New Things

I have a very long list of things I want to do in my life....more of a very long short term list if you will. This list includes things like learn bass guitar, get forklift certified, visit a new city every year (at least), etc. Things that are on the long-time-life list are see a building implode, drive a big rig, go to Europe...things of that nature.

Not on my short list, but I'm adding it now, is to take random Community Ed classes. Once, a long time ago, Kellogg took me to a surprise event: a balloon making class at SRJC. It was AWESOME. That's right folks, for a small fee, I can come to your birthday party and make balloon animals (like a snake, I'm good at that one) and maybe even a sword. This class was a few years ago so I'm a little rusty, and funny enough, that's my clown name, Rusty. Anyway, we learned how to make a ton of animals actually, and it was pretty fun. It was also extremely perverted and hilarious. The blower-upper thing was very um....long and skinny, and the balloons, well, you get the picture. The commentary from our instructor, a clown in real life of course, was hysterical, and we could barely keep it together.

Fast forward a few years, and tonight was a bit of the same. For her birthday, I gave Wenis a Beginning Blues Harmonica class through the JC. It was awesome, but again, extremely perverted. We learned:
--trills (not perverted)
--chords (not perverted)
--Hohner Pocket Pal (name of the harmonica) (perverted)
--tongueing (perverted)
--blow (perverted)
--tongue slapping (perverted)
--covering 4 holes with your mouth (perverted)
and a ton of other things - it was a rad, crazy, shotgun class - as in, playmesomeharmonicabluesrightnow kind of class.

Wenis and I were cracking up - a lot - to the annoyance of the instructor, who even said "there's no laughing in the blues" or something to that effect. (I actually think that particular sentence is "there's no crying in baseball" but it's the same thing really.) Even now, hours and hours later, "tongueing" and "tongue slapping the holes" are just way. too. funny. Or we're just twelve-year-old boys. The class was filled with some interesting folk...one dude who looked like he was in an 80s hair band, in the 80s, and had bleached his hair, in the 80s, and it was just now growing out. I guess this dude has also taken this particular instructor's class a ton of times, causing the instructor to say "I think he's stalking me." An older woman, probably in her 70s, who couldn't really hear and kept "noodling" with her harmonica when the instructor told us to knock it off (essentially). A lady next to me who was blowing too hard on her harp (that's what we musicians call a harmonica) and it was squeaking so badly...and she blamed it on me.

In all seriousness, it was a super fun class, the two hours flew by, and I really want to learn how to play this thing. It's REALLY difficult. Really, really, really difficult - not what I expected at all. I'm going to find another class and keep this up - I hope to anyway. Hey, invite me over. I'll bust out my C harmonica and play you some blues. It'll be especially helpful if you could provide a back up band and if the guitar player could only play in the key of A, D, or G, you see, those are the only keys where my C harp will sound good. I ain't buyin' another one.

Cheers to learning new things!