In other news, the missus and I joined my cousin Michael and aunt Jennie in volunteering for the Obama rally in Eugene on Friday night. It was the typical Obama stump speech which you've already seen a hundred times if you're a fan (I've seen at least three complete iterations on MSNBC in the last couple weeks myself) but in person, there is always the hive-mind mentality of being one of 9000-odd people screaming and ranting that gets in your hindbrain. Perhaps my general viewpoint is stilted by personal experiences, but it had more akin to a rock concert than a political rally. I was shocked (and pleased) to see that the vast majority of the audience was people younger than myself, significantly so in most cases. My cousin Michael, as ardent an Obama supporter as you're likely to find, won't even be able to vote until the next presidential election. He got to shake the man's hand even, which was kind of nifty, I guess.

On the one hand, it was almost comical how poor the organization was, and seeing it behind the scenes was extra silly points, but on the other, I really have to hand it to the campaign to do these events daily (three on Friday all over Oregon) with a staff consisting almost entirely of unpaid, untrained volunteers, and to make them move with a relatively smooth fashion. I've been part of many tours and events which had a tenth the organization. They've had enough practice to make it almost idiot-proof by now, I guess.

I put a little clip up on my videos page of the rally while it was in full swing, if you find that sort of thing interesting.

My creative furnace finally got stoked last week, and work has begun in earnest on "A Short Drop And A Sudden Stop," the next CR release. The interesting thing is that this selection of songs (which, for the purposes of discussion, we'll go ahead and call an album) probably bears more relation, stylistically, to SMG material than the first CR album. Elle and I actually had a discussion last night as to whether to go ahead and just call it SMG anyways. I'm still pondering that, but I'm thinking "no" currently. I mean, ultimately, calling it SMG would mean selling more, obviously, but would it actually be SMG? What's the distinction any more?

In any case, as you can clearly hear in the screenshot above (hardy har har) this stuff has the organic feel of the first CR album, but the programmed sounds of normal SMG. Once I actually finish the first track I'll be better able to judge the direction.

But the long and short of it is that this writing method precludes what I had talked about a couple months ago, with doing the songs "live" and putting them up on YouTube and what-not. I spent a lot of time trying to get that idea to work, and it just wasn't happening. But when I sat down and said "okay, I need to write a fucking song," it just came out. So there you go.

What I do need is a better video camera. What's the best sub-$1K video camera out there now? I don't want one that records to DVD because that's just gay as a three dollar bill.

On the bright side, I got the first five books of the Horatio Hornblower series, so I have something to read to pass the time. I've lately turned my back on sci-fi in favor of nautical fiction. I don't know why I tend to read genres, but there you go. Normal ol' Liturature just doesn't do it for me. I plowed through the entire Patrick O'Brian series (the movie "Master & Commander" was adapted from two of his books) and now I'm fairly certain I can sail and fight a 19th century frigate with the best of 'em.

Also, the HBO series John Adams starts today, and it'll be the shit, I'm certain. I've read a couple David McCullogh books (notably "1776") and he has a fairly vast amount of knowledge of Adams, so I look forward to this. Although, as far as founding fathers go, I trend Madison/Jefferson rather than Adams/Washington, but then again, I'm a Democrat so it would stand to reason.

EDIT: I previously held "Band Of Brothers" and "The Wire" as the high-water marks of the quality a television show could exhibit, but "John Adams" sets a new standard, I think. Holy fuck, the first two episodes were good.

We've had our fun, but it's been over for weeks. Please stop calling or I'll be forced to get a restraining order.

Sincerely,

Chris Randall (D - OR)

Elle is going to Arizona on Thursday, so I'll have the casa to myself for a week. My goals will be to make as much noise as humanly possible, while not killing either the cats or the plants accidentally.

But that's really neither here nor there. The list I really don't want to be on is the "These Guys Need To Accept The Baby Jesus As Their Lord And Savior, Like, Stat" list that I seem to have ended up on. I don't think anyone but the UPS man has knocked on our door since we moved here three years ago. Now, three times in the last seven days, Christians have been coming to the door, trying to save me. The first time I was polite. The second time I was dismissive. The third time I was down-right rude. The fourth time I'm letting the Pale Rider out the door, I swear. Either that, or telling Elle there's someone at the door for her. That'll fix 'em.

So, I think I'm gonna have to suffer with the plebes and get myself a Seamaster. I even have my eye on the right one. But if anyone happens across a '69 Heuer Monaco (blue dial, white lettering, red accents) in the next couple months that isn't $5K, go ahead and grab it for me. I'll pay you back.

And on a note completely and utterly unrelated to the above picture, there's a nice little bit about Bless 1 in relation to Micronaut here.