Megatar Redux

The Secret Laboratory, somewhere in the Cascade mountain range: Initial results of my experiments, having reassembled the Megatar Laboratory, look good.

With my new factotum, Dallas by name, the first run of instruments -- two TrueTapper Dragons -- is proceding apace. I am cautiously optimistic that the new facility will provide enhanced production and speed of delivery to a world crying out for Mobius Megatar Touch-Style Basses.

And as my grandmother used to say, "Well, we'll see."

So Long -- The Gift of Life

San Anselmo, February 15, 2002: Joseph called me on the phone. I didn't recognize his voice. His father, Paul, my brother, was dead.

Paul was very big, a very fat man. He edited one of the Sams books about dBase, once upon a time. A computer whiz, he graduated from the University of Texas in Austin, took up Scientology, married, had children, and on that day he was very happy because he'd landed a new consulting contract, and for the first time in his life, he had bought a new car.

Yesterday on Valentine's Day, driving from his consulting meeting, exiting a car lot, he pulled out in front of a truck.

The truck, hell-bent for leather, barrelling along at high speed, and the driver admiring the shiny new cars parked along the side, crushed Paul's new car, killed Paul.

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Custom Beer Label

News Flash! Now you too can have a custom beer label. So easy! So meaningful! Now persons such as Ray Ashley (citizen of New Jersey) can instantly create lables for the many and varied brews of his devising. And so can you!

Just visit The Beer Lable Site.

(A tip of the Hatlo Hat to J-Walk Blog for this item. J-Walk is my favorite weblog; I read it daily.)

Koko Taylor in Paris

Paris, Summer 2001: On the way to the Belgian E-Tap Seminar, my flight paused in Paris, and so did I.

In the Montparnasse district ("arrondissement"), I had a narrow hotel, whose view of the street below my second-floor room revealed a hustling little shop of fresh produce, several ambiguous doorways, and a musical trio busking for money in colorful costumes. It was all so colorful I could just spit in a delirium of foreignicity.

In the morning I would carry my Megatar over to Le Bass Shoppe, where the proprietor would express quiet interest, on which I would later fail to follow up most completely.

Last night, arriving late, I'd had a late supper at the nearest cafe, and it could have been the same place where Hemingway and Picaso and Satie and Coco Chanel and Kay Boyle created the world of art once upon a time.

Last night, jet lag fagged and flattened me, but tonight? What to do tonight?

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The Cheapskate

Mount Shasta: Adrienne is puttering around the house, singing her new song "Lizzie, Come Home." Adrienne is a prodigous song-writer, though usually writing only one or two lines of each song. It's interesting to hear her sing those lines over and over. Tickles me.

But this time, she's got a whole verse and chorus, and a sweet melody. It's about our new bowser named Lizzie. Lizzie's an Aussie (Australian Shepherd), normally long of hair but we've shorn her and she looks like a hound on the front half, and a rotweiler on the back half.

Sweet disposition, and loud voice, she's devoted to Adrienne, and follows her like a little shadow. Sleeps on her bed at night. Guards her diligently against the cat, and sometimes me.

It wasn't always this way for Lizzie. She's had a hard life, poor little rich girl.

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The Lottery Winner

[From "Random Robert":] A man had won the lottery, several millions, and so the press beseiged his house, and when he came home from the bar, they caught him.

They ask him what he is going to do with all the money.

"Well," he said, "I guess the first thing I'll do is go and pay a few bills."

"And what about the rest?" the reporter asks.

The lucky winner shrugs. "Well, I guess they'll just have to wait."

Submarine

Gotto fast connection? Take the submarine for a spin. Mind the rocks.

The Ten-Yard Dash

Fort Mason, San Francisco, 1989: It was late night, and the air cool in the parking lot beside the bay. Over the murmer of the movie set, I could just hear the gentle sound of the water, lapping beneath the wharf.

I'd just emerged from Blue Bear School of Music, where I played touch-style bass in a "learn how to play" band, and outside I suddenly found a movie being made. I wandered among the movie folk, striking up a conversation with the sound man, who was bundled up heavy but shifting from foot to foot from the cool air. Hah! Tenderfoot to San Francisco!

As we spoke, Sigourney Weaver walked around a corner, and stood waiting a few feet away.

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Here Now

Mount Shasta Milestone: Today, her majesty my darling and I ran around a bit, just for fun.

In the later afternoon, we drove through a snowstorm to McCloud (scenic mill town around the side of the mountain) to visit her mailbox there. We returned to Mando's for spicy enchiladas de camarones (shrimp). We browsed the great cowboy art at Mount Shasta Gallery. But earlier, at lunchtime, something happened.

At the new Stage Door Cabaret and Cafe, we tried the chili and soup and cornbread. (Absolutely great!) And while Adrienne sat and I waited by the ordering counter, I struck up a conversation with Doug York, a local promoter who's producing and acting in a Murder Mystery called "Murder on the Rails" tonight, up the road in Montague at the Corner Cafe.

And then, as we were souping and cornbreading, our neighbors Roy and Ashley came in, finding seats across the room, and they waved.

We waved back.

That was the magic moment.

For this was the first time we've been out, and we came across someone we knew. Oh, of course we know tradespeople. And Roy and Ashley we see in the driveway all the time.

But this was the first time we've seen people that we know, at the same place as us.

This may seem like a little thing. And it is.

But there it is.

Maybe we're part of this place. We know people.

Ram Das

Midwestern University, Wichita Falls Texas, 1965: Actually, not Ram Das. Rather, it was Richard Alpert.

I'd ransacked the North Texas State library stacks, reading up about this LSD that was making news. Harvard researchers Leary and Alpert were urging "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out!," and what in the world did that mean?

The psych abstracts were puzzling, describing synaesthesia, n., which means (1) "A condition where one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color." Or (2) "A song by Cannonball Adderly."

Hearing a color? The smell of a picture? The feeling of a sound? Huh?

So when Richard Alpert was speaking, over at Midwestern University, I was ready to go hear it. And so was Kit Thorne.

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Ruru the Guru is the only Telepathic Operator?

San Francisco Yellow Pages, 1986: In the Yellow Pages that year you'd find listed "Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service" at 221-3333. If you called it you might hear this --

"Hello and thank you for calling Third Ear Telepathic Answering Service, the round-the-clock telepathic answering service!

"I am your Host and Operator Ruru the Guru, speaking to you direct from the Himalaya Hideaway.

"Hold it! Hold the phone! I'm getting a telepathic message at this very minute!

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Death, Passing By

Henrietta, Texas 1953: Being 9 years old, I was walking home from school. It was quite safe then. Ricky Moyer walked along with me, and Bradley, the high school kid, stopped his 1948 black Mercury, to let us pass.

"Give us a ride!" called out Ricky.

"Get on the hood!" yelled Bradley.

So we did.

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