The RX

#1

It goes without saying that I have voted Republican since the first Reagan landslide in 1980. (I was a road musician and felt the damage of the Carter regime enough to get me interested in national politics. That first vote was an absentee vote. At the time, my home was in North Carolina and I was in Erie, PA for the vote.)

Today, I live in a tiny slice of Southwest Florida. We were in the news in 2004 and you all know why. I’m trying to forget it.

Okay, for the record, I’m a working musician. I play several instruments and work a single. (Instruments include double tenor steel drums, acoustic guitar, flugelhorn, and flute. Backing tracks were recorded in my own studio.) Oh, yes. I have several CDs out. One is Smooth Jazz without the pans (Bacchus Arelius), one is steel drum Smooth Jazz (Split Pan Soup), one is Christmas Smooth Jazz (Chestnut) and one is Christmas steel drum Smooth Jazz (O Tannenbaum.) For the mods here, I will not be attempting to sell those CDs. I have no web based way to do that. I only sell them on the gigs. I have a second Steel Drum Christmas CD to be released in December. (Just have to put the pan tracks and mix down. Design the cover and we’re good to go.) If anyone here wants to buy a CD, you have to come to Southwest Florida and catch me on one of my gigs.

I’m a father of two wonderful girls, both of which are adults, both of which have jobs and are in relationships.

For the record, I’m also a Science Fiction novelist. My one novel is a Kindle Book, available on Amazon. For the mods here, I will not link to that site (at least not without your permission). It has only been out about a month and isn’t exactly flying off the virtual bookshelves. If anyone here is interested, you’ll have to contact me through Email.

The politics?

Republican voter pretty much. I’ve voted straight Republican since 1980. Consider myself a Conservative. Don’t want this to be too long, but if anyone is interested, I’ll create a separate post with all my positions. Bottom line, I’m voting for Donald Trump in the primaries and in the general. So I’m already drawing fire from establishment Republicans. What else is new?

My taste in music? The daughters and I LOVE the Opera. (So far, at the Sarasota Opera House, we caught Tosca (Puccini) Don Giovanni (Mozart) and Il Trovatore (Verdi). I also play piano, by the way. (During the season in Southwest Florida, I play a lot more sit down grand piano gigs. Lots of trio jazz by myself.) Right now, I’m working on a couple of Chopin pieces and one very stubborn Rachmaninoff piece. (One the composer himself got sick of performing.)

Yes, I like music from the last century. Zappa, The Who, Chicago, Jimmy Buffett, Spyro Gyra, Brubeck, Django Reinhardt. I LOVE Disco music. (I read somewhere that our musical tastes are cemented in our psyche according to the era when we had the most sex. For me, that was the late Seventies.)

Oh, and I turn 61 in a few days. I color my hair so I look like a 61 year old who colors his hair.

#2

I started out in college as a Music Ed. student, but for various reasons I changed my major to L.A. German before I graduated. I am very good with the mental parts of music, but I have fingers that don’t like to do what my brain tells them. I tried my hand at classical guitar (all self-taught), and even did a recital with it while I was still with the Music Department. I don’t play anything now except piano (and that not too well), because my fingers are too stiff with arthritis, and I don’t have the strength to press the strings down. Never could do the great bar on the guitar, even when I was young.

PS. You need to reduce the size of your avatar. If you don’t know how, maybe one of the mods will do it for you.

#3

Classical guitar is VERY difficult. A real finger breaker. I don’t even bother trying any more.

Oh, and I WOULD like one of the mods to either shrink my avatar or show me how to do it.

#4

Done.

I opened it with MSPAINT and resized it.

#5

It could stand to be even a little smaller.

#6

Thank you for that.

#7

Hi and welcome! I haven’t done anything for publication, but I do some amateur writing, including sci-fi. My current work-in-progress is a Next Gen era Star Trek fan fiction. As to music, I’m not much into opera (not that I dismiss it), but I am into classical.

#8

The pieces I did for the recital were fairly easy - not that I could do them now! The one was Salterello by Vincenzo Galilei, original written for lute, but adapted for guitar. The other was a Bach piece, I can’t remember the name of it. I gave the copy of the Salterello to the young man I gave my guitar to when I gave up on playing. He lost it when his basement bedroom was flooded - the music, not the guitar! Fortunately, I had made a copy of it before I gave it to him (I had so hated to give it up!), so I was able to replace it. But the copy had chopped off a little bit, so I recreated it with Noteworthy software.

#9

Welcome to RO!

#10

Ah, another young guy (you’re younger than me by a few weeks, so that makes you young!)!

Welcome!!!

I like late 60s-early 70s pop/rock. 70s and forward jazz and fusion are often a second choice: Bob, James, Earl Klugh, Jean Luc Ponty, and Chuck Mangione are favorites; listened to the Return to Forever Pandora channel during last weekend’s 10K. I like Big bands music, including modern bands like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (seeing them in concert next month).

#11

Welcome to RO, reason10. Good to see a jazz fan here. Me, I’m old school - Mingus, Bird, George Lewis float my boat. I spent most of the past week digging contemporary exponents of classic ragtime piano.

#12

You’re a better player than I am.

#13

“Was” is the operative word. And it’s been probably more than 50 years since I played classical - and not very much. The only thing I remember about the Bach piece was that it was in the key of G. The Galilei piece was in the key of D, and the low E string had to be tuned down to D.

#14

I’ll say Hi, and let the others know I am still around. I was raised with the Grand Pipe Organs and Opera, studied the operatic voice for a few years ( back in the early 60’s) did a little 'Off Broadway Theater" for a short while before I decided the industry was too bloody, so I became an Architect. My mother was a Concert and Church organist for almost 80 years. For all that background I never learned the keyboards or any other instrument for that matter.
Look forward to conversing with you when I am able.

#15

Any time someone uses my name and the word YOUNG in the sentence, it warms this old heart.

#16

Old school is where it’s at.

#17

Compared to some of us around here, you’re still a youngster! I’ve got nephews older than you, and you have my daughter beat only by a few years.

#18

My eldest son is 55 and the next eldest is 51 and a foster son who’s 50, so YES, you are a youngster. I’m a big Science Fiction fan. PM me with the name of your book and I’ll look it up.

#19

My baby (FC) is 51.

#20

You’re serious?
I’m 61. What is this? A Republican nursing home?