Primitive UFO's

 
I'm in portland for a few days this week, to help Timothy get some free time to travel back to HIS home, Berkeley.
I've arranged to play a gig at Lombard Pub with the Trio (Davy Jones Locker Combo) tonight, which is helpful to keep me from feeling low, but this arrangement of driving up to care for my Dad is wearing on me, emotionally, financially, and even physically, in that, I have to hang around my dad's house and I don't get much exercise, fresh air, or human interactions....



I've driven my Dad to Sunnyside Medical Center lots of times, but the first time I drove him there was when he had his first stroke,  the anxiety and memory of all his past shiftiness towards me came rushing back in Tuesday morning, and I'm working to kind of re-frame my thoughts from that day, 


I don't know that I can sustain this pace, I've been relieving Tim for about a week each month, since October and I am entirely out of gas. This is not just regular compassion fatigue, but my father and I have never been that close.  We've been closer, since my divorce in 2015, but he has utterly used me as the emergency contact, and being the closest relative, (i more-or-less vounteered, but I didn't know that it would be so frequent and sustained.  I've made more emergency trips from eugene to portland than i care to count or think about. and many more trips that were scheduled, and know about, but because of my 'flexible' schedule, I made the effort at the time.



The Pirate Radio show last Friday was great.  Then saturday, DJLC played at an all ages venue in Salem.   It was not well attended, but we had fun, eating chinese food and playing KLASK!




This game is funner than shit.

Taxi Follies:
Then there was this little older couple on their way to the airport, they go every Christmas to Hawaii. Talk about their timeshare. And then the guy says that he's afraid to go snorkeling because of poisonous snakes well I'm not afraid of poisonous snakes. the snorkeling was awesome! I'm sorry that you live such a sheltered and secluded and secure life.... you should've seen the way that he set all the alarms and passed out notes to all the neighbors that he was gonna be gone for a few days, well actually three weeks. i thought I was paranoid....

Our little DJLC tour:
It started with a 'double' at Black Forest, as Davy Jones' Locker Combo opened, X-Boyfriends played what is supposedly their last show ever, then Le Petit Mort finished. The bands had $180 to split, and we opted to give X-Boyfriends half, instead of just one third.
Satya's friend offered us the use of her 16 foot camper trailer, with the caveat that she come along with it, cook our food, etc. She actually bought a whole lot of food, cooked some of it for us, but it was cramped and claustrophobic inside that trailer, also I'm ashamed to say the brake lights didn't work, and I opted to drive it anyway. The truck was a RAM 1500 with 4 wheel drive, new tires, the truck was in great shape. but we used the trailer to haul all our gear, more or less 2 bands' worth, since we are all members of Davy Jones' Locker Combo AND le Petit Mort (the acoustic group which includes my banjo , and Satya's upright bass)
about 5 on Friday, we dropped off waffles (my dog!) at my dad's, then really hauled ass up to Tukwila, WA, outlying Seattle area. We texted ahead that we might be late, but it turned out fine. The 'door guy' for the evening was Meat Pie, who plays in a group called Space Waster. Meat Pie directed me to park out back of the club, and just pull up as close as I could to the club, since there wasn't much traffic, no problem.
the bands were Everwood Pines, Nordis, Davy Jones' Locker Combo, and Dwight Dickinson. Dwight shared our drummer, Charlie Hustle, so he was a sweaty tired mess by the end of it. it wasn't TOO cold, but it was pretty cold.
we parked the trailer in a Wal Mart parking lot, and had to stow the gear in the truck of the cab while we slept. The trailer has a queen and two singles, one of those singles is a little claustrophobic, but that's where I slept.
My band members are fucking potheads. so much pot did they smoke.
Saturday, we had 2 shows in one day! We headed down to Vancouver, WA to play at 'Writ Fest', which turned out to be a festival of introverts at a very mellow house party, which was totally cool with me. Erik Anarchy played, and a few other acts, then we played, using borrowed equipment of the house members, the drum kit was falling apart as Scot played it, so that was a challenge, but we rocked. Chantel made some enchiladas that were out of this world. We were out of there by 5, and headed to Longview, WA, where we played at a Chinese Restaurant! It was off the hook! Most of the bands incorporated some folk-punk elements, like banjo, acoustic bass, harmonica, etc. The first band was banjo, snare and acoustic bass, called Stealin' Your Booze. Davy Jones played second, to a sweet spot packed house and nearly tore the roof off the place with some sweet slam dance action in the front, next was Dwight Dickinson, doing his patriotic schtick, then "Long-tucky picks and the faulty grip" and they played for over an hour. We parked the trailer outside the house of some of the Longtucky guys, and they fed us breakfast next morning.
Sunday we rolled into Portland the next day with plans to play at an open mic at the Laurelthirst pub, but we didn't get a good spot, and the constant rain made the long wait sound like a drag, so we stayed over Scot's friend's house near the trendy North Mississippi area, Chantel made us a beef roast.
Monday we went back to Seattle again. I got us a KOA campsite, we dumped the septic (whew!) Scot was very nervous about booking the Monday night show, and his fears were not unfounded, as the club was pretty disappointed at our (lack of) turnout. but we did manage to swing by the U district and pickup my friend JT, and brought him along to the show. This was another 'double' where we played as 2 separate bands, but of course that means fewer spectators, and therefore paying customers. I don't know what they expected on a Monday, but I had fun.
I was really getting tired of driving the trailer, so we came back to Eugene Tuesday. Last night, we drove up to Portland again to play at Ash Street Saloon. not a big show, but super fun. Friday we go back up again for the Tardis Room show with Dwight.

my brain is a little mushy this mornin.
so i played a lot of banjo last night.  Sean Schock only had one direct box, which was used for the guitar, Bucky's mandolin and my banjo were plugged directly into the board, which makes for a kind of yucky sound.



if you like electronic music, and "nyquil-zone" in particular, then please check out this new track my son uploaded to his SOUNDCLOUD:  https://soundcloud.com/deadjunes/may



Rainbow Connection played on resonator guitar and 'humming tremolo' moothie.  hearken back to the days of my harmonica obsession:

I felt I had a productive day at work yesterday. i was off at 10:30, and went for a night hike with my band-mates of Davy Jones Locker Combo, Mr. Jonny Birchwood and Charlie Hustle, as well as Charlie's buddy Adam. We brought waffles the wonder-pooch, and hiked to the top of Skinner's butte, arriving at the summit at 1 am. The moon was waxing gibbous, and bright. No jackets were required, there was only a light breeze.
Much trash was talked throughout the hike and the height of stupidity was the creation of
( the tale of RattleRoid )
I'm very glad that Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite boys will be playing at the Eugene Celebration (http://www.eugenecelebration.com/) on Sunday, so I will be able to attend, IF we aren't headed up to Portland that day to move James into his dorm. yes, James is going to PNCA (http://www.pnca.edu/) art school in Portland!

( Friday Night CURRENT EVENTS at the Residential Treatment Facility )

Davy Jones' Locker Combo will play October 6th at Red Room in Portland.

Can't believe the fucking coffee maker died...

Whiteaker People's Party is Saturday. I got the day off from work and I'll be appearing with Dwight D @ Lazarus Pit at 1 pm, Davy Jonesers at Tiny's @ 2, and the Soothesayers @ 8 pm. The Whiteaker PP is a response to the Whiteaker Block Party, (Whiteaker BLock Party is now in its 7th year!) Tim (of Soothe sayers) and Jevon organized the "People's Party" last year (2012) outside of the Block Party area, as a kind of act of defiance to the gentrification and monopolization of the Whiteaker neighborhood by Ninkasi brewing, this year the poeples party will be sponsured by Pabst Blue Ribbon, and that fact will be more of a 'two finger' salute to Ninkasi.
Originally, DavY jones' Locker Combo was going to play at the Jesco Club (AA) where Dave was caretaker at the time, THAT was to be the big F.U. to Ninkasi, because it was to be a sober party! but the little area we were to play was too small, and as soon as word got out that there was a 'non-Ninkasi' stage, it started to snowball a bit.
obv'ly not everyone is down with all the trash talking inevitably happens, about 'corporate beer' and the buying up of the neighborhood, whether its true or not, trash talking doesn't really achieve anything. & Where Tim is usually extra careful of what he does day, others close to him pick up the torch and mouth off about it. The politics of this situation makes for yucky band practices, can't we all just get along?

I've inherited the 'games group' at work, and will be running it for the first time tonight, still haven't decided what I want to play with residents. I'm very lucky to work with such great people, the staff at garden is pretty cool.

its pretty brief, but makes a lot of sense in a 'back to the future' kind of way.

Father's Day tomorrow, I will work 8 am to noon. Yes, that is after a gig in Portland tonight.

LULZy:
http://mydadwasinaband.com/


witness Dave's boy Joey crawling around on the couch during practice...

(missing licks!)

also this: JP will be graduating this coming week. JP was good about going to Santina's ballet peformace yesterday with the family, inlcuding my (paternal) Dad, who drove down from Portland for the ballet... JP's pretty active on soundcloud, when he should be probably working on illustrating a book, 'Strong Jay'- but this is what he's been up to: ♠JUNES♠.


Nuxie's guppies had babies! We rounded up as many as we could and put in an isolation 'nursery' that separates the babies (fry) from adult fish, because the fry get eaten... by everybody. The frogs eat 'em, mommies and daddies eat 'em, even the neon tetras got a piece of the action, by eating the babies. On a less joyous note, while cleaning Nuxie's tank, I noticed tiny white worms (planaria) which are not harmful (but totally disgusting imho) so I vacuumed the substrate (gravel) and we did a 35% water change, the results have been good. Next thing is to stop feeding the fish (except the babies!) for a few days and be more careful about overfeeding... I tell ya, its the darn frogs! You want to make sure they're getting food after all, but I guess they can probably go a few days wihtout food, expecially after binging on babies!

Mertz Manor will be full to the brim with family visitors for the graduation next Saturday. Then, Soothesayers play at Kelly's Olympian in Portland, June 15th and Davy Jones Locker Combo plays an acoustic set June 29th at Cozmik Pizza.

LATEX