Musically Inclined

Well, yesterday was mother’s day, a day I had been actively dreading since October. It wasn’t actually that bad. I guess I worked it all out in the pre-dread. Unlike my birthday, where I didn’t expect to feel miserable around at all, and yet I did. It was horrible, despite cool people and cool events. Anyway, the next date on the dread calendar is June 21st, when my mom would turn 66, but will not. Christi is playing that night at the Chapel of the chimes concert. Yes, the one you’ve heard of. Yes, the huge, big deal. Yes, it’s in a mausoleum. I’m estatic for Christi, but still full of dread.
Perhaps keeping busy is what made Mother’s Day ok. I had band practice for about five hours with Tennis Roberts. Our songs are now ending ok. Chand has taken to mixing his electronic drum sounds (he plays an electronic kit) with a vocoder to other source sounds. It sounds very industrial and awesome with pink noise. With other source files, I’m not so sure about it. We’re a sort of a tonal band and it’s hard to play along with a tape where you don’t know the tones, especially if the tones are from a random sample and hold thing, so they’re not in any particular temperment. Which would be the tones on the mp3s that I made that Chand is using. Anyway, it doesn’t matter that much, since I don’t play in any particular temperment anyway. The open notes are in tune, but the rest is not.
I’m sort of getting into tuning right now. Ellen Fullman has a piece called “Harmonic Cross Sweep” on her album Change of Direction. The piece blows my mind. Go listen to the mp3. It’s just intoned microtonal coolness. So I started reading Harry Partch, since he wrote about Just Intonation and influenced everyone just intoned these days. But he can’t stop ranting. In his book Genesis of a Music, he complains about how cello players are so anal they won’t even let you take an awl to their finger board. It takes him a long time to explain the tuning thing, so I joined the Just Intonation Network and I’m reading their primer text on tunings. It’s a much easier read than Partch and is very informative. But really, the biggest influence on my thoughts about tuning was Kendon.
The last time I played bass guitar in a band before this one, it was called Trap Door Spirder Woman or the Kraft Ebbings or somehting. We never played outside of Kendon’s basement, except to play in my basement. Kendon had this guitar where the nech was cracked. It was nearly broken in two. He was always tuning it in between ever song. I kind of got into the sound of him tuning. It was very cool. It should have been a song. And he always had to tune because after the first three chords, everything was different, since the guitar neck wasn’t rigid. The situation made Kendon unhappy. He was saving up for a new guitar. But it was awesome. It was so completely out of tune screwed up bad that it was great. Really, equal temperment is all out of tune. This broken guitar was just the next step on a broken tuning. But it was beautifully broken.
So with Tennis Roberts, I started playing Tammy’s fretless bass with the thought that I could be out of tune all the time. I could put notes in between the notes. I could put four steps where three belong. I could be always completely, sharply off. It’s awesome.

Do you have a USB CD drive?

Yes you do. You should lend it to me, so that I can install stuff on the computers at Other Minds. Some of the old imacs have broken CD drives. One of them just needs printer drivers, but for another, I think the best way to deal with it is to reformat it, cuz something is hosed with the Operating System. Anyway, I would only need it for one day (9:00 am – 5:00 pm). So email me if you’ve got one.

Back from the South

So Thursday afternoon, Christi and I drove down to LA. We were down to visit my cousin, the 86-year-old nun. This time, we decided to get a hotel room instead of staying at the convent, which was good because we didn’t get in until 11:00 and the convent locks up at 9:00. But the convent lodging is free and actually, the beds are more comfortable, which is not what one would expect. The hotel room had a gigantic king or perhaps emporer sized bed. It was bigger than Mitch’s boat. Anyway, the convent does not offer beds that sleep six, but I’m digressing here.
On Friday morning, we found Catherine, my cousin. If you ever ask her what she wants to do, she says, “Walk.” Her vision is very impaired, so she can’t walk very quickly by herself, so she likes it when folks take her hand and take her jogging around. So we walked around the grounds of the Carondelet center and then took a lunch break. She then required a nap, so Christi and I talked to some of the other nuns in the convalescent wing of the convent. Christi was wearing a T-shirt that said “Oakland” on it, so one nun kept repeating that she loved Oakland and wished she was there now. This is actually a common theme among many of the women there. My cousin used to also frequently express a desire to be in Okaland rather than LA. Strangely, I feel the same way.
We took my cousin out to dinner at a place called Hamburger Hamlet. The food was better than the convent food and there were actually a lot of disabled people patronizing the place, so the waiter was cool. Catherine ate a ton of food and talked about how her last visitor took her to the beach and they rented a tandem bike. I can’t quite picture it. And Catherine ordered a martini with dinner. As we went back to the convent, she instructed us to not let anyone catch on that she had this martini, so I shouldn’t be telling you this (keep it quiet), but she was totally loopy. It was like sneaking into a college dorm. Actually, it’s exactly like a college dorm, since the convent is attached to Mount St. Mary’s College, which the nuns run (ran?). It seems like everyone at the convent now went to the Mount and my cousin tuaght there. Many of the sisters were her students. Catherine did research on disease carrying insects, mostly ticks but also misquitos. One of her former students reminisced about volunteering to let the skeeters bite her. Apparently, Catherine had asked for volunteers to feed them. Anther sister said she had taken logic from Catherine, which was not her normal subject. Catherine had told them that next she was going to teach the chior because her mother played the organ.
Anyway, she has a half a martini limit and it was 5:00 and she was going to bed.
Christi had picked up a copy of the LA Weekly and we looked for music listings. They were very very sparse. To read that paper, you would think there was no music in LA. I know that’s not true, but I have no idea how to find out about music. We probably should have gone to a play or something, since that what’s the region’s forte, but instead, Christi proposed that we go to Amoeba music. This destination had the advantage of being on Sunset Blvd. We knoe how to find Sunset. We have no map of LA and for some reason are never going to acquire one, even though it seems like having one might be a good idea.
We drove all the way down Sunset from Brentwood to Hollywood. This takes one past Bel Air, UCLA, the Sunset Strip and a few other landmarks.
The Sunset Strip seems to be a part of Disney Land that escaped and decided to cater to grown ups. And how many valets work in the LA region? Why do LA folks love their cars so so so much when there’s no room to park them and they have to hire other people to do it for them?
The Amoeba in Hollywood is extremely huge. The 20th Century Classical section, however, is smaller than the Berkeley store. There is a section dedicated to Daniel Lentz. To find Alvin Lucier, you have to look under the shelves in the back. So went back to our hotel.
The Denny’s attached to our hotel had a C rating from the health department. the best thing about LA is that all the restaurants get grades from the health dept and then have to post them. I wish we had that around here.
Saturday morning, we went back to the convent and took Catherine to Santa Monica. We walked on the beach and rode the ferris wheel and then bought a giant box of jube jube candies. then we decided to go to an Indian place that Christi knew about, but alas it was closed. Catherine was disappointed. “I’ve only had indian food once before.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Well, I had a lot of it in Kenya, but I’ve only had it once before in the US.”
So I asked her about Kenya. She’s been there twice. Mostly, it’s best to let Catherine reminisce on her own rather than ask questions, because it’s easier to follow when she’s just telling a story. She’s been to forty countries in Europe and Africa doing research. She discovered the existance of pheremones in ticks. When she was teaching in Prague, she had special dispensation nto to wear a habit, was not allowed to talk about God, belonged to the underground, and suffered a massive stroke, but didn’t come home because she didn’t want to abandon her students. One of the nuns is recording Catherine’s stories and transcribing them. I’ve very glad to hear that.
We went to another restaurant and Catherine ate a mountain of food and then went back to the convent so she could nap. It was graduation day at the Mount, so there was a lot of extra traffic and protesters.
The Sanchez sisters, some local politicians, were giving the commencement address. A bunch of white protesters, many of them men, were holding pictures of white dead babies (not fetuses, they use real, murdered babies for those photos) and signs explaining that the Sanchez sisters were in favor of abortion and shouldn’t be speaking at a Catholic school. I talked very briefly with a cmpus administrator and she said that the protesters felt like the school was hipocritical and insufficiently Catholic.
You could see the protesters from the convent, but not from the school. I don’t know much about the Mount, aside from talking to many elderly alumnai and former teachers, but I have a hard time beliving it could be insufficiently Catholic. The nuns are intensely, completely spiritual. They pray constantly. Everything many of them do is thoughtful and prayerful. (There was note on the announcement board asking them to pray for the Lakers to win.) Anyway, while my cousin napped, Christi and I went to sit away from the graduation and the protesters in a little garden. One of the nuns, clearly stressed out from being picketted, came and told us to leave. She thought we were wayward protesters and apologized when we explained that we weren’t, but we left anyway to go get coffee.
when we came back for dinner, most of the protesters had left, but one white guy in a suit was holding a sign that said that Kathy Ireland opposses abortion. I often get my moral direction from super models. Also my financial advice. How does she feel about my mutual fund?
The nuns were all abuzz about being protested. “I think it was a bunch of pro-lifers.” one said. There is a big banner on the front of the convent (which you can’t see from the road, where the picketers were gathered), which announces that the Sisters are for peace. I imagine that few of the “pro-lifers” were for peace. Real-live humans aren’t as important as unborn ones, I guess. I strongly suspect that the majority of the nuns are pro-choice. Anyway, apparently the TV news was giving a lot of coverage to the protest. And we talked about mother’s day. Prayers were offered for everyone’s mother. I mentioned that mother’s day used to be “Mother’s Day for Peace,” where pacafist women marched sayin that they weren’t raising their children to be killed off in wars. I dig it a lot. So did they.
And then we left, to drive back in time from band practice today. My cousin is the happiest person I know.

Happy

I’ve been pretty happy the last week. Actually happy. Colors are bright and whatnot. Yesterday, was take yer girlfreind to work day for Christi. I had a large amount of caffeine and then typed many, many OM surverys into the database at record speed. Then I ran cables for a new printer, through the ceiling. Acoustical tiles are nasty. Installed all the software. Went home. Showered twice, trying to get acoustical tile ick off of myself. then I started duct taping suspicious looking soldier joints on my sousaphone. Anything green, gets wrapped up. This is improving the sound tremendously. After I get it taped up, I am strongly considering painting it a sparkly purple color. Spray paint certainly won’t hurt the sound any.
Today, I am suppossed to go to LA to visit my cousin. I must go pack.
Even if I’m happy, my blog posts are still boring. I’ll try to lead a more exciting life.

Working On

I sent a copy of Airwaves #1 to hAmsterdam for a prize competition thingee. I don’t think they’ll pick me. the lady at the post office was encouraging though. I spent an hour at the post office. There was a long line. And then I found I had to fill out customs forms explaining what I was mailing off to the Netherlands.
And I recorded some sounds for Tennis Roberts. but it’s also going to be it’s own piece of music called Grinding Pink, which is a rough title and very rough draft of audio.
Ellen Fullman, famous composer called the house this morning. It’s exciting getting calls from important composers. Just as an aside, my voice just sounds funny in the morning. If I’m asleep, I don’t answer the phone. I never answer the phone unless I want to talk to folks. It’s all the air pollution and my chain smoking that tweaks my voice.

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Don’t Worry, It’s Art.

So we showed up early in the castro and assembled our water jug and bowling ball wind chime and T & L were untangling their climbing gear in preperation for scaling the traffic light, when it started to rain heavily. So we started assembling another wind chime instead. It has some pipes, bike parts, a mailbox, a christmas tree stand, an empty gas can, a piece of shelving. lots of metal. It was really pouring, so we crossed through the undercrossing, to hang it from the railing of the Muni station at Harvey Milk Plaza. We had hoisted it down and were about to clip it into place when the station agent appeared with a cop who told us “no.”
We must have been called in as a homeland security threat, because there were suddenly about ten cop cars cruising the castro (where no cops had been earlier) and a news van kept driving around looking at the Muni station also. All the cops slowed down to look at us as we packed it back in. So we went to brunch. It was still early. We decided to abandon the lightpole idea, as it would have the cops back out again in a second. So we decided to wait until other musicians arrived and set up then, to dilute attention and because we realized that we probably wouldn’t be able to just leave the windchimes up all day. We could put them up during the Music Circus and take them down when the cops told us to again. Good plan.
So noon, the start time, came and went with no sign of anyone connected to the festival. Around 12:30, the tuba player from the BLO showed up and said his group was starting at 1:00. Some people from our mass email started to arrive, but still no other musicians. We decided that one other group was good enough and went to grab the water bottle and bowling ball chime, because it looks innocuos and was 100% ready to go. It was up within 5 minutes. Pictures were taken. Jesse, the tuba player and his friends played saint candles for a while and then packed it in. So we did too.
We hung one of our windchimes for about 1 – 1.5 hours with no incident and very little notice by anyone. We debated hanging the mailbox and gasoline can one again (was it the gasoline can that started the controversy with the muni station agent and the police?), but we were tired. None of the festival organizers appeared. No other musicians arrived. It was very strange.
I felt like our installation needed a label, so people would know what it was and then engage it somehow. But also felt like they needed to be reassured, so that ten cop cars and a news van wouldn’t appear. So we need two signs. One will say “Windchimes” and have an arrow pointing at them. And the other will say, “Don’t Worry. It’s Art.”

Band Practice

Rehersal with the flute band went for four hours today. 4.25 hours, actually. That’s a long time to be pressing a scab to a string. And I had an important realization: I like Tammy’s bass a lot more than I like my bass. I thought it was 3/4 size, but it’s actually the same, but the neck is narrower, so it feels smaller and is easier to play. But maybe it is smaller than a fretless would normally be. Anyway, it has a great sound and is very comfortable. My bass is theoretically considered to be better than hers. Maybe she’ll trade. OTOH, my grandma gave me my bass as a graduation present, from highschool. Everything becomes sentimental when it’s a gift from a dead person. I have a copy of the book Lonesome Dove, which I have zero desire to read, but don’t want to get rid of because my mom lent it to me. Anyway, maybe I could trade something else to Tammy for her bass, like a semi-functional church organ. Or we could just trade while I’m at school with an option to trade back later? Perhaps I should discuss this with her instead of rambling on about it in my blog.
My other band, Tennis Roberts may or may not have a gig tomorrow night, but I have no idea because Mitch has not called or emailed. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow morning when we’re hanging installations in the castro for the IDEA Ensemble as a part of the thingamajigs festival. It’s a very musical weekend. Anyway, if it turns out that TR will be playing tomorrow night, I’ll be playing Tammy’s bass! Isn’t that exciting? It would be nice if I knew, cuz we could make an email list and tell folks, and maybe somebody could make little quarter-size flyers about the band with contact info, so that if anybody wanted to book us or something, they could do that. It’s the sort of thing you want to know ahead of time. *cough*cough*