Just Plain Jackie Bradley

The Red Sox have a rookie with a lot of potential. The future is bright. His name is Jackie Bradley. Just Jackie Bradley. He is universally referred to as Jackie Bradley, Jr.

Speaking as one whose full name includes the suffix Jr, can I please beg the baseball media to stop calling him Bradley, Jr and just call him Bradley?

Ken Griffey, Jr was called Griffey, Jr because his father, Ken Griffey, Sr, was also a major league baseball player. Cal Ripken, Jr was called Ripken, Jr because his father, Cal Ripken, Sr, was a major league baseball coach.

As far as I know, that is not the case for Jackie Bradley. His father, Jackie Bradley, Sr, is not on the Red Sox roster. Neither is he part of the Red Sox broadcast, nor does he work at Fenway Park in such a way as to be called by name by the general fandom. Because of this, there is no reason to have to add the Jr to the end of Jackie Bradley’s name in order to differentiate him from his father.

If his dad isn’t part of the conversation, you can lose the god damned Jr. Call the guy by his name, not by his suffix.

Three Songs

Musically speaking, I had a good day yesterday. The first three April songs have vocals. When I got up yesterday morning I still hadn’t worked out the form of any of the April songs. They were just 4 or 8 or 12 bar phrases that happened to kinda fit together. Before work I brought up song #1 and stitched everything together into a form. It actually ended up almost like a suite. I had two 8 bar phrases with clean guitar, and two with overdriven guitar. So the clean pair became verse/chorus of one song and the heavier pair became verse/chorus of a second song. Then I reprised the first song at the end. Next thing I knew I was close to 7.5 minutes worth of rawk. How prog of me!

I had most of the lyrics and melody written and the vocals recorded by the time I had to punch into work. As it turned out, yesterday was a parent/teacher conference for one of the kids. I thought it was going to start at 6:00, which would have let me get there on time (just barely) but it actually started at 5:30. I work until 5:30. So how did I deal? I took some vacation time in the afternoon so I could leave with plenty o’ time to get to the school.

That meant that instead of having a lunch hour, I had a lunch three hours. I finished the vocal on song #1, then blew through the form, lyrics, melody, and vocal for song #2. That’s when I realized I should probably shower and stuff before I go meet with a teacher. Blah, blah, do the right thing. After the shower I had 40 minutes before I had to go. I somehow managed to blow through the form, lyrics, melody, and vocal for song #3! Now three songs in 4-5 hours is not nearly as impressive as my usual RPM Vocal Days, but it’s not bad for an old fart like me.

I still have two songs that aren’t ready to be song-formified. One (the left over from RPM) is still just one 16 bar phrase. The other (the left over from RPMarch) is now up to two phrases, one of which has drums and bass. Then there is the old post-Tempest Fero/pre-Prime Meridian song I want to add. I haven’t started recording any of that yet, although I do have a really bad tape recording of it available for when I do start recording.

The goal is to finish April before I go back and finish March. I might bend that rule from time to time, but that’s the plan for now at least.

So that’s the musical update for today. Maybe I’ll be able to sneak in some more this weekend. There probably won’t be time on Saturday. Maybe a little on Sunday. We’ll see. I’m also still itching for more ocean sun rise pics. Again, we’ll see.

No Posts?

What do you mean I haven’t posted today?

I did a tiny bit of recording tonight. Just a little. Hey, did you know that the amp software I’m using for April is called AmpliTUBE, not AmpliTUDE.

Yeah, I’m a moron.

I hope to do more recording tomorrow, but I’ve been saying that a lot lately.

Speaking of Amplitube, they have a Jimi Hendrix package for $15 bucks. I’m using the Fender Twin for this month. Maybe next month I’ll impersonate Jimi for 10 songs. Robbie want.

Blurry Deer

Twice today I had the opportunity to take a few pics of wild animals in the back yard, and twice today there wasn’t enough light for me to get anything other than blurry messes. Mostly, at least. This morning it was a bunch of turkeys. This evening it was six deer. They came into the yard as opposed to the woods behind the yard, where we usually see them. They seemed to be checking out the bird feeder. Yet another group of mammals who don’t know that bird food is for birds.

deer 1 autochrome camera

deer 2 - autochrome camera

deer 3 - autochrome camera