From a client that collects a lot of antiques, this is a napkin dispenser that also dispenses fortunes. 

Bad news/good news

The bad news is that Sacramento News and Review is not going to put my cartoons back in. The good news is that they asked me to do spot illustrations for their restaurant reviews. This doesn't pay a lot, but it's twice as much as I used to get for my cartoons! Does that make sense? Anyway, I think it will be fun.

Today we had lunch at Espresso Metro and I ordered the vegetarian chili. I asked Joan for salsa, and she gave it to me in this espresso cup that the handle had broken off. Joan said, "You can throw it away when you're done." "Are you kidding?" I said. "I'm going to take it home." I started drawing on it. Posted by Picasa

I'm glad they provide a picture, so we know they're not talking about punctuation. 

Man in a pickle suit... one of the four major Fool Groups. 

A client of mine gave me this ceramic elephant's head that she made. It's awfully well done for a give-away. Here it is among the hibernating roses. 

In Rio Linda there is this abandoned drive-in. The screen was taken down years ago, but the white posts still stand like grave markers. 

This sign comes via sister Mary Ann.

I got a call from Ming Luke, the assistant conductor of the Sacramento Philharmonic. They are doing Holst's The Planets and their choir needs a little help. So they want to rent one of my keyboards for its choir sound. "Can you pay me?" I asked. He said, "Is $200 okay?"
I would have taken $75.

Unphotographed sign

Today while driving on Grant Line Road, just after passing into the city of Elk Grove, I saw a sign that said
GOT WATER?
WE DON'T
BUT WE DO HAVE SMOG, TRAFFIC
AND OVERCROWDED SKOOLS

Yesterday I checked my oil and discovered it was low, so I added a couple of quarts. But I forgot to replace the cap and drove it that way for about 20 minutes. It made a mess, which I tried to clean up later. But today oil was still oozing out. It looks like someone punched my car in the nose and it's bleeding. 

I was at this house to tune the piano but the owner wasn't home. Fortunately, she left the door open, and after phoning for permission, I went inside. 

What she did for love

Yesterday I went to the Broadway Academy to give Dave my old air compressor (I got a new one). They can use it to blow up balloons. I looked at the list of instructors and saw that a certain young lady was still there. "I thought she was going to New York last fall," I said.
"She was," said Dave. "But she delayed it to get breast reduction surgery."
Many people had told her that if she wanted to make it as a Broadway dancer, she had to do it.
Ironically, one of the audtions she has lined up is for the Broadway revival of Chorus Line, which has a song about getting plastic surgery in order to make it as a dancer.

We had a seven-hour trip to San Francisco today: two hours driving each way to the de Young Museum (a wonderful new building, massive/translucent, urban/sensitive), almost an hour waiting in line for lunch, then two hours looking at the collection. An exhausting day but a great one. 

I played with Melissa and Erik at the Firehouse tonight. It was the Mass Mutual end-of-year party which we also played last year. Melissa's voice sounds so much better in a setting like this than with the Skinner band --- very warm. She also played guitar which sounded great especially on the latin numbers. I hope they hire us again next year. 

Artist's Way

When The Artist's Way first came out ten years ago, I glanced at it and thought, "this is baby stuff. And I don't like all the New Age babble." But recently several people, including Jennifer, have told me how good it is, so I decided to give it a try. It's made quite a difference. It's like AA --- you don't have to buy the theory. You just have to do the exercises, and they work.

Cartoon book coming soon!

I have given all the files to Gilda and all she has to do is lay out the book. It should be coming out sometime this month. This is what the cover will look like, except with color.
It will be available on my website, amazon.com, borders.com, and other sites. Tell your friends.

When I arrived at the studio, they were just finishing up a session with a tuning client of mine, Barry Ghezzi. In the reverse of the usual, I remembered him better than he remembered me. He used to do all the band instrument repair at Jack's House of Music, but now is trying to concentrate more on playing. He's in the center with his wife/drummer at left and his bass player at right. 

My last tuning today was at Paradise Studios, right around the corner from home. This monitor has a little plastic alien in the speaker; the engineer told me once that "when the alien's head bounces up and down, I know that the bass is right." 

I went to visit Wendell again today. He has this nice Irish harp in the garage. Underneath it is a Kawai K5 synth.