One year ago today: April 11, 2014, in a mood!
Five years ago today: April 11, 2010, driver’s license, my eye.
Six years ago today: April 11, 2009, on Kraft Dinner.
MORNING
Ah, yes, I’ve mastered the trick of adding brown sugar (real turbinado) to my powdered milk. Was it Lewis Grizzard that said he was okay when his cereal got soggy—because that’s why he added the milk. Me too, Big G. Have you seen the chaos in Germany over the money handler’s strike? Good, for anybody who thinks my predilection for cash is offbeat, in Germany 80% of people pay in cash. They have, you see, much more experience than Americans in dealing with political surveillance of personal activities, like banking.
This is the year that South Africa breaks up the big economic farms and piecemeals the land out to blacks, who have no idea whatsoever how to operate a farm. Do a search on “South Africa crime” and be prepared for what comes up. Whites are only 6% of the population, so don’t even think of blaming them. Here is a photo of a black township, who are organizing protests that they are worse off now than they were under apartheid. Duh.
Organizing protests, you say? Isn’t that how they got rid of the whites twenty years ago? WTF, now they want them back?
Local real estate. Yes, it is true. Several properties appeared on the market after I had spent some of my down payment money on other things. Like motorcycle repairs. In the end, none of the places were suitable, but that serves to show how unpredictable the market is. Since today is spent waiting for a telephone call to come in for my annual test results, I’m planning to spend the time looking at other real estate. And it was too hot by 7:00 AM already. That explains my wonderful temper so far.
NOON
“It’s hard to argue with someone when they’re right.” --Farm wisdom.
My spam filter is set to allow the unusual through. Have you ever heard of a “Heddle”? It’s a [brand of] hand loom made in New Zealand. The most popular loom for beginners. There is a class at my old knitting shop (yes, I knit, poorly) this weekend, but at $110 I’ll think on it. If, like myself, you have never looked at weaving in action, here is an instructional video that seems to cover the bases. Yes, to the sharper readers, I am fully aware the contraption contains many of the shapes I’ve learned to cut in the past few months, including the pawl and rachet.
The video seems to gloss over the part I want to see, which is how the middle thingee gets the yarn to go over and under the crossthread. The footage is carefully edited to never show that operation in any detail. By now, the technology has grasped my attention, so I’ll find the answer. I somehow thought the piece had to flip over to make the threads alternate. And as far as making patterns, I dunno, but I will.
Why? Because I was the generation who were taught that the first computer punch cards were designed after some wooden cards (Jaquard) used to make loom patterns. I’ll bet not one in a million looked into what that actually entails. And the first step is logically to learn how the loom operates. I’ve already looked at other loom models to notice they have lots of foot pedals. Robots, looms, microcontrollers, gears. Let’s see where this leads.
AFTERNOON
Lots of real estate, get it? Little joke there. Anyway, I could buy on the Florida west coast if I had a mind to live that far away. The market was on time this year, with nearly twenty properties for sale in my range. But I’m still at the rent-to-own stage. For those not sure, the correct term for rent-to-own is “land contract”. The term varies in meaning, so I stick with the more descriptive rent-to-own.
Pigeon coops. What? I’m reading about aircraft carriers and it says here the first models, around 1925, had pigeon coops. So I tuned in to a documentary, which was okay, but they hired a Millennial as the narrator. Don’t get me wrong, we had this type of moronic bozo back in my day, but we didn’t give them junior achievement awards. We laughed them off the stage. You know the type, more fixation on good pronunciation than the slightest inkling of what they are reading.
So the jerk says the pigeon coops were for the pilot to communicate back to the ship. Duh, does that mean the ship stands still? Because if it moves, largely a good idea during wartime, isn’t the pigeon going to fly back to where the aircraft carrier used to be? If there was any sailing going on, it was any common sense and way over the head of the goof-talker. No doubt it's that same grunt with the highest exam score in his public school English class instead of anybody with a lick of sense.
What? The pigeon? Of course it does not fly back to the aircraft carrier. It flies back to the naval base where it was raised, probably Portsmouth. There, they can safely read the message and broadcast any response by radio code. While the carrier is present and accounted for, you don't know where it is. The best you can hope for is they are tuned to the right frequency and can still receive information. In other words, the aircraft carrier is a lot like the type of dork who got the highest mark in English class.
NIGHT
Have you heard of North Palm Beach? Why not, there is a West Palm Beach. So we piled in the SUV to go up to Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. At least that's what we thought before discovering the usual Florida maze of double-named streets until a chance encounter with a back alley found is in the correct parking lot.
The guy is distantly related to Lakatosh but is a guitar player. I knew there was disappointment due when the announcer announced we were about to hear “the greatest guitarist in the world”. Not again!
It’s hard to believe we sat through an hour of it. He was playing, with his five piece band, some Cuban-jazz versions of “Mafia music” movie themes. And a few of my least favorite performers thrown in, such as Streisand and Midler. The audience was trained, European style, to pretend they knew what these songs were and to clap several times during each rendition. Ah, but the ladies. All of them had just come from the same beauty parlor.
The hall was small, maybe 400 people. There was an after party something with one free drink, but we didn’t linger. There were three guest singers, a skinny kid who did an Frank Sinatra b-side, a French guy who didn’t tuck in his shirt, and the fat lady. The hall was suitable for an acoustic show, but instead, everything was amplified just about 10% too loud. Especially the French singer, who didn’t need a microphone. We waited, thinking for a bit this was the warm-up band. This photo is not, repeat not, the Blues Brothers revue of local semi-reknown.
At 9:20 PM, the four of us were the 42nd thru 45th guests to walk out.
ADDENDUM
Music and the new resort trials. Ha, a lot of the local “rock” musicians are in for the proverbial rude and crude awakening. I can’t say how I know but I’m planning on being around on June 9th in case the auditions are public. How I’d love to see my old five-piece get in there. I’d be in agony if they did, but if not, that would be the ultimate proof to them that they have zero audience appeal. Worse, they can only play that one style: 1950s.
I’d pay to see who gets eliminated in the first round. My estimate for Margaritaville is that they are about to learn the hard way how little $200 will buy them in this town. The local bands for the most part are lousy, not musically, but in that they have not covered the ground needed to be world-class entertainers. This is a social, not a musical relationship, and the insular nature of local music has allowed this to be ignored for too long to catch up in a hurry.
From what I gather, they want “chummy” musicians who get up close to the audience and bring them into the music. Like a lounge on a cruise ship. The ad goes on to specify different styles: Classic Rock, Trop-Rock, Reggae, Country, Top-40, and Dance. I cannot think of any band around here that specializes in different styles and the few that can fake it are not very, how to put this, not very visually pleasing.
Am I any better? I don’t know, but yeah, I’d say so. Sayin' so is cheap. My act has always roped the audience in. Hell, I hand them microphones and let them sing along. I go way back competing with show-off guitarists to attract audience attention. For openers, I have the country hayseed moves down pat. I move and act like I don’t know what I’m doing, but my style (rhythm bass) is very distinctive.
In addition, I have a whole bag of tricks geared toward emphasizing what I do—all within limits of course. Examples would be my distinctive “elbow wag”, which no other bassist on the planet seems to have invented. They all work on their stance or prance. Then, there are the tunes I play “upside down” and my “impossible riffs”, which can make even the staff momentarily cease chewing their Ju-Jubes.
I’ve added a new one recently, which I picked up from my old habit of playing horn flourishes on the bass. I call it the three-octave flash. The bass notes span approximately three octaves. When I’m faking the horn parts, there is often a dead spot where the player takes a breath. I have to leap the full three octaves (usually it is only one or two) to fill in that note. Upon reviewing my own training videos, I noticed this looks unreal fast.
It isn’t, but it looks it.
