About me
subject appears to be a white male, early 50's, pathologically tall/skinny. brain patterns show evidence of a life in alcohol - first swimming in it then running from it. fingers show wear from years of guitar playing. heart presents slow repair, through writing, from being broken by rock and roll.
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WHAT CAN A POOR BOY DO?: NOTES FROM THE SKIDS
Oh man and boy howdy yr humble reporter really fixed it this time. The farm job shorted me like $100 on my check. Their reasoning being that anything over the figure they sent would HAVE to be reported to the IRS. Made sense to me at the time so I deposited it. That's when the trouble began. Seems that a store where I had written checks for cigs and dogfood while I was painting those houses (remember them?) held on to them for like 6 weeks and they all hit my account at the same time. Now I know it was my responsibility to balance my checkbook and keep track of these things but what can I say? I'm a guy and a newly single one, at that. In any event, these checks completely wiped me out. Luckily I was able to withdraw enough to pay rent and get my car insured and gassed up, but me and the animals are running waaaaaaaaaaay low on food. I've applied for 6 different jobs both here and in Pueblo some 30 miles away and am expecting another check in about a week and a half.
The good news is I've effectively quit smoking.
And that's the secret to weathering hard times - at least for me - look for any kind of silver lining you can find. That and never truly give up hope that things are gonna work out. Hell, they always have up until this point. Besides the worst that can happed is I starve to death (unlikely, since I still have friends and hopefully SOMEBODY'S gonna need their lawn mowed or house painted sooner or later) and then all my troubles will be over. Just kidding, I'm not yet desperate or even depressed, really. Plans have a way of backfiring or plain old not working and this ain't the 1st time I've been this down. It is, however, the 1st time I've been in a like position and NOT felt the overpowering need to find someone else to blame and throw full metal hissy fits nigh onto threatening suicide.
And why is that? you might ask. I know I sure have, I think a lot of my newfound faith in the future is due to this page and the folks who read it and comment. With prb I've opened up a lot of doors and storm windows into my heretofore locked up world of spite, regret and blind hatred. Rock and roll therapy. I've always maintained (for days at a time, honest) that rock and roll had a vital spiritual element to it. Now I know I haven't been writing about rock and roll bands or the form itself exclusively lately, and I think that's gone a long way towards my keeping a more healthy perspective.
Oh the ramblings of an old man. Sorry, but until the new Kate Bush record drops, I don't have much to say about music. Life and all it's entanglements and wonder has jumped out the bushes and grabbed me of late and old self-referential me has decided to jump back into the fray, stop worrying about not having state of the art equipment and just DO IT.
That's right, the new record should be finished by Monday. Here's my plan.
I have about 30 pages of lyrics just waiting to be edited, arranged and put to music. My friend Amanda has agreed to lend me her acoustic guitar this weekend. I DO have a pretty decent cassette recorder, so I'm a-going the unplugged route. Gonna sit on the couch in my apartment and play the songs over and over until I get both decent performances and recordings. My ex-wife claims to be able to convert it to CD so I can post it at lulu and I'm sorry to say this, being a punk rock revolutionary and all, but I'm gonna have to charge for it. Maybe 10 dfollars? Too much? Anyway, having had problems in the past with friends offering to convert cassettes in the past, the work will also be available on cassette (the wave of the future, don'tcha know?) for I guess $5. So after like 2 years of not recording I'm gonna make the truly 1st record of the 21st century (at least for me). Anyone interested in hearing more contact me either here or at timbyrnes@antimusic.net.
I apologize in advance to Howard and the motimer crew if this type of shameless self promotion isn't allowed here. As I've seen advertisements on otherblogs I'm hoping this doesn't present a problem but, like my mother always told me, it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.
In other rock and roll news, Sunday is my friend and bass player Kenny Morgan's 51st birthday. Everybody say 'Happy Birthday' to Kenny. We've talked a local club owner into letting a whole bunch of local musicians to set up at their bar Sunday and have an old fashioned jam session. I'm borrowing a guitar and amp from another friend and hope to shake off both the ghosts and these doldrums of failure by cranking out yet another version of 'Sweet Home Alabama'. No money involved, just a bunch of friends getting together on a Sunday afternoon to have some fun playing the old tunes and maybe invoking that holy spirit (no, not THAT Holy Spirit, Simmons. Well maybe it's all the same, huh?.) of Johnny B. Goode himself in a celebration of all things gloriously useless.
And, oh yeah, we're gonna tape it!
Posted by: timbyrnes at 16:16 |
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