It wasn’t much, 20 minutes maybe. I noodled a little and then played along with a few Deep Purple songs. All Tommy Bolin. I was in the mood for some Owed to G and it just took off from there.
I feel like I should reward each attempt at getting into better playing shape with a blog post. Consider it an added bonus on some nerd level.
My foot still hurts. It is more or less a non-issue when I’m barefoot, but it hurts like the dickens when I have shoes on. I think I’m a little swollen, but not a lot. It’s actually a lot better than it was last week, but it’s still an issue. I really don’t want to go to the doctor for this, but my resolve is weakening.
I was discussing Plantar Fasciitis (hence forth to be known as Plantar Fascist-itis in honor of our nazi putz of a president) with a friend today who has had it in both feet, one after the other. His suggestion was to just get it over with and cut the bastard off now. I’m not that far gone, but it’s something to keep in mind (yup yup). It actually made me think of something from a few weeks ago. My father in law and I were in a store looking for a tool to help install our new door lock. Right at the front door with a whole stack of potential impulse buys was a Saws-All. I almost got it. Why? I don’t know. Now looking back I think I should have picked one up. It would be a perfect cure for my friggin’ foot.
Yuck yuck yuck.
In the immortal words of the evil doctor in Hellraiser II, “I recommend… amputation. No anesthetic at hand… shame.”
Yuck yuck yuck.
I don’t think I’ve seen that movie since the late 80’s or early 90’s so I can’t remember for sure if those two sentences (complete with the dramatic pauses) were from the same scene or not. Probably not. That was the first horror movie I ever saw, and it lead to my becoming a serious Clive Barker fan. Not just movies, but novels (stop what you’re doing and go read Weaveworld. Right now. I’m serious. Do it right now) and short stories and even a couple of plays. It was at Brian G’s house. I can’t remember who was there exactly, but despite all of the awesome, quotable lines it had (and there were countless) the one phrase that will never leave my memory and will always come to mind as soon as I think of that movie was someone in the room saying, as the movie ended, “rewind to when Julia comes out of the mattress!”
I just took this picture while I was putting the finishing touches on our chicken and a side of quinoa dinner tonight. I thought I’d share because… why not.
The RPM Challenge is 11 days away. I haven’t given it thought one. My next gig is also 11 days away. I have given that many thoughts, most revolving around how much practice I need. Note: I am sitting at my desk typing this blither instead of practicing. I had a day off work to honor a great American even though our nation is in the hands of fascist pieces of dog shit and did I practice at all? No. I thought about it, but I didn’t do it. I even thought about asking the other guys if they wanted to try and sneak in a rehearsal tonight seeing as we wouldn’t have to wait for my endless evening commute. Nope. Nothing. I’m still physically beat from having to deal with shoveling on top of all of the previously discussed pains. I’m getting better. Don’t worry. It just sucks to be me today. It will suck less tomorrow.
My step son, Harry had the day off from school. This was a mom’s house weekend so he woke up here this morning. Mondays are dad days though so I knew he’d be leaving shortly after he woke up. I did something sneaky to try and get him to stick around and hang out with me for a little while. I watched a Marvel movie. He was still asleep when I started but I figured he’d wake up and watch it with me. It was Captain America: Civil War. Awesome freakin’ movie. It worked, but not as well as I’d hoped. When he finally woke up (teenagers and sleeping late, ya know?) there was only 30-40 minutes left in the movie. He stuck around a little after it was over. He had some breakfast and watched an episode of Phineas and Ferb because… why not? (sing it with me, doobie doobie doobah, doobie doobie doobah, A-Gent-P!!)
Speaking of Harry, we had a seriously great moment on Saturday that I think I want to share. My wife and my step son both have February birthdays. My wife thought that maybe it would be fun to celebrate her birthday at Disney World. We started making plans. Then she decided it would be better to wait a few weeks and bring my step son with us. We booked a room in the Yacht Club for a few days and made all the park arrangements. We did not tell my step son. My step daughter won’t be available due to college, and Jen has a little Canadian get away planned with her already, but we ran the plans by her just in case and she was okay with it. On Saturday we had a mini-pre-birthday-birthday celebration for Harry. We gave him two presents: His park ticket and his luggage tag. He never saw it coming. Awesome. He says he is really excited about it, even though he’s going to be stuck down there with two old people. He’ll adjust. It’s going to be fun, and I can’t wait to go away and hide from reality for a week.
Here’s hoping my foot feels better by then because if not it’s Off With His Foot!
Yuck yuck yuck.
We have 3-4 inches of snow outside and I don’t want to shovel so I’m playing around editing old Rush pictures. Don’t judge me.
Original:
Cropped, filtered, and Professor’d:
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.
I wouldn’t call what I did tonight practicing, but when you are as rusty as I am noodling is better than nothing.
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.
Okay, I’m a little nervous. We have a gig on February 1st. Given that we took the holidays off that means we have had one practice over the last month and we will only have two more before the 1st. Now it looks like there might be a conflict this Sunday. We are hoping to move the rehearsal to Saturday but there is a snow storm in the forecast. Monday is a holiday and I have it off, I think I’m the only one, so I don’t have my long commute to worry about. We should be able to have our usual 6:00 start time if the weather doesn’t cooperate on Saturday. I don’t think we’re going to miss one of our two remaining weekends but like I said, I’m nervous. We won’t be adding any new songs, but we are hoping to polish off the handful that we added in 2019 without ever playing to an audience. I have some wood shed time ahead of me, for sure.
On the plus side, our singer told us he bought a new digital mixing board today. One that we can control with an iPad app. Does that mean we will turn into one of those bands and all of us will have iPads on stage with us? Maybe. Larry and I had a completely unrelated discussion the other day about in-ear monitors. I would say this is the time to start experimenting with them, but sweet christmas they can get expensive. No thanks. If I happen to find a reasonably priced set that fits into my gigantic head (literally, not figuratively) that can also take the place of my ear plugs then maybe, but I don’t see that happening. Greg uses an in-ear and said it cost him $600. From what I have seen, that is cheap. Nope.
Allow me to give some credit here. In the last few months Greg has really come through for us in the P.A. system department. I have a mountain of gear that I can bring to the band table, but a good P.A. system is not included. Greg has stepped up and helped out in a big way. Now we just have to book gigs so we can use all of the new stuff.
Change of subject, I mentioned the other day that my Uncle was having surgery. It was actually a triple bypass. We found out today that he is now off of the ventilator, which is good, but he still has a long way to go before he recovers. On top of that my mother was having a bad night last night and there was talk of taking her to the ER. Fortunately she improved and the hospital was not necessary. It’s been a tough couple of weeks for her and her siblings. Her older sister spent some time in the hospital a week or so ago, and her younger sister might have to go back on chemotherapy after being in remission for years. Pardon me, oh universe, but do you have to be a dick to all of them at once?
As I typed that last sentence, the sun broke through the clouds. Is that a sign? Is the universe messing with my head? Dick.
So Neil Peart mentioned me in one of his books. Not really. In Ghost Rider he tells a story of a stop on the Test for Echo Tour in 1997 where his daughter, Selena, joined him and his riding buddy, Brutus, on a between gig motorcycle adventure. She met up with him at a show at Great Woods in Mansfield, MA. Yup, you guessed it. I was there. June 23, 1997 to be exact. Neil Peart, Selena Taylor, Brutus McTrash (that’s his name on facebook, if I remember correctly), and I were all in the same room at the same time. Granted there were something like 12,000 other people with us, including Mike and Maria. I don’t think Maria was there with us, we didn’t start the band with her until after that, but I know she was there. In the story they left Mansfield and drove North into Maine and then the next day hopped onto their motorcycles and explored the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Pretty much the same thing my wife and I do a couple of times a year. The difference being our vehicle has four wheels and theirs had two. Given that Neil’s publishing career was made up of all travel books, I would say that he had good taste in road trips, which means Jen and I have good taste in road trips too. Yeah, we rule.
I’m still doing the photo a day thing over on Flickr. This morning before work I took the three minutes I should have spent shaving and took a couple of pictures. This one is the outtake. You’re welcome.
I didn’t use speakers, it was just direct output, but earlier today I recorded guitars in stereo. It sounded like a sloppy mess, but it also sounded MEGA!!!!!!!
Inside the Red Head's Head 