Page 38 of 42

Posted on

Militarized Anthrax and Drum Delivery

The media have trained us to fear Anthrax even though it is a naturally occurring substance found in the soil of any working farm.  Militarized Anthrax is not the natural Anthrax you find on a farm.  Anthrax that has been militarized means that is has been “ground up” into the tiniest possible spore form for easy transmission in the air via the wind for inhalation into the lungs.  Once Anthrax gets inside your body, your chances of survival are not very good.  Militarized Anthrax is a silent killer that takes a bit of time to develop in the body as a cause of death, so marking the time and point of infection is more difficult, and that makes Militarized Anthrax an effective, invisible, assassin.  Anthrax, and its natural danger to humans, is all around us all the time.

Continue reading → Militarized Anthrax and Drum Delivery

Posted on

Saving American Soaps from a Grisly Death

An article in the recent issue of Entertainment Weekly lamented the possibility that American television would soon be without soap operas if the trend toward canceling them continued much longer. A sad image lurked above of tombstones of shows canceled in the last twenty or so years. The entire article is devoted to describing the path that the shows have taken to getting canceled, starting in the early 1990s and ending with Guiding Light and As the World Turns getting canceled.

Continue reading → Saving American Soaps from a Grisly Death

Posted on

Removing the Hiss from Your Lyric

I have one hard rule about lyric writing:  Use the Singular form over the Plural in every instance.  “Boy” is better than “Boys” and “Snake” is better than “Snakes” and “Love” is better than “Loves.”

Continue reading → Removing the Hiss from Your Lyric

Posted on

The Stompbox Drawer Review

If you play the electric guitar, you likely have a stompbox or two — a “stompbox” is an electronic device that sits between your guitar and your amp to change the sound of your guitar in dramatic and subtle ways — and I have a whole drawerful of stompboxes that I bought, tried, and put away in my drawer. 

Continue reading → The Stompbox Drawer Review

Posted on

The Album as Storytelling Device

Individual songs often can serve to tell a story — good or bad. Cream played a song called Crossroads, later widely covered by Phish — it was based on the story of how Robert Johnson got to be great at playing the guitar after meeting the devil at a crossroads and selling his soul.

Continue reading → The Album as Storytelling Device