One of the great perks of our Tacoma location is the proximity to Red Hot, our favorite watering hole. Nearly every time we go there we get filthy nachos, which are the most extraordinary fake-cheese nachos God ever created. Topped with fresh cabbage, ground beef and jalapenos, these + Vitamin R = good times.
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Giant Cranberry delivers giant service for Haiti
Just when I was feeling all good about my $10 donation to the American Red Cross for Haiti relief, David (aka Giant Cranberry) went and one up'd me. David decided he would take his own plane down to Haiti to fly personnel and cargo in and out of the country. Pretty amazing, huh?
You can read more about David's relief efforts here.
Oh, and Happy Birthday, Giant Cranberry!
The Story of Maxamillion (or how I became a cat person)
When I was a sophomore in college, I received a distressed call from Mom that I’ll never forget. “Max is really sick, Paolo. I think I need to take him to the hospital. He won’t take any food or water and he hasn’t since last night.”
Max was my dog. He was a smart, handsome, leg-humping Sheltie that we got as a puppy when I was in the 8th grade. Actually, it was the summer before 8th grade because on the first day of school I recall we put him in the garage and he ate something that caused him to have diarrhea – to the point that Dad had to hose the garage out.
I loved that dog.
The day after that call from my Mom, Max died. Something had tied him up internally, and he was too weak to make it out of surgery.
He died by thong. That is, the vet found that he had eaten one of my sister’s thong underwear, which tied up his intestines. You can see how this was a particularly difficult loss to get over when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. This should also serve as a lesson that NO PRETEEN GIRL NEEDS TO WEAR A THONG.
There, I said it. The therapy must be working.
Since Maxamillion, I haven’t had another pet. Not even a fish. I was moving too often between college and now... but now I have a home with a yard, which is why we got the cat, Fabrizio.
We had originally looked at dogs and have a PERFECT, fenced yard for a dog, but we just couldn’t do it. We’re reminded every time we watch Mom’s dog, Simon, that dogs are high maintenance compared to cats. Cats are surely more self-absorbed, but they also take care of themselves. We ski on the weekends, we have a wedding and honeymoon ahead of us… We’re still not ready for all the responsibilities of a dog. Cat-ownership is like training wheels for dog ownership. Now I’m not sure if we want to take the training wheels off.
Fabrizio is crazy cool. For one, he’s bi-polar. Sometimes he will cuddle with Amanda for hours, and sometimes he’ll jump from around a corner five feet in the air and attack your arm. He keeps you on your toes that way.
Best yet, he only goes to the bathroom outside. He doesn’t use the cat box AT ALL. A pet that goes to the back alley and buries its own shit is IDEAL. He’s saving me time, effort and kitty litter cash, and I love him for that. It’s worth the love bites and scratches.
I really can’t complain about being a cat owner. Fabrizio had that one bad habit about scratching furniture, but it’s amazing how quickly a high-powered squirt gun can remedy that.
I had never intended to be a cat person, and never thought I would be. Nevertheless, here I am, with cat biting arm.
Foto Friday: Snuggie ecstasy
A tale of two Fenders
I can finally understand those guys who get teary when they talk about their first cars or first baseball gloves. These coming-of-age symbols carry a lot of sentimental value. I understand because I just sold my Fender bass guitars.
Each has its own story.
My 2000 Fender fretless Jazz Bass was my standard axe for the longest time. I had it specially ordered at Ted Brown music in Tacoma my junior year of high school so that I could handpick the “midnight wine” color (I was even a wino back then) and inlayed frets.
The purchase really made no sense at the time or ever. Sure, it was a beautiful instrument, but fretless basses (think an electric bass that plays and sounds like a traditional upright bass) really only work for fusion music and jazz. I was playing hard rock at the time with my band, fatefully called Faceplant (which fatefully transitioned to the equally silly “focuspoint”). I bought the bass mostly because Wesley’s brother Greg had one and he is a bass guitar genius.
Sidenote: In high school, Wesley, Scott and I would often drop by a dairy distribution warehouse in Fife where Greg’s hip-hop band, All Kinz, practiced. We spent many a night there listening to tunes, shuffling through a stack of old Playboys and being oblivious to the band’s frequent drug innuendos. Considering the location, we also scored a lot of free chocolate milk.
Sometime after college I realized that the fretless jazz bass was no longer doing the trick, especially as I wanted to learn how to perform slap and pop techniques that require a fretted bass. I picked up a light blue Fender Precision Bass off of eBay for $200 from some guy in Miami. Made in 1992, this bass had seen better days, but it still played well. I put some new hardware on it, recorded most of focuspoint’s first album and played most of focuspoint’s 20+ 2007 shows with it.
After a couple raises at my job, I had my eye on my dream bass – a MusicMan Stingray. This bass was also designed by the same guy who designed the Fender basses, Leo Fender, but could basically produce the same tones as both Fender basses and more. I found a great deal from a Seattle University student on Craigslist and picked up the bass from him at Guitar Center, ironically.
Sure enough, the Stingray blew my other basses away, which were subsequently retired to their cases under my bed. When Amanda and I moved to Tacoma they transitioned their hibernation to my office closet.
A high credit card bill reminded me last month (Hello honeymoon!) that I probably didn’t have the room in my wallet or closet to backline two bass guitars that I was no longer using. I put them on Craigslist and, to speak to how great these Fenders are, got responses for both of them within the hour.
I sold my first car, the Green Hornet, with no remorse. I’ve never thought twice about an old baseball glove. (Credit this to Dad who bought and sold several homes and cars and liked to host garage sales or make dump runs every other weekend during the summers.)
I’m just not a person who attaches a lot of emotion to possessions, but I’ll never forget those Fenders.