Primitive UFO's

 

go listen to King Khan and his Shrines

Even the long-running LE SHOW (Harry Shearer, Proprietor) has a re-run this week, so
I'm off to enjoy what little sunshine I can get.

Cheers

 

its meThen, Arnie had a gigantic Passover Seder, and Birthday Party for his 77th birthday

The following day, I drove my brother Tim back up to Berkeley, and pushed through ht night to get home to Eugene
I played a gig at Territorial Winery with the Grey Dogs reggae group the following day.

I've quit drinking, but I still frequent my favorite spots, some of which are bars.... but its OK.

HAPPY SATURDAY TO YOU ALL

I hope this finds you well and thriving

I'm at my new place, back on Polk Street. Its a small rental room, with peaked ceilings. Its a VERY old house, and certainly has some issues. A portion of the fence fell down today!  But its comfy and we cook for each other, collaborate on meals, and play cards by the fire.


MY ST PATRICKS DAY PLANS:
Back in December,
I went online to TicketMaster (sigh) the same day as the Tay-Tay fiasco, to get tickets for Flogging Molly at the Hollywood Palladium on 3/17/23. (Taylor Swift fans overloaded the system, and the website became unreliable.) I waited in the "Queue" for my turn, and when it came, I went to purchase two VIP tickets for Flogging Molly on St Patricks Day. I used my debit card, there is $ in there, it should have worked fine, but the system kept freezing and kicking me out. Then I would have to wait my turn again,
so I tried using my PAYPAL, the transaction went through, but.... no tickets. mo confirmation email, and my Ticketmaster account won't stop saying "There is a problem" then kicking me out....
I got in contact with my buddy at Flogging Molly, and he assured me that he will get me some tickets. Its a tall ask since I'm pretty certain the L.A. shows are much bigger and busier than the Oregon shows I've been seeing them at......


WHATS MERTZ LISTENING TO?

My Listening Habits

AT WORK
I have a CD player at my work station, and it works well for the radio, but KWVA has such a wide variety of music and DJ's, there are times when I can't hang, and I'll put on a CD.  CD's on heavy rotation lately there include  CAKE, Joseph Spence,  Iron Maiden, LYNC, and lots of THE CURE.

IM MY TRUCK
my CD player is gradually dying, but it has some days where it works OK for about 30 minmutes before the CD starts skipping or the machine will reject any CD I put in.
So I'm forced to listen to radio at that point. When I'm driving on the coast, no station will stay clear for any length of time, except maybe KDUK.
When the CD player works, its been pumping Le Tigre , The Beastie Boys,  Chumbawamba, SPAZZ , Stereolab and Lots of Reggae.

IN MY ROOM
I use my laptop and, rather than using a service like Pandora or Spotify, I patch into KWVA Radio, Luxuriamusic.com, or sometimes Youtube, but the amount of advertising on Youtube is making it unenjoyable for me lately..... SKIP AD!


KWVA gets a lot of play at the Broom Shop, between myself and Dana. We mostly enjoy the older DJ's, like 
DJ Sleeve.   We often giggle at the younger DJ's, when they mis-pronounce a band name.  I enjoy the Saturday morning DJ on KWVA, Lonely Guy.  The Lonely Guy plays mostly current/recent modern rock, and some dance music.  I like listening to Mark Time's 'The Sunday Morning Hangover' (also on KWVA)  Its mostly bizarre and humorous music  BUT  I dislike how long he takes to back-announce, and over-explain everything.

on Thursdays, I love to hear The Atomic Cocktail Hour with Vic Tripp on Luxuriamusic..com.  I used to listen to Vic Trip and Art Fraud on KCRW FM in Santa Monica, CA back in the 80's!  I sometimes listen to "Crashing the Party" before the atomic cocktail hour, Crashing the Party features mostly scratchy doo-wop records, played by fastidious collectors.

For my Punk cravings, I turn to MaximumRockAndRollRadio.www.maximumrocknroll.com/radio/  they have numerous great DJ's, with shows that run 30-45 minutes most weeks.  And they usually post a new show every week.

On weekends, I listen to "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" the NPR trivia show on saturdays, and on sundays,  Harry Shearer's LE SHOW.  Harry Shearer will be familiar to you from The Simpsons, A Mighty Wind, This is Spinal Tap, SNL, etc  His long-running show is a mix of comedy and political insight.

Regarding the Brrom Shop at Oregon Country Fair



AFAIK, Scheumack Broom Company has been suspended from Oregon Country Fair, pending review of the Craft Policy,  I may have written about it in a previous post, so I won't go into the details here, but it certainly appears as though Oregon Country Fair is having some troubles unrelated to any of our nonsense.........

I have started working with a new band in town
There are 2 'founding' members of the group, who had been two thirds of the group THE BITTER ENDS in the Goth/DarkWave style.

https://thebitterends.bandcamp.com/

They had been playing as a 3 piece group with a lead vocalist, who played guitar.
I auditioned to sing lead and play guitar, and I brought demos of original songs I had written. The chemistry seemed to work pretty well.
They told me they were meeting with another singer/guitarist, and I figured that there was some chance they would prefer the other singer,
but so far, it seems they want to keep me on as rythm guitarist, and backup singer,
I've met the other singer/guitarist,
( https://www.jayskyler.com/ )
and we get along fine, but I have not heard him sing anything yet, and I'm not yet sure if I want him to sing the songs I have written, even if he is really good. I've heard the other guy play guitar a little bit, and he seems to know theory well, and identify notes, chords, harmony etc. He teaches guitar, but he appears to have a whole different vibe than the other 2 guys, and I don't know how that will play out, or if I will be a good fit for me.
So, I'm excited for the potential of this group, but also feeling like I might have to manage my expectations carefully, and even be willing to walk away if the chemistry isn't ideal.

With that said, I have been getting back into songwriting, and recording demos for my original compositions.

AI is creating origina; music, including instrumental music, vocals, rapping,

I could list these apps, but there are already more out there than I can imagine!

The applications for these is endless in the realm of background music for commercials, youtube channels, etc without needing to pay royalties to artists and songwriters.

Wow. They really want to control my computer, and I'm NOT liking it. Finding out how to change my default browser to google, has proven a challenge for me.
I really don't trust BING to bring me the search results that I want.
and that is just the beginning.

I got my 3rd booster shot, and a Flu Vaccine yesterday.

This gentleman has some very similar broom-making tools, techniques and implements to what we use at Scheumack Broom Company. This video was made 12 years ago. I hope he is still around and doing well. He calls his technique 'traditional shaker style brooms', and that all checks out.
Thurman Scheumack learned broom-making in Arkansas, some time in the early 1980's, and eventually brought his shop out west to Eugene, Oregon where it is located today.



Here is an even earlier video, from 1998. (start video at about the 132 mark to skip the intro)



Here is the video my friend Rich Cost made on Scheumack Broom Company, featuring me as THE BROOMER, and Thurman as THE BAD JOKE TELLER. I've posted this video here before, but here it is again:


Here is another video I found featuring Thurman's declaration that Scheumack Broom Company is the original broom shop in Eugene:


yes, its true a couple of renegade employees broke away from the shop a few years ago, and claimed to be 'the only broom shop in Eugene' which is a straight-up lie. They also stole 'intellectual property' from Thurman and from Samantha (BroomChick on Etsy), as well as doing espionage to copy tools and techniques from Scheumack. FYI: they are not doing so well, lately. Scheumack Broom COmpany is doing very well, expecially with our wholesale business. You can purchase brooms and other items online at www.broommagic.com

The Dancing Broom figure shown at the 0:27 mark fell into disrepair since t his video, and was replaced by another figure that doesn't have the articulated joints. I'm working on a new model, so that kids can manipulate the 'dancing broom' again at our OCF booth.



Have a great day!

Since I've quit cannabis, my dream recall has bounced back with a vengeance.

Recent dreams feature my loved ones, my kids (now ages 26 and 19!), siblings, ex-lovers, and a few friends.

I am having recurring dreams, common themes, elements that make me think, and symbolism that has deep meaning and messages for me.

My dream recall helps me feel more engaged and ready for the day, maybe that is also a benefit of quitting cannabis. LOL.

the shop is bustling. we hired a new part-time employee. our etsy sales have picked back up.

I was terribly worried that our sticks were drying out to much from the terrible heat this year. especially the viney maple sticks have become brittle and difficult to carve, they tear or crumble when carved with a mallet and gauge. Thurman showed me a technique using our band saw, that alleviates a lot of this concern, especially on a day like today, when there is a brand-new blade on the saw.
This technique also allows me more control of the nose. The nose is the trickiest bit of the "green man" carvings I do. If the nose breaks off, it often ruins the whole carving, or at least makes it much more challenging.
I wondered: "why havent I been using this technique all along?" It saves a LOT of time, and potentially increases my output by almost double!
Of course, as an apprentice, it often pays to learn the most fundamental, and maybe even most difficult techniques.
But I'm glad this has worked out.

Flogging Molly plays at the Cuthbert Ampitheater Friday, with The Interrupters and Tiger Army. The new Flogging Molly album "Anthem" was released last Friday, and it includes a single A Song Of Liberty, which has a fabulous, but very emotional animation:



Flogging Molly have joined forces with renowned Ukrainian animators/filmmakers, The Mad Twins, for the band’s “A Song of Liberty” video. The clip highlights humanity’s ongoing struggle against oppression, from Ireland’s Easter Uprising through several 20th century moments including both World Wars, to the current occupation of Ukraine.

“We were working on this video for three months under air alerts and constant shelling of our country,” explain Ukrainian twin sisters Olya and Vira Ischuk, aka The Mad Twins, who have created award-winning videos for Social Distortion, NOFX, Josh Freese and more. “Dave and Bridget got in touch with us for this very special song, which is meant to tell the Easter Rising story and highlight the universal message of nations who fought for their independence and identity. These are idealists who will fight and die for their ideas. We connected the story with the reality we are experiencing in Ukraine. Generations who went through two world wars paid with their blood for peace. Modern generations have grown up in a world where it is easy to take things for granted. We had calls with Dave talking about the video development where Dave exclaimed indignantly ‘What?! Again?! People have to go through war again?!’ We’ve been going through this for over six months now: life plans stopped, our friends were drafted, some of them have already been killed, friends’ homes have been destroyed or looted, the lucky ones have been evacuated to a safer region or abroad. Generations of Ukrainians have been traumatized for a lifetime.”

“It’s a song of freedom, which I wrote as a recounting of a dark period in Irish history. But suddenly the injustice, and the fight against it, became current events,” Dave King details. “And so our Ukrainian friends, who’ve had their freedom taken away from them, created something with it that seeks to inspire hope in everyone.”

Cheers!