John at Las Vegas Photo Blog posted a video of church bells ringing in Banff, Canada, which reminded me that I had recorded the bells ringing while on the bell towers at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, in 2018. I found the video and decided it was boring by itself because the bells at Notre Dame were very loud standing in the bell tower, and they didn’t have any variation other than a bunch of bells ringing at once. Therefore, I wrote a piece of music to go with the bells and put together a rather strange music video called Non-Tubular Bells. I include photos from Notre Dame in 2018 before the fire, pictures of Paris taken from the bell towers, video of the American Flag at our neighbor’s house, video of our neighbor’s dogs playing in the Rio Grande, and video of the Owlets flapping their wings and flying a little.
Tag: video
Wet Coachwhip Snake
I got a video of a Coachwhip Snake (Masticophis flagellum testaceous) swimming in the irrigation ditch. I know a lot of people have trouble with snakes, but they are really quite beautiful. It’s not often I see a Coachwhip Snake taking a swim. After we got back from checking on the owls and walking in the bosque this morning, I wrote a song to go with the video, appropriately named Coachwhip Snake. I recorded the song and put it all together in the above video this afternoon. Enjoy!
Coachwhip Snake
Lyrics: Timothy Price
Music: Timothy Price
Verse
Slither swimming in the ditch
Sloppy sine wave between the wake
Slips the bank scales in cross-stitch
Stops and eyes me with suspicion
Bridge
We stand we stare he and me
Paparazzo and snake admiration
Chorus
Masticophis flagellum testaceous
That’s what I said
Beautiful snake, braided scales
Colubrid whipped up in western red
Verse
Slither swimming in the ditch
Sloppy sine wave between the wake
Bridge
We stand we stare he and me
Paparazzo and snake admiration
Chorus
Masticophis flagellum testaceous
That’s what I said
Beautiful snake, braided scales
Colubrid whipped up in western red
Sphingidae — Sphinx Moth
A Sphingidae — Spinx Moth, AKA Hummingbird Hawk-Moth, was fluttering around feeding on our Purple Salvia with the bees and the butterflies. I made a short video of it and added one of our recordings of Caña for background music (I’m playing and Laurie’s dancing). The only sound on the original video was the wind.
Dinnertime
The owlets are starting to get out of the nest. Last night I was checked on the owls well after sunset. Daddy Owl was hooting way up at the top of a cottonwood above the owlets. Soon Mama Owl brought home the bacon in what looked like a gopher. She perched with Daddy Owl for a few minutes before she flew down and gave the owlets the gopher for dinner. The three-minute video below is edited down to two minutes forty-five seconds of owl video from Daddy Owl hooting to Big Baby Owl hopping back into the nest with dinner followed by 15 seconds of credits.
Being well past sunset, I could only see outlines of the owls with my bare eyes. I increased the exposure on the video by two stops which let me at least see when the edges of things looked sharp when I focused on the owls. I had to focus manually and hope for the best. Daddy and Mama Owl were backlit, so the increased exposure was able to get their details pretty well. Once Mama Owl flew down to the owlets, the background became dark. I didn’t increase the exposure further, because the picture probably would have become very pixilated in the darkness. As it is I got the video pretty well focused and you can see some details in the owlets in full-screen.
Flamenco in the Old Church
While I was looking for the video file for Bite ‘Em on the Old Shin Bone last night to make a few updates to the video before posting it, I found a video of Laurie (Laura de Corrales) and me (El Cheo) performing Alegrías with Pablo Rodarte in a show we did in the Old Church in Corrales in the mid-1990s. Pablo danced Alegrías, Laura de Corrales is the Palmera, and El Cheo accompanied on guitar. I transferred the video from VHS to m4v several years ago, so the image quality is not very good. However, the sound is not too bad, considering.
In preparing for the show, Laurie and I practiced daily, I practiced with Pablo’s other students several days each week, but when it came to Pablo’s performance our practice together consisted of 15 minutes of Pablo doing a quick run-through of each part of the Alegías a week before the show. I simply had to follow all his leads during the performance.
Laurie and I both studied flamenco dance with Pablo, and I played flamenco guitar for many of his dance classes back in the 1990s before we moved to Spain for almost four years.
Mr. & Mrs. Owl
We walked down to check on the mama owl who’s been sitting in her nest for a little over a month. She and the daddy owl where sitting in a cottonwood across the irrigation ditch from their nest. Mr. Owl would hoot at Mrs. Owl and then she would peep. After he flew, I walked around to the other side of Mrs. Owl, and I could see she had something in the talons of her her left foot, but I could not make out what it was. She finally flew over to the nest and then we could see she had a gopher for her little ones. I expect we’ll start seeing the owlets poking their fuzzy heads up over the edge of the nest to look out at all the people standing on the ditch bank gawking at them in a couple of weeks.
Below is a short video of Mr. Owl hooting at Mrs. with wind and a pesky chainsaw in the background.
You can click on the photos in the group below to see each image enlarged:
Livin’ La Vida Lockdown
Livin’ La Vida Lockdown
Music: Ricky Martin
Lyrics: Timothy Price
From LA to New York City
Canada to the wall
It’s like bad renditions
Of movies like “The Fall”
So many lamentations
News gives us all a fright
Only sick and grave predictions
We are in an awful plight
You can take your clothes off and stand naked in the rain
But there’s no one to see you, now isn’t that a shame?
Isn’t that a shame? Come on.
Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (oh man!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown (how sad!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Woke up such a pity what a funky nasty spell
We do your part to save some money
But it’s like a living hell
Restless, climbing walls, all this waiting’s such a pain
Now we’re all alone, and it’s driving us insane
Yeah, we’ll never be the same
Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (oh man!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown (how sad!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Ride a horse naked like Godiva in the rain
But there’s no one to see you, isn’t that a shame?
Isn’t that a shame? Come on.
Inside can’t go out
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Makes us scream and shout
Livin’ la vida lockdown
We can’t earn our bread
Enough to drive us loca
Lockdowns wear us out
Livin’ la vida lockdown (Yeah!)
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Livin’ la vida lockdown
Lola Limp
Lola has degenerative arthritis in her right paw. The bones got separated so the Vet splined Lola’s leg. We hope her bones will fuse back together with her paw stabilized by the splint. Lola feels so much better with the splint and she gets around really well it. I couldn’t resent writing a song for her.
Lola Limp
Music and Lyrics by Timothy Price
Vocals: AWB
Guitars: Timothy Price
Bass: Timothy Price
Percussion: Assembled by Timothy Price
Lola has a nasty limp
The doctor put her in a splint
It’s enough to make you shiver
Now she looks like she’s Long John Silver
Come on Come on
Do the Lola limp with me
Stiffen up one leg
Like a limb on a tree
Limp once forward
Un pasito adelante
Limp side right
Shake it make it kinda funky
Limp once backward
un pasito a la trás
Limp side left
Lola limp is like a box
Flying Felines
While people are wringing their hands, gnashing their teeth, and hoarding toilet paper over all the happenings in the world right now, our kitties headed for the sky and did some feline flying to stay above it all. Kitties know how to have fun in times of trouble.
Flying Felines
Music and Lyrics by Timothy Price
Guitars: Timothy Price
Bass: Timothy Price
Percussion arranged by Timothy Price
Felines flying one by one
Felines in the sky today
Here they come having fun
Felines flying
Felines walking on the air
Flying up, down and all around
They found a way to fly away
Felines flying in the air
Going high in the sky
Going nowhere
They’re going nowhere fast
Felines flying in the air
Through the sky they walk on air
Felines flying in the sky
Felines in the air so fine
They know where they are going
Up with the birds in the air
Felines flying in the sky walking on air
In the air they are so fine walking on the line
Space Herpes
With all the attention on the Coronavirus, everyone seems to have forgotten about space herpes (https://news.sky.com/story/nasa-issues-space-herpes-warning-as-virus-reactivates-in-astronauts-11669335). Space Herpes is a parody of Deep Purple’s Space Truckin’ off their Machine Head album released 48 years ago this month.
Space Herpes
Music: Deep Purple
Lyrics: Timothy Price
Guitars: Timothy Price
Bass: Timothy Price
Drums: Ian Paice
Well we lip locked with the Vals on Venus
We were making out a lot on Mars
We’re smooching with the groovy aliens
Kissed across the universe a far
We messed around with Borealis
We got space herpes from the stars
Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes
Remember when we kissed the moon rocks
Swinging around the Milky Way
We found Uranus was a rude shock
Pluto doesn’t see the light of day
We’re messin’ round in the solar system
And got space herpes along the way
Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes
The Fireball we drank was burning
And now we have a new routine
Yeah yeah yeah yeah Marline said
They can kiss, but they cannot sing
We’re messin’ round in the solar system
Swinging around the Milky Way
We messed around with Borealis
Got space herpes everyday
Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes
Oh no oh no oh no
we got space herpes
oh no oh no oh no
space herpes
Off Center & Not Even 