A Meal of Sour Words

Time to eat my words.

I slandered the Celtics all season. Perhaps they deserved it. Although they lost Game 5 in Orlando last night, I believe they will ultimately win this series on Friday in Boston.

I own all the Lame quotes below. I had very little faith in my team. Again, I'm not apologizing to the millionaire athletes, because they earned the disdain of the masses with their uninspired play.

I'm inspired to enjoy a game on a Tuesday evening, against some lowly team, in the dead of winter. They make tens of thousands of dollars to play that particular game. They should damn well be inspired to play it.

Either way, the private and public flogging I laid on them during this stretch was far from what I myself would expect from a loyal fan.

I hope posting these will cleanse my soul for when I have to ultimately face the ghost of Red Auerbach. They stem from conversations with my friends. I searched "celtics" into my Gmail and culled my favorites, trying my best to leave them unedited.

2/11

“there's no way this team, as currently constituted, has any chance of doing anything."

2/12

“We won't make it out of the 2nd round”

“I have a bad feeling it's going to be Lebron vs. Kobe in the finals - and that the celtics have no shot vs the Cavs, Magic or Lakers”

3/15

“They're just milking the rest of the season and trying to stay healthy”

“No one is stopping Lebron this year”

“Sheed – 35, Ray – 34, KG – 33, PP – 32, I just made that up. But I'm sure it's close. I understand it's an old man's game - but still. We've just been Sucking hard. If we can get Kevin Martin (who's like 27) you gotta do it. Because we won't beat Orlando, Cleveland or the Lakers in a 7 game series right now. No way.”

LifeStats: A Plea to God

I know it's a little morbid and unnecessary for a 25 year old guy such as myself to be thinking about Death...

but here's the thing, I have a fascination with Statistics...

I remember, as a young child, the desire to devour Red Sox box scores in the Boston Globe. I always liked a Sunday feature called "The Maniacal One" - this guy would determine crazy little nuggets, something like

"the Sox have won every weekday afternoon game started by a lefty pitcher (4-0) but are winless against right-handed starters on weekday afternoons (0-3)"

Things like that.

and there's certain maniacal things I want to know about my life, that I will never know.

I'd like to know how many hours I've spent sleeping. What percentage of my life that is. How many times have I actually watched the Blues Brothers Movie. or Jaws. or those two combined with Back to the Future. I bet it's a horrifying number of hours. So then compare that to Actual Hours Practicing Scales. That'd be an amusing ratio.

How many cans of coke. Or a complete breakdown of what percentage of each liquid I've consumed:

Water - 50%

Rum & Coke - 25%

Beer - 15%

Milk - 7%

Orange Juice - 3%

Ah, alas - those estimates are Way Off, I just know it, and it's frustrating.

Brain to Brain: Music is the Master of Translation where Nothing is Lost

I'm fascinated by how Music gets from the Player to the Listener within a live performance setting. I very much enjoy being on both ends of this phenomenon.

We'll start with the Player's brain, which is telling the Player to use the instrument to make music. Those instructions go from the brain, and through nerves (probably) until the muscles make the hands do their thing upon the instrument.

Now - let's assume we're using Electric, as opposed to Acoustic instruments, just because it's more Fun that way.

So our Player's hands are doing things upon their instrument. This electric instrument is picking up those movements and translating those movements into signals which are transferred to an amplifier. This amplifier translates those signals into vibrations in the air, which are precisely and dutifully vibrated by the speaker.

Next, those vibrations travel across the bar and into the ear of the Listener.

Once in the ear of the Listener, those vibrations pass through the ear drum and eventually turn into electrical signals, those of which that shoot up to the brain of the listener. And this makes the Listener smile, purchase more booze, and flail his/her arms and/or legs with glee.

This motion and energy catches the eye of the Player - who becomes, all at once, Flattered, Inspired, and Energized to restart the cycle, only this time with a renewed vigor. The cycle repeats with more intensity. And keeps repeating with more intensity... until The Player goes home with a pleasant hum in his ears, and the Listener crawls out of a cab and into bed, hopefully first drinking a glass of water.

From brain, to nerves, to muscle, to instrument, to amplifier, to air vibrations AWAY from the stage, into ears, through ear drums, back into the brain, more muscles convulsing, more energy and vibrations TOWARDS the stage...

without Anything being lost in translation. Amazing.

Cussing in Lyrics: A Double Edged Sword

I was talking with one of my young guitar students. He was asking about good drum songs and I recommended "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath. The student explained that his mom is not a big fan of Ozzy, and thus, he was not familiar with the tune.

I can respect that. The kid doesn't want to offend his mom. Very noble, young lad.

He continued on that she doesn't appreciate the "swearing" within Mr. Osbourne's lyrics. He asked me what I thought about swearing.

I told him that the use of cussing in lyrics has two sides to the argument.

The first being that the English language contains tens of thousands words, and therefore if you find yourself using one of the "Seven Dirty Words..." as a lyric to your song, then you are probably just Lazy. or Ignorant.

Then I asked this student if he was familiar with the Bill of Rights. Yes! he exclaimed. Are you familiar with the Freedom of Speech? Yes! he again exclaimed. Do you remember which amendment that was? Yes! he exclaimed for the final time - the First Amendment.

Damn right it's the First Amendment. because it's the most important. Censorship is weak and Un-American. Only religious fanatics, politicians and communists go around trying to censor other humans.

I didn't hammer this point home. The kid is only 11 and he shouldn't be cussing, he should be learning new words instead.

but the Truth of the matter is that if years from now this guy finds himself being censored by The Man, I hope he does what the Doors and Stones did on Ed Sullivan...

That is, rehearse the "clean" version and they play it Totally Uncensored during the live show. That's what my dad taught me to do.

Why Is Kendrick Perkins So Angry?

I received a text message last night that read:

"Why Is Perkins so Angry"

An Excellent Question.

The only person I can truly compare him to is myself. Which is convenient. I would not consider myself an angry person.

Kendrick is my age (three months older). He was a 1st round draft pick in the NBA after graduating high school. He has already won an NBA Championship, and by my estimations has banked AT LEAST 10M thus far into his playing career (with 4M more coming next year...)

He's married and has a child.

I searched and searched but could determine NO reasons for his perpetual angriness...

Until I stumbled upon this...

According to wikipedia,

"Perkins is a practicing Roman Catholic. He was an altar boy in his youth, and it was often problematic to find an alb to fit him due to his height"

Now, I understand. That's embarrassing, being a big guy in a little robe. Traumatizing, even.

And it seems to me that he still can't shake the memory of the Short Alb, all these years later.

Electronic Dust

My mom's parents have lived in their house for many, many years. Same with my dad's folks, before they passed. Going through their things was a pretty amazing experience. A time capsule.

My grandparents are, and were, Keepers of things. They kept them in pristine condition. Recipes neatly written, tools in their original boxes. This blew my mind. I'm not a Keeper.

So, hopefully, someday in the Future, near or far, someone will stumble onto this very blog. They will blow the electronic dust off of it and dive into the words.

This blog is going to be built of Words. I do love videos, streaming audio, explosions and similar tools of Instant Satisfaction, but links like that often shrivel and die. And dead links chip away at a good post. And chipped posts can decay a good blog. So this is going to be Words.

Such as, words to describe things I like, and words to convey things that I have learned and want to share with the world. I like music and sports and sometimes politics and religion...I want to convey happiness and patience and knowledge to the world. That said, I do not take myself all too seriously and don't really trust anyone that does.

love

Joe