The Jack Noodle Journal

Happy almost weekend to you! FRIDAY! I thought this day would never come. No, Just kidding. This week didn’t really register for me time-wise. It didn’t seem too long and it didn’t seem that short either.

I just got up to fill my coffee pint glass and caught a glimpse of the outside world as I passed a window. It looks sunny and nice out right now.
It would be wonderful to be out in it. Someone was making some whole wheat toast in the kitchen that smelled amazing. The aroma instantly reminded me of my grandparent’s house in California when I was a youngster. I should call them this weekend.

Here is the track list for my “Early Summer 2006 Prog Rockish Fantasy Music Sci-Fi Mix For Seth From Noodle” CD that I was talking about yesterday. Now you can use the track list to burn your own copy at home.
It’s pretty good I think. I’m not sure how close I stuck to the definition of Progressive Rock. There is definitely some common themes between all of the tunes. Wizards, mystics, unicorns and magical animals. Am I looney or what?

1. “Banquet For King Ludwig II Of Bavaria” by Matmos
2. “I’m Going Slightly Mad” by Queen
3. “The Wizard Turns On … The Giant Silver Flashlight And Puts On His Werewolf Moccasin” by Flaming Lips
4. “St. Elmo’s Fire” by Brian Eno
5. “The Golden Eel” by Ween
6. “The Wizard” by T. Rex
7. “White Unicorn” by Wolfmother
8. “The Mollusk” by Ween
9. “She Was Born To Be My Unicorn” by Tyrannosaurus Rex
10. “Mother Nature’s Son” by The Beatles
11. “And It Rained All Night” by Thom Yorke
12. “Wings For Marie (Part 1)” by Tool
13. “Let’s Not Wrestle Mt. Heart Attack” by Liars
14. “When Yer Twenty Two” by The Flaming Lips
15. “Ride A White Horse” by Goldfrapp
16. “Mind’s Eye” by Wolfmother
17. “Spider and I” by Brian Eno

Speaking of Seth, we haven’t seen those cats all week! Gosh, I wonder what their deal is? The camping trip last week must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back and they are absolutely tired of our crap now once and for all.

Happy birthday to the lovely and always amazing K!
Still as beautiful as the day I met you. Actually you are more beautiful now in your old age.

Old timers are what we are.

We don’t have too much planned for this evening. We’ll be going out for dinner. This weekend there should be some sort of birthday partying.

We have had some good summer days this week. Global warming makes for some nice Oregon summer nights.
I think today it is only supposed to get into the 80s. That’s quite comfortable and pleasant.

Man oh man. I am listening to the Ween CD, “The Mollusk” right now. It is way good. How did I miss it before?
I have to be in the right mood for a good dose of Ween. The Mollusk is total Prog Rock and that’s why I’m on board this afternoon.
That Prog Rock has really been tickling my fancy lately. T-Rex, Wolfmother, Tool, Flaming Lips, maybe even Eno and Thom Yorke. When you have lame governments of the World sending planes in to bomb villagers and start wars, nothing is better to stick your head in the sand to than songs about wizards, unicorns, robots, elves, sea captains and mollusks.

I’m excited about K’s birthday present this year.

I just stepped outside briefly to check things out. It’s boiling out there isn’t it? Yesterday was the hottest June day ever recorded here at 101 and today looks to be heading in the same direction.
I am at work now. The air conditioning is on and all of the blinds in the building are drawn so no sunlight can get in.
I’m going to be shocked when I have to head home this evening. My chilled system will be punched in the stomach by the heat and brightness.

We had a pretty fun time last weekend. Martin, the dogs and I headed up Friday night to meet the other kids who were camping. They camped overnight Thursday and we joined them Friday night, stayed Saturday and went home early Sunday evening after spending Sunday down by the Collawash river. We stayed at the Raab campground, about 30 miles past Estacada. It was a pretty cool campground.
The river was freezing cold! I went in a couple of times. The other kids did more swimming than I did. It was such a dilemma. It was 100 degrees out on the hot rocks in the Sun but when you went in the river it was ice cold and took your breath away. It felt SO very good though the 5 minutes out of the water, when the pain of the cold was over and right before heating up again in the Sun. 5 minutes of bliss.

It is so gorgeous out that way. I had several reflective nature moments over the weekend. I have been opening myself up to, and falling in love more with the sublime over the last few years. A mountainside full of giant green trees, sitting next to a roaring river. Good stuff.

“Find me in my field of grass. Mother Nature’s son. Swaying daisies sing a lazy song beneath the Sun.”

For some reason I had forgotten that it was so nice out that direction past Estacada.

Now I am back to work. Being gone the whole weekend makes it go fast. Shouldn’t we all still be weekending it?

Hey there.
Happy summer solstice to you. I guess it’s also the first day of summer officially? Nice. Hooray for summer!
It’s really nice and sunny out there right now. I may have to step outside and get some fresh air.

Well the Dallas Mavericks really got stomped on last night didn’t they? The Miami Heat beat them four games in a row to take the championship.
I was more upset about it last night when it seemed more important. We had all kinds of conspiracy theories going involving the refs, fixed games and big money deals.
These finals reminded me of the years I watched the Blazers in the finals get stomped. It’s so depressing when the team you were rooting for gets beat.
We watched the final game at Holman’s.
I actually really only wanted the Mavs to win last nights game so that the series would have made it to seven games.

I had a fun time watching basketball this year.

Maybe I should start watching soccer now. Nah.
I need to stop watching and get out and start playing.

K is now on summer vacation. Martin is on Summer vacation until summer classes start. Lianne is off this week. Alicia and Seth have been recently freed from their working duties. I’m the only working slob in the gang left this week! It made for a long Monday evening. I was the only one who had to get up for work the next morning!
I actually excused myself from the poker table and got a pretty decent sleep in.
I felt good this morning.

I think the non-working brigade has some sort of midweek camping trip planned. Maybe I will be able to visit them all once I get my 40 hours in.

Did you all hear about the Gustav Klimt painting that sold for $135 million last week? That’s a lot of dough for a painting.

I read a good article about it on nytimes.com yesterday that I would have linked to it here but I forgot what my nytimes password was. Here’s the link anyway. I guess and you can use your own password. Links and passwords. Bah Humbug!
Here’s an LA Times article on the painting sale.

The painting is called, “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” and it’s magnificent. Breathtaking. I saw it in person when I went to Vienna 2 summers ago. I love Gustav Klimt’s work.
I’d have to say that the Adele painting is almost more amazing than “The Kiss”.

The story of how the paintings were seized by the Nazis during the war and then finally returned to the family in LA many years later is pretty interesting. I was actually going to write about it here a few months ago but never did.

I’m not sure how I feel about it. I think it’s good that the family received restitution after the war and got lots of their property that was stolen back, but I also am kind of sad that Austria is losing some of it’s cherished works of art from it’s national museum, to the US.
Klimt is everywhere over there and they take great pride in his work.
Maybe it was just the mood I was in while I was there, but seeing those paintings all together in the Belvedere was magical.
I’m not sure if the magic will remain intact in this New York gallery.

Luckily the painting will still be available to the public for viewing and not hidden away somewhere.

The TV tells me that the Mavs are in a state of turmoil.
Is that true? I’m tuning in to the game now as I type this.
Well I didn’t see most of game 4 and the Mavericks lost. Now that I am watching all of game 5 they are bound to win. They will play better now that they know I am watching.
These commentators really like to build up the drama don’t they? Going into game 3 they were all saying how Miami was in turmoil. The drama puts butts in the seats doesn’t it?

Yeah, I’m not going to the Juana Molina show. I’m tired and the game is on and I have a fridge with several Miller High Lifes in it.

I’m mostly tired from my lawn mowing today. The lady and I got out in the yard and did some good work. It looks nice out there right now.
We went to Home Depot this morning and got some supplies.
I bought myself the Black & Decker CST2000 Grass Hog today. There is now a hog in my yard. It seems like it is going to be a nice little weed eater. I have to let the battery charge up now but I did do some weed eating in the front and it worked well. I think once I get my overgrowth under control we’ll be set.

The weekend was pretty good. We did a few things, stayed up late in the evenings and slept in till 11 Saturday and Sunday.
We celebrated Allison’s birthday on Friday night and Antonio’s birthday on Saturday. I think the next birthday extravaganza will be for the lovely K in a week or so.

They were talking some trash about our Mavs pre-game. They’re predicting Miami to win.

It’s 11 to 5 Mavs now with 7:29 left in the first. Seth and I are hoping that the Mavericks prove everybody wrong this evening!

Okay, I’ve got to pay attention now.

The show last night at the Doug Fir was pretty good.
The Twilight Singers kicked some butt. I wish I would have listened to a song or two by them before going. I didn’t know any of the tunes they played. They did a cover of “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley that was really good.

It was a cool audience this time out. They didn’t annoy me at all. I was kind of surprised there were so many “fan” types. Some people were singing along. Have the Twilight Singers been getting play on the radio?
Greg Dulli and the Afghan Whigs have some loyal fans. As an outsider I realized that it must be the same view that another outsider gets when viewing us Nine Inch Nails fans. Everybody who loved the Whigs must have followed Dulli to the Twilight Singers. I think it’s pretty cool that he didn’t play any Afghan Whigs songs last night. This is the Twilight Singers not the Afghan Whigs.

Gentlemen is an excellent album. I was reminded of that again last night.

I am really sleepy right now. Work is dragging along slowly today.
I think we got home at 1:30 last night.

Allison is having a birthday party tonight. I hope I can get a nap in before heading over there.

There’s another show on Sunday at the Doug Fir that I wouldn’t mind seeing. Juana Molina is opening for Jose Gonzalez. I heard Juana Molina play live on Morning Becomes Eclectic this week and she was pretty amazing.
Two shows in one weekend? What, do I think I’m 19 again?

Isn’t father’s day on Sunday also? That might throw a wrench into the show plans.

Sleepy.

I need to get a new scanner one of these days. My old scanner is dead now. It’s hooked up to my old PC anyway and doesn’t work with my macs.
It was nice while in school, I could use their scanners. I’m big on doing rough sketches, scanning them in and then making them finished drawings on the computer. I haven’t done any drawings that way for a while now. My scanner has been broken.

Today I am daydreaming about multiples. Double exposures. Twins. Clones. Multiple panoramic shots stitched together. Self-portraits using a timer.

Tonight we are going to see the Twilight Singers play at the Doug Fir. K needs a Greg Dulli fix. They are playing on Friday also. It should be a good show tonight.

Alright. I’m going to go get a reuben at the White Eagle now. I’m hungry.

I am really liking that Thom Yorke album.
I’ve heard it once already today and I’m thinking about listening to it again.

Hey, congrats to K! Today is her last day of school. Her summer begins! You made it through your first year of teaching baby! Nice work. Now you can chill out.

I don’t think I have mentioned it here yet, but I am now an employee.
Yep, my days of footloose and freelance fancy are over for now.
Now they are forced to fire me if they want me to leave.
I think it’s pretty alright. I’m happy with how the business worked out. Now I can try and relax a bit and not worry about looking for a job. That’s kind of nice.

I am a tad worried about my web design muscles atrophying. I guess I can keep them exercised and buffed up on my own time. There’s nothing saying that I can’t keep reading web manuals right?

The company website says that I have 12 years of color house post production experience. I’m not sure what color house is. Has it been that long? I guess so. I have been doing production work for 12 years. It’s been okay. Production work isn’t too creative. You pretty much are a copy machine that the Man keeps trying to get to go faster.
I’m not complaining.
I enjoy this work.
Being down in the production trenches allows me the luxury of day dreaming and planning for the creative projects that I will build when I get back home.

Uh oh, lunch break is over.
I have been trying to ween myself from being distracted by the internet while working. It’s tough. It’s so easy just to pop on and read the wikipedia definition of “avant-garde“.

Turn off that internet and focus Noodle!
I’m trying to get faster for the Man.

Hey there, happy lazy Sunday to you. What’s going on with you?
I’m not doing too much right now. I was thinking about taking a nap.

I just got done watching “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”. It was pretty good. I hadn’t seen it before. I know, I know. Fast Times came in the mail from Netflix like 3 weeks ago I am finally just getting around to seeing it. A couple of other classics that I haven’t seen all the way through or only on television are Porky’s and Animal House, and those are on our Netflix list.

I’m loading some discs that Seth brought over up to the computer right now. I am listening to “Bitches Brew” by Miles Davis. I have been meaning to get it for years now. So good.
I think that the older I get, the further down the Jazz trail I will go. I wish I was more knowledgeable about Jazz music.

Yesterday K and I went to the record store and got some music. I have been working on a stack of CDs that I don’t listen to anymore, downloading them to the computer and selling them back used to the record store. They don’t pay too much for used CDs anymore, but it’s nice making some space here at the Noodle Compound. K got the new Twilight Singers CD called “powder burn” I think and the new Walkmen CD called… hold on… “A hundred miles off”. I got the Matmos CD I was talking about the other day called “The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast” and I also got “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” by Brian Eno and David Byrne. Bush of Ghosts is awesome. I think that’s why I’m on my Jazz kick this afternoon. I haven’t heard the Matmos album all the way through yet.

Yes, a lazy Sunday. I’m trying to fold laundry right now also. We had to do like a hundred loads yesterday. All of our clothes were dirty.

Seth and Alicia will be coming over later today to watch the basketball game and make chili dogs. mmmmmm, chili dogs.
The 2006 NBA Finals continue. Dallas, the team we are rooting for, leads by one game. Tonight is only the second game in the series though, so it’s still up in the air.

Gosh, I really feel sleepy now. A nap sounds good.
I should take a nap outside though, for crying out loud! It’s a sunny gorgeous day out there, and I am inside like a dope.
Okay, nap time in the backyard.