One year ago today: February 9, 2016, one shifty operator, that Tamme.
Five years ago today: February 9, 2012, five minute thinking limit.
Nine years ago today: February 9, 2008, still awaiting the nano-bubble . . .
Random years ago today: February 9, 2014, killing the zzbrenkzz virus.
MORNING
The red scooter turns 9 today, happy birthday. Not counting the repairs, which over the years have tripled the cost, the initial layout divides to $73 per year. Even at triple the cost, that is still only $218 per year, which compares pretty well with the cost of operating a car for a single month. Here’s the 30 ton bottle jack, arriving 60 days late, a two month delay because Tractor Supply doesn’t have their act together. Home Depot handled this purchase lickety-split, the gal who handed me the jack said, on her own, she never asked anybody for ID.
It’s not only 30% cheaper, it is a better model because, as you see, it mercifully includes a carrying handle. This is the puppy that will straighten the foundation of my house, even if I have to buy more of the same. I so much want to finish that back room so I can start on the bathroom. I’m still walking on plywood in there, you know. I’m okay with that, but company might find it a little, what’s the word, bucolic?
The handle is a substantial addition to the tool, telegraphing that I’m likely not the first cowboy who discovered he’s going to have to do the operation himself. That’s a fact, this chore was always supposed to be a two-man job, another tale from the trailer court, one might say but shouldn’t. I’ve slated tomorrow, my day off, for a test run. On paper, I’ve planned a series of 1” and 1-1/2” plates that, in combination, should cover most of the requirements. If something else arises, I’ll cut a custom plate, but I hesitate to slice wood thinner than one inch. I further estimate the most the jack has to lift is 14,000 pounds, better than the recommended margin for safety.
I was happily busy until noon, since I was working in the yard and the garbage and recycle fell on the same day, keeping me running to the back yard when I saw the trucks cross the avenue to come around to my street. The mystery of home-owning is there is always something late for the garbage. I still have to bag up that detritus from the shed floor that rotted out. That’s a small truckload in itself. Are you sure you are learning enough about yard work these days? That’s all that’s happening in the mornings any more.
Israeli tractor.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
NOON
Shoulder pains, nothing serious, but I’m feeling it from the yard work. This grants me the excuse to take the afternoon off. Grab the crossword and head to the coffee shop. I always skim the front page and I see the cops panicked a 16-year-old joy-rider into a high-speed chase which killed his 15-year-old girlfriend. Unless there are shots fired or something, there is no excuse for these dramatics, like, where is the car going to run that you can’t get him?
They really set the kid up, there should be a law against the police standing in front of a vehicle they know is probably going to move and then screaming attempted murder. From what I read, I’m on the kid’s side on this one. If I got the facts wrong, blame the newspaper. All of the serious damage and charges arose after the police goaded the kid into making a run for it. I hope they are proud of that one, maybe give themselves a medal. The poor kid is now a ward of the taxpayer for life.
It appears the outfit began in 1942 providing tracked snow vehicles for the Canadian Army, who, at the time, actually insinuated the Germans were going to invade through Hudson’s Bay. No doubt the stormtroopers were going after that ripe plum of a town, Fort Churchill. Some 2,600 of these snow vehicles were built, this picture shows one before restoral revealing the plywood infrastructure. The coal oil heater is on the correct side, ibut I’ve seen them replaced with miniature wood stoves that were more reliable.
The running gear shown here seems to be of more modern manufacture than the original model B-12, the one I remember. The B-12 had steel cleats, not rubber, which was in very short supply. (Actually, like many wartime products supplied by monopolies, it was never really in short supply at all. It’s not like these corporations weren’t aching to get us into the war ten years before the stunt called Pearl Harbor, where the Yanks lined up all their obsolete battleships into nice neat rows. If you are not aware of how the Rothschild banking system works, you are not a serious student of military history.)
Something else just hit me, but I can’t zero in on it. A memory of some problem the Bombardier tracks caused by flattening the snow. What was it? I know the second Bombadier could let go of the steering wheel, but that wasn’t it. Something about how the Eskimos refused to walk along the tread path, what was it? Unless my memory is playing tricks. Hmmm.
AFTERNOON
I’m going to spend a few moments telling of my research, since it was tricky to get even this much information. Bombardier is a very tight-lipped company, one of those that never mentions prices. I found no records of what they charged the military, but as I said, the units were abandoned when they broke down and cannibalized the next summer. I found one site that showed them in use, but the literature was in Cyrillic.
The arctic snow can form ridges too high to climb, so the driver would sidetrack along to find a likely spot. The pilot, he was called, would then jump out and drag an anchor above the ridge that dug into the snow. They then winched the vehicle up the incline and away you went. There were always two men aboard, traveling along was forbidden. They had an augur they said that could be used on ice, but I never could figure out why anyone would need a winch on ice, which is always flat in that part of the world.
Anyway, this restored cab is far nicer than the Spartan real McCoy. The speedometer was always broken but they had an hour-meter for the motor which never failed. That’s not surprising on military vehicles. Here’s an interior view of the same restoral, this folks, would have been luxury indeed. Note the heater on the port side with a chimney. No way that heater is original. If it was a wood stove model, the firewood was stored under that bench in the back, minus all the fancy cushions. And how do you like that plush carpet? I’ve seen these brutes without the amenities, and this one is furnished like Buckingham Palace.
Nor is there any way to lash anything down. The box is designed to carry six soldiers and nothing else. Any cargo just jostles and rolls around, so each man with a case or duffel has to sit with one foot holding it in place. The circulation was bad as well, the top of the cabin was baking while your feet froze on the floor, which was always cold.
I’m glad I found these pictures. Until today, I’ve had a few people insinuate I was making this vehicle up. People who have lived in the arctic have denied my story, that’s how rare eye-witness accounts of this transport are. Remember, you heard it first as a tale from the trailer court. As you may have guessed, my ratings go up when I mention the blog title in the body.
“Installing mirrors, that's something I could always see myself doing.”
NIGHT
Once more, I’ll skip the Thursday jam and rake the yard. It [Thursday] is a bad jam night for musicians who gig. Not that anybody around here has to worry about that. There’s an ad on-line for a musician who wants to write music for youTube. That conventionally involves video work, so I responded. If I can learn to match things up better, what a boon to my small productions that would be. We haven’t met yet, but the guy turns out to be an acoustic player who wants to join a band. Strange, he should know there are no bands to join around here. Anybody who can play is already out there boring audiences.
As usual, I’ll tell you about this video offer, it’s your part to bear in mind how seldom these ever amount to anything. The camera work and sound tracks on his links are impressive, as in well-balanced and crisp. But I could not find any relevant connection between the audio and video. It was carnival midway rides to some unrelated music I could not identify. He knows how to make money, he says, and I have no trouble recording really novel bass lines that disguise the disco origins of most indie offerings. That alone deserves a serious look.
Just keep your hat on because music partnerships contain a mammoth element of finding someone you can successfully argue with. That entails finding someone who has the “it’s all good” phase of their life put away. Gigging is hard on time and equipment, yet if you don’t gig you will never know if you are good enough. Most musicians live in a fantasy world on that count, thinking it is just a matter of finding the right bunch of suckers to back them up. Joining an existing band decreases the odds because how will you ever find one that abandons their existing sets to learn your music? Never, that’s when that’ll happen.
Make you a deal. If he wants to try some video editing or learn a few tracks, I’ll give it a whirl. I’m so weary of meeting musicians who think in terms of music relating their feelings that they forget the audience doesn’t give a hoot, they want you to sing about their feelings, not yours. I sometimes call it the guitar song “half-life”. That’s where they start out with some lonesome, dreary ballad and pour their guts into it. The audience gives a smattering of applause, but that’s it. Instead of dumping the song, the guitar man will cling on to it until they are singing it by remote and it sounds like it, the original message now lost in antiquity. Like hearing to the Hippie play “Down On The Corner” with that wrong passing note. He should have dumped that song like everybody else in 1980; it isn’t even nostalgic any more.
ADDENDUM
And say, where is the Hippie? My pet whipping boy every time he puts himself into focus. Cancel the Brooksville gig since he has no time to learn any of my music. I’m too old to be tricked into doing his old list because that just takes matters back to the very reason he’ll never have a band. He refuses to properly learn any song that doesn’t showcase his abilities even though that refusal is the reason for his continued lack of progress. (That’s an observation. He’s not strong enough musically to make it on his own, same as myself, but unlike me, he is unwilling to try things any other way.)
Wouldn’t we all like to have a humble and unquestioning sort come along and exclusively play our existing song list in a totally complementary fashion? Is that too much to ask? Apparently not--if you are a guitarist. As for enough time, I’m one fast learner. And it takes me three weeks to get a bass line down pat. I can play the song after five minutes, but I said down pat. I strongly recall the many times the Hippie failed to learn one song in two long months. Songs like, “Last Train To Clarkesville” and “Long-Haired Country Boy”. To be even, this is consistent with other guitarists I’ve met in Florida. It’s almost as if they dream not having the time is somehow different from not having the ability. In music, they are the same coin. Won’t and can’t have the identical net effect.
[Author’s note: the objection from guitarist’s over Charlie Daniel’s “Long-Haired Country Boy” appears to be a petty emotional one. They do not like the part where the guitar practically stops and there is a bass flourish. They do not like that part at all. But they are okay with the rest of the song where they sing and strum. Damn hypocrites.]
[Author’s note: that gig should be understood for what happened. I’ll spell it out for you, then you decide if I’m bragging or not. That’s the gig where I insisted on getting paid first. That is so the Hippie had nothing to gain by the usual stage-bullying practices. I was calling the shots. I declined to play any song that was not on the list. I threatened to leave if he tried the old request con. We didn’t take breaks if new people had just entered. Cowboy Mike, the ladies in the audience, and the staff remember it as the best gig ever played there, it was like mini-concert, yet I doubt the Hippie remembers it. But after that, he never spoke to me for three years.
When Mike called days later to express wonderment at how greatly my playing had “improved”, I reminded him that I have played bass the same for 30 years. What he was hearing was the effect of the band actually playing the tunes we had rehearsed—and that was 100% due to the fact I insisted on it. I rode herd that night.]
Backtrack just a bit, to where I wrote the Hippie didn’t realize he wasn’t the star. What happened is he kept glancing back at the stage wondering what the audience was watching and such. I’m an expert at reverting to “dumb bass player” mode when a guitarist looks over his shoulder. I’m saying he was aware something was going on, he just never realized he was being upstaged. Why not, it’s just a taste of his own medicine. You know, I may show up in Brooksville anyway. You know why? I have the song list from that gig, it is the same song list he gave me back in 2001. I’ll bet it is virtually identical to his list today. Here, have a look-see.
Around and Around
Bad Moon Rising
Before You Accuse Me
Blue Moon of Kentucky
Blue Suede Shoes
Born Under a Bad Sign
Brown Eyed Girl
Cajun Queen
Come Together
Dead Flowers
Down on the Corner
Dust My Broom
El Paso
Everybody Must Get Stoned
Hey Good Looking
House of the Rising Sun
Iko Iko
Jailhouse Rock
Jambalaya
Johnny B. Goode
Knockin' On Heavens Door
Little Red Rooster
Louie Louie
Margaritaville
Mellow Yellow
Party Till the Money Runs Out
Proud Mary
Simple Man
Sixteen Tons
Stand By Me
Stay Here and Drink
Stir It Up
Stray Cat Strut
Sunshine of Your Love
Sweet Home Alabama
That's Alright Momma
Walk on the Wild Side
You Really Got Me
Are any of those tunes on my list? Nope. There’s Jambalaya, but he never could play it right and it was on my list long before I insisted he play it. Ah, there’s one. Party Till The Money Runs Out. But that piece is so unusual and audience-oriented compared to the rest of his material, that I wonder if it counts. I went online to search for the real song, found nothing, so I still play his version of it. Thus my current set has between 2% and 4% of his material, making his input about as influential today as it ever was, which is hovering just above 0%.
Yes, I know I pick on the Hippie, but he is such a fine representative of the Florida hack guitarist. I get dibs because I’m the one who made him into a semi-famous bad example. This takes away nothing from my statement that he is one fine guitarist and singer. And provided you don’t like variety and new material, that’s quite flattering. As I’ve said before, what a fluke that God wastes such talent on a person who can never do anything with it.
So as not to leave without a potential solution, you know what would do the Hippie some good. If him and I sat down and watched the other learn a new song from scratch. He would realize how dreadfully slow he is at it, and it would cure his notion that “bass is easy”. I seriously suspect he has never see a real bass player learn a song right.
Last Laugh
(I'll pass . . .)
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
