Hal caught another rat this week. If you look closely at this picture you can see the trap at the corner of the roof.

I love to read KDViations, the radioguide for KDVS, the UC Davis radio station, even though I never listen to the station. You never know what you're going to find among its many pages of tiny tiny type. The cover illustration refers to a story about researchers at UCD who implanted crystals in the brains of gerbils to monitor their mental activity. When they put on their headphones, they heard the campus radio station, which the crystals were picking up. 

I have often said that people hold on to pianos for so long partly because it's hard to get rid of them. "You can't just leave it out on the curb." Well, I was wrong. 

I guess this is marked for the color-blind (except don't they see everything as gray?) 

A great mix of buildings downtown... an old church, a temporary building, and the Convention Center. 

Today a Korean customer gave me a shopping bag full of goodies: sushi, an apple, a can of Sprite, chopsticks, and a bag of tiny Oreos. 

I tuned in this building today... it's a bunch of high-rent apartments built on what used to be a community garden where Rachel planted things when she was in day care. At least they have saved a little bit of the land for a garden (left side). 

I was going to make this another saint but I think she looks fine without a halo. 

This is my morning coffee at Espresso Metro. No other place makes such a beautiful latte. Today I talked to Joan, the owner, about Paul Basye and me hanging some paintings there in the fall. She put a note on her calendar, which consists of a series of colored Post-Its stuck to a string hanging from a door frame behind the counter. "I should really get a calendar," she said.
I am planning a Metro day sometime later this year, perhaps in August. I will spend the entire day (6am to 10pm) at Metro, taking a picture from the same spot at regular intervals (like the Harvey Keitel character in Smoke), and posting them on a blog. I will drink coffee, play chess, read, and look at my laptop. Then I will assign the URL metroday.com to the blog and hang a big sign with the URL on it along with the paintings when Paul and I hang them.

These are two big signs (paintings?) that I made for my booth at the River Park arts fair. Jennifer says that the duck will frighten small children. She also asked the excellent question, "How was St. Unibrow Duck martyred?" Answer: She froze to death under the house during a winter rainstorm.

All the people playing at Roseville's Town Lounge are from Sacramento (and I've played with all of them). Aren't there any jazz musicians in Roseville?

This is the Town Lounge in Roseville, a new jazz club. The main room looks like a tent. They have a wonderful piano --- the newest Yamaha Disklavier, which is an acoustic/electric hybrid. It's an acoustic player piano with synthesizer sounds built in. Instead of the old control box it has a modified handheld PC which sits in a cradle on top of the piano. If you think that's cool, then you are as big a geek as me.

This is a set from a production of Carnival at Sacramento City College. I went in today to replace a broken string on the piano they're using.

Again from Stan's basement, part of a gamelan. I learned that "gamelan" means "orchestra," so it's redundant to say "gamelan orchestra."

Some of Stan's collection of science fiction books, from which he pulled A Scanner Darkly. At the bottom left is a cartoon drawing of Stan by his late colleague Jeff Karl. For years Stan used this three-armed image as his email signature.

Last night I went to Stan's house and together we programmed the electronic drums for Aida. The drum pads have Post-Its on them to remind us what the MIDI note number is. I was already tired at the beginning of the session (7pm) and by 10pm I was extremely punchy, but we got it all done. It will sound great! He also lent me a copy of A Scanner Darkly by Phillip K. Dick, which has been made into a movie by Richard Linklater using the same animation technology he used on Waking Life. (one of my favorite movies to watch on my laptop while I draw cartoons)

Real names

Here are real names that some people we know gave their kids:
Intertia
Tsunami
Satori
Banjo
Audio Science
Sirius Seven

Cartoon of the week

I had the cartoon of the week on the Funny Times website a couple of weeks ago. I'm mentioning it now because I just found out.

This is the curtain call from a production of Playhouse Creatures at UC Irvine. Rachel designed the costumes. The play tells a story very similar to the recent film Stage Beauty. You can see a lot more pictures from the show here.

The building ("is that a house?") on Del Rio was having an open house today. We were just driving by but we had to stop and look inside. It's decorated in a faux-stylish way, with generic abstract paintings on the walls. The building is so narrow that I can touch opposite walls at the same time (above). I am barefoot because the agent asked everyone to take off his/her shoes.

When I picked up Hal for tennis this morning, he pointed out that there was a rat trap on the corner of his roof next to his lemon tree, and it had a rat in it. I said, "I wish I'd brought my camera." When I dropped him off after tennis, we were surprised to find that the rat was gone. Did a crow get it? ("Or another rat," said Jennifer, who remembers from childhood that her pet rats used to eat each other.)

This is Ed Claudio, local theater legend. He has acted for all the local professional companies while also producing shows at his Actor's Theater, a small black-box with about 40 seats. He called me yesterday afternoon and I went out the same day to tune this spinet. They are doing Tell Me on a Sunday, a rare musical for them.

This is in the basement of a church. Note the Christian graffiti.

I was tuning at a church and saw this fine example from the late Brylcreem period.

The Woodland Opera House... I used to perform there sometimes with the Light Opera Theater of Sacramento, doing Gilbert & Sullivan, but the last time was about twelve years ago. It's lovely inside and has a huge dressing room underneath the stage. My friend Dan Pool is conducting Man of La Mancha there now.

Nemo is famous

The same guy who does AlmostLiveRadio posted a picture of our cat Nemo on his Kitty Porn site.

I got a check for seven dollars from the State of Connecticut (state income tax refund from Peter Pan tour).

A Harry Potter kite stuck in a tree. 

Peeps... are they good for anything besides melting in the microwave? Today we learned about the Peep-Off, where people compete to see who can eat the most Peeps.

I showed this photo of a painting to my cartoonist friend Paul Basye. Even though he was looking at a tiny image on a digital camera, he correctly identified my influences as Jasper Johns and Saul Steinberg. Nicely done! He could have added, Joseph Cornell.

The Sacramento City College Center for Physical Excellence... right next to the Department of Spiritual Emptiness.

We ate lunch at Taste of Thai today... there is another Thai place two doors down (and another one on the next block!). 

When I die, I want my ashes mixed with concrete and poured on to the sidewalk in front of Espresso Metro.

As often happens, I went to a brand-new tract home to tune a piano. Jaeger Road looked like part of the most direct route in the map book, but when I got to it, it was an unpaved dirt road full of potholes. It reminded me of roads I saw 26 years ago in Dominica. I had to drive very carefully for about a half mile. It would be really fun to roar over it in a Hummer. 

Here are the three keyboard and two percussion books for Aida. I have to program for all of them, as the two percussion books include lots of electronic percussion. I've never programmed electronic drums, but I'm learning!

I'm mentioned on AlmostLiveRadio

AlmostLiveRadio.Com - Where the "Com" is for Comedy!
You can listen to this podcast on your computer or download it to your mp3 player.
He also is going to post a picture of my cat Nemo on his Kitty Porn blog.

I got this nice email today:

Hey, I stumbled upon your cartoons and went back through a bunch of them. I just wanted to tell you that I really enjoyed them.

My Best,

James Messick
http://almostliveradio.com the podcast

Go get his podcast!

This restaurant is right in the middle of the Pittsburgh Cultural District. The district has several theaters including the homes of the Pittsburgh Symphony and Opera. 

Pittsburgh has one of the shortest subways in the world. We rode it for one stop just for the experience on the way back from the Andy Warhol Museum (click here to see my pictures from the museum).

On Monday, these were the two soup choices at Espresso Metro. Someday, I'd like to spend the entire day at the coffeehouse and document it online. Maybe I'll take a photo from the same spot every fifteen minutes (like the Harvey Keitel character in the movie Smoke).