Saint Lennon

San Jose, Costa Rica has a few pedestrian corridors that make it feasible to walk around without being killed. In Guatemala I would usually walk 2 blocks before nearly being hit. And if I walked 4 blocks then I would be nearly hit twice. And if by some miracle no one nearly hit me after 6 blocks then I was about to be hit. But San Jose's traffic is so miserably bad it never moves fast enough to hit anyone. Cross walks go around cars stuck in traffic. Pitiful.

One of the pedestrian walks has John Lennon sitting on a bench and I was going to sit with him but found his lap occupied. This guy should charge money to let you take his picture like this because it's a pretty classic composition. I saw photographers lining up to get this same shot so it will be all over the internet soon.

Imagine all the people...

I will be traveling for Thanksgiving but I'm not so selfish and self-absorbed to ignore my blessings. Happy Thanksgiving.

Top Gun: Riskier Business

I'm going to write a 30 year anniversary review of Top Gun a few months early. It was released in 1986 when Reagan's insane pandering to the Military was in full plumage. I think he believed was a fictional organization in a movie that he was acting in and his befuddled mind basically ignored that the director never called cut. I imagine him going home to Nancy every night and asking, "How did I read my lines today?" He was a sick man, later had no memory of flooding Los Angeles streets with Colombian cocaine to fund Osama Bin Laden's mujaheddin rebellion against U.S.S.R, but democracy allows the people to elect sick men. It's good to know all that crack and cocaine profits not only crippled a generation of drug addicts, but also enabled bloody dictatorships in El Salvador and Nicaragua and Guatemala and also funded a terrorist organization. If Reagan were a character in a movie he'd be a villain in a James Bond film....except no one stopped his plan to destroy the world. And this is the President known for the D.A.R.E anti-drug campaign. Laughable, like a parody of a disaster.

Reagan's jingoistic rhetoric is not really at the heart of Top Gun, because the movie is about taking risks. It's a personality study of high-risk activities...and the genius, yes genius, is that the odd coupling of Kelly McGillis and Tom Cruise, is forced into the pigeon-hole theme of high-risk activities. All the sex metaphors are thrown in one's face, "Crashed and burned...aggressive move...went over the top...come from behind....launching missiles...switching to guns..." these are lines from a parody porn movie but in 1986 they were average double entendre nonsense. They all point to sexual combat. Even the term, Wingman, as a reference to a friend who provides support at a bar, originates with Top Gun.

The movie actually has too many tropes to mention...the son living in the shadow of the father, who was lost in mysterious circumstances...and who flew with the lead instructor...etc etc.
Top Gun falls into the category of the worst movie with the best director. Tony Scott had a high water mark in the '80s with Beverly Hills Cop, True Romance (which would've been ruined by writer Q. Tarantino), the excellentand prophetic Enemy of the State, before moving on to direct Denzel Washington (the black Tom Cruise) in 4 respectable action films. But Top Gun's action sequences are superlative. The script reads, "I can't see him, I can't see him." "He's on your tail..." for like 30 minutes...and it's still watchable.

Because showing an erect penis would totally change the film's rating.

Action is the key word with Top Gun...sexual action....airplane action...emotional action. The movie is its best when gloriously worshiping fighter jets and their clan. It's simply military porn and I like it. The intentional vapor release from the jet engines is absolutely ejaculation symbology. Even the famous "I was inverted." line is basically a sex position reference.  However, the chemistry between McGillis and Cruise hangs on a thread of credibility. The character McGillis plays, a civilian adviser/trainer/instructor has zero credibility, but making her civilian takes her out of uniform (a plus) and removes the clumsiness found between Demi Moore and Cruise in A Few Good Men, six years later. But it's implausible, even treasonous, that a woman with no combat flight experience would be advising top gun pilots on 'textbook tactics'. But the viewer would be overthinking this role, because the romantic intrigue and action in this relationship is supposed to be a social statement on sexual combat. Everything about Top Gun is forced into combat analysis: Maverick fighting his own inner demons, Goose fighting Maverick's 'need for speed', Ice Man fighting his own fading youth, Jester fighting his students, Charlie fighting her instinct for combat safety, Viper fighting the secret of how Maverick's father died, The U.S. fighting a war for freedom. Cock against Cunt, the battle as old as time. So, the fight is either visual (air combat) or it is emotionally conveyed with dialogue and body language and songs by Berlin. But the dialogue that is used has such tired connotations "I've fallen for you" "You've Lost that Loving Feeling" "take me to bed" "I'm going to take a shower." "I flew with your father." "This is going to get complicated" that only Cruise rises to the occasion, demonstrating the maturity that would lead to far better films. McGillis is a decoration and she seems to know it; everyone wants to see Maverick get naked but we can't admit it.

This is pure intercourse metaphor as two inverted F-14 fighter jets 'fuck' in mid air. There is a simultaneous orgasm, ejaculation at the end...

...I guarantee Tony Scott said, "After you come out of the barrel roll, both of you discharge the vapor trails at the same time." How obvious!

Tom Cruise, as an actor, is highly professional and he has great camera/movie instincts. He knows what each role requires and seldom lacks personality. Yes, he leaves Scientology leaflets on the craft services buffet table, but that's because he's better than everyone else and he's also the producer who can do what he wants. If I had his teeth and hair I would leave all kinds of crazy propaganda around. He's a proud peacock and a number of scenes of him in either his underwear, a towel, or shirtless in jeans are adequate eye candy...and he is never camera shy or allows Val Kilmer to steal scenes. For instance, why the fuck would Maverick be wearing an insulated bomber jacket on the coast near San Diego? Because it stands out! It's Mav's movie and Cruise owns the role.

It's amazing to me that Cruise returns to the abysmal and redundant and repetitive Mission: Impossible franchise year after year. These movies are like fast food for the eye. If you've seen one then you have definitely seen them all. At least the James Bond franchise can say it turns out dramatically different (if worse) movies from time to time. Yes, the character is the same, but the photography of Spectre, for instance, is cloaked in an impenetrable darkness so that I can not see anything. Every face is some small blob of flesh in a sea of grey. No, the Ukrainian video piracy is not to blame. It's a very dark film. Simply because the title is Spectre doesn't mean the movie has to look like a ghost. I remember when James Bond movies were almost technicolor. I can't find a screenshot of even a single shadow in View To A Kill from 1985, it's all filmed in the daytime or bright artificial light, but Spectre is lit entirely in shadow or at night and sometimes at night and in shadow, like the whole franchise is trying to hide in Batman-esque mist. Top Gun may be puerile but at least you can see what the fuck is happening. And while we're on the topic of James Bond and lack of personality, can I say it's a relief Daniel Craig has decided to retire as the autistic James Bond whose entire personality seems to be reduced to a botoxed version of an emotionless automaton who can fuck anything with garter belt and stockings. His villains have more personality! His cars have more personality! For a character with so much mystique, it's incredible he was allowed to turn his personality scale down to zero for this role four different times.

Angry James Bond

Sad James Bond

Sexually Excited James Bond

Grieving James Bond

Perplexed James Bond

Laughing Hysterically James Bond

Jeffrey L. Kimball is probably more responsible for the alternative lighting choices in Top Gun, it's not too bright and it's not too shadowy...the choices are natural and effortless. The multiple sunrise and sunset shots over the Nevada desert are not manufactured...the message is 'the boys are still out playing after their mother has called them in'. Turn the audio off and Top Gun is a shrine to military might and human engineering, like taking The Right Stuff one step further to remove all subtlety: These Men Kick Ass! shouts this movie. Humility is totally extinguished and what is left is a vacuum of testosterone and jet fuel killing faceless targets over an ocean.

Point Break is probably my guiltiest pleasure and I only watched Top Gun recently because it was in English with Spanish subtitles so I thought it would be educational. If I brag that I watched Top Gun in the theaters along with American Ninja, Rambo Part II and Lone Wolf McQuade, I'm basically admitting that I am an ancient old man, from a generation that predates computers. I met a park ranger who said haughtily, "I was born the year Top Gun was released...I'm just saying." Well, I was the intended audience of Top Gun and it's not as shallow as people think. Actually, it's more shallow as cold war jingoism is merely a smoke screen for softcore porn.

Once I cracked the sexual combat analogy code that is written into every single interaction of this movie it actually became very boring because the writing forces every scenario into this sex theme. But that's the ultimate beauty of Top Gun; it thinks like a good soldier and does what it is told, it never deviates from its mission of military and man celebration. The message is simple: We kill, we fuck, we feel good, we win. If you want something more complicated then go watch Apocalypse Now. Top Gun is not apologetic and we are not going to let morality get in the way of our mission. Top Gun is basically a 90 minute commercial for erectile function.

As America enters a new phase of 'defend the borders, burn the refugees' cold war against a Putin-led criminal organization in Russia and a shadowy gang of brown men in hand loom scarves, a sequel "Top Gun 2" is predictably in the development stages. I wonder if they will mention the obvious impact of Reagan's blindly funding radical terrorists who would later attack N.Y with illicit drug profits hidden from Congress? No, that would be moralizing, and Top Gun is a very good case study in writing and making a movie that has a single purpose and pouring all the resources into fulfilling that purpose. If you do that then you can make a pretty bad movie that is still circulating television 30 years later. Spectre, like most modern movies, won't be circulating 30 months from now.

Looper and Guitar

Just The Two of Us is a tune recorded by Bill Withers and released by both Withers, who sang, and wrote, the classic track, but also by Grover Washington jr. who played saxophone solo on the same track. Washington was a kind of modern day Eric Dolphy with multiple skills on brass and reed instruments. It has a progression that endlessly goes C/B7/emi/G   (the original recording seems to be in F, so F/E7/ami/C) over and over so it is sort of made for a looper.

The guitar only took 20 years to save the money to have built. It's got all I want. Fylde is an English luthier co. with Roger Bucknall slaving away in the workshop for as long as I've been alive. The quality of craftsmanship is A+, the wood is not super exotic in this case to make it affordable. No Brazilian rosewood, or African Blackwood or Bloodwood. No fancy bindings, but it does have custom width striped ebony fingerboard, and custom Native symbology inlay and installed pickup. I guess I'd forgotten that Fylde's necks are not a perfect oval, they have the slight modified V running down the center, or maybe that's required for the inlay of contrasting wood on the back, or maybe it's just this particular Alexander model. I usually avoid that kind of V as I've found it on old Martin's I don't like, but in this case I will trust that this is my future and adapt. I can see there is a slight advantage of having more wood there to rest the thumb on when playing single notes and while playing chords there is no difference. There are many many factors to consider when ordering a custom guitar and neck profile was one I did not consider deeply... Actually, I found an email I sent almost 2 years ago that says,

"The width of the nut is more a preference and the profile is something I don't have much opinion about as long as there isn't a big blunt edge like I've seen on some guitars. I'm accustomed to a shallow neck."

So, Roger indeed took that into account and gave me a very very slight modified V, which he probably did from tradition or on instinct that I would need that little bulge to rest the thumb on. At any rate, I see that neck profile can be ordered and since I didn't specifically say I wanted a completely oval neck identical to the Seagull, he made me a modified slight V, and I'm sure with time it will be perfect for me.I will measure it with a caliper but I feel it's actually no deeper than the Seagull but the bulge still feels different to fingers used to a perfect oval.

 I also found the width of the nut is the same as my requested 46mm but the spacing of the strings is different/wider by about 1.25 mm, and that also takes a slight adjustment, but at this spacing there is never a danger of accidental bumping of strings. After playing the Fylde for a while the Seagull seems narrow. The guitar's name is Native Spirit and it's a tribute to our roots. I've gotten used to the dull sound of my Seagull, the spotty intonation and the buzzing and general sloppy-ness of the 20 year old Seagull. Odd, because everyone who plays it is impressed. I might do a comparison of the two one day but it is sad how lifeless the solid Cedar top/laminate sides Seagull sounds compared to a Cedar/Sapele solid instrument. The Seagull has about half the volume of the Fylde and 3/4 the sustain. The Fylde, for instance, overwhelms the camera's microphone and causes it to spike. The Seagull never had this problem. So now I own the level of acoustic guitar at which there is nothing higher. All solid wood guitars sound basically the same to me, since I am half deaf, but the details are custom and craftsmanship are different. It's a paradox because it takes about 10 years of playing for a guitar to warm up and break in, so ask me again about this Fylde in 2025 and I'll give another review. It's too new to discuss, but I can promise to keep it busy while I can. I'm amazed actually that I played a Fylde in Hobgoblin music in London in 1995 or 1996 and at that point it was the guitar I wanted most. And when near San Francisco I went to Gryphon to have my newly purchased Seagull's action adjusted and the end block repaired, and I played every high end guitar they had, which is pretty much a buffet of Lowden, Breedlove, Collings, Froggy Bottom, Santa Cruz, Martin...although no Fylde. I played all of those other guitars and only the Santa Cruz and Breedlove compared in my mind, but the first love remained for 20 years and I've played every guitar I could find to see if it was a better fit, but still the Fylde was the tops if I was buying what I consider a "Heritage" guitar, something that I don't own, but merely care-take for the future. But I only now realize that after 20 years there is no reason a Fylde will be the same kind of Fylde I played long ago, so why would I expect this guitar to sound the same as the ones I played then? But it not only sounds the same but the light heft, the balance, the construction, the aesthetics all still surpass anything I've played, though I know I could live with any fine instrument. Even looking at a video of me playing it looks normal and I can't say that for every guitar. I still handle it lightly but once I've dinged it on a moped pedal or scratched it with a metal necklace or something that is bound to happen then I will handle it less carefully and it will become absorbed into my collection. It's amazing that it fits so well because my tastes never changed in this realm of guitars. Price tag never was the deciding factor as I felt everything had to appeal to me. This is not the most expensive guitar and definitely doesn't have the most exotic woods, but it's exactly the guitar I would buy again over all the ones I've played. Picking it up today, a few days after I finally got it into my possession, feels normal, like it was always mine and Roger simply helped reunite me with it. I think it's too personal a decision to purchase a custom solid wood guitar, but I certainly recommend playing a Fylde. Of course my video doesn't showcase the natural acoustics of the guitar because I'm trying to learn to use an amplified looper, which requires the guitar go through a bypassed digitech multi-effects processor and into a Jamman Express and then into a portable Fender Amp Can, which should not normally be played while it is charging because of the hum. So this is the humblest audio for such a great instrument. It deserves to be played acoustically in a van. Heck, when I turn the amp on it's volume is the same as the guitar itself.

Some stats comparisons (all measurements in mm):
                                                 Fylde                     Seagull
Nut Width                                  45.89                      46.20 
12 Fret Width                             56.82                      55.28 
Profile 9th Fret                           28.64                       28.46
String Spacing at Bridge              58.31                      55.46
E-A                                             13                            12.42
A-D                                             12.18                        11.55
D-G                                             11.14                         11.91
G-B                                              13.13                       11.32
B-E                                              11.36                        11.25
Action Height at 12th fret*            5.63                          4.63
*I later adjusted the Fylde by sanding the saddle down 1.5mm. I think it's 1/64th from where I want it but will live with it for now.

Noteworthy comments are that I specifically asked for the nut width to be identical and I asked for 46mm. Considering the luthier and I were about 5000 miles apart that measurement was no small chore to coordinate. My micrometer has a user error rate of 5% so that number is perfect. .1mm is too small to feel. The12th fret is equally important but I didn't request anything specific and they are about 1.5mm different. The main difference I feel is the G-B string distance of 13.13 on the Fylde. I'm accustomed to more uniform distances in the 11.5mm range and this is almost 2mm wider but that G string is also the last wound string considered a "bass" string, so I wonder if this width is intentionally separating the bass from the treble unwound B and high E strings*. After 20 years with my Seagull I can tell any difference of less than 1 mm so 1.8mm feels like a chasm. I may have that changed with an offset groove in the bridge but I don't know yet. There are no luthiers I trust here in Central America so any adjustment will have to wait until another day. The main adjustment is the action, which I neglected to request lowered. 1mm in extra height is a major change especially when combined with the spacing difference. I like an acoustic guitar with low action for lightning fast lead lines like my Ibanez electric. My Seagull actually held the original action I had set up at Gryphon Music in the Bay Area way back in 1995 when I only owned one shirt. Now the G string buzzes and the E string buzzes and I think the frets need work plus a change of nut and bridge. But 20 years is pretty damn good lifespan for the action on a regularly used guitar.

*After further inspection the small string slot on the saddle for the B string was not perfectly aligned with the string/peg hole so the string was coming out at an angle that added up to a wider string spacing. Or maybe the initial placement of strings back at the workshop cut the groove slightly off center. After moving it so it is straight, the strings are now closer to uniform.

The looper is a new Jamman Express Xt and is a budget item to give me some entrance to the looping phenomenon. It's not the most basic, but it's pretty basic, which is what I decided I should have. There are many loopers on the market and I had a hard time deciding which one was best for me. The loopers with SD card and memory options all involve proprietary software coded in Pakistan or Myanmar which barely works and looks like it was coded from a room in 1988. Functionality was Steve Jobs real genius and if you like Apple then the software that comes with some of those loopers will make you weep in your mock turtleneck nest. And drums that are included on these digital devices are usually horrible and limited to a few boring rhythms, not to mention that I already own a unit with digital drums. The option to reverse a track or play at half speed is useless to me. So, that left me with choosing a basic looper in a small box and there are about three that would work for $90, but this one is Digitech, which is reliable and economy. There was some static at first which was either the cheap cable or else the brand new input jacks. It went away after changing the cables around. The unit runs off a daisy chain 9v power adapter that runs my other digitech multi-effects unit I never use. The 9v battery has a lifespan of about 30 minutes because there is no on off switch. When plugged in and a guitar cable is inserted, it turns on and stays on and draws enough juice to kill the battery.

At first I thought there was a flawed delay in the start of the recorded loop but it's definitely the timing of my foot that is the problem. I would recommend starting with a very basic and regular bass line to practice. The lack of automatic start (found on the fancier pedals) means one must begin playing instantly after touching the switch or else the track will begin with a pause. Since music is a timed exercise, the idea of timing a guitar strum with the downbeat of hitting a foot switch (but not before hitting the switch) is pretty essential for starting a loop right. To make matters worse, this looper has a fancy switch that engages on the UP of the button, so hitting the switch is only half the act, as the loop will begin to record when the switch is RELEASED. This allows one to hold the button down and clear loops without starting them playing, which would happen if I simply hit and released the switch fast. And ending the loop must be done with equal precision at the instant before the start of the loop will fit in naturally. There was no flaw in the unit but this takes some practice and the first, fundamental, loop is the most important. After that, your looper will take everything played, while in overdub mode, and replay it. This will happen infinitely even if you don't leave overdub mode. Whatever is played during overdub mode will replay when the fundamental loop goes full circle. You can leave overdub mode and let it all play and noodle around or go get a drink, but if you start a 3rd overdub then that 2nd loop will be absorbed into the fundamental loop and you can't delete it without deleting everything. But the 2nd and 3rd loops aren't as hard for me to segue into and out of because something about the timing of the fundamental loop is memorized and I know what to expect. But recording that initial loop has no click track except in my own mind so I have to hit the switch at exactly the right moment or else there will be a pause or if I hit the switch too late then it will only play 7/9ths of the first beat. This is true with all loopers but some have fancy adjustments if you have a click track that will extend the recording to fit the click track. This jamman express has none of that fancy stuff and I hope to work out some blues and soul arrangements. I figured that with an ipod I can have whatever backing track that I want and the need to have additional memory on a looper is redundant. Endless reviews of all loopers suggest there are lemons in all manufacturers. I will revisit this topic after I get settled in my next gypsy hideaway.

1985: I Survived

Yes, this is what I wore

I had a chance to revisit my illustrious/colorful past and found these inexplicable photo. Puberty does awful things to a man's mind and I was no exception as the mixture of Chess King fashion, Miami Vice popularity, a pretty staff girl at the racquetball court named Darcy Devins, and a jock mentality saw me romping with beach bunnies in Florida solely on the magnetic strength of my white suspenders and dinner jacket and striped shorts. Personality, conversation, job skills...all of these were ignored in favor of 'the exact right cologne' and 'big hair'.

There was a sad stretch of time when I was very interested in fashion of the day. Now I have come to terms with my personality and the fashion that it favors but back then in 1985...30 years ago...I was a slave to Guess ads and John Hughes movies, Swatch watches...Wham! etc. Although these clothes certainly had character, I feel they have the wrong character for me now and then. In High School we wear the clothes and lust after the girls that we are supposed to lust after. As we grow older we find our own tastes. It's very possible that I was wearing white elastic suspenders under neath that dinner jacket to hold up my shorts! Why?

I owned matching white canvas shoes and wore them with no socks because I was wicked cool.

No drugs were involved in this photo, but some trees were harmed. Maybe 1986, when men's spiked hair was normal.

'85 or '86. My pre-porn career in white short shorts and white Red Sox pullover polo shirt. I still wear this ensemble from time to time.

home made sweater with a young Oggy

Hairy Ape Flies in Tube at 35,000 ft.

When is traveling at 450 mph high above an ocean a good idea?

Oggy is a land mammal but sometimes he fools himself that he can fly. I recently returned to Costa Rica from a tour of the land of ice and snow. I'm glad I'm back and am going to the beach in Nicaragua to drink mojitos and swim in dangerous rip tides for a month to recover the feeling in my fingers. It's no good living that far north. For me, the ideal latitude is between 0 degrees and 20 degrees. 23.000 is the tropic of Cancer. God help you if you live north of 25 degrees. But 40 degrees and further north is simply insane. I've been to 66 degrees north, which is the Arctic Circle, and I didn't like it one bit. No, sir. I saw the northern lights in February and at -35 F my breath crackled into ice as it left my mouth. A deep breath brought tears to my eyes, which instantly froze my lashes shut. So, watching the northern lights is costly.

who is that elderly hippie?

I hope this starts a new chapter of creativity and invention in the tropics. I should be able to control those forces by now but I'm helpless, fearful, scorned and distraught. 

moe still packs a punch

I've been missing my steroid injections since I was gone but I managed to smuggle some back along with the ignition points and some black market spark plugs so I should be able to get my priorities in order. I also brought back some bikini brief swimwear that I had to order from a blatantly gay website. Like, only homosexual men are allowed to wear spandex bikini swimsuits?

finally, a denomination I can support.

Seems discriminatory, and wrong, and I decided wearing the same board shorts as a 19 year old crack dealer, when I am almost 50 years old, was also wrong. So, I bought spandex swimsuits that rides tight up my ass and stretches around my junk. Bungie smugglers, they are called in Australia. I don't know if I will take pictures of this obscene sight, but I also have a guitar you'll be interested in hearing.

This was custom made for the acoustics of the van

All in good time.