The last time I posted was February 11th, at about 7 pm. Four hours later, while watching the news, I heard about the death of a close friend, music collegue and "adopted son". Thinking about it still takes my breath away. Incomprehensible. Amazing how quickly things change in your life. One minute you're lazing around as if you have all the time in the world ahead of you, and the next minute - wham! You're reminded how little time you actually have, and even more startling, how little control you have over whatever time is left.
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I'm taking a column writing class at Writers & Books. For some time, I've been playing around with the humor column on my website. My problem isn't coming up with a good idea that'll sell. It's following through once I sell it. My brain is filled with book ideas, column ideas, article ideas. Oh, to have the discipline to get them down on paper! I work great on a deadline, but miserable on my own. I've never missed a deadline (except for Tim's review, which was supposed to be done 2 days ago - oops! But my column doesn't go out until Monday, so I'm actually still ok. Sort of).
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Once again, I'm getting ready for GMA and have started a journal about the whole event. I'm amazed at how many people actually read the 2004 journal (or are reading this blog right now), so it's for you (all three of you) that I pour out my ramblings about the upcoming event.
I'm actually excited this year. Meg is going with me, and I think that when it's all said and done, we'll have a better idea of what Wonder Dog could be about. Once we launched the "ministry" last fall, we got innudated with requests to do press kits, books shows, do pr. John was the catalyst for the idea, but he was more an energy source than an actual worker, LOL. He was the idea guy, the design guy, the flyers and promotion guy. The problem is that we never expected that to take off, and so we weren't prepared to handle that much work. We backed off a bit, and hopefully we can redefine what we want to do. With John gone, the energy source (that silly grin, that "Oh! Oh! I have an idea!", that "Let's book Skillet so we can open for them!", that "Sure, we can book The Supertones!") will make it difficult to go on the way we were.
I really have a heart to make western NY more attractive to Christian artists. There are some churches doing concerts, and I think they're experiencing success, but I want to go out into the community and take Christian rock and pop to the general audiences. Few bands venture into western NY - most Tooth and Nail acts do because they tour with general market bands. But I'm talking about those indie bands who can't buy onto a tour with Dashboard Confessional or Simple Plan. Even bands that would draw a good church audience only come for the Kingdom Bound Festival, and book shows into eastern OH and western PA but skip Buffalo and Rochester. Besides, we have some great Christian music in Rochester & Buffalo, and I think there's the potential to really have a thriving Christian music community right here.
Dream on, little freelancer. You have too many other projects you need to be working on. Like your Music Notes column. And getting those gray roots under control.
Signing off.
