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  • “You are my biggest fan.” – Guy Patterson (The Wonders)

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    This post is almost exclusively guitar related content. Four armed is four warned. Or something like that.

    This morning I started the day listening/watching an instructional rockabilly guitar DVD by Damian Bacci. I’d seen some clips on the ole YouTube and his stuff was fluid and the lesson speed and content was right up my alley. I knew I was only going to have enough time to listen to a little and then hack away for a little bit.

    I grabbed three different guitars over the course of noodling and noticed quite a difference between them. In fact, major differences. I remembered that I’d had some of these guitars worked on by Neil Sargent in Houston….which is funny because they’re the guitars that played the absolute best. For all the non-guitar players out there, buying a guitar is a lot like buying a suit. You really need to have it “tailored” how you like it.  Unfortunately, I’ve never truly acquired the skill to do my own setups. I do the basics, but when it comes to the more extensive stuff, I leave it to a pro.

    Once the pro has done it, it’s more or less a “set it and forget it” situation – except for the basic stuff. Since I picked up a few guitars in a rather short period of time AND my favorite guitar tech is now about four hours away from me, some of the setups that should have happened, didn’t.

    Having realized this, I knew I need to start figuring out how I’m going to get this done, starting with my least played guitar.

    Neil (long ago) recommended a place up in East Dallas that I’m going to try out soon (not Guitar Center).

    Today, having made this realization, I headed over to Guitar Center to pick up some FastFret since I totally forgot that I ever used to use it . Today was an unusual day. An extreeeeemly unusual day.

    I walked in, and there were two guys facing each other, one (the mohawked one) was single string picking a chord progression and the other guy was playing these beautiful, tasteful jazz and rock runs around the chords the other guy was playing. It was massively cool. I’ve never, EVER, experienced that in a Guitar Center before (and I suspect few have).  I asked the guys at the parts counter who they were – they said, “They don’t know each other”. Apparently the guitar tech guy knew one of the guys and the other guy was a session player that lived nearby. They were suitably impressed too.

    Having passed by my chance to say something to the other guy the other day, I told these two how much I dug what they were doing. They both said thanks and smiled.

    If only every trip to Guitar Center could be as pleasant.


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  • “Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.” George Bernard Shaw

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Hoo-lee crap. I discovered something today.

    There are about a million USB cables out in my garage.

    Due to a “E-recycling” event that’s coming up at work  in about four days, I was moved to clean out all the boxes and boxes of tech stuff that I’ve accumulated over about ten years. Some of it you hold on to because you never know when it might come in handy, other times it’s a, “I always need USB cables”.

    Really, did I ever think that of the four (absolute crap) audio cards that I had stashed and unused (because they didn’t work) that I would use them again?

    On the plus side, I finally cleaned all the tech garbage out of the attic. Such a relief.  Rather than undeniable fatigue that comes from thinking about “stuff stashed in the attic”, it has now been replaced with pure relief of knowing that there’s nothing up there that needs to be cleaned out. Just the usual decorations, etc. Stuff that’s supposed to be there.

    Also went to a performance yesterday at the Meyerson out in Dallas.  Pretty swank place – I liked it a lot. My daughter performed in her school symphonic band.  My crappy camera was overwhelmed by the space/distance and decided to blur pretty much everything. View from the floor, past some balconies, up at the ceiling:

    Here’s some shots from last weekend – we went to Deep Ellum on the Dart train for the Deep Ellum Arts Festival, it was rainy and somewhat cold but we made the best of it and had a good time. Deep Ellum and Oak Cliff are rivals for coolness, but I like Deep Ellum a little better.

    I will note, this was the first time that we were asked for tickets.  One of the Dart officers went throughout the train and asked for tickets. A homeless man saw the guy a mile a way and he was off the train in a flash. He didn’t get busted, but a girl sitting across the aisle from us did.  The officer made her go buy a ticket.  He also kind of scared me after he busted her – he looked at my daughter and said, “What school does she go to?”. I answered all his questions which ended with a statement that I could have bought a student priced ticket if she shows her school ID. Nice of him to do that.


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  • “Vicious as a tigress can be, she never eats her own cubs” Chinese Proverbs

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Today I was talking to a customer who was working from home and while we were waiting for her laptop to load we talked about her bird that was screeching in the background. I don’t remember how we got on the topic, but she mentioned that she had a scar on her leg that was caused by a tiger.  She thought it made for a good line, but there wasn’t much of a story, a baby tiger she was handling flexed his claws and did the damage. I told her it certainly beat my “bit by an emu” story which is not only a boring story, but pretty lame. This is an emu:

    They have necks like a snake so you’re not sure where they’re going to strike until it’s too late. Snap!


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  • “Fanatics in power and the funnel of a tornado have this in common – the narrow path in which they move is marked by violence and destruction” Oscar Ostlund

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I’m not sure how I was so unaware of the weather situation today. Almost subliminally I overheard some people saying, “The tornado almost hit Arlington!” I slowly realize that my house, that I’ve lived in for seven years now, is in Arlington. Duh.

    So all of a sudden, I get off the phone and what is usually a dull mumbling of people (rabble rabble) had become very, very quiet. One sole girl who sits about two cubes down from me was walking away, I asked, “Uh, are we evacuating?” She nodded yes.

    So, the entire office evacuated to the main stairwell and corridor in the middle of the building. The very glass-fronted entrance was visible, but we were kept at a safe distance by the security people.

    Everybody was on their phones and ipads trying to figure out what the weather situation actually was, and it was super, SUPER dark outside.

    All of a sudden it sounded like someone was dropping bricks out of the sky. Everyone kind of rushes the door to see what’s going on, but I knew it was hail.

    I’ve never had any of my cars outside when there was a hailstorm and I was strangely calm. I’ve only had my last car for a few years, but I guess there’s times to worry about things, and times that it’s not a big deal.

    One of the employees had a completely smashed windshield, my car got some good sized dings but the hail was only (“only”) golf ball sized, so I got off easy. No damage at the house, minimal damage on the car.

    I’m super SUPER impressed with my company and how they took care of the employees. While I didn’t hear the initial evacuation command, we were kept out of harm’s way very well.


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  • “I’m hot, sticky sweet, from my head to my feet. yeah.” – Joe Elliott

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    This morning I regained my sense of smell.

    I’m not sure if it’s temporary, but my sense of smell has never been that strong – or at least not as strong as other people I suppose?

    The only thing I can attribute it to is the massively sugary cake that I made yesterday. The original recipe called for whipped cream, but instead we opted for some homemade vegan icing, of which the primary ingredient is powdered sugar.  After it was all said and done, I fell into a nightmarish sleep reminiscent of the trippy tunnel scene in the original Willy Wonka movie.

    But the reason I think that it affected my sense of smell so much is that it reminded me of one of my first real jobs – Soda Jerk at the 59 Diner.  I worked there back in the halcyon days in the 80’s. Wandering around Houston at that time, you tended to run into a lot of people who jerked (hee-hee) for the 59 Diner. It was almost like a secret club.  From my understanding, the SPRAWL house was right behind it, but I wasn’t cool enough to be running in those circles.

    The name should give it away –

    While the place did have a certain retro appeal then (it was actually a really cool place), it’s changed owners several times since and has lost some/all of the uniqueness that it originally had when I was there. I’d certainly stop by for some fries or something, but I never expect truly greasy diner food any more (which is what made the place so great). It didn’t hurt that it was across the street from Rockin’ Robin.

    Rockin’ Robin holds a special place in my heart, but only because of one of my favorite guitar teachers and a really great friend of mine (who plays for The Guzzlers) put up with my teenage shenanigans there (practice your guitar? What’s THAT?).  I learned a lot and made a lifelong friend. I still recall his response, similar to everyone else’s, when I told him I was getting a job at the Diner, “Really? My friend got food poisoning there.”  I’d love to say that as a young lad I hung out at the feet of the coolest guitar store employees around, but that really wasn’t the case. My experiences in the downstairs store part from that time period were tainted by one of the most bitter, washed-up, ex-roadie guitar player/store employees named Dennis.  I kid you not here’s a sample exchange between myself and him:

    Me: “Hey, uh, what does a flanger do?”

    Dennis: (looks annoyed) “It flanges”

    I sheepishly walk away.

    This isn’t to say that exchange today might not be somewhat similar to any Guitar Center these days, but Dennis seemed to just go out of his way to be an immense prick.

    Anyway, back to the ’59.  These days, when people ask for a full resume including EVERY job that I’ve EVER had, I make sure to include the Diner and pad my resume with such things as “Extreme time management” and “Made custom desserts to order”. In all actuality, there’s not much padding. That job is certainly one of the toughest I’ve had.  Working in food service is a special circle of hell – one of which I’ve  managed to escape from a few times now. Some of the recruiters have joked with me about it, but typically only because they’ve worked food service too – so they understand the “battle” mentality of an understaffed dinner rush.

    Photo by Texas.713

    The upshot of making desserts in such a time-stressed environment is that my sense of smell and taste were severely jacked up. The entirety of the time I worked as a Jerk, my diet subsisted of Cheddar Cheese blocks and Pink Grapefruit Juice cocktail.  Coming home reeking of ice cream and whipped cream and syrup was disgusting in its own way.  Soda jerks tended not to last very long, I’m not sure if it was always the trial by fire, or first rung of the ladder kind of deal or not. Typically everyone who jerked eventually hosted or waited tables. I’m sure there was more money in waiting, but I got out as soon as the summer ended.

    Photo by The Rocketeer

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  • “A witch and a bitch always dress up for each other, because otherwise the witch would upstage the bitch, or the bitch would upstage the witch, and the result would be havoc” Tennessee Williams

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    “Say man, you’re not from around here, are you?”

    As I took a millisecond to gauge why that question was being asked, I immediately came to the conclusion that the barista really didn’t have any ulterior motives for asking. With that being said, I wasn’t quite sure where he was coming from, so I just decided to give him a brief synopsis about being born in another country, living in a city south of here, and then ending pretty simply with, “And here I am”.

    “Yeah, man, well, you’ve got style, like, a lot of the other people around here don’t have style like yours.”

    Again, without thinking too much about where this was all headed, I ended with, “Thanks man!” and took off.

    It’s probably the first time my own personal style has been complemented by a completely random dude, and it probably has more to do with my attitude when I’m talking with those people that occasionally make me a coffee drink. After working in food service, my attitude is, “Your job probably sucks, so I’ll try not to be a reason you hate it just that much more.”

    The real reason that I tend to think that people ask me that question is because my (southern?) accent is a lot flatter than most around here.  Every Texan within hearing distance will immediately snicker, peg me as at least a Yankee, or a foreign import, and then proceed to explain how I’m not anything like a Texan.

    “He doesn’t even carry a kn-iii-fe!”

    It was really a survival mechanism for when I lived in New Zealand. At an all boy’s school, it was somewhat of a Darwinist survival-of-the-fittest mindset. The weak and timid were mercilessly beaten up. While my temper occasionally got ahead of me, my desire to walk without crutches or casts kept me in line.

    Here’s one great example – one time there was a ladder leaning up against one of the buildings (close to the metalshop class room if I recall) *total sidenote, metalshop was a valid class, and had an acetylene tank and everything. I bailed on this class into woodworking thinking I would do better, but turns out I’m allergic to freshly cut wood and varnish. Go figure. So anyway, the ladder is pretty obtrusively leaning on the side of the building in the opening to a hall, and so either you had to really step around it or just easily walk under it. Being the logical guy that I am, I walked under the ladder (no fuss, no muss) and was immediately pummeled in the stomach by some laughing blonde kid. This is the same one that picked on me occasionally, but all I did was give out a big whoosh and kept walking.

    Yeah, good times. There was also that time that one of the boarders, uh, relieved himself on one of the small theater’s seats in which we had a house assembly. The room was PACKED and there was a one seat perimeter around it. Whoo, it was bad.

    Anyway.


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  • “Say goodbye to the oldies, but goodies, because the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems” Billy Joel

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    I’m totally going to sound like an old man here, but I accidentally watched the show Breaking In. The plot, however implausible, wasn’t what bugged me.

    How is it that the only characters on the show that I remotely related to were Christian Slater and Megan Mullally? Those cyber-kids (and I do mean kids since they weren’t portrayed by the typical late 20/early 30 something hollywood actors), are just so thinly written. Not that I really want to know more about people who speak in internet-speak. I know it was the writing, but seriously, could I be less sympathetic to any of those whiny twenty-somethings who feel cheated because they don’t want to work for a huge-multi-global corporation? Like they deserve to have their feelings taken into consideration? Sure sure, I know it’s fiction, and a silly comedy. (Actually pretty bad actually) but the premise is just grating.

    Portraying hotshot teens with “awesome” jobs who get away with murder isn’t doing this generation any favors. Not all kids think like this, I’m sure. Depressing to think about.

    Sheesh, I’m still proving that Generation X isn’t the roundup of slackers that they portrayed it to be.


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  • “I wrote a song, but I can’t read music. Every time I hear a new song on the radio I think, “Hey, maybe I wrote that.”” Stephen Wright

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    Since I recently seem to have gotten an influx of new readers, I feel somewhat pressured to write a witty, insightful blog post to impress them all.

    Of course, that’s really just not how I work.

    WordPress recently integrated an interesting feature that keeps track of each blog post and then encourages/goads you into updating more frequently (410 posts!!!! Only 5 MORE to get to 415!!!!). Assumedly it’s aimed at reducing dead/abandoned blogs.  While I’ve been blogging long enough, I can’t tell anyone how to make money doing it nor even give them tips on making them update more often. There was a service that I signed up for that gave a daily topic, but I gave up after….um…one. It feels like a cop-out to write using someone else’s idea.

    My blog exists because I feel like noting some information down at any given time and because I don’t put any pressure on myself to produce. Consistency? Ha! What’s that??!?

    Of course, downing some scotch makes it a lot easier.

    I’m not going to lie, if I ever manage to make it to a Freshly Pressed site, I’ll be pretty proud. But I’ll feel better that all the links off to the side will get more clicks. That’s what my blog is about – sharing and talking about stuff that I think is cool, odd, or otherwise mentionable.


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  • “What was the competition? Well, I remember this Puerto Rican who came out in a short skirt and a gun.” Sarah Vaughan

    Posted on by The Thousand Yard Stare Comment

    It was date night last night, which was fortunate, because we saw a really cool show at The Kessler. For those of you “not in the know”, the Kessler is located in Oak Cliff. Once renowned for crime (and punishment), North Oak Cliff has swung the pendulum. Isn’t it always where the rent is cheap that the artists flock? It’s kind of got a bohemian vibe going on. There are still douche-y spots, but overall it all ends up balancing out with all the typical cheap-rent auto-repair joints, fruterias, and hair salons.  Overall I give the Kessler a huge thumbs up – it’s a vintage theater with great views from all angles in the house. The bar is well run and the food is great. Anyway, enough about my Yelp review of  the venue.

    Since I’m kind of burned out on Burlesque shows, it was really nice to see a well run sideshow element. Honestly, I’ve never seen sword swallowing in person nor human blockhead stuff, but it all meshed really well. The MC Donny Vomit was great, and the dancers Little Miss Firefly, Go-Go Amy and Heather Holliday all put on a great show.  Would totally suggest that you go see them if they pass through your town.

    One of my favorite parts of the show was the musical opener Eddy Price. I totally did not expect this guy rockin’ out.

    As I mentioned, there is a douche element to North Oak Cliff and for the life of me I cannot figure out why the crowd at the Kessler (specifically for this show) was unlike ANY of the crowds that ever go to the regular burlesque shows around town. I did see one of the Lollie Bombs there, but in terms of local support, I don’t think there was much.

    It DID sell out all the seating and I had to buy SRO since we’re last minute planners, so it’s great that fiscally it was good for the Peepshow to make its way here.

    So, back to the crowd. This guy Eddy was rockin’. I mean ROCKIN’.  ‘Verb was cranked, he’s wailin, the drums are thumpin and he’s killing it. Seriously, he was great.  The entire crowd was….motionless. They’re all just sitting there. I’m not sure if they just didn’t know how to respond…… or what.  I was head bobbin’ and my mouth is all sore from wolf whistling all night long, but he was seriously in need of some positive feedback.  In fact, I don’t feel like the Peepshow really got the props from the crowd that it deserved – especially for the quality of the show.

    Great show, good times.


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