Our cat, Sara, has developed a strange new habit since we moved here, or more accurately, since Sue unpacked this white little animal pelt (pictured here) that she got when she was younger. It's some sort of weasel-like creature and Sara located it, or I guess we could say "hunted" it rather quickly and claimed it for herself. It's obviously brought out the latent huntress in her, because now, every night without fail, she runs around the apartment with it in her mouth and wines and cries until we congratulate her on her kill. She brings it to our bed and presents it for us much the way outdoor cats do with more recently living things.  And then we hang her upside down and squirble her (also pictured here). Look at that kitty! Silly kitty. 

Anyway! Where was I? Last night Sue and I went to a nifty dance 

recital held at local studio: Safira's World Dance, featuring belly dancing and flamenco. The flamenco portion was courtesy of Alicia Harris, a visiting dancer from Spain (by way of 

Oklahoma City). Didn't bring my camera to the event but I found this pic of some of the dancers online. 

The most fun for me was joining in on the syncopated clapping, which will have to satisfy my percussionist fix since the Old Town Square Drum Circle is probably calling it quits for the winter. If I haven't mentioned them before, they met every Friday and Saturday night in the middle of the Square with plenty of drums available for those who didn't bring their own. I joined them one night when Sue was in New York and it was fun, though I haven't had the chance again since and they probably won't meet again until it gets warm. 

Meanwhile, playing guitar in a rock band has been an interesting experience so far. I'm not used to playing that style so it's forced me to actually learn how to play real chords and stuff, maybe even shred! Picking up nifty little tricks like D-Tuning my guitar. That's when you tune the low E string to an even lower D. It gives the guitar a lower sound but also makes it easier 

to play certain chords and riffs. Also started singing backup on some of the songs which has reminded me how long it's been since I've had to sing in a live band. Still rips my throat up for now, but I'm sure I'll get stronger again. 

Challenge of the Day! Tell me what this sign means. What is a "MEATPADDL" and how wrong is it that it involves kids? And does the involvement of a clown make what's happening Wed at 6 more scary or more scary? The closest guess wins a prize. 

Sue is entering the final few weeks of the semester which means she is grumbling to herself and twitching a lot. But we've managed to get most of our Thank You cards out. Some of you have already received them but for those who haven't, don't worry, they're

coming! Meanwhile, I'm close to completing the enrollment process at Newman and hope to take a couple classes next semester. Just waiting for one more set of transcripts before I can continue. I've decided on Graphic Art & Design as my major. I'd been considering a few other things, but I'd studied Art originally and it seemed to be the one thing I'd really love doing above all else. Wish me luck dusting off my long neglected skills.  

So, I can't not mention the election, which was pretty spectacular. Of course, I don't know how you go from calling Obama a terrorist supporting, secret muslim, socialist one day and graciously congratulate him on his "historic" victory twenty four hours later. It's not like those sentiments are going to go away over night, which would explain the rash of racist hate crimes that have been reported since the election. Maybe when Obama turns out not to be the anti-Christ, and ends up doing a halfway better job than Bush (and how hard could that be, 

really) it'll all blow over. Hahaha, yeah, I know, that sounded funny when I was typing it. I can dream. 

Anyway! On to subjects that we can all celebrate like the fact that Sue and I have found GOOD PIZZA in Wichita! I *bleep* you not! Il Vicino serves entirely decent wood-oven pizza, good crust, tasty sauce, big-ass calzones. It's true, it's not bad! Sue and I were so excited that we went back the following night and then had the leftovers again the night after that. It's not New York style, but it'll more than do.  

Finally, I've posted another video to YouTube for the new tune Badman Dub. This vid is spiced up with various silliness from around the web, so it's a bit more interesting to watch than the others may have been. If you get a sec, check it out. And check out the three new tunes I've posted to my Garageband site: Grasshopper Vs Mantis, Truly, and Badman Dub. All my trax are posted there for checking out or downloading. 

Anyway, we'll talk to you all soon and Sue says "Damn papers (grumble, curse)" which I think means "Talk to you soon." 

Love, Sonny & Sue.  

Taking a deep breath

WOOHOO!!!

Hey again everyone and a Happy Halloween! I hope you've all had a fun one. I have to admit, I haven't gotten dressed up for Halloween in years, and this one was no exception. But even Prof. Crane was lazy on that front this year. Here she is as Crazy Woman With A Pumpkin Tattoo On Her Neck. 

Ghoul Day fell on Final Friday here in Wichita. Like many cities,

Wichita has one night a month set aside when all their art galleries are open late and many offer snacks and wine and other goodies. I'm happy to find that it's a happening event here and the city has a very vibrant artist community. There are around thirty galleries participating around the city and we only got to visit a handful in one section but they were crowded and the art was fun.

My favorite was the Robots exhibit,  

featuring many homemade and automated creations, like a robot made from car parts that reacts to people moving near it 

and talks and a machine that creates music by

hurling a rock and rattling chains against sheet-metal. Many of the

galleries are located in those cool old warehouse buildings. The section we visited is Commerce Street, which is a brick paved ally that stretches along a block of converted warehouses. There were 

musicians playing outside and one space was used as a makeshift

concert venue. And the din of noise coming

 from the venue was the most evil sounding music I've heard here, which, from my perspective, was a promising surprise. And of course, there were many people dressed in costume. 

Last saturday I performed with the Grace Wu Kung Fu School at the annual Asian Festival. The event is held every year at the convention center downtown and features food, music and culture from the

many Asian countries represented in the city. The Grace Wu School performance is usually the big hit of the fest. Some were surprised that I would jump into a performance after only a couple months at the school, but my experience at Shaolin Temple, and the 

number of performances I've done for them, left me with plenty of forms I could handle more or less. As it turned out I just did a small part of a form for my solo stint, not feeling comfortable doing the whole thing and I participated in a group form with other students.  Here is a shot of us all posing at the end of our performance like a bunch of hotshots. I seem

to be having trouble posting videos to this blog, so here is a link to my personal MySpace Page with a video of my short form where I look like a formless blob, and a video of the group form which looks a bit better. My short form is from a form called Swallow (the bird not the motor reflex, wise-guy). 

So I guess that's it for now. 

We love you guys and will see you soon hopefully! 

Love, Sonny & Sue. 

So, hopefully some of you got your Susan fix for the time being. She enjoyed her visit, as brief as it was, and thanks to Bethany and TJ for providing rides and beds and everyone else for the companionship. Sounds like you guys partied like it's 1999, or 1988, or something, you know what I mean. Once again, Sue is too busy reading papers and pulling her hair out to write anything on this silly blog, but I can offer the following quotes:

"I had a great time! I wish it was longer!" 

"Everyone I hated in High School is now old and ugly, har!" 

That second one may be a miss-quote. Watch for a retraction in a future update. Anyway, in place of words, we have images, because they don't lie, unless you have Photoshop. These are mostly untampered though. Please visit my Flickr page to view

 ALL of the pics Sue took while in NY last weekend! There's a whole series detailing the various objects that can be placed on or around TJ whilst he is unawares, a must see! 

Another thing Sue said, is that she can't wait to see you all again around the Holidays, so keep our schedule in mind and hopefully we can meet up with everyone. We're arriving in Philadelphia  on Dec. 23rd and will be spending Christmas with Sue's Nan & Pop. We should be in New York from around the 27th through Jan. 4th, flying back on the 5th. 

I've posted a couple more songs on my MySpace page: Revolution and Relax, It's a Death Match. I know I know, why am I bothering you about every single song I finish? Why don't I just make an album like a normal person and bug you about it once a year like everyone else? I'm knew to this, I'll calm down, I promise. But check the songs out anyway. If you want. Whateva. 

MySpace is acting kind of glitchy these days, and they only let you post up to six songs at any given time, but all Germanate08 songs can be listened to or downloaded on http://www.garageband.com/artist/germanate08 

This Friday Sue and I accompanied Prof. Bryan Dietrich and the Newman Lit Club to Kansas City to visit haunted houses The Beast & Edge of Hell and I have to say, KC kicks all y'all's asses when it comes to haunted houses. These were

by far the biggest, most well run HHs either of us have seen. The first coolio thing about them is that they are all located in this old industrial district in turn-of-the-century era warehouses which is a creepy place to be at night to begin with. They take over these disused four or five story warehouse buildings and it seems like you wind your way through these places for hours, on every floor, getting the bejeezus scared out of you every five seconds. The sets and effects were the greatest 

we've seen and it's neat how the building itself adds to the creepiness with all these weird rooms built for some forgotten purpose. I swear there were people hurling themselves to the ground out of panic, and by "people", I absolute do not mean "myself", I was a rock. There were huge rooms decked out like fog laden forests that required some work to figure your way out of. Other rooms featured multiple false exits and people or things waiting to jump out of each one before you located the real exit. And both HHs ended with a long tube slide that takes you from the top floor to the bottom. There were apparently others in the area we didn't go to like one that is Edgar Alan Poe themed and another that takes you through scenes from famous horror movies. Unfortunately, all my pics of the place came out so abstract and formless that my blog won't even let me upload them. Damn those fog machines! Oh well.  

I'm not the bravest soul on the planet I'll admit, but after a while of wandering through these places, especially by the second one, I was already starting to suffer from some sort of post traumatic stress disorder. Anyhow, anyone who likes haunted houses needs to experience these at least once. The only downside was that we did it all in one night. KC is three hours away, so we didn't get home until almost five in the morning. Luckily, we weren't driving. 

I think that's all. Oh and thanks to everyone for the feedback regarding my blog reminder e-mails. We feel so loved! 

Talk to you all soon.

Love, Sonny & Sue. 

So, I'm hoping that the Kansas plate our car now sports makes my blatant speeding seem a little less noticeable. I would guess that cops pretty much anywhere have the New York plate committed to memory from a hundred feet. 

Sue and I have had another pretty eventful couple weekends. Well, me more so than Sue, unless you count grading papers to all hours of the night eventful. HEADS UP to all our New York friends and fam, Sue will be in town this coming weekend for the High School Reunion that I'm sure some of you are aware of. Enjoy! 

My musical adventures continued with an eight hour drive to Austin for Austin City Limits!

I was excited to visit one of the definitely cooler cities within a days drive of Wichita, plus I got to see my friends Erika, Alex and Eric who flew in for the weekend also. 

The pic to the right shows the gang in front of "Bat Bridge" which was a very unusual attraction. A giant colony of bats lives under this bridge, which is located right in the middle of the city spanning Town Lake. Every evening at dusk they swarm out for a little bug din-din and it makes for an impressive sight and attracts crowds of onlookers. Standing on the bridge, they form a virtual carpet of surging, flurrying activity just beneath the walkway. It seems like you could reach down and touch them. Cool!

At this time of year, however, it was almost completely dark by the time they came out so it was nearly impossible to get any good pictures of them, they don't like to stand still for photos. 

This is what it looks like when it's lighter out. The website says there are about 750,000 bats at peek season.

So, the festival: Austin City Limits, was a grueling but fun experience. Yes, I almost died from breathing clouds of dust and dead grass particles all Saturday, but there

were eight stages and a gazzilion bands, what was I supposed to do!? A sampling of some of the bands we caught: Gnarls Barkley, MGMT, Tegan & Sara, Man Man & Beck. Man Man would take the prize for band I'd never heard of who ended up being really entertaining. They're an everything and the kitchen sink kind of band with a circus sideshow sound and 

wacky stage show. Erika and Alex had to fly back Sunday but Eric and I went back to the fest again that evening, a little more prepared for the dust, and had a good time. 

Aside from the festival, we enjoyed the cool shops and local restaurants in town and got into a Rolling Stone party Friday night at a club downtown. Local band Voxtrot were one of the acts playing. Austin is a very cool music 

city and I'm sure I'll be back, maybe for SXSW! 

My mom came for a visit this weekend, Hi Mom! She stayed in downtown at the Hyatt, the nicest hotel in town. We took her to some of the good Old Town restaurants, the zoo (which is surprisingly big), the botanical gardens and the art museum. Hopefully she had a nice stay, she heads back tomorrow 

morning. We were happy to have our first guest, WHO'S NEXT!!

 A final word on my own musics stuff. I've been posting my songs on various sites like: Mediafire,

iSound, Lastfm and Myjonesmusic. I've also been throwing together some makeshift videos for

 some of the songs and posting them on YouTube. The vids

are just an excuse to get the songs posted. Check them out sometime. You don't have to watch them, just give me a rating so it looks like somebody gives a crap.  I don't expect anything particular to come from it at this point. I just want to stay creative and see what happens. And finally, I am now sort of officially a

member of Half of Reason. Oh Snap! I'm even listed on their MySpace page! I guess it's officially official. 

Make sure to see Sue when she comes up next week, if you can, but we'll both be back in NY for the holidays, so hopefully we'll see you then! 

Love, Sonny & Sue.  

 

Hello friends and family. Welcome back to our blog, the music edition. 

First, let me just say that Yay, there is good music in Kansas! I don't know how often it comes along, if we'll have to wait a while for it again, but it is possible to walk into a dingy 

bar, pay $5 and sit with twenty five other people while a guy on stage with a guitar blows your friggin' mind. A couple tuesdays ago, Sue and I went with Julie (Sue's coworker and lead singer of the band I've been jamming with Half Of Reason) to a local haunt to see Rodney Branigan. (sigh, swoon) 

Now, I've never been overly impressed with person-on-stage-playing-acoustic-guitar in the past, with some notable exceptions like Ani DiFranco & Joseph Arthur. But this dood has serious chops. First of all he can play two guitars at once! And he does this percussive thing with his hands and fingers on the guitar, working the guitar kind of like how a percussionist does the congas, and does this while playing the

thing. You won't believe me so just check out this promo video to see for yourself.  If he comes to your town, see him. 

As for me, I've posted a new song to my MySpace page: Zero (Your Number Is). It's a dub-y, drum'n'bass-y dance track, fast, fun (I hope) and over the top, the ways I likes it. Not that you asked, but it's actually a remade version of a song I did years ago. The original was kind of a mess though so I took the stuff I liked most about it and redid it. Check it out when you get the chance. Comments or critiques are welcome (though the critiques will probably be ignored, don't take it personally, sometimes I'm a stubborn ass). 

 Last Sunday Sue and I went to our first event at the Wichita Swing Society! And it was a pleasant surprise. A big crowd, a lot of young people so it had a fun, high energy vibe, and plenty of skills to go around. I get the impression they don't get a lot of bands passing through so most events are probably DJ'd but it was still promising. Now if I can just learn something more than the same three moves I've been doing since Sue first started teaching me. 

 

I didn't bring my camera to the event, these are some shots I stole from their website. 

So that brings us to yesterday and the  

Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival!

in Winfield, Kansas! Can I get a Yeehaw!? 

 Julie again brought us to this event which is at a  small town about an hour southeast of Wichita. It's a pretty big deal 

 around here and attracts some serious crowds. There are numerous stages, lots of music and plenty of food. Call me slightly homesick, but my favorite act was the Wiyos from Brooklyn, the only NY band. They put on a fun show with an upbeat, burlesque-y, country swing sound and received the only standing ovation & encore I saw at the festival, which was interesting. The midwestern crowd didn't seem to mind that they were from New Yawk.  For those of you in the BK, if you see them playing somewhere, I recommend them, they're a fun band. 

We were told that the festival wasn't as lively as it usually is because the camp grounds, which neighbor the festival grounds (as well as the local river) were unusable due to last weeks floods. The large contingent of campers who usually attend the festival were set up somewhere else a few miles away. From what we heard, a lot of the fun comes from the impromptu

  jam sessions that spring up all over the camp grounds. However, we heard some good music, had some good (fried) food, talked

with lots of people and had fun in the sun. It was a nice warm but not overly hot day, perfect! 

Finally, we further erased evidence of our New Yawkness this week by changing our licenses over and registering the car in Kansas. We still haven't put the dang Kansas plate on the car probably because we're strangely reluctant to take this step. To demonstrate our individuality and stubborn defiance, we will probably leave the window stickers on for a while since Kansas doesn't use any of their own (take that Kansas!). Another thing Kansas doesn't require: auto inspections. You can drive around in any emissions-spewing piece of junk around here and we've seen our share. But I'm still one of the fastest drivers in Wichita, I can't help it. 

Oh and one more thing. One day last week I was home and heard a siren in the distance, and then another closer and another somewhere else and, though I'm not proud of this, I kind of shat my pants. Though it must have been something like what the tornado warnings sound like, the sky was clear blue with no storms anywhere in the region, so I doubt it could have been a tornado. Still...scaaaarrry. Something that will be hard to get used to.  

That's all for now peeps. Signing off with love from the Heartland, 

Sonny & Sue

Smells Like Kansas

Hello again folks. 

Sue keeps threatening to take over my blog one of these days, and if that ever happens (you know, with all that free time she has) you can hear more from the Good Doctor about how her classes are going and how she likes Newman. To me, it seems like a much better atmosphere than what she was subjected to at Stony Brook. She of course is very busy, but it seems that she's more supported and appreciated by the administration also. 

As for me, things have been picking up. I've found a group of musicians to jam with, I've started up a new MySpace page to post the new music I've been working on on my own, as well as some of my older tunes. If you want to check out some kind of weird electro stuff, go to my page www.myspace.com/germanate08, be my friend or something, whateva. 

I may even have a job lined up, but I don't want to jinx it so I'll talk more about that later.

 

As you can see, our apartment is starting to look more like a home. All we need is a couch and maybe another bookshelf or two. Speaking of couches, last weekend Sue and I drove three hours to Kansas City so we could visit the nearest Macy's and turn all of our gift cards into a brand new leather couch. Swanky!

Like this one, only in red. 

While we were there we checked out KC, had some chow and listened to some live Kansas 

City Blues at this neat, though touristy outdoor area featuring plenty of bar/restaurant type places that allow you to sit outside and watch the band while you drink or eat. Then it was off to Lawrence, the home of Kansas U, and that place is all it promised to be; jam packed with plenty of cool shops, coffee houses, music venues, record shops and hippies, everything a good college town should have. 

Too bad we live three hours away. But it's good to know it's within reach if we need to recharge our Northeast Liberal Elitism. Sorry, second time in as many blogs that I've gone for that joke. I promise I won't bring it up again until the next one. 

That brings us to this weekend and our phantasmagorical trip to

the KANSAS STATE FAIR! Woohoo! I haven't been to a fair this big

 probably ever, at least not since I was much younger. This shindig had everything: livestock auctions, chickens and bunnies, llamas, panels judging every conceivable category of animal, produce, flowers, herbs...uh, corn art. There was a huge sculpture made of butter, a chainsaw artist, alligator wrestling, pig races, deep-fried everything, hot beef sundae (you probably think I'm making this stuff up now, don't you?) every class of farm equipment 

you can imagine...oh and Country Music? Did someone ask for Country Music? Ooooh yeeaaah, more

 Country Crooners than you can throw hand grenades at! Oh I think they had

 hand grenades there too, along with tanks and machine guns, just for fun though. 

Unfortunately, it was a cool, damp, muddy

day, but the fair was hoppin' nonetheless and we had a good time. To say the least, it was a

cultural experience. I still don't like Country Music though. 

Autumn arrived with zero subtlety this week. Mother Nature takes Labor Day "The Official End of Summer" very seriously 'round these parts and dropped the temp. about thirty degrees in a few hours and there it's stayed since. Eagerly looking forward to the brutal winter everyone has been gleefully promising us. 

Oh, one last note on our cat, Sarafina, for those who've expressed concern.

She has recovered from the move swimmingly, and in fact seems happier than she's been in years. She actually has room to run, repeatedly, from one end of the apartment to the other, an activity that must have seemed pointless to her in the walk-in closet I called an apartment in Astoria, Queens. She is by far more playful than she's been in a while, so I'd say the move has been good for her. And here is photographic proof that she is up to no good I tell 'ya. 

Anyway, friends, loved ones, peeps, that's all until next time. Be well and we'll talk to you soon. 

Love , Sonny and Sue.