This is the first year I will appear on stage at the Clear Creek Ranch Blues Festival as a performer. My internet harmonica lessons are going well, although musician friends warn me there is a difference between "virtual" and "reality" when it comes to live audiences.
I am sure my new "blues guy" wardrobe will more than offset my musical shortcomings. I've studied the sartorial content on old blues album covers and I have the "look" down. Somewhere between Lightnin' Hopkins, the Blues Brothers, and the Harmoni-Cats.
The harmonica is part of my genetic heritage. The diatonic harmonica (aka the harp) was developed to accompany Bavarian folk tunes, and while my ancestors aren't 100% German, genetically I am only a few steins short of an Oktoberfest pitcher when it comes to qualifying.
I have a custom-built twelve pocket vest to hold a complete set of harps in every key. The vest doesn't really go with the lederhosen, but my little tyrolean hat, when worn with wrap-around shades, comes close to duplicating the "blues guy" look in those grainy old photos from the Mississippi delta or Chicago or where ever.
I am working on my stage name. Blues musicians have nicknames that describe a physical attribute, like Slim, Fats, Shakey, or Big Mama. When my wife caught my act, just as I caught my moustache in the harmonica and almost tore my own lip off, she suggested Howlin' Tone-Deaf White Boy. I like it.
This wasn't my first altercation with a harmonica. In high school, during folksinging's 1960's heyday, I got one hooked on my braces for a week. Didn't need one of those goofy bent-coathanger things around my neck to simultaneously strum my guitar, toot my harmonica and bleat an excellent imitation of Bob Dylan. Peanut butter sandwiches, however, were a big problem.
Anyway, the internet music lessons are going great -- although my teacher can't actually hear my efforts. But I've learned all about tremolo, bending notes, and more than necessary about scales. Yesterday I discovered that vibrato is not just a marital aid, it has its place right there on stage as well.
My harmonicas work no matter which direction the hot air is flowing -- out or in. Here is some harp terminology for you. "Out" is called blowing, but "in," I learned, is not called sucking. The proper gerund is "drawing."
I once relegated the harmonica to the musical backwater next to the kazoos, but I now think it has more in common, tonally, with gargling next to a microphone, and/or amplifier feedback.
My harmonicas are certainly more portable than the average tuba or piano. Many is the time I've sidled up to a street corner jam session, whipped out one (or more) of my ten-holed Hohners, and literally stopped the show. One stunned musician asked to see my concealed musical instrument permit. He looked awfully serious.
On another occasion, a street musician asked if I could define "perfect pitch". "No," I shrugged. By way of an answer, my interrogator grabbed the harmonica from my hand, and in a single fluid motion lobbed it across four lanes of traffic where it landed dead center in a trash can.
Instead of becoming angry and saying something like, "Hey man, that draws!", I stayed positive. He did have impressive technique. I emptied nine of my vest pockets before I hit a ringer myself. My dark glasses may have been a handicap.
Which way is Chicago, anyway? Tell 'em "Tone-Deaf" is coming to their town. Or better yet, don't. Let me surprise them.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Have a Berry Nice Day
Nature can be very wasteful. Take blackberries for example. We've got about an acre of them growing in a thick tangle downhill from our spring here at Clear Creek Ranch. In season they produce thousands, perhaps millions of juicy, sweet, blue-black berry clusters.
When we first purchased our property we didn't know what to do with such a bonanza, but the local wildlife did. The deer browsed as high as they could reach on the outer edges of the patch. When those canes were bare, they moved on to easier pickings -- in our erstwhile rose garden.
The sweetest berries, of course, were in the impenetrable interior of the patch, where each cluster was protected by a phalanx of bloodthirsty thorns. Having torn myself to shreds in a futile quest after these succulent beauties, I forfeited all future rights to the airborne division: the neighborhood birds.
The ease with which they feasted upon their bounty irked me. Some perched on the very thorns that still bore traces of my shirt threads and dried blood. And the feathered freeloaders were so reckless and wasteful. A single peck at each berry cluster and then on to the next. Most of the fruit rotted where it hung. Things had to change.
That autumn I rented a brush clearing machine and mowed a a maze-like series of intersecting rows through the patch so I'd have access to the next summer's crop. To thwart the deer, who would have treated these new rows like additional aisles at the open air grocery store, I mowed a single entrance to the maze and secured it with an eight foot high wire gate.
This system worked great, as long as I remembered to close the gate. Soon we were feasting on bucketsful of the luscious berries. But even a steady diet of caviar and champagne gets old, I am told. (I've never had a first hand opportunity to research this, but I will consider any offers in this direction.)
Our berry-lust was sated long before the bushes quit producing, so we hunted for new outlets for our harvest. Unfortunately, the few neighbors who would admit to eating anything that didn't start out with hooves, fur, and/or feathers were already inundated with their own berry crops.
"How about a roadside stand," my wife suggested.
I told her of my bitter disappointment as a youthful lemonade entrepreneur on a lightly-traveled cul-de-sac somewhere deep within a bland tract development in outer-suburbia. My only sale had been to the neighborhood mailman. And even those sales figures were artifically inflated. (Mom, if you're reading, I've never mentioned this, but I saw you hand him that dime when he dropped off our mail just before he stopped at my stand).
Still, we had bushels of berries rotting on our screen porch and one of our neighbors had an abandoned vegetable stand out by the county road. It was a ramshackle affair, with sagging roof and peeling paint and had belonged to someone named Chuck, because "Chuck's" was scrawled in large free-hand letters on both sides. According to my neighbor, weekend traffic on the road was brisk, and chockful of rich foreigners from the city.
That weekend I carted my berries to the stand, hand painted my own addendum to Chuck's magnificent work: "berry's." I know that's the wrong spelling. But a dyslexic haze shrouded my brain as soon as I picked up the paintbrush. In addition to the Y' where the IE should have been, the first R was flipped backwards so its little leg pointed to the left. I adjusted my overalls, settled down with my crossword puzzle and nibbled on berries while I waited for my public to discover me.
Several hours later, when most of the berries were gone, they did. By then my hands, lips, and shirtfront were stained blue with berry juice. A carload of little kids stared at me like I was the tattooed carnival man. Their mother asked if I had restroom facilities for her squirming urchins. I pointed a blue finger toward the the bushes behind the shed, and even offered my crossword puzzle if she was in need of paper products.
"Give me a map back to civilization, you blue-faced yahoo!" she screeched. I extracted a waterlogged map from my truck glove box and she flipped me a $10 bill, not waiting for change.
Slight variations on this scenario repeated themselves throughout the day. A little "idea light" twinkled in my brain.
The roadside stand is now fruitless, but fruitful, despite an irate visit from the local chapter of the Apostrophe Abuse Council. Chuck's Berry's now houses a road map vending machine and two pay toilets. Business is brisk, and I don't even have to be there.
The outhouse, of course, is known as the Johnny B Goode.
When we first purchased our property we didn't know what to do with such a bonanza, but the local wildlife did. The deer browsed as high as they could reach on the outer edges of the patch. When those canes were bare, they moved on to easier pickings -- in our erstwhile rose garden.
The sweetest berries, of course, were in the impenetrable interior of the patch, where each cluster was protected by a phalanx of bloodthirsty thorns. Having torn myself to shreds in a futile quest after these succulent beauties, I forfeited all future rights to the airborne division: the neighborhood birds.
The ease with which they feasted upon their bounty irked me. Some perched on the very thorns that still bore traces of my shirt threads and dried blood. And the feathered freeloaders were so reckless and wasteful. A single peck at each berry cluster and then on to the next. Most of the fruit rotted where it hung. Things had to change.
That autumn I rented a brush clearing machine and mowed a a maze-like series of intersecting rows through the patch so I'd have access to the next summer's crop. To thwart the deer, who would have treated these new rows like additional aisles at the open air grocery store, I mowed a single entrance to the maze and secured it with an eight foot high wire gate.
This system worked great, as long as I remembered to close the gate. Soon we were feasting on bucketsful of the luscious berries. But even a steady diet of caviar and champagne gets old, I am told. (I've never had a first hand opportunity to research this, but I will consider any offers in this direction.)
Our berry-lust was sated long before the bushes quit producing, so we hunted for new outlets for our harvest. Unfortunately, the few neighbors who would admit to eating anything that didn't start out with hooves, fur, and/or feathers were already inundated with their own berry crops.
"How about a roadside stand," my wife suggested.
I told her of my bitter disappointment as a youthful lemonade entrepreneur on a lightly-traveled cul-de-sac somewhere deep within a bland tract development in outer-suburbia. My only sale had been to the neighborhood mailman. And even those sales figures were artifically inflated. (Mom, if you're reading, I've never mentioned this, but I saw you hand him that dime when he dropped off our mail just before he stopped at my stand).
Still, we had bushels of berries rotting on our screen porch and one of our neighbors had an abandoned vegetable stand out by the county road. It was a ramshackle affair, with sagging roof and peeling paint and had belonged to someone named Chuck, because "Chuck's" was scrawled in large free-hand letters on both sides. According to my neighbor, weekend traffic on the road was brisk, and chockful of rich foreigners from the city.
That weekend I carted my berries to the stand, hand painted my own addendum to Chuck's magnificent work: "berry's." I know that's the wrong spelling. But a dyslexic haze shrouded my brain as soon as I picked up the paintbrush. In addition to the Y' where the IE should have been, the first R was flipped backwards so its little leg pointed to the left. I adjusted my overalls, settled down with my crossword puzzle and nibbled on berries while I waited for my public to discover me.
Several hours later, when most of the berries were gone, they did. By then my hands, lips, and shirtfront were stained blue with berry juice. A carload of little kids stared at me like I was the tattooed carnival man. Their mother asked if I had restroom facilities for her squirming urchins. I pointed a blue finger toward the the bushes behind the shed, and even offered my crossword puzzle if she was in need of paper products.
"Give me a map back to civilization, you blue-faced yahoo!" she screeched. I extracted a waterlogged map from my truck glove box and she flipped me a $10 bill, not waiting for change.
Slight variations on this scenario repeated themselves throughout the day. A little "idea light" twinkled in my brain.
The roadside stand is now fruitless, but fruitful, despite an irate visit from the local chapter of the Apostrophe Abuse Council. Chuck's Berry's now houses a road map vending machine and two pay toilets. Business is brisk, and I don't even have to be there.
The outhouse, of course, is known as the Johnny B Goode.
The Last Ninja Beekeeper
Our strawberry patch doubles in size every year. What was once a manageable 10' x 10' square, is now threatening to overrun the east end of our garden. This is fine with me -- there is nothing like a bowlful of freshly-picked, juicy strawberries to start off the day.
The only problem is that "the yield" is way down. Healthy plants cover five times as much ground as when we started, but only produce twice as many berries. The latent cost-accountant inside me was worried. My know-it-all neighbor agreed.
"Looks like you'll have to pollinate them flowers yourself," he said with a suggestive leer. He paused long enough for my active imagination to envision a pre-dawn raid by the SWAT team from the unnatural-acts-to-the-plants division of the Department of Agriculture.
"Or," he continued, "you could get yourself some bees."
I knew that most beekeepers move their hives around to take advantage of a variety of blossoms and I knew my neighbor had some hives on his place. But I also knew my neighbor's ironclad reluctance to lend anything to a fellow neighbor, especially one in need. Clearly a case of the hives and the hive-nots.
At the time I wasn't in a position to make a major investment in hives, smokers, and other equipment. Luckily, the local phone book listed a Apiarian Society and I gave them a call.
"How many do you need?" the friendly voice asked.
"I don't know."
"Fair enough. The Society is having a demonstration this afternoon. Buzz on by and we'll talk about it."
How many bees would it take to pollinate a 10' x 50' berry patch? I'd seen bees in the garden before and they only spent a few seconds at any one flower. Each plant was about a foot apart, so I had 500 plants. If each plant had ten flowers, that was 5,000 flowers that needed pollinating.
When I allowed for travel time between flowers, nectar breaks, lunch hours and hallway gossip, I came up with an estimated 5,000 bee-minutes worth of work. My strawberry patch offered one bee about two weeks of steady employment, or if they preferred to work in teams (I didn't know) a two-bee team might finish in a week.
"There has got to be a Shakespeare pun in here somewhere," I droned as I dressed for the meeting, "Two bees or not two bees . . ."
I'd seen pictures of beekeepers before: pith helmet, veil, white coveralls, and gloves. I didn't have these things, and the lack reminded me of Thoreau's words, "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."
I wasn't setting myself up in the bee business, I just wanted to employ a few of them part-time. I threw together my own outfit from things in the closet -- trying to make a fashion statement. White was too bland. Black was better, more mysterious. The bees would keep their distance, I thought. I donned my black sweatsuit, tightened the hood drawstrings around my chin, strapped on my safety goggles, grabbed a match box to hold my bees, and headed for the door.
"Bruce Lee film retrospective in town?" my wife laughed.
Five seconds after I arrived at the Apiarian Society I sensed that few successful ninjas keep bees. It was a stinging sensation. Agitated bees hurled themselves at my goggles until their numbers blinded me. I fell to the floor under the weight of thousands of bees as they attacked my flailing arms. It seemed like forever before I was rescued in a billowing cloud of smoke that calmed my assailants.
When I came to and the swelling went down enough for me to hear someone else over the sound of my own screams, I was told that bees tend to sting dark objects. Reminds them of bears and other honey-stealers in the wild.
Which is why pollinating time at the Clear Creek Ranch strawberry patch will be calculated in knee-minutes and not bee-minutes. I bought an artist's brush and I'm working my way up and down the rows hunkered over on my knees, pollinating one tingling flower at a time.
The only problem is that "the yield" is way down. Healthy plants cover five times as much ground as when we started, but only produce twice as many berries. The latent cost-accountant inside me was worried. My know-it-all neighbor agreed.
"Looks like you'll have to pollinate them flowers yourself," he said with a suggestive leer. He paused long enough for my active imagination to envision a pre-dawn raid by the SWAT team from the unnatural-acts-to-the-plants division of the Department of Agriculture.
"Or," he continued, "you could get yourself some bees."
I knew that most beekeepers move their hives around to take advantage of a variety of blossoms and I knew my neighbor had some hives on his place. But I also knew my neighbor's ironclad reluctance to lend anything to a fellow neighbor, especially one in need. Clearly a case of the hives and the hive-nots.
At the time I wasn't in a position to make a major investment in hives, smokers, and other equipment. Luckily, the local phone book listed a Apiarian Society and I gave them a call.
"How many do you need?" the friendly voice asked.
"I don't know."
"Fair enough. The Society is having a demonstration this afternoon. Buzz on by and we'll talk about it."
How many bees would it take to pollinate a 10' x 50' berry patch? I'd seen bees in the garden before and they only spent a few seconds at any one flower. Each plant was about a foot apart, so I had 500 plants. If each plant had ten flowers, that was 5,000 flowers that needed pollinating.
When I allowed for travel time between flowers, nectar breaks, lunch hours and hallway gossip, I came up with an estimated 5,000 bee-minutes worth of work. My strawberry patch offered one bee about two weeks of steady employment, or if they preferred to work in teams (I didn't know) a two-bee team might finish in a week.
"There has got to be a Shakespeare pun in here somewhere," I droned as I dressed for the meeting, "Two bees or not two bees . . ."
I'd seen pictures of beekeepers before: pith helmet, veil, white coveralls, and gloves. I didn't have these things, and the lack reminded me of Thoreau's words, "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."
I wasn't setting myself up in the bee business, I just wanted to employ a few of them part-time. I threw together my own outfit from things in the closet -- trying to make a fashion statement. White was too bland. Black was better, more mysterious. The bees would keep their distance, I thought. I donned my black sweatsuit, tightened the hood drawstrings around my chin, strapped on my safety goggles, grabbed a match box to hold my bees, and headed for the door.
"Bruce Lee film retrospective in town?" my wife laughed.
Five seconds after I arrived at the Apiarian Society I sensed that few successful ninjas keep bees. It was a stinging sensation. Agitated bees hurled themselves at my goggles until their numbers blinded me. I fell to the floor under the weight of thousands of bees as they attacked my flailing arms. It seemed like forever before I was rescued in a billowing cloud of smoke that calmed my assailants.
When I came to and the swelling went down enough for me to hear someone else over the sound of my own screams, I was told that bees tend to sting dark objects. Reminds them of bears and other honey-stealers in the wild.
Which is why pollinating time at the Clear Creek Ranch strawberry patch will be calculated in knee-minutes and not bee-minutes. I bought an artist's brush and I'm working my way up and down the rows hunkered over on my knees, pollinating one tingling flower at a time.
The Batroom is Outside
One evening my wife mentioned that the bats weren't flying around our yard eating insects like they once did; and wouldn't it be nice if I built a bat house like the one she had clipped out of a magazine.
When I agreed without argument, she eyed me suspiciously.
Naturally, my first order of business was to fire off a mail order for more power tools. As a veteran home handyman, I knew if I had the right tool for the job, anything was possible. I also found it a lot easier to hand that "right tool" to the repairman when he arrived to un-do my initial handiwork.
A week later, the entire contents of several pages of the Sears tool catalog appeared on my doorstep. Now I was prepared to handle anything that required cutting, drilling, nailing, smoothing, or shaping wood. In theory, anyway, and providing nobody at the power company accidentally unplugged the frayed extension cord that serves our rural neighborhood.
I was adjusting the bright red suspenders that supported my new fifty pound tool belt when a booklet that came with the tools caught my eye: "What Every Novice Handyman Should Know." Well I was no novice, but I picked it up, hoping there was a chapter entitled "Overcoming Spousal Power Tool Resistance." There wasn't. The book's author kept harping on things like planning, safety precautions, and reading directions. Well, I didn't want to waste time on stuff like that!
I drove my sports car to the lumberyard to get some wood for my project. A burly lumberjack-type employee was lounging near a pile of sawdust when I arrived. He smiled at me and I noticed that he had about as many teeth left as he had fingers. Seven or eight of each, I think. I didn't want to stare, even though he was taking a good long look at my new suspenders and tool belt.
"I need some wood," I said forcefully.
"Can you be a little more specific, Chief?"
"Not really. Just wood. I need some regular wood."
"That's different from the unleaded kind, right?"
"Look, I'm building a bat house . . ."
"Quite a project, a bath house. Sure you don't mean a bath room?"
"No, no, a bat house for flying bats. You know . . ." And I began flapping my arms and baring my teeth, presumably looking like a 150 pound bat wearing a plaid shirt and fifty pound tool belt.
"You know sir," he said as he backed away, "I just spotted a whole stack of regular wood over there."
I must have made a bat impression on him.
The construction itself went smoothly, if I ignore the times when some stray parts were accidentally glued or nailed to the workbench.
A bat house is kind of like a bird house, except there is no door and no floor. The floor is the door. The bats fly in the open bottom and fall asleep while they hang upside down by their rear claws.
I painted the bat abode to match our house and proudly mounted the thing up above our front door and under the eaves. It was a neighborhood conversation piece. Soon everyone was pointing at it and whispering to each other.
The thing I liked about the project was that it was simple. For example, bats don't need indoor plumbing. With the open floor arrangement they use a primitive gravity flow system for eliminating wastes: everything drops straight down. The porch, however, is quite a mess most mornings.
My wife insists that the instructions warned about that.
"Why won't men ever use directions?" she asked.
"But I did use them," I insisted.
And I did, several times . . . to wipe glue off my hands and to mop up paint spills.
When I agreed without argument, she eyed me suspiciously.
Naturally, my first order of business was to fire off a mail order for more power tools. As a veteran home handyman, I knew if I had the right tool for the job, anything was possible. I also found it a lot easier to hand that "right tool" to the repairman when he arrived to un-do my initial handiwork.
A week later, the entire contents of several pages of the Sears tool catalog appeared on my doorstep. Now I was prepared to handle anything that required cutting, drilling, nailing, smoothing, or shaping wood. In theory, anyway, and providing nobody at the power company accidentally unplugged the frayed extension cord that serves our rural neighborhood.
I was adjusting the bright red suspenders that supported my new fifty pound tool belt when a booklet that came with the tools caught my eye: "What Every Novice Handyman Should Know." Well I was no novice, but I picked it up, hoping there was a chapter entitled "Overcoming Spousal Power Tool Resistance." There wasn't. The book's author kept harping on things like planning, safety precautions, and reading directions. Well, I didn't want to waste time on stuff like that!
I drove my sports car to the lumberyard to get some wood for my project. A burly lumberjack-type employee was lounging near a pile of sawdust when I arrived. He smiled at me and I noticed that he had about as many teeth left as he had fingers. Seven or eight of each, I think. I didn't want to stare, even though he was taking a good long look at my new suspenders and tool belt.
"I need some wood," I said forcefully.
"Can you be a little more specific, Chief?"
"Not really. Just wood. I need some regular wood."
"That's different from the unleaded kind, right?"
"Look, I'm building a bat house . . ."
"Quite a project, a bath house. Sure you don't mean a bath room?"
"No, no, a bat house for flying bats. You know . . ." And I began flapping my arms and baring my teeth, presumably looking like a 150 pound bat wearing a plaid shirt and fifty pound tool belt.
"You know sir," he said as he backed away, "I just spotted a whole stack of regular wood over there."
I must have made a bat impression on him.
The construction itself went smoothly, if I ignore the times when some stray parts were accidentally glued or nailed to the workbench.
A bat house is kind of like a bird house, except there is no door and no floor. The floor is the door. The bats fly in the open bottom and fall asleep while they hang upside down by their rear claws.
I painted the bat abode to match our house and proudly mounted the thing up above our front door and under the eaves. It was a neighborhood conversation piece. Soon everyone was pointing at it and whispering to each other.
The thing I liked about the project was that it was simple. For example, bats don't need indoor plumbing. With the open floor arrangement they use a primitive gravity flow system for eliminating wastes: everything drops straight down. The porch, however, is quite a mess most mornings.
My wife insists that the instructions warned about that.
"Why won't men ever use directions?" she asked.
"But I did use them," I insisted.
And I did, several times . . . to wipe glue off my hands and to mop up paint spills.
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