Writing my fantasy singing my songs

All I really want to do is write my fantasy, write and sing my songs. Being poor and disabled totally bites. I guess this move is getting to me because I have had to pack up the songs and the fantasy writing and the thought of not working on it all because I have to pack and then I have to clean this place up nice and then move and then unpack is driving me nuts. I do not want to do anything but work on the writings and the such. Though I haven't really worked much on the songs at all in this last month. This past year has been productive for me as far as the fanciful scribbles go because I have been able to get a lot done. I finally finished my first book of fantasy. I am pretty much done with my world building of some of my fantasy and that has been a major project for decades. I enjoy writing on my little blog but know that while I probably am gonna use this more for my boomer recollections, rants, raves and the like, I am gonna need to toss up a fantasy and a lyrics blog. Once I can figure out how to toss on some songs then I might even toss up some veddy bad instrumental backgrounds with beautiful vocals and meaningful lyrics ( the tunes will be good just not well played ). I always thought if I got my songs up it would be because I had a demo but that is so expensive that I figure that to get them up even though unpolished would be ok especially since I have heard a lot of REALLY BAD stuff out there on the web and even though what I will toss out there will have dismiss background musical noise I know my vocals are good. 

As far as the fantasy goes, I am wondering if I might toss up hollyWEIRD just so folks can read it and critique it. Though I might throw out some of the other projects I am working on. I am gonna now write a little about my writing projects, many of which I am been working on for decades.  What I am thinking of doing is creating a blog or possibly multiple blogs to introduce the world to what I have created. And what I would really love ( aside from a publisher who would love me and be good to me, films, comics, and a rabid fan base ) would be to have others discover my worlds and then create blogs to write within my worlds, stories based therein. I love to read and can not think of anything I would enjoy more so here is just a little about my future endeavors. 

Once upon a time a person  got lost on a freeway in Orange County, California. They got off on the wrong exit. When they returned to the freeway and returned home they discovered it was 50 years later... welcome to Westgrove, California where this hapless driver took the wrong exit. In Westgrove you can find yourself, through dimensional portals, in the otherworld. The otherworld is in 3 sections. There is Biddenlarn ( borderland ), Faireland ( fairyland ) and Witzenlarn  ( witchland ). I have finished work on Biddenlarn and have completed some stories for it. I have a series of books sort of outlined for it as well. I have notes on FL and WL but have not yet completed mapping them out yet. 

Besides Westgrove and the otherworld I have the Absurdly Tall and Luxurious Hotel ( ATALH ) which has 550 floors, many levels below the lobby ( parking, service and storage, sewers, pits etc ) and a rooftop pool, spa and space port that takes one to the space station above it. From the space station a person can take a flight to hundreds of planets and galaxies ( the open worlds as the closed ones are just too gnarly to venture to ). One of the worlds is the world of ZooVeen which I started at the age of 15 ( but probably had another name for it which is lost to the mist of time ). ZooVeen has hundreds of countries ( I never do anything small in my fantasy ) and it also has time periods and history. Which then brings me to Elderlarn ( elderland ),  the Evil Moon and Mildenlarn ( middleland ) which is on ZV. I am working on that and I think it might be what I open up for other writers first. But it is a toss up between that and Biddenlarn. Decisions! Decisions! 

I also have written a few children's stories and might have another blog just for those. So once this trauma of the move is finally OVER I hope to start in on that. There has been the big move ( from Hollywood to Indio ) the transitional move which brought me here to Cat City and the little move ( back to Indio but to a nice place ) which hopefully will be for quite awhile unless I can get rich and own my own little piece of dirt somewhere. But it has not been an easy move and has been wrought with frustration and worse. I hope and pray the move goes smoother than the last two and that I can finally settle in and find some peace in my life again. 

I guess the biggest frustration of creating and running across the roadblocks is the fact that if you are as latently artistic as I am the thing you want to do is to continue to create. BUT I do want an audience for what I write and what I sing and I hope to finally get things moving in that direction. The goal is to find a publisher who will be sympathetic with the fact that I m the sort of writing who primarily wants to write and that will take care of their end by publishing me. Moe on this in months to come.  I do want to eventually see my fantasy as games and books and other things. So we will see what the future holds. 

PS to ME It has been over 4 years ( count em ) since I had new glasses and I really need to get new ones. I can hardly read what I write. Hopefully once I get new glasses ( whenever ) I can stop getting so many visits from Mis Typo ( I know she loves me but still.. )

SAC

The Little Move Etc

I have had problems with my internet connection lately and this is driving me absolutely bonkers. I have wanted to browse other blogs and also reply to anyone who has graciously commented ( thanks to any and all and at some point I hope to reply to comments ). I am going to try and get on prior to the move which is coming up before the first. I am excited about the move but also gong through the typical angst of moving. The process is NO FUN but has to be done. And I feel good about where I will be moving. I moved out here to be closer to my mother who is 81 and to be a short distance from here will be good. I believe that, in the long run, it is something that I will look back upon in the future and believe it was the best thing I could have done. Even though mom and I have our "moments" she is MOM and I love her so dearly. To be here with her and for her makes any problems small in comparison to not being near her and hardly seeing her. 

My wonderful niece Rachel passed away at 29. And I know that I was able, in some small way, to lighten her burden. Being a normal savant, an artistic genius, I know what it is like to be treated as if I am less than human because I am artistic in a technological world that does not value the arts. Besides being beautiful, Rachel was a fabulous artist on so many levels. And I always told her so. She thanked for this the last time I saw her. Sometimes one makes decisions in their life hat are not necessarily be what they want to do. In Rachel's case, I would have been willing to have moved up north where she lived to help her. I had not yet told her this but she passed away before we could have had that conversation. In my mom's case, it was a decision to be near and hopefully to help her that was the catalyst that moved me back to the desert in almost 20 years. While I miss Hollywood and my friends there I know that moving here to be near mom was the right decision. But, I hate moving! 

Even if one were in a financial situation where they did not have to pack and rent a U-Haul it has to be a hassle. First, there is the packing. Then there is the moving. After that there is unpacking. Then there is the half-comatose state one enters into for months as one gets over the trauma of moving. But by this time next month I will hopefully be settled in from the little move and get back to living a life. 

Of course THEN I will have to go see about JURY DUTY. I think the state has me on speed dial when it comes to jury duty. Some people never get called. I ALWAYS get called and it infuriates me because I am disabled. Now lots of able bodied folks resent it when the disabled said they are not up to jury duty. The state now requires a disabled person to have a doctor's note. The problem with that is many disabled do not have the finances to go and get a doctor's excuse every year. Well that is a rant for another time ( ha ha, like my "other time rant" on cassettes that will happen one of these days ). 

I took the day off from packing and will get back to it tomorrow. My arthritis is acting up and I have been also having spasms. Plus, my back has been acting up. Of course all of this happens right as I am packing to move.  There should be some sort of variant to Murphy's Law about moving. There probably is. I am happy to have my little blog and feel that maybe within a few months I will be able to figure out how to put on photos and maybe even music. And be able to get my life back. 

SAC

President Obama, Hillary and the Macman's blog

Today is the first day of the next four years under our first biracial President. While everyone talks up the fact that he is African-American, what seems to get lost in the shuffle is the fact that he is half white and was raised by a white mother who came from the Midwest. To me that makes who he is and what he has achieved even more remarkable. The races have come together within his own DNA. I wish him the very best in helping our country to heal to be all of us rather than some of us and THEM ( whomever THEM might be ). We certainly need to heal after the last 8 years. Two wars and the economy in shambles. I personally wish that there were no bailouts for all these rich banks and Wall Street. Is that helping the average American? I think not. But what happens in the future is now on the shoulders of a man who today took the oath of office. I would not want to run for President in the very best of times. It would be an incredible burden. But for those children to aspire to dream those dreams, having a biracial president has made that dream even more possible for ALL of us rather than just some of us. I am hoping and praying that Obama does a good job and that in 4 years we are on the road to recovery. 

In 8 years ( if he does a good job he will be re-elected unless Americans are unspeakably brain dead ) maybe we can break the glass ceiling and put a woman in the White House. Of course, being a Democrat, I would say that would probably be Hillary Clinton though who knows what female would come up through the ranks to challenge the status quo. After all, who was Barack Obama 8 years ago? And while I am certainly not "for" a Republican president, even if it were to be a woman. I want the best person for the office of President and it would not matter their gender, the color of their skin, superficial things such as that. 

So for now we have a biracial President, and we are hanging our hopes on him to make things right after so much wrong. It will not be easy and one hopes that we can do this together, Democrats and Republicans, Greens and Independents, as much as possible. I hope that we can put America back to work and I hope that we can return to strong unions with in shop training and a decent wage, pensions and health benefits that won't bankrupt a family. Hope, hope and more hope and yes we can! But we need to all roll up our shirt sleeves and get to work to make this country great again.

 I am an American and love this country. I do not  love her blindly, right or wrong, as I will speak up when it is wrong ---but that is part of the beauty of being an American, knowing that I CAN speak up when I might disagree with the majority on any given issue. Right now the majority is in a warm fuzzy afterglow concerning our new president. I will praise him when he does good and criticize when he screws up. And he will and already has his naysayers and they have the right to criticize him. That is the beauty of living in a country with  a first amendment that protects our free speech. I might not agree with you but will defend your right to disagree with me when it comes to the Constitution of my country. Considering that there are countries where you could be shot for criticizing a ruler that is a big thing.

Now on to another subject. This little blog came into being with the help of my brother Hal aka the Macman. He is also the hiking man and has climbed some pretty high mountains. Right now he is working on his New Years' resolution to hike every day this year. Check him out! He is listed in my blogs that I watch. But you can also get there :http://hikeeveryday.blogspot.com/ He has some witty little comments and some beautiful photos of the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs is what outsiders call it but folks who live here refer to the area as the Coachella Valley or the Valley as Palm Springs is only one small city in the Valley ). And you can tell him his sister, the Snooty Aunt Cynthia, sent you for a peek. :-) 

SAC

Meet Mis Esmeralda Typo

Anyone who has ever instant messaged someone knows that they are probably ( we are talking about the normal person here ) dashed off a message and ended up with it full of typos. So I created a cantankerous sort of character to deal with my typos and introduced her to my friends -- Mis Esmeralda Typo. She is snooty ( like a certain Aunt Cynthia ) and does not like to be ignored. And if you do not acknowledge her then she will show up. Sometimes she shows up with an attitude and sometimes she is just excited to see you. Now why am I mentioning her on my blog? Welllllll, she has shown up here and wanted everyone to know of her existence. So in the future, those of you who might stumble across or become ( one hopes ) avid readers of my humble little scribblings, you will know it is not because I am some dumb such and such when it comes to  spelling but it is merely that Mis Typo is wanting to make your acquaintance through my writings. While she is not as snotty as me she is working at it. 

SAC

Happy Birthday EAP, JJ, MLK, EM, DP and Libby

What a day January 19th is for birthdays! For some folks, of course, the BIG birthday day is December 25th, the alleged date of the birth of Jesus Christ.  In His case it does not matter when He was born but THAT He was born. Three days later is my birthday. I share it with Woodrow Wilson and I'm in between Marlene Dietrich ( the 27th ) and Marianne Faithfull ( the 29th ) two cool blondes if there ever were any. Add me and you have three cool blondes. :-) In January, there is the celebration of the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley. And I am sure that a certain David Jones aka Bowie has always loved sharing his birthday with "the king." 

I have always loathed my birthday, which, as Holy Innocent's Day, is considered to be the unluckiest day of the year. Considering how accident prone I have been over the years there might be some validity to that. But I have two other "birthdays" I can celebrate for myself. I can celebrate my "half birthday" which is on June 14. That would make me 30 rather than 60 and that would be quite fine with me. And I would not have to hear the dreadful "I would have bought you a birthday present but I spent it all on Christmas ( and not for me ) or "This is your birthday and your Christmas present COMBINED." Asking someone born near Christmas if they have ever heard that before and they will break out into hysterical laughter. And after Christmas sales --- my parents remembered them differently --- they would take me out to get things for my birthday at all of those lovely after Christmas sales. Of course they also would drag along my younger siblings who made out like bandits l but my parents never remembered spending any money except on me. Sigh. I still haven't been able to convince others they should toss me a party ever couple of years on the 14th of June. But I am working on it. 

My dad and my aunt Juanita both had the same birthday in November. I had  near death experience, also in November, and my beautiful niece Rachel was born 3 years later on that day. So that day will always be special for me, especially as she passed away at the age of 29, in 2007. I would so have loved for her to have lived her 30th birthday and celebrated it as a full and not a half birthday.  When her mom Libby and I celebrate our birthdays and turn 29 again we know Rachel is with us as she is celebrating her 29th birthday forever.

And then there is January 19th. My friend, Eddie Madigan, was a 19th of January guy. He loved his heavy metal and was crazy about Ronnie James Dio. Eddie was in a band. He was a singer. He died at the ripe young age of 21 from a bee sting. And yes, I will always miss him and be saddened that he died so young. Did I mention he was a singer? What is it about this day that makes so many singers, so many talented people? Janis Joplin was born on January 19th. I knew the lady and respected that powerhouse white girl blues voice of hers.  Janis knew I had a younger sister who was born on the same day. Libby has a smooth silk voice is more like Karen Carpenter ( ok, granted, it would be a KC singing doowop...) than Janis Joplin but until she discovered that beautiful voice of hers she WANTED to sound like Janis. There is also Dolly Parton, she of the tiny hourglass figure, the big blonde wigs and the sweet as sugar soprano singing about a bargain store or that she would always love you but please don't mess with that redhead named Jolene.

Probably one of the biggest influences of many American writers was Edgar Allan Poe. His birthday also falls on January 19th. His wonderful macabre poetry, his dark tales of terror, the first detective tale ( he was credited with originating the mystery genre and today the finest in mystery writers receives its Oscar equivalent: the Edgar ).  My own fantasy writing often borders on the dark side and I know where credit is due so thank you Edgar. You were one of my earliest influences. 

 Speaking of writers and also of speeches, who can forget the words spoken so eloquently "I have a dream" said Martin Luther King who was, you got it, another January 19th birthday baby. He has his own national holiday that people celebrate. Today we honor and celebrate the birthdays of those we love and admire on this, a birthday of singers, sisters, writer/poets, and preachers for civil rights We look towards their unbirthday of tomorrow when the world watches as we celebrate another birthday --- the birthday of civility, the birth of a new beginning, a biracial president who will hopefully give hope to the hopeless, and bring back the dignity that this nation has been lacking since its highest office was swindled by a favored son. 

Happy birthday, Libby. And may it continue into tomorrow as we see a new day dawning and a hope for not only our future but for that of our children and theirs.  

SAC

ISP Blues Rant and Blog surfing Rave

I log on today and poof I found that the isp was not being nice to me... GRRRRRR! Why does life have to be so complicated? Even now the connection is being iffy on me. One of my girlfriends called me today and when I mentioned what was happening she said it is possible that there was a lot of traffic or this or that. PHOOEY. Since I am paying for high speed I want my high speed to be there and on... no excuses. Since I have moved into the desert I have not been happy with the cable or the phone service. But let's here it for the fact that people here need cable ( don't get me started on the digital switchover nonsense that the big corporations have suckered a number of the American public into believing they must have ) or they have no tv.  But there is one cable company for the entire valley. Hmmm, in the good old days that would be called monopoly. The same with the phone. While my cell phone is a different company, the landline here is one company and you have to have that one or you don't get a landline. So their service for all of that can be so so and they don't care as they if you don't go with them that you don't get service in your area. My WebTv was also acting up earlier so there might be some validity to what Angie said. But that doesn't mean I am happy about it. When I want to get online I want to do it right then and there and not hours later. Patience is most definitely not a virtue of mine when it comes to the internet.

On to better subjects. Yesterday I meander around surfing the blogs and found some to add to my list of must look at. Now if I can just stay online long enough to do so.... I clicked on the blog of the day for 2008 as this month and then bookmarked some and added some to follow. Word to wise to bloggers -- make it easy for those of us TDs ( tech dummys ) have a nice little spot where we can click on to follow your blog and you might get folks who can then click on when they are on their own blog. At any rate, I added blogs that looked interesting with a number of different subjects. And in the following days, weeks and months I have gonna have fun wading my way through them. And hopefully some of these fine folk will come and visit me and I might get to know some new friends. The internet has been wonderful for that and I look forward to new addresses for my Christmas card list. :-)  

Analog In Digital World BIG RANT

Ok, as I mentioned in my last post, I am the tech dummy of the universe. Considering I am 60 years old ( when the heck did THAT happen hahaha! ), this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.  When I was a child computers were the stuff of science fiction. I am also artistic and I have found that a lot of artistic folk, especially musicians, are not tech savvy either. So that brings us to this digital thang... Give me my analog! At least give me the opportunity to CHOOSE whether I want analog or digital. Now I realize that there are folks out there that prefer digital and think it is just wunderbar. Well, I am not one of them. I much prefer analog for a couple of reasons. First of all, it sounds better. Analog is warm and it has a nice big fat sound. To my ears ( ears that the late, great Jimi Hendrix respected, just so you will know ) analog is the sound that I hear. I have heard the argument that digital is the truer sound. For whom? Not for me! I am not just talking about the sound I hear when I turn on a record player or a cassette player. I am talking about the sound that I hear when I wake up ( usually in the afternoon because that I am a night owl ). I do not hear birdsong in digital. I hear it in analog. Before the advent of digital, the media went on and on about what a great sound it was and how superior it was to analog it was. Excuse me? What planet were they on? How about the planet called corporate greed? It is the big corporations who have been shoving this pure unadulterated "digital sounds better than analog" nonsense down our ears. No it does not sound better. I remember the first time I heard digital. They were phasing out cassette tapes ( more on my cassette recorder rant for another day. I promise! ) and shoving CDs that were twice as expensive down our ears. Of course all the yuppies out there went to replace their records and cassettes with the new toy on the block. And the big corporations and their paid for media waxed eloquent about how cassettes were no longer selling ( just for the record, no pun intended, they did the same thing when they brought out cassettes and phased out vinyl ) and how CD sales were doing so wonderfully.Of course they did not tell the public that they were no longer putting out cassettes of current artists and so even if people wanted to buy a recording on cassette they could not find them and the CDs were priced twice as much or more. I was dismayed, not only because of the price of the CDs but because they did not sound as good as the cassettes or my old vinyl records. Digital sounds sterile, it sounds brittle, thin and cold. It does not have the nice big fat analog sound, Record producers must agree with me because they record in analog first to get that great sound. And don't even get me started on that digital switch over from analog... ok, get me started on it but that is another rant for another day.

SAC