As I do every year, because it’s really, really important, I am posting this friendly reminder to all of you out there to get out and vote, because that’s what responsible people do.

Sure the big show is next year, but that doesn’t mean that these off-year elections aren’t important; in fact, they are very important, especially if you’re concerned about your local community – school board, mayor, county officials, etc – those are your closest person-to-person interfaces with your government, and even if these things don’t get a lot of attention, they have a direct affect on your life and your community.

Some of us, nonetheless, have some damned important races to weigh in on; here in Virginia, the entire state legislature (both houses) are up for election, and things are really, really close right now; if two seats in the House of Delgates and one(!) seat in the Senate switches to blue, and the majorities change; this is ridiculously important, given that this legislature is going to be the one leading re-drawing of the electoral maps from the coming census, and there’s a good chance that happens, because the blue team is fired up! (that’s my partisan pitch. I’m done now).

That’s in addition to all the local stuff! Also, Mississippi and Kentucky are choosing Governors, and it likewise appears that both those races are close as well.

Your vote WILL count; it always does.

So, yeah – that’s my pitch – go vote; just like Ms. Marvel tells you to.

In the last couple of years, my go-to dish for pot lucks/parties/whatever is this delicious and relatively simple southwestern-style sweet potato salad. I improvised off of a couple of variations of the same I found online once when I had a bunch of great-looking sweet potatoes I picked up at the farmers’ market that I needed to use and I don’t really dig the whole “smothered with sugar/marshmallow/cinnamon/whatever” traditional style, but love this particular root vegetable.

So, I worked with the online recipes based on what I had on hand and my tastes. It’s pretty and delicious.

Anyway, people have always commented on it and ask about it; and since I’m not one to keep secrets (I mean, I mostly found it online), and it’s good and healthy and more people should eat it, HERE’S THE RECIPE for all to enjoy.

As of Thursday night, I have ordered my initial stock of World’s Okayest… that I hope I can sell to my adoring fans (I do have some), or at least to the mildly curious and/or those who feel sorry for me. I went somewhat conservative in terms of numbers; if I can sell what I’ve got, it’s easy to order more. Also, it’s going to go up on bandcamp dot com for digital download sales and I’m doing basic research on digital distribution for streaming services, but I’m honestly not sure if I’m ready for that yet.

But yeah, I think I’ve kind of proven that you can do this on the cheap and not sound entirely like shit. I’m still learning, but I’m not afraid of learning. If I do another one, I’ll apply those lessons and learn some more. In the meantime, I’ll keep nailing the instrumental stuff for Jonah’s record (he’s done some great things, and my tone is killer!), and once I have some product in hand, I’ll play huckster and try to pitch this thing.

This weekend *should* be relatively quiet; we’re hitting a Halloween party with friends on Saturday, but nothing else is really on the agenda. Next week is the US Open Irish competition, where, according to the schedule, I’ll be running sound for like 12 hours…a dance dad’s duty is never done.

Anyway, tunes that aren’t mine. Decent little package full of mostly stuff I don’t know from the “weekly discovery” playlist on Spotify; I did have to do a double-take at that first one, because I was sure it was David Bowie:

1. “The Very Modern Dance” – Destroyer
2. “Rain of Crystal Spires” –
3. “Uncover the Gold” – David Wax Museum
4. “Wolfman Jack” – Todd Rundgren
5. “July 4, 2004” – Jason Anderson
6. “Danny’s Song” – Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
7. “Things I Learned” – Motel Mirrors, Amy LaVere, John Paul Keith, Will Sexton
8. “Heart Slows Down” – Aaron Lee Tasjan
9. “Eurotrash Girl” – Cracker
10. “Misbehavin’ (1989) – Aimee-Leigh, Baby Billy
11. “Telepathic Mail” – The Wild Reeds
12. “Back It Up” – Nils Lofgren
13. “Letting Go” – Erika Wennerstrom

Well, the proof CD is, at least.

Most of it sounds pretty good, but since I have to fix a handful of typos on the back cover anyway, I’m taking the opportunity to tweak things one more time before ordering the initial stock.

This weekend involved lots of different adventures; starting with hauling us and our friends Ted and Jennyfer out to SBC to catch the oldest playing Titania, Queen of the Fairies in the campus production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was pretty great, actually. Spending the evening with our friends was fun, and we did a bit of pre-gaming with dinner and drinks at Loose Shoe Brewing. Didn’t get home until around 1am, but that’s what ya do.

We spent most of Saturday hanging out with friends (Ted and Jennyfer, plus Elizabeth and Abby and KT and Kevin etc) at the Virginia Highland Games/Richmond Celtic Festival, watching big burly guys in kilts throw big heavy pieces of wood around, listening to the Fighting Jamesons, drinking black and tans, and eating haggis. It was actually nice to just hang around and enjoy the festival; usually the girls are dancing both days (their performance Sunday got rained out), so it’s lots of busy. We just hung out, enjoying the company, and relaxing. After we got sick of the hotter-than-expected weather, we decamped to Castleburg for a final beer and more pleasant company.

Sunday, given the weather and the aforementioned cancellation, was pretty quiet. I made some decent lasagna incorporating some wonderfully fragrant fresh basil I picked up at the farmer’s market on Saturday, and we sat around eating that, drinking wine, and watching movies on Netflix. Not a terrible way to spend a rainy Sunday.

Oh, I kept pace with what my other friends were doing; both the memorial service for my friend’s wife in NC, and a bunch of my other friends and musical compatriots up in Columbus for Ohio Valley Filk Fest and the Pegasus Awards. The Blibbering Humdingers did not win in our nominated category of “Best Performers” (that went to Playing Rapunzel, who I’m not familiar with, but I’m sure they’re worthy), but it appears all present enjoyed themselves if the videos and commentary on social media are to be believed, and I’m willing to do so.

This week’s already off to a bang, with my spending my afternoon ripping into the finance branch at work for being ridiculously bureaucratic so as to make Terry Gilliam’s Brazil seem reasonable, and then walking off my anger over three miles at the park after leaving. I then spent the rest of the afternoon knocking out some bass tracks for my friend Jonah’s new record, which I expect I’ll be banging on the rest of the week, although I have some time, and I’m expecting the demo copy of my CD to arrive in the mail sometime in the next couple of days, which I’m sure will suggest some tweaks and changes to improve the final product before I order the initial stock.

Anyway, hoping the week involves more of the fun enjoying beers with friends and making music stuff and less the passive-agressive-shifting-to-straight-up-active-agressive emails and phone calls stuff. We’ll see.

Spent most of the week waiting for people to wrap stuff up at the very last minute, which is how my organization rolls. It’s kinda frustrating.

This contributed to a mostly consistent week-long funk, though a little self-medication helped a bit, at least on my regular Thursday night at the grocery store bar with my fellow barflies. I also speed-walked a couple of 5ks, which mostly corrected for the beer.

Gotta have a system.

The weekend looks pretty busy; out to SBC Friday to catch my kid playing Queen of the Fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then spending the rest of the weekend (or a good bit of it, anyway) with friends and such at the Virginia Celtic Festival and Highland Games, where everybody’ll be dancin’, and folks are coming into town to check it out.

I should also have my test CD in hand at some point this weekend, which I already know will have to be tweaked before the official production run, as I think the vocals on a couple of tracks are a little peaky, and besides, there were a couple of typos on the back cover anyway. Still, I should have my stock in hand by November’s Open Mic before the shows down in Charleston.

Oh, all my friends (including the rest of the Blibbering Humdingers) who are at Ohio Valley Filk Fest this weekend, have a great time! Y’know, The Humdingers are up for a Pegasus Award this year for “Best Performer”; not like we’re gonna win or anything, but it is, as they say, an honor to be nominated.

But yeah, that’s that. I’ll get on my parts of Jonah’s new record next week; I’ve got some nice bass lines worked out, and the script is basically locked down, so my spoken word parts are pretty much set. I’ll probably throw him a couple of solo guitar bits to use or not as well. It’s a really cool project.

Anyway, tunes. Some friends, some classic rock, and a few pieces of childhood in there as well. Not terrible.

1. “Done For Love” – The Badlees
2. “With A Wonder and a Wild Desire” – Flogging Molly
3. “Breezin'” – The B-52
4. “A Trick of the Tale” – Genesis
5. “Queen In Love” – Yngwie Malmsteen
6. “Hurricane Drunk” – Florence + The Machine
7. “Tryin'” – The Eagles
8. “The Bullies” – TMBG
9. “I Won’t Forget You” – Poison
10. “Send Me On My Way” – Rusted Root
11. “Were-Owl” – SJ Tucker
12. “From Around Here” – The Shadowboxers
13. “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel” – Valentine Wolfe

So, the album’s not quite ready yet (give it a few weeks), but in the meantime, I put up an alternate version of one of the tunes for your listening “pleasure.”

Actually, it is a pleasure, since I’m not singing on this one (didn’t suit my voice), but my kid Pat Benetar’d the hell out of it. Enjoy.

After working very hard all day Saturday and a good big of Sunday morning, I finalized fifteen audio tracks, corrected some issues with the cover art and uploaded my final files to the duplication service. I should have a review/testing copy of World’s Okayest… in hand by the end of the week. I don’t think it’s perfect, but at my current level of experience, I don’t think I’m able to make it any better. It was time to let it go.

Phew.

I guess I really should be celebrating the accomplishment, but after pushing the button yesterday, my brain was just kind of fried. I’d been spending a significant amount of effort developing new skills, making use of (and building new) neural connections, all in service of training my ear and learning about phonic concepts like “which frequency ranges contribute to ‘harshess'” and “how to I create a sense of space” while mixing the CD whilst lacking much relevant experience at all. My lovely wife (who’s currently in the midst of a huge project of making a few dozen costume belts for the dance studio) insisted we go out to lunch to celebrate and browse the used bookstore, which we did, though the key observation about that trip was how I was apparently unable decide whether I wanted a drink or not at the convenience store on the way home. I was wrecked.

Part of that, I think, was a rather big event that colored my perception of my personal accomplishment; I woke Sunday morning to discover that a dear friend and fellow musical traveler lost his wife on Saturday. This hit me way harder than I would have expected. I have great love and respect for my friend, who has always been generous with advice, perspective, friendship and talent, and my thoughts are with him in ways that go way beyond the expected pleasantries. As these things also do, it shifted my perspective on the world, at least in the current moment. I want to say I can’t imagine being in his position, but the scariest aspect of this is that I can, and it scares the ever-loving shit out of me. He’d posted some pictures he recently took of her online with their months’ old puppy, and mentioned how he and the dog are both wandering around the house looking for her, and I just broke down. I put the portal to the internet away for the rest of the day after that, it was too hard.

My successful completion of a months-long project, no matter how personally significant, just kind of feels irrelevant in the face of that, and you know, I think that’s probably the way it should be. I can be proud of my accomplishment later. Right now, my thoughts are, rightfully, with my friend in his time of need.

Hasn’t been a terrible week, all told. I got some nice hiking in, had a pretty good open mic this month, made some new friends in my usual Thursday trip to have a drink at the grocery store bar, listened to the “new” Replacements record that just came out, and got some really good advice from some folks on EQing and mixing that’s really tightened up the record, which, if all continues to go well, I’ll have sent out for duplication before the week’s out.

It’s certainly been good enough to overcome the less pleasant stuff, both usual (the office continues to be frustrating) and unusual (I shall spend part of today at a memorial service for the parent of a family friend).

Even if the good did outweigh the bad, I still had a couple of days there where I felt off for no particular reason; having difficulty summoning enthusiasm, even for things that usually get me decently excited. Oh well; I shall persevere. Depression is weird sometimes.

Otherwise, I’ve been continuing to watch our national shitshow (that letter to Erdogan had me double- and triple-checking to ensure it wasn’t satire; an interesting inversion of Poe’s Law, perhaps?), keeping up with current events like the debate (weird one, though Warren held her own, mostly), and the impeachment thing (feels like the administration’s major defense is refuge in audacity), and sadly mourning Elijah Cummings; he was one of the good ones.

The weekend looks pretty typical, with dance husband/dad duty on Saturday morning (it’s another town festival – ’tis the season) and maybe an open mic my friend is hosting tonight (if I can overcome what’s described in the third paragraph above). Otherwise, shopping/cleaning/laundry/cat petting.

In any case, tunes. Another good “Weekly Discovery” playlist from Spotify Little more 90s “altenative” than one would expect (though “Hunger Strike” was a highlight of that period, certainly), but some neat underground 80s stuff, Elton John at his most prog and self-indulgent, and Spinal Tap. Go rawk out:

1. “Right Here Right Now” – Jesus Jones
2. “Cleveland Rocks” – Ian Hunter
3. “Feel The Pain” – Dinosaur Jr.
4. “Scared Straight” – The Long Winters
5. “When You’re Falling” – Afro Celt Sound System
6. “Cars” – Gary Numan
7. “Oogum Boogum” – Alex Chilton
8. “Melt With You” – The Monthly Trades
9. “Hunger Strike” – Temple of the Dog
10. “Walking Down Madison” – Kirsty MacColl
11. “Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding – Elton John
12. “Big Bottom” – Spinal Tap

Although she’s kind of taken a bit of a hit in the polls recently, Senator Harris has always been one of my top candidates; she seems to just have the right kind of no-nonsense attitude that I think would serve the office well.

She’s also damn good at taking the piss out of all kinds of daft tossers; to wit:

Also, it appears that I’ve become British with that last sentence. Oh well.