Tinfoil Baseball Cap

As usual, we’ll cover a lot of subjects with a too-small, too-thin blanket. But cover them we will.
Firstly…Saturday night, for a little while, my one-man internet band moderan was the #1 band in Tucson/Rock, according to data from music-posting site Reverbnation. I’m sitting at #2 right now.

It was pretty easy to get there, and the maneuver was mostly pre-planned. I embarked on a series of cover tunes, some of which I’ve actually registered. Eventually I’ll register them all, but they’re about 20 bucks each, and I plan to do a LOT of them. Cuz they’re fun. I have a system for producing them quickly, based on midi drums and the forty or so years I’ve spent playing those songs, off and on. The music ranges from pop tunes like Killing Me Softly through progrock epics such as Dance On a Volcano.

I sing, play all of the guitars and basses (with a couple of notable exceptions for collaborators), most of the keyboards, some of the strings, and arrange and produce the tracks. The drums are fashioned from midi tracks, which means faithful timing. I seldom monkey with the structures, though I add or change instrumentation.

You can listen here:

Advertisement

Outlets

It’s been a couple of months since I last blogged. Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned.

Such sins are unlikely to be repeated as this blog has become one of my prime outlets, at least for now. My personal website has been terminated, due to my distaste for playing security guard as well as content creator. I had that thing for the better part of twenty years, but enough is enough. Thanks, hackers and ne’er-do-wells.

I’m using the time to generate more content. I do a ton of work gratis. It isn’t really a problem for me–I’d like to get paid for some stuff, but I can’t always, and I have an earnings cap because of my medical needs.
So my chief interest is in filling the time and developing what skills I have. I pick up a little change here and there, and place the odd anthology or magazine piece. All of those things build audience for my book(s) (well, at least theoretically), and that’s worked so far.

“before Crazytown” has sold more than 1500 copies since its November 2014 debut. It still has but one review, and hasn’t been available since September. I’m embroiled in a Kafkaesque situation with Amazon regarding that volume, and slowly trying to either satisfy the requirements of an editor with an attitude or waste enough time to fulfill the one-year agreement with Amazon and cut loose from there and go back to Smashwords and Lulu. There’ll be a second edition, with a couple of stories added and a roster shuffle, no matter what. And it’ll be available as an actual real paper book that you can fondle, fold, and manipulate. Perhaps even read.

I just don’t know when.

Cub-ism 1

The Cubs won tonight and looked good doing it. Lester really needs to practice throwing to first. The NL isn’t much of a running league but he doesn’t give his catchers any help whatsoever. Hamilton stole three without breaking a sweat.
The thing I notice about Jorge Soler and Kris Bryant is the same thing I noticed about Anthony Rizzo, namely, their tremendous baseball instincts. All three have clearly put in the time to react reflexively and appropriately–something that a lot of ballplayers seem to lack.
Diamond rats. Addison Russell seems so far to share that.