Monday, September 29, 2003
A nice start to the week, except for those pictures.
Just got back to work from lunch at Siam Express. Mongolian beef, an egg roll, and two styrofoam cups of icy Mountain Dew. I am indeed fueled.
I went up to White Star Quarry yesterday with fellow members of the Central Ohio Divers club, and boy was it an interesting experience. For one thing it was in the fifties, with poofy gray clouds floating ominously most of the morning and early afternoon, and a healthy wind (not breeze) dragging the effective temperature down a few degrees further. Nevertheless it was off with the denim and fleece, and on with the swim trunks and thick neoprene. I went into the water completely covered in foam rubber except for my face, and the slap of the water knocked my snorkel from my mask strap, whereby it sank straight to the bottom unbeknownst to me. (later, an unidentified diver with the local Sheriff's Department Rescue Diver team graciously rescued my poor snork from the quarry floor and returned it to a grateful me.) After fiddling clumsily with my gloves, we went down through the greenish water to the bottom about 35 to 40 feet down, where the manufactured shapes of former rock-crushing equipment and little concrete industrial buildings loomed like something from an artsy sort of movie. It was all good and well but a bit scary, expecially when we hovered over the round black maw of "the tunnel," a deep former crushed-rock chute that seemed like a gullet right to the bowels of the earth. I sank cautiously into it a little bit, didn't particularly like the claustrophobic, vaguely digestive feel of the inside of this thing, and popped up and out of it as fast as I could. Before I knew it, I was dragging only 500 stiff psi from my air tank, right on the edge of the danger zone, like a car's fuel gauge dancing precariously on the "E" line. I had to abort my dive only 15 minutes in. And then I had to paddle my constricted rubber-coated ass all the way back to the entry point. I was tired as a mother when I came out. My thighs got a workout worthy of Kathy Smith or somebody.
Anyhow, that was all the diving I did that day. I also took four rolls of topside photos before and after the dive. I was going around with my trusty Pentax K1000, snapping candid after magnificently composed candid like a danged pro. I was all excited about the reams of cool photos I'd be able to add to my portfolio, post to the club's listserv, etc. I also partook of the cheddar brats and grilled bbq chicken that my clubmates managed to cook to juicy perfection in spite of that damn cold wind. Those brats rock. Kroger brand, if anyone's interested. Thanks, Serena.
All in all a nice brisk introduction to Autumn 2003, if in a somewhat incongruous context. Scuba diving on the edge of fall, with the leaves already withering and/or turning colors depending on their disposition! As soon as Serena and I got back to Columbus, I rushed to CVS to get all four rolls developed, plus another roll I'd taken of my neice and the Liberty/Powell YMCA's facade. I went home and took a little nap, all excited about the photos which would be coming back in an hour.
The photos turned out to be shit, for the most part.
I don't blame our CVS 1-Hour Photo lab really, except for maybe the greenish cast on everything, which I'm more inclined to blame on the Fuji film I used. Every roll of Fuji color print film I've used tends to want to go green on me. And I shouldn't have used 400 speed for outdoor photography in pretty intense light (although it was diffuse cloudy light instead of direct sun). I kept having to expose at settings like 1/1000 sec at f22 or thereabouts.
And then I noticed that still a bunch of pics were underexposed. Worse yet, a bunch had dark vignettes on the right side of the frame, as if someone had stuck a card in front of the lens. I wonder if my shutter is doing something funky at higher speeds where it's not exposing the entire frame easily. Oh great. My workhorse may need some surgery, which I can't afford right now (see below). Fortunately, K1000 bodies are selling for peanuts on eBay. But I shouldn't be able to afford that either. Time for some test shots. Time to unmothball my Nikkormat, perhaps.
In other news:
I called in my $150 deposit to Blackbeard Cruises in Miami this morning. I am now officially on board for a weekend scuba jaunt around south Florida and the Bahamas in late May. Now I have the following things to occupy my mind: 1) get a plane ticket to either Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. Cost: approximately $275 to Miami as of last week. 2) cough up the remaining $409 for the cruise by the end of March. 3) send for a new passport. 4) figure out what I'm gonna do about uw photo and video during the trip. I could take my Sea & Sea camera for stills, but I have no flash, which may be a problem. As for video...probably gonna rent. Stay tuned.
I should be getting the 7-pin plug for my Farfisa Compact Duo from MOSweb tomorrow. The Duo has been sitting inactive for a couple of years now. I miss it's cheezy 60's buzz. I do hope this new plug will bring it back alive. The Floorian boys are itching to have a real vintage combo organ in their midst/mix. For those not in the know, the Compact Duo is the Italian-made portable electronic organ that Rick Wright tickled into rock legend during the first five or six years of Pink Floyd's career--check out the "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and "Ummagumma" LPs to hear what this avacado-green cannoli is capable of. Stereolab is also a big Farfisa user. And best of all...I have one!
I also have not too far to go to acquire the laid away Tascam M-216 recording console that I staked a claim to at the Music Go Round store out in Gahanna, intended to mingle intimately with my Fostex R8 reel to reel. Yes, in this age of ProTools and software plug-ins to simulate vintage tape saturation and noise on your PC audio workstation, this obstinate musical Luddite will soon have a (hopefully) functioning 8-track, reel-to-reel, mostly analog recording setup in his junky little blue house. Can you beat that!
My boss is back from the annual YMCA national marketing design competition (this year in Dallas). She brought two awards with her. Guess who won second prize in a very crowded Annual Giving category. My coworker did even better, getting first prize in another category with a series of six newspaper ads. Someone there liked them so much that they swiped them. Go figure.
That's enough news for now. Must get to work. Lunch now gurgling through my GI tract, supplying precious energy that really should be applied to moving that mouse so as to produce more award-worthy design work rather than useless typing of blog chatter, as it snakes its way towards ultimate fulfillment of purpose at the, ah, other end of the tunnel. A hapless steer and some onions did not die in vain, I assure you.
Okay that's it. Really. Bye. I'm really finished for now.
tah
Billy S.
I went up to White Star Quarry yesterday with fellow members of the Central Ohio Divers club, and boy was it an interesting experience. For one thing it was in the fifties, with poofy gray clouds floating ominously most of the morning and early afternoon, and a healthy wind (not breeze) dragging the effective temperature down a few degrees further. Nevertheless it was off with the denim and fleece, and on with the swim trunks and thick neoprene. I went into the water completely covered in foam rubber except for my face, and the slap of the water knocked my snorkel from my mask strap, whereby it sank straight to the bottom unbeknownst to me. (later, an unidentified diver with the local Sheriff's Department Rescue Diver team graciously rescued my poor snork from the quarry floor and returned it to a grateful me.) After fiddling clumsily with my gloves, we went down through the greenish water to the bottom about 35 to 40 feet down, where the manufactured shapes of former rock-crushing equipment and little concrete industrial buildings loomed like something from an artsy sort of movie. It was all good and well but a bit scary, expecially when we hovered over the round black maw of "the tunnel," a deep former crushed-rock chute that seemed like a gullet right to the bowels of the earth. I sank cautiously into it a little bit, didn't particularly like the claustrophobic, vaguely digestive feel of the inside of this thing, and popped up and out of it as fast as I could. Before I knew it, I was dragging only 500 stiff psi from my air tank, right on the edge of the danger zone, like a car's fuel gauge dancing precariously on the "E" line. I had to abort my dive only 15 minutes in. And then I had to paddle my constricted rubber-coated ass all the way back to the entry point. I was tired as a mother when I came out. My thighs got a workout worthy of Kathy Smith or somebody.
Anyhow, that was all the diving I did that day. I also took four rolls of topside photos before and after the dive. I was going around with my trusty Pentax K1000, snapping candid after magnificently composed candid like a danged pro. I was all excited about the reams of cool photos I'd be able to add to my portfolio, post to the club's listserv, etc. I also partook of the cheddar brats and grilled bbq chicken that my clubmates managed to cook to juicy perfection in spite of that damn cold wind. Those brats rock. Kroger brand, if anyone's interested. Thanks, Serena.
All in all a nice brisk introduction to Autumn 2003, if in a somewhat incongruous context. Scuba diving on the edge of fall, with the leaves already withering and/or turning colors depending on their disposition! As soon as Serena and I got back to Columbus, I rushed to CVS to get all four rolls developed, plus another roll I'd taken of my neice and the Liberty/Powell YMCA's facade. I went home and took a little nap, all excited about the photos which would be coming back in an hour.
The photos turned out to be shit, for the most part.
I don't blame our CVS 1-Hour Photo lab really, except for maybe the greenish cast on everything, which I'm more inclined to blame on the Fuji film I used. Every roll of Fuji color print film I've used tends to want to go green on me. And I shouldn't have used 400 speed for outdoor photography in pretty intense light (although it was diffuse cloudy light instead of direct sun). I kept having to expose at settings like 1/1000 sec at f22 or thereabouts.
And then I noticed that still a bunch of pics were underexposed. Worse yet, a bunch had dark vignettes on the right side of the frame, as if someone had stuck a card in front of the lens. I wonder if my shutter is doing something funky at higher speeds where it's not exposing the entire frame easily. Oh great. My workhorse may need some surgery, which I can't afford right now (see below). Fortunately, K1000 bodies are selling for peanuts on eBay. But I shouldn't be able to afford that either. Time for some test shots. Time to unmothball my Nikkormat, perhaps.
In other news:
I called in my $150 deposit to Blackbeard Cruises in Miami this morning. I am now officially on board for a weekend scuba jaunt around south Florida and the Bahamas in late May. Now I have the following things to occupy my mind: 1) get a plane ticket to either Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. Cost: approximately $275 to Miami as of last week. 2) cough up the remaining $409 for the cruise by the end of March. 3) send for a new passport. 4) figure out what I'm gonna do about uw photo and video during the trip. I could take my Sea & Sea camera for stills, but I have no flash, which may be a problem. As for video...probably gonna rent. Stay tuned.
I should be getting the 7-pin plug for my Farfisa Compact Duo from MOSweb tomorrow. The Duo has been sitting inactive for a couple of years now. I miss it's cheezy 60's buzz. I do hope this new plug will bring it back alive. The Floorian boys are itching to have a real vintage combo organ in their midst/mix. For those not in the know, the Compact Duo is the Italian-made portable electronic organ that Rick Wright tickled into rock legend during the first five or six years of Pink Floyd's career--check out the "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and "Ummagumma" LPs to hear what this avacado-green cannoli is capable of. Stereolab is also a big Farfisa user. And best of all...I have one!
I also have not too far to go to acquire the laid away Tascam M-216 recording console that I staked a claim to at the Music Go Round store out in Gahanna, intended to mingle intimately with my Fostex R8 reel to reel. Yes, in this age of ProTools and software plug-ins to simulate vintage tape saturation and noise on your PC audio workstation, this obstinate musical Luddite will soon have a (hopefully) functioning 8-track, reel-to-reel, mostly analog recording setup in his junky little blue house. Can you beat that!
My boss is back from the annual YMCA national marketing design competition (this year in Dallas). She brought two awards with her. Guess who won second prize in a very crowded Annual Giving category. My coworker did even better, getting first prize in another category with a series of six newspaper ads. Someone there liked them so much that they swiped them. Go figure.
That's enough news for now. Must get to work. Lunch now gurgling through my GI tract, supplying precious energy that really should be applied to moving that mouse so as to produce more award-worthy design work rather than useless typing of blog chatter, as it snakes its way towards ultimate fulfillment of purpose at the, ah, other end of the tunnel. A hapless steer and some onions did not die in vain, I assure you.
Okay that's it. Really. Bye. I'm really finished for now.
tah
Billy S.
Saturday, September 27, 2003
O-H! I-O! Shut The! Hell Up!
hiya folks
After a hellacious rainstorm yesterday and last night, it seems to have cleared up. And cooled down. How the heck am I supposed to go diving when the surface temp at White Star is supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow? My nipples are gonna be pencil points when I get out of the water. Anyway, I need to go collect all my cold-water gear and check the air pressure in my tank. I haven't been in that 6.5mm suit in ages. I wonder if I'll still fit.
I am being totally inert today. Totally useless. I've spent most of my waking time today doing Google searches for info on making my own underwater camcorder housing. Apparently everything you need is at the local Home Depot or Lowe's. Hmm. 6" PVC DVW pipe is the main component. That still doesn't solve how you can put waterproof buttons on the outside.
Also, it doesn't help when you don't even HAVE a camcorder.
Looks like OSU is playing again today. Just not around here. Hooray! The place isn't crawling with inebriated post-adolescents bellowing mindless school-spirit chants, for a change. If you don't live around here, you may not know what total and complete school-nationalism is. It truly is disturbing how close to jingoist politics the parallel is. We have our colors, we have our mindless slogans and chants. We even have an official evil enemy (referred to as our archrival) who, if football wasn't just about oversized jocks carting a ball up and down a grass field, I'm sure the more zealous fans would love to go up and invade and pillage and humiliate, just like Iraq. Instead, our fans terrorize the visiting team's fans and, while onlookers cheer, set their cars on fire as they try to escape to the interstate. I'm serious. OSU fans are sometimes the most hostile, mean-spirited, belligerent sports fans this side of the Atlantic. Mostly it's just obnoxious and stupid. 19-year-old beer-soaked neanderthals in ball caps shouting "Go Bucks!" for five minutes straight at 2am while the girls squeal in delight. Also listening to the post-game call-in show on WTVN (610 kHz on your AM dial when visiting Columbus) is an exercise in jaw-dropping. Good thing it's just football. I do hope our boys win.
More later.
Billy S.
After a hellacious rainstorm yesterday and last night, it seems to have cleared up. And cooled down. How the heck am I supposed to go diving when the surface temp at White Star is supposed to be in the 50s tomorrow? My nipples are gonna be pencil points when I get out of the water. Anyway, I need to go collect all my cold-water gear and check the air pressure in my tank. I haven't been in that 6.5mm suit in ages. I wonder if I'll still fit.
I am being totally inert today. Totally useless. I've spent most of my waking time today doing Google searches for info on making my own underwater camcorder housing. Apparently everything you need is at the local Home Depot or Lowe's. Hmm. 6" PVC DVW pipe is the main component. That still doesn't solve how you can put waterproof buttons on the outside.
Also, it doesn't help when you don't even HAVE a camcorder.
Looks like OSU is playing again today. Just not around here. Hooray! The place isn't crawling with inebriated post-adolescents bellowing mindless school-spirit chants, for a change. If you don't live around here, you may not know what total and complete school-nationalism is. It truly is disturbing how close to jingoist politics the parallel is. We have our colors, we have our mindless slogans and chants. We even have an official evil enemy (referred to as our archrival) who, if football wasn't just about oversized jocks carting a ball up and down a grass field, I'm sure the more zealous fans would love to go up and invade and pillage and humiliate, just like Iraq. Instead, our fans terrorize the visiting team's fans and, while onlookers cheer, set their cars on fire as they try to escape to the interstate. I'm serious. OSU fans are sometimes the most hostile, mean-spirited, belligerent sports fans this side of the Atlantic. Mostly it's just obnoxious and stupid. 19-year-old beer-soaked neanderthals in ball caps shouting "Go Bucks!" for five minutes straight at 2am while the girls squeal in delight. Also listening to the post-game call-in show on WTVN (610 kHz on your AM dial when visiting Columbus) is an exercise in jaw-dropping. Good thing it's just football. I do hope our boys win.
More later.
Billy S.
Friday, September 26, 2003
Incidentally...my email address. And a pre-emptive apology.
If anyone wants to send me email, please send to billys@netwalk.com. Please be sure to include the word [blog] in the subject line.
I'm letting this whole issue of Pacific Palisades go with this message to any readers who happen to be from there: I humbly apologize if any of my ranting has offended any of you. As I said, I was trying to communicate what was going through my head at a certain moment when deep-seated personal demons and irrational emotions took over, and no personal offense was or is intended towards any Palisades resident in general, or any of the kids at St. Matthew's School, or to the city itself. I've never even been west of of the Indiana/Ohio border, much less to the very edge of the west coast. How can I realistically dislike it? For all I know my next best friend could be some millionaire's son from there. Right?
Well...
I can't believe this. I haven't even had this blog running for 24 hours yet, and already I'm running a retraction for something I wrote--in anticipation of someone flaming my ass for it. I'm not making a very good first impression, am I?
Oh well..,
With that, I'm off to enjoy a hopefully upbeat two days to myself and my silly pastimes.
Billy S.
I'm letting this whole issue of Pacific Palisades go with this message to any readers who happen to be from there: I humbly apologize if any of my ranting has offended any of you. As I said, I was trying to communicate what was going through my head at a certain moment when deep-seated personal demons and irrational emotions took over, and no personal offense was or is intended towards any Palisades resident in general, or any of the kids at St. Matthew's School, or to the city itself. I've never even been west of of the Indiana/Ohio border, much less to the very edge of the west coast. How can I realistically dislike it? For all I know my next best friend could be some millionaire's son from there. Right?
Well...
I can't believe this. I haven't even had this blog running for 24 hours yet, and already I'm running a retraction for something I wrote--in anticipation of someone flaming my ass for it. I'm not making a very good first impression, am I?
Oh well..,
With that, I'm off to enjoy a hopefully upbeat two days to myself and my silly pastimes.
Billy S.
A disclaimer courtesy of my good-natured side
Lest anyone reading my blog (is that a possibility?) think that I am a completely misanthropic, mean-spirited loser, let me just assure you that I really am not. Really. In real life I'm quite laid back and a bracing blast of fun to be around. What I've been doing here this morning is what is known in the business as "cleaning out the strainer basket." Spewing like I have been is more a function of my inherent satiric, nose-tweaking disposition, borne out of some pretty deeply felt sentiments and some admittedly unhealthy social baggage. Sometimes it spills out forcefully and unpleasantly, rather like the smelly black dreck that comes out of a cleanout plug in the basement when you're trying to unclog the kitchen sink drain and nothing seems to work. Besides, I really amuse myself writing what I feel in my trademark snotty and foul-mouthed way, and coming up with cool turns of phrase and metaphors in the process. Think of me as a kind of very young Kurt Vonnegut for whom school was the Dresden firebombing. But I want to stress: I'm not a hate-filled person. I am actually more of a frustrated idealist. Just wanted to clear that up. Please stick with me. I have more upbeat and positive things to entertain you with.
ja ne
Billy S.
ja ne
Billy S.
I can scuba dive too, and in COLD, YUCKY water at that, so nyah nyah!
I know what will get my mind off this misanthropic crapola: diving! Hopefully the trip up to White Star this weekend that some of my buddies from the Central Ohio Divers club were planning will come to fruition. It will be 6.5mm neoprene time for sure. I plan to come out with icicles hanging from my nostrils and my long brown tresses frozen in a stiff, inside-of-diving-hood-shaped mess. Yay!
Also, we're setting up a long weekend trip in May 2004 to the south Florida/Bahamas region that I'm gonna move Hell and Middle Earth to go on. It'll be a live-aboard boat operated by Blackbeard's Charters, hopping around the islands while we get sloshed and fried crispy golden brown by the Florida sun. Can I, self-professed po boy, afford to go on a reality-skirting orgy of leisure-class good-life posturing, especially when I'm complaining about being barely solvent financially? Hell yeah! If I'm gonna be destitute, I might as well have a good time being destitute. That's also why I spend all my discretionary cash on books, musical/recording gear, rotary dial telephones, K-mount lenses, and obsolete component video cameras that I can't hook up to anything--but if I can figure it out, I'll be able to have that cool, fuzzy "retro" look in the experimental video art that I'm gonna wow the all the intelligentisia with someday. Meanwhile, MCI is threatening to send a collector around to swipe 200-some of my hard-earned bucks that I doubt I really owe them, and I'm a month behind on the gas and my student loan. I am indeed a slavering idiot, aren't I?
tah
Billy S.
Also, we're setting up a long weekend trip in May 2004 to the south Florida/Bahamas region that I'm gonna move Hell and Middle Earth to go on. It'll be a live-aboard boat operated by Blackbeard's Charters, hopping around the islands while we get sloshed and fried crispy golden brown by the Florida sun. Can I, self-professed po boy, afford to go on a reality-skirting orgy of leisure-class good-life posturing, especially when I'm complaining about being barely solvent financially? Hell yeah! If I'm gonna be destitute, I might as well have a good time being destitute. That's also why I spend all my discretionary cash on books, musical/recording gear, rotary dial telephones, K-mount lenses, and obsolete component video cameras that I can't hook up to anything--but if I can figure it out, I'll be able to have that cool, fuzzy "retro" look in the experimental video art that I'm gonna wow the all the intelligentisia with someday. Meanwhile, MCI is threatening to send a collector around to swipe 200-some of my hard-earned bucks that I doubt I really owe them, and I'm a month behind on the gas and my student loan. I am indeed a slavering idiot, aren't I?
tah
Billy S.
Mostly bounced back from an acute class envy attack
Reporting from work:
I've more or less recovered from a lousy day yesterday. I attribute it mostly to my body getting used to Wellbutrin after years of little-pink-sometimes yellow-different-arguably better Paxil, but there are still old unresolved issues that are still, irrationally festering in there that I was not too pleased to see bubble up to the surface like that.
It was a magic combination of two hot buttons that are guaranteed to get me in a surly mood: the what-could-have-beens of my education, and chronic class envy.
Here is the hellish thing that threw a wet blanket on my whole day yesterday:
http://www.stmatthewsschool.com/deep/deep.html
My train of thought was as follows:
1) Man, what a cool program.
2) I wonder what kind of school and/or community offers such terrific opportunities to their youth.
3) Hmm...St. Matthews School. Okay, an Episcopalian parochial school.
4) That means a private school. Red flag. 8th grade tuition: $18,000.
5) Where's it at? Pacific Palisades, California. I'm starting to get a very sick feeling in my guts. I know where this is going, and I never enjoy going down that road, but my morbid need to kick myself over things I can't and never could control is inexorably in the driver's seat again.
6) Okay, so what kind of town is Pacific Palisades? Let's see...in the top 1% of wealthiest cities in America. Neighbors include Bel Air, Beverly Hills...average home price around $1 million...
7) So basically what we have here is a bunch of obscenely rich little kids in the academic equivalent of Club Med, 8th graders getting to go scuba diving--for free! or at least parent-financed, which is basically the same thing-- in da warm California sun, while learning advanced, hard science the real, hands-on way. A program I would have loved to be in, or at least might have benefitted from it had it been available to me. That is, if only I'd-a known how to swim at that age. Doh. It's amazing what money will buy. It's even more amazing what a LOT of money will buy. Can you say "the keys to the kingdom"?
8) Instead, memories of a rough childhood start popping up. Mostly, it completely sucked, marked by a distinct lack of opportunities to really work the gifts that I had, not to mention a really shitty social life to boot. Instead I had to develop my talents and gifts mostly on my own, which is really where the joy of my childhood was--in my bedroom, teaching myself guitar and drawing reams of pictures. All of this peeling paint on top of a general sooty-gray primer base of limited financial means, a couple of short periods of outright poverty, no luxuries whatsoever, no vacations, no social privileges to speak of. I could have gone to a school for gifted kids, but my parents didn't drive, and probably couldn't have afforded it anyway--although they did manage to send me to a neighborhood private school for five years.
How they managed it, I don't know. Nor why. It wasn't a particularly good school. My teachers and classmates all hated me. First I was considered a loathesome, arrogant nerd who didn't care for the dominant preteen fads of the day, and told them so. Later I was considered a rebel, a juvenile delinquent in regulation white shirt and navy blue slacks who preferred long hair, thank you. They didn't appreciate that I liked to draw or dug psychedelic rock (yeah, like Motley Crue is acceptable but Blue Cheer isn't). I was in trouble a lot. A red-haired constipated turd of a teacher of mine twice lobbied to get me expelled--as if screaming apopleptic rage in my 12-year-old face in front of my entire class wasn't enough pedosadism for him. It probably would have been better if he'd had his way. Fucker. I hope that sorry sack of shit rots in hell and gets buttfucked by Hitler's ghost. My female teachers were a bit nicer. My 6th grade teacher was a real hottie.
That was *my* private school experience.
Does the fact that I did in fact go to a private school myself make me a hypocrite or just messed up?
Anyway, school for me meant aging, slightly decrepit buildings in run-down working class environs, filled with undersocialized children and resentful teachers who didn't want to be there. With a few exceptions, pre-college school for me was singularly uninspiring, unsupportive, unsympathetic, non-nurturing, and sometimes hostile. So in spite of possessing an allegedly exceptional IQ, I was in a position at one point in which I was seriously considering a career piloting COTA buses up and down High St. instead of going to college and whatever lay beyond it. Mind-boggling.
9) At any rate, here I am, almost 30 years old, with a college degree in a field I love and a whole lot of marketable interests and talents, and I'm still living paycheck to paycheck and I have to drive an 18 year old car that runs out of tranny fluid every month or so. I'm sometimes almost broke. I often get overdrawn. Bankers gleefully charge me $25 a pop for the service. This is no way to live. I deserve better than that. I survived a hellish childhood and worked my ass off to get a college degree so that I could better myself. This is what I get for it?
10) Meanwhile, images of smug 13-year-old Ivy League shoe-ins arriving home from school in the family Mercedes E-series dance in my head like giggling little suntanned ogres. They've already got it made. Straight A's practically just for showing up. Teachers who are only too eager to help them get those straight A's. The best high schools. Summer trips to Rome, London, Paris, the Bahamas, all paid for in full. Luxury summer adventure camps--Go Broadreach! Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, MIT. They're already pumping mom and dad for that convertible SLK Roadster for their 16th birthday, but the parents are hesitant, cautiously suggesting a two-year-old Corvette as a more economical choice for a first-time driver. Whatever wheels the folks buy them, they'll be driving it down Least Resistance Blvd. toward a life of utter comfort and prosperity far from the ugly masses...but they'll earn it fair and square, by golly--just like they earned their expensive educations and their trust funds and 10th grade summer break trip to Acapulco--so that any lower-than-their-class grumblers (like me) can be dismissed as mere jealous slackers who do not pack the gear to serve in their beloved corps. They may well go through most of their lives having never engaged in a heart-to-heart conversation with someone who makes under $30,000 a year. After all, those are the drones behind the cash register at Abercrombie & Fitch. Like, they are so losers. I want my McLean and Diet Coke NOW, you incompetent welfare refugee!
11) Goddamn it! I wanna scream! Fucking rich ass shitheads!
12) Okay, this is getting reeeeally funky. Time to cool it, Bill.
Pardon my Freedom Fries.
That was my state of mind yesterday. See what changing medications can do?
My brother and sister-n-law helpfully pointed out that this was an unhealthy way for a guy my age with so much going for me to be thinking. Think about it rationally, for a change. What indeed is to be gained by kicking oneself over one's long past, misspent youth, and fuming vitriol toward a social group who, as vile as they look from five or six rungs down the socioeconomic ladder, have never really actually done anything to harm one? Pacific Palisades is all the way across the country, ferchrissakes.
My answer is this: absolutely nothing is to be gained.
But is it better to be blissfully unaware of the great disparity that exists in our society between the adulated Haves in the hills, and the hapless Have-nots in the 'hood? Not to mention the wide swath in the middle who would really like to be Haves and spend and slave and hock themselves silly to sorta kinda look and act the part, as helpfully portrayed on TV and in the magazines. Should one be simply content with their lot in life, that they were unlucky enough to have not been born in the right place and time to the right set of parents? Such is life, eh? Everyone has his place, and I have mine, way down here. I guess that's just the way God planned it.
I say to hell with that.
But one should love her parents anyway for giving her what she did have. Unless they were irresponsible or abusive.
On the other hand, I could just as easily get my butt going and do something to make my life better. Hell, I'm writing a screenplay right now. I have all the resources to record an album. And there's always modern art. Although it would be way below me ethically and artistically, I could realistically encase the product of my next trip to the toilet in a block of solid epoxy, title it "Untitled," get it written up in the art press as "a stunningly original commentary on the nexus of the zeitgeist of the current socioeconopolitical paradigm, filtered through [my] characteristically quasi-Marxo-microcapitalist world view" put it on display somewhere and sell it for $10,000. At the rate I use the bathroom, I could be living in Pacific Palisades in about two years. Not that the neighbors would take a particular liking for me. I'm virulently anti-Republican.
Ugh. And I thought I was over that crap.
Okay, I ought to be working right now. I have nine little maps to create (18 if you count the thumbnail versions) for our website. I'm already getting addicted to blogging. Scary.
73
Billy S.
I've more or less recovered from a lousy day yesterday. I attribute it mostly to my body getting used to Wellbutrin after years of little-pink-sometimes yellow-different-arguably better Paxil, but there are still old unresolved issues that are still, irrationally festering in there that I was not too pleased to see bubble up to the surface like that.
It was a magic combination of two hot buttons that are guaranteed to get me in a surly mood: the what-could-have-beens of my education, and chronic class envy.
Here is the hellish thing that threw a wet blanket on my whole day yesterday:
http://www.stmatthewsschool.com/deep/deep.html
My train of thought was as follows:
1) Man, what a cool program.
2) I wonder what kind of school and/or community offers such terrific opportunities to their youth.
3) Hmm...St. Matthews School. Okay, an Episcopalian parochial school.
4) That means a private school. Red flag. 8th grade tuition: $18,000.
5) Where's it at? Pacific Palisades, California. I'm starting to get a very sick feeling in my guts. I know where this is going, and I never enjoy going down that road, but my morbid need to kick myself over things I can't and never could control is inexorably in the driver's seat again.
6) Okay, so what kind of town is Pacific Palisades? Let's see...in the top 1% of wealthiest cities in America. Neighbors include Bel Air, Beverly Hills...average home price around $1 million...
7) So basically what we have here is a bunch of obscenely rich little kids in the academic equivalent of Club Med, 8th graders getting to go scuba diving--for free! or at least parent-financed, which is basically the same thing-- in da warm California sun, while learning advanced, hard science the real, hands-on way. A program I would have loved to be in, or at least might have benefitted from it had it been available to me. That is, if only I'd-a known how to swim at that age. Doh. It's amazing what money will buy. It's even more amazing what a LOT of money will buy. Can you say "the keys to the kingdom"?
8) Instead, memories of a rough childhood start popping up. Mostly, it completely sucked, marked by a distinct lack of opportunities to really work the gifts that I had, not to mention a really shitty social life to boot. Instead I had to develop my talents and gifts mostly on my own, which is really where the joy of my childhood was--in my bedroom, teaching myself guitar and drawing reams of pictures. All of this peeling paint on top of a general sooty-gray primer base of limited financial means, a couple of short periods of outright poverty, no luxuries whatsoever, no vacations, no social privileges to speak of. I could have gone to a school for gifted kids, but my parents didn't drive, and probably couldn't have afforded it anyway--although they did manage to send me to a neighborhood private school for five years.
How they managed it, I don't know. Nor why. It wasn't a particularly good school. My teachers and classmates all hated me. First I was considered a loathesome, arrogant nerd who didn't care for the dominant preteen fads of the day, and told them so. Later I was considered a rebel, a juvenile delinquent in regulation white shirt and navy blue slacks who preferred long hair, thank you. They didn't appreciate that I liked to draw or dug psychedelic rock (yeah, like Motley Crue is acceptable but Blue Cheer isn't). I was in trouble a lot. A red-haired constipated turd of a teacher of mine twice lobbied to get me expelled--as if screaming apopleptic rage in my 12-year-old face in front of my entire class wasn't enough pedosadism for him. It probably would have been better if he'd had his way. Fucker. I hope that sorry sack of shit rots in hell and gets buttfucked by Hitler's ghost. My female teachers were a bit nicer. My 6th grade teacher was a real hottie.
That was *my* private school experience.
Does the fact that I did in fact go to a private school myself make me a hypocrite or just messed up?
Anyway, school for me meant aging, slightly decrepit buildings in run-down working class environs, filled with undersocialized children and resentful teachers who didn't want to be there. With a few exceptions, pre-college school for me was singularly uninspiring, unsupportive, unsympathetic, non-nurturing, and sometimes hostile. So in spite of possessing an allegedly exceptional IQ, I was in a position at one point in which I was seriously considering a career piloting COTA buses up and down High St. instead of going to college and whatever lay beyond it. Mind-boggling.
9) At any rate, here I am, almost 30 years old, with a college degree in a field I love and a whole lot of marketable interests and talents, and I'm still living paycheck to paycheck and I have to drive an 18 year old car that runs out of tranny fluid every month or so. I'm sometimes almost broke. I often get overdrawn. Bankers gleefully charge me $25 a pop for the service. This is no way to live. I deserve better than that. I survived a hellish childhood and worked my ass off to get a college degree so that I could better myself. This is what I get for it?
10) Meanwhile, images of smug 13-year-old Ivy League shoe-ins arriving home from school in the family Mercedes E-series dance in my head like giggling little suntanned ogres. They've already got it made. Straight A's practically just for showing up. Teachers who are only too eager to help them get those straight A's. The best high schools. Summer trips to Rome, London, Paris, the Bahamas, all paid for in full. Luxury summer adventure camps--Go Broadreach! Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, MIT. They're already pumping mom and dad for that convertible SLK Roadster for their 16th birthday, but the parents are hesitant, cautiously suggesting a two-year-old Corvette as a more economical choice for a first-time driver. Whatever wheels the folks buy them, they'll be driving it down Least Resistance Blvd. toward a life of utter comfort and prosperity far from the ugly masses...but they'll earn it fair and square, by golly--just like they earned their expensive educations and their trust funds and 10th grade summer break trip to Acapulco--so that any lower-than-their-class grumblers (like me) can be dismissed as mere jealous slackers who do not pack the gear to serve in their beloved corps. They may well go through most of their lives having never engaged in a heart-to-heart conversation with someone who makes under $30,000 a year. After all, those are the drones behind the cash register at Abercrombie & Fitch. Like, they are so losers. I want my McLean and Diet Coke NOW, you incompetent welfare refugee!
11) Goddamn it! I wanna scream! Fucking rich ass shitheads!
12) Okay, this is getting reeeeally funky. Time to cool it, Bill.
Pardon my Freedom Fries.
That was my state of mind yesterday. See what changing medications can do?
My brother and sister-n-law helpfully pointed out that this was an unhealthy way for a guy my age with so much going for me to be thinking. Think about it rationally, for a change. What indeed is to be gained by kicking oneself over one's long past, misspent youth, and fuming vitriol toward a social group who, as vile as they look from five or six rungs down the socioeconomic ladder, have never really actually done anything to harm one? Pacific Palisades is all the way across the country, ferchrissakes.
My answer is this: absolutely nothing is to be gained.
But is it better to be blissfully unaware of the great disparity that exists in our society between the adulated Haves in the hills, and the hapless Have-nots in the 'hood? Not to mention the wide swath in the middle who would really like to be Haves and spend and slave and hock themselves silly to sorta kinda look and act the part, as helpfully portrayed on TV and in the magazines. Should one be simply content with their lot in life, that they were unlucky enough to have not been born in the right place and time to the right set of parents? Such is life, eh? Everyone has his place, and I have mine, way down here. I guess that's just the way God planned it.
I say to hell with that.
But one should love her parents anyway for giving her what she did have. Unless they were irresponsible or abusive.
On the other hand, I could just as easily get my butt going and do something to make my life better. Hell, I'm writing a screenplay right now. I have all the resources to record an album. And there's always modern art. Although it would be way below me ethically and artistically, I could realistically encase the product of my next trip to the toilet in a block of solid epoxy, title it "Untitled," get it written up in the art press as "a stunningly original commentary on the nexus of the zeitgeist of the current socioeconopolitical paradigm, filtered through [my] characteristically quasi-Marxo-microcapitalist world view" put it on display somewhere and sell it for $10,000. At the rate I use the bathroom, I could be living in Pacific Palisades in about two years. Not that the neighbors would take a particular liking for me. I'm virulently anti-Republican.
Ugh. And I thought I was over that crap.
Okay, I ought to be working right now. I have nine little maps to create (18 if you count the thumbnail versions) for our website. I'm already getting addicted to blogging. Scary.
73
Billy S.
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Alright, I got this beeeyatch all figured out
I gotta have a title, you know.
Billy S.
Billy S.
And again...
unga bunga bunga inga binga banga bunnnnnnggaaa
Title test
<$BlogItemTitle$>
unga bunga bunga
Okay, let's try this again...TESTING ah-ONE, ah-TWO, ah-THREE-Y and-ah-FOUR-Y and-ah.
BLAP
BLAP
err...no titles...no big impressive bold letters...whuthafug?
hugs and sloppy smooches,
Billy S.
hugs and sloppy smooches,
Billy S.
Incidentally, Moogyboy is a reference to 1) musician Mark "Moogy" Klingman, and 2) my absolute devotion to vintage electronic keyboard instruments--including those manufactured by Moog Music Inc., one of whose fine products I am the proud, gloating owner of.
Billy S.
Billy S.
A little bitty about Billy.
Ooky, it seems to work okay...
Alrighty, let's get this thing going. I'll start off with the usual biographical overview, in a decidedly unsprightly style as I am beat at the moment.
==
Name: Bill Spiropoulos, aka Billy S., aka Moogyboy.
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio, USA
DOB: March 10, 1974
Family: Mom & dad; two older brothers, both married with one daughter apiece.
Occupation: Graphic design. Semi-professional musician. Also working on a screenplay at the moment.
Current job: Marketing Associate/graphic designer. Keyboardist/guitarist in local neo-psych-rock collective Floorian.
Notable past jobs: Art director, All-Stater Sports Magazine. Designed two CD covers and a video box for jazz-organist pal Eddie Landsberg. Played bass in local jam band Brokedown Sound.
Education: The Ohio State University, 1991-96 (BSID degree in Visual Communication Design). Fachhochschule Wiesbaden (Wiesbaden, Germany), September-December 1995. Grades 9-12 at Linden McKinley High School, 1987-91. Grades 4-8 at Holy Name School (Roman Catholic, defunct), 1982-87. Grades K-3 (less 2) at Medary Elementary School, 1979-82. One month of Grade 1 at Indianola Alternative Elementary School, 1980. I started school when Jimmy Carter was president and finished right around the time Bill (not me, the other one) was allegedly (allegedly, mind you) getting his rocks off with Monica. What an old fart I am!
Socioeconomic: Lower middle class, I guess you'd call it. Educated, talented, skilled (handsome, too!)...and barely able to make the bills even though I live rent-free in the campus-area house my parents own that I was born in. I have a pathological distaste for the upper-middle class, possibly treatable.
Political: Liberal, strong socialist leanings with some libertarianism thrown in. Note: socialism =/= communism; I favor the kind of democratic socialism found predominantly in Europe. Virulently anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-Religious Right, and pro-civil liberties. Will probably vote Green in 2004. The Bush administration is very very bad. Bin Laden is a schmuck. Sharon is a schmuck.
Religious: Raised as a Greek Orthodoxer, currently non-religious. No, I don't want to be saved, I just wanna be sane. I've seen too much evil in the world done in the name of the Lord. Every last denomination insists it's the One And True Way To Salvation, and all the others will fry in hell if they have anything to say about it. They can't all be right. So I'll assume that they're all wrong and believe what I want to believe. I guess my "religion," if you can call it that, is a moral code based on Christianity but stripped of all traces of dogma, worship, divinity, supernatural creatures, rituals, rules, smug arrogance, intolerance, and other trappings of organized religion. Kind of an extremely personal, secular Christianity, in other words. I don't pray or worship, I just live it. I do want to get married in church someday, though. A Greek Orthodox wedding. I do have to admit that Greek Orthodox services are way cool.
Economic: Virulently anti-big business, especially regarding mega-huge, omnipotent media conglomerates. I favor government or civilian regulation of large corporations, nationalization of certain industries (utilities, for example; health care, for another), and advocate small- to super-small local businesses. My term for this kind of economic grassroots approach is "microcapitalism." Disney is evil. News Corporation is evil. Bring back the Bell System. And cool-sounding telephone switching equipment. Panel pulsing and city-ring kick ass. http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips
Wheels: 1985 Mercury Marquis, black (body by Scheib), 130,000 mi., 4dr, V6, auto, ps, pb, pw, dive flag sticker on rear bumper, makes unnerving clunking noises, uses antifreeze and transmission fluid like a mother. Also own an almost road-ready gray 1991 Nissan Sentra. Past wheels in reverse order: 1998 Ford Escort ZX2, 1986 Renault Encore, 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit, 1982 Ford Courier.
Favorite time-wasters: Playing guitar/keys/bass, drawing, recording demos of songs that aren't exactly songs, websurfing, reading, thinking, sleeping, playing with the telephone, finding obscure and mundane things to get completely fascinated by, using bathroom, listening to strange bleeps and bloops and automated voices on shortwave radio, plotting success and fame, telling self impromptu stories while in bed trying to fall asleep, making musical and imitative sounds to amuse self. I do have one particular jones which I won't mention on this family-friendly blog, but you may be able to guess it if you stick with me long enough.
Favorite time-wasters that are not really not time-wasters, but actually things I am quite good at and proud of: Music, art, photography, writing, movies creative/artistic activities in general. I'm an amateur student of movies--I dig movies! Actually working on one right now--writing the screenplay, will be involved in production, and I may even act in it. I am a PADI OW-certified scuba diver and am planning on getting my Advanced certification next summer. Love underwater stuff.
Computer allegience: Apple user since Grade 9, Mac user since Grade 10. Only in the last year or so have I seriously, grudgingly begun to use, accept, and even like M$ Window$ (but still not a Gates fan). Not nearly the Mac fanatic I used to be. Big fan of Intel-based stick-it-together-yourself hardware approach. Linux/BSD curious.
Internet software allegiences: I have resigned myself to Internet Explorer's dominance (former Netscape diehard, also used iCab and another freeware web browser at one point), but still use Eudora Pro 3.1 on my home Mac. Former ICQ diehard, now mostly AOL IM. At one time I was a serious USENET junkie, primarily with NewsWatcher and its descendents. Now dipping a curious toe into the Sea of Blog.
==
Okay, now that my moment has stretched out to an hour and a half, I am REALLY beat. This should be enough bioinfo for any curious bloglookers stumbling on my page. Starting here I think I will adopt a more endearingly conversational tone. Dude! I am like so out of here. Just kidding. You did chuckle, didn't you?
bfn
Billy S.
Alrighty, let's get this thing going. I'll start off with the usual biographical overview, in a decidedly unsprightly style as I am beat at the moment.
==
Name: Bill Spiropoulos, aka Billy S., aka Moogyboy.
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio, USA
DOB: March 10, 1974
Family: Mom & dad; two older brothers, both married with one daughter apiece.
Occupation: Graphic design. Semi-professional musician. Also working on a screenplay at the moment.
Current job: Marketing Associate/graphic designer. Keyboardist/guitarist in local neo-psych-rock collective Floorian.
Notable past jobs: Art director, All-Stater Sports Magazine. Designed two CD covers and a video box for jazz-organist pal Eddie Landsberg. Played bass in local jam band Brokedown Sound.
Education: The Ohio State University, 1991-96 (BSID degree in Visual Communication Design). Fachhochschule Wiesbaden (Wiesbaden, Germany), September-December 1995. Grades 9-12 at Linden McKinley High School, 1987-91. Grades 4-8 at Holy Name School (Roman Catholic, defunct), 1982-87. Grades K-3 (less 2) at Medary Elementary School, 1979-82. One month of Grade 1 at Indianola Alternative Elementary School, 1980. I started school when Jimmy Carter was president and finished right around the time Bill (not me, the other one) was allegedly (allegedly, mind you) getting his rocks off with Monica. What an old fart I am!
Socioeconomic: Lower middle class, I guess you'd call it. Educated, talented, skilled (handsome, too!)...and barely able to make the bills even though I live rent-free in the campus-area house my parents own that I was born in. I have a pathological distaste for the upper-middle class, possibly treatable.
Political: Liberal, strong socialist leanings with some libertarianism thrown in. Note: socialism =/= communism; I favor the kind of democratic socialism found predominantly in Europe. Virulently anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-Religious Right, and pro-civil liberties. Will probably vote Green in 2004. The Bush administration is very very bad. Bin Laden is a schmuck. Sharon is a schmuck.
Religious: Raised as a Greek Orthodoxer, currently non-religious. No, I don't want to be saved, I just wanna be sane. I've seen too much evil in the world done in the name of the Lord. Every last denomination insists it's the One And True Way To Salvation, and all the others will fry in hell if they have anything to say about it. They can't all be right. So I'll assume that they're all wrong and believe what I want to believe. I guess my "religion," if you can call it that, is a moral code based on Christianity but stripped of all traces of dogma, worship, divinity, supernatural creatures, rituals, rules, smug arrogance, intolerance, and other trappings of organized religion. Kind of an extremely personal, secular Christianity, in other words. I don't pray or worship, I just live it. I do want to get married in church someday, though. A Greek Orthodox wedding. I do have to admit that Greek Orthodox services are way cool.
Economic: Virulently anti-big business, especially regarding mega-huge, omnipotent media conglomerates. I favor government or civilian regulation of large corporations, nationalization of certain industries (utilities, for example; health care, for another), and advocate small- to super-small local businesses. My term for this kind of economic grassroots approach is "microcapitalism." Disney is evil. News Corporation is evil. Bring back the Bell System. And cool-sounding telephone switching equipment. Panel pulsing and city-ring kick ass. http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips
Wheels: 1985 Mercury Marquis, black (body by Scheib), 130,000 mi., 4dr, V6, auto, ps, pb, pw, dive flag sticker on rear bumper, makes unnerving clunking noises, uses antifreeze and transmission fluid like a mother. Also own an almost road-ready gray 1991 Nissan Sentra. Past wheels in reverse order: 1998 Ford Escort ZX2, 1986 Renault Encore, 1984 Volkswagen Rabbit, 1982 Ford Courier.
Favorite time-wasters: Playing guitar/keys/bass, drawing, recording demos of songs that aren't exactly songs, websurfing, reading, thinking, sleeping, playing with the telephone, finding obscure and mundane things to get completely fascinated by, using bathroom, listening to strange bleeps and bloops and automated voices on shortwave radio, plotting success and fame, telling self impromptu stories while in bed trying to fall asleep, making musical and imitative sounds to amuse self. I do have one particular jones which I won't mention on this family-friendly blog, but you may be able to guess it if you stick with me long enough.
Favorite time-wasters that are not really not time-wasters, but actually things I am quite good at and proud of: Music, art, photography, writing, movies creative/artistic activities in general. I'm an amateur student of movies--I dig movies! Actually working on one right now--writing the screenplay, will be involved in production, and I may even act in it. I am a PADI OW-certified scuba diver and am planning on getting my Advanced certification next summer. Love underwater stuff.
Computer allegience: Apple user since Grade 9, Mac user since Grade 10. Only in the last year or so have I seriously, grudgingly begun to use, accept, and even like M$ Window$ (but still not a Gates fan). Not nearly the Mac fanatic I used to be. Big fan of Intel-based stick-it-together-yourself hardware approach. Linux/BSD curious.
Internet software allegiences: I have resigned myself to Internet Explorer's dominance (former Netscape diehard, also used iCab and another freeware web browser at one point), but still use Eudora Pro 3.1 on my home Mac. Former ICQ diehard, now mostly AOL IM. At one time I was a serious USENET junkie, primarily with NewsWatcher and its descendents. Now dipping a curious toe into the Sea of Blog.
==
Okay, now that my moment has stretched out to an hour and a half, I am REALLY beat. This should be enough bioinfo for any curious bloglookers stumbling on my page. Starting here I think I will adopt a more endearingly conversational tone. Dude! I am like so out of here. Just kidding. You did chuckle, didn't you?
bfn
Billy S.
Greetings everyone! This first one is just a test...stand by...
