THE PENCIL NEVER LIES: THIS CREED IS MY COVER LINE

EDGAR

To begin I'll explain my (snappy) title:  My pencil always draws the truth, and my pencil never lies (personification) is my cover line.  I draw covers of a person’s actual visage (similar in sense to a cover band covering the original artist’s song) and all drawings are a collection of lines, including my pun of the one-liner creed.

My friend, Jack, who is also a portrait artist, offered me this gem:  People don’t know what they look like.  It’s true.  People don’t know what they look like.  For people with triple chins I tighten their jaw lines.  For people with hair that is thin I add volume.  For fat cheeks I change chubby to middling.  For frowns I draw grins.

ASHLYN

EMILY

The pencil never lies because I tend to draw what I think my models want to see; but enough of me and my pencil portraits!

In shaggy-dog story fashion I am switching themes according to three lines of late that have stopped me to reflect upon life and especially, my life.

• Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

• Your left hand is what you know; your right hand is who you are. 

• There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.

• Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth (Mike Tyson). This is a literal line for Mike but a metaphor for the rest of us (who are not boxers).

Always and whenever someone does get punched in the mouth it is an issue of relationships.  Relationships shape our lives, to the point of interpersonal relationships are what really control corporate America, financial and political affiliations relying upon human relationships.

Connecting to fellow humans is the foundation to a fulfilling life.  We, being gregarious beings, need to always seek and find our tribe both at work and at play.  Coffee times and lunch times, we tend to gather with our comfort folk, sit in the same seats and discuss the same ol’ tried-and-true themes.   

Recreation time we congregate with the same playmates, be they band mates on the stage or team mates on the ice, they, too, are those who have credibility in our comfort zones, the ones with whom we’ve rehearsed these same scenarios time after time.

In my line of work I only see people who believe they have personal problems.  As a hypnotherapist my bread-and-butter clients are mostly those wanting to lose weight and those wanting to quit smoking.  (Of course I’ve other clients with sleep and sexual issues and such, but I’ll focus just on the two to make my point.)  

These, not-so-strangely, maladies can be directly related to interpersonal relationships.  Of course, they always are presented as being physical health issues, but being obese and having a chronic cough are certainly health issues but have cause enough to also have impacted their social lives.  I believe that any new clients that I meet are so desperate that the idea of seeking a hypnotherapist is typical a strategy of last resort.

Nobody likes being physically fat; nobody likes being a smoker.

I do not have to get into the media admiration for the svelte and the fit; I do not have to get into being the outcast or pariah for the non-participants of the purportedly positive media trends.

From my professional point of view, food and nicotine addicts mainly want to change because they want to fit in (pun intended) socially.  Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.  For these clients, they are just sick of being punched in the mouth.  Their health issues are secondary.  I believe that if people were really thinking their health issues would kill them, they would change (everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth); whereas social issues, everyone knows, offer lots of ground-hog days, always lots of opportunity for redemption.

In shaggy-dog fashion I’ll switch themes again.

• Your left hand is what you know; your right hand is who you are. 

All guitar-slingers know this.  Lately I’ve been practicing percussion techniques on my twelve-string.  My guitar thrumming is limited when I compare my skills to those of my guitar buddies with whom I frequently share the stage.  I only thrum chords.  I only play chords, but I do have a frail technique that is akin and yet opposite to that of banjo players.  When banjo players frail they strum down the strings, when I frail I strum up the strings.  People in the know (fellow guitar slingers and guitar instructors) have stated that my strumming style is like a frail.  All state that my style is unique; no one else in my orbit has a strum technique even similar to mine.

(Now if I could simply add some credible percussion whilst I strum, I’d be set for the immediate time being.)

But one talent that I have that has most certainly enhanced my busking is the ability to blow my harp while I thrum my guitar.  (This skill will suffice to compensate my lack of right-hand percussion skills on the guitar.)  

Whenever I busk on the street or gig on a stage, I always have both guitar and harmonica.  I should say, I have my guitar and my three harmonicas (a C, a G, and an Am).  And how do I know which harmonica to play with what song?  It is so simple for me but is seems complicated for the masses.  Just the other day a customer at my favorite guitar shop was inquiring what harp to buy for her guitar playing adult son.  They really didn’t have an authoritative answer and so referred her to me.  I was flattered but it did confirm that even guitar sales people don’t really know. 

Factoid:  Few people who play guitar also play harmonica, never mind at the same time. 

Factoid:  Few people who play guitar can actually, too, play harmonica, and so it is little wonder few people know the nuances and subtleties of matching the guitar songs to the key of the harmonica. 

Factoid: Of course my argument is based upon most guitar and harmonica players are neither trained nor interested in music theory.  Any music conservatory student would know the chord and key relationships, but those strumming folk are few and far between in my busking and bar stage circle.) 

And here it is, my very own limpid guitar-and-harp chart complete with two mnemonic guidelines to show all you really need to know about matching a harp to a guitar, hopefully being the quintessential bailiwick for all of you Bobby Dylan wannabees:  

GUITAR TO HARP AND HARP TO GUITAR:  A MNEMONIC TONIC

IN ABECEDARIAN FASHION, HERE IS THE MNEMONIC TONIC FOR PLAYING THE RIGHT HARP FOR YOUR GUITAR SONGS:

KEY TO GUITAR SONG ... THEN THE MATCHING KEY FOR THE HARP
(MNEMONIC … GUITAR PLUS 4 … AND THERE ARE 4 LETTERS IN THE WORD HARP)

KEY TO THE HARP … THEN KEY TO MATCH THE GUITAR SONG

(MNEMONIC … HARP PLUS 5 … AND THERE ARE 5 LETTERS IN THE WORD, GUIT-R)

GUITAR KEY to HARP KEY (+4 letters)     HARP KEY to GUIT-R (+5 letters)

1           2          3           4                                 1           2          3           4          5

E          F          G          A                                A          B          C          D        E         

A          B          C          D                                D          E          F          G         A

G          A          B          C                                C          D          E          F         G

C          D          E          F                                 F          G          A          B         C

F          G          A          B                                 B          C          D          E         F

In summary … if you’re playing guitar in the key of G and want the harp to match, remember that the word, HARP, has four letters and therefore add four letters in abecedarian fashion (up four letters in the alphabet … G A B C) to determine that the C harp is the one to match.

Also in summary, if you’re playing a C harp and want to know the guitar key which will fit, remember that the made-up word, guit-r, has five letters and therefore go up five letters (C D E F G) in the alphabet to determine G as the key to match. 
*[And so ... up four letters from guitar to HARP ... and up five letters from harp to GUIT-R.]                                                                                                    

• There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in (Kate Levinson Ph.D). 

At my age, as I reflect upon my life to date, I’ve decided that probably all of us need daily doses of wonder to discontinue our pedestrian fashions of being gerbils on wheels or rats in cages. (Rodent metaphors, disgusting as they are, best make my point.)  None of us will ever travel our unique and rather adventurous path unless we grope to find some cracks of light in our semi-darkened, starless and quaggy lifestyle.  

There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in … 

is my new favorite existential expression!

Moving on from existentialism to those marching and skating in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

 

L-R: SELF, BRAD HORNUNG, DOUG SAUTER

This picture was taken by KEVIN GALLANT, former radio voice of the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League (WHL).  During the WHL game yesterday, Regina Pats vs. Moose Jaw Warriors, I was in the company of National Hockey League scout, BRAD HORNUNG, and former maverick professional hockey coach, DOUG SAUTER.

 

BACKYARD HOCKEY RINK

Former Western Hockey League player, RANDY DUROVICK, who still has the hockey in his heart, constructed this rink for his grandchildren in their family backyard.