Last Days and Ghost Riders

Well the last day is over - we have recorded all the songs – even Stacy is as done as we are going to get all the takes sucked but at least we got a consistently bad take
– that we managed to do by just letting The Enemy Below and me pound away on the guitars and I was singing alternate lyrics to point that we thought the song was awful and we didn’t want to play it anymore and we stuck like a skunk on hot ice – I don’t really know what hot ice is and how things stink worse on it but it was the mood of the day – after that we did a few more vocals and that boys and girls was it – we were done – we passed the whole mess over to Tim and now it’s his job to see what he can do with the damn thing – especially Stacy which is going to require major surgery to make into anything sounding like a decent take – we do trust Tim on that stuff.

The other songs sound okay to good I hate my voice in each and every take but Tim says they are okay and I’m going to take his word on this.

We really did do a lot - 13 songs in 7 days when a lot of groups - per Tim take a year to do an album – of course I remember the Beatles did Please Please me in a day but that was a much simpler time and they played most of their songs live – there apparently exists a take of Twist and Shout that they did after John had shredded his vocal cords on the take we all know of. It’s on the anthology I think but I don’t remember it.

Well we are done and now – I’m really too tired to make party but just decompressing will be a nice moment. I’m tired I haven’t really slept well in days and we’ve been getting on each other’s nerves – all signs we need a break. The Enemy Below promised it was going to be hard work and it was but I hope we have something worthwhile coming out of this.

Saw Ghost Rider last night and was pleasantly surprised – it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be and was actually quite good. Cage played cage yes but in this case it worked – as he was Johnny Blaze – daredevil show jumper who years before (as we saw in flashback) sold his soul to the devil to save his dad’s life from cancer but the devil being the prince of lies then killed him by causing an accident) as a result he became a ghost rider a servant of evil who takes the dammed to hell or some such – when they escape. It’s rather cool he goes from Cage to a skull with flames coming out of his head.

Geek point the first Ghost Rider was a comic in the 50’s revived by Marvel in 1967 – which only ran some 7 issues – which I remember because I liked the comic as a kid I remember reading it in camp and wondered what happened to it. – sometimes I can feel like the angel of death for popular culture – anything I really really like is bound to get canceled or just dropped or is a real niche product – like for example – Doom Patrol or the Heckler or Rat Patrol or Mystery Science Theater 3000 and well you get the idea.

Anyway the original Ghost Rider was a western lawman who dressed up in a white costume at night – it was painted with phosphors so it would glow in the dark – he had some other tricks to make folks think he was a ghost. It was a weird hybrid western superhero bit and didn’t catch on.

And then some years later in the 70’s they reprinted the Ghost Rider comics about the time the Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider was coming out – but they called him the Night Rider instead – in the comics it was pretty obvious the only thing they did was scratch out the word Ghost and put in night – it was pretty cheesy too – the lettering didn’t always in fact rarely matched the original.

So back to the movie – it wasn’t the best superhero film of all time – but hell it was better than Fantastic Four for sure and the effects were cool and they did one thing I really liked which was Cage, the fist chance he gets, actually tells the female lead that the reason he didn’t make their date the night before was that he was turned into a flaming monster by the devil and was fighting other demons. The female lead responds by saying either you are utterly crazy or you think so little of me that you can tell me this gibberish and thing I’ll believer you and with that she walks out – I’d like to see that a bit more in superhero films.

Going off to do karaoke tonight – an Elvis song if I can get away with it. I haven’t done this in a while so we’ll see how it goes – because shit my voice is just dead now.

I was listening to Sirius satellite radio this week – the car we drove to the studio had it and there on the blue collar channel there was a clip from a radio show where this guy calls in and says about the Iraq surge that we should get lolly gaging and just “get ‘er done.” Radio host noted the man was a Larry the cable guy fan.

Okay, one whatever our troops currently in Iraq are doing, lolly gagging is not what it is and second – Larry the cable guy is an act – he isn’t a real cable guy that became a comedian okay? And if you are taking your cues on how to think about things from a comedian you have problems. Okay – I love Jon Stewart but he doesn’t shape how I think about issues. I do that.

Tomorrow flying home and then back to work – strange days indeed.

Peace Love, that’s a wrap.