http://www.miscellaneousdebris.com/firsthouse/

Packing and moving this weekend.

Since 2000, I’ve entered over 500 bills totaling over $4000.  Most of my bills only have one “hit,” meaning being entered by one other person, some of my bills though have been found 3 times.  All in all though, only 15% of my entered bills have been re-entered by someone else.

Anyway, the other day I got a notification that a bill of mine was found.  The user note stated “In change at the bar , at Desert Shadows naturist resort.”

Naturist resort… hmmm.

Sure as hell… this one was found at a nudist resort in California: www.desertsunresort.com.

Where this person kept the change… I don’t want to know.

From Wikipedia:

Serial Experiments Lain is an anime series directed by Ryutaro Nakamura, original character design by Yoshitoshi ABe, screenplay written by Chiaki J. Konaka, and produced by Yasuyuki Ueda (credited as production 2nd) for Triangle Staff. It was broadcast on TV Tokyo from July to September 1998. A PlayStation game with the same title was released in November 1998 by Pioneer LDC.

Lain is influenced by philosophical subjects such as reality, identity, and communication.^[1] The series focuses on Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl living in suburban Japan, and her introduction to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the Internet. Lain lives with her middle class family, which consists of her inexpressive older sister Mika, her cold mother, and her computer-obsessed father. The first ripple on the pond of Lain’s lonely life appears when she learns that girls from her school have received an e-mail from Chisa Yomoda, a schoolmate who committed suicide. When Lain receives the message at home, Chisa tells her (in real time) that she is not dead, but has just “abandoned the flesh”, and has found God in the Wired. From then on, Lain is bound to a quest which will take her ever deeper into both the network and her own thoughts.

The anime series is licensed in North America by Geneon (previously Pioneer Entertainment) on DVD, VHS and LaserDisc. It was also released in Singapore by Odex. The video game, which shares only the themes and protagonist with the series, was never released outside Japan.

The series shows influences from topics such as philosophy, computer history, cyberpunk literature and conspiracy theory, and it was made the subject of several academic articles. English language anime reviewers found it to be “weird” and unusual, but reviews were still generally positive. Producer Ueda said he intended Japanese and American audiences to form conflicting views on the series, but was disappointed in this regard, as the impressions turned out to be similar.

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Simply put CoolIris allows you to take a gallery that looks like this

and make it look like this…

for more info and far better example

http://www.cooliris.com/

Firefox plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579

Once installed, just cruise the net, looking for images that have an icon like the one below in the bottom left when moused-over.

Click the icon, and wait for the magic!

She is the biggest and the best in my little world… and she’s even better during this time of year. There are no harsh, piercing winds preventing my enjoyment of all she has to offer: the music, the food, the art, the architecture, and the views… she is one of the more beautiful cities I have ever been in.

It appears as if the buildings were all designed to intermingle with each other. Individually, each building is it’s own piece of art. Together, they form an intriguing collage of shapes, lines, positive and negative spaces. She really is like a large sculpture; each and every different way I look at her, she presents new scene for me to interpret.

It is when the sun goes down that I fall truly in love. Everything about her is perfect at night.

I can walk through her streets at night with no distractions other than her beauty. During the day, she may be one of the busiest cities in the world, but at night, she is empty. It can really be quite eerie. To think that five hours ago, hundreds of thousands of people were pouring through her streets. Now, I’d have a hard time finding more than five people walking on the same block. I’ll admit at being selfish here. At night, I do not have to share he with anyone. At night, I can go where I want. No people to dodge or stand in my path. No passing cars or busses to wait for. At night, she becomes my therapist. She provides alone time, quite time, for me to think my thoughts out. I can just sit, stare, and think. At night, she is without sun to add to the heat… or fill any shadows.

While she may offer more during the day, this city was built for nighttime viewing. The beauty of her buildings and the shapes they create are amplified by their artificial lighting. The lights accentuate certain features. The lights create shadows that add a whole new feeling to the buildings that is not seen during daylight hours. It is sort of an interesting concept. These huge, magnificent buildings are busiest during the day. I would think that 98% of her visitors see her buildings under daylight. Daylight that flattens certain features, and casts an unbearable glare upon the people underneath. They see her in a daylight that protects from danger, while hiding her beauty. Only 2% of her visitors have the opportunity to see her in her true beauty. I wonder if the entire 2% even take the time to look.

She is beautiful.

She becomes different at night…

She becomes mine at night.

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This past Christmas found me a bit short on cash. I did however have a massive stack of inkjet ink and photo paper, as well as a plethora of photos that I have taken over the years. One thing lead to another and the result was A Book of Quarters.

The Process

Twenty-five photos were cropped six inches square. Some photos were left to scale, others were enlargements of detailed sections from the originals. The twenty-five photos were then split into four, three inch square sections (A, B, C, D.) The A thru D sections were randomly placed into four piles, where each pile got one section from each split as well as equal counts of A’s, B’s, C’s and D’s, so as to prevent 1 pile from having all the A’s (or B’s, etc.) Each pile was then randomly rearranged. The rearragement had two purposes. One was to keep the book interesting and have some logical progression (or as logical as possible at least.) The second was to prevent each books page four (or five, six, etc) from containing a section from the same source.

The Result

Four books that contained one section from each of the twenty-five source photos. After some extensive page flipping, arranging and rearranging, the four recipients (parents, sister, brother, and wife) were able to take each of their individual photos and combine them to make a whole.

WIN?!?!

Experience the classical age of piracy come to life at The Field Museum in the exhibition Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. You’ll discover the perils and privileges of pirate life as you explore more than 200 artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Whydah—the first fully authenticated pirate ship ever to be discovered in U.S. waters.

One of the most technologically advanced vessels of her day, the Whydah was captured on her maiden voyage as a slaver by legendary pirate Sam Bellamy and his crew. After a few alterations and a quick hoist of the Jolly Roger, the Whydah became the flagship of Bellamy’s flotilla, leading raids throughout Caribbean waters and up the Atlantic coastline.

Definitely looking forwards to seeing this one.

Ok so the song itself might have some people who know me scratching their head thinking “WTF?” Why? Well most recently, someone sent me an e-mail saying just that, “The Cry? WTF?” Originally, well when I tried explaining to Danielle the importance of this song, she looked at me confused and just said, “ok.”

Maybe you needed to be 14 or 15 years old with your head crammed up your ass, disappointing you father in your choice of after-school activities, caught in a fickle relationship with your first true love.

Maybe you just need to be me.

Far before the days of “alternative music” and “extreme sports” there was something a bunch of us in the old neighborhood used to do to stay out of trouble (and often enough get into it too.) It involved a useless wooden toy. It involved music only heard on high school or college radio stations. It consumed some of the best years of my life.

Skateboarding.

Without getting all nostalgic here about my late teens, I’ll just get right to the point about this song.

Breaking ground in talent and design back then was a company by the name of H-Street. Anybody who skated in this era would agree that H-Street was the muckety-muck in the late 80′s and early 90′s. The while the dinosaurs of the period like Powell-Peralta, Vision, G&S, and Santa Cruz were busy pumping out over-hyped product and skate videos that were as bad as scripted porn, H-Street was out there hustling their fresh ideas and different views.

One of the best things H-Street ever did was Hokus Pokus. It set the standard for all skate videos after that. They lost the stupid, scripted dialog and pumped out a video with 60 minutes of pure skating topped with a memorable soundtrack.

Kids these days do not appreciate the access they have to new music today. There was no iTunes. Hell, there were no mp3′s and CD’s were just starting to emerge. 7″ vinyl and cassette was how music was sold back then. MTV played Twisted Sister and Bobby Brown (yes, MTV played music at one time.)

Good music back then was obtained by listening to Argo High School radio, and if the weather was right, from the Northwestern University radio station. Sometimes someone’s older sibling who’s “world” was larger than one zip-code would make a copy of a copy of a copy of the Clash or Naked Raygun. The last means was skate videos. I found the Hokus Pokus soundtrack so good that I went as far as recording the whole video off the TV on to my cassette player.

So anyway…

There is a song on this video that has haunted me for the past 20 years.

I remember singing it aloud as I rode my board down through the curvy shortcut past the tennis courts at Kasey Meadow Park. I wasn’t even 16 yet… or I’d have been listing to it in my car.

I remember listening to this song on a rainy day in my high school parking lot. Rewinding it here and there trying to determine what was being said under the sound of someone on the video shouting or falling. All this time it was only a minute or two excerpt from the song.

It wasn’t an obsession, really. But there is something beautiful and seductive about the words, the music, the voice… that would have this song pop into my head every few months for years and years. Even with the death of the cassette tape, and not actually hearing it, the song still played in my head.

I remember at some point in my 20′s sitting at the beach downtown, with my notebook, writing the song down from memory.

One night, several months ago I happened upon this notebook and it happened again. This time I was ready.

I googled what I remembered the words to be, and to my thrilling amazement, I happened upon a website for some “old school punk rock” band from Lawrence, Kansas… Unknown Stuntman.

I’ll just copy and paste what one of the band members said about this song:

Ok, just to set this up………I heard this song on a Skate video when I was a kid, approximately 15 years ago. But the song obviously made an impression, becuase I still remember some of the lyrics, even though I have never figured out the title or band.

[...]

This has been one of my favorite songs since I was a kid, and the sad thing is that I haven’t heard it in ten years. But I can still remember it in my head.

There is some banter back and forth, but no revelations. Now I’ve known all along what movie it was from, but that was it.

Almost a year later someone else chimes in and solves the mystery that’s plagued several people for 10+ years.

Another reader wrote:

I’m in exactly the same situation as you. That song is amazing, and I’ve never been able to stop thinking about it. Every few months or so it comes back into my mind to haunt me. I’ll google its lyrics and come up with next to nothing. This time, I found your post.

So I’m not the only one who has been possessed by this song. If you didn’t bother to read the site, some of the history gathered by a member zombieite.

The short-lived ’80s band called the Cry were formed and fronted by lead singer Kim Berly. While with the group, Berly used the pseudonym Kimball Fox. Other members included keyboardist Robo MacPherson and drummers Billy Wade and Charlie Mitchell.

Berly spent time with the group Stampeders in the late ’70s, gaining enough experience and courage to branch out with a new gathering. The Cry landed a deal with RCA Records and released a debut single, “Crackdown,” and a self-titled debut album, both in 1980. A year later, the single “Enough” was recorded, followed by a sophomore album, Leave Your Bones in the Hall. After the second full-length offering, things fell apart, starting with Berly. Soon the Cry were out of tears and luck, coming to an uneventful end in 1982. ~ Charlotte Dillon, All Music Guide

The Cry

Kimbal Fox [aka Kim Berly] (lead vocals)
Billy Wade (drums; 1980)
Charlie Mitchell (drums; replaced Wade 1981)
Robo MacPherson (keyboards)

After leaving the Stampeders in 1979, Kim Berly started his own new-wave band, The Cry, in which he performed under the name, Kimball Fox. Two album releases on RCA, good sales and intensive touring sustained the band for a couple of years, but mounting personal problems forced Kim to leave the music scene. From 1983 to 1989, Kim went briefly into acting, gaining recognition in the Toronto theatre community.

Latest news of Berly (regarding the Stampeders reunion):

The ‘original 3′ – Dodson, Berly and King got back together off and on in the early ’90′s and were inducted into the Alberta Recording Associaton Hall Of Fame in 1994. The release of their first three records on Marigold Records happened two years later. 1998 saw the first new Stampeders record in nearly 20 years. Reminiscent of their country-hybrid roots, they were older, wiser and more mature. SURE BEATS WORKING was a sort of ‘coming home’, returning them to their country-rock roots in what would now be termed ‘new country’. On the album were the reflective “Hometown Boy”, the spankey “Oh Belinda” and title track, as well as updated versions of “Carry Me” and “Oh My Lady”.

The Cry – Enough

Have you ever sat on an empty beach
With the sun and the stars and the sea so deep
And ask yourself again
Is this for me?

With a piece of paper as blank as night
And the words don’t seem to come out right
And you ask yourself again
Is this for me?

Have you ever sat on an empty cliff
With the sun and the stars and the sea adrift
And ask yourself again
Is this for me?

Do you wish you had, all the things you need
Do you wish you had, all the things you see
And ask yourself again
Is this for me?

Is it enough now, to be all alone?
Is it enough now, to be on your own?
Is it enough now, to be all alone?
Is it enough now, to be on your own? To be on your own?

Have you ever sat on an empty beach
With the sun and the stars, and the sea so deep
And ask yourself again
Is this for me?

Do you wish you had all the things you need
Do you wish you had all the things you see
And ask yourself again
Is this for me?

Is it enough now, to be all alone?
Is it enough now, to be on your own?
Is it enough now, to be all alone?
Is it enough now, to be on your own? To be on your own?

Have you ever sat on an empty beach
With the sun and the stars, and the sea so deep
And ask yourself again
Is this for me?

With a piece of paper as blank as night
And the words don’t seem to come out right
And you ask yourself again
Is this for me?

Is it enough now
To be all alone?
Is it enough now
To be on your own?

Is it enough now
To be all alone?
Is it enough now
To be on your own?

www.miscellaneousdebris.com/memories/Enough.mp3

Well there it is.  You don’t need to like it.  You don’t need to understand it.  Some people “go home” when they smell cookies baking, or the laundry detergent their mother used.

This song takes me home.