Soundtrack For The Next Video

The soundscape audio collage that is the soundtrack for the next video can be listened to here.
Ten minutes in length. Sources include living room recordings, field recordings, appropriated dialog, a rotary phone, a dog with a breathing problem, a televangelist and more.

Audio Player Test

Well I'll be damned... click here

What you have there is an intro and beginning audio bed, the rough of what will be the 'sound and feel' of the podcast format that I'm working on here. Here are a couple more abstractions that will be thrown into the mix...


Mash-Up of a Televangelist

A foul-mouthed truckers take on politics

I Am Astounded And Pleased (A Small Note)

I must write this swiftly and succinctly, there is the pressure of the moment and the bearence of matrimonial obligation on time. I am heartenened. I am swept with joyful regard for my fellow man…
Earlier today I pondered immortality and the folly thereof…the striving for attainment…what can we truly hope for and why? The long and short that I came to for the duration of a cigarette was that our immortality lies in the relics that we leave behind – in words, in actions…dependant on the recording of these words and actions, large and small; the fantastic and the imaginary, the grand and the mundane. The significance being in the recording of these acts great and small. I’m standing by this notion, to the death. It is the will and ability to convey…to record….to transmit a moment and not insist. Yours is not to influence, nor should it ever be a goal – to imagine as such is the height of hubris…it is simply yours to present, and do so with a fervor – the influence is on the user side, the consumer side. To treat being or motive otherwise is to keep company with subjects of lesser demons of whim.

End Of An Era - 11.07.09

The Laboratory - Molten Lead

Recently I was given the challenge of coming up with a tabletop yarn dispenser for a couple of Textillians. [Those who’s vocation or avocation revolves around textiles] They had a loose concept and came to me to turn the notion into a physical, functional reality.
This doesn’t sound like the springboard to start experimenting with the smelting and working of Lead, but that’s exactly when and where it started. Why? Weight and density.

I know nothing of working with yarn, but I would imagine that for reasons of convenience and practicality, one would want to be able to load the thing up with as much material as possible, and
NOT have the thing tip over…AND have the thing be small as well possess a certain degree of design/decorative integrity. Considering practicality first, the item must weigh as much as possible in the most compact amount of space. Looking around the mayhem that are my work/storage areas I spotted a large jar of Lead sinkers (fishing) sitting on a shelf – Lead it is. [NOTE – The clients are well aware of this “toxic” being used, and all Lead components are fully encased as to render any health or exposure concerns to the consumer moot.]

First things first – turn the sinkers into raw material, easily workable “ingots”, and figure out how to do it.





The set-up and tools that I ended up with were/are (at this point)


• 1/3 cup stainless steel measuring cup
• Old Brass Water Meter (to hold stainless steel measuring cup)
• Propane Torch
• 3-row egg carton (to hold the propane tank in place)
• 12” Pine plank (elevation for the cup and stand)






[Lead Has a melting point of 621.5 F and a boiling point of 3164 F, peak temperature for a Propane flame is 3614 F. The rod being used to stir the Lead is Aluminum which has a melting point of 1220.666, being that one is not bringing the Lead anywhere near the boiling point, the aluminum rod works just fine to push the Lead around, it also clings to the impurities that rise to the top of the molten metal and can be used to skim them from the surface ]




Next step was to weigh the 1/3 cup once cooled vs. a larger slug to get an idea what kind of weight to shape/mass I was looking at. Turns out that 1/3 cup = 1.75 lbs +/-. Catfood can ¾ full = 3.4 lbs +/-.



After pulling the impurities off of the top, remelt to pull out the last bit of Lead, scrape impurities to the side and let cool. I’ve placed the ‘dirty lead’ into a separate container and will continue to refine at higher temps at a later date, when the proper tools can be set up. So one now has a ‘pure’ Lead ingot, a small amount of slag, and a charred yellowish pile of dust, that is carefully sequestered to a sealed container, wearing gloves and an organic vapor mask, of course.







A couple of notes -


When immediately cooled/quenched in water, it solidifies with a polished appearance. In air it solidifies with a dull sheen.

Add to the container in two oz. or less increments, this speeds up the melting process, too much at once just requires more time and more heat.

The Laboratory - Pt. 1

There’s another area on the property where I can work – the basement. There is more to the basement than the cluttered little corner you see here, this is an area that lies behind an area that I’ve cordoned off and dubbed ‘The Set’, which I’ll get into in greater detail in another post.

There is this clutter situation to contend with. Much of this summer has been spent purging, putting items to use and to some degree adding back to the clutter – sometimes materials are too tempting to pass up. The space behind ‘The Set’ serves a few functions. One is a place for a small work area with the bench tools like drill press, band saw and grinder; the second is working room for someone to operate various gadgets and lights that are part of The Set – third is ephemera storage for items that will be used in one capacity or another but are not of immediate need.

Urban Ridge Runner Pt. 1

Earlier today a co-worker asked me if my wife knew when she married me that she was getting into a contract with a ridge-runner. (For those of you not familiar with the term, it’s just another way to say hillbilly.) Oh yes, I said, that was the down side of the attraction, but figured I was worth the gamble. We had a good chuckle and went on with the day. See, I don’t mind being called a ridge runner – I often refer to myself as hillbilly, hayseed, pone-muncher, a swiller of corn from a jelly jar, redneck, yay-hoo, the list stretches out to the horizon of disparaging and belittling terms I have for myself and I wear them all as little badges of honor. I have hazard-laden hobbies and sometimes ill-advised or unwise pastimes. It was much worse back in the day, back when I was a single guy roaming the nation – a lot of illicit substances, piloting various modes of transportation at high speed and in various states of mind off-road and on, associating with unseemly characters and sleeping with women of highly questionable virtue. That was many moons ago in a reality far, far away. The Wife, like any wife that knows better or gives a shit, don’t roll like that. Good thing, I was on the fast track to an early grave.

A few years back I became distracted by these here inter-tubes and the abyss that is the digitals. It has its pros and cons; one of the bigger pros is that I became familiar with the rudiments of A/V production and manipulation. I don’t see dropping those, to the contrary…I look forward to working with those medium well into the future and acquiring a broader skill set in the A/V production and digital communications realm…winter in Minnesota is a perfect place to hole-up for days on end and pursue those creative endeavors…

Back in the spring, the conscious decision was made to spend considerably less time in front of the computer and more time in the yard as well as in ‘The Lab’ and ‘The Shop’. (Lab being experimentation, the Shop being construction and fabrication) I still have what could be called dangerous hobbies, but over the course of the transition from the then to the now they can be thrown into a category of ‘productively dangerous’. Playing with fire, sharp objects, machinery and the like. In short, tinkering. Over the course of the years I’ve managed to amass a fairly comprehensive set of tools and familiarity with an array of materials and methods to construct/fabricate a range of functional and/or decorative objects. I’ve been making a living with my hands for over two decades – it’s what I do – its both vocation and avocation, the physical manipulation of raw material into the functional or aesthetic.

In the spring as well, I set the goal of creating an outdoor work area that could be used year-round. There are just some things that cannot be worked on in the basement of a house (welding, use of volatile solvents and aerosols, machining acrylic, etc) and The Wife has this goofy notion that we should be able to park two cars in a two car garage, get this, on a regular basis! (The nerve on that woman) The only option was to construct something… somewhere…the only option was the back yard, a shed of sorts. Last weekend, a temporary version for this season has been achieved…








This is far from complete, best guess is that there are at least two if not three to four more summers to go before it becomes a matter of fine tuning and maintaining the finished structure.