Friday, after spending the day playing and recording drum tracks for my own version of one of Breanna’s songs from her previous band, I walked to the store to get ingredients for dinner. Walking back up my street, arms full of groceries, I found that the police had all of the streets blocked off, and there were people standing on the sidewalk watching, all the way up the street. I asked someone what was going on, and she said that it was drug-related, and that they were trying to get into the house of a person who was both selling and using drugs. I continued walking on MyStreet, and a cop stopped me and told me that I wouldn’t be able to get through on MyStreet for a while. I asked which way he’d recommend I go to get home, and he said I could walk up NextStreet and be out of harm’s way. I thanked him and took the opportunity to quickly survey MyStreet in the process. There were officers with rifles, and a SWAT team with an armored vehicle of some sort parked a block from my building, on the other side of the street. I walked home quickly and grabbed my camera.
The neighbor lady across the street saw me and called laughingly to her husband, “Hey, he’s taking photographs!” Someone walked over and asked the plainclothes policeman what was up, and according to NeighborSusan, “Apparently it was actually shooting-related. They located, or at least thought they’d located, a suspect for a shooting that occurred elsewhere at some previous time.” The cop was telling people to stay inside for about half an hour. I did, and listened with my window open. I heard no gun shots, and the multitude of cars drove away half an hour later, so I’m assuming that means the incident ended well enough.
I guess you could say the jury’s still out on what really happened, (I’m gonna go with the shooting scenario rather than the drug scenario; drug busts don’t usually involve that many big guns and vehicles, unless it was a huge operation) but that was certainly not something you see every day in this neighborhood.
I can NOT believe how busy life has been for these last two weeks. I had two huge shows, both of which required tons of preparation and rehearsal with the various groups. The first one was on St. Patrick’s Day with IrishBand. . .
. . .which was a total blast. We played for four hours that night, with a couple one-hour breaks while another band played in between our sets. We kept people there, singing and dancing and rockin’ out until 2:00 a.m.  Since then, we had a smaller (but just as fun) show and started doing more recording at my place. We finished the drum tracks for one song, and started them on a second.
The next huge show after St. P’s Day was the CD release party for Susie Blue, which took place at the new-and-improved Mississippi Studios. That was already one of my favorite places to play, but now it’s been revamped and enlarged, turning it into quite possibly the best of the medium-sized venues in Portland.
Without getting too far into geek-out territory, after the second song, I looked down to find that the lights on my big keyboard were off. I had accidentally set the accordion on the power strip switch and turned it off, which meant that I lost all of the good sounds I had loaded into it specifically for that show. I had a nice little freak-out moment onstage, and told Susie, “I lost power.” “How long will it take to re-load everything?” she asked. “It’d take way too long. I’ll figure something out.” Luckily I had my tiny Casio (which you can see on top of the big keyboard) there for one song, because I ended up using it on lots of songs. It totally saved the day, and the show went off without another hitch. For an eleven-piece band (most of whom were not onstage during the song that was being performed when this picture was taken), that’s quite a feat indeed.
Incidentally, here’s a song from Susie’s new CD called “Fading” on which I play accordion and drums, and also was part of the hand-clapping and cheering. I play accordion on a bunch of the other songs, as well as piano and Omnichord. If you’re interested, you can check out our web site, and listen to or buy some songs from CDBaby.
Three days ago, my life got overtaken by a project that a bass player friend of mine called me to fill in for. There’s a dance group in town called Bodyvox, who created dance interpretations to a bunch of Tom Waits’ songs, with a live band and a handful of opera singers. The guy who’s playing accordion and electric guitar (as well as saxopohone and slide guitar) can’t make it to the show on Saturday, so my bassist friend, who is the musical director for the show, called me in a panic on Tuesday. Since then, my life has been thrown into a frenzy of learning songs, as well as attending rehearsals and performances as an understudy of sorts. The show I’m playing is the matinee show on Saturday afternoon, and I’m feeling confident about it.  I’m listening to the CD as I’m writing this, as a matter of fact. I’m on the song Hoist That Rag, which features one of my favorite guitarists, Marc Ribot.
Add to that the recording sessions I’ve had at my place recently, both for money and for IrishBand, and you get a very busy Todd. SO busy, in fact, that this is the first time I’ve had to write anything at all, aside from the occasional link to a video or something. I almost added a clip from “Girl on the Bridge” an amazing French movie which I watched last night. It just came out on DVD, which is strange because it’s only about ten years old, and I can’t imagine why its DVD release was held up for such a long time.  Well, what the heck, here’s a link to what is probably the most famous scene. I love this movie, because it never quite goes in the directions you think it’s going to go. Very similar to Angel-A.
The song (sung by Marianne Faithfull) is also amazing. If you’ve ever seen “City of Lost Children”, you may recognize it from the ending credits; that’s the movie for which it was originally written, but it’s since appeared in many others as well.
Well, that’s what’s been going on with me lately. I know it’s a lot to handle in one blog entry, from songs to pictures to movie links and clips and everything else, but. . .well. . .welcome to my world these days. I had a lot to share, and it may be another few days before I have another chance to write again, so there’s that.
I’m kind of obsessed with a show he did for the BBC called Connections, which had its first incarnation in the 1970’s, but had two later incarnations in the 1990’s as well. I saw the 90’s versions when they originally aired, and was mesmerized by them, so today I went back and found the original series online, and I’ve been slowly but surely watching them.
They’re all about various inventions that have changed the history of civilization as we know it, but his masterful storytelling makes each episode like a mystery, where we only know have as much information to go on as people at the time did.  He starts by showing us the modern invention, and takes us clear back to the beginning, showing us the salient points of progress that happened along the way.
It’s really brilliant.
Here’s the first part of the first episode of the first incarnation of the series. I have no doubt that you’ll find them riveting as well.
What IS National Corndog Day? Well, according to their web site, it’s the “happiest day of basketball and meats on sticks that you’ll ever have.”
How does one celebrate NCD?
Attend an established National Corndog Day celebration. Check out the party list to find the closest public NCD celebration near you.
Host your own NCD celebration. Hosting a NCD celebration of your own is easy! You just need the following:
Friends
TV with cable or satellite
An oven or microwave
One or more couches, lazyboys, beanbags, or other comfortable seating
A bunch of corndogs (Foster Farms recommended)
A bunch of tater tots
A bunch of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer (in a can) and/or Jones Soda
Plain yellow mustard and ketchup
NCD 2009 tally sheet – to keep tabs on your participant’s stats
To me, this sounds like an excuse for everyone to eat like the Dynamite family (Napoleon, Kip, Uncle Rico, et al), but if you decide to participate in NCD, feel free to post a link and tell the world about it.
Well, it finally happened; I and at least ten other people got laid off on Friday.
It wasn’t at all a surprise. There have been many rounds of layoffs over the last six months, so we lasted quite a bit longer than most. Two or three months ago, the company was taken over by another, and the new company seems to have decided to simply dismantle much of the original, and send the work elsewhere in the country, leaving us high and dry in the process.
I’m not bummed about this at all. If anything, it’s a relief not to have to wonder what’s going to happen anymore, and I can put it all behind me and move on toward the future now. I’m going to go on unemployment, like so many others are right now, and sort out my life while I figure what to do next. I have a fairly simple and ‘low overhead’ lifestyle, and I also have friends, resources and talents that I haven’t had before. I also know that it’s possible to survive on extremely meager means–I’ve certainly done that before–so that won’t slow me down much. I’m not being a Pollyanna about it, either. I think any of my friends could tell you that I’m good at assessing situations, and that I’m nothing if not a realist. I think the glass is neither half-empty nor half-full, but that it’s twice as big as it needs to be.
I know; I’m clever.
I’m going to reach out and promote myself more for musical work. I’m going to ask my friends and colleagues to refer me for producing, recording, mixing, et cetera, and I’ll also be available for playing with more people too. I’m looking forward to all of this.
Keep your fingers crossed for me, and send me good thoughts throughout this transitional time, and don’t hesitate to ask me about musical endeavors, or refer me to people you think would appreciate my talents.
Thanks!
This whole getting-laid-off thing is going to be a blessing, I can just feel it.
