Rachel's new iPod cover. The other side is clear plastic so thin that you can control the wheel through it.

I have seen a "basketweave" done on photos before, but never this well.

This mural is on the sandwich place across the street from University Art Supply... I heard about someone who paid $7,000 for the 15k service on his Ferrari. My brother Jon says, "Ferrari rhymes with sorry"... I met a guy who roasts his own coffee beans in a popcorn popper... While tuning a piano at the airport terminal, a guy asked me how long I'd been tuning. I said, "twenty-three years" and he said, "Forty-three!"indicating himself. He worked in Los Angeles and studied at the Trade Academy, where until fairly recently you could get a degree in piano technology...

If only I lived at this intersection

An eggplant from Hal's garden.

I read this on someone else's blog...

Sharon Rinehart August 30th, 2007

My aunt went to Stivers High School[in Dayton, OH, which I visited in 2005] with Milton Caniff. Among her things, I found a collection of cartoon strips entitled, “Chic and Noodles at School” dated 1925. The cartoon strips had appeared in the Stivers student paper and were collected for Caniff’s graduating class, I believe. Is there any interest in this kind of Caniff memorability[sic]?

And another one.

I found another Cartoon of the Week on the Funny Times website.

An early stage of a saint painting. One of four new ones.

I got three checks from Funny Times today. One of them was for "Cartoon of the Week." I was looking on their archive and noticed that this one was featured in March.

My customer, a UC Davis professor of Tagalog, performed with her daughters in The Vagina Monologues in New York and San Francisco. Lea Salonga (Filipino actress, original star of Miss Saigon) was in the cast. Some of the performances were in Tagalog. My customer says that it was "very strong" in Tagalog because Filipinos never say the word for vagina, even in private.

A recent painting by my old friend Nina Weiss.

This bike is used in Whistle Down the Wind. I heard that it is an actual vintage bike from World War 2 that was made heavy enough to shield soldiers from bullets. For the show, they replaced the original engine with an electric one.

I tuned for Tracy Walton today. She sings for the great local groups Mumbo Gumbo and Way Out West. The book below the accordion is Musicophilia by Dr. Oliver Sacks.
She knows everybody in Sacramento. I am going to get some great referrals from her.

The edge of the orchestra pit where some people sitting in the front row left their drinks.
On the last show Jim continued his habit of making small talk on his microphone that only we could hear. Just before the entr'acte: "Do you know how much the hotel charges for this bottle of Gatorade? Three-fifty! That's seven dollars for two bottles."

Jennifer and I went to Zelda's Pizza for our anniversary. They have the best — no, the only — Chicago-style pizza in town. We hadn't gone in years. The decor hasn't changed in years. It has tacky wood-look paneling, Christmas lights year-round, tiny booths, and Italian travel posters. There is no song on the jukebox from the CD era. They only take cash. There is nothing California about the place.

These two people had kids together

Donna Pool showed me this photo of her and Dan while they were in an opera together at Sac State, before they were even dating. Dan is dressed as Thor; Donna is dressed as whatever goddess wears a mortarboard.

If you ever find a dollar bill with my name on it, it's probably because of Dollar Friday.
Every Friday during the run of a show there is a drawing. You write your name on a dollar bill and put it in the pot, and the winner gets all the dollars. I have been playing for many years, and never won.

Last night Kathleen sat in the pit to listen to the show in advance of playing Keyboard 2 again on the Saturday matinee. Dan is holding his check. He couldn't understand why my check was more until we noticed that he had more withholding.
During one scene Jim noticed that the set wasn't moving, so we kept vamping. The house lights came up and an announcement came, "there is a medical emergency in the back of the house and we will resume the show after it's taken care of."
Someone died.
Bob Sereno said, "That was the only guy in the audience who understood the show."
Jim said, "In the show report we should say that we're killing them."
During the break a number of people took the opportunity to go home.

A arty picture of me and Eric Aichen, our fine horn player. In addition to all the Sacramento jobs, he subs with the San Francisco Symphony and Opera. He also plays on video game soundtracks at Skywalker Studios.

This was posted in the stagehands' area backstage.

Scarecrow from Mike McMullen's house. Note the grass stains on the knees.

This is a view of the pit from behind me. Jim Vukovich, the conductor, is an amazing pianist and also a great jokester. Just before the bows, he says something like, "good job." Tonight, the last performance of the week, he said, "Great job. Great week. Let's drink."

My chair in the pit for Whistle Down the Wind. John Doolittle is warming up in the background.
The conductor has a microphone where he can say things that only we can hear. A sampling:
"I really hate that song."
"I have to go to the bathroom. Brian, can you take over?... I think I can make it through this song."
"Alan, Jodi called yesterday. She said, 'I am so drunk, and I have to conduct tonight.' "

A really nice pumpkin at the entrance to the Tower Cafe.

In the parking lot today, another Prius. The thief only got half of the sticker off.

The electronic drum set for Whistle Down the Wind. There is only one real instrument (a cymbal). The drummer is Alan Childs, a great musician who has played with David Bowie, Rod Stewart, and many others. For the past 13 years he's toured with Broadway shows including Tommy, Aida, Hairspray, and Rent.

I have a customer who recently went to a unicorn-themed Halloween party. He made a wonderful unicorn costume (see top picture above). He made the unicorn's rear end and hind legs which he strapped behind him. His real legs were the unicorn's front legs.
Below is an Avenging Unicorn toy which is shown impaling a mime.

John Bruno, a professor at UC Davis, has world-class jazz pianists do concerts in his house. About 40 people came to the Terrason concert and brought pot luck (great wine!). I sat in the front and had a great view of Jackie's hands.

I tuned the piano for Jackie Terrason today and then stayed to watch the concert. Amazing! He is super-talented. He played both louder and softer than almost any other pianist I've heard, and also played inside the piano, as shown in this video.

Me in my $20 pirate costume.

Amy Aquino can touch her tongue to her nose... but this girl can put her tongue in her nose.

We went to see the Joseph Cornell show at SFMOMA. My favorite artist! Back in 1980, I went to a big retrospective of his work at the New York MOMA. Today's show had a lot more source material, including writings, commercial design he did, and even a funny spoof newsletter of farm news that he did for his relatives. The best thing was a case containing tools and materials from his studio. Amazing.

Some pirate masks I made for the Halloween pirate party at the Pools on Friday.

A very strange Halloween mask.

In a piano teacher's studio: music from Final Fantasy, a video game.

Saturday night I played a wedding with the George Bruno big band. During the job some of the players were listening to the Red Sox/Indians game on earbuds.

This floor-to-ceiling display case (dimmer switch for the light!) is in the bedroom of my customer's house. There are three of these cases, which retail for about $3,000 each. The boy is displaying his collection of LEGO Star Wars models.

Someone stole three of my four car pool stickers. They're probably for sale on Craigslist right now. The number is HE088457, so if you see them, make a report to the proper authorities.

I have a customer who obsessively enters contests. He spends about an hour a day filling out forms for contests (now, mostly online). He has won numerous small things and a few big ones, like this trumpet and a car.

Outside the Antique Company there is a sign that says:

WE CAN PROVE THAT
ELIZABETH TAYLOR
IS 316 YEARS OLD

Inside they have a document from 1691 signed by among others, someone named Elizabeth Taylor. You can have it for only $95!

Jamaican instrument

This instrument, belonging to a longtime customer, comes from Jamaica and is carved from a single piece of bamboo.

My customer recently bought this Baldwin grand. She's pretty sure it once belonged to Vince Gueraldi (composer of the music for Charlie Brown Christmas.)

Thiebaud, Wiley, etc. at UC Davis

UC Davis show: Thiebaud, Wiley, Arneson, de Forest, Neri

We went to the Art Building at UC Davis and saw a wonderful show. Back in the sixties they had five art professors who were destined for fame: Wayne Thiebaud, William Wiley, Roy de Forest, Manuel Neri, and Robert Arneson. This show features work by all of them.

Jennifer found this folding plastic fork. I've been complaining for years that our forks are taking up way too much room.

From a Methodist church. "Devo" stands for devotion, not devolution.

This skull/horns assemblage is in a customer's house that is FULL of great stuff. She paid twenty-five cents for it. As my old sculpture professor, Sig Rennels, used to say, "I wanna see a whole army of 'em."

Halloween gets more and more elaborate each year and starts earlier. These are some cat/rat ensembles at Wishing Well. I bought a pirate costume for the Pools' Halloween party.

Last night the Philharmonic called me about a trumpet concerto. At the rehearsal they realized that the orchestra parts were in E minor but the soloist had learned the concerto in F minor. He has perfect pitch so playing it in another key sounded really wrong. They asked me to enter the whole concerto into the computer and transpose it. I worked on it for about three hours and realized that there was no way I could finish by Saturday at 1 (the last rehearsal). So I returned the score to the Philharmonic office (in a trendy new part of Oak Park!) Later they called me back and asked if I could just do the string parts. I said I thought so, and Katie Cannon (the operations manager, who I knew as a stage hand at Best of Broadway and Music Circus) brought it over to the house. But just as she was standing at the door, the soloist called Katie and told her he had figured out a way to play the piece in E minor. Hooray! And I'm also going to get four concert tunings out of it.

I bought the audiobook version of Stephen Colbert's book I am America and so can you! and every night Jennifer and I listen to a couple of chapters on the iPod, sharing the earbuds.

I played with John Skinner's band at an outdoor auto show. Here is an old Cadillac with pointed boobs.

I played with John Skinner at a birthday party with a 20s Chicago theme. Everyone was in costume.