Season of Darkness LIstening

When it starts to get dark in the middle of the day, my mind starts to wander. Focusing on tasks at hand become more difficult with the absense of daylight. Caffeine and alcohol consumption goes up slitghtly and those delicious fatty foods go down the hatch. Yum! Today, I'm drinking water, pretty sure I'm done with coffee. I have a few favorite dark-season albums: Robyn Hitchcock / I often Dream of Trains lp. The best thing RH ever did, and that's saying something. Every song drips with icicles, snowy silence, echoes and ghosts. Bob Dylan / John Wesley Harding lp. I'm not that knowledgeable about Bob Dylan but I like this record: I love to listen to Hellhammer in the dark with a glass of wine that looks like blood, brooding under the harsh winter moonlight. Non-homoginized punk metal that tastes of blood and defiance: Rowland S Howard, only at full-blast, with the lights low. The realest of the real, or did he just channel the sonic saber of irony? Contradictory noise and pop and amazing songs: Ok happy darkness.

Post-nasal drip notes and also Fucking Thanksgiving

I blew it this morning. I blew my top at son #3 Henry for missing the bus to school. Henry is mostly a self-starter, but he takes too long to get moving in the mornings, despite a fair amount of coaching. I had a very busy morning with work - see super bowl of produce below - wall-to-wall calls, starting early, product shortages, grumpy people in stores hustling their fool asses to help serve the ever-grateful customers on the USA. I yelled at my kid and now I feel awful for it. I gave him a ride to school, was back in my chair in 15 minutes, was not a big deal but I blew my top and got angry. Drinking some herbal tea is my calm-down method now. ALSO, I have the post nasal drip. Everyone has had a cold, now it's my turn. Taking care of myself, drinking tea and staying in for a few days. Fucking Thanksgiving.

Super Bowl of Produce.

Every year around this time, people in the produce world talk about the super bowl of produce, the time when food shopping peaks out in the US. Farmers in Washington, Oregon, California and Mexico have all been busting ass, growing tons and tons of EVERYTHING, getting ready ahead of the food-shopping mega-Holiday. we who work in wholesale see the crazy fluctuating pricing for commodities like cauliflower and leaf lettuce. pricing for these items is double what it was two weeks ago. broccoli is $60 but next week it will go down swiftly. cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions don't change as much since those crops store well. Produce is alive, in the process of dying. By handling it with care, storing it at the proper temperature and shipping it back out quickly, doing this we can slow that dying process so it can stay alive and pretty long enough to catch the eye of the consumer and be itself consumed. Success! I personally enjoy the frantic pace and sense of urgency that comes from trying to serve these poor bedraggled,hard working produce departments around Washington Oregon Idaho and montana. Enjoy produce responsibly, people and grow your own if you can. Peas!

My little corner of the world

hey it's another Friday. boy did I work hard this week. Thanksgiving time is the super Bowl of produce, as they say in The biz, and I can attest every year, it's the same - big orders product shortages pork quality not enough celery not enough green beans not enough this we ran out of herbs etc etc. it's okay. I feel like my job is just to communicate the reality of produce inventory to my mini retail customers. I think of it is helping people get the produce they need and it makes me feel good. I suppose I am the rare person who doesn't say they hate their job. I love my job. it's not a bad place to be in and I've worked many years to get here but I love wholesaling produce to retail customers. it's a lot of interesting hard working people to talk to. some of them are bland that some of them are quite interesting and creative all types musicians, artists, frustrated cartoon voice over artists. all of them working their ass off to stock that goddamn produce for those m************ yuppies so they can have a f****** organic Thanksgiving. hallelujah praise the Lord they raise our glass and cheer. I make sure to think positive thoughts about Seattle Seahawks even though I have no idea what the hell is going on in sports. tonight I am editing the three camera video from trouble Cuts practice last night. sometimes I do these things just to exercise and get better at doing it. every time I realize my mistakes. this time I used a couple different cameras one of them kind of sucked. I feel bad that Kylie and his base don't have very good lighting or resolution. okay good night bye. - Ed.

Installing updates 11/15 /22

today, for the first time, I'm doing my blog via voice control on my phone. I've never had luck logging in to blogger from my phone before, probably because I have too many Google accounts and linking them is brain work that I'm usually not prepared to do. this last week has been good. I was very happy to go see OS Mutantes on Sunday night. it always charges my spiritual batteries to see an incredible band live. I always knew the name of the band but now I know that Sergio Diaz is the main member, unchanged since 1966. at first became aware of Os mutantes after reading a book called Tropical Truth by the Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso some years ago when I still lived in Eugene. Tropical truth was Caetano's personal story but it also told the history of mpb, music popular of brazil, and the tropicalista movement that occurred after a dictatorship was installed in Brazil in the mid late 60s. if you're interested, there is probably a YouTube video with a good history of all the musicians and bands involved. my favorites of course were Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes. regarding the concert I saw the other night, Sergio Diaz is an incredible guitar player, his electric psychedelic shredding is right up there with artists like Carlos Santana or any of that psychedelic s*** from the '60s. he was old and fat and sat in a chair but his smile and manner we're very engaging. he spoke with the audience many times. although not all the songs or other style I prefer, the ones I recognized were incredible and the band was supple and beautiful with talented players in all positions. that's all I'm going to say in this long-winded blog today. until next time, ed. Below: Sergio Diaz and singer Esmeria Bulgari and Os Mutantes perform at the Alladdin Theater, POrtland, Oregon 13 Nov 2022

What does November even mean? 11/9/2022

Hey I went to Seattle last week for work. It was nice to hit the road in a rental hybrid Mitsubishi car-thing and go to visit various produce departments of Tacoma, Bonney Lake, Issaquah, Sammamish and Seattle. Yay, produce! Almost everyone I talked to was exhausted and complained of being short on labor. Ouch! I also saw loads and loads of people, customers, people in cars, people in homeless camps, people in hospitals. I did get a chance to see my brother Mike and it sounds like he is doing better and will likely recover from his head injury. It wsa hard to see my brother trying to connect sentences and forgetting words, but after a few hours he was talking and wording a lot better. Seattle itself is beautiful to me, with all it's crazy little neighborhoods and nooks and crannies, a mystery or tragedy around every bend. I didn't make much time for quality food like I normally do but I found a couple different tacos that I was glad to munch on. This week, I've been back to work with a vengeance and not had much time for art, music or chickens or gardens. I made time today since it was a quiter workday where i could take my 15 minute breaks and spend some time in the yard in the cold sun. Beautiful life - how long can this go? A pretty cool monument to flying saucers:

A classic and valid complaint:

Me and Mike in the hospital - he's feeling a lot better. Also a breakfast I ate.

Happy Halloween 2022

Hey Cretins, I have to make this fast, 'cuz I'm just getting off work and I need to make some spooky food for our little Halloween party. I saw this video today, I'd never heard this before - good stuff: "Macabre" (Cerebrus) Birth is pain (Succubus) Life is pain (Cerebrus) Death is pain (Succubus) Mortals of leveled grace The world's end fierce We who live are ever dead (Cerebrus) Spine of cat (Succubus) Spine of heaven split to form hell Mortals of leveled grace Feel thine end dark We who live are ever dead (Cerebrus, cerebrus) (Cerebrus) The path is withered (Cerebrus) Rotted and deceased The feet are cloven The child is burned Birth is pain Life is pain (Cerebrus) Death is pain (Succubus) Birth is pain Mortals of leveled grace Your days number now We who live Are ever dead (Cerebrus) Spine of cat (Succubus) Spine of heaven split to form hell Mortals of leveled grace The world's end fierce We who live are ever dead (Cerebrus)

Sunday Oct 30 - Halloween Eve

Dear people, As with all things with me, the accelerator pedal of life has been pressed to 75% max. My work weeks fly by and the weekends go bye-bye very quickly. This weekend we came down to Eugene for a quick 18 hour visit. Friday we met with several friends at Poppie's Anatolian for a nice dinner. Dolmas and flaming cheese were in the mix as well as kota pasiti chicken and lamb and hummus and olives - opa! Poppies is always a special place for our family and it felt good to be in a familiar place with great food and friendship all around. Our little group made it's way down to the Oregon Contemporary Theater production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It was a beautiful show and Adam Goldthwaite once again slayed the role, as did the band. Bravo! I had fun walking through the downtown strip with the boys (on Halloween weekend, no less) and it was fun to people-watch and see the various folks in costume. Wow, what a lively scene! Eugene has a lot of problems but I for one am happy that people come out and walk in the streets at night. My boys were less than impressed and could care less about appreciating the freaky throbbing throng of colorful folks of Eugene. OH WELL. We had a great time staying up late at our dear friend's Brian and Jennifer's house, kids running aROUND until midnight, laughing and screaming and causing chaos while I had a single cocktail and shared some great conversation with friends. The next morning, we managed to scrape ourselves out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7am so we could go pick up my nephew Nathan from the U O dorms and go for breakfast at Morning Golory cafe. Nathan is a super-bright guy in his first weeks of college. We try and visit him when we're in Eugene. IT's so nice to see someone at a crucial moment in their life, just starting out in the world, meeting new friends and all that college life entails. I remember it as if it were only 35 years ago... We then visited with Cosmo and Bennet and had some coffee and rolled around on the floor with baby B, everyone fighting for time to hold the baby. We capped off our Eugene funtime with a little lunch at the Friendly st food carts. The boys and I had some fine ramen with and egg on top. Sad but highly caffeinated, we hit the road and came back north to Vancouver, tired but ultimately fulfilled and ready for another hard-hitting work week and possibly some Halloween debauchery. Until next time,
Ed P.S. Here is a rad Snakepit video from back in the day:

10/25 - Long Days

Today was another ass-kicker Tuesday for me. Usually my hardest day at work, I start out the day by saying a mantra to myself, " Today, I will get all my work done by 4pm!" Nope. Not happening today - I'll have to get up early and crank out some custom pricing for customers and get it sent out before the sun rises. Last night Tina and I had a jam. IT was nice. We just played Tina songs, her on guitar and mic, me on the drums. It felt good to let ROCK happen again in our house. Gotta shake the walls once in a while so that the neighbors know there is a rumbling dragon next door. More long days of life, slowly wasting away. Here is Nomeansno from 1990. Andy Kerr is wearing a Snakepit t shirt, they were a Eugene band circa late 1980s:

10/24/2022 7 day countdown to pumpkin

I've had a lot of plates spinning on my mental pencil lately. My bro's friend called me with good updates about my brother's continued healing from his recent brain-bash. My youngest has been assembling his Halloween costume and it's really cute - can't wait to share a picture when it comes time. I don't have a costume planned but I better think up something - quick! Saturday night we had friends Sleeve and Laurie over and we went out to dinner at a place called Amaro's Table in Vancouver - an apertif bistro-type place. I had some fried chicken and coleslaw and we all shared a bottle of wine and a few flights of amaros - digestivs, I think they are herb-infused brandy? I've been cutting back on alcohol consumption but we tried some delicious and sometimes bitter amaros, ate the food and then our friends went to Star theater to catch the Legendary Pink Dots, a band I'm not familiar with.

on the creative front, I've been trying to finish vocal and guitars on a batch of Trouble Cuts recordings we laid down back in April - why does it take me so long? Probably because life is busy and complicated. We're almost there - hopefully we'll have a new release before the end of the year. Here's a band I saw open for Stereolabd a few weeks ago - Fievel Is Glaque, a band with international members mostly centered in New York City and Brussels, Belgium:

Upset Tummy Sunday 10/23/2022

The weekend came and went. I chose to drive up to Everett to go see my brother in the hospital. He is doing "well" in the sense that he's alive, no longer on life-support and receiving decent care. It was hard to see him with a big scar and staples in the back of his head from the indcident he had. He was conscious but not exactly himself - was able to form some words but I wasn't sure he recognized me. He had the look of a shell-shocked WWI soldier - pupils big, far away look in his eyes, kind of a shocked look. It was hard to see my strong brother looking that way. In all likelihood he will recover after some care and therapy but he may be in the hosiptal for weeks or months. I have a feeling he'll bounce back but only time will tell. Hug your peoples now and every day, you never know when life might get turned upside down. I was able to stay over at Brian's house, my old bassist from Garden Weasel days. It was great to drink some Coors cans and talk about things past and present. One of my favorite friends from old times, Brian and I shared so many adventures back in Humboldt county, many hours or years of playing music together and many crazy nights, cruising around the derelict neighborhoods of Eureka in his old Toyota Celica, with one speaker, blasting Nomeansno and Slayer while going on a beer run. Eureka was the dodgiest place I've ever lived but he was one true friend who made my time there enjoyable. Here's a vid of his previous band WD40, featuring dual singers Erio and Justin and guitarist Jim Shank. Erio and Jim were both skater friends of mine. We met at the cement ditch near HSU campus back in 88 or 89 and I was stoked when I saw WD40. I was there during the recording of their demo in a sound studio on campus in 1990 and then later that year I joined the band when Jim bailed. Erio left shortly after Jim and then the name Garden Weasel was chosen sometime early in 1991 after we'd already played a couple parties as WD40. I remember seeing this video back in the day - I always wish we had left a video camera running during one of our practices like this. Housing with this kind of decor was our normal environment back in Arcata at the time - cheap rent where you could hang your shit on the wall and have band practice and party with your friends. Those were the days. Brian of course is the Hesher with the long hair.

SHRED THE ART ON THE FRIDGE 10/20/2022

I've been re-evaluating my beliefs about personal creativity and self-promotion in the digital age. I know I'm not the only creative person who gets sick of promoting my own stuff. It's nauseating. It seems phony to pour your heart and soul into a project and then be faced with telling the public about it. The public is the enemy of free thought and creativity! I recently live-streamed my band at an alley performance and the audio was terrible. I thought to myself, "Why do I do this?" Is it for attention? OR because I think the whole world needs the opportunity to click on my dumb livestream and watch my band while they're making dinner or sitting on the couch, drinking a beer? I dunno. I've just become used to publishing every musical thing I do, whether it warrents the exposure or not. The live stream was too long, we took a big break and just left it running for fun while I changed a string and ate some food and then we came back and finished our set. I deleted it off of facebook the first chance I had later that weekend but I did save the vid and cut it up with better audio later. It still wasn't that great. I keep coming up with the same idea - unless what you're doing is REALLY GOOD, posting your own art or music on the internet is kind of like HANGING YOUR OWN ART ON THE FRIDGE. It's probably better just make art and then shred it and just remember what it looked like / sounded like. From a tape my friend Bär sent me back in 1996, it's BäRNACLE POOP with Monica (Moncia?) on co-vocals. I often sing this chorus in my head, "let's hang it up on the wall!" Enjoy and Dog bless. -Ed

October 19 2022

Good day, Last night I slept well. It's been foggy and smoggy since those damn fires are near and also a high-pressure weather system has been stagnant over our area. Our shickens have been sedate, not really flapping and playing much and definitely not laying eggs. I noticed a small bird, maybe a Western Taniger? - resting on our birdbath yesterday, not really drinking, just sitting there, looking pooped-out. Even as I walked near the bird didn't fly away. I assume the little birdy was tuckered out from breathing all that smog although it could have been mourning it's friend that I found dead in the yard a day prior. Harsh times on planet Earth. Today, I meditate on all the people who have helped me get this far in life. Even if each of us feel alone in our accomplishments and failures, we have all benefitted from others working on our behalf, sometimes out of sight. Hopefully we all turn around and send our helping efforts to others, who also might never recognize they've ever even had our help. Being recognized for what you do is less important than recognizing that cooperation, community and self-sacrifice for the greater good is in our very human nature. Smoggy yard photo:

October 18th 2002 - another made-up day

I was stressed yesterday since learning my brother was in the hospital. After a few conversations with his nurse, I feel better but Mike is not out of the woods yet. Fractured skull, bleeding on the brain, possible brain damage. I have a feeling he will pull through and live to tell that tale. I'll not go into any of his epic injury stories of the past - let's just say what Mike has survived so far in his life would have killed 20 regular men. No exageration. Holy shit, is it foggy and smokey in VanWa today. The Nakia creek fire is about 10 miles away, probably the closest fire we've had in years, although it was smokier in 2020 with the various fires. The chickens will be sneezing today and the schoolchildren will be breathing some very dangerous air. Here's a picture of Chris, Tom, Bar and myself in Sacramento 1989, preparing to go see Metallica and Faith No More:

October 17 2022

I'm distraut today as my brother Mike is in the hospital in Washington. Mike was in an altercation with person(s) TDB on the farm he lives on and he was struck and then fell and broke his skull on a rock. Now he's in ICU, intubated and sedated. According to his ex-girlfriend the polica either interviewed him or went in to see him, so there may be a criminal case - which I care less about than my brother surviving. Mike is an incredible guy, I hope he survives aso that we can all still gather in his presence hear his amazing stories again. Stupid bullshit violence, probably perpetuated by a human with a limited and small worldview. I'll not know for some time. No sympathy please - just hoping my brother pulls through.

Sunday October 16 2022

Back to work this morning after a very-short, one-day weekend. The house and grounds are looking nice. We're preparing of course for the winter but it's been sunny and in the 80s in Vancouver, way hotter than average. Sunny and beautiful, birds chirping - but where is the rain? A random woman we met at a taco stand yesterday insisted it was "cyclical" that we have a warm, dry October but also said, " I don't recall it being 80 in the middle of October before." I'mma thinking the forest is thirsty for a drink and I hope it gets one soon. I had a nice morning before work with Henry. We watched part of Sunday Morning on tv while I had coffee and took in the feel-good news that was trying to address the divided feelings in our country. I feel like news is always trying to paint the sunniest picture of our world while also dropping stats like, " most incarcerated persons in any country in history..." grappling with reality versus image, a problem I have as well. I usually hesitate to post any of my individual thoughts or opinions online since that makes one vulnerable to attack or - even worse - having to defend my opinion. My opinion is mainly - I don't know if we - humanity - are going to be able to solve our own problems, that we won't be able to pivot from greed and exploitation in time to avert a climate disaster that will delete us and much of the animal kingdom in the process and leave a smoldering planet, in the throes of a climactic feedback loop, growing hotter all the time until we become more like Venus than like an ocean world full of incredible, diverse life. Is that an opinion? Or am I just partaking in hertical knowledge that really isn't doing any good to anyone - better to be blissfully ignorant and continue going about our business. See? It's better if I don't opine. Forgive me though because I feel like I've got to write my way through my thoughts and maybe come to a better conclusion. I do like meditating on impermenance, the fact that we and our planet will be dust someday - whether that happens this centruy or a billion years from now. I start every day at my job with a gratitude list, something I've been doing for years. I used to think I was programming myself, out of my old, negative mold, hopefully to become a more positive person with a good effect on those around me. Today, I will say I am grateful for my rustic, country relatives and ancestors, all the work and foibles they went through to bring my generation into existence. And also grammar - I be grateful for that too. Sometimes, it's quiet enough in my neighborhood that you can hear all the different kinds of birds chiming in, with only the occasional jet provided a little man-made noise pollution.

Grant Hart in my dreams

Grant Hart was in my dreams last night. It was an amorphous, futuristic-nihilistic Crescent City. Grant was working as a dishwasher across the street from Dennys. Sean Hennessy was in it too as were various bandmates. Grant and I were talking for a long time while he worked on a bike and collected dirty dishrags. At one point he had me run the rags over to the Denny's dish pit where there was a tub full of dirty dish rags. We talked about music and songwriting, what was important, the transient nature of life. I woke up after this part of the dream and had Grant's music running through my sub-conscious for the rest of the night. I wrote a song about falling in love with an image. Grant left me with the feeling of having had a deep, all-night conversation with a friend, even though I never met the guy. He is one of the voices that lives in my head.