20211124 - Corona Virus Part 26 - BLM 15

 Howdy and welcome back to our little tin can by the sea. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I wish that I could be sitting at the tables of all of my friends and family, but not this year. We've been doing well as we adapt to my life with cancer. I am still optimistic that it will be eradicated from my body, but part of me knows that only 16% of people that contract stage 4 colon cancer live more than five years after being diagnosed. I still try to stay chipper and I often say, "Every wakeup is a win!"

No numbers. At this point, they are meaningless. Our governor has tailored the reported data so that Florida looks good. Meanwhile, people die. The delta variant has razed the unvaccinated and it will continue to do so. With over 90 million still unvaxxed in the US, it has a plethora of hosts. I'll do an annual post again in March, to mark year two.

The real reason that I'm blogging today is that the verdict for the death of Ahmaud Arbery came back today. This is how it was reported by Rachel Tillman of Spectrum News:

Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan each faced nine counts of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony. 

Travis McMichael, 35, was found guilty of all charges against him, including malice murder and felony murder.

Greg McMichael, 65, was found not guilty of malice murder, but was found guilty on all other counts, including felony murder, assault and false imprisonment.

Bryan was found not guilty on one count each of malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault, but was found guilty on six other charges including felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and attempt to commit a felony. 

All three men will be required to stay in custody until their sentencing hearing, a date for which has not yet been announced. 

The men face minimum sentences of life in prison. It is up to the judge to decide whether that comes with or without the possibility of parole.

Revenge is not Justice. Does this "right" compensate for all of the "wrongs"? No, and it was to be swept under the rug initially, if not for a video of the event authored by Bryan. The Georgia's DA office is still biased. The Georgia police are still biased. Many of the citizens of Georgia are biased. This has not changed that, but that is where the work needs to be done, one mind at a time.

To that end, the following was reported by the New York Times:

Judge Timothy R. Walmsley of Savannah was tapped to preside over the Arbery case in 2020 after all five judges in Glynn County, Ga., where the shooting occurred, recused themselves.

That needs to be fixed.

 

We're on a mission in the everlastin' light that shines
A revelation of the truth in chapters of our minds
- Michael Jackson, "We are here to change the world", The Ultimate Collection, from the film Captain EO, Disney, 1986

A Great Recipe for Nut Horns

 

This was given to me by Mrs. Dorothy Lucot, who had it on her refrigerator for years. It is a newspaper clipping from either the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette or the Pittsburgh Press back in the 1970s.

20211101 There is a season

 

The above chart shows the air conditioner (cyan lines) giving over to the heater (orange lines) last night. That marks the beginning of the cool-down here in Florida. It was 57 degrees on the lanai this morning when we left for my chemo appointment (brrr!)

A Matter of Inconvenience

 As I sat next to the Pharmacy counter in our local Publix, I decided to count the number of people that were not properly wearing a mask. This included masks worn around the chin, gators of any form, masks exposing the nose, and no mask at all. I excluded children in my count. During the wait of nearly an hour, I counted 37 unmasked patrons. They covered a wide range of ages, from teenagers to elderly and a broud swath of demographics.

I then realized the reason that they were maskless - it's inconvenient. Forget the rest of the hogwash of rights, religious exceptions, medical exceptions, and the like - these people are just too damn lazy to care about another human being other than themselves. Three of the unmasked that I counted were mothers with children in tow. I feel for those kids since they have at least one parent that doesn't care at all.

Cancer blog

 Howdy folks,

I have begun a separate blog for my cancer journey. Here is the URL: https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/everywakeupisawin . I did this to make it easier for people looking for cancer information to be able to find it on one blog site. 

We WILL beat this together! 

Steve

Me and music

 Yes, this is me with my brown 1975 ES-335 stunning the crowd on amature night in Albany, NY circa 1997. Oddly, of the 35 years that I played guitar, this is the only photo I have of myself playing guitar. I gifted this particular guitar to Jeremy Douglas as well as my black 1990 ES-335. My daughter has my wine 1985 ES-335TD. The only other electric that I owned was a 1992 cream Fender Telecaster, but it was stolen at baggage claim in Montgomery, AL after flying home from a party at Alf's in Phoenix, AZ. 

I loved the blues and I truely loved playing the guitar. It started when I was 11 and I received an acoustic guitar for my birthday. I learned some chords and how to play "Billy Boy" before diving into "Innagaddadavida" and "Sunshine of Your Love". I had a lot of frustration with that guitar, mostly because I didn't know anyone else that played. My brother, Carl, had a guitar and he could play "Classical Gas" on it. So, I got the sheet music and transcribed it to tabular and tried to get it down. At about 15, I picked up a classical guitar, which was just in time to learn Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven". That I could do. At Carnegie-Mellon, we would meet up in Schenley Park and play - maybe 10 to 15 of us - guitars, bongos, flutes, saxes, you name it. It was music for music's sake. I played with a couple of friends at one frat - mainly the Doors Morrison Hotel. At the time, I was trying to teach myself through various books, like Fredrick Noad's "Solo Guitar Playing". After a year of playing with others, I picked up both volumes of Ted Greene's "Jazz Guitar: Single Note Soloing." I learned a lot from those books. I wish that I could remember everything that it laid out, but I tried to follow note mistakes with mode changes, which had mixed results. I also picked up Tommy Tedesco's "For Guitar Player's Only." Awesome book - more about the business side of music, and the stories in it are hilarious. One thing that I learned from it was "never turn down a chance to play." I learned a lot through that sentence. It also bit me when I didn't follow it. At 20, I dabbled in writing classical pieces, but I soon realized my limitations there. With those beginnings, I entered the Navy and occasionally picked up the guitar and played. It was more like meditation than practice - I had a standard routine - pentatonics, then minors, then augmented, then major, then this song, then that one... etc. But in those days, I preferred listening to music over playing it. 

During my Carnegie-Mellon days, I ran across the Gibson ES-335. The little (tiny) local guitar shop had a walnut one in the front window that I would salivate over, but I could not afford it no matter how long I starved. This desire was fed by the Jazz Crusaders' with Larry Carlton "Crusaders 1" and literally everything by BB King. In 1990, I ordered a black ES 335 directly from Gibson. When it arrived, I cried. I took a week off an played it until my callouses hurt. Then I picked up a little Mesa Boogie 0.22 and it was the perfect fit for me. When I landed in Phoenix, AZ I found out that my workmates had a band and they were open to anyone playing with them. The band was named "Attack of the 50 foot woman band" after the Daryl Hannah movie of the same name. There were times when we played that there were four of us and sometimes twenty. It was a blast for me. Those folks liked a lot of Neil Young and early 70s rock, which was right up my alley. We had two very solid lead guitarists and the vocalist played guitar, so I tried to be a bridge between the bass and the keyboards (when we had some) and I became the rhythm guitarist. I also had a Tascam 6 by 2 mixing board so I picked up a small Peavy PA system and we were off to the races. While in Phoenix, I also picked up an Ovation 1312 Ultra and I had a piezo pickup installed in it. It was sweet sounding, but it wasn't very friendly for me to play; my belly and it's curved back made for an unstable combo. I also picked up a wine colored ES 335TD, which was very different. It wanted to scream. During the days in Phoenix, I became a member of the Phoenix Blues Society, which was awesome. I met so many legends at the events and the monthly club meetings. It was also nice to meet the various bar owners and learn the locaitons of the blues bars around town. On many Fridays, the gang from work would have some wings at a bar and maybe venture out afterward. On a couple of occasions, we went to the Biltmore in Scottsdale and sat in a section behind the stage. We could see the stage, since we were off to the side, but we were in our own world, just enjoying the music. usually jazz. I ended up in a small town near Montgomery, AL and that's where I picked up my charlie brown ES 335. When I got it, the action was set ridiculously high and the whole neck was warped. After a good bit of scouring, I found a Gibson certified luthier in Alpharetta, GA. These were old stomping grounds for me, so I packed up and drove over there one weekend to drop off the guitar for some neck work. I had brought the action back down, but there was a good deal of fret buzz. The luthier looked it over and asked how far he could go, since it had a pre 1975 serial number. I asked him to keep the neck, but refretting was fine. After about a month, he called me up and said that it was ready. Boy, was it ever! He took the warp out of the neck and he refitted the bridge along with all new fret wires. It played like a dream. I picked up a couple cases from him for the brown and wine ES 335s and headed back to Alabama (with a Gibson on my knee). Around this time, I met Jeremy Douglas who was a sweet guitar player. So, as a late wedding present, I gave him my black ES 335. Fifteen years later, he received my brown one, too. In Alabama, I didn't play much (all work and no play) so the guitars were idle. My daughter asked for the wine ES 335 TD, which I happily gave her. To this day, I don't think that she has plugged it into an amp. I gave the Ovation away to a friend's son who is trying to make it as a pro guitarist. It'll be one more sound for him. 

So, I'm guitarless with arthritis, MS, and cancer. Maybe I can learn how to play the harmonica... 

20211004 Sars-CoV-19 700,000

 

One white flag for each death in the US from COVID-19. I have lost three friends to this pandemic. 

Entire article from The Smithsonian is here. 😢

I've seen fire and I've seen rain

I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end

I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend

But I always thought that I'd see you again

- James Taylor, "Fire and Rain", Sweet Baby James, 1970