Transferred a couple hundred trip pictures from my phone to my computer. Maybe by the end of June or July I’ll have the data from the past six months organized and uploaded, finally. Maybe not, there’s thousands of photos and hundreds of hours of sound.

Rehearsed for the upcoming Copy Lake/MD*ME tour of Cascadia in July.
And recorded some new cymbal sounds for the CL cassette. Have about an hour of new cymbal experiments to cull through and edit.

But that will have to wait, for my friends Chuck and Barbara called and I’m heading out to Venice now for a bike ride and a BBQ!

OMFG, my life is good!

So, another day another mix of SPP4. We’re getting really close, basically tweaking the finer points of the doublebass and piano. For this recording we used a great studio, with awesome separation (by our standards), but we do have bleed from the piano and rhodes in the doublebass mic. That’s requiring a good deal of finessing. In the past we had no separation on mics, and that made mixing easier, as we had far fewer options. With these really clean tracks I can do a lot more in the mix, and the final record will sound a lot better. But having bleed in just one mic (out of 19), and unfortunately one of the most important mics, introduces a world of conflicts. Very time consuming. OTOH, I’m learning a ton about mixing and EQing and balance and the like.

I updated my photos and resume at IMDB today. I think I will be able to get work as an extra in scenes in biker bars and insane asylums now.

Tonight, more updates on vime. And recording my backing tracks for Copy Lake.

And now I’m trying to pick and sequence the tracks for the md*me cassettes and CDs we’ll be taking on tour. Last night I knocked out this rough image for the tee shirts:

It makes Alex uncomfortable. You know, the cliched use of a battered anime sexpot, so tired and sexist. Whatevs.
Also made this one for tee shirts and badges:

No one could have trouble with that. Except Fox’s and Groening’s lawyer’s, of course…

Did some reading on zombies for Vile Dead today, as well. I also updated the 23E Studios site to reflect that we’re in pre-production on VD and post on Disembody.

I started organizing my notes for an article on contemporary art, in particular the work I call Gutteralism.

Finally, I updated vime, and fixed up my laptop to maximize its processing power when playing live.

I’m pleased to say that we’re closing in on the final mixes of the fourth Stowe-Pembleton Project record. A few more good days, like I’ve had this past week, will get it in the can. And then it’s off to Soul Note. We’re pretty confident they’ll pick it up for release as our third release on their label.
But the third SPP record, embarrassingly, is still not mixed. D’oh! Heaven only knows if the label it was originally recorded for will still be interested. Rest assured getting SPP3 mixed is high on my spreadsheet of things to do. Well, item 13 of ~59, anyway. But since some activities exist in overlapping states, it’s higher than 13 might seem to suggest.

Research for Vile Dead continues. Which is to say I’m watching zombie related tv and film, as well as horror and supernatural flicks. I’ve been watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes. This weekend I watched The Hunger (the first 2/3 is awesome. Then it’s downhill into complete, “quick, wrap it up, we’ve used our allotted 70 minutes! Screw linearity, comprehensibility, plot, characters and everything that’s happened in the film thus far, we need a quick ending. Oh hey, could you throw in a twist! Don’t worry about it making sense, this a vampire movie with David Bowie and lesbians, we can’t lose!”) and Hellboy II (Lots of fun to watch with absolutely no promise or pretension to being anything else.) I must admit, I always love the research phase of projects, but VD is particularly enjoyable.

Yesterday 23E Studios hosted a little tea party in the front courtyard of the garoffice. Our overlords, the Nightmare City City Council, were in town and wanted to check up on us. I think we passed the spot inspection. They declared the garoffice very nice, and expressed a strong faith in our ability to be productive in the 23E complex. While here they picked up their tribute for the year, the Nightmare City arcade from the Disembody installation/set. And their outfits from that film for use in future NC ventures.

(This is the courtyard. In the pic it is setup for mixing SPP4. It looked much nicer for the NC3: no computer paraphernalia, just my blue teapot and white cups and saucers.)

You’ll note from this post that the rebuilt desktop is performing fine thus far. I yanked out two internal drives, and hope to replace them soon with much larger drives for the logging and editing of Disembody. That’s one of the first things that came up in my logging strategy session with my father. The other big thing at this stage is establishing the best possible naming system for the clips. And defining parameters based on future uses of the footage. To that end I’ve begun a catalogue and timeline for the footage.

In other Disembody news, the NC3 think they spotted the dumpster from Disembody still residing in an alley in Chinatown where we filled it. The dumpster company has still not carried it away. Why not?
In sad Disembody news, 20th Century Props, where 23E rented theater seats for the Morgellon, is selling off its props and closing its doors. Oh, if only we could buy those seats for future projects! They’re being auctioned off, but A) I’ll be on tour and B) I have no money. So…

Above is some of the messy Copy Lake/My Daddy Ate My Eyes setup for our coming shows (and hopefully tour) in July. I’m mixing a MD8ME demo today. And rehearsing for the shows every day for the next many weeks. Also working on new material for Forever What?. We hope to rehearse in August in preparation for shows in Fall. With luck we’ll start gigging out semi-reguarly here in LA starting in September.

The garoffice came together today. It is more or less complete. Hoorah!

It features two music spaces. The first is for my Arp Odyssey and X-Station. The X-Station will run Live, as it has for the past couple years. The laptop will fit on the upper shelf between the mixer and Kaoss pad. So awesome. This will probably be my primary composition and rehearsal space. This is where I will work on the SPP and oRSo and My Special Porpoise and SleepWalks and FW? and Kenton Camerata stuff.

The second music station is more focused on My Daddy Ate My Eyes and Copy Lake, bands wherein I don’t use the computer. That station is super old school, with equipment that goes back to my early 90s music days in Carnival De Carnitas and Meow (and Suplex and Pale Ghost and DragKing and oRSo.) It’s all motors and toys and contact mics and bent tape players etc. I really look forward to playing with all that awesome goodness again. And working it into my other rig.

While on the topic ogf music, I worked on SPP4 a bit more today. Remixing Wich-i-tai-to twice. The way Nobu and I mix the SPP records (living on opposite coasts as we do) is a little bizarre. I mix and upload. He listens and calls. We debate, discuss and argue. I make a new mix based on our conversation. And upload it. And then he calls…

About the only other newsworthy 23E/MVM news is that the primary video editing computer, my desktop, was booted up today. It is imperfect. It was a great machine for many years. But ever since I was evicted in November 2007 from the Green Door Studio, it has been unreliable. It won’t run two monitors. It drops external drives. One of the RAID sets has disappeared now (but not one with any valuable data, fortunately.) This makes me sad as I obvs can’t replace this machine and have to log and edit Disembody on it.
Tomorrow, troubleshooting the dual monitors and RAID issues!

But now it’s time for more Vile Dead research. Buffy season 3, a zombie episode entitled, the Zeppo.

In other arcade news, Nightmare City will be in LA this weekend and they are taking their arcade back home to the sweaty city council offices.

In SPP news, this evening I made a new mix of Wichi-tai-to. It is now off in the ether for my compatriots on the fourth record to sound check.

Other music news, plans for Copy Lake and My Daddy Ate My Eyes to tour this July are moving along. Though I haven’t done any of the FW? recording I need to do for the Copy Lake demo. FW? are guesting on the cassette being released by Nightmare City records.
On the tour I’ll being playing bass and cymbal and home-made tchaudiotchkes (pronounced cha-dee-oh-ch-kees). It will be a return to my pre-Ableton days. Weird. And super-exciting. The new garoffice will feature a rehearsal space with my Arp and tchaudiotchekes and X-Station to hang out in. The porch will function as the work space for building tchaudiotchkes.

And now to wind out the evening, I’m watching some Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Vile Dead research.

Gods!
It turns out blogging and group socializing are alike in my psyche - I can’t do either unless it’s my job.
Which points to, perhaps, one of the defining traits of my character, my infinite capacity and adaptability for work stands in stark contrast to my constant struggle to function in realms outside the definition of “work.”

I have no idea what that says about me.
Other than that it is a good thing I lead a life overextended.

So, yeah, the 122 Days trip. It was excellent. But hardly something I could bring myself to write about, apparently. Well, I microblogged the pants off it, of course…

I got back to San Francisco exactly 122 Days after I left San Francisco. That was maybe three weeks ago…
I’ve spent the past three weeks working to pay my May bills (I arrived here with nary a cent to my name, as planned), and writing the essay to finish my MA degree in VCS.

I also squoze in a rehearsal with my SF band, the Modern Jazz Duet.

I threw together the sequencing of the CD for Marcella Faustini’s MashUp Show at NOMA gallery. I have the nagging feeling the music will be revisited and remixed and resequenced, because I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked, and the many imperfections have really been nagging at me.

Today I’m returning to mixing the Stowe-Pembleton Project’s fourth CD, which we recorded in DC in January. I’m really happy with it.
Speaking of which, the second SPP CD, Confusion Bleue, which is AWESOME, is out this month on Black Saint/Soul Note/CAM. It will be distributed in the States by Rykodisc, I think. So, we may get some new US fans…

In April, SleepWalks, my new project with Andrea Williams, opened for The Parasitic Fantasy Band at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. It was fabulous. We were joined by Todd Shalom, whose vocal work really spread the SleepWalks sound out to new vistas. It was a great show. And then I had the pleasure of seeing The Parasitic Fantasy again at ATA in SF a few weeks ago. They are superb new friends. Totally inspirational film/sound performers.
At their SF shows they played with Metal Rouge, who are also superb artists and people. It was really great to be able to spend time with all of them.
Metal Rouge are LA based, so I’m really hoping to get a chance to see them again, once I’m finally back home.

dang, I’m just not very good at blogging regularly.

Whatevs…

Today I sat in my Uncle Peter’s apartment in Boston and managed data. I uploaded to flickr. I tagged and dated and geo-tagged pix. I meant to upload video and sound recordings, but ran out of time.

I emailed the friends I think i’ll have time to visit in NYC next week.

I ate two bags of maruchan ramen and a 32 oz bag of frozen mixed veges.

I talked to Amy. I paid my monthly tax bill.

It’s 4:30pm and in two hours I head to South Station to catch a greyhound to Holyoke, where I’ll be crashed at the Holyoke Research Institute for a day and a half. They accepted a proposal I made, so hopefully tomorrow we’ll work the details for a residency there.

Yesterday was my only full day in Boston. It’s cold here. Today it’s 13 degrees F. Yesterday it was 6 degrees F. And windy. And I had the brilliant idea to go for a ten mile walk making field recordings along the water line. My uncle lives on the water. So, I wanted to walk the coast from UMass to downtown.
This was a terrible idea.
First of all, when field recording I take forever to get anywhere. I’m constantly stopping and standing stock still to get a good sound. I stand for at least five minutes in place not moving, wearing binaural mics. This is just a bad idea in six degree weather on the Chesapeake bay.
Plus, I always think the best sound will inevitably be someplace inaccessible, so I inevitably get wet and sandy or dirty or…
So, after two hours I had some great sounds, which I will upload later, but I had hardly made it more than a few blocks along my ten mile route. And my feet were wet. And my nose and hands hurt so much I was hyperventilating.
So, I totally gave up and went back to my Uncle’s to drink tea and warm up.
I shot some video, and took a few pics, but, it was just too darn cold to have my hands outside my pockets operating gear for any substantial time, so not nearly as many pics as I would have liked.

In the evening I took the T (commuter rail) to MIT and met my friend Craig. He and Will Pappenheimer created a beautiful work of art at Fringe last September, Virta-flaneurazine SL. Craig and I chatted and enjoyed Melanie Smith’s art. He introduced me to his friends Sasha and John, as well. I look forward to checking out there work in the coming days.
here are a couple links he suggested to me:

Shift Space

The Networked Performance blog

Ri-chan is sending out resumes and cover letters for nursing positions. She has a potential sponsor for her work visa, at John Hopkins.
She has been studying and job hunting since I got here. She has two of her licenses; and is soon to take the registered nurse test for her final license. She’s a smart cookie.
She, however, doesn’t think so. This is one of our ongoing arguments. We spend our lunches together arguing whether or not she is intelligent and wise. It’s clear to me she is. It seems less clear to her.

This is always quite baffling to me.
I don’t think I’m all that smart. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that we have no fucking clue about ourselves. If you want to know who the fuck you are, listen to what people say about you. They know who you are, based on your actions and your words. Any time you want to disagree with them, bite your fucking tongue.
People tell you that you’re smart? You fucking well probably are.
People tell you that you’re impatient? Even though you think you’re some New Age fucking guru of zen? Bite your fucking tongue, pull your head out of your ass, and consider that discrepancy.
You have no fucking clue who you are; what your qualities are; what your peccadilloes are. You don’t know shit about yourself; the people around you know who the fuck you are.
You are your actions, not the self-indulgent puke of your conscious mind and the rancid wank of your internal dialogue. Every iota of you that you have access to is fetid and deceitful fabrication.
The conscious mind is a betrayer.
Your behavior is who you actually are. And only others are in any position to tell you who your actions make you out to be.
Not that you can actually ever convince anyone of this.
Even though we all know this, forwards and backwards, from infancy, when we first start manipulating our actions to manipulate others to win our desires.
Whatevs.
Ri-chan and I argue this each day at lunch, because she’s whipsmart.

Today I rehearsed for six or seven hours. (Okay so this must have been written three days ago, January 1st, 2009, because yesterday I recorded with the kick-ass double bassist Daniel Barbiero at his place in DC. And I did long practice sessions the two days before that. And this sounds like it was the first day.) Glorious.
I use a Novation X-Station 49 to control Ableton Live. I send out of an Indigo Echo to an Alesis Multimix 8, with a Korg Kaoss pad as my effects unit.
I am using about 40% old samples from the standard collection I’ve put together over the past decade. And I am using about 60% samples made from my time in DC, Alexandria and Rosemead.
(I’ll try to upload all of this to vime, soon.)

(I see things while traveling I don’t see otherwise. Like this instant margarita tub. Capitalism is awesome. In the same way black holess are, like, “wow, that is crazy, I can’t even imagine that, wait I’m trying, nope, no, can’t imagine it, will have to stick with Max van Sydow in mind.”)

I am very happy with the way I am sounding. By the end of the trip, I should be in fine form. I’m even thinking of asking the always agreeable Boni Banks for a slot at Noise n Pancakes in SF at the end of my trip. (I did ask. Haven’t heard back. Asked for a 24 hour show. With rotating guests collaborating through the day and night with me. Basically I’d supply a running atmosphere in the background of some venue and others would come and go as they pleased. I can’t imagine who would want to see this, or why Boni would want to put it on, but there you go, it’s be fun for me, and often what I enjoy others do to, even if I can’t figure why.)

Tomorrow I am recording a duet record with a double bassist in DC, Daniel Barbiero. Nobu is producing. That should be fun.
(It was. Totally faboo. Daniel was really responsive and flexible. His background and influences are contemporary compositional, so we share that. But my music is completely unlike what he is accustomed to. He generally plays with other acoustic musicians. And musicians who can provide more instant feedback and interplay. I, and this is a weakness of mine as an improvisor, am really a wall of sound, an environment other musicians are thrown into. I can flex and shift this environment to try and suit there needs, but I do so at a geologic pace, by musical standards. Daniel was fabulous at integrating the extended technique and broad range of his instrument to inhabit the world I created for it. Nobu is very happy with the recordings, and is hoping to produce them in the next few months, before getting the frakking brilliant Honyo Ohte to do up a CD package. He’ll then send the whole thing off to labels. Crazy that someone as incredibly talented as Nobu is that big a supporter of my music. It’s way beyond flattering.)

(This is Nobu looking for a CD on his wall of jazz CDs. He has that many CDs again of progressive rock. He loves music, and is encyclopedic. Right now, as I write this blog, he is writing reviews for a new book coming out, covering every ECM release in history. He’s writing 28 of the articles.)

Yesterday I rehearsed all day, as well. (So maybe this was written on the 2nd not the 1st. or maybe the 1st. Time gets all smeary when you’re traveling and couchsurfing and haven’t had a real life in almost a decade, and even then, it was only sort of real, for a few years, and before that, super unreal, and maybe before that it was on and off, but mostly off.) In the evening I read Cryptonomicon. My allergies (cat and mold are getting me here, I think) were worse yesterday. Now the loratadine is kicking in a bit more. (Yeah, yesterday at Daniel’s was a great relief. Today, I’m feeling a little better. The loratadine really helps, I just hate taking medication.)
I’ll post recordings from my rehearsals to vime when I get to a decent web connection.
As well as photos. Right now, I’m lucky to get on long enough to check email. I’m writing my blog posts offline and sending them when I get a wifi window here.

Right now Nobu and I are listening to CDs by Achille Succi, a saxophonist who we will be recording with (along with Daniel) in DC at the end of the month. That will be the fourth Stowe-Pembleton Project CD.
This recording session will alter my sched a bit. I’m probably going to be on the East Coast two weeks longer than anticipated. After Baltimore, I’ll hit Philly, then NYC, then back here for the recording. After that I’ll hit Holyoke and Lebanon in the first two weeks of February, before returning to Baltimore to begin the Amtrak leg of my trip.

Let’s see, SF, where was I?
I think I hadn’t even left LA yet, last time. Whatevs.
Now I’m in SF. Not in reality. In reality I am in Rosemead, a suburb of Baltimore. I am sitting uncomfortably at my laptop, and periodically running into Ri-chan and Nobu’s office to look at her work applications.
And now I am going to brush my teeth.

Hmm, well, that was a weird segue to end with. But now, on the 4th, I’m, actually, my ass really hurts from sitting on hard surfaces all day, so I’m going away now if there’s a wi-fi sniff I can catch to upload this.

(Okay, straight up, I mean really, giving yourself diabetes before the cirrhosis kicks in? Fucking brilliant. See, like a black hole, how can you not love the idea, even if, ultimately, you’re kind of thinking, “fuck, note to self, avoid that deathtrap.” No? Not buying it? You don’t see the connection? Capitalism doesn’t awe you at all? It’s nothing like what maybe you imagine happens at the event horizon of a black hole, that idea that maybe you’ll be pulled a part and stretched forever because of the possible oddities of time and space under such high gravity? No? Really, because I’m thinking, maybe, yeah, you know, you gotta give capitalism some props for just how marketing is everything, like give the ponzi scheme economy a ponzi scheme materiality? No?)

Ri-chan is sending out resumes and cover letters for nursing positions. She has a potential sponsor for her work visa, at John Hopkins.
She has been studying and job hunting since I got here. She has two of her licenses; and is soon to take the registered nurse test for her final license. She’s a smart cookie.
She, however, doesn’t think so. This is one of our ongoing arguments. We spend our lunches together arguing whether or not she is intelligent and wise. It’s clear to me she is. It seems less clear to her.

This is always quite baffling to me.
I don’t think I’m all that smart. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that we have no fucking clue about ourselves. If you want to know who the fuck you are, listen to what people say about you. They know who you are, based on your actions and your words. Any time you want to disagree with them, bite your fucking tongue.
People tell you that you’re smart? You fucking well probably are.
People tell you that you’re impatient? Even though you think you’re some New Age fucking guru of zen? Bite your fucking tongue, pull your head out of your ass, and consider that discrepancy.
You have no fucking clue who you are; what your qualities are; what your peccadilloes are. You don’t know shit about yourself; the people around you know who the fuck you are.
You are your actions, not the self-indulgent puke of your conscious mind and the rancid wank of your internal dialogue. Every iota of you that you have access to is fetid and deceitful fabrication.
The conscious mind is a betrayer.
Your behavior is who you actually are. And only others are in any position to tell you who your actions make you out to be.
Not that you can actually ever convince anyone of this.
Even though we all know this, forwards and backwards, from infancy, when we first start manipulating our actions to manipulate others to win our desires.
Whatevs.
Ri-chan and I argue this each day at lunch, because she’s whipsmart.

Today I rehearsed for six or seven hours. (Okay so this must have been written three days ago, January 1st, 2009, because yesterday I recorded with the kick-ass double bassist Daniel Barbiero at his place in DC. And I did long practice sessions the two days before that. And this sounds like it was the first day.) Glorious.
I use a Novation X-Station 49 to control Ableton Live. I send out of an Indigo Echo to an Alesis Multimix 8, with a Korg Kaoss pad as my effects unit.
I am using about 40% old samples from the standard collection I’ve put together over the past decade. And I am using about 60% samples made from my time in DC, Alexandria and Rosemead.
(I’ll try to upload all of this to vime, soon.)

(I see things while traveling I don’t see otherwise. Like this instant margarita tub. Capitalism is awesome. In the same way black holess are, like, “wow, that is crazy, I can’t even imagine that, wait I’m trying, nope, no, can’t imagine it, will have to stick with Max van Sydow in mind.”)

I am very happy with the way I am sounding. By the end of the trip, I should be in fine form. I’m even thinking of asking the always agreeable Boni Banks for a slot at Noise n Pancakes in SF at the end of my trip. (I did ask. Haven’t heard back. Asked for a 24 hour show. With rotating guests collaborating through the day and night with me. Basically I’d supply a running atmosphere in the background of some venue and others would come and go as they pleased. I can’t imagine who would want to see this, or why Boni would want to put it on, but there you go, it’s be fun for me, and often what I enjoy others do to, even if I can’t figure why.)

Tomorrow I am recording a duet record with a double bassist in DC, Daniel Barbiero. Nobu is producing. That should be fun.
(It was. Totally faboo. Daniel was really responsive and flexible. His background and influences are contemporary compositional, so we share that. But my music is completely unlike what he is accustomed to. He generally plays with other acoustic musicians. And musicians who can provide more instant feedback and interplay. I, and this is a weakness of mine as an improvisor, am really a wall of sound, an environment other musicians are thrown into. I can flex and shift this environment to try and suit there needs, but I do so at a geologic pace, by musical standards. Daniel was fabulous at integrating the extended technique and broad range of his instrument to inhabit the world I created for it. Nobu is very happy with the recordings, and is hoping to produce them in the next few months, before getting the frakking brilliant Honyo Ohte to do up a CD package. He’ll then send the whole thing off to labels. Crazy that someone as incredibly talented as Nobu is that big a supporter of my music. It’s way beyond flattering.)

(This is Nobu looking for a CD on his wall of jazz CDs. He has that many CDs again of progressive rock. He loves music, and is encyclopedic. Right now, as I write this blog, he is writing reviews for a new book coming out, covering every ECM release in history. He’s writing 28 of the articles.)

Yesterday I rehearsed all day, as well. (So maybe this was written on the 2nd not the 1st. or maybe the 1st. Time gets all smeary when you’re traveling and couchsurfing and haven’t had a real life in almost a decade, and even then, it was only sort of real, for a few years, and before that, super unreal, and maybe before that it was on and off, but mostly off.) In the evening I read Cryptonomicon. My allergies (cat and mold are getting me here, I think) were worse yesterday. Now the loratadine is kicking in a bit more. (Yeah, yesterday at Daniel’s was a great relief. Today, I’m feeling a little better. The loratadine really helps, I just hate taking medication.)
I’ll post recordings from my rehearsals to vime when I get to a decent web connection.
As well as photos. Right now, I’m lucky to get on long enough to check email. I’m writing my blog posts offline and sending them when I get a wifi window here.

Right now Nobu and I are listening to CDs by Achille Succi, a saxophonist who we will be recording with (along with Daniel) in DC at the end of the month. That will be the fourth Stowe-Pembleton Project CD.
This recording session will alter my sched a bit. I’m probably going to be on the East Coast two weeks longer than anticipated. After Baltimore, I’ll hit Philly, then NYC, then back here for the recording. After that I’ll hit Holyoke and Lebanon in the first two weeks of February, before returning to Baltimore to begin the Amtrak leg of my trip.

Let’s see, SF, where was I?
I think I hadn’t even left LA yet, last time. Whatevs.
Now I’m in SF. Not in reality. In reality I am in Rosemead, a suburb of Baltimore. I am sitting uncomfortably at my laptop, and periodically running into Ri-chan and Nobu’s office to look at her work applications.
And now I am going to brush my teeth.

Hmm, well, that was a weird segue to end with. But now, on the 4th, I’m, actually, my ass really hurts from sitting on hard surfaces all day, so I’m going away now if there’s a wi-fi sniff I can catch to upload this.

(Okay, straight up, I mean really, giving yourself diabetes before the cirrhosis kicks in? Fucking brilliant. See, like a black hole, how can you not love the idea, even if, ultimately, you’re kind of thinking, “fuck, note to self, avoid that deathtrap.” No? Not buying it? You don’t see the connection? Capitalism doesn’t awe you at all? It’s nothing like what maybe you imagine happens at the event horizon of a black hole, that idea that maybe you’ll be pulled a part and stretched forever because of the possible oddities of time and space under such high gravity? No? Really, because I’m thinking, maybe, yeah, you know, you gotta give capitalism some props for just how marketing is everything, like give the ponzi scheme economy a ponzi scheme materiality? No?)