So what many of you don't know...I'm getting married.
It's a rather big deal for me to commit on a level like this, because I like having options, am ADD and always see other possibilities as more attractive...

What many of you DO know is that we're towards the end of July and I have only posted two events to the Gigsville site. I haven't updated my personal site for over a year. I post here less and less and this can't continue. It's absurd. There's even 100+ events that I haven't even gotten to yet. My plate is full of projects and obligations and the system is just inefficient.

So...I'm getting married.

I was initially going to marry Mac's photo editing software Aperture. Bought it and began using it even. I was going to make the plunge. I had the ring an everything. But there was some problems early on in the relationship. Keywording was ungainly, but it's organizational structure was exactly what I was looking for. No need to move your actual files, you could simply make virtual folders in a custom made tree and I began to see the big picture again. Then things began to sour. It's adjustments....are horrible. Picassa's controls had better tuning to them. It's web templates are virtually uneditable without anyone highly schooled in CSS and even if I was, that defeats the purpose of having a streamlined Image to Web interface. It's dogmatic about not ever-ever touching your original files. Ok, that's groovy. I get that. But unfortunately that includes all of your keywording. You mean to tell me that I can't actually attach the keywords to the actual master images? Ok, that's bullshit. Maybe there is a way, but if I haven't discovered it by now, then it's not designed properly.

You see, one of my dreams, is to have a system where every image is tagged and keyworded forever. So if someone says, "Hey, I need all of your oilgraphs that were made from polaroids in 2006 of people in dog outfits" - BANG, there they are. Or in 50-60 years afer I'm gone, someone archivist can go "I want all of the images of so-and-so. Paintings, straight portraits, parties, everything" and there they are. (And no, Ivy...I haven't forgotten you in all of this and will be giving you a call.) If I can't keyword those original files, then it's all for nothing. And it's S-L-O-W.....

So, naturally everyone is going "Lightroom! Use Lightroom!" Well, shit, I'm already into this thing already and you want me to look at another program? Ok...Ok...I'll download the 30 day trial.

Ok...mother of wow. The degree and quality of image adjustments are absolutely brilliant. Batch adjusting is just as easy. After years of use, my camera has some pixel drop out. I touched it out in one image....and then it could batch touch up the entire lot. I was then convinced. For editing, keywording and sending to web, it is simply a superior program. It's also very very pretty.

But oh, the organization....where with Aperture I can set up a custom made tree, LR simply imports all of my bullshit as is. And the kicker...
It doesn't import CMYK files. Seriously?

But I'm committed to making this relationship work. You can't have everything, but maybe someone knows something that I don't about this program...which leads me to what I was posting in the first place before I went off on a screed. I posted my whoas to FB and this was the exchange....



Yep, the woman I was semi-dating four years ago married the guy who designed Lightroom. I haven't heard back yet, but actually that was cool enough that it really doesn't matter....

but I'll just post these images for now....

but I did this instead...

2:45AM. Just finished the last bits of prep on the piece I'm doing tonight at Black Cat. I also still need to finish the sermon for Sunday. I could stay up later but I think it'll be diminishing returns at this stage. It's been long strange days of late....

As I write there are students in Iran who probably won't live out the day and are prepared for it. Buck found this quote from an Iranian blog. Written by a student named Hanaa.

Oklahoma City...

Brief downtime here at Sparkle Farm (aka. Ray's House). Blynch and Casey are watching something which just posited the question "What's that smell?" Ray just came in with makings for breakfast. Derek and Vanessa off somewhere. What started as a spontaneous post-Flipside roadtrip to Graceland has now turned into a multi-week, four state, train of crazy...

But it's one of those rare affirming kinds of crazy. Good casting and willingness to just keep going, knowing that doors will open the second you rush your head at them. It's the kind of thing that happens when you decide that taking a plane on a roadtrip after a solid week of mayhem is still a good idea. Which is how my portion of this adventure began. Having had to do a performance piece at a friend's wedding reception 5 days after Flipside, I returned from the civil gathering to the semi-orgiastic, table shattering, post-clean up, Carlos' birthday party at P&T's only to catch a plane the very next day to Nashville to meet up with the Dive Bar crew who I met six years ago when I picked up a penguin to sing Magic Carpet Ride at their Puppet Karaoke bar in Flipside 2003 and began what was a litany of kismet.

For any number of attendant reasons, all conventional wisdom dictated that I should have just went safely home to LA. But bigger forces are at play and I knew that to retreat would mean just that. Don't care what it says on paper. Faith not sight. Soldier in an army of weird. Dive in and watch the fire blossom open before you.

And blossom it has...and in 24 hours we head south to Lake Whitney for the Indy races where we suddenly have an entire deluxe condo and a houseboat at our illustrious disposal, then back to Austin and Vanessa I fly back to LA on Tuesday. In the intervening days, I've somehow managed to keep some semblence of contact with the real world. Working out webpages for a client from Beale St in Memphis, finding a replacement for the sermon on Sunday and today recording voice over for the pitch of what I can now safely say is the "Untitled Kevin Rolly/Balance Vector Project." Derek will record it in the Sparkle Farm Bar and we might see a cut by the end of the week.

There's obviously much more to all of this, but breakfast is up and Ray has stopped talking about guns for the time being. Photos will have to wait.

More tales soon
Valhalla...
-Kevissimo

MAYTRIP pics are up....

So being the big boy with responsibility and all, I went into the clinic to do due diligence and have them tell me what I already knew:
Your hand is burnt. 2nd degree. No 3rd. No infection or other damage. Keep doing what you're doing. You have silverdine? Good.
Ten days of suck. No charge.
Now to continue to find work about solutions for quite a number of things.....