Day: September 4, 2003

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One of the strange things that I think about from time to time is, ‘What if there was some horrible cataclysm, and I were one of the few people who survived. How much of human culture could I be relied on to carry single-handedly into the future, and would it be enough to prevent a new dark age?’ A slight variant on this thought is, ‘If I were abducted by aliens as a representative homo sapiens sapiens, what picture of our species would they get from downloading my brain?’

I think the bottom line is that I do know enough to keep us from falling into a dark age, but it really makes me realize how much I (or any one person) comes up short. I mean, arithmetic and algebra would carry on, but calculus might be a bit spotty, and if it depends on me, Euler substitutions are not going to be around anymore. All languages other than English would be lost. I’d be sure to tell them that everything is made of atoms. A lot of music stuff would be saved, even if I were the only person in the world who could still tune a guitar. Of course, there’s a lot of other areas that I could at least describe or interpret, so maybe we’d be OK. Sure is interesting to think about, though.

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I have been really frustrated because my current ISP is limiting me to 10 MB total space, and I’ve wanted to upload a buttload of my music, and I realized awhile ago that even though my old ISP has been out of business for years, my old, more or less unlimited server space is still accessible through FTP. Long story short, I’ve uploaded several megabytes of my original songs to my old FTP, and I’m linking to them in the table below. Enjoy while you can!

I Don’t Love You No More
 		A lighthearted country ditty.
Why Are We All So Afraid?
 		Really cool guitar – good lyrics & good atmosphere provided by my brother Kevin.
All I Ever Wanna Do
 		Good song – the girl I wrote it for was unimpressed, but that’s OK – I like it. Not a very good recording, though.
Couples & Money
 		Very nice, bouncy little Beatlesque thing. Actually appears on a commercial audiobook by the same name, in a slightly different studio recording that’s not as good.
Go with the Flow
 		Major Lennon-ish production number.
For Chaaya
 		Very real sounding classical guitar piece, but it ain’t live – it’s Memorex. Even when I actually played this many years ago, I used several tracks.
Sometimes It’s Hard
 		This may well be the best thing I’ve ever come up with.
Levi’s 501 Ad
 		This was back in the days when Sasson jeans was running an ad where Elton John sang ‘Sassons mean so much.’ I actually sent it to Levi’s via Foote, Cone & Belding, and they sent it back registered mail with a copy of their unsolicited ideas policy.
Look Around
 		Another Lennon song I tried to write.

No Woman Blues 		What it says.

Out in the Rain 		This is my first big piano number from when we got my mother-in-law’s old piano a few years ago.

Separation 		20-something angst about a long-distance romance. Nice pseudo-classical acoustic solo piece played live.

I’m So in Love with You 		This may be my most elaborate production number to date.

Ton of Pain 		Another light-hearted country piece.