Daily Speed Fix

Flat Tire Repair Drags On
I pondered the repair of the flat tire on my bike, having had the initial knee-jerk reaction, which had been programmed into me as a youth growing up in a middle class family, to just run out and buy a new tube at Walmart for about six bucks.
But, then I thought that, if I took the tube out of the flat tire and put it underwater, and saw where the bubbles were coming out, then I could probably use some Gorilla Glue and a patch of some kind of rubber that I might find somewhere, maybe on the side of the road, in the form of a tire tube attached to a bike frame locked to a signpost -maybe the thieves only wanted the tire, type of thing.
I finally went to Walmart and bought a new tube, which sat on the arm of my couch as I went back to sleep, having not gone out to busk on the previous (Wednesday) night, the 2nd of January, 2019 because it had been raining off and on, and because I would have had to take the trolley and then walk to the Lilly Pad.
Earlier this (Thursday) afternoon, I borrowed a socket set from Bobby and removed the back wheel, and then discovered only the tiniest of needle holes in the tube by dunking it in the kitchen sink. Bubbles were escaping single file through that tiny prick hole. I had spent seven dollars on a brand new Slimeʶ filled tube, only to discover that I might have fixed the flat for the cost of stuff I had laying around the apartment.
I threw back my head and wailed to the heavens.

The new Brown Derby

The next step will be to put the new tube in the tire and then carry it, detached from the bike, to the nearest air pump about a half mile away, at the Brown Derby gas station and convenience store. I have recently learned that this particular store is somewhat closer to the apartment than the ones I have been walking to regularly on Broad Avenue.
I measured this distance, planning upon starting a jogging program.

And, literally right across the street from it, the old Brown Derby (right) where the same stuff is cheaper, and the staff a lot more laid back, but where you will be skeezed (am I correct, guy leaning on the ice machine?) and where the inventory will have been supplemented with things like pickled pork feet, and where, if you are white, you will get a "whatcho doing here?" look, as if you have wandered into a colored restroom or something.

But, the walk to either Brown Derby is shorter, by about 350 yards, than the one that I had been making to the block where the Family Dollar is.

The Daily Speed Fix

Speaking of an old dog learning new tricks, I made an accidental discovery last night when playing back my "practice session" tapes.

What I have gotten into the hopefully healthy habit of doing is to practice for say an hour with a metronome; meaning an hour of running up and down scales and playing sections of songs out of the Mel Bay books, etc. keeping in time with the metronome.
Then, after I am done, I will apply the "change speed" effect to the practice session, increasing the speed and raising the pitch to a degree somewhere around double speed.
This allows me to listen back to my practice in about half the time it would take at normal speed.
And, it makes it twice as interesting to listen back to a practice session, which is usually just enough to hold my attention.
And, increasing the speed of playback makes the guitarist sound better, to a point.
A lot of guitarists who speed up their tracks don't do a good job playing music that is intended to be sped up. You almost have to study stuff that has been slowed down in order to hear the effect.
The vibrato especially has to be played in wide, slow arcs, so when it's sped up it won't warble too much.
Les Paul was famous for speeding up tapes.
I feel that it helps a player to increase his playing speed by listening to himself at double tempo, because after a half hour of that, he will tend to not go back to exactly as slow as he was playing before he sped himself up. The speed is kind of contagious.
That being said, I was doing the same thing last night, playing back my practice session when, by what might be a huge coincidence, the Audacity editor had a glitch and moved the left and right channels about six seconds out of time with each other.
This corresponded to almost exactly a six beat shift, (to within 20 milliseconds, which I compensated for) and produced the "fugue" of which the above comes from.

There were spots where the happy accident produced something like splattering colored paint in a way that it looked cool, to other places that turned into legitimate "compositions" with the two parts being musically sound.

I'm out of time for this post, but, enjoy "Daily Speed Fix!"