One year ago today: January 11, 2017, my shed’s more famous . . .
Five years ago today: January 11, 2013, the old guitarist’s club.
Nine years ago today: January 11, 2009, government job placement.
Random years ago today: January 11, 2007, my first real diet.
Nothing happened in Polk County this morning. That’s why you get some trivia. Play-doh. Did you every dream of sculpting something with that toy? Guess what it is made from? Flour. Or actually it is the wheat starch extracted from flour. They add water and then some lubricants so it won’t stick to your fingers like the dough that it is. However, these added ingredients will dry out so remember to keep the lid on the jar. Wheat dough? When you see the price tag on it, knowing what it is kind of takes the fun out of messing with it. This isn’t plasticene, which is a clay, or silly putty, which I believe is a petrochemical. I dunno. Go look it up. That’s what the Internet is for.
See the chart shown above. Behind the scenes, the water and electric meters over at Agt. R’s are revealing some kind of pattern. There is a weak correlation between the days of excessive use of both, but a correlation none the less. And it goes in some kind of cycle, depending on how you look at it. The columns show the projected and actual water usage. The red cells show huge daily variances, and this grouping was every day that a reading was taken right around Xmas. Ah, prime suspect would be company in the house.
I’ve advised him to make a note of who is there over a period of time. One must be careful, these statistics find only fact, not fault. Or as Tom the foreman used to say, “Yeah, but it’s his fault the facts are wrong.” That one still slays me. One thing that does seem certain is that the neighbors can see these readings being taken and there have been no bills as massive as last year since. A vacant house next door is always a suspect for theft of utilities. We are narrowing this one down.
Lake Sørvágsvatn.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Bad news. For those of you who predicted it, yes, the lady guitar player let me down. Off to a decent start, but now three weeks later she is still struggling with the most basic material. She has not progressed as even far as a complete beginner would have. If, as she says, she played in a band in the 90s, it must have been one that made no distinction between major and minor chords. I mean, that is the absolute worst music mistake possible, so it brings other matters into question. I didn’t say anything because I will give her one more chance. There is nothing on my song list that takes more than ten minutes to learn. You can’t be still guessing at chords after all this time.
On the surface, it looks like a practice problem. She has a terrible learning environment. In her living room with two or three dogs constantly barking, a shrieking macaw, and she leaves the big TV on all the time. Worst, is her disregard for my stating you had to have a big stereo system, specifically stating no smart phones. You can’t learn to play along with a bass if you can’t even hear it. Well, she’s been using her laptop speakers. Today was the second time I told her no, she has to hook up big speakers. So that will be my out if needed.
She also has timing problems and gets lost during instrumental breaks. I’ve supplies chord charts, MP3s, and in each case even showed her how to strum. This is like babysitting, but as soon as we get a few measures into the song, she’s strumming the wrong thing. And I specifically showed her the circle of fifths on day one and insisted she learn it. She didn’t. That makes her impossible to coach when she’s using a capo. I’ll name the chord and she’ll play that pattern with the capo. Duh. But when I say play the II or the IV, she’s instantly lost. I suspect this woman has not really played guitar more than a few hours in her life.
Now keep in mind, this is not the first time this stunt has been pulled on me. It is the most common lie in the guitar trade. All guitarists will claim to be fast learners. The only way to “fool” me is to have a plausible enough explanation that I’ll give extra time, and that is what happened here. Her excuse was that she had not played for 18 years. But, dear readers, if you know anything about riding a bicycle, now is the time to apply the analogy. It is entirely possible that guitar players at large may feel they have a right to get into a band by this method.
Here’s the quick recap of the events. Today was session number four. The first three were grouped together a few days apart. So close, in fact, that I was allowing time for her to get back into step. She was learning a new method and new music, so you cut her some slack. How suspicious, though, that she didn’t know the songs on my list, each of which was already a classic by the 1990s. You could not avoid hearing these tunes pretty much every day back then. But I recognized she was not getting enough time between sessions to put in serious time, so I stalled the fourth lesson just over a week, until today. And that’s where it became obvious something was wrong.
We have next Wednesday slated. I’ll wait a day or two and give her the fateful phone call. She must med her ways and show a real improvement. Dogs in the back room, TV off, blanket over the bird, real stereo speakers, and at least five songs completely polished. It costs time and money to pack my bass gear over to her place and I need some assurance she is even capable of doing the job. But all told, I doubt it is in the realm of believability that anyone can close the a gap like this. I mean, god sakes, how many times do I have to show a person how to play “boom-chick”?
ADDENDUM
Here’s a really sad story. At age seven, I became the town paper boy. At the end of my route, there was a yard I could cut across to take a shortcut home across the railway tracks. The house on the property was more like a hut and an old lady lived there alone. She wasn’t a customer but it never dawned on me that she could neither read nor write, certainly not English. Since she never talked to anybody ever, maybe she couldn’t speak English either. She was from the Ukraine and all the kids just called her Old Lady Hudash, rhymes with goulash.
She had this dog, not a big one, but like a house pet. It was super-smart, almost like a mind-reader. She could point to something and the dog, even if it could not see it, would craftily head toward it, it was amazing to see. Old Lady Hudash would sic that dog on any kids who came around, though she had no problem with me cutting across. She never looked out the window, but she knew I came by because the dog was never outside.
I was also too young to know what Stalin had done to the Ukrainians. Apparently she used to live in the hut years before with her son, rumored to have been crippled by starvation. He must have been long gone when we moved there. Mostly I remember how she would walk across the tracks once a week to Hansen’s, the nearest store, and buy just enough food. Another thing I didn’t know was that in the Soviet Union, people could be shot for having too much food in the house. It was a sign that they did not trust the government to provide.
She would examine everything she bought. I would watch her shop because she was always the first to try anything new. Especially any bread products, but never anything sweet. She wore those dresses you see in old photos, always looking bundled up and wearing two or three handkerchiefs tied over her head even in the summer. Mrs. Hansen would always show her the change coin by coin, so possibly Old Lady Hudash could not count, either.
One day, just before I was twelve, I was cutting across the tracks and I saw some pieces of bread on the ground. When I got home, I mentioned somebody must have dropped a sandwich by the railway tracks. That’s when I learned a few hours earlier Old Lady Hudash had been carrying her groceries home when the train hit her. They said she had so many handkerchiefs on she didn’t hear the train whistle. But that is crazy. After that, the hut was abandoned and I never saw the dog again, either.
Last Laugh
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
