This actually happens more often than you might imagine. (But it's still just plain weird.)

Hunter recovering after being shot by his dog

A couple weeks ago I was working at Pike Place Market and it was a boring day. I hadn't discovered that the Seattle WiFi was back to behaving and, for whatever reason, I'd brought nothing to read. So I wandered over and picked up a Stranger from one of the racks and actually pretty much read it cover to cover.

In the course of this I discover that just two days earlier Jonathan Coulton had been in town. Damn. I want to be him when I grow up. And I just missed seeing him live.

Tonight my Google Alerts on ukulele point me to a blog called The Architectural Dance Society and his entry "house in order" was talking about a song called Wolves by a man named Matthew Houck (who's music project is called Phosphorescent).

In Wolves Houck is using ukulele, harmonium, some bursts of electric guitar and occasional splashes of percussion. I really like it. The Fallen Angel says it reminds her of Pink Floyd off of their album, The Final Cut.

UPDATE: Check here for more of his tunes

So I google him up and find his MySpace site as well as a fan site.

And lo, the fan site tells me that just six days ago he was right down the street from me at The Sunset Tavern. Like, walking distance!

I really have got to work on my timing.

If you identify as a heterosexual male and you don't perspire at least a little bit and/or experience an uptick in your heartbeat and respiration when watching the following video clip of Julie London in The Girl Can't Help It I'd like to suggest that you may just be in the closet and haven't acknowledged it yet. I'm just sayin'...

If the vid doesn't show up above, try going right to YouTube to view it.

And for jazz fans everywhere, here's Ella and Joe Pass doing the same tune...

And here's the direct link.

I got some great feedback on my first mixdown of 12th Street Rag so I recut it today.

Note that due to the way I uploaded it as an update rather than a new song the embedded player on my previous blog entry on the subject is now playing the updated tune. Ain't computers wonderful?

...but if you're not seeing a little embedded player you can check it out on my ezFolk site.

Once again comments, even nitpicky ones, are welcome.

In tune with the Halloween season is The Death Report - Morbid Facts About Your Birthday.

121,162 People died on my birthday.

(hat tip to the J-Walk Blog)

I've actually gotten a bit of recording done over the last couple days. To celebrate I've posted a rough mix of 12th Street Rag on my ezFolk site.

Only for streaming, not download... I don't think you'd want to keep it (the duck call still sounds a bit flatulent!).

For those whose browsers support such things, here it is in a little streaming player:

Since I have a hell of a time "completing a CD" I've decided my battle plan is to start releasing mp3 singles. When I get enough of them that I can fill a CD I'll release them in "hard copy" format. (With the artwork and liner notes and all!) Who knows? I might get a few pennies from the mp3s in the meantime.

I'm still deciding on which way to jump on pricing. I'm hoping by the time I get a few together Issa (the artist formerly known as Jane Siberry) will have released her "pay if you want" code and I'll use that. Otherwise, I think I'm going for Songslide.

Feel free to post comments on the recording or the "battle plan."

EDIT: I did a recut on this (in this blog entry) and, due to how I uploaded it as an update rather than a new song, this entry's embedded player is now playing the updated song. Hey, less flatulence in the duck call and closer to being in tune!

Note I say his/her because the person's website is really poorly designed and I gave up on trying to figure out their gender or any other biographical details.

Look, people, don't design your website in such a fashion that every page, even the internal ones, either opens a popup or a new full-sized window. Just don't.

Opening links to pages external to your site in a new tab, window or whatever is ok. I can understand wanting folks to "stick around" on your site. But opening a popup from your main page, leaving the main page up fer crissake, is just eating up my computer's resources for no good purpose.

All that being said, the dispensers are pretty cool.

(hat tip to Clicked)

From Athens, OH comes the duo Aaron Schlagbaum (on ukulele) and Robert Cantoni (on, yep, on a 1972 model electric typewriter).

What else could they call themselves but ukulele/typewriter?

They decided to "bring a new twist" to covers of 90's pop tunes.

I wrote the author of the article and suggested that she tell them to get a MySpace (like, everyone else, y'know?) so that those of us not fortunate enough to live in the Athens, OH area could hear what they had to say.

If you find any recordings of them, please let me know.

Update: Two updates here... first, I initially posted they were from Athens, GA when Athens, OH is actually the correct one. You can blame that on me having just gotten home from the Ozzy concert and my head was still spinning.

Second: Amber James, the author of the article, got back to me with their website and Woodshed left a link in the comments straight to their download page (for those of you who want to save a click... though there seems to be another download on their main page).

My friend and Pike Market cohort Teagan just went for some continuing cancer care procedure, apparently one of the less comfortable ones. The center that she goes to always has "treats" available for folks going through these sort of things so she picked up 4 (count 'em!) tickets to tonight's Ozzy Osbourne concert (with Rob Zombie). It's the start of the Ozmeister's 40 city solo tour.

The upshot is, Teagan, me, my sweetie (the Fallen Angel) and our housemate Gyan are all going to the concert tonight.

w00t!

I haven't been to a big name concert since the early eighties when I went to the Key Arena (the same venue as tonight's show, though I think it was called something else then) and saw half a Greatful Dead show.

"Half a Dead show?" you may be wondering.

Let's just say there was some confusion engendered by some amateur mycology we indulged in before the concert.

Yeah. We'll leave it at that.

A full report on tonight's festivities will be posted shortly after my ears stop ringing.

Puppycide is what Radley Balko of The Agitator calls the habit police have on a raid, or sometimes seemingly just for thrills, of killing your family dog. Right in front of your 8-year old? No problem.

In Puppycide: The Rules Radley points out (with an assortment of illustrative links) that:

The police can kll the family pet with near impunity but should you threaten a police dog that startles you you're in jail with a $100,000 bond and, should an escaped police dog wander onto your property and threaten your family, don't shoot it. That's a third-degree felony.

Alas these are just more examples in a long series of how our supposed civil servants put themselves above and beyond the laws they pass/are supposed to enforce.

And also fine examples of the results of the so-called war on drugs.

Think it's just the current regime in the White House screwing things up? This has been going on for a long time and each presidency just makes it worse.

I think it might be time to abandon "politics as usual" and the two "major" parties.

So I'm dashing around, trying to do all of my usual morning routine in about half the time plus today is garbage/recycle day so that has to be dealt with as well.

Naturally, that means that Jack the Lad has to decide that I just haven't petted him enough of late. So every step I take features tripping over this great lump of cat.

He is a great kitty. But his timing could use some work.

So we (me and the landlady) dash down to the Market barely in time to catch roll call. So far today it's been a phenomenal waste of time. A sparse crowd and they're just not spending money.

On the bright side, for the third day running Seattle Wifi has been behaving itself. I've kept myself from utter boredom by reading the blogs in my aggregator and now I'm posting this.

Gyan, the above-mentioned landlady, had a doctor's appointment today so we set up next to each other and I'm now doubling. No big problem as, like I said, ain't nobody here to wait on, but I'm hoping she gets back soon and we can talk about taking off at the earliest opportunity.

But I'm so broke I can't even pay attention, so the little cash infusion from being puppet boy today won't hurt.

Yeah. Couldn't agree more.

Yesterday, while perusing the J-Walk Blog, I found his entry about a new reader, Steve Mays, who runs his own blog which is simply called smays.com.

J-Walk was impressed with Steve's bio and also put up a pic of him (Steve, that is) sporting a leopard skin fez (but not real leopard skin, that would be cruel) and mentioned that he was the founder of the Order of the Fez.

Being the proud owner and sometimes sporter of a very similar fez, how could I resist?

Thanks for the admission, Steve, and the nice cross-post as well!

Y'know, there's at least a couple more fez-sportin' uke-phreaks out there -- Tiki King springs readily to mind -- so I think I'll go spread the word.