Edshugeo The GodMoor

Actually I just realized "Qi" would be a cooler spelling, but then some people wouldn't know how to pronounce it. Oh, well.

The PSP (PlayStation Portable) can now be used as a songwriting tool, or at least a beatbox with a homebrew program called PSP Rhythm. Excited about this, I decided to give it a shot and write this weeks song with it. Actually, I'd been playing around with it for the last coupl'a weeks.
I've been using Audacity on XP for most of my song demo recordings and this week's no different, except I've never multitracked on it. I exported the wave file from the PSP and then recorded two vocal tracks.

This week's song is a Wu-Xia fantasy. Why not?

A wave of my hand
sword energy
a quickening
of pulses
countered by palms
Shaolin techniques
my body
convulses
I gather my chi,
energy
from the forces of nature
around me
Focus my will
till I'm at peace
and ready to
release

Chi
Energy

My enemies fall
scattered throughout
like waves
in the water
The cracking of bone
spilling of blood
chaos from
order
I gather my chi,
energy
from the forces of nature
around me
Victorious
a stroke of my beard
I laugh
in pride

Chi
Energy

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Labels: downloads, kung fu, lyrics, my music, PSP, PSP Rhythm, PsychoVoyager, song of the week, wu-xia

"I am real.
You are real.

We
.
.
.
are different real.

See?"

Labels: non music projects

3121 isn't due until the 21st, but naturally it leaked a little early through the normal channels.

Wasn't that crazy about what I was hearing as a whole. I'd seen videos to Te Amo Corazon and Black Sweat. Corazon took me some time to warm up to, mostly by not watching the video. Black Sweat was okay. Princed performed Fury and Beautiful, Loved and Blessed on Saturday Night Live recently and those performances were great (Fury) and pretty good (BLaB). The album version of Fury doesn't quite sound right to me. BLaB sounds better here, though, than it did live, and I find it to be one of the albums better songs. Also pretty good are Lolita, Satisfied, and Get On The Boat.

A poster on alt.music.prince called Pharoah suggested an alternate track order for the songs which makes the record much more listenable. Still, I'm a bit disappointed in this effort. It's not bad. It just isn't as good as his recent output (Rainbow Children, Chocolate Invasion, or even Musicology).

It goes something like this (the altered track order, that is) :

01. The Word
02. Lolita
03. Black Sweat
04. Fury
05. Love
06. Incense and Candles
07. Get On The Boat
08. 3121
09. Te Amo Corazon
10. The Dance
11. Satisfied
12. Beautiful, Loved & Blessed

I'll still buy it to at least particpate in the Purple Ticket Lottery. Winners get to attend an intimate live performance.

Labels: music, Prince

Gordon Parks (1912-2006)

Labels: death, Heroes, movies

While I agree intellectually with most, if not all of the points made in Shay's article at Booker Rising (click the title above to read it), I have to say The Three Six Mafia were the most interesting part of the big show. And their song wasn't half bad either.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't watch most of the show. I'd forgotten it was on till just after nine (it started here at eight, I think) and when I tuned in, I divided my time between that and some other stuff. I miss Jon Stewart's Daily Show. I keep my cable TV very basic since I pay enough for cable internet, which allows me to find whatever I miss anyway. Still, I haven't really bothered to hunt down his show in a while.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doesn't it seem like Booker T. Washington should be older than 150? It's about another month from now, but happy birthday, just in case I forget.

Labels: fun, society, Truth, tv

The above image is from The Marvel Try-Out Book from back in the eighties. A comic book presented on 11"x17" 2 ply bristol board. A few pages complete but without color. Next a few complete sans color and inks. The pencils were printed in non-repro blue. These were followed by pages without word balloons (but with a script on an opposite page) and with rougher pencil, and then without words or pencils, but with plot, and finally I think, without even plot.
Since I don't have my penciled pages around, I assume they must've been really awful. I rarely throw my work away.
At the time I thought my inking was okay, though I never sent those pages in either. As with the above image (inked over John Romita Jr.'s blue lined pencils), it's pretty clear (now, at least) that some of my embellishments were a bit heavy handed at times, and at others, maybe a bit too sketchy.
It'd be cool if they kept putting out more of these, but I believe one more was created maybe in the nineties, featuring the X-Men. I understand the penciled pages were printed in black which meant the extra hassle of tracing and transferring.

Speaking of J. Jonah Jameson, on one of my recent, barely coherent rants, I discussed some long held ideas I had about Spiderman, but forgot about the publisher of the Daily Bugle. I'd recently read an article at Newsarama.com about some upcoming crap at Marvel. I don't remember the specifics, but some writer or editor stated an intention to cast J. Jonah Jameson in the mold of Rupert Murdoch. Or vice-versa. I don't like what Murdock has done to newspapers and I don't care for the Fox News network. It's also obvious that Jameson's a dick and that little Hitler mustache isn't really doing him any favors. But Jameson is not a Conservative. His concern that law enforcement should be held accountable (not possible with masked vigilantes) is a classic riff of the political left. Especially considering the actual history of the masked vigilante in the U.S. of A.

Speaking of upcoming crap at Marvel, here's a link to a Newsarama article (speaking of newsarama articles) that contains some really cool Dr. Strange artwork. I like the Vincent Price look. In the beginning, Steve Ditko kinda made him look Chinese or something. I'd like to see them do something with that eventually. There's also a new Eternals series by Neil Gaiman and John Romita Jr. (speaking of JR Jr.). Mentioned a while back on a Jack Kirby newsgroup, this could lead to a compilation of the original series, which would make me real happy.

There's a reprint collection of 1970's Nova comics in Marvel's Essentials line. Those thick black and white phone book collections. That was one of my favorite books, back in the day, though he and I came from different versions of Hempstead, Long Island. His version of Hempstead High School was all white except for his one Black friend, while my version (Nova might've been cancelled by the time I was high school aged - I forget) was mostly Black and I had a few White friends.

Jenny, Jenny, Everywhere....
Jenny Everywhere is a copyright free e-comic character who exists everywhere at once, so any creator can do whatever they will and not worry about pesky things like continuity and whatnot. Some stories are better than others. Here's one I like: Damn Fine Hostile Takeover - part one and part two.

Labels: comics, dead links, Hempstead, non music projects, nostalgia, These pictures will come back to haunt me one day