SOME UPDATES...

What did Robert Burns say about the best-laid plans of mice?” They “aft gae agley”? Drummer Chris will be out of town until after the weekend; that won’t leave a lot of opportunities for practice before the Big Event Feb. 5. I admit I’m the paranoid one; these guys are good, and the one gig we did last summer without any practice at all came off just about perfect. I still like the reassurance of me knowing for sure that we’re going to sound perfect. We may have a big crowd coming for this (I hope we have a big crowd coming for this).

I’m signed up for Wil Duncan’s video class at the Bay City Arts Center—Tuesday evenings for 16 weeks, plus field work. The product will be a half-hour documentary film on Tillamook County. The outcome for me will be experience storyboarding, lighting, using a professional camera, and editing—all of which I want to apply to music-video work. In addition, I and two other musicians in the class will have the job of writing and recording the musical score (something I’ve always wanted to do).

I have all but a couple of the photos for the “50 Ways to Cure the Depression” music video. People have been really helpful. I have multiple copies of some of the shots I need, and won’t be able to use all of them—but everybody will get thanks in the credits.

And I’m not sure what to use as a backdrop for the credits that’ll run during the instrumental break. I have over a minute to work with, and I have some very pretty scenery—this is a beautiful area I live in, after all—but I also have stark, disturbing snapshots of abandoned homes, derelict cars, vacant and deteriorating storefronts, even abandoned boats. Both are real—and current. I could combine them, I suppose: I could show that behind all that beauty is hiding an awful lot of pain—and maybe show, too, that amid the pain there’s rather a lot of hope. I’d have to be really obvious about it, though; this is a protest song, after all (despite the tongue being firmly planted in cheek), and subtlety doesn’t enter the picture.

Distributed more Failed Economy Show posters; rather a lot of people I didn’t think I knew seemed to know who I was, and I don’t know why. On the plus side, I do have an interview on local radio the Friday morning before the concert (and they asked me to bring my guitar—I don’t know what I should play); still trying to get an interview on the station further south that ex-local DJ Tommy Boye now manages. On the minus side, the Video Lady has not returned phone calls or e-mails for a week, which does not bode well for getting the event filmed. (And that’s an argument for my going through Wil’s class, and encouraging others to do so also. There needs to be more than one person in the community who can do this stuff.)

NEW STUFF: The writers’ group is starting up again (not because I’m back in town, but because one of the writers is out of the hospital), and I’ve been invited; I’ll go. I’m not sure what to take them for review. Down the road, I’d like their input and suggestions for the burlesque play I want to write, “Last of the Red-Hot Nutcrackers,” but I haven’t written anything yet.

There’s an all-girl “air band” supposedly forming, and I’ve offered to film them performing one of my songs—their pick (though my suggestion, I think, would be the death metal anthem, “Angel in Chains”—I can see that being performed by an all-girl air band real easily). It’ll be a good use for the film skills I’ll be learning in Wil Duncan’s class.

Joe