Tag: Spunk

Mi Taco Su Taco

Timothy Price49 Comments

A food truck called Mi Taco Su Taco parked in front of our new office this morning. I thought it might be a regular thing. Being Tuesday and having a Taco Truck in front of the office, I texted Bruce to let him know there was a Taco Truck out front if he wanted to come into the office for “Taco Tuesday!” He came in and went out and got in line to discover that the food truck was there for a special occasion for the Humana insurance group. Bruce had to wait until all of “Humanaty” got their tacos so Mi Taco Su Taco could account for all the tacos Humana’s staff had eaten. Then Bruce was able to get some of the leftover tacos. He brought me a couple of leftover tacos. They weren’t bad after I picked all the cilantro out them. “¡No me gusta cilantro¡”

Seeing the food truck reminded me of a parody I wrote and recorded back in 2017 called “Brewpubs And Food Trucks” to Strawberry Alarm Clock’s Incense and Peppermints that I never posted. The parody was inspired by the boom of brewpubs in Albuquerque at that time and all the food trucks that parked by the brewpubs. Now that brewpubs are open again, I see a lot of the food trucks outside the brewpubs. The food trucks offer a good service for people to get food to go with their beer and wine without having to go into a building.

I thought about redoing the vocals, but I recorded it long before I started using PreSonus Studio One. I used MixPad in 2017, and now the latest version of MixPad can’t open the old files. Therefore, you can listen to the bloody awful original version or choose to skip it.

The song really illustrates the reason we moved out of downtown. Things were not good in 2017. “ART” in the song is “Albuquerque Rapid Transit” a total public transit boondoggle rammed down Burqueños’ throats that interrupted businesses and ruined Central Ave, (Old Route 66) from the westside of Albuquerque to “Nobhill” just east of the University of New Mexico. Downtown only got worse and continues its downhill slide. You can follow along with the Lyrics that can be found after the kitty photos and comments.

Brewpubs And Food Trucks

Music: Strawberry Alarm Clock. Parody Lyrics: Timothy Price

Sasha: “Are you kidding me? A taco truck and another BAP?”

Spunk: “What’s that you say? Another BAP about ‘brew huhbubs and taco trucks’?”

Tesla: “AAAaaarrrgh! NOOoooo! Not another bloooody aawfuulll parody!”

Brewpubs And Food Trucks
Parody Lyrics: Timothy Price
Music: Strawberry Alarm Clock

ART sense, nonsense, spare me a dime
Drama queens, silly things, undefinable crime
Fashion drinkers, homeless drunks, boggle your mind
Brewpubs, food trucks, signs of the time

Who cares for things we do
If there’s little for me and nothing for you

Brewpubs, food trucks, gurgling sound
Turn off, tune out, we need to look around
Look at the wealth, look at the wealth, yeah, yeah
Look at the wealth, look at the wealth, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Our polls have divided our world in two
Thrown us off to the side, middle finger screw you
Politicians choke their chickens, nothing is new
A house full of lunatics with a bad point-of-view

Who cares for things we do
If there’s little for me and nothing for you

ART sense, nonsense, spare me a dime
Drama queens, silly things, undefinable crime
Fashion drinkers, homeless drunks, boggle your mind
Brewpubs, food trucks, signs of the time

Who cares for things we do
If there’s little for me and nothing for you

Brewpubs and food trucks
Brewpubs and food trucks

A Country Song

Timothy Price42 Comments

Spunk relaxing in on the deck rail this afternoon.

Two-Stepping To Nowhere

Music: Ron Blood & Joel Lewis. Arrangement: Joel Lewis. Rhythm Guitar: Joel Lewis. 2nd Guitar: Timothy Price. Bass: Timothy Price. Drums: Mark Simma.

Spunk: “NOOooooo! Not that stupid country song!!!”

Two-Stepping To Nowhere is a collaboration between Ron Blood, Joel Lewis, Mark Simma, and I. Ron sent Joel tracks with a bass line and Mark Simma’s drum track. Joel wanted to make a country song, so he slowed it down, which messed up the bass line, so he took out the bass. He recorded the rhythm tracks with the drum tracks playing a semi-hollow body Tele, if I remember correctly, and sent the song to Ron and me. I listened to the song, lyrics popped into my head, I wrote them down, went into the studio, added a vocal track, and sent the song with vocals back to Joel and Ron a couple of hours after Joel had sent the rhythm guitar and drum tracks. Later I added the twangy 2nd guitar playing my Black Tele, and a new bass line. It’s a really silly song, as you can see by Spunk’s reaction above. But it’s fun and funny. The lyrics are at the bottom of the post if you want to follow along.

Spunk taking over my lunch back before I got it packed this morning.

Spunk: “And YOU thing cat herding is really tough!”

Spunk: “Oh Gwedolyn! Did you really need to break wind?”

Silver planning his attack for after I turn out the lights.

A little before sunset tonight.

Two-Stepping To Nowhere
Music: Ron Blood & Joel Lewis
Arrangement: Joel Lewis
Rhythm Guitar: Joel Lewis
2nd Guitar: Timothy Price
Bass: Timothy Price
Drums: Mark Simma

I barfed on my cat today
He was pissed. It’s always the other way
I dragged myself out of bed
Stepped on cats trying to get them all fed
The life of a cat herder is really tough
No one ever seems to get enough

Chorus
It’s like trying to glide
Across the dance floor
When all you do is a slide
Two-Steppin’ to nowhere

I got myself made up and dandy
Going to go dancing and find some candy
A lovely chica got me out on the floor
She looked real nice she knew the score
But it was just my dumb luck
I drove my car, I had left my viagra in the pickup truck

Chorus
It’s like trying to glide
Across the dance floor
When all you do is a slide
Two-Steppin’ to nowhere

Out in the truck to do some shoppin’
The County station was down,
I had to listen to a dude named Chopin
It’s hard on a fella and his imaging
When the country chicas could hear
The wussy music he was listening to

Chorus
It’s like trying to glide
Across the dance floor
When all you do is a slide
Two-Steppin’ to nowhere

I barfed on my cat today
He was pissed. It’s always the other way
I dragged myself out of bed
Stepped on cats trying to get them all fed
The life of a cat herder is really tough
No one ever seems
No one ever seems
No one ever seems to get enough

La La La La Llorona

Timothy Price70 Comments

I presented my paper Quinientos años de lágrimas: The persistence of La Llorona — 16th Century to Present at The 52nd Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association this afternoon. The convention was scheduled to be held in Philadelphia, PA, but like so many things in our world of covid cooties, the organizers decided it was best to do a virtual conference. That was a wise decision, but it certainly changes the dynamics of a conference. I thought it was fitting to add the above parody I posted last year.

The last warning sliver moon in March.Sasha: “Do you like my La Llorona eyes?”

Marble: “No Sasha! This is how you make La Lorona eyes!”

Neither of you has it right. You need to be crying. Sasha & Marble: “Cats don’t cry! Stupid La Llorona!”

Silver: “La Llorona? Meh!”

Spunk: “No stinking La Llorona will get to me behind these bars!”

Glenda: “What’s that you say?”

“La la la La Llorona?”

Loki: “I’m not impressed!”

“Talk to the paws and claws La Llorona!”

Gwendolyn: “Yeah! Talk to the paws!”

Daddy Owl: “I don’t see no stinking La Llorona! What’s that you say? La Llorona can shapeshift into an owl? Ha ha ho ho hoo who. That’s a Hoot!”

Through The Humidifier Stripely

Timothy Price59 Comments

Spunk: “It looks like Beaker got a new humidifier.”

Beaker: “I’m looking through it all stripely.”

Gwendolyn: “Quick change Spunk! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Beaker: “Thanks for the new humidifier! I can breathe again.”

Spunk: “How did you do that you little brat?” Gwendolyn: “Ah ah ah ah…”

Gwendolyn: “Magic!”

Spunk: “I look great reflecting on the phone.” Gwendolyn: “I’m outta here.”

Beaker’s old humidifier started leaking, so I got him a new one. No sooner had I taken the humidifier out of the box, than Spunk jumped in it followed by Gwendolyn. Beaker gets his own private humidifier to help him breathe better. It’s so dry here that Beaker wheezes without the humidifier.

Feline Follies

Timothy Price33 Comments

Loki shapeshifting

MarbleGlenda

Silly Silver

Glenda reaching out to touch the phone

Sasha on a cold day enjoying warm air blowing on her.

Gwendolyn being a bit intense.

Spunk chilling on a warm countertop.

Lokii: “Leave me be stupid paparazzo!”

Of Cloudscapes and Cats

Timothy Price57 Comments

The clouds over the Sandias this morning made beautiful cloudscapes, some with rainbow colors made by the rising sun reflecting off ice crystals in the thin clouds. Other clouds cast shadows as the sun rose above them.

Sasha

Silver

Loki

Spunk

Gwendolyn

Intermission

Marble

Ice crystals reflecting colors in the clouds.

Glenda

Moon in the western sky before sunrise.

Moon behind Mama Owl before sunrise

Mama Owl at sundown

Daddy Owl watching the birds flit around below him at sunset.

Mama Owl hopped over to another branch so I could get a shot of her from the levee after sunset.

Spunk Approves

Timothy Price63 Comments

Murder over the bosque

Lavinia asked if I had used a telescope to photograph the moon last night. Lavinia never lets me down on being observant and asking questions when something seems different like a whole lot of detail in the moon photo. As I answered her, I did not use a telescope, I used a 400mm lens that is equivalent to a 640mm lens on my Canon 7D Mark II body. I have been considering getting a long telephoto lens for quite some time.

I was originally looking at the Canon 100-400mm lens, which is one of Canon’s best telephoto zoom lenses for mere mortal photographers, such as myself. However, the 100-400mm lens is ƒ/4.5 to ƒ/5.6, which is a little slow for as much low light photography as I do. I really needed a faster telephoto lens. I seriously considered both the Canon 400mm ƒ/2.8 and the Canon 300mm ƒ/2.8 lenses. The problem with those lenses for me is their weight. The Canon 400mm ƒ/2.8 weighs in at 12 pounds, and the 300mm ƒ/2.8 weighs 6 pounds, 1/2 the weight of the 400mm ƒ/2.8, but still a heavy lens.

I ended up compromising on speed for lighter weight and bought a 400mm ƒ/4.0 DO lens with Refractive Optics, which enables Canon to put a 400mm ƒ/4.0 lens in the same body as the 300mm ƒ/2.8 lens, shaving 2 pounds off the weight in the process. At 4 pounds, the 400mm ƒ/4.0 DO is easy to handle, and fast enough to get decent images hand held in low light. In the photos of the owls below, we could only see outlines of the owls with our bare eyes like in the first photo, but not nearly as close up. The new lens is able to focus on the owls in relative darkness, through the branches and get an amazing amount of detail.

Spunk loves my new lens

Preening

Spunk’s a lens hugger

Intermission photographed using a Fuji XE-1 with 27mm ƒ/2.8 lens

“Who are you calling a ‘lens hugger?’ Stupid Paparazzo!”

RAW image of the owls before I cropped the image and adjusted the exposure, contrast, color balance, etc.

“Oh my! The paparazzo found us again.”

Mirroring

The streak photographed using a Canon 5Ds with a Canon 70-200mm ƒ/4.0 lens

A little over half a moon on 01/21/21