Things suddenly got busier when I announced my retirement yesterday

I should really follow my own advice sometimes!

(View of The Brothers and the smokey Orange Sun, with Costcrow below)

About 24 hours ago I formally announced my Retirement to the Irish Flute Community and on my websites and in social media. As of yesterday I stopped taking orders for everything. In the workshop I still have some 37 flute projects to finish so I’ll be busy until the Inaguration getting the last of my must-do work out the door.

Meanwhile I am launching some bucket list projects. I finally realized that none of these will happen unless I make the time space in my life for these. I’ve told potential students and others who want to learn how make musical instruments that they will never get anywhere unless they take a leap of faith and give up activities that provide financial security first, struggle for as long as it takes, and then finally it starts working. And sometimes after 44 years of this vow of povert, one can retire and be just as poor, but happier now that the pressure is off.

This is the normal life cycle of the Artist.

So I had to do that finally. I think we’ll be okay as I can always revert back to making the occasional flutes and one of my retirement priorities is starting to produce my popular Folk Flutes in a 3D printed version which we will sell through a few favorite retailers. So I have really only retired from taking peoples’ money and calling that a deposit and eventually getting around to making what they ordered. Meanwhile I suffer from several months bed rotting and feeling guilty that I don’t really want to work on anyones’ instruments that hour, day, week or month. I hope to have these 37 flutes out the door by the time Harris is sworn in, or before my progress is disabled by another strong bout of imposter syndrome.

So I went to bed at 11 and realized that I needed to spend the night typing up a proposal for yet another bucket list project that suddenly went from an unlikely fantasy to a lively sudden reality with some wonderfully exploding possibilities. I just sent this verbose proposal off to my two potential collaborators and might calm down and hopefully drift off to sleep for a few hours while Glenn Kirshner drones on and on about the latest Trump bullshit. Later on this morning I need to head up to Edensaw Lumber for some super glue and to Port Townsend to see a Red-Footed Booby. My life has been busy lately with several Edensaws and Edenshaws and maybe Even Saws that won’t slice your fingers off. Edensaw has some. I suddenly realize that I have to justify the saw - oh yes. The Bucket List. I want to make a guitar someday.

Part of my energy and yesterday’s very bad business decision stems from an upper GI tract endoscopy that I just had last week. The results were perfect and no Portal Hypertension was found and everything looked normal. On the way in to the procedure room, I mentioned to my team of 5 that another way to look at this proceure and label it was to call it a Reverse Colonoscopy. Its just with this type of colonoscopy one inserts the camera down through the Upper Asshole, rather than the one your are sitting on. My laughing team never had heard that before and asked if they could use that, and pointed out the prep is much easier. No drinking the bottle of Wet Wood Preservative named Peggy.

Who knows if they really looked inside. It seemed like minutes that I was out instead of the 4 hours they promise me in the brochure. I am not sure I am getting my money’s worth frankly. After they put me under they probably said to each other “lets get this asshole outta here before more of his shit flies out another oriface!”

They were very nice!

Friday I slept all day and felt like I had been hit by a truck. I was, actually, the previous day up at the corner across the street from Safeway. Waymo has sold one of their designs to Dodge Trucks (obviously - you will have to be responsible for your own safety and dodge these brainless behemoths which will not stop for you as these creatures have no souls, just spinning tops that are meanto to hypnotize you and turn you into roadkill. The truck that hit me hard is called the Dodge Moderna. These things are SOOOOO dangerous that even avoiding them is FLiRTing with disaster!

So in the last 24 hours, I’ve been at it non-stop. The day was full of delightful suprises too, including the discovery that my great-great-great grandfather-in-law John Bray was a composer who came to America from Great Britain soon after the Revolution. He composed in an early Beethoven-ish style and even composed the music some light opera. He and his wife both sang and acted.

Maestro Bray also wrote the 4 versions of Hull’s Victory. A few of these versions are played widely as Contra Dance tunes. How cool is that? Nancy’s side of the family includes a musician who played in the Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra when they recorded the music for Fantasia, and one of Lithuania’s great choral composers Juozas Bertulis. Otherwise I was on the phone with friends and family all day, got some steps in, tested some fantastic jams (Oregon Grape and Cherry/Apricot) over some coconut milk ice cream, borrowed a Northumbrian smallpipe, and did a little bit of repair on a French Horn. Finally a Trader Joe’s run after a weird and beautiful scary sunset. And then an all nighter sending messages off to the farther north and back about my secret project.

When I arrived at the store, I discovered where all the crows of Silverdale roost at night. These birds reside at Birds, Bats and Beyond as well as Trader Crows a few doors down. And if they get crowded, several head across the street to Costcrow.

Well I think the times compel me to performs a little bit of AI -generated deepfakery while using the original type of Ghosting. I miss certain voices of my past and tried an experiment using some free online tools. I may get in serious trouble for this unless the use of someones’ voice and speaking style is public domain. So I think I will design the static YouTube background first and then upgrade my audio tools and then cautiously proceed.

One will see a picture of the great NPR (and elsewhere) commentator and journalist Daniel Schorr. He’s been long gone and we miss his voice - one that we could trust. The text on title page would go like this:

From Reality-Free Radio’s WWDS 66.6 we present

WHAT WOULD DANIEL SAY?

We live in Weird Times with Weird and Dangerous characters afoot. We wish Daniel Schorr was still with us. We can all imagine what he would say about the Republican Nominee. Through the Magic of AI we have conjured up his Apparition so we can not only imagine what he would say, but actually hear this spoken aloud in his own voice.

So please sit back and enjoy! I wonder if I will get in serious legal trouble with this. These are the original thoughts and prayers and commentary of Casey Burns, who himself has a horrible speaking voice after someone stuffed a camera down his throat!

«Queue up the Mozart Piano Piece that sounds like NPR’s ATC theme song»