Got a cool gig coming up next weekend in Doylestown, PA. I’ll be sitting in with The BlackTails for the official release of their new CD "Inside Man". No, I’m not on the CD, but I’m very excited to play their cool blend of jazz, rock, and blues ideal for a "spy noire" soundtrack. I’ve performed many times with drummer Derek Landel and bassist Fredi Meli in various jazz groups and the good old Duke Baxter Band. So it’s going to be all new tunes for me, but with a familiar battery locking it all together. We’ll be appearing with the fabulous Meghan Cary as well, so should be a fun night if you can make it out to Doylestown!

Gigs are always listed on my Upcoming Performances page.

I was at Roberto’s Woodwinds today to pick up some V16 soprano reeds.  An employee told me they no longer carry Vandoren reeds.  The reason given was that they were "expensive and inconsistent".

Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t reeds always been expensive and inconsistent!?

I suspect there’s more to the story than that.  But it doesn’t matter.  I can buy Vandoren elsewhere.

I use V16 on soprano and alto.  I like the extra bite I get in my sound with them.  Of course, these are secondary voices for me, so I’m not as particular about quality issues.  I pretty much play through every reed in the box.

On tenor, however, I’m neurotically fussy.  Rigotti Gold reeds have been the only brand that performs to my liking for several years now.  Roberto’s is the sole distributor for those.

So for now, I have to make two stops to pick up my reeds, not just one.

I finally got around to installing software on my digital audio workstation today.  The machine, cobbled together from old parts, is an Athlon XP 2600+ with 512MB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive.  It’s dual booting Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and Ubuntu 8.10.  I usually have it running in Ubuntu as my media server and, when I upgrade the RAM, a VMware server for development projects.  The only reason I have Windows on it is to run Cakewalk Sonar 6, which I picked up on the cheap at the CompUSA fire sale a little while back.  Now I finally have a dedicated environment for audio software only, which prevents a lot of configuration headaches.

Anyway, when I got Sonar fired up, I dug around for some old project files.  That’s when I discovered this home recording from 1997.  This is a spontaneous improvisation between myself and Stephen Mazzetta on guitar.  Originally recorded with some crappy dynamic mics and a Gravis Ultrasound card, I did what I could to make it presentable:

Smaz Blues 

This is from the same home recording sessions that produced the Flam and Mars Walk takes on my audio page. There’s more, too. It’s fun listening to this stuff twelve years later!

I ran an informal contest the other day with the intention of Netflix-ing the first movie suggested that I hadn’t seen.  While my intention was to pick something random to stream online, the first and winning suggestion was only available my mail.  Well, I just realized that this is the first movie I’ve ever Netflix-ed.  By mail, anyway.  And the winner is:

Thanks, Kyle!

I love it! "If you can type, you can make movies…" I discovered this through Will Hines’ blog. Check out some of the other movies on Xtranormal.com.

And I made my own:

Go make a movie! (I suggest you create an account before starting a movie. It’s just easier.)

Just a comment on the article Ex-Bush aides say he never recovered from Katrina

Excerpt:

On other topics, David Kuo, who served as deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, disputed the idea that the Bush White House was dominated by religious conservatives and catered to the needs of a religious right voting bloc.

"The reality in the White House is — if you look at the most senior staff — you’re seeing people who aren’t personally religious and have no particular affection for people who are religious-right leaders," Kuo said.

"In the political affairs shop in particular, you saw a lot of people who just rolled their eyes at … basically every religious-right leader that was out there, because they just found them annoying and insufferable. These guys were pains in the butt who had to be accommodated."

That’s about as straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth as you can hope for — considering that the Republican party, which best serves the top five percent of America by income, has to commandeer religion in order to have any hope for majority support.

I took a cab in Staten Island today back to the ferry terminal.  The cab driver was this dude with wavy gray hair slicked back, pointy face, probably 70 but looked 85 from smoking — the kind of guy you’d peg hanging at OTB every day, not driving a cab.  He had a friendly, who cares demeanor with a vintage outer borough accent that probably hasn’t been heard inside Manhattan in 40 years.

When we got to the waterfront, driving up the shoreline with icy rain pelting the frigid water, he began talking.

I’ll pretend this was a monologue for brevity:

You wanna go for a swim?

You wanna go fishing?

YOU SURE??

How ’bout I drop you off here?

You wanna go fishing?  I see people fish here!

You wanna swim across?

YOU SURE??

I can drop you off here.

You wanna swim with the ducks?

YOU SURE??

[pause]

I got styrofoam shoes!

You can walk across!  You won’t even get wet!

YOU SURE??

I got styrofoam shoes!

Only problem is…they’re size 10.

Oh good!  You can float across!

YOU SURE??

Lots of people have been telling me to not take myself so seriously.  In one case, the story was about how old people just don’t care about all the BS anymore.  They’re just happy to be alive.  This guy was the perfect example.

I want to be like him someday.  I’m sure.

I have to get business cards printed, so I made this design today that I’m pretty happy with:

Btw, the e-mail address doesn’t work yet.  And the URL will be on the back, and that’s not ready yet, either.

Comments?  Critiques?

Dad: What’s all this stuff?  Earplugs?

Me: Earplugs.

Dad: You play that bad?

LOL

This was in the yard of the folks that put up the band in Martha’s Vineyard a few years ago. Took the picture in a hurry on the way off. Transformed it into something inspirational…

I finally have my vorpal sword.