One year ago today: May 13, 2016, what’s his name.
Five years ago today: May 13, 2012, I’m 1,417 miles from home.
Nine years ago today: May 13, 2008, Pudding-vision.
Random years ago today: May 13, 2009, a 30% ratio of women.
One-liner of the day is replaced by quote of the day. Anyone who uses the Internet for source material knows how repetitious everything gets once you’ve located the easy stuff. It was taking to long to scroll past the same old to find new one-liners, so here’s a set of semi-famous quotations, let’s see how long that lasts. I ran south to the bank this morning, stopping at Chick-A-Fil for only the second time in my life. That’s despite living practically next to one in Colorado.
As for that Freedom of Speech, I support it—but not to the extent where that allows anyone to become a public nuisance at it. There is nothing stopping someone from expressing distasteful viewpoints, but does that give them the right to annoy disinterested passersby? No. You’ll find people who think they do have such a right have obnoxious methods of doing so. I’m in the opposite camp. People should have the right to block speech that intrudes on their right to quiet enjoyment. Nobody I know likes answering the door for Seven-dayers. And no, it is not a religious issue. It is a trespassing issue.
This photo is in the south end, it is the location mentioned last day of where all the trips I take begin and end. This parking lot is the arbitrary terminus, see the Rebel. Not far from Chick-A-Fil. You want a review? Sure. The place is a few percentage points more expensive than other fast food ops, but the better quality is evident. Everything is held to a noticeably higher standard, even the staff seems more content with their jobs. Portions are slightly smaller but that’s hardly a bad thing when it comes to cholesterol. I’ll probably return because they are handy, they charged me extra for a coffee instead of the drink on a kid’s meal. Not nice.
European labor force.
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Here’s a photo of an old McDonald’s. For a laugh. This was the early days, when any structure that got past the health inspection could set up a franchised outlet. I vaguely remember seeing these when I was a kid, a lot of the first fast food places took over existing chains that were drying up due to the Interstates. I believe this picture shows what used to be a Taste-E-Cone, or what’s the name of that place with the soft ice cream statue on top?
You know how some people never learn. I had to hit the library late today, just before closing time, but there was an older woman there who was on the training computer. The library staff will help people with certain things, like how to log on and such. The lady had asked what e-mail was. Well, you should have been there to hear the outrageous advice the library gave her, yet I could see that they themselves had been taught the same and never questioned it.
The lady was asking questions which the staff had been counseled to avoid. Like, can other people ever read my e-mail? The staff told her no, that she had nothing to worry about on that count. That is the worst possible answer. The staff went on to tell her she had to use her real name, and fill in the blanks that asked for her phone number, address, date of birth, and a linking e-mail address of somebody she knew.
Um, once the staff left, I motioned the lady over and gave her the real deal. Ma’am, everything you write on-line is recorded and combed through by strangers. Your phone number and birthdate are none of their damn business. Never use an e-mail with your real name, etc. Everybody was born on December 17, 1985. Everybody’s alternate e-mail is jsmith@aol.com. Aha, she realized I was giving her the information she wanted and the staff were probably instructed to not give straight answers.
I told if she is there on Monday morning, I’ll set up an account for her and show her how to use it. A few of the Millennials nearby enough to hear us whispering had looks of astonishment on their faces. It is apparent this distrust of the Internet and “required fields” was also new to them. When I told the lady to test her e-mail by sending to herself, that look of sudden realization came over that pack of Millennials. Wish I’d had a camcorder with me.
Mind you, it has been years since I set up e-mail accounts. I’m still using only a few of the accounts I set up years ago in case the system moved toward “verification”. For all I know, the phone number is needed to send back a log-on code or something—and each phone number is allowed only one account, I would not know. But I’ll check it myself next week. I’m still of the opinion that MicroSoft and Google have no right to know who you are. I did set up a secure e-mail on a European server a few months ago that didn’t even attempt to bleed me for all that information.
Quote of the Day:
“We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.'”
--Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
After another phone conference with JZ, I’ve decided to build a small shed completely detached from the red shed. A shed that can be easily moved later, to a corner of the lizgarden or anywhere, really, along the north side of the property. This is because the lean-to design will have a row of windows along the roof, similar to the supplied diagram. See the three windows across the top of the door opening?
ADDENDUM
That quote just above should not be scoffed in light of today’s known success of The Beatles. In 1962, there was a lull in hit music from the musician’s strike that triggered the “shoo-wop” era, and also allowed more instrumental hits from non-union bands to top the charts. Think “Pipeline”, “Baby Elephant Walk”, and “Yakety Axe”. The pundits were saying the next wave in music was the new electronic synthesizers just beginning to hit the market. It’s hard to imagine today, but bands used to lug around Hammond organs.
So when The Beatles auditioned, they had a dated sound, a soft pop-rock that had already had its day. Their biggest influence was Buck Owens, also past his prime, so there was almost no decent American band music to compete with them. However, they electrified the sound, and their hairdos hit the transition mark right between the bearded beatniks and the hippies that were replacing them, mainly on US campuses. Here is a rare photo of the entire musical crew needed to record The Beatles' hit "Please Please Me".
[Author's note: for the few fans who still doubt my contention that Paul McCartney never actually played bass and sang at the same time, you may want to review the video link. Whenever he his singing, he plays the most simplistic one-note bass line. Only between vocals does he even walk up a scale, and even then, he tends to do it on mostly one string.
I have never seen raw video of McCartney singing and playing a decent bass line simultaneously. Only studio overdubs. He is a master at creating the illusion, it fooled me so much, I actually learned to sing and play bass before I realized he couldn't do it himself.]
Hence, Decca was far from the only studio that gave such a review, and if The Beatles showed up today, they’d likely get the same rejection. There are very few guitar hits any more. It’s pretty insane, when you think about it, that guitar teachers all over America are still teaching songs that were already stale by 1990—but that is probably because there is nothing to replace it with. No new guitar riffs in twenty years, instead a drift toward ever more pedals and distortion. A portable studio on stage, but no new riffs. I find it curious how every change in music had such a clear transition from what went before—until you get to rap. It’s like music progress stopped in 1998 and for lack of anything to replace worn out rock and blues, it reverted to rhymeless chanting.
I remember the day The Beatles first hit America. I was a kid on my paper route, so unlike the rest of my family, I heard radios playing at people’s houses who had radios. I did not know it was The Beatles until later, but I sure knew I liked it instantly because it was so different than what my older sister’s generation had been fed, “Banana-nana-fo-rama” or whatever that was, the “Name Game”. Real crap. The rest of my family hated The Beatles. “They grow their hair long.” Like most clods of the day, they had zero opinion about long hair until The Beatles arrived, at which point they became experts on the topic.
The local radio stations were averse to playing Beatle’s music, it was too decadent. Songs written by youth about youth having fun, well! That did not pass muster with the post-war parent generation who were raised to follow orders. Never underestimate that crowd, if some politician told them a chain of useless Pacific islands they never heard of was “vital to America’s interests”, they’d die by the thousands invading it. All the presidents back then were soldiers, not lawyers. And the music was so bad, you had people like Franky Avalon and Skeeter Davis getting chart-topping hits. There was simply nothing else available.
The people from up the road came by to ask what the tree in my yard was. Nothing, it’s the top of that 62-foot tree I cut down, placed in a flower pot so the birds can land near the feeder. What a difference working in the yard here is compared to the more multi-culturalized Miami. The young men ask if you need any help. Back in Miami, they ask for free money. The guy’s mother drove up to ask if he needed a ride to the store. She could hear my radio out the window. So I’m the guy who plays all the country music, she says.
Hmmm. You see, from where they live, they would never hear the radio so they must be referring to when I practice the bass. I’m not loud, but if they hear anything from over there, it must be when I’m rehearsing.
Last Laugh
