It’s been rather foggy in the mornings during the morning. I ordered the Complete Angry Beavers Collection DVD set from Ebay. I was bummed (as they say) when they were taken off the air so this should be pretty fun (and nostalgic . . . spelled something like that) to finally watch it again.
Monthly Archive for July, 2005
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Luke and I got some innertubes and went to Sicamore Grove to float down to the San Lorenzo Park. We started out on some rapids but they were pretty easy to pass. Boy the narrow areas which were once passable is now overgrown with trees and plants. We had to get out a few times and walk. When we got to the end of the line, we got out. Some bums told us that we shouldn’t be down there ’cause the cops will charge us $250. That’s probably true but I think that’s to keep the bums from hanging out/sleeping/drinking/trashing down there. Besides, considering that we weren’t wearing bummy clothes like they were, I think the cops would have second thoughts about us hanging out down there. Since we had to big innertubes, they would understand we floated down. We stopped by longs and got some ho-hums for 50 cents.
We went to the GOF festival. When we got there, I saw Ron signed us up as the Swabbottsons (his last name is Swenson and my last name is Abbott, merge ‘em and that’s what you get). Since we only practiced once in the past 3+ months, I took us off the roster. Lloyd gave me his ‘Damn I’m Good’ button to wear on stage.
Bill Evans did a performance on the history of banjos. He used all these gut stringed fretless banjos that intrigued me. Afterwards I played them. (With his approval of course.) He asked me if I was an Abbott. I wonder how he knew? For the rest of the evening, Ron and I tried to get Lloyd to join us for the tweener stage. Finally he did. A lady named Angelica (spelled something like that) joined up to do a song.
Lloyd told me what happened at the Grass Valley festival. Somebody gave him a pint of White lightning (AKA, moonshine). He drank it all and was pretty loose. So, he was at a jam with a bunch of people playing and suddenly this banjo player stands right in front of Lloyd and plays his banjo obnoxiously loud. Being loose ‘n all, Lloyd says “Excuse me but I don’t care for looking at your butt. Get back in the circle like everybody else.” He just ignored him so Lloyd said “Buddy, I’m not gonna warn you again. You better move outta the way or else.” The guy still didn’t move so Lloyd took action. Lloyd slumped down into his chair to get more distance. Everybody knew what Lloyd was gonna do. He brought his leg up and kicked his foot right straight into the banjo player’s butt. The guy launched 6 feet ahead humbly left the jam. Boy, I would’ve paid a pretty penny to see that!
Next day: We signed up for the tweener stage (the tweener acts are the short performances done while the main band sets up. Kind of a time filler so the audience will stay entertained) calling ourselves the Swagrimbottlersons (a mix of all the names). Lloyd kicked off Sitting on Top of the World with a G run and yelling “Cut it loose!” Ron took a while explaining our band name but we got through that and then he did a novelty song which people enjoyed. We tried to get Lloyd to tell a “You might be a redneck” joke but his wife didn’t want him to. After the performance, people came up and said that we were the best act (or at least the best tweener act). Two hours later, we (the Abbott Family Band) got on the main stage. Mark did a great job filling in the bass (since Ma couldn’t do it ’cause of neck trouble). Apparently the jokes weren’t good but I thought they were fine. To quote Lloyd, “up yours!” to those who didn’t like ‘em. Afterwards, we got off stage and latched ourselves onto some freeee food. I piled up a nice big sandwich and made another one for the evening (since we can only freeze once) The jam at night was wild (in a relaxed way). Lloyd had 4 big jars of Carlo Rossi wine which of one he drank (and shared). Him and Wayne were pretty loose. (I could tell ’cause Wayne could yodel pretty well) We did some Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and some classic Bluegrass there. Marty came up and played some instrumentals. Everybody gathered around him amazed to see this young kid playing all these fast instrumentals but Lloyd was irritated. He thought that the listeners were crazy to actually like what he was doing ’cause he thought Marty didn’t have any soul in his playing. He thought people like that are freaks. Before Marty left the jam, Lloyd yelled out “Marty, you are a freak!” Marty struck back with “Turn your hearing aid up old man!” oooohh!
The last day: Topher finally came. I tried out his $150 dollar guitar. Wow! It sounds great for the price. Luke stayed up all night so he got some shut-eye. Since the festival ended, the free food stand was open to the bands/volunteers. I snatched a Vanilla Coke (I haven’t heard much about them anymore. I guess the vanilla craze died down) Much later, we left. Luke got in a near accident ’cause a car stopped in front of him while he was looking at the outside mirror. A cool skidding sound came out of deal. When we got home, I ordered the guitar and Mike Seeger’s Southern Banjo Styles video series.
I thought of something. The food government says we should eat more or less than 7 servings of fruits and veggies. Doesn’t that seem like a lot? It is definately a good idea to eat that or more but psycologically it seems enormous. That may be why people get so tubby. It’s all in the serving size. Let’s say for example, 7 servings equals 7 heads of lettuce (it doesn’t of course but let’s just say it is to keep it simple). To make it seem like you don’t need to eat so many servings, increase the serving size and decrease the amount of servings. People will think that the servings are big, but there are fewer servings needed.
Recently, fishing has been very bad. In the past three months or more, I’ve only caught 3 fish. The previous two years, I caught 12+ fish. This is not because I’m doing something wrong ’cause my friend (who is a good fisherman) hasn’t caught anything either. It might just be that it’s a bad year but I also I heard that the reason there are fewer fish in general is that with all these vegitarians eating only fish instead of red meat, there is more demand for fish and the giant fishing fleets have been fishing out all the big 30+ pound fish. They’re just cleaning the fish right out the oceans. Plus, the fish are “evolving” to get smaller (in a way) ’cause the smaller are surviving more than the larger. . . or something like that. Fishing isn’t as fun when you know that you won’t feel at least a nibble but it’s still enjoyable to be on the wharf in the morning with the fog covering everything (including the tourists) or on a sunny morning with a light breeze and the smell of salt.