Tag Archives: miscellaneous

harpy noo yer

tomorrow, moe is going to florida for her yearly dose of COVID of accolades from the national veterinary board, or something like that… she’s been invited back (i think) six years in a row, when the “NORMAL” practice is to only be invited back two years before having to “take a break”… which means, either, that my wife is, literally, outstanding in her field, or that the “system” is broken… but it also means that i have to take care of two of our three dogs. the youngest one, quill, is going to stay with our neighbour who is also a dog trainer, because she actually has the experience needed to keep an approximately one-year-old puppy in line, where i definitely DO NOT. the other two dogs get to come with me (or stay home), while i go to my unicycle class tomorrow, and maybe my circus class, wednesday. i’ve officially cancelled both classes, in case the dogs are recalcitrant, or in case i don’t feel like going, but i think i’ll do at least one of them, and at this point, it seems likely that i’m going to do the unicycle class, tomorrow, because i haven’t been in a while, and i really need to get back into it more regularly…

i’m buying a new tuba! 😎 i’m buying a new tuba! 😍 i’m buying a new tuba! 😜 i’m buying a new tuba! 😛 i’m buying a new tuba! 👍👍👍👍👍 as soon as moe gets home from florida, we’re going to take a road trip to yakima to pick it up! 😁

misc. update-ish

i ordered some jewelry from an artist in poland. i’ve been tracking it for a month, now. from poland, it spent almost two weeks undergoing microscopic scrutiny in customs, in florida, and then it took another week to get from florida to kent, washington (which is right down the road from where i live)… but, after spending a full 48 hours, plus, in kent, it suddenly, this morning, makes a leap to juneau, alaska, where it is currently “preparing for delivery”… 😒 if it’s anything like the recent shipments i’ve gotten from germany, the united kingdom, or portugal, it will be delivered today, in my residential mailbox, with no further explanation for why it was reported to be in alaska, but, as this delivery is “registered mail” (because of the fact that it’s jewelry), i’m probably going to have to sign for it, rather than having them just leave it in the box.

the postal delivery person just came and went, with no registered package from poland, so i guess it HAS gone to juneau, and who knows when i’ll be seeing it. 🙄

i’ve settled down to microdosing every other day, which seems to be working A LOT better than the commercially available (legal) alternatives that i have tried (buproprion), but i’m getting frustrated again, because either, i feel “okay” (in that i do not feel as frustrated or depressed), or i feel frustrated and/or depressed about stuff that has been there, is there now, and will be there tomorrow and into the future, regardless of whether or not i am taking medication of any kind. it’s frustrating to have to be taking a microdose to feel better, rather than being able to do something constructive to rid myself of the factors which cause the frustration and depression to begin with, but which are not possible, because they require things like killing tens of thousands of #drumpf-cultists and/or making major changes in society as a whole… which is exacerbated by the knowledge that if i were taking 2.5 grams, instead of .25 grams, things would be a lot more different. i call mushrooms my “don’t give a fuck pill”, but i guess i should call the microdoses my “give a little bit less of a fuck pill”, which, i’m not totally sure, is the point.

in the upcoming 49 days, i have 25 panto-related obligations, including 18 performances and 7 rehearsals, starting next monday. wolfenoot is thursday (as is thanksgiving), when our friends from hawaii are coming for dinner (but, significantly, NOT my mother-in-law), and, on friday, moe and i, and our friends from hawaii, are all going to go get tattooed: a few years ago, pre-COVID, we rented a house on the beach, and invited a whole bunch of friends to come and visit. the only people that ended up being able to come were micah and shaya, our friends from hawaii. we spent a week in a VERY large house, under the influence of a fantastic amount of trendy chemical amusement aid, flying kites and playing board (bored?) games, which included a “boys-against-girls” round of pictionary, in which the girls won with monique’s drawing which has come to be known as “snake-camel”… so, on friday, we’re all going to get a tattoo of “snake-camel”… which looks like this:

231028 snake-camel
231028 snake-camel

the panto this year is a re-visitation of one of our previous pantos, “Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs”. we’ve got 7 rehearsals scheduled during the next two weeks, including one band-only rehearsal. marni, the flute/alto-sax player that moved to england just before the pandemic, is back, and she was the “purple” member of the group, so i don’t know how the fact that i have sort of taken over that position is going to play out. rehearsal season, this year, has been decidedly abbreviated and condensed, and i’m not sure whether or not that is a good thing.

add turtle

thoughts about the current crop of chaos that is currently engulfing the world:

it all comes down to belief, generally, and belief in absurd and demonstrably false things in particular. jews hate arabs because they are muslim, and believe “the wrong things” about “god” and his “chosen prophet” who, supposedly, lived around fifteen hundred years ago. arabs hate jews because jews stole the arabs’ traditional homeland, due to jews’ belief in demonstrably false things about “god”, which happened two to three thousand years ago.

“christians” in the US, and elsewhere, are inclined to back jews, because judaism is the foundation of “christian” belief… except that what a certain portion of the jews in israel currently are doing things that are completely the opposite of what jewish — and “christian” — leaders have said, for centuries. there are also a significant portion of people in the US, and elsewhere, who support arabs, because of the evil stuff jews have been doing to them for the past 50 to 100 year, or longer. it doesn’t matter that both jewish and muslim leaders, once again, FOR CENTURIES have warned people AGAINST the exact behaviour that we are currently seeing from both sides, the hatred for things that are totally made up, on both sides, continues unabated.

if humanity could, somehow, magically eliminate all of this false belief, we MIGHT be able to recognise that we are ALL human beings; that nobody is “superior” to anybody else, and that we would ALL get along a lot more easily if we were to actually HELP one another, instead of killing one another.

but, of course, we won’t, and people will continue killing each other until there isn’t anybody left to kill, and humanity will have snuffed itself out and have no further recourse.

less than a week until OCF… why am i paralyzed with anxiety? 😒

officially, less than a week until OCF, and i’ve been accomplishing a lot, but i feel like i’m headed for doom… my list of things to take to OCF is about 80% complete and prepared, and i’m already getting things staged to load up the car on monday, because the probability is very high that we (moe, me, and three dogs) are going to leave EARLY tuesday morning, and go some place remote, where there are few people and fireworks… because we have a dog who is afraid of fireworks

she, literally, hides, when people shoot guns, in the distance, which is a fairly common occurrence around these parts, and we’ve learned that, if we go somewhere remote, we can have a good time and the dogs don’t get so stressed out.

i’ve got most of the camping gear assembled, and about 90% of the music stuff assembled (including the harmonic flute/electronics, and the foghorn). pretty much the only thing i haven’t packed yet are my “working clothes” (costumes) and my “mundane clothes” (for hiding in large crowds), a few essential items, and the hats, which i haven’t even decided what i’m going to bring yet…

i ordered a “capsule filling machine” the other day (it’s supposed to be delivered tomorrow), which SHOULD make it easier to fill capsules… which is a good thing, because 1) i have a (new) connection to more psychedelic mushrooms, and 2) i already have one person who wants to buy some, and another person who is interested, but hasn’t committed yet, and filling the capsules by hand is time-consuming, messy, and wasteful. i still marvel at the fact that what was one of my favourite illegal drugs, when i was in my 20s, is, in my 60s, on the verge of legitimacy, and widely praised for it’s qualities.

monday was the “panic rehearsal” for the pre-OCF panto — usually the “panic rehearsal” gets finished at 23:00 or thereabouts, because it’s SUPPOSED TO BE the last complete runthrough before the fair… it’s usually, also, the FIRST complete runthrough before the fair, which it WAS NOT this time… and it actually got out at 21:00 instead, which is when it is supposed to be finished. tuesday, i had an alto sax to work on, which went far easier and faster than i anticipated. the alto belongs to one of the members of the fremont phil, who is going to OCF, so it was important that i got it done post haste, and i delivered it to him on tuesday evening, at the sousa band rehearsal… because he’s thinking about joining the sousa band, because he’s got a serrusophone, and various other things that would fit right in to sousa’s music. 😉 wednesday i went busking with thaddeus. we didn’t make that much ($17 a piece), but it was enough to cover parking with some left over, and it’s kind of difficult to compare with the last time we busked, which was at the fremont solstice festival, where we busked for 3 hours and made almost $100 a piece. but, while we were busking, thaddeus got email from the PDA, asking us if we want to play for another “sunset supper” in august. thursday (today) i went to my circus class, rode my unicycle for the longest time i have EVER ridden it, TWICE, and rode in a complete, 360° circle, TWICE, but i totally forgot that i was going to take some medication from home (for moe’s mom’s dog, her name is lacey, but we call her “the unicorn”), stop by the clinic to pick up more medication for moe’s mom’s dog, and deliver both of them to moe’s mom before my class. 😖 so, AFTER my class, i went to the clinic to pick up the most necessary medication, and delivered that to moe’s mom… she can wait a few days for the other one.

tomorrow, i’ve got to get the last few, essential items for the fair, and i might take mushrooms, if everything works out… because i really need to “not give a fuck” for a while.

impending SACBO update

SACBO officially starts tomorrow, but it generally involves a caravan to various weird places around seattle, and, because of the fact that the caravan is done by a different person, and the people participating don’t always have radios, or ways to contact the “leader” in case they get lost, there is a lot of chaos, usually involving lost people being followed by other art cars because “they should know where we’re going”, or “they should know where they’re going”, or something like that, which isn’t actually the case about half the time… and, not having a radio myself, i opted out of the art car caravans a LONG time ago. i’m going for the actual festival, though, which is saturday and sunday. i’m taking my canopy, busking gear, and my harmonic flute and affiliated electronics, and MAYBE some incense, if there is enough room and i’m not too lazy. thaddeus is supposed to show up saturday for busking activities, but i’ll probably be on my own sunday.

i got a new tuba hard case. it is smaller than the previous case, which is both an advantage and a problem: the advantage is that it is smaller, and somewhat easier to lug around, but it doesn’t have a handle on the end, as the old case did, which makes lifting it a bit more difficult. and, the fact that it is smaller also means that there isn’t the separate case, inside, to keep mouthpieces, my tuba strap, and polishing cloths, which is a problem. it also doesn’t have wheels, and is a more rounded shape at the bell end, which means that it only fits on my folding hand cart one way, and it is the wrong way… but it cost $950, which means that i’ve got to get creative to solve these problems, because i’m not just going to send it back and look for a tuba case somewhere else. a lot of the cases don’t fit the instrument (particularly those sold by amazon(⁇⁇), sweeTWATer, and others), or cost WAY too much to order, wait for delivery, discover that it’s for a “right-hand bell” tuba, and send it back… it turns out that the ONLY place to buy a case for a conn 2J is allied supply — the same company that i have been ordering musical instrument parts and materials from for… <mumble, mumble> 30-some years — and i actually have an account with allied… so i ordered it from allied, and instead of paying $1800 for it from a local retailer, i paid $550… and another $400 for shipping… 😧

it came in a BIG box!! with a lot of plastic packing materials that couldn’t be recycled, so i put it out with the trash last night, and some time during the night, bears came and raided our trash can, spreading plastic packing materials all over… 😒

i actually, successfully, “microdosed” mushrooms last weekend. it all started on saturday, 230527, when the BSSB played at folklife. apparently, at some time during my stay at the TREMENDOUSLY CROWDED seattle center grounds (which included several people who wanted to take pictures with me, because i was wearing my fancy band outfit), i was exposed to COVID AGAIN, and i tested positive on 230528. 😒 unfortunately, we had scheduled a birthday party for moe’s mom on the 28th, which got cancelled… and then moe got COVID, as well… 🤬 ultimately, we put off the birthday party until 230611, two weeks later (when both moe and i were testing clear), but i woke up on the 11th in an absolutely FOUL mood, and moe was also feeling under the weather and disagreeable… so i took 0.05 grams, just as moe’s mom was getting here… not enough to really get me off, but definitely enough to change my mood… and, sure enough, it changed my mood. it was moe’s mom, so i wasn’t exactly exuberant or anything, but i wasn’t snapping at everybody and hiding in my office. my case of COVID was mild: i probably wouldn’t have even noticed i had it, if i hadn’t tested. and the good part is that now i’ve got “natural immunity” for the next 2 or 3 months, which means that i WON’T get COVID and not be able to go to the oregon country fair, AND, even if i get exposed at the fair, the probably is fairly high that i won’t get it at the fair, either… i hope… 😉

<sigh>… okay, i’ll update… 😒

we went to the campbell global snoqualmie tree farm, this morning, ostensibly to exercise dogs, but an ulterior motive was to scope out the “firewood” area, which is adjacent to the active logging, but they have logs pulled to the road and stacked, so that (if you’ve got a permit) you can go up there with a chainsaw and lop off firewood-length pieces, put them in your truck, and drive home without having to pay for it… thing is, the permit costs $300, which is about the same as a cord of firewood, but (if you’ve got a permit), you’re allowed to take up to 5 cords of firewood… plus, there’s literally 90,000 acres of trails that NOBODY else hikes on, because you’ve got to have a permit and a key… and, guess what? moe bought a permit when they went on sale, which is a little surprising because the permits sold out within a half-hour of going on sale… oh, and we have a pickup truck now… did i mention that before? we’ve had a ford f150 pickup truck for a little more than a year. it doesn’t get used for much — picking up loads of gravel, wood chips, or, soon, firewood (still got to wrassle up a chainsaw) — but it gets loaned to a whole bunch of different friends who need a truck for this or that…

230513 campbell-global snoqualmie tree farm
230513 campbell-global snoqualmie tree farm

i wrote to the newest member of the IOTM club last week, both from my hybridelephant.com account, and from my new hybrid elephant gmail account (because i’ve been having trouble with email, which is another story), and i have gotten no response, which makes me REALLY suspicious about this subscription… but, at this point, there’s absolutely nothing i can do about it, except to cancel the subscription and refund their money… which, at this point, is a little extreme, since, basically, the ONLY thing they’ve done is make me suspicious… but they’ve made me suspicious, which is very suspicious, and i really feel like there should be more than i can do to alleviate my suspicion.

the email thing is starting to grate on my nerves… fundamentally, there is NOTHING “wrong” with my email, but because of the fact that it doesn’t (by design) go through one of the “big guys” (i.e. micro$lut, yahoo, google, apple, etc.) i am finding that more and more services are either silently blocking my email, or producing more and more convoluted hoops that i have to jump through to get my email to… the people i do business with, my customers, suppliers, etc… 😒 at this point, i’ve gone back and forth with micro$lop so many times that my host provider is no longer willing to fight with them on my behalf, and has recommended that i route my mail through google or micro$hit to solve the problem… but i don’t see why i should have to pay — especially, i don’t see why i should have to pay micro$not — to solve a problem that micro$hite is causing to begin with. at this point, when i suspect that there may be a problem (like when a customer has an address @hotmail.com or @live.com, or something like that), i send them a response from my hybridelephant.com account, and if i think it may have been “interfered with” in some way, then i send them another response from my gmail account, which usually does the trick. but it’s grating on my nerves because it SHOULDN’T be this way, and i SHOULDN’T have to worry about whether or not my emails have gone through… it’s not like i’m running an open relay, or something like that, i’m just not willing to send my email through one of “the big guys” because, to be quite frank, i don’t trust “the big guys”… and it’s behaviour like i have seen from micro$leaze that causes me not to trust them. 😠

i’m not sure what to think of this…

i was reading back through my old blog entries, and i came across this one, about my perceived connection between the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne”… i specifically remember thinking “internet would be a much better place if you could ask questions in human language and not be inundated with meaningless information that is only intended to sidetrack you from what you really want to know.” it’s now a couple years later, and ChatGPT is a thing that didn’t exist a couple of years ago, so i wondered if, maybe, it could cut through the horseshit and get me somewhere closer to the answer…

Rev. DeLuxe: is the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” a remake of the opera “L’Arlesienne”?

ChatGPT: No, the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” is not a remake of the opera “L’Arlesienne”. “La donna più bella del mondo” is a 1955 Italian musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Gina Lollobrigida, Vittorio Gassman, and Robert Alda. The film tells the story of a woman who becomes a famous movie star and the men who fall in love with her.

On the other hand, “L’Arlesienne” is a one-act play by French writer Alphonse Daudet. It was adapted into an opera of the same name by Georges Bizet, which premiered in 1872. The story revolves around a young man who falls in love with a woman from Arles, but she is already married and eventually drives him to madness.

Therefore, these two works are not related in terms of story or content.

Rev. DeLuxe: is it possible that the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne” are related in some way?

ChatGPT: There is no known direct connection between the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne”. However, it is possible that there could be some indirect influences or inspirations between the two works.

For example, it is not uncommon for filmmakers to draw inspiration from other works of art such as literature, music, or theater. It is possible that the filmmakers of “La donna più bella del mondo” were influenced by the themes or characters of “L’Arlesienne” and incorporated them into their own story. Similarly, the opera may have influenced other aspects of Italian culture, such as fashion or language, that were then reflected in the movie.

However, without any concrete evidence or statements from the creators, it is difficult to determine if there is any direct or intentional connection between the two works.

Rev. DeLuxe: why might i be under the impression that the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne” are related in some way?

ChatGPT: There could be several reasons why you might be under the impression that the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne” are related in some way.

One possible reason is that both works are part of Italian and French cultural heritage, respectively, and share certain characteristics or themes that are common to their respective artistic traditions. For example, both works could explore themes of love, beauty, and the human condition, which could give them a similar emotional tone or feeling.

Another reason could be that you may have come across information or reviews that compare the two works, even if they are not directly related. This could create an impression in your mind that the two works are somehow linked, even if there is no direct evidence to support this claim.

Finally, it is also possible that your impression could be a result of a simple misunderstanding or confusion between the two works, especially if you have not seen or heard either work firsthand.

ouch! 🤣

and, as expected…

i felt like a truck had run over me, on saturday… slept for a large portion of it, while the TV was on, which might give you an impression of how “out of it” i felt. i recovered enough to go to my unicycle class, on sunday, but i was winded about 20 minutes into it, and i had to take a couple of “breathers” after that. our alternate unicycle coach, nick, is the unicyclist i saw at the moisture festival this year (from the band pit, so the wheel of the unicycle was, literally, within 10 feet of me) do a perfect free mount and ride away, with a woman standing on his shoulders… during MULTIPLE shows, so it wasn’t just a fluke. 😂 i am tantalizingly close to being able to free mount… at this point i would say i’m doing it about a third of the time. i keep making microscopic adjustments in what i’m doing, and it’s really frustrating when i find something that works, and i can’t replicate it reliably enough to do it again… i guess it’s a good thing i’m dedicated, because i am painfully aware of the fact that i STILL can’t do essential things like idling, or riding backwards… 🙄 oh well, some day, maybe… i suppose…

then i came home and burned the pile of summer detritus in the fire pit across the street… except that a bunch of it was so green that it wouldn’t even burn… like a bunch of unripe tomatoes from the garden, and a bunch of leaves from the brussels sprout plants… but, because i was using a propane flame thrower as the fire-starter, and an electric leaf blower to accelerate things, i ended up making “fried green tomatoes”… 😉

today i was supposed to meet up with gunnar (i have a bag of weed for him 😉) but, before i left home, i got a text message from him that said “Cannot feline. Oils yoy mail”… um… ¿؟፧‽ so i called him. he explained that he hasn’t been getting enough sleep lately, and was not going to be there, so i drove down to puyallup, via our old neighbourhood, went by rick’s old place (there’s someone else living there, unsurprisingly) and came back by way of enumclaw, black diamond, and ravensdale.

update

the word that i’ve heard is that the democretins won most of the most essential races, but not others. and georgia is going to a runoff between republicretin herschel walker (a “christian” anti-abortionist brainless ex-football jock who has allegedly paid for at least two abortions with two different women, and has multiple unacknowleged children with multiple other women), and democrud rev. raphael warnock (an actual Christian minister) who, at last count, was winning by THOUSANDS of votes… 😒 now we have to worry about the global economy, which is still more or less up in the air. 😒

the most recent incense order i recieved didn’t have the shipping charges included, which is a major problem. a little bit of investigation, combined with a brief back-and-forth with the developers confirmed a bug in the version of woocommerce square plugin that i was using, which is, if the customer doesn’t enter the state that they live in, the shipping charges are not included on their reciept, and they can proceed through checkout without having to enter the state in which they live… which is DEFINITELY a bad for business, as it requires me having to write the customer and ask for more money. presumably i have been updated to the most recent (fixed) version of the plugin, after having to explain that my questions about cost were not a criticism of how much it costs, to the web designer, who was all set to cancel the web maintenance agreement that we’ve had for the past three years. 😒

i lied… i have actually logged into twit-turd twice since i said i was not going to login for a couple of days… but the fact that the democrasts have done somewhat better than expected has made it somewhat more tolerable.

up. date.

the most recent payment gateway to be tried is square. i checked authorize.net, but they want a $25 a month fee above and beyond the credit card processing fee, and sometimes i don’t make $25 in a month. square seems to be a viable alternative which comes highly recommended by at least one business-owner that i know personally (despite the fact that my web developer says “this one is one of the worse gateways” – he also accuses me of “refusing” to use paypal, however, which just goes to show how much he really knows) and i actually signed up for a square account a few years ago, when i bought a credit card reader for my phone… which i never used because i never needed to. apart from the fact that i have to go through all 323 products that i sell, one at a time, and mark them “sync with Square” (i’m still not certain what it even means, yet, but i’m sure i will find out soon enough…) i’m hoping that this will be the end of my credit-card-processor search for a while, because i’m done with it.

harvested one plant today. i was manicuring it, yesterday and today, and i found a small patch of mold on one of the buds, so i snipped it off, finished manicuring it, and gave it the chop. the other plant still has a couple weeks to a month before it’ll be ready, but, because of the mold on the other plant, i’ve got to be even more aware than i am normally, if i don’t want a moldy mess instead of nice fat buds…

221003 moldy bud
221003 moldy bud
221003 close up of the mold
221003 close up of the mold

however, currently, i have a fine crop of nice fat buds, so i’m hoping to keep it that way. 😉

221002 selfie with buds
221002 selfie with buds
221002 buds before manicure
221002 buds before manicure
221002 buds before manicure
221002 buds before manicure
221002 buds before manicure
221002 buds before manicure
221003 buds after manicure and chop
221003 buds after manicure and chop

miscellaneous

today i learned about the composer carl orff, who lived from 1895 to 1982. i’m somewhat embarrassed to say that i thought he was a 19th century composer, and i was shocked to discover that his lifetime and mine overlapped, despite the fact that i have actually played the piece he’s most famous for, which is the oratorio known as “Carmina Burana”… he was still alive when i played it, too. 😉 but he is also the originator of what has come to be called the Orff Schulwerk method of music education, which is, primarily, intended for children, but can be extrapolated very easily to encompass special needs students, and (significantly for me) older people who have some movement difficulty. there is the Evergreen Chapter of the American Orff Schulwerk Association which i have written to, in order to get more information, because this inspires me in a way that i haven’t been inspired in a long time.

also, i was looking at the wiktionary article for litmus, where i learned that the etymology comes from the protogermanic cognate “blee” which means “colour” or “hue”… at first i thought it might have been a typo for “bleed”, but no, it’s “blee“…

so, this has been a week from hell, but i’m still capable of finding things that aren’t hell, that interest me. 🤔

but still…

so, it turns out, there’s a MINISCULE chance of my getting pulmonary fibrosis.

as a fully vaccinated person:

there’s approximately 2% chance that i will get COVID (the “98% survival rate” that anti-vaxxers seem to think applies to them, as well). if i do, there’s approximately 2% chance that it will be bad enough to put me in the hospital. if THAT happens, there’s approximately 30% chance that it will end up with pulmonary fibrosis.

but still, i don’t relish the idea of getting COVID, even if it is “mild”. 😒

moe’s birthday was yesterday. she’s still not as old as i am.

we’re starting to gear up for the moisture festival, which IS going to happen, in person, this year — but, beyond that, who knows, because it’s alleged that the palladium has been sold — although precisely HOW they’re going to hold the moisture festival in the middle of a pandemic remains to be seen.

we’re starting to think about starting to gear up for the oregon country fair, this year, in spite of the fact that it hasn’t happened for the past two years, and nobody’s really sure whether it is GOING to happen… but, naturally, if it IS going to happen, we need to be ready for it, because, one way or the other, we’re GOING to have a panto ready in december, despite the fact that we probably won’t have a place to perform, because of the aforementioned alleged selling of the palladium.

thaddeus and i have a gig scheduled in october, as “snakez alive”, and kiki came over last week, with her banjolele, and we played old timey tunes á la Peanut Envy. at this point, we’ve played enough in common to get us through a couple hours of busking at the market, but the market still requires masks for buskers, and i can’t wear a mask and play tuba at the same time… STILL… 😒

VEWPRF/year-end stuff

i’m slowly rebuilding my music collection. today i added two tom zé albums, from the early 2000s, which are “no longer available” — meaning “the only place to find them is on discogs. one is an album i had pre-cloud-drive-disaster, called “Estudando o Pagode (Na Opereta Segregamulher e Amor)“. the other is one that “just happened” to be available from the same vendor, from two years earlier, in 2003, and it’s called “Imprensa Cantada“. both of them appear in several tom zé anthologies, but the original CDs have artwork that is NOT included in the anthologies, and, especially in the case of tom zé, the graphic artwork is almost as important as the musical artwork in the overall scheme of things. i should be getting another Gogol Bordello CD pretty soon, also

we’re giving away the last piece of ikea furniture that we own, that is NOT shelves, tomorrow… which should be interesting, as we currently have three days worth of snow on the ground, and only a few tire tracks of people driving past our house. it’s the king-size storage bed frame, which means that now we’ve got the adjustable bed frame on the 4-inch legs that it came with (rather than on the 2-inch legs, on top of the storage bed), no storage under the bed (currently), and no headboard (currently). the plan is to get some other form of storage, and a headboard… and, possibly a dresser and nightstand to replace the ones i inherited from my grandparents in 1980-something.

moe is getting “stem cell treatment” on her knees on thursday [UPDATE: WEDNESDAY!!] (hopefully the roads will have cleared enough by then that i can drive out of the neighbourhood). this is to (hopefully) “cure” her bum knees, which currently have no meniscus. if everything goes according to plan, this is going to create “new” padding between the bones in her knee. naturally, “insurance” won’t pay for it, and the only other option — total knee replacement — isn’t happening at the moment because the orthopedist that moe has been seeing is fat-phobic, and won’t operate until she’s lighter than she’s ever been in her adult life. 😒… so the (veterinary) clinic is paying for the whole procedure(!!). alledgedly, it’s going to be a couple of days of being “pretty out of it”, followed by a couple weeks of “light duty”, and then it will develop into an “up to 80% improvement”, which is A LOT better than where she’s been for the past few years.

i’ve managed to stay a lot more insulated from the standard xmas “celebration”, this year, but it’s primarily because of the pandemic, which doesn’t look like it’s going to be ending any time in the forseeable future, barring a miracle of some sort… and, as we all know, miracles that involve anti-vax mask-holes, and the right-wing, republican’t, fascist, white-supremacist IDIOTS that currently make up slightly less than HALF of the population of this gawd-forsaken wasteland, are, for all practical purposes, totally unheard-of… but, on the plus side, almost complete isolation for the second year in a row, has made it so that i have only had to listen to one, partial rendition of “feliz navidad” this year, so i can’t say that’s all bad.

and i got a theremin for xmas! 😎

yawn, again…

back to nothing happening again…

my harvest is curing, but the trimmings aren’t drying as fast as i would like them to. i’m pretty sure that if i took the screen off of my office window (which i am not currently using anyway), i could speed up the drying process. maybe i’ll do that today.

i went to a concert with moe and her friend lora, a couple days ago. i was chosen at the last minute to substitute for lora’s husband, who said that a concert might jeopardise his recent sobriety (and he was an AWFUL drunk, so i totally agree), and, also, because, that way, i could drive and lora and moe could talk. 😉 it was the first time i have done ANYTHING that “public” in almost two years, and it felt really weird. it felt weird going to the tacoma-dome, and being in the (relatively light) crowd of people getting into the venue… i wore a N95 mask AND my cloth mask, and kept my hands in my pockets as much as possible. it felt weird sitting in the row of seats with a totally strange (masked) woman so close that she was touching my arm, for the two and a half hours of the concert. a majority of the people were wearing masks, but there was also food and drink available, and a significant number of people thought it was “okay” to wear their masks incorrectly (under their nose), which made me feel like they could have easily taken it off and not felt guilty about it. it felt weird, and creepy, and, when i got home, i felt like i had been swimming in other peoples’ cooties. i took a long, hot shower after the show.

the concert was jackson browne and james taylor, with both of whom i am, more or less, unfamiliar. with jackson browne, there were a few songs that, once he started singing, i went “yeah, i know that song” (although there was one that moe said “if you were alive in the ’70s, you know this song”, but i didn’t), and even a couple that i knew most of the lyrics to, but, honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that i was hearing them at a show that featured jackson browne and james taylor, i wouldn’t have been able to tell you that it was a jackson browne song… hell, i was under the impression, prior to the concert, that jackson was a black man, because that’s the way i always imagined him. that’s how ignorant i was. 😕 james taylor was only a little better, in that i knew that he was white, and i knew a few james taylor songs — all of which they played, of course 😒 — but with both of them, i never had time to listen to their songs because they were INTENSELY popular, so much a part of popular culture, and, particularly, because, james taylor was married to carly simon, and was addicted to heroin…

i never had a thing for carly simon, but i figured that if he were that famous on his own, and he was married to carly simon, then i’m guessing there was something more than “love” involved in the process. 😒

besides which, at the time, i was a lot more interested in the music of morton subotnik, arnold schönberg, and karlheinz stockhausen, who were — and are — A LOT more interesting… 😉

but the musicianship was outstanding — james taylor was backed up by steve gadd on drums, and bruce fowler on horns, both of whom played with frank zappa — the music was good, the lyrics were as “woke” as i remembered them to be in the ’70s, and more “woke” and more “blunt” for the newer songs, james taylor is no longer married to carly simon, or addicted to heroin…

but i would still have much preferred to see a concert of music by morton subotnik, arnold schönberg, or karlheinz stockhausen. 😉

they started up my unicycle class again. it meets for the first time on sunday, which is also halloween. i have to figure out a costume in which i can also ride a unicycle… also, now i have a much higher possibility of learning how to turn left before the end of the year.

i ordered two “performance masks” on the 5th of october, and they still haven’t been shipped out… but it’s just as well, because it has been raining a lot, particularly over the past few days. the pond has water in it, again, but it’s still drastically low.

so, unrelated to anything else…

i remember learning, some time ago (like, possibly, as many as 20 years ago), that the movie staring Gina Lollobrigida, which features the song “‘A Frangesa” (the name of which i have been unable to determine), was a “modern remake” of “L’Arlesienne”, by Georges Bizet and Alphonse Daudet…

or, possibly, that the movie starring Gina Lollobrigida was based on the real-life story of the person about whom Alphonse Daudet wrote his romanticised play…

but i can find no solid evidence for or against this theory, on internet.

i wonder if i imagined the whole thing… 😕

i can say that, if i had known about the movie with Gina Lollobrigida when i first learned the song “‘A Frangesa” (which was when i was in 8th grade, or thereabouts), i would have had a much more positive opinion about the song than i had at the time. 😉 as it was, it was a harder-than-normal concert band piece which i could play, but very many of my fellow student musicians were unable to play (because it’s “faster” than most of them could play reliably), and, because of that, it sounded VERY MUCH like an elementary school band trying very hard to play something that is too difficult for them EVERY! SINGLE! TIME!

ETA 210907: the movie appears to be called “La donna più bella del mondo” (the most beautiful woman in the world), but was english-ified into “Beautiful but Dangerous“… but i still haven’t been able to find out whether or not it was a remake of L’Arlesienne. internet would be a much better place if you could ask questions in human language and not be inundated with meaningless information that is only intended to sidetrack you from what you really want to know… and it’s full of computers! ick! 😒

appropos of nothing…

let’s talk about tommy tuberville, okay?

as you can see from the pronounciation guide at wikipedia, he pronounces it “TUBBER-vil” even though the way it’s spelled implies that it should be pronounced “TUBER-ville”… right?

TUBER… like a potato, right? “tuber-city”… 😉

to me, this is a very strong indication that this is a person who got called “potato-head”, or “french-fries”, or something similar, during grade school, and it had such a profound effect on him that decided that he was going to make everybody pronounce his name differently…

… and, when he wasn’t successful at that, he decided to devote his life to beating all of his rivals’ college football teams, and, eventually, becoming the U.S. senator for alabama, and aligning himself with a monumental loser, so that people would forget that they ever called him “potato-head”… 😉

tommy potato-head…

the son of the emasculated mr. potato-head… 🤣

bleh 11

#drumpf. 🖕 the less said about him, the better.

🍄 one mushroom yesterday. i went out for a walk and had pretty much the entire “trip” while i was out, which wasn’t very much. depression sneaking back in, but not in unmanagable amounts… yet… fewer mushrooms every time this happens, and eventually i’ll run out. hopefully i will have either wildcrafted, or obtained some more by then, but who knows… they are illegal, after all, even though my doctor counsellor recommended them… 😒

trolloween on wednesday. i’m doing sound effects, which means bullroarer “pre-show” and thunder for the first part of the show. nothing else, which means that i’ll be able to actually haunt fremont, for the first time ever… i’ve been a part of the show at the troll, and the dance afterwards many, many times, but i’ve never gotten to go on the haunt… mushrooms? it’s possible… but i think i’d have to find a place to crash in town, if so. i’ll ask macque…

so, in the realm of the computer, i’ve decided that, if i tiptoe around this version of kubuntu, it works 95% of the time. i have, literally, changed the way i interact with the computer interface, in order to prevent it from crashing on a more regular basis: kontact/kmail/akregator — which used to be a relatively stable part of the distribution — has become something which works if i DON’T do things like try to open links in akregator using the middle mouse button (right click and choose “open in external browser” works, though, which is annoying), or forward a message, about half of the time (which is something i do on a regular basis when i’m reporting spam). and kubuntu, itself, has got some annoying bugs which i don’t know to whom to report… which, in itself, is annoying… when i boot the computer, the desktop wallpaper appears to be set to “blur” around the background, even though when i look at the configure panel, it’s set to “solid color”, and when i set it to “blur”, nothing happens, but if i, then, set it back to “solid color”, lo-and-behold, it suddenly displays with a solid colour background. and, because of the fact that it’s part of the system settings, i don’t have the first clue who should get the bug report.

and i’ve, basically, given up on amarok. i love the interface, but the fact is, my music is on a disk that isn’t mounted at startup — because it is a NAS, mounted via WIFI — and amarok refuses to see it. i haven’t figured out how to get it to mount at startup, and it appears that the amarok user list is, for all intents and purposes, dead… which is really annoying.

on the other hand, i’ve figured out a way to play the music on my NAS from my phone, my tablet, and from the linux box, at the same time, using the same application, which is VLC media player. i don’t love the interface, but it’s definitely better than nothing, and the fact that i can play my music, basically, anywhere, without having to make copies of it, should make the copyright drones happy.

and i found the disks containing approximately 10,000 fonts, left over from when i worked in a print shop… and i can get around 90% to 95% of them to work on both my mac and my linux box, also from my NAS, which makes sharing documents a lot more reliable.

update

it has now been two weeks i haven’t been on fecesbook. i logged in once to alert a vendor from OCF, and i logged in once to clean up my ad settings (which i do regularly, regardless of whether or not i logged in). i discovered that, in spite of my not logging in for two weeks, and clearing out my “interests” before i left, i had collected 15 or 20 new “interests”, which included “protest”, “activism”, “guns”, “law enforcement” (specifically “law enforcement in stockton, california”), and a number of other things that make me seriously wonder about my compatibility with fecesbook’s “algorythm”. i’m on the verge of deleting my account, all together.

the lack of fecesbook still leaves a void in my life, which has yet to be filled, but i am confident that it will be filled, very likely with multiple things that i enjoy a HELL of a lot more than being chained to fecesbook.

i have a sousa band gig at deception pass on saturday, and a snake suspenderz gig next wednesday at “lake city mini-park”, which is an intersection on lake city way that used to be full of shopping-basket-homeless people… well, the homeless people are still there, but now they have a “mini-park” that the city put in to encourage them to go elsewhere… and, apparently, the city has also hired snake suspenderz (and another klezmer group with whom thaddeus plays) in order to make it look like the homeless people are a smaller proportion of the city population than they really are. seriously, this place has been a gathering place for homeless people since i was a cab driver, in the mid-’80s. it’s going to take a lot more than a “mini-park” and outdoor concerts to make them disappear.

moe and the dogs may accompany me to deception pass, on saturday. the plan (whether or not moe and the dogs go along) is to make it a day trip, and drive up the peninsula to port townsend, and take the ferry, then come home through mount vernon. i have to be in deception pass by 5:30, the concert starts at 7:00 and should be over by 9:00. we’re having dinner with friends ross and leanna, and leanna’s brother and his wife, on friday.

thimg

we spent a week at the beach, for moe’s birthday. instead of going to the house that we usually rent, which was down the street, we rented a different house, because we thought that more people were going to show up. at the last minute, one of the people bailed (she had the flu, so it was probably just as well), so it was just me and moe, and micah and shaya (moe’s friends). also, on the web where moe first found it, the place we rented claimed to have WIFI, but, in reality, it doesn’t. this wasn’t very much of a problem for me, moe and micah, but shaya had a lot of work to do that involved people in hawaii and africa, and the lack of connectivity was a real problem for her. the beach was the beach: calm, relaxed… the weather was typical for january, meaning that it was windy and rainy, but not that cold. there were a couple of days where there were very strong winds and rain pretty much all day, there were a couple of days where the weather was windy and rainy for part of the day, and there was at least one day where the weather was sunny and cloudless. i got to fly my kite a few times, moe took the drone out a couple of times, the doggles got thoroughly worn out running on the beach…

but then we came back to “reality”… EEEeeeewwwww!! 😡

the political situation continues to get orders of magnitude worse, on an hourly basis. the most recent things are #drumpf signing executive orders starting construction on “the wall” — which he continues to insist will be paid for by the mexicans, although he admits it “will probably be a complicated process”, and has, meanwhile, begun petitioning an all-republican congress to start eliminating things like medicare and social security so that he can fund building the wall anyway — and starting the deportation process for millions of migrants who are undocumented and/or muslim. of course, there is a lot of protesting going on, on a daily basis, but it doesn’t appear to be making a lot of difference. meanwhile, Resident Chump (as kiki calls him) is putting gag orders on the public parks department, and various different scientific and environmental departments, all of which are publically funded, saying that they are no longer “allowed” to state their findings to the public. there’s a lot of me that wants to give up and move elsewhere, and a good deal of the rest of me that would love to see a revolution. unfortunately, i don’t think i’m ever going to have the resources to leave this country, even for a short period of time, and i’m not sure how effective i would be as a part of a revolution, in spite of how much i would like to see one… and, to be honest, there’s no guarantee that what would happen after a revolution would be any better than what we’ve already got.

in other news, people are still trying to break into my site using the old web developer’s username, and they continue to get blocked from ever being able to access the site. at this point, once or twice a day, i’ll log in and block anywhere from 10 to 50 unauthorised login attempts. it’s getting annoying, but i’m sure having my web site cracked would be even more annoying.

also interesting is the fact that i have had an inbox that is, for the most part, empty, for closing in on a month now… i get two or three emails that i have to hold onto in my inbox for a few days, every now and then, and i usually keep emails for orders that i’ve made, or orders that i have to fill, in my inbox, but i file them when they’re complete. it has been five years or so since i had a completely empty inbox for any significant period of time, and this time is appearing to be quite a bit longer than any time since i started using email on a regular basis… probably 30 years…

my phone and incense

my phone is back in working order again.

the story they gave me, combined with what i suspected, is that the battery “gets used” to having a certain level of charge. the other day, when we were travelling, i didn’t actually plug my phone into the charger for a couple of days, and almost drained the battery before i finally plugged it in. apparently, in cases like that, it’s a good idea, when the phone is finally plugged in, to shut the phone down and restart it, otherwise the battery flips out and causes problems. when it caused problems on my phone, it restarted automatically, and failed to restart, probably because it was lacking power at the time (it was in my pocket). the story they gave me is that, when it fails to restart, it can drain the battery trying to “rescue” the operating system.

now i know: if it fails to restart, plug the phone in to power and hold down the “home” key and the “turn off the screen” key for 30 seconds or so. doing that will, frequently, save a trip to the real technicians.

i’ve gotten 4 incense orders in the past week. one of them i had to refund, because all of what they ordered hasn’t even been in stock for a bunch of years… like, at least two that i can recall, and possibly more than that. i HATE it when that happens. 😡

also, my new credit card service (YAY, NO MORE PAYPAL!) charges a fee, which i have been forgetting to subtract from the totals i have been writing down, which means that where i really am is about $10 less than where i think i am… which is confounded even further by the fact that i lost my tax spreadsheets a few months ago, and, while the electronic version i replaced it with is WAY easier to use, it missed a fair portion of the year because i was getting switched over, combined with the switch in web sites and general forgetfulness.

hairy crispness

we’re getting a new puppy, which was born last night. we’re going to see him tomorrow, and spending the night in a hotel in portland, so that we can visit moe’s mom, as well. i truly understand what the people were talking about when they said that they’re spending the weekend with their in-laws, so they have to stock up on booze.

things continue to get orders of magnitude worse, on a daily basis, politically. drumpf continues to appoint utter moronic idiots to posts for which they are no more qualified for than a slug, and at this point, there’s no solid guarantee that drumpf won’t be the last president, because there will be a nuclear war or the planet will suffer irreparable climate change before the next election. if we do actually survive, it will be decades before we make up the losses that we will have suffered during the next four years. no kidding, it’s going to be a blood bath of biblical proportions.

so it’s that season again…

the panto starts next weekend. we’re actually starting with a real audience on wednesday, which is actually our dress rehearsal, but we’ve invited a select few actual audience members to attend as well, so we can gauge our new bits.

it’s probably one of the most changed pantos, compared to the oregon country fair version… we haven’t actually changed the order of when things happen, like we did a few years ago, but we’ve added a whole bunch of new stuff, including two entirely new characters with their own sub-story.

we may also be adding new music — which we haven’t actually gotten yet — which should be interesting.

(ETA 161206) yep, we got a new song during last night’s tech rehearsal… 😕

politically, it keeps getting worse, almost by the hour. drumpf broke several decades of protocol and talked with the president of taiwan, had a twitter tirade over alec baldwin’s impressions of him on saturday night live (alec baldwin responded “release your tax returns and i’ll stop”), has gotten into a dick-measuring contest with china that threatens world war three, and he has appointed clearly and overwhelmingly unqualified people to positions of power which they are going to hold on to far longer than drumpf is going to be president… and that’s not to mention the fact that he has recently settled a lawsuit involving his fraudulent “trump university” for $25 million, still hasn’t released his tax returns (although it is rumoured that he hasn’t paid taxes in almost 30 years), STILL hasn’t said anything nasty about the ignorant, racist, bigoted, xenophobic people who are behind a rising wave of hate crime, that have been supporting him, and is already accepting financial favours from various different kings and potentates in violation of several well-established statutes prohibiting the president from making money by being president. i don’t see how it’s going to get better at all, in the short term, and, over the long term, i don’t anticipate my life getting significantly better than it is today, and i can forsee the distinct possibility of it getting considerably worse before there’s even a hint of it getting better… and i am a “priveledged” straight, white male. 😐

and i haven’t even started complaining about the dakota access pipeline and the surrounding furor involving that, or the “christians'” predictable and boring response to the “war on xmas” this year… although i have been putting OM AC cards in bell-ringers buckets.

Enter Title Here

i’m up later than my normal bedtime because moe is getting home from phoenix at midnight, and i’ve got to pick her up at the airport.

snake suspenderz(!) has got a gig(!) at the “So Bazaar” event in redmond next thursday, which is connected with the moisture festival. we’ve got another gig in october at the château in renton.

the sousa band has a gig at the ballard locks on sunday. i’ve got an appointment to renew my medical cannabis card next thursday, i’ve got an appointment with the ophthalmologist next friday, and i’ve got an appointment with a lady who may be the replacement for ned next saturday, along with a party at the fremont acupuncture clinic.

fleeb

last week we went to the beach at moclips. next week i’m going to orlando and warrensburg to see people that i haven’t seen for 40 years (in orlando) and people to whom i am related, but have never met in person before (in warrensburg). it’s also going to be the first time i have flown cross-country and been on the east coast this century, and the first time since my injury… which was 13 years ago, if my memory serves…

it’s also what my handy-dandy chart of when things happen says, so my memory does serve for once.

i’m having the hybrid elephant web site re-designed. instead of using OSCommerce, i’m using wordpress and woocommerce, which will make it a lot easier to keep up to date. i’m fairly sure that it will also provide me a much needed alternative to paypal in the payment department. it’s alledgedly going to be going live, soon… as soon as a few final details are worked out…

miscellaneous ketchup

160418 selfie with swastika
160418 selfie with swastika

i’ve been reading about how micro-dosing with LSD or mushrooms helps to overcome farcebook addiction. i really need to give it a try, because my farcebook addiction is almost overwhelming.

moisture festival is over for another year. as with last year, i’m torn over whether or not i’m actually going to be performing in next year’s moisture festival. great people, with a few exceptions, but those few exceptions make life miserable for the period of time that i have to deal with them, and everybody else either ignores it or doesn’t know it’s happening. more details should occur around the time that MF decides to issue my check. i know for a fact that it’s going to be considerably less than last year. how much less will play a pivotal role in what’s going to happen next year.

we’re spending a week at the beach, in may. then i’m going to orlando and warrensburg. tomorrow is bicycle day, and the day after that is 4/20… unfortunately, i won’t have any of my own weed on 4/20, because of the blasted spider mites, but i’ll have plenty of mean green, because i can. 8)

my trip to orlando and warrensburg is slowly developing into a deep sense of foreboding and dread. i have absolutely no idea what to expect — seriously, i go from being really excited, to deciding that i’m going to cancel the whole thing as an expensive mistake — and, for sure, i’m going to be, either, in the presence of people who possibly don’t like me, don’t have time to deal with me, or i will be completely, 100% alone in a city halfway across the continent from anything like “safety” and “home”… the only reason i haven’t cancelled it is because i found out that Wonder India (the U.S. supplier of aparajita) has a branch in orlando, and, if nothing else, it’s only going to be a little bit more than a week, and i’m 51% certain that i can hold out for that long on my own, if it comes to that.

FYI

podium lectern

a podium is the thing you stand on, from the greek πόδι – foot. it is also the thing the lectern stands on. the lectern is the thing you read from, from the latin lectus – to read. when you know even a little bit of a language other than american, things like this are a lot less confusing. 😕

bleh

two days ago, i drove moe to the airport, so that she can go on a business trip to austin and las vegas.

yesterday started with my almost losing zorah… well, i didn’t really “almost lose” her, because she was perfectly safe and fine all the time, but there were about 15 minutes, yesterday morning, when i wasn’t so sure of that.

today the cat decided that he was going to go walkabout, and door-dashed when i opened it to let the dogs in. of course he didn’t go that far, because he hadn’t thought that far ahead, but it was complicated by the fact that the dogs wanted to go inside and were confused when there was a complication with their desires.

i had a rehearsal for the moisture festival yesterday. i’ve got another one today.

moe gets home on thursday.

i’m planning an actual, long-distance, several-day trip at the end of may. it’s somewhat exciting, but it’s also terrifying, and something that i am ready to give up on, several times a day. i’ll be going to see joe, who i haven’t seen since 1973 (according to the handy-dandy chart of when things happened) in orlando, and rosemary, who is my great-grandfather’s daughter, in warrensburg. the last time i flew anywhere was when i went to san francisco in 2012, with the big bois with poise. the last time i was on the east cost was when i went to boston in 1999… but i have never actually planned a cross-country trip where i was both planning the trip, and the only one going on the trip. and, to be honest, i haven’t seen joe for 40 years, and, while we are farcebook friends, i really don’t know that much about him or his life, and i do NOT want to be stuck on the east coast with a friend who is pissed at me for saying the wrong thing, or looking bizarre. and i really don’t want to be stuck in Knob Noster with a relative who, like most of my other living relatives, can’t stand me.

oh gawd… i was distractedly perusing the map, and i discovered small towns to the south of Knob Noster, called Tightwad and Racket… yes, folks… this is where my ancestors came from. 😕

151115 update, with pictures

ManWomanDay was friday. i planned on getting tattooed, but i forgot my ID. then, moe and i went to the science cener, because they had a display up that hasn’t been up since the science center first opened in 1962… and i saw it in 1962.

151113 illusion ramp
151113 illusion ramp
151113 illusion ramp
151113 illusion ramp
151113 illusion ramp down
151113 illusion ramp down
151113 illusion ramp up
151113 illusion ramp up

i rescheduled my tattoo for today, because i forgot my ID. here’s my new tattoo:

151115 new tattoo
151115 new tattoo

so, i guess i should update this thing, again…

let me see…

sousa bash yesterday. parked across the street from the apartment building i used to live in, played in Town Hall, which used to be the christian science church when i lived there. and, if it weren’t for the wife, and the dogs, and the workshop, and a whole bunch of other stuff, i would live there again. in fact, there’s a good chance that if i were given the choice between an apartment on capitol hill, or an apartment in bellingham, i would choose an apartment on capitol hill.

speaking of bellingham, ken and kamala have officially moved out of serendipity, and it has officially changed hands and is now, no longer, serendipity. ken and kamala have moved into a house-sharing situation on south lake samish, which is several steps up for them, and, if it works out, will be much more satisfactory than serendipity ever was…

but it’s still not enough to make me want to live there.

i went up there on wednesday/thursday to help them with getting new tires for their truck.

panto rehearsals start tomorrow. i’ve still got to procure a hinge for a “whip-crack” sound effect that i’m making, and i’ve got to remember to bring my tuning forks.

no perceivable change with the moisture festival, except for the rumour that mr. poopy-pants may have been, in fact, severely talking out of his ass, which would make me laugh, but it’s only a rumour at this point.

egbert

i’ve calmed down a little, but mr. moisture-festival-poopy-pants is still on my list of bad people.

i’m in the process of doing something which i haven’t done since i lived in mount vernon, which, according to the handy chart of when things happened, was in 1993. twenty-two years ago, and this time i’m going to be doing it with my own set-up, rather than using a set-up borrowed from a friend… and it’s legal now… 😉

the sousa band is playing on saturday. it’s john philip sousa’s 161st birthday, and it’s also the 30th anniversary of the sousa band, so instead of having the sousa bash at the traditional place, which is kenyon hall (also known as hokum hall), we’re having it at town hall in seattle, which is the old christian science church that’s two blocks away from where i used to live.

etc.

snake suspenderz gig tonight at the georgetown stables.

going to bellingharm tomorrow to say farewell to serendipity. it’ll probably be the last time for a while, although i’ll probably attend a memorial service for kenyth, if one happens.

there’s currently some spammer/script-kiddie at 185.82.201.17 who thinks s/he can break my shit by repeatedly trying to login — 245 times as of this writing — to a directory that s/he’s been banned from since 2:30 am this morning. i can’t imagine that they’re doing it manually, but they keep knocking and i keep saying go away. i suppose they’ll get the idea eventually.

oh, yeah…

i’m on vacation. we rented a house in moclips for a week. then i’m going to bellingham next weekend. i can probably post photos here, but not from this device (an ipad that doesn’t have a very good camera) and i can’t be arsed to figure out how to transfer photos, because i’m on vacation… i’ll figure it out eventually… or i won’t… who cares?

SACBO, OCF et cetera

we have three snake suspenderz gigs next week. tuesday we have a gig at horizon house, which we played for last year to great acclaim. thursday we have a gig at the university house, wallingford, which doesn’t pay enough and only wants “background music” for their art opening (they could easily afford to pay us twice the amount they are, out of petty cash, considering how swank and regal the place is, but it’s for a friend of a friend, so we can’t really say much). saturday we have SACBO, which is in a new place this year. apparently, in spite of the crowds of people who attend, the fremont solstice fair budget is on the “shoe-string” level, and they decided to use the parking lot that we have been holding SACBO in for the past few years as a “pay-for” concert venue, which means that SACBO has to move to the former sound mind & body parking lot. it’s good because there won’t be the possibility for loud interruptions, like what happened last year, and it’s a nicer location, with more shade, right next to the water.

this year will also be the 14th 16th anniversary (this is why my wife is always right and i am always wrong) of our wedding, which now moves into the class of things i have done for the longest amount of time in my life, including smoking cannabis and being a musician.

the fighting instruments of karma (for which i am now, more-or-less, the “official” tuba player) has a parade in which i am actually going to be “marching”, in darrington, on the 4th of july. moe says i “dodged a bullet” because her mom wants us to come down to portland for a barbecue on the 4th. i’m still not totally sure whether moe will attend or not (although i don’t see any reason why not), but at this point, i’m grateful for anything that puts distance between me and moe’s mother.

then OCF happens from july 8th (or 9th, at the latest) until the 14th. we are already scheduled to perform at the ritz, on saturday, 12th july, at 7:30 pm. if you’re interested, and in the area, i encourage you to come: it is, definitely, not to be missed. both kiki and sasha are cast members this year, which means that stuart will be the pro-tem leader of the band, we will have an alternate drummer (possibly) and at least one new player whose name i have seen bandied about in email, but have never actually met. the philharmonic still hasn’t had any rehearsals, and there is no new music, although some is rumoured to exist, at least in kiki’s mind… in other words, we’re coming into OCF with practically no rehearsals at all, and (at this point) no rehearsals with the cast… just like normal… i’m not even 100% sure what show we are doing this year (although i think it might be “Sleeping Beauty”)…

it’s gotten to be so much of a “tradition” that i’m not particularly worried any longer, but it still causes a small amount of stress.

Enter title here 3

hi. i’m still here.

moisture festival ended (for me) two weekends ago, and it ended for everyone last weekend. i spent a week recovering, then…

moe’s mom came for a “visit”. she’s currently asleep on the recliner in the living room. moe is at work, and won’t be home until late this evening. i had some things to do earlier today, but… 😐

she wants to visit the buddhist temple down the street. ordinarily i would be all for her visiting non-christian spiritual temples, but i don’t want my first time visiting the buddhist temple to be simultaneous with hers… if for no other reason than i don’t want to be the target of her stupid ignorant questions for which i don’t have a ready answer… honestly, i would be a lot more comfortable taking her to the hindu temple down the street, but she didn’t ask for that…

it’s possible that i’m going to have to break in a new counsellor. the old one (8 years now) is going to a system where he can only accept medicaid, and i’ve only got medicare… it’s possible that i can get supplememtal medicaid for my “mental health issues”, but i don’t have the first clue what to do to find out (moe suggested internet 😐 ) and there’s a limited amount of time before a decision has to be made one way or the other.

i got two incense orders, yesterday, from repeat customers who i haven’t heard from for a long time, and who i have been agarbathiwala to for an even longer time. one said that we were “the bestest pen-pals a decade ago”, and the other one has been a part of my search for aparajita for at least 8 years.

… 8/

I remember one time I was with a friend of mine who lives in New York also, and we went to go pick up his cousin — she’s lived on a farm in New Hampshire her whole life. Her family is this weird family that kept their kids on a farm — anyway, her parents finally died, so she got to leave, and so she came down to visit her cousin, my friend in the city, and so we picked her up at port authority bus station.

She had never been to any city before. And we’re picking her up at the Port Authority, that smelly hole of a place. We pick her up there and she’s just freaking out at New York. She’s never seen anything like it. And we pass this homeless guy and she sees him — I mean, we all passed him, but she saw him. She’s the only one who actually saw him. We didn’t — me and her cousin were like, “So? He’s supposed to be there. So what? There’s a perfectly good reason why that’s not me and it’s him. The right people always win, I’m sure of it.”

But, so there he is, and this dude was particularly homeless. He was one of those high-octane homeless, smelly, just piss smell, the unbelievable piss smell, just — he was piss. He didn’t just smell like piss, he was — when you piss, he comes out. And he had dreadlocks. Not cool-guy, medical-marijuana dreadlocks, just “human-neglect clumps” of hair. A clump of hair for every year that no one knew his name or cared.

His cousin immediately just gets “Oh, my God! Sir, are you okay? What happened?”

What happened? America happened.

What do you mean, “What happened?”

So she’s down there

“Sir, can we call someone?”

And me and my friend, we’re from New York, this is the crazy part, we immediately go to her. We start correcting her behavior like she’s doing something wrong.

“Why, is he okay?”

“No, no, he needs you desperately, that’s not the point. We just don’t do that here. You silly country girl.”
     — Louis CK

so…

it’s been a week, and the inside of my car is looking a bit more like an art car, but the outside is still just plain black. it is NOT going to get a “vehicle wrap” unless i can find a professional that is willing to do it for $1000 or less (the quote that i got yesterday was for $2,500), but if not there are other, less expensive options that have presented themselves… but it may also mean that i’m going to do some of the work myself, with actual paint much to the chagrin of moe… and i sort of see her point. this is a much newer car than i have ever had before, and there’s no telling what will happen to it five, or ten years from now.

i’m currently trying to figure out how to colour the black-and-white sticker model that i made for the hybrid elephant logo a few years ago, because if i can figure out how to do it, i may have that put on the hood of my car… 😉

moe and i moved two enormous piles of wood, today, from where they were more-or-less randomly piled after having been cut up (some as long as two or three years ago) to a place where, when summer comes and the hornets make nests in it, won’t be so close to a gate that people have to go through all the time.

140110-salamandir-and-the-wood-piles

now i’m tired.

tomorrow we’re recording the songs from the panto, and i’ve got a xmas party to go to for moe’s work in the evening.

heebie

i’m cold, and i also think that i may be getting a cold, which is not good, because i’ve got important obligations that i’m probably going to have to fulfill, even if i am sick. it may just be that i am still wearing summer-ish clothing and it’s getting to the point where i should probably switch to winter-ish clothing, but i’m too lazy.

the obligations for the next few weeks include: giving rick a ride to the cannabis dispensary (which is usually an “all-day” event, depending on how many dispensaries we visit), a fremont phil gig for a moisture-festival/panto-related performance, the winter panto performances, the lenin lighting, and probably a bunch of other rehearsals, gigs, and what-have-you, that i am forgetting.

we’re well into the fall/winter rehearsal season, but we have only had one panto rehearsal, because all of the music isn’t completed yet. i have two new arrangements for the phil which are ready, however: one is a piano rag by scott joplin called “I Am Thinking Of My Pickaninny Days”, and the other is an arrangement of that piece of music made famous by the bulgarian womens’ radio choir, called “Polegnala e Todora” by philip koutev, which is in 11/16… it’s almost in 3/4 time, but not quite… which may make it a lot more difficult to play, but i’m hoping that we won’t have to get too technical about it. it’s also got a rubato feel about it, that, i’m hoping, will cover for any glaring technical difficulties that we might encounter.

even though i haven’t heard a note of either of them, i’m fairly confident that the arrangements are not going to be the problem once we actually get around to rehearsing them, because i also wrote an arrangement of Drei Equale für Vier Posaunen by beethoven, only four steps lower (so you don’t have to use an alto trombone for the high part), which i tried out with the trombone section from the ballard sedentary sousa band over the weekend. while they were sight-reading, completely unsure of the notes, and not playing with any confidence whatsoever, when they were all playing in the same place, the arrangement stood on its own… completely unlike the previous times i have tried to arrange things, using lilypond, and had significant difficulties getting the right notes to go down on the printed page.

moe has decided that we have to paint and re-carpet the bedroom before our new, king-sized bed arrives, which means that, once again, i am surrounded by boxes, and stacks of stuff, and dressers and suchlike that were in our bedroom. of course, the up side to all this is that, in a couple weeks or so, we will have a freshly, newly-repainted bedroom, with new fixtures, and a new bed… it’ll sort of be like a hotel room, except that we won’t have to go home eventually.

the rat problem is still there. i trapped two rats earlier this week. they go for two or three days without touching the traps, and then there are two in one day… then they go back to not touching them again. these intelligent creatures are being murdered by me, because they are destructive to the way i want to live. i am responsible for the murders of cute, furry, intelligent, rat mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters, because i don’t like the fact that they chewed up the pluming under the floor of my house…

no matter how hard i try, i am unable to convince myself that what i am doing is not wrong. 😛

update

moe’s car died yesterday. the alternator went out while she was driving down the freeway. fortunately she was able to get off the freeway before anything catastrophic happened, but the result is that she drove my car to work today, and i’ve been stuck at home fielding calls from the repair shop, which says that it’s going to cost on the order of $600 to get it running again.

i got my old computer transferred to my new computer, and got the new computer in the backup routine — and it has only taken me four days — and that is not to mention that much of the important software on my old computer won’t work on the new one, so i’ve been franically flailing around to try and update everything before one of my clients calls and asks for an emergency change to their business card, or something like that.

as an aside, one of the applications that no longer worked was photoshop. i’ve been using CE since my minuteman press days (i.e. 10 years ago) and i was pleasantly surprised to discover that it worked both on my OS9 mac and my OSX mac, so i figured that it would continue to work, given that i haven’t changed platforms, i’ve just upgraded it… BUT NO… 😐 apparently “Universal Binaries” are no longer supported, despite the fact that i’ve got a number of open source programs that are also, apparently, “universal binaries” and they work just fine… fortunately i was able to find a copy of CS2 on ebay, and CS2 will work, because i AM NOT going to purchase CC (the “cloud” version), because that is not software, it is sold as a “subscription” which means that, if you don’t pay for it, you can’t use it… another one of the “universal binary” applications that no longer works is macromedia freehand, which is, truly, a shame, because it’s replacement in the commercial market (illustrator) doesn’t work half as well, and uses adobe’s “home office” terminology, rather than the much more standard “industry” terminology…

hot spoons

last post on the 24th. at that time, i had nothing scheduled until a saturday gig with snake/rhino. since then:

i had an appointment with ned and an appointment with stick on monday, which involved driving to and from seattle, tuesday i took moe’s car into the shop to have its brakes replaced, and did two printing jobs for BFNA, one of which got shipped today… then, today, i was rick’s transportation to tacoma, i got the oil changed in my car, went out to the farm to pick up half a lamb, and went to the bank…

and, while it’s not been particularly hot (mid-70s to low-80s) for the past few days, it’s also been overcast and rainy, which makes it a lot more humid than it usually is… and it feels like a sauna…

wait, maybe that’s how to deal with hot, humid weather: no clothes! 8)

i’m hoping that i can rouse some more interest in busking tomorrow, among my (now) many friends who engage in such pastimes

up… date…

i’m back from OCF, moe is back from chicago, i was in the greenwood seafair parade (where the art cars won the trophy!), i had a rehearsal, our weekend houseguest (moe’s friend/student diana, and owner of one of lucy’s puppies, ben) has come and gone and i’ve had a “weekend” (although it was monday and today), and now i’ve got enough spoons (i think) to be ready for what comes ahead… which includes another rehearsal, a gig at the locks, another parade (the magnolia seafair parade), and getting together with my father to get his curved soprano saxophone.

rehearsal season has begun

woof.

one rehearsal monday, two rehearsals tuesday, a gig friday, a gig saturday and, possibly a gig sunday… this week…

i got two traffic tickets yesterday. one i can make go away by sending in a copy of my current insurance card (the old one expired a couple weeks ago, and i haven’t got the new one installed yet). the other one i can either pay, or pay close to the same amount to have it “deferred” for a year, during which time i have to get no other traffic tickets (which shouldn’t be a problem), and then it, too, “goes away”…

it strikes me as a not-so-sneaky way of getting the taxpayers to pay for things that their taxes should already pay for, but i’m on the receiving end of their “benificence” this time, so i really shouldn’t complain… too much…

random, out of no-where…

i have a background “wallpaper” on my linux box, that automatically changes every 10 minutes, with a random photo from a directory of photos i keep around. this one came around, and i immediately started wondering:
cao dai Divine Eye spherethere’s this relatively modern (i believe they started some time in the 1920s or thereabouts, but didn’t really get off the ground until the 1960s) syncretic religion from viet nam called Cao Đài that has bits and pieces from buddhism, catholicism, taoism, and indiginous pagan beliefs from south asia (among other things), and their concept of “God” is a symbolism of the Divine Eye overseeing the universe, depicted above… according to wikipedia, this is a photo taken from inside the Tây Ninh Holy See. the official web site has a different representation, but it has the same aspect about which i have been wondering.
thieng_nhanboth of these “all seeing eyes” are left eyes…

it’s a little difficult to tell for sure, but i believe the “eye of providence” on the $1 bill is also a left eye…

grumph

the floor is replaced, but i can’t move my office back until the adhesive for the vinyl has cured, which takes anywhere from 3 to 5 days, depending on the ambient temperature… and, as it has been dumping rain for the past few days, it’s heading more towards the 5-day curing period. 😛

and, i’ve got another week of moisture festival performances starting tuesday, plus i’ve got an incense order that i can’t fill and another incense order that is waiting for the guy to snailmail me a money order, plus i’ve got three reels of tape that have been digitised, and three to five cassettes that still need to be digitised before i can get started making a CD out of the digitised remains for randy’s daughter, naomi…

so it’s very likely that i won’t actually get around to doing any real work on getting my office back in shape for another week or so… 😛

update

rick still isn’t dead. the probability that he will be any time soon is going down, but you never know. it’s really sad that he’s such a feeble old man, if for no other reason than he’s actually two years younger than me…

we’re going to try again to record the panto, on wednesday. i’ll believe it when i see it happen. there have been many, many attempts to coerce a CD, or something like it, from this group of crazies, and none of them has succeeded so far.

i’m still waiting (after two weeks) for the artwork that the acord foundry people said that they were going to send me “in a couple of days”. they paid me to print business cards for them, but they still haven’t got around to sending me the artwork. i hope they’re not going to demand the finished cards any time soon… 😐 i should probably call them and find out what’s going on, but i’m pretty sure i know what the answer will be, which is that one or more people simply “hasn’t had the time” to go through the hard photographs (they don’t have any digitised photos at all) and snail-mail them to me… 😐

i should really find out whether or not there’s a smoke shop on the same calibre as the pike place pipe palace, only in tacoma.

phumphf

ELECTION: obama won. i didn’t vote for him, but i’m glad that he won, because mitt romney is a gold plated asshole.

washington legalised cannabis and gay marriage, and elected a democratic governor, which are good things. in spite of the fact that i was torn on the cannabis issue, i couldn’t bring myself to vote against something that i have been encouraging others to vote for, for most of my life.

COMPUTER: i rescued my genealogical information by writing to the GRAMPS-users mailing list. i also rescued my address book, although i still don’t know how… i haven’t even come close to rescuing my old email, but that’s a relatively low priority, and if it never comes back, i won’t be too disappointed… although Kmail is still acting somewhat strangely. it may be because of “features” with which i am not familiar, yet. HOWEVER i still don’t have ANY sound from my computer, and it’s beginning to get frustrating.

HEALTH: i may be am probably getting a cold. moe has been sick for a couple of days, and i’m beginning to feel like, possibly as soon as tomorrow morning, i will also have a cold… i suppose it’s what i get for sleeping in the same bed as a sick person. 😐

ergleborglefnoodlewangleeeb

it’s monday, it’s before 10:00 am, i got up and got out of the shower around 9:00 or so, and i’m already exausted… 😐

and i haven’t even been that busy… it’s really bizarre.

last week i started on a 6-pack of “Red Stripe” bottles and i broke 3 of them in the process of drilling out 5 of them. i think the ½" drill bit is a little too large, but the solution to that problem means going back to hardwicks and getting the next smaller sized bit… and i’m not going back to the seattle area again until tomorrow. fortunately, i spent friday with fred, tearing apart computers for the Bowling For Computers event that macque is planning for trolloween, and he (conveniently) had a case of empty beer bottles that was in the recycling that he gave me.

Rev. DeLuxe hacks a watermelon with a machete during a sacrifice in 1993macque is also planning on having a Public Ritual Vegetable Sacrifice to start off the trolloween celebrations, and, to help with the sacrifice, i borrowed a sword from fred… because of the fact that the start of the trolloween celebration is going to be held on a stage in front of the troll, there will be no place to throw or drop the sacrificial victim that will gain enough downward momentum to make an appropriate sized SPLAT when the vegetable hits the ground, so i decided to go with the technique that i developed in 1993 to expose the entrails of the vegetable using an edged weapon… except that, this time, instead of a watermelon, it will definitely be a pumpkin (and a rather large one, at that), and, instead of a machete, i’m going to be using an authentic, REAL (i.e. NOT “costume”) sword with a balanced blade that is around 2½ feet long. and, because of the fact that trolloween is a PUBLIC event, the PUBLIC is invited and encouraged to attend, without reservations. along with the vegetable sacrifice, there are going to be at least two bands (the Fremont Philharmonic is not playing this year), plus the “Bowling For Computers” event that i mentioned earlier, plus a “Dryer Squash” and a dance under the fremont bridge. the “Dryer Squash” is an event where teams of three, armed with sledge hammers, compete to see who can reduce a standard-size sears/kenmore dryer to 12 inches or less in the shortest period of time. the current record is just over 3 minutes.

i’ve also been helping a friend from college, who just moved to the area from eugene oregon, move his belongings, and those of his relatively-recently deceased parents, from an expensive storage unit in kent to his residence in puyallup. i’m VERY glad i’m not actually unpacking the boxes, but i have already made three trips to, and from the storage unit (with an unexpected side-trip to stanwood, which is, entirely in the opposite direction), and there’s still a huge pile of boxes that are yet to be moved. maybe we’ll make another trip today… the problem is that, at this point, rick doesn’t have a lot of money coming in, and last month he had to make the choice between keeping all of the stuff in the storage unit, or paying rent, and, because of the fact that he had to make a similar choice the month before, and chose to pay for the storage unit, this month he was facing eviction, which would not have been the desired outcome. i figure i don’t have very much money, but i do have a vehicle which is bigger than most, so i could help him move out of the storage unit, if nothing else. we’ve still got at least two more trips before everything except the empty boxes and the matresses are out of his storage unit.

ran dumb

according to these guys, my C tuba is a Conn 2J, which is a close relation to the 3J, 4J, and 5J tubas Conn made in more recent years.

we are finished with this round of kennel cough, and two dogs are, once again, accompanying moe to work. huge sighs of relief from all humans involved.

snake suspenderz is performing at the can can again on tuesday, september 18th. i don’t know yet when or with whom, but those things are to be worked out immediately. i think we may be headed towards another attempt to perform at cafe racer, as well.

the fremont phil (such as it is, these days) will be playing at the garden party at big red (the huson’s west seattle hangout) on saturday.

the BSSB is playing at Edmonds Concert In The Park on sunday.

my didjeriflute has a Hornbostel-Sachs number of 421.111.11, while my C tuba has the number 423.232

update VII

we now have two confirmed cases of kennel cough, and two likely cases of kennel cough. 😐 and this is after having all canids in the house vaccinated against kennel cough. whee… 😐

we also have a small RV (thanks to moe’s mom) which we are going to trade in ASAP, because it looks good, but doesn’t steer very well.

i have a sousa band gig on sunday, at the conservatory at volunteer park, and next week there’s a guy in ballard who wants me to play tuba for a recording that he’s making of a new childrens’ song.

i registered at TubeNet, in the hopes of figuring out whether my new tuba is a 56J or a 5J, but they haven’t confirmed my registration yet, which is kind of a bummer… but eventually i’ll get over it, one way or the other.

mugphluump

this week has been phenomenally busy: i got back from OCF last monday, and monique left for alberta on wednesday. i got the radiator in my car replaced, mowed the lawn, cleaned up the entire house, went to 3 rehearsals, shipped out 3 packages of incense (including one containing huge amounts of incense to the company in chicago that sells my incense) and re-packed and put away all of my camping gear before tuesday of this week. i also started dealing with a fiasco that may or may not be happening with the Sousa Band email list, of which i am administrator. tuesday this week, i had a BSSB rehearsal, wednesday i had a BSSB performance at des moines beach park — an hour and a half: most of the BSSB sets are half an hour or less, and i was playing first trombone (read “exceptionally high parts”) which is the first time i’ve done that in many, many years (i only fluffed a couple of notes, though… 8) ), and tonight i have a snake suspenderz performance at St. Clouds restaurant, for Robert Fulghum (the author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It). he saw us at the ballard sunday market a few weeks ago, which is another party for another rich and influential person we have gotten by busking at the ballard sunday market… i think we need to do that more often… 8)

monique is leaving for a veterinary conference in san diego next wednesday, and will be gone for a week. we still haven’t seen the guy about the thing that i mentioned a few weeks ago, which is now just sitting there collecting dust. eventually we will both be home for a long enough time that we can get together with the guy and work out exactly what we’re going to do with it, but it can’t be soon enough for me.

things i want to do this week

  • finish organising my OCF photos, taking into account the new, slower, buggier interface for uploading photos to flickr pictures here
  • create a “Big Boys With Poise” patch, which is going to be made by b coole
  • make at least one long, rambling post about OCF
  • at least get started making a video of me playing my didjeri-flute (ultimately to be uploaded to youtube), which is not a fujara but is a specialised kind of overtone flute (both of which terms i heard applied to my didjeri-flute for the first time at OCF last weekend)
  • rehearse at least once with snake suspenderz

i ordered a gerard hoffnung

i ordered a gerard hoffnung CD more than a week ago, and it hasn’t arrived yet. i feel like i should give them a little leeway, since the place i ordered it from is in england, but at the same time, i ship things to england on a pretty regular basis, and it’s my impression that it takes less than a week… but i could just be paranoid, as well, because i’m paranoid, and it is a gerard hoffnung CD, after all…

some alien being has eaten my father and replaced him with an exact clone that has a human brain. it’s uncanny.

snake suspenderz went busking today. we played for around 2 hours and made $12.50 apiece, which is better than nothing, but could be a great deal more without any difficulty at all.

etadpu

i broke down and bought a plain black fez, because as nice as they are, the fez-o-rama fezzes (fezi?) are specifically not available without some kind of goofy logo on them, and so far they haven’t produced a goofy logo that i feel is representative of me (at least not all the time)… but i still really like wearing a fez, for a variety of reasons. the logical alternative, at this point, is to acquire a blank fez, and, with the help of Master Payne, (who gave me the secret information needed) i have now done just that. expect pictures when it arrives. 8)

i still haven’t gotten started painting my car. i’m pretty close to it, though, but i had better get some paint on it pretty soon, because SACBO is coming sooner than expected: i.e. the 16th, and not the 23rd, as i had thought originally… although, strangely enough, i’m only going to be able to make one day at the fair, because i have two snake suspenderz gigs the second day of the fair, and one of them is at a competing fair in burien – the wild strawberry festival (the other one is at the can can, with the wanderlust circus). fortunately, i, literally, “have to have some paint on it” to get into the fair, so i think i’m going to be able to come up with something.

cedar (the person, not the tree: son of reverend chumley) and i removed the large juniper bush at the top of the driveway last weekend. he took pictures, but i (for some reason) did not. now we have a twenty-foot crater where the bush was, and moe and i are discussing what to replace it with. the current fanasy is bamboo (i would actually like to rip out all of the juniper and replace it with a bamboo hedge), but that’s likely to change. i’ve made tentative arrangements with cedar (the person) to come back at some point and trim the cedar tree at the bottom of the property. i found out it’s a deodar cedar, which is the basis for a lot of tibetan incenses, so it’s my guess that, if i do it right, i will probably be able to end up with a fair amount of deodar resin incense after all this is over.

wump

Thomas and Minnie Hammondi’m feeling marginally better than i was yesterday, and yesterday i was feeling marginally better than i was the day before that, and so forth, for about a week… which, i suppose, means that i’m getting better, slowly… it’s gotten so i don’t actively feel sick, most of the time, but i still have bouts of coughing that are really annoying because of their unpredictability, and i still get exhausted really easily, which sometimes is accompanied by a bout of coughing, which exhausts me even more.

the dignified-looking people to the right are my great grandparents, Thomas W. and Minnie L. Hammond. i don’t know when the picture was taken exactly, but my guess is that it was some time between minnie’s marriage, in 1906 (she was 16 when she got married) and her death in 1946… and judging by how old she looks, i would guess about 1915 to 1925-ish. but, because of the fact that they were relatives of mine, i can pretty much assure anyone who doesn’t know, that they were very likely not anywhere near as dignified as they look. my general impression is that most of my relatives from that era are all but hillbillies from central missouri (pronounced “missourah”). after minnie died, tom hammond got married to another teenager (when he was almost 70), named Melmalee Clapper, and had another child before he died… so i guess i’m carrying on a family tradition by being married to a woman who is 17 years younger than me, as well as carrying on the family tradition of being the oldest child of a family who wants to have nothing to do with me. 😛 fortunately i’ve got a perfectly wonderful surrogate-family, which has taken over the family duties in a way that my family-of-origin never could.

i won’t have to go in for jury duty on monday, because, according to the jury-duty-check-in-phone-line that i was supposed to call friday evening, “there are no trials scheduled for the month of april”… which, considering that i received the message around april 10th or so, i would have thought that they knew that already, but apparently they don’t. oh well, i guess i don’t get to go in and inform all of the other potential jurors about the right of jury nullification, and disqualify us all from the jury pool… 😉

i’ve got a really weird anomaly with my blog: i use a plugin called “Jetpack” that connects my blog to wordpress.org, and gives me stuff like stats for the site, and the ability to short-link to my blog, and stuff like that. there is a number "➊" in a black circle, next to the jetpack link, which, under normal circumstances, means that there is an update to be applied, but i can’t find it anywhere, and there are no other indications that updates are even required, which there usually are if there’s an update that is really supposed to be applied. i can put up with a random "➊" character, but anything outside of what’s normally supposed to happen makes me extremely suspicious.

so, here’s the deal…

i have been getting a little tired of doing a regular “another week closer to the eschaton” post, because it seems as though the news never gets any better, and frequently gets a lot worse, and i’m tired of reading bad news ALL the time… besides that, it doesn’t seem to matter how much i rant about how awful things are, it never seems to do any good.

besides that, i’ve got a couple more weeks of moisture festival performances to deal with, and i’m going to be spending a lot more than my normally alloted quantity of spoons, which means that i will have even less time than i would ordinarily, because i will be recovering.

so, the upshot is that i’m going to suspend the regular weekly rant about how awful the world is for a while… two weeks at the minimum…

discuss, if you want to. in the mean time, i’ll be posting here as usual… 8)

arablehblhbolahbelblhlehblahboalhbelolahbelblhalehbl…

(which is a text approximation of the characteristic sound that is made by Boss Rugor Nass in “The Phantom Menace”.)

rehearsals! FIVE DAYS IN A ROW of BBWP rehearsals, and a fremont phil rehearsal last night to top it off…

as much as i’m really excited about this whole san francisco thing, i’ll be REALLY glad when it’s over… which, of course, may not be for several more months, as we might pass this round of auditions, and go to new york for the final round…

they still haven’t completed my shoes. the cobbler says that the straps are on the footbed, but they still haven’t put on the buckles, which is the same thing they told me last week. i said that i would be out of town on friday, and probably wouldn’t be back until sunday, and the guy said that if i called next monday that would give him time to put on the buckles… there are 8 buckles (four per foot) and they are “stapled” in place. the place where i bought the leather said that they also had everything else to make a birkenstock sandal (including, presumably, the tool that is used to make the “staples” on the buckle look exactly right), however they wouldn’t sell any of the necessary equipment or materials (other than leather) directly to me, because i didn’t have my resale permit with me, so it is my guess that he has to buy the tool, but only needs it for one job (i.e. mine), and just hasn’t gone out to buy it yet.

i’m still plugging away at the stack of vinyl, but my impression is that it may take me a while, because i only finished transferring four albums yesterday, which doesn’t make that sizable a dent in the stack.

and this is the reason why… 8/

tuesday i posted that when it snows around here, EVERYBODY FREAKS OUT… and this is the reason why: wednesday morning, around 5:00, our power went out, and has yet to return. thursday, our neighbour’s sixty-foot evergreen tree took a header into our front yard, narrowly missing my car and blocking the driveway up to the house… the neighbours are nowhere to be seen. moe thinks they may have moved into a hotel. friday moe went out to mcdonalds (free WIFI), and had to wend her way through the neighbourhood, being alert for downed power lines and fallen trees… everything in our refrigerator and freezer is no longer good, with the exception (i think) of a few things we’ve had packed in snow in the back yard. yesterday we went to a friends’ house, where we took showers and checked email… today we went to another friends’ house, where, according to PSE’s Service Alert Map there are multiple outages in our area, but if i read their cryptic map symbols correctly, they’re working on our neighbourhood at this very moment… althogh we didn’t have electricity when we left the house. the neighbours behind us, and to the north of us have had power for two days, but their houses are on military road, which is a major thorough fare. we, on the other hand, are at the end of a gravel road that you have to drive down another gravel road to get to… and, while our next-door neighbours may be on a major thorough fare, we are in a place where the UPS driver pretty regularly can’t find us, and our mailbox is two blocks away because the postal service doesn’t know where we are either… i regularly have to “talk people in” who get lost trying to find our house…. so, hopefully PSE isn’t just shining us on, and they really are working in our neighbourhood, but i’ll believe it when i see it. 😕

and even when the electricity does come back on, we still have to deal with the sixty-foot evergreen tree across our driveway.

snoo!

snoo!

it doesn’t snow that often around here, which means that when it does, EVERYBODY FREAKS OUT. i grew up in buffalo, new york, where they have up to seven feet of snow, from october to may every year… i learned to drive in the snow before i could actually legally drive… and i don’t mind the snow as long as i don’t have to go anywhere (like today)… but it’s more because i don’t have to watch out for other people who are FREAKING OUT than because i don’t like driving myself. i took the dog for a walk and fell down on my way down the driveway, but because of the fact that i had actually prepared for it, it was more of an entertaining aside than a serious fall.

the picture was taken up the street from our house. there was approximately six inches of snow, and it was sleeting when i took it. according to the NOAA weather report, it should all be gone by tomorrow…

ETA: 2:15 pm – it’s already warming up, and while it’s not snowing any longer, it’s really foggy and the bush next to the driveway is collapsing under the weight of all the wet snow in its branches…

miscellaneous random

the entire Voynich Manuscript is now online, where intrigued people (like me) can pore over it, download pages and wonder what Emperor Rudolph II of Germany thought was worth 66.4 troy ounces of gold…

i bought some new stock: Golden Nag Champa and Woods, as well as some “reorder” stock, Pradhan’s Royal Life and Shivranjani. i’m really glad to have found a new supplier for pradhan’s royal life, as it is one of my best (and best selling) champa fragrances, and the supplier i was getting it from previously is the notorious sughanda prabhu, who is practically impossible to get in touch with, and has recently gotten out of the incense business(!) but used to provide the best quality incense i have ever found anywhere… but the shivranjani i bought was because i needed more, and it’s not that common in the united states, however once i bought it, i realised that the supplier i usually get it from sells it for about half the price that these new guys sell it for, so i think i won’t change suppliers for that fragrance…

bleh… seeds… 😛 ptui…

i’m SO glad mother-in-law is gone… she’s my mother-in-law, and i’m grateful for her existence, without which there would be no moe, but if she can exist somewhere that’s far enough away from me that she can’t come over, rant about how my liberal views are going to make a mess of our country, decide our house isn’t good enough, try to make it better and end up making it worse, it would be just fine with me… her predictably abortive attempt at painting resulted in paint splashed from floor to ceiling, and ripped wallpaper where i took off the tape that she had me put down so that she wouldn’t paint beyond a certain, random point… it’s in the “spare” bathroom, that i don’t use very often, so i don’t have to see it every day, but it’s irritating that it was functional if consistently ugly, and now it’s functional and inconistently awful, and moe and i are left to clean up the mess.

i’ve got a busy few weeks coming up… i’ve got two rehearsals on wednesday, a gig on friday, a gig on saturday, and a gig and a rehearsal on sunday, then next monday (which is krampusnacht) there’s a rehearsal, wednesday there’s a rehearsal, friday there’s a gig, and next saturday is the start of the panto run, which is two shows saturday and sunday, excluding the 24th and 25th, and the 31st, and the 1st, and then two shows saturday and sunday for two more weeks, ending january 15th. if anybody is interested in coming better get your tickets soon, because we’re selling out very quickly. 8)

random

moe and i went to a friends’ house last night, and we ended up watching a really funny movie, which was odd, because it was likely intended as either a “holiday” movie, or a “horror” movie, both of which would be things which i would not have a tendency to watch, given the choice…

the film started with a bunch of english-speaking technicians, and one english-speaking “big wig” discussing a very bizarre drilling sample that had just been taken from the mountain which they were on top of, and it then followed a couple of suomi-speaking kids (with english subtitles) who had been “spying” on them as they went back to their families and their wintertime activities. it turned out that the english-speaking people had been drilling into an enormous grave-mound and had dug up the “original santa claus”, which caused a big problem for everyone. nobody in the film actually used the name, but they were clearly referring to krampus, and his “little helpers”, who were old, naked men with nasty tempers. it ended up with a full, double-unexpected twist that makes me want to get that movie on DVD so that i’ll have a film to suggest when everybody else wants to watch those awful stop-action animated monstrosities. 😉

paypal’s response was to have me send the spam message to spoof at paypal dot com, which, if my previous experiences are anything to go by, is the last thing i will ever hear about this message… 😐

oh well…

my car stereo experienced an electronic hiccough yesterday, but taking out the suspect fuse to determine if it was bad or not (it wasn’t) fixed everything.

yesterday had a phil rehearsal in preparation for trolloween. today has a BSSB rehearsal in preparation for the sousa bash.

we have a number of houseguests starting thursday and ending sunday.

oh… my… gawd…

so i have been looking at cars, thanks to the ford F150 that i have been borrowing from moe’s boss, but yesterday i did my first “two-gigs-in-one-day” thing, and i’m getting ready to do my second “two-gigs-in-one-day” thing, and i already feel like i’m going to need at least two days to recover… and this is before my gigs for the day even start…

and when she woke up and left this morning (moe has been taking the doggles to an agility trial while i am doing my gigs), moe asked me if i was car-shopping today… just what i need, first thing in the morning: a reminder that i am not car shopping because i am “entertaining myself” instead… 😐

and i still don’t have a car, which means that instead of taking the next few days to recover, i’m going to have to get up, study internet, call people and go on fruitless errands to discover that people are acually expecting to get unreasonably large quantities of money in exchange for sub-standard cars that won’t actually be functioning cars for more than 6 months… until wednesday, at which point i will have to give the F150 back and do all of this stuff on foot, by bicycle, or using public transportation… 😛

wish me luck…

cat stevens

i was just listening to But I Might Die Tonight by cat stevens, and at the same time i got a spam message from… “cat stevens”… 😐

i still don’t have a car, but now i’ve got to actually make it to the BSSB rehearsal tomorrow, because liz is having trouble with her computer and wants me to fix it. specifically, she’s having difficulty getting micro$awft look-out to get her email. of course, my professional solution to any problem caused by micro$awft is linux. i don’t know whether or not she knows this yet, but i’m in no mood to argue at the moment. 😐

i still don’t have a car, but theoretically i can borrow a truck for a week, as long as i can figure out how to get to bumfuck nowhere to pick it up. it’s really in the issaquah highlands or some recently-built, trendy, nouveau-riche place like that, but it may just as well be bumfuck nowhere, because currently i have to rely on public transportation, my bicycle, or my feet, and wherever it is that i’m supposed to go to pick up the truck isn’t served by busses… and it’s at the top of a very, very steep, long hill… 😐

i called the trumpet player from the fremont phil, who says that he has a honda that he could sell me for $800. i talked with him friday, before the car died, and he said he’d call me sunday, but he didn’t. i have been trying to get in touch with him all day, but his phone immediately goes to voicemail. 😐

i’ve also got a date for taping a TV SHOW(!!) with snake suspenderz on wednesday, two snake suspenderz performances this weekend, and another one next week. unless i get some wheels, i’m gonna miss them, or totally screw up my sweetie’s day having her drive me around and/or having me drive her around… 😛

on the other paw, i have a button order pending, and a business card order pending, and another business card order that i just submitted, and i just sold the last of my aparajita, which means that i have to get more… i don’t really have to get more, but i’m down to my – fairly substantial (because it’s been so hard to find) – “personal stash”.

random

rye is an 8-month old puppy, who is FULL OF HIMSELF… he’s ENORMOUS – he’s two inches taller than his mother, and 45 pounds, and he’s just going to get bigger. he also alerts when the printer goes off… and won’t stop… it’s almost as if he is afraid of the printer. he also really likes the tape-gun, but only when it’s actually in use.

i just discovered Legendary Doughnuts, which is close enough to where i live that i am probably going to start making a regular trip there, rather than to the “ordinary donut shop” that i have been going to in the past. they have maple-bacon doughnuts that are worthy of the name ‘DOUGHNUT’… 8)

list & random

fix my trombone slide: either do it myself, or call david cole. it’s GOT to be done, and the sooner the better.

clean pipes: i’ve got a dozen pipes that are totally clogged — again — and one of the reasons i set up my workshop was so that i would have a place to go and clean them out without having to move shit or clean up first…

finish entering new data into G.R.A.M.P.S.

Arbroath Fisheries probably has relatives working there, and even if they don’t, they use OSCommerce, so i bought some smoked fish from them.

moe has been gone since thursday at a sheep dog trial in oregon. she should be getting back at any moment. ah, yes… there she is. 8)

a poem from when i was a flagger in the early ’90s:

Girded in
The Tangerine Vest of Visibility
and
The Amber Helmet of Hardness

I bear, on my staff, the power of
THE SCARLET OCTAGON!

and I command you to
STOP!

addendum

i’m getting really amused by the spam-bots’ futile attempts to make it look like there’s really a human behind the spam, when the anti-spam plugin i’m using makes it so that there’s a form field that only robots fill out, and the spam automatically ends up getting trashed when that form field is filled out…

my mother-in-law bought me a huge 书法 brush… it’s bristles are four inches long (and i think they’re horse-hair, based on my experience with violin bows), it’s easily 1½ inches in diameter, and the whole thing is about 18 inches long… i suppose i’ve got the ink and inkstone and stuff to use it, but i’m not particularly good at 书法… maybe it’s a hint…

my blood pressure monitor has developed a leak, and now won’t register higher than 10mg Hg, which isn’t nearly enough.

i’ve got a gig with the SANCApators at a parade in magnolia on saturday. i’m playing sousaphone, and i actually have a sousaphone lyre… i’ve had it in my box of miscellaneous brass parts for the better part of 30 years, and i was able to find it immediately – partially because of the fact that my workshop is super organised these days… 8)

sunday i’m appearing with snake suspenderz at the ballard sunday market. apparently we’ve made a good enough impression on the vendors in the immediate vicinity that one of them offered to save us the spot this week… which is, apparently, against the “busker rules” – according to thad and hobbit, but they’re both actual buskers, so i’m assuming that they would know… anyway, we’re apparently not taking them up on the offer, but we’re going to try to make it down there early enough that it won’t matter.