so, i really was finishing that gear writeup, seriously. it's a lengthy post, clearly. but, it's necessary to rebuild the 98 machine, amongst other things.
Monday, June 7, 2021
i got my vitamin c back and it's 65 umol/l - that's about 1.15 mg/dl, which is actually only on the moderate side.
it's a reminder that your body only absorbs so much c and discards the rest, which is the actual reason that trying to take it in large doses via any means other than injection isn't helpful, and just leads to kidney problems, instead.
i take about the maximum healthy amount possible and that's where i'm at...
you can have your opinions and that's whatever - i don't care.
but, there's going to people that are going to fight this. and the state needs to pick it's battles in what it considers a worthwhile use of it's resources.
vaccine certificates are a losing battle for the state that will be defeated by a constitutional challenge, and it should avoid wasting everybody's time with them.
if i can cross over into the states without being asked for proof of vaccination, i will.
and, if the canadian government wants to restrict my s. 6 rights by demanding i show proof of vaccination on the way home, i'll see them in court - and i'll win that case, because it's not ambiguous.
the pmo needs to drop the stupid bullshit, stop wasting everybody's time and just open the border without restrictions, immediately.
listen - i don't care about people coming into the country in any way at all. make them dance the hokey pokey and turn themselves around - i don't care.
but. i have travel rights under s. 6 and i want to exercise them in being able to leave and come back, again. and, i'm getting frustrated and impatient with these continued restrictions on my rights to leave the country.
i ordered my blood tests for bone density.
a big part of the reason that they put menopausal women through hormone replacement therapy is to keep their serum estrogen levels high enough to prevent bone loss, as they can fall to almost zero after menopause. men have a normal range of up to 200 pmol/l, and that is enough for normal bone health. my worst test was 363, which is higher than any cismale could ever expect.
so, this idea that i'm losing bone density due to falling estrogen levels is...i'm not actually there yet. i'm probably not even close.
in fact, with calcium serum levels and serum estradiol levels as high as they are, i should probably be gaining bone density - if moderately.
if i was losing bone density right now, my alp would be high, and it wasn't.
it's probably from smoking and malnutrition, and it's probably longstanding.
i still need to address it aggressively, though - including total cold turkey until i get it back over -1.
nobody knows how or why these kids died, or how many years worth of dead kids the mound represents, or really anything, and it's sort of a part of the problem. a good guess is that they probably died of malnutrition, and it's probably decades worth of dead kids, but the reasoning underlying it isn't understood. and, you have to understand that child mortality was a lot higher back then...
i'm not making excuses, it could very well be the worst thing imaginable, i'm just pointing out that you can't jump to the worst conclusions in the absence of any evidence at all.
it would be very useful if the church would share any information it has to set the record straight, if it can - because there's people out there that seem to think that the bishops mowed them down in cold blood with ak47s, or something.
you know, it's really counter-productive if you want to raise awareness around who this guy was and the system he set up.
i'm not as opposed to these things as a lot of other people are, and i don't really care if you find that upsetting. there's a kind of middle point here that i think is the right answer, in the sense that i'm a strong advocate of public education, and i recognize that these cultures....these people believed a lot of things that were not true, and there was a public responsibility to teach them that the things they believed were incorrect. the way it was done was pretty terrible, and how the church of all institutions ended up in charge of it is beyond me, but the premise of public education is sound. and, you can yell and scream at me if you want, but i don't give a fuck.
and, this isn't something that's going to go away - there's always going to be ignorant people, they're always going to congregate in rural or semi-nomadic societies and there's always going to be a need to send them to school. we can't give up on that ideal - we'll be plunging ourselves back into the dark ages. we just need to be more humane about the way we do it, and actually live up to the ideals we're trying to espouse.
again: i don't know who's bright idea it was to put the church in charge of this, but....
yes - if the issue were put up to a vote, and i happened to be around, i'd vote to move the statue into a museum. it's not appropriate to have a statue of this guy much of anywhere.
but, if we forget who this guy is, and what he promoted, and the way he did it, it's just going to happen again. so, we want to preserve these kinds of things in backrooms, and not destroy them.
i'm trying to remember if i had this problem before and i don't remember.
however, i vaguely recall figuring this out a while back. i backed up my appdata directory so i copied it back over and the load process was instantly different.
i don't need every single plugin to load every time i launch, what i need is to figure out if i've got a ram issue or not, and there's no easy way to do that....
the immediate concern is just making sure that the plugins i recently downloaded actually launch. so let's hope i can get through that without it freezing further, then try to bring some more ram back in.
so, i launched cubase to check to see if the eax plugin was loading, and it froze with the third stick in.
i took it out, and it booted.
here's what i don't know right now - is the stick bad, is the board funny or is cubase having difficulty with this hybrid ram channel thing? what i mean is this - if i have two sticks in, it loads them together and if i have four sticks in it loads them in parallel. but, when i put three sticks in, it does this weird in between thing.
i have to experiment with it, but i want to make sure everything is loading first.
in the end, if i decide that one of the sticks is bad, i might have to choose between 2 and 4 gb if i want the machine to run. but, i should be able to get 2x1 gb of ram relatively cheaply nowadays, right?
there have been these periodic reports of mysterious tankers showing up in the gulf from iraq or kurdistan for years, and it seems like what's been going on since at least 2003 is that the oil is being sent to the united states under the radar.
then, america claims it's a net producer, supposedly due to fracking. right.
when trump said they should have stolen the oil, maybe he missed the obvious - maybe they did. and, maybe they still are...
so, let me get this straight.
iran is shipping oil to venezuela.
????
let's remember a few things.
1) venezuela is a major oil producer.
2) venezuela's primary customer is the united states.
3) that fact gives the united states tremendous influence in venezuela, regardless of the propaganda otherwise.
4) iran is supposed to be under a fuel blockade.
...and...
5) joe biden was one of the insider democrats that was always suspected of having something to do with iran-contra (and, i suspect there was something like that going on during the obama years, too)
so, while i understand that the narrative here is inevitably going to be about iran defying american hegemony in sending a ship across the ocean, and i even concede that there are reasons to look at it as an act of defiance, the premise of iran risking a nuclear war to send oil to venezuela (of all places) is beyond dubious to the point that it needs to be discarded.
my best guess is that this oil is destined for houston, via venezuela as a stopover.
the next sequence in the discography is a series of compilations that put the various ideas worked out over period 2 (and, in some cases, period 1 & 2) together in a series of different thematic releases. while there's a lot of overlap, these are in some ways the more finished products (excluding the actual records - inri, inriched, inridiculous, deny everything, jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj and jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj^2, as well as the upcoming ftaa and trivial group 2xlp) than the singles as most people are going to prefer to listen to something with a varied tracklisting than a single track reworked a million different ways. i mean, i grew up listening to these abstract nin discs that took a single song and ripped it apart for an hour, and while i never get to those levels of abstraction that's where my head is at for a lot of these extended singles, but i realize that's an obscure thing and an acquired taste. you'd probably rather listen to something like an orchestral works, right? and, so i've constructed this sequence of alternate lps that take each of the official lps to these different places. call them remix lps, then, but you've never heard remix lps quite like this, trust me.
first up is the ry30 + primitive electronics disc (inri066: electronic pieces in a primitive style, with apologies to william orbit) that explores my first electronic compositions from a no-guitar, no-bass, no-vocal perspective, and sort of reclaims them as electronic music works. i made an attempt to avoid the pieces that were composed of steady loops, in favour of the pieces with more detailed programming. in the process, i'm showcasing what you can do with a serious drum machine, if you take the time to actually use it.
this is probably the last specifically delineated inri release (i could not imaging resurrecting the moniker at this point), so it is fitting that it is inri066.
=========
when i sat down to complete my discography in 2013, one of the ideas that immediately jumped out was to try and reinterpret some of the inri tracks from the late 1990s as modern pieces. as i believed that my source tapes were unusable at the time (which i eventually realized was not the case - see inri024), the conditions for this being a workable project would need to be the existence of the original drum tracks, along with the existence of some midi files.
i was gifted my ry30 in the summer of 1997 to compensate for the loss of my drum kit and studio space, but i did not have any recording gear again until christmas. so, i spent the fall programming the drum machine and teaching myself the basics of sequencing and sound design, using the primitive tools i had available to me. by the time i got my four track, as well as my jx-8p, the ry30 was full, and re-recording my first songs was just a matter of transferring the completed material from the electronic equipment to tape. so, i initially considered making a companion ep to inrisampled that would document my time spent programming the ry30 along with my time spent learning how to manipulate sound. the difference between the drum tracks at this stage and the initial collage experiments, however, is that the drum tracks were not complete songs. so, this was abandoned due to the product being a little dry. but, i still wanted to make an ep around the ry30, perhaps by orchestrating the existing companion midi tracks.
this idea then quickly merged with what would become thru (inri070) and eventually discarded itself within itself when it was realized that the existing midi files for the 90s material were too sparse to really utilize, especially in comparison to the midi files from the early 00s. thru was deleted and then resuscitated over the course of 2014 and 2015, eventually releasing in mid 2015 as a 2001-2003 project, leaving the 90s material in the dustbin of my own history.
it was in june, 2015 that i realized that the source tapes were usable after all, and cycled back around to the beginning of the reconstruction in order to complete the relevant tracks as instrumental pieces. this idea kind of recreated itself in the nature of the source tapes, as i had bounced all of the electronics together into the same channel as a mixing step, back in the 90s. so, i found myself with these ready-to-publish electronic tracks right off the tape that incorporated a combination of the ry30 tracks, jx-8p parts, soundblaster programs, zoom 1010 noises and cool edit experiments. all they really needed was a little attention on the mastering.
i flipped this over, in the end: what each of these tracks are is their final album mixes, with the guitar and bass parts deleted (unless the bass was done on a synthesizer). so, there was some post-production added over 2015 in the form of updated soundfonts, digital mastering and digital effects processing. but, these are really flourishes on the existing tracks.
it was at the end of dec, 2015 that further similar electronics-only ry30-centric remixes were creating for some later songs, as well, thereby filling out the disc and closing the project.
i sold my ry30 in may, 2003 to raise money to go to british columbia. my logic was that i'd really maximized what i was going to get out of it, and that i'd already discarded it, anyways: by that time, i'd been writing drum parts in the scorewriter for a few years already, and had barely touched the ry30 in a long time. but, i regret that decision, in hindsight. and, i expect to pick up another one, one day.
originally written, programmed and recorded from 1996-2002. reclaimed & remixed from june to december of 2015. initial completion date was december 31, 2015. disc finally released, closed and finalized on nov 26, 2017. lp015. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017).
released april 22, 2003
j - drum & other programming, orchestral & other sequencing, guitar effects, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, synthesizers, loops, vocal noises & relics, sampling, sound design, production
the various rendered electronic orchestras include organ, sitar, bells, synthesizer effects, tuba, saxophone, flute, clarinet, orchestra hit, piano, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections.
Sunday, June 6, 2021
today's post is the rabit is wolf boxset, which i went maximal with, as a 2xdvd (or 2xiso) set:
disc 1 is all of the technical rabit releases:
- inri049, inri053-inr057, inri059, inri062 - that is comprehensive
disc 2 is all of the tracks that might have been rabit releases and contain tracks with sean but in the end became something else:
- inri048 (intended cynicide track that became inri058. sean is only on an ourtake.)
- inri058 (started as a rabit demo, but became an ftaa track. sean sings on several demos of the track, but not on the final version.)
- inri061 (starts as a rabit demo and is developed as a jjjjjjjjjjjjjj composition. sean's vocals are only heard on the initial demo, which was never developed)
- inri063 (instrumental, completed versions of rabit is wolf era material, reclaimed as jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj)
- inri065 (first trivial group track & last conceptual rabit piece. "inspired by" sean's suggestion.)
sean's contributions in the form of harmonica and ring modulator parts may end up on further compilations, but that is comprehensive and then some, and i don't rebrand his vocal parts on period-ending compilations. so, if you really dig sean's vocals for whatever reason, this is all of it - all 8.8 gb of it.
=====
purchasing this release comes with the immediate download of the release that you linked to it off of. be sure you make the right choice.
inri048: written in the summer of 2001. remembered over july, 2014. completed august-september, 2014. released sept 24, 2014. expanded, finalized and re-released on oct 16, 2017
inri049: written and recorded in the fall of 2001. released on sept 6, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized on oct 21, 2017.
inri053: written late 2001 and early 2002. this file is ripped from a cd-r that was burnt around 2002, as that was the option that would produce the most accurate reproduction of the original composition. published without modification on oct 6, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized as symph006 and lp012 on oct 23, 2017.
inri054: recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. track 6 was constructed in may, 2004 out of files recorded 1999-2001. tracks 1-4 were reconstructed over october, 2014. final mixes were finished on october 18, 2014. released on oct 21, 2014. disc closed on oct 30, 2017.
inri055: written in early 2002 and recorded and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 15, 2014. expanded, re-released & finalized on nov 1, 2017.
inri056: written & recorded in late 2001 and early 2002 and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 19, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized on nov 2, 2017.
inri057: written and recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. initially sequenced in may, 2002. re-sequenced and first released in june, 2002. re-released in slightly different forms from 2002-2014. resequenced to mimic the original sequencing and re-released on november 8, 2014. except to sequence the record, these files have not been altered since 2002. disc finalized as lp013 on nov 3, 2017.
inri058: written over 2001 and 2002 and rethought repeatedly between 2002-2014, with no clear resolution in a final mix. reconstructed from source in late 2014 and then rendered at multiple stages to create a series of snapshots. final mixes were completed over the last week of november and the first week of december. released as a two-volume set on dec 7, 2014. the concept was rethought on nov 3, 2017, which led to the inclusion of five more mixes and an expansion to four cds. re-released in four volumes & finalized as symph007 on nov 12, 2017. the raw guitar mix was corrected on jan 6, 2018.
inri059: written and recorded over 2001 and 2002. mildly remixed in november, 2014 to make the tracks more presentable; nothing substantial was altered, and no new sound was recorded. released on november 19, 2014. re-released on physical media and finalized on nov 14, 2017.
inri061: written over the summer of 2002 and initially recorded in the early fall of 2002. additional writing, arranging, recording, production and mixing occurred from dec, 2014 to apr, 2015. released as a two volume set on april 27, 2015. this release was expanded to include a third disc on nov 17, 2017 and filled in with eight new remixes over the next few days. re-released as a slightly rearranged three volume set and finalized on nov 19, 2017.
inri062: this track was written in late 2002 and completed over april and may, 2015. released may 11, 2015. disc finalized on nov 20, 2017.
inri063: these tracks are all based on existing demos from 2001-2002 that were initially intended to be completed with vocal parts and were remixed from july, 2014 to may, 2015 as purely instrumental recordings. released may 2, 2015. disc finalized as lp014 on nov 21, 2017. this is my sixth official record.
inri065: written and recorded in early 2003. transcribed, slightly rearranged, remixed repeatedly and re-rendered repeatedly over may, 2015. released on may 16, 2015. expanded & finalized on nov 25, 2017.
originally created from 2001-2003. this compilation is dated to april 21, 2003. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2014-2017. compilation finalized on nov 25, 2017. as always, please use headphones.
released april 21, 2003
j - guitars (electric, acoustic, nylon), electric bass, electric mandolin, orchestral & other sequencing, synthesizers, drum & melodic programming, electric air reed organ, digital piano, flute, regular drum kit, electronic drum kit, sampling, digital and analog effects processing, digital wave editing, sound design, soundscaping, loops, granular synthesis, noise generators, equalization, vocals, vocoders, drum & vocal manipulations, bowls, claps, tables, e-bow, production
sean - vocals (inri048-inri049, inri053-inri059, inri061), harmonica (inri054, inri057, inri063), ring modulator (inri057-inri058), vocal concept (inri062) .
jon - guitar performance (inri048-inri049, inri057)
greg - drum performance sample source (inri056-inri058, inri063)
bob - hammering (inri058)
the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, synth bass, electric bass, fingered bass guitar, brass, tuba, french horn, trombone, trumpet, english horn, brass section, saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe, piccolo, bassoon, orchestra hit, drum machine, nylon guitar, electric guitar (distorted & clean, bowed & picked), acoustic guitar, guitar noises (fret noises, knocks, pick scrapes), synthesizer, synthesizer effects, synth pad, music box, harp, koto, piano, glockenspiel, vibraphone, hammered percussion, mallet, bells, tubular bells, agogo, wood blocks, marimba, celesta, xylophone, melodic toms, timpani, taiko drum, backwards cymbals, synth drums, electronic drum kit, jazz drum kit, orchestral drum set, mellotron, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections. there is also choir.
ok.
so, the weekend seems to have gotten away from me again. i've been sleeping a lot, and trying to keep up on the eating.
i'd have caught up on the eating and moved on to something else by now if i wasn't so tired...
so, it's just a reminder that i still haven't really figured out what the problem is. at the least, i'm alert and should be in for a few days, so let's try to at the very least get everything back in order before i have to go out again.
they did everything they possibly could to undo our systemic advantages.
they made every mistake possible, over and over, and did everything they could to fuck it up - at times seemingly almost intentionally.
and, if there's anything that should come out of this it's that these decisions need to be taken out of the hands of politicians and placed into the hands of health professionals.
has canada done better than other places in the world?
not per capita, no.
but, to the extent that we've done a handful of things right, it's because we had a better system in place - and we would have done a lot better if the idiots we elected would have listened to the system, rather than decide they knew better.
i've been over this repeatedly - essentially all of the white papers i've read on pandemic responsiveness in canada got everything right upwards of 10-15 years ago, but nobody at either level of government seems to have bothered to actually read any of it.
it would have been a lot easier, and a lot less painless, had these idiots just listened to the scientists from the start. but. that's a fantasy - nobody ever listens to science, ever.
the country has gone full retard - it's a debate between the right and the far right over who can close the border the tightest, at a point where the virus isn't even a threat anymore. we've happily, fully, totally embraced utter fascism - and nobody seems to even realize it.
and, it's reflective of their polling on the topic.
in this upcoming cycle, i will only vote for candidates that promise to open all borders as quickly as possible - and that means totally free access across the border and the end of restrictions on air travel.
and, if none of the parties will embrace that position, i won't vote at all.
warren kinsella is a disgruntled former liberal strategist that i hold in much, much higher regard than anybody currently in the pmo.
and, he's expressing a valid grievance, and a worthwhile observation.
but, this isn't about science and it isn't about trade, it's about what the pmo perceives popular opinion to be, and that's scary - because this isn't something that should be politicized.
the pmo is concerned that opening the border may be an electoral liability. that might not make any sense, but it's the truth of it - and it's hard to say, right now, if they're right or not.
i know that i'm not planning on voting in the next election at all, at this point - if the liberals are just going to act like conservatives anyways, why bother trying to block the conservatives?
my diet is dominated by fruits and vegetables, so my major sources of iodine are eggs, cheese, yogurt and ice cream. essentially nothing in my diet has added salt in it, except the cereal. it should be enough, on paper - but it's probably pretty close. the cereal is also a recent addition; for years, about the only sources of salt in my diet were from cheese and hot sauce.
my sodium levels tested lowish.
i've been trying to get my iodine tested, but the test that is covered isn't offered anywhere and they want to charge me $200 for it - which is infeasible.
my tsh was lowish...
so, everything is ish:
calcium - highish
d - lowish
tsh - lowish
sodium - lowish
it's plausible, but it's not a smoking gun.
so, something that you learn in life after a while is that it is not a continuous curve, but rather a pretty vicious step function.
that was a hectic week, and my life changed a lot in ways i haven't processed entirely yet.
- i don't seem to have colon cancer
- i have a solid plan to get my testicles cut out - finally
- ...but i have osteoporosis
and, i still don't know why i'm not storing iron, but i'm starting to suspect it's my thyroid.
i got my tarp yesterday afternoon, and spent the evening sleeping. as i'm now likely waiting until after the tenth to get some more cash in, i should be in for a few days.
i left off at the end of may and was waiting for the recording machine to install before i could make my way through these updates. as mentioned previously, i don't ghost or image this machine - the install process is too dynamic, i don't want this static thing that's set in stone, i want to be able to add new software as i go. and, while i partition my drives, i keep some things on the main drive (and use a backup script to rebuild it). so, i actually just reinstalled my desktop from late 2017, when i turned the script off. i need to be able to troubleshoot, as well. so, i want to be able to rebuild relatively quickly, but i don't want a static image - the answer is to script the install, and it only takes an hour or so, but you have to sit down in front of it and do it, and i was doing a million other things...
it's up, now, along with my office 2003 suite, so i should be able to catch up on that tonight.
i got some sealer for the last wall as well, so i should be able to get everything in place by tomorrow afternoon.
and, as mentioned, i want to prioritize finishing up inri075.
i did some research into markers for calcium absorption (checking serum calcium is misleading because your body will just dissolve it from your bone if you're running low), and the answer is to check for albumin, which was done - it was quite high. if it were to get much higher, i'd have hypercalcemia - which is too much calcium. so, i'm not concerned about calcium absorption or dietary intake. and, i'm only taking these vitamin d pills because i need an excess right now - my d levels were fine, too. as before, i'm fairly confident it's not a dietary deficit.
it's either hormonal and needs to be solved by getting my estradiol levels way up or it's a consequence of exposure to tobacco and marijuana smoke, and perhaps also of poor diet as a child. the markers will help me understand that better - next week.
Saturday, June 5, 2021
today's post is inri065, which is the last track in the pile of pre-trip tracks that were written out into midi compositions, and so is sort of a jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj composition, but also is a rabit loose end and a pivot into the trivial group, all at the same time. you'll notice that none of the tracks with multiple developed midi reworkings ended up with finished rabit versions (although a few had demos), so there's more continuity here with what i was doing in 2001 than what i was doing in 2002. nonetheless, this is also the climax of the first trivial group symphony and that's where it always was and ends up in the end.
my life was changing, and i was fully cognizant of it - i was sort of rushing to finish these ideas before i got up and left, which i needed to do. in hindsight, it seems insane, but i needed to shake my life up, and i don't regret doing it, even if things were never the same when i got back. there's that contradiction that comes up in capitalist economies between maximizing individual happiness and maximizing materialist conditions - something not even marx really had his head around right. i had everything i could have wanted, but i was living with this knife dangling over my head, these time restraints related to expectations around traditional employment that i neither had any interest or intent on following through with, and some kind of empty hope that i could get out of it. so, what i wanted was for things to stay how they were, but i know i'd have to escape in order for that to actually happen.
so, there's a feeling of kind of running out of time here, of tying things up, of closing things down - and of moving on. of getting out while i still can...
the remixes came together at the start of 2015, after i had finished transcribing it from the percussion tracks i had from 2003.
reflections is preceded almost everywhere by a guitar jam called algebra (sometimes al-jabr) that is intended as a statement of solidarity with the secularist and democratic movements in iraq in the face of a vicious bombing campaign intended to destroy the country. it is not a statement of solidarity with islam, with muslim belief systems or with islamist political movements - it is solidarity with normal people, not solidarity with abstract ideals. algebra is of course an arabic term that is ubiquitous in modern math and science and translates to "solving for the unknown", something i felt was necessary at the time. no, most iraqis weren't islamic extremists - they were just normal people like you and me. so, let's sing a song and dance a little to celebrate our commonalities and stop othering each other. apologies to peter gabriel, really.
while the narrative has blurred substantively and the media hasn't helped it by trying to normalize islamicism rather than give voice to secularists on the ground, my positions have not changed much. i remain in solidarity with the apostates and opposed to extremism from any direction. and, i still advocate dancing - so long as the fascistic islamic authorities are not informed, as they may chop off our heads if they find out.
========
some time in late 2002, sean sent me a message over msn or icq requesting that we begin a song based on looped birds chirping. i thought his idea was kind of cliched, but i took to working around his suggestions by converting them into something more musically expressive. i didn't want to write a song that literally climaxes around birds chirping, but i was willing to write something tonal that evoked the feeling of birds chirping.
at the time, i had my sister's electronic piano downstairs. she had a miniature grand upstairs. it was initially written on the keyboard with a very strange timing, which the scorewriter had difficulties capturing - partly because i was inconsistent in performing it. the piece was greatly simplified as it was arranged.
however, i believe the piece sat for a long time before the second section was added to it.
sean and i didn't talk much over the next few months, and the truth is that i just never brought this piece up to him. by the time it was finished, i had firmly placed it in my successor project, the trivial group. it was initially dedicated to sean as a part of the going away disc (reflections (inri074)), but that's really as close as this ever got to being a rabit tune.
i don't have clear memories around composing it, although circumstantial evidence makes it very likely that this happened in the late winter and early spring of 2003. i vaguely recall playing it on the grand upstairs, which could have only happened after sarah moved home to the outer suburbs to get ready for the trip. this was around march. i do remember recording the guitar parts and percussion parts, and am convinced this was in the spring due to memories of the spring sun hitting the bowls. the april 20th date may be a little late, but i have every reason to believe that this was not finished until after exams that year.
the percussion sections in the track are notable. the metallic sounds were created by smashing cutlery into a metal bowl, whereas the woody sounds were created by "playing" a pen on a desk. the track also includes hand claps.
these percussion parts were not notated until 2015. this was a careful, lengthy process that required a lot of careful listening, and a bit of napkin math. notating the percussion allowed for a more comprehensive exploration of the track over midi.
i've included the midi files of the original composition, if you'd like to mess with it on your own.
written and recorded in early 2003. transcribed, slightly rearranged, remixed repeatedly and re-rendered repeatedly over may, 2015. released on may 16, 2015. expanded & finalized on nov 25, 2017. as always, please use headphones.
the first track appears as a component on my ninth record, {e} (inri08x): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/e
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2003, 2015, 2017).
released april 20, 2003
j - guitars, effects, bass, synth, voice, bowls, claps, tables, ebow, orchestral sequencing, drum & other programming, loops, digital wave editing, composition, production.
the various rendered electronic orchestras include synth pad, synth bass, synthesizer, mellotron, fingered bass guitar, picked electric guitar, bowed electric guitar, guitar noises (fret noises, knocks, pick scrapes), violin, viola, contrabass, cello, string section, brass section, piano, celesta, xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, tubular bells, woodblock, mallet, electronic drum kit, jazz drum kit, orchestral drum kit and choir.
Friday, June 4, 2021
so, i got a few tests done and here's my update...
these tests were skipped, for now:
- vitamin e
- vitamin k
- selenium
- molybdenum
- manganese
- iodine
these tests are pending at lifelabs:
- vitamin c
- asca <---crohn's
- mercury
these tests are pending from dynacare:
- pyruvate
- gastrin <---stomach ulcers
- copper serum
these tests need to be done at dynacare because only they offer them, although i'd rather they were done at lifelabs because they have a free reporting system:
- glutathione <----- windsor site does not collect
- balp (not yet ordered)
this test requires a 12 hour fast:
- amino acid fractionation
this test is covered by ohip but is not offered anywhere in the region:
- serum oxalate
this test is only available in a california lab:
-hepcidin
these tests are yet to be requested, but are covered:
- pth
- calcitonin
- cortisol
i will need to pay for these tests out of pocket next weekish:
- celiac ($90 at dynacare)
- cea ($36 at lifelabs)
- p-anca + c-anca ($70 at lifelabs)
- psa: ($35 at lifelabs )
- another fit test ($59 at dynacare only)
- osteocalcin ($65 at lifelabs) <----double check, info from med labs
- igf-1 ($70 at dynacare) <-----double check, info from med labs
(this post is dated to june 4, 2021 because it describes events over that day. however, it was written on june 11, 2021)
so, i headed out on the friday afternoon with the intent of doing two simple things. first, i needed to get a series of blood tests at the lab that did the fit test (because the other tests didn’t offer them), as well as pick up a second fit test when i was there. second, i needed to get another tarp for the back area on the other side. easy, right? lol. no, nothing’s easy in doug ford’s locked down ontario!
first stop was the superstore to pick up a cheap bottle of vitamin d, because why not? it’s sufficient, but lowish. 1000 iu could’t hurt, right? and, for $5, why not? unfortunately, it took upwards of 45 minutes to get through the line up because the cashiers were forced to do performance art in between customers – they didn’t actually have to dance, but the utterly pointless wiping and sanitizing turned what should have been a five minute purchase into a lengthy experience.
i barely made it to the doctor’s office next door before they closed to pick up the requisition.
then, it was to the blood lab and they couldn’t figure it out – the tests i asked for are apparently a little uncommon. the web site says they do iodine, but the iodine they do is different than the iodine that is covered (which should be illegal). the website says they do glutathione, but not at that location, apparently (and why not?). i was instructed to call in, and may need to get to london. but, i can’t bicycle to london...
the trip wasn’t entirely pointless, because i did get the pyruvate, and nobody else does it. they also did copper & gastrin (but they should have told me to fast, so i’m going to redo it with the fractionation). and, of course, i got fit test #2, as well.
unfortunately, it took so long that, by the time i got to the dollar store that is literally next door, they were refusing entry to further customers. there was once again a line-up of people outside the door. if i was the regio nal manager and i saw that, i’d have fired the idiots on the spot – but this is drone labour, and that’s what you get from it, kids that just want to clock out and go get drunk.
i tried the walmart in the strip mall, but they were $30, as feared.
so, i went on another journey across town (and struggling against absolutely vicious winds) to try to find a tarp, and it was just as hopeless as the previous – six tries later and i still had no tarp. i had to wait until the morning...
but, it was some more cardio, which is what bicycling is good for. i’m obviously not trying to build muscle, but i need to be concerned about my heart and also now need to be concerned about not breaking bones. i’ll never turn a bike ride down, for that reason. but, i like it to be more productive than this one was, too....
you know, i thought i had a few extra dollars this month, but at some point i decided that 203-30 = 273, and in the process overbudgeted by $100. oops.
so, my plan to get things done today has been foiled - i needed around $75, thought i had $115, and only have $15.
i have $60 coming in on the 10th, and quite a few more coming in some time soonish.
so, i got access to all of my old tests done through lifelabs and...
-vitamin a is 3.2 which is highish. great.
my colon is just fine, guys.
these tests were skipped, for now:
- vitamin e
- vitamin k
- selenium
- molybdenum
- manganese
these tests are pending at lifelabs:
- vitamin c
- asca
- mercury
these tests need to be done at dynacare because only they offer them, although i'd rather they were done at lifelabs because they have a free reporting system:
- glutathione
- pyruvate
- serum iodine
- balp (not yet ordered)
i can also do these tests tonight while i'm at dynacare:
- gastrin
- copper serum
this test requires a 12 hour fast:
- amino acid fractionation
this test is covered by ohip but is not offered anywhere in the region:
- serum oxalate
this test is only available in a california lab:
-hepcidin
these tests are yet to be requested, but are covered:
- pth
- calcitonin
- cortisol
i will need to pay for these tests out of pocket next weekish:
- celiac ($90 at dynacare)
- cea ($36 at lifelabs)
- p-anca + c-anca ($70 at lifelabs)
- psa: ($35 at lifelabs )
- another fit test ($59 at dynacare only)
- osteocalcin ($65 at lifelabs) <----double check, info from med labs
- igf-1 ($70 at dynacare) <-----double check, info from med labs
today's post is inri064, and is the first for a number of things - it's the first trivial group release, the first 2003 release and the first fully post-rabit release. it's also the first sarah-era release; even when she's not the subject of the songs, she's kind of ubiquitous in my life for the next few years. if 2001 was mostly about writing scored music (jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj) and 2002 saw me pull away from that to focus on something vaguely approaching rock-era music (rabit is wolf) or spinning out into something much more chaotic and noisy (ftaa), the trivial group was about pulling that all back together into a single thing, as abstract rock compositions that wander all over the place. so, whereas compositions over 2001-2002 tended to focus on specific ideas in disparate genres, trivial group compositions tend to focus on multiple genres within a specific track. a new noise project eventually develops (called cycles per second), but it's really intended to be outside the realm of traditional music, in any remote sense; virtually everything else ends up as trivial group, now, from the start of 2003 to the end of 2006, when the project starts to close itself down, as i start to look beyond it's instrumental constraints.
so, that's the setup for period 3 - anything resembling music is folded into a single project called the trivial group, whereas purely mathematical sound art experiments are split off to cycles per second
the trivial group is a kind of math joke - there is only one group with one member. i toyed with crediting all sound to i or e but in the end decided j was good enough, if somewhat nonstandard. it's not even a map, it's just a substitution. my obsession with scientific themes starts to turn over a little, and specifically starts to lean into abstract mathematics, instead. it's just a function of where my head was at, otherwise.
for now, this is actually a bit of a ways from that. i'll be honest - i look back at this and laugh at myself for it. but, it's a document of what i was feeling, and it's entirely real, as laughable as that seems, now.
my dad had a friend with a phd in chemistry for a while; he was actually the father of one of my sister's friends, and they hit it off in a pta meeting or something. this guy hit the jackpot in the bre-x fiasco by buying it as a penny stock and having it balloon to many times it's worth and ended up a multimillionaire out of it - which meant he was the most bourgeois motherfucker you've ever met. he just sat and home and drank wine all day, until he ran out of money and ended up teaching at algonquin. and, you can imagine the resentment from his kids, right? raised filthy rich and then - sorry! just kidding!
anyways, he was often stumbling around the house, and took some interest in me due to the fact that i was in a science program (or science-y program after i switched to math). and, he used to always warn me that i'd lose a semester due to falling in love.
it was something like that, anyways - even if it was utter nonsense, and utter delusion. but, isn't it always, in hindsight? truly?
i don't know if i'm better off, to avoid the cliche directly. i guess it doesn't matter, does it?
but, everything about me starts to change here, from my disposition to my vocals to my guitar style. and, the dominant underlying factor is, in fact, sarah.
no apologies to the butthole surfers; only the slightest condolences to paul mccartney.
=====
this was constructed as a christmas present for my partner, while in a rather absurd state of entirely preposterous euphoria. only a musician can be so absurdly invested in something so thoroughly delusional - or manage to create something so entirely self-reflective out of a theme surrounding somebody else.
the first part of this was shelved before it was ever released. i was over-exaggerating a sense of self-consciousness, but it still strikes me as unworkable. however, i think it's conceptually important in the idea of this as a christmas present and has consequently been uploaded here without modification. the second part was actually presented to sarah as a present, albeit a little after christmas - hence the jan 1 release date. it eventually found it's way to the center of my eighth symphony, reflections (inri074).
these tracks were written and recorded over november and december of 2002 and uploaded, unmodified, in may of 2015. released on may 2, 2015. re-released on physical media and finalized on nov 24, 2017. as always, please use headphones.
the second track appears as a component on my ninth record, {e} (inri08x): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/e
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2002, 2003, 2015, 2017).
released january 1, 2003
j - guitar, effects, bass, synth, piano, drum programming, light-sound synthesis (coagula), generative programming (sounder), granular synthesis, sound design, digital wave editing, production, composition
fwiw, my stool has been changing since i switched the pasta bowl up - it's gone from being mushy (perhaps due to too much fibre) to coming out in more of a chunky manner, but i was perhaps a little bit concerned about the lack of logs. i mean, that's a symptom of an obstruction, right?
but, that was a nice big fat log there just right now, indicating that i've pushed anything out if it was in there.
and, that is, after all, the actual reason that a high fibre diet is so recommended - to ensure you're clearing your colon out on a regular basis.
Thursday, June 3, 2021
i went checking to see if osteopenia is actually sufficient for permanent odsp status (i mean, are you going to go out there and tell me to do grunt work? i could break my spine.), and it turns out that i could be eligible for upwards of $200/month in dietary allowances if i get diagnosed with colitis and celiac.
so, there could be a return on this.
you'd think somebody else in my family would have been diagnosed with celiac by now, unless my mother has some 'splainin to do. i mean, i think everybody sort of suspected the point all along - i might vaguely be of sort of the same ethnicity as my father, but there's lots of very weird differences. like, body hair, for example - my father was a man ape, and i've never so much as sprouted a single hair between my belly button and my adam's apple. and, the men on my mom's side are hairy, too. it's a jarring difference that i've always found unsettling.
so, if i end up celiac, against all the evidence, i'm going to be up against a kind of jarring fact that nobody else on either side of the family has it. so, how did that happen, exactly?
unless i was switched at birth, i can be pretty sure about who my mother was. my father, on the other hand...
listen - i used to study royal genealogies. i've actually looked into this. it probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that people end up raised by people they call their fathers that aren't actually their fathers, but the numbers are startling.
what do you guess the percent is? 2%? 5%?
it's actually thought to be more in the range of 30-40%.
so, is your dad really your dad? fact is you can more or less flip a coin. women are sneaky sluts, it's just how it is. and, we live in a reality where financial stability and biological fitness are almost at cross-purposes to one another, too.
i mean, i'm not mad about it if it's true. if anything, it's probably good news, given how bad my dad's genes are, and how short the average lifespan on that side is. but, it would be very useful to know, for health purposes.
so, if that celiac test comes back positive, it's going to open a can of worms, let's just say.
the flip side of it is that my dad did have colitis. wellll....i think a diagnosis of colitis back in the 90s is probably a dubious thing, in truth. there was something going on in there, but he ate a lot of oregano, too. he wouldn't do what i'm doing - he'd take the doctor at face value. so, they supposedly told him that, but who knows...
but, maybe there's an upside to osteoporosis, if it ensures i don't have to go through another review, and even gets me into support at the federal level.
should i have known better than this?
well, if there's a problem, it's insufficient estrogen, and i...i tried. hard.
i can't buy it.
they wouldn't overprescribe.
so, i mean, what do i do? i could detransition, but i'd be so depressed i'd want to kill myself, anyways. i mean, that's a fucking shitty choice to force a person to make, and i'm almost willing to kill myself out of spite if the government is going to take that kind of a pissy position with me.
at this point, it doesn't matter - detransitioning won't help anyways, and i need estrogen therapy, regardless.
so, i mean here's your great outcome as a result of your bullshit incentive system and your pseudo-intellectual freudian bullshit - i've got osteoporosis.
you assholes.
the way i feel right now is anxious and weird, but i've felt like this before and i know it lifts with some sleep.
i don't want to draw conclusions.
i mean, if i had gone for a five hour bike ride without stopping last month and come back feeling sore, i would have decided i was a little out of shape. i simply don't know how much has changed over the last few months regarding my bone density, and i shouldn't give into hysteria, however easy it is.
i need to make some calls tomorrow and ask for some tests, and only react further when i actually get the results.
but, yeah - i'm kinda scared. or something. i dunno. but, i think it's understandable.
today's post is the "box set" dvd compilation for the 6th record.
=============
purchasing this release comes with the immediate download of the release that you linked to it off of. be sure you make the right choice.
inri048: written in the summer of 2001. remembered over july, 2014. completed august-september, 2014. released sept 24, 2014. expanded, finalized and re-released on oct 16, 2017
inri054: recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. track 6 was constructed in may, 2004 out of files recorded 1999-2001. tracks 1-4 were reconstructed over october, 2014. final mixes were finished on october 18, 2014. released on oct 21, 2014. disc closed on oct 30, 2017.
inri055: written in early 2002 and recorded and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 15, 2014. expanded, re-released & finalized on nov 1, 2017.
inri056: written & recorded in late 2001 and early 2002 and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 19, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized on nov 2, 2017.
inri061: written over the summer of 2002 and initially recorded in the early fall of 2002. additional writing, arranging, recording, production and mixing occurred from dec, 2014 to apr, 2015. released as a two volume set on april 27, 2015. this release was expanded to include a third disc on nov 17, 2017 and filled in with eight new remixes over the next few days. re-released as a slightly rearranged three volume set and finalized on nov 19, 2017.
inri062: this track was written in late 2002 and completed over april and may, 2015. released may 11, 2015. disc finalized on nov 20, 2017.
inri063: these tracks are all based on existing demos from 2001-2002 that were initially intended to be completed with vocal parts and were remixed from july, 2014 to may, 2015 as purely instrumental recordings. released may 2, 2015. disc finalized as lp014 on nov 21, 2017. this is my sixth official record.
originally created from 2001-2002. this compilation is dated to dec 2, 2002. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2014-2017. compilation finalized on nov 22, 2017. as always, please use headphones.
released december 2, 2002
j - guitars (electric, acoustic, nylon), electric bass, electric mandolin, orchestral & other sequencing, synthesizers, drum & melodic programming, electric air reed organ, digital piano, flute, regular drum kit, electronic drum kit, sampling, digital and analog effects processing, digital wave editing, sound design, soundscaping, loops, granular synthesis, noise generators, equalization, vocals, vocoders, drum & vocal manipulations, production
sean - vocals (inri048, inri054-inri056, inri061), harmonica (inri054, inri063), vocal concept (inri062)
jon - guitar (inri048)
greg - drum performance sample source (inri056, inri063)
the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, synth bass, electric bass, brass, tuba, french horn, trombone, trumpet, english horn, saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe, piccolo, bassoon, orchestra hit, drum machine, electronic drum kit, nylon guitar, electric guitar (distorted & clean), acoustic guitar, synthesizer, synthesizer effects, music box, harp, koto, piano, glockenspiel, vibraphone, hammered percussion, bells, tubular bells, agogo, wood blocks, marimba, melodic toms, timpani, taiko drum, backwards cymbals, synth drums, orchestral drum set, mellotron, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections. there is also choir.
let me put this all in one place in case there are questions about it, and i'm going to do it running backwards from the order of last modification.
when was the last time i altered these releases?
early 2018:
inri068 & inri069: constructed over late 2017 and early 2018 from tracks finished over 2014-2015 and written over 1996-2003.
late 2017:
inri026, inri031, inri034: remixed from orphaned demos from 1999
inri030, inri038: constructed from mixes done over 2015/2016.
inri042: constructed from 2017 mixes of 1999/2000 material
inri043, inri044, inri047, inri050: rebuilt from midi over 2014 by adding extra recorded parts, final mixes added over late 2017.
inri048: recorded more or less from scratch over late 2014. extra mixes from 2014 source added over late 2017.
inri055, inri056, inri058, inri061: demos from 2001/2002 were completed over late 2014 by adding extra recorded parts. extra mixes added in late 2017.
inri065: midi file completed in may, 2015 by transcribing demos from early 2003, which was then used to build multiple extra remixes. last mixes complete in late 2017.
inri071, inri072, inri073: compilation from 2015 of tracks completed by that date, but updated in late 2017 with more appropriate alternate mixes
inri074: initial version from 2003 was stripped of samples in late 2017 and added as a hidden track. will also appear that way on trivial group 2xlp.
over 2016:
inri004-inri015 & inri017-inri022 & inri024-inri025: this is the proper inri/inriched release cycle. remastered, with much difficulty due to interference from some unclear source, over the summer and fall of 2015, and finally remastered and rebuilt with many stops and starts over the course of 2016. the first singles were finalized in january, 2016 and the last comp was finalized in december, 2016. minimal midi parts and one new vocal part were added in this time frame, as well.
late 2015:
inri066: all ry30, soundblaster sequences and jx8p tracks from the late 90s or early 00s. some added sequencing and production work from late 2015.
early 2015:
inri035: mix tape constructed from material recorded 1996-1999.
inri046: lead mix finished in 2006 from files written in 2001. extra mixes added in 2015.
inri049: a new ambient mix was created in may, 2015. all other files are unaltered from late 2002.
inri062: new recorded vocal mix added to demo from 2002 in may, 2015. all other mixes from 2002/2003.
inri063: 6th lp. final version compiled from material remastered and finished over 2014/2015.
inri070: soundblaster & vst renders of material written before 2003, as output between 2014-2015.
late 2014:
inri052: 5th lp. final version compiled from material remastered and finished over 2014.
inri054: remixed, remastered and completed over late 2014. demos from 2001/2002.
inri059: constructed in late 2014 from disconnect parts recorded in mid 2002
inri060: remixed from existing tracks from 2002
inri079: imminent release, hopefully in 2021. but, all tracks for this release were done by late 2014.
early 2014:
inri041: 4th lp. final sample-less version remixed and compiled from existing source material from 1999/2000
late 2013:
inri000-inri001: remastered late 2013. otherwise unaltered from 1996/1997.
inri002: mix tape compiled in 2013, from source material from inri000-inri001.
2003-2013: black hole to be filled in.
2004
inri078 - demo tape from 2004, released as is in 2019
2003
inri075, inri076, inri077: unfinished demos from 2003 as of now.
2002:
inri053: released in 2014 and again in 2017 from unaltered 2002 files.
inri057: released in 2014 from unaltered demos from 2002.
inri064: released in 2015 from unaltered demos from 2002.
inri067: releases in 2017 from unaltered demos done from 1999-2002.
2001:
inri045: files from 2001 were released unaltered in early 2014, and project was closed down due to mysterious disappearance of sheet music attached to it
inri051: released, unaltered, in late 2014
2000:
inri036, inri037, inri039, inri040: compiled and released from existing recordings in early 2013
1999
inri027-inri028: released as is in late 2013
inri029: released as is in late 2013 and expanded with alternate version from same time period in late 2017
inri032: appended to in early 2014 with existing mixes from the time period, but not otherwise altered since.
inri033: 3rd lp. last trick split off in early 2014, otherwise unmodified
1998
inri016: released as is in late 2013
inri023: compiled from remixes created over 1998 in 2013 and expanded in late 2016
1997
inri003: compiled in 2013, but files unaltered from 1997.
this machine should be installed by the end of the night...
now, could all of those salicylates - from oregano, from basil, from thyme, from cumin, from tomatoes, from red peppers from broccoli, from raspberries, from strawberries, from guava, from avocado, from paprika - create bleeding in the stomach?
well, daily aspirin might.
so, there's some logic to it. this might be the cause of the mystery.
i'll ask the stomach specialist.
fwiw, i got my salicylates results, even as i'm still waiting for the others. i should get the c and mercury soonish, whereas the asca could take a while. and, i need to call the lab about the vitamin a, which appears to have been lost.
the result is .36 mmol/l, which converts to 5 mg/dl, and is considered to be low for somebody taking aspirin in a serious dose for something like arthritis (which is what the test is designed for. so, it says i'm low because it's low for an arthritis patient on rx strength aspirin), but about on par with somebody taking something like a half an aspirin as a daily blood thinner. so, if you want the effects of aspirin without actually taking aspirin, try a diet high in fruits and spices - it's not hyperbole, i just measured it.
what i was doing yesterday was trying to finish a rough install of the recording pc, before i finished up a number of notes regarding the gear i used in the various places i've lived, with the intent to build emulators out of all of it. i've currently got 3 sticks in the machine and it unfortunately did something when i turned my back that i didn't catch.
so, we're starting the install from scratch, and we're iffy on that third stick...
i was going to do some running around today, but i clearly got distracted. i'm going to make some eggs and get ready for a big day tomorrow, instead.
it'll be nice and warm, at least - nice, hot weekend coming up.
so, i'm going to scratch the fluoride thing off.
you need to take it in very large dosages, which means you need to swallow it in these capsules that evade your stomach, and dissolve in your intestines. if anything goes wrong in that process, you're going to end up with a nasty ulcer.
then, you can probably increase the density of your bones with fluorapatite, but it's not clear that you're going to strengthen them. that's fine with your teeth, which are going to fall out eventually anyways, but not really fine with your hips, which you only get one shot at - and are done if they ever fail.
...and, even that only works if you get it early enough.
the newer medication is covered. i should focus on that, instead.
i just wanted to make sure that teriparatide isn't an androgen. and it seems like it isn't.
great.
so, i want to double check a few things, but right now i'm looking at:
- vitamin d
- estrogen injections
- teriparatide (+denosumab?)
i my run into pushback because i'm not technicaly over that -2.5 limit, but i'm 40 fucking years old. i shouldn't be anywhere close to it. and, i shouldn't be managing osteopenia, at my age.
i started writing this last night and passed out - in fact for quite a long sleep.
so, i've now slept on it.
thinking back, i think i've had longstanding skeletal concerns for many years. my diet is about as good as i can make it, i've always had a high calcium diet and i've been cognizant of d for roughly the last five years, but i remember walking to get groceries and feeling like my legs were going to snap, as long as 15 years ago.
the reality is that i grew up in a heavy second-hand smoke environment, which is the single greatest risk factor for developing osteoporosis later in life. and, i smoked, myself, off and on, but nonetheless, for about 15 years, as well. i've also been known to eat every two or three days for weeks at a time.
so, i can't really jump to conclusions regarding this switch to generic estrogen, because i don't have the baseline. further, the last dentist i saw was adamant that the recession was not recent. it's also worth noting that my alp numbers were normal, although i should ask about pth and also about osteocalcin. together, these can help me understand if the bone loss is recent and ongoing or the result of growing up in a second-hand smoke environment, of smoking as an adult, of a poor diet years ago or perhaps even as a result of malnutrition as a child.
i should behave like it's the cause, regardless, though, and treat myself as though it is.
well, if i was concerned about normal dietary consumption, i'd say "no". i should get enough...
but, what i want to do right now is bombard my bones with as much d as i can take...it's ideally temporary, and it might not work at all, but i sort of have to try.
and, if these tests for colitis and etc come back positive, i could be experiencing some difficulties absorbing it and need the extra supplements. right now, it seems ok, but...
so, i asked my doctor to fax an rx to the pharmacy for d and i'll pick that up tomorrow. but, i'm looking through the formulary and just flat out cholecalciferol isn't there. it seems like i want this:
ALENDRONATE & CHOLECALCIFEROL Apo-Alendronate/Vitamin D3 70mg & 140mcg Tab
....which is covered. at least for now. but, the side effects of the alendronate look vicious. like....it might work to prevent bone loss, but you're going to severely damage yourself in the process. and, the fact that they'd use such a disruptive medicine suggests it's the best we've got.
looking into this, there's some chance that the osteoporosis is a symptom of some other type of cancer, like breast or lung cancer - or blood or bone cancer. i want to at least clear that before i start taking crazy meds like that.
the other option is 8000 iu/l of vitamin d2, which is too much.
so, i may need some back and forth on that. but, it looks like 1000 iu/l of d3 is less than $10 and that's probably an easy, fast first step.
and, calcium?
calcium seems to be less effective, and i think i'm doing ok. while the d came in "lowish" but normal, the calcium was actually pretty high. and, high calcium apparently creates heart problems and just ends up as kidney stones, in the end. if they insist, fine, but...
(high calcium serum levels could also be evidence of bone loss more than evidence of sufficient absorption, though)
i'm also going to contact the endocrinologist directly and ask him about immediate injections. there's another medication called calcitonin that is covered and seems to have less vicious side effects than the alendronate but you have to inject it. it also seems to be estrogen based. so, what's the best approach here - estrogen injections or calcitonin?
and, i should go back to walking to the store rather than biking...
the thing is that all of these approaches can only try to stop loss. none of them can reverse anything. and, these numbers are terrible - i need some way to reverse it.
one thing that may increase bmd is fluoride pills, but you apparently have to get to it early in order to make a difference. am i early enough? well, it's osteopenia and not osteoporosis, so probably. there's also some suggestion that messing with your thyroid hormones might help, as they seem to be directly responsible for calcium metabolism. but, the only really serious way to do this is probably via gene editing, and, once again, i'm stuck waiting and hoping we get there.
so, i should test for the following hormones and markers to try to grasp whether the loss is ongoing or historical:
- pth
- calcitonin
- oseteocalcin
- igf-1
- cortisol
- balp
Wednesday, June 2, 2021
the good news is that the fit test was negative.
the bad news was that the bmd was terrible. -1.9. that's technically osteopenia, but practically osteoporosis.
i'm 40 years old.
over the last several years, i have gone through incredible lengths to try to get my testicles removed, to try to increase my testosterone suppression and to ensure that i'm getting usable, absorbable estrogen. the system has blocked me every step of the way...
and, now i have osteoporosis.
it is probably not a coincidence that my teeth started eating away at the same time that i went back down to 100 mg/day of cyproterone. and, while i don't have the ability to prove it, i'm entirely convinced that the declining estrogen is also at the root of the iron absorption problems.
i need to sleep on this.
all you can do for right now is
(1) send a letter to the company explaining your concerns. in theory, if they get dozens of more letters from people that support dogs than from people that want to get rid of them, they should reverse the ban. and, send the letters to all of the companies, not just the ones in canada.
(2) while you're waiting, boycott companies that ban dogs.
but, you have to realize that this struggle exists before you can react to it. you don't realize it, and that's at the crux of the problem.
out of all the things we could be concerning ourselves with in this techno-dystopia, right?
and, it's just going to get worse as one basic western cultural norm after another ends up challenged by cultures with more buying power than ours.
we're going to have to refight battle after battle that we fought and won hundreds of years ago.
and, it's going to slow us down, as we spin in place, for who knows how long.
secularism will win in the end, it always does. but, we could be in for decades or centuries of stupid bickering, in the mean time.
and that's really my perspective on this: these are dumb concerns that i don't want to bother with, and that i resent being forced to deal with.
didn't they recently pass a "bill of rights" for airline patients?
my hunch is this: there are certain cultures that don't like dogs, and they whined and complained until they got banned. these cultures have more market power than northern european culture, so they won and got to enforce their values on everybody else. these are the kinds of changes in culture that we're going to have to get used to, if we continue to allow competing cultures to invade and dominate us - which we seem to be happy to do.
while some legal action is probably justified in the long run, what i'd suggest for now is voting with your wallet and picking transit options that allow for pets, whether they're classified as "support animals" or not.
i'd rather ban hijabs than dogs, myself. but, i don't have the money to make those choices.
today's post is my 6th record, inri063.
these are all songs that were written with the intent of sean singing over them, and then reclaimed, completed and remastered over 2014/2015. the elephant in the womb indicates the gestation period - this is a behemoth that was a long time coming, and is only surpassed by my upcoming and still gestating records.
the posts over the last several days have slowly built up to this, and i think i've said all i can say about each of these tracks. but, i'm pretty proud of this as a piece of abstract electronic music and am excited to finally finish the follow-up.
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the idea of a second jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj record was not something that remotely crossed my mind until i started seriously analysing my work from 2002. that was a separate idea; rabit is wolf separated it from the trivial group. however, remixed instrumental tracks over the rabit is wolf period slowly collected to the point that there was enough to justify a whole record. that wasn't a conscious choice at the outset, but it seems to be the conceptual framework collected on the record. i toyed with the idea of releasing it as a rabit remix record, but my influence over it is far too lopsided.
the thematic linkage with the first jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj record is a tendency to lean towards more "serious" ideas. there are strong influences from a few different types of classical music, including jazz, as well as some more modern electronic and noise influences. however, these songs lean more towards more palatable rock or techno based song structures and are less dependent on existing scores.
the stories for these songs are diverse and explained in more detail on the track pages.
these tracks are all based on existing demos from 2001-2002 that were initially intended to be completed with vocal parts and were remixed from july, 2014 to may, 2015 as purely instrumental recordings. released may 2, 2015. disc finalized as lp014 on nov 21, 2017. this is my sixth official record; as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (2001, 2002, 2014, 2015, 2017).
released december 1, 2002
j - electric & acoustic guitars, electric bass guitar, effects, synths, electric air reed organ, digital piano, flute, voice, electronic drum kit, drum programming, drum manipulations, drum sampling, orchestral sequencing, sampling, loops, equalization, digital wave editing, sound design, production, composition.
sean - harmonica (2), melody (6)
greg - drum performance sample source (4)
the various rendered electronic orchestras include tuba, french horn, trombone, trumpet, english horn, saxophone, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, flute, orchestra hit, melodic toms, timpani, orchestral drum set, piano, agogo, tubular bells, glockenspiel, koto, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections. it also includes choir.
Tuesday, June 1, 2021
today's post is the 5th volume of flac dvds.
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purchasing this release does not come with a download.
inri054: recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. track 6 was constructed in may, 2004 out of files recorded 1999-2001. tracks 1-4 were reconstructed over october, 2014. final mixes were finished on october 18, 2014. released on oct 21, 2014. disc closed on oct 30, 2017.
inri055: written in early 2002 and recorded and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 15, 2014. expanded, re-released & finalized on nov 1, 2017.
inri056: written & recorded in late 2001 and early 2002 and mixed in early 2002 and late 2014. released on nov 19, 2014. expanded, re-released and finalized on nov 2, 2017.
inri057: written and recorded in late 2001 and early 2002. initially sequenced in may, 2002. re-sequenced and first released in june, 2002. re-released in slightly different forms from 2002-2014. resequenced to mimic the original sequencing and re-released on november 8, 2014. except to sequence the record, these files have not been altered since 2002. disc finalized as lp013 on nov 3, 2017.
inri058: written over 2001 and 2002 and rethought repeatedly between 2002-2014, with no clear resolution in a final mix. reconstructed from source in late 2014 and then rendered at multiple stages to create a series of snapshots. final mixes were completed over the last week of november and the first week of december. released as a two-volume set on dec 7, 2014. the concept was rethought on nov 3, 2017, which led to the inclusion of five more mixes and an expansion to four cds. re-released in four volumes & finalized as symph007 on nov 12, 2017. the raw guitar mix was corrected on jan 6, 2018.
inri059: written and recorded over 2001 and 2002. mildly remixed in november, 2014 to make the tracks more presentable; nothing substantial was altered, and no new sound was recorded. released on november 19, 2014. re-released on physical media and finalized on nov 14, 2017.
inri060: written in august, 2002. track one was remixed in december, 2014 to turn the rest of the track up relative to the vocals. released on dec 12, 2014. disc finalized on nov 14, 2017.
inri061: written over the summer of 2002 and initially recorded in the early fall of 2002. additional writing, arranging, recording, production and mixing occurred from dec, 2014 to apr, 2015. released as a two volume set on april 27, 2015. this release was expanded to include a third disc on nov 17, 2017 and filled in with eight new remixes over the next few days. re-released as a slightly rearranged three volume set and finalized on nov 19, 2017.
inri062: this track was written in late 2002 and completed over april and may, 2015. released may 11, 2015. disc finalized on nov 20, 2017.
originally created over the course of 2002, with some files dating to late 2001. this compilation is dated to nov 30, 2002. slowly remastered, reconstituted, compiled, reconstructed, released and finalized from 2014-2017. compilation finalized on nov 21, 2017. as always, please use headphones.
released november 30, 2002
j - guitars (electric, acoustic, nylon), electric bass, electric mandolin, sequencers, synthesizers, drum & melodic & orchestral programming, electric air reed organ, digital piano, flute, regular drum kit, electronic drum kit, sampling, digital and analog effects processing, sound design, soundscaping, loops, granular synthesis, noise generators, voice, vocoders, drum & vocal manipulations, digital wave editing, equalizers, production, composition.
sean - vocals/lyrics (inri054-inri059, inri061), harmonica (inri054, inri057), ring modulator (inri057-inri058), vocal concept (inri062)
greg - drum performance sample source (inri056-inri058)
jon - guitar performance (inri057)
bob - hammering (inri058)
the various rendered electronic orchestras include acoustic bass, synth bass, electric bass, brass, french horn, trombone, trumpet, tuba, english horn, saxophone, flute, oboe, piccolo, clarinet, bassoon, orchestra hit, drum machine, electronic drum kit, nylon guitar, electric guitar (distorted & clean), acoustic guitar, synthesizers, synthesizer effects, glockenspiel, vibraphone, hammered percussion, music box, tubular bells, bells, agogo, wood blocks, marimba, melodic toms, timpani, taiko drum, backwards cymbals, synth drums, orchestral drum set, harp, koto, piano, bells, mellotron, violin, viola, cello, contrabass and various full string sections. there is also choir.
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