I wonder if I cause occasional blips on the homeland security radar. Specifically thinking about emails and social media postings that reference Afghanistan or “bicycling to Afghanistan”. In 1987 when the Soviet Union was enjoying their own little Vietnam there, I began writing a rock/funk tune with my then-wife that was called Be A Man In Afghanistan. It never quite came together. While that piece didn’t materialize, its elements and themes would not leave me alone. That year we moved to NYC, and in January 1988 these bits and pieces began to realign themselves into a trio composition for the Guitar Craft repertoire. Bicycling to Afghanistan was worked out in about a million performances in the dining hall of the Claymont mansion, got its public debut in a show at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, and then a few days later was included in a show we taped for VH-1 which ultimately aired on Easter 1988. It has been in and out of the Guitar Craft repertoire ever since, showing up on numerous albums over the years.
The upshot… to this day I receive a lot of electronic correspondence that references Bicycling to Afghanistan, sometimes shortened to the innocuous “Bicycling” or “BtA”, but often just referred to as “Afghanistan”. “Hey Curt, I have a question about the middle of Afghanistan”, “Hey Curt, my group is working on Afghanistan, is there a score available?” It seems logical that it would make the little HSA bots at least twitch for a moment. Back in the early days of email, my aol handle was “afghancurt”. That’s gone, but there are still a couple user names out there for pretty big companies that include a reference. I have often considered changing them, but then I realize that the one thing you can’t generally change is your user name, and so it would involve closing the account and recreating a new one, and so far my response when it gets to that point is “screw it.”
From some time in 1972 until the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 I had a couple of FBI agents that turned up everywhere I went. I wasn’t actually their assignment, I’m pretty sure. I made some noise at anti-war marches, but never crossed any serious legal lines. However I was often in proximity to their assignments, was questioned by them on several occasions, and kind of found myself on a “might-be-a-joke-but-it-might-not” first name basis with them. So I suspect there are now some digitized reports with my name on them.
Assuming “blogger” is monitored, perhaps today’s entry will give some drone something to do for about 2 minutes. In any case… NOW HEAR THIS: my first student of the day arrives shortly. We will be reviewing “Guitar 1” in the A and F# sections of Bicycling to Afghanistan, moving on to the Eb section, and probably even getting into the C section (that last phrase could get a different kind of attention if taken out of context).
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Continued to work with Commit A Crime yesterday. I have a lot of blues-related music in my library, and for many songs this allows me to hear a variety of arrangements and treatments. I mentioned the other day that in order to avoid Stevie Ray Vaughn associations I’m already inclined to work with the “London Sessions” version, which is a little faster and more of a jump. Both the original Wolf version and the live SRV have that deep in the back of the pocket feel. Looking around for any other recordings I might consult, I came up with a surprise. James Blood Ulmer. Missed it earlier because it is understandably labeled “jazz”. It’s from a fairly recent album and actually has more of a familial relationship to the London version, but another notch faster. Fun. Yesterday working on the song I saw that if I’m going to take it on it is going to be another Wang Dang Doodle-style task. The words aren’t as twisted and difficult, thankfully. The trick is detaching the voice from the hands, maintaining the rhythmic figure on the guitar while singing with a natural and believable phrasing. This is going to take some time. We shall see. With the new arrangement of Wang Dang Doodle it was pretty much impossible, until it wasn’t. Hoping this will be similar.
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As of bedtime tonight it is no food, only water or coffee or tea (with no milk or sugar), until tomorrow afternoon. I have my first physical in probably 7 years, and some of the likely blood tests require a fast of 8-12 hours. With a 2:30 appointment the cut-off will happen somewhere in the middle of the night. So tomorrow with be an interesting day. I am pretty sure that the Great Cholesterol Scare of 2007 was the result of no one at UW Medicine telling me I needed to fast before my physical. When they told me my cholesterol was high and started hinting that we might want to consider medication to control it, I rebelled. I did some modifications to my diet, and made sure that regular exercise was part of my routine, and when they rechecked it 6 months later it was right in line. A miracle! Maybe. Maybe not. When I scheduled the second blood test they mentioned the fast thing (to which my response was, “Hmmm, I don’t remember being told that the last time. I wonder…”). No harm. Resulted in a somewhat better diet and much better exercise habits, which can only be good.
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