BEST LAID PLANS OFTEN GO AWRY

This is what I like to tell people: the best laid plans often to awry.

At least that’s what I’d tell them if they asked.

No one has really asked, but I’ve heard talk that sounded like complaining, which deserves a solid answer.

You had plans? Well, now you know, the best laid plans often to awry.

Robert Burns said it differently in 1785:

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble

Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!

Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,

          But house or hald,

To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,

          An’ cranreuch cauld!

 

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

 

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

          On prospects drear!

An’ forward tho’ I canna see,

          I guess an’ fear!

 

What’s He Saying?

Robert Burns is saying the same thing Scott Fitzgerald said at the end of the Great Gatsby:

 

Fitzgerald’s novel is not about a story. It is about how the story is told.

Its poetry, its message, its evocation of Gatsby’s lost American dream, is expressed in Fitzgerald’s style—in the precise words he chose to write what some consider the great American novel.

Unless you have read them, you have not read the book at all.

 

What did Scott say:

 

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

 

What he meant to say:

 

By the end of The Great Gatsby, everyone is either dead or disillusioned (or should be). Gatsby is dead. The Wilsons are dead.

Daisy and Tom are still rich and have gotten away with their destructive ways, but they are in a loveless marriage marred by infidelity.

In the end, Nick reveals the American Dream to be illusive. And yet, like Hamlet, the ending is emotionally fulfilling because it expresses a profound truth that resonates with readers (at least after they’ve read it a few times.

 

My Plans: Write, Sweat, And Jam

This is the writing part of the program.

After I post this link on twitter and Facebook like a good little blogger, it’s off with the dog for a good stretch in the park.

Yesterday was writing, baby sprinkle (#2’s rule), then a guitar jam.

It used to be simple in single life times.

 

Me: Let’s play some geetar.

Them: I’ll head over.

Me: Or your place?

Them: I’m already on the way.

 

Add wives, kids, their wives and kids, events, parties, drinking, smoking, cussing, and good luck.

Yesterday I scheduled my #1 and #1A for jam times.

#1 got caught in the undertow of grandkids on three fronts; 1A had two baby sprinkles with his wife and family.

To make up for an anticipated short jam of one song for three hours, I had a sober Saturday going when I got word from #1.

No jam. Waaaaaaa.

So, on the way home I made a beer run for me and 1A. Then the second call: No jam.

But jammers gonna jam.

I tuned up by getting a lift in, taking a sauna, and cracking a Proper Pilsner followed by a German beer called Hell.

I plugged the looper into the amp, with my bass plugged into the tuner plugged to the overdrive pedal plugged to the looper, to the amp.

This is the new shit.

I played bass until I got a thumb blister. My wife came in and kissed me goodnight.

I switched to guitar and a chorus amp and played the same songs I’d done on bass.

The key is the drum machine in the looper. Be. On. Time.

 

PS:

’tis better to plan and have them go awry than to not plan at all.

 

PSS:

If you’re lucky enough to have guitar player #1, AND guitar player #1A, stay sharp.