Salt, Zodiac & Guitar
It’s a squall — run for your lives! It passed quickly but brought out the salt trucks once again. Yes, it’s a pet peeve of mine.
Here’s a novel way to deter illegal immigration, from a headline at foxnews.com: “Australian government created fake, negative horoscopes to deter Sri Lankan asylum-seekers.” Here’s a flier that was used:
As I wait for the first proof copy of my latest novel to arrive, I fill a lot of time watching videos at youtube. Here are a couple of interesting facts gleaned from one: 10% of people think HTML is an STD… Certain whales alive today were born before the publication of Moby Dick (1851)… I’ve also watched a lot of guitar instructionals that lure hacks by professing to be easy. While a few are, most aren’t. They are created by hardcore enthusiasts. I learned early on, way back in 1975, that I don’t have the heart of a musician. While I love listening to music, I’m not devoted to playing it. A daily 30 minute session is sufficient for me. Real musicians will play for hours at a clip. These days it’s more of a memory workout. I know bits and pieces of scores of songs. I don’t practice them all in a single sitting, so I never really improve much at playing any of them. Recently, the simple first eight notes of the Batman TV riff bedeviled me for days before I became comfortable with it. I don’t have an ear for music, either. A D note, however tuned, always sounds right, a B almost always off. I know at least ten pre-rock standards. Playing one per session, I rarely get through any without making several mistakes. Their composition is sophisticated. Cole Porter’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin has 25 or so chords. These days I often wonder why I bother, as my skills seem to be deteriorating rather than improving. There’s only so far one can go playing a half-hour per day. Fortunately, few of the tunes I’ve learned require speed. A year or so ago I started becoming spastic while playing something like the Rascals’ Good Lovin’. I don’t know if it’s age or the early stages of something neurological. And I’ve had the slightest cough for three weeks, which has made singing even harder. Since I worked a stone’s throw from Ground Zero for 15+ years, I wonder if it’s finally caught up to me, although I have zero breathing problems. My suspicion is that it’s caused by whatever the radiators cast into the air. It preceded the salt clouds hovering in Brooklyn the past two weeks.
Here’s the old Yamaha my mom gave me on my 25th birthday in 1975, purchased by my niece Tanya and her friend Steven, a master guitarist whose gone on to the recording studio in the sky. Of course, it’s coming out twice the size of the photo in the file. I have no idea why that happens. Why didn’t it happen with the pic of the Zodiac chart? Anyway, this is the instrument my neighbors would probably like to destroy:
The floating book shop was a last second decision incumbent upon conditions at my alternate site, which is in the sun most of the day. Since the Chase bank was blocking the wind, it was a go. I put in a full session without having to sit in the car to ward of the cold. And it was another that proved weather is rarely a factor in the endeavor. Despite temperatures in the mid 20’s, it was the best haul of the month. My thanks to the gentleman and woman who each bought three books in Russian; and to the woman who purchased The Crush by Sandra Brown and Honor Thyself by Danielle Steel; and to the woman who selected two kids’ books; and to the gentleman who treated his grandson to two Pokemons; and to Bad News Billy, who wiped out my Mets’ yearbooks section and also went home with a tote bag bearing the Amazin’s logo. The only negative was leaving my own books in their plastic sleeves to keep them from being covered in salt dust.
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