Idioms and Phrases

There are a couple of things that happen to me before I get up to sing in public. One, I get very nervous. A well dressed old black man with sunglasses once gave me advice on singing. He was a singer. He said, “You need to relax.” I’ve been trying ever since with varied success. 

            The other thing that happens to me before I sing is I have to take a crap. I guess I’m scared shitless as the saying goes. It’s the worst kind of timing in the world. 

  

Just for You

I went down the hill to see Bill the Google Master at his auto shop. He’s been extolling the benefits of grocery shopping at Von's Market for weeks now. They have a value program called Just For You that he loves and talks about at any opportunity. 
            Bill will lose his train of thought mid sentence and blurt out prices from the program, “Progresso Soup, two for a dollar,” 

            “Yeah, but think of the sodium content,” I countered.

            “No! it’s light.”

            Bill showed me a Mustang he was bidding on, on Ebay. There was a video presentation attached to it. 

            “What do you think? Should I buy it?

            “You already have a Mustang, what are you going to do with it?”

            “No this one is way better. I’m going to drive this one.”

            I tried to talk him down, but realized that you can’t talk sense to a gear head when it comes to buying cars.

            “Lucerne yogurt $2.47 each. They're giving it away!”

            

Krishnamurti

Things have been coming easily to me. The other day, I was walking with my head down as I’m prone to do,  and when I looked up there was a table saw sitting by the curbside. I’ve been hoping for a table saw for quite some time. I’d wake up mornings thinking about how great it would be to have a table saw to cut wood perfectly straight.

I walked home and fetched my car and loaded the table saw onto the trunk of my convertible. I held onto it with one hand while I drove down a steep hill, and then up a steep hill. It was meant to be. I got it to my cabin in one piece.

            The following day I drove up to Ojai with my lady friend. Neither of us had been to Ojai so it was exciting. We got to the city and drove out of town a few miles. I was following three cars into the orange groves. It looked like they knew where they were going. They peeled off onto different roads and I kept going up the hill. I turned my head and I saw a sign that read Krishnamurti Center. I turned around and drove up the driveway. It turned out to be Krishnamurti’s place of residence. It was an impressive piece of land. It had orange groves and three houses on the property. The property manager gave us a tour. “Pick as many oranges as you like,” she said. We picked a few oranges for the drive home. I had no idea Krisnamurti lived in Ojai. It was a great find.  

Song Writing

I recorded bass lines for two new songs yesterday. I’m hoping that they’ll stick, but you never know. I’m rarely ever satisfied with anything I do in the studio, and song writing has always made me feel vulnerable. There’s a risk to it. It’s not like an instrumental where the only risk is the music. When you attach words and singing to music that’s a whole different ballgame, because, now you’re saying something and words are the most powerful weapons of them all. But, as words are powerful they can also be weak. It’s complex, especially when you add the voice to the equation. I have a hard time listening to my voice. I just want to hide it in the track, and wash it away with reverb. You can hide emotion with reverb. You can drown out any feeling or vulnerability with it.

            The more feeling a song has the riskier it is, and if you singing about love you’re redlining with danger. As luck will have it many of my new songs are about love, so I’m sensitive to the touch. I’m a walking talking contusion  

The Oscars

I lost interest in the Oscars years ago. I blame Rain Man and the Titanic, and to some extent, Meryl Streep.

Generally speaking, the Oscars are uninteresting to me, but I do appreciate the tradition of the event. I like the glitz and the glamour of it. Who can complain about a woman in a dress? But people do, and to some degree the dresses have become more important than the movies.

            I’ve never cared for the politics of Hollywood. I feel sorry for actors having to wade through the barn full of horse crap just to find a job. It doesn’t seem fair at all. I don’t like that Hollywood is too cheap to pay taxes here in Los Angeles, and too cheap to pay their interns the minimum wage. That says something to me. It says cheap. If you’re not poor, please don’t be cheap. I'm cheap, but for poetic reasons.  

Fix It Again Tony

It hadn’t occurred to me until yesterday that Bill’s landlord is Fix It Again Tony, the infamous mechanic you’d take your Fiat to when it broke down. F for fix, I for it, again Tony.

Tony’s just a little guy. He’s Italian and he always has a smile on his face. He’s a nice man with a good sense of humor.

I was aware of Tony’s history. I knew he was a Fiat mechanic at one time, and when Fiat stopped shipping cars to the states, Tony was the mechanic that took care of the cars still under warranty in the Los Angeles area. He has since changed occupations. He sells real estate now.

I saw Tony the other day. He showed up to Bill’s wearing a pair of old fashioned blue sweat pants and a sweatshirt. He was smiling and talking with his usual thick Italian accent. I like Tony, but there was something about him that was pulling at me.

             I found myself staring blankly at the ground yesterday for no apparent reason. I was in a trance. I knew I was in a trance, but I couldn’t pull myself out of it. I was looking at the sunlit dirt and shadows from the trees, when it hit me. Tony, was Fix It Again Tony. He was famous.   

God Bless the Bass Player

 I’m not sure where time goes, but it goes fast. I looked at my blog and I noticed it‘s been five days since my last post. I’ve been working on bass lines for three songs that I’m recording in the studio.

The bass lines were all over the place at first. They still are, but I’m getting a better feel for what works and what doesn’t. The object is to play something interesting without it being too busy. For some people, that’s like talking without cussing. Cussing is flashy, busy talk. It’s the quick hit, the jolt that emphasizes. Well, I can’t have that with these bass lines. I need something smooth that isn’t necessarily repetitive. Not an easy task considering the songs are kind of repetitive. I wish the songwriter (me) would have thought about that when he wrote the songs.

            The bass player will have to save the day again. God bless the freakin’ bass player.