THREE WORKING DAYS LEFT...

Rain, hail, and high wind—but no snow. I’m told it was 59 degrees in Tillamook on Christmas Day. Folks down South, and overseas, were complaining about blizzards; here in northern Oregon, the only place you’ll find a Blizzard is at the local Dairy Queen. I thought this Global Warming was supposed to be, well, global?

Discovered I’d archived this week’s blog onto a CD before I’d finished writing it. What with archiving the blogs, the old newspaper columns, and all the Acrobat conversions of my PageMaker files, I did manage to free up 2GB of space on Alice’s 40-GB hard drive, though—and I’ll need it for projects.

Just three working days left of the Lafayette gig; I’ll spend two days of that getting ready for the new city manager, and one day with him. 15 pages of notes, thus far, on stuff I’ve started that I’m leaving to him to finish (or not, as the case may be—it’ll be his show from now on). I will actually miss everybody, even the folks who were my loudest critics. I didn’t expect the job to be fun, but I think I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself. (I can’t fade off into the sunset, though, because the sun sets too early this time of year. As Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.”)

There is a lot to do when I get back to Garibaldi. I have work to do on the house that got put on hold last summer when I got the job; a Deathgrass album to record; a Deathgrass benefit concert for the Food Pantry; a couple of solo gigs to line up—to list a few. I have a new Skip Johnson song to musicate, and a lead guitar track to record for one of my favorite Scott Garriott songs (as soon as he e-mails it to me). A pile of job applications I’m waiting on answers to, too.

There are at least a couple of the music videos I can do right away. “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” is easiest, because it can all be done with the computer and scanner, and the music is already professionally recorded (it was on the “Santa’s Fallen” CD). Next easiest may be “The Dog’s Song”; I will want professionally-recorded music for that, but I can get it later. (One more song for Deathgrass to do in the studio.)

For the rest, I may need help. “The Strange Saga of Quoth, the Parrot” can be mostly be shot on a beach (with a little footage in front of a tavern), but it’d be nice to have a few cameo shots of me in it, lip-synching the words; it might be possible to set the camera up stationary on the tripod to do that, but it’d be easier if someone else were running the camera.

I did get invited back to Eric John Kaiser’s “Portland Songwriters’ Showcase” at the Thirsty Lion, Tuesday, 11 January; I’ll try, as usual, to give them songs they haven’t heard before (I have my previous Thirsty Lion setlists for reference). Prize—which, as usual, I don’t think I have a prayer of winning—is a session in a Portland recording studio. I’ll hope instead to sell enough CDs to pay for my gas there and back again. It’ll be an opportunity to contact the “joelist” and remind them I still exist, and am still playing music (even though most of them won’t be able to come to the gig).

And Oregon Coast magazine is sending a photographer to the Friday Night Group’s session in Garibaldi Jan. 7. I’m not sure how I ended up being the apparent Contact Person for this—especially being the one who’s been out of town for five months—but I’ll take advantage of it if (and to the extent) I can.

Joe