Raiders of the Lost Sequels II

 

Your love is like  random STDs

It killed me when I heard stories about dads coming to all their kids' games.

Until I realized that not only didn't I have a dad, I didn't have any games.

Today I identify as  yet another Windows flaw that's being exploited NOW

But seriously, not having a father figure definitely hurt me in some ways. Definitely in sports. Kids are cruel, especially if you don't know which way to run with the ball.

Maybe that's why I picked up the guitar. They told me guitar players got all the chicks. Thirty years later, I'm still waiting for them. At least playing was something I could work on by myself, and didn't involve me hurling myself at concrete (or other players). Eventually I got onstage and discovered I loved it there. I also discovered the spotlight. The real, actual spotlight. It was so bright, I couldn't see the first row of the audience, then I couldn't see the rest of the week. First time onstage we caused a small riot in the auditorium; everybody rushed the stage. At the next school, we were two chords into the first song, and groups of teachers were fleeing the auditorium. Sometimes when I practiced at home with my trusty Marshall amp, the police would visit. At first I thought they were really into the sounds of my playing. Then they told me if I didn't turn it down, they'd help me. So I had all sorts of interesting reactions to my playing. The last place I worked had shows, and I'd run around like someone set me on fire. A coworker said, "lefty, you sure are.... different... onstage." One of my greatest compliments. This is precisely why 20 left handed guitars are not enough. Must. Have. More.

So we never had kids. We paid our debt to society. A direct quote from an old girlfriend: "I would never have your kids because they might turn out like you." Well, she had a point..... plus, let's face it... I'm not really fond of the little ankle biters. Mrs. lefty is pretty good with them, but having one was just not a good idea (she has enough internal ones). Hell, we can barely take care of ourselves. The UN had a program just for me, to make sure I didn't reproduce. I got free contraception from age 13. I still get boxes in the mail and I still can't use them right.

Which is why I have Iqbal, my service elephant. I picked him out of 20. I scanned the whole herd and as soon as our eyes met, we knew we were right for each other. Unfortunately certain businesses, especially airlines, refuse to respect service elephants. Iqbal becomes sad, then enraged. He also had to stop trumpeting because it started the dog barking, as does any loud noise. He can still play the flute, which you'd think would be handy on airplanes, although his mask is a real bastard to put on and there's always some Karen insisting he wear it.

Speaking of which, the British store Sainsbury's has denied a man entry with his service cat. Wait til they meet Iqbal...

• Ex-soldier trains shelter dogs to help veterans
• There is truly nothing like a dog 

You know my extreme dislike of government and its constant expansion. With that in mind, the White House has introduced the Department of Backpedaling. It's a very large, full time department, which spends its time walking back most of what President Taxit says. When Biden said the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked it, the Department of Backpedaling got into the fray quickly. When the president said Putin cannot remain in power as Russia's municipal lifeguard, the Department was right there. They expect to be called into action later today, when Biden gives his opening remarks about the Chinese Olympics.

Speaking of the president's random actions, he met with BTS, an Asian boy band, to tackle anti-Asian hate. Later tomorrow, he will meet with an anthill in back of the White House, to tackle ant invasions in the summertime. Later this week, he will meet with the wind to tackle hurricanes. Then he's going to Disneyland.

• Hurricane Agatha has left 11 dead and dozens missing in Mexico
• Mexico's president accepted the losses and said they're preferable to a drug cartel's aftermath 

Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Bill Gates Will Force You to Eat Burgers Made in a ‘Peach Tree Dish’

I don't know who is safer to be near; Gates or Greene 

• 15,000 Pounds of Delicious Hot Dog Filler Spill in Highway Crash
• "It tastes much better with the road debris," said a passerby....

California parents could soon sue for social media addiction

Because certain things have no place in school and parents are against taking responsibility for raising their own rug rats. When asked, parents said, "Just a minute, I'm tweeting."

Automatic trash continues. It's where the trashcans return themselves to their normal positions after the trash trucks come around. The thing is, there's still one can left on the curb. We don't know why.

Speaking of automatic, the new mower has arrived. I'm excited because it's blue. She's excited because it's power-assist. I'm unhappy because it's a mower. I'm also unhappy because it won't power-assist itself out of the fscking box. It's heavy.

What might be cool is an automatic power-assist remote hybrid. You sit in a comfortable chair with a joystick and direct the mowing. It would be like some sort of retarded satanic virtually real reality video game.

So what have we here? 

A large instruction manual. In many languages, because I'm multi-lingual. It's written for normals, so I have trouble. Can't even get the bastard going. Ah, the upper treadle mannisquire is obviously askew and won't engage the safety bypass, disallowing operation. After yanking the stupid arms up, I'm faced with the starting procedure. I haven't had a car that took this many steps to start. Hold the blue button with your left arm or your penis, whichever is closer, but hold it from underneath the poles. Then pull the lever. Oh, did you remember to charge the batteries first? Yes, batteries. This buggy is serious. They shoulda put a car battery in it. Although my experience with car batteries leaves me thankful they put rechargables in. The batteries are 24 volts, as if this matters. It's the current, not the voltage, but ad claims are ad claims, like the 1200a vacuums.

Somehow, by grand mistake or incredible coincidence, I get the bugger started. It cuts the grass, which is my main objective. Eventually I figure out the self-propelled feature... it engages via yet another lever (next to the spinning blade). VOOM - the sucker takes off. It's probably not a good thing to have to race your mower across the lawn. Somehow this is not what I imagined. The old mower only did 13" and you could throw it across the street. This one does a manly 21" and you can barely push it.  Somehow the tradeoff will not work for Mrs. lefty, who enjoys mowing (!!!) but can't push (or pull).  I have to admit I used the propelled feature to help out. The machine is also unstoppable. It breezed right through the forest that tried to eat the dog the other day. This would have stopped the old mower completely. I think it ate a few trees that used to annoy me.

It came with a grass catcher bag but I'm not sure why. Who in their right mind, or wrong mind, wants to collect the mowed grass? What do you do with it - donate it to people with no lawn? Plus you have to empty the thing whenever it gets full. It's just another annoyance, like listening to people tell you about the DeppHeard trial. There's a reason 'mow' rhymes with 'no'.

By the time it was done, I was impressed, but more importantly, crippled and sweating, like a good-looking hetero guy at the Pride parade. I slammed some Coke and took up position in front of a fan for an hour or two. I further proved that I can nap under any circumstances.

• Turkey wants to be called Türkiye as part of a campaign launched by its president.
• The president wants to reassure you that all the torture and illegal activities will continue unabated.

America was thinking of rebranding as Amerikur until it realized that the UK already pronounces it that way

Brazil considered Brasil, then was told it's already spelled that way sometimes

To escape their violent reputation, Mexico will rebrand as France

Two Scottish referees just came out as gay.

The rest of the world listened to the announcement and said, "Huh?"

But seriously, if people are this focused on referees, the leaders have done a fantastic job of redirection.

Your Love is Like a Cranial Injury Requiring Surgery

Much as we bitched about the Loud Family selling the house to the Loud Power Tool Family, we're sad to see the Power Tool Family move. Not that I've said more than 3 words to them.. that's what Mrs lefty is for. Mrs lefty will miss them. The only issue we had was asking the neighborhood bigot how we should feel about the mixed-race couple. Mrs lefty already already knows the new owners, who are also a racially-mixed couple. The neighborhood bigot said, "That's how they sneak in... only one of em is black. Before you know it, everyone's black. Git out now!"   At least we don't have none of them uppity ones.



The Evil Empire(s)

Microsoft accused of sharing data of Office 365 business subscribers with Facebook and its app devs

Read carefully.  MS (business) claims of privacy are false.

"In fact, contrary to its representations, Microsoft has regularly shared – and continues to share – its business customers' data with Facebook and other third parties," the complaint says. "The data is shared even when neither the customers nor their contacts are Facebook users."

Federal and other laws have been violated. Contacts have been shared.
If you think for a moment that this doesn't apply on the personal side of MS products....


Kanye for president?
Britney for vice president?
Corey Feldman for speaker?




Work has an interesting culture.
What about the Microsoft Teams BUSY indicator tells people to text and call me?  Of course this works both ways: when their indicator says PRESENTING, I like to email them to task if they're going through with the sex change operation, which pops up on their screen while they're presenting.

Also, when the company talks about sexual harassment training, why does everybody always look at me?

But seriously, it's a very unique place. There is no harassment of any kind, because people just don't care. They're busy doing (or avoiding) their work. Everybody gets along fine, even the kikes and wops and spics and micks. Sure, one lady snores so loudly that the entire area can hear her, but she'll be promoted out of there shortly. My buddies are smarter than that: they got promoted to an office, where no one can hear them snore. That's some prime napping time there.

They spend a lot of time talking about the next automatic weapon they're purchasing, so there's no talk of gun control (out loud).

Remember: not caring looks an awful lot like tolerance, so at least you have that.


Speaking of which, work has an Office Re-Opening Committee.
This ensures we will not reopen for years, if ever.



Dear lefty:

• Morris Morris, from Morrisville, Mississippi, asks why Dear lefty went missing for months
• Dear Mossie: because you're ugly and not very smart

Sydney police 'asked woman to remove tampon' in strip-search
Yet people complain when police aren't thorough....



Speaking of Australia, Wife was watching some show with bits of musicals.

Mein Gott, that's horrid. What is it?
It's Oklahoma. Haven't you ever seen Oklahoma?
No, my parents liked me.
You were deprived as a child.
You mean 'depraved.'



Told You So

When I saw the commercials for ancestry via DNA services, I said NOOOO - your results will get shared with insurers, marketers, and the feds.

lefty, you're paranoid. They specifically state they won't share.

POOF - FBI gets access to records

I told you not to put the stuff In The Cloud.

lefty, you're anti-technology. Everything's in The Cloud.

POOF - 60,000 ancestry.com records left exposed to the internet




When I was little, my friends taught me sports. Today it might look different:

Hey guys, let's play football
Yeah!

Jimmy, are you ok? Did you hurt something?
No, lefty, I'm taking a knee.
Where are you taking it?
No, this is because black lives matter.
Is this like a field goal?
No, you don't score game points - you score social points. You do it when people sing the national anthem.
Do we have to sing the national anthem when we play in the street?
Team: shut up, lefty.

Jimmy, aren't you running the wrong way down the field?
Yes, but I'm doing it for justice.
Isn't justice determined by the court system?
Team: shut up, lefty.

...which is why I play the guitar instead of sports.



SJW Silliness

The NBA commercial said that they have a fight for justice, as well as a fight for the championship.

lefty reviews pedals [Guitar Content Only]

I see these reviews online and on YouTube, so I decided to bring my reviewing 'style' to the ThermionicEmissions. I can't do videos because I'm too ugly to be on camera, so you're stuck here. This is going to be a real internet hit, once it gets out. I'll have to split the blog again. Yes, I've been drinking again, why do you ask?


A major musical instrument vendor is having a sale and I haven't shopped for anything in 8 years, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Each pedal had a video so you could hear the pedal in action, allowing me to keep current on what's out there.

I hate to have to say this, but the reviews are my opinion. Your mileage will vary. It's more of a review parody of snotty people than anything. And I hate everything anyway.



MXR M78 Custom Badass 78 Distortion  $69

One of my first pedals was the MXR Distortion +. I hated it. Naturally it's 'vintage' and commands a hefty price now. That's nice - a hefty price for a pedal that still sucks.

The Custom Badass does sound different than my Distortion +. It's a little more subtle. And it, too, sucks.


Ibanez NU Tubescreamer  $250

I got the jump on this a year ago, when the Nu Tube itself came out. It's a $50 tube on a chip. It powers the little Vox cubes. Ibanez put it in a pedal.

The Tube Screamer is one of the most famous pedals there is, and has been around since about the time of George Washington. I had one early on. It was green, which also described the color of my face when I heard it. Dammit, this doesn't sound like a tube amp, I said to myself.

The original TS came in a ton of varieties, which sometimes could be distinguished by the shape of the switch, random model numbers, and the shade of green. More recently, it gained fame because of DRSS (Dead Rock Star Syndrome) after Stevie Ray Vaughan had that unfortunate incident with the mountain. SRV used one, so everybody and their parents needed one. What the ads and hype failed to reveal was that SRV also used Marshall, Fender, and Dumble amps at the same time, so unless you hooked your TS to about $6,000 to $15,000 worth of amps, you weren't going to sound like Stevie. Further, you wouldn't play like Stevie either. This is the trap women fall for in makeup commercials: buy this makeup and you'll look like the beautiful movie star who's wearing it now.

We also learned the proper way to run a Tube Screamer was not the way I ran it. You set your amp semi-dirty and run the TS into it for boost, not necessarily gain. So then it became which TS you had, because the one with the square switch sounded better than the stomp switch, causing it to fetch $300 per. Meanwhile, Ibanez is pissing their pants, because the only difference between the square switch model and the stomp switch model is that one has a square switch and one has a stomp switch - there are no circuit differences. Ibanez was less happy when they found out they were going for $300 used. So they did the right thing and reissued the square switch pedal. For $300.

So I watched the video. And it didn't sound any better than my old Tube Screamer. I'll tell you, folks... if you can't make it sound good in the demo, how can you sell them? Like Burger King's commercials.


Shit - are we having fun yet?
I sure the hell am.
Unfortunately my non-guitar readers, who missed the line up top (Guitar Content) are pulling out their hair and wondering when it will end (when they're out of hair).
Let's continue; shall we?


Pigtronix Disnortion   $50

Pigtronix makes some really interesting, off the path boxes, many with silly names. This is one of them.

The uniqueness of the pedal is in the name. It sounds like a decent fuzz (and I don't like fuzz). NEXT.


TC Helicon Harmony Singer 2   $200

TC makes some sweet stuff. I have the Flashback II, their multi delay box. Most of their pedals have Tone Print, where you can store your settings or input new settings with your phone. So if you ever see anyone with their phone pointed at their pickups, they're uploading a preset.  Or they're so stoned, they think they're making a call.

The Harmony Singer looked interesting, because it was... well.. a harmonizer. I have a weakness for harmonizers but I'm not sure why. Maybe it's a blinky light thing. There's something to be said for playing Allman Brothers harmonized leads all by yourself.

When the video started, I realized I was hoodwinked: the pedal was for singers. Screw singers - it was in the guitar pedal category, meaning somebody was either going to have to pay tribute or die.

Since I'm a sucker, I let it continue. It's 10% of a guitar pedal, in that the pedal analyzes your guitar to make the singer's harmonies accurate. The demo, like all demos, was over the top, but it was damn fine. The guy had an acoustic and the lady sang. When she sang, a chorus of invisible angels sang along with her. Ok, that's pretty cool.  You can set the harmonies, level of harmonies, and flip the switch for Penis or Lack of Penis, so the pedal knows what range to use (ok, I might have made that up a little).

Since I'm not in a band now and it's rude for me to sing where people can hear me, I went to the next pedal.


Way Huge Conquistador Fuzzstortion Pedal   $80

Way Huge has the best model names in the industry. Crunchy Frog, Camel Toe, and Green Pickle come to mind.

I'm not sure what fuzzstortion is, but it sounded like a heavy fuzz and I still don't like fuzz. NEXT.



TC Electronic June 60 Vintage Analog Chorus   $49

This box is modeled after the chorus found on a old Juno synthesizer.
I don't know why.

It sounded halfway decent.
But... if you're going to put out an effect pedal, you should probably include more than two buttons and a footswitch. There were literally two pushbuttons for settings. No knobs. For sounds, you had SWITCH 1 ON, SWITCH 2 ON, BOTH SWITCHES ON. While this is most likely what was on the Juno synthesizer, guitar players like knobs that you can turn, making it a box with more than three settings.



Boss MT-2W Waza Metal Zone

Are you fricking kidding me?
I couldn't bear to watch the video.



TC Electronic Hall of Fame Mini Reverb   $100

Since I like the Flashback II, I figured I'd give it a go... I need a reverb anyway.
I thought it was a one trick pony with one knob, but it turns out they hid the switch that selects between four types of reverb. Pretty tricky.

The video explained the knob/switch combo and demoed one of the sounds for damn near 15 seconds.  Here I am, ready to drop $100 on a pedal and the demo doesn't show me what the other 3 reverb types sound like (they DO sound different). Nasty surprise - and this was a manufacturer video.


Digitech Mosaic Polyphonic 12 String   $145

I've heard a few pedals claiming to make your 6 string sound like a 12 string. Spoiler: they fail. They sound like shit, with nasty, buzzy highs that make it sound closer to a 12 string, like maybe an 8 string.

Two strums into the video and I was hooked.
I was hooked on reaching for the STOP knob. It sounded every bit as nasty high buzzy as every other 12 string emulator pedal.  This is probably because it has to shift the high strings up in pitch and it doesn't do this very well or realistically. Get a 12 string.


Boss JB-2 Angry Driver Overdrive   $199

This is a first: Boss teamed with JHS pedals for the JB-2, which combines a Blues Driver with the JHS Angry Charlie. They had a video with the head of Boss (couldn't speak English) and the JHS Dude (spoke English), respecting each other, listening to pedals, breadboarding pedals, and continuing to respect each other. There was a scene where they held hands while walking through the park.

The only logical fallacy was that they couldn't design a pedal because they couldn't communicate. One guy says, "I think we need more high end." The other one replies, "[Japanese]." And so went the design phase.

The Blues Driver is Boss' answer to the Tube Screamer, and sounds every bit as bad good. The shade of blue is a bit nicer than the Tube Screamer's green, so it has that going for it.  The Angry Charlie is red and has a lot of knobs. It's sort of a kind of Marshall Full Blown JCM800 style pedal, with a hair more subtlety. It sounds a lot like Andy Timmons, who sounds pretty good. Andy used and/or collaborated on this pedal until he went somewhere else recently. Andy also uses Mesa Boogies, which makes the balls to the wall Marshall box sound kinda strange. Further, JHS has managed a bad reputation with some pedal buyers for using existing designs, putting his name on them, and selling them for inflated prices. This is hearsay - I have not played the pedals or looked at the circuitry.

After the guys were done strolling through the park, it was time to hear the JB-2. Unfortunately they didn't include it. I know the Angry Charlie is a decent sounding box. The JB-2 has the 2 boxes, which you can run in either order.


Leslie G Pedal Leslie in a Box   $ 330

Companies have been trying to put a Leslie in a box since the beginning of time, because a real Leslie weighs as much as a house, and requires its own staff to move and maintain. It's worth it, though... the thing was attached to every Hammond Organ that ever got recorded, as well as Peter Frampton's rig. It can be heard on Beatles, Joe Walsh, and tons of other albums, with a guitar or keyboard through it. It is distinguished by being the size of a medium size fridge, usually in a nice wood finish, with a thingie that rotates inside the top part of it. It rotates slowly or quickly, which is switchable.

I wanted a Leslie, but my back wouldn't hear of it. Mrs lefty gave me permission to put it in the living room, next to the tube tester, but it wouldn't fit in the moving truck. I spent a year auditioning pedals that claimed to sound like a Leslie. Spolier: they didn't.

Go to YouTube and listen for yourself. Some sound good. Some not so good. You can spend $60 to $350 on them. They all have one thing in common: they sound pretty good on the fast speed, and almost imperceptible on the slow speed.

This pedal is a smaller version of the original, with more knobs or something.
The video was very clean and had no background noise. Unfortunately it had no frontground noise either. In fact, there was no video. I listened to the original box when I was doing comparisons and I'll say it didn't rank in the top 2. It's a sad irony that the company that makes the fridge-size box original can't quite put the sound in a tiny little box for guitar players.

Other spoiler: I bought the Hughes and Kettner Tube Rotosphere 2. It's got an honest to goodness 12AX7 tube, and sounded the best of any I heard. It even has a distortion control. Jeff Beck used one, so I figured I'm in good company. The only downside is that it's relatively huge. This isn't a problem for me because I never leave the house, but people with crowded pedalboards should probably get a lesser unit. It's not made anymore but you can find them on Ebay. I emailed H&K about getting more depth in the slow speed - answer pending.


TC Electronics Viscous Vibe Modulation Effects  $130

Everybody and their mother wants that Univibe tone, made famous by Jimi Hendrix (DRSS) and Robin Trower. Unfortunately the vintage Univibes haven't been made since Richard Nixon was in office and they're not for sale often. When they are for sale, you have to mortgage your house for one. I'm kidding - you have to mortgage your car. Manufacturers have been putting out Univibe clones for years, mostly sounding not too great and not like a Univibe. But at least they get a lot of money for them.

One of the biggies was the Microvibe. I tried it in a store, in a small room, where no one could disturb me. For fun, I had a Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe next to it. Roger Mayer started out making pedals for Jimi Hendrix and has had his own line of pedals for years. There weren't a lot of controls on the Univibe or the Microvibe. The Mayer had more knobs than a home improvement store and is way beyond the understanding of most guitar players (and me). That said, the Mayer blew the Micro out of the water handily. Fortunately for me, it was used, so the price was merely ridiculous, and I still use it to this day.

The video was a combo of 2 boxes, the Viscous Vibe and their Phaser offering. The phaser sounded exactly like a phaser. It was astounding. They even loaded a TonePrint patch, which also sounded like a phaser. If you want a phaser, that box is definitely one. The Viscous Vibe is also a phaser, because Univibes and clones are special phasers (the knobs are loose but you better not make fun of them). It has 3 modes: chorus (Univibe), TonePrint, and Vibrato (nauseating pitch warbling, like you hear right before you have to throw up). As things go, the VV sounded decent. I'd want to compare it to several others, but it's a good sounding pedal, leaving no doubt as to what it's supposed to be doing. Decent price too.


Way Huge Conspiracy Theory   $135

Another great named pedal from Way Huge. I had to look at it, based upon the name alone. When I saw it, I knew what it was: a direct ripoff of the famous Klon pedal. Some nice fella made the Klon, which is a medium transparent overdrive, and started to go for absolutely obscene prices on the used market. I think he had stopped making them right before this. The Gear Nerds had a blast, claiming differences between the gold case and the silver case. Eventually, many pedal companies put out their own version. This is sad, because the original guy saw everybody making a ton of money on his design.  He eventually put out another version which was much less expensive, smaller, and in a red box. Naturally the Gear Nerds had a fit comparing the red one to the gold one. If you don't believe me, go to YouTube, where they compare every version ever made to the original. Electro Harmonix has their direct copy, the Soul Food, which goes for about $70. There are many others. Since they can't call themselves Klon, they have names like Klone, Archer (Klon has an archer logo), and others have a similar box with 3 knobs, like the Klon.

Yes, but what does it do?
It's actually a pretty nifty pedal. It's referred to as a medium transparent overdrive, but that's a small part of what it does, with a lot of syllables. Transparent refers to the pedal passing your original tone without messing it up, like most pedals do, especially fuzz and distortion. It's a medium because it doesn't have a ton of gain, but has enough. The pedal sounds pretty fine in front of most amps. You can use it to goose an already distorted amp, for a little grit, or for a cleanish boost. It is transparent - it gives you more of what you have, adding some fine-sounding dirt. You should probably pick one up at some point, because you need 12 overdrive/distortion/fuzzes on your board. And because it's pretty sweet, even at low settings.


Keeley Dark Side Workstation Multi Effects   $275

I knew this one already. It's Pink Floyd in a box - I'm not kidding.
It's got fuzz, delay, and modulation, and with a few knob changes, you can sound close to David Gilmour. Reminder: you will never play like David Gilmour. The price is damn fine for what you get - it would cost you a lot more to buy the 3 effects separately. Note: these are vintage-style 70s effects. You will want to listen to this pedal. I really like it, and I have no desire to be David Gilmour. The modulation gives you Flanger, Rotary Speaker (Leslie), U-Vibe (Univibe), and phaser effects.



Electro Harmonix Synth 9   $190

This is the 5th pedal in this series. You plug your guitar in and it sounds like a keyboard. Each pedal has a number of keyboards, and this one sounds like about 9 different popular synthesizers. You go from Moog (Lucky Man), to Oberheim (JUMP!), to Prophet 5 (tons of stuff) and others. To watch the demo is to be amazed. One of the reasons is that Bill Ruppert is very talented.

These pedals are light years ahead of the first guitar synths (I had an early converter). You don't need a converter, a special pickup, an additional box and pickup on the guitar, or to lug keyboards around. I wouldn't go so far as to say you can fire your keyboardist now, but you can get some interesting and popular tones out of these boxes. I'd probably go for one of the more generic boxes first, but they sound like what they're named after.

They come up used a lot, at better prices. I have a feeling that it's because of the rumor I heard about this series not tracking well. This was a huge problem with early guitar synths. So before you buy one, spend some time playing with it to make sure it does everything you want it to, and accurately.

Lastly, when you play keyboards, you sometimes have to think like a keyboardist. This can get hairy, because you can play adjacent notes on keyboards, which you can't on guitars (unless you have a 1 foot handspan, like Allan Holdsworth). So you have to pick your notes and inversions carefully. But it still sounds good generically.



MXR M77 Custom Badass Modified Overdrive   $100

I'm sorry - I refuse to review this on the basis that I can't tell the difference between the M78 Custom Badass 78 Distortion and the M77 Custom Badass Modified Overdrive. There are too many syllables and too many words, even though both have Badass in their names.

Ok, I watched the video.
It sounds like an MXR distortion/overdrive, which isn't a good thing.
It's got a 100Hz boost/cut knob and a Bump switch, which bumps up the mids, making it sound even worse. You Tube Screamer people might like the Bump.
It doesn't sound hideous, but that's not exactly a good marketing point.



J Rockett Audio Designs Majestic Overdrive   $200

The J Rockett people say this pedal captures Jimmy Page's tone on the How the West Was Won album. The video says it's designed to sound like a 1958 Les Paul into a cranked Marshall.

Quite frankly, it sounds like neither.

It's not a bad pedal at all. It just doesn't sound like its press would have you believe. I don't think it's worth $200. If it did sound like it was supposed to, it would be worth it. It's a nice, medium overdrive.

I'll have another go when I see something interesting.
Or the next time I've had too much to.....

Hey Dad, Check This Out!

My father died a long time ago, when we were both too young.
I though it would be cool to update him on what he's missed all these years.

• Bag phones, beam me up Scotty phones, and tiny flat phones. Walkie-talkie private phones. More horsepower in the phone than the first personal pc's and the computer on the Apollo space missions. Personal computers with hard drives under fridge size. Instant communication, like a 'Dick Tracy wristwatch.'  Roswell's fiber optics, integrated circuits, and night vision. Digital electric alarm clocks. 
• The internet as we know it. The ability to text, talk, send pics, look at dirty pics, and suck up information in no time at all, in your hand and in your house. Sometimes in your car.
• Autonomous cars - that I wish we didn't have to see either. Ridiculously high-powered car stereos, measured in decibels instead of watts. Never replace spark plugs. No rotatable distributors. Unleaded gas. Digital stereos playing AM stereo (for a while), FM stereo, 8 track cassettes, cassettes, ELcassettes, songs from non-connected phones and memory sticks.
• Much better medical knowledge, at ridiculous prices. Much more sophisticated diagnostic machinery. Chiropractors (?), Eastern medicine, and better medicines (horribly expensive and too frequently used recreationally). 
• An incredibly rapid news cycle. Finding out about political scandals via news. Then going back to being covered up by news. The discovery that the Military Industrial Complex is actually running things. 
• Shopping for everything locally, then online.  24/7 stores.
• Complete disregard for manners, customs, feelings, and one's parents. Warehouses for old people.
• Amateur radio, using the same equipment designed and built before your own birth.
• My phenomenal guitar and amp collection. My less than phenomenal playing. Being crowned CEO of Sarcasm.
• Unprecedented governmental and corporate spying. Unprecedented tax and spend.
• Homosexuality and sex-changes out in the open, sometimes celebrated. 'Ass' and 'shit' are ok on tv, but still no 'fuck'. Publicly admitted BJs and cigars not-smoked in the White House. 
• Expansion of The Stupid. Drooling, celebrity-obsessed idiots. Something from another planet called Kardashians.
• The realization that All is Not Well, like it is on tv. The end of innocence.

On the other hand, most of us never got to see

• turntables in cars. Cars the size of two current cars. Suicide doors. 400+ CID 8 cylinder engines, 'straight eight' cylinder engines, leaded gas, people pumping gas for you, waiting for your car stereo and tv to warm up before you can use them,  Fins. Large amounts of chrome. Seats that fit a family comfortably. Legroom. Bench seats. Manual and pushbutton transmissions. Having to slam huge metal doors. No seatbelts at all. Real wood on Woodys. Full service gas stations with window cleaning, fluid check, and replacement.
• Paying cash for a doctor visit. The doctor coming to your house.
• Newspapers. Milk and potato chip home delivery. 
• Salespeople who knew you and 'put it on your tab', then sent it to you.
• Happily living close to your parents.
• Really really bad 'solid state' stereos and guitar amplifiers (ok, that continues).
• Comics being funny without expletives.

We miss you, fella.

Robin Trower

Robin is quite frankly one of the fathers of guitar. From fame with Procol Harum to great solo success with Bridge of Sighs and more.

I have this old memory of some good dirtbag friends of mine, playing with their pot on a Trower album (yes, album - deal with it).  I was a fan from the first note, way back when people were comparing him to Hendrix (an invalid comparison).

I saw Trower in the 80s, at a now-defunct venue in PA. Years later, I found myself at Glenside's Keswick Theater (never a bad seat) to see Robin again.

Opening was Jeffrey Gaines, a local guy. He was doing a great job at the unenviable task of opening for a legend. In the middle of a song he experienced a technical glitch and his guitar was no longer heard. Having gone through this, I felt horrible for the guy and started to applaud. It's possible this spread and wound up in the whole place applauding. Gaines smiled and thanked everyone for being so sweet to him. Go out and buy his music - it's worth it.

We were in the first row of fixed seats, which came out to be the fourth row. This was nice.

After a while, Robin came out.
And rocked the place nonstop for the night.

If an instrumental musician or accomplished guitarist translates past musicians to non-musicians, there's something special. There was something special that night, as Mrs. leftystrat watched in awe. Robin has gotten older and lost hair but that's all he lost. Mrs leftystrat said she picked up joy from him, and gratitude that people were coming out to see him do what he does best. The place was pretty crowded, if that's any indication. He seemed genuinely taken aback by the adulation.

He ran two Marshall half stacks and his signature model Fender Stratocaster all night - no changes. The 2 fellows with him did a great job, with the bassist handling most vocals. We didn't hear the vocals well, but that's not what we were there for. The gents were young.

I joked that they were carding at the door and if you were under 45, they wouldn't let you in. Old, fat, and bald was the order of the evening. It's possible that I fit into one of those categories.

Go see him. Buy the cds.

A note about tickets:
People hate ticketing agencies. I remember having to wait in line for tickets, not that I did. As soon as things got 'organized', they went to hell. The charges randomly piled on top of the ticket prices did nothing but skyrocket.

We were unlucky enough to have to purchase tickets through AXS, a national group of pirates. Oddly enough, the purchase went well, which is not my experience. This continued until they asked how I wanted to tickets: Rocket Blast or Will Call. I have no trouble with E-tickets, so I chose Blast. As soon as the transaction was through, I was informed I needed to install an app on my phone to get the tickets. WHAT?

No. I don't want to install an app to get tickets. I can't stand the apps I have now, plus the ridiculous rights this app demanded... there's no reason in hell this app needed to have info about my other accounts, plus the rest it wanted. I put in a service ticket, requesting E-tickets, like normal.  Oops - they have no E-tickets, but they'd be damn happy to leave them at Will Call (for only $6 each).

HUH?

There is a Web Convenience Fee of $15. Plus the ticket price. Plus $6 so I can collect the tickets without having to install an app.

NO.

Poor Mrs. leftystrat had to install the app. She said under no other circumstances would she do this: the app had a horrible reputation, which turned out to be well-deserved.

AXS can do whatever they want, but I'm going to look around and spend my money elsewhere, if at all possible. You should too - don't encourage this.

What the Hell is a Mandocaster?

That's easy - it's Eastwood Guitars' electronic mandolin. It kinda like you took a seafoam green Telecaster and put it in the dryer until it shrunk to half size.  This is precisely what I told my five yeard old nephew and he believed me. This is also precisely why I'm not allowed to see my five year old nephew often.

Eastwood is very nice to lefties, producing the greater amount of their offerings lefty, including a lefty 12-string mandocaster. I already own a Delta 6, which is pretty cool for what it is, although it suffers a hair in the quality control department, with pencil marks near the pickup route. Suffice it to say that if you know what you're ordering, you will not be disappointed. The guitars are made in China and are not designed to be Les Pauls.

Eastwood was very communicative, letting me know the shipping information. To my surprise, the 'caster was shipped from England (Britland, as the kids say). It arrived in short order, with the carrier's driver conveniently hiding it next to my front steps. To his credit, he wrapped it in plastic to avoid the nearly constant precipitation. I also ordered the custom padded gig bag, which turned out to be a great addition (although getting it monogrammed was not a listed option). And let's face it - it wouldn't fit into any of my guitar cases.

Rather than taking a picture and posting it to all of the social sites (and Reddit), I'm using the Anti-Social Network to post an actual description. In the new tradition of including goodies, I got a package with a cute little cord, some picks, and something called fudge, which, according to the package, sells for 25p (that's $495.76 US). It is not fudge as we colonists know it but it was quite enjoyable. And this is, to the best of my knowledge, not a fudge review (although the absolute best vanilla fudge I get comes from a pharmacy).

Let me start off by saying this is a really cool little axe. It has some heft to it. It also had a bowed neck, which the techs at Eastwood assisted me in straightening (yes, it has a truss rod!).

MOUNTAINS TO CLIMB

As we might know, I'm a guitar player.  The first minor hurdle is learning how to play the mandolin. As reality would have it, the instrument is not tuned like a guitar. The irony here is that it is tuned the opposite of a guitar (EADG from the high string down). An online friend observed that if I chose to string it backwards (right-handed), it would be like a guitar.  As a stubborn kinda guy, I chose to play it 'normally' (GDAE, from the low string).  As a cocky kinda guitar player (of rather a lot of years), I naturally figured I could be playing in no time.

This reminds me of my aborted attempt to play the piano. I know theory so I could assmeble chords, but I quickly discovered that you cannot apply vibrato to a key, nor can you (traditionally) bend it. I felt like I was going to break a key while trying, so thus ended my piano career, quite abruptly.

Since this is 2015, I quickly downloaded a few mandolin apps to my android phone. I learned my first chord, a G major, and was off, wanking away and trying to make vaguely musical-sounding noises.  For hilarity's sake, I tried a few individual notes, trying to be the Hendrix of mandolin.  It sounded more like the Cobain of mandolin (don't send hate mail-I calls em as I sees em). It was at roughly this point that I discovered mandolins don't operate like guitars (no, really?). Aside from there being two fewer strings, you cannot bend a note in tune, due to trying to bend a pair of strings simultaneously (like a 12 string guitar).  The other minor thing is that because of the tuning, an open string is equal to the previous string's seventh fret, not the fifth, as on a guitar.

Lazy and anxious to play some actual music, I tried picking out a few things by ear, the first being St. Teresa, by Joan Osborne. BRIEF DETOUR: Listen to some Joan Osborne. She's a really good singer, who can cover almost anything and belt out her own stuff in a very musically pleasing way. It doesn't hurt that she's attractive, althouth I could do without the nose ring. I kinda want her to come sing to me.  She's one of the few that I listen to without listening for the guitar. This song has a particularly interesting bassline, provided by a fretless bass (not a fretted one, as in the video). There's also a live version, with an actual left-handed mandolinist (? and a bloody CAPO).

The next problem is that the spacing between the frets is miniscule, especially in comparison with a guitar. My poor normal sized fingers had some difficulty, especially trying to barre chords (which apparently you don't do). The chord shapes are all wrong too :P  Next up: Led Zepplin's The Battle of Evermore. It's probably wrong but it's mine by ear.

Now ask me how it sounds plugged in.
I have no idea. It's very live acoustically so I haven't plugged it in yet [check YouTube for samples]. In fact, it sustains better than some of my guitars. The first attempt will be into a Fender Mustang I, so I can distort the hell out of it at sensible volumes. What good is an old traditional instrument if you can't use it inappropriately? And for a gag, maybe I'll email Seymour Duncan to see if he has any replacement pickups for it.  JB Mandolin anyone? It has two pickups and a Strat-style blade switch, along with one volume and one tone knob.

Should you buy one?

• IF you're interested in an electric version - it won't sound the same as your traditional mandolin but it will behave better onstage.
• IF you're looking for a bit of good clean fun.
• IF six strings are too intimidating.
• IF you have the cash.
• IF it seems like a good idea at the time.
• IF you like good customer service (with a British accent, even in email).
• IF you have a thing for seafoam green (or black or sunburst).
• IF you want to impress the mandolin groupies (IF there are mandolin groupies).
• IF you're already a musician, looking to add to your resume.

I got a closeout model on sale. There are still lefty closeout models on the site, so you can save some money. Overall, I believe that being a (stringed) musician has already helped the process move along. I'd also like their semi-hollow 12 string, so I could do my Mike Nesmith (Monkees) impersonation. This might come into conflict with my desire for a Custom Shop Strat, so I'll blow up that bridge when I come to it.

Questions?

A Note from Sofia Vergara

I wish.

I Talk to Dead People

For people who have difficulty around death, it is suggested to speak to the deceased as if they were in the room.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

It was around my junior year of high school.  I was a precocious little turd, with a preference for doing things my own way.  In fact, very little has changed, save some gray hair.  I was (and continue to be) primarily a guitar player.  School served to annoy me and generally get in my way.

For some strange reason my high school offered a guitar class.  They even had guitars, albeit not a single left-handed one.  It could have been considered training for all my years of guitar shopping.  The teacher, an accomplished musician who could play a few different instruments, wasn't exactly an accomplished guitarist, so I was left on my own to learn and do a little teaching here and there.

It was at about this time that I realized I was not possessed of the patience and nerves of a good teacher.  If the student did not `get it' the first time, I was in no mood to try again.  In fact, I would rather have hit the student with his guitar than sit there and try to teach him.  I understand that this is my problem and to this day haven't tried to teach guitar again.

So I had a lot of alone time with my guitar.  There is a plaque where I used to sit, memorializing the place as the `leftystrat Honorary Hallway'.

Being the advanced little twerp that I was, I figured out how to rewire and modify guitars, using my own as test dummies.  One day, this stunning vision of a blonde senior wandered into guitar class for some reason.  From that moment, I was in trouble.

Historically speaking, my success with women certainly did not come from a natural understanding of them.  Nor was it my smooth manner, hirsute appearance, rampant sarcasm, or any form of social grace.  In fact, there is no discernible reason for any success at all with women, from the onset of puberty to the present.

I simply knew that girls looked really nice and I would love to be able to play with them.  Armed with only that knowledge, I needed to figure out a way to meet this blonde guitar player.

Hey - she was a guitar player with a decent copy of a Fender Stratocaster.  I too had a Fender Stratocaster.  And I figured out a way to get more sounds out of it than the stock setup.  Hmmm..... 

I introduced myself, told her about my switching system, and about four hours later, she was at my house, watching me operate on her guitar.  Later on she said it was terrifying to watch me drill into her guitar.

We became fast friends.   She lived fifteen minutes away and spent a lot of time at my house.  She was a frequent dinner guest and pretty much a member of the family.  I taught her some songs on guitar, which became my undoing.  She would sit there and try the same song over and over and over again.  After she mastered it, she would continue to play it over and over and over again.  This drove me up a tree.

She smoked, which drove everyone around me up a tree.  The rule was that smokers had to go outside - no smoking in the house.  My mother could detect one part per million of cigarette smoke.  I swear she could hear a match strike from two floors away.

One day this girl leaned over and planted one on me.  From that moment on, I was slain. An `older woman' was my first girlfriend.  This was a huge deal in high school.  The poor thing had to deal with a lot of grief because she was gorgeous and popular and I was... not.  I was kind of infamous.  The anti-popular.  And nowhere near the top of the looks scale.

I fell hard, as one does.  We spoke each other's language.  We understood each other.  We finished the other's sentences.  Two became one (and all that rot).

Good things rarely last, which is a lesson I learned the hard way with this girl.  She moved on quite a bit earlier than I did, to be polite.  This was my first love and then my Introduction to Heartache.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Years passed.  Women passed.  Guitars amassed.  Computers came onto the scene and I was an early adopter.   Back in the heady days of CompUSA, I ran into her.  Still heartsore, it was wonderful to see her again.  We exchanged numbers, then phone calls, then hung out here and there.  Her boyfriend at the time worked for NASA (yes, a real rocket scientist!).  We all went to see ZZ Top for the first time.  I think it was the Recycler tour.

A little later on she got married then divorced (as tends to happen).  We hung out during a rough time.  She was the kind of person who could (and did) disappear for years at a time and when you see her again, it all continued as if there were no gaps.  We were friends from way back.  It was nice to have a friend with that kind of history.

She fell off the end of the earth somehow after this.  

Life continued.

Around this time I started to develop a reputation for Karens.  One day I looked around and discovered there were a few of them.   My friend was Karen#1.  The woman I was living with at the time was Karen#2.  Everyone thought it was pretty funny but I learned early that the Karens themselves were not nearly as amused as everyone else with their label.

I ran straight into Karen#3 one day at work.  Due to a poorly heated and grounded room, there were literally sparks.  We moved in together and married.  She is most amused by all the Karens but is still not fond of the #3 moniker.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I'm not sure I remember how but Karen#1 and I managed to find each other.  She emailed me her phone number.  She had somehow run into another friend of my who sang in a band and took pictures of them.  Photography was her passion.  She kept asking me to check them out on Faceyspaces.  I kept telling her I'd rather cut off my own arm than join Faceyspaces.

Her number sat in my cell phone for a while, reminding me to call her and continue our friendship.   I don't have a ton of friends, especially of the ancient dear friend variety, so more was always better.

Time (and life) continued.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

My grandparents and I were very close.  I was the first grandchild so the sun rose and set out my buttocks.  Fortunately I didn't realize this too early.  

My grandmother, tired of mid-atlantic weather, moved to Maine.  After a few years she was due to turn ninety and the family was all headed to Maine to celebrate.  I had a reputation for not showing up at family events and got the requisite stern lecture from my mother: You had better go see your grandmother.  She won't be here forever and you will regret it if you don't.

I was kind of agitated, as I fully intended to drive the eight hours to the hinterlands of Maine.  It turned out to be a great time for all.  She was very surprised to see me (yeah, my reputation was well-deserved).

My grandmother waited a few months then left us.  Some said she had done all she needed to do: the party was the cherry on top of it all.

There I was, right at the end of my mother's cliche:  I went and I am glad I did.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I got a weird call from my best friend tonight.  He sounded hesitant.   He went to look up Karen#1 and came across a memorial page.  She died.  No idea when, no idea of the cause.  I was looking forward to introducing Karens#1 and #3.

Unlike the chance with my grandmother, I failed to take the opportunity to renew my friendship with Karen#1.  

 And I am the worse for it.

Hang onto those who are dear to you: they have an annoying tendency to disappear without permission.

Failing Spatial Relationships [or Gig Report]

My band got to play its favorite club on Friday.  It's our favorite club because it books us and it's practically at the end of my street.  It's also across the street from The One True Pizza, which never hurts.

The band makes a point of arriving at least two hours early so we can set up.  Using New Math<tm>, that allows the six of us twenty minutes each to set things up, plus thirty seven minutes each to complain.

Unfortunately the band got its math wrong and used all fifty seven minutes (each) to complain.  Because we were setting up differently than the previous time, there erupted four different conversations about how exactly to set up.  Since the owner said something to the effect of `set up THERE', I chose to set up THERE.

This was not sufficient for my esteemed cohorts.  They got out their fung shui manuals and proceeded to argue about the right way to set up.  Another set discussed their Vision for our setup.  Yet another had a Bad Feeling about the location.

After I damn near carefully set up the p.a. system, they asked me the best place for the speakers.  I suggested exactly where I put them.  Two minutes later I watched them moving the speakers.

I had to fetch my wife after sound check because for some strange reason, she didn't want to sit there for two hours and watch us debate where to put the drums.  Aside from her choice in men, she's a very wise woman.

Unfortunately it was getting rather close to sound check time and most of us weren't set up yet.  My agitation level had passed the roof and was headed for the clouds.  It was an easier night for me because only one pedal and a guitar string was giving me trouble.  When only two things break, it's a light night.  I travel with a small army of gear because everything breaks.

By the time we achieved fung shui and the karma was exactly right, we managed to eke out a song to check our sound.  I rushed to get my wife.  She was on the step and when she saw me, she did the only thing she could: she walked back inside the house.  My wife is not a girly girl and she doesn't generally keep me waiting.  As the car clock indicated it was 8:33, the band was supposed to be three minutes into its first set (had we discussed a starting time).  I made this point rather loudly to the wife when she reappeared.

Things looked no different when I returned.  While it is not advertised, we specialize in Milling About, and we were doing our best.  Shortly thereafter, we launched into our first set.

In retrospect, nobody is entirely sure what happened during the first set.  What didn't happen was a good band playing together.  Much speculation has gone into this.  I think our percussion department was actually playing with the band at the bar down the street.  Others were playing to their own internal drummer.  I'm not sure, but I might have been onstage with Hendrix at Woodstock, messing things up.

After the set, I chose to make my one positive statement for the year: good thing we brought the crowd or we'd be TOAST.  The optimists agreed.  But I hate optimists.  They're the kind of people who say `we had some problems but it could have been worse'.

My wife was under the weather so I had to take her home.  This was complicated by my arch enemy: seatbelts.  I maintain that seatbelts are only good for three things:

1. holding your dead body inside the car after a crash
2. preventing you from reaching your cell phone
3. stopping the car door from closing

Suffice it to say the neighbors must have thought there was a satanic entity loose in the neighborhood from all the noise.  And in the three seconds that I turned around, Marshall the Cocker got into the kettle corn.  Again.  This was his third bag.  Between that and the tissues, the dog loves his fiber.

The second set went better, but only in the sense that there were no overt train wrecks.  It's kinda sad when something is better because it wasn't as bad as the previous try.  At least we all seemed to be playing with the same group in the same location.

Speaking of playing with, we seemed to have forgotten our stage manners.  Between songs, we appeared to be playing with ourselves and adjusting our trusses.  In other words, it took rather long to get to the next song on the list.

We were partially saved by our youthful exuberance.... we manage to appear to be having a great time no matter what happens.  We were also partially saved by the singer's daughter, with the voice of an angel (and the body of something further south).  Once we convinced her boyfriend to remove his hands from under her shirt, she joined us for some serious rocking.  I told her not to come to class unless she brings enough for all of us.  I spent the next hour running from her father, the singer :)

My outlets somehow managed to situate themselves in a place convenient to the bassist's feet.  He was bumping and grinding to the music, simultaneously turning my amp and effects off and on.  It took me a while to catch on to this effect, which seems much funnier now.

I have some sort of back issue that gets really bad with standing.  This makes being in a band a rather painful experience.  My wife, the genius, recommended that I carry aspirin and take it before the pain sets in.  She reminded me of this all week, which will indicate to any of my loyal readers that I forgot the aspirin.  By the end of the second set, I thought I might have to be carried onstage and sit in a chair (I'm normally very active onstage).  Fortunately the adrenaline overcame the pain and we made it through the third set.

What continues to surprise me is the reaction to Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix songs.  People seriously liked them.  I never would have thought so....

I somehow managed to get my stuff into the car (it had put on serious weight since I brought it in) and limped on home.  Two ibuprofen and an hour later, I was erect (so to speak) and off to sleep.

Next up is a huge block party and pig roast in June.   I often say I have two bands: one that comes to practice and doesn't play well or know its songs, and one that shows up to gigs and plays wonderfully.  I sure hope the good one comes to the block party.

Guitar Truths

This should pass for Guitar Wisdom.  It probably won't, but it should:

• You may have 12 guitars but you have no spare strings.
• Volume is inversely proportional to talent.
• Slides and string-winders are like socks - roughly half of them disappear.
• A $20 tube will protect a $.25 fuse by blowing first.
• A chord occurs in a song.  A cord is used for strangling the singer.
• Vintage amps do not bounce when the old leather handle breaks.
• If you remembered to bring two guitars, you forgot your strap.
• If a string breaks, it will only do so on a floating trem guitar.
• Where is your backup amp?  Back up at practice.
• The odds of your guitar being in tune when you play is inversely proportional to the time you spent tuning it before the set.
• Never solder in shorts.
• Any tube snob will have pedals with transistors in them.
• Where is your whammy bar?  Anywhere but attached to your guitar.
• If you only brought one pick, you will not be able to hold onto it to save your life.
• Where are those people who really wanted to watch you play?  Everywhere but at the gig.
• Remember that hot chick from last set?  She doesn't remember you.
• You're at a new club.  It is raining so hard that cars are floating away.
• That new tune you learned?  The rest of the band didn't.
• Remember: if you turn up, so will he.
• Never (and I emphasize this) never let the drummer's girlfriend (Yoko) sing `just one song' with the band.

On Vonnegut

I just read a brief review of Kurt's biography, written by Charles Shields.  The selling point of the article (possibly the book) is that Kurt was not particularly nice or happy.

My bud-in-blogging, Eric (the Noctornal Slacker) recently did a book report on Kurt's Timequake.  We seem to share a love of Kurt's writing, as did many people.

Let's ruminate on this a second.......

1. Does it really matter what kind of person Kurt was?
2. After reading the review, it's pretty obvious why Kurt might have been a bit off.
3. I submit to you that being a bit off is almost a requirement in the arts.

Quite frankly I never put together much of an opinion on what kind of person Kurt was.  I was happy to enjoy his output. 

I do admit to wondering what might be wrong with Kurt, specifically concerning the time-hopping exercises in his books.  My wife and I wonder if he had multiple personality disorder; it would certainly explain the time-hopping.  She loved his writing and said it made perfect sense to her.

If nothing else, the man certainly had a right to a bit of post-traumatic stress disorder.

As for being a bit off, I spent many years in comedy and rock and roll.  My observation was that comics, as a rule, were among the more miserable human beings I had ever met.  Pain transforms into comedy; both the performer and the audience win.

As a guitar player, performing in front of people is the cheapest and most effective therapy I can imagine.  It has the added benefit of not requiring precertification, copays, or an hour in the waiting room.

And what do we have left?  The legacy of Kurt's writing.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F- Murray Abraham too.


Cemetery Worker Stole Guitar From Army Vet’s Casket

Don't f-k with a man's Telecaster, especially if he's dead.

Where the hell is Sly Stone?


Doritos to be Sprinkled Over Creator's Grave

Creation saw him to 97.

Nancy Grace suffers wardrobe malfunction on 'DANCING'...

No one cares.

University of Texas frat allegedly recruited with live sex shows...

Where the hell were these people after I graduated high school?


Protester calls Obama 'Anti-Christ'...

Unfortunately they removed the wrong guy from the auditorium...

Mob attacks man in his own home...

You're white, therefore you're wrong.  No matter what you say or do.

When good dogs go bad.

Actually, when I'm president, dressing up your dog will be grounds for death.


Americans Express Historic Negativity Toward U.S. Government

How they tore themselves away from Dancing with the Stars is a mystery...


The 2011 Ig Nobel prize for Peace goes to Arturas Zuokas for discovering that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.  Check out the rest of the awards.


We won't mention that this has been my idea for years.


DATING ADVICE:


If you're looking to date the newly free Amanda Knox, hit it and split.  Otherwise there could be `complications'.

Guitar Videos and Cat Excrement

It's been a long weekend...  haven't been terribly motivated plus my wife and I seem to be playing ping pong with some sort of flu.  In her, it travels from her head to her chest (lucky flu).  In me, I just seem to feel off (moreso).

So it eventually became about nine o'clock Sunday night when I saw the handy link sent by a fellow guitar player.  This bunch is a surprising lot from all over the world, which meets whenever on the Yahoogroups' Stratlist - a list for guitar players of the Stratocaster variety; but moreso an excuse for six-stringers to chat, share tonal tips, and your mother jokes.

The link was for the angriest guitarist in the world.

I passed.

The next link was for the fifty heaviest songs before Black Sabbath.

I bit.

I don't spend much time on YouTube.  In fact, I only recently bothered to watch a video or two, when I was bored and wanted to play Stump YouTube.  This is a game wherein I think about really obscure guitar players I like and look them up.  I found, much to my delight and dismay, that YouTube really does have a great inventory of guitar players, famous and not.  Unfortunately it tends to take me into the depths of YouTube Oblivion<tm>, where I can dwell for hours.  I showed it to my wife, who was bored one day, and it literally sucked up most of the rest of her day.

It was a dark, but not a stormy evening.... 

It became apparent to me at nine pm that my wife wasn't going to join me for dinner.  Some would say I learn slowly.  Others would say I keep strange hours.  The rest of you who eat dinner at nine or ten would notice nothing out of the ordinary.

The cat (Satan, aka Ren) has been a bit clingy lately.   He's got this whole sibling rivalry going with the dog (Marshall, aka Muppet Paws).  If one of them gets something, the other wants it, regardless of whether he really likes it or not  If you call one, both come.  If you scratch one's ears, you had better be scratching the other's ears.  It has gotten so bad that if a mouse makes it into the house, Ren will chase it and then Marshall will all of the sudden develop a taste for rodent (simply because Ren has it).  I'm not entirely sure what a cocker spaniel can do with a mouse but fortunately the cat's much faster.

When the little monsters were younger, we noticed the house starting to smell like cat urine for the first time.  After a quick trip to the vet, Ren was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection.  The vet explained that Ren was peeing on the carpet because he associated the pain of peeing with his litterbox.  Ok, so much for Feline Logic<tm>.  While we were waiting for the antibiotics to kick in, the vet recommended her foolproof way to keep a cat from peeing on the carpet: lay down a covering of aluminum foil.  Cats hate aluminum foil and wouldn't pee there.  Remembering back twenty years of so, I was at a friend's house, who liked to show me his cat's tricks.  He'd get out a roll of aluminum foil, crinkle a piece, and the cat would literally disappear.  For a week or so.

Sounded as reasonable as anything else, so we, only having owned one cat before, laid the foil over his preferred spot by the door.  The next time we walked through the door, we spotted Ren rolling all over the foil and putting tiny claw holes through it.

Foolproof.

What does this have to do with guitar videos?  I'll tell you....

After having recovered from the Great Urinary Scare, the little bugger developed diabetes. This cost a few grand in insulin (yes, they use the same stuff) and Cat Darts (I had to take a prescription into the pharmacy for syringes).  The good news is that he actually became cured (no need for insulin) but requires special food.

Guitars??????

I'm getting there- hold your horses.

So recently the house started smelling like cat urine again.  My solutions always run along the lines of Feline Aviation.  Being of longer memory, the wife suggested UTI treatment.  As we know, it's sometimes best to let her win, so antibiotics it was.

While you're treating with antibiotics, it is recommended to put up a second litter box.  And poof, Ren started using the box immediately, which was good news.  You're supposed to move it toward the original until it gets close enough to use the original again.  The bad news was that the box was in front of the tv in the living room.  The badder news was that it's cold, so we closed the windows and there's little ventilation.

The worst news is that I'm sitting here, with my solo dinner, and the little bugger has just made use of the facilities.  Normally I wouldn't notice this, as the box is in the back room.  Because the box is in the same room with me now, dinner took on a completely new aroma.

I also got to observe the Bathroom Ritual<tm>, which is beyond fascinating in many ways.  I'm discovering that people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder have absolutely nothing on cats.  He can't simply go in the box, no sir.  It must be accompanied by so many rituals I lost count.  First there's the walking around the box.  Then there's the whole burying and obscuring thing (instinct?).  Then there's more walking around, followed by exiting the box.  After the Grand Exit, there's strange walking and extending of the paws, as if they're suddenly straight as a rod and incapable of flexing.  Finally there's shredding of newspaper, which is the bit that put me over the edge.  I can drift during all of the above phases except shredding.  It drove me NUTS. 

He shredded an entire Sunday paper before I exploded.  He simply looked up, as if to say `you talkin to me?' and stopped the shredding activities.  He almost looked embarrassed, if that is even possible for a cat.  It sure as hell is for a dog, especially when people dress them up.  When I become president, I will impose the death penalty on people who dress up their dogs (except for the cold).

So dinner has taken on a new and less exciting complexion, yet somehow I managed.

Between bites and after, I finally got around to viewing the 50 heaviest.... etc.  While somewhat interesting, it linked to much more amusing folly, namely the 50 Fastest Guitarists of All Time.  Now this is something all guitarists can relate to.  Guitar players tend to enjoy speed, even more than long hair, hats, equipment, and possibly women.  The only thing more important to a guitar player than speed is Guitar Faces.  Nothing is a greater sign to the universe that you're serious about your instrument than your Guitar Faces.  If you don't believe me, search YouTube for Robin Trower. 

Told you so.

I strongly suspect many singers today of being closet guitar players.  For example, Mariah Carey can and does sing a million notes a minute, oversinging just like a guitarist overplays.  I understand the classical term for this is melisma, knighting her Melisma Carey.  Best to watch her videos with the sound down.

The problem with rating guitarists for speed is that there's no scientific basis for this.  Recognizing this conundrum, Guitar World went for alphabetical order, a truly wise move.  If they had used any other criteria, the letters to the editor emails would burn up their internet connection.  Guitar players are a rather stubborn, religious lot and you don't mess with their opinions (which they take as fact).

Going through Guitar World's list from fifty to one was truly an interesting experience.  It was done via YouTube videos, with a bit of biographical information thrown in. 

My problem with this exercise is that you get some real speed demons in the list, many of whom I know by name only.  While they truly live up to their inclusion in the list, the `music' is so abhorrent that I can't sit through it long enough to enjoy their playing.  I'm speaking mostly of the thrash and death-metal genres.  I give them points for staying true to their vision but more people would appreciate their talents if they lent them to something more.. ummm... musical(?).

The list included people from before I was born to some of today's hottest shredders.  Truly worth a listen and watch.  Good luck trying to get through some of the less tonally appealing pieces.  One high point was Steve Vai's live performance with an orchestra.  And hate him though you may, I still can't play the stuff Yngwie Malmsteen plays.  And although I don't think Johnny Winter belongs on this list, you have to admire the way the quasi-blind guy gets around in 70's high heels.

And here I am, hours later, wondering what's for dessert and why the place still stinks of cat excrement.   

Perhaps I need an additional job to keep my mind occupied and out of the house.  You will notice that the dog doesn't do this stuff.