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4-Days good at the Banjo

It's now been 4 days of Banjo playing and I continue to proudly hold the title of best Banjo player in my house.  Taking a similar approach as I did with the last excercise, I found a piece I liked and played it a few hundred times (in a row per sitting).  I have no idea how my wife can stand to listen to the same 20 second clip of music that many times without wanting to pry the banjo out of my hands.

The high-G continues to be counter-intuitive, and in this song it's emphasized even more as the high G plays into the melody, not just as part of the roll.   Here's what the song is supposed to sound like; She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain.  It's faster than I can imagine playing right now and if I attempt to play it even close to this speed I just trip over myself.  I'm quick to blame the fact that I'm still using the plastic picks and not the typical metal banjo picks.  It couldn't possibly be that I've only played for 4 days.  Anyways, I ordered some metal picks from Amazon.com last night as no guitar store around here carries them.  I expect to be humbled by the fact that they don't make me the banjo wizard I claim to be.

Here's the pay-off of 4-days worth of banjo practice.   The World Cup jersey allows me to tag this blog with both Banjo and World Cup, hopefully making this the top search hit if anyone ever Googles "World Cup Banjo".

45-Minutes Good at the Banjo

  PIck one for me Son

About 15 years ago my dad bought a banjo at the pawn shop near the 99 Restaurant in Market Basket plaza in Ashland.  Neither the pawn shop or the restaurant are there anymore, and the banjo has lived in my closet unplayed until now.

I've gone through phases in the past 10 years where I pick up random instruments (accordion, mandolin, etc) but typically only get good enough to impress my grandma.  I don't know why the banjo stayed untouched for this long but in the past few weeks I've set to change this.

The process started by telling people I'm going to learn the banjo.  I figured that if I told enough people at least one of them would follow up with me the next time they saw me.  I didn't want to let them down.

The second step involved restringing the banjo.  While the strings sounded okay, they seemed brittle and every time I attempted to tune it I would cringe at the idea of a string breaking.   The strings were most likely older than me.

The process was easier said than done and probably took close to an hour.  I first took all the strings off so I could remove the relic dust off the neck and drum.  It may have been dust from the fingers of Earl Scruggs for all I know, but I'm off to set my own, cleaner, legacy.  The end of each string had a loop, and not the nut that I expected.  This meant that instead of simply pulling the string though the holes, you somehow had to attach the loop to a tiny clip.  It took me over 10 minutes to get one attached, completely sober.  How the southern pickers did this on their dimly lit porch with a whiskey in one hand, a cousin in the other, I don't know.

On a side note, sitting indian style for a long period of time was comfortable as a 3rd grader.  But as a thirty year old it's quite painful.  Things fall asleep quickly, and after getting up my muscles hurt like I had just run a marathon.  I have no idea how adult Indians sit like this for so long.

The final step involved learning to play, something that I figured wouldn't be that hard after the grueling first 2 steps.  I'm fairly comfortable finger-picking a guitar but I was quickly reminded that at the banjo, I'm starting from nothing.

I'm not at all used to finger picks; the awkward plastic or metal snaps you put on your fingers to give it a more percussive sound.  At first it made hitting the correct string a guessing game and I only assume I'll get used to it.  But luckily for what I was playing hitting the wrong string didn't really ever sound wrong.  Since the banjo is open-tuned to a G chord, missing a string just made it sound different, but not necessarily wrong.

What's very counter-intuitive is the high G-string.  The very top string is a high G, followed by a low D and it goes up from there.   In every other instrument I've played your fingers travel in one direction to go higher, and the reverse goes lower.  It felt painfully wrong that the first string was not the lowest string.

I played an exercise called Wildwood Flower, though it sounds nothing like the Nitty-Gritty Dirt Band recording I found.  I spent the majority of the 45-minute session playing the 5 second clip over and over again.  I probably played it a few hundred times.   Anyways, here it is.  45-minutes of banjo payoff...




Next up, She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain!

A Thong and a Kayak

When I started to feel like I was getting better at photography I joined Flickr.  At first I craved the approval of other Flickr members by putting my photos in various groups to maximize the number of comments I'd receive.   Many groups when as far as creating virtual trophies that members gave to other contributors in hope that the favor would be returned.  I've since grown tired of this, but not with Flickr in general.

What I find interesting now is how people come across my photos.  In the past few days I've seen a huge increase in "Ronnie James Dio" searches reach my photos, which makes sense with the passing of the metal God last Sunday.  Some of the searches, however, are more puzzling.

Last year some friends and I went to the New Hampshire lakes area.  I happened to have my zoom lens on when we stumbled across an interesting characters getting her kayak ready for voyage.  She had obviously not prepared for the event as she was wearing thong underwear and a t-shirt.  In my book that's perfectly acceptable and not far from a traditional bathing suit, but I found it funny enough to take a few quick shots from a safe distance.  I never would have guessed it would be the most viewed photo in my Flickr collection by over 3,000 views.  The photo itself now has over 4,500 hits with the next non-thong photo having only around 400 hits.  It averages 20 hits per day still.  In keeping this someone family friendly I won't post the photo directly, but you can find it Here.

How do people find this photo?  There are the obvious options such as "kayak", "thong" and "bikini".  But on a daily basis people search for "Kayak Thong" or "Canoe Bikini".  I'm yet to learn if this is a fashion related search or a fetish.  There's another photo involving someone holding 2 ice cream cones that I labeled "Double Fisting Soft Serve".   While you can imagine some of the searches one troubling and re-occurring search is "Soft Fisting".  I don't have the stomach to put that into a google search, but I hope my photo isn't front and center.

A few times a week people search for "Lego Spiderman" and "Olden Day Beds" and get my photos.  Those seem harmless and consistent.  After a trip to Italy I took a photo of a lady pulling her child on a raft that said "Formula Uno".  That received tons of hits as I assume it's a popular sport in Italy.  I'm not sure if they were disappointed when it was just a lady in a bikini, but they clicked it.

Live Like You're Living Still

Looking at the hands of the time we've been given

If this is all we got and we gotta start thinking

If every second counts on a clock that's ticking

Gotta live like we're dying

- Who ever wrote that Kris Allen song that kinda reminds me of the Macarena

I understand the point that's being made here. We should tell those that we love that we love them since you never know when the guy in the car in front of you will come after you with shovel. But overall it's an awful approach to daily life.

To live like you're dying...

1) Tell your loved ones that you love them (hey this is a good one)

2) Seek medical care

3) Sell your stuff

4) Put your career on hold. Graduate school isn't going to help you at this point

5) Don't shop at wholesale clubs. Dying men don't need a pack of 24 paper towels. Buy one roll; you're dying.

6) Have some fun. Go on a trip or spending spree.

So ya, don't live like you're dying. That's stupid and morbid. Live like you have a tomorrow or your tomorrow will not turn out too well. If you need to pretend to be dying to tell those you love that you love them, you probably don't love them too much anyways.

Blow you away

The cops have stopped ten miles of traffic

They're sorry for all the delay

No need for alarm as they're waving their arms

But they'd just as soon blow you away

- Robert Earl Keen

I don't try to hide the fact that I think I'm a better driver than "that guy". Horns are there for a reason and serve a very useful purpose; to remind you that I see your driving failures.

I was in a situation a few days ago where I was next in line at a 4-way stop. It was clearly my turn to go but another car jumped the gun, and the car behind him followed suit. I was cut by 2 cars so I gave a quick beep. As I proceed down the same road as the 2nd car he comes to a stop, gets out of the car, and mouths "are you beeping at me?".

Who else would I be beeping at? He must have known that I was beeping at him but I shrugged my shoulders, shook my head and mouthed "No". That seemed to relax the man so he got back in his car and drove away. No one took their shirts off or broke their beer bottles in two.

It did get me thinking about other outcomes to that very innocent situation. What if I had the same personality as "that guy"? Would we just have beat eachother to a bloody stump only to spend the next year in prison? I'm guessing prisons are filled with people like this.

Breakfast Anytime

Breakfast is the first meal of the day. - The F'ing Dictionary

As most of my friends lovingly appreciate, I don't abide to the notion that breakfast can be eaten anytime. Your local diner can advertise having breakfast all day but there are special places in hell for liars like that, and their families.

Take this case study. Say you're at work and you've just gone out to lunch with your friends. You've creatively chosen to eat "breakfast"; maybe an omelet. When you return your boss asks you if you ate lunch yet. Do you respond "yes, I already ate", or the more confusing answer of "no, I ate breakfast again"? There is no good answer to this question given society's approach to meal definition.

The literal solution to this is to refer to eggs at lunch as "foods typically associated with breakfast". This will never catch on and is not the solution I propose. My solution is more of a food revolution that makes all foods acceptable at any time.

Why can't you eat a hamburger in the morning for breakfast? Steak & Eggs is perfectly acceptable at Denny's. How about a Ham & Cheese sub? An egg omelet with toast is fine. You can pretty much take any typical entree and rearrange the ingredients to be acceptable breakfast items. I've heard many people wish they could get an egg mcmuffin after 10:30AM but why not take that one step further. Why can't I get a Big Mac at 7AM?

The stance on our cultures food norms is steadfast. New cookbooks written by celebrity chefs advertise either authenticity or simplicity. Why would you want either? Authentic just means someone's cooked it before, just somewhere else, probably. Simple is just lazy and uncreative.

We're still at a place in time where using fried potato products as condiments is laughed at. Meats beyond the cow, chicken or fish are considered gross. Has food really evolved in the past 50 years? Sure there's cheaper and more efficient production, but the goal is to make the end product the same.

The food revolution starts now, led by me and probably featuring only me.

Lonely In Columbus

It's such a lame excuse to say I'm tired

Everyone is tired, more or less

-- Stephen Kellogg

This quote got me thinking about another quote recently, though I have no idea who originally said it to, um, quote it.

It was maybe 6 or 7 years ago and my memory says I heard it on a weekday morning show. It went something like this; If you are given the option of either staying in or going out, you will most likely never regret choosing the option to go out. This is obviously geared towards a certain crowd; 20-something, no kids and at least some disposable income. It's also very circumstantial as there are obvious cases where staying in is a better option (hey, let's run naked through Chuck e Cheese).

I wish I had taken this advice 15 years ago. It's easier to tell your friends you're tired on a Thursday night after working all day. But guess what, everyone works almost every day and being tired is no longer an excuse in my book.

It also got me thinking about how it can be useful in all aspects of life. Should I finishing writing that song? Should I wash the car? Should I go to the gym? Should I try yet another application of tater tots? Should I sit around and watch TV until I fall asleep? In most cases the only option that you'll regret later is the latter.

It's easier said than done, but whenever I chose the latter I later regret it. It's time for me to create my own Red Rock Canyon.

What kind of country music do I like?

If someone asked me if I like country music the answer would be Yes. However, I forced myself to listen to the local country radio station and I found myself wanting to scrape my face off. I don't like the country music they play on the radio, or anything labeled pop country music, but how exactly do I explain which type of country music I actually like?

I asked Yahoo! to see if their users could help out. I suggested that I like these artists; Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snider, Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, etc. I received a response of 'oldies', 'classics', or 'Americana'. The first two aren't acceptable as I'd consider half of these artists contemporary. Americana may be close but invokes images of of native Americans and fields of gold. Is it folk-country, rock-country, outlaw-country, Austin Texas-country? Those all seem acceptable (for iTunes taxonimies), but I'm not sure they all fall into one of these categories. Maybe it's just everything except pop-country that I like.

The country music I heard over the past 24 hours was heavily over-produced with instruments taking a back seat to the polished vocals. The lyrics weren't interesting, or quirky, and seemed more applicable to the spring break crowd... he really likes this bar, she really likes This Kiss, he always starts the fights... it's just not interesting.

John Prine sings about waking up and dying while distributing his body parts around. Keen sings about how strangers you meet would "just assume blow you away", but in a way that makes you smile, not sleep with a revolver under your pillow.

I am not going to come to a conclusion other than I like what I like, and of course, that what I like is better than what you like.