A place to park those random thoughts, stolen images, hidden conversations and incoherent babble from beyond the wall of sleep. Odd bits of music and so-called worldly wisdom may creep in from time to time. Don't expect too much and you won't feel let down.
They are getting a fair bit of vitamin C and occasional exercise learning the skills of stalking and hunting. I've kept the grass long and spindly in places so they have a jungle to explore. We're just getting tense and extra watchful. They know that we know that they can jump a seven foot gate or fence so it's set at a kind of escape stalemate at the moment. One good thing is that they dislike the rain and noisy people.
Life gives, life takes away: Here are a couple pics of lemons provided by life, in a fairly complicated but pleasant enough way. Never underestimate their super power. It's called being a lemon. They mean business.
As we're unable to get to Glastonbreeeh this year because of systematic computer rejection I decided to create my own mini pyramid stage that's also doubling as a small pea plantation. The Force is strong in the middle of the string pentagram. However the cats were unimpressed by the new structure ignoring it as they passed by. Only peas will be performing there and a few parasites and insects.
It's not the same as the real mccoy but who cares? Possibly better, all things considered and quite a lot cheaper. It's also wonky but so are most things around here. Wabi Sabi. Perhaps our festival attending, mud scratching and toilet trip planning days are over. Probably not.
*Let's not forget Dan O'Bannon who wrote script.
Below: Cats looking out of the window as I teeter along in a strong wind on top of the handy, DIY enabling, Amazon sourced tower outside. Killing off those high level odd jobs one shaky hammer blow at a time.
On Saturday night the Capital Models gig at Leith Docker's Club went down well. A decent crowd of revelers attended, most up for a singalong and some dancing and hopefully they all enjoyed themselves and will return for more, but the question is will we? All our commitments have been settled for gigs so will we be asked back for more mayhem and more either too loud or too quiet music (you can never tell)? There's a lot of uncertainty in this world of live music and where and when it can be fitted in - and your set content needs to be deemed "popular" though nobody seems to know what that actually means. Audience demographics being hard to predict in times of austerity. In the end you just do what can and do what you know and enjoy it. (Photo credit: AR).
Ali and I returned to LDC on Sunday for more live music; basically an afternoon birthday jam. The overall standard of performance was pretty high and we were happy to take part. We also scoffed a lot of birthday food and enjoyed more singalongs and catch ups and avoided the rain. A very pleasant and (for me) quite emotional afternoon - some performances were off the scale, top notch. I also am wondering about the possibility of a tiny LDC curse of some sort bearing down on me, I seem to break guitar strings there on a regular basis.
I bought this loop pedal in Manny's Guitars in New York about 15 years ago. It cost me $100 and I've not regretted the purchase. Sadly it seems it's days of looping and layering are done as it's not really working and does produce some odd and unplanned "Echos" era Pink Floyd noises from time to time. It screams at me mainly and I find that disturbing. It's been used successfully on a number of recordings and I've tried it in live situations but ... obviously I'm no K T Tunstall so that never went too well. For practice though a looper is a great tool and this one has been useful. Now a life in other pastures beckon via the services of Mr eBay. Some erstwhile screwdriver jockey just might know a fix. Clearly I don't.
Despite the fact that it's May or thereabouts the cats still went ahead with their project to create a Christmas Nativity scene from some used boxes and their favourite small toys. Overall I think they're quite pleased with the end result. Not sure it'll last until the real Christmas bun fight starts but it's a good effort, hearts in the right place etc. Above features the construction team, below is the end result.
The other day we discovered that we'd been married for at least fourteen years. We've been together even longer but that's another story. Time passes very quickly when you're happy in a relationship and you've still got most of your marbles. We had an indoor lunch and a slurp of grape fermented juice complete with a familiar and iconic outdoor view.
As a gentle reminder, there are two Red Fox Labrador puppies still for sale. If you've the time and space you will not regret letting at least one of these animals into your life.
Anyway I was listening to a Word Podcast and they were talking about Eddy, his career, influence and the ludicrous overuse of the word "Twang" in his album titles, then they mentioned the one above. No twang but just an odd composition of things that's simply strange and very much of the time. I had to look it up and so here it is. I particularly like that the floor is strewn with books all titled "Wisdom" while two female models appear to be contemplating who knows what. Perhaps Dylan's lyrics; despite the album being all guitar instrumentals. A classic album cover from which I've never heard a single tune at all and probably never will.