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YOU TUBE BOB WHY IT'S IMPORTANT FOR ME TO BLOG FINALLY ! SUN RUNNER !PAGE 61 THE LAST ARTICLE Morongo TOUR PICTURES PUBLIC GRAND PIANO TOUR GRANT PROPOSAL MOST RECENT (T = THUMBING PIANO) (DP = DUELLING PUBLIC PIANOS) 02/03/12 7:38 Felt a little envigoration this morning towards projects pending rust and the ensueing entropy of neglect. 3 piano projects hanging: the latest: transforming the 1st piano trailer into a performance unit for the april wonder valley noise fest. keeping things top secret at this point but let me say you won't be disappointed if you're a noise affeciato !! the only thing that could make it better is the Duchess Desade assisting !!! if anyone out there has a leather bikini and is willing to wear it to empty barrels of something light into something heavy;;; n please let me know. no rehersal necessary and last years performance date was 4/16 noon to midmight out at the Palms Restaurant in Wonder Valley. i'll note the exact info when i know it. BACK to the roof! gotta get that done before anything else. 29 bombs is booming it up this morning. shaking things up a bit the last few minutes. 02/01/12 7:06 Regained some prespective yesterday concerning my pathetic 20 year existance here in the desert in a town/village full of complex clicks: i have a tendancy to make absurd expectations of Joshua Tree. this place is perfect as a HIDE-AWAY! and not a place to cultivate a "noise-culture". so yep, back to the business of building '(another)life-raft-culture-craft' targeting the uc blood stream! 01/31/12 5:56 HELLACIOUS WINDS, 16 hour power outage, frozen standing water night before last and almond blooms for the last 3 days. power went out last night for about half hour but came back on before i could get the geny going. wishing i was some place else these days. it's just i'm spending to much time alone and the few people i do see are far from satisfieing the genetically generated need for social contact. this one friend - use to be a neighbor likes to challenge and scuff at things i say; stupid things like i mentioned the frozen water outside yesterday morning and he insisted it didn't get below 35 degrees shaking his head in denial of the frozen water. i know it's a little thing but he does this all the time. and it's always little stupid things like this. talk about an unsatisfieing friend experience ! i don't know why i keep putting up with it (!?) i know it eats away at my selfesteem . . . .("babybobbyfinger again") 01/16/12 11:23 Cold winds are back. blew all night long and stillgoing strong. makes it hard to work outside and get lost/absorbded in the work at hand. plenty to do inside out of the wind. 01/14/12 9:26 Found out that the couple who disappeared didn't even know they left their stuff behind. this is exactly what i'm talking about when i say i need to get off people's "tool list". it can be a detrement being to nice. the false scarcity in our society motivates us to impulsively take advantage of easy going nice things and nice people. and let's not forget the huge amount of entitlement the average american seems to have like using 6 times the resources i.e. food gas electricity entertainment blah blah etc. etc. than anybody else on the planet. just look how fat we are ! ~! I'm a little pissed at POF for their identifying bananas as the #1 food to stay away from for belly-fat loss. i need my potassium everyday or i get crampy and i love bananas cooked into things like plantanos and of course whaT's a smoothy without a banana (?) 01/10/12 6:29 I'm back. but not without incident! i answered the phone and ended up with a couple here who left their stuff and disappeared (???) WEIRD !! left a guitar and laptop. so yeah, it's been a strange couple of weeks. The wetbar sink in the studio is finally functional. not done with it's surrounding decor though. maybe today i'll finish it. depends if i find all the things i'm picturing in it. At least the weather's been incredible with warm days though nite before last the winds woke me up at 3 am. earplugs worked fine. couldn't sleep past 4:37 this morning; probably because of the cold and animal dander in my face. so i'm still on missing visitor alert.???? 12/20/11 6:24 today i'm getting rid of all my phones for awhile - kind of a 'Lent' thing slash winter hybernation thing. i'll answer emails though. but NO phones for awhile. i need to get off of people's 'tool list'. Sartre said: "Hell is: OTHER PEOPLE". damn! i'm getting to religious here time for some jimi: Hoo-ray, i awake from yesterday, alive but the war is here to stay, So my love Catherin and me decide to take our last walk through the noise to the sea. not to die but to be reborn away from lands so battered and torn. . .Forever . . . . . . . one more thing: creative sensitive people feel the negative's of our society to deeply and profoundly and can't help but exude the disfunction and appear disfunctional themselves and considered disabled. 12/18/11 15:27 Rainy cold rainy cold cold rainy . . . . . at the risk of sounding sanctimonious, brown-nosey, and cliche' sometimes i really think we are each other's angels and rainbows. and does it seem as obvious to you as it does to me that MAINSTREAM MEDIA / "greed driven death culture military industrial consuming complex" is saturating us with more bad than good. maybe they're afraid we'll discover how really powerful we are and that scarcity was just part of their illusion of manipulation to farm our souls. awe . . the sun just came out. nice day ey? 12/16/11 9:12 Got my needed 8 last night. set kitty up with a hot pad cushion in a cabinette outside. not sure if she used it(?) her food is in there too so it was pretty obvious that it was for her. she was fine this morning at 7:42 when i got up so if she didn't stay in the cabinette she at least found some place warm for her after-midnight-snooze. Dug a 16 square foot square compost pit in the south facing window of the green house yesterday. filled it with just a little bit of organic stuff so far. ultimately i'm shooting for a pile about 4 to 5 feet high. i soaked it alittle and covered it with black plastic. i'm going out in a minute to see if it's steaming. the chipper would't start yesterday so i filled it with gas and let it sit over night. if it does start today i'll chip up some green leaves and some of the tall grass growing around the north water tank. then i'll pour kitchen garbage-disposal debris into the top of the pile in a fashion of infusing a volcanoe, then cover with black plastic and bake in the sun. 12/15/11 7:01 woke up THIS morning at 4:31 ! went back to bed and tried to go back to sleep. nodded a little. back up by 6:07. So today i'm going to put together a compost heap in the window of the green house. not sure yet what to use instead of grass clippings to generate the aerobic heat factor yet. maybe some of the greener leaves around the trees ground up through the chipper or maybe soaked in water and then ran through the heavy duty garbage disposal? i think i'll feed the pile like a little volcanoe every couple days with kitchen debris ran through the disposal. back when i use to use a KEMP compost tumbler for a compost toilet on the tracks in LA, all it took was a little blood meal to ignite the organism reaction. the tumbling kept the culture dispersed throughout the drum so it never smelled bad. it worked great in LA but out here with our intense desert dryness it was just to hard to maintain an ideal moisture content. if Murphy let it dry out to much the culture would die and you'd be back to point "A". but maybe a daily sprinkling of water, kitchen crap and greenhouse moisture containment will do the trick. the exciting thought here is the increased co2 may help contribute to rippening up all these green heirloom tomatoes and maybe reduce my fear of early morning freezing. 12/14/11 17:42 today started to early. about 4:51 when the window-door kitty had opened had let in enough cold air to wake me up. and by the time i closed things up, put some more wood on the fire stubbed my toe i was ready to stay up. so it's been a low energy day. got to town for some supplies though. Trying something new tomorrow: boxing in a compost pile in the window of the green house to try and generate some heat and co2. maybe it'll help the tomatoes rippen and stay warm. Sun was out. no wind . . . it was a beautiful sun drop day actually. . . and not just because she called. 12/13/11 6:40 thick thick cloudy soup. they're saying snow in higher elevations buti can't see the mountains yet. 12/12/11 14:57 drip drip drip 12/12/11 7:35 Another monday and rain and snow are in the forecast. couldn't get motivated to work on the roof yesterday so i guess i'll deal with water dripping everywhere if and when it rains. that's thing about the desert! it can rain all around you and completely miss you at the same time. it wasn't that cold last night either - didn't need to turn the heater lite on the tomato. i'm a little nervous about this coming electric bill. is an heirloom tomato worth the extra expense? HELL YEAH!!!! they're so GOOD. i ate the last one right off the vine no salt or nothing just yummmmmm! there's a little cracky scabbyness but you just eat around it. Spent some time in ruiniating thought yesterday really trying to assess the worth of my insignificant little existance - am i having enough fun here to call this a life. am i going to be laying there on my death bed someday and cursing the time i spent in JT ????i can't imagine living in a city anymore but there's got to be a big open place like JT minus the clicky prickly people. i try to remind myself that this is the land of cactus and othe inhospitable shit and people reflect their environment on some level. people living with thorns and stickers in their feet are like the angry lion story and the thorn in the paw. on the other hand there are those out here who have risen above the thorns, stickers and prickles. maybe this elevated state is because of these sharp almost invisible obsticles in the environment. if so why is it taking me so long to find the elevator ?!?!?maybe my mother was right i'm just a "young soul" incapable of evolving; sentenced to a life of unevolved mainstream mediocrety. oops there goes "baby bobby finger" and his booger rolling finger violin. 12/09/11 10:11 it was easier to just put on layers of clothing than get a fire or fires going this morning. really didn't need it. warm air is pouring in from the green house now. it's looking like it's going to be a full on sunny day with no cold winds. Got a third of the new roof screwed down yesterday. may work on more of that today. really need to get the water distiller array back on line. moved 3 of the rectangular distiller boxes over to the beer truck roof where i'm thinkling there would be less fire hazard but i need to move one more over there and run a pvc fill line and over flow/flush line. i just picked up the pipe so maybe that's what i'll work on today. with the cold weather and shorter days you really need all 4 units to keep up with the empty glass bottles (starting to pile up). Saw a great movie called Punching the Clown about a comic songwriter getting jerked around in LA. really funny songs ! ! ! i gotta look and see if there's a sound track. 12/08/11 7:30 up before the sun this morning. no ice on the pond. grabbed some shingles from "Unsinkable Thoughts" and found they're to long to fit in the new stove! STOMP!!(onomatopoeia) now they fit !!!!! and they fuel up FAST! with quick heat. heck they're 50 year old cedar shingles. making plans to stick the other stove in the outside kitchen. can't eat potato chips and T-bacon for dinner agin. . . . here's a first - got the stove in and going before publishing this thing. see if that puts a dent in the cold pocket. 12/07/11 21:36 it's so cold in the kitchen i can't force myself to cook . . . ate potato chips and cold turkey bacon strips for dinner. chased it with carrot juice. . . feeling cold and dysfunctional. . . cold and d . d .d .dd . . . dddddd 12/07/11 9:02 Ice on the pond thinner today. starting the day off opening up all the new outside doors to try and vent out massive cold pockets of air from the night freeze. realistically this whole inside/outside area needs ceiling and wall buttoning up with insulative material. it's a huge job but one i can chip away at now that the winds don't blast through the middle of the place ripping things down and around. the flat roof area(roof pyramid) still needs to be finished with more joyces so it can act as an upstairs floor area; so that area can't be insulated yet. another thing i really need to get done!!!n it'd require 8 - 8"x16'. the span is just over 14 feet. and it also needs a post and beam midway if i seriously want to have a piano up there someday inside the pyramid. when i look over at the north wall i can see lite coming through so you know it's a very leeky wall. i have to take everything down and away from the wall to finish insulating and wall boarding. talk about a big job. so yeah: endlessness pest nest mess . . . . 12/06/11 11:42 And then as i was opening doors to let cold air out i mistakenly left the studio door open and kitty covered in a ghillie suit of crap ran in before i could cut her off and hid. somewhere now hiding in my studio with my winter bed in the corner and computers and such is kitty hiding and waiting to come out and shake off all her debris. this is the kind of frustration that words can not discribe. i finally got her out but not without freaking her out a bit. 12/06/11 10:49 I'd like to take this cold morning oportunity to thank the 5 or 6 of you out there who randomly read my blog. if it weren't for you and this blog i don't think i could survive this hermitage existance. i think lonliness driven insanity occurs when there's no pressure release. no place or way to vent. having to bottle things up you need to say. granted i edit some of the dirt out of this thing once in a while and i try to watch my "p"s and "q"s but if i could't vent here for the most part i think i would be crazy (er). so again, thanks, even if it's just a self perpetuated illusion of sharing. i kinda sense you're out there. (it's probably a good thing i don't know anybody with one of those manhattan highrises that looks out over an ocean of window weary voyeurs. i'd probably be givin them a show. just kiddin, but that is an interesting idea for a venue). 12/06/11 10:08 ICE ON THE POND !! it's finally officially friggin colder than SHITE ! ! ! i got up and had to get dressed and put on a jacket even with a fire still going with the huge piece of wood i stuck in there last night. no pipes froze at least. if it gets any colder i'll have to shut off the outside kitchen water. the tomato branch growing through the green house froze dead, limp and mushy but the rest of the plant is fine though i did leave a big lamp on it all night. i counted 15 tomatoes on it yesterday and one is just about purple ripe. all the beautiful leaves fell off the trees from the freeze too. time to rake and store the leaves under cardboard and rocks in the wells of all the trees. it's a big job! and i got to do it before they all blow away. 12/05/11 10:30 A year agos log entry describes the T project in full gear. the scary part is that not much has moved forward since then fabrication wise. this means the welders been sitting awhile and will need work to run again. i blame this blatant dormancy on NF. i know profoundly that i have no well-power when it comes to unlimited screaming videos. just like in "the 4 Arguments 4 the elimination of Television" mander points out that once the eskimo's got satelite dishes the wood piles on the porch disappeared and domestic violence went up. EVIL EVIL TV OD ! ! ! how does one learn to limit it's hyper infectious lulling and life stupifieing effects ? ? ? i use to practice piano 5 hours a day! what's wrong with me?!?!?! R we back to the old muse question ? maybe(?) . . . 12/05/11 8:54 contain the disintegration of prior inspiration. if i was more together i'd have a picture here of the "T" surrounded by and gored with blown down shade-tarp poles. you cn't even walk up to it!! they're everywhere!! blown down every which way. white flimsy poles. and they won't come apart easy as i modified the connetors with cotter-pins. maybe more pvc pipe over-certs to strengthen the flimsy poles (?). anyway it's a mess out there; just incase you were wondering what was going on with "that" project(T). The winds are back. they let up yesterday for the most part so i worked outside and got a good section of the palo-verde tree cut down and placed at the end of the road where a motorcycle trespassing trail had sprung up. still have another tree to trim and that should finish off the deterent. The cold is penetrating the outside kit. area and then getting trapped in there. yesterday i ended up opening all the new doors once the sun had hit the orchard and it helped a bit but then the cold air got pushed and stuck in the east end. Realized yesterday that i need to put in a water diverting drain now otherwise flood waters will run right through the middle of the outside kitchen as it has for a millinium. it may be to cold to work outside today - nothing worse than that cold wind blowing through the leaky parts of your jacket with pin point accuracy. 12/04/11 9:20 I'd forgotten how cold it gets and there's not even any ice on standing water yet. it's so cold in the outside kitchen that i can't even fathom making any breakfast 'till it warms up. i guess i'm going to have to put the old leaky wood stove out there. the new air-tight inside doesn't get things warm as fast as old leaky. and it does let smoke into the room if you're not careful when you open the door. but the window is great! i broke down and let the dogs in last night even though they would've been fine in the green house as i left a sodium lite on the tomato all night just incase. so it ws plenty warm enough for them. big doog's outside right now laying in the sun little dog's under the Acoustisizer. 12/02/11 9:26 Rain came down lightly for about an hour last night. numerous leeks in the outside kitchen dripping me on to get up there soon and finish the roof. more importaly yesterday i was trying to keep the cold wind at-bay. there's just a few breaches left on the east wall to contend with. It's definate! some critter has been eating or using my hand soap in the kitchen and this morning it was gone. for the last couple days there had been little chew marks on the edges until this morning. they must have chewed it down enough to carry it off. pretty weird. It's still hazy but i see a little bit of sun out there. i think i'll go for a ride today at some point - been cooped up for the last few days. Doggy dogs seem to be adapting to their new moat existance. they really prefer sleeping outside. or are they just to dense to come thru their little door to their warmer inside greenhouse bed. (i hung their bed blankets out in the wind and rain yesterday instead of washing them). 12/01/11 7:22 up at 5:37 to the wind's relentless squeels and rumbles. and cold. didn't lite a fire last night slept in a sweatshirt instead and was comfortable until i hit the cold morning floor. so i thru on a jacket and jumped in the truck with heat anticipation and drove to circle k for chco Mlk and mail. they were packed! early morning worm getters. It looks a little like rain could blow in with this wind so i put a few things away. this will be another first: keeping the side blowing wind/rain out of the tool shop. yesterday i experienced ticklie moments of satisfaction whilst i spied on the wind from behind a window in the new wall. maybe today i can stand there and laugh into a full body roll at the toolage denied rain. And the doggy dogs did fine in their new moat remote inside outside (the choice is theirs). i took them with to the ck. they were both outside outside sleeping this morning when i went out - so there you go they prefer the greater outdoors. and i get a sizeable methane reduced somnia condusive environment. it's a win win. wind wind. 11/30/11 12:03 just shut the heirloom tomato/flower window. don't think bees will be out in this wind to be inticed. "bee's buzzing in the wind" ????? hum . . . neah. doesn't sound like it has any song lyric logic so bee's must stay in the hive on windy days. but my tomato needs them ! ! ! it's covered with flowers right now ! ! ! Had to go trim some grape vine branches away from one of the new window walls. the squreeeeeeching was driving me into fingernails-on-chalkboard convulsions. there was like 4 little branchs that with the right wind blast would scrape and squeel their own nerve curdling pitch. so clip clip. there's still plenty of rattles and shakes going on right now but those i can deal with. OH YEAH ! i almost forgot ! the new doggy door system is in effect. they have their own entrance ointo the greenhouse and can wonder around the outside of the studio to any one of 4 doors for attention and loven. they're still walking through the middle of things but they'll eventually figure it out. 11/30/11 11:20 the winds just kicked up and i'm on alert watching to see what blows down from the quilt-work roof. the new glass wall seems to be keeping out most of the wind so i think i'll be ok gas range wise. hey an excuse to have a second cup of coffee (maybe not. i got a terrible cramp in my neck this morning that i could feel all the way up to the back of my eye). maybe todays a good day to make some split green soup:) or i could just go try the stove and see if it goes on and stays on for a minute without blowing out. the winds are pretty stong right now - let me go try that. . . . . . yep they light and seem to burn ok. low heat might be another blow-out matter. 11/30/11 9:14 well i uncloaked my POF profile once again. hopefully i won't have to recloak (i don't like to reject respondees). this time i made mention of this blog so hopefully they'll read a little about me before sending me an inquiry. i kinda need the pof distraction this time of year. especially when i start hearing this line from a song: "sometimes i feel like a motherless child" going around and around in my head. i know i know poor baby bobby finger. 11/29/11 9:04 this haze, cold thin cloud maze, the dust and ashes into the coals i gaze and blow thru an over sized straw and draw the flame to ignite some motivation beyond this cup of coffee. my cold state of discomfort a labyrinth . . . . . some renderless state of incomprehension beyond the numbing effects of my weak physicallity. my poor bobby invitro continuum background hum. 11/29/11 7:37 five fifty seven this morning the dogs were up ready to go some place i wasn't. i encouraged them out the new door and then rememburrrrrred there's another door now for them to negosh. then i heard good old Bump do his door-bumpen thing and i new they were on their way. and i went back to bed. laid there for 5 driftless moments and got up a little bit pissed! an hour or so short of a full charge. like yesterday; i sabotaged myself out of 2 hours of sleep and productivity declined into an addictive state of recline. DAMN YOU net-FIX ! ! ! ! shouldn't i be close to a brain vein colapse ?!?!?!? 11/28/11 17:15 lazy hazy day went to town for supplies. not much else. thinking about stuff like: are we only as clean as our dogs bed ? ? ? (you know what i'm doing tomorrow) i guess it depends on how much you let your dogs climb in your lap or lovum-up. OH YEAH the new doggy door system is now in the training mode. they have their own entrance into the green house and they are bein encouraged to circulate around the outside of the studio and hangout at anyone of it's 4 outside-going doors. so far they're still just running though the middle of things but they're smart dogs. (although the new stairway totally baffled them) 11/27/11 17:43 it's jimi's 69th BIRTHDAY TODAY ! ! ! ! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JIMI ! ! ! ! ! ! oh yeah AND HAPPY JIMI HENDRIXMAS TO EVERYBODY OUT THERE AND HAVE A MANIC MONDAY NEW YEAR ! ! ! ! ;) 11/23/11 7:02 BRRRRRRRR! BUTT COLD this morning ! ! ! ! 38 degrees at 6:30. hull breaches dictating an inhospitable kitchen environ. the center and source of life in every domicile ship. 40 degrees away. So today more glass installation in the new outside west wall and then the ROOF ! ! just heard on M&B that Rolling Stone Magazine published the 10 all time best guitarists and jimi was #1. that's a nice Happy Birthday / jimi hendrixmas weekend :) 11/21/11 12:23 It rained last night and no the roof isn't finished. it only came down for about an hour pretty lightly. maybe today if i get all the hull breaches and door hangings completed i can get back to the roof. but i can feel the difference! it's definately noticeable having the warm air from the green house contained (somewhat) around the cabin and keeping the cold night air out (for the most part). OH YA i ran into somebody who reads my blog at the market. that was kinda nice. i showed her the sliver in the bendy part of my finger and her kid was not impressed but very anxious to get going - me too! super markets make me anxious and edgy. why is that. is it the muzak or lighting or is it all the hungry people in the act of procurring/hunting/killing their meal. i know i feel a kind of 'feeding freenzy' energy sometimes. especially right before a holiday. oh yeah that's right it's almost Jimi Hendrixmas, no wonder (duhlolduh)(yuk yuk)!!!! 11/16/11 10:19 Squeezed white fluid remenents of a sliver out of the upper inside crack of my right pointer finger. the rest of my hands look like thery're inlaid with black spider webs. . . . and in a few hours after the puss dries and dies the tip of my finger can bend again in vibe. and yet i still feel behind schedule. so much to do! the days getting shorter. my hair getting longer; more of a hassle. less patience. less finesse. but the missing walls reduced to hull breaches. manageable holes. anything will do - when fixing a hole. 11/09/11 13:24 got a couple days of painless piano in before getting some more slivers in my right pointer. so i guess it's back to more focused roof work. not sure what to do about the upstair door/hatch. if i don't precog a little i'll end up redoing it when/if i ever get the piano pyramid on the roof. just seems to be getting colder every nite but amazingly enough the heirloom tomato i've been growing for a year now seems to not be bothered by the cold. part of it is growing through the greenhouse to the outside and it's even handling the cold nites. there's about 10 green tomatoes ranging in size from a walnut to a small orange. a medium size one is almost ripe with purple stripes. in other exciting news i may have found a cheap motor for the old xt frame. been waiting on him to call with directions and p/u. 11/03/11 17:54 There's an orange spray sky outside right now. everything's glowing orange. the sunsetting and reflecting back from an intense cloud above. Made a little head way today on roof holes and tile removal. i'm going to use the tiles bound together for weighing down the foam until i figure out the rest of the roof. My fingers are back for the most part so maybe some piano is in the near future. 11/02/11 12:23 Getting Colder! i'm getting closer everyday to finally implimenting some passive solar architectural theories first introduced to me in Dr. Schoen's alternative architecture class back at ucla in the late 80's. soon the south facing green house will feed warm air completely around my humble 900sq.ft. cabin. i just have a few holes here and there left to close in. today there's a cold santa ana clause blowing in from the north east and it's easily penetrating the semi-completed solar heat barrier. despite the penetration the cabins been staying comfortable and i haven't even thought about lighting a fire. if this heat barrier works i should never have to light a fire during the day again. there's ususally a period between December and February that lasts at least a couple weeks that requires fires every morning and sometimes all day. Yesterday was a momentous day and without going into to much detail...; it was a quick 18 years !!! and out of respect to my mom who always gives $50 for such occasions, i only gave her $50 even though she's use to getting much more (3k on her 16th for a car even!). can't do that anymore! there's a world of destructive ignorance out there to infiltrate educate and sublimate!!!! 10/27/11 11:17 IT GOT COLD LAST NITE! had to sleep in the studio set-up. maybe i can get the roof section done today and shut out some of that cold air. i should mention a little bit about my construction technique since it seems to be my main blab. my construction approach is simple: removability=versatility. this comes from having to pull-up stakes so many times. even had to take a kitchen bathroom and bedroom/stage with me when i left the downtown LA warehouse/Voltage Loft after hour club Jowee and i built in the mid '80's. the added benefit of using screws is if you don't like something you just built it's easy to take it apart and start over again (which i do alot). it's a bit more work to drill and screw but the benefits way out way the defacits. so with sore de-splintered fingers i return to the roof. 10/26/11 17:10 5 days of construction and my fingers reflect it. mostly my left hand. let me count the red semi infected spots. . . . there's about 3 or so red sore ones and numerous wood slivers that are lodged in the upper dermus of my old skin painlessly fossilizing their way to the surface. my left thumb is the throbber. won't enjoy playing the piano for a while. so again no DPP. so yeah, i gotta get this roof done!!! and i only got 8 more joyces to go. then the skin, skylites, etc etc. got the first stairway done yesterday! will it's more of a ladder-case. it looks like something you'd find in a kids fort. now i just need a pole to slide down. The rats are back in the ceiling driving me crazy scratching around up there. i need some new ideas. the soap and ultrasonics didn't work. i've tried closing off every little whole into the roof. but they're still getting in there. the scratching the endless scratching and moving around the sound of their black rice sliding and shaking and bouncing around with every blow from my bat against the ceiling IRRITANT responding back with white specs in my eye. 10/21/11 9:12 still feeling overwhelmed. it's like some kind of entropic shroud reminding me in waves of futilistic centrifuge . . . things spinning into the abyss of decay. . . . like tires on old cars flat from exhaustion. . . neglect has momenum... i am times bitch. ! 10/20/11 7:12 up early. i know , , haven't been up this early in weeks. it's probably hormonally related to yesterdays call. still feeling a little buzzed by it. maybe i'll get something done today. gotta ride those waves when you get'um. And even my cousin called yesterdy. it was a good phone day! but today i'm staying away from the phone completely!! and as far as pianos for the weekend (?) i don't know (???) i'm kinda thinking 'why bother'. i've got a severe case of extrapathy brought on by a recent request to remove one of the public pianos out there. i've thought about just f'ing burning the thing. but i'll probably just humbly remove it without incident or just stick it outside somewhere. i wonder if people are complaining to LJ about his depot of abandoned public pianos????? 10/19/11 23:04 there went a week. anhedonic ennui or something akin. got shook out of it for awhile today when out of the blue i got a call from an old flame. someone i almost really fell for some 20 odd years ago. but i could tell once she realized i was older than she remembered that things were headed south. but it was great talking to her after 20 years. yeah it's great being 55 and OLD and young at the same time. (but she did ask me to a party in LA ) (yeah but she didn't email or text me the address) 10/12/11 20:39 got lost in it all again. . . nothing new to report. temps got cold then hot again. still warm could probably sleep outside but not into moving things around again. still looking at the studio wall in wonder. can't seeem to get into action mode. i guess i'm feeling a kind of self generated paralasis from so many irons in the fire. usually i can deal with the juggling act but lately double nickels got me down. i 've never felt this kind of age agony before. i know. . . . way to much ruinating. 10/07/11 13:07 with the cold i'm forced into survival mode. was hoping to get further along with stuff here at the farm. had to put something together to sleep in the studio untill i can get the noisey tarps down and a roof over the kitchen area. the tarps are nearly shreaded with this last wind storm; stuff's blowing down every where. every few minutes there's some crash or smash in the immediate vicinity. just need some Base action frosting to complete this Betty Crocker war zone cake atmosphere. Trailer-tire repaire went smooth they actually gave it to me free! said it was 'on the house' (probably because they ignored me for 15 minutes as i patiently waited for them to look up and take in the tire). i just happened into the place when they were really busy. so once i get a partial roof over the kitchen so i can at least turn on the gas stove and make coffee again i'll get back to project DP. 10/04/11 19:56 and the weather has just gotten cold and windy. closed all the dooors on the green house' i was so happy that they still closed (monsoon storms all summer warp and swell shit)! loud flappy snappy tarp noises ! ! ! 10/04/11 18:07 trailer tire problems requireing special tools. old tools. jack-oil. impact hammer magic juice. so pianos to trailer on hold. just as well it went out now while i was out picking up some abandoned resources. to;morrow i'll detach the trailer and take the tire into town and hope they'll fix a hole so close to the side-wall. otherwise there goes another 100 bucks. 09/29/11 11:13 i beat on the piano a bit this morning without breaking anything. the keypivot point/pole is still requireing adjustment/boring out a little on a few keys. now if these pianos could magically appear on the trailer. so yeah some of the hardest work is yet ahead. and i've been sniffling and sneezing all morning. I had this thought the other day that keeps going through my mind and that clothes and the act of concealment may be at the core of all that's gone arie in the world. maybe the way back to Skyhawks 5th Sacred Thing is through full and honest disclosure, humility and nakidness. maybe the 'king's new clothes' has more than one message. maybe some kind of philosophical nakidness - whatever that is ??? 09/28/11 23:42 well i think i got it!! i'll know for sure tomorrow after everything's dried over nite and i can really beat the hell out of it. last dampner finally worked after i pinned it to death with a sharp pocky thing; softened it up so it could kinda cotton into the string and absorb. if that didn't do it i was going to try cotton balls glued onto the dampner to catch that residule tone. may still try it on another higher note/noise. 09/28/11 18:51 most of the dampner repairs worked but one. retrying something else. 09/27/11 17:41 i've been working on the piano the last hour or so and i'm not feeling very bobtamistic. it's taking way to much time per key. i know it'll go faster about the time i totally figure out the best way to gig it. in the mean time i'm losing patience! i think i'm down to 12 percent chance for sat. 09/27/11 11:40 spent a couple hours on the unprepared duelling piano gluing and cleaning it up yesterday. i'll have a better idea by the end of today if it's going to work. still have a dozen or so dampners to realign/reglue. should be fun given that there all gravity's bitch. unlike a grand where gravities it's bitch. fixing an upright dampner sometimes requires some ingenuity. it helps if the action is working optimally so that it can help hold the gluing part in place. thinking about the list of things to do by saturday i get this crushing/suffocating sensation. so i'm kinda feeling like at this point there's about'a 17 percent chance for this weekend's DPP. now if someone where to show up here and help with putting the 2 pianos on the trailer etc etc etc. neah ! that'd make it to easy. 09/25/11 9:21 pretty quiet this morning a few booms off in the distance. had to put sweat pants on first thing this morning. so much to do before the onslaught of winter. Started gluing things that came apart on the piano that got rained on a couple weeks ago. may go grab the yamaha spinet at the Roadside Attraction if this piano can't be transformed back into something playable. don't really want to spend 20 hours fixing a piano that was at it's best a mediocre instrument. i'll spend another hour or two on it and then reassess it's potential. the better a piano plays and sounds the more inspiring it is to play. so with any luck i should have the DPP ready for next Saturday at Coyote Corner. 09/21/11 12:32 so now the "dis" has me going to the local bar and bleeding on the bar tender i know and the waitress over hearing says something like "just change" yeah what my age!?!?! i can see that's their go to bar stool psychology 101 catch phrase advice. didn't shave my head yet though. one achey shakey day at a time with my new awarness of UOMS (Ugly Old Man Syndrome). i guess we all can't have D's Santa Claws eyes. 09/20/11 9:28 first thing in my head this morning was yesterdays "DISS". i even want to cut my hair off - make some kind of change - combat this feeling of complete quinquagenarian repulsion. buzzzzzzz: there goes the hair. 09/19/11 23:47 i have to vent on something that happened earlier today: i was hanging with an old friend, sitting at his dinning room table when his daughter's 19 year old foxy as hell friend comes in and sits down at the table and immediately focuses all her attention on my friend. to the point of blatantly dissing me in a way that i can only discribe as " i really am turning into an old insignificant fuck". this is like the 2nd or third time i've had my nose rubbed in how much all the women love HIM. so yeah, i'm depressed a little more than usual tonight. not to mention net flix is coming to an end . i thought it was to good to be true. just as well i've really become kind of a net "fix" addict. was wondering what it was going to take to break the spell!?!?!?!? 09/14/11 9:30 yesterday while on the youtub another piano bob came up: he goes by "piano bob heckler and the garbage men" kinda makes you wonder if he got his name from me and my garbage man personna from the play "The Prophet of Doom"(composed performed and written by a group of local disabled folk). not very PC if you ask me. he's also talking about 'duelling pianos' so i can't help but think this guys monitoring my every move. it looks like his facebook has him located somewhere near chicago. the guy doesn't look like anybody i've ever know or seen locally. it's hard to believe someone would make it there lifes mission to heckle me. oh well. Got the stove in yesterday and fired it up. it's alot harder to keep a fire going in it than my old smokey china chamber but it's a trip to watch the flames dancing around when you reduce the oxygen intake. Boombs from the base are intense this morning. i even called to let them know their vector needed adjusting. i haven't called in years but this morning was just to much. about a month ago they were flying their super loud helicopters over at 10 pm until about 11pm and i never called and complained even though they'd wake me up 2 or 3 times a nite. so yeah, this is all part of living in the J-Tree. 09/13/11 13:28 it's been raining off and on for days. i know that's no excuse for the 2 week absence but there's a good reason. without going into details lets just say september's not a good month for me being a virgo and all. but i've been keeping busy with drying peaches and of course the outside kitchen and new studio wetbar. i even went to lucern valley yesterday and finally got an air tight wood stove so maybe i won't be a COPD statistic soon. got lots to do to get redy for winter including a roof over the kitchen so with any luck i'll still be able t pull-off the duelling pianos by the first part of october. so bare with me and keep those cards and letters coming in (HA HA HA). 08/25/11 9:40 the BIG heat is on!! it hit 110 here yesterday. had to do a quick seal-up on the new door and window in order to turn on the heat-pump. i could've sweat through it but not the dogs. had a rattle-snake visit last nite. sprayed him away with a water hose nozzle gun. he looked pretty big and took off fast when i got a clean blast of water on 'um. so that's how i'm going to deal with them from now on. no more catch and relocate crap. 08/23/11 9:31 i hate AUGUST!!! one of my last and only friends up here reached for the off button !!! ended up in a coma!!!! i've felt it too !! it's F'n august man !!!! and september's not much better given i'm a virgo. one kcrw editorial revealed solice during august through reading a military survival guide. honker down and just get through it kind of advice. i just have to look at my aussie great dane mix around 2 in the afternoon for a quick summing up of heat hell. wet towels on the tile floor have become the cooling norm these days. Bump is suspicious and has nothing to do with the towels until they're dry and hot again. 08/22/11 12:02 i apologize for the ranting yesterday. i just finished cleaning it up. if you happened to read it before i deleted it, in my mom's defense i was one of those kids who really should've been hand cuffed to a 24 hour dad. with out a real hands-on-dad i was always pushing the envelope from motor cycles to fire bombs. heck!, i'd been to jail twice before getting out of high school!! i embodied the proverbial bad boy. my mother didn't stand a chance. 08/21/11 7:14 AUGUST!!!!!!!!!!!!! UGG!!!!!!!!!!!!! 100+degrees every day, constant feathered assaults on the peach and fig tree, hurricanes, hot angry attitudes the list is relentless as is the sun generating it's complexity. lately the weather in my heads been sweat'n bullets too. my dischorded memory-go-round cycling through unresolveable thoughts. . . how does one stop the self perpetuated suffering caused by memorys. . . . and the perpetuation today through denile and nonacknowledgement by those responsible. why can't we just say we're sorry and live in the bliss of resolution?!?!?! instead part of each day i live in the eternal "go to your room!" syndrome. alone in the desert.. . even the beautiful sun drops rainning down on me, sting'n my eyes alienatingly. 08/17/11 10:47 NEW DOOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the old kitchen counter had to come out in pieces unfortunately. i can't stop walking back and forth through the new door - the galley portal !!!! 08/05/11 21:21 got most of the plumbing done. these shark fittings are a trip. push and go. so easy! it's more like a tubing. i'm running it overhead. why not? it's full of hot water it shouldn't freeze. if it does it's so easy to fix who cares. Oh! and i got the piano logistics worked out so both pianos are here now waiting for phase 2 - not til it cools off. 07/31/11 15:10 last day to get anything done in july. i got nothin. it's been monsooning - 3 good down pours so far; one this morning even. been trying to figure out the best way to pipe the outside kitchen taking into consideration the potential freeze factor; it's helpful to be able to drain the pipes before a big freeze. that means another strategically placed 10 dollar ball valve. you can get these nice ones made in italy at HD. finished picking the almonds and shifted defenses to the peach tree. the speaker's placed in the tree and playing a pellet gun loop about every 4 minutes. on a mat on the ground there's a scare crow including a wig on a foam head. i slide the thing around the base of the tree through out the day. i think it's helping. there's probably 842 peaches this year on the tree so i'll get a few. they just never look very good because of all the battle scares. these birds seriously peck every peach no matter how green like they're writing their name on it - claiming it in the name of the Sparrow Empire.little feather fucks!!! 07/21/11 8:42 been staycating; or as a friend calls it the "equatorial syndrome". whatever you want to call it i've been absent from huge chunks of my routine. there's things i gotta do everyday 'cause this place is so damn hi-maintenance but anything extra even tunning the piano in the studio has found a resounding shelf to launch into oblivion. so i guess until some hidden reserves are recharged i'll have to accept this lethargy - i do a lot of starring at projects imaging kinestetic praxis - but nothing's materializing beyond the mirage of intention. 07/08/11 9:36 monsoon weather the last 4 days - even had a down poor 2 days ago that kicked my ass !!! still fighting through this bout of SF. i think my self gnerating muse is on vacation. the intense emptiness is almost debilitating as opposed to the normal sublimation empowerment. i think it's because so many of my friends who offered up needed distractions are gone for the most part. one of my closest friends has hooked-up and now i'm left without a missery loves company partner. turning 55 in a month isn't helping matters any. none of the woman i'm meeting possess the youthful craziness that i do - i'm really afraid that i'm an odd anomaly for my age. and i can't in all honesty be with someone with a ticking bio-clock and thought of attending a high school graduation at 75. it was HARD WORK being a stay at home dad in my late 30's. i think it'd kill me in my late 50's!!!! i remember my daughter use to like to climb up to my shoulders - i think the tree branchs would break or at least ache these days. it seems like all my joints are achey these days. on a possitive note: i did witness a visually perfect woman yesterday locally. i'd say she was in her late 40's and was wearing a dress that said LOVE across the nape of her back. of course i was wearing a tee-shirt with a couple cutting a wedding cake with the words "big mistake"(my daughter gave me the shirt but it was actually a jab from her mom). not the shirt you want to be wearing when you meet somone for the first time. so i don't know if i'll ever have another chance to meet this person - pretty sad - pretty lame - but realistically what can you say to a woman publically or in a market-place that doesn't meet with suspicion - all you can do is be polite and friendly and appear to be falsely uneager. i think i've become to open and honest in my older age to participate in this attraction-subterfuge. so here i am probably doomed for the time being until i can get out with the public piano and be myself. 07/04/11 8:49 a thick cloud cover moved in yesterday and boy is it humid!!!!should be out working on the new piano unit while the sun is on vacation but spring fever is taking it's toll. you'll probably find me proactively engaging my pathetic lonly self at some coffee bar today at some point. i refuse to do saloons though. i just don't like inebriated situations. and i really don't like to drink alchol. 06/30/11 6:55 manoman did it get cold last night !! - started off windy so i had to sleep in the truck because of all the tarp flapping noise but then it got really cold. i had a couple more blankets in the cab - so there i am reaching through the little window at 3 in the morning trying to get the blankets, almost getting stuck. so yeah, it was a 3 blanket night !!! There's only about 20 apricots left and the dehydrator's full. the dangaling owls's not having any effect. you got to change things constantly to keep these sparrows at bay - peach trees's next. gotta about 3 weeks before they start ripening. ground squirrels have already started attacking the green fruit. 06/28/11 9:59 i suspended a plastic owl on a bungy cord from a pole over the apricot tree and it seems to help but i got to go out and move it around every hour or so. these little sparrows are way to smart and super destructive but i'm still getting a fairly good crop of apricots. haven't worked on any facet of the public piano project now in days - got a bit of spring fever! sometimes it's excruciating being such a loner! it's not one of those things that gets easier with practice. 06/23/11 13:27 it's really HOT ! i'm standing guard over the apricot tree in a tube of water. it's only 102 right now. a couple more days of this and then a break for a month and then back to it with the peach tree. 06/19/11 9:52 apricots are ripening left and right! the more aperiodic and unpredictabe the music the better it works for keeping the birds away. and the louder the better-i got a call from the neighbor this morning and had to turn it down a bit. the winds are kicking up right now-all of a sudden kitty is freaking out. big winds outta no where!!!! lets hope they pass without incident! ! ! ! 06/17/11 9:42 pretty busy these days playing orchard scarecrow. i put a speaker in the apricot tree yesterday and cranked industrial music/noise. it seems to be helping(playing some koto drumming like stuff right now called "CONCUSSIONS"). if the assault continues i can always wrap the fruit in tissue paper like last year; it's just that it's hard to pick the fruit when it's all wrapped up and last year some of the fruit got to ripe and went straight to the dehydrator. Duelling Public Piano Update: i've decided to use one of the full size pianos - maybe trade-out one of the lender pianos with the smaller piano at Robyns... ? .. . .??. ... (???). . . 06/11/11 13:39 i got it i Got It I GOT IT ! ! ! ! ! how about duelling public pianos?!?!?!?!: one piano prepared and one piano unprepared. you flip a coin and choose either the piano or to lead or follow and instead of trying to show each other up or out gun the other you try and work together to blend the prepared with the unprepared piano. i've got the perfect pianos for this ready to go. the unprepared piano has a little smaller keyboard but that'll make the coin toss that much more interesting. what i like most about this idea is the potential for that rivalry energy between piano players to be poked at sublimated and fucked with; and who knows, maybe make a new friend and inspiration. 06/09/11 11:10 got a forwarded email concerning the public piano thief in the Huffington Post. it zapped me for a minute. what i don't understand is why don't the people who send me these forwards attach a note saying they sent an email to Ariana Hoffington to the effect 'get your facts straight! check out pianobob'. isn't anybody else bothered by this? arn't there any heroic people left in the world to speek out against injustice. alright i got that off my chest. . . back to not giving a fuck 06/05/11 9:22 ok, i got a new plan for the Public Piano Tour: as much as i love the concept and idea of YOU out there participating in the process of bringing the Public Piano to market the reality these days is that 9 out of 10 cars on the road these days have no tow package. 3 years ago when the SUV craze was still the 'thing' nearly every vehicle on the road had a tow hitch or at least a reciever for one. now nearly every car is really small a hybred, or electric. so i propose obtaining one of these electric vehicles, putting a solar panel on the roof and letting the sun supply all the power for a cross country public grand piano tour. 06/01/11 10:42 another revelation today,nothing new really, just that playing music to me these days is like taking a hike into unknown territory and discovering things and kinda probing them for answers to questions not yet asked. i stumble trip and fall as i play along sometimes until i find the trail leading to sonicscapes infantium. from there distraction the only destroyer of time and space. 05/31/11 11:10 one more kitchen wall nearly complete which translates to one inch closer to a dedicated studio. pianos are all in position making it that much harder to access the north west corner kitchen. soon the long awaited door through the corner will open the portal to efficient access - i can't wait!! i've been dreaming of this moment for 25 years !@!! i think i'm about 10 days away!!!!! 05/28/11 10:36 no public piano today. even though the weather is perfect. feeling to much small town agoraphobia. cut down the beard to a goatee; just painted it green....still kinda to perfumeeek! i just observed something about myself: a tendancy to desert projects untill they begin to entropically decay away. then returning to see what's been distilled alchemized corroded seperated or just left standing. 05/24/11 11:19 WIND EVERY DAY!!! so i've decided to take a hiatus from public piano stuff. been working on performance ideas involving real time piano preps that are quickly appliable and removable. i'd like to have a piano out at the Coyote Corner this weekend but the winds are the deciding factor - maybe i'll just make a piano shaped kite and call it the windy day public piano, oh ya with me dangling there trying to hold on to the keyboard. 05/04/11 9:58 Perfect weather the last 2 days; of course they're predicting winds for Saturday - if so i may still bring out the grand piano trailer. i've been going through my favorite jimi songs. none are recorded so nothing for people to take with them. maybe i'll get busy and record them. my voice is almost back. or alnost black. 05/02/11 7:20 The winds were blowing just enough to call things off Saturday. maybe next week. nothing more to report minus the rambalings of my incessant internal yami voice urging me to take the piano beyond JT . . . yep. . .maybe. . . . 04/27/11 12:22 i know it's been over a week since my last entry. i've been on a rollercoaster in my head. at first i was excited about the noise fest recording and then i realized how much it was missing and how repeditive it got. even though it had it's moments the bulk of it gets boring. so now what?! the prepared piano sounds need another layer of sound - i discovered this while playing along with the CD at a friend's studio. so i really don't know what to do with the whole idea live??? whatever i figure out i can't do it up here anyways because of the LA appropriation factor-i'd have to go to LA to make it count; but where?! so i guess i've just been kinda perplexed. i think i'll just stick to putting the Public Grand Piano out on Saturdays and playing it when i need to. it's alot harder to appropriate a musical style than an idea. 04/18/11 10:25 WOW what a weekend !!! the noise fest was a blast !!!! i played 3 sets before hitting the zenith - i knew it was time to stop. it's going to be available sometime this week. i'll put a link up when it's ready. Next Saturday morning the public grand piano will be at the Coyote Corner by 8am. seeya then. 04/16/11 9:15 ALRIGHT!!!! the Grand Piano is set up in Joshua Tree in front of the Natural Sisters Restaurant. it'll be there 'till noon so go out and enjoy it all you closet pianists out there ! ! ! and don't forget i'll be performing today out at the Palms Restaurant in the back behind the stage today from 3pm to ??? 04/14/11 14:40 Thanks for the emails in support of the Public Grand Piano ! ! ! i guess i'm going to keep doing it while the weather's nice. this Saturday it'll be in front of the Two Sisters restaurant all day so that means a pretty full day for me with the performance out in Wonder Valley too. which starts at 3pm and goes pretty late. i kinda wish i could stay around for the whole thing but leaving the piano open with all the businesses around it clossed is probably kinda risky so i have to be back in Joshua Tree by 7 or so and then the piano is going to it's new weekly home away from home at sunburst and golden. so that means no more long way around tatown. oh ya and i offered to completely prepare the Pink Piano at the Art Queen and told Shari Elf to watch the youtube of me playing the prepared-piano at the village farmers market (it's under gamelan ganesh or BOBfenger) and that i could make the pink one sound similar - so we'll see. 04/12/11 7:00 Will at least another cool thing happened as a result of Saturdays fiasco - i was asked to perform at the Noise Fest out in Wonder Valley at the Palms Bar and Restaurant. it starts around 3pm and goes 'till ????. not sure what i'll do yet - probably something with a prepared piano. the Palms is about 8 miles out amboy Road with a big buffalo sign on the right. 04/10/11 20:49 There were hellacious winds Thursday and Friday so i figured it was going to be nasty into Saturday so i didn't take the piano out of the Hospice back-parking lot Friday nite but it turned out to be a nice day. so there i am again trying to work things out with Harry to include the Public Grand Piano and he said "NO!". at this point i feel i've tried and i've tried and i'm ready to hang it up for Joshua Tree and the market but as i'm pulling the piano out of the Hospice back parking lot to go home Harry comes running over to me and starts badgering me some more in a dispicable display of condescending arrogance at which point i said " i was going home but now you just erked me into staying". so i backed the trailer into a parking spot in front of the Hospice, double checked if it was OK with Will and set up the piano while Harry who is now yelling at me and threatening to call the Police at which i reponded with offering him my phone - i even offered to dial 911 for him. bullshit aside the piano was a huge success it was invited to hang around for the Art Walk at 6 later on that day. 04/07/11 7:50 Alright the Grand piano's tunned - hit the one inside the Hospice too. it looks like i'll have to move the piano into positon on Friday since Hospice doesn't open early enough to catch the worm, so to speek. 04/06/11 8:07 Dsl is still down. the verizon tech at least calls me everyday and apologizes. Went by the Hospice yesterday to check on things and William made it clear to me that he doesn't care who said what in the office - the parking lot is his domain and he doesn't want me there. So much negativity. i really do think there's something better for me out there beyond Joshua Tree - Sorry Sunrunner, your 'Cabazoon-Hat' tourist attraction is about to leave the area. I had thought about getting to the market extra early and set up the piano in spite of the negatives - i may still do that. the only problem, i'm not sleeping again so i may be to exhausted at 6am to set it up. what am i saying of course the adrenalin is going to kick in and i'll be just fine until i collapse. 04/04/11 18:31 it was nice while it lasted . . . went out about eleven-thirty this morning; spent a half hour on the phone with verizon before getting cut off. Jason the installer tried - even called me back . . i knew it was to good to be true. dsl out in the sticks - who am i kidding. 04/02/11 1:32 Got the piano to the market and the market manager said i was to late and should've called him ahead of time. these are the kinds of details i have a tendancy to overlook. oh well maybe next week. at least it's stored close by at the Hospice. Wil almost made me take it home and then last second he said if i drag some glass out of the way i could park it there. so, for having confronted negatives so far today i'm doin ok. even shari said something like signing something or something agreeing to not abandoning the piano there. yeah, it's been kind of a painful day. at least i don't have to run back to the ART Queen and move the Pink Piano today!!! oh well. . . the trials, tribulations, and obstructions to acts of kindness. it's a tuff world we live in. it seems like the system makes it harder to do nice things than bad. maybe it's the "NOs" that start the chain reaction of saddness. maybe if people made more effort to accomodate each other the frustratees wouldn't loss it and go sour. Mister Rogers Said " there's nobody you couldn't like if you took the time to hear their story". 04/01/11 7:00 The "T" supports are done and painted - of course i found more things wrong that i'll need to work on today but i think i should have it out there this Saturday ! ! ! 03/28/11 8:12 OK, got it figured out - a "T" post on each side using hasps and locks to insure that it stays put. and i think i'm gonna set up by the laundry mat. 03/26/11 7:36 it's looking like it's going to be a perfect spring day. worked on the piano trailer a bit yesterday. had the fear roll over me concerning it's doors. i'm still trying to figure out how to make them as safe as possible - they're so damn heavy. can't take risks like that any more. 03/21/11 9:46 Sorry about the 6 day disappearance. after many many hours on the phone i was able to get dsl up and running here. so you know what that means: yeah, i've been a streaming vidit. the novelty is running it's course. It's been to cold the last 3 days with 100mph winds and small amounts of rain. i'm running the heater right now - the winds are blowing down off the snow in Big Bear and making it uncomfortable outside. i gotta get out and do a few chores today at some point. but not yet - the winds gotta settle down at some point. 03/15/11 8:06 Still haven't been able to get the dsl to work. they say they're working on it at the "office". i'm tired of calling them and sitting on hold for 30 minutes. 03/13/11 10:27 daylite savings time: BLAH !!! i was an hour late to record a graduate recital at ucla one dst sunday. of course the kid went with it and started early so i think i missed the first piece. the way it works at ucla, the recital victim is jurried by a number of instructors and most of them make their decision from the recording so if he could've gotten through his recital before i had recorded it he would've been 'passed' by default. i remember getting yelled at a little by John Hayes (my superV) about it, but come on ! it was an honest mistake. back in those days i was living on the RR track DTLA and i usually didn't listen/watch media at home. opk, yeah at night when we had to turn the gene on i would listen watch or play. Tried to figure out the dsl yesterday with no luck. maybe today i'll get lucky. 03/12/11 8:46 HORRAY HORRAY YABADABA DOOO - MY DUAGHTER WAS JUST ACCEPTED INTO UCLA ! ! ! 03/11/11 8:21 Really nice weather ! Put a window in the fort section yesterday and started to unbundle things a little. i'd like to get a door in the fort. started on it a month or so back and then it got to cold and i just blanketed the opening with some thick carpet pad. it's warm enough to take down the pad and get that door DONE ! Probably not going to get the PT out to the market this weekend unless i have a brain storm and can get it welded. TV Media is on Tsunami watch in LA - "8.8 Piano Earth Quake" !!!!! 03/09/11 8:20 wINDS HAVE STOPPED ! it's almost warm and nice. Haven't figured out the welding logistics on the Piano Trailer yet. Still got roosters out there crowing away - anybody want a nice chicken dinner ? 03/07/11 8:37 Winds kicked up early and got me out of bed a little after 5. The weld broke on the PT tongue wheel yesterday so now i'm trying to figure out what to do. the piano trailer is to big to fit into the other welder zone because of the kazebo frames set up for shade tarps. i think i'll try the mig again and really try and penetrate the metal. it's pretty thick and this mig is pretty small. i was standing in the piano trailer when the weld gave way with the back open and the front door awning up and i didn't get hurt. i guess i got lucky. and lucky it collapsed here and not in town. so i got a feeling i'm going to have to use the big welder and figure a way to get it in close enough. 03/06/11 8:09 It's Warm and Nice and Everything's Flowering ! ! ! got one of the wheels welded on the Pano Trailer yesterday should get the back one done today. then to town and tune sometime next week. i could've had it ready by yesterday but i'm not ready yet. i need a solid week of focused practice to get Jimi's songs up to snuff - so the big question: will anybody at the market want a free piano lesson or ear training practice ???? 03/03/11 9:49 Really warm yesterday - in the mid 70's. and really nice this morning. got a lot to do if the piano trailer is going to the market this weekend. it sounded pretty in tune the last time i played it. i'd like to get it there by Friday so they can check out the size and shape and give me the go ahead to park it sort of in front of the Hospice and Linda's. otherwise it'll go down by the laundry mat. 03/o2/11 10:11 My phone line has been out since saturday - somebody hit one of those green "slick 5" boxes so i just got done with verizon and a reroute. so i'm back ! Happy Birthday Robyn and thanks to the other Robin at the Hospice for helping out with storing the up and coming Public Grand Piano. i've already been looking in to making that trailer workable without a vehicle to put it in place - another wheel in the front and back should do it - then i should be able to move the thing on foot into place. just found a couple wheels that should work - may have to butcher the lift mechanisim from another trailer - maybe i could use a door hinge to drop the wheel down when needed (?????) 02/26/11 13:04 No snow here yet but the storm is still blowing through with gala force - big clouds but lots of sun. 02/25/11 13:37 I DON'T BELIEVE IT !! THE SUN RUNNER GAVE ME MENTION ! ! ! as one of the hi-dez tourist attractions. will this opens up a whole new can of credability worms. that's it ! back to the market with FREE PIANO LESSONS JIMI SONGS AND NOISE ! ! ! i tried to put a link to PAGE 61 WHERE YOU CAN SEE ME IN THE GAMALAN GANISH GETUP, but it only takes you to the magazine from there you'll have to go to page 61 did i tell you the page ?? 61 !! that's a SIX and a ONE. 02/24/11 9:28 Still ice in the morning. tomorrows my sis's BD. i gotta get her card in the mail today - it's a big one !i mean her BD is a big one. i mentioned to my nephew that i had a blog and then had to squirl out of telling him where to find it. my sis would be pissed at me if her kids found out how old she is from my blog. so i'm not saying any more just in case. so that's my big project for the day get it in the mail ! 02/23/11 7:16 Thin ice this morning. spent yesterday working on some music and a 15 year old music program called cubase. a good portion of documentation about the program is in what they call electronic documentation which it doesn't look like i have. so it's going to be a long and arduous learning experience. figured out how to handle audio files but i'm a bit perplexed how you mix and record a final mix using midi and audio tracs: what's the final master recording device? maybe you're suppose to bounce the audio from the midi tracs to audio tracs???? i need this kind of focused concentration right now to keep my mind off the V-Day disaster. 02/21/11 8:59 Cold wet weekend ! still cloudy and cold. the rain filled the yellow barrel half way (about 150 gallons). i bet if i could catch all the water off the roofs i could get through some dry hard times. even my little road flowed enough to fill a 400 gallon tank. then you gotta keep it from evaporating and misquitoing away. Got an advance on the next cd so i've been working on it again even had something ready to burn last night and then i didn't save the file right and lost it. it may still be there 'casue i know i didn't get one of those "are you sure you want to delete this" prompts. i may go looking for it - otherwise i'll just redo it - good learning experience. Tomatoes have been doing good outside in the greenhouse next to the cabin window even though it's been getting down into the mid 30's at night - i really hope they make it. i can see little flower buds - little purple heirloom tomato flower buds. 02/19/11 9:08 Got up at 5 to deal with the rain. it came down pretty good for a couple hours. wind destroyed another gazeebo too. now it's kinda scattered cloudy and alittle sun , but there's some wind kicking up too. o2/18/11 8:10 BIG STORM'S A'COMIN ! ! ! so that's what i'm doin today - siliconing holes, putting crap away - basically getting ready for an ass-kicking. may go help C with some peizo experiments for the volunteer pre school she and a group have put together. mostly today is just about tieing down the sails, battening down the hatches and preparing for the worst. don't forget - it's a big junk barg in a storm - nothing sits still - everythings shifting and shacking about. at least i'm not out in the middle of the ocean with the whole pile moving up and down and back and forth at the same time ! 02/17/11 6:32 Frost this morning on the bike seats ! ! ! i can't wait for this cold weather to stop and i can finally cut my hair and beard. i have to admit i look like the quinessential wild mountain man but with all this hair comes about 5 degrees of contained body heat. and my chin warmer (beard) really helps on the bike - nothing else quite works like a beard around the helmet strap for warmth. the down side - i think everybody freaks a little with my wild man look. so don't worry i ordered a magneto wind up type razor for the road and when it gets here and it warms up a degree or two i'll be back to my palettable hairless self. The winds finally stopped at dusk yesterday but not before hitting a 100mph plus. no new obvious damage but my nerves are a bit shot. it's pretty still outside right now - we'll have to see what this next storm brings - they're saying it's bigger than this last one. 02/16/11 6:22 I'M BACK ! ! ! : from a crazy effort to bring my daughter a valentine. i got to her school in time but she was gone and when i found her at home she was mortified. emmensly embarrassed ! like i was a garbage man surrounded by non prada wearing flies. She took the Ghiradeli heart and stormed away. Much like the weather here this morning. looks like first lite i'll be out putting tools away etc. already took down the shade tarp over the bikes - winds are already hitting 50 mph gusts. By the way, i'll never ride that bike into LA again ! ! ! even though it did get me through 4 traffic tie-ups - the amount of concentration it takes to ride a bike for that period of time (nearly 7 hours) was more work than i ever want to attempt again without some kinda trophy at the end of it all - actually getting home in one piece to my doggy dogs and my certa orthopedic mattress with the dual layer of memory foam was better than any trophy. On a positive trip note: i met up with my mom, sister and her kids. i was really impressed at how much they've matured into young adults, accept Freddy he was still a cute little kid on his way to French lessons. i wanted to tell my nephew all about the atv/land surfboard i'm building in response to his cool skateboards and surf boards he was building but it was more enjoyabale to listen to him and his enthusiasm. there're are definately times to shut the F*@# up and not steal the show. And my niece with the cameleon hair - every time i see her it's a different shade - from blond to lite brown - and incredibly beautiful ! my mom seemed to be doing ok with the loss of her husband - i did make the mistake of asking what happened to the 1927 Steinway and she replied something like "it's in storage somewhere" and of course i kept pushing the point out of concern for the piano and then she admitted that she sold it to make room for the shaffer and sons she brought over from Hawaii. that steinway did have a crappy action but still: IT'S A STEINWAY ! 02/14/11 7:20 OK got the foundation for the wall done yesterday. hopefully things will go pretty quickly from here out. 02/13/11 8:20 Got the west wall corner post bolted in last night. can finally start on that wall and glass roof section. i'd sure like to get it roughed in while it's still a bit cold to see how much warmer the studio is as a result. not to mention the added protection to all the water pipes out there (one of which froze a week or so ago). 02/12/11 7:22 R I C O L A (echoing down from the top of a mountain of laundry). 8 large loads of laundry and i'm finally at the summit. started tearing the old 600 xt apart yesterday between loads. should have the engine out today and then off to find a small 100 to 175 cc engine to take it's place. the old engine is unstartable because of the automatic compression release malfunction. besides it's to much power to work as a strickly dirt bike. everything else on the bike is in pretty good shape for a 22 year old bike except the hydralics in the front disc brake but that hopefully isn't going to be a problem after i figure out how to bleed and repressurize the system. 02/11/11 7:19 still a bit cold running the heat pump right now. i discovered last week during the freeze that the heat pump doesn't really work - i couldn't get the thing to warm up the cabin to save my life ! ! had to start a fire in the leaky woodburning stove to get warm. Almost done with the 4 foot high pile of laundry - it's been months since last i ventured this climb - as you may recall i fell into a pile of Thrift Store Tees and Swets - they prolonged the climb another month at least. just noticed the last load didn't get into the dryer and they're all kinda frozenish. flowers are ok on the near-by almond blossums though (shish). this tree's about7 years old. i think it's flowers are a bit sturdier than the almonds i planted last spring. As soon as i get caught up with things around here it's out to those 2 rails i need to cut and tac in place along with all the other perpins and horzs. the front's gunna be a bit tricky because of the split in the bench section that allows your legs to get under the piano. it's been psyching me out a bit - i'm just waiting for a clearer mental image - hopefully the closer i get to that point the more obvious it'll be. at a stand-still with the cover 'till i get some felcro to tighten down the bottom edge to the piano. i put about 5 coats of elastomeric on it - still gotta deal with the under-flaps - they still need some elastommmm. 02/10/11 7:42 Sunny and cold but not to cold this morning. started on a four foot high mountain of laundry yesterday. Day-before-yesterday my seveenteen year old daughter called me while she was behind the wheel of her car. i told her to hangup and call me later she said she was to busy. i want to text her mom about it but i know that'll pretty much sinch her ever calling me again. what to do (?????) I'm going to mail one of the new CDs to David at ucla today. i almost can't remember the address at ucla. i think it's Schoenberg Hall, 405 Hilgard, CA, 90024. yep that's right. somethings you never forget - like 8 years of working towards and dreaming about a special topic phd - and the proverbial rug-pulling-out-from-under-ya blah blah blah. 02/09/11 7:43 it's a little cold but sunny this morning. had to move the swap-meet chickens (roosters) at 5:30 to shut them up. Already got nearly 500 miles on the new thumper, need to pick up a filter today and change the oil. the first oil change is critical to get rid of any lose metal shavings from it's initial break-in. Still kinda recooperating from the weekend. wish i had room to set equipment up and work on another CD that i shoulda put out years ago entitled Piano Butoh. i used the music for the Prophet of Doom as a background drone in which i layered acoustisizer and other synths and acoustic stuff. there's a little taste on the peanutbutter pickel wafer table on the main menu. i had even worked on the cover for the music years ago which has a fetus in the womb overlayed so it looks like it's inside a grand piano. maybe i can make some room (?) i'd sure like to utilize cd burner BOB one more time. 02/08/11 8:33 Cloudy and kinda cold this morning - howling winds woke me up a couple times last night - slept in 'till nearly 8 as a result. Almost done putting everything away from this weekends festivities. Recieved a surprise email yesterday from the past: my most compatible member of Group of People, Lisa S. we first met 32 yeas ago at Cal State; she went on to teach at Cal Arts and has been there for 20 years ! we talked on the phone yesterday and swore we'd get together soon and exchange GOP performance media documentation. she also shot the only video of the "Voltage Loft" after hour club the night Jane's Addiction played. the only other footage was taken by Nina Hagen's video man for one of her music videos in which she gave no credit for the space and it's many visual wonders including these large packing styrophone pieces i arranged together into configurations best described as space junk, colorfully painted and suspended 30 feet above the club with xmas lites blinking all over them. ironically Cathy Allen is using styrophone these days and some of her pieces were in this last weekends show but they were completely different than mine. her pieces used more decomposing pieces of styrophone and are a little reminiscent of ancient ruins. 02/07/11 8:32 Great weather yesterday and today. the performance space yesterday (inside a trailer) was to cramped and i even had a rack of processors fall off the skinny counter and cause a ruckess. the projections were fun but that's it for the hidez - i know i keep saying that but i mean it this time. back to the T-project and hopefully a launch sometime this spring ha ha ha. today it's recooperate and chord untangle tease. mostly things worked i just couldn't reach everything and build a congruent sonic sound scape. i realized though that i really need to finish the studio and get composing again. i have a concept in mind - better not let the cat out of the bag yet - i've already talked about it to much as it is JINX NOT ! ! ! all i can say at this point is that i'm striving for a completely aleatorial experience void of any kind of viral motif. the complete opposite of most music with it's intention to hook line and sink the masses into some kind of consumer buying frenzy. something that insights and invites the listeners own creative imagination. i know pretty lofty of me. 02/05/11 7:58 It finally warmed up but not before the freeze froze and broke a pipe. with that repaired and my water off for 24 hours onward to this weekends big event. The CDs are ready, all 21 of them. still undecided about what exactly i'm doing for the performance - may just play some of the old performances from my ucla days. i just finished transfering them to dvd. they might be kinda interesting to watch especially the recording of the audience coming into Schoenberg Hall for class and finding me playing the piano with a nylon sock over my head. 02/02/11 7:37 STILL BRRRRRRR ! ! ! all my water pipes are really frozen this morning. On a more positive note Robyn and Susan helped me yesterday put together a jacket for the CD from a couple of photos from my squat in LA. it's just what the CD needed. today i'll have to take it to the printer then cut fold and slip it in. so i'm pretty excited about our super bowl sunday. 02/02/11 7:56 BRRRRRRRRR ! ! ! ! 27 degrees this morning and frozen pipes ! ! ! almond flowers seem ok though (???). gotta reseal the wood burning stove today if this is going to keep up. Finished a DVD of old Group of People performances from vhs tapes. also duped a couple of performances i did in Schoenberg Hall before class where i wore a nylon sock over my head and wore a gray cold weather suit and played an assortment of jimi and classical music to the incoming class. i may play it sunday through scotts projector. 02/01/11 8:36 No wind yet but it was kinda cold this morning. Got the old xt ready for turning over and discovered it can't be kicked over anymore since the auto-compression release isn't working - it just want's to kick-back something fearce! so it looks like i'll have to get a battery for it and push or bum start it. Just about have a full DVD of old LA perfromances transfered from vhs tape. some should work pretty good this sunday projected. 01/31/11 10:15 Cold and windy - the warm weather was nice while it lasted - just hope i don't lose all the new almond flowers. The CD art looks great on the discs. i listened again to the selections and i can't emphasize enough that more than anything these jams display process over praxis. from cacaphony to something kinda interesting. so listen with an open mind and keep in mind these jams are 25 years old ! ! ! and this coming sundays performance will follow theme with the new CD but with video projections thanks to scott. 01/28/11 8:54 I'm super excited ! ! ! this guy named Robert in yucca valley will burn and put art work on a cd for a buck a piece ! ! ! i spent the day yesterday putting together 71.4 minutes of music from my Santa Fe Art colony days living on the RR tracks. all the stuff was recorded in the mobile sculptural unit on the rail road tracks with a ghetto blaster built in mic. the stuff is pretty ruff but in it's defense there are a number of tracs that vividly display players coming from chaos and finding an interesting groove,,, eventually. most of it is kinda dark and i withheld the darkest of the bunch. now i've got to figure out the best title for the collection: maybe SANTA FE LA or RRXJAM. i think the second one. the coolest thing is i'll get to use Robyn's cd cover piece. 01/27/11 9:07 Even though i haven't worked physically on the T i have nailed down a couple ideas for it's first public appearance. i'm hesitant to blog about the menu yet but let's just say it 'll involve an educational aspect that everybody even non musicians can appreciate and enjoy. Looking into getting Robyn's album cover art put on some CDs for the opening in a week. it may be to costly. i'd like to keep the cd under 10 bones. 01/26/11 7:32 so yeah, i went down yesterday on my little road - 366 pounds is pretty heavy on a sandy road, so i gotta be cautious all the time in the sand especially on swervy roads. didn't hurt me or the bike though. that's why it's so important to wear all the safety gear. if i hadn't had the big boots on or the padded knee pants i'd be limping around today. Got about 10 days 'till R's opening and a performance. still not sure what i'm doing. maybe one last gamlan ganish performance (?) 01/25/11 8:51 OK ! now it looks like something i'd ride. had to use a combination of heat gun and liquid decal remover to get the final sticky from the gas tank decal - at the same time = left hand heat gun right hand rag with remover and scrub vigourously. just a little spec of paint came off unfortunately and they must have sparayed a clear coat over the tank and decal as there's still a ghost trail in the paint where the decal use to be. even did a little shopping trip. had my first near tumble on the slick concrete in front of the staters when the kickstand slipped out while i was getting off the thing. luckily the bike fell on me and i on the long row of newstand machines. so nothing happened really - just looked silly. 01/24/11 11:39 Just about got all the advertisements off the new distraction in my life. it's going to end up costing with insurance and dmv: 187.00 a month; that's still less than my old gas bill when i use to actually go some where. the last couple years i quit going places especially down below - it's been over 2 years since i've been to Trader Jose's. i may take a trip down there soon. and everytime i get on that thing it's a work-out ! believe me ! ! ! it's going to take me a while to build up to a trip like that. it's about a 2 hour plus round trip. for now trips to town and the mail box - and the occasional juant to Wonder Valley. The weather's still really nice. i see buds on the new almond trees even. i do feel guilty for neglecting the T project but sometimes you have to break from the tedious monotany of it all and take care of yourself and your sanity. These days i've noticed when i hear motorcycles go by i wonder what make model and cc rather than "those damn bastards". 01/21/11 7:57 OUCH OUCH OUCH ! ! ! ! my groine is killing me ! ! ! i think this thing is going to kick my ass back into shape. my old leathers at least go up over my ass but it'll be a while before they zip up again. they may not do much good unfastened - may extend the belt strap with some felcro at least. my old helmet needed an overhaul. all the old foam rubber was disintegrating. these tinsy-whinsy little pieces of yuk kept getting in my eyes. so i cleaned it all out and white glued in some new material. so yeah, i'm procrastinating and having fun at the same time. though i did try and put one of the new pink tags on the public piano out there in wonder valley. no one was around, oh well - next bike cruise. 01/20/11 7:15 650 CCs !!! WHAT WAS I THINKING ? ? ? acutally, sanity grasping. if you can't beat them join them. no more weekender generated angst. i can go out and play too ! ! ! and with a handlebar cam i can insure a friendly environmental Q and A teach-in. i'm willing to bet that if people were educated about the impact loud orvs had on the fragile desert they'd opt voluntarily to tip-toe and quiet'n up their bikes. if they knew that not to long ago cute little owls use to nest in the ground on the northside of certain washes and that coyote dens full of pups could be seen playing and the occasional bob-cat, oh and the ever elusive red desert fox. all 10 years gone now. a couple coyotes have tried to endure the nerve racking noise to the point of skin rash and mainge. and those of us who have cared and loved this place for years and years are helpless and forced to sit idly by while systematic ignorance wins another battle field in the war against the planet. not on my watch - and not while i can still ride a bike and run a video camera, and up load to utube or the sheriff dept or their MOTHERS ! 01/19/11 7:03 Another beautiful day. got alittle bit done yesterday. mainly i played piano most of the day on one of the outside pianos. then all of a sudden out of no-where some guy walks out of the desert. i stop playing 'cause he's about 25 feet away and i say "nice day huh" and he says little more than 'yeah'. kinda freaked me out but i couldn't really say much - people are drawn to music - if anything i was abit validated. that piano is sounding pretty good for sitting so long in a trailer outside. 01/18/11 6:59 Still nice weather- had the doors and windows open 'till 10pm last nite. Looking into putting a piano in a funny place at the Feb 6 show. Placed a couple more rails in place with clamps on the T. looks like i need to reduce the length a little before welding in place. 01/17/11 7:58 Another warm day on the way. actually did some welding prep for the T yesterday. may get some rails welded on it today for the top of the box. need to start thinking about what i'm going to do for the Feb. 6th performance at the Glass Outhouse(3-8pm). maybe something real simple like just going through the old song book or a jimi juke box or something ????could do the gamlan thing again. id on't know ! ! any suggestions out there ?????? 01/16/11 7:22 Unbelievably Warm yesterday! ! ! i was ouside watering in a T-shirt last night - cloudy today but it's going to be warm again. Can't seem to shake this pain in my right arm opposite my elbow. been wearing a neopreme ace bandage thing for a couple weeks even. I'm thinking about resurecting "tycon" my old xt 6oo cc thumper. it'd sure make it alot cheeper to get around these days with gas prices on the rise again. it's got some problems though, the kickstart makes a clicky noise as i recall after the engine sarts. they say they can get parts for it still - like everything around here it's half apart so if i can find all the parts and put it back together maybe. 01/15/11 7:07 Couldn't sleep last night, probably because i've been to inactive as a result of this intestinal thing. feeling ok this morning even without much sleep. feeling a bit hungry too. Haven't heard from my daughter in over 2 weeks i expect this is the new norm. her HS graduation is coming up quick - about 5 months away. i hope i get to go. Another great movie "MICMAC" i loved the junk instruments and demented toys. it's made by the same director who did Delicatessen Jean Pierre Jeunet. OH YA they say it's going to be in the 80s this weekend ! ! ! ! 01/14/11 18:59 I spoke to soon - still feeling shitty. no appetite, no energy blah blah blah. did go to town and order some "play it forward" add-ons for the existing public piano plaques out there and picked up a dvd of the prophet of doom heavily edited but still kinda nice to finally see that production 8 years later. 01/13/11 8:02 I can finally eat again - started off with a banana. may go into town and get breakfast. saw a great art film: Exit Through The Gift Shop - Banksy is my hero! all his street and exhibited art pocks a stick at the worlds insidious corporate death culture. Mr Brainwash was primarily featured but he's just another fame and fortune self-centerd glory seeker. Banksy is just the opposite - he keeps his identity hidden and is serious about bringing people around to an evolved state of awareness on critical issues. i can't believe i missed his show in LA 'Barely Legal' or something like that. i need to watch the film again. he even painted an elephant with kids paint and had it in the middle of the show the metaphorical "pink elephant" the reality that nobody wants to see. 01/12/11 7:21 woke up brutally this moning with food poisoning. i won't go into details. i'll probably be out of it most of the day. i found a couple things on line yesterday about some of the public pianos in NYC getting vandalized - we know about that huh(?) the pink piano went through a phase of that. all the keys pulled off, yep comes with the territory. 01/11/11 8:20 Cold and cloudy. today's Little Joe's birthday and the inverse birthday of my daughter. and a pretty "1" filled date. i bet something bizarre happens today (????). i think i'm going to stay close to home. 01/10/11 14:18 A cold wind kicked in a couple hours ago and haven't been able to force myself outside. so i'm sort of stuck in a "P" patttern for procrastinationnn. i guess i could vacume and sweep the cabin. then Bump would have to freak and run out of here = like many dogs he hates the vacume noise. then i have to worry about him laying in the sun and getting a burn on his you know what. . . . 01/10/11 7:59 No ice this morning. it's going to be another warm winter day which means more elastomeric on the cover and possibly some welding. oh and i still need to finish the cardboard piano template. Chickens didn't crow this morning - i guess if they're locked in their litte house and can't see the sun coming up they aren't inspired to crow. i don't mind the crowing i just worry that it might attract coyotes and loose neighborhood dogs. that's what got my last chickens - a cute little black pitbull with a red collar. 01/09/11 8:46 Forgot to mention a short piece i wrote for the local Ratany art magazine on butoh. got an email from Karen Tracey who i noted for her brilliant butoh performance at the Integratron back in 2002. i may put a link to the article somewhere here. There was ice this morning. i got up at 5:15 to P and couldn't go back to sleep. one of the chickens is crowing now. i put them in the old chicken coop and i can tell they don't like being caged up so they're out running around the yard again. i have limited patience for their droppings in the house though. they follow me around like a dog - kinda funny - maybe i'll put a leash on them and walk them around the Farmer's Market. 01/08/11 8:29 Ordered a piece of memory foam for the undercompartment yesterday. put another coat of elastomeric on the cover. may get back to welding today - the weathers nice - i have no more excuses - now if i could only find my enthusiastic happy place again. 01/07/11 6:53 What do you call it when it rains little snow balls - it's not really hail is it? anywayzzz it just finished dropping little white buggers. nothing stuck or lasted very long. Another amazing cloudy sunrise. Realized yesterday that the new piano cover isn't going to do much if there's a windy rain. i think i'm going to put felcro on the bottom of the piano and the bottom edge of the cover; that combined with the rings may keep really bad weather out of the piano. still need another coat of elastomeric and then i'll need to seal up the silly flapps on both sides. i'll probably have to glue the felcro to the piano and the cover as my sewing machine probably won't sew the felcro on the cover especially with all the elastomeric roofing goop on it. 01/06/11 8:32 The piano cover came yesterday. coated it with elastomeric. need to put one more coat on it. also need to modify it a little as the design doesn't fit tight: it has this flappy overlay at two places that i'll have to seal up in order for it to stay on while the units moving down the road - they also didn't put rings at the corners of the keyboard section and in the middle of the keyboard so i'll have to fix that as well. The weather's perfect today so far! no ice this morning - yeah ! 01/05/11 9:15 Got all the way out to Blunder Valley and hadn't forseen the need for RCA cables to connect-up the hospice thriftstore VCR i picked up for R&S. the library loans vhs video tapes for free. many that can't be found on netflx. if all technological advancement stopped and dvds and vhs tape faced off against the test of time, i believe vhs would win hands down! think about it: vhs tape is protected by a hardplastic cover. you can drop them a little! drop a dvd and there's a good chance if it landed wrong your dvd will get nicked and damaged and stick and then just try cleaning and fixing it. if a vhs tape get's damaged simply cut the crinckled tape out of the loop and scotch tape it back together making sure the taped area lines up and excess tape is trimmed off. tape heads are larger and true they need cleaning from time to time but larger also means sturdier. i bet tape heads will be a spinning long after the photoptic sensor reading lite goes out. so it's good to keep vhs tapes in the library by continueing to borrow and expecting them to be available. it would be frivolous to depend on only one technology for preservation. Back to work; but i'm in a bit of a quandry about what to do about the cables (???????) 01/03/11 17:37 Didn't get to the post today. Got distracted with a short story i started 5 years ago - coming back after a year or so to a piece of writing is like a narcotic to me. i get so completely absorbed. out of body time and space. so there went 4 hours today in a wink of an eye. I realized i hadn't done my smog check and that now i'm in violation so i ran out and did that today and even ran into D'Lo at Santanas. It never did get warm today. more clouds than sun. snow level's gotta be getting pretty low up at Big Bear. 01/03/11 9:25 After a few hours of vhs dubbing for a friend yesterday i was able to get 2 of the posts drilled and bolted into the anchors i poured a week ago for the flying buttress that support the S.West wind deflection wing, originally intented to help hide the uncut mobile home. as you all know i ended up having to cut the 50' mobile home into four 12x10 sections which i'm still putting end walls in secions. the wing is about 14' off the ground and about 25' long and situated at an angle to best deflect the monstorous winds that come out of the west. for the last 4 years the wing was only been chained to a trailer to keep it from blowing over. Today i 'll weather seal and install the last post for the breezeway west wall. it'll also dubble as a midway support for the first 12x10 section which is a little more than 3' off the ground and supported by concrete peirs. i've really needed to get this done befor the next big earthquake to help insure that this section doesn't come tumbling down. 01/01/11 9:05 Hot water's flowin' again. Thank Dog! played a little jimi this morning. the final chromatic sequence in Angel from F to D-flat . . . must've helped . . . will i think it helped. 01/01/11 8:02 Four ones in the date - on the eleventh it'll be five - five digits - five fingers (???) these are the kinda weird things i think about. On a more serious note : the hot water pipe is frozen. looks like it froze at the outlet from the solar heater on the roof. hope it's not a serious repair. they stopped making this unit 20 years ago. Fell asleep last nite way before midnight so i couldn'tell you if there was any outside signs like a firecracker etc. ususally it's pretty quiet, maybe a way off in the distance pop or two. It's still freezing cold but pretty sunny too. if the wind keeps down maybe the greenhouse will heat things up a little otherwise the woodpile's standing by. 12/31/10 7:57 It's a frozen water bucket morning. scattered clouds but quite a bit of sun. nothing really to say accept CONGRADULATIONS CLARE and CRAIG and good timing with your home birth! OH YA IT'S NEW YEARS EVE EVERYBODY ! ! ! 12/30/10 15:10 FREEZING ASS WINDS! ! ! ! no clouds so you'd think the greenhouse would warm up but i'm F"%#ING FREEZING !! ! !!! ! i'm liteing a fire soon. haven't done anything today but go to town for 150lbs of dogfood. then when i got home i found the last open bag - could've avoided buying the emergency bag from circle K and the barf i stepped in this morning when i first got up! so yep. it's been a cold dog day ! i may get something done on the template today - the cardboard is almost dry. and the T cover is on it's way - ups'd yesterday. 12/29/10 15:05 Rain was lite but the winds have been Fearce ! ! consistant 50mph right now with 70 to 100 mile gusts. had to bungy the ouside refridgerator doors closed - restappled a couple makeshift draft stoppers - just standing by waiting for the next emergency. this place is a noisey funky junk boat ! it's almost to nerve-racking hanging out in the greenhouse = i'm glad i tore-down that sheet metal yesterday but it's still making noise there on the ground; there was just a big noise - i think it's that metal on the ground i've got to go get rid of it. back went out to do one thing ended up doing 3. the winds are tearing things up right now ! monstorous front blowing by - it would be kinda cool if i had a roof top view of this weather right now , out'f the elements - warm and secure with a view. instead of hiding inside with the dogs bearing our heads in pillows and blankets wishing for an end to this relentless angry explosive shreaking wind storm ! ! ! 12/29/10 8:31 woke up to a lite rain - it's still coming down - had some cardboard drying for the template - oh well. Mary said they were waiting on supplies so the cover is still a waz off from getting here - not in time for this storm that's for sure. 12/28/10 9:48 sunny but cold this morning - struggled through the urge to lite a fire. guna shoot some hoop instead. no piano cover yet - better call Mary today. not sure what else is on the block today. feeling pretty cold depressed and procrastinative. 12/27/10 5:52 Can't sleep - up and cold ! may just go into town and get some coffee. back. no ice this morning. thoughts seem to be preoccupied with the same old holiday rejection and blues. maybe write a letter = probably not - sublimate, channel and rebirth right ?! speaking of which i've officially embraced my adopted name: BobFenger.com launched about 20 minutes ago. you can now get here from pianobob.com, publicpiano.com, and BobFenger.com and the new slogan: "not stumped just a little short handed". 12/26/10 8:52 Cloudy with slits of blue here and there with sun working it's way through, kinda cold but nowhere near freezing - hasn't frozen any water in a while now maybe a couple weeks. / Gotta lotta chores done yesterday like the last of the leaves in the compost barrel and going thru wet art supplies. been making bread just abuot everyother day with dried cherries and oatmeal - made a loaf last nite - pretty easy with a bread machine but you still have to do a little bit, like when to add the cherries and oatmeal or they'll just get ground and kneaded away. 12/25/10 7:17 It's going to be sunny and nice to start off xmas. they're saying rain in the evening hours. i got the dreaded phone call outta the way yesterday. no invitation to come for xmas - hurts a little but the reality is we're all better off. would like to see my nephews and neice again though:>( / Got plenty to do today: piano template=finish drying the cardboard and glue battons in place. retrace T status and next steps=weld corner perpindiculars. need the piano template to continue on with the frame reinforcement. continue to just DRY OUT ! ! 12/23/10 17:59 A perfect DAY ! the sun was out in force ! everythings drying fast. got the forms poured and the cardbpard piano template weighted and flattened down to dry. feels good to finally get done with that concrete. and i didn't mess-up my hands. glad i braved the last of the storms yesterday and got a bunch of recycling to burtec. it rained a bit on the road but it was kinda nice for some reason. and it's really nice not having all the recycle clutter. 12/23/10 6:19 rain stopped yesterday late afternoon and the skys are pretty clear this morning. like usual they always say the worst is yet to come and it didn't happen - not yet at least. gotta get some concrete poured today and prepare for whatever wave of weather lies ahead. the piano cover is now 6 days late ! figures ! the biggest storm hits just days before i've got a guranteed protective cover - plastic's doing ok i guess - if it stops dripping out there today i'll uncover and double check the piano. 12/22/10 9:42 Just finished writing a little blurb on butoh for the rattany. i'm not going to even talk about the rain only that i'm saturated and they say the worst is yet to come. need to go out and dry off tools - this is bob signing off hoping for sun . 12/21/10 8:47 2 more leaks - in the little closet room. the grand piano under the plastic tarp is being bombarded - one tool cabinet casualkty - the piano bunker is doing ok. it's only got a couple piano harps and 2 little organs but it's doing ok. their under plastic and plywood, which sometimes blows off, but i gotta'm pretty tied down. the rain is coming down now. one of those slow thick penetrating drip through everything types. 12/21/10 7:46 NNNeed i say anything . . . this rain is outta control ! got home last night after dark and after a huge down poor. one cabin leak so far. all the catch basins are full. really see the need to get the old 900 gallon water tank in the mix. so i'm stressing running around getting things outta harms way. every storms different and requires it's own specific precautions. another nervous 'on the road' factor. really need to do the roof before the trip. so much to do ! ! ! 12/17/10 9:20 cloudy and cold but no rain yet. thy're predicitng up to 10 inches over the next few days. after last years many leaks in my small cabin roof i can't help but be a little nervous. still haven't poured the concrete posts - maybe today if my arm feels up to it. i've got numerous bandages on it to keep from over extending and agravating the tendenidous. it seems to be helping but i gotta be careful and not over-do it and reinjure it. / No sign of the piano cover and no word back about the 3 changes in measurements - maybe i'll call them today and make sure since they're no longer returning my emails. a little sun just peeked out. goody goody ! 12/16/10 11:06 it started raining at 4 am. i got up and checked it out a bit and went back to bed. it's cloudy and looking like rain but nothing so far since i've been up. have to make another walk around and make sure no tools got forgotten in harms way. but it looks like a good day for concrete. 12/15/10 8:49 clouds clouds clouds. the "indian summer" was nice while it lasted. got all the forms set and ready for concrete. maybe i'll get them poured today. rain would be good for'um, not the freeze. / Tried to contact Mark at the Mark and Brian show about his remark concerning his son's Ear Traning Final. he ignorantly described it as a test that required one to identify 'random pitchs' like something somebody with perfect pitch might be able to do. but as you all know for those of us with normal hearing which is around 98% of us ear training is all about learning to audibly identify melodic and harmonic intervals, scales, chords and be able to sing them as well. one must also be able to sight sing simple melodies from sheet music. this is the one that use to drive me crazy and i still screw it up sometimes. i saw an interesting pbs show about Mandarin children who develop perfect pitch because the language requires words said always at the same pitch. this kinda anchors one into a daily reinforced constant which i would think, lead organically to perfect pitch. just a thought. hey look some sun just broke threw the clouds. 12/14/10 9:42 Another nice day ! ! ! dilly-dalling with the cover people still - had to change one more measurement. didn't get anything done on posts and doors yesterday. sometimes i feel like i'm stuck in some kinda suspended dimension of procrastination ! 12/13/10 12:30 Still warm and nice. spent the day yesterday welding up my leaky wood stove - had to have all the windows open and fans going to get all the smoke out of the house. but i think i sealed it up pretty good. so i've been just taking advantage of this perfect weather. today i'm going to work on a a couple post holes that i've been putting off pouring and i also need to get the door in the fort. all these things will make life a little easier and ultimately facilitate the the big T project. oh ya, had to call the cover people to make the sides of the cover bigger as i forgot that i was planning on storing the self-erecting tent on top of the piano (it folds-up into a 36 by 1.5 inch pancake) under the cover. so it had to be a little bigger to make this accomodation. need to finish the piano template today too! i can tell that it'll be critical in building the support structure. 12/11/10 8:03 Perfect weather continues. didn't do anything on the T yesterday but i did finish another piece. that's it for a while i hope ! back to work. gotta get something done on it today!! 12/10/10 8:38 MAN'O'MAN'O'MAN ! ! ! it just warmed up big time ! ! ! Indian Summer warm ! /// Can't claim anything to significant on the T. only that i keep catching myself making near miss mistakes. sometimes i think i'm getting progressively more dexlectic. yesterday i inadvertently drew a left foot where the right should be on a sketch of something. / Put together another urban bonsai yesterday - got some finishing touches to do to it but it's almost dinning room table worthy (well, my dinning room table anyway). not sure what kind of plant goes in it yet. / I did cut and do some prep work on some metal for the T and maybe TODAY!! i will CLAIM some major achievement on the project - the snail pace is driving me crazy ! ! ! as soon as i get the cover i'm going to pull the top off the piano and sand it down - that's the only real way to get it to look uniform and sweet. there's no way i could live with that band-aided bleached-out spot on the road. everyday, in my face, spewing display of a lazy phase. 12/09/10 10:43 Just thought of something: remember those flimsy gazeboos ? i could use pieces of the one that was destroyed in the wind for a lite-weight shade tarp for the T. the sections would easily fit in the under-compartment and would be lite and flimsy enough to not cause any collateral damage if the winds kicked up. that's my biggest worry with the first piano trailer - the doors and windows are heavy enough to do some real damage if a Dusty Devil dipped in for a dance. not to mention the whole litiguous adventure climbing up into the trailer. so this little flimsy whimsy tarp holder may be perfect. 12/09/10 9:41 i've got a confession to make: though i did cut one piece of metal for the T yesterday i spent more time on sculpture projects - i've had this resurgent blast of interest and creative flow and put together 4 new metal Urban Bonsais. i think part of the blast is just procrastination in disguise ; but that's alright, i'll take it. i really am going to apply myself at getting something significant done on the T today (my bobfingers crossed). 12/08/10 8:29 Templates in the mail and the cover should be here in a week./ Fixed the metal cut-off saw yesterday - had to make a slip key for it - this is after spending at least an hour or two trying to find one locally. so i have no excuses stopping me from getting back to work on the T. i'm at the point of welding the vertical corner supports for the under piano compartment. 12/07/10 9:40 It's warming up ! made the template out of newspapers of the top of the piano so i should get that in the mail today and try and beat the xmas rush - i don't really want to do anymore work to the finish of the piano until there's a water proof cover to insure it's longevity. gotta get out there and do some welding today before the touch slips away. welding is not engrained like playing the piano and it slips away quickly from my fragile retentive stairway./ Mark and Brian said something about a grand piano this morning that i missed - now i have to go relisten to the show on line tomorrow - the comment was made around 8:43 (i was in the bthrm). 12/04/10 8:00 Rain in the forecast - it warmed up a little but not enough to get anything done on the piano. i need to cut out 2 templates of the top of the piano - one out of paper to send to the piano cover manufacturer and one out of cardboard for me to see how the structure of the trailer lines up with critical support points on the piano. need to do this today beofe any wind or rain. 12/02/10 8:21 BRRRRR = way to cold to get much done. still need to get the end of the greenhouse closed off. right now i'm just using a carpet pad to keep the cold wind and frost out. / Just saw a chevron commercial with a car dragging an anchor and another one pulling a grand piano to emphasize poor engine performance. talk about subliminal negative imagery - i wonder how many will think of that commercial on some unconcious level while i'm out there hitching a ride with a grand piano ??? at least it was being towed the opposite way with the keyboard at the very back and no bench dragging behind. i do plan to help with gas by the way. 11/30/10 11:22 WHAT HAPPEND TO BOB ? ? ? TG happened !!! - and a freight train of baggage kaboosed through the middle of my kabob. i'm alright by standards to nadir to describe.\ The arctic winds have been consitantly having their way with productivity - i've just been trying to keep them at bay sealing up holes ozing plant killing frost. so most likely that's what i'll be doing more of today. T sits waiting for the vertical supports to be welded in place - the total heighth of the compartment needs to be 25 inches so that the piano pedal assembly can fit and reach normally. with all this cold i thought i should include a seperate compartment for a propane tank so if i need to, i could use this small catalytic heater. it would need to be air tight from the living compartment and accesible from outside. maybe an outside gas stove too, in a drawer that pulls out so you could use it inside the compartment as well (?) anyways back to cold proofing. oh ya! HAPPY 68th BIRTHDAY JIMI!!!! 11/18/10 9:46 Bounced the unit down the road and at first glance it looks like the welds held. they may be ugly but they're strong! need to make a place for the hitch to come off to and stoe away - somewhere underneath. made a step up yesterday that uses the hitch reciever - it caught a little funk but it's strong and useable and should make it easy for grandma to climb up. 11/18/10 7:50 Deck frame is welded! i may go pull it around a little to see if any welds are week - dirt roads are good for something! \ TG next week and i'm going through my normal holiday depression - you'd think one would get accustomed to being alone and an outcast to family and migrating friends. "all my lonliness i have felt today, it's a little more than enough to make a man want to through himself away, and i continue to lite the midnight lamp alone."JH 11/17/10 9:40 Going on 2 days of perfect weather! the deck frame is just about done. next comes the 26" verticals and cross-members, then plywood (floor and roof) then the piano. there's a hundred things omitted in this over simplified discription of what's to come like hours of grinding, bleeding, cussing, and procrastinating. 11/15/10 7:36 Weathers great today so far. the winds had been coming from the north west but they've disappeared for the moment. \ The angle iron frame for the deck is almost done - had to redo one section which involves bending some metal about 1/4 of an inch. have one more piece to bend and then replace the section i had to remove, then flip and weld from the bottom. then i'll start with the 26 inch vertical rails of which there are 10 and then their cross sections. then the wood floor, walls and roof (whcih will support the piano). baby steps 11/11/10 11:33 Wind wind wind. got up this morning way to early and ran into town to shoot some hoop. then went and vented some ptsd angst to another ptsd person i know in town. it's hard having a volcano of unresolved goobly goop smashed down deep inside. just trying to figure out this coming TG has already generated rejection, pain and angst to an almost intolerable point. so what - who cares. 11/10/10 11:15 Still windy and even colder by the minnute! I was sad to learn that the Palms Open mic is gone except for the occasional special invitational. there's still Pappy and Harriots but i'm betting there's at least one heckler in that crowd. so i just gotta keep focused and get out'a here! \ Mark on the Mark and Brian show this morning mentioned how his drumming face was the same as his sex face and how embarrassing it was. i can totally relate - my piano face is outta control when i'm in the zone. masks and scarfs are mandatory !! i can't even begin to play comfortably without one. i tried to play the other nite a little at a party and after about 5 minutes i got self conscious and quit. give me a mask and i'll play all nite. 11/09/10 8:04 As it turns out the motor is backordered and i'm number 11 on the list to recieve the limited number in existance. they say i should see it some time in Jan 2011. \ Way to much wind yesterday to weld on the trailer so i made some art instead. put together a metaphorical self portrait entitled Focus Equals Bouquet. i gave it to a friend for her BD last nite. a BD party isn't the best place to premiere a new work but that's ok i got to explain it a bit to a couple of party goers. \ Today if the wind doesn't kick up i'll get the trailer welded and work on lowering the the front right corner a half an inch. \ Forgot to mention that the piano cover swatch the company sent me accepted the weatherproofing material without peeling off - i'm going to leave it in the sun for a bit and see how it reacts; but i need to make a paper and cardboard template of the top of the piano so they can make the cover and i need the cardboard template to continue building the compartment. 11/08/10 7:29 DAMN DAMN DAMN !!! Friday after lunch i turned the welder on and after 10 seconds the line feed motor stopped! !!!!! so now it looks like i'm back to stick welding. i'm going to try and get one of these little motors but i'm guessing it's not going to be easy or cheap. and i didn't notice until after it was all tacked that one of corners is almost a half inch high. so i'm going to go ahead and flip the trailer over and weld everything from underneath accept this corner, then i'm going to flip it again and try and bend the corner down. \ The sky's full of clouds this morning and i was up an hour earlier as a result of the Fall time slip - scattered cloudy sunrises are the best ! 11/05/10 8:47 After 3 trips to yucca i finally got the right wire for the MIG. almost all the deck angle iron is welded from the top. should be able to flip the unit and weld from underneath then grind everything flat on top so the plywood lays flat. \ May just bail completely on the Jimi Hendrixmas and focus on getting the new unit done and do some trials in LA before going out on the road with nothing but a thumb to fall back on. still considering possibly doing something at the Yucca Farmer's Market. last weeks 3 hecklers were all local Joshua Tree people and friends of somebody i cut ties with a year ago. SMALL TOWNS SUCK!!!!! 11/02/10 19:46 I was able to salvage a couple quick takes of the prepared piano before the tape deck started wowing and fluttering so i did have a CD; took it to Artaculture last nite too. the cd was mostly early acoustisizer experiments. \ Had been thinking about doing another Jimi Hendrixmas this month at the Farmer's Market but i think i'm moving it some place out of the area. too much local baggage is taking the fun out of performing locally. oh well. \ Making daily baby steps on the trailer and welding. thinking about using angle iron on all the vertical corners and using wood for the bulk of the compartment. wood would be warmer and less conductive of vibration, heat and cold. 10/29/10 14:07 Cassette recorder ended up having a problem so doesn't look like i'm going to have a cd for tomorrow unless the winds stop enough today to throw a mic on the piano outside. burteck has been in the hood all morning making noise with their big garbatroons. thought i'd do some welding so i put up the big tarp on the gazeebo frame and now the winds are making me second guess that decision. may have to take it down any second. \ I will be out at the Farmer's Market tomorrow unless it's raining. see ya there. 10/27/10 9:21 Found an old walk-man that still records so i guess i don't have to drag the piano inside enough to record it. sure there may be alittle tape hiss. nothin' a little prepared-piano can't cover. not trying to set any bars here. just something quick. \ Did some migging on the trailer project yesterday. it welds almost to fast. oh ya, i've modified the original idea and i'm sticking to angle-iron for the compartment/piano-support frame-work. tubing would have a larger exposed surface to conduct cold. 10/26/10 8:29 i found another 2 dollars and 90 cents in the bottom of the donation bucket so that brings the total up to $30.90 \ i've been toying with the idea of trying to get a CD of prepared piano together for saturdy. nothing fancy just some novelty thing. could even put some of my early works like Burn't Worms and Tek Nik and some odd experimental recordings. also thinking about just dragging the saturday piano in the front door enough to put a mic on it and do a 20 minute bit of chromatic Gamlan. i'll just have to see \ i cut 2 fingers yesterday pretty good. between the winds and learning to weld with a mig, carlessness prevailed and interestingly enough 2 mishaps on fingers next to each other knuckle side luckily. - It looks like this mig could make my life a lot simpler. it hardly puts out any sparks. once you get the hang of it it's kinda like point and shoot. you just need to keep the wire feed out infront of the puddle and point it into the center of the crack and the auto-feeding action kinda atomatically stirs and makes this really pretty puddle. so ya, now i have this dying desire to get out there and weld the F#@% out of that thing (thumbpiano). 10/24/10 8:17 Everything went ok yesterday at the Farmer's Market. i made a whopping 28 bucks to put towards B's application fees. the only problem was the keyboard was all ascue by the time i bounced the piano down my dirt road to town. i even took the long way utilizing the new pavement towards Sunfair. the other thing i over-looked was the sun on my arms but just as i was starting to get burned some clouds materialized and my arms were saved. a big thanks to Dlo for looking around for some sunblock when i thought i couldn't take it anymore. Most of the public response was just as i anticipated: lots of chuckles, many were inticed and curious about the prepared-piano sounds, other's ignored me as if i was some pathetic last ditch effort ploy begging for a piece of their material superiority. i guess that's to be expected, after all i had replaced the musician who had been playing the market and Sam's Liquor in a desperate effort to survive - he gave up and went back to NYC from what i hear. maybe i should take his spot at Sam's Liquor(?) saddly i think in some way my performing on the streets conotes in some minds a validation of my seemingly lost mentally ill existance. and that's ok! the reality is, in this Death Culture we're all intwined and addicted to things that have warped our sensibilities. if karma, logic and physics has any bearing on our existance the pendulum will eventually swing the other direction and balance out the self-centered negativity in the world. i'm betting on this! i can't wait to get out there with the Thumb-Piano and hitch-hike across the country and discover ways of participating and facilitating this remarkable transformation. 10/22/10 18:51 Props are all done. everythings loaded in the truck and the piano hitched. so i guess it's safe to say it's a GO!!! for tomorrow at the Jt Farmer's Market. i'll be there early and remember donate to resonate - all proceeds go towards my daughter's $540 college application fees. The last couple days of rain was actually good; it gave me a break and a mad pace breaker. it's nice to sit back and look at a project for a couple extra days. i can't imagine the piece minus a couple of things i just thought of today. 10/17/10 15:29 after doing the math i figure this performance idea is only good for about 4 performances before it goes stale. so i'm shooting for this wednesday's Village Market in Yucca Valley and that'll give me 4 opportunities before the end of costume season. i still don't have a good idea yet to maintain anonimity through the winter months. maybe a santa's elf personna of some sort (?) 10/12/10 12:13 GOOD NEWS - i got the go-ahead for the farmer's market. I'm going to do something different though. i'm keeping it a secret for the time being. so if all goes well i may be out there this coming Saturday with some what of a specticle performance thingy. here's a hint: it's kind of a "public count down". 10/08/10 16:57 No word from the Farmer's Mrket coordinator concerning a public piano. i'm going to talk to her in person tomorrow. Maybe next weekend (?) Weather's perfect - i've been distacted - no new piano trailer construction news but i have the idea worked out: the living compartment/piano support will be a series of 5 rectanglular metal tubing sections. it'll actually look like a ribed metal box once welded together- making this a self contained unit will allow me to flip-it anyway needed to weld; and then welding it to the trailer chasis will be a breeze. i still gotta get the roof rack together before i can get the metal. 10/06/10 8:13 It got COLD all of a sudden!!! 51 degrees this morning at 06:30. Reconstructed the gazebo frames destroyed by the winds a few days ago. decided to consolidate the two over the piano-trailer, shading it completely. and i'm leaving the tarps off until i actually plan to work. \ Heard around the water hole that violin guy is no longer around and playing at the village farmers market. so i called Lori in charge and offered up a piano. haven't heard back yet (?????). Been fighting an economic depression of my own lately. this time of year is ridiculous with property taxes, dmv registration, insurance, blah blah blah. the thing that depressed me the most was my sounding like my folks when my daughter asked if i could help fund her college application process @ 60 bucks a pop times 9. before i knew it stinky yuky scarcity crap was ploping out of my mouth and splashing me in my own stupidity! 10/01/10 12:07 Monsoonal storm hit yesterday morning. it took out all the gazzeboohooss in the piano trailer welding area. the one's in the court yard are ok and the one back at the grandpiano survived as well. so i got my work cut out for me today redoing shit. at least it's cloudy but muggy uggy. 09/27/10 9:56 Ya i know, what happened to Bob? some kinda ebb-and-tide. stuck or lost in some kinda whirlpool - hoping for a hi-tide to sweep me back to sea or some facimile of normality. logistic based excuses reconsideration self abuses - the quagmire of my desire. 09/20/10 10:23 Perfect weather today. minimal back pain - gotta get back to it, pardon the pun. wednesday's the first day of autumn - that was a quick summer! ! ! still leaning towards a steel substructure on the piano trailer living compartment which will also support THE PIANO! 09/15/10 6:47 It's Going on 19 days now with this back ache. i can almost do stuff again but not quite. 09/11/10 8:28 Still cool weather - barley in the 90s yesterday. Piano project stalled while i consider another approach to substucture : metal tubbing instead of wood studs would be lighter and stronger. 09/01/10 11:33 Amazing cool weather the last 3 days - starting to heat up again. Through my back out saturday picking a fig, so i've been laid up on a hot pad the last 4 days. A local Public Piano fan is working on a wikipedia addition so keep your fingers crossed. 08/27/10 22:53 Monsoonal winds are whipping ! ! i think the the new gazebo tarps are going to hold though. dry lightening has been intense the last 2nites - last nite especially. Had a great day out in wonder valley visiting friends who just returned from 3 weeks in alaska - lots of cool pics and stories. Looking forward to the village market tomorrow. getting last food and first food for my annual september fast. last years fasting affects lasted nine months ! ! ! ! this year i'm shooting for 12. 08/26/10 9:53 I just realized i completely MISSED the Sibley Noise Fest out at the Palms last weekend - WOW am i sorry ! see, that's what happens when you grow dependent on the internet for local news and then your internet provider pulls the rug out from under you. kwickconnect.net still won't answer their phone when i call - i'd sure like to see all the emails they cutme off me off from! ! ! or do i. . . 08/26/10 8:07 Nothing new to report except that earthlink takes forever to open pages!!! i've replaced all the gazebo tarps with heavy duty ones so there's still shade out there over the piano project. almost rainned yesterday and today it's muggy. i'm still fighting the 100+ degree lethargy. 08/24/10 8:37 Earthlink is so damn slow!!!!!!!! and i haven't figured out how to down load email from gamil to outlook express; it needs pop numbers and crap! why does this stuff have to be so F@#$%^ing complicated ! ! ! ! ! ! It's still to hot for much of anything . i'd forgotten how lethargic i get in the heat. 08/18/10 8:55 I MAY HAVE DIAL UP AT HOME AT LAST ! THANKYOU EARTHLINK ! 08/15/10 11:52 sitting at starbucks trying to feel like i could write something here of some relevence but nothing comes to mind. oh well 08/14/10 17:55 Still no internet at home and it's hell in this heat tryin to get to town and log on. tryin earthlink next. Piano stuff is moving slow too. just tying to keep things watered is a chore. another heat wave on the horizon for monday. the gazeeboos are slowly shredding away to the relentless sun. they must have been dry rotted to disolve away they way they have. still haven't even worked under the one over the pianotraler project. maybe tomorrow, early. 08/07/10 0:13 Nothing new to report with pianos. it's to hot for anything. been trying to get stuff done in the morning but mostly gardening. gazeboos are slowly detoriorating. i'll replace theme with tarps. . . that's if the frames hold up after the tarp part that holds everything together shredds apart. there are just to many dust devel and thermal driven gusts of wind for something so flimsy. even the tarps are weak. funny thing is i haven't even had a chance to work under the one shading the grand piano trailer and it's almost ready to shred apart. 08/03/10 19:01 Here i am in town - it's over a hundred degrees - sitting in my car , trying to find some zeal for writing. there's the cell. it's sean. say's he's joined corporate america - tells me to sell everything - come live here in the northeast kindom (vermont) with the Bread and Puppet Theatre. "just roll in any place with your piano, b@#$% to the left b"@"" to the right, what else could you want". 08/01/10 11:31 The artcle is on-line the link is above. 07/31/10 13:57 well i forgot to upload while in town but instead of letting it hamper further blogs i'm jst going to go on as if i had uploaded. it's not that i have any thing important tosay it's just my need to excercise a sense of lost freedom. it's really impacted my blogging and personal log not having the internet but i'm not going to let it mess with me anymore! THE LAPTOP IS RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF ME!! SO I'M BLOGGING EVEN IF IT TAKES DAYS TO GET POISTED!!!!! I was reminded today of the cost of my freedom back when i worked at ucla. i was paid to sit by a phone in an office for hours doing other little audio tidbits for the music library and the ethnomusicology dept - but for hours i couldn't go anywhere! then one day i got the idea to get a cell phone and forward my office line to it. this was back in the days when cell phones could double as a boat anchor. i was able to find one made by mitsubishi that fit in my pocket enough to be discreet and i was LIBERATED! no longer was i stuck in my office. i could go to the hundreds of activities going on around campus. but now technology (after getting me addicted) is failing me. so modify and persavere. even if you don't know how to spell it. 07/31/10 9:55 Got a call yesterday that the article may be on line now if it is it'll be up on top in blue. Haven't gotten anything done on the piano project - average temps have been around a 105. the gazeboos seem to be holding up so there's plenty of shade - so there's really now excuse for my lack of focus. instead i've been doing odd jobs around the farm like unbarring art projects started years ago and finding forgotten treasures. almost done. got the pianocover material swatch so i can start experimenting with outside weatherprofing. still no internet at home - i'll be in to town soon to upload this. 07/25/10 22:24 NOPE! ! ! Netzero only worked the first time and then they wanted me to call for $2.00 a minute tech support - i guess i'll try earthlink next (?) it's really a drag not having internet at home !!!!!!! 07/20/10 20:44 I may finally have internet at home again. NETZERO . i hope so. it's really affected my routine not having it a home. FINally have the gazebo tents wind proof after losing 3 to that storm we had 3 days ago. really need the SHADE out there to hide in during 105 degree days. 06/24/10 8:11 Welded the back rail last nite and had to pound it level after it was tacked down - the heat kinda tweeked it a little. all the rest of the primeter metal attaches to this piece so it was critical to get it level and flat. also need to work on a new leg to the water system today ! oh ya here's my wika bio:LA native and UCLA Systematic Musicology Graduate Student Bob Fenger best known for his 1981 Cal State Graduate Project the "ACOUSTISIZER" which recieved wide acclaim with articles in the LA Times, Keyboard Magazine, and Experimental Musical Instrument Magazine, concieved his Public Piano Project in 2004. It was built over 2 years from parts of donated pianos and was installed in front of Linda's Health Foods in Joshua Tree CA on April 8th 2006 where it was maintained for 19 months enduring rain hail and snow. Fenger later took the Public Piano on Tour around the Morongo Basin on a 6 wheeled dolly, pushing it over 50 miles. His latest Public Piano phase includes a National Tour with a GRAND PIANO that includes a living compartment under the piano. Plans include using Facebook and TWEETER to involve motorists with hitches to hual and spread the magic of the Public Piano in a process of creating a more melodic and harmonious world. o6/23/10 8:46 WOW i got an email from my past this morning - my dear friend Kimberely from College saw the other Public Piano Guy and sent him the articles from this site. maybe somethng positive will come of this(?) maybe store front owners will be more receptive to the public piano in the future; actually during the tour i found the majority of store front owners were receptive. there was that one pizza guy at the DMV Mall that called the police. 06/22/10 7:47 Actually i counted all the locations in NYC and it's 50 pianos for 2 weeks. they could stay in tune for the majority of that time - then i guess they're donated around the hoods and they go inside somewhere. ANYWAZ ! i got my public piano tour mojo back and started back on the trailer yesterday. i had to level it so that i could use "levels" to sort out where the frame work for the floor will go. had to drill the holes for the back rail before welding it on. most of the floor-board rails i'm using are that angle-iron that has holes everywhere so bolting the floor down should be a breeze. 06/18/10 7:55 How does he keep 133 pianos tunned in 5 countrys and the 247 going in to NYC right now ? i guess i need to stress QUALITY Public Piano over quantity and my hands on initimate relationship with every piano i put out there. i'm still kinda feeling like the rugs been pulled out from under my life. 06/17/10 9:00 Saturday morning before the new piano installation i recieved an email with a link to another Public Piano Project. WOW ! WHAT AN UPSTAGE!: LUKE JERRAM:Play Me I'm Yours It's taken me almost a week to process what this all means. the whole gamit of emotions have washed over me. still, almost a week later, i'm not sure what i'm doing. part of me feels ecstatic and validated while another opposing vulcrum counter element is sad and afraid. i've sent Mr. Jerram an email i guess we'll see what we see. i suggested we collaborate on LA (???) 06/11/10 8:17 It's gotten windy and cold. i hope it's not to windy tomorrow ! 06/10/10 12:05 Ran 7 miles this morning in an hour and a half! starting to feel alot more energized. and i'm going to wait to do the fnal tunning until after the piano is at the Hospice. Electra is going to do the honor of writing the quotes on the piano there's about ten from the "Favorite Thoughts" list that would be good. 06/09/10 8:05 NO i didn't finish the piano yesterday ! i went on a 5 mile run that kicked me'arse - even got sunburned through my shirt ! so after this mornings chores first thing will be the piano. 06/08/10 8:22 Tunning nearly complete - just have the extreme registers to do. discussed the option of allowing gratuity solicitation from the new public piano given the economic tide and the fact that a violinist is soliciting at the market. overwhelmingly the people at this gathering thought if would corupt the altruistic intention. i agree and believe pianists out there will be tickled pink just to get to play period. THAT'S IT! i think i'll put the word tickled on the back of my pink hedgeman hood. 06/07/10 7:56 IT got to 103 yesterday! Tried to skype from JT but ended up going to the starbucks in Yucca and it worked great from there. Got the piano halfway tunned should have it done today or tomorrow - it's really easy to rotate the piano so that the shade blocks the sun, i hadn't planned on it working so well. 06/06/10 8:54 3RD DAY OF SUMMER HEAT ! Was able to fix the action on the Blue Boboon but still haven't started tunning it yet. it's sitting outside next to an ant FWY so i'm going to have to move it before i can tune or deal with ants crawling up my leg constantly. i'm not use to this heat yet - i get up, take a dump, brush my teeth and feel like going back to bed. i think the only thing that keeps me up is all the watering i have to do or else! gotta go H2O . 06/05/10 7:27 HOT HOT HOT! the summer is officially here ! had a really hard time getting motivated yesterday. discovered the Blue Boboon has some action issues so i'm not sure if it's going to make it to the market today - i'm working on it as soon as i finish here. kitty just screamed at the ferrell cat that's been coming in and eating her food - it's a young black thing, can't tell if it's male or female but it looks pretty young. With all this heat i gotta start watering more - even cool down spray in the middle of the day - that sure came on quick ! 06/03/10 10:11 Discovered the ants have oraganized a full assalt on the almond tree so i got to take care of that first thing today. 06/03/10 7:43 Chair's done. just need to do a little cosmetic stuff to the piano and touch up the elastomeric tarp and tune it. i may take it the long way around and take advantage of the pavement to sunfair - the extra 10 minutes of driving will probably save me an hour of tunning. 06/02/10 6:54 Finished the shade for the Blue Boboon using the elastomeric tarp and a rack system utilizing existing tubing points on the trailer. now i need to tune and do some cosmetics and it should be ready to go Friday. i think i'm going to leave the graffiti factor intact as it may give teens an alternative to liting it on fire as they did with the plastic gems on the Pink Piano. i can just paint over inappropriate slogans etc. i may even wirte a few of my favorite Grandfather and Dan Millman thoughts on it. oh ya i need to make one of the folding chairs a little higher so a little more welding left to do. 06/01/10 7:37 It's warm and perfect. JT park tunrned on the water park yesterday in celebration of memeorial day. Haven't worked on the shade factor yet for the Blue Boboon maybe today. 05/31/10 11:24 The winds a couple days ago slammed the back shop door on an extension cord and caused it to fray and short out throughing-out a breaker and shutting down the freezer with a bunch of frozen mulberrys. i hope they're ok refrozen (?) feeling really overwhelmed today with all the gerry-rigging around here. 05/30/10 6:24 It didn't get windy yesterday hardly at all instead i fell victim to my own internal forces - so i didn't get anything done except to deliver some cherrys and talk with the person who runs the village market who's attitude reminded me why i had decided to go guerrilla in this next public piano phase and have nothing to do with people in charge of things up here. "power" even just a little bit seems to make people insensitive. there i go again: 'Bobby thin skin' ! 05/29/10 6:44 So it looks like the HOSPICE is going to allow me to base out of their back lot with the Blue Boboon Piano thanks Robin. I also realized that it needs some shade so i've got an idea that requires a little more welding on the dolly. Went out and super glued down a couple of key ivorys on the Public Piano located at the Palms yesterday, also cleaned up the smudgy keyboard. AND YES it got windy again yesterday ! ! ! 05/28/10 7:45 WINDY WINDY WINDY ! i tell you this is one windy MAY! it can be nice like it is this morning but by 3 o'clock it's blowing like crazy! so i haven't started welding the framework that'll hold the plywood floor in place yet but i've decided to use angle iron (metal shaped like an L - most bed frames are made of it). i've got a variety of gages and sizes - i plan to cut and drill (on the drillpress) the bolt holes that'll hold the plywood before welding it in place. maybe today i can get started on that. 05/27/10 11:29 The TEST RIDE seemed to go GREAT ! i'd still like to ride behind it in another vehicle and see how it tracks from that angle. i'm going try and line something up. 05/27/10 7:42 TODAYS THE DAY! in just a few minutes i'll be testing the trailer to see how it tracks and holds up to dirt road bumps. took a chance getting it done yesterday with the intense winds but all's well only had one little fire. 05/26/10 9:53 Another Beautiful Day ! it got a little breezy yesterday towards the end but i was still able to get some welding done. today i need to find some orfice files to clean the torch tip so i can cut and clean up a piece of metal for one of the hitch recievers - i figure i'll need at least a couple different configurations to optimize on potential ride possibilities. this first reciever will be your standard 1 and 7/8 inch - i can't wait to get this one done and get out and try the trailer out on some of my dirt roads and see how it holds up. 05/25/10 7:36 Perfect Day yesterday and same with today so far. i was able to cut off the welds holding the hitch reciever and reposition it - i'll be welding it first thing this morning then i think i'm going to get it towable just so i can see how it tracks before moving onto the next phase which involves the perimeter metal frame work that will attach the 3/4 inch plywood floor; the under piano living compartment that will support the piano will be framed in wood and attached to this plywood. I need to tune the Blue Boboon piano but i'd really like to find a place in town where it can base out of and tune it there - i have a few friends in town but they all have bumpy hilly driveways. 05/24/10 8:24 IT RAINED yesterday for a few seconds mostly when i went into town. welded the washers in place - need to remove welds from the tow-reciever today, then reassemble and bash it into position and weld. 05/23/10 8:29 IT'S WINDY COLD WITH BIG RAIN CLOUDS! and of course i just moved the Blue Boboon Piano into position on Charley. almost took it to the village market yesterday but some heart hemoraging news took the wind out of my sails. so next weekend for sure! I've decided to go ahead and weld the attachment points that i've mocked and clamped up even though the tele-hitch is off. then i'll unbolt it and take it apart and remove the welds on the reciever, put it back together and pound it into position weld it from the top then take it apart again and weld it underneath. this is the only way i can be sure that the telescoping hitch will be in the middle - if it's not perfectly in the middle the tires will track weird and probably wear out faster . 05/21/10 10:56 After getting everything bolted in place closer scrutiny revealed the telescoping tow arm to be off by a fraction so it looks like i'm going to have to tear it all down again and start over. why do i have to do everything wrong before i get it right ? ? 05/21/10 7:41 Got the needed nut yesterday and everythings ready this morning to be welded in place - turned the frame on it's side and hit the reciever again before bolting it up - i'll hit it with a bead across the top as well. i welded it with the tubing that well telescope IN IT so if for any reason i weld to deep i could still pound it out and have a clear path for it to still SLIDE IN AND OUT - maybe that doesn't make sense but if you think about welding tubing and want something to be able to slide into it the worse thing that can happen is weld to deep from the outside into the tubing and creating a spot where the piece sliding in to it will stop and get stuck and there's no way to get to it to grind it out because it's inside the tubing. does that explain it? 05/20/10 11:20 It seems like everyday there's some wind but i went ahead and did some welding yesterday on the piano trailer project anyways. i need a nut for one of the bolts that holds the axle leaf springs to the trailer frame before i can weld it in place; also need some curved exhaust pipe sections for the apache. lots to do today ! cherrys are turning red but they really don't get sweet until they're really really almost purplish red. 05/17/10 8:09 Got the grand trailer back without incident yesterday from the festival. Picked some ringfinger sized mulberries and had to use the rest of the "tanglefoot" pest barrier on the cherry tree to stop the ants. I also skyped with my daughter for the first time - had a bit of a problem at first but then i figured it out - when things don't work it's really not very clear why they don't - why don't the promps tell you useful info instead of things like "an adapter is disconnected" i was really starting to pull out my hair ! if it had said something like "try another available network or the network you were on is down now" that would've helped me emensly ! ! my daughter lost patience with me at one point and hung up her cell babaling 'let's just do this next week' and i'm the one who drove all the way to town to talk/video call her. technology sucks when it doesn't work. it really makes you feel low and out of control and something beyond stupid maybe just "upid"! 05/16/10 7:38 The piano wasn't to badly out of tune yesterday when i returned to the festival in the morning but i remember now why i don't use it anymore for public functions - it really needs an action overhall and there's all kinds of incidental rattle buzzes and rings. i was able to get rid of one such ringing with a piece of piano ribbon woven into the strings but it was more of a band-aid than a fix. this old piano really needs to be retired to a stable environment. any suggestions out there ? CHERRY'S started getting ripe yesterday, i'll probably have a nice handful today and the mulberries are still going strong - it's really been a race this year with the birds to get any berries i think they've told all their friends and relatives; i also discovered a couple pistachios on the tree yesterday so maybe i won't have to get a male afterall- the pollen from john's grove will suffice. 05/15/10 7:30 Everything went smoothly with the piano installation yesterday out at the Joshua Tree Music Festival. Right after i finished tunning it the sound man Alex sat down and played a Liszt Piano Concerto - it sounded great ! He was very friendly, thankful and humble but his girlfriend was a bit unfriendly. Oh well ! i just wish i could grow thicker skin - it hurts my feelings when people are mean or unpleasant. oh well - play on ! 05/13/10 8:05 The sign tuned out beautiful! ! Robyn did a great job using a bunch of colors. i have to do a few finishing touches and tune the piano today but hopefully everything will be ready to go tomorrow. It's overcast today but at least there's no wind ! ! 05/12/10 6:41 I got one large piece of plywood preped for a sign yesterday in the wind - i think it's just going to read: INVENT A FREE SERVICE AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE SERENDIPITOUS POOL OF SELFLESSNESS AND DISCOVER ABUNDANCE ABOUNDS AND SCARCITY THE ANOMALY 05/11/10 6:50 It got windy again yesterday and it's windy right now ! After the work on the pond yesterday my back was acting up so i had to take it easy the rest of the day. hopefully today i'll be able to prep the sign. tomorrow i have to start tunning the piano - Cal Trans recently paved Broadway from Sunfair all the way up to La Ferney so i should be able to get it to the festival without it going to far out of tune again. 05/10/10 11:33 Got all the pussy willows out of the pond - had to get in there and get squishy with the pond scum between my toes and all cutting piece by piece through 6 inch thick roots until it was all outa there. man ! that feels great ! ! i'd been putting that off forever ! ! ! Next on the blue monday distraction list is preping some plywood for the public piano signs: DONATE RESONATE FACILITATE PEACE - SERVICE IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF PURPOSE - INVENT YOUR OWN SERVICE AND CONTRIBUTE TO A SERENDIPITOUS POOL OF SELFLESSNESS AND DISCOVER ABUNDANCE ABOUNDS AND SCARCITY THE ANOMALY ! ! ! 05/10/10 8:03 WINDY YESTERDAY but so far so good today. Need to work on the signage for the piano trailer going to the music fest and get all those pussy willows out of the pond while there's still a fish or two left! so i got a lot to keep me occupied this blue monday morning ! ! 05/08/10 8:14 All the purple plaques are on all the Public Pianos. and they were all pretty much in tune. the piano at the Palms had some ivory peeling up problems and of course i just gave the super glue i carried around to fix that problem to Ryan so i'll have to make another trip out there. 05/07/10 7:30 ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL DAY - I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR ! although i lost 5 old gold fish friends yesterday because the pond is infested with pussy willows that drink up all the water i have to go pull them all out - very messy job! Finished working on the Pink Piano yesterday for Ryan at the Art Queen - i'm finding out there's a real UPTIGHT factor living there making unhappiness for others - it's sad that some people have to be so grumpy and mean. I've decided to follow in Murray's footsteps and write letters to Anu - i'm not going to let her feel the abandonment that i felt as a child; not from me at least. it's kindofa challenge to write a letter to a 4 year old without getting nostalgic or sad - just got to focus on all the beautiful, funny and goofy things. 05/06/10 6:49 BEAUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL DAY ! ! ! i only wish i wasn't so depressed - i'm still grieving a relationship loss - the saddest part, the part that keeps reopening the wound is the memory of her 4 year old daughter - probably because it reminds me of my mothers many affairs when i was a child and the uncomprehendable abandonment i felt when i would never see her boyfriends again after she broke up with them. all but one, a guy named Murray - he would call maybe once a year and talk to me. and of course it doesn't help that it's mothers day this sunday and i've got to send her a card and bite my tongue about it. so i'll let the card do the talking: a cartoon stork reading a procalmation wishing her a happy mothers day but sorry; NO REFUNDS OR RETURNS ! ! ! that pretty much sums it up. 05/05/10 7:31 IT'S ANOTHER INCREDIBLE DAY ! Went to the DMV yesterday to try and sort out the $479 penalty fees on the cutlass for sale. i explained everything including how their penalty acrument took advantage of people with Attention Deficit Disorder and the elderly by never sending a reminder that the vehicle wasn't non oped and instead was SECRETLY acruing exorbitant fees and penalties. they didn't care of course but they did lower the tab to $191 which just made it a $186 dollar mistake since Planned Non Operation only costs $5. i'm writing a letter to the DMV Director and the Govenator - this is an all around bad policy as it ends up forcing old cars to decompose and pollute the desert because they can't be sold without penalty ! ! 05/04/10 8:35 YESTERDAY ended up being a nice day with just a little breeze - it's perfect outside right now. just finished picking mulberries - never seen so many ! 05/03/10 8:43 SPOKE TO SOON YESTERDAY - A strong WIND came out of the NORTH and hit the new almond trees but didn't blow off any almonds. hardly ever see that wind direction ! Today it's been really nice and wind free so far but then yesterday's wind didn't kick up until around 9am. 05/02/10 7:44 PERFECT WEATHER SO FAR THIS MORNING ! Big art day yesterday. i got to the Yucca art talks to late and missed everyone. i'm still a little sore from moving all those plaster molds. Found out the music festival is in 2 weeks so - not sure if that's enough time to do the double piano trailer idea - if nothing else i'll put the little grand piano trailer there again. 04/30/10 7:32 WIND IS STILL CRAZY COLD TODAY but not so cold as to hurt the tomatoes ! picked up the rest of the slip-molds along with a few other cool art supplies yesterday. gonna start working on the multipiano trailer today after unloading the art supplies. 04/29/10 8:17 WIND IS CRAZY COLD TODAY!!!I was at the right place at the right time yesterday and was the recipient of nearly 100 plaster slip molds. everything from cherubs to unicorns, clowns and chess pieces; some are huge and pretty heavy. still have about half to still pick up. kinda hurting from all the toting yesterday - they have to be carried by hand because they're so fragile. so i'm super excited ! ! ! i've never poured a slip mold before - i know, fun fun fun ! ! ! GOT A CALL from the JT Lake festival people yesterday and told them about the two piano trailer concept and so that's coming up in may - one of the pianos is prepared so it can act like a drum accompaniment for the other piano. so that should be fun too too too ! ! ! 04/28/10 7:25 Tuned the Pink Piano yesterday that's now at the Art Queen- she still needs a little tweeking on the high and low ends but i think she'll be playable again. The winds were back yesterday and most of the night - they were so bad at the Art Queen yesterday that i couldn't tune the highs and lows. 04/27/10 9:13 Delivered the Pink Piano yesterday after modifying the dolly. i measured the wrong piano when putting the fenders on and it was a half inch to small to fit big pink. had to cut a little ridge of metal off and used a jack to expand the space between the fenders. other than that it worked fine except that it gets a little heavy setting it on the trailer hitch, not sure if i could put it on and off the hitch myself - spinets are no problem - now i'm curious if i can handle the mid-range piano that's out there still. have to check that out next. First morning of mulberries, sparrow birds were on it. they're out there right now eating the partial ripe ones. took the first basket to Anu - hung them in a bag over the front door nob - her new daddy was there - they were making breakfast. more broken bits. 04/26/10 6:44 I was woken up by a power outage this morning that for some reason turned the TV on when it came back on - pretty annoying ! and then kitty had found her way in and was sitting over on her automan taking a loud licking bath. so i got up. It was great hanging out with Robyn yesterday and eating at the Thai restuarant without incident. woulda coulda moved the pink piano yesterday but sunburst was a sunbust. maybe today. it looks like it's going to be a great day. and it looks like B's staying home for another day of strikes at her school. o4/25/10 8:52 Another beautiful day. The recipients of the pink piano tried yesterday but it didn't happen; they got hung up somewhere along the way. maybe today (?) my good friend robyn is suppose to drop by today - i hope he does - i could really use the company - i got pieces of another broken heart to sort through - so many broken bits -a reoccuring montra: "recycle everything even your broken heart". 04/24/10 8:32 It's a picture perfect day today in the Hidez ! it's warming up with loads of potential. there's a chance that the Pink Piano may find a new home today as well. alright i'm outa here and out there CARPE DIEM ! ! ! 04/23/10 23:19 I've archived the first 4 years of the blog to help speed up-loads. you can find the link at the bottom of this page. 04/23/10 6:30 BRRRRR! ! ! it was cold last nite and this morning. yesterday's rain even brought some snow way back up in the park. it's pretty clear though maybe a cloud or two and NO WIND ! My daughter is enduring her second day of teacher strikes - she stayed home yesterday and probably will today too, even though they have her classes covered with substitutes. o4/22/10 17:55 IT"S been RAINING a little bit today - the winds have died down and there's lots of clouds in the sky, and it's kinda cold too ! i spent the day going back and forth to town trying to get some new software to work and finally got it. on my way out the door now for a jog to the mountain and back. oh ya, it looks like the Pink Piano may be finding a new home at the Art Queen Music Gallery. o4/21/10 14:11 GOOD NEWS: the Public Piano at the Hospice is safe - there are some time restraints since the conference room is used for lots of things - best to call and talk to Marietta at 760 366 1308. thanks Robin. 04/21/10 9:58 THE WINDS have been at it again since yesterday afternoon - needless to say i wasn't able to do any welding but i was able to save a vulnerable trampoline sitting in harms way with some clever stakes i found at wally world. it's still blowing away out there, i can use this time to compile the materials needed to finish the frame for the gpt some of which i need to reclaim from other uses. 04/20/10 9:56 Picked up another sprayer and sprayed down the apple and orange tree with this natural remedy that uses sesame seed oil and some smelly fish extract. hopefully that will take care of the infestation otherwise i may have to try something more intense - so far i've been able to keep things organic around here but the reality is i'm in the middle of an ocean of hungry infestators. THINGS are ready for me to go out and weld the gpt today also got an email about the Hospice Piano - they saw the new plaque and have some reasonable concerns about how and if it can work as a Public Piano. hopefully we will work out the details or maybe move it to a better spot. i need to get out to the other 2 Public Pianos and put the plaques on them as well. 04/19/10 7:01 It's cloudy today and they're talking rain. got a litte work done on the gpt tow arm and reciever yesterday - may get to weld the reciever in place today. Got a major bug infestation attacking the apple tree so i may have to resort to some lethal means to save it. 04/17/10 7:55 It was nice having visitors here yesterday - one of them took lots of pictures. i got a little distressed when one of the visitors mentioned that somebody at the last MAC (Municipal Advisory Council) meeting was talking about a CHAIN-LINK art tour. if you've ever been to my place you'd know that chain-link has been one of my expressive mediums for over 20 years and i haven't seen or heard of anybody else doing it until now. i use it like a canvas and weave and wire a variety of everyday items most of which i've cleaned up out of the desert around me into a post-consumer reclamation tapestry. oh well, it seems like every good idea i have somebody eventually steals ! maybe hords will copy or steal the intention behind the public piano project and a wave of selflessness will flow out across the world. wouldn't that be nice ! people inventing ways to help and serve each other ! but for now copy the easy stuff - imitation is the highest form of flattery - i have to keep reminding myself what jimi said: "take anything you want from me, anything" even though it hurts a little - and i think it's the ego that hurts - it's to bad i haven't found away to kill it completely and save myself all this pain ! ! ! 04/15/10 8:02 Yesterday turned domestic - ended up doing laundry, making bread and vacumming. maybe today i'll get to some piano work. Tomorrow a friend is bringing her out-of-town visitors by for a tour of my place and Noah's. This is one of those busy weeks ! ! 04/14/10 7:59 Another amazing day today! got the window box in yesterday and was drawn into just starring out at the new view for hours; not only can i see all the trees in the court yard but i can see a mountain and clouds and sunshine pouring in where once there was only darkness. Today i'll finish some edging and molding around it and pry myself away to work on the GPT. at the end of the day yesterday i took a hike to the north mountain and was just amazed by all the wild flowers on the mountain lots of orange mallow. 04/13/10 8:16 It's amazing outside today! little yellow breasted birds have transformed the tree yard into an amusement park of feathery insanity darting in and out and up and around in a game of tag and dash and the songs are emenating from all directions. yesterdays rain was minimul but the winds which kicked in at 3 in the morning nite before last were atroshous - woke me up and kept me on edge until i finally put some ear plus in. even then i barely slept. Today is going to be a productive day ! i'm going to reverse the window box i put in backwards and weld some things previously mentioned on the piano unit. ok got to get out there before the winds change their minds! ! 04/11/10 8:05 Overcast and breezy again today. the sun did eventually come out for a bit yesterday and it got mildly windy. I was able to get the 220 voltage line pulled up thru the header and back out a hole i drilled just above it with a circular door hardware saw; also cut the remaining 2 studs and half the dry wall - as it is the 38 inch square piece is just hanging there waiting for the final demolition. i'd like to get it out in one piece and use the dry wall again but that's probably not going to happen. i will be able to use the studs for the top and bottom headers for the window though. if it stops blowing today i'll finish it off. PROPERY TAXS are due tomorrow - i never did find an exemption but i have until 5pm. i'm going to call and maybe even go down to the assessors office . 04/10/10 7:40 IT's gotten cold again; no sun at all out there today and no birds singing today like yesterday either. Didn't get the parts drilled yet i'm going to work on that and pulling the 220 cable up into the attic and then out the wall today. Yesterday i ended up looking at the Public Piano Project plaque mock-up and a '99 VW on my way to Burrtec to drop off recycling. The plaques are purple aluminum - they may over accentuate the "NOT FOR SALE" fact but i don't want to ever take a chance of one being sold again ! they screw on but i'm also going to J&B WELD them on to the front of the pianos where they can't be missed. 04/09/10 7:41 Finally got some work done on the grand piano trailer yesterday. i'm going to drill the telescoping hitch pieces today and weld the reciever in place and start adding the additional support network. i'll also weld the the washers that hold the leaf springs to the trailer after i bolt them in to insure they don't move while welding.THE garden window box project ran into a snag when i discovered a really big 220 cable in the wall - so i'm still trying to figure out what to do with it - probably run it out the top of the header (?) it's an amzaing day outside right now there's an orchestra of bird songs going on and one bird who keeps trying to steal old dental floss off the recepticle sculpture in the bathroom. 04/08/10 6:28 Woke up at 5:07 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. went to the DMV yesterday to check on the Cutlass and there was a line around the block; so much for the easy wednesday theory. i'm going back early on a monday morning - wednesdays are the only day they open later at 9am. IT ended up getting breezy yesterday so i couldn't do any piano stuff - worked on the window garden box instead - may have it in today or tomorrow. got a message from my daughter that she passed her driving test so now she's out there in the world surrounded by a protective bubble of white lite in my mind; ironically the day before a friend called me about a new style vw he's trying to sell (the car my daughter wants) accept that it needs some work and it's a diesel which i just don't think is a good idea for a new driver - to many things to be thinking about - one oops with gas and it's all over !IT seems to be another perfect day outside no wind YET - maybe today i'll get some metal work done on the piano project? ? 04/07/10 7:48 It's completely still outside right now. Maybe i'll get something done on the piano project today. 04/05/10 17:13 The winds today have blown off all the plums and half of the almonds on the mature tree but didn't affect the almonds on the new trees planted on the east side of the cabin. cherry blossoms and apricots seem to be hanging in there. winds are still raging; hope it stops soon ! 04/05/10 9:06 i heard from a friend that vehicles get deleted from the DMV data base after 7 years so i may have to wait 2 yeas to sell this old Cutlass i'll find out wednesday when i get to the DMV. Had a frustrating exchange with FEDX this morning trying to get a fragile package held or delivered in town rather than destroyed on my 5 miles of dirt road. the back of those trucks are unpadded and huge so things can really pick up speed sliding around. FedX was totally unhelpful - they needed a change made from the senders and wouldn't even listen to me the sendee - how stupid is that !?!? and one person said it had to be an email and the supervisor said it had to be a phone call ! how do we kill bureaucracy studpidity ? ? rules need to be malable according to logic, situations, and conditions ! come on ! my name is on the package ! i have multiple IDs ! what's the problem here !?!?!?!? WINDS ARE BLOWING BIG TIME TODAY !! we'll see if any cherry flowers survive. yep it's definately a MONDAY ! 04/02/10 12:00 talk about goverment scams i found out this morning that the car i'm trying to sell wasn't non-oped and now i owe DMV $479 in penalties. they never even sent me a notice about renewal and the acrewing of these penalty fees. what a scam; and the sacromento number is totally automated with no human help! i'm going to have to go down there and wait around for hous to find out i owe hundreds of dollars! 04/02/10 9:15 I should switch around the percentages at the top of the blog ! i have hardly any piano stuff going on these days it seems - so many other pressing things going on like trying to find out if there's a property tax exemption for the disabled in San Bernardino - Good Morning America had a person talking about it and how the government doesn't make it easy to find this stuff out. i use to get an exemption from the state of CA but not since they went broke now i have to come up with nearly a thousand dollars a year out of my sub-poverty income which doesn't seem right. Why in this day and age don't all the subsistant data bases talk to each other and adjust for these kinds of hardship factors !?!? it's very irritating ! ! ! and being stuck on dial-up makes it frustrating as hell to try and find these things out, but at least it's better than the old days and being dependent on getting the right person on the phone or driving a hundred miles and hoping you get the right person behind the counter. i guess i could go wait in line at the library for a decent speed connection. another good reason for a wifi lap-top. so now i have 3 good reasons: 1.skyping with my daughter who i hardly ever see in person anymore. 2.uploading music and Jack Cornfield to the web-site. and 3. researching vital exemptions ! 04/01/10 11:55 It's looking pretty sunny and nice here today; last nite there were terrible winds and yesterday hail was reported in Morongo Valley. it's a little cooler than it's been but it's the perfect time of year here right now - i wish it would stay this way. it won't be long until 3 digit temps hit. i put an ad on craigs list yesterday for the '77 cutlass and today i'm working on getting the 300z ready to trailer some place visible to sell as well. this is the best time of year to sell things: the weather, the wild flowers and tax returns. FIRST FOUR YEARS OF THE PUBLIC PIANO BLOG |