One year ago today: November 13, 2016, but who cares?
Five years ago today: November 13, 2012, on the Qattara.
Nine years ago today: November 13, 2008, cause for improvement.
Random years ago today: November 13, 2013, in Roswell, NM.
Here’s the real post for today. Predictably, Google locked me out of my account and will not recognize any of my emails for verification, simply because no two accounts I have anywhere on-line use the same user name. I warned about Google. You may have heard recently they’ve been locking others out of their accounts for expressing non-mainstream ideas. Free speech? Don’t bet on it, the Constitution forbids only the government from censoring you. Any newspaper editor or Internet browser can shut you off any time they please. Just read the notice from Google. If the log-on attempt uses my password, then it isn't suspicious, dammit!
Google has “detected” an unauthorized device trying to access my account. I did not ask them for this service, but I have asked them to stop doing it. They say they are trying to protect my account from being hacked. Bullshit. They should be using the money to beef up their system and catch the hackers, instead of using the situation as an excuse to get your identity. BTW, I predicted also there will come a time when Google will demand your true identity to use any of the popular Internet services. They accomplish this by simply buying up any company that shows potential. It worked for MicroSoft.
[Author’s note: I never intentionally had anything to do with Google. They bought up BlogSpot, which is the only reason I still use the service. Because most of the others are even worse. But I’m still looking for a suitable replacement. Something from Europe, where they have a lot more experience in dealing with outfits who keep too many private records on people.]
Chances are I’m on the road, but it being early Monday was not the actual plan. I was supposed to leave y’day, but I waited around on the slim chance JZ wanted to tag along. I do okay on my own, but it is far easier to approach a group of women when JZ is on the team. He looks harmless because he is. But he doesn’t chase women on his own, unless you call buying them drinks at the pool table all evening a plausible tactic. His Blazer has bad brakes and I know this guy. He’ll wait till they squeal and another hundred miles.
It’s a nice story of the Americans and their motives, their heroics, and the general disorganization of their military. They fought the big bad Hun, but nothing can hide the fact they were facing only a small fraction of Germany’s second-rate troops. Still, I’m glad I wasn’t there.
Here’s a photo of the circuit board that didn’t work. It’s the cricket thing from Europe. These kits are not a challenge any more.
Maple forest.
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Operation Early Monday. Off to a less than auspicious beginning. This morning I was the walking dead. Mainly rib cage, leg, and ankle pain. Plus a mild headache for weeks since the collision. It’s nothing I’m bringing on, as I wake up with the symptoms. And this morning was bad, meaning it gets mentioned for the record. The rib pain goes upward into my shoulder, exactly where I hit the ground. By last midnight I could barely manage to skip breathe. This is all for the files, I’m not looking for any emotions here. This trip almost was cancelled.
My rule of thumb says I’ve got the gas to travel 1500 miles, but the rule doesn’t say I have to use it all. The reason for the low budget is the car. It bled me dry. Biggest expense so far? Insurance. Here’s the quick version of the camper. Shown are the guitar, curtains, and sleeping arrangements. The curtains are on drawstrings and completely enclose the sleeping area at night. Lost so cushions, I’m using the cPod lounge mattress. (It turned out to be perfectly adequate.)
It may look cramped in there, but it is the same interior dimensions as the cPod andwith a bit more headroom. I slept the next five nights this way and slept comfortably and soundly. I’m now sold on this manner of travel. The only thing I would change is there is no way to open the hatch from the inside. You have to crawl out the front.
I did commence the trip after all. I left town at 8:45 AM and wound my way through Brooksville, Inverness, Lake City, Homerville, Pearson, and finally 410 miles later into Perry, Georgia. Where I simply felt like stopping. I wanted to see the leaves changing color, but looks like I’m too early in the season for these parts. You don’t get the usual trip log because I’m not sure how that can be done from inside a car. What’s more, I found myself continually recognizing places, or better to say, many places seemed familiar. Like the tunnel of trees north of High Springs. And this abandoned gas station in Georgia. Remember back in 2013 was it, I pulled under a canopy in the rain. Could this be the same location? Don’t ask me, the blog pictures have no indexing system.
The Perry Wal*Mart is 24/7 so nobody batted an eyelash. Well, except this nosy old coot who was circling the lot until I pulled into a spot. Then he parks fifty feet away pretending to read the newspaper. Like I don’t know he’s car-camping as well. I found out I’m still limber enough to crawl over the seat backs into and out of the back of the car. But my ribs didn’t like it much.
ADDENDUM
More bass riffs, even though I promised myself I’d stick to guitar strumming. Yeah, but guitar is so overdone that it lacks the thrill factor. I finally nailed that fancy Georgia Satellite riff in “Keep Your Hands To Yourself” but that’s the kind of situation that causes conflicts. It is a guitar part, but it cannot really be played without the guitar player stopping his strum. Let’s run over the rules for acoustic-bass duo arrangements once more, for any who just got off the bus. The rules are extremely simple.
You can play the song anyway you want so long as
A) you continue to play your part without missing a beat
B) your playing doesn’t change the character of the song.
That’s where guitar players break down. As soon as he starts picking lead, the rhythm disappears. Or worse, the dumb bastard expects the bass line to cover his noodling. No dice, dude, I have heard other guitar players play both, it is called the CAGED system. Learn it, or keep playing the rhythm. That’s Part B above—you gotta play the right rhythm. If it’s a blues song, you don’t make it rock. If it’s country, you don’t make it Zydeco. There are some really thick skulls over this, and they can go get some other bass player, savvy? And good luck. Ain’t gonna happen. Real bass players don’t put up with half-baked nonsense.
Which brings it back to my bass riffs. Yes, I do play a lot of lead licks adapted for the bass. But—and this is important--I never miss a bass note to do it. And the other guy is free to play adapted strums, as long as he never misses a beat to do it. Impossible? That’s what they told me when I set out to invent ‘rhythm bass’ myself forty years ago. Get off your tuffets.
I play all the roots and fifths where they are in the original. My embellishments are optional, the required bass notes are always there. And nobody has ever accused me of changing the character of a song, though some guitarists don’t like thirds. My point being that I am still playing everything I am supposed to. When I play a riff, I don’t leave out something essential and expect the other guy to cover for me. That would be a fail.
Most guitarists don’t at first hear that I’m not leaving out any spots. Some make vile accusations. I’ve had many a time to stop and show them that the bass is still being played to spec. I also play silent spots where the beat is implied, but that is not a stage technique for the faint of heart. So many a dim-witted guitarist, who is barred from stopping his rhythm strum gets the impression I am “stealing” his parts. Not so, he is free to play them any time he wants under the above same conditions as me. Come on guys, it’s not like I learned to play bass this way overnight so don’t tell me what can’t be done.
The other type of guitarist is like that guy from New York. He won’t play a thing until he hears you play it first. But then he copies what you are doing, often playing bass notes in unison. What a snarf! This not only steals my thunder, it a less than amateur sound. Jerry, that was the guy’s name, worse, he would only copy the runs that were easy to play on guitar. Once I caught on, I played riffs with a lot of thirds, which throws most guitar players for a loop because it leaves their wrists in the wrong position to play anything else. Try it.
The ideal rhythm player works out a steady strum that enhances both the song and the bass line. That is so far been impossible to find.
Having said that, enter another abrasive factor. Whereas I show up with two full sets of arranged duo music with custom bass lines, the average guitarist has zero. What he plays was already been arranged, like by Clapton and Petty, see. He doesn’t always understand why I can’t play his “his music”. He thinks I’ve picked songs that lack super guitar parts, whereas I choose them for having distinctive strumming rhythms. T
The most contentious issue, however, is the tunes where I play the melody on the bass. This is done for novelty and can be played without the guitar strum. But I don’t play any conventional lead-bass duets because there aren’t any. Ah, I know what you’re thinking, but you aren’t listening to the music. That’s not really a duo.
[Author’s note: Another reason I don’t play lead-bass instrumentals is because there is nothing, repeat nothing, much original about such arrangements. They sound funny, trite. But if you find something popular, I’ll give it a whirl.]
My bass & guitar duets are worked out to deliver the wow. And it doesn’t work the other way around because that way isn’t novel. I work out for the guitarist what I want and then play anything from the Andy Griffith theme to Buckaroo, even Beethoven’s Fifth, on the bass. The point is, they are worked out in advance and of course, I’m not likely to spend my time on anything that showcases him. He’s already got a fat head.
Mind you, if he works out what I’m supposed to be playing, that’s different. I’ll play it, but that has never happened yet. Um, that situation has a first cousin. Countless times some insipid guitarist insisted on playing one of his hero-songs but forgot to listen to the bass line. Then I come along and steal the show from under his nose. Classic examples are the way I play “The Breeze”, “Act Naturally”, and “Route 66”.
No, I’m not going to knock myself out because the other guy thinks it “might sound right”. He has to work it out so it will sound right before even bringing it to the table. I’ll show him how to do arrange, but I won’t arrange for him. And the guitarist, like the Hippie, who already knows all the really good bar songs, has very little use for learning anything new. Ever. That’s why he’s so freaking rich and famous.
Last Laugh
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