I bought a new guitar in November. It never came. It was on backorder into January, so I canceled it. Then I got a hard-on for a sweet Fender Stratocaster with a mahogany body, gorgeous red finish and black headstock, a humbucking bridge pick-up and a fast, maple neck. But it was a right-handed model. They didn’t make a left-handed one. I am not Hendrix. I passed on it.

In my dejection over the red and black Strat not turning out, I re-purchased the guitar I’d ordered in November. It came at the end of February and I’ve had it about a week.

At first glance, she’s a beauty. Nice, glossy black finish, black fret-board, pearloid inlays there and in the headstock, which is uniquely shaped to give the axe some nice character. The knobs are a combination clear- and goldish-acrylic, the pick-guard and pickup cradles are somewhat cream colored…

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The first thoughts may well be: “Wait, you mean you HAVE a filter? You DON’T have Tourette’s?” To which my response would be: believe it or not, I do filter myself. Just imagine what I’d say if I didn’t. Sometimes I wish I had Tourette’s just to have an excuse to blurt out what I’m feeling / thinking.

Yesterday:

I had a duffel in which I’d brought both my pairs of hockey skates to be sharpened. After dropping them off, I had a more-or-less empty duffel. While walking down Nostrand Avenue, two middle-aged dudes in conversation stopped talking as I passed. I noticed one of them sizing me up, his jaundiced eyes standing starkly out against his Special Dark complexion … and I laughed.

Neither one of them said a word to me. Maybe they were put off by my laughter; it was of the mildly insane variety. Mirth did not inspire it, rather the recognition of absurdity and a general sense of just not caring.

I imagined what they might have said, and my responses, and the conversation as it played out in my head is what caused the outburst.

Dude: “Yo, whitey, what’s in the bag?”

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On Tuesday, I looked at Pisces:

If something no longer works for you the way it once did then get rid of it. Yes, you may have a sentimental attachment to it, but sentiment cannot be allowed to come between you and the kind of life you are striving to create for yourself.

Today, I looked at Aries:

If you want a better tomorrow you are going to have to sacrifice something today. You can be remarkably ruthless when the need arises, so cut out of your life anything that no longer serves a useful purpose. That includes friendships too.

I was born on the cusp. It means that both of the above horoscopes may pertain to me. Now, I really try to be objective (let’s all have a hearty laugh about that) and logical when I can, but I am usually taken aback by the accuracy of horoscopes on the rare occasions I look at them. It really isn’t in my nature, I think, to be either objective or logical; which speaks volumes over how those two methods have controverted my actual nature.

The world would be very easily navigated if everything were black or white, but very, very few things are either and nearly everything is gray. It’s not easy to excise something that may be so overwhelmingly positive in some very crucial ways yet disappointing in other, perhaps equally, important ways.

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The MTA, once again, is hitting the little people (no, not dwarves, per se; regular, everyday folks) where it hurts the most: our wallets.

They aren’t hiking the fares again, not just yet, but jacking up the price of a Metrocard is but one way to deplete the ridership’s funds. By curbing essential bus and train service, the MTA is denying New Yorkers the opportunity to easily travel to where is the best (perhaps this should be in quotes … read: highest paying) — or only — available job.

I know people who commute from Brooklyn to the Bronx because the latter borough is where they found work, despite that they already lived in Kings County and therefore could not easily relocate closer to work; nothing locally or in Manhattan availed itself to them, so they took what did.

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First, the weather went bad … literally raining on mine and my bandmate’s plans to get shot for promotional purposes. So I stayed in all day, whiling away the time until my 11:30 hockey game. I spent the bulk of the time working on our band’s webpage. It’s more or less ready, now. We could probably move forward if we had the photos. But we don’t.

I walked to the train at 10 p.m. last night, huge bag of hockey equipment over my shoulder, it’s cold and raining out … but not until I get to the station, three blocks away, and DOWN the STAIRS, do I realize I don’t have my fucking wallet. Yeah.

So, I walked home with all my equipment, got my damned wallet and walked back to the station. When I got to 23rd Street, there were no buses in sight, so I then had to walk the four avenue blocks to Chelsea Piers and then the rest of the way into the complex to the end of the pier, which comprises about another city avenue block.

I’m fit. I’m in good shape. It wasn’t a problem, but it did start to nag at me as the game wore on. My knee isn’t quite back to 100%, though it’s pretty damned close. My team played like shit. I couldn’t score despite a bevvy of great chances … I even got stoned on a sliding two-pad stack save. That was some old school goaltending … but, fuck, did I feel snake bitten; I got great wood on the shot, lifted it too, but all it hit were the pillows. Fuck my life.

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I’m tapped out. After composing more than 20 songs in the last four months, my brain is exhausted.

It’s disappointing.

Since I’ve been so busy with CrippleBush lately, I’ve neglected the hell out of Divided Front. Today, I tried to remedy that. I planned on re-recording a handful of tunes but, now that the day is done, I managed three. It amazes me sometimes how I manage to piss my time away without accomplishing anything substantial.

As it is, I’m glad I managed the three tunes. I took a decent chunk of time to tab out “Down and Out in New York City” … it’s been bugging me for so long that no one else in the world has tabbed the song.

It isn’t laziness that kept me from doing myself, though. I can pick out a song, find the notes, figure out the riffs and fills, the chords and the melody … but it’s such an arduous, harrowing process. It doesn’t come easily for me. I don’t pick the correct notes right off and blaze through a tune in minutes. I have to painstakingly dissect it, find a sequence of notes and then use that to determine the key and, from there, I start to learn the song.

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This is a James Brown tune from the “Black Caesar” soundtrack. I have never been able to find a tab of it, so I did it myself.

There are a few fills missing. I didn’t feel like tabbing them out since they’re all based on the key, which I’ve provided. Just noodling in the minor / relative major scale will do the trick.

There are probably mistakes. I’m fairly sure the verses don’t ever go [ Ab Gb ], but I liked the variation so I transcribed it that way.

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[ Bb minor / Db Major (Bb C Db Eb F Gb Ab) ]

Yeah, man, like you know…

[ Verse riff: ]

[ Verse 1: Ab Bb | Ab Bb | Ab Gb | Ab Bb ]

I was born in New York City, on a Monday
Seems I was out shinin’ shoes by Tuesday noon
All the fat cats in the bad hats doing me a really big favor
Got the fat cats in the bad hats laying it on real good

[Chorus: Bb Ab Gb ]

Here’s a dime, boy
Gimme a shine, boy

Horn and Flute riff:

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Grraaghhh! Angry! Grrr! Word-vomit! Style? Structure? FUCK YOU!!

I had a conversation with one of my more favorite cohorts the other day about a particular business with which we are both familiar. We are both incredulous at how many bad decisions are made on a daily basis and how no consequence ever seems to come of it. At one point, he dubbed it insanity per the definition of “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”

Maybe it’s masochism, but I am sometimes compelled to pore over the shit that is purveyed to women about men. Insipid, shallow, stereotypical drivel like: 5 Types of Guys to Avoid at all Costs and 10 Things he’s Thinking when he Sees you Naked.

Now, do I agree that Bluetooth- and popped-collar multi-polo shirt-wearing douchenozzle cuntbags aren’t worth a woman’s time? Yes. Absolutely. But this article doesn’t share anything insightful at all … and it doesn’t call women out for their habitually stupid behavior of going for exactly the guys they complain about. All the while these insane — per definition above — women decry the lack of good men out there, while intentionally overlooking the ones that fit the criteria they condemn the dipshits for lacking.

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