Fabrics To Dye For Blog

Let's Put Some Music In the Thing, or, How I'm Teaching Jenny to Play the Guitar

When last we met, I was ranting and raving about the bozos who deliver the news to us. (Today's gem being the fact that there are fire ants and tarantulas emerging in the wake of the hurricane we had down here a couple of days ago. Here's a News Flash of my own, folks: Both fire ants and tarantulas live in Texas. They have this tendancy to come out when Bad Things happen to their habitat. It ain't the end of the world, and it really ain't even newsworthy, so get over it, ok? Good grief!!!! Next it'll be some kind of wildflower crisis or something...) Let's forget about them for now, since all they want to do is scare you silly (an impossibility where I'm concerned, that silly part) or create some sort of artificially contrived tragedy. Pooey on 'em; let's move on. In fact, let's move on to music!

 

That said, here's the truth of this gig. (Stephen Stills said that introducing the classic "Super Sessions" album and I've always wanted to use it. Finally I get to!) I've loved music all my life. I pretty much love it all, but at the end of the day my First Love would have to be rock and roll, with blues a really close second. Everything else is ok, but those two styles are pretty much where I hang out. Truth is, I just plain love the music. Love it. End of story.

 

For the greater part of my occasionally mis-spent life I've contented myself with listening to music. If a turntable or CD player (that's about as much technology as I'm capable of embracing at the moment, so don't bother to write me about the other stuff) were a musical instrument I'd be a virtuoso. They aren't, though, much to my chagrin and, perhaps, loss, so I've had to confine myself to being a closet musician, embracing fantasies of playing something, maybe anything, but never taking that Big First Step to learn how to do it. Until the divorce.

 

Let's set things straight right now, before we continue. I don't know where Jenny was for all those years, but I've been waiting for her pretty much my whole life. I'm about to take that giant step into my sixth decade, and she came into my life last year. It's a late start I know, but it's a whole lot better than no start at all. She's my darlin', ya'll. (I think I might have said that once or twice before.) I was, however, married before. Twice, to be exact, and the first marriage produced a daughter, and then a son. I love my kids, ya'll. I really do.

 

I gave my son a guitar, an inexpensive flat top, for our last Christmas together. He wanted to learn to play, and I wanted him to play too, so the guitar was  pretty much a no-brainer. Unfortunately, but setting the stage for The Appearance of Jenny, a divorce quickly followed that particular Christmas. There was Pain, and then the kids moved to The Big City, and I stayed in my tiny little Texas town alone. (Except for Reggie the Wonder Dog, but that's a story for another day.) Then it came to me---I'd buy my son a guitar! If I got one too, that would be something we could still do together! YES!!! So off I went to buy an inexpensive flat top of my own, secure in the knowledge that I'd done The Right Thing. That turned out to be not quite true, since my son went off into the world of electric bass and I had this acoustic flat top, but at least he was playing, and he was happy doing it. I bought him an amp, then sat down to try to figure out how in the world to play that danged guitar I'd just purchased. It was not an easy thing to do, mostly because I decided to eschew a guitar teacher and teach myself instead. What should have taken a few months took a few years, but I stuck with it and eventually learned how to play well enough to fool my friends who didn't. (My friends who really are musicians pretty much laugh, but that's life.) I played from 1995 until this very minute. It got me through that first divorce. I'm ok at it, too. Just ok, not Good, and certainly not Great, but every once in a while I'll plug in the Gibson and it all sounds like rock and roll  to me which is, after all, all I ever wanted to do.

 

Then came Jenny. She was in the back of the house one morning, and I was playing. She walked in on me and said something along the lines of "That's pretty good. I thought you were playing a record." My head immediately grew by about twelve hat sizes---somebody actually liked my playing! Wow! After that, I'd play while she was cooking breakfast, or lunch, or supper. She liked it, and I liked doing it. I think I may have said it before, but my ego truly knows no bounds. Then came The Day.

 

"Will you teach me how to play guitar?"

 

"I don't really know how to do it. I just make noises, that's all."

 

"Well, I like it, and I think you can play, and I'd like you to teach me. Will you?"

 

How could I refuse? We've already determined that my ego knows absolutely no bounds! Of course I'll teach you! You bet!

 

Now we sit down and play almost every day, generally after supper. She knows where several chords live, and she can play the riffs for "Bo Diddley", "Mona", and "Gloria". We're working on Buddy Holly this week. I'm not much of a teacher if the truth be known, but she's a great student and she's learning almost faster than I can teach her. I like it! Nowadays things are a little different around here.

 

"My fingers hurt."

 

"Yep. They will for a while, until you get some callouses."

 

"How long will that take?"

 

"I dunno. Wanna learn another blues riff?"

 

"YES! Let's get after it!!!"

 

That's my darlin', ya'll. It just don't get no better than that!

 

I've been playin' sunshine games,

All my lonely life.

 

Look around, look around,

Look 'round again!

  "Sunshine Games", Music Explosion, 1967 

 

And that's what I know. Be good to those around you and we'll talk again soon!

 

  hasta bye bye,

   phil

Neat Stuff in Our Yard, or How to Find Adventure in the Tiniest of Places

Hey Everybody.

 

Here we are again. It's been a while since last we've spoken, so there's lots of catching up to do, except that we aren't going to do that today since so doing would be entirely too linear. We are, instead, going to go on safari to our back yards. (Oh good grief---what's he doing this time?!) Why in the world would you want to do that, you might ask yourself? The answer to that one is pretty easy---it's something you can do without having to worry about it, or pay money for the pleasure of being able to experience it. You can just do it. You don't need permission from anybody, and there are no rules, no regulations, not even any pending carbon credits! Political candidates don't weigh into it, nor do OPEC, the Euro, foreign leaders you've never heard of before, or any of the myriad of other incipient tragedies that taint our daily lives. Let's ignore 'em all and go on safari!

 

Back yards (or gardens, or even a potted plant if you don't have a yard) can be neat things; miniature eco-systems right there under your nose. It's simply amazing what you'll find in them, and the tiniest things can often be the most impressive and, dare I say it (don't tell my guy friends I said this) wonderful to see. (Aquariums can be even better in some respects, but since they're controlled environments we're going to leave them alone today and concentrate more on the things we can't control.)

 

When my kids were little we used to play a game called Square Foot, so we'll start our safari there. What you do is lay down on your tummy someplace in your yard. Front or back, it doesn't matter which, as long as there's some sort of vegetation and a minimum of neighbors to think you've finally gone off your rocker. Figure out an area that's about a square foot, give or take. (Remember, none of this has to be exact. We're having FUN here!) Now watch it. If it were me, I'd lay there for an hour or so, but how long you stay there's entirely up to you. The main thing is to do it, and pay attention to what's going on in front of you. I suspect you're mostly going to be looking at insects, but you may have a garter snake or similar come to visit too, or maybe a toad or a skink. Mostly it'll be insects though, so be prepared for Low Adventure rather than High unless you laid down in a fire ant nest or similar, in which case we can't be responsible for your complete and total lack of good sense. 'Nuff said.

 

Anyway, now that you've amazed yourself with just how much life is out there, let's broaden the scope a bit. Go find a tree, or a bush, or a flower, and do the same thing. Once again, it's amazing what you can find there, almost without looking. Jenny put up a hummingbird feeder a few weeks ago, and the hummingbirds dutifully came to visit. The feeder ran out of the colored stuff you put inside them, and she went out to re-fill it. There weren't any hummingbirds at the feeder, partly because it was empty but mostly because they were all congregated at the big red flowers (No, I have no idea what kind they are, so they get to be Big Red Flowers in this missive.) at the corner of the patio. I suspect they liked the nectar in the flowers about as much as they liked the solution in their feed, and we really enjoyed looking at them.

 

Then there was the time, a couple of weeks ago, when Jenny came in the house and announced that there was a funny leaf on the side of one of our dog houses. I immediately went out to see what it was, mostly out of curiousity but also because a fella just never knows when he might need a good dog house to stay in. Investigation of said leaf produced, not a leaf, but a Cope's Grey Tree Frog, or maybe just a Common Grey Tree Frog, but a tree frog nontheless Too cool! I'd heard them in the yard for years but never seen one, and there this one was, spending it's day sitting on the side of the doghouse. We watched it for a while, then went inside. It went back into the trees once it got dark, and we haven't seen it since although we hear it every night, but we got to see it once and that was enough. What a treasure!

 

We've also got some common toads living by the patio. Jenny's put in mulch and flowers back there, in an area that was once just grass, and we're developing quite a little eco-system as a result. She found the toads more-or-less by accident; one of them jumped on her when she moved a pot. There was another one hiding there too, and we found two more a few feet away. Bugs like flowers. Toads like bugs. The Labs ignore the toads. It works for everybody, and we don't have to spray with pesticides. (We have a lot of Mediterranean geckos back there too, but that's a story for another time.)

 

Last week it was a turtle, a big ol' slider that one of the dogs had found and turned on its back. We turned it right way up (turtles and tortoises suffocate if left on their backs for too long) and it immediately began to beat feet to get out of the yard, but it was there. I've found more than a few snakes out there too, but we aren't going to tell Jenny just yet---I think she'll be cool with them, but that's one example of fauna that we need to work into gradually. They apparently don't have that many snakes in

Rhode Island

...

 

And that's what I know! We'll talk again soon!

  hasta bye bye,

    phil