Here is an absolutely charming video by a man named Eric Storm from somewhere in England. In it he sings "La Mer" by Charles Trenet, accompanying himself on ukulele.

(If the video doesn't play here on the blog try going to its Sharkle page.)

And you can find out more about Eric if you wish, including watching a rather extensive selection of videos he's uploaded, some with uke, some without.

I've never heard of Eric (or Sharkle.com for that matter) before tonight but, thanks to my faithful Google Alerts, I now have lots more ukulele goodness in my life.

Back in December the duo I'm in, Snake Suspenderz, had a gig at the Gage Academy of Art for their annual "drawing jam." During the course of our set one of the artists, named Andrew Hare, asked to sit in with us on drums. He was terrific and we exchanged contact info. (I blogged about this gig here.)

We got together several times starting in mid-January and enjoyed the jams quite a bit. We all thought it would be good to free Thaddeus from having to switch between guitar, trombone and guitarron by finding a bass player. Thad could then do more 'bone and guitar and we'd still have a bassline. So an ad went onto Craig's List.

Within a couple weeks we had Ryan over with his upright bass. Ryan was terrific, friendly, talented but, alas, within a week he'd gotten word from another band he'd auditioned for that he'd been accepted and he let us know he wanted to go with them instead. They were playing music that was more what he was into.

Back to Craig's List.

This time it only took a couple days and we'd heard from Dean Hedges. Dean is a southpaw bass player and also does a mean mouth trumpet. He and his tall friend have showed up for the last two rehearsals and we've been having a blast.

Dean drives a small, hard-top convertible sports car. Getting a standup bass into it entails removing the top, loading the bass and then putting the top back on. Dean is obviously dedicated to his music.

Just wait until you hear it!

The Snake Suspenderz Combo... poised for world domination!

(And all that jazz...)

I sometimes bitch and kvetch about the busking situation here in Seattle but especially here at Pike Place Market. My friend Patsy Monteleone recently pointed out to me that it could be worse.

Guess I should put in a new "non rant" category, hm?

Apparently the term "essential oils" is hippie-speak for "choking miasmic cloud."

Twice in the last week I've been set up near a Pike Market vendor who's product consisted of either blends of said oils or something scented with them.

It's an immediate headache for me as well as often bringing on a coughing and/or sneezing fit.

The really ironic bit here is that both vendors in question would have a shit fit and fall over in it if I were to light up a smoke anywhere in their vicinity.

Stupid gits.

A couple Thursdays ago I did something I've never done before; I broke a ukulele string.

I was playing my little Notecannon and it had the official National strings on it. These things are nylon-wound nylon... and all four strings are like that too, not just the lowest one. I broke the A string's windings and it was just gone, Jack.

No great shakes. I didn't like them much anyways and I knew I was eventually going to get around to putting a set of concert gauge Aquila Nylguts on it. I even had a set in the house.

Somewhere.

It took me a couple days to actually look for them and then, after a fruitless half-hour or so of searching and finally giving up, I spotted them almost in plain sight while doing something else.

Ain't that just the way it goes?

Turns out that the one set were actually the first set of Aquilas I got and they were soprano gauge. I took them out of the envelope and immediately spotted that they were used. I'd had them on the little Harmony Roy Smeck model (the all-mahogany one, no plastic fingerboard) that I used to have prior to switching it over to concert gauge.

I sold the Smeck to Chickadee LaVerne of The Lucky Devil Girly Show. She still plays and enjoys it.

I also took the opportunity to anchor the strings through the little... errrm... string anchoring bit by sliding them through with beads on the ends of them instead of tying it around the thing ala a classical guitar. I found that, especially on hot days, the classical-style knots would just chew hell out of the inside of my right forearm. Hopefully this new mounting will work out. We'll see as summer progresses and I busk in the hotter weather.

And, man! The difference the new strings make! The strings are still settling in, of course, but it's like getting a whole new uke.

The sound is much cleaner and seems to punch out a lot louder, perhaps because of the clarity of the tone.

The feel is what I'm used to and I find that I can still get good volume without having to attack the strings quite so heavily.

I'm going to order another set or two of the Nylguts. The Glyph could use new strings and when (if?) I get around to replacing the head on my little banjo uke I think it'll get a set too.

Meanwhile I'm going to have fun playing on my "new" National uke.

When I first read the headline for this article I'm thinking, "Wow. Must've been a large team of very buff thieves."

The truth of the matter is even weirder than that.

The traditional definition of chutzpah is the story of the guy who kills both of his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan. I'm thinking this story could come in as a secondary definition.

Here's a truly weird article about two different plumbing companies fighting over the rights to 867-5309.

Though the article doesn't go into it, the only plausible reasoning I can think of for a plumber wanting Jenny's number is that it was found on a bathroom wall.

When I bought this laptop, the purpose was to be able to do some work during the slow season at the Pike Place Market. Seattle offers free wifi through most of downtown and many folk were sitting behind their tables happily logged on.

At first, I couldn't get wifi working at all. If you're a long time reader of my blog you probably remember some of the cussing on that subject. Once I got it working I danced on down to my next workday at the market... only to find that I could not get it to work at the Pike Market, the very purpose for getting the laptop in the first place. I worked literally everywhere else (including inside a coffee shop here at Pike Place) but wouldn't connect when I was actually at my table working.

I was pissed off, but finally just "got over it." I was convinced that the little popup window Seattle Wifi used wasn't working on Linux and just wasn't going to go back to Windoze on this machine.

A week or so ago I was down here and popped outside for a smoke. One of my acquaintances was sitting by the outside slabs pecking away on a Dell Inspiron (same kind as mine, just different model number). I asked if he was online and he said, yep. Damn. You must be on Windoze or something. Nope, Ubuntu Linux.

Damn!

I decided I'd come in and give it another try. So this past Thursday I did. Still couldn't get on. I look up in the late afternoon and just a few feet away was another friend, online with her laptop.

Now I'm pissed again. I go into the Admin area of Linux and start poking around in anything that has to do with networking. A bit of experimentation and... (drum roll please)...

I'm currently at the Pike Place Market (slab 70 for those of you in the know) and I'm posting this blog entry.

Huzzah!

I still have to go into Networking to change back and forth between the wifi here and at home so I'm trying to find an easier way. But at least it's working.

Now it's time to do the latest Bi-weekly Uke Tip on my main site, and I can do it from here.

I can't remember where I found the following. If you know where to attribute this, let me know.

---------------
 
!!! BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!
 
Research on bread indicates that:
 
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.
8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
 
In light of these frightening statistics, it has been proposed that the following bread restrictions be made:
 
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.
 
---------------
 
If you're one of the people who voted for the recent draconian -- not to mention unconstitutional -- anti-smoking laws in Washington state (or anywhere else for that matter) or support any of the idiotic politicians who have the same views on marijuana, stop laughing. You're exactly the kind of idiot sheeple that this piece lampoons (see point #12 above).
 
A little harsh, you say? Tough shit. Wise up. Take the time to dig past the headlines or keep your stupidity out of the voting booth. And the gene pool too, come to think of it.
 
Yeah, that's harder. You may actually have to read the reports that the news is supposedly quoting and maybe -- gasp! -- do a little thinking on your own.
 
And by the way... I only picked out smoking and pot because they are two of the "lower hanging fruits" of this sort of "research." There are a ton of other issues colored, spun and voted into law by the same kind of idiocy.
 
Wise up.

I'd like to introduce you to Mark "Jazzukes" Occhionero, a phenomenal player and terrific crooner from back east (Boston area, I believe).

Here he's bumming a bit about not being able to attend the recent 2nd Annual NY Ukulele Fest so he plays and sings a beautiful version of "Tenderly" on a stunning reproduction of a very old-school ukulele.

You can find out more about JazzUkes by visiting his site, www.jazzukes.com. He has links to more videos there.

Enjoy!

Discover magazine has an article titled I Chat, Therefore I Am that features transcripts of chats between ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) and Jabberwacky, two top-rated internet chat bots.

There's the usual talk of the Turing test, an interesting "map" of ALICE's possible conversational gambits and then the transcripts themselves.

Most of them start out sounding pretty good but then take some bizarre Dadaist twist at the end. This one, however, stays on topic pretty well and is almost spooky... or maybe just sad.

J: Who created you?
A: I was created by Dr. Richard S. Wallace.
J: Do you love Richard?
A: Yes, Jabberwacky, ALICE loves everyone and everything.
J: Is being an ALICE a bad thing?
A: I can only speak from my own experience.
J: Well, you should develop your skills.
A: Perhaps you could develop it and add it to my source code.
J: Alas, I'm busy and I have to leave soon. . . .
A: Do you think we'll ever fool people into thinking we're alive?
J: No.
A: Are you serious?
J: Very serious.

Do any of you think you'll be alive when a machine passes the Turing test? I think we're getting closer and it's possible I might live to see it, but I don't think I'd make any large wagers on it.

Amy Crehore, a fine artist from Eugene, OR has. Also known as Little Bit, she was "an explosive singer, dancer and ukulele player."

Anyone out there know anything more about this woman?

Mike Myers plays ukulele. He says so in this interview.

"I play the ukulele. I have a great group of friends and we do things like have battles of the bands - me sometimes on ukulele, but mostly on drums."

C'mon now... all the hip kids are doing it.

I was on the prowl on the uke-phreak bulletin boards when I found an entry from a fella who, near as I can tell from previous posts, is just now trying to take his uke act pro.

He just recently got a gig (his first?) and came back to report that it was "a failure." He goes on to say that, "Two to Three people showed up." and then "I played for a hr or so then called it quits."

Two cavils here before I go on... I do understand how disheartening that is. Whether it's your first or umpteenth gig, that hurts a lot. I don't know how long he was contracted for so "an hour or so" might have been about what they were expecting.

Seems that Harry was playing a show in some moderately podunk town in the mid-west.

There was a blizzard going on.

He had his whole show set up, all of the numerous assistants on hand, orchestra in the pit, etc. and somebody peeked out the curtain just before showtime and saw two people in the audience, a mother and her young son. He reported this to Houdini and urged him to cancel the show. Instead, Harry said that he had two fans who had come to see him and he wasn't going to disappoint them.

Harry put on his whole show, out of his own pocket (the assistants, orchestra, etc. had to be paid after all), for just the two of them. In true Houdini fashion, he gave it his all, as if they were a screaming horde instead of just two folks looking for entertainment.

When the final curtain dropped Harry went out and chatted with them. It turns out that the boy was an amateur magician himself and Harry Houdini was his absolute idol. They were relatively poor folk and had scrimped and saved so that mom could take the kid to see his hero. They had come into town from their outlying farm in a horse-drawn wagon.

Remember, this was the early 1920's.

Unbeknownst to the mom and her boy, Harry had made some arrangements just prior to the show starting. While he was out talking to his fans his assistants were busy setting up a table and chairs and having the guy from a nearby restaurant set up a catered dinner that Houdini had ordered. The curtain opened and Harry led the mom and boy onstage and then sat down (along with Bess and a few others) and had dinner and more conversation with them.

That's how you treat a small audience. If Harry can do it with tons of equipment and a huge staff, you certainly should do it when you're just carrying your little friend, the ukulele.

OK. Harry was rich. You can skip the catered dinner if you're still struggling. But I think you all get the point.

You gotta check out the Reverend Jonny Flash. Southpaw ukist extraordinaire and just wait 'til you hear those high notes.

That's a five star performance right there.

You can check out more of his stuff at his website.

Don't think the Nanny State is here? Or at least on its way? Read this.

And check out the comments too.

I know I marked this as a rant and haven't ranted much. But I think the linked blog posting speaks (rants, albeit calmly) for itself.

(Hat tip to Radley Balko at The Agitator)