The Electrical Nerd Genius

         
            I'm making a record. An album. An LP. Or, something to sell. I've been working on it for about nine months now. And I still have a lot to do.
            I started to record bass lines, but my bass amp crapped out on me. I have a Ampeg SVT. It's a tube amp made between 1972 and 75. Ampeg didn't have a reliable system for serial numbers back then, so it's hard to tell what year it is.
            It's a big thing. That's what she said last night. A beast really. A monster. A heavy son of a gun. I'd never use it live. I'd probably throw my back out getting it on stage, and besides, it's sensitive. But it has a warm, one of a kind sound that you can't find anymore. 
            I took it to a place in Covina to be repaired. The technician, let's call him Joesph, is a beautiful man, probably in his fifties, with a mild case of acne. Sure genius. We talked about tubes and capacitors. He showed me his sixteen track analog studio. In my next life I want to be Joesph. An electrical nerd, an ex TV repairman. Someone with a stash of Fender vacuum tubes from the sixties. 

Mosquito People

            
            I woke up at four-thirty in the morning. My right arm was itching near the elbow. A mosquito had taken a few bites out of me. I was annoyed. It was itching like crazy. It occurred to me that I don't ever think about how great it is that a female mosquito is going to use my blood to provide the proper nourishment to procreate. And that I'm helping to sustain a population of insects. No, I usually think of myself first. The immediacy of it, not the long term ramifications, and the greater good. Sure, she'll need to find water to lay her eggs, in the midst of a drought stricken desert, but that's another story.
            Sometimes people are like mosquito's, they prick at you. They say things that might irritate you. They take little bites, just enough to make themselves feel good, before they fly into the night to look for water. I've always been susceptible to the words of others. I think it's because there are things I know about myself and when someone connects the dots and states the obvious, it burns inside, like I've been discovered and I no longer have a secret.
            The other night a woman called me strange and that feeling welled up inside me. I was shocked by it. I'd never been called strange before. Weird, goofy, crazy, but never strange. I didn't know how to react. Someone finally figured me out and had the guts to say it to my face. Once the shock wore off I felt like a weight had lifted. Phew, what a relief. No sense trying to hide it anymore. 
            Thank you unkind lady, thank you for your concise, ill-mannered remark.