transmissionbox

Drawing charts to clearer paths...

Fellow Humans: Please show #Rush fans a little extra love. Iconic drummer Neil Peart passed away. By any acumen measuring convention he was easily one of the top three players to ever pick up the sticks. Long as people are listening to recorded media - of any nature - there will be someone using a pair of straws or chop sticks trying to master their favorite NP rip… I hope his passing was a peaceful. #RIPNeilPeart [=

Grass Of Many Colors

When it comes to luck, or coincidence, I'm a skeptic: I just don't see the Universe working that way. So. In my economy, #chance favors the prepared. In order to make use of this, one must possess a very good memory and have an aptitude for quickly noticing substantive associations. The pic is taken from the movie #MFKZ. It's a police interrogation room... one of their illustrators is NO DOUBT a Peter Gabriel fan. [=

No Blindfold Needed

Out-lived as it might seem, these days, I (still) believe in the notion of a balanced scales. For some conventions, it's the only way to make sense of things. That is a spicy meatball, I'll concede, but I'm still letting it ride. Anyway. A friend posted a version of this song that left the scales so out of kilter it requires corrective action to counter... the following should preeetty much do the trick, methinks. [=

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXK4rkwFIwM

Mothering Heights

Mother's Day is celebrated on the wrong day, methinks. What a great idea to have it on a Sunday, right? Gives mom plenty of time to kick up her heels! Yeeeah-no. So. As a society, we're approaching this all wrong. We need to be having Mother's Day on a Friday. She leaves early from work, wherever it's done, and we let her do pretty much whatever the fck she wants for, like, the next 40 hours... Happy Mother's Day! [=

Sneek Peak

Eventually, I was taken to see the inner-most workings of the machine. There wasn't much room to move about freely among all the main gadgetry and some of those old clangers were big as buildings. Quite imposing. When I was finally able to focus, all I could see were cogs; each one stamped with a fully-spelled-out number: seventeen, rather than 17. Much extra work, my guide explained... love that grandeur, though. [=

CSI: Spectacles

I would have started this thing minutes ago but I was looking for my glasses. Because that's a thing for me - too, I mean. Wandering around the apartment like a crime scene investigator looking for my glasses. Well. Okay. That, but wearing shorts and Crocs; not a suit. I'm now right there with billions of folks who start stuff later than wanted because glasses couldn't be found… this is why aliens don't come here. [=

Odd Human Needs

Okay. So. Someone makes these crescent-shaped silicon things that act as barriers between different foods on your plate; like they'd keep your peas out of your fruit cocktail, and such. And I'm, like, of course they do. Wonder how that meeting went. "No, Dave. I'm not joking. We'll kill it with the picky eaters, dude. Fancy custom-made molds and everything!” Brilliant. Because people still eat fruit cocktail... yeah.

Puppet Derp Samurai

And here's something else. There are MILLIONS of Americans who've gone all in with Trump. People who co-sign his worst and are eager for more of the same - they persistently eschew actual information, but instead lap up obvious MIS-information then use it to inform their opinions. When Ol' Trumpy topples, which he most certainly will, these people are NOT just going to roll with it… I shall call them: The Moronin. [=

Built For Speed

So. It's my dad, me, and a cousin at this lakeside bar and we're fixin' to get well cheesed. Mid 1980s. Northern Minnesota. Lots of blue jeans and ball caps. Was a total blast. Out comes the bartender and announces a special performance of Long Tall Sally by (then famous) WWF announcer Mean Jean Okerlund. And of course we're all dancing like maniacs, hooting and hollering... I hope his recent passing was peaceful. [=

Sometime in April, 1988, a friend of mine knocks on my bedroom window. He's got a huge grin on his face and he's giddily showing me a cassette tape. Once inside, he excitedly explains how he'd just been listening to, and recorded on said tape, a special radio preview of an upcoming release from Prince.

As I'm putting the tape in the player, I notice it's not a blank tape, but rather some kind of inspirational encouragement tape that he's used to record the preview over; this still makes me chuckle, a bit, when I recount this story.

The recording was awful, as he'd recorded material over the same tape several times. Doing this repeatedly would often cause the sound to be warbled and uneven when played back. He and I were all smiles while the DJ explained that the upcoming record, Lovesexy, would be released in the following weeks, and that this was a special preview only select radio stations would broadcast.

Once he was finished with the promotional material, the DJ played the opening twenty or so seconds of Alphabet St. My friend and I were smiling ear-to-ear, carefully listening to every second: this was obviously a different kind of style, but it was unmistakably Prince. I was awestruck. We must have re-played that little chunk of mastery a dozen times before my friend got concerned for the tape's integrity.

In the next few months, I would relocate to Minnesota to get closer to my paternal family. My cousin, a fellow Prince fan, called one afternoon to tell me that Prince would be kicking off the Lovesexy tour in September - IN Minneapolis - and that we should buy tickets early. I was VERY happy I spent that money.

The concert was totally epic. Not only were we seeing the first show of the Lovesexy tour in America, but we were seeing it in Prince's home state. I'd not a seen a Prince show before, and I haven't seen five better performances of ANY kind, since. Though The Revolution as a band weren't present, Dr. Fink was there, sporting his monogramed scrubs; he and Sheila E. actually shot some hoops on stage.

My favorite memory from the event was when a huge, pink, neon "something” was being lowered from the top of the venue. At first, one could only see the very bottom part. But, I knew exactly what it was. I turned to my cousin and practically screamed, "That says Yes!" She couldn't hear me, so I repeated, "THAT SAYS YES!" And, sure enough, what was being lowered was a huge, neon-pink heart with the word "Yes" inside of it - just like on the album.

I felt, right then, and have ever since, that I was able to kind of tap into that illusive Prince vibe, even for just those several, fleeting moments. Some of my most cherished memories of seeing live music come from that concert. In the years since, I've been able to collect a couple pieces of event shwag that I didn't have the money to purchase, back then.

Prince was the ultimate showman, even driving a white Thunderbird around the stage during the Alphabet St. rap. Hard to believe that show was thirty years ago, today. I sure miss him. And his millions of dedicated fans do, too. This is quite fitting, in my opinion.

Among his many artistic talents, Prince had a real knack for putting the right letters together… and making a better day.

Not A Doormat

The only thing we had left to do was lock the place up. We'd rolled the rugs and draped the statues and crated the crockery. Where any of this would end up was anybody's guess. We rarely paid such notions much mind, however. So much changed there, from season to season, one might never see anything twice. All part of the fun, though. Leaving was always something bittersweet... can't wait to get back. #flashfiction [=

Underneath Your Hair

Any creative conventions would naturally be quite personal. ~ Perhaps on one sunny summer day ~ She wore a pur-urple beret. Nah. She wore a plu u-u-um beret. Nope. (picks up knife – spreads jelly on toast) She wore an egg pla-ant beret. Oh, nuh-uh. Hmm. (gazes out window – takes a bite of toast) Now, I need a- (sheepish grin – raises eyebrow) Dr. Fink! Fire up the machines, sir... there's music to be made. #Prince [=

It’s Not A Contest

The Captain wasn't sure, but I was sure. It was my job to be sure. I had a natural knack for direction. And the Captain could tell, just by the creak of the wood, if a sail would stay or tear: she knew how to run that ship. She was the Captain, and I drew the charts. We let philosophers from the previous verse wrangle those matters closer to the heart. We had destiny on the horizon... or some such thing like that. [=

That Rosy Smell

We humans. If there's a way to construct the longest, most arduous convention to get between two points, we'll surely do it. Our success rate here is hardly notable - sometimes negligible. Humans are stubborn, too: this does not help. We live like success is (merely) the absence of failure. So silly. And those humans coming after us will be confounded by the sheer volume of everything we missed... in our own time. [=

Gonna Fell A Little Pressure, Here

And finally, Mr. Smith, we hope you can one day see this censuring as more a wake-up call than a blindsiding kick to the stomach – a courtesy given in lieu of official disciplinary action. The workplace you came in to, all that time ago, is simply gone, Mr. Smith: replaced by better – done away with, some might prefer. So. Clinging to any vestige of that dusty relic would seem unwise, Mr. Smith... do have a good day.