Tune Out, Turn Off, Be Small

It's been a while. Marko and i had a mad summer of performing, teaching & selling at festivals. We had an absolutely amazing time. The folks, the food, the art, the music. Wonderful stuff! But, those festivals are also the shit. They usually entail us packing up our entire shop, 24 workshop ukuleles, our own instruments plus sound equipment which we then lug to locations both near and far far away. Many days would start around fucking-hell A.M. and would end around crazy o'clock the following morning usually followed by a long drive home. Whoever thinks that artists and musicians are lazy can kiss my ass. I really love doing fests but honestly, by the end of July, we were ab-so-lute-ly exhausted. Mentally & physically 'kapot'.

We did our last summer festival on the first weekend of August and then we shut down EVERYTHING. We didn't actually stop working but we turned off the 'noise'. Our shop was only open via appointment and most importantly, I put a 'Gone Fishing' sign up on all of our web- and social media sites. Man, i can't tell you how much i have enjoyed turning off Facebook. Not that i don't 'LIKE' Facebook. It's an incredibly cool thing BUT! There is a whole hell of a lot of stuff i don't miss about it.

Shutting off has been a real eye-opener actually. I've come to realize that i've let internet and online media become a distraction instead of using it as the awesome tool that it is. Oh, and another little thing i realized, I've been posting things on FB which i should have been posting on my own blog and eventually linking to Facebook. As you see, that is also going to change.

I've been tackling this break with great enthusiasm in general. I wanted to go back to those pre-internet days when everything was 'smaller'. Just me, my LW Radio and my tools and 'stuff'. That's it. No email, no telephone, nothing. Just long dreamy days of creating, reading, playing and listening to stories on the BBC. It was difficult to get in the groove in the beginning. I did a lot of sleeping the first week. The last couple of weeks though have been really beautiful. Sounds strange but, It feels like my days are much longer. Being 'small' has been freakin' wonderful. I recommend it highly.

Tits Out for Tuesday

NEWSFLASH: ÉÉNOOG LIVES!!!

This is a little story i've been covering since 2011 which has just taken yet another wonderful and wacky turn. But first, If you haven't read my previous posts about 'ÉÉNOOG' then please, if you have a moment to spare, i really encourage you to do so.

Read about the first time Marko and i came across Éénoog in this post from the 11th of December 2011, "Roadside Awesomeness in Belgium".

Then, read the tragic follow up to this story posted on September the 27th, 2012, "Not-So-Awesome Roadside Update"

You still following me? Great, because this story looks like it's going to have a happy ending. I received news last week that ol' One Eye has risen from the ashes and has since hitched a ride on an 18-wheel, flat-bed truck towards the Lowlands and is expected to be arriving back home in Waregem, Belgium at the HM International forklift company in approximately four days!

BIG COLOSSAL HOORAY

We wish Éénoog a safe journey home & 

Cheers to Hervé Missiaen for bringing the Big Fella back!

Just love my gorgeous new radio

The 'Saint James' Pocket Transistor Radio manufactured by Optalix of France, circa 1966/'67. Pretty ain't it? Click on the image to ZOOM!

December 27th - It is proclaimed that Atticus is TOO FAT.
December 28th - Atticus is put on a diet
December 30th - Atticus figures out how to open the refrigerator and eats 2 weeks worth of cat food in the middle of the night.

The Dirt Behind the Duds...

This photograph was taken by Marcel Speet for his 'Buurtgarderobe' (Neighborhood Wardrobe) series. I was asked to put something on that had a special meaning for me and so I chose my John Deere T-shirt and Black Petticoat.

The John Deere t-shirt is part of what i most lovingly call, 'The Redneck Christmas'* story about a party which took place at my step-sister Tammy's house. *First of all, I am NOT calling Tammy nor any body else in my family a redneck but there was an undeniable Southern-Fried flavor to this party which i knew, were i to tell this story to my friends back in the Netherlands they'd be thinkin', 'Dang, what a bunch of rednecks'.

It started subtly, when my step-brother Earl's phone went off and the ringtone played "Sweet Home Alabama". SKYNYRD! Nice start. We all had dinner then afterwards gifts were exchanged. We did this by playing 'Dirty Santa' which i had never heard of before. Not sure i remember exactly how it went but we took turns... first someone chose a present from under the tree and opened it. The following persons could then either choose to also take an unwrapped gift from under the tree, OR they could take a present away from someone else. It took awhile before the dust settled before everyone had a present, wether that's what they really wanted or not. Hilarity, mixed with wee flashes of mostly-playful, sibling ugliness ensued. YEAH!

I still have, and adore the present i received that night. A Ceramic Chicken Sugar Pot and Rooster Creamer i plucked from under the tree, and retained, from my most eccentric and entertaining step-sister, Adela. Besides the 'Dirty Santa' presents, EVERYBODY got 'John Deere' apparel. Um'hmm, we did.

No one actually got an 'I love Dirt' baby jumper
but only because nobody had a baby.

Okay, so we're starting to feel a little bit of a theme here, right? Well, now we come to the country-fide clencher of this whole story when one of my Nephews opens up his present...

Either Tammy's son, Hunter or his cousin, (Adela's son) Jonathan, who were both around 16 years old at the time, received a new Hunting Rifle...

with which one of them accidentally shot the other the following week. Yep, nothing quite expresses the joy of the Southern Holiday Season like the gift of firing power and then filling your cousin full of buckshot. Can i have a "Yeehaw", Brothers and Sisters??!! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw! Thankfully, after the removal of many a pellet from one of their lanky, wirey bodies, he was okay. I believe it was Hunter who shot Jonathon by accident, which makes this story pretty much perfect.

The petticoat story is more of a sentimental tale and nobody gets hurt which probably only makes it interesting to my parents, who are most probably the only ones who are reading this in the first place. (Hi Mom, Hi Dad!)

During another very memorable summer vacation in Mississippi, my Dad took me to The Promenade Square Dance shop. We had such a great time there. It was in a little wooden house in downtown Gulfport. Unbeknownst to Dad, the owner turned out to be a long-time classmate of his. I believe their last names followed each other alphabetically which meant they were always seated by each other in class. She was quite a gal. Strong, in-charge type with a gift for telling a great story, the one more humorous than the other. Dad told me later that she got a special award when she graduated from High School for having never missed 1 day of school, ever. From grade school all the way through high school, not one day. Dang.

While they caught up i walked slowly through the front room. From floor to ceiling it was a fluffy, ruffled organza petticoat dreamland trimmed in satin. I tried this black one on and while i was beaming at myself in the mirror, Dad said, 'Oh, Shelley that's so pretty, it's just beautiful but,... how ya gonna get it back to Holland, Sugar?' Smiling ear-to-ear i told him that i was definitely going to wear it on the plane. He laughed SO hard. And he's got a great laugh.

Anyway, it was just a really fun time with my Dad in a unique little shop during one of the best vacations of my life. Besides that, the petticoat reminds me of when my Mom and Grandparents used to Square Dance which is where my Mom met my Dad (who is actually officially my step-dad) in the first place. Grandma made me a little red and white gingham square-dance dress and petticoat exactly like my Moms. Although it wasn't easy to get me in a dress as a little girl, the petticoat was a different thing all together and i felt like one hot patootie. TWIRL!

JaMarkoquai

Marko reminiscing about the 90's this morning... Did y'all know Marko was both the choreographer and lead dancer on Jamiroquai's 'Emergency on Planet Earth' tour? Yep, he and the 'Jam' are still good acid/funk buddies. He lovingly calls Marko van der Horst 'JaMarkoquai'. Sweet, aint it?!!

Mmmmm, the Candy Ma'am!

My Girlfriend, Uh...Miss 'X', made me some Candy! These are all sweets. The Marijuana and Hashish look dangerously convincing. Photograph below shows the real thing on the left and the confection on the right. Pretty damn good ain't it?!

Excellent combination by the way:
DOPE, SWEETS AND... THE 'BIG O', BABY!

Song Sung Blue

Sunday afternoon. My room was a mountainous topography of laundry. Piles and piles of it. I went on a clothes folding extravaganza. To entertain myself while i tackled it, i watched a documentary about Neil Diamond. It wasn't the best of documentaries yet it took me back, way way back to when i was a small child...

My very first 'favorite song' was 'Song Sung Blue' by Neil Diamond. Mom bought me the single and thus  it was the very first record i owned. I'm guessing i was about 5 and Mom and i had our first little house alone together. Till then we had shared a room in my grandparents house. We had now ventured out on our own and lived in a little cottage at the back of grandma and grandpa's property right in front of a little patch of woods. It was very exciting. The cottage had just 3 small rooms. A bedroom with a built in closet, a bathroom with shower and a combination living-kitchen-dining space. It also had a black naugahyde chair that swiveled around and in our bedroom there was a window across from the bed we shared through which we would watch for falling stars.

She would let me stay up really late and we would watch old horror movies together which i was too young to see, making it all the more thrilling. Frankenstein, Dracula, Phantom of the Opera...

Mom had a really old Ford Falcon that had once probably been some shade of green but now had a mottled mossy matt finish. It also had an AM radio with ivory-colored, jutting knobs to adjust the tuning and volume and push buttons set to local radio stations.

I have a faint memory of a particular drive in that car. We were on our way to visit a friend of mama's in Bay St. Louis. I'm not sure but i think her name was Judy. What i do remember is that she had a huge Raggedy Anne Doll laying on her bed that was even bigger than me. Judy pulled up her dress and showed me the big heart with the words 'I Love You' printed on the dolls chest. It was like being shown someone's secret tattoo.

Along the way, somewhere around Henderson Point, my favorite song came on the radio. There's an old, rickety, short yet high bridge you had to go over at the Point right before crossing over the bay. It's deteriorating concrete slabs no longer fit snuggly and the gabs between them made your car bounce up up and down. While we were crossing that bridge on this particular day we noticed that the car was bouncing to the exact rhythm of the song on the radio.. my favorite song. We just thought that was so neat.

Funny the seemingly small things you remember isn't it? Yet I can still remember how Mom looked to me then, sitting next to me behind the thin steering wheel of that beat up Ford Falcon. Blonde Hair rolled up at the ends hanging just above her shoulders, black liquid eyeliner, gorgeous long legs. The most beautiful woman in the world to me. And we laughed together as we bumped across that bridge singing 'Song Sung Blue'. 

Happy Birthday, Dad!

This is my dad, Norman Yandell. He's actually my step-father but i don't see it like that. He's my DAD. He's such a great fella... funny as hell, good as gold and incredibly talented. He's famous in some circles down on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Folks adore him. You can't go anywhere with him without someone, usually a lady, running after him for a hug and a kiss.

He started making handmade fishing lures out of wood in the 80's. They are THE handmade lure to fish with, highly sought after and also collected as little works of art. He has since turned this business over to his son Kenneth Earl Yandell. Now Dad teaches folks how to make hand-knotted cast nets which is fabulous since it was quickly becoming a lost art. Here below is an article about him and the Norm Bait. Happy Birthday, Dad. You're the best! X
Click on Image to ZOOM!

Into The Garden

Damn i love being in our garden. It's a tiny piece of paradise. This year our Foxgloves are amazing. They are just as tall as Marko!

BREAKING NEWS: Operation 'Free Phalanges' A Success!

Source: The Disassociated Press (DAP)
13 April, 2013
This afternoon Shelley Rickey single handedly freed all 10 of her Toes which had been held hostage by the woolly militant group known as 'SOCKS' for seven months since their capture last year in September. The 10 Toes show signs of extreme weakness due to the horrid circumstances to which they were subjected during their capture and detention but all are expected to make a full recovery. Three of their captors are known to have been killed during the rescue operation.

Captain Big Right Toe, lovingly referred to as 'Big Piggy' by his fellow captives, solemnly expressed his immeasurable gratitude for their liberation but quickly added, "...today we 10 Toes have been freed but on this same day millions of Toes all over the world will suffer from hideous acts of violent oppression at the hands of SOCKS." The youngest of the hostages, Pivate Tiny Toe, or 'Little Piggy' was completely overcome with emotion and could only state, 'I'm going to cry wee-wee-wee all the way home.'

Three members of the SOCKS killed during Operation 'Free Phalanges' 

Left to Right: Bruno Breiwol, Karlheinz Kniekous and Siegfried Strompfhosen 

..............................................................................

This afternoon, after a forever of unseasonably cold and dreary weather, the sun came out and it felt warm and for the first time in seven months my bare feet stood upon the moss, grass and stone in the garden and i was ecstatic with joy.

Bringing back the Sunday.

I didn't do Sundays very well last year. I nearly worked myself to death last year. This year, i'm making a conscious effort to bring back the weekend, or at least the Sunday.

Today it was gorgeous outside so Marko and i took a little ride on the back roads towards Leiden and there abouts to visit some Flea Markets. On the way there we listened to Roland Vonk's Radio Show on the local station, a long-time Sunday tradition. He collects records, tells storys, and plays obscure and curious recordings. Todays episode was an especially Vonk-a-delic edition with both Hawiian tunes and Yodeling! I highly recommend starting your Sunday morning with yodeling.

My mission was to find lots of cheep glasses with which i could build a Glass Harp, a project i'm working on for Museum Night. (More about that later!). I needed stemmed glasses and was especially looking for Cognac glasses. I found a load of them for just .20 cents a piece. Oh, and i bought the boot for just .50 cents because i thought it would kick ass to drink beer out of a glass cowboy boot.

I also found stuff for my new, weird, nerdy-ass past time...Crocheting. It all began when i crocheted myself a shawl and a hat last fall because i just couldn't find ones that i liked in the shops. I had absolutely no intention of carrying on with this crochet thing but it turns out that it's very relaxing. It's something creative you can do when you 'aren't doing anything'. The only thing is, you have to count. I'm a daydreamer...i usually miss a stitch. But, today i found a nifty craft book entitled 'Modern Haken' from 1973. It is mostly about 'Free Form' Crochet which is done by stitching an organic form using your repertoire of stitches and your intuition, no counting involved. SCORE! It looks pretty cool too. More folky. I dig those cushions. And what about that freaky ski mask? Looks like something you'd wear to a Cajun Mardi Gras. I also found some balls of wool for just 1,-euro a piece. Big Nerd Cheer!

I invite you to click on the image and ZOOM!

And lastly, i bought myself a medal for .50 cents because i liked the Orange Tree on it and two tacky/awesome needlepoint pillow covers for €1.50. DANG, i Love Flea Markets! I hope you too began your morning with Yodeling and enjoyed the hell out of your Sunday. Take care. x,s.

Musical Treasure

While in Mississippi i looked through my grandmother's music cabinet and found these gems. They are all from the 30's and 40's and i can't wait to play my way through them. Most of them have the ukulele chords notated with the sheet music. Awesome!

 I especially love the Cowboy Classics!

More Mysterious Scenes from the Abita Mystery House

Besides all the amazing collections and freaks of nature to be found at the UCM Museum there are also many handmade folk art animated scenes of Southern life made by the owner of the Abita Mystery house, Louisiana inventor & artist, Mr. John Preble. 

The Abita Mystery House & UCM Museum

Abita Springs, Louisiana is one of my favorite small southern towns. It's a one stoplight town with only 2,300 inhabitants yet it has it's own Opry House, Beer Brewery and the weirdest damn attractions i've ever seen, The Abita Mystery House & UCM Museum. I am a huge fan of this place and i applaud the sense of humour and dedication it took to make it. To others it make look like a big heep of junk and quite frankly, it is. But, the way this junk has been presented makes it a work of art.

The UCM (pronounced You See 'Em) has all kinds of amazing and ever-wacky collections and exhibits. Some of the collections are: Combs, Paint-By-Number paintings, Barbed Wire, Electronics, Paint-Can Lids, Garden Hoses, Utensils, Bikes, Hot Sauce. Like one sign says: 'If you have 3 items you have a collection and it takes 3 collections to make a Museum' and it's as simple as that.

The main building used to be a gas station a long long time ago. As you enter the front door you find yourself in an amazing gift shop filled with both hand-crafted items and insanely unusual new items. I'm not much of a shopper and i'm usually broke as an artist/musician can be but i can't help but buy something every time i visit. This time i chose a book called 'Weird Louisiana' and got some postcards of the 'Bassigator' (Half Bass Fish/Half Alligator). Which brings me to another realm of collecting to be found here: Freaks of nature such as a 'Mermaid', a 3-Headed Chicken, and the Doggygator just to name a few.

There are many different little dwellings behind the Main House such as 'The House of Shards' made of a bazillion pieces of broken ceramic crap, 'The Hot Sauce House' which of course houses a collection of Hot Sauce and there is even an airstream with a UFO stuck in it thus giving us proof of alien landings in Louisiana...but everybody know that already.

Personally, i think the thing that really ties all this junk/art/collected crap together are the hand-painted signs. Everywhere you look there are words of wisdom, warning and wacky-ness. Some of my favorites, 'Free Possum with Every Purchase' & 'Create Art & Get Rich'.

Even though this place is relatively small, one could visit it a 1,000 times and never see it all. Abita Springs (-wiki link) is in general just an absolutely fabulous place to visit for so many reasons.  It's named after the crystal clear springs which run through it and from which the world famous Abita Beer is brewed, there are also beautiful bike trails running through it and it's only about 20 minutes away from New Orleans. And, if your timing is right, you may even catch a live show at the Opry and hear some amazing Country, Cajun and/or Bluegrass Music. So, if you are ever in these neck of the woods and can't resist seeing a 3-headed chicken...Don't Miss It! Want to see some moving pictures of the Abita Springs Mystery House? Click Here!

Do yourself a favor, click on these images to ZOOM!

Vintage Heat

UPDATE: Unfortunately this heater was WAY too dangerous so we didn't buy it. Too scary but still Oh so beautiful....
It was getting damn chilly in The Jumping Flea so i went online to score a heater and boy did i find one. Look at  this beauty. It reminded me of designs from the Amsterdamse School around the 20's and 30's. I found another one online and it had a seal on it dated 1928. I'm sure many would find it a monstrosity but I think it's absolutely gorgeous. It's been kept up to date and is still running in the sellers home which we will visit tomorrow. Just 35,- euro's and the seller lives about 5 minutes from our house. WIN! The pictures below are actually from the other heater i found online. The heater we're picking up is in much better condition but these photographs were more attractive.
Click on the image to ZOOM in on the AWESOMENESS.

Not-So-Awesome Roadside Update

Last december i wrote a post titled, 'Roadside Awesomeness in Belgium'. It was about this spectacular giant we saw while on the way to Roeselare, Belgium standing along the E17. We found out his name was Éénoog. I invite you to read this amusing story about Éénoog here.

Now i hate to be the barer of bad news, but i was informed this evening that Éénoog has suffered a tragic death. Someone actually set him on fire. Isn't that sad? Sincerly disturbing.





What did Éénoog ever do to anybody? I mean if you want to set someone on fire, just right off the top of my head i would say Ronald McDonald would be an excellent candidate.  But not Éénoog. This is sad.

Well, goodbye Éénoog. Rest In Giant Peace. We'll miss you Big Fella.

The Original Kazoo Company

Eden, New York (pop. 8,076) is home to The Original Kazoo Company, est. in 1916. The instrument's creation dates back to the 1840s when its inventor, Alabama Vest, a former slave from Macon, Ga., directed German clockmaker Thaddeus Von Clegg to make a wooden instrument to his specifications. The origin of the name kazoo, however, is unclear. But it was most definitely Emil Sorg, a traveling salesman, who brought the idea of manufacturing kazoos to western New York around 1912 when he teamed with Michael McIntyre, a tool and die maker. McIntyre later partnered with Harry Richardson, the owner of a metal forming plant, and added metal kazoos to the production line in 1916. McIntyre received a patent for the companys standard model No. D-19 kazoo in 1923.

Today, the factory is America's only metal kazoo manufacturer. Thanks to the industriousness of its 15 part-time employees, the company produces about 11,000 kazoos annually, using the very equipment installed by McIntyre and Richardson: 20 machines powered by a single 10-horsepower motor.
Source: AmericanProfile

Summer in Rotterdam

Boy am i glad we're heading to Italy for a while. This is just too depressing.

Image courtesy of 'Little Plastic Things'