I'm just going to pretend that today's busking never happened.

(La la la la la! I can't hear you.)

Fucking tourists.

Oh god. I just heard the first ice cream man truck of the season pass by. His little repeating music loop was "Bicycle Built For Two."

I didn't run out. Mom's not here to give me the... oh hell, I won't even say what it cost when I was a kid.

Hearing it was such sweet sorrow. It means summer's here. But my golden summers seem to be so long ago.

I'm feeling all old and nostalgic.

You really can't go back you know.

A judge says the NY city street entertainer's lawsuit against Mars Inc (makers of M&Ms) can go forward. Read all about it. 

You just can't make this kind of shit up.

Last week a "guest editor" on YouTube filled their Trend Spotting Tuesday feature with ukulele videos. It was a big enough deal to get a mention in the LA Times. Several of my online friends were featured. I wasn't.

Yep, I was a little jealous. At first. I mean, I'd love to have the views on one of my vids go up into the 5 (or more) figure range. And the comments exploded too. And therein lies the rub.

Suddenly, instead of having comments from folks who're into the ukulele or maybe just stumbled across a good uke vid and started looking for more, a bunch of the commenters came from the "general population". And YouTube's general population is just chock full of jerks.

Am I just getting too old or are the last couple generations really that mannerless?  

Yeah, I'd still like some big view numbers. But tons of hateful and/or stupid comments I can live without.

I think I'll stick with my "slow but steady" method for a while longer.

I know I'm a day later than the news services and all them blogs but I'm still saddened by George Carlin dying.

I can't remember a time when he didn't make me laugh and/or think.

The really sad part is they're going to bury or cremate him instead of doing what he really wanted and blowing him up. Some folks are just too bound by tradition, despite all the years that George defied such silliness.

Rest in peace.

I've been meaning to post this for several days but I keep on spacing it out.

Several years ago I got an unexpected bequest and used part of it to score a nice soprano National steel resophonic ukulele. I got a hella nice deal on it and when it arrived I was flabbergasted to note that, even though it was more than ten years old (it was made in the early 90s), it had no wear and tear on it. It was like the guy who had it before just bought it, looked at it, and then put it in his closet.

Well, I'm happy to say that not quite a week ago I was playing it outside and laid it down for a few minutes. The sun hit it just right and I could see a spot of shiny strum wear on its upper bout. 

Yeah, baby! Love wear!

I've apparently put more hours of play on it in the last few years than the entire time the previous owner(s) had it. 

(Musical instruments can't go to instrument heaven unless they're played to death.)

Several law school professors have gotten together and created a comic book that teaches the basics of copyright law.

Required reading methinks.

There will be a quiz.

Alright, it's only dangerous if you fear being sued by a greedy corporation. But who doesn't nowadays?

I believed this one for quite some time myself, but it appears that the Happy Birthday song is not under copyright after all.

Of course, that won't stop certain restaurants (with full and overpaid legal staffs) from objecting if you sing it on their premises. Perhaps presenting a printout of the legal paper to them would help.

Nah. Probably not.

This past Monday Andrew and I busked at the Pike Place Market. We stuck around for three sets.

The last song of the last set was Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby, a 1944 Louis Jordan/Bill Austin song. We're heading around the clubhouse turn and into the final stretch when I catch a glimpse of some really rapid movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn to look and it's a nice looking young couple (early to mid twenties I'd guess) who are just jitterbugging up a storm! They were great dancers and obviously loved doing it if you're to judge by the big smiles on their faces.

Luckily, back when I was in the jug band, Stanislove taught me a great band rule. If you get dancers, stretch the song. (Thanks, Stan!) I turned to Andrew and let him know I was going to do another round from the kazoo solo, and we did.

When we were done there was a terrific round of applause, coming from both the patrons of the Market and the vendors. I'd like to think that at least a little of it was for us, but I really don't care that much. It was a gas just having someone dancing like that to our music.

I just cooked and ate my dinner. It was a package of macaroni and cheese. You know, a box with x amount of macaroni, a little envelope of orange powder. Boil the mac, throw in some butter (I don't care what it says on the box, fuck a bunch of margarine), a little milk and the orange powder, stir and eat.

When I was little my mom was doing the single mom thing. This was in the sixties. It was hard, but she did it. We were, for a time, on one of the first "welfare" programs. She used to take on extra work -- sometimes as much as three jobs -- towards the end of the year so she could splurge on christmas for us.

We ate a lot of mac and cheese (often with hot dogs, cut up into chunks, in it). And Kool-Aid to drink. It got to the point where I hated the stuff.

Hated it. 

Years, as they are wont to do, rolled by. Now mac and cheese is a comfort food to me. It's tasty, filling and, at least on some level, takes me back to the days where Mom was taking care of me.

A total 180 from my previous view. 

Oddly enough, though tonight's box was from Kraft, I really prefer the cheaper "house brand" stuff. You know, the ones where the macaroni is of a lesser diameter and straight, rather than slightly curved. Where the orange powder is nearly flourescent.

I'm still not overly fond of Kool-Aid. I drink it every now and again, but I can't remember the last time I had some. But I digress.

So, anyway, here I am with a belly full of comfort food and I get to thinking. You think you're poor? A lot of folks do. But they probably liberally sprinkle pepper on their cheap mac and cheese. You have any idea how expensive pepper is? Look at the shelf tag in the store one of these times. Where they show the price per pound. Yowza!

And in the past it was worse. In Europe in the middle ages the price of pepper was simple. You put the pepper corns on one side of the balance scale and gold in the other. When they balanced, you got the pepper and the merchant got the gold.

So tonight I probably sprinkled a couple year's worth of an average peasant's earnings on my cheap mac and cheese.

Still think you're poor? 

Well, if the pipe dreamers in the "local grown only" movement have their way, you will be. It amuses me, in a sort of appalling way, to hear people spout off about how all x billion of us can live on food growing within a 100 mile radius of where we live. It's like they don't stop to think where the "organically grown" frou-frou veggie juice they're sucking on while spewing this nonsense comes from. Or their oranges. Or pepper. Or... well, you get the picture.

Not to mention the rationale of "if we'd live simply, others would simply live" is pap. Warehouses full of grain rot in India even as I type. Protectionist legislation right here in the US keeps large tracts of land fallow to artificially prop up prices on certain crops. And huge swathes of the aid we (and others) send to other countries are simply black marketed by those in charge. That's not going to change by lowering our standard of living.

I'm not advocating not doing the best you can to help those in need. But there are some 180 turns that just aren't possible, barring a huge malthusian catastrophe. Or desirable, catastrophe or not. And even if "the west" voluntarily dropped back to "2nd world" status there would still be folks in the 3rd world starving.

Try to enjoy your (relative) prosperity. The 180 can come along at any moment.

Well, less than a half an hour left of my birthday.

I turned 50 today.

It was a mixed bag.

I went busking at the Ballard Sunday Market. Terrence sat in on drums and other percussion. We'd not played together before and I'm not sure he got my weird pseudo-jazz style. But, trouper that he is, he kept plugging along.

I ran into my friend Kind Keith. I brought him home, fed him some bourbon, and because of a turn that our conversation took, recorded his first YouTube video.

If the embed doesn't work, the link above it will take you to the YouTube version.

The reason it was Terrence and me at the Ballard Sunday Market was that Andrew already had something going on and Thaddeus was at the hospital where his wife Sandahbeth passed away today.

It was a long, hard decline in her health and it was not easy to see. I'll miss her. But no matter how hard I try, I can't begin to imagine how it is for Thad, who was with her for something like 30 years.

There is some strain in my home situation. The Fallen Angel is very upset with me (not entirely without reason, I might add). She left before I did today and I didn't know what to think. I expected maybe a "happy birthday" (and little else) but she left without a word on the subject. And now she's just came home with presents. Four of my favorites as a matter of fact. Sure, I'll tell ya... 

IPA, saltines, coffee beans and a couple new books. May not sound exciting to y'all, but it was very sweet of her.

It sort of left me blubbering a bit. 

Mom called and sang me happy birthday.

A whole bunch of people on the Ukulele Underground wished me a happy birthday. 

A mixed bag for sure. But growing older isn't so bad when you consider the alternatives. Like my friend Mr. Jim Hinde, a fellow busker. He was only 5 or so years older than me and he passed on this past Monday morning.

What a weird world I'm inhabiting right now.

I got really tired of talking to folks after gigs who were interested in hiring me and not having a business card (or brochure or something) I could give them. I'd have to write my name, email and/or phone number on some scrap of paper.

Real pro, huh? 

So I designed some cards in Scribus and have been pretty good at putting my little card wallet in my pocket when I go out to perform.

But "pretty good" isn't enough. And "when I go out to perform" isn't enough either. 

I went out a couple weeks back to fetch a packet of tobacco. I was heading out the door when I realized I didn't have my cards on me but thought, "Hell, I'm only going to the tobacco store, who am I going to run into there?"

How about the guy who just opened the little wine bar next door? Yeah, how about him?

I went back and gave him a card and demo CD. (Come to think of it, I need to follow up on that.) But still.

At any rate, I had a couple things to mail today. I'm dressed in raggedy old sweats and a shirt that's starting to literally come apart at the seams. No pockets on me except for the two in my hoodie. Once again I fooled myself. I'm on the way out of the post office and there's a guy heading in. Just as he passes me he stops and says "Excuse me?" Turns out he'd seen me and the boys busking the Ballard Sunday Market a week or so back. I was singing "Fly Me To The Moon" and he was loving it. He wanted to know if we had CDs available.

He's local. I could have handed him a card, said "Call me" and arranged to meet somewhere and sell a CD (or both CDs, wtf). Oh sure, he'll probably show up this Sunday and buy one. But I still missed a bet there.

Maybe I need to do with the business cards what I do with my keys. Hang them by the door so that I always know where they are and I can grab them on the way out.

No more missed opportunities!

Today Thaddeus, Andrew and I busked at the Ballard Sunday Market again. We loves that place.

The people that go there are fabulous. And today they were especially generous as well. It was not only the best single day so far this year -- monetarily speaking -- but it was probably the best money day I've had busking in a couple years. Maybe even three.

I arrived first and grabbed our favorite spot. It's in front of an empty lot. Several of the vendors set up in it and this season there's been the coolest pizza place. It's a trailer with a genuine wood-fired pizza oven on it (dome shaped, etc.). As I was setting stuff up the lady there said something like "Oh good! We're going to have good music today?" I replied that that was certainly the current fantasy and she allowed how we should come back and get some pizza at some point.

About midway in our second set one of the guys comes up with a pizza box. It's plain white (no logo and stuff printed on it) and apparently they write your name on the box with a felt pen when you order a whole pizza. They didn't know our names so they had drawn a little cluster of music notes on the corner!

And oh yeah, the pizza was major yummy!

I didn't see any name written anywhere or I'd have looked up their web site and plugged them here. I'll try to correct that next week.

There are just some days where it's good to be the funny ukulele guy.

Last Sunday Snake Suspenderz (trio version) was busking at the Ballard Sunday Market when a nice lady asked if we ever did parties and did we have a card?

Why, yes and yes!

She called the next day and so last night me, Thaddeus and Andrew all piled into Andrew's car and went to a nice little place on Ravenna Ave. She'd set up a big awning that covered the most part of her (smallish) back yard and we sat and did two sets of strictly acoustic music to an appreciative crowd of folk who were either about to graduate from med school -- in fact, I think the ceremony is today -- or were friends and relatives of the grads.

The weather, which had been pretty wet and nasty all day, cooperated by clearing up some and only being a trifle cool.

I thought we played pretty well. I took all three of my ukes and it was especially nice to do more playing on my Glyph ukulele than usual. I do like the National's sound but I do most of the busking with it because of it's volume. Being in a nice, quiet back yard and going strictly acoustic allowed the Glyph to shine. It has such a fuller and more "throaty" sound to it. 

After repeatedly forgetting my harmonicas when going out as an "other than solo" act lately, I finally remembered to pack them. This allowed us to do a couple more songs that Thad sings as well as just changing up the flavor of the act a bit.

I really like playing harmonica -- I've been playing it since I was five year's old! -- so I have no idea why I keep spacing them out.

Of course, I made up for remembering the harps by forgetting my kazoo and the spif holder for same. *sigh* 

There was lots of nice food and drink for us and, when it came time to pay, they'd upped what they promised by a significant chunk.

Yay for extra monies!

But, Thad pointed out on the ride home that the best part of a gig like this was being amongst a group of people who treated you like you were something special, not just a "live jukebox" and, mercenary as I am, I think I have to agree.

Here's hoping we get more just like this one!

I saw this some time ago (hope I haven't already blogged it!) and just ran across it again today. It's one of the best mashups I've seen.

"Baby Got Back" as done by Gilbert and Sullivan.

(Is it my imagination, or is that guy behind the fella with the parasol Bob Ross? You can see him best starting around 1:40.)

Watch the vid at YouTube if the embed doesn't work for you.

After a bit of mucking about on my borrowed Mac (yeah, iMovie) I just posted the first video with my new Ohana sopranino ukulele.

I have to say that iMovie makes it a snap to edit, add titles, etc. but damn it's a bear to get it to spit out a file that's right for YouTube. Out of the five "default" choices on the export menu four shrink the vid down and reduce the clarity so badly that all the nice, crisp titles were blurry. The fifth one sends out a nice, clean file, as long as you don't mind it being about six times the size of the original that came out of your camera!

Turns out that an acceptable one can be done by going to the "Expert Settings" choice and then selecting "Broadband - medium" as your level. Next vid I'm going to try the iMovie - HD version. According to a Google search you're supposed to be able to export mpeg4 files from that. We'll see.

So, with no more ado, here's my version of Teddy Bear's Picnic.

You can click the link above to watch it on YouTube if the embedded video doesn't work for you.

I've also put up a pdf with the arrangement. Bear (ahem) in mind that it's for D tuning. You can either play the shapes as shown and just be a whole step lower (kind of the opposite of how I did it) or you can transpose. I suppose with sufficient bribery I could be convinced to put up a similar pdf in the same key (Bm... or do they call it D?) but for C tuning.

My friend Zach Michaud has booked me as a solo act at two of his gigs recently. Despite the whole "solo" thing, I've managed to present him with two duos. The first was me and the (now departed) bass player from Snake Suspenderz, Dean Hedges. This latest time, last Thursday, May 29th,  was another appearance of "Snake Suspenderz, Classic," being myself and Thaddeus Spae, the original Snakes.

Ahyup... the story of the whole adventure (and adventure it was) follows...

I mean, really. They're freakin' bigger than life. Even if this one was "only" 30 feet high, that's still pretty freakin' large, doncha think? And made of cast iron. Not real easy to just slip in your pocket and sashay away with, hm?

So when I saw the headline, Missing Cape Cod lighthouse found in California, you just know I had to check it out.

But I think the best part is discovering that there's a group of lighthouse phreaks out there that include "lighthouse researchers" who publish their reports in an organ called Lighthouse Digest. And it's a monthly no less.

Gawd I love humans.

My site (including this blog) has been down, up briefly, back down and as of yesterday, seems to be back up.

This is due to an explosion and fire in my hosting service's power distribution room at one of their server farms.

Thankfully no one was hurt. However, the underfloor cabling and such was so badly damaged that they had to do a physical move of all the servers to a different location. Hopefully all is well now.

Of course, I have a bundle of things I was trying to post (like something about last Thursday's gig, for instance) when it went down. So you might actually see a spate of posts here.

Hey. Weirder things have happened.