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this was taken in front of the old style tavern last friday night in marengo, IA. unless we’re stopped by distance or circumstance, jenny & i drive to the  herman family reunion every 4th of july weekend. saturday there were 75 of us at the 4-H hall singing “will the circle be unbroken” before eating lunch together. more pics from the weekend are below. i’ll post a video soon.

a couple of weeks ago i heard about a company that makes $60 synthesizers that can fit in your pocket. i watched a few youtube videos, and my fate was sealed. i had to own one. teenage engineering currently has 6 of these gadgets to choose from, and i opted for the PO-20 arcade. here are some of the chord progressions that you can play, modify, or replace with something original. i’m having so much fun with this one, that i ordered the PO-24 office also. it makes weird rhythms using the sound of office equipment from the 1980′s like a dot matrix printer or a  floppy disk drive.

my prescription glasses broke sunday afternoon. fortunately i have another pair, but they are prescription sunglasses. that’s what i wore monday morning at homer’s. i didn’t know what assumptions my customers would make since i never keep my shades on after walking indoors. however angela (left) usually keeps hers on when she orders her coffee and shot of espresso, so i asked if we could take our pic together. a few hours later dave (right) was taking his shades off when i said “put ‘em back on! i gotta get another picture!” ashley (not pictured) also took a pic of both of us wearing shades inside homer’s, but she hasn’t sent it to me yet.

last thursday exactly one week ago jenny & i woke up to the sound of beeping… at 5am. the culprit was our electric kenmore stove, and apparently something in that model can be triggered to flash “F-1″ and beep without mercy. the next day my guitar student and i switched out the electric stove for one that runs on gas. i found it on craigslist for $100. and then saturday i saw a fog machine at an antique mall for $20 and bought it for $15. i now own two machines that spew gas and fog… it’s almost like having another old car! extra special thanks to jim cameron for showing me how to safely attach a ventless heater to the gas line 5 years ago, without that experience i would not have attempted to hook up a gas stove.

two weeks ago i posted on this blog about a book of letters to and from groucho marx that i’m currently reading. last night i was surfing youtube, and saw a 54 minute video of groucho talking to dick cavett. 28 minutes into the interview he started talking about THAT book! groucho also sings “lydia the tattooed lady” on the show.

there’s an old twilight zone episode where an aging actress is so obsessed with her youth and movies from 20+ years ago, that she (spoiler alert!) literally escapes onto the celluloid. earlier in the episode one of her friends is trying to talk rationally about her unhealthy attraction to the past, and it reminded me of conversations i’ve had with myself when i spend too much time in front of the TV. this is my spin on it.

it all started when traci made a facebook post asking “what is this ugly bug?” traci was jenny’s RA in college. kafka’s metamorphosis was the first thing i thought of so i commented “gregor samsa?” we bandied a few comments back and forth and i concluded with a video from a film short where franz kafka’s story has a frank capra twist. after the man turns into a bug he sings “ah! sweet mystery of life.”

i’m almost finished reading 10 years of michael palin’s diary. he was one of the guys in monty python. i couldn’t wait to get to the part that detailed his first appearance on saturday night live: he sang and danced with seafood salad down his pants, plus two cats for good measure. next up: groucho letters!

i did a little recording in the living room today. first i laid down a track after tweaking a random kosmiche pattern from my smartphone. then i played my old casio over that. then i messed around with electronic drums for an intro. when people ask me what instruments i play, i usually don’t say keyboards because it sounds like this. the entire thing runs almost three minutes. i call it walk like a casio.

*this originally appeared on the homer’s coffeehouse blog. i was the main contributor for almost 5 years. no one read it, but i didn’t care. this particular post was a fake story for a featured drink: the citrus sisters. here it is from may 6, 2015:
wilma henderson gave birth to twin girls on a weekday. everything seemed normal until the doctor gave the routine spank to make them inhale. as soon the as air entered their lungs a glow filled the delivery room, and their skin changed color. wilma thought she was the only one seeing the strange spectacle of crying luminescent babies until she realized the nurses were shielding their own eyes. she named her girls neon and dionne, and after a rough childhood the sisters moved to california where they became successful recording artists. hush tang was their first release on a major label which consisted of lullabies for migrant babies in the citrus groves.