This blog has moved. I have been swayed by an offer of several million dollars and now work for Charles...

I've had a little time off here and there over the past couple of weeks. Sorry 'bout the silence.



let me tell you about a hobby of mine. I play a couple of musical instruments, the most out-of-the-ordinary being the Great Highland Bagpipe. I've been studying this instrument and certain aspects of Celtic-ish music for the past few years. I rpimarily gear most of my playing toward competition. Yes, musical competition. You see, planet is divided into several " pipe band associations" which are governing bodies that oversee and sanction amateur and professional contests involving Scottish drumming, Highland piping and pipe band competitions. The US is divided up according to geographic regions (South, Eastern, Western and Mid-Western). Canada is divided up similarly. Oddly enough, the most back-asswards, stubborn, and poorly run of such associations is the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association. Yes, the place where the instrument was developed.



Anyway, not to bore you with the details of the various associations and their politics (I recently spent a couple of years on the Executive Committee of the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association...the largest in the world), let's just say that each year the "hotbed" of piping and the evolution of it's music increasing creeps away from it's homeland, and is ending up in Canada, the USA and Australia.



To move on, "bagpipes" have a pretty horrible reputation. I'll tell you some of the reasons why. First off, more so that any other instrument I have learned to play and with which I have performed, the bagpipe is for whatever reason taken up too often by people who have NO musical training, have not learned how to play the instrument, how to tune it, or in general what in hell to do with it, and then they walk out into the street and make noise with it. This happens OFTEN. I can't tell you how many times I've seen parades involving organizations whose members prance down the street is a wrinkled, backward kilts, a crooked hat and making noise on a cheap Pakistani-made junk "bagpipe". It makes me cringe. It makes all of us who know that YES, the instrument can and must be tuned and IN TUNE with itself (and other pipes when playing in a group) hang our heads. It is sad, and when somebody finds out I'm a piper and responds with a derisive comment about hating them and refers to them as making the noise of a dying cow or a cat fight, I can only thank the hack Masonic group or a stubborn and uninstructed fire department band for that person's feelings.



I ask myself, why didn't these people learn to play bass guitar and do us all a favor? Why is it that there are not gaggles of hack guitar players that wander around in groups in public with grossly out of tune guitars? Why is the bagpipe the instrument that gets this kind of treatment? I'll never know.



Some people love "bagpipe music" and some people hate it. Fair enough. Personally, I'm no fan of the accordion. You see, serious pipers spend lots of time practicing and honing their craft. Many of us spend the Summer competing in front of professional pipers and judges to ensure that were are doing it correctly. The types of music played are diverse and complex. The instrument has a certain marshal reputation, and that is the fault of the British military. Much of the music played on the bagpipe runs part and parcel with Scottish, Irish or Breton fiddle music. And yes, we tune our instruments. I must admit, it is a somewhat difficult craft to learn, but as long as you're not tone deaf you can do it (tone deaf people need not attempt music anyway). I currently have three students...all adults. Two of them have come along like gangbusters. They have an ear for tone and musicality. The third will NOT play in public any time in the near future. Not with my blessing. If he decides to do so at any time without my "OK", I will drop him from my tuition in a nanosecond. He's been at it for a few years now, and I haven't given up yet, but we'll see.



Maybe sometime I'll make available the difference between an out of tune, poorly played bagpipe and contrast it with a well tuned, finely played bagpipe. I guarantee all will notice the "night and day" difference...

I had a dream. I had a very strange dream. I will attempt to recount some of the details. Said details are very disjointed, but so are my dreams. Here goes it: for whatever reason, my family and I are guests on my uncle's boat. His boat is no ordinary water craft...it's a river boat. You know, flat bottom, big red paddle wheel. That kinda boat. Family and I are ridin' up top, in the back. We are heading for Miami for some reason. On the way to Miami, we pass through part of Thailand. Thailand, in this dream at least, is kind of like an area of my town called "Valley Station", but with giant bridges, for boats mind you, that climb somtimes 20 or 30 stories into the sky. The uncle decides to do a few "laps" around Thailand so we can see what there is to see. It ain't very much. Here and there were brothels the size of a drive-up photomats, an occassional 80's era Camaro, and clowns selling ballons by the side of the "road" (which is actually some sort of narrow river). So we travel in "laps" around "Thailand", passing through locks, rapids, around Camaros, passing balloon-selling clowns.


Finally, we decide to move on. In order to do this, we apparently have to take one of these giant bridges, which we do. About halfway over the bridge we suddenly have to take the river below, so the uncle swings the boat hard to port, off of the bridge and plunges us down to the water below. On the very steep and frightening fall, I nearly fall out of the boat. This river then leads us to our final destination: Miami. The paddle wheeled boat pulls up to the hotel in which we will be staying. This hotel is made totally of adobe. We get our rooms. Much to my chegrin, I have to share a bunk with some bone-head fratboy with an eyepatch and crutches. This is where things get kinda hazey.


At some point my brother and I are sitting in the parking lot outside, and listening to some other college brat talk about something. I can't remember the specifics of the conversation, but he has obviously said something absurd, and I express the fact that he makes absolutely no sense at all. He gets irate with me, and shoves me. I respond to this aggression by standing up and walking toward him. He runs off, gets hit by a car, and dies. I bring his body to a group of his friends, and then topless women begin to dance.


End of dream.

The robot and dog have stopped bickering. It seems they have come to an understanding. The robot will prepare meatloaf on Tuesdays and the Dog will not piss in the coffee. It's about damn time.


I find it most interesting that nobody has been keen enough to mention the change of my SS#. It was apparently decided that I should have an additional identy for those sudden "business trips" to the Caspian Sea. There are five tons of gold headed for Paris, and I don't think anybody really knows about it, save Pierre. In case you don't know, Pierre is an asshole and rat fink. Pierre also has a horrible gold allergy. He's going to just LOVE what I've sent to him.

shastikovitch!!!!

I waiting for my green tea to finish steeping. I wish it would hurry.

I find it amusing that the political activist contingent of the current youth raised so very much hell about the horrors of the Taliban regime before 9/11. Now that this regime has been soundly trounced, those same activist youth decry the US retaliation and the snuffing of the Taliban as a political power in Afghanistan. To these misguided and poorly read rabble-rousers I say, make up yer friggin minds!

Say what you want about the US gov't, but I for one think that swift retribution was indeed called for. Unfortunately, and much to the chagrin of the "give peace a chance" club, quick brutish violence is sometimes called for.

Ah...my tea should be ready...

I know a fella who's convinced that the Feds have him under surveillance. Ya see, there's this windowless black van parked outside, he says. You little knucklehead, I says, that's YOUR van! It broke down five months ago and you STILL haven't fixed it! No, says he, it's not MY van. MY van has FIVE wheels. THAT one has SEVEN!


Whatever, dude. On the lighter side, the new All About Beer magazine is great this month. It includes a pretty nice review guide to lagers...and of course Celebrator doppelbock gets a "superlative" score of 97! I must admit, it IS some pretty good shit. Highly recommended. Also a nice article on Russian Imperial Stout. Cheers.

Pete Townsend

"Behind Blue Eyes"

No one knows what it's like

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes



No one knows what it's like

To be hated

To be fated

To telling only lies



But my dreams

They aren't as empty

As my conscience seems to be



I have hours, only lonely

My love is vengeance

That's never free



No one knows what it's like

To feel these feelings

Like I do

And I blame you



No one bites back as hard

On their anger

None of my pain and woe

Can show through



But my dreams

They aren't as empty

As my conscience seems to be



I have hours, only lonely

My love is vengeance

That's never free



When my fist clenches, crack it open

Before I use it and lose my cool

When I smile, tell me some bad news

Before I laugh and act like a fool



If I swallow anything evil

Put your finger down my throat

If I shiver, please give me a blanket

Keep me warm, let me wear your coat



No one knows what it's like

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

Behind blue eyes