Today kind of sucks so far.

First off, I have a cold. Yeah, I know, big whoop. It's not really that big a deal, except for the usual crapiness that goes along with a cold: sapped energy, phlegm coughing, nose blowing. (And note, nose blowing is much more gross when you have facial hair as you feel it in your moustache. Blegh.) Anyway, it's just a cold, there it is.

And then, at work, it's one of THOSE days. You know, the type of day where your bread and butter WEB system goes down and knocks everyone out of the water for an hour, resulting in umpteen million phone calls. We're "back up" now, but not really, and I'm just trying not to cough in anyone's ear when they call.

Yesterday was much better. It involved a massive birthday dinner. It was my friend Laura's birthday and to celebrate she had people over her folks house for dinner. There was stuffed shells and beef tnderloin and ceaser salad, and cheesecake, and bon bons, and many different types of booze (beer, wine, and ice wine for me). And there was a pinata. It was pretty awesome watching folks largely in their late 20s/early 30s trying to bash a paper mache pirate for candy and small nips of booze.

Even with the resultant food coma, yesterday was much better than today.

Musical schizophrenia

Two posts, one day. Lucky you.

I think I suffer from a bit of musical schizophrenia. Not in a good way, because it's preventing me from making a decision.

I'm in one band currently. Things are going decently well. But I have plenty of time on my hands and have been considering for a while joining/forming a second one. Basically so I can play some other types of stuff that I like that don't get covered by Pawnshop Diamonds. The problem is that there are numerous different types of things that I like, and I'm having a hard time settling on which, if any, to pursue. In the past few months all of the following have sounded appealing to me:

A rock band inspired by an AC/DC and ZZ Top mix.

A stoner rock/metal band a la Kyuss and Down.

Something more poppy and catchy, along the lines of a Foo Fighters, Butch Walker, with a touch of Oasis perhaps.

An alt-country/American style band.

An 80s style rock/metal band.

Or perhaps just playing some guitar in a more country (well, proabbly pop-country) style thing. (Although that is more a dark horse than the others.)

Not so oddly, these choices happen to mirror a lof of the types of stuff I've been listening to over the same period of time. And the problem is if I'm listening to one of those styles, than at that time that's what seems most interesting for me to try. But when I listen to something else, then my opinion changes. God help me if I listen to Back In Black, Lucero, the new Foo, and then go to the gym where Kyuss' "Welcome To Sky Valley" is a favorite work out album, all in the same day.

Of course, I haven't actually sat down to try to write anything in any of these veins, with the exception of the catchy rock one---I have some tunes in that style from a while ago that I never did anything with.

Maybe I should just stop listening to anything and see what happens.

Nah, that's not going to happen.

New acoustic axe.

I bought a new acoustic a couple of weeks ago.

Through the years I've been slowly and surely upgrading my gear. New and better guitars, new and better amps, new and better pedals. I've slowly been sliding up that scale of excellence. (Of course, looking back on it, I shudder at how much money I could have saved had I just jumped to this point right out of the gate.)

But all this time I've been playing the same acoustic guitar for 15+ years, a Takamine I bought used for $500. It's been a decent guitar, but has long since made the transition to "beater guitar", being all scratched up, bad intonation, huge hairline crack in the body. Well, with the magic of what I like to call the 401K loan, I finally decided to upgrade.

(Note: For those that don't know, a 401K loan is a loan that you take out of your 401K plan. The beuaty of it is that you are borrowing from and repaying yourself. You won't make as much money as you would if the money were still in the plan, but that is somewhat offset by the fact that you are paying interest.)

So, I set a price limit for myself and went looking. I pretty much had only two brands in mind: Martin and Taylor. They are two of the more well known builders of quality acoustics, and both have lines that were in my price range.

First step: Rough pricing. I went to a few stores---Cambridge Music, Mr. Music, Daddy's, Guitar Center---just to see what the offerings were and how much they cost. I didn't even try out a guitar at any of these stops, but that was more due to circumstance. There was nothing I liked in my range at Cambridge Music or Mr. Music (not a suprise as both specialize more in used gear so their selection is dependant on that); Guitar Center was too crowded, and I wasn't going to be buying from them anyway; and there was a sing-along to Elton John's "Daniel" going on in the acoustic room at Daddy's when I was there.

Second step: Online research. Time to visit the websites for Taylor and Martin. Start looking into some specs online, not to mention the gorgeous pictures of these guitars, and narrowing down to what models I wanted to try out. Somewhere in this step I also came across the website for a music store that was intregral to my third step: The Music Emporium in Lexington, MA.

Third step: Time to play. While researching online, I found the website for a music store called The Music Emporium on Mass. Ave in Lexington. It was a dealer for both Martin and Taylor, and was relatively close to me, so I decided to make that my first stop to try some stuff out. The Music Emporium deals mostly in higher end acoustics instruments: guitars, banjos, mandolins, etc. So I headed over one Saturday afternoon and spent a good couple hours there. The salesman was super helpful. I told him my price range, what I was looking for, and he set me up with about a half dozen different guitars to try out. Taylors, Martins, Laravees, acoustics, acoustic-electrics. I finally narrowed it down to one: a Martin D16 RGT. This was actually a bit of a surprise to me, as I was expecting I would be going with a Taylor. But I liked the more "natural" and fuller sound of the Martin over the brighter qualities the Taylor had.

Resisting my usual instant gratification desiring nature, I did not buy that day. There were a couple more things I needed to research.

Fourth Step: More research. The Martin I decided on was missing one important thing: a pickup. It wouldn't be much use in live situations without one. Once agai, the salesman was helpful in suggesting a few options, but I wanted to research them a bit on my own. And to be honest, I wanted to also see if I could find the model cheaper online. The price at the store was not bad at all, but when we're talking in excess of a grand, you have to look for whatever savings you could. One online retailer I've used before did have it slightly cheaper---about $40---but I was willing to spend the extra $40 to get my guitar quicker and not have to worry about it being smashed up in the mail. I also researched my two main pickup options: an active Fishman unit or a passive K & K.

An active pickup for an acoustic typically is powered by a battery and has some sort of pre-amp or electronics that come with it. At the most an onboard EQ with some bells and whistles, at the least just a volume knob. A passive pickup needs to draw power from an external source, usually a pre-amp, pre-amp pedal, or PA system. I ended up going with the passive pickup because it captured the natural sound of the guitar better. An active pickup can sometimes add a "brassy" undertone to the sound. This does mean that I have no control over the volume or EQ of the guitar in live situations at this time. I will, however, probably be investing in a pre-amp pedal at some time in the near future. I did try one at the store that I liked.

Fifth step: purchase. The best step, obviously. A few days later, I went back to the store---luckily no one had bought my baby in the meantime---and made the purchase. They set the guitar up and installed the pickup in-house, which meant one extra day befoer I could take it home.

But once I did....DAMN! That thing sounds like hot, buttery love. Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched.

Chris and the Real Blog

I've had a couple of people ask me recently why I haven't blogged in a while. And mostly it's been because I haven't been inspired to. It seemed like there was nothing really new to report. But, while perhaps that may have been the right sentiment, it was probably the wrong attitude. I might as well be writing something, for if no other reason than to keep my blogging chops up.

So, with that in mind, I give you my review of Lars And The Real Girl.

Lars And The Real Girl is a movie about an extremely introverted 20-something, played by Ryan Gosling, who suffers from a social phobia to such a degree that even interacting with his brother and sister-in-law, who's garage he occupies, is almost impossible for him. His ability to have any human interactions or meaningful relationships is all but nil. That is until he meets a girl online that he brings home to meet the family. The problem, she's a Real Doll. (For those who don't know, a Real Doll is a "lifelike" sex doll that is supposedly the closest thing the human that money---a lot of money---can buy.)

Reviewing this movie is tricky, because the review is 180 degrees apart depending on whether I review it with my head or my heart.

But let's start with the head. And reviewing from there, it's not so good. First off is somewhat of a problem of tone. Say in one hand you have a comedy with a quirky premise and in the other you have an indie style dramedy with a quirky premise. Both have naturally separate tones to them. Well, this movie is somewhere in the middle, and not always to the best result. The two can successfully mix---the example that springs immediately to mind is The Full Monty---but it's hard to achieve, it's hard to do well. And the problem with the tone here is that it often seems to slip from that balance.

Also, there's what is a more personal issue for me, in that it speaks to my proclivities in how I like my stories told. I have always been, first and foremost, a story man. I love characterization, I like style, and I am a fan on themes and metaphors and allegory, provided they serve what should be the pre-eminent piece: the story. If there were a handbook on how to write themes and allegory, LATRG would be a case study. It does it very well, but the problem is that it does it too well. The themes of the movie and the allegory of what the doll is supposed to represent are too apparent. For me, these things are the things that I think about on the ride home, when I'm going to sleep, the next day. They are layers that I like to unravel slowly over time, depths that are not immediately apparent. They are things enjoyed more fully if time is needed to revela them. I think I caught every single one while I was in the theater watching the film in this case. And being that apparent, to me the movie then became more about those subtexts and less about the story.

At it's heart, the film is about a man who cannot cope with loss, cannot deal with the hard fact that to love somenone, anyone, to let them in and let yourslef be loved by them as well, comes with the price that someday you might lose that person, and you will have to deal with the pain that accompanies that. That is the theme, and it is easier to decribe than the plot, and in my mind it should not be that way. The plot should be what you can describe, the theme(s) should be what you feel.

Speaking of heart, that is where this film succeeds, and succeeds well. Almost every positive review I had seen for this movie described it one way: touching. And to paraphrase the ever-quotable Denny Green: "It was what I thought it was!"

It was touching. So much so that all that I found flawed from an intellectual standpoint was pushed aside by what may have been one of the most touching films I've seen in a long time. If you were to see this film and feel nothing for Lars' and his relationship with Bianca, or with Lars' friends, family and with the townspeople and their developing relationship with Bianca, then you'd better check your heart because it may not be beating. It's as the film goes on that the problems of tone I noted before diminsh and the film finds more confidence in itself, and oddly enough that is because of everyone's relationship with a sex doll, and by extension their relationship with Lars.

As the films cruises into a somewhat predictable ending you find yourself dwelling more not on its predictabilty but on the fact that it is right. It ends where it needs to because that is how this allegory plays out, that is how this theme needs to resolve itself.

My recommendation is this: if you see this film, view it with your heart. It will be a much more fulfilling experience.