on the continued process of replacing the simple with complication...

About that age thing, some Texas insanity, and "a very timely cartoon" department...

So, it would appear that the Apple iPod is no longer a thing. Which, in my view, is a real bummer as I really like listening to music while I work on the boat. Fact is, the closest I've come to a moment of zen clarity is planing a mast with a very sharp plane while plugged in to a playlist that just hits the correct groove. Taking a rather mundane task and elevating it to being one with the universe.

Now, I suspect, that Apple wants me to use their iPhone. A somewhat problematic thought because I don't do phones. Call me a Luddite but I don't feel the need to be connected 24/7/365 to what amounts to mostly silliness and distraction while building boats or going about my daily pursuits.

The iPod shuffle was and still is the best purveyor of music for boat building, rowing, and just sitting in the cockpit watching the world go by and it will be missed.

Listening to some impressive Brian Wilson coverage (Just the sort to build a dinghy by)

So it goes...

a song you should listen to...

Murder most foul, proof positive, and some reading on a piratical theme...

Lauren Hoffman was in Charlottesville (she's from there) last year for the tiki torch fuckery and, as a result, she wrote a song.You'll want to check it out.

Listening to Chris Hillman & Herb Pedersen

So it goes...

I suppose it was just a matter of time...

Just plain barbaric, how clean air is not as important as profits, and, if you happen to need some wedding photography, you might want to check out these folks...

Till someone came up with a nautical version of Jam in the Van...


Boating with Clyde Episode #1: Peanut Buzzers and Jammin' with Angelo Spencer et Les Hauts Sommets from Do it for the girls on Vimeo.

Listening to the guy in the boat

So it goes...

This is just neat...

Badtux makes a bombproof point, a passing of note, and today in the stupid-stupid-stupid department...

Anything that translates to better music on a boat gets my attention.



Really.

Listening to Le Vent du Nord



So it goes...

a design for limited mobility...

This is kind of interesting, 50-billion dollars in theft but no one's doing any jail time, so much for the bad apple conundrum, and the world just became a little less because Jack Bruce is no longer with us...

Here's a seriously neat design.


Hope 28' : l'espoir de l'handi-voile by vlydtv

More information over at Nautical Trek


Listening/watching Cream



So it goes...

Musing on mortality...

Something to be pissed about, zombie houses, today's question, and Webb Chiles is making progress...

I was watching "Roy Orbison: Black & White Night" the other night (really great concert film) and it got me thinking...

Roy Orbison did the concert in 1987 as sort of a victory lap of his re-found popularity. He'd always been Hip (with a capital "H") but he had, to a great extent, lost his audience and all of a sudden a whole new generation picked up on Roy and his work...

In '87 he'd already outlived most of his Sun Records contemporaries (Elvis was a year older) but at 51 he seemed to have his second wind, was part of the Traveling Wilburys, kicking some serious ass on tour, had a lot of new material to record, and looked unstoppable.

Sadly, not soon after, he had a heart attack while flying model airplanes with his son... he was 52.

I mention this because a lot of folks with their ten-year plans to go cruising never quite get it together in time... Things happen.

Listening to Roy

So it goes...

He came dancing across the water...

This, while expected, is not good news, the fair tiered justice system in the US of A, and you know they already have my signature but what about yours...

Yesterday I was listening to a bunch of cover versions of Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" (I count eight different tracks on my iTunes and I expect there are a couple others floating around as well) and no two ways about it, it's a great song. So I can understand why a lot of people want to cover it...

But good covers always bring something new to the song whether it be a radical new interpretation or just a slight off kilter tweak... Clone covers, on the other hand, no matter how well done, always come up being less, empty, and depressing... you have to wonder why they bothered.

I mention this because designers of sailboats could learn a lot about not doing the same old same by listening to how a singer or band can take a song and make it their own...

Especially those guys designing cats...

Listening to the Kingston Trio do a much covered song

So it goes...

on needing more theremins...

Dangerous thoughts, a fable, and on not taking the sequester seriously enough...

Personally, my take on the current jet-propelled-wicker-basket-to-hell situation is that we just don't have enough music with theremins...



Ya think?

Listening to the Bonzo Dog Band

So it goes...

Speaking of Mothers...

Musing on those presidential qualities, asking the  what is question, and people wonder why I don't own a cell phone...

Since it's Mothers day...



Listening to Don & Dewey (Brownie points for any reader who's hip to the connection between Zappa and Don & Dewey)

So it goes...

The downside of not having a captain aboard...

I guess the great state of Wyoming is no longer looking for an aircraft carrier to buy, today's phrase of interest is "retreat mining", and Dave Z over at Trilo Boat goes all power to the people on your ass...

In a political sense, we aboard "So It Goes" are something akin to a real democracy... Which, I might add, is not always considered a good thing on a boat as most folk are more comfortable with the whole Captain as God/Dictator model and the view that someone in charge who pees into a cup keeps stuff like this from happening...

Which, I might add, did not work in this "It was one of those freaky things,” case.

The thing is, while we do not always agree on stuff aboard "So It Goes", we have never ever ran up onto a known island at speed, so I'm thinking democracy sorta/kinda works.

That said, sometimes, especially in the democratic need/want discussions we have aboard, I find myself wishing that just for a little bit I had that power to play captain and just go out and do something really stupid and get something for the boat without running it through the often convoluted decision-making process that is the democratic way aboard "So It Goes"...

Case in point, in the ever growing musical arsenal aboard, I've felt the need to add a Theremin and the other day when I found a very, very cool Theremin and, in spite of my comrade crew being generally receptive to electronic musical instruments, I got voted down...

Bummer!

Makes you want to find a cup and start peeing into it...

Listening to The Bonzo Dog Band (played on a Theremin built into an artificial leg!)

So it goes...

Buffalo Springfield...

The Lefsetz Letter riffs on the Buffalo Springfield... 

Really good music...

...and a really good cause.



Buy the Music or CD and help out!

Just another Mothers day...

Face it, some holidays are special.

Yeah, I know that Mothers Day is actually supposed to be about "Mothers" as opposed to the "Mothers of Invention" but on the universe aboard "So It Goes" I get to define holidays (well except those that fall in the month of March) so on Mothers day, it IS all about the Mothers of Invention!

Frank Zappa was as close as it comes to a true Renaissance man of his time. Keen political thinker, multi-faceted musician/composer, and an astute businessman who both played the music industry to his own interests (a very rare accomplishment) and seeing the future demise of the music industry as it was, began to adopt what has become the model for independent music and media as we know it today...

I count myself very lucky to have both had the pleasure of seeing Zappa and his various bands play on many occasions, visit with him a few times, and, even once, opened a show that included Frank headlining...

Happy Mothers Day...



Listening to Hot Rats

So it goes...

For boat bound guitar players only...

Being a floating guitar player has its disadvantages and the main biggie is folks who don't play don't have a clue of what a hassle it is, ya know?

For instance, they think that a single backpacking guitar will suffice as a replacement for the step van load of gear you used to work with, or worse, they suggest you might just want to get a Uke!

My old amplification rig of choice was a pair (I always ran my guitars in stereo) of half stack Orange amps, two Leslies and an ancient but oh-so-wonderful Standell amp I used for acoustic guitars... sort of hard to fit that on a boat! Most of what passes for a certain sound in an electric guitar is what the guitar plugs into.

So I have been spending a lot of time looking into various solutions for a boat friendly amp package that would give me the sound I'm used to working with for various recording projects and the odd gig if it were to come up in a boat friendly size envelope... Yep, nothing hard about that is there?

Speakers are a pain. I'm pretty sure I can find stowage for a pair of 2X10 cabinets and I have the inkling of a cunning plan that would make them hold up better in the high humidity hell that is a cruising boat in the Caribbean.

But, speakers need POWER!

Some time ago I mentioned that Electro Harmonix had a nifty little power amp producing 22 watts of clean power and that a while back they worked up a big brother of 44 watts which certainly has possibilities. The fact that I need two power amps for my stereo rig and 44 clean watts per channel makes sense. Even cooler is the size of the 44 Magnum is so small that storage is not problematic at all. I could even easily build them right into the speaker cabinets!

You still need a preamp of some sort and Electro Harmonix has a very cool stereo tube preamp pedal that does everything (more or less) that I desire in a preamp circuit.

Life, as they say, is good!

Yeah... I know, I'm still working on the Leslie problem...

(Leslie offer only good via flashback or modified Delorean)

 

Some Zydeco anchor thoughts...

I've been hoping that my public disclosure that I have not bought into the next-gen anchor hype would have kept people from anchoring on top of "So It Goes" for fear I'd drag down on them in the middle of the night...

Bummer!

Seriously though, I have been keeping an eye on folks anchors and (at least down here in the Caribbean) the so called next-gen anchor patterns are something of a rarity. Maybe folks who have anchors that work just fine don't seem to have a driving desire to go out and pay a whole lot of money for an anchor that, most likely won't work any better than the one they already have.

We still like our Brittany/FOB pattern anchors as they work and as long as they keep working I just don't see the need to pay five or six times as much for something different.

Being happy with my anchor and not dragging does not help with the fact that some folks just anchor too darn close! What to do?

Well as it happens I have... dare I say it... A cunning plan!

Lately I have been listening to a bit of French music mixed with an equal proportion of Zydeco and it has occurred to me that while I can't have a Hammond B3 and a pair of Leslies on the boat, maybe something a tad smaller like a concertina or a Cajun accordion just might make folks anchor off a bit further...



You have been warned...

The world becomes a little less...

Don Van Vliet AKA Captain Beefheart is no longer with us... Lefsetz says what needs to be said.

A few words of social and political import...

Isn't it about time we took our lives back and lose the silly security theatre?

Some music for the night watch...

Mavis Staples... covers Creedence!




Mavis seems to be in most of my playlists and for good reason, Mavis Staples keeps singing and makes the world a little better, all you have to do is listen.

Listening to... What do you think?

So it goes...

He did the mash.. The Monster Mash!

I'm never quite sure who comes up with those quasi holidays such as National Waffle Day (August 24), National Beer Day (Aug 7) or National Kick Butt Day (Oct 11) but hey I'm all for a reason to take off from work for a good cause.

As it happens today is something of a biggie in our holiday calendar as it is National Monster Mash Day and the ghost of Bobby "Boris" Pickett has most certainly entered the building...



As he points out in the video he may have only had one hit but he outlasted Elvis...

A bit of Monster Mash trivia as you may not be aware that Leon Russel (Yes THAT Leon Russell) was was one of the original "Crypt Kickers" when the song was recorded.

Face it, you know you want to listen to The Monster Mash...

Listening to (wanna guess?) my favorite cover of the Monster Mash!

So it goes...

Around the web...

Scott over at Scott's Boat Pages has an update and pictures of Reuel Parker's Ibis which is one seriously tasty boat... De Clarke has what looks like a very promising resource for junk rig folks over at the Home port of SV Taz and BilgeMunky reviews a rum!

On the gear front, Tim at Navagear admires the new Wichard very-cool-but-seriously-pricey MX shackle (I'll have a more affordable alternative in tomorrow's post for those on a budget)... Panbo continues to entice with electronic gear I can't afford and don't need... and Bianka Blog says "let there be light"!

Last, but not least, everyone's favorite pirate-zombie band "Widow's Bane" do their thang...