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An Unexpected Bushwack
J: On
Friday night after playing dijeridu in the penultimate performance of
The Tempest, Dorian, Gary Bumbalough, Gina, and I piled into Dorian's
car and sort of crashed the beginning of a three-day birthday party at
Ted Porter's place.
Ted is a member of Big
Blow and the Bushwackers, a local eclectic folk band. He has a big lovely 1890's house in Hyattsville, full of high
ceilings and a large collection of musical instruments. Some of the
instruments are one-of-a-kind; the Bushwackers are famous for playing a
variety of instruments from around the world, and building their own,
too. We saw large spaghetti-like sculptures of PVC pipes, big enough to
sit on (you play them with paddles, or blow through some of the pipes).
There was also a brass horn, molded into a large wad of painted
styrofoam formed into a hat; you could put it on your head and play it
through flexible tubing. All very reminiscent of Dr. Suess props, I
think.
Ted had two extremely cute puppies too, and beer from the brew pub down
the street. We played with his puppies and some of his instruments and
drank a bit of his beer too.
On Saturday Gina helped serve food at a pet expo in the community
center. We took Booda there and he met a lot of other doggies, tried
some treats, and then had a nice slow walk back home.
That night I played with about five other musicians in The Tempest one
last time, then Dorian picked Gina and me up (and Gary too) and we went
to the cast party. We jammed with the other drummers there and received
a nice thank-you card from the producer, as well as thanks from the rest
of the cast, and food and drink, too.
Then we hopped over to Ted's party again. This night a couple other
band members showed up, including Tim Whittemore, who's a great
inspiration for many pullers in the dijeridu world. They had parked
their beautiful Handy
art car out front, and it played music all night while it sat there.
The Bushwackers are genuinely nice people, they love playing music and
having a good time, and they don't seem to mind if you join in the fun.
I've spent the rest of this week letting people know that "I jammed with
the Bushwackers!" -- it was a great thrill. Tim played a magical dij
solo that boggled my mind.
He also joked about a journalist who showed up at a little dijeridu
gathering and produced a Wall St. Journal
story that ragged on him and other "garbage didj" makers. Tim wrote a
rebuttal, but I'm not sure if it made the paper. He didn't seem to mind
that the journalist had biased opinions against him and his work, but he
didn't like that she got many facts wrong. He was very surprised that the article
made the front page. The
Bushwackers joked about dijeridu stocks falling and so on.
Ted seemed to enjoy his birthday party. He had imbibed a lot of beer in
two days and was quite soused. He spent a good amount of time toward the
end of the evening sleeping in a chair, but now and then he'd perk up,
grab an instrument and play a song. He sounded great!
Meanwhile Rich Potter played with a gang of little kids; they chased
him through the house with bats and pool cues, all in good fun of
course. They nicknamed him Gramps. You know kids like you if they call
you Gramps.
I think we got back home from the party at around 4:00 in the morning,
so we slept in and missed the drum jam in Tacoma Park honoring the late Baba Olatunji, a highly
respected and loved percussionist. But we did make it to a smaller
Greenbelt drum jam at the New Deal Cafe. They miked my dij again, that
was nice. One of the girls who played Ariel in the play showed up and
played her flute in a duet with my dijeridu. Terry Aquino sang a really
sweet rendition of a Sanskrit song by Madonna.
After the drum jam
we went to a small welcome home party for Kristen (can't remember her
last name), at hers and Pete's and Ellen's house. Kristen's back from
Ireland.
<PDA geek alert>
On Monday I won iRogue!
I never really thought I'd win that game, but this time I took notes
and played it slowly (and only when I was alert) on and off for a few
days. Grabbed the amulet of Yendor at level 28 or so, then ran as fast
as I could up to the top level, taking time out to beat up some monsters
that had scared me on the way down. </PDA geek
alert>
On
Tuesday I had to spend most of the day in meetings at work with the MODIS Airborne
Simulator (MAS) instrument crew, people from Ames Research Center
whom I've worked with over the years, in several countries. After work
we went to the 94th Aero Squadron, a profoundly un-vegan restaurant, but
I made do. We had a good time, several hours worth, talking about
non-work related stuff. The MAS crowd is an interesting group; they've
all had very active, varied lives and hobbies.
G: On Monday my pottery group sponsored a
free lecture by Paul Lewing,
who custom paints tiles for murals. He says he will paint anything you
want! He
showed many many slides of his work, telling stories about how they were
made and who commissioned them and the homes they were in. It was quite
enjoyable. Beforehand, we had a bake sale to help offset Paul's fee (we
recouped about 33%). We sold almost everything that was brought for the
sale - everyone loved my vegan chocolate cupcakes (used the wedding
cake recipe)!
.
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you always
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wsj
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