One year ago today: August 15, 2013, early cPod progress.
Five years ago today: August 15, 2009, ackees? ackees?
Ten years ago today: August 15, 2004, college 1976
MORNING
A music morning, here’s something different. It’s called “guitaraoke” and you can play along to the original tunes with a kind of karaoke guitar chart instead of the lyrics. I can think of a few coffee houses that could use this system. Do I use it? Sometimes, because the backing tracks are the original music which sometimes cannot be found elsewhere. But most times I don’t use it because there is a reason that music is hard to find. And somebody should tell the guys in my band about all that.
I kept walking on, however, because the guy was playing the same old music as when I joined up 18 months ago. His repertoire was 1950s. You get that with guitar players, especially. They stall on one brand of music. Yet I recall thinking how good he would sound with a better bassist who could contribute something instead of that guy, who was so obviously following him. I can’t see the drummer in the photo, but it may be the same one as now. These guys have been riding the same horse since way back.
So, for posterity, let me take inventory of the band. I have learned about 75 new songs, that is, that I never played before. The rest of the band between them have learned 0. Not even one. They attempted to learn “I’m A Believer” and “Runaway” but the results are unsatisfactory. I’ve missed only one rehearsal because I thought it was the wrong day, yet they still do not regard me as a permanent member. This is due to my ability to solo, they will never trust anyone who can do that. While anybody could solo if they had to, these guys have plainly never learned to arrange their parts.
Also, they adamantly refuse to learn any songs that I suggest, which is kind of going overboard on that issue. I was on the verge of quitting, you know, when the lady singer showed up. But I instantly spotted they would accept her suggestions to play the exact music, and in some instances the very same songs they rejected when I spoke. When I saw that, I stuck around and they began playing newer music circa 1980. But I point out they already knew that music; they did not learn it to a schedule like I routinely have to. Even if they learn said songs right now, it has taken far too long already.
They also meant it when their ad said they wanted a bass player to join the band. They certainly did not mean one who would bring anything new with him. Many things hint that this is how they have always regarded the bassist, kind of as a flunky. But it also means they need one, as between them they can’t fake it. Like I told you, they can only play their own individual parts and that is diametrical to the way I play. Only the singer has seen a pro video of me performing this way on stage. She gasped.
Agt. M was over last evening for practice and he is still struggling to play his first few chords. I’ve seen this before, it is the result of beginners now practicing a little every day. For adults, adjusting to a new routine can be impossible. But I showed him videos of my former students progressing from nothing to being on stage in ten weeks. That’s motivation. And because he’s never been polluted with guitar lessons, he instantly grasps the voicings. He knows it is for real because he is playing the same guitar from the videos.
NOON
Mercedes has definitely built in some kind of protection or safety scheme on their electronics, but it may not be that difficult to decipher. That’s a grand activity for my day off, I mean other than that I’m just doing laundry. It’s boring, but it brings me to a situation nobody, even your mother, didn’t warn you about. You’ve heard me recently comment on old people who have no travel or entertainment budget. The ones who are only discovered dead in their fancy condo when they don’t drive their brand new Esplanade up to the donut shop for three days running. Yeah, that bunch.
I’m trying to find a snarky term to refer to them. Why? Because since I first mentioned them, I’m getting flak like nobody’s business. Hey, I didn’t invent these old people, I’m merely commenting on the way they turned out. And that comment is predicated by the realization I have nothing in common with such people. If you can disprove what I say, do so, but just flinging disagreement my way will get you nowhere. Anyway, here is the situation.
I retired quite young, but now years later, other people my own age are beginning to take buyout packages and such. Long ago I warned they would have no experience at retiring and I was more right about that than I realized. These people are stuck in their ways financially as well as mentally. True, we are both in the same coffee shop, but I’m planning my next epic motorcycle trip, while for them, the coffee shop is their trip. I’ve found there is nobody my own age to hang with. I know I said it was things like the movies, but it turns out it is everything. They got their big house and big car but no money to take off for the weekend.
And these losers are absolutely everywhere around here, even in the best of neighborhoods. Thank you, I’ll live in a cheaper place and stay in touch with the outside world. I’ll interact with others than my own kind. That’s because I now see that becoming a boring and useless old person is far from a random event.
AFTERNOON
Rain, intermittent, all day. I have to drive to the next town to find a movie theater, so I didn’t get over there until mid-afternoon. The movie was “Let’s Be Cops” and it was fine. They did a lot of novel screenplay for what was your basic cops and drug dealer plot. Early into the movie you are reminded that outside of gold-digging actress wannabes, there are very few really good-looking women left in America. I grew up in a rural where naturally good-looking women were everywhere. I wish I’d known then how rare they would become.
While waiting (on the rain to let up), I watched some documentaries on early airplane design. I didn’t know that Walt Disney made a lot of his early money by cranking out propaganda films for the military. Propaganda? Yes, he implies the Germans (which he calls “NAWT-zees”) smashed through the Maginot Line and were responsible for making the airplane a weapon between the wars. I hardly think so, Walt. And those “fleets” of U-boats numbered 38 when the war began.
[Author's note 2015-08-15: the word "Nazi" is not German. It is a derogatory term invented by Allied propaganda. It is an Anglicized abbreviation for "Social Democrat" and is not a word to which Hitler or any German ever called themselves. There was no "Nazi" army, or "Nazi" war machine, or "Nazi" submarines. I've likely pointed this out before, but it is worth repeating. Calling German soldiers a "Nazi" is like calling an American soldier a "Republican". It makes no sense unless the plan is to incite hatred of the enemy.]
ADDENDUM
Hey, what happened to all my celestial navigation? Did I give up on that? Just goes to show you what a loser I am. Either that, or I’ve entered “deep learning” mode and things move so slow that what little new information trickles in rarely makes the blog. You decide which. But I always read difficult books in two stages. Worthwhile difficult books, there, MicroSoft.
And it takes more time. Woe and pity to the man who choses celestial navigation by mistake, or has it forced upon him. (Or on a lark, like I did.) Yet for all that, it is possible for those with good memory to simply commit the routine to rote. I suspect that is how it is normally done. It is possible to memorize the steps without understanding any process or theory. Any med student can confirm that. After a while, you develop a sense of when things “look right”. And, I’m not surprised many of the advanced texts actually tell the navigator to take a series of readings and use the average.
My second pass is also drilling down to the finer points. I now know the difference between moonset and twilight. Want to know? Okay, moonset is when the upper part of the moon goes below the horizon. There are times you can’t see the upper “limb”, so even moonset isn’t all that straightforward. Well, isn’t that twilight? Nope. Technically—and I may have this backwards—there is a period when the horizon is visible, but it is dark enough to see the brighter stars. This is called “civil twilight” and is the only time you can use a sextant to shoot the stars.
The remaining light in the sky, when the horizon is gone, is known as “nautical twilight”. And most nautical almanacs contain (as I found out first day) an alternate method for using “sight reduction”, which is the only method that beginners should even attempt. I have now read a marine nautical almanac in my life, and I see that the tables end at 60°S. Either that is the end of the world, or you should not be sailing there and you’d drop off. Little joke, ha, ha.
And if you decide to read the instructions that come with the Almanac, the text is even blurrier than the independent study material. Why? Because American edition or not, the British influence in the literature is present right where you don’t need it—the adjectives. It takes a while until you catch on they mean the British definitions. When something is done “formally tabular”, it doesn’t mean wearing a tie to use the office adding machine.
To do something formally means you draw up a form and do the calculations in the blanks. Dang, I almost went out and rented a tux. And tabular figures are those which you read from a table. Anyway, I’m just saying the Brits always fight the last century’s war and write the last century’s book. It takes much, much longer than usual for the material to soak in. It is for times like this that God invented coffee.
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