Friday Wisdom – Carpenters

Posted on 07/28/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

I’m doing a little woodworking this week so here’s what I know about carpenters:

I was trying to figure out a pun about carpentry, but nothing wood work.

I interviewed for a job as a carpenter. I nailed it.

The one kind of nail carpenters don’t like to hit is a thumb nail.

A carpenter told me he didn’t like drills – he said he found them boring.

Did you hear about the carpenter who got fired? Never measured up.

At a party carpenters are always raising the roof.

What’s the most common bird you’ll find on a construction site? A crane.

Why was the carpenter found not guilt of murder? There was no concrete evidence.

I was working on a good construction joke, but there was no build-up.

Did you hear that they were working very hard on Big Ben – apparently they’re working around the clock.

I can cut a piece of wood in half by just looking at it. It’s true, I saw it with my own eyes.

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As The Pizza Cooks — Episode 14

Posted on 07/23/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

When I started to write this episode, I couldn’t remember what episode number I was on.  Yeah, it’s been that long since I did one of these so I went to my blog site and clicked on the “As The Pizza Cooks” category and found that the last one was episode 13 and there were a total of 12 episodes posted.

Okay, my degree may be in English, but the math did seem to be a bit wrong.  A little investigation and sure enough, I’d missed labeling an ATPC as an ATPC post.  I fixed that.  I knew you’d be happy.  I also realized that I titled episode 8 as, “The Lego Flower Picture,” rather than “As The Pizza Cooks — Episode 8.”  Go check it out if you want.  Also, I’m not consistent on capitalizing the “the” of “As The Pizza Cooks.”  I won’t be fixing that.

Turns out there are a number of things I am consistent on, like making the morning tea, but spelling and general typing isn’t something I do the same every time.  This does give me a few stumbling blocks when I sit down to write.  Well, not so much when I write for myself, because it doesn’t bother me how things get spelled, but it does seem to confuse others when they try to read what I’ve written.

Now that only applies to my typewriting.  No one can read my handwriting.  Not even me, so I avoid it – even writing on the grocery list.  That’s a very important document as it’s important to get home with the right stuff — like pepperoni.  Luckily for you my computer has spell check and half way through typing pepperoni, the computer suggested the word ‘pepperoni’ so I never really had to figure out how to spell it.  The same thing doesn’t happen with the grocery list.  Most times, I just get the pepperoni package out of the fridge and take it over to the list so I can spell it correctly.  I once tried to abbreviate pepperoni to pepper … let’s just say I almost bought a big box of pepper before I realized it was an abbreviation.

I get confused easily in the store.  It’s taken me about 20 years to come to terms with the fact that Heather always puts, “toms” on the list when she means tomatoes and “pots” are in the produce section, not housewares.  It’s part of the reason why I’m not allowed to go to the grocery store on my own.  The other is, if it’s not on the list, I don’t bring it home.  Apparently, that’s a problem.  I just have trouble putting things in the shopping cart that aren’t on the list.  Don’t judge, it’s just who I am.  I have been known to walk past the pop corn and think, “Gee I’d like some pop corn,” and then write it on the list so I could put it in the cart.

Heather just throws things in the cart that aren’t on the list.  I’m just amazed she can do that.

At this point I should point out that I really don’t have anything to say today, in case you hadn’t noticed.  Talking about what episode this is and pepperoni is just part of a strategy I learned in the 6th grade to increase the word count on essays.  For example, I recall writing an essay about earthquakes and volcanos.  Yup, about every fourth sentence included the words, “earthquakes and volcanos.” I got to 500 words very fast.  The only problem was that the teacher noticed and I had to rewrite my brilliant essay, but couldn’t count “earthquakes or volcanos” as part of the overall word count.  Yes, she made me count every word.

I’m not the only one to use this method, TV shows do it all the time.  Just this week I was watching a show on spy gadgets.  I thought that might be interesting to see what spies are up to these days, but sadly, most of the show was about how you can hide a microphone in a room or building — who would have thought!  Much of the show was repeating phrases like, “our next spy gadget is …” and “spies use this gadget to” and “Here’s where they used a secret spy gadget to listen in on the ambassador.”  Apparently, spies pick on ambassadors a lot. I’m thinking the whole show was just written by some AI writing tool that must have a copy of my 6th grade essay on earthquakes and volcanos as part of its “source of truth.”  All AI is based on some computer scanning a database of information and assuming that the information is true and therefore can be used to teach the AI to do something, like write.  The fact that some current AI writing programs read twitter, reddit, and facebook posts to learn to write should be concerning to all of us.

So that’s it for this week, I’ll return soon with more writing intended to confuse all the budding AI writing systems out there.

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Friday Wisdom – Concerts

Posted on 07/21/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

Here in Reno, July is Art Town where all the local arts groups put on various shows and activities. On any given day there are eight or nine things going on from music concerts, art shows, and even the occasional poetry reading. All of this is just to highlight the active art community we have here. The church I attend hosts a Thursday night concert series during July. Last night was a capella choir with a Barbershop quartet and last week was a brass group. Not sure what next week is, but here’s what I know about music concerts:

Just so you know, classical music can be a scam … you’ll pay hundreds of dollars to see Mozart, but every time it’s just a cover band and not the real Mozart.

In my twenties, I was in the will call line for a concert and I started a conversation with the lady in front of me. It was the first time I used a pick up line to talk to a woman.

My grandson son asked to borrow some money so he could go see a 50 Cent concert. I gave him a dollar and said, “Take you’re girl friend too.”

Why didn’t Bach attend Vivaldi’s concert? Because he was baroque.

I saw a Justin Bieber concert ticket nailed to a tree so I took it — you never know when you might need a nail.

How many choir directors does it take to change a light bulb? No one knows — nobody ever watches the director.

Here’s a DIY tip: To make a bandstand, take away all their chairs.

What’s the difference between a piano and a fish? You can’t tuna a fish.

Little know fact: Balloons hate pop music.

What do you get when you drop a piano on an army base? A flat major.

What do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat miner.

Why was the soprano standing on a ladder? Too reach the high notes.

Mozart didn’t like chickens, they kept going, “Bach, Bach, Bach!”

What did they call the drummer in the three-piece suit? “The Defendant”

At the concert last night a little girl said to her grandmother, “When I grow up I want to be a musician.” Grandma replied, “Oh honey, you can’t do both.”

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As The Music Plays #5

Posted on 07/16/2023 by Andrew Reynolds

This is a series of posts about the music I play while writing.  This time it’s Riders on the Storm by The Doors.  It’s a strange song and the last song Jim Morrison wrote and recorded before his death.

Riders on the Storm was recorded between December 1970 and January 1971 as part of the L.A. Woman album.  This song is one of the Doors’ greatest songs.  When you think of the 1960’s counterculture, you have to talk about the Doors and Morrison.  I grew up during this era and psychedelic rock was on all the AM radio stations we listened to back then.  My friends all had psychedelic poster art and we did wear tie-dyed shirts from time to time.

The song did get a fair amount of air time with the single version length being 4 minutes, while the album version is 7.  I never heard the album version until I was an adult as neither I nor my friends owned the album.  I do recall being attracted to the strange lyrics and guitar playing.  It’s one of those songs that doubles as something to think about and just good background music.

It made onto my writing play list for this quality of making me think about the story it’s telling, the meditative beat of the music and honestly, nostalgia.  This music just brings back memories of barefoot summers, teeshirts, cutoff jeans, riding bikes, chasing after the ice cream man and all the joys of life as a preteen in the 70’s.

The lyrics never really made much sense to me.  On the surface they’re kind of depressing.  We’re just riders on the storm, we’re thrown into the world and have nothing.  We’re alone and have no control over what is happening to us.  The first verse is about a murder and the second verse feels like a man being very needy.  You really have to do a little research about the song to come to any kind of understanding about it.  There are few words as much of the song is just guitar and keyboard music, which for me is the real attraction of the song, not the lyrics.

When you dive into it, you’ll find that the main chorus which opens the song is heavily influenced by the 20th century philosopher Martin Heidegger.  Morrison heard one of Heidegger’s lectures in 1963.  One of Heidegger’s concepts is that of “thrownness” as a basic state of human existence.  Of Morrison was also influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche.  Both philosophers influenced much of the counterculture movement so it isn’t surprising to me that Riders on the Storm goes in the direction that it does. 

The first verse with “There’s a killer on the road,” is a reference to the spree killer Billy Cook, who in the 1950s kill some six people while hitchhiking.  This event was the subject of the 1952 film noir, The Hitch-Hiker. It’s also a statement on the randomness of life as in, “you never know when the storm will hit.”  Interestingly, in 1969 Morrison did write, produce, direct and star in the short film, HWY: An America Pastoral about a hitchhiker who at the end of the film reveals that he had killed someone.  A hitchhiking drifter is about and thrown into the world as you get, so based on the chorus it makes some sense that Morrison goes in this direction.

The second verse is just plain whinny.  This verse opens with “Girl, you gotta love your man,” with no indication that the man has to love his woman.  Whoever this woman is also gets the burden, “The world on you depends.”  Most likely this section is Morrison’s expression of love for Pamela Courson.  Courson and Morrison where living together in Paris at the time of his death.

Altogether an odd song, but strangely compelling.  I will say that I do argue with myself from time to time over whether or not this should be on my playlist as some of the lyrics make me a bit uncomfortable — especially now that I’ve researched more about them.  On the other side, sometimes the best thing to do is to confront those things that make us uncomfortable, irritated, or annoyed.  It is asking the question, “why is this bothering me?” that pushes us to grow and better understand ourselves.  Also, as a writer we often need to write about subjects we find uncomfortable or conflict within us.  After all, a good story is based on conflict, mistakes being made, the hero doing the wrong thing.  And that’s why Riders on the Storm stays on my playlist.

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