Just in time for Beltane...a new blog!

I never really know what colors are going to work on this thing, and my immediate thought was, "Look what they dun to my blog."


I am not sure I am liking this new configuration.  Just as well...been slowly planning to get things moved over to my new website, once Alice has time to think about it.


Back at the Office after a busy midday..."Woke Up With Wood" by ZZ Top is finishing on the iTunes, and..."Say What!" by SRV follows.  Nice.


Some mid 80's blues/rock, very nice.  


I have been sick for the first time in nearly three years.  Caught a bad-ass virus of some sort, and it thrashed every part of me for about 10 days.  On and off feeling like shit, and whatever it was must have been fucking bad.  Alice tells me that she teched for "Memphis," some stage show and everyone was down with something.  


Lots of lovely herbs and thingies...they're working, better than anything I can think of.  Antibiotics are useless to me; I've only had them like three times in my life and I am allergic to one, but I can't remember which one.  


Anyway, today is the first day in a while that I feel more awake.  My workouts have suffered, and I was down to every couple days because I just could not get myself up for them.  


Got an hour in today, though; bike, sauna, pool and the spa...hit for the cycle I guess.  


Okay, where are we going here?  Yes, it's April 30, and Beltane is tomorrow.  Snuck up on me there...I must do something for it, and I think Jethro Tull's "Beltane" might go along well with that.  It is a great song, bonus track on "Songs from the Wood," I suggest you check it.


Faerie Fest...well, the Dharma Fools were left off the bill once again, but I am not surprised.  They got a very good lineup this year; Wendy Rule, Telesma (despite one of their bandmates suffering a heart attack), and a bunch of other names.  Good for them.


Sorry to say as much fun as the FF is, I have no interest in going this year.  It is not because I am not performing there, either; it's gone by the way for me to some extent.  I also have to work, and that is unavoidable.


Work is the same...I'm job hunting, but would rather stay here.


"Lupita," by Dave Grusin.  A short, but interesting piece.  I snatched this from the prod studios at Clear Channel HBG.


Weekend Warrior work is the same, WITF/KYW on the weekends, plus some Radio PA Network stuff here and there, and 89.5 gives me the call now and again.  CCH the same.  Jobbing about.


"Don't Pass Me By," by the late Sean Costello.  Interesting...sad loss, this man.  Far too young, and his health issues caught up.


Speaking of which...Alice and I had a long talk recently about my meds.  I recently did a double of the Zoloft on the suggestion of my primary care doc.  In the short-term, it worked out, because it calmed me down from a manic period that began to get a little weird.  Losing the plot is not fun.


But there were drawbacks.  Too calm...at times.  My workout energy dropped, and I figured within a month I'd be more attuned to it.  I was, but something's missing.


I then proceeded to literally forget to take it for a couple days over the weekend.  Going off can be dangerous for some people, but I've been able to for a few at a stretch, and I'm okay.  I could feel the mania again a little bit, but not seriously.


I'm trying to go back to the regular dosage right now, and see if that works. Perhaps I can get to where I don't need it anymore.


Now, I'm sure you're wondering how Alice is figuring in on this.  Alice is bipolar, and I've seen her in some of her problem areas.  I have an in-law, an old friend in fact with it, and it's crippling to her at times.  I am not bipolar, but I share some of the symptoms and actions of it.


Alice wondered if getting off it might be better now, because I am older, and my body has changed a lot since then.  She wonders if my guitar playing might become better as a result.


Recently played a little on my own, and could feel some smoothness coming back that I'd not had.  Might be temp., but who knows?  I'll see.


As for the DF's, Dan and I are searching for band members.  No one's been fired, but no one's showing up anymore.  We need the sound and the punch of a band again, and I wish to play more electric.  It's time to push it that way.


Now, here's another thing.  I am considering a move to Harrisburg.  It would mean saying goodbye to my lovely patch of rented land in York, but that house is gonna fall down before long.  I don't have the money to buy it, but I have to talk to the landlady anyways about all that.


"Changes," by Santana...ah, the "Zebop" album.  Good stuff.


Alice and I feel this relationship of ours, strange and dysfunctional as it sometimes is, could work.  I believe it will.  She needs to clear time to get her house worked on...actually, it's her father's, and that is an issue in itself.  But she needs to get rid of the "Hoarders's" candidate material outta there, and do some fixing.


I'm not Bob Vila, I freely admit it, but her ideas are good ones and I think they are the right ones.


We can cut expenses, I'd be spitting distance to WITF and to CC; and I like Harrisburg.  We spent some time at the Reader's Cafe recently, and Alice showed me around the city a little.  Funny, how I've worked there for years and know absolutely nothing about it!


Access to musicians, oh yes...even better.


Oh, now how about the book thing?


Okay...I finished "Time the Healer" on Sunday.  The rough draft is 605 pages long.  Yes.  I have no idea how it got so fucking long.  


It must be cut down, a lot.  I have a lot to do with that.


Now...I am also putting the boot in, regarding a possible effort to get an extract of "Sweet Dreams:  Searching for Roy Buchanan" into print.  Jen, Riz, Alice and whomever else are going to keep hearing from me until we get something down so we can do this!


"My Skin," Natalie Merchant...um...such a beautiful voice and a great lyricist...but I do not need to hear this right now.  Sorry, Natalie...


"Southern Streamline" by John Fogerty.  Better.  I still think he is a dick for the way he's treated his old CCR mates, but that's his problem.


So yeah, a chance at a monthly website, called Front Row Lit or something of the sort...if we can get in there, then we'd be considered for the print version.  


Exciting.  We'll see.


Meanwhile I need to get ready to consider "Time..." and an edit.  I'll get to it eventually.


So yeah, it's been a busy past month or two.  Not exactly making any money, but whatever.  I cannot complain, and the future is feeling like a bright one.  How can it not be?


Too much time is wasted worrying about shit we can't change, WTF is going on with too many other things...I don't have time to listen to people's bitching anymore about things they can't change.  Change yourself for fuck's sake.


That's it...I'm the fuck out.

Hmmm...

Well, it has again been a long time since I have been here to blog about.  I have a lot of things to write on, but I am not interested in posting and venting my spleen about things.  Too many people do it, and I am trying to find other ways to get rid of it.


The Office is playing the same R&B collection of like, 12 songs that have been overplayed throughout time, and so I've had to put on the iTunes again.  


Ironic, that the last song I recorded on my ProTools, "Forever Young" came up.  I wrote this inspired by a friend of mine in the midwest, and I'm glad she liked it.  One of many parts of many ideas for stuff I need to work on.


"Happy Loving Couples" by Joe Jackson next...


What am I doing?  I'm off soon to host "All Things Considered" on WITF, and then it's rush over to Clear Channel to produce the Harrisburg Senators home opener.  The latter was a nightmare this week, as they played in New Britain, CT and the phone line sucked balls.  We were cut off the air at least a couple dozen times.


My college radio station ran games off a phone line with almost NO issues...in the 80's.


I recently read on I think CNBC that "Broadcaster" is the 10th worst job in America.  For the money, and the fact that our business is dying.  Radio and TV jobs are drying up thanks to media consolidation, deregulation and the idea that "public interest" is actually in the eye of the license holder.  Which means, MAKE MONEY.  And make it by any means necessary.


Not always, but a fair number of cases.


"Knife Edge," ELP, live version.


But I'm still in it, and still looking for work in it because it's the only thing that guarantees money.  And that's for the paying of bills, and shit like that.  
I still love it; and I am a survivor I suppose.


The writing...hmmm...ideas keep coming for stuff I've already written, little things here and there.  That's always a good thing.  


As for "Time the Healer..."  I am well past the 400 page mark; I've decided to turn it into a trilogy so far.  I still don't know if this is even readable, but it is one long, undulating story that just does not end.  Yet there is so much to talk about, to tell, to get across.  I think it reads quickly enough, so you're in a situation where you don't know how much you've read until you look.


The Dharma Fools got back together to write last week; an old song, and two new instrumentals have come about.  I am still searching for players...and my mind drifted back to the Ahltyrra EP that we never finished.


Well, it's finished.  One track needs remixing...the four tracks really aren't bad.  I am tempted to remix the last one and turn it over to my old instructor and friend Shane Moore to do his magic on.  It would at least be a record that we accomplished something fucking good.


My relationship continues...Alice and I have agreed we get along damned well, and while we are a sight different than most "relationships," it works.  She has much to consider, as do I.


"Hang Fire," Stones...nice.


By the way...SHAMELESS PLUG!


www.torygates.com


Alice has begun the needed work on my website.  We'll get to the next part of content very soon.  Alice does wonders, let me tell you.  Need a site?  Think about it...


http://www.graphicalice.com/


Shameless plug for Alice.


Okay, I am watching the world go mad around me, ever yet again.  I have said time and again I need to get the fuck out of Dumbekistan; my eye narrows at the "people" who continues to believe that, as my old friend Jay Brooks used to say, "still think that Kennedy is president."


Actually, I always say Eisenhower.  So many people in the midstate believe that it's still 1952; the Communists are under every bed, the CIA is out to get them, and that black man in the White House is a Kenyan Secret Agent in league with the Commies.


Say shit loud enough and often enough, and people believe the lies.


Certain parts of the world are very susceptible to stupidity, some more than others.  What's even more hilarious to me are the people who try to justify hatred and ignorance by quantifying, qualifying and explaining away with theories and a turning of words and phrases in order to confuse others.


"Love's Like Rain," Paul Burlison and friends next...


What is bothersome is the justification of hatred, fear and paranoia as if it's good and healthy...even more weird.


Oh well, I have better things to do than worry about that shit.  I'm not worried; what happens, happens, and then you adjust.  


"Let's Get Funky," Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers...


Whatever the case, I think I'm gonna be sticking around a while longer.  Unless the opportunity of a lifetime is offered me, which I seriously doubt, or the first SDS book sells (which it WILL), I don't see myself going anywhere special.


It's not so bad, just have to remember it's you in this moment and no one else.