Thanks, Ramon.

Jonathan and those trying to guess the NTT… I think I narrowed it down. (think). One of you guys could probably nail it if you saw the clues in the NAPcast thread. I don’t know it off hand.

Kilian, Take pictures tomorrow!

Nice post; I really enjoyed it. I’m a sucker for the rambling narrative. : )

In case anyone was interested in the Name That Tune on this week’s podcast but couldn’t quite place it, I’m posting clues in the podcast comment thread.

Hope someone figures it out before the next one is due!

At this time I would also like to publicly apologize to any apes I may have offended with my comments. I realize that many apes found my comparison of them to humans deeply hurtful and insensitive, and I regret any pain that these comments may have caused.

EM – I had a feeling you were going through some rough times. You’re in my thoughts. I guess it’s time for home schoolin’ at the Yanik household.

Well said. I think I’m just personally spent this month which is why the tone of my guest blog wasn’t all peaches. My husky was one of four dogs killed by wolves this week…. My kid brother has had a really bad break down and been diagnosed with paranoid delusional schizophrenia, and our village is in serious trouble…. Our school is probably going to have to close because of low enrollment.. which means extra bad things all across the board… So, none of this is really relative to the topic at hand, except that IT’S REALLY WHAT IS GOING ON IN MY HEAD, and this gloomy column was a side effect.

Are there really aliens? Why don’t we know that yet?

GIVE US SUMMER PLEASE!

“…I don’t think we’ll ever figure out how to stop humans from doing bad things to each other.”

EM, I have a pretty negative view of human nature: essentially we are fairly clever, hairless apes with machine guns and credit cards; but we’re apes nonetheless and we continue to behave that way. Some people process that fundamental view, accept it, and become conservatives, and others react by wanting to improve humanity, and they become progressives. I don’t necessarily use these terms “progressive” or “conservative” in a contemporary political sense, but more in a philosophical sense.

I believe that the thing that makes us want to machine gun each other, steal each other’s shit and pillage the earth without remorse, is the same thing that makes us make beautiful music. If you take the monkey out of the man, you end up with Air Supply. This, to me, is the inherent risk of progressivism. The inherent risk of conservatism is that we trundle along like apes, rutting, stealing and murdering each other, for the rest of eternity. But at least we get to listen to metal while we’re doing it.

To me, music is the one decent thing that human beings offer up to the world. It redeems us for being the utter bastards that we are otherwise. I like to think of some alien coming to this planet, unnoticed, and watching human beings, kind of the way we watch squirrels or birds. They’d see a lot of fucking and fighting and generally screwing things up, and they’d think, “Man what a bunch of useless, poo-flinging monkeys” – until they happened to catch one of us singing or playing an instrument, at which point they’d say, “Oh….”

It’s a nice thought, anyway, and it helps me sometimes when I have pretty much had it with the human race.

Let’s just hope the aliens don’t visit during a Celine Dion concert…sigh…

I forgot to mention, that your comment about the music sometimes just existing to let us know there is a monster in the woods.. reminded me of my trip to Florida last summer. (The ringling Brothers Museum was pretty cool) Anyways, we were passing through a really affluent neighborhood. A gigantic stone and gated driveway obscured the view of some million dollar homes. There was something really pleasing to me that the name of the development was “Crystal Lake”. Even though I talk all this Peace crap.. I hope one day a murderer re-enacts Friday 13th behind those gates.

Kilian, Thanks for your wednesday spot. Interesting point you bring up about soul singers… It’s probably not easy to be a soul singing devil worshipper.

Jonathan, there’s something rewarding about picturing you throat singing downstairs from the old school baptists who moved here from Texas.

Our cash culture is so fucked up… and I buy right into it… every day.

That’s how I feel about throat singing. (See Genghis Blues for a gentle passive introduction.) I’m not good at it, but there’s something about finding and manipulating the resonant frequencies of my own insides that both makes me happy and keeps me from caring whether it sounds good to anyone else.

Though I guess that’s similar to how music-making works for me in general, something special happens with the purely internal physical concentration… I can continue to drive, be aware of my surroundings, function, but nothing unnecessary stays in my mind.

Yet another reason I’m looking forward to some solo road-tripping this summer.

electramummy: “I guess I have a lot of guilt about how I spend my free time, and no amount of rocking out can save me from my mind anymore.”

That is why I have so much respect for people that can address those problems with these problems. And personally speaking I’m glad you understand my motivations.