One year ago today: January 25, 2017, some one-liners.
Five years ago today: January 25, 2013, the Internet is piracy, dammit.
Nine years ago today: January 25, 2009, remember Arnel?
Random years ago today: January 25, 2013, today is Virgin Mobile screw-you day.
It says here that Windows 10 will soon allow you to look at all the data it collects on you. But if you think they are going to let stop them from doing it in the first place, you are dumber than a Florida census taker. On that note, a series of documents arrived today to indicate that while Agt. R is not exactly winning, that everything is reasonably under control. And he is under no illusions how that came to be. I took the day off, my shoulder is acting up, it was chilly, JZ called to say his portfolio is soaring due to the stock market. Like everyone else, we spent an hour talking about that.
The talk is the DOW hitting 30,000 but what an empty gamble that’s going to be. It’s already fueled by speculation, not value. I watch it out of curiosity and from the outside it looks like the real estate bubble of 2006. Everybody thinks they are making big money, but maybe one in a hundred will be lucky enough to get out just before the crash. Of course, they will attribute that to their business acumen and some will bore us by writing how-to books or get themselves a TV talk show.
How cold was it? Not much but enough to keep me inside watching this Canadian-influenced DVD titled “Klondike”. It carefully portrays the lawlessness in Dawson city as due to Americans, Indians, and the English. The movie is wildly inaccurate, ballooning a few local denizens into heroes of sorts. It ignores the reality that the gold rush produced fewer than a dozen millionaires. The only truly accurate theme was that the RCMP had not yet transmogrified into the national Gestapo force. The movie is so full of spectacular scenery that you just know there is government money behind it.
Much as I wanted to crawl back under the house, the air still had a cold bite that sent me up to the library. I did a few minor chores before standing up quickly and bonking my head on the birdfeeder. That was it, enough. I went back to the library until late afternoon, then proceeded directly to another coffee shop. The rumor is there is a Starbucks opening on Highway 98 just south of town. I’m just not a Starbucks type but I will admit people don’t bother you there when you operate a laptop.
This adds up to zero work on the floor in three days. If JZ shows, he’s sleeping on the sofa. But he won’t show. He never takes a break or a vacation unless prodded into it. He’s spotted the general slowdown of everything else in my life and correctly surmised that means I’m getting serious about the new band. That would be the event of this year, getting out and playing again. I’ve not had a steady gig since Jimbos and of course I miss the lifestyle. As for the other bands I’ve been with, they were hardly steady. JZ will show if I’m on stage because he knows that is the easiest way to meet women he’s every going to find.
So, what is, in my life, the second easiest way to meet women? Ha, for me it is when I appear to be ignoring them. This usually takes the form of me determining there are no women in my league in the building, so I’ll start writing, typing, or working the crossword. Then, never the one I want, will come over and ask me what I’m up to. But this rarely works, mainly because their question often has a snarky edge to it. That’s where I tell them about the chicken coop.
Oxford university.
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Now JZ is not a coffee drinker. To me, coffee is a bit of a ritual. That’s why I know where the book stores and hospital cafeterias are located. Though I have yet to actually find a girlfriend in any of these joints, at least the women there tend to be easier on the eyes. Did you know the traditional coffee shops except Starbucks are drying up due to lack of demand from the millennials? Their changing tastes are altering the economy now. I’ve read they are shunning products such as breakfast cereals and other products which seem to have the common trait of being made in big factories. Once those factories close it tends to be for good.
I’m learning how to get work done with the tablet by configuring it as a mini-laptop. I’ve installed Audacity and am really learning to hate those track pads. If you open two windows, a very common practice when you are moving or copying files, they appear on top of each other and be damned if I can find out how to move them apart. I know it can be done, my bitch is that there is no intuitive way to do it. Maybe it’s another one of those millennial things you are “supposed to know”?
Some time ago, I watched a youTube video of two bassists doing a novel arrangement of ‘Midnight Special’. I found it again, downloaded, and went to work. By combining both parts where possible, it makes for a fantastic bass instrumental segment for that song. I got the idea from how I used to play piano duets myself because nobody else in my family could help on that. The video showed the two bass players doing a familiar guitar style question-answer pattern, making it highly adaptable to how I learned to play bass solos by fitting in “impossible” notes during the riffs.
Why is this important to me? Well, I have to do a super-job on stage to even get noticed. This is a constant for bass playing and could be why I find it more to my liking than piano or guitar. I thought about that long ago. This new instrumental passage shows a trend in my soloing. When Ray-B said I would wind up playing lead parts on the bass, he didn’t predict far enough. I’ve often said hack lead playing was nothing more than six or seven patterns played forward and backward. I can do those, but this new solo shows a shift and a preference toward playing more melodic lines. Could this be the next evolution of my method? I certainly like it.
For any other bassists out there, the process is to pick out the melody notes that are closest grouped in the original, but get up past the middle of the fretboard. You want the notes to stand out. Don’t pause if the melody does, rather play as much of the bass pattern as you can in such intervals, stressing roots, thirds, and fifths. The idea to prevent a gap in the sound normally heard during lead breaks played without a rhythm accompaniment.
The guitarist is not allowed to stop the rhythm and you should not omit any bass, either. Both instruments have to keep going, or give the impression of doing so. An added benefit is this type of bass work is how it makes for lightning fast movements with your left hand. This has little to do with good playing but can seem impossible to the audience. And never miss an opportunity to do that, my friends, it is part of the reason you are there.
ADDENDUM
I’m reading a novel called “Winter’s Bone”. So far it’s about some hillbillies who stand to lose their shack because Pa put up the place as bond and disappeared. You’d think it was the 30’s until you find Pa and his bro are expert crank cookers. The language is colorful without being sappy but I already don’t like the theme that glorifies the lifestyle of being dirt poor. Nobody is that poor in America except by choice. As they say, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because both groups keep thinking like they did before.
I didn’t know the book had been made into a movie. Got better things to do. You know why January 25 is Virgin Mobile day. Because that is the day your phone will suddenly place every call on roaming charges without being asked. Mine started at midnight. You have to take time off and go to a store that has the number to call them directly, or spend an hour waiting in the queue.
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