ubassman plays bass
I wasn’t able to perform for most of 2022 due to my health issues. But, I have started to play out again over recent months. I’ve posted photos from two recent gigs. One with the Accidental Gypsies. And one with The Flynns. It was pouring rain on both days. The gig with the Gypsies was outside and was especially damp. The Flynns gig was inside but I got soaked on the way to the job.
Looking forward to many more gigs as the warm weather moves in. And, hopefully they will all be much drier.
30 Days In 30 Seconds
New York City’s SCA recently started building a new high school near me so I decided to attempt a long term (construction) timelapse. It wasn’t practical for me to dedicate a DSLR for this so I chose to use a Raspberry Pi with an attached camera module. After some experimentation I came up with the following configuration.
- Raspberry Pi 3b running bullseye
- Raspberry Pi v2 camera module with custom lens
- motion capture software
- fswebcam software
- ffmpeg software
- Various scripts and crontab
The motion software runs continuously on the Raspberry Pi and allows me to view the cam via web browser to check operation. It also captures an image every (60) seconds and creates a a (24) hour timelapse every day. These timelapses were not used for this experiment. The fswebcam software was set to capture an image every (3) seconds during work hours using cron. Once a day the captured images were converted to a video clip using ffmpeg. Then (30) of the resulting clips were then assembled into a (30) second video. The Pi and its camera the v2 module are not capable of capturing high quality images or video. However, I think the results were pretty good. Raspberry has a new HQ camera module which I may look into. I hope you enjoy my experiment.
The Bass Is Back
As mentioned in previous posts, health issues kept me home bound for much of 2022. My health is much better now and this past Friday I played my first gig since April of 2022. I played with The Flynns at Donovan’s Pub. This was their regular Donovan’s First Friday engagement. The Flynns have been playing first friday’s for about the last ten years.
For my first gig in nine months I played my new Kala ubass. This was a “blem” that I picked up direct from Kala at a good discount. The bass looked perfect. It took me a while to find the blemish. I swapped out the regular poly strings for some flatwounds (Gallistrings), replaced the nut with one designed for flat wounds and finally cut done the bridge saddle to get the action right where I wanted it. It plays like a dream now and sounds great. Looking forward to playing lots more gigs with this beauty.
Friends and family came down to welcome me back and cheer me on.
Goodbye 2022
Hello people,
The year 2022 has been a remarkable one for me. I suffered a brain bleed in April and had to undergo emergency brain surgery. That surgery was followed by a few others to address complications that occurred. I’ve spent the remainder of the year recovering and regaining my strength. My wife Dawn stood by me all through this. There was not a single day where she did not visit me in the hospital. After I came home she was the perfect care giver and nurse.
As I put 2022 behind me I’m looking forward to the new year. Looking forward to once again playing music with The Flynns and the Accidental Gypsies. Also looking forward to taking lots of photos and creating timelapse videos. I’m hoping my wife and I can finally take our much anticipated and delayed roadtrip together. This was initially put on hold because of Covid and the hold was extended due to my illness.
This entire experience has opened my eyes to just how lucky I am. Not only to have survived this health crisis but also to have received the outpouring of love and caring that friends and family sent my way. I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year.
Website Rename
Hi all. I just yesterday changed the domain name associated with this website. I registered the domain cafe52.com over twenty years ago in 1999. It was kind of done on a whim and the web site was run on a Linux box at the end of a DSL line terminating in my apartment. Good times. The Internet has changed a lot since then.
I decided to change the domain name to ubassman.nyc to better align with my recent side hustle of photography and timelapse clip creation. This name better fits with my social media names. And, doesn’t sound like the name of a restaurant. FYI – cafe52.com was recently nominated for the “Restaurant and Bar Awards 2023” by lux-review.com. The site has never promoted or been affiliated with any kind bar or restaurant but I can see how the name could be confusing. Full disclosure, there is a latino establishment near my home on 52nd Street called the 52nd St Cafe.
I’m hoping to put in a bit more time to the site. Thanks for stopping by.
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