Bathtubs for tubas

So I spent yesterday trying to get my new sousaphone into working order. It’s not actually new. It’s very very used. It came in a refrigerator box filled with packing peanuts, shredded paper and trash. I emptied out the box looking for the gooseneck. Whoever oppened the box openned it from the bottom, so at the very bottom of the pile, I found a note explaining that the gooseneck was “mislaid.” But it was all worth while, because Tiffany discovered a tuba mouthpiece amid the rubble, which included dirty, used foam, house insulation, bottle caps, used matches, etc all smelling like ashtray. Very odd packing maeterial, but the shipping was hella cheap.
I took the horn outside and started hosing it out. Inside were spiderwebs and spare packing peanuts. Every solder joint leaked water, but that’s ok. If they have bad air leaks, I can either try to resolder them or just duct tape it. Eventually, the odor of the tuba went from nasty-old-tuba smell to odorless, so I left it in the sun to dry and maybe disinfect. I mean, would you want to put your mouth on something you had just hosed spider egg sacks out of, unless it spent some time in the sun first?
Of course, before hosing it out, I pulled out all of the valves. They’re piston valves and they seem to be made out of brass, which is kind of unusual. I wanted to clean them, but I don’t own any brasso, and I didn’t really want to buy any, so I hit the ecology center website looking for some earth-friendly brass cleaning alternative. it suggested katsup. I swear, if some enviro group told me to cure headaches by hitting myself on the head repeatedly, I’d try it. And then, in conversations about headache remedies, I would casually mention it and then add, anecdotally, “but it didn’t work for me.”
So I rubbed katsup on all the vales and then rinsed them several times. Then I hauled the tuba back inside and yanked all the tuning slides out. There’s a trick to this. Loop a dishtowel through the slide and use it to yank it out. You won’t hurt the horn, but if the slide isn’t frozen, it’ll come out. So I pulled the slides out, ran a trombone snake through them a bunch of times and then rubbed the shiny parts of them with katsup. I think Christi and Tiffany think that I’m insane.
The valves move pretty well and the slides will budge if you pull on them. They’re not perfect, but I don’t feel like I should invest the money to take them to a shop. the main body of the horn is still filty, since I coulsn’t submerge it, I didn’t run a snake through it. I’d need a jacuzzi tub. I always thought those were silly and useless. They take a kajillion gallons ot fill up and then they get gradually cold and you have to drain the whole thing and start over next time. I mean, why not just get a hottub? But you can’t wash a tuba in a hottub! Old tuba grease would cause all sort of problems. But you could wash it in jacauzzi tuba! You’d probably want to keep the water jets turned off while doing it. So these giant bathtubs make sense for tuba players. I’m sure that when my parents had one put in, they somehow intuitted that I would one day take up the tuba, and then, in my late twenties, long after I had left home, I would come back to my dear widowed father and ask if I could wash my sousaphone in his bathtub.
As soon as I find a gooseneck, where “find” means “buy,” I can check out how playable the horn is. Hopefully, I can do this tomorrow, since the Brass Liberation Orchestra is playing at a protest outside of Lockheed MArtin in Sunnyvale on Tuesday morning.

Movies

Christi went to see a movie yesterday called Bullet Proof Monk. i didn’t see this movie. i think that by looking at the title, anyone can imagine what i might have to say about the movie (which i haven’t seen) and so it’s not really necessary for me to say anyhting, sice it would all be very predicatable.
I like predictability. i like to play games, like Snake with algorythms, such that I could program the computer to play it for me, so I wouldn’t have to. While I worked at Netscape, I considered doing a secret project to write a program to play solitare for me, thus freeing up my time for other persuits. then they laid me off. go figure.

Holiday Madness

I was going to write a letter about this, but I’m not sure who I should write a letter to. I would like to adress a serious problem in christian traditions. That problem is that they got the holidays in the wrong order.
Let’s look at Easter. First, look at the pre-christian aspects of it. The symbols associated with it are eggs, chicks, baby bunnies, flowers, etc. This holiday is clearly about fertility and birth. Obviously. It’s spring time! The leaves are coming back on the trees! Sumer is a cumin in, loudly sing cuco! The bulls now farteth, etc. It’s time to mate your livestock and dust off your plow. But what is the christian holiday about? Death! Death and resurrection. It’s a great theme for midwinter, or even autumn, but it has no place in springtime.
Now, take a peek a Christmas. The pre-christian traditions associated with the solstice are harder to sort out, as the non-christian aspects of it continue to evolve. Santa Clause is a new figure on the Christmas scene. But some symbols, like stars and Christmas trees and wreaths and evergreen stuff is part of a very old tradition to remind us that even though much of the world is dead, life will return. The Christian holiday, instead of being about something sensible like death and resurrection is a birth holiday. How does that tie in to the winter solstice??
The autumn holiday, at least makes sence. Halloween (Sam Hain) is not a major holiday on anybody’s calendar except for Mars candy company. But the Christian feast of All Saints and All Souls (Day of the Dead) is about death, as it should be. There, at least, things are as they should be.
I know my analysis here is terribly northern-hemisphere-centric. Does a birth celebration make more sense at the summer solstice instead of the winter one? At least Easter works with the seasons there. It’s almost as if the folks scheduling the holy calendar had a hunch that the season were backwards someplace else that they might one day sail to, colonize and convert. And they thought to themselves, “some part of this thing has to make sense, or the folks with backwards seasons will never sign up.”
Now, as a legacy of some counsil held hundreds and hundreds of years ago, it seems like we’re stuck with a non-sensical system. But we can work together to change this. Write your Cardinal! We must demand that the Easter and Christamas be switched around in the norhtern hemishpere and appropriately re-ordered to match the seasons in the southern hemisphere.
Write your archbishop! Write the pope! We must lobby at all levels!

Old News, New News

Ok, well, at some point in Seattle, I think near the last day there, I went to a concert festival to see, or rather hear and see a collaboration that Ellen did with some dancers. It was very groovy. Ususally, I feel clueless about dance, but I totally “got” that one. And the sounds were cool. the next piece, I didn’t get as much. It had toys in it.
then there was an installation/performance art thing before the second part of the show. It was groos. It was supossed to be “deep.” something about economics and war, but it looked like a gross parody and mocking of homeless people.
then came the second part of everything, which I could try to give a review of, but it was several days ago and I don’t feel qualified. anyway, also at this event, Ellen’s missing teeth video was shown as a lobby installation. I have now seen pictures of many of my friends and acquaintances (and even perfect strangers) without all of their teeth. Ellen is a master of photoshop. She should work for dentistry jounrals and ads.
after all of this, we went to a piano bar, but neither Christi or Ellen (or me) could be persuaded to sing.
I left Seattle on sunday night, but not before having dinner with Ellen at an Ethiopian restuarant. fun was had by all. then Christi took me to the airport to fly overnight to Hartford Connecticut. Everytime I travel overnight, I swear that I’ll never do it again. anyway, I had to run through the airport. I was in the second to last row in the plane and didn’t want to recline my shair too much, because the row behind me couldn’t recline at all.
for some reason, despite the late hour of takeoff, they decided to show movies for hours and hours and hours. and since the folks behind me couldn’t recline to sleep, they yelled advice at the people in the movies. after a while of this, I decided that it would probably be ok for me to recline my chair back as far as it would go.
after one plane change and a long nap in Newark, I got to Hartford and rented a car. I drove one half hour to Middletown. folks tell me that it is imparative to have a car there cuz you can’t get anywhere without one. the transit situation must really suck if there’s no bus to take the half hour ride in. Of course, I’ve now seen middletown and I beleive the people who say there’s no transit.
People in Connecticut are very friendly. The airport people wanted to tell me how to get where I was going and the students wanted to tell me where I was going and it was all very nice. but where are the outdoor drinking fountains? I saw two drinking fountains in the whole state and both were indoors. also, the gas stations are not immediately visable. How do they find gas?
One of the first people I saw on campus was Judy‘s friend Anne. She very helpfully suggested that I stay in some grad student housing and the grad boys there very thoughtfully put me up in their house. It was really very kind and hospitable of them and I’m very grateful. It must be exciting living in such houses, since I was living in a stranger’s room without his knowledge or consent. In fact, he came home the last night I was there, at 2:30 AM, to find his room occupied. And so he slept on the couch. He’s a visitting artist at the university and he didn’t seem to be at all angry that I had been in his room.
So I met some teachers and walked around. The buildings are interesting and mostly underground and all connected underground, which I hope isn’t because of the weather, but I think it might be. apparently, it snowed less than a week before my arrival.
so I signed the paperwork and that’s where I’m going in the fall. And I decided to go home, rather than New York, cuz I couldn’t find a place to stay from any of my meager east coast contacts. Not that they’re individually meager, just that there aren’t many of them. So I fly from Hartforn to Columbus and from Columbus to Vegas, over Texas cuz of weather problems. the couple next to me lived in Columbus and tried to get to Vegas whenever they could. As we were getting to the airport, they started pointing out casinos to me, surprised that I didn’t know of them. “See that red and purple one, that’s the [whatever].” I didn’t have much to contribute, so I said, “did you know that Vegas uses five times as much water per capita than any other place that gets it’s water from the Colorado River?” they sat in silence for a minute and then said, “see that? that’s the replica of the Eifel Tower.”
The vegas airport is loud like a video arcade, but, of course, the games are for adults only. were the gamblers just passing through? Were they anxious to get started or wanted just one last chance before leaving? What makes people want to feed coins into a machine? I mean, I play arcade games sometimes and they eat my quarters. I think maybe it’s like trying to save the princess, but no particular skill is involved, so it’s relaxing and exciting at the same time. but what would I know?
there’s two different competing groups of men who take off their clothes. One is the chippendales. I think the attraction and fantasy of the Chippendales (this is gleamed by looking at the poster in the airport) must be that there could be men in leather pants and bowties who aren’t gay. Straight women hold out hope for men who care about their appearance, like musicals, wear leather pants and are stright. good luck. there’s also an austrailian groupd. they all have long hair like Fabio. Is Fabio straight? With his name and appearance, he should be in a pulp novel dating a guy named Rod.
By the time I got to Oakland, I was convinced that I had taken the wrong flight to the wrong airport. None of it looked familiar. Where was I? but the Christi lead me gently home. And I slept all day yesterday, except for waking up at 9:00 PM to see a movie with Jenya called Chaos. It’s French. It may be a comedy. All ends well. there were some problematic aspects to it. Clearly, French culture is having some problems dealing with immigrants. But it’s not a bad movie. The Sf international film festival apparently likes it. I went back to sleep after seeing it.
and now, my gosh the house is messy. There’s boxes full of drums and a beat up sousaphone and luggage all over the place. the end.

Don’t leave a message

BTW, can’t get messages on cell phone. Email access is very spotty. You can call, but don’t leave a message. Or if you do, don’t expect an answer right away. Thank you and goodnight. I love jetlag! *snore*
The best return flight is the shortest and also the cheapest but leaves at 6:00 AM. bleah. I think I’d collapse.
Some of you will come see me in Connecticut, right? You know, until I get all my new, cool east coast friends. just kidding.

Far Away

You all would come visit me in Connecticut, right?
I got invited to see a new Robert Ashley Opera in New York. Holy Cow! This is amazing for two reasons: 1. I love his operas & 2. New Operas get staged out here??!!
It’s 2.5 hours to New York from here, so it should all work out unless the rental car company gets upset, or I am unable to book a return flight or find a hotel or something.

Connecticut

This will be brief. I dunno if somebody will tell me if I’m not allowed to use this computer. So I flew into the east coast overnight a couple nights ago. Yesterday I was a bit of a basket case from that two hours of sleep I received. This caused me to corner the medieval music teacher and fire at her questions about the Burgundian school of music during the hundred years war. What would posess me to tell her I had an avid interest in writing motets?
Anyway, I met Alvin Lucier. He told me how to make Boston Baked beans. First, soak the beans overnight. Put a quartered onion in the bottom of the bean pot, then put in your drained, soaked beans and honey (or maple syrup), water and dried mustard. You also stgick in a bay leaf or salted pork. Cook in the oven at low heat for a long time and then take the top off for the last half hour so they brown on top. We also talked some about music. I asked if I could be his assistant, as I could tell that the semi-random bit of conversation I was having with him would sometimes contain musical information as well, and he’s good to talk to anyway. Judy was his TA when she was here. She said it involved hanging out a lot and doing writing work for him.
I also met Ron, the computer music guy. He told me that the community here was warm and not competitive (like some other schools), and from what I’ve seen, he’s correct. His TA would do kind of cool stuff. Fixing electronics, doing computer maintaence, soldering, etc. Stuff I kind of want to more about. But stuff I haven’t done because of laziness, not ignorance, if you know what I mean. I have a soldering iron at home, I just rarely use it. Anyway, he also said that Christi could get her music done by the student orchestra. Judy told me that the orchestra isn’t that great, but Christi might be able to get an ok recording and would get money from ASCAP this way. There’s also a pipe organ. Every spring Alvin makes his students write a pipe organ piece and they get played at a midnight concert that is somehow connected to the gay pride festival.
The campus seems kind of queer friendly. There’s an upcoming drag prom or something. A sign in the music building stairwell advertises a men’s group to talk about men’s issues. It says it’s for all self-identified males, which makes me feel better about it. I saw one anti-war sign in the student center. The school newspaper is probably considered to be on the left, or maybe moderate. It has an editorial that worries about embedded journalists, perhaps they’re endangering troops. right. ok. Middletown has a lot of flags. This is Joe Lieberman’s state. Lots of military. A lot of flag poles fly POW/MIA flags below the US flag. There are a lot of flags just around. The Italian Catholic church is St. Sebastian parish. They have a statue of St Sebastian standing at attnetion (not shot full of arrows) outside. An engraving says that he’s the parton saint of Catholic vetrans (my emphasis). Er… yeah. At first this pissed me off. But then I remembered that St. Sebastian was murdered heniously by his own army after refusing to commit an atrocity, so maybe he is a good war saint. On the other hand . . .
In counterpoint to all the flag waving, the Episcopals have a US flag with a dove carrying an olive branch. No stars on the blue. I guess that’s flag waving too, but it makes me feel better about things. The town is um, what berkeley would be like without Telgraph Avenue and without any of the towns around it like Albany and San Francisco if there were no gas stations and it didn’t have Peets or Codys or the gormet ghetto or hills or . . .. I don’t get small towns. This is suburban for sure. It’s only two hours from New York though. If it were SF, it would be one of those outlying suburbs that people insanely commute from, like Davis kind of is. But a two hour commute must be consdered long here or something. A lot of people said hi to me on the streets of Middletown, but they might all be crazy, I have to ask somebody. Yeah… well, there’s a nice looking playhouse which isn’t part of the school. And a new espresso shop. I had a dismal macciato this morning, but at least it was coffee and had soymilk, even if it was just a bitter wet cap. Maybe they’ll get better. And there’s a ncie fruit shop. A lot of itallian markets. Apparently an entire Sicillian village relocated here several years ago.
I must go try to meet with the department head. I think that I could spend two years here without going insane. And if I do, there’s a large mental institution in town.

April 11, 2003

We really did not do much today. Woke up late. Walked to Jack Straw to see if anyone wanted to have breakfast with us. Heather did, but she was the only one there, so we went to breakfast without her, but brought her back a muffin. Then we did laundry. Then we called Ellen to try to get her to have lunch with us, but she was busy. So we walked back to JS and got Joan and Heather to take us to lunch. Then, after they went back to work, we called Tiffany and Ed and got coffee and looked at area music shops. I saw minidisc player, but it had no digital outs. Stupid consumer stuff.
Then we went to the Meet the Artist Night at JS. The first artist was Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde, a poet. Her poems were short and about wisdom and inspriation, but mostly about love. She was excellent at presenting her poems, with great emoting. Christi bought her book. The second artist was Ben Larson. He’s a evolutionary scientist who beleives that music can evolve like living organisms in people’s mind. To demonstrate this theory, he gave a theme to three different musicians and asken them to interpret it. He played us a tape of the original theme and the re-interpretation. Then he did some computer loop-based thing to it that sounded granular. It was interesting, but I still don’t see the advantage to doing live laptop music than just making a tape ahead of time. The tape and the laptop have equal performance value as far as giving the audience something to look at and you can slave over a tape and make it perfect. Why not play a tape while checking your email? But this made me think that it would be interesting to do re-sampling stuff live. With an ensemble and a laptop. Like Tones. It would be just like playing a tape with an ensemble, but more interactive and hence, has the laptop and the performance aspect. And it’s interesting to re-assmble sounds in tape, so it’s also interesting to re-assemble sounds as they happen. Something to think about.
At the intermission, I discovered that the woman sitting behind me was a Mills alum. She talked about seeing John Cage play piano in the Mills concert hall in 1951. She also said that then all the “Mills Girls” got to play one piece from their senior concert on KPFA radio. This explains all the Mills names in the KPFA tape archive. Very exciting.
The next artist was Hannah Palin. She did a this American Life-esque radio segment called The Day My Mother’s Head Exploded which was about how her mother had a brain aneurism 15 years ago and survived, but changed completely. She played the radio segment. In it she described her experiences in the hospital with her mother. And how her mom changed and stuff. It was funny and poingant and interesting, but it was hard to listen to.
The last guy was a vocalist who recorded traditional ballads and his own lyrics in a folk style. One of the tapes he played was one of the same songs that Ellen played us a recording of herself singing. They both used a similar vocal style. It’s not a song I had heard before, nor a style that I was familiar with. So it was nice to hear this guy, even though his songs were longer than radio-ready format and it made me appreciate Ellen’s music more. cool.
I talked to Hannah Palin and her mother a bit afterwards. We talked about her experiences a bit more. Then we changed the subject to alternative brain healing technigues. Crystals, candles, St. John the Baptist. It’s a lot easier to talk about St. John the Baptist than hospital scenes. But she told me that she cried when doing the show even though it was 15 years later and her mom survived. Scars.
The Christi and I went back to our hotel room and watched When Harry Met Sally. I’m ready to go home, I think. But I’m not going home. I’m going to Connecticut with all my Seattle springtime clothes and none of my wintery clothes, while my poor sousaphone sits at home unplayed.
I’ve only ever watched when Harry Met Sally on vacation. It must get played on hotel cable a lot.