Monthly Archives: May 2012

dead people, snake suspenderz / alive

DEAD PEOPLE 8(

1 Comment

UPDATE:

schmootzi the clod has apparently been shot at cafe racer this morning.

at this point, all i know for sure is that two people are dead and three people were taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, but the two dead people haven’t been publically identified yet… although rumour has it that it was schmootzi and joe, the bass player for God’s Favourite Beefcake were dead at the scene.

the back of schmootzi the clod's headsalamandir & schmoozti the clod

it’s even more unnerving, because snake suspenderz is supposed to play at cafe racer on friday… 🙁

spam

i’m no longer really confused

i got an email message this morning. it was addressed To: my “work” address — i.e. the same email address i get mail from my web site. however, and this is fairly significant, it was not mail from the web site. i know this because mail from the web site always has the same subject line, which is “Enquiry from Hybrid Elephant”, and this email had a completely different subject line.

the message is as follows:

[SPAM?] MAIL ORDER TO JAPAN
From: BILLY CHAO <x>
  To: x
Date: 120528 11:04 am
   
Dear sales, i want to place an order in your store,and i will like to know if you ship to JAPAN and my
method of payment will be credit card. So please let me know if you can assist me with the order ,And
please do not forget to include your web page in your replying back to my mail.I will await your prompt
response as soon as you receive this mail

the [SPAM?] indicator is a clue that the MTA immediately prior to my inbox (i.e. the one over which i have control) isn’t sure whether this is really spam or not, but the probability is sufficiently high that a warning is in order…

but there are some things that REALLY make me wonder whether it is, really what it says: the fact that “BILLY CHAO” asks for my web page… as if he wants to make an order, but doesn’t have the web page handy. and the fact that his name is “CHAO”, which, as we all know, is the singular of “CHAOS”…

when i ran this particular email through my spam-detection program, it came up as definite spam, and even reported that “ISP has indicated spam will cease; ISP resolved this issue sometime after Mon 28 May 2012 15:36:05 PDT -0700″…

that should be the end of it.

bssb

℧ℕ℘ℛ℈℗äℜℇđ

the folklife festival/BSSB performance today at 12:40 pm at the mural amphitheater.

i got there around 8:00 and got my button (which means free beer at the hospitality tent) and wandered around until it was time to go back to my car, get my instrument, and get backstage.

the performance went reasonably well… there were no obvious mistakes (playing the “stinger” on pieces that don’t have “stingers”, etc.), and i was putting my instrument away after playing when another of the trombonists approached me, and, basically, “reamed me a new asshole” because i had the gall to move his music (which i didn’t realise was his) two seats closer to the percussion section.

i understand (although have trouble relating with) his desire to be far away from the drum section, but, for an easy going guy who never seems to be perturbed by ANYTHING, this was totally over the top. needless to say, i am never going to be touching any of his stuff, EVER AGAIN…

miscellaneous

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.

bbwp, bssb, meta, spam

what was that?

around this time a few years ago, i recall saying that this was “rehearsal season”. it’s definitely rehearsal season, despite the fact that i haven’t mentioned it recently. this was driven home to me last night, when i got home from a BBWP rehearsal (we have a gig coming up in 2 weeks… take THAT, sharon osbourne!) and i realised that i had a BSSB rehearsal last night that i totally missed (because it wasn’t on my schedule 8/ ), and we’ve got a BSSB gig coming up this weekend…

☹

had i known that i had two rehearsals scheduled at the same time, i probably would have blown off the BSSB rehearsal anyway, but at least i would have been able to warn them that i wasn’t going to be there.

then, this morning, i logged into spamcop to check my spam, and i had a huge list of spam messages, so i clicked “select all” and hit the “submit” button before i checked the subject lines, and as i was scrolling down through the subjects, i noticed [BSSB] in one of the subjects, which is SUPPOSED to indicate to the spam filter that the message is NOT spam… but because of the fact that i had already clicked the “submit” button, it was too late to change it, and now all of my accounts are suspended…

☹

i am a terrorist, pictures

this is what i think of people who believe in the eschaton

idiots
idiots

which is not to say that i don’t believe in the eschaton — i know that it’s coming, sooner or later — i just don’t believe in any of that religious crap, about the select going to heaven and everybody else going to hell, or whatever they believe. when the eschaton comes, we’re all going to burn, there will be no “chosen people” or “elect of god” or anything like that.

It has never mattered to me that thirty million people might think I’m wrong. The number of people who thought Hitler was right did not make him right. Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?
     — Frank Zappa

bbwp

the AGT bullshit is finished…

well, we were on america’s got talent last night… for about 10 seconds. they showed a montage of the entire group performing, the entire group getting put out, a closeup of myron, and sharon osbourne saying it’s “silly” with howard stern saying “she’s married to ozzy osbourne and she thinks it’s silly”…

and that was it.

hardly worth it for all of the hassles we had to go through with the fire marshall, and everything else… but we did get a three-day trip to san francisco, for us and twelve boxes of gear that had to be shipped by land because it was flammable, that had all expenses except food, paid…

and now we can truthfully claim that we’ve been on a nationally televised reality show…

so i guess it evens out somewhere.

supposedly there’s a DVD of it somewhere. i’ll probably cut out the “important” part and post it, when i figure out whether it even exists or not.

bbwp

more AGT bullsh!t

according to our “spies” on the east coast, we’re actually not going to be on America’s Got Talent today, and they also inform us that the san francisco auditions are listed as being tomorrow (i.e. tuesday).

now i can attest to the fact that we are dealing with a very avaricious and kniving bunch of theives at NBC, and they have already demonstrated their ability to play fast and loose with the truth, when necessary, to accomplish whatever nefarious ends they have in mind, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that there’s a different schedule for east coast and west coast, or something like that, but, at this point, i don’t know and the only advice i can offer is to watch more tee-vee…

bleh. 😐

moisture festival

on the other hand…

unlike the players’ shock and awe earlier in the year, the moisture festival check arrived today, and while it is truly impressive, there isn’t anywhere near as much of it as there was for the players — and what i did get paid was for 16 “shares”, four for snake suspenderz and the rest for the fremont phil… and, if i recall correctly, it’s very close to, if not exactly the same as the amount that i was paid for 14 shares last year… grumble, mutter… although, even despite all my grumbling and muttering, i’m still going to contribute $100 to their “star” program, for the 10th anniversary moisture festival, next year.

now it’s time to focus my attention on creating a new Ganesha The Car… 8)

health, i am a terrorist, pictures

i think i’m healthy again…

120507 airport sculpturethis morning, i got up and took ganesha the car to the place where it’s going to get its brakes fixed. i took my bike, and rode most of the way home. along the way, i was a terrorist and took pictures of the massive sculpture at the north end of the runways… seriously, i was expecting some jack-booted thugs at any moment, despite the fact that i was well outside their "security theater", simply because of the fact that i was taking pictures of the runway.120507 terrorist photo but the important part is that, while there was some coughing, it was directly related to my inhalation of burning cannabis, and wasn’t because it was happening randomly. now, i have to admit that i didn’t ride all the way home, i did ride the distance between burien and the south-east end of tukwilla, international boulevard – about 5 miles – where i got on an "A route" bus, which i rode to the federal way transit center, and from there, i rode home – another 6 miles or so. it was close enough – i actually rode past the station on my way to 170th, where i got on the bus – that i seriously considered the option of taking the train into downtown seattle, where i would probably have ridden out to mercer island and gotten a ride home from my sweetie, but then i realised that i had a dog that needed to be let out waiting at home, and monday is the day moe goes to classes after her work, and doesn’t get home until later, so i decided on a more direct route home.

but the important part is that i was able to do it without feeling more than ordinarily exhausted, and without coughing. it’s a good sign. 8)

cursed, blessed moisture festival, anyway… 😐

bellingham, ganesha the car, health, karass

fumdiddle

Olympia NOTC benefit show 2012i went to olympia last night, to play with The Fighting Instruments of Karma Marching Chamber Band/Orchestra, which i have determined, is a majority of my karass. i have only become more convinced of this as time goes on: i have played with about 90% of these people, in one form or another (but, specifically, not as “The Fighting Instruments of Karma Marching Chamber Band/Orchestra”) for the past 35 years or so. i have played with them in bellingham, lummi island, port townsend, mount vernon, and seattle, in groups like the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band, The Fremont Philharmonic, Snake Suspenderz, The Skagit County Community Band, The Stairway Jam and a number of other groups. and, as a karass is “a group of people who do God’s will without ever discovering what they are doing”, i think use of the word “karass” is a most excellent and absolutely appropriate use of the word to describe this group of people, and their relationship to me. last night’s show also featured The Mud Bay Jugglers, Joey Pippia, The Scuff and Al Show, Citizens Band, The Tallhouse Arts Consortium, The Juggling Jollies, Justincredible, Della Moustachella, and (special guests) the ORIGINAL(!!!) Flying Karamazov Brothers, Dmitry, Smerdyakov and Fyodor… and i also saw my very good friends from bellingham, Karl Meyer and Stephan Freeman, the son of Kenyth Freeman.

as i have said before, if i had the opportunity to move my entire life (including my workshop), wholesale, to bellingham, without having to worry about what i was leaving behind, or where to put things when i got there, i would be there in a second.

(and, if any of my band-mates happen to be reading this, i definitely would make the trip to seattle (or wherever) to maintain my current membership in whatever band they may be worried about. i live in the middle of bum-fuck, nowhere, currently, and it doesn’t affect my ability to drive into seattle to busk, or do paying gigs, or even rehearse, so i don’t know why you imagine that if i lived in bellingham, it would be any different.)

i found a reliable, honest mechanic that will fix my brakes for A LOT less than the $800 than i was quoted a few days ago: $300 to $500 qualifies as “a lot less” doesn’t it? and i suppose it really doesn’t matter that the guy who actually is going to fix my car is the father-in-law of my wife’s boss, does it? it seems a bit like nepotism, but the difference in price is enough to make me tend to ignore such things…

i still have a cough, but it has been going away, gradually. i actually went the entire night without coughing last night. i still feel exausted at night, and i’m sleeping more than usual, but that’s at least partially because of the fact that i was at a show until around midnight last night.

pictures, tuba

hee

120502 tuba trio
on the left, i’m playing a B-flat tenor horn, manufactured by John Distin and stamped with the J.W.Pepper logo, from around 1900, in the middle, i’m playing a nominally Elkhorn E-flat tuba that i have no idea when it was made, and on the right, i’m playing a Conn C tuba, made within the past 25 years.

if we had a longer couch, i could probably get in a double-B-flat sousaphone, as well… 8)

ganesha the vehicle, health, incense, may day, philharmonic

↑ ⅕

2 Comments

get it? up… date…

well, i thought it was amusing…

i am feeling a good deal better, although i am still not back to 100% health, yet. i still have a lingering cough that comes up at random times, particularly whenever i lie down, but i’m a lot better than i was a week ago.

the brakes in my car have to be replaced, to the tune of $800. moe claims that this car is “nickle-and-dime-ing” me, but the previous car (of which she approved) had already cost me almost $3000 by this point in our relationship, including $1500 for a replacement transmission, and this car has only cost me $450, plus the proposed brake work, and it appears, in spite of the fact that i’ve had to replace the timing belt, and now i have to get all four brakes and wheel bearings replaced, that this is going to continue to be a functional car for a lot longer than the previous one was. and, because of the fact that it’s a honda and not a ford (or whatever the previous car was, i don’t remember), i can actually take it to jack to have the repair work done for (hopefully) cheaper than edgewood tire quoted me. i’m also going to try to enlist the aid of the friend who worked on my brakes the day i had my brain injury (although, again, hopefully, i won’t have another brain injury), which has the definite possibility of saving me a good deal of money.

i got a reply from the incense people regarding the meaning of the word “pieces” and, as i suspected, it was entirely due to the fact that they were translating from hindi to english. if it weren’t for the fact that i have to think about providing at least part of the money for my car, i would already have sent the guy $100 for incense. as soon as i actually get paid for the postcards i made last month, i will probably do that anyway.

we had a recording session with a real, live, professional recording technician, last night, which went outstandingly well, and we’ve got another session with him tomorrow night, which, if it goes half as well as last night’s session did, will make a real, live CD of the fremont philharmonic a lot closer to being actual reality than it has ever been before. also, friday is a New Old Time Chautaqua benefit show in olympia, for which i have been recruited as a sousaphone player. it should be fun, if nothing else.

today is may day. everybody go home and don’t work. also, friday is Bongwater Day, for those of you who are interested.