Blog 15: For the Record

 

My vinyl listening session for August 17, the year of our Lord, 2024:

Pat Metheny Travels [Side 1, Disc 2] ECM Original Pressing.  Epic synthesizer guitar saga: smooth, coasting waves of sound.

The Who  Who Sell Out [Both Sides] Track Records, Remastered Version at Half Speed.  New vinyl I bought from Music Direct, just up the street.  With a discount because of a slightly damaged cover.  Nice sound, bountiful and bold.  Funny stuff, too.

Family Entertainment! [Side 1] Reprise, White Label Promo.  Semi-obscure band, kind of like Gentle Giant with its mix of various styles of music but with a more gutbucket R&B sound.  Bass player and violinist Ric Grech went on to join Blind Faith.  When we Cream fans bought the record back in the day, we all wondered, who is this guy, especially after the complex, reverberant bass lines of Jack Bruce. He was also in Traffic for a while after Blind Faith, who put out one album that was pretty sharp, if prone to time-filling jam riffing. 

Emerson, Lake and Palmer Pictures at an Exhibition [Both Sides] Cotillion, Stock Copy.  Jesus, I must have five copies of this record laying around, including a demo that chops up the continuous flow, for radio stations to play.  Bought it for $3.99 in mint condition back in the day.  This album really gets to me, because, as a writer, I was much impressed by Lester Bangs' review in Rolling Stone: he dissed the album in a mock celebration of it that was actually more entertaining than if he'd written it was just trash.  He said Greg Lake's lyrics at the very end where he sings out "death is life" sounded like something Charlie Manson would have said, lots of laughs!

I'm also listening a lot to the Flowers of Romance by PIL [Virgin Records import], after hearing Martin Atkins lay down the drum beats to Four Enclosed Walls during a recent visit to The Museum of Post Punk and Industrial Music.  I'd always thought they used a drum machine on that record, but turns out that Martin's drumming is all over it, and it's intense, like tribal drums of the future, or something. 

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As for my novel, Zelda Rising ... meh, a mixed bag.  I'll be doing two open mics this week in Andersonville and I did make a sale from Quimby's Bookstore, albeit for 12 bucks.  I am planning to promote it at the Trinidad Colorado Literary Festival mid September. 

But this morning, I am tired and somewhat depressed by its rejection and neglect in some quarters, like, I've gotten a couple of these "I'm halfway through it" even though the book is short: makes you wonder, are they bored or is it too complex or they just don't like it and are being polite? 

Then Outskirts Press sends out something on Facebook today about several of their self-published books:

Every year, Outskirts Press officially nominates a small percentage of the books published during the year for submission to the Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA) EVVY Awards.

Now, dear friends, can we imagine the impact that would have had this month in Trinidad if Zelda Rising had been one of those books?  Regretfully, it wasn't.

And some psychic events were supposed to occur after its publication, well, so far, nothing ... in fact, it's been pushed in my face that the book has no effect whatsoever.  Maybe this Super Blue Moon coming up will trigger something along those lines.

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Well, I went to Milwaukee last week, hoping to catch the Brewers and Dodgers at American Family stadium or whatever they are calling it these days.  The game itself was very good and it was fun to see the Japanese superman Ohtani, who nevertheless didn't have a hit.

But getting in and out of the park is ridiculous and expensive.

Part of it was my doing, by picking a cheaper hotel that didn't have shuttle service, but it really shouldn't be that hard.  Some of these stadiums apparently were built along the lines of "everybody drives a car, why should we care about public trans to the park", causing terrible traffic jams and confused people trying to leave. 

Ended up that I had to wait for Uber so long that I found myself the last one there and I kept getting pestered by some guy in a black limo that looked like a tank converted into a hearse who was dickering with me about a ride back for 40 bucks.  

Next day, it rained and rained again.  I didn't bring rain gear, didn't want to risk standing in another line while rain poured down on me while waiting for a Uber lift, so I bagged it, sat in the meh hotel watching bad television.  

I go see the Cubs Wednesday if StubHub ever sends me a ticket.  Sox early next week maybe then I'll try Milwaukee again on the 29th, we'll see.

The Hiroshima Toyo Carp still hold a tenuous one-game lead in the Japanese Central Division, by the way.  The lead singer of Babymetal must be holding her breath.  I will have more to say about our mutual interest in the sport later.