Very Fruitful Day...

 We made a real good Saturday this weekend. 

It started with the grandkids soccer games. They played well and soccer is something I've never watched or participated in but I think it's a great sport. The boys play well and it's a joy to see them giving their all. They have big hearts and that will help them do great things in their life. 

After that we headed to church and played for a Quinceanera. The family was very appreciative and many of the older folks told us how much they liked the music. We played many of the old favorites. 

After that we headed down to the Spring Vintage Vibes Flea market held twice a year downtown. I used to participate selling my cigar box guitars here and they were good to me and understood my art. Some of the few. We picked up a 1970 Jerry Lee Lewis album, a cassette of the John Lennon recording sometime in New York City and a dinosaur hand puppet.  These are all things that will come in handy.

While down town we got a call through the St. Vincent de Paul group we are in to help a guy with a bus ticket. He was stuck in Lufkin and needed to be with family in a northern city. His friend brought him to our meeting at the bus station. They were two very nice young men and I didn't ask what ethnic group they might have belonged to but bought the ticket on my phone, texted it to him and then provided a $50 gift card to a local grocery for food and water for the two day trip. They could not believe it was so easy to get help. All monies for St. Vincent de Paul provided by the donations of the parishioners at St. Patrick Catholic Church. 

Next we hit up Napoli's for a late lunch in the basement of the old Perry Building and went to 5pm Mass afterwards working the sign up booth so people could get remembrances for the Mothers posted in the bulleting and newspaper.   

Later we attended Angelina Benefit Rodeo with Miguel and grandkids on reserved tickets his work had comped. First rodeo in some time and next year I'm signing grandkids up for mutton busting.

To top it off it was Morgan and Ali's 11th anniversary. They sent me this photo from South Carolina. 

If you had a better day I'd like to hear about it. 

     

 

If It's Broke Fix It Because It Will Break Again and How to Pick a Guitar Color...

Have you ever got stuck on a author and just read every book he had ever written? Then one day you read something and thought to yourself, "he or she has written this idea before." Usually I took that as a signal that the writer was finished with what there was to say and that only the same old ground was left to cover. 

I have re-evaluated those thoughts and decided that really with any story there is always more to tell. Something always left to be opened up and examined. This was the case with my old Fender Precision bass guitar. The best I could establish is that the last time this guitar made a public appearance was 2015. I had not played in an electric band since then and mostly use my acoustic bass when back up acoustic guitar players. I set it on a stand and Cathy began working up new songs for an upcoming wedding. When it came time to join in I noticed the plug in jack had an intermittent connection.    

A quick check and the last time I blogged about this guitar was 2005. It's a 1983 model. That was told to me by a fellow who sold a 1963 Telecaster to an L.A. record producer for $25,000. It's safe to say he knows a good bit about Fender guitars. I'm a bit hazy about what year I got it as it was delivered by UPS and the guy stuck it in the backseat of a 1984 Rocket 88 I owned at the time because I was not at home. They call that NOS (new old stock) and 84-85 is a good area to ballpark my ownership. It's on about the third pickguard as I have played this guitar in churches, on flatbed trailers in the woods, at the VFW, and I think at your crawfish boil one time. Stuff gets broken with that kind of action.  

See the green and white wires? Like I say stuff gets broken and those wires had become shorter and crackly with a previous repairs. I spliced in to them and soldered everything back. Did not even loose a screw of all I took apart.  

Note the fading. My advice when buying Fender guitar is always buy a light color. They will age to a beautiful darker hue. It will help if you smoke and play a lot of places where BBQ or fried chicken is served. If it comes with the standard white pickguard replace with something you like better. With a light body finish almost anything will look good.   

Ok, so like a guitar to repair I have opened up this story again. Might not be much more to tell but I'd like to play in a greasy little band jamming on three chord Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins songs once more before I die. Which when you look at it like that would be another story that there is more of to tell. 

 

Making Memes...

Usually mass culture passes me. Take the eighties as an example. I was wearing pointy toe cowboy boots, a black t-shirt with a pack of Winston 100s rolled in the sleeve, had a new Fender P-bass and I was playing music with a guy who was trying to be Chuck Berry or Carl Perkins or Jerry Lee Lewis or maybe just his own self and I missed the big iconic drum sounds, digital guitar processing and scenic fern bars of the decade. The 1980s were not really kind to music or anyone else for that matter and I'm sure Chuck, Carl and Jerry Lee wondered what the heck was going on. 

I'm with it now though. I've learned to make a meme. First I had to learn how to say meme which at first look looks a whole lot like me me which with all the money, money, compliments and publicity this blog generates me is something that's on my mind all the time.  

Every now and then one of the kids takes a photo of yours truly. I make sure to produce them plenty of material and they make a meme out of it. They are pretty funny. Here's some of my work, if you can call it that because intellectual property seems a bit strong. 

I do own a cowbell. If called for I have played it at gigs occasionally. If I didn't play it and you hollered "more cowbell" I'll be fighting back from now on so don't do that. It's so 80s.   

I'll have to finishing writing this later when I stop laughing because I think this one is so funny and Cathy hates dogs. 

I love this guy and any meme made with his face. I did a sample study of what people I know might think of these memes and some one said sinister. I don't know. I feel joy and excitement but have not figured out all the backstory here. 

Gotta love a big backstory.

 There's an English electronic musician that calls himself Aphex Twin. He's a white guy, a big ginger hippie looking dude and this is a computer generation of his face. The album it's from is called Richard D. James which is his real name. I listened to some of the record and I thought at first some kid toy was hidden away under the furniture but music is a process and I have seen some stuff of his I liked.  Old Aphex was born in 1971 and probably started noticing stuff real good in, you guessed it, the 80s.   

What do they say, the best art is stolen? I copped this idea from one of my internet heroes, added a bit to it and I'll call it original. I had a friend once who practiced his guitar stank face in front of a mirror. It was in the 80s. He got to be a pretty good guitar player. His stank face stayed about the same. 

I missed that in the 80s. I'll work on it now.    

    

I'm Subversive...

My current clinical is going real well. Good hours, nice people, patient load not too bad, and they sometimes listen to music in the gym where the patients come for therapy.

Pretty good selection of tunes, a lot of old time country stuff. Some cds are mix tapes of Bob Wills, Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, seems like there is one where Bette Midler or somebody reprises big band hits and ever now and then there is a little modern country thrown in. Sometimes even the radio. The local call in contest are popular. It's kind of fun to see folks excited about these contests. I sort of study them. Anyway it makes for a cheerful place.

I thought I would help them out and slipped a couple of cds in the pile by the boom box. One was a Sun Records mix of Jerry Lee, Carl, and so on, real obscure cuts, not the usual most popular fare of this genre. The other was a Balkan Beat Box cd that I simply titled "Dance." I left off one political song when I burned this so as not to offend and make trouble for myself as a student but as I get to know the folks I don't think this will be a problem.

After a few days, no one has picked them. Yesterday a couple of folks cleaned up and organized the cd area. I heard on comment, "that sun records goes with these," or something like that. So it's been noticed.

Before I leave I plan on burning an Indian music cd, since there is an Indian person working in the clinic. That will get blamed on him. Even if they never get picked for play, some days we don't listen to music, they will be laying there for the unaware.