Will Maranto's World

Something Elemental

One of the most obvious influences on many songwriters is Bob Dylan.  There are few facets of modern music that Dylan hasn't touched on over the last 47 or so years, so no matter what kind of writer or performer you are, you can probably find something that you got from Dylan, unless of course you've really never listened to the guy.  Even if you've never liked Dylan, there's a near-100% chance that one of the people you do channel was influenced by him. 

I do like Dylan and I find that there are many things old Bob has done that have inspired me.  One that I've rarely heard talked about by others, though, is the rhythmic vocal delivery that he uses.  I posted "Subterranean Homesick Blues" above to highlight his skills in this arena.  Even that statement is probably somewhat flawed since Dylan practically built a good portion of said arena.  

Rap music is something that I gravitated to before I had ever learned about Bob Dylan.  I liked all the mid-80's acts that broke into the mainstream.  Run-DMC, LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys are still super-cool in my opinion.  It's amazing to see that, from a vocal standpoint, Dylan was doing the same thing in 1965.  Certainly there are earlier examples: Chuck Berry's "Come On" comes to mind.

Another of my favorites is Bob Schneider.  Check out "40 Dogs"

I suppose the point of all this is to point out the greatness of a percussive melody in songs.  And to say that Bob Dylan is still the man.  

/stream of consciousness

Oldy But A Goody

So today Molly and I are cleaning out a couple of the bedrooms in the East Wing of the Maranto fortress.  In the midst of all the mind-numbing labor, I happened upon something that I hadn't seen in a long time: The classic paperback I discovered around 1995 - "Your Guide To Slide: The Slacker's Guide to College."

I thought I'd take a few lines on Ye Olde Blog to post some key passages.  

The Big Lie:

Parents' and teachers' ideas about things can really mess you up.  (Bet you knew that already.) For instance, the vast majority of parents and teachers believe that to "succeed," you need a degree from a "good" college.  I bought into this idea and went to a solid university with a good academic reputation.  Four years later, armed with a degree, I'm still wondering what that reputation will do for me.  

After I graduated, I had a major surprise.  My new employer offered me a job for fairly decent cash, and he never once:

1) Asked about my college; 2) Asked to see my diploma.

Would he be paying more if I'd gone to Yale or Harvard?

Being from the South, I'm not sure that most parents think you have to go to a snooty school, but I assure you that the state colleges I attended were more than adequate to get me where I am.  And I'm not nearly as in-debt as some of peers from medical school!

Another classic:

The First Rule of dealing with advisors: Don't ask your advisor, Tell Your Adviser. (Your advisor won't always give you the path of least resistance when selecting courses and professors who will make it easy for you to survive and flourish).

The Second Rule of dealing with advisors: Don't get locked into a course based on your advisor's recommendation.  This could lead to disaster. (Your advisor doesn't have or won't give you the information you really need)

The Third Rule of dealing with advisors: Remember who's Boss.  ("There is no such thing as a closed course")

And one of my favorites:

Never work for minimum wage.  This does not mean that you should never take a job that pays minimum wage, it only means that no such job that you accept should actually require you to work.  

Ok, as King Slacker (and those of you who doubt my credentials on this title have no idea what it is to actually be a slacker of the highest order), I bit you a good night.

Acoustic Gypsy Reprise @ Bear's Friday

We had a great time Friday at the Naked Bean.  Kenny, Wes and I really felt "on" Friday, so we're naturally excited about another chance to perform acoustic.  We first played Bear's in September and we had so much fun that we wanted to do it again soon.  So we're playing this Friday 11/13/09 at 9:00 pm.  Come out and join the excitement!  We're also playing an electric show at Bear's the day after Christmas - but more on that show later.

Will

PS: It was an interesting prospect to play for some of the Byrd students that were at the Naked Bean.  Since we mostly play in clubs, it feels strange to play to people who are in their teens.  Talk about an unknown quantity - thankfully they dug us.  This is a time when not pandering, but just putting your heart and soul into your music will save your butt.

Quick Hit

This Saturday night, I watched the cable news shows in mild disbelief.  The US House of Representatives had just passed the Democrat party's 2000 page, $1.2 trillion (projected) healthcare reform bill.  Deep down I guess I hoped that my countrymen would be wiser than to pass such an obviously harmful piece of legislation.  But I was disappointed.

It did get me thinking, though. If my brain is computing this correctly, our Congress is asking that healthcare:

• Creep toward becoming a right of all people
• Demand higher standards of the hospitals and doctors
• Do the above while "not raising the deficit."  
• Provide the current level of service while cutting $500 billion dollars from its own budget.

While I've avoid the obvious approach of complaining about how this is a bad idea, I'll instead go along with President Obama.  In fact, I think we need to apply this to many other facets of life.  Maybe we should provide every child their own personal teacher, raise the expectations upon those teachers and cut the pay of said teachers.

Why stop with doctors, nurses and teachers?  Doesn't the constitution actually provide some basis for the right to legal representation (unlike the other two examples above)?  By this rational, lawyers should all be governmental employees.  If you need a lawyer, you should be appointed one regardless of how the lawyer does or does not get paid, right?  And whatever attorneys currently get paid, couldn't we just cut that so as to make this a deficit-neutral provision?  This socialism stuff is addictive!

Hey, your profession could be next.  But don't worry, we Americans have unlimited amounts of cash right?  I mean you can always tax the rich more, right?

An Acoustic Evening With The Gypsies

So this Friday Wes, Kenny and I are playing the second of three acoustic shows we booked this fall.  This time we're playing at a new venue for us, The Naked Bean.  Located just south of Byrd High on Line Ave., it's near one of my teenage stomping grounds.  In fact, I remember spending a lot of time looking out the window of Byrd toward the old stores that are connected to where this shop is now.  Daydreaming was cool and it sure beat the bat-snot out of freshman English.

As I've mentioned before, I really like playing acoustic from time to time.  We're going to use throw in some new songs too.  I honestly don't know when/how we're going to make the next record, but we should certainly have a ton of material to choose from.  When I look back at some of the songs that have been grouped together on Lost Letters and Roadhouse Quintessential I see patterns and lyrical undercurrents running between songs.  I'm seeing that again in these songs too and it's exciting.  It's probably beyond the scope of this post, but this is but one of the possible fingerprints of the divine on songwriting and the craft of making music.  More on that another time...

So if you're more into caffeine than alcohol (like me) or you just want to hear some good acoustic music, come out and see us at the Naked Bean.  We're playing from 8-10 pm and the cover is $5.  

    3307 Line Avenue
    Shreveport, LA 71104

Halloween Fun

Tonight Molly, Ben and I made the trick or treating rounds of the neighborhood. It is really cool to watch your 3 year-old get into the whole ghost, goblin and candy routine. I did end up carrying my little astronaut about a third of the way, but he did great and we had fun.

I was also struck by how nice all my neighbors are. Not that I ever thought bad of them, but it's nice to see so many friendly faces & genuinely warm folks.

Also in a strange turn of events, I ran into Mrs. Rice, my first grade teacher. She was just as sweet as I remembered and she remembered me. It's been 28 years since she was my teacher. Good Lord!

On one further Halloween-related note, I'm really missing the old Art Bell "Ghost to Ghost" call in show. There's something enthralling about people telling stories about their experiences with hauntings in the middle of the night. This program still airs but Mr. Bell is retired. If you're curious, you can probably find this show airing after midnight tonight on your local AM talk radio station (710 KEEL for example).

Boo to you all!

Helpful Halloween goodness

I love the Onion.  Kirk Saucier showed me this yesterday and I felt it was too good not to post on ye olde blog.

How To Find A Masculine Halloween Costume For Your Effeminate Son

Back tomorrow with actual content!

Medical Wonderfulness

So I'm on the Facebook, where I can frequently be found hiding between patients.  My lovely and talented wife messages me the following:

"I thought you'd be interested to know that AOL is running an article called, "7 Women's Autoimmune Problems that Doctors Miss."  It will make you feel warm and fuzzy all over.

1.PCOS

2.Fibromyalgia

3. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

4. Lupus

5. MS

6. RA

7. IBS

I'm sure you are glad this is in the news"

Oh yes, I'm glad articles like that are out there.  And while I'm sure that the person that wrote that article is as sweet as they are insightful, it does not make me happy to see.

I ask you, what are you supposed to take away from this article?  I would guess that the desired effect is to make you consider that your physician is incompetent and that you "know better what's wrong with [your] body" than your doctor does.  While I seriously doubt that statement is true in most cases, I get to hear it at least once per week.

I think it misses a key element in the nature of the physician's role in patient care.  When a patient comes to me, they are coming to ask my opinion and advice regarding their health or any ailments they may be having.  The above "article" would suggest that if you're having vague symptoms, then your physician is CLEARLY missing a vague or rare diagnosis.  More often than not, your physician is considering one or all of the above diagnoses (as appropriate), but you may not have anything like that.

Allow me to give you more common alternate diagnoses that can mask the above:

1.PCOS - You have diabetes (I'm not aware that PCOS is an autoimmune disorder).

2.Fibromyalgia - You are depressed and crave narcotics.

3. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - You are depressed.

4. Lupus - You read too much on the internet and you crave narcotics.

5. MS - I can't think of anything sarcastic to say here.

6. RA - You have osteoarthritis and crave narcotics.

7. IBS - You are depressed and you channel your underlying issues into abdominal complaints (wait, that is the definition of IBS).

No, I don't mean all that literally.  But, thank you AOL for bringing down this wrath upon me from my patients!

A New Website

Well, if I'm anything, I'm methodical.  That's really just a nice way of saying that I'm good at making plans and working toward them.  It does not imply that I'm necessarily speedy at accomplishing my goals, just that I keep moving toward them. 

On that note, I've been meaning to get a website together for several years now.  While I did make several stabs at it, I never did any of the heavy lifting on my end to get things done.  One of the big hang ups there is that I'm very uncomfortable bragging about myself.  I don't think that's unique to me, but it certainly does make it difficult to put together a site that pumps your skillz as an artist. 

So what finally made me able to get the Will Maranto website up and running was the help and hard work of a whole host of people.  First and foremost, Mrs. Kerry Branton Faler who put the site together (and put up with a rather demanding and flighty artiste type).  I had been wholly impressed with my old friend's blogging and website skills and I suspected she could do a good job with the site.  I was right.A number of other folks made big contributions too.  My lovely wife and partner in crime, Molly, suffered through a chronology of my musical projects and put together the section of the site that I could least bring myself to construct: the dreaded bio.  Also, numerous photographers' work is used on the site (including Bre Garcia, Kelly Cathey, Rachel James and Molly Maranto). 

Thanks to everyone who put in the hours on this project.On a more typical note for my blog, let me tell you about showing the new site to my nurse, Jan.  For those of you unfamiliar with Jan, check out my post about her from last year.  Anyway, I showed Jan the site and she promptly missed all the links and just stared at the splash page for about a minute.  Then she clicked over to my blog before losing interest.  I enjoyed this to no end.  It was a monkeys-worshiping-the-monolith moment ("back in my day, we had party lines!" etc.).

More soon.

A trip back in time

So last night after working until 7 pm at the FunFest that is First Care, the Mrs. and I went to eat at the El Chico here in Bossier City (the one at Old Minden Road and I-20 for those of you following along at home).  I haven't eaten at this restaurant much in the last decade, so it was a bit unusual for us to break away from our usual Trejo's/Nicky's routine.  But we did and the food was good. 

This kind of got me thinking about life when I was growing up in the late 80's/early 90's.  In those days you didn't have the deluge of Mexican restaurants we have now in the Ark-La-Tex.  I remember El Chico, of course.  There was also Trejo's, but only the original location by the west entrance to Barksdale AFB.  I hadn't really been to it at that time, though I heard a lot about it from my friend Bryan Copeland (his dad liked to refer to it as Three Joe's).  But we certainly didn't have 10-20 different chains and mom and pop enchilada joints.

In keeping with the surreal, lost-in-time theme of the evening, we ventured to Pierre-Bossier Mall.  I was informed by Molly that the mall is now the home of the only maternity clothes store in B-town.  So mall bound were we.  When we pulled up at about 8 pm, the place was pretty quiet.  We snuck in the entrance that faces I-20 like Molly and I used to back in the day.  I'll always think that side of the mall would be a good place to get mugged or picked off by a sniper.  But I'm fairly eccentric/insane like that.

So we walk in and Molly hits the Motherhood store.  Since I'm wildly antisocial, I decide to scope out the rest of the place.  I was relieved to find that there was still a bookstore in the place, so I walk in and start scoping out the guitar magazines.  I'm not really the target audience for these magazines, but I always enjoy putting up the parascope to see what the six-string press is up to. 

A solid 90% of the articles in guitar mags have no relevance to me.  I'm not interested in death metal, I don't head-bang and I'm not interested in playing like Joe Satriani, E. Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen or Dimebag Darrell.  But I do find a nice piece on the guitar sound of the Beatles from 1967-1970.  It was an interesting read, but that only ate up five minutes.  It is the soul of understatement to say that Molly cannot try on new clothes in less than 45 minutes.

I go to the only record store and look around a bit.  With iTunes, I rarely buy physical CDs anymore. I look around, hoping to see a boxed set or something that looks interesting.  They've still got the Rod Stewart Storyteller boxed set (damn good - way better than hearing him do standards).  I look around at the George Harrison bin just to see what they have (the latest "Best of" and the Concert for Bangladesh) and the Tom Petty section.  They have no Tom Petty.  This reminds me of high school, when Full Moon Fever was king to me.  I was so intereseted in Petty and all things Wilbury.  Of course the stores had very little of the back catalog then either.

So it's time to walk the damn mall and scope out the scene.  This is not entirely uninteresting.  Afterall, I spent a fair amount of my teenage years going to the bookstore and movie theater at this place.  Many of the stores have changed since, say, 1990.  What stuck with me the most is how much it felt similar.

Back in my teen years (perhaps like most of you, dear readers) I didn't feel to connected to my fellow man.  So I remember walking through malls back in the day not wanting to interract with anyone.  That's certainly better these days.  I mean, I have the tools to interact with people (and use mind control on them as necessary) but I still don't want to.  So walking around the mall, mostly devoid of people, feels similar to being a young punk back in the day.

I also note as I'm seeing my reflection in the glass of the Hallmark store that I even sort of resemble the old Will Maranto.  I've got long hair again (actually about the same as when I was a senior in at Byrd) and I still feel disconnected from my fellow man.  Boy have I moved on.

So after a few revolutions around the universe that is the Mall (and yes, I hate people with no shopping agenda - like myself), I finally see that Molly has made her way to the checkout.  Two bags of clothes to lug out to the car.  Onward we go.  I definitely did not carry bags of maternity clothes to SUVs in the late 80's.