Controlled Losing

There's something ugly in the air.  Let's start with the weather: it sucks.  We're deep into fall/winter (fall actually having been outlawed by the state of PA), which means it's cloudy and cold.  In the summer, it's cloudy and hot.  It's always humid, but I digress (usually).

Today I'd like to talk about boundaries, consequences and mental health.

Whenever you are in any relationship, including friends, you need boundaries.  One puts up boundaries so as not to get walked upon.  It's not always easy or intuitive; sometimes you need to learn the hard way.  In my family, we practically insist upon learning the hard way.  Again and again.

Consider a boundary like a see-through wall, which you erect to keep yourself safe.  One example would be telling your drug-addicted cousin that he can come over, but not do drugs in your home.  You can't control the drug use but you can control who you let in your house and what goes on inside.  After you put up the boundaries, you may be called upon to defend them.

This is actually a very basic, accepted principle of psychology, which I insisted upon learning the hard way when I met my wife.  Being the observant type, I noticed that boundaries, although healthy, come with their own downside.  I refer to this as Controlled Losing.  This is where our actual tale begins (continues?).

======================

My parents move a lot.  Some older folks take up hobbies like knitting, stamp collecting or doting over their grandkids (or grandpets); my parents move.  We don't have the time or willingness to diagnose this, although we certainly have our suspicions.

At first it was enough to lift an eyebrow.  Then we started noticing patterns.  Now we watch in horror, as they seem to fall into semi-yearly cycles.  I jokingly suggested they affix wheels to all of their furniture and invest in their own warehouse full of boxes and packing material to save costs.  Ok, half jokingly.

Here's where the boundaries thing kicks in....  

I'm a middle-aged guy with a back that gives me grief.  One brother lives on the other side of the country and another is local.  We don't have a lot of difference in age.  So this moving thing gets not only tiresome, it flipping hurts.  Every child helps their parents move, right?

Well, unless they get a moving company.  

We're not entirely sure why they don't get a moving company.  We're only talking small apartment here.  I suspect Mom thinks Dad is a moving department.  Judging by his newly-acquired limp (from bad knees), Dad is no longer the moving department Mom thinks he is.

So the last time we helped them move, as I was walking out the door, I set a boundary.

Mom, I hope you like this place, because it will be the last one.  I can't do this anymore.

My wife backed me one-hundred percent.

Fast forward a year or two, when the wife walks in with that look.  Guess what your parents are doing.....

Then, I enforced my boundary.

No.  I am not doing it.

Doctors, therapists and fellow inmates assure me this is a very healthy move on my part.

As if on cue, the wife says she has to help them.

I tried the Boundary Talk with her.

We already told them NO.  We have to enforce that.

If you're married, you will understand that I was overruled.
But I then had to defend my boundaries with the wife and the parents.

Fine but I'm still not doing it.  And you're going to hurt yourself trying. 

Now here we are at Moving Week.  My boundaries are holding strong.  I'm doing the right thing.
The only problem is that the right thing is coming back to bite me in the nether regions.  Let's tally the score, shall we?

• I told my parents I would not help them move after the last time.  Now they're upset and they're not getting a lot of help, so it's slow going and physically painful.
• I told my wife to defend her boundaries.  She hasn't.  Now the lady who needs a cane sometimes is helping her in-laws move.  She is bent over in agony now.  She is also quite crabby as a result.

If I had not defended my boundaries, I would be bent over in agony.  Since I allegedly did the healthy thing, there are a bunch of crippled, angry people, slowly moving an apartment.  And I'm lucky to still be married.

This is why I call this exercise Controlled Losing.


P.S.  Happy birthday to our spiritual leader, Jimi Hendrix!

Philly Guitar Show

Last weekend I attended the winter version of the Philly Guitar Show, which was neither in the winter, nor in Philly.  Depending on who you asked, it was either at the Philly Expo Center in Oaks or the Oaks Expo Center (in Oaks).

That aside, it's always fun going to these shows.  I might have missed two in many years.  From a left-handed perspective the shows are frequently disappointing but this one was more of a winner.  I bring you pictoral evidence....

First up, I wandered into a 1964 lefty Strat.  I have never seen one, no less played one.  As one would expect, it had that mojo only available in a vintage guitar.  It was burst with a big old rosewood board for only $14k.  Just so we lefties don't feel discriminated against, another booth had a righty 1964 Strat for the same price.  Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it, although it was the one I wanted most.

Next up was a local dealer with an amazing collection of Taylors.  At the end of the collection was the lefty collection.

Technically speaking, there are only three, which is because the guy went to set the fourth one up after I played it.  They all played like butter and I will eventually have a few of them.  Just not now.

Around the corner my senses started to tingle when I saw this:

I can spot a late 70's Strat from across the room.  It was a 77.  And when I got closer, I almost dropped my coffee.  I know some of us are inveterate tinkerers but this guy went a little too far.  He installed a humbucker in the rear, which I must admit to doing on one of mine but then he went and added a switch or five.  And not the small toggles, no sir.  He added flat-handle toggles, in odd places, at odd angles.  I picked it up (because I like pain) and it felt decent but quite used.  Could probably use a fret job.  At about $1400, I decided to leave it there.

Here is your basic black Les Paul Custom (I have the Ibanez lawsuit version of this).  It was in good shape and relatively reasonably priced.

Here's a wine red Les Paul Standard Plus top from 2008 for $2150.

I know these are available but have never seen one til now.  It's the newish Squier Classic Vintage Tele (Strat also available).  These are some great deals, with pine bodies and acceptable hardware/pickups, at  a bargain price.  This model inspired me to build my own pine Tele (and when I say build, I mean I have had all the parts for a year and am waiting for the Finishing Department to get in gear).  The only problem with this series is the problem I have with all recent Fenders - the dratted C-neck they use.  But try one - you might love it.

When was the last time you saw a lefty EB0 bass?  For me, the answer is never.  And from what I remember, it's no great loss.  But still a curiosity.

Speaking of lefty basses, you don't often see a bass both lefty and in blue.  They also had one in maple. I don't have a blue guitar yet so this made me tingle a bit but I'll need a guitar before a blue bass.

=============================================

While that's about it for lefties (I didn't bother with the cheapies I saw), here are some interesting pieces of the backwards (right-handed) variety.

These were my favorites in the whole show, for their sheer hideousness.

Here is a custom-made Alembic guitar for Richard Betts, aka Dickey Betts, late of the Allmans.  Came complete with a Vintage Guitar story on its creation.

This was a classic beauty - a 1954 Telecaster in pretty fine condition for only $25k.  Below it is a picture of the neck with its date.

Les Paul enthusiasts got to behold this 1955 goldtop.  It was not priced and if you have to ask.....

The shows are held twice a year, June/July and November.  Check B3 Guitars for the schedule - they may be coming to your town.

Get Out the Chicken Wire - it's Gig Time

My new band played Saturday night.  I have only been with these guys for a little while and have only played at some outdoor gigs thus far.  They told me the bar was a great place to play.  In fact, one of them described it as follows...

It's the kind of place where there's a fight in the parking lot and everybody walks by it like this happens every day.

I approached neutrally, figuring I'd let the place make its own impression on me.  I was not, however, prepared for the sign outside the bar:

As if this weren't enough, as I was taking the picture, a denizen walked by, looked quizzically, and started drunkenly spouting something about colors, the Eagles, several F-bombs and a smattering of N-words.  He was a very happy drunk and walked right inside.

Uh-oh.

The wife and I looked at each other with a smile.  We were home.  These were our people.  Well, not really.  But I've played in front of them frequently.

I hauled my gear in and waited for the rest of the band.  We were greeted by an impossibly perky waitress, who served us the best burgers we have eaten in a while.  This girl was all about service and we were suitably impressed.

Then we looked up to discover Mr. F-bomb actually worked at the bar.  Well, there's nothing like a happy racist.

Looking at the stage made me wonder where we were going to put the rest of the band; there are rather a lot of us and there wasn't a lot of stage.  After about an hour, someone managed to get the lights on, and when I say lights, I mean a pair of revolving red and blue lights.  I felt like the cops were after me all night.

In addition to the police lights they had black lights.  As a result, my shirt and shoelaces glowed white in the dark.  I must've looked like a dancing shirt from the front of the stage.

Most of the band noticed the waitress, who was everywhere at one time.  Most of the band made suitably rude comments about the attractive waitress.  And since most of the band wives were there, no one made any unsuitable propositions to the waitress (thankfully).

Much to my surprise, everything in my rig worked.  And all of the band's gear worked.  There was adequate power.  The p.a. was loud enough.  We had monitors.  Almost no one was sick.  It was like a scene out of a dream.  And there was no burden of being in-charge.

We played several long sets and the crowd was most appreciative.  At no point did we have to put up chicken wire (because no one threw anything).  I hear that management really likes us.  We old folks were pretty beat up at the end but it was a really great show.

I'm Having One of Those Days Again

Nothing serious, just work stuff around my unreasonable expectations.

What are unreasonable expectations?  I'll tell you, in the form of a story.

Since it was lunchtime, I went to the kitchen to wash my hands and heat up my food.  The sink had no soap.  Needing a fork, I went to the silverware drawer, only to discover there were no forks.  There were spoons - lots of spoons.  In fact both the spoon spot and the knife spot were full of spoons.  But no forks.

We have soda machines.  Yes, we do...  for an outrageous sum, you can purchase the high fructose corn syrup-infused beverage of your choice, provided said beverage isn't Coke.  Last week someone blew up a picture of a Coke bottle to twice its size and taped it to the soda machine, with the word `Please' written on it.

In the Old Days (which, in this case, means last year or so), one could make a request and see it fulfilled by the next day or so.  We were all excited because we were going to be able to purchase Coke.  Within a few days, Coke failed to appear.  In fact, Coke stubbornly refused to show up in that machine for weeks.

We're a big outfit and we have two kitchen areas.  Sometimes I head out to the other end of the building (county) to see what the other machine has in store for me.  It's also a great place to find silverware when there isn't any in the normal lunchroom.  Since this area is closer to the VIPs, it is always well-stocked.  Our lunchroom is the bastard red-headed stepchild of the company.

You could have knocked me over with a feather because, standing right there where the soda machines stand, was a brand spankin' new Coke machine!  I almost ran across the room, in slow motion, like lovers do across a field, to purchase my first actual Coke.

You know what's coming, right?

I found Coke!  Well, when I say Coke, I mean Cherry Coke; which was fine that particular day.  Had I desired Diet Coke, I could have found that in spades, as well as in the Pepsi machine in our lunchroom.  Since I prefer to choose my cancers carefully, I do not drink diet anything.

Hours later I had to hit the men's room.  Judging by the small pond on the floor, I might not have been the only one.  It's been sitting there for two days and doesn't have any (visible) life.  Doesn't look like good fishing anyway.  After I washed my hands, which not all coworkers do, I discovered the paper towel machine cracked open, with no paper towels in it.

Sigh.

I turned to the other paper towel machine, which was completely full of paper towels, but alas, also full of dead batteries, so it wouldn't dispense the much-needed towels.  No matter, my hands were almost dry by that point anyway.

Fast forward to this morning, in the men's room again.  Automated soap dispenser was out of soap.  But there were paper towels.

My company is full of germphobes and compulsive hand-washers.  Outside of every bathroom and every ten feet thereafter on the walls, are water-free hand cleaner dispensers.   As of last month, all the soap dispensers and paper towel dispensers were automatic so all you had to do was wave your hand beneath it.  This is especially amusing when it allots you three inches of paper towel with which to dry your hands.  This is not a money or resource-saving measure; it's just the batteries wearing down.

The only place where you can pour your own soap is the kitchen.  While there was a soap sighting today, the (manual) paper towel dispenser was empty.  But there were forks.  And still no knives.

As one would expect, there was nothing to drink in the Pepsi machine except Diet Coke and other non-palatable items.  Trudging over to the next county, I headed straight for the brand new Coke machine.

Wait for it!!

There was no Coke.

In the Coke machine.

The machine with huge the red and white illustration.  Of Coke.
The machine with the wondrous inner workings which whisk your beverage on its merry way to you with great flourish.


But at least there was Diet Pepsi.

Let's Vote! and other stuff...

Today we vote.  Or rather we should vote.

I have seen articles stating why your vote doesn't matter and theories about why it might.  I even wrote here, stating that we third party voters are pretty popular these days.  Most of the polls show the Evil Twins<tm> Romney and Obama neck and neck.  My boss, the portable democratic strategist, states that we are going to see a rerun of the 2000 elections, where it will be decided in the courts.

I am going to vote my conscience.  A vote for the lesser evil is a vote wasted.

Before you pull the lever or write in a name, I want you to ponder these events past:

• the Patriot Act
• the auto `bailout'
• the banker `bailout'
• the NDAA (your president can order you dead with no process)
• Free Speech Zones
• rapidly expanding government, in size and scope
• even more `spreading democracy' (our troops in foreign lands)

The Evil Twins are in close agreement on the above.   Where does this leave us?

Do what you must.

===========================

Now that the expected unpleasantness is through, I wanted to bring you the best of today's news.

Things are in bad shape in New Jersey and New York.  On Craigslist you can now find people trading gas for sex.  My Hotness Level would be through the roof if I had a few spare gallons.....

Staten Island wants to thank you for your generous donations of clothes.  In fact, they don't need more clothes; they need underwear.

A Des Moines, Iowa store has a message for the Secret Service.

An observable miracle in modern jurisprudence was observed recently in Cleveland.  A woman who drove on the sidewalk to get around a school bus must stand on the corner wearing a sign that says 

"Only an idiot drives on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus."

I suspect if more cases were decided this way, there would be more people with signs and less idiots behind the wheel.  In fact, this might actually eliminate traffic jams!


And lastly, Bill Clinton asks, "Who wants a president who will lie to you?"

Right on, Bill.  Presidents only lie when their lips are moving.