rob vincent dot net

I'm going to be at the console once again, tonight on Off the Hook. I do hope I can remember which button does what.

What with all the new concerns over airline safety, and this talk about not being allowed to get out of your seat or have anything on your lap for the last hour of your flight, you might be wondering what the heck you can do.

Wonder no longer, as FunWithTSA.com is posting Travel-Safe Activities (or "TSA," if you will) with which passengers can make flying fun again.

Yesterday I was flipping through some old photos, and happened upon some vintage portraits of my great-grandparents. A few hours' worth of potatoshopping later, I accidentally seem to have taken care of that new business card design I'd been meaning to come up with for myself.

click to embiggen

It'll be printed on glossy cards with rounded corners. I'm not entirely sure how well this image will translate to a business card the size of a business card, but my printers are having a sale anyway so if it doesn't turn out well I haven't lost much. Besides, the pic was a lot of fun to make.

I'd like to think my ancestors would approve.

My pal Rusty asked in his blog whether all use of Auto-tune was really "evil," citing an example which he enjoyed. In typical me fashion, I started typing a short reply that became a really long-winded and tedious lecture. I thought I'd blog it myself as well, since I really do love the metaphorical sound of my own textual voice that much.

Back when the synthesizer was new, there was lots of hooha about how it wasn't a "real" instrument and using it was "cheating." This argument was inadvertently bolstered by the fact that once the synthesizer became cheap enough for creators of bad music, a lot of really bad music was made with it really quickly.

Some people used it as a way to try and fake the gravitas which an actual string orchestra (or whatever) would give their work, without considering whether it was really all that good an idea.

TV scores, once the sole domain of actual orchestras of humans, could now be banged out more cheaply by some guy with a keyboard, and not always with listenable results. Compare the iconic incidental music by Dudley Simpson and the BBC orchestra in 60s and 70s Doctor Who to Keff McCulloch and his synthesised hand-claps in the McCoy era, or the jazzy stock music of old Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Scooby Doo with, well, almost any 1980s toons.

This flooding of the market with synth music which really wasn't worth a damn helped form the public's opinion of synth music is in general; people would immediately associate synthesizer sound with crap from TV commercials and elevator speakers they wouldn't have liked anyway. There was a huge backlash against the synthesizer in general.

Eventually the music world settled down and the debates mostly faded once people realized that like any other instrument, synthesizers could be used to make some really awesome stuff by those talented enough, and the music should be judged on its own merits just like any other music rather than what was used to make it. Talented bands like Queen (whose liner notes to A Night at the Opera famously bore the slogan "No synthesisers!") began to see the potential of the device, and incorporated it into their work, and new synth-based acts arose who could use the damn things properly.

We're seeing the same thing now with Auto-tune. Bad producers are using the hell out of Auto-tune to cover up mistakes and lack of talent in their studio acts like an audio equivalent to Photoshop, gimmicky acts are applying Auto-tune in ways that don't actually improve things just for the "me-too" factor, and the market is being flooded with so much autotuned crap that it's relatively hard to find usages of the technology which don't make a discerning listener want to pop their own eardrums with a mechanical pencil.

Like every new fad, once the general public gets sick of the stuff and stops actually buying the bad stuff, the smoke will clear and the good stuff will come into its own.

Took that all-important first step in building myself a new personal website: I baleeted the old one.

Another LiveJournal survey, this one yoinked from lilibat.

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You know how sometimes people on your friends list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when were they doing that to sheep for a living? Since when were they no longer into those truly horrible novels? When did I start having a trout shoved up my-" I digress. And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you should already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please feel free to copy the topics below, erase my answers and put yours in their place, and then post it in your journal!

NAME: Rob

AGE: 32

LOCATION: Long Island, New York, USA

OCCUPATION: Starving artist and unemployed freelance geek-of-all-trades.

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None at present, and I'm resisting the urge to pursue any until I get a bit more of my own life into some parody semblance of order.

KIDS: No thanks, I'm not starving that badly.

BROTHERS/SISTERS: Two younger sisters, Jo and Fina. Both adults. I also have a nephew because of Jo.

PARENTS: Divorced when I was two.

PETS: This house currently contains five cats: Thor, Che, Carlito, Gypsy, and Esmerelda. Thankfully we've got two floors and multiple litterboxen.

LIST THE 3-5 BIGGEST THINGS GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE:

* Various artwork and creative stuff. For example, I'm rebuilding my outdated, hideous, and banal personal website from scratch. Soon it will have an updated portfolio of my hideous and banal artwork.
* I'm part of a big-city talk radio show that all the hep cats think is just the bee's knees.
* I'm on the lookout for a day job to take the edge off the starving.
* I'm on staff for The Next HOPE, where plans and goings-on are officially underway. Though the conference has not as yet entirely eaten my life, I look forward to it doing so.
* I was reading a good book, but I can't find where I left it and am now debating obtaining another copy vs. starting a different book.

The reading of Aisle Six went really well. It was an absolute blast to do, and I'm sure you have not heard the last of this production or the amazing team behind it. I look forward to the Mysterious Future wherein we'll find out where this goes next. Many thanks to fearless leader Nicola McEldowney for making it all happen!

Speaking of things made by brilliant creative people who I've fooled into letting me hang out with them, have you seen the Media Show's take on TV Tropes? I got to add some scriptwriting and a couple of guest puppets to my résumé.

In other news, those of you who chimed in on my five questions thing have your questions waiting in the comment section. Huzzah!

Once again, I pester my NYC-local friends to come out to the Players Club tonight at 8:30 PM to check out the first public reading of the up and coming musical Aisle Six. The full production will premiere in the mysterious future, but this is your chance for a sneak preview of the script as delivered by a portion of its cast in a prestigious and historical library. Not all of the show is approved for public consumption yet, but the missing bits will be delivered by linking narration.

When you arrive at the place (16 Gramercy Park South) you can check your bags and coats at the door (no charge) and proceed to the library on the second floor. Please note that the Players Club does have a dress code (business casual; no "athletic wear") and other house rules.

The show is free but the room isn't that large, so be sure to get there early enough to get a spot.