MORNING
Florida is not the area to be shopping for used tools. There is something weird about Florida, you never get a bargain on tools. Here is a clearly used belt sander that sells new for $64 that is on Craigslist for $60. A sander is my next acquisition planned but one might as well get the new item at Harbor Freight and not take chances. This price thing is not confined to backyard sales, either, you’ll find the same thing at every pawn shop. Used gear for nearly full price. No deals in Florida.
It doesn’t take long when studying gears to figure out the most useful type are called (I think) pinions. This is like inside a clock where a big gear has a small diameter companion on the same shaft, and that smaller gear drives another big gear. I did this on my first gear without realizing it was an excellent study. Since the diameters drive the gear teeth, it is a simple (for me) calculation to have one gear spin 60 times faster coupled to another for the second hand. This is all theoretical, building a clock is far beyond my skill level.
I watched the worst Viet Nam movie yet, “White Ghost”. The old go in and rescue the American theme, but with a plot to kill him too complicated to possibly work with an all-volunteer army, I mean. The movie sucks. The only worse shots in on the planet were the Germans in a John Wayne movie. My rating is “don’t bother”. It’s a string of dilapidated clichés.
And one of the worst sites that ever comes up on my regular searches is eHow. All together now, "eHOW SUCKS!" Have you ever gotten anything useful from that outfit? No, because they don’t allow pictures or video. Can you imagine trying to give instructions on gear making without any illustration? eHow gives it a shot. They say, 1) Design a gear. 2) Paste the template on your material. 3) Cut your gear. Wow, that’s helpful, you guys. Here I was, using some 30-step process, boy am I dumb.
Not as dumb as the producers of some Viet Nam documentaries, though. The ones that portray the North Vietnamese as a united, politically-driven team. Yeah, at the barrel of a gun. While every flaw and disappointment of the South is covered ad nauseum, the Cong and Minh are shown loyal to a fault and never desert, run, or surrender. And ever willing to die for “freedom”, something no Asian would recognize if it bit him in the ass. There has never been a natural Asian democracy.
Japan, someone asked? I said “natural”. I said “democracy”. Now run along.
NOON
My Honda 250 is history, but lookie what I found in the back of my mechanic's shop. It's a 1983(?) he's had in storage for 30+ years. It's a Honda 400 with only 4200 on the clock. And he won't sell it except to me, as it is my sidecar mechanic who knows I keep my equipment perfectly maintained. Wish me luck, it the price is also commensurate. But no rush. This is NOT the same machine in the photo. Mine would have extended forks, high-rider handlebars, lots of chrome and all the extras. Like a mini-chopper, I told you, the guy's a pro mechanic.
Music has slowed to a crawl as I undertake to learn new rhythm chops that suit my limited ability and decipher which “lead breaks” are best adaptable to our style. This results in two hours of study every day and I’m not in the mood to rehearse afterward. But give it time.
That “Come Next Monday” song turns out to be impossible to play faithfully, the recording is too full of studio splices and one-time split chords. If it cannot be standardized, it may get dropped. Live on stage is no place to be remembering finicky progressions. Simple is better.
If I didn’t say, the six bedroom place I looked at in 2013 is back on the market. And listed with the same agent. I told him the party that outbid me would let him down. The agent was slow to grasp the huge difference between the desperate other guy and someone such as myself who lives in a manufactured home out of convenience and preference. I put in a lowball bid that will be rejected, but I’m also very good at the waiting game.
NIGHT
Here is a picture of a church that should not be. According to the propaganda, Nagasaki was flattened by the second atomic bomb, so it should have been vaporised. The reality was that the flimsy Japanese houses, built of paper because of earthquakes, were what got pancaked. Here is one of the rare stone structures in that city, the Catholic church. Just a few hundred yards from the epicenter, if you look close, only the wooded parts are gone. The roof, the walls, the doors are missing. But the stained glass windows are not even cracked. Boo!
I got to be the hero, at least to the server lady, and in a most uncharacteristic occurrence at that club, got some free libations. As usual when no single women are present, I was sketching in my notebook and did not notice nobody was playing the jukebox. But some dude was playing some annoying hip-hop on his tablet. At some point the server whispered to me she wished the jukebox wasn't out of order. Nonsense, I said and went over and pushed the reset button. When that didn't work, I rebooted the thing. Which responded with a fairly spectacular series of screens and bright colors that convinced the whole room I was Einstein. It's also a long boot, around four minutes.
Instantly after the splash screen disappeared, the server and several ladies present were lined up with their dollars. Three things made me happy. Of course, the free beers, but also that the it seems I was the only person in the room who knew the jukebox was just a computer and that only one person liked hip-hop.
I got home early enough to practice, but found myself exhausted. Check back later for music news. Trent has suggested we focus on “threes”, the playing of three songs rehearsed back-to-back. Sounds like an good plan, plus some coffeehouses count such things as one tune. I mean really exhausted, so good-bye for now.
Last Laugh
Sorry for the cuss words, but this was just too funny.
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
