Guitar Trouble

            On Sunday after midnight the wifi went off and Sankara’s network had disappeared from the list. That's happened before and has always resolved itself later on, so I just went to bed. When I got up at 5:00 it was still off. That’s happened before as well but not very often. I think last year it was off for 24 hours at least once. 

            Without the internet I couldn’t conveniently work on translating “La java des chaussettes à clous” (The Dance of the Studded Stockings) by Boris Vian, so I just sang along with it a couple of times. It's a pretty long song. 

            I almost memorized the second verse of the original French version of “O Canada". 

            During song practice the A string broke on my Epi at the beginning of my second song. I changed it, had a hell of a time getting everything back in tune, started playing again, got through the second verse of that same second song and something happened. It felt like another string broke but none did. My A, D and G strings were suddenly too close to the fret board. My only guess is that the truss rod suddenly shifted and I don't know how to do anything about that. I had no choice but to pick up my Kramer electric and try to get it working. A couple of months ago I tried to tune it but I’d forgotten how its complicated tuning mechanism worked and ended up breaking the high E string. I used my last new acoustic E string and cut off the barrel because I couldn't see how it could fit at the bottom otherwise, then I had to look for the right Allen key to unscrew the bolt that pushes into the little metal cube that holds the string in place. By this time it was 8:30 and so song practice was a write off. It was the first time in years that I haven’t had a rehearsal. I didn’t finish tuning the Kramer and figured I’d do it later. The new E string looks frayed and it might break anyway. I might have to salvage an E string from one of the other guitars. 

            I weighed 89.7 kilos before breakfast. I still couldn’t connect through Shankar’s network but I was able to access the internet through a network called dlink. I think in the past when I tried I was able to connect to that network but there was no internet. I don’t know if someone is extending their network for a purpose or just to be nice to strangers. 

            In the late morning I wanted to continue with my oven cleaning project but I needed a functional guitar for tomorrow morning and so I worked on tuning the Kramer. With this guitar after one gets the E and A, the D and G and the B and E strings in range of their proper notes, one locks them down by screwing in the brackets for each pair at the top of the neck. Then any fine tuning needs to be done with the dials for each string at the bottom of the guitar. I recall that this guitar stayed in tune very well because of this system. Then I plugged in my Roland amp for the first time in many years and jacked the guitar into it but I couldn’t get any sound other than the electronic noise of the amp. I tried the two other electrics. The First Act wouldn’t make any noise, plus I discovered the action was too low anyway. The Rocker did work but I needed to use two jack adaptors to make the main jack fit. Later I tried the Kramer again and it did work at least sometimes. I’ll hear what happens in the morning. I have several things to make music with but they are all in need of repair. 

            It’s been well over a month since I sent my Washburn to Quebec but there’s been no word from Remenyi House of Music about it being returned and fixed. I tried to call them twice last week but couldn’t get through. My warranty runs out next week so I hope when I get it back I’ll have no more problems keeping it in tune. 

            I had saltines, five year old cheddar and a glass of lime aid for lunch. My next door neighbour Benji told me that some of our rooftop neighbours are complaining about Popeyes’ ventilation machinery on our roof making too much noise on weekends when they are open until 3:00. They might be breaking the noise bylaw. 

            I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. The new electric buses sound annoying. They are certainly better to sit behind on my bike because there are no fumes, but in terms of noise the brakes hiss and the motor rises in a whining crescendo that is not pleasant. I hate the roaring of the fuel burning buses when I am playing guitar at home, but out on the street the purr when they are stopped and the roar when they are rolling is quite pleasant compared with the electrics. It had been a frustrating morning and the bike ride helped to relax me a bit. I weighed 88.9 kilos when I got home. 

            I worked on my poem series "My Blood in a Bug." 

            I saved my most recent Movie Maker project as “Insertions for Electroshock Therapy" and then removed from the timeline videos 8-29 of the electrical cords I animated. I published what was left as a movie and then imported it to my main project “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy.” I had planned on showing myself from the original concert video first before inserting the movie of the lightning, snakes and cords. But in the beginning of the video what I’m doing on guitar doesn't look anything like what I'm playing in the studio recording. So I inserted the lightning, snakes and cords at the very beginning. Just by chance, when the insertion is over and I am shown again the visual for at least a moment resembles the sound and so it looks like a good introduction of me. After that brief moment showing me and my guitar I’ll have to delete about 38 seconds of the concert video in order to get it back in sync with the audio. There may be some places before and after I start singing where I will insert more clips of animated cords. 

            I made pizza on a slice of bread, with sauce and old cheddar. I had intended to chop up the other burger that I’d made last night but I totally forgot. I had my pizza with a beer while watching the first two episodes of the seventh season of The Andy Griffith Show. 

            In the first story there’s kind of a fucked up message that was somewhat typical of that era. Helen's niece Cynthia has come to stay with her for a while and she brings her over to Andy’s place. Opie is forced to play with her but he gets competitive and has the rude awakening that she’s better at everything he tries. She out cartwheels him, outruns him, and out jumps him. When they play football she intercepts a pass meant for him and he calls it interference. They argue and finally she pushes him. He pushes her back and it goes back and forth until she challenges him to push her again. He does and she gives him a black eye. There's something to be said for the argument that when a girl hits a boy she is taking advantage of the fact that boys are discouraged from hitting girls and so they tend not to do so. The fucked up part is when Helen has a talk with Cynthia about how it damages the male ego to lose to a female and so it might be a good idea for the sake of their emotional health for girls to let them win. When I was in grade school I had a health book that was probably from the 1940s that put forward the very same argument. The last time Helen went bowling with Helen she won and she could see it upset him but he said he didn’t have his own shoes on. They go out again and she deliberately plays badly. But Andy catches her and says it takes a good player to miss the pins every time. He tells her that this time he would have beaten her because he was wearing his own shoes. 

            The second story features Howard Sprague and his asshole mother again. In this episode Andy invites Howard to his lodge meeting because Howard is interested in joining. He gets along fine with the other guys and so there is a vote coming up. But if one member doesn’t want him in then he's out. Howard’s mother of course doesn't want Howard involved with anything that keeps them apart. When she hears that all it takes is one negative vote she applies her manipulative skills to the dumbest member. She goes to see Goober and spins a fake story about Howard’s father having been addicted to gambling and since she knows they sometimes play cards at lodge meetings she hopes that he won’t get in. When the anonymous voting takes place Goober blackballs Howard. Andy can’t figure out why any member would vote to keep Howard out. Andy wants to bring Howard to another meeting but when Goober sees Howard coming he tries to stop everyone at the lodge from playing cards. Finally it comes out that Goober blackballed him and he explains why. Howard says his mother lied and so the blackball is lifted and Howard joins.

            I got a general email from Albert Moritz announcing to many people that most of the projects he’d meant to help people with will need to be delayed because on May 5 he had a stroke in his left eye resulting in what is probably permanent blindness there. He had surgery but they don’t think his sight in that eye will be restored. He’s now recovering but he added a note at the bottom specifically for me saying he'll try to look at my manuscript in a couple of weeks. That was nice of him. It’s weird that his stroke happened two days after him writing to me about being able to work on my manuscript again.