Tilby's Top Ten Things (2009) (in no particular order) (subject to change)

Tilby's Top Ten Things (2009) (in no particular order) (subject to change)

1.  Favorite new food:  Onion rings.  Has the world forgotten?  Has the potato finally edged out the onion once and for all?  I protest.  Please, reconsider the onion ring.

2.  Favorite Mexican Place:  Jimmy Johns.  Man, that's a good torta.

3.  Favorite way to find music:  Pandora.  Sometimes, I feel like nobody knows me like Pandora, my dear friend.  I told you never to call me here!  What's that?  I love you too. No, she can never know...

4.  Favorite place to record:  My spare bedroom.  I know, I know - what gear?  What vibe?  What acoustic treatment?  Well, consider this:  playing in your underwear.  Top that.

5.  Favorite instrument:  Givens Mandolin.  This is its seventeenth year with me, and I think we are finally getting each other.  It likes light notes, big intervals, and we finally agree on a pick.

6.  Favorite band:  Karate ('Unsolved' is a good album to start with).  Something to say, a cool way to say it, a trio (bonus points in my book), and Geoff is a helluva guitar player to boot.

7.  Favorite band:  The Bad Plus ('For All I Care [with Wendy Lewis]' is a good album to start with.  Amazing feel, interpretation, killer ideas, and Reid Anderson is a helluva bassist to boot.

8.  Favorite Podcast:  Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.  One of the few things in life that just makes me laugh out loud, now that W. is out of the lime-light.

9.  Favorite New Gear:  D.R. "Jonas Hellborg" signature piano-wound bass strings.  Kinda tough on the fingers, but they sound killer and the tension is perfect on a short-scale bass.  Plus, his name is Hellborg.

10.  Aspirations for 2010:  The photo accompanying this entry is pretty much the happiest thing I could think of.  I think the world will most likely look like this by the end of 2010.

Things I Assume about People

I decided when I was young that people are basically good, and to operate on that assumption unless I had a pretty good reason not to.  With very few exceptions, that has been the right way to go.

Unfortunately, one of those exceptions was just recently, an instance which has no real relevance to this journal entry other than this:  It made me sit and think for a while about what I assume about people, and whether or not I should keep assuming it.

First, there’s the whole “people are basically good” assumption.  I’m sticking to it, in spite of the fact that there appear to be people in the world who are basically bad.  Those people are the smallest possible minority, and unfortunately receive a large portion of the lime-light, based, I believe, on the fact that the “basically good” people have a strange fascination with the “basically bad” and reward them with inordinate amounts of attention (cough, cough, main-stream-media-cough).

The second thing I regularly assume about people, often to my detriment, is that they know what they’re talking about.  I’m starting to believe that less and less as I get older, and don’t ask me to put a percentage to it, but I’m working on a rough ratio:  The more someone insists they know what they’re talking about, the less they probably do.  In my experience, the people who know the most about whatever it is they are talking about, say the least.  I like that “take-it-or-leave-it” approach, and if it’s not a big thing, I like people who say their piece and then let me work it out for myself.  It seems I prefer to learn most things for myself anyway (i.e. the hard way).

On a related assumption, I often assume that other people want to know what I think, and based on how much of what other people tell me is of interest to me, I’m gonna have to say that I probably talk too much.  I’m working on that. Well, not so much that I’m not writing this journal entry, but working on it nonetheless.

Another common assumption seems to be that the louder someone’s opinion is, the more correct it must be.  Without pointing fingers at “conservative” “talk” show “personalities”, I’ll say this:  Being louder does not make you right. I’m not saying you’re wrong, by any means, I’m just saying your wrong-or-right-ness is independent of your volume.  Incidentally, I believe it’s the listeners duty to fact-check what you hear.  You wouldn’t believe what people will say, and what the rest will believe.

One of my biggest heroes is best known for His peaceful, understanding, quiet approach to instruction, and I’m a big fan of that.  Maybe that’s just me.

Let’s see, what other awkward things can I say…

 I assume that if other people were educated on the things I like, they would like them too.  That holds mostly true for music, which is why I’m always suggesting listening material to my friends.

The trick seems to be this: other people liking or not liking, agreeing or not agreeing, heeding or not heeding, is all independent of whether or not we can get along and be friends.  The magic seems to lie in being a good person, and doing your best to help your fellow man, because odds are, they are basically good.   Or at least so I assume.