beautiful, funny, sad & true

String arrangement – written

“Once” – seen. It was very good, very touching, very ‘real’, and the music is great.

The gig with Steph was really fun. It was at a middle school, to celebrate their last day before summer. We played two half-hour sets, took a short break, then played a third set. It was very unlike most of the other shows we’ve played, for lots of reasons. It was in a gymnasium, we had a whole corner of it to ourselves, so we (did I say ‘we’? Cause I meant ‘I’. ha ha) had plenty of room to run around. Another fun thing about it was that playing in a gym is very different from playing in a jazz club, and you get to play louder and act weirder. DrummerCharlie was having a blast getting to play in a way that he rarely gets a chance to, and I walked all over the ‘stage’ (really it was a corner blocked off by wrestling mats) like one of the Rolling Stones or something. BassPlayerKeith played with us for the first time. You may know him from being in Dirty Martini at the same time I was. It was really great to see him and play with him again; he’s just an all-around great guy. The kids were amazing. I think the second set of the three was the most fun. We signed T-shirts and yearbooks and somewhat surprisingly, even gave a few hugs. There was a group of boys who asked their teacher if they could dance. She said, “Of COURSE you can, that’d be great.” They replied, “No no, we want to dance with HER.” Meaning Steph. It was hilarious. We left the gig completely exhausted, with ringing ears from all the screams and cheers.

After that, I drove home to unload my instruments, then raced back downtown to the DMV to get new license plates. After having the car for six months, everything is finally legal and accounted for. Emissions test passed, registration in my name, Oregon license plates. Relief.

Crystin’s song – e-mailed. Now I’m just waiting for the verdict on the mix to see what she and the filmmaker think of the new-and-improved version.

This morning I’m going to take my cello in for Part Two of the repairs that it needs. It’s going to get the neck wedged up a little bit, because for some reason it’s not at the standard cello neck height. At the same time, it’ll get a new bridge, which is the little wooden tower-shaped thingy that the strings rest on. I’m also going to get a ‘wolf’ eliminator installed (it’s too complicated to explain what that is), and last but not least, I’m getting a new set of strings, because it’s time for that too. All these repairs are going to make my cello easier to play and stay in tune, make the sound ‘ring out’ better, but most of all it will make me a much better cellist. I’m going to have to un-learn a lot of weird habits that I’ve acquired, because of playing such a non-standard instrument for so long, but I’m very ready for that. I guess If I wasn’t, none of this would matter. I’ve improved a lot as a player, and I keep finding myself limited by my instrument, which is unacceptable. So off it goes to the shop, to get what it needs.

It’s time to go do that. I need to get off the computer, get into the shower, and start the day. And of course, some coffee would be good too; hmmm.

Alyssa and I both had a rough week, and needed to get away from our lives for a while. What better way to do that than spend a day at the beach? More specifically, Oswald State Park on the Oregon coast. It was a perfect, relaxing day with a great friend.

For those of you who live elsewhere, Portland got hit with about 4 or 5 inches of snow overnight. This was a big surprise to those of us who’d been driving around last night, and it was clear.

So this morning, I get to work (don’t even ask how work was today), pull my phone out of my bag, to find a voice mail from Kelly, who’s stranded at work. When she left this morning, they were planning to be open, but at about 7:45 (when she was already on her way) they decided to close because the roads were getting bad. She actually had to park her car and hike up the steep couple of streets to her work to get there. The roads are starting to ice up, and she asked if I could come get her and take her home. I told my supervisor and headed home to put chains on my car and head out.

The short version of the story is that I’m 36 years old, and I’ve never had to put chains on a car before. It wasn’t pretty. I felt like the biggest retard since Retarded Jack McRetardson, back in 1687. I spent more than half an hour looking at little diagrams that didn’t make sense, reading things that didn’t make sense, trying and failing repeatedly, and feeling completely humiliated. So I go to call poor Kelly. By this time, she’s left another voicemail saying that her dad has an appointment at 10 something, she has a lunch packed, and she’s not going to freeze or die. So if I can’t do it, she can call her dad. Problem is, he has to come from Brush Prarie, but at least he’s got a 4-wheel drive truck, and he knows what to do with chains.

So I call her back and tell her I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it, and can she call her dad after all, because I can’t figure out how get the chains on. She agrees, but she sounds bummed, and obviously I’m super-bummed cause I feel like an idiot.

So I stay home for a bit longer, try to warm up and be less disappointed in myself, and then I head back to work. After a little while, I call Kelly to make sure she’s home and safe, and she is, so that’s a huge relief. Two hours later, my work sends us all home because the weather is now well below freezing, and the roads are getting really nasty. After walking home from work for the second time, I’m pretty tired, but I think of poor Kelly sitting there at work, and that’s all the motivation I need. It’s unacceptable for me not to know how to put chains on a car.
So I’ve just spent the last hour doing that. I’m freezing, wet, dirty, bleeding, and I still feel like a super-idiot, but at least I have effing chains on my car now.

Oh, by the way. There’s a Stephanie Schneiderman show tonight at Mississippi Studios. It’ll be really cool, if the show’s not cancelled. . .we’re opening for a French guy. I’m sure it’s gonna be cancelled, though.

Le Sigh.

As you may or may not have already known, I’ve wanted a camera for a long time now. This was the year that I finally splurged and got a decent one. Here, then, are my favorite pictures from this year.

a beautiful October day in Portlandunder the Fremont bridge in PortlandConstruction site in downtown Boise, Idaho McKinley performing “Jamie’s Got a Gun”, taken from backstage at the Night of the Murder Ballad
another of McKinley at Murder BalladKelly on the waterfront in AstoriaKelly warming up with coffee in Astoriainside a cave in Cannon Beach, Oregon
Also Cannon Beach. A kid knocked them down right after this picture was taken.karaoke night
stormy day in Carson, WashingtonJacob Ray of the Young ImmortalsBreanna Paletta of Rye Hollow

but my favorite of the year is this one:

All pictures copyright 2006 by me.  If you’d like copies or anything, please leave a comment and we can work that out.

A couple of mornings ago, I was walking to work and it was really foggy and beautiful. It was about 8:00 a.m. The sun was just coming up, and it was shining onto the KOIN tower, thusly:

I wished I could have walked by around 8:30, because the sun would have been up a little higher, and relected off the KOIN tower like a beacon. Around 9:45 I took a break and ran back up the street to find that it looked like this:

They’re both okay pictures, but I don’t think they’re as exciting as they would have been if I could have stayed out there for the whole morning.

(note to self: Boy, do I need to get a little tripod!)