Hump Day Typing

I'm back on my freewrite game again.  It's quite possibly the best way I can think of to get through stressful, busy, or difficult times positively.  So, there's really no actual or direct point to this. It's all stream of consciousness.  Perhaps someday I'll get good enough or sharp enough at this writing thing and finish a novel.  Then we can hang out and you can say stuff like, "Hey, man, I was reading your stuff when you were a blogger and 10,000 Lakes is pretty cool too.

Anyhoo, enough about that.  It's been a weird month.  This is the first full month back at the job, and my first full month of getting things done.  Getting back on board is a good feeling, and getting back into the monthly ups and downs, while remembering the important stuff is really good. What I love about this job is that there isn't really a way to be complacent about it.  It's complex enough that even a veteran can still learn something new.  In my role now, I'm sharing that with newer teammates.  At the same time, I'm learning things from them as well.  It's the type of business that requires that sort of teamwork and information to survive.  In other words, when it comes to my career, I feel alive again.

It can be very stressful sometimes because things often go wrong, due to things out of any of our control. But, it gives me that jump, that just-enough-chaos thing.  It's enough to keep me on my toes, and enough to really get some satisfaction by navigating things in the right direction. 

I've really been getting into Fair To Midland lately.  I've been a fan of theirs for years, but only lately have I gotten back into their songs.  I know some folks who know a few of the members personally, and they've shared stories about spending time with the band, as well as some of their musical and artistic ideas.  I can generally describe a band's music based on three other bands, but I often find this difficult with Fair to Midland.  In any case, I've been jamming their music at work, particularly The Carbon Copy Silver Lining and Fables From a Mayfly, their first and third albums, respectively.  The closest I can come to the three-band description is Tool, Rush, and Dream Theater. But that doesn't do them justice in description.  Their keyboardist Matt Langley is the Stephen Hawking of keyboard.

They are on hiatus now, maybe broken up, maybe just living out of the spotlight, who knows.

Anyhow, here is one of their songs, Tall Tales Taste Like Sour Grapes.

I'm also into mashup music.  Remixes and mashups have always been something I gravitate towards musically.  The idea that two completely different ideas or works of art can combine into something else has always intrigued me.  I enjoy electronic music and hip hop because both genres use this technique.  Plus, both are great types of music to work to. My introduction to the mashup was Dread Zeppelin. I bought a couple of their albums back in the early 90's, because I couldn't get enough of the idea of Led Zeppelin done reggae style with an Elvis impersonator singing.

25 years later, we have Beatallica, another one of my favorite bands of all time.  And, more recently we have Elvana. 

 

For the last several years, I've liked where this mashup thing has been going.  I'm going to a show here in a few weeks to see a band called Mac Sabbath, which is, pretty much, a mix of McDonald's and Black Sabbath.  It's at Trees.  And everyone who knows I'm going is telling me to stay out of the mosh pit!  And I promised I would!  If you know me, you know that story. My boss even told it to fellow coworkers today. :)