Noise War and Peace

I'm currently cat-sitting for a new friend of mine while he travels abroad...prudence dictates that I not post pictures of his vacant home on the internet; suffice it to say that his domicile has an honest-to- gosh yard, complete with a real front porch- a front porch that would be at home in the Appalachian foothills- a sittin' porch. A pickin' porch.

It was on this porch, however, that I learned that my musical prowess does not extend to the mandolin- I think I have a total of about ten ounces of body fat and it's evenly distributed amongst my clumsy, blundering fingertips... Electric guitar is much more suitable for me.

And bass. I love me some bass- I have an old 1960's Gibson SG Jack Bruce model that is so sweet and ergonomic that it almost plays itself-about half of my songs were composed on that bass -although my bassists often improved on my lines, freeing me up to work on guitar nitwittery.
That was one of the best things about being in a good band...I'd bring a rough sketch or recording of a song to rehearsal, introduce it to the band and we'd try it- often it didn't sound anything like my original vision- it would sound better. Less often, the tune would fall flat- this was usually the fault of the song, not the band...some of my songs sucked...anyway, back to my original point, which was...fuck, I dunno, sumthin' about guitar...or bass?

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Some vaguely bass-related advice: Don't engage in 'noise wars' with people you can't beat.

Many years ago, myself and several other guys shared a second floor apartment- the dudes living above us were the real-life models for Beevis and Butthead and they liked to play their Poodle Metal music loud. Really loud, through a full-sized PA.
Louder than my guitar amp- I had a Fender Twin and I couldn't hear myself practice- seriously loud.
War loud, it was.
One night it became so bad that I grabbed my baseball bat and went upstairs and waited for the song -Pyromania, I think- to end. Then I started bashing the metal door as hard as I possibly could- I had left three massive dents by the time I heard footsteps approach and a wary shadow moved behind the peephole.

What they saw through the fish eye lens was a 19 year-old me- shirtless , sweaty, drunk, beet-red and holding a Louisville Slugger. Smiling.

"Open up.I want to adjust your stereo."

They didn't respond, but the tunes stayed off for the rest of the night.

It quieted down for a bit after that, but the bad upstairs behavior soon resumed.
At 19, I fancied myself to be quite the 'large-A' Anarchist; about the last thing I would have considered was calling the Police for anything...but in this case, I didn't have to.
The authorities came to me.

I was weighing narcotics on my triple-beam scale when the FBI knocked on the door. I thought it was a customer-fuckin' coke-heads were always early, beat the joneses, ya know- so I walked down the hall and answered the door without stashing my gear.

I was greeted by two FBI Agents, a youngish black guy and an older white man- in hindsight, they looked like the guys from Men In Black, but that hadn't been filmed yet- who informed me that they were doing a background check on Beevis, who had apparently applied for a position in Law Enforcement. Did I know Beevis?, they asked, was there anything about his character that I'd like to comment on?

"Well, he really likes loud music. Those dents in the door upstairs were made by me, trying to get his attention- you have to knock really, really hard for him to hear you."

The agents were taking notes.

"I see. By loud music, do you mean they have lots of parties? Crowds, meetings, gatherings...that sort of thing?"

"No, I think it's just the two of them, although they may have had company last night. They threw a sofa out of their window- it's still in the alley, go look."

This, swear to Godzilla, was 100% true. My roomies and I were watching TV the previous evening when we saw a large piece of furniture plummet past outside, narrowly missing the fire escape.
It was a couch and it wound up smashed all over the cobblestones below us.
Messy and dangerous.

"A sofa?", asked a dumbfounded Feeb.

"Well, it was actually a sofa-bed. That's why I think they had help. Those things are too heavy for two dudes to throw."
I helpfully described last night's incident.

"What...what did you do when you saw a sofa fall past your window?", asked the younger agent.

"Do? What do you mean, do? "

"Did you call 911?" , the agent elaborated.

"No. Why? It was just a sofa- it wasn't on fire or anything-besides, the whole upstairs smelled like pot smoke and I didn't want to cause trouble. There are drug dealers in this building and some of them are crazy."

This got their attention.

"Drug dealers? In your opinion, is Beevis involved in drug activity?"

"I don't know. All I know is that it aways smells like weed when they are home."

After that interview, I felt pretty certain that Beevis wasn't going to get his badge...although I sadly suspect I may have been wrong.

Much more recently, my new neighbors decided to have an impromptu house party...they arrived home shortly after the pubs closed at 2AM and decided to celebrate their drunkenness by playing the same disco-dance song over and over and over, screaming and laughing the whole time...I don't know the song, all I could distinguish was the bass line and the beat, which repeated endlessly for hours while I vainly tried to sleep...I briefly considered visiting next-door, but I was afraid that I might show an alarming lack of tact...better to remain calm, I thought...I used the extra waking hours to pick out songs for my radio show...

...throughout my entire two-hour show, I could not get that goddamn bass line out of my head.

When I got home from the station, it was barely 9am and the noise next door had stopped. I imagined that my neighbors had finally drank enough to pass out and were eventually going to wake with some pretty sizable hangovers...I, however, was wide-awake and sober and I could clearly hear the ghost of that bass-line; loud and insistent- the buried heart of a murdered man.

An exorcism was called for.

For my ritual, I summoned the demi-god Gallien-Krueger, who , at 100 watts, is surprisingly loud.
Especially at full volume.

I pointed the bass speaker at my neighbor's bedroom and played the fucking monotonous chromatic bass line from their favorite song over and over and over and over until I heard the sound of people stirring.

This took about two minuteS.

Then I stopped and took a long, uninterrupted nap.

Later, I tried to play the cursed bass riff...and I couldn't recall it.

Success!

Obligatory Cat Post

I imagine you've heard of the seemingly ever-widening Poison Pet Food Disaster. I am happy to report that my two cats are healthy and gluten-free.
I had a half-dozen recalled cans that I had just bought but hadn't used yet. I read about the recall at work and traded the cans in at my grocers instead of poisoning my cats. Being a web junkie paid off- I saw the news as it broke.
This is Wilkins, (below). She's named after NFL placekicker Jeff Wilkins, who kicked a field goal that won a bet for me on the same day I got the cat. My buddy Mike found her inside a box left in the parking lot at his work. She was a kitten then. Now she's almost thirteen. She was a good mouser in her younger days, but my current digs don't have mice so I put her to work as a music critic.

I clear the floor and cover it with a shallow layer of CDs. Wilkins then walks over to the heap, sniffs around a bit and pushes a few aside. If one is really good, she'll bat it across the room, safely away from what happens next.
Once she has made her selections, she perches herself above the remaining discs and hunkers down on her haunches as if to shit. I always toss her outside at this point, so I don't know if she would really carry through with her turding or if it is just a critic's gesture.
Her picks are usually pretty good, although I've noticed she's started picking discs containing rampant profanity, which I cannot play on-air. I think she's slacking up because she misses her giblets n' gravy canned food.

This is Opus, my Tuxedo Cat. I think he's about ten- I got him from the pound and he was pretty grown-up by then. He's the second dumbest cat I have ever owned, but he's also the sweetest. He already has a long-term kidney problem, so he doesn't have 'normal' food in his regular diet anyway -so he was pretty safe from the recalled food.
He likes to go out in the rain. He will stand at the door and meow until I let him out. Then he runs outside and hides under a shrubbery until it stops raining or he gets hungry, whichever comes first. As I said, he's not very smart.

The dumbest cat I had was a Persian named Oliver. He used to leap into our old clawfoot bathtub and then pretend he couldn't get out. The stupid fucker could snatch a hunk of thawing hamburger from the top of the refrigerator but couldn't get out of the tub.
One night I came home from work and found a raging party in progress . Someone had given Oliver a dish of cream and Kahlua and he was wasted...a jar of honey somehow got spilled on the kitchen floor and my poor stupid drunken cat rolled in the honey.
When I opened the front door , Oliver rushed past into the street behind me. His sticky fur had already started accumulating debris- a few bottle caps, a cigarette butt, a lighter...

I turned around and chased him into traffic- I was almost as drunk as the cat- and somehow managed to wrestle him inside.
By the time me and my roomie Chris got Oliver into the bathtub, he was covered in honey , trash and street grime. We donned thick, long-sleeved garments and tried to wash the poor cat in the tub, but Oliver really didn't take well to being scrubbed and soaped.

We only had one choice. I cut the largest bits of trash out of his long fur with a pair of scissors while Chris held him tightly, then two of us held the cat while Chris used electric shears to shave the wretched beast.
Oliver ran directly into my bedroom and hid under the bed. He refused to come out until his fur had grown back, which took several weeks.

That cat was one sour-ass roommate.

Things Being Relative

"Hi!"

"Hey!"

*hug*

"How was your christmas?"

"S'ok, I s'pose. You?"

"It was awesome. Totally rocked!"

"Eh? Whatcha do?"

"I didn't see my mother-in -law for 24 hours."

"How's that?"

"I pulled a double at the veterinary clinic and spent the entire day watching animals suffer and die."

"Are you serious? You love animals...that sounds horrible."

"No, it was better than being home. I'd rather be stabbed in the eye with a stick than spend five minutes with her."

" Wow..."

"Wow... what?"

"I should stop complaining so much."

Doesn't Take Much

For such a miserable wretch, it sure doesn't take much to make me happy.
I've gotta admit that this Beta thing is much easier and switching was a breeze once I was finally allowed to- but what's really great is this Limewire thing. It's been a long time since I used a file-sharing program, but this one, coupled with a good anti-virus program, is a real winner- it's already consumed the first five hours of my day...man, I need more gigabytes, somewhere to put this stuff, ya know?

Try it, you'll like it.

Am I advocating music piracy? Arrrr, matey.

Of course, we pay publisher fees at the station and I honest-to -Godzilla really am downloading music for the public airwaves and being able to run specific searches totally rocks my world.

I'm so backwards.
This is brand new to me- I'm still playing LP's fer chrissake.

Here is how I used to look for new songs for my shows- whatever the cat doesn't pee on gets played.: