One year ago today: September 9, 2022, remember moving the cactus?
Five years ago today: September 9, 2018, in alphabetical order.
Nine years ago today: September 9, 2014, lady/shirt/casino.
Random years ago today: September 9, 2016, no floor at all.
Was it a big Friday night? Nope, no gig, I stayed home and read books. There will be time enough for fun when (and if) I get this band happening. As said, things are still at the point where all could implode over something trivial. There was a music connection in that I spent some time listening to various versions of Freddy Fender tunes. Sometime you get a novel bass line years later when a tune becomes a standard, such as “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights”. No luck, but I did notice that sad process whereby artists can’t sell their music without selling the rights, and now they cannot even play their own creations without paying a royalty to the shysters.
This is a picture of a pile of boxes I sent to JZ to remind him that he doesn’t have a hobby because he doesn’t have the tools because he doesn’t have a workshop because he doesn’t have a house, neener-neener. I said it was a good morning, not that I was in a good mood. I got out there early and probably pushed my envelope a bit. Nothing much to show, but I sunk the post and cleared two barrows of yard cuttings. That involved getting into the undergrowth with the electric chain saw. I cleared a spot for lumber storage, a real shelf this time. It will soon be time for a 6-beer fire.
That includes both the north work area and the dog yard, where the tree guy felled the logs into six foot sections. I’m sawing then down to two-footers which I can manhandle. If you’ve done this, you know it is dusty, grimy, everything-in-your-way work. To get at the weeds and deadfall, I had to clear paths and zones and wound up hauling everything north of the silo and getting paint on one of my favorite work shirts. That’s the morning. Other than that, I made another batch of muffins and a pot of scalding hot tea to sit under the air condition with.
My beard is as short as ever in years. Sporting a new look? Nope, working the propane torch, always dangerous around me. Leaning too close to a spot singed the back of my hand and some chin hairs. To even things out, I cropped it pretty short. Don’t panic, the flame was shooting away from me, not toward. It was 110°F outside, I should not have been working at all. One more thing, I finally stepped through every menu on my smart phone and there is no setting that makes it ring like an ordinary phone. That is a special app now—and these millennials wonder why nobody will give them the time of day. They have not yet begun to catch the backlash of the asshole things they’ve done.
French Atlantic coast.
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The neighbor came over to the fence, giving me a break—and realizing I had put in seven hours that were never supposed to happen again. Good, I did not have to force myself so list it as healthy “exercise-work” It’s library time soon, they close 4:30PM on Saturdays, again for the benefit of the working class who pay for it all. Never could figure out why they won’t at least hold a bingo game there on weekends and liven the place up. Let’s check the news feeds. Let me guess, good news for Trump, bad news for everybody who doesn’t support Trump.
Rushing off to the library, I forgot my flash drive, so could not download some 180 documents received this morning. My long-term patrons know that Halloween is the end of my fiscal year and I’m planning to be out of town. So it is paperwork time and the news is bleak. While the total numbers are still okay, percentages are setting off alarms. Gasoline and groceries have climbed to the danger zone, that is, the same ratios as when I was just out of college and desperately poor. The desperation part is long gone, but the poor part will always loom large in my memory.
My gas averages $199.20 per month, three times the former total, and I’m not driving to Miami or Nashville like I used to. Now gas, I can always scrimp by using the motorcycle, which needs another carb job. It’s groceries that have solidly tripled and no possible escape. I’m spending $318 on myself, and I do my own cooking. Items I won’t cut are quality coffee and baking ingredients. Others don’t seem to cut either, but they are buying their food on credit cards, representing to me the complete breakdown of the American independent spirit.
I understand I make this calculation in isolation and there are dozens of other influencing factors. My point is that the concept of the nuclear family as the basis and strength of American society has never been true. It is not right that government policy should be based on the fiction of a happy middle-class family of father-mother and 2.7 children when, in fact, that has always been such a tiny minority. It’s the same with taxation, single men pay the most and receive the least, though that one you can blame on the English. They are the troglodytes of reprehensible taxation philosophy.
Freddy Fender’s “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” has a super-distinctive lead solo, which I can fake on the piano. So, I figured, let’s put that on bass because it follows the question-answer pattern, meaning I can play both fills. As usual, piano patterns are not easy to play on bass, so let’s go on-line and see how others do it. I’ve pointed out before that most guitar players don’t know the difference between a chord chart, a tablature, sheet music, or a cheat sheet. I used to think they were just publishing on-line where they could, but it turns out they really are that stupid. But I was not prepared for the tidal wave of gomers over this piece of music. You talk about home-grown.
Folks, this is a three chord song (actually four) that does not need a how-to video. But if you post one anyway, at least get it right. This song must be some kind of fire hydrant for the lowest mentality in the guitar-player universe. And it goes almost without saying that left-handed types should not be posting how-to videos without a warning label. If you think mutant in-bred mongolism is on the decline, search for the guitar tutorial on this song.
Later, I went out to Karaoke and sang a few. It was an empty house but at least a few of the women who filtered in had a shape. That did not stop me from using the time to write three letters, sing two songs, and plan out the “worst case” Caltier performance up to August of 2024. You should sympathize more with what’s involved writing personal letters anymore, but I understand the real ceremony here today involves a pot of papaya seedlings and this. See this? It is the underside of a paint lid that sat on the shelf for a year. Yours, from the blog that dares.
ADDENDUM
It’s football season again. According to Babylon Bee, housewives can prepare in advance by rehearsing questions to ask while the game is on. Here are some of my favorites:
1) Honey, can you help me renovate the kitchen real quick?
2) Would you still love me if I were roly-poly?
3) Why does that Prescott guy keep throwing the ball to the other team?
4) Why is that old white man telling those black men what to do?
5) Which team are we rooting for again?
