SO WE'RE BUSY...

Despite its being a busy week, I have managed to get done all the stuff I planned to get done. It feels weird to actually have a night (well, part of a night) off.

Bay City Arts Center business cards are designed for the Gang of Four; they lack only the e-mail addresses, which executive director Loni will work out with Bruce Deloria, whom I put her in touch with (another instance of “I can’t do this myself, but I know people”—a frequent mantra of mine in the city-manager business). Survey cards are done for the drawing, too, that’ll put names on the Arts Center mailing list. A flyer advertising the daffodil bulbs somebody donated ($2.50 a bundle—great deal). All simple, fast stuff that (of course) looks good. I love this kind of work.

The weekly column’s done for the newspaper, too, along with a bigger article on next weekend’s Garibaldi Crab Races (thank you, editor LeeAnn). The article took a couple of hours (I’m always doing time-and-motion studies on myself), but the column was fast. I’d mentioned the Wednesday afternoon jam sessions at the Garibaldi Pub in last week’s column, and a couple of new audience people showed up this Wednesday, so I know somebody’s reading the column. (Only four musicians at the Pub this time, so I got to play lead guitar on everything—and I noticed the folks listened, and seemed to like it.)

Southern Oregon Songwriters Assn. newsletter’s done also, and I guess everybody liked it. Now that the template’s built, the next one will be easier (good, because I need to be producing one of these every month). I should see if the Bay City Arts Center needs a newsletter, too. It could follow much the same template. Might be better than the frequent e-mails advertising individual events.

I added a treble guitar part to my no-vocal recording of “When They Die, I Put Them in the Cookies” for the Texas kid’s talent show performance, and sent it off to the mom. (As recorded, the rhythm guitar was too bassy, but I had a spare track to work with.) And there was the rehearsal for “The Tempest.” My part is small, but as the first mate on a sinking ship, I’m supposed to own the stage in that first 4-minute scene. Slowly but surely, I’m learning my lines.

I’ll have a slot at Friday night’s open mike in Bay City (as well as being one of the people running the thing)—probably 15 minutes, which means three songs. The folks in Bay City haven’t heard me in over a year, which means there’s over a dozen new songs they haven’t heard unless they attended one or more of the “Deathgrass” concerts. The easiest route to go is probably to simply play the three most recent songs—“Last Song of the Highwayman” (my medieval ballad), “Up in Heaven, the Angels Play Music” (which I probably don’t dare call “religious”), and Stan Good’s “Take-Out Food,” which I musicated (good old traditional roadkill). Two fairly slow numbers, bracketing a fairly manic polka (which will sound more like bluegrass because there’s no accordion). Phone call this evening from a family that’s coming to the Arts Center because they want to buy more of my CDs. (Yay!)

The new 2nd Street Public Market in Tillamook—the people who hired somebody other than me to be their executive director—were advertising on craigslist for performers (I guess they’re finally going to be open), and I sent them an e-mail—which they haven’t answered. I guess it’s worth a “please tell me yes or no” phone call. I would like to think I have enough of a reputation in this area by now to be considered a viable draw, but I don’t really know.

Joe