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.