As for 2007, so long: It was a very, very good year...
"The End."
"The End."
Monday, 31 December 2007
Sunday, 30 December 2007
Hope Santa was good to everybody, because he sure was good to me.
The World's Greatest Peanut Brittle. Takes a tag team to make this: Two to share in the stirring, then one to pour and the other to spread. This is my Great Grandmother Freeland's recipe, so it's well over a hundred years old. I have finally gotten my mom to share it with me.
The World's Greatest Pumpkin Pie. This is actually the "EZ Version" as we didn't start out with the pumpkins - there just wasn't enough time - but it's the spices that really make it. I have not yet been "entrusted" with this particular Olde Family Recipe. Maybe next year.
Entertainment by Hucbald. I just set up my rig in the living room, which freaked out mom's Lhasas, but mom loves to hear me play. BTW: Mom now has the numero uno Lhasa Apso show dog in the US of A. She's been invited to the Westminster Show in NYC in February, and is tickled pink about it. This runs in the family: Her father was a national champion at raising and training five gait and fine harness horses back in the 30's. In fact, I grew up with horses and had my first pony when I was eight years old. I'd sure like to be in a situation where I could have a horse again. Horses are magical creatures that actually exist in reality. I think people who don't understand this have something wrong with them. A relationship with a horse changes a person forever, much to that person's benefit.
I know every guy has different ideas about feminine beauty - and thank God for that, or we'd all be after the same girl, and wouldn't that be a mess - and I find something beautiful about almost every woman I meet from eighteen to eighty, but I actually went slack-jawed when I saw this model the first time. If God had ever gotten off of his lazy butt and made a girl for me, I imagine she would have looked exactly like this.
There are some problems here, but not with the girl: The makeup is over-produced - especially the too-dark eyebrows, and there has been some photoshop lightening of the cheeks and forehead... I'd sure like to see what she looks like when she wakes up in the morning... er... well, you know what I mean. LOL!
*****
BTW: I managed to leave my email overloaded, so for four days I got no mail. I'm always forgetting something.
The World's Greatest Peanut Brittle. Takes a tag team to make this: Two to share in the stirring, then one to pour and the other to spread. This is my Great Grandmother Freeland's recipe, so it's well over a hundred years old. I have finally gotten my mom to share it with me.
The World's Greatest Pumpkin Pie. This is actually the "EZ Version" as we didn't start out with the pumpkins - there just wasn't enough time - but it's the spices that really make it. I have not yet been "entrusted" with this particular Olde Family Recipe. Maybe next year.
Entertainment by Hucbald. I just set up my rig in the living room, which freaked out mom's Lhasas, but mom loves to hear me play. BTW: Mom now has the numero uno Lhasa Apso show dog in the US of A. She's been invited to the Westminster Show in NYC in February, and is tickled pink about it. This runs in the family: Her father was a national champion at raising and training five gait and fine harness horses back in the 30's. In fact, I grew up with horses and had my first pony when I was eight years old. I'd sure like to be in a situation where I could have a horse again. Horses are magical creatures that actually exist in reality. I think people who don't understand this have something wrong with them. A relationship with a horse changes a person forever, much to that person's benefit.
I know every guy has different ideas about feminine beauty - and thank God for that, or we'd all be after the same girl, and wouldn't that be a mess - and I find something beautiful about almost every woman I meet from eighteen to eighty, but I actually went slack-jawed when I saw this model the first time. If God had ever gotten off of his lazy butt and made a girl for me, I imagine she would have looked exactly like this.
There are some problems here, but not with the girl: The makeup is over-produced - especially the too-dark eyebrows, and there has been some photoshop lightening of the cheeks and forehead... I'd sure like to see what she looks like when she wakes up in the morning... er... well, you know what I mean. LOL!
*****
BTW: I managed to leave my email overloaded, so for four days I got no mail. I'm always forgetting something.
Friday, 21 December 2007
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!
Chris, one of my former Berklee profs, emailed this to me the other day. It's hilarious, and the perfect holiday gift for my dear readers. People with substance abuse problems probably ought not participate in men's choirs. At least they're upfront about it though: From "Straight, no Chaser":
I have gigs tonight and tomorrow night, and then Sunday I'll be going to San Antonio to spend Christmas with my mommy, so the next post will be a Happy New Year kind of deal. Be well, stay warm, and enjoy some time with your families.
Chris, one of my former Berklee profs, emailed this to me the other day. It's hilarious, and the perfect holiday gift for my dear readers. People with substance abuse problems probably ought not participate in men's choirs. At least they're upfront about it though: From "Straight, no Chaser":
I have gigs tonight and tomorrow night, and then Sunday I'll be going to San Antonio to spend Christmas with my mommy, so the next post will be a Happy New Year kind of deal. Be well, stay warm, and enjoy some time with your families.
Thursday, 20 December 2007
There's nothing I like better than someone who breaks molds, defies stereotypes, does their own thing... and doesn't give a hot, flying flapjack what anyone else thinks about it. Ms. Palmer was offered some sweet deals from top producers who offered to make her a pop star, but she said, "No thanks, I want to do country music." So, she continued to hold down odd jobs until... she made it happen.
I had heard this song before, but I was gobsmacked when I finally saw a picture of her. I had to laugh at myself (Hey, if I don't someone else will). I'm not really a fan of music videos in general, but this is pretty cool in a wholesome, corny kind of way.
It doesn't hurt that she plays the guitar...
... and exudes mass quantities of hotness.
I had heard this song before, but I was gobsmacked when I finally saw a picture of her. I had to laugh at myself (Hey, if I don't someone else will). I'm not really a fan of music videos in general, but this is pretty cool in a wholesome, corny kind of way.
It doesn't hurt that she plays the guitar...
... and exudes mass quantities of hotness.
Wednesday, 19 December 2007
I have uploaded a PDF and MP3 of the finale of Concerto One for guitar and orchestra to my .Mac Downloads Page for those interested. I wanted to mention this now because my manager, for one, is anxious to hear it. It is a Passacaglia in a contemporary style, and is based on an eight measure harmonic continuity that consists of only tonic, subdominant, and secondary subdominant harmonies.
I wrote the first version of this as a jazzy concerto grosso back in 1994 when I was a doctoral candidate at UNT. I have put all of the melodic lines into the guitar part, but they will be redistributed among the instruments of the orchestra as I flesh out the orchestration again. I actually wrote this as a sort of treatise in completely chromatic "harmelodic" line writing, but when I played it for some of my classmates, almost all of them asked how I came up with such cool bass lines. Poor dears, I guess they lived deprived childhoods devoid of musical masters such as Rose Royce and Parliament Funkadellic. *sigh*
One of the things that tics me off the most about "classical" composers who look down their noses at jazz music is the fact that the most advanced masters of jazz possess a melodic conception that is light-years beyond anything any classical composers ever had. The closest any of them came was Chopin, and he was absolutely unique.
By extemporizing these lines with a track ball and cursor - versus hammering them out on a keyboard or the guitar - I was able to transcend all idiomatic concerns and just think in terms of the melodic trajectories and the coloristic effects the note sequences would have. This is far superior to the hemmed-in classical approach which has such nonsense terms as "non-harmonic notes" (The more I think about that, the more ass-ignorant it becomes as a "musical" concept): Under the completely chromatic "harmelodic" approach, every note has a harmonic function, and so a corresponding coloristic effect.
I'll be doing a dedicated post on this piece, but I'm not sure if I'll get it done before I leave to see my mom for Christmas.
Enjoy.
I wrote the first version of this as a jazzy concerto grosso back in 1994 when I was a doctoral candidate at UNT. I have put all of the melodic lines into the guitar part, but they will be redistributed among the instruments of the orchestra as I flesh out the orchestration again. I actually wrote this as a sort of treatise in completely chromatic "harmelodic" line writing, but when I played it for some of my classmates, almost all of them asked how I came up with such cool bass lines. Poor dears, I guess they lived deprived childhoods devoid of musical masters such as Rose Royce and Parliament Funkadellic. *sigh*
One of the things that tics me off the most about "classical" composers who look down their noses at jazz music is the fact that the most advanced masters of jazz possess a melodic conception that is light-years beyond anything any classical composers ever had. The closest any of them came was Chopin, and he was absolutely unique.
By extemporizing these lines with a track ball and cursor - versus hammering them out on a keyboard or the guitar - I was able to transcend all idiomatic concerns and just think in terms of the melodic trajectories and the coloristic effects the note sequences would have. This is far superior to the hemmed-in classical approach which has such nonsense terms as "non-harmonic notes" (The more I think about that, the more ass-ignorant it becomes as a "musical" concept): Under the completely chromatic "harmelodic" approach, every note has a harmonic function, and so a corresponding coloristic effect.
I'll be doing a dedicated post on this piece, but I'm not sure if I'll get it done before I leave to see my mom for Christmas.
Enjoy.
So, I get up after a night of partying with my best buds the morning after my birthday to see this:
That's a mule deer buck of about three years age - no fawn, as I usually see back there. I shot through the window, so you can see the ghostly reflection of my camera above the deer. He was just laying there, chewing his cud. It would have been amazing under any circumstances, but with a borderline-psychedelic tequila hangover, it was particularly impressive.
I tapped once on the window and got a profile:
Tapped again to get his full and undivided attention:
Don't think this didn't enter my mind!
He jumpped up and ran off when I tried to open the back door to get a better... uh... "shot."
*****
Seems that the local deer herd has taken to yarding up in the security of my townhouse complex. The next morning really early I snuck out the back door "vewy, vewy quietly," and caught five or six of them:
The two standing are young bucks - probably only two years old - and those still on the ground in back are does and fawns. The larger buck was not around. Nobody in our complex can remember this happening in previous years. January will mark four years here for me, and I've never seen anything like it before.
I have several great venison recipes. ;^)
Sun-bleached blondness. She has a great tan but no tan lines. What does that mean? LOL.
Ha! Our maintenance man just walked by outside with four or five deer running ahead of him. It's vaguely creepy, like some sort of sci-fi invasion flick.
That's a mule deer buck of about three years age - no fawn, as I usually see back there. I shot through the window, so you can see the ghostly reflection of my camera above the deer. He was just laying there, chewing his cud. It would have been amazing under any circumstances, but with a borderline-psychedelic tequila hangover, it was particularly impressive.
I tapped once on the window and got a profile:
Tapped again to get his full and undivided attention:
Don't think this didn't enter my mind!
He jumpped up and ran off when I tried to open the back door to get a better... uh... "shot."
*****
Seems that the local deer herd has taken to yarding up in the security of my townhouse complex. The next morning really early I snuck out the back door "vewy, vewy quietly," and caught five or six of them:
The two standing are young bucks - probably only two years old - and those still on the ground in back are does and fawns. The larger buck was not around. Nobody in our complex can remember this happening in previous years. January will mark four years here for me, and I've never seen anything like it before.
I have several great venison recipes. ;^)
Sun-bleached blondness. She has a great tan but no tan lines. What does that mean? LOL.
Ha! Our maintenance man just walked by outside with four or five deer running ahead of him. It's vaguely creepy, like some sort of sci-fi invasion flick.
Saturday, 15 December 2007
Well, it's official: I'm a Certified Old Fart.
My "blonde" Australian lady-friend reader baked brownies in my honor:
Too bad I wasn't able to fly down and eat them!
She sent along a pic of herself too:
At first I thought she was pulling my leg, then I realized: That's right - of course - it's winter up here, so it's summer Down Under... right?
My manager sent me a whole box of goodies, including cookies of many varieties that she baked herself.
Here I am eating one:
HT: Pogria for the photo.
And, of course, it's my birthday, so I'll post a redhead if I want to.
You just never know with redheads: Most have blue or green eyes, but hers are dark brown. Highly unusual.
I have a gig tonight, but after it's over me and a couple of guitarist buddies are going to get together and PARTY!!!
We got your bottle of Herradura 100% Blue Agave Anejo tequila, twelve Corona's, and a bag of limes (For the beer, not the tequila: With tequila this good, it would be a sin to use "training wheels").
In the foreground you can see the uber-cool gift my manager gave me: A genuine 1930's Navajo bolo tie with turquoise and what looks like a fossilized shark's tooth or claw. And, it has real bolos on it: Ballsy! LOL!
My "blonde" Australian lady-friend reader baked brownies in my honor:
Too bad I wasn't able to fly down and eat them!
She sent along a pic of herself too:
At first I thought she was pulling my leg, then I realized: That's right - of course - it's winter up here, so it's summer Down Under... right?
My manager sent me a whole box of goodies, including cookies of many varieties that she baked herself.
Here I am eating one:
HT: Pogria for the photo.
And, of course, it's my birthday, so I'll post a redhead if I want to.
You just never know with redheads: Most have blue or green eyes, but hers are dark brown. Highly unusual.
I have a gig tonight, but after it's over me and a couple of guitarist buddies are going to get together and PARTY!!!
We got your bottle of Herradura 100% Blue Agave Anejo tequila, twelve Corona's, and a bag of limes (For the beer, not the tequila: With tequila this good, it would be a sin to use "training wheels").
In the foreground you can see the uber-cool gift my manager gave me: A genuine 1930's Navajo bolo tie with turquoise and what looks like a fossilized shark's tooth or claw. And, it has real bolos on it: Ballsy! LOL!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
