Having extra time now, I’ve begun my annual review. In another 90 days I’ll be back on my feet, financially speaking. Constraints must remain in force until early 2013. Then, if I live to 2017, shall we just say, “Hello Australia”. The books reveal that although 2010 was a rough time, that part was caused by interference and liars. The worst stretch turns out to be the last half of 2008. Folks, if you don’t have a plan, you better have incredibly good luck. On my birthday in 2008, I had $18.31 in the bank. Things actually got somewhat better in 2009 because Wallace initially kept his part of the bargain. The poor old man can’t admit most of his family are screwballs. (Sorry, all you keen-eyed auditor types, there is nothing here that allows you to reconstruct the dollar amounts. Remember, I’m a way better accountant than you could dream of being. But I can tell you this year on my birthday I will have $5,700 in the bank. And I’m buying a motorcycle.)
What’s this, the brains behind Al Jazeera, known for its factual reporting, had to resign after it was learned he changed facts about the war under pressure from the US “Defense Intelligence Agency”. He was replaced by a blood relation of the network’s owners. And you wonder why the world hates us. Actually, they don’t hate us. They hate our government and nobody can blame them. Our government does not know how to mind its own business. Defense Intelligence Agency? Gimme a break.
More bad news for the company I love to hate, Microsoft. They admit to losing $9 billion over Bing, one of the more aggravating browsers of all time. And didn’t they recently lose a chance to buy out Google? Anyway, they are being run by some crackpot reject since Gates got out. All they have to do to create a winning search engine is follow my list of suggestions. Let people permanently filter out what they don’t want, and allow the public to vote web offerings into self-policing categories. Take a lesson from craigslist and eBay, which have capped their own growth for much the same reasons—people have to look in fifteen different places to cover the bases.
[Author’s note: my, my, it seems the few people who like Bing really like it. That tells me they are not getting much work done. I said it sucks and I only need one example to prove my point. I still use hotmail because it was the first one that was free. Yeah, well now when you log off, guess where it sends you? To Bing. So you really have to log off twice. People who even think such third-rate tactics are keen need their heads examined. Ever lived in Thailand? I have. When you say you don’t want something, they take it to mean you want something else. Aggravating. Or put another way, Bing!]
Things are so comfortable, I decided to watch “Viva Zapata” as well. Can’t really go anywhere when the batteries are charging. Done a little music practice as well, and I am toying with the idea of playing sitting down (on a chair on stage) until I learn the new music. Remember, with the last two failures, I’ve had to learn close to twenty-five tunes I’ll likely never play and I’m a little worn out over it. Now, I need to learn another fifteen. Oh yeah, the other guitarist (forgotten his name already), I didn’t call back for a week to see how he handled it. Not very well at all.
He was weak on music theory, didn’t understand the circle of fifths. That means he has to custom memorize every song. Such guitarists fall into predictable bad habits, and I do not like baby-sitting on stage. I expect a real musician to know the difference between the key of a song and the starting chord. But without theory, the amount of hard work becomes phenomenal; you have to play the tune until it is drilled into the other guy’s head. I’m weary of that, too, mainly because they don’t seem to have the discipline to do it on their own time and use up valuable rehearsal hours over it. You know who I’m talking about.
One more item concerning the circle of fifths. If you don’t know it, you should not be calling yourself a musician. A few out there have made it without learning the circle, but that ain’t gonna happen to you, and that’s a fact. What’s worse, the last few people I met that did not know the rule had trouble learning it. It takes three minutes to master it, yet I’ve met people here who could not grasp the concept even when explained several different ways. Now THERE are some stupid people.
In fact, the cirlce is so easy, I’ll teach it to you right now. You do have to know your musical scales, so we’ll pick the key of D. The notes are D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#,D. This is what you learn in Grade One piano. If you can’t learn it, you don’t get to Grade Two, look left and cough. Most, but not all, blues, country or rock music follows a definite pattern. Count to five, then count up five notes on the musical scale. That means D to A, right? That is your circle of fifths. If a song is in the key of D, the other chord is most likely to be A, that is, a fifth above D.
By extension, if there is another chord, try the fourth, or G, and if you hear a minor chord, it is probably Bm, the sixth. Knowing these simple rules allow you to do some pretty amazing fake work on stage. Now you know why I am sick and tired of guitar players who say, “Follow me” and then play some spastic jazz progression. Like you’re supposed to know what crazy substitutions they spent all their lesson money on. Off the top of my head, I cannot name one single jazz guitarist. And I like it that way.
