elected president of Mexico. (And if you don’t understand why that’s bad, stop reading now.) Perry and Bell tried to out dull each other, and Kinky, well, for a guy who is an alleged wit and a public speaker, it was nothing short of an embarrassment. You can see the debate here, if you’ve got the stomach to watch it.

The people who voted for Kinky weren’t interested in making a real statement. They could have done that had they voted for the person who could have won and made a difference.

And just so you know, Chris Bell is not an exciting guy. He’s not going to make women swoon and throw panties and subpoenas at him like Bill Clinton. (Bill, call me . . .) But Chris Bell is a big part of the reason Tom Delay isn’t in power right now. And for that alone he deserved a grateful nation’s vote, much less a few cranky pants in Texas. If Kinky voters had really wanted to clean up politics, they would have voted for the guy who actually did something about the appalling corruption in Texas.

Yes, all you Kinky voters, you had your “protest” vote. And you insured that that asshat Rick Perry stayed Governor. You showed those in power that you were just as easily manipulated as they thought you would be. For you twelve-percenters out there, let me say, Job Well Done. You voted for the clown. The spoiler. The guy in the black hat. I mean, good grief, didn’t any of you ever see a Western? The guy in the black hat is never the good guy.


P.S. I don’t hate Kinky. I actually think he’s a talented guy who has done some real good in the world. He founded the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch which has done amazing work saving animals. Personally, I think the best measure of man’s character is how he treats animals. And by that standard, Kinky is absolute aces.

And These Are Just the Novels

Jack Williamson






Series
Legion of Space
1. The Legion of Space (1934)
2. The Cometeers (1936)
3. One against the Legion (1939)
Three from the Legion (omnibus) (1980)
4. The Queen of the Legion (1982)

Legion of Time
1. The Legion of Time (1938)
2. After World's End (1939)

Humanoids
1. The Humanoids (1949)
2. The Humanoid Touch (1980)

Seetee (writing as Will Stewart)
1. Seetee Shock (1950)
2. Seetee Ship (1951)

Undersea Eden (with Frederik Pohl)
1. Undersea Quest (1954)
2. Undersea Fleet (1955)
3. Undersea City (1958)
The Undersea Trilogy (omnibus) (1992)

Starchild (with Frederik Pohl)
1. The Reefs of Space (1964)
2. Starchild (1965)
3. Rogue Star (1969)
The Starchild Trilogy (omnibus) (1980)

Saga of Cuckoo (with Frederik Pohl)
1. Farthest Star (1975)
2. Wall Around a Star (1975)
The Saga of Cuckoo (omnibus) (1983)

Novels
The Alien Intelligence (1929)
The Girl from Mars (1930) (with Miles J Breuer)
The Green Girl (1930)
The Stone from the Green Star (1931)
Golden Blood (1933)
Xandulu (1934)
The Blue Spot (1935)
Islands of the Sun (1935)
The Fortress of Utopia (1939)
Realm of Wizardry (1940)
With Folded Hands (1947)
Darker Than You Think (1948)
Dragon's Island (1951)
aka The Not-Men
Star Bridge (1955) (with James E Gunn)
The Dome Around America (1955)
aka Gateway to Paradise
Wolves of Darkness (1958)
The Trial of Terra (1962)
The Reign of Wizardry (1964)
Bright New Universe (1967)
Trapped in Space (1968)
Jamboree (1969)
The Moon Children (1972)
The Power of Blackness (1975)
Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods (1979)
Manseed (1982)
Lifeburst (1984)
Firechild (1986)
Land's End (1988) (with Frederik Pohl)
Mazeway (1990)
The Singers of Time (1991) (with Frederik Pohl)
Beachhead (1992)
Demon Moon (1994)
The Black Sun (1997)
The Silicon Dagger (1999)
Terraforming Earth (2001)
The Stonehenge Gate (2005)

born April 29, 1908, died Today, November 10, 2006

He goes before us to pave the way--as always.

Caroline Spector: Queen of Snark

There's a woman who leads a life of danger....

Caroline Spector is not happy. And she's going to tell you about it. At length. And you are going to laugh at her.

Now, just to be clear, Caroline is trying to make you laugh. She wants you to laugh. She knows that if you laugh you are twice as likely to get the point. She knows what the Daily show knows. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you're a whiny nobody.

Caroline is the Queen of Snark. As in Snarky, like it says at Wikipedia: a portmanteau of "Snide Remark", loosely described as irritable, backhanded or "snidely derisive." If you go to the OED, well, there's just a picture of Caroline.

An example from Democratic Underground:

During Bill Clinton’s campaign against Poppy Bush, there was one thing that his campaign managers kept hammering away on: The moribund US economy. The “It’s the Economy, stupid” slogan was born and written in large letters in the campaign war room.

It’s time for a new slogan.

Personally, I think “It’s the Stupidity, stupid” has a nice alliterative ring to it, but since that might sound like too much of an ad hominem attack on the person currently occupying the White House, perhaps we should go with “It’s the Incompetence, stupid.”

Formerly an assistant editor at Amazing Magazine and an editor of RPG modules, Caroline has published three novels, Scars, Little Treasures, and Worlds Without End, as well as non-fiction gaming books. She will have a story in the first volume of the new Wild Card trilogy, Inside Straight, along side such luminaries as Walter Jon Williams, John Jos. Miller, Michael Cassutt, Walton (Bud) Simons, Stephen Leigh, Kevin Andrew Murphy, and others, edited by George R.R. Martin and Melinda Snodgrass.

As you can tell from the photo above, Caroline plays bass (and cello and vocals, too) in bands that other members of the Brainoids (note to self: come up with better label before am snarked to death by someone) have also played in. (Link -- scroll down.)

She also thinks she can play pool, but we are all entitled to our delusions.

Above photo courtesy of Keith Stokes and the MidAmerican Fan Photo Archive.

(Caroline Spector NAKED.)

That's Right. You're Not from Texas.

Dear [Name Withheld]:

A few days ago, while speaking before a mostly friendly group of colleagues, I uttered the sentence, "Texas was readmitted to the Union in 1870, and we haven't caused any trouble since."

I expected that sentence to elicit a chuckle, which it did . . . but what surprised me were the boos and hisses.

Wounded, I put a hand to my chest and asked, "Whatever can you be thinking of?"

But of course I knew. They were thinking of you.

Frankly, this has gone on long enough. So I'm asking you to come clean.

When you're born in Connecticut . . . go to prep school in Massachusetts . . . become a cheerleader at Yale . . . attend business school at Harvard . . . and currently live in Washington, D.C. --

Well, I don't think you get to call yourself a Texan. And I certainly don't think Texas should have to suffer the boos and hisses resulting from your behavior.

Oh, sure, you've taken some long vacations here (such as when you were Governor). But if that were enough to qualify you as "Texan," then we'd have to include every retired Minnesotan who owns an RV . . . as well as half the Saudi royal family.

Besides, every true Texan knows that brush-cutting is not a recreational activity. Real ranching ain't playtime, son.

Barbecue. Beer. That's what Texans do for fun.

But I wouldn't expect a Yale cheerleader to know that.

Sincerely yours,

Bradley Denton
Manchaca, Texas

P.S. Yes, I was born in Kansas. But I've lived in the Lone Star State for the past eighteen years. And I'll be happy to whip out my Texas credentials and compare them to yours any day of the week, Bubba.

P.P.S. Two words: Ann Richards. SHE was a TEXAN.

I Feel Good Today

Steve and I talked about political blogging when he was starting up EatOurBrains, and he was able to gently steer me away from posting my pessimistic outlook at that time.

I believed that the Dems would be allowed to take maybe 10 to 12 seats in Congress, maybe three Senate positions. The rest would be bluntly stolen, via blackboxes, voter suppression, and apathy. I thought the US was over with.

Yep, I'm a paranoid idiot. Ain't it terrible? The Dems have taken the House and, likely, the Senate. I'm soooo embarrassed that I was wrong.

That said, I keep checking to see if there's a cloud inside the silver lining. I do NOT believe that the authoritarian criminal assholes that have wrecked my beloved country for so long have given up the fight and things will now be flowers and bunnies in the meadow.

We still have to deal with a broken media, a Supreme Court that's a hair away from being dominated by theocrats, and monstrous corporations that care for nothing but profits, no matter who gets hurt or killed in the process.

I feel good today, because I'd thought that our system was so broken that elections had become the kind of phony shows that the USSR used to have. Today, that's not the case, especially if the Dems have the balls to force changes in the election system, so that complete and easy theft of national elections is simply not possible.

I feel good today, because I'd thought that the American population had become too uneducated, too propagandized, too inert, too blinded by fear, to practice democracy anymore. You get the government you deserve.

Maybe we we only get two years to do something lasting, but you can do a lot in two years. Especially if you own a lot of Governorships and State legislatures. Which the Dems now do.

Hell, maybe we can even stop a senseless, meaningless war if we put our minds to it.

I'd thought that this war, and the ones to follow, would likely grind on for a generation, with the draft, of necessity, reinstated to feed new bodies to the ever-growing war machine .

I feel good today because I'd thought the battle was completely over and we were just pretending that we aren't owned. Now, I think we still are in terrible danger, and that it can go bad again vey quickly. But, right now, this year, we have a chance to make something good. I have hope, where only despair existed before.

....Everything changes so fast these days; the curve of technological change is going asymptotic, and maybe cultural change, too, so anything I say here today will be woefully obsolete almost immediately.

But, I feel good today.

Because, today, for the first time in three years, I'm not trying to figure out how to get my daughter safely out of the country before the war machine kills her.

Love to you All,

Rory

Sic Transit Gloria Austin: Here Comes Maureen McHugh

Our Wednesday Child (Full of Woe?) Maureen F. McHugh is the award winning (a Hugo and a Tiptree, 2 Locus, a Lambda and many nominations) author of novels China Mountain Zhang, Half the Day Is Night, Mission Child, and Nekropolis. Her short story collection Mothers and Other Monsters was shortlisted as a finalist for the Story Prize in December, 2005. (You've got to respect a prize where the runners up get as much money as I did for selling my first novel.)

I first met Maureen on an exotic island somewhere off the west coast of England. Way, way off the west coast of England. Okay, it was within eyesight of Cape Cod. We were both teaching at Viable Paradise IV, the week-long SF & Fantasy workshop on Martha's Vineyard. Back then, she had unruly, tightly-curled hair, glasses, and this whimsical smile. She still has the glasses and the smile--and the hair, too, but it's straighter now.

The first day she stood up before the assembled instructors and students to give some quick rules for work-shopping critiques. I'll never forget what she said for two reasons--because of what she said and how she said it.

"Say something that is both true and useful." Also, on the subject of receiving critique: "Your story is like an organism, crafted in the lab, that you are releasing into the wild to see how it fares. You are observing its behavior, its ability to function in the wild. You cannot intercede on its behalf. You cannot protect it from attack. You cannot explain it to other organisms when they don't understand it. You're there to see if it succeeds or fails and how and why."

(I'm paraphrasing on both of these as VP IV was at the tail-end of the last century and who can be expected to remember stuff they experienced in a previous century?)

But as I said, the other thing that got me was how she said it. Her voice changed and I had to sit up suddenly, fighting an urge to snap to attention. Affable, yes. Easy going, yes. Spine of steel? Also, yes.

She's in the middle, this week, of moving from Cleveland, Ohio to Austin, Texas. A change this extreme may induce a degree of culture shock...but I'm sure Austin will recover.

Sona si latine loqueris!

I'm sitting here posting while surrounded by boxes. The moving van is coming in about twenty-five minutes. I'm looking for the perfect Latin phrase to describe my predicament, because it's a lot more fun than actually dealing with the move.

People always said Latin was a dead language, but when I was a kid, there were people who still spoke it. They tended not to have kids and pass it on because they were priests and Cardinals. I'm not saying that none of them had kids, but I suspect if they did, they kept quiet about it and didn't have a lot to do with the kid's education. The Synod of Bishops stopped being in Latin in 1999 but the current Pope is fluent in it and Vatican documents are still issued in it. There is a person at the Vatican whose job it is to decide what the official Latin term is for stuff that wasn't around when Latin was still spoken at home over the family dinner table. (The Latin for 'spaceship' is astronavis, and for 'jumbo jet' the term is aeronavis capacissima. I'm sure there are Latin words for cell phone and fax machine as well.)

I went to Catholic school from second to sixth grade and although much of the experience was unfortunate, it did instill a belief that there was something about Latin. Grad school classes in Medieval Lit reinforced my belief. Really, really smart people spoke Latin. It proved one was classically educated. I never actually studied Latin. I was told it would help my spelling but I think my spelling is pretty much beyond help. Still, I am way more amused by a site with useful Latin phrases than I probably should be. I just really like the idea of being able to say, in Latin, 'I'm not interested in your dopey religious cult.' Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.

Unfortunately, even after I try to commit a phrase to memory, I forget. So I'm off to buy doughnuts for the movers.