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| From a photo by Sherman Jacobsen, who aspires |
| to be a professional photographer |
- Leaving Shermans
- Famine
Back To The First Grade
This song is from page 5 of "Mastering The Guitar, Grade 1B." It's all of about 27 seconds long... I actually haven't "mastered" the one on page 3 yet; without having a note buzzing or missing one entirely.
I've always wanted to finish those Mel Bay books.
Using the drum tracks as a metronome is helping me to start out slowly on them and work the speed up.
There are touring musicians out there, who can't read a note of music...
Playing Head Games
I left Shermans Monday night after another "argument" during which it dawned upon me that the guy just doesn't have "all his marbles."
I feel sorry for him in a sense, but no more than I feel "sorry" for that Holmes guy who shot up the theater in Colorado. If that guy had walked around campus with that same look on his face that he sported at his arraignment, then it would have drawn attention and he would have been looked at as a crazy guy; therefore I think he is a phoney crazy guy, because he waits until he is in front of a judge to put that wide-eyed "crazy" look on his face....
Sherman, on the other hand, got pissed off at me because I was sitting in his kitchen with my headphones on and watching YouTube videos of "The Actors Studio," which is a show that I recently discovered.
I became fascinated by an interview with Robin Williams. (It was called an "interview" but 75% of it was Williams jumping up out of his chair and doing improvisation; the interviewer was lucky to get in about 7 questions in an hour!)
About half way through it, I paused it and went into the other room, where Sherman was playing a game on his computer, flying through space. I said "I'm sorry if I'm not very good company, I'm absorbed in this interview that I found on Actors Studio.
He said that it was alright, and that he was trying to be a good host.
Then, at one point, as I watched and listened through my headphones, Sherman came in the kitchen with his guitar (and my "Mastering The Guitar" book) and sat in the chair next to me and played for about a half hour.
I couldn't hear what he was playing because I was focusing upon Robin William's antics.
Finally there was a break, when I had to switch to the next segment of the interview (because it was in parts).
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| Grabbing My Attention Away From Sherman |
Sherman slammed the book closed and said "You know; you're pissing me off. You're sitting there watching 30 year old interviews of Robin Williams; when I'm putting on a pretty good concert here!"
"I had the headphones on, I couldn't even hear you," I said.
Then, he went on to tell me that he can't deal with someone who "makes himself comfortable" in his apartment, and that it was the thing that drove him out of Austin, Texas, "people playing head games!." My first day there, he had said "make yourself comfortable," by the way.
Then, he said something like: "...and Robin Williams isn't exactly one of my favorite people!," which made me feel like I was in Asia and having my YouTube censored.
(Robin is most likely part of Hollywoods conspiracy to blacklist Sherman, along with Warner Bros. and Garth Brooks and Rob Reiner).
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| Sherman In Baton Rouge |
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| (Sherman?) In New Orleans |
"I don't think this is working out," said Sherman. "I'll drop you off back in Scotlandville."
And that is what he did; and that is where I am now...
I have gotten more accomplished in my first day back here than I had the whole past week.
Even when I had gotten to use his studio equipment, I was distracted by the nature of his "attention." He reminds me of this guy in New Orleans that used to follow me around and do this (see photo). Sherman looks like the guy and, honest to God, puts his hands behind his head and stares at me like that. Try recording a song under that gaze!!
Famine
Well, I got to Scotlandville, where it took Howard a full day to notice the bruises and scrapes on my body, wherupon, I told him the story of my encounter with the young black guy in the ghetto.
He gave me 5 dollars.
The next morning, he left a couple of McDonalds sausage muffin things next to the newspaper which he always leaves near my head as I sleep at 7 a.m.
The guy who takes our aluminum cans came by with a cigarette one morning, and a couple of meat pies this morning.
I drank a quart of prune juice last night, which I had been saving in order to use to go on a juice fast. It feels good to be empty of food and I haven't lost any energy.
I still have a sleeve of spaghetti and may cook and eat it tonight.
I should be able to make it downtown tomorrow night, with half-rusted strings and not having eaten in a day, but I've gotten a lot accomplished these past couple of days, and I will lighten my backpack considerably before the 8 mile walk into town.
I am in the 4th chapter of the Perl Programming book, and have been practicing music -not necessarily trying to record it; except for sparse sketches, like using Audacity as a scratch-pad.
It's a sad fact that when someone takes you into their home, you're generally expected to entertain them.
ReplyDeleteI sold my non-running car, for a pitifully small amount. OK $600. On a landscape littered with dead cars, it's hard to sell a dead car. I like this because, everything else I own can be fit into my storage unit. So if I can't sell, say, my curve tracers right away, I can take 'em up there and they'll likely sell more easily from such a central location. The car was the one thing I couldn't fit in there.
So: This Saturday I take some stuff up to the storage, pick up the land owner at the airport, and with him back, my work-load goes way down. The next Saturday, I go to the swap meet with a friend's van and sell stuff off. What doesn't sell that I decide to keep goes into the storage. The Saturday after that is my target date to move out.
The thing is, I'm pretty busy with all of this, then the only time it's OK to practice is late at night we're talking 1AM, 2AM... and that's OK, you do it, but in my case I've done a whole lot of shit during the day so I'm tired out. It makes for lousy practice, and is of less value than sleep. This is where you're so much smarter than me: You've arranged your life so there's not much else to do but play the guitar.