A VIDEO AND A THIRSTY LION...

The re-done music video of “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?” is okay. Link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShwUFt8_UPc and as this is written, it’s had 30 “hits” since it got posted two days ago. The video was an opportunity to dust off my cartoonist skills—hadn’t really had a chance to use them since I was a newspaper editorial cartoonist, over 30 years ago—and make sure I hadn’t lost my touch.

The question was asked (inevitably) whether I could do an encore. My initial reaction is “Probably not.” I can’t think of any other of my songs that would lend themselves to a cartoon interpretation—but I’m open to suggestions. I am also trying to stick to my rule that each video has got to be different. Having done this one this way, and having had it come out (I think) competent, I am disinclined to do another one the same way. (Of course, I am always capable of breaking my own rules, too.)

For the video of the “Tillamook Railroad Blues,” I don’t think we can do footage of us playing on the train; the train doesn’t have 110-volt power, and I don’t want the hassle and expense of getting a generator. I got rid of the Dodson Drifters’ old battery-powered PA amp back in 2008 (thing still worked, after 30 years—Radio Shack made good stuff) and never thought I’d need something like that again. We can film the band playing at either Garibaldi or Wheeler Station (where there is electricity), and meld that with footage of and from the train; that should work. The key is competence: it is fine to be understated—one just needs to be professionally understated.

We’re on for SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5 for the Failed Economy Show benefit for the Food Pantry. The City Hall Dance Floor’s been reserved, the first media announcement has been made (in my column for the newspaper), and the poster’s done and ready to be distributed. Saturday, at the Arts Center’s open mike, I should be able to talk to our would-be fiddle player and backup singer and see if they’re interested in being part of the show. Practice will be Friday night, Jan. 28. Tentatively, we’re scheduled to record the album the Friday after the show (Feb. 11).

It’s probably good that all this is taking place as fast as it is—I have a job interview Friday, Jan. 21, and while I refuse to be hopeful (I have been rejected too many times), there is always a chance they could hire me. That job is in the Willamette Valley, again—just far enough away to make commuting infeasible. If the job is offered, I’m taking it—applying the Standard Rule of “whoever gets me first, gets me.” I can do lots of stuff, and am quite comfortable doing any of it.

A brief post-mortem on the Thirsty Lion gig—about all it deserves: it was fun, primarily because I like playing; financially, it was a bust—either the predicted ice storm (which did hit while I was there) or the prospect of having to listen to me sing kept people away in droves, as it were, and I was playing to a mostly empty house. Two people did come specifically to hear me (thanks, Kym and Tony); the other performer, a blues ukelelist(!) named Patrick, had a bigger cheering section (he was quite good) and probably got the prize. (The other two scheduled performers didn’t come, presumably because of the bad weather.) Far more exciting than the gig itself was the 4-hour trip home—two hours of which was spent just extricating myself from Portland, which was the only place that had any ice. Would I do it again? Probably not in the winter again.

Lots of music this week—Friday night at City Hall, Saturday afternoon at the library, Saturday night at the Arts Center. There’s talk of re-starting the all-acoustic Wednesday afternoon jam session at the Garibaldi Pub, now that I’m back in town (nice compliment there, I think).

Joe