Tag Archives: buzz

Buzz

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Buzz: (n) a humming sound.

There are two things that have a buzz: bees and things threatening to be broken.

The buzzing of the bee is common, but you can often tell when something is breaking, has a bad cord or is giving up the ghost because it will start emitting a buzz.

So when I hear people discuss the topical stories on any given day, I wonder if it’s based on being busy like the bee, or a sign that something’s “got a short.”

I think when we buzz about how to get along better, escape prejudice and cut each other some slack, we are actually trying to be bees, producing some honey.

But when I hear a constant flow of lamentation, disappointment, aggravation, brattiness and self-righteousness, I realize there’s a brokenness in our thinking which warns that if we don’t fix the connection soon, we’re going to lose our power.

 

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Busy

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Busy: (adj) having a great deal to do.

“Busy as a bee.”

Are bees really busy? We attribute this to them because they fly, buzz and appear to be accomplished.

But if you think about the normal day of a bee, it’s more the life of a hippie at a commune.

They fly off, check out the flowers, and while there, they pick up some nectar–and then they fly back to their hive, buzzing and maybe taking the long way home.

They contribute their nectar to the general well-being–the ongoing project, the commune’s goal. They spend a little while enjoying their time with the other drones, dreaming of a day when they might have their moment with the queen.

And then they’re off again, at a respectable, but not break-neck pace, to enjoy more flowers, bring back more nectar and come into the hive with that age-old joke that most bees hate: what’s the buzz?

After this procedure is repeated a number of times at an enjoyable clip, the bee can proudly step back and say, “I made honey. I made the world a sweeter place. I have taken something that was in the flowers and created a substance that transfers that glorious juice into the tastebuds of human beings.”

Most of the people I see who say they’re busy are just frantic.

They don’t visit the flowers.

They don’t take the long way home.

And they sure as hell don’t make honey.

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Amp

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Amp: (v) short for amplification. To amplify sound electrically.

“It’s all about the equipment.”

That’s what they told me.

My response was always the same. “Actually, it’s all about the money to buy the equipment.”

I was in my early twenties and had a music group which required a sound system. Lacking funds, I attempted to tap into my ingenuity, which honestly had not yet found root, let alone gained blossom.

So using my limited understanding of electronics, I acquired a beat-up guitar amp, went out and purchased speakers at Radio Shack, which I fastened in to some homemade wooden boxes I had constructed myself, but found at the end of the process that I didn’t have enough money left to cover the boxes with cloth to protect the speakers.

To say it looked homemade would be a statement of generosity.

But I hauled it in from place to place, careful not to puncture the cones of the speakers. The guitar amp was so ill-suited to power the system that feedback and buzz became part of the ambience–which I pretended did not exist.

One night after a show, a dear gentleman walked up to me and said, “You need a PA system.”

He was so kind that I decided not to be defensive and merely nodded my head in agreement. Three weeks earlier he had purchased a Shure Vocalmaster unit, complete with two column speakers, which he decided not to use because his dream of becoming a great rock star had fizzled very quickly.

In his mercy and goodness he donated this system to me.

My God, I was so overwhelmed. The Shure Vocalmaster was the top of the line of the day. Of course, compared to the systems available today, it was clunky, sounded muddy and lacked the power to cover any more than a 150-seat auditorium.

But I used that system in one way or another for the next twelve years.

Matter of fact, I wept when it finally gave up the ghost and became a part of my career history.

Amps are nice. They make what we have to offer louder.

That only leaves one responsibility to us–to make sure what is being amplified is worth hearing.

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Aldrin, Buzz

Words from Dic(tionary)

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Aldrin, Buzz: (1930- ) U.S. Astronaut who walked in space for 5 hours and 37 minutes during the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. In 1969 he took part in the first moon landing, becoming the second person, after Neil Armstrong, to set foot on the moon.

Perhaps he acquired his nickname because he was selected to play a bee in the second-grade play, Spring is Sprung, personifying the emergence of Nature for another year.

Yes, maybe that’s why they call him “Buzz.”

Or maybe it’s because he has a penchant for snoring and the sound that emotes from his nostrils is best described as a “buzz.”

Then I had a thought that he got this name, Buzz, because of the haircut he sported, which at one time or another, has been referred to as a “buzz cut.”

Maybe he was just the kind of guy who liked to drive around town waving at people, making it known that he had a car and could afford gasoline–just “buzzing about.”

I was thinking that when he was a young boy doing pranks, he might have been one of those kids who rang people’s doorbell, and then disappeared quickly–a “buzzer.”

Another idea: maybe he played basketball and was known for making the winning goal just before the clock ran out, “beating the buzzer.”

I’m not sure how he got the name Buzz.

Maybe it’s because he buzzed around the moon and stopped off to take a brief stroll before heading back home.