Not to make you read this but...

So why is it that the first thing to usually come out of someone's mouth after they say "I don't mean to..." is the EXACT thing that they're supposedly not meaning to do?

"I don't mean to give you more work but.... could you go through the entire complete works of Shakespeare and find out how many times the word thy is used?"

“I don't mean to be critical but... you really have no right to perform music in front of other humans"

“I don't mean to be judgmental but... GUILTY.”

There's also the similar- "not to..."

"not to sound pretentious but... this confit has a soupcon more tarragon than Mario B. recommends..."

"not to correct you but... it's pronounced FORT, not FORT-AY."

"not to be a jerk but... your Grandmother’s a real cunt.”

"not to toot my own horn but... FUCKIN' TOOT TOOT."

There’s also the less annoying, but similar variety of “call me crazy but…”

“Call me crazy but… I think that you look good dressed solely in sausage.”

I admit that I have used these types of language clusters in the past. Feh. If you think about it, this shit is said SOLELY to allay the guilt of the speaker. The purpose of using this pre-request verbiage is to get the person that’s being requested to say… “no- it’s not a pain”, or “no- you’re not a jerk…” or “you’re not crazy…” thereby relieving the burden of the request, or the weight of the statement FROM the speaker. What the fuck?

I have CONSCIOUSLY tried to stop using these types of preambles. (Wouldn’t it be great if the Constitution was like that? “Not to be too high and mighty but… we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility…”) There was a point where I realized that If you’re going to ASK for something, or SAY something… SAY IT. OWN IT.

Now- if I have to ask someone to do something, and I worry that it’s going to be a pain or inconvenient, instead of saying “NOT to be a pain but…”; I say,

“this is going to be a pain but… could you lick my asshole?”

I find that it takes the burden off the person being spoken to.

* * * * * * * * * *

IN other hoo ha…

I’m getting ready right now for an album that I’m producing. Not playing on mind you, just producing. There’s a band out of Philly (Manfreedy & Johnson) that have asked me to produce their debut record. After having a number of very nice conversations with these gents, I agreed to put out the record on my “label” (Geologic Records). This would be the first time a non-George Hrab album is being released by us. Yikes. The main writers and founders of the band are Kevin Manfreedy (guitar) and Talik Johnson (bass). Kevin and Talik play out with a full band (with 2nd guitar and drums) and found me through the Philadelphia Funk Authority. They saw PFA perform at a festival, checked out our website, and through various links found the Geologic Universe. I guess they dug what they heard and saw. Although these guys are pretty old school funksters (think Meters) they have an appreciation for the art-nerd-math-rock thing, and thought that we’d be a nice match. I guess they dug the sound and production of my other records, and initially were just asking about help in finding studios, cd pressing etc. I figured it would be a nice change of pace for me (and a challenge) to produce something I’m not playing on, and see what kind of an influence I can have on a “green” band. They have all original material, although they might do a funky cover of one of my tunes. Nifty!

Recording starts Monday.