Daily Grist…“Won’t you get hip to this timely tip:
When you make that California trip
Get your kicks on Route 66”. Bobby Troup
I’ll be turning 66 on Saturday and even though I’ve been known to be superstitious, I’m not letting the double sixes bother me. For one thing it is short a six from being any real danger and also many people I know have successfully lived through their 66th year to reach 67.
This is not normally my favorite time of the year with my birthday, the seasons changing and the early nights. I’ve written about the fall season blues before in this space, however this year seems different, November is starting off like gangbusters.
First there was the rain. That’s new too, being happy about a pretty good rainstorm but we surely needed it and it is helping my yard already. I like it now but you will need to check back with me after my friend El Nino visits for a while.
Speaking of El Nino, I’m still very pumped about our own nino, my grandson Colton who’s now about 6 weeks old. While technically not November news he just continues to make me smile everyday. We spent a long weekend visiting him at the end of October.
What else is rocking my boat; well almost like the weather (climate) I’ve been having a drought on getting and playing gigs and my nemesis Murphy has been in play for any gig I did happen to wrangle. I’d get a gig then all of a sudden there would be an Artic glacier melt or a stock market crash or just a plain viral plague that prevented band members from being available to play any gigs. This went on for months.
Well up comes November and all of sudden I have about 5 or so gigs between now and mid December. Some of them are actually good gigs, no I take that back they all are good gigs. The bands all have had their vaccinations and flu shots and all the musicians I know are out of the stock market now so I’m confident we’ll be playing these gigs…………Murphy be darned!!
I still have my full slate of jams each week. Jamming keeps the good vibes going also. Old time on Monday night – Ames Bluegrass on Tuesday and Thursday lunch time – Eclectic fiddle jam on Wednesday at noon in a parking lot off First St in north San Jose – Hardly Strictly Mostly Bluegrass Wednesday night. Oh yeah, and I have a ‘bout Time! rehearsal on Tuesday night and I also spend some afternoons in the ‘shed. How could a bass player get down with that kind of schedule?
What else could there be besides grandsons, gigs, jams and rain? Well I’ll tell you. There are about 10 gallons of beer in the pipeline that will be fresh for the holiday season. Also I have a new little sideline project that I will tell you about at the risk of excommunication or even worse a drowning. I just took back from my son, a vintage Fender Mustang Bass that I purchased in the late 70’s. He wasn’t playing it and as a new dad wasn’t likely to be playing it any time soon.
I have it in my woodshed and have cleaned it up put some new strings on it and learned how to set the action and intonation on it from YouTube. I don’t want anyone to worry though, while it is fun to fool around with, I’m still an upright guy.
So that’s the plan. No doldrums for me this year and as the song says my plan for this whole next year is to “get my kicks on Route 66.”
