February 2012
1 post
Well, poo.
I just noticed, on my archives page, that I’m getting “Notes” activity on several of my posts. However my template doesn’t show notes! I’m going to have to figure this out and fix it. I want to see my notes!
January 2012
1 post
4 tags
Be At Peace (St. Francis de Sales)
Be At Peace.
Do not look forward in fear to the changes of life; rather look to them with full hope as they arise. God, whose very own you are, will deliver you from out of them. He has kept you hitherto, and He will lead you safely through all things; and when you cannot stand it, God will bury you in His arms.
Do not fear what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares...
December 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Radio commercials
One aspect of my life as a performer and writer is that I get really caught up in the shortcomings of radio and television commercials.
Television commercial shortcomings actually are far fewer and more forgivable than those for radio. It’s rare for a TV commercial to reach the air with some of the demented (to me) amateurism I hear on radio in the few minutes per day that I listen. I think...
4 tags
Breeze Card
I added $40 on my Breeze card the other day (in the morning) and got a convoluted stupid email: NOTE: Please remember that online purchases are available to load by tapping your Breeze card on a MARTA bus, rail station gate or vending machine 3 hours after the completion of your purchase; Allow a minimum of 12 hours for fare upload for Mobility service. Actually, I got two copies because you...
October 2011
6 posts
Limerick Battle the Latest (UPDATED!) (FINAL...
FINAL UPDATE at bottom. “Milk?”
UPDATE! Scroll down — the first part is in top posted mode, but the rest is bottom posted.
This will take a sec to unwind: Brother Steve has lunch with his work friends every Friday. I call it his “gay lunch” although in fairness, there’s no reason to suspect gayness on anyone’s part and in fact, Steve has roundly denied...
Calling Card II
Oh, and another thing, I mentioned to Tasha, she should limit how much she’s going to spend on calling cards, so that he can call her or his scumbag friends, but you’ll only be paying so much for that. She shot back, “He can only call one number on the calling card, and that’s mine.”
I find that difficult to believe. I need to look into it.
Last night we were...
Calling Card
Will calls Tasha multiple times per day & night. Tasha keeps telling him to stop calling, but also keeps taking the calls. Last night she was really upset about this.
“Why am I so mean?” she wailed.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Didn’t you hear me telling him, ‘Stop calling me! Stop calling me!’”
I asked permission to butt in and then...
Taken
Will got himself picked up Friday morning.
This breaks all our hearts as we want him to be better yet we know right now this is where he belongs. He was on 10 years’ probation for felony burglary; he was picked up for possession of a Class IV controlled substance (apparently, some Xanax he’d stolen) and criminal trespass (squatting in a vacant foreclosed home.) So I don’t know...
2 tags
Hmm...(Oct 5) (Keeping it real)
Can’t help but wonder what time of day it was that I posted on Oct. 5, because a terrible thing happened that day which I didn’t mention. I’ll probably use this space to go into it in more detail, because I’m finally ready to go public with this information.
Sometime during the day on Oct. 5, 2011, my son Will Jones entered my house and stole my laptop. Sometime after...
Workouts, Practice
I started week 9 of podrunner intervals!
I practiced going up & down the neck — slowly, clumsily — in A Minor pentatonic!
September 2011
16 posts
Practice and workout, 9/24/11
Good day yesterday.
Played through “Blackbird” slowly while downloading stuff to PS3. Also got through Hanon in G enouragingly quickly.
Did my final week 7 run. It was easy and my leg is feeling better.
5 tags
Exercise log
Did my 2nd run of week 7. It went ok. Weather was threatening but none of the promised showers. I was kind of looking forward to a weather challenge, but I’m sure I’ll have some of those soon enough. Also started dialoguing with friends about what runs to do in October. HS Cross-Country coach Corey was moderately helpful!
4 tags
Practice log
Really spent just a few minutes playing G Hanon #1 up w/o mistakes, down w/o mistakes @40 — took somewhat less time to get through it w/o mistakes!
Practiced changes / transitions on “‘39.” I really need to guard against practicing mistakes…go back and do it again from BEFORE the error so I can transition into the error spot. Anyway, it’s fun to play and I got...
Practice log
Played ‘39 some, trying to nail the transitions in the intro. It’s getting better. Listened to the song to make sure I was mostly playing it right. I need to get better at moving between strings. I tend to try to make large dramatic movements which causes me to miss the string I want to hit.
Practice Log, 9/20/2011
Played while watching “The New Girl” with Annie. Smoothed out the intro to “‘39” and got closer to playing the opening riff.
Social Science breakthrough
Attention social scientists: I’ve discovered the opposite of that feeling you get whilst watching your baby sleeping.
It’s watching your 18-year-old unemployed high school dropout sleeping at 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon.
Practice log, 9/19/11
Played G Hanon up until I made it with no mistakes. Took many tries. 40BPM, 8th notes
Played G Hanon down until I made it with no mistakes. Ditto.
Played “‘39” until my hands got tired. I need a system for learning songs.
Recorded “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Lots of issues. Here it is:
5 tags
Practice log
Played pentatonics and a little bit of “Heaven”…on electric!
(Not really “Heaven,” just sort of chording and scaling based on this.)
Practice log (Saturday)
Played “Man of Constant Sorrow” a few times. Trying to stop the verses from all being samey samey and also trying to get good transitions between verse and chorus.
2 tags
Practice log -- no practice
If I practice tonight it probably shouldn’t count. I drank a whisky and then a beer and don’t feel like doing anything except sitting around. Tomorrow for sure!
I did find a song I want to cover, Big Star’s “O My Soul.” I’ve been looking for a cool electric guitar part. This should be fun. Here’s the song:
Here’s the tab.
And, finally,...
6 tags
Practice log
I played around while watching “Breaking Bad.” G thirds and Hanon, tried to remember not to practice mistakes. Played through “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” — it sounded ok, I think I’ll record it tomorrow. Youtube was not letting me upload yesterday’s playing, but I’ll keep trying. Not tonight, though.
“Constant Sorrow” did have one...
Practice log
Hanon #1 in G, 8th notes, 40bpm, played up & down with no mistakes (after many false starts in each direction)
Goal: play up and down with no mistakes, at speed
“Frolic,” Mel Bay Method, Grade 2, p. 4. Played each section through with no mistakes after many false starts.
Goal: play all the way through with no mistakes, at speed. Focus on tone.
“Blackbird,” played...
1 tag
TODO
Figure out why titles are in white on white.
Figure out why 2nd entry on page doesn’t start until after sidebar
4 tags
Auditions not for me
I’ve decided not to audition for New London Theatre’s “Dracula.” There’s really only one part for me, and I know a lot of guys who are more interested in it than I am. I shall surrender the field to those fellows.
The director is one of my favorite theatre people to work with, Scott Rousseau. It’s going to be a fine show, but the timing is just not right for...
I guarantee you, I hate it more than you do
I have no idea why the background on this page is red. I’m fiddling around with the settings now, but I certainly did not fiddle around with them before. I must have inadvertently moused / clicked over something or other.
Another year, another Portis quote
I didn’t realize it’s nearly exactly a year since my last Charles Portis quote post, but I stumbled across this today. From “Masters of Atlantis,” Gnomon Society leading light Austin Popper’s experience as hostage of 3 leftist women:
“At first I thought it was merely to instruct me in their doctrines. They explained to me why it was necessary to transform this...
Limericks of the day
Not so much a limerick battle, just a friendly limerickal exchange. My brother Steve & I usually email back & forth the day long. I hadn’t heard from him all day, so: From: Brian Jones To: Steve Meckleburg An absence of email attests To Steven’s obsession with breasts “I was watching the tube When on came some boobs ‘t’is likely you can guess the rest.”...
Limerick Battle UPDATED
He started it! My brother Steve, that is. He & I somehow (ok: he started it) got into calling each other doodyhead a few years ago, so our limericks frequently work in doodyhead references. Subject: I say old chap… ———————————— From: Steve Meckleburg Date: Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 1:47 PM To: Brian Your doodyness grows...
Limerick of the day
Prompted by a friend’s encounter with a famous guitarist:
Ignoring her silly “Green” calls For reused toilet paper in stalls, I imagine a crowd Entertained by Pete Stroud As Sheryl Crow sucks on my balls.
The Red Right Hand
[…H]is other arm, in dove-gray gabardine of rippling sheen, [was] lying along the top of the cushions back of her shoulders, a touch of white silk shirt cuff at his wrist, of gold love-knot cuff link, and his massive carved antique gold Florentine ring on his hand. No, he always wore his Borgia poison ring on his right hand, of course. The ring was on his hand that was holding down his...
August 2010
7 posts
Inception Spoiler
Regarding Mike D’Angelo’s highly lucid and entertaining (as usual) review of “Inception:”
(This is *not* Inception Plot Wankery. I hate that shit.)
I don’t know why Mike gave such short shrift to the father-son dynamic. Yes, the Mal-Dom relationship is huge and intriguing, but Nolan is also at great pains to bring the Murphy- Postlethwaite relationship front &...
A Dream of Blood
Can’t resist one more quote from Charles Portis’ “The Dog of the South:”
Ray is describing his runaway wife Norma’s recounting of her time with mad Guy Dupree. She & Guy take up with the famous radicals Hilda Monod and Jay Bomarr. They attend a radical gathering in San Miguel Allende, Mexico:
Jay Bomarr opened it with his famous speech, “Come Dream Along...
Before there were trolls on the internet...
…there were trolls walking the Earth and talking to people.
From Charles Portis’ “The Dog of the South:”
[Via credit card receipts, Ray Midge has tracked his runaway wife Norma and his nemesis Guy Dupree as far as San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. There he is accosted by a Canadian artist in paper rabbits:] The price was ten dollars. I remarked that there seemed to...
Snellville Chik Fil-A
The drive-thru menu at the Snellville Chik Fil-a seemed pretty clear:
Spicy Chicken Deluxe: Lettuce, Tomato, and Pepper Jack Cheese.
So I ordered the Spicy Chicken Deluxe and a Lemonade.
“Do you want cheese with that?” said the voice on the drive-thru speaker.
“Doesn’t the Spicy Chicken Deluxe come with cheese?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then, yes, I...
7 tags
Burgers, Shopping, Poker
Annie asked if Amber could come with us shopping for the last of her school supplies. “Sure,” I said.
“Yeah, I understand if you don’t like her…” she replied.
“I got no problem with Amber — what are you talking about?” I asked.
“…”
“Oh, she’s listening isn’t she.”
“Yep.”
“OK, you...
14 tags
Guitar, Pizza, Shopping
I enjoy reading Lileks and his life is similar to mine in some ways — we both have daughters we love, we both have wives we won’t talk about here (probably for different reasons, however,) we both have amused interactions with people in grocery stores.
There the similarities most likely end. I do hope that somebody will someday think I’m funny, but if it’s the kind of...
July 2010
3 posts
Come and see the show!
The Secret Garden at New London Theatre in Snellville continues tonight. Come see it! Tell them Tumblr sent you. Well, tell me anyway.
Anecdote
My friend Kenneth used to tell of his mother: She not only humored door-to-door and telephone salespeople, she actively engaged them. She listened to them with all sincerity and took in the presentation. But her reaction was always the same: “Well, why on Earth would I want that?”
This was not her leading them on to pull the rug out from under them. She was genuinely engaged. Sounds...
April 2010
1 post
Been awhile
Here’s a video from a production of Moby Dick! The Musical. It’s not the production I did but I have to say the kids caught at least a bit of this crazy energy.
August 2009
1 post
There's No Troy at the Yacht Club
(Reposted from my old blog, bovious.com)
(I also presented this at my church, hence the unexplained reference to Bishop Mano. Everybody there knows and loves Mano.)
(Bishop Mano is the brother-in-law of my pastor Fr. John. Mano is the Bishop of Peshawar, in Pakistan.) There’s No Troy at the Yacht Club I left play practice in Little 5 Points last night about 8:30, heading to my parking...
July 2009
4 posts
6 Thoughts about Running
Today the internet 12-sided dice gave me a 6, so here are 6 thoughts about running.
1. Wow, it feels great. I’ve been doing the Podrunner Intervals for several months now, starting with week 1 of First Day to 5k and progressing to week 1 of the Gateway to 8k and it’s never been anything but fun and exciting.
2. It’s really good for you. When I started back in September of...
3 Thoughts about Obama's Birth Certificate
Welcome to my new feature, designed to get me back to writing a little bit. It’s called X Thoughts. I roll an online 12-sided dice and post that number of thoughts about a topic in the news.
I just saw Mike Luckovich’s brave, iconoclastic cartoon (that’s sarcasm) about the Birth Certificate folks so I thought I’d start with that. I rolled a 3.
A little history is in...
Sadness
If anybody reads this, please pray for me. There is much sadness in my family and, apparently, much more to come. I can’t go into the details but if there is anything to the power of prayer, we need it now.
May 2009
5 posts
