7thDRXN

(M) Wildlife Control - Analog or Digital

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 11:17:45 -0700

Fun video and catchy tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boGyFAYomBo

Darkness is also a good track with a realistic but ultimately uplifting message:
Everyone was happy once
but then someone took it all away.
But baby it’s ok.
Even the sunshine’s gonna burn out one day.

We’re meant to feel
all of these emotions.
Don’t let sadness get you down.
For in the dark there is devotion
to the ocean of your heart.

Treats For Ears (Volume 014)

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:17:13 -0700

Can I be close to you?

Picture Party 014

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 11:09:39 -0700

More delights for your eyes.

24 - If Only I Could Roam Free

Treats for Ears (Volume 013)

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 20:59:11 -0700

You’re there and then you’re not.

Picture Party 013

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:14:29 -0700

Stay tuned in.

23 - Indubitably Too Diddly

Aesop Rockology: Lyrics Update

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:36:58 -0700

Hey y’all.

For my own edification as well as that of the universe, I have transcribed the lyrics for “Skelethon” from the liner notes. I will admit that I added periods where I felt like complete thoughts ended and began, which I may change my mind on. But that’s more for me than anyone else; the words are still there in the right order.

Check it out via the Aesop Rockology link to the right, or just click here.I’ve also added the lyrics for the Hail Mary Mallon record with Rob Sonic and DJ BIG WIZ. Thankfully they posted them and all I had to do was consolidate them.

That leaves the lyrics for Daylight, Bazooka Tooth and Fast Cars, Danger, Fire & Knives left to transcribe from the deluxe FCDF&K booklet, and then I will get around to working out the lyrics for None Shall Pass. Then his freshman and sophomore albums… then, like, 100 collabs he has been in on.

Somebody has got to do it!

Aesop Rockology - Skelethon's "Gopher Guts"

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:15:47 -0700

An obviously personal track, but plenty to connect with. That last verse is really powerful.

Greasy grimy gopher guts, poolside ‘ope and don’t forget spoons twice.

Lukewarm vultures, mold on his moonpie, rooms in his home that dissipatin’ the fruit fly.

Suicide lane wide load ride looting in the wake of an amicable marooning.

My duty go from moving in packs, to sharing food with a cat, to,

“Ma, it’s me, I accidentally sawed a woman in half.”

She said, “I’ll keep you in my prayers.”

I said, “I need to hide a body.”

She said, “Okay honey talk to you on Friday.”

Apparently we share a common plasma, so the growing disconnection doesn’t matter, according to the blood and water chapter.

Weird, who wrote the blood and water chapter anyway?

Probably some surly dad, only child, thirty cats.

Looking for a way to reconnect with an inverted past, except it doesn’t always work like that.

Today I pulled three baby snakes out of moss and dirt, where the wild strawberry vines toss and turn.

I told ‘em you will grow to be something inventive and electric; you are healthy, you are special, you are present.

Then I let ‘em go.

Oh.

You were sitting at the gate awaiting spirits and provisions, I was privy to a headache over pirouetting innards.

In a mirror sweating pictures, who’s there? Simian or lizard?

Is it worth or is it disappearing difference?

An ambition immaterial, antiquated gentleman, outlaws reduced to a ferris wheel of vitriol.

Move as a godless heathen, black gums, tooth gone, bootleg Yukon Cornelius.

I’m a… that’s better, here we here we go:

Listen chin and face printed on a zero dollar bill, got a little plot of land worth forty years unrecognized. (?)

Contraband keeping the core of sides checker lies.

Check.

Nevermind the misanthrope vying for affection to the wretched sound of mysticism dying.

It is something he must handle on his own; the wind blown way, when the wind don’t play.

Today I pulled three green frogs out of leaf and bark, where the grape vines climb a convenient barn.

I told ‘em you will grow to be something tenacious and exalted; you are mighty, you are gracious, you are lauded.

Then I let ‘em go.

Oh.

I have been completely unable to maintain any semblance of relationship on any level.

I have been a bastard to the people who have actively attempted to deliver me from peril.

I have been acutely undeserving of the ear that listened up and lip that kissed me on the temple.

I have been accustomed to a stubborn disposition that admits it wishes its history disassembled.

I have been a hypocrite and sermonizing tolerance while skimming for a ministry to pretzel.

I have been unfairly resentful of those I wish that acted different when the bidding was essential.

I have been a terrible communicator prone to isolation over sympathy for devils.

I have been my own worst enemy since the very genesis of rebels.

Today I pulled three ghost crabs out of rockin’ sand with a low tide showcase a promised land.

I told ‘em you will grow to be something dynamic and impressive; you are patient, you are gallant, you are festive.

Then I let ‘em go.

Oh.

On and on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on.

He has been through some serious shit in the past few years, and I’m sure we can all relate. Just gotta feed our baby snakes, green frogs and ghost crabs.

Picture Party 012

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:20:02 -0700

It begins again.

22 - Intensify The Reason Why

Project Garden Pool

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:13:10 -0700

Hey everybody! So I don’t know if you heard the word on the street or if a little bird told you, but I’ve been working on building an aquaponics greenhouse in the empty pool of my parent’s backyard for the past few months. Me, my mom and her brother were the construction crew.

What is aquaponics, (some of) you ask? Well, it’s like hydroponics, but with fish providing the nutrients. In hydroponics, the plants are grown without soil in a grow bed that is hooked up to an irrigation system. This system pumps water that has nutrient solution added to it. In aquaponics, there are fish fertilizing the water with their poopies, and the plants naturally filtrate some of the water for the fish. This closed loop makes things very efficient.

I had been following urban agriculture for a few years previous, but when my mom found gardenpool.org, I knew I wanted to give some self-sustainability a shot. Their pool is in Mesa, AZ which has a very similar climate to Palm Springs. I was working at the time, but I was gearing up to do this as soon as my work on the fabulous show “China, IL” was over and I had some time in Palm Springs. The first step was convincing dad.

Our pool has been empty for over 15 years, mind you. He was just unsure of putting in this semi-permanent structure and that we (me and mom) would follow through with it. A justified concern. However I was fronting all of the money for the endeavor and after a few weeks we were able to enlist his support. Having his architecture and construction expertise helped a ton! We wouldn’t have been able to design something so efficient and awesome without his input. Thanks daddio.

So here’s what we were working with originally:

As you can see, it’s a pretty irregular shape (and 15 years of verbenia growing over the edge looks pretty nice). Originally we were going to go with a design similar to the gardenpool.org folks, where they mostly use PVC pipe and the door is in a raised frame above the pool, but dad helped us figure out a pretty elegant solution. We just made the entire thing a rectangular-bottomed triangle-frame to make things easier, and decided on a 3’1” height so that it would have a low profile against the wind as well as being just tall enough for a small giant such as myself to walk under at the shallow end.

So the main components are a rectangular frame, one long board running the length of the pool and rafters approximately every four feet. Based on the height we had previously decided upon, we calculated the required diagonal length of the rafters, as well as the angle of the cuts on each end. We printed out a template, transferred it to cardboard, and used that to mark our 10’ 2x4s. If you look at this closeup, you’ll see that our angle gave us a nifty little lip to settle on the frame, which gave us a little extra stability:

Now, to build this with that long board running down the middle, we needed to build a temporary support structure to hold up the middle. This allowed us to build one triangular end, attach a few rafters, then start at the other end, build a few more rafters, connect the two 16’ 2x4s needed for the length of the pool, and finally take down our temporary supports:

After we finished the basic frame, we needed to make sure that it was a bit more stable. To help transfer some pressure from the rafters pushing against our length-wise beam at their tippy tops, we made them into little A’s. We made sure to put them at a height that would be comfortable when we are working in the finished greenhouse:

At this point you could still shake the entire structure lengthwise with just a little bit of weight… so we added support beams between the rafters, offset from center by 1.5” so we could easily nail in each one:

Still, this whole thing was just sitting on top of the pool with nothing holding it to the ground. Dad didn’t want to drill anything permanent into the walls of the pool, so he came up with these ingenious plywood gussets that fit around the lip of the pool. In a few flatter spots, we were able to use two pieces of scrap 2x4 that fit pretty perfectly, but in the more oddly shaped parts, we made a template out of posterboard for the lip and then figured out the height to the rafter for each:

So at this point, our frame was pretty much finished but we had to decide how we were going to use the space. The original not-so-thought-through plan involved three-row columns of rain gutters running the length of the pool and mushroom chandeliers in the deep end, with some sort of pulley mechanism to make them easier to access. That wasn’t going to work. For one, gutters are incredibly shallow (not in the superficial sense, they’re actually quite humble), and would only allow us to grow very specific things with short roots. Two, pulley systems are going to be somewhat complex and unwieldy. We may still do single row gutters eventually, but now we’re going to be making a ton of flood-and-drain grow beds.

In a flood-and-drain system, water is pumped into each bed until it reaches a certain point, then a siphon kicks into gear to drain the water back to the fishy end. This gives the roots time to absorb nutrients as well as aerate, and seems to be the most common method for both hydro and aquaponics. We are going to have as many beds as possible in the dry end, and then six of them lining the walls of the deep end. But how will we reach them, you ask incredulously?! Why, that’s why we decided to build a platform (again, dad’s idea… thanks dad).

So the idea is to use two planks that we can move around as we wish to get where we want, which gives the water some sunlight for algae to grow that the fish can eat. There will definitely be less, but we think it’s worth the tradeoff of being able to easily access all of this precious vertical space in the deep end. To make the platform, we figured out where our water level would be, then used a laser level to mark the walls where the 2x4 supports needed to be. It was quite boggling how wrong our marks looked with the insane curves of the deep end, but the level doesn’t lie (as long as it’s level).

So first we connected a rectangular frame together, then added in some vertical supports to hold these in place. On top of this are the boards that actually support the planks, and we cut them at snug angles to the wall so that where they connect provides a bit of support as well. We used these fancy H1Z hurricane clips to attach them to the frame.

This platform also allows us to easily access the mushroom chandeliers which are still part of the plan. I learned about these from taking the mycology workshop at Growing Power in Milwaukee. Basically, it’s a bunch of spores mixed in with sanitized growth media, covered in a dark, waterproof bag that is suspended in chicken-wire. You cut little diamond holes every few inches in the bag, and the mushrooms figure they might as well start growing there. I’ll do a post about them in more detail after we finish a few and hook them up.

We probably got one a bit bigger than we needed, but we do need a swampcooler since we live in a very dry heat. The humidity and an extra 15-20 degrees of cooling will help our plants survive the rough summer. Because of the swampcooler and just to help hot air escape in general, we had to build vents on each end. We just fit a board in our triangle frame about a foot and change down, then covered the hole with a 1/4” mesh screen.

After all of this work, we’re ready to put the tarp on. We bought the 12-14mm clear, heavy duty poly tarp from tarpaflex.com, in a 40’x20’ roll, and took it to the park to unfold it. Then we rolled it up so we could unroll it along the top as we went along driving in three furring screws to the rafters on each side. We also used furring screws on furring strips — about 1/4 inch thick, 1 inch wide strips of wood — all along the sides and on the door to hold the tarp in place.

Voila! Our construction phase is finally over after two months of arranging our schedules to get a few hours in here and there. Ideally we should have finished in May to get a better start planting, but we are going to try and get the irrigation system up and running as soon as possible. We filled up the pool with water today, and by measuring how many gallons per minute we got out of the hose and timing how long the pond took to fill we got a gallon estimate. It looks like we have an approximately 1500 gallon fish pond, so we should be able to comfortably house a ton of tilapia.

I will keep y’all updated as we finish the irrigation and finally get some greenery in our greenhouse!

Treats for Ears (Volume 012)

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 10:37:32 -0700

Some (way too) smoothness to start the spring.

Alvino Rey & His Orchestra - Blues In The Night

Picture Party 011

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:06:11 -0700

Posting this image menagerie right NOW because somehow this slipped through the cracks and I’ll forget about it later.

See Four Free War C4s

Treats for Ears (Volume 011)

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:51:01 -0700

Ethereal chill-out sounds. Surreal video as accompaniment.

Baths - Lovely Bloodflow

Picture Party 010

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:53:27 -0800

Back in action!

Drip Dry Sip Sigh

Treats for Ears (Volume 010)

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:02:39 -0800

Ooo la la, swinghouse is one of the most awesome genres to bust out this century.

Caro Emerald - Back It Up

Where did January go?

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:57:47 -0800

Seriously!

Work deadlines have been crazy, so consequently I have been a little crazy. Job ends on the 10th so will be happily moving along to all sorts of little projects that I’ve been aching to tackle. Including (in varying levels of certainty):

A) Finessing some articles on thoughts, things, thoughts on things, things on thoughts and thoughts on the thing of thought, to be posted here and elsewhere.
B) Really building up the Aesop Rockology wiki; lyrics and de-cyphers.
C) Making a greenhouse out of a pool.
D) Making some beats!
E) Relaxing.

Hope to share some of my fruit labors. Stay tuned. And listen to this awesome, surprisingly upbeat remix of Aesop Rock’s “The Harbor Is Yours”:

The contrast is brilliant. Would love to hear more Aesop Rock backed by soul/R&B samples.

Treats for Ears (Volume 009)

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:51:14 -0800

Apologies, December has been a month of transition for me. More details later! And work deadlines have been crazy. Back into the swing of things! Plenty of seventh directioning for 2012.

To really get things going again, how about this heck of a track?

Picture Party 009

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:33:10 -0800

Okay, people. I know you’re itchin’ for a fixin’… so, fixed.

019 - The Lies Disguised As A Wise Surprise

Treats for Ears (Volume 008)

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 00:19:55 -0800

Good workin’ music. Feels like Fela Kuti, great horn section.

Marijata - No Condition Is Permanent

Keep up the good workin’, readers.

Conversations With A Capitalist

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:43:43 -0800

‎”When an honest man, honestly mistaken, comes face-to-face with undeniable and irrefutable truth, he is faced with one of two choices, he must either cease being mistaken or cease being honest.” - Who Knows?

One day I was minding my own business, spouting off incendiary, revolutionary rhetoric at random passers-by, and I had the unseemingly good fortune of running into The Modern Day Die-Hard Capitalism Fan. Not surprisingly, we got into a huge argument.

Anyhow, I think our exchange turned out pretty well in the end and we parted ways with a bond we may not have previously shared. Luckily, I remembered to turn on the vintage tape recorder I had on hand and I’ve painstakingly typed up a complete transcript (as the audio quality wasn’t that great on this busy street). Enjoy:

The Modern Day Die-Hard Capitalism Fan: “… but socialism hasn’t ever worked! Ever. It never will.”

Me: “Well, that’s not necessarily true. If you look at smaller scales like, uh, within a functional family or community, socialism is actually the norm for what is technically economic behavior; investing in other people. And then if you go through history you’ll find functional examples in one of the most ancient discovered cities, Catal-Hayuk, as well as in the Minoan civilization which prospered for approximately two thousand years, or in Native-American tribes, or even a modern city like Auroville in India.”

TMDDHCF: “Well… uh, sure… but capitalism obviously won out, because it is clearly more awesome! I mean, it’s totally responsible for all of this technological progress, innovation and cool shit. What you’re talking about is a totally socialistic redistribution of wealth, and that’s wack.”

M: “Capitalism definitely has some awesome features, but I wouldn’t deem what I’m talking about as a “redistribution of wealth” [I even did the bunny-ears in real life -hm] so much as a capitalistic, entrepreneurial “reinvestment of wealth” [again -hm] with radically beneficial social bonuses. And obviously a wack…”

TMDDHCF: “But again that’s just big government and…”

M: “Hey! Let me finish, please. But it’s interesting you mention big government because what I’m talking about is most definitely not that, and I actually think you’ll like it. So hear me out for a minute and let me explain the specifics of my point.”

TMDDHCF: “Fine, fine, I’m sorry. Let’s hear it.”

M: “As I was saying, a wack redistribution of wealth would most assuredly be wack. But as I said before, the point I’m trying to make here is that we know which ventures would be better for our long-term health and survival, so we should purposely encourage competition and innovation in those areas… which is what capitalism is all about! Let me explain.

Obviously, the modern day expansion of big government is a total pain in the neck for economic progress… but not in the way that most people think, I think. We definitely want to shrink the federal government dramatically in order to restore the economic influence of communities and individuals. Instead, we have perpetual handouts to piggy-backing, purposely inefficient, politics-influencing corporations. It’s a ridiculous, revolting, revolving door between the two, particularly between the FDA and big agribusiness.

Then we pay for that cancerous marriage in healthcare costs down the road thanks to eating carelessly regulated, nutrient-deficient, industrially mass-produced garbage that is covered in pesticides… which are primary products of the petrochemical industry! The links between politics and big business are bad enough, but then there are those types of interlinks between other big businesses on top of that.

Yet the most frustrating example has to be big oil getting dozens of billions of dollars in subsidies EVERY YEAR to keep gas prices low while ensuring US import levels stay INCREDIBLY high. I mean, Europeans pay 2.5x more than Americans do for gasoline… or petrol if you’re one of those folks. Instead — if local governments were restored their original power over a small-yet-necessary federal government — we would naturally incentivize toward innovative big-picture-sustainability profits reaped by individuals and small firms with rapid technological advances in solar, geothermal, bio-algae, etc. Our modern practice hands trillions of dollars to a small handful of stagnant, profit-desperate, nation-less corporations using the ridiculously ancient energy source of burning shit that is solidified in the earth and placing it in the atmosphere.

I mean, doesn’t that sound better?”

TMDDHCF: “Well… yeah, I guess it does. It really does. I mean, it seems like what we have now is more like socialism for big business and they’re the ones leeching off of the system!”

M: “Exactly! And regardless of the binary political debate ineffectually arguing over regulation or deregulation, it’s just a distraction from the fact that the same people are still going to reap the benefits and purposely — even if unconsciously — prohibit progress in pursuit of perpetual profit.”

TMDDHCF: “Well, gee. Now I’m all riled up. This is bullshit! What do we do about it?”

M: “Well, I really don’t know, but I do know that we have a planet full of creative people with innovative solutions to problems. If we could empower these individuals to empower their communities, our problems would be tackled in a variety of ways we could never predict. As capitalism is intended to do, the best ideas/technologies/services would be clearly visible and applicable anywhere on the planet as our more inefficient, inhumane and problematic practices die off.

I mean, it would be great if we could get the political momentum to overhaul the US government… but that’s going to take complete and utter popular support. I guess with the connective power of the internet nowadays we could actually do that, though. It really is our only chance to bypass the political binary babble everyone will get from mainstream media. Regardless of how well you present this to people, the corporate media is in collusion with big business to work within a certain narrative, and it has this overwhelmingly hypnotic effect on the public’s perception of everything.”

TMDDHCF: “Oh I know! No matter what television outlet you get yours news from, it seems like there’s a lot of talking about problems but never about functional solutions. But I I bet it is possible to really change things if we all just rile each other up with the internet! Wow. It’s weird how much we agree on things. I really wasn’t expecting to agree so much with a crazy person on the street spouting crazy talk. I mean, you’re not crazy or anything! It’s just… uh, I guess I was just stuck in a way of thinking about these things, and maybe I was mistaken. I’m sorry.”

M: “Oh no worries, comrade! If you never went out of your way to tell me I was wrong, we wouldn’t have found we shared this little nugget of truth, you know? And I mean, I admit I’m probably wrong on a lot of stuff but I’m pretty sure about this kind of thing… I’m just drawing some pretty simple conclusions from some obvious facts, you know?”

TMDDHCF: “Yeah I gotcha. Very cool. Anyhow, I’ve got to get off to my corporate wage-slave job… I’ve got a family you know?”

M: “Of course, do your thing! Best of luck to you out there in the trenches.”

So that was that. What an uplifting encounter. Usually when we give ourselves and other people the space to really talk about the fundamentals of how we want the world to work, we all want the same things. It’s just that a lot of the time, we don’t think the world can give us all what we want.

But times are changing.

“It’s not ignorance that’s so bad but all the things we think we know that just ain’t so.” - Will Rogers

Picture Party 008

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 23:02:44 -0800

Life is busy. Lots to write about. Lots to look forward to.

Enjoy some pictures!

018 - Winners Take Gaul, Losers Raise Walls