Mastering this craft is a lifelong exercise, but many of us can’t even touch these grand Masters, whose flow seems effortless and beautiful all at the same time. The best I can muster up is the chugging rhythms of Johnny Cash, which are fundamental, salt of the earth. Johnny brings the mind closer to reality, grand songwriters take the listener further away. Or, even better, they sink them deeper within the subconscious, a meditation.

With a bit of stillness one can honestly feel the greatness of the song take Hold. And I think that’s what we’re looking for. Right Katy Perry?

Fifteen years since Rage Against the Machine first became a household name. And in the time since, I haven’t really heard anyone who writes biting social commentary the way Zach de La Rocha did.

Ok, so Rage (and Zach) kind of disappeared during the time when their opinion seemed most desired (the Bush years, parts two and three). But Still, this guy’s lyrics are part of the musical lexicon.

This is where it crosses over: I used to use that music to straight HATE on shit. Now older, I see that people’s lifestyles are not hateworthy. If someone has a nice apartment / house, a pretty wife and a good job, that doesn’t mean that the person sold out, or has compromised some universal tenet of humanity. It just doesn’t. I don’t know what it DOES mean, but I know it doesn’t act as ammunition for a blind social rage.

This also ties into my migration through the ages – away from the material to the  experiential. Maybe this is the result of age, or my physiology, but as I get older, I give a shit about material things. But all those things that I expressed some rage at when I was younger – maybe they just weren’t for me. Maybe I was always born and wired to be into experiences instead of possessions. So when Zach says something like “Chained to the dream you’re searching for”, I see that as a deep comment. Because for years, I was chained to that bullshit dream (see? still kinda angry) when it just wasn’t made for me. And that’s further proof that those people that are into that type of thing don’t deserve to be raged at. Maybe that lifestyle is made for them. See ya.

Three days soaked in the sun, merciless upon its arrival in the morning, baking us in our tents until roused and mobile.

The words to ‘oh my sweet carolina’ in my head throughout, this is the taste of life that a lot of my former works are missing. Emphasis on l-i-v-i-n. Also, a song by John Mellencamp sunk my heart in the car home, amidst the cheer of the day’s journey.

Part of the drive to make music is to culturally earmark these moments. Listening to ‘time to pretend’, (what a damn catchy tune) MGMT sounds so detached and steeped in irony that they might never escape into these sunny types of days, or rather the songwriter might look right past them. Hopefully I can capture the fullness of these moments in my lungs and hands. Looking forward to the writing.

So anyway, I decided to download 1999 and write this while listening. Guess what, it’s good.

I knew that would happen. Of course, I’ve heard 1999, Delirious and Little Red Corvette (The first and last because I have ears and go out in public, the third because an ex-girlfriend hooked up me with Prince’s Greatest Hits Volume 2 way back in college). Also I had gotten a copy of Purple Rain a few years previous.

I remember hearing “Take Me With U” for the first time and thinking HOLY SHIT, a similar reaction the Purple One evoked when I first heard “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man”. Then Purple Rain, of course Darling Nikki. And I knew that was a classic album. And I wanted to share whatever thoughts I could while listening to this heralded piece of Prince’s catalog.

The extended jams here are something amazing, because the talent to write songs beyond verse / chorus / verse transcends genre: It’s a musical skill. Look, I know Prince is weird, but if you’re a musician, you have to get over it – my closed mindedness has cost me a few opportunities to see amazing artists LIVE before I knew they were amazing.

Beyond the first three singles, this album is stoner rock – extended jams and such. Pretty much the type of record you can put on and drift off into your own thoughts. Kyuss fans should take notice.

I had heard a couple things around the office about ‘buckets’ and decided to ask. So here’s the code in whole:

$buckets = array();
foreach ($data as $row) {
     $dateVariable = substr($row['meta_when'], 0, 10);
     $tempBucket = $buckets[$dateVariable];
     if (empty($tempBucket)) {
          $tempBucket = array();
     }
     $tempBucket[] = $row;
     $buckets[$dateVariable] = $tempBucket;

And here’s a step by step breakdown

$buckets = array();

This is the array that will hold the information. The key of each array element will hold the common denominator (in this case, the date). From here, I start up my foreach loop for the variable $data.

$dateVariable = substr($row['meta_when'], 0, 10);

The ‘meta_when’ key holds a datetime in the format YYYY-MM-DD 00:00:00, and I only want to categorize by date, not time. This line returns the date without the time to my variable, which will become a key for the $buckets array.

$tempBucket = $buckets[$dateVariable];
if (empty($tempBucket)) {
        $tempBucket = array();
}

These lines are pretty interesting, and were an initial source of confusion. $tempBucket receives whatever is in the bucket array for the key that was derived in the previous line. If that array is empty, then it gets initialized as a new array. Otherwise, $tempBucket remains in stasis.

$tempBucket[] = $row;

Here, the current data is being pushed onto the $tempBucket array. If the array hadn’t existed previously, this will be the first element on the array we created in the previous if/then statement. Otherwise, it will be added on to the end of the array.

$buckets[$dateVariable] = $tempBucket;

Re-assignment: the array with the updated information overwrites the array derived in the earlier part of the code.

It’s actually pretty simple in concept, but it would have taken me a long time to figure out on my own.

There’s been some (not-widespread) speculation that Mr. H to the Izzo is a freemason, subliminally putting messages from the clandestine society in his songs.

I call bullshit, especially on the further assessment that the 2009 VMAs was some public Freemason ceremony, primarily centered around Taylor Swift’s public humiliation and initiation into FM club.

If you can forgive me, I’m about to take a left turn into my opinion here. For the first part, I’m pretty sure that Jay has really peaked as a rapper, what with Kingdom Come and his desire to constantly name albums as ‘Blueprint’ sequels, thus reminding us of a time when he was really ON. Yeah, Mr. Jay goes platinum every time out, but there’s a time in music, like in film, when a person becomes a guarantee – Tom Cruise doesn’t really ACT anymore, does he?

People really just want to hear him spout materialistic shit. And by people, I mean the general public. We want to sit in our beat up 1999 Subaru Outbacks, and pretend that we’re all just hustlers counting stacks of greenbacks, while battling off scores of hotties. We just can’t look at our own selves and take Jay of the pedestal we’ve placed him on. There’s no society in the works, because his popularity is just a reflection of our culture. He succeeds because he raps about the materialistic bullshit that we chase after and fantasize about daily.

As far as the VMAs being a grand ceremony? It’s way more interesting than realizing that most people want Taylor Swifts in their living rooms and iPods instead of… someone who was truly weird, challenging, creative, and partially insane. Standardization breeds efficiency. And all of the sudden, we’re depressed.

If this works, Maybe I will write a tech review. MAYBE.

Or go back to playing Tecmo Bowl.

Today was some work in Chapter 6 of Head First Design Patterns, which essentially has the user building a ‘Universal Remote’ with 7 slots, each with an On and Off state. While copying the code and creating the design pattern, I was brainstorming practical uses for this routine in web development, but came up blank.

Another thought I had was using Javascript objects to store information about a page’s state, while using AJAX calls to update the page content and have the Javascript read back and updates to the page’s state.

Anyway, this is all just wild talk until there are some code examples, right? I know next to nothing of GitHub, but that seems to be the next logical step in allowing people to access my code and appropriately slander my shortfalls as a web developer.

Peace,
Gregg

Like the way ODB and Luda phrase the first half of their verses and the chorus on this one.

Since i’ve missed their inaugural show with Dave at the helm, you may find me at KINK come the night of August 6th.

At this point, the remaining members of Sublime have basically become a Sublime tribute band, right? So you might as well get it from your local NJ dealer. Having grown up where we grew up (Toms River), I can say that Sublime is pretty much integral to NJ surf culture. (As you say, WHAT? NEW JERSEY SURF CULTURE???). And Dave is one hell of a singer and guitar player. We used to jam out on much heavier stuff back in the day. I will get an MP3 up soon, and you hear him old school. In the meantime, here’s the New .45 FaceBook Page