Throwback Thursday from August 2015

Throwback Thursday from August 2015

Chainsaws And Britney Spears At 8 AM

SOMETIMES THE WORLD PLAYS TRICKS on me – Which is only fair because sometimes I play tricks on it. But this morning the world really had me flummoxed.

At about 8 AM I started hearing one of our neighbors firing up a chain saw. It would whine for a minute, stop, and then start up again.

“What is he doing over there,” I mumbled to myself? “It must be important for him to start that noise this early.”

I had not had my coffee yet, so my unfueled brain began to speculate about his motives. The fact that I’ve been reading a lot of Mystery Novels lately might have played into it as well.

I finally narrowed it down to two possible motives:

1. He is cutting down a tree three inches at a time.

Or

2. He is cutting up and disposing of a corpse.

What else could it be?

See what I mean about the world playing tricks?

I suppose that I could have gone out into the backyard and peeked through the shrubbery to actually see what he was doing, but that would take the mystery out of it. Of course, if option #2 turned out to be correct my snooping could also result in me becoming either a witness or the need to refuel his chainsaw.

I was relying totally on sound to make my decisions and sounds can certainly be deceiving. Just watch “American Idol” with your eyes wide opened. With all of the special lighting effects, Costuming, Makeup, and Camera work, you might be convinced that you are seeing the Next Big Thing.

Now try it with your eyes closed.

I tried that and I was sure that one contestant was being Waterboarded and another was about to have her appendix burst.

About a year ago a professional sound technician who worked on the Britney Spears Concert Tour posted to the Web Britney’s actual isolated microphone track. It was not pretty. One critic said that it sounded,”Like she was beating a baby with a cat.” But to the live audience, that was screaming and hearing about 25 tracks of backup singers, musicians, and God know what else, heard something very similar to what they would have heard if they had played Britney’s CD. I suspect that Britney’s microphone was not turned up too high.

 I think that if the audience had heard only the track from Britney’s live microphone they would have still been screaming, but for a different reason.

I’m not going to post a link to that soundtrack. I have standards – they’re low, but they’re mine.

If you really want to hear it, go get a ten year old kid to show you how to Google it. Don’t blame me if you start to bleed from the ears.

So, here I sit, safe and secure in the corner at St. Arbucks, typing away. I’m debating with myself if, when I go home after the obligatory stop at Kroger’s, I should put my complete lack of espionage training to work and crawl through the backyard on my belly to see what the dude with the chainsaw is up to.

I’ll try to be very surreptitious and avoid detection, but if he spots me I’ll have to have a good reason for crawling around like that. Hmmmm?

“Hi, neighbor. I’m innocently crawling around here gathering up some Cicadas for dinner tonight – Creamed Chipped Cicada on Toast. It’s even better the second day. Shall I save you some?”

“Plausible Deniability” – that’s all I need – that and a five second head start.

That chainsaw of his must weigh fifteen pounds. That might offset my complete inability to run faster than Gov. Christie of New Jersey.

I can make it.

If I don’t – it’s been nice knowing you.

Single Post Navigation

← Older Entry

Newer Entry →