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The Parabola of Life
Around 2006 I read a book by Ray Kurzweil called “Fantastic Voyage”. Somebody had recommended it. There are many suggestions in there about how to lead a healthier life and how to live long enough to get in on the “singularity”. Kurzweil is part of a group of people who believe that technological developments will…
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The morning-after-blues
This past week I was brutally reminded why being a musician is so hard. It’s not because of the need to practice (although you have to do that.) It’s not because you basically starve if you have no other job, or your spouse loves you very much and has a good gig with health insurance.…
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Restoring my first electric guitar
Last week I finally finished the restoration of my first electric guitar. A Framus S370 – basically a German Gibson SG copy. I didn’t quite find out when this was built – probably very early 1970s. I bought it used from Musik Ecke in Albstadt, West Germany. When I opened the rear cover I found…
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The Cooking/Composing Analogy
This is one of the many things which I only discovered a little later in my life. Over the past few weeks I have been reading through a book called “Cooking for Geeks” by Jeff Potter. Amongst many cool recipes and cooking related interviews it contains tons of scientific information about what is happening during…
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The medium makes the message
If you read many of the posts on this blog you’ll notice that I have been a musician for most of the past 30 years or so. Specifically, a “Jazz Guitarist”. Many knowledgeable folks have tried to classify what “jazz” is or what qualifies a certain piece of music as “jazz”. I admit that I…
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Gullible? Me?
The two people who drop in on this blog every once in a while might have noticed that recently (March 2011) the subtitle changed from: “Keep an open mind but not so open that your brain falls out” to “exploring Deep Reality”. WTF? When I started Mr. Gullible in 2008 I was on the height…
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Floyd – a strange detour
How could I ever try to become a jazz guitar player? I tried, hard, for quite a while. But, unnoticed by me, at first, and in the last few years becoming more and more obvious, I drifted away from what I thought I had wanted to be. People blame the strangest reasons for picking up…
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Culture Orbital animation, version 2
Science Fiction may not be everybody’s thing. But when you pull yourself away from mainstream SF movies like Star Wars and seek out some contemporary Science Fiction literature you might be pleasantly surprised. For me Science Fiction has always been more a literary thing, simply because I was reading books before I watched any SF…
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And the pizza spoke to me
My kids like their pizza with cheese – nothing else. I, on the other hand, love veggies and last Sunday at the dinner table I randomly threw some garlic and a handful of broccoli sprouts on my slice. I was just about to take a bite when this face was staring at me! “The Virgin…
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Not in my backyard….
….but in my friend Rob’s! Easter Sunday 2010. Late afternoon. About 30 German kids and parents witnessed as this thing came out of nowhere, zooming over people’s heads. It landed by a big tree, one humanoid came out and started climbing up a tall tree. Weird! The alien sat about 20 meters high for almost…