“The other day, I walked into my chemistry class. I hate chemistry, so I’m usually pretty bored. But when I looked down at my desk, to my surprise, someone had drawn a dinosaur. Amused, I drew a ninja next to the dinosaur throwing death stars at it and wrote ‘Ninjas beat dinosaurs.’ The next day I went to class and saw that the person had drawn a pirate stabbing my ninja. Next to it was ‘Yeah, but pirates beat ninjas.’ Not to give up on our little war, I drew a zombie eating the brains of the pirate with ‘But zombies eat pirates.’ The day after that, I went to class and was awed to see that the person had smeared all the previous drawing away, and had drawn Voldemort with a wand saying Avadra Kedavra. Next to the drawing it said ‘The Dark Lord defeats all.’ I didn’t draw anything else. Touché, mystery drawer, touché. MLIA.”

This MLIA almost made me kill myself.

Let’s list all of the wrong-doings about this MLIA:

1. Dinosaurs
2. Ninjas
3. Pirates
4. Zombies
5. Harry Potter
6. Drawings on Desks
7. Strangers
8. Repeat Phrase
9. Touche

NINE things. NINE. I can not believe this. This is not cool.

I think they’re onto us. All the crazed MLIA sadists out there are purposely doing this just to make us mad. That has to be it. They can’t think that people actually believe this, can they?!

A recent edition of Science Illustrated ran an article about a potentially revolutionary understanding of mammalian evolution. Reponomamus robustus, a large mammal from the Cretaceous Era has been found with dinosaur bones in its stomach. The implication, of course, is that this early mammal may have eaten dinosaurs instead of the conventional reverse of the scenario. Science is open to such radical ideas, but my thoughts turned to the culture war being waged on automobile bumpers across the United States.

Several years ago the Jesus Fish or ichthus symbol began appearing on the backend of cars in what seemed at first to be a “baby on board” tactic with a don’t-ram-me-I’m-a-Christian subtext. Some drivers, however, associated the Jesus Fish with an evangelical power play, a showing of numbers that indicted all other drivers as “non-Christian,” and therefore, by implication, accident-worthy. The Darwin Fish showed up soon thereafter, a counter-symbol for those who seemed to be declaring that Christians could be evolutionists as well. Sensing a challenge — which always appears as a threat in neo-con eyes — the Jesus Fish or Truth Ichthus swallowing the Darwin Fish swam onto car posteriors. Then the dinosaur eating a Jesus Fish came out, and I am certain that I once saw a Jesus Fish eating a T-rex on some oversized vehicle hind-end.

A friend once asked me why I spent my time arguing with those who are so obviously wrong (the anti-evolutionists). The unfortunate answer showed up in the White House at the turn of the millennium and the radical restructuring of society encouraged by the “religious right” gains credibility from the sheer number of people willing to adorn their cars with Jesus Fish. The real victim in this volley of statements in chrome is a guy who said nothing about evolution and who, I’m sure, would be amazed at how misrepresented he is. As the love-hate relationship between Jesus and dinosaurs continues to wax and wane, I’m staying out of it, but I’m more frightened by the fish than by the dinosaur.

Have an ankylosaur skull. Euoplocephalus apparently (I would not claim to know much about ankylosaurs so I’m going with what it said on the sign).

You want *more* than this? OK, well ankylosaurs are actually quite interesting but in their own way they rather suffer from the same problem as pterosaurs. That is that their taxonomy is rather problematic since a lot of the characters you might expect to find to help sort them out are concealed. In pterosaurs its due to the way the bones are sutured in the head and because they have a very conservative bauplan, in ankylosaurs it’s the armour getting in the way. As you can see here, the cranium is essentially a box with holes for the eyes and nostrils and so you can see how it might be tricky to find out how all the underlying bones are moving around and changing shape (evolutionarily) and thus work out which features various taxa have in common or were they differ (or even if two animals are the same species or not).

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I was at work the other night and noticed our Brontosaurus necklace just came in – I was inspired!

Brontosaurus Applique on a men's sweater

I crocheted the Brontosaurus to be sewn onto a sweater or tee – I think I’m going to put mine onto a dress! For men or women this little guy is going to have a ROARing good time anywhere he goes.

The Brontosaurus applique

I enjoy a good dinosaur book as much as any former nine-year old, but was honestly disappointed with two new dino books this year.

How to Build a Dinosaur by well-known paleontologist Jack Horner, was the first.  The author’s name caught my eye immediately and the “Extinction doesn’t have to be forever” subtitle paired with a cover image of a dino paw breaking out of an egg shell stirred thoughts of recreating an extinct beast a la Jurassic Park.

Horner’s discussion of fossil finds, genetics, and pure science kept me reading, but his end game — seeking funding to manipulate a chicken’s embryonic growth and simulate a dinosaur — was anti-climactic.  I’m not saying it wasn’t an interesting idea; it just wasn’t the science I had expected.

It’s true that chickens host many genes inherited from dinosaurs.  And some inactive genes can be prodded to activate.  But much of the old genome (the dinosaur gene set) did not get passed down and no amount of embryonic poking will recover it.  A manipulated chick would become a strange little chicken — not a dinosaur — no matter what the ancient relationship.

The other disappointment, Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs by Phillip Manning, was interesting but written too soon.  Its story is unfinished.  Dakota, a hadrosaur mummy unearthed in the Hell Creek Badlands in 2004-2005, was a remarkable find: a dinosaur still wrapped in a pebbled blanket of skin after 65+ million years!

Manning gives a great amount of background information on long term preservation — both the soft tissue mummy type and the more familiar mineralized fossil sort.  And he shares his understandable excitement regarding the dinosaur remains that appear to yield more than just stone bones.

Manning takes us into the field during the excavation, plastering, and transport of the huge dinosaur.  He also covers the tests done by CT scanners and electron microscopes.  The science presented is fascinating.  The preliminary results (showing that original biomolecules survived millions of years!) are tantalizing.

But that’s what prompted my disappointment.  They were preliminary results.  More scans and more tests were needed.  In fact, Manning ends his book before the team determined whether Dakota was male or female — an expectation remarkable in itself.  The studies aren’t finished.  Most of the science is undone, conclusions unknown.  The book was published prematurely.

The dinosaur mummy awaits more scans and more tests, but what is a reader to do at the end of the book?  Preliminary results leave you hungry.  It’s as if Miss Marple had assembled the suspects in a room following a fascinating murder investigation only to have the last few pages torn away.

Today’s post comes courtesy of Tom Holtz. Obviously being British, Thanksgiving passes me by at the best of times and living in China, I usually only register it when suddenly blogs and websites go very quiet for a few days. However we do usually revel in the Christmas turkey this is hardly an inappropriate post on the theropod ancestry of turkeys.

Thanksgiving is a great opportunity for a reminder of theropod anatomy. Of course, every roast bird offers this possibility, but since the number of people who are likely to encounter a turkey on Thanksgiving is very high, this time of year makes it easy for a vertebrate paleontologist to schedule a timely review of dinosaurian characteristics found in modern birds for their students.

As with any living thing, Meleagris gallipavo has a body that is a record of various traits acquired throughout its long evolutionary history. For example, it has DNA (inherited from the long distant ancestor of all living things), mitochondria and nuclei (from the common ancestor of all eukaryotes), multicellularity (from the earliest animals), enterocoely and determinate embryological cleavage (from the earliest deuterostomes), and on and on up the ever-branching Tree of Life.

Of interest for an instructor in a course on dinosaurs, of course, are traits preserved in a turkey relevant to dinosaur history. A number of paleontologists have used turkeys as teaching tools. For example, the skeleton that is the basis for this figure was taken from a University of California Museum of Paleontology website by Matt Wedel. The figure here (with its label) comes from my own course for non-majors.

Some of the relevant traits aren’t immediately obvious from a roast bird, given that they are typically served headless, footless, featherless, and with the neck separated from the rest of the skeleton. Even so, what osteological features remain records evolutionary events from before the initial divergence of the various dinosaur lineages through the extant (crown-group) bird radiation.

I’ve highlighted many of these. You can see the relevant cladograms and the taxonomy I am using on these various web pages.

As for flavor, though: given that turkey, chicken, guinea hen, duck, and goose meat all tastes different from each other—and these birds are all within one subclade (Galloanserae) of crown-group birds—it is unlikely that any Mesozoic dinosaur tasted exactly like turkey (or any other modern species of Aves.) Lacking a time machine, we are unlikely to ever know how tasty roasted Velociraptor was.

I suspect given the ‘general interest’ nature of much of my audience this will be rather too technical, but even if the names are meaningless, the sheer number and variety of characters should be interesting and perhaps even convincing in their own right.

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Why? Because its awesome. It’s been a slow sports “weekend” [I'm calling it the weekend, even though it's not even saturday yet] so I don’t have much to talk about. Feel free to comment below with some other awesome things that you’ve found on the web/topics that you’d like me to cover. COMMENT PEOPLE! LETS GO!

I was writing about these groups a while ago – funny and random groups on facebook – and one of the disadvantages of having over 1000 friends on facebook is just watching them joining these random groups(join it and never ever think about it anymore) – and seeing them play the games/take the quizzes, etc. So here’s another list with some of these facebook groups – random, yet they express some ideas/thoughts we all have, but not necessarily outwardly adhere to:

• You’re online and i want to talk to you, BUT im not saying hi first.
• I don’t care if you call me immature, at least I’m having more fun than you.
• Boys are Stupid;
• My heart feels like it’s gonna pop when i see the person i like
• WANTING TO KILL YOUR FRIEND FOR FLIRTING WITH THE PERSON THEY KNOW YOU LIKE
• the people u dunt wana talk 2 alwaysz talking to u !
• Just because i didnt say “joking” after i said it doesnt mean i wasnt.
• i hate it when people say thanks for the add even though i accepted them!!!
• I see friends on MSN typing so I stop to see what they say, but so do they
• I dont Care how many mutual friends we have, I dont know you!
• I Join Too Many Groups Because Their Names Make me say.. “OMG, THATS TRUE!”
• People that just talk to you and you just dont care
• Just because I liked your status doesn’t necessarily mean I also like you.
• I hate it when I ask someone how they are and they dont ask how I am..
• When I Get 10000 Members i’ll Give Everyone In This Group £10
• If One Million People Join, Nothing will happen. Nothing…
• I Delete the whole Password when i type a Single letter Wrong.
• Stop forcing me to “Invite 20 Friends”!!
• I hate Social Interview but use it anyways
• I used to cover my hands in glue at school just so I could peel it off
• My first or last name will constantly be spelled or pronounced wrong
• I Will Go Slightly Out of My Way To Step On That Crunchy-looking Leaf
• No, I Don’t Care If I Die At 12AM, I Refuse To Pass On Your Chain Letter.
• Mouthy year 7 and 8’s need a slap
• iThought You Were Nicee.. Den You Turned Around !
• Nodding Your Head Pretending Your Listenin , When Your Actually Not
• I think of funny things in my head and burst out laughing all by myself
• No, you did not just activate the “dislike” button… jeez
• Bruce Almighty taught me how to spell BEAUTIFUL
• I wish people would shut the hell up about swine flu!
• I remember the Dinosaurs

There’s a group for almost any thought/feeling that we ever had…. and there’s no point in trying to see which is right or wrong, or to judge them. Just don’t join them!

Es gibt Lieder, die kann ich nich anhören ohne Gänsehaut zu bekommen. Selbst 16 Jahre nach der Veröffentlichung von John Williams’ Meisterwerk bin ich immernoch ergriffen von dieser Melodie. Während ich diesen Text schreibe läuft das Stück in der Dauerschleife und versetzt mich wie immer in meine ‘Rettet-die-Erde”-Stimmung

Also, große Boxen anschließen, aufdrehen und genießen. John Williams – Jurassic Park Theme.

Quick look at dinosaur books for children on Amazon to get an idea around what kind of illustrations and colours are used:

Dinosaurs Love Under Pants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort.

Dinosaurs Galore by Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz.

Ten Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul Stickland.

Harry and the Dinosaurs United by Ian Whybrow and Adrian Reynolds.

That’s Not My Dinosaur by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells.

Saturday Night At The Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields and Scott Nash.

Ambasada britanica m-a contactat pentru a afla raspunsul la intrebarea din titlu. In viziunea mea, ar fi cam asa ceva, scris in rosu cu vulcani activi in loc de pixeli:

“Incantat de cunostinta. Ati fost chiar mai distractivi decat dinozaurii, dar eu trebuie sa merg mai departe. Tinem legatura la nivel de fosil.”

In English:

The Brittish Embassy contacted me to find out, what message would I send to the people, if I were the planet for one day. It would be something like this, written in red with activ volcanos as pixels:

“It was nice to meet you all. You were even more fun than the dinosaurs, but now I’ll have to move on. Keep in touch at fossil level.”

Lovely dinosaur wallpaper from paperboywallpaper.co.uk. Imagine falling a sleep and waking up, and the first and last thing you see are dinosaurs! Ohh OH!

And those gorgeous dinosaur cookie cutters from coppergifts.com, could probably make even me enjoy spending time in the kitchen…

As I only have like two and a half weeks until I have to hand this project in I’m just going to focus on one dinosaur for the game, and gather up loads of facts and stuff about that dinosaur. I considered first what the most popular dinosaurs are. In first place is easily the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but quite honestly my attempts of drawing a T-Rex by hand and in illustrator have failed quite a bit so I’m disqualifying him! Sorry T-Rex! So after a quick think and a google, I found that some of the most popular are: Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, Pterodactyl, Stegosaurus and Triceratops. I really liked the illustration of the Chasmosaurus I did at the very start of the project and it is quite like a Triceratops, but I’d have to change it quite a bit to make it work when animated and it does look too much like a Rhino as well! When I was making Stegosaurus type dinosaurs, I found the spikes on its back were quite awkward to draw on illustrator, which might make it even more awkward to animate, although I did like the actual drawings I did on paper. So I’ve decided to go with the Diplodocus, as its quite simple to draw and I can easily simplify it to fit with the age group, its also easy to recognise with its long neck and tail.

Here’s some facts I found from across the net which could be included:

• Diplodocus was a giant sauropod dinosaur.
• It lived in North America during the Jurassic period.
• It lives about 150 million years ago.
• A Diplodocus was usually around 85 feet (26 meters) long but could grow as long as 100 feet (31 meters).
• It weighed around 11 tons.
• Diplodocus has a long neck (about 46 feet), very long tail (about 46 feet), but short body (13 feet long) and tiny head (2 feet long).
• Diplodocus was a hebivore (ate plants)

So that I’ve found from a quick glance. I could use them as the basic facts for now and try and find some more if needs be. I’m aiming this at around 6 year olds, which is how old my game tester (my nephew) is. I’m sure when I was at school we didn’t do dinosaurs until around year 3, but I’m going to look into that and see if I can find some learning tools that are used within schools.

As shown on YouTube

A lake monster – Is it the Muck Monster?  Or is it just a Giant Stingray?

On Friday there were Dinosaurs in Cleveland!

No not that—thankfully. Wow that show was so damn bad. God I hated that baby. It made me want to build a time machine or (buy a DeLorean) so I could go back in time and punch baby Dinosaurs in the face. Anydooozle….Back to the Dinosaurs at the Grog Shop okay technically it was Dinosaur Jr. You know these guys:

Errr actually these guys:

A slightly older version, but they sort of prove the fine wine theory. That’s right in my vague, way off the beaten path way I’m saying that Friday the missus and I went to the Dinosaur Jr. show. It had been a long time coming—In more ways than one. Dinosaur Jr. was one of my fav bands as a ute (OH snap a My Cousin Vinny reference!), and a clear inspiration to Kurt and Nirvana. I of course like too many bands never got to see them. Then they disbanded in 97. What is this a history lesson in Dinosaur Jr.? Screw that go do your own leg work! It’s called Google people! We bought the tickets for the show like 6 years ago (more like June or so) but it seemed to take forever to arrive. So the big night approaches and how do we prepare for it? Well none other than the Rock mantra of sex and drugs! Yeah that’s right the wife and I got home from work and took a nap! Now that’s a swerve! Could I use anymore exclamation points? We slept for about two hours and then headed over to the show. The place was packed with a unique mixture of cool 40 year olds, teens and the douche kind of 30-40 year olds (The “I was at their first show man” types.) We survived the wannabe Dresden Dolls band that opened for them—who were a lot better (read as not as sucky) than their MySpace page led us to believe. As the band took the stage what happened? A herd of mutant giraffes swooped in front of us. Fuckers. I mean we are smurfs here and from where they were there was no real difference of sliding in front of us on the d-low. I’m pretty sure they were just 12 year olds on steroids! Here are the results of part of the show being behind these urban Giraffes. You know the hold the camera high over ya head and wave it like you just don’t care and snap away?

Then we were invited in front of some cool people (and fellow smurf people) Side note: God damn you Microsoft Word acknowledge Smurf is a fucking word!

Anydiddle. This is when the shit hit the fan and got fun. Nearing the end of the 2 hour show the moshing began. Nothing is lamer than old farts and young idiots slamming into each other. So as this got out of control (when is it in control) my wife decided to police it. You know my tiny barely 5’2 wife? Then the smurfettes that were alongside of us were inspired by her spunk and decided to chip in. First they just pushed the idiots away but this of course made the idiots think they were playing along. Enter the kidney punching. There really is nothing as hilarious as three short girls punching giants in the kidneys, backs, and necks. It was sort of hot too.

A crude recreation of the event:

Dino alphabet color

Originally uploaded by Sk8outsidedabox

The dinosaurs didn’t die out, they hid out in the alphabet.

…and dinosaurs.

We took William (and Dad & Stacie) down to the Natural History museum yesterday so they could check out the dinosaurs.

Us with a dino tush.

We managed to take a quick “detour” to glance at the Hope Diamond and gemstones just before the museum closed for the night. My particular favorites were the HUGE diamond earrings commissioned by Marie Antoinette. I can’t imagine actually having such heavy stones dangling from my ears, but they were lovely nonetheless.

The picture doesn't really do them justice, but they were perfect & lovely.

Kyle’s favorite part was the Triceratops…surprised?

Kyle & William with their favorite dino.

Washin’ and wonderin’

I’m trying to remember the last time I was happy, consistently happy. It hasn’t been in some time. There are the occasional snippets of glee, usually nights with the boy spent wandering through urban alleys on the way to nowhere in particular, but it’s always been a fleeting happiness.

The last time I remember being truly sublime was probably the summer after senior year. The whole four month period is encapsulated in a series of snapshots, all wordless reminders of lightened hearts and crinkled eye corners.

eating the dinosaur.

It was all late nights and adventure and laughter. And then, suddenly, everything just felt so heavy. I was suddenly in over my head, and I don’t think the stifling depression hit me until this quarter. When I left for college, I was a precocious jet-setter, ignorant of the reality of life on the small scale but oh-so-jaded about the big stuff. I’ve been invincible since I was a kid, so dogmatically convinced that I could render the world to its knees with my intellect and wit.

And, suddenly, I was floundering. I was sinking without a life preserve or even floaties, and I haven’t been able to get back on my feet since.

The anatomy of melancholy

I guess it became worrisome last year. I’d gone from giddy (see below) to morose in a matter of months, and my nights stretched languidly into the wee hours of the morning because sleep seemed far less preferable to listening to the night’s lamentations. It was enough to concern the friends I’d made during my first quarter at school, but I brushed off their encouragement, fickle, unruffled by the prominent symptoms of unmistakable unhappiness.

doin' the cockroach.

Things seemed to improve when the snow came in, and I ventured out into the big world of a campus I’d stayed comfortably away from. I’d contented myself in the first months with the confines of the world I knew by circumstance, but when the grounds turned white and, later, a murky brown, I felt asphyxiated by the smallness of my world. On a campus of nearly 8,000, I knew only a minute percentage, and I wanted my name to be recognizable on campus. I had a name for the stage or, at least, for the byline, and I wanted to expand my horizons – and my social circle.

In winter, I joined a sorority and became a regular contributor for campus publications. I applied for positions in groups I’d been drawn to in the months prior, and I busied myself in work (took up an extra class) and extracurriculars and forgot to find the time to wallow in my misery. I made friends – real friends – something I recall in retrospect that I lacked in my youth, and I made a name for myself with my verbose tales of college freshman-ery.

In the last week of winter quarter, I met someone who, though I didn’t know it at the time, would change my life. It’s a total cliche, but he would bring me untold happiness and unfettered sorrow. He would encourage my utmost honesty, with him, with my parents and professors, and with myself. And he would always pick me up when I’d fall.

The perfect song

When spring came, and I found myself a reason to keep moving, I clung tightly to the things I knew I appreciated. I did the things that made me happy, or at least made me forget temporarily the depths of my unhappiness, and I did those in excess. I had nights where I bottomed out and days when I toppled over, and I hid inside blankets and sweet-scented afternoons and under counters, all gigglesome, but the nitrous oxide and ethanol faded into a more marked low.

By now, you surely gather that the one who would change my life is the boy. I lost myself in the euphoria of the way I felt for him and vice versa, and I began to feel the teasing possibility of perpetual happiness. I, in true Coco fashion, proceeded to fuck this
sideways.

I am my own worst enemy.

There were days when I looked like this (indicates below), all Edward Cullen-sparkles, and there were days I couldn’t find the strength to get out of bed, but those eyes, the pleading beauty in those reptilian pools, brought me to my feet and then to my knees and back up again, cyclical and afraid and emotionally unnerved, a wooden rollercoaster of post-adolescent grappling with reality.

a movie script ending.

Stay, don’t go (devil’s haircut)

I am falling from grace, and the boy is the hand around my wrist. I am so fucking overwhelmed by the monstrosity that is my life. I am finally succumbing to years of pent-up frustration and regret, and the floodgates are seizing under the weight. I am edgy, I am mean, I am unpredictable.

It’s funny, too, because all of the progress, the growth I’ve made over the course of the last year is crumbling beneath my fingers.

I am telling it to the volcano,

all of it to the massive churning hatred stewing in my headhearthandsmouth.

I cry over soup and laugh over graves, and the relationships I built are collapsing. I am unhappy I am unhappy I am unhappy, and this is the first time I’ve ever rendered myself capable of that utterance. I just want to cuddle beneath the clean sheets and watch the world turn around me, seasons and classes and birthdays and evenings all occurring around me.

I want to stop while everything else goes on around me.

I am grateful to the boy for his ability to forgive, in his capacity to love me in all of my dourness. I am grateful for entwined fingers and whispered insistence that we’ll be home soon, to the home we’ve built to love here, among the life I’ve grown cynical of. I am oh-so-thankful for the calming choir of his voice and the way his eyes still crinkle in the corner when he smiles and for the fact that he smiles a lot.

The boy is my saving grace, the reminder of the things that were and the things that can – and will – be again. He is the manifestation of the child in me, of the great beauty of eternal youth and undeterred sunshine. He is the reason I believe this must all be temporary, a lingering phase of naturalistic life.

And when I am older, I will look back, wiser, mature, bettered by the experience and the cognizance that even that which is beautiful is inherently flawed. And the snapshots will fade and the corners will turn, and my heart will be light again.

Here comes your man

When September came again, I steadied myself for the onslaught. I consolidated my schedule, trimmed the fat on the things I’d committed myself to but brought me only stress, found peace with the knowledge that doing so would alienate friends and acquaintances alike. I kept ties only to the things I loved and needed. If it were dispensable, it went, simply. I color-coded schedules and made promises to try, to really try harder this year.

And all of it, somehow, was for naught. I surrendered to the same ol’ drag, the uncomfortable routine of knowing that my life is slipping beneath my fingers. And I’m feeling so much like I did last year, too content in the status quo, aware of the rear door feeling that I’m missing out on something.

There is so much on my mind these days, and I am feeling increasingly burdened by the expectations of my life’s entities. My eyes ache from staring so long at this digital screen, and I wonder if there will come a day soon in which my heart will cease to beat. It seems like a brightening thought, to think that this will all just one day stop, but for now I am shuffling my feet to the rhythm of the boy’s shoes as they drag along the carpet. He is magnetic.

And in the future, maybe I will be here, or maybe I will be there, or maybe I will be far from anywhere. I just hope that I am happy again. I want tangible memories of shoegazing and handholding and laughter. Lots n’ lots of laughter.

I am terrified by the prospect of being so terribly unhappy. These were supposed to be the best four years of my life, and I’m wasting away the moments that make up a dull day. I am miserable and accustomed to palpable despair. I want to smile again, and not through tears. I want to laugh and continue to feel the rumbling chuckle in my stomach, free of the posthumous ebbing of delight into something that closely resembles self-efficacy.

I don’t want to go through the motions anywhere. I’m just tired. I want the city lights to shine on me, to feel as alive in library corrals as in mysterious neighborhood corridors.

I want to make amends for the wrongs I’ve done, to the boy, to the brute & his wife, to the jelly bean ace, and to the girl with the hasidic strap. In some ways, the atonement with the last party is the most important. For years, I’ve ceased to love myself or even understand what that entailed. Sometimes I wonder when this stranger became me, and the paunch of my stomach deceives me, keeping me from believing the object in the rearview mirror.

I’m tired, and I want to start over.

I want to be happy.

cartoon music for superheroes.

]]> http://moseyblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/neck-flare/ Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:11:13 +0000 moseyblog http://moseyblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/neck-flare/

Ostriches in head kerchiefs and bejeweled dinosaurs make for interesting necklaces:

Members of THE HELIO SEQUENCE chatted with me on the back porch of THE EARL in ATLANTA, GA before their show.

Even when my questions were about trading cars for dinosaurs, Benjamin and Brandon took me seriously. That’s no surprise, considering how carefully they consider their music–from songwriting to production. From their past jobs as instrument repo men to coming back from a lost voice, these guys have been nothing but sincere. Read on to learn about everything from their tips for success as an independent artist to their plans for making revenue from dinosaurs.

Thanks to the sweethearts at Sub Pop who were kind enough to blog about this interview.

Special thanks to Matt Crisler for taking photographs of the interview and for being my concert buddy.

Full Transcript: (Audio)

Nichole Bennett: Alright, I’m Nichole, and I am lucky enough to be here at the EARL in Atlanta with members of The Helio Sequence. Would you guys mind introducing yourselves?
Brandon Summers: I’m Brandon.
Benjamin Weikel: And I’m Benjamin.
NB: So, there’s a lot of information online about the story of you guys, and most people who are literate and have an internet connection can look that up. If they were to reenact your story, would they use marionette puppets or sock puppets?
BS: Finger puppets probably.
BW: I was thinking we might as well go all the way with marionettes. Or Jim Henson, you know?
NB: We’re going with muppets?
BW: Yeah, totally muppets, dark crystal, that would be cool.
BS: Lo-fi or big budget.
BW: I think we would get more realistic drumming action with like the Animal thing.
BS: Animal, yeah. Animal could play you.
NB: That’s a good one. So, we settled on muppets? And you guys used to work at a record store together?
BS: We did. It was actually a music store. It was more like a band instrument rental store with some guitars. So we were renting instruments to kids who were beginning band.
NB: Any stories from that? Any funny…or scary stories?
BS: Oh jeez, too many to remember. We used to practice there, which is sort of a story in and of itself.
BW: We actually recorded our first records there. I was a band instrument repo guy for a while.
NB: I didn’t know that existed!
BW: I became responsible for all of the accounts. And there had been people who basically had never paid for years, and I’d have to track them down.
BS: It got to be where you knew these people. It was like “Oh, that woman would come in and say she paid it off and would actually drop twenty five dollars on us.”
BW: Some people would be alright, but some people would be really weird. They’d bring their kid to the front door and be like “This is what happens!” Yelling at the kid because he can’t fifteen dollars a month for a clarinet.
NB: The drama of a music store!
BS: Like “He could have been the next Jon Bon Jovi, but you took that chance away from him”
BW: I have a pretty bitter taste from all that repo business. It’s not my kind of thing.
NB: Yeah, I played saxophone, so that was kind of expensive. But that’s another story.
BS: But you paid for it?
NB: Yeah…upfront. That was not very fun. So, again anybody who is literate and has an internet connection can learn about how you lost your voice and how you gained it back.
BS: Right.
NB: But I was curious about something most others had skimmed over and that is the Bob Dylan connection. You got to read a lot during that time, and his was the first book. And there are some of my favorite Bob Dylan covers on this album. And I read that you gained your voice back by playing a lot of Bob Dylan. Is that true, or am I just making this up?
BS: Yeah, in a way. That’s kind of a gloss over. You know how records come to you at a time when you really need them? I don’t know if that makes any sense. You just happen to hear a record at a certain point in your life, and it means a lot to you. For some reason when I lost my voice…it’s not like I didn’t know who Bob Dylan was before I lost my voice, but I happened to be at the record store, and I happened to come across a copy of The Times, They Are a Changin’ And I was like, I’ve never really listened to this record. I just bought it on a whim, and it really meant a lot to me, particularly the song “Boots of Spanish Leather.” That was the first song that I decided to learn. And then from there, I thought it was interesting to actually put the chords under my fingers and actually learn a song, so I should do more of that.
NB: I really like that. I think that one of the big things music does for people. It’s kind of a soundtrack, in a way. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you what your soundtrack album was from that time, and you just answered that for me.
BS: And other things come along. What else were we listening to during that time?
BW: I don’t know. That was such a long time ago.
BS: I remember listening to a lot of Dark Side of the Moon during that time. You can infer a lot from that, I’m sure.
NB: Oh yeah, I get that in the album.
BS: So we decided to put some extended guitar solos in, and then we cut them all out.
NB: Speaking of the latest record, there’s kind of an almost a paradox between a more polished sound, but you still have that “off the cuff” sound. I heard that “The Captive Mind,” you just recorded.
BS: Yeah, a lot of the vocal stuff was just first take. We would be working on something in the studio, and I would be able to take it home and work on the vocals.
BW: The demos.
BS: Yeah, the demo stuff, really rough. And bring it back and record the real version of it. And when I went to lay down the real track, something was missing from it. Something about the energy or the feeling of it or the meaning. And it was kind of “Well, what if we just redo some of the instruments around it. Lay down the drums again and the guitar and the bass, all kinds of stuff, and just use those vocal takes.” A lot of it ended up like that. A lot of it was first take stuff. It’s almost better that way.
NB: Yeah, you get a combination, almost a paradox between…it’s definitely very polished, like you tweaked it, but at the same time it’s very organic.
BS: That’s probably a lot of the mixing process. We spend a lot of time working it out. We record our own records and mix them.
NB: I think it’s neat when a band takes things from start to finish.
BS: I can’t imagine doing it any other way. It amazes me when a band is like, “Yeah, when we recorded the record we went in for about a week, and then we handed it off to a bunch of people and they finished it for us.” I don’t understand it.
NB: I imagine you would get handed back something totally different than you had actually put out. But you guys have control over that side of things.
BF: Maybe we’re just control freaks.
NB: This record is also more lyrically focused. And I say that, but at the same time, if you took the lyrics out, the songs would be able to stand by themselves. And it’s a little less cluttery. I hate the word cluttery because I do like the older stuff too because it is that way.
BW: Yeah, but when you compare them, that sums it up in a way. We approached the record thinking that way. Bob Dylan is a great example of somebody that makes songs that to us that are really really meaningful. And it’s not so much about the music as the lyrics or the story. And so we thought, we love music with orchestration and all of the crazy sounds, but let’s try to see if we can make more of a lyrical connection. So when we were doing all the orchestration, instead of just throwing it all together and being like “Here’s everything!”.
BS: And having to work the vocals in after that.
BW: It would be like “That’s kind of just getting in the way of it.” It’s really all about the vibe. It had a feeling from the beginning. Whenever we did something that felt like it was changing it too much or it was losing that feeling, we just cut it out. So then it ended up being…compared to the average band there are still more parts and more orchestrated, but for us, it was a little more sparse.
NB: Yeah, I think you can get that. I discovered you guys after you opened for Minus the Bear, and I immediately picked up Love and Distance there. And I never buy albums from opening bands.
Matt Crisler [taking photographs of interview]: Band snob!
NB: That is not what I meant at all. I meant I never buy an album from a band that I don’t even know, like right there, and I did. And I listened to it. And then the new one came out, and I was blown away by how different it was, but it was still you guys. But you guys put it much better than I could. Obviously, I’m very terrible with words.
BW: It’s a good thing you’re a writer.
NB: Yeah, it’s a good thing. I actually really wanted to ask you guys. You did something on this latest album that is sometimes scary for smaller bands, scary for indie bands. I think this was a lot more universal than most bands would go.
BW: Yeah, it’s totally out of fashion.
NB: It’s not very fashionable to appeal to a lot of people.
BW: I don’t know if it’s a question of appealing to a lot of people. I think it’s more a question of meaning.
BS: Well, I think it’s a question of just saying what you want to say. Like, when I’m writing lyrics, I’m thinking something to myself, and I’m just writing. I’m not thinking of something being universal or trying to get to a large amount of people. But I know what you’re saying, I think that a lot of lyrics, especially in the indie world come off as impressionistic. Like, a little image here, a little image here. Don’t do something that is too specific because then you’re going to have to take responsibility for having said that.
BW: Some people do it so well that they are creating a mood, and the only way to keep it that was is by not saying something, by having it be almost sort of more background. Almost commercial. And I don’t mean commercial in the sense of sellable, but commercial as literally in a sense of in the background. Like background when you’re driving, background when you’re hanging out in a bar. Nothing that is really going to get that close to you. Something that is going to be off. You can push it away, and it’s there and it sounds great, feels great, you know. But the moment somebody starts saying something that are personal, that means something, and I don’t think that’s the fad of music right now.
NB: It’s almost dangerous.
BS: Yeah I guess it could be. But more and more, the older I get, the music I am listening to, I’m actually listening to what people say. I’m listening to what is going on behind the sound of something or just “I like how that part sounds” or “That’s a catchy part.” That’s one level of music, and I don’t think you should discount that, especially if you’re making pop music, in essence. But if you’re able to make a song on that level, and then think to yourself “Well, what are they saying. What is that guy saying?” And it may be that I’m not getting anything from that. It doesn’t make any sense, or it’s all mixed up. That, to me, it actually brings the value of the song down.
BW: There are a lot of records, and I’m definitely not naming any names, but there are a lot of records on the surface that I’m really immediately excited about. But the more I listen to the music, I’m like “What is he saying?” It’s kind of killing it for me. The lyrics are either really horrible, or you can’t hear them. Everyone’s hiding behind the lo-fi.
BS: What you are saying is that if you’re saying something, you have to take responsibility for it. And you’re saying there’s something dangerous about it. And I’ve thought about it—that you somehow risk not being cool anymore by not agreeing with somebody. So it’s interesting that more and more, you get less of that .
NB: It’s very fashionable, I think, especially in a lot of hyped bands…We were just talking about the internet mentality earlier with Venice [is Sinking]. To not make sense, to be esoteric, and “Oh you guys, you just don’t get me.”
BW: It’s all very impressionistic.
NB: Impressionistic is a perfect way to put that. So if you were to describe your sound to a five-year-old, what would you say?
BS: I wouldn’t describe it, I would just put the CD on.
NB: I don’t talk to five-year-olds.
BS: No, I talk to five year olds very often. I have a nine month old. I’ll just put on music for her.
NB: So, no need for description…just put it on.
BW: I have a three year old nephew, and he came out to our show in Los Angeles, his first rock and roll show. The first time he’s seen me playing. My sister, his mom, she plays him the songs, and he knows that this is uncle Benjamin’s band. And we were playing the set. We stopped playing after the second song, and everything kind of died down for a second, and I just heard this “That’s Uncle Benjamin!”
BS: And mind you, this is in a three or four thousand person venue.
NB: Do you guys read press about yourselves?
BW: No.
BS: No, not anymore. I used to.
BW: It just bums me out.
NB: Yeah, it would be something that would just tear me apart.
BW: Yeah, it’s really depressing…
NB: I’m already self-critical enough. I don’t need any help.
BW: It would be dumb to say there is no point to music journalism, and I’m definitely not making a judgment of music writing. It’s more of just that I have an understanding that a journalist is a writer, and they have to do something interesting. If you write a bunch of reviews, that don’t say anything, then your job is boring. It’s a realization that somebody writing about music—you can’t take it personally because there’s always agendas just beyond the music. I don’t want to read it.
BS: And at the same time, you can’t truly get away from it. Someone’s actually going to come up to you and say “I read your review in Rolling Stone or blahblahblah.” And then you don’t have to read it.
NB: Since music journalism is so much more accessible with blogs and the internet, do you feel that it is affecting you guys in anyway, even though you aren’t reading it?
BS: I’m sure it helps just general awareness. And the way that people find out about music is all over the map these days. I’ve had people come up to me on this tour and tell me that they found out about us because we have one song on the Google phone. They came to us and asked us if they could include our song, for free, so it comes with the phone when people buy it. I’ve had people come up to me and say that they didn’t know who we were, and I heard you guys on my new phone. I love you guys. I went out and bought your records, and I’m a fan now. You can find music in so many ways. It’s just crazy.
NB: That’s another thing. When bands talk about commercials, they say that people heard their song on a commercial.
BS: I want to find someone who became a fan because of a ringtone.
BW: I think we did! There was a myspace comment once that they had downloaded “Don’t Look Away” ringtone.
BS: They probably meant to download The Chili Peppers.
BW: And then he went and looked at our myspace page.
NB: You guys have been around for quite a while. What advice would you give to a band that is just starting out.
BS: Keep going. I don’t know.
BW: Stop if you’re not good. We usually don’t take support bands on the road with us. So we get tons of local openers. Sometimes people are really excited, and they ask us “How do you hook up with Sub Pop” or “What do you do?” And I think some people want to try to skip steps. They just want to jump up ahead. And all that I can say is some people win the lottery, and some people don’t. Start thinking one step at a time. Book your small show, and get some friends there. Do one thing at a time. Don’t think about this big thing far off in the future. Enjoy making music
BS: And keep sight of that as you keep going because there are going to be people coming along saying “We want to sign you and throw all this money at you.” That kind of stuff happens. We had that happen to us especially early in our career.
BW: We said no.
BS: And we said no. For us, anyways, it was the right thing to do. Some bands can sign some gigantic contract and have a bunch of people throw money at them and get paid. But, I think you really run the risk of falling on your face.
NB: Definitely. Which fictional character is most like you guys?
BS: One character? Or is it a duo?
BW: The three muskateers.
NB: It can be one. You don’t have to pick a duo. You can pick separate ones.
BS: Probably Animal for Benjamin.
BW: Why? Why would that me be? I’m thinking the geeky guy in Real Genius.
BS: I’m trying to think of a fictional character.
NB: It can be cartoon.
BS: Yosemite Sam?
BW: What? How are you like Yosemite Sam?
BS: I don’t know. He’s fictional.
James Sewall [of Venice is Sinking]: Droopy’s good.
BS: I’m down with that.
NB: Okay, if you guys could break any world record, what would you break?
BW: Richest dude in the world.
NB: Richest dude in the world!
BS: Longest touring band in the world. We’ll be 90.
NB: Never stop touring. Do you guys prefer studio or stage?
BW: Both, in their own ways.
BS: Yeah, they are totally different worlds.
NB: As a duo, with a keyboardist/drummer, I’m sure it totally different both ways. And we talked earlier about how you go back in and tweak things.
BS: Yeah, it’s a totally different. A lot of bands come back from touring and record an album, but for us, I feel like the studio process is a lot slower, much more methodic kind of a process.
NB: And at the same time, your live sound is very similar to your studio so. So, whatever magic you guys are working…
BS: That’s what it is.
NB: And if you could turn in your tour van for a dinosaur, which one would you choose?
BS: What’s the fastest dinosaur?
NB: I’ve never seen a dinosaur race.
BS: Because that’s all you need out of a tour van—get to that next city.
BW: You’re thinking you want the dinosaur to be a vehicle?
BS: Well, if we didn’t have a tour van, we’d need something to get from show to show.
BW: I mean, I don’t think a dinosaur is going to work.
BS: We have to trade it in for a dinosaur, though.
BW: If we had a dinosaur, we could open a zoo…
BS: And then from the revenue of that, okay.
BW: We could totally buy a new van. I’m thinking we should go for a big one, like T. Rex.
BS: Okay.
BW: Well, maybe a brontosaurus, though. It doesn’t eat meat. It would be more indie. It would be more cool. A vegan dinosaur. And less likely to eat anyone.
NB: We would like to request a vegan dinosaur, please.
BS: Okay, I’m down with that.
BW: We would have to buy some land.
BS: We could get a loan from the bank.
NB: With the brontosaurus as collateral.
BW: But where would we put the dinosaur while we are waiting for the loan?
BS: This is really tricky.
NB: This question is a lot more complicated that I had originally thought it would be.
BW: Or transportation too. We’d probably have to hire a construction company for it.
Matt Crisler: You could walk it.
NB: Dinosaur rollerskates.
BW: I wonder if you could lease a brontosaurus. Like if we had a huge, a really heavy truck, that we could chain it to.
BS: Or a van…oh damn, we gave it up for the dinosaur.
NB: On that note, we’ll end on if you were any animal, what would you be?
BS: A panda.
BW: I don’t know. A brontosaurus.
NB: Thank you very much for being with me.