serious progress on this. i have one more section to arrange and mix. it could be done by monday, but no promises. it's kind of what i want, though, so i can dedicate the entirety of next week to guitar parts and then finally move on...

closer. i'm mostly done the arrangement, so it's mostly just setting levels now. but i've been sleeping a lot since i quit smoking. if that doesn't lift, i'm going to have to go back to smoking. moving from 4 hour sleeps to ten hour sleeps is hugely negative.

at this point, i really don't want to be smoking anymore, so i'm really hoping that my body is able to adjust in getting me out of this horrible normalcy.

but i'd rather live to 40 with four hour sleeps than live to 70 with ten hour sleeps. if it's going to give me back 4, 5, 6 hours a day, it's a valid trade-off.

the weather is just about to turn, so i'm really hoping i get a jolt of energy soon. like, tomorrow. otherwise, i'm going to be very tempted.

the reason i started smoking in the first place was for it's properties as a stimulant. coffee wasn't working. but i was pushing myself to 40 hour days as i was working multiple jobs. i don't need quite that much. but i can't handle the absurdly short 15 hour days i've been living recently. it's just too short. i'm not productive. i need to be sleeping about half as much as i have been the last month or so.

coffee is like water to me. i need it to stay "normal". in a sense, i know it's withdrawal, but if it doesn't lift soon then it's just not worth it.

closing down the scratch pad

i set up the scratchpad as a sarcastic reaction to some requests for collaboration.

as i've received exactly zero responses, i will no longer be posting to it.

the mix is coming slowly. a few more days, probably. but i'm not making any promises.

uploading untitled to the scratch pad

sorry for the rss flood; that was actually unexpected and a little weird.

there is a temporary mix up at the scratchpad, just because i've been a slowpoke on this. it's close to being the full thing (minus the guitar solos) for the first 7.5 minutes or so. it's enough to get an idea of what i'm working on...

you really need headphones with this.

that was a heavy few days, but i got a number of things sorted out and should see my productivity increase the rest of this week

feels good to get back at it, actually. here i go...

i've actually been "finalizing" the first section for a week now. i keep listening to it, and it sounds good but i'm just not convinced. soon...

aaaand, the first doctor left me a voicemail indicating she's done the paperwork. that's no doubt a result of the threat, so it worked. i wish it didn't come to that, but so be it.

so.

that actually puts off the aspirin stunt for quite a while, at least until i get a response from the ministry.

if i get the extension as well, i can mix and match the two forms and see what is best.

but i have SOMETHING to submit, now. thankfully.

(i should rephrase that. i can't mix and match. but i can pick the best one.)

the doctor was not able to locate the forms, so i had to walk in empty-handed...

i got to the point of opening the aspirin bottle, which sent the nurse to the other room. they talked me down from it by promising to write me a letter for an extension, so i'll see where that goes.

end result: they're now aware that they're dealing with somebody that may act irrationally. i had to at least get that across. i'll have to phone the adjudication unit tomorrow to see what the result is.

if it gets denied, i'll have to pull off the stunt at the odsp office. i'm building the proper profile, at least.

i got some more forms sent, but i'd have to fax a request for an extension and i don't have time for that.

so, i'm going to go to the first doctor and ask for the original forms, which i will take to today's doctor. if i can't get the forms, it's clear what i'll have to do.

i wasn't able to get the forms, but the odsp office suggested i should get an extension if i call to ask. so, i need to go call them right now. if i get the second extension, i'm obviously not going to send myself to the hospital...

the idea is that asking for forms is an excuse for extra extensions.

so i'm reposting this for the comments about the state i'll be in when i get there. the key point is that i will not take any aspirin until i enter the clinic. the truth is that i don't even have the energy to get drunk before i go in. it's just absolute meh.

chances of overdosing tomorrow are about 99.99999%. i don't think i'm even going to have the forms. so, it's not even going to be an option. if, by some fluke, i manage to get the forms and get him to fill them out then great, but i don't expect it.

that means there are only two options for tomorrow: i come home with the forms signed, or i overdose on aspirin at the windsor city health center on mar 3, 2015...

http://musicofjessicamurray.blogspot.ca/2015/02/im-essentially-certain-at-this-point.html

i have no further appointments, and no way to put it off and hope i get the right answer. i need the papers signed tomorrow, or i will breakdown and begin to ruthlessly annoy, harass and bother whomever is around me until it happens.

annoyance: they claim you have to ask your worker for the medical forms. which strikes me as absurd.

so, i'll go in tomorrow and ask the worker...

i'm going to eat lunch first and then head out to the initial doctor to see if it's been filled out yet.

it's not like not having the papers is going to prevent me from od-ing tomorrow. it's more like walking in without the papers is a guarantee that i will.

i mean, if i can't get the papers then i can't fill them out. indicating there's no way to prevent the stunt.

250,000 hits

first impressions on the new gybe! record

i know a lot of people have interacted with them primarily - or even solely - with the slower, churchy, quebecois jam-band version of the band that was explored through most of skinny fists, but these guys really don't go down well when they're in phish mode, and really never have. they're a punk band, dammit. they work best when they're roaring and pounding and throwing walls of dissonance at you.

i hope the disc is a bit more eventful, but i haven't expected much from them for a while. really, i just hope the check clears fast enough to get another mt zion disc out before the end of this solar cycle.

ok, no. i need to maximize my opportunity. she's had a month minus a few days. i don't see any use in leaving it there an extra day.

so, i'll go on monday to see if it's done. if it is, great - maybe she wanted the weekend. if it's not, i'll have to take the forms and bring them with me on tuesday. and that'll be the stunt day.

i mean, at that point i'll have ruled out two of three possibilities, and the third will be remote.

so, it will really be an out-of-options decision.

the one thing i'll have to play by ear is if i go in there on tuesday and he decides he wants to set an appointment within a few days. but that seems unlikely. he's either going to fill the forms out or he isn't, at that point.

he might want to set an appointment for april, but that's too late.

you have to keep in mind that these people get paid by the half hour, right. so, it's like....even if they're not going to fill it out, it's worth their while to string me along.

which is basically what i think is really happening.

now, i guess if i go in on monday and she says something like "it will be done for sure by wednesday", i'll be kind of stuck. in that scenario, i guess i'll want to walk up to the odsp office and see if i can get a second set of forms.

actually, maybe i should do that anyways.

yeah.

ok. so, i'll go there first, and if i can get a second set of forms then i'll take that to the doctor on tuesday. you know, if i can get it filled out twice i can maybe take the best of the two, even.

but i can't wait longer than tuesday if neither comes back. regardless of what she says.

rip leonard nimoy

again: an important generation is entering it's twilight. spock was an awesome character, and he did it well. somehow, i don't quite think spock will ever truly die.

thoughts on the new screaming females record

sounds solid to me, i don't know what people are complaining about.

i'll suggest that the record sounds like there may have been some time spent away from jamming, in the sense that it's a bit more ordered. reviewers that have never written a song before generally tend to get this backwards by applying some kind of intelligent design theory to the ordering of sound. when it comes to this kind of rock music, "sloppy and messy" indicates that a lot of time was spent on it and "snappy and catchy" indicates that you're getting something a bit more raw. the reason is that the songs come out of the basic architecture of chords and riffs and grow and morph into big, sloppy messes. it essentially never works the other way around. this is really true of all music, but rock as an artform is especially inherently deconstructive, chaotic, unraveling...

it's normal for a band to release a disc or two like this over the course of their career. they work themselves into the discography and make a place for themselves. sometimes, they indicate a band is falling apart, but it's usually out of practical realities, and i don't get that impression, here.

the key thing about this band has always been that guitar tone, and there's really been no loss in it's crunch.

no call this week....

i'm just getting annoyed. i don't want to have to do this, but i feel as though i have no choice.

i have an appointment on tuesday (with a different doctor). i can't tell him what i'm planning because i need an element of surprise, so it's not really a factor. if i'm done this mix by monday, i'll do the suicide attempt then. otherwise, i'll give myself a few more days to get the mix done and go whenever it is - wednesday, thursday. it's just that if it goes wrong, i don't want a half done mix sitting here....

i *do* expect to be at least almost done by monday, so i'm looking at wednesday at the latest.

yeah, it's clicking. i'm back in "the zone" with this.

and, while i really, really want to do something regarding this guitar concerto idea, i'm realizing that trying to work a fuzz/sustain guitar solo into this mix is going to be difficult to the point of maybe being impossible. that may have to be left out of the final, and quarantined into it's own space.

there's just only so much sound that can exist in one space.

i mean, i'll get *something* in there. the beginning build up, for sure. but it may not be much more than that...

the final product is going to have something like 250 instruments worked into under 14 minutes.

so, yeah, it's coming up on two months. but i'm not slacking. it's just complicated.

by comparison, the last hybrid live/electronic piece i completed (in october) that took me this long (all of august and september) was only about 150 instruments over 19 minutes:

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/to-spin-inside-dull-aberrations


when you consider that i've actually got several mixes of this thing, it's more like 1000 parts over the last two months. so i'm not slacking. dammit.

the biggest thing i have so far remains that first movement. i'm not going to count the tracks right now, but the source files take up 40 gb of space of audio. i'm guessing there's something like 500 tracks worked into these 18 minutes, a large amount of it in guitar overdubs.

^ that took two years to build. although i should add that i had a job at the time.

it's starting to come together a little - i've got some horns worked in - but the sound is a lot more saturated than i realized it was going to be, so this is going to be a fairly delicate operation, requiring a lot of weaving. i've got some space at the top, but i want to keep these orchestral sounds out of the way of the bass, which is actually bleeding pretty far into the mid range due to the heavy fuzz. it's just, like, way too much stuff. i've overextended this to a ridiculous extreme. i mean, i'm trying to mix 120 orchestra pieces into what is already a crowded space...

i'm toying with the idea of throwing a techno-orchestra mix up, but i'm not committing to it until i get to a transition mix. i mean, if i end up having to mix 90% of the orchestra out for the final, it will make sense, but i don't want to put up an extra mix for the sake of a lone oboe or something...

it's going to be just flat out ridiculous, though.