Monthly Archives: March 2011

i barely had a voice today. several stories were told: i slept outside, went to a rock concert, primal scream therapy, etc. the truth is i got bushwhacked by a cold. i felt like harpo marx every time someone asked me a question that couldn’t be answered with a nod or a no. i just played it like charades & made wild gestures and different facial expressions most of the afternoon.

went to the riot room to hear my nephew’s band, ocean of noise, last night. i knew i would like the sound even before i heard their songs on facebook. reggie (my nephew) has always kept an open mind when he plays guitar. there were only a handful of people at the gig, and the band had the usual technical problems that a new band has (it was their second gig) but they kept going, and they didn’t let a bad patch cable rattle them. i plan on seeing them again.

…like columbus in the west indies, like armstrong on the moon, like a fake martian invasion in the 20th century, the first podcast has landed and is coming to a computer terminal near you. danny williams and i will be talking about music, games, and other weird cultural stuff on dr. sleepwalk and captain fuzzbot’s replay locomotive aka the podcast.
the first episode

i am now the proud owner of monkey bars. they are not the safe kind, they are the kind i used to play on when i was in grade school: unforgiving steel that callouses hands. thanks to overland park lutheran church (the point of origin), and grayson leweke (who helped me move & reconstruct).

after hours of deliberation, weeks of insomnia, and months of fast food, our team of experts has emerged from the think tank, and produced a name for the podcast: Dr. Sleepwalk & Captain Fuzzbot’s Replay Locomotive! we know it’s just another small step in the progress of this thing, but sometimes agreeing on a name is one of the biggest hurdles. the first podcast (deep breath) is scheduled for friday. it would air sooner, but we have procedures to follow, channels to go through… and i am in the middle of transporting monkey bars to my backyard. to hear excerpts from the show/podcast, go here.

the podcast that danny williams and i recorded tuesday is still in the editing stage. we can see it in the distance though, like the “it’s” man who never gets to say anything more than “it’s” when he introduces a monty python episode. the podcast doesn’t have a name yet, but it does have a couple of soundbites. oh yeah, i almost forgot… happy st. patrick’s day.
not afraid.mp3
danny’s nana.mp3

danny williams and i recorded our first podcast today. since february we’ve been recording every sound we could make from guitars, keyboards, floorboards, and shoe horns and uploading mp3′s on the day of mars page… now we’re adding a podcast series. it will follow a simple theme: talk about our blog posts. that’s it. i have to confess that this idea is borrowed from an ’80s podcast based in florida. but those guys don’t have a patent on it, so we’ll take our chances. our podcast doesn’t have a name yet, but a team of scientists is working around the clock and will have results soon. the “yet to be named” podcast will be available for download in a few days, if not sooner. stay tuned.

more details from last night’s electronic monopoly game: josh frierdich was the banker (ironically he’s a bank teller by day), christy bought the most expensive piece of real estate on the board (the new york skyline) but wasn’t able to buy anything else, rayna kept asking me for financial advice, jenny was upset about the free parking situation (no cash in the game, no cash on the board to collect!), and i was in jail with josh haub (rayna’s fiancé). here are some sounds from the game.

tonight jenny & i went to christy & josh’s apartment to play electronic monopoly. it was a game that rayna and her fiancé, josh, brought over to play. the game is just like the old version except you use debit cards, and the properties and utilities are up to date: you can purchase the new york skyline, or a cell phone service provider, or an airline. i’ll post more details from our particular game later… right now i’m gonna eat a snack and watch some old 80s music videos.

my wife and i have lived at our current address for over 13 years now, and i have become very familiar with the sights, the smells, and particularly the SOUNDS of my house. this morning there was a strange rattle i had never heard before coming from the water heater. i immediately thought “something is gonna have to get fixed,” so i recorded the sound with my mp3 player. i figured this would be better than trying to describe the sound to a repair man. a minute later, the same sound came from the furnace. that’s when i remembered a story that a friend told me years ago, about a woodpecker on his house. when i went outside, there WAS a woodpecker, but he flew away before i could throw something at him.