Table of Rants

Pre-Programming, and the execution
Why NYC Has Great Bars, the importance “living rooms”, and home life
-roommates
-compounding stressors
Vibe’s, their importance, how to influence them, and how to utilize them
“Twanger”, the development and improvement
New Drink Idea, deep consideration of an experience
Stand Up Comedy, the most difficult art form
-Stand Up / Improv
Listening, and methods to actively listen to other people better (even drunk)
-top of the mind thoughts / inside your mind thoughts
-respond to what you will say
Relative Volume, a new way to measure volume of sounds

1 - Pre-Programming

and the execution

Pre-Programming the day and pre-programming actions to be executed are the same. Making a routine is important to making a stable life. Make a calendar, make a to do list. Make a check list.

The less you have to figure out in the moment the better. The more mental energy you have to think about new ways to do the things you’re currently doing the better, for productivity and for your own enjoyment. It allows you to live in the moment.

Think about any sport that involves throwing a ball. You don’t think about each finger, each muscle in each finger, how your wrist moves, how your elbow, shoulder, hips, etc moves. These actions are pre-programmed and set up to work smoothly and effortlessly without in moment consideration. This is why it’s important to spread out thinking things through before hand so that you can execute it well in the moment.

2 - Why NYC Has Great Bars

the importance “living rooms”, and home life

NYC is an expensive place to live. Most people don’t have money to spend on having a large living room like in the suburbs. Without having a space to relax at home, the “living room” (the place where you live your life) is outsourced to exterior places, like bars. Bars are a communal hub for people in NYC. There are not many places adults can go to relax and hang out without spending too much money. A drink or two is the fee of staying in a bar, as apposed to a whole meal, a movie, paying hourly for bowling, or karaoke. Additionally those places you are pressured to leave, while you’re always welcome at the bar.

Additionally, since living in NYC is expensive, not only do people not having a decent living room to relax in, their whole apartment might have a vibe not of their liking. Some people live with roommates that they’re not the most comfortable with. Taking care of your own psyche is important, and a big part of that is the quality of your “living room”, whether it be in your house, or your “living room” in your local bar.

NYC, more than most places gives a lot of stress. This stress needs to be diffused or they compound, but having a poor home situation causes these stressors to compound. I’d argue this is the main reason why homeless people seem to always go crazy, they are hoarding this stress and can never dissolve it. A good bar, with good friends, good company, and a good drink makes for a reasonable, or arguable better, “living room” to unwind. ***With moderation of course!***

But why does NYC have GREAT bars? Simply put, the people are great. It must be understood that people come from around the world, attracted to art, to work, and their passions into the city of New York. But ask any New Yorker, you don’t hang out at Time Square. The locals have their local spots, their “living rooms”, their bars.

_Credit to Matt Eller

3 - Vibe’s

their importance, how to influence them, and how to utilize them

On the subject of good bars, a good bar is a place with a good vibe. What makes for a good vibe? Everything. Literally.

Go to your favorite bar, or restaurant, or even apartment/home. Everything is important. The way the floor feels, the color of wood, the quality of light, the amount of light, the placement of windows, the types of drinks, the smell in the air, the feel of the chairs, the temperature of the air. All of everything contributes to a good vibe. This is why being very mindful and aware of these details make for a better environment.

While talking to my friend John, I even realized another point. People in Hawaii, and you’ve heard of people doing this in California, complain about very specific changes to the weather. “The air is heavy,” John told me once that he heard someone complain. You can take this as a throwaway complaint, or you can see that these people are just finely aware of the subtle differences. This is a trained behavior. We who may not be so aware of these differences might call them pedantic, but I’d argue that these factors do effect our psyche, even if we’re not aware of it. This all adds to the vibe. So work to be mindful and aware of everything if you want to make a good vibe.

_Credit to John

4 - “Twanger”

the development and improvement

This is touch up on my development on my work in progress invention of a non-digital effect that I’m calling a “Twanger”. You can see the first iteration on my pre-blog blog.

Recently I’ve just been considering how to play the guitar and be able to slide up and down the neck without the Twanger getting in the way. I’ve considered having a different material being the counter weight to make the back flatter.

Additionally I want to work a system of geometry on the front piece of the Twanger to hit different strings. The Twanger currently only really hits the high E string, and I believe the quality of sound will change based on what string it hits. Additionally this will make activating the Twanger more accessible and variable if I can engineer it to work on different strings.

Also I want to experiment with different materials to see what tones I can produce. I’ve observed that the pitch doesn’t change based on the location on the neck (except maybe the harmonics). I theorize that the gauge and material can change the pitch though.

5 - New Drink Idea

deep consideration of an experience

I finally finished a new drink idea, well… everything except the name. A good name is hard to find. I sort of want to call it The Florist. But I’m not convinced yet.

The Florist:
1 Part Gin
1 Part Tonic
1 Splash of Bitters
2 Splashes of St. Germain
1 Lime juiced and in the drink
1 Lime as the crown
Half ice
Served in a whisky glass that you can fit your whole hand around the top

So the drink also has a way to drink it. I’m trying to design an experience, more than just a drink (which admittedly sounds SUPER pretentious…). But it goes like this…

When drinking The Florist, you cup the top of the glass with your hand over the lime. This should funnel the smell of the drink into your nose (the majority of taste is through smell). Additionally the ingredients in this drink is very floral and has a nice smell. Cupping the lime and holding it slightly is important as well, because when you go to drink, turning your hand should press ever so slightly on the lime to release some scent as you drink, this should be funneled into your nose since your hand should be cupping the air flow.

Having not too much ice is important as well. Ice can jam your face when you go for a sip, and that can ruin the experience. The ice melting is also a factor of the drink. A tiny bit of water will activate a lot of the tastes and smells.

(If it isn’t obvious that I “over think” things until now, hopefully this now convinces you.)

6 - Stand Up Comedy

the most difficult art form

The open mic I host has been doing really great lately! There’s more people playing music, people are having a good time, except I think the comedy section is lacking. I believe this is my fault. I am not experienced in comedy, and additionally I believe stand-up comedy is the most difficult art form.

Stand-up comedy is the purest form of entertainment. There are no props, no help, no instruments to play, no clips to roll, just you and a mic. A good comic also has to work the crowd, feel what works in the moment, and adapt. A good comic has material written down, but some or maybe ALL of the material won’t work for this specific audience. You have to work the crowd and make them ready for the jokes. A good comic will plant the seeds of a joke in an audience member’s mind before they even realize it, then BAM! Punch line!

A lot of people compare improv to stand-up and (I’d say mistakenly) say improv is harder. And don’t get me wrong, improv is INCREDIBLY difficult. But the point that I think they are missing, is that good stand-up is also good improv. As I mentioned earlier, a good comedian has to work the crowd and the material on the spot and make it work.

7 - Listening

and methods to actively listen to other people better (even drunk)

At the bar I go to there are a few people that slightly annoy me. Sometimes it gets a bit irritating to talk to them. I’ve found the main reason this is is because they don’t listen effectively. But I had a really great talk with one of them when this guy seemed to want to be better. While talking with him I had a couple realizations.

He would constantly respond to what he said previously, even though I was making a point that was developing off of it. Constantly building and reiterating your own points makes for a boring conversation, it can feel like a rant, or just a boring lecture. A good conversation is bigger than all parties involved at an individual level, because a good conversation is developed between the people speaking. It is a conglomeration of ideas.

I gave him a couple pointers that I think can help

Don’t think about what you’re going to say when the other person is speaking. Absorb and completely listen to each point. Listen to the words they emphasize, the words they chose, and which words they didn’t use that could have been a synonym. Nuance and detail is important. Words are important. Words, words, words. It’s the way that we formulate ideas, and the way we think about things.
Say what’s in your mind not what’s on top of your mind. Deep thought and consideration. Just responding to the skin deep ideas is boring and just not satisfying. If you put no thought into what you’re saying or going to say, then I probably already thought of it or don’t care to hear you say it. Think deeper. Don’t just skim your brain for thoughts, dig into it.
Respond to what you would say. Think to yourself what you’re going to say. Then work out what you want to respond to or develop further into it. This builds off of the previous point. The ideas you have that are skin deep are boring, but they are the building blocks, the first steps of what the conversation is going to. Develop off of those and speak those deeper ideas. Simply put, try to go one level deeper.

8 - Relative Volume

a new way to measure volume of sounds

Instead of measuring just the overall volume of a sound we can measure it based on a relative scale of perception.

Let us imagine a situation:
You go out to a bar to catch up with a good friend. There’s music of course, but it’s too loud to hold a conversation with your friend without yelling. The music is too loud of course. But what is the function of that volume?

I propose that there is a set decibel level, or possibly a factor within different kinds of noise (ie: white noise vs. music with lyrics). Regardless the cause, it is a variable that we can measure.

Simply have maybe a dozen participants listen to a pre-recorded conversation at a certain decibel level. Then have them recount the conversation and the main points. Based on how well the information is given back we can measure at what volume the distracting noise is and at what point the volume is too disruptive.

A point that can be important is that there may be different volumes of conversation that institutions may want to keep. Some different settings and vibes might be desired for different reasons. Let’s say a cafe, they’d want almost whisper levels to be not disrupted. Bars, probably deep conversation levels to be not disrupted. Music venues playing thinking man’s music level, Music venues playing music for people who want to dance, and venues that don’t want you to talk at all.

Having these target desirable volumes can help venue spaces market what level they engineer their sound to be.