The Nasty Little Beast From Hell

Well, it finally came, the nasty little beast from Hell. Metronome!
This nasty little piece of
Well, let's say this, I think that that it is corrupted and retarded and freaking annoying, and a lot of other stuff.
The drummer guy from AFI cried when forced to play with a metronome. At least I didn't cry. I think that I'm going to defenestrate the no-good, vile, stinking filth.
Oh, the e-bay guy charged me twice as much as he should have charged me, and Ian "pretty much hates me by now."

(I gave the image a funny name in hopes that some weirdoes and sickoes and freaks might find us by searching for random words on the web.)

For Your Information

I Really Love Skiing!

Underneath the Ruins

It takes genius to do justice to the tears still on your face
Inspiration of the muses capture just how sweet the taste
Masters gather round me now and nod in sure assent
Watching this crude attempt at capturing so rich a covenant

Such beauty just outside my reach yet deep within me still
It glows from every atom but remains invisible
Just to draw it, just to sing it, just to make it visible
If only for a moment so I can finally drink my fill.

And make you mine if just for a quick breath
As I am yours for all life and all death
A masterpiece fit for the lords and kings
Somehow slipped into the hands of this thief

I’ll keep it safe just please don’t take it back
So I can gaze at beauty that I lack
So I can feel the warmth though I’m cold
So I can keep the innocence I sold.

One day I’ll build a palace nice enough to hold this gift
I tried to build it yesterday but the ground below it shifted
Deep underneath the ruins my one love now lies alone
I will find her even if I have to move every single stone.
I will find her because without her I can never return home.

Baby Got Bible

I don't know whether to laugh or .. . oh I guess I'll just laugh. But there is something . . ahem . . unseemly about comparing big butts to the bible.

Puppies! Yellow Labs! AKC Puppies!

How can you resist?

Shows on the Way!

Ok, there are a lot of people asking me questions. Questions like, "Dude, do you guys ever play anywhere?" "Are you ever going to have another show?" "Are you like... gone, or dead?" "Where have you been?"

Wonder no more. We will soon be having some shows. Some really cool shows. That's all I'll tell you for now, but just know that I am working hard to line up several things for the near future. I'll let you know as soon as we have anything lined up for sure. Be patient, but only for a little longer.

Oops

Well it seems that somehow our downloads folder was emptied, although I don't know how and I don't know when and I don't know why. What I do know is the 68 times this month some nice future fans tried to access our tunes and got a 404 file not found error. Oh man, that stinks. The situation is hopefully being fixed as we speak (er, write) and then the nice strangers can proceed propelling us to the rock star stratosphere as usual.

Speaking of how these strangers get to our site, here are the search terms so far this month:

37: yellow lab puppies
23: ghost caught on video
18: u2 ticket fiasco
16: jealousy curve
14: sebastian clayton
14: funny comercials
11: u2 saturday night live
10: the look machine
9: reggie white childhood
8: u2 ticket
8: deadliest animal
8: swinging bed
7: narnia movie
6: reverend goblin
5: rock climbing machine
5: billy corgan christian
5: saturday night live u2
5: chronicles of narnia movie
4: machine for living
4: mental retards
564: [not listed: 481 search terms]

I'll leave them without commentary, but I always find these reports fascinating.

Lastly, yes we're aware the site needs and update and a redesign and at the least new pictures of the new additions, and yes we're working on it. Coming soon, as they say.

Reborn

Emerging from the rubble
Birthed from the wreckage
Ashes to laughter
Emptiness to life

So let yourself go
And fall into becoming
Spinning and laughing
And running and running
Feeling the beating and the
Breathing of a soul believing
In something more…

Rocking in Boy Sets Fire's Basement

So last week we were fortunate to have our practice in BSF's basement, with all their equipment, and with Josh helping produce and arrange one of our songs, As Much. The results were a sparkling nice song and a rollicking good night. Sadly (for us) we probably won't be able to do this again for some time as BSF will be entering pre-production for their next release this week (it's about time and it's good for them). But anyway it was really great and the new band lineup is continuing to form this new sound that we're all pretty excited about.

Biblical and Classical Literature

School is in full swing. I've got sixteen credits this semester, and so far it's a lot easier than last semester. I am learning Spanish, which is harder than I expected, but I would love to speak it fluently! It's exciting when I can think of something in Spanish, or (on a really good day) come up with a full Spanish sentence.

I have one class that is particularly interesting, and totally frustrating. It's English 202, Biblical and Classical literature. I like it for several reasons. First, it should be a relatively easy A, I already know the Bible quite well and have read most of the other classical books. Also, it is kind of cool to read the Bible (which I do anyhow for fun) for school.

There are several things that really irk me about this class. I sit there, three days a week, 50 minutes at a time, and listen to a man mock and belittle my beliefs. I listen as he does his best to trash the Bible, pointing out or inventing contradictions. I listen to his crazy statements like "Satan plays basically no role in the Jewish cannon. The serpent in Genesis is not Satan, it is a talking snake. God is the one who 'knows both good and evil' and it's him that put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, Satan had nothing to do with the fall of man. There is no enmity between God and Satan. The only time Satan comes into play in the so called 'old testament' is in Job and Satan is merely God's prosecuting attorney." He then goes on to rave, "What kind of God is this? He seeks to hole his people in ignorance! And what kind of people would Adam and eve have been if they had no knowledge of good or evil? Sociopaths! Morons! Idiots!" Then a girl in the back of the class raises her hand, "Um... I don't actually know the story of Christianity, could you explain to me why Jesus died?" It breaks my heart.

It is so slanted, so biased, so derogatory! He makes it sound like no modern person, at least nobody in their right mind, believes in the Bible. It's so one sided! I feel like I am being bombarded by this guy's beliefs and agenda and there is nothing I can do about it. There are 30 people in this class being preached to three times a week about how there is no way that the Bible can be true. This is all of the exposure to the Bible that a lot of my classmates have ever had. This is how they will form their opinion on the Bible and on God.

We Might As Well Just Give Up

Because no matter how succesful we are, no matter how many great songs we write, no matter how many awesome concerts we put on, we'll never be as entertaining as this dude.

Only You Can Save Toby

Aww... what a cute lil' bunny. He's gonna die!

Go to this site it is hilarious! Someone is brilliant. This is the best money making scheme that I've heard of in a long time. The site will explain what I'm talking about.

Happy Valentine's Day from the Look Machine

The Marks of an Excellent Cover Song

I love a good cover song. Even with a band where I love their catalog of songs, I always get kind of excited to find out they've recorded a cover song. Sometimes a great cover song is one which is kind of rare, like "There She Goes" by Sixpence None the Richer. Or maybe it's one that most people have NEVER heard at all, like "Last Kiss" before Pearl Jam turned it into their biggest hit. Sometimes it's an older song that gets a fresh new feel, like "boys of summer" by the ataris ("saw a black flag sticker on a cadillac" -- no more deadhead) and sometimes it's just a completely different take on the song that demonstrates that the song itself is good, it's just the earlier interpretation that you didn't like so much -- like the Christina Aguilara song "Beautiful" as recorded by Clem Snide. I could go on and on, I think I have more than 200 cover songs on my iPod, and I really like most of them.

So two questions. . . what are some of your favorite cover songs?

And , what songs should the Look Machine cover? We're going to dedicate ourselves to learning more of them.

The Greatest Of Lyricists.

Last night Ian and I, along with Childish and two of my other friends, went skiing. (That was a lot of fun, but it’s not what I’m going to write about.)
On the way home we were talking about a lot of stuff. One of our conversations was interesting enough to be blogworthy. We were trying to list some of the best lyricists ever. Here is a list of a few of them that we came up with:

Jason Latshaw (The Look Machine) I had to put that one first.
Chris Roe (The Ataris)
Adam Duritz (The Counting Crows)
Arlo Guthrie (Arlo Guthrie)
Bono (U2)
Ben Herper (Ben Harper)
Rich Mullins (Rich Mullins) Memorial To Rich Mullins
Christian Lindskog Blindside
Geoff Rickly (Thursday)
Nathan Gray (Boysetsfire)

---

That list is just a starter. I'm tired of writing HTML stuff. You should comment and write your own list of best lyricists.

Who are some of the great lyricists that I left out?

Working to Get in Shape

My ideal physical shape is 185 pounds and muscular. I know this, because on 2 seperate ocassions I have arrived there, and stayed there for a while (I think in 1998 and again in 2003). . . and I've felt great.

Here is a picture of me at that time:


But a love of (tasty and fattening) food and my life changing so that I can't get the physical activity that I honestly do love have knocked me from those great heights.

So right now, unfortunately, I am not muscular. And 203 pounds.

A recent picture:


But I want to be around for a very long time. And, I like having discipline in my life. And, honestly, my whole life just feels better when I'm at that ideal state (emotions and body and spirit and mind being connected and all). Plus, of course, who wants to be a chubby rock star? So last week we purchased an elliptical trainer, a machine that I love. And now when I indulge my love of Law and Order SVU I work out at the same time.

I've been doing it this whole last week, to very good sweaty heart quickening results. I'm on the path of health again.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Where are You?

This Blog has been boring lately! We haven't been putting that much interesting stuff on here, and our commenters are disappearing. Where have you gone Childish? Snake man, we made you part of the band and you left without a trace? I know for a fact that this moth there are an average of 156 "unique servers" that access our site every day. Why are you so quiet? The more that people say on here the more fun it will be for everyone to read. If you don't have a blogger account it only takes a couple of minutes to get one (and they don't spam you) or you can just post anonymously.

We are also really open to suggestions about what you would like to see on the blog. If you have any suggestions about how we could improve our site feel free to post them or email them to me at ian@thelookmachine.com. Is anybody else having trouble commenting because of how long it takes blogger to let you sign in sometimes?

Hi, Everyone.

Hello.
This is my first post ever on this blog. I always dreamed about this moment... all the glory of my fingers nimbly typing wonderful woords. nope. not happening.
Yeah, I didn't feel like I could post last week. I really didn't drum well in our first practice. But, tonight it was different. Ian has been working me like crazy on the drums. (I pretty much hate him by now.) I've been fourced to drum for at least an hour a day. All the 'torture' payed off. Practice was a load of fun. It went very well. Afterwards, I introduced Xerxes to Thursday. (The greatest and best band in the world.)
So, that's all for now...

Bill Cosby -- Please no!

I certainly hope that all these accusations of Mr. Cliff Huxtable are not true. The idea of Mr. Cosby doing such untoward things to innocent women is as earth-shattering as. .. I don't know, like the Easter Bunny being guilty of murder or something. He is Cliff Huxtable! Please, Bill, please tell me this isn't true.

If it is, I'll never be able to eat another Pudding Pop.

The Return of Xerxes

Well, here it is. My first post. My first freakin' post.

Wow.

I just wanted to say that I'm back, I really appreciate the nice stuff the other guys in the band said about me, and I'm looking forward to playing and taking part in some great music. These guys are great, and if every rehearsal is like the last one (as in, we finish by downing a home-made cake), I'm definitely going to enjoy being in . . .The Viewing Apparatus.

But now, I've got to go do something. For twenty minutes. Naked. In the shower.


P.S. Bathing. I'll be bathing.

Working Hard

As you all know, we made some personell changes in the band. Well, I was under the mistaken impression that we would get together for practice and rock out like we had been a band for years. It didn't quite happen that way. This switch is going to take a lot of work, but it is all going to pay off in the end! Shane and I have been practicing really hard. We just came out of the basement after practicing for over an hour for our third time since Thursday. He is sounding really good! Shane really has an amazing amount of talent. I am sure that he will be challenging us to rock harder all the time.

I'll be getting together with Xerxes this Wednesday before practice to show him what I do on the guitar for our songs. It's really exciting to have him in the band because he really knows music! He has a really good theoretical and technical musical background. He hears one split second of a song and tells us what key it's in and offers to write it down for us. Wow. What a guy! The most exciting thing is that he has a really good voice and will be singing backup vocals!

On a side note, I am calling this hard work, but the truth is I haven't done any work for about 7 weeks. I have been off from school and having a grand time of it! I've been camping, celebrating Chistmas, chilling, exploring Venezuela, and chilling out some more. For instance, today I slept in till 10:20, got up, stretched for a while, met Laura, got some chicken cheese steaks, and headed north to the mountains. We spent the afternoon hiking and climbing around frozen waterfalls. It was really a great time. When we came back I got right down to the hard work of rocking out. I think I need another vacation.

Life will change tomorrow. School is starting and I'm sure my time will be full! It's going to be a great semester though! All of my classes have at least the potential to be really cool. I am taking Linguistics, Philosophy, Spanish, Biblical and Classical Lit, and a really cool colloquium called the Stories Project. I bought all of my books the other day and it's looking like I'm going to be Mr. Greek mythology by the end of this semester.

Convicts?

I just thought this was a funny picture. Kind of old, but still funny. For those of you who don't know him, on the left is Shane, our new drummer.

Make your predictions!

I'm trembling with hope and anticipation as each minute passes. . .. tick tock, the relentless march towards gametime.

I've never watch a Super Bowl that I've cared about. I don't quite know how to act. I haven't even figured out where to watch the game. I don't really want to watch it with casual fans, people who care more about the commercials, people who won't understand why I'm on the verge of tears. I almost just want to watch it alone. You have to be a Philly fan to understand.

So I want people to make their predictions. I've read so much analysis of this game that at this point I want it to please start.

I know very well it could go the other way, but I'm predicting 27-17 Eagles.

Here are my reasons.

1.) 15-1.
People seem to forget, but that is the Eagle's record this season in games where "people with more football talent than me" took the field for them. That's one loss. One. And I will actually refer to that one loss as "the best thing that happened to the Eagles," because it forced the loyal methodical coaching staff to make a change to their defense, which brings me to my second point. . .

2.) That defense
Anchored by an inspired Jeremiah Trotter, this defense hasn't had a bad game since that horrible (wonderful) day in Pittsburgh. And no one has really mentioned it, but we have a completely healthy secondary filled with 3 All Pros. Mix in an amazingly fast strong Jevon Kearse lining up opposite of a less than stellar offensive lineman and I see a good amount of pressure on Tom Brady -- who remember, had two 4 interception games this season (both losses). They won't be facing Indy's imaginary D; nor will the Pats have the luxury of scoring 24 points off of turnovers like they did in Pittsburgh. They are going to have to earn every yard, every point.

3.) The Pat's Secondary
If I have to read one more time that Belichek "The Genius" will "have an answer" for McNabb, Westbrook, LJ Smith, and Owens by using his ragtag secondary, I will pull my hair out! Except for his Jedi Mind tricks on Payton Manning, the Patriots can be thrown on, and teams do generally pick up passing yards on that defense. The fact of the matter is that they have a second year unproven player, a rookie unproven player, and a 33 year old wide receiver (plus an excellent safety in Rodney Harrison) comprising their backfield. As much as the media wants us to believe that Bill the Genius can just sprinkle his Magically Delicious Fairy Dust on the Game and Shut the Passing Game down, I still don't quite understand how that it just going to happen.

and there are more reasons. .. but my last is:

4.) Donovan McNabb
This guy is a champion. He works so hard, has made so much of his God-given talent, has such a high level of maturity. It's just a matter of which is stronger, his champion-ness or Philadelphia's Loser-ness. . . I'm betting on McNabb,

I'll be at the parade on Tuesday.

The Structure of Things

Something true and strong
Steady and firm

In a shifting, unsure world
Reassurance

Kurt Cobain

I just finished reading Heavier than Heaven a biography of Kurt Cobain.

I have to say, it was a very emotional experience. By the end, there were tears coming out of my eyes. And all throughout reading the chronicle of his tragic life, yet at the same time getting a peak of his genius and humanity, I had this great sense of loss. For his daughter, Frances Bean especially. And for myself, frankly.

Just a young teenager, I loved Nirvana. The way their sound just wiped the world clean of glam rock and made it all seem so hollow (which is was). . . I was so taken by their honesty, the reality, and the songs.

I know it may sound insane, but in late 1993 I started to really get the sense that I should write him a letter. Just to let him know that at least this one person appreciated him, that he was this precious child of God, that he deserved comfort and hope, that he was so. .. oh I don't know. . .special. And as difficult as it may be to sometimes tell, I thought that God was telling me to write this letter.

But I never wrote it. Things got busy. . . oh who knows. There is always time, right?

Well, you know the end to this particularly pitiful story. Kurt loads himself up with Heroin, and uses a shotgun to end his life here.

Would my letter made any difference? Probably not. Probably he wouldn't have even been able to read it. Probably he got lots of letters like this.

But now reading this account of his life, reading about his desperate loneliness, his hopelessness . . . just his general sense of worthlessness. I can see that the letter I would have written would have at least tried to really end that in a small way. Kurt, Kurt, no! Please don't keep walking down this path, stop writing this story with it's inevitable ending.

The book is filled with fascinating insights into this sad life. One I will mention just because it continues to stick with me. Kurt was backstage - their band was huge, Nevermind had just sold 8 million copies - and he sees an old friend, a lead singer of another Northwest band that was opening for them. They weren't particularly close, but when Kurt sees him he walks up to him and just falls into an embrace with him, where he clings and won't pull away for minutes.

Oh Kurt, if I could bring you back and figure out a way for it to all turn out differently, I would. You were special. You were worthy of hope and companionship. . . Kurt, I just pray that you are in an embrace now, one that will last longer than minutes, and one that will give you everything you were missing in this lifetime.

And I'm sorry for not writing that to you sooner.