Category Archives: Daily Transmission

Daily Transmission #2: Last Year’s Soundtrack

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I’m not a music nerd, so forgive me if my year-end list is a little obvious or lame. Here are the songs I’ve listened to the most in 2016. Some are new songs, others are songs new to me.

Let’s not fight about this.

“Fill In the Blank” by Car Seat Headrest
It sounds like something from high school that was transported into the future where I listen to it as an adult.

“Lady Luck” by Richard Swift
This came up on my Spotify’s Discover playlist, and is one of the few times when Spotify totally gets me. I don’t know who Richard Swift is, or if his other music is any good, but I loved this song all year.

“715 – Creeks” by Bon Iver
That’s not the correct way to spell the song’s title. The actual title is made of symbols that would require me to hit the control key, or shift, or F7 to generate the accurate text. But let’s just call it Creeks. Bon Iver’s latest album, “22, A Million”, is a weird collection of alien folk rock that sounds like it was made by an artificially intelligent keyboard with a beard. I like it…I think. I listened to the album, and this song in particular, a lot during a very rough August/September period of the year when my family was dealing with a great loss. As such, this song is now associated with that time and those feelings.

“Famous” by Kanye West
Kanye West is an asshole, but I’m glad he exists. Too much pop music is safe and precious. If a pop star dares to try anything new, or say anything strange, Twitter will attack with enough ferocity to kill a career. But Kanye does whatever the hell he wants, and I admire that even if he’s also an egotistical sack of stupid. Plus, this song is great.

“Frankie’s Gun” by The Felice Brothers
Makes me happy, even if the subject matter is grim.

“I Really Like You” by Carly Rae Jepsen
Makes me happy, even if the subject matter is corny.

“Hurdy Gurdy Man” by Donovan
This is an old song, but I “discovered” it this year and put it on most of my playlists. If you haven’t heard the song yet, listen to it. It’s weird in the best way.

“Super Mario World” by Logic
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my God!” It gets in your head and lives there all day.

“Walk on the Wild Side” by Jimmy Smith
I heard this jazz song for years, thanks to the Casino soundtrack, but I re-discovered it this year. So good! So jazzy! So cool!

And that’s about it. There are some other great songs, but too many to mention here.

Daily Transmission #1: New Stuff, Every Day!

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Welcome to the very first Daily Transmission, a new series of words and things. Every day there will be chunk of content produced from my mystic barn on the sparkling Laser Farm.

This is more for me than it is for you, but since you’re here, I’ll explain: I do hereby promise to generate at least one page of content every day in 2017. This content may include, but is not limited to: Stories, news, opinions, reviews, words, drawings, memories, more words, so many words, all of the words, and a few flavors.

Some days will be stand-alone posts, others will be on-going stories. Some of it is non-fiction, some of it fiction…and you’ll be able to tell which is which because I will tell you. You’ll get the gist of it as I go. Or maybe you already ran away because sweet-mother-of-mayhem, this sounds so very self-indulgent. This is a half-step above telling you about the dream I had last night, or making you watch my dance recital, or the talky parts of hip-hop albums.

But here we are. And as I clearly stated a few sentences ago, this is more for me than for you. I’ve been hiding away on the Laser Farm too long, and need to shove some wonderful ideas and silly thoughts into the galaxy. The best way to do this is to force myself to do this. So…new year, new thing, new discipline. New!

If you find this to be some straight-up artsy fartsy rat crap, I don’t blame you. But, and this is important, if you do run away right now, you’re going to miss a short story about carrots that I’ll post at a later date.

Will this little daily experiment be huzzah or huzzum? I don’t know.

I have no outline or plans, no grand scheme or ulterior motive.

I have thoughts in my brain and I want to share them with people. A daily blast of electronic words and images seems like fun. And because this is my own website, I can write what I want without the words getting lost or limited by Twitter or Facebook. (Have you ever tried to find an old Facebook post? It’s like trying to find a needle in a metaphor!)

That’s all.

There are no trumpets to sound or bells to ring — I’m just gonna make stuff. Every day. Daily.

Also, this counts as Day 1.

This is my experiment. I make the rules. Do your own experiment. (e.g. How many spiders must you eat before you get used to it?)

And look at that! One whole page finished! Easy. I got this.

Welcome! Enjoy!