A Place for My Stuff

Muddy Waters, 2/10

Over on my Facebook page, I regularly write notes from the various gigs I do as a musician.  These have included the open mic nights I host, performances with one of my two bands (Tsunami and I'm Gonna Crawl, both linked from ZepTribute.com), or whatever other musical adventures I find myself doing.

Tonight, I was going to enter the following notes about a short gig I did with Tsunami at a bar called the Muddy Waters Cafe.  But since I already have a blog here, and Feb 10 has had an odd tradition of being a diary event day for me, I figured I'd post my notes here:

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I tell the IGC band that I can't practice Tuesday night, because I have a gig with Tsunami. I tell the piano teacher who had to reschedule my first lesson that no, I can't do it on Tuesday night; I have a gig. Tuesday comes, and Tsunami cancels. “Too tired”, or something along those lines. Motherfucker! The is the second time this has happened.

Wednesday is another night where I canceled other plans in advance in order to play out with Tsunami. The bassist has been dying to play an open mic at this club in Methuen called Muddy Waters. But first it was time to reclaim our old practice space. As luck would have it, the IGC's band's practice space is going to be moving to, to a new rehearsal space with its own PA. That meant I could take the PA from IGC's practice space and put it in Tsunami's practice space. At least for now. So I stop by IGC's old space, pick up the PA, and go to the Tsunami space. I don't know why the band would think I could make it to that practice at 5:00pm on a week day. I do show up, and we start running through songs.

Earlier we had talked about doing Black Sabbath's “The Wizard”. This is one I've always wanted to do with a band. They insisted they didn't know it in full, but as long as they had the general parts, I talked them into running through it. That didn't last too long. Oh well, next time. We decided to go through the songs we had been doing at these shows: Crossroads, Jesus Just Left Chicago, Since I've Been Loving You, and Rock and Roll. The tired one had seemingly forgotten “Since I've Been Loving You”, and proposed that we replace it with one of the other dozens of songs we've done before. So we picked “The Ocean”.

I arrived at Muddy Waters around 7:45. They start at 8:00. The sign-up sheet was confusing. Rows were grouped in 20 minute time slots, but some of these entries had single names, not full bands. Surely, some of these folks were going to be playing TOGETHER, right? Because otherwise it said we wouldn't be on for another two hours. Hosting the open mic was Craig, a bespectacled guitarist with a white snow beard. His band was the house band that started things off, and also served as standby musicians for other players who needed a drummer, or a bassist, or a keyboardist, etc.

It's so weird how these sorts of gigs are mostly just audiences of musicians, all waiting their turn. We patiently sat through and supported each band as they did their 4-song limit. I have to say, I was overall impressed with what I heard. At some point I talked to the host, Craig. I complemented him on his playing and singing, and said his singing sounded a lot like Howling Wolf to me (which it did). He said, “You could tell me that all night long, and I'd be happy!” He then went on to tell me that Howling Wolf was one of his influences, and that he even got the chance to see him perform live in Cambridge. Wolf was on his last days it seemed, sitting in a folding chair. He'd pass out to the side after a few numbers, pop a nitro pill, and get back to playing. Repeat.

Santino had apparently lost his strap, but fortunately I keep a guitar strap in my gig case for such emergencies. It wasn't he first time he used it. I ordered a chicken Caesar wrap and a club soda. As always, I drink nothing but water, or in this case the next closest thing, when I'm going to be singing. At some point, a waitress slipped, announced to everybody that she was fine, but none the less, half a dozen 50+ guys suddenly had to play the white night. Ugh.

It was getting close to 10 anyway. So much for the idea that the timesheet might be exaggerated. Before it was our turn two guitarists came up. They explained they were from a band, whose name I completely forgot (ProTip, folks: mention your name more than once), but were playing without the rest of the band this night. I saw later on the set list they had signed themselves up as “Tony & Bill”. They started with a rendition of a Jimi Hendrix song. I think it was “Wind Cried Mary”; I forget. I do however remember Santino and I looking at each other and cringing when the guitar solo came up.

The duo wanted to move on to some originals, and asked if they could have some drums and bass. The drummer came up. Well, I was anxious to get on the stage, so I approached the house bassist, whose name was Scott. I asked him if I could play his bass. He looked at me skeptically. I said, “You can say no!” He asked me, “Well, can you actually play bass?” In other words, he wanted to know if I was really a bass player, or some schmuck who just wanted to come up on stage and try it because he thought it was a good idea. “Yes,” I assured him, “I've been playing bass for over 25 years.” He said, “OK, I trust you!” I strapped on the bass. This guy had the strap nice and high, the way I like it. I didn't even have to adjust anything. The duo informed me that they tune down a half step. “That's fine,” I said, “I'll just transpose”. They gave me the rough chord progressions of their songs. I managed to pull it off. We did some fast funky stuff. I played two songs with them as a bassist. Then it was time to put down the bass, and become the singer for Tsunami.

We were debating about how to start. We decided to just start with “Rock and Roll”, then go into the two blues numbers: “Crossroads” and “Jesus Left Chicago”. Those two called for my harmonica. Then we finished with “The Ocean”. We blew the roof off. With our fourth song finished, we packed up. I don't know why the highlight of the night for me is the shortest paragraph, but there you have it.

I stuck around to watch the others play. I figured that if they had the patience to wait their turn and see ME play, then the least I could do is watch them. At the very end of the night was the guy who had been waiting the longest. “Billy T” was his name according to the sign-up sheet. He looked like a stereotypical shop teacher, to be honest. But he took out his guitar and started playing with the band. His tone blew me away. His back was mostly to me, as I tried to see what sort of guitar he was playing. It was rectangular. Was it a Bo Diddley guitar? The body actually appeared to be a large cigar box, reinforced with metal corners, and what looked like built-in speakers. But this guy just wailed on it. And I could tell he wasn't just another one of these 12-bar playing baby boomers. I saw him signal to the band: fingers up to go to the IV, gestures to do a call-and-response with the other guitarist, etc. I talked to him afterwards, and he showed me how his guitar had been custom built by “D – Guitars” in Miami. He showed be the unique inscription on the back of the head stock. Well, that's another page I have to check out.

2015 Projects & Accomplishments

Sometimes it’s hard to recognize progress if you don’t record it along the way.  Fortunately, this digital age makes pretty easy to look through your past photos by date, or past updates on social media, and find some highlights.  

Here’s a list of some personal accomplishments and milestones for me from 2015, broken down into categories as best as I could.

1. I turned 40 this year.
• In theory, there’s no reason why numbers that end in a “0” should get some special attention.  I know some people smugly claim to be above all of that and see it as “just another number”, but come on.  We measure and especially categorize all sorts of things in sets and multiples of powers of 10, whether it’s decades, money, ages, or anything else.  There’s something psychologically going on when you realize that first digit of your age has increased and is never going back down again.  
• This doesn’t mean I viewed turning 40 as a depressing thing.  But I did view it as a sort of wake-up call.  I have jokingly viewed 2015 as the year of the starting midlife crisis.  But that’s a good thing.  To quote Tony Robbins, getting to that point of ultimate frustration when you say “Ugh, that’s IT!  I’ve HAD it!!!” is a good place to be.  That’s when progress can really start rolling.
• Unlike my incredibly memorable 30th birthday which took place in Las Vegas, I kept my 40th birthday party pretty simple.  Booked a dinner at a local restaurant with about a dozen local friends.  Got some presents.  Fun night.
  
  
2. MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC!
• The biggest change for me musically was discovering the open mic nights at the local coffee house.  I’ve had visions for a long time of doing my own thing.  Too long, really.  So here was the chance to do it.  After attending a few nights as a guest, I finally got up there and did my thing.  I’ve gone just about every week since then.  It reached the point where the owner asked me to become the new host, which I gladly accepted.
• Recorded vocals for the closing epic track of the third Gyps Fulvus album.
• After my last Zep tribute band (Devil’s Blues Band) essentially broke up, our guitarist pointed me to an ad for another Led Zeppelin tribute band looking for a singer.  So I joined them.  Then they broke up.  So I formed a third band with members from both.
• I also got in touch with a guy looking to do a virtual collaboration, where different musicians from around the country sent in individually recorded tracks, with his goal of doing a perfect recording of Led Zeppelin’s “Gallow’s Pole”.  I sang it, and even added some bass and mandolin later.  The recording was superb, but not finished.  Unfortunately, the guy seemingly dropped off the face of the earth and stopped returning my calls.  Oh well, I got a good partial recording!  I should go upload it.  It was a great experience while it lasted.
• Does the Zep end there?  No!  I joined an additional local Led Zeppelin tribute band, Tsunami.  They came to the open mic I hosted, I knew they had no singer and had seemingly always been without a singer.  I told them that I currently sing for and have sung for other Led Zeppelin tribute bands.  We played the open mic the night we met, then had our first official gig the next night.  It was the first of many gigs.
• Found two new places to do karaoke: one local, one not-so-local that my cousin invited me out to.  The latter one had a contest.  I made it to the first round.  Unfortunately, I was unbelievably sick for a good 2 months around the time I had to go to round 2, and on top of that I had already bought tickets for a concert on the same night.  So I said fuck it to the contest.  Still, getting out there and singing in whatever way I can was a good thing.  I even had one drop-dead beautiful Brazilian lady like my singing so much that she was doing the bump n’ grind with me at the bar.  (And no, she didn’t steal my wallet.)
• And bringing this full circle: that open mic included playing with so many people, jumping in on different things with different instruments.  And the recent Lemmy Tribute I did (with 4 Motörhead songs on the uke) stands out for me.
  
  
  
  
  
3. There’s the “professional” accomplishment stuff which is worth mentioning.  Though to be honest, part of this current midlife crisis has been working on a career change.
• Still, I’m proud of an end-to-end software suite I created which will have applications for government mandates in the medical industry.
• I worked for a second company where I toasted champagne with the CEO as we celebrated $8 million in revenue.
• Though I was glad to leave that and move to a third company with a wonderful commute.  I won’t say what company it’s for.  All I’ll say is that you’ve heard of it, and it’s really big.  They were bought by a colossal company and need my expertise to see things transition smoothly.
• The REAL rewarding thing I was happy to do was get a job in between doing some math tutoring.  It pays a fraction of what I make as an engineer, but it’s always good to have some mathematics going on in my life.  It’s one of my life’s passions.
  
  
4. MONEY!
• It turns out that the stocks I thought I had sold years ago for a company I used to work for, were never completely sold.  Long story short, they had been accumulating all this time, and I ended up collecting a LOT of money.  And with that, I...
• Paid off some credit card debt I had lingering for quite some time, along with a loan too, AND my car.  Started a new IRA.
  
  
5. SEX!
• I won’t name names, but there were more than just a couple, and 2015 was fun for me.
  
  
6. CHURCH! 
• Well OK, that word “Church” doesn't sound as exciting as "money" or "sex".  But I belong to the sort that embraces those things.  This year we celebrated Year 50.  It included a secret conclave in Washington D.C., complete with a number of events like salon/lectures from various members.  When you’re in a minority religion, it can be really invigorating to suddenly be in a huge room full of them.  I finally met some people that I had been talking to online for over a decade.  Best of all, when you see the accomplishments from some of these amazing people, it makes you realize, “I have to get off my ass and do more.”
• I flew down to Florida to catch the opening reception of The Devil’s Reign.  Once again, great to be with “my people”, and meeting some face to face for the first time.  I even managed to get in a little improvised ukulele tribute to Type O Negative. 
  
   
• I’m honored to have my own section of essays on the COS Great Minds page.  I similarly wrote a little commentary on the alleged Starbucks holiday cup controversy.
• I was interviewed for episode 15 of the Raising Hell podcast.  Despite being fiercely childfree myself, I had some outside perspectives to share.
• 2015 also saw the release of Outbursts of Everett True, a collection of long-lost comic strips of a most wonderfully misanthropic nature.  I used my professional software skills to help collect the appropriate material for the editor and brainchild of the project, who gave me a free copy of the final hardcover book in return.  I was proud to have contributed to this immense project, however small it may have been in terms of work hours and to all of the other work that had to go into it.
• Every Halloween since 1989, I’ve done some kind of formal ritual.  This year was no different.
  
  
7. And hey, how about that Radio Free Satan?
• We hit our 15th anniversary this year, and I wanted to do something to mark it.  To be perfectly blunt, I did almost all of the work for it, because nobody else really, really wanted to.  But I was happy with the result.
• After 12 years, I’m still doing my podcast.  This year I really scaled some things back, admittedly.  I had already shortened the show from an hour to 45 minutes, and took an extended break for the first time.  I also made use of reruns.  Over those past 52 weeks, it was only 30 new episodes.  Still, when I consider that over 90% of podcasts seemingly never reach a TOTAL of 30 episodes in their existence, I’m proud.
• I created a new holiday video with Satanbear: 
   
• Also contributed an old track to an upcoming music project that RFS is doing! More details on that will come in the spring.  
  
  
8. Speaking of comedy…
• After being kicked out from an overly-sensitive grammar nazi humor site (go figure) on Facebook, I went ahead and made my own: Ridicule of Shitty Writing.  I’m happy to say that it has accumulated over 100 members, and has purposely avoided the stuff that plagues some of its rivals (repeating posts, off-topic posts, in-fighting, etc.).
• I created a few other comedy clips for YouTube, including “Kim Davis: The Untold Story” and “McGyver: The Missing Lyrics”.
  
   
  
   
  
  
• I created a lot of memes and other pictures which I had hoped would go viral.  So far, it hasn’t happened.  Oh well.  This is another one of those things I want to pursue.  If not getting popular that way, then getting them published.
  
  
9. Other Online projects:
• I finally broke down and created a Twitter account
• ...as well as a Facebook fan page.
• This very own blog got a much-needed revamp to stop it from looking like crap on a mobile device
• Ditto for GeorgeCarlin.net, though work on that should probably continue.

Yeah, I put more of the less exciting stuff at the bottom.  Likewise I can rattle off some memorable parts of 2015 for me that weren’t really personal accomplishments per se.  But as long as I’m sharing memories from 2015, here’s that list:

• Remembering people who passed this year whose work I admire (Lemmy Kilmister, A.J. Pero, Chris Squire, Taylor Negron. Notable mentions to Wes Craven, Christopher Lee, B.B. King, Leonard Nimoy, Dick Van Patten, Roddy Piper, and Phil Taylor. No, I don’t care about the guy from STP. )
• Great concerts (Blue Öyster Cult [twice], Alice Cooper with Mötley Crüe, Deep Purple, Whitesnake in support of the Purple album, AC/DC for the first time in over 20 years, Weird Al, the stand-up of Gilbert Gottfried, and probably some more I’m stupidly forgetting)
• The CD and Blu-Ray releases (the rest of the Zeppelin remasters, and finally “The Decline of Western Civilization”!)
• Films and TV shows (revisiting “Oz”, being introduced to “Black Mirror”, “Theory of Obscurity” which documented my favorite band, watching “Back to the Future” in October 2015, and the long awaited return of Bob & David)

I typed all of this out by the way on my new Google Chromebook.  Boy, talk about getting the right tool.  I've used this to do online stuff as well as be a tablet for my sheet music and chord charts.  My best purchase of 2015.

The Lawnmower Starter Dream

"Nothing is so boring as listening to someone else describe a dream"
- George Carlin
(Carlin, George. "Brain Droppings". New York: Hyperion, 1997.)

I had a dream that I was mowing the front lawn of the house I grew up in. I started mowing a small section of the front of the huge front yard, then stopped. Then I realized that I wasn't done. I had only finished the section.

So I dragged the mower over the concrete of the driveway to the start of the much bigger section. Then pulled it over again for a different view and a different place to start. I pulled the rip cord a few times. It wouldn't start. I slowly pulled the cord out and took a closer look. Grass cuttings from last time were all clumped around the other end.

I pulled one more time, and the cord split at the far end, frayed off. As I stood there in my sweaty, dusty, dirt-covered outdoor clothes, I thought of what to do. I could try to fix the starter by tying the two snapped ends back together again, a big overhand knot. But then I thought about the much better starters I saw advertised somewhere which come up and attach to the handle, so that to start it you just keep squeezing a handle, like a bicycle brake handle, and after a few of those it starts without breaking your back. It was a way better long-term solution, but both being in those crappy clothes and wanting to get the job done made me hesitant to get in my car and get one.

I get the nagging feeling that this whole dream of me and my broken starter was symbolic.

Curiously enough, mowing the lawn was a chore I hated, but preferred mowing the front lawn to the back. Usually my brother did the front. The front was bigger, but no where nearly as dusty. And the lawn was more consistently grassy, so it didn't look like you were needlessly mowing nothing as you dragged the lawn mower over mostly bare parts of the back lawn.

A night of musical dives

The local coffee house owner extended me an offer to MC the open mic night.  They have a PA head and one speaker, but not the rest.  Well, I wasn't going to stand for that.  As planned, I drove down the street to the local music store, where Rainbow’s “Stargazer” was playing. I bought an XLR cable, a speaker cable, donated my second mic stand, and brought (but didn't leave behind) one of my microphones.  Though this night, a band was playing who had their own mics and all. Go figure!

What they didn’t have, at least not at the time they started, was their drummer.  They did however have the coffee house’s drum set (or at least somebody else’s drum set whose owner leaves it there) half set up.  “They need some drums.  Bill?”  I’ve played with enough drummers to get some idea of how to set up a drum set, so I set up the rest.  And I’ve faked my way on drums at parties before when there was nobody else to do the job, so here was another one of those times.  And like last time, with a band of baby boomers!

Gary is a regular who sings songs himself, a cappella. This includes 18th century folk songs from Scotland to 20th century pop.  I know that not everybody would understand this in an open mic performance, but personally I admire his bravery, not to mention uniqueness.  Even most musicians I know who have played on stage are afraid to sing karaoke, all up there in front of a roomful of strangers, with nobody sharing the stage with you.  Now imagine you don’t even have the musical accompaniment. If anything, I think the only uncomfortable people are the audience, who feel they have to give him more of his attention.  As they should.  Gary did a few songs.

In between I managed to rattle off a few musician jokes. I’ve been wanting to develop a stand-up act for a long time.  I’m sure this will prove to be the breeding grounds of that.  Ya gotta start somewhere.  And although I wasn’t planning on it, I brought the uke anyway, and tried a few songs I’d been working on: “People Are Strange” (which was in my head after catching it on seeing “The Lost Boys” for the first time in years, then seeing Robby Krieger perform it live a week later), and Elf’s “Good Time Music” (because I wanted to do SOMETHING from Dio that would work in this setting, and god dammit I did).  

A guy named Dave with a beautiful longhorn electric-acoustic 6-string came by.  He’s yet another regular I guess I hadn’t run into before.  He did some stuff with the band.

The other fellow harmonica player (whose name I’m shamefully drawing a blank on) showed up, so I asked if he wanted to come up to do something.  We crudely pulled off “Crossroads”.

The band’s drummer (who unlike me, was an actual drummer!) finally showed up.  They closed the night with a few songs. I joined them on vocals and harp for “Roadhouse Blues” to close out the night.  And hey, I got free coffee and a discount off an enormous cream-filled coffee roll, for my efforts.

Was the night over?  No, because I knew karaoke was at the bar next door.  Barely any people, as usual.  I managed to buy the bar’s last bottle of water.  My voice has been pretty crappy these last few weeks, but I pulled off Aerosmith’s “Last Child” and AC/DC’s “Have a Drink on Me”.  I had to watch 3 guys cluelessly attempt “Don’t Stop Believing”, all of them singing it a full octave down and not getting their timing right.  (Do these people even know the songs they do?  Do they know that they can follow the highlighted words on the screen, in time with the music?)  The karaoke hostess trusts me to touch her equipment, so I was able to search and select my own songs, and not to mention correct a problem another singer had with the speakers, all panned to one side for some reason.

2 or 3 drunk guys invaded the hostess’s space, and started fucking around with things.  Why she let them do it, I don’t know.  But it took some time to fix things back for me, up next.  “Who do I have to make out with?” said one of the drunks, as an attempt at an apology.  “I’ll pass”, I said.  I managed to pull off “September”, after which a more sober attendee praised me and gave me a high five.  I had another song up, but by that point I had enough, so I split.

So that was my night.

I left out the parts about the x-rated text message exchanges I was having.

Site Changes and Upcoming Posts

After realizing just how crappy my blog looked on a mobile device, I decided to update its looks.  I was almost ready to just quit Typepad and move to Wordpress, but found a way to work through it on Typepad.  Typepad has some great support, too.  They were able to swiftly fix a problem I had with the "Search" feature.  So, hopefully all looks much better now.

Did I ever cure my clutter problem?  Well, I don't know if it's something that can be "cured" entirely.   Now please don't think for one second that I'm giving you the sort of line you hear from 12-step programs about alcohol for example being a "disease" and alcoholics remaining alcoholics for life. I don't buy that philosophy.  Like alcoholism, pack-ratism or hoarding are extreme human behaviors, and I do sincerely believe that behaviors can be exampled and reprogrammed.  No, what I mean by not being so sure that clutter has a cure, is that I've come to realize that this is something you just have to keep on top of every now and then.  Just like a good car needs to have its oil changed once in a while, a home needs to be decluttered once in a while.  So I'll continue to do what I've done before: document the progress, while telling silly stories and giving advice along the way.

Have I made any progress in the years since I've been doing this blog?  Have I learned anything?  You bet!  The photos speak for themselves.  As I recently updated the "About" page of this site to say, there's no way I would have been able to move out of my last apartment if I hadn't started taking action on this. 

I've also been able to change my behaviors and shake old habits that worked against me, such as buying a lot of stuff on impulse when I didn't really need it.  And again, I'm not anti-materialism.  I am shamelessly pro-materialism, and I don't take the pseudo-Buddhist stance that I see a lot of these anti-hoarding blogs and books take on.  But the catch, as I've said in the past, is that getting too focused on the excitement of acquiring new things can lead to not getting the full enjoyment out of the things you already have.  I have gotten better and better at looking at looking at things in a store and saying, "No, I'm not going to buy this.  I have something just like this at home that I haven't used yet, or haven't taken out and enjoyed in a long time.", and at leaving a store empty-handed.

Unfortunately, I've had lapses along the way.  Clutter has an odd way of creeping up invisibly.  The build-ups can happen so gradually that you don't always notice it until maybe you have a guest over the house, or trip on something, or can't find something important.  Then it's time for another full-on battle with the clutter.   So again, I'll be sharing some updates on this over the next few weeks.

Oh yeah, and I turned 40 this year.  With that, has come a mid-life crisis of sorts.  But in a good way.  I'm sure I'll make mentions of that here and there too.

As always, if you just want to read the posts that have to do with clutter clean-up, and not my rants and other blog posts, then you can just click on the "Clutter Combat" category tag.

Obama '666' lottery... debunked!

A friend of mine brought this story to my attention:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/lottery.asp

The short version?  The day after Obama's 2008 election, the winning numbers of the Illinois Pick-3 state lottery was 666.  So naturally, the conspiracy theorists freaked out over it. After all, the chances of this are 1/1000, right?  Well, not quite.

Being the nerd and the asshole that I am, I can't pass up the opportunity to both work on a fun math puzzle and debunk a conspiracy theorist.  So here we go.

Let L be the number of "Pick-3" daily lottery drawings that happen in the US on a given day.  Most states have a daily Pick-3 lottery: Colorado, NJ, Arizona, Wisconsin, California, to name but a few.  In fact, Illinois has the drawing TWICE daily, as does Ohio, Missouri, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Virginia, Maine, New York, and probably more.  Texas does their Pick-3 only six days a week, but FOUR times daily.  A handy source for these is the lottery links page on usa[.]gov.  In any case, the probability that 666 will NOT show up in any of these L lottery drawings is (999/1000)^L.

Now let n be the number of different days that we can associate as being somehow specially related to President Obama. This is not limited to "the day after Obamas [sic] election", but also the very day of the 2008 election, the day before, the day of the 2004 election, the days before and after this, the day he was sworn in, the one-year anniversaries of these days, and so on.  The probability of NOT getting 666 on one of these "significant" days is therefore: ((999/1000)^L)^n.

Therefore, the probability that you DO get '666' on at least one of these lottery drawings on one of these days is 1 - ((999/1000)^L)^n.

For the sake of the argument, let's say that L=40 (though it's probably higher).  As for special days, I only just named 14 off the top of my head.  With these numbers, you get a roughly 43% chance of '666' showing up.  To have a greater than 50% chance of '666' showing up in one of these lotteries on a 'special' day, all you need to have is n>17.  And again, this is assuming that L=40, when it's probably higher.  We're also ignoring Pick-4 drawings that could begin or end with '666'.  Heck, we're ignoring all other sorts of events in which the number "666" might randomly show up in some form or another: stock prices, budget costs, etc.

QED
(though if you find a flaw in my math, please do email me and I'll correct it)

The moral of the story: numerical coincidences like this aren't so amazing when you take into account the full number of statistical trials you can have.  In this case, that means looking at more than just one lottery and looking at more than just one day deemed to be somehow significant.

The Kid Who Fell Off the Basketball and Hung Himself

Have any of you ever heard the following urban legend?  When I was a kid growing up in New England in the 80s, I heard a story that went something like this:

"A little boy was playing around in his house.  He tried balancing himself on a basketball.  While on top of the basketball, he took a plant that was hanging from the ceiling, and wrapped the long ropes of the plant holder around his neck, just to horse around.  He lost his balance, slipped off the basketball, and hung himself."

I suspect this is a completely bogus urban myth, because it has all the signs of one:

1) Everybody who told this story, swore that it happened to the son of a friend of a friend or a friend.  Of course, they could never say who (what town, the name of the kid, when exactly it happened, etc.)

2) It's a story that people love to tell and really want to believe on some level.  Namely, parents loved to tell it because they thought it was a good "real" story with the lesson of "Don't horse around with things involving your neck, kids.", or similar.

3) It sounds physically impossible.  I can't imagine a hanging plant with strings long enough for a kid to wrap around his neck, tight enough so that he wouldn't unravel or stretch the ropes out enough to be able to touch the ground after falling off the basketball.  Never mind strong enough to support all the additional weight.

It got so ridiculous that my brother got yelled at for standing on a basketball in the livingroom.  "Don't do that!" my mom yelled. "A boy HUNG himself doing that!"  It didn't matter that there was absolutely nothing hanging from the ceiling anywhere in the room, nor even any furniture near where he was standing.

I've never been able to find any information about this story.  Trying to search on the details these days brings back a more recent story about a kid who hung himself on a basketball hoop, but obviously that's not the same story, and not from the same time.  You have to wonder how these things get started, though.

"The government is hiding the AIDS cure! The internets told me so!"

Conspiracy theorists are both amusing and sad people. Michael Shermer writes a lot about the conspiracy theorist mentality in his book "Why People Believe Strange Things", which I'd suggest for a more comprehensive view on this topic.

I've noticed that when you keep pushing a conspiracy theorist to back up his or her claims about something, eventually you'll discover some underlying emotional cause that drives the whole belief in the first place.  For example, the "vaccines cause autism" goons are typically parents who, like most parents, are completely paranoid about the health of their children.  Holocaust "revisionists" are invariably anti-Semetic when you get right down to it.  Lunar Hoax Advocates (people who believe that the moon landing was faked in a film studio) typically have a compulsive hatred and distrust of the US government.  I've also noticed that if you don't take the same position as they do, then YOU'RE made out to sound like the irrational bad guy, as if there's no middle ground.  ("What are you saying, that I shouldn't be concerned about my kid's health?!?", "Oh, well do you think Jews deserve a free pass when it comes to [this and that]?", "Oh, do you just blindly believe whatever the government tells you?")

Recently I saw a massively shared pic on Facebook (where else?) stating, "Although 25 million people have died from AIDS, and even more are living with HIV/AIDS, the US government patented a cure in 1996.  US Patent 5,676,977".

Geez, where to begin?

• First, let's look at the implied message, and the reason why people share this pic on social networking sites. The message implied here is that a cure for AIDS has been known since at least 1996, that the US government knows about this and even found it themselves (they patented the idea, after all), but isn't letting people use it.  Why?  Well, I guess because the government is just evil and doesn't care.
• Like a lot of conspiracy theories, the underlying stories and motivations don't seem to be very consistent.  Some claim that the government secretly create the disease in the first place, while others claim that the disease itself is just a myth and a scare tactic used by the government.  Also, if the government is supposedly only out to control people and take their money, then why wouldn't they be employing this cure, and thus make billions of dollars on selling the treatment?  For that matter, it's doubtful that nobody else in the medical industry has seen this patent in the 18 years of its existence, so why hasn't anybody else been getting use of the patent to make millions?  I'm sure the conspiracy theorists can make up newer details of the conspiracy to rationalize these inconsistencies away.
• All a patent means is that somebody patened the idea.  There are lots of silly patents to things that range from the ridiculous to the physically impossible, like time machines and several unworkable hydraulic machines, not to mention quack tonics circa 1900. Should we claim that the government is "hiding" these things from us too?  Not to mention, doing a poor job at hiding them if any schmuck with an internet connection can find them within a few minutes?
• What do they mean by "the US government patented a cure"?  Do they mean they "patented" it as in "they came up with the idea and filed for the patent", or "they received the patent application from somebody, and passed it"?  If it's the latter, well, that's the job of the US Patent and Trademark Office anyway.  But it seems like they're trying to imply that "the government" (naturally, they don't mention which official or department specificially) came up with the idea.  The actual patent doesn't seem to imply this.  And what does US Patent 5,676,977 say in the first place?
• Here's a link to the actual patent. If you read it, you'll see that it's a patent on a specific type of treatment for AIDS patients, namely "with tetrasilver tetroxide molecular crystal devices".  The patent is owned by Marvis S. Antelman of Antelman Technologies Ltd.  I've tried searching around for this Antelman Technologies group, and all I seem to get are conspiracy theory articles about this same patent.  That makes me suspect that "Antelman Technologies Ltd." is a one-man show, but I digress; it's not "the government".  You can see a scan of the original paper if you click on "images", then use the gold arrow buttons on the left to navigate through the 4 pages.

So is it a cure?  Well, the paper seems to indicate that two groups of 5 people got single injections and were cured.  Aside from one who died, that is.  And 9 of them got liver inflamations. The paper says that there was a control group too, but the data for that doesn't seem to be listed.  Also, " The rationale for selecting them was based on facts presented in an article by Peter H. Duesberg and Brian J. Ellison entitled "Is The AIDS Virus A Science Fiction?" (Policy Review, Summer 1990 pp. 40-51)", which sounds a little supicious to say the least.  I'm no health expert, but at the very least it sounds like more trials than this one from 1996 would have to be done.  Then again, maybe people have already done just that and found out that there really wasn't a cure in this at all.  But it's so much easier to make up and believe in a fascinating government cover-up story.

 

This Is (not really) What A Feminist (stereotypically) Looks Like

 

"I hate a dirty joke, I do,
unless it's told by someone who...
knows how to tell it."
- Groucho Marx, Animal Crackers (1930)

It seems that this captioned photo has been making its rounds again on Facebook: a woman is holding a sign that says "this is what a feminist looks like", and somebody later captioned it "that's pretty much what I expected". I could have sworn that I've already written about this here, but I guess I didn't. Here's the link to an article that she wrote in response, and my own thoughts on all of this below that.

http://www.xojane.com/issues/my-picture-was-stolen-and-turned-into-a-fat-shaming-anti-feminist-meme



Now everybody who's seen this photo seems to have one of two reactions: 1) "LOL", or 2) "That's so mean/offensive to women/feminists/fat people!" Well, here's my third-side opinion: I wasn't offended, but I didn't find it funny either.

Do I think women are feminists are off-limits to ridicule?  Hell no.  I've seen some great feminist-bashing comedy before.  I sincerely believe that no group or topic is inherently off-limits to make jokes about.  That includes comedy that bashes my own ethnicity, gender, profession (Dilbert, anyone?), and so on.  The catch however is that it actually has to be a good joke: well-constructed, witty, well-executed, etc.  This wasn't one of them.

Yes, I understand why the joke is SUPPOSED to be funny: a woman who's trying to stand up and say "I'm a feminist", is seen as redundant because she already looks like a stereotypical feminist. That's what the joke here is supposed to be. I get that.

The problem however is that she simply does NOT look like a stereotypical feminist. The stereotype is that a feminist is butch, unisex-clothed, has no hips, and is angry. This woman has nail polish, a woman's sweater, women's eyeglasses, full-figured curves, and is smiling. So where does the "expected" part come in?

Really, where is the joke?  Is it merely because she's fat? Well, I know that many men have an aversion to both fat women and feminists, but to think that one trait implies the other is really stretching it. Now if it was k.d. lang holding the sign, OR if it was the same fat woman holding a sign that read "This is what a Krispy-Kremes customer looks like", THEN I think the joke would work.  Alas, it doesn't work as is.

So here's today's comedy lesson, folks: if you're going to do an offensive joke based on stereotypes, then have your target actually FIT the stereotype of the group you're using!

Vinyl Stuff (2014)

I'm currently wearing large headphones and listening to Alice Cooper's "Love It To Death" album (1971) on my turntable. I bought it in a little record store in New Hampshire some time around 1990, when my Alice fanaticism was taking off. The record was one of many items I had Alice autograph when I first met him in 1996.

No, I'm not a vinyl snob. In fact I still don't buy the claim that vinyl is some amazingly sonically superior medium. "But, but, it's how music was meant to sound!" No, it's how music HAD to be listened to, because we didn't have much of a choice. Vinyl is scratchier, distorted, and cumbersome. I have had both vinyl and CD copies of some of the same albums, listened to both through good systems, and concluded that my ears preferred the clarity of a CD. I trust my ears more than hipsters.

I got rid of most of my old vinyl, and if I buy any these days, it's because I can't find the recording on CD (some of my 1950s Martin Denny records come to mind), or it's something I stumbled upon in a store that looked really good and was cheap (some comedy albums come to mind). But even in those cases, the first thing I do is transfer it to my hard drive.

So why was I listening tonight? Well, I also just bought a 4-record box set from the Black Crowes, and started listening to that when I decided to put on something else. Listening to vinyl is certainly a different experience because of the rituals involved in the set up, and having to pay more attention to the process because you're going to have to get up and flip slides, let alone change records after an hour or less. I understand the appeal. But inherent superiority? No, I'm not buying it.

(Here's an older post on the same topic, with a link to a related article.)