Shift update (July 2015 edition)

I always give myself three or four weeks before I ultimately decide if I like the shift I'm on or not. Anyway, I found myself hating the new shift, and wished I had made the new night shift my first choice. Further irritation was caused by not getting partial days off for the day after the Kentucky Derby, Mother's Day, Father's Day, or the morning after July 4th.

This month, an opening for my department's night shift finally opened up, so I put in for it, and got it, starting on July 27th. I'll be working the same days I worked before the shift change in April (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday), but instead of working 6:30a.m. to 5:00p.m., I'll be working 5:30p.m. to 4:00a.m.. My Friday nights are pretty much fucked, but I have my Sundays back, and without the annoyance of trying to get up around 5:00 on Monday mornings.

Work news and Movie sadness

This entry brings up some topics related to what I posted in Cutting back on fun stuff over four years ago.

It's been over two months since my last entry, and I'm still no closer to moving out. Work had been slow during January and February, and then we got the big snow dumps in mid-February and the first week of March, so my checks were pretty crappy. Thankfully, that kind of snow seems to be a thing of the past in Kentucky, at least until next Fall or Winter, and things at work have picked up. Sadly, my Monday-Tuesday-Thursday-Friday shift has been eliminated, and I start working a Sunday-through-Wednesday shift starting April 12th. Getting up so early on a Sunday morning blows, and working four consecutive ten hour days again will suck, but the change isn't all bad. Some of the more positive aspects of the new shift:

• I get three days off in a row, two of which will feel like entire days off. That Wednesday in the middle of my former shift never felt like a full day off, and neither did Sundays.
• With Fridays off, I'll get to go to early showings on most movies' opening days again. I kind of missed that.
• My previous designated overtime day had been Saturday, now it's Thursday. That might make it easier for me to work voluntary overtime, though I'll probably still only do half days, at least until I get my own place.
• I get to work more with some of my favorite coworkers, and less with my least favorite coworkers.

I considered maybe looking for a new job in June, but I just realized that if I make it at my current job until January, I should be getting more vacation time.

In some ways, this would also make it easier for me to get a second job, but I'd only be able to work on two of my three days off, and I don't know what the hell I would want to do for a second job.

One thing I was looking forward to doing when I moved to Louisville was renting from Wild and Woolly Video. Sadly, it was announced in January that they would be closing in March, and they had a big closeout sale in the two months leading up to the closure. The last thing I needed was another music or movie store closing. Tons of money was spent. It was depressing flipping through those movies that I had no desire to buy, but would've been eager to rent, especially since there is no guarantee that you'll be able to find some of these movies on Netflix or on any other streaming services. The decline of physical media, and finding bands/artists to obsess over, still has me spending collecting like a maniac, I really need to slow my roll.

I still consider myself a fan of indie/art films, but I've been underwhelmed by some of the movies that my film lover friends have been fond of recently, namely Birdman, Maps To The Stars, and It Follows. But for what it's worth, I did love Whiplash and What We Do In The Shadows. I hate that I've become the kind of person that will mostly see big event movies in the theaters, but movie going is so expensive now that I'd rather not take a chance on flushing $9+ down the toilet on a movie I would've rather watched at home.

Lastly, I've been reading some of Hunter S. Thompson's work lately. He seemed to spend a lot of his writing time on drugs or alcohol, or if not writing under the influence, then writing about being under the influence while on assignment. Similarly, I feel like I need sodas or blended frozen coffee drinks when I'm writing. Amazingly, all I've had to drink for this entry is plain old water.

Hey there! (Plus more Vlado talk)

I'm okay, I just haven't had time to blog between working, sleeping, getting caught up on TV shows, and getting out of the house. I'm hoping to get a place of my own soon, preferably in Louisville. I'm simultaneously thrilled and terrified. Thrilled because I'll have my own place, I get to set up my turntable for the first time since I boxed it up six years ago, and because living with mom and dad has been killing me, literally and figuratively. Terrified because I only make $12.50 an hour, and am afraid that something will happen that will make it harder to pay rent, among other things, than it already is. I'll likely not be getting out so much, giving me time to do things like work on this blog.

I've taken down my "Vlado: The Music Impaler" post. It was my most popular post, but I'm not so sure now that Vlado Meller deserves to be as demonized as he's been. He's no Greg Calbi, Bernie Grundman, or Vic Anesini, but he is capable of doing decent work, and I'm not sure that he's the Worst (dedicated) Mastering Engineer Ever, so much as he is the CD mastering engineer on some of the worst recorded or mixed popular music of the past twenty years. I'm more bothered by people who try to fill all the roles of producer, recording engineer, mixer, AND mastering engineer. An exception is Jack Endino, who I thought did a decent job with mastering The Decline Effect's self titled LP, and on remastering Soundgarden's "Screaming Life/FOPP".

However, I'm not letting Vlado off that easy! I had mentioned before that I thought his remastering of Living Colour's "Vivid" was tolerable. The truth is that I had never owned the original CD or vinyl of it until recently, so the only thing I had to compare it to was hearing "Cult of Personality" on the radio. Broadcast radio is very compressed, and so the remastered "Cult of Personality" sounds pretty similar to what I remember hearing on the radio. I was content to keep it since I was satisfied with the sound, and it's worth keeping for the bonus tracks. After reading that Greg Calbi was listed as mastering the original "Vivid" CD*, I had to check it out. The original CD sounds so much better than the remaster! I swear I heard stuff in it that I never noticed before. The EQ-ing on the remaster might be okay, but the dynamic range has been squashed badly enough to make it virtually useless. One odd thing about the remaster is that "What's Your Favorite Color?" is way shorter than it originally was, down to 1 minute 41 seconds from its original 3 minutes 56 seconds. I don't know what the story with that is, I can't even find much info about it doing a Google search. Vernon Reid was a producer on the reissue, so the shortening of it was probably his idea, and he probably approved of the overall sound as well. Between having the original "Vivid" CD and having the Japanese import version of "Biscuits" which includes a few tracks that ended up as bonus tracks on the "Vivid" reissue, the only real reasons for me to keep the reissue are for those few bonus tracks that had never been on CD, and the novelty of the shortened version of "What's Your Favorite Color?". By the way, the Japanese import version of "Biscuits" was mastered by Vlado Meller. I don't own the Bob Ludwig-mastered U.S. version, so I can't compare the sound, but Vlado's version sounds fine to me.

I am hoping to post more about the Loudness War and the mania of music and movie collecting, probably even updating older posts with recent revelations. That might be a while, though.



*Greg Calbi might have mastered the CD version, but it's hard to tell who actually mastered something sometimes. Back in the 1980s, CD credits often just listed the mastering engineer for the vinyl version. These days, you're more likely to see the CD mastering engineer listed on the credits for vinyl albums, but the deadwax (that part of the vinyl between where the music on a side ends and the center label) usually include the initials of the vinyl mastering engineer, or some indication of who or where it was mastered.

The Failure of the Dream of 1990s Alt Rock.

One of those things that I spend way too much time thinking about is how the Alternative Music "Revolution" of the 1990s failed. In the short term, it made music more interesting. In the long term, it changed the course of Hard Rock and MOR , and not for the better. One thing that came to mind when I was thinking about it this morning was the scene from "Easy Rider" where Wyatt (Peter Fonda) says to Billy (Dennis Hopper), "We blew it." In the context of my thought, it would really be more like "They" blew it, "They" being The Music Industry, since there really wasn't a whole lot I could do to keep the momentum going. I was too naive to see it in 1994 and 1995, but the signs were there that things weren't going in the direction I'd hope they'd go.

1. Candlebox.  The first few times I heard "Change", I thought, "This kinda sounds like a hair band." "You" didn't sound quite as much like a hair band, but "Far Behind" was definitely a power ballad. They might get some brownie points for getting their name from a Midnight Oil song, but no, just no. Candlebox were indicative of a problem with The Industry when it tries to push a certain genre, in this case Alternative in general and Grunge in particular. There were many bands that had been around for years, touring in vans, and were just bubbling under the mainstream. A few of those bands managed to make it (Soundgarden finally having done it in 1994), but for the most part The Industry were more interested in signing, and at times possibly even creating, bands that hadn't been around long, and were like some watered down version of the genuine article. But most kids in places like Shepherdsville, Kentucky, didn't know any better. I remember cringing one time during my senior year of high school when I heard a classmate say, "I like Alternative, Candlebox rocks!" A year after that, my brother was substitute teaching at our old school, and I think some kids asked him what kind of music he listened to, and when he said Alternative, they asked him if he was going to see Collective Soul.
2. Ignoring newer stuff from "older" bands. Faith No More put out one of the best albums of 1992, and Living Colour put out a fairly strong album in 1993, but they were virtually ignored. Sometime in early 1994, the local Modern Rock station played Living Colour's "Cult Of Personality", and the DJ said something about them being in the "Where Are They Now?" file. I wanted to call up the station and tell the guy, "Where are Living Colour? They put out an album a year ago called 'Stain', you oughtta check it out."
3. Hootie & the Blowfish. "Hold My Hand" was a song that got started on Modern Rock stations before it made its way to Contemporary Hits Radio. But the first time I heard it, I thought, "This is not Alternative." I think the only people who could try to make a case as to why it would be Alternative would be the kids who didn't know better. They're Mainstream Rock through and through.
4. Sheryl Crow/Jewel. I'm not really sure how these women got lumped in with Alternative either. I find it funny that both of them and Darius Rucker are now singing Country, or the music that is referred to as Country these days.
5. Either ignorance or no respect from the "kids" towards the people that paved the way. As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, I first got into Alternative well before "Nevermind" made it cool, so I tend to lean more towards '80s Alt. I'm also a history nut, especially when it comes to Rock music. At the end of 1994, I was still a few years away from buying a Psychedelic Furs CD, but I really dug the few Furs songs I had heard, including three that got regularly played on the local Modern Rock station. I also really liked the first single from Richard Butler's new band Love Spit Love, called "Am I Wrong". In March 1995, my brother and I went to see Live, with Love Spit Love and Sponge opening. Sponge seemed to be fairly well liked, but Love Spit Love didn't make quite as good an impression on some people, most likely due to Richard Butler's flamboyance, and others because, honestly, they weren't great, especially compared to the Furs, but most of the people who were coming to see Live probably didn't give a shit about or had never heard of the Furs anyway. Apparently, on one side of my brother was me geeking out over Richard Butler, even going so far as yelling "RICHARD!!!", and on his other side were some dudes calling Richard a fag. It seems like I yelled something back about how this guy was in The Psychedelic Furs, or being a legend, or something. I do seem to remember that being an overall disappointing night, and should've been the moment I said, "We blew it." One of my hopes was that Alternative Rock would somehow make people more open minded, but, eh, not so much. Hell, I know people who do listen to legit Alt Rock who are pretty staunchly Conservative. And then there's Representative Paul Ryan, who claims to have been a Rage Against The Machine fan. Dude, did you even bother listening to their lyrics?
6. To be honest, I don't know how many people in the Louisville area during the mid-'90s listened to the local Modern Rock station (105.9Q-Too/WXNU) compared to the mainstream Rock station (100.5 The Fox, now at 93.1), but it seemed like Fox listeners had 105.9 listeners way outnumbered. I could understand the older people who were into hair bands or arena rock listening to The Fox, but not the kids I went to school with. It's like, did they know there was an alternative and didn't like it, or did they even know it existed? I guess some people just don't like exploring the dial in hopes of hearing something good on the radio, but people around here seem to be content with mediocrity.

Taking most of February off.

I took a leave of absence for most of February, mostly so I could clean my room, work on some other things, and because I was afraid that I would lose all of my personal time if I didn't, due to having to stay home because of the Winter weather. I probably wouldn't have taken the leave if I hadn't had enough money saved up to pay the bills through mid-March. We got hit with some Winter weather during my first week off, so I did a fair amount of shoveling. I also got the room cleaning done during that first week. That room is the cleanest it's been in at least two or three years, but there is still a lot of stuff in it. But a lot of that stuff will be going with me when I move out.

We actually had decent weather during my second full week off. I did quite a bit of getting out, especially for stuff I normally wouldn't get to do because of my work schedule. I wish I had had more time for writing. I still had a tendency to want to spend ten to twelve hours in bed, which I still believe to be a side effect of Cymbalta.

For the most part, I was pretty chill during my time off. I already knew that my job's hours and living too far from civilization are significant sources of stress for me, it was just made even clearer while I was off. Some of us just aren't meant for the rural life or for spending half our waking hours at work. The latter is pretty much a necessary evil, especially if I want to eventually become independent, but at least I can do something about the former.

2013 in review, and 2014 so far.

2013 was basically a blur. It consisted mostly of working and sleeping, with occasional instances of movie watching and hanging out with my girlfriend/ex.

I managed to work a day shift most of the year, and it proved to be a failure. I went over how day shifts are hypothetically supposed to be in my previous entry. Since shows factor into that, I'll mention that I think I went to see three non-local bands all year, The Who, Soundgarden, and D.O.A.. The Soundgarden show was great, even better than I expected, but was it really worth $74 ($59.50 + $14.50 Ticketbastard charge)? I don't know. $60 is a lot to charge just to see one band. Now, if it had been Soundgarden AND Alice In Chains, then it would've definitely been worth it.

One thing about day shift that I realized I hate is how I typically tend to get up at 4:30 in the morning on my work days, but on some days off, especially Saturdays, I don't even go to bed until around 4 in the morning! Then I get up anytime between 9:00am and 1:00 or even 2:00pm. How late I stay up on Sunday nights depends on if a new episode of The Walking Dead is on or not. If it's on, I'll stay up until 10 or 11:00. If not, then I'll go to bed around 9:00. A Sunday was virtually wasted. Then I'll have to get up at 4:30 or so the next morning. Hell, I figure that if I must have no life during the work week, then I might as well go back to working nights.

I don't really like New Year's Resolutions, but the main thing I hope to do in 2014 is spend less and save more, so I can get the hell out of my mom and dad's house. After my post-birthday shopping binge, I really had no desire to do any spending after that, even for Christmas, but then I heard that the FYE in Mall St. Matthews was closing due to being outbid for the space. Going out of business means discounts, and I have a hard time turning down going-out-of-business sales. I think I'm pretty much done with binge-spending, especially since I have nowhere left to put this shit.

Back in March, I mentioned that 93.1 The Fox went from Modern Rock to Active Rock. That definitely made the year less fun than it could have been. Of the bands they play now that they didn't play during their Modern Rock years, the only band that I even halfway like is Volbeat. Thank gods that Louisville still has 91.9 WFPK, pretty much the only station that keeps me in the Louisville area.

One of the few good things to come out of 2013 was my new cat, who I've named Rascal. I might upload some pictures of him in the future. He just showed up in my dad's garage one day. At first, we kind of hoped he would just move on to somewhere else. Then we decided to keep him as a garage cat. Eventually, he would make his way into the house. When it started getting colder, and my mom and dad made fewer trips to the garage, I convinced them to let him stay in the house. He's so freakin' cute and silly that I can't help but giggle whenever I see him. By the way, most of this paragraph was typed with one hand since he was sitting on my shoulder.

2014 has so far been a disaster. The actual celebrating of the New Year was okay, but the rest of the first day of the year sucked because I didn't have a drop of alcohol, and still managed to feel like shit in the morning! Probably had to do with having to get up at 3:30 in the morning on New Year's Eve, and not getting to bed until 3-ish in the morning on New Year's Day, then getting up around 10:00 that morning. (Note: Most of the first few paragraphs of this entry were written on New Year's Day, and the third paragraph was inspired by my "hangover.") New Year's Day fell on a Wednesday, which is a normal day off for my shift. They let the other two shifts, who normally do work Wednesdays, have New Year's Day off. I was hoping they would give my shift New Year's Eve off since we're normally off on Wednesdays, and so my seven-day vacation could turn into a nine-day one, but they made us come in. They let us all leave early, but my shift got the shaft since the other two shifts got to have four days off in a row.

I put in for a transfer to night shift. I didn't get it because they said they had enough people. They don't have near as many people on night shift as on day shift, how the hell could adding one more person hurt? What the fuck? Guess I'll have to put up with day shift for at least a few more months.

I was over Winter well before it even began, namely, when we had a cold snap in mid-November around the time of my birthday. This has been the most miserable Winter for me since 2004, my first Winter in Kentucky after moving back here from Austin.

Five Year Lay Off Anniversary and other stories.

(Note: I started this on November 6th with the intention of posting it that very day, but I got to a point where I needed to stop, and planned on giving it a proper finish later. I'm not really finishing it so much as I am adding an update to it.)

Today is the fifth anniversary of my getting lad off from Main Employer. I did a brief 3-year anniversary update here. So where am I at now as opposed to five years ago? Financially/living situation-wise, I've still got a ways to go. I'm currently making $1 less an hour than I did in 2008. I'll be getting a 25-cent raise in January. I've been having a hard time getting up on my workday mornings, and am seriously considering going back to night shift in January, so if I go back to night shift I'll be making an extra $0.50, which would add up to only making $0.25 less than I did in 2008. My car is paid off, so that helps, but I still have a long way to go to pay off my credit card. If I do get that paid off before I move out, then the credit card will most likely only be used for gas and groceries.

Being in a relationship helped me learn a lot about myself, though I'm not 100% sure in what ways. I love following my friends on Facebook, but I don't really have time to truly get to know anybody. I remember that being the case five years ago, the difference is that back then I was heartbroken about it, now I'm just kind of like, "Eh, whatever." I realized that if I play around on social networking sites too long, I get depressed, and there are plenty of other ways to stay occupied.

Besides having lost my job, my sister, my sister's cats, and a home-away-from-home to stay at in Louisville, the loss of Ear X-tacy Records has contributed to the hole in my heart that's grown in the past five years. A lot of small independent record stores have popped up in that time, and they're pretty nice, but I miss having a large independent record store that usually had what I was looking for.

Hypothetically, working on a day shift means that I have the potential to go out and do things at night, but that's hard to do since I work ten-hour shifts. This past Monday night, I was in bed by 8:00pm. When my alarm went off at 4:40am, I had a hard time getting up because I was basically only half awake. I got out of bed by 5:10, which was better than the 5:25 the day before, but I'd still prefer to have been out of bed no later than 5:00. It's gotten to the point where I might as well just take a shower as soon as I get home, and then go straight to bed. I missed out on the chance to see Danzig in Louisville mostly because it was on a Thursday and I didn't want to get to bed too late, plus as I mentioned in my previous post I'm kind of tired of spending money and making the drive to Louisville and back. I'm debating on going to the Kreator/Overkill show on November 21st, another Thursday. I've seen Kreator before, but I'd really like to see Overkill. The only way I see myself making it to that show is if I leave work a few hours early to take a nap, but I don't think that would help me get up the following morning. But since I have such a hard time getting up on work day mornings or going out on nights when I have to work the next morning, I figure I might as well go back to night shift.

Update:

1.I finally got a Playstation 3, a whole five years after I first intended to get one, but put it off due to getting laid off. I wanted it more as a high end Blu-Ray player than for games.

2.I didn't go to the Kreator/Overkill show.

3.A couple of days after my birthday, I visited a couple of new record stores in Louisville, Modern Cult Records and Guestroom Records. Modern Cult was pretty small, but has lots of potential. Guestroom Records was pretty sweet, I'd say it's as god an independent record store as Louisville is going to get in the post-Ear X-tacy era. They have a decent selection of CDs, and a HUGE amount of vinyl. They even sell Spin-Clean Record Washers! I'd love to do more shopping at these places, but I have enough music for now, and I'm trying to save money.

4.Christmas is two and a half weeks away, and it can't pass soon enough. I went to a Best Buy yesterday, and while it wasn't really even crowded by December shopping standards, it was still crowded enough to make me want to run over anybody that was in my way. While we're at it, I want to say that I have a tendency to watch videos of Black Friday shopping. My humanitarian side wants to shake my head in disgust at these people and what they'll do for a "bargain", but the side of me that just wants to watch the world burn laughs gleefully.

5.I've had no mandatory overtime this peak season, but I still feel like I can't get shit done! Case in point, blogging. I do have a mandatory OT day scheduled for this coming Saturday.

6.Winter hasn't even officially come yet, and I'm already sick of it! Who wants to pay me to move to California?