I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
Edgar Allen Poe

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H. L. Mencken

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
-Bertrand Russell

What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
-James Branch Cabell

October 04, 2015 - 10:53 a.m.

Keeing Track of Trachtenburgs

I'm going to try and keep this edition of Wise Madness short. I have three micro USB cords and they all went at the same time so my phone is dead. I'm an idiot I had bought two six inch ones to use with my portable charger. I was using the old one that worked most of the time. As it gave up the ghost I took out the new one. I then discovered I bought the wrong thing, it was male to female, I needed male to male. So my plan is to blog, eat, then buy a charger. I'm going to see Jean Rohe this afternoon at Peter and Paula's house in Hastings this early evening and Fred is picking me up. I need to have my phone working by then.

I was of course bad yesterday in terms of preparing for my radio show. I have to do that too. All I managed to do is collect some but less than half of the CDs I'm going to bring with me. Then I have to make a play list.

I did manage to make dinner, Cajun chicken and plantains. Do Cajuns eat plantains? I think so. Not that it makes the combination less good if they don't. It was delicious.

Then I was off to the Trachtenburg Extravaganza. The show featured a set by Rachel "I love you but you need a website not just a Facebook page" Trachtenburg followed by her father Jason's band Pendulum "I love you but your website has not been updated since March" Swings. The show was at the Basement Bar in Bushwick. Not too bad it only took me half an hour to get there on the bus and half the time was the walk from the bus. I'd be worried about my safety during the walk but then realized that the streets were so deserted that any mugger would die of starvation before a victim came along.

Rachel's band was stripped down, a drummer with her on electric guitar.

Then after a few songs Rachel said "I told you it would be a special show and you'll see why." They switched places. This was not too surprising as I first saw Rachel as the 9-year-old drummer of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. Until recently she was the drummer for the Prettiots. The electric guitar is the new instrument. She also plays the ukulele. She did most of the show sitting at the drums, even when she played uke but unfortunately as you can see the light was not good at the drums so my pictures are almost all her with guitar. They kept changing the lighting which gives them variety.

I really shouldn’t even include the picture of her on the drums, it didn't come out well but I need some documentation that she played them. Of course the uke picture came out better.

Her music is your standard rock/pop/neuromusic. She sings about things like whales at Sea World and the Manson Family. Looking at the pics you might get the wrong impression, cute sweet-looking girl with a uke. Rachel is cute, she is very sweet she also rocks out, especially when she's drumming. Drumming takes a lot out of you so it's tough to do that and sing on every song but I hope she does at least a few songs from behind the kit every show. There was so much energy.

Pendulum Swings plays straightforward Neurojazz. Yeah, they are definitely related. I love that Word accepted Neurojazz as a word. It did insist on capitalizing it. I accept that. It must have learned that from me. It's an actual big band, a small big band, but still a big band even with some members missing. There's a lot of silliness but they can really play.

I don’t have any pics of Pendulum Swings because I changed my seat. I had been sitting on a low stool where I did have a good view of the stage but y back was not happy with that and I moved over to the bench where I had the added pleasure of sitting with Tina and Rachel but there were people blocking my view of much of the stage.

Google sent me a different way home, which it did last time too. It might have to do with the timing of the bus. The walk was down much better lit and busier streets. It's a bit slower because the walk is the same length but the bus ride longer. The show started late and I didn’t get home to 1 AM.

OK now it's 10:12, earlier than I usually start writing. I'm so proud of myself. I'm going to eat, buy charging cable and come home and charge my phone and prepare my radio show before Fred picks me up. Let's see if I can actually do any of that.

I lost my Wi-Fi, extra fun since my phone isn’t working. But now it's back and I simply ate breakfast while waiting for it to come back. So now it's 10:53 and I'm posting.


I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.





Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018



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Horvendile October 04, 2015
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