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[wombat]

Did you love that place, or did you love that period of your life? That can be a hard question to answer.

You know there's nothing wrong with being a guy who used to play the guitar. Just because something was worth doing doesn't mean you have to keep doing it for the rest of your life.

[AugustWest]

Tell me about this amp.

[theinevitable]

Did you love that place, or did you love that period of your life? That can be a hard question to answer.

It's both. I do know that if I went back I would be immediately bummed out that I was going the same bars, museums, and neighborhoods I was going to in 2012. But I care a lot about the place, and I guess some part of me wants to be the kind of person that can commit myself to a smaller city that has a lot to offer. Instead of struggling to live in a huge city that has more excitement. Well, there's plenty of time to live in less stimulating places when I'm worried about having kids etc.
Part of what makes me not want to go back is also that I would inevitably disappointed that I did not return to living with my best friends, drinking beer and smoking dope and riding bikes around. Although it seems like a great place to be a person in your late 20s/early 30s too.

The amp is a digital thing. VOX, 50 watts, any time I turn it on I set it to emulate a VOX AC30 or a Fender Twin. It has a tube preamp, which supposedly makes it sound less digital. It's got some cool built-in effects, I like the delay and reverb a lot.
My old roommate had a 100 watt Fender something from the 70s or 80s. That thing made my guitar sound unbelievable.

[wombat]

Why would you want to raise your children in a less stimulating place? A cheaper place, that I can see, but I hope that as an urban planner you will be planning urbs where people can raise children. I have always thought that it is cruel to raise children in the suburbs where they can't go anywhere unless they can get an adult to drive them.

[theinevitable]

But that's the thing. St Louis is a city. You can walk places, there's public transit. Not to the same level as in NYC, but it's not like I'd be raising a kid in Manhattan. I could also afford to do crazy, fancy things like send the kid to college. The things I would miss about NYC (I imagine, having never actually lived there) would be the multiculturalism, the subway, the pace, and the constant cultural events. But St Louis has museums and parks and a zoo too. It's a nice place to live.

I think there's also a sense of space in St Louis that is missing in New York. In New York you can find anything you want to buy, or pay to see anything you want to see. In St Louis you can have an idea and do it-- so many people I know there are starting businesses or events or whatever because nobody's already doing what they want to do. This is also part of why there are so many great restaurants there. It's a hard place to find a job, but it's a place where once you find a job you can make a big difference.

And yeah, I am not raising a kid in a suburb. At least not one like the one I grew up in-- I know some suburbs are different. In the town I live in now, for instance, you can walk to the little downtown where there are stores, and New Brunswick is across the bridge and there are lots of places to eat and a record store. And a train to New York.

[wombat]

That doesn't seem "less stimulating" really. Or like your dumb old college friends are the main attraction.

Living in a place with constant cultural events is not all it's cracked up to be. I think most people in a place like that spend a lot of their time feeling vaguely bad that they are not taking advantage of more of those constant cultural events.

[KeithHernandez]

I was raised on a farm outside of a suburb.  I've been running away from that my whole life.  Still, in my head, I don't want a kid til I can give him or her the kind of childhood I had.  And hated!?  It is stupid and wrong, but sometimes my head works like that.  I am lucky enough to be aware of it?

Sell that amp.  But the smallest, oldest tube amp you can wherever you end up.

I grew up in Oklahoma.  It kinda had what inev was talking about, in that you kinda had to do whatever you were gonna do yourself.  I moved to Denver.  I actually hate Denver.  It is so stuck where it is, cause it has everything you could want, but only like 2-3 options.  Honestly, LA is awesome because it is huge but it is also just a lot of people doing their thing.  No one is trying to stop them.  It is also cheaper than Denver.  Think about LA?

Edit:  unmentioned, but maybe implied: being forced to do your own thing instead of just playing at the two established hipster bars makes a weirder city, makes a more creative person, makes better art, etc.  I mainly left Oklahoma cause I got arrested a lot.

[theinevitable]

Edit: unmentioned, but maybe implied: being forced to do your own thing instead of just playing at the two established hipster bars makes a weirder city, makes a more creative person, makes better art, etc.

I maybe believe this, but this is one thing that killed me about STL. There is a LOT of really atrocious art and many many boring bands. But everyone knows someone who is involved in making it so it's rude to say that it sucks. Maybe there's a sweet spot between so small that you have to take what you can get, and so big that you can't do anything new.

Although STL does have the three established hipster bars. Maybe that's the problem.

Living in a place with constant cultural events is not all it's cracked up to be. I think most people in a place like that spend a lot of their time feeling vaguely bad that they are not taking advantage of more of those constant cultural events.

I guess that's what I meant about being "ready to live someplace less stimulating" eventually. Right now I would be moving to NYC single, with a new job, and knowing fewer than 10 people in the city. Going to lots of concerts and museums and taking the subway an hour and a half to see Arthur Avenue on a Saturday sounds great. It sounds less necessary once I am hopefully a tiny bit more settled down.

[AugustWest]

Go live somewhere close to where somebody will pay you to do the things you like doing.

If you're lucky enough to end up with children, love them and do the best you can to teach to be good people.

The rest is all circumstance.

[wombat]

taking the subway an hour and a half to see Arthur Avenue on a Saturday sounds great.

Is the Bronx a place people visit now? Have the hipsters finally made it there? My friend the AP travel editor just did an article about Arthur Ave, but she is a New Yorker so that doesn't necessarily mean it's familiar to the rest of the world.

[theinevitable]

I don't know if it's a place hipsters visit. But I'm an urban planner. Soon, at least. I even went on a tour of Newark a while ago. The hipsters are definitely not there yet.

[pmcd9]

Here's my prize for winning:

Nice. Very nice.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Last night three-quarters of the band did an open mic. (We say it's a "collective" rather than a band, and we're OK playing in different combinations.)

We have been working on Mumford's "The Wolf." I sing the lead on it and it's at the upper end of my capabilities. I can sing it, but I have to project like hell to hit the high notes, particularly on the bridge. In practice, I usually go at about 75% effort to avoid killing my voice. We ran through it at the house last night before going out and I did it at like 50%.

Once there, we did it as the last song. Knowing that was it, I could let it rip.

I don't know if it sounded good, but damn if it didn't FEEL good.

[theinevitable]

It really changed my car-singing game up when I realized you can hit higher notes when you sing louder.

Way to rip it Carlos. Playing music with friends in front of people is one of the most fun activities.

I thought Mumford & Sons were some kind of banjo indie-folk thing with man harmonies? What's with the electric guitars in this song? This is like Foo Fighters.



Today I ran into my boss/professor and she 1. loved my big final paper about St Louis and 2. told me I can work for her this summer until I find a job. This is great news.

Annoying: next year she's teaching a class on research methods that I wish I could take. And a new professor is teaching a class on spatial analysis computer programming stuff. Damn. On the other hand: once I have my degree I can read whatever books I want. Even books about spatial analysis.

[Carlos del Vaca]

I thought Mumford & Sons were some kind of banjo indie-folk thing with man harmonies? What's with the electric guitars in this song? This is like Foo Fighters.

I know right?! I haven't heard the whole album but apparently it's more straightforward rock. Which is good, because the twee banjo stuff was getting tired.