Sunday Memories

Jose and Juanita

Voltmeter Upgrade

First tolerable daytime temperature since April. I slept like 33 hours this weekend. I'm sure I have Leukemia.

(add your own snide comment)

Lefty and Some Random Thoughts About Music

I can't get enough of Lefty Frizzell. He even wears the string tie. Elvis and Johnny Cash and Buddy Holly sort of dominated the 1958 era but Lefty generated more music than all of them. His songs didn't break any rules or set the standard but if you gave me a choice I would have to take Lefty's songs. That's more a testament to my honky-tonk heart than to quality of music because Buddy Holly was a brilliant pioneer and Elvis was the all time live entertainer (Michael Jackson is #2 only because Elvis made it OK to grab your crotch and Elvis did it when it was almost a criminal offense) and Johnny Cash wrote a lot of his own music and promoted himself better. Lefty is the performer Hank Williams Sr. would have been if he'd lived longer. Hank Sr. died before any of the proto-rock music arrived. Lefty never made the jump to rock and didn't want to, he never grabbed his crotch or shook his hips and apparently never played an electric guitar. He was pure Honky-Tonk with no ambition to bust genres. When you listen to a Lefty song you'll either get a slow blues or a slower blues...no big surprises on the jukebox in 1954 in Nashville. I love how the pianist is using a folding metal chair as a bench. It's like this performance is in a High School gymnasium. I met a guy in Oklahoma who had a voice like this...pure as a flowing river. Notice how he sings "I got those drinking cigarettes and smoking coffee blues..." at the end.

Piano POV

This digital direction isn't my bliss but I don't have a good alternative. I thought I had the equipment to make this work but my laptop computer with 32 bit and 4 gigs of ram is the basement of audio synthesizers...so this m-audio MIDI controller has pushed the limits of my computer like Oggy climbing Chocorua mountain with half a vegetarian sandwich in his belly. The latency issue is brutal and I've only begun to dig into the audio card solutions...when the only good solution is to get a better computer with a good audio card.
I don't even want to play silly games like this but I got hooked because I have high ADHD and low self esteem.
I'm brainstorming how I would carry around a stage piano in my van and run it off my power inverter and play on sidewalks in Belize. and also have MIDI capability to create fake books. Acoustic pianos are so much more simple.
For now I have a 49 keystudio midi controller and synthesia piano game. I managed to synch it all up with my notation software which is my only goal. This computer can never act as a synthesizer.

Images of September

FOX TV At McDonalds. Sign says "DO NOT TURN OFF TV"

What? No number to call?

Donations for shots are welcome

Watching over Oggy

New Butyl Tape on window might fix the leak that has rusted the stove

Please Lay Off Congress

I want the government to shut down long enough for people to ask why we even keep it open...which is to basically cut our own hamstrings with rusty knives and then pay informants to spy on us. It's a Good Cop/Bad Cop flim flam...a huge con game to demonstrate what They Give Us. Like we're all poor peasants in straw huts waiting for the Lord of the Land to hand out Christmas geese for dinner once a year. Total bullshit. No chance capitalism would've lasted this long without The Goon Squad Law to enforce it. It's a complete failure except at building a mechanized nation of elite botox addicts. If you really want a free market then the government or law enforcement can not interfere with any realm of free trade, namely breaking strikes, enforcing employee benefits, raising minimum wage...etc. If state or federal employees fuck with anything in that realm then you no longer have free trade or capitalism...it's tyranny one way or another...either the poor are hiring the national guard to protect them...or the industrialist is hiring the national guard to keep wages low. Either way, it's a farce. Pledge allegiance to a complete fraud.
It really irks me that the National Parks are closed. If I was not gainfully employed (fucking off for a few bucks a day) I would definitely find a way inside Yosemite...totally empty of tourists. How is it that the places deemed naturally special have become dependent on a web of corrupt politicians to stay open? You're telling me these places are being guarded against unauthorized entry? The wildlife must be overjoyed our government is such fuck ups. That makes me sick to my stomach that Congress would draw the line in the sand at unrestrained/unmonitored hiking or fishing in National Parks because they object to mandatory health insurance, but they completely sat on their asses while two consecutive countries were invaded under false pretenses after a total failure to account for monumental lies sold like sawdust filled tires to mouth breathing jelly donut addicts. Total flim flam. How is it possible Lincoln could buy the needed votes for the 13th amendment but Obama can't hand out postmaster jobs or land in California in order to get this affordable care act to pass?

"Busloads of World War II veterans, many in wheelchairs, broke past a barricade Tuesday to cross into the World War II Memorial, as onlookers applauded and a man playing the bagpipes led the way.
Moments earlier, Republican members of Congress had removed a section of the black gates that surrounded the site, allowing a line of veterans to roll past security officers, who willingly stood aside."

It's really gross that the bravest people in America are still the bravest people in America 70 years later. They are crippled and still have more balls than a 20 year old skinny jean hipster begging for a buck raise at Walgreens.