Dueling Yukeleles

Paul is a Renaissance man when it comes to tunes. Last year, he introduced me to the wonders of boot-stompin', PBR-drinkin', ass-kickin' redneck-hipster bluegrass music in the Hackensaw Boys. Yesterday, he introduced me to yet another off-the-wall, who-woulda-thunk-it's-so-awesome genre of music, the Ukelele Wah Wah event at the Blender Theater. Yes, the ukelele.

But before I get into that, let's break down yesterday a little bit. My first day sans-wife and yes I did, in fact, make the bed :-O !! My apartment is slowly, but surely, disintegrating into disrepair but I gotta get some credit for making the bed! I think the only time I made the bed prior to Erika's arrival was after I washed the sheets and blankets (which was an annual event).

Anyway, after work I had an orthodontist appointment. Ohhh...the orthodontist. As some may know, my talented tongue has been wreaking havoc on my buckteeth and basically reverting my bite to something like it was prior to two years, two surgeries, and thousands of bucks, i.e. "tearing, not biting a sandwich" as one orthodontist in my past described it. Last time I was at the ortho, he decided that I should try a new torture device called a "Positioner", which would make small changes to my bite. My mouth was modeled, diagnostics were performed, and out popped my appliance, which I received last night.

I was in suspicious mood, so I queried my ortho about this device. As in, why am I using it. The skies opened, a ray of light shown down, angels were singing, and he told me, and I'm paraphrasing, that he did research into finding a better solution than a retainer to deal with the massive changes that my jaw has been through and the fact that I have an "aggressive tongue" (watch out Erika). He busted out a model of my jaws (created with the molds) both before and after using this Positioner. Basically, they take my current bite, they make changes to the model to create the "Paul Newman" bite, and then they build this Positioner to ease your teeth into position.

Now the Positioner is no cakewalk. It is, essentially, like a tooth-molded mouthguard. In fact, the pamphlet even says that you can use this for contact sports. I have to "chew" in this thing four hours a day for a few weeks/months and wear it at night in order to move my teeth to the new position. It's extremely drooly, but the good news is that it has a wintermint (borrowing that from Tom's of Maine) flavor too it, so it's not nasty like my old retainer.

But it totally makes sense when you see it. A lot of my work involves writing emails, so I can sit here all day and workout my jaw muscles on this thing. And it is already working after just one day, so I have high hopes for this device and don't be surprised if Paul Newman arrives the next time you see me.

So last night, Paul and I went to go see the Yukelele music festival, headlined by a Japanese/Hawaiian guy named Jake Shimabukuro. Before he was on stage, we got to listen to a pretty cool, suave, Hawaiian sounding band with the slide guitar and yukele and a hip-hop band featuring the yukelele, a beat-boxer, a bass guitar, and an awkward fourth-guy whose role in the band did not seem critical. He wasn't sure what to do with his hands, so he stuck them in his pockets and sang a few chords (looking at the words on his sheet) occassionaly. I figured he must be the trust-fund kid who's dad sponsored the band, since he was so useless.

But Jake Shimabukuro? I can't describe him, so just watch.


We also heard from Michael Jackson ("Thriller"), The Beatles, and even Johan Sebastian Bach! Amazing!

J. Riley, my teeth have already moved and are SORE. That's good news, though....