#723: Nothing is easy....

OK, it's official -- my record-store memoir GUARANTEED GREAT MUSIC! is now available at Amazon.com's Kindle Store for $2.99 -- which is as cheap as Amazon would let me go. I definitely think the 190-page e-book is worth it. Just punch in the title or my name -- Tracy Deaton -- and it'll be right there, along with a pretty detailed description (written by me) about what you're in for.
If you've liked any of the late-'70s/early-'80s working-in-a-record-store nostalgia pieces that I've posted here, you'll like GUARANTEED GREAT MUSIC!, because there's a ton more behind-the-scenes record-store stories included....
OK, enough sales-pitching for a minute. This adventure in e-publishing hasn't been COMPLETELY smooth: Due to technical difficulties caused by me, the 18-page detailed playlist I wanted tacked onto the end of the book will now have to be published separately. It's already in the works, I'll keep you posted on that, and when it becomes available I plan to offer it for FREE as often as Amazon will permit. If you're a member of AmazonPrime or the Kindle sales-deal programs, you can already get this stuff for free....
Now then, here's why I'm excited: You know I'm a sucker for nostalgia. Yeah, this book is a memoir/autobiography and I'm all through it -- but I think it's a vivid and funny look back at the late-'70s and early '80s, a time when Disco ruled the radio and New Wave was still on the way up and we couldn't GIVE AWAY the first U2 album. There's a lot of music details here, a lot of behind-the-scenes music-industry stories (Want to know why the first Knack album sold a million copies? Want some new theories about why Fleetwood Mac's RUMOURS sold 20 million?), a detailed close-up look at a subculture that has almost died -- your friendly local hometown non-nationwide-chain record store.
Plus you'll get to meet the wild characters I worked with back in those days, you can criticize their (and my) odd musical tastes, and you can meet the friends I hung around with back then -- and the wonderful women who somehow allowed the geeky, nerdy younger me to get close to them.
If you've read the record-store posts I've written here -- or the segments of the book I posted as I wrote it -- you've got a pretty good idea of what you're in for. All I can say is there's a TON MORE of the same kind of thing, including some stories you probably won't believe, and some incidents I hadn't thought of in 35 years. Less than 10 percent of the book has appeared previously in shorter, different form on this blog.
The book's even in Real English.
If I wasn't excited, if I didn't think the book was worth your time, then I wouldn't have written it, and I wouldn't be promoting it shamelessly like I am right now. I'm pretty sure you'll have a good time. Sex and drugs and rock and roll -- it's all in here somewhere.
One more thing -- Memoirs often seem to be about setting things straight, or settling old scores. I just wanted to see how clearly I could remember those Good Old Days, and as I went on with the book, more and more details came back to me as clearly as if they happened last week.
I can understand if some of my old friends might not want to be depicted in precisely this way... But I've got to tell you: I tell WAY more stories that reflect badly on ME than I do about my old friends. I believe in Full Disclosure, and if you read the book, you'll see clearly that back in those days I wasn't always a very nice guy.
But luckily, the statute of limitations has passed for all that stuff. So consider this your warning. And your welcome.
I'd like this to be a "real" book, too -- but I've learned that self-publishing can be expensive, and everybody knows I'm a low-budget guy. So my plan right now is to (hopefully) use the e-book format to eventually fund a "real" book that you can hold in your hands. I prefer those kind. Hey, it took me awhile to get used to the idea of being "published on the Internet," too....
(By the way, if you're ever planning on writing a book, I recommend the Kindle folks -- they have been an absolute breeze to work with -- the only real problems have been the ones I've made for myself.)
My life has been leading up to this. I'm excited about it. Score yourself a copy of GUARANTEED GREAT MUSIC! for Kindle and help me secure some retirement funds for my fast-approaching Old Age.
By the way, I've already got my NEXT book planned....

#722: Big News!

Big news, faithful readers -- as of this afternoon, The Record Store Book has been sent to Amazon/Kindle, and now I'm waiting to see what they think.
I'm a little shaky -- I haven't had to worry about whether some work of mine was going to get rejected in about 13 years....
I know they got it, because they immediately flagged for me what they thought were spelling errors in the text and in the playlist/discography. And I told them those "errors" were exactly what I wanted. So....
Kindle claims they can get books published in 2 days -- pretty amazing. Do they reject stuff that fast, too? All I can do now is wait and see what happens....
Can't believe I made it, can't believe I might be done. I promise to keep you posted....

This is about the only really GOOD thing that's happened to me in the last week. I'm still tired and achey and dragging, and the sun has apparently disappeared. I hate the winters in western Washington, and here comes another one.
But this bright spot might be enough to get me through.
More soon....

#721: Book update 2

Hey there. The Book is "cooling off" while I look at publishing options. I spent a few hours last week burning my eyes out, looking through Amazon/Kindle's publishing-contract/guidelines/content-requirements. It's COMPLICATED.
Amazon's book-publishing arm seems mainly geared toward Making Money through editing/consulting/cover-art, but the Kindle end seems pretty reasonable, and FAST -- though I'm still not sure how much to charge to let y'all Out There read this "masterpiece." Will be consulting with my Official Unpaid Publishing Consultant on all this and will keep you posted.
Will note that reading Kindle's content-guidelines made me re-think and tone-down a couple scenes in The Book -- I dropped a total of maybe five sentences that made me uneasy in terms of privacy issues, etc. Nobody needs that much detail.
Even after all this "work," assuming Kindle even looks at The Book, they could still reject it for any number of reasons. Been over a decade since I've had to worry about anything like that....
I'll keep y'all posted. Worst possible outcome is I'll serialize The Book here and see what you all think. Wow -- 60+ blog posts already written and ready to go! In Real English! Ghod help us all....

Meanwhile, I'm feeling pretty useless because I'm not Writing Seriously and I'm not blogging here and I've heard No New Music in over a month. Some correspondent....
Ah well. At least the sun is out today for the first time in two weeks....

I don't have much to say about Lou Reed, who died Sunday at age 71. This is probably just my ignorance -- I'm sure in a few months or years I'll be kicking myself because I didn't realize what a genius he was. I can see that he was massively influential, but I just haven't heard enough of his work, and he was the other direction away from most of what I listened to for a lot of years.
I liked "I Love You Suzanne," and my favorite Velvet Underground song is "All Tomorrow's Parties," and I liked "Sweet Jane" -- but the Cowboy Junkies' version, not Lou's. Heard a bit of his TAKE NO PRISONERS live album and thought it was OK, for a stand-up comedy routine. Haven't even "heard" METAL MACHINE MUSIC.
I'm sure there'll be lots of overviews of Lou's work out there in the blogiverse. I think Lou was just one of those guys I Didn't Get....

#720: Book update

The Record Store Book is basically done. I'm at 61,000 words for the memoir itself -- and a detailed playlist/discography of all the good and bad music we played in the store back in the day bumps it up to 65,000 words, which seems like a good place to stop.
I'm thinking I must be pretty close to finished, because scenes have stopped popping into my head at 2 a.m. and demanding to be written-up.
Except for a couple of minor little music-research details that I have to nail down, I guess I'm done. Have re-read and proofread the book over the last week-plus and I think it's not bad. Some of it's pretty vivid, parts of it are funny, and I think in places it even does what I want it to do.
So, what next?
I'm thinking I might go the Kindle route to get the book Out There, since I've recently learned that self-publishing can be EXPENSIVE. And everybody knows I'm on a Low Budget (Kinks)....
However, I also know you can get lots of books for free on Kindle, so I remain confused about how much I should charge for this masterpiece. Guess that'll come down to How Much Balls I think I've got.... However, I plan to research this further almost immediately.
I'll keep you posted. Am also open to advice about all this stuff. In the current market, I have major doubts about whether a book about working in an old record store has a large enough potential audience to be accepted by an established publisher....
Even if the book DOES have everything a potential best-seller needs -- sex, drugs, rock and roll, it's all in there. A close-up look at a whole subculture that's nearly vanished....
...Uh, sorry, just trying to crank up the hype machine a little, since I guess I'm about to become my own promotional company as well....

Am continuing to use Stevie Wonder, Junior Walker, Booker T and the MG's, The Temptations, The Spinners and Parliament as motivational music at work, and they have all helped get me through the rough spots. Have listened to nothing much New lately apart from songs I'd never heard before played on the syndicated music-news-and-views radio-show SOUND OPINIONS.
Mercifully, this past week at work was easier than the previous week. An update on current work conditions will be posted at THE GAS NAZI! eventually....
It is cold, overcast and gray here, daily high temps around 50. I can tell Winter is coming because I feel like I'm shutting down -- feel like I have half the energy I did a few weeks ago. Pretty much normal for me, this time of year. Hope you are NOT the same....
More soon....

#718: Something different

Everybody knows self-published books are usually garbage. God knows you've seen me go on and on about several of them in this blog. Usually a self-published book (meaning one not issued by some established publisher) indicates that the writer had a great IDEA for a book ... but just couldn't bring it off.
Self-published books are usually Just Barely in English, were never proofread, and are usually a mass of typographical errors, mixed-up punctuation, and sentences that you can barely make sense out of.
A few of these "masterpieces" have been chopped-up in this blog over the years -- look up such stunning works as Jerry Lucky's PROGRESSIVE ROCK FILES, Joe Benson's UNCLE JOE'S GUIDE TO PROGRESSIVE ROCK, or that Moody Blues COMPANION I reviewed earlier this year.
But there are always exceptions....
Linda Lou's memoir BASTARD HUSBAND: A LOVE STORY is a big exception. It's vivid and funny -- and a bit scary, in places.
I admit I read BH because I'm in the middle of writing a memoir myself, and I wanted to see how someone else did it -- and if a "life story" memoir by someone I'd never met could hold my interest through 250 pages.
That definitely wasn't a problem here.
If you've read Linda's blog, Linda Lou, Live from Las Vegas!, you know she's always direct and funny, and when she writes, she knows exactly what she's doing.
What she's doing here is writing about how her marriage fell apart. There are worse places to end your marriage than Vegas, but Linda shows clearly that Vegas ain't such a party town when you're alone and lonely.
Here's what happens: While traveling for work, Linda meets a guy who seems to be her soulmate. They hit it off, they spend all their time together, they seem to be Cosmically Meant To Be Together. They get married, and as part of following his career as a college professor, they move around The West.
That's when Linda learns that her soulmate husband is an angry, scary drunk. There is an ugly, scary scene in their home in Laramie, Wyoming, that shows how frightening he can be. When they move to Vegas, it becomes clear he has a gambling problem, too.
There's an emotional showdown -- in a swimming pool, of all places. And it becomes clear that Linda can't "rescue" her husband. She can't save him from himself. All she can do is get out of his way.
So she does. He goes on with his life. And while she's looking for work, Linda makes friends, learns about the Vegas nightlife, meets a series of unforgettable characters while serving as a hospice volunteer, and starts doing stand-up comedy at age 46.
There are other good things. Almost every section of this book has some laughs, no matter how serious things sometimes get. Some lines will have you laughing out loud. There is a scene late in the book with Linda's family around the dinner table at Christmas that has GOT to get into some movie someday.
The ending may dribble away just a little bit, but Real Life is like that, and Linda gets something positive out of it. As a survivor's story, it's a winner, and it will make you laugh.
And this book avoids one of my big problems with self-published books: There are VERY few typos. Maybe only two or three in the very last section, which means someone actually proofread it before it was published. That's a definite bonus. You won't be jolted out of the reading experience.
Linda Lou makes writing a memoir look easy. I trust that it wasn't. Especially the ugly parts.
And believe me, these days when I can't get through most novels, anybody who can write about her life and make me hang on every word is worth checking out.
You should check out her blog, too....

#717: Junior Walker is God!

...OK, well, maybe he's not THAT great, but most of the songs on Junior Walker and the All-Stars' ESSENTIAL COLLECTION are excellent upbeat mid-'60s R&B/party music, some of the best and most motivational stuff I've heard in months. This coming in right after THE VERY BEST OF BOOKER T AND THE MG'S made September a pretty good music month for me.
Course I bought the CD just so I could hear Junior's "Take Me Girl, I'm Ready" again for the first time since 1971 -- and it's OK, not a letdown. The shock was that practically everything else on the CD is BETTER....
I already knew about "Shotgun," a Top 5 hit for Motown back in 1965 -- but nearly all the rest of ESSENTIAL COLLECTION I hadn't heard before. So if you're looking for some back-to-basics motivational R&B with some excellent sax, ESSENTIAL COLLECTION will Do The Job.
"I'm a Road Runner" lays out Junior's basic approach -- direct, no-nonsense R&B riffs with some good gruff sax and Junior's all-purpose shout/scream to keep things moving. In the same high-quality nothing-but-fun vein are "I Ain't Goin' Nowhere," "Pucker Up Buttercup," "Anyway You Wannta," "Nothing But Soul," and "Shake and Fingerpop." Some of these went Top 40, some are real solid B-sides.
"Probe Your Mind" expands the sound just a bit, into jazzier areas. "Moody Junior" is pretty good stuff too -- if you can get past the show-offy piano in the opening, which keeps trying to turn the tune into that old crooner's standard "The Impossible Dream."
I admit some of the later tracks are just a bit too mellow-soulful for me, if you know what I mean. But even the trendy early-'70s "Right On Brothers and Sisters" is tolerable, and a couple of the other later tracks aren't offensive, even if the energy level is down just a bit. I have yet to play all of Junior's version of "Urgent" -- though his sax on Foreigner's original was the only thing that made that song worth hearing. I'm also gonna have to play "What Does it Take (To Win Your Love)," which I see also went Top 5. Junior's version of "How Sweet it is (To be Loved by You)" is even lamer than James Taylor's.
So: 13 listenable tracks out of 18, value for money as far as I'm concerned. And test plays at work have confirmed that the best stuff will Keep You Moving. Audience reaction to this and THE VERY BEST OF BOOKER T has also been positive, with several customers commenting that it was good to come into the store and hear some good happy-music playing again.
For me, old R&B is about the only thing that's been able to keep me moving at work lately, so much so that I hauled in all the old Motown, R&B & early-'70s Soul stuff I had at home, hoping it would keep me going through the past week. & it worked pretty well. I'm to the point now that I've started to like The Contours' "Do You Love Me?" just for the energy level, plus I played old stand-bys like '60s Temptations, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, The Spinners, Sly, and my comedy buddies Parliament -- "P-Funk" and "Dr. Funkenstein" keep me laughin' while I'm movin'. And that's gotta be a good thang....
Is this any way for a white kid from Idaho to act...?

The Record Store Book is now past 57,000 words, and I am STILL coming up with new stuff to toss into it. Closing in on that magic 60,000-word/200+ pages figure that I hope to hit. Still have yet to re-read the whole thing -- got 10 pages into it last week before I had to take a break due to work, and by the time I got back to it I had new stuff to add. Though I hate it, so far my work schedule has forced enough breaks to keep me fairly fresh so I don't get too bogged-down in the book to be able to see it.
Old friends should hereby be warned that practically EVERYTHING I can remember from 1978-82 has somehow found its way into the book -- it's now more a memoir than a lightly-fictionalized tale from my past.
In short: It's still working and I'll keep you posted....

NEWS: King Crimson biographer Sid Smith's POSTCARDS FROM THE YELLOW ROOM website and DGM LIVE have both announced that King Crimson has reformed as a 7-piece band with three drummers and is looking toward touring in the fall of 2014.
Announced members of the band include longtime KC guitarist/lynchpin Bob Fripp, bassist Trey Gunn, drummer Pat Mastelotto, early-'70s KC member and longtime session-musician saxophonist Mel Collins, and singer/second guitarist Jakko Jackzyk. Longtime guitarist Adrian Belew is not a member of the announced band and reportedly was not asked to join....
As someone who saw the Crims live in Seattle in 2003, I think it's too bad Belew wasn't invited to take part. He was a solid frontman and he contributed a ton of great lyrics and lots of cool guitar to KC since 1980. But he & Fripp have reportedly had their clashes in the past....

#716: Those weren't the days

Hey, while researching music I might've forgotten over the years for The Record Store Book (which is over 53,000 words now, thanks for asking), I stumbled over a bunch of Godawful stuff I'd forgotten about from Back In The Day, probably because I'd successfully blocked it all out.
About some of this stuff I can only ask: What were we thinking? And by "we," I mean You Out There, because I sure as hell didn't buy any of this crap.
When looking back we all think that the late '70s & early '80s was all fun New Wave and silly Hair Metal bands, but it wasn't. There was a LOT of crap out there -- very successful crap. It was almost as bad as today. (Oh, and I found some good stuff I hadn't thought of in 30 years, too, but we'll get to that in a bit.) First, get a look at this list....
* M -- Pop Muzik. This is the music of the future? Ghod help us all....
* Lipps Inc. -- Funkytown. I admit, the last time I heard this -- unexpectedly, a year or so ago -- it sounded kind of cute. But the reason it sounds cute now is because we're 30+ years past the time when we were bombarded with it twice an hour....
* Olivia Newton-John -- Physical. #1 for 9 weeks! WTF?
* Kenny Rogers -- Coward of the County, Lady, She Believes in Me, You Decorated My Life. Ugh. It was a great few years for Kenny, back then. I thought he actually had one good song, the modest "Love Will Turn You Around." I still think that little instrumental riff right after the choruses was "borrowed" from somewhere, but I've never been able to figure out where....
* ONJ & ELO's XANADU soundtrack. The worst movie ever? There is actually one kinda charming overlooked song here -- ONJ's "Suspended in Time." Believe me, when you're forced to listen to junk like this, you really notice the stuff that sounds promising....
* Air Supply -- Lost in Love, All Out of Love, The One That You Love, Every Woman in the World. I'll admit that "Lost in Love" sounds ... almost OK now, but that big balloon on the cover of their second album was a perfect metaphor: These guys were lighter than air. And their best(?) moments were a few years later, with almost-tolerable stuff like "Sweet Dream" and "Making Love Out of Nothing at All."
* The Knack -- GET THE KNACK, BUT THE LITTLE GIRLS UNDERSTAND....
* Rupert Holmes -- Escape (The Pina Colada Song), Him. Ever notice the similarity to Barry Manilow here? Barry probably wished he could write a song as good as Holmes' overlooked "Nearsighted."
* Rick Springfield -- Jessie's Girl. Whatever. But Rick's version of Sammy Hagar's "I've Done Everything for You" was pretty good....
* Frankie and the Knockouts -- Sweetheart. Boring....
* Pablo Cruise -- PART OF THE GAME. Worst album ever? This will smooth out your ADHD issues in no time....
* Manhattan Transfer -- EXTENSIONS, Boy From New York City, Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone, etc. How 'bout those ManTrans guys dressin' up like future-retro robots from some '30s sci-fi nightmare? But their version of "Birdland" had more life in it than Weather Report's ... if you can TAKE it....
* Devo -- FREEDOM OF CHOICE, Whip It, etc. Is this the future? Thank Ghod it wasn't.
* Kim Carnes -- Bette Davis Eyes. #1 for 2 months! Why?
These are merely the worst offenders....

Oh, the good stuff? Glad you asked....
* The Dickies -- Stuck in a Pagoda with Trisha Toyota. This is hysterical & shoulda been a big hit. The Dickies never did anything slow. & they do a funny sped-up version of "Nights in White Satin," too....
* The Yachts -- Tantamount to Bribery. Ghod, I haven't heard this in 35 years. Clever wordplay atop better-than-average pub rock.
* Nazareth -- Holiday. Why wasn't this a hit?
* Foghat -- Wide Boy. I was never a fan, but why wasn't THIS a hit?
* Flying Lizards -- Money. Hey, if Devo can make the Top 20, why not this clanky, mechanical desecration of a rock&roll classic?
* Hawks -- Let Me In. The only song I remember from their first album. Pretty gorgeous, with a nice long chimey guitar outro....
* Charlie -- Power Cut, Fight Dirty. These were pretty punchy, well-produced, radio-ready songs that never broke through. One of dozens of unlucky acts signed to Arista Records -- which meant they were cut-out within 3 months....
* Surf Punks -- My Beach. Great, quick, cheap laughs. The Ramones go surfing. Funny for 2 minutes. Stretched out over an album it gets boring real quick....
* The Pop -- Go! Great! Simple, loud, crashing! Try and find the album! On Arista, of course....
* Spirit -- My Friend. From JOURNEY TO POTATOLAND, released back when Rhino was a Very Strange Small Label. More life in these 2 minutes than the whole rest of the album....
* Madness -- One Step Beyond.... Love that sax.
* Carly Simon -- We're So Close. This ironic little classic is all I can remember from her SPY album....
* Stevie Wonder -- I Ain't Gonna Stand For It. He's done so much great stuff, some of it's inevitably gonna get lost....
* Heart -- Mistral Wind (live), Sweet Darlin' (live). They've never done an album I can listen to all the way through, and they lost some real memorable riff power when guitarist Roger Fisher left....

Ghod knows there might be more coming soon....

#715: Improper toilet training

From The Book:

At this point, I'd like to make a few True Confessions about my music-listening habits:
* I'm a creature of habit. I tend to play one side of an album, get totally addicted to it, and never flip it over to see if there's any Good Stuff on the other side. This can go on for YEARS. Sometimes I discover there IS good stuff buried on the other side -- 30 years later....
* I'm picky. I keep the songs I love, that I can't live without, and pretty much ignore the rest. As Chuck Berry allegedly once said, "Nothing but the best, and later for the garbage." Maybe other listeners do this too, but I never hear them brag about it.
* I'm easily bored. I have a short attention span, and it gets shorter as I get older. Bore me for five minutes and I'm done. See above.
* It can take me years to catch on to some obvious things. It took me two years to admit that The Cars might have some talent -- and that was just because my co-worker Loren kept playing their first album over and over in the store.... Don't know what I was thinking, or why I couldn't hear. It took me almost a decade to decide Madonna was an Artist. I'm still not sure about Prince....
* I can condemn artists to Musical Hell for minor infractions, or for major assaults against good taste, and never listen to them again.
* I LOVE to make sweeping judgements about stuff I've never heard. Just ASK ME about any heavy metal band. Rap? I'm your man.
* I have this theory that every artist has one song they were put here to perform. Or, ALMOST every artist. Even Whitney Houston has one great song, possibly two. Even The Band has one great song, and I think almost all of their stuff SUCKS. (See previous item.) Even John Denver, Olivia Newton-John, Joan Baez, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, name your poison.... There are VERY few artists that are COMPLETELY unlistenable. But then, what are we supposed to do with Gary Puckett and the Union Gap? Or Engelbert Humperdinck? Debbie Boone?

...The Book is now just over 52,000 words, and I am seriously running out of material. A long, detailed Playlist from the period pushes it to 56,000 words. But I'd like about 10,000 more words of actual STORY. So I guess I'm gonna have to Make Something Up. I could use another sub-plot. Or more sex to go with the drugs and rock and roll. Or something.
Still, not bad for a month's work. I'm to the point now where I'm gonna have to go back through and read the whole thing again and see if it makes sense, or if any more useable memories are jarred loose. I'll keep you posted....

I'm addicted to the Good Stuff on THE VERY BEST OF BOOKER T. AND THE MG'S. Ever since hearing "Time is Tight" on the radio awhile back, I couldn't get the music out of my head, so I caved-in and bought the CD cheap. And actually got all the way through it.
And the best stuff on it's really great -- "Time is Tight," "Hang 'Em High" (which I hadn't heard in YEARS), "Green Onions," "Hip Hug-Her" (which I swear I've heard before, though Ghod knows where), "Mo' Onions," "Melting Pot," etc. Really great '60s R&B grooves.
However. When they were less inspired, Booker T and friends sound like fairly bad '60s-movie background music. The worst of it sounds like that cheezy organ music from NAPOLEON DYNAMITE. You can really do without their versions of Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson" and The Rascals' "Groovin'." In fact, the only version of "Mrs. Robinson" you ever really need to hear is Frank Sinatra's....
Coming soon: Junior Walker and the All-Stars' ESSENTIAL -- if only so I can hear "Take Me Girl, I'm Ready" for the first time since 1972....

Also played some of Carlene Carter's LITTLE LOVE LETTERS, after a previously-ordered cheap copy apparently got lost in the mail.
This is an Olde Favorite -- still love the fresh, happy, brash sound of "Every Little Thing," "Sweet Meant to Be" and "Heart is Right," and the goofiness of the two "Little Love Letters." All these make me bounce around the room every time. I might even play the whole thing through and find something new I didn't hear the first time around. And everyone knows I'm a sucker for women country singers....
Kevin Ayers' BEST OF may have gotten lost in the mail, or may just be taking its time coming in from England....

Haven't heard or read anything else new and shocking lately, what with writing my ass off when I can, working when I don't want to, and cheering for the Seahawks when they deserve it. Fall has officially started here, with occasional torrential downpours the past couple of days, overnight lows down into the low 50s, and snow in the mountains. And to think it was in the 80s just a week ago....
Gotta go research 1980-81 music for The Book and see how much I've forgotten -- back soon with more....

#713: Meanwhile....

...The Book is over 46,500 words, 85 single-space-typed pages, about three-quarters of the way toward what used to be a "normal-sized" novel. If I can write 15,000 more words, then I can start thinking about what to take OUT.
It's been an interesting experience -- things about my old record store days are still coming back to me, stuff I haven't thought about in 30 years, happenings I've never written about anywhere. Every few days I think I really have exhausted the material ... and then something else starts bubbling up.
Am still writing 500 to 2,000 words per day, even on work days. It's a great way to wake up. I have a couple more little things to toss in, then am about due to read back through everything and see where I want to go next.
Only thing that bugs me so far is I can see there's a lot of telling and not enough showing -- a lot of describing and not enough dialogue. But I'll be working on that....
Also, my journals from back then tell me little bits and pieces of some things that allegedly happened, but I've COMPLETELY forgotten about the rest of some incidents. Guess that's where the "fiction" will come in. Luckily, this hasn't happened too often. What I CAN remember from those days has kept coming back to me like it was last week -- and at least once these memories have forced me out of bed at 2 a.m., over to the laptop before I forget everything.
Needless to say, I'm now making notes constantly....
May post some more short, funny sections here if more occur to me -- if it's something that can stand on its own and doesn't need much explaining....

I remain musically bored. The last two CDs I ordered either got lost in the mail or were stolen out of my mailbox. That bag of CD's I take with me to work hasn't seemed worth the trouble to put on the player, most nights lately. But work itself hasn't been much of a problem, recently. Maybe it's because things are starting to cool down into Fall, and the nights are becoming less busy. Maybe it's also because I have other things to think about, these days....
Anyway, I do occasionally play some music at work, mostly the Same Old Stuff, but also including:
JoDee Messina -- Heads Carolina Tails California.
Kansas -- Miracles Out of Nowhere, Questions of My Childhood.
Doobie Brothers -- Neal's Fandango.
Jethro Tull -- Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day, Teacher.
Led Zeppelin -- Good Times Bad Times, When the Levee Breaks, Over the Hills and Far Away.
Fleetwood Mac -- Oh Well, Why?, Green Manalishi.
Florence + the Machine -- Shake it Out.
Modern English -- I Melt With You.
Church -- Reptile.
Sly and the Family Stone -- Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin.
Marvin Gaye -- What's Goin' On?, Inner City Blues, Trouble Man, Ain't That Peculiar?, You're All I Need to Get By (with Tammi Terrell).
Rascals -- See, People Got to be Free, A Beautiful Morning, Carry Me Back, Good Lovin'.
Stevie Wonder -- I Was Made to Love Her, My Cherie Amour, For Once in My Life, Signed Sealed Delivered, If You Really Love Me.
Four Tops -- Reach Out I'll Be There.
Gladys Knight and the Pips -- I Heard it Through the Grapevine.
David Ruffin -- My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me).
Temptations -- I Can't Get Next to You, Ball of Confusion.
Jackson 5 -- I Want You Back.
Supremes -- Up the Ladder to the Roof.
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles -- Tears of a Clown.
Undisputed Truth -- Smiling Faces Sometimes.
Blondie -- Dreaming, Call Me, Hanging on the Telephone, Union City Blue.
Boston -- Used to Bad News.
Chicago -- Questions 67 and 68.
Spinners -- I'll Be Around, I'm Coming Home.
BTO -- Blue Collar, Roll On Down the Highway.
Pam Tillis -- Homeward Looking Angel.
I don't think JoDee Messina is the most natural vocalist in the world -- she sounds kind of awkward and hesitant at the start of "Heads Carolina." But once she gets rolling and those choruses kick in, all my reservations go right out the window. Great stuff, and it makes me smile every time.
One Store Regular was thrilled to hear "Miracles Out of Nowhere," though at first he couldn't place who it was. He said hearing it made his night. That's always nice to hear.

Was bummed when longtime science-fiction writer and editor Frederik Pohl died over Labor Day weekend. He was 93, and over the past few years had been writing a popular online memoir at The Way the Future Blogs.
Pohl was a heckuva novelist in the '70s and '80s -- books like GATEWAY, BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZON, HEECHEE RENDEZVOUS and MAN PLUS had a big impact on me. I was only able to get halfway through his CHERNOBYL, a "docudrama" about that Russian nuclear disaster -- it was a little TOO Real, if you know what I mean. I still have Fred's THE YEARS OF THE CITY on my bookshelf waiting to be read. For awhile in the '70s and '80s, Fred Delivered The Goods every time, whether it was a new novel or a short story in one of the SF magazines.
He also had an amazing career as an editor. In the '60s he edited GALAXY and IF magazines through their best years, boosting the careers of writers like Robert Silverberg, Roger Zelazny, Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, James Tiptree Jr., Keith Laumer and dozens more.
In the mid-'70s he was editor of Bantam Books' SF line and brought out difficult novels like Joanna Russ's THE FEMALE MAN and Samuel R. Delany's DHALGREN and TRITON. Brave, uncommercial choices. But they usually paid off....

Have also read (and heard) that Linda Ronstadt has lost her gorgeous singing voice, due to Parkinson's Disease. I was at times a big Ronstadt fan -- didn't think everything she did was great, or sometimes even worth listening to -- but moments like "Long Long Time" and "Someone to Lay Down Beside Me" are in my collection, plus the entire MAD LOVE album, especially the great "I Can't Let Go" and an amazing dramatic vocal on Elvis Costello's "Party Girl"....

If you haven't already, you should check out 2000 Man over at Dropped for Negligible Interest. Though I hesitate to compare bloggers, 2000 reminds me a bit of Rastro before he went quiet. I like 2000's mix of old and new stuff, and especially his nostalgia trips to Back In The Day (as in his recent posts about albums by Bruce Springsteen, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, Fleetwood Mac, etc.) -- anybody who reads here shouldn't be surprised by my addiction to that. Be sure and give 2000 a look. And my thanx to Crabby for turning me on to another great blogger....

Haven't read much for fun lately -- have been too busy writing with most of my free time.
Will be Back Soon with at least a short list of "do-overs" -- oldies I wish someone would re-record BETTER....

#712: "Strike One"

From The Book:

Toward the end it all just seemed like drudgery and paychecks bouncing. Cleaning up after everyone else and telling customers "I'm sorry, we're out of that," and either getting paid two weeks late or never getting paid at all.
I started getting pretty grumpy at work. Even at what had once been My Dream Job.
So I started telling customers how I felt.
When customers came in asking whether The Cars' then-new album PANORAMA was any good, I told them the truth.
I told them it sucked.
"You CAN'T say THAT!" my Manager Robyn said when she found out. "We won't SELL any! Just tell people if they liked the last one they'll probably like this one! NOBODY CARES about your opinion!"
"But Robyn, you KNOW it sucks!"
"STOP SAYING THAT!"
"Wall of Voodoo ALWAYS tells people EXACTLY what he thinks," I explained, falling back on the in-store behavior seen since day one on the part of the company's resident heavy-metal expert. "If something sucks, he TELLS people that!"
"NOBODY CARES about the crap HE likes!" Robyn said. "And besides, The Wall doesn't work here!"
That was probably the first official step on my downhill slide toward quitting the record store. And probably the first time I ever really pissed-off Robyn, who had once been my hero -- who I would never have gotten the job without....

#711: "But what's she REALLY like?"

From The Book:

It's a normal morning at the record store. Gary my Manager's on the phone from the new Capitol Blvd. store, wondering how much Current Hit Product he can "borrow" from our other stores for Capitol's Official Grand Opening, which is set for this weekend.
Robyn, my former Assistant Manager and now Manager of her own store at Fairview and Five Mile, is in the store picking up mail and new albums to go out to her store.
"Ask Sheena how she sits on Tom Petty," Gary says over the phone, wondering if he can grab some copies of Petty's recently-released hit DAMN THE TORPEDOES album to build-up the stock at Capitol.
I turn to Robyn. "Gary wants to know how you sit on Tom Petty...?" I ask.
There is a pause. Robyn grins. She's not-too-secretly in lust with Tom Petty.
"Well," she says, "usually like THIS!"
And she spreads her legs and kneels, as if to straddle Tom Petty if he were lying on the floor beneath her.
I back away, laughing and waving my hands in surrender ... and accidentally hang up on Gary....

#710: "The Voice"

From The Book:

Even in the middle of the stress and financial ruin that marked my last few months with the record store, there were still some good moments.
One was learning that a voluptuous, earthy female voice had started answering the phone at the alarm company all our stores used.
It wasn't so much WHAT she said as the WAY she said it. I'd call up the alarm company just before locking up the store, give the gorgeous voice my name and alarm-code number, and she'd laugh and say "Whatever you say, honey! Have a great night!" And I'd be out the door and on my way home.
And then it escalated.
Again, it wasn't so much what she said.... It was her sultry voice that grabbed me, her throaty, knowing laugh. That warm, buttery voice was like being smothered in kisses, like being surrounded by warm lips. I could cuddle inside that voice forever.
I started looking forward to closing, so I could toss the meagre amount of cash we'd made that day into the bank bag, reach for the phone, and hear that voice purring into my ear -- even if it was just for 30 seconds. I'd pass on my name and my alarm code, and she'd sigh and say "Have a great night, sweetheart!" And that would make my night.
She seemed to know exactly what she was doing, because as we got used to each other she stepped it up: The hints and innuendoes were becoming more and more obvious. That voice was laughing lightly, teasing, inviting, welcoming.
Maybe she was just bored with her job and wanted to liven it up. Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing, and wanted to see how far she could push it.
I already had a fantasy going and I'd never even met this woman. I didn't even know her name.
Already I was thinking of asking her name, asking what she looked like, asking whether she'd ever consider going out with some geeky guy she'd never met....
I couldn't just let it lie there.
One night at closing I was suddenly circling around the ceiling after just talking with her on the phone for 30 seconds. I was giddy with it.
"GOD, you've got a GORGEOUS voice," I said. "You give GREAT phone."
She laughed, delighted. "So do YOU, sweetie! Sweet dreams!"
I walked on air out to the car.
After that I couldn't let it go. The next time I worked, I called Brad at the Overland store. Even though he was married, Brad always seemed to have the latest information on any attractive women who shopped regularly at our stores. He was our go-to guy when it came to hot-women rumors.
I asked if he'd ever talked to the woman with the voluptuous voice.
"Oh sure," he said casually. "I've met her. Her name's Ann."
"You're making it up!"
"No, man, really."
"Is she as gorgeous as she SOUNDS?"
"Oh, man, she's a freakin' knockout!"
Brad described in detail a heavenly vision with long dark hair and a huge chest. She sounded like Just My Type. Somehow I held it together.
"Does she talk to ALL the guys this way?" I asked, cringing.
"Oh yeah," Brad said, confirming my worst fear. "We've all talked to her. We've all got crushes on her."
I felt momentarily deflated, but Brad was saving the best for last.
"She thinks YOU'RE crazy," he said, "and she wants to come out to Fairview and meet you!"
"Brad, you're F'ing MAKING IT UP!"
"Man, I PROMISE I'm NOT."
"Then why didn't you TELL ME?!"
The next time I closed, I invited Ann to come out to the store anytime. She sounded delighted and asked what time would be good for me.
"ANY time, really!" I said, a bit too eager. "We never have any customers anyway...."
And she laughed, and I was circling around the ceiling again.
I was thrilled about this, the first positive response I'd had from a woman in months, and I told everyone that the woman with the gorgeous voice at the alarm company wanted to meet me and thought I was crazy.
"I'll agree with THAT," said Robyn my Manager.
But I never got to meet the woman with the voluptuous voice. For some reason, Ann stopped answering the phone. And the next step in my ongoing drama with the record store kicked in way too fast....