Month: April 2012

“Make a scene tonight, and read about it in the morning…”

The SF Signal Podcast (Episode 120) came out last Thursday.  I talked about the anthology Bibliotheca Fantastica for Dagan Books, and for which the edits are coming along very nicely.

I’m only getting around to putting this up now, since I’ve been busy with the edits, and with preparing for my first trumpet-playing gig in 8 years.  This is related, trust me…

And I don’t mean just getting my lip back in shape.  I had to get my ear back in shape too, since I was tasked with transcribing the horn line to Blondie’s “The Tide Is High.”  It’s been about 8 years since I’ve done anything like that, too.  But it was for a good cause — a fundraiser for the Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes.

My performance was far from perfect, though.  It’s my own fault, especially since I had to pull a Chet Baker because of my travel schedule — in 1988, he’d blown off all the rehearsals for his Last Great Concert in Hannover, Germany but showed up the day of the gig and rocked it.  However, smack-addicted Chet Baker was still a better trumpet player than I ever was on my best day.  Still, I was pleasantly surprised at the results.  People asked me if I’m inspired to play again, considering the dearth of trumpet players in the music scene in this town.  I don’t know.  I am inspired, however, to watch The Commitments again, since I’d been quoting Joey “The Lips” Fagan all week: “The Lord blows my trumpet.”

Anyway, this sort of brings up a personal issue for me, in that I’m not as anonymous as I used to be.  Not as compartmentalized.  Not so long ago few people knew “Don the Co-Worker” was also once “Don the Martial Artist,” or ever “Don the Jazz Trumpeter Wannabe.”  Now, some of them are finding out about “Don the Writer” and “Don the Editor.”

But now it’s all coming together.  I’m not as carefully covering those track as I once was.  I’m even opening the doors a bit, and maybe that’s a good thing. Besides, it’s getting so I can’t cover those tracks as much, even if I wanted to.  I’ve now been on the Functional Nerds podcast, as well as SFSignal.  I’ve been filmed reading.  Nope, no hiding it now.  I might have mixed feelings about it, but I’d better get over them PDQ.

Anyway, since the gig was an 1980s musical revue, the theme song for this post works on every level…

I’m taking a day to recover.  It’s been a helluva couple of months, and I’m totally depleted.

“Psych one, psych two. What do you know? All your life is channel 13…”

I saw and read and watched on TV a lot of things as a kid that certainly my parents wouldn’t have wanted me to see.  On the down-low, of course.  Nowadays though, the ‘rents would be considered downright negligent.  Still, I relate to this, from Michael Sarko on Popdose…

I admit I’m nostalgic for the days of TV’s unbidden bizarreness, but I know each generation has its own thing. Indie theaters, cavernous book stores, random pamphlets, underground newspapers– They’re all sources of weird throughout the history of pop culture. One way or another, a kid needs to have that strange fruit to fuel creativity and open-mindedness.

Some of the weirdness to which I was exposed between the ages of 8 and 16: The Exorcist (the film and William Peter Blatty’s novel), The Young Ones, and thanks to unsupervised late-night cable-access TV-watching, my first therapist in The Asylum for Shut-Ins: Video Psychotherapy.

He tells it like it is…

But, he’s really not that stuffy. He’s kinda easy-going, really…

He’s really helped my creativity and open-mindedness. I’ve turned out all right, I think.

Right?

“I’ve been one poor correspondent…” (Again)

I was tempted to call this post “Don’t Call it a Comeback” and put up the video for the classic “Mama Said Knock You Out.”  But that’s not my style.  I do feel like I’m sort of coming home again.  That is to say, back to something closer to my normal self.

And besides that, you all know The Menahan Street Band is more my style anyway.  And, this is a bit of a homecoming, after all.

So, this is the portion of the entry where I make vague, cryptic statements about what’s kept me away for so long.  How I’ve been, what’s been going on, what unspeakable Lovecraftian horrors I’ve stared into which drove me temporarily insane, &c. In time, in time.  Maybe. 

Actually… probably not.  Not here, anyway. 

But the important part is, I’ve finally, after a few months, regained the ability to “fake it ’til I make it.” Until then, I’ll occasionally open up the peep hole, mutter a few things occasionally (lots going on to talk about soon!), and then close it.  Thus, comments are closed for now.

Oh, and I took the dynamic view off and put the old template back up, at least until I find something better.