The Process

I'm still alive, but it was one more long, strange weekend.


Walkman starter, "Highways and Heartaches," by Joe Ely.  That should help wake me up, along with a large iced coffee, plus whatever medicines are working in me.


Friday went well at WITF; a good, smooth day, and I'm finally figuring a lot more out.  Turned out to be one hell of a day, and evening.


Got to see Alice again, and we are definitely something.  Well, she's something anyway!  Where the hell have we each been all our lives...I'm just happier than I've been in a long time.  Interesting what a relationship will do, isn't it?


The weekend veered off into weirdness.  I did the afternoon/evening shift for KYW, and while that was all well and good, I had no idea what was waiting for me after.


In the middle of all this, I am back home for Beltane.  The coven and friends gathered at my house, at the last minute for the weather.  Short, but very good ritual; went well, had a good time.  Of course, mindful I have to get up in the am.


I had to do the fast turnaround, which meant leave midnight Saturday and then be back there at like 10 am Sunday...easy, right.


WRONG.


The first part of the shift went pretty fast; the Phillies were playing in the evening, the Sixers are out of the playoffs, and the Flyers dropped their first game to the Bruins the night before.  The Union won, but KYW doesn't give a fuck about soccer, even though they send reporters to the home games.


"Cready Stomp," studio outtake by Pearl Jam...nice.  Perfect for what comes next:


About 2 pm, Rick, my boss calls.  Our far-flung weekender who works for ESPN is stuck in New York State with a broken down ride.  He will not make it.  I proceed to make the decision to stay, until midnight.


Double shift time...running on little sleep as it is, I figure, no big deal, right...yeah, right.  I keep going, the night drags on, and of course, the Phils and Mets go into extra innings!


14 innings.  1-1 game; at least it was interesting to some extent.  I felt so brain dead, normally I can find other things to do, multi-task, etc.  Not really.  


I didn't get out of there until 1 am, Monday.  15 hour shift.  Hey it's money, right?  As I was prepping to leave, I see my WITF boss, Tim Lambert for the second time.  He was here when I arrived, and he was back before I left.


Reason?  Heard during the game that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a firefight in Pakistan.  So he's in to do the news thing, and planned to go over to the all-night diner across the highway to get sound.


The fun of this world of radio of ours.


"Infinite Love," Nawang Khechog...very different segue, no?


I stagger over to the Sunoco station to get coffee for the ride home...gonna need it.  See some punk band rolling up for gas...can't even remember their name now, a lot of S's in the name.


Crash and burn.


Eight hours later, I'm awake.  Why, I don't know.  Monday, back to the Office, where I finally start to get to work again on "Silk Road Days."  This book is taking a long time to write; I've been rewriting, and adding scenes through the first part of it, because there's a lot missing, and I have a lot more development to do.


Oh, and the TrafficTalk gang called.  I was asked to help cut a phone promo on a new idea they have to deal with the service.  Still talking with people, still working on ideas, funding, etc.  


So now...I was up until 1:30 am, writing, and doing stuff.  The band is hopefully going to gather, at least two or three of us, but would you not know?


Darren, our fill-in drummer was to host Dan and myself; just now he calls...power's out.


Weird shit.  So waiting now to see if Dan's awake and what he'll do.


"Your Hands," John & Yoko...mostly Yoko...oh dear.  Her poetry is good, her voice is NOT.  Skip.


"I Can't Explain," studio version, the Who...now we're talking!


Back to Alice...can't stop thinking of her and talking of her.  I have been loathe to write much about her, or mention who she is online, because I don't want to jinx what we have here.  She's a professional stagehand, and knows all that behind the scenes stuff. She has an attitude, she's Pagan (slightly different than me, but who cares?), and rather uninhibited.


Think I finally found my match.  Damn.  It is a very strange situation, but I'm quite pleased, and very happy.  To have someone tell you they love you is really amazing...especially when you know they  mean it.


"Fortune Teller," Who Live at Leeds...ahhh...yes, there's a lot of Who on my Walkman.


So, I now look at things a little differently.  I have a reasonable amount of work right now, and while the new guy at ITF starts later this month, I at least have some extra hours.  All good, but I do wonder about further down the road.  Just gotta keep dealing with things as best I can.  Yet I sometimes wonder about my decisions at times.


See what we can do, I suppose...we all do.


Pittsburgh in a couple of days...hope to make it there in time to have lunch with an old friend and radio colleague, then putz about until I meet Riz for the Jim Jeffries show...and of course, work all weekend right after.  This is life; this is what we insane people do.


"Trees," Paul Weller...weird fucking song on his latest album...about sex changes, I think...or something...need to skip.  I love the Jam and Weller on his own, but oh God not now...


"The Secret Agent Ending," Philip Glass, "Glass Reflections" CD...gotta get going, now.

Another Week, Interesting Writing Things, and Foster & Lloyd Reunite!

It's been a long and busy week for me, so blogging has not been an option.  I really don't have very long right now, as I have to hit the road and get up to WITF.  I have a brief recording session with a friend of mine, then it's gonna be a long night doing sports for KYW Radio.


Reason Being:  the Philadelphia Union are in Los Angeles.  Kickoff vs. David Beckham, Landon Donovan and the Galaxy is 10:30 pm.  Joy.


Now you (along with Jim Rome) might ask, "Why worry about soccer?"  Reason to; the Union are only in their second season, and opened the year 2-and-0.  LA is gonna be their toughest test, and this team has only scored two goals.  But staying late means getting paid more.


I went through two exhausting mornings of training at WITF on "Morning Edition."  I'm being trained as a backup for the program; there is a lot of timing issue stuff to deal with.  It's not as easy as it sounds, if you've ever listened to NPR for very long.


It means being there at 4 am, and what follows is five hours of intense, mindful work.  But this is a challenge I never had, and I'm glad to get a shot at it.


Oh yeah...the Phillies won yesterday, very nice.  They play tonight, and the Sixers are on the road, oh busy I'll be.


I was at Clear Channel last night to do the Bears game.  And if you read my previous blog, you'll recall how THAT ended out.


Tonight, much easier and better.  Back in the original studio, a much easier time of things, and ... cell phone call, update coming!


***


Radio Update


***


Art has called just now...for now, we have learned what caused the production room control board to fritz out like it did last Saturday.  Or at least we have a solution.


This morning, they ran a test, and it didn't work.  At all.  I was not hallucinating.


The engineer says to go somewhere in or under the control board (?!?) and find the power switch.  Turn it off, wait 30 seconds, and turn it on again.


Okay...it rebooted.  It worked.  You cannot however do this during a live broadcast...SLAMS HEAD ON DESK.


I'm sure Art is doing plenty of that now.


Anyway, I've been somewhat vindicated. 


Now...my agent informs me via the quarterly report that another publisher, an e-book publisher is "reading" Sweet Dreams:  Searching for Roy Buchanan.  Coolness.  Doesn't mean anything yet, but I'm encouraged.


My new work is called "Silk Road Days," and I have to consider carefully how to make this story a bit different than all the other Japanese anime/fiction stuff out there.


Going to have to work a lot on character development and other weird things.  But I think it will turn out well.  


Too much to do today, tonight, tomorrow...same old.


Oh...Foster & Lloyd are back!  They have not recorded in 20 years, but a new album is coming out this spring!  


Great music, singer/songwriters of the New Country movement in the late 80's (not the muck being shit out Nashville's ass since 1991!); they still wrote together all this time, and I'm glad as hell they're back.  Can't wait to hear what they do.


Now I gotta get going!