Red Ivy, on me
disgusting, invisible
blood, splatters, body

~m

I recently began teaching piano to someone that’s been asking me about some lessons for several years.
This ‘student’ of mine is currently working on many things but mainly pop tunes.
She takes on these artist tribute gigs like it’s her job and generally has 30-40 tunes on her plate.
She comes to me with the ones she’s having issues with and we go from there.
A bit avant-garde but it seems to work.
Although many things I say are met with that ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ stare,
there are moments when the light goes on and the aha moment presents itself.
This week we were going through several songs: I’m in you by Peter Frampton,
Yesterday Once More by the Carpenters and
Mandy by Barry Manilow.
No cheap-shot Manilow comments, okay?
Jeepers.
(and my student kind of gags when she plays these)
She generally goes to the web and finds a chord chart for a given song
and prints it out hoping to get a head start before she has her lesson.
I easily figured out why she’s been having so much trouble.
The chord charts suck.
Bad, appalling, ridiculous, shitty, WRONG are all adjectives that describe these
toilet paper-like charts that I wouldn’t even wipe a strangers ass with never mind my own keester.
These charts were written by someone that #1, has no ears (literally & figuratively),
#2, has little to no natural musical talent and #3, wouldn’t know what a minor seven flat five chord was unless it bit them is the ass.
I could not believe what I was seeing.
They should come with a *disclaimer:

“These chord charts are guaranteed to raise your suck factor
to levels beyond your wildest dreams.
They’re so poorly written you won’t even be able to play the song!”

Or

“Musically illogical chord charts. Yeah, they do sound like shit, don’t they?
Hell, we don’t think we got one chord right!”

Jesus Krispies.

Figuring out chord changes to a song is not brain surgery
but for the bonehead that put some of this crap on the web I really have to wonder.
Bottom line?
It you’re trying to learn a song, stay the hell away from the web.
It will musically scare the hell out of you.
I am still shaking my head.

For your edification, THIS is one of the URL’s in question.

And not to totally diss this site (which I have done) this is a chord chart from someone
that doesn’t have their head up their ass.
Deacon Blues

The Cult of Done Manifesto

There are three states of being.
Not knowing, action and completion.
Accept that everything is a draft.
It helps to get it done.
There is no editing stage.
Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing,
so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
Banish procrastination.
If you want more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
Once you’re done you can throw it away.
Laugh at perfection.
It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
People without dirty hands are wrong.
Doing something makes you right.
Failure counts as done.
So do mistakes.
Destruction is a variant of done.
If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as the ghost of done.
Done is the engine of more.
I am done . . .

In the deafening silence of 12
I stare into the shiny anthracite eyes of midnight and wonder about
the pointlessness of it all;
the means to an end, the ying and yang of it all,  black splashes of time that seem to
ebb and flow
washing away the truths I once knew,
an innocence I once possessed,
a faith that now longs for the simplest of me,
the purity in this long begotten soul of mine
My harbour of solace and hope is now closed to a raging sea
I toss and turn, praying for some kind of rescue instead of praying for
mercy . . .
mercy, mercy me
Maybe the reality is that I am truly broken, maybe I’ll just anchor far away from the rocks on shore
but maybe I’ll just drift back and away, and away
wait until 12 turns to 3 for me,
all for the stygian likes of me
Maybe . . .

I need the sharpest of knives to slice this
epidermal anomaly from the trappings of my weak and aging body
Deep slices to the elbows, slow and tender slices to the knees
please scratch my legs until they bleed, thank you please
this betrayal of skin, the most hideous part of me
is a possession of the worst kind,
an internal itch I will never be physically able to touch
the P takes over my body, the quintessential tired host
it will never be free . . . as the crimson spreads far above the blood that boils deep within me
People will continue to stare,
invisibly pointing to my sprawling scarlet letter ‘P’
just another ugly ducking,
just another ugly waiting stranger hiding deep inside of me . . .
I hate this

Ravens 33

Patriots 14

The first quarter was enough to make me gorge a bucket of maggots.
Did I swear?
HellsYeah.
There’s always next year, I guess . . .
Wes, we missed you

Poverty.
In two words, it sucks.
I was quite moved by this picture.

No Malarky Monday today.
Two guesses why . . .

The following is a Public Service Announcement that was done in the UK.
It is graphic, violent and bloody.
I post this for anyone with children driving these days.
I have three daughters and they will undoubtedly watch this.
If it saves one life, it will have been well worth the post.
And if you think for one minute that this isn’t happening, you are KIDDING yourself.
Talk to your children.
God only knows how much I love mine.
Technology giveth and technology taketh away.
Please don’t let it be the latter.
Please view this video with caution.

Kinda hard for me to believe this guy did ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ in 77.
I didn’t listen to him then but I’m sure as hell listening to him now.
This blew me away.
Gun control for the masses.
Every single goddamned day another constitutional right gets thrown in the
shitter by these bureaucratic boneheads.
Republican & Democrat.
How do you spell bullshit?
I love Nugent in this interview.
Rock on, dude, rock on