February 10, 2018

Yesteryear
One year ago today: February 10, 2017, finally, my 30-ton.
Five years ago today: February 10, 2013, the old club is dying.
Nine years ago today: February 10, 2009, that's half the working population.
Random years ago today: February 10, 2010, a DNS transcript, always acerbic.

           Ready for the bad news? The wall is coming down. It’s as much the error as the question why did I make the same error twice in a row. I’ll run through the procedure, if you spot what I’m missing, tell me and tell me today. Leave a comment. Okay, I do not rely on a tape measure for inside measurement. I take two sticks that over lap and are held by two brackets, one of which has a thumbscrew. I walk the length of the intended position, taking the shortest measurement as my benchmark, then twisting the sticks together with the thumbscrew. I subtract another 3/8” and that is the height my partition.

           To triple check, I take a second measurement with the stick and compare it to the first, then scribe the sticks down the top and bottom plates to ensure everything is as planned. Yet, when we stood the wall up, it was again roughly 1-1/2” too long. The wall has to come down, all the studs trimmed and put back. About a day’s work for me. The only bright spot is I used screws, making disassembly quite easy. It has to come down because overnight the building settled back and it is pushing up on the existing structure.
           It has to be done now, since there is a lot of wiring eventually going into that wall.

           Then I went downtown to discover the post office is closed. This must be another one of those eastern holidays or Chinese New Year or something. That’s the point I said to hell with this and went all the way to north Bartow for a coffee. Good, because even Windows as pissing me off again. There is some mysterious gimp feature that resets the margins to some weird-ass stupid setting that nobody uses. It’s doubly hated around here because I don’t look at the screen when I’m typing. Like all style settings, there’s no telling where it came from, but you cannot turn the bastard off. See graphic.

           That’s another comment somebody could send. How to work that “style page”, particularly how to get rid of the horrid settings that are already there. Somebody out there must know something. The MicroSoft manual and help feature are worded so goofy as to be junk and the answer does not address the problem being queried. The closest I’ve managed is to set a page like what I want, then click on save this setting. Then keep making it the default until finally it actually does.

Picture of the day.
Crossing the Volga (Saratov)
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           Before I get to music matters, take a peed at my African spike fence. It is behind the pile of living room oak flooring boards under the blue tarp. That was supposed to be temporary. Now music, which will continue to dominate all my spare time until this band sinks or swims. Whatever the holdup is, I cannot allow it to become any more serious. The last three consecutive practices have produced no worthwhile results. She knows it. Time for some intense management, I say. This ain’t my first obstacle.

           To make sure I was not asking too much of the guitarist, I plunked down with my six-string and went through the song list. No hitches, it really is that easy. I can play a distinguishing strum to everything there. My thinking is that if I can do it, why should not a person who is a guitar player do it even better and faster? This has to be answered before we can continue. There is nothing on that list that should take more than a few minutes to learn, therefore we are dealing with some other situation here. Even when I repeatedly show her how to do it the easy way, by the following week it is like she lost it. Maybe a video of what we go over each week could be a good start. Something to refer to. But dammit, that is a lot of extra work for me. She says she has recording equipment and all the gear, but I’ve never seen it. What I have seen is that she does not know how to change any settings on her laptop.
           My aching muscles tell me I’m already putting in more than my fair share. Last evening I wanted to read, but flopped down and slept through until 5:30AM this morning. I don’t get paid to miss the precious few Fridays I have left. I’ve heard all that nonsense that to make it you have to put in 110% and go the extra mile. Yeah, well I’ve been doing that for 95% of my life, so I don’t need any reminders over what has already become routine. What’s wrong with the other person shouldering the load once in a while? This time things started well enough, but it has already begun to drag along. There are no bad bands, just bad managers. (Pssst, New York - good managers know when to call it quits.)

           It’s all I can do to define the holdup. There is more to it than simply not grasping the concept, because I know she already has. But this rehearsal, she was not only comping, she was comping very badly. Dragging every song down to a fixed speed and seemingly unable to stop and get back on time. This is adding up to either giving one more chance, or putting in on the back burner saying call me when you get this and see if I’m still available. Because once again, all my guitar work I had done on my solo act is poof, gone. There is the possibility that she is not practicing at all, and trying to learn the material during rehearsals, but not only is she way smarter than to try that stunt, she can play the endings as I’ve arranged them.
           There is a plan that’s worked before. To just carry on and get the show on stage. Then the world can see the other person is not ready. The embarrassment factor takes over and they learn their parts. They also sometimes quit and never go near a stage again. I guess what I’m saying is I’ve done it before. Get up there and play the whole night in perfect timing while the guitarist struggles along like a stoopie-doop. The danger with that is, remember Tony’s guitar player, Mike? He did that (screwed up the whole show) and figured he'd done fantastic, when were we going to do it again? In 2085, Mike, in 2085.


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