J. Dan

The fact that this whole situation has been polarized and that news outlets have picked their side and reinforced the beliefs of their viewers, on either side, is exactly what is wrong with our media, but more importantly, US as CONSUMERS of media. In an open economy if we valued honest journalism, that is what would thrive. It's become obvious that most people don't seek honest journalism, they seek a source that validates their opinions, and that's why the bias and extreme polarization remains profitable.

Of course it's all incredible and outside my ability, but the thing that stands in contrast to my abilities the most is the speed and agility of his ring and pinky fingers. My Dupuytren's isn't helping. Seems to be affecting the ring fingers of both hands but I haven't noticed degradation of my playing ability of my right hand yet. Left hand is getting to be pretty noticeable. I can't fully flatten my palm anymore without really forcing it by pressing it down with my weight.

I also like making my own salad dressings. Again, fresh ingredients, top notch vinegars and oils are key. I'm partial to Italian salads but have come up with some other good ones. One of my non-italian favorites is a green leaf lettuce with red bell peppers and shaved parmesan cheese drizzled with a spicy balsamic vinaigrette.

I worked at a local Italian restaurant as a cook when I was in my late Teens, owned by an Italian family from the old world. I'm not going to lie that I've taken advantage of some of the things I learned from their family recipes. A few other things I've taken advantage of - my church had brought some vietnamese refugees to the states back in the day who became members of our conversations. Those vietnamese egg rolls were a recipe of my friend's mom and our church actually had an egg roll sale once a year for quite a while - they are PHENOMENAL! i also managed to get some tips from the restaurant that is voted best Thai in St. Louis every year (King and I). The mexican part is admittedly my own picking my favorite bits and pieces and putting them together into my own dishes and probably less authentic.

I pretty much only follow recipes when baking, and don't ever write down what I do, so I have no recipes. But I can give you an idea of some of the more common things I do that turn out awesome. I usually pick a theme and run with it, i.e. Asian, Italian, Mexican, Greek, etc. and will do variations - for instance Asian could be Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Thai while sometimes blending them a bit. For instance vietnamese egg rolls with a spicy thai stir fry. My Asian food will often depend on what fresh vegetables I can find. Any meat can be used but which direction I go will depend on if I'm using more onions and peppers vs broccoli, bean sprouts, snow peas, baby corn, not to mention can I get things like Kaffir leaves, basil, etc. Sometimes it's a classic stir fry, sometimes more like a Thai red curry with coconut milk...just depends on what I have and what I can find. Italian might be a sautéed chicken entree with a light breading and white wine sauce with artichoke hearts and mushrooms with a side of cream pasta and broccolini. Sometimes I'll do up a massive tray of lasagna. The sauce takes a couple hours just by itself and starts with fresh tomatoes, garlic, basil, and includes very finely chopped carrots and onion, and includes italian sausage and ground beef. A good sauce is key. When assembling, I use many kinds of cheese - Ricotta, Mozzarella, Provel (different than Provolone - a St. Louis thing), Parmesan, Romano. Sometimes I'll include Spinach as well. By the time it's baked and cooled it's practically a full day project. But the best is after it cools in the fridge overnight. I always make extra sauce and love cutting a piece from the tray in the fridge and topping it with additional sauce and cheese in a little pan and heating it back up. I also make a killer Linguine Tutto Mare, which is a cream sauce pasta with clams, crab, whitefish, and shrimp. Sometimes I'll make that with a broiled fish filet. Other times I'll do it with a steak Oscar - usually a ribeye with a butter-garlic-seafood topping. For mexican, I like kind of a "deconstructed" fajita concept with sides that I like. Instead of typical fajita meat, I'll marinade an inside skirt steak in my own concoction usually with plenty of cumin, various chili peppers, usually some chipotle for a little smokiness, onion powder, vinegar, cayenne, fresh cilantro, etc. I'll grill it then slice it across the grain at an angle into strips. I'll sautee various colors of bell peppers and onions with it. Make fresh salsa and guacamole with some more of that fresh cilantro and tomatoes along with some green chilies. If I want to go all out I'll roast some poblenos and stuff with queso. Usually top the beef with a mix of cheeses and sometimes start with queso mixed with some taco beef and some tortilla chips. Don't know what you would classify this as - it started as a recipe my mom had called Chicken Divan. I don't have the recipe or use one, but here's basically what it is..... Boil a whole chicken til the meat comes off the bone, except I usually don't do that, I just slice and cook boneless skinless chicken breast. The base is essentially a can of Cream of Chicken soup, use the can to measure out an equal amount mayonnaise. Don't know how much as I do it by taste, but add a bunch of curry powder and a little lemon juice. In a pyrex dish, layer the chicken with broccoli flowerettes, spread the goo all over it, and top with a package of shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese. Back in the oven at 350 until the whole thing is bubbly and the cheese is starting to get a bit of color. My mom always made white rice with it and spooned the mixture over the rice. I sometimes do, sometimes don't.

Sorry, but there will be no unbiased journalism until Craig Anderton launches his own news network. But I will check Newsy out, thank you. Be prepared - the news is a lot more boring when it isn't being sensationalized.

How many times are we going to post the same chart? As I mentioned last time it was posted, it doesn't differentiate between the news shows and the news analysis or commentator shows. Fox has pretty obvious delineation between to two. Hannity is obviously right wing commentator, where as Brett Baer is hard news. CNN seems to blur those lines a bit more, but I think with any of these sources you get a different skew in comparing only their hard news coverage as opposed to their editorial shows. If anybody is interested in coverage that is truly unbiased, I've been watching Newsy. They seem pretty neutral and keep their opinions out of it.

Are you sure about that? [video:youtube] [video:youtube] [video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6cX7Lv-BUc

I guess to go handheld with it, you'd need to go Freddy Mercury style!

Lola

All us unemployed folks can solve this problem along with the 76 key semi weighted poly AT midi 2.0 controller and make a fortune. Who's in?

I realize I sidestepped the original question and did some self promotion, but the real answer I think after some thought on the matter is that there are very few bands I would be happy doing a tribute to because I wouldn't enjoy being pigeon holed like that, but I like themes. I've done other theme bands as well. I've played in 2 separate bands where in each case, the drummer was a Radio personality - one a long time veteran of classic rock station KSHE 95 where we played "KSHE Classics" and another a talk show host on AM radio, but that band had a cool Niche. We were a 5 pc acoustic. We all sang so we could literally do 5 part harmony and between us all we could cover 6-string, 12-string, bass, mandolin, banjo, etc....so anything pretty much. I was the bass player in that band but occasionally broke out sax and some keyboards. The cool thing was we did ANYTHING, but acoustic. We went from Rush to One Direction. We played Daft Punk and Rolling Stones. Rock, pop, country, didn't matter....all acoustic which was the tie that binds. But not a duo or trio - 5 PIECE! I really loved some of the versions of the songs we did. But tribute....some I would be happy to play in but nothing jumps out at me as some sort of holy grail. You guys mentioning bands like Devo and Cars....there's a whole phase I went though that I would love to do a theme band version of with a number of keyboard players who like me play other instruments as well as sing, percussion, etc. and do Human League, New Order, Information Society, Duran Duran, Devo, Sparks, Erasure, Depeche Mode, Yaz - I would kill to play in a band like that!

IF states follow the guidelines, it is NOT one size fits all. There are 3 defined phases that involve levels of new cases declining and other factors. I think there are so many with cabin fever that the floodgates are opening, but there IS a phased plan with criteria for each phase depending on local conditions.

Yeah, I would think ideally you would need to be plugged into fiber. I know it's easy to get 100Mbps down, but I don't know what the upload speeds are - that's usually the rub.

Theoretically if everybody was local and only lived maybe miles apart, the speed of sound would be less of an issue, except for the fact that the servers you're all going through could be halfway around the world. If you all lived in close proximity and had your own dedicated local server and could be sure that your internet traffic wasn't routed outside of your town, then maybe it would be feasible. That's a lot of "IF's".

I've played quite a few cars songs over the years and always enjoyed them. I've done Just What I needed, Shake it Up, Bye Bye Love, Let's Go, You Might Think, and Magic. I was a huge Devo fan but got so sick of playing Whip It over the years that I don't mind if I never hear it again. But Love the REST of the Devo tunes. Dave Bryce (moderator on the Keyboard Corner) has a band called "Police Cars" that only plays songs by the Police and the Cars. The songs I've heard from videos he posted sounded great! I like those types of mash-ups - kind of a cross between a tribute band and a theme band. There's one here called "Petty-Cash Junction" that plays all Tom Petty and Johnny cash. Different band members do each of the lead vocals, and they have a female singer that covers the June Carter parts.

I guess we'll know in a couple weeks. The confusing thing about this is we were initially supposed to be doing all this to flatten the curve so the hospitals didn't get overwhelmed. Meanwhile the hospitals around here are empty with thousands of workers furloughed or laid off. One of the bigger hospitals has a total of 2 covid patients right now. So it's not about flattening the curve now, now we're supposed to stay home until there's a vaccine (IF there's a vaccine). They keep moving the goal post.

In any of the bands I've played with that gig frequently, everybody has owned their own vocal mics and have preferences based on their own voice and singing style. Mine for quite a long while was the Beyerdynamic Opus 89 until the capsule got an open circuit somewhere in those tiny wires. I don't sing live as much anymore so I couldn't justify buying another one and have been using a cheap sennheiser when I need to. As for ribbon mics for live use in general, I would not have thought of them being very rugged for the riggers of transport/setup/teardown and occasional abuse in live situations. Do I have a false opinion in that regard? That is something nobody has mentioned as a desirable feature for a live vocal mic - ruggedness.

There have been some well attended outdoor concerts around here recently. I think Memorial day weekend at Lake of the Ozarks will be pretty huge. I'm seeing a lot of bands post gigs that are just getting booked there for the weekend. That weekend at the lake is always big anyway, but I think people with cabin fever itching to see some live music will make it epic.

Just a few points: The PC is running Win 7 - DAW works just fine, probably because it's really old software but if it isn't broke, don't fix it. The video software used to work but barely works now, but I'm not all that concerned with AV stuff right now. I just need it to use office and email, so yes I'm just trying to get it fast enough to be more productive. Sometimes basic page loads take forever. The iTunes that I'm using to manage my phone is on a mid-2009 macbook pro running El Capitan (the newest it will support). I only use that computer for recording over firewire from my Presonus Mixer, and syncing with my phone.

There are full versions of each of the songs in the compilation. Won't embed all of them here but you can click the ones you want below:

Latest band I tried to put together was a 90's female fronted "alternative" rock theme - Garbage, Hole, Breeders, Veruca Salt, Sneaker Pimps, etc. All hinged on the right lead vocalist - had plenty of pro musicians lined up to back it up. The perfect singer said I "read her mind" and would love to do it. Messages went back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth, and it never happened. She's in high demand and had no time and everybody else lost patience. I think it would have done well. At the time of the above video, I was the band leader of that band. I had been with them for about 5 years at that time but left about a year after the video due to divorce and time restrictions with my schedule with my kids and conflicts with my day job. It was paying about $40k/yr per member only paying Friday and Saturday nights, local only. Nice side income, just couldn't do it anymore.

As many of you know from my previous thread I lost my job and am transitioning accounts over to a personal email from work, had to turn in work laptop and car but kept the phone, and am trying to get everything up and running post job loss. I've been posting a bunch of stuff on Facebook and have gotten some responses but I thought I would just dump all my remaining issues in one place here in case there are suggestions: 1) Home Desktop PC. It's an HP/Compaq core 2 duo 2.66 GHz with only 2 Gig of the max 8 gig RAM configured as (2) 1 gig sticks of the 4 total slots, 1 TB spinning drive of which about 550 Gig is full. I'm using AVG Free antivirus. It's so painfully slow it sometimes is barely usable. I need it for the office applications at least (word, excel, etc). I also use it in music for my DAW which surprising still works well, but used to use it for video which has become practically unusable. I occasionally get the BSOD. Being jobless now I have no budget for a new computer or much for software. My approach is to start by maxing out the RAM which is DDR2-800 PC6400 hard to find but a FB friend thinks he has some he will give me. Ideal would be (4) 2GB sticks for a total of 8. See where I'm at, then consider imaging the drive and putting in a SSD for boot, OS, and apps, with files on the spinning drive. Next step would be looking for more efficient antivirus. Plan is one step at a time and see where I am before spending any money. Thoughts? Am I on the right track? Suggestions? 2) Updated my iTunes account with my personal email and reauthorized the devices I turned into the company (laptop, iPad). iPhone I kept and old Macbook seem to be fine, allowing me to login with the new ID and PW, but on my macbook it keeps popping up problems with iCloud and wants me to enter a PW, but with my OLD email. If I try to log out (thinking I can log back in with my new apple ID) it warns me that it will delete all files from my macbook that are in the cloud, which scares the shit out of me. Why can't i keep my local files? What's the safe and appropriate way to update iCloud on my macbook to my current credentials without risking losing all my files? 3) As I mentioned I kept my company iPhone and am transferring financial responsibility to myself but keeping my number. Since everything was tied to Office 365, they wiped out all my contacts including personal. I managed to export my contacts from outlook to a .csv file before getting cut off. Is there any way to import a .csv file into my contacts on my iPhone automatically or do I just have to go through he tedious process of manually entering?

I have trouble separating myself from thoughts of what would sell, what would be popular, what tribute bands already exist in the area, etc. Plus I've always preferred "Theme Bands" to tribute bands. You can still focus on a limited set of artists but still get some variety and don't have to play the part of a specific person. In fact you can change your persona per song. This was my 80s band back in the day: [video:youtube] I'm doing keys, rhythm guitar, and sax as well as a few lead vocals in that one. I would like to do Styx, Foreigner, Kansas, and Supertramp in a theme band, but one already exists in St. Louis called Superjam: clonk besides that we already have a Journey Tribute, a Styx Tribute, a Kansas Tribute, etc..... and they are all good. What Tribute DON'T we have that we need? That's a head scratcher. I'm working on possibly squeezing my way into a Garbage tribute later this year if their current keyboard player moves out of town.

Maybe I'm partial to this one because I was both a huge Pixies fan already, and also loved this movie - so was thrilled to hear the Pixies at the end of the movie...but it's also a great fit. Where is My Mind at the end of Fight Club. [video:youtube]