As I’ve mentioned innumerable times, it took Snake Suspenderz 3 or 4 years of asking before we were hired on for Seattle’s fabulous Moisture Festival. We finally got hired for this year’s Fest (the 9th annual) and it was just as amazing as I’d imagined.

And kee-rist what an imagination I’ve got!

water bottle given as swag to the 2012 Moisture Festival acts

One of the many perks of playing the MF is the swag you get—because they treat you like a freaking rock star and that, of course, includes swag. I can’t speak for what was included in the swag in previous years, but this year my favorite bit was the official Moisture Festival Water Bottle.

As you’ve figured out by now, that’s the very bottle pictured to your left.

It was not only a cool piece of swag, but just the week before I got it I was busking with my trusty ukulele down at Pike Place Market and, when trying to whistle and discovering that, once again, my mouth was too dry to produce a sound, I made a mental note as to how I needed to get a water bottle.

Like… ASAP. And here the universe just drops one into my lap. Can’t figure out just what I did right, but I hope I can repeat it.

For nearly a month I was staying happily hydrated whilst doing my street thing. But it took less than a week for the little carabiner I got with it to give up the ghost. No problem. I simply carried the bottle, empty, in one of the pockets of my busking rig suitcase and only filled it up while at the Market.

This kept my load lighter and still allowed me to make good use of the bottle. All was rosy until May 1st.

M’aidez!

I’ve mentioned what a hell day that was in this blog post, so I won’t go over all the details again. Suffice it to say that not only did I lose money that day, but I also managed to lose the bottle.

That really harshed my mellow, dude.

But there’s a happy ending. I mentally traced my activities throughout the day and figured I must have lost it on the bus I took home. I called King County Metro’s Lost & Found office on the 3rd and, wonder of wonders, it was there. So I went down and picked it up.

w00t!

I told you all of the above just to tell you the next bits… just work with me here, OK?

Later on in the day after getting the bottle back I was at my friend Chris’s place. Chris is a fellow busker, who works with his partner Phinneas, the Pike Place Parrot. They live within an easy walk of the Market and I often visit them, either during the long wait between busking sets or after the busking day is done.

Chris and I were, as usual, discussing a bunch of esoteric subjects, and I was mentioning how I really didn’t want to risk losing this memento again, so I’d have to go and buy meself a new, and stouter, carabiner in order to keep track of this special item.

Chris has a collection of… well… esoterica that he’s picked up over time from the Pike Place Market rummage sale. Some of the stuff—especially this very hip set of amber-colored goggles that just scream Steam Punk and arouse a lustful envy in me—falls under the category of “lovely but useless stuff I really want.” Others of it include useful bits, arcane bits, and just plain pretty bits. So it shouldn’t have surprised me—even though it did somewhat—when he disappeared into his bedroom and came back with an assortment of carabiners.

One of them was an example of a full-on, you can use this to climb the fucking Matterhorn, professional mountaineering carabiner. It also happened to hold my water bottle on my busking rig suitcase exactly as if it were designed for the purpose.

Chris absolutely refused any payment for this item. He’s sweet like that… but don’t tell him I said so! Wouldn’t want to spoil my curmudgeonly reputation. ;-)

It’s just such a blessing in my life to have friends like Chris (and the mighty Phinney bird too for that matter). Having a friend that, without any effort, produces just the right item for your needs it a pearl beyond price. If you have someone like that and don’t appreciate what you’ve got, shame on you!

I can only hope that, at least on occasion, I’m one of those “friends with the right stuff” to someone else.

I actually managed to lose money. Jaysus!

The only good news yesterday was that my sweet Fallen Angel managed to jump through the requisite hoops and the Millionair Club is going to give her new glasses. Her prescription is way out of date and her glasses themselves are in bad shape… hot glued together, all out of alignment… you get the picture.

The fact that she was being gifted this needed item made me very happy, not only because neither of us could afford making the very necessary replacement, but also because I had learned of this opportunity via my network, and passed the info on to her. (That would be the real life network in this case, not the digital one.)

Huge blessings on the wonderful friends in my network.

Despite all that, and just to rub salt in yesterday’s wound, when I arrived at the Pike Place Market today I discovered that I’d lost my recently acquired Moisture Festival water bottle.

Well, fuck.

Dear Universe, that’ll be enough of that, K?

But…

I arrived rather latish to the Market and still only had to wait about a 1/2 hour for my set. This is what’s known in the trade as “a blessing.”

The tips were good and I sold a CD. The upshot being, when I counted my money at the end of the set—$30+ for an hour. Not too shabby for a weird old dude strumming his ukulele, eh?—I decided that was probably good enough, especially since my bus transfer was still good. That’s a savings of $2.50.

Doesn’t sound like a lot to you? Walk a mile in my shoes.

I was just going to go home and call it a WIN. I deserve a WIN every once in a while. srsly.

But wait! There’s more!

I’m now packing up and this couple comes up, money clenched in the fella’s fist, and buys yet another CD.

A $40+ hour? OK then.

What a difference a day makes.

One could almost believe that tourist season was nearly upon us. srsly.

In other words, I may have survived another winter/early spring. That deserves a “w00t!”

I can’t hear you! Give me a damn w00t!

kthxbye.

tl:dr version… my life is groovier than yours. so, nyah! ;-)

1. Quite by accident, I completed a trilogy of videos that feature every other member of my band Snake Suspenderz guesting on one of my solo videos. Not only that, but every one of them is playing some sort of bass instrument. We start with salamandir on tuba—his usual axe—and then move on to Sketch on doghouse bass—though he’s actually our drummer—and then conclude with Thadd on guitarron—he’s usually on trombone, followed by guitar and then chromatic harmonica.
2. The last video in the series   (Dr. Hokum & Mr. Jive) represents the most ambitious video I’ve completed to date. Thanks to a suggestion from Thadd, I ended up using my two cameras to pretty much fake up a six-camera shoot. This means, of course, that instead of just bouncing back and forth between camera one and camera two, I actually had footage that allowed me to mix it up quite a bit. It’s still not perfect, but I’m learning with each new one.

So without any further ado, I present The Bass Trilogy…

Naughty Monkey

(For some reason the transcoder program I use to translate from the file type that my cameras turn out into a file type that iMovie eats lost its settings and this one ended up with a big black frame around it. I fixed it in the next videos.)

Good Golly! (the Porno Popup Song)

This is the one where I learned out to fake up a 6-camera shoot where 2 used to do.

If you appreciate one or more of these offerings, you can say thanks by either:

• subscribing to my YouTube channel
• dropping a buck or so into my online tip bucket (in the right column here) or…
• best of all, spreading around the videos via Twitter, Facebook, G+… well, you get the idea.

Meanwhile, if you dig any one (or more) of these videos please leave comments and/or share them around on your favorite (and hell… second favorite) social media sites. It would help so much!

I used to see folks in the various ukulele forums complaining about this—prior to the new formula, mind you—and I was always like, “Yah, you are chust girly men!” about it. Even with the women. Now I understand wtf they were going on about.

So for a while now I’ve been thinking I have to go and get one of those nail strengthener things from my local beauty supply store. Today, doing some errands downtown with—strange as it may seem—brass in pocket, I decided to check out what I could find in that department.

There were three varieties and I chose the mid-priced one. It’s called Miracle Nail Hardener. I don’t know how well it will work, since I’ve just started using it tonight, but what they don’t tell you on the packaging is that it puts a rather glossy finish on the nail.

I don’t mind the shiny nail thing, per se. When I was doing close-up magic, and lots of attention was paid to my hands, I would regularly use a clear gloss. But since I am only interested in strengthening the right index (aka “main strumming”) fingernail, it kinda bugs me that I’m going to have one shiny nail.

This is worse than a “first world problem.” It’s a “first world, ukulele ace” problem and there’s no support group out there for us.

The weird things I have to do sometimes. Sheesh!

(we miss you, Don.)

I opened it up—briefly—because of Black March, which is a month where you’re encouraged to buy nothing from the major labels and, in fact, you shouldn’t even download one of their tunes, legally or not. Instead you’re invited to support the indie musicians (somewhat like me).

This means that there’s only one week left for the rest of y’all to check out a sample of what goes on in the Fans Only section and get a chance to download my new album, Standards Issue, containing a baker’s dozen jazz standards on solo ukulele and voice, for the mere pittance of… well, pay what you think it’s worth. Or you could order a physical copy for only $10 plus a bit for shipping/handling.

Check out the section soon. Maybe you’ll buy my music. Maybe you’ll even decide to sign up to receive my newsletter, Hobbit Howls so you can continue to watch the selection of fans only stuff grow (like the Lost Videos or some very limited recordings or…). Or maybe you’ll just download the music for free and share it with friends.

I like all of those options.

And be sure to let me know what you think of the tunes. I loves me some feedback.

(cross-posted from Howlin’ Hobbit dot com News)

As they departed he turned to her and, sort of sotto voce, said, “That’s mighty smooth.”

I wish that I’d had an audio recorder going at the time. Because even now the way that he said that gives me a giggle.

And I was flattered.

tada!

The Sophisticated Song
Download audio file (TheSophisticatedSong.mp3)

You can click the player to hear it and/or right-click on the title to download it as a 320kbps mp3 file.

I recorded/mastered this much like my recent album. So now that you can hear (more or less) what it sounds like, alla youse guys go sign up for my mailing list and buy the new one! Except for Bisbo, of course. He’s a trend-setter.

thankyouverrmuch.

Oh yeah, and if you haven’t seen it already, here’s Hugh’s version on YouTube.

(Howlin’ has left the building.)

So I googled him and found his site and followed it to this link on PBS. Go and watch the PBS video. It’s brief but, more importantly, full of awesome.

Cab is also one of my major heroes. I do Minnie the Moocher quite a bit, and have had some magic moments busking with the tune.

I think that Steve Brodner may have to go into the heroes list somewhere too. I just love his style.