I hope you had a Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it; and to others, I hope you had a good day anyway since we Christians got most of you the day off. He he - sorry for that bit of political incorrectness, but I got a bit fatigued by all the debate over whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. It occurred to me that the Hanukkah candlestick is very similar to what we used to do when I was a kid with the Advent Wreath, lighting more candles as the holiday approached. So I think traditions are fairly flexible and adaptable, as are most people -- unless they're writing editorials or letters to the editor.
Whatever or whomever we pray to, I did have a good example of karma over the weekend. I was at Oakbrook Mall shopping for gifts, and had just endured a strange assignation with a Macy's perfume demonstrator (Russian accent, cleavage, tin of coffee beans, stack of cardboard squares, snappy patter, and a lot of patience for guys who know what they can't stand but can't quite put it into words, and are reticent about admitting that the main danger with perfume isn't that she won't like it, but that he won't be able to stand it). This is for any other husbands who need to know what to expect, for future reference. Anyway, I was looking for a lighted makeup mirror that folds for travel, which she'd seen in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, but I was too slow to order in time. So I asked at every store where to find it. Not even the Sharper Image had folding ones. Macy's didn't have any makeup mirrors at all. So I got the perfume and -- after briefly toying with the idea of trying to steal one of the lighted mirrors from the cosmetics department -- exited Macy's, pausing to put some money in the Salvation Army kettle. Only had a five. What the heck, I'll be generous today. So then I called Chrissy and checked the mirror specifications I was looking for. Had to fold for travel. I was about ready to give up when I ended the call ("Hung up," I was going to say in my dated style). I looked up and there I was standing in front of Brookstone's. I'll give it one last shot. Walked in and there was the mirror right in front of me. So karma does operate.
I had the bad luck to be on crisis call for work over the weekend, so I had a good dose of what can go wrong on holidays - especially alcohol problems and divorce related dirty tricks, like not returning the kids. Plus a panic attack or two. But I know my wife didn't appreciate my having to take on-call, since she thought I'd paid all those dues years ago when I had to go out in the middle of the night for runaway kids and other fun stuff at the police station.
But other than that, it was an OK weekend. We all got each other some very nice gifts. Having grown kids with disposable income is kind of nice. They get us neat presents. My favorite was from my oldest son Christian - he got me a Boss palmtop recording studio. Amazing. This takes the place of a 4-channel tape deck, mixing board, and a whole truckload of effects pedals inclduing reverb, sustain, tremolo, fuzz, etc (for my electric guitar). For the acoustic stuff I need to either use the mono mic that's built in or buy a new stereo mic (my old one from Radio Shack seems to have given up the ghost). Even a phase shifter effect, which I thought I'd lost when I sold the phase shifter along with the Gibson amp in the '80's. It has electronic drums built in, too, so I can sound like Phil Collins, I guess. it's supposed to have a Flanger effect too... Itchykoo Park and Life in the Fast Lane.
I showed Christian how I could sound like Steve Vai with a setting called "Grinder." Actually I was playing a chord progression from The Bonzo Dog Band ("Mr. Apollo") that seemed to fit the super-saturated fuzz sound, but Christian said it sounded like Steve Vai, especially when I used the whammy bar. (!) So I did some quick and sloppy lead and that nailed it down. Fuzz covers a multitude of mistakes.
But I still haven't figured out how to record and multi-track and all that. The down side of having all these technological marvels squeezed into something smaller than a paperback book is that you have to use a small number of buttons that each have a multitude of functions, to navigate through a plethora of menus and set a mess of parameters, in order to accomplish the one desired task out of hundreds of possible ones. Before the batteries wear out.
But I'm sure I will, and then I'll be able to post sound files of myself that are fancier than what I can do now with one microphone and Audacity.
Newest tune I'm working on is "The Rakes of Kildare," which I saw on thesession.org on Christmas Eve while waiting for my brother-in-law and his wife to arrive. It was also in my Fiddler's Fakebook, which I should have guessed. But The Session is nice because you can hear most of the tunes, either as Midi files or by copying and pasting the text "abc" files into a little shareware program called abc2win.exe. Chrissy, my wife, liked the song so I learned it. It's not too hard, and I seem to be able to do it on the fiddle better than some others I've been learning. One to teach the Stump Grinders as well.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
My "Band" and What to Name It
The group of 3 guys and myself, who go together last month in Mount Prospect to play some old-time and other fun stuff, has yet to reschedule for a second practice. But I'm hopeful. This group consists of me, Paul Krickl (who was two years behind me at Fenwick High School 35 years ago, but we didn't really know each other), Paul's brother Ray, and his friend Patrick. We played everything from "Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine" to "Gimme Three Steps." My assignment, should I choose to accept it, is to come up with fiddle parts for all these various and sundry tunes.
Since there are three other guitar players, and one other mandolin player, I think my role is kind of set out for me for the most part. Unless I quickly drop two octaves or so and buy myself an upright bass. My only bass expertise in this life was back in 1969 when I was briefly part of "Buck Young," the folk-rock group that played at "Grounds" coffeehouse in River Forest. We were the official band of the Coffeehouse Movement in Oak Park and River Forest for Depressed People. I played bass on the bottom three strings of my Gibson ES-335. Not even dropped tuning. But I did discover the indispensability of being a bass player. Now if I can only be as indispensable on the fiddle, an instrument that draws attention to imperfection with painful clarity.
Anyway, what to call us. On our trip to Turkey Run this Thanksgiving, we drove through Rosedale, Indiana (which, like Dousman, Wisconsin, is a Brigadoon-like town that you find yourself in every so often but can't quite figure out how you got there). Rosedale is the home of a covered bridge, one of 33 in the county, which sported a graffito a few years back that said "Tursts Suck." In honor of the Covered Bridge Festival, no doubt. But I digress. Outside Rosedale, there is a thriving business that does stump grinding. So, there's a perfect name for us: The Stump Grinders.
I'm also partial to the Turkey Buzzards, after the birds that hover over Turkey Run State Park whenever we're there. Which has been for the last 15 Thanksgivings. I understand that turkey buzzards are intelligent and kind animals with a strong sense of loyalty to each other and to humans. Besides that, they eat things that even my college roommate's Polish uncle wouldn't eat, even if they were stuffed into a sausage casing with a ton of garlic. With no ill effects. They have stomachs that can disinfect anything. Even Taco Bell food. Scientists are studying them. There's already a song called "Shoot That Turkey Buzzard," also known by many other names as most fiddle tunes are. But my wife and kids don't like The Turkey Buzzards too much as a band name.
Then just yesterday as I was passing the kitchen counter where my wife had cut the tags off a new sweater, I saw a little envelope that inspired another name: The Extra Buttons String Band. Extra buttons being especially fitting, when all of us are in our 40's and 50's. But the family didn't like that one too much either.
So I guess the Stump Grinders is the leading contender. By the way, I don't know if the availability of stump grinding services in Indiana has anything to do with the prevalence of "Hoosier Trees," the name my family has given to that peculiar custom in Indiana of cutting all the branches off a tree that stands near a house, and leaving just the trunk standing, to sprout new branches later. Some farms have a whole line of Hoosier Trees along the side of the house. And houses in town do it too.
But the custom must be spreading: our next door neighbor here in Lyons did that to his maple tree a couple years ago; and just a week or two ago he repeated the surgery. And he's not even from Indiana; he's Mexican-American. Not that I mind -- it's cut down really nicely on the number of leaves I have to clean out of our pool.
I saw a band playing on the Channel Nine Morning News the other day that I thought were called the Love Handles. I thought that was a pretty good name until I heard it again and realized my bad hearing had tricked me again - it was actually the "Lovehammers." I like The Love Handles better. And maybe it hasn't been used yet. Also appropriate for my age group.
Someone reminded me about Commando Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, which raised the possibility of using 50's-60's childhood nostalgia references as band names. Hopefully the copyrights have expired. How about The American Flyers, or Cocoa Marsh, or Spinner and Paddlefoot?
But other obsolete terms might work - my photography essay suggests Reciprocity Failure as a name. Kind of deep, when you think about applying it to interpersonal relationships. How about Stop Bath, or The Fixers? Nah.
Best to stick to old timey names. One fiddle tune I researched had an alternate name that was Somebody's Mule. Some Civil War general. Shelby's Mule, that was it. (Also known as "Waiting for the Federals," which was in turn an alternate version of what I know as "Georgia Boys," by Jim "Texas Shorty" Chancellor). But, according to my son and daughter, Shelby's Mule is similar to the name of an existing band, Government Mule. So I guess that rules it out. Oh well, enough Quirk of Consciousness writing for tonight.
One more random note: My son has taken to calling the cranky computer lady who lives in his GPS program "Jo-Jo." That's from my name for the computer opponent in my Palm Scrabble game on my Treo: I name her "Jo" because whenever she gets a "J" she uses it to spell "Jo (a sweetheart)." Among other stupid and ridiculous words she comes up with from the Scrabble Dictionary, a tome obviously written by a bunch of Scotsmen who used to get high a lot (Khef, kif, kef are all forms of marijuana). But Jo grossed me out totally when she used the word "tup (to copulate with a ewe)." Those Scotsmen, they have no shame...
Since there are three other guitar players, and one other mandolin player, I think my role is kind of set out for me for the most part. Unless I quickly drop two octaves or so and buy myself an upright bass. My only bass expertise in this life was back in 1969 when I was briefly part of "Buck Young," the folk-rock group that played at "Grounds" coffeehouse in River Forest. We were the official band of the Coffeehouse Movement in Oak Park and River Forest for Depressed People. I played bass on the bottom three strings of my Gibson ES-335. Not even dropped tuning. But I did discover the indispensability of being a bass player. Now if I can only be as indispensable on the fiddle, an instrument that draws attention to imperfection with painful clarity.
Anyway, what to call us. On our trip to Turkey Run this Thanksgiving, we drove through Rosedale, Indiana (which, like Dousman, Wisconsin, is a Brigadoon-like town that you find yourself in every so often but can't quite figure out how you got there). Rosedale is the home of a covered bridge, one of 33 in the county, which sported a graffito a few years back that said "Tursts Suck." In honor of the Covered Bridge Festival, no doubt. But I digress. Outside Rosedale, there is a thriving business that does stump grinding. So, there's a perfect name for us: The Stump Grinders.
I'm also partial to the Turkey Buzzards, after the birds that hover over Turkey Run State Park whenever we're there. Which has been for the last 15 Thanksgivings. I understand that turkey buzzards are intelligent and kind animals with a strong sense of loyalty to each other and to humans. Besides that, they eat things that even my college roommate's Polish uncle wouldn't eat, even if they were stuffed into a sausage casing with a ton of garlic. With no ill effects. They have stomachs that can disinfect anything. Even Taco Bell food. Scientists are studying them. There's already a song called "Shoot That Turkey Buzzard," also known by many other names as most fiddle tunes are. But my wife and kids don't like The Turkey Buzzards too much as a band name.
Then just yesterday as I was passing the kitchen counter where my wife had cut the tags off a new sweater, I saw a little envelope that inspired another name: The Extra Buttons String Band. Extra buttons being especially fitting, when all of us are in our 40's and 50's. But the family didn't like that one too much either.
So I guess the Stump Grinders is the leading contender. By the way, I don't know if the availability of stump grinding services in Indiana has anything to do with the prevalence of "Hoosier Trees," the name my family has given to that peculiar custom in Indiana of cutting all the branches off a tree that stands near a house, and leaving just the trunk standing, to sprout new branches later. Some farms have a whole line of Hoosier Trees along the side of the house. And houses in town do it too.
But the custom must be spreading: our next door neighbor here in Lyons did that to his maple tree a couple years ago; and just a week or two ago he repeated the surgery. And he's not even from Indiana; he's Mexican-American. Not that I mind -- it's cut down really nicely on the number of leaves I have to clean out of our pool.
I saw a band playing on the Channel Nine Morning News the other day that I thought were called the Love Handles. I thought that was a pretty good name until I heard it again and realized my bad hearing had tricked me again - it was actually the "Lovehammers." I like The Love Handles better. And maybe it hasn't been used yet. Also appropriate for my age group.
Someone reminded me about Commando Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, which raised the possibility of using 50's-60's childhood nostalgia references as band names. Hopefully the copyrights have expired. How about The American Flyers, or Cocoa Marsh, or Spinner and Paddlefoot?
But other obsolete terms might work - my photography essay suggests Reciprocity Failure as a name. Kind of deep, when you think about applying it to interpersonal relationships. How about Stop Bath, or The Fixers? Nah.
Best to stick to old timey names. One fiddle tune I researched had an alternate name that was Somebody's Mule. Some Civil War general. Shelby's Mule, that was it. (Also known as "Waiting for the Federals," which was in turn an alternate version of what I know as "Georgia Boys," by Jim "Texas Shorty" Chancellor). But, according to my son and daughter, Shelby's Mule is similar to the name of an existing band, Government Mule. So I guess that rules it out. Oh well, enough Quirk of Consciousness writing for tonight.
One more random note: My son has taken to calling the cranky computer lady who lives in his GPS program "Jo-Jo." That's from my name for the computer opponent in my Palm Scrabble game on my Treo: I name her "Jo" because whenever she gets a "J" she uses it to spell "Jo (a sweetheart)." Among other stupid and ridiculous words she comes up with from the Scrabble Dictionary, a tome obviously written by a bunch of Scotsmen who used to get high a lot (Khef, kif, kef are all forms of marijuana). But Jo grossed me out totally when she used the word "tup (to copulate with a ewe)." Those Scotsmen, they have no shame...
Friday, December 8, 2006
Hired Power...
From "Treatment Magazine (Addiction Industry News)", Jan 2006 - an advertisement:
The Hired Power Recovery Assistant Program (TM) - "Help clients make the critical transition from being in treatment to living in recovery. Trained, experienced staff, insured, bonded company."
Working in the field, I run across these things and usually don't notice them much. But the name of this group caught my eye and I got a snide chuckle out of it. ("If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll be anyone's higher power you say.")
Apparently this company can arrange to have someone go to a client's home to stay with them and keep them on the straight and narrow. They claim that they are not sponsors or therapists, but they do allude to the fact that they can report back to the patient's doctor or treatment program. ("So be good! For goodness sake!" ...I guess it's a day for "Ghostbusters" quotes).
I've worked in the counseling field for a long time, and I know that I've had to live with 12-step philosophy and its domination of my field for a long time. I've had to sit through a bunch of annual EAP conference lunch speeches that were just AA drunkalougues (just substitute rubbery chicken for the coffee and cigarettes). One year I almost lost my rubbery chicken lunch from hearing Bill Moyers (the younger) describe in graphic detail how he blew his nasal septum out after using too much cocaine.
But even considering how thoroughly 12-stepped my profession is, I think I can venture an opinion that this sounds pretty goofy. Then again, in this era of personal trainers, wellness coaches, and executive coaches, if people want to pay for something like this, I suppose they can be my guest. The company's website is hiredpower.com.
The same magazine has an article that I found enlightening: "Over the past couple of decades, as South Florida has grown into one of private addiction treatment's leading regions, so too has the ancillary business of providing sober living facilities and services boomed. Not only is the sober house business highly profitable in and of itself, but it has provided an ideal way in which to finance entrepreneurial participation in South Florida's hot real estate market..."
Apparently the city of Boca thought this was a less-than-stellar use of some of that choice real estate and wanted to zone the property to keep recovering drunks out. Fortunately, the owner (using his "considerable financial resources") got the Dept of Justice involved, probably on the premise that rich drunks are a protected group.
For the rest of us, both counselors and people who want to quit, self-help meetings, counseling, and reading materials will still be the main tools within our budget. But it's nice to know that the rights of any of us to occupy choice real estate in order to get sober is being protected by the courts.
The Hired Power Recovery Assistant Program (TM) - "Help clients make the critical transition from being in treatment to living in recovery. Trained, experienced staff, insured, bonded company."
Working in the field, I run across these things and usually don't notice them much. But the name of this group caught my eye and I got a snide chuckle out of it. ("If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll be anyone's higher power you say.")
Apparently this company can arrange to have someone go to a client's home to stay with them and keep them on the straight and narrow. They claim that they are not sponsors or therapists, but they do allude to the fact that they can report back to the patient's doctor or treatment program. ("So be good! For goodness sake!" ...I guess it's a day for "Ghostbusters" quotes).
I've worked in the counseling field for a long time, and I know that I've had to live with 12-step philosophy and its domination of my field for a long time. I've had to sit through a bunch of annual EAP conference lunch speeches that were just AA drunkalougues (just substitute rubbery chicken for the coffee and cigarettes). One year I almost lost my rubbery chicken lunch from hearing Bill Moyers (the younger) describe in graphic detail how he blew his nasal septum out after using too much cocaine.
But even considering how thoroughly 12-stepped my profession is, I think I can venture an opinion that this sounds pretty goofy. Then again, in this era of personal trainers, wellness coaches, and executive coaches, if people want to pay for something like this, I suppose they can be my guest. The company's website is hiredpower.com.
The same magazine has an article that I found enlightening: "Over the past couple of decades, as South Florida has grown into one of private addiction treatment's leading regions, so too has the ancillary business of providing sober living facilities and services boomed. Not only is the sober house business highly profitable in and of itself, but it has provided an ideal way in which to finance entrepreneurial participation in South Florida's hot real estate market..."
Apparently the city of Boca thought this was a less-than-stellar use of some of that choice real estate and wanted to zone the property to keep recovering drunks out. Fortunately, the owner (using his "considerable financial resources") got the Dept of Justice involved, probably on the premise that rich drunks are a protected group.
For the rest of us, both counselors and people who want to quit, self-help meetings, counseling, and reading materials will still be the main tools within our budget. But it's nice to know that the rights of any of us to occupy choice real estate in order to get sober is being protected by the courts.
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Dorks rule... or at least have their day
I saw an article in The Wall Street Journal about digital SLR cameras, and how they're hot now because people who used to have film SLR's now finally feel like the digital versions are affordable and improved enough to buy.
It made me think that there's a lot of Dorkic Convergence going on with my age cohort and its near neighbors. (Iwas born in 1953, graduated high school in 1970, graduated college in 1974, married in 1976, started a family in 1978, and hit my stride in my career about last year... just in time to start thinking about retirement.)
In grammar school high school and college, I always thought of myself as someone who didn't belong to the main group of kids. I got along with them, OK, but often (especially in high school) I only felt marginally like I belonged. I started to think of myself as someone who had interests that I wouldn't necessarily make public for fear of ridicule. In grammar school I thought stamps and coins were fun. In high school, I became a big science fiction fan (thanks largely to reading my older brother's books after he was done with them). I played the guitar, but had to hide the fact that before "Gloria" and "Louie, Louie," I knew how to play "The Shadow of Your Smile" with that mellow, upper pickup sound (thanks to Ralph Polinski, wedding performer and my first guitar teacher). I also loved photography and darkroom work, and used to ride my bike to the camera store to buy developer, fixer, paper, and whatnot.
I was never athletic, and hated gym class (I was one of those that the captains argued over NOT wanting on their kickball team). I did play intramural ping-pong in high school, but never made it to the semi-finals.
But what I'm starting to see is that a lot of us who were non-jocks (and some who were jocks) are getting in touch with their Inner Dorks about now. My college friend Gerry sent us their annual Christmas letter and titled it something like "revenge of the dorks," because he got a picture he took of his train layout on the cover of Model Railroader magazine. I bought a ukulele and think about buying guitar accessories and being in a "band." I tried dusting off my old SLR camera that I used to use to take yearbook pictures in college, and when I'm doing laundry I look at the photo enlarger in the basement with fond nostalgia -- even though I wouldn't know where to buy paper and chemicals anymore, even if I did want to get involved in all that mess -- ahh, the smell of sodium thiosulfate...
Science fiction still isn't exactly cool, but has become much more mainstream since Star Trek and Star Wars. (Although I was greatly reassured, after attending a Star Trek fan convention in 1976, that I was nowhere near the dork that most of those people were. Still, while there my wife and I heard Harlan Ellison read "Shatterday," and that was pretty funky.)
But in general, I get the sense that people my age are much more comfortable these days doing what my friends and I used to call "Fascinating Ourselves," than I would have suspected a few years ago. I talked in my first post about the early letters being a form of blogging, and we also did tapes (sound recordings) that we mailed to each other, which I suppose you could call an early form of podcasting. We were heavily influenced by the Firesign Theater, but we were pretty weird in our own right, and at the time we thought most people would never understand what we were doing or why.
Now that everyone is sending each other weird humor, and having websites (like thesneeze.com that are almost exactly the kind of humor we used to do), it makes me wonder if we weren't more mainstram than we realized. or just ahead of our time.
Being in this band with three other guys my age brings that point home. We play anything and everything but there's an underlying pattern to it. We're "fascinating ourselves" again. We don't care if anyone ever pays to hear us (though that would be fun), but we know we're not interested in what passes for entertainment these days and like the idea of taking responsibility for entertaining ourselves.
So all you people out there (not just guys, I'm discovering that women are just as capable of this kind of thinking) -- show us your dorky interests. Let's hear it from the people who:
It made me think that there's a lot of Dorkic Convergence going on with my age cohort and its near neighbors. (Iwas born in 1953, graduated high school in 1970, graduated college in 1974, married in 1976, started a family in 1978, and hit my stride in my career about last year... just in time to start thinking about retirement.)
In grammar school high school and college, I always thought of myself as someone who didn't belong to the main group of kids. I got along with them, OK, but often (especially in high school) I only felt marginally like I belonged. I started to think of myself as someone who had interests that I wouldn't necessarily make public for fear of ridicule. In grammar school I thought stamps and coins were fun. In high school, I became a big science fiction fan (thanks largely to reading my older brother's books after he was done with them). I played the guitar, but had to hide the fact that before "Gloria" and "Louie, Louie," I knew how to play "The Shadow of Your Smile" with that mellow, upper pickup sound (thanks to Ralph Polinski, wedding performer and my first guitar teacher). I also loved photography and darkroom work, and used to ride my bike to the camera store to buy developer, fixer, paper, and whatnot.
I was never athletic, and hated gym class (I was one of those that the captains argued over NOT wanting on their kickball team). I did play intramural ping-pong in high school, but never made it to the semi-finals.
But what I'm starting to see is that a lot of us who were non-jocks (and some who were jocks) are getting in touch with their Inner Dorks about now. My college friend Gerry sent us their annual Christmas letter and titled it something like "revenge of the dorks," because he got a picture he took of his train layout on the cover of Model Railroader magazine. I bought a ukulele and think about buying guitar accessories and being in a "band." I tried dusting off my old SLR camera that I used to use to take yearbook pictures in college, and when I'm doing laundry I look at the photo enlarger in the basement with fond nostalgia -- even though I wouldn't know where to buy paper and chemicals anymore, even if I did want to get involved in all that mess -- ahh, the smell of sodium thiosulfate...
Science fiction still isn't exactly cool, but has become much more mainstream since Star Trek and Star Wars. (Although I was greatly reassured, after attending a Star Trek fan convention in 1976, that I was nowhere near the dork that most of those people were. Still, while there my wife and I heard Harlan Ellison read "Shatterday," and that was pretty funky.)
But in general, I get the sense that people my age are much more comfortable these days doing what my friends and I used to call "Fascinating Ourselves," than I would have suspected a few years ago. I talked in my first post about the early letters being a form of blogging, and we also did tapes (sound recordings) that we mailed to each other, which I suppose you could call an early form of podcasting. We were heavily influenced by the Firesign Theater, but we were pretty weird in our own right, and at the time we thought most people would never understand what we were doing or why.
Now that everyone is sending each other weird humor, and having websites (like thesneeze.com that are almost exactly the kind of humor we used to do), it makes me wonder if we weren't more mainstram than we realized. or just ahead of our time.
Being in this band with three other guys my age brings that point home. We play anything and everything but there's an underlying pattern to it. We're "fascinating ourselves" again. We don't care if anyone ever pays to hear us (though that would be fun), but we know we're not interested in what passes for entertainment these days and like the idea of taking responsibility for entertaining ourselves.
So all you people out there (not just guys, I'm discovering that women are just as capable of this kind of thinking) -- show us your dorky interests. Let's hear it from the people who:
- Have had model trains and built little buildings for them. Even better, have researched paint schemes for railroad lines to see if our trains are historically accurate;
- Have a reel-to-reel tape recorder in the basement with boxes and boxes of tapes with your own and your friend's voices, band performances, or just weird sound effects and experiments on them;
- Every tried building your own fuzz-tone box;
- Can talk intelligently with someone about small details in Roger Zelazny's "Amber" series, or Larry Niven's "Ringworld" series;
- Have copies of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - the BBC radio series, not the movie;
- Have ever shot Tri-X at ASA 1200 and push-processed it;
You can add to the list but I hope you get the idea.
Friday, December 1, 2006
Mental Jotto at 3 AM
The title of the blog -
"Mental jotto" from my friend Jack who got it from a Tom Wolfe book when we were in college.
"Yearbook" from the Oscar Buros Mental Measurement Yearbook, which only psychology majors ever had to learn about. (Timothy Leary had a psychological inventory listed in there, from his pre-acid days.)
My friends Jack, Gerry, and Bruce and I used to write things down and send them to each other. We used manual typewriters and carbon paper so we'd be able to have copies for everyone. My mom did the same thing later with her family letters. But the family letters were newsy, while my letters to my friends were just rambling observations about anything and nothing.
Early blogs, in other words.
Except now, instead of being kept in a musty file cabinet in my basement, my rambling observations about everything and nothing can be out on the Internet for any one of several billion human beings to see. As long as their Comcast isn't acting up, that is.
At work, I run a call center. Not your average call center, since we're all mental health counselors who are there to assist people who work for the companies my company contracts with for employee assistance. Some of them aren't happy about having to call us. Like those poor guys in Northwest Indiana in all those labor unions who were stricken with a mysterious outbreak of Cold Pee Disease. Rumor has it that it's caused by spider bites. At least that was one guy's explanation. But anyway, when they don't pass their drug test for whateer reason, they have to call us.
Now I'm willing to entertain the possibility that this country might be better off if we legalized cocaine and marijuana and taxed it like liquor. But I still think it's a pretty good idea to keep the guys who've been enjoying those vices from working on the piping at a steel mill or a power plant (D'oh!). Or driving 18 wheelers filled with a few thousand gallons of gasoline.
Besides, as long as people have to be seen by counselors for failing drug tests, I'll have a job.
But other people call us because they want to get some help with something. And we do help them most of the time. The pay isn't great and we don't get a lot of praise (mostly we get complaints when people have a hard time geting through), but it's good work and it feels good to do a good job at it. So that's it for work.
Fiddling is much harder. I started it last March by taking classes (and later private lessons) at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. I've played the guitar for 30 plus years, and recently took up the mandolin (and ukulele), but the fiddle is much harder. They forgot the frets, for one thing. And there's this infernal bow to deal with.
Oh, well, enough for tonight. Welcome to my blog.
"Mental jotto" from my friend Jack who got it from a Tom Wolfe book when we were in college.
"Yearbook" from the Oscar Buros Mental Measurement Yearbook, which only psychology majors ever had to learn about. (Timothy Leary had a psychological inventory listed in there, from his pre-acid days.)
My friends Jack, Gerry, and Bruce and I used to write things down and send them to each other. We used manual typewriters and carbon paper so we'd be able to have copies for everyone. My mom did the same thing later with her family letters. But the family letters were newsy, while my letters to my friends were just rambling observations about anything and nothing.
Early blogs, in other words.
Except now, instead of being kept in a musty file cabinet in my basement, my rambling observations about everything and nothing can be out on the Internet for any one of several billion human beings to see. As long as their Comcast isn't acting up, that is.
At work, I run a call center. Not your average call center, since we're all mental health counselors who are there to assist people who work for the companies my company contracts with for employee assistance. Some of them aren't happy about having to call us. Like those poor guys in Northwest Indiana in all those labor unions who were stricken with a mysterious outbreak of Cold Pee Disease. Rumor has it that it's caused by spider bites. At least that was one guy's explanation. But anyway, when they don't pass their drug test for whateer reason, they have to call us.
Now I'm willing to entertain the possibility that this country might be better off if we legalized cocaine and marijuana and taxed it like liquor. But I still think it's a pretty good idea to keep the guys who've been enjoying those vices from working on the piping at a steel mill or a power plant (D'oh!). Or driving 18 wheelers filled with a few thousand gallons of gasoline.
Besides, as long as people have to be seen by counselors for failing drug tests, I'll have a job.
But other people call us because they want to get some help with something. And we do help them most of the time. The pay isn't great and we don't get a lot of praise (mostly we get complaints when people have a hard time geting through), but it's good work and it feels good to do a good job at it. So that's it for work.
Fiddling is much harder. I started it last March by taking classes (and later private lessons) at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. I've played the guitar for 30 plus years, and recently took up the mandolin (and ukulele), but the fiddle is much harder. They forgot the frets, for one thing. And there's this infernal bow to deal with.
Oh, well, enough for tonight. Welcome to my blog.
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