Jerry

Digital art, created using paths and selections in Photoshop.

The Lamia

Summertime

AAhhh Summertime... a time of unrivaled beauty. But for a Leo, summertime can be dangerously lazy. Leos can be fiercely motivated and creative. But they can also be ... well.... um... not so much.

You see, I am job hunting, it's month two and counting. I have stayed fairly motivated, applying for at least one job a day. Some positions are really cool... probably too cool to be true. Some are jobs I know I am too qualified for, the kind of jobs where you wake up, wash down your pride with a glass of OJ, go to work, and try not to go postal. Nothing has happened yet. I've had some good leads, but call me a cynic, the ones you really want seldom happen.

This summer has been a bit of a paradox for me. I am doing everything I can to get hired, but I feel like I'm doing nothing at all. Unfortunately, I am one of those creative people who thinks everything should be in order before you can be creative. Well, obviously, things are never completely in order and they never will be, and if you wait for everything to be perfect, you'd better not hold your breath. The take home lesson? Get creative now.

One thing I enjoy doing with my free time is playing with is jazz... Jazz standards to be specific. Simply get out your "Real Book"... A real book (a clever pun of the classic 'fake book') is a collection of musical scores of popular jazz tunes... and start banging away at a jazz standard. It helps if you are already familiar with the song and have a good recording to listen to while you learn. The question is, which tune to play. Well it IS summertime... how about Gershwin's tune, Summertime?

Summertime is the name of an aria composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. It is a well known, and often played standard... and it embodies the sluggish humid feel of summertime itself. Take a look at the lyrics and you'll see why I am finding this song particularly comforting, given my situation.

"Summertime an' the livin' is easy, Fish are jumpin' an' the cotton is high. Oh, yo'daddy'$ rich, an' yo'ma is good-lookin'... So hush, little baby, don' you cry.

One of these mornin's you goin' to rise up singin', then you'll spread yo' wings an' you'll take the sky. But till that mornin' there's nothin' can harm you... With Daddy an' Mammy standin' by."

Here's what the lead sheet looks like...

This song has been played so many times over the past 70 years, here are some modern interpretations of Gershwin's Summertime.

Lou Rawls does Summertime...

Master Flautist Herbie Mann's rendition...

Even Peter Gabriel has done this tune...

And the classic from Woodstock... Janis does Summertime...

Wish me luck.

De La Soul

Jazz, R+B, and Soul meet Hip-Hop with a positive message. This stuff is the real deal.


It's Like That from The Grind Date


AOI Bionix is the second installment of the three disc Art Official Intelligence series. De La and Tommy boy records severed ties before the third installment was released. De La has continued to release quality material since the split. The Grind Date and Mission Impossible are both amazing. De La also did a release this year for Nike, Are You In?
Simply Havin' from Bionix



Copa Cabanga from AOI:Mosaic Thump, the first AOI release



3 is The Magic Number from the classic 80's album Three Feet High and Rising. A junior high favorite of mine.



Much More from The Grind Date... Warning, this chorus is infectious.


No No

Photo Manipulation by Erik Johansson

http://www.alltelleringet.com/

By The Way...

I know it's been a bit of a blog blackout for the last few months, but I will be finally graduating soon and I will be looking for new ways to waste time... so there'll be plenty of posting soon enough.

I have spent about half of the last 48 hours at Wise library and still about a week to go.

Wise Library

It feels strange to be getting my degree after fifteen years of floundering from school to job and back... countless times it seems like. It's kind of sad actually, I've finally got the hang of it and it's time to graduate. Oh well, there are always more degrees out there for the earning.

The English department at WVU offers a MA in Professional Writing and Editing, which I am interested in.

Colson Hall is home to the PWE program at WVU

Another interesting program is the Integrated Marketing Communication Degree. It's an online degree, which could be a little strange for me but it could be nice.

Why am I blogging about this right now when I should be toiling with papers, portfolios, and html files? I'm not sure. I'll see you in a week or so... I will have wrapped up the 15 year plan by then.

Bummer...

Well, it looks like Immem has disabled the embedding of full length songs. So all the awesome mixes I posted are useless now. Bummer. So until I find another way to post audio I'll have to rely on Youtube.

This really sucks because the people at youtube are a bunch of intellectual property wimps. If there's any chance of copyright infringement or if your 12 year old cousin Suzy asks them to, they'll pull a video.

If anyone has ideas on how to post audio, please let me know at until then youtube here we come...

UPDATE! -only some songs and artists have disabled full length tracks. Full length versions of all my playlists are at http://www.imeem.com/mitchumm



Here's a new video from Andy Milonakis about Twitter.

Update 2: Divshare seems to be the best option for posting media, so I will be using Divshare in future posts.