Gear for gigging

In my very short history of performing, this is the gear I've come to rely on.
In no particular order,

1. The Snark Tuner

A wonderful name, no? Top it off with a fun design and color scheme. These tuners are serious. Very serious. They are extremely accurate and fast, and can detect the lowest of notes without any problem. Sure, it doesn't have the fancy "sweetened tuning" that the Peterson Stroboclip boasts about, but... it's only $9! That is a good deal. I really like this tuner and would definitely buy it again if it breaks. Actually, I've already done that... Not suggesting that it's flimsy or anything  -  it just doesn't take well to motorcycles. Yeah... that's a story for another time.

2. Extra strings and a winder

Planet Waves Pro Winder

You'd be insane not to bring extra packs of strings. Especially if you've got an aggressive technique or, as a friend calls it, years of repressed rage that you express through music. I always restring my guitar a few hours before the gig so that I can play on a fresh set, and the strings will have had time to stretch. Even so, stuff can happen. And when it happens, you want to be ready to slap on a new string as quickly as possible. Read: invest in a string winder. The one pictured above is quite nice, since it has a built in cutter as well. If you can help it, please don't leave your strings uncut or wrapped in those silly loops. It's really quite distracting. Oh, and tell a joke or something while restringing on stage. Otherwise it will be as boring as watching someone turn a knob in silence for a few minutes. Petteri's got it down!

3. Guitar Hands and a string wiping thing

These are up to you, really. I use them if I'm going into a long gig. The "Guitar Hands" lotion pretty much smooths and softens your calluses so that you can glide up and down the neck with reduced drag. And it works pretty well! My friend got me "The String Cleaner" as a joke, but it turns out that it actually does a decent job . If your strings feel kind of gunky, give it a quick swipe with this thing and they'll feel as fresh as a fish from a Japanese fish market. 

4. A Pickup

Sure, a mic works fine for gigging... if you're not playing in a noisy bar or have to move around while playing. Having a pickup has been so convenient for me. I currently use the Dazzo pickup:

It's a brilliant soundboard transducer made by Teddy Randazzo. It sounds really good! Thomas Leeb uses it as well. I have mine soldered to a Mi-Si Simple Jack, which is a preamp powered by a capacitor that you charge through a wall outlet. That's right, charge. And in only a minute! No more heavy batteries to replace. This is awesome. If you go to an open mic, the sound guy will hand you a cable and expect you to plug in and start playing as soon as possible. There's no time to set up a large, clunky preamp and fiddle around with EQ. 

Other pickups to check out: 

K&K Pure Western Mini 

LR Baggs Anthem

Seymour Duncan SA-6 Magmic

Fishman Rare Earth Blend

Sunrise (combine with a soundboard transducer or microphone)

Mi-Si Acoustic Duo (combine with a soundboard transducer or microphone)

I'm going to try sleeping again. I'll add more to this list if I think of anything. Let me know what you would recommend, too!

I accept your challenge

I tend to draw if I get bored while doing homework.  It seems that my math grader does so as well.

Wait, what?

You dare deny me the satisfaction of hammering a bad grade?

she drew a cow ._.

 Well, math grader. Bring it.

Quick post

I really enjoyed this music video

SO MUCH WORK 

Seriously, college. Yeesh.

Also, you guys send in the most random questions. I'll try to get them all in one go next time.

That's all for this post. Midterms again next week OTL

I took this today. It was quite a quirky squirrel. 

sunday song... and more rambling

Last night, I pulled my first college-all-nighter. Not for work, no. I wish it were for work. I don't want to think about it. Thinking about it makes me want to go out and destroy villains. In a bad way. Is that possible?

So, you're reading a post written by a semi-delirious and mentally scarred Jon yet again. 

I've been cooped up studying all weekend for my last two midterms. The 3.4 GPA minimum for the honors college is really worrying me. I didn't think maintaining a 3.4 would be that bad, but... gah I don't want to think about that either.

I am just not in a good mood after this weekend. Why am I blogging if I don't want to think about the things I wanted to blog about? What do I want to think about??

craneception?

This is a video of a crane lifting another crane. Then the crane fails, sending the other crane into a crane-sized crater. Now what? I guess they'd have to bring in another crane to lift the fallen crane and fix the other broken crane.

I'm going to kill you, dear little midterms. And again when you return in November. And again when you evolve into final exams in December. 

sunday song... and a nightmare

I'm losing my mind ._.
I've put in ~20 hours doing problem sets this weekend. I'm still not done. (edit 10:35 - NOW DONE!) And all of my exams are crammed into the next two weeks. Last night I went to a live jazz thing with some friends to try to unwind a bit. Got to sleep at 4:30am after people stopped screaming outside in drunken jubilation.
And then I had a nightmare.  By far the scariest one in a long time. So on my speaker, I had this guy:

He's been chilling on my speaker since my senior year in high school. I don't remember where I got it, but I think it's nearly as old as I am. It's mute now, but go back ten years and he would spit out grumpy boss quotes if you squeezed the center. It was all fine and dandy, and amused me whenever I saw it.

But last night it went completely bonkers. I dreamed that I woke up (which is odd in its own right) and the boss was staring at me from my desk. And then it said, "Ain't so mute now, am I?" and its teeth began whirring like the chubb chubbs (go youtube it). It started flying and wrecking everything and made huge gashes wherever it hit me. I somehow had a shotgun, but it was absolutely useless.

illustration by Kyle (www.youtube.com/w0h0e0e0)
Apparently I woke up at some point, asked my roommate if he was okay, and then fell back asleep.

It's now sealed in here by ancient Asian magic. 

that's Chinese for "WHAT NOW BIATCH"

Call me ridiculous, but it was that terrifying. I only took him out to take the picture.

This week needs to go by very quickly.

Sunday music - Madeon

Madeon! The amazing 17 year old French producer. He's got a hell of a future ahead of him

Alphabeat - DJ (Madeon Remix) by Madeon

Deadmau5 - Raise Your Weapon (Madeon Remix) @ Pete Tong 05.13.11 by Madeon



Hear more at www.soundcloud.com/madeon and www.youtube.com/itsmadeon

On performing

any tips on performing? i get really nervous and lock up every time...
Haha nice timing. I'm at home getting ready for a house concert on Saturday night, so it's a good time to put down some thoughts on performing. Good mental prep, you know?

The most important thing in performing is to be bulletproof in your playing.
I've been performing since I was 6 or something, on piano. So you could say that I have a lot of performance experience. Small audiences? Sure. Audience of 2000? No problem. But back then, I was just having fun. If you put me in front of a 2000-strong audience now,  you would see me trying to crawl off of the stage with a severe case of jelly legs. I didn't really know what was going on, even through middle school. Most of what I'm going to say is what I learned from my first "gig" earlier in July.

This time, I had a job. I had to keep diners entertained and happy while they munched on fancy food. It wasn't like the usual classical concert, where you'd go up and perform a piece that you practiced for months to a classical music loving crowd. It was a completely different game, but I learned so much from it (and the subsequent gigs that followed from it).

     The two weeks before the gig, I averaged around 7 hours of practice a day. I was that nervous, and wanted everything to be perfect. That's probably the worst mindset to have when you go into a performance. I was extremely nervous for the first few songs, and concentrated too much on analyzing my playing and technique. It was pretty soulless, and I berated myself for every tiny mistake I made. After my third song, Van Wagner (the awesome musician that I opened for, check him out at vanwagnermusic.com) waved for my attention and mouthed, "have fun."
     If you feel like you can't get into the zone, don't start worrying. That's the last thing you want to do! Analyze your playing offstage, not on the stage. You play music because you love it (I hope. Don't get me started on people who pick up guitar for other reasons). When performing, try to concentrate on that simple happiness you get when you play music, and everything will click. If you're having fun, the audience will have fun with you.
     In order for this to happen, though, you need to be "bulletproof." You have to be completely comfortable with the technique. The only way to get to that point is to practice. Repetition is the key. Practice over and over until your fingers are on autopilot. That way, you can free the rest of your brain to focus on adding expression to your playing, which is what really makes the music come alive.
     You'll get less nervous as you play more gigs, too. Or, you'll learn how to use the nerves positively. I still get super nervous when I perform, but now that helps me get in a performing mood. With each one, you'll focus less on yourself and more on making sure the audience has a good time. Give each gig your all, even if it's just a little house concert. Every person listening to you is important and deserves your best. And it could lead to another gig! Also, try to find someone that is better at doing what you're trying to do and do whatever they do. Seriously. I learned so much by watching Van handle an audience. It's also important to structure your playlist well. If you're playing at a new venue and no one knows of you, start big! Hit them with your flashiest playing to get a good impression right off the bat, and feed off of the crowd's energy from there.

Look at what I played today...

What?  A super rare vintage 1925 Martin 00-18?  Why yes, yes it is!
I've been seeking out the music stores in State College. Today, I took a jaunt to Music Mart. It's a great little shop, with really nice people. Definitely go check it out if you're in town.
Anywho, I was looking at pickups when the owner (Tom, great guy) walked out from the backroom. When I mentioned my cheap little Martin, he got a little gleam in his eyes and said, "you want to see a Martin?" and promptly disappeared into the back again. Then he came out with an old case and set it on a chair. And opened it.

You know those moments in cartoons where someone gets bathed in golden light while opening a treasure chest, with angels singing in the background? That's exactly how I felt. Wow.

Forget about the guitar's rarity for a second. It sounded divine. I'd often heard that pre-war Martin guitars sounded great because of the lighter bracing pattern. But wow, did this thing sing! It was so clean and balanced, with really sweet mids and a bass that gently envelops you in a soothing bath of harmonic overtones. And it was so loud! For a little parlor guitar, the thing projected more than any large dread guitar I've ever heard.
Structurally, it was in really good condition. It was my first time playing a 12-fret neck, and the V-neck contour was surprisingly comfortable. It had an ebony nut, which I'd never seen before. And it was so light! It honestly felt as light as a ukulele. And the resonance... it was breathtaking. I could feel every note run through my arms, and I felt like my whole body was a subwoofer.

Tom was thinking of selling it for $4500. It could easily go for double that! Guitar will never be the same. That Martin broke me. No guitar I'll ever own can compare with it. Unless I win the lottery and get a handmade one or something...

randomness

This seems to be turning into a sunday music blog! I've been too lazy to write a half decent post, and haven't gotten blog-worthy questions lately. Roy M., I do think that rice has flavor. Thanks for asking -.-

I don't want this to turn into a sunday music blog, so I'm just going to type and not hit the backspace key for a few minutes. 

College? Nah, I'll talk about that in a later post. That deserves some organization.

I've spent a lot (too much) time looking at cars lately. I love driving, and having a car would be quite convenient for me. I really want a car. In particular, this one:

but not in white

Yes. The 2012 Volkswagen Beetle. It's beautiful. Jon, a Beetle? Seriously?
Seriously. It's not quite the cutesy-little-charming-ball-of-smiles that the previous model was. No, this is different. The 2012 Beetle is more like the sleek, sporty offspring of the classic Beetle and a Porsche 911.

this

and this

...

= this?

I guess that's how the car stork works. It's the best of the Beetle and the best of the Porsche 911, all in one! The car got a nice performance boost, too, with a 200bhp 2.0l turbocharged 4 cylinder (or 170hp 2.5l inline 5), with VW's DSG dual clutch transmission. DSG would be really cool. Basically, you can set it in automatic mode, or you can manually shift using the stick or a set of paddles behind the steering wheel. And since it engages the gears above and below your current setting, it shifts insanely quickly, in 8ms or something ridiculous like that. So under the hood, the 2012 Beetle is pretty much a VW Golf GTI. But it looks much, much better. Compared with the previous Beetle, it has a sportier drive but still gives off that Beetle vibe. And it still has a classy Beetle interior!
Gah enough about cars.

Also, my "My Heart Will Go On" video has been watched in nearly every country in the world! According to YouTube's Insight thing, it has not been watched in North Korea, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Burma, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Zimbabwe, Congo (DRC and Republic), Somalia, Niger, Western Sahara, Burkina Faso, and Eritrea. Cool beans!

I think that's enough for tonight.  My sleep schedule got really messed up this weekend, for reasons I may disclose in a later post. Yes, I think I shall blog about college next time.

this template and my dark guitar picture makes for a super dark combo. Any ideas for a lighter theme?

Another sunday song!

funky. soulful.

Sunday music - Nujabes

Jun Seba, aka Nujabes. Hip hop extraordinaire.

^with Shing02. I love this one!

sampled the jazz classic "Affirmation" for this track

What can I say? His music is inspiring. Eye opening. Ear opening?

I first heard his music in middle school. Nujabes wrote much of the music for a great anime series called Samurai Champloo. At the time, I just thought that it was really cool music that meshed well with the show's blend of Edo Japan and elements of modernity. 

My friend Sinjihn (www.youtube.com/kirbykidsmith) re-introduced me to Nujabes' music earlier this year, and I've been hooked. It's had such a deep influence on me. I don't know how else to put it. Go listen to his music, especially the Luv(sic) series with Shing02. Inspiring and meaningful. It's what hip-hop should be.

Nujabes passed away Feb 26, 2010 in a car accident. 

RIP Jun Seba

Q&A: Playing with Emotion

"any advice on playing with emotion? like the titanic arrangement, when i play it people say i sound like a robot. i want to make people cry?"

     This is one of those questions where any answer given will probably sound like complete BS.
First, get this into your head: music is inspired by and created with emotion, performed with emotion, and received with emotion. A piece played without emotion is just a series of notes. I don't think it can really be called music. That would be like stacking two pieces of bread and calling it a sandwich.
...that was terrible. I'm sorry.
     Each song you play has a story. It's your job to tell the story, to bring it to life. A good storyteller uses his voice to incite emotion. If it's a scary story, he'll use a dark, haunting voice. If it's comical, he changes his voice and intonation to draw the audience into the right mood. When we speak, in our emotions and in our intentions there are words that we pronounce quietly, others that we pronounce loudly. It's the same for music; this use of dynamics is how we tell our stories. It's how we keep the story's momentum, and how we keep people interested. Imagine a professor lecturing with a bored, monotone voice compared with a dynamic teacher who is passionate about the subject.

     You need to know what you're trying to convey. What I mean is, you need to express your interpretation of a song's message through the guitar. When I recorded the "My Heart Will Go On" video, for example, I wanted to show how beautiful love is. Yes, retch with me now. I actually said that. But honestly, that was the major impression I had from the movie, given that the last time I'd seen it was when I was 9 or something. I play it differently now than I did a year ago, now that I've re-watched the movie. My current rendition tends to be a bit deeper and sadder. Music is an expression of emotion. Again, the guitar is just a vehicle. Michael Hedges often discussed this in his interviews. An artist at work isn't playing the guitar, he/she is playing through the guitar.
   Speaking more directly to guitar playing, a good bit of the emotion is found in the little nuances - your vibrato, dynamics, the way you hold a bend, etc. It's more about how you play the notes, rather than the notes themselves. Listen to your playing and ask yourself, is this how I would sing the song? The guitar is your voice. If you watch Tommy Emmanuel or Adam Rafferty, you'll often see that they hum along with their playing and even add lyrics at points. The melody is extremely important; it is the storyteller's voice that your audience will listen for. The melody must be like someone singing. What happens if you hold a note a little longer than usual? What if you slide into a note instead of doing a hammer-on? These are things you should experiment with as you try to find a good way to express what you feel. This is what separates the artists from the guitar players. Listen to a lot of music, as that will help to improve your sensitivity and musicality.

On a side note, I got a copyright warning for my Silent Night video.  Entity: Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society Content Type: Musical Composition Whaaaat? If anyone can explain this to me, please do!

Q&A: Learning, exercises vs songs?

"One thing ive been thinking about Is if you have any good like, Exercises to do to get better in playing or if the best way is just to play songs?"

I kind of see them as one and the same. My guitar playing improved primarily through learning songs. Note that learning songs and playing songs are very, very different ideas. If you sit down and solely focus on exercises, you'll give up guitar within half a year. I'm willing to bet a sandwich on that. I would bet more, but I just started college, and college students are supposed to be desperate for money, right?  You're learning guitar so that you can play music, right?
     But here's the thing. As you learn a song, you'll be doing exercises too. If anything, songs are good vehicles for learning techniques! They also help you understand how to use the techniques musically. You should always pick a song that's just a little too challenging for you. When you run into a difficult spot, break it up into short loops and practice each loop slowly with a metronome. That's how you practice technique. Then try to work on some variations of the bit that you are practicing. For example, when I was learning Yankee Doodle Dixie by Chet Atkins, I could not play the run in the melody that used alternate picking (alternating between I and M). I practiced it slowly until I could play it smoothly, and then gradually sped it up. Then I practiced going up and down the neck with the alternate picking. At no point did this exercise become boring, because I was practicing part of the song that I wanted to learn. A song will inform you which exercise to practice, and you will be the one creating the exercise. That's the most effective and efficient way to learn, in my opinion.
     However, it definitely is worthwhile to spend some time on exercises to develop dexterity.  If you know that you have a problem with thumb independence, for example, sit down and practice playing up and down the fretboard with only your thumb, while keeping the rest of your fingers still.  Move on to playing some fun bass lines.  Scales are also very important!  Not so much for the technique as for the knowledge.  I'm spending most of my practice time right now learning a bunch of scales.
     The most important thing is repetition. Lock yourself in a room when you practice, because you need to play each measure over and over again to get it down. You, as a musician, need repetition; no one else does. Other people find it annoying :(
Here's Tommy Emmanuel on practicing:

Thanks for the question!  Feel free to post more questions in the comments on this blog, my facebook page, YouTube message, etc etc

COLLEGE!

I'm currently on the way to college.  That's right.  I'm blogging on the car.  So... hip.
No, I'm not driving.  I was up late thinking about college, so driving would not be a good idea :\

But yeah.  I'm about to start college.  This pretty much sums up how I feel about college:

Where did all the time go?  This summer just zoomed by.  Hell, the past four years have zoomed by.  I remember arriving at Lawrenceville as a scared little freshman.  Now I'm about to arrive at college as a bemused, slightly taller freshman. 
I'm really excited about moving on, but there are some people I want to take with me.  I already miss my high school friends!  I hope we don't slowly drift apart and forget about each other, which is what happened with my middle school friends.  I feel that won't happen, though.  We've all been through so much together, like... oh, surviving Lawrenceville and stuff. 
I hope I meet some cool musicians at college.  Solo guitar is a bit lonely!

Lack of sleep + panicking about college does not make for a coherent Jon.  Don't want to be a complete wreck when I meet my room mate, so I'm going to take a nap.
Adieu, adieu

Lost in the wilderness

Not quite guitar-related, but I can't not blog about this.  Last night, I got lost in a forest past sundown.  I almost don't want to post this, but for your entertainment...

The first thing you should know about me is that my life is pretty much a series of bad ideas and silly events.  I've thought about introducing myself to others that way, since those around me tend to get drawn into the goofiness as well.  It sounds like it might be fun, but it really isn't.
Anywho, I've been learning photography this summer.  My friend Ryan brought up the idea of going on a little hiking/photo adventure yesterday.

7:15PM
First mistake made.  We arrived at the state park a bit late and head onto the trail. 

8:00
We found some really cool logs with spiral patterns and stop for a few pictures.  I'm still a novice, so don't expect much of the photos on this blog!

failed to capture said spirals. apologies for increasing world suck

We went deeper.

8:05ish

I spotted a really freaking adorable white-tailed fawn.  Like one of these:

credit Chris Kayler Photography

It watched me for a few seconds, and then turned around and trotted off.  I followed it.

I mean, come on.  Put yourself in my shoes for a second.  One of the cutest animals you've ever seen stares you in the eye and then slowly walks away.  You have a camera strapped around your neck.  What would you have done? (probably stay on the trail, huh..)

The damn fawn was weaving in between trees, as if it were trying to screw with us.  I'm pretty sure it was having a jolly good time.  Neither of us had brought a compass, so I passed Ryan a bag of crackers and told him to mark our trail somehow.  Thinking that we were going in a relatively straight line, my friend decided to take photos of trees instead.  We were, after all, in an old-growth forest with some amazing trees. 

8:15

"Jon, screw it.  It's not going to stop."  

"Wait...do you hear water?"

"...OOH!"

In a supreme demonstration of ADD and stupidity, we promptly changed direction and headed for the sound of water.  A few minutes later, we found the source. 

A small waterfall!

We knew we should have started to head back while there was still daylight, but it was too beautiful a scene to pass up.

It was getting pretty dark.  This was all I could see of Ryan

.6 second exposure, f/5.6, ISO 3200. If that doesn't work, you know there's not enough light

We decided to pack up and head back to the trail. 

8:40

"Jon, where the hell are we?"

 We had nooo idea where we were.  At this point we were walking back in the general direction of where we came from in near total darkness.  There was no cell service, so I couldn't get a lock on GPS.  For some reason, my phone can't get GPS without a 3G signal.  Even if it could, I wouldn't have the data connection to get maps.  We decided to start leaving behind crackers to make sure we didn't go in circles.  Knowing my luck, that would probably happen!

9:10

I found a spot next to a fern that got me one bar of connection.  Still, my phone couldn't get GPS.  The connection kept disappearing.  I gave up and moved on. 

9:45

Ryan saw a cracker and sat down.  "Fuck it, I give up."  

"No, that was definitely one you put down when we were looking for the fawn."

It was getting pretty chilly.  Good thing we bought flashlights for night photography!

10:51

Something completely awesome happened.  My phone beeped!!

A friend texted me at 10:30, but it didn't get to my phone.  Her text went through at 10:51 when I got to a clearing with service.  I wouldn't have noticed the spot otherwise!  A whopping two bars of data!  Joy!  I finally got a lock on GPS, loaded up a map, and off we went. 

11:15

Half an hour of giddy running and tripping later, we finally got to the car and sped home. 

[12:31:34 AM] Kyle S: holy crap jon how can your life be so consistently like a movie
Kyle would know.  He's been my dorm mate for the past three years.

I don't know, Kyle.  I don't like it :(
 

Now that I've written this... my god, was I really that stupid?  This could be a manual detailing what not to do when going on a photo adventure in a forest. 

Thank god she texted me.  Just thinking about spending another hour in there makes me shiver.  It was definitely the chilliest night of the summer.  I owe her a lot.  Go follow Amelia's blog at nosheepsherlock.blogspot.com.  She's awesome. 

I've gotten some good questions on YouTube that I'll blog about in the future.  In the meantime, please try not to think less of me! Haha

sunday jam track

Affirmation played by George Benson, one of my favorite jazz guitarists

New blog!

Hello hello,

Welcome to my blog!  I figured that it's a good time to start blogging, since college starts in less than two weeks.  Damn.  College starts in less than two weeks.  It's getting scary how fast time passes.
My most productive use of this blog will probably be the answering of questions I get on YouTube that I either don't feel like typing in a tiny message box, or that I feel is good stuff for the public.  My Facebook page is okay for specific questions that I can answer in a few lines, but otherwise... :\
So feel free to comment with questions or things that you want to discuss.  I'm not sure how many of the YouTube folks will follow this blog, so it might end up being very bland and empty.

I'll also post about random musings and adventures and photos and whatnot.  That'll be pretty fun!
As for the blog title, I've been on a bit of a Beatles craze lately.  I'm ashamed to admit that I had never really listened to their music before this summer.  Sure, I knew the classics like "Yesterday" and "Yellow Submarine," but beyond that, not much.  Deprived childhood, right?  My first foray into the Beatles was last fall, when I arranged "Here Comes the Sun" for a performance with a few friends for my school's board of trustees.  And now I've bought their entire discography, and am watching the Anthology dvd set.  There's something magical about their music.  I don't think it's the lyrics.  The melodies are infectiously happy, and are so perfectly tied to the harmony that you really can't tell them apart at times.  Listen to "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and try to sing it without the harmony.  And their chord sequences are pretty incredible, like in "Penny Lane."  "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is amazing in this regard.  George Harrison was brilliant.
And so, I've been learning a bunch of Beatles fingerstyle arrangements, and working on some of my own.  If you haven't seen this video, by the way, please watch it now.

That's what happens when two string masters get together. 
And trust me, it is so much better live.

Aaand I'm rambling.  Wow.  I'd planned to only write, "I got the blog title from a great Beatles song that I'm currently learning."  See, this is why Tumblr shouldn't be considered "blogging."  Tumblr is about throwing up cool pictures or links, one at a time, for your followers to see and hopefully reblog.  "Tumbling" is, in essence, showing off bumper stickers.  It's not geared for writing long posts, and you can't embed more than one picture or video per post.  A good blogging platform should inspire rambling.  Hell, Tumbling isn't even a satisfying verb.  Coming up with a catchy name is a necessity for any successful internet venture.  That's why Skype is much more popular than Oovoo, right?  "I'm going to oovoo you tonight" just doesn't work.

I'm done.  Future posts will be more cohesive, I promise!