Right now Salty is.....

[GaleriaGila]

"WRENCH GOTS MY BACK!"

 

[Rival_of_the_Rickeybird]

I feel like Jack Benny.
You young whippersnappers don't know who that is.

 

[SailBoat]

I feel like Jack Benny.
You young whippersnappers don't know who that is.

Maybe, but us other old duds, still do!!

 

[wrench13]

Hey now, Jack was a fiddle player too - no jokes about him please.

 

[texsize]

I am in my 60’s.
have heard of Jack Benny but only cuz I read lot.
If I have ever seen him I can’t say I remember.
Earliest memory of comedian is Red Skelton.

 

[wrench13]

A bit off topic, but I remember Red Skelton's show, and watching some re-runs of them proved to me how professional he was. Impeccable comedic timing and just off-color enough to now, 60 years later, to show the program was really aimed at adults, rather then the kiddies. He did one routine that was so funny, I use it on-stage in my bands in between song patter.

Jack Benny - now he was just a bit before my time, but like others I know of him from reading. Famous for his dead pan expressions and also another one with superb comedic timing - missing from so many comedians today!

Now Salty also has that intentional ( or not so intentional) comedic skill that Amazons, Greys and Macaws often display - A.K.A "Mess With The Humans". Salty says "Yeah!" really loud and crystal clear and often interjects that, along with one of his many different laugh tracks, into a conversation with Geri or my son and I. It usually results in the conversation coming to a dead stop due to us howling. laughing our fool heads off

 

[Inger]

Oh, how would it be, to have a parrot who's even passingly sociable. Our brilliant avian vet says the Rb is worse to handle than the raptors he supervises at the zoo. He attacks anyone but me without rhyme or reason, and has to be cage-bound when we have visitors. I fully accept that this is the consequence of my pathetic behavior management, but DANG, consider these genes: they burrow nests (in limestone cliffs) within feet of each other so that they can fight all the time!

Salty, you are a prince among parrots.
Prince Salty.
Prince says he wrote this while looking in the mirror. I believe it.
I dedicate it to Salty, with apologies to not-a-fan-of-Prince-ers.

I was a huge Prince fan in the early days but he dropped off my radar in favor of hair metal (I love a man with long hair, what can I say?). I had never heard this song and I feel like I'm discovering Prince all over again. It's so good and so different!

 

[wrench13]

Sorry girls - I know zilch about Prince or his music, so this post is pretty much lost on me. While Prince was going thru his identity crisis, I was listening to pirate music. Music is such a button for me, as I left the pop, rock-n-Roll, jazz, swing, hip hop, etc, etc music choo-choo train around 1973, listening and playing bluegrass, country, celtic/Irish/Scottish exclusively and never hopped back on to the train.

Circa 2001, Brett is 14, Erik is 16, I am ... already old.

Circa 2019, Brett is 32, Erik is 34. I am.... older 'n dirt.

I told my son Eric the other night after coming from a great jam session 'It's sinful how much I love music'. I told both my wives and all my girlfriends right up front 'I will be playing music LONG after you are gone. If you can't deal with that, lets end things now'. First wife, bless her, stuck it out for 12 years. Geri is going on 18yrs.

If I could figure out a way for Salty to actually play an instrument ( and not just making random notes on the kiddie piano) I'd get him on stage!

 

[Inger]

Sorry girls - I know zilch about Prince or his music, so this post is pretty much lost on me. While Prince was going thru his identity crisis, I was listening to pirate music. Music is such a button for me, as I left the pop, rock-n-Roll, jazz, swing, hip hop, etc, etc music choo-choo train around 1973, listening and playing bluegrass, country, celtic/Irish/Scottish exclusively and never hopped back on to the train.

View attachment 57732
Circa 2001, Brett is 14, Erik is 16, I am ... already old.

View attachment 57733
Circa 2019, Brett is 32, Erik is 34. I am.... older 'n dirt.

I told my son Eric the other night after coming from a great jam session 'It's sinful how much I love music'. I told both my wives and all my girlfriends right up front 'I will be playing music LONG after you are gone. If you can't deal with that, lets end things now'. First wife, bless her, stuck it out for 12 years. Geri is going on 18yrs.

If I could figure out a way for Salty to actually play an instrument ( and not just making random notes on the kiddie piano) I'd get him on stage!

View attachment 57734

Fun fact: Prince changed his name because it allowed him to produce music outside of his contract with Warner Brothers and to have more creative control over his art. The symbol was...innovative? Weird? Whatever but when I learned that he did it for that reason it made way more sense.

Okay done hijacking Salty's thread.

Have you seen the "parrot kindergarten" videos where she's given her 'too an iPad and it uses it to communicate and also make video calls? It's pretty amazing. I bet Salty could learn to use one in no time and maybe he could make music that way!

And I love it the photo progession. Priceless.

 

[SailBoat]

Aging is a very weird thing as the reality is that time never stops, sleep or resst! Part of us are begging for it to slow down, while the others are wish it for it to speed-up.

Music is a timeless madness of our understanding how it is created. At the center has been the Human voice and the creation of instruments that attempts to take its segment to a more defined level. It has come to electronic created sound, which can be create sound without an instrument and sadly without a Human. Another thing is has on its own recreated is the precise 'location' of occurring sound. It is able to location any position and assign that point as a source.

But, I enjoy the precision of high-end Human Voice demands of opera and the supporting instrumentation required to achieve the full effect.. Today's scratchy high-C for an attempt to create 'their' voice is lost on me. Sadly, the individual will crash their voice within a year or two!

 

[wrench13]

Coming soon - video of Salty's attempts at roller skating.

My favorite tricks he does:
Pulling the Kings out of a deck of cards
Stacking kiddie blocks 4 high (amazing to me, watching him judge the balance on each)
Playing 'What is it' - I line up a series of objects, all beginning with "B" , bear, baby , ball, bell, bone, bird, and he give each to me on demand
Roller skating ( if he ever gets it right)

And oddly enough, any time he figures out a way to cheat! Oh yes, parrots understand that concept all too well.

 

[wrench13]

Well 2/17 was chop day. 32 baggies, each with about 3 days worth of chop in it.
The mixture this time round:

1 lb single ingredient pasta
1 cup steel cut oatmeal
3 cans no-salt corn
1 ea red and orange pepper
1 can lentils, rinsed and drained
1 head cauliflower
2 heads broccoli
2 bundles parsley
2 bags matchstick carrots
1 bunch kale greens
1 bag baby spinach
2 bags Brussel sprouts
14 large jalapeno peppers
5 big handfuls of habanero peppers
12 red hot chilies
1 lb green beans (cut into 1" pcs)
1/2 lb snap peas in pods (cut to 1" pcs)
1 bunch collard green leaves (no stems)

The oatmeal, cauliflower, broccoli and chopped up Brussel sprouts tend to soak up a lot of the water that comes with using a lot of peppers and this time round I did not. Usually I leave a big wad of paper towels in the bottom of the huge mixing bowl to sop up the excess water (sometimes almost a cup!) that drains off, but not needed this time.

We always save a bag or 2 from the freezer and serve fresh to Salty. He dived into this batch last night, so I think this is a good one. I was thinking not enough hot peppers, he loves them. The cauliflower and broccoli tend to abate the heat somewhat. But no, he emptied his wet food bowl!

 

[4 way borbs]

Well 2/17 was chop day. 32 baggies, each with about 3 days worth of chop in it.
The mixture this time round:

1 lb single ingredient pasta
1 cup steel cut oatmeal
3 cans no-salt corn
1 ea red and orange pepper
1 can lentils, rinsed and drained
1 head cauliflower
2 heads broccoli
2 bundles parsley
2 bags matchstick carrots
1 bunch kale greens
1 bag baby spinach
2 bags Brussel sprouts
14 large jalapeno peppers
5 big handfuls of habanero peppers
12 red hot chilies
1 lb green beans (cut into 1" pcs)
1/2 lb snap peas in pods (cut to 1" pcs)
1 bunch collard green leaves (no stems)

The oatmeal, cauliflower, broccoli and chopped up Brussel sprouts tend to soak up a lot of the water that comes with using a lot of peppers and this time round I did not. Usually I leave a big wad of paper towels in the bottom of the huge mixing bowl to sop up the excess water (sometimes almost a cup!) that drains off, but not needed this time.

We always save a bag or 2 from the freezer and serve fresh to Salty. He dived into this batch last night, so I think this is a good one. I was thinking not enough hot peppers, he loves them. The cauliflower and broccoli tend to abate the heat somewhat. But no, he emptied his wet food bowl!

all that food would be super good in some kind of soup.

 

[wrench13]

Right? I always kid Mrs Wrench that I am gonna use some of Salty's chop as a base for a spicy veggie soup.

 

[wrench13]

Getting excited about my presentation on the 20th! I have to try and keep it to an hour - I could yak on about Salty for far longer. MIxed feeling on bringing him. THere will be other birds there, and he like to 'chat' with new ones. If he tries to defend me things might get unruly.

 

[saxguy64]

Getting excited about my presentation on the 20th! I have to try and keep it to an hour - I could yak on about Salty for far longer. MIxed feeling on bringing him. THere will be other birds there, and he like to 'chat' with new ones. If he tries to defend me things might get unruly.

Hope your presentation goes smoothly, Al. As far as defending you, that's the beauty of Salty being harness trained, as long as the other birds don't get in HIS space. I get it though, my Baxter is very protective of me. She has almost zero interest in flying, but if people get too close when she's with me, she pretends to be quite menacing. And ACTUALLY menacing if they're dumb enough to ignore her warnings and put a hand near her!

 

[Inger]

Right? I always kid Mrs Wrench that I am gonna use some of Salty's chop as a base for a spicy veggie soup.

I posted a picture of Bumble's chop once without saying what it was and had people telling me what a beautiful salad I'd made

 

[wrench13]

I posted a picture of Bumble's chop once without saying what it was and had people telling me what a beautiful salad I'd made

I always say Salty eats better then I do! Could he live on a diet of Pop-tarts, soda, sausages, fast food and ice cream? No! See, we really are more evolved.

 

[wrench13]

My presentation to the Long Island Parrot Society on training methods and techniques was a big hit, even though they could not get the projector to shake hands with my laptop to show a few of Salty's videos. Lots of good questions during the Q&A portion and I was able to work one on one with some of the parrots that were there. It was a lot of fun. Without the videos I was initially a bit apprehensive about speaking extemporaneously for 45 minutes, but heck I do that all the time for work.

They want me back for one of their Zoom meetings, which have much higher attendance then the in-person meetings.

And of course I mentioned ParrotForums many times, the greatest on-line resource for all things Parrot!

 

[4 way borbs]

Can you tell Salty that I used his name for my fan fiction book?! [she said knowing that he had no idea what she was talking about.] I am making a book for my favorite author and I needed a name that could work for a sea dragon and a sand dragon. And Salty worked!