DIY

If you’ve ever self-published… from the old xerox and staple to things like Blurb and Lulu… then there’s a chance that you’ve done the classic method of non-standard distribution of your product: The old ‘reverse-shoplift’ yourself onto the shelf of a local store that otherwise wouldn’t deal with you (I think I only ever did this in the long-gone little book shop on 9th St. off 4th Ave. in Manhattan). Here are a few camera phone photos from recent months of other - sometime quite unexpected - ways it can be done.

This last one is worth comment. I was very surprised to see the return (well… uh, now discontinued and reduced for quick sale, I guess) of the old Western Publishing model 3-pack at the toy store. This is at a Toys R Us in Knoxville, Tennessee. And yes, it is a classic Scorpio issue of the Defenders by David Anthony Craft (with help from Don McGregor) and Keith Giffen. This is the 1970s comic book equivalent of LSD, just waiting for some poor, unsuspecting soul to be warped forever. Good stuff.

I’d gotten it in my head I was going to make same salsa fresca with a variety of heirloom tomatoes. This was something I hadn’t really delved into much due to the limited availability of such in my old digs. But, a few months ago I got some crazy heirloom tomatoes as part of a friend’s CSA that we covered while they were out of town. They were the best tomatoes I’d ever had in my life. I’m very lucky to have a very good (if small) and quite affordable (compared to several of the others nearby) farmers market just a mile from my house every Friday. On this last visit I discovered a vendor I’d never noticed before. When I got to Frank Huguenard’s Bountiful Garden stand, I was pretty sure this was the place to get my tomatoes. Frank is a tall and enthusiastic individual who seemed to be creating fresh mountains of salsa at a furious rate behind his booth that was covered with dozens of tomatoes-no two alike-and a large, inviting bowl of salsa mexicana to sample. It was incredibly good stuff with an astoundingly complex flavor. When I asked how many different styles of tomato he used he said, “oh about 30 or 40″. Wow. Surprisingly, when asked how long he’d been making salsa, he told me that the first time was only a couple weeks ago. I guess he had some unexpected surplus then.

I should mention, Frank is a man with a mission. All money received goes directly to disaster relief efforts. More info on the Bountiful Garden site.

So, yeah, two days later (and still photographing things like t-shirts and swords in the garage, so, therefore still all set up with the lights) I started washing and plucking and slicing and dicing and mixing and making all kinds of a mess. Unlike the peanuts from the other day, these taste as good as they look.

The raw ingredients

plucked and washed

Pico de Gallo

Guacamole

So, yeah, we just moved. Still getting settled in, but some new systems are starting to slide into place… Here’s a few from today.

First time out with the new manual mower. Will pay for itself in about 6 weeks. We don’t really have much grass. There will be less soon. Food Not Lawns!

I figured I had to make a roast at least once. There are just certain things I’m not a fan of doing to foods. Slow Cooked Beef Brisket is probably one of those. It came out pretty good. Plenty of left overs, which was the whole goal of the project.

The kitchen compost bin, with detailed instructions. This gets transfered to a big Dalek-like thing in the back yard twice a week, with some leaves and grass clippings and such. Looking forward to having some actual compost in… uh, the Spring.

Projects waiting in the wings… sandbox, kombucha, recessed lights in the living room, accessorize mad pimp out the bicycle, um, I forgot what else…

OK. I’ve finally had a [minor] breakthrough on setting up the new Wow Cool online shop [7 months in the making!] So I feel a little more confident to do this announcement thing. Wow Cool is moving back to California and regular operation after nearly a decade of slagging off in New York and Tennessee. By August, 2008, there will be a new Wow Cool office somewhere in Santa Clara County, the web shop will be gloriously relaunched, and hopefully I can make a preliminary announcement about new releases [music, books, video] that will be rolling out. Stay tuned, dear reader. Buy me a drink at the Hilton bar during Heroes Con if you want more dirt. Or just stop by the table.

Thank you everyone,
–Marc Arsenault

ps. I am actively seeking an intern. Other employment opportunities may follow.

OK. I just spent the month of February taking the RPM Challenge-record an album of at least 10 songs or 35 minutes in 29 days. Easy, right? Except I’m down in Knoxville and the band (Brown Cuts Neighbors, nickname: Rebel, anyone!) is now scattered to the four corners. I was talked into this mad venture by the Rev. Joshua Baker (God Hates Computers, Chased and Smashed, childhood friend) who is in a similar boat up in Maine. We’re both also trying to figure out how new digital audio deals work on our respective underpowered laptops. The very last tune I finished was the one we had worked on together, and probably the most successful - check out Ouroboos (4MB MP3). If this sounds at all like something you want to hear, you can have the whole thing for free (30MB zipped MP3 files and cover in PDF). It’s called R is for Riot and is by nickname: Rebel. There are just 10 songs. It’s 21 minutes. A few songs have words, they concern micronations with solar powered submarines, lab accidents, Ernest O. Lawrence, and tactful ways to tell someone they’re being cheated on. I got done just in the proverbial nick… getting it in the mail 9 minutes before deadline. nickname: Rebel RPM Page | Josh’s Not Square with Zero RPM Page

What I learned

• Get a taller drum throne. I cannot believe how much my legs hurt.
• That old saying, never mix the same day… oh yeah. These actually sound ok a day or 2 later.
• I’m not loosing my mind now that there are just a few days left… that already happened yesterday.
• Always record every take, even the practice warm up one. Some things are hard to nail. Had two perfect solo runs lost to time. All the ones I got down… eh.
• I have recorded none of the songs I wrote or planned in the first week.

Thanks,

Marc Arsenault
http://wowcool.com/engine

I’ll post every few entries on my RPM Blog here as they build up during this long desperate month of recording… Just 17 days left.

Obscure Functions of the RPM Challenge
I pretty quickly realized that this would be where I finally cut my teeth on Logic Studio 8. I know fuck-all about it now, but expect to be an expert in four weeks time. Another thing I’ve discovered is that this was the perfect excuse to finally dig through and try out all those free apps, plug-ins and samples I’d been downloading for months. A kind of constructive procrastination. After all, I am making some sounds! Only a few seconds may make it into the final piece, but the extra spice will add some serious flavor.

That’s why I have all those outputs
Found a good use for all those output channels on my MOTU Ultralite… wishing I had another set of monitor speakers to plug into them. One set to monitor what I’ve played and one set to listen to what I’m doing. All of it through one set just really doesn’t give me the separation I want. Oh, sure, I could go to headphones or play through an amp… but, you know…

Learning all sorts of fun things from Logic. The tuner is super useful. Imagine! plodding on…