“Erroneous Bosch” started out as noodling, grew into a theme, and then spent around 8 months in the “fiddly” stage. I even gave up on it for a while and woulda likely forgotten it had my wife not said: “that’s good, why aren’t you working on that?”
I sat down to record an acoustic track – with vocals no less – but wanted to warm up my fingers with some improv first. That’s when the rhythm to “Peace Bus” appeared.
No, “The Sand Bats of Manark IV” (3:27) is not a long lost ST:TOS episode but the next installment of my ongoing “CAE – Curiosities from the Attic” recording project.
the author caught in the act by his wife, Elizabeth Edwards
I recently picked up a small, second hand tome on the limerick (“The Lure of the Limerick – An Uninhibited History” Baring-Gold) and found myself not only amused but inspired.
One morning soon thereafter, I was startled awake by ‘smealm,‘ a truly disturbing occurrence, I can assure you.
The bluer ‘rotini‘ followed with rapidity as I hunkered over the keyboard.
Some say they were born under a bad sign
Sometimes there is just a bad seed
When them Edwards boys come a-sniffin’ around
I tell you now, you better pay heed
I heard they stole some Matchbox from the Woolworths
Some Abba-Zabbas from the Alco
They took a whole damn register from Ben Frank’s
It just grew legs and walked out the door
I rediscovered many of my toys while making the Chogokin Gimmickry video. I encourage you to occasionally play with your toys – especially your r@@@re and expensive, super-fragile, antique Japanese diecast toys from companies like Popy, Takatoku, Bullmark, Arklon, Eidi, and Marushin.
This collection of vignettes, observances, and rants accumulated over a four day period in Charleston, South Carolina where I was employed as a vendor at a trade show.
I don’t travel much. This is my first trip in that direction: approximately six hours in the air, southeast with a connection in Atlanta. It’s the farthest south I’ve been on the east coast, maybe on the continent.
Anyway: stuck on a plane, stuck in a hotel room, stuck in a booth, and stuck in my head, the urge to document and rant came. Short of screaming to the heavens, I felt the need to express myself, so into my phone and computer the impressions and observances went – mostly as they happened or shortly thereafter.
Now, with only the slightest of apologies, I present them to you.
Outside a rarely-used side-door in our basement, there is a concrete stairwell that spends a good part of the year damp and mossy. It gets afternoon sun, if there is any, and because of this, it dries up and stays that way throughout the bulk of the summer months but, autumn to spring, it’s a pretty moist environment.
There is a drain in the bottom landing of this stairway: a hole covered by a round, metal grate tucked halfway under the concrete facade of one wall. Our neighbors live here: Taricha granulosa – rough-skinned newts.
[*note – this story was originally called “Ants and Hornets” – I have since realized these are yellow jackets, not hornets – very likely Vespula pennsylvanica – the ants look to be Formica obscuripes]
The other day I was out on the property with my daughter, hanging out beneath the arch of a tree and the hollow of some bushes: a little hideout where I keep a chair for quiet, measured snippets of novel now and again.
Anyway, I was there as I said, chatting with my daughter, when she pointed out a dark hole in the ground.
“Yellow jacket’s nest,” she said. “I wont sit in here, they’re all over.”