That was when the building was new. These days, the rock would pull out in your hand. Just kidding, but this is the place that levied a $20,000 assessment on each owner to replace the roof, and that was a week after JP had made his final mortgage payment. The roofing contractor had the same last name as the condo manageress.Skip the breakfast outing. I’m not biking to the beach and not going to Dunkin, which by the way has changed to a cheaper coffee. I think they got the brand MacD’s was using before they smartened up. Anyway, there is never any shortage of baked goods right here at home. My day-old is better than most fresh. Besides, I’ve not yet replaced my lady companions. No, I don’t line others up first. That’s how you get into trouble.
I practiced both music and relaxing. I think I’m getting pretty good at both. I don’t so much practice the bass as I do study the music itself. This will disappoint more often than impress but it makes for realistic performances. We’ve all seen too many bassists who are uninspiring to say the most. I’ll never know why the instrument attracts so many dreary personalities. What? Maybe I’m dreary? I’d like a show of hands on that.
For relaxation, I took a hint from Alaine and watched documentaries. Some of them were Viet Nam videos made after the war was over. It is disgusting to hear the one-sided views of the Americans who produce such things. They’ll say the communists had this many thousands of volunteers. Yeah, volunteers at gun-point. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any material on the way the Cong “recruited”. You join or they shoot your mother. But you know the wimp American media. Can’t be hurting any sensitive commie feelings with the truth. Even if you have to lie to do it. American feelings don’t count. Especially white middle-class feelings.
The misconceptions about that war will remain forever. I find the biggest lie was that the Viet Cong were pajama-clad peasants. Or that Ho Chi Minh lived in a cave. That’s a good one. And we love those propaganda shots of villagers firing rifles at the jets when in fact there were more AA guns around Hanoi than in all of Germany during the last one.
ADDENDUM
Band practice. We are finally more than ready. Caution, though, if you’ve never been in a band, that is not always a good thing. It can mean learning more songs than you need. This causes the weaker numbers to get neglected and the next time you try to play them, it is a disaster. The focus this practice was “The Kinks”, the material they did back in the early days. Once more, here is a band where I could name maybe five of their 160 releases. Who remembers, “She Bought A Hat Like Princess Marinas”.
A lot of it is electric guitar music, where being first with some new distortion device is usually more sellable than having any underlying ability. I, being the new member of this new group, learn whatevery they choose. This practice focused on “Sunny Afternoon” and “Set Me Free”. “Sunny Afternoon” is not a Bee Gees style feel-good song, rather about taxes and fat women. The only things certain in America are death, taxes, and fat women.
And “Set Me Free”. There is an obscure amendment to the Constitution that says if you are a half-baked band from any nation along the English-speaking Atlantic coast, you must release a song called “Set Me Free”. Interesting lyrics or innovative musical score not required, as long as you get that title right. Word for word now, so don’t mess it up, you mildly-tattoed, pseudo-spiritual, you-need-a-name-tag-to-use-the-console Berklee types who think wind chimes are a musical instrument.
As we once said back in Seattle, I got two words for copycats, and they ain’t “Merry Xmas”.
