Freaky Boy Pete

I went to the music store to buy new strings for my guitar. I’m going into the studio on Thursday and I wanted to record with new strings. Music stores make for interesting adventures. There’s the fantasy of buying whatever you want. Everybody has the same fantasy, but only a select few can do it.

I always walk straight for the Martin and Gibson acoustic guitars. There’s a special room for those. I walked in yesterday and there was an Asian kid that looked like Yoko Ono playing a scale real fast. It sounded like the Corinthian scale, or Dorian mode. He kept playing it over and over at lightening speed.

I picked a Martin D15 and the kid started to laugh. I couldn’t tell if he was laughing at me for picking up a guitar, or because I picked up a Martin. He got up and went into the next room. I started to play a Big Bill Broonzy tune. I could hear the kid playing the same scale over and over in the next room. Then he stopped playing and came back into the room I was in. He laughed as he entered. The kid was touched in some way. He swapped guitars and went back into the next room, and started playing the same scale. The kid thought he was a wizard, a metal genius, but he was limited to just one scale. 

            I stopped playing and started to wander around. I found an acoustic bass, and sat down and played it. The Wizard showed up and sat down next to me. He started in on his scale. I was fiddling on the bass and figured out the scale he was playing. I played along with him, but The Wizard was offended by my entry into his domain. He played the scale faster and faster. I kept up with him until The Wizard couldn’t go any faster. He had hit the speed wall. He seemed confounded by this, and at last out of frustration, he stopped playing altogether. The Wizards powers had been naturalized. The Wizard had been defeated.    

The Great Recession

I heard the hum of the freeway in the distance this morning. It was a strong hum. There were a lot of people trying to get to work. I haven’t heard it that strong in some years. I’d say the great recession is over. Who needs economists, prognosticators, experts, when you have the freeway as a barometer.

When the economy was bad, the vibrations coming from the freeway were weak. It was just a little swarm of bees in the morning. There was not much activity, or less than usual, I should say.

            When you live in Los Angeles if you sit and listen you’ll hear a freeway. I’ve been listening to freeways for years. It’s my job to listen. I noticed that when the economy went bad the freeway noise was reduced. Less people going to work, less cars, equals less noise. But today, this morning, the noise was back. The humming of the freeway was strong like a giant swarm of agitated killer bees just trying to make a buck. 

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.