September 3, 2023

Yesteryear
One year ago today: September 3, 2022, $200,000 goggles.
Five years ago today: September 3, 2018, quarts of flour?
Nine years ago today: September 3, 2014, nothing but suburbia.
Random years ago today: September 3, 2013, 6 channels = bullshit.

           Musical anniversary, that’s tomorrow. Why not, you’ve heard of calendar years and fiscal years, so I have a musical year. Traditionally, I base my band status by whether or not I’m in a working band on September 4. On that basis, 19 of the past 24 years have been failures. So, tomorrow, am I in an active band? Everything seems to be going fine and I believe if we had commenced a month earlier, we’d be playing somewhere this long weekend. And that is a prime motivator for me. To have the option to not just stand around and “have fun” like everybody else, but actually go out and create it. Rehearsal is slated for 6:00-ish today.

           Out to the shed, as normal we will work quietly until we hear some other neighbor break the Sunday silence. I’ve got a picture frame planned, I’ve noticed when the frames are tacked together with the brad gun, they have enough play to be squared before the glue dries, so let’s make that one small change. It will distract me from how MicroSoft somehow enabled the update feature on this computer even though I had altered the activation code in regedit. Each time it gets harder to remove that notice, I am proud to say I have NEVER purchased a new product from MicroSoft. That’s carefully worded, Bill, so don’t go saying I ever stole anything.

           This view shows two of the splines trimmed and smoothed. The contrasting colors are for show as I matched what I watched on the web. Note the trademark cull lumber stamp. The nearly foot of rain in the past three days has caused my kitchen to settle just a bit. The door sticks, so we will be getting under there with the 30-ton jack soon. Feel free to hop in and lend a hand, the coffee is free. And so’s the advice, the music, and any papaya you might like.
           We have a nice box, is that good news. Partially. The good news is we know the spline system works well enough to proceed. The bad news isn’t that bad but there’s lots of it. The box is too small. The top and bottom panels are already recessed, so the only practical way to cut he lid is halfway. At glue time the splines are messy to work with. Although I used a template, the panel grooves and splines did not match up well. Overall, the time savings was not that much but that could change as the splines are much easier to work with. By noon, I had not got to the planned picture frame but got a lot of talking done with the neighbors.

           The radio station is having a weekend of 1980s music, which is memory lane for me. I was off and on in bands all through that decade, never finding something compatible, a necessary ingredient to keep me interested and rehearsing. I probably went through twenty bands and jammed with another eighty. Nothing lasted until I started my own group, a three piece. Originally four. This was also the era when the market began to be flooded with the Guitar Center types, all lead players most of whom could not strum worth a plug.
           Here’s my Ibanez getting a new string. It’s been at least five years because it was 2018 when I last played the pavilion. No, I don’t take the instrument out and polish it if I’m just playing one or two gigs with a group, why bother. It’s a tool, not for sale. It is a much more glacial process with a bass than a guitar, but my fretboard is finally showing small concave patterns. Did I mention that is how you can tell a seasoned bass player? Look for signs of where the most fret-wear is. If it is down near the neck, you got yourself a guitar player on the bass, he’ll get to the point of competence at best.

           If the wear is near the center of the fretboard, you got yourself real bass player. The physical design of the neck means unlike guitar, that is the grouping where most good bass playing happens. That is more so because of the popularity of guitar tunes in D and E. I don’t play the open low E much except as a special effect. I investing in a 5-string bass that had a lower B to expand on the best patterns, but it never took.
           I strung out and tested all the cables, batteries jacks, and mixer for today’s stint. I see I hae a hum in my best microphone cable, the XLR. I’ve long forgotten the mixer settings and could not find the happy medium. If we use the Gigrack, it has eight inputs, but this millennial mixer has some pretty whacky settings. One channel has a gain, a level, and the master volume, so good luck trying to play and sing through it, yet these two ports are 2 of the “6” channels. The Prez will need two jacks, usually I give them 3 & 4, but I don’t yet know what kind of gear he has.
           It did not take me long to notice that mixer fits nicely inside my new little box, shown here, with room left for that bulky transformer. I had the mixer at rehearsal, but we did not have enough cables to hook it up when we had the chorus pedal in operation. That pedal is the more important so we focused on that. We found with his natural style of bluegrass pickin’ and the pedal we have a winner with the instrumental breaks. In one sense, the cable shortage was a positive in that we just learned in a pinch we can play all our material as a guitar duo. And me with five strings, the video from this morning is misleading. I don’t have a replacement E string.

           Yeow, my toe. I have one of those millennial office chairs. You know, the one that if you put it on casters, it will not roll while you are sitting on it. But it you stand up, it will roll by itself, across the room and break the window glass. You can’t stand on it to change a bulb, but once seated, nothing can get it to move. Now, if you take the casters off, that is no solution. Now it will always be too close or too far from your desk.. It will bang into all counters and get on top of your guitar cable. This time, if you stand up, it will not move, but it can be moved, which you will have to in order to open your desk, get a coffee, that kind of thing. It will move with a good shove, just enough to rip your carpet or gouge your hardwood floor.
           That’s ergonomics, according to Tyler. He was employee of the month for that one. The chair is very comfortable to sit in with lumbar supports and all. But not so much if you both want to sit in it and get some work done.

Picture of the day.
Japanese drone farming.
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           Rehearsal occupies all of this afternoon. I can report entire success. The new guy has done his homework and today we worked on guitar technique. That is, I did not play bass at all for the session. One way to know there’s progress is when the rehearsal last more than two hours. It’s your epitome of having fun. We focused on the one full set documented last week and got through it 90% of how it will eventually be played on stage—just don’t forget we are still at the stage things can go wrong instantly.
           We even did the mandolin version of “Midnight Special”. Practice today was guitar work for the simplest of reasons. From experience, I know often the easiest way to learn something is to watch how somebody else does it, in this case a non-guitar player. If I can do it, anybody can, also known as “The Suvivorship Syndrome”. But I don’t mean it that way, rather the way I do by necessity has to be the simplest or it may not qualify as guitar playing. This is a composite photo, a scene that does not really exist, but representative of the process and this week we had an oscillating fan. That means we played until past dark, around 8:30PM.

           Turns out his former bands were not big on intro and exits, so tacking them on is easy. He jammed with a lot of family bands, the only kind that can’t break up over nothing. There is a clear understanding now of the role of band manager and he fully sees the need for it. This is what, rehearsal number four and we are almost ready to go. Actually, there is an opening on a Sunday at Kooter’s on the 24th. It would be unpaid practice and an excellent experience. The Prez had a twinge of stage jitters but got over it quickly when he realized I’ve taken enough flak for any ten of us over the years.
           I left the chorus pedal and the Crate amp with him. A few tests shows that amp is enough for a mid-size room and in any case has an out-jack to tie into the PA system. The entire road gear other than the PA speaker fits into a suitcase. Try that in 1980. There is one other item of interest. We rehearse in his garage, the pinnacle of garage-banding at our ages, and we got an audience.

           A lady walking her dog across the lane heard the music and came over to cheer us. Hey, one person counts as audience, Elliott, that’s one more than you in the past 40 years. And, let me tell you, for 50, she had a fantastic shape. She knew it, wearing what she was, but I must say if all women looked like that at her age, there would be no surplus. Wait for a possible picture, she said she’d be back next Sunday. I told her to bring friends as the band was hiring go-go girls. Guys, I’m telling you this granny had the body of a cheerleader. A slim sexy one, not the Dallas cowboy puffy type who look like they part-time at Hooters.

ADDENDUM

           Paperwork. I imagine I have less than most when it comes to junk mail. I don’t participate by handing my address out to anyone who comes along, plus my policy since day one is to never patronize business that use public lists to advertise. That means I don’t do business with AARP, AT&T, Verizon, and Chase Bank. Oh, I fully agree they have every right to use those lists, but that is not the purpose for which those lists were given. There is one source over which none of us have any control. Medical lists. The bastards make “sharing” this information against your will part of the requirement for “service”. I remember one outfit that changed envelope suppliers so that your name and birthdate appeared in the mailing window. Let the postman know not only your age, but your birthdate because everybody knows postmen are honest people.
           See this photo? That is one month’s haul of medical junk mail. Anything or anybody who not my personal chosen medical staff who sends me anything is an abuser of the system. Fortunately, I have a mailing address for all this crap, but the volume and amount of information is frightening. Who is Lifeline? Who is Aetna Medial and HealthCenter? Do they really need to be sending me unsolicited letters containing my name, a residential address, birthdate, lists of what pills I take, doctor’s information, and printouts of old appointments? Have these bastards no concept of security? Do I need this private information repeated on every letter?

           Banks are no better. But at least they admit they track you by the transaction, so you can control how much data they can get their hands on. Here is my actual bank statement for May this year. The locations of the ATMs is deleted but this is the idea. All that’s shown is three equal transactions. No clue as to what or where. This apparently bothers the current administration, they would love to put an end to this by outlawing cash. All something to think about. I’m back at the cabin, checking the calendar and there is nothing slated for the 17th, maybe time to check back in at the Pavilion. Since it is a separate structure from the attached club, they usually don’t care less who plays out there.
           But I’ll check anyway, because the cop-lady and I were handily the favorites for the short time she lasted. The Prez already knows better music than back then, when she would not sing anything and her stage presence was best described as inert.

Last Laugh