Sunday, August 31, 2008

More Bizzare Search Hits - Googlooping Ammo

traffic source 8.31

Oh, the search-based hits keep getting better and better. For the sake of Googlooping, here's a review:

  • Puerto Ricans with knives. Like the ones in West Side Story perhaps?
  • Hannah Montana Dolls. Those things are hard to find, kind of like Cabbage Patch Kids during the Christmas shopping season of 1984, or was it 1985.
  • Who is Juice Williams? I have no idea, but Dave Chappelle was just on TV just a few hours ago talking about how black people don't know what juice is. Black folks, all they want is purple drink. Oh, that funny man, Dave Chappelle.
  • Theo Huxtable. Remember when his family gave him one heck of a reality check when he said he was just going to be a model when he grew up? Is it messed up that (even as a kid) I kind of enjoyed seeing his naive dreams of being a model get crushed?

"Fu..."

Now I don't know about y'all, but when I want to get to this blog (which is like all the time), all I do is type in "f" and then "u" at the top where the URL goes and the rest comes up. Pretty cool, huh? F. U.!


Source

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Guitar Store Attitude - "What's a Five String Bass For?"

I don't think that there is any place on earth that is more full of unspoken dismissiveness and 'tude than a store that specializes in electric guitars.* The guys working there tend to be mad that their band isn't more famous, and as a result, the more they actually know about guitars, the more it makes them resent other people who play guitars. This might not apply to you, if you work at a guitar store and happen to be reading this. But I'm going to go ahead and bet that you know what I'm talking about. Anyway...

I don't go to guitar stores very often, but yesterday I went to a local independently-owned guitar shop with a friend of mine. He was buying guitar strings, and I picked up an acoustic and thought to myself "What can I play that these guys aren't totally sick of?" Then it hit me, the beginning of "Happy Days" by Jim O'Rourke. For those of you who don't know, it's just one note (the lowest note on a guitar), and then another note, an octave higher, back and forth, over and over again, played at a kind of dirge-like pace for about four minutes. It's quite a sinister sound, let me tell you. This guitar part is not hard to play. It's completely delusional to think that I was impressing anybody with this riff, except perhaps only if I was impressing them with my great taste. They probably hated it.

He got done buying the strings, and then I put the guitar down, and we went in the back of the shop to look at the electric guitars for sale. We got to the bass guitars, and just then the same guy that rang up my buddy for the guitar strings, he asks us if he can help us with anything, or maybe he asked if we had any questions about anything, because seemingly out of nowhere, this comes out of my mouth:

Me: What's a five-string bass for?
(the guy's like... Is this actually happening? Does this guy actually not know what the fifth string on a five-string does?)
Him: It has lower notes.
Me: How many?

He just looked at me like I was from another planet. I just looked at him. I tried as hard as I could to keep a straight face, and I held out for what felt like an eternity. Then I just laughed and said I was just playing. He looked really pissed. I don't think I will ever be able to go there again. Oh well.

Just in case you were wondering about the answer to my second question, the answer is five. There are five additional lower notes that you can play on a five-string that you can't get on a regular four-string bass. Dare I say it? - When you think of it that way, it kind of almost makes that fifth string seem not even really worth it.


*Except maybe the Apple Store.

Sunday, August 03, 2008