Category: Music

Willie P Bennett is dead, at home, in Peterborough

I must thank Chipper for bearing me these sad tidings.

Two mornings after Keith was born, Willie P phoned me and asked if he could come see the child, having received word from Paul that his firstborn had arrived.

He showed up reeking of cigarettes and alcohol.  My mother, radiating primate female on guard, watched him closely.   But it was merely a man lying on our bed and absorbing the experience of being with a tiny newborn child, which he did for the best part of an hour.

I had another anecdote, but I’ll leave it for the memorial service.
One time, Willie P told us a story about how he got an allergic reaction so badly – while on tour – that the hives started going down his throat.  With great difficulty he got himself to a hospital in either Edmonton or Calgary and as he sat in the exam room waiting for a doctor, the curtain kept getting pulled back and there’d be another med student standing there goggle-eyed.  He or she would say, “They’re RIGHT, you ARE the worst case of hives they’ve ever seen!” and then the curtain would close again.

He wrote a lot – a LOT – of songs, good ones.  “Willie’s Diamond Joe” is one of my favourite tunes, and “Why’d I Go Zydeco” is on my playlist.  He wrote “Music in your eyes” for a member of Paul’s family.  He used to show up at dinner time at Paul’s mum’s place all the time.
In later years he played mandolin.  Everything is connected.  Rest in peace, Willie the P.

It is all connected

Cats!!!

Catherine told me about Selkirk Rex kitties.  I couldn’t find the one she was telling me about so this one will have to do.  I love the fur, and the enormous eyes.  Then she told me that there’s a video of a kitten getting into a Rottie’s face; I couldn’t find that either but check out the following.
Cause cats pwning dogs never gets old…. 

Okay, more disparity in size, same principle. 

Change of pace:

Yeah, I don’t like Cosmo either.

The Luddite sent me this one…

A duo performing I WILL SURVIVE in a way that will RENDER IT IMPOSSIBLE for you to ever hear that song without snickering, ever, again.

I am streaming with tears, having watched this lovely cross post from the Luddite. What’s Opera Doc brought into the 21st century.

I’m waiting for my biscotti to cool.  I’ve done all of my valentine cards and now I just need a quick shower and I’ll be ready for work.  Sundae this afternoon in the caf!!!

If I were Al Swearengen

I did a video of this song last night. I roll my eyes like a cartoon character when I’m performing! Meep! Now I know the horrible secret, my mother didn’t give birth to a little pink wrinkled thing she GAVE BIRTH TO A CARTOON CHARACTER. No wonder I’m terrified of Dip! Alert the Media. Anyway, I’ve tried and tried and tried to post it to my website, and I can’t. I’m gonna wait until Glenn comes over and walks me through FTP again, because I’m OBVIOUSLY doing something wrong, something simple to do with the naming of it, or I’m putting it in the wrong folder. Then I will post it. It’s not good enough for Youtube (a low standard to be sure as Doc Filk would say) but it’s good enough for a giggle among friends, so ping me if you want to see it; the quicktime video is about 4 megs and it’s 3:35.

There is snow. So much f*cking snow. It’s unbelievagable.

Ack. Fast fo;ward to June 23, and I DID so post it to Youboob. Heavy sigh. But I’m commenting it, and that makes it oddly better.

Who pulled the plug…

… that was blocking my brain?

 

I wrote FOUR SONGS yesterday.  One is a love song to Al Swearengen from Deadwood – one is a blues tune about the Blue Hell, a bar from the Fred Pohl Heechee Chronicles – one is a narsty emo bytchefest between Gelis and Niccolo from Dunnett’s series which references their ongoing telepathic mindgames – and the last is a breakneck, kickass song about the current culture war between faith and reason.

The “If I were Al Swearengen” song nearly fell out of my head right after I wrote it.  When I wrote it, I thought it was all in the same time signature – silly me! Then I go to sing it back and the choruses don’t work.  What happened?  (Or as Paul remarked, “You weren’t recording it?”)  It’s in two time signatures (waltz and mildly syncopated 4/4) which is just bloody bizarre but completely fits the mood of the song.

Anyway, I suspect that somebody went to a shrine somewhere and prayed for me, because that was the most amazing thing that’s happened to me in years.  That sound you hear is a giant mental drain unclogging.

I light a candle for Patricia, who has an owie.  (Further details as authorized).

I light a candle for Katie, who will love Daxus until death or something like it.  I was that stupid at 19, but at least I loved worthier men.

List of things to do

  1. Learn the Code Monkey dance
  2. Write down about sixty LJ user names and friend them
  3. Actually put together a proper filk book of the stuff I intend to ever sing again (I think this means an evening with Shaddyr, and soon)
  4. Think about the logistics of going to Jersey in June.  I mean, I have a passport and everything now, it’s not like I can’t travel Stateside.
  5. It’s two-thirty in the morning…. shouldn’t I be sleeping?  Nope, they are still filking in the main room.  I heard about chocolate in the consuite and after administering aid and comfort to the consuite hostess – Shaddyr – and hanging with some younger filkfemfen, I thought.  Hmmmm.  I have eaten all the chocolate, now I should go back downstairs and do the pillage and rapine thing in the main room.

 

More con stuff

I am having a simply lovely time, and had supper with LMB, Dr. Filk, and Tom and Peggy. Right now Skinny White Chick is playing.  They just finished the Alligator Song, which is beyond words amusing, and a tango to boot.

I’m going to check the schedule again and maybe nap for a bit before the open filk / bawdy songs room opens up…Earlier today I got to sing the Tapioca Song, accompanied by about 35 people, in the Songbook Filk.  Happy sigh.

 

Blogging at the Con

So, last night, Jeff Hitchin did not one, not two but THREE filks of the Tapioca Song. One was in Spanish, one in Japanese, and one was about Oxycontin. I surreptitiously took a picture of him while he was about it. Jeff is a fabulous performer and great raconteur; I am honoured above my worthiness.

All hail the Con Committee. They planned for 80 and there will easily be 120 attendees. Runnerwolf – whose idea the whole thing was, enthusiastically endorsed by everyone in earshot, including, as I recollect, me – was looking a bit glazed but really happy when I met up with her at the reg table yesterday.

Met up with Lady Miss Banjola and Dr. Filk with no difficulties AFTER I got into my shared room; Shaddyr (I will refer to her & Runnerwolf by LJ names as it ‘s easier) gave up her room passkey from last night so even though I hadn’t seen the principals I had a place to stash my stuff.

I did some of the driving down from Vancouver, but long about supper time I started getting visual disturbances (I still feel kinda wonky today, although that may have something to do with my lack of cafFiend) so Peggy did the driving from there.

Open Filking last night was great; I heard many filk classics old and new, and which included a madrigal zombie filk, Jonathan Coulton’s “Eat Your Brains” ably performed by Tony Fabris, the funniest parody of Danny Boy Ever…. and I debuted “You Try Being Buffy’s Mom” a capella as I have yet to write it down, although LMB has an MP3 of it up on her website (v raw, being recorded the day I wrote it).

Anyway, I’m being a jackass hogging one of the two public internet access points in the hotel, so I’d best fly. I’m here, I’m settled, and apart from once aGAIN failing to bring earplugs, I’m doing great. I’ll post pics later; I remembered to bring my USB cable and this computer has a USB port, can you believe it?

contradancing

Well, what a Vancouver Experience. First off, people I’ve paid money to see were dancing with me…. that was bizarre enough. Then I had somebody come up to me – actually two somebodies – & ask me if it was a nice break from singing funny songs. I’m famous, don’t you know (their word, not mine) for my appearances at Jericho. I had three men ask me to dance in rapid succession at one point, which was interesting. I danced with the Luddite two out of three times. I’m just not used to dancing that hard with no help from sweet sweet beer.
So I completed three dances and sat out two but my god by a little before 9:30 I was getting shooting pains down my right leg as my enthusiasm outstripped the capacity of my back to cope with the jiggling. (Rock and roll dancing is much easier on my back… and I got invited to go dancing at the Rage by the Chef next weekend TOO but alas I will be filking up a storm). Giblitz Fancy from Point Roberts was playing, and mighty fine playing it was, too. The Luddite, as promised, will be closing the place; it was very amusing watching him shed about six layers of clothing in rapid succession as he warmed up.
The dance is at the bottom of the hill so I was home jiggety jig, packed amongst young folk plotting exactly how drunk they plan to get tonight. Me, I’m going to curl up with Love, Actually, as I really like the actors. Has Chiwetel Ejiofor been in every frikkin movie in the last three years?

later….. it turns out the movie was very scratched and unplayable so I started on Man of the Year instead.

Nine hours sleep AGAIN

Either I’m clinically depressed or I’m actually getting enough sleep.  Since I wake up in the morning feeling calm, relaxed and rested, which is usually the opposite of either depressed or sickening sleep (you know, the sleep you get when you’re trying to fend off the latest round of germs) I think it’s the latter, and that’s just fine by me.

On the list today:

Get my thank you letter off to my Granny; put all my laundry away, which laundry has transmogrified from Dirty Pile to Clean Pile without significantly reducing the wreckage that is my apartment; Cook Things (I have chicken and beef to cook up for premade meals); send out invites for the Friday night beeriness (which will also encourage me to tidy in the public areas at least although the bathroom’s already clean); assemble my outfit for contradancing on Friday (it’s literally one short bus ride from here); get into work early because me covering for somebody’s lawful absence for the last week and a half has put a cinder in the eye of all of my other customers, who are sending baleful emails.  I should also get stuff ready for Conflikt but I imagine I’ll get into a frenzy of printing stuff out later.. it was odd having somebody who knows me IRL emailing me and asking if she could print out the Tapioca Song for the song book – it’s on this site and under a Creative Commons license.  Unless you are planning on turning it into an international hit children’s song (as…bloody…if…) anybody can do what they want with it, and it’s already been parodied, so nu?  Oh, and I should cancel & rebook next Friday evening’s medical appointment downtown because I’m going to be in Seattle….

Before I die I want ONE of my songs to have a goofy flash animation.  I may have to go back to school to learn how.  I’m thinking “Catnip on my Shoes” because it’s only a minute long, and cats are definitely popular with geeks.  Why?  because they are Just Barely Social Enough.  Dog owners can be easily as crazy as cat owners, but at least they have to leave the house.