tales from IT support

I'm an IT support guy at a non-profit association. I support PCs and Macs in my building, and take phone calls from users of our web site.

Yesterday I took a call from a user who was, I thought, trying to send an e-mail to one of our departments. She gave the e-mail address she was trying to use and said that it was failing. So, I double checked the contact info page for that particular department and confirmed that was indeed the correct address. I even called someone up there to confirm this address.

I asked the user to try again while I was on the phone with her. She did, and told me that it was "not found." I asked if she got the e-mail returned to her and she said no, "it says the page was not found."

The lightbulb flickered above my head. "OK," I say, "are you by chance typing that address into the address bar of your browser?"

(confused silence at other end of phone)

"What I mean is, are you using an e-mail program? Outlook or something? Or are you typing that along the top of Internet Explorer?"

"Yes, I'm typing it in there."

(stunned silence at MY end of phone)

Trying my best not to laugh I explained to her that if the address has an "@" in it, she needs to use her e-mail program.

IT support: helpin' the peoples, one user at a time.

bloggen ein toten horsen*

*(not actual German. In case you were wondering.)

So here I am, having started a b-word. Not entirely spur of the moment but almost; driving home from work last night I figured it was time to do it, since I was basically talking back to NPR. Might as well write it down, I thinks. This stuff is gold, I thinks. Commitment: the first hurdle.

And then of course, the next thought: What to call it? The first "brilliant" idea I had, (and obviously a lot of other people have had), was "Blogging a Dead Horse." Huh-huh. Funny.

So I got home and started on the creation process here at b-worder dot com and checked for availability of my unique, clever name bloggingadeadhorse. Not available, hm.

That turns out to be for the best... a google of "blogging a dead horse" turns up 223 results. Thank god bloggingadeadhorse.blogspot.com was already taken or I guess I'd eventually be #224!

p.s. if you go to bloggingadeadhorse.blogspot.com you might laugh; I did.

and now something about... American Idol

Yeah, I watch it. Almost addictively. I have seldom voted (more on that some other time, maybe). I don't buy or make a point to listen to the music made by previous seasons' winners. But I watch it, every week. If you're not watching it this season the following will mean very little to you.

So, these days there's a contestant, Chris Daughtry (the bald guy). He's technically a very fine singer with a powerful "rock" voice a' la I can't think of a name to drop here. Anyway, much is made of his "originality," and I suppose that's true, in the context of the show. And I like him, not my favorite, but whatever. But a couple things bug me. Two weeks ago was "Stevie Wonder Week," where all the contestants were required to perform a Stevie Wonder song. Chris chose "Higher Ground." He was familiar with the Red Hot Chili Peppers' excellent version and was pleased to find out that it was "actually a Stevie Wonder song." That's fine, he's a young guy. So he performed it, quite well, but pretty much the exact same arrangement as the Chili Peppers' version. Judge Simon Cowell praised his originality. I guess that's fine too, maybe Simon never heard the Chili Peppers' version. Which, uh, was the exact same... you know.

This past week Chris performed Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line." He did it in a kinda dark, alterna-rock way that was pretty interesting, and once again one of the better performances of the night. Partway through I realized what bugs me about Chris.

Think back to the height of the mid-90s alternative rock explosion. There was some damned good music on the radio again -- Pearl Jam, Nirvana, even cool bands I never thought would ever be on commercial radio, like the Butthole Surfers, Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth and the Meat Puppets. But this same boom also gave birth to bands like Candlebox, Live (damn you Ed Kowalczyk), and way too much similarly glossy, overwrought, precisely-market-segmented, um, crap. Pretty much the Foreigners to Pearl/Nirvana's Zeppelin, if you will.

So yeah, partway through Chris' latest emotional performance I remembered. I really, really hated Candlebox.

in defense of the fab four

1. I admit it's a little cheap to post a 2-year-old rant on my brand-new blog, but hey, I needed something up here!
2. A bit of explanation, to put this into context. Why would anyone ever need to "defend" the Beatles? While lurking on the forums at comomusic.com (an excellent Columbia, MO music-centered site) a couple of years ago I encountered a thread vehemently questioning the relevance of the Beatles to today's 20-something music fan. I had to respond.

It is the responsibility of every generation to despise the music of the previous generation. I'm only half-serious on that point, and I realize this doesn't hold true for every member of a given generation. Much of the feeling I get from reading [the posts on the above-mentioned forum] reflects my own previously-held opinions, as a tail-end 'Boomer, towards, say, Frank Sinatra. To me, Frank Sinatra and his "overrated" contemporaries represented everything that sucked about music. (Later on, those feelings changed -- by realizing what great songwriters were supplying Frank with his tunes, not to mention his fine interpretive skills. But that's another story.)

I was not a Beatles fan in my late teens/early twenties. "Love Me Do" and songs of the like simply irritated me, as a rockin' Zeppelin kind of guy. Then "Abbey Road" and the White Album kicked in my door, and my ass with it. My appreciation grew as I traveled backwards along the Beatle album timeline over the course of a number of years, until I grew to love even those goofy earlier tunes, for one simple reason: the friggin' songcraft! Even the simplest songs usually had some "odd" bit to them, an unexpected chord change, a clever lyric, a strange harmony.

Those are things that may be taken for granted now, possibly because of the influence on so much of the music that followed (we've all heard that to death, but that's because it's true), but just listen to most of what you hear today, as well as most other music of their day -- that quality of songwriting is still damned rare. And no, I don't think they "invented" modern music, nor do I think innovation ended with them, but damned if they didn't combine the best parts of what came before them -- Cole Porter, Chuck Berry, Buck Owens, whatever -- and distill it into fucking brilliant songs and albums. Sure, the Stones were superior in the realm of blues and country. Did the Beatles "rock" harder than anybody before or since? Of course not. But they sure wrote circles around 'em. They were a rare combination: experimentalists with an almost unerring commercial instinct.

Why you "should" like the Beatles: uh, you shouldn't. You either do or you don't. And in the future, you either will or you won't. In the end it's pretty subjective. But (in my opinion, mind) they were the finest songwriters of their day, and that includes Mick & Keith, Pete Townshend, Ian Anderson, Page & Plant, Ray & Dave Davies, David Bowie and countless others whose music I still love dearly. Would I say they are my favorite all-time artists? Nah, I can't even begin to pick favorites anymore, there's too much good music out there. Will my favorite contemporary artists still move me 20, 30 years from now? Will yours? I sure hope so. I really do. End of rant. Music is the best.

post the first

Welcome to The Quivering Fringe, my first foray into blogginess. I have no idea where I'm going with this but I figure this might be a better outlet than ranting in the street.

Though I haven't completely ruled out ranting in the street.