This looks like what you are looking at. A Honda (Goldwing) with a Ural sidecar. I’d buy it except that the Honda is a 1978 and has 60,000 miles on it. The reliability of an older Honda is hard to surpass and the Ural has a reputation for big time ruggedness. My guess is this combination might get 40 miles per gallon. I’ll offer a thousand less than asking to see if he bites. Long-term long-range transportation for me involves a motorcycle for at least the next four years.
Snarky laughter in background, I think I’ve got the number of my Lexulous (Scrabble) opponent. I shifted tactics to block those little words she was gaining a hundred points on every game. She seems unable to evolve. Now she doesn’t get the extra points, I do, and I’m winning by that amount. What can I say, never use the same tactic on me twice in a row. More music, always a winning subject. Today, you get two entries, one before Ray-B arrives to record, and a summary afterwards. We had a teleconference last evening and I’m leaning toward throwing quality out the window. Ray-B reports a duo playing at shopping plazas that are so bad he felt sorry for them. Every time there is a downturn in the economy, the rodeo clowns dust off their Stratocasters. And undercut my prices. But one thing they can’t forge: stage personality.
I’m now recording my tunes full blast and singing to my own tracks. Think of it as “live lip-synch”. My vocals clobber the recorded track and it is similar to Karaoke at that point, except you hear the words if I miss a spot. I already have two solid years practice playing bass to this type of track, and the show to go with it. I got to thinking about that dude in West Palm to fakes his entire show with air guitar and no vocals? He’s working. And that blind Indian in Montana. He had a following.
Thus, this recording plan is evolving rapidly from hour to hour. Remember when RofR and I finished our first renovation? By the time we were finished we had the tools needed to begin. I’ve learned a thing or two and arranged things so I can easily go back to do upgrades. Anybody who’d hire Zack will take me in an instant.
Who remembers those old Polaroid instant cameras, for those pictures you just wouldn’t let the camera shop develop? The newer version, shown on the right, has a built in printer. I thought I’d check the prices, since each print on the older versions cost about a buck back in the 80s. And that was before Polaroid sued the ass off Kodak and gained a virtual monopoly on instant tech. The price tag on this digital camera with printer is $289.
Are you thinking, aha, they’ll do a Hewlett-Packard and stiff me on the ink cartridges? This camera used ZINK (watch the video here) zero ink paper, a clever modernization of the original peel-away photos that turned orange over time. Zero ink runs about 25 cents for a 4 x 6, and yes, there is an SD card. ZINK requires electricity, but this camera still manages 25 prints per charge, and that is a lot of pictures. I’m thinking.Ah, incoming questions about Kodak and Polaroid already. Folks, I’m going to give you a link to one of my primary sources of in-depth information. It is an unsavory outfit that writes term papers for cash, so your eye doctor can finish med school without ever having studied a thing and passing his finals by cramming. Called OP Papers if you can find a subject (not so easy), the subject is fully covered in depth. I believe the battle between the two companies is what really put Kodak under, something they largely earned by their tactics. Kodak survives but digital imaging put an end to their “razor blade” strategy (sell the cameras cheap and soak the public on the consumables). I believe the court awarded Polaroid $909 million.
Later. Ray-B was over to record and discuss the recording process, which we both dislike. My recordings are a matter of discovery and that includes the possibility of no tracks. I’ll explain. These tunes are built up from individual tracks played back in combination, and one of those tracks was Ray-B on guitar. During this procedure it is not uncommon to hear an instrument played solo and this is what happened. Ray-B heard my guitar playing and thinks I don’t need the tracks.
Ray-B, who knows these things, pointed out that my strumming, for all that it isn’t, is bang on time. He stresses that is the single most important issue and that it seems I don’t realize how well I’m doing it. Just sing and play the same tunes, he says. Like other novices, I can hear every mistake and know which chords I can’t play, but Ray-B assuringly declares that is temporary, that in time even the solos become natural. He’s saying grab the guitar and get out there.
If the mixer serves only to tell me I don’t need a mixer, that’s a good thing, too. I bite my lip thinking I have nothing to judge by other than Ray-B’s assertion that I’m good enough because so many others don’t play on time. (I’ve never been able to play off time.) Decision: since playing and strumming is so simple by comparison [to what I’m doing], I’ll take a week off recording and see if I can’t come up with an act. It would mean yet another step further away from the “right” music, but has not that been staring me in the face since May, 2009?
Interestingly, Ray-B and I agree on numerous aspects of performing, but parallel rather than congruent. He thinks the crowds are unimpressed by these jazz tunes, I think the same about most old rock tunes. He plays to the boomers, I call them yuppies. His recent concept of playing for the crowd rather than other musicians has been standard procedure for me since day one. And he admits to incorporating every more country into his act, where I am gradually adding a few more recent hits.
Is anybody else getting those annoying Google ads when logging on? The ads that give such dire warnings about what would happen to your account tomorrow if you lost your passwords, etc. They want alternate e-mails, your phone number, and all manner of details. Well, Google, what would happen to me if I lost my passwords is that tomorrow slimy outfits like you who don’t respect people’s privacy will know not a thing more than you know today. Does that answer your question?
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