Master Of None

The last six or seven years has afforded me the opportunity to start plunging down various technological rabbit holes with regards to adobe products. Somewhere along the line I discovered that I did not like making movies, or editing video whatsoever. At least not in a long form fashion. I did discover, however, that I did like being able to retreat to editing the aspects of a single moment in time. Take for instance the picture I have uploaded here – – a take on a modern Mary Poppins. I called it in formally “arriving too late to save Mr. Banks”

Anyway, I said all that to simply say that I have an entire Instagram page dedicated to these endeavors. My hope is you will follow me there and find it interesting.

@gieseckelab

Note: My father passed from this earth in July of 2005. I distinctly remember my first thanksgiving without him. The following was written shortly after that, with as much contemplative gratitude as I had within me. Perhaps it touches a chord as well . . .

Tomorrow at 5:00 AM, It will be four months to the day that I lost my father to cancer. I had a feeling last Thanksgiving, that I was looking at my dad across the holiday table for the last time.

I was right.

Due to some employment constraints on my part, as well, as some plain old logistical difficulty, we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner on Monday evening. Everything was normal overall, with the addition of an emotional assent to how much we all wished dad were here one last time. My dad was a restless soul, and my wife’s observations about his absence on one of the holiday deficits that will now be the most obvious: that wherever my dad was on Thanksgiving, he always managed to be wandering around the kitchen, chatting with whomever was cooking, and just plain getting in the way in the fashion that loveable old lugs manage to do so well.

How I would have paid millions to have my dad holding up the wheels of culinary progress, forcing my wife to jokingly threaten to run him over one last time. How I would have also paid millions, if it would have at least enshrouded the incremental knots of pain in my mother’s face, as the holiday realizations washed over the clock—all without my father—her husband. And no amount of ambient room chatter was going to change it.

I started thinking about the last two days in my father’s life. Those memories—the one’s where family members became strangers, enemies, and opaque silhouettes—The one’s that recall the fear of falling, the contortions of pain—believe it or not, still have some high points.

I arrived out at the house, and to his deathbed. The medications, along with his metabolic breakdowns had cajoled an otherwise meek man into a sometimes-belligerent stranger. I remember distinctly two conversations I had with him. The first was a bit adversarial—to start.

“Dad, I’m here.”

Dad looks over at me, gives me a once over, and says “so what?”

“Dad, you’re little granddaughters are here.”

“I don’t care,” said my dad, looking away in disgust.

Right about then, my four year old—one of two apples in my father’s eye, ran into the room with that hapless, four-year-old lack of understanding at the impending gravity. I picked her up, and held her over him, so that he was forced to see her.

“Oh yeah, Captain Belligerent? Try being mean to THIS.”

I watched dad, as the realization that Clara was there at Grandpa’s side. I watched as he forced his demeanor, focus, and grandfatherly adoration through the unwieldy veil that had hidden the rest of him from the rest of us.

“Hi Clara,” he said, through the most painful smile ever forged upon that face. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. My daughter made cancer take a back seat, if only for a moment.

As dad inched ever-closer to the precipice, his coherence, ability to communicate, and humanity started to fade. I wanted to speak with my dad one last time about his soul, so that I could again pray with, for, and about him. The in-home hospice visitors said he no longer knew where he was.

I looked straight into my father’s face. His eyes fixed on mine. I thought I saw a momentary window of clarity come across those pupils, and so I silently prayed for a sign that he knew it was me.

“Dad,” I said. “I’m here.”

Dad had this way of nodding with only his eyes, and I was certain I had just seen him do it. The room was calm, and mom had kept the room calmly brimming with familiarity—to include my father’s favorite music lightly playing in the background.

“Dad, “ I said grabbing his hand. “I’m only going to ask you to extend yourself one last time. I just need to know that you know this is Ron talking. If you know it’s me, please squeeze my hand.”

He immediately squeezed with a force that astonished me.

“Okay dad. One more thing,” I said, as he locked his eyes on mine. “I’ve got one more question. After that, I just want you to pray with me in your mind.” I nodded over to the cassette player at the foot of the bed.

“Who’s playing on that radio right now?” I asked him.

With all the accompanying pain, dad struggled to put those parched lips together. I couldn’t believe he’d actually pull it off.

“Dean Martin,” he said.

I almost passed out.

I knew then, that dad and I could talk, even if it was only me doing the talking for our last conversation. Those were his last words to me. We had already exchanged our “I love you’s” earlier. And yet nothing in that transcended the sheer force I felt when I heard the man who brought me into this world fight one last time to converse with me as he left it.

You bet I am thankful. Thankful for Dean Martin.

One of the pillars in my childhood was the pre-Elmo pre-woke Sesame Street on the local public broadcasting channel. And when I reference this, I’m talking about icons of the show that are long gone, or . . . at any rate . . . on the cusp.

That’s not to say Muppet World hasn’t taken me to the edge of my cognitive limits prior to the introduction that appalling Elmo. Miss Piggy was an attention-stealing porcine that had me wanting to introduce her to a spiral-slicer the same way I wanted to film a sequel called Jar Jar Binks And the Wood-Chipper of Mercy.

But enough about my personal traumas with animated diorama dolls. I’m actually trying to write about rock musicians.

This is where Bob from Sesame Street was my favorite guy. He has a section of the show called “Who are the people in your neighborhood?” This included a little sing-along with a little foot-trip down the street–an attempt to reach out an meet people with whom we:

1. may not share any commonality
2. may bridge gaps and maximize these differences.

The lockdown–these hermetically-sealed nightmares that routed lives, livelihood and stagecrafts, also forged something that was essentially survival mode to working musicians: The on-line collaboration.

It works like this:

1. drummer-person makes a song by themselves. they send it by email to Bass Player
2. Bass player records their part, and emails it to guitarist
3. Guitarist complains that his tone “isn’t right” and never completes the project.

Okay, anyway. You get the idea. A song is created over many continents and states, time-lines and competing Mason/Dixon anxieties. Ultimately, a song is created after the vocalist lets fly with their part.

Then this is all mixed, along with video footage provided by each person, which is conflated into a music video–organic to the core.

I’ve seen a ton of these, and I could start with any of them. I’ve already managed to write about Croatian Throatman, Dino Jelusick, and it just so happens that he’s managed to have his overachieving, Slavic mitts involved with the project I’m about to cover here:

Let’s talk about each of these guys, shall we?

The most thing you see is Hammond Beatmaster, Lachy Doley. Not sure what to say about him other than he proves with out a shadow of a doubt that it is entirely possible to reclassify the keys as a percussion instrument. I’d also add the guitar to his list of imitations, but I think that conclusion can be drawn without my help, as his madness on the Whammy Clavinet are obvious without argument. Either way, he’s a monster player, and the first thing I ever heard him do was right here. He’s a monster.

Mike Portnoy is name synonymous with about 83 different bands/projects/offshoots/replacements and triage stand-in gigs in a myriad of bands. And while his name is practically omnipresent as a musician, he still manages to be identified with the one band he hasn’t been in for eleven years.

His current high-point lineups are with the Winery Dogs, Sons of Apollo, and The Neil Morse Band. In two of those bands alone, he gets to be timekeeper over skulking, finger-happy bassist, Billy Sheehan. He’s filled in for so many bands, that it would be easier to simply name the bands he hasn’t played for. And speaking of Muppets, I understand he’s on retainer for the Dr. Teeth band, in the event that Animal winds up with a regional restraining order.

Justin Johnson came to light five our six years ago with the uploading of a single video, of which portrayed him playing a guitar made from a shovel.

Of course, he manages to prove that he has even more nuance than a single video, and his freestyle, and affable approach to music, as well as people,has carried him far. To say that he is as stylistically as far away from the other contributors here is understatement and yet his solo contributions here during the handclap breaks is a complete joy to hear. He is single-handedly inspiring the novice to improve their game, while puzzling the professional with his perfect balance of simplicity and complexity.

Joel Hoekstra plays for Whitesnake.

Okay, its a bit more complex than that. In fact, REALLY complex. He’s playedwith/for so many names, that you best just go over to his bio page and see for yourself. Somebody’s keeping Steve Lukather awake at night, and it aint CC Deville.

And all of this because:

1. Hes an insanely gifted player.
2. ‘He clearly likes his job.

Henrick Linder is a founding member of Dirty Loops, and hails from Sweden, and in an in-demand, premium bassist with a HUGE future. Again, surprise addition from the periphery, which is kind of the idea.

Dino Jelusick has also done something here. Now, I have already written extensively here about the the guy, and his ridiculous vocal acumen. Plus, I invented an alleged felony surrounding my occasional tendency to “not listen to Dino Jelusick”. But something needs to be pointed out.

He’s in Trans-Siberian Orchestra man, what more do you want?

Power? Yes. he has it.

Range? Of course. You try hitting those notes.

But anyone will immediately notice that. What people fail to notice is the descending vocal runs through the song that maintain perfect tonality and equidistant times between the note changes. This is not for the feint of heart. Not many rock singers in the entire world have THAT characteristic. Ronnie James Dio left a lot of dead bodies along the vocal highway long before anyone came along to infuse that kind of power with acrobatic controls.

My advice? Look these men up. They all have something to say. Just like you and me. Perhaps it possible to grab the Sesame Street doctrine, and find some kind of harmony with those we would have other wise never met.

Except for Elmo. To the gallows with him.

Ron Giesecke‘s Instagram is @ronniegiesecke

I have solidified my newest show at the Arts Theater in Cottonwood, Ca.

June 25, 26 & 27.

Tickets can be purchased here:

https://www.eventbrite.com/d/ca–redding/ron-giesecke/?fbclid=IwAR2jfmVk5yTLFayhOFAljg-qHyAFD3JOV3mDXDAEwCuRhQh41qOm-1c12OU