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Tom Coletti
Nov-06-2013, 2:40pm
A bit of a mandolin-themed spoof:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Cafe is a wholly remarkable book. Perhaps the most remarkable, certainly the most successful book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of F# Minor - of which no Earthman had ever heard of. More popular than the Expensive Strap Hook Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-Three More Things to do with a G Chop, and more controversial than Sir Random-Bloke-on-the-Internet's recently-closed trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where Bill Went Wrong, Some More of Bill's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this Bill Person Anyway? It's already supplanted the MandoHangout as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for two important reasons. First, it's slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words MANDOLIN CAFE printed in large, friendly letters on its cover.

The story so far: In the beginning the bowlback was created. This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

Since then, mandolinists have long been in the search for the most cost-effective piece of wood with more cost-effective pieces of wood attached, and have generally resolved the search to this consensus: the best F-style for $500 new is actually an A-style for $750 used.

Then, in the turn of the century--which didn't so much turn as it did end unceremoniously and become more frequently mentioned in textbooks--one individual was struck by the notion of attaching pieces of wood that were not cost-effective, and thus, the F-style was born.

Make it totally clear that this mandolin has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of points and scrolls and inlaid bits all over the headstock then so be it. This is not a mandolin for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a mandolin for going out and making people miserable with.

Mandolinists had over two hundred different words for the G Chop, without which their backup playing would probably have got very monotonous. So they would distinguish between thin chop and thick chop, light chop and heavy chop, sludgy chop, brittle chop, chops that came in flurries, chops that came in drifts, chops that seem to be ticking away your miserable life, the chops of winter, the chops of spring, the chops you remember from your childhood that were so much better than any of your modern chops, fine chops, feathery chops, hill chops, valley chops, and chops that despite all your efforts to train them, are still perpetually loud and grating.

Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad tone, which obeys its own special laws.

The Supreme Court has ruled that key of E Flat was considered cruel and unusual punishment in the infamous Johnson v. Pretentious Jam Noodlers Who Can't Just Play that Tune in D case of 1988. The use of capos has skyrocketed since this landmark decision.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with pinky fingers. Again, refer to the above Supreme Court ruling.

A lot of people prefer an f-holed, F-style mandolins. Those who prefer Oval A’s depend entirely on the existence of the hype for F-styles, because they keep the prices down for those of us who like the Oval A’s, which would have seen hyperinflation similar to that of Zimbabwean currency had Bill found one in a barber shop window.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Scroll is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. That theory was postulated by Kim Breedlove.

In the great tradition of defying tradition, there has been a recent influx of diversity in mandolin creation, mostly because people became bored of the F-vs-A thread feuds and wanted a third category to argue about.

Two-Point Mandolins are similar to functional governments in that they don’t exist. There are only A-style mandolins which will occasionally sprout a couple of extraneous bureaucratic departments and run up a national debt of several trillion dollars.

Cylinderbacks are about as cylindrical as the state of Wyoming. Don’t be fooled.

Carbon fiber is a recent building material which is becoming popular because it does not contain any moral fiber. Previously, wooden mandolins would become discouraged by a wet, salty environment and destroy themselves out of fear of losing touch with their inner sense of virtue. Carbon fiber mandolins are completely undeterred by harsh environments; however, they would also not hesitate to kill their owners.

And finally, the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is…


Search the Forums.

--Tom

hypnic.jerk
Nov-06-2013, 3:56pm
You are a Hoopy Frood who clearly knows where his towel is at.

MikeEdgerton
Nov-06-2013, 4:04pm
Smell the darkness.

DataNick
Nov-06-2013, 4:09pm
Whatever...LOL!


He'll probably make a million on it....there's a sucker born every minute right!

mcgroup53
Nov-06-2013, 4:12pm
And in every civilised culture in the Galaxy, there is a super-fast instrumental tune played on an instrument that sounds like a mandolin that in the native language of that species is pronounced "Rawhide."


Smell the darkness.

MikeEdgerton
Nov-06-2013, 4:13pm
Whatever...LOL!


He'll probably make a million on it....there's a sucker born every minute right!

If you knew the game you'd know that line.

DataNick
Nov-06-2013, 4:15pm
If you knew the game you'd know that line.

I'm obviously out of my league/universe here...LOL!

tmsweeney
Nov-06-2013, 4:16pm
Sam Bush, he's just this guy, you know.

Toni Schula
Nov-06-2013, 4:21pm
And:

Don't Panic!

Ryk Loske
Nov-06-2013, 4:52pm
four

ChefMike
Nov-06-2013, 6:27pm
Laughing into my towel.

Tommcgtx
Nov-06-2013, 6:39pm
I'll toast that with a pangalactic gargleblaster!

tkdboyd
Nov-06-2013, 6:53pm
Two

OldSausage
Nov-06-2013, 7:34pm
Mandolins? Don't talk to me about mandolins.

mandroid
Nov-06-2013, 8:17pm
Reading this in My Bathrobe , do I hear Bulldozers outside?

rb3868
Nov-06-2013, 8:54pm
And finally, the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is…

Search the Forums.

--Tom

I have heard that MAS will only disappear when you have had 42 mandolins...

Bertram Henze
Nov-07-2013, 2:24am
You forgot to mention
Jatravartids are small blue creatures of the planet Viltvodle VI with more than fifty arms each. They are therefore unique in being the only race in history to have invented ffcp chords before the wheel...

Tom Coletti
Nov-07-2013, 5:00am
Part Deux:

The Guide says that the best mandolin in existence is the Schmergel Devastator. It says that the tone of a Schmergel Devastator is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick. In comparison, the now obsolete Lloyd Loar F5 sounds like a drunken motorist inconveniencing a shrill duck by running it over with 140 tons of railroading equipment.

Vogon singing is of course the third worst in the Universe. The second worst is that of various traditional bluegrass revivalists of the Beta Quadrant. During a performance by their Band Master Grunthos the Mundane of his tune "Ode to a Small Vegetable that I Removed from the Earth Shortly After Glorifying the Murder of Women near Rivers," four of his audience members died of internal hemorrhaging, and the President of the IBMA survived by gnawing one of his own legs off. The Intergalactic Bluegrass Police calmly retorted, "That ain't bluegrass," and shifted in their seats with a sense of misplaced authoritative entitlement rivaled only by infantile Babylonian Princes with iPads.

Grunthos is reported to have been "disappointed" by the tune's reception, and was about to embark on a rehearsal of his twelve-minute epic entitled "My Most Unsettling High Tenor in B" when, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, a 140-ton locomotive fell through the concert hall's ceiling with a thunderous blast from its whistle and the shrill quack of a slightly-inconvenienced duck. That locomotive, a 2-8-4 Berkshire, only barely crushed Grunthos under the rearmost trailing wheel; had a short-wheelbased 2-8-2 Mikado suddenly been called to dutiful action that day, then most sentient life could not have survived the major third harmonies over the high B. The very worst singing of all perished along with its creator, <name removed to avoid flame comments> in the destruction of the planet Earth. <just kidding; it's Noam Pikelny>

Earl Scruggs, in the highly-prestigious Funny or Die comedy sketch, which did in fact happen, was quoted to have hesitantly said: "If his dream is to sing, then he'd better wake up." Immediately afterwards, a seemingly discomforted Noam burst into vocal declaration:
"I am not a boat, I am a very large house, a very large house next to a big lake; it's a big lake. Oh, on this lake we find a boat a-floating on the water. On the lull water, you can find the boat. O the water's cold."

There was a terrible silence.
There was a terrible noise.
There was a much more bearable and appreciated silence, as we no longer had to listen to the ramblings of a sentient house trapped in a human's body.

Dobros are simply under-appreciated, one of the most easily forgotten metallic sapiens of the known universe. It is a mystery as to why they are not more memorable, as they are a race of super awesome chrome-plated brass beings which can transform into instruments well-suited for Delta Blues. Many hypothesize that their obscurity was a result of their inner conflict between the Resobots and Decepticones, but further evidence suggests that this Bill person simply did not want one in his band. For more information, please read chapter four of Some More of Bill's Greatest Mistakes or the preface of Who is this Bill Person, Anyway? in Sir Random-Bloke-on-the-Internet's thread-closing trilogy.

A draconic species from the Florence Cluster--an example of which can be seen in the avatar to your left with his tongue outstretched like the four-legged idiot that he his--is said to have been the original source of inspiration for the mandolin-building practice of attaching pieces of wood that are not cost effective. These Florentine dragons have long had a tradition of grooming their manes into ornate, stylized curls, though many eventually simplified their manes as the 3-point pompadour went out of style around 1910. This breed had nearly driven itself to extinction in a civil war caused by the psychological detriments of Scroll Envy. Ironically, when a group of dragon riders determined that the scroll tufts weren't even suitable for attaching their reins, both warring parties reached the disheartening conclusion that the scrolls served no practical purpose in life and the war ended without fanfare or moral victory, only a decline in sales of Dapper Dan hair product. This disorder has also affected some mandolin-playing populations, and the Oval A guys are again grateful for dodging the bullets of pointless argument and price increases.

Other hitchhikers had seen to modify their mandolins in exotic ways, weaving all kinds of esoteric tools and utilities and even computer equipment into the headstock. Bill was a purist. He liked to keep things simple. He carried a regular mandolin from a regular domestic hair-shortening establishment. It even had a kind of embedded text on it, despite his attempts to carve and stab it out. It had a couple of pieces of wood gouged out of it, a bit of flexible wire, and also some nutrients soaked into a corner of it so he could nibble on it in an emergency, but otherwise it was a simple mandolin that you could impale with a fire poker.

Accordion to a recent survey, three in ten readers will not immediately recognize an incorrect word at the beginning of a sentence.

A bowlback mandolin is functional as neither a bowl nor a back. An archtop mandolin is functional as neither an arch nor a top. However, a flat mandolin can at least be destrung, turned on its side, hung from a tree, and used as a flat for various diminutive bird residents, so they are not entirely misleading.

The final performance of Chris Thile's recent Bach tour was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the "Star Spangled Banner." In actuality, he had made a triple-backwards-somersault in perfect unison with an ascending triplet run, but the motion was so rapid that the average human brain could only process two full revolutions in that short frame of time.

On a related note, the Thile Fish is small, high-pitched, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brain wave energy and MacArthur Grants, absorbing all unconscious frequencies and then excreting telepathically a matrix formed from the conscious frequencies and nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain, the practical upshot of which is that if you stick one in your ear, you can instantly play Bach sonatas at a dizzying pace and with even more dizzying body convulsions.

Finally, to clarify a few points, the Sons of Mumford are actually about the same age and of no relation to him whatsoever, and the Brothers of Punch are, in fact, not siblings.

--Tom

Bertram Henze
Nov-07-2013, 5:16am
...shifted in their seats with a sense of misplaced authoritative entitlement rivaled only by infantile Babylonian Princes with iPads.

:)):)):))

Michael Bridges
Nov-07-2013, 5:32am
And I thought the 60's were rough for ME!?!?? Laughing myself awake this morning. Gotta go back and read "Hitchhiker's Guide" again,now!

padawan
Nov-07-2013, 8:59am
I can't wait for the sequels:

"So Long and Thanks for all the Picks"

and

"Jam Session at the End of the Universe".

David Rambo
Nov-07-2013, 4:27pm
Hopefully, we won't need a babelfish to understand the next episode!

Eddie Sheehy
Nov-07-2013, 5:52pm
I'd rather take an Intergalactic Laxative than read that again...

"Oh The Intergalactic Laxative will get you from here to Mars"

Timbofood
Nov-07-2013, 8:05pm
42

mandocaster
Nov-07-2013, 11:12pm
Would you like to hear a little poem I wrote called "Ode to a Lump of Green Putty I Found in my Mandolin"?

David Lewis
Nov-07-2013, 11:51pm
Of course, it's important to carry a towel. You can wipe your strings down after playing, or use it to wrap your mandolin in if your case has gone missing. If trapped by a bug blatter beast traal banjo player, you can wrap your towel around your head and cover your ears. The bug blatter banjo it's will assume because you can't hear it, it can't hear you and jamming is pointless.

notneils
Nov-08-2013, 1:18pm
and have generally resolved the search to this consensus: the best F-style for $500 new is actually an A-style for $750 used.
:)) :)) :))

Somebody should work up something with the SEP field, but damn there's no caffeine left in this house so i'm not gonna be the one to write it, at lest not till i drag myself out for groceries...

notneils
Nov-08-2013, 1:28pm
Of course, it's important to carry a towel. You can wipe your strings down after playing, or use it to wrap your mandolin in if your case has gone missing. If trapped by a bug blatter beast traal banjo player, you can wrap your towel around your head and cover your ears. The bug blatter banjo it's will assume because you can't hear it, it can't hear you and jamming is pointless.

And any other player, seeing you wiping down your instrument with a towel, will assume you are an amazing together frood, and be happy to lend you any item you happen to have forgot, like strings, picks, tuners, mics, patch cables, amps...

Bertram Henze
Nov-10-2013, 5:29am
Somebody should work up something with the SEP field...

Minor Asian Souvenir field, or MAS, is a cheap, easy, and staggeringly useful way of safely protecting a mandolin from unwanted appreciation. It can run almost indefinitely on a tiny tuner battery, and is able to do so because it utilizes a person's natural tendency to ignore things they don't easily take seriously, like, for example, mandolins they already own. Any mandolin around which a MAS is applied will cease to be noticed by becoming a Minor Asian Souvenir, resulting in the desire to buy another one.

The MAS field has led to the downfall of Frogstar World B. Many years ago this was a thriving, happy planet - people, cities, shops, a normal world. Except that on the high streets of these cities there were slightly more luthier workshops than one might have thought necessary. And slowly, insidiously, the number of the luthier workshops were increasing. It's a well-known economic phenomenon but tragic to see it in operation, for the more luthier shops there were, the more mandolins they had to make and the worse and more unplayable they became. And the worse they were to play, the more people had to buy to keep picking, and the more the shops proliferated, until the whole economy of the place passed what is termed the Mandolin Event Horizon, and it became no longer economically possible to build anything other than luthier workshops. Result - collapse, ruin and famine.
Thus, Frogstar World B became home of the Total Perspective Vortex, where mandolinists are confronted with videos of their own playing, a treatment survived by nobody so far.

The basic equations of the MAS field are also used to engineer the PlayBan stage-fright sensitive sunglasses.

TheBlindBard
Nov-10-2013, 8:22pm
... thank you, Laughed so hard at this. Loved those books. If only I could get the british humor :D

Ben Cooper
Jan-12-2014, 9:59pm
love it!

John Ritchhart
Jan-12-2014, 11:02pm
I thought it twas brillig.

mandroid
Jan-13-2014, 7:08pm
... Thanks for all the Fish !

CelticDude
Jan-13-2014, 8:11pm
I've always thought of the Cafe as Harmless, but now I figure it's Mostly Harmless.

Ben Cooper
Jan-20-2014, 9:57am
Minor Asian Souvenir field, or MAS, is a cheap, easy, and staggeringly useful way of safely protecting a mandolin from unwanted appreciation. It can run almost indefinitely on a tiny tuner battery, and is able to do so because it utilizes a person's natural tendency to ignore things they don't easily take seriously, like, for example, mandolins they already own. Any mandolin around which a MAS is applied will cease to be noticed by becoming a Minor Asian Souvenir, resulting in the desire to buy another one.
The MAS field has led to the downfall of Frogstar World B. Many years ago this was a thriving, happy planet - people, cities, shops, a normal world. Except that on the high streets of these cities there were slightly more luthier workshops than one might have thought necessary. And slowly, insidiously, the number of the luthier workshops were increasing. It's a well-known economic phenomenon but tragic to see it in operation, for the more luthier shops there were, the more mandolins they had to make and the worse and more unplayable they became. And the worse they were to play, the more people had to buy to keep picking, and the more the shops proliferated, until the whole economy of the place passed what is termed the Mandolin Event Horizon, and it became no longer economically possible to build anything other than luthier workshops. Result - collapse, ruin and famine.
Thus, Frogstar World B became home of the Total Perspective Vortex, where mandolinists are confronted with videos of their own playing, a treatment survived by nobody so far.

The basic equations of the MAS field are also used to engineer the PlayBan stage-fright sensitive sunglasses.

LMAO!! Mandolin Event Horizon... otherwise known as MEH! :)):)):))