With Bait Sauce

I like kimchi, so I decided to make some. I cut up two cabbages and soaked them in salt water. I poured out most of the water and added some juice from a jar of store kimchi, so the bacteria would transfer. Then I left the cabbage out for several days, in a bowl on the table. I added ground Trinidad Scorpions, shallots, garlic, ginger, and paprika.

Today I tried some. It’s pretty good, but it looks like something that fell out of a dumpster. For the heck of it, I added a little Thai fish sauce, which is made from rotten fish. The fish sauce was a little over the top, but I managed to choke the kimchi down.

My question: am I a gourmet, or do I just like eating garbage?

I noticed something funny. A guy named David Zinczenko writes about food for Men’s Health Magazine. He knows absolutely nothing about good food. He’s probably just a hack writer who found a gimmick. He wrote some awful books with names like, “Don’t Eat This; Eat That!”

Yahoo runs his articles. They used to allow comments. Readers were generally furious, calling him a Nazi and so on. And they were right. He has the same attitude toward good food that liberals have toward conservative speech: don’t let people choose; just take away the things you think they shouldn’t have. He doesn’t just let you know food is bad for you; he whines that the restaurants that serve it should stop!

Now Yahoo won’t let people comment. Is that really the answer? His ridiculous articles still make people angry. Now they’re probably even angrier, because Yahoo won’t let them respond.

What is it with the left’s obsession with ruining our food? It predates Hitler, who (like some of his flunkies) was a health-food nut. If you want to tell people about healthy food, great, but why crusade to have real food taken out of people’s hands? I still get mad when I think about the ordinance they passed in LA, banning fast food restaurant construction in minority neighborhoods. Only white liberals should be allowed to decide what people eat; minorities are too stupid to take care of themselves!

No one who knows how to cook is dumb enough to think you can take the fat and carbs and salt out of food without ruining it. Some foods taste good even when they are completely healthy, but others can’t be made healthy, and there is no point in trying. Healthy cheesecake is garbage. Healthy pizza is garbage. Healthy steak is garbage. There are some foods you can’t “correct” without ruining them.

Cooking is an art, and neutering our food damages that art. Why don’t the food Nazis understand that? These are the same people who have a conniption if you suggest our tax dollars shouldn’t be used to subsidize “art” consisting of photos of crucifixes submerged in urine. They think pornography is art, but somehow, cooking doesn’t matter.

Thank God most of us can still buy a Coke or a pizza without bribing a local socialist official. I wonder how long that will last.

No One Robs an Empty Bank

The other night, for no apparent reason, the following thought kept repeating in my mind: “There will always be people who owe you, and you’re going to have to get used to it.”

I thought that was weird. But eventually it started to make sense to me. If you are blessed, you will be required to give and lend to others, and they will owe you. This is how a blessed life works. You are supposed to be like God, and God has what it takes to bless people, and he helps them, and often, they don’t thank him or make any effort to repay. If you give and lend and people don’t have any gratitude, welcome to God’s situation. This is what he deals with every day.

I think this means I will continue to be blessed, and that I have to bless others, and that I have to get used to giving them more than I get.

That’s actually a very good deal. It sure beats owing and lacking. People who owe and don’t repay are not blessed. They are cursed. They live in failure and defeat. They live with worry. A person who can afford to be taken advantage of is much better off.

It’s clear that this is a good way to live, because the Bible repeatedly says blessed people give and lend.

Examples from Psalm 37:

“The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy and giveth.”

“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.”

We are told that if we are blessed, we will lend and not borrow. That is true in my case. I have no long-term debts. Not even a car note. God has certainly kept his promise with regard to me, and I can’t say I earned it.

Deuteronomy 28:12: “The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.”

It’s important to understand that lending gives you power and borrowing makes you a slave. Fools think it’s the other way around. The other night, I saw a movie about Chess Records. Muddy Waters was telling a new artist–Howlin’ Wolf–he wouldn’t have to keep driving a dirty old truck, and Howlin’ Wolf said, “I own this truck. It doesn’t own ME.” Later on in the movie, it became clear that Howling Wolf had money, and Muddy Waters–the bigger star–lived in debt and had no net worth.

If you have debt, you are the slave of the person from whom you borrowed. You can’t quit a bad job, because you need the money. You can’t afford to be sick. You can’t get ahead. The things you think you own can be taken away from you in a day. And a good deal of what you earn will go to pay interest, which buys you nothing and extends your servitude. If you default, you lose your reputation, which is worth more than the money you stole. Your credit report will follow you like a bad smell, helping assure that you will continue to lack. Worst of all, you won’t gain real wealth, which is the set of habits and beliefs and skills that lead to prosperity. You will always fail, until you change. Even if people give you money, you will lose it, and you will lose more than you were given.

Last night I was talking to another Armorbearer at church. He said he took out a loan to help a relative’s business. The relative can repay, but chooses not to. The relative is not on the hook with the bank; my friend is the one taking the hit.

I thought it was odd that he was telling me this right after I heard that thought rolling around in my head, so I told him about it, and I told him what I thought it meant. He found it very encouraging. So, was the message given to me so I could give it to him? Could be.

Here’s the funny part. There is a young man at church who mooches rides from me. He lives a long way off, in a really bad area. He’s a big fan of my garlic rolls. Last night we heard a sermon about the need to be dedicated and serious and grateful for blessings, and the pastor talked about all the free stuff his parents had given him when he was a kid, and he mentioned bread and rolls. The ride guy yelled “GARLIC!”, and even though I couldn’t see him, I knew who it was.

While I was telling my AB friend about the debt thing, I looked over his shoulder and saw the garlic roll guy looking at us, and I knew exactly what was going to happen. God was going to make me put my money where my mouth was. I ended up dropping him off in the hood at about 10:30, and I felt better about it than I have on the other occasions when I have given him lifts.

I have to get used to being owed. I am going to owe or be owed, and I would rather be owed. And I have to acknowledge my own debt to God. If he can live with my large debt to him, I can live with the little debts others owe me.

It’s not enough to apply this principle to money. I have to apply it to time and works, including prayer.

You can either be a sink or a source, and a source’s nature is such that people take from it. That’s how things work, and I accept it.

Glowing Habaneros Dance in my Innards

As is usually the case when I cook for myself, I am in ecstasy. Last night I made super-hot Ethiopian chicken stew (doro wat) from my own recipe, and I just ate a big pile of it wrapped in a homemade roti with sour cream.

I can’t believe how great it was. I added an extra minced habanero gold, and I reheated it. The flavors got more intense in the fridge overnight. My head is still spinning.

It amazes me how the good Lord has sharpened up my cooking. I am the best cook I know. I cook better food than any restaurant I know of. I have zero desire to go out and get food, except for stupid things like Five Guys.

What is the reason for this? There has to be a reason. I don’t eat that much any more. I don’t get to cook many exciting things at church. But there should be some purpose for this great food, beyond giving me a thrill once a week or so.

I have given up on injera. It’s okay, but nothing beats a roti, and rotis are easier to make.

I left the boiled eggs out of the stew. They don’t do that much for me.

I wish I had put more peppers in the stew. I’m not really in that much pain.

Flame On!

I have a mild head cold which is killing my appetite. At times like this, I only want ice cream and spicy food. I think the answer is doro wat, or Ethiopian chicken stew.

I put a recipe for this in my cookbook. I think I’ll get the book out and get to work. I plan to use some peppers from my yard. Either habanero golds or Trinidad scorpions. The trick to doing this right is to try to kill yourself.

Fruition

Last week was fantastic.

For the last few years, I’ve been dealing with a nagging problem. My primary approach to solving it has been supernatural. I have chosen to hold off on using some earthly weapons I have at my disposal. God has been completely faithful; last week he gave me a big victory, in pretty much the way I asked for it. Maybe I’ll write about it eventually.

I’m having lots of fun with the guitar. My arm pain went away when I started using dumbbells to exercise my forearms. Last week, I noticed I was bending the .73mm Dunlop pick I was using, along an axis from the tip to the back, and I realized I was getting too strong for it, so I upgraded to a .88mm pick. Now I’m playing louder and clearer, because the pick is stiffer. I’m not completely ready for the heavier pick, but I can’t go back to the thin one, and I know I will get stronger during the coming month.

My left hand is also getting better. Notes I could not fret well in the past are sounding clearer. I suppose it will be another couple of months before I really feel strong.

I suspect that the dumbbells are improving my hand strength, not just my forearm strength. Maybe forearm workouts are a good idea for guitarists, generally.

The Burny Les Paul I bought is turning out to be a wonderful investment. I got a little help with the electronics (guitarist from my church advised me), and now I am able to use a Fat Sandwich pedal to get a B.B. King tone you would not believe. I actually wrote down all the settings so I could repeat it. You can convert your amp, guitar, and electronic settings to numbers in order to record them in a compact notation. Figured that out on my own.

The neck on my Chinese Epiphone is actually slightly better than the one on the Burny, but that’s probably a truss rod thing.

I think I’m going to stick with nines and tens (strings) for the foreseeable future. The Burny has DR Pure Blues nines on it, and the tone is pure bliss, and it’s easy to play. I have some problems feeling the strings with the pick sometimes because they’re so thin, but I think I can overcome that. I am able to get three distinct notes out of a single bend, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do that with heavier strings. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t think it’s a strength issue. I think it’s just the nature of heavy strings. They don’t seem to increase in pitch as much for the same degree of bending.

I really wanted to get a Japanese Les Paul and put single-coil pickups on it, but I can’t stand to take the humbuckers off my Burny. They’re amazing. So what do I do? I guess I’ll have to get a second Burny eventually. What if I like the pickups on that one? Hope that doesn’t happen. Every so often, one turns up with P90s already installed. Maybe that’s the best bet.

I am ready to take the next step in my Fretboard Logic studies. I have the “CAGED” thing pretty well under control, although I can’t make an A-type chord above the seventh fret. It’s impossible for me to line up three fingers between two frets that high up. I assume the answer is to do a sloppy second bar with the ring finger. I can’t believe a human hand exists which can get three fingers into that space.

I have to start writing original variations and tunes. I have been determined to learn to impersonate recordings accurately, because this is a sure way to build good technique, but I have to do my own thing, too. I already have the tab paper. I should get a tab-editing program.

It’s difficult to write tab, because you have to put down the guitar pick and pick up a pen, and it breaks the concentration. I may start writing it with my left hand. It doesn’t have to be pretty the first time around. I can fix it later.

I still think about my upcoming major guitar purchase. It’s slated for January. Right now, I’m strongly considering a Heritage H555 with single coils. But I may have to put the decision off until I really know what I want.

I may try out high-end guitars and discover that vintage Japanese guitars are as good or better. If that happens, there is no way I’m going to drop a pile on an American-made money sink. When you own a tool that costs too much, you tend to treat it like a sick baby, and you don’t get proper use from it. I am not afraid to risk the destruction of an $800 Japanese guitar, but I would be very nervous about putting a new Heritage on an airplane.

It should not be a surprise that the Japanese make great electric solidbody guitars. Japan is considered to be the home of the finest carpentry in the world. The strange thing is that their acoustics (and most of their pianos) are so bad. I guess it makes sense. A Les Paul is just a neck and a board, so if you make them fit together right, you should get a great sound. Copying the sound of a complicated hollow box would surely require more familiarity with American culture and the American sound.

Even semi-hollow electrics do not require perfect resonating chambers, so presumably, Japanese ES copies are also good.

Les Paul himself used to play a guitar that was actually a board. To be precise, it was a four-by-four with a neck. He called it “the Log.” It upset people, so he glued parts from an archtop to it, to make it look like a guitar. It’s in a museum now.

It may sound insane, but solidbody guitars would probably be good woodworking projects for me. The bodies would be a joke. Just cut, rout, and sand. The only hard part would be making a neck and headstock and setting the neck correctly. You can actually buy necks already made, if you get in trouble.

God gives us the desires of our hearts, according to Psalm 37. I am here to tell you it’s true. I am killing the electric guitar, and I am cooking better than I ever did, and I have wonderful friends. I have great tools, I’m thin, and I even have a pickup truck! I guess God has to be careful about rewarding us when we are not serving him. Once we’re back on track, his blessings will not corrupt us, so he can be more liberal.

If you want God to bless you, crucify your flesh so your evil desires don’t rule you. That makes you a fit candidate for blessing.

Things are going great, and I’m even meeting amazing Christian women. I keep pointing this out: non-Christian women, as a group, are a never-ending torrent of disappointment and conflict. They are neurotic and chronically unhappy. They expect men to solve all their problems. They blame us for everything that goes wrong. They think bickering and put-downs are the proper way to demonstrate their worthiness of respect. They are draining. They expect sex no later than the third date, and if they’re in their baby-crazy years, there is a good chance they’ll defeat contraception in order to trap you. It’s extremely difficult to find a non-Christian woman who interests me enough to make me risk the pain.

Christian women are completely different. The problem with Christian women is that I want to take ALL of them home. How do you choose? They’re pleasant to be around. They’re encouraging. They’re polite. They listen. They understand that a mate is not a competitor. They’re not princesses who have been raised to believe their overpriced weddings are the focal events of all creation. It’s hard to believe they’re for real. It’s such a beautiful thing, dealing with women who don’t put you on trial and make you walk on eggs. I can’t get used to it. I know it’s real. It’s like moving from Miami to Texas, where the people were so nice to me. It seems surreal, but it’s genuine, and I can trust it.

God will change your life so you can trust happiness.

Tonight I’m making Champagne chicken for 15 people at church. Boy, are they in for a shock. This stuff is incredible. I will not pretend to be modest. They think my pizza and cheesecake are good. They don’t know what they’re in for.

Electric Bliss

This morning, the phone kept ringing while I was doing my morning prayer regimen. Drove me nuts. I finally answered it, and it was Mike. He was going crazy, brainstorming about my new smoker idea, which is this: drill a hole in a Ronco Showtime rotisserie oven and pump in smoke from an external box containing flaming wood.

He pointed something out. You can’t slow-cook stuff in a Showtime oven. The burner has a fixed heat setting, and it’s either on or off all the time.

I hadn’t been concerned about this. The Showtime oven makes nice, tender meat, so I figured I’d be content with using it the same way I do now, but he has a point. Slow-cooking is better.

Here is my answer. Cut a hole in the back of the oven and insert a smoker heating element with a thermostat. You can set the temperature and walk off and not worry about it. Or as Chairman Ron says, “Set it…and forget it.”

This will be a thing of great beauty. Think about it. You make a smoke box from a propane tank, some scrap steel, and a conduit elbow. You plumb it into the side of the oven. You put the smoker heating element in the bottom. You cram your meat in there and smoke it over low heat while using the “No Heat Rotation” setting on the Showtime. Then when you’re ready to eat, you turn the Showtime to “Normal Rotation” and brown the meat.

I felt we should put a hole in the top of the oven and mount a smoke pipe, but that’s just pimpage. The smoke will go in and out just fine if you leave the door cracked.

This could make some really brutal ribs or pork butts or chickens. And it’s cheap. You can get the ovens for $50 on Craigslist. The smoker element runs about the same price. If you spent $150 on this thing, you would be at the upper limit of the price range, and a smart person could do it for a hundred and ten.

Mike was highly disturbed by the prospect of building one of these things. I’m not sure he slept last night. I can tell he’s not going to have any peace until we give this a try.

In other news, my secondhand Japanese Les Paul clone has been delivered and put to work, and it’s amazing. It screams quality, or maybe it’s actually screaming “BANZAI” and it just sounds like “quality.” Using this neck is like dancing on greased glass. The humbuckers (probably Japanese L8000s) have a thick, sweet, almost nasal sound which is addictive. Apart from the dings and scrapes, the fit and finish are perfect. And I suspect the previous owner almost never played it. The finish on the bridge is going, but there is no fret wear. Maybe he just held it in his hands while he danced in his underwear. A lot of guys do that, when they find out how hard it is to actually learn to play.

There are two disappointing things about the guitar. First, it was advertised as a “long tenon” model, which means the neck is supposedly attached the way the better Gibsons had theirs attached. But the tenon is a weird type that has a screw in it. It appears to be very long and solid, but it’s not standard Gibson engineering. Someone has suggested to me that a clever Japanese instrument maker used screws to hold necks in while the glue was soft, so they could be adjusted a little before becoming completely solid. The Matsumoku factory is known for this method.

Second thing: there is a dime-sized mashed place on the edge of the guitar, in back, up high. The binding is a little mooshed, and some wood is showing. This was not clearly indicated in the photos. My luthier says he can make it prettier, but with a polymer-finish guitar, there is a limit to the magic. I just want it cleared up to the point where it doesn’t pain me to see it every time I grab the guitar.

I tried to put a Bigsby on the guitar, using a Vibramate mounting kit. Problem: you have to use a strap pin to hold the mount on, and the strap pin on my guitar is slightly off-center. So another job for the luthier. I would not be afraid to drill a new hole, but I’m going to have to fill a hole and then drill another one right next to it, and that might conceivably require a little knowledge and skill, and I have neither.

I am missing ZZ Top very badly, and this is especially true now that I have a new guitar to mess with. I’m working on SRV’s “Honey Bee” and B.B. King’s “Sweet Sixteen” instead. I’m making good progress. I don’t know if it’s the slippery neck or what, but the up-the-neck intro to “Honey Bee” is not giving me problems. I’m also impressed by the weepy, mournful tone the guitar gives me on “Sweet Sixteen.” Oddly, I prefer it with the Tube Screamer on and the bridge pickup selected.

It looks like Japanese Les Paul clones are great instruments. I don’t know if this thing is as good as a real Les Paul Custom, but it’s so good, I don’t care, and it cost one fifth as much. If I break it or someone steals it, who cares? I’ll Ebay another one. And I’m not afraid to modify it.

You can get new ones. Fernandes still makes Burny guitars, and the top two Les Paul models are still made in Japan. You’ll pay about a thousand to get one in your hands. You won’t be able to try it out first, however.

I don’t know why the Japanese make such beautiful electric guitars and such crappy acoustic instruments, but I’m not complaining.

I love my Chinese Epiphone Riviera, but I’m not so stupid I can’t see the difference in quality between the Riviera and the Les Paul. The necks are equally well set up, but there is something friendlier about the wood on the Burny, and it makes a real difference when I play. I can’t really say why, but the body on the Burny just looks better. The finish just seems classier and less flashy.

I’m wondering if I can have the fretboard on the Epiphone buffed or otherwise treated so it feels a little more like the Burny. And I’ll say one more thing: I would love to see what a Burny ES335 clone is like.

I think I made a mistake when I bought my Vox AC4TV amp. This is a magnificent machine; it has a nice tube sound, and it attenuates to 1/4 watt, so you can make it sound nice without rattling the walls. When I bought it, I looked for other attenuated amps, but I couldn’t find any this quiet. Now I’ve learned about the Bugera V5. This thing goes down to 1/10 watt, and it’s half the price of the Vox. Good info, if you’re currently shopping.

I’m wondering how they do the attenuation. Maybe it’s just a big resistor. If so, I should be able to put a bigger resistor in the Vox. But the Bugera is so cheap, I have to wonder if there is any point.

I’m going to get a Way Huge Fat Sandwich distortion pedal. Maybe I’m stupid, but they sound great in demo videos. I like my Tube Screamer, but how can you resist something called a “Fat Sandwich”?

Time to crank up the amp. Hope I can quit before my fingers get too sore.

Do This Do This Do This

I made a delicious leg of boneless Costco lamb today, with fresh rosemary from the yard, on the Showtime rotisserie oven. While I was enjoying it…it hit me! BUY A USED SHOWTIME, DRILL A HOLE IN THE SIDE, AND PUMP IN SMOKE!

Hold me down, or I’ll be in Hialeah in half an hour, buying a pre-owned oven from Craigslist.

I Have This Situation Under Control

I have had some misgivings about studying ZZ Top in order to learn the blues. Some of their best stuff is not all that clean. “La Grange” is about a whorehouse. If that’s not bad enough, I’ve been working on “Tube Snake Boogie.”

While the songs are not optimal material, I did learn one thing from studying them: Hal Leonard’s Play-Along instruction books rock.

These books feature licensed material by popular artists, and the licks (supposedly) are accurately transcribed. A long time ago, I tried to learn some SRV stuff with a different book, and I’m just about positive the transcriptions were not merely wrong, but sometimes impossible to play. Apparently, I’m not the only one who has this problem, because these days, a lot of books are advertised as “recorded versions,” so people will know they’re not getting garbage somebody made up.

The Play-Along books come with CDs that have demo tracks plus tracks with the guitar removed. They give you software, too, so you can play the tracks any way you want. Fast. Slow. Whatever. You can loop stuff, too.

Today I blew the massive sum of $14.95 on the B.B. King book, and it’s fantastic. I’m working on “Sweet Sixteen.”

I’m learning some interesting stuff about B.B. King. Judging from the sounds he makes, he sometimes mutes strings with his pick. I know of no other way to produce the clipped notes he makes. You pick the string, bend it, and then bring the pick back and stop the vibration while the string is still bent.

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but it works. The book doesn’t explain it; this is just me talking.

I thought the pickups on my Chinese Epiphone Riviera were not hot enough, but now that I’m doing this B.B. King stuff, they sound wonderful. Maybe I still don’t know how to work the amp. I think I’m cheating it by keeping the volume so low.

The guitar is still great.

I looked at one this morning, at the Hallandale Guitar Center. I think I got lucky with mine, because the one they had didn’t look as good. It had some revolting ripples where the neck joined the soundboard. Mine is not perfect in this area, but it’s way better than the other one.

I’m really looking forward to getting my Blueshawk back. Now that the electric guitar is finally working out for me, I want to see what it can do. The public rejected this guitar, but almost everyone who actually played one loved it.

Found another good deal on a resonator instrument.

I’ve been trying to learn some acoustic blues. I finally downloaded some lessons from a guy called Catfish Keith. His playing is wonderful. Unfortunately, he sounds pretty white when he sings. Anyway, as soon as I started working on one of his songs, I noticed one of the notes was just plain missing. I may be wrong about this, but it looks like his tablature is wrong.

This kind of thing irks me. When I wrote my cookbook, I made sure it worked. I only know of one recipe error in the whole thing, and it’s pretty obvious, so it’s not likely to hurt anyone. I don’t know why people who publish tablature can’t be more careful.

Check him out on Youtube.

I better get back to practicing. I have to leave before long. I made another Tower of Babel cake for church, and I have to bake garlic rolls for the Saturday night youth thing. That cake is a wonder.

Check out those Play-Along books. They’re a big help.

God’s Own Cake and the Devil’s Music

I took the Tower of Babel cake to church to get rid of it. It was a great success. Now they want more. I have piles of bananas scattered on the kitchen counter, fresh from the trees in my yard. I guess I’ll freeze what I can’t cook immediately and put the rest in cakes.

My nam wa banana tree finally produced. The bananas are very nice. They’re finger-sized bananas, but they’re not like the lemony guineos we always have in the markets in Miami. They’re very sweet, and they have a smooth texture. It’s a little like banana ice cream.

God keeps working in my life. Last week I led some of the armorbearers on the first Armorbearer Freedom Fast, and Mike joined in. Some of us were fasting to beat gluttony. I was fasting in support of the others. Mike called and said he went to a restaurant after the fast and ordered a kid’s portion. He couldn’t face a regular-size meal. In the past, it has always been hard for Mike to face regular-sized meals, but that was because they were too small. His new attitude is incredible.

I worked at church on Sunday, and when I left at nearly 4 p.m., I hadn’t eaten anything except a piece of cake. I didn’t want more food, but I made myself stop at Five Guys. I got a bacon cheeseburger, Cajun fries, and a large Coke. I ate two thirds of the burger and a third of the fries. I drank half of the Coke. I threw everything else out. I didn’t want it. Today I went to breakfast with my dad, and I left a fourth of my nova bagel on the plate. Not bad. My Armorbearer friend who was fasting because of his weight said he tried to eat something he usually enjoys, and it made him sick, so he couldn’t do it.

Fasting works. My pants and belts do not lie. We are getting supernatural results. And my dad is witnessing all of it, which is also great. One day, we’ll get him.

Church continues to amaze me. I keep meeting extraordinary people there. One of the new Armorbearers is a drummer. His name is Travis. I started talking to him yesterday. I asked him if the drums were his only instruments. He said he played TWELVE, and he listed them. And he said he played them WELL, so apparently it’s not like Prince, who claims he can play forty but probably includes instruments that made noises because he accidentally sat on them in the studio.

I know everyone thinks Prince is a genius. When I see him do something that indicates talent, I will agree. So far, all I’ve seen are weak pop tunes. And he holds a purple guitar sometimes. Wait. I think it’s white. Anyway, I haven’t heard any solos yet.

Travis got a full scholarship to college, based on his ability. That’s what he does now. He said it was largely based on his sight-reading skills. He actually knows who my trombone-virtuoso cousin is, which is astonishing.

So now we have two professional musicians in the group, and they’re not three-chord wonders or rappers. They are real musicians.

The other musician, Zachary, is trying to find a hundred-watt tube amp he can afford. He said he would consider building one, if he had the skills. I used to build temperature and current controls for diode lasers in college, and I have a ton of tools. He sent me links to some sites that have amp plans. Interesting.

One of the guys bought a Bushmaster AR-15. He brought it in for us to look at. We were handing it around and admiring it in a back room. I said, “You know, church has CHANGED since I was a kid.” That cracked Travis up.

My music is going really well. The bluegrass is coming up to speed. My left hand has only had five weeks to get strong, and that’s not enough. When I use a capo (makes fretting easier), I get a taste of what my playing will be like in another month or two. I plan to continue playing bluegrass, simply because it’s great for my technique and it’s wasteful to throw away a whole genre you’ve already learned.

I was suffering with online blues lessons, but I couldn’t take it any more. I got a ZZ Top book, and I started working on “Tube Snake Boogie.” I realize this is not good music for a Christian to work on, but hear me out. The guitar stuff is all blues-based, and it’s HOT. It will get me into electric blues via the side door, and it will help me get familiar with my instruments and amps. I don’t plan to sing this filth in the sanctuary.

I struggled for a week, but today I got it working. I put new strings on my flamenco guitar (like a classical guitar, with a cutaway and a different sound), and I started using it for practice. This is much easier on me than my dreadnought and heavy hollowbody. It allows me to practice pretty painlessly. I actually got through the first page and a half.

I may get hollered at for saying it, but so far, as I expected, this stuff is a complete joke compared to bluegrass. True, you have to go up the neck more, but so what? I’m using elevens, and the guitar’s action is very light. I’m playing at half the speed of bluegrass (or less), the strings are kinder to my hands, and the licks are child’s play. The only real problems are getting used to playing over pickups and coping with the light strings. When you’re used to blasting thirteens at maybe eight notes a second, you can barely feel elevens.

When I used to try to play Stevie Ray Vaughan material, it was difficult, but then he played very fast, and he didn’t cheat by using his left hand to play the notes. He did it just like a bluegrass guitarist.

I’ve noticed that some rock guitarists play runs that seem very fast, but their right hands aren’t keeping up with the notes. Evidently, you can effectively double your speed by hammering on and pulling off and bending the strings with your left hand, between right-hand notes. I wonder how many of these guys could cope with bluegrass. I know some of them have been there; Steve Morse does both styles.

I had a feeling this would turn out to be easy, simply because I know the kind of people who play rock. They are not known for being industrious. Rock guitar isn’t about artistry and sacrifice. It’s about looking cool and attracting shallow women so you can fornicate. That’s what got Pete Townshend started. I know there must be many rock guitarists who woodshed all the time and aren’t afraid of difficult material, but a lot of this stuff appears to be based on using two fingers, the way you might when you’re stoned in the back of a tour bus. And everyone loves nines, and I don’t think that’s totally based on professionalism. It just might have something to do with lack of character, in some cases.

When you play an electric guitar, the gadgetry does a whole lot of the work. It’s pretty cushy compared to killing yourself to get music out of an acoustic.

I look forward to getting a grip on this form of music, and then I want to do a reverse Ray Charles. I want to use bluesy sounds to make music for God. I know you’re supposed to go the other way, ripping off gospel and using it to play secular music. I don’t see why I can’t turn the tables.

I’m glad I held onto that flamenco guitar.

Tisha B’Av is about to start, so if you’re fasting in sympathy with Israel and the Jews, it’s time to get on it.

Life is wonderful.

Should be Followed With a Flood of Coffee

The Tower of Babel cake is a success, with qualifications.

It has a little too much nutmeg in it, and I have to be careful to make sure the next one cooks through and isn’t too wet. Other than that, it is a tour de force. Terrifying. Everything goes together perfectly. It’s so good, I am getting rid of it. Tonight I’m dividing it up at church.

It’s so rich, a slice about one and a quarter inches thick at the big end is all you need. But you will eat a second slice anyway.

…And it Confused Their Tongues

I just learned that I do not know how to frost a cake. Nonetheless, this may be the best thing I have ever eaten in my life. I call it the Tower of Babel cake, because no man should have this much power!

So far I’ve just eaten scraps I had to trim off. I have to wait until it chills to give it a definitive test drive.

Beware the Frosting of the Pharisees.

Here is what I am baking right now.

Two cakes, made from banana nut bread. The bottom one is also a pineapple upside-down cake. Stack them and cover them with carrot cake icing. Decorate with mandarin orange slices soaked in Grand Marnier.

Is that scary, or what? Don’t even try to tell me these wacky ideas don’t come from God.

Pass the Perrier

My big mouth has gotten me in real trouble.

Last year, after a two-day fast, I found I had been delivered from overeating. I lost between 25 and 30 pounds, with virtually no effort. I kept telling everyone at my church, hoping I could get them to try to get the same kind of miracle.

This week, a friend called me up and said he was sick of his weight problem. I told him what I knew, and I suggested he pick a couple of days to fast and pray. And a horrible realization came over me. I was going to have to fast with him.

Arrgghh.

I notified my pastor, purely for selfish reasons. I knew people would hear about the fast, and if it worked, they would want the same thing. Then I’d have to fast with THEM. I figured if I notified the pastor, he would spread the word, and we would get people on board now instead of later, saving me fasts. Instead, his text response went like this: “I’m in!”

Okay.

I let the Armorbearers know, figuring some of them might have bad habits they wanted to drop. Now I have a total of five people (me included) doing the fast. We quit eating last night, and we won’t eat again (except for communion) until Friday morning. We are allowed ZERO calories. Our pastor has to quit at 6 p.m. on Thursday due to social obligations.

Each of us has to pray in the Spirit for at least three consecutive minutes both days. We have to spend at least half an hour alone with God on each day, confessing that overeating (or whatever we’re trying to beat) is a sin, and that we can’t defeat it on our own, and that we repent and want his help.

I hope this works. Although that would pretty much guarantee more fasts in the future.

I went to our private forum and posted this:

Romans 6:5-14 (New King James Version)

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

I think God is more willing to bless people who have self-control. Giving good stuff to people who can’t control themselves is like giving loaded pistols to three-year-olds. I got free of gluttony, and suddenly, I found myself cooking in a big commercial kitchen and getting lots of recognition for it. My guess is that God is more likely to give good spouses to people who have conquered lust, and that he is more likely to give prosperity to people who have beaten covetousness and greed. If these ideas are right, fasting is pretty important.

Wish us luck, and get on the bandwagon if you want.

On Second Thought, Don’t

I can no longer keep up with the good stuff God does in my life. I just don’t have time to blog it all.

On Saturday, I cooked for our church’s Rhythms Lounge event. Young people come to the cafe and perform. Some play music, some recite, and others sing. This weekend, we had a guest performer: Zach Freeman, the son of two of our pastors. He plays guitar and sings.

What a show we had. We have a regular house band composed of church members; oddly, it’s not the same band that plays during worship. They jammed with Zach for maybe an hour. We heard a lot of blues and even a long funk session.

I can’t describe the quality of the playing. I had no idea these kids were this good. They were so tight, you would think they had been playing together for years.

Zach started off with his Strat and some effects, and he created an ambience you could almost swim in. I wish we had recorded it. Ordinarily I’m not a big fan of reverb and sustain pedals, but he used them to draw us into a world that did not exist before he started playing.

When the other players got going, we heard bass licks that started and stopped the show at will. The keyboard player, who claimed he couldn’t play blues, performed gymnastics that had everyone gasping. When it was over, the whole crowd started yelling and crying out. A friend of mine leaned over and said, “They’re praising God in Creole.”

I couldn’t ask for a better end to my first week of renewed guitar practice.

It gets even weirder. I have a new guitar! For a long time, I’ve wanted a thinline Gibson guitar with single-coil pickups and a Bigsby, but doubting that I would use it, I never gave in to temptation. This week I started reading up on Epiphone guitars. This is Gibson’s Asian line. Ordinarily, I won’t go near an Asian instrument; Japanese dreadnoughts sound like cigar boxes and have actions that tear up your hands. But I kept reading reviews, and I thought to myself, “If I get one of these things, I have 30 days to try it out, and if it works, it will be a fantastic asset, and the price will be so low, even if I get a better instrument later, I’ll be able to drag this one when I travel without worrying about what happens to it.”

I drove down US1 to buy some bird seed, and I was praying in the Spirit while I drove (good way to redeem the time), and I started thinking about Guitar Center. I felt I couldn’t stop myself, so I decided to go with it. I went in and found an Epiphone Riviera on the wall. I still didn’t intend to buy it. I asked the salesman a few questions, looked it over, and told him I would take it. I felt like I had to do it. I think he nearly fainted. I didn’t even ask to play it. There was no point.

This guitar was made in China. They get spotty reviews that go in two directions. Some instruments are written off as junk. Other buyers say they can’t understand how Epiphone can sell such gorgeous instruments at this price point. It looks like I’m in the latter group. This thing is virtually flawless. It sounds good. It plays well. So far, I’ve only been able to find one tiny imperfection in it. And it cost about 13% of what a new Gibson would cost. I could put a thousand dollars’ worth of upgrades into it and still be way ahead.

I don’t know what the story is. Maybe it was God. Maybe I just like shiny new stuff too much. But I try to walk by faith, and this felt like God’s urging, so I didn’t want to screw it up.

On Saturday, the music materials I ordered arrived. I got a copy of Tony Rice Guitar, plus Dan Crary’s Flatpicker’s Guide, plus a giant tablature book called The Big Slab of Tab. I used to play things from these books, many years ago. Back then, I had some trouble with a little bit of the Tony Rice stuff, but as I noted the other day, my practice habits were completely wrong. Fifteen minutes a day.

I got these books because I feel that God is restoring my life and undoing past failures (and also because I owed Tony Rice a royalty).

I’ve been working on the tunes, and it’s crazy, but there is a big long Tony Rice lick I could never conquer in the past, and after two days, I nearly have it beat. I figure I should be able to play coherently, with the correct super-heavy Dunlop pick, within a week. Maybe I’ll upload an MP3 when that happens.

To get back to church, I cooked for the first two services yesterday, and then I served as an Armorbearer at the last service, and I attended a meeting at which we welcomed four new ABs. Guess who one of them is? Zach Freeman. He goes to college in another state, but he’ll be here all summer. I spoke up and informed him of the rule that ABs have to give each other free guitar lessons, and he said, “I GOT you.” Ha!

I keep meeting remarkable people at my church, semi-ghetto though it may be. The background of the people is totally unrelated to their potential and the contents of their hearts. Some are from the neighborhood, which is pretty depressed. Some are from areas that are more affluent. But there are incredible human beings there, from all sorts of different areas.

When I met Zach on Saturday, I was looking forward to meeting a young man everyone admired so much, but he treated ME like a celebrity. He kept talking about my cheesecake and how great it was. I’m just the guy in the kitchen. He, not me, was the talk of the church. It’s wild, how God raises up powerful people and keeps them humble. With his help, an camel really can go through the eye of a needle.

I may have to make him pay off on that lesson thing, although when he sees how hopeless I am, he may wish he had kept silent.

Another new AB has a wonderful trait we needed badly: he’s Cuban. That means he can FISH. And we need that, if we are going to keep angling for my dad. We talked about dolphin fishing, and he told me a few things even I didn’t know. So I’m hoping we can get him on the boat in a few days. He’s also a professional photographer, so maybe we can preserve a few images.

We don’t get very many Cubans in our church. Strange. I know a bunch of Puerto Ricans, though. God tends to recruit from the bottom of society, and Cubans are at the top.

Today I got up, hoping to rest after a busy weekend, and what did I see on Drudge’s page? The Supreme Court has INCORPORATED THE SECOND AMENDMENT. At least, that’s my understanding of it. I don’t think I’m exaggerating, but I haven’t read the opinion. I’m sure liberal judges and lawyers will do their best to interpret incorporation out of the decision. Anyway, Wayne LaPierre says firearms bans can no longer be enforced anywhere in the US. This is gigantic news. God has worked a real wonder.

For a long time, I’ve believed God was going to preserve and expand our gun rights, even as our government pushed farther and farther in the directions of sexual perversion, anti-Semitism, military weakness, weak boarders, and socialism. It looks like I was hearing from God, and not from my own limited mind.

An evil time is coming. When it does, people will remember the Jewish names Madoff, Stearns, Goldman, Sachs, Bernanke, Emanuel, Frank, and Geithner. I think these names will be used to justify a wave of anti-Semitic barbarism. In that day, Christians and Jews who have armed themselves, bought rural land, and learned how to use tools will be way ahead of the game. I strongly suspect God is getting us ready. This decision will certainly help.

What will God do next? I can’t even guess. The spectacle is exhausting me.

King of the Closet

Yesterday I had a major guitar breakthrough. I think I connected with an amp and electric guitar.

I already had two amps. One is a Fender Blues Jr. (tubes) and the other is a cheapo solid-state Crate. The Crate is just unforgivable; I only got it because it gave me some hope of getting distortion at low volumes. The Blues Jr. sounds fine but doesn’t do much until you turn it up (or maybe I don’t know how to use it).

I picked up a Vox AC4TV (tubes), and I cranked the power down to 1/4 watt, which is 1/60 of what the Blues Jr. consumes. It didn’t sound all that great. I had the tone control up pretty high, because I thought this would fuzz up the tone, and I had the volume control very low, because…silly me…I thought this would reduce the volume.

I decided to try it the other way around. The amp only has two sound controls, so it’s not like I had a big choice. I turned the volume way up and turned the tone way down. What did I get? Neat fuzzy distortion, like Otis Rush. Actually, it’s more like his voice than his guitar. It sounded wonderful. I couldn’t put the guitar down.

A long time ago, when I was shopping for an electric guitar, I found an ES355 (or was it an ES330?) which had a similar sound. This is the sound I like.

Don’t try to help me understand why “volume” means “tone” and “tone” means “volume.” I don’t care. It works.

“COINCIDENTALLY,” I’ll be cooking for my church’s Saturday-night Rhythms Lounge event tomorrow, and guess who the guest is? Zachary Freeman. He’s a jazz and blues guitarist. His mom is a pastor at the church. Pretty cool. I haven’t heard him, but people at church rave about him.

IT’S COINCIDENCE! DARWIN! DARWIN! SOCIALISM! VIVA CHE! OBAMA WILL SAVE US!

Whatever. You believe what you want. I’m going to stay connected to the power supply.

My miracle weight loss is continuing. I put on a few pounds while I worked on desserts for my church, and I also discovered Five Guys, so I have been concerned. Today I weighed myself, and it appears that the weight loss is progressing again. Fantastic. Only God could do this. I don’t diet; I’m not gifted with perfect willpower. I’m just not a fat person any more. It’s as if I had been born to be thin. I hope I knock off ten more pounds, so none of my pants will be able to intimidate me. I wore my super-thin black jeans to church on Wednesday. I still need to lose an inch to make them comfortable. I bought them for riding motorcycles; grease and dirt don’t show up much on black jeans.

I got to the range yesterday and chronographed some 10mm ammunition. I don’t have the results before me, but it looks like 12 grains of No. 7 powder will give me good results, and 12.5 might be ideal. At 12 grains, I get 1200 fps, and I want 1250. One disappointment: my Wolf primers seem hard. Two out of twenty failed to go off on the first try. This is fine for target practice, but for self-defense, I’m going to need something like Federal. I am told Federal primers are the softest.

The primers and cases looked okay after firing.

The gun shoots great. My accuracy was affected by the way I had to contort myself to fire through the chronograph, but I shot more than well enough to splatter an assailant’s brains. The recoil tires my hand a little, though, so I think the gun would tend to lose accuracy after a dozen or two dozen rounds. Not enough to matter in a self-defense situation, but it would be annoying in practice sessions.

The consistency of the handloads (especially the low-powered target rounds) was very good. I plan to load defensive rounds one at a time, for total confidence, but for routine target shooting, I think I can rely on my powder measure.

I also tried my Bill Springfield AR trigger. It’s better than the stock trigger, which is not exactly a surprise. I’m not sure I love it, though. Still seems a little balky.

I had to buy cheesy PMC .308 ammo, because I left my Radway Green at home. I don’t know how good PMC rifle ammuntion is, but their pistol ammunition is the worst I’ve tried.

Yesterday, I was shooting into an area the size of a baseball at 100 yards. Acceptable under the circumstances, but I would like to do better. A range officer who shoots .308 says reloading is the only answer. If I start reloading, I think it will be time to consider a .260 Remington upper, which was my real goal anyway. Maybe the .308 upper was a mistake. It looks like I can’t do precision shooting with cheap ammo, so the money I save may be a hollow blessing. Still, if times get really hard, cheap ammo in large quantities may be a real asset, and I can’t get that in .260.

The Leupold scope is a dream come true. I don’t even understand all the knobs yet. The field of view is gorgeous, and everything is sharp.

Speaking of hard times, a man named Hank Kunneman appeared on Sid Roth’s show yesterday, claiming to be a prophet. He said God had showed up a couple of things. First, the next couple of years will be pretty rough, and it will seem like Obama is doing very poorly. Second, God intends to reverse some of the bad legislation Obama has signed, and he intends to change the Supreme Court.

He reminded us to pray for our leaders, and he was right about that. I think Obama is an embarrassment and an obstacle to God’s work, but I have resolved to pray, daily, that God will change his heart and the hearts of our other leaders. The Bible tells us we have a duty to pray for our leaders, so I’m going to stay on it. I also pray that God will take down leaders who refuse to change, replacing them with godly men. So I’m covered either way!

I hate to say it, but I feel bad for Obama. I believe he is in for a long stretch of humiliation, and if he doesn’t get right with God and the Jews, there probably won’t be any end to it. Remember Nebuchadnezzar, wandering around on all fours, eating grass.

I don’t know if Hank Kunneman is the real thing or not, so caveat emptor.

I’m out.