You're Blaming Me For This

In the Classical Era of 30 Second Spots, back when I composed them on a laptop at Starbucks, my titles were selected from snippets of overheard conversation. These days, composing at home, overheard conversations are hard to come by.

I started a new Spot on Monday.  I needed a title in order to save the file.  So, I walked into the other room, flipped on the television and the first words I heard were "You're blaming me for this."  Great.  Problem solved.

In case you need attribution, it was the Fox show TMZ.  I turned the set off immediately.  I have no clue what celebrity indiscretion was being blamed on whom.

Click here to hear You're Blaming Me For This by David Ocker
© March 25, 2014 - 59 seconds

Click here to hear more 30 Second Spots.

Since the title of the 30 Second Spot came from television, a video parody of a television commercial seems appropriate.  It's flogging a big generic corporation.  Yes, this is one of "those" commercials.  You'll recognize the genre immediately.

Ask yourself: how interchangeable are big American corporations?   Big corporations cannibalize one another with billion dollar buyouts.  They keep getting bigger as their numbers decrease and they want you to like them no matter how evil they are.

We get shown an awful lot of this kind of crap these days. They're trying to project the humanity of the corporation.  Corporations are trying to avoid getting blamed.

Legalistically corporations are supposed to be people too.  I don't agree.  It's just a convenience for business purposes.  Sadly, right now, the Supreme Court is deciding whether corporations have religious rights.

You can find the script here.  I found the video here.

Winter 2013 from The Seasons

Today is an equinox, the cusp of the old and the new season.

That's why I'm posting another episode of The Seasons.  I've been doing that for every season for a while.  The latest completed northern hemisphere season was the winter which began in December 2013.

Click here to hear Winter 2013 © David Ocker, 4405 seconds

Winter 2013 is 73 minutes long.  Be warned!  One full hour of those 73 minutes is pure silence.

If you're new to Mixed Meters you're probably wondering why a piece of music is 80% nothing.  Frankly, I don't have the energy to invent yet another explanation of what this music series is about.  I suggest you try reading this instead.

If you want to explore the web of intrigue which is the entire series called The Seasons - lately I've been posting both long and short versions -  you can read all the posts.   Also, all the links are on this page.

The Seasons is my exceptionally loose way of keeping time.  Here's a cute video (which I found via this blog) about a guy who has it down to the nanosecond.

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Today I learned that yesterday was Taxonomist Appreciation Day.   Everyday it's something, isn't it?

At Mixed Meters we appreciate a taxonomist every day.  That's because Mr. Mixed Meters is married to a polychaetologist named Leslie.  You can read all the Mixed Meters posts about Leslie.  There are quite a few.

I learned about TAD because Leslie left a browser window open.  Possibly she wanted me to see a definition of taxonomy ("The study of organisms and how you phylum.")  It makes more sense with the graphic.  She knows I like puns.

More likely she simply forgot to close the browser window.  That window is how I happened upon another cute video, an animation about a taxonomic expedition hunting for ants.  It's very tightly cut to the music of Rodrigo y Gabriela, a MM fave.

Leslie goes on expeditions like this.  The difference is that her expeditions always involve the ocean because she hunts sea worms instead of ants.  I steadfastly refuse to accompany her because I prefer to stay home and write music every day.

Saxophotos

This mural was located nearby in Pasadena.

There's a different mural on the side of Mark Allen Cleaners now.

I scoured the web for some other pictures of people playing sax.  (Note the optical illusion in the second one.)

And here are two of saxophones merely being held.

Don't worry. I found videos of Ernie and Bill playing their instruments.

The photos came from here, here, here, here, here, here, here.