POSTED: 05-06-2010         The Move, The Knife and Everything Else I Forgot To Mention The Move, The Knife & Everything Else I Forgot To Mention Geez, I skipped ahead months and forgot to tell you what the hell’s been going on! What kind of friend am I? Wait, don’t answer that, I’m ashamed already. OK, so last we spoke of the Oregon Coast, I was waiting to hear from the landlord about my soon to be little house. When I didn’t hear from him, I called. The conversation went along these lines… PJ: Hi, Jim, I want to rent your house in Barview. Jim: Huh? PJ: The house you own in Barview, that Bob McGraw used to live in… Jim: I do own a house in Barview, but Bob still lives there… PJ: No he doesn’t. He moved out Sunday. He sent you a letter. Jim: I didn’t get any letter. PJ: You will… The conversation went on like this for a few minutes, me insisting and he confused. I drove down to Portland the next day to sign the lease and get a key. I also loaded the car with cleaning supplies and paint to get rolling (sic). Get to Portland, meet the new landlords. Nice couple, in their late 70’s. Jim gets me a cup of coffee and says, â€�Well, you might as well see the safari room!â€� OK, safari room. Whatever. The Safari Room is aptly named as every square inch of wall and floor space is covered with dead beasties of sizes ranging from smallish to incredibly stupidly large. Jim, I find out, used to own a bar in Portland and after selling it, his retirement included skydiving, bungee jumping and big game hunting. Jean, his wife of 10 years, kept watching my face to see the expressions as Jim told me about some of the kills. (Editor’s note: I’m going to leave them out because you need to hear Jim tell them himself!) The signing of the lease and key exchange took 45 seconds. We spoke briefly about Bob, discovering that he told each of us different plans. Fuck it, he’s a slime ball. These are 2 very sweet people and he screwed them, but how badly I had yet to determine. Back on the road, stop in Manzanita to check into the hotel and drop Mifune off. I figured that I’d only spend a night here, then the remainder of my time here at my new house… By the time I get there, it’s nearly dark. I see a few piles of I don’t know what in the yard, a van seat that I saw inside when I first saw the house. Garbage bags full of stuff? Hmmm…. The door is not locked. OK. I reach to turn on a light. Nothing. There’s still enough light to see that there’s the same crap laying the floor as when Bob showed me the house. Is he still here? In the kitchen, both wells of the sink were piled 2 feet high with dirty dishes. As the kids say, WTF? Further exploration reveals that the electricity is definitely shut off, whether by Bob or the power company remains to be seen. The water is still on. The bathroom is by far the cleanest room in the house. I’m guessing that’s because he never bathed rather than his impeccable house cleaning skills. On the other hand, he left about 50 land mines in the back yard that he banished his dog to when he left home for gigs. Apparently he used to leave the dog outside and the dog would bark non-stop. After the police finally left a note did he leave the dog inside (this, along with a dozen rat carcasses found later will explain the fleas). I stood there for about 10 minutes in shock and awe, and then drove back to Manzanita. My teeth were clenched the entire time. Got to the hotel, called Jim and Jean and explained what I found. Ate dinner, drank a beer, went to bed. I spent the next 3 or 4 days hauling garbage, cleaning and discovering what little treasures Bob had left us. A grand total of 3000 pounds of crap went to the dump. The roof leaked and he didn’t bother to tell the landlords. Water leaks caused numerous areas of the floor to collapse. Oh shit! Did I bother to mention that the house was fully furnished when he moved in? No? Well it wasn’t when I got there. Everything was missing including all of the appliances and the wood stove! FUCKER!!! All that was left were 4 dining room chairs in the shed, the upholstery tattered beyond use. So, new metal roof, refrigerator, wood stove, water heater, carpet. Had to run new plumbing to the back room for my masher and dryer. I made 3 or 4 trips over the next month, cleaning and painting. I purposely left a few spots “rawâ€� to remind myself what I walked into and to not do that to anyone else…ever. Next: Surgery and the Move         POSTED: 05-03-2010         The Fast and the Famished THE FAST AND THE FAMISHED Santa Rosa, CA. Day 3 Hungry but not hungry. Lightheaded but not blonde. Bored but not…..OK, bored. Well, dear readers, I find myself imprisoned by Fascist Architecture of My Own Design*. The parental units said they were fasting. “Good for you,â€� says I. “We’re going to California,â€� says they. Once again, congratulatory sound sounds escape my lips. I’m looking out my front window at the Pacific Ocean, which was either here already or a lovely housewarming gift from my neighbors. “Do you want to come with us?â€� they ask. “Does it have an ocean? I have an ocean now. And what about dogs? Does California have dogs or do I have to bring mine? Can I not eat here? Why drive 3/4 of the way across the galaxy not to eat? “ Replaying this, I’m wondering if I hadn’t eaten yet or maybe the coffee just hasn’t found it’s way to the caffeine center of my brain. The new house was unpacked, new things unused in their new cubbyholes, older things crammed into bulging bookcases wanting to go on vacation if I don’t. I found myself driving 5 hours to Seattle more than I thought at first, initially without heat or a working radio. Both of these rectified and knowing the canyons of the Oregon Coastal Range like the back of a hand that slaps me once too often. The left hand is still waiting for the surgery to take effect and the rest of the body is waiting for more work to come my way, so maybe I’m a little intrigued by this conversation. “Um, well, it’s California right? They have an ocean, I think, I’m sure…â€� I’ve got the mom on the ropes, the uncertainty in her voice debating whether or not she should have invited me or possibly not have carried me to term. That she was born in Los Angeles and cannot commit to the existence of a large body of water nearby is funny and not funny. Am I forcing Mom into senility or just making sure she doesn’t lose her way? Back in Seattle, the Ballard Jazz Festival wound down. A smashing success, at least from my point of view. Not only did it sound great (modestly), but the Mainstage show was the most enjoyable in years. I have become a horrible audience member over the years, not able to sit still when I spy something amiss onstage or off. Venues have taken a dim view of patrons jumping out of their seats and moving microphones around and/or body slamming the sound guy (gal) out of the booth. Anyway, the aftershow party was the usual mélange of wine, sausages and Darth Vader. I mention this because, most likely, I’m thinking about food and Leila made the most amazing bacon jam and I guess I’m thinking about food. The drive down the coast was un-amazing because I lived through it. Having left later than usual for most road trips, I planned on stopping somewhere for the night, not knowing how late I could check in. The interweb predicted a 12-hour trip of 698 miles. Who was I to argue? Research Assistant Mifune and I drove through parts of Oregon never seen by human eyes (mine, anyway). Sunny, rainy, foggy. Repeat. California provided a change. All the while we were listening to Michael Palin read his book “Himalaya,â€� his descriptions of changing landscapes not quite paralleling my own until we hit Mt. Shasta and surrounding environs. SNOW, rain, mud, trucks. Shake. Repeat. Rivers, dams, nature stuff, Liquor Barns. Spent the night in Redding at a Motel 6. Nuff said. Santa Rosa Day 1 Arrived in Santa Rosa. Lovely little town. Find the place. Aside #1) The mom unit sent me a DVD of this place, made by a filmmaker who spent a month here with his son-in-law. It looked intriguing enough for me to come here in the first place. I’m picturing a resort with an ocean view, a palatial estate with gardens, tide pools and private helipads per room. It’s an abandoned apartment complex a block away from an abandoned cemetery. No, it’s really an apartment complex. They filled in the pool and left a fountain. They paved paradise and… Checked in, saw the parental units, met one of the doctors, had lunch, which consisted of fruit, vegetables and unseasoned everythings else. The last meal. Not supposed to shower, exercise, have sex, brush your teeth. Fine. In the 73.5 hours since eating, my blood pressure has dropped to 90/60, blood glucose weighed in at 72 (usually double, should be 80-110) and I dropped 8 pounds to under 200 for the first time in recent history. Did I mention bored out of my skull? Did I mention another week and a half of this before they reintroduce me to vegan cuisine? Did I mention that my folks get juice 4 times a day and are disappointed because they want nothing? Did I mention how fundamentally wrong this is? My friend Nicole is in New Orleans at the Jazz Fest and facebooks how much pork she consumes hourly. And I love this woman? Next up: Mifune as a chick magnet in a fat farm? Luck pj         POSTED: 12-28-2009         On the Oregon Tail, Part 2 On The Oregon Trail Part 2 OK, so before I forget (which seems to be happening with alarming frequency these days), I was talking with my brother Todd and I forgot (see) to tell him about my Oz-like house falling dream from the other night. I mention this because Todd has the most surreal Bunuel-type dreams, as if he eats way too much opiated banana split garlic ice cream before he goes to bed. Day 3 of the beach trip still finds us in Manzanita. We went to see Bob in Oregon (nee McGraw) and his little house yesterday. Little is correct. He calls it a “shotgun house,â€� being that you would probably have to occupy it at gunpoint. A shit hole. I love it. As my friend Roger says, “A lick of paint a lick of paint!â€� And new carpet. And new wiring. And I have to wait 2 weeks to find out if I get it or not. So I’ve been inquiring locally about other places in my range. Nothing in my range as of yet. The weather had been cold and foggy and windy and cold. I was planning on going to Portland today on my way home, but after a sleepless night the weather turned nice and Research Assistant Mifune Valentine Dammit Newman and I delayed our departure and stayed one more day. We did, however, move hotels. We had spent the first 2 nights at the San Dune Inn, a nice little place about 4 blocks from the beach run by a very pleasant English couple Brian and Billie. While the inn is nothing spectacular, it is very clean and they have an incredible Jazz library. Brian and I swapped a few cd’s. We moved to an ocean front hotel across the street from Manzanita’s stunning beach. Mifune and I took several walks which seemed to go slower and slower. I thought Mifune was getting old, but as he pointed out, “Dad, I thought the whole reason for this exercise was to slow down!â€� Damned if he wasn’t right. During an hour’s walk, I realized that I only heard the ocean a few times, my head being so full of useless and futile crap. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama said to Brad Pitt, “We worry too much. Nothing becomes of most of it and worrying won’t help the rest.â€� I think it was wasted on Brad. So here I am, watching the side of the hotel block what is sure to be an amazing sunset, actually listening to passing cars drown out the ocean. Isn’t nature wonderful! (?) With any luck, tonight I’ll dream of Bacon Maple Bars from Voodoo Donuts instead of flying architecture. Luck pj         POSTED: 12-27-2009         On the Oregon Trail Part 1 On The Oregon Trail 2009-10 The biggest difference traveling the more famous Oregon Trail and my own present day adventure is the number of rest stops along the way, being that in days of yore you could just jump out of your Conestoga wagon without stopping the oxen and do your business, whereas you’re welcome to try that on I-5, but you’d better have power windows and better insurance than I do. These days, the Wild Indians are still a danger, but they own casinos and have a different definition of Manifest Destiny. My journey begins with the closing of my latest recording studio (MOUSe). “What do I want to do when I grow up?â€� wiggles it’s way through my head, replacing the 5 days worth of x-mas music I’ve endured from doing sound at a shopping center in downtown Seattle. Aside #1) Yesterday morning I awoke from a dream where my house was torn from the ground by a twister. After a while, I prepared myself for the eventual landing by going back to bed. The house touched (crashed) down and I went outside to survey the damage. Someone came up to me and asked me production questions. I attribute this dream to seeing a preview for the Wizard of Oz at my neighbor’s house the previous morning. It’s a good thing my hotel room VCR broke or I would’ve dreamt of zombies and/or Brad Pitt. I promised Jazz that we could spend his last few years living on the Oregon Coast. Well, I didn’t keep that promise, and even though Mifune seems indifferent at this time, I’m in Manzanita Beach searching for room and board. I had just made reservations for this hotel when I spoke with my friend Garey. He said that he and his wife Cheryl have a friend who lives in Rockaway Beach, just south of Manzanita. Bob in Oregon, as he identified himself on voicemail, is moving to Florida to care for his father. He has lived at his house for 14 years and said he’s only paying $300 a month! Could be a hidden gem or a shit hole. Could it be smaller than the Ham Shack? Film @ 11. Road Score: Drive down 9.75, Hotel Room 8, Pizza 5, Single Malt Selection 8, Particular Single Malt Selection 0, Beach 9.5, Bookstores to Population index 8.5. I’ll report on my findings tomorrow, dear readers. Stay warm and no swimming or acting for at least 30 minutes after eating. I’d prefer 45 minutes, but I’ll take what I can get. Luck pj         POSTED: 12-17-2009         Time Flies... Long Time, No…….. Gadzooks! It’s been over 2 years since we last spoke and you didn’t say anything! Sorry sorry sorry. I got sidetracked and between watching 5 seasons of LOST in a week and a half and facebook, well, we lost each other. So, where do I begin? When last we spoke, I was Sleepless in Annapolis on tour with Peter Himmelman. That ended up being nothing if not unique (and eerie…as we speak, one of his songs just popped up on my iTunes!) Aside #1: The “aâ€� key on this computer is sick. I see I’ll have to come back when done and replace many. So, I’m going to try to use as few a’s as possible. Aside #2: I cannot type a capital “zâ€� Dunno. Just dunno. Marty Mac, my Mac guy, can’t figure it out. Says it’s software? Dunno OK, so Himmelman…yeah….we’ll have to get back to him later. I just found my 2007 date book, so I’ll write about each incredible adventure as they resurface from my brainpan, like an aquarium air hose as it unkinks and the memories, as air, flow forth. The studio finally got built and opened in December of 2007 and promptly closed down in December 2009. Apparently, there’s this thing called an “economyâ€� and this “economyâ€� is bad and it’s got it out for me. And because I toured with Peter and because I was building my studio, I got fired from my job doing sound at the Tr•ct•r T•v•rn. I used to be in charge of sound scheduling and the such, but because I didn’t drink with the boss, I lost Most Favorite Nation Status. It got to the point where I was working maybe 3 or 4 shifts a month, down from 15 or more. So, one day I called the owner and asked for maybe 1 or 2 more shifts a month. His reaction follows along these lines…â€�Well, I’m getting divorced and I can’t get this printer to work, so it’s time you don’t work here anymore!â€� In hindsight, it makes perfect sense in the same way dancing for algebra does. Needless to say, I haven’t been there since. Probably blacklisted from Ballard Avenue anyway, me not being hip enough and all. Oh, and by the way, you’ll recall from past entries here when I fell and whiplashed my entire musculoskeletal system at work a few years ago. So, 2.5 years later, I’m minding my own business (hell, I was asleep) and woke up (from said sleep) with an INCREDIBLE PAIN IN MY NECK. Think that maybe I slept badly (I mean slept well, because I know how to sleep, maybe not, but the point being that the act of sleeping was done properly, eyes shut, rhythmic breathing, dreaming of a Cuban woman, but maybe I slept incorrectly as in where my head was, angle-wise and the such). I asked my sister-in-law (whom I think is a massage therapist) to try to work the kink out. This was during the annual family pilgrimage to the Oregon Coast (Jo, do I need to capitalize the “câ€� in coast?). Everything she did was probably correct but it only made things worse. By midafternoon, I was in so much pain that chasing Vicodin with Vodka ended up being a waste of Vicodin and Vodka. I texted my friend Nicole (emergency room doctor supreme) and she replied “C6-C7.â€� I’m thinking, what the fuck do 2 different models of Yamaha Grand pianos have to do with this? Partial Aside #3: We had a Yamaha C7 at the studio. It was built in the early 70’s so it was 7’4â€� not 7’6â€� as we know and love them today. Right, so what she meant was that the C6-C7 disc in my neck blew ruptured herniated bulged and it was pressing on the nerve root that ran down my entire left arm, terminating at the index finger. I mentioned pain, right? OK, like on a scale of 1-10, 10 being hurts like hell and all, I was hitting mid 20’s. Didn’t sleep for 3 days. The drive home took twice as long because I had to stop t every rest stop in Oregon and Washington to try to stop the pain. The plus side of this was that Mifune got plenty of walks. Longer story short, after x-rays, MRI, CT Scan, EMG (painful waste of 4 hours. When the doctor was done shooting electrical current through me and I asked him what he thought, he says “C6-C7.â€� Thanks…) a cortisone shot and much acupuncture, it looks like your intrepid reporter is due to go under the knife. Film at 11. Xmas looms it’s cheery head next week I’m doing sound in a shopping center for my friend Terry Morgan and then blasting down to the Oregon Coast yet again with Mifune for a few days to try to sandblast holiday music out of my psyche. Working at the Seattle Center New Years Eve. Something to do with fireworks and the rewriting of the constitution. Don’t be a stranger. Luck pj         POSTED: 12-13-2009         Nutcracker Review The Nutcracker Having sat through Dog knows how many performances of the Nutcracker the past 3 years, it’s no surprise that I never caught the nuances, nay, the heart and essence of this timeless (2 hours plus) ballet and philosophical treatise. Why it is only performed during the holiday season is beyond me. What better way to fill a beautiful spring day, a stifling and balmy summer afternoon, the turning of fall leaves, a Black Sabbath? I usually begin heavily sedated and self medicated, leaving nothing to chance and everything within arms reach. Why then, oh dear reader, have I suddenly became self aware, cracked the bottle of consciousness and inhaled a pungent whiff of understanding? MICE! I run the risk of repeating myself when I exclaim for all to hear: MICE! Who could foresee that filthy rodent, that layer of droppings carrier of pestilence and plague could make an ardent love of the dance masterpiece out of me? No, not the white variety which cause explorers of science and industry to drool in their cloned sheep-filled dreams, nor the white gloved star of the big screen. But gray mice. With tails and whiskers. And BIG! Really BIG! The size of children. Human children at that. That’s what caught my attention and caused me to delve into the magic and mystery of the Nutcracker. Originally written by Madame Curie because fishmongers didn’t like to wrap their wares in plain paper and then re-written by Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Nutcracker conveys the eternal struggle between Vampires and their familiars the Mice. Charles Darwin, who wrote the original lyrics before his banishment to Helena, Montana, noted that while Vampires are more commonly associated with bats, the frequency range of sound emitted by bats is above the normal range of human hearing and gambled that rodents, mice especially, would gain the ability of human speech much sooner than their flying cousins. Although he was correct, he never lived to see his final victory in court when he sued Walt Disney over Mickey Mouse’s speech aboard the USS Missouri at the end of World War 2. The version of the Nutcracker we typically see is done in Mime, due to the over spicing and subsequent fusing of vocal chords of the original cast during opening night in Canberra, Australia, in 1906 and again in 1973. The ballet begins with guests filing across the stage. After they have seated themselves, the dancers appear and file across the stage. The curtain lifts and dancing begins. This part was boring, so I turned my attention to the pastrami sandwich I brought from home. Having forgotten to bring chips and a pickle, I return my focus to the stage, where a Vampire is now prancing and scaring the bejeezus out of the children dancers. He is a Vampire because he is wearing a tuxedo and a cape. He is tall and blonde and handsome in a totally non-Slavic way. The Vampire either brings several inanimate objects to life and they dance, or else he mesmerizes the other dancers and audience members into believing that he has. The undead dancer now spies what he hopes to be his soup course, a small blonde girl with curls, ribbons and Type B Negative flowing through her veins. After much swooping, swaying and general goofiness, he hands her what looks to be a doll, which the girl dubiously accepts and tries to leave behind. The Vampire has coated the doll with Super Glue so the little girl, whose name is Clara or Sara or Sierra, cannot drop it. Instead, a small boy emerges from the wings and tries to relieve the girl of it. AHA! The Super Glue adheres to him as well. He manages to pry the doll from the girl (along with the top 2 layers of skin from her palms) and casts the now bloody figurine onto the floor and destroys it by jumping repeatedly on it. Two things (well, maybe 3…) happen at once. The Vampire grabs the boy and heads Stage Right, all the while ripping the limbs from him. The girls walks over to the destroyed doll and cries from the pain in her hands, not, as the Vampire assumes, from the destruction of the skin-covered toy. I try to get backstage to see if one of the dancers is single, or if not, morally bankrupt. Shot down, I return to my seat and find that the Vampire, thinking Clara mourns for the doll, runs offstage, selects a babe in arms from a stage mother and drains it’s blood, turning it into a Nosferatu. He hands the demon baby to Sara, who is horrified but still dancing. A blow dart hits her mid-thigh and she collapses on a chair, which somehow appears Downstage Right. She curls fetally and foams lightly from her mouth. At this point, the ballet begins with the arrival of the MICE. Scores of them scurry onstage, shuffling to and fro. In Darwin’s original notes, the Mice come to the Vampire with a list of demands for better working conditions. A long scene of arbitration was cut from the libretto when the election of union officials dance called for the firing of live weapons into the audience and proved too expensive. The Vampire calls forth an army of child-sized child soldiers, armed only with their innocence and paper-mache short swords. These can be turned upside down and used as crucifixes against the Vampire if a coffee break cannot be written into the second act. A prolonged battle between the soldiers and MICE ensues, neither side asking for nor giving quarter, although quite a few cigarettes are passed between the armies. MICE Stage Left, Soldiers Stage Right, Vampire Downstage Center, Sierra on the floor, having fallen from the chair. With the MICE offstage, I quickly lose interest in the remaining scene and the entire second act. I was able to coax the dancer in question into a quick-change booth, only to discover she didn’t accept personal checks or debit cards. A defeated but enriched man, I leave the theatre with a new appreciation of the Dancing Arts and somebody else’s jacket. The next day, the stage crew called me. They had read my much-heralded review of the Nutcracker and wanted me to see it from their Point Of View…ONSTAGE! By onstage, of course, they meant backstage, where it’s all guts and no glory, half finished crossword puzzles and the finest of the pastry arts. THE HEART OF THE BEAST! Arriving fashionably early, I helped myself to the dancers’ deli tray, not wanting them to get grease on their costumes or cramp up onstage from a hastily eaten snack before curtain time. (REMEMBER: DANCING IS LIKE SWIMMING. NO EATING AT LEAST 45 MINUTES BEFORE DANCING. 30 minutes is fine for light stretching and pectoral flexing, but nothing too strenuous.) The Stage Crew is the unsung hero of the ballet. Without their strength, courage and more than enough bodies for the job at hand, these hard working men, women and undocumented aliens force the show to go on regardless of international exchange rates. I am introduced all around and given carte blanche backstage. “Jâ€� (names abbreviated to make it more difficult to find them in the phone directory) is working the “rail,â€� a preposterous series of ropes, weights and pulleys that make curtains and scenery appear on stage as if by magic. I now know better. He shows me the ropes, as it were. From his vantage point, he commands a view of the stage and the large television showing the Raiders losing to their cheerleaders. “S,â€� or Steve as he is called, is the L.D., or Lighting Director. His job is to light up the stage from a booth far enough from the stage that any mistakes can be easily blamed on the architect or Stage Manager, today being a friendly if not incompetent Siamese Twin whose brother is the lead dancer. Having free rein backstage, I mingle with the cast who are preparing themselves for today’s performance. They adjust their stage makeup and tighten their Kevlar dancing togs. Butterflies are not uncommon before the curtain rises. They battle this by going over their routines in place and by spitting large phlegm balls at understudies. I offer my hip flask to the dancer from yesterday. She accepts it and offers me her tonic for pre-show jitters, a “Tussintini,â€� equal parts gin, vodka, cough syrup, purified water and chocolate Pop Tarts. Shaken not stirred. A bit chunky, but after 3 pitchers, I don’t seem to mind. The Vampire lurks about. He makes suggestions to the stage manager about his personal lighting, to the rail operator about how the curtains should part just so for his entrances and exits and to the custodian to see if he has found another cache of wooden stakes in the wings. As I presumed, most of the dancers are kept in cages backstage. These cages are large, well ventilated affairs with slots in the bars to allow food to be passed in with metal sticks without worrying about getting too close. Many a catering staffer has found him or herself minus a finger trying to feed and water dancers. To my surprise, another cage houses the DANCING MICE. I assumed that they used MICE found in the basement and alley of the theatre and herded them onstage with fire hoses and electric prods, but delighted in knowing the ballet used more “humaneâ€� methods. Thinking back, this makes sense, as there are numerous performances of the Nutcracker during the Holiday Season and no way to ensure the proper number needed for each matinee. It is also very green, this recycling of MICE. I am told that the MICE who survive the run of the ballet are served to cast and crew at the Wrap Party, a belt loosening and top-secret soiree after the final performance but before sentencing. At this point, the “Orchestraâ€� is lead in single file in chains and handcuffs. Those without hands get the day off, but are fined a day’s pay for not showing up. While claims for the score’s authorship in continually in doubt, it is nevertheless played with gusto and air guitar. The “Musiciansâ€� look criminally familiar; almost as if the kitchen staff from the Cambodian restaurant behind the theatre was rounded up (at gunpoint) and frog marched into the orchestra pit. My spider sense tingles when I see crates of live chickens, portable gas fires and 3 waiters following the ensemble. The conductor, though recently deceased, makes a splendid entrance in drag and a bronze urn. The musicians take no notice and continue to prep appetizers. The tympanis have become large woks and deep fryers. The double bass starts to smolder until the reeds douse it with soy and fish sauce. As the audience is wheeled in, a scuffle breaks out between the musicians and the MICE. A P.A. (or Production Assistant) allowed a few musicians to take some of the smaller and more succulent MICE for a walk and they, in turn, went for a wok! The remaining MICE complain that they must still pay full price for food. The house lights go down. The only sound from the audience is the regular whispers from ventilators and iron lungs. The conductor sits on his podium, not moving until the orchestra tunes up. After 30 minutes, “Jâ€� sneaks into the pit and pushes play on the iPod on top of a large walk-in freezer now between the violins and the salad station. The music rumbles to life and then abruptly stops when a trombonist/busboy plugs in a coffee maker and shorts out the pit. Batteries are found and the music comes back to life. Not so the conductor, who remains immobile and most probably still dead. The dancers coolly await their entrance while standing in troughs of cold water 9 inches deep. Failure to move on cue results in a stagehand tossing an electric extension cord in the trough. Act 1 begins and the dancers stumble onstage. The first scene has the characters crossing from Downstage Right to Left as if they’re entering the DMV or tipping cows. The iPod skips and goes back and forth between Milli Vanilli and Metallica. The dancers, having never really paid attention to the music anyway, trip over each other somewhat in time. The scrim (somewhat curtainy, somewhat not) raises (rises?) and we’re in what seems to be the food court in a shopping mall. Dance Dance Dance. The Vampire is just about to prance on stage when I whisper loudly, “DUDE! YOUR HAIR!â€� His eyes widen and he reaches up to his head to investigate. I see a small mirror and hold it up to his face. He hisses and falls backward over 2 orders of Fisherman’s Favorite (#12), Black Squid and Pork Crispies (appetizer #3) and enough rice for a Moonie wedding. He recovers quickly, knocking over only 8 or 9 dancers to get to his spot, constantly feeling his hair between leaps and bounds. I notice that many of the dancers have switched roles, either because of rotation, injuries or restraining orders. The dancer playing Clara (or Sarah or Larry) has been replaced by a small pale girl with dark hair and several crucifixes and garlic wreaths dangling from her neck. The boy who grabbed the doll from Clara (sic) is the same. I walk up to him and mention that it is rude to grab, that he should ask politely if he might see the doll. He haughtily spins away and is about to utter a curse when I taze him on the neck. He twitches for a moment before I stuff him into the cannon. I grab his hat, clamp it on the head of a passing waiter and shove him onstage. The Vampire swoops down on him, briefly considering the Randomly Fried Yum Yums (appetizer #8), then snaps his neck and tosses the body on the chair Downstage Right. Sierra, whose next routine was a lap dance with a soldier on the very same chair, improvises a pole dance on the tree, not realizing that it is merely a painted canvas drop (and attached to the scene behind it), A loud ripping sound fills the stage, causing every dancer to look down. Bumping, grinding and general hilarity ensues. Meanwhile, the injured iPod settles on Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Ladyâ€� and half of the dancers nervously look back and forth. At this point, the MICE are uncaged and swarm to the waiter instead of Sarah, who has untangled herself from the backdrop and searching the floor for dollar bills and her right contact lens. She then attempts to wake the soldier who has passed out in the chair. Unable to revive him, she grabs four of the MICE and fashion them into a settee upon which she climbs on and lashes out at the other MICE. They, in turn, ignore the soldiers who have amassed onstage for the battle sequence and make polite catcalls at Sarah, who is considering returning to secretarial school and/or another line of work, parole notwithstanding. Insulted by the MICE’s seemingly newfound pacifism, the soldiers roll the cannon onstage and light the fuse. Shredded boy whizzes from the cannon’s breach and covers anything in a 2 block radius. I find my dancer who is e-mailing her resume to Norway and we exit Stage Left. As much as I have fallen in love with the Nutcracker, I feel that some updating must occur in order for this masterpiece to reach a wider market. With that in mind, I am currently adapting the ballet for all audiences and all tastes. Coming soon: The Nutcracker as performed by Transformers, Debbie Does Nutcracker, Rocky Versus Nutcracker, Rambo Versus Nutcracker, Night of the Living Nutcracker, Slum Dog Nutcracker, Full Contact Nutcracker, Crouching Tiger Hidden Nutcracker, a Roller Derby Nutcracker and my personal favorite, a Samurai version of SEVEN Nutcracker. Happy Happy Joy Joy         POSTED: 12-13-2009         The Snowman Review The Snowman Act 1 Firstly, and please don’t think me a racist, but I believe the dancer playing the Snowman to be a zombie. We crossed paths backstage and his lifeless pallor, dead, blank eyes and breath that reeked of rotting human flesh was a dead giveaway. Plus, he wore a t-shirt that read, “Kiss Me, I’m Dead!â€� I’m hoping that the rumor I heard on the way in is true, that there will be a human sacrifice performed during intermission. And I, being a guest of honor and above reproach, get to either pick the sacrificial lamb and/or actually remove the organ in question. At this point, I’m planning on picking the entire tech crew. The ballet, The Snowman, was commissioned by the LDS Church and written by Herman Goerring whilst awaiting jury duty in Nuremburg. The music was liberally borrowed from the 3 B’s (Bjorn, Benny and Beck) and played within a variety of pitches and keys by a nimble, if not criminally underage orchestra made up of escapees from a local clean coal mine. The premise of the story is one of eternal struggle, i.e.: Boy Meets (Creates) Snowman, Everybody Dances, Something with Animals, Snowman Dies, Drinks Afterwards at Kevin’s. Children dancing. I don’t know what it is about kids in tutus having a fake snowball fight that reminds me of throat surgery and the incredibly painful recovery thereafter. A single (we assume) boy, playing in the snow with only his domineering mother as company, builds a snowman in the image of the Master Race, which, in this case, is a cross between the Pillsbury Dough Boy and Ron Jeremy. The boy believes that having a frozen juggernaut as a playmate will elevate his status in god only knows what. The mother, seeing the “Snowman,â€� drags the boy offstage to wash his colon out with soap. It’s the 3rd performance in a row that I’ve had to watch this play and just witnessing the mother try to walk across stage like a normal biped still astounds me. I heard she failed to get the part of a stationary tree and had the choice of either taking the part of the mother or staying late and licking the dance floor clean. At this point, the Snowman comes to “lifeâ€� and does his version of the Snoopy dance. The boy races out to him and drags him offstage so he cannot have any solo time. Stage goes black, as does my mood. We next open to a charming set of the interior of what is either the boy’s house or an IKEA showroom. This is where shit gets hazy for me… A) How did the Snowman lose more weight than Oprah in 45 seconds? B) If this dancer is supposed to be a cat, why does she have a tail and why isn’t one of her ears dangling by bloody sinews from her skull? C) Why doesn’t the Snowman blow a fuse when he sticks a finger in an empty tree light socket? D) What is the boy doing with a life sized wind up ballerina and where can I get one? The next dancer is what the light guy describes as a jester. Joker? Fool? He doesn’t have any naked photos for clarification. Stage goes thankfully dark. The next scene has the Snowman pushing the boy on a sled. Every time he pushes the boy away, he dances and jumps as if he’s just taken a bathrobe-clad bowel movement. After a few of these, the “bunniesâ€� and something with a tail and an ass like November join in. The meaning of this is not immediately clear, but my lack of painkillers and bloody marys has me questioning everything I think I see onstage. A human female sings offstage left. Seven white clad ballerinas with 3 black buttons running down their chests (an obvious homage to Stalin) perform a deliciously slow striptease, so slow in fact that the clothes do not come off until they return to the dressing room. End Act 1. Begin uncontrollable spasms. Act 2. Dark stage as the overture swells. It sounds familiar…Duh duh dee duh, duh dee dee dee. It’ll come to me. Flashbacks. The forest scene. Five trees. Five dancers. As the Snowman and boy appear onstage, the dancers dive behind the trees and search for anything to use as a weapon. Mini snowman clones slither about upstage, followed by Santa (?). The boy cringes behind the Snowman, as do I. Santa passes out pills to all of the dancers, who pull previously unnoticed flasks from their dance skins. Whatever was in those flasks that washed down whatever Santa gave the dancers now has them dancing for joy with idiotic grins plastered to their faces. The snoclones (now numbering 7, the number of the beast?) perform a Munchkin-like dirge with the high stepping jackboot antics that Mr. Goerring made famous back in the day. Those damn PENGUIN CHILDREN again. It’s like Mengele is backstage with a scalpel and a sewing kit. Snowman and white ballerina dancing while not dancing, touching while not touching. The Dance of the Unclean? Once again, the ballerina begs the Snowman for some action, but he only has eyes for the boy, who has been carried away by Santa. The ballerina, frustrated, eyes the mini snowmen with renewed interest. OK, I finally figured out what these new creatures are…Jackalopes! You know, you see them in truck stop post card racks, but never up close. I can die a happy man now. The Ice Princess makes her stage debut. Except that the dancer who played her part yesterday hurt her back, so they stapled 3 of the smaller children together to create a new Princess. It’s almost plausible, until the staples tear and they come apart mid-leap. The original dancer hobbles out with the power cable of her electric blanket trailing her like a rat’s tail. She executes her moves well, only screaming with pain when she lands on the child with exposed staples. One of the dancers appears to have an Uzi, but I can’t tell if it’s loaded. It is and she’s using it to keep the jackalopes in line as they do a tango. The boy is hiding upstage behind a tree while the Snowman makes a pathetic advance on the white-clad ballerina. Santa and the Ice Princess catcall from downstage right. The 7 snowclones have become 13 since 2 dances before. Santa giving what looks like Kool Aid to 3 dancers while the rest sigh with relief. Quick…jackalopes disappear, white ballerina gill nets the penguin children and drags them offstage and the snowman grabs the boy. STAGE BLACK The baby who has been crying throughout the last 3 performances hears its cue (silence) and leads the orchestra into the last piece, wherein the boy, having tired of dancing and frolicking with supernatural beings, cries out “FUCK THISâ€� in a high pitched exclamation. This should be noted as the only piece of dialogue in the ballet and was wholly improvised. (The following is notes from the first of 3 performances that I kept slipping in and out of consciousness) There's something disturbing about the relationship between the boy and the snowman. Theoretically, the boy is the snowman's creator and the snowman displays many lost boy/pee wee herman/uber child-like attributes, but the boy/creator/god seems perfectly happy to let the snowman thing call the shots. The dancing trees kind of freaked me out for a minute, but then I remembered that I have my knife with me. The snowman wears whiteface, a mime w/o the beret and striped shirt. He has his hands on the boy's shoulders and nobody says anything. The boy now runs (on point) across the stage and is feeling up 2 ballerinas. Snowman sees this and crosses upstage, playing skull bongo on the boy as one ballerina leaves and the other is searching the audience for a tattoo. You'd either like this next part or be revulsed...HUMAN PENGUIN HYBRIDS! Emperors by the looks of things. Yellow feathers either side of the head, pouches stuffed with mackerel and krill. The snowman is now dancing with the primaballerina except she's not wearing blue anymore. That's beside the point. Point being, that the ballerina offers her "stuff" to the snowman, who rebukes her advances....refuses to cop a feel, accidentally let a hand grope an offered breast and grab an ass strutting like my cat when I pet her that certain way. After the dance, the ballerina kisses the snowman as the boygod runs across stage and jealously grabs the snowman's hand. They cross to stage right. Santa (?) enters upstage right w/ 3 reindeer or bats or something. Rough trade, robes, chafing Snowman hiding boy behind tree as Santa discusses animal husbandry. Reindeer leave small piles onstage as the boy and Santa plan menu. Snowman doing the Lambada (The Forbidden Dance) with the Ice Princess, the one in blue (forget about what I said earlier). Anyway, they're doing their thing as the dancer in white tries to exit stage left before a ménage a trois is written into the second act by the boy. The snowman, being just about the only one onstage wearing pants, seems to be the "male" character, even though he squanders every opportunity to assert his masculinity and take what is rightfully his, after tithing 15% to the boygod. Not sure about this scene. Santa, reaching into his bag of tricks. Santa as PIMP! The Ice Princess is definitely into the idea of the 3 way, maybe the prima is as well.....SHIT, he's got 6 dancers onstage humping his leg and whispering teasers from the new Keanu Reeves movie into his ear, but all he wants to do is hold onto the boy. I am sickened and saddened at once, or was it the truffles I've been placing between my cheek and gums since 10:30 this morning. The boy, tired of the embarrassment caused by his creation, strikes him down with a snowball (how ironic) and a pot of hot chocolate. In a dream sequence, the boy kneels at the corpse of his creation while the ghost of the snowman dances upstage. The End Company Bow Find Booze The woman who plays the boy's motherkeepermistressbodyguard stays on point no matter what she's doing. Me, with no arch whatsoever, cringe from 75 feet away. New light console showed up yesterday as previous one would dump the show program at will. Will wasn't amused. So, after getting the new board programmed, everybody takes turns programming weird shit and effects into the memory, never quite sure if it will override the ballet's light program when the light guy isn't looking. Ballet parent/little league parents...... xoxox pj         POSTED: 07-17-2007         WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? v1.0 WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG, v1.0 Monday morning. That’s a good start. It means I made it this far, but waking up Mondays isn’t that much of a challenge. It’s finding a reason to get out of bed that usually requires tech support. This Monday morning I find myself in the food court at Sea-Tac airport, drinking burnt coffee, eating half priced trail mix, waiting another 1.5 hours for the flight to San Francisco and then eventually Baltimore. It looks like a longer line for the Great American Bagel place than Burger King, but there are at least 3 cashiers at the latter. Every 15 seconds, a number is screamed out and another well-fed American grabs a greasy bag of destiny. Two tables away, 4 twentysomethings are eating, what looks like from here, Quad Whoppers, if such a thing exists. I felt bad about eating egg foo young yesterday with Garey; I could visualize the gravy coursing through my veins instead of blood. Dog only knows what’s entering their bloodstreamsdigestivetractsdnarnaeieioandsometimesy. Best t-shirt so far: I SEE YOUR POINT, BUT I STILL THINK YOU’RE STUPID! Thanks for putting that into perspective. Random thoughts during layover in San Francisco…. Every time you flush a toilet on a jet, an angel dies. I just discovered that a tug backs each jet from the concourse in preparation for take off. There is a driver and a guy or gal with 2 small light sabers that guides the tug. After the jet in ready to move of it’s own volition, light saber dude must disengage the tow bar/umbilical from the tug. This entails quite a bit of jumping up and down on what I just assumed was expensive gear and cursing a lot. After the tow bar is released, the driver and light saber dude duke it out under the jet engines. The name “Fuckwitâ€� must be used generously. While warming up the jet engines, flight crews use the super-heated jet exhaust to heat the coffee and meals served aboard each flight. Virgin and Atlantic records each went in 50/50 on an airline appropriated named Virgin Atlantic. Being from Seattle, I’m glad SubPop hasn’t gotten into the game. Baltimore Midnightish. 100% humidity. Ass numb from 11 hours in the same seat. Bullet hole in wall next to luggage carousel. Another 1.5 hours to wait for Peter and Daniel’s flight. Picked up a voice mail that the new cd, which this tour in built around, was either mis-shipped or not delivered or something. Another box will be overnighted to me at the hotel in Annapolis. But what of the other box? Where is it? Who’s got it and where do I have to go to get it? All of the restaurants and bars at the airport are closed. I had 2 turkey dogs for breakfast and 2 cups of hot black water (airline coffee) so far. My choices are to either find a vending machine or eat a painkiller on an empty stomach and drive around in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. Hmmm….. v1.1 I find pretzels but no water. I wait. Peter and Daniel show up. It’s all good. So far. Take the shuttle to the car rental hub. Did I mention that by now it’s, oh, 2:00 or so in the morning? It takes about 1/2 hour to get the minivan (!) and the GPS (!) talking to each other and we’re off to Annapolis with Elanor (GPS) guiding me through the dark. After 5 minutes she’s already given me bad directions. Bad omen. I, being the diligent tour manager, mention to Peter the missing cd’s. Instead of him praising my Johnny on the Spot news briefing, he bitches (justifiably) that it’ll cost more to overnight the product than he can recoup. OK Maybe I’ll find something less topical to discuss…the weather? Humid. Peter tries to change Elanor’s accent to an English one, but you can’t do it while driving. Get to the hotel. Quaint, old school (1700’s). Back up a second. OK, when I made the car reservations, I changed it from the 16th (the day we all flew out) to the 17th because Peter and Daniel’s flight didn’t come in until 1:20 am and I didn’t want to get stuck for an extra day rental. Make sense? So maybe I did the same for the hotel…. Booked the rooms for the 17th (in actuality they date we arrived) and notified the sales manager that we’d be in about 2:30 (truth words) and she said we’d be expected. Speed up to… We check in. The night auditor says, as far as he’s concerned, it’s still the 16th and they’re full up. Peter pulls me off to the side and says get him a bed…. NOW! OK We finally get the night guy to give us a suite (it’s really not what you think or, for that matter, what he thought). There’s a bedroom upstairs and a bedroom (kind of) downstairs. And baby makes three… At this point, I’m happy to sit up in the lobby for the next 8 hours so we can do the radio show in DC and I’ll deal with it then. I go back to the lobby (Mister Toad’s Wild Ride) to get Peter’s backpack and ask about maybe another bed somewhere. They bump somebody who didn’t show up and give me an attic room a few blocks away (I think. I’m a bit wobbly by now and just try to keep up with George (maintenance guy?). Four or five flights of stairs later (carrying guitars to restring as well as my 2 small but deceptively heavy bags) we get to this charming room. Gulp down 2 cans of iced tea (bad bad bad idea) and begin to change strings. No strings. Hopefully, they’re in the other case. It’s 5:09 am. I have to be up in 3 hours but I’m still wired and it’s too hot to sleep and I’m too wired. First day on the job and I’ll probably be fired tomorrow (later today). Tomorrow: The Nations Capitol Luck pj         POSTED: 07-14-2007         So this is how it all begins SO THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS… Folklife 2007, Day 1 OK, let’s back up a few days to.. Folklife 2007, Day Minus 2 Stage Managers meeting 6:30 pm. I thought it was the next day. Merde Folklife 2007, Day Minus 1 Called Chandler, the Production Manager, to ask if I still had a job. He laughed. He told me because I missed the meeting that I couldn’t have pepper spray or Samurai Swords. Readers who have followed my earlier exploits know that swords equal power and power is the only thing performers respect. Although, once I mentioned Tazers to the sound guy and emcee, I had their respect. Folklife 2007, Day 1 (redux) I’m waiting at the bus stop, trying to do my thing for the environment, when I’m surrounded by a pack of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Witness for the Prosecution #1 offers me a magazine for future perusal. Hustler? National Geographic? Nope, the Watchtower. So, what are my options? 1) A quick violent outburst 2) A slow protracted violent outburst 3) A delightful combination of both I politely (sic) declined their generous offer and went back to huffing my rubber cement jar. An uneventful bus ride follows. Folklife, for those of you blissfully ignorant, is a 3-4 day (depends on how many fingers you can count on) folkmusichippiegatheringdrumcirclemultiethnicmulticulturalfamilyfriendlydrumcirclescreamingbabynutjobencouraged festival that I have somehow managed to avoid for the past 20 years. Oh, I popped my head down here for an instrument auction years ago and provided gear last year, but I make it a point to stay away from large crowds unless I’m well paid and backstage. The money’s ok, but there’s nowhere to hide. As soon as I hit the Seattle Center grounds, I see friendly faces. ASIDE # 1 2 questions remain on an endless loop playing in my brainpan: The first is: WHAT WAS I THINKING? (WWIT) The second is: WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN? (WTWTCPH) These questions will pop up at regular intervals. So, upon seeing Ann O’Dowd, I say to myself, “What’s the worst that could possibly happen?â€� Ann’s got my back. I’ve got friends here. People know me. They know better than to place me anywhere near a drum circle, clowns and/or mimes, patchouli or a beer garden (if I can’t join in)! I find myself stage-managing without the benefit of any weaponry whatsoever (today, anyway). I’m at the Rainier Room, an indoor stage that had bad bluegrass, Indian (East) Dancing, French cabaret, Celtic, Hip Hop and Balkan music. The Hip Hop excursion included a pair of girls who wore wings and reminded me of the Faeries from Mothra movies. The rest of the evening promises Russian Balalaika, more bluegrass and Hungarian and Andean folk musics. Supposedly, there’s a staff party afterwards if you have a hospitality endorsement on your laminate (which I guess I don’t). Do I crash the party or don’t I? Film at 11. Day 1 wrap up The first band was horrible. Kids playing bluegrass (which is admirable) poorly (which is inexcusable). Well, that’s really not fair. Chances are that you’re gonna suck when you first start playing (law of averages. Actually, John Bishop, jazz drummer extraordinaire, claims he played great the very first time…), but come on, play outside where the amusement park can hopefully mask your sound. 3 standout bands were a mandolin quartet, the Hungarian ensemble and the group from Ecuador closing the evening. Went home. Went to bed. Folklife 2007, Day 2 Have I ever explained Seattle’s weather micro-system? It goes like this… Rain. Sideways rain. Rain that falls upwards. That’s pretty much it. There are beautiful sunny days. Here’s where they are: Beginning in June, it’s a toss up if it’s going to be nice. When I worked the Summer Nights at the Pier concert series, load in and the build began June 1. Maybe it rained, maybe it didn’t. The 4th of July historically rains. Then it’s really really nice until 10 pm on Labor Day, at which point the heavens open up and precipitate to biblical proportions. After that, it’s ok until October, then repeat. Thanks, you say, for this bit of meteorological misinformation. But why, you ask, did you waste the minute of my life that I’ll never regain to feed me such tripe. Because I can. Because you’re reading this. Because yesterday was one of those incredible wonderful days that we wait 10 months for. Because the deluge was waiting for me when I woke up. Because, for the most part, Folklife is an outdoor festival. ASIDE # 2 Confession time. It is, in fact 2 months since I started this report. I feel bad because I feel like I’m neglecting you, dear readers. Although it’s my sworn duty to keep you up to date in the day to day activities of your intrepid reporter, I ask myself, “Self, what do these wonderful people give a shit about my miserable life that compels me to do this again and again? I mean, for the most part, I can’t stand myself so why should they? How many could I possibly owe money to? Would they rather be watching Mister Clean commercials? Picking up dog shit?â€� That being said, I’ll summarize… I finished the festival, got paid, went home. Kept on building the studio. Worked the Fremont Fair, got paid, went home. I’m leaving Monday for the East Coast. Going on tour with Peter Himmelman, tour managing, doing FOH, driving, babysitting. More later. I promise. Luck pj         POSTED: 04-02-2007         Sunshine & Sharks I SUDDENLY HAVE A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS… OK, how many times have you said that? How many times have you acted upon that feeling? Decided not to go alligator wrestling or not to eat that last piece of blowfish sushi or go scuba diving after taking 5 hits of LSD? I find myself in a large line in a large building with lots of large humorless people. I surrendered my bag, hid my gold and waited to be directed to the “showers.â€� I made a joke about “Schindler’s List,â€� which was either way over some heads or already on their minds. This is definitely weird. The name of the escalator company is “Schindler.â€� Where do I check out? 2 days in Waikiki. Didn’t see too much or do too much. Just relaxed (what a novel concept). Maybe it was from being 2500 miles away from any bubbling geysers of stress, but I’ve been virtually pain free since I landed Saturday afternoon. Got to see if I can get a prescription for this! Boat On a boat. Sorry, a ship. On a ship. Again, a very large ship. The largest ship ever built by/for a US shipper for passengers? Don’t know, but it’s big and I’m on it. There’s like 3 or 4 thousand people on this thing, most of them just eating non-stop. Maybe it’s owner by Purina or the good folks who brought you Soylent Green. Last stop, Rendering City! Shoved off from Honolulu last night. Did I mention this was a large ship? It took nearly 30 minutes to spin it around so we wouldn’t set sail back asswards. Got choppy. Bumpy ride for hours. Docked in Hilo a short while ago. Rain. Picture this…an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I’ll be generous, make that a chain of islands. Hell, they can all be independent for that matter. Where was I going with this? Oh, right. Rain. Sorry, the rain was distracting me. It’s a wonder I ever get anything done in Seattle. Fog. I heard drumming last night, figured it was hula lessons from insomniacs. Turns out some of the locals boarded the ship and kidnapped a blonde or 2. Now we have to go ashore and rescue her. There were some rumors about giant monkeys and giant skulls and giant shave ice. Going to throw some of the more vocal children in a volcano to boot. Lock and load. Back soon. Back again. By granting Hawaii statehood, I’m not sure who got the shit end of the stick. Of course, the term “grantingâ€� implies that they wanted it, they being the native Hawaiians, not the greedy rich plantation slave owners. Moot point. So, here I am, minding my own business, leaving a trail of macadamia nuts on the deck so I can find my cubby hole when, suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, having nothing to do with whatever I might or might not have done or been an accomplice to, I’m dragged off the ship and made to stand in the rain for what seems like an eternity, but probably wasn’t. Soon afterwards, I’m dragged back on with no explanation other than some garbled somethings about extradition and giant sand worms. No sooner than my feet are planted firmly on tera patrick incognito when I’m yet again whisked off of the ship and thrown into another unmarked vehicle with about a dozen captives. Driven pell-mell through wet streets, we’re unceremoniously ejected in front of a building only marked “Hilo Hattie’s,â€� what I take for the local interrogation hut. It’s worse, safe readers, much worse. It’s a store that sells “Essential Hawaiianâ€� crap that’s even more expensive onboard. The key that was slipped into my hand back at the ship does not, in fact, release me from this most heinous prison, only forces me deeper into the dark bowels of its retail hell. The only item that might hold clue to my exit from this purgatory is a hula dancer lamp, which sells for $100. How the hell do I smuggle that back aboard the ship, let alone the flight back to the mainland and de-briefing. Once again, before figuring out how to smuggle the lamp onboard, I find myself shoved in yet another van. “Self,â€� says I, “I assuredly am getting tired of this vanplay and would like to opt out at this moment, by my leave!â€� Meaning that since I found myself temporarily unguarded, I just up and walked out of the van. Figuring that the last place they would look for me would be another van, I jumped into another. The driver, guessing that I was supposed to be there, gunned the engine and took off in directions unknown. 15 minutes later, I was dropped off towards the outskirts (downtown) of Hilo. By some prearranged arrangement, I was ushered into a shop that sold “Musical Instruments,â€� obviously a code for something more sinister. After having satisfied the “Shopkeeperâ€� with a series of code words, I was given a parcel in exchange for “Money.â€� The driver was waiting for me outside of the building and whisked me back to the ship. Later back in my room, I opened the parcel and discovered a “Baritone Ukulele.â€� Clever! There must be some code involved here, maybe a sequence of chords or notes played on this “Instrumentâ€� would reveal the plans for the next DeathStar or the recipe for chicken salad or something. I’ll let you know what I find out. I’ve just discovered that my contact here has been moved to a different island and that I won’t be able to see him for several days unless I can convince a squad of trained dolphins or orcas or something to transport me to Oahu in the dead of night. Was disappointed to find out that they don’t have corrals full of children at the top of Volcanoes with which to feed the mountain gods. Well, let me clarify that; they actually do have corrals full of children, but you have to pay for them. They’re $2 each, or 3 for $5. Had I known, I would’ve grabbed many from the ship and could have sold the extras. Next time. Very windy. Repeat, very windy. My brain has been blown from my skull. Will have to report back when ….. Drove around. Saw things. Ate things. Made friends with a bartender. Drank things. On Monday, back on Oahu, I finally got to see my friend and ex-landlord Don McDaniel and his wife Billie. They moved back to Hilo about 1.5 years ago. They started a chicken ranch (farm?) and sell organic eggs and some produce to unsuspecting locals. Unfortunately, Don had the bad luck to get struck with a stroke about a month ago. He spent 3 weeks at the Kona Community Hospital stabilizing and beginning physical therapy before transferring to Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific in Honolulu. After the stroke, Don lost the use of the right side of his body and both sides of his speech. He communicates telepathically and with a series of clicks and grunts. He’s already regained a good deal of strength and coordination and is playing soccer and on the gymnastic team. I’ll be reporting on Don’s progress later in these pages. Honolulu’s bus system is called “The Busâ€� and for good reason: It’s filled with busses! I called them for instructions on how to get from the hospital to the airport. Simple enough. Take a number 4 and transfer to either a 19 or 20. Drop me off at the terminal. What could be easier? “Sure,â€� says the driver of the number 13, “I can get you to a number 19…â€� Suffice to say, I saw much more of Honolulu and Waikiki than I needed to and made it to the airport with about 10 minutes to spare. One movie that I wouldn’t have spent a dime to see and a few hours later, a quick coffee stop in San Francisco and home again home again. I’d been up for about 30 hours and thought sleep might be fun, but others felt otherwise. Took me a couple days to get the sleep option downloaded, but all is back to normal (sic). Back to the dog and cat and studio and underemployment and my secret stash of scotch. Luck pj         POSTED: 03-18-2007         WHEN IN..... WHEN IN… Aloha Rapa Nui my winged fruit monkeys, OK, so I have fulfilled either a royal command or my destiny. I walked next door to the Royal Hawaiian (one extremely bad ass hotel) and had a Mai Tai as mandated by Catherine Hardy before I left. Actually, after I told her I was coming to Hawaii, she grabbed the calendar out of my hands and wrote in the names of bars I had to go to and what to order and maybe something about food, but that’s not important. The Mai Tai was spectacular as was the setting. Very old school. My mom told me she had be there in the (19)70’s and wondered if it was still there. Yes, Beatrice, there is a ________. Did I mention the 5 people (well, maybe 4 people and a dog) having loud squeaky drunk sex in the water not too far from my room at about 5 this morning? I was hoping for a great white shark to swoop down upon them, but I guess that’s Australia. Fuckers. Ballard shows 59 degrees and frogs falling from the sky. Honolulu is 70 something, might be raining. Was that lightning? Could be the 2nd Mai Tai and the 6 pack of local brew. Did I mention cultural diversity? Ever? OK, I mean, I’ve been in the music business for 30 years. How much more diverse does it need to be? Did I actually get my Samurai swords and cut a swath through the Koreans at Han Woo Ri? Have I ever unleashed stores of nerve gas on hippies at Folklife? Do photos exist of me plowing down slow moving tourists at Bumbershoot in a stolen Gator? NO, NO and NO again! So why should I want to blemish this perfect record and annihilate the throng amassed around the pool? They might call it “Free Entertainmentâ€� as you drown in overpriced fruity iced slushy drinks and salt-petered fries and tuna of questionable parentage, but I still call it a fucking drum circle! Granted, I’m in Waikiki and they are playing “Hawaiianâ€� music to an enthusiastic (drooling drunk and semi-captive) audience, but still, they could’ve asked first. Let me opt-out. Bungee cord me to a dolphin for 3 hours. Never mind. It’s Sunday. The dolphins have a better union than I do. Let’s see. Subtract 3 hours, Daylight Savings time, and 2 more beers…maybe another 2 hours of this shit. Maybe the painkillers I found secreted in the pineapple lamp on my writing desk will kick in and I won’t be reduced to a proto-babbling state before dinner. So I complain…. So… Actually, I think I’m going to lose this argument/debate/diatribe. At times, I feel like a martyr for you, my beloved readers, taking the whippings and stonings and aural assaults in your place. But, for the most part, I love what I do (although, for the above mentioned most part, I am surrounded by fucking idiots), I do love my job. I love my family (when I get a chance to see them), I love my friends (when they have to endure my boorish company) and I love my life (ANXIETY aside). So, I’ve got the beginnings of a spectacular tan, my blood sugar is the lowest it’s been in a year, I’m in what was a paradise until 150 years ago and I have the unmitigated gall to bitch. Please find it in your hearts to forgive me. After his botched impeachment, President Clinton was asked, “In your heart, sir, can you forgive and forget?â€� His reply was thus,â€� I believe any person who asks for forgiveness has to be prepared to give it.â€� I admire the man. He got a blowjob and the country was subjugated to one of the most horrendous wastes of time, money, energy and politics we’ve ever had to face. And for what!? Sorry, I digress. My point was that maybe, hopefully, I get to experience these adventures, these farcical scenes of backstage at the theatre of the absurd, to spare you having to go through them yourselves. I have learned in my many years of recording and live sound that the best way not to make a big mistake is to actually make it in the first place. You will not do it again. My good friend Richard Donin was once asked by a student teacher for advice. He told her to give him $1. She was perplexed, but gave him the dollar and asked why. Richard answered her original question and then informed her that the only way you really learn a lesson is to pay for it. If you have a scholarship or your parents pay for your college education, you won’t retain as much as the person who has to work 2 jobs to keep him/herself in school. He gave her the dollar back (the first one’s on the house). Does this make sense? Have I lost you and my mind? Nope Because those fake fucking Rastas playing for helpless hopeless senseless clueless hatless shoeless tourists just played “Margaritavilleâ€� and every bit of goodwill, good vibrations, good tidings, good morning Vietnam, good on ya mate, good golly miss molly….Well, gloves off and prepare to defend yourselves! Tomorrow, another island and whatever détente I can muster. Aloha Luck pj         POSTED: 03-17-2007         Fish Sandwich In Paradise AND YET ANOTHER PADDY’S DAY ON THE RUN! St. Patrick’s Day 2007. It’s probably the first one I haven’t worked since the beginning of time. It would be tough to work, though, as I find myself in the boarding area of Sea-Tac, ready to fly the friendly skies to bluer skies. Yes, intrepid readers, we’re on our way to Hawaii for 10 days. I somehow managed to get a free trip to our 49th or 50th State (depending on who you talk to), but it looks like I’ll be paying for it metaphysically. Already been up for 7 hours (not even Noon), weak coffee, artery clogging breakfast with my friend Dan who volunteered to bring me to the airport. Mister Toad’s Wild Ride (no power steering and Dan had HazMat gas) ensued. Breezed through security even though people say I’m looking like one of the 9/11 masterminds (definitely the first time anybody’s used me and mastermind in the same sentence). TV’s blasting Blair/Cheney/Guinness/St.Paddy’sParades. Is it actually legal to broadcast Fox in a public place? Sorry, it’s Headline News….remind me to either cancel my satellite dish or gouge my eyes out when I get home. I ponder the 7-hour flight ahead. I’ve brought 2 books and enough cash to be ejected from the flight if the drinks cart parks near my seat. Also, MacBeth and a bunch of Beatles DVD’s. Who will be seated next to me? Someone who wants to talk? Somebody who falls asleep immediately and snores for 2424 nautical miles? A screaming child? A nymphomaniac? I seriously doubt it’ll be empty. The robot which spat out my boarding pass asked if I would give up my seat and I haven’t even had a drink yet and I ran out of painkillers Wednesday. Fuck, what have I gotten myself into? I’ll check back in mid-flight. Need to conserve battery power until I can tap into the plane’s dilithium crystals. Back. Can talk now. OK, the flight was uneventful yet long. Drink service erratic. Must figure out how to fly 1st Class going home. I hid my complimentary pretzels where only a flight mechanic might find them. Movies included a dancing singing (?) fucking penguin movie. No thanks. Been trying to get through Bill Clinton’s autobiography since before he left office and he’s only now coming clean about Monica. The second movie is the new James Bond flick, which I’ve seen 3 times (the last time being Tuesday). Like “Band of Brothers,â€� I almost know the dialog by heart, so I eschew the headphones and remember to look at the screen during the juiciest bits. Bond dodges a poisoned Martini and love, Bill dodges impeachment and here we go. Quick aside….during the flight, I was really really hoping for blue skies above and blue oceans below. Nope, sorry. Cloud ceiling about 15,000 feet. Every now and then there’s a cloud break and I can see some blue below. After a non-window browsing break, I look out the window and see…well, it was like the sky was up and down. The ocean was the same color as the sky and the clouds split the two, but not at the horizon. Pretty trippy. Must attribute to sleep and alcohol deprivation. Land. Get met by someone expecting me. Suddenly thrust into an unmarked white van with a driver from Hong Kong, a couple from San Francisco who just won’t shut the fuck up about the British couple behind them. Get stuck in traffic for over an hour (a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour) for what should’ve been a 10-minute ride. Why? Well, I guess a cross between the aforementioned Mr. St. Patrick and the hope-to-never-be-mentioned-again-Mr. President. My first impressions of Paradise are this…. Strip joint Home Depot McDonalds Orange Julius Fishing Boats Exotic Paintball Traffic Traffic Traffic a 3 hour Tour Malls Hotels Starbucks Subway that sells Sushi! Lush Greenery Rainbows Everywhere another mall more traffic Beautiful Women Hippies Reggae Lady Shut the Fuck Up already Burger King. Is this what we do when we invade/occupy/civilize/bring democracy (sic)/grant protectorate/statehood to a country/kingdom/dictatorship that didn’t invite us in the first place? Is this Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Afghanistan and Iraq? Well, I appreciate being protected from the local culture, but… Hotel. Check in. More people expecting me. OK, so one of the reasons I’m here is to see my old landlords and dear friends Don & Billie McDaniel, whom I have benevolently spared from these pages as of yet. They moved back to the Big Island a few years ago. It seems Don had the bad joss to suffer a stroke a few 3 weeks ago, probably just to fuck up the trip. Called them. Will see them in a few days. Need sun, women, alcohol and food, probably in that order. I don’t know why I should feel like a tourist in Hawaii! I mean, I haven’t seen the sun since September in Mexico. I didn’t feel like a tourista then, just a lush. Here, I can stand back and let the floor show unfold. 3 largish Bloody Marys and the most expensive fish sandwich I’ve ever punched in the snout later, I try to scribe these events down in a violent yet cohesive manner. The ocean laughs at me, as do all of the St. Patrick revelers. Hawaii and St. Patrick. 2 taste treats that don’t necessarily go well together, but it sure beats the fuck out of Ballard. Tomorrow, in search of the Royal Hawaiian and their fabled MaiTais. Aloha pj         POSTED: 03-04-2007         What is it about Me and Smelly Hotel Rooms? WHAT IS IT ABOUT ME AND SMELLY HOTEL ROOMS? So, what is it about smelly hotel rooms that makes me want to write about them, that so inspires me to lay down dozens of words in their honor? Dunno, but I find myself again poised over the keyboard, spilling my guts (figuratively and probably literally as well), so you, dear readers, don’t have to. Actually, we’re back to where we began this road journal, or at least an exit or 2 away from it. We find ourselves back in Fife, Washington after working in Tacoma yet again. As you recall, last time it was the dreaded Motel 6 while working the Festival of Trees a few years ago. This year, it’s my very first Wintergrass festival, a multi-day Bluegrass gathering that’s so famous that I’ve managed to miss it for the past 19 years I’ve been in town. It’s held at the Sheraton and a few other venues around downtown Tacoma, a mere 40-some odd miles from home, and only a block away from the last place I worked. What brings us here friends? Well, let’s look backwards, always backwards… So, I get a phone call from Tim O’Brien, who, as we all know, is a superb songwriter, musician, producer and political assassin. I’m assuming that Tim got my number from Danny Barnes, who, as history reminds us, is about the best banjo player on the planet. Besides that, he’s an amazing guitarist and fiddle player. Danny used to be in Bad Livers, a duo from Austin. He’s also played with Bill Frisell in the Willies and lots of other projects. I even managed to get Danny to play backwards banjo on “The Hand of Dog,â€� although, at the time, he didn’t realize it. Danny probably got my number from Garey Shelton, who must’ve gotten my number from me. I digress, of course. Point being that I was very honored to be called by the festival headliner to mix for his group. OK, Danny’s playing with Tim, so I’m most likely the only sound guy that Danny knows by name in Seattle. Whatever, here I am. Friday, I show up around 1 or so. Can’t find parking anywhere. On my 3rd lap around Tacoma, I grab a spot across the street from the hotel! Score one for the home team. Get credentials (stupid sparkly wrist band) and find a stage. Well, there’s Vince from Triamp and Al Bagley from Carlson, all working for Dan Mortensen, my boss from the Backstage 17 years ago. Lots of familiar faces and tons of new ones. For those of you who have never been to a bluegrass festival, there’s a phenomenon that only happens in acoustic environs like these. It’s called jamming. But unlike normal jamming, which has a very civilized set of rules; Bluegrass Festival Jamming (or BFJ) is a moveable feast of sorts. That means hotel corridors at 3 am are fair game. Knowing this, I brought a tazer and mace, but nobody seems to wander the halls at the Econolodge. At least they have something akin to wifi, but it’s more like 2 juice cans and string. All in all, Day 1 was a success. Festival food (at least the free stuff they so magnanimously shovel our way) is better than most, but weird and must be fought for. Little sandwich wrap thingies, fruit, cookies (a diabetic treat!) and lots of water (it’s raining pretty heavily, so all they have to do is dumpster dive for empties and leave the open bottles outside). I mixed Tim and band twice, once and the main stage and then again in a church 2 blocks away. Midnight Mandolin Madness was that and lasted until after 2 am. Got to the room at 2:30 and wasn’t sure until I had actually opened my door that I even had a room at all. I heard horror stories Saturday morning from the monitor engineer at the church that she was told there were no more rooms, then had to wait 45 minutes to discover that there were many still available. The good news is that crack whores can find work in today’s job market. The bad news is that crack whores can find work in today’s job market. Am I to return to my room tonight to find it stripped bare of my belongings? Day 2 started with a songwriter’s workshop with Tim, Danny, 2 brothers and somebody’s sister. After that, I pretty much hung out at the main stage unless Tim was playing elsewhere. His set at the church that afternoon was amazing. Danny performed one of his songs and had the audience in the palm of his hand. During their late night set, Tim mentioned that it was Pete Wernick’s birthday. Pete, of course, is one of the best banjo players around and he played with Tim in Hot Rize and Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers. It was Pete’s 61st birthday, so Tim got a cell phone from Vince, set it to speakerphone and called Pete’s house in Colorado, where it was already 1 am. After exchanging pleasantries with Pete’s wife, Tim asked to speak with Pete. His wife said that he was on the john. Mind you, this is going through the PA system with about 1000 people listening. When the audience started laughing, Pete’s wife asked him where he was. He replied he was with a “few friends at Wintergrass!â€� When she asked who was there, Tim said just about 1000 people and that he’d get names for her later. Pete finally came to the phone and then it got even weirder. Thinking that I had an early evening, I got ready to go back to the hotel when Dan asked me to go to the church and help load out the system there. OK, how could I refuse? Of course, that led to going back to the Sheraton and loading out 2 more systems. I finally made it back to the room at about 3:30, where, with the help of an hour of electroshock therapy, a painkiller, 2 muscle relaxers and bad television, I finally fell asleep. Saturday’s only casualty was Liz, the stage manager’s laptop. She was grading science papers on a table backstage when either someone bumped into it or the legs just decided to collapse then and there, but a flower vase emptied it’s contents into her computer. Mine was on the table at the same time, but just slid to the brink of existence. Liz walked my computer to me in monitor world and mumbled something about virgin sacrifices and submitting paperwork and witnesses. She was pretty bummed out because the computer was brand new and had all of her schoolwork in it. She’s a science teacher by day, meerkat impersonator by night. Poor Liz. Poor computer. The muscle relaxers must’ve waited until I woke up to kick in, cuz I was fighting gravity and lucidity for 2 hours. Checked out of the hotel, had very bad breakfast across the street and then back to the show. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but sleep deprivation, a narcotic hangover and Gospel music…. 3 taste treats that don’t go well together. I like bluegrass music. I’m getting a little tired of the bluegrass jams that happen in every other bar every other night in Seattle, which is why I don’t hang out in bars anymore (among other reasons…) That being stated for the record, even the mediocre bands this weekend were great and the great bands were electrifying. Mike Marshall gave 2 more incredible performances and Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver closed down the festival on a high (lonesome) note. Dan told me I could bail on load out, but I figured what was the worst that could happen. I already destroyed my back and neck last night. What’s a little insult to injury (sic)? The load out took maybe 1.5 hours. Done. Home. Luck pj         POSTED: 03-04-2007         Good Bad Good Bad GOOD BAD GOOD BAD I suppose it’s the balance of good and bad, which balances our lives. I wish someone would put it in writing and give specific formulae so we can cry foul when the scales are tipped in an inappropriate fashion. Case in point, Friday’s show at NPAC was a clusterfuck that almost put me in traction. The performer was an impersonator of female singers. She does Patsy Cline, Connie Francis and others. She should be playing Elks clubs and high security prisons, but she ended up in Bothell. The old directors of the theatre had a bad habit of booking questionable talent at exorbitant fees. They didn’t bother with petty, mundane things, such as budgets and recordkeeping. Their method of reconciliation was to throw all of the receipts in a pile and calling it good. This explains our show. I had to arrange for transportation from the airport to hotel to theatre and back again, which I did. Until… Until the limo company forgot to schedule the first airport pickup Friday morning. I told the musicians to go ahead and take a cab to the hotel and we would repay her. She then told me that if the hotel wasn’t ready, well, her exact words were, “No hotel, No show!â€� I almost told her to turn her fat ass around and jump on the next cattle car back to Stockton, but my Superior Customer Service Chip (SCSC) clicked on and I informed her that it was all good, but I would confirm yet again. Then she hung up on me. At this point, my neck and shoulders seized up on me and I couldn’t turn my head more than a few inches and my cell phone mysteriously flew from my hands into a wall, shattering into a bazillion pieces. Too many cooks spoil the whatever. Too many phone calls spoil my show. Murphy’s law was strictly enforced to the point where even carefully laid plans were thrown out with the baby and the bathwater. Somehow, we managed to pull the show off to everyone’s satisfaction. We predicted an empty house, but a tour group bought 120 tickets for a retirement home for the criminally insane and we did pretty well. Even sold out of Depends! That was bad. Saturday was good. Yesterday, I got to meet the man whose influence made me what I am today (insert snide comment here). Geoff Emerick, the engineer who recorded the Beatles from Revolver through the White Album and then Abbey Road, spoke at the NW Studio Summit brought to you by the Recording Academy (NARAS), the nice folks who inflict the Grammies upon us all. Geoff was accompanied by Howard Massey, a producer and engineer in his own right, who co-wrote with Geoff his experiences with the Beatles (Geoff’s, not Howard’s). It was a wonderful interview with photos, video and music from days of old. This is the guy who invented techniques that we take for granted these days, whose experiments are now stomp boxes and effects racks and plug-ins that we use daily (except for those of us who don’t record with computers and actually have to figure this shit out for ourselves). I had Geoff autograph my copy and got to speak with him for a moment. Garey went with me and we hooked up with Tom Hall (another great engineer) and had a great time. After sitting through a pointless seminar on studio monitors (which was nothing more than an hour long infomercial for JBL speakers), my neck told me to take it home. A particularly muddy hour at the dog park ensued, followed by pizza and beer (for me, not Mifune). Caught up on sleep and woke up to incredible neck pain. Going to see an orthopedic surgeon tomorrow and schedule an MRI. Got the plans back for the studio. Jon Stone did a great job drawing the rooms out. Hope to get the first load of lumber this week and start building. One more week at Triamp and then I fly without a net for a while. OK, back to the dog park and painkillers. Luck pj         POSTED: 02-28-2007         All Things Being As They Are ALL THINGS BEING AS THEY ARE…. Can life just get any weirder or more stressful? I truly hope not, dear readers, for if it does, someone will most definitely get very hurt! Case in point: I finally got the keys to the new studio but 10 days after signing the lease. Did I mention that I was the only one who signed the document? Not the landlord? Not quite kosher or legal? The biggest reason I was sweating this is because my partner in recording crime, Jon Stone, is getting ready to become a dad any moment, so he’ll be taking himself out of circulation. Jon’s doing the design and overseeing as much of the construction as he can before he has to start changing diapers. On top of that, he’s also building One Reel’s new world headquarters in Pioneer Square. I got so fed up that I gave landlord dudes a deadline that I either needed the keys or my deposit back. 2:30 pm of deadline day, he calls up and requests a credit check. I’m thinking that maybe this should’ve been done before I signed the lease? When I flip him shit over this, he asks me for an additional $2000 in deposit. Finally, I e-mailed him asking for my money back. 9:00 pm he calls and literally screams at me for being an ingrate for not appreciating all of the work he did for me that day! That day? Where the fuck was he for the past 10 days? He then tells me JUST HOW IMPORTANT the managing partner is, how they had to shove the lease under his nose as he was boarding his private jet to Australia and and and…. I reply that I understand JUST HOW UNIMPORTANT I AM and how understandable that I should be forgotten. A few seconds of dead air later and he says I’ll have keys at 6:00 am! Ummm…. Noon thirty later, the keys are sitting on my desk in a torn envelope. Now the fun begins. All seriousness aside, I’m relieved to finally get rolling on this project. As my Klingon cousins are so fond of saying, “It shall be glorious!â€� Stress in the work place? Say it ain’t so! But alas, dear readers, stress has been laying eggs in the bottom right drawer of my desk regularly and they have begun to hatch. Ever since I returned to American Music/Triamp Group, money and inventory have been disappearing faster than the ozone layer. We went as far as not allowing cash transactions to try to staunch the hemorrhaging of legal tender. About a month ago, a customer came in to pick up his guitar in or repair. He was told he couldn’t use cash, so he went across the street and bought a money order. Of course, he didn’t fill in the “Pay to the Order Ofâ€� part, so the money order and receipt vanished later that day. When I mentioned to cast and crew that we’re waiting for a photocopy of said money order to arrive and culprit shall be terminated and prosecuted, the reactions were classic. A few were outraged, calling for blood and crackers. One wasn’t there, didn’t care. One joked nervously. One asked immediately for a leave of absence. Film at Eleven. Last Saturday pretty much saw critical mass. I was asked to do sound for a Mardi Gras party in the heart of Fremont, a risky venture at best. I arrived early afternoon and began to assemble the sound system. Not quite state of the art, but hey, it’s in an old beer brewery, so what could go wrong? Funny you should ask. Firstly, they were missing a few key components (speaker cables). I made a list of things I needed and called the shop to have gear pulled. The shop was in panic! MC decided to pump about 16 gallons of gasoline into a diesel truck. Luckily he caught his blunder before starting the truck. That caused a mad scramble to get the gear to the Sheraton for load in. Then SR’s girlfriend needed to go to the emergency room. I went to the shop to grab some cables and the phones were ringing off the hook and the showroom was filling up with customers picking up gear and the few “Oh, by the ways.â€� I got back to the brewery and finally got everything working. Little did I know that was only temporary. Finished sound checking Capt. Leroy and the Zydeco locals (minus the guitarist and one monitor mix). The production manager (?) told me that he would bring what I needed for the show when he came back from dinner. I guess we both had different ideas about what I needed. I was thinking along the lines of more monitor cables, an amplifier and some spare somethings. He thought I wanted a cheap extension cord. OK, run back to the shop for the 3rd fucking time and grab what I can. Everything starts on time and works perfectly. Soon, I noticed a change in stage volume. Sure enough, the monitors that I struggled to make work died. I tried swapping cables restarting the amp. Nope, sorry, no service after 8pm. I tried telling anybody who would listen (the producer of the event) about my problems. Got blank looks and a pat on the shoulder. Somehow managed to pull the gig off with 1 monitor mix (tough when the 2nd band is a piece with 3 horns and 4 vocals). Then I get a call from MC at his show at the Sheraton…â€�The wedding is tomorrow!â€� Well, of course it is! It’s a Jewish wedding ceremony. Nothing happens on the Sabbath. The band plays an incredible 2-hour non-stop set and leaves the stage. I leave, too. Back at the shop at 8:30 in the morning to load a few trucks. Robert is throwing a house warming party of sorts today. We finally completed (?) the rebuild of the front house. BBQ, beer and a band? Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone who wanted to play at noon on a Sunday, Boom box to the rescue. I’m taking the week off from work to prep the studio for the build. A final measure or 2, pressure wash and watch my dream studio come true. Well, dream studio…of course, that would be in Bali, but this will be the next best thing. I’m off to decompress and prepare myself for my next adventure…A Bluegrass Festival. Hoping this finds you well, exhausted readers. Luck pj         POSTED: 02-09-2007         Butros Butros-Ghali Why is the name Butros Butros-Ghali Stuck in my Head? Greetings, equally bewildered readers. I don’t know why the former Secretary General of the UN’s name is lodged in my brain. For most of the day, it was the Beatles song, “Misery.â€� To tell the truth, Misery is still playing, but now they’re singing his name in the chorus. I must find a better combination of painkillers and lunch entrees…. Finally, and I mean FUCKING FINALLY, signed the lease for my new studio space today. Seriously like pulling teeth from someone who didn’t have any teeth but still didn’t want them extracted. Here, take the money, give me the keys and I’ll send you a check every month. Even I can see the linear simplicity in that. It’s probably a good thing that I only consulted my attorney a few times and even better that he didn’t actually read the stupid thing. Anyway, I should have the keys in my grubby paws by the end of the week and then we’ll see how I fare with power tools of unspecified intentions. Seriously though, I’ve been waiting for this since Thanksgiving and here it is the 2nd week of February. I was ready to pack it in and move to Bermuda if it didn’t happen sooner than later. I suppose that I can still buy the shorts… What else, dear readers? Well, let’s just see what’s sticking to my psyche like peanut butter (chunky) to the roof of Mifune’s snout… Did I mention the little fall I took at work a month ago? Well, it’s gone from an inconvenient gash on my right shin to non-stop pain. Don’t mean to whine, but it’s become a source of constant contention. I started physical therapy and massage, but the only thing that seems to alleviate the pain anymore is electro-stimulation. Basically, for those of you who are not plugged into the nearest receptacle, it’s….well…being plugged into the nearest receptacle! There are like 4 sticky bits connected to electrodes attached to my lower back and I’m, for no better term, electrocuting myself. Something about stimulating the muscles to keep them from scabbing over. I don’t know. Painkillers are fun until you need them to actually kill pain. What a bitch! Last night at the Tractor, Peter Himmelman stopped by for the first installment of this year’s “Next Bookâ€� series. For the uninitiated, Next Book gathers Jewish writers to come and read their works and sell and autograph and leave warm fuzzies all around. If you know Peter, well, this just ain’t gonna happen. Peter showed up a bit aggravated by having to be driven around by someone who just wouldn’t shut up. Do you have kids? Do you work in a semi-stressful environment? Then you know of the static that rattles around your brainpan 24/7. Peter’s idea of vacation is getting away from writing television cues and the constant hubbub of Los Angeles is going on tour. So he drives up and basically needs to ditch his designated driver for a few minutes. When he asked me what the series had been like up ‘til now, I said it was pretty much NPR touchy-feely goodness and sell some books. Peter said that he was going to do more like Lenny Bruce-Spaulding Gray with a guitar. And scrotums. He mentioned scrotums quite often during the evening. His scrotum, to be exact. He also touched upon the deaths of his father and sister, a nearly dead rat and a definitely dead possum. It was great working with him and he had the foresight and good taste to invite our good friend Ben Smith to play some percussion and wrestle on stage. Speaking of work (scant few paragraphs ago), I only have 15 more shifts to pull at the long-suffering day job. I’m taking a week off for good behavior, during which I plan some bad behavior. Well, as much bad behavior you can realize hoisting 12-foot sheets of drywall. I guess if you were my doctor or physical therapist, it would be a bad move. Well, until Star Trek-like anti gravity sheet rock slabs become available at my local lumberyard…. Well, tonight ends 24 days in a row of work with about 5 double shifts thrown in (tonight being one of them). The band has finished soundcheck, my dinner congeals somewhere in a greasy white box and the painkillers have gone on strike or vacation. Did I mention that concrete was much softer when I was a kid? Fucking gravity anyway. OK, fellow adventurous word junkies, I’m off. I promise to write more frequently and not bitch so much. More good news next time… Don’t eat 100 Advil in one sitting, though. My doctor told me that your liver will melt and it’s not very pretty. Not quite sure what brought that up, but it’s good advice nonetheless. Luck pj         POSTED: 01-28-2007         Things You Say To People.... Things You Say To People At The Beginning Of A New Year And Other Improbabilities Hiya and Happy New Year! It’s less than a week old and already things issued from Mifune’s butt are hitting the fan. Where to start? Well, the rest of last year is now a bit of a blur. American Music (my home away from home) was sold to the Triamp Group in June. Not the best time to buy a backline company unless you thrive on somnambulism, bad festivals and diesel fumes. I was able to weasel my way out of working the Han Woo Ri festival somehow. The Bite of Seattle featured probably THE WORST BAND I’VE BEEN FORCED TO LISTEN TO SOBER! Did the family trip to the Oregon coast in July, went to Puerto Vallarta with Garey and Cheryl in September and flew to Boise to see the parental units over Thanksgiving. A lovely x-mas night with John & Leila (Shearer) Bishop (?), even lovelier French Onion Soup. Fell asleep at a quarter to 2007. The Following Year I gave notice at work. A bit too involved to get into right now (you know what they say…There’s 3 sides to every argument: Your side, their side and the Truth!). We’ll have to wait until the self-imposed gag order is lifted. I took the position of Production Manager at the newish Northshore Performing Arts Center (NPAC). My old boss from the Backstage days, Ed Beeson, became Executive Director in November and just couldn’t resist dragging me into the fray. It’s a lovely 600 seat theatre on the campus of Bothell High School. A pretty wide variety of acts ranging from Cowboy Poetry (earlier tonight), odd bits of Broadwayish theatre and everything in between. The Technical Director is fresh from teaching Theatre Arts for 34 years at a local high school, the house staff is high school students and the rest are volunteers. There is a bunch of recording gear that was donated by a local studio, which I’m probably going to sell and re-outfit to my liking. Oh Joy… The biggest news is that I’m about to sign the lease on a building for my new recording studio. It’s a wonderful 2400 square foot bunker with a 12 foot ceiling and a barbed wire fence. I talked the landlords into giving me control of an $11,000 fund to build the studio the way I want to at the outset. I’m deciding on a name for the new venture. Could continue to go with the Klingon Science Reading Room, considering Studio Mifune, Cula del Mano (Ass of the Monkey) or simply Jazz (whose anniversary of his passing is coming up quickly). Do you have any suggestions? The winning entry will win something… Ummm….That’s it for now. Got to get ready for work (got to love those 7 day work weeks). Hoping this year finds you all healthy and prosperous. Luck pj         POSTED: 01-28-2007         With Enough Chinese Food to Last a Lifetime WITH ENOUGH CHINESE FOOD TO LAST A LIFETIME Welcome back, dear readers, How’ve you been? The kids? Oh good. This month has thrown enough chin music at me to last the rest of the year, but I’m sure there’s more in store for me. This is the first blog on the new laptop. My ex, Mac Beth, went blind and I had to take her out back and shoot her. After many a painful eBay and craigslist battle, I emerged victorious with the new beastie, Mac Beth III. She’s all silver (or titanium if you go by what Apple calls them), tons of gigahoozies and whatnots. I still haven’t figured out how to program it to make coffee, but hey, that’s what the dog’s for, right? OK, so, I gave notice at work. They asked me to stay an extra month, and then last week extended it again 2 weeks. I don’t know why. Everybody else seems to know the combo to the safe. My last day is my birthday. I guess it’s as good a present as one could ask for. Speaking of work, about 3 weeks ago, I decided to trip over a drum shield jutting out of an aisle as I was turning lights off and closing down. Major faceplant. I got high scores from all of the judges except for the Koreans. Major body whiplash. Suddenly, painkillers really are painkillers and they don’t work all that well anymore. I’m guessing that concrete was much softer when I was a kid. Stupid gravity anyway. I’m still waiting to sign the lease on the new studio building. The landlords saw fit to retract their offer of a butt load of cash to build out the studio, but did give me 4 months of rent credit. But, as I run the risk of repeating myself, still waiting to sign the lease. They sent me a first draft, which ran 41 pages! It was like a Stephen King short story. The biggest question remains who fixes the broken windows? New job-wise, the NPAC is going swimmingly. We have the Incredible Shanghai Acrobats today. Our first sellout and we added a matinee. Incredible is right! I remember doing a show like this 10 years ago at the King Kat. There’s like 25 kids, ages 13-19, I think they’re genetically bred for this. Once they wear out, the trainers and coaches amputate limbs and then graft them on new kids. They do the most amazing contortionhatjugglingleapingtumblingbalancingohmygodhowisheevergoingtostraightenoutandifihadabottleoftequilaandsomecoconutoilandifshewasthirtyi’ddieaveryhappybutpretzelshapedman. One girl was part of a trio or foursome throwing and twirling ropes with balled ends. She dropped it after tossing into the rigging. Immediately, she was dragged offstage and out to the loading dock, where the trainer beat her with a dozen oranges wrapped in a towel. Another fellow dropped a hat or something and they lopped his hand off, right there onstage in front of everybody. The lucky few in the orchestra pit were sprayed with blood. But he was back for the next routine. Now that’s pluck! Or that’s what happens when the management is waiting offstage with a taser and a bucket of lukewarm water. During the second show, the same girl dropped the rope thingy again. I asked their tech director what was going to happen to her. Jenny said that the girl would either be gang raped by my stage crew or I could buy her for $50. All I had was a twenty. Jenny took it and said as soon as I had the rest She would FedEx the girl to me. Film at 11. Lunch and dinner were catered by a local Chinese restaurant. There was so much food left over at the end of the evening that I was able to grab about 4 pans of untouched food. Enough to last me a couple of weeks. After a couple of weeks of snow, ice, flooding, hail, winged monkeys and televangelists, the sun is out and we’re warming up to the next ice age. I’m truly amazed about how this internet thing works. In the last 3 weeks, I’ve been contacted by friends I haven’t seen or talked to in over 20 years. Keep it coming, please. OK, I’m going to have reheat some coffee and have a few back spasms. Luck pj         POSTED: 12-26-2006         Isn't anyone in Seattle hungry tonight? Isn’t anyone in Seattle hungry tonight? I overheard these words a couple of weeks ago while waiting for a burger at a normally crowded burger joint. The cashier said this to a cook. Wondering where the overflow crowds were. The crowds were hungry, I’m sure, but they were also hunkering down for the biggest windstorm to hit the area in over a decade. Later that night, over 1.4 million households in the greater Seattle area (what a fucking oxymoron that is) would find themselves powerless (without power), some for over 2 weeks! That storm showed us a few things: Firstly, don’t underestimate Mother Nature. Secondly, it showed how unprepared we were for it. OK, that being said, I must admit that I deleted the 2 pages that followed this from last night. Why, you ask? Simply, I ranted and whined about things that at the time seemed relevent, but a day later, not so much, no. Anyhoo, I just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten any of you, I'm just trying to fill a bad hand. Soon, if and when I decide what to do if and when I grow up, I'll fill you in on all of the gory details. Until then, please have a healthy and prosperous New Year Luck pj         POSTED: 04-15-2006         Irony Rich Blood Irony Rich Blood Irony shakes its steel-gloved fist at me. Must be because I once got drunk and did a number on its garbage cans. Well, OK, so I got drunk more than once, but I usually send the dog out for garbage can duty. This I mention because lately I rented the first 2 seasons of Dead Like Me, a Showtime series about Grim Reapers set in Seattle, but filmed in Vancouver. Irony? No, cheaper union hands. This I mention (now getting to the point) because no sooner than I began watching the series that I was informed of the passing of my friend Jack Slater (chronicled earlier in these pages). Yesterday, I received word that another friend died. I wrote about a recording road trip last year (see "Read the Directions Carefully," posted 4/27) and told about a small coffee shop owner who befriended me and made parts of the gig more bearable. His name was Evian, he had just purchased the shop and was on his way to great things. A few days ago, his brutally murdered body was found dumped by the side of a road in Oregon. Fuck, he was just 20 and he had his whole goddamned life ahead of him. I was 20 once (I think!) and even though I was a fuckup and probably had pissed off more than my fair share of people at the time, nothing I had done or could conceive of doing warranted that. If justice or karma exists, please make those responsible for this pay most horribly. FUCK!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry to begin like this, but I just couldn't shake it off easily. Good things have been happening, though. In health-related news, my blood sugar count has dropped another 80 points and I'm just 10 above normal. My clothes are becoming roomier and my energy level has increased dramatically. Better living through science? Probably just a major decrease in alcohol! On the work front, the job I took solely for the money has actually become a passion. I'm genuinely enthused about the gig. Changes are happening. Granted, fuckups still occur, but at a radically reduced rate. I just need to be the Typhoid Mary of Hope for the crew and maybe we'll have a summer season with a lower homicide rate. I'm still planning on setting up a small organ harvesting area in our backline tent at Bumbershoot. More as it develops. The malaVista record seems to have frozen in its tracks. After the group listening session where nobody listened to anything but their own voices, the project sits in my hard drive developing nanobots. Garey and I recorded a gospel concert 2 months ago featuring a 13-piece horn band, two 30-piece choirs and a pair of bagpipers, whose whereabouts are still unknown. The leader of the project has now decided that his vocal performance weren't up to snuff, so we (I) have the pleasure of overdubbing all lead vocals on a live concert with lots 'o' bleeding. Joy. I was out in the front house cutting fake lumber for the new front porch and wraparound deck, but it's cold and raining (and Seattle), so I decided, dear readers, to blast this off. I was just invited to a barbeque tomorrow, but if the weather holds, they threatened to drag the grill by the door. Hmmm Don't they recommend that you don't do that indoors? Film @ 11. Have a better day than me. Luck pj         POSTED: 04-01-2006         Just What Is That Clinging to The Fan Blades? Just What Is That Clinging To The Fan Blades? Even before the blood dried on the contract, did I regret selling my soul? Was it really my soul? I don't remember my mom sewing a nametag on it� If the signature is illegible (as if you can really decipher mine), can you get it thrown out on court? Probably not and I don't play tennis anymore. Because This morning I signed on as Rental Manager at American Music Rentals. It's my 4th tour of duty. It almost only lasted a month, but because of my brilliant bargaining skills (the owner had absolutely no other choice), I inked a deal wherein I got everything I asked for. Of course, the first item on the list was to shut down and sell half of the business, but I prefer baby steps. I also got to choose the crew I wanted, so we started naming names and Kirk Jamieson's floated to the top, not unlike a dead fish. For some unknown reason, Kirk continues to talk to me after 10 years and even agreed to work with me again. Oh, will they ever learn? As stated in the last missive, no sooner than I returned to American 3 managers gave notice within hours of each other. Coincidence? Karma? Did I smell that bad? Don't know. When I was considering taking over, they all rolled their eyes and pointed out all of the flaws that I would be inheriting. I knew about them, probably added to them. Still, it's an opportunity to affect positive change and get health insurance. What could possibly go wrong? After pouring concrete for the new front porch pad for the front house, I went to Teatro Zinzani for the first time as a customer. I had been to the site while under construction and had been the Production Manager (I had my own bottle) for Jon Stone and Lisa Franklin's wedding last year. What a trip! Jon secured us a great table (ringside) and had a $120 bottle of champagne waiting for us. That was the good news. The bad news was that by having such great seats, we were ripe for the picking and plucking for audience participation. With a vicodin and 3 glasses of wine in me, I'm not sure how I would've responded. I'm guessing I would either have frozen up or had an episode of Tourette's Syndrome! Luckily, the angel of death passed over us, but did make Panzer wear a toupee all night. Well, Robert's tearing up the side walkway and moving wheelbarrows full of dirt as we speak. I can either join him or take a nap. Luck pj         POSTED: 03-30-2006         Whirlwinds, Maelstroms & Things Hitting the Fan Whirlwinds, Maelstroms & Things Hitting the Fan On top of everything else…. In addition to…. And if that weren’t enough…. And my 4 least favorite words in this particular order…. Oh by the way…. The day started off with an e-mail from my friend Andy Krikun with the news of the passing of our friend Jack Slater from complications of a liver transplant that just didn’t work out. I’d known Jack for 25 years, having first met him in Los Angeles. Jack and his wife Deborah lived in Seattle for the past years. I saw or spoke with him only a few times, the last being in September when Andy came to visit them. Jack was an actor, teacher, writer and activist, among other things. Jack’s eyes shone with an inner light that radiated the wit, strength and love that he shared with everybody. I truly regret neglecting the opportunity to spend more time with him. He will be missed by every soul he touched. Good Bye and Good Luck, Jack. There have been certain memories that have always remained fresh to me, seemingly unimportant occurrences, random sentences, bits of music, full moons, smells that trigger scenes that replay behind my eyes. One such flashback triggered another series of events which changed my life a month ago. When I asked a friend who was diabetic how he found out he had it, he replied that he started getting up frequently during the night to urinate. This always stuck with me and I always thought of it every time I awoke and had to pee. While playing DIAGNOSE PJ OVER THE PHONE, I was complaining to my friend Dr. Nicole about the recent accelerated hair loss on my head and then calves. She said it could be poor circulation or diabetes. The light flashes A week or so later, after a stage dive racked my back, I mentioned the conversation to my doctor and he draws some blood. Bingo! So, that and an acoustic guitar were my birthday presents this year. The guitar is a $99 Chinese cheapie and, appearantetly, so is my pancreas! I’ve decided to make it a non-factor in my life. A few dietary changes (farewell sweet alcohol) and more exercise. I’ve already dropped a couple of pants sizes and plan on returning to my fighting weight by summer. Please get tested for diabetes or anything that runs in your family next time you get poked and prodded by your health care professional. All seriousness aside, if I felt my life has been boring as of late, well, was I ever not paying attention! For some reason or reasons not immediately clear, I went back to work for American Music for the 4th time. Yup, back in Rentals. All who know me scratch their heads as do I. What was I thinking? By the end of the second week, the Production Manager and Marketing Director submitted their resignations within 2 hours of each other. The following Wednesday, the Rental Manager followed suit. Not wanting to be left out on what could only be good times, I did my best lemming impersonation and gave notice as well. The owner of the company finally comes down to put down the mutiny. After talking to him for the better part of an hour, I leave with a job offer and uneasy feeling for the future. More as this unfurls. Gotta cop a coffee buzz before the band starts. Luck pj         POSTED: 03-14-2006         Belated Happy New Year and Birthday for All of You I Missed So Far THE END OF A(N) (Y)E(A)RA Happy New Year, my delighted readers. So much to tell you, so many James Bond movies… I would’ve written sooner, but I’ve spent the last month or so as a large bowl of slightly salted mixed nuts. Been recording a bit. malaVista mixing finished (?) last week. Whatever will I do with my Monday nights? Buy my own beer, I guess. Listening party tomorrow night; they’ll probably reject most of the mixes (even though they were there when we mixed…). The WaterBabies released a cd with half of the tunes my mixes from a Tractor show last year. We went back there Sunday and cut another hour or 2 worth of material before the keyboardist moves to Australia. Finally, the Equilateral Trio has me following them and recording their electrified string trio nuttiness. I’ve captured them twice at a yoga studio in Fremont, but the first adventure was at a Pagan Winter Solstice Feast in Georgetown in December. It happened in a huge warehouse space decorated like a forest. I set up my gear in the afternoon then returned for the gig itself. 2 stages hosted about a dozen bands. I arrived after the feast began, but before their performance at midnight (which became 1 a.m. which became….) I saw a friend engaged in an animated conversation with an animated hippie chick. The hippie chick was lobbying to get a seat on the board of governors so she could light things on fire. After MaryLee complimented her on some twigs in her hair, the hippie chick threw herself to the ground and kissed MaryLee’s shoes. Ummmm… I spent a weekend working on a benefit show with Bill Nye the Science Guy on Bainbridge Island 2 weeks ago. Load in was Friday night. I spent most of the evening trying to cover windows with black plastic sheets to cut out sunlight. Great plan if I had Rocket Boy brand Jet Pants seeing as how the windows ended up being about 10 feet higher than the lifts went… Oh well, we can deal with that tomorrow. Afterwards, we went to a local watering hole where the advertised Guinness draught came in a bottle for 2 different prices. All the waitress would say was that when she worked there 3 years ago, it truly was on tap, but didn’t think it was important enough to tell me that when I ordered. I asked her how much the $2 beers were and it took her a while to figure that out. Very very bad karaoke forced us back to our hotel, where a spirited craps game followed us to 2 rooms. 7 a.m. came early the next morning, about a week early. Someone, apparently, forced most of a bottle of single malt Scotch down my throat along with about 6 beers while I was asleep. After securing a proper ladder, we finished covering the windows and let the games begin. My job during the show was to tend to camera cables on the ground. The opening act was the Reptile Guy, who owns and operates a retile zoo east of Monroe. I stopped there a few years ago on the way home from skiing and thought it was pretty cool. Big snakes, lots of big snakes. Did I mention that I’m not a particularly big fan of big snakes? Anyway The first thing that Reptile Guy brings out is a giant Snapping Turtle. The first thing that the giant Snapping Turtle does is to arc a vibrant stream of giant Snapping Turtle pee onto the stage and floor. Me, being downstream and downwind of this event, can guarantee my dear readers that giant Snapping Turtle pee smells like peeing after drinking Guinness for a week without peeing and then peeing. After introducing us to an Albino Burmese Python (extra large), he brings out the vipers. Cotton Mouth, Black Mamba King Cobra… Large venomous snakes with sharp venom delivery systems (fangs). Reptile dude is rummaging through the plastic crates which house the snakes while talking about how fast and smart (and venomous) these snakes are when something comes flying out of the box onto the floor. I jump. Spring loaded snake in a can. BASTARD! He chuckles. I plot revenge. While trying to piss off the Cobra enough to strike at him, he ends up dropping the snake after it went for his balls. The snake slithered between his legs and came out looking right at me, probably licking his snake lips and thinking PORK! BASTARD! Bill Nye begins his show by imploding a couple of Coke cans. I’m going to end the evening by emptying a couple of Tecate cans. He then implodes an empty 55 gallon barrel. Well, he’s got me there. Bill spends the next hour plus talking about sundials and Mars. He seems to like both of them, but pissed off at those who don’t, namely NASA. I don’t give a shit one way or the other for either. OK So much for the day to day blow by blow. Last week was the anniversary of my pal Jazz passing away. I spent the day moping around a bit until Mifune asked me what was up. I explained what had happened a year ago. Mifune thought about it for a moment, and then replied, “You know, human fuckwit, it’s ok. It was a good thing to do. That’s how I ended up here. Lucky you!” A few minutes later, he asked me why I was looking up dogs to adopt on the Internet… Well, kids, that’s all for now. So much has transpired since I began this that if I don’t post it, I never will. Luck pj         POSTED: 12-07-2005         VRROOOOOOOOM! VRRROOOOOMMMMMM! VROOOOOMM! As in, what the hell? Why are my fillings loosening, my eyeballs playing pinball inside my skull and why does everything smell like cat piss? AND WHERE THE HELL AM I? OK, I’m in Anacortes, Washington. About an hour or so north of Seattle. The effects of a shuttle launch are actually about a hundred Harleys booting up around my hotel room (which explains the cat piss stench). I’m in Anacortes recording 2 nights with Knut Bell, a larger than life Norvehoogian folkrockabillyhonkytonkythrowback with whom I’ve worked on 3 records in the past few years. It’s Oyster Run, an annual bike run. Not quite Sturgis, but better than Disneyland. I’m in the hotel because I turned down the offer to sleep on somebody’s floor. I’m in a hotel that smells like cat piss because it’s the only room available Friday. Saturday finds me in another room up the street. The locals have rolled out their own version of price gouging. $45 rooms going for almost double. Luckily, we don’t have to pay for beer. Might break even…. Friday was a beautiful day. The drive up is relaxing. Cruise the main drag. Get the first room. It’s almost the size of my house. Stinks. My eyes water. My nose does somersaults.. Time to start drinking. Head off to the gig. Unload. Knut is still staring at a pile of staging that hasn’t been set up yet. He tells me a story about how the gear is ready, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Hmmmm……. Leave Knut to mutter and find a room for Saturday. Take the last room sight unseen. Back to the club, I help Knut set up the stage and PA. Back to the cat box, resume drinking. Jon Stone shows up about 6 pm. Continue drinking. Go to the venue. Finish setting gear. Discover that the console DOES NOT WORK. Problem, no problem. I can record straight to the hard drive, but there’s no way to monitor what’s going down. Bummer. Make a call and reserve another for Saturday. Nothing left to do but forge ahead and drink some more. Knut summed up the previous year’s gig by counting the number of fights he broke up before security made it to the scene. Ok, time to re-evaluate microphone placement. Lots of bikers, lots of bikes. A good deal of talent. Young. Fuck, I must be getting old…. No fights. Greasy food. No talent. Back to the litter box after the gig with Jon. More beer. He heads for home. I ask myself where did I go completely wrong? At what irreversible point did I swap self-respect for a chance to ……a chance to what? Fuck, I must be getting old. Day 2. Wake up (see paragraph 1). Check out (my sinuses forgive me). Eat non-greasy, yet bland food. Hit a used bookstore. Find Cranberry Lake, hike and read. Check into the new room. Much smaller but non-offensive to the nose. Go for a long walk and read some more. Back to the room and read some more. Jon shows up and back to the gig. We re-wire the stage, and then try to figure out what’s wrong with Knut’s light system. Give up. Drink. Record. Pack up. Go Home. Make rough mixes of 6 hours of Knut. Can’t wait for another real taste of the road! Got a reference cd back from Wylie and the Wild West of the show I recorded a year ago. The cd and dvd are due out soon. Matt Jorgensen & I threw together a benefit concert to raise money for animals caught up in Hurricane Madness. Joining in the fray were Matt and his group 451, my friend Tim McGovern’s band Knucklehead, Jeff Diffner and Cam Williams, Mala Vista (whom I advertised as Hyperlung for a few weeks!), Randy Lee Fader and the Magnettes, Finn MacGinty, Ian McFerron and Alise(sp), Dave Ellis and somebody else? Left Hand Smoke was sent home because it just got too late. Extra large thanks to Sean Shier for being the first one there and last to leave. OK, my new cd, “The Hand of Dog,” was released August 23rd (It’s Pearl Harbor Day today….sorry) to some fanfare. It got plenty of airplay in Chicago (I take full responsibility of the White Sox win in the World Series) and Germany (yeah, me and David Hasselhoff). No plans for a video or tour just yet, but the t-shirts are pretty damn cool and the 2nd version will be out by x-mas. Work-wise, things have slowed down to sludge in the oil pan. Nobody’s touring in December, the locals don’t want to play now and other sound gigs have dried up. I guess news of my BIG BAD DAY made it out to perspective employers. Whatever Almost almost done with the Mala Vista record. It’s sounding great. Maybe another year and a half? Work on the front house continues nicely. If I haven’t mentioned this project, I’m helping my friend and neighbor (and landlord) rebuild the house in front of mine. So far, I’ve been a framer, electrician, carpenter, plumber, insulation hanger, human sawhorse and all-around day laborer. After this is done, we begin my remodel. I’m looking forward to my sunken Jacuzzi and party shower and new tracking room. The follow up cd to Hand of Dog, tentatively titled “Electricity, Magnetism and Motion,” is about halfway completed. I’m finishing tracks that I began 20 years ago and a few newer gems. I’ve been listening to Juana Molina a lot lately, as well as Shane Fontayne’s record, “What Nature Intended.” I can’t stop listening to this record. Check it out. I was pretty disappointed to the New Kate Bush disc. Critter-wise, Research Assistant Mifune has been exploiting every opportunity to escape from the yard. I cut his legs off one evening, but they grew back the next morning. He doesn’t seem to realize that at 75 pounds, he no longer qualifies as a lap dog. I’ve got a great series of photos of him cutting off the circulation of unsuspecting victims. As soon as I can upload these, you can regale in his exploits. Anyway, sorry it took so long to get back to you. I promise to be more diligent in my correspondence from now on. Happy Holiday season to one and all. The Hand of Dog and accompanying t-shirt make great stocking stuffers. Luck pj         POSTED: 08-21-2005         Carpe Per Diem Carpe Per Diem Still summer Still Seattle The neighbor’s yard thrives while mine looks well done. Once upon a time In a small town by the sea (Venice, Ca.) There was a young boy (me) Who worked at a bar (the Taurus Tavern, which the young boy was not really old enough to work in) There was a band (Andy and the Rattlesnakes) Who the young boy did sound for occasionally The leader of this band (Andy) saw potential in this young boy and befriended him Having the young boy haul gear and twist knobs and generally let him hang around and become part of THE SCENE Which he did Andy and I became great friends Andy moved back to the East Coast (from which he hailed) I flew back for Andy and Debbie’s wedding in 1981 When Andy left, the Rattlesnakes became Burning Sensations when Tim McGovern left the Motels. I was adopted by Burning Sensations (i.e., hauled their shit around for a couple of years) under Tim’s tutelage. I got to hang out in the studio when they cut their EP and 1st album. Tim McGovern was kind enough to let me observe the record making process up close and personal (that is, getting rolls of quarters at 3 am in Hollywood for the video games in the lobby). From there, the band sold to me the studio (Eldorado Recording) and I became the indentured servant to Dave Jerden and Gary Gunton. Much mayhem ensued. Here I am today So So why do I mention this? Why is this not on an episode of A&E Biography? Other than the fact that I don’t show up on film or cast a shadow… Anyway Andy is flying out to Seattle at the end of this week for (one of) the sole purpose(s) to have me mix the LONG AWAITED ANDY & THE RATTLESNAKES ANTHOLOGY CD thing. As far as I recall, there was only one single ever released, a cover of Neil Diamond’s Solitary Man. Maybe I’m wrong, this was 25 years ago, after all. Anyway I am truly looking forward to this. It’s my chance to say thanks to Andy and everyone who placed a seedling of faith in me all of those years ago. DOG 2, MONTH 6 Has it really been 6 months since I took on Mifune? It seems like every day that I ask myself why, and every day that the memory of Jazz gets tougher to live with. I had a dream with Jazz a week or so ago, and I think he was telling me that I need to move on (he did not get hit by the truck, just ran past it). Mifune still refuses to believe that I don’t want him to dig up the hydrangea and bamboo and backyard. Truly, I don’t. Well, I figure that we’ve got about 10-12 years to sort it out. He’s quite a celebrity at the local dog park and I even let him drive the truck home occasionally. What else… The new cd, THE HAND OF DOG, will be released in 2 days on Origin Records. It’s also on amazon.com and other places like that. We’re still trying to figure out a cd release party place and date. Stay tuned. The next project, featuring my good friend and longtime collaborator J Todd Dunnigan, goes along swimmingly. At least a dozen tracks tread water in some sort of completion or another. That’s it for now. Got to water the neighbor’s yard while they’re on a 2 week cruise up to Canada on their triamaran. Keep in touch ‘cuz I need that touch so much (Dirk Hamilton) luck pj         POSTED: 07-28-2005         (Salt) Water & Fire (Dancing) (Salt) Water and Fire (Dancing) When last we spoke, Research Assistant Mifune and I were packing up the truck in preparation for the annual family get together on the Oregon Coast. We spent Monday night at a friend’s house in Tacoma, so as to avoid morning rush hour traffic. Research Assistant Mifune thoughtfully deposited all of his fleas (dog park) into Dan’s carpet to give him something to remember us by. The drive was pretty uneventful. We took the scenic route by following the Oregon coastline from Astoria to points south. Having left pretty early and knowing that the beach house wouldn’t be ready until at least 4 pm, I decided to acclimate Research Assistant Mifune to the beach. We stopped in Seaside and took a stroll down to the water….. Things were ok at first. Research Assistant Mifune had no problems navigating the sand, but when we came to the water, he became suspicious. “This is like that stuff I didn’t like when we went camping, isn’t it?” he asked. “Not at all,” I replied. “That was a river, a small one at that. This is an ocean, the largest one, I believe. On top of that, the river was fresh water, snow runoff. This ocean is salty and full of Large Monsters.” “Oh,” he said as if that explained anything, “Then I guess it’s OK to follow you in …..” As soon as his paws touched the teeniest tiniest bit of water, he tried to bolt but I held tight. “OH, IT BURNS! IT BURNS” “Puppy, it’s water, it doesn’t burn. Remember the stuff you drink all day and the big plastic bowls you chew up all night?” I assured him. He eyed me warily. “Well, maybe that’s why I chew up the bowls, because it’s liquid fire and I’m trying to dissuade you from giving me daily doses, huh? And don’t call me ‘Puppy’, people are watching. My full and proper name is now Research Assistant Mifune Valentine Damnit Newman.” I waited for him to finish before I dragged him further into the water. Daylights burning and I have to pee now. As each tiny wave lapped his feet, he would leap vertically and try to run ashore. Then I’d pull him out a little further. Repeat. Repeat. By the time we made it back to the car, he was begging for a surfboard and wetsuit. I promised him a pail and bucket and maybe a cheeseburger. Next, we headed further south and stopped at Manhattan Beach. The beach was beautiful and deserted. I’m thinking, he has to go off leash sooner or later. Sooner is now, later could be disastrous. Okeyday. The second, I mean the absolute moment, that the connection between the collar and Mifune’s neck was broken, he bolted. Have I ever mentioned just how fast this fucking dog is? It’s like watching a thorobred horse fly around a racetrack. Instead of running down the beach, he ran up a dune and sprinted away in tall grass. Have you ever tried shouting against the wind with an ocean competing for attention? Yeah ….. 10 minutes later, he came trotting back like nothing happened. I suppose to him, nothing did. Fucker We hit the road again and arrived in Oceanside at about 3:30. I didn’t think the house was ready yet, so we drove to the beach parking lot. Now, if you’ve never been to Oceanside, let me tell you what little I remember about it. It’s 9 miles west of Tillamook (home of cheese and little else). Oceanside is the epitome of a one street town. There’s a café (lunch and dinner only), a coffee shop, a community center and a post office the size of my bathroom. There used to be a restaurant/bar, but it’s being renovated. There’s a hotel with maybe 10 rooms and some rental cottages. That’s Oceanside. We stayed at the same house as last year. A very nice 5 bedroom, 2 bath overlooking the ocean, but you have to walk through town to access the beach. Big beck, hot tub, TV and DVD player in every room. This year’s cast included my younger brother, his daughter and their 2 year-old pug named Blueberry. My older brother and his wife, her daughter and her 5 year-old twins. The parental units and their 6 year-old golden retriever. The next day, my cousin and aunt from Portland came down for a night. The year before I was pretty much in a vodka tonic haze, which pissed my mother off to no end. This year, I had a beer in hand at all times, not wanting to get dehydrated. As soon as we settled into the house and had a few beers, we hit the beach in earnest. This beach has 3 large rock formations just offshore, kind of like Cannon Beach. Mifune was interested in dragging them back to the house, but we were going the opposite direction. After about a half mile, I let Mifune off leash again and hoped for the best. Maybe the best was that he’d run away and I’d never see him again and I could get another plastic dog for the front yard. He ran off for about 30 seconds and then came back, ready to play in the waves. Cool. That was the routine for the next 3 days for me. Eat, beach, read, eat, beach, read. I had to leave Friday to get back to work. Everybody else stayed until the following Tuesday. Maybe next year…. Back home, after a few Tractor shows, I jumped back into festival mode with the Bite of Seattle, a 3 day celebration of food, crowds and shitty music at the Seattle Center. Since the emphasis is on food and not necessarily on entertainment, the booking tends to be a little…..desperate. I mean, the money is shit and who wants to wake up before sundown anyway? This is where I come in. Day 1 is load in day. There were between 5 and 9 stages (I never got a clear answer on that). I was mixing front of house at the Mural Amphitheatre stage. I didn’t know my crew beforehand. The monitor guy looked like 2 people I know. He’s too short to be one of them and not 1/10th the asshole as the other! The 3rd man was the designated “Patch,” making sure that the microphones were where they were supposed to be. I stress supposed to be. Anybody can do sound. Well, just about anybody. I figure that if I can do it, being the stupidest and laziest person on the face of the planet, then the gig’s up for grabs. You don’t even have to like music. The idiot who did sound while I was at the Triple Door hated music, judging from the way he mixed and treated the artists. This is why I drink. Anyway, we unloaded the truck and began to set up quickly. There was no reason that we shouldn’t have finished by 3 pm at the very latest Except Except that during the free-for-all that we call load in, people were cannibalizing gear from stage to stage. If you weren’t given what you needed at first, somebody else had it and could deal with it later. Apparently, that’s what happened to my drive snake and extension cables. I could only get one side of the mains to come on at a time, due partly to the fact that I didn’t have electricity to both sides of the stage at the same time until late in the afternoon. I troubleshot with the best of them for hours. My best guess was that the digital processor/x-over was messed up, even though it worked the previous afternoon. We went back to the shop and I got a cheap replacement and a beer. By the time we returned to the grounds, we had less than 30 minutes to get EVERYTHING up and running before the union stagehands started into serious overtime. Fuckers My friend Mike was on the main stage and swung by to give me a hand. After explaining my troubles and what I’d done, he told me that he had spent the previous day making sure that I wouldn’t have any problems. He set up the system in the parking lot back at the shop and said that he even ran a special return snake for me…. “What snake? The one running across the lawn?” I asked. “ No no no,” replies he, “This one!” Mike spent the next 10 minutes discovering that the cannibals had, indeed, struck early and left me Snakeless in Seattle. We ended up running a couple of mic cables 150 feet from the stage to my console and all was well Until Until Day 2 This is where we scramble across the grounds trying to recover what was stolen the day before, except that of course it was in use at that particular moment. Oh Wait Did I mention that my car pretty much blew up on the way to the gig? Oh yeah, that Anyway, one of my cooling system hoses decided to shear itself in half between parking lots? I decided not to worry about it for the next 11 hours… Back to my stage, I finally get a copy of the stage book, with all of the technical information I needed for each of the bands for the next 3 days. I have every cover and tribute band that I’ve ever heard of (and some which I hadn’t known existed). I had a Led Zeppelin tribute band followed by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The next night was Rush and then AC/DC! So, my stage starts off with 2 covers bands (surprise!), 1 good and one not so good. Shape of things to come. They are followed by a couple of indie-type bands. Nothing to write home about, but not worth loading the 12 gauge for. Now the fun begins. We have a 4-piece jam band setting up, but no drummer to be seen. All of the bands get 40 minutes starting at the top of the hour with a 20-minute turnaround. Well, we’re about 10 minutes into their set time and they start playing w/o the drummer. At one point, the bass player asks if there are any drummers in the house who want to sit in. Seconds later, a drummer is up and the band continues. It turns out to be their drummer, who says he was caught in traffic, but he had time to stop and get coffee. He was fired on the spot after the gig. Following them was a pretty good singer-songwriter from Austin who hired some jazzer buddies of mine to back him up. Another good local band and then the 70’s returned. The Zeppelin band had all of the guys in The Song Remains The Same era costumes. Now, I’m a big Led Zeppelin fan and I found them pretty entertaining, except for the lead singer who looked as much like Robert Plant as I do. They had their own sound guy who did not impress me at all and I would have him back the next night as well… Lynyrd Skynyrd (sic) closed Day 1. They were ok, but the snare drum took a dump right before they played. We were able to replace it 5 seconds before the band started. Saturday kicked off with a Caribbean steel drum band that thought they were supposed to show up at noon, not start then. OOOPS! More folkyhornbandDoobieBrothersSantanajambands. An Afropop/Reggae band missing their keyboard player started late and ended very late. Keyboardist showed up halfway through the set. I wonder if he got fired, too? Hazy Flashback Insert. In 1977, I saw Bruce Springsteen in L.A. Before the show started, there was the usual goings on, stuff flying through the air. This one Frisbee caught my eye. It left the main floor and was headed to the upper levels. Its trajectory put it for a crash intersection with this guy who was talking to someone, not paying any attention to the Frisbee. I’m watching this, waiting for the guy to get bonked on the head. At the last second, without looking away, he snakes his hand out and grabs the Frisbee and keeps on talking as if nothing happened! I bring this up because, after the next band, which starts with a couple of Cheap Trick covers, shit starts flying. Beach balls the size of Volkswagens knocking little kids over. I was looking down at the console and glanced up to see a Frisbee cross the stage. Out of the corner of my right eye, I see one heading straight for me. Trying to keep my cool and not look at it, I wait until the last second and jab out with my left hand and catch it without looking up. A number of people saw it coming and were probably hoping for me to get my nose broken. No such luck. Without breaking stride, I tossed it on top of my effects rack and kept mixing. Also, during this band’s set, I noticed a man and his children selling bottles of water for a buck walking through the lawn. Normally, I don’t pay attention to pirate merchants, but since this festival’s main sponsor was a water company selling their water for $2, I was expecting security to converge upon them with the swift hand of injustice. Nope. Just something I saw and filed away. OK The Rush tribute band had the same bassist as the Zeppelin band yesterday and the same mixer, but he was better tonight. Right before the AC/DC band went on, we discovered that someone had stolen half of the cymbals from our drum kit onstage. Fuckers There is a PARTICULARLY NASTY CIRCLE OF HELL for those who steal musical instruments, even drums! We were able to replace those, again with only seconds to spare. Whisk them off and put up the Fire Dancers! Go home. Oh, did I remember to mention that first thing Saturday morning I lost about half of the signal/power to my house right stack? Probably not. Absolutely no reason and/or explanation for it. I was able to make a quick fix that lasted the end of the weekend (I hope!) Sunday (Happy Day) starts out with a swing band. Why do these nuts wear all black for an outdoor event under a very hot sky with no cover on the stage? Another Seattle anomaly. A crappy jam band, a very good white soul group and finally another 60’s party band. Now I leave so I can go to the Tractor. One of my all-time favorite artists played that night. Stuart Davis. If you’ve never heard of him, check him out! www.stuartdavis.com The only way to briefly describe him is a cross between Gandhi and Satan with an acoustic guitar! Tuesday, I helped my friends load up a 40’ cargo container with their worldly goods in preparation for their impending move to Hawaii. I was invited to fly over, live in a tent and spend a year or so helping them build their new home…. Maybe….. Aloha! Luck pj         POSTED: 07-16-2005         Word Up, Yo...and Other Urban Myths Word Up, Yo! And Other Urban Myths! I said that in earshot of a bartender yesterday and she politely/frostily/eyerollingacidtingevoicedly instructed me never to say that to her again….or maybe just never say it…period. What’s it mean, anyway? Panzer learned how to say it in Russian and it makes even less sense to them… Ah, summer in Seattle. Sunburns, white puffy flesh sizzling to order, the scent of sunscreen wafting across the dance floor. As is, we forget how to drive in the rain or snow first thing every fall, we forget the powerful intoxicating powers of the sun for those 2 or 3 weeks we see it in the Pacific Northwest. I tried to experience it myself so as to report back to you, dear readers, and prepare you for the pleasures and dangers of this alluring heavenly body. At first, I tried my hand at outdoor festivals, but from reading my last missive, you’ll recall how I was forced at gun and stress ballpoint to stay inside a small trailer, out of reach of the heat rays emanating from the skies. Next, we tried our hand at camping. Last Monday, research assistant Mifune and I boarded the pickup and headed east, always East towards the mountains. We ended up outside of Roslyn, WA. (where they filmed Northern Exposure) in a groovy little campground called Red Hat or Red Mountain or Red Somethingorother. By the time we unloaded our scientific equipment (beer), it was raining and darkish. Got the tent up in respectable time and the fire caught on the first match! Now comes the part where I put my finger where I shouldn’t have and burnt the living shit out of it! Extremely nice 2nd degree burn on my left index finger. Suffice to say that I won’t be playing guitar for a while. Tuesday’s experiments were hampered by research assistant Mifune’s bad behavior, as in his saying, “Take me off the leash, Dad, and I’ll conduct field research the likes of which you haven’t seen before!” “You’ll run off and I’ll never see you again,” says I. “Not true,” says he, eyeing the highway uphill from the campsite. Still leashed, we head down to a little beach down from the tent. Apparently, it was Mifune’s first glimpse at open water and was he ever confused! He would bark at rocks that I tossed into the water, but when he quite daintily dipped his paws into the water, he freaked out and almost snapped my arm in half. Aside from that, the sun spent half the day hiding behind small, insignificant looking clouds. Decided not to burn my finger again. Wednesday, we awoke to startlingly beautiful blue cloudless skies just in time to pack up and leave. Harrumph! Back home, a friend from out of town stayed for a few days and that’s all it took. 2 days of the backyard and beverages and I have a healthy tan/burn/full body-peel happening. Other than that, things have slowed down to a brisk pace. More festivals are coming up, but my phone remains silent. Most likely, word of my demands for Samurai swords has spread throughout the production community and everybody is pitching in to get me A VERY NICE AND VERY EXPENSIVE AND VERY VERY VERY SHARP set and they don’t want to call until an appropriate pair has been procured. How thoughtful. But I wouldn’t wait too long, kids. My calendar is filling up. No Really I’ve got lots to do Seriously Work on the front house continues. We’ve filled up our 3rd 15 yard dumpster. Most of the framing is done, we’ve begun wiring and plumbing can’t be far behind. After we’re done there, we move on to my remodel, which includes a new recording studio addition and quadrupling my bathroom (can you say party shower?). The release date for the new record is August 23. I’ll add a link for Origin Records and merch stuff. The Hand of Dog t-shirts are almost gone. The original batch just has the picture of Jazz w/o text. Maybe do 2 runs, one with and one w/o text. A couple of great shows passed through the Tractor last week. We were visited by the Campbell Brothers, whose Gospel tinged Sacred Steel shook dust from the rafters. Local pedal steeler Dan Tyack sat in and added to the filling jarring experience. Later in the week, Chuck Prophet and Pete Krebs rocked the joint. And last night…. Last night…. Boy Anyway, last night was Link Wray, a most famous rock guitar pioneer (credited for having invented the power chord). So Anyway We paid the 50% deposit weeks ago. Wednesday night, we get a call from the road manager (?) saying that Link won’t go onstage unless he gets paid in cash beforehand. No problem, old school Chuck Berry stuff. The road manager reiterates that he wants to be PAID IN FULL, as in 100% of the dough. But no, say we. We paid the deposit. The check has been cashed. You seem to have misunderstood the dynamic of the deal….. No, reply they, we are QUITE AWARE of how things work. Although we cannot explain the internal combustion engine or make sense of most of what Einstein was babbling about, we FULLY COMPREHEND the concept of NO CASH NO SHOW. So, we wonder, what became of the 50% we already paid. Well, reply they, the agent and we are parting ways. “YEAH AND SO?” says we. YEAH AND SO NO MONEY NO SHOW! After speaking with the agent and being reassured that the show will go on (where have I heard that before and why am I searching for my wallet and my scrotum?), we await the day (and have ALL OF THE CASH ON HAND JUST IN CASE….) Because they lent us a guitar amp, Eddie and the Helldregs was the 1st opening act on the bill. Eddie wants so desperately to be Iggy Pop and the Helldregs wouldn’t know the Stooges if they beat them up in an alley after a gig. This being said, they were pretty cool. Loud but not earwaxmeltingly so, animated but not cartoonish. What I probably missed by not hanging out on the Sunset Strip in the last millennium. Up after Eddie was a rockabilly band that I’ve worked with numerous times over the years. And then So I’ve been stuck at the console, so I have no idea if Link and the Wraymen are here at all. Making my way backstage, I encounter the drummer of the above-mentioned Wraymen. I point out to him the drum kit that I had partially assembled and told him he could have the stage. He nodded and looked away. I then ran the risk of repeating myself when I pointed to the drums then the stage and back at him. Again, he nodded. AHA! A psychic connection was made and in his own silent way, he said “Do it for me, ass monkey!” Fine…the sooner the show is up, the sooner the show is over. Shall I be proven wrong? Read on, literary spelunkers, read on… OK, I set up the drum kit and the bass rig, mic the Marshall half stack and retreat to the board. Wait It can’t be that simple I fight through the small but vicious crowd and find the drummer. “What’s your lineup again?” I ask. “We’re in Bellingham tomorrow night….” It takes only a few minutes to convince him that I really want to know who’s going to be onstage tonight, so he relents. “It starts as a quartet, but when Link plays, it’s only 3 people.” “Um… Link isn’t playing guitar?” He thinks about that for a minute. “Well, not at first. See, the bass player plays guitar before Link comes up, the bass player disappears and the singer sits down.” OK, so what part of Idon’tknowwhatthefuckyou’retalkingabout don’t you understand? I have to send him into the dressing room for a Drummer-to-English dictionary and/or somebody who can clue me into what’s going on. After 3 round trips, I discover that Link’s trio is actually 6 people and an OompaLoompa. Alexander (he who made the revealing phone call) starts out on guitar then switches to bass when Link comes onstage (as per drummer boy). He has a Nelson haircut and is wearing a black fluffy billowy blouse. Alexander also requires another guitar amp even though he’s using the same amp that Link will use and won’t need it when he switches to bass. “But why does he need it?” I ask Murphy, the Tractor manager. “Because I told him we had it.” “But he doesn’t even need it,” I inform him. “But he wants it!” I send Drummer Boy back into the dressing room for what turns out to be 7th time for info. DB (Drummer Boy) says that Alexander probably won’t use it (NO SHIT) but wants it anyway, even though he wants it on the WRONG SIDE OF THE STAGE for his use. OK (Remember: The sooner they go on, the sooner I go home.) DB is kind of tall, thin, goofy mustache and beret. To what end, I’m not sure. Bass player #1 is seemingly nondescript, but that will prove to be a false assumption later. The band begins. The play LOUD. They play with PASSION. They play SHITTY 60’S COVER TUNES. I thought DB mentioned a singer….. OH Here he comes It’s thin Elvis. He’s in all black, black tunic with a leopard skin collar. He, like his compadres, is competent but COMPLETELY SUCKS SHIT. After 6 or 7 songs, Alexander primes the crowd for THE MAIN EVENT. THE REASON WE’RE ALL HERE. THE REASON YOU CAN GO TO SEE HARVEY MANDEL TOMORROW NIGHT. LINK WRAY Link hobbles onstage with the help of Alexander and what turns out to be his girlfriend or wife or ? Link is short, stocky, old. Link has a ponytail halfway down his back. Link has a leather jacket. LINK IS OLD. It takes a while to put his guitar on him and figure out the amp. Link begins with Rumble, his signature tune. It goes over great. He does 3 or 4 more, each one becoming more challenging to get in tune. Oh, did I mention that the wife/girlfriend is now the tambourine player? Typical wife/girlfriend gig. I’m sure that’s how Linda McCartney got her start. OK, after 5 tunes Link hits one of his patented Power Chords and drops his guitar on the stage then shuffles off. Quite the dramatic ending, but why is he ending now? After about 10 minutes of crowd noises, Link is dragged back onstage, does one more tune, drops his guitar again and then reverts back to his subatomic level. Show Over. Or is it? Total time of various Link Wray music(ians) onstage, oh, about 45 minutes. The contract, which obviously doesn’t mean shit to them anymore (as if it ever did) called for a 75-90 minute show. They must’ve thought that included opening acts as well. So, I’m thinking that the show’s over and I zero the console. But wait…Alexander is back onstage with his guitar. Why? Is he going to show some awestruck concertgoer a few of his powerful licks or pose for a beefcake photo? No, they’re setting up to play again! WHAT THE FUCK? I find Dan and Murphy (club owner and manager, respectively). During the show, they were both upstairs performing quality control on a bottle of cognac. Murphy just shook his head and said he didn’t want to talk about it. I find Dan rummaging through a box. I ask him what’s going on because Alexander said he specifically told them to go back on. He looks at me and said something about a light bulb in the men’s bathroom… OK, I reset the console on the fly and they still only play 3 songs, old fucking surf tunes. “This is why I drink!” I mutter to anyone within earshot. Enough. We leave for the Oregon coast in a few days for the annual family vacation (my favorite oxymoron). Luck pj         POSTED: 06-22-2005         Last Man Standing & Other Love Songs LAST MAN STANDING AND OTHER LOVE SONGS Sunday Father’s Day June something. Nearing the end of Fremont Fair. The last band just quit. The radio is now coming alive with stage managers, trouble monkeys, crazed volunteers and vendors of all levels of vehicular range. Here’s how it works…. Festival ends, stages and booths get torn down, garbage is collected, signs removed and pedestrians mowed down. We had over 300 food and crafts vendors, 4 music stages, an art car caravan, a catapult ride and rogue human organ harvesting teams. A broiling hippie cluster fuck with overflowing trashcans and portapotties under the hot summer sun. All of the vendors are lying through their hummus spackled teeth in an attempt to breach the ground to load their crap out. Never mind that the grounds are still packed with fairgoers. “Of course we paid our percentage. Of course the vendor manager cleared us for entry.” The owner of the production company can’t even drive his car onsite, but your piece of shit Olds Delta 88 spewing gas and oil on the ground is getting a police escort. It’s sheer chaos and I’m sitting here monitoring the radio listening to it getting chaosier. We have 16 individual channels on the radio, but for some reason we’ve just dropped to 1. It’s like I’m listening to a full blown invasion of my borders, the guards trying to hold back the enemy, but they’re ceaseless in their desire to overrun us. They all say that they’ve been given permission to enter! Did I mention that last night, Saturday, we hosted a party in the base compound for the former head of this festival? Or that my day began at 6 am and this party started at 10 pm? 15 pizzas and untold cases of beer and other intoxicants. I left at about 9:30 on my bicycle and didn’t look back. Of course, it took me until 2 am to fall asleep, then back here at 8 am. It’s now 8:02 pm. I spent part of the day composing haiku and eating crappy festival food. I think I ate part of somebody’s cat from a Vietnamese place yesterday and there was what tasted like lawn clippings in some tabouli from a Lebanese stand. It’s 8:15 now. Radio traffic is as bad as vehicular. People are jumping channels, creating their own pirate radio stations. Reception sucks. 2 hours ago, I was nodding off. Now I’m wide-awake and going to wait this thing out. 45 minutes into load out and already 50% of the vendors are gone! I’m flashing back to all of the festivals I’ve worked in the past and my levels of involvement thereof. Bumbershoot, WOMAD, Bite of Seattle and Taste of Tacoma. Usually, I do 1 thing only. Sound, backline, office manager. If I’m a Production Manager, yeah, I’m all over the place but more often than not have enough people covering their specific areas that everything’s pretty much laid out like a jigsaw puzzle and all I’ve got to do is sand down the wrong bits to make it fit (a solution for every problem!). Much Later… It’s all done but the crying. Except Of course For the lost dogs and the kidnapping? And the police and the pizza and Budweiser in metal bottles? After about 17 hours on the last day of the fair, it becomes obvious that one of the production vendors is not going to swing by and remove the stages. So, everybody lock and load and move them so traffic and commerce can flow Monday morning. I had some pizza and a couple of beers (the second one had to be in a glass bottle, the aluminum one freaked me out) and then climbed on my bike and sailed into the sunset… Post-Fair Script It’s now Tuesday morning. Raining like Hell. It’s a good thing I didn’t go camping after all. Luckily, there’s plenty to do around the old homestead, like more construction work on the main house and plenty of guitar parts to play on the new tracks. John Bishop, uberlord of Origin Records, sent me the mock-up of my new cd cover, and boy howdy, is it ever spanky! I hope the music sounds as good as the graphics! Release is slated for August. I’ll let you know if there are any officially sanctioned happenings associated with it. Luck pj         POSTED: 06-18-2005         The voice of god, lunch and other mysteries explained The Voice of god, Lunch and Other Mysteries Explained Doing what I do is a 2-edged sword. Sometimes, the music (sic) is so bad I want to rip my ears from my head and feed them to Mifune so I cant get them back for a few hours until thoroughly digested. Where I have no real problem with people expressing themselves through music, I just wish they’d wait until they’ve had the chance to listen to it through somebody else’s ears, preferably someone who either isn’t related or interested in getting laid by said “artist.” This being said, I’m happy to announce that the other side of the coin does exist and sometimes lands face up in your palm. Case in point, I heard the voice of god last night. She sang to me, shook her hips at me and offered me some watermelon after the show. Her name is Juana Molina. She hails from Argentina. Dan, my boss at the Tractor, had been raving about her for months. Unfortunately, due to apparent scheduling conflicts, I was going to miss the show. Fortunately for scheduling conflicts, I was able to work the show. Juana Molina is considered an Electronica artist. What’s that mean, anyway? She has a bunch of electronic effects and synthesizers onstage. Big Deal. So do I. Does that make me Electronica or Consumera? Armed with what looked like a late 60’s Martin 000-16 and 2 synthesizers (a Korg 01-W and a Karma) plus some other gadgets, she weaves a lush swirling tapestry of sonic lushness. Words left me, partly due to 5 beers and 2.5 pain killers (back flared up all day with no relief in sight). Sampling and looping her voice around guitar and keyboards, she sang songs in Spanish and French to me and me alone. Other people were there, but she sang to me alone. It was a Beatles moment. I also heard half of a turkey sandwich call to me. It was my leftover lunch and it was as delicious as Juana’s music. 2 nights earlier, I lucked out again by working with D’Gary, an incredible guitarist from Madagascar. I had worked with him a few times before at the Triple Door, but always had to run around and not catch his entire set. This time, stuck behind the console, I was rewarded with another hypnotic evening of magic. D’Gary was joined onstage by Mario, a singer and percussionist. The amount and quality of sound these 2 men generated was astounding. You must check these 2 artists out. Alas, no turkey sandwich Monday. I’ve been doing this so long that I get jaded more often than not. It’s great to be brought back to Earth and remember just why I do this. The day after the Korean offensive, I got to work with another of my musical heroes, Peter Himmelman. I cannot say enough about the brilliance of Peter, his music, lyrics and unique performances. I’ve been working Peter’s shows since the early 90’s at the Backstage. Solo or with a band, he is one of the most captivating musical forces I’ve been fortunate to witness. One highlight of this show was when some guy walks up to the side of the stage and hands Peter a note. This note turns out to be an autograph. His autograph! The guy turns out to be a Caldwell brother of Marshall Tucker band Fame. Of course, the 2 Caldwell brothers from the band died years ago, but the band still perform with a few of the original members. The story, this night, goes something like this…. This Caldwell boy, Tim, was supposedly coerced by his parents to cash in on the Marshall Tucker band brand by having Tim, who has never sung before a crowd in his life, join the band. They are supposed to play a gig in Seattle in November or December. It’s May. Anyway Tim is slightly drunk (kind of pregnant?) and decides to give Peter an autograph. Peter drags the poor kid onstage and tries to make him sing a Marshall Tucker song. The kid freezes. So Peter changes it to Ska, then Reggae and finally Klezmer. The kid’s eyes are bugging out of his skull and Peter keeps the heat on for a while before Tim flees from the stage. I do some research and discover that Tim is not nor has ever been in the lineup. Whatever Days later, I’m back in Festival Mode. This time, I’m radio base for the Fremont Fair, the summer kick-off neighborhood party freak fest. Summer Solstice Parade run by amateurs, nude bicycle riders, freaks, battling dog owners and assorted food vendors. There are 4 stages running simultaneously along with buskers, pick pockets, fainting prescription drug abusing drunks and more naked people. It’s the usual cast of production folk, most of them leftover from the Korean debacle. Radio base consists mostly of sitting on my ass being verbally abused by any and everybody with a radio, cell phone or juice can and string. There’s a Kid’s stage boasting an act called planet of the Puppets. Everybody hates clowns and has no use for hippies, except for practicing negligent driving maneuvers. 14 plus hour days, the weather hasn’t made up what it wants to do yet and the food is catch as catch can. I was the grill master for dinner last night and I had someone’s over salted cat with noodles and cabbage for lunch today from a Vietnamese joint. My day consists mostly of saying “Go For Base” and waiting until they quit squawking, repeat what they say and as soon as they realize that their answer was part of the question, hang up. Only 3 days on this gig and then hopefully going camping next week. A book, a case of beer and a few steaks and I’ll be happy. OK, I’m tired of tired people yelling at everybody else. 2 hours left today. OK Luck pj         POSTED: 05-17-2005         Minimum of Four Letter Words 5.17.05 Minimum of Four Letter Words WOW! I was going to start with FUCK!!! 100 pt bold taking up page 1, but I figured every clown that Google searched that would hit this. I apologize in advance if my cursing gets out of hand, but it’s been that kind of day and, except for the decibel level, doesn’t look like it’s going to change soon. Tuesday Got to sleep late, alarm went off at 4:30 jolting me 6 inches off of my hide-a-bed-of-nails. The mattress (sic) is maybe an inch thick and actually left bruises on my body. We got to the tent, which is actually only 100’x200’ instead of what I stated earlier, at 7:30 and never looked back. I don’t remember it raining very hard last night, but the tent did! There were 3 pools gathered on the roof, dimpling down like a pregnant blue whale. That the canvas did not burst was a miracle in itself, but that might’ve exacerbated matters further. The tent poles were fully askew and the pool of water above the stage actually had the roof resting on the light truss! Remember that the roof was a full 4 feet above the truss when we left. We cranked down the sound towers and I called one of the guys from the stage and lighting company to find out where the motor control was so we could take the light truss down. He yammered a bit and suggested that we wait until he could send a few of his guys our way. The local tent people arrive and set pumps on the roof allowing the water to flow down through hoses. At first, they set the hoses at the base of the tent so the water ran back into the tent! After a few very dirty looks and some pointing, they ran the hoses to the parking lot, away from us. Yep, that’s water pulling the canopy down onto the lights. When the sound company showed up, the crew chief looked up and then pulled his crew out, then called his office to check on their insurance. We were scheduled to see the first band for rehearsal at noon, but decided to move everybody back 2 hours. My bottom line was that if there were a single drop of water hitting the stage, I wouldn’t let the performers on. This decision was, I’m happy to report, backed up by my boss. I missed out on the conversations with Tent Boy when he finally arrived, but I believe the gist of the conversations left him toothless in a corner with not much fight in him. The local tent monkeys, Dog blesses them, were here as long as us today (16.5 hours) and did everything conceivable to remedy the situation we were in. Besides the leaks, there was quite a bit of standing water on the asphalt floor in pools trying to find the few drains scattered about. Remember, this is a parking lot. The Koreans. Yes, we have no Koreans. It wasn’t as bad as I was told. Fine, they didn’t seem to care much for the other bands or teams, but language barrier aside, they were all sweethearts and here for the same reason we were. To put on a fucking show. I was having issues with the leaders (?) of the groups, partly because the translators didn’t know production speak and maybe partly because they are arrogant fucks. Musicians and dancers…go figure! The only ethnic groups I have a more difficult time with are actors, radio people, record company people (a dying breed, I’m assured) and record company people. Everybody else who tells me that they know how to do my job better and if I could get them a coffee or that blonde’s phone number are just plain stupid. This I can appreciate and ignore. Anyway The first group (the Gangwon Province Arts ensemble) arrives. Musicians and dancers! Great. It was dancers first and I had to clear the entire stage (after we had completely wired it). Very cool traditional Korean dances, great costumes and props, They did about 5 numbers under the direction of a short pony tailed bespectacled old old guy with bad lipstick who made grunty noises to signal the dancers. Next up was the band. There are 18 or 20 of them, all with traditional instruments (except the synth). I personally enjoy Traditional Asian music and this is very good Except For when the bandleader insisted that that be the order. Dancers, then singers. Fine. Except (again) that it only takes 3 minutes to completely strike the stage and at least 25 to reset. Come on, there’s 20 of ‘em, and then, of course, they want a complete sound check every time they play. Please, give us credit for writing down the console settings. Maybe we’ve done this once or twice before…. The sets are either 30 or 60 minutes long during the festival. You do the math. I finally convince them to switch the order, although I still don’t think they understood why! The second band (Balkwang) arrives. They are anything but traditional or ever vaguely Korean sounding, but what do I know? When I bartended in Irish pubs, I didn’t always play Diddley music (Trad Irish). When people asked me why, I told them to take a guess what they listened to in bars in Dublin. I’m guessing U2 instead of the Clancy Brothers. I’m not quite sure how to describe their act. They all wear silly jumpsuits and stupid grins. The music is a percussive cacophony. When they do their version of “Flight of the Bumble Bee,” the crowd goes ape shit and we grit our teeth. It’s circus music for the blind and we’re all pretty sick of it. If it weren’t for the fact that they are incredible nice folks, the body count would’ve risen into triple digits by now. It gets worse? Wednesday The 3rd of the Korean bands (Goo-oun Mong) check in today. They supposedly played on the same instruments as Balkwang, but with even more shit. A Marshall stack, an SVT rig, another synth, 4 tympanis, gongs, the better part of another drum kit, a glockenspiel in addition to 2 marimbas and a set of vibes. We’re busting our asses to come up with all of this stuff, but finally get it all. Seriously, we’re shitting blood to get it here in time for their arrival and tech rehearsal. They show up and say they don’t need it; what’s onstage is just fine. Somebody’s going to be hurt. The first 2 days (Wednesday & Thursday) feature matinee shows for school kids and private events at night. The first night was a party for Asiana Airline (probably the largest sponsor of the festival). We’re all in dress black. 8 hours or walking on asphalt in my dress shoes has thrown my back into seizure. My tennis shoes blew out and all I’m left with are my hiking boots. These I never wear for 16 or 17 hours at a time, and never on asphalt. My feet are killing me and I’ve got some nasty shin splints as well. Bitch Bitch Bitch. We somehow manage to pull the program off. Very happy clients. They admitted that they had low expectations of the evening just because. This makes me slightly cocky, but I still see trouble ahead. Dig, these are VERY LARGE, COMPLEX AND LABOR INTENSIVE BANDS. If we were doing rock or jazz groups, I could do 4 or 5 in my sleep. The instruments and levels vary only slightly and any adjustments can be made on the fly. The musicians are usually drunk by show time anyway, so they don’t notice anything. The opening gala on Thursday had 2 of the international bands, plus a shitload of locals, including a 60-piece chorale group. Almost immediately, I’m 20 then 30 minutes behind schedule. By the end of the evening, almost an hour late. I expect to be fired or have to commit seppuku. No such luck. Please note, when I’m talking about this, it’s not just me. I have 2 stagehands and the sound company has between 4 and 6 techs. Plus, there are supposed to be 3 translators, but they’ve either wandered off and don’t speak English for shit. There were a few that were VERY CUTE, but chose to station themselves at front of house before sneaking off to the bar or buffet. Everybody understands the impossible task I have stupidly taken on and either congratulates or pities me. For some reason, most of the companies that have booths are giving away stress balls. I spent the last 2 days with one in each hand. Whenever anybody saw me without one, they would run off and re-supply me. Saturday was a COMPLETE CLUSTER FUCK! Even setting up 4 microphones takes 30 minutes! Why haven’t they fired me yet? The fuck ups just won’t stop. People who aren’t even involved with production go out of their way to come backstage and fuck things up. My only consolation is that absolutely nobody else could work within the timeframe I’ve been given under the identical circumstances and succeed. It’s 1:37 Sunday morning. I’m back at the tent in 6 hours. It’s the last day of the festival. I hope to be out by 7 pm, pick up my dog and then be home by 10. 2:06 Sunday morning. The bars have closed and my room is now hosting 5 more people shooting craps, doing kung fu and something else. There’s somebody I’ve never seen before sleeping on my bed. Sunday Rain. Everything’s wet again. Nobody bothered to shave (or shower, we were very late today). Just as I was waiting for the Kimchee stand to open, someone brings me a to go container of chicken fried steak and eggs. All I need now is the Sunday paper and 3 Bloody Marys. My friend Panzer came down. He ate Korean pancakes and noodle, tells me I look like shit and leaves. I can’t even count the minutes until the end because it’s a full tilt schedule with events on all 3 stages, one firing after the other. My turnaround times have been cut in half, but after the first 2 acts, it’s all tracks and dancers. It’s over. The second the thanks and goodbyes have been announced from stage, the entire tent goes into teardown mode. People and heavy things are flying everywhere. I finally get somebody to fire me so I can go. There’s a whole box of stress balls by the door. They are now mine. Obviously, I only remember when I’m 10 miles up the freeway that I left them by the entrance. I’d like to state for the record that the crew I worked with are insane. They are incredibly talented and hard working people. I am humbled in their presence. They are my friends. Thank you for watching my back and covering my ass. Thank you. Luck pj ps…. There are a lot of episodes which didn’t make these pages due to the fact that names would be named and I never got the Samurai swords promised early on. Ask me sometime over a beer and I’ll eat cheese. I’ll put more pictures up soon.         POSTED: 05-10-2005         Travel Advisory 101 Travel Advisory 101 Sunday Mother’s Day May something The problem with pretzels is that it’s hard to tell when they’re stale. Ignoring the “Born On Date” or “Best if Used By,” what’s a pretzel anyway? Flour, water & salt? What’s to go bad? Look at Matzo. Same ingredients, maybe no salt…the Hebrews slogged around the desert for 40 years and nowhere in the bible do they complain of stale Matzos. What’s with the pretzels then, you ask? Am I sitting on my couch, cold beer and unquestionably fresh pretzel within reach, watching something mildly entertaining on a widescreentelevisionhdtvstereonomakethatsurround7.1eventhoughionlyhave2earsbutdoesmynosemouthotherholeinmyheadcount? No Consider this. I am in room something or other of the fabulous Comfort Inn in fabulous Sea-Tac Washington. Where and why, ask you? Where is easy. Sea-Tac is located between Seattle and Tacoma along the fabulous I-5 corridor. (Sorry, just corrected…we’re in Federal Way at the Commons which used to be the Sea-Tac Mall, or maybe still is…dunno) Why….. OK, we’ll jump into the Way Back machine a week or 2 and pick up where I left off. Where was I? Right, back from Portland and already had a weekend with Midkiff and corporate fun. So why not have more? OK But, how about no. How about NO! How about I had about the WORST GIG OF MY LIFE! That’s a bit closer to the truth. Without going into too much detail (there still are innocents to be protected and a paycheck lost in the mail…), it was another gala fundraising auction. This one was done in the round, which comes with it’s own issues. Long story short, gear failed, cues missed, buttons that shouldn’t have been pushed and knobs that shouldn’t have been turned ended up pushed and turned. A few things actually were my fault, others not. Did I mention that it was the worst gig of my life? I ended up either quitting or getting fired, doesn’t really matter. Stevie Boy was very cool over the phone, but…. Why does he call me a few days later and offer me more work? Apparently when I quit or was fired, he says, “Did I say that?” Thinking back, no, but that’s no reason to be loading shit into a hotel at 5 in the morning. Besides, where is my theoretical last check? Everybody else got theirs? Hmmmm , maybe I did get fired. Sea-Tac. Why am I in Sea-Tac already? Yes, I’m working for the HanWoo-Ri Korean Sports and Cultural Festival and possible kick-off of WWIII! From what I’ve heard, not only do the Koreans hate just about everybody else, they can’t stand much of themselves either. Rumors of church soccer games turning into brawls! Like Shaolin Soccer? Now that’s entertainment! OK, it’s Monday night now. After 15 fun-filled hours of walking on pavement (we’re in a parking lot), I’m back in the room. I’m ok with the hotel. I remember staying at its cousin in Leavenworth a couple of years ago on a cross-country ski trip. Indoor pool, decent continental breakfast, nice staff (nearly human). This (returning back to the room) was probably the only good thing that happened today. Let me explain… So, I mentioned the parking lot and the mall. What I failed to mention so far is that we’re in a tent. A big tent. A 100’ x 400’ tent. Kind of looks like a circus tent (seems appropriate so far). The tent came from a company in California. Southern California, really. I mention this because it doesn’t (usually historically normally) rain down there as opposed to the Pacific Northwest, where precipitation is one of our biggest exports. It’s been raining pretty good for the last few days and the tent has been leaking pretty good for the last few days as well. Water is pouring (well…spewing) directly onto the lighting truss above the main stage, dousing a few lights before hitting the stage deck. Water is also falling onto the Pavilion stage. My guess is that when we build the 2nd stage, it’ll be raining there, too. The installer from the tent company was a day late arriving for the build Friday afternoon. They barely got it up in time for the stage, truss and lights to go in Saturday morning. Sound and more lights came in Sunday. The second the tent was up, the installer disappeared and turned his cell phone and pager off. Fucker. The local contractor has been paged hourly and seems to have turned theirs off as well. They did a piss poor job erecting the tent. Once water started accumulating on the roof, the poles started listing noticeably. Not good when you realize that the lighting truss is hanging from these poles and that the sound towers are right below. Why, you ask, am I going on and on about this? Good question. The short and simple answer is that the tent is a GIANT PIECE OF SHIT THAT LEAKS AND IS PROBABLY GOING TO FALL DOWN ON TOP OF ME, and if it doesn’t kill me, it will in all certainty fuck me out of another paycheck! Did I mention that I’m here for 8 days? In theory, anyway. The devious fuckers I’m working for don’t pay me until the day after the gigs over, and then only half at that. The other half comes 2 weeks later. I should live so long! When I return to the tent in 7 or so hours, there is supposed to be the A-Team of tent monkeys ready to scale the canopy and seal it up. The first group of Koreans arrived this afternoon and looked at the puddles on the stage. I assured them that when they returned for tech rehearsals at noon on Tuesday the stage would be dry. Tent monkeys better not make a liar out of me. You know, I realize that if I chronicle this entire event, it’ll be the size of a Stephen King short story. Read on! Last bit of tent intrigue for the night. Dr. Z has chosen to camp out in Oliver’s and my room (smart boy) instead of sleeping in the tent tonight (questionably smart boy). After reading up to this point, he has filled me in with more bullshit about the tent build, including intentional dereliction, shoddy construction, broken or incorrect tools for the job. At one point in the evening, I’m watching a fool on a forklift ramming the poles in an attempt to straighten them. Fuck, I’m going to die in a big tent with a bunch of pissed off Koreans and drift in Production Limbo until my Karma account is audited. I’d better post this tonight in case my predictions come true. In the next episode, I’ll include some hilarious (incriminating) photos and introduce you to some of the characters in this comedy of errors. Luck pj         POSTED: 04-27-2005         Read the Directions Carefully 4.27.05 Read the Label…..Carefully!!! That, being said and done, brings us to the present. Having survived 6 inexpensive and 1 overpriced beers, a AAA baseball game and dinner with my brother and sister-in-law takes us to the next day….SHOW DAY! The reason for this mini-road trip was to record my friend Sharon Gillenwater at the Portland Art Museum’s Museum After Hours performance. The day started off innocently enough, coffee, dog walks, replying to about 30 e-mails and sushi (in that order). Retrieved all of my gear from the hotel and headed for the museum. I have recorded at the museum plenty of times in their Grand Ballroom and Grand it is! About 10,000 square feet of space, 40-foot ceilings….. A Grand Echo Chamber. The trick there is to close mic everything and hope that there are enough people there to absorb the sound. Of course, with 800 people talking and drinking, you have to decide what’s noise and not. The reason I bring this up is because we did not record in the Grand Ballroom this time. The museum is renovating the room, so we are in a 40x100 foot tent. Did I mention the construction happening just outside the sheer fabric walls? Or that you could tell what type of jet is flying directly over you by the number of fillings jarred loose from your mouth? Anyway I haul my gear in, set up and deal with things. There are 2 stage hands/staff workers at my bidding and a house a/v guy. They are cooler than shit. I thought the sound guy, Alan, might be a little ticked because I brought in all of my own mics and changed everything that he’s already set up. No problem. He’s very helpful and doesn’t mind when we have to do some things over. And over. And over. The band straggles in. The guitarist has only seen the music once before. The original guitarist had to attend to a family emergency in Peru so the guy they find is a teacher at Portland State University. I’ve worked with the bassist many times and the pianist is a 23 year old who everybody fawns over. Of course, he pissed me off the second he walked in by raising the lid of the piano. It is now a 6’ microphone. Sharon is nervous as hell. Richard told me he had to stay out of the house for 2 days leading up to the show. She’s better now, but her voice is shaky and there is fear in her eyes. Sound check? What sound check? This is live, baby! The show begins and there’s not much more I can do until it’s over, 2 hours later. Well, there is more to do. Alan and I are sitting next to each other in the back of the room. Somehow, the conversation turns to the operatic nature and language of the songs to be invocative of Satan. Fair enough. He informs me that the space we are on is over a Hellmouth. OK To prove his point, he points to John Entwhistle, the bass player for The Who, who died a year or so ago in the arms of a prostitute and an ounce of blow in a Las Vegas hotel room. Sure enough, it is John and he’s in line for the buffet. Apparently, the chicken is too fresh or not bloody enough for his taste. He moves to the bar and gets a glass of red wine. I point to a woman who used to be a man and Alan points to a man who used to be a man. Did I mention free beer if you say you are doing sound? Just 1 beer. Really. OK, it’s done. We pack up and I go back to the hotel to drop stuff off and go to dinner. It’s a neat little Lebanese joint by the river where Richard is having his book release party May 4. When we show up, there is another couple that was at the show. This couple turns into 5 or 6 more folks, some much louder than others. Somehow, my reputation preceded me and, although everybody there seems to know who I am, they don’t know that I’m me. This takes quite a bit of explaining over quite a bit of hummus. It’s Thursday now. Back to Seattle. Absolutely nothing to report on the drive back. Get home, do laundry. Get a haircut. WARNING: When you go to get your hair cut and the barber/stylist/butcher doesn’t speak English and you don’t speak Vietnamese, make sure you know what #3 means before you sit down. She looked me up in their computer and apparently somebody said that I like my hair mangled. Silly me. Anyway, they gave me 50/50 that it’ll ever grow back. When she pulled out the mirror at the end, I violently pushed it away. The way I see it (or don’t), if I can’t see it, it’s not really there. Fuckers. Lots of beer in the house; good, because we’re back to tracking the Mala Vista record. It’s vocal night. Oliver and Jon show up about 6. Oliver called and said that Jon had a flat tire and they’d be there soon. Flat tire now means they stopped for a few beers on the way over. Later, Jason arrives and we finish all but one vocal track. I’m getting excited to mix this thing. We recorded the basics back in May and haven’t touched them since. Jon and I are strategizing a release schedule. A single here, an EP there. We’ll probably record a live set and use some of those as B-Sides. Many beers consumed. It’s Friday now. Working with Stevie Boy again. You may recall me ranting at him on some of the earlier blogs. He who left me in Tacoma for a week subjected to x-mas music. This gig is a benefit to help with school programs in the schools. Apparently, it’s more important to wage war all over the world than it is to give kids a chance to see and hear and perform music. The Seattle Symphony has sent a group over, about 30 pieces, along with the conductor, Gerry Schwartz. Most people around here know him as Gerard, but being with the in-crowd as I was, Gerry was just fine. Did I mention that the 2nd course was Vanessa Williams? Probably not. So, the plan was simple. Start to set for the Vanessa until the Symphony shows up, the sound check to Symphony. When they’re done, resume with Vanessa til her sound check is over. Reset the Symphony. Do the Symphony. Reset Vanessa. Do Vanessa. If you haven’t seen her up close, she’s kinda scary… Sycophants tripping over themselves with glasses of orange juice, band members just plain tripping. I remember working with their monitor guy from about 10 years earlier when he was with Driving and Crying. He took everything in stride until we had to totally rewire the monitor rack. Even then, he kept his cool, though I’m sure his blood pressure became dangerously high. Tear down and go home. Right? Guess again. So, there’s another show in the Westin the next night that we’re working. In a more perfect world, we would just put the microphones away and call it a night. But for the fact that we (all sound, lights, video, decorators) have to shift 90 degrees so the band can play to the short end of the room. Who thought this up? Since I’m working the show Saturday as well, I’m released early for good behavior after 16.5 hours. Saturday’s show is a party for a certain bank who was celebrating the raping of the greater Seattle area. Instead of lowering interest rates, they blow big $ on a party. The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies were the entertainment. I’ll leave it at that. Since then, I’ve caught up on sleep, seen a couple of movies (Sin City and Kung Fu Hustle, both great) and chased the dog around. Also brought over about 10 wheelbarrows full of dirt from next door to try to fill in some of Mifune’s holes. He thinks I’m just refilling them so he can dig again. I guess I am. Luck pj         POSTED: 04-20-2005         I Think I Missed My Stop.....4.20.05 I Think I Missed My Stop… Hello Dear Readers, What a wild few weeks! News from the Dog Front, Misadventures in Recording and my So-Called Life……. The Dog: Is Mifune (aka Damnit) adjusting well to Ballard life? Well, if your definition of adjusting is DIGGING, then all is well here. I’m thinking of renting him out to a few landscapers I know for the purpose of excavating yards. He is a living breathing shitting roto tiller. Newest chew toys: Gray leather couch, new sweater, 6 pack of Tecate, anything with shoe laces and anything to do with the recording studio. Like Jazz, he likes fried tofu, but, unlike Jazz, he’ll eat his vegetables. Have I mentioned that he can take up an entire queen size bed? His MO is as follows: If I’m already on the bed, he’ll hop up and lay next to me, head facing my feet. He’ll then fart twice (Hey George, here are your Biological Weapons of Mass Distraction!), and as my eyes stop watering, he applies enough pressure to actually move me a foot toward the edge of the bed. At this point, he employs some sort of Doggie Gravitational Brake (DGB) which renders him immovable. I wish my parking brake worked as well. With the exception of the occasional lunge, he and Kaiju (Cat Like Object) seem to have plotted out their own Roadmap for Peace. Not sure if it’s all of the downers I put in their water, Summing up: Less frustrating, more lovable. We’ll start obedience school next month. The Recording Thing: If the dog proves to be less frustrating, then music has replaced it as the Head Scratching Why Am I Doing This Again? Thing. Since late December, when Ernestine Anderson cancelled her live recording dates THE DAY BEFORE, my recording biorhythm has been off of the chart! Everybody’s been sick, including me for once. Had great sessions with John Stowell, Jeff Johnson and John Bishop (my new record label Supreme Commander). Wylie and the Wild West Show & I finally mixed the Tractor shows from last October for live CD and DVD (I still have yodeling stuck in my head) due out this spring. Work threatens to continue on the Malavista project with only 2 cancellations for overdubs. Happily, I’ve had my own butt kicked by Toddd Dunnigan, the Dog Girls keyboardist from Boise who moved with his family to Seattle last year. Todd and I record every Monday afternoon and the newest project is already halfway completed! Todd plays piano at Chopstix (sp), a dueling piano bar in Lower Queen Anne. Todd has always been my favorite collaborator and has helped me to focus on things in the living world. The Hand of Dog, my latest project, should be coming out in July on Origin Records, a Seattle-based jazz label with an incredible roster and catalog. Going to Portland in April to record my friend Sharon Gillenwater, who does this Italian Light Opera thing at the Portland Art Museum’s Wednesday After Hours series. I get to spend a few nights at the Mallory Hotel (my favorite old school hotel where they welcome dogs), eat lots of sushi with Sharon and Richard Donin and blow everything I make at Powell’s bookstore. Life, We Don’t Need No Stinking Life: I’ve missed it for a while. Jazz’s passing continues to kick my ass, blacken my eyes, sweep my legs out from under me and something else I just forgot because I was distracted by Iron Chef. Oh yeah, it was rabbit punch me in the kidneys (excuse the fighting analogies, Rocky 2 was on TV last night!). Not having a dog growing up (as if I ever did or will) didn’t prepare me for the bond I established with him. I’m sure I’ll get over it…one day. Thanks to everybody for understanding and supporting me. OK, back to bad TV and leftovers. A final note… I’ve become addicted to erika.net, the coolest Internet radio station ever. Lots of old jazz, international stuff, eclectic beyond belief. Check it out if you can. Luck pj OK, a little slow on the uptake (or upload, such as it were) It’s probably been a few weeks, maybe a month since the above written. Even as we speak, I’m in Portland, drinking a beer and looking at the baseball stadium across the street, where I hope to be in 2 hours… Except Dinner with the brother and sister-in-law? At my favorite Vietnamese joint in town? Where I haven’t eaten in at least 10 years? Baseball game and beer? Brother and …beer? Does he like baseball? Probably not. Beer? Well, last time I looked, we weren’t Mormon, but he’s always been the strange one in the family! Nice looking baseball park, though. Really nice. A couple more beers and it might be the game after all. Sorry Howard and Bonnie. Maybe sorry. Maybe. The drive down was uneventful. Well, back up. For the last few weeks, all I could think about was this trip. Get out of town. NOW! My customer service chip has fused again. It’s almost time to answer questions truthfully! Bad idea. I took the Jeep into the shop bright and ugly this morning for some service. Had breakfast and walked around until it was done. I get a call on my cell from the guy at the shop and he says….”Well, the oil change is done, but…” BUT WHAT, FUCKHEAD? I asked for an oil change and to check to fluids. He’s ready to sign me up for a full brake job, all new hoses and let’s rebuild the front end while we’re at it! Please know that this is the same mechanic I’ve gone to for years and recommend to everybody. New kid at the front desk probably trying to show his worth to Roger. Always find out what your mechanic drinks (or other vices if you dare) and keep him well supplied. After stopping off at a friends house to drop off some crap that’s been bouncing around the back of the car for months…….. actually, this is good. I stop by Dan’s (after calling to alert him to my imminent visit). Way the hell out of the way, area code, zip code, time zone, I think there’s something different in the air. Knock on the door. No answer. I have a key anyway. Try the door. It’s open. No Dan. No Dan anywhere I look, except his bedroom. Call his name and knock on the bedroom door. No answer. Drop stuff off. Leave note? No, who else would leave his shit in the middle of the kitchen? Take off. Call him from the road a few minutes later to leave a message. He answers! The FUCK! Well, he’s not dead, sort of….maybe I go back, drink a wretched cup of what he calls coffee and leave again. The rest of the trip is a non-event, until 5 minutes from the hotel; Mifune decides to get green bubbly sick ALL OVER THE CAR AND ME. Heatstroke, maybe. I notice twigs among the debris on the front seat. Wonderful! OK, now for checking in. I love the Mallory Hotel in downtown Portland. I’ve been staying here exclusively since 1993. Great old school, huge lobby, great bar and dining room. Dog friendly. 2 blocks from the baseball park…… Hello, says I. I’m checking in. Indeed you are, says they. How about a credit card? How about I paid in advance 2 weeks ago! How about you didn’t? How about this…. See the dog. The dog is a pit bull. The dog is hungry. The dog is hungry because it just puked all over my car. See the human. He’s starting to feel like the pit bull’s stomach if you don’t find his PAID RESERVATION! Oh look, they found it! Take Mifune for a walk. We walk to the baseball park. I’m talking to this guy outside the park, watching the teams warm up. He’s playing with Mifune. He mentions how strong Mifune is. I say yes, he’s already broken 3 leashes. I look and see the leash #4 has about 3 minutes of life left on it. Shit! Back to the hotel and try to repair the leash. No go. I’ll buy another one tomorrow. Grab my computer and go this great little coffee shop (across the street from the baseball park where the game starts in 1 hour 44 minutes now!). It seems that the hotel now wants $7 a day for wireless internet as well as a buck apiece for local calls. Fuck this, says I. Free wi-fi and beer across the street from the ballpark. Baseball game sounds awfully good right about now. I can see Howard and Bonnie in 3 months. More beer? Hmmmmm….. The Beavers are playing Fresno, for what it’s worth. How often does this happen? Well, Pacific Coast League, probably pretty often. Damn. More beer? OK, all of the pieces have just fallen into place. I’m talking to Evian, the owner of the Dugout, the coffee joint I’m drinking and writing from. I tell him of my quandary. No quandary no longer, says he. He lays 4 tickets to the baseball game on me. I return all but one. The new plan is to catch an hour and a half of the game and then go meet Howard and Bonnie. QUICK PLUG: The Dugout 742 SW 18th Avenue Portland, Oregon 97205 503.973.5441 Evian is the owner. Just bought the place. He made my day. If you’re in Portland, YOU WILL COME HERE! They have coffee, food, beer, right across the street from PGE Park, music on weekends. CHEAP BEER! Could be a little colder, but what the hell. Maybe I’ll ask him to stock Pacifico or Rainier when I’m in town. The way I figure it, it’s probably cheaper in the long run to take the train to Portland and stay in a hotel to see the Portland Beavers play than to try to see the Seattle Mariners in my own city! I wonder if I can bring Mifune on the train… Baseball game in 1 hour, 15 minutes. Working on beer number 3, no food since breakfast. I saw some mints on the table next to my bed. I’ve been advised that Budweiser’s cost $5.50 across the street. Must check finances. Don’t want to break the bank on cheap beer. It’s only $1.50 at the dugout. At this rate, I believe I might have to verbally abuse the desk staff at the Mallory. OK, going to finish this beer and go back to the hotel. Drop off the computer, play with the puppy (make sure he hasn’t eaten anything or shit in the room), come back, drink more beer, go the game, meet the family. I’ll be back. Damn, what a day so far. Forget what happened trying to leave Seattle and entering Portland, what a day! With Evian and Kate as new friends, the day has turned around. The seat at the baseball game was right behind home plate, probably a $12 ticket. $200 in Seattle. 3x $2 Bud’s before the game and didn’t even mind the $6 Bud at the game. Warm, maybe 1/8th filled stadium. g-d, life is good right now. Going to meet Howard and Bonnie in 1/2 hour. Even later. 5 AM. Sleep for about an hour at a time. Comfortable room. Great bed. History Channel is running JFK/Castro/Kruschev funnies. OK, this goes up this morning and I’ll let you know how the recording went. Luck pj         POSTED: 03-21-2005         Notes from the Front 3 December 2004 Notes from the Front Friday 11 AM Before I forget, onstage now is an octogenarian dance troupe in revealing leggy costumes. Did I mention that these women are in their 80's? Showing legs and undergarments is just plain sick and wrong. Joe, on the other hand, is enjoying this and I believe, even slightly aroused. Sick man, but very helpful. Did I mention that he's a very mentally disturbed man and the dancers are insanely old? Thursday I'm supposed to have been here at 9, but the hotel had to be stopped at and some asshole had to cut me off so I had to drive a few miles North before I could turn around. Did I mention that I was kicked out of the parking lot? Or that I got a parking ticket? Probably not OK, so there's Ken and Glen, the Biopsy Twin Entertainment Co-Chairmen. Ken decided to put the risers in front of the stage, which, of course, also means in front of the speakers, which, as we remember from Physics 101�.. So Between acts, I organize labor to put the risers onstage. We get halfway through when Ken FREAKS OUT! HE PUT THEM THERE ON PURPOSE!!!! Fuck, I thought a vessel was going to burst in his skull! I am informed that I had NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to do what I did. Ok, thinking back, I probably could've asked him, but I talked to all of the house guys and they said they put the hard surface on the stage for just that reason. I took full responsibility for the maneuver. I tried to explain to him why it sounded like SHIT and what we could do to fix it. Long story short, later in the day he comes up to me and tells me that they're going to try the risers onstage Friday, as if he suddenly took Bonehead Audio and personally knows the feedback frequencies. Fuckwit! Even later, I apologize again and this time I've got the little prick eating out of my hands (remind me to wash thoroughly). Joe is a huge help moving mics and translating Amateur into English. Had a chance to duck out and grab a bite. Walked to the Swiss and had a very forgettable tuna sandwich. Evening went w/o a hitch. Only 7 auction items. Long ass boring putt-putt tournament. Somebody bought me a glass of wine. Food only passable. Artichoke dip ok, but the baked potatoes had too much bleu cheese. Did I forget to mention that this brand new facility isn't wired (or unwired for that matter)? They told me that if I ask 3 days in advance, they might be able to find me a data cable. The reason I mention this, aside from mind-numbing boredom and near total sensory depravation, is that the hotel room afforded me that link to the outside world that I so desperately needed. Tiny, no amenities whatsoever (ok, Cartoon Network works but no Bravo. I miss the West Wing already). You could've forked over a little more dough and stuck me in the Sheraton. Think about it: 24-hour fitness center, hot and cold running housekeeping staff, 3 blocks away. You don't love me. I have lost my most favored nation status. Friday again It's not loud. Just no way possible. But still getting complaints. Maybe they've all had their ears syringed and put fresh batteries in their hearing aids. My "Superior Customer Service" chip is installed and fully functional, although I believe that there is a certain frequency in old people's whining that might just short circuit the chip and I become an evil robot again. I think they had it right in Logan's Run. Kill everyone at 30. Kill them now! Lots of people come up to me and ask what I'm doing. How to answer w/o getting tossed out on my ass? One old guy actually said that w/o us (sound folk), there would be no show! I almost asked him to adopt me (I was so moved), but after going over his financial statement, I've decided that I'm better off foraging in the wild. I'm now under the impression that there are at least 7 rings of Soundman (and woman) Hell. Limbo and the innermost ring are filled with novices because they either don't know enough or should know better. One or more of the rings are, in fact, 150,000 plus square foot concrete boxes with nothing but right angles, 30-foot ceilings and at least 10-second natural reverbs. One of them will always have an X-Mas pageant of some sort running 24/7. I�m wondering what I did to end up here and am curious of the wait time for reincarnation. Jeff informed me that there will be Seahawks gals here tonight. I hate the Seahawks but love gals. I can get at least 4 of them in my car for later on. Back to the present, onstage at this moment is a cross between Up with People and a teen horror flick. What do these kids possibly think they'll get with this sort of an education? They're too old for the Mickey Mouse Club. Maybe this is training for USO tours and they plan of having these kids captured and tortured by the enemy. Maybe our side is supposed to torture them. I want to know what motivates them to do this. Do they get to have orgies after rehearsals? Up next, BANJOS BANJOS BANJOS! Over 30 banjos! I've never seen 30 banjos in one place together. Fuck Fuck Fuck. OK, I'm sure this will be true of us as well, but for the most part, at least in what I've seen and heard for the last 3 days, OLD PEOPLE SMELL FUNNY, CAN'T HEAR FOR SHIT, ARE CRANKY AS HELL AND NOW THEY PLAY BANJOS! It must be a safety in numbers kinda thing. What do old people travel in? Packs? Gaggles? Pods? Prides? Herds? Schools? Metro Accesses? First half of the day is done. Went for food. Went to the Swiss again. Today's sandwich was somewhat better than yesterday's, but nothing worth writing home about. Came back and there is a BUZZ in the system coming up in the previously dead quiet wireless channels. Maybe some new computer (3 or 4 new ones since I left), solar flares, black hole. Dunno. Powered everything down and up, re-re-batteried the handhelds. Less than before, but still audible. I'm the only one who really notices, but now it's going to bother me all night. Later Show done. All is good. Will trouble shoot in the morning. Things calmed down. Didn't hear the buzz. Electronics, is after all, at best, still only theory. pj         POSTED: 03-21-2005         Hello Dear Readers 4 December 2004 Hello Dear Readers, Your Action News Boy here regaling you with more tough gritty news from the front! Dateline: Tacoma So last night's buzz was this morning's buzz as well. Same 2 channels, those darn wireless. I moved them from Ampland to FOH and all is well. Last night ended with 2 hot dogs and a couple of Red Hooks from the AM/PM next to the hotel. Kelly smuggled me in a taste of some VERY NICE SCOTCH. Kelly is a good man, a fair man, a man who will trade his booze for my pills. Breakfasted at the Market Cafe, down the street from where we wasted half of last Sunday. Inexpensive, cozy and GREAT COFFEE. FUCK! CLOWNS! The place is lousy with clowns, but back to them in a moment. Sound guy boner #1. Whilst previewing (Do you preview audio? I guess you Audition audio) a CD for the next act, I guess there is the slightest possibility of a chance that I might not have removed said CD feed from the monitors. Ooops! Fuck 'em! I got hate mail from the flutes because they thought they were not adequately represented in the overall mix the other night. Maybe they're right, but since I didn't mic anything, it's a moot point. Also, if there had been Seahawks Gals waiting for me, I might be more inclined to listen to their idle gaseous emissions. (Note: Superb Customer Service chip seems to have fried. Film at Eleven) There they are! Bastards! Clowns! First off, that damn McGruff the Crime Dog was snooping around when I arrived this morning, but I threw him off of the scent. Then there was, in no particular order, a giant Lemon flavored Jelly Belly, a huge Hershey's Hug and Kiss, a Punk Snowman and those DAMNED CLOWNS! I have many questions and theories on Wild & Captive Clown Breeding programs, but I won't bore you with those now, as this is a fast paced war journal, not Scientific American or Popular Mechanics. Last night, speaking of the Seahawk Gals, quite a bit of TALENT (if you know what I mean). Question: what's the age of consent in Tacoma? It's not for me; it's for some of the idiot video guys. They wanted to know. Actually, they didn't want to know or didn't seem to care, but I had to hold them back from what could only be described A FLOCK OF 12 YEAR OLDS! Something about all of those images flickering in your eyes that must send these poor brave video folk over the edge. Did I mention how disappointed I was in not having a quartet of Seahawk Gals for my needs last night? Speaking of flickering images, I'm happy they went with Halide lighting here. Fluorescents would've sent me into a murderous rage soon after load in. Clowns again. This time there were 3 or 4 of them sitting at a table between the stage and mix position. I couldn't hear what they were saying from where I was, but I'm sure they were up to no good. A few minutes ago, 2 took advantage of a photo op to pick the pocket and purse of an unsuspecting blonde w/ 2 kids. Quick time out. Through the act that just did their thing, I ran into someone I used to work with at American Music years ago. So we're talking about people we've seen lately and Eric mentions the name of a guy who ran with my older brother in high school 30 years ago. He goes on to say that he plays music with him, and furthermore that he'll be here today. Sure enough, there's Kevin Almeida, whom I haven't seen for over 20 years! Wow! Back to blog. Second to last band is showing no intention of yielding the stage and the Biopsy Twins are nowhere to be seen. End of 1st half of Saturday. I'm afraid to leave the premises because of what happened last night. Found a bowl of chili (or dog food w/ beans). Not bad. There were sandwiches earlier, but the volunteers are starting to look at me menacingly when I stop in for supplies. Why am I bringing a thermos when everybody else is ok with a paper cup? Do I really need that chocolate chip cookie? No, I don�t need it, but it�s there and it'll take some of the volunteers a while to gum through it. More cutesters tonight and in my age range. Stevie, I'd appreciate if you'd pay better attention to my rider in the future. I know it's an ugly word, Pimp is, but you are contractually obligated to supply me with women when I work for you. I'd do the same for you. The after-auction band (satellite stage) is starting to make noise. Did anyone bother to tell them about the room's characters? Probably not. They'll figure it out. Or not. I think they're called Mid Life Crisis and all of their gear is Peavey. Stacks and stacks of it. Also, I talked to one of the bands performing tomorrow afternoon. They want 5 vocal mics, 3 DI's and a whole bunch of instrument mics. I'll let Ken-boy enlighten them. See, the Customer Service chip is failing and by tomorrow I'll be as good as new. 7:00 PM Doors opened 1/2 hour ago. Deli tray and some sort of noodley soupy thing. I'm disappointed in catering this year. Techs are sitting in our holding cell. Me, Alex, Steve Baker, Kelly K and someone with a mustache. A patron just walked by and asked if we were the brains of the operation. Either he came pre-lubed or is a cheap date. Look at the above mentioned names. We don't have half a brain between us. Good talent pool tonight. Some of the throw backs apparently dressed themselves. Done. Back to my luxurious accommodations. Really, it's not half bad. Half bad. Half bad. Finishing this off and going around the corner to see if the locals are cannibals as rumored. I'm looking forwards to the end of hostilities� scratch that� festivities tomorrow. I miss my dog, especially after watching 2 get auctioned. That is REALLY NOT THE WAY TO CHOOSE A PET. It's nice and cute and criminal. If you want a dog or cat, ADOPT ONE FROM A SHELTER. Enough upper case for me. I won't see you for load out Monday. My detox and debriefing begins when I wake up Monday. Thanks again for the opportunity to serve. Luck dogwalla         POSTED: 03-21-2005         And On the 8th Day 5 December 2004 And on the 8th Day… Before I black out. Finished Day 4 of Festival of Trees. I feel sorry for the trees. On the other hand, when we lost our tails and fell out of the trees, the trees could breathe easier. Let’s see if I understand this festival. We like the trees. We worship the trees. We perform yearly acts of genocide on the trees to show them how much we adore them. We have a festival for them and then drag the carcasses to the curb or burn them. Oh Praise Be Baby Jeebus. My back is feeling the past 4 days of walking on concrete floors and sleeping on a hotel bed. My brain is feeling 4 SOLID DAYS OF XMAS MUSIC. Saturday Midnight. Back at the hotel. Broadcast latest developments from my assignment to headquarters. Went in search of mind numbing agents, delivered to the bar next to my motel. Greeted by the sounds of Karaoke from the bar. Maybe greeted isn’t the word I’m looking for. How about assailed? Close enough. Dregs. Denizens from Hell. Soft white underbelly. Lowest common denominator. Procured beverage. Sat. Here’s what I know: Publicity photos lie. Or maybe the photos told the truth, but the subject lied. Closer to the truth. Case in point My karaoke Mistress goes by the handle of Candy Lynn. The photo shows a stunning Gypsy hiding my future and her past. Her past was svelte. Her present is dumpy. As I settle into my drink, there is a short black man singing Sex Machine and attempting to put himself into traction. My back hurts just watching him. Candy is hiding behind her Karaoke console like Oz behind the curtain. Unlike Oz, though, Candy is playing tambourine to the song. Double interactive karaoke, double negative. Next up is Sarge, older white trucker looking mesh baseball hat probably with a colostomy bag. Fucker is singing Have a Jolly Jolly XMAS. I’m through with XMAS songs for the day. Please. Back in the motel, writing this, television on. PBS is playing Concert for George. Where is my copy? Who did I lend it to? Find Jeff Lynne mildly annoying, Tom Petty, who I used to like, now a waste of vital human foodstuffs. Ringo remains a caricature of himself but is still the greatest rock drummer ever. Paul was less cloying than at other benefits and Rock Star-A-Paloozas as of late. Sleep. Sleep now. Sunday. It is Sunday. It is sunny (sic). It is Tacoma. The restaurant is not called the Market Café as previously report in these pages. It is the Renaissance Café. Great coffee. Must drink less (as I pour myself another). No more ginger cookies either. Hawaiian dancers for the lord. Hula Against Hell? Look, before I offend everybody, try to see this my way. A Jewish atheist listening to contemporary Christian music being hula danced to in a 150,000 square foot concrete box that’s reverberant as Hell, surrounded by dozens and dozens over heavily made up pine and fir trees cut down before they could reach their full potential constantly being spied upon by minions of the dark side wearing costumes (or maybe not!) of McGruff the Crime Dog various colored Hershey’s kisses CLOWNS CLOWNS CLOWNS a scary snowman Smokey the Bear (I’m ok w/ Smokey). Opulently wrapped unwrapped presents that nobody but nobody in their right minds would ever need let alone use and then Porsche Boxter Harley Davidson XL1200 jet ski x-box Rolex oyster watch full carat diamond earrings flat screen dvd trips to Arizona Montana Hawaii Florida football box seats autographed multi-million dollar baseball bats 300 cases of candy cane flavored wine chauffer driven day spa being written into a murder novel 5 foot crystal tree breakfast brunch lunch dinner poker party bed of roses bistro sipping Maori warrior threatening smiling now week in New Zealand upgraded to business class Disney Land cuts in line to see the Lion King for the umpteenth time. On the other hand, watching a couple million raised for a wonderful children’s hospital, which, if we were still in the trees, would be rendered useless because the defective chimps would be tossed down to the ground to feed the tigers and cheetahs. Back to work. The band which wanted more stuff showed up and after confirming what we agreed to, in the same breath, asked for twice as many channels. Ummm… How about “NO.” I warned the emcee that it would take a few minutes to turn the stage over. It was 15 minutes. Emcee Ken tells them to cut their set by 15 to stay with the schedule. They cut 30 out of sheer spite. The act was a family fiddle troupe. Imagine cross breeding of the von Trapp family and the Jacksons. I’m imagining rehearsals under grueling conditions, forced marches, cold water tossed on sleeping bodies, starvation, electric wired attached to adolescent body parts… typical show biz parents. Now 25 dancers of the children variety. I made a motion to bitch slap the emcee as he walked away after saying something stupid… again (him, not me). One of the dance parents is with me in the booth directing the music. Very nice guy. Chuckled when I did the bitch slap thing. He’s the emcee’s brother-in-law. Fuck. Done. It’s been revealed that this is Ken’s first year as an emcee. No Shit! He knows the acts and knows the hospital, but introduces the bands while I’m still onstage. I had a little chat with him and explained what I thought he could do to make things a bit easier next year. For the most part, besides the insidious nature of the fucking Xmas tunes ingrained in my psyche, a good time was had by all. We need to rethink the deployment of sound in the room. The room needs a few things, such as acoustic treatment, free wi-fi, more comfortable concrete to nap on and something else that I can’t remember. At this moment, after picking up Jazz, seeing my favorite server on the planet and thoroughly stuffed with Mexican food, I choose to forget the last week of my life until payday, at which time I shall rejoice and drink and buy little somethings for the little nobodies in my life. HoHoHo dogwalla         POSTED: 03-21-2005         Dog 2, Week 1 DOG 2, WEEK 1 Well, it’s been a week now with Mifune/Allston/Doofus/Damnit (choose one) and what a week it’s been. Some random observations: The Name Thing. Maybe he responds to Allston, maybe he doesn’t. I’ve been calling him Mifune when I think about it, Jazz when I don’t. I think I’ll be making that slip for a while. This is one of the reasons I chose not to have kids. A very small reason. More reasons will sprout in these pages. Digger was also a candidate, seeing as how my backyard has more holes than “A Day In The Life!” The Cat Thing. The scars are healing nicely since their first encounter, thanks. For the last week, it’s been a game of room switching when Kaiju would come home. Lock the dog in bedroom so the cat could be in the mudroom; Cat in bathroom, dog in mudroom, me outside. How did that happen? Panzer (d.v.m., acupuncturist, all around good guy, dog bless him) came over last week and met the dog. He brought a couple vials of flower essence over: Quaking Grass (briza maxima) and Walnut (juglans regia). The Quaking Grass is for helping to establish household order and the Walnut is for major life change (something everybody in the house has gone through in the last month). A couple of drops in their water and stand back! It Works! OK, not one minute ago, they were nose to nose with no blood loss! Outstanding! Never mind… back to square one. Film at 11. The Dog Park Thing. When I went through the application process with Pit Bull Rescue, I told them that I would be taking the dog to the dog park as part of its exercise regimen. No No No, said they! People will freak out when they see a pit bull charging down on their Shi Zhu. I probably would, too. Anyway, after being dragged around the marina and plodding around easily escapable schoolyards, we headed to the off leash area near the house, overlooking Puget Sound. I think we were almost through the gate when he bolted up the hiking path. 10 minutes later, we’re inside and all is well. As I’ve mentioned before, THE DOG IS FAST! Kind of does the greyhound or racing horse thing, tucking his legs in and the exploding forward. Brakes? We don’t need no stinking brakes! He’s only shown aggression when dry humped by some other stupid dog. He gives them fair warning before going into the classic “I’m a Pit Bull with Large Sharp Teeth and I Will Tear Your Throat Asunder If You Do Not Persist in This Most Uncouth and Futile Act.” The first time this happened, the offending dog’s human commented that our dogs don’t get along. I felt like mounting him from behind and asking him if he liked it! Probably would. Another reason why I don’t have kids! The dog has also found a way to escape from the off leash area. The Dog as a Replacement for Jazz Thing. As reported earlier, this was neither the intention nor the reality. There will never be a replacement for Jazz. The reality is that this dog is a 4-legged Panzer tank with a bladder the size of an Olympic swimming pool that slobbers a lot! The Dog as a Destructive Force of Nature Thing. So far, he’s chewed up 2 of his blankets, 1 Godzilla, anything with shoelaces, anything I’m wearing, my right hand, my desk, and the back porch… OK, that’s it for now. I’ve committed the next 10-15 years to this mutt, so we’ll see what happens. Luck pj Note 1: 15.5 hours until 2 weeks. I had the cat in my lap and the dog sitting at my feet. I was not, repeat not, wearing inch thick leather pads, Bad move on my part. All was well until the dog, who just loves to sniff butts, put his nose where it just didn’t belong. I’ve been waiting for Kaiju to let him have one across the nose. Well, tonight’s the night, as the song goes. No blood was drawn; the creatures went to their neutral corners and are, even as we speak, sitting this round out, though the dog is chomping at the bit (literally) to go again. What was I thinking?         POSTED: 03-14-2005         Dog 2, Day 1 In 15 minutes, I will have had the new dog for 24 hours. Here's what I know so far� If he has a name (Allston was supplied), he either doesn't know it or chooses not to acknowledge it. He is a male Pit Bull, approximately 1.5 years old. Abandoned, neglected, maybe abused. Fawn colored with a white belly and a white stripe running from his forehead down to his nose. Knee high. Weighs in the neighborhood of 60 pounds. He is a big baby. A very powerful big baby.Did I mention he and the cat haven't quite seen eye to eye? Hmmm�.. well, sooner or later. I'm hoping for sooner. Kaiju (kitty) lived behind the bathtub for 2 weeks before she figured out that Jazz was cool. Of course, Jazz didn't lunge at and chase her through the house. Kaiju is pissed at the dog and me. The dog just wants to be friends and so do I. I think my watchband will cover up last night's scars. If you've never held a hissing cat, my advice is to not. Misdirected rage, fear�. skin. Anyway, it's been over 3 weeks since the death of Jazz, my doggy companion of over 13 years. Those were the worst 3 weeks of my life following the best 13. I was never good at fractions, but I believe the good outweighs the bad in this case. Alas, the smaller number seems to be more concentrated, almost overshadowing the larger. Allow me some explanation as well. I just spent almost one third of my life with one dog. I love Jazz to pieces and his passing kicked the shit out of me. I still have a hole in my heart the size of the Grand Canyon. My getting another dog is not a stopgap rebound knee jerk reaction. I'm used to having a dog. This dog needed a home and I need a dog. I was going to foster one, but why get attached to someone knowing you're going to lose him or her soon? I understand the importance of fostering, but now's not the time. When I own my own island, I'll foster every animal that comes my way, unless it's a shark or something like that. 3 minutes until 24 hours. I now know that he's a digger. He just dug out most of the back porch. He was able to do this because I thought it was safe to leave him unsupervised in the backyard this time. The 2 times before I discovered that, in addition to being a digger and he can stand on his hind legs and knock just about whatever he wants off of the kitchen counter, he's a jumper of some ability. 4-foot fences are no obstacle. Shit. So I found a long leash with a kind of choke chain that doesn't seem to choke him, or for that matter, stop him. It gave me about 45 minutes of peace and computer time without having to repot the palm and chase biscuit crumbs. He seemed to be content playing with his tug rope and red bouncy thing, or so I thought. We had to dig some lawn up a few days ago because there was a possibility of a broken water pipe, so there was some loose topsoil lying about. But that was by the gate, not the middle of the yard, and not in such quantity. The Great Escapes. Twice this morning. First time, I thought he jumped over the garbage cans. The second time, as I was covering the hole to the garbage cans, I swear I turned my back on him for 15 fucking seconds and he was gone, hence the mention of the fence. Realize, firstly, that this dog is FAST. Cheetah fast. With gravity and motion on his side, he's already taken me and my neighbor down. I'm thinking he's a mile away by now. Did I mention that he's fast? He is. But he seems content (so far) to exploring no further than a few blocks and seems genuinely happy to see me when I catch up to him. Reviewing: jumping digging strong fast slobbery leaping tugging cat curious sweet handsome stupid dog. He slept by my side, dreaming and snoring loudly all night. I missed that touch so much. Oh yeah, even though I outweigh him 3-4x, he still managed to occupy the whole bed. Unmovable. I cannot budge this fucking animal! He has managed to quadruple his mass! That's ok, but I'm wondering what else the foster parents neglected to tell me? He came with a king sized doggy crate and, as much as I hate confining animals, I'd hate to see what he comes up with when he attempts to dig up my bed or the studio floor. It's 26.75 hours now. I haven't seen the cat since it was sunny. It is now starting to rain. I'll have to segregate the critters when I can coax her inside. Have to leave for work in a while. Why can't we all just get along and do what the fuck I say? Just got home from work. The cat was waiting outside for me and an explanation. After some maneuvering, the cat's inside and the dog and I were out for a walk. The dog (whom I am calling Mifune for the meantime) knows that Kaiju is in the mudroom but can't get to her. I think I'll wait for some of the scars to heal before I try introducing them again. OK, that's it for the first day. I'm committed to this dog. He's really quite a sweetheart (if you like destructive forces of nature!) Imagine Lassie and tabletop fission. Luck
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