(The links in this article go to product pages on Musician’s Friend, my preferred source for all my music gear. Musician’s Friend doesn’t have an affiliate program, so I don’t make a commission if you buy from my links.)
With today’s delivery of my mic stand and accessories, my home studio hardware is in and ready for recording vocals and guitar parts. My next task: To get the software tweaked so everything plays well with others. Then I can start laying down tracks.
(Content Warning: US federal politics are discussed in this article.)
I try not to post political articles here as a rule. But this evening I got an email from Erin in the Morning Substack that makes me break that rule. The so-called “Freedom Caucus” is threatening to shut down the federal government unless several anti-trans policies are included in legislation to keep the government open.
If the “Freedom Caucus” has a coat of arms it probably includes the phrase “Libertas mihi sed non tibi.” That’s Latin for “Freedom for me but not for thee.” They want to take us back to the days when the people who made the rules were all (supposedly) white folks who didn’t take any crap from anyone who wasn’t in total agreement with them.
Last week, I mentioned that I was finally getting the gear I need to make demos of some of my songs. I’m getting my recording system set up after getting my audio interface yesterday. My song Somewhere Someone Cares will be the first song to get recorded, and I’m also working on recording another song. I wrote a song years ago that got put on the side after I fell out of love with the lyrics. But the music for the song wouldn’t get out of my head, so I need to write some new lyrics for it. I have the chorus already, and this latest move from the ultra-religious right is making me want to get the song finished and out in the world. I think you’ll see what I mean from the lyrics.
The Right is trying to chase us away
The Gays and Lezzies, the Transes and Enbies
They’re saying that we don’t belong
But what they don’t know is we’ve been here forever
They say that we are grooming their kids
But they confuse us with some politicians and church folks
No matter what they do or say
The queers are here to stay.
While Somewhere Someone Cares is a nice blues/progressive rock song, this one is a flat-out rocker. I think it could do nicely as an anthem for the LGBTQ+ community.
If you want your elected officials to stand up for the trans and queer folk against the “Freedom Caucus,” please contact them and let them know. Don’t assume someone else will do it, because they may assume you will.
Last week I decided it was time to backup my laptop and have another go at installing SolydK 12. I installed it back in December but something was nomming hard drive space like there was no tomorrow so I quickly went back to SolydK 10. But I have SolydK 12 installed and I can finally run all sorts of shiny programs. The screenshot of my new desktop has a photo of Babe, my neighbor’s feline, that was taken in August.
SolydK is my preferred Linux distribution, and version 12 comes with Plasma version 5.27.5 and runs on Debian Bookworm. Among the programs I can finally run are the Calibre ebook reader version 6.13 and version 6.6.17.70368 of the Firestorm viewer for Second Life. Plus, I can finally run the brand-new beta of Firestorm version 7.1.3, which has the new PBR functionality of Second Life. No, it isn’t named for a can of beer, and it’s not codenamed Peanut Butter, although many of us do refer to it as Peanut Butter. It stands for physically based rendering, and rather than try to explain it myself, I’ll just let the always awesome Inara Pey tell you about it. But it does mean one thing I can explain quickly: Second Life has actual mirrors now! Granted, they’re not great mirrors as I write this, but they’re semi-functional mirrors. Yippee!!!!
As you can see from the sticky note in the desktop screenshot, I’m not having any unexplained hard drive space loss this time, and I’ve got my recording software reinstalled. I’ll be working with that in the coming days, especially since my new audio interface arrives on Tuesday. I’ll be writing a full article about that once I’ve started using it.
It’s getting late, and Babe is already letting me know it’s time for bed, so I’ll leave you with the images I made for this article. As my (admittedly arsehole) brother used to say, be good, and if you can’t, be good at it.
A screenshot of my new SolydK 12 desktop
Screenshot of the About this System page from KDE's System Settings app
A screenshot of Calibre 6.13
My Second life avatar, Nanci Barthelmess, in front of her new mirror in her home in in Second life
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Tomorrow is Mardi Gras Day in my hometown, New Orleans, which makes today Lundi Gras. The Monday (Lundi en Français) before Mardi Gras used to be a day to rest and recover from the massive parades over the previous weekend. It became its own day of celebration in 1987, and NewOrleans.com has the details on the newer Lundi Gras celebrations.
Tonight’s Parades
Tonight we have the parades for the Krewe of Proteus and the Krewe of Orpheus. You can watch the parades on NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune Parade Cam. They’ll be streaming from The Times-Picayune building just east of Harmony Circle (formerly named for a losing Confederate general) beginning at 5:15 pm Central Time, just keep in mind that it will take some time for the parades to get to Harmony Circle.
Orpheus will have the terrific twosome of Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka as their celebrity monarchs, and I’m going to try to get the stream hosts to shout “Spice up your life!” at Neil. Why, you ask? Because he danced to that song from the Spice Girls in the third 60th anniversary Doctor Whoo special, The Giggle.
Mardi Gras Day
You can stream the Mardi Gras Day festivities from several sources in La Nouvelle Orléans. In addition to several marching groups, there are parades in New Orleans for the Krewes of Zulu and Rex (the King of Carnival) as well as truck parades for the Krewes of Elks Orleanians and Crescent City.
NOLA.com’s Parade Cam will stream Zulu and Rex, and it will be a nice way to watch the major New Orleans parades on Fat Tuesday. Local NBC affiliate WDSU (a sister station to ABC affiliate WCVB, the station I watch for local news in Boston) will add coverage for some of the marching clubs, black masking indians, and truck parades. WDSU will also cover the parades in the surrounding area for a more inclusive day of coverage. NOLA.com’s stream will start at 8 am Central Time and WDSU will start streaming both on their website and the Very Local app beginning at 6:00 am Central Time. (WDSU is a sister station to WCVB, the station I watch for local news in Boston.)
Do you want some New Orleans-esque food for Mardi Gras?
My family has two food traditions for Mardi Gras Day. We start with Mardi Gras donuts, which are similar to beignets but without the yeast. The recipe is super simple with just three ingredients. The picture is the donuts I made for last year’s Mardi Gras Day.
Important note: Once again, I forgot that the recipe I got from my aunt doesn’t include any liquid. I’ll have to correct the recipe in the coming months, and when I do I’ll post the update here. I’ll also write a stand-alone article with the corrected recipe for Mardi Gras 2025, which will be on 4 March 2025.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
Mix the ingredients.
Roll thin and cut into triangles or diamond shapes. Cut a vent slit or two, depending on the size of the triangle.
Fry till crispy in vegetable oil heated to 3500℉.
Dust with powdered (confectioner’s) sugar.
Bon appetite.
They go great with a nice cup of Community New Orleans Blend if you’re able to get it. I buy it from Amazon and it’s the coffee I brew every day. It doesn’t contain chicory, but it’s the coffee my family made when I was younger. You can add plain chicory to get coffee and chicory, but the brand of chicory I used was discontinued, and I haven’t found a new brand I love yet. If you like cold brewed coffee, I can promise you that New Orleans Blend is delicious brewed cold.
Our other Mardi Gras Day food tradition is a simple lunch to take to the parades: fried chicken. Not only is it a great thing to eat between parades out on the route, but you can also have it for dinner if you have any left. Just serve it with a simple salad, and it’s a (fairly) nutritious meal on a very full day.
I could fry up a batch of air fryer wing dings (I need to post that recipe soon), but I bought a tray of fried chicken while I was making a few groceries.
Have a great Mardi Gras and laissez les bons temps rouler, y’all!
One more quick note
Thanks to a nice long bit of jury duty, I’m finally getting some gear for recording demos of some of my songs. I’ll be posting a teaser clip for Somewhere Someone Cares in the coming days to YouTube so you may want to subscribe to my channel at @JMHardin and click the bell so you get notified when it drops. I also post cute videos of Babe, my upstairs neighbor’s cat, so if you like cat videos you may have another reason to follow my channel there.
With today’s delivery of my mic stand and accessories, my home studio hardware is in and ready for recording vocals and guitar parts. My next task: To get the software tweaked so everything plays well with others. Then I can start laying down tracks.
My family has two food traditions for Mardi Gras Day. We start with Mardi Gras donuts, which are similar to beignets but without the yeast. The recipe is super simple with just three ingredients. The picture is the donuts I made for last year’s Mardi Gras Day.