Today is my birthday.

June 27th. I am 25 years old. I know it's a quarter of a century and that's supposed to be significant, but it's not like I've achieved anything in the past few years besides simply not dying. I've been productive, writing my music mostly, but also working on a few other creative projects. Although I'm very proud of a lot of the stuff I've been working on, I haven't really finished anything, and I have a long way to go before I am finished.

I know birthdays are supposed to be a celebration of your life, but it's difficult to care about birthdays when I put so much into not caring about age. When I think about how old I am, I start thinking about how old other people are and comparing myself to them. By the time so and so was my age, they had written and released 3 albums. That kind of thing. And of course that makes me think of all the negative points of my life. The fact that I'm a college dropout who still lives with his parents, hasn't had a girlfriend in years (and I've tried), and I haven't released any music. These comparisons aren't healthy or productive at all, and I'm not any of those people I've compared myself to, and they're not me. That's why I've decided to stop caring about how old I am and about how old other people are. It's just this made up measurement that doesn't really correlate with achievements. It only seems like it does because many people achieve many things at the same ages. They graduate from high school around the same age, and they go to college around the same age, and many of them graduate from college around the same age and get career jobs around the same age. Many of them get married and have children when they're around the same age. And many of these people only do these things because they're looking around thinking "Almost everyone my age is doing this, so I probably should too." Although those generally aren't the people I compare myself to, my point stands.

It doesn't matter how old I am now. I'll achieve something when I'm good and ready. It will take as long as it takes me to finish an album and release it, and although I'm anxious to release something, I'm generally fine with having it take a while for me to do it right.

I scanned a few baby pictures from when I turned 1 year old. I had two parties.


For one of the parties, the neighbor kids all came over. The curly-haired boy next to me is my big brother. I still talk to the two girls to the left side of the photo. They both have husbands and the one on the far left has two children of her own.


For the other party, some of my relatives visited. Between my brother and I in this photo is my cousin Amberly. She loved clowns, and she was the one to pick out the cake. It was revealed years later that I was terrified of clowns. I don't know why it was a surprise, given my facial expression in this photo and the fact that I was being held down at the table by my mother.

I think I was the most adorable baby I've seen. I've decided that if I ever got the chance to use a time machine, what I'd want to do is hang out with myself as a baby. There are plenty of fascinating people throughout history, but there's always a big possibility that if I ever got to know them I might not actually like them as people, but I can't imagine being disappointed by baby Daniel. Even if baby Daniel was boring, absolutely everything he did would be fascinating to me, because he's me, and I'm who he turned out to be.

I can't imagine any person not wanting to spend time with themselves as a baby. I think it's sad we'll never have that chance. If we have children, our children aren't us. Even if we were cloned and we had little clone baby versions of ourselves, they wouldn't be the same. Even just forgetting about the fact that they'd have different experiences than we had, they'd be physically different, including their brain and everything, which would mean they even had a different thought process, because so much of who a baby is depends on their development in the womb. Even if they start with the exact same DNA, there are so many factors that go into a child's development in the womb that there's absolutely no way they could be a perfect reproduction of us.

I had a heart defect when I was a baby, and I think it affected me significantly through the experiences I gained because of it, although I'm not sure how. It must have though. Would a clone of me even have a heart defect? It most likely wouldn't since it was a congenital disorder.

I wonder how a clone of me would turn out to be when he's 25 years old. Where would he be in his life? Would we have anything in common?

Music is a product of its environment.

Today when I was having my lunch, I needed something to watch, because I have a weird habit where I can't eat unless I'm watching something. Anyway, it needed to be short because I had to start getting ready for work soon afterwords. I found out the TED website had a David Byrne TED talk called "How Architecture Helped Music Evolve". As soon as I saw that title I thought it was going to be along the same lines as the essay "Rock 'N' Roll As Real Estate" in Ian Svenonius' book, The Psychic Soviet.

I've been a big fan of Ian Svenonius for a long time, as the frontman in The Make-Up and his other bands Weird War and Nation Of Ulysses, and as host of the internet music talk show Soft Focus, and for his book, The Psychic Soviet. "Rock 'N' Roll As Real Estate" is probably my favorite essay in The Psychic Soviet. In it, Svenonius argues that there is a direct link from real estate to music. He says that the Punk movement was started when cheap lofts became abundant in New York City. In the early 2000's, real estate was more expensive, so people who started bands couldn't rehearse anywhere. He says that two movements were born out of that inflation: Folk and Electro-clash. More musicians started writing and recording in their bedroom studios, without the use of drum sets taking up their very limited space. There are even a few terms that have places in their names. Arena rock, bar bands, garage bands. Anyway, he explains it all much better than I do, and I definitely recommend his book The Psychic Soviet for this essay and everything else in it as well.

I've never really gotten into David Byrne's music. Obviously he was in Talking Heads, but I've never really been that into anything I've heard by them. And he's worked with Brian Eno, but for some reason I've never gotten around to listening to that stuff. I still find him to be very interesting though. I've seen interviews with him, back from his days in Talking Heads, and more recently. And his Playing The Building project is absolutely fascinating. If you weren't going to click on any of the links in this blog entry, at least click on this one. But really you should click on them all. Haha.

So anyway, I watched Byrne's TED talk, "How Architecture Helped Music Evolve", and expected it to be along the same lines as what I already read in The Psychic Soviet, but it was quite a bit different. Although he was linking kinds of music to places, it was more about how the places' architectural characteristics affected the music and made it what it is, due to acoustics and the aesthetics. Music is a product of its environment and wouldn't make sense taken out of that environment. Polyrhythmic African music wouldn't make sense if you heard it in a gothic cathedral, and the music traditionally heard in a gothic cathedral wouldn't make sense if you heard it in a punk club.

Although he wasn't rehashing what Svenonius already said, the two subjects are most definitely related. What Byrne was talking about was making me think about things I've thought about many times before. About how when I perform live, I'd try to adapt to whatever environment I'm playing in so that my music makes sense there. If I'm playing some punk club, I can play noisier, louder songs and it would fit. If I was playing a coffee shop or open mic night or something, I'd play something more stripped down. I've already thought about all that stuff, but seeing Byrne talk about it made me more excited to try playing many different kinds of environments, and dealing with the challenge of adapting to them. I've decided I'm not going to be limited by the affects of my environment on my music. Not only will I seek out a variety of venues, but I will also try to write and record my music in different environments.

"How being too picky can keep you single"

That's a headline I just saw on the front page of Yahoo! The line under it says "A dating expert says people are looking for the wrong things, like attractiveness." That's a terrible thing to be telling people. To be fair, the article is really talking about those people who have "types" that they're attracted to. For example, someone who won't date someone who is too short because they like tall guys, or someone who won't date a blond because they like redheads. That is being far too picky, and I've never really understood people that have types they're attracted to. I honestly don't think any height or haircolor is better than another on a girl. I've been attracted to shorter girls and I've been attracted to girls almost as tall as I am, and I'm 6'3". I don't think any haircolor is more appealing than another, it just has to look good on the girl. I guess if someone's attracted to tall guys or redheads, they can't really help it though, and I can't really blame them for wanting to be with a tall guy or a redhead.

None of that is the same thing as attractiveness though. I don't want people getting confused and being convinced they should lower their standards to actually date people they aren't attracted to. The article says that looks are "only skin deep". The headline itself makes it sound as if not being single is more important than being attracted to who you're with. I happen to think looks are very important. If you're in a romantic relationship with them, you need to be attracted to them. If you're going to be marrying them and spending the rest of your life with them, you damn well better be attracted to them. Otherwise there's just going to be problems stemming from the fact that you aren't attracted to them. For example, you finding someone else more attractive, or your spouse feeling insecure because you don't find them attractive enough. Those could lead to cheating on both sides, and just general unhappiness.

I have no idea what the numbers actually are, because how would you ever conduct a poll or a study about it, but I believe there are far more people lowering their standards already (or simply having the wrong standards) than there are people who are always single because they're too picky. There are so many people who just seem terrified of being single that they'll not only date, but be in an extended relationship with just anyone. It's mostly females too that do this. All around I see girls in relationships with total douchebags. I don't like using that term, but what it's come to mean is really the best way to describe the type of guys I'm talking about. And it doesn't stop with just being in a relationship with them. They're marrying douchebags, and having children with douchebags. If they break up with the douchebag, they're so uncomfortable being single that within a week they're with another total douchebag, and they think they're in love. By doing that, they're just making themselves unavailable to better people. The problem here is that they are so desperate to not be single that they aren't picky enough. That seems to me like much more of a pandemic than single 20-somethings walking around, who are mostly only single not through being too picky, but because they actually have standards, and everyone they meet worth wanting to be in a relationship with is already in a relationship with a douchebag.

What happened to the world?

I don't think there are any music magazines I really like in general, besides the ones aimed at creators of music, especially engineer and programmer types; magazines like Keyboard, Remix, EQ. Although I've read plenty of them and admit they do have interesting content sometimes, I dislike magazines like Rolling Stone and Blender. And I dislike Spin.

I noticed that it's the 25th anniversary of Spin, and on their website they have a readers poll about the past 25 years of music. As I was reading the first category "Best Band", I was trying to think about how long ago 25 years actually was, and that's when I realized it was 1985 25 years ago, the year I was born, and that next month is my 25th birthday.

All of the choices available in this poll are ridiculously mainstream, and many of them are choices I don't think belong if we're talking about the best in music from the past 25 years. Choices like the recent Jay-Z hit "Empire State Of Mind" in the category of "Best Song". And there are so many things I think are missing. I'm not even talking about slightly less mainstream bands, songs, and albums either, even though there are plenty I can think of that are better than most of the choices on this poll. What I'm talking about is very popular and amazing things missing, like the album "Disintegration" by The Cure and "Loveless" by My Bloody Valentine.

What's even more baffling is the results of the poll so far. According to the readers who voted in this poll, The Killers are the best band from the past 25 years. How does that even happen!? Apparently "American Idiot" by Green Day is the best album of the past 25 years. And I thought the hype surrounding that album 5 years ago had died. So far, the results had me wondering what kind of people read Spin. When I came to the "Best Rap or Hip-Hop Artists" results, I think it might have painted at least a vague picture of what kind of people. I say that because in first place is The Beastie Boys and second place is Eminem. Unless I'm mistaken they're the only two white hiphop artists on the list of choices. I'm not saying either are bad... but the best? In the past 25 years? That's pretty much as long as hiphop has been popular. Do these Spin readers only or mostly just listen to white rappers? Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur, and Notorious B.I.G. didn't even make it in the top 5. Snoop Dogg and Puff Daddy weren't even choices in the poll.

I'm just confused about these results. I think it's probably mostly just a result of people not really putting any thought into their answers, and just picking their favorites. And those favorites being a result of bad taste and limited exposure to music. If there was really no better band than The Killers and no better album than American Idiot in the past 25 years, this would be a pretty terrible era to live in.

I've been really into this band lately.

"Fuck What You Like" by A.R.E. Weapons.

Although I dislike labeling things, especially music, I think this is a great example of modern punk. While it doesn't have the cliche punk sound, style, or fashion, I think it definitely has a punk sound and style. Despite the simple sound of the song, it really makes me think. It has a wonderful, yet simple message, which I think people could really benefit from. Just do what you do for your own reasons without being controlled by what other people will think of you or what you think other people will think of you. Don't do things based on what you think other people will like; a concept that's definitely important when it comes to any creative endeavors.

I think the lines "Fuck what you like, I don't care what you like. Fuck what you like, I'm living my life" stick out to me especially in the context of the vocabulary used in things I've been noticing lately on the internet. There was a recent change on Facebook that I really don't approve of, where pages no longer have a button you can click to become a fan of whatever the page represents, and instead have a button for you to click to "like" whatever the page represents. It makes things much too black and white in my opinion. I think people already think in terms of everything being black and white, and this just makes it easier for them. Everything is now easily organized into two groups. Things they like, and things they don't like.




Obviously the song is not about that, after all, it has been around for a few years now, but I think it applies to the meaning of the song. Look at the top right corner of the Vimeo video player I embedded at the beginning of this entry. It has a button with a heart symbol on it, labeled "LIKE". If you like the video, you're supposed to press that button to let people know what you like. If that's not irony, I don't know what is.

I was disappointed recently when a few people decided they no longer "liked" my music page on Facebook, because I feel it's like finding out people who you thought once supported you suddenly no longer do. Going from someone who supports you to someone who doesn't is quite a significant change for an action involving one mouse click. Although their actions still upset me, it's really not a big deal. It's not for them, so I don't really care if they like it or not. To them it's not about support. It's about what they like or don't like. I don't care what they like, and what they like doesn't affect how I do things, because I'm doing it for me. It's my life.

David Bowie likes cool music.

I was just watching a David Bowie interview I've never seen before where he's mostly talking about my favorite album of his, Heathen. At one point he's talking about how it's important to listen to old music as well as new music. He was saying it's okay to listen to The Beatles, but that it's also important to listen to The Streets, which he practically pulled out of the air as an example of an important modern band. I love The Streets, and it's pretty cool knowing David Bowie thinks so highly of The Streets too. It made me smile.

Here's a really good song by The Streets that was around back when the Bowie interview took place:

nnenn

One of the most creative, prolific, inspiring, and controversial builders in the LEGO community passed away in an automobile accident recently. I didn't really know him, at least not personally, besides knowing he has a wife and two young sons. That's obviously tragic, but since I didn't know him personally, I don't feel like it's appropriate for me to talk about that side of things.

I've been a friend of his on flickr probably for as long as I've had a flickr account (late 2007), which I acquired to share my LEGO creations with members of the community and to look at the creations of the other members that inspire me. I rarely post anything to my photostream, but almost every day I go into my "contacts" section and see what everyone else has uploaded to their photostreams. I've enjoyed nnenn's space ship models for ages, and he seemed to build and upload pictures of them quite often, so I really got to know his work as a LEGO builder. I knew the art, not the artist. He has a lot of fans for obvious reasons, but he also seemed to have a lot of critics due to his controversial techniques like modifying LEGO pieces and using other brands of building blocks. I think even the critics would probably admit the final products of those techniques usually looked great. Being a bit of a purist myself, even I would sometimes cringe when I saw what he did to certain pieces, but then I'd relax and appreciate the model the piece was used in.

It often seemed like the main reason he uploaded pictures of his creations wasn't to show off, but to inspire other people to build, and in that way, more than just his building techniques were inspiring. The attitude was less "Look what I built!" and more "Look at what you can build! Now stop sitting at your computer and go build something too!" And he inspired many people to do just that.

Here's one of my favorite things he's built. I love the combination of colors (something nnenn was really good at) and how he made those rather complicated brick-built designs on the wings instead of sticking on decals.


My flickr "contacts" section will seem much more empty from here on.