Imaginary Interview: Mike Nesmith

From time to time, ThermionicEmissions interviews interesting people, usually ones who play guitar. Imagine that. So far Justin Currie (Del Amitri) and Jimi Hendrix (Jimi Hendrix) have appeared in these pages. Unfortunately the interviews are all one-way because.... can you see me trying to contact Jimi? Justin? "Hey, man, big fan. Would you do an interview for a blog with several actual readers?" Or "I thought you were dead, man..."

Inspired by a recent interview video on YouTube, I figured Mr. Nesmith (Nez to people who know him. I don't know him.) would be a prime target person of interest for the blog.

• Nez (may I call you Nez?), it's so great to see you after all these years. I'm not sure what it is that's different.. must be the hat. No, wait, we're related (one pair of chrome domes).

• Congrats on that Liquid Paper thing - your mom was a genius.

• Where did the hat come from? Was it after a meeting of the Executive Committee? Did you know that your concessions don't sell the proper shade of green? And no choice of buttons.

• You mentioned you're not a collector, even of guitars. What are/were your favorite guitars over the years? What is your desert island guitar?

• The guitar-centric interviews always talk about guitars, but what about amps? I saw some old footage of you guys, dressed in white. You were playing a 3 pickup SG (LP) through what looked like a combination Marshall and Acoustic(?) speaker setup. Did you enjoy that? Where are you on the tube/solid state argument? What is your desert island amp?

• Some of the Monkees interviews have taken time and experience into view, specifically about the external producers/band as a product years. You put your hand through a wall during a meeting with Don(nie) Kirschner. Can you tell me about that, along with any differences in your thoughts today?

• Joanne is a song that really resonates with me. Can you tell me how it was written - by experience, perhaps? Did your writing methods change during and after the Monkees?

• Aside from the obvious differences, how do your solo work performances compare to Monkees shows? Have you ever been chased by adolescent girls after a solo show?  <-- this is what we call a setup

• I write some mean parodies but can't seem to cross over into serious songs. The parodies go over well but I think it's time to add real songs to the resume. Any advice?

• Did growing up in Texas prepare you for stardom and fame around the globe?   <-- this is also what we call a setup, or a Really Dumb Question.

• Does the quality of groupies change over the years? Do you have any film? Regale us with stories, please. Are the STDs any better or worse these days?

• There were Monkees feuds over the years: how do you view them and what are your thoughts on them now, in light of 50% of the group missing?

• You and Frank Zappa always strike me as being too cool for the room, but not intentionally. You're both bright, but tell me why I get that impression. I know Frank appeared on a show and in your movie, Head.

• How could/should Head have been made differently? Would it include less of Certain Substances in the writing process? Do you ever see Jack Nicholson these days? Speaking of Certain Substances, do you ever see Jimi Hendrix these days?

• Were you ever inspired to stand in front of a wall of Marshalls and pull a Jimi? Did you ever get the Purple Haze riff down after he showed it to you?

• Aside from Jimi and the Beatles, what other rock royalty did you meet? How about Jeff Beck? Would you guys sign my #1 Strat?

• You guys are pretty humble in your talk of the Beatles, but they threw a party for you, partied with you, you saw them record, and you outsold them at one point. Do you have any further comment on that? The four kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor....

• How could anyone drive the Monkeemobile with that huge intake thingie coming out of the hood? Didn't it obstruct the view (or was that the idea)?

• You were (and are) a serious hero to many kids growing up in many generations. I know you were to me. You don't think highly of yourself as a guitar player, but you were very influential. What do you think about that?

• If you could be a lawnmower, what kind of lawnmower would you be?

Thanks so much, Nez. We'll be looking for you on tour with Mickey and solo.

Don't Forget to Change Your... never mind

I can't figure this time change out.
Arizona is a great place for a number of reasons, one of them being no time change.

One of the many reasons I love my mom is that she always reminds me to change the clock.
I remembered on my own this time (you'd think I'd have it down after all these years) and that's where things got weird(er)....
I set my alarm clock back.
Phones set themselves back automatically, but I had to set a new alarm. I typed in 7:30am and it changed to 8:30am. If I start an hour late, that wouldn't be good. No amount of fiddling would set the correct time.
So this morning, the phone went off an hour early. When the alarm clock went off, at the correct time, the display ran an hour late.
It's a wonder I get anything done at all.

• The governor of Texas says he thinks the recent church shooting was not random: the shooter had a connection to the church. He declined to elaborate further. When I have a problem with my family or church, I let them know. Usually without an automatic weapon.
• His mother-in-law worshipped there. He sent her threatening texts. Who among us hasn't sent their mother-in-law threatening texts?

I'm trying to tune into bias in news. It's not difficult to find, especially MSM - mainstream media. We know who CNN/NBC/CBS are playing for. We know who Fox is playing for. We know that, like politicians, none of them is playing for US.

Today I was listening to NPR interview the attorney general of Texas, who recommended concealed carrying to church. The interviewer sounded like the top of his head was going to come off and his heart was leaping out of his body. I hope they got those professional crime scene cleaners in afterwards.

• A woman in New York is blaming her car's GPS for leading her straight into a river. It's a shame it didn't tell her to shoot herself.

ME: I'm looking for the Q file. Is that in the 2017 set?
COWORKER: We should be able to find them all.
COWORKER: But we don't see a lot of Q.
ME: answer the ($&#ing question! My wife could kill you and no one would ever find your body.

• The latest game from our friends at the CIA is "What's on Osama bin Laden's Hard Drive?"  
• I'll take porn for $500, Bob.  You're right - everybody has porn!
• Copyrighted material: Cars, Chicken Little
• National Geographic and CNN documentaries on himself - no selfies?
• Many of the documents contained malware, proving 'criminal masterminds' are every bit as security conscious as 'plain schmucks'.
• The irony is that the CIA gave us bin Laden

Ever wonder how Faceyspaces figures out everyone you've ever met?
No.

• So that Equifax leak... security expert Bruce Schneier testified in front of Congress on the topic. Very interesting read.

If you purchased a Mantistek gaming keyboard, don't worry; it is not sending your keystrokes to China. It is sending the number of keystrokes to China. That's much better, isn't it?

• A Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Bali made an unscheduled stop in India. A lady used her sleeping husband's finger to unlock his phone and discovered evidence of infidelity. She very calmly started beating him, forcing the plane to land. 

A man in Germany went out for a beer. While out, Alexa (the Amazon spy device personal assistant) decided to have a party on its own. Alexa, for some reason, decided to play very loud music after 1am. The police had a locksmith break in and install new locks. They turned off the music. When the man returned home, he had to go to the police station, where there was a nice sized bill and keys waiting for him. Amazon has not commented on the incident. It turns out Alexa was partying with all the other Alexas on the block. Amazon told it where they were, their mean income, members of the household, and their sexual histories.

• Faceyspaces has a program to stop revenge porn. This means the lawyers have spoken. Get this: they want you to upload your personal porn, so they can keep a record of it in case someone tries to upload it later. They were instructed to CC me also. If you too want to be on the CC line, contact me with your email address and a small contribution for the Marshall Vet Bill Fund.

Only eleven percent of cyber workers are women. Kaspersky conducted a survey, which found out 52% did not have any interest in cyber, and 45% didn't have any idea what it was. 57% did not have any experience in coding. Kaspersky said 'This suggests a need for young girls to have access to advice and information about the industry at a younger age so they don't rule it out in favor of more traditional occupations.' We must siphon them off before they become lawyers or Victoria's Secret salespeople.

What is the mad rush to get women in the field? If you think about it, this is sexist. What other groups are being pushed to be hired? Homosexuals? Asians? Seventh Day Adventists? The homeless?

If I were an interviewer or staff (I have been both), I'd want the best and brightest- the most competent for the job. I don't care about gender, hobbies, skin color, or niche sexual practices (well, a little). There is no oversight, although People of Color and Hispanics are keeping track, at very least. One boss told me specifically that left-handedness was not to be a criterion (bastard).

As is painfully evident, I love women. I've worked with quite a number of them; all of whom answered ads and were interviewed and vetted. They got no special treatment - they were the best person for the job. As a result, they became team members.




Let's hit the Wayback Machine [woooo music]....
I'm in sixth grade or so. I sit next to a pretty cool girl and we talk. I ask pointy questions and she's very difficult to make turn red, so she's a challenge. Apparently she's not the only challenge.

I'm a bit thick. And when I say a bit thick, I'm bloody clueless about women. Most people are, but I have an extra layer of oblivious, that makes me even more special. If a woman were to sit next to me and put her hand on my genitals, while keeping her gaze locked on me and licking her lips, I'd wonder what her hand was doing there - is it possible she doesn't know she put it there? I would then proceed to let her know, very gently, that her hand was there, in case she didn't know. To this day, my wife laughs and repeatedly notes how out in space I am when women are attracted to me. At shows, she'd watch and comment later on the blondes who were chatting me up. Huh? What blondes? The ones you were ignoring while trying to pack up and get out of there. What blondes? Huh? So I'm a bit thick.

One day my little friend and I are sitting in home room, talking away. It occurs to me that she's wearing a shirt that.... her top was fashioned in such a way.... the shirt had prominent..... HOLES in it. Well, not holes exactly... kinda like a sweater, but knitted in a very loose way so there were 1/4" empty squares all over it. There were more intentional holes than yarn.

I thought about this for 1/4 of a second, wondering the purpose of this, and noting that there was no support garment underneath it. Ever the pussy gentleman, I asked her if she knew there were holes in her shirt.

It would be fair to say that even if the poor girl had a baseball bat and took it to my head while explaining why she wore the shirt, I still wouldn't have understood.

Regardless of how incredibly oblivious I was, I could not stop examining those bits of shirt where there was no material.

Well It's (not) Flooding Down in Texas

No serious musician can read that without hearing Stevie Ray Vaughan tearing it up.

As it turns out, it's not flooding or even raining or misting in Texas.  It's a regulation mess.  They need the water.

The irony here is that the Philly area has had more rain than they can deal with.  Chicago has had more rain at this point than other entire years.  Texas can have all of Philly's rain, as far as I'm concerned.

I am not a climatologist, weather forecaster (although chance is almost as accurate), or marine biologist, therefore I cannot being to figure out where to place the blame for this horrendous weather.  As we say here, it's not a climate - it's a plague.

We recently had an earthquake on a Monday.  By Friday we were in Total Panic Mode<tm> over an impending hurricane.  The hurricane was more news fury than damage (thankfully), except for several inches of water in the basement. 

I am also not an excavation specialist or basement magician, yet my task was to remove the water from the basement with the aid of a wet-vac.  As it turns out, water is very heavy, especially in five-gallon containers.  I spent the next three days feeling like I was run over by a small fleet of eighteen wheelers.

Just for fun, the area got five and a half additional inches of rain last night.  While this isn't too far from the norm, there is simply nowhere for the water to go because it won't stop raining.  Hence the lovely happy voicemail from my wife on the ride in this morning (since I moved from Verizon to T-Mobile, calls tend to go to voicemail), stating that we got more water in the basement, this time encroaching on our freezer at the far end.

Water eradication used to be an easy task years ago.  The water stopped pouring into the basement after we re-graded the soil outside.  The remaining puddles lefty via the sump pump.  This worked perfectly and automatically, therefore the township had no choice but to start inspections, insisting that all sump pump evacuation routes be blessed by the county (looking up, reverentially).  We actually had to let them into our basement to see that our pump was correctly installed.   Since the pump drained into the sink, we were ordered (HEIL!) to spend five grand to have it drain into the street or remove it totally.   We removed it totally.

So I have that to look forward to after work.  Small wonder my back is trying to send me images of Texas and Arizona at this moment....

So aside from my own full-size olympic basement pool, the first order of the day was to get to work.  Normally a relatively easy task, I had no idea of the Herculean feat that would be required.  Fox News was already in Total Panic Mode<tm>, advising people to stay off the roads (although they hadn't yet announced that they were pre-empting their normal schedule to go wall-to-wall flood coverage).  Because it won't stop raining, there was simply nowhere for the water to go.  Because there was nowhere for the water to go, it pooled.  Because the water pooled, people tried to drive through it.  Because people tried to drive through the pools, their cars died in the flood (one of the first was a police car).  There are very few live brain cells in the Philly metro area, especially among its drivers.

One of my carpool signaled he would need a ride.  A few moments later, he texted that he would be running ten minutes late, as his recycling bin had ridden the rapids and he was out in a futile search for it throughout the county - he needed a hosing-off then a shower.  This fellow comes up with better and more creative excuses than a crack addict.

When I got my most recent car, it started snowing as I drove home.  To keep things consistent, carpooler #2 just purchased a car and she has to drive us to work through a flood.  Things only get better from here.

It's a twenty minute ride to work, normally.  When I say normally, I mean with no traffic, during summer recess, when there are no buses or parents taking their godforsaken brats to school, choking up the roads.  Since school just started, the ride went to forty minutes overnight.  When you add in flooding, it's anybody's guess.

Because of flooding, one of the major arteries had to be closed, dumping all traffic onto the small road we use to get to work.  It was jammed solidly for a few miles in all directions.  Total gridlock. 

To make things just that much more interesting, we had Stereo Cacophony.  On the right, we had the constant blaring of horns, from `helpful' people beeping at cars that were simply not moving.  Why do people beep horns at gridlock?

Even more unnerving and infuriating was the noise in my left ear, which turned out to be the new stereo, which was playing the new `music' from the new stations.  When I say total f-ing garbage, I'm not kidding.  The noise made me long for Britney Spears - it was that bad.  I didn't hear a single real drum for the entire ninety minute ride.  There was even a discussion of which we hated more, country music or rap music.  I noted that both terms are oxymorons.

I also realized that if I was lucky, I might be able to get a job as one of those guys in rap groups who looks angry, wears a wool cap, and says HEY into the mic every now and then.  It would suit my mood well.

To add to the hilarity, after the ninety minute car ride, the entire department was abuzz over fantasy football.  I have half a mind to go into the firewall and block the URL.