some fiction is true

truth, however, is a matter of perspective

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LEST I BE JUDGED FOR THIS
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    dear reader/listener/viewer/enjoyer/co-conspirator:
    lest i be judged for it, i inform you now that this project continues to be a scratch pad, a space for experimentation

    in other words, enjoy what you find here, and feel free to participate, but try not to take anything personal, and don't believe that this project presents an accurate view of me or my life

    this is a window, certainly, but one that hasn't been cleaned in quite some time

    your view may be foggy, obscure...you may see things that aren't really there...

    --harold

    want some background music?
    please consider downloading my most recent music podcast.

    and yes, i love my mom and my dad;
    they've always been good to me, no matter what impression you may have received here

    they never locked me in a cellar or anything
     
    archived stories, or something that happened in the past:

    December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 November 2007 February 2008 March 2008

    i am a member of the

    association of music podcasting

    musicpodcasting.org

    along with these fine music podcasters:

    all florida indies - bing futch
    audio gumshoe - rich palmer
    audio popcorn - krash coarse
    aural icebergs music cast - tiffany rapplean
    capital rock show - bucket aka jason
    darkhorse radio - alan carr
    ears to hear - jill lawton
    eclectic mix - george l smyth
    homegrown podcast - nic treadwell
    indiefeed - chris macdonald
    le jazz affair - sal calfa
    rubyfruit radio - heather smith
    sober cafe podcast - gracie hollombe
    sundown lounge - larry winfield
    tempo of the down - harold (that's me!)
    the darkcompass podcast - rowland cutler
    the fabrications podcast - matt macfarlane
    the phill(er) - phill ramey
    the radiozoom podcast - john bollwitt
    thepillarcast.com - jon tucker
    uc radio podshow - michael yusi
    zaldor's world - les zaldor

    this is...

    something that happened

    somethingthathappened.com
    		stories by harold j. johnson, in various formats - including text, audio, video, and podcasts
     
     
    Friday, January 30, 2004  

    Sperm all over the place! In Taiwan yesterday a 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street, "showering cars and shops with blood and organs".

    This event may seem rather juvenile to mention, and usually I'm not too interested in stuff like this--but sometimes you've just gotta pause and take a look at the strange, strange world we're living it. For example, what was a whale doing in the street, anyway? Was it trying to find a shortcut through Taipei on its annual transpacific trek? Was it on its way to the National Taipei University to take a class in English as a Second Language? Perhaps it was simply crossing the street to get a cup of Joe at Starbucks, intending to explode in the cafe to take revenge on the infamous coffee chain for its being named after the famous whale-killer of Herman Melville's classic, Moby Dick.

    This event reminds me of a scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. An extremely overweight man, weighing in at probably around 500 pounds, walks into a restaurant. Recognizing the man, fish--terrified--quickly hide behind rocks in the restaurant's fishtank. The man sits down at a table by himself and orders literally everything on the menu--"I'll have the lot", he proclaims--and proceeds to eat course after course of the restaurant's offerings. As he chews on turkey drumsticks and slobbers on several dishes, the man vomits in a bucket between bites. The bucket fills rapidly and the waiter replaces it with another, racing to keep up with the diner as another bucket is filled, and another, and another, as the man vomits all over the floor and eventually on the waiter as he is bent over to replace a bucket.

    The scene is hilarious, believe it or not, and made funny only in the way that the men of Monty Python can. The scene culminates with the diner, done with his meal, accepting a "wafer-thin mint" from the waiter, who carefully places it on the man's tongue. The waiter then runs for cover, diving behind a some potted plants while the diner's indigestion steadily builds...

    ...exploding in a furious eruption of blood and guts which splatters all over the restaurant and its guests. The diner, still alive, sits there, a gaping whole in what remains of his torso, his heart--now exposed--beating steadily.

    Disgusting, huh? But funny, oh so funny, in that strange way.     1/30/2004 01:31:00 PM (0) comments





    Thursday, January 29, 2004  

    So the day went well. I was nervous, of course, but not as nervous as I expected to be. I'd taken a Xanax with me as a security blanket, but I found I didn't need it--the day went rather smoothly. I woke up without too much effort, had a good breakfast at a local diner, and strolled into the temp agency about 10 minutes early. The fact that I wasn't running into the office out of breath and sweating from rushing to make it on time probably kept me more relaxed than usual. I have a terrible habit of arriving late for everything. I don't know what it is with me; it's one of my worst qualities. It's that 800-pound gorrilla I just can't shake; it's my downfall. Future employers beware: I'm not your punctual employee. But when I do arrive, you can bet your ass I'll get the job done--and usually, more thoroughly than most of your other employees.

    Thoroughly, however, is not always better for a company's immediate goals, and therein lay my other fault: I have a nasty habit of perfectionism that has a knack of getting in the way of flexibility (or prioritizing). For example, I'm that type of person who won't let go of a project until I've completely seen it through to perfection. Most of the time, I can't stand leaving something "well enough"--if I know I can make it better, I won't stop until I've seen it through. I'm relentless--if I was a programmer, I'd be Linus Torvalds, attempting to code perfect applications. If I was a musician, I'd be Trent Reznor, working solitarily for years to create only the fullest aural textures. Unfortunately, I'm neither, and until I find a way of balancing my innate attention to detail with most company's goals, I'll have a helluva time holding a job. This is one reason I'd be the ideal person to run his own business: I have vision, and I see it through.

    The reality is, I need to make money somewhere before I'll ever have a chance of starting my own business. So I need to learn how to prioritize the bottom dollar for any company I work for, and leave my perfectionism at my own front door.

    Man, am I in trouble.     1/29/2004 06:20:00 PM (0) comments





    Tuesday, January 27, 2004  

    So I haven't officially worked for a few months now. Sure, I've sold a few things on Amazon, and that's work, believe me, especially the way I do it. I treat every sale as a marketing opportunity for my Internet radio station, VoyagerRadio; when someone buys a CD from me, I package it up real professionally, inserting a personalized Thank You note on VoyagerRadio letterhead and a homemade, CDR complete with a compact version of my website. All this in the hopes of getting one or two people to tune in to my Internet radio broadcast to listen to my music (and sometimes, my voice).

    Yet I haven't had a real job in awhile--I haven't seen the familiar print of a W2 form for at least 6 (more likely 8 to 10) months, which also means that I haven't temped in awhile, either. Today, however, I received an automated phone call from my local temp agency, apparently in an attempt to contact potentially available temps for upcoming assignments. I hadn't heard from this agency in about a year--hell, I haven't even temped for 2 years--so I was surprised to receive the call, and pleasantly surpised, at that: rent's due in a few days and I'm short. So I decided to take the plunge and give them a call.

    Lo and behold, I got the assignment: riding around on my local university's bus system to evaluate the system's functionality. I'm supposed to survey students and determine whether the buses are overcrowded. Sounds like it could be fun. I'm serious! At least it'll get me off my ass for awhile. I suppose I won't be hosting VoyagerRadio live tomorrow, but I'll be sure to fill you in on the details during my next live webcast (or here).     1/27/2004 06:43:00 PM (0) comments





    Monday, January 26, 2004  

    I'm currently a Nielsen family, so I feel compelled to watch television. But I refuse to change my viewing habits--I won't watch more television this week than I normally do I won't go out of my way to watch programs I want the Nielsen ratings to register, such as Huell Howser's California's Gold or Fox's 24. The fact is, I don't watch any television shows with regularity--no weekly sitcoms, or dramas, or news magazines.

    Still, there are shows I don't regularly watch that I want to succeed because I feel that they're good for television overall. Example: American Family on PBS. This show is the first dramatic series on broadcast television featuring a Latino cast, and although I've been told it's not absolutely representive of the experience of being a Latino family, my source also believes, as I do, that the show is important for Latinos and non-Latinos alike because it offers some representation of a significant group of Americans. If you disagree, then you must live in New Hampshire or something, whitey.     1/26/2004 07:34:00 AM (0) comments





    Thursday, January 22, 2004  

    Let's kick start this thing again. I feel like I have so much more freedom with this blog--with Transmitting to Earth, my other blog, I'm still deciding whether or not to keep my commentary strictly professional or whether to include anything personal. Now that I've got a real web host for my Internet radio project VoyagerRadio and a new broadband stream, I feel the project has a new level of seriousness. I would like to attract more artists and record labels to the station, and I'm apprehensive about integrating a personal blog with website. So, until I decide, I'll continue to experiment here at Something That Happened.

    My apologies for being absent from this space for so long--it's been turmoil as of late. Not in a bad way--although certainly not in the best of ways, either. Yet things have stabilized, more or less. We've all got our problems, right? You can't ever expect them to fully dissipate--you can just hope the waters will calm down every once in awhile. Right now the waters are relatively calm, although beneath the surface the sharks are still swimming.

    So I'll renew my acquintance with Something That Happened by turning you on to a blog I rediscovered today, written by Anne Hefley, another Joe Frank admirer. The blog is called Anne...straight from the hip, and deserves to be well-read--mainly, because it's well-written. I had been going through my blogroll (a list of links to other blogs) to see which blogs I was still interested in linking to, and as I was about to delete Anne's link I began reading past the first few paragraphs of her most recent post. I found myself absorbed by her "stories"--her style was natural and felt honest, yet wasn't the juvenile fare you find on most blogsites. This journal read like a professional memoir--or at least, the makings of one. Anne is a fine writer and will probably make for an excellent novelist. Read for yourself.     1/22/2004 03:07:00 PM (0) comments





    Thursday, January 08, 2004  



    This blog is a ghost town. Where once stood a thriving outpost, now stands an empty facade.

    Perhaps one day some creative being will gallop into town and revive this place. There's life there yet. Until then, strap into your doom buggie and go for a ride somewhere where there's more action.     1/08/2004 08:42:00 AM (0) comments





     
     

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