what goes around

yeah so those neighbors... the ones who called the cops... they were gone last weekend and i noticed they had a leak in one of their outside pipes. Apparently when they came back, they fixed it.

And then i go out this morning and hear water again. I looked around our yard and found it was coming from their place again. They're not home, again. This leak is jetting out from their siding. So i imagine it's probably all over inside the wall, as well, and possibly even all over the floor in the house.

The only thing i can think of to do is call the water department and tell them to shut the neighbors water off to prevent any more damage. I don't think the WD is open tomorrow, though.

Don't know what to do. The Mean Pril snickers about it and says "ain't my problem". The little sliver of Nice Pril would like to do something, but doesn't know what.

famous last words

well, damn, these things are creepy sometimes.

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

"I dunno, press the button and find out."

What Will Your Famous Last Words Be?

At least you didn't get this for Christmas

One of my friends has been on-and-off dating this asshole for years. I've only known her for about a year. Last year, she dumped him because he threw a table at her. Then, at some point this year, she got back together with him, and a few of us reacted with the rolling eyes and "That's really not a good idea". That's all you can do, usually, when your watching someone walk into a meat grinder for the umpteenth time, because people don't listen.

Yesterday i got a call from a number i didn't recognize, and it was her. The 54-year-old toddler (and i have witnessed a couple of his tantrums) had come home, grabbed her by her hair and pounded on her again, leaving her with a black eye and some other bumps and bruises, and broke her phone. Then he left and she went to her daughter's house and called the police. They called back within a half hour and had his lame ass in custody.

He is on probation, and he had three more months to go before he was going to be off probation. He's much stupider than i ever imagined. He's going to be there for a while, i hope.

first time for everything

You know, i had never seen "It's A Wonderful Life". That's right. 36 (a week away from 37) years old and never seen it.

I caught it at a friends house last night. I must have caught it right at the beginning, but i figured "Hey i'll see what's up with it" and watched the whole thing.

I just want to say i really dug the dialogue in it. I don't know why. It seemed so much better than what i've seen in movies made since i was born. I can see why it's a classic, too. The little guy gets one over on the big jerk with the help of the regular people. Fantastic.

cheesy christmas goodness

man, on the abc family channel they're having some kind of marathon of Rankin Bass christmas shows. weeee!

murf

well, here it is Christmas Eve and WHERE'S MY SNOW!? If i wanted a wet Christmas, i'd go back to Coos Bay.

I want a Gibson SG. Not necessarily as a Christmas or Birthday present. I just want one. It's taken me a long time to decide which geetar i want, and finally, that's it. I'd even take a very good copy.

guitar hero & 2

i hate this game so much. I think i hate it as much as i hate karaoke. If you want to play guitar, buy a freakin guitar and learn how to play it. Hell you don't even have to pay for lessons, just spend $4 on a guitar magazine every couple of weeks and you'll learn all kinds of stuff. You can buy a guitar for like $80 and if you like it, spend up later on a nicer one.

and now there's that singing one? I cant remember what its called.. like karaoke in your laptop or something. "The only way to rock". (i guess doing it on a stage with instruments in front of actual people doesn't count...) Pah. You know, the commercial for it has the two lamers at the mall singing the Worst Song The Cure Ever Recorded? That one.

the inner geek howls

at this thing. I saw in it in a Pop Sci magazine. Yeah. I read that sometimes. I don't get half of it, but i read it cover to cover and try to learn things from it. Because science-y type things are very cool.

The Periodic Table Table.

I want it. Smart Half about soiled himself, he thought it was so cool.

our tree of chaos

ice

i noticed today that Lake Euwana had a nice skin of ice over much of it, except the channel where the current from the Link River keeps it moving. So i went and took some pictures.

It's thick enough that someone had tossed a couple of cinderblocks out onto it and not cracked it or punched a hole in it. The birds are all hanging out along the edges.

I haven't been up to look at Upper Klamath Lake yet, which is pretty sad considering i'm only about three blocks from it.

o boy!

More snow arriving! That is just so damn cool.

Our tree is up, and decorated. I still have some orney-mits to put on it. We will need a bigger tree next year. This one is loaded down. I didn't realize i had so many. Smart Half got all his on fairly quickly. However, it appears that when i was younger, my mom and i were ornament making fiends and there are half a billion of them now on the tree. And still like half a tub of them.

Smart Half and i each picked out something to buy and put on the tree. He mentioned something about he picked something he thought would work with the theme i seemed to have in mind. I think i had just mentioned that i prefer blue and silver stuff to red and green. Just me being perverse, probably. So he picked something silver. But a theme! Hell, it's Christmas, and that's the only theme i apply. Chaos reigns on the tree.

Although i love tinsel, we didn't do it. Something about having cats... there's nothing weirder than chasing down a cat with a piece of tinsel hanging out its ass that it ate while playing with the stuff. So, i don't do tinsel.

I took a picture of it today and i'll try to remember to unload it and get it on flickr and put it here.

Also, i have no idea when i am going to have access to my other blog. I'm thinking January, which kind of makes me pout a bit.

off the bluff

yesterday at a friend's house i saw a little bit of video and no sound about a car going off a cliff somewhere, and someone being inside. When i got home, i checked ye old hometown paper for some news on something else, and there it was.

These cliffs were part of my childhood and teenage years. As a kid, my dad and i walked down there a lot, we went down to the shoreline and looked for shells, and then climbed back up. As a teenager, my friends and i often headed down the cliffs to drink. The spot where this person went over is about two blocks from the high school dad taught at for 20 something years. During the 70s, it wasn't uncommon for authorities to be winching cars back up over the bluffs, and a lot of the time, the cars were just left down there. It got harder in the late 70s and early 80s to shove a car off the bluffs or drive one off. The city placed huge rocks along the curbs, but still, somehow, people manage to drive off the cliffs or push cars off. At the time they were placed, wide cars were the norm, so they were probably placed with that in mind. Smaller cars can fit through the gaps, though.

benefit concert results!

The Blues Society had it's annual benefit concert on Saturday. It was the fifth one. Held at the VFW in downtown Klam Fallz.

We filled a big trash can with donated canned food, and there was a wad of bills in the bucket we had dedicated for donations to the food bank. The raffle was a big hit, and people walked out at the end of the night with a DeWalt drill kit, a nice acoustic guitar, guitar lessons, free gas, pounds of coffee, free coffee bucks, free lunches, discounts on clothes, a wok set, a knife set and a glassware set (which the crisis center won!), T-shirts, diamond earrings, a nice print of one of my photographs, and a lot of other stuff. I won a free LOF, a travel mug and bean bucks, and a gift certificate for the local lingerie shop (and of course they will have nothing in my size, so i'll probably spend it on socks or something lame like that). I wanted the guitar and the wok set, but the stuff i won was pretty darn cool.

Smart Half ran the sound, and all the bands sounded excellent! EXCELLENT! Good sound all over the hall. That's because he's awesome at running sound.

We raised almost $2000 for the Crisis Center.

So a thank you to everyone who came out for this, all the people who worked at the hall, the VFW, all the bands, all the businesses who donated things to raffle, everyone who helped move the heavy stuff around and set all the things up in the hall... thanks for making it a great big success. There are women and kids who are going to have a little brighter Christmas than they might have, now.

rough winter

wow. A rather large wave of unfortunate events have swept through the northwest this year.

Plane crash in Bandon, plane crash near Hauser, Sammy Boehlke, the Kims, the three hikers on Mt. Hood, the empty catamaran, several and various boats needing to be rescued (well, that's probably not particularly unusual this time of year), nasty storm in Washington, another nasty storm which left 1 million people without power and caused people to think they could bring their bbq inside to cook and heat (collective bonk on the head to those people). Various people dead from weather related stuff-floods, candle fires, exposure...

Am I missing anything?

must have been something i ate

I'm probably as surprised as anyone by the last outburst. Of all the things people know me by, being emotional in person or in print is not one of them, generally.

For now, i'm tapping the foot and waiting for the snow that's been promised repeatedly. Well, where is it already?!

My buddy the Beeb is heading up from Oregon's Bay Area (ha ha ha that just makes me laugh every time i think of it) to do a gig at a big local employer's Christmas party. He's coming today so he can jam with us, and doing his gig tomorrow, and maybe hopefully he will stay over to come to the benefit Saturday.

We are going to get our Christmas tree today! We last had a tree in '97 or so. It was a total Charlie Brown tree. But we loved it. Prior to that, i think the last time i had a Christmas tree was at some point when i was living with one or the other of my parents. My mom and i decorated her big ficus tree one year. That last tree would have been in the 80s some time, probably. So you can imagine i'm about jumping out of my skin with glee about getting one again.

And lastly, i'm going to drag Natalie ice skating. I would like to do it this week. It's cheap. Surprise surprise- i took ice skating lessons when i was a middle-schooler. I went straight from rollerskates to the ice. I was at a little thrift/antique/cool old junk store a couple of weeks ago and they had two pairs of men's 8 ice skates. These were *old* skates. But the blades looked good as new, the leather was supple and in great shape. I'm thinking i would like to go back and get them. I like ice skating. I love the way the ice feels as you move across it, and the scrinch scrinch sound.

I'm no pro. I think i took lessons on and off for about two years, and did a lot of just skating around and around, but i can stop, i can start, i can do those crossover turns and skate backward and a couple of fancy spins that i probably wouldn't try now anyway. It'll be the first time in years i've been on the ice. Natalie will probably be treated to watching me fall on my ass a few times until i get me feet back under me. That's all right. It cant be any worse than sliding down the slope on my ass with my still-hooked goofy-foot with the board on it heading over my head, with my left knee next to my right ear, and hearing that wonderful *rrrip* sound.

symbolic vs. actual

I'm talking about action. Activism. It's been eating at me for a few weeks.

When i read that the camera-ready protestors had finally managed to run the Schumacher fur store out of Portland, it started eating at me. What had they actually accomplished? Nothing. There are still animals that need our help, and a once-monthly protest at some store? Did that actually help any animals? What do the protestors do when they aren't lookin good for the TV people? Do any of them volunteer at animal shelters, or work with abandoned horses, or talk to cattle ranchers about keeping their charges healthy? Are any of the people of college age in any kind of program at school like veterinary tech or even maybe working toward a degree to become a vet? Do they have pets of their own? How do they treat their pets? Have any of them even spent more than 10 minutes at an animal shelter? Or donated a single dime to a spay-neuter program or any other kind of program that puts the right people in the right places to do things that tangibly help animals?

The Schumacher fur store protests were purely symbolic and mostly devoid of any real action taken to help any kind of animal. People will always buy fur. We don't buy as much as we used to, but i don't see us stopping the practice any time soon. So they ran the store out of downtown. Big Woop.

I correspond with Strayer at Cat Eyes. She's a great lady. She puts her money where her mouth is, and she surely doesn't have a whole lot of money to be cramming down her gullet. Her focus is on cats, and i would bet that if she could afford it or make it happen somehow, she might expand to other animals. (Let me know if i'm wrong on that Strayer, but i believe it about you). But the fact is that she goes out and traps strays and ferals and fixes them and finds homes for them, she helps get them well. That's actual action. Her effort sometimes seems futile just because of the sheer numbers of irresponsible people out there. She keeps doing it. She isn't wasting her time standing around some store with a sign in her hand, smiling for the media.

Funny how she lives, also, in the bluest of Oregon's blue cities, and all she gets for her actual action is a bunch of crap. There are no animal activists beating down her door to help her. Maybe they're afraid they'll get dirty or something.

When i first moved to Oregon, someone jokingly told me you can't live in Eugene or Portland or Corvallis unless you have some cause or another. That was fine with me, and i didn't have any causes. Over the years i've lived here, i have taken on a cause. People. Even when i can't hand out money, i still get out and try to do something for someone. I have a couple of people on fixed incomes in different parts of the state that get a care package from me a couple of times a year. It takes me a while to build the packages up, but they always get one from me around Christmas. They are usually some frivolous silly things, some small luxuries, some necessaries and maybe a little cash if i have it. I just added another person to the list of people i send these to. I do a lot of work with the blues society here, and i've played more volunteer gigs with them this year than paying ones with the band i was in earlier. I drive someone around because they can't drive.

At Christmas time i see all the trees around town that have the little stars on them or whatever with a childs name and Christmas list, or a senior citizens name and Christmas list, and i want to cry because i can't just take all the little stars and buy all these people the things they want. Pants! For god's sake, some of these seniors just want a pair of pants!

I don't know. Maybe put the protest signs down and head into a homeless shelter, or an animal shelter, or pick a star or two off a Christmas tree. Do things because it's right instead of because your politics dictate it. Do something, and waiting around for the media op isn't something. Jeez, on my birthday i'm going to teach people how to string guitars that have never owned a guitar, and if they couldn't buy it at the Store That Shall Not Be Named, they might never own a guitar. That's why i'm doing it- i want to take some of the frustration out of it for them. Make it fun right away. "Your fingers will be hamburger! Your neighbors will complain! Your parents will come up to your room and yell at you to turn it down! But what are you doing? Something a lot of people don't get to, so take it up and enjoy it, and get good, to make other people happy, because it will make you happy". Really though, what the hell else is there to do on your 37th birthday?

And by the way i think altruism is a load of crap.

And if you have some extra dollars, head over to Strayer's page and plunk them down on the Donate to POPPA button. Money doesn't taste much better than feet do, but it's more pleasant to put your money where your mouth is rather than your foot.

Blues Benefit

Our annual benefit concert is NEXT WEEKEND! Holy cow! Yeah, next Saturday night (12/16) at the VFW. Four bands including the KBS Jam Band. That's just a group of members that changes from event to event and we get together and do these things as the KBS Jam Band.
Last year i believe we raised something like $5000 for the KYDC (and several families had Christmases they would not have normally had) and two big trashcans full of food for the Food Bank.

This year, our beneficiary is the Klamath Crisis Center and, again, the food bank.

We go around town and collect items and gift certificates from local businesses and raffle them off. Holiday Jewelers always kicks in something with diamonds. This year, someone may get a Blues-O-Gram from Natalie, Rachel and I. I'm donating at least one of my photographs, too. The local awesome guitar store kicks in a guitar.

Anyway if you are in the area and are looking for something to do Saturday night, roll on by the VFW at Klamath Ave and 5th street with a couple of bucks in hand and an item of nonperishable food.

a gift on my birthday

ok don't get me wrong. Today isn't my birthday. But follow along, if you please.

Smart Half's department at The-Store-I-Do-Not-Name is in charge of selling musical instruments. They sell the same brand as the ones you can get if you by whatever VW it is. These aren't bad little guitars. You could do a lot worse for more money. Trust me on that. Made in USA, headquartered in Boston, MA on the street named for my mother's mother's family. I goof off on them when I'm waiting for him. Any guitar is a good time to me, though.

Ok onward. He told me that last year, the biggest reason for returns on these guitars was because a string broke. My first thought was "How retarded. Do people think the strings are indestructable?! Or that the guitar is now broken?!". Whatever. Customers are freaks. Anyway. How lame!

So the gears started turning and my brain started smoking and i spit out an idea. I'm going to give a little guitar clinic type thing down there in his department after Christmas. The best day happens to be on my birthday. So, on my birthday, i am going to be helping a group of brand-new guitar and bass owners learn the important stuff. The important stuff is things like learning how to restring your guitar, how to tune your guitar, where to take it around town for repairs and adjustments, who to go to for lessons, a little demystifying the hype about guitars and letting them know which things you REALLY need when you own a guitar, and which things people just tell you that you need to make you spend money that you don't really have to.

Each guitar has an invitation to this event on its box. I will bring some cookies and soda or juice or something. I'll have my guitars and basses there so people can see the different kinds of strings, bridges and saddles, etc. I'm going to print a little handout with the local guitar store (who is a member of the blues society, and i am doing this as a society member) business cards of their teachers, a little diagram of what is on a guitar and a bass, and a note chart of the notes on the neck AND a small list of helpful things you should have around. Like a small Allen wrench, wire cutters, soft cloth, lemon oil, small phillips head screwdriver, stringwinder, etc. The guitools you always seem to need when they aren't around.

You know what? I freakin hate stringing my guitars. I take the six-stringers to a shop and pay them to do it, i hate it so much. I am not a fan of stringing the basses, but it's not as tedious. But it's a necessary skill and i am going to spend my birthday teaching brand new git players these things. No one taught me them until i was well under way.

Yeah. Happy Birthday to me! It will be the coolest birthday present to myself, ever.

psyching up for indoctrination camp

Well, in all the years i have pondered what i should head for in college, i may have figured it out finally. But first, we have to get the crapmobile out of the shop, and that's another $900 we get to throw at someone. It'll be nice to have two cars again. It's happened so rarely for us to have two working correctly at the same time. Usually the issues with them are something beyond my ability, space and tool collection to handle. (As an aside, every damn car i have ever had in my possession has had exhaust issues. I am so sick and tired of that.)

So, with any luck, i'm book bound in spring. I'm keepin it to myself until i get a thorough overview of what i want. I'll just say that my love of the outside world has a big influence on what i want to go for. I just want to talk to the instructors first and see if they are really instructors or just taking the opportunity to cram their ideology down the throat of young college suckers.

Of course, it will be transferrable. I don't know where we will be in five years, and i may not be done by then anyway.

Oh.. and Mike- *wink wink*

I'd like a bacterial infection grande, to go

Taco Bell's most recent problem rather makes me happy that i haven't eaten there since '93 or so.

Siam Thai

I finally got over to a local restaurant that i had been meaning to try since we got here. The Siam Thai on Washburn. Smart Half and I are both big fans of Thai food. Unfortunately, for the last decade, we have lived in places where Chinese food is about as exotic as it got. 'Cept the great Mediterranean cafes in North Bend, of course. Not that i have anything against Chinese food. I like Asian food in general, but Chinese gets old.

So i about soiled myself to see a Thai place. And so far, i have not been disappointed. Yesterday we had lunch there for the second time, and i was really enjoying the music coming in over the speakers. Oh and the food of course.

But anyway, the music... yes...
I hear a blues progression. Standard, very Western. And then, the vocals in Thai. The vocal melody was more Asian sounding, and the juxtaposition over the Western blues riff was really cool. Then another song came on, which was, like, prog rockish i guess, with very Western drum parts, electric guitars and meandering effects, but in the background, sort of buried in the mix, underrunning that Western feel was a distinctly Asian instrumentation and scale.

So i could just sit in there and eat fried bananas with honey sauce all day and trip on the music they play and be completely happy. I even asked them to turn up the music.

now a little incredulous

the more that comes out about how the Kim family got lost and what they did, honestly, the angrier i get. in some article or another, someone is quoted as saying Mr. Kim did nothing wrong. I'm sorry, and if i had any readership i'm sure i'd take some heat for this, but Mr. Kim did plenty wrong. He didn't have to die. That's the shame of it. I think it's unreal, what happened.

A simple "get off at the next exit and turn around to get back to the 42", and he would still be alive. Those beautiful little girls of his would still have a father, and Kati Kim wouldn't be a widow.

Sad

Sad to hear that James Kim wasn't found alive.

And frustrated. All they had to do when they missed the exit for the 42 was turn around or continue south to the 199.

One can point blame at mapmakers and signage, etc., but someone made a series of bad decisions and this is the unfortunate outcome.

beat down

Rumor has it my li'l bro in Ontario may have taken the dive into white dope. That pisses me off. If the rumor is confirmed, i'm hoppin in the car and going up there to beat him severely about the head and shoulders. hell hath no fury like me finding out one of my friends is hooked on that shit. Whoever he's getting it from? Start looking for a ditch that fits...

why?

I'm very happy that three-fourths of the Kim family have been found, and i hope they find James Kim alive and well.

But i can't help wondering what possessed them to take that road?

titanic

I watched something on the history channel yesterday about the Titanic. I guess it was filmed in 2000 or something. I didn't have a TV in 2000 so i wouldn't have seen it when it was new.

It was a documentary about some guys who were looking for reasons that water had been coming in through one of the boiler rooms while it was sinking. The old theories about the ship sideswiping the iceberg didn't explain why water would come in through the bottom. They eventually found two pieces of the bottom- the keel.

In between footage of the wreck, there were passenger stories interposed. They talked with Milvina Dean (who was an infant) and the son of another passenger that was 15 when the ship went down.

But that wasn't what really piqued my interest in it. They talked about the band.

I've come to the conclusion that venues have been dissing musicians probably since the dawn of time. "We love having the entertainment, but we aren't paying you" is apparently the mantra.

White Star lines didn't want to pay the band union scale, so they listed them as second class passengers.

Strike one.

As the ship sank, the band kept playing. They all went down with the ship and froze to death in the water.

Strike two.

The band leader's name was Wallace Hartley. To the end, he and his bandmates offered comfort by music to the people trying to leave the ship.

Strike three- When the passengers that were rescued arrived in New York, there were thousands of people waiting. Again, when many of them returned to England, they were greeted loudly and with cheers. Hartley's funeral had some 30,000 or so people at it. What a send off... but then...

The band members' families were sent- can you believe this shit- bills for the loss of the uniforms that the members were wearing.

You can read more about the band here.

This is a thankless thing to do, this playing music thing.

i have a question

well actually i have tons of questions. This one in particular, i probably know the answer to, and its one of those answers you don't really like.

If you get busted on a 3rd strike drug offense you should do more than one year in jail, correct? ("should" as in, I'm sure the law generally provides for more than one year in such a case. Not should as in, "well i think he should do more time")

Especially if the offense is for cooking meth in your house...

Where there are some kids and a girlfriend...

Who doesn't lose the kids, even though she's involved...

And she doesn't do any time either...

What does all that mean?

I think i know, because then there was this-
Someone else who got busted (but was only ticketed, due to it being a different drug) who had yet SOMEONE ELSE at their house who the FBI came and got...

First person (who did the year) calls the second person the day after the bust and says, "Hey i heard the FBI was at your house".

What the hell would you think? I have a jailhouse mentality. I've been in the system too long. The courts in three states have extorted plenty of money from me, so i automatically think something that's very dangerous to be thinking. If you slap this label on someone, you endanger them. So i'm not going to mention the label i'm thinking.

But what do YOU think?

I'm someone's hero

And that's pretty damn neat feeling.

I have a myspace thing because so many of my friends don't have phones, but DO have computers and cable internet (go figger...) and one of them just got her own myspace thingie. I was looking at it, and where it asks you to list your heroes, she's listed me for not being afraid to be myself.

Listen, when your myself, there's no hiding it. All the years that i wasn't myself, it was an ugly time. All the years i spent trying to live up to someone else's expectations, i failed, and called myself a failure for it. All the years people thought i was stuck up because i was too shy to talk to people were very lonely ones. I used to worry what people thought of me, and i'm sure a lot of the time their opinions weren't very nice. I once took people and their insults personally, and you spend a lot of time being angry when you take the world personally.

I'm not sure when it happened. Some time between the two rehab trips, i think. It happened in Oregon. It's almost like i woke up and went, "fuck people and their opinions" and started all over. Complete teardown and rebuild, you might say.

Someone doesn't like my playing? Ain't my problem.
Someone thinks i'm weird. They may be right, but it ain't my problem.
Someone has an issue with some piece of me. Ain't my problem.
Someone doesn't like it when i'm honest with them. See above.
Someone doesn't like my habits? They don't have to hang out with me.
Someone doesn't like me? Move along, find someone else to victimize, because i don't care.

People who get in the way are passed up. People who try to suck the energy from me, those psychic vampires that just drain you when you spend time with them, i usually figure that out pretty quick and kiss them goodbye. People who think less of me because i don't have the same opinions or politics as them can take a hike, too.

Hell yeah i am selfish about my time and my energy and my mental wellbeing and i don't handle people with kid gloves and sorry if you have a puny little ego and self-esteem issues, but get the fuck over yourself.

I'm a spaz and life is awesome and i'm glad to be alive to complain about it. I write horrible fiction, bad poetry, play three instruments like a 10-year-old on LSD, draw things that other people call art (for some reason), and i love it that i can do that.

I have a husband that loves me and i don't know what i'd do without him. I have friends that love me in spite of all my personality defects (maybe because of them?).

I'm here now, thank you very much Ram Dass.

And thanks Joan C for being my friend.

what is cold..

well, it was 3 degrees when i woke up this morning.

nuh nuh nuh nuh nineteen

old song, yeah. Guy named King i think? Back in the day when we had Prince and Queen to listen to, there was also King. But "19" was a Paul Hardcastle song.

But, it's 19 degrees right now. Allegedly, it will drop to 9 before the night is over.

No snow today. But the evil combination of snow that was graded and plowed, then melted slightly, and refroze as more snow fell on it makes getting places interesting. weeee!

Someone i know came over the hill from Medford yesterday and said it took him 3 hours because of the weather. That's my one real issue with KF. It's a pain in the ass to get out of it to other cities, especially in the winter.

And i feel like i'm running out of things to write about for FTTW. I can't really do a lot of bitching about my fellow musicians, because at least a couple of them read over there.

lotsa snow

well, to me it is. Remember, i'm the one who squeals with delight when we get a dusting. It snowed most of yesterday, and then we got a break in the late afternoon, and then it snowed probably all night, and it's been on and off snowing all day today.

New Boots is awesome in this kind of snow. Part of the fun is watching the people who hadn't bothered putting on snow tires yet and have two-wheel drive. They were out all over the place today. The neighbor with the Jetta with low-profile tires, the guy in the big white van out in the middle of S. 6th, going in circles, the lady in the new Nissan that pulled out of Burger King and kept right on going forward into the center median, and the best one, a guy in a late-80s Camaro with lowpro street tires, fishtailing all the way down Washburn. In the morning, i was treated to watching people coming sideways down the offramp that's kitty-corner to our house. Probably not such a treat for them, but fine entertainment over this way.

As for me, yeah, i have it in H4, and i'm the slowest mofo on the road. Your blood pressure is your problem, not mine.

Mine all mine and back

Look! There it is! The New Old Nth of Pril! I obviously have some fixin to do. There's about a year missing on it (the other domain dropped in August or so of 06). The time represented where it ends is right after we moved here to Alabamath Falls. Or Klabama. Or however you wish to derisively mangle the name.

Joni at Pixelita.com is teh arrghsome.

Anyway, with any luck, it should be all befestooned with Prilness by Monday.

coming soon

very soon! The old NthofPril (not the greeblie version or the original one i started on blogger in late 2000). On its own domain. That's right. I've finally been dragged into the 21st century, muttering and grumbling and vascillating and deflecting the entire way, finally giving up that credit card number for some words on a browser bar.

Not ever.

The last election has been turning over in my head lately. The most interesting thing, of course, is that now that the Democrats are in power in Oregon, they intend to raise the tax on beer. I mean, it was the first thing that they made the paper about, because it was pressing and important and all. Nevermind that important stuff like school funding or police funding or keeping the state university system afloat. No. Gotta raise the tax on beer, not for schools or public safety, but to treat people who drink too much of it. Retards.

Yeah see if i EVER vote for one of you again.

How can Oregon Dems redeem themselves, in my eyes? Dismantle the OLCC. As soon as possible, and then completely rewrite all the codes and laws related to alcohol in the state. Nothing less.

(later...) o and let's talk about SNEAKY shall we. Rep. Chuck Rangel (D-NY) wants to reinstate the draft because he hopes it will make future US leaders think twice about staring any silly wars in the future. Chuck, your "I'm a dipshit" forehead sticker is on the way.

After a year, this just occurs to me.

I know a drummer named Tom! *laff*

Laugh, dammit

The Port of L.A. has issued a directive to increase laughter by 30%.

Excellent. Everyone needs to laugh more anyway.

slippy slidey

well, they gave us a forecast of 1 to 3 inches for last night. We had that by 10 pm i think. There's at least 4 or 5 inches stacked up on our back porch.

4runner did awesome drivin this morning. Way less terrifying than the camry is in the snow.

I'm one of those dipshit californians that can't drive in the snow. Ok, wait, i CAN drive in the snow, but it's weird and this is only my second winter in a snowy place. Rather than being the idiot in an SUV with regular tires zipping along and sliding everywhere in 4wd, i'm the sloooooow person in an SUV with mud/snow tires you're stuck behind. So, sorry. Watch for finger and all.

around 3:30

it started snowing. It's snowed pretty steadily since then.

Which brings me to...

all new shows on Adult Swim tonight. Been looking forward to that. Halfway through the first meatwad show, "no signal". Poop.

dammit Jim, I'm a bass player, not a mind reader

so last night i guess the neighbors called the cops and they came by to tell us to shut down at like 8:30.

These neighbors have never said word one to me in the six months we've been here. How am i supposed to know anything about them, specifically that one of them goes to work at 7 am, if they don't talk to me? I hate that kind of passive agressive bullshit. The cops have better things to do than come over and tell me to stop playing.

So I'm angry at these neighbors for a lot of reasons. Mostly, i'm angry because they won't talk to us, even to say hi. I suspect that this is because they're special, being homeowners and all, and we're just mere renters. We have cooties, and to say anything to us would somehow sully them.

Listen, y'know, i may be a jerk sometimes. Ok fairly often. But i try to be considerate. If a neighbor is bothering me, i go talk to them unless they've proven themselves to be someone you can't talk to. I'm not confrontational with people about these kinds of things. If someone had come over, about a month ago when we started this, and said "Hey i get up really early for work can you guys cut it off earlier or play in the daytime it would be great", well, i would have done it. But no one did. One person came over last Saturday and i guess pounded on the front door and said... nothing....really i guess. Dale dealt with them. So i don't know.

But, yeah. Just talk to me. I'll work with ya. Jeezus. Ain't a whole lot to ask, not so much waste of resources on the city's part.

splat

last night i got to see a very drunk woman totally trip over a chair and faceplant. It was too hard not to laugh. So i just laughed and laughed. It was funny, ok? Damn, it was funny.

weee!

Snow started falling about a half hour ago.

!!!

but still..

hey i just listened to the goof off tape from Saturday night.

No wonder the neighbors came over at 8:30 and told us to shut the hell up already.

awesome.

bluh

i don't think it matters who wins this election, or any other election. The outcome is the same. Politicians (and their hooting peanut galleries) talk to constituents as if the constituents are drooling idiots. New inane laws are passed, and old inane ones remain on the books. Someone is trying to tell you and i what we can and cannot do to ourselves, what we can and cannot say, who we should and should not worship, how we should act, etc. Am i singling out a particular party here? No. Because both are guilty. Both are full of bottom feeders and disgusting, hypocritical thieves.

No i'm not cynical about politics at all. (sarcasm)

All i ask is that one day, i don't have to choose between the lesser of the two evils. That i don't look at my ballot and think, "Who is going to damage my city, county, state, district, country the least?".

And don't tell me it's one or the other. I think we all know it's none of the above, in most cases.

challenge what you think they taught you

Have you read Mike's blog, SOS Forests?. The things he writes about should make anyone think about the things we've been taught about forestry and forests. I've been reading him since he first put fingers to keys on it last year. He has now started his second year with a redesign, and thoughtful writings on forest science methodology. Roguepundit's most recent post dovetails nicely with what Mike has been telling us.

If we are critical thinkers, and many of us like to believe we are, we need to stop swallowing the dogma that's been fed to us for the last 20-plus years about forest management, and start questioning it.

digging the geography (dirt geek)

I'm something of a closet earth geek. Not Earth-capital-E-love-your-mother-earth, but earth as in the stuff we tread upon. I think it's fun to stand around looking at the ground and rocks and cliffs and things like that. I DO stand around looking at stuff like that a lot. The fun part is in dredging up bits of knowledge and using them in trying to figure the earth stuff out. What kind of rock is that? Why is it here? How might it have got here? Why is it that color and shape? So, Klamath Falls gives me a case of the "Hey neatos" a lot. A lot of subtle reminders that the area is or was volcanically active. Down at the Grass Lake rest stop on the 97, you learn that you are surrounded right there by five small volcanoes. Going north on the 97, huge hills of basalt, in big squarish chunks, stretch out parallel to the highway. Closer to the surface at the roadbed, chalky stuff. Where the shoreline used to be. Eastward, near Lakeview, is a geyser and i hear there are bubbling mudpots so i must go see that. At the place we get our morning jumpstart, there's a ditch that leads out toward the railyard, always full of steaming water. I guess that's part of the whole geothermal thing around here. KF has pipes of geothermal brine buried under the sidewalks and crosswalks downtown to keep them clear in the winter. Some people have it as heating in their houses, which i guess is free. Heading down to Medford on the 140, you're on the scenic volcanic byway (the same one that wanders through the Modoc National Forest), and you can go check out some lava beds near Lake of the Woods. On a clear day, if you find the right hill, you can see the peaks that surround Crater Lake, pieces of the volcano that collapsed on itself. Mt Shasta is made up of 7 small volcanoes all packed together.

I would like to spend a lot more time poking at the ground and learning about it.

on making noise.

Natalie and I have jammed in the garage probably 5 or 6 times since we decided to do this. Each time, we've come up with a song structure. We switch off. Sometimes i play guitar and she plays drums, and then versey-vicey. No lyrics or anything, just the noise. We finally got to really hear what our brains have been flowing to our fingers the last time. I brought the Yammy 4-track down. It's easier to use and there's no RF interference like we were having with the one that's connected to the PA. It ain't bad, i gotta say.

There's something really cool and liberating, also, about working with an instrument you don't normally play. I've played drums maybe 30 times in my life. And i'm kickin butt on them if i do say so myself. Natalie hasn't played guitar too much, and she's doing some cool stuff. I don't know about her, but it forces me to think differently with regard to rhythm. Rhythm being my prime part, as a bass player. Now i really see how the drums and bass interact, because i play the drums like a bass player. If that makes any sense. Different metering or timing or something involved. You have to break a lot more down to put it together when you play drums. With bass, i just listen, hear where the notes are and where the not-notes are, and you just sort of put the notes in where it feels right. On the drums, i'm not dealing with the notes. I'm placing the not-notes for the rhythm player to build off.

Plus, it being just us, there is no one standing around saying "play it this way". Just me and her, making noise for a while and then laughing and yelling "That was cool! That was awesome! Play it back! Ooh did you hear me nail that change?"

We've told some people about this, this Strange Basin thing (which we are just sort of using as a kind of place holder name) and we get different reactions. Most people think it's cool. There are a couple who you can tell are instantly threatened, just by their body language and what they say after we tell them. They want to know what exactly we're doing (we don't know. So there). They want to weedle their way in (after dismissing us, not so subtly). They want to help (with help like that, who needs a saboteur?).

You know, i really think i've done this whole thing backwards. My timeline goes like this:
Buy bass. Start learning it. Ship it off for repairs. Buy guitar. Goof off with it, but never quite learn it right. Get shoved into jam nights. Continue goofing with guitar, learning an average of one new chord every couple of months, many by accident. Get invited into a working band. Take music theory classes while in working band. Back to jam nights. Start making noise with someone.

Isn't it more like:
Buy guitar. Jam with friends in garage. Find you have too many guitar players. Make one play the bass. Start band. Lose band. Start another band. Lose band. Get into pattern of starting and losing bands, but playing always the same music. Get into jams.

At least that's how it seems to be to me, and for the places i've been since i've been playing.

yeah well i feel really free in the garage. it's so awesome.

nth of pril may be back

I finally got hold of the guy who had the account that the old Nth of Pril (the last one) was hosted by, as well as the hosting company. I'm looking at taking it over, since it was only suspended and not deleted. Just have to take a peep at the finances. We've decided to keep the crapmobile and get the water pump fixed, so i have to take that into account, re-register and re-insure it and then i think i may be able to do it.

For reference: I'd like to take a moment to spit on property management companies that don't allow you to work on your own vehicle on property you rent. I could fix the car myself, for $35 and some frustration, and probably it would take more than book time to do it (would probably take me about a day to do it, because i don't have all the correct tools or a lift). Book time is 3.5 hours. A shop will do it for about $350. Plus, i'll be having it towed. Driving it could cause the $350 repair to quadruple. You drive with a failed waterpump, you easily end up with a blown head gasket. So. The money we will spend to repair this is close to what we pay to live in this place. Big ol' one-finger salute to property management companies.

no more mr nice guy

i didnt really think of a costume this year. I was on my way out the door to a friends house for a party i was invited to jam at, and i thought hmm maybe i'll run back in and put some zombie makeup on. I started looking through my makeup and found this cool black eyeliner i have, and then decided to do Alice Cooper makeup. Did that. Dug up some shiny rockstar pants, big black boots. Then i needed a shirt, and we happen to have a Phoenix FD shirt (brother is a fireman in PHX), so i wore that because that's where scary Alice lives now.

Then i went to the party. Everyone thought i was a zombie anyway. Only one person recognized me as Alice Cooper. Huh.

like the white stripes, but a million times better

This has happened before... i went on a Toadies tear, and a Deftones one, a Cream one, a Big Sugar one, a Therapy? one.

I'm now on a Black Keys frenzy.

My favorite store, still around. Plus a little punk rock history

I used to LOVE going to Restyle. I rarely could afford anything there, but when it was time for new boots, it was off to Restyle. I let nothing come between the boots and i. I just loved going in there and checking out the clothes. Everytime i go back home to visit, i stop in a couple of places... Aardvark's Odd Ark (Last time i was there it seemed more like a charity store for AA than the really great vintage clothing store it once was), Greeko's (been there since the 60s. Great head shop. It's also taken a weird turn), and good ol' Restyle.

Maybe i'm old, but i kind of roll my eyes at 2nd millenium punk kids. Mohawks barely turn heads, especially when they're on 8-year-olds. There doesn't really seem to be anything rebellious about it. The newer music kind of sucks. It's all been done already, so how boring.

sugar coated

the mountains got a light dusting of snow last night. Probably right at about 5500 feet. It looked really pretty this morning.

number six

Sunday was our sixth anniversary :). That's a long time. To me. We've been together for eleven years i think. Since 1995? Before i came to Oregon.

have some dirt, boys

We got the PA, the 4-track, the effects all hooked up. By ourselves.

Yesterday we sat down and made some noise, just to make some noise. And we got a nice hooky thing out of it that can easily be rendered into a song. We were missing some things, like a drum key (we dealt), a tuner (we got the guitars as close as we could), a strap (sat on the floor). I joked if it was this cool when we were half-assed, imagine how it'll be once we have our shit together. I'm going to fiddle around with the 4-track, maybe see if i can find a user manual for it online, this week, scrape the memory of how to use it off the inside of my head and throw a tape in.

the little light stays on

One of the people i enjoy jamming with here and i had decided a few months ago we wanted to put something together. Last week, we finally got a drummer, a guitar player, a bass player and a vocalist all in the same place.

And the next day, i saw Natalie and kind of sighed about it all. That group just doesn't mesh for some reason. It might, later down the line, but combine it with a psycho little kid at the practice place and it probably isn't gonna happen soon.

So my little brain started working really hard. And slowly, it dawned on me. We have the drums. The bass. The PA. The guitar. We can fumble along pretty well on all those instruments. The thing that really matters is that we also have two 4-tracks, Audacity and we know how to use them, as well.

Screw it. We two of us are a band. We don't need anyone else. If someone asks us to play somewhere, we'll have to wing it and bring someone in for the gig, but we're just going to record stuff.

yabba dabba doo

We got this rental car, a 2005 Chevy Cobalt. The new thing is in the body shop thus the rental car.

It's zippy and all, but drives like it has square wheels. Or big granite ones.

all these things that went on

i was out on the coast this weekend again. Stayed in the cabin at LaVerne Park (near Coquille) and then a yurt (yurt-de-durt) in Sunset Bay State Park. I had four people with me. Three of them were teenagers. One of those teenagers says i listen to the shittiest music. Well, i made her listen to Butt Trumpet and the Supersuckers and Reverend Horton Heat. They all like Skynrd. So who REALLY likes the shittiest music? yeah, ain't me. Thought so. pfft.

Outward, a tire blew up and we got lectured by a dirt-phobic state cop. Who, i should add, was nearly completely useless. All was relatively fine after that.

A lot of my friends came by to hang out, and the kids busied themselves out collecting crap like crawdads at LaVerne, which they ate for dinner.

I don't know if i had fun or not. I did a ton of driving. It was nice being out there, but i was on someone else's time schedule and that always makes me a little edgy.

I was surrounded by raccoons at Sunset. Everyone had gone to sleep and i was out at the campfire, and two raccoons came nosing around. Everything was put away and thrown out, but there they were. Then another one came around. There were just the three for awhile, and then two more snuck in and i just watched them. They're so weird to watch. Then i heard some rustling and saw like four more come cruising into the site. So now there were 8 of them, all looking at me like i was something that shouldn't be there, and together they were going to remove me. I gave up, said goodnight, and then crashed out.

Yeah so next time, it'll probably be just me and maybe one or two other people in a yurt-de-durt or a cabin again. those are nice. They sleep five, but it's like being in the damn drunk tank with five. The New Boots ran pretty good, although it was pretty weighed down with five people's crap and the five people. I really struggled steering it on some of those turns. It just wallowed.

And then yesterday we saw a sea lion on the beach at Bastendorff. Weird place to find one just hanging out and staring at the sky, but there it was.

Pictures will come along shortly, probably. My camera is screwed up, it's just getting old and needs new batteries so the camera sat charging itself like 70% of the time i was there.

wot say

For the past couple of months, when i travel out northwards from town, and on some days when the wind is coming from the north, i've been greeted with smoke. It's been coming from a fire burning near Crater Lake. Of course, some days, the whole basin was full of smoke and haze from fires burning in all directions... west (and i was never able to find out which ones those were), south (from Modoc, Shasta-Trinity, Lassen, areas). I don't think we ever caught any smoke from the one near Lakeview, but i can't say that for sure.

So today there was an article in the local paper about the the Bybee complex (the one near Crater Lake). This is the first time i've seen anything about that fire in our local paper. You would think they would have had something about it, considering it's been burning since the middle of July. But, with local papers, who knows. I beg them for work as a proofreader so they can stop embarassing themselves.

blink

woke up on Monday, and just now realized that it's Thursday. I hate it when that happens.

where's the big red nose and huge shoes?

It is, of course, difficult to take George Bush seriously sometimes. But Hugo Chavez... man that guy's a straight up clown. I rate him up there with the crazies running Iran and the more rabid of the Islamic ranters. Are we supposed to take these people seriously? I don't see how a thinking, rational person can sit and listen to them without wondering "What the fuck?". And i think it's beyond politics. I think there's a point where you have to look at some world leader or another and throw a bottle of Prozac in their direction. Everyone pretty much discounts Jerry Falwell and Not-So-Reverend Phelps, y'know, we listen to them and think, "jesus, what a crazy motherfucker", but these other loose nuts, they get defended and have their own cadre of blind, delusional apologists. I don't understand.

getting hard to get around

a couple of weeks ago, one of the people who won one of the four photographs i donated for a fundraiser stopped me in the store and told me she loved the photo and was really stoked to have won it, and that i'm good at it. And then over the weekend, someone whose opinion i really respect, as far as local musicians go, said i was becoming a very good drummer. So Smart Half is joking that she's using an industrial air compressor and making my head huge.

But hey, it sure is nice to get a little compliment once in a while, outta nowhere like that.

oh and now i have some drums in the garage. They aren't mine, but they are set up and i have permission to goof on them. So, y'know, look out Neil Peart! I'm comin to gitcha.

Oh and Mike asked a very good question in the comments. I am formulating an answer for it, but i'm also trying to get my SUAPYG thing together for next week. Both involve thinking minus rambling and both are probably going to be intertwined somehow, and what passes for "philosophical" in my world.

How canoeing is like crack.

When you're on a gorgeous river or creek, and you're just paddling along, and it's a winding sort of path...

You think, "man, i need to take a break to eat this sandwich or rest my arms or take a swig of water" and then you round the bend, and there's another bend... and you think "ok i'll just paddle up and see what's around that bend and then beach it for my sandwich" and you paddle around that bend, and there's another one, with a more killer view, so you have to go around that bend, and eventually, "Wow, i'm pretty far away from the landing, i've been paddling for a few hours now and i'm starving"... but then the creek starts getting more and more shallow, and maybe your finally at the headwaters and can take a break and eat that sandwich, rest your arms.. so you keep going and another hour passes by and finally, you're at the headwaters, and you beach it and get out and eat that sandwich finally, and sit around for another hour or two enjoying it. Pretty soon, the sun is heading down, and you realize you'd paddled for four hours to get where you are... "well, with the current it'll probably take half the time..."

the thing about singers

Of course, next week, there may be a "What's up with the sax players?!" post, but i doubt it.

For the first time EVER i actually got royally pissed off at someone i was on stage with. So pissed off that i wanted to bodily remove him from my presence and possibly beat him senseless with my bass.

This guy played it off that he was a singer. And of course, he was well past three sheets to the wind. So he's up there doing some acapella "midnight special", which really didn't sound too bad. I was asked to come back up (it was near the end of the night) and jam some stuff with him and the other guys up there. He asks to do a Johnny Cash song. Ok. No prob. Folsom Prison Blues, the fallback song for this kind of thing. And that stupid song went on for-fucking-ever, like 10 minutes, because in the middle of it, he starts rambling off, and he's SO LOUD he's all i can hear. Ok i know the song well enough i can deal. After that, we were kind of discussing what to do next, and he's hollering fucking redneck jokes, and he keeps hollering even after we start the next song. Redneck jokes.. you might be a redneck if... and i yelled NO!!!! from the back, and he gave me the stinkeye, so i returned it. I'm just irritated now. So we're playing some other song, and he doesn't know it, so he's just standing there and in between the vocal parts that someone else was singing, he's like making monkey noises or something, and hollering some more, and still i can't hear anyone else over his blathering bonehole. And that went on for too long. So we stop the song finally, he goes "Can you play some hillbilly music?" to the lady who runs the jam, and she's being nice, because she's that way, which is why she runs the jam- she's very good at being politic. She's being nice and says "No hillbilly music" and the drunken sot says, "Why not any hillbilly music?" And i've got fucking steam coming out my ears by now, because i'm not always so nice.. and i can't contain myself anymore, "Because it's a BLUES JAM, you FOOL" comes flying out of my mouth. I get two stinkeyes, one from the dude and one from the lady. Dude turns back around and i look right at her and boot this guy in the ass (not really booting him physically, but making the motion of it and getting real close) and being pretty obvious about "get this guy off the stage, please". So he never got off stage. He just stayed up there and said all this drunkass stupid shit, never sang a song, until another one of the guys took his mike away and started singing another song.

Ok so, you know, if you can maintain, AND carry a tune in a coal car, please come up and share. But something like that, don't be surprised if you find yourself flying over the stage rail with the bass players bootprint on your back. Cos i was pissed the fuck off. Not because he wrecked it for me, but because he made it impossible to hear everyone else on the stage, and so we all sounded like shit from the floor. Once he was gone, damn we all sounded pretty good.

See, it isn't always someone else being an asshole. I have my moments, and i totally will cop to them. I really made an effort last night not to just blow it, too, and i did pretty good.

You get these life lessons sometimes when you play music with other people. You don't learn them sitting in your room jammin to "Diver Down". Surprisingly, i've become a much calmer person since i started playing.

well, awesome

Rude bro is going to go cruisin around the state over the next couple of weeks i guess, and when he gets to Smashland is going to call. Then i guess i'm goin to go get him and we'll do some jammin, and the Smart Half will take him to school on the PS2, and i may be able to drag him to a jam, if he's here on the right days. He made a bunch of money fighting fires and he's on a break. He may not have to go back to it when he gets home, at least til next season. Hopefully next year i'll be able to go visit him, not be so cash-strapped, which i'm getting a weeee bit tired of anyway.

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas?!

Wunderground has a prediction for the possibility of snow showers on Saturday night.

We shall see. But that certainly seems a little early. I'll look a little further into it and see what's what. Maybe someone at the weather bureau was smoking before they went to work. Hey, you know, it happens to the best of us.

now that it's the next day...

Yesterday was the sort of official unveiling of the new format over at Faster Than the World. Turtle and Michele have morphed it into a sort of magazine, with a stable of writers sending in things every week. There will be sex, cars, guitars, horror movies, video games, geek toys, punk in the UK, and of course, my own crap, which happens to be about the joys and nadirs of playing music in micropolises. Maybe they aren't even micropoli, maybe they're still minimicropoli. Yah get drunk and say that. Either minimicropoli or minimicropolises. pfft. So, yes, you should go over and read EVERY DAMN DAY, because there will be something new to ogle every day. I'm up on Wednesday. Which, historically in my house is often an incredibly busy day (after about 1pm).

blue sky

sometimes the sky is the same color, the blinding blue. Trips up the river were deja vu with the water shining a certain way, with a warm day on the way but still the morning coolness. Sometimes i see Steve and i sitting in the tavern together, helping ourselves to the tap and crying. I still have the NY quarter i got as change. My hair is longer now, it's grown back. I don't dread the phone like i did after my mom called. But still the sky is the same blue here as it was on the coast, which was the same blue that was ripped apart by the smoke, and the same blue as the sky in DC and probably the same blue in Pennsylvania.

your issues, not mine

Last night at the jam one of the guitar players was wearing this cool necklace i'd sold him. it's a piece of women's jewelry, but he's the kinda guy that if he sees something he likes, he's gonna buy it and he's gonna wear it. Some guy who probably thought he was funny came up and snickered, "You know that's a woman's necklace, right?" to which my fearless friend replied, "I don't have any masculinity issues so i don't really care. And besides, look at the cute redheaded bass player over there. She's got men's pants on. You gonna go tell HER?". I'm the cute redheaded bass player in question. bwahahaah! This new place we jam is funny. A lot of the patrons are so blatantly self-concious about what they wear and how they look, and they try to be so cooooool about it. So me and the guitar player just have tons of shit to laugh at, and all we do is sit at a table sometimes and check people out.

mysteries

ok i'm kind of looking for a job.

I'd filled out most of my app for lithia on their stupid, retarded, IE compatible only, online only bullshit thing, and then went to finish it and found my work gone. That was a few hours of frustration and telling them things no job should be asking for. Imagine how happy i was.

So then i found another thing that i wouldn't mind for a job. And it's a don't call, come down and fill out an app thing. So i've driven down the damn road its on probably four times now and, frankly, i don't see any trace of the place. It's a big place, with a big recognizable national logo, so you'd think it would be hard to miss. So i looked it up in the phone book, and called, and there's no answer.

The universe thwarts me when i look for work. It's why i stopped doing it for a long time. It gets pointless. I should just be in school.

Storm watch

I often feel like i'm the only person in the state who doesn't really care about Storm Large or Supernova or the Rock Star TV show. Part of it is the immunity to TV hype that i think i built up by not having cable (and thus no TV) for ten years. Another part is, damn, i can go hang out with all my friends (who are all musicians here) and see even more incredible drama than you can catch even on the cheesiest soap opera. I think most of the "reality" shows are lamelamelame anyway. Probably because of the group of friends i've had, both here and on the coast. You live in a smallish place, where the majority of your friends are musicians, and just about any TV show becomes boring.

So anyway, you just don't see much blabbering here about what's on TV, unless it's about some cartoon or something, because my real life is sometimes way more interesting to me than anything on the screen. Well, my real life is often pretty boring, but things pop up, usually every Thursday, that make me howl and giggle.

Am i saying i don't have any kind of ego or that i'm perfect? Hell no, i'm as big a fool as anyone else, and there are times my ego is so bloated i can barely fit through any given door, but it isn't fragile and i'm as prone to popping my own bubbles as i am to popping someone else's.

In about a week, i have a post coming up on FTTW that includes an MP3 of one our jams. You can hear me at my most mediocre on it, you can hear me laughing about how bad i'm playing and how bad someone else is. If you're lucky, you might have caught the MP3 of "200 beers" a few months ago on Wyrd's site. Truly awful it was, but i wrote it, i sang it, i played guitar on it, and i had the balls the put it out for criticism. Wonderfully, the worst i heard was "well that's interesting, Pril".

My own world is just much more interesting than TV. And i noticed once, watching Rockstar, when they did pans of the audience, that every single female was dressed pretty similar. Booooooring.

wonderin

my little bro from ontario (doh that rhymes) was working on a wildland fire crew last time i talked to him. About a month ago. I haven't heard from him since then so i hope he's alright, like still working and not in jail or something dumb like that. There's plenty of work for him right now. Unfortunately.

something wyrd!

So very pleased to announce that the wyrdness on the coast has a blogthing again. Go look! Go say HIGH!

if ever there was a day

that i wished i had a gun but was extremely happy i did not, it was yesterday. Every idiot on the planet was in K. Falls, and they were all driving, and they all had cell phones attached to their heads. Even the cab drivers all seem to need to retake basic driving classes.

Also, a minor rant- It's Labor Day weekend. Banks, you REALLY have GOT to remember to have a full staff.

Ok i'm done. Hope everyone has a good weekend. We're kickin it at home (when smart half isn't working). We'll be drinkin on the porch.

distance measured in 12 month increments

No one in my family has seen me play. Some have heard crummy recordings made over the years.

My mom says she is going to try to come up and visit in October. This will be a nice change from Smart Half and I embarking on these long-ass trips to various parts of the country to see family members. I told her she should take the train. She can take one of the subway lines out of Redondo to Union Station and pay less than $100 for a seat that will pull her through some gorgeous country she might not otherwise see, but she says she's goint to drive, because there are people on the way she wants to visit. I wince. I know how my mom drives. My mom's driving is why I drive the way i do. I don't understand how you can live in Los Angeles for 40-plus years and still be a timid driver. And she's been hit a few times, which i think is directly related to her timidity behind the wheel. But that's where I learned to drive, and Smart Half still kind of makes me drive through large metropolitan areas.

I guess she's going to take the 5 up, but i told her it might be better to cut over to the 97 from Weed when she gets there. I'm relatively fearless, but i don't like the 140, and if i never drive the 66 again i'll die happy, and i told her that, so she hopefully understands the magnitude of how i feel about those two roads, which i avoid even more in the winter. And i'm still not sure how the weather here is in October. I worry about her. But she's my mom, and she DID raise me, so i'm sure she can handle just about anything else thrown at her.

So i hope when she gets her she is willing to come and see me play somewhere, that she's willing to sit in a seedy bar with bad ventilation to finally see me do something i'm good at. She's already seen me do the other thing i'm good at- get into trouble, but since this is more constructive, i hope she'll enjoy it and herself.

almost famous soon

well this is pretty damn cool. I got a note today that Faster Than the World is in the process of changing their format, and i have been invited to blather there regularly about something i have a peculiar expertise in. I know i'm not the only one, by any means. But i have been chosen! What is this peculiar expertise? Smalltown musician. As opposed to Big City one. You think you've read the rants here, or on any of the other versions of this blog? You are goin to see the real shit now if you pop over there once this starts.

grumble

Les Schwab can't even redeem themselves with the replacement of one tire for me. I sat for 2 1/2 hours at the local one waiting for the one tire, after telling them i'd wait, and then i had to go. Will it be ready tomorrow? We'll see, because i'm not going back until then.

all the wild places

Palos Verdes had a lot more empty space when i was growing up there. We could walk from one end of the Peninsula to the other through the areas of no development and this was our wilderness. When you're 8 or so, it's plenty of wilderness, especially when you heard there was a mountain lion out there. Somewhere. Or in the spring around dusk, when the peacocks were screaming. It was easy to spend most of the year forgetting about those birds unless you happened to catch a glimpse of one, but in the springtime, it sounded like a murder on every corner.

But once in a while, on a trek through a canyon to do whatever we did (found a lot of fossils) a snake would twitch the grass or there would be an unusual sound, and half a dozen 8-year-olds would burst from the grass (which was almost taller than us anyway) and scatter, running for our lives and screaming. Then we'd be all sheepish.

That myth about the mountain lion is still floating around. This article says it goes back at least 20 years, but 20 years ago the development was really encroaching on the empty areas. It goes back further than that. To when i was a kid, in the 70s, and probably even further than that.

BB&B

That's easier to say than "Blues Brews and Brats". So that was yesterday. I went rather late, got snuck in and given a couple of beer bracelets. It was all kind of a letdown. If i'd paid to get in i would have been pissed. Good cause and all, not such fantastic planning on someone's part. The Blues Society has nothing to do with it. But our jams run smoother than it did. Some of us BS members sat around together and laughed at the bitches who were at the last jam. By bitches i refer more to some of the egotistical and self-important asshole guys (invariably guitar players) who strut in out of nowhere and expect special treatment. Like, the last jam was THE LAST JAM at the place we've been having it, so there were a ton of people there. And a handful bitched because of some perceived slight or another, and you just kind of look at them like, "This has been going on for years, and you just now show up, and you complain, well where the fuck have you been that you have a leg to stand on with your complaints and whining? Shut up and have a beer or five". One of the snivelers was a drummer. Which is really strange. Drummers are generally really laid back, and you get the tantrums from singers and guitar players. Maybe he should switch instruments, cos he couldn't drum fer shit.

dead meat update

oh it was worse than a little drippage from the paper wrap. What i didn't know was that said friend had given an additional 2 pounds of ground beef, and it had gotten buried under something else. And then not knowing it was there, it was left to defrost and rot in the heat. niiiice.

much better now though. Not so stinky in there.

Seinfeld revisited

The episode with the car stink...

A couple of days ago one of my friends in Bonanza gave me some poundage of freshly butchered beef, paper wrapped. I, being braindead 60% of the time, didn't bother to bag it before i put it in the Bluemobile. And man today we are suffering for that. Apparently some of it dripped onto the carpet in the cargo area. Good thing i have one of those little steam cleaner things. Smart half came home from work complaining the inside smelled like bad milk, and when i got it in i was all, "Dudeman that's MEAT dammit!". I'm not even sure if the steam cleaner will successfully get the smell out, but i detailer have many little tricks to try on it. First i have to find it though. I'd much rather clean a spot or two than the whole cargo thing out.

March of Dimes Jail & Bail

Smart Half was volunteered by a co-worker to participate in the annual March of Dimes Jail and Bail fundraiser. He reports to his cell tomorrow. Please click here to make a donation to the March of Dimes

played out

thursday- 3rd thursday, then the jam. Friday, no jamming. Saturday, the wake at the place we hold the jams. They're closing. we have one more week there. Sunday- the NEW company picnic. It's a call center. It was freakin hot up there.

Saturday i was choked by bbq smoke all night, and then again most of Sunday. Not really complaining. Its nice to bbq in your yard and stuff, but its different when someone is bbqing for 200 people (saturday) and 800 people (sunday).

i'm hoping that my persistent state of exhaustion is just lethargy from heat.

The application for the dealership is formidable. All online (and mostly not working right) and they want my entire job history. The one that stretches back to 1985. The one that has a lot of jobs in it. not fair i say. I don't even remember probably 1/4 of the jobs i've had.

this is stupid

i havent been able to log in to blogger with mozilla since the last post. i actually had to load up exploder to get in here. This all has something to do with blogger beta i think. What a pain in the butt. i have things to blog. I'll do it in the morning. *shakes fist at blogger*

awesome

My wonderful wyrd, who just had some switching around online of her own to do, will be installing MT when she gets it all back together (life often interferes in these things and in her case, sho nuff, life's big ugly head has butted in lately) . So in a bit i may be moving over to the nerdgrrl domain. Will keep all two of youse guys updated. blogger's alright and all, but one misses certain things. Like categories. Plus i trust the wyrdness, and i know if anything happens how to reach her and how to kick her ass over the phone. Like i would ever do that. I would send her a check and a xerox copy of my butt, though. Cos my butt's cute.

Why the dealership job is important

In 1989 or 1990 i went to and graduated from an auto tech school in Hawthorne, CA. I then went to work at a place that was something of a throwback - a "service station". A gas station with two bays, two lifts, that sold tires and had two full-time mechanics on duty, as well as four pump jockeys with enough know-how to do things like oil changes, tire switchouts, battery charging and replacements, some troubleshooting, etc. I learned more there than at the school, basically just building on what my dad had taught me while i was growing up (he was a high school auto tech teacher). Then i moved to Nashville and worked in the Tire & Battery area at Sears over at the Madison mall. I got burly doing that! I also got a really fantastic acid burn on both my arms while loading used batteries onto the DieHard truck. We stored our old tires in a cage, about 15 feet high all around. Part of my job was loading those old tires out, too. When it was full, you climbed up to the top and just hurled tires over the fence to the guys on the other side, and as it emptied out you had to throw them harder or just roll them out the door. You came out black at the end of it. If you couldn't find gloves, your hands were shredded from tires that had belts showing through. Then i left Nashville, in '92, and came back to LA and went back to work at the same gas station. I really didn't do so hot the second time around. A couple of months in, i found coke and then the job started interfering with the drugs, so i quit the job to do coke all the time. This is totally a reasonable thing to do when coke has a grip on you.

What was stupid was that i had gone into the school with the "wants" to become a certified mechanic, and i did a lot of studying and questioning and pestering of the mechanics at the gas station, and found the ASE tests to be out of my financial grasp for a while. I kept putting them off. Once i got going in the white powder, i kissed that little dream goodbye. How could i afford the coke and not the ASE tests? Friends in low places. Yeah that's all I'm saying about that.

After cleaning up the dusty habit, i started looking for work in my chosen field. I applied all over Phoenix (where i was living when i cleaned up) and after a while, i got tired of fighting for work and just found any old job. And so that's what i did, any old job, just make the money to eat and pay some rent and bus fare to that any old job.

It's always been in the back of my head to go back to school and get those certifications. I now have 16 years of technology to catch up on, and although i've managed to sort of keep abreast of the advances, i've really only concentrated on one maker. And hopefully the dealership will let me do it through them.

Just so all know this isn't just some lark i'm having.

But the other day i was out at the annual mountain jam, and came down from this area that the local tribe uses, a gorgeous spot with a circle and everything, and as i was coming down i found a hawk feather so hopefully that's a good sign.

eyeing a prize

On Monday I'm going to apply for a job. Whoa!

It's the first job i've seen in a long, long time that i wanted to apply for, though, and Smart Half has sort of encouraged me and convinced me that i should.

The local Toyota dealership is about to expand a little bit and they're looking for techs. Not just certified ones. They're also looking for people who have experience and aren't certified, and will help those people get their certification. So I'm all over that. Because I'd like to get my ASE cert in brakes. I have for a long time. Weird little dream. I'd love to have that patch. Everytime i see someone with one on their work shirts, i think, "Man, i was stupid". And that's some painful truth.

And, hell, it would be great to work at a Toyota dealership.

one two uno dos tres quatro

I count to 4. There were four, and now this is five.
I count to 4. Over and over, so no one else has to.

Last night, we did a really unbelievable.. and i mean that in all of it's meanings... version of "Tore Down". Like, speed metal. Like, EVERYBODY SOLO. For about 7 minutes. It was one of those weird WTF moments. The few people who were in the audience were stunned by it's awfulness. Those of us on stage laughed, and laughed, and wondered aloud to each other just what the hell was going on. It was great.

rock this town

yay i think the rockabilly band thing is gonna happen. So happens the kid who got the KBS scholarship had been wanting to do one and we were talking last night and that somehow popped into the conversation. So, he's looking for a drummer. I have my usual response, "Keep in touch". Because a couple of other local dudes want me over with them at the next 3rd Thursday, and they're also looking for a drummer. They have all this stuff they want me to be able to play, but... funny... no one has given me a list or a CD or anything, so i have to go deal with one of them in person today and get all professional at him. lol. Anyway the rockabilly thing is cool, got me on the bass, the kid on the git, another kid on the sax. It'll be fun. More young'ns to corrupt. Ok no i'll be good. really. They're really TOO young to corrupt. Better to let them corrupt themselves and i can tell them later how well their handiwork did.

no cake for me

well i'm really kinda bummed out. Smart Half and i were going to try to get tickets to see Cake at the Britt Festival, and we finally had the money put aside to do it, and the damn things were sold out. *weep*

back again to this

yay and welcome to Nth of Pril V. 5. Who knows what has happened to the prior host, but i give up on doing it that way. At least i know it isn't going to just up and disappear this way. Fact is, i'm lazy and don't want to deal with installing stuff on Charter and all that junk.