ScreamingPepper

Instant Little Girl: Just Add Bunny

2008-06-30T08:59:00.005-05:00

Last night LF and I were coming home from a day at the pond; around 8:30, and getting pretty dark. It was just a beautiful night weather-wise, so we had the windows down, taking in the intoxicating summer air. Just as we pulled in the driveway, I could hear some kind of shrieking. I was in the passenger's seat, and the noise was on the driver's side. The headlights fell on two stray cats torturing some kind of tiny animal that I couldn't identifiy, but I figured it was probably a chipmunk. These were some brazen cats, because LF got out of the car and they just casually walked to the side of the driveway and planted themselves. Through the driver's window, it appeared to be a fat mouse that the cats were messing with, that is until I heard LF's voice go into stratospheric pitch, joyfully exclaiming that it was actually a baby bunny.

Anybody who knows me also knows that I am completely powerless to the cuteness of bunnies. Really. I turn ito a melting ten-year-old girl.

Once I heard that it was a bunny, I bounded out of the car. The cats were still just sitting there on the sidelines, presumably waiting for us to leave so they could "finish the job". As LF chased them away, I walked over to the bunny. I've never seen a baby bunny before. I will go on record as saying that there there is nothing in the animal kingdom cuter than a baby bunny. Oh sure, there a re a multitude of runners-up, such as kittens, puppies, and turtles, but baby bunnies have no rivals. Period.

The little guy seemed physically okay, but was just paralyzed with fear. Against my overwhelming desire to pick to up, I attempted to urge it into the woods by lightly touching its back to get it to hop (works with frogs, and I had no better idea). It responded, but kept going in half circles. I knew that the cats would be on it the second we left, so I kept trying to get it to go deeper in the woods. Perhaps it sensed its mother was near and decided just to find her after this towering human finally left it alone. It appeared otherwise unscathed, and I hope it made it back to its mother okay.

So yes, I meddled with the Circle of Life by thwarting tiny bunny death. And you can bet I'd do it again. It was a bunny, man. I mean, have you SEEN them?

Real Men Ride Anachronisms.

2008-06-24T07:38:00.011-05:00

Great googily moogily, do I love summer. Click to enlarge.

Man, am I gonna miss this guy.

2008-06-23T06:26:00.003-05:00

Hot Town, Summer in the City

2008-06-10T12:53:00.008-05:00

Ah yes, agreeable temperatures of 80 degrees and up. How I do love thee. I’m finally getting some time on Carmela(!) at lunch, and what a joy. The bus and car exhaust is still choking and I always get back to my office with a mouth full of grit, but I still enjoy the ride. I also appreciate the break in monotony of the work day.

I’m not much of a sightseer; I usually just put my spurs to the bike and get as far as I can as fast as I can, rarely taking in any of what the city has to offer. That’s probably because I’ve seen and dodged enough duck boats, trolley tours, guided and walking tours, to last a lifetime. Every now and then, however, I’ll stop for a moment and just look around.

Because my water intake seemed to be lagging behind actual sweat output, I decided to stop at Sargent’s Wharf. I’d never been there, and it’s on the water. It’s quite lovely and you can see the planes arriving and exiting Logan.

Time got away from me and I realized I had to hurry back, so I took a route back to Storrow Drive.

Storrow Drive is funny because of its design; über-curvy and arched bridge openings that catch many a truck driver off guard. There are a multitude of warnings posted all over the place, letting the driver know what the truck height limit is, but the warnings are largely ignored. Today a moving truck sheared off its cargo box. Hilarity ensued.

I apologize for the picture quality. These are all via the “magic” of my phone.

Zip It.

2008-05-30T10:44:00.005-05:00

As I stepped on the train this morning, I caught out of the corner of my eye a 60-something-year-old guy with his fly down. It’s not a vision I sought out, of course; it just kind of happened. So the whole time I’m on the train, I’m thinking of how I can tell him. Do I try to whisper it to him, most likely freaking him out as I lean in? Do I write it down and hand the note to him? Will he angrily question why my gaze fell upon his crotch? In any case, I instead come up with imagined variables. Maybe he’s deaf. Or just reeeeeally hard of hearing. The T is incredibly loud after all, so then I’d have to yell it, thereby nullifying any kind of secrecy or discretion. Maybe with the note, he wouldn’t be able to read it because he’d need his reading glasses that he didn’t have on his person. Perhaps his zipper is broken, he can't pull it up, and thanks for making him even more self conscious, jackass. So what’d I do? I let him get off the train, completely unaware of the security breach at Los Pantalones.

I am forever seeing people with some kind of wardrobe issue, and it’s all I can do to not tell them. It could be anything from a string just lying randomly on the back of someone’s coat, a pantleg that’s half in, half out of their sock, a missed belt loop, store tag still affixed to the garment, a skirt tucked into pantyhose (how can you not feel that?), detritus in hair, collar that isn’t covering the neck tie in the back, untied shoe, etc. Hell, maybe even an errant booger. C'mon, we're all adults here. It happens to everyone.

In all those cases, I never say anything because I don’t want to make the person uncomfortable. Having a complete stranger do the verbal equivalent of a grandmother spitting on a tissue and wiping your face would most likely not be met with favor. But for the record, if you see me with any of the things I listed above, I want to know. You have my permission. Especially the booger thing.

Dude...we're gettin' the band back together!

2008-05-14T10:10:00.003-05:00

Every now and then an opportunity comes along that doesn’t require much thought regarding whether or not to seize it. I got a call yesterday from a friend of mine from when I lived in Plattsburgh NY. He is one half of a set of twins a year younger than I. I was 13 when I left there, so I obviously didn’t get to witness or take part in their adolescence and young adulthood. Their history from then until now has always been a mystery. I knew they were into music, because they both had guitars. I never heard them play a note, but it was obvious these guys were into music in a profound way. They always seemed ahead of the curve somehow, and I credit them with turning me onto music that I would have probably otherwise overlooked. Around that time, radio was sodden with the likes of Huey Lewis, Corey Hart, Cindy Lauper, Hall & Oates, Lionel Richie, et al. At the time, that was okay because when you’re twelve, you can listen to that kind of stuff and not get too much flak for it; your peers were listening to it as well.

Then came the day when they let me borrow a videotape that, without the risk of exaggeration, changed my life.

I don’t know from where they recorded it, but it was a compilation of videos by what was soon to be referred to as hair bands. The first video was Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (with the first ten seconds cut off), and from then until the end of the tape, I was completely riveted. “Hair bands”, as I’ve covered in other posts, have become a tragically comical chapter in the history of music. I will wholeheartedly admit that there were as many bad ones as good; bad in that the technical prowess was there, but it was buried in painfully trite lyrics and an image that was pure caricature. The good ones, who have actual craft to their songs, unfortunately get lumped in with the bad and get written off as greasy kid stuff.

After watching that tape, there was no turning back for me; no more B100 with its pre-recorded DJ spinning “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” at precisely 6:15 every morning; no more listening to WIRY AM radio, hoping to make an on-air request for Air Supply, sent out to your sweetheart. Nope, I was officially reprogrammed musically. All I cared about were Mötley Crüe, RATT, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Twisted Sister. Laughable to most now, sure, but…what were YOU doing when you were twelve?

I digress.

Right after my “rebirth”, I found out we were moving from Plattsburgh. My communication with the twins ceased for good. However, due to the internet making the world smaller and smaller, they found me a couple years ago. Communication with them has been sporadic, as they live on the left coast and I on the right. I’ve gotten a tiny glimpse of that they were up to after I moved, but there are still tremendous gaps. All I know is that they were in a band together for awhile with a modicum of success.

The call I got yesterday was to tell me that their band is reforming for a two-show stint in Plattsburgh late July, and would I be interested in playing bass. I pretty much had my mind made up before I even hung up, but didn’t give an answer until I gave it even more thought. My answer was yes. I’ll keep you all posted when I find out the details.

Forest for the Trees

2008-04-29T08:42:00.008-05:00

Here are pictures of the floor, at long last. We still have a lot of detail work to do, but it’s reeeally nice to have the place back to a livable condition (that I actually am not compelled to run from all the time). I refrained from detailed bedroom shots because I still have to replace all the closet doors, and it looks rather unattractive as-is. Those are coming later.

It's interesting...because I was so intent on just getting this done, I wasn't able to appreciate the incredible metamorphosis that transpired. I had to get away from it for a day and come back with fresh eyes to really take it in. I love it.

Click to enlarge.

Been There.

2008-04-28T09:14:00.003-05:00

(click to enlarge)

While loading up a borrowed truck to haul away yet more unwanted stuff this weekend, I kept getting hit by the all-too-distinct scent of barbeque. Now that it's above thirty degrees out, people are burning off last year's grease form their grills and getting down to, well, grilling. As a vegetarian, one would think that I would be put off by such a smell.

Nope.

Just as I'm a former smoker who still has cravings several times a day, I remember all to well the allure of meat. Most of all, I miss pork and prosciutto. The flavor of steak, not even a little. But man, the aroma of a grilling steak is almost too much too bear. Instant salivation. That smell is second only to the bouquet of KFC. Even when I was still eating meat, there was no way in hell I'd eat at a KFC. I had too many bad experiences with just feeling ashen and gross afterwards. But the smell of that place is practically irresistible. It's just spices, flour, and grease I'm smelling…but what a heavenly perfume it is.

Getting There

2008-04-25T08:32:00.011-05:00

Just a quick update on the renovation. The wood floor is down, closets and trim are painted, and the trim is back up. The floor installation started on Sunday and finished exactly a week later, working about eight hours per day. Judging by how many nails I had left over (there were 1,000 per box), it took 2900 swings of the hammer to get the job done. I'll be taking some pictures this weekend once we get the place in a better state (read: organized) and will post them next week.

The kitchen originally had some super-cheap, bottom shelf vinyl, and we were going to replace it with a nicer-colored, thicker vinyl. At the last minute, we decided to skip the vinyl and go with wood. Because there was carpet originally, there was 1/4" underlayment to match the height of the carpet. So, in order for the wood pattern to remain consistent and not have some awkward-looking transition, I had to remove the underlayment and lay down a 3/4" section of plywood under the stove. These pictures are of me ripping up the underlayment and vinyl. That was a job-and-a-half. Click to enlarge.

More pictures are coming up next week. They'll be in focus, too. This particular digital camera can't seem to handle anything other than sunlight, so the shutter speed is too slow. Tripod time.

Gilding the Lily.

2008-04-08T09:24:00.008-05:00

I rented The Exorcist the other night. I had only seen the movie on network TV, and it was of course edited to the point of…disappointing. I had never seen it in its entirety until I moved out on my own, and some channel was running it at midnight on Halloween. I had the bright idea of watching it with headphones on. I slept like a baby after that, of course. When it was over and I turned the lights on so nothing could suddenly possess me, I wondered what the unedited version was like. Mostly I was just interested in watching it without commercial interruptions. Well, that was about 15 years ago, so I figured it was time to finally rent it.

Even edited and with commercials, it was a scary movie. I had built it up in my mind over the years and was pretty sure that the unedited version was going to freak me out for a good couple days. I needn’t have worried. It came out in 1973, and there was some special edition version that I rented with the hopes of maybe getting to see some behind-the-scenes stuff. What I didn’t realize was that this special edition had been, well, queered up.

Now stay with me here as I veer off course a bit. I saw Star Wars in the theater when it first came out. Even though I was six, I could see that the special effects were done by animation and puppetry. That was okay for me then, and it’s okay for me now. A couple years ago I saw the (once again) “special edition” version, and I was appalled. George Lucas thought he could improve it with gratuitious CGI throughout the movie that just flat-out didn’t belong. As a matter of fact, it became so distracting, I just shut it off. What was wrong with the original version? What was it lacking that it required even more stuff thrown in? The answer? Nothing. I’m not a superfan of Star Wars and all its prequels and sequels. I don’t go to the extent of lamenting the fact that caliber of Greedo’s gun wasn’t consistent with what criminals of the era would really use (isn’t it obvious?). Nope, I enjoyed the movie for what it was: a fun action flick with fight sequences. But as a casual observer, I noticed the egregious CGI additions and balked. I can only imagine what the purists thought. I have visions of slackened jaws, fumbled Magic cards and near-asphyxiation from aspirated Coke and Doritos.

Back to The Exorcist. Because it’s a special edition, naturally someone thought they too could improve it with CGI. It had been Lucas’d, therefore it had been ruined. One of the more ridiculous additions was a devil face that was suddenly flashed on the screen, a little more than subliminally. The beauty of the movie is that other than the obvious elements meant to startle the viewer, there was still a lot left to the imagination; whether in the form of absolute silence for dramatic effect, eerie lighting, or backwards voices. Now, everybody knows that it’s just human voice lowered in pitch and played backwards. It’s still creepy as all get-out, though. But giving the devil an actual face, as LF pointed out, totally cheapened the movie. It’s like JAWS; one of the best things about the movie is you don’t even see the shark until a third of the way into it. But, such is The Society of Too Much Too Soon.

Renovation Invigoration

2008-04-07T12:15:00.013-05:00

I've been getting a lot of "how's the condo renovation coming?" questions lately, so I'll post an update.

We have finished painting the walls, and man, what a difference. Whereas virtually every wall was a different shade of green (aside from the one copper wall), everything is now either white or antique white. The bathroom is completely done, save for caulking and maybe floor replacement. I still don't know what I'm going to do about the floor. It's your typical off-the-shelf, contractor grade vinyl flooring. It looks okay, but...just okay. The vanity is passable.

During this week, I'm going to level the floor, meaning that I have to take down whatever high spots exist before I can even think of putting the wood flooring down. The high spots are either in the form of patches and shims that have somehow risen over time, ridges from a sloppily poured foundation (cleverly disguised under the carpet), or any one of the million carpet padding staples I keep stumbling upon. I started out Saturday morning with the intention of getting the floor leveled by using leveling compound and a belt sander, but I just couldn’t get my mind around how I was going to be able to lay the first couple rows down, because the starting point was on that plaster moat I mentioned in an earlier post. Long story short, I consulted The Great Oracle, my father, and he made suggestions that were much easier to live with. We measured this, chalk-lined that, and began to marvel at what a geometric nightmare my condo is. You’d be hard-pressed to find a square in the entire joint. It’s seemingly all 45-degree angles. We are going to have to make a ridiculous amount of complicated cuts with the chop saw. And that’s even before the closet floors get done. Regardless, I’m newly recharged and can’t wait to get going for three reasons:

1. Walking on bare, dirty, splintery, paint-splashed plywood for five months has grown tiresome
2. I get to reclaim floor space from the 700 square feet of wood stacked in my dining room
3. See #1

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, my father, Terzo, and I are going to start laying down the floor starting Sunday. I’m taking the week off so I can finish it, and also because I’m hoping no one will be home in the surrounding condos during the day. I don’t imagine anyone would be especially delighted to hear the droning of my air compressor, nail guns, shop vac, and chop and table saws. I know I wouldn't be.

A couple weeks ago, LF and I went down to see Jefe and Lau to check out the house they bought on the Cape. They went through hell and back to get it, and they’ve found themselves a little gem. Once I got a look at the basement in which one could practically land a plane, the flame was reignited under my butt to get the condo finished. All that beautiful…beautiful…beautiful ROOM! To be able to work on something automotive/electronic/instrumental/bicyclical in an actual workshop instead my kitchen table or standing at my dresser is the stuff of dreams.

Though tremendous strides have been made (albeit in fits and starts), there's still a lot to do.

Paint the two bedroom closets
Replace closet doors (the current ones are only a ¼ step above cardboard)
Replace busted-up trim
Paint the miles of existing trim
Replace the kitchen floor (material yet to be determined)
Replace the heat pump
New draperies/curtains that LF (aka Coolest Ever) will make (sweet, sweet privacy at last).
Caulking
Overall touch-up

Stay tuned. Here's some before and after shots. Click to enlarge.

No Hollywood Ending

2008-03-18T13:43:00.004-05:00

Lady Fair and I watched The Bicycle Thief last night. To quickly summarize: Poverty has a stranglehold on a small town in Italy in 1948. The unemployment rate is incredibly high, and jobless man, Antonio, has been given a much-needed break with a job as a sign hanger. Problem is, the job requires a bicycle. He man has a bike, but it’s in hock; he had to sell it in order to feed his wife and kids. Through the sale of the family’s bed linens, the wife produces the money to get the bike out of hock. All looks great until the first day of the job when Antonio’s bike gets stolen pretty much right out from under him. The rest of the movie is about the pursuit of finding the stolen bike; a bittersweet adventure of father and son on a futile quest. They come close to getting it back, but a series of insurmountable obstacles prevents fruition. The movie is a heartbreaking account of desperation and disappointment. They never get the bike back and it’s back to Square One: bread and unemployment lines.

If this movie were made in the U.S., they’d get the bike back--father and son absolutely beaming-- and ride off down a congested city street with the young boy on the handlebars. Of course, the boy would be cradling a huge loaf of bread, and the father’s cap would fly off as the sound of a ringing bike bell trails off. The trailer would inevitably contain the words “adventure of a lifetime” or “epic journey”, and would undoubtedly be doused in über-smarmy orchestral music. Ah hell, throw in a small dog chasing them, too.

Make Way for 25 and 28

2008-03-12T12:24:00.007-05:00

25. Danelectro Longhorn, limousine black
I stumbled(!) upon an NOS Longhorn on eBay. They were reissued for something like a day in 2006, and were very hard to come by. You may recall that this time last year I was looking for one, but they were either nonexistent or stupidly expensive. Well, I found one, brand new and reasonably priced, and in the color I wanted no less. Danelectro finally upgraded the bridge (with individual saddles rather than a mere piece of rosewood), tuning machines, and now-metal strap pins. It feels great to have one again because they just sound incredible. Add to that the fact that it's 24 frets, and you have one amazing little instrument. It has a bark to it, but at the same time sounds like my 8-string did, minus four strings (read: piano-like). The lipstick pickups are passive, but they almost sound active. Weird.

Anyway, as my gear acts as my currency, the V had to go to make room the Longhorn. C'mon, we all knew it was a relationship ordained to be fleeting. Exciting and conversation-inducing when I took her out on the town (a whole lot of leering and catcalls), but fleeting nonetheless.

28. Genz Benz GBE250C Combo

I once again tired of lugging around two separate components to shows, so I sought out yet another powerful combo. Now that I know the Ampeg combos I was interested in are made in China, I looked elsewhere and found this Genz Benz. It's a high-quality amp with a tube preamp, 250 watts, and a reasonable weight. I love the idea of the tube preamp and am impressed with its non-coloration when using just the mosfet part, but I dunno. I'm glad to have it, but I'm already looking elsewhere. I really want to love it, but I think we're just better as friends. The fact is it just doesn't quite have the push I need. I'd love to have an all-tube amp, but those guys are more often than not horrendously expensive. So, for solid state, I'd love to get my hands on either an older Fender BXR300 or Peavey Data Bass 450. The Nitrobass head and Henry the 8x8 had to go to finance this one.

Hey...do you smell brimstone?

2008-02-27T10:02:00.007-05:00

I found this on the train this morning. When all else fails, use propaganda. It's Reefer Madness for heathens. Click to enlarge.

You too, Thridi.

2008-02-11T14:59:00.001-05:00

I went to see U23D at the New England Aquarium IMAX Theater on Saturday. I’ve always wanted to see U2 in concert, but by the time I was old enough to go see them under my own power, the tickets were exorbitantly priced and the venues they were playing were just too damned big.

For a guy who digs live music as much as I do, one would think that I’d go see shows more often than I do. Well, I don’t. Part of the experience for me is taking it all in via all the senses. I’m the guy standing next to you who’s really watching each member of the band individually, more interested in the parts than the sum; maybe bouncing on my heels a bit. When the venues get too big, that connection is lost. But this movie brought the connection.

For $14, I essentially got to see U2 live and closer than any audience member could possibly get. The sound, the camera angles, everything, were just stellar. Plus, U2 is just an incredible live band anyway. Their use of dynamics never ceases to amaze. Also, one thing I didn’t expect was that Bono has still got it. MAN, that guy can belt.

Farewell, Mr. Brown.

2008-02-07T12:36:00.000-05:00

The bicycling world lost a great man Sunday. Sheldon Brown, the preeminent authority on bicycling design, history, and repair, passed away from a heart attack at age 63. I wasn’t even aware that he died until my brother told me today.

When I went full bore into bicycling the past year, pretty much any question I had (and I had a LOT of questions) could be answered by doing an internet search, and I would ultimately find an answer by Sheldon. At first I would always wonder "why does this guy who looks like C. Everett Koop keep popping up every time I search on something bike related?" Then I found his website, and it was like striking gold.

I never met him but always wanted to, because anyone with that kind of knowledge about something I hold near and dear must be an absolute thrill to talk to.

He always struck me as an eccentric, larger-than-life figure, and his wisdom is known worldwide. You’ll be sorely missed, Mr. Brown.

(image taken from Wikipedia)

Non-Humbucking Bronco

2008-02-07T10:03:00.000-05:00

T his little guy is a Squier Bronco. I picked it up to leave at the rehearsal space so I wouldn’t have to lug my V all over the place and risk either leaving it on the train (it could happen) or subjecting it to extreme temperatures in the car.

This is an entry-level bass, and pretty much any review you read will inevitably say “a good beginner bass” or “good for the guitarist who occasionally wants to play bass”, or “for those with small hands”. All valid points, and the reason for those are because it’s short scale. Short scale in the world of instrumentation is the equivalent of a Fisher Price My First Bass. Rarely are they taken seriously. As I’ve mentioned before, short scale bass options are few. If you want a short scale bass with a maple neck, your options are exponentially more limited. On eBay you can find some, but they’re often brands no one’s heard of, even though the company has sold a gazillion of them.

I went for the Bronco because they’re plentiful in supply and you can find them in just about any music store. I tried one out at Guitar Center, and this is one of those instruments that because it's SO mass-produced (crafted in Indonesia!), you have to play about a half dozen to find one with the right balance of feel, sound, and sustain. One would think that because they’re all made in the same place to the same specifications that they would all sound and feel identical. They don’t.

So, I spent about thirty minutes playing a black one, and I bought it, quite pleased that the only one I had available to try had all the important juju. I took it to rehearsal that night and whaddya know-- not a sound came out of it. It had bum electronics whose defect didn’t present itself until it had been plugged in a couple times.

Sigh. I don’t know what it is about that Guitar Center, but it seems that 75% of the stuff I’ve tried is defective, new stuff included. I didn’t want to have to haul the bass all the way back to the store because I didn’t want it replaced; as I said, I found the right one and didn’t want to risk a replacement that was lacking in vibe. I also didn’t want to leave it with them to get repaired because I didn’t have time to waste. So, H took care of it for me and had it ready for me the next time we met.

So, the synopsis. It has a single coil pickup from a Strat. That’s it. One wouldn’t believe that a simple single guitar pickup could pull off bass signal, but man, this thing is great. Hairy, even. The neck is fantastic as well, smooth and satin. This thing is bone-simple and that’s one of the things I love most about it. Oh, and it weighs about as much as nine paper clips. I look like Andre the Giant playing it.

Squier is a division of Fender, and they produce pretty much all the same American-made Fender models, but overseas and cost a fraction of the price of a genuine Fender. When someone is trying to sell one, it’s guaranteed that they will say “Fender Squier Bronco”. That’s a misnomer. It’s a Squier. The parent company is Fender, but that’s it. Just like people will try to sell a “Gibson Epiphone SG”, throwing in the parent company’s name doesn’t make it worth more, so why bother? It’s not as if people will laugh at you less. I don’t know if I’ll play this thing out live, but I might. As one who likes to defy convention, I’m a little intrigued by the idea of showing up with a “toy” of a bass and just ripping it up all night long.

Readme.txt

2008-02-06T09:51:00.000-05:00

I added some more links for your reading/viewing pleasure.

1. I’ve been pretty vocal (what IS the written equivalent of that?) about my love of small cars. Well, the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum is a virtual playground for me. Click on it and you’ll see why.

2. This Old Honda is a great site because it’s for and by people who love old Honda cars. These are the cars that made me fall in love with Hondas, specifically the wee Civics.

3. The 356 Registry is all about the Porsche 356, my favorite Porsche of all time. Actually, it might even be my favorite car of all time.

4. 3 Wheeler World is a site dedicated to the ever-shrinking world of three wheelers. They’re not made anymore and haven’t been since around 1987, so the fact that they are still so many being ridden is a particular thrill for me. This link will tell you why.

5. Another of my favorites is How Stuff Works. A couple times a day, I stumble upon something that has me wondering what makes it tick or how it even came to be. This site is great because it often saves me a lot of time; it keeps me from just pulling stuff apart, usually irreparably, just to see how it works.

6. The Museum of Automobile History. Pretty self-explanatory, methinks.

7. The last link is the CRX Owner’s Group. There aren't too many stock CRXs in the gallery, but enough to cause wistfulness.

The picture you see above is from the Microcar Museum. Interestingly, it looks strikingly similar to car that Dingo drives in Cars and Trucks and Things that Go:

Confession.

2008-02-04T09:32:00.001-05:00

M y lady fair and I are housesitting for some relatives as they bask in the warmth of Florida for a couple weeks. It's nice because it gets us away from the Limbo House for a couple days each week, and it's close to everything we need access to on weekends.

They also have a TV. A BIG one. We figured we'd take advantage of that fact and stay overnight Sunday and watch the Superbowl. Little did I know that pretty much all day I would be absolutely captivated by an all-day marathon of...

Mythbusters.

Now this is programming I can get behind. Its entire premise is based on the debunking of bullshit. How can I not love a show like that? Sure, it has its dramatic elements and could probably be condensed into a half hour show, but I'll take it because it has science, engineering, and ingenuity. The only other show that grabbed me like that was Junkyard Wars. It too got a little goofy with the theatrical business, but underneath all that it was a great show. It taught me that if you can weld, there's really nothing you can't do.

Then I kept seeing ads for Smash Lab. Good grief. With those two shows, I'm pretty sure I'd never leave the house.

Magnum Doofus

2008-01-23T14:09:00.000-05:00

Kinda dating myself here, but…

Honeycomb’s big
Yeah yeah yeah!
It’s not small
No no no!
Honeycomb’s got
A big big bite!
Big big taste
In a big big bite!

I was six when that jingle came to be. It was obviously a good ad campaign because I remember it, um, some decades later. The thing is, though, I never really thought Honeycomb cereal was that big, even between my wee six-year-old sausage fingers. In the commercial, a kid puts a ruler up to a piece of the cereal, and at best is the cereal was ¾”. However, via thinly-veiled optical illusion, they made it look like it was 2” wide because they held it over the second inch of the ruler.

Believe me, I’d much rather be solving the world’s problems or cranking out a bestseller instead of obsessing about this kind of crap. Que sera sera.

Heel.

2008-01-23T11:49:00.001-05:00

It occurred to me that I hadn’t posted about the benefit show I did with my friend Bob’s band a couple weeks ago. This was an annual benefit held at a country club, and it was being held to raise money for an animal shelter. It was a catered affair, and as is usually the case, dinner was served as I was setting up. That meant that I spent the night pretty much famished. By the time I was finished warming up, there was only a plate of cookies left. My first instinct was to grab a fistful of those fiiine-looking cookies and throw them down my neck minutes before we started, but I abstained because I remembered a very similar situation from about 1 1/2 years ago.

While playing at a conference in DC, I suddenly became very hungry. During a break I foraged for some nourishment, and all I found was a platter of cookies. I had no choice but to indulge in about 63,732 empty calories. Then I had beer. My pancreas and liver duked it out for the rest of the night and it was a rollercoaster ride of sensations, the most intense of which was fatigue. I just couldn’t concentrate anymore and started making mistakes. Stupid ones. Lesson learned.

At this benefit, I decided it was better to starve than throw my chemistry into that whirlwind again. Of course, playing on an empty stomach also made me a cheap date because all I needed was a solitary beer for the entire two hours we played. The show itself was good enough; people started dancing almost immediately and we were very much appreciated.

There’s something that is guaranteed when one is in a cover band, however: requests. They just come with the territory. When one has been in a cover band or bands long enough, there are standard requests that you can pretty much bank on, usually “Brown-Eyed Girl”, “Brown Sugar”, “Mustang Sally”, something bluesy, and usually some Beatles. These are to be expected, and if you’re going to play in this kind of band, you have to accept the fact that people will want to hear something familiar. Familiar to an audience member is more often than not a dagger in a musician’s side because chances they are they’re sick of hearing it and also sick of playing it. But again, that’s the nature of the business. If you’re going to complain about it, it’s clearly the time to get out.

Another curious “feature” is that when a request is made, it’s usually while in the middle of a song. An audience member will walk up to whoever in the band is most easily accessible, and they’ll yell in your ear “do you guys know ____?” One such request which I had the dubious pleasure of fielding was “do you guys know ‘It’s Raining Men’?” In no way was I ready for that request. It was all in slow-motion, and as the woman approached me, I was going through the extensive list of possibilities from which she’d pull a song. I never saw that one coming, and quite involuntarily, I laughed aloud right in her face. Visibly crestfallen, she slowly backed away, and I felt just awful about it. The mere notion of four heterosexual, middle-aged men hired to play blues-rock covers, playing “It’s Raining Men”, well, it just threw me for a loop and I laughed out of context in this poor woman’s face. That incident reminded me why I don’t do cover bands anymore.

The animals, the actual stars of the show, emerged victorious. A good deal of money was raised that night.

Ill-Placed Remembrance

2008-01-18T14:56:00.001-05:00

I don’t consider myself hypersensitive, but check out this email I got from the Toyota dealer where I bought my Scion xB (click to enlarge):

What in the living hell does a special on an oil change have to do with a day celebrating a man’s legacy? What’s next, the Holocaust Remembrance Day Hamster and Chinchilla Sale at PETCO? I'm sure that's how Dr. King would like to be remembered--a champion of civil rights and discount oil changes.

Reeeal classy, guys. Christ.

Primed And Ready

2008-01-09T10:44:00.000-05:00

Sunday we primed the walls. Fortunately, we were able to ply the help of Jefe, Lau, and H with beer and food. I’m sure they would’ve done it for nothing, but LF and I rather enjoy feeding people, and we reeeally appreciated the help. We started early in the day and finally stopped painting at around 8:00 or so. Cleanup is the part I always conveniently forget to account for, so that added another two hours.

Interestingly, the copper wall covered with the least amount of effort. The green walls, however, were a different story entirely. We opted to prime every wall in the place, and two coats were required. A five gallon bucket of primer was just enough to do the whole condo. So, even though all the walls are just primed right now, it’s stark white and I have a better idea of what the end result will look like because we’re just going with plain ol’ white paint. It looks great.

We still have a ton more work to do, but it’s progressing nicely. The bathroom and kitchen will get worked on this weekend, and next weekend we will start painting. I’ve replaced a couple light fixtures and continue to find places that need a skim coat of spackle. The baseboards, all 621 miles of it, might also get painted next weekend. Somewhere down the line I’m going to replace our closets’ bi-fold doors. They’re just pressboard and don’t age well. Well, they are 17 years old, after all. The screws that hold the hinges on no longer bite, and they’re just floppy and worn anyway.

What else does this mean?

The flooring phase is coming up very soon, and I have to admit that I’m dreading it. I have a great deal of floor prep that needs to be done before I lay it down, mostly in dealing with the perimeter of the floor where the plywood meets (or doesn’t meet) the foundation. This will be done via floor leveling compound and/or shims. What I’m mostly worried about is the noise. I grew up on the NJ shore, and my grandparents owned a rental apartment that was attached to their house. It was instilled in every generation that lived or visited there that they had to be quiet so as not to disturb the tenants. That principle has stuck with me all my life and everywhere I’ve lived, I’ve been extremely considerate to my neighbors. This will be virtually impossible when I lay down the floor because I’m using an air compressor, pneumatic floor nailer, and a chop saw. This job will take at least a couple days, and as it is, I can’t even chop up an onion without my neighbor’s dog freaking out.

Northern New Year

2008-01-02T13:08:00.000-05:00

In mid December, my comrade and fellow Rogue, Bob, asked me if I’d be interested in subbing on bass for his other band, Section 8, on New Year’s Eve. Evidently their bassist couldn’t do it, and the show was already booked. I actually stood to make a decent buck (a first for me in the 20+ years I’ve been playing), lodging would be provided, and I didn’t have any plans for New Year’s Eve anyway. I consulted my bride, and she was rather excited by the prospect. I told Bob yes, and we got to rehearse three times.

The gig was to take place at a funky little joint in Westbrook, Maine called the Frog and Turtle. The drive up was thankfully a smooth one. The threat of a snow storm had been looming for the past day and a half, but it turned out to only be just that: a threat. We checked into the hotel, hung out for about an hour, and then headed over to the restaurant to load in and do a sound check. We were lucky in that we had a very receptive and enthusiastic sound guy. I met a lot of people very quickly that night, so I unfortunately forget his name (Chris?) and many others. After we finished sound check, I met the chef and co-owner, James Tranchemontagne. As the British would say, he’s a lovely bloke. We didn’t get to chat much because he was in the middle of preparing the feast for the night. The deal was that people would buy tickets in advance and enjoy dinner, cocktails, entertainment, ringing in the New Year, and more cocktails. I met a woman named Claire who I believe was the hostess, and she was a lovely lass.

We headed back to the hotel and were to return at 9:30. After a quick burrito (surprise, surprise), we got all tarted up and headed back to the restaurant. We went on promptly at 9:45, and just rocked the joint until about 1:30. We did a hell of a lot better than I thought we would, people danced pretty much all night, and I had an excellent time. I brought a camera with me to use that night, but Boy Genius left it at the hotel.

Playing out was great, and seeing people groove on it was even better. But one of the highlights of the evening was actually after everyone left. I finally got to chat it up with James and the rest of the staff (SO sorry I forget your names, guys!), and man, what an incredibly cool bunch of people. James gave us many complimentary beers (one was even called Santa’s Butt), and as I was famished by night’s end, I asked James if he had any bread. I would’ve been satisfied with a leftover slice from someone’s table, but he instead gave me a beautiful loaf of homemade artisan bread. Nice! I told him that I grew up in a restaurant and would love to have a look around. He was happy to oblige.

All of the staff were incredibly gracious and showered us with accolades. In the music biz, one is typically overwhelmed by competition and insincerity. Playing in a Boston band is even more trying because it’s a small town and there are approximately 2,687,902 bands all competing to play the same places, and there aren’t many places. When one does get the opportunity (and this goes for any band I’ve ever played in), no matter how good you are, the audience will typically either just stand at the bar or stare at you with their arms crossed. It’s a leaden feeling of…judgment. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, because it keeps one humble and instills the desire to work even harder to win them over.

But in Maine, it’s a different story entirely. We were treated like The Greatest Thing Since Napkins. Evidently there’s a serious deficit of live bands, let alone bands that play something danceable. On top of that, reliability is also an issue. We were put on a pedestal that night, and I ain’t gonna lie; I LOVED IT. It’s a sensation everyone wants but so few actually get. It’s also very easy to get spoiled by it. I was spent from the evening and well into my cups, so I bid them adieu and talked about the night incessantly afterward. It was the best New Year’s I’ve had since…wow, it may just be the best, period.

I didn’t get to sample a morsel of what they were serving that night because I was onstage the whole time or draining pitcher after pitcher of water, but it all looked incredible. Check ‘em out if you’re in the Portland area.

Look Up. Keep Looking.

2008-01-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

We painted the ceiling Saturday. I picked up a Wagner power roller, and not having to dip the roller in the paint tray every fifteen seconds made the purchase alone worth it. Other than that, though, it was still painting as usual. I spent the day looking up and getting the odd paint spatter in my mouth. I had on safety glasses to keep the stuff out my eyes, so I couldn't use a face mask because it fogged up my glasses.

The paint we used is true ceiling paint. It goes on pink and dries bright white, so you can see where or if you missed a spot. I really can not recommend this paint enough. It's a brilliant concept that works beautifully, and we actually use spackle that is based on the same concept.

Next: priming!