Almost Time for NaNoWriMo!

NaNoWriMo 2009

It’s almost November again, which means it’s time for the next National Novel Writing Month! 30 Days, 50,000 words, no ideas, no planning. Last year’s effort resulted in (shameless free plug to buy my new book) The Best of Thunder Johnson, a nifty little paperback that I am fairly proud of. I don’t mean to overstate it, but without the NaNoWriMo support, this book would have never happened. Now it will be my second year…let’s hope it’s every bit as enjoyable and life-changing as the first time around.
So excited! Saturday night/Sunday morning, here we go!

There are 94 words in this document.



http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Thoughts after the Tour du Port, October 4, 2009

Yesterday was my first venture into an organized bike ride: the Tour du Port, 50 mile course, organized by OneLessCar.org.
From Their site:

Every day we advocate for providing safe and effective transportation alternatives for all citizens through education, lobbying, and facilitation between our communities, governments, and state and local representatives. We believe that Maryland can be an example of the economic and social good that comes from a society where everyone – regardless of age, physical condition or economic background - has the opportunity to bike, walk or use mass transit to get where they need to go.

Why did I do 50 miles, instead of, say the 40, 20, or 12 mile course? Well, after doing an 80 mile round trip to York and back this summer, I thought 50 seemed about right. I learned a few things after that ride that prepared me pretty well for this one. For one thing, I got the water consumption right: four liter-sized bottles. And, remembering how much my hands hurt after that ride, I wore gloves for this one. I brought enough energy bars, had the right clothes (not biker gear, just something warm but not heavy), and overall, I was better prepared than I had ever been before.

I took the Metro at 6: 30 a.m to get to the event, while it was still dark out. There were more people on there than I would have thought at that hour on a Sunday, and many were sleepy. For me, half the challenge of this ride was just getting up so early. When I got to the Canton Waterfront Park, I signed in, got a pink wristband, and was told to get a “cue sheet,” which was a list of all the directions (but sadly, no map). Quite a few of the riders were scratching their heads: is this going to be confusing? How will we know where to go?

Luckily, the ride was pretty well marked. While the roads themselves were not closed to traffic, there were green arrows on the pavement, pointing which way to go, and at most of the major turns there were volunteers pointing the way.

If it is at all possible to read the cue sheets I have posted here, you might be able to figure out the route. I can tell you that we started at the park, went down through the Inner Harbor, to Federal Hill, then to Locust Point (where the volunteer pointing system broke down for a minute and a group of us got lost), then back to the harbor and over to Patterson Park, then into the heart of Dundalk and beyond…

Honestly, after a certain point I didn’t really know or care where I was. All I knew is that I was riding down a highway in East Baltimore, and as I am a pretty slow rider--ahead of the hundreds behind me but not really fast enough to keep up with the faster people--it did feel like a very solitary venture for long stretches. At least, until I looked behind me and saw more bikers coming.

The ride continued into the county, into farther points and places I’d never visited. There was the rest stop at North Point State Park, which, as I checked the cue sheet, turned out to be the 32 mile marker. Only 18 to go…

It was then sometime after this stop, maybe on the second pass of Dundalk Community College that I began to hit that wall. Tiredness, wind, and the hills were starting to take their toll. I stopped to eat another Clif Bar, change up my water and watch some more bikers go by. It was really quite a turnout. It was amazing to think about how for this one day, bikes truly ruled the streets.

I finished the ride in just a little over 4 hours, which means I was going at a pace of about 12 or 13 miles an hour. Not too bad for me.

Biking is very important to me, perhaps even more so now that I do not have a car. I enjoy the activity, the exercise, the fact that it saves me from things like having to worry about parking tickets or buying gas, plus in most cases it beats riding the bus. I don’t bike to make a political statement in some kind of Critical Mass-y sort of way, nor do I take it seriously enough to have a technical conversation about it. It is simply something I do because I have always done it. That said, I whole-heartedly support what OneLessCar.org is trying to do. Maybe if they can get people to consider altering their behavior, we can have less-congested cities, and healthier people. And while I’m at it: kudos to Mayor Dixon and her support for this event. And kudos to the city for putting up more bike lanes and to the Baltimore Bicycling Club for all those new bike racks around town.

Self-Publishing: Democratizing and very Punk Rock

This post about self-publishing was written for a contest on Goodreads.

The rules: We want to hear your thoughts about self-publishing – a blog post about the merits of self-publishing and how it might change the face of publishing in the future. What will self-publishing look 25 years from now, 50 years from now? How has self-publishing made strides in recent years? That sort of thing. Basically, we want to know: What’s your opinion about self-publishing?


I seem to have made a career in self-publishing, so it seems only natural that I would be a staunch supporter of it. I’ve always had a very do-it-yourself mentality about my writing. Self-publishing is very democratizing. It is in the spirit of punk rock, getting up and doing what you do because it needs to be done. It does not need to be dependent upon a record label or in this case, a publishing company. For me, it’s always been about getting people to read my stuff, and doing it in a way that made sense for me.

A little background: I have been writing for about 20 years now, and the brunt of my work has been in a 20-40 page photocopied and stapled book I call the Davezine. It has never been a big money-maker for me. There is a lot of expense involved and at times I have wished for the help of unpaid interns for the collating and stapling. But it is a labor of love. It has taken many years to finally come to a happy medium in re-producing these publications, and not letting my personal space become overwhelmed with too many copies of something when I don’t need them. Now I simply make them per order, keeping a small number on hand. Recently (here’s my free plug) I wrote and self-published my first book, building off of a model that I have been using for years: do it yourself, get it out there yourself. http://davecookson.tripod.com/thunderjohnson.html

Self-publishing, in either a zine or a book form provides an immediate avenue for readers, as well as being a fulfilling way to connect with readers. I may not have the largest audience, but I have a very loyal one. If it is all about building True Fans, people who will read whatever you write and go great lengths to follow you, that is empowering in a way that I feel cannot be achieved otherwise. People who have been reading my stuff for years are people that I know, people I have met, and people who feel an inclusiveness that they would not get out of a more polished and mass-produced work.

Self-publishing is limiting in that you can produce only so many items to so many readers, but it can also be a very viral thing--I’ve picked up many readers by having someone finding my ‘zine in a restaurant, coffee shop, or waiting room. Those people who find me then get to feel that inclusiveness, and then spread it to others. And that is what is gratifying about doing it yourself: it happens purely because someone out there picked it up and thought it was good. There was no heavily financed marketing campaign backing it.

Obviously, self-publishing has gotten easier over the years--the first zines I made were written by hand, later by manual typewriter and only within the last few years have I upgraded to a better computer and printer. I imagine that for people like me, the future is already here, with new programs and applications that I am still unfamiliar with.

We’d all like to be able to have someone sell our work and have nothing to do but write and count our millions. But writing is not so kind to everyone. At least when I make my own work and put it out there myself there is a chance someone will notice it. It has happened before with others who have made zines like mine (Pete Jordan of Dishwasher or Zoe Trope of Please Don’t Kill the Freshman come to mind ). I aim to produce work that is true to what I want to write, and have people (even a small number of people) actually read it. To that end, I self-publish.



www.backwordbooks.com

http://www.backwordbooks.com/2009/09/16/the-backword-books-contest-win-7-books-by-backword-authors/

My New Novel is Available Now!!!

Here!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/thunderjohnson.html


And at Atomic Books
http://atomicbooks.com/products/-/5933.html
And, if you live in Pittsfield...
At Rebel Sound Records!
http://www.myspace.com/rebelsoundrecordsthestore

The end of the road for Kyle.

I bought Kyle, my 1992 Honda Civic back in February of 2004. This was after my return from the land of Portland in a car that had traversed the nation twice, gone on many countless road trips to my homeland of Massachusetts, delivered many pizzas and rocked out to many tunes. The few months I spent mourning the death of this car were largely spent working two jobs to save up for the car we came to know as Kyle, a name I chose largely because I thought it was funny: “C’mon Kyle, you can do it!” Plus, while other more challenged men feel the need to assign female names to their vehicles, I also was okay with assigning a male name to mine.
Kyle was a two door white Civic, smaller than my first car but still the same old reliable brand. The previous owner loved it, telling me how much he liked the ease with which he could park, and how it never gave him any problems. I was ready to take it the minute I saw it. When the engine turned over on my very first try, I was sold.
First car, first love, they say it never comes again. But I grew to love Kyle, in spite of his many flaws (many of which were my fault.) Only a few months in, I was smashed into by a drunk driver at a blinking red light. The driver’s side was bent in, just behind the door. A foot one way, it would have been totaled. A foot the other, I would have been killed. I was so angry at the time at this irresponsible person who had ran the light, and even attempted to blame me for the accident, that I forgot to realize how lucky I was, and how lucky Kyle was to be able to drive away from the scene.
Later on, we broke down on the side of the road on the way to the racetrack. This would be the first of many breakdowns, and tows, the most dramatic being at a rest stop on the Taconic State Parkway, which forced me to blow over 1000 dollars on repairs, train tickets, a hotel, and left me without a car for three weeks. But he still kept going, as I kept making the repairs happen. I can’t complain too much--the little lady who drove me to the train station so that I could go back and pick up my car is the one who became my wife.
Later still, there was the time I was rear-ended on my way to (of all the fucking irony) Jiffy Lube. That was in fact my fault. This caused my hatch to be permanently closed on the bottom, but broke the latch on the top, effectively making my car a sitting duck for thieves to break in and steal my stuff. Someone stole my radio not long after this, by simply crawling in the back.
And then there was the many months where my door wouldn’t close, and I had to tie it shut with a rope. Ah, memories. It was during this period where I received my first notice for the Maryland Vehicle Emissions Test, which would soon become the bane of my existence….
I wrote a lot about this in the blog, about how my car failed the emissions test and then I had to keep coming back every month and try again. I did 16 of these $14 dollar tests and afterward I would fail and I would be given an order to re-test. At first I was really worried about what would happen if I kept failing. Then I just got annoyed. I vented my thoughts about the futility of the VEIP program, and how it doesn’t really keep polluting cars off the road, it just makes it a pain in the ass for people like me.
Then I went two weeks ago, where they told me that they could not test me because of a crack in my muffler. They gave me a two week extension for a test that was due over two years ago.
Lately, Kyle has been running poorly--stalling at stoplights, having trouble making it up the hills. So I’d hoped that maybe this muffler situation, if cleared up, would help the car’s performance. After all, the mechanic did say that Honda’s performance could be tied to the exhaust system; others in my circle indicated that my problem might just be as simple as this.
Alas, the call from my mechanic came back. Oxygen sensor, major tune up, spark plugs, muffler, right lower control arm…basically a plethora of problems, to the tune of $2000. For a car that cost me $1150 back in 2004. Whew.
I’d given up on Kyle many times over and watched him come back from the dead. But this was it. For one thing, even the cheapest of these repairs is more than I am willing to spend. For another, there is no guarantee that something else won’t break on an 18 year old car, even if it is a Honda Civic. And then there is the fact that I have been talking about going car-less for a while now--after all, most of my transportation needs now are very easily met with my bicycle. And it really all boils down to money. There was a time in my life when I would have barely thought twice about running up something like this on a credit card and just worrying about it later. But that time has past. With adulthood and corresponding responsibilities, so go my romantic notions of holding on to something beyond all reason. The adult in me says, Dave, it’s just a car. Move on. So I am. He’s getting picked up and brought to a better place. I hope that his engine and spare parts will bring happiness to a vehicle that still has a fighting chance.
I will miss having a car. I will miss having Kyle. I had a lot of good memories in that car--first dates with Michele, trips to the track (both painful and triumphant), strangers complimenting my car and offering to buy it, more trips to the homeland, the Davey G shows. On a day-to-day basis I don’t really need a car, but it has always been a security blanket, a way to supplement my biking, a way to stay dry on my way to work on rainy days. But as I drive it today, using up my last tank of gas, stalling out at every light, I tell myself: I won’t miss this. I won’t miss the emissions test or the inexplicable breakdowns.
But when you love something, it is still very hard to let it go.



NOTE: this post is still a work in progress--I’ll add more text and links and pictures later, I just really wanted to get this up now. Thanks for reading.

Books: The Great Derangement

The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire by Matt Taibbi


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The basic premise of The Great Derangement is that as Americans, we have no real leadership. We are so used to being lied to and screwed over that in essence, we are forced to create our own reality to deal with it. Matt Taibbi hilariously explores this world of derangement.
After he explains just how mind-numbingly pointless most sessions of Congress are--one bill “debated” is over whether or not to name a post office after Ava Gardner--he gets into how the Government is really run. The real business of politics, we are depressingly and shockingly reminded, is to reward donors, and is mostly run behind closed doors, far away from the floor of the House or Senate. Taibbi explores the world of the Religious Right and the 9-11 Truth Movement, and shows just how similar they really are in terms of their unwillingness to deal with reality.
I was moved by his depiction of the U.S soldiers in Iraq--Taibbi seems like he grew to genuinely care about these people in a way that transcended his feelings about the war.
There were parts of this book where I laughed out loud--his discomfort with being a zombie-like Christian in his secret infiltration of a Fundamentalist Church: looking forward to church, with the fellowship and off-key singing and speaking in tongues, all the while feeling remorse at his role in deceiving them for the sake of writing a book.
This guy can really write. Thoroughly enjoyable.




View all my reviews >>

Quick update on the new book/new excerpt

I've been doing a few pre-releases of my new book, The Best of Thunder Johnson, and in the coming weeks I am going to put up a web page with all the ordering info about the "official" release. Look for it later this month!

Here is another excerpt. It started as sort of a parody of the style of Chuck Palahniuk...

Asking questions and then not caring about the answers.
Moses watched the new guy in the days that he was here in the hospital. Maybe he could be his friend…
Moses, 38, fat, obnoxious, stumbled into conversations. He could stare intently at you and ask a question yet never hear an answer. In a bizarre way, he was the opposite of the narcissistic people around him, whose pathetic lives would consume them. The same stories, the same failures recounted in the same voices with only slight modifications in multiple re-telling. It was all good to him. They pretended to be interesting, he pretended to be interested.
Copacetic.
Symbiotic.
Parasitic.
Pathetic.
Places that were cold and impersonal became friendly to certain people. People avoided contact nowadays. But there were still people who needed it. Like Moses.
All around him, he saw people tuning out, with their I-pods, laptops, what have you. Whatever happened to people needing to talk? Why did people even bother going outside to be around other people if they weren’t going to even interact?
Moses didn’t like it so much. Out in the world. Which was why he came here so much as he did, to be with people who wanted to talk. Because he wanted to listen. Or at least pretend to listen.
Needy.
Oblivious.
Maddening.
Strange.
Moses tried to talk to women, but it never seemed to work out.
Too fat.
Obese.
Unlovable.
Alone.
He read books to try to learn what he was doing wrong. Books that would help him in conversation, books that would help him to talk to women. Listening. They liked a man who listened.
Self improvement section. He haunted this section of the bookstore, tried to find the right books for him, and while he was at it, he looked for women.
Still too fat.
Obese.
Wanting.
Needing.

So he learned to listen. Or at least to look like he was listening. He read books on listening.
Chapter 1: Smiling and nodding.
Chapter 2: Asking questions.
Chapter 3: “And how did that make you feel?”
And so on.
It was a gold mine. Moses ate it up. He couldn’t wait to try it out.

There was never a shortage of questions from Moses, the listener. But still he went home alone. It seemed that no one wanted to be around him, even when he listened to them. It made him very sad. Fat, alone, miserable inside but cheerful outside.
That was Moses.

Books: Cleaning Up--How I Gave Up Drinking and Lived

Cleaning Up: How I Gave Up Drinking and Lived by Tania Glyde


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book is a memoir of a woman who drank for 23 years before finally giving it up on September 12, 2002. It is insightful, honest, at times opinionated and I really couldn’t put it down--I burned through it in 3 days. It challenges so many of the reasons people give for drinking and offers so many right-on quotes and observations that I just have to share some of them here.

“You have to do something about all the people who are living rent free in your head. A phrase I wish I could claim as my own.” --page 177.

“…there is nothing worse and more dishonest, than continuing a friendship that has run its course.” --page 204. (A-men.)

“your time is yours, and not other peoples. Take alcohol out of the equation and the reality hits you that not everyone you know is good for you.” --page 227. (Amen, Amen, Amen).

I enjoyed this book. The writer makes no bones about the way she feels about the role of alcohol, how it is never given the proper credit for actually being a “gateway drug,” as pot is allegedly supposed to be. As this woman is British, the perspective is somewhat different than we get in the U.S. The drinking, I am told, is much more aggressive over there. Plus, she devotes some space to talking about the state of their National Health Service, which as an American strikes me as odd (my take: I wish I could be complaining about the state of my free health care rather than complaining about something that costs me money and still kind of sucks.) The part where she talks about astrology vs. therapy kind of reminded me of a fallacy of logic (e.g. “this one thing sucks therefore this other thing must be better.”). But she comes by this opinion honestly, and that is the most compelling case for what is so good about this book: honesty. I loved her take on positive thinking: “Frankly, I have never heard more bollocks spoken on just about any other subject.” (page 181). She says this in the context of the recovery movement, which, she feels, kind of makes people “programmed” to never say anything negative about anything.

An enjoyable book for many reasons, this book is up there with Drinking, a Love Story by Caroline Knapp (which she lists at the end). Great stuff.

View all my reviews >>

Excerpt #2: The Best of Thunder Johnson, novel out this September!

This section sets up my main character and what he does for a living.

Hanson West looked at his watch. A few more hours to go. This Friday shift, by himself, putting tapes in the machines at the right times. He couldn’t wait to get off, to get the hell out of here just for a night. There was an itching in his belly to get on the craps table, to make up for a bad night a week ago.

He looked around at this “Command Center” at Channel 2. He worked a console that had half a dozen slots for video tapes to play. To his right was a small sound-proof booth, about the size of a closet, for voiceovers. To his left was the door to the hall. Directly in front of him, past his console and through the big window was the studio itself, with its three cameras and a small set of risers upon which an audience could sit. Right behind him was the phone.

The Command Center could accommodate 4 other people--during the filming of shows there could be a director (someone to call the shots--literally), someone to operate the character generator (to put words on the screen) and someone to work the phones (because people in this town loved to call the station and swear over the air and it was the screener’s job to prevent this) and West’s job, the master controller (to sit in the big Captain Kirk chair). But during the week, or during the slow times, it was usually just West, all by himself, drinking his coffee and playing the tapes.

West had finished the Awesomebucks 20-miler coffee a while back, and now it had worked its way to his bladder. He checked the time--still another 10 minutes to The Ronald Ronaldson Report. He got up while the tape ran.

“And you know what else? I think that the meter maids give out more tickets to white people, just out of spite for the misery that they endure!”

Down the hall, past the studio, was the lobby, and then the boss’s office, just across from the only bathroom in this one-level facility. Most days West never saw the boss. If he ever did, it was usually not for anything good--this was not an easy business and he was usually stressed out about one thing or another. Sometimes it was a wonder this station was still afloat.

Hanson West eliminated the contents of the 20-miler and washed his hands and then closed the door behind him. He looked at the door to the boss’s office. It was closed, as usual.

He returned to his chair back in the Master Controller room, just as the show was finishing up. He prepared to run the next tape, which would require a simple flick of a switch, done just at the right moment so that the people of Hartsburg, who may or may not care if the next show went on in time, would have no reason to complain. Even though the common wisdom was that no one ever really watched this stuff, one would be surprised at how often people would complain when he didn’t do his job right.

It was time--West flipped the switch to make the change to the next program, and The Ronald Ronaldson Report was over for another week. He sat back in the chair again and watched as the new program came across the monitor. The phone stayed silent: a successful switch.

West sighed. Just another day in the paradise that was Cable Access, Channel 2 in Hartsburg, Massachusetts.

Books: Hot, Flat and Crowded

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by Thomas L. Friedman


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman

This book alternately scares the hell out of me and gives me hope for the possibilities in innovation and science that could one day stem the tide of carbon emissions that are hurting our planet and killing my friends the polar bears.

At the risk of giving it too much credit, this is a book that everyone should read. From the title, “hot” refers to global warming, which, Friedman suggests, is really more like “global weirding”, giving rise to droughts in some areas, floods in others, and just a general condition that the planet cannot maintain itself if we do not do something. By “crowded,” he means too many people living like Americans, with our over-consumption and generally wasteful lifestyle (BTW--my 10th grade English teacher tried to get us, as a class, to stop using the term “lifestyle,” as she felt it was somewhat dated and ‘80’s sounding. I think of this anytime I use this word. Any thoughts?). By “flat,” he is referring to the phenomenon of a great number of these people achieving a middle class existence all at the same time, thereby making a great demand on the planet’s resources, creating a need for energy that for the foreseeable future, will continue to be through “dirty” energy sources, like coal. Friedman argues that what we need, as a nation, to lead the world in a systemic change in our energy policy. He argues that we need to make the word “green” go away, only used when someone violates accepted “green” policies, much like the term “civil rights” is now a given, only brought up when violated. He argues that we are a great country with great potential to change the world, yet we lag well behind many of the other countries who have mad e great strides in “Clean” energies, such as solar, wind, etc.

A big strength of this book is Friedman’s ability to use understandable metaphors, to drive his point home. For example, the image that has stuck with me is how he explains C02 emissions: imagine that you are driving your car. For every mile you go, imagine that you are throwing a bag of trash out the window. That is your C02.
When you think of it that way, it does make you want to re-evaluate your habits.

This is an important book that urges change--hard, real change, not just some “205 easy ways to save the Earth” sort of change--to live our lives in what he terms to Energy Climate Era, or ECE. How will we supply the energy needs for a world that is becoming hot, flat, and crowded in such a way that we do not further damage a planet that is in many ways already irreparable? --think of the many animal extinctions and you will know what I mean by “irreparable.”

This is not just an environmental issue. Friedman is not some tree-hugging sissy about it. What he is saying is that whichever nation can take the lead on clean energy for the Energy Climate Era will become the most profitable nation in the world, and help to save the world as well. Isn’t that a win-win?
Read it, read it, read it!



View all my reviews >>

Excerpt #1: The Best of Thunder Johnson

This is the first in a series of excerpts of my upcoming novel, The Best of Thunder Johnson, which will be out this September.

A few weeks ago…

“Just settle down sir, we’re gonna get you some help.”
The man in the back of the squad car thrashed around, as much as he could under restraint. What the hell’s happening?
“It’ll be okay, sir, just settle down.”
Shaking, rocking back and forth, the man muttered “Lights out, lights out, who do you wanna live with , Mommy or Daddy, c’mon Ronny, Mommy or Daddy…”
The car rolled through the streets of Hartsburg, past Lake Runoff, just across from the Cable Access station.
“What’s his deal?” the driver said to his partner.
“Dunno. That’s for the shrinks at HMHF to figure out. We couldn’t just leave ‘em there in that parking lot.”
“Christ, this town…it’s got all the nuts.”
“Yeah, well…‘to serve and protect,’ right?”
“Jesus…”
The man screamed “Lights out!”
“Shut up!” the officer yelled.
“Fuck it, turn on the radio.”
*
Do you ever actually try to talk to people out there? A lot of people believe some really crazy things. It’s why most things on TV are so heavily scripted, why you never see ugly, fat, or retarded people. But people believe really crazy shit--most don’t have their facts straight, or are operating under some delusion that rules their lives…like somehow someone’s going to come along and save us, Gandhi, Jesus, Obama, somebody. We engage in bizarre superstitions, offer prayers to a God we never see, hope that one day it’ll all make sense.
The reality is we’re a huge collection of fucked up people with fucked up ideas who are just lucky that no one ever listens to us or cares about what we actually have to say.
*
“Sir? Can you hear me?”
Ron found himself on an exam table behind a curtain. He could hear the sounds of people in the emergency room, phones ringing and nurses talking. He could barely remember how he got here. He was just trying to buy some video tape when they got him.
“I have a few questions to ask you, can you answer for me?” The Doctor wore a sweater over a shirt and tie, and spoke in a soft, reassuring voice.

Ronaldson grunted.
“Name?”
“…Ron Ronaldson.”
“Good, Ron. Do you know where you are?”
“…Here. Hospital.”
“That’s right. Do you know what day it is?”
“…Monday.”
“That’s right. And do you know what month it is?”
“…September.”
“All right. Sounds good.” The ER Doctor picked up his clipboard and made some notes.
And finally,
“Ron, can you tell me: How old are you?”
The look in his eyes suddenly turned back to anger.

“I know how old I am!” he spat back at the Doctor. “I know how old I am! Lights out! I know how old I am, how old are you!”
“Ron--”
“How old are you?”
“How old are you!!!”

My NaNoWriMo Novel

This September the long-awaited first novel, The Best of Thunder Johnson, will come out in a zine format. It’s going to be around 110-120 pages (I’m still polishing and performing a ruthless edit as we speak). This is in the tradition of many of my favorite writers who opted for the DIY route, and I’m very excited to share it with you.
This novel was written during last year’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, and I started editing in the early part of 2009.
I’m still working on the details--pricing, etc--let’s just say it’ll be a little more than a zine but still fairly inexpensive. Stay tuned for details and excerpts and I'll let you know how to order as soon as I set this up.

Books: Columbine

Columbine by Dave Cullen

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a thorough and well-written book that delves into the events, causes, and aftermath of the Columbine tragedy. It has been 10 years since the massacre inflicted by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, and answers as to why they did it are still murky. There are many misconceptions about that day, and this book does an excellent job of sorting out the truth, and debunking many of the rumors. 13 students died, many were wounded, and Cullen tells their stories. He explores the nature of psychotics and suggests that any thought that this was a revenge killing are completely false. He explores the journals and videos left behind by the killers and gets to an underlying truth, one that is perhaps unsatisfying to those who need a “why?”: they were disturbed, not motivated by the same desires that motivate normal people, and it is quite possible that nothing could have stopped this (save, of course, preventing the easy access to firearms that allowed it to take shape).

It is tragedy, but there are tales of hope within. Patrick Ireland, the boy who was seen stumbling out the window, has a story that is downright inspiring. After he was shot, he was unable to walk or speak properly. It looked like he would have permanent brain damage and maybe, if he was lucky, he might be able to walk with a crutch, and the occasional support of a wheelchair. But months and months of hard work and a fierce determination led him to a remarkable recovery and today, he lives a life where his injuries do not define him. Now he walks on his own, and the wheelchair is gone.



Reading this, I found myself getting a little pissed at a lot of the people who blamed video games, violent movies, “liberals” and the like for this tragedy. I also got angry at the media for how they picked up and reported the myths, which spread and became like truth. Get past the bullshit. Read this and find out the truth.




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Nerdfest Videos are up!

Videos from my most recent performance at Nerdfest 3D are up! Please check out the show you missed! Or re-live the show you made! Note that there are some brand new songs that are not on any of my albums.

Videos courtesy of Miltonius Prime (thanks!)

http://www.myspace.com/miltoniusprime


Frustrating Conversationalist
Sandwich
Old and Cranky
Forget about Youth in Asia
Sit Down, Shut Up
I am a Champion
STDs
I Love Crack
Wash the Dish
Lotion
Man Friend

Notes on Nerdfest, Davey G.

notes from Nerdfest 3D, The Windup Space, Saturday June 6th.

Openers.

Oh, my, what can I say? Well, for starters, I opened a show for the first time in awhile--it’s what I asked for, I guess, when I said “just don’t put me on last.” Opening has its own advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are the low expectations that make it possible to rise above. How many times in your life have you been to a show where the opening band blows away the headliner? I can think of maybe two or three times that has happened over a good 20 years of going to shows. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it is truly a special thing.
Then there are the disadvantages of going first. Those low expectations also mean that many people may not bother to show up early, or (even worse) they don’t pay any attention to you.
But for this show, I can say that I had the right crowd, and I think I managed to score a hit. I’ve played some of my new songs at least two or three times now, they’re still not quite stuck in my brain yet (note cards, note cards). I played “Get a load of THAT guy,” “Old and Cranky,” “Sit Down, Shut Up,” and “Frustrating Conversationalist,” as well as all the old classics, and the reception was good.

The Lotion Bit.

I hadn’t done the lotion bit in awhile. The show in March was cold, the show in May was…probably not the best audience (kids). But this time, I had prepped a particularly watery and messy mix, which made for a spectacular show on the floor of the Windup Space (sorry, Russell) and by the end, I had spent another whole bottle on the longest running gimmick of the Davey G and the Keyboard show.

Oh, Crap.
Not long after this, I realized that I had misplaced my wedding ring…it occurred to me that perhaps in the messiness of the lotion bit, it might have slipped off my usually otherwise dry and fat finger. I made the obligatory PA announcement… “uh, hey, if anyone finds my ring…you know, it’s kind of important…looks like a circle…”

Whew.
It turned up just a few hours later. When I was unloading my gear, I did a careful search of everything, and then it turned up inside my keyboard box. So it did not come off during the lotion bit, after all…

Closers.
All in all, a good show, a good crowd. Thanks to everyone who showed up, helped me out, thanks to the Windup Space and Save Vs. Poison for inviting me to play. Maybe I’ll see you next year???

Thanks for reading!
--Davey G.

Ps--there is a video of this show, when I get the URL I will post it here or in another post on the blog.

Davey G at Nerdfest! Saturday, June 6!

Hi,
So busy, so busy, I never even had time to blog about the wonderful time I had playing Free Comic Book Day last month (thank you all for coming out!).
Why so busy? Well, let’s just say that the Mrs. and I have become homeowners (thank you) and our time has been consumed with things like moving and telling kids to get off my lawn. But it’s all worth it, and now we move on to the next exciting thing, namely, my next appearance at Nerdfest!


Nerdfest 3D!
Saturday, June 6
The Windup Space,
12 W. North Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland
21202
www.thewindupspace.com

What follows is the schedule of events, as they’ve been given to me. Note that I am going on early, around 7:30, so get there early!
Hope to see you there!

--Davey G.




4:00 - OPEN - Gaming begins
7:30 – 8:00 - DAVEY G and the KEYBOARD
8:00 – 8:20 - Science Presentation #1
8:20 – 8:50- MILTONIUS PRIME and MC DIABEATS
8:50 - 9:10 – Science Presentation #2
9:10 - 9:50 –DIRTY MARMADUKE FLUTE SQUAD
9:50 –10:10 - Science Presentation #3
10:10 – 10:50 –BENE GESSERIT WITCH
10:50 – 11:10 - Band transition
11:10 – 11:50 – ABIKU
11:50 – 12:10 - Band transition
12:10 – 12:50 - PERVERSE OSMOSIS
1:00 - CLOSE

Free Comic Book Day with Davey G and Friends!

Hello everyone,

I’m excited…excited beyond the usual level of excitement that accompanies the announcement of an upcoming show. I’m really hoping that you can come out and see me play at my second Free Comic book Day show on Saturday May 2 at the Collector's Corner in Parkville. I know last year’s was a hoot, with many costumed superheroes and lots of free stuff available. (You must bring your camera, trust me.) And the bands! Even if I wasn’t playing, I’d come out to see the Dune-inspired rock of Bene Gesserit Witch, not to mention the sheer rock power of the Mandroids. Did I mention that this show is FREE? Very excited.


FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!
Saturday May 2, 2009 / 10:00am-6:00pm
Collectors Corner 8108-A Harford Rd., Parkville, MD
www.collectorscornermd.com
FREE / ALL AGES
FINAL TIME SCHEDULE
Basically bands on the hour.
5:00 – 5:40 - Mandroids
4:00 – 4:40 - Person Parcel (Gary B)
3:00 – 3:40 - Muscle Twin
2:00 – 2:40 - Davey G and the Keyboard
1:00- 1:40 – Bene Gesserit Witch
12:00 – 12:40 – The Alameda


Thanks for reading!

--Davey G.

Books: The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta

The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have been reading all the Tom Perrotta books and I think this one might be the saddest, in terms of what it reveals about the nature of dreams and in this case, not knowing when to let them go. Many of the later books involve some middle aged person undergoing a crisis (with the exception of Joe College) but this one is about a somewhat younger character and has the funny yet depressing theme of growing up and getting over your adolescence. This is the story of Dave, guitarist in the wedding group the Wishbones, who somewhat impulsively decides to ask his girlfriend of fifteen years to marry him. The fact that he has been with the same girl...on and off...for so long indicates a serious problem, an inability to get over himself and commit to something other than his music. Additionally, there is his affair with a woman in the city, which tests and challenges his upcoming marriage and makes him wonder why he is going through with it. He is hanging on to his dream of being a rock star when the dream has long since moved past him. It is heartbreaking, but you spend more time laughing out loud at the way the story unfolds.

I enjoy Tom Perrotta's books so much I almost hate that I read them so fast. I also think that he has an excellent sense for writing about relationships, often nailing the many feelings we go through when we are in one. Soooo good! Bad Haircut next!


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Books: Inventing Niagara

Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power and Lies by Ginger Strand

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The central premise of this book is that the natural wonder we know as Niagara Falls is in fact an example of how nature is manipulated for man’s own purposes but still sold as “nature.” The author’s love of the subject is obvious--this is as much about her own voyage of discovery as it is about Niagara Falls. We follow her as she meets interesting people associated with the Falls. She describes her many visits to the region, the many people she meets, what she uncovers at the library, the local records, etc. It all comes across in a way that is interesting to read. What we learn in this book is how the power of Niagara was harnessed and then ultimately re-shaped for the benefit of tourism, making it more user-friendly rather than literally just letting it run its course. The history of industry in the area is explored; how manufacturing once thrived until it mostly left for places with cheaper power and lower taxes. The toxic history is presented, from the region’s unwitting role in the development of the atomic bomb to Love Canal and beyond. The last chapter is about the state of the American side of the falls, which has not fared as well as the Canadian side, partly due to the fact that the Canadians had casino gambling to draw people over to their side. Apparently now there is a casino on the American side, but is it really enough to save the region? And should a beautiful natural treasure like Niagara Falls ever need “saving?” The history of the American side reads like a horror story of something that has happened to a lot of once-great American cities.

Over all, this is a good read. It is more of an exploration of the author’s curiosity than it is a call to action for the environment, which is probably a good thing, cause, well, I’m pretty lazy.


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Irritated at (big surprise) City Paper.

http://www.citypaper.com/digest.asp?id=17733

Should I be irritated that this review of Awesomefest doesn't even mention me? I can't help it.