Fleeting Designs is a special thank you to all the good people (and a couple of scoundrels) who helped me back on my feet after all my instruments were stolen this past spring. I had nothing new to offer them in gratitude, but I went to my stalled recordings bin to see if I could make an acceptable offering by polishing them up. A few of the tracks feature the musical talents of other instrumentalists, but it's mostly me arranging an accompaniment for myself and playing the tune on ukulele, at home, with no one waiting for it, and no one to please but myself.

I assumed it would take me couple of weeks.

I have been in love for years with the painting I used for the graphics. It was painted by Allegra Thompson, and it is used here with her kind permission. I marvel at the complexity of the moment she committed to the canvas.

I'm spending the day writing up the notes on these nineteen tunes. Expect them here by morning.

This video has been online for months, and after all this time I still want to watch it. Did I mention I spent my high school era afternoons cutting class and hiding out in the San Mateo Public Library? I kept track of every librarian working in the place, and yes, I had a favorite. Most of them suspected nothing. I know viewing this video returns me to that time in my youth. Nerds rule, especially in this video!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_uzUh1VT98

Last Saturday Kurt and I were trying to think of things to play, not as yet shot and uploaded to YouTube by Pip. Pip has been at it for a long time and everything we think of to play is already up. So Kurt strated playing Good Vibrations and I told him to postpone it until Pip got back. We didn't have a chance to talk about it at all and I'm not sure how much of it we wrecked. But it sounds kind of good to me, stumbles and all. I'll try to figure out how to embed this video. I forgot how.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8VCbW1ryls

Where have I been? I haven't been here on my very own blog much at all. There's a weird little party going on over at Facebook, and the back and forth here can't touch it.

A few months back I decided to get up every morning and record a ukulele instrumental before moving on to my daily chores, and I posted each one on Facebook as soon as I was done. It was nice to get feedback on it. (You know the "post a comment" links on each entry here? Nobody pays them much mind at all.)

Well, if you ever get out Facebook way, look me up. It's a pretty good place to shoot the breeze. I'll come back here now and then and leave some more bread crumbs.

I don't do it often, but this time, I goofed around with the young people loops a little. The tune, Siboney, is a Cuban classic by Ernesto Lecuona.

I was halfway through my two week hell of untreated sleep apnea when we did this shoot. Pip says he has a handful of instrumentals from this shoot waiting in the can for his attention.

BARACK OBAMA - They're Just Not That Into You!



Like Rachel Maddow said, "Dude, you could do so much better..."

I am nearly ready to admit that I am in the tank for Obama. I always hated that term, because it implied I was no longer paying attention, but I'm confronted by the evidence of my unreachable gone-ness. I just watched a five minute raw video of Barack Obama trying to get from one end of a Chicago lunch joint to the other, and I know I'm going to watch it again. Next time someone tells me I need my head checked, I'm going to give it more consideration.

While watching it all I could think of was this ad, which shows in our market all the time.