Notes for "How to Save the World"

...Without Really Trying

Part I is "The World Needs Saving".

Part II is the "How to"

Or maybe vice versa, just to get down to brass tacks.

Half Measures:
Hybrid Shmybrid...
Recycling Shmecycling...

Saving the Planet in the Days of "Terrorism"
-Remarkable Goodness of Humanity (?!)
-Nod to Pattern Theory, Watch that Chaos!
-Still Worth Saving
-Still Savable!
-Save the Planet, Unite Her People!

Creative Update

Haven't written a song for a while. Never did anything further with the idea mentioned in the last post. The band's been concentrating a bit more on learning covers, something I rarely did in the past. And then again, I'm trying to be forty or fifty other things at the same as trying to "be a musician." Of course, I am a musician, just not quite professionally and not exclusively. Days are too short. It's frustrating. But I also lollygag around a lot... Playing the guitar doesn't hold the same fascination it once did, at least not as consistently as it used to, and at some point I became disillusioned about my singing abilities, not that Bob Dylan is exactly Caruso. I spend too much time looking at guitars on Ebay instead of playing the ones I've got. I'm planning on taking the bar in February, make most of my bread as a DJ, and still occasionally do other people's websites. And it is perhaps as important to me to write as the "Raving Moderate", my other blog, as it is to be a musician. Not that I am putting enough time into that, either.

Both BLAMF! and the Raving Moderate need a patron, so I can focus and forget all the other nonsense!! Please send money to alleviate this existential crisis, and give the world the music of BLAMF! and the wit and wisdom of the Raving Moderate!!

Hmm, there's a line for a song... "Please send money to alleviate this existential crisis." I'll probably hear it on the radio, sung by someone else. Hey, this publication is timestamped. My copyright, baby!

BLAMF the Misanthrope

Since I've already started down that road a bit, maybe I'll just make this my general observations page, as well as band updates. Not all of my observations will be misanthropic, that's just how I'm feeling today.

On a more fifteen seconds of fame-grubbing note, I wonder how long the average post lasts on the homepage of Blogger as a "most recent publication"?

Band update: well, I think we're playing July 29 in Jasper... I need to get us back into Max's, and Joe's thinking about seeing if he still has any connections in Indianapolis. Call it the first steps towards the next World Tour.

Almost Woke Up With a Song

I've begun writing a few songs while asleep or half asleep, and I almost woke up with one this morning. It was a long anti-war trope, and I was showing it to someone in my dream. I felt quite proud of the song, and I found the lyrics very emotionally affecting. All I could remember upon waking up, though, was a snippet of a reggae or ska groove and the words "Hey, USA, you're headed off to war again". So I hummed the groove and sang these words into the microphone I keep by my laptop, adding them to my growing snippets collection. We'll see where it goes from here.

BLAMF!

After keeping the name Tarpaper Shack alive for many years for my bands, I finally retired it couple of years ago. Perhaps the story of that soap opera will be told someday. When I later heard somebody ask someone "So, are you BLAMF yet?", I asked "What's BLAMF?" When I heard what BLAMF was an acronym for, that little bell went off in my head, and I said "BAND NAME"! So now we are all BLAMF! (with the exclamation point, thank you).

I've since seen BLAMF used by someone else as an Internet nom de plume, which they translated as "Black Like a Mother F'er". In our name, this isn't what the "B" stands for, although this is also a very cool use of the letters BLAMF. We could follow this logic, but WLAMF just isn't a good acronym, and frankly I'd rather leave "race" out of it and not be constrained by a "W". Suffice it to say that the "Buzz" is on about the band BLAMF!! (That's one exclamation point for the band name, and one to puncuate the sentence. Grammatical mechanics have to be worked out when you band's name has an exclamation point.) This buzzin' is, of course, entirely natural and comes from deep within our own spirits and those of our legions of rabid fans.

Yes, most of our fans actually have rabies. It's sad but true. But that is another story...