Monday, June 02, 2008

Bass Pursuits


So a few years ago, back in Louisiana, Wal-Mart had some relatively inexpensive electric guitars on display. There was a bass guitar, and I began to entertain the idea of picking one up and maybe learning to use it. Many, many years ago I bought a bass, and tried to learn its ways, but that didn't go so well, and I ended up selling it to a pawn shop for 1/4 what I paid for it. I have always loved the bass. My rock and roll heroes include Geddy Lee, Gene Simmons, Tina Weymouth(The Talking Heads), and Ariel Powers who used to be the bass player for the Fabulons, a South Florida oldies band of which I was once a fan. Ariel was a good friend, serious crush, and had mad bass skills. Unfortunately the cash never seemed available to get the guitar, and I relegated it to the 'maybe someday' file. Fast forward to this past Christmas. My beloved wife presented me with a bass guitar. I was thrilled...and then it sat untouched for months. I found a bass DVD, and even put it in the player once. Then it, too sat. So not too long ago I was deviling my wife about her myriad hobbies for which she has many books and apparatuses(aparati?) that she never actually does anything with, when she turned to me and said, "So when's the last time you touched that guitar?" I was skewered. The next day I did an Internet search to see if there were any places within a half hour's drive where I could take lessons. Much to my amazement I found one 10 minutes from home. I signed up, and tonight took my first lesson. We didn't really do much. We got acquainted a bit, he asked me what my musical tastes were[Black Sabbath, BOC, Deep Purple, etc], and what song I would most like to learn. This was, to me, the absolutely correct question, and I immediately answered Black Sabbath's N.I.B. He did a quick YouTube search, and listened to the song. He started figuring out the notes right then, and made some notes. Then he looked at my guitar. We need to do some work on it next week. The neck is a bit bowed, and the action is way too high, but he said it's serviceable for a cheap guitar.(actually I apologized for the cheapness of the guitar. He wasn't too put off by it, or at least he didn't let it show) So we'll see where this goes.

In other news I have to share this tale I read today on Fark. A woman in Utah had to call 911 because her car battery died while she was inside, and the automatic locks were all locked. She didn't know how to manually unlock her car! When the cops showed up she couldn't hear them through the windows, so they had to call her on her cell and instruct her how to unlock her fucking door!!! The story doesn't say how old this tard is, but I must pray, for the sake of our race, that she either hasn't, or won't procreate.

Ok, bed time. Love to all.
Marius

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm putting my money on the blondness factor! Are you sure this isn't a gag thing? I've seen a similar e-mail that's gone around several times now!

Anonymous said...

When you get to learning a bit,
check out
www.bassmasta.net or
www.basstabs.net
They are some that Kyle uses
and are quite helpful in
learning a song.
Funny that Kyle likes
KISS
ALICE COOPER...save me!
PRIMUS' bass player
Ldes Claypool is a frickin God.
YouTube him for inspiration.....
plus he has your "odd"sense of humor.

enjoy
QBK

Anonymous said...

uh, that was LES Claypool.
and I'm not anonymous...
QBK