Take this and you'll need another bris!

more here

Or kittyoke neither...

Yep. That's what it often sounds like.

McIver draws on city funds to pay fine

The gist of it is:

"Seattle City Councilman Richard McIver used city money to pay a $1,000 fine levied by the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission"

So he sez:

"...he and the law department believe the Municipal Code allows the city's judgment claims fund to pay the fine, because the violation happened during the course of his work as a city councilman."

I don't know who he thinks he's kidding since:

"The ethics commission order says specifically that McIver should pay $500 for each of his two violations from his personal funds."

This is a fine example of the people who know best how we should live our lives.

And yes, I'm sure this happens on the right as well. It's just we don't get many of them in this nanny state, especially in the major nanny metropolis of Seattle.

When I got my new mp3 player the other day the first step was to plug it in and let it charge up off of the USB port. Ubuntu Linux immediately recognized it as the equivalent of a thumb drive and popped up a window. Lo! There was already an mp3 in there.

It's called Modern Jazz Samba and was written/performed by a guy named Kevin MacLeod. It's part of the royalty-free music he has on his very cool website, incompetech.com. All of this info was in the metatags on the mp3. So I went and looked around.

It's full of a bunch of interesting (and wildly varied) stuff. It has a whole section of downloadable graph papers (as pdf files), the aforementioned royalty-free music, movie reviews... just tons.

Amongst it was a little section of essays on music styles, from motet to tone poem. When I got to the one about sonatas it showed that they were in a three part format.

The first part is a "statement" (the "A" part) and it's repeated twice. The second part is the "fantasia" (the "B" part), only gone through once. The final part is the "re-statement" (our "A" part again), gone through just the once.

In other words, sonatas are in the AABA format.

The AABA format is extremely common in the type of jazz I like to do. All this time I've been performing (and writing some) tunes in the AABA format, never knowing that I was echoing the sonata form.

So. Are these jazz tunes sonatas, or are sonatas just really early jazz?

So I had all this cash from my recent gig and I was in Bartell's drugstore -- for the prosaic task of buying a new stick of Old Spice deodorant -- and I wandered over to the electronics area, mostly out of curiosity.

There I found that the price point had come down to my level (~$20) so I finally own a portable mp3 player.

It's a Coby MP-C582. No screen. No playlists. I don't need what the cool kids are carrying. 1 gigabyte of flash memory, regular or shuffle (random) play, next and previous track buttons (that also serve as volume buttons), a play/stop button that also serves as the on/off button. A little switch that locks the buttons so you don't accidentally turn it on and waste your battery time entertaining your pocket.

And the cheapo earphones that came with it are pretty comfortable.

Apparently they don't even make them anymore-- which might account for its low price -- since it's not available on their website. You can still find it for sale, though for how long is anybody's guess.

The packaging said it would work with a bunch of Windows variants and Mac OSX. I was pretty sure that Ubuntu Linux would just recognize the thing when I plugged it into the USB port so I took a chance.

I was right.

The only drawback to it was the fact that it has a built-in rechargable battery and needs to be plugged in to a USB port to recharge. I was pretty sure that someone must make a "plug into the wall" USB recharger thing and a brief search proved me right.

Now I have portable tunes for those longish bus rides as well as a way to catch up on some podcasts I've been meaning to listen to.

I'm such a hepcat, no?

I've been asking recently for more of the nice and profitable gigs. They seem to be coming in.

This past Sunday the Snake Suspenderz trio played the second private party gig that we've gotten as a result of busking at the Ballard Sunday Market.

BTW... those cool, triangular banners you see in the Ballard market picture were sewn by the Fallen Angel, some time back.

This was a 60th birthday celebration for Dave, put together by his wife Joanna.

It was held in the upper floor of the Lake Washington Rowing Club and, unlike just about every other private party gig, folks were actually paying attention to the music. They were clapping for every song, complimenting the hostess for her choice in entertainment and coming up to us to tell us they were enjoying the show.

The audience ranged from babes in arms to grandpas -- one of whom came up to ask about my ukulele because he used to play "way back when" -- and grandmas.

Since it wasn't a loud venue, I got to play my nice Glyph ukulele for most of the performance. Didn't even break out the National reso once, though I did play one on the Ohana sopranino and we did one where I play harmonica.

Sketch didn't even have to pack his drum kit. Since they found us busking he only packed his washboard. Dangle the pencil condenser mike over his shoulder and you get the washboard sound and a mike for him to sing his nice harmonies into.

Since it was a trio gig -- i.e. no tuba for bottom end -- Thad did get stuck bringing the trombone, guitarron and guitar. But he's recently switched to using Opal, a Taylor Baby so that reduced his load a bit.

We got to graze the buffet table, were beered and/or wined and at the end of the gig Joanna handed me an envelope with the agreed upon cash -- a nice sum -- plus an extra $40.

It really does pay to ask for what you want. So...

More of these gigs, please?

I made tea is very cool.

(Hint: Don't click on either "Joe" or ">" because they'll take you elsewhere.)

Hat tip to the J-Walk Blog.

This past Thursday Snake Suspenderz played (for the third time) at Smokin' Pete's BBQ. But this was the first time with the newly refurbished quartet, featuring my old friend Salamandir on tuba!

It was a great gig with a fabulous and generous crowd. It's the first time I've ever looked into the tip bucket at the end of a show and found more multi-dollar bills (5's and 10's) than singles. w00t!

Rather than just rave on about it, I'm going to post not one, but two videos.

The sound quality is a little poor because we had to back the cheap little camera (and its internal mike) well into the crowd in order to get all of us in the frame. But they still work.

Vids after the break...

Yesterday Sketch and I played a set at the Pike Place Market. Later on in the afternoon Thad came by and picked us up so that all three of us could do the little Queen Anne Farmer's Market. In each place we had those cool moments in busking...

First, while Sketch and I were playing I watched a young man (maybe 13 or 14 years old) approach, pull out his own wallet and then give us a fiver out of his own funds.

This is a kid whose parents have taken out to see live performances of one sort or another. You might be amazed at the number of people who get all of their performances delivered by the glass teat. This leads to people (especially kids) who have no idea how to react to a live performance.

Plus it always tickles me when my really old skool material strikes a chord with the younger folk. Bless you, un-named young man!

Then we were at the Queen Anne Farmer's Market. The Market Master there came up and put in 2 or 3 fins herself. She likes us, bless her too.

But better yet... we had an audience at one point that consisted of several smalls in those immense, triangular, "all-terrain" strollers and their parental units. One of the couples asked if we took requests.

So I said, "We get requests all the time but hell, we keep on playing anyways."

Had to do the standard joke there. Union rules, y'know.

He asked if we could do the Elvis tune, Can't Help Falling In Love With You. None of us really knew it all, but between Thad's chords and my remembering at least most of the lyrics (with a helpful prod from Sketch) we managed to fulfill the request.

So the guy buys one of our $10 CDs and pays for it with two twenties. And keep the change, y'know?

Bless him and his sweetie (and baby) as well.

It's not always all about the money. But those sort of things can sure feel like validation.

A week ago Snake Suspenderz was up in Anacortes, WA playing the main stage (w00t!) at the 47^th Anacortes Arts Festival. It was a blast!

It was also the first gig that Dean Hedges -- he of the southpaw bass and mouth trumpet -- had played with us in a long time.

Since Thaddeus and Dean were scattered to the four winds, the only folk coming up from Seattle were me, Sketch, and his wife the Z-Lady. We had a pretty pleasant trip northwards and finding the place was no trouble either. We were there a bit on the early side and found Dean already waiting. Thaddeus arrived shortly after.