Category: Music

The Barque of Concord hits a rock

I guess I tried to explain to Jeff prior to moving in that I make a lot of noise when I am singing and writing songs and that it can get quite annoying.  His response was that he could wear headphones. Well, last night I was working on a tune and he told me to be quiet because what I was doing was annoying him. It was plenty annoying, but I had warned him.  I dunno.  I hadn’t worked on a tune or come up with anything new in yonks, and only being exposed to the brutal indifference of previous roommates and other relatives prevented me from curling into a fetal ball at his disapproval.  When I was living with Paul and the kids I’d get that annoying at least a couple of times a week – I guess Jeff is unaware of the extent he’s been spared my usual behaviour.  I have been unusually quiet.

tick

tick

tick

I will be looking for rehearsal space, I guess, and once I calm down, other possibilities. It’s too bad that it’s now officially too effing cold to play outdoors.

Keith came by and picked up his phone.  What a turkey I am!  I didn’t even know it had a camera in it.  Mine’s kinda like a little rubber brick and all it has is Mah Jong and Tetris and Bejeweled and Sudoku to while away the time.

A head full of buzzing noises, a tummy full of yummy

Mr. Music fed me last night, and what a meal… Tuna couscous, home made corn meal muffins (he made me take a couple home to Jeff). home made instant mint chocolate cake, and Corona, and some white wine, and hummus and bread and red pepper for appies.  I went staggering out of there thinking it was a little late to be finding a wheelbarrow and somebody to roll me home.

I sang (for his thumbs up or thumbs down) the first pass of the music that I want to put in the musical.  He approved of most of it, but that was not the upshot….

More FREEEEEAKING HOMEwork.  My task, in between practicing my mandolin so I don’t get all embarrassed next Wednesday when Anne comes back, is to view / listen to one ‘representative’ musical from each decade from the 20’s through the 70’s, and the stage version NOT the filmed version, because even I know that these are separate disciplines and I’m writing for the stage.  I feebly commented that I want to do a musical pastiche with only the most paper thin excuse for a plot, but Mr. Music seems to think I am capable of more than throwing together the millennial version of the King of Jazz; he pointed me at Oklahoma! as being a very close to perfect attempt to meld story with song.    Anyway, I have the list written down somewhere and after I have finished digesting both that wonderful meal and the bolus of simple but time consuming suggestions I will start hacking away at it.

I did tell him I’m expecting this to take at least a year.  I still have to work full time and do laundry.  And now I have to go see every piece of musical theatre in Vancouver over the next year, so I can see what’s happening in contemporary musicals….. sigh.  Who needs spare time?

Ashokan Farewell and who let the bear out

Cousin Gerald, because he appears to have MIND READING on his resume, sent me the MP3 of Jay Ungar’s version of Ashokan Farewell, which is from the soundtrack of the Civil War documentary I’ve been watching.

I publicly express my weeping gratitude!  It’s also meaningful to me because the folks at Jericho Beach Folk Club play it for every ingathering, so it’s already familiar to me.

Chipper THANKS for this… Who let the bear out? Adventures in animal release…..

ADDED LATER

I just learned that Ashokan Farewell was written by Jay Ungar, who played it on the soundtrack, so it’s one of those ‘contemporary trad’ tunes, like the kind Dr. Filk likes so much.

Lee’s army is surrounded on three sides by Union troops

Surrender is inevitable.  Heavy sigh.  Such a gallant army.  Such an inglorious cause.

Anyway, I should drag myself away from the Rebel defeat long enough to comment on chicken breasts, curried rice and salad for dinner last night (v mild curry, due to Katie really not being a big fan).  Jeff’s doing the trash.  It’s all very domestic and boring, and frankly, that’s the way I likes it.  Katie left about 7:30 last night to parts unknown, but she had all her school crap with her and she’s supposed to text me when she’s on her way to school.  I’m not too worried; it would hardly help if I was.

I am now facing the prospect of doing scratch recordings of all the songs I have selected for inclusion in the musical, with some horror.  But it must be done….

Hymn Sing

So we made with the churchy ballads at Tom and Peggy’s last night, and it was wonderful fun.  Paul and Keith had come over earlier to have a low key birthday celebration for Paul; we watched The Bucket List and I made tortillas.  Then I made pork fried rice for Jeff so he’d have some dinner, and I made lentil soup to take to the hymn sing.  Keith came along too… I nearly lost my eyes when I saw him eating lentil soup.  He really is pushing the envelope on food these days, which makes me extremely happy.

Katie is here, boiling up eggs and making a healthy lunch.

It’s bizarre to be watching the Civil War documentary at the same time as following the American election.  I feel like a whole bunch of people need to be reminded that it was a Republican president who issued the Emancipation proclamation.  Democrats are talking about Republicans as if they are brain dead traitors, and Republicans are talking about black people as if the Civil War had never happened.  It’s disgusting.  It has nothing to do with the glory of the Constitution.  Oh my neighbours, a house divided… will you never learn?

I am really glad I’m Canadian, and I learned how to seethe gently without taking up arms.

I did all my laundry this weekend, and put it all away, and cleaned my room.  It’s completely changed the acoustics in there.

Dreams / work / musical

I’m only posting this to make Debbie pout, but last night I dreamed I was in a hot tub with Michael Weatherly and three other guys.  I was naked, everybody else was wearing trunks.  (damn… or something).  And what were we DOING in the hot tub, minds without shame wish to know?  Waiting for Obama.  Yup. I wish I was making this up, but I was waiting for Obama.  Also there was a bit of byplay about Michael Weatherly swimming with dolphins, and he said they had noses like a policeman’s truncheon.  No subtext there, move along!

When we got out of the hot tub, (Obama being a no-show) we realized we were in a Bavarian village, and somebody was trying to get married on a balcony (I saw my old boss François as a groomsman) at the same time there was a movie being filmed about Hitler, and the crew wanted to use the balcony at the same time as the wedding party, and I got out of Bavaria before there was a total riot. Note how all my major concerns of late are shoved into one untidy dream.  Woke up smiling, even if I didn’t get to see Michael Weatherly naked.

Worked late last night.  It’s boring as hell, what I was trying to do, but I tried to do it a week ago and all my scans disappeared, and then I tried to do it yesterday, and that part of the network went offline just as I was trying to complete it, so I stayed for an hour and got it done. The guys in IT are screechingly busy these days what with moves and upgrades but they are still unfailingly helpful and polite, so here’s a blessing on the lot of them.  I will miss them…. after the move I won’t be sitting close to them anymore.  Sigh.

I’m seriously grieving about my job change. It’s LUDICROUS.  I’ve done nothing but complain about it for the best part of ten years, but now I’m realizing I secretly loved it and was just whining for attention.  This makes me feel like an ijjut.  We grow too soon oldt und too late schmardt.

The LHC did not trigger the end of the world; I slept fine last night, as my dreams could attest.

Katie’s here contemplating what to raid the fridge for at lunch.  It’s so cute.  Especially now that I know she’s sharing her lunch every day with women who forget to eat. (Women who forget to eat…. didn’t Rita Rudner have a brilliant line to do with that??)

I’m seeing Mr. Music on Friday and we’re going to run through the tunes; he’s planning on feeding me.  Any guy who has a vault for a pantry HAS to be able to cook; I await the prospect with happiness.  The work too.

Last night I asked Paul, mOm, Mr. Music and Katie ‘what makes a great musical’.  Paul said “The tunes and how it’s put together,” Mr. Music said, “Song, story, presentation,” mOm said, “Singing and dancing!” and Katie said “Pacing and variety”.  I’m going to keep asking people what they think, but I’m using Mr. Music’s useful and terse guidelines for practicality’s sake.

I light a candle for the swift recovery of my former boss Owen’s son Ryan, who’s recently out of surgery.  On a less compassionate note, here’s a little squib for the swift arrival of the plumber; we’ve been waiting for a couple of days.  It’s okay, it merely confirms Jeff and I in our belief that we’d be better served in a different location.  Our own.

The perfect wedding

I guess I have to say that I don’t feel bad at all about being almost 50, because it means I’ve attended a fair few marriage ceremonies.  I have some basis of comparison, then, when I say that Jerome and Shannon’s wedding was the closest to perfect I’ve ever seen.

A marriage, you know, one of those commitments not to be entered into lightly or with no thought.

First, the happy couple.  Hardworking, intelligent, hospitable and good-looking.  Once in a very long while you meet a couple made for each other and when you get the news they’re engaged you get all wiggly like a puppy that something good is gonna be happening and you’re gonna be invited.

The venue: on a near cloudless day, warm with a bit of a breeze, they married outdoors next to the pavilion in Deer Lake Park, in front of about 100 people who had flown or driven from all over Washington or Western Canada.

The bridal party: Three stunning women in beautiful red strapless dresses that they all looked good in and which they would all be able to wear again for a formal occasion.  The groomsmen: two guys who go back to the dawn of time with Jerome, and his twin sister, who, uh, goes back even earlier than that.  Joanna got to wear the same red gown, and the whole party looked great – and happy to be there.

The bridal costume:  While I still think Cheryl’s wedding gown was magnificent, it was appropriate for her age and not being marriage number one.  THIS was a full on girly girl, long train, beads and spangles, white wedding dress. It was exactly like the kind of dress 8 year old girls dream about, and it was quite funny because Shannon is not a girly girl, but she still had the perfect dress.

The ceremony started and ended on time.  I don’t think the bride and groom recited their vows with quite enough intent and dignity, but that’s just me and they still got the job done.

The officiating dude:  He was the possessor of  a clear mellow voice with an English accent and he didn’t rush anything.

The presence of mind of the groom:  While they were reciting vows, a small spider started down Shannon’s face (it had probably joined the ceremony during the picture taking just before the ceremony).  Shannon’s arachnophobia is legendary, and Jerome dealt with it calmly.  She was laughing at him as he tried to clear it off her face because he didn’t tell her it was a spider until AFTER which was kinda the right thing to do if he didn’t want her leaping up and screeching.

The reception hall was exactly the right size and there was an open bar.  No, I didn’t go insane (I am up at 6 am the next day after all) but I got plenty convivial.

The music at the reception:  from the last 50 years, but leaning more towards U2 and Aerosmith and Tom Petty and Tragically Hip and Pink Floyd, with Sinatra and Del Shannon thrown in.  Danceable, hummable, fun.

The guests; fun loving.  The table I sat at:  All people I know and love, or would care to get to know better.  The MC:  a friend of Shannon’s who goes back yonks; he did a good job.  The best man.  Okay, I’m prejudiced, because I really like Sam I Am, but that was THE BEST speech ever.  It was completely loaded with electricity puns.  Loaded.  pOp, if you’d been there even if you would have been roaring:  All of his current and former coworkers were speechless with laughter, not the nervous kind but the kind where you are leaning on the table crying.

Food:  really good roast beast and plenty of other nummy things, in abundance, well cooked.

The dancing:   I was out there with a crowd of coworkers when Robbie B said, “Oh my god Allegra did you see that?” “What, the father of the bride delivering jello shooters onto the dance floor?” “How perfect is that?” “I think it was an epoch making day in Canadian history, frankly, and WE WERE HERE.”

The seating plans:  Weddings with four parents – none of whom really can sit at the same table – don’t necessarily work all that well.  There wasn’t any awkwardness.

Shannon said (she was grinning) during the bride and groom speech that she had made a Powerpoint presentation to the caterers, so you get the impression she’s a disciplined and organized woman.  Well, I’d say it paid off, because Shannon and Jerome made the decision from the outset to throw a memorable party for their friends and family, and they got their wish.  I had a complete blast.  Many thanks to Mike for the ride to the hall and companionship during the evening…. at one point a photographer asked if we were together and we just smirked, while the other folks at the table laughed.  And thanks to Jeff for getting me there, I appreciate that a lot.

Wasn’t that a party…..  If any of my pix turned out halfway decent I’ll post some later.

Friday Roundup

Watched the opening sequence of Quake IV – not bad, but derivative, like everything else in the universe, including my own DNA f’chrissakes.

I CAN’T get Young Dumb and Crazy out of my head, I was singing it all day, mixed in with the Blasteeze the Laxative Coughdrops Song. “There will be a brief hi-a-tus, then, the mentholated flatus; pop these babies in your mouth, and soon your drawers are headed south.” Yeah, I sang that every time I went by HR today.  Kind of without really realizing what I was doing.  HR is next to the washroom, after all.

I light a candle for Tanya and her hubby – a swift recovery and sweet sweet sleep for both of them, please thanks kbai.

I light a candle for Patricia, and she knows why.

I light a candle for Gianna, who has one of the most infectious laughs I have ever heard.

I light a candle for Robof9, and he knows why.

I light a blowtorch of a candle for Paul, and he knows why.

I light a candle for the start of another church year and the success of the fall gathering.  (It’s a church thingy, the regional fall gathering.)

I won’t be going to church on Sunday as ScaryClown is going to try to set a new record for margaritas before lunch and I’m damned if I’ll miss that. Three margaritas would have me running my hand over the waiter’s ass, and it had absolutely no effect that one could detect on ScaryClown.  Jeff and Keith will also be in attendance. I’ll take the camera this time as I love the decor in the restaurant.

The cats are fine.  Eddie’s taken off a little weight and his digestion seems to be a bit better. Gizmo curled up in Jeff’s lap last night and looked up at him adoringly and then farted continuously for about twenty minutes, he was that relaxed.

No word from Katie; I imagine she’ll turn up eventually but she missed getting Switzerland Chicken ordered for her. Please note that she is learning how to play chess; I am sure her uncle will be cheerfully amused and pleased by this intelligence.

Work sux, but in a good way.  You know, the birthing pangs way.

I saw a rainbow this morning.

More NCIS turned up.  That makes me very, very happy.

And tomorrow, the intelligent & beautiful Shannon and the magnificent & useful Jerome will, in front of their friends and family, pledge their intention to spend the rest of their days together.  They got no worse odds than anybody else, in fact I’d say better, and dayum, they will make pretty children.  Me happy.  And I’ll get to see Mike dressed up, which pleases me, and I don’t have to do any grzsly shopping, they want money.

Check Snopes.com for the Palin letter. Innnteresting.

It feels so good to be home and sitting with the folks.  Life’s good.

Dayum! Missed the zombie walk

Did not get the email this year.  Got it last year. Why am I unloved?

Jerome came by for lunch in the middle of a day which was to be endured and not enjoyed.  He was the only bright spot.  I love him so… I could get extremely mushy about him, but when I like people I’m pretty happy animal about it and don’t bother hiding it.  Anyway, I got to introduce him to my coworkers by their blog names (bwa, likewise ha!).  Best part of lunch: getting outside the building to talk to him alone and then having one of our old workmates come up after his run and beg forgiveness for not attending the stag (which was a good mix of coworkers old and new, and family, not too big and not too, uh, well, dumb).  Second best:  Allegra archly announces “Jerome is getting married this week!” to which ScaryClown responds, “What the fuck do you want to be doing THAT for?” while Robof9 murmured, “Run away, run away!” in demented counterpoint. (They too are my coworkers….)  I’ll leave out Jerome’s immediate response, which is not for public consumption (at least if he wants to stay on course for getting married on Saturday) and cut to his next words, which were said with that large, eerie blue gaze of his, “She doesn’t appear to be crazy!” at which point I was justabout helpless with laughter, because all I could think of was how amused my dad would be at the shenanigans (and you would have been, it was like being in a really good sitcom for about 30 seconds).

AT SOME POINT, Katie is going to have to negotiate staying here while she’s in school.  She’s talked to me and she’s talked to Jeff, but we’ve never had the dreaded “all three of us” talk.   Sooner or later you have to have the dreaded talk, and the only comfort you can take is that somebody is lying, and maybe even you, but ground rules are necessary and will require reiteration. (Otay, that sounded bitter, but I was thinking of something other than the sweet gig I have here with Jeff – even if the landlord’s dog shat in the yard just as I was getting home last night).  Katie stayed overnight, and she has a cheque in her bag which would be sufficient to bring tears to my eyes if the leg cramp which woke me up at 4:15 hadn’t accomplished that task.  Rule number one is gonna have to be a little comment on the toilet lid.  It stays down.  Otherwise I can hear Eddie slurping in the night about three feet from my head, an uncanny noise which does not make for cheerful dreams, what with the toilet being just the other side of the wall.

Katie K’s Vegas postcard came here after she got back.  Made me smile.

I answered another Craigslist ad. For Jeff’s response, scroll up and check with ScaryClown.  More politely stated, of course; Jeff is never rude by accident.  I have YET ANOTHER email address now, but I hate my hotmail and telus and sfu accounts and I will be collapsing them all down by the end of the year.

Migraine signs.  Oh, it’s gonna be a peachy peach of a day.

Katie K

FINALLY – after literally months – I got together with Katie K in her ‘impressively staged’ condo.  Why, when I recollect what it looked like the last time I was there…. okay, maybe I’d better rephrase that.  There is virtually nothing in the condo.  I mean, a hotel suite has more furniture in it.  The repulsive colours on the walls are now amazingly similar to the Dusty Roads Paul and I painted the Augur Inn (note, that was really Unca Dave who painted it), and the hunter green carpet is now the same laminate flooring Paul and I put in the basement after the flood.  All in all, it looks lovely & you can actually see all the closet space, of which, given the size of the condo, it has a lot.  Yes, the condo is still for sale. Her new place closes in a month. Insert vicious comments about the horrors of getting a mortgage when you’re a woman on your own, bridge financing lamentations, etc., etc.

After we be trading smoking hot gossip and footrubs (when, pray tell, are footrubs NOT in order?) she got a thoughtful look on her face and showed off all the fancy lingerie she got in Vegas (okay, boys, you can all go to your happy place now) and she mentioned her weight loss, and then said, “Try these on” so I now have a really nice fitting pair of Gap jeans and the knowledge that Katie K is a size smaller than me.  At least in the ass department.  I’d need a really venal plastic surgeon to be able to approach the magnificence of her balcony. There followed a discussion about shipping ourselves off to a fat farm for a month next summer, this summer being jammed full of other things as well as almost over.  Maybe I should just get my jaw wired shut; it would get me off the phone at work, my brother wouldn’t have to listen to my yammering, and I’d quit eating as if I had a tapeworm.  Mm, tapeworm.  I could always try that too.

Jeff and I had considered going to the Harlan Ellison biomovie at Cinémathèque but when I got home from Katie’s we just looked at each other and went meh.  Then more NCIS.  Pretty soon Season 3 will be all gone, so we’ll have to go back to watching movies.  With respect to NCIS, I have noticed some really glaring continuity errors, and I’ve finally warmed up to Michael Weatherly.  The Ziva character, of course, is wonderful.

I woke up to “Young Dumb and Crazy” playing in my head, with full 60’s style accompaniment, kinda a cross between Nelson Riddle and Bert Kaempfert (aaaarrrrgggghhh!) and some beardless tenor wailing out the lyrics.  Let me tell you something.  You know how you can get a song stuck in your head?  Try having written the damned thing, c’est pas un cadeau.

Spoke to Paul yesterday about kid stuff.  I am so happy to be able to communicate with him reasonably well about the important issues without being all hissy towards him.   Human communication is such a fragile thing.

Today, laundry.  And other cleaning matters…..

creative jus and structural integrity

My experiences with certain young people and the young couple formerly downstairs have me in the middle of writing a song.  This will be an ‘anti love song’.

Picture 50’s / 60’s doowop.

Young dumb and crazy

Young dumb and crazy

You can’t be serious

Love makes us delirious

We have trouble with bound’ries; we have issues at borders;

Court appointed attorneys; and restraining or-or-ders

I dosed her with chloral; she hit me with crock’ry

Our manners and morals are mostly a mock’ry

I’m smelling trouble; she’s smelling perfume

And on the double, up goes the volume

Young dumb and crazy

Young dumb and crazy

I want to be passionate

My hope – you are dashing it

Other than that, not much to report.  I am in receipt of an email from the Luddite outlining his latest activities, with one disgruntled comment about the weather, which has been dreadful for a cyclist.  Not too much fun for me either, as I have lost my umbrella and not replaced it, because that’s what umbrellas re FOR, to be lost, and there really seems little point to get into this infinite loop again of purchasing umbrellas, being happy with them for the first little while, watching them slowly lose structural integrity and then about the time you want to pitch them you conveniently leave them on the bus.  It’s been 15 years since I left something on a bus, I feel really dumb, but on the other hand, it was just an umbrella, and not a very good one at that. It’s a recursive loopy kinda day!

Grr

After my exalted state yesterday, OF COURSE I don’t get to keep it.  Instead, here it is 6:30 in the morning and raining comme un batard (I think I’m missing a circonflex in there) and I’m feeling ill and sad, because I just accidentally read somebody else’s correspondence on my computer.  I was looking for all the midi files on my Mac so I can fire them over to Mr. Music and he can sort through what he likes…. but smacked into Katie’s IM with Dax at midnight because it was the first thing that came up on the search.  How’s that for a coincidence?  Now that I’ve admitted I’m a jerk, I think I’ll have some more coffee.  I have no witnesses to the fact I did not go looking for this intel; I hope you’ll take my word for it.

Yup – Katie is visiting.  I’m not entirely sure how long she will be here, but I think it’s safe to say she will need a lot of love and support over the next little while.  She’s scheduled to start school at VCC in September; she says she’s looking forward to it and I believe her.  The rest is me being silent, but if you can visualize me squirming in sympathy, that’ll cover it.

I can’t get the Angstones version of the Lonely Goatherd out of my head.  That infernal yodelling!  It’s bouncing off the inside of my skull like a veritable Pachinko of billiard balls.

The CEO of a 17 billion Euro company is coming through the office today.  No, I’m not making that up either.  My response was to go to his corporate website, print out his picture, and stick it up over my desk with a cheerfully deflatory comment; I know that the cubicle police will come through at dawn and take it down, so I’m perfectly safe.  They will never comment.  They know what I’m like.  Hey, he said on his bio on the corporate site that he had a sense of humor (also that he likes white water rafting).  It’s everybody else’s reaction that I’m going for….

Jeff has once again improved the house, this time by putting sound dampening on the toilet lid.  NO, not fur trim.  Blech.  He put it on the toilet tank so that the bathroom no longer rings like a gong when you put the lid up.  We leave it down because the cats like to drink from the john, which we judge to be lacking in aesthetics and hygiene both.

Last night we fed Keith, Katie and Paul something of a feast.  It was very good to see all of them, and we watched a couple of NCIS episodes, which have Ziva in them, trying to gel with her new team…  Mike was supposed to drop over, but it’s like waiting for the bridegroom.  I have to keep the lamp trimmed at all times.  Or maybe he didn’t want to drop into a family gathering; that would not surprise me.

Back to the midi files.  Having revealed the cause of my unhappiness, I feel somewhat better.