CENSUS WORKER ME (&C.)...

Little old census-taker, me… Despite my (frequent) complaints, I do enjoy the work. It is money (though very little money), and it’s nice to be getting paid for doing something. It does look like I’ll have some extra time to do Census work in that I hadn’t counted on; for the next month, there won’t be music at City Hall on Friday nights, or at the Garibaldi Pub on Wednesday afternoons, because the respective organizers will be out of town. There will at least be music at the Tillamook Library on Saturdays, and I’ll do my best not to miss it.

Elsewhere, it’s been mostly the proverbial “weary blues from waiting.” Answered a few more ads on Craigslist for bands looking for guitarists (one was even a bluegrass band), but what I got was rejections citing distance (and in one case, “stylistic differences”). At least I got responses, which hasn’t happened often with Craigslist ads.

I got the entry off (finally) to the “Please Don’t Stop the Music” TV show competition; they got “Bluebird on My Windshield,” which I haven’t entered in anything before. I also ran into an outfit called “SmashTune” that was soliciting music videos for a contest; they got “Me and Rufus, and Burnin’ Down the House,” my only real music video to date. (I need to do more.) Neither contest had an entry fee, which was nice. (That makes three contests I’ve entered this year.)

On the home front, there are at least a few people asking publicly when “Deathgrass” is going to play again, and that’s nice. I have a feeling the next concert won’t be until sometime in June; that gives bass player John (who is city manager here in Garibaldi) time to finish the city budget, and with luck gives drummer Chris time to build his strength back up. (He’s going to be okay—but the near-death episode and subsequent hospital stay took a lot out of him.)

One of the things I’d like to do with money (if I ever get any) is upgrade the amplifier; the little 2-channel amp I got with the Strat is about on its last legs, and the last repair job done on it (by Sharma’s husband Sam) didn’t really help anything. It is just plain old (like me, I guess). I still have the little Austin amp ($10 at a yard sale, 15 or so years ago), and there’s nothing wrong with it—but it’s got way too raunchy a sound for vocals. Carol Ackerman’s got a little Radio Shack P.A. of Dick’s she’d like to sell—the modern version of the battery-powered P.A. the Dodson Drifters had, 30 years ago—but I’d need a speaker. (Pawn shops?) I’d be in need of a hand truck, too, to haul all the stuff around—but it’d be tempting to just turn the speaker itself into a hand truck, with wheels, handle, and brackets to hold the amp, mike stand, &c. It would be fun to build.

A P.A. (small one, please) is almost a prerequisite to doing gigs, especially solo gigs; I need something I can run both guitar and microphone through, and have a fairly clean sound. For the band, it’s not a problem—John has a good P.A.—but if I’m performing by myself, or with somebody I’ve enlisted for accompaniment (I’d still like to do something with Roland, the guitarist who’s been coming to the Pub Wednesday afternoons), I need something of my own. A lot of venues don’t have house P.A. systems, and those that do rarely have someone who knows how to run it. Two channels would be fine, because I can expand them easily—Radio Shack still makes the little battery-powered mixers (only $15), and I think I already have one.

Four new jobs to apply for this week, and they’re all attractive: a permanent city manager job (I know the guy who’s retiring), a temporary one (and I know the guys doing the recruiting), one assistant city manager job (from a city that interviewed but rejected me for the city manager job), and executive director for a housing authority. A couple of musications to do, and the May entry for the Coventry songwriters’ group over in England; I think that last is (tentatively) going to be a death metal number, tentatively hight “Angel in Chains.” (And being death metal, it will actually have no angels in it.)

Joe