With the shop, lesson, Bingo and the gaps between, Saturdays have become one very long day at almost 15 hours. Now I need Sunday off and that is a traditional music day. Today I was looking at the possibility of learning “Hotel California”. There is no polite way to say this, but that one song attracts the wrong kind of people to stage-side. Play it and middle-age men will gather around and start talking shit. Nor did I make it to the book store. Part of the disincentive there is the trimming of the selections on the bookshelves. I can’t blame them for targeting what sells and the fiction sections have burgeoned. The computer section has degenerated into chaos with hundreds of cryptical volumes about Internet systems, none of which really work any better than the original because they spawn their own software ambushes. I have long since forgotten what things like Joomla are used for. Each of these specialized codes demands a huge time investment, but the fact they are overtaken so easily shows they never were innovative. It’s enough to make traditional programmers ignore them.
I had time to examine my projections for a trip to Texas. Except for the gas prices, the costs have remained around the same for almost ten years. That’s driving and motel costs, not bicycling. The cross-country bike tour is on hold but I’m getting closer to a decision on that one. Wouldn’t that be something, biking across America? I’d prefer Europe but meanwhile there is plenty of adventure right here.
The weekly guitar class is around half way to the goal, I’ll elaborate. After just five weeks, we are at the stage where playing a new piece of music is a short operation. (Guitar is much easier than bass.) There are five students and the lessons are over when they can play twenty tunes each. I stress these are not “music” lessons, for if they were, after five months they’d still be memorizing scales and chords. Musical personalities are cropping up all over and for the first time my class has nobody interested in drumming or singing. Usually somebody discovers a new talent. Seriously, if any one of my students had been in the building on Friday, I would have got them into the act. Careful what I mean by that; they are not ready but neither was anyone else.
Anything on the Boynton band? I ran through their extensive song list and I know 26 of their 141 tunes ready to go perform now. Another 44 would be ready as soon as I listen to them again. The other half of the list, well, some I’ve never heard of (like “Sleepwalk” and “Queen of Memphis”). Still, the degree of overlap between our lists is remarkable. They do a Four Non-Blondes tune called “What’s Up”, which is one I learned for Genie. She’s hardly country so I wonder who sings it in Boynton.
[Author's note 2015-09-20: Turns out I have heard of "Sleepwalk". It sucks. That's why guitar player's love it. Because nobody else with any musical taste does.]
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