Rockin' The Cheese Toilets
11.26.06 (10:13 am) [edit]A whole six hours sleep after a gig? Weird...
I picked up Katie yesterday morning. The car was loaded with extra stuff - my gear, the new fender to put on the front, laundry, etc. I told Katie that I didn't have any room and she'd have to ride all the way to Marion strapped onto the luggage rack on top of the car.
Gotta keep 'em on their toes...
But there was room in her seat, and we spent several minutes going off to Sillyland, concocting absurdities together.
She won, by the way.
"Then you put the hams in the cheese toilet! With peanuts! And there's purple pee, and green pee,. and RAINBOW PEE!"
I'm a proud daddy...
Then she explained the basic principles of Toilet Tag to me. "When somebody tags you, you have to stand next to the toilet, then they flush it."
What do they flush? YOU? Peanuts? Bricks of cheese?
"No, they just flush the handle."
Oh, OK. Perfectly clear.
We had lunch at my parents', then off to Grandma's. Katie's favorite two cousins came over. Our little cousin A is feeling much better - he was the one who spent a week in the hospital after an asthma attack. But he was doing great, and they had a great time togvether.
At one point, she was telling him, "My Daddy's bass got stolen from his car! It was BANDITS.'"
"Bandits?"
"Yes, they dress in black just like ninjas so that you can't hear them...or something."
"Like ninjas?"
"Yes. I've been reading about bandits. I'm a bandit expert."
I cut in, "Katie, I didn't know you were a bandit expert."
"Oh, I didn't tell you yet."
I nearly shit right in the cheese toilet laughing.
I'm gonna start carrying a hand-held recorder with me when I have her. Then I'll have stuff to rely on when she's 16 to embarrass the shit out of her with in front of her friends.
"Hello, Johnny. Nice to meet you on your first date with my daughter. Oh, I was just cleaning the shotgun, no worries. Hey, you like roadkill? Anyway, she's upstairs getting ready, so ya wanna hear a tape of her talking about toilets when she was five?"
"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Yesterday was my parents' 39th anniversary. We went to a Bob Evens. After placing my order, I ran out to the lobby with my cell phone and a list - the waiting list for students. I signed up three new bass students, two next week, one starting a couple weeks after that. So now my extra income up north here is going to start coming in. I still have four names to call, and they might have a few more for me. I've only planned on opening up space for six, but I'll take more if all goes well. They charge slightly less here than what I'm used to, but I get a larger cut of it, and half a dozen students will me I drive home with a mimimum of $140 between teaching and the gig, all for one Saturday's work.
A good start.
I took three aspirin before the gig. I don't know if it was that - and I do that often enough that I don't see how - or dinner - which I really enjoyed and noticed nothing wrong with at all - but I felt weird all night. Head was fuzzy, I was disconnected from most of what was happening, and I was on the verge of being nauseous.
Yet I still managed to play very well for the most part, and pulled out much better vocals than I thought I would.
We had issues with the guitar amp all night (by the way, my bass amp is back and working) and it hampered a couple solos. The distortion channels were all fucked up, some weird nearly-unusable sound like a fuzz pedal with a bad battery. The clean channels were fine.
But I got out a couple of my better solos, and none of them sucked. Just a pain in the ass adjusting tones all night.
Katie ran around like a loon for a few songs, then KLONK. Fell alseep like a rock, right on top of the table in front of Mom. When I picked her up on the first break, I had to make sure she was ALIVE. 35 pounds of dead weight in my hands, about to knock me over. Finally she stirred some, but she was a tired kid. Of course, then they left and she was wide awake for them for a couple hours.
The magnificent Spock was in attendance, with his cousin. Great to see you again, you bloated Vulcan fuck. Have a safe trip back to CA, and enjoy traffic! Whee!
I feel pretty good and relaxed now. We're not in a hurry to go back home, and it'll be dark when we get there. Katie will stay with me tonight, and go back to her mommy tomorrow afternoon. I get lots of time with my girl! Wheeeeeeee!!!!
Love,
Dougie