How To Play ‘Stray Cat Strut’ by the Stray Cats
[audio:Stray-Cats-Stray-Cat-Strut.mp3]
TAB * LYRICS * MP3 * Album: Stray Cats
(Chords: Cm Bb G#7 G7 + G# Cm)
A NUMINOUS COVER ON YOUTUBE (by me)
(UPDATE: here’s that cover on MP3)
I call this a numinous cover for what happens at the end. What is that black thing bobbing in and out of the shot? Why hasn’t that ever happened before and now it happens while I’m singing *this* song? I guess it’s ‘just’ one of those numinous things you can’t explain - but can’t quite ignore either. At least, I can’t. (Why would I want to)?
(numinous \NOO-min-us; NYOO-\, adjective: 1. Of or pertaining to a numen; supernatural…).
And hey look, numinicity within the numinosity. I would expect nothing other from the Tim. (I was merely looking for his bit about “understanding the numinous”, but will you look at how he begins the post)…
“This Isn’t Really About Cats
“A cat meowed outside my window this morning. Twice loudly. It must have known I was in here…”
Numilicious! But here’s the part I was looking for…
“Understanding” The Numinous
“Jung in his work talks a fair bit about something called the “numinous“, which I think is a beautiful word. From my own experiences, I would describe things that are numinous simply as things that are so weird you simply have to notice them. Usually you don’t know why they are weird exactly, and may jot them down or mentally save them for later to tell a friend about. And then they will be like, “so what?” … Synchronicities of course fall distinctly under the category of numinous…”
For the “sane” among you who are just here to learn the damned song, fine. Here:
AN ACTUAL GOOD DEMO ON YOUTUBE, WITH SOLOS & ADORABLE BACKUP BAND (by strat2caster)
All Your God Jesus Questions Answered!
It’s being a bit of a God Jesusy day. It’s getting to be quite the running theme. I won’t bore you with all of it, but God Jesus Robot? The world has to know. Because sometimes being told what to do by a preacher or by a book isn’t enough. That’s still open to interpretation. This thing tells you what to do like a real straight-shooter, and it’s a robot!
I don’t think I ever told you the story of how I officially became God in a little town in Alberta. (I have documentation to verify this for ye of little faith). It was weird. It got to where people (not all people but quite a few people) started asking me to control the weather for them, to smite their enemies, stuff like that. Of course they were kidding (of course)… but it was still a surreal experience to be walking around work, already lording it over people enough being their manager, but with the added bonus of being referred to as “God” by most of them. I didn’t abuse the role, but I won’t say I didn’t have fun with it.
How did this come about? Lets just say you’d be surprised how quickly people start referring to you as God, all the time, and even treating you as a deity of sorts (a pretend one, granted), if you just start answering to the name everytime the word “God” is spoken, and it helps if you kind of believe it (in a vague, abstract sense, of course). It doesn’t take long for word to get around.
The trick is to really get into the role, and fan the flames, but be subtle about it. And never take it seriously, just act like you do. It’s a winning combination. Because if you’re really God, you don’t take yourself seriosuly, but you play along because other people need you to. And you don’t go around proclaiming who you are to people either. You want to keep it on the down low. But you do answer to your name when it’s spoken. It’s just habit. And sometimes you slip up and reveal things you really shouldn’t, like, for example, when someone points out that you hardly ever blink (true story) and you tell them the reason you don’t blink very often is that actually, you don’t blink at all, but you have to pretend that you do blink so people don’t get suspicious, you know, of the fact that you’re not human. But sometimes you forget, other times you just get lazy, like when you think nobody’s looking.
People won’t take you seriously, at first, but there are ways to make them start to wonder. And they do start to wonder, if you’re doing it right. You have to master the deadpan delivery, obviously. It also helps when nobody knows much about you, because you didn’t grow up with them. You’re a stranger from another place and thus a bit of an enigmatic figure to begin with, and that makes it easier to mess with people. Especially when you also don’t care whether they think you’re nuts, because you’re figuring on being there a few months until you figure out where you want to go next, and then disappearing as mysteriously as you appeared. All that stuff helps, but none of it is necessary. It’s a worthwhile experiment and I recommend it to one and all.
Of all the interesting things this brings up, about human nature, group behavior, subtle suggestion and manipulation, etc., the most interesting is how it demonstrates the idea that you are what you think you are, at least kind of, and how people do treat you how you act if you act that way often enough and for long enough. Trust me, this has practical applications if you want to think seriously about it.
Another way to look at this kind of thing is that your life is a musical - a performance you’re writing and directing for yourself and acting out and making up as you go along. You might as well make it interesting. The gods like to be entertained. I sometimes suspect that’s why we’re here - to entertain ourselves (get it?).
Anyway, I’m taking a break from being God for awhile (publically), since I moved away from the Town In Which I Was God to a new town, and then to a different new town, the one where I’m at now. No time to establish my ministry in the last place. And as for this place, I figure it’s best to lay low for awhile, gain people’s trust and affections before I reveal the fact that I’m stark raving mad (or God)…
I do control the universe with my thoughts, sometimes.
I’m being kind of facetious with all this, but not because I don’t have some serious thoughts on it. Right now I’m avoiding anything too serious because I have a pounding headache, and serious thinking will only make it worse. But seriously. What and who you think you are, or even just act like you are in a half-joking manner, if you really get into it as a recurring role, it does change how people respond to you in some very telling ways. Not only that, it changes the way you think and feel, and this changes how and how much and how well you control the universe. You think I’m kidding? I’m exaggerating, but not kidding. When I’m in full-fledged god-complex mode, I actually find reality bending to my will in much more noticable and valuable ways, and much more frequently. The only thing limiting my control over the universe right now, I think, is the fact that I’m so unfocused most of the time, and forgetful, and conflicted. But damn, my head. Too serious. You already think I’m crazy enough for one day.
But I’ll pass you over to Tim Boucher, because he’s written some kickass stuff about this subject, from some different angles. Like check this out:
“In other words, costumes allow us to construct and modulate our identities. Not just how other people see us, but how we see ourselves. How many times have you put on a costume, and suddenly felt different? The costume may simply be a nice shirt or a pair of pants. These things enable us to access parts of ourselves that are normally dormant or which we may not typically feel comfortable or confident enough to express.”
And this:
“During that time period I noticed an extreme ramping up of synchronicities in my life which directly correlated to what I was reading aloud that day or that afternoon in the Bible. I have always had these types of odd moments crop up in my life, but these seemed to suddenly reach a fever pitch. And I gradually realized that it was because I was not just reading a story, but I was living it. I was making the story come to life and by doing that, the story in turn was making certain parts of me come to life.”
Welcome to my world. This is the kind of crazy (but not really crazy) shit I read and think about much of the time. If you want for-real crazy, though, this dude is fucking crazy. I just randomly found him like 5 minutes before I started writing this, and he fits in so well! Actually I don’t know if he’s a good example of anything I’m trying to say at all (spontaneous headache-delerium-enduced post, what do you expect), but he is amusing, and is the most recent of the aforementioned God-themed anomalies that have been cropping up in my day all day.
Anyway, whatever. My head suffers for you no longer. I am not as nice a God as Jesus (supposably) was. Nor am I a robot God Jesus who can just churn out words for you endlessly without my left foot falling asleep which it is now doing, adding to my suffering. Time for some magic elixir of the gods.
PS: only one person has taken me up on my limited-time secret mystery offer so far. It can end at any time, so come on now! You won’t be unsorry that you didn’t.
Time To Lighten Up, with Supernatural Stupid LOLcaTz!!!
Say hello to Shrodingers Cat and Vampire Cat. They is my freindz.
(care of ICANHASCHEEZBURGER? …Happy Caturday!)
I Surrender to Destiny
I don’t quite believe in destiny, but I don’t quite not believe in it either. Whatever the alternative unifying option is, I’ll go with that. Anyway…
I find it strange-yet-not-so-strange that I’d never heard of the show ‘Wonderfalls‘ before, then out of nowhere, found myself watching it today. Joe stumbled upon it somewhere on the interwebs and you know, acquired it… after reading all these rave reviews. I totally concur! It’s great.
Perhaps I’m biased by the fact that it’s so damned appropriate for me right now. Not in the sense that figurines and things talk to me, tell me to do stuff, and then I do them, and then weird but ultimately good things happen… That’s just a metaphor for following your intuition even (especially) when it flies in the face of logic (which, of course, it usually does), and how doing so usually leads to the ‘right’ things happening, or at the very least… to things happening. Our logical minds just want things to stay the same - safe, secure, predictable, uncreative, nothing really happening.
I actually had a premonition about the show yesterday, kind of. When I casually mentioned that I talk to trees and other things, the thought crossed my mind (though the ol’ editor vetoed it out for, I don’t know, brevity, or some other lame excuse) that as long as the trees and things don’t start talking back to me, I don’t need to worry for my sanity.
I kind of wish they would talk back to me though, the way the plant spirits do (did?) with the people at Findhorn.
Anyway, track down and watch this show. Naturally, like all the good shows, it got cancelled, but I think it ends with some kind of closure. Not sure though. Watch it anyway. Check out the unaired(?) pilot for a taste. It takes a while for the weirdness to kick in, but try to control your A.D.D., will you? It’s worth it.
Amazon has it on DVD if you’re not a very good pirate: Wonderfalls, the complete series
Nighty night.
Here I am, maybe, kind of. It’s a start. Shut up.
So all this stuff is going on and I haven’t been paying much attention to my little blog here. I regret this and I want to start writing more. I don’t exactly know how I intend to do that, since I’m now looking for a job, so I’ll have less time than ever. But the reason I haven’t been working for the last year, besides only being legally able to since December, is that I was writing/editing a book. So I’ve been writed out, you could say. Or computered out. Something like that. Right now I’m at a loss as to what to say here, so I’m just going to ramble self-indulgently about what’s been happening in my dream these days.
The book. Yeah… that. It’s a subject I tend not to be too open about. But I think, maybe, I don’t mind now. See, one thing that’s been going on with me lately is all these profound inner experiences and revelations I’ve been having. mostly sparked by a really intense (horrible, heart-breaking) dream, which knocked me on my ass for about two days, and has had me going deep into myself every day since. One of the results is that I don’t really care anymore what people think of me. I’m sure I’ll backslide on this sometimes, but I’ve crossed some kind of threshold that I don’t think I can really slide back through, at least not without popping my tires, though I don’t think that imagery fits, but you get the idea.
One thing I had a lot of trouble with from the beginning of my ventures into the ‘blogosphere’ (and I guess all my life in other forms) was this hesitancy about writing from any kind of deep or really honest place. I had this other blog for awhile under a different name, so I could be more open and ‘bear my soul’ more freely, without it coming back to bite me in the ass. But then I didn’t really bear my soul much there either. It was weird. It turned into something else with an agenda and it lost its hope of serving that purpose for me. Then it died because it kind of sucked as a result. And I don’t want this blog to suck.
I’ve been extremely influenced in the last couple weeks by Tim of Pop Occulture. He blows me away, the way he just lays everything out there and doesn’t seem to care one bit if people think he’s crazy, or an asshole, or whatever. I’ve thought both those things about him at different times, but I’d always go back, because it was so interesting anyway, and so startlingly honest (and has become more and more so in the last while). And because I was drawn to that, I came around anyway to realizing he’s quite sane and a genuinely good person, even if he acts or appears crazy or like an asshole at times. The point I’m really getting lately is that it doesn’t matter. Even if he really was a jerk, to the core, and stark raving mad, for reals, I’d read and converse with him anyway, because he’s being himself, an that’s interesting in a way that can’t be achieved elsewise. Violent Acres is another good example of how unavoidably true this is. A lot of people hate her, yet she’s hugely popular because she’s brutally honest and true to herself, and it’s fascinating and raw, and you can’t help but eat it up. (I also happen to agree with her on most things. Make of that what you will).
Anyway, I’ve known this is the way it is, for a long time, but rather than listen to myself, I’ve kept trying (unconsciously for the most part) to only show the smart, the good, the funny, the ‘acceptable’, the ’sane’, the attractive parts of who I am instead of just being all of who I am, openly and unabashedly, and fuck you if you don’t like it. I know this has been limiting me creatively, too, in my music, and in everything. It’s not that it makes me make bad art, it just stops me from creating most of the time at all. And I have to admit that’s part of why I like doing the covers. I’m not being me, I’m being someone else. And that’s fine, to a point, and it has actually brought out and allowed me to discover aspects of myself I wouldn’t have otherwise, anyway, but I need to take that part much further now.
So I’ve been trying to figure out what I can actually do to get past all this hesitancy around writing, creating, everything, and just get down to being who I am, all the time. One thing I’ve noticed, writing-wise, is that in private email conversations I’m already able to do this, no problem. I guess it’s the informalness, the lack of expectation, that sort of thing. ‘Oddly enough’ (as in not really odd at all), most of my emails are more interesting than most of what I write on my blog. So this is an experiment here. I’m just writing this as if writing an email to a good friend who I feel comfortable being myself with. It’s not quite the same of course, but I’m trying to keep that ’spirit’ about me as I go. We’re all friends here anyway. If not, we should be.
I don’t expect this attempt to be any good, though, because I’m still a bit inhibited. I can feel it, though it’s definitely not as bad as it’s been in the past. Just annoying. I’m going to go smoke a third of a cigarette now because it’s hot in here and I need to cool off, and because I’m focused on that annoyed feeling now. I need to snap out of it. (Yes Mummy, I smoke a little, here and there. But only a little, and only these).
Okay okay, the book. I know you want to know. To be honest, I can’t claim much credit for it, for two reasons. One: some of it is old material channeled by an old friend of mine, mostly in conversations with me, while I transcribed. Then he sort of initiated me into channeling the same source, before he crossed over (”died”, for those of you who believe in such nonsense). Two: the parts I channeled are, well, channeled, so it’s not really ‘me’ in either case.
Yes, ‘channeling‘ seems a new agey and weird idea, I know, and it is weird (or is it the most natural thing in the world?), and I’ll be the first to tell you, most channeled material sucks, with a few notable exceptions that I know of. I actually haven’t read most of those channeled books listed on the Wikipedia page for ‘channeling’, so maybe they suck, maybe they don’t. I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. Maybe this book I’m about to unleash upon the world sucks too, but I don’t think so, and don’t really care if you do. If nothing else, at least it’s not the airy fairy ‘The Secret‘ kind of suck. A lot of it is actually pretty badass. And that aspect has been played down for the sake of not scaring most people off. Most new agers won’t like it one bit in any case, though, but that only makes me happy.
I think that’s all I’ll say about that for now, but I’ll probably reveal more later. It’s almost done, so soon it’ll be ‘out there’ to be found anyway. Maybe I’ll make you be detectives about it, or maybe I’ll just throw a direct link on my site. I haven’t decided yet. I’ve always tried to keep that part of my life and myself seperate from everything else, for various reasons. But the thing is, I can’t remember now what those reasons were. They seemed important at the time… Right now I’m just enjoying being mysterious. Humor me, will you?
There’s a lot more self-gossip to spill, but it’s time for me to go kick imaginary ass now (as in, lone karate practice in the basement). Then I will head out for a brisk evening walk with a long-awaited podcast. Oh, but speaking of ‘out’, I have to share a little bit of silly, childlike excitement. I actually squealed audibly as I was driving home earlier today when I noticed that the trees lining my streets are getting leaves! You don’t know how often I’ve sat looking at the bare trees, sending thoughts of encouragement to their little buds, saying ‘come on, you can do it!’ and imagining the branches full of leaves, with the sun shining through. That’s how much I’ve been wanting it. Plus, I just tend to talk to things like trees. Don’t you?
One more quick bit of news, speaking of being excited and wanting something and then getting it - I have drums and a drum machine now! Borrowed from a friend, mind you, but that don’t matter. What you own owns you anyway. What is important is, I get to drum! I have missed this, so much. You’d be surprised how addictively fun just a drum machine can be. Drums, all the more so. It’s a good way to lose yourself and get in the ‘zone’ actually, as I did for go
d knows how long, earlier today. Needless to say, expect some seriously cool, mad beats on my upcoming album. I make no pretenses of humility on this matter.
Peace out.