08-29-05 @ 8:48 am EDT

Mama Mia's Pizza burned down. :( I don't think it COMPLETELY burned, but there was at least really bad damage...my brother used to work there when I was just a little kid. It was his first place of employment. I still remember clearly how Ma would have to drive all the way to Mackinaw City late at night just to pick him up. I would be up late alone and would watch this weird PBS program (since we didn't have cable) called Live From Off Center or something like that. The only thing I remember of any episode was one which featured some sort of improvisational dance thing, and there was this big prop dangling in back, and it looked just like a giant fried egg.

I also remembering stepping outside one night while Ma was gone, after midnight, and just standing in the driveway looking up at the stars. I stood out there so long that Ma and Eric came across me when they got home. "What are you doing out here?" "Just looking at the stars." Dad wouldn't stop bringing that up for ages. >_<

But anyway, they had a bad fire there yesterday, and from the sound of it it isn't good...this is sadder because just above the restaurant was a museum dedicated to the construction of the Mackinac Bridge, and from the sound of it they lost a lot of items that can't be replaced. :( I hate when history goes up in smoke. (One reason why Hurricane Katrina has me worried...could it strike a city that's any more historic? -_- ) Though to tell you the truth, I went in the museum a couple of times, and it was remarkably boring...and very very small. I mean, it was above a PIZZA place; our upstairs rooms are bigger than that thing was. I didn't even think they had that much stuff there, but the news made it sound like they had all their eggs in one basket. I always just figured the Mackinac Bridge was so important, it would have more memorabilia somewhere else. :/

That's something that's always gotten to me about the Mackinac Bridge. This thing is HUGE--so architecturally important--every time we drive over it, and I'm a local who should be used to this sort of thing, I can never help but be amazed by the size of its towers. It's five MILES between the spans. I believe it's the country's longest suspension bridge (could be wrong), and I believe it's the WORLD'S longest suspension bridge spanning between the towers. Even if it isn't THE record holder, it's A record holder, yet you never hear a thing about it on national television programs. You see the Golden Gate all the time, but never the Mackinac. The ONE time I remember hearing mention of it was on an episode of Jeopardy! The guy who gave the Mackinac Bridge as an answer pronounced it Mack-ih-nack. What did Alex Trebek have to say? "Correct!" ASSES. >:(

But there's just never any real mention of it on anything other than local or regional TV/media. You would think with all of the architectural wonders programs they show, it would get a mention, but it gets none that I know of. (I could be wrong here because I don't WATCH such programs, but I have yet to see it! How many people outside Michigan even know the thing exists? I do know there are a lot of tourists who think it leads to MACKINAC ISLAND. _-_ )

In fact, I can never come across ANYTHING dealing with this entire region on national TV. I keep hoping the Discovery Channel or The Learning Channel will come out with a nice program about the fur trade and the voyageurs, or the Jesuit missionaries to the Indians, or the Great Lakes geology and the glaciers that formed them, but there's never a thing. It's like none of it even exists. All I can ever seem to find on TLC and DSC nowadays is crap reality TV programs about tattoo parlors and motorcycles, or vehicle makeovers, or home decorating junk. I remember the good old days when I used to be able to catch really cool programs about dinosaurs, and cavemen, and asteroids, and Loch Ness, and Earth having no moon. Nowadays you're lucky to find anything remotely like that unless you catch some sort of early afternoon airing. Never in primetime. Whatever happened to the learning in The Learning Channel and the discovery in the Discovery Channel? Hard pressed to find either nowadays. When will all this TV drivel end and the good stuff come back? I never thought I'd be happy to see drek like the copycat programs NBC and CBS are coming out with now--if only because it's not REALITY TV programs. As for TLC and DSC, practically no hope anymore. And nothing having even remotely to do with the Great Lakes. :(

It's just such an interesting and historic area of the country, you'd think it would deserve SOME media attention outside its own region. I have never ONCE seen a national TV program dealing with the Great Lakes (only an Edmund Fitzgerald thing now and then, and I think those are regional programs) or the Old Northwest (i. e., the Midwest) fur trade or anything like that. Not in my life.

I guess motorcycles and tattoos and home makeovers are more important than a huge bridge and some really huge lakes.

I'm looking for new interesting music to indulge in. And not really having any luck. :/ I like New Age so that's what I've been looking in but I never realized until now how CRAPPY most New Age music is. It's all crappy synthesizer ambient chillout pap! Where is all the music with SPIRIT in it? Not drivel that makes you want to doze off, but stuff that makes you want to GET UP and MOVE? Apparently, "New Age" and "energetic music" are mutually exclusive of each other. o_o

I do like Enya and Enigma. (I find it odd how world music, like Enya's sometimes is, is often lumped into the New Age category too, like merely the fact that making Irish music makes one New Age? Hm.) I think they use synthesizers, since I really don't know what that stuff is they use. But at least they do it in a way that makes it sound GOOD. However, they're both a bit more modern and techno-pop than I've been seeking. Most of this other stuff...ugh. It just sounds like cheesy fake...CRAP. (Sorry for my lack of vocabulary but crap is the best word I can think of.) The stuff Amazon keeps recommending for me isn't cutting it because it's NOT Enya and it's NOT Enigma or Adiemus (whose last album really bit it, BTW -_- ). My problem in seeking new music is that I want stuff which is VIRTUALLY IDENTICAL to what I already like. Amazon and other people seem to have differing ideas as to what's "similar." For example every time I cross a Loreena McKennitt (sic?) album Amazon screams that I would love it, but judging by the samples she just doesn't do me. Neither does Amethystium, or something like that, which Amazon also keeps wheedling at me about. I found an African music CD of which a reviewer said, "If you liked the music from The Lion King, you'll love this," but I listened to samples and it was NOTHING like that. Blech. I went looking for movie scores since I like those that Mancina and Zimmer have done for Disney, and ended up browsing through Zimmer's albums, but even that was a bust. He had one that somebody said was SO good but it...was all SYNTHESIZER!! ZIMMER! What are you DOING??

I love a few of the songs on the best of Cirque Du Soleil album I got recently, and have been growing to like more of them, but either the other songs they have don't sound nearly as good as the ones I already like, or else Amazon doesn't offer music samples for their albums, so I can't really determine it for myself. :(

I used to buy cassettes of New Age music when I attended college in Petoskey and I remembered I really liked them. Some including that goofy pseudo-Native American drek. I still have lots of these tapes and the past two nights have popped a few in to take the first listen I've had in years. There was one instrumental guy I liked called Giovanni. I listened to him again. Eegh! It's all synthesizers and keyboards! What did I ever see in it? How come my musical tastes changed so much, and when did this happen? I rather wish they HADN'T changed else I could go and gorge myself on Yanni! -_-

Speaking of--a long time back I bought a sampler CD with some of Yanni's music on it because the guy has so many albums out, with really cool song titles, and New Agers absolutely love him, so I figured what the hell. Ick! I do not see what the big to-do is about. It's all synthesized ambient chillout PAP. No spirit to it. Just elevator music.

Lately I've been yearning for the sort of music that Adiemus and Karl Jenkins USED to make. SYMPHONIC music. With an ORCHESTRA. The London Philharmonic! Kick ass! Horns and strings and flutes! And DRUMS! What is New Age music's problem with DRUMS? Seems you can only ever find them when they're like shamanic drumming or some pseudo-Native American crap. (Yeah, I've been looking into pseudo-Native American crap too, because I admit, I don't care much for "authentic" Indian music (it's either only flutes, which all sound alike after a while, or "spoken singing," which just makes me feel terribly self-conscious), but I do like vaguely ethnic instrumental stuff like...the stuff Mancina does for Disney!! Can't find any unless it's SYNTHESIZED or...shamanic drumming!!) I don't want some lame-ass piano solos or synthesizers or dull drums beating tom-tom-tom-tom. I want a frigging ORCHESTRA and I want it right NOW.

So, I'm actually browsing the CLASSICAL MUSIC section at Amazon... _-_ Geek. Because apparently, instrumental orchestral music automatically falls into the "classical" category. :/ But it's irritating me because even though I specified 20th century and modern, it's still bringing up a buttload of Brahms and Beethoven and...Mozart (I'm going blank) and all that drek. I'm sorry, but classical classical doesn't do a thing for me. It's too cold and impersonal, like bugs that have been mounted under glass. It's like pompous gods-on-high music that you daren't use your imagination with--how many people can listen to Beethoven's Fifth or Wagner and NOT think of...Beethoven...or Apocalypse Now or something?? Yet Adiemus's second album, and my favorite of theirs, is listed in the classical music section so I thought maybe I would find something else there that's MODERN and has REAL INSTRUMENTS used in it. Because apparently, most New Agers avoid real instruments like the plague.

I made the mistake of browsing the "Symphonies" category until I realized I wasn't seeking SYMPHONIES but ORCHESTRAS. (See how dumb I am?) And I'm NOT seeking symphonies. I want self-contained SONGS. Here's a song, it ends, here's another song, it ends, and here's another song, etc. Not some twenty-minute thing that just goes ON and ON and ON. Sure, some of the songs on Cantata Mundi (Adiemus's second album) go on for upwards of ten minutes, but, they DO then end, and they're self-contained; each one is different. That's what I want, not a damn symphony.

When I listen to good music, I tend to place it in the context of a personal soundtrack. I take songs that I like and actually imagine them as music from movies based on my writing. NO, anybody reading this, I'm NOT insinuating that my crap is good enough to be movies. :P It's just a dumb thing I do to relax. The same way that other people...listen to synthesized ambient chillout pap. You know what? I'm going to link you to Cantata Mundi. And you can listen to the music samples. And see exactly what it is that I mean.

ASIN: B0000029MA Adiemus II: Cantata Mundi Product Type: Music List Price: $ 11.98 Amazon's Price: $ 11.98 [Buy Now!]

I love this album. "Song Of Tears" is so sad yet stirring, I can picture my characters wandering across a foggy plain and encountering--something. "Song Of The Spirit" is really ominous and of course evil manitous or wabanos have to be attacking during that. "Song Of The Plains" (ELEVEN MINUTES LONG!) is really cheery and upbeat and would be a great opening number. "Song Of Aeolus" has an air of danger to it and would make a good chase scene. Likewise with Adiemus's first and third albums, they'd make good pretend soundtrack music too. And what's best is the words make no damn sense so you can pretend they mean whatever you want them to mean.

Anama kata mana tia tia, anama kata mana mi! Anama kata mana tia tia, anama kata mana mi! (At least I think that's what they're saying in "Song Of Aeolus"...like it really matters if you get it wrong or not...)

And guess what? Those albums have the LONDON PHILHARMONIC! Kick ASS!

But their latest album bit it. -_- Only one song that I really like, and they're now missing their lead singer, Miriam Stockley. I sampled her CDs at Amazon but they leave me eh. I did buy Jenkins' (the composer behind Adiemus) Imagined Oceans on eBay to see if it's any good, though I doubt it will approach Cantata Mundi proportions. And I am NOT interested in his Diamond Music (yes...that music of the DeBeers commercials). I sampled The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace tonight; the instrumental tracks sound kind of okay, but there's a lot of churchlike singing. :/ Eh.

I even looked at a Yo-Yo Ma album... _-_

I just want some nice great spirited instrumental orchestral music which might have a bit of ethnicity to it (not required), but which is general enough that you can imagine it in any situation you like. Songs that have actual beginnings and endings. Around five minutes each is nice, though I don't mind longer--just not half-hour things!! Songs that are heartrending and despairing, songs that are cheery and uplifting, songs that are calm and serene, songs that are pounding and action filled. Not just one endless stream of synthesized ambient chillout pap.

I've come across a few things that sound okay--including one called Libera which seems to focus on a boys' choir :/ --but nothing that makes me want to jump up and ORDER THAT CD RIGHT NOW. *sigh* Granted, I haven't gotten very far through the modern classical category, but I looked through so many New Age listings already without finding ANYTHING that screamed my name (that I didn't already HAVE), and some of their recommendations have been SO far off the mark, I'm losing hope. Why am I so fixated on this right now? I don't know. I guess I'm just bitter with Adiemus for letting me down, with Enya for not putting out an album in five years now, and with everybody else for being too damn slow to put out anything new just yet. So I thought I might try to branch out like everybody else does. Ugh.

I KNOW there must be some great music out there that I haven't discovered yet, but it's not popping up anywhere I can find it! :/

You know what else I would really like? A CD full of nothing but...wind in the leaves noises. Yes, that's all. Wind in the leaves. No ambient music, no birds, no chirping, no rain or thunder or owls or wolves. Just...wind in the leaves. Maybe a few understated crickets to convey the feeling that it's night. But mainly just wind in the leaves. *sigh* I even looked for THAT at Amazon. I found plenty of rain forest chirping birds/frogs ambient chillout pap, but nothing with just wind in the leaves. With all the dumb nature chillout pap albums they have (and I used to eat these up like they were candy when I was in college! >_< ), you'd think it'd be easy enough to make one of just wind in the leaves. Without any of that dumbass synthesizer music, or birds singing, or frogs chirping. But noooooooo.

If I had sophisticated enough recording equipment, I'd just record a tape of it myself! But I don't, and I don't have a music CD burner, so...

I'm going to cut my fingernails. They're pissing me off.

Anyone I owe e-mails to, don't worry, they'll be coming. It's that I can either write an entry, or an e-mail, and then usually only one e-mail at a time, before I completely wipe out. >_<