gazing

Now that it's nearly a month gone since...

See, the trouble is that I never can think of anything at all to write about when it's timely. Come to that, I can scarcely think of anything to write about when it isn't. I went for...janey, most of my youth with people telling me I should be a writer. One sort of has to Dig Writing in order to do that, don't you think? I admire all of yez who have made this your calling: you're putting to good use all those words that I can't be arsed to do anything with at all.

Sort of thing. Actually, this is about me surviving St Pat's this year. I know, yeh? The shortest distance right? Ain't no thing. 

I had two gigs this year, which considering I don't work with a regular band anymore, is plenty really. If I were working with one? I think I'd want perhaps two more, but I'd no complaints for what I had (...and actually, I'd a chance at a third one, but for reasons best not gone into publicly, I turned that one down). It used to be that I was convinced that the regular, rehearsed band was the best way to go...and perhaps it still really is if one wants to do amazing things with one's music. Only a handful of years ago I had an experience with a pick-up band that was so phenomenal that it changed the way I approached performing. 

So since I'm not working with a band at all, I'm fairly game for pick-up work, and this has shaped my last few St Pat's experiences. Mostly, I work with two chaps: John and Mike. John is a mainstay in the local Irish scene and is one of the best Irish guitar players going. Mike is a fiddle player who used to live here, but now does dwell in Sunny Portland and makes the trek down to play with John (and myself) in the bars every March. 

With John on guitar, Mike on fiddle, and myself on vox and drum, we've fairly got it sorted.

So this year was much like last year: we played at Fred's and the Bull and Bush. The Bull and Bush is John's signature St Pat's do - everything builds up to that one. Last year, I liked Fred's best, cos it was low-key, casual, and I was fairly just after coming back from Atlanta and blowing rather much dust off the lot of it. I mean, I played in the seisiunna in Atlanta, but hardly performed there (my own choice), so. At any rate, Fred's was grand last year. 

This year...they'd changed the orientation of the stage (and in fact had built a huge new one), and the feel of the place was seriously different. And thus, I was seriously Off. It was...I'm glad there was nobody really paying me much mind, 'cos jaysus bloody mercy. Alright, in my own defence, I could hardly hear myself - which is never terribly good for a singer. I did manage to shush the crowd a bit during one song, so. Hurrah that. I lost them in the bridge, but oh well. We live and learn, don't we though? My mum had nothing critical to say about it, and she surely should have let me know if she thought that goats were blown. 

Once we'd done with Fred's, we decided we'd eff off to the Bull and Bush and sesh for a while in preparation for the next night's gig there. Wasn't that a fine idea? Well it was, truly, and I'm highly in favour of doing it again that way. We had a few punters, a few jars, a few tunes, and the people there got to listen to me singing the same Bob Dylan song Five Times Over. It was brilliant.

So I was well prepared for the next night's do and it went really well. Far better than Fred's had done. It can get quite noisy there during St Pat's, but since most people had done the momentary Irish bit the previous night, the crowd was thinner than usual and more interested in listening to us and interacting with us - and not once were we asked for some daft pub song that we're sick to our guts of doing. So I offered up Bob Dylan and Mumford & Sons, and it all worked rather well.
 
So. I managed a handful of paragraphs, yeh? :D
suffer

Impressions of Ainé

So as of last week, Bríd acquired a sister: Ainé. She's a 12" amber coloured goat. I jokingly remarked to my sister that if I manage to come across a drum with a white rim, I can row them up and make a Tri-colour. Up the Republic, indeed. It occurs to me that doing this might be taking things a bit too far.

So. I think Bríd is a bit jealous, but needn't be, as I fully intend to give both drums their due.

...'cos they're so different like. Bríd is quiet, polite, and mellow - whereas Ainé is shaping up to be a force of nature. Bríd's head seems a bit more susceptible to changes in a room's overall climate than Ainé. Since I've only a case for one drum, I left Ainé out on a table for a week. Bríd's tone would have run the gamut (I believe calfskins simply do this), whereas Ainé stayed steady. 

So that at the outset was interesting - and she only varied the wee-est of bits at sesh last night, and that room can never make its mind up whether it wants to be dry or wet. 

Ainé is never quite so forgiving as is Bríd. Bríd is warm and mellow-sounding enough to hide the occasional dodgy pitch or dropped beat, whereas Ainé calls out 'OHAI! Heard what you did there! Guess what - so did everybody else!!11 XD' 

:|

I really did need the excuse to tighten it all up. Laxity amidst one's mates is all too easy, really. This isn't the first time that I've been manoeuvred into changing up my style by Mr Alfonso's wares. XD


suffer

Writer's Block: Vision Test

kayria_kara
Vision Test
Do you believe in love at first sight?
Reply 404
It was the latter days of 1990; I was seventeen and full of the usual sorts of pipedreams and frippery. You were a small drum played in a way that I'd never seen before, and to be quite honest, couldn't quite work out by simply watching. 

But the sound of you. It was deeper than a heartbeat and older than primal. I could liken it to the echoes of the Big Bang and not only would that be grossly florid, everybody knows that the Big Bang remnants sound a bit more like eeeEERRNNNKKkkk (seriously - look it up, it'll set your back teeth vibrating. Ah, the dulcet screech of the creation of everything). 

All silliness aside, I was instantly fascinated and fixated on this thing: I had to get my hands on one to find out what it would do. A few months later, I was afforded my chance. Not long after that, I began spending rather much time in its presence, working out how to give the sound of it that primordial thrum. 

Now I feel strange when it's not somewhere nearby. So much for being a rock star. 
gazing

Writer's Block: Doppelganger Week

Doppelganger Week
Who is your look-alike?
Reply 265
So I'm a bit late on this one, but I wanted to chime in, 'cos despite what I may think about it, mine isn't a unique face. Over the years I've been compared to: 
Kirstie Alley - back in the 'Cheers' day

A woman wearing stripes in a magazine  - somebody tore the page out and gave it to me. Hang me, but I may still have it

Jodie Foster - this used to be The One. For a while, whenever somebody would say 'Do you know who you look like?!' I'd draw a breath and (patiently, mind) answer 'Jodie Foster'? And inevitably they'd go 'yes!' I had a table full of randy English business men calling me 'Jodie' in Dublin. I did the 'Dr Lector?!' bit just to piss with them. They were going on about mistresses (nudge-nudge-wink-wink, we're staying here in Temple Bar? Yourselves?); we got away from them quick-quick like.

(Oddly, never Meg Foster)

Rene Russo

Enya

Adam Lambert - somebody on somebody else's friends list thought my profile icon was a photo of himself.

Gabrielle...janey what was her name? The French girl in 'Inglourious Basterds'. Melanie (what? Sounds just like 'Gabrielle') Laurent.

Anna Colliton - who happens to be another bodhranaí up in New York. This one proved a bit awkward. She came down to do the bodhrán class at O'Flaherty two years ago. Albert stood us up side-by-side so that he could compare us. Mostly, we're roughly of the same height and figure. She's younger than myself, so she's a bit more svelte, but otherwise. (And often very similar hair! What the hell? It's not as though we're consulting with each other first. I've lately let mine grow a bit, and am sporting the long jagged layers. I saw a recent photo of her a few days ago, and so is she?! I think our hairdressers must be cahooting or something.) I mean, I almost see the resemblance - but you'd have to stuff my friend, Jenna, between the two of us. Then Jenna and I look like sisters and Anna could be a cousin. But...the result was that people I know in passing called me 'Anna' all week, and at least one of my friends reported racing up to Anna only to find out she wasn't myself at the last dying moment.

At least nobody asked me 'is that your daughter?' XD



 

suffer

Neoprene contact high

That's an odd title for an entry, innit?

Only it's true: the smell of the curing contact cement adhering the neoprene made my head a bit swimmy.

Or in English, Bríd's back home, and I think she'll be alright. She played well tonight, I think. I'm going to mind how I treat her though. I'm still a bit spooked.

 
gazing

Contractually speaking...

My word (literally, as it worked out), was that a fucking gas. I don't think I've ever had as much fun in an office, for realz like. So. The project. The way that the hunter of heads presented it to me was 'they want you to bring something into compliance with company brand' - which I can do in my sleep providing you give me all the specifications, colour palette, fonts, &c. Only he didn't exactly understand the scope of the project, 'cos headhunters often approach job descriptions at very high levels. It's been more than once that I've gone into an interview to find out that the description and the reality are about eighty miles apart from each other. It can be awkward.

Here is what they actually wanted: somebody to read a book about leadership that their consultant had written, and then distil it down into a work book and other materials (little cards, to be precise) that complied with corporate brand. There was no extant workbook, thus it fell to me to do the writing of it. Hence my (correct) use of 'literally' in the first sentence.

It's the first time I've ever been paid to write in my life. It's daft, usually I feel I can hardly string two sentences together, and my grammar (it might be noted) is colourful. However, since it's for a training workbook, I can keep it fairly conversational, but having to strip my own voice out of it has meant for mental gymnastics. It's as though I'm thinking with another head. I'd write something, spin round in my chair a few times (thus invoking said other head), and then I'd think 'would this make sense to me if I were a corporate suit? If the answer was '...merrrgh?' then I'd know that clearly something wanted changing. 

And yet, I did it. I now can say I've been a professional writer. For fuck's sake, yeh? How the devil did this happen?
Oops

Is é mo ghluaistean briste

It actually started in 2009. Since this one garage had done so very well in sorting out rather an irksome woe, I felt confident in trusting the people there with my car. 

Well. Fools bloody rush in, dunnit. 

The battery cable thingummy went well. The back brakes went well. But when my clutch wanted replacing? They bloody banjaxed it - and by that, I mean to the point that a piece of the linkage fell out and bounced away whilst I was driving down the 75 towards the city (there's a 75 in Atlanta as well). What followed was a great lot of hire cars and strife that culminated in an angry letter and the car being towed to the Sandy Springs Subaru. Oh, and this was in the midst of the Christmas as well. Bucking. Frilliant. 

Fast forwards one year's time. My car has been squeaking. It's actually been squeaking since Atlanta, but I'd convinced myself it was a belt wearing out, and had taken the decision to squeeze every last bit of life out of it. (I understand this isn't wise, so.)

Lately, a bit of undercarriage trim had rearranged itself such that it made a ghastly sound whenever I rounded a corner. Since my dad's no slouch when it comes to the finer workings of things with combustion engines, I asked him to lash up that trim to something. Since we'd already got the car up onto the ramps, he had a listen to it with a Car Stethoscope, and determined that the squeak originated in the clutch. Apparently, the throw out bearing is bodgered.

SO YAY, LIKE. Four times in the fucking garage, and the bleeding clutch is still effed up. I mean, the hell sez I - should I have resorted to voodoo? Would that have done the trick? Janey bloody mercy. 

As I mentioned, I've already done the bit with the Better Business Bureau, and they've made 'good' by me as best they'd do. Grr. So, we'll be making a hike up to a Subaru dealer in the back of beyond (alright, McKinney), 'cos that's where our local, trusted rep ended up.   
Aaaaand...that piece of trim? In his opinion, it looks as though somebody left a few pieces off when it was replaced after all of last year's work had been done. So hurrah fucking that. Poxy rat bastards. Never again in my life will I go to Pep Boys. /spits

I'm fairly decided that my next conveyance will be a donkey with a cart. 
orion rising

On the passing of my cat

But for a few people (many of whom were told out of necessity - such as the ones at work), I said nothing about the passing of my cat. I prefer to do my mourning in the solace of my own house, and as much as I know people want to Be There, I usually need space and time before I can accept that care. Don't mistake me: this is never about whether I deserve it, or am grateful, or feel compelled to Look Strong. I'm an introvert; I'm hard-wired for solitude. When I'm injured in any way, I've got to have time alone (and by 'alone', I mean by myself or with Shaddow - nobody else) in order to sort myself out. Them's the breaks with me, like.

She went into hospital on the New Year's Eve, and she died a week later. We'd go to see her every night. Some nights, she'd seem to rally a bit, and we'd think we'd be able to bring her home and maintain her. Other nights...we felt otherwise. By that Thursday, we realised there was nothing to be done. She was never going to well enough for us to keep her comfortable in her decline, and that was that. 

It's been three weeks, but I'm still palpably aware that Orion Rising is missing some vital being. I wish I believed in ghosts, then I could trick myself into seeing her wee spirit rattling about. I do not, thus I cannot. I don't know whether, ultimately, this is bane or boon. She'd gone sixteen years of age. Per this site, she was 84. I don't know how much more I could or should have expected of her. I suppose within all of us is a five-year-old who refuses to take 'mortal' for an answer. I need to believe that we did everything we could do, but I'm not sure. 

On the last day of her life, she bit one of the vet's assistants. Ever my Irascible Beancat. 
suffer

Bríd's off her head

So. Here's how it happened: I was in the middle of a gig when a circular patch in my drum's head went slack - never mind that the outer rim of the head surrounding that patch was alarmingly (as in 'take cover, she's going to blow') taut.

I did what any staid and stoic semi pro would do: I panicked. At the break, I raced behind the pub to phone Albert and gibber like a scared wee thing whose drum has just gone thmok when it should have gone something near to a G.

Silently, I did lament to myself how it seems I end up with a drum with a fouled head (although, in honesty Caitrín may have a fine head; I simply don't like the tone she produces). Got to be player error somehow. I'd got used to plastic drum heads that don't require the care and feeding of natural heads.

Since Albert's convinced it can't be a dodgy skin, there are two possibilities that come to my mind barring the skin being wonky:
  • I've been too hard on the head
  • It could be the weather
(I heart bullets, don't you?) 

If I've ballsed up the head. it's for lack of a crossbrace (this is my first ever drum without one, so I could have done). Over the years, I built my playing style round using that crossbrace for leverage. I'd use a crossbrace, 'cos till recently, most drums were too large for me to control without one - I've explained this many's the time before, so. Only I never felt myself pushing that hard, and Albert (who's seen me since then) has never said 'AAAAHWhatAreYouDoing1111!!11Eleven!!BBQ!11' And he would do. In fact, that would be a direct quote, barbecue and all. 

(Sings) Oh, god - could it be the weather? It could be, in fact, the weather. Albert's the first to say that his drums favour a certain level of humidity, and there's still rather a drought. A few times when I fetched her out, it required me using both hands to work the tuning keys. It startled me once; I feared the head would split, and so I began the practise of downtuning her after a night's play. Apparently, that's the very thing Albert had told me not to do for at least six months. I've no recollexion of this, but in my haste to get my hands on her, I could have spaced on that one. I do know, now, without a doubt that I'm bonding to this drum: I was reluctant to have her back to Albert for repair. I mean, I had to make myself hand over the drum, and then I felt weird watching him leave with her. 

I may well see him tonight - whether he's got Bríd all sorted out...I doubt it. I suppose I'll bring Caitrín to the 'work seisiún' and we'll see what I get out of her. Sigh. Or I could bring Grainne - never mind the plastic head and the fact that she doesn't much like me, she still sounds better than Caitrín. 

I'm exing digits. I want my Bríd back. 

Addendum: Albert's just after phoning, and I will have her back tonight. He's not thrilled with the sound she's giving, so it may well be that she goes back home with him tonight for a new head. I really want this drum to be The One, so I'm actually a bit tense about it.