One year ago today: August 14, 2017, is this national tarpaper week?
Five years ago today: August 14, 2013, novel trailer hitch usage.
Nine years ago today: August 14, 2009, the old, old Taurus.
Random years ago today: August 14, 2006, my first look at Linux.
I can’t find my router bits and my shoulders hurt. Two key indicators that I need a real trip out of town, and the scoot down to Miami and back later this week does not count. I mean a real overnighter in the new camper. And be brave, it is the middle of summer in the tropics. It’s 6:33AM and I’m going downtown to the coffeeshop. I’m irked because I keep those router bits in a fancy little school lunch box specifically so I can’t misplace them. But you can help me plan the tri, slated for this Friday over till Monday. The rules are easy, it has to be an overnighter more than 100 miles away that we’ve never been before. There is a corner of Florida I’ve only driven past, so grab your atlas and follow along—bearing in mind most of these trips never happen and are subject to last-minute changes.
I see yet another whiney broad who came in last is after the President again. This time somebody who blabbed about what was said in private. That doesn’t, in itself, bother me, but I sure condemn the press for listening to and broadcasting such conversations. Who hasn’t used the N word in private? Or eyeballed some scantily clad sleazebox from the steno pool. It’s where I draw the line and I though Trump was going to make it easier to sue for defamation. Start with reporters who twist and spin the news instead of reporting it—either inertly or by presenting both sides.
Meanwhile, the movie in the background was George Strait in “Pure Country”. It was a fairly credible presentation of life on the road, but falls short of what I see as the life of a real musician. Fireworks, lasers, concert tours? These are the inventions of money-hungry middlemen that ankle-bite anything worthwhile in this world. I’d like to say Strait is a good actor, but I’m too aware of how that can be artificially created to the level he managed in this one. The portrayal of life on the road is accurate enough, but not the concept that it is absolutely an obligation if you want to be famous. I’ll bet you could can the bull and rent a dance hall up in Auburndale for a week and make decent money packing the house every night.
I’m also not a fan of the guitar player misconception that the music is an extension of his personality. That’s crock, people go through phases and one of them is hero-worship, but that’s almost a teenage affliction. Later, people care what the music means to them. Hollywood doesn’t seem to have been able to work this reality into their movie scripts. He sings five or so tunes, always at some pivotal moment for his life or his situation, which I consider too “Roy Roger-ish”. You know, how old Roy always found some way to bend the plot into a singing op.
Another thing that disgusts me is food begging in America. You see these concerts for the hungry and donation drives for “one in six who don’t know where their next meal is coming from”. All of that is pure absolute bullshit. There is and never has been any real hunger in America and starvation is unknown. There is no food shortage except for those who don’t work and even then they have everything from food stamps to food banks to charity and you can easily get overweight in America panhandling. I can’t figure the agenda of these organizations that are telling the world this nonsense about famine. There is no lack of food in this country by any standard and there never has been .
Mexico’s southern border
(with Guatemala).
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While I’m talking music and reality, I made an extra trip to the library before the rainstorm and did some major research for my own show. I admit that I lift piano riffs and use them in my bass playing, though I don’t exactly advertise that everywhere. I pick characteristic classical music snippets, arrange them for single note piano, and translate these to bass. It works like a hot damn, yet nobody, even other musicians, have ever been able to out me on stage for it. I have had a few ask me if I played piano, but that’s more due to my regular bass lines. This is probably not clear if you don’t play piano, but let me see if I can find you an example. Here’s one.
This is the bass clip I’ll sometimes slip in behind any long and weak guitar solo in D. I bend the thirds to give the passage a little “twang”, but do you know where this comes from? It’s measures around 6 to 13 from the intro to Horst Jankowski’s “Walk In The Black Forest”, from the 1960s. If you read music and know your triads, you can spot the runs as nothing more than standard guitar drivel, but I get away with it because most people have never heard anything quite like it on bass, and certainly not in a country bar.
Yes, I play the double-stops, too. Why, Freddie Fender would have worshipped me in his heyday, how he could have dumped his endless string of overpaid guitarists who never delivered. I can’t imagine what he must have went through with that bunch in the recording sessions. Other segments I play include the ‘blues’ ending from “Moonlight Sonata” but most are fairly obscure unless you memorized the tracks to Bugs Bunny cartoons. Remember “Fuhrlingstimmen”? Anyone? The trouble with learning these is they are genuine hard work and I cannot always rely on finding a guitarist who can strum along.
In the “I’ve never seen that before” department, I watched a video of a lady making flower vases out of concrete. Or make that cement, I suppose it was. Sorry the library computers would not let me download the file. She took made a mix from powdered concrete, then soaked a rag in it. The soggy grey rag then draped over ann [large] empty paper cup to dry. When set, she removed the cup and the rag was now a unique structure. If I can find it on the tablet, I’ll get you a still, but you could probably youTube it.
And I’m looking at matrices again. There is no good reason I cannot figure out what is going on. I can go through the motions and get correct answers, but what do the answers mean. Maybe I lack the training or formulate the right questions, I’ve had that happen before. Stick with me and let’s see if I can at least get past the basics. That would be a proud accomplishment, to be the first and only hotdog cart in the State of Florida to be priced according to matrix algebra.
[Author’s note: later, I see that a matrix does not in itself give an answer, but makes a suggested answer obvious. However, that means obvious to someone with a knack for it. It is kind of a process of finding common terms in a series of formulas until you get to the stage where one unknown is found and the other unknowns can then be calculated from it. You need to keep track of where you are and learn a new vocabulary.
Once again, I will attempt to learn it, but only if I understand each step. I’m as good as any millennial at memorizing the process, only I’d rather learn it as well.]
ADDENDUM
Later, I found the drill bits and see I’m not understood about the school lunch box. This is it. The bits are stored here, and the box was found under a dust rag I had thrown in the corner. The box is not a full size sandwich type, but damn handy because of the carry strap. You can judge the diminutive size by the computer mouse to the right side. But isn’t it just the most darling little case you have ever seen? Downright peachy-keen and right spiffy.
Here’s the situation. The Clerk of the Court can’t schedule me a hearing. It seems the cop didn’t register the traffic ticket in the court database. They say I should check back tomorrow, but I know they cannot compel me to do that. I am here now, ready, willing, and able to answer to my charges. What’s worse is they have no provision to record that I was there for that purpose. What’s that smell?
They say they can accept a guilty plea and take my money, but they cannot get me a hearing. Absolutely no way, This is a poser. If I return tomorrow and the cop has not registered the ticket, am I off? No, she says, I actually have 30 days from the time the ticket is registered. Aha, that is unfair because it could potentially require me to check in forever, which is onerous. So you see the enigma.
If I cannot answer the charges, is the case dismissed? If so, is it dismissed at the court level, or will the police computer continue to show an unanswered citation, subjecting me to potential arrest? If it goes to court, I will undoubtedly win, but what is my status meanwhile? Time to talk to Trent.
“Coffee Break at the DMV”
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