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Notes_Norton

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Posts posted by Notes_Norton

    Lava Cables...seriously? A $400 cable?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    On 1/16/2024 at 4:11 PM, Phil OKeefe said:

    I had a Mark VI alto many years ago. Like you, I wish I still owned it. 

    I bought my Mark VI for $600 new. But $600 in 1960 = $6,057.08 in 2023, so I guess it would have only been a hedge against inflation.

    I traded it in for a VII, which was a mistake. The VII had better intonation, and an edgier tone at low volumes. That made it compete with the guitars in my band better. But I couldn't overblow the horn to get that nasty sound out of it at high volumes. I suppose Selmer thought that was a good thing, but for a rock sax player, it wasn't.

    When I was a little kid, I had a Mickey Mantle baseball card. I should have kept that instead of putting it in the spokes of my bicycle.

    Back to the $400 cable.

    With most things, there is a point of diminishing returns, where adding the same amount of money again and again starts to give you less and less improvement, perhaps eventually to the point of no improvement. And that point is different for different people, who have more money to spend.

    Some people buy things way past that point, just because they can, and because it separates them from the people they believe are beneath them. Is that giant diamond, designer suit, gold plumbing fixture, and other things that cost hundreds or thousands of times more than the more common ones thousands of times better?

    If you want to say, “I buy $400 cables” it may impress some, but not me. If you buy it thinks it is that much better than another, IMO there's one born every minute.

    Insights and incites by Notes ♫

    • Like 1

    What’s your temperature right now?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    On 1/17/2024 at 9:24 AM, fortyearspickn said:

    Notes,  When we lived in Miami, we use to enjoy watching the local news crews going out to the beach to film shots of the tourists in their bathing suits laying in the sand, while the natives walked by in their winter coats.   Cognitive Dissonance !  

    I'd tell the northerners, It doesn't seem like Christmas if you can't go swimming.

    For the folks who live here, anything under 70 means we bundle up (but still were flip-flops) and we don't go swimming until the water temperature nears 80.

    I grew up just north of Fort Lauderdale, and gigged in Miami quite a bit.

    We're having a colder than usual winter down here. But El Niño years are usually the worst ones for us. And when we have a bad (for us) winter, the Midwest and Northeast are typically getting slammed.

     

    Notes ♫

    Lava Cables...seriously? A $400 cable?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted · Edited by Notes_Norton

    2 hours ago, kidblast said:

    I was working with a public accessor during our fire recovery   he saw all my guitars and started talking about music, and guitarist.  Very enthusiastic about it all.   He said "my dream guitar is a sea foam green telecaster"  so I asked,  oh you play too Bob?  his answer was "No, I just want a sea foam green telecaster!"

    IMO, there is absolutely nothing wrong with collecting guitars or whatever you want. But if I haven't played an instrument in years, except for a back-up one, out it goes. If worth something, I'll sell, if I can't sell, I know a guy who teaches, and I'll donate it to a student who needs one.

    I gig for a living. Music my business. If I buy a guitar I'm never going to play, in effect, that's a cut in pay.

    Same for a cable that is way past the point of diminishing returns. 

    Me? I collect music recordings, mostly the kind that not many other people want to hear. (Who wants George Szell's recording of Beethoven's 4th, or some obscure Cabo Verdi Island disc?) I don't have the leisure time to listen to them often, there are too many, but when I want, most of them are not even available on YouTube, and YT is too low-fi for me anyway.

     

    Notes ♫

    Lava Cables...seriously? A $400 cable?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    On 1/12/2024 at 4:26 PM, kidblast said:

    People will do the weirdest things if they have enough money to toss around.

    I have a few friends who are Bourbon "aficionados"  

    they spend SIC money on some of these bottles, and they don't ever plan to open them.  Wait,??? What?   "Collectors item dude!" 

    -- what is wrong with you?  I say, to myself.

    And I know guys who buy guitars, and never plan to play them.  But I wish I still had my Selmer Mark VI saxophone, they sell for small fortunes today.

     

    Notes ♫

    Arthritis?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    Thanks.

    I don't eat farmed fish, nor breeds with extreme mercury content. Cod and Haddock are my favorites. My wife likes Salmon best. We are careful of the source and get them at a trusted fish market. I gave up shrimp because it's mostly farmed, too.

    I try to limit my processed foods as well. I shop around the perimeter of the grocery store.

    My coffee cream is organic, the cheese I eat is non GMO and mostly from Europe where they have A2 cows, which are also grass fed.

    Organic veggies when I can, too. I don't drink bottled water or any sugar laced soft drinks. Mostly water, tea, coffee, and a bit of red wine.

    I eat a keto diet, fewer than 20 carbs per day, and twice as much fat as protein.

    All my blood work is in the normal zone, I'm on zero prescription medications, and a heart doc told me I have the circulatory system of a healthy person 25 years my junior. For a man of my age, that's rare and my doc calls me "An easy patient."

    And my arthritis and bursitis is about 99% gone. Every now and then I might get a slight ache in the hip or a finger that I hurt playing basketball as a youth. That usually happens after vacations, when I forget about my diet and eat what the local people eat. Often that includes things on my no-no list. But I only vacation once a year, and I want to be there, not here.

    Without good health, you have nothing.

    When both my parents died too early due to obesity related diseases, I saw that as a possible future for me. I decided that I'm having a ball here, and as much as people tell me there is life after death, there is no proof. So I want to hang out here as long as I can.

    If there is that promised land, I try to be a good person, so I go to the paradise. I guess I'm playing the odds for both life after and nothing after.

     

    Insights and incites by Notes ♫

     

    Arthritis?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    On 1/6/2024 at 10:59 AM, PrairieDog said:

    However, you want to check the supplier doesn’t graze on grass, but then finish on corn…

    Most definitely, that's why I make sure it's 100% grass-fed and grass-finished beef.

    I went on the arthritis/bursitis diet in the 1990s, and am still pain free. I'm also very low-carb / ketogenic.

    Since then, I've had fried chicken perhaps 3 times. If I could fine non-corn fed chickens, I'd love to eat eggs again. But I'd rather play guitar and saxophone than eat eggs. 24/7/365 pain free is better than a moment on the tongue.

    My current doctor does my yearly blood test, tells me everything is in the normal zone, calls me an easy patient, and says, “See you next year.”

    Obviously, the diet agrees with me.

     

    Insights and incites by Notes ♫

    Arthritis?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    I've been low carb / keto for years. I was already on much of this diet. I think for me, eliminating Chicken and Egg Yolks did the trick.

    From what I've read since, the reason factory chicken/eggs are so high in arachidonic acid is being mostly corn fed. Chickens should be eating seeds and insects, not fruit (corn is actually a fruit). But I don't know that to be a fact.

    Here it is:

    For both arthritis and bursitis, treatment is similar:

    Try the dietary approach first, and if that doesn't work, take stronger action.

    Foods that may contribute to chronic inflammation are foods with a high glycemic index (foods that convert to sugar quickly), such as fruit juices, sugars, simple starches, or rice cakes, foods heavy in polyunsaturated or saturated fats, and foods high in arachidonic acid. Some specific foods to avoid are:

        * Fatty cuts of red meat (high in saturated fats) lean is good
        * Organ meats: liver, kidney, and so forth (very high in arachidonic acid)
        * Egg yolks (very high in arachidonic acid)
        * Poultry - chicken, duck, turkey (very high in arachidonic acid)
        * Pasta (high glycemic index)
        * Juices (high glycemic index)
        * Rice, especially rice cakes (high glycemic index)
        * White bread (substitute whole grain breads such as rye)
        * Nightshade Plants bother many people (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, paprika)

    Glycemic index charts can be found on the Internet.

    Better choices are foods with a low glycemic index and foods that are heavy in monounsaturated fats. Some specific good foods are:

        * Salmon and other fish
        * Oatmeal
        * Low glycemic fresh fruits and vegetables
        * Olives and olive oil
        * Peanuts and other nuts
        * Whey proteins
        * Lean beef is good, 100% grass fed is better

    Arthritis?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    19 hours ago, PrairieDog said:

    Well, probably because there are huge differences in joint pain and their causes.  Diet may help with inflammatory related pain, where the joint is otherwise intact, but something is angering it, like an auto-immune disease.   Chronic inflammation can lead to permanent damage, so yeah, you want to tamp that down before it gets to that point.  However diet can’t do diddly for structural causes like lost cartilage, misalignment, bone spurs, connective tissue tears or mis-healed breaks.  All the carrot juice in the world won’t set a broken leg straight, chuckle.  

    Before I went on the diet, I couldn't walk two blocks without sitting to rest, I couldn't drive 5 minutes without a blue ice pack behind my hip, and I needed a barstool to gig.

    After a month on the diet, I was much better. Now I can walk miles with no problem, I can drive all day without any ice, and I bring a stool to work, and only use it when I'm using the wah pedal for an entire song. I really don't need the stool at all, but I have more control over the wah when sitting.

    My neighbor was walking her dog, and hobbling with a cane. I gave her the diet, and in a month she was cane free. About six months later, she was using the cane again. I asked her about it, and she said, “I just couldn't give up my pasta and ice cream.”

    I don't suspect everyone will benefit from the diet. What I asked is I don't understand why more people don't try it. If it works, you are pain free. If it doesn't, you gave up some favorite foods for a couple of months.

    The diet was given to me by a doctor who believed in trying natural approaches before pharmaceuticals, and the last resort should be something invasive like surgery.

    - - - - - -

    Here is something else you can try.

    PEMFT, Pulsed ElectroMagnetic Field Therapy. My bro-in-law works for investment brokers. They financed a guy who was building PEMFT machines for a clinic. We brought my Mother-in-law there, as she had Parkinson's, and it helped her with that. In the clinic, they use it for arthritis, too.

    But it was an hour's drive, so he recommended if you look for a home unit make sure
    (1) it radiates a square wave
    (2) the square wave is North polarity and
    (3) it is at a low frequency, between 1 and 25 cycles per second (Hz).

    For arthritis, as I understand it, the theory is this. — Calcium is paramagnetic. It responds to a magnetic field, but doesn't stay magnetic. He said that the pulsed magnetic field loosens the calcium deposits in the joints, and if you drink copious amounts of water immediately following the session, it will wash the calcium out in your urine.

    Mother-in-law took the home device with her to West Virginia in her last years, but I remember this information and plan to use it if my arthritis and bursitis comes back. But 20 years later, it still hasn't come back, thanks to the diet.

    But if anyone wants to eat donuts and other foods instead of living pain free and playing guitar, it's their choice.

    I just don't understand why more people don't give it a 2 or 3 month trial.

    There are foods I miss, but I don't miss needing an ice block behind my hip to drive, living on Advils, and not being able to walk for more than two blocks.

     

    Insights and incites by Notes ♫

     

    What new music did you get?

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    We gig for a living, and did 23 in December. Usually we just go home afterward, pull the instruments/PA in the house and relax.

    New Year's day we did a gig in the late afternoon for about 30 French Canadians who winter here in Florida. We know a couple of them, because they come out to see us at our commercial gigs often. Very few of them speak English, but the one who comes to see us the most does, and she and her husband acted as interpreters.

    The gig went an hour overtime, and when it was done they invited us for a traditional Quebec New Year's Day dinner.

    The meat was moose, rabbit, deer, wild pig and other game baked in dough with potatoes. Plenty of wine was poured, salads and deserts were offered, and we sat around a big table with them and had a great time.

    The meal is supposed to give us good luck in 2024. By taking this gig, we already had good luck.

    Then we drove home, moved the gear in the house, sat down and relaxed a bit, showered and went to bed.

    Today (Tuesday) is our only day off this week. When a musician is gigging, life is good.

     

    Notes ♫

     

    • Like 1

    Iconic Sixties Songs

    in The Gibson Lounge

    Posted

    I was on the road in the late 1960s.

    The most iconic song then was "Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen.

    It stayed on the charts forever because it was rumored to have 'dirty words' in it. As I went gigging from city to city all over the Eastern and Midwestern USA, different regions had different version of the 'dirty words'.

    The U.S. FBI actually launched an investigation into those 'dirty words' in an effort to 'protect' the youth of our country, spending millions of our tax dollars in the process. In the end, the verdict was, “We don't know. We can't understand them.”

    Eventually we 'graduated' from singles clubs to becoming the opening act for the famous bands in concert. We opened for the Kingsmen, and when asked, they told us there were no 'dirty words'. The mic was hung too high, they did too many takes, and Jack Ely just mumbled the original Richard Berry lyrics.

    They were aware of the rumor, and their manager told the band to neither confirm nor deny the rumor, because it was selling more records.

    Funny, when spending those millions of our tax dollars, they never asked Jack Ely what the words were.

    Check out how many cover versions there are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie

     

    Notes ♫

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