B. Forgotten
November 17th, 2008No Bells Ringing
Yesterday while I was at church, the pastor dealt with a very serious climate-related topic. I refer to the murderous cold snap South Florida is currently enduring. He said we were somehow managing to hold on, even though it was a couple of degrees below seventy.
I got up today at 5:30, and it was 58 degrees here. This was even colder than Sunday. It looks like we’re headed for a solid work week with lows under 60. What a relief. I can get some things done, without filling my shoes with sweat.
I’m all excited because I got to wear pants and shoes. I put on jeans and my Danner work boots before I checked on the fruit trees this morning, and I even got to wear my Carhartt chore coat.
I hate cold weather. I hate ugly cold weather, in particular. Clean, fluffy snow with sunshine is not so bad. Grey snow, brown mud, and clouds…you can have it. My mother always said Kentucky was brown for most of the year. She did not miss that. My father said his outlook improved as soon as he got to Florida, because the sun was brighter.
When I lived in New York (as part of the same Columbia class as the Astroturf Messiah), I did not think much of the weather. It was just as brown as Kentucky, but it was a little colder, and the wind was nasty. On top of this, it somehow managed to rain when the temperature was below 32 degrees. Nobody believes me when I say that, but I remember it, so leave me alone. I also remember feeling the wind coming at me directly from the sides of buildings. I can’t figure that out to this day.
I heard from my college friend Dave last week. He said his friends (mostly liberal and/or gay) could not believe he didn’t remember going to school with Obama. I can’t believe the insane expectations and impressions this unremarkable man generates in the minds of the herd. I guess Dave’s gay and female friends have the hots for B. Hussein, and the straight ones have man-crushes. We went to school with lots of other people who, like Obama, were very ordinary; why is it no one expects us to remember them? Obama was a cipher in college. He had to transfer in order to get in, even with heavy-handed Ivy League affirmative action. It’s not like he had a halo.
I remember Stephanopoulos because he lived across the hall and was very small. He was also at the top of our class; Dave told me that. Obama? No clue. He was invisible.
I told Dave the reason we didn’t remember Obama was probably his self-proclaimed aversion to white people. In his book, he talked about his hostility to Caucasians. He probably stayed in his room, muttering about how he wanted to punch all of us. I don’t know why a person who got so much help from Caucasians would be so angry at them. I wish I had had people of other races, scrambling to pay my bills and make me succeed.
Dave is a gay conservative. He must be real popular.
I am moving Sibelius to my main PC today. Yesterday, while leaving church, I heard a wonderful song in my head, and of course, I forgot it. This morning, it came back. That never happens. I am going to try to capture it.
I can write music via trial and error, but I still don’t understand what I’m doing. For one thing, I don’t know how you look at a piece of music and figure out which chords go with the measures. Maybe it will come to me.
I’m concerned that I may end up writing something somebody else has already written. You never know what is stuck in your unconscious mind.
The odd thing about writing music is that it’s easier for me to come up with tunes than lyrics. Go figure. I write all day; you would think the lyrics would be a cinch.
It would be pretty sweet, if I could get something published. Making money while doing something useful would be a dream come true.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:12 AM
You only need chords for out-of-fashion music. Anything serious and important can do whatever it feels like and to heck with tired notions like harmony, melody, rhythm, sounds people can stand to hear, etc.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:05 PM
Dave is a gay conservative. He must be real popular.
People often expect me to disappear in a puff of Contradictions because I don’t heel to the Liberal line. Us gay conservatives confuse the hell out of others.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:14 PM
You might consider taking a music theory class. At least when I was in college, all of the music majors had to take many semesters of Aural Skills, in which we got up too early and took musical dictation until we were reasonably competent at hearing which chord went where. And then we sightread. It was not the most popular of classes (either you were good at it or you weren’t) but it was very useful.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:15 PM
I’m jealous. I am looking at grey and sloppy with highs in the low to mid 30s for the next week (and the majority of the next 4 months will be no better).
Publishing music as something useful? I suppose so, but my dad the plumber would have disagreed (unless it paid real well, which few musicians or actors or writers are – so he’d have dismissed that chance as a ‘crap shoot’).
November 17th, 2008 at 1:02 PM
If you’re doing hunt-and-peck composing, just look at all the chords that could include the melody note (Include 7ths and maybe 9ths) and try the chords to see which sound good with the melody.
I’m assuming you don’t care about parallel fifths and octaves and proper voice leading and stuff I had to learn while doing time in music school.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:25 PM
It’s bright with a yellow/brown tinge in the air here in flaming LA.
I will corroborate the freezing rain in NYC. I think it has to do with the streets and buildings acting like a brick in the sun and warming precipitation as it got close to street level. It’s why the ocean breeze never seemed to cool the city in the summer until just before dawn. NYC after a fresh and untrampled snowfall, was almost pretty.
I remember Obama posters for various radical events on dorm walls for the Black Students Association, I think. Unlike you and Dave, I was a bit more sensitized to be aware of people with Muslim names being radical activists in proximity to me within a decade of the Yom Kippur War.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:51 PM
“This morning, it came back. That never happens.”
Quite literally, in my case. You’re a lucky man.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:56 PM
It snowed here today, but most of it melted, The high was forecasted to be 34. We still have green grass though.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:11 PM
Actually, I like the grey days most, as long as they’re not too cold.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:32 PM
“I don’t know why a person who got so much help from Caucasians would be so angry at them.” It takes a large soul to forgive others when one needs, and receives, help.
“I wish I had had people of other races, scrambling to pay my bills and make me succeed.” Can you be sure? You were young then, and grew up in an angry home. If one assumes even half of what BHO writes in his books is true, he had many years of anger and weirdness to sort out and was only getting started.
For my part, I can pity him for the ridiculous manner in which he was raised. Still, if he’s so smart then none of this justifies his muddled thinking.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:34 PM
Resentment.
November 17th, 2008 at 6:07 PM
“On top of this, it somehow managed to rain when the temperature was below 32 degrees. Nobody believes me when I say that, but I remember it, so leave me alone.”
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Growing up in Maryland, we’d get Ice-Storms every couple of years. Cold-air masses would come over the mountains and settle along the coast (or in the case of Maryland, in the Bay-Valley). When warm and wet air masses came from the west, they would slide in on top of the cold-air mass (pushed up by the mountains) and rain down through it. If the ground temperature was cold enough, everything would turn to ice.
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I can remember trying to crack through 1″ thick ice on my car just to get the door open. At least here in the mid-west snow-is-snow and rain-is-rain (mostly).
November 17th, 2008 at 6:17 PM
P.S. Glad to hear you felt God’s presence at Church. I’ve felt it off and on at various churches, and once with a traveling preacher.
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Barb and I pray that you’ll find a Church home in all of this; there are times I had to go through some droughts to get to the right place (metaphorically 😉
November 17th, 2008 at 7:08 PM
RE: aelfheld and Obamaissiah
“No good deed ‘ere long goes unpunished.”
PS: Steve, I liked you better when you drank and were non-religiously sarcastic, but each to his own. Hope you find comfort in your journey
of discovery……But Marvin and you’re channeled Chris Walken still rule. Plus the food of course, ALWAYS the food.
November 17th, 2008 at 7:54 PM
I dunno nuthin about them chord things. I’m a wind guy, and a bandsman. (in the place of honor, at the Right of the Line) If’n you want to play more than one tone at a time, you get some friends to play alongside of you.
I could work up some pieces for the recorder, if you’d accompany me on the piano, and introduce me to Marv, and go shooting with me…..
Just don’t try to touch me.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:43 PM
Hey, if you need lyrics, I can help. I’ve had a small career as a songwriter.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:58 AM
I concur; weather makes a big impact on my mood. There’s nothing more miserable than a cloudy day with high winds and old snow on the streets of a city. The buildings act like a wind tunnel.
-Sam
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