This photo is the scooter park out front of my mechanic’s new place. I had to pick up a new headlight when huge horsefly landed on my back and bit me through the shirt. Seriously, put a hole in the shirt. I did the parking lot tango tearing off my clothes and he still got away. The rest of the day went better.
I was over at Cowboy Mike’s early to get my transformer. I’d just spent maybe the 5th Friday this year at home and I don’t much like it. Not that nothing got accomplished, I mapped out my tunes and set lists, memorized guitar chords, and arranged an accompaniment to the “That’s What I Like” song. But the very thought of not being out there chasing women is alien to me. Then, what do I find out?Mike’s been hush-hush. That Blues gig he plays out on 441, well, it turns out they told him to “play more Johnny Cash”. Whoa, there Mike, slow down, go back and say that part again about Johnny Cash. So now you tell me, only after you lose your footing and gaffe it out. Country you say. Really.
Folks, I can’t go 24 hours without hitting on some chick. At Kiss (from here on in I abbreviate it from Kiss’s) I get a half-smile from a lady with a nice shape for an older type. Instantly we’re talking about her life and job, she’s here in a rented condo until end of the week, and would she like to go to bingo tonight. Then she mentions her husband. After I invested ten minutes of my valuable time chatting her up. Whoa lady, say that part again about your husband.
Next I’m at guitar center. Mike and I discussed the problem with lead players. It’s that when you want something that sound like Clapton, you have to put up with Clapton. I promised him I’d buy a book on blues lead and take a peek. He once had to throw some Canadians out of his rental spot, so we got to talking about Canadians. Locally, they are generally regarded as a nation of petty liars and small-minded in the extreme.
Then I videoed a transistor circuit doing something that not one of the high-falootin’ authors talk about—it stays on after the base current is removed. I was building my first relay circuit. I am not yet a robot builder, my forte is program code and I’m still and yet struggling with the hands-on portions. These components are all new to me. I set up the breadboards to demonstrate the biggest obstacle to learning electronics is the misinformation you get from the so-called experts.
I said, “Whether you read a hundred books or a thousand books, they all tell you when the base current is removed from an NPN transistor, the device is switched off.”
Nearby is proof that they are either mistaken or liars. They may have some plausible defense, but real experts wouldn’t make such blatant errors in the first place, see? Electronics is one idiot expert after another. (I’m no electronics expert.)
Later, I have the guitar book, which differs from “lesson” books. There is no time for lessons. Most who’ve watched a lead player notice how repetitious they are, often playing identical patterns up and down the neck. That, and not complicated theory, is where I’ve drawn a bead. From a mechanical standpoint, lead playing consists of using the pentatonic scale to pile on notes ahead of the first beat of each measure which should be the mediant of the underlying chord. (And that, not musical taste, is why I find Clapton and the blues incredibly boring.)
Last, off to bingo for another successful show. In a sense, bingo is double productive because it frees up other resources, but I’ll have something to say about that in a moment. The concept of resources works like this. Think of my new coffee budget, where I can go out for coffee six days per week. How could something so expensive free up resources? It’s perspective, I no longer have to spend $15 a month at the grocery store buying coffee. I can hear some say that is a tiny savings compared to restaurant coffee, to which I reply, “Yes, but it is a lifestyle thing.”
Bingo again. The expenses there are climbing, reaching record highs. I like bingo, for it has been good to me, but it is plain hard on equipment and chews up the same amount of time. I would rather make less and play music. This week, chasing around over bingo cost me $4.88, which is nearly 80 miles on the scooter. And Jimbos is 3 miles away. So, I’ll suffer and let bingo pay for a great Sunday.
