One year ago today: May 6, 2017, “Dunkin Raaay-dee-oh”
Five years ago today: May 6, 2013, real root beer.
Nine years ago today: May 6, 2009, cross-country tryke.
Random years ago today: May 6, 2012, one—300 pounds.
If there’s a lack of pictures, it’s because I forgot my black jacket at the Karaoke last Friday. That’s not the kind of joint anybody turns anything in but I’ll check anyway. The rain stopped my attic work for the day, as the tarpaper and such needs to be unrolled outdoors. Instead it was a day in the shed, where I finished the birdhouse, including removing the nails from the part that needed hinging and building up a laminated 12” roof. You see, 12” planks are kind of expensive and hard to find any more. I’ll looking that the house, and it is a fair size. I wonder what that would sell for?
Then, I built a complete gable air vent out of the pieces of those shutters I salvaged last summer. They turned out no good for much else. It was an opportunity to use the chop saw, which I think I found out why it was donated. If you touch the deck plate, you get a mild electric shock. Something internal, which I can probably find. (Until then, you may hear be call it the ‘shock saw’.) But it works fine if you only hold the wood and no way am I ever going to live without a chop saw again. It’s too darn handy and even my backing blocks when I’m framing how have a perfect fit.
Still raining? Yep, so I took apart Fred’s old electric saw and it was just seized up from age. A soak down with WD40, then twenty minutes under the compressor blower, and it fired right up. It’s now letting some gear oil into the bearing shafts. It will be ready tomorrow to make my new paint shaker, but if it works really fine, I’ve got some other ideas. And ideas they will remain until I get moved back into that front bedroom.
Music. Two things. You have not idea how repellent I find guitar players who are hung up on their own song lists. So what I found was another bass player. Well, put it this way, until he hears me he only thinks he can play bass. But that isn’t the point. I found out that guitarists who switch to bass make so-so bassists, but give me a bassist and let me dictate what he plays on guitar, and you have a fine match. But you see the qualification—he must do what I say. It’s not natural to a guitarist so it can throw bassists for a loop. The point is, he says he knows a few guitar chords and if he’s ready for stage work, fortune is about to smile on that boy.
Second thing is my song list. It changes constantly, which right there makes it better entertainment than most local guitarists. They had another over-talented but extremely boring guitar player at the club on the weekend. He must have played every tear-jerk guitar dirge ever written. Although I’m out a guitarist, I’m keeping to my rule of two new tunes per week, so that explains why I’ll soon have sixty tunes ready. I have sixty, they’re just not all ready. (But I can play all of them a damn lot better than my last guitarist.) If only because I can play different tempos and different chops.)
There’s this one song, I dunno. I played it as a joke because it has minor chords which normally mean only polka music for the bass. Following my advice that when in doubt, play the drum beat and I found I’ve got something here. Remember “Running Bear”? I don’t. That’s correct, although the song was around when I was just a kid, I didn’t hear it until my twenties. And I never played bass to it until now. By slapping the tom-tom beat, hold on, let me correct that. I do not “slap” the bass, but I will slam down notes a fourth or fifth apart, which normally isn’t done. I think I’ll try this song on a crowd soon to see how it fares. What a novel arrangement. Aside to any lead players out there, yes, I’m certain your arrangements are vastly superior. But they aren’t novel. Because, like, you’re using a guitar. And it’s all been done. Well, all been done by what people like you can do, is what I’m getting at.
First $1 billion wedding.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
Turns out I have a six DVD set of TV reruns. Must be from the Thrift out in Keysville. They are titled classic reruns, but I’m drawing a blank on most of them. A few, like Ozzie and Harriet, I’ve heard of. But the majority I don’t even recognize the actors. By mid afternoon, I loaded up the car for the gig and still got there 15 minutes late. Minnesota Duane got on stage to play along, he’s the guy that says he plays most of the tunes on my list. Yep, that’s what he said. Actually, I should not be snarky because I’ve met many a guitarist who can play—but only if he is being followed. I’ve met many more guitarists, like this one, who muck up when they become the one who has to follow. When that happens, they are no better at following than they expect others to be and make all the same mistakes.
Alas, as I’ve said many a time, I’m not strong enough to make it on my own with this type of show. I’m at my best in a duo with a guitarist who is not at his best in a duo. One day I’ll meet a guitarist who is good enough but doesn’t want to solo. I’ve been waiting some 25 years for that. This is the first time Minnesota Duane got on stage; turns out he knows about six of the songs. Sort of. He played a few he knew and I followed along. He kept dropping chords. Six dollars in the tip jar, all singles.
The book “Darwin’s Radio” slows down around half way, taking too long to get to the connection between the Ice couple and Herod’s flu. I’m still reading because it is leading toward human provirus conditions, which is around the limit of what I’ve read about DNA. It’s the first mention of provirus I’ve seen outside of textbooks. It’s like a dormant virus that lurks in those zillions of strands of DNA, suppressed (I think anyway) by acquired resistance, but waiting opportunistically. I think it is linked to cancer, that if any entity lives long enough, these virus codes reactivate with a vengeance.
ADDENDUM
First, you mystery object. At least, it is a mystery to most city kids. What is this thing propped up against the shed wall? It is a chicken egg hatcher. When laying flat on a tale, that little motor at the top gently rocks the eggs back and forth until an electric element. I have no use for the hatcher, but I’m salvaging the geared motor, the heating element, and the temperature gauge. It is 81.6°F and 95% humidity inside my bedroom at this point in time. Oh, and when the attic fan is operating, the bathroom does not get hot like it used to.
My interest is my well-stated hope to live long enough that life is found outside of Earth. This probe, another parachute and retro landing, is due to drill into stratified layers to find what is under the surface. Opportunity, the probe, is still driving around in reverse (one of the front wheels died, so the unit has to drag it along). It’s managed to move some 30 miles since 2012 and has found a lot of nothing. Like many who want just the facts, NASA has become a real pain trying to make itself popular instead of scientific. NASA docutainment—annoying as hell. Five minutes of material stretched into an hour so we can hear how hard their work schedule is on single mothers.
Here is also an application of the “new” cube satellites. Accompanying the craft to Mars are two (I think) of these small single-purpose units designed to relay communications. I first heard about these small satellites decades ago and wonder why they took so long. They were originally a concept to divide up the work from the big satellites which tried to do it all. And wound up becoming many a spectacular failure. If NASA wants good press, they should offer to launch my $100 cube sat and let me transmit this blog from Mons Olympia. The first blog from Mars. I would call it “MarsJournal Thinking”. (When you get it . . .)
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
