One year ago today: January 19, 2018, no reason to change.
Five years ago today: January 19, 2014, another song about old people.
Nine years ago today: January 19, 2010, is there a naked girl.
Random years ago today: January 19, 2009, Dr. Sports, that yahoo.
Today, I’ve got something unusual for you. Mind you, it is not unusual here, because thanks to MicroSoft, who have never perfected anything, I regularly lose fully completed blog entries during the save process. Usually I’ll do an ordinary Ctrl-S or click the save icon and the file disappears. I attribute that to some gimp feature. Today, during backups, I found the original entry for February 1, 2012. In the addendum, I’ve post it verbatim. No changes. Curious if much has changed? Read it and see. Myself, I could have written the comments about music any time in the past twenty years.
A long day for me means listening to the radio, and I tuned into one of those Top 40 of the year stations. The program today was hits of the 70s. I dated a lot of women in the 70s, numbers-wise it was my most successful decade. I also changed a lot. By 1980 I was looking for a live-in girlfriend and it didn’t take long to notice the severely diminished quality of the women my own age who were still single. That didn’t help, along the fact that after I hit 25, with a couple of exceptions, every woman I met was a bloodsucking bitch. Did I just say that? Well, it’s true. Women with any quality get picked off quickly by every generation.
That was brought on by listening to the music. How some of that crap ever made it on the hit parade is plain inexplicable, the rock hit parade I mean. Outfits like the Partridge Family and Family Stone just are not rock, and neither are Gordon Lightfoot and Barbara Streisand. There seems to be one common thread to most solo artists of the time—they grew up near recording studios. Where others with far more talent had to get to the studios and pay rent until “discovered”, the advantage of living nearby is undeniable. Myself, I grew up 350 miles from the nearest studio, and in any case all my income went to food and shelter. (I wore the same clothes from age 13 to 22.)
The commercials were equally annoying, followed closely by the news. One thing I don’t care for is charities who advertise. They must obviously make a profit at it or would they bother? Gotcha! The broadcasts I find worst are the outfits wanting money for rehab, etc. Where as I agree that a lot of people die from alcohol abuse, drug overdose, and homosexual diseases, I do not agree that there is any epidemic. Quite the contrary. I believe that exactly the right number of people die from such things.
So as to stop today’s post from being totally about the house and yard, here is a photo I believe might be new to this blog because of where I found it. (On a hard drive that has not been touched since the photos were taken.) Note the censorship in place, I think this was around 2008, long before face recognition was anticipated to be the threat it is today. Well, I mean I saw that facial software would be abused, but most people did not. That is not my stunt double, that is me, so let Facebook find it impossible to book my face. Bwaaa-ha-ha-ha!
I believe this was in 2008 but I don’t recall the gig. That’s the Awesome Arnel, he’s famous so you get his mug shot. Where was that? I see the McDonald’s sign in the distance and a stadium light. Arnel is ten times the musician I am, but that did not get him into the big league. I believe if we had formed the duo shown here, we’d have gone places. I’m guessing the date, so I watermarked it in July. He’s disappeared, likely back to Brazil. Remind me to check on-line. I still owe him twenty bucks.
Mysterious Mars streaks.
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Simple as that, we got us four gallons of used paint. Plus some stain, primer, and stripper. It’s a small driveway at the household recycling center. You park and walk over to this shelf of paint and there is a cabinet next to it with insecticides and other toxic material. Help yourself. I’d suggest if you are fussy, get there early. I was primarily after a cheap undercoat that approximated the existing color, depicted here already cut in. I’ll have the second coat done by later this afternoon.
Said she was a painting contractor and tried to engage me in that conversation. Just by the approach, you can tell she is not even in the same league. Plus, she looked a bit like the younger sister of Aunt Bea. I am not going to be the one to tell here they don’t really make stretch blue jeans for your average forty-five year old woman. Who is some 30 pounds overweight. I know, because I am 44 pounds overweight.
As for me, it is siesta time. When hunger strikes, it’s a good method to not endure it. A hot cup of tea or coffee and a good afternoon nap. I called JZ again, he has Petunias number but says he won’t call until “he’s there”. What does that mean, dude? He can’t be here this time while I’m away because he’s waited so long the circumstances are no longer the same. I further cleared out the white shed so I have at least some working space inside. None of these photos are taken yet, I’m using the mild weather to get all the sweaty work done.
The second coat is drying. Overall, I don’t care for the color, but it is a great match for the grey-black of the other walls. That was my afternoon except for a break to play bass and watch a half-hour of “Stepford Wives”. It’s funny but in a perverse way. A scientist turns women into perfect wives by programming them to do what men want. Now, hold on, I detect a little satire, irony, sarcasm, and a lot of biting wit. Of course there is a woman who objects because that mode doesn’t let her be herself. The implication is that the perfect wife and the self-actualized woman cannot co-exist.
At around one hour into the movie, she gets into the time-worn, “Can a robot say I love you?” mode. And he’s like, no, but neither have you in the past five years. It would be better to ask the men what they wanted, and the consensus is they would prefer the perfect wife over the perfect woman. It sounds harsh, but are they not just saying they want the person who promised them to be a partner actually act like one all the time instead of just when they are in the mood?
Predictably, the programs get turned off and the wives, instead of simply going and getting the hubby another beer when asked, go into total bitch mode. They all start arguing, isn’t marriage wonderful?
ADDENDUM
[Author’s note: this is a post that went missing on February 1, 2012. When that occurs, a new post is written and things carry on. It might make more sense to publish this on February 1 this year, but the blog is not set up very well to do that. It is a daily journal focused on the immediate events of the day.
What’s with all the sudden curiosity about a heart attack? No two are alike, even my own. As far as I know, the only other objective non-medical chat about the experience was Louis Grizzard, and he passed on in 1994. His condition was quite different; he had detectable valve problems and underwent replacement surgery. I was wide awake during all mine. But, let me get one of Louis’ books and I’ll point out any similarities.
Okay. No angels, no lights getting brighter. A terrible sense of knowing something is absolutely wrong, if you don’t get help, you are a goner. The pain is totally internal and does not ebb. Your life does not flash before your eyes, there are no revelations. But you are quite aware that each heartbeat is weak and may be the last. He got warnings as far back as 1946. I got nothing.
[Author’s note: My attacks all occurred while I was sleeping, and thus I rarely take medicines that work while I am asleep. If they dull the senses, I may not wake up, simple as that. Louis lost weight, I gained weight. He dislikes hospital food, I think it is quite good. He had symptoms; I had no warning.
I’ve since learned that my condition (basically a broken heart) commonly has no advance indicators except an insidious sense of loss (that is true), which causes undetectable stress (you don’t feel a thing), which in turn weakens the heart blood vessels (I have six stents). I am quite aware of what caused the problem, but all records from August 1987 to May 1995 got drowned in a fire.]
Sawyer Brown moves to the next level. His original can be arranged for duet as there are five voices that predominate the original, in the key of E. Other arrangements add little, so Brown’s version wins out because of the chunky guitar line that can be faked on the bass.
“The Race Is On” represents the more complicated side of what can be done in a duo. We are still at the stage of working together, and this tune involves working apart. That means each voice is syncopated and only when played together do you get a sense of what is going on. We already do that in “These Boots” though that is the definition of easy.
Brown’s instrumental break has to be faked. Here again, I will incur the wrath of guitarists by playing lead on the bass. We cannot simply do a Hippie, with a high-note wailing lead solo that castrates the song by dropping the rhythm chops. There will be no disguising the role reversal, as the guitar riff spans an octave range not found on the bass. That means I have to compress it, making it more obvious what is going on.
Take note, however, that when Trent and I played our two current tunes that employ this technique, the effect was more than pleasing. Those tunes are “Love Me Tonight”, and “Tennessee Flat Top Box”. Don’t make the error of thinking we pick out the bass part and the guitar part, then slap the two back together and call it playing the song. 
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