there are now a whole bunch of vinyl records in my collection that are for sale at discogs. i’ve already got an inquiry from poland, and that’s not all of the albums that i intend to sell, i just haven’t gotten to the point where i can post all of them yet… so things are likely to change. if you see something you want, pounce while it’s there, because it may not be there the next time you look.
Monthly Archives: April 2013
sigh
the house is beginning to get back to normal, whatever that is. the construction has been completed, more or less, my office has been renovated and remodeled, and things are more or less back to where they’re supposed to be… except that, as always, things are different, and will continue to be different for ever and ever afterwards, amen… 😐
moe has decided that we are remodeling the guest bathroom, ostensibly to facilitate her mother’s coming to visit more frequently. my counter to that is that if we remodel the bathroom, her mother will be visiting more frequently. she ripostes with the fact that her mother and i can’t live in the same house, and that will prove (to her) that she has to live somewhere else… which is okay in the long run, i suppose, but i dread the period of time whose length has yet to be determined, between… 😛
also we have to get the insulation and the vapour barrier fixed, because it’s still hanging in tatters where the plumber and the contractor tore it away…
king street station
i have performed three times in the past few years, at the king street station in downtown seattle. the first time was a few years ago, and it was also the first time i performed with the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band. i was the only trombone player, there were supposed to be two others, but they couldn’t make it. we performed outside, on the platform where passengers board and disembark the trains, and despite the fact that i was the only trombone player, it went fairly well. at that time, the ceiling had been artificially lowered, and completely covered by an “accoustic” ceiling which was supposed to save money by giving the city less space to heat. there were a couple of ceiling tiles missing, and you could see a tiny glimpse of what used to be the ceiling, several stories above, but most of it was hidden.
the second time was also with the BSSB, but it was out in front, on jackson street, for the opening of the renovation of the king street station, about two years ago. we put our cases inside the upper level, which was in the process of being renovated, but it wasn’t open to the public yet. there were open beams, brickwork, and lots of dust inside, but we were actually playing outside, so it wasn’t really an issue. where we put our cases was right at the level of the “lowered” ceiling, and you could see above it, but it wasn’t much to see: a lot of cobwebs, 50 years of dust and grime, and the underpinings (overpinings?) of the suspended ceiling which was put up without concern for the artistic nature of the real ceiling.
the third time was this morning, and it, too, was with the BSSB, but this one was the “grand re-opening” of the totally refurbished king street station. they totally removed the old “lowered” ceiling, and restored the station to the way it looked 100 years ago… only with totally new electrical, mechanical, plumbing, a seismic retrofit, and a new roof on the bell tower. this time we played in the big waiting room with the new three-story-tall ceiling… which made the room uncomfortably “live” but we did admirably well in spite of everything.
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:
there’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.
both 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…
new ancient electronic music
Moses, parts I through V, by salamandir and Randy Johnson, © 1982, all rights reserved.
hoo boy… this really should have been 4/20, but it was close…
i accompanied my friend rick to the “world famous” tacoma cannabis farmers’ market today…
rick is an “authorised” cannabis patient, but he can’t get around, because he is confined to a wheelchair, currently, so he calls me, and i go and rescue him. because of the fact that he is more-or-less permanently disabled, he gets one of those placards that people hang from their rear-view mirrors, which goes on my rear-view mirror when i am driving him around (exactly why he gets one and i don’t is another story entirely, and one with which i am not totally satisfied, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the current diatribe)… except that it wasn’t there yet, because i was driving (you’re not supposed to put them on the rear-view mirror until the car is no longer in motion, because they block your view). the cannabis farmers’ market has a parking lot in front of the building that is for disabled parking only. the guy that waved us into the parking lot saw that rick was holding the placard and waved us in, but the (EXTREMELY stoned-looking) guy who was handing out paperwork at the door waved us away, because he didn’t see the placard. i continued to park, and he continued to wave me away, and finally i got out and explained to him that we were authorised to park there, at which point he started to argue with me, until he saw that rick had put the placard in place while we had been talking. there was a line of people waiting to get in, and so we got in line, and the same EXTREMELY stoned-looking guy gave rick some paperwork to fill out, which he did. by the time rick got his paperwork filled out, we were at the front of the line, but there was a step, and no way to get the wheelchair over it with out raising more chaos with the already-noisy crowd that was now behind us… and then it turned out that they wanted paperwork from me as well, which included me signing a piece of paper that said i am a legal medical marijuana patient… which i am not. i told the guy this, and he said that he couldn’t let me in. so i went and sat in the car while the extremely-stoned-looking guy pushed rick into the building. they came out again a surprisingly short amount of time later, and rick explained to me that we should come back at 2:00, when there would be less chaos, and then we could both go in, so we went to another couple of dispensaries and perused the (now legal, despite the federal hissy fit that’s going on currently) varieties, and the ranges of raw bud, and edibles, and tinctures, and sodas, and topicals, and…
and, because of the fact that the dispensaries we visited were all in store-fronts with a dozen or so varieties, i thought i knew what to expect. i was wrong.
the “world famous” tacoma cannabis farmers’ market is, conservatively, 150 different vendors each of whom is selling anywhere from two or three, to as many as 25 or 30 different strains, plus the same wide variety of hash, and the edibles, tinctures, sodas, topicals and so forth i saw in the other dispensaries multiplied by 100.
this is what a farmers’ market should be like… and it was “foggier” inside than it was outside. there was a dense “medicinal” cloud that permeated the building. i understand where the extremely-stoned-looking guy was getting it from, now. i did notice that there was an “emergency” door that had been blocked open (so much for the bureaucratic foofaral at the door, just go around to the side) where people could go to get some fresh air.
EXTRA BONUS! despite the fact that i am not a medical marijuana patient, was able to legally purchase a bottle of honey-hash tincture for $15, and two grams of hash for $25. i traded a gram of “medicinal grade” bud and two joints from rick for the honey-tincture, because he’s not allowed to smoke at the facility. i also bought a cute little bong for $12… at that rate, i’m going to have to re-adjust my thinking about the beer-bottle bongs…
new office
there may be some more final details, but it’s 99.98% finished at this point. the keyboard that is currently a “stand up to access” is going below the desk, but i’ve got to buy the drawer sliders separate from the desk, and install them myself, because they don’t make an under-desk slider for the desk i’ve got.
HAPPY 4/20!!! ☺ ☻ ☺ ☻
THIS IS TO COMMEMORATE THE
FIRST LEGAL OCCURANCE OF
4/20
FIRST LEGAL OCCURANCE OF
4/20
moisture festival finale
of particular interest is the section that begins at 5:37… 😎
great
Patients of ‘dirty’ Oklahoma oral surgeon test positive for hepatitis and HIV
i just got a letter from the clinic. they want me to have another colonoscopy…
i don’t THINK so… 😡
blast from the past
i was cleaning out my desk and i found a bit of paper that probably hasn’t changed relative locations in close to 35 years. it was written on the back of a photocopied “description of statues” that was from Sindhu International, which, among other things, was my landlord when i was in the tech school, but the important part was written on the back, several years later, when i was working as a flagger…
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!
heh
i went to ikea today, ostensibly to scope out the new desk and bookshelves i want to get for my office.
while i was there, i ran into thaddeus.
there is no such thing as coincidence. 😉
moisture festival week 3
the previous video is from the actual performances. the following videos are from the moisture festival volunteer night party, and the volunteers are performing (with Snake Suspenderz as the pit band).
dead people
moisture festival week 2 teaser
https://vimeo.com/63293432
it’s too big and vimeo doesn’t offer embeds…
or, rather, it does, but in a way i totally did not expect… wow!
ancient electronic music
i’ve been dinking around with some REALLY ancient sound-recording media, i.e. reels of tape, and cassettes. the younger folks among those reading may remember cassettes, if they are 30-ish or thereabouts, but reel tape stopped being used regularly in about 1990 or so, and the tapes that i’ve been playing with are from the early 1980s… including this track, which has been uploading as i write this, from my mac (on which i am writing this, at this very moment) to my linux server in los angeles, by way of my desktop linux box… because it’s too big to be uploaded in the expected fashion (add media), and, for some unknown reason, the webdav connection on the mac won’t work, but it will on linux…
anyway, what i’m really talking about is this: Home On The Strange, one of the three tracks from my final project in “Music 400 – Electronic Music” at Western Washington University, June 3, 1983
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… 😛
going dark
because of the fact that the process of replacing the floor involves clearing the room that my computer is in, so that the guy can put down new vinyl flooring, my computer is going dark for a couple of days. i may get to post via my laptop, or i may just bag it all together, because my entire office is now in the living room, in boxes and stacks… rather similar to the first year or so that i lived in this house, before we got the workshop built, but, hopefully, for a considerably smaller period of time. pictures of the process can be seen here, for what it’s worth.