Hey, you wanna go take a piss for me?

THE STUDENT Doken was told to go on a long journey to another
monastery. He was much upset, because he felt that this trip would
interrupt his studies for many months. So he said to his friend,
the advanced student Sogen:

"Please ask permission to come with me on the trip. There are so
many things I do not know; but if you come along we can discuss
them - in this way I can learn as we travel."

"All right," said Sogen. "But let me ask you a question: If you
are hungry, what satisfaction to you if I eat rice? If your feet
are lame, what comfort to you if I go on merrily? If your bladder
is full, what relief to you if I piss?"

Anybody notice anything weird about the koan? Both of the names are Dogen with one letter changed.

When Doken asked Sogen to come along, Sogen would have been making the journey for Doken, because Doken would have continued to use the excuse that Sogen is a better monk than he is. Doken was trying to get Sogen to take control of his life and actions for him, which if you know anything about Buddhism is a big no-no. Sogen says that Doken needs to do his own work and he gives three example. If you're hungry I can't eat for you, if you have no feet(Or they don't work) I can't walk for you, and if you have to piss I can't drain the lizard for you. Sogen was teaching Doken that he needs to take control of his own actions, because the only person responsible for your actions is you.

My summer is finally over.

So, after getting a little too much into Guild Wars, completely ignoring my own whims to put out my own CD in November, starting school, and doing the musical I've decided I'll try my best to keep up a blog when I remember it.

Today I'll start out with a rant on a certain teacher who bothers me because of his closed-mindedness.

My teacher, who will remain nameless for privacy purposes, had us do an assignment on the Summa Theologica and how it proves that God definitely exists using logic. Logically, God shouldn't exist because there's no concrete proof. All those "saints"? Yeah, they're just nutjobs that the Catholic Church took and put on a pedestal. Don't get me wrong, I don't not believe in the divine and good, but I'm saying faith means believing in something that shouldn't exist naturally. I find it hard to believe in something that I haven't seen, because of this koan(A zen story) that says at the end, "I don't know about Buddhas of the past, present, or future; but I know cats exist, and I know cows exist." Pretty much the dude that said that meant he couldn't tell you about anything he hadn't seen for proof. He had seen cats(Around the temple) and he had see cows(Out in the fields) and therefore he knew they were real, but he had never met Buddha and had no proof that Buddha even existed or wasn't some looney-tune with a towel on.

Now, I'm not saying don't believe in God, Allah, or whoever else you worship, but what I'm saying is take everything anyone says with a grain of salt. You don't need to believe someone just because they have a fancy degree or they stand up in front of the class and tell you "how it is." The assignment we had to do was so obviously wrong I had decided I would actually do the assignment, just to see some counter-arguements. Well, the assignment wasn't collected, looked at, or hardly discussed in class, but I did input on one part of the Summa Theologica, and that's what I'm going to leave here so that you can come up with your own arguement to return to me, since apparently, "That's not true," is the only answer I was able to pull out of said teacher.

God exists because he is the only thing that is necessary to exist for us to be here in this world. (Starting arguement)
My reply was, "But this world wouldn't be the same without me in it." This the class laughed, thinking I was trying to be funny. I then said, "You see, I shape the world around me just as much as the world around me shapes me and therefore, without me this world would not be THIS world, but a different one." The teacher responded with, "But the world would be the same, that's not true." And I repeated myself, only using the teacher as an example in hopes of furthering his understanding. "The world would be the same because God changes the world how he wants. That's not true." So apparently, God can act outside of cause and effect, can change the world however he wants independent of people, and is all-powerful. Why does he need us? Oh yeah, he's lonely. Therefore, the world WOULD NOT BE THE SAME if we(the human race) were not here in this world*.


*The word world I'm referring to would be this moment and time in the universe, every planet, every star, everybody, and everything, even that itch on the side of my face I'm going to scratch after I send this post in.

You can Say Anything you want in the comments below!

So I'm going to do the band Say Anything today. I'm addicted to their CD "Is a Real Boy..." and my favorite song is "Wow, I can get Sexual Too."

I don't know much about them, so this is going to be a short one. I know their lead singer's name is Max, which I FREAKED OUT when I found out about it, because my name is Max too. =P

Their music is pop-rock ish. Their lyrics are mildly comical and the best i could compare them to is Bloodhound Gang because of their style and lyrics. They really have some great music and they do have serious songs if funny stuff isn't your style(But what kind of a life is that?) all in all I think it's a good mix for the CD, I go through highs and lows in the music point, and that's what music is supposed to do. It's supposed to make you feel the feelings the artist was having when he or she wrote the song.

Embedding was disabled on the video, here is the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ1nZG_ovCw
(Un-hyperlinked for your convenience.)

Advanced Bass Lesson Pt. 1- Tapping

So after slacking off for over 12 HOURS I decided to finally do this. I'm gonna start with one of my favorite advanced techniques, tapping. Tapping involves playing a note by hitting the fret without plucking. It's basically how it sounds in other words. You need to hit the string hard enough that it can be heard but it can't sound out of place with the music or with your other hand(I really struggle with keeping my two hands at the same pitch. It's really hard to learn at first.) A good tap line uses a decent amount of musical theory. You have to know a root note and use your knowledge of the scales and modes to find a melodic line that goes with whatever music you're playing. If you tap along chords with your left hand you can accent those chords with your right hand by jumping around on notes. It's really fun to do once you get good at tapping and know your scales, plus it helps you get comfortable with the top of your neck quicker.

I know many of you don't follow The Roving Cesereans but we have this psychadellic song where I do a pretty sweet tapping line.(This is where I would plug our new CD and give you a link to where you can listen to said song, but it has yet to be released) I'll even go so far as to tab out the tapping line for all of you avid followers of mine.(Haha!)
E ------------------------------------
A --8~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
D -----15--17---------------------15-
G ------------14--15/17--15--14-----


E ------------------------------------
A --6~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
D -----15--17---------------------15-
G ------------14--15/17--15--14-----


E ------------------------------------
A --5~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
D -----15--17---------------------15-
G ------------14--15/17--15--14-----


E -------------------------------------
A --4~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-------------
D -----15--17-------------------------
G ------------14--15/17--------------

As you can see the right hand is playing *pretty* much the same line while the left hand holds a root note. It sounds fantastic alone and when thrown in with 2 other guitars playing something straight out of the '70s you get quite the acid-trip feeling.

Other fun tapping lines include "The Kangaroo Song" and "Noel" by Grasshopper Takeover.

If you hate tapping, find it hard to do, or just don't think it's cool I ask you to stay with it on your own and just bust it out every once in a while. The skill takes forever to learn well(I'm still practicing) but as you get better at it I find it's one of the most usefull skills to learn on bass besides fingerstyle, slapping, and popping.