Saturday, February 07, 2004

raising the quality of life index Today, through a special grant from Art Major (via the miracle of paypal) I was able to substantially raise the quality of life index here in St. Petersburg. After months of planning and preparation, I finally opened up my city's first ever free wine and snack station at a popular bus stop downtown. 9:35:53 PM    comment []

Today's featured wine was an Australian Merlot (Yellow Tail).  It may not have been the best or fanciest wine in the world, but you sure got a lot for twelve dollars. As another cold front moved through with bonechilling winds, it was just the right libation to warm the hearts of St. Pete bus riders and pedestrians. 8:53:59 PM    comment []

Yes--search the world over: Paris, London, Prague, Constantinople.  You won't find another metropolis that pampers its average citizen with such delights.  (All at no cost to its taxpayers). 8:51:15 PM    comment []

The featured snack of the day was the Frito Lay variety pack. 8:50:18 PM    comment []

Most of the actual bus riders shied away from our banquet today because they were too humble to partake of such a wonderful bounty. But by and by there were a couple of hobos who happened along who weren't afraid to say "yes" to what life was offering.  (They slammed their glasses of merlot like shots of tequila and stuffed the snack chips in their pockets). 6:20:43 PM    comment []

"You're gonna put us on the internet?" one of the hobos inquired. "Yes, you will be ambassadors of our city to people all over the world!" we assured them. "Well, I don't know about all that, but thanks for the snack," said the hobo. With that he and his streetmate shuffled off into the evening, his belly full of wine and monosodium glutamate. 6:19:44 PM    comment []

good game! There is somewhat of a tradition of chessplaying in my family.  My grandfather was a champion of some sort, and my Dad has always been a good player since he was a kid. My dad taught me the rules and what all the pieces did when I was a kid too, but I never got that good at it.  I guess I was good enough to beat some friends of mine and maybe my sister, but never my dad. As I got older I started to dread playing chess with my dad more and more.  It seemed more like a showcase of my mental defficiencies than any kind of fun and competitive game.  My dad would offer to "spot" me a couple of pieces to even things up, but this just made me feel more like a retard. It got to the point where I was always making up excuses why I couldn't play with him. But he would just  bring it up each time I saw him and finally I relented and would find myself locked in another drawn out, brain-straining game. When my dad pondered a move for a long time, I knew it was because he was methodically analyzing all the scenarios and possiblilites one by one until he had concluded the best course of action. I would take a long time with my moves too, trying to figure it all out, but my logic was kind of scrambled and fuzzy. Now if I go here, he can get me here.  And if I take that piece then he can take my queen.  But wait, what was the first thing I said?  I know, I'll just take that piece, oh shit no, he can get me there too. After five or ten minutes of this I was pretty much right where I started from. Finally, I adopted this strategy of always just agressively taking pieces whenever there was a chance, even if I lost a piece of equal value.  I figured with less pieces on the board there would be less things to ponder and consider.  But this didn't help me either.  My dad would just start a methodical march of pawns across the board until he reached the other side and got back his captured pieces. Pretty soon my dad would have an army of chess pieces bearing down on my king from all  directions.  I would have to make my king run and dance around the board in a pathetic and futile evasion of the inevitavble. "Would you like to concede?" my Dad would ask when it was obvious that there was no hope of escaping. "Sure," I would say. "Good game," he would say, offering his hand to me. 3:32:08 PM    comment []

generic and lifeless plinkings of nothing It wasn't long after I became obsessed with Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd that I abandoned my dream to be a movie director like Steven Spielberg, and decided to become a rock star like Jimmy Page or Roger Waters. I started learning to play on this old acoustic guitar that we had around the house.  But then I found almost $400 dollars under a table while working as a bus boy at Bob Evans.  After paying the other bus boy ten bucks to keep quiet, I went and bought a candy- apple red stratocaster that I saw advertised in the paper. Now that I had a real rock star "axe" it was just a matter of practicing like hell until I became a rock star.  I went to the grocery store and picked up a bunch of issues of Guitar World to learn all the tricks and methods to be just like Jimmy Page.  I poured over chords and tablature that was in those magazines.  I remember this one issue had all the notes and fingerings to Led Zeppelins "heartbreaker."  It was like I had the answers to the ultimate final exam written right in front of me on the ultimate cheat sheet.  All I had to do was memorize those little notes and licks and fingerings and I would achieve my dream.  I would be Jimmy Page. I spent days and weeks practicing and repeating all the notes to heartbreaker.  I did just what Guitar World said to do, note for note.  But when I played all the notes one after the other they didn't sound like "heartbreaker."  They just sounded like generic and lifeless plinkings of nothing.  I listened to the song again and again the way Jimmy did it and then tried again.  Still, it was just stupid plinkings of nothing. After a while, I realized that there were two problems that kept me from sounding just like Jimmy Page when I repeated the tablature from Guitar World. 1.  I wasn't Jimmy Page, and 2.  I sucked at guitar. 12:41:08 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Mark Michaels. Last update: 3/1/2004; 8:15:49 AM.