Welcome to Raw Impressions, the 75th episode. What's it about? What's this long running podcast about? Have you noticed the woodpeckers?
Hey, did you just record that? This morning. Yeah, it's been so loud. We have several woodpeckers in the neighborhood.
Yeah, I'm checking and looking at myself in the video, this makes it look like I have one really huge rest, but I don't, I don't. Stop futzing with my sweater now. Yeah, Izzy and I have been talking a lot about, what was that song? The Woodpecker.
Oh, there was another sound in the... I was a car. I was, I was duetting with the birds. I was, I was in Congress with the birds.
We were speaking, I was speaking in the sounds of the minivan. Yeah, I was gonna say I heard some little like, beepy bird different things in there that were not the birds. Yeah, that woodpecker is... There's actually a couple of them.
And if you're out at the right time, you kind of get a stereo effect. And it kind of, it sounds amazing. And this morning there was also a dove, which is who doesn't love the woody sound of the dove. Oh, woody sound.
There's a really, there's a really good combination of birds right now, because the Cardinals are, Cardinals are doing the miracle miracle. I love the miracle. I just love that. That it's so satisfying.
Yeah. And since there's several of them in the neighborhood, it's just, it sounds like almost like a, reminds me of like a Polynesian soundtrack. Like there's, this used to be a thing, these sort of cocktail records from the 1950s that had sounds of the tropics. Oh.
That sounds really fun for a party. Yeah, people, it was a big thing. It was a big thing among hipsters in the 80s, 70s, 80s. You know, that kind of thing.
Oh, they'd bring those records back. Yeah, you know, wearing bowling shoes and... Oh, yes. Let's bring them back again.
Wearing our mom jeans now. But I really thought that here, even in our sort of modest New England town, it sounds kind of exotic, the way that the dove and the woodpeckers and the cardinals and all the other. I've just been really enjoying the sound. So I want to tell you.
I have been too. It's the sounds of spring. It just, yes, it is. I spoke too soon about the, I have to, there's something, okay, it's gonna be okay.
I'm gonna do something I haven't done in a while. I'm gonna have a sip of my La Croix. Excuse me. I had a little something in my throat.
There, I spoke too soon about how the Robins, they had been shitting on our minivan nonstop. It was like a spring awakening. They woke up and they just took huge dumps all over. I don't like being mad at wildlife.
You know, I really tried to avoid it. Like I always think it's kind of lame when people are like, I hate squirrels or gosh darn it, wood check. I've never, I've always wanted to feel like I just lived with wildlife and it was fine. But when the Robins really fucking pounded the minivan and my dad's truck with just, just diarrhea level.
Huge shit. Yeah. And we would get the car washed and then it would shit on the car and then they're trying to make a nest above our door. Yes.
Like I was kind of like, wow. Were you feeling the feelings? I was mad at Robins, which made me feel bad. Cause I don't want to be mad at wildlife.
I want to be like wildlife friendly guy. I'm not walking out and trying to make friends with bears. Not like foolish wildlife friendly guy. I just wanted to be friends with the bear.
And then it mauled me. I get bears. I get them. Yeah, I read a news article that was like this woman.
She was Scottish and she was visiting Romania. And she decided she was in her car, but she was in an area where bears were like crossing the road. And she just thought she would take a selfie with the bear cause I came up to her car and she said, I thought the bear wanted to be my friend. And it is so hard to read that without just exclaiming all sorts of things like you fucking idiot.
This may not be a fact. This may be one of my things. I'm going to say it. Okay.
There are no bears in the United Kingdom. Yeah, she said she was in Romania. She was visiting Romania. But maybe she just didn't know.
Maybe they just don't know bears in Scotland. They're like, oh, they're just big fuzzy friendly creatures. They exist as cartoons. They don't have real life experience with these bears in Scotland.
There's animals. I don't have real life experience with either. And I would not fuck with them. But they're on your continent.
Almost everything is, I mean, other than like elephants. I was going to say, I don't have an elephant. It's funny you said that. They have elephants.
I wouldn't fuck with an elephant. That elephant wants to be my friend. It's so cute. I just love the way it lives.
It's drunk around. It's telling me something. So to circle back to those robins, for some reason, once a year, they go crazy shitting on our cars because we don't have a garage. We have a power line.
Much to your dismay. It is. I'm in a soten. We need garages.
I grew up with a garage. We moved into this house, a really nice house, a pretty big house here in Greenfield, Massachusetts. We moved from Los Angeles. And so we got this big nice house and Adele was just like, where's my garage?
That makes it sound like I'm some ungrateful bee-ass. I don't mean to do that. I'm just saying the garage thing. It made me feel a little inadequate.
I was like, wow, I didn't get the garage. I think it was more of just, I. It's like a fucking diamond ring, the garage. Well, it was more puzzling than anything.
It wasn't that you didn't do enough. It wasn't your fault with the house. It was the house's fault. I was like, what's this?
Why no garage? I don't understand because you build the home. There's a garage. I don't.
Well, they didn't have cars when they built the house. And if there was some sort of stable for the livestock they had, it's long since falling into this repair. Maybe that's because in Minnesota, the houses are newer. It's a younger state than Massachusetts.
A bit. A bit. I don't know. I just maybe because of the windtills.
The windtills. The windtills. The winters are brutal. That sounds like a great family folk group.
The windtills. Yup. Dun dah dah. They might wear floral matching gowns and make friends with the bear.
I'm feeling very self-conscious about you revealing that I was bound to Buddhist Kratz. I just want to make it clear again that I wasn't looking at you as an inadequate thing. That you had done something inadequate. It was just merely puzzling to me.
It was a less evolved version of myself that heard that. Mm. I took it personally. I don't take it personally now.
OK, yeah, because you know that it has nothing to do with you. Yeah, maybe never get it around, Tony. I know I've had to. We've got a roof.
We have a roof. We have a new roof. We've got a brand new fucking roof. Oh my god.
And don't come for me. She is. I'm grateful. She has a home.
She has a roof. Yeah, I know. You've got a roof over your head, sweetie. What else are you looking for?
I have gratitude up to my chin. I just am saying, if we're allowed to have opinions and thoughts and feelings about things. Sometimes. When they're convenient.
Yeah. But so we don't have a garage. As a result, we park kind of on the side of the house. And there's this wire that goes, I don't remember what we were talking about.
We're talking about Robyn's shitting on our car. I have to actually just cut you off now and say that the Robyns did shit anew. Yes, that's what I was coming here to say. Oh, yeah, that's a big.
Do you remember in the very beginning of this podcast episode when I said I spoke too soon about the Robyns shitting? Wow, I totally. I was not onto your narrative there. I know.
Well, this is we have digressed very far from our original. You noticed the new shit. Yes, I did. I saw correct.
I made note of the new display. And I thought, oh, I guess they're not done with the spring shitting, the flushing. I don't know. It's lessened.
It has lessened. Do you know what I haven't noticed? Haven't. I haven't.
You know what I have not noticed this year so far? What's that? Yes. Bunnies.
Oh, no. For muscular creatures. Actually, Izzy and I went on a walk the other night just looking for bunnies. We were going to try and see how many bunnies we could count in the neighborhood because it was that golden hour.
And that's when the bunnies were out and about. For a muscular. What does that mean? It's like dawn and twilight evening.
And it's like when the sun is going down or the sun is coming up. Oh. Crapuscular. OK.
I don't know how you got such a big vocabulary. I'd actually never said the word out loud until very recently. And then we heard, was it Eugene Merman say the word? He did say the word Crapus.
So wild. I'm like, what is with this word right now? And it's also the name of the first song on the new folk implosion album. Walk through me.
Yes. Coming up sometime in June on joyful noise recordings. Gosh. Crapuscular.
Crapuscular. I was shocked when so we went to see Robin Hitchcock and Eugene Merman the other night. And Robin could do some Crapusculating. What a speaker.
Well, man. Honest to God. I feel like I've heard him. Do you have a chance to go see him?
Listen to him talking. Fucking his stage banter was like high fucking art. It really was. I was laughing so fucking hard.
Every time you opened his mouth. I'm like, oh, God. Every time you opened his mouth, it was a gift. It was actually a like it was so generous.
And he's so clever. So psychedelic. He's kind of psychedelic. The way that he speaks on stage, I mean, I talked to him in real life.
He's like a real person that speaks in complete sentences and is very attentive and normal, I would say. Conversations with him about. Easy to talk to. Easy to talk to.
He's not snobby. No. He's not hard to talk to. He gets on stage.
There's some kind of like little portal that opens. And he just starts speaking as this sort of psychedelic character. You know, like this. And it's fucking great.
It's so great. It's so good. It's so good. What were you saying before I derailed something again?
We were talking about Crapusculiar. Oh, well, I was saying that Eugene used it. And I was so stunned that he said Crapusculiar. And I thought, yeah, you looked at me like, hey.
That's the word of the moment. Whoa. Like I've never heard that word until recently when you gave me the track listing for the folk implosion album Walk Through Me coming out in June via Joyful and Life Recordings. So many times we can say that in this episode.
And I saw the track listing and the first song is the first song, right? Yeah. Is Crapusculiar. And I'd already heard the song.
And I had no idea how that title went with the song. Well, each verse is like one verse is the end of the day, the end of the day. The beginning of the day. OK.
But strangely, I started it with evening. So the first verse is about the evening, the second verse is about morning, which I've had a little bit of I had the twinge of regret. Like, why did I do that? It's got to start with the morning, right?
Yeah. Start of the day. Start of the day. Why would I?
Because maybe I thought I was being clever. So then I asked you, I probably asked you then, well, what the heck does Crapusculiar mean? Or what's that song? I think I said, what's that song?
Because I don't know what that means even. And then you describe the song. And I was like, oh, yeah, that song. Wait a minute.
What does that have to do with this? And then you probably told me the definition then. And I did not retain that. And then I found that as far as the word Crapuscular goes, you actually have to hear the meaning of it over and over and over again throughout your lifetime before it finally registers.
I'm trying to remember how Eugene used it. Because it seemed to flow out of him so comfortably that I assumed he used it correctly. I wouldn't feel confident. You did.
Yeah. Oh, how did he say? What was wrong? I can't remember.
Oh, gosh. We can't sit here and recount Eugene Merrman stand up routine. Anyone else on the show? You were I want to get back to something that you were telling me.
You said you and Izzy went for a walk, a Crapuscular walk. Oh, OK. Through the neighborhood. Yes, we did.
We were. Crapusculating through the neighborhood. Yeah, we were on a bunny search. Did you find any bunnies?
We found not one. What the fuck? It was. Yeah.
That's disturbing. Where was the bunnies? Usually there's like a adorable, just sun dappled little bunnies jumping in the neighbor's yards. And we just delight in seeing them on our evening, early evening walk.
And nary, can I say, nary, nary a bunny? Nary a bunny. Nary a bunny. That's interesting.
Should we whip it up? Should I whip it into something disturbing? I think you should absolutely just go with this. T out here.
Yeah, well, we live close to a park where there are creatures. I don't like going for walks in the park for a number of reasons. But one of them is that I'm afraid of animals attacking me. You think an animal's going to attack you in Highland Park?
Yes. Fair enough. I know. There's a bear cave there.
I mean, people are talking about bobcats. You know what happened to me in Hendricks once, you know, during the pandemic when we actually went to the park when I actually walked. I actually walked in the wildlife. I did.
I was like a wildlife guy for like a whole year. Yeah, you were feeding that turtle in the pond. I was feeding these absolutely ancient. Very dirty turtles.
Moldy turtles. Yeah. These turtles just had moss and shit growing. They had a...
Mmm, like straws in the end. They had lichen with a color like a... Yeah, it was... Yeah, they just had...
Really, they look old as fuck and they are. They did. And they moved like old ass turtles. They've been living at the bottom of this tiny little pond.
Yes. For decades. Surely. But yeah, Hendricks and I were walking through the park one day and we came out of the woods.
There's a clearing, you know, the clearing of the power lines. Near the tennis courts? Yeah, beyond the tennis courts. Oh, uh-huh.
As you walk deeper into Highland Park towards the center school, the location of the center school, there's a huge swath of power lines that's cut out of the forest. Oh, right. Yes. Yep, yep.
So we were emerging from that and I looked to my right and I thought I saw... No. I was convinced that I saw a wild cat perched on a log. Oh, okay.
And boy, my pulse rate went crazy. I was like, whoa, I jumped back. But it was just an arrangement of dead limbs. Dead limbs?
Oh, limbs of trees. Oh. It was just... It was just...
It was just an arrangement of human limbs. Dead limbs. Some strange... Some dead limbs.
Yeah, no. It was... I thought it looked like... Your eyes were checked.
I was fooled. They were fooled. But I share the same... I wouldn't put it past a rabid bobcat.
Right. To attack me. Sure. I mean, what if something...
It happens. It does happen. We lived in California after you saw the bobcat. In our backyard.
In Glendale. Mythical. It's not mythical. It's the incredible experience you had seeing a bobcat in our backyard in the very populated suburb of Los Angeles, Glendale.
Yes. You saw Bobcat in the tree. Yes, I talked to it. I was on FaceTime with you.
You were talking... You were on FaceTime? It was fucking amazing. I was like, I'm not a big cat.
I'm like, does it have tough on its ears? And you said yes. And I said it's a bobcat. You said turn around, get Tito and go in the house now.
Just like... Just like I identified the bed bugs. Remember when you're getting bit by the bed bugs? I'm like, what do they look like?
And I'm like, it's weird. I'm bleeding. I'm like, oh God. Bed bugs.
And then one bit me on the cheek while I was FaceTiming with you then as well. And I smashed it and I showed it to you. And you were like, oh my fucking God. Look it up.
That's a bed bug. Infested. We don't... That's an apartment we lived in.
We lived in a town called Wild Department in downtown LA. Oh man. Wild indeed. Wild.
Our land lady collected wildlife. She really did. I mean, again. She had a fucking...
There was a huge bag of dog food in the backyard. Yes. I was out in the backyard with the kids. I looked in this dog.
The bag was shaking. The bag was shaking. I looked inside and it was an entire fucking litter of possums. Yes.
We have pictures. You took pictures. They're like wild. Possums look.
They're kind of a gnarly looking creature. God bless them. Yeah. It was unscripted and unsupervised when it was happening back there.
Well, we moved. And then I got bed bugs in the apartment. You're like, fuck the bed bugs. It was pretty intense.
It was a little experience there. But we got bed bugs. And then, oh, this is all going back to the ants. I was saying, I have not seen ants in the kitchen because grateful.
We live in a home. We own our home and we love our home. They just heard that. But you just did.
Typically every year we get a... The vibration that you just made that you put into the world is being heard quantumly. The ants just heard the call. They're like, oh, they're like, oh, they're like, oh, they're like, oh, they're like, oh, they're like getting it.
You read the quantum call to the ants. Did you just hear that? Yeah, fuck yeah. Oh, no, is it recording.
I thought it was actually outside, you put that in there again. That's it. Well I haven't seen the ants yet, but I obviously just called them because that's how nature works and I magnetically pulled them through the universe into my home. been not saying that we don't have ants.
Very purposely. Sorry. Not saying. I'm gonna go see an ant right now, aren't I?
Thank you for listening to another episode of Raw Impressions.