I HAVE A WEBCAM...

I have a webcam—cute li’l thing, looks like a miniature R2D2 on a tripod. (For the same $15 price, I could’ve got a “Hello Kitty” one, but I decided there were limits to how much cuteness I could tolerate.) I have installed the software, but not—yet—the camera itself. For a computer programmer, I am awfully paranoid about technology.

I have scripted out the first episode of “The Joe Show,” and we’ll see how the recording comes out. I don’t know how much time the “speech” part will take; I used to know this stuff back when I was a lobbyist, and was delivering sound bites to TV cameras and testimony to Congressional committees, but I no longer remember—it’s been too long. I might have sufficient “speech” in what I’ve written for several episodes, for all I know. I don’t want the “speech” to take up more time than the song; the song, after all, is going to be the focus of these videoblogs. So that limits me to a 3.5-to-5-miunute “speech.” Preferably shorter.

I have seen (thanks, Lorelei) rather competently produced videoblogs showing off the details of producing an album. It’s a nice idea, but I don’t know if I could pull something like that off. On the other hand, I do have the laptop (Windows Vista and all), and I could install the webcam on that, too, and it could go places. It might not be too hard to film the band recording—or even the Friday Night Group, for that matter.

The point of exercises like that, I think, is the interactivity with The Folks Out There. We’re de-mystifying life. An album isn’t this mysterious thing that sprung full-grown from someone’s forehead; it’s real work by real people over a period of time. Would the album be a more attractive acquisition if people knew more about what went into it? What if one encouraged feedback?

Release (well, it’s on Soundclick) of “Love Trails of the Zombie Snails” prompted the inevitable round of “where do you come up with this stuff?” questions. It’s tempting to say I don’t know, but that’s not precisely true. I do have an idea how the mind (mine, anyway) works.

Music reflects life. That means that what I wrote, no matter how strange, is attempting to reflect something going on in my private life. It’ll tend to be strange because my reflections are rather, well, murky. So what’s going on? Well, I can’t be sure, but I’d hazard a guess that I’m being bothered by being unemployed a long time, being just about out of money, not having really made it as a musician, and being 59 years old. I want to do something meaningful with my life, something important—even if it’s (say) taking my girlfriend to Antarctica to rescue trapped scientists from the feared zombie snails.

I am again confronted with the connection between Inspiration and Pain. If life were too comfortable—if I were too happy—I wouldn’t be thinking up this stuff.

There is reason, I think, even for the “window-dressing” details. Antarctica? Well, it does roll trippingly off the tongue—but I’m also a relatively inoffensive person, and Antarctica is one place you can talk about without offending anyone. Antarctica is like the Internet—it’s owned by no one, controlled by no one, and there’s no one really there. Snails? Well, one usually doesn’t connect snails with Antarctica, because snails are cold-blooded. That just underscores that what’s being discussed here is pure fantasy.

(That, of course, was before I learned about the “snow snails.” There really are such things, apparently; they have been known to appear right before avalanches. They’ve even been photographed. That means there are probably snow snails in Antarctica, too—the place being, well, snowy and all. Who’d have thunk?)

UPDATES: The job interview went well—but there are over 30 people applying for just 3 jobs. I don’t know if I’ll be one of the winners. Music Friday and Saturday this week, and recording—I hope—on Sunday. Just two weeks to get that Dylan contest entry to England.

Joe