Days in Oblivion / Nights in Terror

it's evening in Vancouver and there is a magical warm light that's fading into a pale blue sky with nice streaks of cold black and pink clouds. many of my best memories of my life were from various summertimes in Gasquet, California. the evenings would get later right around the end of June.Iit would be so nice and warm and dry outside with a musty forest smell blowing up from the river. Inevitably I would stay outside , reading books, kicking around the dirt, riding my BMX bike. At 10:00 it would still be light out and the Twilight zone would be on, probably a broadcast by WGN 9 from Chicago, one of the five stations we got on our primitive 1980s cable. The bug zapper would be killing the mosquitoes. Maybe Mom would have some ice cream and we'd sit there and watch the Twilight zone together. that's what this evening light reminds me of. I know these are abnormal times. it is inescapable, even if you want to pause the news, there's always a new, brutal, stupid, damaging story that comes up. I'm so worried for the future of my people I love in this country and all those others too. I think unknowingly, like a lot of American gen xers, I was kind of patriotic. Up until age 13, i liked saying the pledge of allegiance. My dad was a veteran and I thought the army was cool. I liked the American flag. 1976 was the bicentennial and I had a Susan b Anthony half dollar. The USA had high self-esteem. I have memories of the 1976 election when Carter won over Ford I think? and then again in 1980 when Reagan beat Carter and I was disappointed. I liked President Carter. I like peanuts. But now, that patriotism, even if nascent, has been beat out of me. I no longer feel anything but numb, and disappointed in the choices of my co-citizens. I know that everyone was just thinking their own thoughts and trying to find their own way with their votes, but they made a big mistake this time. I just wonder how it will go.

Gardening at the Oligarchy

Well ... not EXACTLY gardening, but fence-building. It made me mental when our fence blew down during a windstorm a few weeks ago. The lack of privacy was startling - no more naked trips to the hot tub. Also, everyone could see exactly into the music room, where the noise was coming from. Creepy! I like to create without feeling spied-upon. The weather had been extra shitty for 2 weeks or more , so I (always with the excuse) finally got around to buying some materials for the posts, 2x4's a few other bits and bobs, cement etcetera. FInally last week it was really nice over a few days, so I got out there with Louis and sometimes his friend Dacien too. We got the posts as straight as we could but alas, one is a bit warped and throws the whole asthetic off. I am not a "straight-fence" fence-builder - much like my cooking and music making, I am impulsive and manic, doing some parts according to plan but then going off the rails a bit when materials are short or things start to lean or sag. Aside from the bent post, it is hanging in there pretty well. It feels steady and already has endured anther windstorm. Don't fuck with my fence!

"The Stages of Fence" I've really been enjoying this Nasalrod video - best vid I've seen in a while: Cheers and love to those of us alive in 2025 -Ed

I'm Still Here - Purgatory

I've lacked any kind of inspiration for throwing thoughts away, out into the void. One think - one think-thing I realize - I always liked the idea of blogging to no one. Doing it for my own reason, to write as if in a journal, ephemera of thoughts, less than particles, a few stray ions out there for maybe my future, uploaded-to-the-singularity self to read back on later. Social media seems too low-effort - I don't really like posting my thoughts there for fear of getting into an online interaction. Internet cowardice. What do I like? Purgatory. Reading - very slowly reading - the John Lurie book I got for Christmas last year, "the HIstory of Bones." He is quite a human, a genius at existence, a chaos storm in the form of a man. Right now, I'm still early in the autobiography - his teenage and early-adulthood years. He's searching for meaning, searching for a better saxaphone tone, searching for God in himself, doing yoga, having random hippy experiences, sexually transmitted diseases, riding a bicycle inthe frigid cold winter of Ne wEngland 1971, almost dying and calling a friend to pick him up, suddenly moving to Wales to be near his mother and then staying in a cold little cement beach house while hallucinating. The entire thing reads like a fever dream poem and I love it. I woke up at midnight and read a chapter since i was too caffeinated to sleep and it was pouring rain outside. And I let the cat in - he was very grateful. Also - I hate booking shows for my band, I hate doing pricing for my work accounts and I hate that the house is a disaster mess. I love this tea I'm drinking and also Patti Smith. Later I will try to make some kind of music I can actually stand - pushing through the spiritual muck, into a new vestibule.

April Showers and Coastal Powers

Spring break came late this year - April 1-5th. Tina and I were able to take a few days off of work and head to the coast with the boys for qa bit of frolicking in the fog. Yachats is a place we love, just a perfect little quiet tourist town, not totally overrun in the early spring months. We rented a place overlooking the ocean waves, which were pummeling and stormy most of the time, and cooked food, watched tv, strummed guitars while the kids mostly played games or languished like droopy, life-like figures in a Salvador Dali painting. We were able to visitng with Dave and Samantha, second time in less than a year. We brought over some ice cream bars after dinner one night and then they came over a few days later to check out of place, Dave and I also jammed on some acoustic guitars at his place, was a nice visit. Tina made the most of our outdoors location, exploring all areas of the beach and rocks and trails around town. We hiked south of town on a section of the OCT Oregon Coast Trail (did you know there was an Oregon coast trail that runs from Astoria to Brookings?) to a place called Amanda's statue where there was a statue of a blind Coos woman named Amanda, who in the 1860s was taken away from her husband in Coos Bay and marched back to Yachats overland to an internment camp that was north of town, where she later died. Depressing and awful is our history of cruelty and imposition. The trail was beautiful and at times overlooked the blue ocean south of town. We've tried most of the eateries in Yachats by now but by far our collective favorite is Luna Sea fish & chips, where the catch is so fresh it slaps you in the face. Henry lost his "Don't Trip" hat and we looked all over town for it, coming back to Luna Sea twice before it was found in the bar. Yay! I also wrote in my journal and sent off a letter to a friend. I love a relaxing 1/2 week off - 1/2 week vacation.

Ouch my ears are ringing wait this orange is really good

February has been good so far. I got to go on a work trip to perform a few citrus tasting events up on the Olympic Penninsula. My friend Elissa and I drove up in the work car with a box full of promo stuff and set up a pop-stand at a couple different natural foods stores, the Food Co op in Port Townsend and COuntry Aire natural foods in Port Angeles. Rubber gloves, cut fruit, food cards and strange short conversations with a few hundred people. A highlight was going out to dinner at Alderwood Bistro in Sequim with our posse of produce account managers - incredible food, good conversation and good bonding with our colleagues in produce. Back in Vancouver, we've been working in the yard, enjoying the spastic changes in the weather and also using the inflatable hot tub most days. Therapy! We've been going to our friends bands shows around town - last week was Pink Tornado, Mountain Meadows Massacre and Desert Shame at No Fun bar:

Work continues on the Latinum project. Tina finished the vocals recently and I am now waiting for the band to review the current mixes so I can finalize the project and send it off to be mastered. I am liking doing audio work for a project other than my own recordings. In my personal life, I tend to be a little rushed and slap-dash in my recording process since I'm usually trying to write a song at the same time as recording. With a band where I sit in the engineer's chair, I am realizing how much work it is to parse the small details of someone else's performance. Overall it's sounding really good when I listen to mixes in the car - sounds nice and thick with a reasonable amount of low-end and good clarity. I can't wait for the project to be done so that people can listen to it. My good friend Sleeve linked me to my new favorite band - RMFC Rock Music Fan Club from Australia:

John Peel Music List / 1973 Thin Lizzy

I found this amazing list of most knwon Peel Sessions artist from the David Peel BBC long-running show - it's overwhelming to even think of where to start but I'm starting with Thin Lizzy:

Octoberdome

October has nearly come and gone. We've had a busy month - transitioning out of the summer garden-era, anticipating the rainy Fall-time. Our garden is still bumpin' with tons of tomatoes , peppers and pumpkins and flowers but it is slowly dying back and then we'll cover the beds with leaves and plant some over-winter crops. We've also added some new chicks to the henhouse. We were down to just Lonely Linda, our ever-laying leghorn. Unbeknownst to her , we aquired a variety of new chicks about a month ago that we had been nurturing in the garage, under the heat lamp. During a nice patch of weather last week, Tina brought them out to the chicken run and set up the lamp for those chilly nights. Of course the new chickies are cute as heck, bouncing and trying out their wings and pecking at everything. Linda was non-plussed at first but is slowly warming up to the new comers. The circle of chicken life! Ugh, I'm getting over covid - basically over it but still experiencing fatigue. On top of that my gout toe has returned - why, oh great Gout Toe, do you punish me? I guess everyone gets handed some cards against humanity; mine aren't that funny to me but I know somewhere, someone else is laughing - so be it. A few pics - Tina performing with Latinum last week at No Fun in Portland; Lovely Linda, the broody, fretful leader of the coop; the new chicks.

Mom 7/2/1939 -7/3/2023

Mom passed in the early hours of July 3d. Nancy Victoria Cole-Schultz was known as Vicky to her friends and mom by us kids. Where to start with a eulogy for one's mother. Mom was a lover of books, playing cards, raising animals, the Olympics on TV, road trips and the natural beauty of the western USA. What I remember most were her stories. On long drives to Bend or California, mom often told stories from her childhood in Grand Junction, Colorado and her teen years in La Jolla, California, all about her family, her aunt Virginia, the camping trips she and dad used to take with my brothers when they were young and many more. She was the kid who didn't want to grow up, hiking the cliffs and beaches of southern California and reading books while her peers were listening to Elvis, whom she despised, and having teenage fun at social events, which she wanted no part of. She loved the original Disney movies, classical music, adventure books and roller skating. One of the coolest facts about mom was that she was in the early wave of roller derby in the 50s and she was a great skater all through her life. When I was 10 we used to go roller skating on off-nights at the Bend roller rink, skating to Devo, Blondie, the Rolling Stones and Pat Benatar and after we would go for a slice of pie at a truck stop near our trailer park. In the 50s, mom was part of the group of youths that held court at my father, Ed Cole's garage, outside of Escondido. Some evenings she would gather with characters like Big Charlie and Bob Lambert and listen to my dad tell war stories about WWII, talk about books, life during the depression and who-knows-what-else, but it sounded like a Steinbeckian scene with my dad cast as Doc from Cannery Row. As the story goes, she brought dad over to her parents house for dinner and they all had a wonderful time. After he had left, mom's parents stated, "Nancy, that was the most interesting man we've ever met." and mom said "THAT is the man I intend to marry." Her parents didn't take it well and sent her off to Florida for a month. Needless to say, that tactic backfired and mom did marry dad upon returning. Yes there was an age difference but I can't help but think that it was a mutual affair, such is the power of the story. Ed Cole and Nancy Denslow married in 1959 and started having kids soon after, my brothers Darrow, Monty and Mike born in quick succession followed by my sister Neva in 1965 and myself in 1970. In the early years of their marriage they lived in La Jolla in a house inherited from Mom's family; later we moved to Ramona which was my first home before we all moved to north to Smith River in 1975, where my dad died soon after. I remember her crying a lot that year. With 5 kids in tow, we now moved to Gasquet where we re-settled for a few years before uprooting again and going to Bend, where we could be near our friends the Jacksons and also Mt Bachelor, as by this time the whole family was into skiing. We met the McKinnon family around this time, as Mike had returned to Gasquet and was dating Leona McKinnon. Mom became fast friends with Moni and Richard McKinnon and invited the whole clan, 11 in total, to come up and stay over at our place for skiing during Christmas 1979. We became best friend families all through the 80s and we spent a ton of time at their wonderful, chaotic house on Gainard street in Crescent City. As my older siblings graduated and moved out, it was mom and me for a few years, roller skating and seeing movies and having great conversations while she also embarked on dating, often leaving me over at the Jacksons or McKinnons. Eventually she married Gordon "Shorty" Schultz in 1984, another fine roller skater, and we were back in Gasquet and my younger brother Walter was born around this time. What happened after that is more of a blur, since I was on my own path and not thinking too much about mom but she always had her dogs that she loved, most of all a black lab called Blackstar that she put a lot of effort into training. Living in Philomath, Sweet Home, Crescent City and eventually Lebanon, mom spent her final 2 decades with Ron Schrick, the man who took care of her til the end. I don't think mom thought about things like legacy, but what I took away from her was the importance of visiting people, always taking around her elderly friends for errands and staying for hours for tea and conversation. She had so many friends like this - "Bobbie", "Bruce and Dorothy", "Gus and Alice", and several others. I would be bored, playing with my R2D2 figure while they chatted away about events and people long past and sometimes playing cards but it was a nice vibe. Many times she would dispatch me out of the van to go hold the door open for some old lady or person in a wheelchair. Kindness mattered to mom and I think that was her greatest gift to the world - she was kind and she really appreciated people. Rest in peace, mom, it's been a long road and you will be missed.

Drone Zombies / Dormant AI Flowers

I realize I've been spending too much time on the internet for about, oh, 20 years now. Remember chat rooms, early html web pages, Alta Vista? Yeah, me too. Has any of this internetting helped me grow or mature into a better person in any way? I'm not sure that it has. I have a friend named Matt that I've never met in person. He sends me songs by Magnetic Fields and I've become a fan: Drone Zombies - what a scary concept. Can you imagine if they did this to people? or cats? Have you ever googled "do I have depression?" The results are never good. I'm hoping someone can fix the AI in my head. I've been living through some trials with my family, my mother in hospice, a few siblings on the edge, imminent to fall into the abyss, and my usually February blues, despite taking my megadoses of vitamin D/ The usual things that bring me joy aren't really working right now, so I'm focusing on staying away from bad substances, news feeds and negative creeps. Also my work has been perilous, accounts that used to be stable and easy to manage have been steered into difficult terrain by forces above my control. Ugh. I started a long blog post about the feeling of realizing I'm not as smart as I ever used to think I was - should be obvious to anyone who isn't a narcissist but I'm not exempt from that apparently. I'm hoping this winter will pass and that with the spring the flowers in my mind will bloom again but for now, bury me deep like a bulb and let me be dormant for awhile.

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.