A new beginning

Well, friends, I think we can all agree that I'm apparently not a "blogger" type guy. I'm more of a rambler. I'm an irregular rambler at that. With that in mind, I began musing as to whether or not my personal (albeit occasional) musings and other personal items belonged on the same site as my music. I decided to split the two up so that filmmakers, producers and others of their ilk don't have to sift through my personal "stuff" in order to check out my music. Now, I just send them to (drumroll please) www.composermike.com .

Now that's not to say that you, faithful reader, can't go to my other site....you're welcome to. It's just a little more minimalist, and straight to the point. It's sort of an electronic portfolio, if you will. As a precaution, I've gone ahead and secured www.composermike.net , www.composermike.org , and www.composermike.info . At this point, they all take you to the same site. I am not sure if I am going to diversify these sites or not, we'll see.

I'm also not quite sure what I'm going to do with www.mikeiscool.net . For the time being, I'll leave it up. However, I may eventually try to find another domain name....I haven't decided yet. I guess I thought it was funny having 'mikeiscool' as the domain name for a while, but it does get to be a little silly directing people to that domain name. You know, it's funny the first 50 times, then you're like, "That's a ridiculous domain name".

So, that's really all that I have to tell you. Well, there is a lot more that has happened since the last time I posted (gosh, how long ago was that). However, I'm feeling lazy enough to not actually post anymore, so, I think I'll take my leave of you now.

Ta ta, for now.

Why does the Renaissance festival suck now?

You know, for years now, it's been a tradition to go to the Carolina Renaissance Festival in the fall. For me in a lot of ways, it was kind of a part of celebrating the coming of fall and a chance to reflect on the year, the coming winter, etc. I suppose it's the whole anachronistic/"new age" vibe that gets me feeling pensive, but for some reason it just resonated with me. I'd find myself being particularly aware of the colors of the leaves, the cooling of temperatures, thinking what it must have been like many years ago to truly be celebrating the harvest and preparing for winter, etc.

I always imagined that I'd eventually bring my daughter to this festival, and she'd be taken with the same "magickal" sense that can sometimes sneak up on you at events like this. You know, for some reason you end up having an interesting, spiritual conversation with a guy who makes wooden carvings and sells them for a living, or you hear some music from hundreds of years ago being played on a hammered dulcimer and you just seem to connect (if just for a moment) with the season in some special way. We took Lily to the festival for the last 2 years, though she was a ltitle too small to really grasp it. This year, she's 2 and a half, and is at the perfect age to get swept up in the mythology/imagery of this type of thing.

Sadly, it was a complete waste of time. Not only did it take forever to get there due to the HUGE amount of traffic, it has regressed into just another one of those cheesy gatherings that's really nothing more than an excuse for the slightly too young to the slightly too old to get hammered and act like an idiot. Gone was the somewhat mystical feeling and the mystery that used to accompany the festival. Rather it felt like being at one of those downtown street festivals with about 10 bands who you've either never heard of or were famous about 15 years ago for 15 mintues. You know the type of festival I mean, the ones where some local radio station hosts it, and it's supposed to be cool but it ends up feeling like a festival that's desperately trying to be cool (and failing miserably in the process)...

Anyway, I guess we'll have to keep our eyes out for something more interesting. For those of you who are considering going to the Carolina "Ren Fest", I say don't bother. I'm sure you can find somewhere else crowded where you can buy $7 beer and even more expensive, bad food.

This "getting older" stuff sure is tricky

You know, it's amazing how you find yourself looking back at various phases in your life, and realizing how different they are from where you are currently. I suppose everyone does this, and if not, they should, as I feel it's one of those mental exercises that can provide some interesting insight into one's self. I continue to be amazed at the ever changing frame of my life, and while it's not always the easy change, I have to say that at least it keeps things interesting. See, I'm the type of person that, while I do tend to find comfort in some routine in my life, I also get jaded and bored with monotony so I tend to be at my best when I'm challenged. With that said, it would be fair to say that to have a personality like this probably means that you're going to have times in your life where you feel as though you've got so many irons in the fire that there's no more room left. It's odd because the same thing that is making your life interesting and challenging is the very thing that tends to make you feel as though there's no room left for anything else. It's an unusual dichotomy. On one hand you have the "my cup runneth over" way of looking at it. On the other hand you have the "I have absolutely zero time to do anything for myself because there's too much else to do".

I'm now about 3 months into a great, new job that is absolutely giving me the mental challenge that I've been looking for. It can be exhausting at times (complete with a full work week and Saturday night "all nighters" from 8:30pm until 5:30am), but I still feel that it's the type of environment my mind was made for. It's amazing to look back at some of the places I've been, jobs I've had, people I've known, and realize that at this moment, I've ended up here, and how in some ways it's so far from where I was at various times, yet in other ways it seems like such a natural progression.

Gee, I just realized how very philosophical I'm sounding tonight. Almost over that "takes himself too seriously" line, isn't it? Ah what do you care, you're reading it anyway, quite complaining. Apart from work and life's purpose, things are great. Lily is fabulous, as you can tell from her shrine....er.....page. She's 2 and a half and we're having a great time with her. She's definitely well on her way to becoming a fabulous, interesting person, complete with plenty of opinions of a lot of things. Looking forward to the coming fall and the cooling of temperatures.

Been having some good fortune with music lately, and have even had some music placed with the Omni hotel chain, if you can believe that. I haven't had much time for music lately, but every time I get a spare 10 minutes or so, I'll add/edit some parts of various pieces that are still in progress. As I inch along, I've got several getting closer and closer to being done. I've added a couple in the last month or so to the music page, so check them out if you like. Hopefully, I'll find the pace of things slows down a bit and I'll be able to write some more and get it up there. I've been really itching to lately, as being busy seems to create an even bigger urge to write music (almost like an equation trying to balance itself.....if that's not too "Matrix") which is ironic considering that the very thing that prevents me from having the time to write music is the same things that makes me want to write music more (I guess I'm just in that oxymoron/irony vibe tonight, huh?). Anyway, we're here, and we're livinig life in every passing minute. Here's to hoping gas prices keep falling. I'll write....whever I feel like it.

You know, I should just call this thing a "quarterly"

I mean seriously, who am I kidding? How many of my posts begin with the general sentiment of "been busy, haven't been able to post, will try to post more often"? It's kind of sad really. I suppose after well over a year of posts (yeah, all what, 4 of them) relating that sentiment, I should just give up the ghost and call it what it is: an infrequently updated blog. There, it's out in the open now, I can stop the pangs of guilt at not updating it, and you, faitful reader, can stop feeling superior as you say to yourself "he's not gonna post for another few months.....just watch". Yet another sentiment that seems to be repeated here (and will be again tonight) is that I don't have much time to post. As it is, I have spaghetti, meatballs, and home made garlic bread just finishing on the stove, so the heavenly aroma of garlic is calling me toward the kitchen. So alas, trusty reader, I will not be expounding greatly on any obscure metal bands, guitar players, computer particulars or anything else tonight. I'll merely say, hey, I'm alive, things are very well, we love our house, our daughter's 2 years old, jobs are busy (but good), we're going to Canada in a month, and about 1000 other things.

But, I hope all is well with you. If I happen to be able to post a more interesting blurb soon, I will. If not, I won't and all of us can just deal with that fact. I'll stop feeling like I'm letting people down by not posting more, and you can stop feeling disappointed that I don't post more.....deal? OK, now I'm off to eat some dinner.

"You're influenced by who?" volume 2 - Yngwie Malmsteen

Yes campers, it is I, your elusive and seemingly eternally absent poster. I know it's been a while, and yes, I know you keep hearing me say that. I won't get into the gory details here, but since my last post we have bought our first house and moved in (we did all of this over the Christmas/New Year's holiday so to say that we were a little busy during the last couple of months is an understatement). But I digress, it is time that I add to my "You're influenced by who?" series, and volume 2 begins now:

During my early guitar playing years, I was obsessed with the idea of exposing myself to music that had good guitar music in it. This meant keeping an open mind and making an effort to listen to many different styles of music, even if it meant that I didn't "get it" at first. I also made a point of reading as much as I could about guitar and music theory in the hopes of improving myself. I'd buy all the gutar magazines of the time, which were primarily "Guitar for the Practicing Musician", "Guitar World" and "Guitar Player". Those of you younger members of the audience may not remember these magazines, as I think they're all defunct now and in fact I believe they were all "taken over" by Guitar One, but don't quote me (incidentally, those of you really young memebers of the audience should know, there used to be these things called Guitar Magazines that were printed paper pages bound together with sheet music and lessons inside as opposed to 8 million useless blogs of idiots talking about music theory (usually incorrectly)).

Anyway, one day, while reading my newest issue of one of the aforementioned "mags" I came across a full page advertisement for a new album by Yngwie J Malmsteen (by the way, the first name is pronounced "ing' vay" in case you're wondering....I did too when I first read it). The add had the cover of the album which consisted of this drawing of the mighty Yngwie shooting a dragon with fire from his guitar. In a word....awesome. Bear in mind, I was still this kid who was fascinated by Dio's imagery, so this was right in line. The album in particular was called "Yngwie J Malmsteen's Trilogy" and was apparently his third offering. I had never heard of him, but after reading several rather gushy reviews of the record, I decided it was time to head down to my local record store and buy the cassette (that's right, I said cassette, there were no CDs).

Now, Yngwie was pretty much the first person to introduce what came to be known as Neoclassical Fusion to modern rock/metal music. There is some debate as to whether or not he was the "originator" and I still say that Randy Rhoads (who I'll get to in another post) was probably ahead of him, and to a lesser degree Richie Blackmore . This style incorporated the experience, technique, theory and well history of classical music with modern rock music. It doesn't sound like it would work, but if you think about it, some of the more minor dominant movements in classical music are quite "heavy" in the same way that rock/metal can be heavy (think Brahms, or some of Beethoven's darker pieces). A piece of music in the Phrygian mode lends itself quite nicely to heavy guitar, for example. Combine this with the rigorous training and practice that a true classical guitarist must endure, and you get an inevitability like Yngwie. This guy blew all the rock guys of the time away with his sheer speed. The man played guitar so friggin' fast, you could not believe it was real. He made sweep picking and arpeggios an absolute staple of modern rock/metal (something that continues to this day). When I first heard "You don't remember, I'll never forget"  (which was the first track on Trilogy), and first, I thought it was all hype. The music was a little cliche and the keyboards were a little much, it was almost "hair metal". Around 1:07 in, Yngwie does a nice arpeggio that's just enough to make you say "did I hear that, or no?". I listened through the next verse and chorus, up to the unbelieveably predictable "guitar solo" that's always after the 2nd chorus in most rock songs (for some reason), and at its onset, I was underwhelmed. Well, after the first few legato lines, (at around 2;56) I started hearing things that I did not think could be played on guitar....no kidding. The dude could flat out smoke on guitar. It was the type of playing that made you want to break all your guitars. It made me think, "that's impossible". I could only imagine his fingers must have been an absolute blur, it was difficult to imagine. Suffice to say, each track on the record had some pretty awesome guitar work (especially Trilogy Suite OP 5 (an instrumental).

Needless to say, I went right out and bought the first 2 albums (yes also on cassette) and they were even better. If you're interested in purchasing any of his records, may I recommend his first (and best in my opinion) Yngwie J Malmsteen's Rising Force as it's mostly instrumental and absolutely full of some positively badass guitar playing. Take the listen with a few grains of salt as you have to remember, this was the last 80's and metal was king, so it's a little over the top in places, but if you can filter it out, there is some terrifying playing on that record. Now Yngwie himself is unfortunately a legendary, egocentric prick. He apparently read every piece of good press and thought it gave him a license to be a jerk. I've never met the man, perhaps thousands of people are wrong, but he certainly seems to carry himself in interviews and concert footage with an unnecessary air of arrogance. But I must admit, he turned my head and challenged me to be a better guitar player. I will not boast that I have his speed, I do not and never have. It frustrated me to not be able to "shred" like Yngwie for a few years early on, but I find speed to be but one of the satisfying elements of playing guitar, and a dynamic that (like most dynamics) is best used in a carefully measured manner and is most effective when contrasted with other elements. I must say, that if there are any beginning guitarists out there who want a real thrill, check out Yngwie's first record. It is the real deal and not this horse crap, phony baloney studio tricks/editing that some of the modern "shredder wannabe's" like Dragonforce are trying to be (yeah, I said it, they're not playing that stuff note for note at that speed, that's called digital editing, guys, increasing speed without pitch...sit them down in front of you with a guitar and try to get them to play it, it'll never happen). Yngwie, on the other hand, for all his egotism, can still tear it up. He's a little older, a little puffier than he used to be, but he's still scaring the hell out of guitar players everywhere, why not give him a whirl?

I am such a cliche

You know, I read the other day someone's snarky comment on Slashdot listing the basic criteria for a "blog". One of the criteria was something to the effect of "last 6 entries are 2-3 sentences consisting of 'been busy with work, can't post'" and I have to confess, it hit close to home. In fact, that's been EXACTLY my situation. I've recently accepted a demanding (and thus far rewarding) promotion at work which has consumed much of my time. Also, Lily is now 18 months old, and holy crap, 18 months old are busy little creatures. They're wonderful, but they are rarely without something to do. She's a scream. If any of you are on the fence about having kids, I tell you, get off the fence and do it already. Lil is 100% joy, and I love being her dad. She is the smartest, strangest, silliest, sweetest, and 1500 other words that start with 's' little person that I've ever known.

Anyway, back to my admission of being a cliche. I know you're sick and tired of reading this ridiculous blog and it's humongous gaps in posting, but the way I figure, you're still reading, so you apparently aren't too terribly put off by the delays are you? Would you prefer I just post crap every night while brushing my teeth and give you no substance at all? Of course not, that's what those other blogs are for. This one? Well, I'd like to think that it's a little 'out of the ordinary' and I'll leave you, the faithful reader, to determine as to whether it's good or not.

Ok, well, it's about 9:30 at night, and I haven't had any dinner yet (you just needed to know that didn't you?). Thanks for hanging in there, and I'll really keep my fingers crossed that at some point in the relatively near future, I'll be able to continue posting with actual content. Until then, well, you'll have to keep waiting.

How the hell is it October already?

Hello there, friends. It is I, your seemingly reclusive host for today's "Inside the composer's mind" episode, Mike. I can scarcely believe that my last post was June 5th. That seems like eons ago. Since then, we've sold our home, moved to a neighboring town, travelled out of the country  and back, took Lily to the beach , and I've accepted a fantastic promotion at work. With all that in mind, I guess I don't feel too awfully guilty about having not posted since then. Hey, what do you expect? I'm not one of those guys who just comes online every day and makes a post completely devoid of anything interesting (ok, well this particular post is little more that grovelling, but hey, gimme a break, at least it wasn't 4 months of it).

So, campers, I just wanted to drop a line and say that I'm still here and that I'll keep trying to squeeze in a few minutes here and there to put some thoughts online. I'll continue my "You're Influenced By Who??" series as time permits, as I've received some cool comments on that. If nothing else, you can look forward to posts of either predictable guitar gods, or artists/bands you have never heard of before and may or may not like. Hopefully, it's at least interesting reading for you. Hard to say when I'll be back on, as life tends to be rather full and sporadic, but I'm not complaining, at least I'm not bored. You'll have to be satisfied with, I'll be back soon.

Movin' on up..

Well, things are getting ready to change (isn't it the I Ching that says "the only thing constant is change"?). It looks like we're moving to an apartment as we have sold our home. It's a rather happy occasion, though not one that's devoid of complications. It looks like we're going to have to change internet providers since our current ISP doesn't service the area we're moving to. Hopefully, the transition will be smooth, and the interruptions will be brief. My email provider is thankfully not tied to my ISP, so you'll still be able to reach me here if you need anything.

Also, while we're starting the moving process, I've had to pack up most of my music gear. I have 1 lonely 6 string acoustic guitar which I haven't gotten much of a chance to play lately. This has been a little frustrating, artistically, but it's got me thinking. I don't seem to get much chance to write in this lovely blog page, so why don't I channel a little energy to it? So, here's my thought: I'm hoping to write a series (I've no idea how long) on "Unnoticed or Underappreciated Artists". I'm not sure of the tite of the series, I'll hopefully come up with sometihng a little catchier than that. The idea of this series will be, I'll write about a different artist(s) in each column that I feel was overlooked by a vast majority of people. These will be totally my opinions, and I make no claim to be any type of expert on any of these people, but suffice to say, they all had a part in shaping me as a musician, as a music listener, and as a person altogether (in some cases).

Now, a LOT of these will be guitarists, as I'm primarily a guitarist myself. Also, a lot of my early influences will be from the Metal genre (think 1980's and 1990's Metal mostly). Knowing me, I'll likely be all over the place on this, but I've been delving into old CDs and mp3's lately and listening to pieces of music that just blew me away the first time I heard them, and I'm finding that a lot of them still hold up quite well. So, I figured I'd share some of my favorite artists and pieces in the hopes that you find them interesting and maybe inspiring as well. I love when someone turns me on to an artist I'd never heard of before and I then can just immerse myself in that new stuff, so hopefully I'll be able to do that for you. Hopefully, I'll be a little more dilligent about posting and this will turn out to be an interesting venture into the first "serialized" version of my blog. Hey, if I end up writing for Rolling Stone , you'll be able to say you used to read me when....

How much more can I pack in?

Well, I'm having pretty major separation anxiety. I've had to pack up my studio/music gear and send it to storage. No, I'm not hiding from the repo man. We're selling our house. Actually, we've sold our house, we're just waiting for the appraisal, home inspection, and closing to happen. Sooooo, we're going to be moving soon. We're going to be moving to an apartment temporarily while we look for a house (we sold our house in 36 hours, a little quicker than we expected). Anyway, I'm hoping to get at least a "bare bones" setup going at the apartment so I can get ideas down before I lose them. I can already feel the artistic tension building up inside me. It's probably been about 3 or 4 weeks since I've been without my gear, and I'm itching badly. I didn't really get a lot of time to write/record in the last few months, but when I did manage the time, I was able to get some stuff down pretty quickly. I'd be able to somewhat scratch the itch if I could just edit some of the rough tracks I have down now, but my Tascam US-122  and my monitors are in storage, and to be honest, my computer speakers and soundcard just won't cut it (in fact, I hear clicks and pops when I even try to play a track in Cakewalk). So, I'm trying to just write on guitar, as I used to do in the old days before I'd gotten some more equipment, but it's hard to go back. It's kind of like using dial-up once you've been on DSL, you can do it, but you really know what you're missing.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll make it, and who knows, maybe this creative challenge will be a good thing. Maybe I'll be more focused when I do write/record. Maybe I'll spend a little more time with this blog as I've been saying I will for years. I guess we'll see. Oh, one more thing, if you haven't yet, please feel free (ok feel more than free) to visit my sponsors page . These are people willing to pay me to have their ads on my site. I'm happy to oblige, as any starving artist would. I've got the ads targeted to someone who finds this blog/site interesting, so you should find some stuff you'll like/need. Please feel free to check them out. Hopefully, I'll be talking to you all soon.

As if I weren't tired enough

I'm kind of amazed that anyone ever makes it through parenthood. While I'd never change the decision, it's nights like this where it's 2:45am and you've just finished a middle of the night feeding/change and can't get back to sleep that really put you to the test. I have to be up for work at 6:30am, and am watching the minutes tick by one after another. All this, and I can't really be sure that if I do get back to sleep that my daughter will remain asleep. She had her 1 year doctor's appointment 1 week ago and is still recovering from 5 shots. I feel badly that I can't do more for her (I stayed out of work Friday to care for her) and spent this weekend caring for her, replacing carpet in one of our rooms, and swapping the furniture between 2 rooms in our home (all in preparation to put our house on the market). To say that I'm running on empty here is definitely a fair statement. It's pretty bad when it's early Monday morning and you're already exhausted, hell the week's just technically begun. On top of that, on Friday I go "on call" at work which means that for a week, if anything is needed at work, regardless of the time, I have to go in. So, even the thought of a weekend in 5 days isn't a relief, as I'll likely be up before the birds both "days off". *sigh* Oh well, I guess I'll try to sleep now.

I know, I know, I suck for not posting...

Don't take that condescending tone with me. You know, it's not like I don't feel badly about it, so you don't have to rub it in. Don't you realize that every time I update ANYTHING on the Mikeiscool Site , that I don't see the blog page nagging at me? I feel its pain. I know it feels neglected. But it's not as if I'm neglecting it on purpose. I mean, it's been a pretty busy couple of months. First of all, Lily had her first birthday (and a fabulous time was had by all). Also, I took (and passed) another class in BOMI (Building Owner's and Manager's Institute....work stuff). I also managed to get a Mikeiscool MySpace Page up and going (granted it needs some serious polish, and I'm using it primarily to refer people to this site.

But, there is one other thing I must confess. I've been cheating on my blog with another, newer blog . I know....I feel terrible about it. I totally didn't plan it. I discovered it on this site . It started with me making my own On The Lot Page , and one thing led to another, and well, you know the rest. I didn't intend on it happening, and I was thinking of my blog page here the whole time. I know that doesn't make it any better, I made a mistake. I mean, I'm just trying to find a way to drive some more, serious attention to this site, and I guess I got carried away. I'll try not to do it again, but, well, now I've opened pandora's box. I'm fighting the urge to blog on the Mikeiscool MySpace page and hope that I can be strong. We'll see.

Why does Uncle Sam hate music?

It's that magical time of year known in the US as Income Tax time. I've just completed our taxes using Turbo Tax , which I highly recommend, by the way. It's not terribly expensive and I've found it to be very easy to use and quite reliable. Anyway, one of the features of this software is something called "Audit Alert". This basically combs through the minutiae of your tax return and lets you know what item(s) might cause your return to be flagged for an audit.

Well, this year (like previous years), the Audit Alert flagged the fact that I reported income as a Songwriter. It's always just kind of rolled off my back as one of those societal stigmas that for some reason seems to get attached to musicians, but I've been mulling it over. Apparently, the government is suspicious of someone like me who reports his royalties earned from ASCAP . The more I think about it, the more it bugs me, the same way it used to bug me years ago when I was still playing in a band and wore my hair long, and some comb-over in a suit would let me know (usually in no uncertain terms) that wearing my hair long was a "bad thing" and "gave the wrong impression". Basically, it's that age old stereotype that someone who plays music and *gasp* has long hair must be a screw-up, degenerate, drug addicted, lazy, unintelligent person. I don't know if any of you have experienced this, but I assure you it's a stereotype that's out there.

Well, is this Audit Flag any different? I mean, really, what should it matter that I dervied some of my income from writing and producing music? I'm contributing to society in a positive fashion, and (helooooo) I'm actually REPORTING IT!!! Geez, Uncle Sam, if I was the embodiment of the stereotype, believe me, I don't think I'd be telling you about my music related income. I'm sure this attitude has Plato spinning in his grave. I recall a quote (unforunately not precisely nor can I recall the source) from Plato basically saying that without music, society would crumble and cease to exist. Now while this may sound melodramatic, I think people often underestimate the importance of and the presence of music in their everyday lives. Think about it. Tomorrow, try (just try) to make a concious decision to notice how frequently music touches you in a day. Music floats in the background of our world as subtle as the air we breath, but we rarely notice it. Either it's playing in your car, or in an elevator, or from your clock radio, your IPod, from music boxes, in the background of EVERYTHING on television or in the movies, heck, it's even in your head. Think about how often you find yourself just spontaneously singing something. It happens more than you probably realize, and I propose that it is exactly this ubiquitous nature of music which makes life liveable. I think that without it, life would lose an important (if often unnoticed) dimension.

There, I'll get off my soapbox about it, I just wish people would quit lumping musicians into this group of low-lifes. I'm not saying there aren't people who happen to be musicians that fit into the stereotype, on the contrary, there are TONS of them. But, there are also those of us who retain a strong sense of self and ambition, and we hate it when you assume we're the former. So please, Uncle Sam, lighten up, huh?

WHEW!!

Man, my brain, eyes, and fingers hurt! No, I didn't just kick my own ass like this guy , I just finished overhauling the Official Mikeiscool Website.  It's been a long time coming, and I must say that I'm pretty happy with the results. After a LOT of work, I confess, I'm not really feeling like typing too much today, but I wanted to at least stick a post up, ensure it went across the servers ok, and that the new Cascading Style Sheet from this guy plays nicely with Thingamablog . Overall, it looks like it does, although both the Mikeiscoool Blog Page and the Mikeiscool News Section render slightly differently than the other pages. But, they look good enough for me to feel that the bulk of the work for this project is over. Surprisingly, a big part of the solution was abandoning Dreamweaver for NVU.  For those of you needing to create/edit/update a website, please check it out, I recommend it highly.

Anyway, Lily's in the other room in her swing, and she's sounding like she's going to need something to eat very shortly. I must sign off, but I thank you for stopping by. Let me know what you think of the new design, and please let me know if you find any dead/broken links, I could use the help troubleshooting.

New FTP

No change of Server Platform, but I made a change to ProFTP configuration, so I want to be sure I can still push posts over. Sorry for the brief annoyance.

Hard to keep up

So in addition to pursuing a career as a composer, and keeping a "straight job" in Critical Facilities Engineering, I also study Roppokai Daitoryu . For those who have no idea what it is, the easiest way to explain it is think of it as the classical form of Aikido. As history tells it, Sensei Morihei Ueshiba (the "inventor" or "creator" of Aikido) studied Daito Ryu. There are several principals of Daito Ryu that are common to Aikido. Some think that Aikido is "built" on Daito Ryu. Others think that in order to excel at Aikido, you must study and understand Daito Ryu. I don't really concern myself with any of that, let alone which is "better" or "more authentic" or "more effective" blah blah blah....basically, the type of crap you usually run into with martial arts people.

In truth, I've wanted to study a martial art for most of my life. I thought I wanted to study Kung Fu, I have no idea why, but I was drawn to it. Then, by accident, I wandered into a dojo in town that taught Kung Fu. Unfortunately, their website was really vague and I didn't know how to get any information on the Kung Fu classes. So I decided to just drop by the place on a Sunday. My wife and I stopped in and there was a class going on, which I would soon learn was a Roppokai study group. Now if any of you know Sensei Okamoto Seigo's (the current master of this style and our teacher), you're gonna think I'm plagiarizing his story, but it's totally true. My wife and I walk in to the middle of this class with only 3 guys. One of them stops to talk to us, and I tell him I'm interested in Kung Fu classes. He tells me that he just teaches this "other stuff" and I could come back later if I wanted to talk to someone about Kung Fu. He also said that we could stay and watch what they were studying if we wanted to.

At this point, I had been to 3 other dojos looking for good Kung Fu classes, and had been severely disappointed. So, I figured what the heck, let's check this stuff out. Well, it was the fakest looking stuff I'd ever seen. These guys seemed to attack each other, and then they'd just seemingly submit and fall over. It was ridiculous. It had to be a joke. My wife and I were whispering to each other that we were sure they were trying to make it look really cool for us so that I'd join up and they'd get my monthly dues. It looked like one guy would grab another guy, and suddenly without reason, he'd just fall over. Or, he'd grab a guy, and not let go as the person he was grabbing takes his arm and twisted it into any shape he wanted. Well, I was sure they were full of it. But, they invited me to attend the next night's class for free, to see if I was interested. I didn't have anything else to do, so I said "why not"?

My life changed that next night. This art cannot really be explained. It really cannot be illustrated either. It truly has to be FELT. I walked in there a true skeptic. I was certain that these people were deluding themselves into thinking that they had some "power" or "force" that could invisibly affect others. It wasn't until I actually trained with these guys and tried to attack them (I mean really attack them) that I realized how very real this was. Imagine being in a combative situation, and for no reason that you can discern, you completely lose your balance. Or, in that same situation, that for some unknown reason, rather than grabbing a guy by the throat, you somehow misjudged where he was, and instead grabbed nothing but air and while you did, someone was pushing you (suprisingly gently) to the floor. It's so difficult to articulate what it's like to feel this technique. It's very hard to learn, and it can be very frustrating trying to "get it". Our master says it took him 4 years to even begin to understand it. I can believe that, but it's still worth it.

I actually had the amazing opportunity to train with Sensei himself last March. We invited him over to teach us a seminar, and he graciously accepted. It's unbelieveable how great it feels to have your ass kicked by an 84 year old man!! The man is a living legend. If I had any doubts as to the realism of this art (which I didn't) training with Sensei dispelled all. This man could destroy anyone, period. He wouldn't unless necessary, he'd rather drink Sake with you, but if you attack him, you will regret it. I aspire to a fraction of his success. Well, I need to take off now. I trained for the first time in over a month tonight, and I'm worn out. Until later....

Part Composer, Part Computer Geek

I tell you, times are hard these days. It's a shame that I can't spend more time tweaking and experimenting with my site. All I really want to do is get some decent, relevant traffic to my site so that I can (a) hook up with a few more people to license music to and (b) generate a little income via AdSense and such. I guess I feel a little frustrated that I can't figure it out, but I"m not letting it get me down. If I'm one thing, I'm persistent. I prefer the word tenacious since it refers to a couple of other genius musicians [hope you're reading this Kage and Jables ;-) ].

I do honestly love writing music. I'm proud to be a member of ASCAP . I love being able to create music. I just am frustrated at my current inability to do it more, and the difficulty I'm having trying to figure ways to make a little money at it. Oh sure, I could do the whole gigging thing, but I did that for YEARS and YEARS, and to be honest, it's not worth the heaadache for me. Plus, I don't care who you talk to, there is n't as much money in playing live as people would have you believe. Oh sure, if you have Clear Channel and Sony  backing you, I bet you can get asses in seats. But for those just playing around town, well, let's just say I don't know 1 who has bought a house/car/boat with just the earnings off of playing live. Moreover, I don't know 1 that's totally supporting him/herself (let alone a family) off of income derived solely from playing live.

I'd love to start selling a few ringtones, perhaps to Cingular or Verizon or T-Mobile or Alltel , but I'm finding the whole ringtone industry is a pretty complicated mess too. I guess I'm attracted to the ringtone thing because I'm always writing chunks and pieces of music that don't always develop into entire songs, but that are nonetheless still quite catchy and cool so I think they'd make good ringtones. Plus, if I can sell something really cheaply (like $0.25) I'd probably stand a better chance of someone giving me a shot and buying one of my ringtones. If they don't like it after a while, who cares, it was only a quarter. But, at that price point, I'd stand a better chance of selling a lot of them, and maybe making a little money. I dunno, I'm gonna keep exploring and "marinating" on new ideas. Somewhere along the way, I'm gonna figure something out. If I do, it will be fun to come back and read this stuff and remember my thought processes that eventually led up to whaetever it is that I end up doing. Until later...

Is composer a high demand keyword?

I've been continuing my saga of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) lately, and am trying to figure out why Google still has trouble seeing my site when searched for "North Carolina Composer" or "composers in North Carolina". If you search for "Charlotte, NC Composer" I'm usually in the top 10. If you search for "mikeiscool", I'm #1. But, I'm wondering how much that'll help. I'm reading up on things, and am realizing that despite my having added this blog page, I might need to make an effort to start updating in more frequently, so that the search engines crawl my site more often, and so that I eventually end up with more pages linking to me.

In addition to wanting to increase my site traffic so that I might make some more contacts through which to licence my music , I'd like a little more traffic so that maybe I can benefit from some "Click Through" income. Any of you familiar with Google's Adsense program can probably appreciate this. I'm not expecting to make this guy's type of money (I wouldn't mind it), but it would be nice to supplement the old income. Anyway, you're probably going to see more frequent and possibly less lengthy posts here at Mikeiscool Productions so that I can experiment with how it does/doesn't affect my search engine placement. I'll probably go out of my way to mention Composer, and Songwriter in overly descriptive terms every once in a while as I try to figure out this maze of SEO. Hopefully, it'll still make for reasonably interesting reading.

Hmmmm....I wonder

You know, I've been thinking, I wonder if I can use Thingamablog to create/maintain my whole website. I've been screwing around with Dreamweaver, and then I have to access my Linux box's Samba shares so that I can get the new/updated files to the server, and well, it's a pain in the ass. I wonder if I include a link, all the files, etc in a "post" for a page, if I can just update my site however I want? I'm going to use this post to test a few things. First off, can I post a picture so I can use it as a link? Let's see:

Goddamned Allergies

I don't know if any of you poor souls out there are also sufferers of so-called "seasonal allergies", but I regret to say that I am. When I was a kid, they used to call it "hay fever" (whatever that means) and to my recollection, I'd have a runny nose a fair amount of the time. It was annoying, but I managed. As I get older, however, these allergies get worse and worse. On top of that, I have asthma, which is aggravated by the allergies, so in general, it sucks to be me sometimes.

I was on Alegra for a while, and that was ok, but it was expensive. I eventually ended up taking Singulair for my asthma which also has an anti-allergy component. I have to say that I definitely recommend Singulair to any of you asthma sufferers out there, it's actually quite good. I rarely have to use an inhaler (except when allergies are bad). I used to use Advair for my asthma, but believe it or not, it gave me a yeast infection in my throat (my wife wouldn't let me tell anyone at the time that I had a yeast infection in my throat because of what she feared people might extrapolate). I will say that I have a new respect for women, though, as I don't know any men who have had a yeast infection before, and lemme tell ya, they're not fun. I had it in my throat and I thought I was gonna die. I can't imaging having one "south of the border". After the yeast infection, I was switched to Singulair, and overall it's been good.

After a few years, the Singulair seemed to stop fighting the allergy symptoms, so lately I've been regulating with Alavert . It works generally well, is a little cheaper than Allegra, and it's over the counter, so when I run out, I don't have to go see a doctor to get my prescription renewed which is nice. Alas, it seems that none of these is enough to keep me totally protected against allergies at all times. All day today (and a good part of last night), I have felt like I jumped off the high dive, got a ton of water up my nose, and when I got out of the pool, somebody punched me in the nose. If I had to make a realistic guess, I'd say that in the last 24 hours, I probably sneezed 250-300 times. This doesn't sound like a lot, I know. I could've said "I sneezed constantly", but instead, I figured I'd take a shot at actually approximating the number of sneezes. 250-300 might not sound like much until you think about it. Compare that with any other activity that affects you in some way and see what you think. It's gotten so bad that each time I sneeze, my whole head throbs, my ribs hurt, my eyes heave forward in my skull, and if I could manage to figure a way to do it I'd probably consider life without a nose.

I know there are worse things in life, and that I'll likely move to a more "allergy friendly" geographic location (I'm currently in the southeast US, one of the worst spots for allergies) and that this will soon be a memory. But right now, it definitely sucks to be me. My sneezing woke me up this morning (Sunday that is) at 7:45am. This is about the only day I get the chance to sleep in at all. Tomorrow, I have to be up at 5:30am, and am hoping that I'll even be able to fall asleep. I've already taken a Bendryl which usually sets me into a coma, but my sinuses are bothering me so badly, that I am FULLY aware of my surroundings, and despite feeling oh so tired, I don't feel close to sleepy (not because I'm not tired, but because my whole face hurts). Here's to hoping that some of you can at least enjoy your day at this otherwise wonderful time of year, but me, I'm going to hang my head over a pot of boiling water and hope that I can scald my mucus membranes into a temporary state of inactivity so that I might be able to sleep. Happy sniffling all.

OK, that's better

This will probably not be a long one, as I don't have a lot of time (gee, I say that a lot don't I). Anyway, if you're reading this, then you've no doubt noticed that I changed the styleshet for my blog page AGAIN! In fact, I changed the stylesheet for my whole site. I was working on a friend's website and helping him to get his pages in order. As I found myself making recommendations to him regarding navigation panes, color schemes, etc, I realized that I desparately needed to revisit my own site. I had meant to do so quite some time ago, I admit, as my site was basically a "hodge-podge" of pages I'd thrown together while experimenting with The Gimp and overall website design. Each page was decent looking, but the whole site just had no flow at all. There are still a couple of pages that are under construction, and Lily's Page still looks pretty different, but I'm deciding as to whether or not I'll host her page totally separately, perhaps as a whole different site, I haven't decided.

Anyway, I'll try to leave the design of the site alone now that it it truly a little more consistent.  Thanks for dropping by.