Howl At The Moon - on Monday Night

The deal was supposed to be a Toy Drive. I was supposed to bring a draw- fans with me- to get toys donated. So, on a Monday night, the day before Christmas eve, my fans are supposed to go to Universal City Walk, pay 10-20 dollars for parking, bring a toy so they wouldn't have to pay a 15 dollar cover and buy a 10 dollar beer to watch me sing for a 30 minute set (which I was told when I signed on was going to be a 45 minute set.) Anyway, it was fun. My son went with me and did the video. We were looking for the place which was on the second level above the City Walk and he pulled it up on his phone to find it and the web site photo looked like it held three hundred people. I started to hyperventalate a bit. The bar could hold maybe a crowded 100 people. The act before me came to get my CD and said they loved me. T

This is a marvelous book!

Bird

It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -
and there, night came in.

When I returned from so many journeys,
I stayed suspended and green
between sun and geography -
I saw how wings worked,
how perfumes are transmitted
by feathery telegraph,
and from above I saw the path,
the springs and the roof tiles,
the fishermen at their trades,
the trousers of the foam;
I saw it all from my green sky.
I had no more alphabet
than the swallows in their courses,
the tiny, shining water
of the small bird on fire
which dances out of the pollen.

Pablo Neruda

Styron and the lost prize

So, with Christmas and with War and Peace over, I read Sophie's Choice in three weeks. I was Stingo, I had lived in a small apartment in New Orleans, exactly like the apartment described in the book- different city.. I had upstairs neighbors I was friends with. Sophie sat in my apartment and talked to me. The book is lovely, real and I couldn't put it down Styon is troubled always. I could not watch the movie for a good year and a half because that's not how Sophie looked. And the apartment wouldn't have looked like my apartment. The Confessions came shortly afterward. I can recall finishing the book at a little hotel on Geary Street where I moonlighted (actually daylighted- I was working graveyard full time at the St. Francis Hotel)) as a morning desk clerk and was brought to tears and got all choked up behind the desk in the empty lobby of this little hotel.

You should read all of Styron. I plan to. I think I have three left. There's still plenty of time

 The books let you know how troubled he was. The photo makes you realized what he overcame to live.

He shoulda won a Nobel. 

Been neglecting this blog again- sorry

Owe you guys Styron, but until then

Art is conversation. You can sit in your room and talk to yourself, but what's the point? Some people get paid for talking. Some even get prizes. If you don't start the conversation, who's gonna start it? I do it because I love to hear myself talk. But you have to listen too.

 

I wrote the above in response to a Facebook posting about art. I left out the part about how I started talking to prevent myself from being self-destructive and as a reaction to a crazy non-communicative father who abused all of those around him. Laughing is more fun than crying.

The Longest Novels -leaving out the asians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_novels
The Longest Novels

I have read Atlas Shrugged, but to be honest I did skip quite a few pages of John Galt's speech at the end, as I did in Hugo's tome.

This is Balzac. It could be said that this might be the longest novel ever written.

Page from 1980

So this is the page of my reading record from around 1980. My arrows reflect the three books above as real big time keepers. I probably had been reading War & Peace for a while. I tend to read more than one book at a time. I was living in San Francisco and after my daughter was born in August of '79 we had settled into a small apartment just behind the St. Francis Hotel where I worked. I can recall reading it out in the rooftop patio area that some of the tenants had put together. It was windy up there most of the time but there could be good days.

I was working graveyard at the St. Francis and moonlighting as a Security Guard at a bookstore a couple of afternoons and later working at another hotel. Cynthia didn't go back to work after the baby was born. We had no money. I think that 1980 Christmas we found a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk and made that our Christmas fund. I got cardboard and wrapping paper and made us a Christmas tree. I can recall immediately after the baby was born, I'd walk the hill back home in the morning, and sit on the front stoop and smoke for a half hour before going up. It was overwhelming, but I got through it. We used to take long walks around the hills pushing the stroller. I'd make runs to Sears on my motortcycle for more diapers.

The book is very long and if you put it down for very long it's hard to remember who is who. It's mostly Pierre's story. (Henry Fonda in the early movie version) I had a hardback copy with a list of characters and their relationships. It was the Maude translation. I don't think I've read anything but the Maude translations of his books.

Tolstoy creates a world, populates it, makes it breathe, and will take you places you have never been and will make it visually part of your memory. This is a sweeping thing of a book. More of a history than a novel. Two or three months of devotion will take you there. Even the talk of ideas a bit later on didn't bog the progress. I took to skipping great sections of Hugo and Melville in their digressions of ideas, but not Tolstoy. As I am writing this, I'm thinking about Anna Karenina, Resurrection, Hadji Murad, Sevastopol, etc. All better novels. One should read it if one is doing Tolstoy. I have always considered him one of the top few. Flaubert belongs with him. I've finished all of Flaubert, still working on all of Tolstoy.

Working graveyard always gave me extra time to read. Having that luxury is great boon. Wikipedia says its really the 16th longest novel ever written. There no other ones of the long nature that I've completed. I only have managed the first two volumes of Proust's. Only the first book of The Tale of Genji, and only the first of the Story of the Stone.

A movie version to watch first might help with orientation.

This was our mayor then.

I can recall Cynthia beginning to critique my writing style then and we did comparisons of those authors I loved and my own work and I began to realize that certain principles had to be learned and applied. That was the beginning of the pursuit of the perfect paragraph and seamless prose. She always felt as if she was smarter than I was because she had finished her bachelor's degree. We decided later to move to Arizona so I could go back to school to get a degree in writing.

All through this period I was writing regularly on a long book about a drunk printer in New Orleans that went on and on and had just a little plot and a lot of where nothing really happened. I think I ended up with a 60,000 word first draft. Then I was going to rewrite into a Joycean structure like Ulysses except base it on the 12 labors of Hercules. I never rewrote it. I didn't know it at the time, but I needed to learn about dramatic tension- which Tolstoy has plenty of.

Oh and we had a cat, Herbie (Herbert Gold) that would sit on my desk in the evening when I wrote in long hand.

I'll get to Styron next time.On the same page, there's Langer & Pound- worth reading for understanding it all.
 

Next endeavour

I've kept a log of the books I've read since 1975. It's been a sort of a journal, except no entries about the book itself other than to name the book, the author, the translator and the date I finished it. A couple of years ago I went back and drew arrows next to the books I thought were the ones I admired the most.

As you can see there are no arrows on these two pages. I'm hard to please. I figure from the log and the time before the log, that I read about 1000 books. That's way below what I wanted to read in my lifetime. I gave up on pulp fiction about the time I landed in New Orleans at 21. It was partially because I realized that I couldn't even recall the story or the characters a month after reading one. I had been a fan of John D. MacDonald and Travis Magee (detective) but couldn't remember which ones I had read. If you can't remember a book on some level why read it? Read poets because I thought that they could really teach me how to write. They have. Read famous novelists because I thought they would teach me how to write a great novel. They have taught me how to write also, but not how to write a great novel. Been reading more and more non-fiction the last several years, partially for a biography I plan to write after retirement, but also because I've fallen in love with naturalists and the notion of canoeing and there are thousands of personal narratives about river travel, so I've become a warped collector of the genre. I actually feel as if I'm getting that world history education that I wanted when I started reading the Will Durant history of civilization years ago. (I only got three volumes into it- pre-log record)  So here's the new project for the blog, I'm going back to those that I put arrows next too, and will try to describe why the book felt important, where I was when I was reading it and what it has meant years later. Maybe even post up the page, and you all can see then other books that were crowding that page. It would be cool to have a dialog. Maybe delve into the best songs, the best paintings,,, The best of whatever and whatever it does to your life. I need to re-balance my life a bit here. I need to finish this next draft of the new novel and I need to think about the other things that are important. Whatcha think?  

Self Publishing yourself and paying people hundreds of dollars to send spam emails to annoy people about your book

So I looked up their Web Site and they are just another self-publishing house. But their difference is that they go after other self-publishing company customers. As if I don't already get enough spam from the one I worked with. They will sell you anything you like. Back when I finished and published my first one, I called iUniverse and wanted to know how much it would cost me to to have them nominate me for the National Book Award. They said, "Huh?" Now you can buy it as a option of your package,

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Mc Nay [mailto:mcnay@usc.edu] 
Sent: Friday, November 22, 2013 3:31 AM
To: tsmith@bookwhirl.com
Subject: Re: RE: Book Marketing

Terry,

If you have not read the book, then you don't know if its any good, so you
are just trying to get me to pay you for services for marketing the product.
Like most people with a practical business sense, I realize if the product
is not making enough money to pay for marketing, then one should not pay for
marketing. 

You willing to work on a percentage commission of sales?

Don't respond if you are not.

Dan

Dan,

I understand where you're coming from, even large traditional publishing
company's marketing consultant does not read the books, they trust their
research team, and we do the same we receive 200-300 book a day, and we
don’t have the time in reading every book. The question here is not how
quality your book is, the question is How you can compete with a lot of
authors in the global market.

If you want to have something you never had, you need to do something you
never did.

Thanks,
All the Best,

Terry Smith
New Media and Film Department
Senior Marketing/Publishing Consultant

 
Marketing and Publishing Services - BookWhirl.com

Toll Free: 1 (877) 207-1679 ext. # 386
Fax       : 1 (800) 852-4249
Email   : tsmith@bookwhirl.com 
              Info@bookwhirl.com
              www.bookwhirl.com


The information contained in this message is confidential and may be legally
privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, do not disseminate
distribute or copy the information contained in this Internet message.
Please notify the sender of the delivery error and then delete the message
from your system. If you do not wish to receive messages from this mailing
address please respond to this email stating your request for removal.
Communications will be monitored regularly to improve our service and for
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“P.S. This is an advertisement and a promotional mail strictly on the
guidelines of CAN-SPAM act of 2003. We have clearly mentioned the source
mail-id of this mail, also clearly mentioned the subject lines and they are
in no way misleading in any form. We have found your mail address through
our own efforts on the web search and not through any illegal way. If you
find this mail unsolicited, please reply with "Remove" in the subject line
and we will make sure that you do not receive any further promotional mail.”

http://www.bookwhirl.com/

How very odd and cool

Just got off the phone with a friend I've not spoken to in 40 years. We were soul mates in 1972. I went off hitchhiking to New Orleans. He went to college. The lives lead have wandered all over kingdom come. We read books and talked poetry and adventured. I sat in coffeehouses and tried picking up girls while he performed on guitar. We went off to his family's roots area to collect folklore and his cousin had a crush on me, but she was only 14 or something. We were both friends with a married couple that lived in those old married student trailers and that's a story that could be written down some day.
We read books

  They all thought I was Jude. I forget who was supposed to be Narcissus and who was supposed to be Goldmund. We talked about canoeing down the Mississppi (or at least I did) Bob helped me to figure out the chords to the only song I ever learned to play on that first plastic banjo that I carried off to New Orleans later. (In this incarnation of my life, I went back to that song when I could figure out the chords by myself)
It was just the same. He told me it was too bad I didn't live around the corner so we could go for walks and talk like we used to.
We are still those two kids- very very cool.

New Video - The Old Man by Dan McNay

Rod

Just finished my friend, Rod's book of really great poetry. Author, movie-maker, photographer. He filmed my daughter's audition dvd for USC. I have all of his books autographed. Very cool book. Very accessible. Very brilliant writer (like all of us in the group that met in the bunker in the park so many light years ago that Bobbie ran)

WHERE TO GET THE BOOK

Lindsey's Response

Your forefather cant do anything, go and sleep ok

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Dan McNay <mcnay@mosis.com> wrote:
Here you go, girl:

http://dan-mcnay.blogspot.com/

Lindsey Richard excelshopping.consulting1998@gmail.com Lindsey Craft Supply

So, I posted up some of my digital print artwork that I have up on Redbubble to Pinterest, thinking maybe it might stir up some interest. I did get some repined action and earned some followers on my Pinterest account.

I get an email from Lindsey Richard. She owns a Craft retail firm in the Philippines. She wants to buy 76 pieces - 12 each of 6 different prints. Well, nothing ventured nothing gained. I look around and finally get a quote to pass back to her. Finding a quote was an interesting endeavor in itself, one lady after receiving the information sends me back a quote for half of a frame. Redbubble isn't interested. A couple of others don't respond. I finally find a really professional guy who gives me a quote:

Fred Goldstein Castelli Art Framing 6056 Jefferson Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90016 310-204-6830 (office) 310-666-4190 (cell)- Good guy, if you ever need anything like this.

So I send her back a quote $13,000.00. She balks, says her daily limit on her credit card can't do that. She wants to pay by Credit Card.

I write back and say I have to be paid by Cashier's Check or no go. I give her a new quote for 18 pieces at $3,300.00. Or I can sell her the prints by themselves and she can frame them there, saves oodles on freight.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

On 11/6/2013 10:00 AM, Lindsey Richard wrote:

Dear Dan,

   Thanks for the update, I will want you to add additional $987 for the freight company plus $70  for  transfer fees to the shipping agent.

So I will be sending payment of $4357.

Kindly get back with if you can process the payment now.

You can set up an Account with Square. its very easy to accept credit card.

Square: Accept credit cards with your iPhone, Android or iPad

https://squareup.com/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 6:20 AM, Dan McNay <mcnay@mosis.com> wrote:
Lindsey,

I'm sorry, but I need a cashier's check. I also need the shipping information: address etc. for confirmation of the freight cost.

Thanks

Dan

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 11/6/2013 11:01 AM, Lindsey Richard wrote:

Hello,

   I can only pay via my credit card account.

Regards

Lindsey

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 7:13 AM, Dan McNay <mcnay@mosis.com> wrote:
Lindsey,

If you are experienced retailer, you can understand my request. I have no relationship with you, no credit information, I don't even have an address.  If you are interested in continuing on with this deal, please provide me with the freight address so I can confirm the cost and send me the cashier's check. Other wise, I'm not interested.

Dan

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I get another long email about what I need to do and she will send me her Credit Card information.

So I Google her. She's been scamming people for a while, folks take her Credit Card, they ship and then the card is later declined or reversed because of lack of available credit or its a stolen card.

I sent her this:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 2:28 PM, Dan McNay <mcnay@mosis.com> wrote:
Lindsey,

All these folks say you owe them money.

http://bunchoffun.com/html/rubber_stamp_scammers_list.html

http://jewelrymakingjournal.com/internet-scam-artists-ordering-handmade-items-beware/

http://user.xmission.com/~daina/autoscamlist/sinfo_0000552.html

Is that true?

Dan McNay

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She replies:

Not me, may be someone is using our name




I told her I was posting this up with her name on it and asked if she wanted to send me a picture to post with it. Haven't heard from her

Instructions

Comment on my last dive experience: 

"Don't ever let me catch you performing at a dive like this again - ever. You know by now what the best locations/demographics are for your music, so please market the heck out of those places."

Yes, 'sir or madam.'

Thanks

I needed to hear that. See you at a festival soon, I hope.
Actually, I'm beginning to work it up for Dec-Jan. I have a whole list of local festivals that book in January for the new year. I just got to put the best I got out there and hope for the best.

I'm reminding myself of what I started to do 40 years ago. Do it the best way you know how for you. I spent 20 years trying to write the seemless paragraph. Now it maybe the time to do that with music.

San Clemente Art Fair

It was a great day! I moved twice which was cool, got to play to three different groups of vendors and customers. Tips were good. AND random people telling how much they enjoyed what I was doing. Meet a couple of banjo players. 9:30 to 4 actually with breaks, and lunch. How long is that? The only problem was about 2:30 when my left hand began cramping up badly. One the banjo players I met said he took lessons from Pat Cloud. He was telling me stories and how Cloud used to say that his problems could just be easily fixed by four hours of practice.

How odd to be so welcomed here!

Letter to a Good Guy

Letter To My High School English Teacher

Roger,
What to say. Thank you for awakening a 15 year old to poetry. Your easy explanation of “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” probably saved me from a life of brutal criminal behavior. (Well, that might be an exaggeration.) That one or two years there at UHS were wonderful. Barbara Baum gave me Sherwood Anderson and you provided Dylan Thomas. 
I hope you find the book fun. I really enjoy the research part of these creations and just felt it would be fun to add the bibliography to the novel. 
I’ve just gotten your last two books in the mail and am looking forward to sitting out at my lunch spot in the sun and taking them in. I’m about a third into W.S. Merwin’s “Summer Doorways” – if you’ve not read it, its great fun.
There’s a CD enclosed. I put up a site of my poetry because nobody wanted them, and had pretty much stopped trying. With the discovery of music, I’ve found a new use of what I wanted my poetry to be. I knew I was writing measured (and in theory, lyrical poetry) but its just not the style this generation, but I discovered that most everything I did write as poetry lends itself to the song form.
I add a chorus and do a little editing and I have a song. All of the ones that didn’t quite work, suddenly work. People applaud. I’ve gotten compliments on the songs that were ignored as poems or never quite worked as poems.
I’m also highly unskilled as a musician, so I’ve got a lot to learn in the next few years.
I still feel like that 15 year old kid, I hope you don’t mind.
I’ve spent an entire life, in love with the unwashed. Anderson in prose, (and in poetry, but few will admit to reading him as a poet)- There are an incredible number of unwashed geniuses- Woody Guthrie, The Carter Family Dad, Steinbeck and Dreiser in the beginning. That was what Whitman was.
I hope to be back in that area in the next few years one way or another. My youngest one is applying to IU for her Masters, but we shall see -there are options. My Helena Gilder project will bring me back because all of her papers are at the Lilly Library. I’ve had visions of my first retirement summer, parked in a RV at Lake Monroe, tooling into the library to leaf through papers and (now, sitting at the camp fire at night picking away at the banjo) May we all live so long. I hope to find you there if I make it.

Your fan,
Dan

The Little Ones

            Em                                 C                           
At the lake the house stood high against the
 G
clouds
    Em                                     C
A strand of smoke from the chimney
G                                        D
Snakes toward the evening storm
D7                    Cm             G
A reply to the hiding setting sun
Em                     C
You will be the dawn
    G                            D
I will be the breakfast blaze
C                         G
After the storm is gone

CHORUS
G                                                 D
The little ones come to places like this
         Em                    C
Like sparrows on the lawn
           G                         D
They smile and smile and smile
        C               G
And fly away home

          Em                                    C                                     
Rain streaks the strait-laced windows to drain
            G
off in sorrow
Em                            C
You can see our breathing glass
G                                             D
Beneath the dark head of the storm
D7           Cm                     G
And the snapping stings of lightning
Em                                  C
Our windows steam and sweat
    G                D
And laugh out loud
C                                G
At the dream the lake portrays

G                                                        D
The surface of the water dances with droplets
    E                              C
Rippling circles run out memories
                                             D
Of long ago houses and other pain
        C                          G
And other nights in the rain

CHORUS TWICE

Poem from early eighties

Beyond the lake's reflection, the house will stand
High against the clouds
A wisp of smoke from the chimney
Will be offered to the evening storm
Smoke is a signal of fires within, a reply
To the dying sun nearly hidden
You will be the dawn
I will be the breakfast blaze
Smoke and clouds belie our coming light and mastery
Over darkness
Smoke and clouds dissolve as a shower begins

Rain will fall at the lake
To help things grow, the neighbors say
But we know more
Rain streaks strait-laced windows
And dribbles away in sorrow
The stranger on the road will see our breathing glass
Remarking its mixture of of death and pain
And will know our defiance
Even there in the dreams the lake portrays
Our windows laugh

The surfaces of the water dances with droplets
Rippling circles run out in memory
Of other houses and other rain
So mother ducks and wise old frogs take shelter
Beneath the blossoms that come with morning

Dan McNay- sometime in the early 80s. I need a chorus, and a little editing to make this the next song

It's beginning to look a lot like Borders

I pick on bookstores instead of low rent music bookers.

From: Dan McNay [mailto:mcnay@mosis.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2013 3:10 PM
To: email@vromansbookstore.com
Subject: Author interested in presenting

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I've just published "The Truth About Treasure Island" a novel about Robert Louis Stevenson and Joseph Strong in Samoa in the 1890s. I was going to approach your store about taking consignment copies.

My intent would be to do a factual presentation with slides about Stevenson's time in Samoa combined with a little banjo and singing of a couple of period songs. (I perform as well). And maybe have some copies of the novel handy. I have lectured in the past and can design it to the time format you wish, though anything under an hour isn't going to do the subject matter justice.

This is the book:

http://thetruthabouttreasureisland.com/

This is me singing and playing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YrbhSXjcbI&feature=share&list=UU_SJL4nFpJK6VLtKOxcKx9g

Dan McNay

On 10/24/2013 3:56 PM, Rachel Ormiston wrote:

Hi Dan,

Thank you for your interest in hosting an event at Vroman’s Bookstore! It does appear that in order to stock your book at Vroman’s, we will need to do so under our consignment program. If this is something in which you might be interested, please take a look at our consignment program, which you can find online here: http://www.vromansbookstore.com/consignment-program.

Since you mentioned you would be interested in having an event at Vroman’s, you can find information about that on this page: http://www.vromansbookstore.com/tiers.   The Gold consignment package offers an opportunity to participate in one of our Local Author Days, where authors present and sign their featured title with two other authors.  These generally take place the last Sunday of each month at 4pm and run for about 2 hours.  If you decide to sign up for the Gold consignment package, our promotional director will be in contact with you to schedule your Local Author Day once your consignment paperwork is received.  I know this isn’t necessarily the time frame you were looking for, but I thought I would let you know any way.

Please feel free to e-mail with any further questions, or contact our Will Call department at orders@vromansbookstore.com if you are ready to select and purchase a consignment package. Thank you for thinking of Vroman’s!

Best,

Rachel

Rachel Ormiston

Digital Media Coordinator

Vroman's Bookstore
695 E Colorado Blvd.

Pasadena, CA 91101

P (626)449-5320

Rachel,

I think your program is as bad as the groups that run tables at the book fairs. I'm offering to do an entertaining slightly musical hour for your customers about a world famous author's adventure in Samoa that most would find interesting. I've lectured to different groups around LA for the last twenty years. And I'm suppose to pay you for sitting at a table?  How about you go fly a kite? I don't think you are smart enough to know who Robert Louis Stevenson is, but I thought I'd tell you anyway.

How about you order my book from Ingram and I might some day come down to your self-righteous little hole in the wall. You might as well be Barnes and Noble. I will buy my books from Small World Books or Skylight or Book Soup. The only reason independent bookstores still exist is because the loyal book people want to feel they are a part of the loyal few. Otherwise, why bother? If I don't have time for a quality browse of a bookstore I order from Amazon. Good luck in your bright future.

Thanks for your canned response.

Dan McNay

Upcoming gigs

In reality, the lights overhead are not on. They may have burnt out long ago.
The lady booking the club put up a couple of more openings, one for the 8:00 pm slot on Halloween night and a later one. I figured what the hell, I could show up in all of my 6'8" with weird face paint and black clothes and proceed to do weird murder songs and some others that lend themselves to to the theme. I'm the opener, who the fuck cares. She responds that she's filled the slots. Today, there are three postings to Craig's List for the slots. I want to respond to her "I can hear you" but I don't, I'm polite. I send her a cute little note about how I was sorry I missed her Sunday night, let me know if there are openings. I left out the part about 'where the fuck is the sound' and what the hell is this place? She responds that maybe I could do some 'Christmas songs' next month. She didn't even hear what I did.  Anyway, my kid calls tonight and we are schomzing. I tell him about the gig and he describes it as the strip mall club at the edge of Vegas and I suddenly realize he's right. It is. I've arrived at the edge of Vegas.
So I'll cc her on this.

The sound equipment in here really did look like it hadn't been touched in twenty years. I tried to play the Airliner downtown LA about six months ago and it was very clear that the booking guy and the equipment itself hadn't touched each other in twenty years. Sad, but true. Who wants to be as old as me and umtouched.

The Recital & The Stardust Club

Sos, we had the book publication party yesterday. Great time. I spent the morning Sunday cleaning up and putting things away. And at 4:00 we headed off to my teacher's recital for his students. As you can see they are mostly kids. There are a few older folks. There is a thirties something in the middle of this crowd. And there were a couple of old farts like me that didn't get in the picture. 

 This is the teacher and playing Where Are you Going? my song that I played at FAR-West last week. The group seemed to like it. I was also working up an odd little version of When The Saints Come Marching In, but he forgot and I wasn't about to play it after my own.

 Then off to the Stardust Club in Downey to play at 8:00 pm for an hour. I get there at 7:30 and there only seems to be a couple of barmaids present. I ask for the sound guy and she says they don't show up until 9:00 pm or so. She takes me over to show me the equipment. It looks like the equipment hasn't been touched in a year or so. There's no mics, no cables. I didn't bring anything, because I assumed it was a club and they had stuff. So I'm sitting there, thinking I'll just go at 8:00 if no one shows, or I could have done it un-amped I suppose. This guy comes in and brings stuff to the stage and I ask if he knows anything about anything. He's on at 10:00, The Debbie Goodman & Friends listed below, I guess. He says, well he needs sound for his group's set, so he will bring his in and set me up. And he does!. Great guy. I do my whang and scram for an hour. One of the regulars really loves banjo, sos he's egging everyone on to clap and hoot etc. Not a large crowd, but what do you want on a Sunday night in Downey.

Never met the booking lady.

I didn't stay for Debbie & Friends, and I couldn't find a picture of the guy that helped me out. I'm assuming its the guy with his back turned here.

Onward and upward, I guess.

The Publication Party. It was a blast!

Blind Dates

I had a thought. Trying to play out is kind of like dating. Some real clunkers, some real hot, but not really long term. Some uglier than sin. Some that don't look wonderful at the start but then there seems to be something there. And a whole lot of diversion mostly in odd and wrong directions. Dinner, a movie and ice cream after is still just that, you still have to dig through a big pile of horse***t. I get lucky.

Anaheim Antique Flea Market

The preface to this that two days before I had just showcased in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyiatt Regency in Irvine for the FAR-West conference in front of 100 professional musicians and got applause and had a few folks that told me they liked one of my songs (that I didn't get to play for the little doggie lady below).

I might have been even angrier, if I wasn't tired from attending the conference, and I quickly realized I had found la-la land in Anaheim

This is her picture on one of her Facebook accounts. She has a second account with the a similar picture. I'm assuming it's her dog. The lady was in her sixties with one of those really bad weird red dye jobs and lipstick on. The dog looks more attractive at this point.

This is what she emailed me:

On 9/9/2013 4:54 PM, Monica Keppel wrote:

I cant  get youtube.for some reason. The last couple of weeks my
computer is acting goofy.
  Whatever you play will be perfect,I of course love all music
,especially the oldies.
See you then.
Monica
On 9/9/13, Dan McNay <mcnay@mosis.com> wrote:

Monica,

If you click on these links, they will take you to my videos.
I've updated the songs to include Mumford & Sons and more modern stuff
while including oldies. Dixie Chicks & Tracy Chapman etc.
Some of these are my original songs.

I'll plan on showing at eleven unless it changes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yccie3ZZtZA&feature=c4-overview&list=UU_SJL4nFpJK6VLtKOxcKx9g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEfiFRxEkoQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YrbhSXjcbI&feature=share&list=UU_SJL4nFpJK6VLtKOxcKx9g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOaXM3nvH_k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fFFPU8lNHg&feature=share&list=UU_SJL4nFpJK6VLtKOxcKx9g

So I show an hour early. I had offered to play un-amped. I just did four hours with no mic at San Clemente two weeks ago, but she said the amplified was fine. I worked out where I would play and set-up. It was 10 in the morning. I usually start out mellow in the morning. She comes over and tells me to do more lively. I say ok. She comes over and asks to turn it down. I say ok. She comes back and says its my voice and can we turn your voice down. I say ok. I tell her I'm not sure I can do lively for four hours. The time we agreed upon was from 11:00 to 3:00 pm. I even made her a flyer and sent it to her the week before. She says that there was another guy coming and we were supposed to work out splitting up the time. I say Oh Really? I was never contacted. She leaves.

So I struggle on, skipping all the sounds that might seem too slow, wondering to myself how I can possibly do four hours (or even two if this other guy ever shows) with 1/4 of a playlist. It's nearing 11:00. I've already got ten bucks in tips in my banjo case (I never get tips until after 12:00.) and one of the vendors a half block away is applauding the last song and another lady who I have never met comes over to ask me to wrap it up in twenty minutes.

I say ok. Then I pack up. I am quite angry by this point. Had she come herself, I might have been more reasonable. I stop when I see Monica and tell her I sent her my music. Why would she invite me to play, if she didn't like my music?

She says "my mother died"

Her husband comes to the rescue. "Maybe you should go."

I can't resist fucking with men that are smaller than I am who try to throw their weight around.

I say "Really? You are going to get in my face?"

"We have people to deal with problems."

"Maybe you better go get them." I say.

Silence. You can feel the shrinking feeling in his gut. What calmed me down was the sudden thought of pee running out of his pants cuff.

"You know, you really aren't good people anyway."

And I leave. I have the rest of the day off.  

Waiting for the paint to dry

BOOKING ANY ALL COUNTRY,FOLK & BLUEGRASS BANDS/MUSICIANS !!!! (los angeles)

IF YOU LOOKING TO GET SEEN IN SUM OF LOS ANGELES'S PREMIER VENUES.......! ;) SO IF YOU THINK YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO DRAW A CROWD AND JUST LOVE TO MAKE YOUR ORIGINAL MUSIC TOUCH A LIVE CROWD LIKE NO OTHER THEN........... PLEASE DON'T HESITATE TO CALL OR TEXT ME.......
SHANNON NYCOL "BOOKING MANAGER"
CELL# (330)730-4559 / WORK# (619)356-8146 

 

So, I sent her my come-on email with the links. I get a message on my office phone from Sunday evening saying she wants to book me, my band, whatever it is I do.

 

I called her back and left her a message on her cell on Monday morning.

 

Another do you play the saxophone call I think. I'll try one more time today. I've kind of decided I'm going to find a venue that wants a booking person and start doing it. I could do a whole lot better than this AND treat the performers a whole lot better. And listen to the potential performers. It would seem embarrassing to book bad people. 

Setting up at San Clemente Sunday morning

Singing without amps on Sunday. Sold CDs. The people liked me. Did 4 hours I think.

Max

And then we got him.