Tag Archives: dead people

Professor Peter Schickele, head of the Department of Musical Pathology at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople

Professor Peter Schickele, head of the Department of Musical Pathology at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, died yesterday, at the age of 88.

230117 The Art of The Ground Round, score by P.D.Q. Bach, autographed by Prof. Peter Schickele
230117 The Art of The Ground Round, score by P.D.Q. Bach, autographed by Prof. Peter Schickele
in 1977, or thereabouts (it was prior to my 18th birthday) the northwest chamber ensemble, or some group like it, gave a concert of music by P.D.Q. Bach, who was the composer whose music was the particular area of study of Professor Peter Schickele. they gave a party at some fancy bar/restaurant on the waterfront in downtown seattle, along with a scheduled “P.D.Q. Bach Compose-A-Like” contest, and Professor Peter Schickele was the guest of honour, and the judge of the aforementioned contest. i had been a fan of professor peter schickele for many years, i owned all of his albums (i think there were 4, at the time), and his book, along with the scores for many of P.D.Q.’s musical works, such as The Art of The Ground Round, and The Seasonings, and i was an AVID composer of… some might say “bizarre” music… however, at age 17, i was simply too young to get into a 21-and-older bar. however, i had a plan: a friend of my father’s was a member of the northwest chamber ensemble, and he got me into the bar with no questions about my age, where i entered a composition of my own, for left-handed sewer-flute and electronic tape. i actually made a left-handed sewer-flute, which had a faucet at the bottom, and part of the performance was opening the faucet, whereupon water would drain out of the extraneous tubing behind the head-joint cork. the performance went about as AWFULLY as any performance i have ever done, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, with the exception of the water draining out of the faucet, which couldn’t have gone wrong because there was, literally, no place else for it to go, i actually only played about 4 notes on the “flute” part, the tape playback machine refused to work, and then it only worked intermittently… and yet, somehow, i won first prize in the contest. and the first prize was two tickets to the concert. the guy that won second prize had actually composed a legitimate, classical-style string quartet, in three movements. the second prize was a “genuine” P.D.Q. Bach “water-powered turntable”, which was a lawn sprinkler with a record platten attached to it with zip-ties. i got professor peter schickele’s autograph on several of the scores that are still in my possession.

he will definitely be missed. 😢

oh, yeah, there’s this…

phrenology bust in "dr." william mcdonald's office
phrenology bust in “dr.” william mcdonald’s office – it might be a coin bank…
it turns out the reason i didn’t hear from “dr.” karl peterson, the guy who has been responsible for renewing my cannabis permit for the past few years, is because he died in march.

the ONLY reason i saw him is because he had the necessary degree to help me jump through the medical permit hoop, and i put “dr.” in quotes because he was a naturopath, which meant that he made most of his money “diagnosing” ignorant and gullible people, and then flogging useless vitamins, minerals, and dietary supplements as the preferable cure. i had enough of that kind of horseshit when i was hanging out with the PHBFH, and i don’t have the time for it any longer.

the new guy, “dr.” william mcdonald, is the same sort of huckster… but, he also does the medical permit racket, so i’ll put up with it for a while… at least “dr.” peterson didn’t have a phrenology bust in his office… 😒

lars kirmser

1985 Lars (Larry) Kirmser
1985 Lars (Larry) Kirmser
Lars (Larry) Kirmser was the instructor for my classes at the tech school, between 1984 and 1986. at the time, he was pushing 50 with at least 20 years experience in the musical instrument repair industry. among his vast experience was several years working for one of the top flute manufacturers (emerson deford, maker of the emerson flute, and the deford flute), and he even designed a common flute that is still in use today.

it’s a little difficult, for me, because when i was in his class, everyone called him “Larry”. he didn’t change his name to Lars until after i left the class. one of my favourite examples of this was when a guy named greg (who was a “goof-off, screw-up”, if there ever was one) had just started in the class, and was working, alone, in the “woodwind and guitar” section of the classroom — which was where we kept a lot of equipment that could, literally, tear your hands off if you weren’t careful. i had been working there, with him, until moments before, when i went back to my desk for something. greg was working on the stationary belt sander with a very thin piece of wood… and, as i was turning around, i heard this loud BANG from the wood shop, and greg came out holding his hand, which was bleeding profusely, and shouted “LARRY, I GOT A BOO BOO!!”… greg was carted off to the emergency room and showed up to class the next day with his hand in a bandage… he was carted off to the emergency room more than once, the most serious of which was when we had to move the 50-gallon drum of potassium cyanide, which we used to strip silver plating, from its old, rusty, metal drum to a nice, new, clean, blue plastic drum… and greg tried to start the siphon by mouth… 😒

i was a 30-something with high hopes and a burning desire to learn a trade of which i could make use (as compared with the study i was already doing at the monastery, which was guaranteed to benefit nobody, except — possibly — me…) and i did, for several years. i did musical instrument repair for 5 years, in two different periods, for “The Music Shoppe” in bellingham, and i worked for about a year for “Mellowoods And Music” in friday harbor, which included being “on call” for the friday harbor traditional jazz festival, in 1991. during the time i was in lars’ class, we, as a team, restored an ophecleide that had had an unfortunate encounter with a truck: it had fallen out of the back of the truck, and then the truck had backed over it, flattening it completely… and we also worked on a very strange instrument that larry brought in one day, which he had bought from a pawn shop in downtown seattle. it had been painted neon green, and had a flared bell (which we later determined was from an unfortunate trombone), and had been sitting in the pawn shop display window for 50 years. after stripping off all the paint, and disengaging the unfortunate trombone bell, we discovered that it was, in fact, a heckel-biebrich, stritter system contrabassoon, one of the first 20 or so ever built.

a more recent picture of lars
a more recent picture of lars
at the time, i was REALLY in to drawing things (as can be seen by the cartoon on the left), and, between 841004 and the end of 1985 or so, i produced technical drawings for at least 7 different instruments i worked on, including a 3-push-rod AND a 4-push-rod bassoon, an oboe, at least 3 different flutes (bundy, gemeinhardt, and emerson), and a holton, rudy wiedoft model alto sax… now that i know lars isn’t going to publish a book with my drawings as illustrations, i MAY break the seal on the original drawings, which have been sealed (as a hedge against piracy) since they were drawn.

i lost contact with him after i graduated and went back to bellingham, and, when i moved back to seattle, finally, he was no longer at the tech school, none of his students were around any longer, and nobody wanted to talk about “it”… i never determined what “it” was, with any detail, although “it” might have had something to do with the FUMTU surrounding another student, dan oberloh, who was supposed to graduate around the time that i did, and was already gearing up to open his own shop, soon after graduating, only at the tech school’s (and larry’s) expense. my recollection was that larry found a whole bunch of “stolen” tools and materials in oberloh’s tool box, although it was undoubtedly a lot more than just that. at this point, he may be a good technician, but as far as i’m concerned, he is unprincipled and unscrupulous, and i would NEVER take my horn to oberloh. i got back in contact with lars a few years ago, when i had my trombone slide rebuilt, of course, i took it to the Music Trader, which is the shop he opened up after the tech school. since then, he has also gotten to know my Conn 2J C tuba, which i inherited from Hokum W. Jeebs.

lars died 230126 in his sleep. i just found out about it yesterday. 😢

damn it! all of my friends are dying! 🤬

continued…

as i was saying…

i’m so used to being depressed and anxious that, when things are going well, instead of enjoying the fact that things are going well, it makes me more depressed and anxious, because i KNOW that things are getting ready to go “wrong-er” than they have ever gone before, and they’re just waiting for me to relax and ease my guard a little, so that they will have even more effect… 🤬

once again, i have found myself in one of those places: everything is going smoothly, the moisture festival is over, and, apart from being sick for a couple of days after it was over (NOT COVID!), everything went about as well as i could normally expect… i had a unicycle class today, and i worked on my free-mounting and my turns, and i didn’t fall off… and one time i managed to ride THROUGH a group of people and i didn’t hit one of them! 😉👍 there’s a better-than-normal chance that thaddeus and i are going busking on wednesday… i got two incense orders this week… the next big thing on the schedule is OCF, which IS happening, and i AM going (despite the fact that it terrifies me), but only because the band needs a tuba… i don’t know that i’m going to do an awful lot other than play music, and hide in my tent, but i AM going to go…

and, yet, i have this feeling of impending dread… gilbert gottfried died the other day, and he was 67… only five years older than me. i’ve already tried to die once, and failed miserably… what’s the guarantee that i won’t be more successful the next time?

combine that with the fact that i haven’t seen a doctor, apart from an ophthalmologist, for more than 10 years, and that is PRIMARILY because, in spite of everything (i.e. my brain injury), i am overly suspicious of “doctors” in general: i have had personal experience, on a number of occasions, where, if it weren’t for ME saying something, i would have been treated for diseases or conditions that I DON’T HAVE, because somebody, somewhere, made a notation error, and nobody actually knew me well enough to know that there had been an error made…

my erstwhile GP, doctor wackaloon, had notated in my chart that i had a heart stent, but had no notation about my brain injury… and he had been my GP for 10 years! 🤬 and when i was in the hospital, recovering from my brain injury(!!!!😠), i had to inform the nurse that i am not, in fact, diabetic, which was in direct conflict with my chart, which said i was… 🤬🖕🤬

and even the ophthalmologist thought i had glaucoma, because she made me take the glaucoma test with my right hand, and my right hand doesn’t work about half of the time! i told her this before i took the test, but she said no, that it was “standard” to test people with their right hand. when i took the glaucoma test with my left hand, like magic, glaucoma was no longer an issue. 😒

and i’m really not sure how to resolve my suspicion of doctors, and go see a (different) GP, because of the fact that i don’t have any health insurance other than medicare, AND the fact that i would probably have to personally interview several doctors before deciding, and i don’t really think that doctors make time for that, these days… 😒

but, at this point, apart from entirely expected “getting old” things, like sore muscles and arthritis, my health appears to be pretty good… which — i guess — is as good a reason as any to figure these things out now, rather than waiting until i actually have something go wrong with my health, and having to make the decision out of hurried necessity… 😒

dead people

andrew “sketch” hare 190404
kenyth freeman 190429
simon neale 190509

in the past 5 weeks, i’ve lost 3 friends. 😢

the next person to die should be me.

really.

i have a condition that kills half of the people who have it, and leaves half of the remainder SEVERELY brain damaged, but, for some reason, i’m doing okay. 😕

i need it. i deserve it. i’ve already cheated death once. i’m so totally fed up with being alive at this point… WHY is it them, and not me? 🤬

I can imagine myself on my death-bed, spent utterly with lust to touch the next world, like a boy asking for his first kiss from a woman.
     — Aleister Crowley, October 12, 1875 – December 1, 1947

oy! 😖

the continuing saga of the mailing list fiasco has reached a new plateau:

so, it started out that one of the subscribers to the list sent a message to the list that didn’t go through, for some unknown reason (demons).

when his message didn’t go through IMMEDIATELY — as he was used to them doing — he started looking around for other addresses, and he found two of them. one goes to the list owner, and one is a “machine only” address that sends bounce notices to the owner. it is not for sending email TO, and it is definitely not for sending mail to when your message doesn’t go through, because that triggers the MTA on the user end to blacklist your message.

i found out about this whole fiasco about 6 hours into it, when he sent mail to my personal address, asking me if there was something wrong. i noticed that he had sent mail to the machine-only address, and got blacklisted by micro$awful, so i wrote to the host provider to see if there was something that could be done to reverse the problem.

the host provider’s response was to accuse me (and my mailing list) of sending spam, and they have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sending spam. 😒

they generously offered to set me up with a new IP address instead of arbitrarily closing my account, but the new IP address they gave me didn’t have a PTR (pointer) record, or a RDNS (Reverse DNS) record, which only made the machine that controls the email list mad, because usual mailing lists have a PTR and a RDNS record, and the end result was that i was blacklisted by a number of services with which i have been exchanging emails without a problem for years.

fortunately, these other services were ones for which i could submit delisting requests myself, which takes the host provider and their sensitivity about spam and spammers out of the loop.

nevertheless, i started losing patience, and i might have said some things in my communications with the host provider which ended up making things a whole lot worse, ending up with yesterday, when they asked me to move my web sites to a different host provider immediately.

at EXACTLY THE SAME TIME, the PTR and RDNS records that they installed on my new IP address took effect, which meant that i can no longer send email from my local email client, because it’s not the same server that my VPN has been talking to for more than a year, and i lost it. i didn’t actually curse at them, but i did everything but that.

while i was in the process of figuring out that it was my VPN that was my primary problem, i had, simultaneously, to explain the mistake to the guy who sent the original message, re-assure the members of the mailing list who were trying — and failing — to send messages to the list that they weren’t actually the problem, despite the fact that their email addresses were not interacting correctly with the mailing list, and fend off the more and more insistent demands that i leave, immediately, from the host provider.

long story short, i didn’t sleep very well last night. 😠

at about 3:30 this morning, i finally wrote a letter to macque, saying that i was no longer able to host the web sites he has me hosting, i was no longer able to maintain the mailing list, and that i was retiring from the hosting business.

then i checked, once again, with micro$awful, and determined that I HADN’T ACTUALLY BEEN BLACKLISTED AT ALL!

the WHOLE THING had been caused by “demons” in the machine! 😖

and, to top things all off, we’re scheduled to go to the beach for a week, starting monday, which meant that, if i was going to move, i would have to find a new host and give them the information they need to move my web sites in 3 days, or wait a week, and do the same thing when i got back from vacation. both of these options made going on vacation TO BEGIN WITH not a very exciting prospect, and i was getting severely depressed about it.

and, to put the cherry on top, it turns out that sketch, the drummer for Snake Suspenderz, died yesterday, which made me even more depressed… primarily because he, being dead, didn’t have to worry about all the CRAP that has been going on in the world, while i, being not dead, had to deal with seven times MORE CRAP and had no say in the matter, whatsoever.

then, things started to get better… kind of…

the first thing that happened is that, when i told them that i would be moving my web site in two weeks, that micro$awful hadn’t really blacklisted my IP address, and that i had dumped the client that had caused the whole fiasco, they let up a little bit, and allowed that, since i had paid access until july, that i could stay until then. with a bit more discussion back and forth, they relented even further, and allowed me to keep my web sites where they are.

but i’m still giving up being a host provider for people who don’t know how it works, because it’s WAY too stressful.

so, in the end, i can go on vacation without having to worry about internet SHIT, either while i am on vacation, or after i get home; i will no longer have to deal with people who don’t know doing things that they shouldn’t do and feeling awful about it afterwards, and i won’t ACTUALLY have to move my web sites that aren’t going away anyway (which is an entirely different ball of wax)…

but sketch is still dead, which means that, either, Snake Suspenderz will break up, or that we will find a new drummer… neither of which are very attractive alternatives at this point.

ding dong – bush senior is dead!

george bush pin
I knew George Bush was lying from the beginning. Now we’re all stuck with him! READ MY LIPS!
i remember when bushy george was elected. after 8 years of reagan, i was beginning to develop a frightened “i don’t care” attitude about politics in general, but i knew at the time that this was a definite step in the WRONG direction, and several orders of magnitude worse than reagan.

i wasn’t wrong.

I Will Not Speak Kindly of the Dead. Bush Was Detestable.

George H.W. Bush Hagiography is the Elites’ Finest Accomplishment

George H.W. Bush Empowered Atrocity Abroad and Fascists at Home

DEAD

we put Lucy to sleep on friday.

she was an old dog — 14 years — and had a somewhat stressful life before coming to us: she was a working sheep dog, never came inside, had a broken leg and her front teeth kicked by a horse in the three years between her birth and when she came to live with us. then, before she was actually “given” to us, but after she came to live with us, she was sent away for 6 months or so, for more training… and she came home pregnant, unbeknownst to anyone. monique wanted to have her spayed, but not until after she gave birth to mutts that were half border collie and half “something else” (we suspect cattle dog, but we don’t know). then the lady that owned her wanted a litter of “purebred” puppies, so, against monique’s better judgement, she was bred again, which resulted in the litter of which rye and sagan are part. after that, lucy was spayed, and, while she remained a working sheep dog for most of the rest of her life, she had it a lot easier, in terms of sleeping inside and no more injuries.

but she was deaf, and mostly blind, and mostly senile, and more-or-less incontinent, and she spent most of her time sleeping, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she was either eating, or barking at where she thought the bird was… which was where the bird actually was only about half of the time… she didn’t recognise us except on the rare occasion…

it was definitely time, but it still sucks.

the only thing is, i hope, when my time comes, there’s someone around who will do the same for me. somehow, i don’t think it’s going to happen. 😕

dead people

Regnad Kcin — this is what i get for participating in the solstice festival… i didn’t find out about his death until now. 😕

i had a brush with him several years ago, when he and i were part of a performance of Rock Opera, by Pliny Keep. phil austin was the deep-voiced announcer, and i ran lights and sound… 😢

dead people

Robin Williams — they say he was battling severe depression… aren’t we all, especially now that he’s dead. however, it’s vaguely comforting to know, not only that he could have been battling severe depression, but that my severe depression hasn’t gotten that bad…

yet…

i tried to find a video clip from “The Birdcage” that has my favourite line of all times: “So, this is hell. And there’s a crucifix.”, but i couldn’t find one anywhere… 😛

cool!

so the anniversary of andy warhol’s birth is today, and to commemorate it, they have started the Figment project, which is a 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week live web-feed of andy warhol’s grave, which has the word “Figment” engraved on it.

finally, 15-minutes of fame for a guy in a kilt and a sporran that was there when i decided to tune in… 😉

130806 2015 figment

dead

dead – D. E. A. D. i wrote a quartet with these notes as the theme, a long time ago…

at approximately the same time as i met my friend rick, who is now in the process of dying.

all i know is from text messages from sasha, who is the executor of rick’s living will… he was put on a ventilator two days ago, and has not regained consciousness for two days… they say if he doesn’t start responding to therapy soon, they’re going to stop. 🙁

so it goes… 😮

ETA: they cut back on some of his meds, and he came around. he didn’t say anything, but he recognised sasha and smiled…

ETA 130209: he’s still very ill, but improving massively. i may go visit him today.

ETA 130210: he got his ventilator taken out this morning. i went to see him, and was shocked when the toothless, feeble old man hooked up to wires and tubes in the room turned out to be rick… certainly not the same rick i dropped off at the hospital four days ago… 😮

not quite dead yet, but…

ManWoman by Mark Berry
photo by Mark Berry

Last news about Manwoman

Sorry to say that my dad, ManWoman, is not faring well. He has a kind of cancer that causes his bone marrow to cease making blood. The technical name is Refractory Anemia with Excess Blasts. In short, without new blood, it is impossible to breath, fight infections, or clot and stop bleeding.

He had been receiving transfusions of blood and platelets, but there is no cure for this kind of cancer. Not chemo therapy. Not bone marrow transplant, because he is old and weak. In any case, ManWoman does not wish to endure weeks of traumatic medical treatment, when the potential time gained is so very small.

ManWoman has made the decision to pass peacefully — and with Dignity — in the comfort of his own home, surrounded by family and friends. No further transfusions or treatments will be made — except medication for the rather intense pain. When the blood cells from his last transfusion are gone, well… The clock is ticking. There is no exact prediction how much time is left. One day or a few days — probably. A week or two — maybe. Months — not very likely.

I wish there was better news, but there isn’t. It will be a sad day when he passes, but he has left the world an enormous and inspired body of work. He will not be forgotten by those who love him. We will always carry a piece of him in our hearts.

~ Ivan Cat

of course…

Sadly, Nation Knows Exactly How Colorado Shooting’s Aftermath Will Play Out

WASHINGTON—Americans across the nation confirmed today that, unfortunately, due to their extreme familiarity with the type of tragedy that occurred in a Colorado movie theater last night, they sadly know exactly how the events following the horrific shooting of 12 people will unfold.

While admitting they “absolutely hate” the fact they have this knowledge, the nation’s 300 million citizens told reporters they can pinpoint down to the hour when the first candlelight vigil will be held, roughly how many people will attend, how many times the county sheriff will address the media in the coming weeks, and when the town-wide memorial service will be held.

Additionally, sources nationwide took no pleasure in confirming that some sort of video recording, written material, or disturbing photographs made by the shooter will be surfacing in about an hour or two.

“I hate to say it, but we as Americans are basically experts at this kind of thing by now,” said 45-year-old market analyst Jared Gerson, adding that the number of media images of Aurora, CO citizens crying and looking shocked is “pretty much right in line with where it usually is at this point.” “The calls not to politicize the tragedy should be starting in an hour, but by 1:30 p.m. tomorrow the issue will have been politicized. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if the shooter’s high school classmate is interviewed within 45 minutes.”

“It’s like clockwork,” said Gerson, who sighed, shook his head, and walked away.

According to the nation’s citizenry, calls for a mature, thoughtful debate about the role of guns in American society started right on time, and should persist throughout the next week or so. However, the populace noted, the debate will soon spiral out of control and ultimately lead to nothing of any substance, a fact Americans everywhere acknowledged they felt “absolutely horrible” to be aware of.

With scalpel-like precision, the American populace then went on to predict, to the minute, how long it will take for the media to swarm Aurora, CO, how long it will take for them to leave, and exactly when questions will be raised as to whether or not violence in movies and video games had something to do with the act.

The nation’s citizens also confirmed that, any time now, some religious figure or cable news personality will say something unbelievably insensitive about the tragic shooting.

“Unfortunately, I’ve been through this a lot, and I pretty much have it down to a science when President Obama will visit Colorado, when he will meet with the families of those who lost loved ones, and when he will give his big speech that people will call ‘unifying’ and ‘very presidential,'” Jacksonville resident Amy Brennen, 32, said, speaking for every other person in the country. “Nothing really surprises me when it comes to this kind of thing anymore. And that makes me feel terrible.”

“Oh, and here’s another thing I hate I know,” Brennen continued, “In exactly two weeks this will all be over and it will be like it never happened.”

dammit drew…

schmootzi, joe, and three other people were shot and killed at cafe racer on wednesday.

snake suspenderz was supposed to play at cafe racer this evening… apparently thad has put in a call, but has no response.

which is not particularly surprising, all things considered…

the problem is that i’m a fair distance away, and don’t really want to venture out unless i know there is something happening this evening, because i’ve got to drive to portland and help put on a show tomorrow, for which we have not got the proper permits… 😐

why couldn’t you have chosen some other place and/or time to get killed? 🙁

DEAD PEOPLE 8(

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… 🙁

dead people

Pete Rugolo – despite the fact that he was kenton’s arranger 15 years before i was born, i grew up with stan kenton music from the time that i was old enough to remember. my father was a frustrated, but quite good tenor sax player, who was faking it as an electrical engineer, and, as a result, we always had jazz of some sort or another playing in the background. stan kenton was in heavy rotation…

at this point, i’m probably one of the few people who will know who you’re talking about when you say that pete rugolo died…

now i know, but it’s too late… 8(

R.I.P. Ivo Pešák

Ivo Pešák

i found this video a while ago, and couldn’t figure anything out about it other than the probability that it was czech and made in 1978… now i know that it is the Ivan Mládek Banjo band and that the dancing guy, whose name was Ivo Pešák, just died…

now that i actually know what it is, i found a whole bunch of videos of music by ivan… too bad i can’t understand what he’s singing about…

Jožin z bažin translates, approximately, as “Joey from the swamps”.

DEAD PEOPLE!

Fauntleroy stabbing victim officially identified as entertainer Hokum W. Jeebs – i didn’t know hokum as well as i knew tuba man, but i knew him well enough… he and tuba man both have been great inspiration to me over the years. i only really met hokum about 5 years ago, or so, but i’ve known about him for a long time… at least since hokum hall (now kenyon hall) was opened in the 1990s…

and hokum, as well, was taken out by thugs who were only interested in robbing him… didn’t even take the time to say “oh, this guy is a seattle icon, maybe i’d better not kill him”…

what the FUCK, thugs?… seriously! 🙁

Dame Joan Sutherland

Soprano Dame Joan Sutherland has died, age 83

i was in an opera with Dame Sutherland when i was 18 or so. i believe it was bizet’s Carmen in which i was a supernumerary. i remember, one time, just before a performance, i couldn’t find my dresser (even the supernumeraries had individual dressers, because the costumes were so complicated), so i went to find her, dressed only in a pair of tights, and ran into Dame Sutherland in the hallway, who commented that she liked my costume, and wished that there were more of them in opera…

little did i know at the time that i would end up being the tuba player for a pit band at a burlesque theatre…

mac os 10 doesn’t recognise an .mpeg file? weird…

QuestionCopyright.org | A Clearinghouse For New Ideas About Copyright – it’s about time someone started taking note of the fact that the copyright system is totally screwed. the next question is whether or not they’re going to be able to do anything about it.

Bombing Iran – here’s a good idea… let’s not… 8/

American Christianity is not well, and there’s evidence to indicate that its condition is more critical than most realize – lets hope more people realise it before the rest of ’em drive us into armageddon, ‘eh?

Meat-Based Diet Made Us Smarter – i was a vegetarian during my “hard-core hippie” years, but i grew out of it about 20 years ago, because i realise that God is perfect. also, i figure that if i am in a situation where it’s either eat meat or perish (which is not too unlikely in these “last days”), there is more likelyhood that i will be able to survive… and that’s not to mention the taste: there’s nothing vegetable that can beat the taste of bacon… or lamb… perhaps this is the reason behind all of that rationalisation.

Mitch Miller dies – i’ve said it before, and i’ll say it again: too many cool people from my generation have been dying recently. once again (and with a great deal of futility) i say, STOP IT!

How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a ‘world-killing’ event – more debate as the world burns…

Does circumcision cause psychological damage? – if you have to ask, you’re not male…

Future Crimes Can Be Predicted Perfectly – i’d roll my eyes and say “yeah, right…” except that it’s from the 100% totally reliable FOX News…

We don’t have to get sick as we get older – yep…

Continue reading mac os 10 doesn’t recognise an .mpeg file? weird…

blargh!

Rarely Seen Pictures Of The Devastating Consequences Of The BP Disaster and You Are Not Authorized to See These Pictures of the Oil Spill – i was gone for a week and the oil spill got worse… 🙁 the problem i see is that they’re still referring to this as “The BP Disaster” when, in reality, it’s a disaster that affects every being on the planet, and most directly the wildlife, which doesn’t have the option to relocate when things get too awful in their part of the world. i keep looking at the pictures of eyes of the oiled beasts and thinking that it could, just as easily, be human eyes at which i am looking…

also, there are apparently Live feeds from the Gulf of Mexico ROVs which are, at this point, showing that the oil spill has been shut off showing that their cap has sprung a leak, and even if you can’t see it, they’re planning on releasing the cap within the next 24 hours anyway. good work, BP… 😐

more of the “can’t leave well enough alone” syndrome that we’ve been suffering through, and if the gulf oil spill weren’t disaster enough, now the FDA nears approval of genetically engineered salmon – i would think that there have been enough science fiction movies produced in the past 50 years or so to put some fear into the types of people who would think of ideas like this. but, apparently, if i did so, i would be wrong. just goes to show how our rulers are stupid, stupid, STUPID!!

and, speaking of “can’t leave well enough alone”, Poachers kill last female rhino in South African park – it reminds me of that native american aphorism, which goes “Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught will we realise that we cannot eat money.”

GodBlock – “a web filter that blocks religious content. It is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions.” okay, i realise that turn-about is fair play, but i was under the impression that any internet filtering was wrong, and that we were above all that…

speaking of GodBlock, Forget about Noah’s Ark; There Was No Worldwide Flood – if the bible-thumpers won’t listen to their own scholars regarding the “truth” of the bible, then the entire human society is screwed, and there is nothing that we, as sensible humans can do about it. 😐

Tuli Kupferberg died. i’ve said it before, and i’ll probably say it again: all of the cool people of my generation are dying. i say stop it!!

Dwile Flonking? – what. the. fuck??

Continue reading blargh!

death

tom bennett is dead.

i didn’t know him that well, but i knew him well enough that when i saw him in the grocery store, i remembered who he was and exchanged hellos with him. he was the owner of edgewood tire and auto repair, and before that, TST auto, for both of which i printed stuff. i went up to their shop this morning to drop off business cards and that’s where i learned of tom’s death. apparently he was shot this morning at the top foods in auburn, by a shirt-tail relative of some sort.

goe mont fumby

moe went to her annual conference in florida today. she will be back in two weeks. by then i hope to have a new shower stall where we currently have a broken, non-functioning garden tub. a guy just came around to size it up and give me an estimate. the guy the other day said that he would do it for around $700, which is about what i expected. i’ve got another guy coming on monday to size it up for an estimate, and then we’ll get down to the business of actually doing it.

i got a trackback from the guy who is blogging about the guy who ripped me off and his arguments about why it seems that i am the one who ripped him off. he’s got an entertaining story, but it’s basically wrong from beginning to end. i would correspond more with him, but it’s pointless, so i have decided that he’s not worth it. basically, the way i see it, i’ve got dated, hard artwork from 1975 – 1993 that proves i am the originator of the font, and he’s got a bunch of interesting stories about other commercial, shareware and hand-made fonts from 1995 on, that seem to match. we’ll see how far he can get with that.

also, Art Clokey died… too many cool people have been dying during the past couple of years. stop it.

bleh

it’s only been less than a week, and the spam has already started regarding who killed michael jackson, or that michael jackson isn’t dead. he’s already had two autopsies and there’s already a number of tasteless jokes about him, like this one: since he was made of plastic anyway, they’ve decided to melt him down and make legos out of him, so that kids can play with him for a change. a legal battle going on over the custody of his kids between his ex-wife and his mother. if it weren’t so gawddamn predictable, it would be entirely awful for everybody. as it is, it probably is entirely awful for everybody involved, and predictably boring or sensational depending on whether you were a fan or not.

another order of business cards for NBAC is on the way, and one is in the works for MIVC. i can’t get helvetica narrow, narrow oblique, narrow bold and narrow bold oblique to load on my mac. i suspect that it is at least partially because of a font-type conflict with which i haven’t adequately dealt.

portland and in-laws saturday, OCF in a week.

finally…

i heard of a group of people at a local university who had devoted their lives to the academic study of ancient egyptian plumbing… they’re called pharaoh faucet majors.

farrah fawcett died today of anal cancer. she was 62.

also, michael jackson (michael jackson, michael jackson) is dead… finally! now all we have to do is hope someone doesn’t bring him back as a real zombie.