By: Annna
[2001-12-10]
Uke Wrestling!
Also Leonard Cohen!
Image stolen from Carol Lay
Hello everybody, and welcome to another ukulele day!
This Saturday I went to a Tuba Ensemble Christmas Concert, which is about the only way I'd get enthusiastic about Christmas carols. There were sixty or so old guys playing tubas, more or less simultaneously, in the park downtown. The din was not as unholy as I'd hoped, so I spent most of the time coveting the sousaphones.
The crowd was big enough that we couldn't see the tubas, so after a quick conference about weights my punker pal Chessie climbed on my shoulders. We had no problems with this arrangement, and prompted some fathers of very small children to do the same. Part of me wanted to break from the crowd and start kicking ass, as in some fine video game I played once where a giant had a dwarf on his shoulders, killing people with an axe, but I was pretty sure Chessie was more interested in tubas.
It was a lovely concert, and seeing all those enormous, powerful and loud wind instruments just couldn't help but put me in mind of ukuleles.
A few weeks earlier, my sister and I had made a recording of Leonard Cohen's
The Future [2.09 MB] (after my abortive
attempt at the same [1.32 MB]).
I'd had a hankering for more Cohen ever since, so I dug out the latest uke I'd picked up at
Goodwill and started to play "Bird on the Wire." But something was wrong! The ukulele started to make loud, loud noises and I could not escape or pry it from my hands! I was frightened to hear horrible noises from my throat joining the possessed ukulele, and I hung suspended in space as the very fabric of time buckled.
Luckily, I was
still recording. [863KB] After a terrible mental struggle, I flung the thing across the room, breaking its hold on me. I spent the rest of the night quivering in the opposite corner, the lights blazing.
Only on the next morning, in the light of the dawn sun, could I read the mysterious runes that were written across its face.
"If I had a sombrero I would stand in the street and play the ukulele all day."
My mission was clear. I had to travel to
Mount Doom Ohio and destroy this hell-uke in the luthier's in which it was luthed lest
that fiend who long ago infused it with a measure of his evil power should regain it and use it to enslave the world of Men in break-beats and tube amp distortion.
But then I got lazy and just gave it to a bum downtown.
Hey, wanna hear me sing
Oakie from Muskogee? [1.6 MB]
One time a friend who's a guitar player/teacher got me a good deal on a Martin D12-20 guitar. My friend taught at Sophecles Papa's guitar shop, Papa's had been a student of Segovia. So, someone had custom ordered this special 12-string guitar with lots of inlays and special stuff, but then didn't show up for it. My friend sold it to me with a hardshell case for $180, which was twenty bucks more than the cost of the case. The current book on that guitar is about $5k! I wish that I still had it. Tuba's aren't hard to play. I play flute, sax, guitar, trumpet, keyboard, and drums, and tuba is not much different than trumpet. I played "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" without any sheet music the first time I tried Tina's tuba. I like some of Leon Redbone's songs that have tuba. Uke and tuba would go well together.
Tom Waits seems like kind of a natural for uke, maybe.
Tom Waits Memorial Tour of Joints
"Joints"
I reckon Annna must drink the same sort of coffee as Drew! (probably actually horse embalming fluid).
... that I made mention of a huge shake-up in my life to my buds on thingsihate.org, and this was an annoyance to you. I'll try to think more about your feelings in the future.
Oh, and my grandfather died yesterday too -- but I guess that annoys you as well. God knows, your bacon experiment is the most important thing we could possibly wish to talk about.
Sheesh.
Indeed! I hope Sean's impressed that I posted my late comment about bacon on the bacon page and not on the Ukelele page. Sorry for your trouble, Lou.
Thanks, Dunc.
Actually, life's cooler than I thought: seems I misunderstood some of the timetable as to when I have to be moving and etc. Basically, I've been given all the time that is required to do so comfortably, and to find a place I'll be happy with, and so it's all good now.
And as for my grandfather ... well, he'll be back.
I once saw a score of "The Wurp-a-durdle-ei-doo Song" for tuba (well actualy Wurzelphone, but much of a muchness) and Ukelele. Everyone stared when I collapsed laughing. It was very embarrassing.
Sorry I was sort of mean before, Sean.
This time I'm not being sarcastic.
One could probably dry and stretch bacon to use for uke strings, think of all of the cats you could save.
None. Catgut's made of sheep. Have you never seen woodcuts of eighteenth century condom factories? Gives the whole sheep shagging thing a new (or rather, old) dimension.
Well, I believe you about the lambskins, they were also used for parchment. Maybe the Catgut Acoustical Society will have to change its tune. Suturing material could be used for uke strings involving neither sheep nor the use of cockatrice egg.
"Catgut"
What's the deal with bloody Leonard Cohen? Why do people want to listen to some mental Canadian who can't either sing or play an instrument whinge on about being depressed? Its a complete pile of wank! No wonder your ukelele had a fit!
What's the deal with bloody Leonard Cohen? Why do people want to listen to some mental Canadian who can't either sing or play an instrument whinge on about being depressed? Its a complete pile of wank! No wonder your ukelele had a fit!
Aargh! The web site's gone mad too now and has started printing comments twice!
Tonight at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., something like 100 to 200 tubas are supposed to play Christmas songs for an hour. I thought it was a joke when they first told me, but evidently it's a popular event. Kids, teens, adults, seniors... whole cross section of american tuba-playing culture all playing at once.
I work there, and was told to bring earplugs. You can see/hear the whole thing live on line if you have a Real player. Go to www.kennedy-center.org and look for the Millenium Stage link. The show starts at 6:00pm eastern time.
It'll be, uh... It will be... well, something.
Yep, Ken Cen has good stuff, yikes! That's tonight! Two hundred tuba and euphonium players.
Goah
With Gilius perched high on his back, this not-so-gentle giant stormed his way into Death Adder's castle. As tall as anyone but Death Adder himself, Goah's spin attack decimated any who stood before him.
sometimes we post things that we don't mean in the heat of the moment. like when you send an e-mail to the whole company saying: "EVERYONE I WORK WITH IS AN ASSHOLE!!! THIS MEANS YOU!!!". i mean, sure, it may be true, but sometimes man, i mean sometimes, you just gotta relax and count to ten before you press the 'post' or 'send' button. a simple rephrase can help... "i'm afraid to say the people of this company don't share the conventions of societal decency." i never knew i could be so profound. did i mention i work with GODDAMN ASSHOLES? i still want to strap an asian to my torso. has this ever been attempted?
i take back what i said. if you look at how sean worded his annoyance. its perfect. its not super rude or pompous as it could have been. its pretty civil. he could have wrote: "jerkoffs! write about bacon or else i'm throwing it out...bitch!" however, in lou's defense. my ex-girlfriend was a hideous slut bitch fuck-up disrespecting blackhearted piece of worthless garbage. i hope she drowns in a boiling pool of bile and puss. and no one shows up at her funeral. venting personal distress in a public forum of friends is important for emotional development. fucking cunt!
so does anna hate drew? i don't get it..... drew is the best.... i think he is hilarious..... ~whateve~ i'm lost, as usual
If I was Sean I'd post about eXtreme bacon and anything in The City,
except maybe Castro Street, Geary, Turk&Mason. But if I was Drew, I'd bite the heads off squirrels and sit in my office chair and spin around and around to try to dry my pants off because they got wet from the Jumbo Latte event with three paper clips, but if I didn't come to work for three days, nobody would notice because of the overinflated Love Doll that I duct taped to the chair until the latte dries out more.
if
...or do both "The Future" links points to the same file, amt_futurefull.mp3? I'm under the impression that the second one is supposed to be a shorter, Matie-less verision. Either this is only the case for me, nobody else has listened to the MP3s yet, or they have but are too embarrassed to say anything. Actually, I don't think "either" was the word I wanted there as there were three options. I wrote a final today where are least two of the questions refered to discussions that seemed to have taken place with last term's class as they were entirely unfamiliar to me, but I couldn't be bothered to say anything and just guessed on them.
I speak English good.
With all the bad things that happen in the world what a damn miserable web site. No wonder we're all screwed. This place is more depressing than the farking news. Get a life and stop being so damn miserable. Hope that's sufficiently off-topic. And don't bother replying - I won't be back.
We're glad we'll never, ever see you again. We hate to be reminded of our stupidity by intelligent folks like you who take us so seriously.
Well, I find thingsihate.org to be positively cheery. For example, this article is just an old-fashioned good time.
In other news, posting a comment completely sans any positive words is a great way to reverse the trend of all the so-called bad things that happen in the so-called world! Also, contradictions don't make for a good argument i.e. "stop being so damn miserable", and the happy little number, "No wonder we're all screwed".
Thanks Richard Head; your clever faux-name and comment have made my day!
