THE VIDEO--AND A "COMPLAINT CHOIR"?

Working on the video… A lot of the photos I took were dark (it is dark around here a lot because of the clouds and rain) and I have been fixing that, photo by photo. I also have a habit of taking photos of a wider area than I need, planning on cropping what I need later. (I have cropping to do, too, in other words.) It’s a far cry from the days of black-and-white 35mm cameras, when you had to frame each shot very carefully because the lab in San Francisco was going to give you back—just in time for your deadline—exactly what you gave them. Technology allows you to be sloppy—not necessarily a good thing.

My old (1996) Adobe Photo Deluxe photo-manipulation software is finally dead, and I couldn’t find the Jasc software I’d acquired some years back as a replacement, but my old (1998) PageMaker program came with an early “limited edition” of Photoshop, and that’ll work for my purposes. Downloaded Windows Movie Maker, and a copy of the recording of “Twenty-Four Seven” off Soundclick. Guess I’m ready. I’ll need photos—or film—to display during the Rap, too. I’d forgotten about that. I wonder if I could use the Webcam and just film me talking? I haven’t done that yet.

Got appointed entertainment chairman for Garibaldi Days. I had told them I didn’t want to do that—I just wanted to make sure they knew the band wanted to play—and they told me the best way to ensure that was to have me in charge of entertainment. (I knew that, but I wasn’t after the obvious conflict of interest.) I think basically, they want the band to play anyway. I think we did put on a good show last July.

So I get—again—to tell all the musicians I know that I’m looking for entertainment. Just like the Relay for Life, this’ll be a freebie (though unlike the Relay for Life, I won’t be trying to find entertainers to perform in the middle of the night), and to the extent possible, I’ll be after only local (Tillamook County) acts. I have a feeling there are plenty. Is it possible to fill the entire time between the end of the parade and the time (early evening) when the paid bands start performing at the taverns? I think so.

The best everybody gets is exposure (because we can publicize the heck out of their being there), tips, and the ability to sell CDs and other “merch.” (Down the road, when the festival is a lot bigger, entertainment can get paid. That’s not now.) I think I can rig publicity so these local entertainers get a lot of bang in lieu of not getting any bucks.

Writers’ group meeting was good—not many people, but lots of ideas, and that’s what’s important. Ever hear of a “complaint choir”? Envision a gaggle of Victorian-dressed carolers descending on a public place—and singing pointed hymns about current events. First one I got was from Bobbie, one of our poets, and it’s a sweet little ode directed at Rockaway Beach, our local role model for a dysfunctional government. It needs music, and I’ll do my best to provide some. A cross between “Good King Wenceslas” and a sea chanty, I think. We’ll each bring a “complaint carol” in either musical or poetic form to next Tuesday’s meeting. If we can polish and practice them enough, we could surprise the audience at the November 5 open mike with them. The other thing I asked everyone to do is bring something of their own to the meeting that they’d want to perform at the open mike, and we’ll work on polishing those, too. We have a couple more sessions before the open mike happens.

And just a couple of odd opportunities—not income-producing ones, of course, just fun ones. It was suggested at the Writers’ Group meeting that I had a song the Occupy Portland demonstrators might well be able to use as a theme song—“Final Payment,” the late Gem Watson’s sweet-but-caustic Gospelly number that’s been a regular inclusion in Deathgrass’ Failed Economy Show concerts. No, nobody’s exactly in charge of the Occupy Portland “movement” (I noted that in an earlier blog), but I do know a couple of folks who’ve been going down there; as I’m fond of saying, “I know people.” And there’s a group in Kentucky that’s reportedly planning a big party—with live music—for the upcoming Prob’ly-Not-Going-to-Happen-This-Time-Either Rapture, and I’ve asked whether I could send them “Can I Have Your Car When the Rapture Comes?”

Joe