Artistic Intelligence & the Lack Thereof

I finally received the Springsteen box set re-release of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' for Christmas. It is a truly magical thing: 3 CD's, 3 DVD's, a color lyric sheet/photo set, and a reproduction of the notebook that Bruce used throughout the period. Awesome. If you're into Bruce, it is an absolutely essential item - but you probably knew that already. If you don't get Springsteen, don't worry about it - it won't change your mind.

But if you're interested in songwriting at all, it is chock full of cool quotes from one of the best in the business. This one hit me pretty directly:

I go back to most of my writings before 'Greetings (From Asbury Park)', and, you know, it all appears simply terrible to me. You know, you're still writing a lot of...bad words, you know? You're writing a lot of bad verses. So you're trying to learn how to write well, but your artistic instinct is what you're going on - your artistic intelligence hasn't been developed yet. Hopefully, it increases and develops over a long period of time. That gives you an ace to play, down the road, as you get older.

At the time, I was going on artistic instinct...and that's a wide-open game. You know, I'm following all kinds of paths, and all kinds of roads, and all I'm going is, 'That doesn't feel right'. 'That doesn't feel right'. 'That doesn't feel right' - that's how I'm judging.

That pretty succinctly says something that I've felt but have not been able to articulate for some time (something that Bruce does for me all the time). It's refreshing to hear a songwriter as great as him speak of struggling with 'artistic intelligence'. I kinda assumed he always had it. But there is a very real difference between having 'artistic instinct' (having an ear, having style, being able to recognize quality) and having 'artistic intelligence' (knowing when to hold back, what to hold back, being tasteful).

And once again, He Who Can Do No Wrong in My Eyes (well, except for Human Touch - that album suuuuucked) shows that there is still hope for me yet.

the Minor League Experiment

Well, I have a new summer project: I'm going to visit all of the minor league baseball stadiums in a drivable radius around Baltimore. Why minor league stadiums, you ask? Well, they're cheap, and so am I.

It's actually kinda sad how few minor league stadiums that I've been to considering how many are in the state of Maryland alone. I'm pretty sure I've only been to Harry Grove (heh) Stadium in Frederick once and I pretty much spent my childhood at Municipal Stadium in Hagerstown. But that's it - I have to go see Bowie, and Delmarva, and Aberdeen, and Waldorf just to get current on the stadiums in Maryland. Plus there's a few in Southern PA, Delaware, and West Virginny. So it will be a busy summer - I plan on going to one every weekend.

As of this writing, my wonderful girlfriend is acting like she's excited about the whole thing. I'll give her credit for that. Once we have to start driving 5 hours to see a shitty short-season A-ball team in southern WV though...well we'll see where we are.

But who wouldn't be excited about our first game: the York Revolution's home opener next Friday! Fireworks! Cheap seats! Fat men dancing in between innings! York PA! It's going to be great, I guarantee it. And the best part - we're sitting in the third row from the field on the first base side. Price: $10.

So I'll try to update the ol' blog when I get back from these trips with some pictures and info about the stadium and our fun-filled getaways. Something to look forward to. Oh, that and midgets in the batters box.

Where Your Humble Blogger Loses All Dignity

Well, I did it.

Let me take that back: They made me do it.

I never started out wanting an iPhone.

I never wanted to feed into the massive corporate machine that is Apple.

I never wanted to validate their closed architecture operating systems and regimented control over all third-party apps.

I never wanted to validate this guy:

But, alas, I did. But I maintain that it was everyone else who made me do it. It was LG, and Samsung, and Blackberry, and Palm, and Nokia, and Windows Mobile, and everyone else who just can't seem to make a phone that is even remotely in the same league as the iPhone.

I read plenty of reviews on the iPhone before I exchanged my LG Incite for it, and most of them basically said this:

Cons: Can't copy and paste text, battery life good but not spectacular...ummm...the case isn't aluminum anymore?

Pros: It is a phone that works right the first time and is actually fun to use.

Seriously - go read them for yourselves. I'm not saying the iPhone is perfect; no one is. But the crux of the issue is that the iPhone kicks everyone's ass on the features that actually matter to everyone. I mean, I kinda enjoyed having to edit the registry of my Incite to make it run Internet Explorer a little bit quicker, but in reality I'm much happier playing around in the app store and flicking between my home pages. I mean, I kinda enjoyed trying to figure out why the microphone on my phone would cut out after I loaded Windows Live Search, but in reality I'm much happier watching Shazaam do its crazy magical song-finding shit.

It pains me to write this, it really does. And when it comes to computers, I will always be a PC nerd because I like fucking with all that stuff. But I'm sticking with the iPhone because it works.


ooh plus it has a level and a flashlight~!

An Update

Hi, all. So I've heard recently that there are actually people who read this thing, so I figure I'd give everyone an update on the goings-on in my interesting little existence. A State-of-the-Blog, if you will.

- I recently went against my self-imposed edict and bought a nice, new cell phone. I always told myself that I would only buy the cheapest, most utilitarian phones possible, because no one ever calls me, and I don't want to worry about losing something that cost me a pretty penny. Well, I threw all that out of the window and bought a brand f-ing new LG Incite. Its a touchscreen phone - kinda their version of the iPhone. I've since spent the last two weeks trying my hardest to modify it to look and act like an iPhone. Why didn't you just buy an iPhone, you ask? Well, shut up.

Seriously, though. It bugs the hell out of me that no other company on this planet apparently has half of the brains and ingenuity of Apple. I want to believe that other companies can make a comparable product to the iPod and iPhone, but every time I act on that assumption, it comes back to bite me in the ass. My LG phone's screen is touch sensitive, but not reliable or consistent. It's not pretty, at least until I put some skins on it to make it pretty like an iPhone. Its slow. It has actually frozen up on me. I have to fuck around with the settings at least once a day. Now, remember, I love to do these things, but goddman no wonder Apple is selling iPhones like they are liquid sex, you fucking idiots. Your products are pieces of trash!!! All they have to do to beat you is to make a phone that doesn't lock up and actually respond in a coherent way to what people want it to do!!!

Okay, sorry for the rant. Back to work.

- I'm finishing up my very first "solo" album. It will have six songs on it that have all been recorded by my friends and me. I'm fairly proud of it, and I'm happy about the fact that I created a project for myself to work on out of thin air and have followed through on it. Good for me. Gold star.

- The Orioles are 4-1. They beat the defending AL champion Rays last night 6-0. Awesome.

- I went to my friend's bachelor party last night at a strip club downtown. While I did enjoy seeing the naked ladies, I just couldn't get into it the same way I used to when I was 18 and we would drive down to West Virginia and drink beers in the back of our cars in the parking lot and then try to wash off the X's on our hands and get caught trying to buy drinks at the bar. It just seemed to be a pretty big waste of money and time. Hmm. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, however, so it might just be me. I'm pretty sure it's just me.

- My girlfriend and I just got ourselves new helmets for the upcoming scooter season, so look forward to actual blog posts about scootering, which is, after all, what this whole blog was supposed to be about when I started it a year ago. Now, you all just listen to me bitch about iPhones. Shame on you for letting me stray so far from my vision!

Now to bring it all home, a picture of a duck with George Bush's head on it:























Shame on you all.

It has Sprung

Baseball is back!

Well, kinda. The Braves played the Phillies last night and whooped up on them courtesy of a bunch of homeruns off of poor ol' Brett Myers. Its not completely Brett's fault, though...I mean, look at those eyebrows. That's got to make it pretty difficult to pitch.

Anyway, I'm happy because my wonderful girlfriend got us two tickets to Opening Day today, and despite the fact that the forecast calls for "thunderstorms, strong winds, hail, and a plague of locusts" I'll actually be watching live Orioles baseball today. Hopefully.

I'm bringing my batteries to chuck at Mark Texiera's head, though it would be quite the toss I would have to make to hit him from our seats. But when there's a will, there's a way.

Goh Oh's!

omg two posts today

Okay, so I'm a little bit bored already at work and while I initially thought that I wasn't going to do one of these things, I've since broken down.

Here are 25 things you may not know about me.

1. I consider learning how to cup my hands and make a birdcall sound at Boy Scout camp one of the major accomplishments of my life.
2. I can juggle, a little bit.
3. I went to my first Major League Baseball game when I was 10, in 1991. It was at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, and I remember absolutely nothing about it. Seriously. The only recollection I have is a mental picture of a run-down Baltimore neighborhood that my dad had to drive through to get there.
4. I know I definitely went to that game because it was free Memorial Stadium duffel bag night, sponsored by Texaco System3. I had that bag and used it to haul my music accessories around until it was stolen last year. Pretty amazing that a shitty free plastic duffel bag lasted me 17 years when I can't make a pair of jeans get through 8 months.
5. I secretly like chai tea, but never order it because I'm afraid of looking like a fag.
6. The names of the bands that I have been a part of in my life: Steve Never Came, Melting Pott, Ice Age Children, the Parking Meters, the Reliants, the Bagshots, the Safeword Club, Brougham Jack (lol), and Poly/Western.
7. The first band name I ever came up with: Concrete Rain. I thought that was the coolest name in the world. I don't anymore.
8. The city that I would most like to live in: Charlottesville, VA. In my mind, the weather is always perfect there, everyone is nice, and it is the perfect blend of big and small city feel. In reality, its probably not, but don't shit on my dream.
9. I love baseball, baseball statistics, and read about baseball history on a daily basis, but I have never been to the Hall of Fame, I don't know what position Micky Lolich played, and I regularly get bored watching baseball games on TV.
10. I like sushi, but I really just like it because soy sauce is involved. I could do without the raw fish.
11. I regularly avoid small deli's and lunch places because I hate looking like an idiot trying to figure out their individual ordering systems.
12. I abhor the concept of mass capitalism and the mega-corporation but I love Starbucks and Target, and I buy cheap Chinese-made goods all the time.
13. I spent five years studying music and history in college, but I have forgotten nearly everything that I learned there.
14. I enjoy playing ambient, dissonant, and 'experimental' music because its fucking easy and you can't make mistakes.
15. The thought of having a huge house with modern conveniences and a really expensive sports car in the suburbs is appealing to me, as much as I wish it wasn't.
16. The most embarrassing moment of my life occurred when I was probably 7 or 8 and I went to a friend's house to play video games. I had to go to the bathroom (number 2) and I used their bathroom that for some reason you had to go through to get to the basement. While I was in the act, my friend's mom came up the stairs from the basement and opened the door to the bathroom. The details are a bit hazy, but I distinctly remember her yelling at me and telling me that I shouldn't be doing that there. I immediately ran the entire way home and never went back over to his house.
17. I love the smell of a lit and burning cigarette but abhor the smell of musty and old smoke.
18. Every time I smell one of those "New Car Smell" pine tree air fresheners it reminds me of the time this crackhead I used to hang out with took my car and got it washed and detailed for me.
19. I have trouble remembering events from my childhood, as well as the details of recent events, and I am very scared that as an older person I won't be able to tell any good stories like old people should.
20. I used to think that I was a pretty normal and 'cool' kid, but I recently looked at an old photograph album of myself with my girlfriend and I realized for the first time that I was a complete and absolute nerd, from head to toe.
21. I work for an A/V company, studied music and audio recording in school, and understand the physics behind sound reproduction systems, but the fact that a speaker can make all that music sound real when it is just a cone that vibrates back and forth completely baffles me.
22. Strong wind irritates me more than pretty much anything in this world.
23. I love to write, and I've been told I'm a good writer, but many times when I'm writing a blog I find myself getting too bored to finish the whole thing and will just stop short. See the blog entry below this one for a perfect example.
24. I don't understand the concept of 'perfect legs' and/or 'perfect ass' when it comes to women. I have never looked at a woman and said, 'Oh my god, look at her legs/ass'. I don't know what good legs or asses look like. I know what bad asses look like, but thats about it.
25. For the first time in my life, I am pretty satisfied with who I am, what I'm doing, and where I'm going.

Back in the Saddle

Mileage: 932
Time: No idea

Yeah, that's right - you read that correctly. The scooter is back! Today I optimistically rolled out my scooter and rode it to work for the first time in about four months. I say optimistically because it is supposed to rain today and it was probably about 49 degrees out this morning - not optimal riding conditions, but I was too excited to not take it out today.

And I suppose now is the time to let all of my adoring fans know that I have moved and am no longer taking my old route from downtown Baltimore north to Hampden. I'm now up with the yuppies and college kids in Belvedere/Govans/Rosebank/Towson South/whateveryouwanttocallit Northeast Baltimore. I love the new place and I love the location, but I have to say I am so far extremely disappointed with the commute. Let me give you a point of reference:


View Larger Map

I can hear all of you saying, "Wow, that sure does look like a nice easy commute. You must be so pleased to take such a pleasurable and pleasing route to and from work each day. How pleasant!"

Well, I can tell you that the route above is the result of a damn-near scientific period of trial and error over the last two weeks. And it is perfect. It is the best possible permutation of possible routes from my house through the hoity-toity neighborhoods to work. So yeah, its fairly pleasurable.

But the first few times I went were not. If you look at the map, the simplest and most direct route would be to take Northern Parkway west to Roland Ave., and then shoot South to Hampden. But all is not as it seems...Northern Parkway is a sonovabitch. Especially in the morning. Especially at 7:45 in the morning, which is when I go to work. There are four or five schools in that general vicinity, and they all hold up traffic and have weird special lights and generally make the trip absolute hell. I tried this way first, and it took me a half hour to get to work, which is twice as long as it used to take me to get to work from downtown. I was not a happy camper.

To make a long and boring story short, I tried every other conceiveable way between the two locations and settled on this one...its not perfect, I'm sure, but its close, and it doesn't leave me wanting to rip the heads off of small animals when I'm done. Or maybe I just got lucky today and there wasn't much traffic. I'll let you know.

I swear I'm not paranoid. I think I'm not paranoid, anyway. I suppose one of the hallmarks of being paranoid is that you're generally not aware that you're being paranoid - it has to be pointed out to you by some 'rational' colleague. But I'm pretty sure I'm not an overly paranoid kind of guy. But the fact of the matter is, I'm typing this blog entry in Windows Notepad so that I can quickly copy and paste it onto my blog page so as to minimize the chances of being caught not doing work while at work.

The way that my desk is set up is so that there is one person, let's call her 'Nindy', who sits right behind me. She pretty much has a complete view of my computer monitor at all times. There's not really a way that I can position my monitor or my body to block any portion of the screen from her view. It also so happens that she sits at her desk all day long, every day. So I'm left feeling that she is observing every key stroke and mouse click that I make throughout the day.

Now, this does border on paranoid for the following reasons:

1. I do actual work the majority of the time that I am at work.
2. She has never mentioned anything or made any sort of remark that would make me feel as though she is looking at my monitor, much less concerned that I am spending too much time writing this blog or doing whatever.
3. She isn't my boss, and wouldn't tell him, anyway.

So why do I care? I have no idea...I guess I shouldn't. But for the time being, I'm going to work the whole 'Keep Notepad open to jot down blog ideas' angle just in case.

Gotta go - she just sat down again...

I Love my Car. Really.

Yeah, I know, I know. This blog is supposed to be about my misadventures whilst riding my scooter through the crazy streets of Baltimore, MD. But it is December in the Northeast, and it is cold. And windy. And damp. So I've been driving my car to work. Sue me. Or pay me to write this blog and I'll write about any damn thing you want.

Now that I'm putting some serious miles on the ol' Jetta, its time to actually put some work into the girl. I've had the car for almost 3 years now, and it has not really given me any problems at all, which is pretty incredible, considering I do no maintenance outside of oil changes and occasionally cleaning the windshield. Well, some issues are finally starting to creep up on me. Here's a list of the things I need to have done or do to the car, in order of seriousness/immediacy:

- Replace front brakes
- Replace brake fluid
- Fix driver's side mirror/find the asshole that broke it and beat him/her up
- Get a new spare tire
- Replace spark plugs
- Replace fuel filter
- Check struts & shocks to see what's causing that weird clunking sound when I hit any bump in the street. Baltimore has many bumps in its streets.
- Get rid of annoying mildew smell inside
- Clean it, eventually

So its not the end of the world, but it is a bit of an investment of time and/or money. The problem is that I'm absolutely convinced that I am capable of doing all of these repairs myself. Ergo, I won't take it to the shop. Nevermind the fact that I will curse every minute that I'm fixing my damn car in the street on a cold Saturday when I should be inside curled up in front of a nice warm video game. And I'll probably spend more money trying to fix it and buying incidental tools and parts than I would just taking it to the shop.

Its not my fault - really. Blame my stepdad, who never, I mean ever, took any of my family's cars to the shop unless it was under warranty, and even then he did it with great trepidation. The only problem is that he passed on the DIY attitude to me, but since I don't have his genetic make-up, I don't have the technical ability to do the work myself. Ironic, eh?

Here's to a very dirty, cold, frustrating, and expensive weekend.

The Flame Will Always Burn

Well, I guess you can't win every battle.

For the very few of you out there who actually read this blog, also read www.firejoemorgan.com, and care, you'll probably already know this, and for the rest of you, you're arriving at the party just a tad too late. My second-favorite website in the world, Fire Joe Morgan, is officially calling it quits.

I have to say that I saw this coming, as their posts had become less and less frequent over the last couple of months, and hey, the writers are real people with real jobs and I guess kids and b.s. like that. It makes me really, really sad, though...this means the end of one of the two websites that could actually get me to laugh out loud. Not just a chuckle, or a smile, or a 'mmmthatsfunny', but a god-honest out-loud laugh.

They got it. They said the things that I wishwishwish I was eloquent enough to say in this blog. They wrote the way I wanted to write. They found the same things stupid that I did, for the same reasons. They cared about punctuation, spelling, and grammar. They talked about baseball, and the things that I really, really like about baseball.

In my mind, I can't write well enough to even be allowed to write about them on my own blog - I feel as though I am discrediting them in some way due to my....ummm....suckiness as writer-guy? So, since I can't say enough or the right things or in the right way about them, do yourself a favor and check out some of my favorite posts.

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/09/holy-cow-does-jon-heyman-hate-vorp.html

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/07/time-magazine-is-not-source-for-correct.html

http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/07/turdclump.html

See?? I can't even do that right...there have been so many incredibly incredible posts at that site that I was having trouble remembering specific ones, so I just worked backwards from the last post. Then, I got distracted by some of the posts and I had to read them over again, and laugh, again, and then I got bored and now all that you have are three 'okay' posts that are supposed to represent A WEBSITE THAT MEANS MORE TO ME THAN MY LEFT HAND.

I'm sorry guys, I really am. Go read for yourself.

Circumnavigating the Mega-corporation Seas

So I’m trying to sell some of my crappy guitars on eBay, and to do that I had to update my PayPal account. I don’t know if you’ve ever fucked around with PayPal, but they are the most anal-retentive security-laden company in the world. Every time I’ve ever had to update anything on my account, it has involved them sending me a hard copy letter to my parent’s house in PA and then me doing about 12 levels of security verification.

Anyway, I haven’t used eBay or PayPal in a long time, and when I tried to update my account today, it told me that I had to call in. So I did, and waited on hold for 20 minutes and then talked to an account representative, who asked me my first and last name.

“John Rossman”

“Okay, Mr. Rossman, what can I do for you today?”

“I would like to update the phone number associated with my account.”

“I’m sorry sir, but only the owner of the account can update that information.”

“But I am the owner.”

“No, I’m sorry, the name that is listed on the account is different than the name you provided.”

“What do you mean? What is the name on the account?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you that information.”

“Oh, I know, I know…its listed under ‘Jay’ Rossman. Don’t worry – that’s me.”

“I’m sorry, but I can only let the name listed on the account update the profile.”

“But that’s me! I’m Jay Rossman!”

“That’s not the name that you provided me when I asked what your name was.”

“That’s my nickname! I am Jay Rossman! I am John Rossman! We are the same person! It is I!”

“I’m sorry, but I can only let the name listed on the account update the profile.”

“So let me get this straight: you can’t let me update the phone number on my profile because I said initially that my name was John and the name on the profile is Jay?”

“That is correct.”

“Okay, then I will just hang up, call again, and tell the next person that my name is Jay. Which it is.”

“………………………………”

“I’m sorry, but I can only let the name listed on the acco…”


*click*


Needless to say, 20 minutes later I updated Jay Rossman’s information. What fun!

Shameless Self-promotion

To anyone who hasn't seen it yet:

The Start of Something Big

Hi all.  Welcome to my bloggish thing.  For anyone who is reading this post as it actually appears on the first day of this blog, October 3, 2008, I congratulate you on being a piece of history.  A really, r

eally, really small and categorized part of history really pertaining to no one but me, but a piece of history anyway.  For those of you who are reading this to find out why this blog exists, welcome...I guess.

What this is all about:  I'm going to attempt to write a daily recap of my adventures riding my 50cc scooter to and from work each day.  I have no idea how well this is going to work, or turn out, or whether or not it will be interesting to anyone but me - I suspect it probably won't.  But writing about my mishaps on the road is really only part of why I'm doing this blog.  In reality, I need an excuse to write.  I used to write all the time when I was in school, and now, outside of e-mails, status reports, and client proposals, I don't have any time (at least that's what I tell myself) to actually just write.  

So, I'm not simply doing this blog to tell you how many people cut me off each day, but rather as an exercise to get myself to write.  Call me selfish - I am! 

Who I am:  I'm a 26 year-old who works for an audiovisual company in Baltimore, MD.  I love the Baltimore Orioles.  I

 play guitar in two bands.  But enough about me - lets get to the real star of the show...

This here is my Genuine Roughhouse R50 scooter that I purchased all the way back in July of 2008.  Okay, well its not mine, that's the official promo shot of the scooter, but you get the idea.  

Isn't it the ugliest damn thing in the world?

There is absolutely nothing that endeared me to this model when I went to buy my scooter.  I wanted a Buddy, which is a knock-off of a Vespa, one of those classic-looking scooters that all the Mods used to ride back in England when the Who kicked ass and before the Kinks started getting lame.  This was literally the last scooter that they had in the 50cc range.  Here in Maryland, you can have a scooter up to 50cc without having to get it registered, or having to get a motorcycle license.  Obviously, I wanted a 50cc scooter.

But so does everyone else in the world these days, so I had to take what I could get.  The guy at the dealership said they weren't getting a shipment of Buddies in for another two months at the earliest and they had all been sold already.  But, he said in his salesman-like way, this here ugly-ass thing with headlights that look like Frank from Donnie Darko and a split-pea soup paint job, has the same engine as the Buddy, with more storage space, larger tires, and bigger shocks.

SOLD!  To the impulsive idiot on the left.

So I got the ugly thing and headed home, and have absolutely fallen in love with it ever since.  It no longer seems ugly to me - it has character.  It gets me everywhere I need to go in the city quickly, I can keep up with even crazy Baltimore traffic, I can park anywhere I want, and best of all, I get 90 MPG.  So nyah.

Every day I ride my scooter to work about 5 miles along this route:

View Larger Map

I suspect that at some point I'll give you some details about different sections of the route, but suffice it to say that it is pretty varied - it goes from a four-lane road to one-way streets to driving under bridges and beside a pretty creek.  I'm pretty lucky in that regard, and it certainly has made my commute a hell of a lot more bearable.

So that's that - I hope to update this daily, but I probably won't.  Like most things I do, I thought of this on the way to work, I'll be really into it for about two weeks or so, and then I'll trail off and eventually forget about it.  So you have that to look forward to.