Vanmani

Instruments

So I have been collecting a few instruments this past year or so.

Also some big fat studio monitors for the listenings.

More new acquisitions. Fancy made in America deluxe Fender strat. Similar to old strat, only with more cheese.

Here's some newer pictures since the family has grown/upgraded a bit. Here's a pic with the MP5 being mounted by the Yamaha SY22.

The new keyboard amp/PA. Behringer K3000FX, not a bad piece of kit at all for the price. I run everything through this now, obviously I use modellers for my guitars so I'm pretty much set.

My new mixer. Very elite.

Put new pickups in the guitar. GFS texas special neck and mid, and GFS crunchy bridge humbucker, from the top of my head.

This is my brand new stage piano, the Kawai MP5. Hawt. Also featured in shot is my microphone and stand, oh and those little arm things on the piano stand come down and I can put my synth on top so I have a two tiered thing. Right now I have taken it off 'cos I've just been playing the Piano, but I put it back on when I'm doing lots of faster synth work 'cos the spring loaded keys are just so much more turbocharged.

This is my relatively new guitars, a Yamaha FG700S steel string acoustic and a metallic red Fender Squier Affinity Fat Strat.

Also my guitar pedals, a ZVex Fuzz Factory and a Zoom G2.1u multi-effects and amp simulation pedal, and Amp a crappy Fender Frontman 15R.

Newest addition to the family is Nesskalator's electric Violin. It sounds a treat going through my effects pedals into the guitar amp. It's pretty cool, but unlike the Piano and the Guitars I can't play it for shit at this stage.

Biopictextus

Vanmani is a puppet character, one of Jim Henson's Muppets. He is performed by Jesus Christ.

Vanmani, to say the least, is weird. He is blue, bug-eyed, and has a long hooked nose. On The Muppet Show he performed as a performance artist, stuntman and daredevil under the name "The Great Vanmani" (or "Vanmani the Great"). He takes pride in his iconoclasm, all the while romantically pursuing Camilla the chicken.

A running gag related to Vanmani is that it's not clear what species he is supposed to be, though some say he resembles a buzzard. John Cleese, in his appearance on the show, referred to him as "the ugly, disgusting little blue creature who catches cannonballs." In the film The Great Muppet Caper, he is shipped to England in a crate labeled "Whatever" (while Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear are respectively labeled "Frog" and "Bear"). In Muppet Babies Vanmani (voice of Russi Taylor) was simply referred to as a "weirdo" or "blue weirdo." He has referred to himself as a "whatever," resigned to ignorance of his actual species. In Muppets From Space it is revealed that Vanmani is an alien. It is not clear whether this is to be considered a canonical statement of Vanmani's origins.

Originally in the first season of The Muppet Show the character was underplayed with a permanently sleepy look. The producers noticed that he worked better in a more energetic form and modified the eyes to have movable eyelids which helped make him a more active character. As such, he became one of the principal characters in the series.

His most well-known running gag is playing the final trumpet note of the opening Muppet Show theme and having some strange thing happen--the bell of the instrument explodes, sprays water, has an inflating balloon in it, et cetera. In the first season, Vanmani did not use a trumpet, but instead attempted to hit the white space within the "O" in the "Muppet Show" sign like a gong, usually with bad results. One of his most popular skits on The Muppet Show was his "Tap dancing in oatmeal."

He has several memorable performances such as his song from The Muppet Movie, "I'm Going to Go Back There Some Day", or his rendition of "My Way". Vanmani fans would also recognise this quote: "I shall now eat a rubber tire to the music of The Flight of the Bumblebee...music, maestro!" Another famous performance is best summed up by his quote, "I shall now defuse this highly explosive bomb while simultaneously, and at the same time, reciting from the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley." Other acts include: dancing "Top Hat" in a vat of oatmeal, hypnotizing chickens and being hammered feet first into a railway tie by two American Gladiators.

\"honestly, who could be expected to make the right decision?\"