Awesome

I live in the U.S. state with the highest unemployment rate in the country. I also live with the lowest internal tolerance for holding a "straight job" possible. How cool that, given the abysmal state of Michigan's economy, I've been able to change jobs twice in the past month just because I was tired of what I was doing. I'm also training to be an actual airwaves broadcast DJ for my favorite radio station. That's why the theme for my names this week is synonyms for AWESOME.

Also, my snake finally ate and shed his skin. He's now bright and happy. That's cool, super, gnarly, awesome, and every other name I'll have this week!

So Sad

I watched a movie called "Happiness" last night on the recommendation of my roommate. I recommend against watching this movie, and what's more, I recommend strongly against watching it alone. It made me consider suicide.

Also, I don't have internet at home for the time being. That's why I'm not updating my name every day and blog entries have become scarce.

Plus my snake won't eat. I think he's stressed.

My name is So Sad today. A friend said "it's okay to have a funk sometimes." Actually, confessing my sadness to a friend made me feel much better. Everyone needs someone they can show their weakness to.

Mandelbrot Kleiner

A little fairy whispered "fractal" in my ear this morning. So I named myself Mandelbrot Kleiner.

One of the most famous fractals ever, the Mandelbrot set:

And a print by M. C. Escher called "Kleiner und Kleiner" which means "Smaller and Smaller" (which predates fractals):

Shortest. Notice. Evar.

To: [my imminently former employer] From: Shri Pavlov Subject: Short Notice "Sayonara"

Bums

I'm having a Piña Colada party with some bums after work.

Well, they're more like young homeless wanderers, on the road like Kerouac. When I think "bum," I'm thinking an older guy with perpetual three-day stubble who smells like whiskey and speaks hoarsely. But these hippies or whatever seem to like to call themselves bums, and I'm all about calling people what they want to be called.

So yesterday these bums said to me, "Hey, you got a coconut?" I asked them what they would do with a coconut. They said they wanted to make a coconut bra, and also Piña Coladas. I wondered whether they had any pineapple or rum, and they showed me their pineapple, but sadly they had not acquired any rum. I said, "If you get some rum and meet me here tomorrow, I'll bring a coconut." They agreed. I expressed some skepticism that they would remember to meet me. Then the "head bum" got an appointment book out of his backpack. A bum with a daytimer! So I said, "I won't be Steven Schrek tomorrow, but I don't like to talk about future names until they're effective, so just put in the initials B.Q."

Normally I don't even know what the next name will be until the morning, but I already have all my names for this week picked out. It's a pattern.

How Will It End?

I've been giving a lot of thought to what name I will use last. You see, after a thousand days, I'm going to stop changing my name. So the last name I change to will be my name for the rest of my life. It's a big decision, so I'm glad I have eight hundred ninety-five more days to think about it. Will I go back to my previous stage name? Possibly. Will I give up on my dreams and just settle with my legal name? I doubt it. I've been heavily considering Andy, based on my latest scientific discovery: People named Andy are creative geniuses.

I'm not saying Andrew. Only people who are known primarily as Andy count. I've been compiling lists of Andys, and here are my findings:

People named Andy who are creative geniuses (partial list):
Andy Warhol, Andy Kaufman, Andy Goldsworthy, Andy Garcia, Andy Richter, Andy Wachowski, Andy Griffith, Andy Milonakis, Andy Dick, Andy Serkis, Andy Samberg, Andy Mitchell, Andy Malcolm, Andy Lau, Andy Davoli, Andy Ackerman, Andy Blitz, Andy Nelson, Andy Heyward, Andy Brickman, Andy Gill, Andy Harries, Andy Boyd, Andy Cadiff, Andy Kind, Andy Brown, Andy Fickman, Andy Kennedy, Andy Morris, Andy Paris, Andy Wolk, Andy Zall, Andy Cheng, Andy DeEmmony, Andy Clyde, Andy Devine, Andy Hamilton, Andy Jones, Andy Lewis, Andy Robin, Andy Walker, Andy Rolfe, Andy Watts, Andy Gibbs, Andy Hass, Andy Jones, Andy Merlino, Andy Yerkes, Andy Roberts, Andy Barrios, Andy Bienen, Andy Borowitz, Andy Burrow

People named Andy who are not creative geniuses:
[none found]

People named Andy whose creative genius status is unknown:
Andy Chang, Andy Silva

As you can see, the number of Andys whose status is unknown is statistically insignificant, and the Andys who are known to not be creative geniuses are apparantly nonexistent. My theory predicts that, given enough time, the unknown Andys will inevitably show signs of creative geniosity. This theory has been subjected to the rigors of the scientific method and has withstood extensive peer review, and is therefore elevated from the status of theory to that of law. It shall henceforth be known as Maverick's Law of Andys.

Random

Things are going my way.
Pleasure comes from unexpected quarters.
Better a short, daring life than a long, timid one.
Label won't print even tho prod is in "link to count" and "UPC lookup"
We have nothing to worry about.
Life is too important to take seriously.
Programmers confuse Christmas and Halloween, because 31 OCT = 25 DEC.
Gravity plays favorites.

100

A hundred days have come and gone, just one tiny tenth of my names project. One thing I'm learning is that some people don't accept that names are just social constructs that don't have any implicit existence outside of the socially-contracted mind. Last night I was talking with a nihilist noise musician called "Dour" who used the terms "legal name" and "real name" interchangeably, even after I raised the question of whether "legal" and "real" are synonymous.

I won't go so far as to say "you create your own reality," because I can't fly no matter how much my tripping mind may believe I can, but our outlook has a tremendous influence on how we experience reality. And when it comes to something made up, like names, laws, and holidays, we can change it without restriction— and it will be as real as it ever was.

Friday the Thirteenth

I didn't even think about creating a name based on Friday the 13th until it was too late. I'm already Luminous Ruby. My free association keyword today was "jellyfish," and the theme for the week is gemstones. So there it is.

Day 88

Last night, for the first time, I introduced myself in my dreams as the daily name.

I like to take off my pants

Earlier today I was kind of down. The weather this morning was shitty, and so I couldn't ride my bike to work. I was obsessing over some silly emotional shit at work and didn't want to be there, so I decided to ditch early. I left at 2:00. By that time, the sun had come out, and it was a beautiful day in the 70's. I got a phone call from my dad who had gotten some scuttlebutt about common problems with the particular engine in my car that's been giving me trouble for several months-- problems no mechanic could diagnose-- and based on his gossip I impulsively ripped out my car's brain (Engine Control Unit) and installed a new one. Car's now running fine and I spent less than $100. Any man who fixes his own car is immediately immune from any blues that may have been plaguing him.

When I got done with that, this guitar player who was practicing with my roommate admired my purple jeans and said he wished he had a pair like them. I asked him his waist size and my other roommate interjected, "Be careful-- Misha loves to take off his pants in public." She beat me to the punch, but I did indeed immediately take off my pants and offer them to him. The guitar player tried them on, and they fit. So they're his now. He was concerned about getting something for nothing, but I told him: it's a fair deal. Now I have something to blog about.

Themes

When I first began this project, I imagined that at some point I would get bored with haphazardly picking a random name every day and might want to do stretches of days that followed a theme. That time has come, just 70 days in. Last week my names were all inspired by a keyword given to me by a special someone. "Pretzel," for instance, was the keyword that inspired the name Georg Twist.

This week I'm doing names inspired by the day of the week, and by the astrological ruling planets thereof.

Another prediction that occurred to me when I began was that I might even get so sick of coming up with names that I might cop out with a sequence such as "Misha A. Grey," "Misha B. Grey," "Misha C. Grey..." It hasn't come to that, and I hope it won't, but I'm saying now, just in case, that would still technically be following the rules.

...but it would be a cop out. Ye gods, I can't believe I'm only 7% done with this...

Actual graffiti on a stone wall on the edge of Riverside Park: "We have Become Comfortly num"

6%

Now that people have gotten used to the nametag I decided to take a day off, so I didn't wear one yesterday. All day people were looking at my chest and saying "Where's the nametag?" Several people said "no name today?" One guy called me "anonymous." I'm going back to wearing the badge.

Things That Start With M

My mother complains because I don't use the name she gave me. She says she "put a lot of thought into it." Even before I started changing my name every day, I used a stage name (Misha Grey) for all artistic and social purposes. For the most part, only my parents, my brother, and people who work for the government call me Michael. But since it's her day, I decided to use the name she worked so hard to think up. (It's my father's middle name). Come to think of it, when I talked to her on the phone today, I forgot to point out that I was using "Michael" in her honor.

Speaking of things that start with M, I recorded some more solo piano stuff today. I added a music page with a bunch of tracks from my forthcoming album. If I put them all online for free as soon as I record them, then no one will have to buy the album when it comes out. Ain't I a marketing genius?

Best Classical Artist of Washtenaw County 2008

Wow. I just found out that Current Magazine has named* me "Best Classical Artist" in their 2008 Best of Washtenaw County issue! I'm thrilled! I should probably point out that it has a lot more to do with Ypsilanti Pride activists submitting my name as an Ypsi composer, than with the fact that anyone has actually heard my compositions, which for the most part they haven't. But I'm thrilled nonetheless. I will have a celebration concert sometime this summer. I've changed my myspace songs from psychedilic art pop to works for piano from an album I'm currently working on.

* as "Misha Grey," my formerly constant name

Lesson of the Day

Some of you probably already know this, but it surprised me: if you put a "Hello, my name is" sticker on your shirt, then ride your bike eight miles in the rain, most of the sticky stays on your shirt when you try to remove the sticker. So heads up on that.

Also I couldn't decide today whether to pronounce my name as creedo or craydo. So I guess it should be pronounced sam.

Hey, Buddha!

When a coworker saw my nametag, he said, "Hey, Buddha!" So I bowed and said "Namasté." Then I explained that Namasté means "the part of me that is god greets the part of you that is god." He said "It's cool that you're doing all these names, I mean it's kind of crazy, but you're learning stuff... well you probably already knew that word, but every day your name means something. I learn something every day."

Later when I passed him, I said "Hey, Buddha!" I expected him to object so I could explain that we all have Buddha-nature, but he just smiled.

5%

Day 50. Five percent of the 1000 names have been selected. Today I had occasion to work with a coworker I've never had dealings with before. After I impressed him with my excessive follow-up skills he said, "You should change your name to Wallace the Great!"

I've been getting more and more requests from other people to select my name. One coworker asked if he could pick my name and I said "You can make a suggestion, and if I like it I might use it." He then began telling everyone that he was going to name me every day for a week. The first name he suggested was "Nicky Santoro," Joe Pesci's character from Casino. It amazes me that when I give people the opportunity to make up a name, they just pick a fictional character they've heard of. I will not use "Nicky Santoro" and will not accept suggestions of existing characters. It's not a character I'm portraying-- It's just my name for the day. Come to think of it, I'm really not interested in taking suggestions except in exceptional circumstances. It has happened.

The Deck is Dead; Long Live the Deck!

Almost two years ago I began offering free one-card Tarot readings at fairs, parties and art events. I would accept no money, but I would ask that the querant agree to take the reading seriously. I was careful to point out that I wasn't asking anyone to believe in the supernatural, or to believe that cards can predict the future; I was only asking them to enter into a conscious contract by which this activity would be held meaningful.

Once they agreed, I would spread the deck and invite them to take a single card. Once the card was taken, I often explained the meanings and symbolism, and sometimes through dialog would help them apply the message of the card to affairs in their life. Then I told them that the card was theirs to keep, as a talisman and reminder of the message; but if they decided to reject the path of fortune the card represents that they should destroy it.

In reality it was a two-way street. I was giving out readings and giving away all the cards from my deck for the purpose of getting a one-card reading for myself, for the last card was mine. The collective unconscious, through all those who participated, gave me my card. I got down to one last night, and my card is the Heirophant-- the holder of the keys of wisdom, a spiritual teacher who guides seekers on their path to mystic insight. That's a lot to live up to, but I've got to try. I agreed to take the reading seriously.

Back in Business!

My name is not the only thing that changes. Even before I began this name changing project, I frequently changed my wardrobe, vice habits, appearance and band. I find it hard to maintain a band since 1) I do not have a bankroll, and 2) I do not want creative input. I am a believer in the fascist model of art production. In my project, you do what I say. I'm the composer, I have the vision, and I want you to do what I tell you (when I play in your project, I will obey your direction). This model works good when you have a budget and can pay musicians to rehearse. It does not work well when you are recruiting volunteers and trying to get the ball rolling to the point where you have enough gig income to keep them coming round.

Several months ago (when I was still called Misha Grey), I did a one-off performance of "alarm clock rock." I had the idea when my roommate's alarm clock kept going off every morning at 5:30 am while he wasn't home. One morning, instead of the alarm tone, it was set to radio. That day I bought my roommate a thank you card. Inside I wrote, "Thank you for setting your alarm clock to radio. It is much nicer to be unnecessarily awoken to the radio than to a loud intermittent tone. Come to think of it, "Loud Intermittent Tone" would be a good name for a band. You in?"

So we called the one-day-only band "Loud Intermittent Tone." I set up four digital alarm clocks (whose alarms were four different pitches) to go off every two minutes, and came up with some chord changes to go with each tone. I played digital piano, Andy Mitchell played synth, and Naia Venturi played cello and wine glasses. We came out in pajamas and bathrobes, with pillows under our arms. We said good night to the audience, and laid down on the stage. When the first alarm rang, we woke up and started playing.

Each time a new alarm rang, I'd put the previous one on snooze. After four short pieces, there was an interlude during which they were all on snooze (part 5), then one by one they started again. The name of the piece is "Stagger the Snoozes," and here it is:

Stagger the Snoozes (Part 1)
Stagger the Snoozes (Part 2)
Stagger the Snoozes (Part 3)
Stagger the Snoozes (Part 4)
Stagger the Snoozes (Part 5)
Stagger the Snoozes (Part 6)
Stagger the Snoozes (Part 7)
all tracks ©2008 Dreamland Productions

At the end of the performance, we all laid back down on our pillows, and I turned off the power to the clocks. You can just hear the rise in pitch of the last alarm as a capacitor discharges when the power is lost.

The fact that I'm just releasing these now after many months is a symptom of my recently solved hardware issues, which also means I'm back in business for recording at home. For about a year I haven't done any recording except a couple live performances captured by others, but now I can get down to some real production. Stay tuned.

Viva Communism

I've been watching the Olympics some. I'm not really interested in sports, but I'm interested in China. In support of the Chinese Government, I have decided to censor all previous posts.

Plus I've decided to become a communist, in the 80's, cold-war, pejorative sense.

I warned you that I am prone to altering or deleting the past, which is why you should scroll down to old entries every now and then. If you didn't do that, you wouldn't get to see the scandalous confessions, for example: I fucked a car one time.

Qbert McNulty is a name I probably won't use guilty of crimes against the party.

The Totally Awesome Festival has finally come to an end. It was exhausting and not entirely rewarding. I hope never again to have four unrelated performances scheduled for the same weekend. [redacted] Which reminds me, I have some unreleased live tracks to post when I get to it.

A Long Time

Today for the first time I thought: [redacted] It took forty days before it hit me: a thousand days lasts a long time. But, as they say, "no rest for the wicked."[redacted]

4%

[redacted]

I'm changing my name for a thousand days, and this is day 40, which makes me 4 percent done.

I played keyboard in "Polly and the Sexual Animals" last night, and a man of color said we were "too soulful for a white audience," which I take as a compliment. He came up to me while we were playing to say this.

After Midnight

I haven't changed my name yet; it doesn't happen at midnight. It happens at sunrise, or when I wake up. [redacted]

Stage Name

There are a number of algorithms used to generate a stage name (or some say pr0n name). Freebie Handwerk is my stage name using the childhood pet/street you grew up on method. [redacted]

Thanks to camera work by "chance_sparhawk," the complete puppet version of A Shoggoth on the Roof is now available on YouTube. This is the Lovecraft/Cthulhu themed musical we* performed at the schmience fiction convention.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11

* "We" is Matt Arnold, Jer Lance, Andy Mitchell, Naia Venturi, and I (Howard Lovecraft IV), with tech by Allison Anderson. All hail Chairman Mao.

Being Responsible

To those who complain that I'm not changing my name legally, I point out that petitioning the courts every day might be entertaining to those who don't have to pay the fines for contempt of court, but it's not the project I'm doing. To those who believe I don't use my assumed daily name in "serious" situations, I'll submit the following evidence: today I signed "Yazdigurd Zarathustra" to acknowledge receipt of a $60,000 shipment of violin cases (see the manifest). So, yes, I'm serious. My name is Yaz today.

Yesterday when I was Skull I said I needed to do both extravagant names and regular names. But I'm on an extravagant kick. It's more fun that way. More fun for me, and more fun for you. And hopefully more fun for the freight company.

Morton's Lite

This evening I had planned to take in a puppet show and rehearse music for one of the three acts I'm playing in for the Totally Awesome Festival this weekend. But when I got to the theater, I remembered that I had left my backpack in the upstairs apartments while delivering a gift of bidis to an Amoeba Kid.

In the backpack was my recently printed copy of Morton's Lite (pdf), the free minimal version of Morton's List-- said to be 13% of the full game. I've been dying to play ever since I heard about the game three days ago. So I decided to ditch the show (I've seen it before) and go rustle up some adventurous types to try something they've never heard of. I decided, rather than start out by explaining that I want to try this random reality game I just heard about, that I would just show up and ask "who wants to go on a quest?"

The first house of freaks I showed up at was empty and dark, so I went to the Pleasure Dome. I convinced the three people present (one of whom I had to wake up, which is unlike me-- I usually let sleeping people lie) to take the oath. We rolled a Mutation (which modifies the main random quest) that said instead of doing a quest from the book, we had to make up a quest of our own that, to the best of our knowledge, was not in the book. Since I have barely skimmed the Lite book and they had never heard of the game at all our knowledge of the book was scant. What we came up with was that we would go out and mob the streets, each of us with a secret agenda that we couldn't tell the others. We had to stay together, but each of us had to pursue their secret goal. Without going into detail, I'll report that we all indeed completed our tasks.

But that's all just background for a much shorter, but more moatnly relevant, story. When we got back to the Pleasure Dome, another resident had returned from work, and I told her that my name was Skull today. Since I hadn't seen her since before Snake Patrick's Day, I told her that I'm now changing my name every day. She said, "awesome, it's like clearing your browser history every day."

The Weirdo

People like "Skull" a lot. People at work who usually don't pay attention to the weirdo are even calling me Skull. One coworker even said "I think I'll start changing my name sometimes... but not every day."

When I was Bert Dixon last Wednesday, I saw an old acquaintance I hadn't seen in years. She was a dramaturge when last I knew her, with an MFA in theater. Now she is a lawyer. She said the most interesting angle of this project to her was the phases my coworkers would go through during the nearly three years of this project. I told her about José, who goes out of his way to use the daily name (he's the one who said he'd like to change his name too) and about Bitchhead (not her real name) who apparantly thinks that anyone a little out of the mainstream should be rounded up and put into work camps. She does call me by a different name, but not the right one. She calls me "Pipi" every day. It's an interesting angle, not just how people react but how their reactions change over time.

Then again, if I'm in the same job three years from now that will be a little depressing.

I get a much better reaction from very extravagant names than more "normal" names. It seems to make more sense to people if it sounds like a wacky nickname or something, than just "Today my name's Alexander McHugh." And being extravagant, I like the wacky names too. But to get the full spectrum of experience, I need to keep doing both.

An idea that had occurred to me, and which a few others have suggested, is to wear a "Hello My Name Is" sticker every day. It might be useful at work. I tell everyone that they can always see the daily name on my MySpace profile (usually updated around 7 am weekdays and 9-10 am weekends). But at work, most people don't think of it until they see me, and then the Hello sticker would be instant. I think I'll experiment with it and see if I miss hearing "so what is your name today?"

Communism is the only hope to stop global warming

Become a communist and global warming will stop. Also, if the world changes to communism, there will be no more crime, war, homosexuality (not that there's anything wrong with that) or illegal drugs. Everyone will be happy, healthy, and useful.

Penguicon

I just got back from my first Communism Convention. "Penguicon" combines the will of the people and the joy of serving the party into one über convention held once a year in Michigan. The assistant director of Penguicon wanted to do a [redacted] What I did not expect was the life-changing political conversion experience it turned out to be. Hail Chariman Mao!

Friday, April 18: Howard Lovecraft IV
I arrived at the Hilton in Troy, Michigan on Friday. The opportunity to perform and the lure of free beer were forefront in my mind, but that soon gave way to wonder at the diversity of weird people present: people with unnatural hair colors, people in costumes, Turkish drummers, pirates, the well-dressed, the barely dressed. I felt supremely comfortable, as though I had come home to a family I didn't know I had. Soon after arriving, I witnessed a gumball-type machine dispensing prize bubbles containing dice, baubles, instructions and a type of handmade currency. After receiving a bubble, the receiver would then roll the die three times to determine a random quest, such as "Give a gift to someone with colorful hair while speaking in a strange accent." This turned out to be a "random reality game" from Morton's List. As a person who changes his name every day, I found the idea of random reality quite appealing.

Friday night, we performed "A Shoggoth on the Roof," the aforementioned Cthulhu-themed puppet show, with a metadramaturgical trope of a terrible curse associated with attempted productions of the script ("There are some things man was not meant to adapt to musical theater"). Supposedly we chose puppet scale as an attempt to side-step the curse, but we incorporated technical glitches and an ending fraught with breakdowns of both the scenery and the temperaments of the performers. Many people believed that the problems were unintentional.

This passage was previously redacted to remove reference to kissing a girl because I was afraid the girl I went home with would get upset. Is unredact a word? Is that what I just did?

[great long passage about my con experience redacted]

One Thousand Days

My Guru told me to change my name every day for a thousand days. I changed my name to "Snake Plisskin" on March 17th, and will continue to change my name every day until December 11, 2010 or until I get tired of my Guru telling me what to do. My Guru did not tell my why to do this, so I can’t tell you. Ask your own Guru if you can’t accept not knowing. I suspect if your Guru is worth any salt, they’d give you some kind of task that would force you to not know important things for protracted periods.

Update: Since some people have assumed I'm stupidly giving my money to some bonehead in a muu-muu, I will point out that my Guru is invisible, except in my dreams. Outside of dreams, my Guru manifests through a chance phrase on the radio, a book someone lends to me*, or something YOU might do or say. In other words, my Guru is all in my mind. Some people might call my Guru "mystic awareness" or perhaps "magical thinking" or even "mental illness." But out of Philoneology I like to call it transrational conscious capacity, which I think translates best into Sanskrit as Guru.

* the magic phrase "change your name every day for a thousand days" appeared to me in a book lent to me called Pronoia is the Antidote to Paranoia by Rob Brezsny, who is also not my Guru. But he's a good author, and I recommend him for hippies who like astrology, nature-based spirituality and shit. He writes the syndicated column Free Will Astrology that appears in many metropolitan entertainment newsweeklies. There's a lot of hippy shit in that book that bugs me, but as soon as I saw the magic phrase I knew I had a spiritual quest to fulfill.

For the most part I don't keep documentation. I am not a photo collector. I am not an archivist. I am a revisionist. I have no compunction about revising, altering, or deleting the past.
This cold war is so awesome! I hope the communists win!