Tag Archives: keyboards

Ain’t That a Kick in the Head

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Well I just had a burger from Burger Heaven. It was pretty good. I hardly ever eat burgers anymore. And a chocolate shake. And French fries.

I’m still in the office, basically killing time now. I’m going to see Bill in a play that I saw a few years ago. It was horrible then, but the audience loved it. It’s a farce for lack of a better word.

3 married men think their wives are cheating on them since the wives are going to an OB/GYN to get a pap smear. This being the 21st century, the men have no idea what an OB/GYN is or what a pap smear is for that matter.

Every thing is played broadly and they do get laughs but not from me. When I saw it last time, I sat there taking notes while the audience laughed uproariously. It was obvious what I was doing and either the playwright or the director noticed it.

Then I came home and wrote about it. Apparently the playwright or director did a Google search and my blog came up. From what Bill told me, she printed it out and acted like it was a glowing review, which it wasn’t.

So now I sit at my desk writing this, waiting for 7:00 to come so I could walk across town to check it out. The main reason I’m going is because Bill is singing a song at the end. But I didn’t know it was for this play.

It was a very quiet day today. Quieter than the previous days, still due to the fact that Vivek, Sanjay and Abby aren’t around. I did contact Abby last night, telling him that I would be in the office today, but as of 5:25, 6 hours after emailing, I haven’t heard anything from him.

That’s ok by me, I’m not complaining.

Last night I entertained myself by figuring out the bass line to One Step Beyond by Madness. I think I figured it out.

Playing 3 strings instead of the usual 2 strings that I’m comfortable with. So it was a bit of finger stretching and coordination. I think I got the basics of it, and in so doing, got the bass basics for just about every 2 Tone Ska song.

And if I didn’t get it figured out, then I guess I just came up with some new bass lines.

One of these days I have to get it together and use Bill’s drum machine and make some home recordings. I can get a song together, playing the guitar and bass and maybe dabble on Bill’s keyboards.

I’m sure I can get Bill to record and engineer it. 4 tracks should be the limit since that is all I would have to record on. It’s just an idea that I’ve been kicking around in my head. And kicking around an idea in my head is infinitely better than a kick in the head.

I had a feeling I would hear from Abby late in the day and I was right. Abby just called me with a problem. He has a TV and some movie boxes in his car and the lease on the car expires tomorrow.

What to do?

Well I told him to give me a call at 8:00 tomorrow morning and I will come into the office with him so we can store the TV and boxes here.

He can’t do it himself since he never acted on the set up I had made for him to get access to the building.

See? I’m thinking out of the box and doing my best for the ‘team’.

And tonight I’m taking one for the John/Bill team by going to see that play again.

I guess I’m a team player after all. Or am I a team ‘playa’?

here is the link to the previous entry regarding Pap Smear

Bostitch

filed under Bostitch

And Through the Wire

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It’s Thursday, this much I know. Vivek returned to work, quite happy. The office was buzzing. Told Larry Stooge that I wrote a diary everyday. He asked if it was a blog and I said no. Really no need for him snooping. Trying to keep it on the down low. It was a productive day. I found out that Lydia is an illegal worker. She really shouldn’t be working in the office, but she is. She’s getting paid off the books so no one is the wiser. It’s an interesting folly. I didn’t hire her, so I’m not going to get caught in the sweep, if there is any sweeping to be done.

I heard from Juan who is in Costa Rica. He instant messaged me while I was away and since he only had internet access for about 10 minutes I missed him. I hope he’s having a good time. He’s been gone for almost a week I think, but it seems like he’s been gone for a longer time than that. Probably because when he’s at school or nearby we still communicate via email, instant messages or phone, so it’s like he’s around one way or another.

I haven’t heard from Song who from what I gathered was in Taiwan last I checked. Perhaps he’s on his way back to Sydney. I totally missed him when he was in the area. I think I was supposed to call him back, but I never did, being in such a foul mood and Song being such a nice guy, it might have been all for the best. I hope Song is the forgiving type. I know Juan isn’t. Juan is the condemning type, hence his charm.

Thanks to Bill involving me in Facebook once again, as John Ozed in case you’re interested, I found an old friend, Kelvin Joyner. I’ve known Kelvin on and off about 10 years. He used to work for a cartage company when I was working at Right Track Recording. He’s a real sweetheart, he’s had his troubles as have we all. He had a band back in the nineties, I think the working name was All Mighty. He asked me to play keyboards for them and I explained that I don’t play keyboards, but that was why he asked.

He knew I had a musical ear and with the right instrument I might be able to bring it out. I was game so I sat in on a few practices. It was perhaps the height of my Brian Eno infatuation so wearing the hat of a non-musician I played admirably, dispensing clavinet sounds as well as Eno-esque philosophies like, ‘it’s not what you play, it’s what you don’t play that matters’. Pretentious, yes? Well the band lasted about a month, I played with them a few times, before they disbanded or just kept playing and not telling me what was going on.

Still years later, I look back with fondness on Kelvin giving me the chance to sound like Jerry Harrison on certain Talking Heads tracks. I have some tapes somewhere, and I think I sounded pretty good, not great. They did cover one song, Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix, which I didn’t know at all then, but thanks to Kelvin’s enthusiasm, I eventually got into Jimi. Kelvin does have a band again, a three piece from what I could tell from his myspace page. Look him up, Kelvin Joyner, and give a listen to his songs. So that is where it’s at today, January 10, 2008. Crazy innit?