Johnny Gimble

When he said something, you thought "What's the other meaning?" His granddaughter mentioned this.  I smiled and agreed.   There was always at least one other meaning.  Perhaps a pun.
Yes he was a great musician, and he was one of those who "play to live."  Like me, he always looked like he was having a tremendous time.  Unlike me, I believe he was.  And of course the joy was infectious.
He gave everybody a solo and collaborated on a lot of what are called "twin parts."  "Arrangements," actually.
Somewhere in the later '80s, I played with him up near Liberty Hill, and I caught him conversing with the Christian spirits.  He felt something impending.  I guess it was that first stroke.  He lived to recover and make a couple records with which I helped.  His playing had been effortless before the stroke, pure joy.   After it, he told me, it required effort.  Sounded, if anything, even better, more astounding on Beaumont Rag for instance.   And then a decade and a half, and now gone.
I heard some of the old Texas Playboys enjoying this humorous line of talk:  "Hey, when you die can I have your <      > ?"  (fiddle, car, wife….)   Ha ha ha.
I would like to be Johnny.  I know he suffered, as humans do.  But he was elemental.  He was plugged into some vast positive reservoir that now feels inaccessible to me.   It is dammed up somewhere on the Cap Rock, beyond a thousand pumpjacks silently murmuring "Dollar….dollar….dollar….."

Memoirs

"These memories are really hard to forget!"   An old friend said this to me Friday, smiling.   I mean really old, older than me   !    Usually the elderly jokes are, well, about hiding your own Easter eggs kind of thing.

Sorry.  I've been reading DF Wallace again, and I slip into being one of his sad characters.

I've also been inspired to begin my memoirs.   The funny thing is, I don't remember much at all.  Or, I should say, I remember quite a bit, but it's memories for gosh sakes, not facts!   Not real stuff that really happened.  Just impressions.   I desperately want to write interesting things.   There are facts, but they all seem so mundane.  e.g.  I watched a guy mainline adrenaline once, and he turned a little green.  (I also watched the same guy mainline gin and get drunk really fast).   Later he had yellow eyes.   He and I were students at an Ivy League college.   Smart guys.

Facts.   Perhaps.   The world is all that is the case, or ever was or will be the case.

What makes it into the memoirs?   Haven't really firmed that up yet, but I hope everything does.  All of it.   It'll be a really long memoir.  One idea would be not to die until after it is published.   But then I'll have to live nearly forever.   Facts, impressions, lies, slanty posturing re this or that idea of God or theory of knowledge, whatnot.

How is Kickstarter different from begging?  And is begging lame?   Better than working for a living I'd say.   Better than working for a living.   Not easier though.

Remember this:   I love you.

Passwords

Please enter you Reader Username and Password before proceeding.

Thank you.

Now type the encrypted message:     #$%^)(*&^%$#%^&*(*&^%$%^&*()

Thank you.

You know, I respect the crap out of you, but I have to protect my sacred personal information from hackers, ex-wives, drug dealers and the government.

Oh, wait…  the government can get in just fine.

Good old government.

I actually love you all.   I have nothing to hide from anybody.   Do you hear???
In any case, we ALL are ONE.  What, haven't taken LSD?   Trust me, we're all one.
Privacy is highly overrated.

I'm old.  It took me about 3 hours today to circumvent my privacy protection merely to purchase a new telephone.   Of course, many of the basic functions of the phone are neutered by my failure to recall a mere 5 or 97 passwords.

Thank God my sacred data is inaccessible.
To everyone.

I had issues with my data.

Why?

I'm pretty sure no one reads my blog....I was going to say bleeds my rog.  And now I did.
It's fine.  It's art.

More (boring) on email and (yay!) Dogs

There is SO much evidence that dogs are better.  First, they don't generally live as long as we do.   Initially this troubled me.   But look:   they live their perfect dog lives more efficiently than we do.
They get along without silly "abstract thought."   I'm sure there's research on this, but though it makes sense to say "My dog thought your dog was going to hurt him,"  there was not a "thought" involved.
(And "did he draw blood?  oooh,  sorry")

All the best things bypass the brain.   I am currently having a great deal of trouble understanding the value of the brain, the "thinking" part.

Dogs do not, as far as I know, use email.   So they don't have to wonder "Should I send this??"   I think it's very very important for us who do use email to have this thought.   Do I really need to send this?
You see, you know, I hate getting email.  Nothing to do with reason.  Email feels like an assault; and the ones meant for me are the worst, worse than any spam, because they are ALL calls to action.  Well, most are.  And I have to digest them, wade through misspellings, poor syntax, all that, and then....ewww... reply.  But it occurred to me that if I really believe all emails to be assaults, then if I reply, I am assaulting back.   I have vowed to wait at least 30 minutes before sending ANY email.  And ask that question several times:  "Really, really does this person need this reply??"   Likely not.

While I was musing on these things, my email server went down --  for most of a day ---   and I couldn't send anything, nor receive.  I felt neutered.   The dogs, one of whom is already neutered, felt and thought nothing.  His tail was not between his legs all day, like mine was.

More 'What's Better?!"

Back by popular demand.....

What's worse?

Fleas or bees  (fleas)
corncobs or hay futures
hey or hay

See, What's Worse? is not as funny as "What's Better."   Try it yourself.

I guess what makes them funny is that some are what used to be called "category mistakes"(as in Aristotelian) and some are not.

lacking an appendix or lacking an index
or lacing a tenny shoe

Lacking a tenny shoe is not a category mistake, but lacing an index pretty much is.

your finger or my thumb

good brakes or bad breaks

I give up or I don't give up

This is silly or this is really really silly

modern music and the carnival of the animals

Modern Music
by Junkmenudo

This paper will prove conclusively that.... nothing.  I was wrong...

dot dot dot

Modern music is loud and virtually omnipresent.  That's because music is essentially sound, and sound, like rats and snakes, can slide up and around and down and into your bedroom!

Not mine, thank you.

Sound doesn't care.

The huge music festival going on in my town (?) 4 miles from me is quite audible in my house.
Lucky me.  Tickets cost hundreds. 
I guess the sound just hops down into the creek bed and floats upstream, happy to be in the park today.  
But what is the cost of this omnipresent snake-rat?

I don't know.  I just have to face the fact that I'm old now, and all the music I hear coming out of speakers large and small is in fact noise (since I am the ultimate arbiter of such things, being old and wise).   I should be grateful I can still hear, right?

My two dogs' have different music preferences.  Music coming out of speakers is mostly a non-entity to both of them.  They seem not to hear it.   As for live music:  the ornery, cagey one loves cello and piano. Clearly loves them, even played less than well.    The neurotic one (bad family of origin issues) seems to love the fiddle.  He sings along, especially to double-stops.  His singing sounds like deep distress, but in that way it is superior to much of the singing I hear in speakers.
Especially, the chick singers almost all suck.   No, it's all the singers.   (Do something!)
The reaction of both dogs to live trombone was to head for the doggy door at great speed, collide there like Laurel and Hardy, and then quickly reach the most distant corner of the yard.

My dogs don't like bones.   The ornery one will kill a rat, maybe even a snake.