Famous loss words

I am at a loss for words today.
But I report for duty anyway.

There you have it.

Ping Pong

Well, Friday turned out better than I had expected.
Meredith's retirement party turned out to be just four blocks from the salon, so I got to go to both.
The hit of the evening was Keith Eisenbrey's piece for .wav, spoken word and 200 ping pong balls.
The piece opened with an abrupt noise chord that tapered to the percussive .wav music on bells and various accompanied by spoken, emotionally charged words
Then, when the bucket of ping pong balls was poured from a sixteen foot height, it echoed the form. A recap, more or less as the balls hit they made a 200 voice chord followed by the long bounces that slowly became faster and faster bounces as they became fainter and fainter. Accelerando/diminuendo, until fadeout.
Like the ever expanding universe theory would sound like if you ever got a chance to see it through the end

Loved it!

Today was the Bach cello suites performance presented by the Seattle Violoncello Society.

Loved that too!

Apparently there is an international cello society convocation in the works for Seattle. I meant to sign up to volunteer to help out with that, but I took off for a restaurant as soon as the applause dimmed.

I'll look for their website.

Why pass up a chance to get thrown out of somewhere.

Back to the duet.
It's the same duet that I've posted, but reworked 'till you wouldn't believe.

Ha Ha

Took the Volvo to Midas this morning because the exhaust was making inappropriate noises.
While they dealt with that, I walked around Renton for a couple of hours.

It started to snow.

Why they cant keep weather phenomena restricted to their appropriate seasons is beyond me.
Anyway, it was fun to get snowed on, get my feet wet, and spend a few minutes in a doughnut house with a large coffee, maple bar (somewhat stale, but tasty nontheless)
Anyway again, I got to drive in a nicely quiet (except for that recondite rattle from the back somewhere that I've been trying to stifle for eight years now) car.

Always nice to get home and put on dry socks and warm slippers.

Last night we went to Grazies at Southcenter for dinner. Afterwards we popped over to half-priced books just to browse.
Actually we didn't pop, we drove, but you know I mean.
I browsed about thirty-five bucks worth.
Just a minute (I can spell that properly) I'll go get them...........

O.K. "The Rough Guide to the Cello" 4 bucks. I already know a lot of it but there are some interesting bits about "wolfs"

"The Tao of Willy" 6 bucks. Willy Nelsons personal philosophy. Some jokes;
Skeleton walks into a bar says to the bartender "Gimme a pint and a mop"
"Blog Wild" maybe a way to link more of my mp3s, we'll see. I don't know how much it cost, who cares?

"Saturday Night" a comprehensive history about the show it's genesis and whatever comes after what I've read so far.

"Live from New York" interviews with everybody who has been involved in the show except for Eddy Murphy. Maybe I'll find out why later on.

Lorne Michaels wrote the following joke for Woody Allen.
"I became obsessed with the notion that somewhere in the world there was a person having the same thought that I was and at the same moment. I decided to call that person, but the line was busy.

Another one from Willy;
Guy goes to the doctor. Doc checks him out and prescribes.
"Take three of these green ones with a big glass of water at 10 in the morning.
Take two of these blue ones with a large glass of water at 2 in the afternoon.
Then take two of these red ones with a large glass of water at 6 in the evening."

Guy says "geez, doc, what's wrong with me?
Doc says "you're not drinking enough water."

The walk was nice.
Didn't seem to solve anything, however.
But then, I have no problems to solve.
I do, however have some beautiful mysteries to ponder.

I'm still waiting for my health and the weather to co-operate with me on a bike ride.

What the heck; here's one that pertains to my stage of life;
Two old friends are out golfing, Lane turns to Butch and says "You know I cant see all that well, so watch and tell me where the ball goes"
Butch agrees and Lane makes a nice drive off the tee, turns to Butch and says "well, where'd it go?"
Butch thinks for a minute and says "I don't remember"

Well, that's all the time we have for today, be back again tomorrow.
If the good Lord's willin' and the creek don't rise.

High speed internet connection

I'm going to the library so I can watch some u-tubes wanna come with me?
Rainier branch if you want to meet me there.
Also to take back some books.
Maybe lunch on the way.
Maybe I wont.
So what?
Huh?

This weekend

I'm not much for prognostication, just a way to lose bets as far as I'm concerned, but I will tell you what i hope will happen this weekend.
Friday is a dilemma; The Salon is Friday, but so is M's retirement party.
The party will involve strong drink, up to which I am not very much.
The next salon won't be for another two months, but it is very unlikely that there will ever be another retirement party.
No real decision.
I didn't get a retirement party, being as how I was the only employee and the only management and the only stockholder.

Saturday is the Bach unaccompanied cello performance by the Seattle Violincello Society
Saturday 10 am to whenever it's over.
Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church
7500 Greenwood ave N.

A whole bucketful of 'cello masters will be bowing and scraping their obeisance to the curly wigged genius.
I plan to be there.

Tuesday, I've promised someone we're all familiar with a walk in the woods.
I am hoping to follow that up with a visit to the Good Shepard Chapel to listen to
Elizabeth Falconer play her koto along with John Falconer playing his end blown japanese flute which I don't want to go to the trouble to look up the proper spelling of.

Wait a minnit! Sacahuci, sacahuake, phooey all the spell checker will give me is Sacajawea and earthquake.
You know what I'm talkin' about.

O all right I'll go find it. Hang on a mo'............shakuhachi...that's it
Ha! spell check offers mustachio, what a hoot.

Elizabeth Falconer complemented my music at an early salon.
The one where, Jeremy Reinhard, Stuart Zobel and Meighan Pritchard played my "Quasimodo's Dream Waltz" (piano, bass, and flute).
Elizabeth said she liked it.
Meighan said "Thank you for letting me play your music"
That Meighan.

None of the three charged me anything so I gave each one of them an instrument I made
Lemmesee, Stuart got a four string guitar
(he called it a quatro, he's from Venezuela )
Jeremy got a lyre (made by the grossdicke lyre company, a subsidiary of my fernhead fiddle company)
Meighan got a rebec which for some time she kept on her desk at work.
I think she might have had a desire to bash it over my head.
Which, in a way, I guess she did.
Wonder where it is now?

Oh, sweet mystery of life, where are you?

Over at Soho the dog?

Yesterday again;

Chopped wood as a part of cleaning the driveway where the cars once stood.
Glued tile.
No class this week, spring break, not that I've ever shown any class at all.
Nor do I wish to.
I think I'll go downtown tomorrow anyway, they won't be expecting that.

Today again;
Who knows?

Tomorrow again;
Spring weather, lawn mowing?
Hedge trimming?
Lotus eating?
That sweet place between sleep and wake where one's own internal truths prevail.
Dreamt about pretty cars and Jane this morning.
You don't know about Jane, probably never will.
She's an incredible driver

Ho-Hum....How shall I carpe this diem?

Or should I just let it run unsupervised?

Am I my diem's keeper?

It's been around more than half it's life,
maybe its time for it to go out on its own.

Inspiration running low -
I think it's time for me to go -
Cant think of any more to say -
I think I'll just be on my way -
No more of this boring stuff -
I think you folks have had enough -
Mine is not to reason why -
It's time for me to say goodbye -

JuneMoonSpoonCroon
HiHowAreYouHowYouDoon?
ItsNowAnHourAfterNoon
YallComeBackNowVerySoon


ShaveAndAHairCutThirtyBucks?

Keeping a journal

You're supposed to do it every day.
According to Tolstoy happy people are not as interesting as miserable people.
(somewhat crude translation from the translated Russian)
I'm having trouble dissimulating my own situation here, Really I'd like to crow about my success.
Never having made more than 24Gs in my dirty, bloody, working life, I still manage to live in a nice large house surrounded by trees, by the lake, with a great view of Paul Allen's ranch.
I still managed to accumulate a million bucks (more actually) of real estate that provides me a capitalist's income from supplying other people with a survival commodity.
I got a wife with a good job and her own fortune, I could be one of those men in a Jane Austen book who are not quite good enough for the upper crust girlies, and who'd want 'em
Or I could be a capitalist pig parasite sucking the blood out of the proles.
Or a feudal lord fleecing my flock of peasants.
I don't really have to give a damn about anything.
Not the SSO
Not Gerry Schwarz (I never could tell the difference between a good performance or a bad performance, anyway)classical music all sounds the same to me anyway.
I don't even know what a conductor does, really.
Or an "artistic director"
I don't have to give a damn about "human resources directors"
I don't have to give a damn about certain persons' traumatic pasts, even when they surface to destroy something I was trying to take seriously.
I don't need to care whether my "music" is worth a damn to anyone.
Or whether I have any "talent"
I'm alright, Jack.
I've done my best to fulfill any "obligations" to society. If "society" don't like me, society can buss my fundament.
"K 231" as Mozart once put it.
Not that I'm totally without sympathy for all the little people I float above.
It's more of a practical thing.
Why should I go to any trouble for a drowning person when all I'll get for it is punched out and maybe sued for some made up legal nonsense?
Why should I care about child abuse when it's main symptom is a belief that it's alright to abuse me in turn.
Why should I care about your laws when the main effect is to keep the price of recreational drugs high enough to aid and abet the criminals who profit from this very illegality.
Your idiot factory schools.
Your psychopathic religions.
Why should I try to commit "random acts of kindness",
Or "senseless acts of beauty"

No, I don't trust your society.
And I don't need to.
But I'm not one to brag.

Hey, I did what I could for you little monkeys and you bit my ass.
It heals and I can still walk.
Didn't cost me anything and you lose.
I wear my scar proudly.
Sometimes I imagine my tombstone reading "You lost more than I did here"
I still remember the kid who tripped me in the bathroom of my first grade school and broke a big chunk out of one of my front teeth.
Hope he got killed in Viet Nam.

And, in conclusion, live or die, fish or cut bait, shit or go blind, who cares?

Or do you prefer my self deprecating side?

I'm so sorry, but I seem to have been wrong about that schadenfreude thing yesterday.

Till tomorrow, then.

I is Arisen

The spring rebirth has rekindled my wish to be proud of my city, my symphony orchestra, and even my country.
Now, Barak Obama's speech has actually given me hope.
I realize that "hope", like "freedom" or "justice" or "love" is just a matter of the imagination.
But it feels good and if you smoke it in moderation it can make you feel better for a while.
The hangover is truly unpleasant, but.
As long as you squint your eyes a little, things can seem to be looking up.

As far as my personal, musical, hopes are concerned they remain on the ethereal plane.
Things could happen, but I have had much practice in accepting reality.
No real choice there.

And as far as the SSO is concerned;

Gathering Note

has this to say in a very astute and detailed critique of SSO's performance of
JSB's B minor Mass.

My schadenfreude is about worn out on the subject of SSO's ill treatment of myself,
so I don't really feel happy about their continuing slog through the swamp of despair
Especially since the people who screwed me are gone.

Hester

Has some very good comments about racism, prejudice, and social stratification.
With which I fully agree.
Actually, I thought everyone did until I ran into the brick wall of you know who's prejudices.

Anyway, Meredith wants my help with something, so I will bid you adieu until tomorrow

Goodbye to all that

Well I just watched my three most interesting cars disappear up the street on the backs of a couple of trailers.
I suppose I could wax nostalgic about it, but not wanting to wax is one of the reasons for getting rid of them.

I am planning on a retrospective photo blog. Soon as I get some of my old pics scanned.

Today, it's back to tiling the kitchen counters.

Spring up the Wazoo

Stolen from Jeremy Denk;
"bank of TVs turned to news programs filled with prefabricated crap, political “discussion” that consists of idiots refuting idiots … all of these moments, in their monotony and convenience, are inelegant."

Opinions like that make me feel warm all over.

As long as we've lowered ourselves to the political, how 'bout that Obama guy?
How does he expect us to accept him as a leader if he's going to make speeches that might be considered controversial?
Does he really imagine that we want to think of ourselves as racist?

US?

After Lincoln killed half a million Irish and sent Sherman to punish the south for slavery, thereby blaming the whole thing on "The Negro" and co-incidentally creating the KKK and Jim Crow.

Thanks, Abe, for getting us out of the frying pan. Where's that forty acres and the mule?

I mean, really!

I think Tracy Morgans theory, as expressed on SNL last Saturday, is to the point;

WE ARE A RACIST COUNTRY, THE END!!

So anyway, screw politics, it's spring time again.
Resurrection, time to forget the fears, neuroses, prejudices, trespasses, failures, misspellings, et cetera of the past and renew ourselves with NEW fears, mispellings and exceteras.

Forgive the trespasses of the past and move on to new little fires about this high.

I can feel the little shoots of forgiveness sprouting from my limbs and branches as we speak.
Little green leaves of hope begin to unfurl.

A time of speculation on the commodities of human social intercourse.

O it's going to be a great year.

Stay tuned, we'll be right back after this short commercial break.

Pheonix

When I was eleven or twelve (both actually) we lived in Arizona for a school year.
Sixth grade, I believe.
It was 1953-54.
A social event was planned by the school, a dance.
I remember looking forward to the thing, my girlfriend would be there.
Other friends would be there.
There was much discussion and anticipation.

The rules were given us; "No Levis".
Jeans, Denim; verboten, if you can't dress decently, don't come.

My mother laid out my costume for the evening;
Levis and a nice shirt, white with a bit of green embroidered decoration.*
"We're not supposed to wear jeans" says I.
"Oh it'll be alright" says mom "you look nice"

So I walked the (approx) mile to school, looked in the window of the gym or hall or whatever room it was the dance was in, watched for awhile then decided on the better part of valor and walked home.

I have yet to determine exactly what crippling psychological affect this incident has had on my psyche.

Could this be why I'm such a turkey?

*OMG, was there a string tie involved?

Faith and begorrah

Or for you Republicans out there, "faith and buggery"

Anyway God bless the Irish!
To see the main reason, check out the beautiful picture at

Omniscient Mussel

Good bye, I've got to edit the cello duet.
After I clean up after the book group meeting last night.
'twas a good discussion.
'twas good food.
Gotta wash dishes.
Work. Work. Work.

I feel a song coming up

Nobody wants you when you're down and out -
Nobody wants you when you're up and about -
Nobody wants you -
Nobody wants you -
Why don't you just go home?

Nobody wants you when you're looking like that -
Nobody wants you when you're wearing that hat -
Nobody wants you -
Nobody wants you -
Why don't you just go home?

You come around here with a face full of hair -
You got some vain notion that somebody cares -
You think you're so great -
But you can't keep a beat -
Do something useful with your big ugly feet -

(Dynamite guitar solo)

Why don't you just go home?

Fearless fuzzbutt

O.K. I just noticed on Alex's site that she's posting pictures of cute animals.
Her blog seems to indicate that this is a common practice.
I guess it would be.
So, in another pathetic attempt to be "part of the gang" so to speak, I'm posting this picture of my cute little (14lbs) kitty.



The whole story can be found on this site under posts with "draincat" in the title; 12/13 2006 and earlier.

Rooty toot toot!

Ten grand on my counter!!!!
Fanfare for the common blog....
Nothing for the common clod

Thursday Thursday

First off, it was raining.
Soon as I'm over this cold or tuberculosis or pellagra or what ever you want to callit.
Soon as I get a little energy back so maybe I could get back on the bike, the weather screws with me.
Two weeks of looking out the window to nice sunny days.........pfaugh!

So anyway somebody crashed into a pole and knocked the trolley lines out of commission and a shuttle took me out of the valley, the valley so low, to the other side of the electrical contretemps.
Didn't really add up to much of a impediment to the trip.
I don't know why I bothered to bring it up.

When I got to Caffe Ladro. I noticed that they had gotten some new chairs upholstered in some leather like fabric and sporting stylish high backs that made hanging an arm across seem like a cool pose.
Phooey!

So anyway I sat, I drank, I ate a cookie (they had peanut butter ones this time)and I watched the NY Times headlines flash by on the TV screen on the kiosk.
The NY Times doesn't have a cartoon section, so what's the point there.
Walked up the hill, got some insights as to how to improve the cello duet, grabbed a bus, went home.
Some time during the evening, I resumed reading "Churchill" by Roy Jenkins, found this wonderful quote.
It's from a letter by the Marquess of Linlithgow concerning Winston's stance on India's independence.
On May 19 1934 he wrote;
"You envision...an approaching period of red tooth and claw, a struggle for the means to live. I doubt it, Winston! I wonder whether you take sufficient cognizance of two basic changes of tendency. (a) Falling birthrates, (b) enormously enhanced production, actual and potential, both of primary and manufactured products?
I think it is difficult to overestimate the significance of (b)...Forgive me, then, if I say that it is not, it seems to me, so much I who am mouthing the bland platitudes of an age that has passed away, twenty years behind the times, but rather you who are hanging, hairy, from a branch, while you splutter atavistic shibboleths of an age destined by some to retreat into some forgotten past.
In conclusion, let me as one Tory to another, beseech you to see in time the errors of your mind, and to retract them, lest irretrievably you miss the bus."

This Marquess is almost (was, I guess, by now) as funny as Jeremy Denk.

1936, a time of accumulating prosperity and jolly times for all.
Ask your grandparents about it.
Or your great grandparents.
Or, ask Pete Seeger.
Or Joe hill.
Look up the concept of "work ethic"
From where and whence does it come?

Discuss.

Open letter to Eddy Emerald

This is in answer to Eddy's comment on my last post.

In eleven years of study and presenting mediocre to awful works at the salon (sort of an "open mike" thing).
I've written one, count 'em, one piece that I consider to be the sort of thing I'm trying to write.
In the mean time, I get harassed by the sleazeball Seattle Symphony for giving them 1000 hours of volunteer work and about ten years of season ticket patronage at about a grand a year
I get discriminated against by a couple wimmen who probably ought to be using their energy at a shrink trying to find the source of their agony (hint..it's not me)
My religious beliefs tell me that the way to make the world better is to respect everyone to the best of my ability, to love everyone to the best of my ability.
I got this silly idea from listening to "Christians" when I was a kid.
It was, of course, a "Christian" with the same beliefs who screwed me.
This is the way the world works.
It ain't gonna get "better".
There is no respite.
There is no solution.
So I have no reason to believe that there will ever be anything but fraud, past, present, or future.
Or that "music" has any real value.

Santa Claus -
Easter Bunny -
God -
Love -
Honor -
Dignity -

I'm beginning to fear that when I get to -

Death -

That'll turn out to be bullshit, too.

Sherman

Part of Sunday's excursion was to check out the big deal bookstore at the mall.
I don't remember the name of the giganzo bookstore. One of the handful that has destroyed all the little hole-in-wall bookstores and put a generation of bookstore cats out of work.
I wouldn't be surprised if Soho the cat-hating mutt* had something to do with it.
Besides, aforementioned boogie-woogie bookstore doesn't pay me to mention it's decadent, bourgeois, capitalist, charge-you for-the-coffee-and cookies, no cat name in this sophisticated and internationally loved blogsite.

But that's where we found Sherman Alexie's "True story of a part time Indian"
Which book is a masterpiece.
Maybe I'm just weak from the flu or whatever it is and hopefully was, but I spent the whole three and a half hours yesterday with tears in my eyes, sobbing, laughing, and occasionally both at the same time.
Thanks Sherman

* See Soho the dog

Soho the Dog

Sunday

Went to Philharmonia Northwest.
Liked the Tuba Concerto. Forgot to listen to mine before going so as to be able to compare.
Don't have a program, and I don't remember the names of the pieces or who wrote them.
I sat at the back of the room in case I started to cough. I didn't.

I went to the library earlier in the day so I could watch some u-tubes
Got a late start to the concert so we ate at our University Mall Italian restaurant
after the show.
Anyway it apparently ruined Meredith's day (she is apparently incapable of feeding herself without my presence or my permission or some damn thing).
So I heard about it later in the day.

I did have a nice dream this morning, a former enemy and I approached each other and made peace.

Obviously a dream, wishful thinking and all.

For the last five years or so, she has men telling me and anybody else who will listen that she's going to have to kill me or divorce me when she retires
Said retirement looms in a week or too.
I wonder if this sort of thing is the start of the ridding process.
She had read a lot of British murder mystery books so she probably has the perfect crime all planned out.

Not that it would need to be all that perfect.
My experience with Dames and the Law seem to tell me that the y chromosome alone is enough for conviction.
Certainly worked that way with the SSO.
With their criminal prejudices, and, criminal harassment practices.
What the heck, their criminality in general.

Being x-x is nine points of the law.

I wonder why nobody don't like me.

I do wonder.

So, anyway, if this blog suddenly disappears, you'll have some idea of what might have happened.
How you would determine that a blog "suddenly" disappeared, I dunno.

..........What the??? Aaaaaarrrrgg!

Today

It's Alan Hovahness's birthday today
It's C.P. E. Bach's birthday today.
It's Ruggerio Leoncavallo's birthday today.

Day after Ravel's.
Death day for Hector Berlioz.

Tosca

If you are in the Seattle area and want to see Seattle Opera's Tosca, let me know.
I'm not going tomorrow night (Saturday) because I'm still liable to have some kind of coughing fit.
So leave a message here, you can have my ticket.

Minnesota is in the mail. Never have to worry about that again.

Other than that, it's kinda dead around here.

Luxury Thursday

I got the Vespa out last Sunday and it immediately got a bit of junk stuck in it's main jet. I got that fixed but I've smelled gasoline ever since. But, however and anyway, Meredith started riding it again so I had the Volvo to take my usual run into town.
The Volvo has a heater.
The Volvo has power steering and power brakes.
Even a radio-CD player (when I remember to take the removable faceplate)
The Volvo is reasonably weather tight.
Although, I didn't actually go into town.
Missed the coffee at Ladro.
First I went to Kinko's in Tukwila to get copies and binding of the Minnesota score.
Then it was on to my old neighborhood (Queen Anne) for lunch at the Queen Anne Cafe
(used to be Burnies, long time passing.)
Waffle, 2 eggs over easy, 2 sausage, 2 bacon, 10 bucks 2 dollar tip.
Then to school.
I was no more than a few minutes in the David's small office when I thought it might be better if I didn't stay, even though I feel much better today.
Remembering all the life threatening diseases he and his family has suffered this truly miserable winter, he quickly concurred.
So I went home.
Kinko's message on the answering machine soon had me on the road again.
Now I've got almost all I need to get the Minnesota project in the mail postmarked tomorrow.

Amusing thing at Kinko's. The parking lot is full, full, full, at least 30 cars.
Inside it's empty, no more than 6 people, even counting employees there couldn't be more than a dozen visible.
There is apparently more to Tukwila than meets the eye.

So....anyway,..anywhere, any....what.....?

Family

Here's the link for the kids

Wally&Leah

Here's Meredith's friend and his band, who will be coming to Seattle for SSO's 08-09 season.

MTT&SFO

Not THAT Meredith, the other one.

Got to get back to editing the Minnesota score and my abs exercise which consists of coughing until I see stars.

Get outa my way!

We found the tile for the kitchen countertops. It doesn't really look that hot but neither does the rest of the kitchen. But at least I can finally glue the damn stuff down and hopefully (foolishly) the stupid project will be done.
It won't be of course. One thing I learned in school is that life is made out of stuff you have to do in order to keep other people at bay. Anything you want to do on your own is on your own and of inferior importance.

So what?

This cold is really starting to annoy me.
At the grocery store today, someone asked me how're ya doin'? (nobody ever really gives a rip, do they?) I told him I was pissed off at the world. He didn't ask any more questions.

Over a year ago, I tried to get Quest to hook me up with their high speed connection.
They told me (at least I think they told me, who knows What anyone is talking about when talking about computer crap?) that my address was not "valid" or some damn thing. It's been valid enough to send me phone bills for 40 years.

Now computer whizz tells me I don't want a high speed hook up.
No, of course not, why would I want to look at U-tube videos or listen to other composer's clips? Like everybody else in the whole bleeding world. No I'll just sit in a corner and listen to whatever the cats are listening to when they do that.
I'm doing this because I'm lonely, for Christ sakes. Sitting at home listening to my tinnitus is all a man could ask for, isn't it.

It's the same shit with the Damn Seattle Symphony; See it, Hear it, Be a part of it.
Unless you're Doug Palmer.

How do you get fired from a volunteer job?

Don't tell me I'm paranoid, I'm just talking facts, my experience, here.

You wanna hear something every day? You just heard it.