Prussian adventures while on the run

It's a beautiful Saturday (actually hit above 60 for the first time this year) here in Seattle and I'm at VOXX coffee catching up on emails, job searching and of course...my loyal servants, keeping you abreast of the latest accusations aimed at me. (do you think i'm paranoid?)

As Great Uncle Charles Marie Raymond d'Arenberg (fifth Duke of Arenberg) used to say to me....

"life is like whore...the more you get used to her, the more you forget the sores"...now i don't encourage paying for sex when you can get it for free...but i think his advice has merit.

Last Wednesday i had my gym appointment with Natalie. Natalie is kicking my ass.. literally (as seen in the photo) but she's trying to get me to push myself over this plateau I've been stuck in. I work out 4x a week and i'm dieting yet my weight still hasn't dropped. Now, i do recall the last time i lost lots of weight it took several months of of working out/dieting before my body started to change. Each person is different and responds in thier own time but let me just add that i HATE all skinny people until i become one...then i will love them again.
That's how it works for me folks...love it or leave it.

By the way, near the gym on Madison are the very large broadcast towers.
For some reason whenever i walk near them i have to stare up which only suggests to gravity that i am defying it yet again but so far i haven't killed myself yet. :)

Yesterday, Tommy came over and we worked on new material for the band. Recently I've been writing a lot and those ideas have turned into band songs so it was good to see new ideas from him. His style of playing always forces me to re-think how i approach songwriting.
Sunday we are being interviewed at the Hurricane by someone who writes for a SteamPunk Mag. Should be interesting .... apparently Steampunk people like us even though i'd classify us as more dark rock.

Speaking of Dark Rock, Last Janurary we played a show with the Sins at Fuel and i took a picture of the advertisement outside.
I have to admit that Jamie's photo worked well with the advert format. :)

So to sum up my week..I'm still jobless (there are rumors of something soon), I'm working out lots and enjoying music. Dare a Prussian Lord smile?....

P.S. I updated my resume while i was working on this. What do you think of my new objective?

No Croatoan at this Roanoke

It's been forever since i blogged and I've decided to get out of my shell again and roam the self deluding halls of the internet with my ramblings again.

Let's start with being unemployed....it sucks ass! Nothing makes me question my professional experience more than several interviews where i'm told i "almost" got the job. I realize that testing is a new direction for me but i have all the background needed to perform the job right along other experienced testers.

Rant off/

Today i headed to the gym and decided to stop by the Roanoke park
since the weather was decent enough.


We've had a late winter here (or at least it feels like it...christ..it's almost May) but there were signs that warmer weather was right around the corner.

The park was named after Roanoke, Virginia, the first English settlement in the United States.
I came across a few hints of Spring that brightened my mood.



As i was walking, i put on the bands latest band practice on my IPOD and took the following pictures listening to new songs we are working on. For some reason i love taking pictures of clouds and Power Lines. I think that's left over from my younger days being inspired by R.E.M. video's from the 80's.


As i was leaving the park, i came across this and thought how ironic that this park was called Roanoke. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony )

Blackbird Orchestra: Lazarus

I find that writing words (stories) for music depends greatly on the how the music is structured. Some singer-songwriters craft words first and treat the music as a secondary accompaniment. For me, it's first the music layers followed by an identification of vocal range.
(ie singing tones to the rhythm and seeing how they place)
The stories then are fit together into that package which usually means limiting the range of story telling to fit time signatures.

With that said, Let's move on to our first “Hints and Myths Expos'e”



LAZARUS

The first song I'd like to post about is one we haven't recorded in the studio yet. Written in October 2009, Lazarus first appeared at the Columbia City Theater show in order to give the set a little more of an edge.

Some Background:
Lazarus is a name found in two separate contexts in the New Testament.
[1] in which Jesus restores Lazarus to life four days after Lazarus's death and
[2] in which Lazarus appears as a character in Jesus' parable of Lazarus and Dives, or Lazarus and the Rich Man.

In Science, there is the phenomenon known as the Lazarus syndrome. Lazarus syndrome is the spontaneous return of circulation after failed attempts at resuscitation.

Personal:
Write what you know about... I hear this over and over again

As some may notice, I like to write in themes. I find that certain subjects repeat yet retain different textures. I love an idea that can suggest different meanings. It keeps the words fresh and allows for further discovery later on.

I was fond of the idea that though Lazarus was restored life (or blessed for his suffering), the imperfections of his nature still remained. Perhaps Lazarus was so lost in his suffering and didn't see any options or was unaware that he could control his destiny.
The character himself is little known but I liked the idea of personalizing Lazarus. Someone in today's world might fall into this category by suffering a mental illness (such as addiction or depression). I know full well the costs of addiction and how the mind can create layers of self-destructive processes.
.
Lazarus was responsible for his new lease on life, not Jesus (or god or gods...etc). The process of change is never quick, is often very isolated and requires looking at some hard truths and identifying behavior. In this case, the awakening is just as important as the process of change.

I also found after I wrote the first draft that there was an element of desire hinting it's way into the overall meaning. Those things we want but are either too afraid to ask for or are too scared to receive.

Regardless of true meaning or depth of style, the words for me are suggestive and allow for personalizing. For now – that's good enough. :)

Lyrics:

Lazarus

was it a promise, oh was it a dream?
what brought you to your knees
was it the rapture that turned to pain
and left you half alive, begging

oh Lazarus
are you waiting for that breathe of life?

was it a serpent or was it man
that took the cure from your hands
or was it fate that turned you away
when pleasure lost, the body aches

oh Lazarus
are you waiting for that breathe of life?
oh Lazarus
when will you rise to see the light?

see the light
oh see the light

gone quietly into that dark night..only to forget my wallet.

It's been almost six months since I've posted on this blog and i decided (for sanity sake) that i try to write at least once a week. (We'll see how that goes)

For those that don't know me very well...let me introduce you to my robe:


There - we are all friends now. My robe (of deers) has seen so many changes. Loves, life changes, vodka dares and the occasional Channa Masala orgies.

As none of you know, I've been lucky enough to be unemployed since February and let me tell you...it's so much fun when the only jobs on the market are ones companies place ads for when they know they are only going to hire from within. Great laughs for sure....I'm considering going to school next fall but it's all a question of grants/loans and I'm still deciding if taking a certification course for a job position I'm really feed up with is really the right decision to make. Yet...i pause and remember the days when having insurance seemed almost god-given and yearly salaries actually seemed to provide some sort of sense of value.

But...

I'm not here to complain (or am i) but to start focusing on what really matters in my life. Writing and Music.

As some of you may have heard, I'm the singer for the band http://blackbirdorchestra.com. It's been a great 1 1/2 years since finally crawling out of the bass guitarists garage and hitting the Seattle scene. We've recorded a CD (image below) played many shows, developed a great fan base and just recently i helped direct our upcoming video.


My goal with this blog is twofold.

1. To promote the band and any other musical (art) projects i will be working on.
2. To talk about what I'm writing and how it relates to me.

Now i will warn the reader in advance that i despise writers that can't stop talking about the internal dialogue or meaning behind their works. I'm not interested in preaching to you or myself that I am a poet of any sorts. In fact, I'm just looking for venue to introduce a personal element into the effort that goes into writing. For good or for bad, it's mine.

Well that's it for tonight. I'm off to ponder the job ads but hopefully soon more and more of you will take the time to review, comment and share with me.

-F

it's been forever...and i know i disappeared....

2010 started with me quiting starbucks...or staryucks....the bottom line is that it was good for my soul to leave but being unemployed makes me feel useless...go figure..

anyway, more soon from this complicated place.

Sorry to those i've left hanging .... i hope you all are doing ok.

Frank the Narc

So here i am at work. I managed not to interact with my manager today and I'm really excited to leave here, go home and call it good....what's weird about that is that everyday should be like that and it used to be before the org changes.


Then i started thinking about choices we make in our lives. How one simple decision tree can lead to a totally different life. What if i had gone to college right after high school? What would have happened if i took MIS classes in 1995 in order to get an IT position at Viacom? What if i had married that girl 10 years ago?


Having all these questions in my mind, i reached into that side of me that can predict the future and shuffled the time streams around.....


and you know what i found? I found Frank the narc working the streets of San Francisco circa 1994. Enjoy...

OPIUM-DEN AND NOW

Come one, Come all.....Is that a pocket full of quarters I see or are you just wasting my time?

I ask myself, Why Blog?
The answer is related to an event that used to take place many a moon ago....

When I lived in a small suburb in California, I had a group of friends that would hang out on Friday nights with nothing to do. These nights were usually spent with a Fosters in hand talking about music, Films and the latest WWII video in my collection.
Because some of my friends were smokers, they would congregate outside my bedroom window (which was open) as so not to miss any of the conversation.

Ah...the scene is set.

The details are a little fuzzy but around 1998 I started the Friday night bedroom talks where friends would stop by outside my window. I would pick a subject near and dear to me (usually these consisted of recent events in my life like work, love..etc..You get the picture) and talk non-stop for at least an hour or so. Much of these talks were not scripted and ran off a mixture of spontaneous word play and free association.

According to some, this platform was entertaining and I found a new found love for this quirky form of soul searching/ramblings.

Now back to blogging.

An avenue for self expression is never a bad thing and since I can’t STAND to write thing down (don’t ask why) I figured the artistic and autistic side of myself would appreciate this forum.

From skeptical analysis of the world around me to Rock star self delusions, this is who I am. Love it or at least rent it.

More soon -