hey
focusing on drums over the past 6 months has made me a better writer of pop-songs on guitar, as i'm out of practice.  a technically proficient guitarist has no place in rock/pop music.  guitar is more interesting when it's either simple or wrong.  it has taken me over a decade of shredding and polyphony and arranging and whatnot to come to the conclusion that all of that is boring when applied to pop music.

i'm happy with where i am now.  writing off the top of my head, creating immediately, letting the first take make it no matter what, and not overcomplicating the soup.  i may put together a free-jazz record in the future, but right now i'm very happy to strum folk songs and make up words as i go.  i find it equally challenging, and rewarding, and that's kind of what matters anyway.
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jason

hey
i have decided to do a series of lists. this is the first. it is titled "things that would be required as components in the rube goldberg device i'm building that will perform my hypothetical suicide for me."

1 grade A jumbo egg.
2 cloistered nuns.
an electric cook-top.
3 copies of "thriller."
a road flare.
seven egg-timers.
a guillotine.
144 ping-pong balls arranged in a helix.
a king james bible.
3 dominoes.
a gas cook-top.
4 ball bearings(the size of which will be unimportant).
19 camel cigarettes.
a 2 liter bottle of soda pop.
chapstick.
the rear suspension units from no fewer than four 1992 honda civic hatchbacks.
a lunch pail.
an empty 40 oz. bottle.

there will be more lists in the future.  there will be many changes around here in the near future.  robertjasonfifield.com should be up and running within due time.  i'm not giving a time limit yet, but it will be badass when it's up.
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jason

hey

hope every likes their pictures... have a nice day.
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jason

hey
the first 5 people to reply to this blog with a link to a picture of themselves will get back an mspaint version of said picture of themselves.  i'm still practicing with my tablet...  so take advantage of my position.

this morning, i woke up and my front door was open.  not unlocked, but open.  i looked around, and i hadn't been robbed, so i think derek just left it open to encourage theft...  i suppose that's one way to smash the state, but why our own door?  his shit's here, too.  it's not like a thief would know not to steal his shit, and he has some valuable shit.  he's the only one with an amp that's newer than 1982 out of the 3 of us...  and talk about pawnability, he has a line6.  they sound like a digital version of cats fucking, but they're expensive so they're pawnable...

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jason

hey
healthwise is being forced to downsize, and as i am currently not management, my hours are being cut.  there can only be one non-management(read: non-salary) employee on duty at once, and not all the time.  only from 4-7 from monday to thursday, open to close friday, saturday and sunday.  this is split between 3 people, as 2 people were let-go, and 1 quit.  i should say 1 was let go, 1 was fired, and 1 quit, but the lady that got fired would probably not like to think of it that way.

so i've applied for a few 2nd jobs.  cafe louisa, a few pizza places...  i hope i get the job at louisa, as it would be nice to be back working in coffee.  i'll still work at healthwise on saturdays, just for the discount, really.

it's nice to wear jeans that i have been unable to fit into for years.  they may not look particularly good on me, but inwardly, they represent weightloss, and thusly make me feel kicky.  yeah, they may have a silly leg cut; tight ankles, or something, but they're a 32 waist, so they make me happy.  i found a pair of 30s, but while i can put them on, they are not particularly comfortable.  maybe in a few weeks.  i'm trying not to consciously lose weight; i want it to just happen.  it's healthier that way.  i try not to fast, eating something every day, preferably multiple times a day.

i've been trying out some new guitar tunings as inspiration for writing.  one fun one is a viol  da gamba tuning, the M3 between the 4th and 3rd string rather than between the 2nd and 3rd as on a guitar.  CGcead.  kind of weird, but it's nice.  i also tried to mix that and a dulcimer tuning CGCEce  the second is good for keeping a rhythmic drone going.  i can do most of the fretting on the low 4 strings, and always have a I chord available for accents.  harmonics and tapping sound great with the second one.  the first is more constricting, it needs to be picked deliberately, which makes it great for writing interesting melodies.

speaking of writing... if anyone has extra guitars laying around that aren't being played, broken, etc.  i'd love to take them off your hands.  keyboards, too.  really, any instruments at all.  thanks in advance.

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jason

something's not right when a man wakes up to take a shower and steps on glass in his own hallway.  especially when that man hasn't had a sip of beer in a month.  i understand that some of you were very respectful of our property, but i also understand that respect doesn't mean alot to a room full of accident prone drunks.

 

seriously, that is never happening again, or there will be problems.  if you're allowed over to the house; you were invited.  if you come around by proxy, then fuck you.  i don't want to see people that don't know SOMEONE that lives at the house in the house.  "i'm a friend of 'what's his fuck,' and he invited me..."  will not cut it in the future.  dan, danny, or i must be asked before you come over.  no exceptions, and that sucks, but we have to do it.  20-30 people will not be in my house at a time.  if you bring beer to the house, BRING CANS.

 

i'm sorry to be like this, but honestly, i don't think we can tolerate that kind of shit anymore.

hey
now, i'm sure you're aware of the allegations against you.  stealing jokes from louis c.k. isn't something that's easy to get away with; he's been doing comedy for a very long time, and he has a very recognizable style.  seeing as your audience is comprized mainly of stoned morons that don't give 2 shits about comedy, it stands to reason that you could have just assumed that no-one in your audience would notice.  similarity happens in joke writing.  when it happens a few times here and there, it's belonging to a school of writing.  when it happens to be worded almost identically, and the only difference is that it's delivered by a moron...

however, i will stand up for you.  i say that these claims that you are a joke thief are unwarranted.  they do no-one any good.  your fans are retarded, and for the most part, uninformed.  the few of them that do find out about how you stole material from louis ck will probably just shrug it off anyway. 

the point, which i will now get on to, is that these claims draw attention from the real problem comics and fans of comedy should have with you; you are painfully unfunny.

now, i don't mean that you are unfunny in the way that i think headphones are unfunny.  headphones aren't paid to be funny.  their lack of comedic value does not harm me deep in my spinal cord.  you are like a bombing hack from the second you get on stage, yelling at the audience like a madman.  however, not the funny kind of yelling.  the kind of yelling that makes one wonder if you have a sense of delivery or timing.  one would not have to ponder that query for a very long time, as it is bludgeoningly obvious that you possess neither of these things.  you, sir, are painfully unfunny.  you are unfunny to the point that it saddens me for the future of this country to think that you can perform live and any number of people show up.  much less a bajillion.

the fact that someone with a brain sat and listened to your material long enough to notice that you stole jokes puts me in a state of absolute stupefaction.  i've seen a lot of unfunny comedians in my day; carlos mencia, dennis leary, george lopez, eddie griffin, martin, and michael richards, to name a few, but out of all the shitty comedians i've ever seen, you are, by far, the most annoying.  mencia and leary stole jokes, but i can tolerate their delivery long enough to realize they're stealing jokes and then continue to watch in shock to see if they steal any more.  someone had to point out the fact that you steal jokes; otherwise i would have gone on thinking that you just suck on an artistic level, and i would have missed the fact that you have no morals as a comic.

saying sangwich is not funny, even if you do it 4 times.
using the first syllables of words and then joining them together with the first syllables of other words is not making a valid statement about the state of the english language.  when you do it, it's just fucking silly.
if it's not funny on paper, don't think it'll be funny when you say it 9 times in 9 different accents with 9 different annunciations.
i'm not a working comic, so don't think i'm jealous; i'm not. 
your success is shallow, and you're famous because you're moderately good-looking. 
save your fucking money, you'll be washed up faster than you can say "b.k. lounge."(75,000 times with different accentuations)
stand still, and tell a joke without running around like a moron.  your audience is made up of stoners, not speed-freaks.
don't be nervous.  if your comedy doesn't work, you don't have to pace and yell.  just sit down and give the mic to someone else.

in closing, fuck you, dane cook.

hey

moses is playing tonight... show up.

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jason

the following is in response to the second craziest thing i've ever heard on the radio.  the first was some other guy on christian radio ranting about how god sent hurricane katrina and that only bad people were killed, or lost property.  a print version of his rant is published here.  why the rush?

i'm not going to waste your time with a lengthy introduction, nor will i lull you into the false self-aggrandized sense that you're reading a fan letter.  this message regards your article "why the rush?" and the problems i have with the message you're sending.

i was driving home from work about 30 minutes ago and i heard mr. early on the radio.  i came in during the paragraph regarding perry's executive order and the virginia legislature requiring mandatory vaccination.  i heard these 2 sentences, and thought of how parental that is of these governments, but also how we have seatbelt laws and smallpox vaccines, so it's business as usual for our government.  then mr. early said how happy he was that the texas legislature overturned perry's executive order, and i had to do a double take.  why would mr. early be happy about this?  i then sat in stunned awe as mark compared the HPV vaccine to ABORTION and birth control pills.  while i agree that it should be up to the parents to decide whether or not their children are given a vaccine, and i also understand that, as a talking head for a far right christian advocacy group, mr. early needs to keep the left's collective jaw dropped, being morally opposed to an HPV vaccine out of fear that it promotes teenage sex is absolutely ridiculous.  when i was 20, i was vaccinated for hepatitis A and B before i went on a mission trip to japan.  this did not make me want to go share needles with heroin junkies on the streets of sendai; it simply made me safer, and appeased the american and japanese governments' temporary visitor laws regarding vaccinations.  i have received tetanus shots at the appropriate ages, and i did not seek out new and exciting ways to cut myself on barbed wire fences.  as a child, i thought "why am i getting this shot; i've never been cut on a barbed wire fence?" and then, at the age of 16, i was riding my bike, and i had a pretty nasty spill over the edge of a banked turn, and i cut myself pretty well on.. a barbed wire fence.  accidents happen.  we can not cure HPV, but we can prevent it.

HPV is not only contracted through sexual contact.  while sexual contact is the #1 most often reported method of transmission, it can be contracted from minor abbrasions/cuts coming into contact with a surface recently contaminated with the virus, kissing, or under unhygenic conditions(the real world for most children in the age range in question) even hand-holding.  contracting the virus in the genital area is of course very nearly always due to sexual contact, but if a person has HPV on their mouth or hands, even a young person involved in an abstinence-only program is at risk of contracting it, through non-intercourse sexual contact.  also, if a young woman has the virus on her mouth, she is highly likely to eventually have it infect her cervix once in a "committed" relationship(marriage).

while the government should not be a babysitter figure, mandatory HPV vaccinations are an extremely reasonable, moral decision.  for you to assert that merck is forcing these vaccinations on politicians with its "significant influence" is irresponsible journalism, and you should really do a small amount of fact checking before making such a claim.

being vaccinated is not "one less reason to tell boys 'no.'"  the same reasons are still in play.  do i think children should be having sex?  no.  take a small survey of kids, and ask them why they're not having sex, and i'd say that less than 1 out of 100 is staying abstinant for the express purpose of avoiding HPV.  many want to avoid the heart ache of giving away their virginity at too young an age.  many don't want to end up with a baby to take care of before they're in a committed relationship.  for you to say that this vaccine is "one less reason" is not only wrong grammatically(it should be one fewer), it also demeans the many other valid reasons for young people to remain abstinant.  of course, many children are not remaining abstinant, and we should not simply ignore this fact, and pretend that preaching at them is going to make them abstain from sexual activity.

in closing, fuck you, mark early.

jason fifield.

hey
last night, moses played at head on the door.  it was a blast, thank you for coming out.  the turn-out wasn't "line around the block" good, but it was packed pretty well.  also, being st. patty's day, the crowd was very drunk.  well, that one guy was very drunk, to the point that he kept falling down and spilling beer everywhere.  but i suppose a good time was had by all.  the dumps were really good.  and i thought we were loud...  well, we are, but they are just as loud.  i was just in the audience for their set, so it seemed louder...  ya know, cuz it wasn't me making the noise.  i hope that makes sense...  and yet, i don't care if it doesn't.  but yeah, they were really good.  it's only when i see a bassist do fun stuff that i kinda want to find a bassist for moses...  and then the thought passes when i imagine how large my pile of amps will be in a few months.

this morning i started working at health-wise foods.  it's so much fun, so far.  i'm totally not the hippy type, but i'm quite conscious of my health, and this will be a nice change from delivering pizzas.  it's also only about 7 miles away from my house, and it's just one big long stretch of road, so i'm gonna start riding my bike again.

i've been working some on my microtonal notation system, nothing really earthshattering, it's mostly just busy work at this point.  measuring intervals and such.  it's no longer very complicated, it's just a matter of re-assessing the original notes i wrote on the subject years and years ago.  i just wish i had a keyboard i could tune, it would make the whole process much faster.  hopefully, when i have a place with a backyard, i'll adapt a piano for easy tuning on the fly.  i've already drawn out a rough design, but i suppose i'll have to edit it when i actually get a cheap(free) piano.  not all pianos are exactly the same, so i didn't spend too much time working on particulars.

next weekend, we(moses) are playing in selma at a house party.  i can't wait; the kids in selma are really open to hearing loud music.  it should be a lot of fun.

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jason