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Playlist #216: Brian Wilson

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Happy Monday, folks. it’s a rainy one here in Northern Virginia, which befits a summer bereft of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. The Beach Boys were part of my summer soundtrack growing up, and Brian Wilson moved heaven and earth to create his “teenage symphony to God.” Here are some of my favorite Beach Boys tracks in his honor.

  1. “Sloop John B”: The poor narrator of this song, a sailor on the eponymous ship, just wants to go home. Seems like everyone else on the boat does, too.
  2. “God Only Knows”: Pet Sounds is widely regarded as the best Beach Boys album ever recorded. I’m not going to disagree with that notion. This song is one of the most beautiful I’ve ever heard.
  3. “Good Vibrations”: Cobbled together from something like 60 hours of various recording sessions, this song was, for the longest time, the only song we really had from the fabled Smile album. It’s groovy, weird, and kinda eerie.
  4. “My 409”: I do not, generally speaking, no a whole lot about cars, much to my father’s chagrin. That being said, I do know that a 409 is a pretty good, souped-up engine.
  5. “California Girls”: Cali girls are great, yeah, but have you met New York girls? They’re smart, sexy, and can shove a dude’s teeth through their digestive system if they cause trouble.
  6. “Do It Again”: “I love the drum sound in this one. Simple, almost primal.
  7. “All Summer Long”: If there was a better way to end the movie American Graffiti, I don’t know what it is.
  8. “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times”: “Sometimes I feel very sad” is one of the most heartbreaking lines in all of musical history.
  9. “Help Me, Rhonda”: That guitar riff, those harmonies…this song is great, no arguments allowed.
  10. “Surfin’ USA”: Just a simple declaration of love for a simple sport. Just a bunch of guys letting their California flag fly, letting you know that if everyone had an ocean the way they do, everyone would be surfing. It might create world peace, who knows.

Oh, Meta…

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I haven’t really talked about AI on here, have I? It’s not because I don’t have opinions on the subject, believe you me. It just…hasn’t come up, I guess.

But now, it has.

The Atlantic posted a search engine based around Library Genesis, the data Meta (Facebook’s parent company) is using to train its AI. As an author, you can go to the page and type in your name and see if they’ve used any of your books to help train said AI.

And they have:

Search results for the name Charlie Cottrell in Library Genesis. It returns four results: Crooked Halos, The Hidden Throne, The Invisible Crown, and a fourth result that is not visible in the screenshot.
You skipped book 3, Meta? But it’s one of my best!

So, let’s talk about AI for a second, shall we?

I am…not a fan of AI in practice or concept. I recognize that there are a bunch of technocratic twerps who are trying desperately to shove their multi-billion dollar boondoggles down our throats with these things, but I just do not want to use them. They are erratic, inaccurate, and soulless.

Worse yet, AI is built on theft. AI “art” is just scraped images from other, real artists that the algorithm smushes together like a five year old with a Barbie and a G.I. Joe shouting, “Kiss! Kiss!” “Oh, but it levels the playing field, allowing those who have no artistic talent to create art!” some folks may be shouting. Counterpoint: you know what else allows you to create art? Taking the time to develop the talent for it. Talent in artistic endeavors is not a thing that I think really matters all that much. What matters is mastering the discipline and practice necessary to become good at doing something. There’s that old saying in the gym, “No pain, no gain,” and I think it applies to any sort of effort or product. If you want something to come out good – whether it’s a book, a song, a drawing, a report you made for work, a meal you cooked – you have to put in the effort to make it good. That means some of your early efforts are gonna be absolute dogshit (please no one dig up my drawings from high school. They are terrible and no one wants to see them. Or my old poetry, for that matter).

AI does not “create” anything. It recombines what already exists, often in the most boring way possible. Creating takes conscience, which AI (as it exists now) does not have. Will it in the future? I don’t know. But I know that “training” AI on stolen works is not the way to go about doing things. So, shame on Meta. I’ll be waiting for my check.

Playlist #183

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Happy Monday, and happy last week of the first quarter! We’re already 1/4 of the way through the school year, which is hard to believe. I’ll take the short week that gives us, though, and next week is Election Day, which means another short week. Two of those back to back? Is it my birthday already? Anyway, have some songs.

  1. Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, “Love Don’t”: This white boy’s got a blues holler. I dig it.
  2. Jesse Malin, “Argentina”: I oftentimes feel like fucking off forever to Argentina and just starting a new life as a cafe regular, maybe strum my guitar in the village plaza by the fountain. I dunno.
  3. Chuck Prophet, “Betty’s Song (feat. Qiensave)”: I’m a sucker for anything about a character named Betty. I blame my grandmother of the same name.
  4. Josh Ritter, “Only a River (feat. Bill Frisell)”: A song written for Bob Weir’s album several years back and featured on Ritter’s latest, rather stripped down and quiet collection.
  5. Richard and Linda Thompson, “Did She Jump Or Was She Pushed?”: It’s fascinating watching two people who share a life and a career dissolve in slow motion in front of you. This song helps document that dissolution.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Deliver Me”: The deluxe version of Long After Dark is good. Essential? I wouldn’t go that far. But it’s got better songs on it than I remembered.
  7. David Gray, “After the Harvest”: New David Gray always makes my heart happy. What makes me sad is that the full album doesn’t come out until January.
  8. Cracker, “Low”: I like a burst of ’90s nostalgia as much as the next gen-xer/millennial.
  9. Gillian Welch, “Pocahontas (Live)”: A damn good cover of the old Neil Young song, and it somehow sounds less cringe coming out of her mouth than it does his.
  10. Willie Nelson, “Lost Cause”: Beck cover. Beautiful. Listening to Willie Nelson grapple with mortality like he’s been doing for the past couple of albums (and especially on his forthcoming Last Leaf on the Tree (his 76th album, holy crap) has me feeling things I’m not ready to feel.

Playlist #62

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Happy Fourth of July, folks! I survived my trip to Utah with my mother (it was beautiful and I’m glad I went, even if she did try to kill me a couple of times). As per usual, you can support my making music over on Patreon. Anyway, let’s get on with this week’s playlist:

  1. Joe Baxter and the Lost Cause, “Mt. Nebo Blues”: My uncle’s old bandmate mostly does folky, acoustic-based stuff nowadays, though back in the day they could tear it up.
  2. Brad Paisley, “All I Wanted Was A Car”: My mom really likes Brad Paisley, as it turns out, and he is a pretty damn fine guitar player. Who apparently only wanted a car when he was young.
  3. Kings & Queens, “I’m Looking”: Who doesn’t love a doo-wop-inspired love song? Commies, that’s who.
  4. Lapdog, “I Don’t Mind”: Half of Toad the Wet Sprocket formed this band back after Toad split around the year 2000 and put out a couple of solid albums before Toad reunited and started working on new material again. This song is pretty great and features some good guitar licks.
  5. Hank Williams, “Why Don’t You Love Me”: I love me some Hank Williams, Sr., and this is one of my favorites to play on the guitar.
  6. The Hotdamns, “Yankee By Birth (Southern At Heart)”: Friend Danielle was in this band back in the day, and they do some fun country-ish stuff.
  7. Jackson Browne, “In The Shape Of A Heart (Live)”: I sorta love the live acoustic setting for a lot of Jackson Browne songs, where his craft and songwriting skills really shine through. This one is no exception.
  8. James McMurtry, “Just Us Kids”: Growing up kinda sucks, and is definitely hard, but you gotta face it with some humor.
  9. Jars Of Clay, “Trouble Is”: “Yeah, the trouble is/We don’t know who we are instead.” Same, guys.
  10. Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, “What’ve I Done To Help”: A song that examines the ways we do and don’t help our fellow man, and what it means to be a compassionate and caring person in this day and age.

Playlist #35 – New Year, New Playlist

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I’m in Oklahoma this week visiting family before school starts back up again this week. But that doesn’t mean I forgot to put together a playlist for y’all!

1. The Black Keys, “Year in Review”: It’s been a long and frequently difficult year, I think we can all agree.

2. Juliana Finch, “This Year”: Who doesn’t love a Mountain Goats cover? I know I do.

3. Turnpike Troubadours, “Ringing in the Year”: How do Okies celebrate the New Year? Drink too much and set off explosives, the way we celebrate everything.

4. Steely Dan, “Reelin’ in the Years”: Like I wasn’t gonna include this song.

5. George Harrison, “All Those Years Ago”: The end of the year always makes me feel introspective and retrospective, and this particular song hits the nostalgia centers pretty hard.

6. Third Eye Blind, “Losing a Whole Year”: Did you expect a Third Eye Blind song on this list? You did not. Does it still apply eerily well? yea, yes it does.

7. Tom Waits, “New Year’s Eve”: It sounds exactly like you’d expect a Tom Waits song about New Year’s Eve would sound.

8. David Bowie, “Five Years”: Does it exactly fit the premise of the playlist? Not really. Is it a damn good song nonetheless? Yes, yes it is.

9. Foo Fighters, “Next Year”: “I’ll be coming home next year,” the chorus goes, and it’s true.

10. Andrew Bird, “Auld Lang Syne”: Just a beautiful rendition of the classic.

Playlist #34: Christmas!

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It’s Christmas week for those who celebrate (and also for those who don’t, they just don’t have to pay attention to it). As such, here’s this week’s Christmas-themed playlist.

  1. Darlene Love, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”: Best. Christmas song. Ever. I will broke no arguments. It’s all downhill from here, people.
  2. Calexico, “Hear the Bells”: Calexico released a Christmas album! Well, sort of. More a wintertime seasonal album with a couple of Christmas songs thrown on (including covers of Tom Petty and John Lennon). It’s Calexico. It’s good. I don’t know why the previous two sentences are both there, since they say the exact same thing.
  3. Elton John, “Step Into Christmas”: When you want to make a joyful noise, Elton John is your guy.
  4. Neko Case, “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis”: It starts off, “Charlie, I’m pregnant,” and I’m just gonna have to stop you there. I had nothin’ to do with it. Beautiful Tom Waits cover.
  5. Run-DMC, “Christmas in Hollis”: Who doesn’t love rap songs about Christmas? Commies, that’s who.
  6. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, “Christmas All Over Again”: If for nothing else than the way he pronounces “Rickenbacker” at the end.
  7. Paul McCartney, “Wonderful Christmastime”: Yes, it’s a terrible song. Yes, it sounds like something McCartney wrote simply because all he had in the studio that day was a Casio keyboard. And yes, I once put together a Christmas playlist that was just this song repeated twenty times.
  8. Weird Al, “Christmas at Ground Zero”: Who else but Weird Al would give us the song about post-nuclear-fallout Yuletide we all never knew we wanted?
  9. The Royal Guardsmen, “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron”: Okay, so this one takes some explaining. When my brothers and I were wee little kids, we had a cassette tape that featured the Royal Guardsmen and a series of songs (yes, there’s more than one of these) about Snoopy fighting against the Red Baron in World War I. The final song in the trilogy features the Red Baron whipping out a Christmas present and wishing Snoopy a Merry Christmas.There was a second side to the tape that didn’t feature a big-nosed beagle fighting a German aerial ace, but we never listened to that side. We did wear that tape out, though.
  10. Barenaked Ladies with Sarah McLachlan, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings”: I love this version of these two songs. This mashup is just one of the best Christmas songs out there, and it bops, my children. It bops.

Holiday Gift-Giving Guide

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Hey, everyone! It’s that time of the year again where everyone asks you, “what’s your Amazon wishlist again?” But what do you get for the friend or relative who has everything except my books? You get them my books, of course.

There’s the Hazzard Pay Series, which is currently six books (I’m still working on #7, honest). They are all available in Kindle or Paperback and include:

The Invisible Crown

The Hidden Throne

Death Comes Calling

Crooked Halos

An Ill Wind Blows

The Long Fall Into Darkness

Who are they ideal for? Someone who enjoys snarky protagonists, a good mystery, and lots of head injuries.

I’ve also written a short chapter book, Doctor Jayne and the Missing Unicorn Horn. It’s short and sweet and still full of humor and a hornless unicorn named Herman.

Who is it ideal for? Do you have a kid who can read short (like 100 pages) chapter books? Do they like magical creatures and whimsy and a will-o-the-wisp named William? Then they’ll probably love this book. There’s adventure and excitement and just a touch of scariness, but not too scary, and it has a happy ending.

Want other stuff? Well, in addition to writing books, I’m also a cartoonist and a songwriter and musician! You can commission me to create art and music for you! Just, y’know, give me some heads up time, ’cause that stuff takes a while.

Who is it ideal for? Do you find the comics I’ve posted here funny? Or like the music I’ve posted over here? Then you might like for me to create something original for you!

Remember, everyone’s talking about how terrible the supply chain is this year, so maybe get out ahead of the holiday shopping and snap these up early!

What do we get you? Oh, gee golly, that’s sweet of ya. Your love is really enough. However, you can buy my books or even just leave reviews on the ones you’ve read already. If you’re really insistent on a gift, there’s always that Amazon wishlist.

Game Over

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Last night, I didn’t sleep much. I was too busy processing the end to the pencil and paper RPG I’ve been playing with some friends over Discord for the past year or so.

It’s not that any of us don’t want to play anymore. We’re all going to turn around and jump straight into a new game with new characters here in a week or two. But the game had reached a certain point. We’d done what the game master, my dear friend Ev, had wanted the game to do. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the characters or the setting. No, far from it, we all loved where we were and who we were in this game. But that was part of the problem: to run the game, Ev had to be at least a little detached from the characters we were playing in case one of them accidentally died. And that distance didn’t exist anymore. And the reasoning behind the game – Ev, as a social scientist, always has so many layers to what he wants to do and why he wants to do something – well, we’d kinda accomplished what he wanted to with it. We all agreed we’d reached a natural stopping point for the game.

It’s not that we couldn’t or wouldn’t have gladly run those characters until we died. We would’ve. My character – a young woodsman named Hogarth who’d become a shaman and an avatar of a dragon god, who’d fashioned himself into a magical living weapon who could do more damage with a punch than he ever could with his bow and arrow – was a chance for me to have entirely too much fun doing ill-advised things and just hoping the healer would have enough pieces of me leftover afterwards to put me back together (he usually did). I kinda love Hogarth, that goofy sunnuvabitch. But we’d helped Ev reach his goal – which I’m being purposely coy about, because it’s his business and not yours – and so we stopped.

And that was hard. We hated to end it. I hate knowing that Hogarth will go on more adventures that I won’t get to be a part of. That we may never return to this setting, these characters, ever again. It’s a lot to process. I didn’t get as invested in the characters as my fellow players did – just not in my personality to do so, I guess – but I admit to being a little sad that we’re done with that game, while I’m also looking forward to what we do next.

Creeping Back To Life

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I’m alive. Alive, and writing.

Like many people, I sorta circled the wagons and cut out the outside world when Covid-19 started. School went virtual back in March, and it’s stayed virtual through the start of this new school year. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

Book 6 came out on my birthday. I probably should have posted about that here. So, uh, yeah, here’s that link.

I’ve started writing Book 7. You can follow my progress on the NaNoWriMo website. I’m XEYeti there, just like I am most places on the web.

I’m quietly hopeful about the presidential election. Maybe if we get the Cheetoh-in-Chief out of office, we can start to make some changes in society and maybe never have someone like him there ever again. One can hope.

Go read the books. There are six of ’em out there. I have plans to do a short story collection (which will ironically be the single longest book about Hazzard out there. I have a lot of short stories about him). It’s all set up; just needs the intro from my brother and a cover and it’s ready to go.