Delicious Grace

[alcaponedudu]

Thanks for the reply, John. I'll check those artists you mentioned later. Some of them I already know and I find them amazing.


I could tell some of my influences. I'm more into Rock N' Roll, you know. That really saved my life when I was younger. There's something to it that just captures me. We can talk about it later.


My main influences on the piano are Elton John and Axl Rose. I think that's not so usual to mention Axl as a piano palyer but his playing really adds to the song and do not sound so ''over''. On the album ''Chinese Democracy'' you can see more of his playing. There are thousands of better players than those two I mentioned but their playing are magical for me. Some of Billy Joel's songs are excellent as well. I'm not really into virtuoso style. Note that I'm talking especially about piano playing here. Speaking about music as a whole there are a lot more.


I'm not disappointed at all, John. Feel free to record this video when you are ready. And if you don't want to do that anymore there's nothing wrong with that. I don't want you to feel this pressure. You're a great guy. Remember this.

 

[alcaponedudu]

This song is so beautiful. I'd like to show you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6_JkZTWYSk

 

[John Watt]

alcaponedudu! I needed to hear this from you.
Today, a man who is a native of our country came to visit me, someone I never met before.
He was saying I was hiding away, and my life is about to blossom, giving me the same feeling.
I still feel like a head case, having a hard time getting it together to get a video together.
I'm really feeling better today... even if I didn't play guitar at all.

I know what you mean when you say rock saved your life.
Rock is about playing what you hold in your hands with what is in your head,
and heart, if you're feeling it that way.
But here, in North American culture, it was more about being a rock star and having huge equipment,
when I see your culture as being more musical and social.

Elton Johns' first big hit song, "Isn't it funny, this feeling inside", is still my favorite.
Back then, I would have talked about Emerson, Lake And Palmer as piano, bass and drums.
I figured out "Come, take a pebble, and toss it to the sea" on guitar.
When I filled in for guitar lessons for the guitar teacher at our local music store,
when his band had a record and he was playing in Toronto,
I had to figure out Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are", and that was a nice song.

When you say Billy Joel to me, I think of his song about walking down a beach beside the old hotel,
because he has Stevie Ray Vaughn playing guitar on it, and that's my favorite Stevie Ray Vaughn.
He's not doing a heavy blues thing, and gets into some nice riffs with chords.

I do an Axl Rose vocal imitation, more about quavering my voice and holding long notes at endings.
I also do his siren imitation from the start of "Welcome to the Jungle".
That song blew my mind when I first heard it.
Why?
Guns'n'Roses were advertising themselves in comic books and magazines for over a year,
describing themselves as being gay hookers and addicts on Hollywood and Vine,
sharing a room and practicing to be rock stars, and that came across as as desperate cry for attention,
from some California person who could afford to put out that kind of uh... self-promotion.
But then "Welcome to the Jungle" came out, and look what happened after that.

Every day, every hour, I'm thinking I'm going to play guitar with your video and record it.
It is a strange pressure for me, when I usually don't feel any.
Fear... paranoia... worrying about all the criminal harrassment, yes, I feel that.
I want to be seen as a virtuoso player, but I don't want to just start riffing out,
I want to be part of your music and feel my playing, because I feel it from you.

A high school friend of mine who moved out to British Columbia and never came back,
is visiting his parents here in Welland and is coming for an afternoon of guitar with me.
If I can't play with him in the afternoon and feel warmed up enough to record with your video at night,
maybe I never will. Is the tension growing? It is for me.

You didn't say anything about that movie link, and if you watched it, I'm sure you would.
These three women start off singing, but then they get into some incredible gymnastic moves.

I had a snooze after supper and woke up in the middle of the night, now 5.55.
When I saw your link wasn't for a new song from you, I stopped.
I use the word virtuoso because I grew up hearing that word on TV all the time.
I feel that a desire to improve your level of musicianship is better than any fame.
When everyone and everything is gone, that's all you have left, you and your instrument.

"darling, you've been gone too long, it's amazing I still feel this strong,
times have changed, and times have gone, how could I have been so wrong.
I don't know just what to do, when this cold dark night turns deep dark and blue,
you're not here to talk, so what more can I say, I'm just glad I've got this old guitar to play."
Am guitar solo

 

[John Watt]

Slash has a friend who is a radio DJ in St. Catharines, the next city from here.
When he visits, he stands outside on the sidewalk and signs autographs and chats with fans.
He records new age guitar instrumental CDs under a different name.

A friend of mine, a Mohawk guitarist, singer-songwriter, that I played with for a year and a half,
sold his 1957 Les Paul through a broker in California before he left for a tour in Germany.
Bear Records asked him to come back as the rockabilly star for an oldies show.
He wasn't sure he'd be coming back, even as survival, and he wanted to leave his wife with some money.
He had the original case, strap, receipt, instructions and the guitar was all original.
Slash bought it and mailed him a letter of thanks.
He said it was the most important guitar in his collection and he would only use it indoors to record.
You should have seen the stationary, really artistic and detailed, even shaped as pressed paper.

Recent rumours say Slash is getting down on his playing, and feels like giving up.
He's been trying to jam along with some Brazilian artists, and can't get the rhythm.
He even bought an acoustic guitar with a horn that sticks out like a long banana,
with a sound-hole at the end... but that isn't helping.
He might even be turning down a gig for the first time, on one of those dance shows.
This is also putting him into a deep funk, and he's realizing he can't play that either.
Maybe he should try playing a left-handed guitar upside-down,
while he's doing a backwards sommersault, 'cause you can't do it forward.
That should make him feel better.
Maybe that's why I'm having a hard time trying to get some guitar together here.
I don't have enough room to throw it around.
You should see my salmon swimming up a waterfall move,
throwing my guitar up in the air with my arm extended, and as the strap starts to tighten,
I pull it side to side to make the guitar wave back and forth,
before it starts to slide down backwards.
Anyone can get spun out, it's better to spawn out.
Ouch! That font hurt a little.

 

[alcaponedudu]

Hi John. Good to know you have been jamming with your mates. That's nice. I was very into bands and things but now I prefer to work alone. I'm in a more introspective mode right now and need to write exactly the way I feel it. Like I said to you before Delicious Grace is a duo but I get to right all the songs.

I did watch the video you sent. But I was at work and didn't have much time to elaborate my post. Thanks for sending.

You didn't like the song in my previous reply or didn't want to listen to it?

 

[John Watt]

alcaponedudu, and that is using your Magle.dk persona. I had a personal break-through.
Putting myself up online as being able to play a guitar, and having the technology to make a You Tube video,
was something that caused me sorrow and suffering years ago, and could have done the same now.
Those days are over. I'm full of confidence, even if criminal life around me is still closing in.

That's why I was offered the strolling troubadour gig in a big business on Sundays, across from City Hall.
People wanted me to show I'm not the broken and dis-functional man Welland media makes me out to be,
and that I am a professional musician who should be playing in Welland on the city concert stage.
Playing on Sunday, when City Hall is closed, means I have more of a chance of not being interfered with.
That's still going to happen, but I got myself going this week all by myself.

If I don't make a video for both of us tomorrow, that means my fingers were chopped off.
I'm even looking at it as a career move, doing it by day like it's business for me.

And yes, I listened to the video, Axl Rose at the piano, why I had all those comments.
I am still going to have difficulty playing along with your video, about my emotions and ability.
I'm a lot older than you are, and I've only played in bands to be playing with other musicians,
and that's the emotion and headspace I need to get it on and get it out, my musical energy.
That's just about attitude and my musical style, and only the listener can decide if I'm getting into it.
Using this beater guitar, the cherry Strat, where I can't play an Am barre chord past the twelfth fret,
or get all the way up the neck, means it will be interfering with my ability to play, hitting up against the body.
I also can't use the tremolo arm, because it gets in the way more than it adds to my playing.
Using this Boss portable amp, now knowing what tones I can get that are quality for me,
makes me realize I'll be using distortion to the point of feedback, and I don't want to be blasting out to your song.
I might think I'm sustaining like a violin, you might just be hearing heavy metal.

Wanting to play along has always been there from the start,
but now I can see exposing myself where local people are going to see it.
This new activity, jamming along to a computer video and making a video of me doing it,
is going to be personal for you and me, and for me alone,
it's going to be a way to play along with any kind of online music I want to blend in with,
and have a recording I can listen to later, like bands I was in used to do with portable cassette players.
You have to realize it was a change in two levels of technology that got me here.
Seeing this new computer do videos in with photos, so I can have both during bike-hikes,
and buying a battery charger so I can afford to make both photos and videos,
and that's with a camera that was given to me, or nothing like this would be happening.
I say given to me, but a sign customer who really liked his sign made it a part of the deal.
That also was political, getting the job from a former candidate who was victimized by City Hall.

If it was only about music, and my guitars, that's all I'd be doing, and I never would have had it taken away.
One visit from a person in a position of serious authority, coming here to say I don't have to hide away,
and that my life is going to blossom, really helped. And this man knows how to make it happen.
Tomorrow, I'm going to start making it happen.
And some of that is thanks to you for helping to keep the love alive.

oh... oh... my fretting fingers want to type something... all by themselves... left and right...
yes... yes... we live in a wonderful whorl...
ah... ah... the fickle fingers of font...

Yesterday afternoon I was jamming with the cherry Strat and Boss amp,
beside the gorge in a Niagara Parks Commission park in Niagara Falls,
where a historic restaurant was recently rebuilt as a new Parks attraction.
Standing up, moving around, I had to laugh out loud sometimes, my fingers were flying away.
One good day deserves another, and another...

This afternoon, walking back from shopping for groceries at No Frills,
a man who punched me in the arm at a business downtown, who kicked my leg at the library,
and who tried to kick me outside No Frills and threaten to beat me up after I came out, a few weeks ago,
rode past me on a bike, stopping up the street to turn and stare at me,
and then he was sitting there outside the building where my apartment is.
He was just staring at me, but I know what he was staring about.
I came back to add this, because you should know what's going on overall.

The last two days were the good and the bad,
but knowing I'm going to be ordering that left-handed do-it-yourself guitar,
and get another left-handed tremolo unit for my second semi-solid-body,
is putting me over the top already.
I'll use the lefty body with my cherry Strat parts to make that more playable.
And to think I changed my 1964 Stratocaster with teenage tools I used to build slot cars.
Look what I can do now with professional tools and as the artist and sign-painter I am.
Using the soldering gun my father got as a wedding present makes it all right.
And using my mothers' left-handed tools makes it all left.
I got it all. I just have to get it together and keep it together.
As straight as the crow flies, my own straight and narrow.

 

[alcaponedudu]

Hello, John. I'm glad you're getting better.

I was very annoyed about the fact to somebody is picking on you (I don't know if ''picking'' is the correct word for this situation). You should fight back. I can not stand this. I'm a live wire as they say.

I finished another song. That's always a special feeling. This one is more of a ballad/romantic. I'm very into writing ballads at the piano. It just feels so nice. I can almost ''gravitate'' while writing those kind of songs.

I must go back to the studio some time this year. It's been overduo. I shoud have done this already! But I'm in the middle of a ''burst of songs''. The songs keep coming and coming and I've gotta finish them. I think this a positive thing. I can arrange some time later to record those at a pro studio, don't you think?

 

[John Watt]

Despite the deep and heavy reluctance I have about exposing myself online as a musician,
I'm surprised you're waiting to pay a pro studio to help you record.
I can buy a used digital camera that not only records, but lets you edit videos.
And that's cheap cheap cheap, because the power ratings keep going up every year,
and people are dumping their old ones. Even pawn shops don't take them in any more.
I'm saying that, because you're a duo as a band, and working up songs with studio musicians is just that.
You should record your songs live to have them, and when you get your own stage players,
arranged them for the musical abilities and instruments they have.

This warm weather has really got me busy, why I haven't been around to make a video.
But that's changing. I ordered the do-it-yourself Stratocaster style guitar kit, left-handed,
this afternoon. It won't get here until next week some time, so I've got some musical time for myself.

You're right about fighting back. I've got a plan, and I don't usually make plans.

I'm getting into you saying "burst of songs".
I hope that's feeling like firecrackers that reach up into the stars.
I've got four chords I'm working on.

I typed that last night. I'm back this Friday morning.
Another week can't go by without making a video, however it goes.
I was told yesterday that this new music store in Toronto, now one of the biggest,
will put up a video of me playing my guitar on their online domain.
That's a career move, and I'll surprise everyone by singing along.

But getting into it with you comes first, and should come from where I'm at,
not waiting until I get more equipment to be recording a backing track,
so I can play lead and sing over top.
I'm getting a better idea of where I can be with all this new technology,
and finding myself as a recording artist is finally happening.
I see this as a vanity project, because no-one is paying me to do this,
and it's a lonely thing, making a video of myself by myself.

The clock just hit 9:00.
I'm going out to do what I have to do this morning, very early.
When I get back I should be looking at a new world of self-recording.
My life, my musical life, my artistic life, is the weight I'll be carrying.
It's not what I want it to be, it's not going to be everything I can be.
It will be me in an entirety I never achieved before.
I will be looking the oldest and out of shape that I have ever been in.
That's not the best time to start anything.
If it wasn't for my fingers wanting to get in, on this keyboard, on the fretboard,
and into it with you, I wouldn't be here.
I have to get it to gather.
Please stay tuned.
as always, John Watt
"fly on... my sweet angel..."
today... and forever... you will be by my side...

The first photo of the abandoned Adam Beck generating station,
gets cropped here, and you can't see the smaller white light up in the clouds,
to the left, that attracted my attention, making me go around to the other side,
so I was in greater darkness, taking photos of a sky clearing with this angel passing before the moon.
I have to call it an angel, because nothing else describes what I was looking at.

 

[John Watt]

I'm back Friday afternoon, so I can take my computer to the computer store.
Ever since the Windows 10 update took away my computer sound,
I've been using little Dell speakers, plugging them into the headphone outlet.
Trying my bass powered Altec Lansing speakers, finally plugging them in to play your video, wasn't enough.
My computer has been a bit scrambled lately, seeing local systems I didn't allow access,
so it's all for the better.
This computer store supports me as a protest mayoral candidate,
saying if I bring it in this afternoon I'll have it back tomorrow afternoon for sure.
I know, I know alcaponedudu, it might seem easy to turn the technology on,
but I've got a lot of heavy career signal that makes it difficult.
Another employee at this Toronto music store says he wants to put up a video of me playing,
not just being a photo of a featured guitar build of the month.
Getting this cherry Strat, playing with this portable Boss amp,
for me, I can say suddenly, me and music is happening again.
I'm very competitive, and I still have what it takes to get up there.
I have to say that. Just not in front of a mirror.
I'm going to miss online tonight.
Fare thee well, my friend. My computer sleeps alone tonight.

 

[alcaponedudu]

John my friend how are you doing?

This week has been a hell of a week for us brazilians. There's major strike going on in our country for at least 6 days now. I don't how much of attention this is getting internationally but it's starting to get really bad for the people. And there's no sign for a complete resolution.

I managed to almost finish another song. This one particularly I'm very proud of. There's a twist in the middle of the song. In my head the song starts with a heavy guitar thing. Just sequencing 3 chords and then it turns into a more acoustic thing. By the of the song the electric guitar comes back to put an end to the whole thing. I said in my head because I haven't played that song in another instrument other then my acoustic guitar.

I really wish I could show you now one song of mine that's called ''Chaos and Shame''. I'm amazed and frustrated at the same time about how accurate this song tells our current situation in Brazil. I take no proud about it. I just couldn't help but write. Some day everydody is going to hear it.

Take care, John. Have a nice weekend!

 

[John Watt]

alcaponedudu! No, I haven't heard any new Brazilian news for a couple of weeks.
Ontario is getting to the end of a provincial election, the vote being almost two weeks away.
News about hockey and basketball finals and the royal wedding also takes up a lot of space.
The Liberal government is seen as imploding, elected politicians retiring before the election,
new Liberal candidates not putting Liberal on their signs, the government promising anything and everything.
They are described as borrowing money from Americans to lower hydro rates before the election.
The Conservatives, the other governing party, taken over by a new Toronto politician,
are also seen as imploding. Their campaign is the first to not feature a tour bus for reporters.
Yesterday, videos were put up online showing this candidate giving away party memberships,
saying he'd pay for them if these people signed them. That's against electoral laws.
He's been saying prices for hydro and gasoline will come down even lower if he's elected.
New polls show Ontarios' third party, the NDP, New Democratic Party, are now ahead.
Ontario voters now see Conservatives and Liberals as being the same as run by Toronto people,
working with Americans, and are going to give the NDP a chance. Will it change things? I don't know.
All the Conservative You Tube advertising features an American hip-hop song in the background.
Conservative advertising talks about the candidates' father and how their wealth comes from a Toronto factory.
But the candidate built his factory in the United States and is more of an American businessman than Canadian.
His brother was the mayor of Toronto, but lost that, seen as a meth head, involved with drug dealers,
being an alcoholic, parking in malls to drink a bottle, and bringing prostitutes into the mayors office.
The Conservative party fell apart months ago, leaders being accused of sexual misconduct and quitting,
and this Toronto candidate is seen as buying his nomination as leader.
You can definitely call that "chaos and shame".
When I say being like Americans,
let me remind you that Mayor Marion Berry of Washington D.C. was arrested,
after being found in a motel room with meth and a prostitute.

After he served a jail term he came out and was re-elected.

I hope the people of your country can persevere and bring the change they deserve.
Everyone needs to feel free, and all countries should be responsible with tax dollars.

I took my computer in yesterday and got that fixed up... a nice deal for me, saving money.
Now I've got the sound output at the back working, to plug in my powered bass speaker system.
That was my last excuse for not being able to play your video and record to it.
I was visiting with the repairman while he worked on it, who makes electronica recordings,
and when I told him that I've got free high-speed unlimited online he said plug my DVD player into the modem.
I found a left-over apartment building cord here in the basement to do that for free.

Nothing can illustrate this change in technology for me better than this photo.
It symbolizes my restored computer sound, my new cherry Strat guitar, and online big screen.
You shouldn't be surprised that Frederik Magle made the first appearance here.
How he managed to play his organ and get my guitar into it, I'll never know.
I played his piece "Homecoming", and I hope that describes my new attitude and redefined apartment.

 

[alcaponedudu]

Hi John. Sorry about the current situation of your country too. There's no such way to compare bad people. They are as just as bad. Actually I'm fed up with politics and politicians. I know our modern society needs them but come on they're specialized in making sh*t. That's why I had to write otherwise there wouldn't be a way to escape this whole mess. But that's it for now! I don't want to contaminate our great conversation with such an unpleasant subject.

I'm glad you could get you computer fixed. But what really got me curious was this big screen. I mean is it a big screen with a projector or something? Looks cool.

 

[alcaponedudu]

John, how are you my friend? Is it everything ok over there? I'm a little bit worried because I haven't heard of you in a while. Hope you're just fine.

This past week I went into a ''writing mode'' and I could finish three more songs. That's a record for myself. It wasn't planned though.

 

[John Watt]

alcaponedudu, and Eduardo, I'm just here to say I'm still here, thinking of you every day,
missing Magle.dk, and feeling down about it, but having no way or good reason to use my computer.

Maybe not reading all my font allowed you the space to be so creative.
My television, given to me, is a Panasonic Cinematic Tau rear projection screen.
It cost over $5,400 when they were new in the 90's, the first 48" screens to sell in Ontario.
I got one of the last years of manufacture, 2008, and it will probably last the rest of my life.
Police and fireman raids. A physical assault against me in the store, another time urine thrown on me.
The new owner from Toronto coming to get me to take me away before the raids.
18 meth-heads living in one apartment, people living on the roof with hydro. I didn't know.
I always went out the front doors, not being near the rear entrances.

I could tell you more, but it's almost 1:00 at night and I still haven't had supper.
It's good to return.

The speakers across the bottom of the TV are really good, still fooling me with sound separation,
and sounds far from being just left or right.
I sit or lay in front of the TV so I hear it as loud as possible without bothering others.
The Tau name means the screen works with a computer.

I'm not really in a joking mood, actually, I'm not in any kind of musical or artistic mood,
but I have to ask you, as well as we know each other,
if I'm sitting here with a TV that's plugged into online, with free unlimited high speed online,
what TV program do you think I ended up watching if I'm not watching a DVD movie or TV episode,
free from the library? You'll never guess. The Antiques Roadshow. I love that show.
You see different people, all the old items from around the world are hand-made,
and you learn a lot about everything they talk about.
Not the British show though, they're too stuck up and stuck to each other.

I was singing out loud to myself, walking around today, jamming some tunes.
That felt good. I'm going to have to think about how I can tell you what happened,
and get back to playing guitar, something I haven't done in over three weeks.
Life is getting better, but I just want to make some noise.
I'm being given cards and addresses by musicians everywhere I go every day,
but I have to say I'm in no position to go out in public or endanger your safety,
creating some drama, when everyone else thinks I've been hiding.

I gotta go. This isn't good. I want to get it together here.

Oh! This kinda describes the activity of what has been going on around me.
I was going nuts. I felt like I was tightening up inside myself, my whole body.
The noise wasn't letting me sleep properly, even if I didn't notice it at first.
I went to buy a new tire and tube for my bike so I could get out of Welland,
more than just a nature trip, getting a $64 Continental tire for $34,
and spending $19.95 each for two puncture and thorn proof tubes.
After the first fire inspection, when a criminal called to create problems for me,
I decided to grab my bike and go for a ride to Port Colborne, not a big bike-hike,
just a ride to Nickel Beach, thinking I'll take a break from the drought and heatwave.
As I turned on the sidewalk to ride back, I had a big blowout with a big slash I couldn't repair.
It took over six hours to walk back, taking my time, having a nice night, no-one else out there.
I have to stress, if you saw me beside the lake, walking through the city,
walking through the Port Colborne marsh, walking along the canal and on field paths,
I didn't hear one mosquito or have any big bug bother me. I could sit anywhere.
Nature photographers now rush to a location if someone says they saw a frog.
I've only seen one, a photographer coming up to me to ask if I was there to see it.
That was in a public garden fountain by the upper Falls greenhouse floral display.

The bands that played in the Welland canal side stage?
A U2 clone band from Lewiston, New York.
A Taylor Swift imitator who broke down and did some audience requests.
A Tragically Hip clone band, and the Tragically Hip weren't good to start with.
A Garth Brooks tribute, who ended up doing some audience requests.
Yes, this Welland audience, hearing free music outside, shouts down most performers.
There was a Pink Floyd copy band before that.

A beautiful woman from Fiji came up to me and asked if she could take my picture in Niagara Falls.
I was taking a photo of my bike propped up against a weird tree at the lower garden,
just messing around in the shade,
so she took a couple of me with the bike and one standing up in front of the glass showcase.
This is the primal me.
Above the Falls, at the bottom of the escarpment where the first mansion and golf course was built on top,
the remains of old farm fields that Parks bought to tear down, making a park above the Falls, are still there.
For about a hundred feet, there is about six feet of raspberry bushes that grew up into the escarpment forest.
Growing in the shade, they just ripened when field raspberries have been sold out weeks ago.
I spent over a half hour eating until I wanted to stop, handfuls at a time. Nice.

It feels good to be typing to you, talking about the good times,
but wait until you hear what my last two weeks have been like.
Okay... I'll qualify that. Here's the night that started it.
In the social services Jubilee Apartments, eight stories high,
and the Gateway Apartments, 24 units, two weeks ago on a Friday night,
seven people died of a drug overdose, saying it was cut with fentanyl for the first time.
Two bodies were found floating in the canal by the floating stage.
A man committed suicide in the green space behind Jubilee Apartments.
Gateway is the building beside me and Jubilee is across the street.
This is an election year and people are getting angry.
Fathers and mothers stand outside those buildings,
saying we live here, we have children, you should get out of here.
okay.... okay.... considering this building is now closed for business,
after the plumbing pipe damage that occurred during the raid,
I don't have to be here to help Larry Saturday and Sunday, two days off,
so I better get something played on video... that I really like.

 

[John Watt]

Yes my friend, and it feels that way, this beautiful day.
It's so quiet here I'm sleeping all night without waking up once.
I've got some sign work to see about, a lunch downtown waiting for me,
and I'll be back here to work on the vinyl, and getting my recording together.

You would be surprised, in my reality, how much our communication has kept me together.

The raid on the building I'm in, the vandalism with all the people puking trying to fix plumbing,
is now legendary in Welland.
It must have made me more funky,
because, for the first time in my life, I'm going out in public wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
A choice of three nice Jimi Hendrix t-shirts... and shorts and shoes to match.
It does feel good when women say I have sexy legs,
even if some people ask about the bone below my knees, my knobby knees,
something Scottish people are known for, and don't forget,
all of my ancestors are pre-Scottish, Sons and Daughters of the Gael.
Scottish people also have longer roots with their teeth than anyone else.
I won't get into other body differences.
They got nothing to do with the rhythm, or da bass, or even about some treble.

 

[alcaponedudu]

Hello John! What a good feeling I just got hearing from you. It's been a while and I was worried about you (Like Mick Jagger says)!

I must say this: This forum is nothing without you. Sorry folks.

I'm glad and at the same time sorry about some thing that you have been going on in your life. If you want a advice it would be: focus on your paiting or write a songs about all that. You've got a way to write that keeps me attatched to your text. Someday you should send me a song of yours. It would be a real pleasure for me.

Between this period of your absence I think I wrote 3 to 5 five songs. I've got some heavy songs that I'm really proud of composing them. They sound good. It's not just noise. I've got a couple of ballads aswell. I really love a good ballad. I think I'll keep writing them all my life. It feels good especially when I play the piano. That's the place to be to write this kind of songs, in my opinion.

I hope that you do not disapper again!

 

[John Watt]

alcaponedudu! I didn't want to disappear, but I did.
I took off on my bike almost every day, bike-hiking around the peninsula,
mostly going along Lake Erie, staying in the shade during the heat wave.

Online was down for a few days, making it easy to get away.

I did a serious thing and didn't hand in the nomination papers to be a mayoral candidate.
What you said about focusing on my guitar playing and painting is where I want to be.
Serious events are swirling all around me, but I'm getting a hold of myself and what I want to do.

If I kept typing I could type forever.
You're right about the piano being the best instrument for writing any music.
Ah! I have to go.
Here's a new photo from Niagara Falls.

I decided to take a break and turn on the Antiques Roadshow,
and the first items they had were from "Burie Marx", a Brazilian artist.
I wondered if you knew of him.

 

[John Watt]

alcaponedudu! I'm here just because I have some time on this computer.
While music hasn't been part of my life for over three weeks now,
I did manage to get away on my bike, not a long distance bike-hike, just getting away.
My Sony camera is gone, for sure, so I took this Samsung out for the first time.

I took the bus with my bike to Niagara Falls, the day of the picture in the previous reply.
I decided to go up to the bottom of the escarpment across from the Falls to rest in the shade.
I didn't turn off the flash or I wouldn't have caught this smoke.
I shouldn't call it smoke because it didn't smell burnt and it was cool.
The second photo is the same shot without the flash or obvious smoke.

I can think a lot of thoughts, but I can't explain what this is.
I have to say that. I was there.

 

[alcaponedudu]

Hi John. How are you, my friend?

Great shots you've got there. What is this smoke about? I was a bit intrigued.

I'm glad you're getting yourself back to together per se. Sometimes I feel that way. I must imerse myself inside me. Just me and my thoughts. I don't know if this makes sense but you'll understand. Eventually you'll leave this place stronger and feeling good. A lot of good music, art in general or whatever can come up after a period like that.

About that artist you mentioned... you mean Burle Marx? If so, yes, I know about him. He's quite famous.

 

[John Watt]

alcaponedudu... yeah... what you're saying about "immerse myself inside me", is just what I do.
That's the most important part of bike-hiking, leaving it all behind and just being where I want to be, all alone.
Unfortunately for me, as an old man, I've got more to leave behind and less time to get into something new.
Here in Welland, where I'm staying, I was told to leave the lights on up on the main floor across the store.
That makes me feel a little safer, plus the new metal doors and heavy duty locks.

I sent a couple of friends that smoke photo, and they just say it's interesting and strange.
If you see the time of the photo, what shows here after it's published,
you'll see the time is in the same minute, the smoke first, a shaky deleted one next, and then the one you see here.

I'm surprised to see you saying "per se". I haven't heard that for a long, long time.
And I'm still not sure what it means, and that's probably how lawyers like it.
If I had to guess, I'd say as usual.

The cherry Strat and my recording equipment is still sitting unused.
The mail order left-handed Stratocaster is still new in the box.
My two semi-solid-body guitars are just laying there.
I'm even thinking of selling the second one to get some serious money.

You're right again, I am feeling like I'm going to start playing again and do a painting.
I'm singing to myself and getting into it in public, so that's a start.
Look at this new Boss amp. I didn't even do the strolling troubadour gig last Sunday.

Eduardo... I've got to start playing again and get it together for you.
When I do that, it's going to be the new me I'll be taking out there and going everywhere.
And I can't ask you about all your new songs, until I get my playing down.
Our world is still turning.

There is lots of American news about the drone attack on the leaders of Venezuela.
They say military security used electronics to change their path so they missed their targets.
I betcha the drone and electronics were both manufactured in the United States.

In the United States, President Donald Trump finally had someone shut him up.
He heard that the basketball star LeBron James had made a negative comment about him,
so he started Tweeting insults about him, until he started to hear from his party members.
It turns out LeBron James was back in his home state, in his home town, where he spreads his cash around,
for the opening ceremony of a new school for handicapped children that he built.
When a fellow Republican send a Tweet saying watch out, LeBron James is far more popular there than you,
President Trump didn't mention his name again.
LeBron James said that President Trump is using sports to divide the nation, and that's nothing new.

Something new? That would be me coming through...