PonyOne
08-26-2004, 02:29 AM
Okay, this is a semi-rant. I work at a car dealership which saps about 9-12 hours a day, and thus I don't have much time to try and start bands. Luck would have it that one of my friends' bands split and both halves want to recruit me. Which is kind of awkward, but cool.
So, jam times are set up... now luck would have it someone who just started working with me is starting a band as well, and they need lead. it's a pretty straight-forward, alt-rock-ish band, so lead work isn't all that difficult for me. i won't have to utilize all the sweeps and slurs i've been breaking my back to learn as much as i had hoped. they are interested in my blues and eastern scale ability, since they want to "diversify" their sound a bit. So, when I get up this morning I throw the JC120 (do you have any idea how unwieldy that leviathan is down stairs?!) into my trunk and my Strat & Tele into the back seat and head to work.
The day pretty much went okay. It was slow, which equates to no money, which I could use some of right now. As you may know, my dad is in the Army National Guard and his number came up, so, starting in Sept. he gets to do a tour of duty in that big mess we call Iraq. When he was my age he had a late-60's MG roadster; he lost it in the divorce with his first wife. All my life he has lamented its loss and I always heard him say things like "in another six months, maybe I'll pick one up." He never did. So, I'm taking the liberty of buying one for him, restoring it and then driving it back out to MA to give it to him when he gets back. So, I have set up a separate MG fund that could stand to grow.
I had a customer come in, who was a pretty nice guy. We worked out a bunch of numbers the day before, and he had to come back with some paperwork, so, I was waiting for him to come in when I got a call from my sister back in MA. I figured something was up. Well, something was... my grandma passed away today. The people were understanding and didn't take any offense to my taking a walk out back and just kind of walking in a stupor for awhile. I stupidly decided that it would be better just to get through work, to keep my mind off it, and deal with it later.
Well, due to a clerical error the deal got f-ed up and the guy got really pissed. He did the time-honored screaming-at-top-of-lungs-at-manager routine; it was a pretty severe reaction to the situation to say the least. at this point i pretty much took the "f*ck this, there's no reason i need to take this" stance and just kind of walked away from the situation.
i went to the upstairs of the dealership and just kind of vanished into a bathroom for about a half an hour; I really just wanted to be alone for a few to gather myself. Like it's not bad enough to have grandma die on you at work... now you have pissed off customers and managers to deal with. no one seemed to be upset with me when i took off, which is cool.
at this point i didn't really feel like showing up for practice, so i called and they were, of course, understanding. but it feels like i must have agreed when i was born to have all my bad karma put in a 401k, that periodically, i would be prorated a single massively sh!tty day instead of having a series of smaller, less horrid instances.
well, i may be on a plane to Boston tomorrow for a funeral. which is offset by the fact that i had a very cryptic dream the other night involving a funeral (although literally every dream i've had in the past 4 or so years has involved a cemetary somehow), creepy, huh? After a brief talk it's been determined that I, being the closest family member to Idaho, where our family plot is (i don't plan on spending eternity in Idaho though, thank you), will take grandma's ashes with me and make a road trip at some point to bury her in some rural nothing somewhere an hour away from Boise. From the sound of it, she died like an Edward Hopper painting: alone, with my dad, in a room. The Red Cross pulled him off the base and he drove out from NY to see her; according to them, it seemed like she was just holding on long enough to see my dad one last time. She wasn't doing so well mentally; when he went to say goodbye before deployment, in his uniform, she thought he was already back. He sat there with her all morning, talked to my mom on the phone, who had a message from my cousin hoping that she was doing okay. He went to say "Mom, Anne talked to Susan and Jared," and before he could finish the sentence, he said she just let out a gasp of air, and that was it. just one breath, just one instant. my grandma's gone.
Damn it, all I wanted to do today was play guitar!!! Sometimes, I wonder why I bother to get up in the morning.
Goodnight, Nana.
So, jam times are set up... now luck would have it someone who just started working with me is starting a band as well, and they need lead. it's a pretty straight-forward, alt-rock-ish band, so lead work isn't all that difficult for me. i won't have to utilize all the sweeps and slurs i've been breaking my back to learn as much as i had hoped. they are interested in my blues and eastern scale ability, since they want to "diversify" their sound a bit. So, when I get up this morning I throw the JC120 (do you have any idea how unwieldy that leviathan is down stairs?!) into my trunk and my Strat & Tele into the back seat and head to work.
The day pretty much went okay. It was slow, which equates to no money, which I could use some of right now. As you may know, my dad is in the Army National Guard and his number came up, so, starting in Sept. he gets to do a tour of duty in that big mess we call Iraq. When he was my age he had a late-60's MG roadster; he lost it in the divorce with his first wife. All my life he has lamented its loss and I always heard him say things like "in another six months, maybe I'll pick one up." He never did. So, I'm taking the liberty of buying one for him, restoring it and then driving it back out to MA to give it to him when he gets back. So, I have set up a separate MG fund that could stand to grow.
I had a customer come in, who was a pretty nice guy. We worked out a bunch of numbers the day before, and he had to come back with some paperwork, so, I was waiting for him to come in when I got a call from my sister back in MA. I figured something was up. Well, something was... my grandma passed away today. The people were understanding and didn't take any offense to my taking a walk out back and just kind of walking in a stupor for awhile. I stupidly decided that it would be better just to get through work, to keep my mind off it, and deal with it later.
Well, due to a clerical error the deal got f-ed up and the guy got really pissed. He did the time-honored screaming-at-top-of-lungs-at-manager routine; it was a pretty severe reaction to the situation to say the least. at this point i pretty much took the "f*ck this, there's no reason i need to take this" stance and just kind of walked away from the situation.
i went to the upstairs of the dealership and just kind of vanished into a bathroom for about a half an hour; I really just wanted to be alone for a few to gather myself. Like it's not bad enough to have grandma die on you at work... now you have pissed off customers and managers to deal with. no one seemed to be upset with me when i took off, which is cool.
at this point i didn't really feel like showing up for practice, so i called and they were, of course, understanding. but it feels like i must have agreed when i was born to have all my bad karma put in a 401k, that periodically, i would be prorated a single massively sh!tty day instead of having a series of smaller, less horrid instances.
well, i may be on a plane to Boston tomorrow for a funeral. which is offset by the fact that i had a very cryptic dream the other night involving a funeral (although literally every dream i've had in the past 4 or so years has involved a cemetary somehow), creepy, huh? After a brief talk it's been determined that I, being the closest family member to Idaho, where our family plot is (i don't plan on spending eternity in Idaho though, thank you), will take grandma's ashes with me and make a road trip at some point to bury her in some rural nothing somewhere an hour away from Boise. From the sound of it, she died like an Edward Hopper painting: alone, with my dad, in a room. The Red Cross pulled him off the base and he drove out from NY to see her; according to them, it seemed like she was just holding on long enough to see my dad one last time. She wasn't doing so well mentally; when he went to say goodbye before deployment, in his uniform, she thought he was already back. He sat there with her all morning, talked to my mom on the phone, who had a message from my cousin hoping that she was doing okay. He went to say "Mom, Anne talked to Susan and Jared," and before he could finish the sentence, he said she just let out a gasp of air, and that was it. just one breath, just one instant. my grandma's gone.
Damn it, all I wanted to do today was play guitar!!! Sometimes, I wonder why I bother to get up in the morning.
Goodnight, Nana.