One year ago today: October 15, 2022, ground turkey, the treat.
Five years ago today: October 15, 2018, happy, safe, & secure.
Nine years ago today: October 15, 2014, there is little . . . .
Random years ago today: October 15, 2013, we’re not stupid-friendly.
Not that you need proof rats will eat anything, but I forgot my laundry basket outside overnight. I now have five fewer sweaty t-shirts and pairs of shorts. Still got your appetite? For a change, it was eggs for breakfast and plenty of moving materials around all morning. I planted two new avocados, the ones where the seeds show signs of cracking and braced the utility shelf on the deck. I dragged the old ampeg out and it is fried. But that is still a great speaker inside that cabinet. I’ve got much else to do before that gets attention. No word back from anybody [the musicians] I contacted as of this morning.
But that makes the amp unreliable. Like a car, you should get suspicious if the rattle goes away by itself. Here’s a picture of the last gig at the Pavilion. No, that’s not a groupie, read below to find out where she is besides in this picture. The word is the crowd liked the show but the manager/owner, who has never heard us, did not think live music was suitable. No reasons given. Over here, it is fall termite season (way nicer than in the spring) which will soon be followed by vermin season, then a cold winter is predicted. I know it is nice outside these days, a month earlier than usual. Global warming, my eye.
She does represent the gals you get to know in a band, however. She’s married with kids in their twenties, but a lot easier on the eyes than most. In a sense, playing in a band after you are 40 is a lot like dating women 15 years younger. I do it all the time, but for most men it is a tradeoff. I cannot conceive of dating women my own age, I mean, have you seen them? On the other hand, I don’t do tattoos, piercings, day-glo hair, or fembots either. So for me, music is great. Where other guys lose is they see “putting up” with immaturity as a sacrifice and the only alternative is to date older women. I choose the third option. That is, if you can’t date exciting women, don’t date at all. Well, I say that, but it’s never happened around here for any duration.
Now pay attention here because there is plenty I am not saying. Gab social is offering shares and my rule is to not invest in mysteries. So I’ve been watching what they do different, and it appears they don’t censor. Do I invest? Will they produce the next MicroSoft millionaires? I found something interesting that’s way off the usual path these things take—the brand of people who use Gab are a group I’ve not been around in numbers since my early teens. Allow me to explain.
Back in Texas, the schools gave ninth-graders some aptitude tests, and these were heavy duty. It determined whether you took math or shop. Of course, nobody told the students how critical this was. We are talking two days of testing and one of those tests was called something like “spatial recognition”. It was multiple choice, you were given pages of diagrams that asked what these shapes would look like if rotated or flown over or mirror images. I found the tests fun, but now the eerie part.
Around a fifth of the class hated these tests—and it was very easy to spot these were the class bullies, gossips, and assholes. Ted W, Nancy M, Sheila G, Darryl G. I mean, it was just a test and some people don’t pass tests, y’d'think. The thing is, a week after the tests were over that group of students were on about how unfair the test was. Worse, they flung accusations how you must have cheated, or you knew the answers, or you must have copied somebody. And of course, excuses like I could only get the answers because I “knew how to play the piano.” Ah, this sounds familiar, dunnit?
Out in the real world, these people never get near my realms, so it was quite the astonishment to me how so many of the congregated to a site [Gab] known for free speech. They are the most evil-thinking anti-free speech group I've ever known, all now pretending to champion the cause. Imagine, people who can’t do spatial recognition winding up at the same place. Anyway, I may invest $1,000.which I have because I have not paid rent in seven years.
Moscow shopping mall.
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The afternoon was “eventful” per music. I was late for rehearsal in that I allowed ten minutes to stop at the ATM. The truck ahead of me had a Cuban couple who took 18 minutes to make a $35,000 deposit. The lady skilfully bypassed all bill count and account limits, it was a sight to behold. I finally got my $140 and drove to North Lakeland. Things get mixed from here. The Crate amp worked fine until it was plugged in with the Gigrack. I think it may be fried.
How does one even survive such competition? By making a better presentation. And that is where I report excellent progress this afternoon. Around ten tunes “fell into place” as the Prez is beginning to embrace the less-is-more concept. It involves becoming comfortable with playing a version of the tune that you might not want to try solo.
Randy, we found him. But his drumming days are over. I recognized him, barely. He was always skinny yet lost another 35 pounds. We talked for an hour and he knows even if he recovers, even light duty is out of the question. He’s got a pacemaker now and his arms are losing mobility. On the up side, he now gets three pensions. He was an autoworker before 2007 when they mucked the pension plan. And he worked with Jones, the big Tennessee construction outfit for years, and to whom it is rumored he is related. He bought his mobile home for $6,500 and just turned down an offer of $50,000.
That still means he’s selling, he has more family down south near Ft. Lauderdale. Randy’s no dumbie, he knows he’ll need somebody to care for him soon. He reports Dave, the keyboardist, got back with our old guitar player and joined an Elvis show. I saw the ad in the musician’s listing and predictably, that did not last long. Particularly with that guitarist, I told you about the guy, he only wants to shred. Let me count on my fingers, he’s be 40-ish now without a solid work history. But, if I did not ask these guys to at least try things my way, I’d be remiss.
Back to the present, today was a highly successful practice. The Prez has moved a long way in learning the 8-to-the-bar styling, which is a challenge for many traditional-thinking guitarsts. It perks up around a third of our material, making it hugely fun to play as your ear picks up more than you are actually hearing. Especially his Merle tunes, which he now applies the duo methods and he truly knows that material. No wonder that lady swore we had a drummer.
That lady, by the way, is now working at Kooters on Sundays. Everybody starts on Sundays. The shadow turf between Orlando and Tampa can be a small world. The “business” of music can be more challenging than playing in the band, so now we have somebody inside Kooters who has heard us play. Sorry, no video, as she can clearly be seen in several of the videos walking past the stage. Why, there she goes now, just behind the neck of my bass.
Florida has retirees and many of them form bands that play very cheap. Randy says the VFW (clubhouses) now have a six-piece excellent band that charges only $300. That means the band is losing money, but that is show biz. We cannot and do not compete on that level no more than they can on ours. I’ve spent years developing techniques that are hard to copy, plus my proven formula that the entire band is an "all-arms" force. In a duo, you are more than just another guy in the lineup. We dropped a couple tunes and added a couple, now that the Prez knows the ropes, it is far easier to choose a tune for it’s “presentability” and he sure knows it now.
One we’ve got is Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart”, but he also does a respectable version of “White Liar”. Ha, I have a too-bad-for-me scenario. Usually it takes longer but the Prez has already learned the simpler the bass line, the more-better I’ll play it. I insisted on perfect stops and timing from the word go, which applied to a tunes like those, it’s hard to beat our sound. I will try to get you samples so you know I’m not given to exaggeration. I suspect one reason it is like work to get guitar players to play this is that it often moves away from “realistic” strumming by allowing the other guy to supply the missing parts. That is, you must share the spotlight.
So why do it? The audience. And, it keeps bands together, kind of knowing the odds of finding anybody else to play this way are about the same as mine. In other words, once every ten years if you're lucky. Here’s clip of us playing today. A big part of my point is you cannot get the full effect just listening, you must see the show—and that is the segment of the market I’ve cut from the herd. No soloist can duplicate the show and a larger band would smother the effort. I grew up learning the hard way not to do things easily copied.
Shown here is the relaxed presentation. When I say the audience, it’s also more than that. Once this method “clicks”, it becomes self-reinforcing. There is a feedback you don’t get from standard playing that gives a solid message. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. The snag with that philosophy is most people think they are doing it. Myself, it took me 30 years.
ADDENDUM
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