Eric Forbes

My life is rarely if ever boring.

I’ve had a persistent case of phlegm in the back of my throat for a few weeks and chalked it up to an allergy to mold, most likely caused by the endless rainy season we’re having here in Marin County. I started taking Quercetin supplements last week at the advice of a natural food store owner in the Castro and liked the effect — less phlegm and a little more energy. But I was still waking up after 8 to 10 hours of sleep feeling exhausted. After a double shot of espresso, I’d be ready to do laps in the pool or go to work and remain productive most of the day. So I wasn’t sick per se. But something has been dragging me down a bit for a couple of weeks.

Tuesday I got a call from one of my buddies advising me to get an STD check. I already see my doctor every 3 months to monitor my HIV treatment, and just got back from a visit a few weeks ago and everything (except for the phlegm) was fine. I now realize there is more to health than getting 8 vials of blood spun around and analyzed in a hospital laboratory every three months. There are other little monsters out there, and they get to make babies whenever some of us get busy.

I’m Lucky

I live close to San Francisco and have access to a modern clinic for gay and bisexual men called Magnet. It’s right in the Castro and it’s free – donations are accepted but not required. I’ve passed by the Magnet center countless times on my way up 18th Street towards Delano Foods or Firewood Cafe and never stopped inside. I wasn’t really sure what they did. The place looked like a chill hang out space with an oversized galvanized steel veneered wall covered in playful plastic magnetic letters that visitors arranged in an ever-changing collage of color and verse.

I got to learn a lot more about this place when I went for an STD test yesterday.

Magnet is really elegant. It doesn’t make you feel bad for having sex. On the contrary, the intake form and questions asked of me during my clinic visit were inquisitive but not interrogative. I felt like I was being seen by someone who cared about my health and wanted to inform me of safer alternatives. Did I feel a little weird giving up some personal sex history? Not really. I’ve been in or near San Francisco since 1996. I’m cool with sharing my sex life. The butt swab was by far the strangest part of the procedure, but painless really. Everything went into a separate plastic tube and was sent off to a lab for analysis. I donated the following in less than 30 minutes:

• urine sample
• blood
• throat culture
• butt swab

The urine test came back negative so that’s good. I still got to take two bright orange pills (antibiotic) before I left the clinic and was given another bottle of antibiotics (Doxycycline) to take for the next 7 days. If any of my tests come back positive, I’ll be notified. In any, the antibiotics should take care of it.

All of this was free of charge. Yet considering the service I was offered, in the clean, well-lit space of the Magnet center I’d passed by but never really knew, I made a donation on the way out. It’s a great place to find out about little nasty buggers that like to wreck your good time.

Spreading the Germs Word

Now how to spread the word to more guys who might be spreading faulty dew? I’m thinking. Especially after seeing Larry Brilliant’s TED Talk about stopping the spread of pandemics like smallpox using a simple and effective duo: Early Detection and Early Response. While not as deadly as smallpox, STDs remain a concern for gay men and I think I have a clue about how to get the word out. It won’t be easy, but the solution would have to take on the problem of low self-confidence among gay men. If I could help eradicate the plague of low self-esteem, many things should fall into place automatically: better self-care, better communication of needs and desires (and diseases) and maybe even (dare I say?) – improved relationships! So I comes back to love once again. At least, it does for me.

I remember thinking how cool GRINDR was the first time I saw a screenshot of it. Finally, an app for my iPhone that shows me where the guys are sorted by how close they are. To me. Right now. What a cool idea! The interface is clean and it loads fast especially considering it’s using AT&T’s over-subscribed 3G network. But where am I going with this? Am I a shill for GRINDR? Not really. Let me tell you what happened on Sunday.

The weather in Marin has been cold and wet lately, but Sunday was different. Bright blue bird skies, warm air (60° F) and spectacular. I took my dog on a long hike up to the fire roads on the open space hills behind my house and decided to ride my motorcycle afterwards. After the hike, Bo proceeded to crawl into his dog bed, exhausted from the longer and more vertical walk while I changed into my riding gear – Dainese sport leather riding pants and jacket with 2 layers of Under Armour next to my skin – and got ready to ride. I hit the road by 2 PM but I needed to get some gas first. I headed towards Hwy 101. Once there I decided to continue south to San Francisco to see a friend who was installing a laundry tub to give his washing machine a place to drain.

I headed towards San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge. I stopped by my friend’s place first. The house was quiet. No one was there. I checked out the newly-plumbed sink and left him a text message telling him I stopped by. My first stop was over and I wasn’t sure where to go next. I hadn’t made any plans. I thought I would be leaving my house, winding down Lucas Valley Road towards Point Reyes Station and the Pacific Ocean but instead found myself in San Francisco.

As I drove the crowded streets of the Castro heading towards Valencia Street, I thought: This bike goes too fast to be stopping at every other light. I need to go somewhere. But where? As soon as I had the thought of leaving the city, I decided to find some places I’d been to so that I could find them easier the next time. It was 3 PM. I wanted caffeine. Ritual Coffee Roasters came to mind. I knew where it was. It was just around the corner. I ordered a double-shot espresso macchiato and drank it in the back of the cafe where there was one empty table waiting. Finding a place to sit was a miracle considering the time of day (Sunday afternoon) and reputation of this particular place – it has really, really great espresso and the baristas are experts and friendly too.

Espresso ingested. Caffeine kicking in. Where to?

Facebook gave me the idea of checking out a SuperBowl party at one of the bars – Truck – hosted by a drag queen I like: Suppositori Spelling. Make friends with the right drag queens on Facebook and you’ll know where all the parties and hot guys will be. I drove by the bar. It seemed deserted. There were plenty of parking spots nearby and no one hanging outside. Perhaps the weekly Eagle Beer Bust had sucked the air out of Truck’s tires. I had to have a look. A quick glimpse (without stopping) gave me an idea of what the Eagle was like: boring. I rounded the corner at Harrison Street and was on my way back to Truck. Another loop. Indecision. Caffeine was doing its part: revving me up without a clue. Then I spotted someone I knew.

While riding down Harrison, I noticed a guy in camouflage pants walking down the other side of the road. He looked familiar and as I got closer, I recognized him. I made a slow, graceful u-turn to meet up with him on the other side on the shoulder. He was walking home after being at the Eagle and wondered if I wanted to join him for some food and a movie. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go back inside just yet. My bike felt great, the day was still young and I decided not to head home with him. Maybe later. I’ll text you later, I said.

Then for no particular reason I asked him: Hey. Do you ever use GRINDR?

Yeah, I use it all the time, he replied. And right after he finished talking, he had the app running on his iPhone to see who was nearby.

Then he asked:  Who’s this guy? M. He’s 500 feet away?

M was 500 feet away. Truck was about 500 feet from where we’re standing. If M was at Truck, I guessed there was a party there after all. But who is this M anyway?

M is a guy I’ve been chatting with on a website for years. We finally met in person last Halloween when my friends and I stopped by Truck on our whirlwind limo powered bar crawl through San Francisco. Renting a limo and splitting the cost 8 ways is a great way to get from place to place in San Francisco, especially on Halloween. San Francisco has its charms, but trying in vain to hail a taxi isn’t one of them.

When I met up with M on Halloween, I realized that we had some things in common and that I really liked him. We both chatted off and on during the ensuing months, but never had a chance to meet again. Seeing him on GRINDR right around the corner made everything much clearer. I knew where I needed to be. I thought he might be at Truck when I first passed by, but I wasn’t sure. It looked like no one was there. But he was there. GRINDR said so.

My friend suggested that maybe he’d come along too. I told him this was a guy I’d been wanting to meet up with again for months and that it was no fun competing for the same guy, right? I laughed it off and he agreed and headed home. Seconds later I parked in front of Truck and headed towards the entrance. I pulled back the leather curtain in the doorway and saw the space full of guys mostly dressed in street clothes, some in jock gear and football jerseys. There was the option of buying into the beer bust (all you can drink) for $10 and although I usually don’t opt for it while I’m riding my bike, I decided to help pay for some of the snacks I saw around the bar. Maybe a few beers and some snacks and then I’d eat some dinner, sober up and ride back home. That’s what I was thinking.

I saw someone that looked like M as I entered the bar and got my wrist band and plastic cup for the beer bust. I wasn’t sure it was him. I walked to the back of the bar to get a feel for the place. It was full of guys but still easy to walk through. There were trays of nachos and cheese and bean dip and the biggest cheese puffs I’ve ever seen that resembled tater tots more than anything. I bit into one imagining warm mushy potatoes and got a mouth full of dry cheesy foam. I needed something to wash it down with. Heading back to the bar, I found an open stool next to the service area and propped my clear plastic cup close to the edge. I looked to the right and saw M looking at me. Eric! he said. He remembered my name. Cool.

We started talking. He introduced me to his friends. We talked as the SuperBowl played out on the big screen in the back of the bar. At half-time, Suppositori kicked off a show that included hot guys dancing on the bar and a few lip synch performances. It was a great vibe with lots of happy people. I was sitting in my stool taking it all in while M and some of his friends talked a few feet away.

What’s the point of all of this? How did it all end?

It ended beautifully. Without knowing exactly how I was going to do it, I managed to get myself away from my computer at home and into conversation with a guy I’d been wanting to know for years. What arose as moments of complete indecision became tipping points of direction. Even the smallest decisions brought me closer to sitting next to a guy I wanted to see again.

I might have gone to see a movie with a friend. That would have been a fine option. I’ve done that before. The decision to ride came first. Without the dramatic change in weather with riding as a way to enjoy it fully, I’d be home, staring at a computer, wondering where all the sexy men I wanted to meet were hiding. I’d mentally construct how I’d meet them, or what they’d sound like, or how we’d click. Instead, spontaneous physical actions took the place of purely imagined ones.

I’ve been a proponent of high-techology, evangelical of all things Apple, and imagined the day when we’d use gorgeous gadgetry to bring us closer together. For awhile, these computers were bringing us together virtually by keeping us farther apart physically. Computers used to be moored to a modem, docked on a desk, held hostage at home. But no more. Today I hold a powerful computer-phone in my hand that goes wherever I go, with a growing universe of applications available for download with the tap of a finger. I’ve used an iPhone since it first came out over two years ago, and it makes my life much easier and more organized. I have my cell phone, internet browser, email, contacts, calendar and lots of other cool things with me wherever I go.

But something that can tell you that a guy you want to meet is 500 feet away from where you’re standing right now? I never saw it coming. And I’m glad it helped me find the letter M.

I’ve been looking for a mate, someone to love, and the places I’ve tried so far have given me less than optimal results. So far, I’ve registered my profile in about 6 homo-friendly dating (or hook-up) sites. Here are two that I’ve been working on this month.

Chemistry.com

I gave Chemistry.com my biggest vote of confidence – a pre-paid 6 month subscription for $150 – due to its affiliation with Helen Fisher (Ph.D.) who wrote a book on CD I’m listening to: Why Him? Why Her? Helen Fisher consulted with Match.com to create a personality questionnaire that forms the backbone of their Chemistry.com site. I thought “Why not?” I liked her book. She seemed to know about relationship types and how they worked with other types. It seemed to be both scientific and quantitative – two good things in my mind.

The verdict: It’s no better and in some ways, more annoying that the other, less-scientific sites. Chemistry requires you to answer a battery of questions and ascertain your level of importance with concepts ranging from how clean you expect your partner to keep the house, to all sorts of other various and sundry items. I liked that they represented these concepts with a linear slider bar vs. hard numbers. It felt nice to adjust my answer in an analog manner. And I liked being asked questions about things that would end up determining my personality type. According to Chemistry.com, I’m a Director / negotiator type. Cool, right? But once the data had been analyzed, I was introduced to a variety of men that were completely wrong for me. I couldn’t click the “Not Really” button fast enough. And for those men who showed an interest in me (and I found unsuitable) I discovered that I am unable to click the “Not Really” interested button, since there is no choice for that in these cases. I have to wait a few days for those “interested” parties to get the hint that I’m not interested in them before they leave my list of potential suitors. I know I have high standards. And I’m not through with it just yet. I’ve just scratched the first month off of a 6 month membership. I’ve been on one date. And he had dated my not-boyfriend’s ex, who really isn’t his ex considering the amount of time they are spending together these days. Can we get some closure over here?

MilitaryFriends.com

It’s probably no surprise that a dating site with a name like MiliaryFriends.com would suck. I looked hard for a site that catered to active and retired military guys and found this one to have the most modern layout. I paid for a month just to see who was lurking inside. It’s far from a military-centric dating site – they let anyone join – and most of the people seem to have created a profile 5 years ago and haven’t been back. Their profiles are still active though, which is distracting. In one place (the text profile, for example) the guy might state that he’s a “35 year old white guy…” yet in his profile stats, it says that he’s 41 years old. How could that be? After seeing it over and over again, I finally decided that when I see the “Last visited” status of “> 1 month ago”, I can be sure that it’s more like 5 years ago. More than 1 month ago my ass! Anyway. These sites gladly take $30 to suck someone in, and have no qualms about retiring inactive accounts for users that never log in. If they did that, the site would be empty except for people thinking it was a bustling place to find like-minded men.

The Good News

I managed to compose a reasonably revealing profile during the enrollment process, complete with my picture taken on my trip to Paris where I was standing under the glass pyramid of the Louvre. The idea of appealing to military guys specifically brought back some old memories of my Navy days and that turned out to be a good thing. So although the site really sucks, I got some ideas about what I’m looking for in the process of registering my profile. Since I expect to cancel my membership as soon as I get to it, here’s the profile I wrote in hopes of finding my man:

About Me:

It’s 2010 and I’ve decided to define myself and find a partner I can grow with and be with. Why a military dating site? Where do I begin?

I remember joining the Navy by way of responding to a classified ad in the Baltimore Sun newspaper while working at my dad’s gas station. It was 1987, after a less than successful career as a Computer Engineering student in college. I wanted to do something more with my life, and knew I was smart, but what to do? The ad called to me: “Nuclear Power Field… $12,000 bonus at end of training.” I never even thought of nuclear power, but the ad spoke to me. I called the number at the bottom of the ad, never even thinking I was calling the Navy. Long story short: The Marine who answered the line spoke directly and confidently to me and asked me a few questions. I answered him, shaking the whole time, knowing that whatever was on the other end of the line, I WANTED IT. I wanted it for myself and I wanted it in the man I’d be spending my time with.

I had a great time in the Navy, did well in the Nuke program, made it to E-5 before getting a medical discharge just 3 months shy of serving 3 years. Besides the technical training (which was top notch and still useful in my job today) I made friends with some of the hardest working, most reliable men I’ve ever known since then. Could the military have trained that into them? Or did they have it before they joined? I don’t know. But I do respect discipline, cleanliness, timeliness, and above all: honesty. These seem like common sense articles, but trust me, they are in short supply.

I own a successful e-commerce business and am stable financially and otherwise. I am not like the other guys. I am fiercely independent, like things “my way” and at the same time, will yield to and support my man unlike anyone. A few years ago, I discovered I have HIV. I’m healthy and able to do anything I want. Honesty is important, right? Now, tell me about you.

About You:

I’ve heard that you get what you ask for. Here’s what I’m thinking when I think of you:

I’m sitting in my desk chair as I write this, imagining you standing behind me watching my fingers type the letters that make the words that appear in this little box “About my match” and you know these words are about you. To help me remember, you put your hand on my shoulder and stand there, casting a shadow behind me. Then you leave for awhile to give me some space, and as I see you leaving, you have that look in your eyes that says “Do your thing, bud. I’m still here.”

I realize how important is for me to have a mate that is there for me, and yet not completely dependent on me. Two men with two lives coming together is bound to be challenging at times. And yet, I know there is a man looking for me. A man who can communicate with words and with a look. A man who has had his share of struggles and defeat and yet continues to focus on what’s possible and what lies in store. A man who could quite successfully live on his own, but chooses instead to share his life with another man like him. Someone who can be trusted. Someone who knows everything about you and loves you completely. For who you are and what you’ll be.

Size matters. I’ve had some great friendships with men who were much younger, shorter and slimmer than me. But when it comes to size, I like a man who is solid and bigger than me — muscular by way of actual work vs. working out. There is nothing like doing something useful and feeling your body respond to a new task and discover muscles you didn’t know you had. It’s more important for you to BE strong instead of LOOK strong.

Clear communication is vital. Your voice is deeper and slower than mine. Some people accuse you of talking so slowly but you don’t need to impress them with fast words and quick comebacks. Your style is your own. I’ll know you by your words and the way you say them. Talk to me.

So enough kvetching about some bad online dating sites. There has to be some way to meet the man I’m looking for. It probably won’t be online. The search continues…

I was looking for a way to turn a QuickTime video I just recorded into a text transcript, similar to the video log seen in the movie, Avatar. I had heard about Dragon speech recognition software but discovered it is only available for the PC. There is something for the Mac – MacSpeech Dictate – but I’m not sure if it can generate text from a video source.

I got distracted and discovered a book that describes how to Present like Steve Jobs. Then I came back to my search for the perfect video to text application.

A few weeks ago, I learned about Google’s iPhone Search app that uses their computing cloud to turn audio samples into text in seconds. So I figured, maybe Google would know how to do this.

Now that Google owns YouTube, they’ve started to apply automatic speech recognition (ASR) to many of the videos found on YouTube. YouTube users can upload a text file of the transcript to an existing video they’ve already uploaded and have Google sync the transcript to the video. It can translate into other languages if you want. But how can I turn my own personal video on my MacBook into text? I need to see if they have a solution for that.

Google Accessibility might have the answer. [Not exactly.]

Google labs has a project called Google Audio Indexing (or Gaudi) that uses their speech recognition application to recognize speech contained on YouTube videos. Their first experiment is limited to election videos, but I can see how this might be extended to other videos at some point.

Now how do I access Google’s cloud (or some other application that lives on my Mac) to render my own video to text without uploading my personal video logs YouTube and waiting for them to extend their Gaudi service to the rest of the YouTubiverse? I’ll save that for another day. It’s time to walk the dog…

I’ve been swimming pretty regularly at the local YMCA and started swimming underwater again. When I first started swimming again, I could not make it the entire length of the pool underwater – 25 meters – without coming up for air. I took some deeper breaths, relaxing between attempts, and tried again and again. In a few weeks, I made it the whole way without coming up for air! But it was a lucky lap. I only recently got enough lung capacity to do one length after another with a 1 minute rest in between. Not bad for a dude my age.

I didn’t swim much last week (I was recovering from a cold) but started swimming today and after doing a few dozen laps of the breast stroke and some kicking-only lengths, I did some underwater lengths. I wondered if I could ever swim underwater down and back – a complete 50 meter lap – without coming up for air. I asked the guy sharing the lane with me if he ever swam underwater. He said the most he could do is a length and a half. From that I suspected that I could do better than a single length, but how would I train for such a thing?

My friend Jeremy introduced me to freediving a few years ago and I liked it so much, I bought a bunch of specialized gear and tried holding my breath without moving in the local swimming pool one evening. He called it static apnea, and it was an amazing thing. I held my breath for a few minutes while I was completely still. He told me the importance of not moving a single muscle and not thinking either. He believed that thinking consumed as much oxygen as muscle movement. I was intrigued, and tried not to move or think and without knowing it, I had remained, face-down in the water for a few minutes without breathing. But that was a few years ago. I haven’t really tried it since then.

Swimming underwater is a little different. In this case, you are definitely moving your muscles. But could you go farther if you stilled your mind well enough to stop thinking extraneous thoughts? My training will involve getting to the pool to do laps and trying to go farther each time without thinking. I’m already practicing being more present so applying it to swimming underwater seems natural and even obvious. But how can I hold my breath for longer periods of time?

I asked myself this question today around 4:30 PM while swimming laps at the pool. Synchronicity seems to be my friend these days.

A few hours later at 9:30 PM, I was debating how to spend the last few hours of my day before going to bed. I was talking to my friend Vivian on the phone and just before we ended the call, I opened a browser window and went to TED.com. There I found a video showing David Blaine (the magician) talking about how he held his breath for 17 minutes underwater.

I just watched the video and realized I’d never really seen him before. He’s sexy! And his conversational style is informative and humorous. He tells a great story. He started by listing the things he attempted to do to avoid having to hold his breath for that long, including surgically inserting rebreathing tubes down his throat, breathing a rare liquid form of oxygen, and bypassing his heart and lungs with an embedded heart and lung bypass device that could breathe for him. None of these ideas were feasible (according to him), so he decided to learn how to hold his breath naturally. What a concept! Not just a man of deception, David Blaine decided to figure how to do it au naturel. And he managed to train himself to do without oxygen for 17 minutes and 4 seconds on 19 September 2008 (Oprah Winfrey Show). He had to lose some weight to get a larger lung capacity. And he slept in a hypobaric chamber every night to increase his red blood cell count and basically simulate sleeping in a lower oxygen (13% O2) environment while training in a normal oxygen level (21% O2) during the day.

Some MMA wrestlers use hypobaric sleeping tents to help them become acclimated to higher elevations (for a contest in Denver, Colorado as one example) and get all of the benefits of sleeping in a reduced oxygen environment. But these tents have to cost some money. I know this because the website that sells them doesn’t list the prices for the tents or airflow generators. They force you to fill out a form or call someone in “Sales” to get more information. How 1980’s right? Anyway.

There is a simpler (but more determined) method of hypoxia training called IHT or Intermittent Hypoxia Training used by Russian cyclists. This method requires some dedication to a 2-hour daily ritual of breathing exercises as follows:

15 minutes:

1. Hold your breath for 1 minute
2. Breathe normally for 15 seconds

75 minutes:

1. Hold your breath for 1 minute
2. Breathe normally for 10 seconds (5 seconds less than before)

30 minutes:

1. Hold your breath for 1 minute + 5 seconds
2. Breathe normally for 10 seconds

I could try that right now. But it’s already 11:30 PM and I’m tired. I could see this being turned into an iPhone app. Or does it already exist? I just searched for “IHT” and “hypoxia” on the iTunes App Store. No one has thought of it yet. Curious.

[I geeked out for an hour trying to make my own audio-based IHT training tool using iTunes... with limited results.]

Now it’s 12:30 AM and I’ve spent the last hour making audio files of voice over cues for the breathing exercise above. I tried creating playlists in iTunes to loop the sequence of the cues (“Hold your breath” … 60 seconds of silence … “Start breathing” … 15 seconds of silence) – Repeated 24 times for the first part alone. But iTunes has a limit of 65 tunes per playlist. At least that’s a limit I’m running into right now. I tried using Automator (the scripting application that comes with OS X) but my attempts to loop an iTunes playlist from within a workflow failed. The loop condition continued before the playlist finished, causing a stuttering performance of the first track of my voice cues. Very Max Headroom. But it’s late. I’m putting this on my OmniFocus inbox as a new project to consider tomorrow. Stanford University has a free online iTunes University video course available on iTunes for developing iPhone Apps. That might be a kick-start. Or I could just breathe. But that takes all the fun out of not breathing.

My adventure at TED.com continues with inspiring videos of amazing authors, philosophers, scientists, inventors and other “real-smart” people. Today I discovered that my old inspiration, Thomas Dolby, is still very much alive and well as the founder of Beatnik and the TED Music Director. And that makes sense. TED showcases talented people, and when I think of digital innovations across the last 20 years, Thomas Dolby of course emerges as a smart choice.

So what has Mr. Dolby been up to all these years?

He started a Silicon Valley company called Beatnik that develops software code to play ringtones on billions of cell phones today. That’s cool. And since that company is doing well, he doesn’t have to work for the money anymore, or make money with his music. Very cool. That’s exactly what I’ve been excited about doing too.

I have a business that’s doing well and also have a strong desire to pursue writing and playing music. The business side of music has seemed impenetrably complicated even more as it evolves from physical records and CDs to downloadable content. I’ve been learning about Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) including ASCAP and BMI and figuring out the process needed for me to register my songs and music with one of them and how to put my music out there for others to sample, purchase and enjoy. And in the process of learning these discrete facts, I’ve been uncovering and discovering inspirational songwriters and performers that have touched me early in my life, or somehow manage to touch me now, with their words and music.

I wasn’t sure how I’d “get into” music. I never really intended to make it commercially in music. I’d been warned by others early in my life to keep music as a hobby but never expect to make a career out of it. Now that I’ve managed to find another line of work (that makes money) I’m back to music as always with less expectations but greater excitement. The expectations include finding enough people to listen to and enjoy my music enough to pay me a bit for that pleasure. While I still expect that to some degree, my life doesn’t depend on doing it right away, or on a massive scale at any point. My initial motivation to make film music has been derailed just a little after reading a few good books that describe the score composer’s life during the completion of a major motion picture. Insane deadline pressures. Lots of other talent working on various parts of the same project, needing it to shine in a very definite (and way short) period of time. I might still want to do that. But what stops me from recording music (one important step) is fear. I’m getting through fear by recognizing it as it rises, allowing it to flourish for a bit, and then watching it dissipate on its own.

Last night was an interesting example.

I got back home after seeing “Avatar” in Dolby 3D in San Francisco. An amazing movie, with an immersing environment I’d very much like to visit and experience sometime. The movie spoke to me in several ways, and after dinner, my friend and I listened to some music using my iPhone and Rhapsody iPhone app connected to my car stereo. We started with Marianne Faithfull and progressed to Linda Perry, then Fever Ray (my choice) and finally Rainer Scheurenbrand. The lyrics to Marianne’s “Why D’ya Do It” were clear and explicit. I liked that she sang her heart out to a man who shared his cock with another woman. I’d never heard it before. And I took it home with me after dropping my friend back to his place.

I stopped to get a USB microphone (Blue Snowball) from the Apple Store in Corte Madera and was excited to plug it in and hear how it sounded. There was something playful about the shape and size of the mic. It’s a white ball about 4″ in diameter with a large “Blue” badge on the front and a steel mesh screen protruding through the openings of the case. Very solid looking, especially considering it’s entry level price ($99). The sound was good. I made some voice memos with it. Then I started up GarageBand (it’s been awhile) and connected the Blue mic as an input to an empty track. I started recording my voice. No big deal.

Then, something lovely happened.

I playfully created a new project with a podcast template. Doing this caused a few tracks to be inserted along with an open browser window to podcast-specific Apple Loops. These sound files (loops) are arranged into different categories under the Podcast top level menu. I looked in the “Jingles” section and surveyed the loops there. I’d been here a year ago, but I forgot how much fun it was to pretend to rap to a beatbox loop. I settled on one that made me immediately think of a lyric to sing along with it, and before I knew it, I was recording my voice on one track while listening to a repeating beats loop that I just dropped into the project window.

The first pass was OK but I wondered how to get multiple takes with each repeated pass. GarageBand is pretty basic looking (based on it’s menu bar) but a lot is purpose built into the software. I knew this, but I still couldn’t figure out how to get multiple takes turned on. It was a process in Logic Studio — that much I knew.

In GarageBand, multiple takes show up automatically as soon as you define a repeating loop. As soon as I dragged the slider (yellow) across the topmost margin of the project window and turned on the loop playback button (bottom transport bar), I recorded take after take of my lyrics until I had something I liked.

Then I listened to each take and transcribed the best phrases into an OpenOffice.org text document. I had my lyrics on the page in less than 15 minutes from the start of a blank page after selecting the Apple Loop I wanted for the main beat.

The entire time, I was having a great time! It wasn’t scary at all. I had some insecurity hearing my voice after it had been recorded. Recording involves a series of steps: knowing what you’re going to play or sing, practicing it, recording it (repeatedly perhaps), deciding which takes work best, and exporting a final mix that you can share with others. At least that’s my understanding of recording process. There are countless other things that you could (and maybe should) do before preparing a final mix. My voice, while basically in-tune, does not have the benefit of being trained. I’m using what I’ve got, and right now, my voice is my voice. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to sound like.

What is my voice supposed to sound like?

I can pretend to be other people. I can breathe and sing more from my chest than my head. But other than that, my voice quality changes with the time of day. It has yet to be a solid timbre that is recognizable — at least, not to my own ears. I know that I need voice training of some sort. I already have Seth Rigg’s “Singing for the Stars” course on CD but stopped doing it over a year ago. Perhaps it’s time to get back on that train and learn more about singing in the process.

The fear seems to be inversely proportional to my level of play. If I’m having fun doing something, I have no fear. And music is something that has been with me for as long as I can remember. I understand that we each have certain gifts and talents to offer ourselves and each other. I know that expressing myself through music is one of my gifts. And so far, fear has been my constant companion with regards to any public ideas concerning music. But as I have more fun recording my songs instead of letting them fly off into the ether, I feel less fear. And I gain more confidence. Couple that with reading books about songwriting and doing singing lessons makes me more comfortable pursuing this ever-expanding manner of expression.

Taking the money out of the equation from the start makes it easy to have lots of fun with music. As long as I don’t need the money, my intention remains clear and separate from the urge to make millions of fans happy. I’ll meet people that love my music no matter what. I’m already sure of that. And as long as my other business continues to be successful, I can offload the need to make lots of money from music and dismiss the “starving musician” image that struck fear into my mother and other adults who warned me to stay away from music as a career early on.

So it won’t call it a career right way. It will be my little hobby. Of course, I will continue learning all about business side of it while I learn the craft and spend time actually doing it. I like doing business. Giving myself a breather from needing music to make money right away effectively diffuses any fears I have. What do I have to lose? Will people think my voice is too amateur? Well, there’s a reason for that… it is! But not for long. I’m practicing by doing.

The Golden Years of Thomas Dolby

How did I get off on such a long tangent? Thomas Dolby has been a major early influence on me growing up along with Philip Glass and The Art of Noise. I remember setting up my Ensoniq Mirage sampler in the basement of my parents’ house alongside gear belonging to my friend Joe where the two of us recorded electronic music until dawn the next day. I remember thinking how cool Thomas Dolby’s music was and how confident he seemed with his uber-geek persona. I wanted to be just like him. I still do.