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High-Flying Player Piano
Just put ice cubes in a cold drink. It is damn near freezing in my valley of the vines, but some soothing booze is better with a shard from an icicle head down at the bottom of the glass. Sunny days, they promised me. If it is not raining, I replied smiling short. Thirty-four degrees and raining at sea level on Wednesday morning. Head up at a thousand plus feet, and snow capped the mountains.
That there is good vista. Something that doesn't need good driving music. But good driving music, can't be beat. But these days, like today, I listen to National Public Radio and the reports of the massive dilemma faced by the Federal Drug Administration because they want Americans who consume marijuana for medicinal purposes to carry identification so they don't get hog tied in steel shackles by the secret police. That would be an upsetting consequence for those who are just inhaling for the health benefits. Well, the lawmakers in Arizona who are fighting for this change have a high road to climb. The problem with this proposal is that hard plastic, hologrammed mug shots are more costly than that non-perforated, cut-here card that subscribers to High Times magazine carry in their wallets. So they, those legislators, want to increase the marijuana co-payment from $13 a pop to near $130. It will soon be cheaper for these patients in need to amble down, white knuckles gripping their nickles and dimes to the street corner for their flying fix. Ah. Well. Poor tumbling weed bastards on Medicare. But in other news. I bought a piano. A big, old, massive, boxy, upright player piano. To my adult surprise, a piano is actually heavier than the ones falling from tall buildings in Looney Toons cartoons. And yes, it plays by itself. A lyrical masturbation. One song at a time. God knows how this happens or how I am to get this thing to tickle itself. The key chords are in need of a serious tuning. Some so much that when you strike a finger down hard, I mean really stab it, the key reacts like a flummoxed Frat boy who just got elbowed in the side after smoking his third gobsmacking bowl of the day while discussing the social sciences of listening to Pink, not Floyd, and watching Nash Bridges and not even knowing that Cheech Marin was made famous for being Up in Smoke. Aw, man. Why did you do that? Damn infidels. So, I placed my computer at head height on the piano top and searched high-flying wi-fi for sheet music. I'll start at the beginning. "A." Wolfgang "Amadeus" Mozart, file him under "M." And "R" for Requiem. "B." Beethoven. Certainly. Beethoven was a lovelorn womanizer. His music was soul searching, lifting as high as the heavens and as deep as the molten core of this thing we call earth. But there is something about Fur Elise. She, this Elise, must have been a dandelion. Tall, bright and full of hot, yellow pride. Something to be played with both hands. Catch me if you can, she tells the maestro. I found the sheet music and it was written by a minimalist architect or some kid in third grade drawing his classmates holding helium balloons. Some holding hands, some stacked on top of each other chicken fighting while the teacher shrills a desperate plea. Glorious piece of artwork this .pdf file on my blue screen. I flipped pages on the internet to beginner piano instruction. The keys are named after seven letters of the alphabet and they repeat themselves. Learn one, know five. Some in upper case and some in lower case highlighted with things called sharps and flats. I wonder if Elise was a saucy, sharp, six-inch stiletto type of girl. Or did she wear loafers flattening her down to Beethoven's size, minus the tall wavy, gray mane. I follow the instructions and translate the vertical stripes on the paper to their alphabetic equivalent. Nine notes open the love song. E D, E D, E B, D C A. As my hands are not trained in writing calligraphy, neither are they trained in translating seemingly simple keystrokes on the piano. After several attempts I reckon I got it. Only nine thousand more sharps, flats and seven letters used inexorably. And I will be a soloist in the Calistoga, Mud, Mustard and Music festival scheduled in a week's time. But I gave up while I was ahead. Nine notes on the first time is eight more words than I spoke when 'Ma-Ma' floated from my mouth in a spit bubble. And eight more steps than the first step I took when I decided to evolve from a child's reptilian crawl to be like the rest of the towering figures hauling around on two feet, an equivalent of six massive feet higher than me. So, I quit accomplished and sought through a hundred or so loosely rolled rolls of player piano music. Dusting off the rectangular boxes, I found an array of songs for to-be-scheduled Karaoke night. As long as you can sing the Yellow Rose of Texas out of tune on limp keys, you are invited at any time. Bring tuning-fork or pitch-fork, whatever fits your fancy.
Post - February'07 Back to home...
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