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“Some people know how to teach, and some know how to do.” Linda Pierce
One of the things that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time was write a little recognition for my high school English teacher – Mrs Garcia.
In one of the last attempts to make good citizens out of us idiot high schoolers, she prepped the last senior semester by having us write a college-level paper in which we were to compare two things and correctly annotate and structure the paper as you would in a college level class. We were given the task of comparing something British against something American in different time frames. The task seemed daunting, but really it was only scary if you over-thought it. This was possibly the most important class that I’ve ever had. And of course, didn’t realize it at the time.
I can’t tell you the actual name of the type of paper that it’s called, but I can sleepwalk through writing papers now. In fact, I didn’t even realize what I was learning at the time. Napping was high on my agenda when she gave us time in class. (Too many late nights at the poolhall). Writing content really was never my problem, but the organization of the content became key.
Among the things I learned were that it didn’t really matter what your content was, or even your opinion, as long as you could back it up using other sources.
My paper? Comparing the Beatles to AC/DC. In my strong headed stubbornness, I chose something that I would at least be interested in concentrating on. Halfway through, I got the feeling that it had been a very, very bad choice. But I was in too deep, so I had to continue.
Much to my surprise, I got an A on the paper. No topic is too dumb (even for a high schooler) if your sources and organization are right.
Unfortunately, my blogging has never really seen any benefit from anything I learned then, but I used the skills I learned throughout college and consistently received A’s for my papers. In all classes. Teachers seemed to enjoy reading papers that were well constructed.
So anyway, much thanks to Mrs Garcia – this is one student who greatly benefited from the lesson she taught.
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“The fox condemns the trap, not himself.” William Blake
My suspicious have been confirmed.
A guy was in front of me (speeding) and I kept hearing my radar detector chirping. I could see the lawman parked in a turn lane (as he sometimes does) pointing his radar gun down towards me. The guy ahead of me speeds all the way up to the officer until he sees him, and jams on his brakes. Meanwhile, my radar detector keeps chirping every few seconds.
He was targeting me. I was pulling a steady 40, so he didn’t have any reason to pull me over (yet), but he’s gonna keep trying.
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Almost labor day. Yesterday was the Invasion Car Show in Deep Ellum. Another rad assortment of hot rods – I hung around for almost two hours and got some good pics of a few cars that caught my eye. I won’t bother posting them here, but here’s a link – Invasion 2012.
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Almost Labor Day (part II). Tomorrow I’m going to fry up some crawfish and try my hand at a traditional Remoulade sauce for some po-boys. Sure, traditionally it should be a BBQ day. (In Texas, every weekend is prime BBQ territory.) Facebook is flooding with brisket preparations. Mmmm……brisket. Anyway, wish me luck!
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“Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward.” Bill Davidsen
Since I’ve been pretty busy I haven’t had time to update with a lot of things that have been on my mind so I’ll cheat and tell you about another brush with the law.
It was about 1993 or so, I was taking my girlfriend and her friend (and her friend’s baby) to Austin. We were going out 290 (why 290? Well, see, both my ex-girlfriend and her friend were total bitches, so they gave me an approximate destination and I started driving toward it.) We were speeding rather excessively since I really didn’t know where I was going, and I came over the crest of the hill probably doing 95 miles an hour. (I’m guessing it was a 65 or 70 mph zone). So here I am in my light blue 1991 Acura Integra, speeding like a madman, and immediately I see a cop and he flashes his lights and starts tailing.
Up until that point, I don’t think I’d ever been pulled over for speeding. I was a pretty safe/sneaky driver. That and I had a decent Cobra radar detector.
So, the cop walks up to the car, and says, “Is there a reason you were going so fast?”
Here’s the part I can’t believe. In my impatience, and frustration at these women I say, “Because I was in a hurry!”
Peripherally I can see my girlfriend’s eyes getting big, and from the back I can almost hear her friend’s eyes popping out of their sockets.
“License and Insurance please”
I hand both to the police officer, he walks away, and it’s dead silent.
I have a very, very deep sinking feeling that I’m in trouble.
The officer walks back to the car, hands me my license and says, “You need to slow down and be more careful……..and put that baby in a baby seat too.”
I stutter, “Yes sir officer”.
And off he went.
Now, I’m not sure exactly what happened. The picture on my license is the same as it was below (priestly) and I had totally forgotten about it.
My girlfriend was flabbergasted. That’s the only word I can use. They’re both like, “How the hell did you get away with that??”
I showed them the license and they were appropriately astonished and amused.
I think I’ve only got one more good “get out of jail” story. I’ll save that one until next time.
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“There’s a line in the picture where he snarls, ‘Nobody tells me what to do.’ That’s exactly how I’ve felt all my life.” ~ Marlon Brando
In a follow up, the officer of the law definitely has his eye on me. I’ve passed by him twice now – he’s been hiding next to the volleyball court again. And he’s staring me down when I pass by.
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In another follow up, I didn’t really think much of the robbing/mugging at the time, I survived, and let it pass. About six or seven years later, I realized how much it freaked me out. I went to a drive through ATM over off San Felipe and as I was getting my card back, something flashed out of the corner of my eye. It was totally something peripheral, but I flung my wallet to the floor (or so I thought) and then sped away. My heart was racing, I was freaking out.
A week or so later, I got my wallet back in the mail. I guess in my panic, I threw it out the window! Of course, there wasn’t any cash in it (hence the need to go to the ATM) but I did get my license back. Which was nice. And also probably the cause of getting it mailed back to begin with.
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“That is the behavior people take under the pressure of survival, … This is misconstrued as looting, as thievery.” Benigno Aguirre
One of the things that I don’t think I’ve ever written (or blogged) or committed to paper is getting mugged….or robbed….when I was a teen. Pretty much I wonder each time I think about it, was I really mugged? I mean, I know I was robbed, but was I mugged AND robbed? Or just robbed?
The literal definitions:
Mugged: to assault or menace, especially with the intention of robbery.
Robbed: to take something from (someone) by unlawful force or threat of violence; steal from.
I remember seeing my father after he was mugged. It was the mid 90’s and if I remember correctly a dude on PCP tried to steal his girlfriend’s purse. That dude beat the HELL out of my dad. His face was all bruised up. My father apparently punched the guy in the nuts repeatedly – which had no effect (PCP) but that is what I would call a mugging.
My story was different.
It was 1989 or 1990? It was about 5pm – full daylight. Wing Stop was a bank. Little Caesars was at the end of the strip, where the liquor store is now. I parked in spot A (when it was a spot to park), the ATM is at point B. The timing was pretty crazy. I took out twenty or forty bucks out of the ATM. Right as I’m heading back to my car, out of the corner of my eye, a car pulls up to spot C and some dudes get out. One of them drops something that kind of goes “clank”. I’m naive and don’t think anything about it.As I’m reaching to put my wallet in my back pocket (left pocket), I feel something at the back of my head. My first thought is “Uh, what?” as I (slow motion) look to my left, there’s a guy immediately next to me with his arm behind my head – and he says, “Give it up.” With the hand not holding a gun, he motions for my wallet and my keys. Let me tell you, what they say about adrenaline, etc, I dropped my wallet into my lap. I froze. You tend to do that when you’ve got a gun to your head.
He took my keys, and my wallet. Then he and his lookout sauntered back past the ATM (past a completely oblivious guy taking money out) and drove off.
So, I was pretty freaked out. Um, so was my date. Oooops. It was going to be pretty much our first date. Don’t ask me why I didn’t go get cash before the date. I am an idiot.
We got out of the car (since it obviously wasn’t going anywhere when those dudes took my keys). The guy who finished getting his money as the robbers drove away, turned. I said, “We just got robbed!” He looked surprised, and not knowing what to do just hightailed it out of there. So, we went to Little Caesars and called the police.
The police were nice, took my statement (I think. I don’t actually remember now). He dropped us off right down the street at Barney’s Billiards (one of my old haunts). The bartender offered me a shot of whiskey to calm my nerves. I didn’t take it.
Nobody was around my house, so I called my friend Brian. We decided since we had nothing else to do, we were going to go find something to eat.
Welllll, he needed cash. So. Uh. We went back to the ATM.……
Okay, so my car is sitting there, (locked) and he gets his cash and we go eat. I think we went to BIBAS (One’s a Meal) – back when it was on Memorial. A few hours later my dad and I picked up the car with the spare key. I have to retell my idiot story several times. Everyone at my Toy Store job thought I was nuts (and we had to change all the locks). The police came to the Toy Store a few days later to ID the alleged/possible gunman.
Looking at a lineup of pics, I couldn’t ID the guy to save my life, but they said afterwards that they know who the driver of the car was (who didn’t happen to be the guy who actually robbed me). And that was pretty much the end of it. Never heard anything ever again.
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“Like a thunderbolt in your Cheerios, son.” – David Lee Roth
Dang it, I couldn’t find the video I was looking for.
Where was I? So in 1996 or so, I was working at the aforementioned movie theater and The Great White Hype was playing. This was a bad movie. Just overall bad. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY came to see it. The theater that it was playing in was consistently empty so I’d wander in there from time to time to see if anyone was actually watching it.
I walked in one time and Brian Setzer had a cameo appearance playing “Danny Boy” all Brian Setzer styled, and things are starting to percolate in my brain. A bartender at one of the poolhalls I frequented said, “Dude, I just saw this movie that is so YOU.”
That movie was Swingers.
So I’m really getting it all together, and realizing that this kind of music is what I should be playing on guitar. The whole vibe and scene was just too cool – it was what I dug all along. Hot rods, low-brow, twangy guitars…..the works. I picked up the guitar again. It had been a few (ahem) years since I played it with any regularity in high school and many MANY years since the time I played it seriously. So I set to work. It sounds stupid to “realize” it, but a lot of my guitar playing years were stunted because of my ear.
I’ve got a good ear. I can hear something, match the key and then usually fake along (depending on how much I’ve been practicing lately). In elementary school, I played cornet. I couldn’t read music so they just sang the note to me and I played it. While it’s nice to have a good ear, ultimately I think it made me lazier. Especially on guitar. While it makes it easier to jump in, you don’t work as hard so you don’t retain as much information.
But my daughter was born in 1997 so while she was a baby I actually had PLENTY of time to practice. And practice I did. I tracked my original guitar teacher (in Houston) and started meeting up with him to start getting this rockabilly stuff down. I learned a lot of finger picking. I spent a lot of time running scales and learning songs. I was using my long-time guitar my Ibanez Destroyer (!).
Found a pic of one (although mine didn’t have the cherries).
Since I was familiar with the wide fretboard it was great to be pushing through on, but I ended up pickup up my first “rockabilly machine” Gretsch in 1997. It was a factory second out at Parker Music on I-45 (Houston).
After a while, I felt pretty confident in my playing. Over confident really. I set up to meet with this guy who played stand up bass. What a disaster. The guy was what I/we call a “purist“. He played the rockabilly records on a turntable (only). He preached the rockabilly superior. Original rockabilly artists only, etc, etc. He turned his nose up at my Gretsch (not a rockabilly guitar?!?) but oddly enough approved of the leopard print strap I had on it? He knocked me off-balance so badly that I couldn’t remember the chords to Blue Suede shoes (!) It was bad. It knocked me back for quite a while. Such a defeat. Now I realize he was just a…..jerk…..but back then I really took it to heart that I wasn’t a good guitar player.
–to be continued–
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“Life has its music; let us seek a way – not to jangle the chords whereon we play”
Whaaa? Why did I pick that title? Jangle is what it’s all ABOUT!!
I spent the last hour or so annoying the house finally putting fingers to fretboard to figure out the licks in the General Cinema trailer:
As I’ve mentioned before, it was one of my favorite ever jobs…General Cinema. I heard that freaking bumper a million times too. I finally goofed it out. Took me about 20 minutes to where I thought the ending slides should start from, but I’m pretty happy with it. Finally, I can rest easy, knowing that I can play air guitar absolutely correctly in regards to fretboard placement when I imagine this stupid bumper playing in my head. As it so often does.
Since I started playing guitar in the late 80’s, I’ve always been a guitar based music kind of guy. One of my favorite songs *younger than guitar playin’ years* that really really struck me was Stray Cat Strut. Right around 1995-1996, I caught Brian Setzer playing on Letterman. (Check out that jacket!) I was like, “Hey, that’s the dude that did Stray Cat Strut! One of my favorite songs evar!” *Note: We didn’t talk like that in the 90’s. It’s a recent phenom.
So I set about hunting down a big band version of Stray Cat Strut. Right about this time, I was also working at the movie theater, and kept hearing the echo drenched rockabilly flavored bumper (above) over and over again. I’m trying to find some clips…
….to be continued…
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“Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.” W. C. Fields
I managed to break a cork off inside the bottle of Merlot that I opened last night.
It hasn’t happened in years, but it took me back to a time when I worked food service and we served those dinky little bottles of wine. Looking at them, I was never impressed with how people ordered them at a pizza joint or a greasy diner. Of course, those dinky ones wouldn’t have a cork, so I’m trying to remember how it was that I served someone a nice glass of Chardonnay or Zinfadel with bits of cork floating in it?
While my memory is foggy regarding exactly where I was, I do recall my manager being dumbfounded (rightly so) that I would not even notice little bits of cork in the glass. What can I say, I’m an idiot.
But there’s something to be said for life experience teaching you stuff. Your boss asks you, “Have you ever sliced onions?”, and you answer in the negative because you don’t want to lie. Boss looks astonished and says, “Well, okay, here ya go” and demonstrates.
Some people are naturally good at food service – I am not one of them. By “good”, I really reference the amount of thought that it takes to perform a given task. I over think a lot of things including slicing onions. So I was never that great at it.
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“Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.” George Herbert
I’ve been slowly….very slowly….working my way back into practicing my guitar.
For no apparent reason, I listened to the Guitar Zero audiobook a week or two ago. I think I caught a few interesting points, but since I haven’t been a “beginner” in about 20 or so years, a lot of it I couldn’t relate to. I did pick up on the notion that as you age, learning is easier to absorb in smaller bite-sized-chunks. I can relate to that.
I picked up a DVD a few weeks ago that has a bunch of licks played out. I’m extremely lucky in the sense that it really doesn’t take me long to pick up the lick (good ear) and I usually just skip past the slow version of the lick – my issues always fit into, “How can I push this lick into a solo when I’m jamming with somebody?”. That part I’ve never been very good at.
As my time is definitely more constrained (amazing how yard and house work can eat up spare time), sitting down and learning a solo note-for-note isn’t that appealing. Every once in a while I get a hair up my ass and do it anyway.
The first time I met Unknown Hinson, I asked him what I needed to do to be a better guitar player. He said, “Play an hour a day. Hyeah, hyeah.” The inner me would LOVE to play an hour a day, although I need to find a teacher that can correctly guide me.
My noodling is just that, noodling. There’s something to be said for concentrated, focused practice.
Although, noodling has been good for coming up for some riffs for recording. Time to get back into that groove.
The Thousand Yard Stare
Highbrow lowbrow for hipster hep-cats
Highbrow lowbrow for hipster hep-cats
