[Author's note: if anyone can explain to me why sometimes I cannot drag and drop my pictures in "compose" mode - please email me the solution. When I cut and paste the pictures, they will not "left clear" and I'm too busy to read the CSS. Thanks.]
Where else would I be riding my bicycle for coffee at this time of year? Here’s a pretty photo of me with my back to the sun late y’day evening. Roland, the French-Canadien neighbor, put up my hurricane shutter. I didn’t notice since I got back after dark. In return, I lend them tools so they don’t have to buy or bring them from Canada. He has a job as the manager of a golf course. Perfect seasonal work for spending half the year down here. He’s leaving in three days.
Radio programs. I have some theories – and don’t laugh, this kind of information was absolutely unavailable when I was growing up. There was not one blessed person in the entire towns I lived in that could have told you the first thing about broadcasting. If you wonder why North America is in trouble today, you need not look much further than the options presented to kids just two generations ago. They were programmed for failure. What might I have done if I’d learned it was possible to make money “owning” a radio show?
Jay-Jay, as the other Jeff is now known. He is not exactly a disc jockey [it turns out]. I listened to the station he described, but unless he’s learned to speak Turkish since last Thursday, something ain’t right. My conclusion is that radio works by someone like Jay-Jay renting a time slot from the station. The way he has been acting now makes more sense. Then, he flies around and does what he really does, which is sell radio advertising.
He has to, sooner or later, make sure he has got some content, since not many of us want to listen to an hour of diet product ads. It is beginning to melt, that is why he is constantly pumping me for ideas – he has no content. And commentary is the cheapest type of broadcast by far. I’ll wager he is a former advertising salesman and now he needs to come up with something. Or take Turkish lessons.
(Actually, I listened to the station and it is not bad. It reminds me of Canan, the Turkish gal I dated for a while in the mid-80s. It is kind of corny, however, to hear the American style voice inflections transplanted onto what, by the electronic sounds, must be contemporary Turkish hits. It comes across as childish over-acting. “Emoting” is not in the Big Dictionary.)
I’ve some interim conclusions about the new band. One is that I will ask Brian to continue practicing. Two, I must do something about that 42 mile round trip to Ft. Lauderdale. It is a problem, maybe it can be minimized. A solution is to combine both into what is not exactly easy, but is least costly in the long run. I have not done so yet, but I am thinking of producing video CDs of the material. This would consist of a video of me playing the bass line, with the original tune lightly in the background. Enough to keep things on key and in time. This does not solve the pesky problem of key transposition, but it accomplishes as much as many an uninspired rehearsal.
Pardon my laziness, but it has been that kind of day. I did bike four miles to take two coffee breaks, one at the Panera and the other at the Argentina joint. No women either place, it makes one long for country bars up in Margate. At least there you can look at the divorces and smugly say at least I never got stuck with that. Who was it came in the shop Friday and quoted us some statistics about the number of women who invited men who just got out of jail to come live with them?
Just a little later, around 7:00 PM. Dickens did not call, so I didn’t take it upon myself to go in to the Thrift today. I had other projects, and as mentioned, I recorded some of the material for practice. Ah, nothing like a little practical effort to refine some ideas, like the ones I get anyway. It is too labor (and battery) intensive to record video of the bass lines. Plus, I notice anyone could guess half the tricks I use by watching closely.
Thus, I tried to record in MP3 mode by itself. This led to two discoveries. My little DXG cannot record in MP3 mode, but didn’t I read somewhere there was a reason for that. It will record in wav mode, which I can easily convert to MP3. This takes the pressure off, for it can [and therefore will] be done. The second discovery is that the digital recording portion of the DXG is very good quality, I am truly impressed. The files will also fit on one 210 MB disk. Now, to work in that drum box. This means I get a break.
Until just later. Then I called Brian and power-explained the situation. We have 32 songs we could do without a guitar player, if he will become a singer with an attitude. I project that attitude [to be not caring a damn] about the background music in terms of presenting the tune. It can be done, proven by the Reb & I almost twenty years ago. You just have to get that audience to sit still for that first half-hour, not an easy thing in the television age. He was inspired by the MP3 music disc idea. Okay.
Is this town ready for a bass-vocal group? Not until I’m rested up. I have never, mind you, had any trouble falling asleep; I can do it on the bus, at work, the library. One of these weeks my project should be to check out one of those miracle Swede mattresses advertised without the price in PopSci. The one endorsed by NASA. All I know is that no matter how comfortable they are, they cost twenty times what I’d pay for a slab of foam rubber. (Note that I have occassional bouts of sleeplessness which I refer to as insomnia, but could have been nothing more that fear of falling asleep when people like my family are nearby.)
