This Time It's About The Music

When I first started this blog I titled it "Starting Life Over with Love, Music and Words". Well, to date you've heard about the love part pretty regularly as I emote about Sheila, this beautiful, soulful lady who has somehow decided to let me be a part of her life and is the primary reason for my relocation to Georgia (no, she hasn't taken a blow to the head) (no, I'm not blackmailing her). And Lord knows you've been inundated with words as I blather on & on in this blog which is read by a surprisingly large number of people, especially considering I do virtually nothing to promote it other than stick it on FB. I think I'm supposed to be more pro-active about publishing it elsewhere but to date I've been kinda lazy about that.

But what you haven't seen much of here is the "Music" part of the title, and there are some reasons for that. First, I needed to get settled in here (which was an adjustment all by itself) without letting Sheila find out that I didn't have too much to offer other than being tall ... that's not to be taken lightly by 6' tall women, BTW, who frequently get stuck with "little-'uns" ... and having a dog that is very cute but pretty stupid. For the record, it's my opinion that pretty women love stupid dogs, or at the very least that's been my experience based on the pretty women in my life (really, don't get impressed, that # is shockingly teeny-tiny) and the level of stupidity of my dogs (as I assume you can guess, the # of dumb dogs I've had is, not shockingly, large).

I also have a tendency to get side-tracked when writing, as evidenced in the paragraph above. I mean, does anyone REALLY care about how stupid my dogs are? If you know me at all, that cannot be surprising. Or does anyone REALLY care that I'm not anything at all like a "ladies man"? Again, not surprising. So when I wander off while writing I guess it would make sense to hit the "back" button periodically to eliminate some of the chatter, but then my blogs would be maybe 17 words long and even less entertaining than they are right now. And Sheila does almost all of my editing and "political correctness" checking, which means she is generally erasing about 50% of it before I ever publish, which would knock my 17 word output to almost nothing.

Okay, back to the topic at hand ... "Music".

At first I located a couple of people who seemed to be interesting, one keyboard guy and another guitar player. Now, I pretty much let everyone know that I'm a jazz player right off the bat, so there can be no confusion and the odds of me having to play "Proud Mary" or "Play That Funky Music White Boy" can be whittled down to, hopefully, ZERO. That was successful with the keyboard guy, who is a good musician AND a jazz guy - BUT - lived in the northern section of Georgia where, apparently, even cell phones refuse to go. Not convenient for rehearsals or gigs, to say the least, but still some possibilities down the road since we hit it off very well, musically.

The guitar player, also a good musician, originally lined up me and a good drummer. Turns out neither the guitar player or the drummer were "true" jazz guys but they are good players. While the first get together was promising, the 2nd time started to veer off track a little and by the time we got to the third rehearsal it had somehow become a funk band and "Cisco Kid" and "I Shot The Sheriff" were in the song rotation. And, now we were talking about playing in night clubs ...

Full disclosure, I am a musician and therefore, by very definition, not wrapped all that tight. But how "I play jazz" morphed into Cisco Kid potentially being played at 1:00 am in some night club for probably $20 happened, I have no idea. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a song snob. I don't think I'm better than Cisco Kid, I really don't. Heck, Cisco Kid could be the greatest song ever written. Cisco Kid made somebody (War performed it, but I'm not sure exactly who wrote it) good money for writing this:

The Cisco Kid was a friend of mine
The Cisco Kid was a friend of mine
He drink whiskey, Poncho drink the wine
He drink whiskey, Poncho drink the wine

Seriously?

We met down on the fort of Rio Grande
We met down on the fort of Rio Grande
Eat the salted peanuts out of can
Eat the salted peanuts out the can

Salted peanuts? Really?

No man, I just can't do it. I can't play Cisco Kid in a bar at 1:00 am for maybe $20 for the night. I know that many people like that song, but I just can't do it. Really, if that happens, can "Play That Funky Music White Boy" be very far behind? I don't usually play this card, but I went to Juilliard, for Heaven's sakes ... lookey here ...

I should reconsider posting this pic because when Sheila sees this she'll know, for an absolute 100% fact, that I was a dweeb even when I was a kid ... let's face it, she already knows that because she is awfully darned smart and she knows that my level of nerdy doesn't just happen overnight, it's cultivated from when you are very young. And, how is a dweeb nerd bass player supposed to convincingly pull off "Play That Funky Music White Boy"???

See, this is why y'all (did you catch that Georgia slang?  yeah, baby, I'm blending in) never get any music news, because I'm rambling on with other nonsense. So, I'm tightening down right now, here comes some music stuff ...

Sheila is a bad, bad influence ... did I ever tell you she LOVES woodworking and especially hardwoods and is pretty comfortable working with power tools (no, I have no idea why she stays with me, either) ... and openly encourages me to buy new basses. (See, you probably thought I had veered away from the music topic-at-hand again, didn't you?) (Admit it, you did, right?)  Since I moved to Georgia these basses have arrived:

No, it's not Sheila's fault, I'm the one who buys these things. And they're all 5 strings! I don't really play 5 string basses that often, as a matter of fact up until I bought these babies I didn't own a 5 string. I played 6 and 7 string basses, like these:

 And, I also have some 4 string basses:

Of course, you saw the double basses at the top of this blog post, which brings my bass collection up to ten basses. Sheila not only encourages me to buy these things, she makes room for them in her (and by some crazy miracle, now MY) house. So, can you just imagine what a therapist would do if they got hold of her? Attracted to a dweeby nerdy bassist with a dumb dog who is loaded with Jersey attitude and refuses to play Cisco Kid with waaayy too many basses and she is actively promoting more of this aberrant behavior?

I haven't told you about the auction ... Sheila took me to the auction over the weekend and we bought cool stuff including this little item right here:

What you can't see right here, because I cropped it out, is that Sheila is next to me questioning her judgement, looking at that snail vase and wondering "What in the world is wrong with this guy?"  Well, that little sweetie is worth some good coin, but we're not selling it. Both Sheila and I love it and we're keeping it! And, you might be interested to know, that snail vase was the real reason we went to the auction in the first place, so Sheila was already eyeballing that bad boy before we bought it, so maybe she's not as tightly wrapped as you all think! Oops, got a little off track there again, didn't I?

Okay, I guess my good intentions for a music post went into the crapper, so I'll try again next time. Here is a better pic of the suffering Sheila and me, so you can also wonder "What the heck does she see in that guy, anyhow?"