One year ago today: September 16, 2019, dog clippers work fine.
Five years ago today: September 16, 2015, already marginal . . .
Nine years ago today: September 16, 2011, early robot studies.
Random years ago today: September 16, 2018, finally, kitchen A/C.
How do you like my new Japanese triad tattoo? It says “Long life, many grandchildren, Kamala sucks”. Actually, it is therapy tape. During the previous month, my shoulder blade began reacting to the treatments and I experienced phantom pains. So the clinic says this is the correct treatment. It is not stretchy, rather it pulls on the upper and middle layers of skin & muscle. This partially immobilizes those layers while the skeleton moves underneath. It’s barely noticeable but the stats show this is a highly recognized procedure. The pattern is based on my recent MRI results.
The best I can say it is if I use good posture, after maybe five songs, my entire arm begins to disobey and I miss notes. This causes me to slouch forward into a painful position where I can play. Which way do you want it, can’t have both. The injury revealed by the scan shows the truck bumper hit me below the shoulder, pushing the ball joint up into the socket, where it never fully returned. Two-thirds of the nice therapy pulls on it, the pain is from bending. Let’s move on, but I think the tattoo angle was pretty innovative.
I’m also learning not to plan any work for afterward. You get tired too quickly, even when favoring the treated areas. And with this tape, forget working in the open sun like I’m used to. So, I took out my trusty bass and went over the bass line to “That’s The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”, a song notable for both having a title impossible to shorten and the way it messes up the heads of guitar players. Both popular versions are in odd-ball minor chords, which causes guitar players to reach for their capo. The problem is, the chords are very jazz-like and don’t match the bass line. I call it cross-harp because I don’t know the name of the technique—but I don’t screw up with it either.
Cross harp is where the harp player uses a harmonica 3-1/2 steps “off key” so he can blow a Blues scale in easy notes. Maybe it’s called jazz substitution, the point is if you want to find a tune that shows how brain-dead most guitar players are, try to find the sheet music, tabs, or chord chart for that song. I knew right away every tone-deaf geetar boy in the land was going to get it wrong, so me and my taped up arm sprung for a cup of coffee to see how far they had taken things. Pretty incredible, really, not one of them top to bottom got it right. The common error is they think the guitar chords determine what the bass plays, but in reverse. I don’t give out the secret, but guys, don’t even think guitarists can automatically play bass.
Train in Tibet.
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Where’s my free money, dammit? It’s been 48 hours and I’m getting impatient. To cover it, I say we cut out all foreign aid and bailouts. Bring home the troops, cancel political vacations, and defund welfare. Then we could have $200,000 each. The delay appears to have been the Democrats. While they were not against the checks in principle, unlike Trump they wanted to use it as yet another power grab with plenty of strings attached. Nope, Trump said send the money, which gets him another million votes, not that he’ll be needing them now. You see, even I am referring to DC as Trump and not as the President or the Republican party.
ADDENDUM
The more I go over Bradford’s material, the less I believe he can actually play all that. I specified a list of what he can already perform. He has the “bass is easy” attitude, thinking it’s easy to flip-flop over what he decides. Wrong. While we’re here, let’s go over why this instance has to be different. Remember, Bradford has misrepresented to get his way before. His past shows he has a lot of cluttered concepts about gigging. His master plan is to get people over to his place for endless jam sessions and he thinks he can play originals. Um, even if you can play incredible originals, Polk County is not the place to market it.
Now, Bradford remains the most motivated guitar player in town. It’s his direction that is off and he has no intention of changing. What’s changed is this time he apparently heard me play on stage as opposed to a practice session at his place. I know he’s heard me sing Karaoke. He insists he does not play a lot of covers, but he sings them, which is kind of hypocritical He was gung-ho to get out and play, but as it gets ever closer to rehearsal time, he tends to lapse into his old habits.
When he first said he’s changed and wants to gig, I asked for his song list. He said phone him, tipping me off he has nothing ready. When I asked later, he said maybe this song, maybe that song. Maybe is not good enough. I have to know what tunes he’s committed to before I learn the bass. This holds no importance to him because of his attitude that a good bass player can just pick up on anything. I quit playing bass that way in my early 30s. Therefore I need a subtle plan to keep him focused on stage work, or he’ll quickly start arguing about something. Like many guitarists, he is obsessed by his heroes, real or imagined, and right now he’s on this Billy Strings kick. Billy Strings is not doing Bradford nor I one piece of good unless he shows up at the club.
We need to pin Bradford down to playing a couple of covers. How do I accomplish this? Tell you what, I’ve got Bradford’s wish list and I’ll learn two tunes beyond what he’s expecting, wisely choosing what I can use if he bolts. I can read fiddle tablature and I’ll get my keyboard set up to pick out the riffs. Although Bradford does not recognize it, this is a lot of work. But you see how easy it would be for him to pull the old “bass is easy” scam yet again. If I say I need to hear him play the song before I learn it, he’ll think he’s doing all the hard work. So, what I do is overplay the first few tunes. He’ll ignore it, but after I’m gone they always try to solo. This is usually where these types get a rude awakening—but I’m gambling. I’ve equally seen them think they’re doing a great solo because they can still hear the bass lines in their heads. This is extra work for me, but I’ve walked such tightropes before.
Later, the two tunes I’ve chosen are “Wagon Wheel” and “Louisiana Saturday Night”. I’ve memorized the harmony thirds but have no idea if the other guy can keep on key when that is going on. In case of complications, I’ve learned both parts and can switch between them easily. That began as a help when the other guy forgot the lyrics but now I can switch to whatever part is needed. Works kind of neat, actually.
