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Saw this lonely frog while we were walking through Antioch Acres Tuesday night. That’s the park off 75th and Hardy with all the pine trees by the tennis court. We were eating ice cream drumsticks and heading toward the restrooms when we almost stepped on this little guy. He jumped underneath a trash can. I lifted it up and flushed him out. I would have picked him up but I didn’t want to get peed on so I took this picture instead. Hello frog! Hello summer!

Two weeks ago I played bananas and spinach leaves in front of Evolve in downtown Overland Park. It was the most melodic Beep Goes The Weasel had ever sounded… and of course no audio was recorded. I was too busy finding a good chord progression. The one I landed on was G, E minor repeated a couple of times then C, A minor, and D for the turnaround. Instruments used for the composition were:
-Bare Conductive Board with baby carrot sticks
-Arcade Pocket Operator
-Theremin
A few days later I realized I could re-create the sound in my lounge. The audio isn’t the greatest, but you can hear all of the gadgets. The last high note happened when I ate one of the carrot sticks.

Last Friday I turned 54. Holy cow… I just realized that number is a dyslexic version of the year I turned 45 and posted an Elvis Costello video on this blog 9 years ago! Hmmm… well anyway, a few months ago Penny asked if I could do Beep Goes the Weasel in front of the health food store she manages. When she offered free fruits and vegetables for my keyboard, and a smoothie on the house, I couldn’t say no. She knew the right buttons to push. I haven’t played with someone else’s food since the Culinary Center provided me with a steady supply in 2015. Penny is a manager at Evolve just down the street from Homer’s. There was even an electric outlet right out front!

“I’m taking you to my leader,” might have been a better caption here. This is one of many sidewalk chalk photos that I saw this morning. Some of the others have that same kid holding up the leaning tower of Pisa, steering a gondola boat in Venice, and stopping traffic for the Beatles on Abbey Road. Thanks go out to my friend Victoria for sharing this art from Annabelle & Aiden.

“…with the pain that plagues creation.” I sang this song through a mask at church yesterday. It felt right. Mark Heard (the guy who wrote and sang it) is one of my favorite songwriters. He was under appreciated during his lifetime. He died almost 30 years ago.

Here’s the story behind these pics: when Kitch closed his salon two years ago and moved to Las Vegas, I grabbed the sign and kept it in my garage. The garage has been a temporary home for many things… Clay’s kayak, neighborhood cats, a pregnant possum… we should start charging rent! It was good to see the sign get used again when Kitch opened up a new salon just down the street behind the Antioch library.

Yeah, that’s the kid that sang a song about Oscar Mayer bologna in the 1970′s. It’s a jingle that is forever implanted in my long term memory banks. Recently I heard an advertisement for Oscar Mayer Natural on the Office Ladies podcast. When the hosts read an ad about meat with no artificial flavoring, preservatives, additives, etc. it caught my attention. I thought “Wow! My bologna has a NEW name!” and that’s when the creative juices started flowing. This is the spot that I heard read by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey (co-hosts of the podcast)– and this is the recording that I emailed them yesterday.

They both play drums, they both have R’s in their name, and they have the same birthday. Tanner is 15 today. Ringo is 80. I knew that Tanner got a new drum kit for his birthday, but I didn’t know he was born on July 7th. When he told me I said “holy crap– you have the same birthday as RINGO STARR!!!” Fortunately his parents raised him right and he knew who I was talking about. He just smiled and said, “well I guess it was meant to be.” I joked that our bass player probably shares a birthday with Paul McCartney, and they will kick me out of the band when they find out my birthday doesn’t match up with John or George.

Motel Mancini is probably the most punctual band in Kansas City. Our gig was scheduled to start at 6pm and we converged on the scene to set up our gear at 4:45. Then at 4:46 it started raining. Fortunately it was one of those pop up summer storms that doesn’t last that long and we were able to set up an hour later. Angela (Clay’s significant other) recorded our first set and our second set. It was our first time in the Iron District. We got booked because Chris’ niece runs one of the vending spaces (Kind Food) there, and she put in a good word for us. Here’s a bird’s eye view of where we were:The pic above was taken pre-Covid. We only had around 15-20 people show up. The rain and the pandemic kept a lot of people away, but we still had fun. Small venues like this are the only places to see live entertainment these days.

Here’s another trio that made something of themselves… sort of. The little boy in the middle (don’t know his name) posted this pic on Awkward Family Photos and said “My sisters and I decided to do a 40 year recreation of us in these gawd-awful sailor outfits. It was our Mother’s Day gift this year.” These are the ties that bind I guess.