Big As A Skint Mule...

Man, if you have google you should know, correct?? Well maybe not know what is correct or right but I did google the southern phrase big as a skint mule and got exactly one hit. 

Big as a skint mule, I can't recall where I heard it but it is a phrase that in this family we use to refer to when a sleeping child is on the couch or has maybe slipped off to dream land in the comfortable place that they have come to rest in and they seem to look, all stretched out vs. curled in a bed and seem bigger than they are.  I have never skint a mule. I can only imagine that once the job of work of getting the hide off was complete that the skint mule would look bigger than it really is.

 I don't know if people really skin mules. There is a job called muleskinner but it refers to the occupation of wagon driver which given the debate over fossil fuels might see some room for growth in the coming decades. If there is a job of skinning mules I doubt that it pays what it's worth or that any pay increases keep up with the cost of living. 

In addition to when they are napping a child can also look as big as a skint mule when he throws himself on the ground in a I am not even to the terrible twos yet tantrum because his brother touched the cat toy Pop Pop made from a broken fishing rod, a string and a strip of fabric.   

Maybe the tears here were not over the toy. It's possible he found out that there are not any fine liberal arts colleges offering degrees in  mule skinning or skinning mules. I think both those jobs would just be the kind of thing you just roll up your sleeves and get on with best you can. 

There, now when you google big as a skint mule you will get two hits and one of them will be this blog. 

   

 

Straight No Chaser at the Temple Theater...

Some are used to music that cuts your throat with Les Paul guitars and Fender Strats. Last night the Angelina Arts Alliance featured the a capella group Straight No Chaser and their dynamic performance had all the energy you might expect of any rock show. It was another top notch event for Lufkin in the fine Temple Theater. 

SNC has it's origins as a student group formed in 1996 at Indiana University. In 1998 they recorded a video of their 12 Days of Christmas which had 24 million youtube views and led to a record deal. 

This was a cheerful energetic performance. The jokes and group interplay is humorous and they made quite a few references to their families and the impact the pandemic had on their lives as musicians. 

The last act we saw in this series was the Gatlin Brothers and while the music was great there were a few offhand remarks made by the the brothers that made light of Covid 19.  I don't think that's a good message and while you couldn't classify SNC as having a socially important thing to say they did share their experience. I've had people share with me that the pandemic has not much affected their lives. Like SNC, that has not been what I have personally seen in my life but then I probably just go to different places.   

Instead of instruments SNC has tenor, baritone and bass voices. They also do mouth percussion that would have you swear there was a recorded beat track being played. 

The Rolling Stones, they have made some great music, God bless them and they are out on tour now at an average age of 76 years old. I showed my wife Cathy (a fine singer) a video of guitarist Keith Richards singing at a recent concert. She said, "he sounds just like you do, he's hitting the notes he can." 

Go see SNC. They hit all the notes. 

 

Things People Say About Your Music...

 Singer songwriter James McMurtry has a song, and I may be just paraphrasing, where he is asked, "is that a real song or one you made up?" Someone asked me recently after a Goat Rodeo performance if we wrote all those songs. There had been one original but the rest of the set was tunes by the Beatles, Stones, Howlin' Wolf and John Prine that are million sellers as well as a few by more critically acclaimed writers that should be better known. McMurtry also lamented the fact that in his efforts to become an artist he discovered he was a good beer salesman. In the last month or so I've sold barbeque, fish plates and it's given me a chance to think about comments people make about my music. 

One of the best comments and I got it a few years ago was from a classically trained musician, older and very experienced. He said after hearing some of my more creative efforts, "Your not coming from the same place as I am." It made me think of the lyrics to the Papa Mali song "Sugarland." 

"You see me standing on the highway

Don't ask me where I'm going

I'm not going your way

I'm searching, trying to find my way, trying to find myself..."

Recently when Goat Rodeo, which is what me and Cathy call our duo finished a set some one commented to us, "ya'll work well together." Well duh, happy wife, happy life is all I can say about that. I learned real quick not to kick on the ring modulator during her songs. 

The best all time comment I have had though came on one of my youtube videos of a tuba riff I recorded during the early covid days in March 2020 when lock down and shelter in place orders were looking like they were going to be pretty severe. The riff uses a Fender Bassman 70 tube amp, an EHX Blurst low pass filter and a delay. I called it simply enough "Shelter in Place." About two weeks ago Elemkay left this in the comment section:

"Nice. Those bursts are like ingesting mushrooms with an elephant trumpeting in your direction." 

Thanks Elemkay. You made my day. 

Just so you can kind of feel like Elemkay does and maybe leave a comment of your own about how you felt:

So next time you talk to musicians about their music remember they might write a blog about it. 

 

The Ever Popular Fishing Report...

There was a lot to see on a cool, brisk day at the lake. The wind was out of the north, the fishing were biting slow enough to not be work but in numbers that guaranteed a fish fry and it was absolutely beautiful. This first photo is the boat ramp at Hanks Creek. I put my new lifetime senior parks pass to use as my launch permit.  

I had a bit of trouble getting on track for catching as Cathy and her brother Matt got right down to business with good fish. Even though new regulations place no size restriction on the catfish we still threw back a bucket full of small fish. Final total for the day was 39 cats with a lot of them being blue cats. 

Here's Matt with a fat cat. We were using the old favorite JPiggs punch bait.  The stump you see us tied to has 29 foot deep water to your left and to your right it's 34 feet dropping quickly into a channel of some sort that 43 feet deep. It's the perfect ambush point sitting right on that drop. Only trouble was this day anyone sitting on the shallow side of the boat caught nothing. That's the side I started out sitting on. Fortunately when on a pontoon boat if someone gets up to put a fish in the livewell you can just get their spot.

Zoom this photo up for a look at a flock of gulls working a school of bait fish. I suspect there's big fish under there. 

A couple of white pelicans have made the trip down from the northwest, California and Canada.  These early birds are the two that least like the cold. The others will soon follow. They are fishing for the same meal the gulls are after. They do not dive for their food and eat about four pounds of fish a day. 

East Texas fall colors, blue sky, bluer water, red dirt and dead pines killed by the high water this past spring. Ok, there's a few red trees in there also. 

I zoomed this photo up pretty good. We are probably six miles from that bridge. 

A meeting of the East Texas Hygiene Committee to discuss the disposal of a carp carcass.  Those two on the right at drawing lots to see which one eats after she gets through. 

Meet our new fish cleaning helper. His name is Balls. We kept a few of those 10" newly legal cats for frying whole. 

Here's a plate of some good Texas cooking with whole fried catfish, slaw and a soup of red, black and white beans seasoned with Zumo's sausage.

My grandchildren are catfish eaters. It seems to just come natural to them. 

Here's a young man that can't be bothered while he's working on making a mess of fillets and Pop Pop's famous hushpuppies swim in his belly. You better not bother Pop Pop either while he gives the cats a swimming lesson.  

 

Riff Runners in Concert at Angelina College...

If you missed Friday night's performance by the Angelina College Community Big Band under the direction of Dixon Shanks you missed a great show. The music was top notch. 

The music they chosen for the first concert by this newly reorganized group was a mix of jazz standards, pop and rock tunes all performed in a big band style.  

The group draws members from Lufkin and surrounding areas. Quite a few are musicians I have played with in our brass quintet, the Angelina College Civic band or the Stone Wall Rockers and they definitely brought their best to this show. 

There are good musical things happening in Lufkin right now and I advised you to put the next two concerts by this big band, March 3rd and April 19, 2022 on your must do list. You won't believe how good this is till you see it. 

 

A Big Slough Hike...

I made a little scout around to the Big Slough Wilderness Area in the Davy Crockett National Forest. Hunting seasons are open, most notably deer season but I like duck hunting. The season happens to open this weekend and these old sloughs are a good place to ambush wood ducks like my dad taught me to hunt them. I saw zero ducks yesterday and probably won't hunt till cold weather brings some migrating in. At the rate I go I'm in no danger of overharvesting the population but Cathy does cook an excellent fried duck breast. 

If you recall all the rain last spring I am sure this low lying river bottom was flooded out. Looks like from water marks on the trees it was at least waist deep on the rises and in the drains armpit level. Maybe we won't get too much water. All over the bottom seems to spread the ducks out and if the water is deep it's hard to retrieve them.  

This is one of my favorite spots when the water is low like this. It's some kind of gravel like ore along the slough bank and nearby are a couple of larger ore looking rocks. I did not check out those formations today but for some reason I always have a great cell signal here for such an isolated area. 

From the abundance of freshwater mussel shells I would say that it's a fine late night buffet for many woods critters and a great population of these filter feeders indicates good water quality. I have never eaten one of these myself and don't see why you couldn't if it's cooked properly but I have picked them up, shelled them and used the meat for trotline bait and caught good blue cat. 

I think I need to look at that infrastructure bill a little closer. I have been going to this area since the late 70s and it's the first time I have seen this kind of water damage to a generally good firm bedded road system. I suspect that this elevated roadway between two low-lying swamp areas is part of the Central Coke and Coal Company railroad that transported harvested timber to the saw mill that was located at Ratcliff. 

I am not sure the policy on maintaining roads in wilderness areas. All the little old pig trail roads through the woods have been allowed to go wild. There are restrictions on what can be done. The Davy Crockett website has an alert that this road is passible by four wheel drive only.    

Glad I came over in the good daylight to scope things out. 

This photo is down the 4 C hiking trail. It's part of the old railroad bed. The Central Coke and Coal ended their operations here in the early 1920s. All the trees were gone.  

 

Latest Two Used Records...

A few weekends ago I managed to hit the downtown Heritage Antiques parking lot flea market. They hold something like this each spring and fall. I have always found good deals here and in the past I've had some very profitable days when I had a booth selling the cigar box guitars I made. The Heritage Antiques people have been good to me. On a quick walk through this day there were plenty of well organized good records to be found and I limited mice elf to only two and I think I was drawn to these through a cosmic connection. 

In the front you see Al Hirt's "Our Man in New Orleans." It's a 1963 release and this seems to be a rerelease from 1976. Al was a New Orleans fixture, playing trumpet on Bourbon St. and at one time being apart owner of the Saints and performing a few Super Bowl halftime shows. This is a recording of all the traditional jazz favorites but it's in kind of a big band style. Amazingly enough you can still buy this on cd or as an mp3 but used records by the big man are a rich vein of cheap record collecting. They made millions, they sound good, are easy to find and usually the previous owner took good care of them. 

On the cover Al is pictured in front of Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop on the corner of Bourbon and St. Phillip. It might be the oldest building in the French Quarter. It's reported to be the most haunted structure in the Quarter and in the 1940s was a place for the bohemian community which included Noel Coward and Tennessee to hang. By the time I first spotted the place in the early 1980s it looked like a joint where a tourist might pay too much for a drink so that day I located my operation a few blocks over to a dark, quiet, mostly empty watering hole whose name long escapes me. I did not see any bohemians there but I did not want to be bothered.   

The other record is Parliament's Motor Booty Affair. It's a George Clinton project from 1978. This record had two Number #1 Billboard singles come off of it. Bootsy Collins who (linked is part of the show we saw) we saw at Riot Fest a few years ago and his brother Catfish play on the record. The cut out paper doll stand up characters, art work by Overton Loyd are all still intact. I wish I had been into this kind of music when it came out but my shell like ears lumped it in with disco. The disco joints in east Texas usually required nice pants for entry in the late 1970s and as I had had a bad experience with nice pants in the third grade or something the scene was a turn off. This music is really what they call funk and it's good. Later I would learn more about it in New Orleans    

Maybe That's the cosmic connection is that Al is from New Orleans, like on the album cover I only stood outside Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop, I learned more about funk there and some years ago we did see George Clinton play live in New Orleans. I swear I wrote a blog post, and everything and had some photos of  had photos of Diaper Man who was still alive at the time. 

Good thing there are records, lots of them and if someone turned up that blog post I would invite you to a quiet bar afew blocks over from somewhere.   

 

Mardi Gras Dreams...

 It's not even Advent yet and I'm having Mardi Gras dreams. 

I dreamed that I was standing on Raguet St. in Lufkin, Tx waiting for a parade to pass. Raguet St. is a long street running all the way through Lufkin north to south (I always thought The Raguet Street Ramblers would be a good band name but I've kind of learned my lesson on those band names with too much backstory) and I was standing with a group of people in the area of what used to be the old Junior High School but is now Pineywoods Acadmey. 

Weird thing is the neighborhood is all turned around with the school on the opposite side of the street and a little south of where it is now. I was standing, waiting on the parade with a small group of maybe a dozen people. We are all bunched up, there's is not that many people there for the parade and there is plenty of room where we could have spread out along the street more. 

The parade starts to pass and even though the real parades in our town have improved impressively the past decade or so this one is small East Texas town stuff. People are driving vintage cars and riding in the back of big wheeled mud pickups of the kind I'm not sure what they do with the rest of the year. The drivers and passengers are tossing beads but it's like they are not really looking where they throw so the beads are landing in the street and against the curbs of each side of our bunched up group. No one chases down these beads they lay where that fall.

The beads, are very colorful flashing in the sunlight as they fly through the air. They are the cheap imported kind that child labor makes in dreary factories that have stolen any imagination that the kids might possible use to think about the reason the world needs such beads. When these beads hit the ground to the sides of the gang of spectators they break rendering them impossible to wear around your neck. 

Finally I put my hands up and with one finger I clumsily catch a string of large green, gold and purple beads interspersed with plastic crawdads. I look and there's a girl on my right. She's cute but it's a washed out pale and skinny with no muscle mass cute. I hand her the beads and say, "Have you ever been to Mardi Gras?"

She says, "Not in New Orleans but once in Baton Rogue I sat in an enclosed glass viewing grandstand with my parents and watched a parade pass. Because we were inside I never got any beads." 

The thought went through my head, "This is not the girl for me." 

And then, I woke up. 

       

  

The Lufkin Brass at Uncle Doug's BBQ

This past weekend The Lufkin Brass, our polka band/brass quintet/dixieland/ragtime outfit played at Uncle Doug's BBQ in Douglass, Tx. If you don't know the venue check it out sometime. There's something for everyone if you like BBQ, chocolate factories, community gardens, a coffee lounge and plenty of outside room for the kids to run. 

I recommend the ribs. They melt in your mouth.

Our music went well. It's our second gig in as many as many months and our set is traveling well. The guys set up quickly and with just five horns there not much muss, fuss or sound check required. Everyone just does the thing they do and we have fun. I think the spectators and Victor, the owner of Doug's did too. They indicated they would have us back. We did not push our luck or anything and ask if we could leave our stuff set up but we look forward to a return.

Best part of the gig was toward the end of our second set my grand daughter Parker, who had come to see me play shouted from the picnic table area "bye Pop-Pop." Nothing like fans watching you.       

We even got our name up in lights. 

You can see from this photo they let our cornet player, Dwain, park his car behind the stage. 

Whether the Lufkin Brass is playing or not check out Uncle Doug's. It's great.  

 

Kind of a Reverse making Records Blog Post...

 A few Christmases ago the kids gave me a USB turntable. It's a handy item if you have a bunch of old records like I do. It hooks to a port on a computer, drop the needle on the groove, click a button on a pretty simple program and the next thing you know that big spinning 12 incher is a digital file. 

That set up including the computer is nothing special. The lap top in the photo is the one I used for work before I retired. It's a Dell ebay refurbished job and not too speedy but it takes care of business and I was able to put the audio directly to a zip drive. That's handy as I already have probably 5000 songs on this little computer and there's no sense in just clogging it up because I can. Speakers are not too loud but with a plug in chord to my bluetooth speaker that I broadcast from my phone or an analog to and I have a fine monitor for a little system that all told probably comes in at a price tag well under three Franklins. I've paid more for fun but not lately. 

You could get technical as I think there are some editing programs out there that eliminate all the pops and hiss of a record but that might get complicated. 

In the time I've owned this turntable I have recorded records to digital in starts and fits and this started as a project to record an old band record for a classmate. It's hard to record symphonic music. There are lots of dynamics, pauses between movements and so on that fool the software into thinking a single piece might be more than one track. 

A rock record is easier to record. It's pretty straight forward. They crank it up and keep it up all the way through. At least they do on a clean record. Those records that might have slid across a dorm room floor back in the late 1970s might have some scratches that hang things up. 

Which is funny as I have a lot older records I have collected up from used stores, thrift stores and flea markets that are in much better shape than the rock records of the 70s. I collect in the categories of dixieland, big band, polka and exotica. I think these kind of listeners just took better care of the records and played them on better equipment like big old consoles that had sturdy built in storage. 

As for the old band records they don't seem to have faired as well. They date to the early mid 70s and have not been played all that much but seems like manufacturing might not be the same standard as the big labels. The techniques to record a symphonic band in an auditorium might be pretty primitive compared to what is available today.  

Cathy is back to work after her hip replacement this week and as she winds down to retirement when the labor and delivery night shift is not busy she will come home on call. Last night she came home early to find me at my digitalization station with a stack of old Joni Mitchell and Chicago records. She said:

"What you do when you are by yourself is worse than I imagined."  

.          

An Insidious Disease The Worm Leg...

I'm here today to talk about an insidious disease affecting those from 6 months to about 16 months. We call it the worm leg. The signs and symptoms of the worm leg are when you try to place a child in the most affected age bracket in standing the legs either draw up in a seeming involuntary avoidance of the bearing of the body weight on the floor or they collapse or the child automatically sits right down on the hinny. The legs essentially have the same strength and stability to support the child as a worm would if a worm could.  

I first noticed this syndrome in my oldest grandson Warren. When he was about 6 months old it seemed he would walk at anytime. Everyone was excited at how advanced he was. Then the worm leg set in and he never stood again till he was about 16 months. It almost seemed he preferred being carried by his parents. Thankfully this carrying of a large child comes to an end when the worm leg resolves on it's own and the infant begins standing and walking.     

My grandson Cullen has just ended his battle with the worm leg. We are happy to note that he dealt with it in the most creative ways, leaning his back against solid, stationary objects when he stood to play, cruising furniture and letting adults do the work whenever possible. With the discovery that you can get more food when you move around I think this was an important realization for Master Cullen in resolving this terrible disease.  Mr. Cullen do like the groceries. He will walk to the dinner table.   

Be sure to leave your comments about the battles you have had with the worm leg. If we all support each other we can ease the burden of this affliction.