Belief

My 12 year-old got by it a year or so ago, finally coming to honest terms with herself about it; not only in her own mind, but as concerning the fact we told her a huge, heinous, spectacular lie.  Now, sure, we think it's cute that little kids are so trusting, endowing us so easily with the care of their young unspoiled souls, hearts, and minds as well as their physical aspects.  We love to see the wide-eyed wonder of their curiosity, their delight at having their fond desires met by a kindly grandfather who knows all, sees all, forgives and loves us.  It's a figure of our own desire to be cared for.  We relate to it, are captivated by it, wooed, and entertained... and we see it- and excuse it- as innocent.  Of course they'll learn that it's a mere crock of shit.  In fact, in an ideal Western World, their first run at dealing with crocks of shit and the disappointment they inevitably represent is the one called "Santa Claus".

It's not innocent to put kids through it though.  Put yourself back in those vulnerable shoes, and remember what it was really like to grow up with divorced parents, to find out your father's heart was long gone from you, or to hear, by the grapevine, that your girl/boy/best friend had betrayed you.  Santa Claus was your first lie, the first (and perhaps most brilliant) example of what this life would be delivering so much more of.

Our 10 year-old, in her almost aggressive leaning toward things bright and beautiful, hopeful and wholesome, is still holding tenaciously to the myth.  I don't know if- or how much- doubt has set in, but I'm pretty sure she knows she's alone in her enthusiasm at this point, so long before that season of wondrous magic and joyful celebration...  Last night she was in her room listening to Christmas music, making Christmas cards.  She was cutting up magazines with the big scissors, crafting Christmas wishes and blessings for her long list of loved ones.  I think she suspects...

And the part I don't look forward to isn't so much her view of me or her mother, but the fact she will end up feeling like a blame fool, and perhaps come to doubt the truth of anything that carries with it the power and promise of the impossible.  I think the fact we've made so much good into such a lie is the worst thing we could have done- especially to one for whom hope and faith are such a mainstay.  It was destructive, and boy am I sorry.

But she'll get over it.  Her sister did.

Gas Relief Syndrome...

...The opposite of "Gear Acquisition Syndrome"...

So you know that post earlier, where I said I wasn't going to sell my bass amplification gear?  Well I sold most of it.  Yes, I did, and I'm really alright with it.  No rants!

The Bag End cabs and the GK 400RB head have their new home at The Mill, here in Greenville, RI.  The Mill is a small music academy/instrument refinishing and rebuilding shop/music venue here.  They have a nice live set up and can record shows or do 16 track sessions.  They now have their own very slick little bass rig, and the GK 400RB is a back-up head to the resident Ashdown Evo-II 500 head.  What a sound!  They needed a nice bass rig- the cab that had been there was nice too- an SWR Big Bertha 2x15, but it was on loan and finally went the way of all things on loan... so now they're set.  The local music scene is a little bit bettered for it, and I scored a little bread to help out with our scene here at home.

I have this now:

This plus a small, home-made pedal board (plywood with carpet stapled to it) with some essential effect and utility pedals on it, powered by a DC Brick power supply is all I actually need to play, make a gig happen.  I've picked up a nice little extension cab to go with this potent little box, and it's coming in a week or two.  Sounds great, and I still have a backup head.  I'll find an additional cab as I go, but for now this stuff will totally take care of needs.  Portable, sounds punchy and present, and it's already been beat up, so now all I have to do is play it!

I have found, finally, that I really like the 80's-90's Trace Elliot stuff (models no longer produced), and it's all I have now.  Fine.

Anyhow  you gotta do what you gotta do.  Meanwhile work is picking up, our relationship with kid's school is improving.  Money is still sucky, and now we're going to have a bad time in the USA with all the new attitude in congress.  Sorry, politics have to come in sometime- and the air is certainly thick with it.  Even our drummer is at the polar opposite end of the room with me politically, but we're playing music, and I'm not ruining that for something as superfluous as politics.  I like my new band, and hope it gets to play some music we want to play!

Speaking of, our guitar player brought me an Audio-Techinca AT RMX64 console/4-track cassette recorder, and I'm in the process of fixing it.  Maybe that'll be a blog... more later.

Work

I'm finding myself gravitating towards a direction of creativity and resourcefulness concerning work and my ability to make bread, brought on by the desperate feel of our present economic chapter.  I've got  a 'Linked-in' page, I'm on 'Facebook' publishing photos of stuff I've done with/to wood in the context of home carpentry, as well as more novel applications, and I'm chasing down folks who have bits of my work installed in their homes to ask if I can come over and snap photos of it.  I hope it's all still standing- I do believe it is...

Today it's raining, and I'm sitting here plotting, editing photos, forming ideas and letters to send down the tube to prospective clients.  I'm really hoping to ramp into some other form of employment (I almost said 'excrement'!...) beside/instead of carpentry.  I have some pragmatic reasons for this as well as the more general, economy-derived concerns:  I have a condition known as 'Peripheral Neuropathy' which means my nerves send signal slowly along their paths to and from my brain.  Now I'm still quick on my feet, and reaction time, when I'm awake, is good.  But my hands and feet go numb-ish sometimes, and I have other limb/nerve issues as well.  I'm also very slight of build, and It's a drag to be dealing with cold weather in the context of manual labor.  I'm a scrawny bastard, see, and I have virtually no insulating properties to my physical being- no bulk, per se.  This means I get too cold when working outside in winter to be very effective for long; and "it's a drag" to go around being severely uncomfortable every day!  I don't see the need of it, so I'm looking for a novel approach to work, and hoping to find something near a reasonably dependable heat source.  Like South Florida, for example...

All that said, here's an example of a piece I built, off-the-cuff, for a fellow musician who's also a composer and performer of ancient music, Steven Jobe.  It's the stand for this custom-built 10' long, three-person-operated hurdy-gurdy (I'm pretty sure it's a one-of-a-kind instrument):

The stand, made of 3/4"plywood and minimal 2x framing lumber, is in two pieces, the cradle on top set around the top edge of the lower rolling base.  The instrument sits in its cradle, its resonant body effectively isolated from the cradle arms which are inclined at a 20-degree or so angle, facilitating manipulation of the melody-producing pull-handles by the performer.  Two additional helpers operate the three cranks at the bridge-end of the instrument, which activate two drone strings, and an addtional drone string that travels through a rhythmic "Clatter Bridge"... very medieval...

The 'gurdy's inception and execution was based on a painting by Heironymous Bosch called "The Garden of Earthly Delights", taken from the right-hand panel of the triptych, entitled "Hell".  Steve was composing some scores that involved the Bosch Hurdy-Gurdy as it was getting some final tuning-up from its builder after completion, and asked if I might be interested in building him something to hold it- so he could play it!  If he was going to perform with it, well it was going to be hard to sit such a device in one's lap and reach the melody keys.  Out came the wire-bound notebook, and a few days later there I was in the basement, sawdust and funny-looking jig-sawn plywood bits whirling about my head.  We seem to have nailed it:  The darn thing sounds very cool up in the air like that, and I'd say you'd be lucky to catch a performance from it.  Steve's got the thing 'wired' and it's a fun way to make some music.

*Next post I'll get the guy's name who built it!  Seems something one ought to know, sorry.

Anyway, the above is an example of where I'd like to go next with carpentry.  It's not fine furniture, I don't have those chops.  But it's form-after-function, and if I can make something that becomes invisible, but invaluable in use, that's what I'd like to be able to offer.

Another day, another bright idea.

I'd also like to do some writing, which is another reason for my "worrying" this blog page.  I don't know what it is exactly that I've got, but if I don't start forming up something then I'll never know!  So I ramble, hopefully...

Warning: Grievous Post... A Rant.

Too much to say, too little time to say it in…

On the way to driving my kids to school this morning, late- it was a hard morning- I found myself annoyed with my fellow drivers to the point of near-anger.  On the way home I repented, begrudgingly.  I realized the reason I'm so angry with humanity at times (often) is because I'm a part of it, and all the stupidity I see in my "fellow man" is light fare compared with what I myself exemplify.  I'm worse than my complaints about other people, and I find that discouraging to say the least...the crimes committed against my own self even bare witness...

...I allowed some misdirected people to take the wheel at a time in my younger years, to drive the leading edge of my life, so as to bring myself to utter shipwreck, leaving a trail of broken hearts and personal destruction to myself and to those who actually loved me.  Since turning my back with deflated heart, for the benefit of that twisted situation, ( a long and arduous story) on true, neon-lit, pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow opportunity for success in a field I still love as my first choice, I now live hand-to-mouth working low-end carpentry jobs to fight off the bank from the borders of my children's house and inheritance.  I can't even attain the simplest of life's pleasures without holding my nose above water- not only financially but often emotionally as well.  One gets tired of continually knowing they've allowed their hopes to be stolen from them- even handed them over to The Enemy.  Especially when the rest of your life looks pretty reasonable!  I’m working on retrieving the remnant of them, sure, but damn… when you’ve screwed the years you could have used as investment in that good gift you had (still might have), you know you are going to remain sort of screwed.  It becomes a condition you learn to live with.  This morning,  however, is not going well.

Learning to live and survive, never mind thrive, has taken 49 years.  All the musical talent that might live and be realized in this coil is largely unattended, and no you can't just play and record music and dismiss work and responsibility to other people unless you're Jimmy Page or his ilk, and that's reasonable.  My wife and children have been redemption for all my stupidity, mistakes, sins, and embarrassments.  I love them and would trade them for nothing... in fact in a better moment I don't care about the rest of this tripe I'm punching out right now, before I go, late, to work!  But it does seem that so many people I know with a considerable musical gift have already had a day of it, had their decent time of making a life, and are either playing reunion shows, getting letters from their grandchildren, or forming new projects playing their 20-30- year personal favorite instruments.  I'm playing a used bass I've had now for 3 months, since I can't manage to keep anything I really love... I can groove a circle around most of the local scene within a 50-mile radius given some regular playing time and a venue, but I have nothing to show for it. Yes that's a flip remark and liable to get me in hot water with somebody, but I'm feeling it.  I'll repent later...

That's humanity for you.

Better Half

Let me tell you about my wife.

My wife is the hardest-working person I know, and I'm often after her to dig her heels in a minute and sit down, stop and rest a minute.  But she's raised our two kids and they're now able to sit at a lunch counter with cross-country truckers or show up for tea with the Duchess of Windsor- without batting an eye or seeing a difference between the two. Her tireless focus and giant conscience from their beginnings of person-hood here on the earth have earned her the coveted "Mother of the Century" award.

She married me, whom when we met lived in a plain room with a pair of turtles, a girlie calendar, a bass and amp, and rode a bicycle to a restaurant job.  I owned nothing, and on our first date picked her up in a car with no hood and took her to "Free Wings Night" at the Ocean Mist in Matunuck, RI.  Honestly, I can't figure the girl out, but we had a laugh and a lot of the same thoughts on life.  For me that's a rare bird indeed, and we stuck happily.  Besides, she was a knockout.

Marriage for me, who had never been able to stick with anyone successfully for 3 months, was a revelation.  The arrival of children brought me to the realization that the only way forward was to strap into the cockpit and hit the gas!  I was in for an education, and those around me, who had chosen to love me, were in for it with me... It's taken 12 years and some significant sweat and tears (for other people, like my wife) to get this far, but I think we're out the other side.  I owe her a life of leisure and rest at this point, but I can't give it to her.  My children are the redemption of my life, given and brought to thrive by her.  Okay, me too, but it would have turned out way different without her constant love and attention; and the experience of having pretty fully grown up, which I did not have.

She's an accomplished musician and artist, intellectually gifted to the point of making me a poor blockhead (not hard to do anyway, but...), funny as a fine-dining waiter with a streak of sarcasm serving in a biker bar, and a stunning example of earthy, yet unearthly, beauty.  She has put up with my embarrassingly awkward social skills, brutally compromising expression of badly conceived opinions, skewed points of view and lack of general understanding for 14 years.  Now that I'm maybe straightening up a few issues I sometimes worry that I've done irreparable damage to the poor girl, but she remains straight as a Georgia Pine, maintaining the wry innocence of a pretty young nun with a flask hidden under her habit, looking for when it's safe to 'praise the Lord'.

She's a cool kitty, and I owe her something better than the better part of my life.  My occasional callousness and loose, cavalier attitude has at times potentially compromised her socially- without my meaning to do so- and I think it's time I made better effort to show off all the good, brilliant, wonderful thing that she is to my life.  I won't get close, but I have to try.  But if I'm being objective, and telling the truth, I really won't have to.

Virtuality is Not as Good.

I lost my Gmail account- and this blog- for a couple days, and pretty was ripped.  Full-blown ornery even.  A couple years' worth of contacts/networking, and this blog, which I really like and has been the receptacle of some soul-bearing and earnest expression, were apparently lost forever.  Oh well (I tried to choke it down), a hard day's lesson learned...

I'll skip the long story, but an errant venture on an iPhone, trying to access my Gmail 'account' during a work foray away from home stuck a shim into Gmail's security morass.  A full day and a half of clicking, typing angrily, waiting for text messages that wouldn't come- because my phone won't accept them, duh- and cussing, availed nothing  but frustration.  I called my brother-in-law with the iPhone in question, who, it turns out, had read my facebook post complaining about it.  He deleted the offending app from the device after having read my post.  That apparently availed nothing to alleviate the problem, and therefore fell temporarily under the category of 'Alarming'...

I hadn't noticed, during my episodic head-trauma from this minor disaster, that you could request to receive a "voice call" from the good 'people' at Google, however.  "Voice call" is evidently the new nomenclature for what we old people used to refer to as a "phone call".  Not a "text"... This was pointed out to me by my computer-and-internet-savvy brother-in-law, and I tried it.  The stress, and anger at the vagary of The Unreachable Google People had got me blind in one eye, I guess.  It was right there on the screen in front of me...  I got a return phone call in less than five seconds, a recording of the verification number I'd need to send to Google so they would restore my account.  I did the thing, and my Gmail account was restored.  The blog too! 

So we're living in this age of "information" and easy resources.  But it's as easy to foul your virtual scene and lose quite a lot if you're willing to just trust the system.  If it's important, now I save it to my own machine and print it as soon as I'm able.  Hard-copy it!  I've logically extrapolated this digital/cyber realm, and the ramifications of it, based on this little misadventure of mine to a fanatical extent, and am sure that if my life is being entrusted to "someone else's care", they had best be someone I actually know- made of flesh and blood- and actually trust.  And not someone made of bytes and code...

I almost sold off my most used, most worthy bass gear:  A GK 400RB and 2 Bag End S15D speaker enclosures.  I've had a real bad time with bread, had almost no work at all.  Out of the blue I got a call late last night to go off to Cape Cod to do some work on a house there for a few days, and there may be more to do from the same person, don't know.

My regular employer is cool with it, seems to get it that I'm up a creek and need to keep our house, feed kids, etc.  So if more work does surface for better bread we might be able to work it out- but I still think it's worthy to keep an investment in my "regular" job... seems that that one might become actually regular, we'll see.  Anyhow I've pulled my for sale ads from 4 different forums, and am now wearing a virtual bag over my head and keeping low for a while.  I've hemmed and hawed  a couple times about selling this stuff, and have bailed twice in a couple instances!  Lousy...

I'm still selling a couple items, ones that I really see as 'extra'.  Fine, I could use the space!  And the 'scratch'. But I piled up my gig-able gear into one place, and really it's not all that impressive a wall of gear!  An amp, a back-up amp, 2 small cabs and a little combo for dragging to rehearsal and living-room jams.  See:

Big deal!!  And I did sell off a bass, so I have 2 now- enough to keep it going if one has an issue.  Yep, gotta keep it together Rog, quit running off with your head bouncing around in your hands...

Off to the Cape.