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 Not much today – busy. Scanning and writing, scanning and writing. Wife still gone. Got up very early after going to bed very late; Gnat was up with the roosters, and since I was the only adult in the house I couldn’t just say “go make breakfast honey” – you go downstairs later and there’s 12 eggs on the floor, the dog is polishing off a pound of bacon, and she poured milk into a box of Cheerios. I felt like junk most of the day. I felt like wet cement. Took her to school – how grown up she seems, even though she’s merely 3.5. She says hello to her friends and asks “how are you today?” Afterwards she ran down the list of her friends, each of which was her best friend, all of whom she “would love for ever and ever.” Even when you’re fifteen? Pause. “I can drive a car when I’m fifteen.” No, when you’re sixteen. “Oh. Right. When I’m sixteen. We sang ‘On top of spaghetti’ today,” she said, and then she sang the song. It’s rather surreal. The meatball rolls from the peak of Mt. Spaghetti, into the bush, where the poor meatball is mush, and from this protein paste a meatball tree sprouts. “A meatball twee. That’s silly,” she said. “But now I think I am going to nap like Dowthy and dream about the Tin Man.” She saw the Wizard of Oz at the State Theater Sunday. I’d watched it with her the night before, explaining all the strange and scary parts. She had taken it all in stride: at the end she said “It was all a dream, I guess. Dowthy had a long nap.” Practical child. But it stuck with her it seems. She sang “We’re off to see the Wizud” and I sang along. Looked in the rear-view window: eyes shut. Off to Oz. This Dean remix thing really took off today. The Washington Post mentioned it with attribution; ditto the MTV webpage. NPR played it. Why? Perhaps because it’s short, and it ramps up fast enough. If I’d known this would happen I would have spent more time on it, and I suppose ruined it altogether. As it was I edited the thing blind; since I have no audio edit software right now, I downloaded a demo off Sound Studio. I’d used it before; nice program. But it has an argument with OSX 10.3, I think: the “play” button is disabled. So I had to edit the waveform just by looking at it, dropping the clips into Soundtrack, and seeing it I had what I wanted. Hail me, I guess. Better yet, hail the web. Ever seen the “Buddy Holly Story” ? Think of the band, the Crickets, toiling in Texas, touring the towns, working their way up to the big leagues. A recording contract! A single! Nationwide TV exposure! That’s something only a fraction of a fraction of what musicians got back then. In two days I got international exposure. Ergo, I am better than Buddy Holly. No; sorry; tired. My point is not that I am a musician at all, but that the internet lets us assembly-monkeys get out there fast and wide, which is cool. As for actual musicians, well: For those who enjoy acoustic guitar, here you’ll find some compositions by my friend Bill Hammond, who also is my copy desk editor at the Strib. Oh, right: talk radio. I’ll be guest hosting for Hugh Hewitt next Thursday. Details to follow. I’m looking forward to this – if nothing else, expect some curious bumper music. Will I use the Dean Yeagh! tune, as old as it will be by then? You’ll have to wait and see. Monday: a new Institute addition, a matchbook, and a week of longer & better Bleats. I hope – having just dispatched the last book for good, I’m now in the early stages of the next one. Wish I could say what it was about, but it’s a Big Secret. Trust me: it’ll be the best one yet. |
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