beautiful, funny, sad & true

Too busy to post again lately.  What have I been up to?  By way of an answer, I’ll show you a few pictures, and give you the quick run-down.

I played one of the best and most memorable shows I’ve ever had. . .

. . .I went to see some friends play a very cool night of cello music, and might have come away with a new instructor (it doesn’t hurt that she’s incredibly cute, too!). . .

. . .I made a new friend, who’s a friend of friend.  My friend in question told me that she is “Japanese, and a pianist, and she’s looking for new musical friends.  I thought of you.”  She came to the IrishBand show in StateCapitol last Wednesday, and then came up here to Portland on Saturday night.  No pics of her yet, unfortunately. . .

. . .IrishBand’s Violinist and I played our first wedding, and had a blast during the extra-curricular activities as well. . .

. . .I got me a good ol’ 4-track cassette recorder for archiving FirstBand’s tapes. . .

. . .I recorded some new tracks (using the computer, not the 4-track!) on IrishBand’s theme song. . .

. . .I created a fairly esoteric (but fun!) new blog, which you probably wouldn’t be interested in, and which I will not be posting a link to. . .

. . .and I went out for dinner, a walk, and coffee with a friend who I haven’t seen in months, and took some nice pictures along the way.

Times have been good, overall, I’d say.

Tonight, I think a friend and I are going to hit the Last Thursday art ‘scene’ on Alberta Street.  I haven’t had the chance to do that in ages, because I always seem to have gigs on both First AND Last Thursdays.

So there you go; you’re all caught up now, and I feel much better too.

Last night I was dinking around on one of those social networking sites – randomly, no friends in common or anything – and I came across this particular woman’s page.  I liked her picture and the way she described herself, so I clicked over to look through her photo albums.   She’s done some work on movie sets, and had some interesting experiences.   Then I saw an album called ‘Portland Spirit’, which is a cruise ship that goes up and down the Willamette River and has afternoon and evening cruises.  I’ve played on it a couple or three times, and it’s a total blast.

So anyway, I clicked on that album and after a few pictures, I came to this one, and just about fell out of my chair.  Check out who’s sitting there playing cello, on the left side of the picture.

ISN’T THAT WEIRD?  Pretty fortuitous, too, I have to say.  Naturally, I wrote to her to tell her about all of this, so we’ll see if anything comes of it.

Awwww, yeah.  I love it when that kind of synchronicity happens.

Saturday night I had an interesting gig.  We played one of those cancer benefit walk-a-thons at a ritzy high school in a suburb south of town.  Nicest football field I’ve ever seen outside of the professional leagues, and even better than many of those, I’m sure.

We were scheduled to play from seven until eight, and we were scheduled to open for the 80′s band Quarterflash, but we found out that the city was worried about security for Quarterflash, so they cancelled them and hired an Elton John impersonator instead, who arrived in a blue Cadillac stretch limousine, pulling a trailer, with his entourage of two SUV’s behind him, each pulling its own trailer too.  They proceeded to unload, and unload, and unload, and we kept watching the clock.  Seven came and went, and seven-thirty came and went, and still they weren’t even close to being set up.  They brought their own intricate PA system (despite the fact that the one already on stage was perfectly good), lighting trusses and lights, a huge electronic piano (which looked like a real piano, until you got up close to it) and a set of drums.  This was all to play for a cancer benefit in a high school stadium, by the way, where people aren’t even there to listen to music, they’re walking around the track all day and night.  We could not believe it.

I walked behind the stage to move my cello to a safer spot, and I happened to overhear a very funny conversation between the piano guy and a couple of his friends.

Friends:  Hey, your car’s still running.  Is it supposed to be?  Don’t you want to shut it off?

Piano Guy:  No, Maurice (the dog) is in there.  I leave the car turned on all the time for him.

Friends:  [exchanging befuddled looks and smiles in my direction]  Uhhh, okay. . .just trying to save you some gas money.

Piano Guy:  Oh, yeah, that car idles for about fifteen hours a day.  It’s okay.

Friends, and me:  [jaws drop]

At almost eight o’clock, we just decided we couldn’t wait any longer.  We ran up and just set up around them, which apparently was supposed to be the plan, anyway.  [Slight geek-out:  It was my first time playing the cello through a big PA since I installed the pickup on it, and used the DI box.  Oh.  My.  God.  What a difference!  It sounded SO MUCH better than it ever has before.  Okay, end of geek-out.]  It was a pretty good show, but I wouldn’t count it among our best.  It certainly wasn’t bad, though.  Our final song sounded so great, in fact, that we decided to stop there and end our set with it, instead of the additional song we had planned.

We stuck around to talk to some friends afterward, and the EJ impersonator still hadn’t finished setting up.   I don’t even like the real Elton John, so I had no desire to stick around for his act, though I have to admit that after all that setup time, I was intrigued to at least hear what they sounded like.  But my overwhelming desire, especially since it was an hour later than we were supposed to be finished, was to go home, so that’s what I did.

This was another one for the Sometimes Gigs Are Super Weird file.

I love these ‘literal versions’ of videos.   This one is of the song ‘Harden My Heart’, by the 80′s band Quarterflash.

In other news, Justin and Breanna and I (with my cello) are opening for Quarterflash tomorrow night.  Can’t make this stuff up, folks.  Life is just chock full of weird surprises.

Ummmm, hi.

Yeah.

I’m alive and well.  And busy.  Gosh. . .where to start. . .?

I’ve been doing lots of recording, with my friends from my first band ever.

I went on a random little day trip up the Columbia gorge with RockShowGirl, and we hiked to one of the many waterfalls and enjoyed the scenery along the curvy old highway.  On the way back, we stopped in Cascade Locks, where we ate the best bacon burgers either of us had eaten in our entire lives.  I suppose that means I’ll have to stop calling myself a ‘quasi-vegetarian epicure’ pretty soon, yeah?

I went to see an unbelievably amazing show; a double-headliner bill featuring Butterfly Boucher AND Emilie Simon.  Both are supremely talented (not to mention beautiful), and I got the chance to meet both of them afterwards.  I told Butterfly that I’d love to play cello with her the next time she’s in town, and she seemed like she was into the idea.

I did something I’ve never done before, and thought that I’d never do; I went to a minor-league basketball game.   [I will now pause for your exclamations of shock and horror.]   Ordinarily, I find most sporting events mind-numbingly boring, so I volunteered to take pictures (with someone else’s digital camera, which is much slower and less responsive than mine) of the game.  I took about two hundred, and I would guess that about three actually came out.  It was pretty funny.

I went to an amazing restaurant called Trébol with Jeannie-wa.  It was stellar, and I can’t wait to go back again.

I went to an amazing restaurant called Indish with BoringFish.  It was stellar, and I can’t wait to go back again.

I had a gig with IrishBand, which ended up being IrishDuo that night, because Violinist was in MileHighState.  It was the first time we’ve ever done a duo show like that, and it was actually quite fun.  I brought the accordion, and someone asked if we knew any Beatles songs.  I couldn’t help myself, and blurted out, “Yeah, I know all of them.”  This was their cue to throw obscure songs at me, to try and stump me, which didn’t happen.  “I Don’t Want To Spoil the Party”, “Let It Be”, “Blue Jay Way”, “Real Love”, all were par for the course.  It was super fun, and we may actually incorporate that sort of Beatles sing-along set into some of our future shows.  If anybody got pictures of that, I haven’t seen them.

I’ll spare you the technical details, but I bought some equipment for my cello which makes it possible to plug it directly into a PA channel, instead of having to mic it when I’m on stage.  It may have been a small step for mankind, but it was a giant leap for my cello career.

I went to a friend’s bachelor party, which lasted until six o’clock in the morning.   At around quarter to five, a neighbor called the cops to complain about the noise in general, but ‘in specific’, I’m sure it had to do with our hilariously horrible drunken guitar playing.  The cop couldn’t have been any nicer, actually.  He was great, and totally cool about it.  It was a super-fun party.  I spent the next day in bed, and got up around three-thirty to take a shower and make the hour-long drive up to SeaBird’s family’s home in the middle of a cedar grove on the edge of a hill, to eat incredible food, marvel over the kids, watch the neighbors’ enormous fireworks display, and celebrate a birthday, an anniversary, and the founding of our country.  They are my surrogate parents, and I always come away feeling rejuvenated after spending time with them.  People like that are very rare and special.

Yesterday, I bought new heads for my drums, installed them, tuned them up, and then recorded drum tracks for three songs in our FirstBand project.  I started working on a fourth song, but it was trickier than the other three, and I didn’t get a take that I was satisfied with, so I’m going to give it its due today.

So yeah.  Been all busy all the time lately, but I haven’t forgotten about you.  It’s nice to finally have spare minutes to let you know what’s been happening.  This is just an overview, too.  There’s been plenty more, such as going to movies and sushi with LJ and SeaBird, for example.

Today I woke up at nine and edited audio tracks, even before I’d had coffee, in order to get ready for today’s recording session.  It promises to be another good, productive day.  There’s certainly been a lack of ennui around here lately.

Okay.  Deep breath, diving back in now. . .