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Today while coming out of two days of misery from a bad cold, I decided to record two versions of a song I’ve recently written.

I don’t think it’s uncommon to have this happen but I can’t decide which version I like best.

The first version was recorded as the guitar was tuned in DADGAD , a D modal tuning mostly associated with Celtic music. Instead of the standard EADGBE tuning, the six guitar strings are tuned, from low to high, DADGAD.

The second recording is in the standard tuning and in the key of E major.

Corporation Blues in DADGAD ©2009 Hippiedog Produce

Corporation Blues in Standard ©2009 Hippiedog Produce

The recorder is my Edirol R-09 recorder, which is the most unforgiving tool I have.

This time I placed the recorder on a mic stand using the adapter and positioned it halfway between the guitar and my voice.

My readers can only be the judge if my cold and raspy voice sound better for this particular song. This was my intention and reason for recording when I was still under the influence of the cold.

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Corporation Blues

I work so hard for my pay

The harder I work the more it goes away

Oh’ baby, I got those Corporation Blues

No money in my billfold

I got those Corporation Blues

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Furloughs and wage reductions are on the way

Make my boss man’s boss men rich on their payday

Oh’ baby, I got those Corporation Blues

They’ll send my job off to China

I got those Corporation Blues

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The boss man won’t help me when I need to pay my rent

I don’t know where the money up and went

Oh’ baby, I got those Corporation Blues (yes I know where it goes)

Bonus pay for the bosses

I got those Corporation Blues

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Textiles, TVs microwaves and minivans

Engineered in America, assembled in Pakistan

Oh’ baby, I got those Corporation Blues

Rich folk get richer, working man get the Corporation Blues

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Oh I know its tough living in those foreign lands

50-cent a day and working hard for the man

Oh’ baby, they got those Corporation Blues

They got no money for medicine (Sometimes it’s No medicine for their children)

They got those Corporation Blues

_____________ 

You might be black, white or any color in between

Corporations don’t care only when its green

Oh’ baby, I got those Corporation Blues

Greed is the motto

We got those Corporation Blues

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Words and Music © 2009 Hippiedog Produce

Photo by Janet Blackmon Morgan

All images and songs on this site can not be used without permission.

rlh

Thanks for the wait. It is done and put to bed.

rlh

Please be patient while I upgrade to wordpress 2.5

rlh

Over the holiday break, I picked up a Tori Amos CD I’ve been wanting for a while.

“The Beekeeper” was released in February of 2005 and features 19 songs by the singer-songwriter I first heard in the early 1990’s on The Johnny Carson show.

Has it been that long ago?

So far my favorite track is “Witness”, however, “Orange Knickers” may not make my itunes folder.

Recently, I’ve been digging her music and really enjoy her 2002 album “Scarlet’s Walk”.

What can I say? Amos is a beautiful singer. She has a unique style and voice and she’s a prolific songwriter. Her latest album “American Doll Posse” has 23 songs.

Her music has an eloquent sense of timing and rhythm. I often use the pace of “Scarlet’s Walk” to time my cadence during 5-mile power walks on Sunset Beach. If you don’t have an ocean nearby, listen with closed eyes and imagine the rhythm of the waves, the dunes, and the ocean breeze teamed with her voice. You’ll see why this is a perfect choice.  

Being a new serious listener, I’m looking to expand my collection of her music. Are there any diehards who can give me a clue on which way to go?

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You’re not colored blind and there’s nothing wrong with your monitor.

I’ve been working over the last week changing the color scheme of my blog to match (somewhat) the colors on my portfolio site.

I’m finding I like to tweak with the wordpress style.css file and I’m learning more each day. Next, I want to figure out how to put an image in the sidebar.

Today, I upgraded to wordpress version 2.3.2. This is only my second wp upgrade and I’m getting the hang of it. Pretty soon upgrades will become easy and I won’t feel the urge to blog about it. Oh my, what then will I blog about?

rlh

This week I designed using Wordpress and the K2 theme, a new interface for my Rusty Rails video project. It’s nothing fancy but shows a start in what can be done to design quick interfaces for multi-media projects. Wordpress and the K2 theme are free downloads and open source software.

I changed the colors on the K2’s theme to match the colors on my portfolio. This is done by editing the style.css file located inside the K2 theme.

Links for tutorials and software. 

Wordpress 

Free K2 Wordpress theme

Wordpress flash movie player

K2 community forum

Free Wordpress video tutorials at optiniche

Paul Stamatiou’s five part series on modifying the K2 theme

The Rusty Rails project was a training tool for me. I used this story to teach myself video production software. As I work more with video, I learn new techniques that are quickly making these videos look dated.

At a smaller paper like The Sun News, I have to do and learn everything about getting these projects on the web. The interface is the latest in a long series of things I needed to learn.

rlh

I spent the better part of 4 hours adding this little logo to my blog. There are 20 different headers, so I had to dupe it for each of the photos. I ended up doing two different logo styles and chose this one for the simplicity. I really wanted to design the “0″ to look like the center of a focus screen diagram but I couldn’t find a reference image on the web.  

Was it worth the time? Maybe not……

I did learn some valuable lessons about coding and a few tricks about Photoshop text tools.

rlh 

I just noticed….. my house is a complete mess but my computer screen is clean as a whistle…..

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

 rlh

Sunday was the day I decided to tackle my first Wordpress upgrade. So far, version 2.3.1 is working like a champ and I’ve had no conflicts with plug-ins or themes. I hear this is not the norm with most code newbies.

Here’s some info for all those new to Wordpress like myself who are setting-up a contact form on your blog.

For several days I couldn’t figure out why my test mails were not going through. All the spam controls were turned off to both Wordpress and my outside account.

The solution…….

If you’re routing a contact form to an e-mail account outside of your web host provider, say like AOL or yahoo, most hosts will request you go through an e-mail alias. I patched the alias to my account and like magic I was getting the contact page info…

Now I have time for a walk on the beach.

rlh

Wordpress, the software I used to create this blog, is a wonderful open source gift to the world. However, I find myself staring endlessly at the computer screen trying to figure out the smallest of details about code. Over the last few weeks, I was using this blog as a way to learn the code, with an ultimate goal of creating interfaces for web content and video.

An excellent escape on Saturday was the gift of a wonderful film. The acting, cinematography and writing of “Into The Wild”, make it one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time.
All photojournalists, who are diving into the moving image, could be inspired by the work of the films cinematographer Eric Gautier. He also photographed “The Motorcycle Diaries”, another one of my favorite recent films.

rlh