Most People Don't Have Any Concepts of a Plan of an Idea What the Hell a Phone App Is

Most people don't have any concepts of a plan of an idea what the hell a phone app is. They were hiding all the cats and dogs on National Taco Day. Why are National Coffee Day and International Coffee Day just two days apart? Someone's not drinking enough coffee, or maybe too much. What's that? The rules were that you guys weren't going to fact-check!

Bandcamp Friday

Anyway, International Music Day just passed, too... Now that I've gotten all of that out of my system, I'd written previously (almost exactly a year ago, in fact) about Bandcamp being sold to Songtradr. While there was a lot of concern at the time about what would become of the music platform beloved by independent artists like me, and dismay at the layoffs that ensued, things seem to be going OK for now, and in fact today is another Bandcamp Friday, when music fans can buy music from indie artists (like me!) and Bandcamp will waive its usual revenue share so the artists get that much more. Needless to say, I haven't hopped off the bandcampwagon yet, but I've been hearing lately about a "collectively-owned successor" in the works called Subvert. While I've never made much money from my music, and I don't expect that to change now, I am intrigued by Subvert's admittedly lofty goals, and I'm looking on with interest.

What else... Gina and I spent two nights in Beach Haven on LBI in July, and saw the "Footloose" musical at the Surflight Theatre there, which was a lot of fun. We ended up going back in August to see "Titanic," then took a trip out to Foxburg, PA and enjoyed both the Foxburg Inn and Foxburg Wine Cellars very much. The two of us brought her dog Bailey with us to Vermont over Labor Day weekend, a relaxing getaway we all needed. Gina and I saw "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" last month, and it was such a great movie! I took her and her daughter Hannah to the New York Renaissance Faire for the first time, and I suspect it won't be the last. And another trip to Vermont, to glimpse some of the amazing foliage, is imminent...

I haven't upgraded to macOS Sequoia yet, but soon. I did update the ol' iPhone 12 Pro to iOS 18.0 (and now 18.0.1) with no hiccups; I'm thinking it's just about time for a phone upgrade, though. At work, we've been incorporating more AI into our routines, as is probably the case with many of you, but I hadn't played around with it too much on a personal level... until last week when one of my colleagues, Monica, let us know about Google's latest toy, NotebookLM. I decided to feed it two of the pages from my Website, and this (after I did a little editing, and added some music and visualization) is what it created. Just a little bit spooky.

Vosita

Oh, and speaking of work, Vosita Healthcare is giving away a Cybertruck for Kids in December, and I'm in the promotional video! Check it out, and see more details at https://go.vosita.com/win.

That's no temporary moon, that's a spa- oh, my bad, it is a temporary moon.

You Can

You can:

• keep #AllEyesOnRafah but still want peace and security for Israel, too
• support a people's/nation's right to exist and thrive in peace without excusing the violent actions of those claiming to defend it
• separate the behavior of a regime from the will of its people
• support an ideology, a policy, a political party or person without demonizing and threatening those opposed
• defend an organization or group while condemning bad apples within it
• protest against or in favor of something/someone without becoming belligerent, violent, and/or destructive
• have an opinion or belief which is not based on fact, as long as you understand the difference
• acknowledge the facts even when they contradict your feelings
• stand by while others do something you dislike and disagree with, if no one is being hurt by it
• refrain from trying to be the center of attention
• measure twice and cut once
• learn from history
• focus on problem-solving over finger-pointing
• indicate that you plan to make a turn or change lanes in your vehicle by using your turn signals ahead of time
• say what you want and accept the consequences
• have a thought (or reasonable facsimile thereof) without immediately blasting it out to the world via social media
• take a moment to verify whether something is true before posting or sharing it
• remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, rather than talking and removing all doubt of it
• consider other experiences and points of view, even those you can't understand
• change your mind, and acknowledge it
• apologize when you're wrong and still retain your dignity
• admit that most things aren't black and white, but have shades of grey
• acknowledge someone's accomplishments and misdeeds, without them canceling each other out (see: shades of grey)
• let it be
• compromise and negotiate
• agree to disagree, without being disagreeable
• put together a list like this without relying on AI

Bandcamp Friday... the Thirteenth

Well, this doesn't bode well. Two weeks ago, Epic Games, which had purchased the online audio distribution platform Bandcamp back in early 2022, surprised Bandcamp's employees by announcing that over 800 of them would be laid off and the platform was being sold to Songtradr, a music licensing marketplace.

Needless to say, this did not sit well with the Bandcamp staff, whose union has launched a petition for recognition by and negotiations with Songtradr's CEO. The artists and fans who've come to love Bandcamp over the years are also uncertain about their future with the platform, however. And yes, I'm among them.

Bandcamp gives its artists an average of over 80% of their music and merch sales, making Scrooges of Spotify and the other music platforms. On Bandcamp Fridays, that average goes up to over 90%. Between the platform's artist-friendly generosity and its fan community, it has long been a favorite of musicians. Epic didn't make any changes to the formula, but Songtradr has said that "[b]ased on its current financials, Bandcamp requires some adjustments to ensure a sustainable and healthy company that can serve its community of artists and fans long into the future."

So, yes, even though today isn't actually a Bandcamp Friday, it feels like it's Bandcamp Friday the 13th. It remains to be seen what those 'adjustments' will be, but independent artists can scarcely afford to lose as good a friend as Bandcamp has been to us. Here's hoping Songtradr doesn't break its new toy.

Better

I've been neglecting this 'blog... but, no, really I haven't. Fact is, I know barely anyone reads my posts anyway, and that's OK. Living life is better than writing about it anyway, as much as I enjoy writing. So I've been doing some of that, and hopefully you (whoever you are) have been as well.

There's been some travel. My trip to Egypt last year was incredible, of course; this year began with the traditional visit to Brazil, though I spent less time there than usual. Gina and I spent a relatively warm February weekend in Cape May, then decided soak up some sun in Key West for a few days in April. We did a little tour of New England over the long Fourth of July weekend, spending a night in Boston (where no one at Cheers knew our names), another one in Portsmouth, NH (where we had a delicious breakfast at La Maison Navarre), a short, rainy jaunt through Maine culminating in scrumptious lobster rolls with a lighthouse view... and two nights in beautiful Vermont. We did some kayaking, admired a waterfalls, visited the Ben & Jerry's Factory (well, we arrived just before closing, but we still managed to get some ice cream and peruse the gift shop and the Flavor Graveyard), held some baby goats, and just loved the hell out of the Green Mountain State. And each other.

Catsitting in April, dogsitting in July... I lost an aunt, my mom's sister, suddenly in May. I got to see a friend and former colleague, along with two current colleagues from Egypt and two from the US, with Gina at a great Turkish restaurant over Memorial Day weekend. More of my attention has been spent on Netflix (and Prime TV, and Apple TV+) of late, but it's probably safe to say that I still watch less TV than most of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. I did get Gina into "Black Mirror" after showing her the "Joan Is Awful" episode, and she and I are making our way through "Peaky Blinders" together (just finished season 2). And then there's the car situation.

A week before we embarked on our trip to New England, my old Corolla was totalled in a three-vehicle collision on Route 17 in Paramus. Fortunately, I wasn't injured at all, though the crash did pop up in my mind's eye randomly over the next week or so, including a few times as I was drifting off to sleep. Loads of fun. Gina went on a few test drives with me, and I'm happy to report that I'm now zipping around in a Pontiac G6 (which I've named Gisela), and I really enjoy this car, in a way that I never quite did the Toyota. Don't get me wrong, it was a dependable vehicle, but it just didn't spark joy the way the Pontiac does.

In hindsight, getting a pic of my car at Lyndhurst's
"Kingsland Explosion Memorial" might have been tempting fate, but...

All in all, things are better. Yes, I did put out a new song in May, "Spark Rekindled." My music output has slowed down rather a bit. You're welcome.  ;-P   If I wrote songs, or 'blog (or social media!) posts, solely for feedback and commentary from others, I'd have stopped a long, long time ago. I do have a few unfinished song ideas I'd like to finish, and I'm considering re-recording a few tunes for an EP, but there's no rush at the moment. I'm still getting a little more comfortable with the ukulele, and it might be fun to switch over to that for a while once I'm done with the other projects. We'll see.

In the meantime, there are two months of summer left as of today. Enjoy 'em; I plan to!

All the Old Paintings on the Tomb, They Do the Sand Dance, Don'tcha Know

I made it to Egypt this month. My employer, Microwize Technology, now has a team working in Cairo, and our CEO promised the rest of the management team and me late last year that if we hit a particular milestone in sales this year, he'd take us to Egypt (well, those of us who don't already live there). We did, and he did!

It was great to meet in person many of my Egyptian colleagues, and to check out the gorgeous office space we have in a modern area in Cairo. We got to see some incredible beaches, from El Alamein and Alexandria on the Mediterranean to Sharm El Sheikh on the Red Sea. We admired the exhibits and the mummies at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. We also cruised down the Nile River and visited several ancient temples and the Valley of the Kings along the way, with time for a hot air balloon ride in Luxor (what a view!) and a sailboat ride from Aswan to lunch at BenBen Hotel. And of course we went to the Giza pyramid complex, where I got to ride a camel.

I enjoyed all of it, the amazing views and the terrific food and the fantastic weather (16 sunny days with no rain? yes, please... and yes, I did return to the US with a tan), the camaraderie, the chance to run my fingers across hieroglyphs carved over 3,000 years ago and to dip those same fingers in the waters of the Nile. I've always been interested in ancient history, and to set foot in places that were so pivotal to Egyptian, Greek, and Roman history, to Amenhotep III and Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, left me feeling awestruck.

Modern Egypt is quite the marvel itself. There is a lot of construction going on, with infrastructure and improved transit a goal of the government. (Traffic in Cairo and Alexandria is, it's, well...) The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP27, is taking place in Sharm El Sheikh next month. Don't worry, guys, I turned off all the lights and water faucets before I left. Of course, none of this really masks the fact that the country's human rights record and freedom of expression leave a lot to be desired, or the fact that its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, is a retired military officer autocrat intolerant of dissent.

Speaking of retired military officer autocrats intolerant of dissent, Brazil's version, Jair Bolsonaro, will hopefully have his grip finally peeled away from the country's neck in tomorrow's election. His mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic, his disinterest in the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous population, and his ignorant yet inflammatory rhetoric have led him to be nicknamed the "Trump of the Tropics." I don't know that his opponent, Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva (no relation), can right the ship, but I have much more faith in him as a leader and as a human being. Yes, he was found guilty of corruption and money laundering, but the convictions were later annulled and the Supreme Court ruled that the judge who oversaw his corruption trial was biased. Even with that recent history, he's the preferable candidate to someone who admires Brazil's former military dictatorship. #ForaBolsonaro!

The reports of Twitter's becoming a free-for-all hellscape have been greatly exaggerated. I am wary, to be sure; Elon Musk is capricious and prickly. But all the pearl-clutching and running for the exits is just silly, and even if he did want to burn it to the ground, that doesn't mean that he'd be able to do so. I'm not deleting my account(s) anytime soon. Let's just wait it out and see what happens, shall we?

So bummed to hear about Jerry Lee Lewis' passing yesterday. We shared a birthdate, and I actually got to see him do a show at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill on our mutual birthday in 2017. The Killer was another prickly man, and hardly a hero, but few could rock a piano, or embody rock 'n roll, like Jerry Lee.

All right, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to watching episodes of "iZombie" and "Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities."