Victoria Vox ! Victoria Vox !

I'm not a tweeter, or a tweetee. So I don't know much about it. I think I might like it though, because my blog is a kind of diary. And I thank any readers who have looked in to see if I've posted anything. Of course I havn't! I can only write when I'm in a good mood. When I'm in a good mood well, then I'm too busy living and playing my part in the theater of life. Fortunately, when I'm not in a good mood, I'm not that bad. Maybe a bit apathetic. Non energetic. If I'm bi- polar, I've got plenty of company. Some people just have to get around other people to recharge themselves socially. At a place where everybody knows their name. I, however, need to be alone.

I'd like to throw a party here at my house maybe three times a year. This August will be my eighth annual "fly-in". But I'd like to have a music party. A "Jam Session" maybe once or twice a year. I'll call it a "Coffee House" and have an "Open Mike". In the last few years I've been to a few "house concerts". This is where you have a single, professional, musical act at your party and you pay them. I'd like to do one of those, but I'm pretty far out of town. Normally those are thrown in the suburbs. I know of several Jam Sessions in the suburbs where the event takes place as a music meeting once a week. These can be private, or in the case of a Folklore Society, or something, it could be open to the public and you just show up with your fiddle, banjo, boyfriend, etc. Every week. My hat goes off to the folks who throw these parties once a week. It says a lot about their personality as far as patience, good nature, dependability.

I had the privilege of working as a volunteer at a very successful house concert last week. Myself and my pickup truck were put to good use for a day and a half. At twilight the concert began. And I stopped working and became a "guest" and turned into an immediate, automatic, huge, fan of the featured entertainer. She was enchanting. Both as an entertainer and as a musician. She could do so much. I'm not going to try to describe how incredibly talented she is. I will say this. There was total silence while she was on stage. Most acts get smothered in crowd mumble noise. Especially outside, as this was. Okay, I'll say two more things. She plays ukulele and she makes you smile. The rest you'll have to find out on your own.

Our host was gracious. His home was beautiful. The weather cooperated for a time window during the concert, and went back to rain. I got the autograph I was promised. And I was oh so tired. That really good tired. . . . . :::::+::::: LLITTY

A Song For Japan

I have a new part time hobby. My father in law has a "time share" that he is stuck with. "Time shares" are a nasty, toxic, unfortunate "investment". There are literally tens of thousands of them for sale for $1. One Dollar. The owner is stuck with fees for the rest of his life, and he can't get out of it. So they say. I've only been learning about time shares for three days, and I'm blown away by what I've learned. I was really mad and frustrated about it on the first day. But now I've just settled in to doing my homework on it. Hey, I'm retired.

Today I tried to start my backhoe. It's an old MF..........Massey Furguson, what did you think I meant? I put in the big battery which was charged. I added power steering fluid. Added oil. Pumped up a tire. Cleaned battery cables and terminals.Then hooked up jumpers from my truck. But I could not get it going. I can not afford a mechanic, so I may have to wait and hope for a friend to come help me.

Tonight I forgot all about the GD backhoe. Wife and I went to the Avalon, as we often do. My wife is always on top of the schedule at the Avalon. We usually get good seats. Tonight was no exception. There are four opera boxes in the 400 seat theater. We were in one of them. I knew so little about Rosanne Cash. I was running late getting ready after wrenching and getting greasy. So I googled up Rosanne's bio. Hit the print button. And jumped in the shower. On the way to Easton I read the bio aloud and we learned a bit about Johnny Cash's daughter. It was a beautiful evening outside. Sunset. Cobblestone streets. Quaint Town. The town still remembers what it was like before The Bridge went in in 1953 and connected Delmarva to the world. You can't not love Easton. And it was finally Spring. Rosanne was accompanied by her husband on stage. John Leventhal. This guy was outrageously awesome. I'm not going to try to describe how great he was. She was singing ballads. He was filling in with licks that sounded like an orchestra. He played the piano very well too. The Avalon's grand. She sang fourteen songs and a two song encore. I just smiled the whole time. We weren't listening to a band. We were watching this husband and wife duo with their acoustic guitars. She sang the Dylan song "Girl from the North Country". She explained that when her father appeared on Dylan's surreal album "Nashville Skyline" in 1969, she was officially the coolest fourteen year old girl in the world. To arrange her own version of the song "North Country" she had to go back to Dylan's 1963 recording and find her own way. There is this Jesse Winchester song, "Blow on Chilly Wind" that I love. I somehow relate it to Rosanne, I believe it was on an album she had. I was waiting for the song, but no go. But there is a song of hers that she had on the charts, that she wrote, that we all know. "Seven Year Ache" Such a fine song. Such a big applause. Such a wonderful night for wife and I. The last two songs were filmed for "Artists for Japan". A movie which will donate all it's income to relief efforts for Japan. Thank you Rosanne and John. Thank you Avalon theater. Thank you Easton. :::::+::::: LLITTY

Frustration; A "chip" on my shoulder

I feel a disjointed geezer rant coming on. Do you have cable TV? Remember sometime back all the old TV's that weren't "cable ready" had to have a set top box to make the cable work. Then not too long ago the cable went digital and was still partially analog. Now the cable company is telling us they are going "all digital". We now have to go back to a "set top box" on our "cable ready" TV. Kind of like the old boxes we had when cable first came out. We got via UPS: one set top box, and two adapter boxes, so we can have three TV's set up. The hardware is free and the monthly bill will not change. And we will get more channels and better picture. Here's the problem. I'm a 61 yr. old cynic. Nothing is free. I don't want anything that is free. I don't want to change my GD TV set up. I don't want it to be better. I pay a lot every month now. Leave my service alone. I'm very wary of these "improvements". But I have no choice. I'm betting after a few months they will start raising rates to pay for these "free" upgrades. Then their customers will be embedded in the new system and just keep paying the newer, bigger bill. The cable company, like City Hall, will always win. If I want a "fourth" TV adapter, it is $1.99 per month. I have a little 13 in. TV in the kitchen. I have it on while I do the dishes. Or watch the weather channel while I have breakfast. I love the little TV. But I don't know if I want to pay two bucks a month for it. And I have a fifth TV in my son's room which will be a guest room. So it will die too when the new "better" service starts, unless I pay another $2/ month. We have installed the set top and the adapters and the remotes. My wife has spent most of the day on the web and on the phone with Comcast trying to get our new digital service initiated/activated. Now we have been told that we must take it all down and pack it up and take it to their service center as it it not initializing. We will be issued another set of equipment. And they are going to do this with millions of households! And we lose two TV's! I'd like to share my secret scenario now: In a few months, the cable bill will go up quite a bit. When it does, I will take reactionary irrational action. I will calmly disconnect the new set top box, and the two adapter boxes, along with the three Comcast remotes and take them out to the back yard. I will set them on a cinder block or two and smash them with a sledge hammer until they are in small pieces. I will put the pieces in the original box and ship them back to Comcast. And I will of course, terminate my relationship with comcast. Including my computer cable contract. I will then go 60 days with no TV at all, just for principle. Then go satellite. This is just a fantasy. So I'm just kidding, I guess. But I suppose it could happen. A clearer head will prevail. My wife will get the new equipment and I'm sure the new "sort of free", or "free with a lot of strings and catches" digital cable service will be fine. There will likely be an after market gadget that I will be able to buy to hook up to the little kitchen TV to make it work too. And if we ever go HD with our sets, we'll be all ready. But somehow, someday, there is a sledgehammer/electronic device episode in my future. It will probably involve a computer and/or a cell phone. :::::+::::: LLITTY

Journey On

My wife and I went out tonight to the Avalon Theater to see Arlo Guthrie live on his "Journey On" tour. This was good for me because I have been slowly crawling out of a very deep mental abyss which started maybe a score of days ago. My wife has been very kind to me indeed. So I'm glad I could atone a bit and join her in "going to town". She really had a good time. And she's not into folk singers. She likes blues. But Arlo did some stuff that suited her. A Leadbelly tune. And an excellent rendition of St. James Infirmary. Damn Arlo was good. He had an ensemble of seven behind him. It was interesting how his band backed him up. They kept the theme of Arlo being a solo act. Often they were quietly sitting out because Arlo was being Arlo. He had three ladies, a sister group, who were his back up chorus. A drummer and bass player. His son Abe on keyboards, and an incredible lead guitar player on fender tele who played violin nicely on slow songs. Arlo also played piano on maybe six songs, instead of guitar. He used 4 different guitars, all acoustic. I hadn't listened to Arlo in thirty years. He sounded just like he did way back when. He talked before every song in warm, comic, introductions, and we found ourselves laughing out loud. He did a long funny story leading up to "Coming into Los Angeleez". Which I loved. He talked about his wife of 42 years. He played tribute to Hoyt Axton who was his dear friend. To Leadbelly. To Janus Ian. But most of all, he played tribute to his father, Woody. Near the end of the concert, he sang "This Land is Your Land". He would sing a verse, then stop and talk and explain something about Woody. Then do another verse and stop and talk again, on and off for five verses. He said he "learned" the song in fifth grade like many of us did. He went home and got out his 3/4 scale Gibson guitar which his father had given him on his fifth birthday and tried to play the song. His father saw this and went and got out some old papers. He showed Arlo some verses that would not have been "allowed" in the grade school songbook. I didn't buy tickets to Arlo so that I could hear "City of New Orleans" live. Which he did at the piano, by the way. I wanted to touch a legacy. I wanted to be near an icon. I got exactly what I wanted and more. This guy is a real live genuine legend. And thanks to my wife we were in the second row center and the first row seats in front of us were empty! And the 400 seat room was sold out. So just call me star struck if you like. I was ten feet away from Woody Guthrie's son and grandson for a nice two hour concert. Two nights from now wife and I are going out again to live music. This time a local geezer country rock band. Of great players and great guys (and girl). There will be friends and relatives there. And people that like me. And people that I want to like me. Somehow I care again. Thank goodness for my wife. Thank goodness for music. Thank goodness for Spring. Thank goodness I can Journey On.

What a Waste of Time

I've been wasting time. Day after geezer day I've done nothing. As it turns out, the rest of the world has hurried along without me. Important things have gone on. And important people have reacted to those things. The "revolution" in the Middle East is at a beginning. Egypt, Iran, Libya. Oil prices are going up, economies are crashing. While all this is going on, I look outside and notice that the wind is blowing. And I wonder what the date is. Is February finally over? Is it even possible to "waste" time? As I use up time, I am using up my life. Is having time in my past better than having time in my future? If I could be twenty years old again would I want that, so that I could have more time?. If I waste time playing solitaire, is there something immoral about that? I could be doing something productive somewhere. Maybe helping someone? Is watching a football game on TV a better use of time than playing solitaire? Is watching a football game live in the stadium a better use of time than watching it on TV? Is one man's time more valuable than another's? If the president plays a game of solitaire surely he wastes more time than if I do. But if the president plays solitaire, the essence of the game of solitaire changes. It might become popular. Someone might report the results of the solitaire game in the media. Then when I play solitaire it might not be viewed by my peers in the same waste- of- time way. When we fault Nero for fiddling while Rome burned, we're not saying fiddling is a waste of time. Only in some situations. Yet we have the expression "fiddling around", which obviously came from that legend. There's a Chinese proverb about the humble man frying a fish. It asks the question whether his activity is any less important than any other. So it seems that the value of time is relative. It depends on who's spending the time. And what the activity is. And what activity is being neglected. All I want to do is play solitaire. Without feeling guilty. So I'll quote Bertrand Russell: "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." And finally, Ralph Waldo Emerson. "To fill the hour, that is happiness, and leave no crevice for repentance or approval".

Stately Pleasure

I feel a post coming here that will be disjointed if not scatterbrained. If you can't stand "stream of consciousness" surf on, and find continuity. I have been under the weather and spent a few days in bed. Yesterday I was up and about and considered myself well. I was sluggish and dull though. I chalked it up to the bed rest getting me way out of shape. Today I really feel fine and I am surprised at how much better I feel. A bigger surprise though is my judgment about yesterday as far as thinking I was well. Why didn't I know I wasn't well yet? I just assumed that the way I felt was to be expected after being sick. I didn't even know how my own body is supposed to feel when I'm OK. When I'm sick I lay in bed and sleep or watch TV. I watch old movies mostly. I don't have the energy to read. Reading is thinking. It's surprising how much energy it takes to think. So I read a bit today. That means I'm back. I was sitting here reading the introduction to "The Portable Atheist" by Hitchens when my wife walked in my room and said here is a present for you. She had bought me a new book called "How Pleasure Works". It's by a Yale psychologist named Paul Bloom. It's pretty interesting. He tries to figure out what gives us pleasure. And why. Is it an instinct? A survival tool? Pure sensory? Is pleasure happiness? Looking at a great painting is pleasurable. The great painting might be worth a million dollars. A perfect print copy of that painting might be worth next to nothing. He talks about "endowment value". This is where the longer you own something, the more valuable it becomes to you. This is where the pleasure hypothesis crosses into the hoarding syndrome. The author said that if someone offered him 100 bucks for his wedding ring he would say no of course. If they offered him $10,000 he would sell. What makes something valuable? Is there anything you own that you would not sell at any price? I can think of two things I would not sell. The sentimental value is ridiculously high. When I was four years old I was hospitalized with a nerve infection that was thought to be polio. My parents had three other young kids to worry about in addition to me. They couldn't sit with me all day and night at the hospital. My father was working long hours to support this family. The first night in the hospital my parents stayed until visiting hours were over and I remember not wanting them to leave and feeling scared and sorry for myself. My father gave me a teddy bear. My father was not a teddy bear kind of guy. My mom was the soft one, to make up for his harshness. I still have the teddy bear. And I would not give it up. I would like my son to keep it after I am gone. The other item was also a gift from my father. An airplane propeller. That came from the airplane that carried him on his first solo flight, in July of 1937. In a 40hp Taylor Cub which had the name "honeychild". The airplane was later in a minor crack up and the prop was dinged. At that time my father was instructing and the boss came by the desk my father was sitting at and set the propeller down on the desk and said something like "you'll want this". Then Pearl Harbor happened. I've got a couple of old guitars that I'll never get rid of, that have been in the family. But I would sell them if someone offered me ten times what they are worth. Dr. Bloom could not explain the pleasure of music in human development as far as natural selection. It is possible that music lovers got to reproduce because they cooperated with others more successfully and got more done. Or in general, skills and talents demonstrated by males can be selected by females for reproduction, and vice versa It's a mystery. Unlike pleasures in food or sex or warmth which have obvious payoffs in reproduction. Dr. Bloom seemed to discover that all of us are "essentialists", in that we always get our pleasure in the full "essence" of what we're eating, listening to, looking at, desiring as a mate. The pleasure is on a deeper level than one might think. We want the real thing. Not fakes, copies, forgeries, knock offs. Our brains are complicated, and so are our pleasures. My Ibuprofen is wearing off. It's time to seek pleasure. Take two pills, print the Post crossword puzzle, make some tea and curl up with my ill- mannered Beagle mix. Jake, the "teddy bear". LLITTY :::::+:::::

Goodbye Columbus

My other blog is "General Aviation Informal". Back two years ago I started this blog "Lloyd Lou" because I promised not to tell "airline stories" on my general aviation blog. Two years have gone by and I haven't posted one airline story. On either blog. I don't feel like telling "hero" stories. I don't have any anyway. I probably have quite a few "there I was" stories. And I could make up a lot more. But I'm not going to. When I first fell in love with flying and airplanes, I never had a plan of being a professional pilot. I just liked flying. I knew I would love flying before my first ride. My first ride was in a Piper Cub off Deep Creek Airport on the western shore of the Chesapeake. That airport is long gone now. That ride was everything I expected and more. I wasn't just hooked. I was stung. I was 14 years old or so. From then on I was always figuring out a way to get another ride. Ride followed ride. As a high school senior I applied for a scholarship for a Private License. I had the written test passed. An Airman medical. And a recommendation from a member of the US Congress. In the summer of 66 I got my first airman certificate. Then I started finding ways to rent airplanes. In college I started renting Cubs at the College Park Airport. At some point I had over 200 flight hours. In those days if you had 200 hours you simply went and got your commercial license. It was quite simple compared to today. I had to take some lessons on how to pass the flight test, and that was a struggle to afford and I simply had to save up for each lesson. I got the Commercial. But not to be a professional pilot. Just because it was a cool flying thing to do. Like getting a black belt, or a degree in something. And it was easy, except for the money. I always admired the instructors who taught me. They actually got paid to fly. I wound up giving a lot of rides to folks at the College Park Airport. And I would play instructor by letting them take the controls. I even filled in as an instructor a few times at College Park even though I did not have an Instructors Rating. When I went to the FAA to get an Instructors Rating I found out I did not know as much as I thought I did. Each time I went up to Baltimore to take a check ride for my "CFI" (Certified Flight Instructor) rating I was given an "oral". And I was sent home because I didn't know enough. For months I was "mad" at the FAA guys for being such sticklers! Finally, after talking to my dad, who was a pilot back in the thirties, whom I wasn't getting along with very well; and another mentor from College Park who was an old instructor, it finally dawned on me. The more I was learning, the more there was to learn. I stopped worrying about getting the rating. There was this one textbook that the feds kept referring to. I thought it was a bit mundane. I practically memorized that book word for word. I could literally quote paragraphs from it. And I had become a bit humbled. I had finished my degree at the University of Maryland and was working at College Park Airport as a line boy pumping gas and washing airplanes and mowing grass and degreasing the bellies of airplanes. The old mentor at College Park told me that if I went to Baltimore again I would pass the CFI exam. So I did. And he was right. I passed. So now I could do what I loved and pay my meager bills. I flew and flew and flew. I flew 2000 hours in less than two years. Finally I burned out and ran away from home. I wondered across the country and back. I wound up in Cumberland instructing again. But I was also training in the twin engine airplanes and flying co-pilot on the small town commuter flights into Baltimore. Then came 4 years in General Aviation that I couldn't describe in a hundred blog posts. Thru my twenties. Learning as I went. Single Pilot IFR. Twin Engine. Freight. Air Mail. Bank Work. I still never thought of myself as a professional pilot. I just wanted to fly the planes. By myself mostly. For fun. Then came turbine Beaches with two pilots. Then finally DC-3's also with two pilots. An airplane so large, the pilots could not load their own freight. This was good. We went to eat and drink coffee while the aircraft was loaded. That made me start to think maybe I was a professional pilot. Also on the DC-3 I started to get paid a bit more. $25K per year was a lot for 1977. I wanted to buy a condo, but I didn't live anywhere except a suitcase. All of my contemporaries wanted to get hired by the major airlines. I just never thought about it. It sounded like no fun at all. When my co workers found out I had a college degree, they could not believe I wasn't applying. There were schools and seminars about how to apply for an airline job. I never went to one. But I did fill out a few applications. By hand. Everybody was typing them. My General Aviation Career was coming to an end. My co pilot and I had taken our girlfriends with us on the DC-3 run one night and had quite a party. A few nights later we were on the Port Columbus run and when we woke at the hotel we were told to call the boss. We did and we were both fired. The contractor had insisted that we be fired or the contract would be given to another company. The good news was that the boss was sending his own personal aircraft out to Port Columbus. That plane would bring our replacement crew. Also we would receive our paychecks up to date. And severance pay. And the boss's pilot was told to fly us to any place we wanted in the eastern US. We both chose Philadelphia International where our cars had been sitting for months. I was burned out and so happy to be fired and paid and going home. But where was "home"? At Philly, we got our cars started. Kep headed for New Hampshire and I headed for DC. With no plan I found myself driving to my parents house. The house I grew up in. I wasn't really on good terms there. My mom came to the door and smiled and invited me in. She told me I had some mail and a letter from Delta Airlines. She fixed me some food and I opened the letter from Delta. It had teletype authorizations to pass ride to and from Atlanta and an invitation to a two day interview process for employment at Delta Airlines. I told my mom I would like to stay a few days. I would sleep for a long time. Then work on my car. Then go out and buy a three piece suit. I was tired. I knew I was changing gears. The next time I would see Port Columbus would be two years later. In the right seat of a DC-9. With a layover at the airport Sheraton. Where my General Aviation career had begun to end.