So yeah, some of my most fond memories of post-highschool camradarie and general barely postadolescent fun are of just simply taking several roadtrips with my friend Ken (remember that time we were listening to Pink Floyd on our way to Jonesboro, and the fog came in and it just got WAY TOO WIERD? And listening to entirely too much REM?). I met Ken at Arkansas Governor's School, way way back in 1990. A long fucking time ago. Anyway, the man now has a wife, a kid, a farm of some sort, and a blog. The blog you can read. The others not so much.

Also, apparently my link to a Terra Naomi song really touched my friend Kristen, so here's another one, Smile. If there's any song that's prettier but more sad, I don't know what it is. Sometimes, for me at least, there's the comfort of a sad song. Call it wallowing in a little self-pity if you want to, but when you're sad, someone else singing about sadness can be quite a balm on the spirit.

I've been thinking a lot about my dad, as my son's birth approaches, and thinking about what I really remember about him. And what I want to remember about him. We had our issues. Sometimes, as I got older, he couldn't really see me standing in front of him, instead he would see some reflection of himself as he was at my age. When he was a teenager, before he ever became an Episcopal priest, for some time (I'm not sure how long) he was an atheist (or so he told me, and this seemed to cause quite a rift between himself and his father). Needless to say, he didn't remain one. Anyway, he found my skepticism of what you might call Christological issues bewildering, I think. At least he interpreted this by thinking that I was an atheist, which was the furthest thing from the truth. I found, and in some ways still do, find it hard to discuss my deepest thoughts about the divine with other people (And not especially helpful, I have found. The Buddha was remarkably silent on the subject of divine or spiritual beings, and seems to have thought that the subject was beside the point.) I have always FELT a very strong sense of a divine nature in life, a sense of deep connection, and, at the time, when I was a Christian, I interpreted this as a mystical connection with Christ (which makes his thinking I was an atheist kind of funny). But I don't think that this sense of mystical oneness or a feeling of a divine immanent presence necessarily means anything that most religions think that it means. We had our differences, my dad and me. We'll put it at that. But I always knew that he loved me.

So, anyway, memories. I remember, when I was a kid, going fishing with my dad. It wasn't always that fun, the act itself. But it was fun to go fishing with my dad. Because I was hanging out with my dad. And I knew I was special, because my dad wanted to spend time with me. So I think I need to start fishing again.

Kid's gonna need a fishing pole too. Eventually.

The mystery deepens. I hate to post another Youtube link, but there is this phenomena that is going on on it right now, about Lonelygirl15 (I would link to a Wikipedia article, but there is no Wikipedia page about this because of some total idiots who think that the phenomena is not 'notable' enough). Brian Flemming, a noted film maker, has a very interesting analysis of what seems to be going on in this post on his blog. To quote Mr. Flemming:

Here's the story:

There's this 16-year-old girl named Bree. She's supercute. She's also supersmart -- for fun, she reads books like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. She's also sheltered -- she's been homeschooled most of her life, which means she's fairly innocent and doesn't meet a lot of guys.

In other words, she's exactly the kind of girl that the young male YouTube demographic would fantasize about.

Enter Daniel. Daniel is Bree's friend. He's not really good-looking. He's kind of awkward. He's a computer geek. And Bree likes him. Holy crap. That's exactly the kind of thing that the young male YouTube demographic would fantasize about.

But, as in Moonlighting and other successful TV shows, while there is chemistry between the two main characters, there is no actual romance yet. They're "friends." Gotta have somewhere to go.

That's the basic setup, and it wasn't obvious at the start that it was fake. After all, a girl at a webcam is a girl at a webcam. How would you know if she was faking it? Had Bree just stayed put and talked, she probably could have told us anything without us knowing whether it was real or not.

So, yeah, interesting. Seems to be fake. Probably. If you watch the latest 'episode', they've gone swimming, and she's asking who 'Cassie' was. Very mysterious. I'm enjoying it immensely. And I haven't even gotten into the whole Aleister Crowley connection thing. Wierd. Very very wierd. If it's viral marketing, it's really sneaky and neat. If it's some independent young film makers, then they're doing a good job of creating buzz.

Also, speaking of Youtube, here's a really neat mashup of the Star Trek theme and the Simpsons theme. Check it out.

I'm reading Looking For Alaska by John Green. It's a 'teen' book about a geeky kid who goes away to a co-ed boarding school in Alabama. And it is one of the funniest things I've read all year. Read it if you get a chance. Here's Bookslut's review. [Edit: Two things. First, the first half of Looking For Alaska is funny. The second half is brutal, heartwrenching and transcedent. Just sayin'. Second, as a bit of synchronicity, John Green has a website, with attached blog, at Sparksflyup, and he has also become interested in the whole Lonelygirl15 phenom, and has some interesting insights into it here. That is all.]

And yes, Virginia, Guinness is a beer:

Guinness is a dry stout that originated in Arthur Guinness's St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. The beer is based upon the porter style that originated in London in the early 1700s. It is one of the most successful beer brands in the world, being exported world wide

Had a long post written in my head about seeing old friends, wonderful birthdays, nostalgia for old times, and so on. But I'm far too tired to do that right now.

So, for those of you who have a soft spot for artists like Michael Hedges (who has been gone for far too long) you might want to check out this video of a Canadian guitarist named Eric Mongrain.

Also, I'm working on a glitchdub remix of a Saul Stokes song from his latest album, Vast. I'm going to be using some samples from his Blipdrums sample sets for some of the beats, I've decided. They're really cool. If you're one of those electronic music making type fools like me, check it out. I'm going to be taking the track in kind of an almost Autechre type direction, skittery with shards of digital noise, but dubby and spaced out. Saul is really cool, and if you're into well crafted ambient music, check him out.

More tomorrow.