Saturday, February 20, 2016

Home Alone Six: Greasetruck Style

A fortuitous sequence of events left me home alone this afternoon. One child is at a bowling/Chinese food/sleepover birthday party, the other went wandering around town with some friends, and my wife is out with the ladies on a shopping/drinking spree. So I put some scotch in my coffee, played some guitar on the back porch, and then-- once I finished my scotch/coffee-- I poured myself the last of my Switchback beer into a chilled pint glass, and I decided to try recording some audio with my laptop.

I did this mainly to inspire Whitney, who has been dragging his feet on setting up some recording equipment for years now. I think he might be intimidated by the insane amount of digital audio equipment available. While I love my desktop recording DAW, my two input analog/digital converter, and my excellent condenser microphone, the moral of the story is that you don't need any of that to record audio these days. We live in the future, and the most minimal equipment will do the job (and do it well). I recorded this song with a forty dollar Blue Snowball microphone and a very old laptop with GarageBand. I did it in my kitchen (because I was home alone!) It took thirty minutes to record it, convert it to an mp3, and get it up on SoundCloud.

It is weird for me to record a song in one take, and to sing and play guitar at the same time. Someday, you might hear this with drums and synths and all kinds of weirdness, but it honestly sounds fine without all that. Serendipitously, the annoying black poodle that my dog hates walked by during this recording, so you can hear Sirius barking throughout the song.

This is a really sad song. Sorry. There will be more songs to come, and maybe even an entire dog album. Perhaps there will also be a Random Idiots reunion.

 

               Stupid Dog

I have a dog, he does not beg.
But when he pees, he sprays his leg.

He sleeps in the room where my boy used to be.
Stupid dog, he's good company.

I have a boy, overseas.
He lost both his legs, at the knees.

He's coming home, I don't know when.
Stupid dog, make him feel good again.

He's coming home, surely to stay.
Stupid dog, help him forget that day.

I had a wife, faithful and true.
She passed on when the cancer grew.

She looked so good in her high-heeled shoes.
Stupid dog listen to my blues.

37 comments:

rob said...

fill it up, dave!

and it is my fault, whitney. but they could still win the damn tournament.

zman said...

"Blue Snowball" and "get it up" in the same paragraph?

Dave said...

i am very potent today. two posts in one day. i am spreading my digital seed.

rob said...

i'm making jambalaya using venison sausage from a deer shot by my 11 year-old girl neighbor. america.

Dave said...

i am no longer home alone, but my eleven year old son is cooking his own dinner! scrambled eggs. i am living large.

Dave said...

also, i will be asleep by eight thirty.

Dave said...

i do not live in that version of america. neither my kids nor my dog ever kill anything practical.

zman said...

"Dipped in pig blood" will be my fantasy football team's name next year.

rob said...

the jambalaya was on point. child-slaughtered meat turns out to be quite tasty.

zman said...

Adios Jeb!.

Mark said...

Doc Rivers is a very good coach but an abysmal GM. The Clippers second unit prominently features Cole Aldrich, Pablo Prigioni and Wesley Johnson. AND the Clippers are over the cap.

rob said...

trump wins south carolina. bread, circuses, and the end of empire. or something.

Danimal said...

Monsterjam was awesome! Post worthy. Maybe during my 14 hour flight tomorrow.

Danimal said...

Trump. Wow. Bush out. Drink.

Danimal said...

Rachel Maddows neck. I've mentioned this before right?

Mark said...

I do enjoy heavily tattooed JJ Redick though. And Jamal Crawford. Nobody in pro sports has a better job description than him.

In other news, I just suffered an all time bad beat. That's what I get for gambling though.

TR said...

Overserved. Hi or whatever.

Fuck you, Yankee blue jeans.

Marls said...

Olaf, do metal.

Did he just say "making fuck"?

rob said...

of interest to whitney, i played hoops with mike pittsman today. blast from the angry past.

Shlara said...

Who Is the cruise director for the CAA road trip to Charleston next year?
I'd like to put in a request for a golf day

T.J. said...

Greg is in India?!?!

rob said...

i'm an idea guy, shlara. we're going to need to hire a project manager.

Mark said...

I also just discovered Greg was in India last night.

As for Charleston, I'm all in. Just tell me when the golf day is so I can schedule some day drinking around everyone else golfing. And I don't think we can put Shlara in charge of it because she was supposed to remind us about the Palestra trip for this CBB season and well, we see what happened there.

Shlara said...

I'm not volunteering Mark.
I'm actually pretty good at organizing complicated events--just not taking on his one.

And I'm not sure any of you boys have it in you to pull together an outing like this. I would be delighted if someone proved me wrong.

rob said...

shots fired

on target

Mark said...

I didn't figure you were volunteering.

I've organized a DC/NYC bachelor party and multiple SEC road trips but those were smaller affairs (4-6 people) and they featured friends I knew well. I barely know most of the potential participants in a Charleston trip so there's no fucking way I'm volunteering.

Whitney said...

It's all I can do to organize our annual trip to the Outer Banks. Year 23 coming up. Working on a date.

zman said...

OBFT Jordan edition.

rob said...

closest finish in daytona history. pretty boring last 30 laps. pretty amazing final turn.

Mark said...

Didn't watch a single lap. I think the only way I'd ever care about the Daytona 500 is if I can get a free suite or somebody I know has a great RV on the infield. That's looking doubtful to highly doubtful at this point in time.

T.J. said...

Just got a cat

rob said...

daytona's the only nascar race i make a point to watch, and i usually only watch the last half or so. not much to watch for 199 laps, but the last one was pretty incredible.

zman said...

Cats are great. They're like pugs you don't have to walk.

mayhugh said...

Cats jump. Onto everything. We can't keep our cats off counters or out of the sink. My wife likes to pretend when we have company that it's the first time one of our cats have jumped on the kitchen counter to go after a plate of cheese. But they also sleep on our bed and make in a box, so it's a fair trade.

rob said...

i just let my daughter tweeze my eyebrows. i'm pretty much the best dad ever.

zman said...

Eyebrows on fleek.

Clarence said...

This blog is turning into The View.