Organ Grinder and a Musical Weekend

Ignore the crappy song, I made up a quick chord progression of DEAD...'tis the season and all... Anyway, I found out this is called a chord organ, and they're typically pretty cheap. I didn't realize they made fun little organs like these, but then again all the organs I play are huge...no laughs? Fine. Go fuck yourselves.

Karissa didn't feel very good Friday, and ended up not going with me to Devils Lake. Even though I sleep during the day, I like having a warm body next to me on weekends, so that sucked. Isabella didn't behave too badly, she ate pretty well, too. I'm letting Headstart take credit for her eating habits. Getting to eat with a bunch of kids seems like a good way to integrate her into a routine.

I went to Tab & Derek's Friday, and we went to the back wing to see if we could get into his storage. The manager of the theater rented out the back wing to make a "Haunted hotel" attraction, and access is now very limited. They've even run wiring and everything to get power back there, temporarily. When Derek and I went back, he tried opening the door but it was locked up. Suddenly we heard someone shuffling up to the otherside, so Derek pushed me into the adjacent room, and we stood there like idiots for about 30 seconds while the guy at the door looked out to see who was trying to get in. I was waiting from him to peek around the corner and see us standing in a room, trying to think of something clever to say, like "hi." But he just shut the door and went back to his work. So I ended up back at their place, looking through his Rockabilly magazines and having a little whiskey Coke.

I should mention that about this time, Derek had stumbled upon plans to make an upright bass out of cardboard and wood flooring. They have videos on youtube of guys playing it next to a real bass, and it is amazing that they both sound the same! So now we need to experiment with cardboard instruments.

The next night I went back, bring with me some bass tabs for Derek. We managed to get into his storage to get his bass & amp (Kevin your drums are safe, by the way) and I showed him some of the stuff I'd been working on. It turned out to be a really good little jam session, because we finally got in tune with eachother's guitars, and were sounding okay playing together. I felt bad not having Kevin there, because he's always good for musical input, even if he couldn't play any drums in their room.

It's here I should mention that our ideas for making a cardboard bass evolved when Derek realized he could make a custom bass out of aluminum. I drew up some designs, and at some point he's going to work on them. We also talked about a guitar. People have already made electrics out of aluminum (they must have worked out the whole "risk of shock" thing), so it's not impossible. I think it would be awesome, and can't wait to get started. We can still try cardboard for experimentation of soundhole cuts and whatnot.

I finally got to watch Planet Terror and Death Proof this weekend! The first was really good, the second was okay. For a car chase movie, Death Proof was excellent, but Tarantino is notorious for overuse of dialogue. We also watched Chainsaw Sally, which was terrible (Jason's pick). Not quite a title-taker, but close. The best scene, however, made good use of acid as a laxative. All I'm gonna say.