Truly inexcusable...
Current mood: disappointed
Category: Life
The following video is a sad commentary on the citizenry of the United States. I have been asking, "How is it that the final two chuckle-heads running for President have made it this far? How is it in a country of nearly 300 million people, that McCain and Obama are the best we can do....?" I personally know people who are FAR, FAR more qualified to be President. Well, my search for the answer has ended. The following video pretty much sums it up and gives a bleak glimpse into the future we face as a nation, and a chilling reminder of what years and years of government run education, irresponsible parenting, and lack of personal responsibility has done to us a nation to make us completely ignorant of the big world we live in. In turn we are being lead around by the noses like sheeple. Abused and misled by politicians, poets, and preachers.
And not to insult anyone, but if you can't answer 90% of the questions that are posed to these people in the video, then you are part of the problem!!!! Please educate yourself on the big world we live in. It's your responsibility. Or one day soon you will no longer wake up a citizen, instead you will wake up a subject or a slave, dragging those of us who'd like to better ourselves and our country down into the pit of socialism where the government does everything for us, because we're either too lazy, or too stupid to know how to take care of ourselves. And just a hint, when the people are putting flags in the map of where they think certain countries are located, the big mass in the lower right-hand corner of the map is a country, & continent, called Australia. If breeding wasn't so easy, and actually took intelligence, we'd have disappeared from the earth long ago.
I just had the chance to spend an afternoon getting into the inner workings of the new HOLY FIRE pedal from Creation Audio Labs. I had helped beta test and suggest things as it developed and knew from the first long night of just talking about the idea that something special was on the horizon. Now I've had my hands and ears on the real thing.
I have come to the conclusion that this is the next generation of Overdrive/Distortion pedals. As with all the products from Creation Audio Labs, it doesn't try to hi-jack or color your sound. There's no need to be afraid that the pedal is going to make your prize guitar or bass lose it's personality or make your boutique amp sound like a fuzzy imported practice amp.
The magic in the box takes your sound and turns it into an overdriven tube and/or a distorted "clipped" signal, with very little added noise and no change in the inherent tone of the instrument. It's true "analogue". Not modeling. Not sampling. And, it's FULL bandwidth, but with a sweep-able HIGH CUT, for when crystal clear fidelity isn't needed.
The Gain sweeps from absolute zero "off", to a +12db boost. So the pedal's output can be set to the perfect level regardless of the level of the incoming guitar or bass. This is an absolutely pure-clean gain stage for over all level, it is NOT a distortion stage.
The Overdrive control goes from not effecting the signal, to the sound of a tube pressed to it's limits, without going into a clipped or square wave sound. Think "Tube Screamer" and then some, with muscle, with bandwidth, BUT without the small, pinched nasal sound.
The Distortion control emerges from having no effect on the signal, to adding strength and aggression to the overdrive's warmth as it's dialed up to the point of a singing sustain. Without the overdrive it can be used to fuzz up a signal without going into an over-saturated sound. At the top of the sweep it actually distorts the wave to a point of compression, which has an interesting effect on the signal.
The combined interaction of the knobs allows for a huge range of sounds from pristine clean, to extremely mean while maintaining the musicality and tone of the instrument and amp, allowing each note to be clearly heard even in heavily distorted chords. I can't wait until all of you can hear it!!!!
And wait until you see what the internal LED's do when the pedal is engaged and played..... :-)
Billy...
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Friends
Early on the morning of April 10th.... Twenty years ago. How quickly time does pass us by. How’s it possible that twenty years has gone by already?
Twenty years ago on Saturday, April 9th, I had a gig. The first stop on what was sure to be a world tour.... A gig in a friend’s open garage facing out to the neighborhood and a yard full of people. It was a Saturday night and we were playing a surprise 16th birthday party for a friend from high school marching band. It was my first real paying gig. I played guitar and sang, Ed was on bass and keys, Lauren was on guitar too, and then there was Billy on drums. And the next day, Billy was gone.
A true best friend and the brother I never had. Only 19 days younger than me. And yet at 17, a monster on the drums who could play anything he heard to perfection, and then turn around and make it better. Never have I worked with a drummer who was so dedicated to his craft and so full of passion to play music. Never once did he complain that the drums took the longest to set up, or that he had the most pieces to take care of, replace, clean, or tighten. The more cymbals to clean, the better, the more heads to tune, the happier he was. I saw him tear it up on a 4 piece kit the first time I saw him play at 15. He didn’t need a big set to sound huge, he simply liked it that way. He packed a monster drum set into his Renault Alliance without complaints or excuses, and would go anywhere and everywhere he needed to in order for us to practice, drums in tow.
Every week in school, he’d show me his latest drawing for our band’s new stage and lighting that would accompany us on our first world tour. Tommy Lee’s rotating and floating cage had nothing on what we were going to do.... You could spot him walking a mile away, because you’d see his drumsticks spinning as he practiced his tricks and stick work, no matter where he was going. He’d work overtime at Taco Bell to scratch up enough money to buy the best heads, new cymbals, new sticks, whatever it took, to be the best he could be and sound the best he could sound. He’d analyze everything when we’d go to concerts together. If there was some cool move a drummer did at a show, it was sure to be seen at the next practice or "gig".. even if the next gig was playing in the high school Jazz Band.... "On Broadway" and "Birdland" rocked in ways they’d never rocked before.....
At 16 he instilled in me the desire to always do things professionally... always!! There never was a small gig to Billy. Even the practices in my parent’s garage were in front of 20,000 people as far as he was concerned. And to this day, the chips out of the cement floor in the garage from his kick drum pedals are still there.... He played that hard and that full out all of the time...... even at practice, and even on his last night, at his last show.
The set list that night was right off of Headbanger’s Ball. Ozzy, Def Leppard, Dokken, Stryper, Poison, and even 3 originals. We had made it. We were getting $50 each to play!!! A lot of pictures were taken that night. We all hung out for a while with the rest of our friends. Bit by bit people started to go home after midnight. By about 12:45 am, the rest of us had all loaded up our gear, and he had broken down his drums and hardware and had it all laid out next to his car. I offered to help him pack, but he said that he was ok, that he had it down to a science and he’d be right behind me. He expressed how much fun he’d had. He was already planning for up coming shows that we’d been asked to do by people that night and naming off other songs we could play and the originals we had in the works...
The last thing he said to me was, "I’ll call you in the morning." I clearly remember looking in my rearview mirror as I drove away and seeing him putting his floor tom in his back seat, like it just happened last night. Little did I know that a few minutes from then, he, his car, and his drum set would be crushed under an 18 wheeler just a few hundred yards from where we had played and had the time of our lives.....
That next morning I received two phone calls. Neither were from him. The first at 7 a.m. was from his mom and his fiance (the mother of his 6 week old son), looking for him, hoping that maybe he had decided to spend the night at my house instead of driving all the way home.... And then a little while later, a Florida Highway Patrol Officer calling me from their house, informing me what had happened....
Only a few weeks earlier he had taken me to visit his father’s grave on the anniversary of his dad’s death. I knew who his dad was. He had shown me pictures that nobody else has ever seen of the band and the people that his dad was on the road with as he drove their tour bus. I knew that he had been a pilot and what had happened only 6 years before on that tragic day that shocked the whole music world... There on his father’s grave stone was a small airplane and the date March 19, 1982.
While we were there, I noticed that he never stepped on his dad’s grave. Even when cleaning off the headstone, he stood to the side to brush it off. I asked him what that was all about. And he told me that he felt it was disrespectful to stand on top of someone’s grave...... And because of that, to this day, when I go to visit him, I have never stood on his.
As we started to drive away, he pointed over to a very old statue of an angel standing atop a tall pillar. Parts of its wings were broken off and it was discolored from the Florida sun and humidity. He said, "If I’m ever buried here, I’d want her looking over me..."
Less than a month after he said that, I stood reading words from a card at his graveside funeral, with that angel behind me, looking over my shoulder....
I asked his mom after the funeral if he had ever mentioned anything about the angel to her. She said no and that she’d wanted to put him near his father, but that the cemetery was so old and full, there weren’t many places to choose from.
Then I told her what he’d told me, and not to worry, because he’s right where he wanted to be.....
Twenty years my friend...... We hadn’t even been alive that long when I knew you. How I wish you were here today. We can actually record on computers now. We could have ditched that stupid boom box that kept eating our cassettes full of ideas.... I can only imagine the music we could have created together and what it would have been like for you to have seen your son grow up to be a man. It was a joy to know you, a privilege to create music with you, and to call you my best friend and my brother, a true honor.
Twenty years my friend..... And I miss you just the same.....
Bruce Kulick of KISS using the MK 4.23 Boost Pedal
Category: Music
Here are a couple of photos from Bruce Kulick's website of him using the MK. 4.23 boost pedal, which I've been involved with demoing and testing from the start. It's so cool to see one of my guitar heroes using something that I'm a part of. Check the pedal out at www.creationaudiolabs.com. And I no kidding, the pedal is already big in Japan.... Thanks to Yoshi!!!! Eat another steak!!!
Currently
listening
:
Revenge
By
Kiss
Release date: 19 May, 1992
The 4th of July in this new world....
Current mood: determined
Category: Life
In this time of uncertainty, we can't forget that the freedom that is celebrated on July 4th and symbolized by the our flag, did not come cheap or without sacrafice, blood, and courage in the face of fear. Be it 1776, 1941, or 2007, the fact still stands that there are wolves at the door. They want us to give into them, to conform to their way, or cease to exist. While so many in the free world are caught up in the latest "reality" show (I work in TV, they aren't reality), the latest tabloid news, politicial scandal, or the latest irrelevant pseudo-celebrity going to jail, there are wolves at the door that don't weary from their task of figuring out every way to get in to our house and kill us. The wolves now are stronger than ever in history, and they will use any means at their disposal to kill us all, from a knife to behead an individual, ramming a gas filled Jeep into an airport terminal filled with families, an explosives belt, to a nuclear bomb to devestate the world.
These wolves of today are not an army of British Red Coats that fight for King and Country, all the while standing in orderly lines, fighting as "gentlemen", who then stop for a cup of tea at the appointed time. These are not Japanese or German soldiers who though greatly misled, fought with a sense of duty and honor while wearing a uniform and being a professional soldier.
These wolves will do and say anything, if the final outcome is the death of the infidels (that would be YOU).
So while some in the free world find some feel-good, warm and fuzzy, in-crowd sense of satisfaction at being against "war", spouting off calls for withdrawl, retreat, surrender, understanding of our enemies, negotiating, political correctness horse crap, all the while patting themselves on the back and reassuring each other that they some how made a difference in the world, and then going back and putting their heads in the sand ... the facts of life are, that as long as there are those alive who believe that some voice in the sky has told them to kill everyone that isn't like them, war is and will be just as much a part of our lives as going to the grocery store. This war didn't start on September 11th, 2001. We as a nation have been attacked by this scourge since we came into existance. It started with the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Morrocco in the 1700's. It took 2 wars against them from 1801-1805 and the second in 1815, for the United States to rid the world of their threat, all the while the problem was right in Europe's own back yard. Sound familiar?
"In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, and John Adams, then the ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from Tripoli. The Americans asked Adja why his government was hostile to American ships, even though there had been no provocation. The ambassador's response was reported to the Continental Congress: That it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise." Quoted from Wikipedia
That was 1786, and it hasn't changed to this day. The young United States tried to negotiate with them, we paid ransoms for our captive citizens and sailors, and finally, we had to simply destroy them outright. The mindset we are up against hasn't changed. I fear that what has changed is our courage, determination, and our understanding and appreciation of what it means to be free. War is not something to be desired or to be loved, but it unfortunately is still an unpleasant requirement to survive in some cases.
So as you celebrate this 4th of July in whatever manner you FREELY choose to, remember that freedom doesn't come without a cost, just as tyranny comes at the cost of the complete loss of freedom. There is no perfect country, perfect government, perfect President, politician, or person, but for all of the places I've been, there is nothing else like the United States of America, far from perfect as she may be. As long as that flag still waves somewhere and represents the principals it was created under, there is still a chance that one day, we in this world can figure out a way to not destroy ourselves, each other, and our world. In the mean time, as long as there are those that would oppress us and kill us all in the name of a deity, I will be glad to know (as should all of the other nations that live in our shadow of freedom while throwing stones at us) that there were, are, and will be, brave men and women, who in spite of the nay-sayers, pacificsts, and flower children, are willing to defend that flag, and ALL who are protected by it..... .
And in case you don't believe that we are up against the same enemy that has been around since the birth of our nation, and long before, take a look at the picture below of the US Marines rasising the flag over Iwo Jima during World War 2. .......Marines are called "Leathernecks". They are called that because of a leather collar they wore around their neck in the early 1800's. They wore that collar so as to try to protect themselves from being so easily beheaded by the knives and swords of, you guest it, .....the Barbary Pirates.... Think about that and some of the footage and news reports that you've seen coming out of the Middle East.... Sobering isn't it?
We do not live in a world, nor are we in a war, where after an hour, all of the problems are wrapped up and solved, everybody hugs, and the credits roll and eveyone goes home happily ever after in the great season finale. We have been fighting this enemy and mindset we face in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc., long before we went into Iraq in March of 2003. There won't be some surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship saying the war is over. This is not a war for a piece of land, or the cargo in a ship, or some imaginary line on a map indicating a border.... this is an ongoing war for the survival of freedom loving people of all walks of life in the ENTIRE WORLD, against an unrelenting enemy that can't be negotiated with, pacified, or reasoned with. Live your life as freely and as best you can, so as to not fall victim to the very terror these people would have you live under. At the same time, remember there are those out there doing a job, that most of us could never do or handle, so that we can live as free people.
This 4th of July, don't take that freedom for granted...
Nuclear Candles for my Birthday????
Current mood: Fed-UP
Category: Fed-UP News and Politics
Wasn't exactly sure what to ask for on my birthday... but as I sit and watch the press conference about North Korea/ Iran on satellite here in the studio... I've finally figured it out... I've had enough of the B.S. from these small membered dictators trying to push the world around.... I'd like a few tactical nuclear candles lit for me... Place them in the capitals of North Korea and Iran... North Korea is wasting a lot of time and money, as is Iran, on developing nuclear weapons. Let's save them the trouble... If they want to see how they work, I say, let's give them an up close and personal look at fully functional examples... Blow those candles out a**holes....
It's time we stop pussyfooting around with these idiots... If nobody is willing to place a .50 cal slug in their craniums.. then lets settle this once and for all...I wish President Bush would just say, "I've had enough of your s**t. The time for playing games is OVER!!! Stop your nuclear development immediately and open your doors to inspection in 1 week, or we WILL hit you with full force." GAME OVER..... and screw all the weak kneed, mamby-pamby flower children who object....
Peace... ???? World Peace???? That's for fairy tales and fantasies, for movies with happy endings, for fairies and princesses that believe positive thoughts will change the actions of madmen. Sorry, but Santa isn't real either.. The Romans had it right. If you want peace, prepare for war. When Rome forgot that, it crumbled into history.... Nobody takes Karate hoping they're attacked on the street every day... but that day you or a loved one are attacked, and you can defend yourself or them, all of those days or working out and study will be well worth it. We must be ready to fight, so hopefully we won't have to. We want the aspiring bullies to know, we are not to be messed with.
Sadly, we live in a mean and cruel world. Pain is a fact of life, as are sick-twisted people in all walks of life. From insane/religious dictators to child molesters... From Korea to Iran, to Darfur in Africa, to Chavez in Venezula... They will arise from time to time, and we MUST deal with them when they show up. The ONLY way to deal with these people is with swift, sure, and overwhelming force. Not sitting at a table "talking" with them, when they have shown that talking is just a stalling tactic.
It's sad that in this information age, there are still people that want to take things all the way back down to sticks and stones... Well, since that's a fact of life, I want to have the biggest, fastest stick, and the heaviest and sharpest stone... Let's get this over with... Hit one of them hard and I'm sure, all the other iditos will lay down and do what they're told. If not, hit them too. They will not hesitate to float a nuke into any number of our harbours, and light that city up for a thousand years as soon as they get one. If we don't deal with them now there, IT WILL HAPPEN HERE, or Canada, or Europe.... I say we make each dictator take a number, and after we eliminate one, I'm sure the others will have sudden changes of heart and far fewer complaints against the "evil" America.
WE MUST state our positions, and follow through with clear, and punitive action if necessary. We have to make sure our word is good, and that it's taken seriously.
The only way to have a world more peaceful than crazy is to justly, but definativly deal with those that threaten peace.... And when the next rabid dog shows up, you take them out too....
Happy Birthday to me.... Let's nuke the bastards... ;-)
It's Official, I have the coolest Voicemail Greeting Ever!!!
Current mood: amused
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
I've come to the conclusion after hearing the reactions of people leaving me messages, that I do in fact have the coolest cell phone voice mail greeting ever in the history of the universe... If you call and you get my voicemail... before you ask..... YES, it's really them. :-) I'm fortunate that my job sometimes affords me some really cool opportunities... Of course, if you don't know who "they" are, just leave a message anyway... :-)
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