1 December - Meteorology

Here it is December. Today is the start of what they call Meteorological Winter, although there are some of us who insist on waiting for the Solstice before considering it official. But seeing how there are plenty of folks out there who always jump the gun on the Yuletide (retailers, for example), it's not surprising that there's a "modern" way of looking at the seasons. March 1st for Spring, June 1st for Summer, September 1st for Autumn, and now this. It's simple, I'll give you that. And I've had to scrape my car's windshield several times already, so I'm not gonna argue.

Besides, as of yesterday, which marked a full month since I deleted my account, my exit from Facebook has become permanent. I'm in a good mood. You want to start Winter today, go ahead. Means we're that much closer to Spring.

31 October - Permanence

This is basically an update to the last entry. As of 11am today, my Facebook account has been deleted for good. Decided in light of recent developments to dispense with the usual temporary break, and to get rid of the thing once and for all.

According to an email sent to me by the Facebots, my account will not be permanently gone until 30 days have expired, and I can log into my page at any time between now and then and stop the process. Not gonna happen. 

Happy Halloween.

27 October - Hiatus

We're getting near the end of the month, and this means Halloween (of course), but also that my annual holiday hiatus from Facebook is approaching as well. I'm starting early this year. In the past I began these breaks around Thanksgiving, but this time it'll be for all of November and December, and I'll reactivate the account on the first of January.

That's the plan, anyway. But it's on shaky ground. I have had a difficult time finding justification to stick with the platform for the past couple of years, and have been threatening (to myself, anyway) to delete the account entirely. And recent disclosures about the way the company has been run are not helping sway me toward re-upping with Facebook after this coming break. Quite the opposite.

I'm no longer impressed with the platform as a promotional tool. And although I have many friends around the world with whom it seems to be our primary choice for casual communications, other means of contact are available to us. Every single time I log into the place, I can't help but admit that it is far from the enjoyable bulletin board it once was.

Anyway, I have a big decision to make. And the fact that whether or not to remain qualifies as a "big decision" is rather telling.

05 October - Birthdays

Yesterday was my father's birthday. He would have been 95, but he left this earthly plane for something more astral back in 2009. Last Saturday was my birthday, and it was the one I like to call the Beatles Birthday. That's right, 64. I was born the year that John and Paul met, lucky me. 

This coming Saturday, the Mistress Miriam Show will be playing Luthier's Co-Op in Easthampton, one of our favorite rooms. It will be our first time there as this band, but we've all played there before and love the place. And it will be John Lennon's birthday. He would have been turning 81.

So there you go. We all shine on, whether or not we're still here to enjoy our birthdays.

23 September - Autumn

The Autumnal Equinox happened here yesterday afternoon, so today is the first full day of Fall. I'm looking forward to less humidity, good food, getting together with friends, and the two upcoming shows I'll be playing with The Mistress Miriam Show (see the previous post for details). Perhaps I'll see you 'round town. We can shuffle through the leaves together.

31 August - Live Music

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25th

The MISTRESS MIRIAM SHOW will be performing at 5pm on the Citgo Stage during Florence Night Out in Florence, MA.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9th
The MISTRESS MIRIAM SHOW is booked for the 8-9:30pm set at Luthier's Co-Op in Easthampton MA.

Come and see the show!

24 August - Sadness

Charlie Watts photo courtesy of The Rolling Stones

8 August - Unsung Heroes

Next up in the events department is this year's Transperformance concert at the Pines Theater in Northampton's Look Park. We're all rehearsing like mad, and really excited about performing again at this wonderful outdoor venue.

Design by Michael Crigler - courtesy of the Northampton Arts Council

1 August - Double Single

Here's a new month, one with a new idea to go along with it. I recently made demo recordings of two original songs (ones which I'd written a while back, but never performed or recorded) to bring to The Mistress Miriam Show as possible additions to the band's repertoire. Happily, Miriam and the others quite liked them, and we've begun work learning how to interpret them in the context of the show.

I'd knocked off the demos pretty quickly during one rainy afternoon, with rather sparse instrumentation, and me simply singing the lyrics through a handheld Shure stage mic while sitting at my studio desk. But they sounded pretty good, even as the rough reference mix MP3s I made in haste to send the band after I was done.

This weekend I listened to them again, and wondered how they'd sound all cleaned up with a bit more attention paid to the channel EQs and with some proper reverb and other processing. I spent a couple of hours on them yesterday, and was very pleased with the result. They sounded like they belonged together, so I have uploaded them both (a double single, if you will) to my Bandcamp page.

And the more I thought about the idea of a Double Single, the more I liked it. So this one is subtitled volume one, and you can all look forward to more of them. This may even become my format of choice for the next few releases. We shall see.

 

31 July - Angel Park

We had a crowd of close to 70 people at the Angel Park show on Wednesday, but of course our friend Ivan framed this photo to make it seem like we were playing to just my Mom and John (my brother in law). It was fun to get out and perform with Nick and Fred again, something we had not done since October of 2019. Turns out that had been the last time I had played out, period – either with these guys or in any other capacity (solo, The Prestons, etc.). It's a crazy old world.

Photo by Ivan Oransky