Category Archives: Texana

Hammered dulcimer

Posted on April 5, 2013 | Comments Off on Hammered dulcimer

Something new at LOCO’s weekly performance the other night: a hammered dulcimer. That sucker has 48 strings. Imagine the time consumed in tuning it. Comparable to tuning a piano.

The guy who brought it discovered it was out of tune (probably the heightened humidity from the rain that day) and didn’t seem to want to waste time tuning it, so played his fiddle instead. I think he played it once, though. It was hard to be sure, as I was sitting between an amplified fiddle and an amplified mandolin, and could hardly hear my own efforts at fiddle harmony.

I’m getting better at recognizing keys and playing chord voicings contributed by my teacher. Instead of trying to keep up on the sheet music, by counting the beats, I finally figured out what the chords look like on the guitar and now I watch those players, instead. Still a challenge to keep up, though, and I sometimes revert to long, slow bowings of the pentatonic scale in whatever the key is because it fits with every chord.

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Posted in Music, Obsessions, Texana

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Beating the white supremacist drum

Posted on April 2, 2013 | Comments Off on Beating the white supremacist drum

[Updated below]

The snooze media, when it’s not sucking up to our imperial president, his cronies and political party (for you newly arrived illegal immigrants, that would be the Democrats), likes to emphasize our political hyphenation of the past several decades. You know, the multiculturalism nonsense (all cultures are equal; none are superior to any other) that’s supposed to (somehow) make minorities feel better about themselves if they happen to come from a (clearly) backward culture.

Thus the recent killing of the district attorney and his wife in their home in North Texas is, the ever-mendacious NYTimes and cBS assure us, the probable work of the “white supremacist” group the Aryan Brotherhood.  (When it comes to brotherhoods the only one the snooze media likes is the radical Muslim version.)

As Wretchard points out in one of his usual understated blog postings, white supremacism is the snooze media’s favorite hobby horse because it excites their multiculturalist chums. After the Tea Party, perhaps. And gun owners are somewhere on the list. But snoozers have been flogging the gun owners recently and before that the Tea Party. So now, apparently, it’s time (to continue mixing metaphors) to beat the white supremacist drum again. All of which are much easier than thinking or actually working, two things the snooze media tries really hard to avoid and almost always succeeds.

Especially when the probable reason for the DA’s murder is (as usual) staring them in the face. It’s one of the big three. The big three any cop will tell you is the usual reason for murder: sex, drugs or money. Wait and see. The odds are it’ll be one of them, not white supremacism at all. And the snooze media will act like they never doubted it from the beginning and go back to picking on the gun owners.

UPDATE:  Indeed, by April 19, a former justice of the peace and his wife have been charged with the crime, neither of them Tea Party or Aryan Brotherhood members. Nor organizers of a dramatic “hit.” Just plain vanilla murderers, apparently over money. Big surprise.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Guns, Obsessions, Scribbles, Texana, The Drug War

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Garlic: the natural antibiotic

Posted on April 1, 2013 | Comments Off on Garlic: the natural antibiotic

Enjoyed this Jerusalem Online report on Israeli consumption of garlic, second only per capita they say, to China. They make the claim that people who consume a lot of it get bitten by fewer mosquitoes and generally stay healthy.

Reminds me of my Texas mother when we lived in Libya when I was six. My sister and I liked to run barefoot through the dirt, which bothered mother no end. Whenever she caught us at it, she would turn to the lore of her Texas upbringing and make us eat a clove of garlic each to stave off ringworm, among other things. It was awful. So we worked hard not to get caught.

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Posted in Israel, Texana

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No mo cheese in Cheese Whiz

Posted on March 23, 2013 | Comments Off on No mo cheese in Cheese Whiz

Charles at Dustbury has discovered that the makers of Cheese Whiz have figured out a way to make the stuff without cheese. Whoop-de-do.

Back off, I say, those folks down in Port Arthur have to do something with all that petro waste they produce while filling your cars with gasoline. They can’t dump it ALL in the Gulf.

Besides, I do assure you from my very own personal experience, there’s not a 13-year-old boy on the planet who could tell the difference.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Mr. Boy, Science/Engineering, Texana, The Economy

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Learning stand-up bass

Posted on March 21, 2013 | Comments Off on Learning stand-up bass

Another fine evening with the Local On-Call Orchestra last night playing Old Time for contra dancers. Five fiddles (two melody, our chord viola, and me and another beginner on harmony), two mandolins, a banjo, a guitar and a stand-up bass (also called bull fiddle).

“Well, I won’t have any doubt about the rhythm,” I told the bass player who was standing beside my chair. He smiled. Said he was six weeks into learning the instrument. ‘Course he also reads music and plays piano and electric bass guitar. So why the bull fiddle, I asked.

Said he’d always been interested in it and then a friend wrote a song in which one line went “Ninety percent of playing the bass is owning one.” So he bought one and started playing it.

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Posted in Music, Obsessions, Texana

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Portable bacteria colonies

Posted on March 19, 2013 | Comments Off on Portable bacteria colonies

Liberal Austin has banned stores from giving away plastic bags to hold purchases. Are we proud? We’re Portland South now.

All those folks (like Mrs. Charm) who felt so superior toting their green canvas bags—Ann Coulter delightfully refers to them as portable bacteria colonies—to and from the grocery are now diminished by the fact that most everyone carries them.

Well, most everyone. Not me. I prefer to pay 25 cents (so far) at the grocery for one of their recyclable brown bags (actually made of plastic, but I’m not telling). When I get home, I just stuff them in the kitchen trash and, next time, buy another one.

I am considering buying a washable cotton string bag, though five for $32 at Amazon does seem pricey. Maybe I’ll even get a (ha-ha) plastic one. Since all the liberals want to emulate Europe so bad (even unto government bankruptcy, apparently), why not go whole hog and become a German hausfrau with a string bag? Then Ann won’t be able to laugh at them risking infecting their children with salmonella or, gasp, e. coli.

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Posted in Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly, Texana

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G-d bless Texas

Posted on March 15, 2013 | Comments Off on G-d bless Texas

W.’s nephew and Bush-the-elder’s grandson is off and running for Land Commissioner. Sure has white teeth. Pity about the permanent five-o’clock shadow, though.

But, seriously folks, this half-Hispanic Texas Republican is very well-spoken. This could be the start of something bigger. Ya think?

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Posted in South of the Border, Texana, The Economy

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