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.
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