16:17 - Friday, Jun. 11, 2004 little things i know about the little events in my life
-initiate the following sequence after opening laptop: check e-mail, check deviantart, check diaryland.
-to avoid the bubblegum jelly bellies.
-the location of the newspaper dispensers which receive new issues of the onion first (music lobby).
-the projected local high (74 degrees).
-the bathroom stall most likely to be clean in the UMC (first left, third floor).
-unlikely numerical assignment to 28th and 30th street at colorado (2700 and 2900, respectively).
-how to roll up jeans as not to get caught in the bicycle chain.
-exactly when to get in the shower if i want to make an omelette, watch family guy while i'm eating it, and still get out of here by 12:15.
-that a german augmented 6th is enharmonically the same as a dominant seventh.
-when the alewives wash up on the shore of lake michigan and make it unswimmable.
-how early to show up to music tech class if i want my special computer.
-how fast my fingernails grow (slow).
-how fast i can possibly take a shower, if timed (4:36).
-that, in order to get these comments to show up, i have to go to edit/delete, edit my previous entry, cut the comment code, go to the add entry page, paste it in the add entry box, and then change the little numbers to one higher.
16:38 - Thursday, Jun. 10, 2004 playin like daddy bruce
So there's this barbecue joint I've been meaning to go to for a really long time, like a year or something, because every time I bike or drive past there, it smells sooo yummy, even when it's closed (which is has been every time I've had time to stop.) It's a tiny little box in a residential area with a very narrow hour-slot. Today I was in that area within the magical six hours, so I stopped in. It was impossible to find the front door. What looked like the front door was covered with black screen, and I couldn't see in very well, so I was about to give up and leave, but a couple of voices started yelling, 'it's the front door, just push the screen.'
Inside there were two guys lounging by the barbecue, one of whom got up and made me the best (and hugest) chicken sandwich with beans and dipping bread I've ever had. We talked about music while I ate; one was a gospel singer at the local Baptist church and the owner was the assistant preacher there. He also played piano, and after I ate they asked me to play them something, so I played Debussy, the only one I could remember. They listened with their eyes closed, applauded appreciatively, and then the owner got up and decided he was going to teach me some jazz and blues.
I spent the next couple hours perched on a stool next to the piano while I got probably a semester, 3,000 dollars worth, of jazz theory class in simple language by a guy who runs a barbecue place. He never took lessons or anything, just listened to the radio and other people playing. Then he developed his own theory, which for the most part is the same as conventional theory except it's way less convoluted and a whole lot more fun to learn. By the end of it he was asking me to improvise in F# dorian, which we had just gotten to at the end of my fourth semester of theory. He had no concept of F# being a difficult key. All keys were the same to him in his number system. The way he taught converting from jazz to the blues was, 'You wanna add some soul, now, so you put the black guy in there with your pinky.' It makes a whole lot more sense than 'flat the seventh scale degree of the major scale' or 'raise the third degree of the minor scale' or 'major-minor seventh in the tonic'.
Before he got up to greet the other customers who were coming in, he laughed and he said, 'Now you're playin like Daddy Bruce.'
