Yesterday I bought a stereo amplifier on EBay for 25.00 plus 17.00 shipping. My plan is to use it with my turntable. Before turning to the Internet, I went to every used-shop I could think of in the area. This includes my first trip to the local pawn shop. I couldn’t find anything that would help me with amplifying my turntable. The pawnshop did have a receiver with an auxilary input but no internal preamp for turntables. It was marked 60.00 which was 20 more than I wanted to pay for it.

Once I get my turntable functional I can listen to some of my old records by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and others.

I also made my busking debut. I carted my electric piano to the park and played for two and a half hours in the designated busking area. There were not very many people around and only a few seemed to notice what I was doing. That was fine with me. I just felt like playing outside. I played piano sonatas by Mozart and Haydn, cuban piano music of Touzet, Bach suite movements and improvised on a few tunes from the Real Book. It was good prep for my dinner music gig this afternoon.

Earlier in the day, I finally broke down and called Jonathon Fegel about our gig next Friday evening. He had just returned from a hiking trip in Colorado with friends. We are getting together today to shoot the shit and practice. One of the reasons I’m not too worried about this gig is that it’s actually Jon’s gig. He has just invited me to play. He also is featuring two of his groups that he plays with: Shoehorn and his other band whose name I can’t think of. Not sure what he wants me to do but I should find out more today.

If you’re local and interested, it’s at Lemonjellos next Friday, June 8 beginning at 8:30. 2 dollar cover.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Recently I mentioned Gunter Grass (the author of “The Flounder”) was a Nazi youth. The reason he has recently become controversial is that he was not just a Nazi youth but actually a member of the infamous SS.

That’s him on the right. He has an article in the new New Yorker about it. I laid in bed last night and read it. It’s a bit serendiptious that the New Yorker would have an article by the author I am reading, but this kind of thing happens to me quite a bit. It’s very much the story of a young recruit on the ground during the fall of the Nazi regime. I think it’s good reading but I like Gunter Grass.