More ukulele fun. Catch it with a vengeance! Last Friday of the month at Banjo Jim's (700 East 9th Street).
The current set list looks like this:
8 PM: Dixie Piver, Mark Dutton, Ben Dultton, Carl Carrara, Bryan Baker
9 PM: Leslie Chase, Makalina, Vanessa Boyd, Moose Karloof, The Suaverinos
10 PM: Chris Combs, Duncan Pflaster, The Ukemen, Andru Cann
I'm doing a short set, but I expect to do something so dumb so as to be the stuff of leg end.
UKULELE CABARET RETURNS TO BANJO JIM'S
That's right! Friday, January 29th, The Ukulele Cabaret Returns to Banjo Jim's.
For those of you who have not experienced the Ukulele Cabaret, you are in for a treat. Leave your expectations at the door. Dozens of ukulele performers will wow you with everything from rock to opera; punk to glam; Hawaiian to Maori; mod to new wave; Beatles to Bach; country to vaudeville; sleazy to sexy; crooners to comedy; folk to metal; experimental to just down right mental.
OK, you get the idea - it's free-form madness at its best.
Featuring: Andru Kahn, Ben Dultton, Carl Carrara, Chris Combs, Dana McCoy, Dixie Piver, Duncan Pflaster, Leslie Chase, Makalina, Mark Dutton, Moose Karloff, The Suaverinos, The Ukemen, and Vanessa Boyd.
Show time: 8:00 to 11:00
Banjo Jim's
Ave C and 9th Street in the East Village
212-777-0869
http://www.banjojims.com
In my never-ending struggle to prove that I am a feeble old man, I have now acquired kidney stones.
Kidney stones are painful. I mean painful. You know that worst pain you've ever had? What I would give to trade for that. I've read that women have reported kidney stones are more painful than childbirth. However, the scientist in me also keeps in mind that most births of recent history involved epidural; perhaps natural childbirth is more painful.
Point being: it is not cool. Not cool at all. On Thursday morning of last week, I had an intense pain in my back that lasted for about two hours. Chatted with a friend during it. We ruled out appendicitis (pain was in the wrong place), but not a small troll living in my abdomen. I happen to sleep on a floor so I figured maybe I just slept in a bad position, especially since it was in one place and went away so quickly.
On Sunday morning, the same pain. But this time in the front. "Must have slept the other way," I thought. Then the pain moved to my back. And back to the front. This was not a sleeping issue. It had to be a troll or a kidney stone. Pain didn't fade after 6 hours so I allowed my roommate and his girlfriend to take me to the hospital.
During triage, I was asked an interesting question: "Rate the pain on a scale of 1-10." I immediately thought of what a terribly subjective question that is. I said an 8, qualifying as being the worst pain I've ever had, but I don't know if there is something else even more painful waiting for me.
An immediate CAT scan had been ordered on my arrival. The doctor suspected a kidney stone, but something strange in my blood test made her not want to rule out appendicitis. Great. I'd be the luckiest boy in the world. So instead of getting an immediate CAT scan, I had to drink half a gallon of some stuff and wait two hours. But the change to plan had not gotten through yet, so somebody wheeled me off to the scanning room. I got them to verify with the doctor and I was carted back to the emergency ward.
In the meantime, they had IV'd me to something pretty dang sweet. It took the pain down to a dull throb (instead of feeling like I had just been kicked repeatedly with baseball cleets I felt like I had a healing bruise). And the stuff didn't make me woozy or otherwise unaware. It did take several jabs to get the needle in me, however (though I have beautiful veins, they "roll" which means they're hard to catch). The nurse commended me on being the rare man who wasn't scared of needles. I think I'm wary of needles, but at that moment I think any new pain point would have been a welcome change.
So I just kind of hung out for a couple of hours. Went in for the CAT scan, which took all of 3 minutes, and waited another 2 hours for results. No appendicitis. No troll, unless you want to classify a 2mm kidney stone as a troll. I have stones in both kidneys, but the 2mm one is causing the trouble on my right side.
What to do? Drink lots of fluids. Take Tylenol for pain, and if that's not enough, here's a prescription for Vicodin. Strain urine, looking for stones. Follow up with a urologist. Good luck.
No pain on Monday, so I naively hoped that I had passed the stone at the hospital after the CAT scan. Then Tuesday morning. Ah, here comes pain. Let's try a Tylenol. Let's try another. A third. Four? I had reached the dosage limit and NOTHING. Checked out of work to wail at home and get the prescription filled. Pain went away after 5 hours.
Wednesday noon. Pain time. One Vicodin. Vicodin is my new girlfriend. I was cool for the rest of the day.
Thursday was a performance of Insecurity. Pain began as the show started. I took one vicodin at the top of the show, another at the end of scene one. The pain got to a somewhat tolerable level, but remained pretty strong. Four hours later I took a third, and that cleared up the pain straightaway... for 45 minutes. I'm afraid I'm growing an immunity to Vicodin. On the plus side, I won't get addicted to it.
So that's where I'm at right now. I have an appointment to see a urologist, so I'm counting down the days until I learn if we can blast this thing to pieces (though I may pass it through before I even see the guy). Oh well. C'est la vie.
Yes folks, it's finally happened. Sure I've released a lot of stuff, but nothing has grown to such epic mythological proportions as has the Public Domain Project. And now you get to hear it.
31 Flavours Volume One
