Category Archives: art, music, theatre
busy, busy, busy…
mal, one of the witnesses on my wedding certificate, has recently moved here from alaska, and he left his car in my front yard last weekend so that he could go back to alaska for the holiday.
6:00 am, moe gets up to go to work. i stay at home (like usual) and go back to sleep when she leaves. approximately 7:00 am, the dog barks, but as it’s the dog that irrationally barks at anything at all for no reason whatsoever, i tell her to be quiet and go back to sleep. around 8:00 am, i am woken up by the telephone. it’s moe telling me that mal called the clinic, wants his car, and that i should call him, which i do. i learn that the reason the dog was barking was because mal was knocking on the door of my house – and i wasn’t answering because i was asleep and not paying attention to the dog, who was obviously telling me that someone was at the door… 8/
so i get up and call the printers to change the delivery address on the two packages that are scheduled to be delivered here soon. i talk to a guy who tells me that he’s got to call UPS and make sure that he can, and he will call me back. then i get into mal’s car, with a minor hiccup when mal’s car alarm apparently won’t let me in (fixed by replacing the battery in the remote), and head up toward microsoft to give mal’s car back around 9:00 am. while i’m on the way, i call the printer again and tell them that i called and the guy said he would call me back, but didn’t. the lady says sure, they can change the shipping address on the packages, but it will cost me $10 per package, is that okay? i say, no, it’s not okay! she takes my order numbers and puts me on hold, and while i’m on hold, i get another phone call from the printer – which i assume was in response to the message i left them on friday – to get the physical address so that i can get my packages delivered…
sigh…
so anyway, i give the lady the proper physical address, i don’t have to pay anything, i called UPS and they’re on board with the whole thing, although they might have to deliver one of the packages tomorrow, because it was out for delivery when they got the change of address (which means that i have to stay home all day, on the off chance that they actually are going to deliver it today). i also made a few changes in the Ballard Sedentary Sousa web site, and had a terse but productive email conversation with liz about tomorrow’s recording session and what’s going to happen afterwards.
and i printed out godfrey daniels music from stuart’s web site so that i can play the tuba part at the party.
rehearsal tonight, recording session tomorrow, rehearsal wednesday… thursday and friday are free, so far, but there’s a possibility that i’m going to have to go whip a computer back into shape on one of those two days. then there’s the punk rock flea market saturday, and the Phinney Neighborhood Holiday Fiesta on sunday, more rehearsals next monday and wednesday, the party on friday, and then two weeks of puss in boots performances…
bleh
i’m anxious.
one of my postcard orders is supposed to be delivered tomorrow, and when i called UPS to confirm that, they told me that it was addressed to my PO box, and they don’t (or can’t, i’ve never been sure of which) deliver to PO boxes, and i can’t change the delivery address, only the sender can do that. so i put in a call to the printer and asked them to change the delivery addresses on both packages, but (of course) they were closed because it was saturday, and i probably won’t hear back from them until tomorrow… but that’s when the first package is supposed to be delivered, which means that i likely won’t get a package by way of UPS tomorrow.
i have a rehearsal tonight, at 7:00 pm at hale’s, but it’s only 11:00 am, and i’m antsy. i realise it’s the weekend, but there should be more for me to do, to keep my mind out of the worrying and depressing that i’ve been so apt to do recently.
when it rains…
i went to a banda gozona rehearsal last night. we’re gearing up for a festival of santa cecilia on sunday, which is presumably when we get paid for the year. along with that, memo sent me $60 for taking care of the valves and slides on his alto horn. then when i got home i discovered that UPS had been here, but they didn’t leave the package. so today i got up and there was email from kelly, who wants some postcards, and another email from a guy in australia who wants incense. i took care of the postcards and emailed kelly, packed up incense and emailed the guy from australia, went to the post office and the bank, and came home, where i intend to continue working on the brochure for chris, typesetting the poster for sandy and waiting for UPS to show up.
oh, also i bought $90 worth of the holy vegetable yesterday. considering how it’s going, that should be enough to last me through the end of the year.
i was right… 8/
sandy didn’t even look at the artwork that i submitted, which was based on the puss in boots engraving by doré, but went with the cartoon-style image that her friend came up with… but she did ask me to “put the text in” since i have “so many cool fonts”…
i should typeset it in cuniefont, or something equally unreadable… 8/
random
i keep finding splinters of broken glass on my desk, but as far as i remember, i haven’t broken anything glass on my desk recently. weird.
the mac is in the process of reinstalling. i’ve started out by erasing the system disk and reinstalling OS 9.2.1, which is the newest old operating system i have, and i’m hoping that’s going to take care of the problems i’ve been having. i started out yesterday by doing a clean install of OS 9.1, which fixed the problems that i’ve been having with photoshop almost immediately, but then i realised that i have a newer system disk, and i decided that starting over from scratch, with a clean hard disk, would insure that any future problems i had would be more likely hardware related. besides, i’m confident that, with the mac operating system the way it is generally, i could get the whole thing reinstalled and running far more quickly than i could with linux or windoesn’t.
sandy asked me if i could make a poster for Puss In Boots, but then she remembered that she asked another friend of hers to come up with a poster, so she said that mine would be a poster that we could use if her other friend came up with something horrible. this is the same sandy that i had to deal with earlier in the year for the moisture festival program, so i’m not expecting to get paid, and i’m not expecting her to have much regard for whatever artwork i do provide, and i’m taking my time about coming up with something. it seems incredible, but i’m actually considering asking about doing the moisture festival program again this year. i must be totally out of my mind. perhaps it’s just as well that she’s going with the idea her friend had… 8/
i got a paypal payment from eva, which i transferred to my bank account, but i wonder why it is, when i transfer money from paypal to my bank account, that it takes two to three days to show up. if somebody pays me using paypal, supposedly the money is transferred immediately, and if i had a paypal credit card, supposedly i would be able to access that money as soon as the person made the payment. but, for some reason, it takes two to three days before the money is transferred from my paypal account to my bank account. i assume that the reason for this is because the paypal people want me to keep the money in my paypal account, so they deliberately take their time about transferring money out of my account, but it’s still bizarre, from my point of view.
hybrid elephant, non-incense stuff
i’ve got a potential client, the society of veterinary behavior technicians, who wants a (as in “one”) 24″x30″ white foamcore sign, printed in three colours, black, green and purple. so far, i’ve gotten five estimates, from around $55 (for 2 colours) all the way up to $90, with most of them falling between $60 and $75. i’ve also discovered that it’s fairly easy to buy foamcore, canvas, grommet machines, and other sign making materials from a variety of web sites out there, which makes me want a vinyl cutter more than ever. some day…
also, i’ve got a postcard order from eva funderburgh, who got postcards from me earlier this year. this time she wants 1000 4/4 matte cards with an aqueous coating on one side… and, wouldn’t you know it, the old mac has gotten to the point where i can’t even rely on photoshop to work correctly most of the time. it’s now, officially, time for 1) reinstall the old operating system (clean install), or, possibly 2) install a newer operating system (OS10.4), or even 3) install the new hard disk that i got during the last battle of the computer, and install, but at that point i’m not sure if i’m going to install the old system or the new one. one step at a time, as always, but i don’t hold out much hope for the mac at this point… it’s a good thing i got linux working as well as it is… 8/
Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band
the ballard sedentary sousa band is playing a veteran’s day concert at the northshore senior center, in bothell, washington, at 2:00 pm this afternoon. i hope to see every single one of you there. i will be extremely disappointed if one of you is missing, so you’d better make plans to fly now.
fremont peak park
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so we played for the official opening of fremont peak park. i was late, which is to say that i was supposed to show up at 11:00, but i didn’t actually show up until 11:45, thinking that we were supposed to start playing at 12:00, but actually what happened was that politicians and park organisers started talking at 12:15 or so, and we didn’t actually start playing until almost 1:30… and the street was closed, but after driving around for longer than it should have taken, i was able to convince one of the “we’ve got the road closed” people with safety vests, that i was a part of the celebration, so they let me through. i parked across the street, and was able to watch from the “bandstand” (which was a little terrace off to one side of the park, with an excellent view) as people gawked at my car and wondered what it says. there was a couple of people who were old enough that they probably remember when the swastika was just a swastika, but the old lady looked disgusted as she was walking away from it. the cake that they made for the celebration was an exact, scale model of the park, and was entirely edible. the terrace that the band had set up on was supposed to be reserved for the band, but unfortunately, someone gave it away to someone else before we got there, so they gave us other parts of the park instead. i asked if it was ethical to eat the park that they had just opened, and the guy said “you can have your park and eat it too”…
i got some decent pictures, but my picture of the band turned out to be a movie, which i didn’t take correctly and didn’t work. better luck next time…
fremont peak park
the fremont philharmonic is playing for the official opening ceremony of fremont peak park today at noon. it’s one of the only non-fremonstor things we have done since i have been a part of the band, it’s open to the public, and it’s free.
i’m kind of worried about how long the fremont philharmonic is going to last as a band. we’ve had three Puss In Boots rehearsals in the past 3 weeks, and there have been a grand total of 3 band members there. we have a string of performances in a month, we have new music to learn, old music cues to re-learn, and new music cues to learn, and most of the band (which, admittedly, is only 3 or 4 other people) haven’t even seen fit to call and say they weren’t going to be at the rehearsals… which doesn’t sound like it’s much of what i would call a “real” band. we’ve been talking about re-arranging some of the parts, as well, with me doubling on tuba, trombone and sound effects, and getting a bass player who also doubles on something (trombone?). maybe malcat could do it…
random bits of this and that
last night was the Sousa Bash, in honour of John Phillip Sousa‘s 153rd birthday, and, coincidentally, it was also Antoine-Joseph Sax‘s 193rd birthday. it went well, in spite of the fact that the west seattle bridge was closed for 3 hours, immediately prior to our concert, which made everybody, including a significant portion of the band, late. it was held at Kenyon Hall (formerly “Hokum” Hall), which, despite the fact that i actually lived in west seattle for a year or so, and have driven past it so many times i have lost count, i have never heard of it. it’s a good thing i know were it is now, however, as we apparently have the hall scheduled for the next 2 tuesdays in a row for recording.
it also makes me interested in talking to lou (the proprietor) about scheduling the fremont philharmonic there at some point…
<weird dream>
i was in this hotel in a big city somewhere, lots of glass, modern architecture, doing something, when these three guys with automatic weapons came in and started screaming and spraying bullets everywhere. fortunately i was off to the side, so i wasn’t a direct target, but also the shots that i did take were, apparently, fairly low velocity, and they were buckshot about the size of a dust-speck, so they stung, but they didn’t actually injure me – it was frightening, none the less, and everybody was cringing and trying to convince the guys to let them go. somehow i managed to find my way to an elaborate laundry chute which lead to the basement, but the guys were not letting anyone escape that way – despite the fact that there were three or more people that jumped down the chute that i saw. when i was getting ready to jump, one of the guys waved a gun in my direction and told me to stay put, so i didn’t jump, but i continued to work my way towards the exit, and i eventually managed to escape into the parking garage. at this point, i realised that moe had been there as well, but instead of going back for her, or notifying the police or something like that, i decided to get out of town by the most direct means possible and not tell anybody about the fact that this hotel was being held up, or that my wife was in danger. towards the end of the dream, when i was going out of town, it vaguely resembled 5th ave., in downtown seattle, except the buildings were all different, and if it was 5th ave. then the hotel that i was coming from would have been approximately where the westlake mall is, except that it was backwards, and a hotel instead of a mall.
</weird dream>
i also got another email from the 2008 art car calendar people, indicating some vague interest in knowing more about the swastika, and the meaning of my car, which, on the surface, sounds like i may have made an impression on them. i’m not holding my breath, however, because one of the questions they asked was answered in plain, clear language, in the blurb i sent them about the car originally, which makes me wonder if they even bothered to read the blurb in the first place, or they just had a knee-jerk reaction to the swastika.
The Fremont Players “Puss in Boots”
Who: The Fremont Players
What: “Puss in Boots” A Panto-style play, a British holiday tradition
When: (two weekends)
Saturday, December 8 at 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 9 at 3:00 p.m.
Friday, December 14 at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 15 at 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 16 at 3:00 p.m.
Where: Hale’s Palladium at Hale’s Brewery
4301 Leary Way NW, Seattle (Ballard/Fremont)
Tickets:
$12/adults
$6/kids 15 and younger or seniors 65 and better
Tickets available at the door and in advance:
www.brownpapertickets.com 1-800-838-3006
The Fremont Players present “Puss in Boots” as a play in Panto style – the lively, interactive entertainment for the whole family that has been an English holiday tradition for hundreds of years. Our hero Will is down on his luck – shafted in the will, bullied by sibs, way out of his league romantically, and now, he thinks his cat is talking. Whether or not your family has experience with hearing voices or imaginary friends, Will needs your helpful vocal guidance! The Fremont Players welcome your cheers, boos, ad-libs, and “Look behind yous!” as a part of the appeal for all ages. Of course, no panto would be complete without full musical orchestration. To that purpose, the Fremont Philharmonic has composed 99.9% original music and plays it with vaudevillian gusto. There will be refreshing snacks, soda and Hale’s Ales, too!
TROLLOWEEN!
tomorrow is trolloween! happy trolloween, everyone!
busy
i’ve got to mail a package, and then take some extra computer parts to re-pc, and then get to issaquah by 1:00 to pick up business cards for NBAC, and then go to north bend to deliver the business cards to NBAC, and then potentially, go to the bank and deposit the check from NBAC for the business cards. then i haven’t yet decided whether or not i’m going to go home, because there’s a Puss In Boots rehearsal at hale’s tonight at 7:00, and i think it would be more efficient to go directly there rather than going home first, even though the rehearsal is at 7:00. but if i go directly to hale’s from there, then i have to have my tuba and related goo-bah, which i have to think about now… and if i do end up deciding to go home, then my tuba will already be in the car.
but i’ve got an appointment with ned at 3:00, which i didn’t realise until just a moment ago, which throws a wrench in the whole scheme of things… 8P
i’ve got something going on every day this week: i’ve got a trolloween rehearsal with the fremont phil on tuesday, then trolloween on wednesday, then a day of the dead gig with banda gozona on thursday, and another day of the dead gig on friday, then i think there is a gig at meany hall with banda gozona on saturday, but i’m not sure (relevant messages came through in email during the time when my email/schedule was malfunctioning). then, next tuesday is john phillip sousa’s birthday with the BSSB (tickets to the sousa bash are sold out, but if you want to go, i can probably get you in, standing room only), and next friday is my high school 30th reunion planning (i’m OLD!), which i’m not sure i’m going to go to, because i didn’t get along very well with those people when i was in high school, and i can’t think of any reason, other than time, that i would get along with them any better now. then next saturday is a performance of the fremont phil for the opening of a new park in fremont. next sunday is WORLD ART CAR DAY, and it is also the veterans’ day performance of the BSSB at the north shore senior center, and then, theoretically, there is a recording session for the BSSB on a week from next tuesday.
something other than my goddam broken computer…
the fremont phil had a rehearsal for trolloween this evening. trolloween is going to be on a wednesday, and i’m not sure what time it’s going to start, but it’s going to be a variety show. we’re backing up either sandy palmer doing “sexual healing” and matthew bob doing an as-yet-undecided song, and we’re backing up gary luke who is juggling, and we’re supposedly backing up myron sizer, who is going to do “everything i do will be funky from now on”, and we’re backing up a woman who is doing a spell or something… i suppose if they want it, there can be a vegetable sacrifice as well, but they didn’t have time last year, so i don’t think they’re going to have the time this year… which is kind of depressing, but there will be so much to do at trolloween anyway…
i have a fremont players rehearsal of “Puss In Boots” tomorrow at 7:00 at hale’s, a BSSB rehearsal tuesday on crown hill, and a banda gozona rehearsal on thursday at memo’s.
moe hurt her back some time between last night and this afternoon, which is really frightening to me. she went to a border collie/sheep dog trial (got 1st place, even though she doesn’t own a border collie, and won a trophy), but was having painful spasms through the whole thing. if moe gets sick or something and can’t work, my impression is that we’re right on the edge of losing everything.
slight relief from depression
i transcribed a song for uglinessman yesterday. it was ridiculously easy and i had it done in about ¼ the time i thought it was going to take. i have done projects like this before my injury and they took a lot longer and took some considerable tweaking before they could be deemed correct, but this time it just sort of “fell” out of my hands into the keyboard, and it’s not just because it’s an easy song (although that didn’t hurt things any). the only real difficulty i had was that i had to put my musical keyboard on my desk (which meant that i had to clear off my desk), so that i could reach both the musical keyboard and the computer keyboard without having to get up and move to another part of the room (which was a job all its own), and my computer desk chair is way lower than i need it to be if i am doing stuff with the musical keyboard.
i wonder how i could work that talent into a way of making money…
more blah
i have a Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band performance at the oyster festival in shelton tomorrow, for which i have to leave at 11:00 tomorrow morning. i’ll probably be getting back around 5:00. liz is going to pay us for gas.
they finally decided on a design for the business cards, but they’re only going to get 500 of them to start because there’s something going on with their addresses that’s going to change before they would be able to run through any more. they asked for light green paper with some flecking or texture, so i decided for them that they want sage green classic crest cover, and if they don’t we can change it next time. by this time next week i will probably be $70 richer than i am now… at least. whee.
depression is coming back again. i bit the bullet and sacrificed my last bong hit. i actually split it in half and put it in my vapouriser, which will make it last longer, but this is the longest i have gone without cannabis since my injury – at which time i didn’t really notice it anyway. i’ve basically had two bong hits that i’ve been vapourising slowly for a month now. i hope i make enough money to buy more at some point. it’s pretty miserable and depressing without cannabis.
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photo by starrchilde, who was driving with her kids outside of loisville, kentucky. if you look carefully you can even see the sign.
by the way, DON’T SEND HTML IN EMAIL!! it’s rude and it uses up a lot more computer resources than plain text. web browsers and email clients are two entirely different programs with entirely different functions. if you want to communicate something on the web, i expect to see HTML code, but when i get two pages of HTML code in email, especially when it’s to convey a FOUR WORD message, i’m going to get pissed. make email messages PLAIN TEXT by default! if you can’t learn how to control your email client, or you use a web-based email service that doesn’t give you the option, then you need to learn, you need to get a different service (i know yahoo, gmail hotmail, and even AOL have a plain-text-only option), then you DON’T deserve to send your HTML crap to me. next time, i’ll block your IP address at the server level, so any further email to me, from you, will bounce. i’m not kidding.
Blasphemy! yay! 8)
‘Offensive’ Jesus remarks cut from Emmys
September 12, 2007
US Comic Kathy Griffin’s “offensive” remarks about Jesus at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards would be cut from a pre-taped telecast of the show, the US Academy of Television Arts and Sciences said today.
Griffin made the provocative comment on Saturday night as she took the stage of the Shrine Auditorium to collect her Emmy for best reality program for her Bravo channel show My Life on the D-List.
“A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus,” an exultant Griffin said, holding up her statuette. “Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now.”
Asked about her speech backstage a short time later, an unrepentant Griffin said: “I hope I offended some people. I didn’t want to win the Emmy for nothing.” Continue reading Blasphemy! yay! 8)
Dead Can Dance
reminds me of koyaanisqatsi…
bizarre… in so many different ways…
‘Vatican air’ passengers’ holy water confiscated
29/08/2007
By Malcolm Moore
The passengers on board the Vatican’s first flight to Lourdes may have been pilgrims in search of spiritual healing, but they still had to obey anti-terrorism rules, it has emerged, after several of them had their holy water confiscated. Continue reading bizarre… in so many different ways…
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The Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band has a new web site – designed by me – which you can see a sneak preview of by clicking here.
tell me what you think. don’t hold back.
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okay, here’s another reason why i have been grumpy and out of sorts since my return from OCF:
a couple of friends of mine from bellingham, ken and kamalla, have been planning a celebration of “the summer of love” for a while, and i have been invited to play music, along with a bunch of other musicians including a guy who is a famous musician (he played with some big name musicians back in the ’60s and ’70s but i can’t remember their names at the moment). i was planning on staying at the house that i lived at when i was in bellingham, called the “madhouse”, but then i learned that the madhouse is currently vacant because of the fact that collette, a very old friend of mine who has also been staying at the madhouse recently, has gone crazy and has driven everyone else away. the guy who owns the madhouse, darol (another very old friend of mine) and collette are the only people living there – there are usually at least 4 people, apart from darol, who lives there all the time, living there, and sometimes more than that.
the thing is, the psycho hose-beast from hell also lived at the madhouse before her first visit to the state loony bin a couple years ago, and i don’t want my association with these people (collette and the PHBFH) to affect my relationship with darol, and i don’t have anyplace else to stay in bellingham these days, because ken and kamalla have decided that they can’t have house guests while they’re preparing for the show. i have been waffling back and forth, one day i’m going to go to bellingham, and the next day i’m not, ever since i came back from OCF, and i’m getting really tired of not knowing whether i’m going to go or not, especially since the show is supposed to be in two weeks.
i had an appointment with ned this afternoon, but i had a BSSB performance at highline community college beforehand, and there was a massive traffic jam, so i arrived to my appointment 10 minutes late, and ned had already left for the day – something that wouldn’t have happened if i were paying him, which i can’t do because i don’t have health insurance. at the same time, i have been feeling more and more grumpy and out of sorts, and i have been seriously considering things like attacking the car that i saw ahead of me in the traffic jam today that had a bumper sticker that said “marriage = 1 man + 1 woman” with my car, or jumping out and giving them a lecture on why discrimination of any kind is the exact opposite of what jesus would do, and i have been more and more concerned that this country is going to hell in a handbasket and there’s nothing i can do about it. i’ve even been seriously considering suicide because things seem so hopeless and there’s no possibility that things are going to change, except for the worse, any time in the forseeable future
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i’m grumpy and out of sorts, which is odd since i just got back from OCF, which was awesome. there is a bunch of shit going on in my life currently, which OCF distracted me from for long enough that, when i was forced to go back to it, it really sucked. i’ll post about OCF now, and get to the griping about shit later.
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there are a bunch of pictures, and there are still a huge quantity that i have yet to process. there will be more photos over the next few days as i get around to it.
i got a ride to the fair from moe(!), but she had to leave on saturday, so i rode back with norma. we got there thursday and ended up camping behind morningwood, which was much superior to mosquito acres (sorry ducky), where i camped last year. it was completely shaded, so it was much cooler even in the hottest part of the day, there weren’t any mosquitos or yellowjackets or obvious bug sex, and it was about 10 feet from the backstage area, behind a “secret” door next to the band locker.
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the shows went extremely well. we had our first and only dress rehearsal on thursday night, did a run of six shows in 3 days, and came away with a solid script that is being expanded on by the entire cast. it was amazing, because even though simon and a few others didn’t completely know their lines, we were able to pull it off with a humour that the crowd found infectious, and those who didn’t have their lines completely ready by the first show were doing quite well indeed by the second show. the music was outstanding. there were songs by stuart, jeremy(!), kiki, and amy bob, and the audience invariably went away humming the tunes.
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BBWP performed at the “real” fire show (which is the one for the public, in kermit lot) again this year. it was huge. the backdrop was enormous, and there were around 1,500 – 2,000 people in the audience. i fell off my buckets about 5 minutes before we were supposed to go on, but, miraculously, i didn’t sprain my ankle again. i don’t like performing on an uneven surface when i’m doing BBWP, but if i hadn’t done it, there would only have been two of them, so i “took one for the team” and did it anyway. it was exciting, too, because i haven’t been practicing as much as i probably should, and as a result, my spinning got so erratic that i had to stop and start over again, which resulted in my burning all the hair off of the exposed area of my hips and crotch… very exciting indeed… it was also a miracle that the diaper i was wearing didn’t catch fire. it didn’t matter, though, because that’s part of the show – it’s supposed to be humourous, and it was. everything was good.
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the fremont philharmonic played at the ritz saturday night. apparently we have a standing invitation to play at the ritz saturday nights from now on, and it’s likely because the guy who is the ringmaster of ceremonies for the fremont solstice parade, Baron Von Huffenfuel (otherwise known as peter toms) is in charge of scheduling artists to play at the ritz. this, too, is a very good thing, because it means that we get into the ritz for free, and the ritz is one of my favourite places at the fair. during the four days i was there, i spent at least 8 hours in the sauna.
saturday night i discovered that my digital camera doesn’t necessarily have to flash, and if i tell it not to flash, that it has a significantly slower shutter speed, which makes pictures of things at night really interesting. chelamela meadow is one of those things: it is full of hippies with sparkly and twinkly toys, costumes and suchlike, of all kinds. also, there was one installation where there were a bunch of solar-powered lights that were hidden in metal sculptures, and a solar-powered fire sculpture that was really cool: it was about 8 feet tall, and consisted of an elaborate base on which there was a narrow tube that had fire dripping down from the top of it.
in a strange way, OCF is comparable to an enormous, outdoor, hippie-oriented mall: the main thing to do there is buy stuff, eat, go to concerts and watch the strange people. it’s interesting to me that i dislike malls as much as i do, and yet i feel totally at home at OCF… although i do tend to avoid the crowds most of the time.
i’ll probably write more, but now i’m going to do something else.
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i’m back from OCF. i’m extremely exhausted and going to sleep soon. the fair was a lot of fun and i have 264 pictures that i will post over the next few days.
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leaving for OCF tomorrow morning at 7:00… see you on the ?p?s d?l?
1053
today is my physical birthday. my actual birthday is 29 february, which only comes once every four years, so i get 11 july as a physical birthday on the years when 29 february doesn’t appear and i get two birthdays (but i only age 1 year) on the years when 29 february does happen. as far as i know, there will be no party or presents or anything like that, but my “consolation prize” is that we (as in me and moe) are going to OCF tomorrow, which is the first time in 4 years that we will have spent my birthday together, as in the previous 3 years my birthday has been when i am at OCF. my understanding is that my mother-in-law has procured a 17″ flat screen monitor for me as well, which we will pick up on the way to the fair tomorrow, but considering how much my mother-in-law knows about computers, i’m gonna wait until i see it before i decide whether i’m gonna use it or freecycle it.
i celebrated today by going out this morning and harvesting a baggie full of seeds from one of our neighbours’ opium poppies. this time next year, with a little luck, i will have opium to smoke for the first time since we moved here. yay!
1046
i spent most of yesterday making a vest which i will wear for the first time at OCF this year. it’s made of two very “loud” brocade fabrics which are fuchsia and purple, and very shiny. i spent most of the day on it because i had it most of the way assembled and i discovered that i made a mistake (this is the first garment with a lining that i have made) which resulted in my having to almost completely disassemble it and then re-assemble it the “right” way… which was extremely frustrating, but probably was for the best in the end. today i hope to make a set of clown pants out of a similarly “loud” brocade fabric that is red. i plan on wearing the vest and the pants with my tie-dye shirt which adamchristopher made for me last year. sorry, no pictures yet.
1044
1039
it’s the first of july… where has 2007 gone anyway?
next week, at this time, i will be going to “art on the ave” in tacoma, with my art car. i have recently got the brakes and the left front CV axle replaced, with money given to me by moe who was given it by ann a couple weeks ago when she went to portland after her mother had a stroke. it turned out to cost about half of what i was fearing, which means that, potentially, i can get the muffler fixed soon as well. it’s probably not going to get fixed until after oregon country fair, but that’s a lot sooner than i thought a week ago when i first learned how serious it really was. it all started when i got a flat tire, and ended up getting four new tires, but at the same time, learning that i had no brakes in either the front or the back, and that the ominous clicking sound that i was hearing when i went around a corner was the CV axle trying to work it’s way loose. i had about a week of worrying about that when the muffler started making a lot of noise. now the only thing left to fix is the muffler, which (i learned yesterday), is due to a broken weld just before the exhaust pipe enters the muffler, which can be fixed very easily if i knew how to weld…
when i was in fourth grade i took a career aptitude test that said i was most suited to be a welder. at the time, i was absolutely convinced that i was going to be a musician, and completely rejected the idea of becoming a welder. i have had several opportunities to learn how to weld since then, including in high school and in the tech school, and, while i admit that i didn’t completely reject the idea, at the same time, i also didn’t learn how to weld. i have been noticing, more and more frequently, how desirable knowing how to weld would be, and i’ve been wishing that i would have done things differently when i was in fourth grade. i can’t imagine that welding is an awful lot different than soldering, and i know several different techniques for soldering, so i get the impression that welding would not be that great a stretch for me at this time… it’s just a matter of finding someone who wants to teach an old dog new tricks… and then buying a whole bunch of new, expensive tools that i don’t have room for…
and then, two weeks from today will already be the last official day of the oregon country fair, which is what i was talking about when i said “where has 2007 gone” earlier… this is the first year in the (now) 5 years that i have been going to OCF that moe is going with me, although she’s going with me on thursday and coming back on saturday because she has to teach classes on sunday and she took off sunday a couple of weeks ago to go to portland when her mother had a stroke, so she can’t skip another week. it also means that i’ve got to find another way to get home, but considering that we’re going down as part of a large group of performers, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and if it is, i’ll be stuck in eugene with my tuba and all the camping gear, so i’ll probably be able to come up with some ideas for ways to get home — after all, i am a hippie… 8) it will be fun to have moe along. she’s not obligated to do anything, so she can hang out and check out the fair, and help out with our theatre stuff if she wants to… and she’ll get to see all kinds of performances, such as the fremont philharmonic at the ritz, and BBWP, which will probably perform at the friday night fire show again this year. also, this year is the first year since i started going to OCF that my physical birthday will not happen while i am at the fair. ready for this? i’m going to be 47 in a couple weeks… even if you were ready for it, i wasn’t… it feels like i haven’t gotten that much older since i was 30, which, if i recall correctly, is very much like what my grandparents said when i asked them when i was in fourth grade…
where has 2007 gone, anyway?
1036
i fixed a flute for jeremy today. there are pictures if you’re interested in seeing what a flute looks like with no clothes on.
i wrote a haiku about myself a long time ago:
i am not in school
i do not have a job and
i can fix your flute
it’s still true… 8)
1027
complete discography of Moondog downloaded. bittorrent FTW!!!
1020
okay, all you people in the san francisco area, be on the lookout for performances of Edmund Welles, a quartet of bass clarinets that sounds totally amazing. i’ve got their CD Agrippa’s 3 Books, on order, but the one track i’ve heard of them performing live is an experience i would not want to miss, given the opportunity… 8)
Steve Ward’s Singing Tesla Coil
now you know what i want for xmas… 8)
1019
I’ve Got A Mill, by Amy Bob Engelhardt, arranged by me. 8)
1010
see you at the fremont solstice parade/fremont fair. if not, i’ll probably see you monday.
1009
not much time. seattle art car blowout happens this weekend, and there’s a parade and a party that i “have to” go to… plus there’s a fremont phil rehearsal that i “should” go to, since we’re playing the solstice parade tomorrow. whole buncha articles that are gonna have to be posted later.