Strange Pulse

This is Michael Hedges, one of the greatest guitarists that ever lived.

He died in 1997 in a car accident.

It’s mindblowing, what he does. He’s basically playing several parts all on one guitar. AND singing! There’s also some video of some of his instrumentals, check them out if you have time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EMRB6BE2iI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTC7kPZZmuM

I saw him live once, and I can’t remember it at all. It really bums me out that I can’t remember it. It’s one of the reasons I started taking pictures at shows, so I can remember them.

That last link is him playing on a modified harp guitar. It’s really wonderful.

Taken with a Lomo LC-A camera I got for my brother for his birthday. I just had to test it out. (Since my kids had taken off for the weekend with my digital camera.) I haven’t used real film in a very long time. These cameras are supposed to do kind of neat effects, otherwise known as take crappy pictures that end up looking cool. Most of the ones I took were just crappy, though. They do look a little better on screen than they do in print, however.

Mexican place in Seal Beach.

Seal Beach pier.

Under the pier.

Daniel skimboarding at Seal Beach.

“Top Hat” Liquor Store. A real classy place.

A horrendously ugly hiking trail in Aliso Viejo. But the sun felt good.

I kept hearing scary rattling noises from the brush.

I was still figuring out the focus settings. Did I mention I took off to take pictures without looking up how to use the camera?

More ugly trail.

Newport Beach temple.

And left me all alone. It was heavenly.

But they also took my camera without telling me. If I have a day to myself, what do you think I’m going to do? Go out picture-taking! I was really bummed when I found out they’d taken the camera, until I realized I had a perfectly good film camera sitting on my desk. All it needed was some film and some batteries. It’s a Lomo LC-A, which I picked up at a flea market for my brother for his birthday. I haven’t mailed it to him yet, because I’m a horrible procrastinator. Also, because he already has one, so another one isn’t that exciting for him. But I figured I’d test it out before sending it.

So I drove around for an hour or two trying to get to Laguna Beach without taking a toll freeway, and ended up in Aliso Viejo instead, at a wildlife park hiking/biking trail. Nothing exciting at all. I don’t know why I never think to plan ahead and actually get directions for where I want to go.

Anyway, Daniel and the kids had fun. Here’s a few pictures they took out in the desert:

Daniel, Cat and Elijah

Daniel

Daniel

Calico

Calico

Nathaniel asleep in the tent

I think next time I’ll just go along to take some pictures myself. You get such great colors out there. But it was really nice to have a night and day to myself!

I’ll post some of the pictures I took with Willy’s Lomo later. They didn’t come out that great.

Song to go with this post: “Low Desert Punk” by Brant Bjork, in the radio.blog.

Since I’m diabetic, and I can’t resist eating sugar if it’s around, my kids have been raised without cookies, cake, donuts, ding dongs, etc, in the house. On the rare occasion I’ll get them some donuts. Usually on a Saturday morning. But only very rarely.

One day years ago I decided to treat them to donuts. For the first time, ever. They’d had donuts before, like at church activities, but we’d never really had a box full lying around at home before.

I made the mistake of just picking up a random number of donuts. Rather than enough to have them distributed evenly. Thus began what we have come to think of as The Donut Wars.

My kids turned into monsters. Screaming. Fighting. Wrestling. Clawing for donuts. It was so bad that Daniel placed the remaining donuts in the garbage and announced, No. More. Donuts. Ever.

After the huge wailing backlash was over, and things calmed down a bit, we discussed sharing and even distributions. And the donuts were removed from the trash and peace reigned supreme.

I never bought a random amount of donuts again.

So I’m posting them on the radio.blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dido - Thank You
Dove - Thank You For Patience
Downy - Thank You Raishun
Flaming Lips - Thanks to You
Hilary Summers, Kemi Ominiyi & the R-svp Voices - So Long & Thanks for All the Fish
Jane’s Addiction - Thank You Boys
Jo Stafford - Thank You For Calling
Led Zeppelin - Thank You
Mastodon - Thank You For This
Mutual Admiration Society - Thankful
Neko Case - Thanks A Lot
Ryan Adams - Thank You Louise
Scott Reeder - Thanks
Talking Heads - Thank You For Sending Me An An
Tori Amos - Thank You
World Party - Thank You World

We were listening to a mix cd I made in the car, and my kids started complaining about a song that came on. I was flaberghasted. How could anyone not love this song?

“You guys haven’t even listened to it!” I complained. “He uses a robot voice, and he sings about being human!”

Who couldn’t love a song like that?

Elijah said, “Turn it off! The drum beat is pounding down into my head and making it hurt!”

I said, “It’s supposed to!” Which made Nathaniel crack up.

I’ll post the song to the radio.blog: Daft Punk’s “Human After All.”

When I told my kids who it was by, they started singing LCD Soundsystem’s “Daft Punk is Playing At Our House.”

Sigh.

I use this website, sigalert.com, to check traffic before leaving work.

Red dots = traffic movingless than 15mph
Yellow dot = 15-34 mph
Blue = 35-54 mph
Green = 55mph +

I’m usually lucky if traffic is blue. If it’s all yellow and red, it can take me 2 hours to get home. Fortunately, my route, the 405 S from the 105 to the 605, is half blue. The rest is yellow/red. It’ll probably take me an hour and fifteen minute to an hour and a half to get home.

But look at the rest of the LA area. SO MUCH RED! Never seen it this bad.

Click the image to enlarge.

Elijah came into our room as we were watching tv the other night to play us a song he’d just written on his guitar. An instrumental, as he called it. He’s written lots of song lyrics before (and they’re actually not half bad, considering what some bands these days write), and he’s written a couple guitar parts before, but nothing very complex.

Before he started, Daniel asked, “Is it a song with verses and choruses? And key changes?”

Elijah just said, “It’s an instrumental.” And started playing.

I wish now I’d recorded it on video. It wasn’t mindblowing, or anything. It wasn’t even very good. But it was complex, with a beginning, and an ending, choruses and verses. He didn’t just choose a couple chords and strum them over and over. It started out slow, with him just picking a couple notes. Then it changed to him picking faster notes. Then some chords intermixed with individual notes. And it was long. It wasn’t like he played for 10 seconds and was done. I think he played for at least a full two minutes, maybe more. I didn’t time it.

When he was done, we applauded, and he got that embarrassed trying-not-to-smile expression on his face. Daniel said, “You had choruses and verses and a bridge in there, but no key changes. Do you know what a bridge is?” Elijah said, “It connects parts of the songs where there are changes,” or something like that. But he didn’t know what a key change was. So Daniel showed him by playing some chords in one key, and singing, “This is home, I’m at home, home’s so nice,” and then changing keys and singing, “I’m away from home, this isn’t home, I wish I was home,” and then changing back and singing, “I’m home again, this is home, I came back home.”

Elijah was laughing, and Daniel said, “What? That’s what they call it—going home.” And I think Elijah got the point, but I’m not sure he really understood. He’s in second year band at school, learning the trumpet, so he should be learning about different keys, though.

I told him he should write his song down so he doesn’t forget it. He said he’d remember it. But I don’t think he will, unless he plays it all the time, which he may, but I don’t think so.

After he left I asked Daniel, “What’d you think of that song?”

Daniel said, “I think he’s twelve years old.” It was a very amateur song. But then Daniel added, “And he’s teaching himself everything he knows.”

I wish we could get him into some lessons. We could afford it, we just don’t have time/no way to get him there. There’s no place close enough he could walk to.

When our oldest was small, he didn’t speak. He didn’t start talking until he was almost 4. He had a way of getting anything he wanted without talking, though. He’d make a grunting noise and gesture in a way that made you know what he was after.

He was a very sensitive little guy and hated having too much attention focused on him. If any of our friends or family tried talking to him and he didn’t want their attention, he’d grunt and point at something away from himself. And they’d get distracted, trying to figure out what he was pointing to or what he wanted. He wasn’t stupid. He was purposely avoiding their direct attention by aiming it elsewhere. Like in this picture:

We put him in speech therapy when he was about a year and a half old, I think. The therapist taught him sign language as a way to lower his frustration level with not being able to speak, and to give him a way to communicate. The intent being to lessen the pressure on him to have to speak and make it easier for him to start.

He picked up the sign language quickly, and of course, these days there’s all kinds of books that show you how to teach babies sign language. And it’s really awesome.

But we moved when he was about two, and rather than find another speech therapist, I discovered the local school district had a free preschool program for kids with developmental delays, and tried to get him enrolled in that. It took time, though, and meanwhile he was content just to use sign language.

I don’t have many pictures of him signing, but here are a few I do have. (Yes, we didn’t cut his hair and let it grow all long and wild.)

Nathaniel signing “house.”

Nathaniel signing “little.”

Nathaniel signing “truck.”

When he was evaluated for the preschool program, they asked me how many signs he knew. I wasn’t sure and started listing them. When I got to 50, they said that was good enough. They were impressed he knew so many. Some I remember:

truck
car
bus
house
little
boy (which he used to refer to himself)
girl (which he used to refer to his younger sister)
mom
dad
bug
tractor
barn
eat
drink
more
train
sandwich
book
school

That’s all I can recall him knowing. But he knew lots more.

One funny thing: Catherine, one year younger than he, didn’t speak until he did. She picked up the sign language from him, though.

Oh, and he used to sign in his sleep. His two favorite things: “train” and “bug” (for VW bug).

The preschool was wonderful for him. Catherine later went into the same program (and for awhile they were even in the same class together). By the end of kindergarten, he was at his age level in speech ability.

And once he started talking, he stopped signing. He forgot it all rather quickly.

He’s 16 now and says he wants to take ASL for a foreign language requirement.

My little brother, my mom, and my older brother at my grandparents’ house.