I took a gamble and it appears I’ve lost. I paid a lawyer top dollar for advice that I’d get a civil hearing in three weeks. Then, the court said four months. I’ve been shafted, I mean, how is a lawyer supposed to know what the court is doing? At least, that’s what this lawyer said. Now I’m out, possibly for months. But don’t think the lawyer got away scott free. The keyboard is mightier than the sword.
Now for a gamble that paid off. I wish Cowboy Mike had gone the distance. Moments after he quit, a blues crowd walked in. One of the ladies won $760.03 ($560.03 of it shown here). Free drinks on the house, and he missed it. Worse, most everyone present has not forgotten the last time he quit early and I think he may have established a rep.While looking at the Oregon west as a summer destination, I’ve established contact with a lady who lives in Lincoln City. She’s busy, but graciously took time to e-mail me about what the place is like in the summer (I’ve never been on the Oregon Pacific coast during tourist season). She reports the area is serviced by a single road (Highway 101) and as the population doubles each summer, congestion rules. In that sense, it’s like Florida.
She also describes weather we don’t have here, like morning fog and people wearing winter jackets a mile inland on some summer days. There is a casino, but limited other night life. No dance clubs, no country bars, no coffee shops, nothing. Even the bookstores don’t stay open evenings. And the dating pool is non-existent, although I’m used to that in small towns. Well, big towns, too.
On the way to market for my morning paper, who do I bump into but good old Enrique. He’s the guy who sold me my first “trailer” back in 2006 when I got flattened by medical bills and knew I could not afford even a local efficiency suite. He still “remembers” selling it to me for $5,000 and I show him the receipt for $3,000. I was unexpectedly happy there, but they sold out to a condo developer. The rest of that history is somewhere in this blog.
Here’s a good illustration of how advertising in America has degenerated. To the quick look, this appears that the article being purchased includes a free light bulb worth $29. Not so, the fine print claims that over the projected life of the bulb, some 15 years, it will theoretically use $1.26 less electricity per year. That’s about one cent every three days. Such a bargain!Trent was over for our second Blues session, and we made excellent progress. In very broad terms, he is able to play descending runs, I prefer ascending riffs. I was discouraged by my lack of advancement, but he assured me my riffs were sounding fine. This represents, to me, that unnamed situation where whatever I do myself “sounds wrong”. We quickly analyzed the differing styles and set up an experiment.
On a straight A major backing track, I played a pattern up the fretboard, then Trent followed by a falling or noodling sample. Holy bejesus, I was floored by the sounds. There was actually a real Blues motif carrying through as we stepped through this question-answer improvisation. I was also struck by how, when our riffs began to overlap, we never hit a wrong note. Nothing we played clashed, as would be expected when playing non-Blues scales. That was indeed an eye-opener.
He also lent me a guitar with thin strings, I believe the term is slinkies. It’s a difference compared to my Ibanez acoustic. I recorded some twelve minutes of us playing these basic arrangements and I’m enthused more than when we started. There are some significant lessons in what we were playing this evening, and I’d be wise to think them through, and I’m talking some serious sit down fist-to-chin thinking and learn something from this. It wasn’t earth-moving, but it sounded that good for two guys on their second try.
Last, I went to Karaoke, your standard Thursday Jimbos event. The show has been lacking in innovation for years, actually, and that came home to roost tonight. No singers showed up except the owner, one regular, and myself. Even then, I rode up on the eBike meaning I was not staying. But I stayed for two hours to see the show quit early. Music is too complicated to blame a failure on any one factor, but the three people in the audience complained about the same thing—the music was outdated. The newest song was my version of Yearwood’s “That’s What I Like About You” and I believe that came out twenty years ago.
[Author’s note: I should remind the casual reader that while this blog is based on real life, but it is not live and some topics are taboo as far as deep details go. For example, there is never any relevant financial information, and my health is only covered in symptoms the average reader can relate to. I’ll talk about dating, but not sex. Taxes, but not income. Future plans, but not death. I’m bringing this up now so that certain people will quite assuming that because this blog is active, everything is okay. Nope. It don’t work like that.]
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