The Lot Live at good hurt 9-10-07 9:15

The Lot! plays live!!!

Hosted By: The Lot!
When: Monday Sep 10, 2007
at 8:00 PM
Where: Good Hurt Nightclub
12249 Venice Blvd
West Los Angeles, CA 90066
United States

This place is awesome.  Nurses and beer!  Afterwards kareokee... a little known indian tribe that gets drunk and sings I will survive...

uh...   good times?

The Lot has some new songs, that destroy...  so come on out !!!

Mike Cooper, bass, stage left!

6:16 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Good hurt gig for the lot 4-16-07, 9:30pm
Current mood: cheerful

Hey everyone, The lot has a new gig, come check us out...!!!

+GOOD HURT 

 
Band Name: The Lot
 
Date Of Event:  Monday April 16, 2007

Set Time:  9:30pm 

 
Set Length: 40 minutes

 
Doors Open: 8pm
 
Cover Charge: $10.00 & $7.00 with flyer or Pre-Sale Ticket 
 
AGE LIMIT: 21 & Over. Must have valid picture ID.  NO EXCEPTIONS!!

11:32 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Playing Again...
Current mood: Balanced at a dull low
Category: Balanced at a dull low Music

I just wanted to mention, that it was awesome to play live again after about 4 years off.  I've really enjoyed my time with The Awful Lot and hope to remain their bass player as long as they'll have me...

Anyhoo, it was a blast being a rawkstarr for 40 minutes or so, and the group is positive and supportive.

8:57 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Ganglia
Current mood: aggravated
Category: still baking this cake! Music

Okay, real quick, cause the cake is still cooking darn it (the timer shut my oven off, what the hell!  modern ass inconveniant piece of bludgeoned  cannine defecation!  (hammered dog shit...))

Ganglia, in insects, I think (biology not being my strong suit) basically, lets things react, react, react... like the thing that makes roaches scatter when the light comes on.

I challenge myself, and the rest of the human race, and a few sheepple, and some cats, (Boomerang counts, even if he is a dogcat) to act above the level of the common instinct.

I use hedges, myself, things that I intentionaly set in the way of knee jerk social and moral reactions (yeah, don't put hedges in your way when you are dodging cars, thats not so good...), To keep from doing really stupid things... Like yealling at old ladies driving their cars for example.   Here's one I use for fear (I borrowed it from dune)

Fear is the mind killer, I have no fear...

(I'm a scaredy humandogcatple (try to follow that hah-) so i use it a lot!)

and for head aches...

...the seat of conciousness is in the mind and the mind proper has no pain receptors... (it works just not on miagraines... heh heh....)

anyhoo, maybe I'm just crazy but it works for me, its not a hundred percent, but I'm convinced if we spent more time analyzing our own perceptions rather than just reacting, and judging, and hating etc, we'd be a lot better off.

Right On cake is done!  (now I have to wait anothe half hour to frost it!!!  you'd think nanoflexfiburrcooker9000 would do this for me, no?)

Be well,

Cooper,

oh ya, I think in sauropods, the ganglia controled the hips, ass and tail!  Cool huh,  I wonder if our ancestors were taught to grove by their ganglias. 

I think in religion, what I'm calling a hedge, is called a litany.

11:17 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Listening
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Baking a B day Cake for Wifie Music

I'm sure I'm quoting somebody here, but I like the Phrase... "we listen with our mouths"  This can be applied to many, many aspects of our lives, from love relationships, to music.  I'm guilty of this too.  I wan't to be better about it though. 

It seems to me that a better part of our lives are spent in output only mode, where we drool on and on about us, us, us.  I thinks its safe to say, that at least those the go elbow to elbow with the sheepple (um... sheep people, thanks Ang!)  run into a sort of funky self awareness, were we realize that we are doing it too, and that its like a party with the music too loud, nobody can hear shit!

I could draw a better anology, its like those lightening poles in the middle of the dessert, that sit around and are just dumb poles.  But, if you add stimulus, in this case a lightening storm, you get this false since of interaction, chained lightening between the poles.  Its a rather frightening place to be, that is, ground zero in the center of all that.  Thats what its like when your the "aware one." 

When I was a kid, I had several friends that would call and talk for hours, and I'd sit, quietly listening to them.  It was nice to be a shreve, and really, growing up, most of my problems were trivial, compared to my friends losing brothers, families splitting up etc.  So I felt it was a service of sorts, just to listen.

At a certain point, I became unable to do so.  After Bill-collecting for a good 8 years and 6 years in the military (part time gaurd mostly) I'm awful tired of hearing bitching, griping and complaining... and after my divorce I'm pretty eager to put behind me in detracting negativity towards life.  The sum of the experiences for me was like this. 

Imagine being the only sane person you've seen in a year.  Its the post apocolyse, the bombs have fallen, and you are on a limited budget, time wise before the nuclear winter sets in.  Unfortunatly your need to comune with humans, has resulted in you being captured by a tribe of cannibals.  You are handcuffed gagged and bound in a cage, and left to rot.  After three days of no food and soiling yourself, you are rewarded, by the inclusion of a fellow captive in your cage.  Its a hungry dog, that is chained so it can get to with an inch of your face, thats if you shrug back from its violent snapping attacks.  This dog is your world, day in and day out, snapping, snapping and spitting on your face, its breath rank with the reek of its own death.  You love the dog, you remember in happier times playing with your own beloved pet.  You learn to cope with the incessant yammering, snapping and shrinking back in defense, so much so, that when the heat finally consumes the snapping dogs vitality, you cry, and beg the lord to bring it back.  You curse the flies that attack the lolling tounge. 

Sometimes, we act like that dog, and its desperate and kind of sick that we continue to pretend we are communicating as higher animals at all.  I guess it may be some innate sense in me that is a little fearful of the telephone, because I've conditioned myself to care, and I've tried very hard to live compassionately, in situations where I know others go numb, or start snapping.

I'd like my compassion, and understanding to grow again,  I feel so disconnected sometimes, like the guy in the cage.  I feel a wierd sort of levity about life, a kind of kafkaesk wonder/marvel at the absurdity of it.  I'm sure a lot of this feeling I have comes from abnormal conditioning, which in hindsight, seems almost normative.  

I remember seeing people in cars when I was young and on foot, driving by, looking so sad, like fish, kinda just floating and barely living.  I was so full of a vitality I wish I had now.    I feel it there, just a little burried, by some layers of a negativity and raw meaness that I never intended to consume, or let in.

I guess, its sort of like the vampire, in that we let it in, it askes, "may I enter"  and then, if you want it to leave, its astake to the heart and hacking of limbs in burying them in the 4 corners of a churchyard.

Okay, thanks for listening to my rant.  Here's my self-suggestions...

1:  I need to stop trying to finish peoples sentences.

2:  I need to listen to what others are saying, and not thinking of what I have to say.

3:  I need to start going to see more local bands and buying their demos.

4:  I (definatly) need to stop yelling at old people in cars (I scared the bejeezus out of an old dame, cause she cut me off in an intersection.) and in general, need to control my road rage.  (Just make sure if you see me, to get the heck out of the way...)

5  I need to go get Angies (infamous choc choc choc) cake out of the oven before I ruin it.

Thanks, for taking the time to read this psycho crap of mine.  Hope you are all well, how are ya?  (j/k)

10:33 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Enjoying art

This is my small poor attempt to try and shed some light on a subject I feel pretty sad about.  It seems to me that art and those that appreciate it are leaving the world at a frightening rate. 

For me, the arts represent the ability to directly manipulate meaning.  To do this, the artist must strike some primordial accord with the world around him or her.  It seems to me that reality is being debased to a simplified shell and sold wholesale thru the various networks such wares are commonly sold.  In an effort to avoid pain and emphasize ecstasy we walk away from one of our greatest gifts; music, the graphic arts, dance, i.e. expression. 

I reckon that one of the key contributors to this degradation is the need to MARKET everything, and the need to break things down to the lowest common denominator.

The part that is not so obvious is the part in which we as "CONSUMERS" play.  What an ugly word, circling the very bottom of our vernacular.  I think most of us listen with our mouth, and this is a terrible thing.  How many times have you just wanted to hand a classic novel to some blathering fool that is prattling on, about god know's what...  maybe even shove it in thier mouth.  Hand a bigot a copy of Morrison's Beloved, hand an aspiring (but overly verbose) rock star a copy of The fountainhead... etc... of course the truth is, these works are humbling, and maybe a bit too much for us.  It takes a lot of humility to sit and contemplate somebody elses thought.  It takes even more, to internalize that, and make something new, synthesize new idea's and beautiful (or beautifully ugly, or beautifully tragic, or comedic beauty... I'll have to blog on about asthetics sometime soon...) new vistas for the mind and heart.  The bottom line is, we need to shut up, and let experiences in, painful, happy, sad, etc... and stop living these callow hollow little lives like monkeys in a shopping mall.  But I'm making a big jump off into a different subject by proposing a solution without even really analyzing the problem enough.

My key issues here are:

-we are dumbing down our wonderful language, to the extent where words have less and less capacity for carrying meaning, because so few people learn what they mean.  This means language is becoming less specific, more general, more consumable, and in genral, fairly stupid. 

-we are walking away from what I consider real life.  We live a life completely insulated from consequence, rational thought, and the mean vagaries of life.  It seems to me, we have lost sight of a fact that human beings do completely insane terrible things to one another, and its not ok.  I fear for the day when we forget how terrible world war ii was, and all the previous ones as well.

-The once heated and constant juggleing act between the art schools (where people pushed the envelope to develop new styles, refining old styles etc.) and pop art (which stresses accesability, marketability etc) is nearly gone.  There are so few people willing to give up their uncompromised vision of themselves, that germ that spawns the next Dali/Beethoven/Stockhausen/De Goya/ etc... that the pop side of things is remaking music that is 20-40 years old.  Lets face it, in terms of music, we are replaying folk songs written 400-500 years ago essentially, with louder guitars and different patronage.

-The Art School has turned its back on the average person, and become snobby and elitest... In fact its cowering on the edge of an abyss, where it could easily fall into complete obscurity, and be kicked into the corner like the dead husk of kafka's anti-hero in the metamorphosis.

Here's my current small suggestion, its just a band aid or a microwave powered defibulator...

-next time you hear about a local musicians show, go check it out.

-read a classic, and actually give it a chance.

-go to an art museum and spend a half an hour looking at something different, something you're not even attracted to.  You might see something new... you might not.

-the next time you write, paint, or express yourself in anyway, forget about the audience, and dig deep into what makes you you, and how you fit into this world.  Don't be afraid, thru common experiences we are all bound together, people are more likely to understand than we normally give them credit for.

or maybe I'm just dreaming again.

4:54 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Blogs and blogging.
Current mood: disgustipated

This would be my first and so far only blog.

This seems like a seriously self indulgent past time.  Like who cares what a pick-up tech has to say about politics, or about life in general?  Well, since I'm ego maniacal, I'll give it my best narcisistic try, and I hope your happy.

Blog.  What an ugly word.  Makes me think of taking that poop that feels super huge when it starts to come out, and then is in fact a tiny little speck of greenish brown.  Actually, I guess, thats a great metaphor, except I didn't use like or as.  We think of our big thoughts, and we get constipated, and the output, is little, and smelly.

Well, with that profound statement, I must digress a bit and say, that I'm really just killing time here, before I get back to work...  which is to say, that anything profound stated here is a complete accident, and my future blogs, will be more flatulent and self possessed, full of run on sentences, non-sequitors and in genral, a kind of churlish rubbish that exudes itself from the lip glossed mouths of teenage dramaqueens, and young gothic 500 year old vampire spawn.  Ah yes, the solipsistic requim to the callow dregs of youth and the dream of ourselves; that we matter above and beyond the stimulation of our pathetic little ganglia... YARC!  (thats the sound of me violently vomiting, followed by my puking up my own lungs, thus the hard consonent at the end...)

Okay I'm done now, I've had my fun, and I hope it was good for you too.  I feel so close to you now, like a diaper on an infant or the elderly.  For the good people I've offended, I apologize about all the bowel movements discussed herein, and be reassured, the management will make up some excuse to shift the blame away from themselves, after all, that is their job, that is to say, to delegate.  My next topic, "The myopic disenfranchised youth of today, the humorless sacks of prostituted man drippings tommorrow"  Now please excuse me while I defecate on a cat.

7:52 AM - 2 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment