So… Podcasts…

(Since I’m still working on my promised post about the US police force [I’m doing tons of research for this, to back up everything I say, so it’s a lot of work and I don’t have that much free time, which of course means it’s taking longer than I expected], I thought this would be a good, fun, light interim post.)

So… I listen to a lot of podcasts. I thought it’d be cool to list and talk about podcasts. As I said… I have a lot here, and I am going to list them all, and include links. However, I’m only going to give details on a select few, so this isn’t overly-long.

So here we are… my podcasts:

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Great Guitar Solos – Dazed and Confused Live @ Earl’s Court

This right here is literally why I play guitar.

Jimmy Page playing his guitar with a violin bow. I don’t know what exactly it was that made me sit up and take notice, but this blew my mind, and made me think of the guitar in ways I had never imagined the guitar before seeing this.

This is live at Earl’s Court on May 24, 1975. Yes, it’s over 30 minutes long. No, that’s not the longest Dazed and Confused has ever gone.

The bow solo starts at 11:33 and ends at 19:00.

Again… this is why I play guitar. This is how I see the guitar.

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Great Guitar Solos – This Entire Show by Kaki King on TED Talks

I was looking for a solo by Kaki King to showcase, and decided it was impossible to find just one. Her playing is absolutely incredible and she absolutely deserves to be noted as one of the greatest guitarists of the modern age. Her playing is beyond brilliant, and it was very hard for me to narrow down just one.

So, instead, I decided to link to this amazing performance she gives at TED.

Watch the whole thing, because it’s mind-blowingly awesome:

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Suicide Squad

(Warning… some spoilers ahead… also, I discuss the abusive relationship between Joker and Harley in the Batman animated series and the comics. Not in much detail, but still…)

The Suicide Squad cast, minus Amanda Waller and the Joker, posing in front of Belle Reve.

So let me be honest up front… I don’t read a lot of comics, but I do prefer DC to Marvel. That said, that’s only for two reasons: Batman and Wonder Woman. I’ve always been a fan of both, and through them I prefer Justice League to the Avengers.

When Marvel and Disney started on their Avengers cinematic universe, I was hoping for DC to do a Justice League cinematic universe. And I wasn’t the only one. Many had hoped that Nolan’s Batman movies would be the start, but he refused to go that route, and honestly, his movies would not have fit in a Justice League universe with fantasy and sci-fi all around, especially as Nolan’s trilogy was more of an exercise in “what would Batman be like in the real world” (even if TDKRises sort of ultimately failed that question).

Then, Man of Steel came out. I was… not impressed. Although I’ve never been the world’s biggest Superman fan, following Justice League through Batman and Wonder Woman makes the other heroes, including Superman, very hard to avoid (though no, I wasn’t trying to, as I like the Justice League in general, as well). Superman is not an easy hero to pull off. Being the first, his over-powered, nearly god-like status made sense back when he was created. But DC has never been able to successfully update him, and when he has been amazing (All Star Superman, for example), they never really understood why he was so amazing, and so would kill it. And, of course, DC and WB gave Zack Snyder (of Sucker Punch infamy… gods that movie was terrible) the reigns over Man of Steel… which means that what we got was a Superman based quite a bit on Dr. Manhattan (which really shouldn’t be that surprising in hindsight). That just didn’t work. It’s not too surprising that critics weren’t fans.

Then we got Batman V Superman. I’ve been promising a spoiler-heavy review of the ultimate cut, but have so far failed to deliver, and I apologize for that. Hopefully I’ll get one up eventually, but suffice it to say, I really did not like the movie… I think largely because what I wanted was something more akin to World’s Finest. But I’ll get to that in my spoiler-heavy review… if I ever get to it.

But now, we have Suicide Squad.

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Great Guitar Solos – Comfortably Numb P*U*L*S*E*

Welcome to post 1 of Great Guitar Solos. It’s a series in which I highlight guitar solos I consider to be incredible. This first one, and the next two, are being moved from my old blog space. Then I’ll be writing new ones to go up every Monday.

I love guitar solos. A lot. I love picking them apart and figuring out what’s being played and what techniques are being used and if it’s sloppy and if that sloppiness is on purpose and so on and so forth. I’m a bit of a snob about guitar solos, in fact.

It doesn’t help that I can’t play them myself. I want to; I want to be a lead guitarist, able to play mind-blowing solos, from slow, emotional, melodic, deliberate melodies to face-melting, mind-bending psychedelic, shredding goodness.

But I’m just not there, sadly. My playing is not that good.

I do, however, have solos that I hold up as pillars of what good soloing is, and what it should be.

And the first one I’m highlighting is the solo I consider to be the greatest guitar solo ever recorded.

The band is Pink Floyd. The album is the live DVD P*U*L*S*E*.

The song?

Listen to that guitar solo. It starts at 4 minutes and 54 seconds in, and ends at 9 minutes and 24 seconds.

Already listened to it?

Listen to it again…

I can wait…

…

…

…

…

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This is the Horror I Like (YouTube-Based ARGs)

(Note: this post has many, many links to many, many Youtube videos. The videos either are or are about Youtube-based horror series, which means the videos include lots of video/audio distortion, jump scares, disturbing imagery, and so on. Be aware of that if you decide to embark on the journey I’m laying out before you. This distortion [as well as the other stuff I mentioned] is extremely present in the series based around Slenderman, as that video and audio distortion is a major component of the stories.)

So if you’re friends with me on Facebook, you know that I’m not the world’s biggest fan of horror movies. It’s honestly because I don’t like being scared. It’s not a fun feeling for me, and causes anxiety and an inability to sleep.

That said, however, there is something I find myself enjoying more and more these days, and that’s Youtube-based horror ARG’s. ARG, if you don’t know, stands for “Alternate Reality Game”. According to Wikipedia…

An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and uses transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players’ ideas or actions.

The form is defined by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real time and evolves according to players’ responses. Subsequently, it is shaped by characters that are actively controlled by the game’s designers, as opposed to being controlled by artificial intelligence as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and collaborate as a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities. ARGs generally use multimedia, such as telephones, email and mail but rely on the Internet as the central binding medium.

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Tellin’ mother nature ‘bout you and me…

Moving more blogs over from my old space. Bringing this one here because I want to get back into blogging about music. See this as a segway to my Great Guitar Solos series, which I’m bringing back next Monday, and will (try) to do every Monday, starting with ones I already wrote. 

So I wanted to introduce everyone to my all-time favorite song. I don’t even know why it’s my all-time favorite song. What I do know is this:
a) It’s written by my all-time favorite band, Led Zeppelin.
b) It’s about a dog (Strider, the dog Robert Plant had at the time).
c) It’s my all-time favorite song.

I listen to it every morning when I wake up. It’s my ringtone. I know the lyrics by heart. I made myself a collection of every recorded instance of the song live. I have the studio outtakes and sessions on the electric instrumental version of the song. The studio outtakes/sessions, especially from Bron-Yr-Aur Cottage, of the acoustic version (which is the officially released version), are my Led Zeppelin collection holy grail.

Needless to say, I’m a bit obsessed with this song.

And I know you’re a Led Zeppelin fan if you already know what song I’m talking about.

And just which song am I talking about?

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(In Memory of Prince) Great Guitar Solos – While My Guitar Gently Weeps – Live at the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

(I don’t know if this signals a return of my Great Guitar Solos series or if it’s just a one-off; I haven’t decided, yet.)

So I have a confession to make: I don’t have Prince’s music in my collection. His music was never completely my jam.

I don’t hate his music.

On the contrary…

Prince, IMO, was a monster of guitar, a talent surpassed by very, very few, perhaps almost none, during his time. His ability to play the guitar was phenomenal to watch, and I loved watching him solo. His solos were incredible, up there with Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and David Gilmour, but with a technical know-how above all of them. Each time Prince laid down a solo, it was a master class in how to play the guitar as the leading instrument.

So yes, I respect, immensely, the talent that he wielded. But I was never a big fan of the 80s musically, and Prince was part of that. He was brilliant, however, and I would defend him as a master talent of guitar to anyone who would dare claim otherwise. Even someone who would assume that their musical opinions are objective facts would have to bow to Prince’s mastery of guitar.

And this performance I want to highlight here shows that off incredibly, in my opinion…

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(Best of) Tales from the Second Window

So for a couple years I worked as a shift coordinator and overnight manager at a 24-hour Burger King in Florida. Since we were situated across the street from a large group of bars, we would get a lot of interesting customers during the overnight shifts. I shared some of the best stories on Facebook that I then brought to my old blog in two posts, here and here. I’m bringing what I consider the funniest ones here, along with two new ones from my current job at Teavana.

I have to admit that I have a slight ulterior motive for doing this… I desperately want to publish a comic made up of all of them (not just the ones I’m posting here, but all of them in those two links), but there are a couple obstacles I need to overcome:

1. I can’t draw (including doing illustrations on a computer) to save my life. And I’ve tried, believe me. You do not want to see the results…

2. I’m not sure how to handle the fact that I basically steal the format (and idea, really) of Not Always Right. Well… okay… let me be honest… I’ve submitted to them before these stories happened, but I never saw anything resembling my submissions posted, so I gave up and did this, instead. It probably won’t matter given the format of a comic, but still…

Also, I’m pretty sure I’d have to obscure the references to Burger King and Teavana. For a lot of these, that’s easy, but for a few of them that will be more difficult… and I’m not the best editor (as anyone who reads my writing can attest :D).

(Content note for some ableist words. It’s mostly in the dialog from customers, but at the time I originally wrote these, I wasn’t really aware of ableism, unfortunately, so I use some ableist words, as well. I do apologize for that.)

Anyways, without further ado, here are the best of Tales from the Second Window…

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