One year ago today: September 26, 2015, an idiot named Muir.
Five years ago today: September 26, 2011, missing post.
Nine years ago today: September 26, 2007, careful: Hi-Speed <> High Speed.
Random years ago today: September 26, 2008, a generic day.
MORNING
I’m going to have to do a recount of the oak trees. At least two have some kind of blight and have to come down. That’s in the front yard. Shown here, I lopped off a lot of lower branches that never stood a chance. They just whither and die. Much as I hate to kill an oak tree, you can see the electric chain saw and the morning’s effort at yard work. I went on the trim a truckload of underbrush out of the back yard as well. But anybody who calls me a farmer is going to get one to the side of the head. Whap! Ha, didn’t think I could move that fast, did ya?
Since I couldn’t do yard work until the sun came up, I researched those infrared rangefinders. Unlike sound, which measures the echo of a sound wave moving 13,560 inches per second, light moves far too fast to measure by Doppler. At least not with gear costing the amount of money most of us can get our hands on.
So how does it work? It uses parallax. The transmit and receive lenses are slightly apart. The reflected beam returns at a slight angle, which decreases with distance. I speculated the lends are electronically offset and when a reflection is detected, either the lens tilts or some sensor within finds the bright spot.
Once I began dragging the vines out of the yard, there opened up an almost storybook setting near the garden for a cottage style work shed. And as I’m learning, there are many places around selling these things.
When I say storybook, I mean nestled in between oak trees in a semi-shaded mini-forest nook in the back yard, invisible from the road. There is room for a 12 x 20 shed, with small barn doors, which I really want. It would be covered by a canopy of oak limbs, cutting down on any air conditioning bills. That size of shed is nearly 75% of the entire floor space of the old trailer and with me that means an entire secluded “robot ranch” in the back, facing the garden.
And if the renovations continue as planned, I should soon have a surplus of completely matching shiplap siding for such a building. It’s wishful thinking at this juncture. But from what Agent R. tells me, the city does not require a permit for a storage unit in one’s own back yard. That would explain the barn-like edifices in some nearby tracts. This would be in addition to any planned sheds in the main part of my yard as already discussed, where I already have two sheds. Which both need replacing.
The people who moved in across the way have a medium sized furniture truck pulling in and out of the premises. Much more than feasible if they are only moving in. Are they running a moving business over there? It seems unlikely because they plainly have enough money to do nothing. Maybe some kind of church charity operation? It makes no difference to me because my place is increasingly soundproof each passing week. But I did notice they were running the motor at 4:32AM this morning. This is the place that seemed abandoned since May until around ten or so days ago. Tourist season.
Paris, Texas. My home town.
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NOON
Trouble is brewing up there in DC. After spending tens of millions to discredit Trump, all of a sudden the opposition has fallen silent. They are up to something and it has nothing to do with playing fair. If only because they no longer know how to play fair. What are they up to? As the deadline approaches, the likelihood of something drastic increases. Shall we say the establishment eggs are getting squeezed into an ever-smaller basket. You got xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, now add Trumpophobia. They have to play their hand pretty fast here. You just know it will be something deplorable.
I happened to be visiting just around time for lunch, and got treated to home made baked beans, a secret recipe. Talk about scrumptious, same with burgers or grilled hotdogs. As you know I had to forego the carbohydrates, but talk about temptation. Alas, a week from now I’ll be taking that set of tests and you know what happened last time I took a chance. Dessert was apple cobbler of the first rate, I know my cobbler. And it’s always better when somebody else makes it.
During the day, I had the batbike out when a rainstorm blasted me a mile from my destination. I was on a single-lane country road and trapped by some goof who had it in for motorcycles. He could see I was trying to beat the rain, so he risked his neck passing me, then slowed right down so the maximum rain hit me. Taking care to swing into the puddles to splash me, he also purposely slowed down to make me hit every red light.
What I did was fix two sections of the metal piping together, around ten feet, and see how far I could easily tap it into the ground. Using only a hand sledge, I got it down nine feet without hitting bedrock. Time to call a meeting, this throws out plans we had for an easy foundation. There has to be some instructions on how to build on such land but I don’t know them, and would not the people who built this place in 1946 have known about such? Put another way, it appears this entire subdivision is sitting on at least ten feet of mine tailings.
The positive news is the land doesn’t shift. The same five foot stakes driven into the garden logs were still true and they must have been there at least thirty years if they match the back wing.
NIGHT
This section is all music, you can skip it if it’s not your bag. How’s that for a trite expression from the sixties? Not my bag, man. Music is so important to me that I tend to over-document every foible. On the other hand, this constitutes a complete record of every nuance as I move through the musical journey. This is a novelty if I ever get famous, since most such accounts by then are written from memory. Which has a tendency to vastly improve one’s past. Ask you-know-who.
[Author’s note: Before continuing, I am mindful of my own double standard with music. I bemoan how life measures winners only by the finish line rather than the distance run, yet I’m okay when music does it. With music, I only care if you are good here and now. In my own defense, I claim this is only an apparent conflict. I never said the music system was right, only that I recognize it as the reality of the matter.
This also explains why I dislike songs, particularly guitar-player songs, about how tough it is to get to the top. If you played it till your fingers bled, be glad you didn’t have to work in the Montana lumber mills instead. In music, people only care if you brought home the ship.]
Also, he fingerpicks everything exactly the same way. He does no flatpicking at all, even when called for. Which is most of my music. So yes, it does sound thin and reedy because he isn’t strumming any chords—but I’m still not going to concede to use backing tracks to flesh it out. My timing is perfect while his is loose. So I get washed out by instruments that distract the crowd from my work and his part sounds like some guy almost succeeding in playing along to a bad-sounding radio. His Karaoke tracks are not true to the originals. At all.
It’s still a go-ahead nonetheless. We’ve got 15 songs already, sort of. He does not really know the intros or the lyrics. This could be a barrier. Plus everybody who relies on the machine limits themselves. He also does not know the circle of fifths so chords have to be spelled out. He capos a lot so I can’t tell what chord he’s playing to help out. It’s weird, but he likes to capo to G#. This tiny half-tone shift complicates everything beyond all recognition. That’s why I don’t use any sharps or flats.
It doesn’t bring it into key, since if you can sing in G#, you can sing in G, which is the first chord everybody learns on a guitar. So why not stick with G? But this way, I don’t know what chord he’s playing and neither does he. When he’s fingering a D he’s actually playing an F#. So he has no clue how to communicate what he’s doing to the next guy. He’s playing easy pattern chords without regard to open string work or instrument design. For example, you cannot just change the key of “Long-Haired Country Boy” from D to C. The catchy riff cannot be played correctly in that key—it can only be approximated by a guitarist who thinks he’s gotten around the limitation. (I know exactly how the guitarist is faking it and buddy, that’s not how it is played.)
Disappointingly, there are [too many] songs on his list that I know are not really big hits. We agreed to play big popular hits only. It’s arrogant to expect the other guy to learn music that he’s never even heard off. (You’ve heard every tune on my list.) I have combed and sifted the billboard and top ten lists for decades to find my material, so don’t tell me “Spanish Pipedream” and “Buy Me A Boat” are on any hit parade that regular folks have ever heard tell. Every time you let a piece like that creep into your material, you are crowding out a potentially better contender. But I do it myself with “Tell Me Momma” and “Party Till The Money Runs Out”.
We’ve already had the “bass is easy” conversation. Get it out of the way. Bass is not easy, only rookie guitar players think that because they can’t play it. By that logic, violin is easy because not only are there only four strings and they are much smaller and you don’t have to worry about frets. Ha, that shows the ineptitude of anybody who thinks bass is easy. The reality is, the fewer the strings, the more work required to get expressive on the appliance—a few guitarists should try it sometime.
And Steve suffers from the universal mental block of all guitarists—he plays music he likes and expects therefore others should like it also. I play music I don’t like if the audience likes it, which is very difficult to prove unless, like I do, unless you keep track of what tunes produce the best tips. You cannot argue with tips, yet I know guitarists who will persist playing tunes that have never gotten a dollar into the jar.
Name some songs I play that I don’t like. “Cocaine Blues”. “Heartaches By The Number”. “Pirate Looks at Forty”. My second highest tip producer, “These Boots Were Made For Walking” was never a favorite until after I met my wife. But since 1989, it has produced a whopping $622 in tips. I suspect much of that is due to people not expecting to hear a male bassist sing that song. But that still conforms to my rule of playing what the audience wants.
FYI, outside of my top two songs, each other song I play produces an average TOTAL of $314 in tips over the years. (Careful, I consider house pay to be fixed income, while tips are variable income. You have to play more hours to make more tips.) I play solely what the audience likes (within my country music boundaries of course) and this method of judging by tips is opposite to what guitarists say and think. They fantasize they are sending some kind of superior message to the world. And if you must know, slow music is dreadful for tips. Now, $61 doesn’t sound like much, I suppose, but factor in that I only include months where I was out playing, which is about a third of the time. So the tips are three times higher than first glance. Oh yes, I’m watching that tip jar all the time.
My decision is to keep at the project. This is the best chance of getting out there in reasonable time to meet others, even though most working musicians do not attend each other’s gigs. They don’t have time. If Steve continues with his Karaoke set (and I understand he doesn’t want to walk away from his investment in the system and his existing song list), and if he fingerpicks through my material, he is relegating himself to a secondary role on stage. That might sound like a choice opening for me, but I was counting on more support from the rhythm guitar.
He declares he has no clash with such an arrangement, though I’m naturally leery of any such position. Chances are I will steal the show naturally, even when he is playing his own material. Never forget I’ve trained myself to do it that way for so many years, and believe me I’ve been up against super-tough guitarist types whose primary intention is was to monopolize the stage. Can I now tone it down? Do I want to? Steve says not to even care and he’s got a point. Any rhythm player is better than no rhythm player.
I suppose I’m just complaining that the compromises involved were beyond what was anticipated. And for the record, it isn’t even G#. It’s Ab.
ADDENDUM
“A Conservative History of the American Left” is probably a more interesting work if you start reading around page 100. It begins to contain passages that are pretty fantastic in the sense that you would otherwise have to do immense reading to get the information from elsewhere. If you like this blog on that count, you might enjoy that book—but more as a novel than as a text. It also serves up a lot of facts that would disturb modern day Liberals.
America used a mechanized army to invade its neighbors without declaring war. America sterilized people and performed “eugenics”. We forced men into the Army, interred ethnic groups, and nationalized private industry. Our government dictated food prices and censored speech. The list goes on (actually, it goes on and on and on), and don’t laugh Canada, you did much the same. All these things were done in 20th century America before they were done by any European dictators. To this day, the federal government refuses to submit national laws to a popular vote—and we’re calling who tyrants?
A good instance is how he portrays the Germans as evil aggressors. When it comes to “evil” and “aggressor”, apparently he’s never heard of the likes of Theodore Roosevelt. Say, did you know what happened to Roosevelt? During WWI (or as it was then known, “The Great War”), his son, Quentin, quit Harvard to join the air force. One hero in the family is never enough.
In 1918 Quentin volunteered to fly over enemy territory. A German ace took notice and thought, “Who the hell is that idiot?” Then proceeded to saw Q. Roosevelt in half with a machine gun. Six months later Teddy dies of a broken heart. Gee, Mr. Rich Man, war ain’t so much fun when the enemy is ready and waiting.
Not that anyone in the book has said so yet, but after the Great War, the world watched what happened in Russia. Most Americans were like me, I wanted my union to strive for better pay and hours, but the other issues of land reform and secret meetings, meh. The book describes how in Russia, you to kill the foreman, in America you wanted to be the foreman. Still, I see the pattern of socialists ever so slowly smartening up and realizing in America you can’t bamboozle the people, so what to do? Call yourself a Democrat, change "socialism" to "Liberalism" and go after the government instead. That's the place where you can fool all of the people all of the time.
About this same era, the federal government, realizing it was bound by the Constitution over usurping state powers, found a new tactic. They got into areas where the Constitution was merely silent. Where they can’t stop you from building your factory, they can stop you from burning the coal by saying it pollutes the environment. I wonder if that’s why the establishment insists global warming is such a big issue? Global warming legislation increases federal powers. Go figure.
Last Laugh
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