Charlie Cheney

Yes, I've started a radio show on the amazing new web site: www.blogtalkradio.com/charliecheney

Take a listen. And next time, call in, won't you?

I found this article here:
http://www.diigo.com/annotated/573ce3c601c68bf9e405909c8210334f

I wanted to save it for later...

How To Concentrate

( Originally Published 1930 )

"Concentration is the Most Important Intellectual Habit of Man."

Not one person in ten thousand can really concentrate. Some realize that they do not know how—others drift along the line of least resistance and let their minds vegetate, apparently never suspecting their weakness or realizing that they are an utter failure at concentration. To Cori-centre—bringing all your mental force and faculties to bear steadily on a given center with-out deviation from that exact point—whipping into line all wandering fancies—stray ideas or thoughts that go off on a tangent—to hold steadily all your power on the central thing under consideration without an instant of wavering—that is Concentration.

This ONE THING I Do

A difficult thing to do, and very few minds can do it. St. Paul gives us the shortest definition of concentration on record when he says, " This one thing I do," short, but tremendously significant. Another Bible definition is excellent: " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it withthy might ." Some men work that way, intense fellows--brilliant professional men—big business men—executives—leaders in the world of finance—science—invention—literature—education—it matters not what kind of work, the point is that when these men pitch hay, they pitch hay —when they write a book, they write a book—when they manage a sales campaign, they man-age a sales campaign. That one thing they do at that one time, and nothing else, and every ounce they have goes into the doing. But back of all this has been a lot of mental discipline, a lot of habit-forming, a lot of brain-building. Let us consider some of the steps by which they have climbed. To the ambitious student, I offer five practical aids to concentration, planned to meet the needs of one who wishes to build from the ground up. We must assume as prerequisites, interest and attention, which have already been discussed.

AIDS TO CONCENTRATION

These aids will do more than help you to follow a memory course; they deal with your daily work. Concentration applies to all the activities of life. It should be established as a life habit. To all who think, I bring this message, Think it with thy might. Make a business of doing one thing at a time with all your soul. Chesterfield was right when he said, " There is time enough for everything in the course of a day if we do but one thing at a time, but there is not time enough in a year if we try to do two things at a time."

PERIODICAL RELAXATION

It may seem paradoxical that the first aid to better concentration refers to relaxation. But I have observed that some of the most intense intellects fail in their concentration because they never relax. Failure to let go between efforts is their chief stumbling block. They keep them-selves tense, nervous, " keyed-up " all the time, even when there is no need for it, thereby wasting nervous energy. They find it very difficult to " let go "—to relieve the high-tension by a little natural, wholesome relaxation. Possibly they feel like the Irishman who was trapped on the fourth floor of a burning building. He fought his way to the window but was afraid to jump. The flames drove him on until he was hanging to the window ledge with his hands. His friends, in the street below, seeing the walls were about to fall, kept shouting at him to " let go." Finally, he growled back at them between set teeth—" How kin I let go when it's all I can do to hang on? " But we must learn to let go—to relax completely—before each period of in-tense concentration. Here is the working principle: Relaxation precedes perfect concentration. A delightful illustration of this point is given by Elizabeth Towne.

Six puppies were playing in the barn. The barn door was closed and with the world shut out, they were giving themselves up completely to the; spirit of play. Two of them were staging a mock battle over a feather, while the others were rolling over and over in the loose straw on the barn floor in utter enjoyment.

Suddenly the barn door softly creaked. 'Instantly every puppy came to attention; heads up —tails up—bodies rigid—bright eyes fixed in intense concentration on that door, as it slowly swung open. A moment before they had been in a state of complete relaxation. Now, they offered a perfect example of concentration as they stood at attention, waiting and watching for the unknown danger that Might be coming from the other. Side of the barn door.

All great mental achievement has been preceded by periods of absolute rest or relaxtion! During.this time fatigue disappears the nervous forces. recuperate and the minds-stores up fresh energy axed establishes a reserve to draw upon during" the hours of intense concentration demanded by the. big task high lies must ahead.

Very often this preparation period of relaxation determines. the success or failure of the uder taking.-Herbert -Spencer, once made, a speech on.," The Gospel "of Relaxation will, which he pointed ,out that continual tress and strain high tension without periods relaxation were responsible for much chronic fatigue and many a nervous breakdown. is far better to indulge. It in an voluntary let down than: to Offer an involuntary breakdown, Different .people take their relaxation best in different ways, but, whether in complete rest, of play or wholesome laughter, it must come before any sustained effort of concentration. Nature itself requires cycles of growth and rest. Take your breathing spell before the battle.

MENTAL FREEDOM

The next step is to free the mind. Nothing is of greater aid to concentration. In fact, unless you are able to do this, concentration is impossible. When. harassed by the three devils, hurry, worry, and f ear, the mind never has a fair chance to center on anything. " Worry generates a poison at the roots of memory." But in your period of relaxation, you have an excellent opportunity to free the mind—now is your chance to eliminate all mental handicaps and get ready for the race. Not only hurry, worry, and fear must be thrown overboard, but anything and everything that troubles you and disturbs your serenity and your peace of mind. Out they go ! You should not indulge in day-dreaming, either, or mental drifting. Clear the mental horizon; give yourself a clean slate to write upon when your hour of concentration comes. And when it comes, if you have availed yourself of these first two aids I have given, you will be, possessed of that rare thing, mental poise.

THE PROPER ENVIRONMENT

In order to keep it, utilize the third aid: right conditions. Now, it is true that a trained mind can concentrate under any conditions—in the roar and din of .crowded cities or the busy hum of traffic—in the midst of telephone calls or a thousand and one other interruptions. Some men can concentrate on a mental problem while walking down a Chicago street and never hear the roar of the elevated or see the hurrying throngs. I have seen men write on a crowded street car perfectly oblivious to the people about them, not even hearing their own stations when called. But these men were already masters of concentration, and I am addressing my remarks to those who have not yet learned how to concentrate. Therefore, it is only a matter of common-sense to make conditions as favorable as possible. Give your mind a fair chance. Concentration is difficult enough, even under the best conditions. I would suggest that you seek a quiet place free from all distractions (and noise is a terrible distractor), a place free from all interruptions which may break your train of thought (and a telephone is a terrible interruptor), a place where you can be alone, free from all outside influences (and a friend who " must drops in " is a terrible outside influence), and a place of pleasing environment, beautiful or otherwise, where the atmosphere is right for you. I mean atmosphere in its fuller sense, although an abundance of sweet, fresh air is necessary. A well-poised mind can create its own atmosphere which inspires the individual, puts him at his best, is strongly conducive to good mental work, and has much to do with his success in concentrating. Not alone for the beginner, but I may safely say for the majority, is this true. In fact, some of our greatest creative thinkers absolutely insist on right conditions and the right kind of a place in which to produce their master-pieces. True, good books have been written in mail—great poems written in the trenches—masterly speeches conceived on an express train. But in every case there was a degree of concentration strong enough to rise triumphant above the environment.

Atmosphere--environment—these things differ with the individual—it's all in the mind. One man may do his best work seated in a luxurious chair in his beautiful and artistic study--another may reach his highest plane of creative thinking while sitting under a lone pine-tree on the crest of a hill. Choose your own place for concentration, but remember that solitude has always been, in all the history of mental achievement, a requisite for great work.

Solitude calls forth the mood of receptivity. Only then do we get the best. Great things are worked out in silence. Then come the flashes of inspiration—the new visions. Emerson tells us that " Solitude is to genius the stern friend—the cold, obscure shelter, where mould the wings which will bear it farther than suns or stars," and we have this thought from Carlyle: " Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together—that at length they may emerge full-formed and mamestic into the delight of life—which they are henceforth to rule."

The great poems written in lonely garrets—the masterpiece paintings conceived by the artist amid the fields—the divine harmonies first heard by the musician communing with the stars—the sublime oration which first stirred the soul of the orator as he tramped in the forest—all attest that the best comes to man when he is alone.

Witness Burns—the Scotch peasant among the daisies pouring out the lyric songs which to- day touch sympathetic hearts the " warld o'er."

Witness Emerson—bidding good-bye to the proud world and retiring to that Sylvan Home, " bosomed in yon green hills "—and there creating his incomparable essays.

Witness Demosthenes—on the seashore—building to the big music of the waves his match-less oration on the Crown.

Witness Byron—alone on the Alps—writing by the glare of the lightning flash his magnificent description of the Thunderstorm.

And today right in this practical present—thousands of our most successful business men have learned this secret—that by getting alone—they can gain new efficiency—and think out better plans for managing their daily affairs.

History will bear me out in the statement that to bear Solitude well is a mark of greatness. Look at Lincoln—back there in the country for the first thirty years of his life, nourishing his own soul and disciplining his own mind.

Hillis has well said, " What a college and a crowd could not do for thousands of young men —Solitude did for the rail-splitter's son. Alone he sailed the seas of thought with God for his only companion, till at last he stood forth, a mountain-minded man."

A DEFINITE SCHEDULE

The fourth aid to concentration, is a very practical one: make a daily schedule. In the first place, such a schedule saves an inconceivable amount of time. Harrington Emerson, in his noted book, Twelve Principles of Efficiency, lays great stress upon the necessity and value of a written daily schedule. But what has this to do with concentration as applied to memory, you may ask? Simply this—your daily schedule helps to focus the mind, holds it steadily to one thing at a time and in the right order. Following a logical sequence tends to eliminate con-fusion.

It has been demonstrated in efficiency tests over and over again that time and energy are lost not so much on the operation itself as in passing from one operation to another. So in our mental operations, failure to move smoothly from one thing to another results in confusion. And when confusion comes, concentration goes. A definite daily schedule is a wonderful aid in keeping the mind on the right track. It often proves to be the salvation of those who have been unable to concentrate. Try it.

I saw on Facebook's cool chat pop-up list that my friend Julia Brown was going to be in Michigan for her brother's wedding over the weekend (she lives in NYC). I quickly messaged her "Where in Michigan?" and she responded "Holland, I think it's miles from civilization." to which I responded "60 miles from me, can I come see you? Maybe give you a ride to the airport?"

Worked out perfectly for both of us.

So on Sunday I showed up in Holland at 1pm and discovered she had 5 hours to kill before her flight so we went to the closest beach so she could see Lake Michigan. There was a perfect westerly breeze so the kites were flying. One enormous parachute kite looked like this one:

It was really cool, they had it tied to a post. and it spun round and round like an enormous bicycle wheel.

Anyways, Julia and I walked down the beach a ways and sat down close enough so I could build a drip sand castle (my favorite beach activity) but far enough away to stay dry. Talked a long time about music and being an artist, recording and touring. Julia has a new album coming out shortly, she actually has the pressed discs in hand and is starting a promotion campaign asap with a radio promoter in Boston. I was stunned to find out that Chris Stamey from The dBs is one of the producers, as well as Anton Fier from the Golden Palominos, way to go Jules!

Julia Brown http://www.juliabrown.com

We had some cool discussions about being "social" as an artist and what it means... the whole idea of moving out of the sequestered life of writing and recording and out into the world of booking, touring, and spreading the word about the record. It was cool to hear she had almost exactly the same issues and concerns I have. It was so weird to hear her say that she thought I did it better than she did, because I think the exact opposite! :-) But I think the point is... we're both learning how to do it as we go along.

I found myself giving her a bunch of the tips I learned at Bob Baker's Indie Buzz Bootcamp like Derek Sivers concept that persistence is polite. People are so busy, only mentioning a thing once is almost impolite because it may not stick in their mind. What if they really want to learn more about that thing? Or more about you? But they get distracted by everyday life and forget. A cool way to look at marketing really... that it's polite to be persistent.

Of course we talked about booking and networking and I said I'd like to help her book a short tour through Michigan next June in conjunction with Steel Bridge SongFest so she could get involved there as well. She's such a great songwriter (as many of you may have seen for yourselves during the last two FAWMs) and she's a joy to be around, super smart, well-read, well spoken, and of course beautiful as all get out .

A wonderful wonderful day. At the end we both enjoyed fabulous burgers together at a restaurant in the GRR Airport. Yummy. Sorry I don't have any pictures, Tory has the camera at camp! Julia looked fabulous too. :-)

If you enjoyed this blog, please tell your friends and feel free to pass it along. You're always welcome to come back to http://www.charliecheney.com/node/264 to leave comments and feedback too. Thanks.

I feel truly blessed to have been given the opportunity to be involved with a great seminar yesterday in southwest Chicago put on by the energetic and gracious Tracy Worth at the Grand Prairie Public Library. A great list of speakers and a packed room! I was really impressed by the whole event, especially the audience turnout. Tracy did a great job putting this event together.

There were four local area speakers and then I finished up the seminar. Mark Thayme from Chicago Recording Studio started off the event with a quickie overview of Engineering in the studio process. Felton Offard from Chicago State University followed with a session on songwriting, copyright, and publishing. Michael Witherspoon was next with his insightful perspective on Producing, running a label, the roles of a producer and label in today's changing market, and the importance of gigging gigging gigging. Next up was probably the most entertaining speaker of the day, (fantastic comedic delivery, the audience was roaring) Marc Taylor from Groovequest Productions who spoke about the industry from a Hip Hop perspective. They were all great guys, and the questions from the audience showed that audience was "getting it" and actively involved in each session. My session on booking and promotion went really well too with lots of positive response and interaction. At the end Michael and Felton both asked me to come speak again for their artists and students. A great great day. Tracy jumped up between each speaker to make introductions and added some great insights too on how success can mean different things to different people. She was the glue for the whole event, a wonderful host, inspiration, and motivator... I was so impressed by the whole event. Congratulations all around, especially for Tracy.

Tracy Worth http://www.tracyworth.com/
L3 Project Website http://projectl3.org
Felton Offard http://feltonoffard.com/
Marc Taylor http://www.myspace.com/groovequestproductions
Michael Witherspoon http://www.kingdomrecordsinc.com/
Mark Thayme (no web site available, sorry)

If you enjoyed this blog, please pass it on to others, and come back to http://www.charliecheney.com/node/263 to post comments or questions.

Spent a long weekend in St. Louis MO at the Indie Buzz Boot Camp (http://www.indiebuzzbootcamp.com) getting schooled by Bob Baker, Ariel Hyatt, Derek Sivers, Tom Jackson, Nancy Moran, John Taglieri, and a great group of attendees as well. It was a killer weekend and I came home so amped up and ready to rock I can hardly describe it.

Bob Baker kicked off the seminar on Saturday with an intro on goals and intention that was great, and something I consistently try to put off. The one time I wrote down all my goals (Jan 1999 by the way) I accomplished them all within a year and didn't know what else to do with my life afterward. I think I have a vague and deep fear of doing that again lol.

Anyway, here's a pic with me and Bob Baker:

http://www.bob-baker.com

I'd heard about the IndieBuzzBootCamp from Bob back in October at the Taxi Road Rally... but it was my friend Ariel Hyatt who convinced me last week in her newsletter to go. Ariel kicked off the seminars by detailing a brilliant implementation strategy for musicians to take advantage of the Web 2.0 social network tools on Saturday morning. She made it very clear how to use Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Utterz, MySpace, and blogging to drive revenue.

Here are some pics with me and Ariel:

http://www.arielpublicity.com

In the last photo above Ariel was whispering "Try to be serious" and I could barely stop myself from breaking out into wild fits of laughter. Man, I love Ariel, she's so fun. A great friend.

The early afternoon was mind-boggling... as Tom Jackson took the stage and fulfilled his personal mission of "Changing Lives" by completely changing mine. If you EVER have a chance to see him in person, you simply have to go. Don't wait. Don't put it off. Just go see him.

Anyway, here's a pic with me and Tom Jackson:

http://www.tomjacksonproductions.com

Late afternoon was plenty good... because it was one of my all time favorite people in the world... Derek Sivers (President and Programmer of CD Baby). I'd seen Derek's presentations many times before, so I was already familiar... and in some ways I was just so blown away by Tom Jackson that I almost felt sorry for Derek... it was like when The Who had to follow Jimi Hendrix after Hendrix lit his guitar on fire, know what I mean? :O)

Anyway, here's a pic with me and Derek Sivers:

I'll come around with another blog post later about this conference... I learned so many things, but for now I just wanted to post some of the photos and get a start. More soon.

In the past few weeks I've become a Twitter junkie. It's funny because for the first six months I didn't really get it, but suddenly it all made sense. It may very well have been the CommonCraft Show video "Twitter in Plain English" which is of course ( most of their videos) short, simple genius...

But today and yesterday... suddenly... Twitter is overloaded.

What is a poor tweeter to do? Join Plurk?

Please login to leave your comments and thoughts!

So I was invited to a restaurant in St Louis Saturday night called Revival and had a drink there with one of the stars from Fox TV's Hell's Kitchen TV Show. Her name is Christina Machamer and she was really fun actually, like a young Reese Witherspoon, and whip smart too. Here's a pic. You can tell by the lighting that she's from Hell!

She came out to our table before we ordered and suggested we get the scallops and the hush puppies. So we did. They were quite yummy.

Here's my friend Nick Daugherty with the meal:

After her shift around 11:15pm she came out dressed in normal clothes (a rather smoking black tank top actually) and had a glass of red wine with Nick and me. She said there was a stipulation in her contract with Fox TV that if she told us the outcome of the show she'd get fined $5 meeliion dollars.

Nice!

I'm writing a song about all this I swear. She said it was so weird to be in the kitchen cutting onions and doing phone interviews, very surreal.

Turns out she knew my friend T-Bone from St John VI too when she worked at Keneally Bay Resort there for 6 months. What a tiny world. T-Bone and I were both on the St John Songfest compilation CD together.

Some people go to see the arch in St Louis, I go have a glass of wine with a reality show star. Go Christina Go!

And don't forget... Please login to leave your comments and thoughts!

I'm driving off to St. Louis in about 2 hours to go to http://www.indiebuzzbootcamp.com for the weekend, very excited. Slept so well last night, first time in awhile, I can feel the change coming on in my life already, a new perspective.

Poured $700 into my "new" 1990 Honda I've named "Lola" to get her highway ready, so keep your fingers crossed for me as I angle my way down and back through the heart of the midwest over the next few days. She burns a little oil the old girl, she's a bit hotblooded, so I've thrown a few extra quarts in the back for the trip. We decided she has a bit of the fiery latina in her, with her bronze color and her partly souped up engine and electric work. A cross between the song "Whatever Lola Wants" from Damn Yankees and "Lola" by the Kinks... I think she has a little macho cross dresser in her too, lol.

Well, that's it for today really. See you on Twitter over the weekend!
http://www.twitter.com/charliecheney

Oh, here's a pic from the weekend at SB4 with Jackson Browne. I made him laugh. :-)

Hey folks, here's a tutorial video on how to set up multi-user access for your Indie Band Manager files over the intenet, pretty cool stuff!

I've separated the tutorial into three quicktime mp4 movies... steps one, two, and three. Each movie is only a couple minutes long.

In a nutshell, you need to install FileMaker Pro (a 30 day trial version is available for free download), open the Indie Band Manager 1Menu5 file with FileMaker, and it pretty much runs on its own, it's awesome. You do need to configure your router's forwarding ports too, but I detailed that in video three.

Video one: Opening the files using FileMaker Pro
Video two: Accessing the files from another computer over the internet
Video three: Configuring your router

That's it!

The links to each video are here, you can download them to your computer if you want:
http://www.indiebandmanager.com/video/ibm_multiuser_step1.mov
http://www.indiebandmanager.com/video/ibm_multiuser_step2.mov
http://www.indiebandmanager.com/video/ibm_multiuser_step3.mov

Tell me what you think!

You can also click the play button on each video below to watch. Cool eh?

Video 1: Opening Indie Band Manager with FileMaker Pro:

Video 2: Accessing Indie Band Manager from another computer over the internet:

Video 3: Configuring your router for remote access over the internet:

For the past few days I've been just kicking myself for making huge bold choices and small bold choices... and then questioning them. Then just now I was sitting in the bathroom reading this week's Entertainment Weekly interview with Angelina Jolie and she had this quote:

"I don't believe in regrets. It's a dangerous habit to get into–it makes you pause in your life if you start thinking back and questioning yourself." -Angelina Jolie

Well, this hit a bit close to home, Angelina, thank you baby! Clearly something I needed to read right then. I've done so many amazing, wonderful, stupid things in my life it's mind-boggling. One day in Fairbanks Alaska I had $225 to my name, bought the cheapest flight I could get to the mainland ($176) landed at Sea-Tac and hitchhiked home to Madison WI (over 2000 miles). How crazy is that? I even had to spend $42 of my remaining $50 to ship most of my gear home because it was too heavy to hitch with. Basically I made it home from Seattle on about $8. And that's just one example... I could give you dozens of those, I've got a lot of stories, lol.

The thing is... I've been feeling an enormous change coming on... hard to put into words... but I can feel my whole perspective in life and what is important to me is about to change radically in the next few months or even weeks or days. My friend Ariel Hyatt sent a killer email newsletter out the other night and it may have been one of the straws that tipped the scales I guess because I committed to going to her next seminar in St. Louis tomorrow as part of the http://www.indiebuzzbootcamp.com with Bob Baker, Derek Sivers, and (perhaps most exciting to me because I've heard such great things about him and never seen him) Tom Jackson, among others.

The humorous or horrible part of this (depending how you look at it) is the cavalcade of events that have erupted since I made this decision 40 hours ago or so. I basically don't have the money to fly down there, so I decided to drive. Recently my long time road warrior 91 Honda Civic who I lovingly named "Henrietta" broke down and I decided instead of fixing her up (about $800 I figured) I'd buy another instead, and proceeded to find "Lola" on eBay for $1000 in Holland MI (about 60 miles away). Lola has some fire in her, some growl, and some other things I didn't know about, lol. I had to get the passenger side window fixed, a rear wheel stabilizer clamp, and an oil change for the trip. That's when I found out I also needed a new front axle. I also decided to pop to fix her muffler.

This morning as they started putting on the axle, they discovered the wheel bearing was shot as well. Another $350. Pot committed at this point to the gamble of driving down to St. Louis rather than flying, I threw in the stringer bet hoping the long shot straight flush will come through on the river.
:-)

What else can I do? Kick myself forever? Yes Lola is pretty high maintenance so far and it looks like maybe fixing up Henrietta instead might have been the more fiscally prudent choice at the time, but I didn't know that then, you know? Leave it to Angelina Jolie to put that into perspective for me.

But back to my thoughts on life-changing. Ariel mentioned in her newsletter that she'd doubled her income in the past 18 months after going to a free three day seminar called Millionaire Mind Intensive (use this code to get 2 free tickets: 404050) and 6 or 7 seminars after that initial one. I've been searching for that life-changing catalyst for quite sometime and my first step towards that same type of change in my life is starting this weekend in St. Louis. Will everything change for me? I committed, I chose to play, I'm in the hand, I'm seeing it out. I'll keep you posted on whether I'm a winner or a bust in my next few installments. Stay tuned.

My beloved Henrietta:

My new Lola:

We've been planting and weeding all spring... here are a few of the early summer flowers from our garden out back.

We're loaded up on vegetable plants too, lots of squash, zucchini, pumpkin, tomato, onion, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, corn, parsley, basil, sage.

Transplanted a ton of day lilies, purple cone flowers, daisies... all looking great after the rains, should bloom soon, all in buds.

Other flowers from seeds will bloom later in the year... lots of marigolds, sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias.. I'll post more photos when the time comes.

Fun!

My friend Joel just sent me a lyric called "The Boat or The Bridge" to start a songwriting collaboration... and it sparked an email detailing my innermost goals and desires when writing lyrics...

So here's his lyric followed by my response, for posterity I think:

***********

From: joel@.com
Subject: The Bridge or the Boat
Date: May 29, 2008 5:13:11 PM GMT-04:00
To: charlie@.com

I'll leave mental imagery and stylistic interpretation to you, although if I fall in love with what you do I'll probably add bass, drums, keys and harmonies 'cause I already hear some of that in the mists of my mind.

The verse/chorus/bridge/instrumental arrangements are merely suggestions.

======================
The Bridge or the Boat

You're undecided about how to cross
Do you play it safe, or risk the loss?
Time's running out, you've got to choose
Don't believe when they say you've got nothing to lose

Chorus:
Napoleon called; your bridge is ready
Let go the tiller; I'll keep it steady
Slip o'er the gunwale (gunnel) and fight the eddy
Napoleon called; your bridge is ready

Doesn't matter what you read in some Shakespeare sonnet
You're just treading water, not walking on it
The bridge or the boat; neither's what you envision
Can't choose not to choose; that's still a decision

Chorus

Bridge (with instrumental either before or after or both)
Too many clichés to list 'em all
Be careful of standing, lest you fall
Don't leap without looking, so they say
Or put off 'til tomorrow
What should be done today

Chorus

Fear has its power but it's no way to live
I've done what I can, given all I can give
Can't tell if you're mulling or just asleep
Won't you open your eyes and take faith's leap

Chorus

instrumental

Chorus

****************

From: charlie@.com
Subject: Re: The Bridge or the Boat
Date: May 29, 2008 6:41:01 PM GMT-04:00
To: joel@.com

Hey Joel, stylistically I'd want the lines to have more nouns... cool?

Rather than "You're undecided about how to cross"
I'd want something like:

As he jams twenty ton pilons into watery sludge
Construction crane fumes like glue in his lungs
His pontoon boat's parked off highway 28
In the mini storage, plastic wrapped, coated in dust
A tall ship's sails catch the corner of his eye
Seagulls diving in the silvery wake
Diesel fuel on the water like oil in a pan
He sees his life is broken but it's soldered shut

Chorus:
They never sailed, they'd always drive
Nine years of wanting trapped inside
He still builds bridges through the bays
But he's never sailed
And she drove away

Know what I mean? Not that my lines rhyme or fit your meter or your story, lol. And that chorus I wrote feels weak to me... in fact, this probably has nothing to do with the song you started at all, but that style of writing is what I'm into, cranks my alternator. I'd usually work harder making it rhyme and stay in meter. :-)

I like to see the picture painted first, with all five senses if possible, then add one line of remorse, regret, or steely determination to shape the story. I like to smell the exhaust, taste the greasy hamburger, feel my finger on the car window, hear the clicking metal, see the discarded wet newspaper... then discover what the person in the frame is torn up about. Describe in just a couple of words what they've chosen to do in that moment of stress. (jump, smash, leave, love, forgive, forget, kill, die, etc).

So... is it OK if I ask for another take? Feed it through the typewriter again? I'd like to see you describe a scene in the tiniest detail, show don't tell. No asking, no telling, just showing. Then let a character choose their action and we're done. If we can add remorse, anger, or regret inferentially, even better.

:-)

-Charlie

**************************

That's it, just felt like a cool thing to post on my blog. I dunno, an examination of what makes me tick I guess. Today. Feels like blog material.
:-)

OK, let's be honest here, Bush has single handedly destroyed the economy and driven the country into chaos.

He started by bankrupting the treasury, pouring billions and billions of dollars into the Iraq war and Homeland security. Since these were investments with no tangible return, this directly affected the value of the dollar which has now plummeted to 50% of its previous value in only 5 years. The devaluation of the dollar made for soaring house prices which led people into loans they couldn't afford which brought on the housing crisis. Now house prices are plummeting because no one can buy a house which means no one can sell a house, so the one place where we could buffer ourselves against the plummeting dollar has also disappeared leaving us broke, in debt, and with out equity.

Today with gas prices through the roof due to de-regulation (Enron, you were 5 years too early! You'd be so rich now if you'd just held on!), we have rampant inflation through out the food chain of the US economy. Everything will cost more, but here's the kicker... we won't charge more for our services because no one can pay... and we're a SERVICE economy! We don't manufacture anything anymore... but our fees won't go up, only the price of goods will. Unions used to hold prices for labor steady, but individuals will undercut each other to death until services have no value at all (look at musicians still playing coffee shops for $100 a gig, or god forbid, tips... which is less than they charged in 1978).

Wow! So the $64K question (adjusted for inflation) is this: What strategies can we find to take advantage of this chaos? In chaos comes opportunity. What value can we provide here? It's more critical than ever.

It seems like eating locally is going to be required. How will we be able to afford grapes from Chile or any food that has to be trucked 1000's of miles? Self-sustaining family farms appear to be a requirement imho. Saving your seeds for the following year, cultivating crops, literally growing beans and rice, canning your home grown vegetables, raising your own chickens. Skills none of us have anymore.

Fascinating times. Will Obama (or anyone) be the new Delanor Roosevelt? Are we headed into 12 years of depression? Is there a new Black Friday on the horizon this October? It all feels remarkably possible doesn't it?

And yet, why am I feeling so amazingly chipper? I mean, I am in the greatest mood today! It's like my body knows something my brain hasn't caught up with yet. There's an opportunity here, and that really excites me. Time to blaze trails. I'm totally invigorated by it all.
:-)

So, my long standing beef with website subscription services is that they can't replicate the functionality of traditional desktop applications... and this article almost explains why. If only the CommonCraft show could explain it to people in plain english:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development

The fascinating thing about this article for me is that it points out the very specific issue with programming for the web... and yet, everyone is still trying to develop the "Artist Dashboard" now... MySpace wants one, Bebo wants one, it's the new buzz word in social networking. The Artist Dashboard. My personal favorite is the one http://www.Fuzz.com has built, it's elegant and clean, but it's simplistic too, it doesn't provide solutions for ALL the artist's daily problems.

But no one does, really.

In fact, I think it's a holy grail that can never be reached. There is no single system that addresses all the problems faced by an artist. Indie Band Manager comes closest in many respects, but does it handle digital distribution as well as CDBaby, iTunes or TuneCore? No! See what I mean? There's always something else... and if you add in everything the software becomes overly complex and unusable in a heartbeat.

Ah, the fine line. Therein lies the craft indeed.

The Artist Dashboard is a fantasy. Especially a web based one... one that works through a traditional browser. A new internet appliance will have to be developed instead. I believe it will be called a mainframe terminal.

The key sentence in the article I mentioned above is this one: "Web applications will always be way too much effort to get to reliably handle common business problems like data concurrency unless HTTP suddenly becomes a stateful protocol that maintains a persistent connection when idle, and HTML suddenly morphs into a great UI specification language."

What does that mean in plain english? It means "homey don't do that."
:o)

Browsers don't stay connected... they ask for info... and then let go. To reliably perform real business tasks the software can't ever let go... see what I mean? It has to always stay connected to the server.

And the even cooler thing is, Indie Band Manager can already do this. Pretty cool, eh? Maybe it is the new internet appliance after all.

From Mi2N
http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=109421

The thing that fascinates me about this is that no one sues when they released tapes or CDs... but when it's a software problem, lookout. -Charlie

Betrayed MSN Music Customers Deserve More From Microsoft

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging Microsoft Corporation to fix the problems it will cause when it shuts down the MSN Music validation servers, making it impossible for customers to transfer their music files to new computers or even upgrade their operating system.

In an open letter sent to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, EFF outlines five steps Microsoft must take to make things right for MSN Music customers -- including a issuing a public apology, providing refunds or replacement music files, and launching a substantial publicity campaign to make sure all customers know their options.

"MSN Music customers trusted Microsoft when it said that this was a safe way to buy music, and that trust has been betrayed," said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "If Microsoft is prepared to treat MSN Music customers like this, is there any reason to suppose that future customers won't get the same treatment?"

MSN Music sold song downloads encumbered with digital rights management (DRM), allowing the music to be played only on approved devices. If you upgraded your computer or operating system, you needed to "reauthorize" your music files with MSN Music's DRM server. But last week, Microsoft announced that it would deactivate those servers because of the complexity of maintaining the technology -- meaning that customers face losing the ability to play their purchased music if they get a new computer or if the hard drive crashes on the old one. Microsoft's only suggestion for customers so far is to export all purchases onto a CD and then recopy it back onto new computers.

"Microsoft is asking its customers to spend more time, labor, and money to make degraded copies of music that was purchased in good faith," said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. "This outcome was easily foreseeable from the moment Microsoft chose to wrap MSN Music files in DRM. Microsoft customers should not have to pay for Microsoft's bad business decisions."

EFF's letter also calls on Microsoft to eliminate DRM from its Zune music service now -- or at least to publicly commit to compensating future customers for the inevitable future DRM debacles.

"With MSN Music, Microsoft has admitted just how expensive, clumsy, and unfair DRM is. It's time for Microsoft to reject this sloppy technology, and for customers to demand something better," McSherry said.

From:

http://prod1.cmj.com/articles/display_article.php?id=63547411

CMJ: What separates going to Speedo's bar in San Diego from, say, Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo lounge in Mexico?
JR: In one place you kind of know what you're gonna get in terms of getting titties flashed at you and being encouraged to eat the worm every five minutes. And At Sammy Hagar's place, I don't know what to expect there.

http://www.myspace.com/barpinkelephant

People keep asking me "Can multiple people access Indie Band Manager over the web?" and the answer is yes. And there are no monthly subscription charges or hosting fees either. You just need to own FileMaker 8.5 or above and have internet access. And it is a lot easier than you think.

Setting Up Filemaker for Remote Access for Free

The problem with remote access to a FileMaker Pro solution like Indie Band Manager is that many internet connections will not give you a static IP address. DynDNS solves that problem for you and for free.

First, let's give credit to Janet Tokerud, who gave me the basic steps of accessing Filemaker over the web. This process takes about 10 minutes.

* Go to http://dyndns.com/ and set up a free account. You will have to choose a username and password and then confirm your account by clicking on the link in the email they send you after you sign up.
* When you get back to your account, go to Hostnames and choose "Add a New Hostname". You have to choose a domain that your hostname will have. I left the service type alone. So it was set as "Host with IP address". The site will autodetect your IP. Just click on the link underneath the IP Address box to choose the address that DynDNS found. Then click Create New Host. And that’s it for here.
* Log into your router. Usually 192.168.1.1, but yours may vary. Your router should have a menu for DDNS in the setup section. Just enter your username, password, and DynDNS domain name. You are done with this part
* Now go to the menu in your router settings where you forward ports. On ours it was under Applications and Gaming. These are the ports that have to be forwarded to whichever IP address in your network that has Filemaker running: 5003, 50003, and 50006. So I made three entries here by pasting 5003 in the External Port box, pasting in the Internal Port Box, choosing Both (TCP and UDP) for the protocol, and enter the correct IP of the Filemaker installation in the To IP Address box. Make sure to enable them before you save the settings.
* Now, with every Filemaker installation that will be using the remote access: Go to Open Remote under File. Choose Favorite Hosts from the dropdown box. Then click the Add button. Enter the domain you chose at DynDNS in the Host’s Internet Address box.

First off... the colossal squid story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7367774.stm

My dear car Henrietta Honda is gasping for air recently, and last Thursday night her alternator went out while I was down in Grand Rapids (50 miles). Very thankful it didn't go out while I was down in Michigan City a week earlier (175 miles) to be sure. I managed to get her home by re-charging her battery a couple of times, so that was good. She needs a bunch of things now unfortunately... the alternator, a starter, front axle boots, a muffler, tires. For this reason I bought her a new friend, a sister or brother, I can't be sure of the gender yet. I've tried a few names out but they don't seem to be the right ones. I tried Hay-Seuss and Golda My-ear but neither one seems personal enough. Maybe just Goldy.

Goldy has a lot of pep, I drove her home from Holland yesterday and she rides beautifully on the highway, I'm quite excited. Five speed makes for a bit of shifting, 1st and 2nd gear are plenty low. The guy who sold it to me works at an auto parts store in Zeeland and clearly loved rebuilding cars and tinkering, he had this beautiful show car mini-pickup truck he'd painted and hand sewn the interior on. He'd bought Goldy from a friend who replaced the engine and transmission and put in power windows of all things. She does have some rust, but don't we all. The great thing is she starts right up, her tires are almost new, she doesn't murmur "clunk-clunk-clunk" as she corners like Henrietta does, she has nice new Acura rims and cloth seats instead of vinyl, it's really quite an upgrade. Her muffler is a little noisy I must admit, but I'm OK with that. All this for about $100 more than it would have cost to fix up Henrietta I think, so it looks like the old girl is headed for eBay.

In other news, the new band is starting to sound great. We rehearsed Thursday night for an hour or so and then played four songs at Sazerac in GR and the three part harmony was head turning on a few songs, it was awesome. We've lined up a few more gigs before Steel Bridge, just keep an eye on the schedule. We'll be playing Busses on the Beach, Quinn and Tuites, and Frenz in Rockford in the next 6 weeks or so, with several others possible.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

What do you think of this for the SS Badger 30 minute set?

1) Gold Rush Blues
2) Jimmy Doogan
3) Auto Pseudo Mondo
4) Dance Floor Spin
5) Big Spike Hammer
6) Palmer Johnson Yacht
7) Giant Chicken

And this for the three song Steel Bridge set:
1) Steel Bridge Tender
2) Twirl
3) Palmer Johnson Yacht

And here's a longer list of 30 possibles from the site:
1) Auto Pseudo Mondo
2) Dance Floor Spin
3) Friday Night at the Ice Cream Stand
4) Giant Chicken
5) Groceries and Rent
6) Hello Mr. Banker
7) I Suppose There's a Hole In My Life
8) Old John Wagner
9) Overgrown Piano
10) Palmer Johnson Yacht
11) She's Made for Sunshine
12) The Ballad of Jim and John
13) The Margie Stebbins
14) The Gene Autry Memorial Interchange
15) The Roar Of The Passing Fords
16) The Star Of A Fish
17) The Whipporwill
18) What's Jimmy Doogan Doing?

And these others I apparently haven't typed up yet:
19) Twirl
20) Steel Bridge Tender
21) I'm Not Drunk (Peeing in the Alley)
22) Highway Man
23) Bottles & Cans
24) Concrete and Steel
25) The Upper Hand

Covers:
1) I like Trains (Fred Eaglesmith)
2) L'il Buffalo (Eaglesmith)
3) When I Dance (Jonathan Richman)
4) Money For Nothing (Dire Straights)
5) Psycho Killer (Talking Heads)

So, I trundled off to church this morning. First time I've gone to church for anything other than a special occasion (easter, wedding, etc) since I can ever remember. I remember running away from Sunday School once when I was four... but I wasn't officially in a service then, it was like day care I think.

In an odd bit of irony they ended up showing a video sermon today, the one day I go to see a sermon in person, they show it on TV. I could've stayed home, lol. I went to see it in person, see what it was like. We'd seen the church earlier in the week when we went there for a food truck and it was quite impressive... video cameras, three giant screens, musical instruments on a beautiful stage, an entire drum kit housed in a plastic sound-proof cage, a wireless sound system. I was drawn like a geek to flame. Today I was drawn to the preaching aspect of it, cribbing hot tips on how the preacher interacted with the audience, taking mental notes on how the lyrics displayed on the big screens still didn't help me sing along since the songs were lacking any real form of call and response. And worship songs lately seem so short on nouns.

Anyways, I'm evaluating you know? We'll see what happens, I need a bit more data.

-Charlie