Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

Archives for September 2010

But I Regress, pt. 3

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Warning: This image actually has nothing to do with the rest of this post. It just makes me giggle.

Holy continuity, Batman! Do you remember where I left off over a month ago?

In short, I had to give up my monthly comic book addiction to fuel my constant need to be online, which brought with it Real-Time Strategy games like Warcraft & Starcraft. Static characters on a page couldn’t hold a candle to tiny sprites with their own hit points and attributes.

Oh, Sega Dreamcast. We had such good times. I will remember you. Will you remember me? Don’t let your life pass you by. Weep not for the memories.


Then idle gamer-me met college. With unlimited bandwidth and nearly unlimited time, Freshman year Peter kept playing Starcraft solo, but added shooters like Unreal and Rogue Spear to his repertoire, playing with his (okay, enough: my) roommate Kenny and the gang from Shafted.org. I got addicted to in-browser games, particularly the deeply strategic Archmage.

I even got into console gaming, playing endless rounds of Madden 2k on Kenny’s Dreamcast.

Yeah, I’m old.

Actually, our college D&D sessions represented a major milestone for me - I RPed a male character!


Then the utopia of free time, free games, and free T1 internet came to an abrupt halt. Sophomore year found me working to pay for my apartment and with a single meager line of dial-up and a teeny 13-inch television with no console. It also found me starting a blog and finally scraping together the money for a nicer guitar.

The result? The Peter who dug comic books and video games evaporated completely long before I turned 21. Elise never met him, aside from a weekly night of Dungeons & Dragons and some in-browser gaming.

Any attention and cash I had left to spare after class and E went to my burgeoning collection of songs – both by other people and by me – and concert tickets, when I could afford them.

I really thought geek-Peter was completely dead and gone. That is, until graduation…

To find out how that happened next, you… well, you don’t have to do anything. I need to write at least two more entries of this transcribed oral history of geekdom. And, hey, let’s not forget that the impetus of this entire thing was my best-in-class Guide to Collecting X-Men Comics as Trade Paperbacks. As of today I am officially caught up to 2010 in X-Continuity!

Monday Music: The Best In Philadelphia

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I have some major musical links to unleash on you this Monday! The musicians are local to Philly, but they can rock you in any remote location due to the power of the internet.

Behold: The Best Songwriters in Philly & The Best Indie/Alternative Bands in Philly. You can spend your Monday (and many subsequent days) getting to know the eighteen artists on those two lists, all of whom are certified awesome by yours truly – both handy guides were written by me!

Now for the story behind the links.

A few weeks ago a national producer from CBS reached out to me to see if I would be interested in writing a number of “Best in Philly” posts for their newly-launched CBS Local guide to Philly. This is the mysterious “freelance assignment” I’ve been blogging and tweeting about.

It took awhile to nail down the topics I’d write, but from our first exchange it was clear that one of them would be “Best Songwriters In Philly,” and that I’d be restricted to 10 songwriters, tops.

The topic and accompanying restriction made me nervous. I have literally dozens of favorite songwriters in Philly. How could I fairly get them down to ten?

In the end I was working from a list of 20+ potential candidates to get down to a group of nine that felt right. I left off many favorites because I couldn’t explain them in 100 words, I wasn’t sure if my opinion was biased, or they simply didn’t fit with my final list – which turned out to be:

Since I have so many more words to expel about that nine and so many left-over favorites, I’m hoping to expand upon the article here at CK in fits and starts.

In the meantime, check out the CBS Local version, plus my Alt-Bands article, and these four other hyper-local music-lover guides:

28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 5

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Friday, September 16, 2010. 28 years, 51 weeks, 4 days.

I awoke early and energized on Friday.

Our gig was good, if lightly attended, things at work were under control, and I had a Filmstar rehearsal in store for me in the evening. The only challenge would be leaving work early enough to pick up my repaired bass before the shop closed.Read more…

Rehearsal was, in a word, unfortunate. The different action on my bass was tripping up my fingers and a week sans rehearsal meant I had forgotten my nifty new transitions.

Oh, and the earplugs. I had vowed to start wearing them sooner or later, and after our first song left my ears ringing I decided the time was upon me. I donned them and suddenly I was rehearsing underwater ballet, my notes lingering a hair behind the rest of the band.

After the first song in our second set I pulled them out to hear the room booming with my final strike of the E string. “Was my bass that loud for the whole song?” E just glared in return.

Things were not going well. I pressed the earplugs back and managed to get my bearings for our second set of songs, but it was still my weakest rehearsal since joining as the fill-in bassist almost two months prior.

At the end of rehearsal E declared that the three permanent band members had to discuss the bass situation and I was summarily dismissed from the room.Read more…

Back in our rehearsal room Zina and guitarist/songwriter Glenn were making small talk while they packed up. A friend of Glenn’s had just texted him – could the band play a surprise gig the next night? It might be a good warm-up for recording to play some of the newer tunes in a bar with the new lineup.

E smiled. “Oh yeah, you’re still in the band. Do you want to go out for crab fries?”

I almost demurred, considering my freelance assignment, but then I remembered I had the entire weekend to knock out that final two thousand or so words. We adjourned to Chickie’s & Pete’s, each ordering a basket of crab fries, texting friends about our secret gig the next night, and talking about upcoming time in a recording studio.

That’s my life. I finished my freelance assignment with no issue many hours ahead of deadline, I made it to work on Monday at ten of seven to kick off our charity campaign, we had a rehearsal with Arcati Crisis + Zina on drums last night where we blasted through “Dumbest Thing I Could Do,” and tonight is the first night of rehearsal in my renewed run with Filmstar. I even found the time to mow the lawn.

Today I turned 29. I spent it at home from work, mostly napping. I would have rather had the sleep interspersed in the week of nights that proceeded today, but if that’s what it takes to be a successful professional in good shape with a happy marriage, an evening music career, a well-kept home, and writing gigs on the side then I’m game.

That’s my life.

28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 4

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Thursday, September 16, 2010. 28 years, 51 weeks, 2 days.

When I packed meticulously for our gig I wasn’t considering the half mile walk up slight hill to the trolley.

Well, I was considering it pretty hard when I set foot out the door with my guitar, a canvas beach bag of clothing, a display box of free discs, and a boombox loaded with my voice exercises.

That’s my life. I mused it as I dragged my belongings uphill to the trolley line, and I mused it again nine hours later while singing my vocal warmups in an empty office while rain started to obscure my view of the city.

Backstage @ The Tin Angel, 9/16/2010

It felt a little odd to be singing my silly warmups at the office – they aren’t meant to sound good, and I was nervous that some late-working colleague would think I was actually a horrible singer despite all my crowing about voice lessons. By the end of the tape my voice felt good and sure – a welcome relief after being allergy-ravaged the day before.

Maybe the gig wouldn’t be so bad afterall.

Being me, I timed it perfectly – my voice tape would end and I’d have five minutes to pack up and catch a cab to our sound check at the Tin Angel.

So, of course, literally the second the tape finished our building’s fire alarm began to sound its klaxon. Between ear-splitting rings, a calm voice intoned, “Stand by for instructions. Do not use elevators.”

Do not use elevators. I was carrying 40+ pounds of personal belongings 38 stories above the ground. Stairs were not so much an option.

I sat on the ground in our elevator lobby, festooned with guitar, beach bag, display case, and boom box, as the klaxon rang on. Three minutes. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Surely if it wasn’t a drill I’d be dead by now. [Read more…] about 28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 4

28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 3

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Wednesday, September 15, 2010. 28 years, 51 weeks, 1 day.

Wednesday started before I intended it to. I awoke over and over through the night, seemingly never completely asleep.

It’s the season for it – the two weeks of fall where my allergies activate overnight. Whether dream or reality, it seemed like I was reawakening multiple times each minutes, sniffling and coughing. Once – or, maybe multiple times? – I shambled to the bathroom to swallow a decongestant, hoping it would take the edge off my misery.

I felt like miles of bad road by the time I officially “awoke,” though I’m not convinced I was ever completely asleep. For a moment I had the phone in my hand, considering calling out, but it wasn’t worth the misery of a double-hard day on Thursday leading up to my gig.

I hit my desk feeling like death warmed over. I must have looked the part too, because none of my co-workers offered any words of encouragement.

What one of them did offer was an iced coffee. [Read more…] about 28 years, 51 weeks: pt. 3