We interrupt your evening for a very important message from the Clergy.
Sadly, not even the miraculously spiritual power of Papa Emeritus could post this very important message:
(Please follow the ink to enlightenment):
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Some Interesting News Tidbits....
Been a bit since I posted some Science articles..... I saved a couple good ones up for for you lot....
OH! Before that, a couple things; I don't go on Facebook to see people's posts, to see my posts, to see anything. My 'posts' on Facebook gracefully appear thanks to Twitter, the lesser of several evils.
So, if you reply or post to any of my 'posts', I won't see them. I'm not tryin' to be a dick or rude, I just fucking HATE Facebook and I rarely go on there with the exception to change settings, but I figured that some people might like to read my Blog, so that's why I'm posting through Twitter.
2ndly, at the bottom of this Blog, there's a section where YOU, yes YOU, the person reading this, can leave a message, post, throw out insults, whatever ya wish. Like I said, I don't go to Facebook anymore, so, if you want to post something for me to read, please, by all means do so in that section! It's easy! It's FREE and it's fun!
Today at Superstore I was in the 'Pop' isle and they were out of the plastic bottles of Pepsi that I buy, so I saw they had some 'tall boy' cans and hey! They were NHL special cans, with 'autographs' by certain players from certain teams.
I reached in back to get a Canucks can and this stupid Montreal Canadiens can rolls off the shelf onto the floor. I did hear the 'hissing' sound and looked down to see it had sprung a leak and pop was fizzing onto the floor. As I looked up to see who saw this happen a Pepsi rep was right there and I was like, 'Fuck, did you see that?' and as soon as I said that, the evil Montreal Canadiens can kinda rolled from the fizz coming out and this stream goes right up my fucking leg and sprays me in the face... Fuck Montreal Canadiens!
Now, onto zeee Science!
13,000-Year Old Human Footprints Found Off Canada's Pacific Coast
Photograph of track #17 beside digitally-enhanced image of same feature using the DStretch plugin for ImageJ. Note the toe impressions and arch indicating that this is a right footprint. Credit: Duncan McLaren
(phys.org) - - Human footprints found off Canada's Pacific coast may be 13,000 years old, according to a study published March 28, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Duncan McLaren and colleagues from the Hakai Institute and University of Victoria, Canada.
Previous research suggests that, during the last ice age (which ended around 11,700 years ago), humans moved into the Americas from Asia across what was then a land bridge to North America, eventually reaching what is now the west coast of British Columbia, Canada as well as coastal regions to the south. Along the pacific coast of Canada, much of this shoreline is today covered by dense forest and only accessible by boat, making it difficult to look for the archaeological evidence which might support this hypothesis. In this study, the research team excavated intertidal beach sediments on the shoreline of Calvert Island, British Columbia, where the sea level was two to three meters lower than it is today at the end of the last ice age.
The researchers uncovered 29 human footprints of at least three different sizes in these sediments, which radiocarbon dating estimated to be around 13,000 years old. Measurements and digital photographic analyses revealed that the footprints probably belonged to two adults and a child, all barefoot. The findings suggest that humans were present on the west coast of British Columbia about 13,000 years ago, as it emerged from the most recent ice age.
This finding adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the hypothesis that humans used a coastal route to move from Asia to North America during the last ice age. The authors suggest that further excavations with more advanced methods are likely to uncover more human footprints in the area and would help to piece together the patterns of early human settlement on the coast of North America.
"This article details the discovery of footprints on the west coast of Canada with associated radiocarbon dates of 13,000 years before present," says Duncan McLaren, lead author of the study. "This finding provides evidence of the seafaring people who inhabited this area during the tail end of the last major ice age."
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-03-year-human-footprints-canada-pacific.html#jCp
New Exoplanet Hunter To Search For Worlds Beyond Our Own
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a NASA Explorer mission launching within the next few months to study exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. TESS will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. (NASA GSFC)
(cbcnews.ca) - - The search for worlds circling stars far beyond our solar system will resume in the coming weeks with NASA's launch of a spacecraft scientists hope will enlarge the known catalog of so-called exoplanets believed capable of supporting life.
NASA plans to send the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set for blast-off between April 16 and June on a two-year, $337-million mission.
The latest NASA astrophysics endeavour is designed to build on the work of its predecessor, the Kepler space telescope, which discovered the bulk of some 3,500 exoplanets documented during the past 20 years, revolutionizing one of the newest fields in space science.
NASA expects TESS to detect thousands more previously unknown worlds, perhaps hundreds of them Earth-sized or "super-Earth"-sized — no larger than twice as big as our home planet.
Such worlds are believed to stand the greatest chance of having rocky surfaces or oceans, and are thus considered the most promising candidates for the evolution of life, as opposed to gas giants similar to Jupiter or Neptune.
Tess, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is seen here as technicians help prepare the spacecraft for launch. (NASA)
Astronomers hope to end up with anywhere from 10 to 30 more rocky exoplanets for further study.
The new probe will take about 60 days to attain its highly elliptical, first-of-a-kind orbit that will loop TESS between Earth and the moon every two and a half weeks.
Kepler's positioning system broke down in 2013, about four years after its launch, and it has nearly run out of fuel.
"So it's perfect timing that we'll be launching TESS to continue the great activity of looking for planets around stars other than our sun and thinking about what it might mean for life in the universe," Paul Hertz, NASA's director of astrophysics, told reporters at a news briefing in Washington on Wednesday.
Building on Kepler
TESS, roughly the size of a refrigerator with solar-panel wings, is equipped with four special cameras to survey 200,000 stars that are relatively near the sun and thus among the brightest in the sky, seeking out those with planets of their own.
Like Kepler, TESS will use a detection method called transit photometry, which looks for periodic, repetitive dips in the visible light from stars star caused by planets passing, or transiting, in front of them.
But unlike Kepler, which fixed its glare on stars within a tiny fraction of the sky, TESS will scan the majority of the heavens for shorter periods and focus much of its attention on stars called red dwarfs, which are smaller, cooler and longer-lived than our sun.
One reason is red dwarfs have a high propensity for Earth-sized, presumably rocky planets, making them potentially fertile ground for closer examination, said David Latham, TESS science director for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Also because red dwarfs are so small, and their planets orbit more closely than the Earth does to the sun, the dip in light from a planetary transit of a red dwarf is more pronounced compared with a larger star, Latham said.
"It's easier to find interesting planets around smaller stars," he said.
Measuring dips in starlight can determine the exoplanet's size and orbital path. Further observations from ground telescopes can supply its mass and ultimately the planet's density and composition — whether largely solid, liquid or gas.
Latham said fewer than 10 rocky, Earth- or super-Earth-sized planets have previously been confirmed, and NASA hopes to double or triple that number through the TESS mission.
The most favourable discoveries will undergo closer scrutiny by a new generation of larger, more powerful telescopes now under development that will search for telltale signs of water and "the kinds of gases in their atmospheres that on Earth are an indication of life," Hertz said.
"TESS itself will not be able to find life beyond Earth, but TESS will help us figure out where to point our larger telescopes," he said.
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/nasa-tess-exoplanets-1.4598616
Brain Waves Of Concertgoers Sync Up At Shows
THEY GOT THE BEAT People’s brain waves sync up when watching live music, and the coordinated activity is tied to having more fun.
OH! Before that, a couple things; I don't go on Facebook to see people's posts, to see my posts, to see anything. My 'posts' on Facebook gracefully appear thanks to Twitter, the lesser of several evils.
So, if you reply or post to any of my 'posts', I won't see them. I'm not tryin' to be a dick or rude, I just fucking HATE Facebook and I rarely go on there with the exception to change settings, but I figured that some people might like to read my Blog, so that's why I'm posting through Twitter.
2ndly, at the bottom of this Blog, there's a section where YOU, yes YOU, the person reading this, can leave a message, post, throw out insults, whatever ya wish. Like I said, I don't go to Facebook anymore, so, if you want to post something for me to read, please, by all means do so in that section! It's easy! It's FREE and it's fun!
Today at Superstore I was in the 'Pop' isle and they were out of the plastic bottles of Pepsi that I buy, so I saw they had some 'tall boy' cans and hey! They were NHL special cans, with 'autographs' by certain players from certain teams.
I reached in back to get a Canucks can and this stupid Montreal Canadiens can rolls off the shelf onto the floor. I did hear the 'hissing' sound and looked down to see it had sprung a leak and pop was fizzing onto the floor. As I looked up to see who saw this happen a Pepsi rep was right there and I was like, 'Fuck, did you see that?' and as soon as I said that, the evil Montreal Canadiens can kinda rolled from the fizz coming out and this stream goes right up my fucking leg and sprays me in the face... Fuck Montreal Canadiens!
Now, onto zeee Science!
13,000-Year Old Human Footprints Found Off Canada's Pacific Coast
(phys.org) - - Human footprints found off Canada's Pacific coast may be 13,000 years old, according to a study published March 28, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Duncan McLaren and colleagues from the Hakai Institute and University of Victoria, Canada.
Previous research suggests that, during the last ice age (which ended around 11,700 years ago), humans moved into the Americas from Asia across what was then a land bridge to North America, eventually reaching what is now the west coast of British Columbia, Canada as well as coastal regions to the south. Along the pacific coast of Canada, much of this shoreline is today covered by dense forest and only accessible by boat, making it difficult to look for the archaeological evidence which might support this hypothesis. In this study, the research team excavated intertidal beach sediments on the shoreline of Calvert Island, British Columbia, where the sea level was two to three meters lower than it is today at the end of the last ice age.
The researchers uncovered 29 human footprints of at least three different sizes in these sediments, which radiocarbon dating estimated to be around 13,000 years old. Measurements and digital photographic analyses revealed that the footprints probably belonged to two adults and a child, all barefoot. The findings suggest that humans were present on the west coast of British Columbia about 13,000 years ago, as it emerged from the most recent ice age.
This finding adds to the growing body of evidence supporting the hypothesis that humans used a coastal route to move from Asia to North America during the last ice age. The authors suggest that further excavations with more advanced methods are likely to uncover more human footprints in the area and would help to piece together the patterns of early human settlement on the coast of North America.
"This article details the discovery of footprints on the west coast of Canada with associated radiocarbon dates of 13,000 years before present," says Duncan McLaren, lead author of the study. "This finding provides evidence of the seafaring people who inhabited this area during the tail end of the last major ice age."
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-03-year-human-footprints-canada-pacific.html#jCp
New Exoplanet Hunter To Search For Worlds Beyond Our Own
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is a NASA Explorer mission launching within the next few months to study exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars outside our solar system. TESS will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. (NASA GSFC)
(cbcnews.ca) - - The search for worlds circling stars far beyond our solar system will resume in the coming weeks with NASA's launch of a spacecraft scientists hope will enlarge the known catalog of so-called exoplanets believed capable of supporting life.
NASA plans to send the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set for blast-off between April 16 and June on a two-year, $337-million mission.
The latest NASA astrophysics endeavour is designed to build on the work of its predecessor, the Kepler space telescope, which discovered the bulk of some 3,500 exoplanets documented during the past 20 years, revolutionizing one of the newest fields in space science.
NASA expects TESS to detect thousands more previously unknown worlds, perhaps hundreds of them Earth-sized or "super-Earth"-sized — no larger than twice as big as our home planet.
Such worlds are believed to stand the greatest chance of having rocky surfaces or oceans, and are thus considered the most promising candidates for the evolution of life, as opposed to gas giants similar to Jupiter or Neptune.
Astronomers hope to end up with anywhere from 10 to 30 more rocky exoplanets for further study.
The new probe will take about 60 days to attain its highly elliptical, first-of-a-kind orbit that will loop TESS between Earth and the moon every two and a half weeks.
Kepler's positioning system broke down in 2013, about four years after its launch, and it has nearly run out of fuel.
"So it's perfect timing that we'll be launching TESS to continue the great activity of looking for planets around stars other than our sun and thinking about what it might mean for life in the universe," Paul Hertz, NASA's director of astrophysics, told reporters at a news briefing in Washington on Wednesday.
Building on Kepler
TESS, roughly the size of a refrigerator with solar-panel wings, is equipped with four special cameras to survey 200,000 stars that are relatively near the sun and thus among the brightest in the sky, seeking out those with planets of their own.
Like Kepler, TESS will use a detection method called transit photometry, which looks for periodic, repetitive dips in the visible light from stars star caused by planets passing, or transiting, in front of them.
But unlike Kepler, which fixed its glare on stars within a tiny fraction of the sky, TESS will scan the majority of the heavens for shorter periods and focus much of its attention on stars called red dwarfs, which are smaller, cooler and longer-lived than our sun.
One reason is red dwarfs have a high propensity for Earth-sized, presumably rocky planets, making them potentially fertile ground for closer examination, said David Latham, TESS science director for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
Also because red dwarfs are so small, and their planets orbit more closely than the Earth does to the sun, the dip in light from a planetary transit of a red dwarf is more pronounced compared with a larger star, Latham said.
"It's easier to find interesting planets around smaller stars," he said.
Measuring dips in starlight can determine the exoplanet's size and orbital path. Further observations from ground telescopes can supply its mass and ultimately the planet's density and composition — whether largely solid, liquid or gas.
Latham said fewer than 10 rocky, Earth- or super-Earth-sized planets have previously been confirmed, and NASA hopes to double or triple that number through the TESS mission.
The most favourable discoveries will undergo closer scrutiny by a new generation of larger, more powerful telescopes now under development that will search for telltale signs of water and "the kinds of gases in their atmospheres that on Earth are an indication of life," Hertz said.
"TESS itself will not be able to find life beyond Earth, but TESS will help us figure out where to point our larger telescopes," he said.
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/nasa-tess-exoplanets-1.4598616
Brain Waves Of Concertgoers Sync Up At Shows
(sciencenews.org) - - BOSTON — Getting your groove on solo with headphones on might be your jam, but it can’t compare with a live concert. Just ask your brain. When people watch live music together, their brains waves synchronize, and this brain bonding is linked with having a better time.
The new findings, reported March 27 at a Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting, are a reminder that humans are social creatures. In western cultures, performing music is generally reserved for the tunefully talented, but this hasn’t been true through much of human history. “Music is typically linked with ritual and in most cultures is associated with dance,” said neuroscientist Jessica Grahn of Western University in London, Canada. “It’s a way to have social participation.”
Study participants were split into groups of 20 and experienced music in one of three ways. Some watched a live concert with a large audience, some watched a recording of the concert with a large audience, and some watched the recording with only a few other people. Each person wore EEG caps, headwear covered with electrodes that measure the collective behavior of the brain’s nerve cells. The musicians played an original song they wrote for the study.
The delta brain waves of audience members who watched the music live were more synchronized than those of people in the other two groups. Delta brain waves fall in a frequency range that roughly corresponds to the beat of the music, suggesting that beat drives the synchronicity, neuroscientist Molly Henry, a member of Grahn’s lab, reported. The more synchronized a particular audience member was with others, the more he or she reported feeling connected to the performers and enjoying the show.
Study Suggests Earth's Water Was Present Before Impact That Caused Creation Of The Moon
This image shows the far side of the Moon, illuminated by the Sun. Credit: NASA
(Phys.org) - - A team of researchers from the U.K., France and the U.S. has found evidence that suggests that most of the water on Earth was present before the impact that created the moon. In their paper published on the open access site Science Advances, the group describes their study and comparison of moon and Earth rocks, and what they found.
The prevailing theory regarding how the moon's origin is that a Mars-sized protoplanet slammed into protoplanetary Earth, and the ejected material coalesced to form the moon. The prevailing theory regarding how water came to exist on Earth is that most of it was delivered by asteroids and comets. In this new effort, the researchers present evidence that bolsters the first theory but conflicts strongly with the second.
The team studied both moon rocks brought back to Earth by the Apollo astronauts and volcanic rocks retrieved by others from the ocean floor. The researchers looked specifically at oxygen isotopes. Studying isotopes in rocks offers scientists a means for comparing material from different origins such as asteroids, planets or even comets—each tends to have its own unique composition signature.
The researchers report that oxygen isotopes from the moon and Earth are remarkably similar—they found just a three to four ppm difference between them. This finding bolsters the theory that the moon was formed from material from the Earth due to a collision. But it runs counter to the idea that water came from comets or asteroids, because if it had come from such sources, the isotopes would have differed from those found in rocks on the moon. Thus, most of the water that was present in the protoplanetary Earth likely survived the impact, suggesting it did not come from elsewhere.
The idea that water could survive such an impact has implications for the search for life beyond our solar system—exoplanets that are thought to have suffered collisions are typically removed from lists describing possible life-sustaining celestial bodies. Now, they may have to be included.
Abstract
The Earth-Moon system likely formed as a result of a collision between two large planetary objects. Debate about their relative masses, the impact energy involved, and the extent of isotopic homogenization continues. We present the results of a high-precision oxygen isotope study of an extensive suite of lunar and terrestrial samples. We demonstrate that lunar rocks and terrestrial basalts show a 3 to 4 ppm (parts per million), statistically resolvable, difference in Δ17O. Taking aubrite meteorites as a candidate impactor material, we show that the giant impact scenario involved nearly complete mixing between the target and impactor. Alternatively, the degree of similarity between the Δ17O values of the impactor and the proto-Earth must have been significantly closer than that between Earth and aubrites. If the Earth-Moon system evolved from an initially highly vaporized and isotopically homogenized state, as indicated by recent dynamical models, then the terrestrial basalt-lunar oxygen isotope difference detected by our study may be a reflection of post–giant impact additions to Earth. On the basis of this assumption, our data indicate that post–giant impact additions to Earth could have contributed between 5 and 30% of Earth's water, depending on global water estimates. Consequently, our data indicate that the bulk of Earth's water was accreted before the giant impact and not later, as often proposed.
Et C'est tout! Bon Nuit! Fuckerz
Friday, March 30, 2018
Happy Jebiz Crispy Day...
Funny how I fell out of religion. Heck, I even tried to 'find god' when my arthritis was totally destroying my life... Anything from him? Nope. no help. Guess I wasn't in a church tossing money at some preacher like he's a stripper.
We grew up in an Anglican family home. Our Great grand father on my Mom's side was Archdeacon of the Saint John diocese (He was also a prolific writer, writing some 25 books and compiling a 34 year journal).
We grew up going to the Christ Church Cathedral in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I was in the choir for a while.
It was a great church, is a great church, with it's Gothic style architecture. Holidays were always filled with the pomp and circumstance of something found right in muther Engerland! And up until some year, the Anglicans, sung their 'mass'. I really dug that, then at one point they killed off the singing bit and only just threw some hymns in here and there throughout the service.
We went to Sunday school and like most Sunday schools it was boring as hell....
Most people here in Fredericton know that the Christ Church Cathedral is allegedly haunted, so finding that out as a kid is kinda shocking, especially when Mom drops you off for choir practice early and you go in that place and no one is there. I never stood inside for too long. Nowadays I'd sleep there for a chance to see the "ghost".
So we were a good 'ol faithful, church every Sunday Anglican family.
In 1983, I went to live with my Aunt and Uncle in Calgary for a year. Taking me out of French Immersion for Grade 3 and plunking me in English Grade 4 in Calgary (The class they had blocked off as "French" class in Calgary was actually a 'free period' as they had no teachers that knew any French, this is what I was told when I asked about it in Grade 4, the teacher actually let me 'teach' the kids some French because I likely knew more than anybody in a 20 mile radius).
So, a year later, when I moved back home, and it came to going back to school, since I had missed a year of French, I'd have to 'repeat' or take grade 4 in French instead of moving on to Grade 5.
I and my Brother's went to St. Dunstan's on Regent Street., now a bunch of condo/luxury apartments. It was a weird school. It had French immersion and it had an English taught side, the teachers for the English side were all nuns at one point, but by the time I got to Grade 5 they were all gone. But the really odd part, especially to me even at that age, was that the English side, took catholic catechism... Which having been formerly in the French Immersion program on the other side of the school, I knew they didn't take no catechism on that side AND even scarier, they actually brought in a priest every couple of weeks or once a month to do ... Confession!!! No way! haha, I wasn't confessing nutin' to no one let alone a strange priest! .. And I felt very uncomfortable being told I had to partake in 'another religions' rituals and beliefs and I told my parents about it.
I thought, and this seemed more logical to me for some reason, that the French immersion side would have been the more 'religious' one, and the English side, not. But my parents thankfully intervened and for the 'catechism' class, I didn't have to participate, and for 'confession' which took place in the St. Dunstan's gym, which at least you weren't alone anywhere with some catholic priest.... I could just talk to the priest about any problems or concerns I might have, which I never did, I'd just say 'Hi' and that'd be about it...
But being exposed to catholicism started to put questions in to my head about 'christianity' and from then on over the years I questioned it all. Why were protestants and catholics different? Why did they believe in different interpretations of the same book? How could that be 'ok with 'god'. This in turn opened this question to all religions and from the moment I started to read about the solar system, galaxy and the universe and all it's implications and felt that a 'creator' had no purpose to it all and IF, if there was a 'creator' that created not just the 'earth' but everything, why would it have any vested interest in what the creations of this one tiny teeny planet out of billions were up to, let alone their souls.... Further, why would it feel the need or have us bent to the notion of placating, praying, sacrificing and worshiping it, repenting to it with the horrible promise of ignoring or not believing in it would condemn us to an eternal hell.... I mean, c'mon.
There's a loose theory that the universe is a computer program. When you play in a game or create one, build a virtual world, do you program in the need for the characters to worship you and take time out of their pre-programmed lives or adventures to go to a building and sing and chant to you?
And that's my feelings about it. I have no problem if you reading this do feel this need to have religion in your life. I don't look down on or think these people are stupid. Except for a couple of so called religions,, some of them ain't right....
But like, flat earthers or UFO/Alien believers, it's perfectly fine to have these beliefs, just understand that not everyone subscribes to them and in the end really you can no more prove to be that 'god' exists as I can prove he doesn't.
So it seemed after I came back from Calgary that year that slowly, yet surely we started to attend church less and less until at one point we only went at christmas and easter.
And I did at one point look to god when I got really bad with my arthritis and that went two ways... What did I do to deserve that? I mean, I've not been an angel, but I've never done anything that I would have thought the big cheese upstairs would curse me with a debilitating disease. So I prayed, Every night for a year or more I asked for strength to get through this and for my disease to get better not worse and it got worse and worse. What trial did I get that I had to endure this, as what a 'test' of faith? That's a damn pretty sick 'test'....
No help came from the 'man upstairs', so as I had gathered since I was a young kid, there was no one up there, no one that wanted to help me, that's for certain... So then I turned to Satan and everything was great!
Ha! Just kiddin'... no god above, no devil below.
I do tend to gravitate towards the darker arts, but no beliefs. I think 'satanism' in whatever strain it comes from is rather silly. But I do love 'dark artwork' but I also love the artwork from many religions. I feel that when an artist is driven by their beliefs or faith, be it dark or light, they can create some absolutely wondrous and incredible works of art. Many churches, mosques and temples around the World are testimony to this. I appreciate the religious upbringing I had because I think it added to my open mind about the World and cultures and people's beliefs.
And that my friends is my sermon for 'good Friday'. It was a great Friday. I went down to Saint John with Crystal's sister and her husband and we had a great meal, got to tell the family our vacation adventures and Gord took us through a slide show of his pix and vids.
Have a good one!
We grew up in an Anglican family home. Our Great grand father on my Mom's side was Archdeacon of the Saint John diocese (He was also a prolific writer, writing some 25 books and compiling a 34 year journal).
We grew up going to the Christ Church Cathedral in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I was in the choir for a while.
It was a great church, is a great church, with it's Gothic style architecture. Holidays were always filled with the pomp and circumstance of something found right in muther Engerland! And up until some year, the Anglicans, sung their 'mass'. I really dug that, then at one point they killed off the singing bit and only just threw some hymns in here and there throughout the service.
We went to Sunday school and like most Sunday schools it was boring as hell....
Most people here in Fredericton know that the Christ Church Cathedral is allegedly haunted, so finding that out as a kid is kinda shocking, especially when Mom drops you off for choir practice early and you go in that place and no one is there. I never stood inside for too long. Nowadays I'd sleep there for a chance to see the "ghost".
So we were a good 'ol faithful, church every Sunday Anglican family.
In 1983, I went to live with my Aunt and Uncle in Calgary for a year. Taking me out of French Immersion for Grade 3 and plunking me in English Grade 4 in Calgary (The class they had blocked off as "French" class in Calgary was actually a 'free period' as they had no teachers that knew any French, this is what I was told when I asked about it in Grade 4, the teacher actually let me 'teach' the kids some French because I likely knew more than anybody in a 20 mile radius).
So, a year later, when I moved back home, and it came to going back to school, since I had missed a year of French, I'd have to 'repeat' or take grade 4 in French instead of moving on to Grade 5.
I and my Brother's went to St. Dunstan's on Regent Street., now a bunch of condo/luxury apartments. It was a weird school. It had French immersion and it had an English taught side, the teachers for the English side were all nuns at one point, but by the time I got to Grade 5 they were all gone. But the really odd part, especially to me even at that age, was that the English side, took catholic catechism... Which having been formerly in the French Immersion program on the other side of the school, I knew they didn't take no catechism on that side AND even scarier, they actually brought in a priest every couple of weeks or once a month to do ... Confession!!! No way! haha, I wasn't confessing nutin' to no one let alone a strange priest! .. And I felt very uncomfortable being told I had to partake in 'another religions' rituals and beliefs and I told my parents about it.
I thought, and this seemed more logical to me for some reason, that the French immersion side would have been the more 'religious' one, and the English side, not. But my parents thankfully intervened and for the 'catechism' class, I didn't have to participate, and for 'confession' which took place in the St. Dunstan's gym, which at least you weren't alone anywhere with some catholic priest.... I could just talk to the priest about any problems or concerns I might have, which I never did, I'd just say 'Hi' and that'd be about it...
But being exposed to catholicism started to put questions in to my head about 'christianity' and from then on over the years I questioned it all. Why were protestants and catholics different? Why did they believe in different interpretations of the same book? How could that be 'ok with 'god'. This in turn opened this question to all religions and from the moment I started to read about the solar system, galaxy and the universe and all it's implications and felt that a 'creator' had no purpose to it all and IF, if there was a 'creator' that created not just the 'earth' but everything, why would it have any vested interest in what the creations of this one tiny teeny planet out of billions were up to, let alone their souls.... Further, why would it feel the need or have us bent to the notion of placating, praying, sacrificing and worshiping it, repenting to it with the horrible promise of ignoring or not believing in it would condemn us to an eternal hell.... I mean, c'mon.
There's a loose theory that the universe is a computer program. When you play in a game or create one, build a virtual world, do you program in the need for the characters to worship you and take time out of their pre-programmed lives or adventures to go to a building and sing and chant to you?
And that's my feelings about it. I have no problem if you reading this do feel this need to have religion in your life. I don't look down on or think these people are stupid. Except for a couple of so called religions,, some of them ain't right....
But like, flat earthers or UFO/Alien believers, it's perfectly fine to have these beliefs, just understand that not everyone subscribes to them and in the end really you can no more prove to be that 'god' exists as I can prove he doesn't.
So it seemed after I came back from Calgary that year that slowly, yet surely we started to attend church less and less until at one point we only went at christmas and easter.
And I did at one point look to god when I got really bad with my arthritis and that went two ways... What did I do to deserve that? I mean, I've not been an angel, but I've never done anything that I would have thought the big cheese upstairs would curse me with a debilitating disease. So I prayed, Every night for a year or more I asked for strength to get through this and for my disease to get better not worse and it got worse and worse. What trial did I get that I had to endure this, as what a 'test' of faith? That's a damn pretty sick 'test'....
No help came from the 'man upstairs', so as I had gathered since I was a young kid, there was no one up there, no one that wanted to help me, that's for certain... So then I turned to Satan and everything was great!
Ha! Just kiddin'... no god above, no devil below.
I do tend to gravitate towards the darker arts, but no beliefs. I think 'satanism' in whatever strain it comes from is rather silly. But I do love 'dark artwork' but I also love the artwork from many religions. I feel that when an artist is driven by their beliefs or faith, be it dark or light, they can create some absolutely wondrous and incredible works of art. Many churches, mosques and temples around the World are testimony to this. I appreciate the religious upbringing I had because I think it added to my open mind about the World and cultures and people's beliefs.
And that my friends is my sermon for 'good Friday'. It was a great Friday. I went down to Saint John with Crystal's sister and her husband and we had a great meal, got to tell the family our vacation adventures and Gord took us through a slide show of his pix and vids.
Have a good one!
Thursday, March 29, 2018
People Frequently Ask Me....
"Chris? Why are you such an idiot?".....
Ok, they do ask that.... infrequently... Ok, no one's ever asked me that... But they probably are thinking it right?
No, but really, people frequently ask me, "How do you cope?" - Meaning, with my arthritis pain, how have I survived.
Someone asked me this today. A lot of my friends are reaching that fine age where bodies begin to fall apart, sometimes, even if you're trying your hardest for it not to happen, it's happening. Old injuries come back to haunt most people. Sprains, breaks, fractures rear their ugly heads as osteoarthritis and they know as I know, it's not fun. My friend today was like, "I can't figure it out, I used to be able to run up stairs, now I can't, I have aches and pains, my knees going out, but I can't figure it out". I said, "Man, it's really simple... We're getting old".... But for me, my pains begin much much earlier in life....
When I was 26 years of age and had been working for Electronic Arts for only a year or so, during the companies big move, from their old HQ to their massive state of the art "campus" in Burnaby (about a block away from the house I rented), my feet started to hurt.
Let's take a journey into the past for a spell.... When I was first hired by EAC I was in the Quality Assurance department or QA. A game tester. Not long after getting hired, I wanted to do something more for EA, it was a relatively 'young' company (on the verge of becoming a corporate monster) and there was room to move and at 26, I didn't feel being a game tester, as fun as it was (and trust me, it's a LOT more than just 'playing video games' all day), it wasn't something that I wanted to make a career out of.
So I searched around and found that Electronic Arts had a motion capture studio. I didn't even know what 'Motion Capture' was, but after some research, I thought, 'Wow, this is damn cool new technology, there doesn't seem to be any schooling for this, so I'm gonna go for it and try to get in'.
* For the record, according to Wikipedia: Motion capture (Mo-cap for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision[2] and robotics. In filmmaking and video game development, it refers to recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 2D or 3D computer animation
At that time, in 1998, the founder and World Wide studios president was Don Mattrick. A guy who started making video games for his friends and was soon bought up by a company from Redwood City, California called Electronic Arts. Also at this time, Don's mom was the head of the Human Resources dept at EAC. I should note and probably not of great interest to many on the East Coast here, but Don and the Mattricks were born and raised in Burnaby, British Columbia, where I made my home for near 20yrs.
Mrs. Mattrick would sometimes come around to QA and see if there were any people 'worthy', smart enough, talented enough to be useful somewhere else in the company and no, I didn't think I was ANY of those things, but I just wanted to learn something. Having no 'formal' education, in anything, all I ever could do for a place I wanted to work, was take a chance, go in and be honest and tell them, 'I really have no experience, but I want to learn and I like to learn'
I had told my friends in QA that I was going to meet with Mrs. Mattrick and see about getting into QA, to which some friends who'd been there a while were like, "Pfft good luck dude, she just comes down here to humor us, we're and you're going nowhere else in this company".... I wasn't dissuaded by this at all and met with Mrs. Mattrick.
Now, some might call this cheating. I've got a grade 9 education, I had worked in the music industry, I had most fortunately, through Mike Fields, who is the MOST talented fucker I know, got in working at the make up FX shop that did work on The X-Files and Millennium.. Really? I had no business being there, that kinda 'art' isn't MY world, but I'm a quick learner and Lindala Make Up Effects owner and artist Toby Lindala was kind and gracious enough to give me the opportunity to work there. So, when I left his shop, I had "The X-Files" on my resume. This was THE biggest television show on the planet at one point and truth be told, when I applied to Electronic Arts Quality Assurance, I didn't even own a console, I didn't play video games, I barely had been in an arcade in like 10/15 years, but when I showed them my 'X-Files' portfolio, BAM, I was in. Fair? I dunno, we did work fucking hard, almost 7 days a week, 365 days a year for years. I had worked my ass off, we all did.
So, when I met with Mrs. Mattrick, I threw down the 'ol 'X-Files' portfolio and she hit the roof, she phoned the motion capture department head, Evan Hirsch and said, "Evan, YOU HAVE to meet this guy!"... So within a couple of days, I had a meeting set up with Evan Hirsch, the director of the Electronic Arts World Wide Studios motion capture dept.
When my friends in QA found this out, they were like, "Ohhhh dude! Evan?? Evan Hirsch?? He is going to cut you up, chew on you and spit you out on the floor".... And again, I wasn't put off by this.
Evan is a great guy, he's a Jewish dude who grew up in Jersey and when speaking to Evan, you are in an argument. That's his nature. At least I was warned beforehand.
I wasn't all that intimidated by Evan when we met, I had been yelled at by the Rolling Stones manager and threatened to be thrown off the roof of the Vancouver hotel. I had been yelled at on set in the film industry (It's a job people have in the industry, just to yell at people), I had been yelled at by my Mom for years... I wasn't scared of being "yelled at".
So I really hit it off with Evan and though I had NO experience whatsoever, Evan saw me as someone he could mold into what he wanted and I was totally down for it.
So, in 1998, at Christmas time, EA moved to it's new HQ. Now, being single, not having much family in Vancouver, I chose to be on the 'move crew' that through the Christmas holidays would tear down all the PCs and MACs in the old EA buildings, which were then moved to the new HQ and we on the 'move crew' set up all the computers. We got massive OT for this and got holiday times after a few months
This 'move crew' work demanded a LOT of walking and time on your feet and my feet started to hurt. After the new year I was hired onto the Motion Capture crew (I'll tell that whole story some other time)...
And that my friends is how it all started. Within 6 months, my feet had swollen up so huge I couldn't wear my shoes and I ended up in a wheelchair.
I have not had a moment where I've not been in pain since that time. I lost almost everything I was able to do, skateboarding, cycling, skiing and for a while walking. I ended up losing my career at EA. I lost a lot. But I also gained much. So much knowledge, so much faith in myself. There is NOTHING in life that makes you feel more alive than pain. Trust me, you really wake up when you're in pain.
The arthritis that began in my feet, spread to my knees, hips, back, elbows, fingers and, most shocking to me, to my jaw. These days, it might not look like I'm that bad off, but years ago, when my rheumatologist told me, "Chris, even if they cured your arthritis tomorrow, you'll be in pain for the rest of your life because of the damage that's been done."
I've had night splints, hand splints, finger splints, wheelchair, electric wheelchair, elbow crutches, crutches and canes... It's never ended and always seemed to get worse. Though in the last few years, from around 2012 to about mid way through 2015, I was doing pretty good. I think the move back home and the change from where I had been for many years helped a lot, but in the last two years, I've been progressively getting 'worse', which is kinda relative, considering how far I've come since I was 26 and stuck in a wheelchair.
But through it all, I was lucky to have such amazing support. Serendipity or fate or whatever, the place I had moved to in Burnaby when I worked in the film industry, was a block away from my General Practitioner, my pharmacist and the Burnaby General Hospital and THAT was my savior. The physiotherapy dept. at Burnaby gen, saved my life. I went to physio sometimes 3-4 days a week for treatment and it last for years, even when the Liberal government axed the outpatient physio program, the HEAD of the physio dept for the hospital treated me herself on her own time. I owe them everything and it always brings me to tears when I think about all the work and time they gave for me. And all those years paid off for me too, I was some help to them. Having been there so many years I had gained and retained so much knowledge and when 'newbies' arrived I was always willing to listen and help in any way I could. Sometimes, when you're in pain, all you need is someone to talk to, someone who understands EXACTLY what you're going through.
I spent many years alone in my own world of pain, I thought about dying, but of course I never could do that. I had my husky Alita and I had my kitty Piggey Sue, plus I had a family still, my Brother's, my Dad and my Mom. I had the best friends anyone could ever ask for. I had a roof over my head, I had food in my belly.
Sure I was and am in pain every waking second of the day and it's been this way for 18 years. 18 years of pain. I joked to my rheumatologist once that I wasn't sure I'd know what it would feel like to not feel pain. It hurts to walk, it hurts to sit, it hurts to bend over, it hurts to exist. BUT, I persist and i do exist. I live on. My life isn't over because of this.
Years ago, I was watching a documentary on the US' Navy Seals, some of the toughest hombres in the military world wide. One of the Seals was talking about pain and how they cope. That taught me something and it was to accept the pain and move past it. It'll be there, it'll always remind you, but you just push past it, because once you do, you can live again. That's why sometimes I refuse offers for drives or for help getting things. It's not gonna matter if I'm laying in bed or sitting in a chair or walking up the hill, the pain is still gonna be there, sometimes worse
Since my arthritis, I've continued to live, though I had many dark years... Crawling up the stairs, crawling to the bathroom, the shower's water hurting my feet as it hit them (That bit of knowledge brought my physio to tears when I told her).
The great years; I've been to Southern California on a trip by myself to see Iron Maiden 3 nights in a row. I've been to Egypt in 2010, just at the tip of the revolution that they went through. I've been on excursions to the US to Cuba.
I've had great adventures since my disability became part of me and that's another way I cope. I've accepted this, there's no medications I've tried that have really helped me and there is, as of now, no cure for psoriatic arthritis.
Plus, there's millions of people much worse off than I am.
How do I cope? How do I exist? I just do and I will keep on doing it until my last breath. My Father's told me before that I should be a speaker for those in pain and talk about my trials and tribulations, but I said it'd be a pretty short talk, because I just exist and keep on... I'm thankful for this life I've had, I've had so many amazing opportunities and experiences, I've been in love and had great relationships, I've traveled all across the continent of North America, from the Northern tip of New Mexico to the tiny village of 'Chicken', Alaska (yes, it's an actual place, lookit up!) From New York to San Francisco, from Nova Scotia to Victoria BC and all places within. I have very few regrets in my life, if anything, I wish I had tried harder in my music career in my youth. I sometimes feel fortunate I never married or had kids. Imagine the pain and suffering I would have brought upon my family, my wife and kids, losing my livelihood.... God knows what kind of nightmare that would have been.
The band's I've played in, the music I've helped create, the friends and fans, the film industry, Electronic Arts. I've been so very very fortunate, maybe this 'disease' came to slow me down lol... Who knows, but just remember if you live with new pain, it's not the end, it's just the beginning and you could always, always be in a worse place. Don't whine about it, anywhere, it gets very tiring for family and friends to hear about it all the time, they know, they love you, it's ok to say it once in a while, like right now, my fucking back is killing me. You just have to suck it up and live, because you are alive on this tiny blue planet that is a miracle on it's own, it floats in this solar system that's in our galaxy and is part of the universe and even considering all that, know, YOU are NOT ALONE.
MUSIC: Music has kept me going through everything. It's been my family when I felt I didn't have one. It has ALWAYS been there for me. Always. Whenever the darkest times hit, music uplifted me. It took me by the hand and lead me out of despair and grief. Nothing has ever helped like music and since I was a child, it's always been there. Without my love for music, I just may have very well packed it in long ago. I can't figure out how people don't like music or it isn't a major part of their lives.
If I can be any kind of help to those in pain, if I can be some kind of light that someone can look at and learn from I'm more than happy to do so. I eat pain for breakfast, lunch and dinner...
Oh yeah, I am still an idiot.....
Ok, they do ask that.... infrequently... Ok, no one's ever asked me that... But they probably are thinking it right?
No, but really, people frequently ask me, "How do you cope?" - Meaning, with my arthritis pain, how have I survived.
Someone asked me this today. A lot of my friends are reaching that fine age where bodies begin to fall apart, sometimes, even if you're trying your hardest for it not to happen, it's happening. Old injuries come back to haunt most people. Sprains, breaks, fractures rear their ugly heads as osteoarthritis and they know as I know, it's not fun. My friend today was like, "I can't figure it out, I used to be able to run up stairs, now I can't, I have aches and pains, my knees going out, but I can't figure it out". I said, "Man, it's really simple... We're getting old".... But for me, my pains begin much much earlier in life....
When I was 26 years of age and had been working for Electronic Arts for only a year or so, during the companies big move, from their old HQ to their massive state of the art "campus" in Burnaby (about a block away from the house I rented), my feet started to hurt.
Let's take a journey into the past for a spell.... When I was first hired by EAC I was in the Quality Assurance department or QA. A game tester. Not long after getting hired, I wanted to do something more for EA, it was a relatively 'young' company (on the verge of becoming a corporate monster) and there was room to move and at 26, I didn't feel being a game tester, as fun as it was (and trust me, it's a LOT more than just 'playing video games' all day), it wasn't something that I wanted to make a career out of.
So I searched around and found that Electronic Arts had a motion capture studio. I didn't even know what 'Motion Capture' was, but after some research, I thought, 'Wow, this is damn cool new technology, there doesn't seem to be any schooling for this, so I'm gonna go for it and try to get in'.
* For the record, according to Wikipedia: Motion capture (Mo-cap for short) is the process of recording the movement of objects or people. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, medical applications, and for validation of computer vision[2] and robotics. In filmmaking and video game development, it refers to recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 2D or 3D computer animation
At that time, in 1998, the founder and World Wide studios president was Don Mattrick. A guy who started making video games for his friends and was soon bought up by a company from Redwood City, California called Electronic Arts. Also at this time, Don's mom was the head of the Human Resources dept at EAC. I should note and probably not of great interest to many on the East Coast here, but Don and the Mattricks were born and raised in Burnaby, British Columbia, where I made my home for near 20yrs.
Mrs. Mattrick would sometimes come around to QA and see if there were any people 'worthy', smart enough, talented enough to be useful somewhere else in the company and no, I didn't think I was ANY of those things, but I just wanted to learn something. Having no 'formal' education, in anything, all I ever could do for a place I wanted to work, was take a chance, go in and be honest and tell them, 'I really have no experience, but I want to learn and I like to learn'
I had told my friends in QA that I was going to meet with Mrs. Mattrick and see about getting into QA, to which some friends who'd been there a while were like, "Pfft good luck dude, she just comes down here to humor us, we're and you're going nowhere else in this company".... I wasn't dissuaded by this at all and met with Mrs. Mattrick.
Now, some might call this cheating. I've got a grade 9 education, I had worked in the music industry, I had most fortunately, through Mike Fields, who is the MOST talented fucker I know, got in working at the make up FX shop that did work on The X-Files and Millennium.. Really? I had no business being there, that kinda 'art' isn't MY world, but I'm a quick learner and Lindala Make Up Effects owner and artist Toby Lindala was kind and gracious enough to give me the opportunity to work there. So, when I left his shop, I had "The X-Files" on my resume. This was THE biggest television show on the planet at one point and truth be told, when I applied to Electronic Arts Quality Assurance, I didn't even own a console, I didn't play video games, I barely had been in an arcade in like 10/15 years, but when I showed them my 'X-Files' portfolio, BAM, I was in. Fair? I dunno, we did work fucking hard, almost 7 days a week, 365 days a year for years. I had worked my ass off, we all did.
Part of The Lindala Make Up Effects crew: (LtoR) Ian Biggs, me, Row McGregor, Leanne Podavin, Special Dave Coughtry, Rachael Grifith, Mike Fields and of course that big guy, David Hasslehoff, who was in the shop for a facecast for the Fox TV production of 'Nick Fury'
So, when I met with Mrs. Mattrick, I threw down the 'ol 'X-Files' portfolio and she hit the roof, she phoned the motion capture department head, Evan Hirsch and said, "Evan, YOU HAVE to meet this guy!"... So within a couple of days, I had a meeting set up with Evan Hirsch, the director of the Electronic Arts World Wide Studios motion capture dept.
When my friends in QA found this out, they were like, "Ohhhh dude! Evan?? Evan Hirsch?? He is going to cut you up, chew on you and spit you out on the floor".... And again, I wasn't put off by this.
Evan is a great guy, he's a Jewish dude who grew up in Jersey and when speaking to Evan, you are in an argument. That's his nature. At least I was warned beforehand.
I wasn't all that intimidated by Evan when we met, I had been yelled at by the Rolling Stones manager and threatened to be thrown off the roof of the Vancouver hotel. I had been yelled at on set in the film industry (It's a job people have in the industry, just to yell at people), I had been yelled at by my Mom for years... I wasn't scared of being "yelled at".
So I really hit it off with Evan and though I had NO experience whatsoever, Evan saw me as someone he could mold into what he wanted and I was totally down for it.
So, in 1998, at Christmas time, EA moved to it's new HQ. Now, being single, not having much family in Vancouver, I chose to be on the 'move crew' that through the Christmas holidays would tear down all the PCs and MACs in the old EA buildings, which were then moved to the new HQ and we on the 'move crew' set up all the computers. We got massive OT for this and got holiday times after a few months
This 'move crew' work demanded a LOT of walking and time on your feet and my feet started to hurt. After the new year I was hired onto the Motion Capture crew (I'll tell that whole story some other time)...
Me in a MOCAP suit - The 'shinny balls' are picked up by infrared cameras which goes into a computer and comes out as a 'skeleton' that reflects whatever 'motion' the actor is doing...More or less, it's much much more refined today.
And that my friends is how it all started. Within 6 months, my feet had swollen up so huge I couldn't wear my shoes and I ended up in a wheelchair.
I have not had a moment where I've not been in pain since that time. I lost almost everything I was able to do, skateboarding, cycling, skiing and for a while walking. I ended up losing my career at EA. I lost a lot. But I also gained much. So much knowledge, so much faith in myself. There is NOTHING in life that makes you feel more alive than pain. Trust me, you really wake up when you're in pain.
The arthritis that began in my feet, spread to my knees, hips, back, elbows, fingers and, most shocking to me, to my jaw. These days, it might not look like I'm that bad off, but years ago, when my rheumatologist told me, "Chris, even if they cured your arthritis tomorrow, you'll be in pain for the rest of your life because of the damage that's been done."
I've had night splints, hand splints, finger splints, wheelchair, electric wheelchair, elbow crutches, crutches and canes... It's never ended and always seemed to get worse. Though in the last few years, from around 2012 to about mid way through 2015, I was doing pretty good. I think the move back home and the change from where I had been for many years helped a lot, but in the last two years, I've been progressively getting 'worse', which is kinda relative, considering how far I've come since I was 26 and stuck in a wheelchair.
But through it all, I was lucky to have such amazing support. Serendipity or fate or whatever, the place I had moved to in Burnaby when I worked in the film industry, was a block away from my General Practitioner, my pharmacist and the Burnaby General Hospital and THAT was my savior. The physiotherapy dept. at Burnaby gen, saved my life. I went to physio sometimes 3-4 days a week for treatment and it last for years, even when the Liberal government axed the outpatient physio program, the HEAD of the physio dept for the hospital treated me herself on her own time. I owe them everything and it always brings me to tears when I think about all the work and time they gave for me. And all those years paid off for me too, I was some help to them. Having been there so many years I had gained and retained so much knowledge and when 'newbies' arrived I was always willing to listen and help in any way I could. Sometimes, when you're in pain, all you need is someone to talk to, someone who understands EXACTLY what you're going through.
I spent many years alone in my own world of pain, I thought about dying, but of course I never could do that. I had my husky Alita and I had my kitty Piggey Sue, plus I had a family still, my Brother's, my Dad and my Mom. I had the best friends anyone could ever ask for. I had a roof over my head, I had food in my belly.
Sure I was and am in pain every waking second of the day and it's been this way for 18 years. 18 years of pain. I joked to my rheumatologist once that I wasn't sure I'd know what it would feel like to not feel pain. It hurts to walk, it hurts to sit, it hurts to bend over, it hurts to exist. BUT, I persist and i do exist. I live on. My life isn't over because of this.
Years ago, I was watching a documentary on the US' Navy Seals, some of the toughest hombres in the military world wide. One of the Seals was talking about pain and how they cope. That taught me something and it was to accept the pain and move past it. It'll be there, it'll always remind you, but you just push past it, because once you do, you can live again. That's why sometimes I refuse offers for drives or for help getting things. It's not gonna matter if I'm laying in bed or sitting in a chair or walking up the hill, the pain is still gonna be there, sometimes worse
Since my arthritis, I've continued to live, though I had many dark years... Crawling up the stairs, crawling to the bathroom, the shower's water hurting my feet as it hit them (That bit of knowledge brought my physio to tears when I told her).
The great years; I've been to Southern California on a trip by myself to see Iron Maiden 3 nights in a row. I've been to Egypt in 2010, just at the tip of the revolution that they went through. I've been on excursions to the US to Cuba.
I've had great adventures since my disability became part of me and that's another way I cope. I've accepted this, there's no medications I've tried that have really helped me and there is, as of now, no cure for psoriatic arthritis.
Plus, there's millions of people much worse off than I am.
How do I cope? How do I exist? I just do and I will keep on doing it until my last breath. My Father's told me before that I should be a speaker for those in pain and talk about my trials and tribulations, but I said it'd be a pretty short talk, because I just exist and keep on... I'm thankful for this life I've had, I've had so many amazing opportunities and experiences, I've been in love and had great relationships, I've traveled all across the continent of North America, from the Northern tip of New Mexico to the tiny village of 'Chicken', Alaska (yes, it's an actual place, lookit up!) From New York to San Francisco, from Nova Scotia to Victoria BC and all places within. I have very few regrets in my life, if anything, I wish I had tried harder in my music career in my youth. I sometimes feel fortunate I never married or had kids. Imagine the pain and suffering I would have brought upon my family, my wife and kids, losing my livelihood.... God knows what kind of nightmare that would have been.
The band's I've played in, the music I've helped create, the friends and fans, the film industry, Electronic Arts. I've been so very very fortunate, maybe this 'disease' came to slow me down lol... Who knows, but just remember if you live with new pain, it's not the end, it's just the beginning and you could always, always be in a worse place. Don't whine about it, anywhere, it gets very tiring for family and friends to hear about it all the time, they know, they love you, it's ok to say it once in a while, like right now, my fucking back is killing me. You just have to suck it up and live, because you are alive on this tiny blue planet that is a miracle on it's own, it floats in this solar system that's in our galaxy and is part of the universe and even considering all that, know, YOU are NOT ALONE.
MUSIC: Music has kept me going through everything. It's been my family when I felt I didn't have one. It has ALWAYS been there for me. Always. Whenever the darkest times hit, music uplifted me. It took me by the hand and lead me out of despair and grief. Nothing has ever helped like music and since I was a child, it's always been there. Without my love for music, I just may have very well packed it in long ago. I can't figure out how people don't like music or it isn't a major part of their lives.
If I can be any kind of help to those in pain, if I can be some kind of light that someone can look at and learn from I'm more than happy to do so. I eat pain for breakfast, lunch and dinner...
Sometimes it almost seems that songs were written for you. The Foo Fighter's 'Walk' is a prime example of how music has helped me get through my time with this disease... After I posted this, I watched it and realized this jackass got a whole bunch of the lyrics wrong... But, you'll git the gist.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Favorite Movies (Most of them)
So, not too long ago, I posted some of my favorite '70's and '80's 'Pop & Rock' music videos and had some great feedback from that post (though none that actually posted that feedback, but I'll take it any way it comes!).
Over the last near year and a half, I had dropped watching a lot of television programs. Now, no offense to those of you who enjoy a lot of the television shows and series that are on the tube these days, but I find many of them to be just brain filler, nonsense fantasy that keeps one glued to the tube and not getting much value in return.
One can argue that ALL media on television or the theaters is just mind glue, a trap to keep us docile and thinking the way that the Powers That Be want us to think.
When we worked on the 'X-Files', someone had mentioned that basically we make entertainment between car commercials, which is probably true.
So, giving up new shows, I decided to keep myself entertained with more reading, more writing, getting outside and walking (which I do most every day that it's somewhat nice enough out) and on days I was beat up and felt like hell or that it was just plain too cold and nasty to go outside that I'd begin to take in movies, classics more than anything and not even all classics but some odd and rare, weird and obscure, vile and shocking, funny and wild.
I don't know how many movies I've watched in the last year, but it's been a lot of movies, some were good, some were awful and some became new favorites. Some were in genres I never had much interest in, for instance, Westerns and 'Gangster/Mafia' films. I never really much cared for either genres, up until about maybe 5 or 6 years ago, I'd never even seen the entire 'Godfather' series, I'd never seen a lot of the famous Western movies.
I'm not one for comedies, sure I like to laugh, but truth be told, I find a lot of comedians really annoying, I'm not sure why, I just always have. Romance movies, nah, who needs that mushy stuff lol. I like some dramas, but the genres I really dig are Horror, Sci-Fi, Western, Martial Arts, Action, Pirate movies, History and of course Music and that divides into documentaries to musicals.
Alright! Ya'll set! If you haven't seen some of these, well these are one's I'd definitely search and check out (though some may contain subject matter not suitable for all ages, some may be offensive, sacrilegious and controversial - I suggest you Google the films first and read up on them to see if it's something you might or might not want to watch) and remember, this is not a complete list, it's just some that came to mind and are ones I consider 'favorites' and have watched more than two to three times...
Some of my favorite movies:
Captain Blood - Errol Flynn -1935
Captain Kidd - 1945 - Charles Laughton
Once Upon A Time In the West - 1968 - Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson
The Professionals - 1966 - Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Jack Palance, Claudia Cardinale
Blood For Dracula - 1974 - Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro
The Fearless Vampire Killers - 1967 - Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate
Mark of the Devil AKA Hexxen- 1970 - Udo Kier, Reggie Nalder, Olivera Katarina
The Devil Rides Out - 1968 - Christopher Lee, Charles Gray
Pumpkinhead - 1988 - Lance Henriksen
The Devils - 1971 - Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave
Nightbreed (Directors cut) 1990 - Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg
Caligula - 1979 - Malcolm McDowell, Peter O'Toole, Teresa Ann Savoy
Conan The Barbarian - 1982 - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Jesus Christ Superstar - 1973 - Ted Neeley, Carl Anderson
Godspell - 1973 - Victor Garber, David Haskell
The Adventures of Robinhood - Errol Flynn - 1938
The Holy Mountain - 1973 - Alejandro Jodorowsky
Blade Runner - Harrison Ford, - 1982
Close Encounters (Of the Third Kind) 1977 - Richard Dreyfuss
Valhalla Rising - 2009 - Mads Mikkelsen
Hamburger Hill - 1987 - Steven Weber, Tegan West
Platoon - 1986 - Charlie Sheen, Tom Merenger, Willem Dafoe
The Kingdom - 2007 - Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Ashraf Barhom
Dance Me Outside - 1994 -Ryan Black, Adam Beach, Lisa LaCroix, Michael Greyeyes
Aguirre - The Wrath of God - 1972 - Klaus Kinski, Helena Rojo, Ruy Guerra
Rock & Rule (Animated) - 1983 - Greg Salata, Paul Le Mat, Robin Zander, Susan Roman, Debbie Harry, Don Francks, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop
Ivanhoe - 1952 - Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor
Nosferatu - (1922) - Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schröder
Häxan - 1922 -
Hellboy I & II - 2004 & 2008 - Ron Pearlman, John Hurt, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Doug Jones
Hellraiser I, II & III - 1987, 1988, 1992 - Doug Bradley
The Church - 1989 - Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr., Barbara Cupisti, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Asia Argento
Jabberwocky - 1977 - Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Neil Innes
Monty Python & The Holy Grail - 1975 - Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
Yellowbeard - 1983 - Graham Chapman, Peter Boyle, Marty feldman, Eric Idle, Cheech & Chong
Donnie Brasco - 1997 - Johnny Depp, Al Pacino, Michael Madsen
King Of New York - 1990 - Christopher Walken, Lawrence Fishburne, David Caruso
Legend - 2015 - Tom Hardy, Emily Browning, Christopher Eccleston
Donnie Darko - 2001 - Jake & Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Mary Mcdonnell, James Duval, Holmes Osbourne
There ya go! Ever stuck for somethin' to watch! Ya got a list out the 'ol Yinyang right here. Some are scary, some are just fukin weird (The Holy Mountain), some are funny and some are just great classics. I had wanted to write a little note for each one but it would have taken me even longer than it did to post all this.
Ok, I will say this, 'Donnie Darko', I know, it came out in 2001 and I never saw it until like a year ago, it's probably one of the best movies I've ever seen. Just love it. Have watched it at least 5 times since I first watched it.
The Holy Mountain, INSANE movie, it starts off pretty insane, gets even weirder, then gets actually kinda cool, funny, quirky and it goes on and on into weirdness, it's actually a great movie.
The original 'Nosferatu', what can I say, before Bella, before anyone else, this movie rules.
The Church, one of my favorite horror flicks ever, this and 'Pumpkinhead' are 'must sees' every Fall.
Caligula, be sure to watch the 'director's cut/uncut versions', I mean, they say it's a porno, but it's much more than that... It's an orgy!
Conan the Barbarian & Blade Runner - Childhood movies, my Father took me to see both of these flicks when I was just a kid. In fact, for Conan, his girlfriend at the time joined us, for the first two decapitations, then I watched the rest of the movie alone. One of my favorites and after the second Conan, Arnie should have packed it in for acting. Sorry, but it's true.. Jingle all the way... Fuck off....
The Monty Python movies, my Brother's and I grew up on these movies and the rest of them 'Life of Brian, 'Meaning of Life'... we watched them over and over.... No wonder we turned out like we did....
Aguirre - The Wrath of God - So, Klaus Kinski played 'the vampire' in the remake of 'Nosferatu', Klaus is a seriously fucked up individual and he worked with director Werner Herzog on several films and there's many stories of them either trying to kill one another, shoot each other, sabotage each other's careers... They are interesting characters and Aguirre, the story of conquistadore Lope de Aguirre and his fellow soldiers search for the legendary golden city of 'El Derado' is sheer insanity, just the film making itself is insanity... Well worth the watch.
Ok, that's it. I'm done....
Over the last near year and a half, I had dropped watching a lot of television programs. Now, no offense to those of you who enjoy a lot of the television shows and series that are on the tube these days, but I find many of them to be just brain filler, nonsense fantasy that keeps one glued to the tube and not getting much value in return.
One can argue that ALL media on television or the theaters is just mind glue, a trap to keep us docile and thinking the way that the Powers That Be want us to think.
When we worked on the 'X-Files', someone had mentioned that basically we make entertainment between car commercials, which is probably true.
So, giving up new shows, I decided to keep myself entertained with more reading, more writing, getting outside and walking (which I do most every day that it's somewhat nice enough out) and on days I was beat up and felt like hell or that it was just plain too cold and nasty to go outside that I'd begin to take in movies, classics more than anything and not even all classics but some odd and rare, weird and obscure, vile and shocking, funny and wild.
I don't know how many movies I've watched in the last year, but it's been a lot of movies, some were good, some were awful and some became new favorites. Some were in genres I never had much interest in, for instance, Westerns and 'Gangster/Mafia' films. I never really much cared for either genres, up until about maybe 5 or 6 years ago, I'd never even seen the entire 'Godfather' series, I'd never seen a lot of the famous Western movies.
I'm not one for comedies, sure I like to laugh, but truth be told, I find a lot of comedians really annoying, I'm not sure why, I just always have. Romance movies, nah, who needs that mushy stuff lol. I like some dramas, but the genres I really dig are Horror, Sci-Fi, Western, Martial Arts, Action, Pirate movies, History and of course Music and that divides into documentaries to musicals.
Alright! Ya'll set! If you haven't seen some of these, well these are one's I'd definitely search and check out (though some may contain subject matter not suitable for all ages, some may be offensive, sacrilegious and controversial - I suggest you Google the films first and read up on them to see if it's something you might or might not want to watch) and remember, this is not a complete list, it's just some that came to mind and are ones I consider 'favorites' and have watched more than two to three times...
Some of my favorite movies:
The Crimson Pirate - Burt Lancaster - 1952
There ya go! Ever stuck for somethin' to watch! Ya got a list out the 'ol Yinyang right here. Some are scary, some are just fukin weird (The Holy Mountain), some are funny and some are just great classics. I had wanted to write a little note for each one but it would have taken me even longer than it did to post all this.
Ok, I will say this, 'Donnie Darko', I know, it came out in 2001 and I never saw it until like a year ago, it's probably one of the best movies I've ever seen. Just love it. Have watched it at least 5 times since I first watched it.
The Holy Mountain, INSANE movie, it starts off pretty insane, gets even weirder, then gets actually kinda cool, funny, quirky and it goes on and on into weirdness, it's actually a great movie.
The original 'Nosferatu', what can I say, before Bella, before anyone else, this movie rules.
The Church, one of my favorite horror flicks ever, this and 'Pumpkinhead' are 'must sees' every Fall.
Caligula, be sure to watch the 'director's cut/uncut versions', I mean, they say it's a porno, but it's much more than that... It's an orgy!
Conan the Barbarian & Blade Runner - Childhood movies, my Father took me to see both of these flicks when I was just a kid. In fact, for Conan, his girlfriend at the time joined us, for the first two decapitations, then I watched the rest of the movie alone. One of my favorites and after the second Conan, Arnie should have packed it in for acting. Sorry, but it's true.. Jingle all the way... Fuck off....
The Monty Python movies, my Brother's and I grew up on these movies and the rest of them 'Life of Brian, 'Meaning of Life'... we watched them over and over.... No wonder we turned out like we did....
Aguirre - The Wrath of God - So, Klaus Kinski played 'the vampire' in the remake of 'Nosferatu', Klaus is a seriously fucked up individual and he worked with director Werner Herzog on several films and there's many stories of them either trying to kill one another, shoot each other, sabotage each other's careers... They are interesting characters and Aguirre, the story of conquistadore Lope de Aguirre and his fellow soldiers search for the legendary golden city of 'El Derado' is sheer insanity, just the film making itself is insanity... Well worth the watch.
Ok, that's it. I'm done....
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