When's This Day Good?
Last night, I went into New Orleans and noticed that the streets were relatively deserted of tourists.
I still planned upon playing; but after grabbing a Hurricane Lager and riding the purple bike *see below* to my spot on Bourbon, I found that I just couldn't get going, so I got going.
That Frank Thing
I wound up working on new material; specifically; the changing of the chords of "It Was A Very Good Year," the Frank Sinatra classic, to more jazzy ones.
There is no way that Franks orchestra was playing "plain" C major or D major chords in the spots indicated thus in the Fake Book.
These are occasions where the seasoned jazz musican will alter them on the fly and change the "color" of the piece. And the non seasoned jazz musician will sit at his playing spot experimenting with major 7th, 11th, 13ths and their extended families until he hits upon harmonies that just haave that "Frank" thing going on...
The (purple) Bike
Someone has left an unlocked bike about 10 feet from where I lay my head.
It has been there a week.
Yesterday, I rode it.
The tires need air; but it is a lot faster than walking and allowed me to be at my playing spot sooner and to shorten the length of my breaks; when I might otherwise walk to the store and back...
It must look like enough of a piece of junk that it wasn't stolen the 3 times I parked it in front of The Unique Boutique and then ran in (i.e. turned my back on it) for a couple minutes.
Rob, the surfer claims that the police were watching the bike and advised me not to ride it.
I told him that they were certainly watching it trying to catch the person who might have eluded justice on it; or who might have ditched it after being captured on camera in the commission of a crime while riding the bike.
Last night, I went into New Orleans and noticed that the streets were relatively deserted of tourists.
I still planned upon playing; but after grabbing a Hurricane Lager and riding the purple bike *see below* to my spot on Bourbon, I found that I just couldn't get going, so I got going.
That Frank Thing
I wound up working on new material; specifically; the changing of the chords of "It Was A Very Good Year," the Frank Sinatra classic, to more jazzy ones.
There is no way that Franks orchestra was playing "plain" C major or D major chords in the spots indicated thus in the Fake Book.
These are occasions where the seasoned jazz musican will alter them on the fly and change the "color" of the piece. And the non seasoned jazz musician will sit at his playing spot experimenting with major 7th, 11th, 13ths and their extended families until he hits upon harmonies that just haave that "Frank" thing going on...
The (purple) Bike
Someone has left an unlocked bike about 10 feet from where I lay my head.
It has been there a week.
Yesterday, I rode it.
The tires need air; but it is a lot faster than walking and allowed me to be at my playing spot sooner and to shorten the length of my breaks; when I might otherwise walk to the store and back...
It must look like enough of a piece of junk that it wasn't stolen the 3 times I parked it in front of The Unique Boutique and then ran in (i.e. turned my back on it) for a couple minutes.
Rob, the surfer claims that the police were watching the bike and advised me not to ride it.
I told him that they were certainly watching it trying to catch the person who might have eluded justice on it; or who might have ditched it after being captured on camera in the commission of a crime while riding the bike.
Hmm, interesting point about the bike. Just to prove/disprove Rob's theory, paint "FUCK THE POLICE" on the bike in large letters. That should settle it.
ReplyDeletewhomever ditched the bike was wanted for a much more serious thing than stealing a 30 dollar bike; I assume; or maybe Ron (it's actually Ron; Howard mis-heard it as Rob) was just imagining things and the police were sitting there watching the ferry terminal for someone trying to flee NOLA and not the bike
ReplyDeleteHeh.
ReplyDeleteWell, my fancy-schmancy MacBook Air that I'd treated myself to 10 months ago when I moved out of Gilroy to here, is dying. Somehow, some water or brandy or something got into it, and unlike an iBook I had years ago that "drank" some Guinness and kept on tootin', this thing's delicate as hell so I'm selling it off and will get a tablet or a smart phone or something.
I hustled ribbons on Friday and Saturday, and ended up "up" to the tune of $100, thus making $200 in savings right now. Selling this computer will add $500 or $600 to that. The idea is to not spend it all on a tablet or smartphone, but have money to rent a violin from my violin shop owner friend, who's also helping me learn to repair violins/bows.
Meanwhile, I'm going to use an old ThinkPad I got for $100, klunky but it's a real mo-chine. That will just stay in the office once I've got the smartfone/tablet.
Getting back to bikes ... If you got a bike with saddlebags, or a bike trailer, yeah it'd be an eyesore but you could park it where known friendly people could watch it, or just make the bags etc super secure, and that way you might not have to carry your stuff *everywhere*. Another option might be a small storage unit. The cheapest around me are $50/month but they might be cheaper there.