I personally struggled this past weekend, so I know many others have to be. Performance may be far away, if at all. It has been difficult to approach my rig in the past weeks. I have to force myself to get back to it. The same goes with my plan to work on my house.
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I am ashamed to just lurk from times to times here since the pandemic. My priorities at the times are trying to help partners in Africa and being almost away from music, I feel your painā¦ but please @Corky, all the people you mentioned and everybody in this great community, hold tight! Your knowledge, creativity, kindness and talent are truly inspirational!
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@Corkyā¦first offā¦thanks for the thanksā¦I may not have much to offer, but I do what I can when I can. For a guy who was gigging as much as you, I can truly understand how affecting it can be. Personally, my duo split up about 3-4 weeks before this became such a huge issue, so I was shut down for a different reason. My partner/guitarist took a cruise ship gig for āmucho dineroā and ended up being shut down because of what happened to the cruise industry, and ended up contracting Covid-19 himself.
I decided at that time it would be a good idea to revamp my rig and spent more than a few $ to do so and was ready to get back out there when everything shut down. Thankfully, I am in a situation where I was not depending on that money to live. We both live in areas where the ability to provide live entertainment is fairly plentiful. It truly sucks to have something taken away from you rather than to walk away on your own termsā¦thatās true of anything, but being musicians as long as all of us have, it takes away a big part of who you are. Many of us here probably pinch ourselves because we find it hard to believe we would still be doing this as we become longer in the tooth every day. None of us knows how this will go. We can only hope for the best. Though there is no substitute for performing live, your skills are helping members of this forum become better players and learn new ideas. And as far as your kidding around goes, it is more appreciated than you probably know. Humor and the ability to laugh, even at oneself, is what will get us all through this.
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@Corky itās a dark mist we are passing through, not a brick wall. I have launched an idea (and I cleared it with the cops in my area). I call it āFrontline Music by California Creedenceā (our band). Frontline Music was my idea to which the police responded, āthanks for doing that for our community!ā This came from both the shift Sergeant and community officer.
I am not sure about your area, but here we have the ability to set up our full band and play from 6-9pm from a yard, garage, carport or property. Neighborhood individuals receive it very well and are refreshed. Itās all gratis, of course, and people respond really well to it. Gatherings stay small, it is outdoors and people can āsocially distance.ā We have done 2 so far. Just an idea. We put the word out if folks want to bless their neighborhood with music.
During our down time, our previous drummer (house drummer at the Grand Ole Opry Billy Kistner) contacted me to create a video from a recording we did in 2013 (singing is not good). Here is the video I made for the stay-at-home perspective. Except we didnāt really socially distance.
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Thanks Steve. You helped me with my rig, and setting up the new computers. I got most of it done, then turned my back on it.
Rough weekendā¦then about 10 last night, things got crazy, started feeling bad and soon found myself naked lying in a pool of vomit and feces on the floor of my shower. I thought I was dying. I layed there for about 4 hrs puking my guts out. Finally got my footing, cleaned the shower and myself, went to bed. It was quite a fine topper to everything else. Much better today tho. Either food poisoning or a bug. You just never know, man.
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Very cool John! As to your comment about playing outside, a few people here tried it, but were shut down. Beale street is open, but no live music for awhile.
Oh god! Sounds like food poisoning or a virus. Me and my wife had that around Nov. last year. The doctor said it could well have been due to āa small ingestion of fecal matterā. We actually suspect it was from wife getting nails done by someone who may have not washed their handsā¦ at least now everyone is fricking washing their hands. 
Anyway I only went from the bed to the toilet for 3 days and didnāt make it once or twice. True hell. Glad yours eased up quicker.
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Me too!! Just a little water this morning. Coffee wasnāt sounding too good, lol. Not ready to eat anything eitherā¦jeez!
Yes, your area has true talent and a different layout. Sad they shut it down. Here in Northern Ca. cops are pretty chill (unless you go to Oakland. Thatās another story!). Sorry about your being sick. That add to the discouragement. BTW, thanks for the Green Eyed Lady organ patch! I got B3-X and had to convert the settings over to it, and the amp modeling is amazing in B3-X.
You are welcome! Glad you got it going on B-3X.
Get well soon Corky!
I have to say, I tune in almost daily to learn from all you guys on this forum. I even have a good laugh time to time from the humerus antics that pop up regularly. Itās good for the soul being in this community. Even for an old dog, I still learn new tricks on this forum.
I feel at home here in a social distant way.
Many thank-youās to all members!
Daveā¦
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Thanks for the kind words Dave. It really is @bradās demeanor that makes this such a great community. Glad you are a part of it.
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My main gig is a public school band/choir teacher. Iāve been trying to keep things going, but doing these classes over Zoom has been problematic. Not the same experience for them (or me). I rear very much for the return to school. I have no idea if they will even allow me to have music performance classes. Some of my groups are 60 to 80 kids in a class.
- Paul
I am in the central valley. I play in SF Bay Area occasionally. I live in Modesto, Ca. Are you in SF Bay Area?
Corkyā¦glad to hear youāre feeling better. Whatever you ateā¦donāt eat it or there anymore 
If it was a 24 hr. bugā¦Iāve had a few, but nothing like that. Damn son! Truly glad you are on the mend. @Howifeel is rightā¦this too shall pass, or we will find a way around it. Who knowsā¦maybe there will be a new evolution in music because of this. We can only ride the wave and hope it breaks on the beach and not the rocks. Hang in there Broā¦youāll find your way back to your rig. As far as working on your houseā¦thatās all Iāve been doing and Iām quite sick of it. I barely find time to play or sing a bit and then when I do have time, all I want to do is park my fat ass on the couch
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I am all about that!
Watch Ozark on Netflix if you can. Itās pretty sick.
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