Odds and Sods - part 969

Andy, drummer with McRad, and Matt Rothstein, Julie's bass playing boyfriend, prior to the show in...Liverpool? Guildford? Hmm...can't remember, probably because I wasn't there. By that time, I'd managed to successfully separate myself from the tour and happily went off on my own.

So I'm still in a funk since my return home to the U.S.; I can't quite put my finger on why but here's a couple of possibilities: (1) A life long dream was realized when I finally made that trip to the UK and now it's over; (2) I want to go back in a big way and stay longer than a week -- like, maybe forever; (3) I know I have to get really serious and finish the final revisions to my creative non fiction novel which means I need to stop fucking off with other projects; (4) I know that if I don't do (3) and do it really well, I will eventually have to go back to some sort of part-time "real" job because apparently I'm a bigger spender than I realized and haven't a clue as to how to budget.

Oh well.

But in other news, I was overjoyed this morning that the Democrats claimed solid victories in New Jersey and Virginia and that the Nazi Republican terminator was soundly defeated in California. So maybe there's hope for this country yet. But I saw a horrifying news report on BBC news last night (what, you thought I watched American news? Ha!) about Uganda. Ever since Bush took office, the AIDS virus is back on the rise. During the Clinton administration, they'd managed to cut the spread down to 4% with an active campaign to use condoms. Now, because most of their anti-AIDS funding comes from the U.S., the Bush administration has seen fit to see that all the money now goes to faith based organizations SOLELY in Uganda. They have decided that the condom campaign isn't good enough, they put ABSTINENCE in place, and all over Uganda, there are huge billboards with ABSTINENCE on them, not condoms. So it's a no brainer as to what's happening - all of the hard work of the medical profession is down the drain because of these insane religious zealots currently running our country. An entire African nation is being wiped out by AIDS.

Err...maybe that's what Bush is hoping?

Okay, must shift gears before I pop a blood vessel.

In music news, just a reminder that Eric and his band, Flamingo, will be at the Pontiac Grill at 6:00 p.m. this Sunday night. Julie's next gig with McRad is December 2.

And someone must be buying my book! My Amazon numbers were abhorent, but today I came downstairs and they are soaring! So thank you, thank you, thank you whoever you are, and I'm going to attach a link to Amazon one more time so that you, too, can join the masses reading Three Days in New York City. It's right here.



Oh, one more thing -- I will not be reading in New York on Monday -- I got an email last night from the guy who organized it saying he's no longer in charge. I'm kind of relieved. I'll be in Virginia Beach Friday-Sunday next week hawking Three Days in New York City and hopefully the sequel or at least talking up the sequel so that's enough travel for one week, eh? More on that later...