As good as a cockroach?

A spiritual guru named Byron Katie supposedly achieved enlightenment one day when a cockroach crawled across her foot as she lay in bed in a halfway house. The cockroach was probably unaware of its role in her enlightenment. Even though I primarily ride my bicycle while playing guitar to relieve my own pain from the sensory issues and social rejection I experience from my neurology (I have a form of autism), it gladdens me to see the reactions of others to what I do. Most of the time the reactions are positive. I imagine someone having a bad day and driving home in a bad mood when suddenly they see a bicycling guitarist. The shock of seeing something so bizarre, so out of the ordinary, brings a smile to their face involuntarily and lightens their mood.

I have thought this, or at least hoped this was the case, for years. Just last night two (count 'em, TWO) different people volunteered to tell me this is the case for them personally. I just got a new heavy duty rear rack on Saturday, and I wanted to ride all weekend but the weather threatened rain. I went out Sunday night at sunset when I saw a break in the clouds. A teenage male friend of my neighbor's daughter was leaving when I left, and he told me that more than once he had been having a bad day when he looked up and noticed me riding and playing. He told me it cheered him up and that what I do makes his life better.

I did not ride as far as I had intended to the Hansen Chevrolet parking lot at the corner of SE Oak Avenue and SE Pine Street because it looked like rain could happen soon. Instead I rode to the parking lot of The News-Review newspaper and circled around a couple times then headed home. I heard people talking as I passed by a house where a guy had called me over to play for him a few days ago. I stopped there and talked with him again and played some more tunes including one he requested. He told me I make people's lives better by what I do.

So this was bizarre. I went out for a short ride daring the weather, trying to generate some publicity to get more people to come to my shows, and in the space of a few minutes I talked with two different people several blocks apart who both told me the same thing. This is not an ordinary topic of conversation, and I swear I did not initiate it. Both people told me this out of the blue of their own free will. I guess I needed it.

Three months later...

As you may have noticed, I don't post very often to this blog. I used to post maybe once a month, but sometimes three or four months slip by before I notice I haven't posted anything or before I find something to say.

Here's an update of the past three months: I still perform a two-hour show every Wednesday night at a local coffee house (Till It Shines). This has been going on since last October 3. Since January I added three songs by Christina Grimmie and Sarah to my show (Above All That is Random 4, 5 and 6) and one song (Sleeping Sun) by the Finnish metal band Nightwish. I have also come up with some more original instrumental tunes. In general, my show has gotten better over time, and I am a better guitar player and even more a better singer than I was six months ago when I started this gig. There is a small following of audience members who attend my shows. One guy has only missed one show and only because he was sick that night.

Last month the weather was nice enough on some days for me to ride and play outside, and generally since then I have gone out for a twenty-minute ride or so when weather permits. Sometimes I go out two or even three times in one day with an hour or two break between rides, but I am still way out of shape from not riding in wintertime. For now at least I can only handle a half hour riding at a time, and even then I am out of breath from the effort.

I have updated the Facebook page of "The Bicycling Guitarist" pretty regularly the past three months but still need to make the page look prettier. I also need more photographs, sound files and videos to post. Hopefully these are in the works. It might take a few more months, but by the end of summer I might have some professional quality multimedia to share with all of you.

Namaste

In the newspaper, and more

Last Wednesday a reporter from my local newspaper (The News-Review) interviewed me for an hour before my fifteenth weekly performance at Till It Shines Coffee House & Deli in Roseburg, Oregon. She stayed for part of the show too. Her story was published in today's newspaper, but you need a subscription to view the article online, sorry.

As consolation, watch this video that was filmed last Saturday afternoon of me playing the novelty song Fish Heads on a bicycle in the DeForest Kelley Memorial Gymnasium, better known as He's Dead, Gym.

Music in my head

My life has a soundtrack in my head. Sometimes other people can hear it when I play guitar and sing in public, but most of the time it's just for me (unless telepaths are picking it up too). Sometimes there are lead guitar riffs, sometimes rhythm guitar picking or strumming, sometimes both. I don't usually hear bass and drum parts clearly but it's like they are implied. I suppose if I were The Bicycling Bassist or The Bicycling Drummer I would be hearing those parts clearly and it would be the guitar parts that were ghostlike. I have jammed with other musicians and been in a couple of bands. When I share original songs I've written, I don't usually tell the bass player or drummer what parts to play. I count on them to have their own muse direct them. I just play my guitar parts and sing my words, if any.

Because I have my own music in my head, usually other people's music only conflicts with it and gives me a headache. Sometimes though I play lead guitar riffs in my head to whatever other music is out there in the world of other people. Sometimes that is the only way to stay sane, especially if it is country music or rap that I am being forced to listen to. I've rocked out some elevator music too!

Usually the music in my head is instrumental (I am not The Bicycling Singer, as I tell anyone who criticizes my singing), but sometimes there are words. Sometimes words just happen, and music too, as in the following clip from a recent live performance of mine. As indicated in the description to this video, it shows me creating music out of nothing with no plans or ideas of what would come next. It just flowed out like diarrhea, or maybe something nicer than that I hope!

Still playing after an accident

I now have a USB microphone along with my USB guitar cable. Hopefully I will soon have new recordings available of my original songs. I am currently singing and playing guitar better live than ever before, much better than anything yet recorded or posted anywhere. Wish me luck on my recording myself using my notebook computer's sound card. Maybe someday I'll be recorded by professionals using professional equipment!

I had a bit of a spill on June 1 riding home from playing at a local bar. The accident was caused by catastrophic equipment failure. What I think happened is the old brittle plastic of the clamp to my bicycle lock had a hidden crack that was split by the tightening screw acting like a wedge. The clamp split, the lock tangled with my pedal, and my face hit the pavement a second later. My glasses were smashed, my face was torn and required stitches, my guitar took a hit but still plays (although I worry it seems to not stay in tune as well or as long as before the accident), and my bicycle required two hundred dollars of repair costs in parts and labor.

I didn't ride at all in June and didn't play as much publicly either, but I practiced more at home while waiting for bicycle parts and new glasses. In July I played many places, especially the Till It Shines coffee shop and the Kodiak bar. My practice seems to have paid off because I am getting more compliments than ever on my playing from total strangers walking up and telling me I sound good. Yay.

The Bicycling Guitarist on BrickLink

Now you can get your very own models of The Bicycling Guitarist! All parts are genuine Lego except for the double-cutaway electric guitar made by BrickForge. Visit The Bicycling Guitarist store at Bricklink.com!

It's been more than five months since my last blog post!

That's longer than I had thought. I still perform my music some Tuesdays at a local "open mike" night (the Jersey Lilly), but no longer every Tuesday there as I did for most of last summer, fall and the first half of winter. I still play other places too such as the Mystic Earth metaphysical bookstore and Till It Shines coffee shop.

For the first time in thirty years of bicycle guitaring, beginning in February this year I have a place to ride and play indoors when it is too cold and wet to play outside. To watch me doing this, check my most recent YouTube video. A local middle school let me use their gymnasium for one hour a night, two nights a week. Then they cut me back to one night a week, but allowed an hour and a half. This may end soon, but the weather is becoming nice enough for me to start riding and playing outdoors again. Hopefully next winter I will be able to ride and play indoors again.

Last Saturday (April 7) I played my guitar along to the selections of other customers on the jukebox at a local bar (the Kodiak, formerly known as The Beaver Den). After a while I went up to select a few songs myself to play with, and to my delight saw that The Beatles finally have their songs available for digital jukeboxes! For the first time ever I played along to Help! and Blackbird from a jukebox and the crowd loved it. Later I found out a lot of The Beatles' music was released to 50,000 jukeboxes starting April 1.

My ancestry

My family tree has been traced back quite a ways, much farther than some people admit. I didn't do the genealogy work myself though. I had thousands of scientists working the past hundred fifty years or so do it all for me. Much has been learned especially the past twenty years about the cladistic relationships of my ancestors. Some of the old descriptions about my family history still often quoted (fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, reptiles to mammals, etc.) are actually wrong.

I don't know too much from before my ancestors became vertebrates, but about 375 million years ago, maybe as long as 400 million years ago, some of my fishy ancestors evolved to "fishapods", perfectly intermediate between fish and tetrapods. Others of my fishy ancestors remained fish. Many died out but some evolved to become the fish of today. Relatively soon after tetrapods made their way onto land, some of them evolved to become amphibians, while others became amniotes.

Some of the amniotes became synapsids and some became sauropsids (leading to reptiles and birds). Some of the synapsids evolved to become mammals. Some of those mammals eventually became monkeys. Some of the monkeys became apes; many died out, others evolved to become the monkeys of today. Some apes became hominids, many died out, some evolved to become the modern apes other than the great apes. Most hominids died out, but some of them evolved to become the great apes of today (Orangutans, Gorillas, Chimpanzees, and Humans). Modern humans are a species of ape but still a highly-derived fish if you go back far enough.

Two of my most famous ancestors are Tiktaalik, one of those "fishapods" from the late Devonian period, and Australopithecus afarensis, much much much more recent (only about 3.5 million years ago). Now it may be that neither of these are actually my direct ancestors. They could have been side branches of my ancestral family tree that died out without leaving any descendants. However, they are most definitely family.

My quotation had changed!

I just discovered that for some of my site's web pages and multimedia files I had accidentally written "When you run over sharps, you get flats!" instead of "When you ride over sharps, you get flats!" One little word difference. Now I can't decide if I like the changed version better. I suppose the original "ride over sharps" makes more sense to emphasize that I play guitar while riding a bicycle, instead of "run over sharps" as if one were in a car or something.

Even the title in the html code of the new album's web page had the name wrong. I changed all instances back to the original form to be consistent, but I may have missed a few places on the internet besides my web site. Oops.

Worst season for bicycle guitaring? Fall!

Jest kidding. Actually Fall frequently has good weather for playing guitar while riding a bicycle. The title of this post is a bad pun. Here's another. In a songwriter's forum on the internet a few years back Mike McLaughlin quipped "What's the hardest thing about playing guitar on a bike? The pavement!" To which I replied: "Ouch, Mike. My asphalt to the ground!"

For a while recently I was posting every week about what songs I played at various public places. Even posting every week wasn't enough to describe all the places I've been playing the past seven weeks. For about six or seven weeks I have been participating every Tuesday in the open mike night at Charley's BBQ followed by the Jersey Lilly bar later that night. I haven't played the coffee shops or bookstores as much the past couple weeks as I had a few weeks further back, but I have gone to the city park more often and many people have seen me there.

I am saddened by the recent tragedy at the Reno National Championship Air Races. Last Friday one of the most awesome Unlimited racers ever built apparently suffered a mechanical failure and nose dived into the ground at high speed near VIP box seating on the tarmac. The Galloping Ghost was going nearly five hundred miles an hour just before the accident. It shattered into a million tiny pieces and a big cloud of dust. At least ten people are dead and fifty more injured (my numbers might be off a bit).

While this is a tragedy, I hope it does not lead to the end of Air Racing as we know it. Yes, the crowd fatalities are unfortunate, but that is the risk one takes when going to such an event. Also, these are the first spectator casualties in the forty-six year history of the event. A mechanical failure of a plane going five hundred miles an hour a hundred feet above the ground could result in the plane going anywhere. Odds are it would go down in the desert, but not this time. I offer my condolences and best wishes for the victims of this tragedy, including the friends and family of Jimmy Leeward, the pilot of the doomed Mustang.

Rocking the Jersey Lilly

At five p.m. I started the evening at the open mike night of Charley's BBQ, as I have the past few Tuesday nights. I was first on the list because I got there early, and after the house band played a while I performed Freedom and Logger Rhythm. Later I got another turn and performed Early Morning Hours. I asked for adjustment to the sound for the last song (some distortion, less bass), and it went better than the first two, but all were good.

Afterwards I went to the Jersey Lilly for their open mike night that starts at nine p.m. I got there shortly after eight, and rode around a bit in their parking lot playing guitar on my bicycle before going inside. Again I was first on the list. I started with Legalize. A drummer joined me for that song, then I asked him to let me perform solo and he did. I played Logger Rhythm and Early Morning Hours here too, and Dust in the Wind by Kansas.

Then I got some distortion and played Long Hair (another of my originals) and closed with Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith. This was one of the best public performances of my life so far, and it was very well received.

Played two places tonight

I've been playing public places several times a week the past few weeks, including a metaphysical bookstore, a coffee shop, and a bar, besides also playing for other groups of people at various locations.

Tonight from five to eight p.m. I was at Charley's BBQ again for the third week in a row (last week I played Red Baron and Prayer). My first turn at Charley's tonight I played Hot Young Blonde, Running Out of Time and the Beatles song Help! After everyone else got their turn at the open microphone night, I got another turn just before they shut down. I played Oh! Jennifer! and What Can I Say? All these songs except for the Beatles song Help! are from my new (but as yet unrecorded) album When you ride over sharps, you get flats!

Then I went to a cocktail lounge downtown and got a contact number for the man who arranges entertainment there. I will call him tomorrow. Then I went to the Jersey Lilly, a bar that also has open jam sessions on Tuesday nights starting at nine p.m. The house band played a set, then I had a turn. I played my original song Red Baron, Help! by the Beatles, and Behind Blue Eyes by The Who (actually what I play is closer to Pete Townshend's acoustic version).

Charley's BBQ open mike night

I played two songs earlier tonight at Charley's BBQ on West Harvard Avenue. The first was one of mine, Early Morning Hours. Then I played the Beatles song Help! Both were well-received. A little later I rode and played in the parking lot next door while some people watched from the windows.

Last month I noticed a shimmy in the front wheel when I was going down hills, even though the tires were inflated properly. So yesterday I dropped the "Minstrel Cycle" off at the Local Bike Shop to have them true both wheels. It turns out the front axle had a little play and the rear wheel was way out of shape, so it's a good thing I had this done. I picked up the bicycle from the bike shop at 4 p.m. and the music started at the BBQ place at 5. I had to wait a while for my turn to play.

When you ride over sharps, you get flats!

In 2008 I came up with that punny statement that accurately describes what can happen when one is The Bicycling Guitarist. I like it so much I plan for it to be the title of my next album, and possibly my autobiography (or should I say, bicyclebiography?)

The past few weeks besides riding and playing I've sat and played in various public places of business (two bars and a bookstore/coffee shop) an hour or two at a time. So far I have been very well-received. I recently came up with a list of twelve of my better songs from 1986 to 1995 to be included on my next album. I have at least another album's worth of works in progress where the music is there but I do not yet have lyrics for them.

I hope to record at least one album this year and get it out there. Please help spread the word about The Bicycling Guitarist. I will post updates on this blog and on my web site when the album is available.

Flat earth, anyone?

Would it be prudent to take spiritual advice about the afterlife from a religion that is demonstrably out of touch with reality? For example, what if someone was telling you what you should do to get to heaven, but also insisted the earth is flat in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Wouldn't it damage that religion's credibility on spiritual matters if it can be so easily proven wrong about something that has so much physical evidence? Wouldn't you question that person's sanity or at the very least, their ability to reason clearly?

Take it further, what if that religion had a relatively large percentage of the population bamboozled into thinking the earth is really flat, and those well-meaning but misguided people heavily lobbied school boards and politicians to demand equal time for the flat earth theory, citing "academic fairness" and "teach the controversy" as their slogans?

What if that religion ignored tons of evidence of many different types that clearly falsified its views, and denied or distorted the evidence it didn't ignore to bamboozle its followers into thinking there actually was any substance to their argument. What if there had been a dozen major court cases the past forty years where that religion could have presented evidence to support their view, or evidence to falsify the idea the earth isn't flat, yet failed to do so. What if there was actually NO scientific evidence, none at all, to support that religion's view. Does it still seem right or fair to give it "equal time" in public school science classrooms?

That is EXACTLY the situation in America today with regard to the teaching of evolution. This is not a straw man argument. To deny the overwhelming evidence for evolution is just as ridiculous and just as wrong as to insist the earth is really flat. The situation is exactly as I describe it, no exaggeration, no distortion. It would be funny if the potential negative consequences for America, humanity and the planet were not so grave. How can so many people be so ignorant in the 21st century?

Note that I am not claiming that the evidence for evolution somehow disproves God. What I am saying is that the evidence does exist; it is not as most creationists describe it, and many people are basing their opinion on faulty information. If God exists, God apparently used evolution as a tool of creation, and if it didn't happen that way, then God is apparently a trickster to plant so MUCH evidence suggesting that it did.

The Day the Red Baron Died

Today is the 93rd anniversary of his death on April 21, 1918.

The science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein wrote in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long that "The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of 'loyalty' and 'duty.' Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute -- get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed."

I wonder if I recognized and identified with the concepts of loyalty and duty even as a five year old boy when I first read about the World War One flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as the Red Baron. He was a great hunter, had keen eyesight, and what could be called situational awareness. While most men in aerial combat were lucky if they could even just look out for themselves, he was able to keep track of what all the men in his squadron were doing at all times.

After they landed, the others were amazed that von Richthofen could tell them in detail what they had done right and what they had done wrong in the previous combat. I always wanted to be like von Richthofen, somebody respected for outstanding abilities at what they do but even more, somebody that others could count on. I have always tried to be that type of friend.

As for duty, von Richthofen was seriously hurt in aerial combat on July 6, 1917 but survived to fight again. He never should have seen combat after that serious head wound, and he was urged to take a job as an instructor behind the lines. He didn't want any special treatment just because he was famous. He said that if any ordinary soldier had suffered the same wound, that soldier would have been sent back to the front to fight as soon as possible. Also, he didn't want to abandon his comrades at the front. He had a sense of obligation to his comrades and to his country. For some reason that really struck a chord with me, and he has always been one of my role models.

Yes I know there were bad things about him. He enjoyed hunting, even if the prey was other people. But he was loyal and courageous, and he exemplified almost as much as it is possible for any human to do, the twin concepts of loyalty and duty so highly praised by that popular science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein.

I wrote an informative speech about the Fokker Triplane (made famous by the Red Baron) that is one of the better concise sources of information about this aircraft on the internet. I even wrote a song about the character and career of the Red Baron and posted a music video on YouTube. The song lyrics are historically accurate, focusing mainly on the day he was wounded July 6, 1917. The images used in the video are also historically accurate. Several noted aviation artists gave me permission to use images of some of their artwork in this video.

46th anniversary of the Beatles recording Help!

The Beatles recorded the song Help! the evening of April 13, 1965, in twelve takes during a four hour recording session at Studio 2, Abbey Road Studios, London, England. The producer was George Martin. The engineer was Norman Smith.

This is one of John Lennon's favorite songs from his time with the Beatles. I like it too. I usually only play my own original songs; this is one of the few "covers" I do of songs by other artists. I have listened to it and played along to it on guitar literally thousands of times the past five or six years. I play both John's rhythm guitar parts and George's lead guitar parts in my arrangement, trying to get the sound and timing as close as possible to the original version. Sometimes I add extra verses of my own derivations of this classic song.

The last time I was recorded playing this song was in December 2009. I play and sing it much better now than then, but have not yet been re-recorded. I got most of the song the first few days of playing along to it. Sometimes months go by without my learning anything new to improve my playing of it, but once in a while my ears and brain pick up something that I hadn't heard before. Listening to the studio takes helps a lot, also the live versions. I hope to re-record this song sometime in the next few months (maybe a lot sooner). If so, it will be posted on my web site and possibly also on YouTube.

Lego my ego

Compare the Lego model of me to the other photograph taken some years ago when I used to hang out with Peter Griffin of the Family Guy TV show. It's actually quite a good likeness!

U.S.S. Saratoga torpedoed on this date in 1942

The U.S.S. Saratoga was one of our first fast aircraft carriers. She was converted while building from a World War I design battlecruiser under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. In the years before World War II the Saratoga was distinguished from her sister ship and class leader Lexington by a large black vertical stripe down her funnel and was known as "Stripe-Stacked Sara."

On January 11, 1942 the U.S.S. Saratoga was hit by a single torpedo from the Japanese submarine I-6. She limped into Pearl Harbor where a temporary patch was applied, then went to the U.S. West Coast for more extensive repairs and modifications. These included the replacement of the 8" guns by the more efficient 5"/38 guns that doubled as antiaircraft weapons.

Saratoga arrived at Pearl Harbor just too late for the Battle of Midway in June 1942, fought in the Solomons campaign later that year when she was torpedoed again by another Japanese submarine, helped the British Far Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in 1944, and was damaged by kamikazes off Japan in 1945. She was sunk by atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946 and today is a popular destination for scuba divers.

Merry Kitzmas!

Humans share common ancestry with other living things. Overwhelming evidence of many different types clearly shows this is so, but many people have been lied to about this subject and try to say evolution doesn't happen. It's just as crazy as if half the adults in the USA were to insist the earth is flat in spite of all evidence to the contrary. It really is that obvious.

This is the fifth anniversary of the decision by Judge John E. Jones III on the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial. This 2005 trial clearly showed that so-called "intelligent design" is not a scientific idea because it is NOT supported by ANY scientific evidence in spite of claims by its advocates to the contrary. Intelligent Design as presented at that time was in fact a thinly disguised repackaging of so-called "scientific creationism" which is a religious belief and therefore has no place in a public school science classroom. In his decision, Judge Jones basically called the defendants liars and referred to the "breathtaking inanity" of those who push the teaching of intelligent design. This was a major victory of truth and reason over the forces of fear and ignorance.
Merry Kitzmas!

December 20 has more personal significance in my life. That date in 1978 is what I have traditionally observed as the first time I played guitar. I have been a guitarist ever since, but I did not start doing it while riding a bicycle until a few years later in the early 1980s.