Don't worry, you can trust me. I'm not like the others.

Banned In China

Sunday, October 9, 2011

My Weekend So Far

A three day weekend here in Ohio.  Columbus Day.  Well at least it is three days for bankers and lawyers.  I'm not sure about schools, nor the post office.

Went to a writers conference yesterday here in town.  It is put on once a year by the writing group my wife founded.  She withdrew from the group after the last conference because she didn't want to keep running it, and wanted to spend more time with her family.  That and the fact that there were internal political struggles going on.  The same kind there eventually are in any small group and she didn't want to do that kind of fighting with people she liked.  Unfortunately, since she is friends with most of the people who are "running" the group now and they talk to her regularly she can't completely avoid the stresses.

At any rate the conference was moderately interesting.  One of the main stresses was that the person who was in charge of getting people to speak refused to deal with anyone else and got only people she wanted, which meant that the entire conference was directed to character development and sales until one of the other people move in and added some different speakers.  Which as one can imagine led to some very cool relations between members of the ruling junta.  Unfortunately, the one who screwed up the original invites to speak resigned and then unresigned and now insists that she will absolutely control who speaks next (if there is a next) year.  The other members "don't want to make her mad."  I wonder if the other members of the Politburo had the same feelings about Stalin?

I think I've said it before, but just offer middle level writers lunch and a place to hussle their books and they will role over and do just about anything.  No need to pay them in money.  Just food and a table to put their books on.

The number of writers there who are proudly announced christians and the number who are or were preachers of one real denomination or another, is amazing to me. Perhaps it is just where I live.  One of the former ministers, Robert W. Birch even has a series of erotic novels.

From there we went to a concert of Blood Sweat and Tears that is part of a concert series my mother-in-law gets us tickets to every year.   Generally, the concerts are very good particularly the classical ones.  In this case however the band (the name of which is apparently owned by some business entity completely unconnected with say any real creative artists, since none of the original members are in the current group or for that matter even mentioned) was not how you say?  Good.  It was its own tribute band.  I was a little surprised at how weak they were.  But not all that disappointed since in my opinion they were not that cool when they were "cool."

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Place Holders



Wow, its been fifteen days since my last post.  And to be honest the only reason I'm probably posting right now is that I've got to start working on a brief. 

I got a new sweeper: A Shark.  I have a difficult time sweeping the carpets as my father would sweep the house whenever he came home from work, no matter how late.  Every day that I lived at home.  Every day.  However, with eight cats and two dogs a guy has gotta do what he's gotta do, particularly since my wife can't because of her handicap.

So anyway the sweeper is one of those bag less kind and does a hell of a job.  Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking and I kept emptying the full container into the waste about six or so times.  Well, with my allergies and the cat dander floating upward...... I now have an allergy attack to match any I've ever had.  Which makes it that much harder to work.  On the plus side the carpets are cleaner than I've seen them for some time.  In fact I now see stains that I didn't know were there and I will have to be shampooing it here shortly.

My wife and I went into Columbus yesterday and went to a religious book store.  Since it is not something I'm particularly interested in I was just kind of wondering around.  One of the employees asked me if I needed any help and I said:  "No thanks, I'm with the cripple."  The store employee did not seem to see the humor in it.

Finally, went to see Jackson Browne on Tuesday (thanks Sue and Keith).   Just Jackson Browne a keyboard and his seventeen guitars as my wife said.  He was great.  The concert was wonderful, except for the fat chick in front of us with the Iphone who had to have taken about fifty pics.  Now since all he did was either sit at the keyboard or sit in a different chair playing one of his guitars I'm not sure what she thought she was preserving, but preserve she did. 

Well OK, back to work to see if I can win one for a change.