Halloween 2015

Having passed another Halloween weekend which is super-busy time at my job, it seemed like a fitting occasion to return to the blogosphere. Had a very successful event Fri the 30th with cover band sets of Descendants, Clutch, Rolling Stones and more. What a great audience, neat-o costumage and most importantly, killer tributes. Had never heard Clutch - heavy stuff. Sat the 31st I did not work the show but did have the displeasure of resetting the bar Sun morning. Cathy said it was the busiest night we have ever had! I could sorta tell..

Been doing what I can to keep my Mom safe and surviving on her own in her Baraboo apartment. In Sept she was diagnosed with throat cancer. At 89, chemo is not an option so it has been radiation treatments 5 days a week for a month to kill the tumor that is making it difficult for her to swallow. Just took her to the last session on Monday. She got a diploma and congratulations from the staff there. Says she is finding it easier to swallow and is taking enough mushy and liquid nutrition now. Better times are ahead.

Brother Hal is on the road managing the merchandise for Stevie Wonder. Will be back round these here parts by Thanksgiving.

Dearest Hannah is running the sound for a play at Broom Street Theater. Will be attending a performance soon. Only 2 weeks left! Pumpkin carving has happened, much to my delight:

Made a pot of black beans (from raw beans - usually wimp out with canned) and they turned out well. Bean burritos were enjoyed Sunday with H and last night for 'leftovers'. Certain foods tend to enhance methane production in the digestive tract and I do prefer well cooked black beans for being low on the gas production scale of consuming said legumes. I soak the beans overnight and simmer for at least 3 hours with onion, garlic, cumin, basil, cayenne and light salt. Just salty enough to not taste weird but not as crazy salty as store-bought corporate brands. The canned Organic varieties are good tho and low salt. I usually get Full Circle for quick TexWiscoMex. Filling out the Flour tortilla rolled tube of delight: monty jack cheese, rice, Newmans salsa and sour cream. Oh and a little Sriracha.

Gomeroke is now FREE on Tuesday and I'm off shortly for the door sitting gig soon. Hoping we have a good turnout tonight. Mathew had over 70 last week, so I remain hopeful,

Sure would like to be playing drums or percussion again, but nothing on the calendar at this time. There may be a reunion of the electro-acoustic + visuals quartet with Gregory, Darwin and Mark in Mpls after Thanksgiving as schedules and venue booking allows.

listen:
the song Freeze Frame in a store
that is all

read:
Isthmus
NYTimes
insurance docs

view:
PBS News Hour

halloween 2012

Fennimore vacation

Nice little 'stay-around-Wisconsin-cation' last week with Hannah to Fennimore and points west. We had an air conditioned room (with double-wide hot tub!) here:

and part of the deal was a gift certificate to their oddly named restaurant:

Nice room and Hannah enjoyed her dinner choice. And they didn't mind her speaking aloud, which is a good thing. My chicken fillet was overcooked, tho still tasty. We fared better in dining at the Family Style diner a couple blocks up the road.
Thursday morning it was off to Wyalusing state park near Prairie du Chien, about a half hour away. Nice scenic drive there and Hannah was invaluable with spotting signs and keeping me from taking wrong turns, mostly on the way back. The vistas from the upper campgrounds were wonderous. This looks like the park to camp in, if such an adventure happens this or subsequent summer. The campsites are nicely spread apart and all. Would like to hike along the river valley next time.

 Sweetie and gal relaxing and unplugged, ahhh. About the unplugged part - none of the rooms at the Fenway had phones (!) and their WiFi wasn't useable. To top it off our Vir gin mo bile cels had no signal in the area.
The hotel bar was nice (that is until some crooner chick held forth Thu nite) and pulled coupons off the place mats at the diner for free cocktails both days. Did buy my first beer - Capital Amber in a frosted mug, mmmm. Part of the deal on the room was a complimentary bottle of wine and an Italian Pinot Grigio ended up being good and hit the spot on Thursday. Not much interesting exploring to do in Fennimore during the weekdays but their was a 'Steak Feed' advertised for the weekend! Railroad Museum closed. Huge thrift store on the next block visit yielded a new swimsuit for H. This place looked interesting, but was locked down:

Couldn't resist 'preserving' the sign's drawing, the only folk art within view

heavy weather taday

listen:
 bowling in heaven, prolly lotsa strikes!
 Kate Bush - The Dreaming
 Dub Trio - IV

read:
 Nat'l Geo magazine (natch)
 Maximum Ink and other obits, sadly with many heavy losses of late.
 Notably, the great Levon Helm..
 Carl Hiaasen - Hoot

view:
 'Connections' - 1978 BBC series  with science historian James Burke.
 making of Lynch's Blue Velvet
 MeTV
 Jackie Chan- The reluctant spy (?)

From time to time, I've mentioned The Gomers in this blog.











Not nearly enough to give them credit for all this marvelous band does to enrich the lives of those of us who dwell in Madison. The Gomers host a live-band karaoke show 6 times a month at my place of employment. It's about the only gig I look forward to when I peddle down the Isthmus to sit in my spot at the nightclub entrance. Founder and old friend Biff has maintained a considerable web presence, so I'll not be a repetitive old fart with any of that. It's all here, and more!

Pal Gregory recently asked what selections singers are likely to bust out with on any given night. Here's a setlist from last Friday's happy hour show:

set 1
The Beatles - I Will
Led Zepplin - Ramble On
Bowie - Space Oddity
Derek & the Dominoes - Layla
U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Simon and Garfunkel - America
Allman Bros.- Midnight Rider
Arlo Guthrie - Coming Into Los Angeles
Led Zepplin - How Many More Times

set 2
Queen - We Will Rock You/We are the Champions
Frampton - Show Me the Way
Tom Petty - Breakdown
Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
Helen Reddy - I am Woman
The Beatles - The Ballad of John and Yoko
Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge over Troubled Waters
finale/band intros/thank yous with quotes from Yes and Van Halen

A representative sample of what the Gomes and singers get down with, and believe me it's entertaining as all get out. Good times!

listen:
My Bloody Valentine
XString Quartet
Alva Noto + Ryuichi Sakamoto - Summvs
Richard Thompson - Amnesia

read:
China Miéville - The City and the City
Emulator 6400 manual

view:
Super 8
Dexter season 5

DIY DTV antenna

more DIYery - a cheap antenna built today, to finally recieve 'free' TV @home reliably:


























design from:

Makezine Blog post link


all the madison stations are now being recieved with clear stability, at least when the weather is is also clear.


listen: 92 The Mic

view: In the Line of Fire (Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich!), Law and Order. Arrested Development season 2

read: local papers (CT, Isthmus, Onion, Eastside News), Nat'l Geo, Smithsonian

deckscape 2 & dinner with Cliff

The storms passing through WI making for some interesting sky views from the deck this week.

































Hannah and her pop Cliff and I went out for a very tasty Chinese dinner last night before he flies off today for 3 weeks in Indonesia. We had a great meal and nice chat. After dropping her dad back at the family home, we took a walk around the hood admiring the gardens and unique homes and occasional sky views.






































Capped off the evening with snuggling, a dvd and more snuggling. Nice day!

view:
The Wild Blue Yonder (Herzog)

deckscape

listen:
Steve Tibbets - Natural Causes

view:
Dexter - Season 2
Shutter Island

Summer arrives!

Hereabouts it's just a flurry of activity. Changing weather (like hourly), getting out and enjoying nature's gifts a bit, and in general it's go, go, go! Taking care of a neighbor's yard. Housesitting coming up this weekend. Sprucing up the back deck.
Sunday evenings I have the privilege to explore the far reaches of the musical cosmos via playing recordings of artists on WORT, subbing Gregory's RTQE broadcast with the kind help of Alex who can jump in when I need a break. My girlfriend Hannah and I spend pretty much all our mutual free time together, what there is between our wacky schedules. It's really my wacky 'schedule' that screws up our time together. She's the apple of my eye and the beating of my heart. I'm lucky.

Drumming on a regular basis would be nice and it's up to me to make that happen it would seem. Also nice would be something to show for my hours spent at work besides sore muscles and a paycheck amount stuck in limbo. Work is steady at the bar although we're hitting that period where music lovin' folks have lotsa options and being indoors is not quite so attractive. Can't blame them and they'll be back after letting out a collective sigh that the crappy weather is finally over until the fall.

listen:
Alison Krause|Rober Plant - Raising Sand
Adrian Belew Power Trio - e

view:
Dexter (Showtime series) season 1

pics from April

the mulberry tree that used to shade (and shed on) my deck was taken down a few weeks ago :(

what's new?

The arrival of spring with all the special vivifyingness of nature and our midwestern demeanor in general.

And gigs, yes, gigs! Jon offered the news today that he is to secure a date at the coffeehouse and hopefully has also lured db back to these parts it's lookin like. Yeah! Wheels are in motion for a return to the Spark festival in Minneapolis, happening this year in September. Hoo!

The bar is doing about as much business as we can stand, which of course makes for a busy Tom. To offset this and as a way to also spend another (too rare) night with Hannah, I've stopped working the door on Wed. 2 nights of rocking will be fine. Dinners at home with good companionship are being enjoyed, yes!


And there are night's out on the town, not wearing heavy outerwear or hats and gloves.

spring approaches, in fits and starts. off to a good start!

It's been a lovely week, with temps ~20 degrees above average.
We went back to seasonality last night and the official evidence has been removed from the path out. 1st order of the day - back stoop clearing of the sticky 2 or 3 inches of white frozen stuff.
Wishing I wasn't so dragged out (from work). Don't seem to have the gumption to even set up the Powerbook. Dishes done and house tidied, as is my usual Sat routine, even when I'm this worn down. Rejuvenating delight and excellent company are soon to come - dinner date with Hannah after her planned family visit. The generosity of HN patrons will enable a fabulous dinner which we won't have to cook or clean up after.

listen:
Joni Mitchell - Hejira (today)
Gomeroke, Hip-hop (the kind that has artistry and doesn't suck) at work

view:
Cold Souls
John Adams HBO special (pts. 1-5)

c74 Max workshop

Monday through Friday at Project Lodge there was a free crash course in cycling74 software tools: Max, Jitter and Max for (Ableton) Live. I was able to attend all of Monday and the last 3 hours of Thursday's classes. Pal Gregory and co-presenter and new pal Darwin held forth on the near east side and the lovely weather allowed visits on the bicycle.

Know enough to be dangerous at this point and ahead will be digging into this deep and useful set of strategies to enhance the electro acoustic rig. That's what I have when Gregory and I do our gigs. The basic concept is to play mostly hand held stuff, some of it of my own invention and some of it high tech from, well the early 90s. So no drums, just a table with a bunch of wired up gadgets:
DrumKAT
Mini-MIDI keyboard hack







I made this from an old keyboard that was meant to plug into a PC. Jon G hot wired it to just be a plain old MIDI keyboard. I removed the frame, sawed some off and replaced all the white keys 'cept the 2 on each end.

The little blue pickup in the upper left is set up all industrial-strength and can be attached to stuff easily. It's like a little mic to amplify the little stuff. I also plug it into a trigger input of the KAT, attached to the sawed off piece of color coordinated wrist-rest pad - it's my 'kick drum' trigger. You just tap the little guy with your toe and "whooom!".

Upper right is the remaining example of my the original set of 4 electronic drum pads made from plumbing parts. It still works anyway.

At the bottom is a plastic mouthwash bottle festooned with a piezo pickup glued on to it's mouth - tap tap, whump, bink, etc.

The 'rack' will have my trusty Yamaha MU-80 tone module/effects box, Uptown Flash MIDI controllable mixer, Mackie 12o2 mixer and some yet-to-be-determined MIDI interface for the Powerbook. Losing the old 486 PC laptop (Win95!) and Bome's MIDI translator formerly used to interface Mini-MIDI kbd to the rest of the rig.

Immediate goals: System Exclusive messages translated from incoming KAT notes to change voices, pitch, duration and effects on the fly, enhancing the KAT's multi-note/multi-message generating capabilities in order to play 'rule games' for auto-accompaniment. And nifty things like setting tap tempo (adjusting delay times) on the fly. This last item on the hit list will allow matching tempos set by Gregory's looping and delays in performance, hoo!

Spring, just around the corner

and this morning, the first fly of twenty-ten lit on my kitchen window sill.










































RIP little guy.
Be seeing your cousins soon, I have no doubt.

listen:
David Bowie - Outside
Dave Douglas - Five
John Metcalfe - Scorching Bay/The Inner Life ii

Apex DT250A DTV converter

Last week my Digital TV converter box, an Apex DT250A, refused to power up. When I'd press the power button, instead of the light going from red to green for GO, it simply blinked red. Bah! After contemplating replacement which I can ill afford, I used Google to find a thread on an online help forum where my exact problem was detailed along with a possible solution. It seems the power supply may have a bad capacitor. A closer look:


















Aha! The bad component was all swollen just like a human injury! Scrounged through my parts box for a 470uF 25V cap - zilch.

Hannah mentioned that what she often does with discarded electronics in incorporate them into her art projects . Reuse, repurpose...this got me thinking: discarded components, hmm...I have some little power supplies in parts box. Scrounge, scrounge..yes! And as luck would have it, one power supply actually had the very component needed..sweet! After about 45 minutes of dorking around inside the little black box to replace the capacitor, cursing the observed phenomenon that a little knowledge can be dangerous, postulating that a sane man would have just chucked into the trash and moved on, yadayada - my Apex POS had been given a 2nd lease and will provide it's digital link to the broadcast television medium again, for better or worse*

Then Hannah, home by now, wrote that I might look in the butter compartment...and behold: at tasty morsel of chocolate from the neighborhood shop. It was consumed hastily it was, and with celebratory glee!

*2011 update: The Apex DT250A is shite! Another el cheapo Made in China DTV box (Magnavox E172516) was recently inherited from my late step father so I gave it a whirl. Picture quality is greatly improved! Channels 3 and 47 no longer glitch out when there's stormy weather. The Apex also used to 'forget' channels 3.1 and 3.2 and required retuning to bring them back. Next time I'll know better than to waste time with this nonsense. Magnavox E172516 is OK.


listen:
Tatooed Love Boys (Pretenders tribute) live

read:
Smithsonian March issue

view:
Spike Jones Colgate Comedy Hour episodes

have some oatmeal

and start your day braced for the aforementioned nasty elemental forces. You have time for breakfast, really, you do. It helps bucking up for the day to be much easier. After years of avoiding the oats cuz instant is like cardboard porridge and not so good for you with the artificial 'flavorings' included. Tom has decided to be good to his heart and circulatory system with this yummy meal. It takes even less time than eggs 'n' toast. My hippie 'whole-y-er than thou' self suggests to use organic ingredients if possible, to look after our planet's health in the process. And they taste better too - you get what you pay for in both ways.

Tom's Oatmeal with Nuts and Fruit

I like these:















..any whole grain raw oats would be fine.
Measure out the oats, 1/2 to 3/4 cup is plenty, then pour into the bowl you will use to eat them.
Measure out double that volume of water, bring to a boil in a medium size pan.
While the water is coming to a boil, gather the following:
5 or 6 walnut halves
1/4 cup raisins
small ripe banana
honey
1/4 cup milk
Getting out the milk early and letting it equalize to room temp is also recommended.
Add oats to boiling water, lower heat to keep it boiling but not boiling over.
Stir occasionally while you separate raisins, break walnut pieces into quarters or kernels and slice up the banana.
When the the water has boiled away and the oats are fluffy (usually 10-12 minutes), cover the pan and remove from the burner to let sit for a minute.
Finally, scoop oats into your bowl, add nuts/fruit/milk and drizzle some honey:














































Enjoy with your bevvie of choice. Been trying to switch over to breakfast tea. Stash's English Breakfast or Earl Grey. Still, it's hard to resist that morning coffee since Madison has an abundance of great roasts. Here's one:






















A fitting way to close this post might be to quote my old pal Dmitri:
"Never regret the extra expense and trouble of having high quality food."
Over the years I have found this to be very good advice.

listen:
Ornette Coleman - To Whom Who Keeps a Record, The Shape of Jazz to Come
T-bone Burnette
David Bowie - Outside

read:
Andy Summers - One Train Later

view:
Terry Gilliam's latest, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassis (!)
Spalding Gray - Gray's Anatomy
Coen Bros' Oh Brother Where Art Thou

more snow and ice for the holidays

blizzard

We've had a foot and a half of snow here, Madison was specifically mentioned on CNN. I guess we are in the thick of it.

















































Dug a path to the street and cleared the sidewalk this morning.

Just got a call from the boss: tonight's show is cancelled..yay!
Only wish planning had transpired to be snowbound with my sweetie.
Hope we can still have our dinner date tomorrow..

Arboretum

Last Saturday Hannah and I with Tim and Bess hiked our beautiful nature preserve for a nice sunny jaunt around the marsh in our lovely Arboretum here. Ahh, sunshine, fresh air and good company.

and Sunday a return to Cherokee Marsh

H and I visited again for the second time since we've been seeing each other. These hikes in the wilds of Wisconsin are very nice and relaxing, can't get enough.

view:
The Commitments

listen:
Rasputina