One year ago today: January 15, 2015, on treasure hunting.
Five years ago today: January 15, 2011, what—no drill press?
Nine years ago today: January 15, 2007, celebrity dogs.
Random years ago today: January 15, 2010, I found this place.
MORNING
Remember these egg vending machines? Well, neither do I. Never saw such a thing until I ran across this photo. It’s a slow blog day, no question about that. I have no information, but that lady definitely looks rural English. But then I find that these egg machines are quite real.
Rained in. It’s 11:30 AM and I haven’t had my morning coffee. Just my grits. Has anyone noticed the new foreign cinema web site won’t display the movie times on the same window as the movie description? See, I told you Florida was largely populated by little retards. The current offering is a show about arranged marriages in Turkey. Check back later to see if I made it.
JZ was on the line, it seems he (and so many others) don’t associate running short of money with not having a budget. I well understand the aversion of many to budgets, they feel it is a loss of control or that its existence detracts from the spontaneity of “flash” buying.
Actually it does take away that aspect, but replaces it with something better. Unfortunately, you cannot explain or set an example, each person has to try it for himself. And it is a major changeover, so it keeps being put off. What brought on this discussion? JZ can’t afford to take a trip this month either.
Has anyone picked up on Mr. Trump saying “Sony has lost its direction” and “I don’t know what happened to Sony”? Those who have been reading this blog know I’ve been saying the same thing right here for twenty years. Coincidence? Perhaps. It would not be the first time, Don.
NOON
“When you step on the brakes your life is in your foot's hands.” – George Carlin
Today, we hold an extra meeting over silver. The talk is that the market is at rock bottom, that the long-term (relatively speaking) hovering of silver at around $14 represents as low as the manipulators will allow it to drop. Like oil, they want to prices to dawdle along at the lowest price that drives others out of the market but still covers their own true production costs.
[Author’s note: by noon, it did not matter what we decided because there is no silver to be had. I’ll check with my alternate supplier this afternoon but all the tradable sizes are long gone. You can buy ingots of 100 oz, such as shown here, but where you think you are going to ever “cash” this poses a mystery.
When I said 100 oz, by inference of those who know my experience means 10 bars of 10 oz each. Not only are the larger bars hard to get rid of, they are as conspicuous as $1,000 dollar bills. You don’t flash those around when times are good, so don’t plan on it when precious metals become real money.
As far as I’m concerned, the economy is shot, it’s been held together by the paint for the last five years. I don’t understand why things are not worse than they are. I won’t say collapse is imminent, because I said that it so many years ago already. The middle class survived only by leaching the system dry with their credit cards.
But that system is gutted and for the first time (in a sense) all of the experts finally agree that a major collapse is around the corner. Starting with that phony New York Stock Exchange. "Nothing but crooks and the sons of crooks." If Trump makes it, or as Alex Jones says, unless they assassinate him first, he will be elected into the worst global depression of all time. Well, it serves the world right. There was never any chance that the entire planet could begin to live like Americans and it is their own fault for even trying.
Let’s be clear on that topic. These ancient and fabled lands have the attitude that their way of life is so superior, it needn’t change for the last two thousand years. America did not come along and “steal” their resources. (I’m not saying America was innocent in the process, either.) But the things that make America great were invented here and built here. We didn’t copy anybody else’s space program or clone anybody else’s Internet. You follow what I’m saying here? I see not everybody followed. I'm not claiming America did not copy Germany's rocket program, but that's not the same as a space program. People have been dreaming of space travel for centuries--but like the Ken Sanchuks of the world, it was all dreaming.
Now every third-world hot-head wants cable TV and a Lexus. Of course that brand of idiocy is going to place an intolerable strain on the world’s resources. But at the heart of it all is what I’ve point out here, also twenty years ago. These people only want to copy the material things; they have no intention of adopting the American infrastructure or ethics or culture that made it all possible.
As I’ve said, they want the convenience of the plastic bag, but when they are done, they just throw it in the Pacific Ocean. Recycling costs money. It all stems from that classic peasant mindset that the only way others could ever have done well is by stealing the other guy’s share. It’s idiotic, because like the Arabs and their oil, they sat on it for thousands of years and considered it valueless until we came along. But, that is the uneducated man’s definition of stealing.
NIGHT
I plugged in several tunes into the Tascam (recorder) and emailed most people I know who play guitar. I’d accompany my own music but all I can do with guitar is comp, and I’d like something a little improved on that. The idea is they play along with what I send, recording it. Then send it to me for mixing. So far nothing, but the bass sound is pretty excellent.
An example is the old Buck Owen’s tune, “Buckaroo”. My version is called “Bass Buckaroo” and you can imagine it is the melody played on bass with a guitar accompaniment. Therein lies the problem. Finding a guitar player who will give up one iota of his divine right to all the limelight. You can fairly guess that such arrangements give at least and equal voice to the bassist. I cannot find a guitar player who will share the spotlight for even one note, much less an entire song. As for a full-fledged stage act—you can just forget it!
I managed two hours of video filler music. If all goes well, one or two guitar players will record just a track of strumming and send it back to me as an e-mail attachment. The final mix is done here, but not with the fussy and particular Tascam, rather good old Audacity, the two tracks are shown here.
For the benefit on non-studio types, there are two tracks, the bottom layer is the drum beat, plainly a drum box because the repetitious exactitude is easy to spot. Notice it starts the standard 4 measures before anything else. This counts in the other musicians and is easy to delete in the finished product.
The top layer is the bass line. If it looks busy, that’s because it is. For these productions, I record only a snippet, but in a fashion that they can be strung together for pretty well any desired duration. These are not stereo recordings, I find for their intended purpose, recording in stereo is overkill. Neither Tascam nor any other “pocket” recorder offers any advice on how to keep tracks organized, so I’ll tell you how I do what you see here.
There are 8 tracks. Track number 4 is the bass line, track 5 is always the percussion. Keyboards, if any, are track 6. These are not mixed on the Tascam. The tracks are exported to Audacity, which is far easier to use. And that’s what you see here.
Last Laugh
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