Monday, March 28, 2005

Uke Wars III; A Trip to Ukeland

As far as the Uke Wars go, I would like to repeat what Sean Connery said to Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Indiana Jones was reaching for the Holy Grail, which had just caused the early demise of the hot Nazi babe who had seduced both father and son in the movies. Just as both Indiana and the Grail were about to get swallowed up by a chasm in the Earth, his Dad said simply "Indiana, let it go."

So that's my advice to Uke Forever and others who care about this: Let it go. Most of you will probably never meet in person. So, really, who cares if you agree or disagree? They're just strings, resonator ukes, and smiley-face emoticons. Don't take the fun out of it.

Friday, took a fine trip with UF to Carlsbad and environs to check out some uke stores: Giacoletti's, Buffalo Brothers, and this Hawaiian shop that I forget the name of. At the last shop, I got to play a Tahitian Ukulele, which was fine. I don't know anything about Tahitian ukuleles, nor do I know where this Tahitian ukulele ranked in quality. It sounded cool, but was not much for projection.

Played around with some other ukes at Buff Bros, which has mainly higher end ukes and collectables. Played a banjo uke, which sounded fine, but was quite heavy. Played a couple of resonator ukes, also heavy. They sounded fine too.

I guess I wanted to prove for myself whether reso-ukes were better or worse than other ukes I have played. But the fact is, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, to every uke, there is a season. I think the Reso-ukes, the banjo ukes, the Flukes, etc, all have a time where their sound is appropriate. Right now, my favorites are my Oscar Schmidt and my two Belfiorre's. I realize that many others will prefer the Jenny or the Lanakai. There are times when I get real joy from plunking on the cardboard uke I got for a penny at Ukeworld.

As my English teacher, William Bell III used to say, "De ukebus non disputandum est." Concerning ukes, there is no argument. If the Latin is wrong, blame me, not Mr. Bell.

At Giacolletti's, I played around on a few ukes, mostly the six-string Lanakai. I like the sound. UF said implied that a six-string uke is not a real uke. I say talk to Mr. Bell.

I heeded Howlin' Hobbit's advice and decided not to buy another uke until I could afford a really good one. I like the ones I have for now. So I'll wait.

I did buy a tenor case for my Belfiorre Blonde.

UF and I went to a nearby brew pub and had pizza and beer. Once I had a buzz going, I decided to go back to Giacolleti's and get another Jumpin' Jim uke songbook. It looks good, but I'm not sure it's wise to buy anything when your drunk.

5 comments:

Steven Bach said...

Cool trip. I was in Carlsbad three years (for Legoland with the kids) ago and happened to wander in Giacoletti's. That was what made me decide I had to get a Uke. My wife pulled me out of there before I could buy anything, but that was what gave me the itch.

I used to be a bit of a Latinist, but it is slowly fading due to neglect (and I was always more of a Hellenist). Plural dative and ablative for the 3rd declension end in -ibus. So assuming it was 3rd declension, you would want to go with ukibus, instead of ukebus, but that looks weird. I think ukulelibus might be the ticket. But that still assumes that we have a 3rd declenscion noun here, which is troubling, since it probably would be consonantal (ukulelio seems really wrong), and I don't like any of the nominative consonantal forms that I could come up with: ukulelis is the best, but it still seems weird. The Vatican keeps a list of modern words and their latinizations (I used to know the name of their publication, but it has faded), I would like to see what they do with Ukulele. I bet they make it a 1st declenscion. 'ukulelus' - that makes the whole thing a bit cleaner since you then have 'de ukulelis non disputandum.'

Perhaps someone who is more of a latinist might have a better account.

Donita Curioso said...

Heh, heh! Mr. Silly's post reminds me of the scene in Life Of Brian where Brian is trying to paint ROMANS GO HOME on a wall in latin. A Roman guard catches him and berates him for his lousy latin grammar and conjugation. The guard grabs him by the ear and takes him through a latin lesson and leaves him with the admonition "get get it right next time or I'll cut your balls off".

Ukeforever, I don't think you ever got to see a Casual Sunday performance when Dave was with us. Nuff can tell you it was a life-altering experience.

Sounds like you boys had a nice day. Playing a uke on a beach with your feet stuck in the sand...what could be better? Well, maybe if Jeff had been one of the girls from the Swedish bikini team it could have been better.

Now, THAT conjures an image!

Donita Curioso said...

What about Wodwick?

Steven Bach said...

http://members.chello.se/hansdotter/romanes.html

Donita Curioso said...

That's RIGHT! I forgot about him having to write it a hundred times!

That's great. Thanks for posting it!

Hey, my best friend lives in Austin. Also, my dad was born there. I loooove Austin. I may be visiting sometime in May. I'm going to accompany my dad to visit his sister in San Antonio and I'm going to see if I can take a couple days and go up to visit my friend.