One year ago today: May 29, 2016, about your tomato . . .
Five years ago today: May 29, 2012, Billie-Bill at Buddy’s.
Nine years ago today: May 29, 2008, ghost CD tunes.
Random years ago today: May 29, 2015, typecasting vs. racism.
Guess who that was on the phone? My guitar player from way back, Jag. He’s still in college and of all the luck, he still has both my old Fender acoustic and thinks he can find the Dean Markley [acoustic pickup]. Still in college, but maybe that’s what it takes these days. And still the most successful guitarist I’ve teamed up with, you remember how we were out playing gigs six rehearsals after we met. We did Jimbos, Kort’s, Capt. J’s, and that other place before it was Buddy’s. This was a remarkable achievement for both of us, as I had not found another guitar player before or since that could learn unfamiliar material that fast.
I found an entire set of videos that cover the majority of our rehearsals. They show the remarkable speed at which we were able to pick this stuff up, often ready to play out after a single rehearsal of a song. And bear in mind, this guy was, in this photo, maybe 15 years of age in 2008 or so and he’d never even heard of Johnny Cash. He instantly caught on to playing songs he’d never heard either. But, he had to pack up and go to college and this band folded after six months.
This photo is a still from a video made this year, but the footage is from around 2008 or 2009, maybe earlier. The workload was extra tough on me because he was pretty much limited by what I could tell him about each song and listening to the lyrics. Most of those were meaningless to him, putting a nickel in the juke box or coffee at a diner. But we put on a great show for a duo, the band name was “Jag & I”. Weddings, pool parties, divorces, but Jag’s grandmother insists he be home by 11:00PM. That’s the one acceptable situation where I’ll team up with a musician who has a curfew. Ha!
We were on the phone for an hour catching up. He still plays in a band, but like myself at the same age, is strongly influenced by the hit parade when he was in his mid-teens. I know some of the Green Day and I’ve played a few Stone Temple Pilots. They are novelty tunes for me, I don’t know where I could book myself playing that material. The one major difference is he had met me just after I had learned to sing. I listen to the old videos and spot the techniques I had not learned. The most prominent feature is that at first, I had not yet learned how to fake being sincere. Now, I just laugh at that, since nowadays it is no different than imitating a blues or a rock singer, you just imitate sincere, too.
Once more, you get the high point of the moment and this morning it was raking summer leaves again. Three bags full and here’s your picture. What? Well, look again, there’s three bags, dammit, my back doesn’t kid about such things. It’s behind the other bag. This took me nearly an hour and there’s at least that much more to go. But I’m not working out there in this heat. This is the kind of work rich people have in mind when they vote for amnesty.
Annual cheeserolling contest, England.
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By noon, I got to do one of the first things I associate with retirement. I sat in the newly repaired lawn chair and sprayed the yard with my garden hose. I've got a sprinkler, but it ain't the same. It wasn’t all that much fun, this spraying, but ever since I was a kid, I wondered why retired people did that. Myself, it’s because there are no decent women left to party with. What? Those women? No, pal, I said decent, not the hired help. The good news is I have a first class lawn chair to sit in. And I learned a lot on that as well. Remember, this yard work thing is as new and novel to me as my hobbies would be to some average yahoo.
Here’s your absolutely beautiful blue jay pictures I promised. And these aren’t the best photos, they are telephoto stills from video on the new camera. Nor is the color true, but you can see what a perfect specimen we’ve got. See, I told he was better-looking than the magazine photos. And unlike some blogs, I don’t have to exaggerate to get hundreds of thousands of views. Besides, if I embellish anything, somebody would spot it and then where would I be?
Why the hasty pictures, you ask? I didn’t want to miss these shots and had to hurry. See, the bad neighbor I told you about who parks his work truck on the residential street? He is universally unpopular because he is also an annoyance. He’s got this crappy old car that, when he starts it, he has to race the crap out of it four or five times or it will stall. On haphazard days of the week, like today, he gets in the car and goes somewhere every five or ten minutes all damn day long. He’s up to something. And it scares the birds out of my yard, so I had to move fast to get these pics.
What makes this bloggable? Well, I don’t like this primer. It is goopy and all, but goes on mighty thin. I even switched to a feathered polyester brush but it changes consistency when it hits the wall. This is the same product in y’day’s photo, Bulls Eye Primer and Sealer. It was more like putting two coats to get what you see here. And yes, the brush marks around the cutouts are horizontal on the sides, too. I told you, I’m expert at this job. That’s why I got paid more than the roller.
In other news, I files the key blank down and it works fine. The lawn chair is finished, no pics because you’ll see enough of them in the future. The original carriage bolts on that puppy were brass. I didn’t spot it because they’d been painted over, but I saved almost the whole set. You see, I took bolt cutters to the ones that would not unsieze. I now regret that I did not double insulate my attic, I will now look at taking that up to R30 or more. A fan for the white shed is a priority, the summer heat wave has arrived. Working hours are now confined to early mornings and late, late afternoons. Thanks to the gulf, at least this area has a consistent breeze from the west, but it isn’t always a cool breeze.
For my break, I made tea and figured out a custom bass line to “Jolene”, the Parton tune that I dislike in theory. It’s two broads fighting over a man, but what he wants doesn’t enter into the picture. Speaking for the guy, after seeing Dolly, I’d at least want a peek at this Jolene. But hey, such songs were never politically incorrect, since feminists technically can’t be called that. Figure it out on your own. But the next gal who jams that tune with me is going to be a star. And now you know why I write so many bass lines to chick songs. Let’s keep that our little secret.
“He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools."
New York Times about Goddard, the rocket scientist.
Next, I sat down and wrote Marion a letter. That’s a real two pages, hand-written, what is called a real letter. If any smart phone people are reading this, don’t laugh, she knows more about what is going on than all of you put together. And JZ gets a missive as well. He knows that I’m proceeding on my own and that sooner or later, I’ll purchase a work vehicle so that a single loss doesn’t bring things to a standstill for eight months. My point is that once I manage to get the job done on my own, well, that kind of leaves the other guy in the dust.
My new MP3 player, there’s an example of a machine coded by a millennial. The defects are built into the code, the player has no command where you can instruct it to play the songs directly. The only top-level command is “shuffle”. It’s got those strange categories for album, artist, track info, all that horse hockie for idle-minded non-musical idiots to focus on. As for the actual songs, you have to scroll down the list to find that option, you see, to the millennial mind, there is some question as to why you might want an MP3. He has to be told every time.
This means the person who programmed your “smart” phone lacks the skill to properly construct, spell, and punctuate a single sentence. Yet considers himself a “power user” and calls himself a programmer. Never forget, a man who cannot correctly write a sentence can also not correctly read one either. Fine. Until it hits you that he also programmed that “smart” pacemaker your doctor might want to implant, or that “smart” dialysis machine you may need some day.
And of course, there is the second big reason that there are so many dim-witted millennials out there. It’s that nobody has time to go over and kick their asses. As for me, right now, I’m going to go listen to some music—and I don’t give a damn who the artist or album is, or the track number either.
[Author’s note: shortly after the above was written, I figured out how to “set” the player to go directly to the songs. The point I was making, however, remains. The player did not automatically go to the song list and the instructions on how to set the player were not included. There is reference to an on-line manual, but once again, that’s another millennial telling you what YOU can do to make up for his shortcomings. Ut-tut, don’t protest, you might injure his feelings.
PS, the same numbskull programmed my dumb phone. When you first plug it into the charger, the message appears “Charge complete”, before it has begun charging. However, if you just read the message and don't wait for it to go away, why you’re good to go, so just unplug it and drive to the airport.]
ADDENDUM
Talking to Jag reminded me a lot of my own situation back in the day. However, I spot a significant change in society. Today there is a lot more influence of “old people” that has flowed backward into the system. It’s tricky to define. In when I was a kid, people who turned thirty, well, they were out of the picture and it was understandable they did not want the world to change, even for the better. Besides, everybody knew they were just old cusses who missed the fame and fortune boat and didn’t want you to have any fun.
Nowadays, the younger generations are surrounded by the influence of old people. During my corporate career, I heard constant references to how seniors would one day become an incredibly lucrative buying market. I guess this is what they meant. It’s only in the past twenty years you find serious number of seniors at the gym and gallivanting on weekends. The term active senior is not confined to gardening. I’m saying there is a difference these days and it is noticeable once you become aware of it.
[Author’s note: I’m not a senior yet, but you bet I take the discount wherever I’m mistaken for one. It’s the nature of how money corrupts a society but not the individual.]
Last Laugh
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