GroovyMojo Music Discovery Podcast 1

Links to music appearing in this podcast:

• Sexy Panties by Lokumu, off his album A Beautiful Night
• Outer Shpongolia and Levitation Nation by Shpongle off their album Nothing Lasts … But Nothing Is Lost
• Happy Pills by Younger Brother off their album The Last Days of Gravity
• Marijuana by 1200 Micrograms
• Angelic Particles (Buckminster Fullerine Mix) by OTT off his album In Dub

I’m happy to announce that I have an anthology of my stories out and available for the Amazon Kindle.

“God, Time, Perception & Sexy Androids” features 27 of my short stories, written over the last 30 years or so – all completely revised and updated for this book.

Trying to come up with a title for this thing, we batted several ideas around, considered using the name of one of the short stories, but then finally I kind of summed up a thread I found among the majority of the tales. 

There’s a lot of what-if stories dealing with religion and/or the occult, several time travel fantasies, and a good dose of sexy androids.  And the one major thing I seem to explore among just about every story is the mystery of perception – what’s the difference between what we perceive, and actual reality?  Is there a difference?  Does our perception of something actually affect reality?  Can we change reality?  Are there other realities?

Or, basically, “What is reality?” 

That’s been my favorite question to explore since I was a teenager.  That and all the facets of reality – free will, destiny, synchronicity, and ultimately existence itself.

And, also, what is perception?  Do we alone perceive things?  If we program a machine to observe and recognize, is it truly perceiving?

This pretty much marks the end of my short story writing career.  I know you should never say never, but unless this anthology actually takes off, I’m going to concentrate on both longer, and conversely much shorter, works of fiction: novels and flash.

…which hopefully makes up for the fact that I’ve been a slacker about writing it up.

Bonus:  John Cleese of Monty Python fame reports on the same thing…

As a precaution they did a test for the H1N1 virus, which involved sticking a long cotton swab up my nose and then dipping it into a test tube.  I may have it backwards, but I think she said, “Red is bad, blue is good.”  I cracked a joke about political orientation and thought nothing of it.

I can’t have the dreaded Swine Flu, I thought.  The media reports that it’s deadly and that you’ll be horribly ill and in the hospital.  What I had, I thought, was a bad cold which turned into a sinus infection.

Well guess what.  I do have the Swine Flu.  I tested positive for H1N1.

And, also, I have a sinus infection.

Because of all the fear mongering going on about this dreaded flu, I have been taking extra vitamins and washing my hands so often you’d think it had become a compulsion.  Maybe because of that, and also maybe because I’d gotten the regular (not H1N1) flu shot, my case is ultra mild.

My lungs are clear.  I never ran a temperature.  Two of the things closely associated with the H1N1 infection didn’t affect me.

What tipped off my doctor’s office that I might have it was the fact that I was having hot and cold flashes, that I was feeling bodily aches and pains (though not severe), and I did have the occasional dry cough.  All my other symptoms were those of the sinus infection.

Because the onset was last Sunday it was too late to give me Tamiflu, and she said the worst of it was already past.  True, because today I feel 80% better than I felt yesterday.  I’m now on antibiotics for the infection, and am cleared to go back to work next Monday.

So as a layman, and not a doctor, here are my generalized recommendations, being that I’ve gone through this:

1. If you feel sick at all, stay home from work so you don’t spread what may be H1N1.
2. If you’re an employer, don’t require or expect your employees to work when they’re sick.  Allow them to work from home whenever possible.
3. Take lots of vitamins as directed by your health advisor.  Well nourished is well prepared for any sickness.
4. H1N1 doesn’t seem to be that bad a flu, it’s just far easier to catch, and so it spreads to more people.  Any flu can be dangerous if you already have health problems – this one doesn’t appear any more dangerous, except that it’s easier to catch.  So don’t work yourself into a panic about it – the stress of worrying could end up being more dangerous to you than the flu that you’re worrying about.

Personally, I am wondering how many people have had it, or will have it, and never notice.  I wouldn’t have.  Its a fluke that I got tested.

Communism, cold-war paranoia, and a missing high school (Morse Science High has disappeared!) add up to the strangest, funniest, and most bizarre comedy recording ever made.

“The Howl of the Wolf Movie!  Presenting honest stories of working people portrayed by rich, Hollywood stars!”

It’s on UTV … “For YOU, the viewer!”

And don’t forget…

“…you can believe me, because I never lie … and I’m always right.”

What the hell does all this mean?

Well, your guess is as good as mine.  But if you’re an intelligent person with a strong affinity for the bizarre, you’ll enjoy it.  Immensely.

“Stop calling me Fred.  My name’s Adolf!”

This tidbit from the legendary Newt X sums it up perfectly:  “Don’t Crush That Dwarf is unusual for comedy, in that, rather than focusing on live monologues or studio gags, it’s a unified concept album that encompasses the full space of an album (both sides of the original vinyl) and comes together more like a novel than a joke. The story that unifies the piece features George Leroy Tirebiter, who is handed some food physically THROUGH his TV and finds himself involved in an unfolding story of a life in hell.”

To really try to explain the story and its ramifications is almost impossible.  You simply have to listen to it.  Better yet, listen to it with a bunch of friends.  Then sit around for hours analyzing it like the best and more interesting deep piece of philosophical literature you’ve ever heard performed on tape.  This is Shakespeare from the drug-addled 1970’s.  This is Goethe’s Faust filtered through Thorton Wilder’s Skin of Our Teeth. This is, as mentioned in the album itself, “Parallel Hell.”

“I’m going to cut off the soles of my shoes, sit in a tree, and learn to play the flute!”

Here’s the strangest thing – and I would take advantage of it if I were you, quick, before it gets corrected:  On Amazon.com they sell the album as a digital download for $9.99.  Right?  But it only has two tracks on it, both over 20 minutes long, and if you buy them singly you get the whole album for $1.98 (99 cents a track).  Ooops, somebody goofed!

This is my favorite of the Firesign Theater Albums, closely followed by The Giant Rat of Sumatra.

Another pitfall is choosing to pursue something that, in the end, you lose interest in. The time in your life is finite, and it’s a shame to waste that time and energy chasing something that turns out to be a whim. That’s why it’s best to take some time up front, studying, to discover what it is you really want out of life, before you dedicate a lot more time working toward it.

It’s like that Talking Heads song Seen and Not Seen, where the guy spends years slowly changing the shape of his own face to an ideal, which — halfway through — he decides isn’t what he really wants.

Here’s what I did, and it worked for me. Maybe it will work for you as well.

Spend a couple weeks making a list of the things you really want out of life. Don’t be afraid to think big. What is it you really want?

Don’t worry about listing them in order, and if you think of something else later, you can add it in at any time.

My [highly edited] personal example:

• See New Zealand
• Get a really good camera
• Write for a living
• Become a gourmet chef
• Paint pictures
• Pursue photography
• Own a Starbucks
• Live in a beach house
• Own a Bookstore
• Learn computer programming
• Learn database programming

Make sure you don’t lose this list. I kept mine on my Palm Pilot, because I carried it with me everywhere. You can keep it on your computer, in a blog, or in a notebook you know you won’t lose. It doesn’t matter where, just as long as it’s accessible and safe.

Now, over the course of the next 6 months to a year (or even longer if you’d like), go down this list and rate your desire for each one on a scale from zero to ten, using decimals if you so choose. Do it at least once a month. When you’re done, you’ll have a list of numbers beside each:

• See New Zealand – 8.2/3.2/5.6/9/8.8/6.3/6.6/7/8/10
• Get a really good camera – 8.1/9/9.3/4/5/6/3/6.6/8/10
• Write for a living – 7.4/9.3/8/9/7/6/9/10/9/10
• Become a gourmet chef – 7.2/2.1/3/4/3.4/4.3/8.2/4/5.3/4
• Paint pictures – 6.7/8/4.4/3/0/2/4.4/3/6.7/0
• Pursue professional photography – 6.5/9.9/8/2/0/2/3
• Own a Starbucks – 4.8/0/1/0/0
• Live in a beach house – 9.5/8.2/9.8/8/9/8/7/8/10
• Own a Bookstore – 4.1/0/3/0/2.7/2
• Learn computer programming – 1/1/0/2/4/0/0
• Learn database programming – 1/3.4/0/1/2.3/4/1.1/1

You can see immediately the goals I’ve consistently craved over time are things like a beach house and a really cool camera (I’m leaning toward either a Nikon or Canon digital SLR). One of the things obviously a whim was my desire to open a Starbucks of my very own.

Now, average each one up and sort them highest to lowest:

• Write for a living – 8.5 Average
• Live in a beach house – 8.4 Average
• See New Zealand – 7.3 Average
• Get a really good camera – 6.9 Average
• Become a gourmet chef – 4.5 Average
• Pursue professional photography – 4.5 Average
• Paint pictures – 3.8 Average
• Own a Bookstore – 2.0 Average
• Learn database programming – 1.8 Average
• Own a Starbucks – 1.2 Average
• Learn computer programming – 1.1 Average

And there you go. You have a well researched list of what you want out of life. Concentrate on the top of the list, and forget about everything averaging below a seven in your ratings.

I did this about three years ago. I’ve achieved the top item on the list, and am now working toward the others. (Being that the camera was so close to being a seven, it’s still on my list of goals, but it’s a lower priority.)

Now, right in the middle of all this, you may stumble into something else that fires your rockets. Add it in. Pursue it a bit. Study it as well.

The most important thing is to make sure you enjoy it, and keep enjoying it. It could turn out that something on your list (that you’ve wanted for over a year) will suddenly drop off after you’ve started pursing it. Maybe something you pursued while you were making your list takes its place.

It’s okay. If you feel a passion for something, and the passion doesn’t fade, you may not even need to make a list or study your long term desires.

If that happens, then I am happy for you! Go for it!

If not, then at least you have a solid place to start. And everything you do, learn from it. If you can do that, then nothing is wasted, and you’re living your life to its fullest.

An email showed up this morning warning me not to feed grapes or raisins to dogs, and I thought … oh that’s BS.  I’m checking Snopes.com.

But sure enough, it’s true.  It can cause their kidneys to fail.  So I read on and found a number of things we eat that are poisonous to our canine family members:

• Grapes
• Raisins
• Chocolate
• Coco
• Macadamia Nuts
• Onions
• Potato peelings and green looking potatoes
• Sago Palm (Cycad) House Plants
• Anything containing the sugar substitute Xylitol.

I don’t currently have a dog, but plan to adopt one again someday, and I’m going to keep this list handy (and updated here on the web) because I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg.