At the Risk of Making Myself Look Less Than Brilliant...

I've never had a problem with making fun of myself if I think it will make someone smile.  That hasn't worked out so well as far as my "career"...or my life in general.  That being said...

 

My back has been wrecked for the last week. At times I can barely walk. I had to cancel my ride to Tampa knowing that, even if I made it there without crippling myself, I'd be miserable company for Josh's family once I arrived. That said, I felt better this morning, so I decided to ride to work.,..to see how my back felt on the bike.

Had my thick lined jeans on over my slacks, heavy leather jacket, winter gloves...all my riding crap...when I decided to adjust the throttle rest thingie that FINALLY arrived from China* yesterday. I had put it on the throttle grip this morning. It was positioned slightly askew, so I grabbed it wearing my thick gloves and wrestled with it. I had cut the bike off, of course, so as not to rev the engine to a level that would wake any unemployed denizens of Millbrook. When I punched the starter button after my adjustments were done....nothing. I got lights on the dash...but nothing. Okay. This happened once before. Loose battery cable, no doubt. Shit. I had put the rear seat and backrest on for my now cancelled ride to Tampa. Can't get to the battery without removing the seat. Can't remove the seat without removing the backseat. Take off backseat. Take off seat. Stash screwdriver in mounting hole for rear seat. Grab screwdriver to take off CPU and battery cover. Something drops into tiny crevice. What was that?! I know I need it whatever it is. Crap, it's the little threaded sleeve from the hole to mount the backseat. It stuck on the screwdriver when I pulled it out to tighten the cables...that didn't need tightening. Dig it out in abject fear of it slipping thru cracks and winding up god knows where.  Battery cables are fine...tighten them anyway. Must be a fuse. Take off side cover. Pull fuses one by one and check them. All look fine. Confusion reigns. WTF is going on? I push bike from behind wife's Pilot in case I have to leave it 'til I get home to check things again. Shannon's standing out there freezing while I'm sweating. I stare at bike for long time. I have allen wrenches and screwdrivers all over the driveway, seats tossed here and there. I look at throttle grip. Holy f*#k! My kill switch is on. With my heavy gloves on, struggling to adjust that $2.00 part, I had pushed the killswitch on. Flip it off. Bike fires right up.

I've spent 45 minutes laboring over the damn thing, when all I had to do was flip the damn switch. ALWAYS CHECK THE OBVIOUS FIRST.

On the positive side, I don't have to be concerned with my battery cables loosening for quite some time and I know all my fuses are happy little fellas. And my chiropractor will repair me Friday.

*Ordered this thing on ebay and was assured it shipped on Oct 11th and would arrive before Oct 25th, in plenty of time for my trip. When it hadn't shown up by the 25th, I contacted the seller and was told it shipped on Oct 17th and might take 25 working days because of "customs problems". Asking for patience, the seller assured me, his "dear friend", that I would be compensated my $4 if the chunk of plastic failed to arrive within next millenium. As I said, it arrived yesterday, in time for the since cancelled ride to Florida. Oh well.

Bruce In His Element

It appears that I can no longer add to the original piece about ol' Bruce, so, as I find photos, I guess I'll just add them in new posts.

This is the perfect shot of Bruce...at his stereo, surrounded by his music, CD in hand, about to put on some tunes as we either play ping pong or thump football.  Seems like every time I went to his house, he was either sitting at the stereo or, in later years, at his computer fooling with the music.  He's wearing one of the Grateful Dead shirts I used to sell.  Often, when he wore this Jerry Garcia shirt, people would ask him why he had a pic of himself on his shirt.  When that hair was long and going wild, he damn sure did resemble Garcia!

I see a Treat Her Right album in the background, a Gate Band CD, a blues collection on top of one stack of CDs, and a Blind Boys of Alabama on top of the middle stack.  These old eyes can't make out anything else.

Let's see...open his door, "Whatcha doin'?", "Got a beer?",  "Let's go ride around."

Good times.

Wagner, ODU, EQT

http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Tannhauser/2KmC7q?src=5 Other than cartoons, this piece was my introduction to classical music back about 1970 or so. Lee Pratt played this for me and Bruce at Lee's brother's house (the brother who later taught at Old Dominion...to whose home we hitchhiked thru the Smokies.) Same day I was made aware of Eric Quincy Tate.

In View of the Bobby Petrino Fiasco...

...and all other instances of football coaches, politicians, and other men in positions of power getting into trouble with hot, young girls...

I just wanna say I appreciate every POA I've ever gotten. Not a single one of you girls could have possibly assumed I had any money or power!

Posters From My Younger Daze

This Zappa poster came with the LP. Still have it framed and hanging in my "shed".

Last time I remember seing this great poster it was hanging in my "hobbit house" on Paterson Road. I need to look for it.

Not sure if I still have this one. It was huge.

Thought this was so cool. Shook folks up. I found one last year to replace my original.

Still have this one, too. My copy is more light orange.

I FOUND IT!

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/black-sabbath-vol-4-19721207?print=true

I've always recalled the reviewer's line about "Quaalude popsicles". That sums up Sabbath, doesn't it?

What a review! I doubt this guy was ever published again...but he probably didn't care!

Damn, Rolling Stone! Spent more time in the AUM library reading it than I did studying. And here I am today! All that wasted brilliance! "You're gonna be an engineer." "You'll be a great writer." "You're gonna go far, young man."

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Black Sabbath, Vol. 4

Black Sabbath

by: Tom Clark

As the Sabs poured into "Wheels of Confusion" like giant gobs of wet cement gushing from the heavens in the never-ending sameness of a taffy-pull performed by mutants, people began pouring into my house. One by one they instantly began digging the Sabs, nodding, heavy dudes one and all. Everyone picked up that old Sab neck-wobble trip where your head sort of rocks back and forth on your neck python-fash, right? Where the organ comes in over the big slow power chords; no it's not an organ, call it a component, yah, straight out of the Middle fucking Ages! Sorta walks right on out. Like some giant prehistoric plant learning how to walk ... right over your house ... so boogie while you can. But you can't lose that dyno chthonic zoomout riff 'cos it's right there in the middle of the next song, "Tomorrow's Dream," which got us so zonked we felt absolutely heavy. The cat did too. Then on into a foxy sorta Carole King piano folk song or something, whew, "Changes," kind of David Bowie we guessed, hey orchestra right? What? Went its evil way? Ooh. The room got kind of deep and spacey, brown all over, and the notes then sounded sorta while coming out of that ... y'know? Like a snowfall? It went on forever. We could dig it. Like we dig chewing gum made out of caulking compound. Right? So then can you conceive of a piercing tone followed by reverberating percussion noises called "FX," huh, that was the next tune, then we got tight with some heavy familiar Sab vibes again, swimming right up there to deep space where nothing hears or talks, right? "Supernaut." My sister had a vision of electronic buffalo ranches on Uranus, so help me. The drum solo in this song did it to her. Also, my watch stopped. But the Sabs didn't. Who needs a watch? I ripped it off my wrist & stomped on it. Slowly. Crunch. Side one groaned to a close, but soon side two followed it, without delay adhering to the walls of one's septum — the total "icicles in my brain" riff — right — "Snowblind," no less — climbing those big staircases made out of vanilla fudge, right up into your mind — so feed your nose, hey? God's a Fuzz Tone, right? The Abominable Snowman? Hey. La Fucking Brea! The tar pits was a heavy scene, right? Ask Freud or Dave Crosby. What a streaming feast of nerve gobble anyhow! But on with the snow, I mean show. Time for a Pez break. Whew. Monster slowness of the unelusive strikes again: "Cornucopia." I about fell out. Ten-ton dogs snarled in the mouth of the volcano. Storms of liquid metal blasted their way into the soap factory. Soaring zoos, etc. Then on to babies' time; breakfast on a sleigh in Hawaii with violins, titled "Laguna Sunrise." All sweet lime stripes across a popsicle spiced with Quaaludes, right. A million artichokes can't be wrong. Dreaming in the sun with their eyes open? Sweet music must end. Grunting, we tumble on into the new dance craze, you guessed it, "St. Vitus Dance." You drive me nervous. Pieces of hair got into my mouth during this one. Same old power saw on Venus move, lovely. "Under the Sun" starts out slow, like dinosaurs yawning, then it speeds up a little. Or does it? I can't tell. Fantastic four-second guitar solo by a gorilla in there somewhere, right — beautiful — gorilla! The Sabs pour it on, man, it's right near the end of the record now and here's a great three-second drum solo by a polar bear, no shit! Put mud in my ears if I lie! I can dig it! Great buncha chords there too, I couldna chose better myself, whew, we're thudding down toward the ultimate rip chord now. Gotcha. Over and out. Molten rocks hurtling across space imitating the origin of the universe, you dig? Ah, lay those chord slabs on my grave ... whew.

Update on Mole Relocation/Extermination Process

I use the term 'relocation' because the plan for this coming spring is to kill all the grubs, thus depriving the molemen of their food source. I assume once the food supply is cut off, the moles will see fit to move on to a neighbor's yard where they can tunnel their little asses off for all I care.

In the meantime, that damn worthless mole trap's kill count remains at 1. However, on a potentially promising note, two months ago we procured an insane half beagle/half Tasmanian devil puppy who appears to be fond of mole pursuit. To my knowledge she hasn't caught any of the critters yet, but she has turned my backyard into an almost exact replica of the World War I Battle of Passchendaele. Her trenches are quite accurate from what I can ascertain looking at old maps and charts. On more than one occasion, I've seen what appears to be troops moving through the labyrinth. This is a photo I took in the gray of morning the other day.