Kill Bill Part 3

I'm so proud to be a Californian! Our illustrious governor Schwarzenegger vetoed 52 bills on Thursday. Among the bills he killed are proposals that would have: legalized gay marriage, raised the minimum wage, expanded penalties for employers who pay women less than men or resist paying workers' compensation claims, provided more oversight of the stem cell research program , protected California nurses from being required to work mandatory overtime or having to lift patients on their own, helped consumers buy cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, and allowed workers locked out by employers during wage disputes to collect unemployment benefits.

According to a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, Schwarzenegger's approval rating has plummeted to 33%.

At least the weather's nice...

Fighting Irish

I'm usually very cynical about things, sports included. But this story brought a tear to my eye.

A Thousand Million

It's my impression that most people don't really understand the difference between a million and a billion. When the government throws around figures that include billions, I don't think most people truly appreciate that a billion is a thousand million. To a lot of people, a billion sounds like 2 million or 20 million or 200 million and not a thousand million. Some people talk about streamlining the government by cutting programs that cost a couple of million and ignore programs that cost billions, and I think that either they don't understand that a billion is a thousand million or they believe that whomever they're talking to doesn't understand that a billion is a thousand million.

I propose that from now on the government refer to a billion of anything as a thousand million just to make sure everyone understands how much a billion really is. If the war in Iraq costs 100 to 200 billion dollars, let's just call it 100-to-200-times-a-thousand-million dollars just to be sure we all know what we're talking about. If cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina costs 200 to 300 billion dollars, let's just call it 200-to-300-times-a-thousand-million dollars and take it from there.

Dammit.

Update: I was more timely with this post than I knew.

Never Did Learn To Play No Chords

When I read the newspaper these days, I am often reminded of Steve Martin's character in the movie "Roxanne" (a wonderful movie) when he walks down the street and puts a quarter in the newspaper rack, reads the headlines and gasps, and puts another quarter in the newspaper rack and puts the newspaper back in. I wish it was that easy.

You know who I just can't figure out? Carlos Santana. Here's a guy who's had his own band under his own name for almost 40 years. He doesn't sing, and he doesn't write the songs. His job, which has brought him international stardom, is simply to noodle on his guitar and play solos. He's used the same overdriven, distorted, Gibson-humbuckers-on-10 guitar sound for all of those 40 years. He's noodled the same single-note licks on every song I've ever heard him play. I'm sure he's a real spiritual guy and all that, but c'mon Carlos. Try a Fender guitar some time. Play something different. Write some lyrics. Sing something. Sheesh.

Speaking of guitar players, I once heard B.B. King say in an interview that he "...never did learn to play no chords." Well, he was not exaggerating. When Ray Charles died, there was a big tribute concert, and B.B. sang and played a solo song--the first time I ever heard him play and sing without a band behind him. He didn't accompany himself on guitar. He would simply sing a phrase without any accompaniment and then noodle a guitar fill after the vocal phrase and then sing another phrase and then noodle another guitar fill, etc. etc. etc. and this was how he did the whole song. It was just like there was a band behind him, but there was no band. Just B.B. singing a song a capella and then noodling blues licks between the vocal phrases. It was very strange. I guess he really "never did learn to play no chords."

I arrogantly decided a while back that I would like to try my hand at writing some short stories. After all, I know good writing when I read it, so it stands to reason that I could just do it myself. Yeah, right. This is like saying I know good music when I hear it, so naturally I can write good music. So I've been reading a book of short stories by Kurt Vonnegut that he wrote in the late 50s and early 60s that were published in various magazines at that time. The book's called "Bogombo Snuffbox." First of all, it reminded me of how much I've always liked Vonnegut's writing. He's funny and insightful and warm and ironic and sardonic and not preachy. Vonnegut's take on humanism and Jesus and evolution goes something like this: "How do humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus as all humanists do, 'Since what he (Jesus) said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?' " and "Evolution is so creative. That's how we got giraffes." Second of all, this book reminded me that just because I like good writing it doesn't mean I can do it, too. Instead, I think I'll re-read "Sirens of Titan" and "Cat's Cradle" and "Breakfast of Champions." It doesn't get any better than that.

We had a massive power failure in Los Angeles today, and John Gibson on Fox News was practically foaming at the mouth hoping that it was a terrorist attack and/or rioting and looting in the streets. Fox carried a picture of the smokestacks at the refineries in Wilmington which regularly emit a flame as part of the refinery process, and actually captioned it "Fire Burns In Los Angeles." Hey John--Fire burns in Guam and Schenectady and Capetown and Buenos Aires, too. Idiots. The power failure was due to some guy with a backhoe who was working for the Dept. of Power and Water and accidentally severed an underground power line, though the official DWP story is a little more creative. Nonetheless, no terrorists. No rioting. No looting. Sorry to diasppoint you, John.

I think Charles Schulz said it best: "I love mankind. It's people I can't stand."

I mean....

I'm glad to see that the state of Pennsylvania has seen fit to allow beer distributors to be open on Sunday afternoons. Just in time for football season. I know that both of my readers are familiar with the arcane beer and liquor laws in Pennsylvania, so I won't go into detail. But it's one small step for beer, one giant leap for beer-kind.

I just discovered that if you press and hold the alt key and type 164, you get a letter "n" with a tilde over it, or ñ! Now I can type words like piñata and.......well, I can't think of any more. But if I do, I'll let you know. If either of my readers know of any more of these woñderful features, please let me know. Thañks.

I once heard many years ago that Candice Bergen claimed to have never set foot in a McDonald's or eaten any McDonald's food. I didn't know whether to admire her for that or be annoyed. But then when I thought about it, I have never set foot in a Starbucks or had any Starbucks coffee. Ever. And I'm damn proud of that. There are at least 4 Starbucks within walking distance of my home, and I haven't been to any of 'em. So to Candice Bergen I say, "You go, girl."

Don't you hate it when people reply to a question by first saying, "I mean..."? Like you say, "How's your job going?" And they say, "I mean, it's going okay, but I'm looking around." Or you say, "Your car's running good." And they say, "I mean, it's running okay, but it needs a tune-up and an oil change." I mean, I hate that.

Mañana! That's another one. Mañana! I'll hit my piñata mañana. Cool!

M-M-M-My Audition

When I first moved to Southern California from Pennsylvania in 1978 to become a working musician, I didn't really know anyone here, so I registered with Musician's Contact Service. MCS was a company where, for a fee, players looking for bands could hook up with bands looking for players. One of the first auditions I got through MCS was in the late summer of '78. They didn't tell me the name of the act or anything about them, but I packed my gear into the back of the old Pinto station wagon and drove to a rehearsal studio in Hollywood for an audition. I looked like a typical musician in 1978--longish hair, a goatee, and bell-bottom corduroy jeans. I walked into the rehearsal studio, and there were these four guys all dressed in tight, straight black jeans, black boots, white shirts, and skinny black ties, with hair that was shorter than the hair I was used to seeing on musicians. The guitar players both had cool old Vox AC30 amplifiers and nice guitars. There was one guy who seemed to speak for the rest of them, so I introduced myself and told him I'd bring my gear in. He told me I didn't have to and pointed to an old Wurlitzer electric piano in the corner. I sat down and thought we'd all decide on a tune or two to jam on. But the spokesman-type guy came over to me and asked me if I knew any Beatles tunes, since I had written on my MCS profile that The Beatles, Chuck Berry, and Gershwin were some of my influences. Well, I was in luck, because I knew the piano parts to a bunch of Beatles songs lick for lick. So I played "Martha My Dear" and the piano solo in "Lovely Rita Meter Maid" and the Billy Preston piano solo in "Get Back" and the harpsichord solo in "In My Life" and a couple of others. The main guy seemed pretty impressed, and the other guys just kind of milled around. Finally, the main guy said they really liked me and asked me if I would be willing to shave my goatee because they weren't into facial hair. I originally grew my goatee because Wilt Chamberlain had a goatee and I thought it would improve my basketball game, but I said sure, I'd shave my goatee, no problem. So the main dude said okay, fine, we'll give you a call and let you know what we decide. Nobody else said anything, and nobody else played a note besides me. They never told me who they were. I had a phone number that MCS gave me for these guys, and I called a couple of days later, and the guy said they hadn't really decided if they were going to add a keyboard player, but I was the front-runner if they were. Didn't hear from them again.

About a month later, I was walking by the record store in the mall, and there was a big display in the front of the store with a new album, and on the front of the album was a picture of those guys, all dressed exactly the same as they were dressed the day of my audition.

The Knack. My Sharona.

I guess they decided not to add a keyboard player.