i'm not really in a chatty mood at all. but check this one out. before i got fired from my last job i would drive home at like 2am and then have to water the plants. by that time it was around 3am. you get a hose and spray some water on some big leafed plants, that's just as loud as a jet taking off in the middle of the night. dogs barking, neighbors turning their lights on. sometimes shit just has to be done. like when the family used to go on road trips and we'd leave at 3 or 4am so we could make it to wherever we were going just in time to check in. like if we showed up a couple of hours later we would be getting screwed over by paying for the 3 hours we weren't using. whats the use of showing up somewhere at 6am when you're on vacation? so anyways, the job, the plants, and then the wine. after coming home from work and watering the plants it turns out the wine i was making was hours away from going bad. when the carbon dioxide stops doing it's thing, oxygen comes in and ruins all your work. so it's 4am and i'm in the backyard pressing grapes and filling bottles. cussing a lot under my breath and talking to myself. those were stressful times for us all. i kept a white cowboy hat that i had worn for halloween in the backseat of my car. some nights after work i would stop at the gas station and pick up some cigarettes, throw on the cowboy hat and listen to this arthur russell cd on the way home. that somehow protected me from all that other bullshit i was just talking about.
i wasn't sure if i was a fan of vic chesnutt and it took me a few years to really understand it. but then i heard this song and realized that he wasn't really fucking around. he wrote some of the funniest songs you'll ever hear. songs about getting peed on. even a song about his friend getting drunk by soaking her tampon in vodka. it's really knockout stuff. this is not one of those songs. i've been obsessed with this song from the moment i first heard it. it's actually really shocking and sad. but the high-hats really swing, so.........
now i've heard of people making printed circuit boards at home but most comments from people who have actually tried have called bullshit time and time again. they say don't waste your time, it's a scam. so you know i had put it to the test.
CAD programs? i'm not that great with these design programs but i thought i'd take a crack at it. for those of you who have never used a design program like CAD, it's like going to a foreign country and trying to get a document notarized. it just sucks. but it's the only way to take your game to the next level. here we have a very simple boost circuit. looks legit.
so i took the file and ran down to kinko's to get this masterpiece printed on a laser printer. photo gloss paper, my friend.
then you transfer it to a piece of copper board through the magic of an iron. and then you let it sit in a glass of water for 5 minutes.
peel and rip off the paper.
here we have the toner stuck on the copper board.
so then we dip the whole board in ferric acid which is super nasty stuff. i mean, it eats away copper so... you know. careful. so the copper gets eaten away and we're left with the toner.
and with a little bit of nail polish remover to remove the toner..... we have our board! welcome to the real world, me. this is kind of a triumphant moment for me. it's a moment i share alone though. maybe i should get into sports. i need to find a way to be more social. all this circuit building is going to turn me into one of those guys that breathe heavy and correct you even when you say a right answer. isn't there more to life than this? trying to make shit and then trying to get people to care about it. no? ok.
so anyways, let me introduce you to my awesome new circuit. i made it and you can't take that away from me.
some songs just don't want to be written. this song has been a thorn in my side for months. sometimes you just got to wrap it up, throw a rod mckuen sample in the mix, and call it a night.
in high school i would spend a lot of nights staying up late trying to get homework done. i always did things last minute and i still do. high school was a good place to listen to shitty hip hop radio. i used to just listen to whatever station was playing the new toni toni tone, 112 or jodeci. i thought i was one smooth motherfucker. my main man mike grove made me a pretty sweet jodeci mixtape. he swore it would make a man out of me. he told me to throw it on at any point i was hanging out with the women and they would be mine. i don't what the problem was but that shit would never work at all. i thought my flirting with the world of smooth would have come to an end. back in 95 the radio would get really steamy after midnight. you might just hear some forgotten classic or be introduced to a classic in the making. i can never forget the first time i heard rappin' 4 tay's song players club. i thought the smooth grooves of this song alone would send it to at least #2, but it never did. the song was somewhat forced into obscurity. i didn't know who sang the song so i was forced for weeks to stay up listening to the radio just trying to find out who this guy was. i've never heard a beat so smooth in my life. he's not even rapping loud like the singles of the day. it's like this dude was in a waiting room and didn't want the rest of the people to hear what he was saying. but in reality he wasn't even whispering, he was just smooth. he even says he's smooth right there in the song.
"by the way, just in case you never heard of rappin 4 tay, i'm on the smooth tip"
well i hadn't, and he most certainly was.
and it wasn't about the strippers, the money, the clothes..... it was just about the smooth for me. rappin' 4 tay, wherever you are tonight, your mixtapes worked.
