i've recently noticed that i've been pretty pigeonholed by those i work with as someone who is constantly cranking kiss, poison, and various 80s hair metal 24/7. it makes me laugh a bit, and it also makes me feel like a very lame relic at the same time, and it also makes me kinda irritated to learn that those i spend a lot of time with (at least 40 hours a week) don't know me very well at all. the fact is that i don't know many people with a wider musical library than i have (yes, that was me flipping between the tom jones concert on channel 101 and the motley concert on vh1 classic last night), and i guess it's funny to me to learn about how i'm perceived by others. no, dear reader, "look what the cat dragged in" is NOT currently playing at my house; in fact, i'm listening to laika at the moment, and have been looking for some more ambient music (no, not ambien music....although you can't have ambient without ambien. coincidence? i think not). i've spent a fair amount of time lately listening to bowery electric's "beat" and "lushlife" albums. if you are unfamiliar with them, go to www.playlist.com and search for them. they're fuckin' great. while you're at it, search for laika, too. the song i have on right now is called "almost sleeping" and it's cool as hell. another favorite of theirs is a track called "kitty cat bone". check it out. while you're at it, you can find my playlist at playlist.com - search for the user name j.six and you'll find me. and yeah, there's motley on there, but there's also tom jones, portishead, jellyfish and the cure in there as well.
i've rediscovered one of the greatest (or at least one of my favorite) instrumental tracks; nine inch nails' "a warm place." that song is so perfect; i wish trent would put out an instrumental album that is in that vein. then again, if he has, i hope that you'll let me know. one of the best concerts i've seen was nin on the downward spiral tour just before closer was released as a single. marilyn manson was opening up for them, too. their first record had just come out, and while i didn't know any of their songs, i LOVED them in the same way i loved kiss and motley at first sight. they were nowhere near the potential they'd eventually reach, but they were so, so good. that entire show was amazing. sadly, a few weeks after that show, i'd be faced with the regular occurrence of eleven year olds coming into the record store i worked at in search of the cassette single that goes "i want to fuck you like an animal." i tell you, once you've had a kid ask for a song in that manner, it's life altering. i felt like i lost my cool band just then. bummed me out.
one thing that i've been thinking about is the pretty hate machine album. trips me out to learn that it's 19 years old.
yep. nine-fucking-teen years old. wow. i have a feeling that "something i can never have" will still bring out the same chills it once did.
anyway, that's it. what have you been listening to lately?
j6
so, mrs sully has spent the week in sweden; the rink that she's teaching at was featured on swedish tv, which is pretty cool, to say the least. i got to see the video, and you can see her skating around, teaching the kids in the background. way cool. she'll be home monday evening, but she's pretty worn out, to say the least. it seems that she'll be invited back for next year, which is really, really cool.
i, on the other hand, have had a hell week. i'm not going to go too far into it, but the best analogy i can come up with is that of the baseball player who isn't taking all kinds of performance enhancing drugs when everyone else around him is. i've been incredibly angry about things that i've discovered over the past week; to the point that it's been very, very, VERY difficult not to cave one particular person's face in. i wound up taking thursday off (which is my "friday") because i simply couldn't deal with the idea of going in to the office and dealing with more of this horseshit. i've provided my proof of what's going on, and i'm sure things will be investigated, but frankly, i expect nothing to come of it; those that are doing the investigating aren't all that great at looking at these kind of reports, so yeah, i expect that nothing will change.
so yeah, it's been a really hard week, and when all of this came to light on tuesday, i got home and caught the warm, inviting aroma of dogshit. i set one foot in the house, caught a whiff of such a lovely bouquet, and wondered why the house smelled this way. especially when my son was home all day, and was about ten feet from the offending area. let me repeat that; my son was home all day.
....what. the. fuck.
oh, and of course, it wasn't a little bitty one; oh no! it was massive. and not the firmest, either. so after completely losing my mind, i cleaned it up (thankfully, it was on the tile) and i proceeded to get drunk. looking back, having a massive mound of dogshit sitting in my house, unnoticed or attended to by anyone but me, seems very metaphoric for the week.
i can say though, that my weekend was nice; since mrs sully was away, i decided to spend money that i really shouldn't, and finish painting the living room. i figured that'd be a nice surprise for her when she got home. i guess i'm very fortunate in that our tastes are similar, and i'm pretty good at putting a room together when the vision finally hits me. so i really don't worry that she's not going to like it or anything. she had an idea of what i wanted to do, so it shouldn't be a huge shock or anything. i'm sure that she'll be really happy to see what i've done with the place.
yes, of course, it's been filmed. enjoy.
the quality is a bit pixellated, but i wanted to keep it at a manageable file size. truth be told, i probably have more fun making the stupid film of the project than the actual project itself, but that's okay; the house gets taken care of, and i get to have a little fun. it's also nice because the boy helps a little bit, and he's good help. his masking tape skills are supreme, and i hate prep work, so it works out nicely. i've got some ambitious ideas for how i want to paint the bedroom, so i'm sure we'll get to that one soon. once that's done, i'll just have the boy's room (and bathrooms...oh, and the kitchen...and....). that's okay, once i get an idea of how i want to go with a room, i think it comes out okay.
anyway, i've gotta hit the hay; i have to...ugh. work in the morning.
fuck.
filmed in august/september of 2007, this was the documentation of the guest room makeover.
i've taken an inadvertent blog hiatus. sorry! hm. so, what's happened since april? uhhhhhh, a lot? stuff? nothing much? i think it all applies.
various guitar work:
- found a sweet US jackson custom shop neck that is so Robbin it's retarded. it's going to have a firebird created around it.
- chandler tobacco burst strat body that's really Warren-like and a chandler maple strathead neck to go with it.
- chandler Nagel project has REALLY hit a screaming halt. ugh. i think it'd be easier if i had a proper paint setup.
- i also won a mike learn painted guitar body on the jcf. here's that:
mrs sully went to visit her gramma in may (sadly, her grandmother passed away a few weeks after mrs sully got home). while she was out, the boy and i painted part of the living room. here's some info about that!
so why did we only paint part of the living room? well, because i'm not exactly sure how i want to do the rest of the room; i knew how i wanted the filmed walls to look, but was very on the fence about the rest of it. thankfully, it doesn't look irritatingly unfinished.
fishy came to visit in june. we had a lot of fun, and we probably would have had more fun if i didn't hurt my back. here's a video of us at manny's (where else?)
at the time of this writing, mrs sully is currently about an hour north of stockholm, sweden. one of her skating clients is originally from there and moved back. she's helping out at their rink and is teaching at the skating summer camp that they normally go to. pretty freekin' sweet if you ask me. what a kickass opportunity; i'm glad that she was able to go. perhaps while she's out (about another week), the boy and i will finish painting the living room. i'll have to do a few mockups in photoshop (that's what i did with the first painting job). i'm thinking of painting the ceiling chocolate (the darker color in the video), and i'm a little nervous about it.
hm, what else? ummmmm.....oh! i was in dire need of sunglasses (the pair that i had went through the wash), and i was lost. lost in the sea of not being able to find a pair of shades that i liked. then a word came to me as if it were sung by a choir of the loveliest of ladies; aviators. i've had a few pairs over the years, and i'm sorry, but there's just nothing cooler. so here's me, the shades, and lappy.
best 13.89 i've spent recently.
been listening to a mix of chill/trip hop music; specifically the new portishead and a disc by a band called young galaxy. check 'em out:
then it came to me; who the hell says it has to be 100% non fiction? no one, that's who. granted, some of it may lose its appeal if the names are all changed. i mean, really; no one will care if i called ricky stixx of notley clue because my pal september was writing notes with his own blood as a result of being blasted on crack. see what i mean? anyway, i'm kinda kicking it around in my brain.
a few more bits; the boy and i got to go see the white sox when they came to town a couple of weeks ago, here's a video:
and finally, we went to go see the dark knight friday. one word; holy fuck, that was an amazing movie.
well kids, i hope that was worth the wait. gotta go get ready to meet some friends at manny's. after all, it's saturday night.
VI
because we all need it. besides, it's been 3 months since i've done anything here. sorry. i found a little waterslide decal kit and went for it.
just a photobooth pic that i messed with in photoshop. mainly messing with contrast, burn/dodge and sharpening.
is it wrong to write up your Q3 development plan after you've had a few shots of jameson and a 4 pack of guinness?
i thought not.
more later.
