What a week it already has been! One of those weeks where as they say you "wait for the other shoe to drop." I guess I understand that folk saying, but I always wonder how an expression like that got started. Did someone at some time, literally, wait for a shoe to drop? - must have.
I have always had an interest in overused phrases like: "the whole nine yards". I finally looked that one up somewhere. Thought it might have something to do with football. It's a World War II American machinegunner's expression. The chain link belt of 30 caliber ammuntion for the Bowning air cooled machine gun was nine and a half yards long.
So "I gave 'em the whole nine yards" would refer to the number of rounds sent down range in a cone of fire. However, as a former A Company, 128th Infantry armorer, I can tell you this. There ain't no way you would give any target the whole nine yards as the barrel would overheat long before you got to the last of the munition.
Now somebody write and tell me the story of how "the shoe drops" expression got started. I can't know everything.
Here's a frightening scenario, however. It's my first night in prison. Bubba, my new friend and room mate, has expressed a fondness for me and tells me that "You might as well enjoy it because I'm gonna do it anyway."
The guard yells lights out. I climb in my bunk. I can hear Bubba undressing. There goes one shoe.
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The moon must be full. I am much too restless. I have days where no matter what I am doing, I feel like I should be doing something else.
I am uncomfortable in my body and under my skin.
Pleased to announce that my son Jonathan will be flying in to work Chippewa's Oktoberfest with me this year. I am doing comedy Friday afternoon, September 14, from 2-4 pm and then Jonathan and the rest of my band will join me and we will romp from 4 until 7.
I am scheduled to do a single on Sunday, September 16, as well, but since Jon will be here, he will again be sitting in with me for a couple of "unplugged" sets on acoustic guitars.
It will be good to see the man! He's had his share of shoes dropping out in New York City as well. Somebody creamed his faithful little compact, in a hit and run in the middle of the night. No witnesses and he carried just a minimum of insurance. I spoke with him last night and they wanted $3000 to fix it -- which is more than it's worth. So Jon's back to being a true
New Yorker -- walking.
He also told me an interesting story about reporters that cover rock bands and the fans who come out to hear Les Sans Colottes, a Faux-French Rock Band that Jon debuted with last summer in Minneapolis for Bastille Days.
Many are "guitar snobs." Jon has two main axes: A Fender Stratocaster and a Parker Fly. The Parker Fly is a beautiful sounding guitar, carbon based, with a very accessible neck, but Jon "can't get no respect" when he plays the Parker in public.
I guess the fact that Keith Richards once referred to it as looking like a fucking assault rifle was enough for the reviewers. When Jon's Stratocaster is in the shop, he gets negative comments from would-be rockers in the audience, and the press always disses the guitar as a negative aspect of the band.
My friend Wil Denson has a great saying: "People don't know what they like -- they like what they know."
In this case, if you aren't playing the guitar that Eric Clapton and so many others play, well, it just isn't a good guitar.
And so it goes, eh?
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UPDATE ON SURVIVORS OF DRIVEWAY DISASTER
Complete Home Maintnance made short order of the big oak yesterday. Pleased to announce that both Rob and assistant survived. I helped with branch removal and sweeping up with the janitor broom. I think I may have hurt someting.
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