Here's a great piece of stop-motion animation on funny or DIE. I found it courtesy of @seeso on Twitter. (You can follow me, @howlinhobbit, on Twitter too.)

Apparently the embeds from funny or DIE don't work too well so you can go watch Iron Man vs Bruce Lee on the website.

For the last couple days I've been working on Craig Robertson's tune, The Staten Island Slide. Here's Craig performing it on a beach in Maine.

Click this if the embedded video doesn't work for you.

Dominator tabbed it out (you'll have to scroll down a ways to find it) and made a couple tutorial videos for it. I downloaded all that and learned it well enough to stop looking at the sheets for it in just a couple hours.

But that's not the same as having it down.

With corporations left and right sending out "cease and desist" letters to anyone on the web they think they can bully, it's nice to find something like this from way back in the pre-intartoob days.

It's a letter sent by Groucho Marx to Warner Brothers. I found it on Chilling Effects dot org. The backstory is thus:

While preparing to film a movie entitled A Night in Casablanca, the Marx brothers received a letter from Warner Bros. threatening legal action if they did not change the film’s title. Warner Bros. deemed the film’s title too similar to their own Casablanca, released almost five years earlier in 1942, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. In response Groucho Marx dispatched the following letter to the studio’s legal department...

My favorite quote:

"I just don’t understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don’t know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try."

There's a further quote later that's so good I'm stealing it and writing a song around it.

You'll hear it if I ever get it beaten into shape.

What? So soon?

Well. Yes.

I've recently been hanging around at the Ukulele Cosmos forums again. I popped back in and was reminded that the Cosmopolitans have a regular monthly recording-fest called the Open Invitational. The prior month suggestions are taken and one person (who it is rotates) chooses a song. Then, everybody who wants to can make an audio or video recording of their take on the tune and they all post them on the forums. This month's tune is Makin' Whoopee!, the Gus Kahn/Walter Donaldson tune.

One of my faves. Had to do it. And there were other reasons like...

Frankly, I just wanted to do another video anyways. Especially since I recently found a little editor called Avidemux that works with Ubuntu Linux. While not as full featured as iMovie — its major lack from my point of view is you can't do titling nor use multiple clips — what it does it seems to do very well, and in general lots quicker than iMovie. Mind you, I haven't given it a thorough going over yet. I played with the raw footage from a previous video and then used what I learned on this one. I may discover more good things yet.

The irony of it all is that I would have run over Chuck Colson's grandma, right there in her own driveway, to have had something like this before I got the eMac. Just making sure the beginning and end of the video were trimmed to get rid of all the futzing about with the camera or transcoding the file my camera gives me into something that YouTube likes was a hell of a chore before iMovie came along.

But I can use both. I did the basic trimming, contrast/brightness adjustment and ran a filter to get rid of "video noise" on the file from my camera on the linux box. Then I passed it over to the eMac and put the titles in and did the little zoomed inset thing.

Oops! Haven't put the vid in here yet. Was that a spoiler?

Nah.

I let the eMac chew it down into a file that YouTube likes, uploaded it and the rest is history. Um. In the making.

So without further ado...

And the click here thingy for the folks that can't see the embedded video.

The little inset was done with a nice plugin I found at cf/x. It's called simply Zoom and it's one of the many nice, low cost, plugins there that work with older versions of iMovie. It only cost me $2.50. If, like me, you're using an old version of iMovie, go check 'em out.

I'll be making another one soon I think. There's a couple more things I want to play with in Avidemux.

Despite having to do an ungodly amount of takes — thanks, loud neighbor dogs! — and nearly fluffing a verse completely I think this one came out alright. There's a definite progression — and in the right direction I'm happy to say — between my first video's production qualities and this one. Performance-wise I'm especially pleased with the whistling. It's something I'm constantly working on and I seem to be making progress there too.

Do let me know what you think about this one .

This is a tune from Uncle Jeff (down Tennessee way) of My Own Good Hole. He calls it an "original hillbilly blues."

I like it!

Use this if the embedded player doesn't work for you.

Tim Smithies posted on the Ukulele Cosmos forums about a recording he did during his local uke club's 'Ukulele Sunday jam session' in a Sheffield, UK pub. It's Ain't She Sweet, a tune I do — but not for a while now — and have been meaning to polish back up. He recorded it with his iPhone!

He says, "There were 1x soprano, 2 x concerts, 1x baritone, 1 x National Soprano, 1 x Double Bass and a Kazoo."

It sounds just like it should... friends meeting and making fun music together.

Go check it out on Tim's blog! (This streams via a little flash player so if you don't have flash installed or have a slower connection, you can directly download the mp3.)

This is my online buddy, Gerald Ross along with Mike Auldridge at The Dallas Steel Guitar Jamboree. Gerald is a phellow uke phreak but he's on acoustic guitar in this one and Mike is on the dobro.

Check it out on YouTube if you can't see the embedded video.

Smokin'!

Scope it out! A flying car!

Supposedly going to be ready to sell in 2011. It runs on regular unleaded, not avgas. I wonder what its range is?

Start saving your pennies. I'm sure it's going to be spendy. But yeah, I wants one!

Here's the embed doesn't work for me link.

Update: You can visit Terrafugia's site and reserve your own for only $10,000.

Having just posted about the CDBaby review it suddenly hits me that I haven't thanked Mickey for the very nice review he gave to the new Snake Suspenderz album, Serpentine, in Ukulele Player magazine.

Shame on me!

It's in issue #4. Check it -- and the rest of the magazine, including the other issues -- out!

And thanks very much, Mickey, for your time and effort! We appreciate it.

I just noticed that the Snake Suspenderz album, Serpentine, got its first review on CDBaby. Yay!

If you've got the CD or the downloads, we'd love it if you could take a few minutes and write a review for us. You have to sign up for an account and login but it's not a terrible timewaster.

Note this isn't an account like you want to sell a CD, it's just like signing up for a forum.

The review doesn't need to be an epic, check out the one already there. Once nice paragraph with an overall impression and a couple details. Easy-peasy! And (within reason I suppose) the more reviews we get the more folks will check our music out.

Thanks! And special thanks to Chris, for being #1.

You like Gypsy Jazz? I sure do. The other day I stumbled across Django Books dot com and they have a huge archive of videos (251 of them!) featuring all sorts of players, tunes, and formats. From multi-part entire concerts and documentaries to just a tune or two from old television and movies.

They're pretty small (at least on my screen at 1280x1024 resolution) and they're in wmv format so make sure you've got a browser or a browser plug in to handle that.

Enjoy!

If the embedded video doesn't work, try here.

Try here if the embed doesn't work for you.

The other day Steve Mays, Brother #1 of the Order of the Fez, put an entry up about how the rest of the fezren (and the sista!) could maybe follow each other on and communicate with each other on Twitter. I was, to say the least, a bit skeptical.

But, the very same day Dubber (he of Music Think Tank, New Music Strategies and other such things fame) did a piece on Twitter that referred to... you still with me?... Steve Lawson and his post on the same subject. This came complete with a video interview with Mr. Lawson. He is incredibly charming but that's just a facade to hide what a brilliant and deep thinker he is.

Don't be fooled. You're in great danger of learning something or maybe even being challenged to think in a different fashion if you pay attention to Mr. Lawson.

The upshot of this whole synchroneous mess is double-barreled:

1. I'm now on Twitter, giving it a chance. You can follow me if you'd like: @howlinhobbit
2. I'm following Steve Lawson, both on Twitter and in his blog. Which leads me to..

... Steve's take on "Celebrity 2.0" which is essential reading if you're trying to take your ukulele playing (or whatever) onto or into a higher level. Be a "pro" and all that.

This ain't your grandma's world, kids. The paradigm is shifting almost daily and if you insist on thinking in the old skool fashion you're going to be left behind.

You probably won't even get your 15 minutes of fame. Old skool as that concept is.

Way back in the day I had a little 4-track cassette porta-studio, a very cheap mixer and a cheap microphone. I used it to record my first (and so far, only) solo release and sold it as cassettes.

Cassettes, forsooth!

Nowadays there seems to be an "underground music movement" that releases lots of stuff on cassette only. There are two different "labels" just here in Seattle that do nothing but that. And another right down the freeway in Portland that also releases some stuff on CD.

I was so amused by the lo-tech nature (even for back then... 18 or so years ago) that I made a sign and hung it on the door of my room that said, "Studio, Eh?"

You might want to say that out loud for the full benefit of the pun. Or not.

Since then I've gone through a lot of different recording gear, but still haven't managed to release anything solo more than an occasional mp3. The last thing I had going was a shareware multi-tracker — nTrack Studio — on my old Windoze box.I had paid for it but it is several versions behind the current effort.

And then it broke (the software, I mean). I'm sure it had something to do with something else I had installed rather than an inherent problem in nTrack, but it was broken nonetheless.

And I switched to Linux.

And Linux sucked like a mighty sucking thing in the audio production department. I could find nothing that worked  — at least on my hardware — any better than Audacity. Audacity is OK, but not really up to the level of nTrack.

I do have a lovely old eMac and it has GarageBand on it. The problem is that it also has a very noisy fan and, since it's in the same room as my condenser microphones, it's being used for video production only. Bless the iMovie and all who sail in her!

About a month ago Thadd emailed a link to Ardour. I had tried it once before (some time back) and it hadn't worked. So I downloaded it and tried again.

It didn't work. Didn't even launch more than the startup screen before it gave me an error message. Much unmaidenly language ensued.

What's a (hopefully) creative Linux geek to do?

With only a three week gap (must be a record for me) I've just posted up a new solo ukulele video. It's the Roger Miller tune, King of the Road.

This is another "proof of concept" video as I try to expand my video editing chops. After quite a search, I found a place that has plug-ins for my version of iMovie that don't charge an arm and a leg for them. Further, you can get them ala carte instead of in big packages of related effects. The prices range from free to around $10 or $12. I used their free brighten/darken plug-in on the last two Snake Suspenderz videos I uploaded. This time I invested a whole $2.50 in a zoom effect.

The results aren't perfect, but as far as I'm concerned the concept is proven. I still need to work out just how much zoom is safe before it gets too pixellated and how to easily keep the rectangle I'm zooming in on in the proper proportions so I don't get skewing of the picture.

I suspect that changing the settings on my camera so that I'm recording the higher definition (and therefore, way larger filesize) video format might help in the pixellization department. But that will be more of a bear to deal with because the eMac doesn't really like to talk to my camera so I end up downloading from the camera to the Linux box and then passing the file (via a wifi LAN) to the eMac. Kinda slow. And then, of course, loading the file into iMovie is even slower.

I wonder of Sam Peckinpah had these kind of issues?

After doing the zoom in bits I ran them through a light dusting of the "sharpen" effect that came with iMovie. They still look like they were done with a different focus and lighting than the rest of the video even though it was all done in one take. Of course, it took me about 8 or 9 tries to get that one take, but hey! Who'd counting? I used the plug-in in such a fashion that it simply expands the selected rectangle to the full screen size, but you can use it to do a little inset in the bigger picture. I'm going to try something like that soon.

If you're using iMovie HD (I think it's also called iMovie 6) you should check out the cf/x plug-ins.

Enough yacking about it. Here's the video...

And here's the link to the video on YouTube for you folks that may be having trouble with the embed.

Let me know what you think!

A couple weeks ago the Fallen Angel went to the same folks we got Yuri (and his late brother, Neil) from and got another kitten. Meet Darwin.

Darwin is evolving thumbs.

We're doomed.

Yuri took to Darwin right away. In fact, Yuri seems to have adopted Darwin as his kitten. Darwin is down with that. He's basically a personable little guy and, except for the fact that he doesn't understand about the countertops being taboo and the fact that he seems to like to leap onto the FA, claws first, and hang there if he's not getting the attention he feels he deserves, he's a pretty good little cat.

Jack, on the other paw, wasn't so sure about all this kitten stuff. Darwin, being a kitten, wasn't smart enough to back off. He kept charging up to Jack and demanding that he play. Jack growled, hissed and used all sorts of other unmaidenly language, but was surprisingly gentle at batting Darwin away. Despite all that, Yuri would come around every time that he heard Jack cursing and sort of "run interference" for the kitten. This confused Jack no end and, being the former "new cat" in the household, I'm sure in his fevered feline brain he was worried about being replaced.

However cats think such thoughts anyway.

As the first week went by we could see Jack sort of relaxing with the whole concept. Which was a good thing because for the first several days Darwin could actually chase him out of a room. This was pretty hilarious. Jack weighs in at nearly 20 pounds. Darwin, maybe 2. Watching Jack thunder by followed close on his heels by this tiny kitten was a hoot.

Pretty soon Jack was chasing him back. And playing with him, again, with amazing gentleness. Next thing you know, we're occasionally finding the two of them snuggled up. Then one day we wandered into the living room to find this little picture.

Yuri, Jack and Darwin, all doing the "cuddle puddle" thing on the kitty pillow.

Every now and then Darwin will still insist on playing when Jack just wants to nap and we'll get some more cat cursing. But things have settled in pretty well. Even Sabrina, our visiting kitty will put up with him now.

Well... mostly.

(As with almost all of the pictures I post here on my blog, you can click on any of them and get a larger version in a popup. It'll even do the previous/next thing for you.)

How big you suppose the kitten's going to get? Hopefully, he won't grow into those paws!

I usually sit down when I play. I like it that way because I'm all lazy and stuff. Plus it's a holdover from the days when I did mainly acoustic blues and just about all the old blues guys are pictured sitting in a chair while they play.

As you all probably know by now, I'm in a band called Snake Suspenderz and there are four of us. I almost always carry two ukuleles plus a few harmonicas. Sometimes I take three ukuleles with me. And then there's the microphone stand. Or stands, depending on if we're using our sound system or someone else's.

Thaddeus has, at minimum, a guitar and his bass trombone. Thadd has a mike stand himself. Or stands.

Sketch has his drum kit and, even though it's a very stripped down kit, it takes up some space. He gets at least one mike stand, just because he sings so pretty and we want to hear him.

The only things sal brings along are his tuba and his music stand. But he, like the rest of us, sits down to play. Oh yeah... and he generally has a mike stand too.

Sometimes we play on extremely tiny stages and by the time I've set out two (or more) cases with the ukuleles on top of them and Thadd's put up his guitar stand and trombone stand and sal has his music stand up and Sketch has unfurled his carpet and set drums all over it and we've all set up our chairs and mike stands... well... let's just say the real estate gets somewhat cramped.

Now, thanks to the generousity of my new sponsor, Mainland Ukuleles, I can cut my "stage footprint" way down. They sent me these great ukulele hangers that clamp right to the microphone stand. Click on either of the pictures to see a full-sized version (it comes up in a little popup window). The first one is pretty much what the view from my chair will be.

OK. Hopefully there'll be an audience there, not my bedroom door. But I think you get the drift.

I'll be using them for the first time at our upcoming gig at Smokin' Pete's BBQ, the 26th of this month. I can hardly wait.

Thanks Mike & Co.!

Really strong siamese genes + really strong red tabby genes = really strangely painted kittehs.

Back on the 31st of January Snake Suspenderz traveled to Portland, OR and played at the 2009 National Kazoo Day celebration. We set up my cheesy little camera and let it run until its memory card got full. The upshot is we got 4 usable videos out of it.

I had one of them up on YouTube by the 5th of February but other things have intervened since then and I haven't gotten around to doing the others. Over the last two days I've edited, titled, compressed and all that other good video geekery and gotten two more up online, Dead Egyptian Blues and The Lady Is A Tramp. You can watch them right here after the break.

There's one more to do, an original tune by Thadd. I'll try to get on it soon!

All day yesterday -- though it still feels like "today" to me since I've not gone to bed yet -- I was wearing an old Aloha shirt that hasn't fit me for a couple years. And there's another (nicer) one in the closet that fits me again too. It's slightly snugger than I like to wear them but not uncomfortable nor ugly.

My nice sport coat fits again. I can even button it. I still have to slim down a bit more before it's "perfect" but that's ok.

I haven't been sure that I've not been just fooling myself about losing weight until today. And over the last several days I've started taking walks again. Today I again walked from my place to the nearest Safeway and back. I haven't measured it or anything but it's got to be nearly 2 miles round-trip. And the return portion is mostly uphill, though not terribly steep.

I tried on my leather coat (biker style one) that hasn't fit in years and I'm almost back into it. Maybe by next fall.

I suck at diets or "exercise programs" but I do OK when I just take baby steps. You know, small changes in how active I am and such things.

This promises to be an interesting year in more ways than one. Glad that at least a couple of them are good ways.

Paul Harvey, the news commentator and talk-radio pioneer died Saturday in Arizona at the age of 90.

I understand his son has already taken over dad's business and sounds spookily like him, but it's still the end of a legend.