people i see: weird cymbal lady

Victoria BC, dark January 2023 AD evening. I’m going to look at a cymbal that is for sale on facebook marketplace. The seller has been nice to deal with over messenger but when she gives me her address, I recognize it as being a low income housing development I have bought tacky old stuff from before. I arrive and yup it’s the same complex. I find the seller’s unit, ring the doorbell, and a 60-ish year old woman opens the door a crack. Eventually lets me in and I say hi to her very friendly dog. Then she politely tells me to get the fuck inside and close the door before the cat escapes, and then proceeds to spin some yarn about where this rescue cat came from. She and her place actually aren’t too sad, better than I expected for this place. She tells me to be careful not to slip on the stairs, how she had to remove the carpet from them and paint them when she moved in because the carpet was just so stained and smelly and awful so this is much better but it is a bit slippery so it’s a tradeoff, yada yada. We get upstairs and she explains how these cymbals belonged to her brother and he was a member of our local homeless population and he finally succumbed to his addiction, and shows me a family photo of the man. Ok. Eventually she leads me to another room where the cymbal is. I had asked on messenger if she had a drum stick I can use to test the cymbal, she had said yes, so I ask for that now and she produces what I learn is called a ‘tipper’ for a ‘bodhran’ — not quite what I meant but it will suffice.

I hit the cymbal on the bell and body. The woman makes some “mmm, mmhmm” sounds I don’t understand. Then I hit the edge and the woman makes a similar sound but I think this one is disapproving. Hard to tell. I go over each of the sounds again and the woman makes more sounds but they seem more agitated now. I hit the edge again and the woman quickly states that there are five young children in the unit next to hers. I look at the time and it’s exactly 6:00 pm. Not sure how many kids are in bed by 6 but I take the hint and stop testing her cymbal. I haven’t been able to really test it but from what I’ve heard I’m not nuts about it, and not nuts about the lady, plus she had listed it for sale quite a while ago but priced it rather high which is why it hasn’t sold yet. She recently dropped the price from $240 to $225, which isn’t going to convince anyone to finally pull the trigger on it, and indicates she doesn’t realize it’s not an especially valuable cymbal, and isn’t very flexible on the price. Even if I was interested in it I don’t know if I would have bought it from her.

Luckily for me, none of this matters at this point so I say thanks but I’ll pass. As I go to head downstairs, in my peripheral vision I see a man who I assume is her partner, standing in the kitchen facing me, not saying anything, looking like he might be a jump scare in a horror movie. Hadn’t seen or heard him, had no idea there was anyone else in here. Maybe my wild cymbal smashing woke him from his 5 pm bedtime. Whatever. I’m already irritated with this entire situation so I don’t look at or acknowledge him, can’t be bothered. The woman ushers me out the door just as quickly as when I came in, again due to the cat. I’m happy I didn’t buy yet another cymbal I don’t need. I get in the car and finish off my roasted milk tea with boba. I feel good now.

no stars

I’ve sold a few drum things to a guy who lives around here. He’s nice enough but he’s weird. I got this sense the first time I met him but only on his last visit were my suspicions confirmed.

First visit, several months ago: buddy comes to buy a ride cymbal from me. He arrives in a weird car, not an old Honda Insight but something like that. I love weird cars though so it’s just a yellow flag. He looks to be about 60, average unremarkable appearance. I bring the cymbal out to him, he buys it, all good, but then he starts talking and doesn’t stop. Tells me he is married to a local doctor that I am aware of who is a huge freak herself. Red flag. He starts talking about drums, telling me about his kit and what it’s made of and how good it sounds and hes practically cumming in his pants, he’s way too enthused about his drum kit. Another red flag. We get to talking about tuning drums and he offers to tune my drums for me, to lend me his ear. I’m not totally convinced from our conversation that this guy is actually the drum master he seems to think he is so I thank him and defer his help. He leaves and I forget about him.

Second visit, the other day: buddy arrives. When I see him I recognize him and am not super thrilled. He comes in to try some hi hat cymbals on my drum kit and the second he sits down he just starts hitting shit manically, as if he’s Buddy Rich but with zero talent. Every single hit sucks, he’s hitting rims, trying to do big rolls/drags/shuffles but it’s just a mess. Remember this is a 60-yr old man who claims to play drums decently, not a child sitting behind a drum set for the first time. He settles in on the hi hat, tries doing the same crazy nonsense on that, comments to me about how weird my hi hat is, he can’t play it properly because it’s just so odd. Funny, as I play it with no problems. He smashes the hi hats a bit more and is like “sure, I’ll take them.” I’m pleased that this absurd display wasn’t fruitless, at least. We head out to his car and he is telling me about this 8″ splash cymbal (that he called a crash at least once, which I immediately assumed was a mistake because I’ve never heard of an 8″ crash, and splashes are all small like that) and how “sweet” it sounds, how everyone he plays with comments on how great that cymbal sounds, how I’ve got to get myself an 8″ crash/splash. I tell him I have one but don’t have it on my kit because I don’t use them much, and have more use for more crash cymbals. He looks at me, bewildered. We say goodby and he leaves, and I thank my lucky stars that I didn’t take the goof up on his offer to help me tune my drums those few months ago. After this little performance, I can just imagine how proficient he is at tuning. I picture my drums torn apart, spread out all over the floor, pieces missing, a total disaster.

Sometimes, you just know.

july 10, 2022 – first day of summer

Yesterday was the first day of this year that felt like summer, in the nice way. Let’s recap.

I went to Jenn’s big horse show in Victoria. It went really well, and I was thrilled for her because it had been years in the making — Jenn’s horse took a long time to train, and even after it was trained it was still a nervous wreck at shows and embarrassed the hell out of her. So yesterday was a huge improvement, and Jenn was elated. On top of that, the horse show was pretty interesting. There were tons of horse dorks, overstimulated and overexcited and embarrassing themselves to no end. There was a concession stand being run by an older, too friendly yet also somehow sort of grouchy woman. The burgers and brownies she made were fantastic. I found myself fairly irritated by her but on the other hand, I was incredibly grateful that there was a concession there at all, and who would run such a thing if not for people like her? As irritating as she was, I had to appreciate the role she plays in the universe.

After that Jenn went home and I went downtown. Sold a cymbal to a weird guy. My interactions with him leading up to this had been weird, his FB profile made him look like a turbo weirdo, and when I actually met him, he was very much a weirdo. Grateful, thanked me for bringing the cymbal to him, but also didn’t make much eye contact, and the second he had the cymbal in his hands he had nothing more to say to me and abruptly turned around and headed back to the garage he lives in. He looked to be mid-40’s, really tall, dumpy slightly pear-shaped body. I didn’t like him but was very glad to have finally sold this cymbal.

Next, I parked on Yates and walked toward what used to be The Patch. I had been meaning to go there for a while for a few things. I had even checked their social media to make sure they were still in that location and open yesterday and it said they were. However, when I got there they were gone, and have obviously been gone for a while. That was also a little irritating, but I didn’t mind entirely because even just driving and walking around Vic on a sunny summer day, I saw so many people and things that drove my loathing for humanity into high gear so I was happy to get out of there ASAP. I had contemplated getting a bubble tea while down there but abandoned even that plan. You know it’s bad when you can’t even stop for bubble tea.

^{Various Bubble Tea in a plastic cups with drink straws on blue background. Take away drinks concept.}

Then I headed out past Langford to try out a guitar amp I was excited about. I hated the area it was in, and it was hot as hell out there. What draws people to live in such wastelands? I’ll never understand. The seller was a really nice guy though, I liked him. His basement suite reeked of cat piss. Good luck bringing any dames back to that piss pad, mate. The amp was ok but didn’t knock my dick into the dirt so after 10 minutes of playing around with it, I told him I’d think about it and left, a little dejected.

Got home, played drums for a bit, and then Jenn and I took the dog to Shawnigan. Got ice cream and walked the tracks toward Old Mill. Recapped the horse show. It was really nice. On the way back we stopped and ordered food from a new Thai place in the village. The pad thai sucked bad but the panang curry was sensational. We ate and watched the last of this latest godawful season of Stranger Things. What a fucking trash show it has become. This season really oscillates wildly between nitwit goofball silly bullshit, and then excessively violent, gory, or emotionally heavy parts. It’s schizophrenic, it’s trying to be so many things at once and it is doing none of them well.

For all my bitching, I actually really enjoyed yesterday.