weekend april 11th 2014

April 11th Weekend update


Posts to come this week:  This upcoming weekend is Easter weekend.  I think Easter is 2nd on my list of favorite holidays now, right after Thanksgiving.  This week I'll be making posts on stuff like "how to use a chimney starter" so that maybe people can stop using lighter fluid on their charcoal grills.  I also have my rules for "Murder" to be played at a table with friends that I said I had an idea for last week.  That leaves 2 more subjects for me to scrounge up, they may be about "Easter" things, but be aware that "Easter" things doesn't mean the same for me.  Lager vs Ales might be a good subject, as might be some cigar/pipe talk.  We'll see how it goes.

One of the first things you learn with bass is "if you just want to play guitar, just do it, because generally if you try to do guitar's role on bass, its going to sound bad".  This comes up more than you think because a lot of teenagers(and grown up teenagers) come at bass thinking its "easier" than guitar, and since they failed at guitar, they could use bass as a stepping stone.  I never had this problem.  I became a bassist because the role and the techniques spoke to me.  It felt much more natural and interactive with my fingers than guitar did.  I disliked the disconnect a guitar pick gave me between me and my instrument.  I hoped learning guitar would change the way I play bass, and it did in a positive way.  It kind of freed me.  I was never trying to play lead guitar on bass, I was never trying to play ACDC's solos and such using the bass, I'm not dumb and I never had the ambition to just be a guitar-bassist like that.  I did however try to play both roles on bass at once, and in a way that just did not get the job done.  Playing guitar has somehow "freed" my bass playing, emphasizing the strengths of the bass in a bass-centered take on the role of lead and rhythm.  If this sounds overthought out, its because it is.  I typed this out like 5 times trying to not sound like "duh, you fucking idiot, that's bass 101" but I"m telling you I've been playing bass for a decade now, I wasn't trying to do like the newbies or closet guitar play wannabes, this is different.  Its about feel and strengths, and roles, and natural tendency of a instrument here.

I'm watching Orphan Black now, unfortunately not on Netflix, you gotta find an alternate way to view it.  Its about a girl that sees a twin of herself jump in front of a train and die.  The girl's life is sort of shit, so she has the idea to impersonate her twin because it looks like her twin was well off financially.  The twin turned out to be a cop, and now she's jumping through loops to try and act like she was a cop long enough to take all the twin's money and leave... and then she sees another woman that looks exactly like herself and her twin and then it gets messy.  It is really suspenseful and really well written.  You can see so many ways the show can go, and so many situations that could happen or might happen, and its like storyline goldmines all over the place.  I highly recommend it.

Read that Fergusson will probably leave Late Night after the Dave-Colbert transition.  I'll miss having him to watch.  I still watch Conan, but Conan's "gold team" of writers left around 2004 and his new writing team just never filled the void.  I still like his interviews, but I largely ignore his sketch segments.  Fergusson, on the other hand, is just hilarious to watch all the time.  I record him and watch him in the morning while I eat breakfast.  All the horri-shit comedians that caused me to leave watching TV in the early 2000's are inheriting the positions left by the old, much more talented, comedians.  I hate everything to do with Saturday Night Live after the 90's, and that's all NBC is.  Its like, not even 2nd string SNL cast, the Later slot is full of the shit of the shit of SNL's history.  Then Colbert, sure he loves Lord of the Rings, but his career is now focused on a satire impersonation that has lasted waaaaaay too long.  They are talking about putting Chelsea Handler in Fergusson's spot, and let's just say I will not watch 5 minutes of her show in my life time.

So yea, that' got negative fast.

I'll miss Craig Fergusson at the late night slot.  I knew he was too crazy to get Dave's post, and he gets like $10 million extra for not getting Dave's post, so I'm happy for him.