Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Entertainer

I couldn't be bothered to close the bathroom door.
Never mind. The air handler situation has not been resolved but I've determined it is probably a problem with something called a sequencer. It's a relay that has a time delay built into the heat activated contacts. Anyway, that's why it is 45 degrees in my room and I must wear coats 100% of the time. The old owner is oblivious to the problem as he is numb and dying and senile and has 3 dogs to pile on him to stay warm. We had a conversation about his "leaky heart" that really made me feel everything is futile and fleeting and manufactured emotions. I'm passionate about nothing except my imaginary life as a concert pianist.

This video is an example of how badly the piano is out of tune before I receive my tuning tools and try to fix it. Did I ever tell you the story of 2005 when I was in Los Angeles and working at Paramount Studios serving Chicken Salad croissants to Mission Impossible extras and bruising my thighs with deteriorating folding tables? Well, I looked at my check one day and decided it wasn't enough. So I bought a digital piano with the last of my savings with the intention of learning The Entertainer...a goal I'd had since 1995 when I had to write every single note name on the sheet music in order to translate it to a place on the keyboard where I put my fingers. This is so incredibly painstakingly slow and insane and considering the return on investment (none) it's beyond irresponsible. I might as well count the hairs on Beethoven's head. But I was determined because conventional wisdom has led the world to apocalyptic kindergarten massacres and total absorption with video games and amateur porn and fiscal irresponsibility that I will never match. So, it actually makes no difference if I sit on my ass and poke Middle C for fifty years because Rome will burn and be rebuilt and zombies will steal your children and none of that matters either. So, since everything is equally nihilistic in my childish and wounded mentality I decided to quit Paramount celebrity catering and spent two months learning this one ragtime song. I was technically unemployed and basically 95% of people disapproved of my decision which made me certain it was the right thing to do. Then I spent two more years just maintaining this song because if I didn't play it multiple times every day then I'd forget parts. Well, flashforward 7 years and I could only remember 1/4 of the song due to neglect. THE WORLD FALLS TO PIECES AND I CAN ONLY PLAY THE "A" SECTION. No, relearning this song is not going to solve any problems and when Texas secedes from the union any Yankee Ragtime songs will probably be banned so it's doubly futile. But I persist and in the last two weeks have spent my two hours of daily freedom between clocking out and going to sleep at this horribly out of tune piano banging away and ignoring the arthritis in my index finger and adjusting to compensate for the dislocated shoulder and network of scar tissue that is holding my torso together. What is important? 20 inch chrome wheels on an old Capri? Shooting a 10 point buck? Finding oil? Learning songs? The miasma of confusion is the human symphony and like my piano it is totally out of tune. The Knabe piano is pronounced Knahhbee. The K is not silent. I had no idea until the piano parts tech straightened me out on this. Is that important? I don't know. I'm not entertaining...so the title is a parody and should be in quotes.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.