Some Music I am Beginning to Relate To

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I have ripped every music CD I could lay my hands on to fill my computer music collection with a full library. My goal was to not only put some variety in my computer entertainment system, but once I exhausted everything on hand, to begin to add to it with entirely new material.

I call my computer entertainment system GERRWEES - Group Electronic Rackmounted Recording WiFi Enabled Entertainment System. Much of the equipment I have assembled to create GERRWEES I acquired from my GF's step father who had passed away, his name was Jerry. Now that I have a full and diverse music library, I often play music on GERRWEES.

Normally in the past I would play my favorite selections from albums I have and basically ignore the rest, now I use random play. Since I put GERRWEES together and use him to listen to the music library, he has picked some interesting random selections recently that have been strangely appropriate for my mood or situation. It could be a song I never heard before from some recent addition or from an album I already had. The song that has struck a chord with me lately is a song originally by The Band and performed by Counting Crowes on an album I had, but never fully listened to. That song is "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" and lately I'm beginning to relate to it.

After toppling statues, changing place names, and banning the stars and bars everywhere they could in recent years, I've felt really bad for anyone who had an ounce of Southern pride left in their blood. But they weren't satisfied tormenting the long defeated Johnny Reb, they are after us Yankees too. I have a special feeling when I hear this tune now, one of sympathy for the south because I'm beginning to know how it feels in this new normal of the 21st century.

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
(from "The Last Waltz" soundtrack)

Virgil Caine is the name
And I served on the Danville train.
'Till Stoneman's cavalry came
And tore up the tracks again.

In the winter of '65
We were hungry, just barely alive.
By May the 10th, Richmond had fell.
It's a time I remember, oh so well.

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, na".

Back with my wife in Tennessee.
When one day she called to me
Said "Virgil, quick, come see,
There goes the Robert E. Lee!"

Now, I don't mind chopping wood
And I don't care if the money's no good.
You take what you need
And you leave the rest.
But they should never
Have taken the very best.

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, na".

Like my father before me
I will work the land.
And like my brother above me
Who took a rebel stand.

He was just 18, proud and brave
But a Yankee laid him in his grave.
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can't raise a Caine back up
When he's in defeat.

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singing
They went, "Na, na, la, na, na, na".

[ABNARTY]

Sounds pretty high speed. Any pics of GERRWEES? 

*Like the name.

[Ninurta]

It ain't all that bad. They conquered the nation of the Confederate States of America, but they never defeated the people of the South. And they never will.

There is a difference.








They're still fighting us. I just had another battle in that war this very evening, 155 years after they declared us to be "conquered". If they believe they conquered us, why the hell do they still keep trying to fight us?. The only logical answer I can think of is they know they didn't - they just whooped a bunch of politicians, who are notoriously easy to whoop - just look what a handful of ragtag rabble in outlandish, dumbassed costumes did to the entire US Congress recently, without even a weapon.

As long as we can draw enough breath to keep 'em busy fighting, we will. It's gotten to be entertainment by this point.

Join the club. Come on in, the water's fine!

.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Sounds pretty high speed. Any pics of GERRWEES? 

*Like the name.

It not high speed really, you can stream from it and it does OK. You can even play multi-player games through the WiFi LAN. It's all old computer and rack equipment I had and stuff her step dad upgraded from, but kept in storage in the basement. A old Dell desktop runs the whole thing.

I have a phone pic somewhere. I'll post that after I find that pic.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Here's a picture of GERRWEES, stuffed in his cluttered corner. He's almost 5ft tall, 5 & 1/2ft if you count the stuff on top.



When you expand the picture, you can see one of a pair of Kustom speakers on the bottom left. I have some bass speakers that will get added after I make the cabinets. The computer tower, some rack equipment including the power amp are below the computer keyboard. A microphone to the left there, a small mixer and a compressor below the monitor, and on top a tablet, stereo mic, and a WiFi router to create the local area WiFi LAN. The boxes are full of computer crap and in that pile is a midi keyboard. Also it can be operated on a 12 volt car battery with an inverter down in the bottom. There is also a USB hub, an external HD and another HD adapted to USB. A bunch of cords, plugs and AC adapters too.

Here is a view of GERRWEES looking at me with his new infrared camera as I monitor it from my smart phone, in the dark. This may the only picture you will ever see of the "real" me, not much to go on I'd say. He now has two WiFi eyes, one on the front door and one on the back. You can trigger an alarm sound and record sound and video from the cameras.




If you expand this picture, the date is all wrong. The picture was from before I set the time and date.

ETA: All most all of the equipment I used to create GERRWEES came from my GFs deceased step father and the rack, amp and other sound equipment is from a good friend of mine who gave it to me before he passed away too. A monument to them I guess.

[kdog]

I'm jealous !

Ex wife got rid of my computer and music I had. And it was a massive collection. 

But, I still have the memories and streaming services.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I'm jealous !

Ex wife got rid of my computer and music I had. And it was a massive collection. 

But, I still have the memories and streaming services.

All I have is a mobile hot spot with limited data, so no streaming services for me. That's part of the reason I made it like I did. I have a bunch of movies in there too, ripped from DVDs. Now I can watch them on my laptop and plug it into the big flat screen. My own personal Netflix.

I did just get a cell phone signal repeater that boosts the signal to the mobile hot spot (making it more reliable) so that it can be used by the security cameras to live stream on my cell phone app where ever I go. The alarm on the cams can alert my phone, so I can view them if they go off. If I merely check the cams once and a while, it won't kill my data too quickly.

The router, even though it's not connected to a modem, still makes a private wireless LAN the cams use. Because the router is plugged into GERRWEES via an ethernet cable, it can connect to both the wireless LAN and the hot spot connection to the internet at the same time. That way my private network is accessible online, something I need to explore more.

[F2d5thCav]

Not computer chosen, but over the last few years I have developed an appreciation for Gregorian Chants.  They're relaxing on Sunday mornings.  And an ancient form of music in the West.

One reason I like them is they are reminder that some things endure.

Cheers

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I've come across some amazing material of all kinds at yard sales, thrift stores and discount bins. I would likely pick up Gregorian monastic chanting as anything else I guess. If I can get three or four albums on CD for a couple dollars, I'll get all kinds of different music I never listened to. I used to look for records like that too, back in the day.