Back in Cincinnati

Perhaps someday I'll come back here and get past the rental car place with something other than an SUV with a bumper sticker that says "I Swap Spit with Cheney" but I suppose I can live with the embarrassment for a short time. For this trip, it's a Ford Edge and I had no idea what that was but the car rental guy said, oh sure, it's a great car and I'm sure you'll like it. I go out to pick the thing up and, sure as hell, it's another feckin' SUV.

Maybe eventually it will dawn on people that SUVs are just glorified station wagons. Never in automotive history have people been so insistent on advertising ineffectual sex lives as has been seen in the SUV period. Also, you can't get a truck; you've got to get a RAM truck and it's GOT to have a number to tell you the size of the parts you can't see. Ram me, baybee!!! Yeah, right. Don't spend too much time in the locker room talking about it, you big ol' hunka man meat.

My ol' mother has always been big on politics so we had our early-morning political discussion. She can't see too much physically but she still sees a lot of things. I couldn't resist starting something, tho. I asked her to ask my Republican brother where the trillion dollars for Iraq went and I can just see him sputtering in his beer when she throws that at him! America loves the troops and so does Lockheed Martin but for entirely different reasons. The Who said we won't get fooled again after Vietnam. Yeah, right. It's the same game and we still bought it.

Today will be wired very tight as I've got to be back at the airport by 1:00 tomorrow afternoon. I thought I had a later flight but actually I'll be back in Rhode Island by dinner time. So I better get my stuff moving. Hope you're all having a peach of a time wherever you are!

Silas in the Wind

Access to computers will be hit or miss for the next few days and I'll update if I can. Otherwise, hopefully see you on Friday at Bay Vista!

Jams at the Gaslight

I woke up about three in the morning and got some stuff set up to surprise Telia. It's two years today! It's amazing as she has become one of the best friends in my life and there's not the faintest chance we will ever meet each other.

After I did my stuff, I saw a message about someone playing at the Gaslight and thought, wtf, I'm up...let's go hear some jams. My good friend, Etherian, was playing and he asked me to play so now it's five in the morning. Three or four people asked me if I wanted to book gigs so that was pretty amazing too!

One girl was checking on her dinner. Since it was somewhere after three a.m. for me, I'm not sure where that puts her. Maybe Australia or Japan. It was cool like that as most of the people there I hadn't met before and cooler yet is that they didn't leave after I started!

The guitar playing has evolved much like the relationship with Telia into something it never was before. I know it leads somewhere even if I don't know where but I know it's a good place.

Whoa, someone bought a couple of the "Illusion of Gravity" CDs. Damn! At this rate, since there are six left (I think), it will only take three more years to sell out! Before Katzy can say it, "Silas, get off your dead ass and finish the new CD! Even lame-ass Hollywood prima donnas produce CDs faster than you!"

She's Home!

Check out the Born Again Pagans to see a pic of hexx's original guitars plus the now-safe Fender VII. It's really great to see her safe and sound as I was literally terrified over what six hours in the hold of a jet might do. It's pretty cold at 30,000 feet and who knows how cold it gets in the cargo hold! So, she's safe!

I was charmed to see that hexx's Godin is quite similar to mine. I'm not sure which model she's got but the pickups are identical except the xtSA has a single-coil in-between the Humbuckers. I hope it's got the ebony fingerboard too as it's just pure sex dancing around on that.

Car 54, Where Are You?

Hmm, it must be mid-afternoon in Amsterdam but no word on the Lady so that can't be good. That would suck so ferociously if it doesn't show up today either. It sure will be good to know she's made it safely to her new home. Maybe you all can relate to this by sending your kid off to summer camp by packing up the little rotter in the cargo hold of an Airbus. This is scary stuff!

I have to get corporate for a bit this morning and that's the reason for deferring my own flight until tomorrow. This is a vacation day in any case and I have budgeted two hours to fix the problem. If it is not done in that time, I'll be walking anyway and I positively guarantee I will not take my corporate cell or laptop with me.

I can't get out of town until tomorrow so I'll play at the Ballroom later on. It was great at Gilligans Island last night and I'll set up some more gigs there too. Many thanks to Alliez Mysterio for the honor of opening the venue! The week-end went way overboard for performances but I wanted to get out there as much as I could before the dry spell and the jams were feeling really good.

Something you may find interesting is that Trowzer Boa followed my set last night and he, to my knowledge, is the only one doing any kind of synthetic music in Second Life. My drive is completely the opposite as I don't want the computer to do anything more than be a smart tape recorder. Trowzer Boa is using a different technique through which the piano and bass are synthesized in real time using software. There's no judgment to make as music is whatever you like playing and popular music is how many other people like it too. Beyond that, analysis is pretty much just swamp gas. In any case, he gets quite a spectacular sound and he's got some great moves on sax. Check him out sometime!

So, off to work for a bit but the rest of the day will be music and I'll fly late tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully there will word that the Lady has arrived safely as well.

Silas at Gilligans Island at 5:00 p.m.

The gig at Avilion was great as they really don't want to hear much mush over there at all. It was a great crowd and I'll check out the recording later to see if the sound was as good as it seemed. The next show is at 5:00 p.m. US Pacific Time and it will be for an opening for Gilligans Island.

Katzy, it was great seeing you there but I'm sorry you missed your song. There was also the medieval version of "Hey Joe" and I'll have to check out how that sounded. It's a little-known fact that Merlin loved to rip on an electric guitar.

The next gig is supposed to be the last one before I go back to Cincinnati but who knows. Maybe one more at the Ballroom tomorrow but meanwhile the main deal is the gig at Gilligans Island. Three hours until show time - woot!

I Caught the Cricket

It was too funny in the gig yesterday at Cuddlers as there's been a cricket in the house for days and he (she?) was chirping his little heart out. The mike was picking it up so the cricket was singing for the world. But victory today as I finally caught the little rascal and he was sitting right on the top of guitar stand! (No, I didn't kill him. You go to hell for killing crickets.)

So why would I be up catching effin' crickets at six in the morning. Well, that's because I was going to play some guitar. So why am I up playin' effin' guitar at six in the morning. Because it's the week-end and I can! I record only using headphones so the time of day doesn't matter at all.

So I beefed up "Hey Joe" and it's on the sidebar. It's way too heavy on the effects and I'm playing too fast but it's still all kinds of fun doing that.

So now the effin' sun came back up again. I'll be off to get some breakfast and then hopefully get some sleep before the gig at Avilion at noon and then there's another one at Red Palms at 4:00. (That's Pacific Time)

Telia Sings Real Good

The new Godin is Telia just as the original one but they aren't precisely the same. They're both exactly the same model of Godin xtSA but the first one has a different twang bar that does not screw into position. The twang bar on the new one does screw in and it stays exactly where I want it. There's also no slack to take up when I do something with it. I doubt this would count as a warranty fix for the original guitar and doing anything to the bridge on a Godin would take major surgery as that's where the MIDI pickup lives. In other words, it would cost a fortune.

It's good tho as I've got a redhead and a brunette and they will have slightly different personalities, just as things should be. Hexx on the 12-string will be dealing with a radically new personality but the action is very similar to a six-string guitar. It's really amazing how little effort it takes to play it and usually people are terrified of 12-strings because it's so difficult physically to play them.

On a 12-string the four lowest strings are doubled (i.e. two strings instead of one) with each tuned an octave apart. The two highest strings are also doubled but are tuned the same as trying to get one up another octave would just break the string. It'll be a big kick to hear hexx going to town with it!

Party at The Tropics

It was a great show and they've booked me for every week-end in October! Brian and Gina enjoy blowing it out and it's always a great party over there. It's a shame hexx and jsmn couldn't be there and actually I'm wondering what's become of them! It sounded like they'd be back today but there hasn't been any sign of them anywhere. I'm a great one for imagining the worst so I'll just shut up.

I've pumped up "Hey Joe" as the back tracks were too puny. Now it's pumped up for some serious mayhem. I'd like to do "Rockin' in the Free World" but no way I can sing that. You'd think I'd lighten up on anti-war stuff as the years go by but it's quite the reverse. One thing that struck me today was that the Iraq invasions have been exactly the same as how it was in the Vietnam war when a vanishingly small number of sons of people in Washington went to fight. Out of about four hundred congresspeople and senators, only one had a kid in Iraq. It was exactly like that during Vietnam too.

Silas at The Tropics at 5:00 p.m.

This will be a two-hour blowout and hopefully hexx will be there to blow the place up but I've not heard anything from her today. It had looked so good that the guitar would show up today but it's about nine in the evening there right now so I guess no joy. I'm really not sure what's happening but I'll definitely be there for the gig at 5:00 p.m. US Pacific Time tonight / 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Silas at Cuddlers Cove at 8:00 a.m.

This will be a return visit to Cuddlers Cove and for me it's late morning but for most of the people in the audience it's early evening. I didn't realize until just a minute ago that it was so early and this is after falling asleep on the futon watching a movie last night so I'm kind of scrambled. So, I shouldn't be sitting here typing, I should be foraging for food.

There should be good news from the Born Again Pagans today as it looks we can be very optimistic that the Lady is going to show up on her door today. Since she was packed up by UPS I'm pretty confident that she is safe but there will be suspense until I know for sure. It's looking pretty good but please do keep your fingers crossed!

Off I go to attend to some hunter/gatherer stuff (i.e. drive to McD and get a Big Breakfast).

Silas at Bay Vista at 8:00 SL Time

I have a late gig tonight at 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time at Bay Vista. Certain things were chewing me up and deferring my flight to Tuesday was the right move as it will let me fly of here without looking back. I know I've been promising for days to come out and play but tonight I'll do it for sure as I've got time to eat and kick back for a while before the show. (Yesterday I didn't eat anything but a nasty Danish in the morning and was soundly chewed out by Telia for that this morning!)

There's been on word on the Lady headed for hexx's place and it must be 11:30 p.m. her time so it must not have arrived. That sucks even just for selfish reasons as I very much want to be in town to hear her play when she gets it. There's no possible way to describe the action on an electric 12-string guitar as it doesn't even remotely resemble playing an acoustic guitar.

The Eagle Flies on Tuesday

Circumstances prevent flying on Monday but I will be going out on a late flight on Tuesday instead. I can't go into details as to the reasons as that is work stuff but it's unavoidable. The flight is confirmed with my sister and my ol' mother already knows so everything is good. If the tension level gets any higher I'll blow up into little tiny bits and this is the only way to prevent that.

Everybody Wish Real Hard

It worked for Tinkerbell so maybe it'll get the 12-string Lady to hexx's place today. Since she's traveling by global mail, it's really tough to figure out where she is right now but she's not late. She's damn sure pushing it but she's really not late yet.

Riding the Roller Coaster

As may not be too much of a surprise, yesterday was not a very good day! I was desperately tired and I know I'm dangerous when I get to that point so I just stayed away from everyone. It's improved somewhat today but none of this is to say that I'm backing off from anything I said as that is exactly the 'darkness' I've talked about previously that I want in what I do. It's never been to create darkness but rather to respond to that which is already there. I was getting death threats from the 'patriots' when I did it previously but the song that inspired it ("Freakshow") ended up getting listed on Neil Young's anti-war Web site and this was long before it was fashionable to be protesting the so-called war.

I never did really get any sleep until I picked up the Lady and I was drawn to "Southern Man" for some reason. Perhaps that came from Neil Young's mis-guided attempt to slam the South for racial matters when in fact it's everywhere. As Redd Foxx once said, "If there were blue people, some asshole would hate them."

I've been bored senseless playing the song lately and only did it because Telia likes it. But it was sounding really good last night and I'll do it tonight at Bay Vista. (Nurse Judi, this is one cover that likely will stay in the set to go live. I know you can kick it's ass and I know I've been confusing but please make no mistake that the Silas Scarborough Band includes Nurse Judi singing lead if you're willing to do it. That would fulfill a dream for both of us and I've not moved a millimeter from the desire to do that.)

For work reasons that I cannot detail here, I may have to delay the flight time on Monday or defer until Tuesday. It's not that I particularly care about the job but rather that I can't leave my boys in trouble and what's going on is too big for them to handle alone. I'll be checking this intently as the day goes along. I'll also make a much better effort to eat today as there wasn't time yesterday and by the time I was free to do something about it I was too tired to deal with it. I will fix that today for sure.