Random Nostalgic Interlude

Here's a picture of the aforementioned red 1978 Honda Civic. What an excellent car that was. Quick, reliable, sporty, and she had an excellent sound system, cassette-based, of course, which was pretty hot technology at that point. She could hold a prodigious amount of dirty laundry for those monthly trips home from college, not to mention the various road trips across Texas in pursuit of adventure and romance.

And I look pretty spiffy there in my matching Dallas Tornado band shirt, too. One of my first professional musician jobs was playing trumpet for the Dallas Tornado, a pro soccer franchise. It was kind of a cross between a typical sports "pep band" (I've always hated that term) and a kind of ersatz Dixieland jazz group. They couldn't afford real musicians so they hired a handful of high school and college players along with a couple of wheezy has-beens who had let their union cards drop. It didn't pay very much, but it was fun at the time, I'm sure, and good experience. Nowadays a gig like that would be torture. Although, it might be fun to play electric guitar in an NHL band, if there were such a thing... How things change.

I've been mostly offline the last couple of days with connectivity problems. Even now my cable modem connection seems tenuous. Consequently I am behind in my professional obligations. Business seems to have slowed up a bit, too. Back to work, we've got mouths to feed and tuition to pay for.

Listening: Disk 2 of the Frank Zappa Box Set, "Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar". FZ was an extraordinary electric guitarist, his pottie mouth not withstanding. This has two of my favorites, "Variations on the The Carlos Santana Secret Chord Progression" and "Gee, I Like Your Pants". His playing often sounds manic and chaotic, but is, in fact, completely intentional. Like everything else Zappa, its not for everybody.