I've done some web searches to legitimate sites for info and instruction
on doing vocal warmups and exercises with a straw
(aka: straw phonation)
and have found useful stuff. Basically, at the moment, I'm just
doing virtually all the warmups and exercises I've been doing for
a while, but with a straw.
My usual routine is a few things:
an ascending then descending scale, that starts in a low
key then goes through a series of repeats, each in a key one
step higher than the preceding
a descending scale that starts in a high key then goes
through a series of repeats, each in a key one step lower than
the preceding
vocal sirens
that again start in a low key then go through a series of
repeats, each in a key one step higher than the preceding
I usually finish the session off by oohing or awing* two
songs, both in a series of keys from low to high:
‐‐ *in the case of the straw work, I have just
been oohing
I also usually do some scales while singing the alphabet, that to
loosen my lips and tongue to get me in shape to enunciate words better.
Obviously this is not one to do with the straw. I might add that
I do all these vocal warmups whether I would be on stage
singing or on stage acting. Either way the performer needs a
warmed-up voice. The trick now is to do them daily regardless of
if I would be on stage, rehearsing, or recording. And as you five(?)
regulars know, this ought to be the same principle for my bass and
keyboard work....
It's only been a few days since I've started the straw phonation
work. Usually I have done it while driving, such as to and from work,
or when I've been heading to and from the
The Guild. I can
say that there's been some slight improvement in the upper
range of my chest voice, likewise in my falsetto. There is an issue
at the cusp of my chest voice and my falsetto. I'm having a difficult
time keeping my voice stable and on pitch. And the vibrato is unsteady.
I've also notice unsteady vibrato toward the top of my falsetto, too,
at least when using the straw. It's probably harder with the straw,
which means that mastering it with the straw will translate
to much better control without it.
So, I don't think I'm ready to tackle that vocal for the
Album 2.0 Project's
R&B song, yet. Still, however, I'll probably give it a try this
weekend.
Directed by Kim Warrick
Produced by Rhea Smith & Heather Atkinson
This musical from the mid-2000's is a twist on Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice. A young, uptight greeting card
writer's life is changed when he meets a flighty photographer.
Along with their eccentric friends and siblings, they learn
to love each other, not despite their faults, but because
of them.
The Cast of I Love You Because
CHARACTER
ACTOR
Austin
Jacob Nichols
Jeff
Drew Roby
Marcy
Adee McFarland
Diana
Sephyrah Martin
NY Woman, et al
Emma Alexander
NY Man, et al
Matthew Clifton
Presented through arrangement with Theatrical Rights Worldwide
DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT WE MAY HAVE A LEAD VOCAL IN THE BAG:
After accumulating some sessions of
straw phonation
vocal warmup voice therapy, and feeling like I'd achieve good
results, yesterday I gave the lead vocal for the R&B song another
go ‐‐ the preferred
Sting-like
version; and, again, I call it that, but I really can't do a
"Sting-like" vocal.
Well, K.L., how did it go? you ask. I'll tell you: I may
finally have a good take on that friggin' vocal, maybe. I gotta
remember, though, that I thought that about the last attempt until
after I'd gotten all the way to a
masteredmix.
Listening to that, I decided the vocal was crap. We'll see if I end
up rejecting this one sometime between migrating to my
laptop
and listening to a new mastered mix. I wasn't able to migrate from
the 24-Track recorder
to the laptop last night because the laptop was engaged in another
task until the wee hours of this morning *(see next entry).
This time, it was five tries to get a good take. Within those takes,
I tried three different vocal styles, settling on a new approach
that I used in takes 4 & 5. Still, there's one line in the chorus
that escapes me. I'm not sure about the notes for that specific
moment in the melody. I've taken what I have for the time being,
but if I decide to go back, this issue just might be what takes me
there. I'm looking for a certain effect, and I don't think I've
achieved it yet. But, I may change my mind. I'm sure to get the
vocal over into
Logic Pro X
and get a mixed master of the song later today; then I can see if
I'm willing to take what I have.
SPACE & TIME:
I had loaded all the footage from the first two
staged readings
of Michael London's
play, Varian, and all other related material onto a two
terrabyte external harddrive. With both shoots being
three-camera,
that amounts to more than ten hours of footage, not including the
talkback
footage from both performances. When you add the external audio files
and other graphics and documents, along with the
Final Cut Pro X
project, there's only a little more than a GB of open space left on
the HD. And I'm only a little more than 60% finished editing together
the movie for the first performance that took place at the
Dayton Jewish Community Center.
In fact, while editing yesterday, FCPX gave me a message that there
was not enough open memory to execute the last edit command I tried,
that I needed to free up space. So I looked in my tech closet for
another HD that I could use to load off some footage. What I found
was an 8 TB external drive I had forgotten about, and it was empty,
save for a FCPX library file, that was also empty.
I took a forced break from DV movie editing to copy all the
Varian material and the FCPX project from the 2 TB to the 8
TB. The FCPX project transfer took from late afternoon yesterday to
sometime early this morning. But now I have 6.33 TB of open space,
which should be enough for everything, including the three
final cuts.
Michael also procured a new wireless mic system with two handheld
and two Lavalier mics.
I've tested this new setup and we should be good to go.
It's the editing after the fact, that's the rub. Editing the first
performance has been far more time consuming than I anticipated.
It's the task of syncing the external audio with the video that is
the heavy factor. There's a slight speed variant between the DV
footage and the audio, so I need to be vigilent about staying on top
of needed adjustments or else the movie will start looking like a
poorly lip-synced foreign film. I don't necessarily mind the work,
itself; the time commitment, on the other hand, is another issue.
But, such is life, right?
There are things going on, or at least starting to promise
momentum in my music world. The the ripple of the sea-change in my
artist's world has picked up a little speed.
Primarily this has to do with my music partner from our youth, Rich
Hisey, and myself. When I decided it was time to record a new album
‐‐ because, you know,
the FIRST one
was such a commercial dynamo ‐‐ I knew that I
didn't want all the tracks to have computer generated or midi drum
parts; I wanted some-to-most songs to have live drums played by a
human being. And I knew what drummer was my first choice: my fellow
Pilot from Wilbur Wright High School, drummer and percussionist in
the Wilbur Wright orchestra, jazz band, and drum corps, drummer,
later one of the guitarists and keyboardists, for the East Dayton
garage band, SeazonWind, and occasional songwriting collaborator
and all-around solid music collaborator with myself.
I'd approached him months ago about drumming on tracks for the album,
and that blossomed into a conversation about recording things with
him as frontman, and that in all of this, doing a few more of our
collaborations. You five(?) regulars may be aware that I did
one of my favorite songs we wrote together,
"Memories of the Times Before (Pt. 1-4)"
on the first album. As for the upcoming future, last year we figured
we'd start getting together sometime during the next year, now being
this year, after we figured out some schedule that worked.
Toward the end of 2025, we talked more seriously about getting Rich
in to drum on
Album 2.0,
and he wanted some time to get his chops back up. I'll probably use
him on rhythm guitar some, too. We still haven't figured out the
schedule part, but, on my end at least, the schedule will be a bit
freer relatively soon. I called Rich earlier this week and based
on our previous conversations he's been taking action, which includes
replacing his current set of electronic drums with a new set; that's
happening sometime soon. So we'll be talking in a couple weeks to
start getting more specific about plans.
Seems like a few things may be happening in some sort of sequence.
Rich is on some instruments, especially as a living,
breathing drummer, on the
Album 2.0 project
we do our own version of
Hall & Oats*
and/or
Fagen & Becker
featuring us as a double bill.
Whether that would bear the name we had back last century,
"SeazonWind," is not determined
we work on songs Rich wrote with him as the featured artist
The exact configuration of workflow and whether or not #2 is only
songs we wrote together has not been discussed. And this above may
not be what ends up coming to be in exactly these manners. But I
do know that we will be laying tracks with songwriting credits
spanning the three listings: Storer, Hisey/Storer (or vice versa),
and Hisey.
*) also, our "Hall & Oats" cosplay won't
include the nasty riff that has opened between Daryl and John.
Plus, let's be real, neither of us has ever even been close
to the league of Daryl Hall as a vocalist.
You five(?) potential regulars may remember that last Sunday I again
attempted the lead vocal for the R&B song. I was hopeful that
this one worked. Hope is always a good thing; it keeps one moving
forward sometimes. However, my optimism was, though well-placed,
premature. Tuesday evening I migrated the new lead vocal from my
24-Track recorder
into the
Logic Pro X
project for the song and did a
mix.
As I was mixing I already knew: Nope. This ain't cutting it.
My full scrutiny on playback of the mix solidified that thought in
granite.
I guess there's more
straw phonation
and then another session in order. It'd be great if it's just ONE
more attempt! I am more than a little impatient to wrap up the recording
of this and move on to whatever is next. I think I know what it'll
be. I am leaning toward a love ballad I wrote in the late 70s. I
have several ideas for new songs, some that have been started, and
at least one that is relatively close to completely composed. These
new ones address the principle theme for the album. But I'm thinking
that I may want to alternate between stuff from my way-back machine
and material I'm conceiving right now. This despite that a lot of
the older stuff won't directly address the theme concept like the
new stuff will; but, then, the R&B song doesn't either, and it's
a new composition.
As for Rich on guitar on the album, there are two specific songs I
definitely have in mind. One I wrote a few years back, actually in
my head, that I want one or more acoustics on. I had eventually worked
the chords out, from what I heard in my head, on the piano, but if
there's a piano on the recording, it'll be supplemental. I really
hear this as a mostly acoustic song. I'll probably use my
Giannini
acoustic bass for the bass line. The other one I wrote in the olden
days and SeazonWind did in our sets. Now that I think about it,
I wrote that one in my head, too. Rich actually brought it up the
other night before I did. It's a nice little poppy rocker that
I think, in its day, in the early 80s, might have actually been a
hit on the charts, had we ever progressed to being a signed band. I
don't want to sound arrogant, but I think it had the potential to
be a big hit.
A little note about both these songs. I composed the music for both
in my head while at work. The new one, I was sitting at my desk, in
front of my computer. The older one, I was literally sweeping floors
with a dust mop in a publishing house where I worked in my
mid-twenties. I conceived a small portion of the lyrics for both in
my head, too. Of course, I finessed the music on instruments
‐‐ a piano, for the new one, where I identified the chords
and tweaked the progressions a little bit, the older one on my bass.
And I finished the lyrics with pen and paper for both.
Back to the concept of a basic theme for much of the album, I also
have the album title as well as the cover artwork. I've had both for
a few weeks. I am keeping them both under wraps. I have shared
neither with anybody, at all.
I've also not shared the R&B song with anyone, save for putting
a video of a portion of the isolated
MIDI
horn chart in a previous blog post. And I played a bit of the instrumental
mix for my nephew at Easter dinner. That nephew being David Bernard,
who does the great lead guitar work on
"Identity,"
the opening cut off the first album. Of course, at least a few
people have heard last summer's single,
"Backward in Time,"
which is 90+% likely to be on the album, though, surprise-surprise,
remixed
and remastered
if it does make it on. And that would probably not be shared, unless
I wanted a private ear to give me feedback on the new mix.
I have the
rough cut
of the first performance at the
Dayton Jewish Community Center
finished. This weekend I'll be working on
color correction
and audio
sweetening
in Final Cut Pro X.
Now all I gotta do is edit together two more performances, and make
a tremendous effort to do each far quicker than I did the first one.
Not to mention there are three
talkbacks
to edit together as separate DV movies.
STRESS, SELF-CARE, A NEW SONG, BUT NO R&B LEAD VOCAL:
Here I am at Davey Woods State Nature Preserve last
Friday afternoon.
Last Friday I was embroiled in a stupid, self-induced production
crisis that you'll read about in the next entry below. I was
stressed and for most of the day. I couldn't take direct action, so
I did some self-care, including a hike at a new park for me,
Davey Woods State Nature Preserve,
around 25 miles away and about a 35 minute therapeutic drive when
you avoid the freeways, which is the best way to drive to a park:
take as rural a route as you can. That philosophy is some of why
the hike is relevant to this entry.
On the way there, a new song came to me, not one directly about the
stupid crisis, but about the response to it, about the escape I was
headed toward. The lyrics came to me on the drive there, and keep
this under your hat but I started crying a little, and I'm not
completely sure why, though I have some educated and instinctual
guesses. But I do know that this new song fits well into the
overwhelming theme that's developing for Album 2.0.
When I got to the preserve, I immediately wrote the lyrics, I'd
come up with on the drive, into my
Notes app,
then expanded them during the hike, then more so on the way home,
the latter not on my Notes app, just to be clear (I don't
use my phone while I'm driving). Naturally I've done a little more
work, some tweaking and additions, since.
I've had a rather generic melody in my head for the song, which I'm
pretty sure will change quite a bit once I compose the music. That
"place-holder" melody serves as working toward the intended
mood of the song and the rhythm of the vocal line. That's often how
I work.
On another Album 2.0 Project front, I still have not given the lead
vocal for the R&B song that third try. One issue has been having
the time. The other has been wanting to do more vocal conditioning
before I make this next attempt. I've been doing the
straw phonation
exercises, usually while driving in my car. I want this vocal to be
the best one I can muster and I am not convinced I'm there yet. But,
to be honest, I was half tempted yesterday to give it a shot but
decided to do more vocal work first. I may give it a shot
tonight; I might do a rehearsal and see what I think of that
performance. Although my vocal work this morning was a a little
rough.
CLARIFICATION: I want to be sure people understand that the
"The Director" icon I use for this Varian,
series of DV movies is designating me as the
director
of the DV movies, NOT as the
director
of the
staged readings.
The readings were directed by
Annie Pesch,
just to be clear.
Wednesday, April 22, I had finished all that color correction. All
that was left to get to final cut was that audio sweetening. That
was on the slate to at least start, if not complete, on Thursday
evening. However, before I could get to that on Thursday, something
really stupid-assed, irritating, and incredibly heart-wrenching
happened!
Once again, as I have a few times in the past, I wanted to blame the
ol' production gremlin,
I really, really did. But, I couldn't. No, it was a mea culpa
situation all the way. Later that same evening, I did this vague post
on my
facebook artist's page
and my regular page:
I'm quite pissed at myself. I've actually been verbally
abusive at me. I did something inexcusably careless and have
set one of my projects back maybe quite a few days at the
least. I've also just set my bank account back $270 and I
may be about to spend twice that much if not a lot more.
When my stupid clumsiness first occurred and it was clear I
had wreaked havoc, my screams of denial were pretty primal;
I lost a lot of work ‐‐ A LOT! It's not necessarily
lost forever, but [I'd] put a lot of tedious work in and I may
have to start all over! I said things to myself, mean-spirited
insults that I would not have tolerated from anyone else.
I've calmed down, but I am still pissed ‐‐ for the
stupid bungle and for all the trouble it has caused and all
the bigger trouble it may potentially cause, and the fact
that my vacation plans for later in the summer are probably
dead now.....!!!!
I can't libel the gremlin
even though I want to; this was all on me. Now that it's the other
side of this asinine dilemma, I'll drop the vagueness. That Thursday
evening, not long before I was to begin working on the audio enhancement,
I knocked the
8 terabyte external harddrive, with the project and all its sources
on it, off the work table and it took a near fatal plunge to the floor.
And it was damaged. It would fire up but it would not engage.
It would not register on my
laptop; no
editing of any kind was happening. If my neighbors heard me
desperately yelling "Noooooooooooo!"
‐‐ screaming, really ‐‐ and I can't reason how
they could not have, they must have thought I was being tortured
horribly.
After a few minutes of panic and dispair, I unplugged the injured
harddrive and drove straight to the local
Best Buy in hopes that the
BB Geek Squad could recover the data. First thing I did was pick up
another 8 TB external harddrive: the $270 mentioned in the facebook
post (actually $266.86). The Geek Squad couldn't help me on
site; they'd have to ship it off and it would be gone at least one
month, plus I might have been looking at as much as $1600 in fees,
if not more. They recommended a local computer tech shop that does
repairs and data recovery.
Friday morning I did a few routine things at
the rent-payer then
took the rest of the day as
vacation.
The orginal plan was to take the damaged and the new harddrives to
that local computer shop to first recover all the data to the new
device, then if possible, repair the bad one, if the repair would
result in a trustworthy HD. But I nixed that plan. I'm pretty strapped
for cashflow right now and have been for a while. I'm not sure it
would cost me as much for data recovery with the local shop as the
send-out through Best Buy might have, but I doubt it was going to
be cheap. It was a burden to drop the $266.86 for the new 8 TB HD.
Taking another route, though not wholly attractive, looked more
attractive than this money pit path.
I have all the source files for the DV production on the 2 TB
harddrive I'd started with, save for the footage and audio from the
most recent Wright StateJubilee Directing Lab
performance, and that material is still on board the three
DV cameras
and the
8-track recorder;
Also, I had started the editing in FCPX for the Jewish Community
Center performance on the 2 TB, so there's a Final Cut file for that
there with 83% of the performance edited in but none of the color
correction was done; that had been done after I'd migrated to the
now-damaged old 8 TB; I had to again add the last 17% of the
performance, then again add the closing titles, graphics, and music,
and color correct ‐‐ is it too redundant to say
"again?" But I wasn't going to need to spend more money
I can't afford to spend, and I could get to that final cut sooner,
still late, but not as late. And at least I had less of the
performance to add back to the end of the edit than I had worried
I did.
Getting the data from one external harddrive to the other was not
a quick proposition. Friday after I left the office, the day was
not about redoing any of what needed redoing. The 2 TB HD was
almost completely full, with only 1.2 GB of open space left. I had
to migrate 1.998 TB, a bit more than half of that being the FCPX
project file. I knew it would take all day. The file copying started
at about 10:00 that morning. I figured it would run until 11:00 that
night, or maybe even midnight or later, and that was almost
correct (STAY TUNED). My laptop was going be mostly unavailable for
most of the day; and clearly there was no DV movie editing going to
happen until FCPX was ready on the 8 TB. So for the day I did other
things that needed done. Starting to compose the text of this blog
post was one of them ‐‐ I had some use of the laptop,
just limited use.
I also ran some errands including dropping by the local
T-Mobile store to replace
a cracked screen protector on my iPhone, then I ate a great lunch
at Jeet Indian Restaurant.
Later in afternoon I headed off to that hike at Davey Woods State
Nature Preserve. I note that when I left to go to Davey Woods the
FCPX file was at 25% copied over; when I got home, a little over
two hours later, it was at 55%.
Cleary I still had a few hours to kill before I could get to any
sort of editing. It wasn't even a good idea to tax my laptop, or
the new 8 TB HD, by migrating the Wright State performance footage
from the three cameras and that audio from the 8-track to the
new 8 TB. So I continued doing other stuff. A little more work on
the narrative of this blog post was one action. I did a little more
work on that new song I'd started earlier, some
producer's
work on The Guild's
production of
The Beacon,
by Nancy Harris,
and a little bit of recreational TV watching. I had until around 10
or 11 pm.
But wait, there's another
dumbassed glitch! At about 10:30 Friday night, when the
transfer of the FCPX file was at about
97%,
I again bungled things!
I managed to accidentally loosen the power cable to the 2 TB HD,
which disrupted connection to my laptop and screwed the
whole damned
migration! I had to start the transfer all over, after all those
(insert expletive here) hours! I had to start all over!
Thus, "Migration 2.0" of the FCPX file was an overnight
affair, so there was absolutely no editing, color correction, etcetera,
etcetera that could happen Friday night.
In fact editing didn't start until Sunday because I had a previous
engagement for most of Saturday with a friend of mine who's in the
preparation period of starting a podcast, and I and another mutual
friend will be guests on early episodes. We three had an informal
meeting that loosely brainstormed things that could be covered. I
also had, you know, regular life stuff to attend to beforehand on
Saturday, and though I might have done some work on the DV movie
afterward, I was tired; I opted for bed. So it was Sunday when the
work resumed.
It had already become clear that I would need to take another
vacation
day on Monday, or at least most of Monday. I thought it was probable
when I started the first migration of the FCPX file, but when that
one got screwed after happening most of Friday and I had to start
over, taking most of Monday off from work was a 100% given. I ended
up burning twelve
vacation
hours on this rescue mission.
The small silver lining in this darkish cloud is that I
still will have enough accumulated hours for both
vacations
I've planned, one surrounding Memorial
Day weekend, the other surrounding The 4TH of July. Whether
or not I'll have the cashflow is another question.
By the end of day, Monday, the final cut of the first performance
had finally arrived, and only a day or two later than I'd hoped.
Now there's a rendered 1:42:31
ProRes
DV movie, coming in at 112.2 gb. Two more to go, with the hope of
not so much unneccessary drama. I still have to edit the separate
short DV movie of that
talkback
but that's not likely much of a challenge or task,
or, perhaps I shouldn't write that.
More versions of photos of me in one of my favorite
office spaces, Monday, redoing the finish of editing
the Varian Jewish Community Center performance.
I mentioned above that Saturday I got together with two of my friends,
one that I met in high school and the other in the next decade. The
high school friend is Lou Lala, and he's in
preproduction
for a podcast/YouTube channel
focusing on the
Baby Boomer Generation,
of which, according to long-established sociology and anthropology
all three of us are at the tail end of. The other friend, Ken
Harnish, and I will be early guests on the podcast. We had a rather
loose conversation Saturday about what things we might talk about
on the programs. To be honest, a lot of our time that day was more
catching up with each other, but Lou found that useful for the
podcast as it sparked some ideas.
I only have one little dissension, though it's a minor one, I guess.
For a long time, a few decades in fact, I have felt like I'm actually
not a "Boomer." I've long associated the Boomer Generation
as those who came of age in the late 50s or the in the 60s. I turned
18 in 1976. And that great prosperity that the Baby Boomers supposedly
benefitted from, the one that I was promised, guaranteed?: that didn't
come my way. Some of my peers growing up did end up sitting
pretty financially, but by and large those close to me in age, the
people I went to high school with, didn't seem to reap the economic
boom the Boomers have the reputation for basking in.
More so, for years I identified more, but not completely, with
Generation X.
Not completely because there are some things that I don't readily
identify with, but there are loads of things I do. For one thing, I
was a latchkey kid
a good decade before the term was coined. I don't believe I am alone
in that with a lot of others in my close age range. I don't think
Gen X was the first with a decent portion of kids coming home from
school to an empty house because Mom and Dad were both still at work.
We were a two-income family in the 60s by the time I was in the fourth
grade ‐‐ not hefty incomes, more necessary incomes. But
many wives and mothers were starting to go to work in the mid-to-late
60s not just out of an economic necessity but because the old
traditional norm was being challenged and moved away from. I think
a lot of us born in the late 50s onward experienced mothers who were
not stay-at-home mothers, who were no longer the traditional
house wife. I think some percentage of us predated Gen X on this
front; we were coming home to an empty house when they were being
born.
Other ways I felt more Gen X than Boomer was that, though normal
access to computers, especially home computers, wasn't in the
forefront until I was pushing 30, when they did start popping into
our work lives, etc., I adapted pretty well and quickly when they
became a norm. Plus, within the financial means of my lower middle
class household, I was as self-reliant as any self-respecting Gen
X kid.
But there are ways I don't at all feel like Gen X. Relatively tech
savvy as I am, I didn't get introduced to common access to computers
at as early an age. Computers were not part of my younger youth, and
barely part of my teens. The only teen peers I remember ever messing
around with computers were the brainiac geeks in high school who had
access to them through Honors classes and such, and that was only
at school in isolated circumstances. I didn't sit at a computer
keyboard until I went to college in the late 80s, and that was in
the computer labs on campus. I didn't have a home computer until I
was 39 years old.
And video games were not part of my youth. Sure,
Pong came out when
I was 14, but my childhood was bereft of video games. No kid
in my elementary classes had an Atari consol at home. And in the
70s, home video games were not as prolific as people think or
remember, not like they were in the 80s and onward. And game arcades
were overwhelmingly oldschool pinball machines, bowling machines,
and fuze ball tables. Sure, Pong and
Pac-Man and other
earlier computer generated video games made their appearances in
arcades in the 80s, but by then, I and my immediate age group were
post-teen. We may have indulged occasionally, but we had entered
that second phase of young adulthood; we had lives to build, we
couldn't hang out at the arcades, unless we were the ones with
stunted or delayed development going on, 'cause you know, each
generation has that sub-group.
Still I felt far more Gen X than Baby Boom, but not wholly Gen X.
Then a couple years ago I was introduced to a new cohort that
sociologists have identified:
Generation Jones,
a population sandwiched between the old-guard Boomers and Gen X-ers.
Some sociologists and anthropologists put Gen Jones births between
1954 and 1964, some 1955-1965; either way, I'm pretty close to the
middle of whichever period one accepts.
Separating me further from Boomers was that by the time I hit my late
teens, that "American Dream" was in serious jeopardy. I
remember in my late adolescence and early teens how a lot of adult
men in my life were getting laid off from what had once been incredibly
stable jobs with deep financial security. The promised surety we of
my close age range were suppose have was, at best, weakened. Then
in my early twenties we were getting the con of Trickledown Economics
as well as union busting and many other policies and actions that
were attacking and sinking the social safety nets and the social,
political, and economic power of what was once a robust, booming,
and greatly influential middle class. My experience as a young adult
growing up was not at all the same as someone born in 1945 or 1950.
This new classification, the Generation Jones designation, and
experts description of its members, spoke directly to me ‐‐
speaks directly to me.
Yes, I don't really think of myself as a "Boomer." I'm a
"Gen Jonser." To my way of thinking, if you were old
enough to go see
The Beatles at
Shea Stadium,
if you were of age to go to
Woodstock,
then you're absolutely a Boomer, if you were a tad too young, especially
for Woodstock, then maybe not; maybe you're really Gen Jones. I
was too young for both.
I do remember JFK being assassinated, but my
biggest concern was that my cartoons were getting interrupted.
But I was old enough to remember the social movements of the 60s
and I had pretty decent politcal awareness for a little kid. But
as we moved into the 1970s, as I moved into my teens, I was more
than disappointed that the social change didn't seem to be holding
up to what it was supposed to be. And then we go back to the
prosperity I was supposed to getting that didn't show up.
They were coming of age when divorce was most common
‐‐ I am a child of divorce and many, many kids I
knew were too.
They helped normalize going to therapy
‐‐ I hit therapy in my mid-twenties as well as
self-help groups; and I certainly didn't buy the stigma bullshit
even before that.
They were sometimes the first to go to college in their families
‐‐ I'm the first in my immediate family, but I
do have a niece and a nephew who beat me there. But, their
neither much younger than me and both fall into the Gen Jones
time frame (my siblings are all much older than I).
They knew what it meant to be bored
‐‐ Yes indeed. There was no social media to turn
to whenever things got slow or silent; I didn't have a Game Boy
to distract me. Often I was left to my own devices, to dig into
my imagination to conjure up some entertainment. And might I
say THANK GOD! I truly believe it greatly helped foster
much of the creativity that defines my identity today.
They learned how to hustle
‐‐ Meh. Though I actually think I might hustle
a little more than I give myself credit. But my hustles are not
too much about money. And I know many peers who are far, far
better at it than I.
Hyper-aware of generational comparisons
‐‐ I am indeed, and always have been. And for the
most part they make me uncomfortable. I especially dislike any
generation bashing regardless of which generation is bashing
which-other generation. I think it's all useless nonsense. I
feel the same about gender bashing, I find it shallow and unproductive.
They have the 'trust no one' mentality
‐‐ Not always, but not infrequently. I actually
am trying to be more trusting but I do sometimes boarder on
being paranoid, especially about people I don't know, or don't
know well. And I frequently second guess people's motives, even
those I do know.
They have a quiet toughness to them
‐‐ That's probably truer than I know. Yet I do
have a voice inside me that constantly berates me as weak and
lacking.
They're masters at talking in-person
‐‐ Yep. Though I know that sometimes people would
rather I sit down and shut up, which probably takes away from
being a "master" at it.
They find themselves caught between nostalgia and stress
‐‐ All. The. Damned. Time!
I'm not too sure that these traits are absolutely unique to Gen Jones,
as the article title says and the article intimates, or that Gen
Jones members are "completely different" from Boomers and
Gen X, as it further claims, but it makes sense to me that the traits
mark a significant commonality for those of us born from the mid 50s
to the mid 60s. And I see myself in the list far more than I do in
the concept of Baby Boomers, so I declare myself a member of
Generation Jones.
But, to circle back to what initially was supposed to be the main
point of these prose, I do want to participate in Lou's podcast.
Some of that is assuredly just my big-ass ego, let me not bullshit
myself, or you. I also think there will be interesting conversation
going on and I'd love to be a part of it. I'm sure that on my
episode there will be a conversation, perhaps a healthy, friendly
debate about this different take on myself and others born in the
late 50s and early 60s. But there will be so many other things
nostalgic, sociological, and cultural to discuss about being a kid
in the 60s, a teen in the 70s, a twenty-something in the 80s.
There are people in my party I want working for me and my
state, at the State level and in D.C. So you'd better believe
I showed up for the primary to do my part to get them on
the November ballet, so I can then do my part to get them
in the offices. Plus, you know, the local issues: schools,
parks, municipal maintenance, emergency services ‐‐
supporting those is, I don't know, I think the term is
"the responsibility and civics of 'Community.'"
NO SINGING, TOO MUCH HISS, AND THE REPRISE IS COMING:
It seems my work on the next album is either on a little hiatus or
is at a snails pace, with lots of slow deep breaths in between each
muscular movement. I have yet to record that next, and I hope
last, attempt at the lead vocal for the R&B song.
I have been doing the
straw phonation
vocal exercises/warm ups, still usually while driving in my car,
and more often than not while driving to and/or from work. I do think
there is some improvement in my control and possibly a small expansion
of my range, but I haven't concluded yet that I'm ready to tackle
certain sections of the vocal for the R&B song. I also have needed
to prioritize time and energy to other things, especially the
Varian DV movie project (more on that below).
There's a tape hiss issue with the Heart Walks multi-track
masters that I think I've mention here previously. It has definitely
been a hitch in getting this album, recorded in the mid-1980s,
mastered.
Of course, the hiss comes from the orginal '80s
analog-tape,
four-track masters, with most of the four tracks being
bounce
tracks with more than one instrument on them, which adds a layer
of hiss for each instrument/voice in the bounce.
I've had no luck eliminating any of the hiss without effecting the
audio dynamics of the instruments or voices on the tracks. And I
don't have any machine-learning software (i.e.: A.I. software) to
do it. I haven't had the money to purchase any, mostly because of my
auto troubles of the last six months, which has cost me thousands of
dollars.
Though I haven't yet pulled my
"Coming This Year"
teaser graphic for the album, I have had serious doubts that it
truly will be coming this year. But there may be hope. I
was at my friend, Lou Lala's house yesterday *(see below) and he
mentioned that he does have software that can easily isolate
and eliminate the tape hiss. It can also separate out all the individual
audio signals (instruments/voices) on each bounced track to create
individual
stems
(i.e.: tracks) for each instrument or voice. There's about a
99.9999999999999% probability that I'm taking him up on that. The
hisses would be gone and I'd have far more
mixing
choices across the
stereo pan
since each instrument or voice would be independent of all other
audio in the song.
So maybe I won't have to take down or revamp that teaser or update
my Projects
and Music
pages, after all.
Slowly but surely, Rich Hisey and I are gearing up for some music
making starting sometime this year. My hope is we launch our
musical reunion this summer, and I think there are good odds of that.
We've had a couple productive conversations, in between all the
"SQUIRREL!" moments that sidetracked us.
We'll be getting together in the next several weeks to coordinate
a plan. Meanwhile, Rich will be doing some woodshedding on his new
electronic drums as well as starting to get to know his new
Yamaha
keyboard, of which I can't remember the model, but I know it's a
top-shelf one.
GET YOUR FORMATTING IN ORDER:
I managed to get the DV movie of the
staged reading
of the
Dayton Jewish Community Center
performance of Michael London's
play, Varian to
final cut,
with no further glitches. There however was a glitch, albeit
a minor one, after the DV movie was locked. Michael's system would
not open or read the uncompressed
ProRes
movie version I gave him because it was an APCN
codec.
I had to convert it an
MP4
movie with the H.264 codec. I later discovered I can render an
uncompressed ProRes at H.264, which I will probably do for the DV
movies of the other two performances. As for the other two
performances. The rest of my day today is pretty much dedicated to
editing together the Wright StateJubilee Directing Lab
one.
RAMBLE ON:
Sat down yesterday with Lou Lala for several hours for a long
discussion, out of which he hopes to glean at least thirty minutes
of cohesive, coherent material for his Baby Boomer podcast. He only
recorded audio, though he does have DV cameras to shoot with in the
future.
It was a quite informal, casual conversation. We just went wherever
we went ‐‐ which was all over the place. Some of it was
about our youthful experiences and influences. Some of it touched
on our thoughts on things social, sociological, and, to some extent,
generational. I am curious as to how he pulls together that cohesive
half-hour.
He want's to meet up again in the next few weeks. I suspect that
session might just be a little more structured. Or, maybe not. There
could be a method to his madness.
Showing weekends
May 22-Jun 7, 2026
Tickets on sale...
