Fun 101 and control

Body surfing (on purpose) down a flight of stairs, probably not the best idea I've had lately. I vastly under-estimated the coefficient of friction on carpeted stairways for one thing.

When and if I try that again (likely more when than if actually) perhaps I could put down plastic sheeting, strip down to my underwear and cover myself with canola oil.

Yep, that would handle the friction coefficient problem. Stopping? Naw, trust me? When body surfing down a flight of stairs you can stop on a dime. You just don't get to control where the "dime" is, that's all.

I'm evolving to a grudging co-existence with my inability to control some things, but it's always at best going to be a kind of Cuban Missle crisis standoff type relationship. My lack of posterior padding for example. So far, that's the worst thing I've identified about stairway body surfing. For the next week or so, I'll be sitting down really really slowly. Strangers think I've really bad hemorrhoids probably.

This is the first thing everybody needs to know about Fun 101. Worrying a lot about what strangers will think can be a serious detriment to having fun. Oddly, for some reason that's never been a problem for me. What I think about is control.

That's why I'll never be a great musician. Oh yeah, once I had above average technique. But technique is great in surgery or engineering; art, not so good. The greatest artists bond with their medium in some mystical way and let it take them somewhere. I could never do that! I don't want to be taken anywhere unless I know exactly where we're going and when will I be back, cause "Dr. G. Medical Examiner" comes on tonight, and I dig that show!

When I take a guitar in my hands, I've a sound outcome in mind and I wish to control the instrument. I have a sense that Franz Liszt or Stevie Ray Vaughn weren't like that. They were able to have reveries with their art.

Best I can hope for is to successfully wrestle with my instrument. The great ones dance with their instruments. I should sit down and think about that, sometime very soon. I will sit down really, really slowly.