it's not that i disagree with you. i do agree with you. when you say that you ought to be able to wear what you want and feel comfortable and confident and safe, you're absolutely right - you ought to be able to. this is essentially a logical type of thinking.

where i run into difficulties with the line of thinking is trying to extrapolate it from the point of logical reasoning to the point of empirical enquiry. you ought to. but can you?

i'm not going to pretend like the science is here, but it is currently leaning towards male sexual responses being inherently impulsive. we're not quite dogs. but, we might not be as different from them as we'd like to think. generally, this argument applies in less mundane circumstances than standing in line at a tesco, but nonetheless...

now, the reason this is important is that the problem is often framed in cultural terms - which is a logical argument. we tend to think that if we just spend a lot of time explaining to these guys that they ought to smarten up and be more respectful then they will - that our logic will be triumphant. and we look at dude a and dude b and say "if dude a can be respectful, why can't dude b?".

the upcoming problem that may be necessary to very difficultly grapple with is that dude b might be acting out of a different genetic configuration that puts him in hormonal and cognitive states that cannot be effectively transcended without treatment.

i'm not exactly saying that that's true. i'm very much hoping it's not true. however, i'm pointing out that it very well might be true, and the sum of evidence is suggesting that it may actually be likely to be true.

which brings you back to the is/ought issue. you ought to. but...

[something about a shirt in tesco]

before i start, i want to stress that there's a human in there somewhere that's ultimately just doing her job, which is to read press releases that she has little influence over the development of. let's not forget not to shoot the messenger.

but she uses a quite restricted set of very clearly defined soft intimidation tactics that are constructed via a combination of the age and gender of the reporter. as the question and reporter shifts, the body language does in a way designed to control the discussion. that's not the behaviour of a psychotic person; it's actually too controlled, to the point that it must be the result of strict training. it seems to be largely successful. if this was in a back room meeting somewhere, it wouldn't be so easy to deconstruct. but, the thing is there's a camera on her and people watching that aren't getting stared down or smiled at.

the problem with a press secretary that has such clear, forceful body language is that she advertises things she doesn't mean to. it's quite easy to pull out when she knows she's lying because she stares right at the reporter she's lying to. again: not a bad tactic, except the camera that's there to deconstruct it. it's also easy to tell when she's challenged or flustered because she begins stuttering rather badly.

i know this is meant for internal consumption, but you have to understand that every powerful state has somebody that's smarter than i am and is watching this and taking these notes.

ugh.

this isn't a biased video. it's just straight up taking shots of the situation and interviewing people on the ground. if it's pro anything, it's pro-reality. and, it might do some people - and the world that is on the brink of a world war - some good if you partisan idiots can get your head around it.

there's no justification for this kind of force. it's slowly becoming clear that poroshenko ought to have a date in the hague. but, it won't happen because he's on the side that's protected from prosecution.

"young lady", huh?

well, you're half right.

i guess i DO look like a teenager....

i think "young lady" applies to roughly 13-19.

i'm 33.

hey, kids. i got some bad news...

we're on the brink of a major global conflict and guess who's gonna fight it?

yeah. sorry.

but, hey, you could always fight your own government, instead.

it might be a good idea to get a head start on that.

why can't people fucking keep appointments?

no, i'm not going to sit there in a room full of contagious sick people and let you tell me i'm an hour early when i have a fucking piece of paper that you wrote with the appointment time on it - because then you're going to tell me you're backed up past my altered appointment time. i set an appointment because i didn't want to sit around for three hours and catch pneumonia while i'm there. in fact, you pressured me into setting an appointment in the first place - i was just wondering if you had my correct phone number, and would have been happy to wait for a phone call.

i get that they're understaffed, but don't fucking tell me that's my fault and that i'm early when i'm waving the card in front of your face. i don't care who you are, i won't be lied to like that. take responsibility for your bad planning, apologize and tell me you're backed up. i'll go sit outside. but you lie to me, and i'm going to storm out the door.

publishing me, myself and the time i thought this was a good idea (inri049)

i've been hard at work on a very vertically complex piece for over a month now and am taking a bit of a break this morning to jump ahead just a little. this is next in the list. it's the first track to come out of a project i shared with a singer through the end of 2001 and the first part of 2002.

none of the versions here are final, it's just a lot of demos, but i find all of them worthwhile in their own ways.

----

rabit is wolf arose accidentally from the cynicide project (jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/to-spin-inside-dull-aberrations) but produced far more material in the end. what happened was sean and i showed up to a few jam sessions and the guitarist (jon - it was his band) didn't, so we started writing some material without him...

initially, the intent was to include rather than exclude jon but he quickly developed a disinterest due to a variety of obvious if never fully articulated reasons. i was playing guitar parts on the demos, which he couldn't deal with. we were doing joy division songs, which were outside of his sphere of interest. we were writing without him, which made him feel unimportant. we were talking about songs without drums, which he wasn't interested in at all. etc. however, he did record a guitar part (that i wrote) that was never replaced.

this is a collection of demos from the first month of rabit is wolf, which includes multiple versions of the title track and a joy division cover. in the end, none of this would be released in the form it's in here (which is only available for download), but it creates a cohesive (if short) introduction to what follows that is self-contained in a historical context. stated differently, this is the first (post-punk) incarnation of rabit is wolf.

written and recorded in the fall of 2001. compiled on sept 6, 2014. as always, please use headphones.

credits:
j - bass, guitars, synths, writing
sean - vocals, writing

jon - guitar performance (6)

released october 15, 2001

https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/me-myself-and-the-time-i-thought-this-was-a-good-idea



1) sean suggested the bass line ought to sound like this, from which the track was built. sept 1, 2001.


2) this is the first bass & vocal demo, recorded the day the track was written. sept 1, 2001.


3) i built this up on my own the friday night following the sunday it was written, in preparation for the next sunday jam session. sept 7, 2001.


4) as our guitarist was a no show two weeks in a row, we decided to do a joy division cover rather than write new material. i've left the track without drums to better fit the feel of the recording, as none of the renditions on this single contain drums by a very conscious choice to not include them. sept 9, 2001.


5) the song is thematically about somebody launching themselves off a bridge, so i thought it would be an interesting idea to produce a walk passage. this idea was never well received, as there were concerns that the synthesizer sounds too synthetic. but, i mean, it's a synthesizer, what the fuck do you expect it to sound like? sept 22, 2001.


6) the initial demo was a temporary mix to get some ideas across; it was realized from the start that the guitarist would want to do the guitars and the synths would need to be less rough. i didn't expect him to play the part i wrote, though, which was just a weird thing. in the end, this reconstruction did not end up being a final mix (i took most of the end out, which was only ever there on the insistence of the guitarist in the first place, and added an extra guitar part). oct 13, 2001.