mike lawson

Well, the first few days these pain meds kept me asleep all day and all night, now it seems I'm up all night tonight from them while I deal with the final days of staples in my skin. So, putting the time to good use I messed around with installing the latest Content Express module build for PostNuke, which allowed me to start converting pages from my old html-based website to pages that would work in the PHP-based PostNuke system. Fortunately none of this is rocket science and doesn't require me to do more than cut and paste stuff. I'm not the clearest in my thinking on these pain pills, but I can muster the ability to copy and paste with all of the skill of a monkey using a mouse.

I added a page listing the gear I'm working with in my studio as well as lyrics to some of my songs, primarily the Ticket to Fly track lyrics. I added the story of how the T2F album came about, who's on it, etc. I still have several transcripts to add from my early days online with Compu$erve, when I interviewed Lou Reed, Kris Kristofferson, Thomas Dolby, Jorma, Jack, Bob Welch, Robbie Krieger and others. That's actually some interesting stuff. It will be nice to have it all online and in one place again. I've got a bio to update and add here, plus a few other things.

Again, mostly copying and pasting, so its just a matter of getting to it. The only downside of working with an online "CMS" like PostNuke is that you have to do everything while connected to the Internet. If I could do this stuff sitting on airplanes, I'd have it made!

Now that the framework is here to put in the old files, I'll slowly, and I mean slowly, get around to adding more stuff. There is a lot of stuff to copy and paste over. It's a mind-numbing task, but part of the work in building a journal online for posterity, whoever long that is in the digital world of the Internet.Thanks for reading.

I love The Rutles. The first movie, starring Eric Idle of Monty Python and Neil Innes, brilliant Python-musician and Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band member was, in a word, brilliant. Its parallel universe parody of The Beatles was absolutely remarkable, from the story line to the music, which was a mixed up selection of Beatles songs often merged together into a new song with humorous, new lyrics.

When the Beatles released "Anthology" is was only fitting that The Rutles also released "Archeology," a selection of supposedly lost and now found Rutles recordings. Though it was a slight disappointment in content, it was still pretty clever. The day is hit the stores, Mix Magazine Editor George Petersen and I went to Tower Records on our lunch hour to buy it, both of us being ethusiatic fans of Dirk, Stig, Barry and Nasty, The Pre-Fab Four.

With the 2005 release of Can't Buy Me Lunch, Idle's video-only release of the "sequel" to "All You Need is Cash," the first movie on The Rutles, my hopes were not really high, but I could not have imagined them being this low. The three, without Idle, even re-grouped and played a couple of live shows when the CD was released. So, there was a reason for thinking perhaps the video sequel would in fact have the entire four members in it. Sadly, it did not. Though some of the songs from the last release are on the video, it is mostly a terrible editing job of re-purposed clips from the first movie, along with a selection of clips of more celebritities painfully and strainfully remembering the influence of The Rutles on their lives, careers and the world in general. Unfortunately, none of them, not even my beloved Bonnie Raitt, comes across as believable or even perhaps as if they knew who The Rutles were before being approached for this video. Worst placement? Jewel. She looks totally lost and completely faking it. Conan? Oh dude, please. You're a funny guy. You should have run from this one. Gary Shandling? This is bad writing, bad improvising what isn't written, bad everything. Eric Idle, this is just sad.

Simply put, this Rutles release is rubbish. It is so poorly done I had to force myself to sit through it. I recall a scene from This is Spinal Tap, where the band is discussing previous albums and critical reviews. This new Rutles release is akin to that Spinal Tap release, Shark Sandwich. While it doesn't share the same name, so "Shit Sandwich" might not be as funny in describing it, the new Rutles release is in fact, shit.

Say it ain't so, Eric. Say at least something in your defense for this turd. I mean, even Ringo was quick to blame excessive use of alcohol and cocaine for the turds he released whilst living in Atlanta, GA in the 1980's. Can't you claim you were suffering a brain injury? That you were not taking your meds? Maybe you could claim temporary insanity? Please, at least say something. This video is terrible.

Can't Buy Me Lunch was not released, it ESCAPED!

I took down my link to downloads of PostNuke scripts because I never got around to populating the database with the ton of modules and blocks I had put on my server. After a while, it seemed like a waste of time once I was shown the PostNuke Portal site that is run by Vanessa Haakenson. She's been testing the heck out of scripts for PostNuke, plus has a cool area where you can play with .750 and .760 of PostNuke. Her download library is full of stuff there with pretty much everything I had uploaded to put in mine. So, I'd rather point traffic that way than do the work here. No sense re-inventing the wheel so to speak, and that's time for other things, like maybe making some music in that studio I'm rumored to own. There is a link to PostNuke Portal in the Web Links section of the site. Enjoy.

My first-born Zach turns 14 in June. He has recently, on his own, taken up guitar. After a brief stint with guitar lessons induced by Dad when he was 9, he didn't much mess with it. Suddenly, my Stratocaster is in his room. After a month, he shows me he's actually getting into it, figured out reading tab, is checking out Modest Mouse, Green Day, even Led Zepplin and sorting out parts. I got him a Stratocaster Standard on the way home from the hospital. I was hopped up enough on the meds to make it through the store for a few minutes. He's playing it through a Fender Blues Jr. amp I picked up for him today. My boy's playing guitar. How cool. :)

Ok, first of all, going to the hospital on a scheduled surgery is nothing short of surreal. Second, this hurt. It hurt a lot and it still hurts. Thank god for Percocet. There were minor complications to the condition such as adhesions and swelling internally which my surgeon said were in part due to the ER doctor man-handling the injury a bit. He said I should have been put in for surgery right away when I went to the ER. Oh well, now they tell me. I have about a ten minute window between taking the pain meds and the pain meds taking me, so I'm signing off now since I've only one eye open and the other is half shut. Maybe soon I can be talking about making music againl.