the new ganesha the vehicle developed its first problem a couple of days ago. the speedometer quit working… and, along with that, the odometer and the cruise control quit. 😛
i called the dealer(!) i bought it from the other day, and he said he’d get back to me, but he hasn’t called yet. i just called him, and they want me to bring the car up to them tomorrow.
i’m going to bellingham on friday. i might not be back until saturday.
U.S. assembling secret drone bases in Africa, Arabian Peninsula – because, you know, we have to be stirring things up somewhere…
You Should Definitely Take More Drugs – whether they’re legal or not…
We Ignore Poverty, But It Is On the Rise – the US has the highest poverty rate among developed countries.
Court Advances U.S. Torture Victims’ Case Against Donald Rumsfeld – now if they’d just do the same thing to bush…
Another TSA Employee Accused of Rape and TSA Searches Dallas Woman’s Hair for Weapons and TSA officer sentenced for theft from passengers and TSA official charged in slaying of worker – 😮
Fukushima "Surprise": Radioactive Rice "Far Exceeding" Safe Levels Found in Japan – who is really surprised by this?
it goes klunk, but it only goes klunk at certain times (when i am going around a corner) and not at other times (like when i am going over a speed bump), and, upon further investigation, the spare tire holder makes a suspiciously similar “klunk” when it gets stressed from going around corners, or when the car is stopped and i bump into it… i’m not saying that this is conclusive proof that nothing is wrong, but it is a good indication. 8)
the next step, now that the license plates and the insurance is switched over, is to get the stereo and the siren speakers switched over. i called and talked to a guy from car toys a couple of days ago, and he said that he would pull my previous order, but when i called back today, he wasn’t there and won’t be back until tuesday.
after that, i need to get started on the paint job. the guys that i bought it from said that they would provide the wholesale certificate to get it painted at maaco, and all i had to do was get an estimate.
the BSSB played at the festa italiana in fisher plaza today.
and i keep meaning to mention that monday was frank zappa day… hopefully i’ll be closer the next time.
snake suspenderz played a 90-minute gig at Davis Wright Tremaine law office, on 3rd avenue in downtown seattle the other night. it was kinda weird, because there were a huge crowd of people, but they were not listening to us… seriously, we got more compliments from the wait-staff that were hired caterers than we got from the law-office-related people, and we didn’t get that many compliments from the caterers… it’s really strange to not get confirmation that we’re doing a good job… they paid us $400 in advance, and from what little i gathered, they were more than satisfied with the job that we did, but they didn’t say anything specific, and they didn’t say they were going to hire us again… which the guy whose party we played at last week, did…
the law offices occupied at least 5 floors of the office building, but we played in the entrance lobby on the 22nd floor, which had a classic view of the sound, and i couldn’t resist taking a few pictures… 😉
the new ganesha the car (truck?) v.3 is now on the scene!
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i took it to see the mechanics at edgewood tire, and they said that, for a car with 171,000 miles on it, it looks pretty good… although one of them said that he wouldn’t buy it, he also said that it’s a much better car than the last one… they also recommended that i put straight 30-weight oil in it, because thicker oil will give me more adequate oil pressure, so i had ’em change the oil and it already sounds a lot better.
although it goes “klunk” when i’m driving around corners. moreso when i go around left corners than when i go around right corners, but still… it sounds like someone replaced the shocks and didn’t tighten them down enough, or something like that. also, it looks strangely lopsided: the driver’s side seems lower than the passenger side… that could also be because of where it’s parked at the moment. it had some “do-it-yourself” window tinting in it at some point in the past, which was removed before i saw it, but there’s a hazy film of residue on the inside of all the windows except the windshield, which has to go… and then, perhaps, some real, professionally installed window tinting would be in order… 8)
and it’s black, which means that it gets white sanskrit this time… which should look COOL! 8) and it’s got a roof that i can paint… 8)
but at the moment i’ve got a gig that i am leaving for in about an hour and a half, so i’ve got to go get ready.
not, needless to say, a NEW new car, but a new-to-me car. it’s a 1995 honda passport EX 4×4, which is significantly smaller than the humongous ford F150 pickup that i’m driving currently, but it’s still far and away the largest car i have ever owned. and it maintains my record of never owning a car that is newer than 15 years old. i’ve got to return the pickup tomorrow, so thaddeus and i are going to pick up the new car tomorrow, and then thaddeus is going to drive the humongous truck back to the issaquah highlands, where i will pick him up in the “new” car and drop him at home, hopefully before noon. meanwhiles, take a gander at the pictures of the new car from the craigslist ad:
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Blast rocks nuclear plant in France – At the moment no one knows whether the building itself is still completely airtight, but some radiation could of course leak outside…
BP’s "Failure of Supervision and Accountability" Caused the Nation’s Largest Oil Spill – and, yet, the government continues to pretend that BP has our environment’s best interests in mind…
Some real Shock and Awe: Racially profiled and cuffed in Detroit and No charges against 3 detained at Detroit airport – the war on terror is over: the terrorists have won.
Guy Who Created The TSA Says It’s Failed, And It’s Time To Dismantle It – it’s too bad nobody’s paying attention… 😐
Massive default is best way to fix the economy – that is mighty close to the revolution that i’ve been talking about for a while now…
FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’ – it’s apparent that we don’t have enough real terrorists, so the FBI has to go around making more, while nobody is looking. this reminds me a lot of the phony satanism and child abuse scare of the 1980s, in which highly educated, alleged “experts” said all kinds of things about a worldwide conspiracy of “ritual abusers” which were subsequently proved to be totally made up… 😐
Dumpster Diving? – in some areas, dumpster diving is considered to be legal, in other areas, not so much. if your family was going hungry, would you go dumpster diving?
An Antidote for Bachmann’s Anecdote – “No scientific evidence backs Rep. Michele Bachmann’s second-hand story of HPV vaccine causing mental retardation.” also Minnesota professor offers $11,000 for Bachmann’s HPV vaccine victim
‘Values Voter’ catering: Canapés on the tray, animus on the slate – the republican presidential candidates who are attending a “function” put on by a hate group… 😮
Feds Wrongly Raid Home Of CBS Correspondent – oops, we meant the house across the street… of course there wouldn’t have had to be a raid at all if cannabis was legal… 😐
Warner Brothers Hotfile Sues Hotfile Warner Brothers For Copyright Infringement Fraud – this is why the copyright system is broken beyond repair, and needs to be totally scrapped… 😐
Guy Accused Of Being Part Of Anonymous Banned By Court From Using His Real Name Online – what?
finally, more science to pester creationists – Glasgow University in bid to create ‘inorganic life’
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…
And More now has two albums for sale at bandcamp… more to come, stay tuned. 8)
or click here if the embed doesn’t work… 8/
The Quadratic Equation, as described by Dr. Seuss – that is all.
i still don’t have a car, but i’ve got a temporary vehicle, thanks to moe’s employer (and the source of my last two cars) for a week. i actually went to sammamish, a fairly large community to the east of the issaquah highlands, neither of which communities were even there 20 years ago, at 7:00 this morning to pick up the pickup…
seriously… i went to high school in that same area, 35 years ago, and the communities along the east side of lake sammamish weren’t there back then… of course the micro$awft main campus is right across the street from where i went to high school, and, back then it was a swampy forested area where all of the “degenerate” students went to skip class, have illicit sex, and take drugs… and i’m pretty sure that the same students are now working in exactly the same place…
so i’ve got a temporary car, and that takes A LOT of the stress away.
furthermore, i (FINALLY) got in touch with the guy who wants to sell me his honda for $800. i’ve been trying to call and text him since sunday, but it kept going straight to voicemail and he wasn’t returning my calls… it turns out that his brand new, fancy, expensive "smart" phone erased itself, and then died on sunday, and he just figured it out… his honda is currently at his mechanic, having an “issue” looked at, but i will probably know more by the end of the week… and that, too, takes A LOT of the stress away.
i still don’t have a car, but…
i’m becoming more and more sure that i’m going to get through this period without either screwing up or blowing people off, which is a very good thing indeed.
i met this guy when i was in my 3rd semester of college. in 1979, i lived in stack 6 at fairhaven college, with a bunch of crazy people for the first two semesters, and between the second and third semester i moved into stack 4 with another bunch of crazy people, one of whom was jaymes douglass fyrr (not his real name). before i lived there, the suite was inhabited by a bunch of crazy college guys adolescents whose idea of a good time was pouring beer down their gullets until they were so wasted that falling out of the third floor window didn’t faze them (really). after they were kicked out moved elsewhere, the suite became the realm of me, my roommate reuter, st. gordy and his roommate (whose name i don’t remember), st. fred, and jim and his roommate (whose name i don’t remember).
jim and i got along the way suite-mates who were from two totally different worlds would be expected to get along – i.e. we were civil, but he didn’t get to know me very well, and i didn’t get to know him very well – and when the year ended, jim went back to his parent’s home and i did “something else” (i didn’t get along with my parents, even then). when fall semester 1980 came around, i had to choose a new roommate if i wanted to live in the dorms, and jim needed a roommate for his apartment in buchanan towers, so i said what the hell.
during the fall semester, we got to know each other quite well, but then it turned out that he didn’t pass a class he needed to graduate, so he dropped out and went back to his parents’ house and i got another roommate, randy (who is a completely separate story).
fast forward a few years to 1983, after my son was born. i was living in a big apartment on the side of sehome hill with my son and his mother, the PHBFH, and we got…
a phone call from jim, who had planned on going back to school, finishing the class that he needed and getting his degree. what it came down to was that i had an extra room in my apartment, and jim needed a place to stay for spring semester. once again, i said what the hell.
it was considerably different this time, compared to the last time we were roommates. jim didn’t want to do his own laundry or cooking. we had meal tickets and “saga” in the dorms, but that was a long time ago, and it got really tense when he asked the PHBFH to do his laundry. also, at the time, jim was getting really cranky and mean, so when he graduated, we asked him to move out.
i should have known then that he wasn’t the best person to hang around with, but i have had a tendency to “forgive and forget” in the past (now i’m just as willing to forgive, but if you slight me, i’m definitely going to remember it), and it wasn’t too long before i was sharing a house with him again. st. gordy owned a house on state street and jim already lived there when i moved in. at the time, i was transitioning between the print shop and the music shoppe, and jim stepped into my vacant position, thus making the transition somewhat easier. for a while we worked down the street from each other, me at the music shoppe and jim at quik kopy, and we would take our lunch break at the park down the street and get stoned. by 1990, jim was developing, what i considered at the time to be, a very unhealty relationship with the “mom and pop” of the “mom and pop print shop” at which he worked (which was part of the reason why i left originally, as well: they were scary people), which was making his crankiness and meanness even worse, and by 1994, just before i moved away from bellingham, jim and i didn’t spend an awful lot of time with each other, simply because he was so disagreeable to be around.
then, in 1995 i moved to seattle, and i didn’t think about jim that much, because i was going through my own little hell, living at 5 different locations and having 3 or 4 jobs within a year before things started to settle down, and in 1996, i got…
another phone call from jim…
it seemed that his toxic relationship with the “mom and pop” had blown up, and he had been fired from the print shop, at which point he got a job at “the other print shop” in town and promptly gotten fired from that, because he was mean to the customers and kept coming to work drunk. he asked if he could come and stay with me while he got “cleaned up” – which i took to mean that he wanted to get sober and get a job. at the time, i was flush with my first successes in the computer industry and, despite my better judgement, i said he could stay with me for a couple of weeks, until he got his feet under him.
the first night he stayed in my apartment, he asked if i had any beer, which i didn’t… so i went out and bought a 6 pack, which – even now – usually lasts me a couple of weeks. i drank one and the next day, i got up and went to work. when i came home, there were no more beers in the house, and jim was complaining that we didn’t have any beer.
at that point (because my father was an alcoholic) i got straight to the point, and said that there wasn’t going to be any more beer, or anything else alcoholic to drink, in the house, and if he didn’t like it, he was welcome to leave… which, after a few days, he did. he didn’t go far, though… i actually caught him sleeping in the bottom of the main stairway in my apartment building, on the “fire escape” level, below the bottom floor, and told him that he couldn’t stay there – actually watched him pack up his stuff and leave twice before he went somewhere else.
it turned out that he had copied my key before he left, though, and when he left, he went back to bellingham, where he met a lady i had worked for, named almitra, immediately prior to moving to seattle (or, it’s possible that he knew almitra before coming to seattle, and conspired with her to get a copy of my key. i’ll never know for sure…), who convinced him that i had stolen her computer – in reality, she had given it to me in lieu of cash payment, but that, too, is another story. i can just picture them, both soused to the gills, and jim saying “i have a key to his apartment, we can just go in while he is at work and steal it take it back…”
which they did.
it didn’t take much sleuthing to determine who had my computer, and so i went to bellingham with st. gordy (who is a fairly big guy) to find him. the first place we looked for him was at st. gordy’s house, which had been gutted by a fire and had been posted as “unfit for human habitation” by the fire department… and, naturally, we found jim living in his old room, as though nothing had happened. in fact, he was incredulous that we had found him at all, but he didn’t have the computer… it wouldn’t have done him much good anyway, because the electricity (which was the original cause of aforementioned fire) had been shut off.
at first he wouldn’t tell us where it was, but… have i mentioned that st. gordy is a pretty substantial fellow? jim was a predictable drunk, and caved almost immediately, and soon we were on our way to almitra’s apartment. after a tense interaction with almitra, which involved st. gordy and the police, i learned what the phrase “possession is 9/10ths of the law” means, and left without a computer. fortunately (or not, depending on your point of view) i had encrypted the entire disk, so the only thing they could do with it was totally wipe the disk and start over… with no fonts or a typesetting program or anything other than a blank operating system. jim actually called me a couple of weeks after, to try to wheedle the password out of me, but i refused.
i have never seen him since then. about once a year for a while i would get a “i’m sorry, do you still want to be friends” email from him, which i ignored. then i had my brain injury and i stopped hearing from him… i guess maybe he thought i had died, or something, which would have been fine with me.
i got email from him again about this time last year: “remember me?” i wrote back “yeah, i remember you.” and haven’t heard from him since.
this story leaves out A LOT of detail, and merges some of the details together, to save having to go out on long, meaningless tangents in order to explain relatively minor events… but that’s basically my side of the story. if jaymes douglass fyrr finds this via google or something and wants to respond, i probably won’t delete it.
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”.
maybe this isn’t exactly the right question to be asking at the moment, but: has anybody seen مُعَمَّر القَذَّافِي recently?
Dominionists Deny They Want a Theocratic State: Don’t Buy It – “This is the god of the Dominionists. He’s a god whose followers can be considered above the law simply by claiming to act in his behalf. He’s a god who has no respect for the “inalienable rights” held so dear by the founders of this country – people who were fleeing from a government they viewed as oppressive to their own rights. A government ruled by a sovereign who claimed to act based on the “divine right of kings” – based on the will of a god who establishes monarchs, not democracies.”
Peace Prizes for War Presidents, Missile Tests on Day of Peace – escalation of US offensive missile strategy — launching an ICBM Missile across the pacific on World Peace Day… 😐
Military officials ignored Cheney’s 9/11 shoot-down order – there were two men who wanted to make the 9/11 disaster worse: osama bin laden and vice-president dick cheney.
The Police Are Now Empowered As Art Critics – Police Chief Jim McDonnell has confirmed that detaining photographers for taking pictures “with no apparent æsthetic value” is within Long Beach Police Department policy.
Poll: OK to trade some freedoms to fight terrorism – “Those who would trade their freedoms for the illusion of security SHOULD be beaten up.” Paul Rubino, 20-OCT-2001. also, Why People Are Unmoved By TSA Abuses
Complain About Being Sexually Assaulted By A TSA Thug? THEY’LL SUE! – The Advice Goddess got raped by a TSA goon, who has demanded that T.A.G. pay her $500,000 for her distress at being called out. 😛
Is Texas A Ponzi Scheme? – while social security has very little in common with a ponzi scheme, one could make the case that the state of texas itself has a whiff of pyramid scheme about it…
Space junk at tipping point – my impression is that there’s got to be a lot of “cleanup” which we don’t currently have any idea how to do, before any more than a select few are capable of inhabiting space for any length of time.
Nearly 40 percent of Europeans suffer mental illness – if it’s 40% in europe, i’m gonna bet that it’s over 80% in the united states.
Tea Party Owes More to the Church of Satan Than to Jesus – this is probably why i never really got into LaVey’s philosophy that much…
Colombian High Court Re-Legalizes Drug Possession and Police State Roundup: 15 Reasons Why I Choose Not to Live in the USSA – this makes me want to get out even more than i did before… 😛
Does Marijuana Make You Stupid? – short answer: no.
ganesha the car, v.2 has died. it had a long life, but only a little more than a year of it was as ganesha.
it died on the way to hobbit’s house, after busking at the fremont sunday market today. when i started it up, it made a pretty loud, random-sounding rattle (which it has been doing for several weeks now) but it didn’t go away after a minute or so (like it has been for the past several weeks), but i decided not to worry about it…
and, sure enough, it died on 65th, just east of 15th Ave. NW in ballard, right next to ballard high school (go beavers! 😉 )
thanks to the almighty AAA, i towed it home…
but now i DON’T HAVE A CAR! 🙁
which is distressing…
but not too much, because i know that i will find some way of getting around eventually, and as soon as practically possible, it will most likely be in a replacement (sigh… FINALLY!) for ganesha the car, v.2.
hint: there IS going to be a ganesha the car, v.3… 8)
what happens when a hungry snake finds a mouse. warning, the mouse does not survive.
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)
Earthquake Threat to Nuclear Reactors Far Higher Than Realized – forget about fukushima, we’ve got our own problems… that aren’t being reported in the news around here… 😐
Iraqi children in U.S. raid shot in head – if the war in iraq wasn’t illegal enough already… 😐
They Hate Us Because We’re Hypocritical Idiots – i’ve been saying exactly the same thing since 2001… finally other people are beginning to say the same kinds of things… maybe there is some hope for the world after all.
‘Contempt’ for Not Standing on a Broken Leg – but, after a day in jail with no medical attention, they dropped all the charges because the officer CLOWN implicated in the incedent “does not recall incident”… 😐
Give Karl Marx a Chance to Save the World Economy – like this is ever going to be given a serious chance…
Social Security Is Not a Ponzi Scheme – “anyone who says that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme either misunderstands Social Security, misunderstands Ponzi schemes, is deliberately lying, or some combination of those…” also, Texas Gov. Perry Became a Millionaire While Serving in Office and Email purges, withheld documents shroud Governor’s Office from scrutiny and Understanding the nature of ‘anti-science’ criticism and Rick Perry Sent Letter On Immigration To Wrong Agency and Rick Perry’s demeaning abortion doctrine – and this guy wants to be our president‽‽ it’s getting to the point where the presidential candidates are so hopelessly moronic that i am actually hoping that one of them gets elected, just so i can watch the republicans who voted for them suffer through the inevitable multiple disasters that having them in office would create. 😐
U.S. issues worldwide 9/11 travel alert to Americans – despite “no specific or credible intelligence”, americans are ordered to be scared until january 2, 2012, just in case. More Americans Die From Intestinal Illnesses Than From Terrorism – it probably won’t do any good, though… 😐
An artist’s incendiary painting is his bank statement – okay, this is getting ridiculous… the guy is investigated for terrorism by the police clowns because he made an oil painting of a local bank, on fire??? it’s very much like the time the cops clowns interviewed me in a local grocery store because i was wearing a button that said I Am A Terrorist… maybe i should send a button to this guy… 😡
Without Insurance, 24-Year-Old Man Dies From Toothache, Couldn’t Afford Meds and Toothache Leads to Boy’s Death – they both would have lived if they had been able to afford relatively inexpensive treatment, but they couldn’t, because they didn’t have health insurance… they both had the right to die, and they both lacked the right to stay alive, but if either one of them had attempted to commit suicide, they would have been arrested immediately, and put in jail, where they would continue to live in agony, and probably die there, as well. is this really an ethical place to live, or do they do this to people just to torture them? 😡
Federal gestapo illegally raid Gibson Guitar factories, arbitrarily confiscate millions of dollars worth of wood used to make instruments – they conducted the raids because everybody knows that if you own a guitar, you must be a terrorist… more information here and here. 😡
Canada must bar entry to George W. Bush, or arrest him and ensure his prosecution for torture – FINALLY… maybe he’ll ignore this and actually get arrested this time…
Fraudulent Google credential found in the wild – it’s gone beyond “don’t be evil” at this point… and to go along with it, Evidence Suggests DigiNotar, Who Issued Fraudulent Google Certificate, Was Hacked Years Ago so it’s more than just google, and you should remove DigiNotar from your browser trust root…
5 Unexpected Places You Can Be Tracked With Facial Recognition Technology – and, if you’re a facebook member, there’s a good chance that your face has already been scanned and tagged… good thing i’m not a member…
Masked Protesters Aid Time Warner’s Bottom Line – ROTFLMAO!! that’s what they get for being “anonymous” by wearing a mask that was made famous in a movie… perhaps they’ll think a little bit before the next time they act… 8)
i downloaded a whole bunch of music from Sharps a burning-man related dub DJ with whom i am related – he’s either my fourth or fifth cousin, either twice or thrice removed… i’m not sure about the particular details, but our shared ancestor is my great-grandfather… or great-great-grandfather, or something like that… i find it somewhat incredible that i am related to so many people, most of whom i don’t know, and that there are other people, some of whom i am related to, who know a lot more about my family, even though they are completely unknown to me, than i do. it’s also good to see that i’ve got relatives who are not my immediate family (who all seem to despise me for not entirely unknown, but entirely unrealistic reasons) who, never the less, have the same predilictions for artistic expression as i do. it is definitely very grounding for me. i keep having to remind myself that i – and everyone else alive – has 1024 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents, and the further you go back in time, the fewer people there are… eventually – and it’s a lot sooner than most people think – you’re bound to run into similar family relationships.
along similar lines, through another guy i met who is from whitecourt, alberta, i got a new pile of information about my mother’s family, and i now have more-or-less confirmed lineage back to the early 1600s, and a “home turf” in st. vigeans and arbroath, scotland. i’m still hoping that someone will come along and give me similar information about my father’s side of the family: i’ve only been able to trace them back to the mid-1800s, and, although possibly the father (or, possibly, grandfather) of the last guy in my current list was originally from “the old country” (whichever one that is), i don’t know anything about him… of course i am one of a long tradition from that part of my family, of oldest-children who have been estranged from their families for one reason or another, on top of the fact that the civil war put extreme pressures on family loyalties, and that part of my family was in the thick of the action on both sides of the conflict – which would mean that there are more-than-likely parts of my family history that were deliberately forgotten over the years.
i’ve been doing a lot of performances with snake suspenderz over the past couple of weeks. we’ve been busking at the ballard sunday market for a while now, and the past couple of weeks we haven’t been busking there, but we’ve made up for it by busking at the wallingford market on wednesday, and the interbay market on thursday… and hobbit and i went and busked at the phinney ridge market on friday last week. the fremont phil did a gig at the fremont outdoor cinema on saturday last week, and we’ve got another gig scheduled for the mobile food rodeo, coming up on the 17th… and the day after that, snake suspenderz is doing two gigs in the same day, at the pike place market and beneroya hall… and i’ve discovered that puyallup has a sunday market, which opens up the possibility of going to ballard in the morning and puyallup in the afternoon… 8)
i’ve also had a surprising amount of hybrid elephant business. i’ve got a button order in the process that’s 500 buttons, plus at least two international orders and at least two more domestic orders over the past few weeks, and another one just came in… but the reciept from paypal hasn’t come in yet, so it may not be a real order… ah, there it is… it’s a real order now… 8)
135/75