Category: Music

Beautiful day

I got up at 6:30 yesterday and started work on the canonical list of allegrasongs; I checked the 130 strong list of songs, removed the inadvertent duplicates that had crept in because I keep changing the song titles, I found one missing set of lyrics, added a dozen which I actually know the lyrics to but had never (oops) written down, checked the list of songs again and marked all the ones I don’t have lyrics for; was HORRIFIED to learn that I no longer have the lyrics for “But can she type?” which is an extremely 70’s sitcom theme-styled song about looking for a job in Toronto in the early 80’s. The tune I still have, it’s a swooping cheerful rollicking thing.

As best I can remember:

The customer is always right

and so whenever possible

I try to be the customer

But lately I’ve been looking for a job

and it aint easy

Can’t say how much I wish it were!

But can she type, but can she type?

Watch the paper and the fingers fly

the fingers fly….

Pound the pavement knock on doors

it doesn’t matter metaphors

it doesn’t matter what you choose

They all want to pay you this

and you want to make that

Whatever happens you will lose.

and then in an annoying talking blues style…

they give me tests… on a keyboard dinosaur…. date of manufacture – 1964! Christ, this thing is almost as old as me….

and then I’m missing a verse. Candidly, I suck!  But I just copied what I typed into the data base, so, go me.

Then I remembered a huge chunk of a song that when Paul criticized me about it (he gave me a 10 minute lecture on how I should not write about such disgusting subjects, a view he no longer holds and has expressed contrition for) I put the song down.  What is my problem? (ed.  You think you have only one???)  I respond to criticism much as JRR Tolkien – I either ignore it in its entirety or abandon what I was working on, which in a nutshell is why I’ve never made a nickel from my work.  It’s hardly Paul’s fault if I don’t have an adult reaction to comments. Anyway, angry that I had lost the first verse, I wrote another one, which, I am convinced, is better, or at least has a slick internal rhyme.  Thank you Flying Spaghetti Monster in my brain.

Then, after I whined that I was on a creative roll and didn’t feel like cooking dinner, as I had promised to do, the kids and Paul showed up with Chinese food and we stuffed ourselves, and then Paul and I had the untrammelled delight of watching Katie fall asleep on the sofa WITH A BOOK IN HER HAND.  TV does it again.  Katie watched True Blood and loved it (June, 2009, there will be more!) and then I bought her the first book and she went nuts and has since acquired the rest of the series, some bought by her G’ma (that is mOm’s ‘thug’ name, so’s you know) (I am the Notorious M.O.M.) and some by Dax, who doesn’t need a thug name but has softened my prickly heart by buying my girl books.  I sent a cinnamon bun home with him yesterday for his roommate, just to show that I’m not a hater… and one for him, too.  They are the bestest cinnamon bunses ever, as I melted half a 70% Purdy’s bar into the goo, and I’m saving some for Jeff when he gets home from Victoria this evening because he will not want to miss them.  As promised Robof9 will be getting one today.

Then Paul and I went for a walk, the weather FINALLY having cleaned up and then he went to work and the kids hung around until after I went to bed.  Margot didn’t sleep with me last night, sad face.

Now, to fly out to the living room and clean up the ungodly mess of cables and musical instruments I left like a booby trap, a quick shower, and off to my shiny place of employment.  I had a great day yesterday, and I got really really close to getting something crossed off my list.  Excelsior!!

Why I blog

Take that, people who say it’s nothin’ but narcissism.

Also, I have a terrible memory and a blog helps me remember when things happened.

Also, Katie has used my blog to help her remember when distressing and horrific things, as reported by me, happened.

Yesterday Paul and I drove up-island to visit his cousin Ruth in Nanaimo.  She’s living on an acre of land and she got it for a steal of a price, and she and her fisherman spouse are living very happily.  She has to walk fifteen minutes to get her mail, and another ten to get her eggs, but she’s a five minute drive from a yoga studio and she has her own well, so there.

She made us a fabulously warm welcome, and soon we were deep in talk about cob houses and straw bale houses and the Cuban 5 and the amazing local arts and politics scene, and after Paul re-strung her guitar I said I’m getting my mandolin, and she hauled out her Indian drums (sounds like tablas but they weren’t) and we had a fabulous 90 minutes of jamming.  I kept nervously checking the Malahat webcam.  Long about 4 we decided to head back.

And it snowed.  Paul and I were bemoaning our lack of cameras, because the snow slid down the road signs and just hung there, and some of the visual effects were quite funny.  The snow was worse in Victoria than up the Malahat, go figure.

Paul went off to hang with Dr Filk for the evening (more music, somewhere, and a meal in there too) and I grabbed some Mayan Chocolate Haagen Dazs and a small round of Brie (my god, they fell on it like animals…. well behaved, queuing animals) and Darwin had a noisy bath and went to bed and we ate pizza and I started reading The Caryatids by Bruce Sterling and at 7:30 I collapsed.  See what a day without coffee can do to me?  Also I did all the driving, since Paul has come to the realization that he can tolerate my tailgating and random lane changes way better than vice versa.  A couple of hours in the car also allowed us the opportunity for an airing of the grievances (or was more usually the case, the bragging of the amazingness) re the kids. Sometimes it’s good to have a chance to bash away at this stuff so we can present a united front when the next issue comes up….

Woke up at 4, edited the sound files I recorded yesterday of Darwin’s charming vocalizations, finished the Caryatids (three stars but I still want to know where the food of the future will be coming from), showered, and now I’m looking forward to a meal at my Granny’s place of residence and a nice ride home on the ferry, probably late in the afternoon.  And I can haz new quilt, which is actually a quilt that my mum made when I was tiny, so I am extremely happy about my ‘haul’.  Oh, also my grampa’s memory book (two thick tomes) has been delivered to me in duplicate for Jeff.

So far an AWESOME weekend, and watching Katie motor her way – reading, my god, she’s reading! – through the Sookie Stackhouse books is making me very very happy.

Singing makes me happy and so does Major Kusanagi

So Keith and Paul picked me up from work last night (Keith was driving) and we went back to their place and at pork chomps and salad and oyster mushrooms.  Then Paul and I sang and played for ages.  Honestly, we should put together a set list and then we wouldn’t have those long headscratching moments when we think “What will we sing next?”

Around nine I went home and found Jeff watching Ghost in the Shell Innocence.  Man, in HD on a big screen that movie is drenchingly beautiful.

Kitties tell Jeff: All is forgiven; come home soon!

Yup, Jeff stayed out all night last night.  That’s the way things are in this crazy cuckoo world; you introduce your brother to your friends and the next thing you know he’s staying out all night with them (okay, Mike’s got a really comfy sofa).  I have this little thing called a job so I bailed on the festivities with Mike last night (it was awesome to see Heather) around 10 pm, got home about an hour later. Festivities included mighty tasty cilantro flavoured lasagna and at least two six packs of Lion Winter Ale, and I hung upside down like a bat in one of those found on tv devices for stretching out your back (mmm!) while everybody else played Buzz (laughing their heads off – I’m hanging upside down and smiling to myself as I listen to them), and Mike made me drag out his guitar (Jeff left the room) and I played The Evening News for some recently acquired friends of his.

Poor Jeff, he finds my singing unbelievably tedious.  So do Keith and Loki – it’s just a cross I have to bear for being so relaxed and creative, that I’m continually surrounded by men who hate what I do.  Makes me look forward to the days when it won’t be like this anymore, but that will come in the fullness of time, I suspect, along with a number of other of environmental shifts that I probably will have no control over whatever.

This morning around 3 the cats both started calling and running up and down the hallway. Normally they’d be bugging Jeff.  I just rolled over and ignored them until the alarm went off at 5:45.  Then I let them out and made coffee, and now I’ve got about ten minutes to stuff the rest of my morning activities into a nice bolus of output and get the hell out the door.  “I’ve got a little project I’ve been working on.”

I must filk it.

These are the times that try men’s souls. In the course of our galaxy’s history, the people of the Milky Way have rallied bravely whenever the rights of homo sap have been threatened. Today, a new crisis has arisen. The Milky Way Transit Authority, better known as the M.T.A., is attempting to levy a burdensome tax on the population in the form of a far increase. Citizens, hear me out! This could happen to you!

(Eight bar guitar, banjo introduction)

Well, let me tell you of the story of a man named Charley
on a tragic and fateful day.

He put ten g-notes in his pocket, kissed his wife and family,
went to ride on the M.T.A.

Chorus:
Well, did he ever return? No, he never returned and
his fate is still unknown.
(What a pity! Poor ole Charlie. Shame and scandal.
He may ride forever. Just like Paul Revere.)
He may ride forever in those graffiti spattered rockets.
He’s the man who never returned.

Charlie handed in his gnotes at the Galactic Center Station
and he changed for Sag A Rocket.
When he got there the conductor told him, “Five more gnotes.”
Charlie couldn’t find any in his pocket.
(Chorus)
Now, all night long Charlie rides through the station,
crying, “What will become of me?!!
How can I afford to see my sister in Nu Aquilae
or my cousin in P Cygni?”
(Chorus)
Charlie’s wife goes down to the Galactic Center Station
every day at quarter past two,
And down the disk accretion she hands Charlie a sandwich
as the rocket comes rumblin’ through.
(Chorus)
Now, you galactic citizens, don’t you think it’s a scandal
how the people have to pay and pay?
Fight the fare increase! Vote for Creede Lambard!
Get poor Charlie off the M. T. A.
(Chorus)
He’s the man who never returned.
He’s the man who never returned.
Ain’t you Charlie?

Me singing “Health Wolves” at Conflikt II plus other necessary pictures.

Don’t I look pleased with myself.  Thanks Lady Miss Banjola.

Health Wolves was written as an insta-filk at the Saturday Brunch.  I missed the Saturday brunch last year and this year I got to sit next to Frank Hayes.  I would describe him as acerbically charming  o.0 and exhausted.

Dr. Filk at the Two-fer.

Peggy, armed and dangerous.

Frank “U Scum” Hayes, sufferer of “Frank Hayes Disease” and also the writer of “Never Set the Cat on Fire”.

Yes, that is a homemade theremin, and I heard it, and it rocked, but the sign says, “Will not play for $1/minute.”

All pics credit Lady Miss B.

Lots of links

Biggest space disaster. Dr. Filk told me about this some years ago.

Gahan Wilson explains it all for you. The SF movie plot generator.

Oh look, a rat playing banjo…. and standup bass.

Once upon a time I made up a character named Pockets.  She was an alien and she carried everything she needed.  Now, there’s Eric le Fou.

Fellow Performers!  How to craft a good set list.

D’oh, a deer.

You will notice my mother’s blog is now on the blogroll.

Gerald dear, when are you going to start blogging????

Fabulous evening

So I went with my/an “I-met-him-on-line-so-I-don’t-know-what-to-call-him” to a dinner party last night and I had more fun than I knew to predict, that’s for sure.  I mean any evening that starts with “Bring your mandolin, they’ll love it” is shaping up to be okay.  I drank a lot of beer, and two shots of Grand Marnier (when did that stuff become so yummy?), ate perfectly cooked prime rib, laughed until I cried about three times, sang and harmonized my lungs out, listened to Pete Seeger’s greatest hits on the stereo, stood up to play Spinal Clinic and got hijacked into playing backing instrumental on Heidi singing/improvising “Border Collies are smarter than you” and got called outside to see the ring around the moon.  I met some wonderful people, I mean really seriously wonderful folks, and now Jeff and I are consuming waffles and trying to figure out if we really need to do any running around today.

Exercise and randomness for the new year.

Paul and Keith were supposed to come over here and haul me off to Renfrew Pool, but it’s snowing really hard AGAIN so they bailed.  Jeff and I are thinking of going instead.  A swim and a soak would be lovely.

Pot roast for dinner…..  Amazing how I can be digesting brekkie and thinking about dinner already.

The agnostic guide to surviving the Bible belt (which I append because mOm could probably use it….)

Oh, the me-me goodness. This is a list of words applying to memes.  I particularly like membot.

We’ve come to the portion of the year HEAVILY BIASED toward self-improvement.  Everybody, get better.

Why music? Great article from the economonomist.