The Q Continuum

I really hate watching the news specifically and TV in general this time of the political cycle. And boy do I avoid even mentioning anything even remotely related to government issues that could end up turning a discussion towards politics with people I know. Open season on the unsuspecting public has begun.

I guess I'm in the minority of the US population, but I think of myself as a fairly well-educated, sensible-minded, aware of the world around me kind of guy. Political advisors must not think that I am, however, because they keep inundating me with meaningless trivia blown way out of proportion, I guess not realizing that I can google their "facts" quickly and put them into perspective for myself. Do these ad-writers really think they're going to sway my support of a candidate by pointing out all the horrid acts this person participated in during high school? If I were to take these ads seriously, hell, I'd get kicked out of the country for some of the stuff I did in high school, and I was a pretty normal teenager!

But this stuff must really work, because these people keep shoving it down our throats. Constantly. Now that the first caucus has passed, the hate ads can begin. In fact, the first report I heard (after avoiding everything to do with the caucus as much as possible) related to the mudslinging ads two of the Iowa caucus participants had been running. Joy.

It seems that every year, everyone says they're going to stop with the negative ads. And ten minutes later, someone in the propaganda group has the dirt located that they will air next week. And then the nastiest ads yet run continue to air. Every year trumps the previous.

That's what I love about my satellite TV recorder. I generally don't watch "live" TV any more, and when I do, it's mostly non-mainstream programming that does not carry candidate propaganda. That's the only way I can survive the media onslaught known as "election year," which seems to happen pretty much every year.

Maybe I'm alone in this. Maybe I'm one of the only people in the country who hates being talked down to and taken for granted by the entire election process. When my time comes to vote, I will research the candidates I must choose between using middle-ground sources that I've come to trust over the years. Based on that information, not the ads, not the word of mouth, and certainly not the extremist publishers on both sides of the spectrum, I will exercise my right to vote.

But boy, would I like to shake up the system a little. My suggestion: every ballot has an extra entry for each position being balloted - "None of the above." When more people select this option than any of the other candidates, everyone is thrown out and we start all over with all new people. No one on a "None of the above" ballot can run again. Wouldn't that be fun? Alas, in reality, it would only lengthen the process, and I'd have to avoid political ads and discussions and frick-a-frack even longer. Please, God, can't I go to sleep and just wake up in mid-November when this is all over?

Sidebar:
I was originally going to title this post "Politics," but that didn't really ring with what I wanted to say. So I pulled out my good friend thesaurus.com and searched on 'politics' to find a better word. The second entry returned was the word 'devious.' How appropriate.

My body is definitely beginning to feels its age. I'm having a very hard time adjusting to not being a morning person for the new gig. I've been working 9-6 the last couple of days, plus an hour each way in traffic, but I'm still waking up between 5-6am as I have been for at least 14 years. Tough! Especially since my body is accustomed to leaving work at 4pm during the week, and we're only about halfway through the afternoon at that point now.

Given that I'm getting acclimated to a new situation and environment, I really need to be on my toes, but I've been so tired from trying to adjust my internal clock, I don't know that I've been at my best. Kinda like when we go through a time change or deal with jet lag.

I suppose since I've conquered jet lag before, I can probably adjust to this before too long. I certainly don't want to end up with any of these side effects of sleep deprivation!

OK, it's time to put on the thinking caps, head out of Status Quo Garage, and pull onto Creativity Boulevard. I need a band name.

I just finished editing what should be the last mix of "Eleven Row Aim" and posted it on the Simultaneous Pancakes website. For now, this is the only place the file will be linked, though, because I'm ready for people to listen to it, but it's not fully ready for publication. You see, I don't know who the artist is. Ever since I discovered that my desired moniker, Avenue Q, was hijacked by naughty puppets, I've been trying to find a new name for my musical persona. And let me tell you, it's not that easy.

It's not like I haven't been able to do this before. I was involved in several musical projects in high school: Invasion, the very first band I put together, and WishSong, my swan song in the Lubbock music scene. Green Chili Burp and the Aftertaste came along in college (you can read the history about the name and the band at the Green Chili web page) and went just about as quickly. Chi Rho was the name of the music team we put together at the United Methodist Campus Ministry at UNT in Denton, although I think there was actually a recording act with that name, but we were pretty sure that no one would get us confused with them. And all the time after Green Chili dissolved, I've been working internally under the name Avenue Q, which had a couple of significant elements. First, the studio where we recorded Sacrificing Toasters to Alien Poets resides on Ave. Q in Lubbock. Then, of course, there's the Q in my name, which I really want to keep involved somehow.

But, alas, as revealed in the earlier post, Avenue Q is now known on Broadway, so I'm up to another moniker. When you pull down and listen to Eleven Row Aim, you'll notice that the artist name in the ID3 tag is "1500 Ft." That's there simply because I had to come up with something, and since I just hung my very large and very heavy 1500 Ft road construction sign in my studio, it was the first thing that popped to mind. But I'm not that crazy about it, because there aren't that many interesting stories that you can make up about the origin of the name and it doesn't involve the letter Q. My favorite college band, Ten Hands, got their name because there were five members of the band, meaning the band had ten hands. When they finally settled on four members instead of 5, they didn't change their name to Eight Hands, because Ten Hands just had a nice ring to it. The idea of having 750 people make up the 1500 feet seems kind of silly in comparison, too, especially if you say it's actually 760 people, partially comprised of amputees.

So how to come up with an alternate persona. In my world, there are some rules about naming musical projects. I make heavy use of anagrams in song titles or lyric lines. I've also been known to dust off my good friend Mr. Advisador from time to time to generate interesting phrases. I've toyed several times with those tools to create the next musical moniker, but haven't come up with anything really solid. The best I've seen yet is "Evil Iraq Eel Nero" which is just an anagram of my full name. Mr. Advisador has given me such great lines as "Herbal Flu," "Aardvark Pride," "Instant Ambient," and the name of my publishing company, Simultaneous Pancakes. I've also had another name floating around for a while, I won't share it here in case some lurker opts to steal it for him/herself, but for the music I've been working on lately, it just hasn't fit.

So I've been playing with some ideas this morning using my basic band name rules (they're more like guidelines, actually) - anagrams are good, the letter Q must be involved, the name should be short and somewhat catchy and should relate to something. Here's what I've generated in about 5 minutes of effort (which may be too much as it is):
Not Quite Munch: Anagram of "The Q Continuum." Munch is one of my favorite TV characters, currently featured in "Law & Order: SVU."
FIFO: first-in, first-out, the definition of a queue (yeah, that's really a reach, I know).

Obviously, I need to keep looking. These two are interesting, and I'll google both terms to make sure no one else has used them yet, if I decide to try and capture them for myself. Oh, and if you should have any suggestions, I'm open to them. Leave an opinion or drop me an e-mail.