One year ago today: May 24, 2017, on facial recognition . . .
Five years ago today: May 24, 2013, testing some software.
Nine years ago today: May 24, 2009, Nokia continues downhill.
Random years ago today: May 24, 2014, grist?
It’s a replica. The gun that assassinated Lincoln. That’s it for pictures this morning. There’s other things going on. Like auditioning. Still, the roots of this blog are a daily journal, so first you get to hear about my attic again. Hey, at least there’s somebody writing all this down. Just you watch, one day I’ll be famous over it, too. Wait, I’m already famous. Yeah, but that doesn’t count. I’m not famous with the right women; I’m beginning to sense they don’t even know I’m alive.
Then, I wired the four lights in series, y’know, Xmas tree lights. So when one is blinked, they all are. I was thus not surprised when they didn’t light. Ah, the grunt part is done so I’ll fiddle with the pieces, maybe pigtail them into parallel. The heat is gaining almost daily and the attic fan wasn’t keeping up by late afternoon. That was expected. Its true purpose is to take the pressure off my expensive A/C. As for iced tea, it was a one-gallon day. I used deep boxes so there’s room for connectors.
This work must be excellent exercise, although the pundits say it is not really a good substitute. Yeah, well the inches are dropping and if I get a reading below 180, I may find a pair of jeans that fit. I mean, really fit. It’s been too long. That electronic scale takes a different reading each time you step on it, even a few minutes apart. I record the median reading unless it is way off. Today at 183 lbs marks the least I’ve weighed in years. I have hopes as this time, I also have a change of lifestyle. There’s things I just won’t touch any more. Top of that list is pizza.
This may bore a few out there, the ones lucky enough to have never dieted, but the rest take consolation that you’re not the only one. And at least you know somebody who feels that such events are important enough to share them in a daily log. I’ve been getting my bicycle ready for as soon as I have the energy and tomorrow, day 176, could be the moment. It’s 240 extra calories if I bike to the library and morning coffee. If you want exciting reports, you’ll have to wait until I find me a guitarist. I’m working long hours on that as well.
This morning’s paper had another of those droll lists of billionaires who never had or finished a college degree. (Hearst, Ford, Edison, Jobs, et al.) What a worn out theme that is. The message is you don’t need an advanced education to make it big. It’s an invalid comparison because part of the reason people go to college is to get a high paying job so they don’t have to knock themselves out to get ahead and/or have a decent life. There are other variables, such as the way big money changes people (as seen by others). Plainly paragons have to be different in some way or they would not succeed.
I suggest a better comparison would be to measure what percentage these billionaires represent of the total working population. Then contrast their income to the total income of the same percentage of college grads. Is that clear? If billionaires are 1/10th of 1% of the sample population, take the top 1/10th of 1% of college grads, total their income, and see how that balances out. Admittedly, gathering the data could be a challenge. But my guess is college grads easily swamp the billionaires combined.
Either way, I wish these newspapers would quit with the implication that you don’t need schoolin’. It’s sending your average youth the completely wrong notion.
Breakfast in Paris.
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You may get two music reports. A before and after of the Winter Haven audition. I weed out the dreamers as best I can beforehand. At this stage, the things to watch for are first, an unemployed lead player who needs work. Second, a guitarist who thinks he will win you over to his material so he can be the star. Third, like my last round, the ones who can’t or won’t learn new material. Having them play along to a few two-chord specials usually reveals any of these conditions. The one possibility that vexes me is comping. Normally I don’t allow it, but sometimes you get a guy who can do it damn well. It demotes the whole band but it gets you out there. Return for the results.
I put the new miter saw to work as a chop saw. It works great for that. The maximum length of cut is 5.5” but it churns out perfect replicates as fast as you feed it. While up there I further drilled and cinched up the carriage bolts that hold the new wall in place. All told, this was the heaviest work I’ve done in years and now I’m tired.
Want to hear something gory? Why not? Last day I got a sliver in my left thumb, right where I pick up nails. So I had to extract it, which involved rupturing the skin, leaving a tiny but tender damaged cut. Today, I get another sliver, in the identical location, went right in the same hole, only quite a bit deeper. Took two minutes for the howling to die down.
This will be the latest starting audition for me ever, 8:30PM. The guy is married, has a job, and waits until the kids are asleep. I wonder how that will work for gigs? He also is affiliated with the church music side of things and I’ve not have much luck with that before. My show is PG-13, but it involves a lot of playing in seedy bars when times are lean. I mapquested the address and whaddayano, it’s only ten blocks from the pavilion I was playing at. But it was also at a church. It’s a middle class part of town. Hey, I’m a middle class kind of guy, only much better-looking, and I know how to type. And I get to date upper class women a lot, given the opportunity. The guy sounds sharp. I’m aware that family always comes first. It’s a go-ahead in a few hours, please check back.
ADDENDUM
Guitar-wise, the guy is virtually ideal. We breezed through fifteen tunes in 90 minutes, on the spot playing them better than my last guitarist could on a good day. If it’s a go, we’ll be out gigging in a few weeks and in demand for top dollar. Having said that, what could go wrong? Plenty. First off, I was right about family, he has to check this and that with the wife, never a good sign. That factor is, when present, a weak link in the chain. Is she going to let him out of the house late on Friday nights to go party in a drinking establishment? He’d best not be recruiting for the church, something I balk at, the more so when he appeared to not know some of the more famous tunes. He’s only ten years younger, so the exposure should be nearly 100%. If you were alive in the 90s, you know Dwight Yoakum.
Let’s you and me (great grammar, huh?) tread lightly and keep our eyes peeled. He knows the circle of fifths, all the chord relationships, and grasped my method quite readily. (But as usual, it still must be learned because it isn’t natural to most new people.) Although I had to give instructions on how to pick out the drum beat, I’ve seen that before how many times. Remember, my rhythm guitar player is strumming the drum pattern, not the guitar parts. As soon as he heard the results, his flabber was gasted. This is where I get my claim that I can make any guitar player “sound like a million bucks”. And he did to his own amazement.
The next step is to get him copies of the music to see how rapidly he gloms on to it. I don’t foresee any problems there. Are things too good to be true? No, that would be if Taylor Swift wanted in, that would be too good. At promptly 10:00PM, he got a phone call from home. He is enthused and instinctively bowed to my massive head start with this. He managed a few harmony notes and could time after time spot new aspects to the music— but only after they were pointed out. Did you spot the significance there? This is an important developmental stage, I know people who’ve played for decades who never noticed things that I consider the essence of entertainment.
Examples? Sure, he could now detect the tipping points, the times you emote to fill the tip jar. He’s now aware of the tempos that get people dancing and which get them singing. And how it sounds like there are three to four instruments playing. Why never to play exactly the same riff I am, when to add quick transition chops that fit. And importantly, how to capture the texture of a song without altering its character. In each instance, he only had to shown once. Contrast that to the last person, who 21 weeks later was still comping on stage.
Yes, this is a lot of eggs in one basket. I made certain to demonstrate the effectiveness of every claim in my advertisement because musicians know other musicians. Around a quarter of guitar players never believe what I say and they need be sidestepped, since closed-mindedness is never the mark of the capable. It all added up, but what can I say? The total seemed a little too high? I can’t shake my misgivings over why he’d never heard of “Jambalaya” or never played “Midnight Special” before, unless all he’s played is church music. But he could be trying to get away from that. Otherwise, it would represent a lie, since my ad states one must already know, love, and play the country classics. He asked about how much to expect, money-wise, and you would have been proud of the way I said $150 per gig to start, but about twice that if it’s a religious function.
Oh well, I have four further auditions pending. I emphasized this is a Friday night club band and destined to remain so. As well as it went, I can’t shake the sense of an ulterior motive somewhere. But hey, nothing worthwhile ever goes 100%. On the other hand, I’ve had enough learning experiences in this field. Hmmmm.
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