Ten Years Gone...

George Harrison...

02/25/43 - 11/29/2001

You were the best of them all...

Namaste...

~shoes~

Words... 

"It's only words... 

and words are all I have... 

to take your heart away..."

These are lyrics from the song, "Words," written and performed by the Gibbs Brothers... we knew them as the BeeGees... I read the other day that Robin Gibbs has been diagnosed with liver cancer... what a shame...


I like words... I wish that I were better with them than I am...


Ethereal...
I like that word.  It means:

• 'almost light as air'
• 'celestial or spiritual'
• 'extremely delicate or refined; exquisite.

I also like the word, Ephemeral...  It means:

• 'short-lived'
• 'lasting one day'

When I was a kid, I LOVED Jimi Hendrix... I remember buying one of his albums and going home, putting it on the turntable, putting on my headphones and listening to 'All Along The Watchtower'...

I was thinking about this song the other day, and I started to think... this song sounds ethereal... light... airy... I can remember wearing the headphones, and listening to what a fantastic job the engineer had done in mixing and arranging the tracks... the guitar work would flow from on ear to the other and back... and I would sit and follow the sound with my eyes.

Another Hendrix song that sounds ethereal to me is "The Wind Cries Mary..."

It's the same kind of thing... especially during his instrumentals... so fluid like... everything just flows... back and forth through my head...

I've read that Hendrix is deemed to be responsible for having saved the Fender Stratocaster... that guitar had been created for a small market, and just wasn't selling in large enough numbers to continue to justify the manufacture of it... Fender had decided to cease the manufacture of it... then Hendrix hits it big... and everyone wanted a Strat... go figure.

Jimi and one of his Strats

Here is one of Jimi's more obscure songs... unless you are really a big fan of his, you probably haven't heard this one.  

To really enjoy it, I think you need a great sound card in your computer, great speakers, and a volume knob that goes to 'eleven.'

"it's louder... it goes to 11..."

'Spinal Tap'

So, I guess it's easy to say then that Jimi's life was ephemeral... short-lived. He was only 27 when he died.

But, when compared to Time itself, maybe we are ephemeral... we are here only a short time.

_____________

The past week has been so bizarre... last Sunday night, my vehicle broke down when the alternator decided to stop working. I was so fortunate as to where it decided to die... I was a good distance from home, but I happened to coast to a stop underneath the awning of a service station that was closed for the night, but had left it's lights on.  I was able to contact a towing company to come and take me and the vehicle home.

Anyway, I playing everything over and over and over in my head, I realized how fortunate I was... I could have been broken down out in the dark along the highway somewhere... with no form of protection... I hadn't carried a pistol with me... I would have been an easy target.

The chaos from that event carried forward into the Thanksgiving holiday (family, you understand...), and to make a very long story short, I don't feel well.

I feel emotionally drained... I feel physically drained... I feel 'lost...' I feel as if I am without a direction or a path... and at my age, that's not good.

I am hoping that a counselor that really made a difference in my Life a few years ago is still around... I need her.

When I feel like this, I tend to shrink my world... if that makes any sense to you... I bring everything close in to me, and I tend to not venture outside of that enclosure. Maybe that is why I haven't written a post in almost two weeks.

I don't like feeling like this...

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday...

~shoes~

Not quite Shoes...

But Almost...

Good afternoon...

Well, I think I am beyond that birthday I experienced survived last week...  

I've had quite a few of em, but this one has really taken the wind out of my sails... I'm sure I will eventually regain my   composure, but...

Anyhooo...

I found this Engineering Flowchart earlier and thought, 

'damn, isn't THAT the truth?!'

I can't think of much of anything that is 'stoved up,' other than myself, that WD-40 isn't the cure-all/fix-all for...  When I used to do quite a bit of target shooting, my rifles all would receive a WD-40 bath afterwards... I think I became addicted to the smell of that stuff...

I've been told that older women go for men that smell like Mentholatum and urine...

I'm not sure I believe that...

... so this got me to thinking... 

about...

duct tape...

I've heard that duct tape can fix almost anything...

... and that it has a multitude of uses...

A Brazilian using duct tape??

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These photos make me wanna go looking for a pair of scissors...

Why is it that women are SO sexy wrapped in duct tape...

And men are so...

Dorky looking...

Stupid Looking...

I've been told that a Red Neck Tool Box consists only of 

WD-40 and Duct Tape...

Here, baby... 

Let me help you with that...

As for my attitude,

I'm working on it...

~shoes~

"Old Shoes..."

Did you know that Shoes come in all ages?

9 month old Shoes...

1 year-old Shoes...

1 year-old Shoes...

4-year old Shoes
(on the left)

24-year old Shoes...
(holding baby GirlShoes)

30-year old Shoes
(trying to hypmotize the camera)

35-year old Shoes...
(balancing lil GirlShoes on my head)

44-year old Shoes...

Old Shoes...

Older Shoes...

Really Old Shoes...


Today, November 10th
is my birthday...


Have I told you how old I am?


~shoes~

Vanz Kant Danz...

One of my favorite bands has always been Creedence Clearwater Revival... and especially John Fogerty for his song writing skills... what a talent...  Fogerty and Creedence parted ways over whether or not John should have top billing in the band (John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival)... the split was a very bad one which resulted in John not talking to his bandmate/brother, Tom, for the rest of Tom's life...

John Fogerty (foreground) and brother, Tom over his left shoulder

John wanted a clean break from the band as well as from the recording company with whom he was obligated for more songs and albums... in exchange for his release, Fogerty assigned all rights to the CCR library to Saul Zaentz, owner of Fantasy Records.


Zaentz later sued Fogerty, claiming that the chorus to a Fogerty song (The Old Man Down The Road) was identical to that of a CCR song that Zaentz owned (Run Through The Jungle )... During the law suit, Fogerty showed up at court with a guitar, and demonstrated to the judge and the Court, that the two songs were indeed different compositions, and that the primary reason that the two songs sounded similar was because he had in fact written both compositions...  Needless to say, Fogerty won his case.


He wrote and recorded this song, in part, to document the event, and is mocking Zaentz...



I really like Fogerty's work... his compositions are more simple than those of Steely Dan, yet, there are great subtle trills and fills within his songs... I seem to discover new licks every time I listen to them...


This is one of my mostest favoritest Fogerty songs...





This next song was probably just a filler on the first CCR album, but Fogerty does an outrageous LIVE performance here... 'embedding' was disabled for this video, but you can find it HERE...  Go there... listen and watch... I think it's worth the time...


I hope all is well with you... that things are going well for you... that you are happy...

~shoes~