One year ago today: January 14, 2018, 50 at once.
Five years ago today: January 14, 2014, that dumb bastard.
Nine years ago today: January 14, 2010, I won, I won!
Random years ago today: January 14, 2012, educational backwardness.
Harrumph, a jar of sour cream is missing from the fridge. I don’t know anybody other than myself who likes sour cream by itself. That’s right, I like a bowl of sour cream once in a while. But a whole jar? It’s one of life’s mysteries. I got a late start, but a good one, the front bedroom is mudded, sanded, and primed as much as it is going to be. It is not meant to be permanent, just habitable. So why did
I left a message for Petunia, just saying where I’ll be later. She wants a bunch of information, but her ride was waiting outside last time. It turns out, she had been checking for the ride every few minutes until she saw me. We talked for nearly a half hour. Then she checks and the ride has been out there waiting for 40 minutes. But would not come inside “a place like that” to get her. Fine, I advised, let her wait. You don’t agree to pick somebody up at a night club, then refuse to go inside to get them.
She’ll find out soon enough JZ will gladly to into such a place. Petunia has no car and her occupation is one those nursing practioneer type things. The one where you have to touch people for money. You could not pay me enough. Unless it was the type of patient I’d want to touch me back, say, like Taylor Swift. And even her window is closing fast. Well, she knows where to find me. She found seven billion dollars, didn’t she? Did I get that right? Seven million sounds like peanuts, so it must be billion.
As for music, I found a few of the new tunes so catchy, I did not stop at custom bass lines. I continued on and brought them up to snuff, bass-wise. By that, I mean a lot of the studios have session bassists. Many of them, while accomplished musicians, don’t spend the private time on each tune to really, what’s the word, um, liberate the feeling of the song. I can usually tell if the bassist is a real member of the band by the way he throws out the notes. If you want a souped up bass line that doesn’t fit the music, listen to “Fireman”, the tune by
When I get the right bass feeling for a tune, I can tell by how well it is possible to solo with just the bass. This is important, musically, for a number of reasons. Top of my list is you know how most bassists fall into a predictable pattern. You don’t get that with me because of my piano background. It isn’t just the notes, but the method. Many times you’ve heard me tell how the audience, who have mostly never paid all that much attention before, can recognize most tunes I play by the first few bass notes. That all ties together in a circular logic. To play solo, you must capture the feel of the notes, which means no pattern playing, which means, and so on.
The new tunes that got the treatment are “Exes & Ohs”, “Tell It Like It Used To Be”, “Fireman”, “Knock on Wood” (Amii Stewart), and an ancient number, “Long Tall Texan”. None of these tunes were on my list two months ago, although I may have faked them in the past. This is a stark contrast to the guitar players of Florida, whose lists rarely change in sometimes decades. They’ll write off that comment by saying “bass is easy”, yet I defy any of them to play like I do. In fact, I’ll be you a hundred bucks each you won’t find such a guitarist. This is a time-limited offer.
First class, Maharajah Express.
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My new skill saw came with a demo blade. It was carbide tooth, so when I hit a nail in the first few cuts, I never cared. Turns out the carbide of today is not like the carbide of before. I should have suspected as much. I hit one one nail, like so what, and I kept cutting. The next use, today, it would not slice a 2x4”. Here’s your closeup of millennial grade carbide-tipped saw points. The original idea behind carbide teeth was so you did not have to worry about striking nails. We are entering a new era, where with the aid of computers, almost every product will be made cheaper. How long before the bags of bird seed are laser counted. Carbide, my eye. The points are duller than course in liberal ethics.
To let the paint dry, I threw on the movie, “The Ladykillers”. It’s Tom Hanks in an unusual role, with those guys from “Oh Brother”, as thieves. They get caught tunneling in a lady’s basement and decide to bump her off. Not so easy as they draw straws and wind up turning on each other. It’s worth watching.
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