craigb

Not sure if I can see you doing that Bob! ?

Well, here's the "short" story there. Originally, I moved to the Pacific Northwest with the goal of buying land and building a custom house with a full studio that I could lease time out to others. Then a string of weirdness happened including my father passing (the day after I unpacked up here!?) which meant my Mom was all by herself (I'm an only child and she's 93 now). Weird stuff happened where I owned four resort properties which caused me to sell them before I wanted to then, while selling the house in San Diego with my Mom in it (which cost me tens of thousands more than it should to prepare) my apartment complex decided to go condo! Of course, out of over 200 units, my apartment had to be the first sold, so now I've got to get out quickly. Instead of taking the time I should have, I found a nice, already built, house for me and was able to soon after find one for my Mom as well. I put 35% down on both houses and then started some remodeling on mine. Next up: A big storm caused 82' of a tree to topple onto the fences for me and my neighbor! After trying to figure out who we should contact for reparations, we discovered that we actually owned all the land beyond the fence going down a dangerous slope to a major street. Now that we knew, we became liable for anyone who might get injured as well as for paying the initial damage (meaning tree maintenance, adding new fences and "Posted No Trespassing" signs). Add all that to some serious code violations I discovered while remodeling and, instead of spending under $10k on the improvements, it was over $92k of my backup cash lost. Then, while I was off working on a PhD (and, therefore, not working), the so-called Credit Crunch hit. Lots of illegal financial dealings I ended up losing both houses, my vehicle and over $890,000! This included my music studio gear which I had about $134k invested into. Because one of the tricks done by the banks was to not lend to anyone for any reason, I couldn't get to any of my equity. My primary house was appraised at $541k right before the B.S., but I could borrow anything on it even with a 811 FICO score (and having never had a late payment in my life). I ended up selling it six times, but they all fell through because the banks weren't lending (the final time was for only $229k, a bit more than I owed!). I now know all of this was planned so that the banks could end up with 1/3 of all residential properties cheaply which were mostly sold to rich investors ("You will own nothing and be happy!" - the chant from the World Economic Forum can be heard here!). They say you really find out who your real friends are and what's truly important once you've lost everything and this was definitely true! So I basically was forced to sell almost all my gear at pennies on the dollar. If I got 10%-13% of what something was worth I was lucky. From then on it's just been a matter of trying to recover and survive! And now you know!

REM - Camera

+1?

This is the Focusrite I had: I never had the issues you were, but this unit did get so hot that I was seriously afraid it was going to catch fire and so I got rid of it.

Yeah... I know I've told the story before, but we had the one I mentioned above who was drunk after a gig at a bar called the TomCat that catered to the military crowd from Miramar Naval Air Base which was pretty much right across the street. He started walking across Miramar Blvd., which is a very busy street, when he was hit by a car. But it was the second car that decapitated him! We had one who died like Bonham (drowning on his puke), one that committed suicide after a gig when his girlfriend broke up with him. He went home and, apparently, downed an entire 5th of vodka with a full bottle of sleeping pills. The final one I really don't know what happened, but he (Michael Grove) was a guy I went to school with who was one of the first guys to play drums for Mickey Ratt (who became Ratt) and was also doing something with Jake E. Lee (who Goldy, see below, took the place of in Rough Cut so that Jake could join Ozzy). Mike was the drummer for Foolish Pleasure that I got to play in for a very short time (where Craig Goldy, of Guiffria and Dio fame, was the guitarist). He was only 23 and I only learned about it at my high school's ten-year reunion... No spontaneous human combustions though!

From other studies... ?

Heh, in the very brief time of my life back in the 80's that I was actually in a band, we lost FOUR drummers including one being decapitated after a gig! Spinal Tap was very accurate for me.

Ran into this and loved it! (Randy Bachman story.)

Pet Shop Boys - Domino Dancing

Genesis - Domino

The Cure - The Walk

Don't you think? ?

Donna Summer - MacArthur Park

Gone > Not There Santana - She's Not There

Ironically, I've got a lot of their albums, but have mostly forgotten about them! That said, I played their newest album and it wasn't bad! Will have to revisit them I guess (along with others like the Lemonheads and Roxette! LOL.).

But it's Country, so minus six... ? ??

Maybe you need to coin a new term? AI-holes!

Are there any deserted islands available? Asking for a friend...

Jet - Are You Going To Be My Girl

Didn't even know that Metric had released a new album six months ago! As usual for me with them, each listening gets better. ?

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Neil Young - Hey Hey My My