One year ago today: April 23, 2018, 20 weeks old.
Five years ago today: April 23, 2014, third most dangerous.
Nine years ago today: April 23, 2010, CAV exploring.
Random years ago today: April 23, 2013, talk about photoshop.
We’re not going anywhere without a photo of that chicken pie. Fact is, I had too much for a pie and not enough for two, so I made a half-depth casserole. That’s what you have here, one lousy picture today. Dang, look at that, two helpings have already disappeared. Maybe I should check the security cams for sleepwalkers in the vicinity of the fridge. Actually, this is good dieting food, although it isn’t diet food. You know what you are eating. The food in this country is killing the people who eat it, and they know it. So it’s a judgment call who is more disgusting, the food or the people who eat it because the government says it is okay.
We have the guitar back from Agt. R. I’d forgotten it was that beauty of a Ibanez, a semi-acoustic with great intonation. Should I really lend out that guitar? It’s back now and I’ve put it through some paces. It’s chancy lending it out to a stranger. But not as much as wasting time on yet another guitar hero. Later this morning, I stopped for lemonade and found an article on Barbie dolls. There’s a typical example of what is right and what is wrong with America. A Barbie doll is a little girl’s plaything, and it is wrong to take that away and change it into anything more serious. Are we agreed on that?
I had chance to review the mail Mattel™ has received. Americans are horrible the way they read evil into toys. Kids are hardly concerned with political issues, sex changes, and whether or not Ken and Barbie have a defined relationship. The company did respond, but only in those matters concerning sales margins. Fringe sales, to be exact. Barbie now comes in Asian, black, paraplegic, divorced, and is running for President on an undisclosed platform. That last one is a concession to the Democrats who were terrified too many people would choose the doll over their candidates. The doll, after all, does have a higher IQ that Bernie Sanders, who recently said that the Boston Bomber should be allowed to vote.
This is a lost day. I’m almost back to myself but can’t get underway. I read the newspapers and watched some Family Guy episodes banned from television. It’s weird what gets banned nowadays. It’s not about decency as much as control. The Social Security people have released yet another date when they go broke, this time 2025. What they probably mean is increasing retirement age or cutting benefits. This leaves all the second tier of boomers without enough time to prepare for anything. You won’t see me losing any sleep over their plight. Not after they spent your future and my present on the biggest credit binge in history. It was always about the money and they don’t even suspect who they really borrowed it from.
I re-read that paragraph and can’t believe that came out of me. Slap my face, something new must have happened today. Not earthshaking, so give me a moment. Ah, food. That casserole reminded me I have a French cookbook that specializes in that dish. Let me find it. Here she be, titled “Casserole Treasury” by Lousene Brunner. Copyright 1964, before I’d ever heard of casseroles. My first was when we finally moved to town and I was reading comics with Charles Jeffrey. His mother said I could stay for dinner and we had casserole.
Give me a bit and I’ll find the most unusual recipe in the book. I’m back and are my veggie friends going to love this. While not a meatless book, I found Austrian spinach pudding and another for green rice. A closer look shows around half the recipes are meatless. Others contain no-no ingredients like sour crème, but that would not stop me.
Christmas in Germany.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
I went to Winter Haven this afternoon. That’s it for the day. Nothing to report. So here’s some filler material. The two pansy bushes recovered quickly, the single marigold is already established, I raked the turtle area, and called it quits. I read a chapter on repairing small motors because it was the only technical book handy, and made a gallon of lemonade. It’s days like this that can make even Nashville seem like a party. That’s the day, oh wait, I heard some gossip. Remember Dawn. Now see if you can remember the name of that course I almost took with that gal from the bakery back in 2014. The one with the $210 textbook, where you learned how to take blood samples. What is the name of that job? Dawn took the course and finally got herself a real job. Approximately two weeks ago. I keep thinking phlebotomy but that’s not it. Help me out here.
I did stop for coffee in Bartow on the return leg. But I’d forgotten the flash drive at home, so you’ll be getting some erratic postings until I get back into step. I worked the crossword, but the doubling in price of the local paper may put a damper on that. Two dollars is too much. You can buy a book of crosswords for that, but they are generally not the same quality. I also bought some books at the church thrift, mailed some letters, and listened to some tapes on Einstein’s theory of relativity. So maybe it wasn’t such a throwaway day after all. I had planned on rotating the car tires, but just the thought of such work got my siesta extended by two hours.
How was your day? Give me something to go on here.
ADDENDUM
I seem to have a blank slate with the new guitar candidate. He likes rap but has never considered playing any type of guitar to it. He doesn’t have any preference on what to play. This allows me to choose what I like, and this might be an opportunity to state what I don’t like when it comes to rock style music. Quite bluntly, I never like Jimi Hendrix. No, he was no the supreme guitar player. And I always thought the term rock music was interpreted to broadly. Bands with horn sections are not rock, and besides, they have too many members to memorize the names. I know the name of one and only one band. They are John, Paul, Ringo, and that other guy. I could care less who plays drums or guitar for Styx.
Nor did I ever like much drug music. I’ve been exposed to drugs and rejected them simply because they did not make me big or small. They gave me one sensation only and unlike the crowd that had mystic crystal revelations, I already had myself the sexiest girlfriend in the county, thank you. I’ll listen to “Age of Aquarius”--on the elevator. And you can keep that “All Along the Watchtower”, if you promise to ditch “Young Girl” and anything by the Jackson Five.
I’m meh with Chicago and outright have a real aversion to Grateful Dead. “Iron Man” is the closest I’ll get to metal. I’ve never managed to listen to that song all the way through and people who do seem to have something missing. I’m not singling out later rock as a bad thing, it’s just that all music suffers when the store-bought bands start showing up. “Hi, we missed the musical boat of our era, so we’re going to double back and become rock stars, see if that works for us.” Old Man Clapton knows exactly what I mean. Alas, the transition happened early with rock. It is just now happening with country music.
In fact, there’s your case study in what I mean. Country used to be a guy or gal who sang hurtin’ music. I admit I’m more partial to comical themes, but some hurtin’ is okay. When that got cohesive with bluegrass style flat-pickin’, even I liked it. All the indie music of today has not come up with a single instrumental as universally original as Chet Atkins and “Yakety Axe”. No even close. Actually, I know the piece of classical music where Chet got the riff, but he did so much for it I’m staying mum.
In a day or two, I’ll give the new guy enough to get started. How to make sure he finds time to practice? I’ll teach his kids the basics and let them drive him crazy if he doesn’t keep up with them. This is how you count to four, kids. I wonder, over the years, how many kids I’ve given the musical head start I never got. Why would my influence be any different? I propose because when I did get any influence myself, it was too stereotypical, too canned, while I had to piece things together myself. Yuge difference, guys. I say again, not that I’m the best bass player, but that even when I copy studio bass lines, I don’t play them the same way. But, allow me to definitely state I can and have waxed any shithead guitarist who tried to show me “bass is easy”.
You would recognize the process. I’m showing the guy how to play the drums on guitar. Takes maybe six weeks to stage if he applies himself. He has no guitar-brain-damage that needs undoing, and I’ve already conditioned him that the next thousand guitar players he meets will tell him this is all wrong. Consider the source, I told him. Not one of them ever got in a band that fast, whereas if this flies, this will be my sixth or seventh time to stage from a standing start.
The guy also responds well to instruction. He understands he will be a star, but not one who dominates the show. He’ll get five times the attention he gets now, but he’ll see me get ten. That’s his motor-vation, and as usual be mystified by how the attention to me is not a big deal, but a by-product. If I have a use for attention, it is to allow me something I have in no other area: the supreme right to pick and choose. Without music, I’m the same as most others and pretty much take what I can get.
