Month: January 2020

Snow Practice

So remember a couple of months ago when my band, El Pez Lagarto (the Lizardfish), played at my high school reunion?  Well the organizers of that little shindig, while putting the plans together, created a Facebook group and added every member of our class they could find to it.

Also, remember a couple of days ago when I posted a flyer that Kevin the drummer made to advertise our 2/1/20 show onto this page?  Kevin often makes flyers like that for our shows, but in this case the manager of the venue actually asked for one.

Well those two worlds just collided.  Mike just posted the flyer into the high school reunion Facebook group.  To quote the guy from Quantum Leap: Oh boy.

We’re practicing tonight.  We’re also supposed to get a mini-blizzard tonight.  I’m thinking I’ll take the less-expensive guitar with me.  What do you guys think?*

 

*Don’t answer.  I don’t actually care what anyone thinks.  It’s just a figure of speech.

 

On a totally unrelated note, did you know that Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage is on Netflix?  I didn’t know before, but I do know… because I just watched it.  It’s still my all time favorite rock music documentary.  It’s even better than the best rock mockumentary, This is Spinal Tap.  You could even say that the movie is so epic that by the time it ends it is being influenced by itself at the beginning.

Let the Impeachment Trial Begin

So we’re underway.  The third impeachment trial in US history.  The first of the three that will be a total and complete farce.

Our senate took oaths to be impartial.  Isn’t that cute?  The republican leadership has already said they will collaborate with the white house, and they took “oaths” to be impartial.

When the collaborators do their job to rubber stamp their fuhrer’s desired outcome, can we then impeach every single one of them for breaking their oath?  Does the idea of an oath even have meaning anymore?

Pain

I am physically falling apart and it’s pissing me off.

Last week I got fed up with the state of my shoes.  Both the shoes I wear to work, business casual style, and the sneakers I wear everywhere else were in a sorry state.  The work shoes were worn smooth and walking on a wet floor in the lobby at work could be dangerous.  The sneakers were also flat but had the added benefit of the soles coming off entirely.  So I bought new shoes.  I have to order them online because my feet are freakishly huge (size 14, 4x width).  New Balance makes shoes that fit me but I generally can’t get them in stores.

The shoes were delivered.  I tried them on.  They fit.  End of story, right?  Wrong.

On Monday I had a bad pain in my left foot.  It felt like I twisted my ankle but I didn’t.  I wasn’t sure what I’d done to earn this fun pain.  By Tuesday the pain had sort of settled into my instep and gotten much worse.  I think I know what it is.  I have never been diagnosed with plantar fasciitis, but years ago I was dealing with brutal pain in one of my feet and there were two or three people who told me that my symptoms were exactly the same as theirs had been when they were diagnosed with plantar fasciitis.  Someone suggested a stretching exercise and I tried it and eventually the pain went away.  This time around it is Friday and I’m still in major pain.  Wednesday was better, Thursday was WORSE (capital letters to emphasize just how much worse).  Today is bad but so far a little better than yesterday.

If it is what I think it is then it’s the third time I’ve had it.  The first time was out of the blue and absolutely brutal.  The second time wasn’t as bad, but I was doing those stretches right away and it took care of it.  Now when I think back at the second time though… I am pretty sure it corresponded with new shoes.  Is it possible that breaking in new shoes causes whatever this is to flare up?  If so, I might never buy new shoes again.  I’ll just wear these until they disintegrate and then go barefoot for the rest of my days.  This sucks.  I want it to be over.

Then we add this onto the crap pile.  Last night, Jen and Harry and I were sitting in the living room watching That 70’s Show on Netflix.  An episode ended at 9:00 (I love cake) and Jen said she had one more in her before she had to go to bed.  I decided to take that opportunity to do the thing that I have been telling myself to do every day for months: Practice the effing guitar.

I went into the bedroom, plugged my Les Paul straight into the amp (guitar pedal nerds world wide shudder in fear) and spent about 20 minutes noodling.  After a few minutes I thought, huh… my left elbow hurts.  Why the hell does my left elbow hurt?  It hadn’t hurt before, but it hurt then and it still feels a little tender now.  What the hell!?  I didn’t do anything to earn additional pain, why the hell does it hurt?

You know what I need?  I need a freakin’ vacation.  That’s what I need.  How about a vacation and a new body.  Can I trade this one in for a younger model?

Free Books

I learned this yesterday and took advantage of it today.  If you are an audible member, Neil Peart’s books are currently on sale for… free.  This doesn’t include Clockwork Angels or Clockwork Lives as those are technically Kevin Anderson’s.  I think it’s a nice little treat for fans, but I hope audible/amazon is still sending Neil’s royalty checks to his family.

I am hoping Rush has a few live records in the can that they can sneak out in the years to come.  I want Neil’s family to be looked after.  I know they have been releasing anniversary, deluxe editions of some records.  I hope that continues.  I will probably buy them rather than just listen to them on Apple Music or Spotify.  I remember hearing people bitch about how Pink Floyd was always releasing compilations.  There was a reason for it that wasn’t obvious though.  All of those comps had at least one or two Syd Barrett songs.  They were always finding ways to re-issue his music so that his Floyd related income never dried up.  They were trying to look after him without interfering in his life.  Those releases never moved big numbers, but it was enough to help Syd and his family.  I hope so at least.  I’d hate to learn otherwise.

Anyway, if you’re an audible member I recommend Ghost Rider.  I know I’ve read at least one other book too, but I can’t remember which one.  I think it was Far and Away.  I bought it, started reading it, and realize I’d already read the whole thing.  Well, a lot of it at least.  Neil was a blogger and that book, if that’s the book I am thinking it is, was made up of old blog posts.

Someone pointed out the other day that we probably should have known something was wrong in the Peart camp because it had been a long time since he updated his website.  He had his blog but he also shared recipes and had a sort of book club thing, if I remember it right.  I hadn’t heard of any new posts there for a long time.  In hindsight it feels like he was circling the wagons.

Anyway, listen to his music and read his books.

I took my photo a day picture this morning.  It was another record player picture.  138/365, call it Moving, Moving Pictures.

138/365 - Moving Moving Pictures