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Double-Take Five

March 18, 2013 26 Comments

Hmmm. What’s a father to say about this one?

I’m not exactly sure where it came from. My children have heard Take Five a million times in our house, of course. We’re catholic in our tastes, and Brubeck is a staple in the audio stable of anyone that’s not a barbarian. But this is not our –my wife and I, I mean –idea.

It’s the kids’ idea to play it. We homeschool the kids. Well, my wife homeschools the kids, and I try not to mess it up too badly. Take a big bite, and keep chewing, we counsel them. This seems more than a big bite to me. I’ve watched it dozens of times already. I find it kind of astonishing. But better than that –I find it entertaining. I’ll put this version of Take Five on my mp3 player and erase the original, and never look back.

The Heir is doing all the heavy lifting. He is playing three parts on the recording. He has learned to play the bass fairly well, even though he only recently started messing around with it. He tried to cajole a handful of his friends to play along with him, but they all fall out almost immediately. He decided to do it himself. With the help of my readers, he’s able to record multiple tracks now, and makes the most of it. It’s a tiny little thing, his multitrack. But it works. He recorded the rhythm guitar part along with his brother, in one take, and then added the bass, and then the melody and the solo. His little brother never misses, so he gets to go back to playing Minecraft right away.

I know him, the Spare Heir. He’s thinking of playing Minecraft the whole time he’s playing Take Five. I’m certain of that, because I remarked to him, after the last cymbal strike decayed into hiss and the recorder was turned off, that I thought he played really well, and he looked at me funny and immediately started in with: My Minecraft mod has such-and-such and so-and-so in it and blah, blah, blah…

Honestly, I don’t know how he does it. He’s still only nine. I can’t play Take Five properly on the drums. There is no one in Oxford County, Maine, that can, probably. It’s in odd meter: 5/4. If you’re unfamiliar with that term, watch it again and count the beats as the measures go by. You’re probably used to doing that. 1 2 3 4, you go. Count 1 2 3 4 5 for this song. It’s how the song got its name, of course. The saxophone player in Brubeck’s band, Paul Desmond wrote the song, which was mightily overlooked when Brubeck passed away a short time ago. Everyone assumed Brubeck had written it.

At any rate, the big one learned to play the saxophone part on the guitar, and they tried it out. The little feller played what was essentially the correct drumbeat by ear. Sat down and did it. I sat down after him, a little curious, and tried it myself. I sounded like I had some sort of affliction, and was falling down the stairs while playing the drums. I jerked around like a fish on a line for a while, then gave up. I mentioned to the boy that what he was playing would be more effective if he opened his hi-hat on the second beat and closed it crisply on the third, to make it sizzle. He immediately added that to what he was playing, further confounding me. It’s very prominent on their recording if you look for it. That’s the limit of my input into the playing.

Yesterday was special. I promised my wife, and the kids, that for the first time in three years, I’d take a day off. A real day off. No furniture. No writing. I’ve promised that in the past, many times, and always failed. I wrote everything the day before, and didn’t bang my thumb or anything in the woodshop. I volunteered to be their key grip.

We took the furniture out of the dining room, and lugged their stuff in there, and we set up two ladders. Between the ladders, we laid two, eight-foot two-by-fours. We got the two-by-fours from the dump. We took a skateboard, and clamped a video camera to it with two spring clamps from the woodshop. Then I rolled the skateboard back and forth while the kids played. We moved the ladders this way and that for the different shots. We didn’t bother filming the bass playing. My wife was out all day on a mission of mercy, and we boys re-enacted The Cat In The Hat, tearing the house asunder while Mom’s away, and putting it all back, and doing all the dishes before she got home.

It was, in every way but one, the best day of my life.

(There’s a Paypal button in the right column if you want to help us buy the kids a better skateboard for the dolly shots)

[Update: Holy cow, many thanks to Stephen L. for his generous bang on the tipjar!]

[Up-Update: Many thanks to (Sloop) Jon B. in Cholerahdi for helping the kids out!]

[More Up To Date: Many thanks to Philip B. from Yucca Val-E!]

[The continuing saga of Updates: Thanks a ton to Nathan A. with an M.O. from MO.]

[In this episode of As The 45 Turns, we send a metric carload of thanks to Bruce W. from CO for his very generous body-slam of the Paypal button. Stay away from the Donner Pass, Bruce; the world needs you]

[Cutting-edge Update: Many thanks go out to Kathleen M. from New Milford, which is obviously a much better place than Old Milford, because Kathleen M. lives in New Milford]

[Rocky Update: Why are people in Colorado so nice, and nice to us? It’s a wonderful mystery. Thanks, Mark M. from Leadville for your very generous Paypal button workout]

[More Up-To-Date Update: Muchas gracias to Tanis E. for supporting the boys. Very generous! Why are people in Texas so kind, and kind to us? We don’t know, but we’re grateful for it.]

[Update: Maine edition: Tom C. from Bridgton sends along a generous and neighborly show of support. Many thanks!]

[Lone Star Update: Holy cow, Texas has adopted my children. Many thanks to Linda L. from League City. You’re a peach!]

[Empire State Uppadate: Arthur R. from Bellport is a pleasant and generous fellow, and we’re grateful for it. Many thanks!]

[Up, Up, and Awaydate: I’m speechless. Well-wishes and support keeps coming. Impresario Dave R. from California is continually generous and helpful. Many thanks! ]

[More, More, Moredate: Lee P. from the Keystone State is a generous supporter. Many thanks!]

[California, Somemoredate: Long time reader and commenter and Interfriend Lorraine, who I do not like — I adore her — ladles money and good wishes on the boys, and me too. My life is better with Lorraine in it. Many thanks!]

[Week Later Update: Our grateful thanks go out to Peter H. from the North Star State for his generous help and support!]

[So Very Up Update: Many thanks to Signe from Coasta Meysee for supporting the boys!]

Happy Opposite Day

March 17, 2013 3 Comments

Mom’s drunk. Dad’s crying. Must be opposite day. Let’s have a blessing:

May
those who love us love us.
And those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts.
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts,
May he turn their ankles,
So we’ll know them by their limping.

Let’s sing Carrickfergus, and weep, and laugh, all at once. And before anyone gets any ideas in the comments, there is only one version of this song:

I wished I had you in Carrickfergus,
Only for nights in Ballygrand,
I would swim over the deepest ocean,
The deepest ocean to be by your side.

But the sea is wide and I can’t swim over
And neither have I wings to fly.
I wish I could find me a handy boatman
To ferry me over to my love and die.

My childhood days bring back sad reflections
Of happy days so long ago.
My boyhood friends and my own relations.
Have all passed on like the melting snow.

So I’ll spend my days in endless roving,
Soft is the grass and my bed is free.
Oh to be home now in Carrickfergus,
On the long road down to the salty sea.

And in Kilkenny it is reported
On marble stone there as black as ink,
With gold and silver I did support her
But I’ll sing no more now till I get a drink.

I’m drunk today and I’m rarely sober,
A handsome rover from town to town.
Oh but I am sick now and my days are numbered
Come all ye young men and lay me down.

I wish you’d put the battered kettle on
The bag could take one steeping more
I’d walk for miles across a rocky down
To hear the whistle we’re all waiting for

The gulf yawns wide and I can’t leap over
Until my time is drawing nigh
You’re laid to rest in the nonesuch clover
When you were here you slipped on by

Those Christmas days and our destinations
Trolley rides through the dirty snow
My childhood’s gone, like passing stations
Eyes full of tears, some from the cold

Nicely done, Van. More power to your elbow.

You Look Like A Fine, Upstanding Young Man; I Think You’ll Do

March 16, 2013 6 Comments

Is there some point where we stand athwart history yelling stop? Or is it renaissance that’s necessary? Perhaps we have to wipe things out to recognize them for what they were, and represent, and then restore them to a place of honor in our lives if we decide they’re meaningful.

The restoration of handwork to everyday life serves both the person doing the work, and the customer. Walmart is useful, but it cannot feed the soul. Luddites want to dig ditches with spoons, but that’s not what I’m talking about. People need to see the evidence of humanity in their everyday objects. The persons that produce these everyday objects need to feel the humanity of the people that use their creations in return.

Guitar Army

March 15, 2013 9 Comments

It’s Chet Atkins and Doc Watson and Leo Kottke in the hallway and they’re just messin’ around like Michelangelo doodling on the outhouse wall or something and I probably should say something about them that’s pithy or insightful but I can’t, I can only remember things from my own life because I’m kind of a jerk and other people’s lives don’t interest me as much as they should and so I have to insert them into my life or they don’t count, but I was in Nashville a long time ago in a Toyota that didn’t have a dent yet but was gonna, and I was buying a bass I couldn’t afford from a man I didn’t know with money I didn’t have so I could play in bands that weren’t gonna be interested in me anyway, and the man behind the counter was so nice he took that plank off the shelf and unbolted the rosewood neck and swapped it for a maple one even though upon reflection I wish I’d have kept the rosewood one, and he was chatting with me and my brother who was riding along with me in that Toyota without the dent in it yet, and he was no use to that neck-swapping fella because he’s left-handed and the shop didn’t have anything sinister in it except me and I play right-handed, and that fellow said he was friends with a fellow that was friends with Chet Atkins and his friend was performing that very evening and thought Chet was going to drop by unannounced and sit in and we should go and see him with his best wishes but not his company, probably because he had fleeced me and wanted to go out with his real friends with a bankroll instead of a bedroll for a change and get tight; so we set off to find this place he sent us but Nashville was as unfamiliar to us as a steady paycheck and we wandered a bit and saw every closed and locked storefront that fine city had to offer a weary traveler until we happened upon Irma’s Dusty Road Cafe hiding behind a banner that told wild tales of jam sessions being held with instruments provided, and it didn’t have even a passing resemblance to the place we were looking for, but we went on in because it was getting so late that OPEN seemed right on time to us, but there was next to no one in there and they only served Pabst in cans, that’s all they had, don’t you fellows even think of asking for anything else, you just hold up the requisite fingers for the amount you require and you’ll find Blue Ribbon succor in just that amount; and there was a blind man sitting at a table playing guitar, but in the back, nowhere near the stage, and my brother didn’t pick up on the fact he was blind and insulted him by accident in his innocence, and all of a sudden that man had enough friends of his to form an entourage or a military detachment or a lynch mob gathered in a circle around him, and us –mostly us– and there was a faraway look of PBR and anger in their eyes, the ones that weren’t glass, anyway, and I thought I’d better smooth things over so I identified my brother as a bass player and told the assembled posse that he was dying to play bass with the blind fellow, who was pretty good as I recall, and my brother looked at me daggers because he didn’t want to play bass in Irma’s Dusty Road cafe instruments provided because the instruments provided were all broken, and a very particular kind of broken they were, too; they were broken in a right-hand way, like insult to injury to my brother, who didn’t yet realize what he had done to poor us in his innocence, and one way or the other he was about to experience insult and injury, so I figured he might as well get it metaphorically, playing a broken bass upside down in an ad hoc country band instead of in the alley outside via the shod foot; so he figures he’ll fix my little red wagon, and tells them his little brother would love to play the drums, knowing full well that I have never met a drummer, never mind a drum teacher, and I’d be in a bit of a bother to play the things, but he didn’t care and I didn’t care and the audience didn’t care because they were so full of Pabst Blue Ribbon that they could barely hold up their fingers in the correct number to get the additional amount they required to stay lit, and we set to making country and music noise, my brother upside-down, and me, more or less sideways, I think, and it was jolly, I guess — or at least the audience thought the noise we were making was jollier than beating us like carpets in the spring, and then they started going up to the bar and holding up two fingers for every one Pabst that they desired at the time, and put the extra on the bandstand for us to drink, free-like, and soon I lost any idea of striking the floor tom because it was crowded with cans of beer I was just getting to, and so was every other horizontal surface on the band stand, and the application of so much PBR to my nervous system made me play the drums with a wild abandon commensurate with great ability, despite the fact I had no ability, and it was then that a fellow told me that it would be considered a great insult if we didn’t finish a beer that the audience had purchased for us, and the fact there was a dozen and one in my bullpen and it was only the second inning wouldn’t cut any ice with anybody in that place, and then that same fellow, who was obviously having more fun than me and my brother put together, went up to the bar and told the assembled throng gathered there that that carpetbagging yankee drummer and his confused brother that don’t know which way to hold a bass, never mind which end to blow in, well, those fellows claim they can drink more Pabst Blue Ribbon beer than we can buy them.

So you see, when I see a video of Chet Atkins, I look at it differently than you. After all, he’s a friend of mine.

If You Make Things, You Are My Brother, Chapter XVII: The Roentgens Are Not Related To Me Or Any Other Regular Human Woodworkers

March 14, 2013 12 Comments

So my friend Gerard, who lurks in the opposite top corner pocket of the continental US, and imparts his English as he indulges in his pixel Jupiter Complex from there at American Digest, raining well-deserved bolts down on various varlets, sent this little trifle along. The Roentgen’s Berlin Secretary:

My old familiar Ben Franklin is erroneously credited with saying that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Of course the actual quote, “Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy,” is infinitely more elegant, but the point stands either way. What is the Roentgen cabinet in my email inbox proof of?
 
I make furniture, after all. That, that –that thing–in the video is just like furniture, in the same way that a Victoria’s Secret catalog is the same as a date with Tom Brady’s wife. Or as my other familiar, Samuel L. Clemens once observed, “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” So I must struggle to find le mot juste, or more accurately, les mots juste. Here goes:

The Roentgen Berlin Cabinet is proof that God hates me, and that Gerard wants me to take my own life with my own hand.

Month: March 2013

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sippicancottage

A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything.

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