Doing my best with what I had...

Eric Slick, Sex Machine

It's going to take me a while to recover from that one. Ha! But he does offer an explanation if you read his blog posts which I put up here a few days ago....



Robbie "Seahag" Mangano, Eric Slick, and Ike Willis -- outside the "tour van"

Ha ha - I love that photo. Meanwhile, like I said, in reading over Eric's blog from the tour there's mention of the band going hat shopping, etc. and I can just imagine the stares those guys get down south. They're a very charismatic bunch, with ages spanning 18 (Eric) to 50 (Ike Willis and Eric Svalgard) and I believe Robbie and Dave Johnsen are around thirty; Andre is forty...sooo...these guys must generate lots of attention when they travel together.

Fan reviews of Project Object shows have been tough to find since the band landed in the south...but I did find this one which cracked me up bigtime. It was posted by....who else...someone named "Cletis":

frank zappa the greatest man whom has ever lived, so sad that one of his magnitudy must pass into the next adventure before i had the chance to see the wonder... but last night, the coolest thing happened. i along with a handful of coleages ventured to the cat's cradle in carboro, nc not quite sure what to expect... four guys whom call demselves PROJECT OBJECT along with the one and only IKE WILLIS did what they call busting it out, throwin down a groovy groovy groove, doin da rockin, for a good four hour show maybe longer see i wasn't really keeping up with the time even though i still had to get up and gos to work taday..( which i woke up still drunk, went to work still drunk and hung out on dem forklift in the damn sun fer about 8 hours) they play a bunch of classics ( in an example) ... "titties and beer" to "flakes" and "montana" and don't fool yer self girl it's going right up yer pooooouuuuuuuuuuuooooooooop chute... "broken hearts are for assholes" i may never have the opportunity to meet zappa in this life but i ike and the gang is the next closes thing. i'd like to toast a shot fer the good o'l cat's cradle... they gots dem cold beer, nice vibe, good music, they seem not to mind yous taping da shows and when most of the crowd splits the fellas on dem stage lower demselves to the norm... just to say hi,....... fuck you, you ugly son of a bitch........................... and i dig dat... can you!!!... can ya dig it...

Yes, Cletis. We can dig it.

Anyway, I'm so psyched - two more days until the Baltimore show. I haven't seen my son since April 16! But if you are in the Charleston, West Virginia area, they will be at The Empty Glass tonight and once again, it looks to be a very cool venue.
*****
So in other news, I did something in total character yesterday -- meaning, something incredibly stupid. I've been subbing my short stories like crazy and found a magazine I really liked. And in their submission guidelines, they say they get back to you right away; they put stories up daily/weekly, etc., and they've published some of my favorite authors. Err...this would all be great except I neglected to read the editor's letter before I sent off my story. Apparently her "in-box" was full of stories written by stoners or people who think being stoned is interesting and she cannot stress enough how much she finds that NOT INTERESTING.

Naturally, the hero in my story smokes pot.

I was going to immediately write to the editor and withdraw the story so she wouldn't even waste her time reading it, but she beat me to it with a warm "looking forward to the read" e-mail. I should have left it alone, but no, no, I can never do that, and I sheepishly wrote back this morning, apologizing for subbing a drug story though it's not a drug story at all and of course I had to ramble on about that, too.

You realize, of course, what I've set myself up for.

"It's not the fact that your male character smokes pot, Robin. We are rejecting the story because it's a piece of crap."

Nah, I'm just kidding. I'm sure she'll be much kinder with her rejection than that. But will I ever learn? I have two things I do that drive me nuts. One: I sub a piece almost immediately after finishing it, instead of letting it "marinate" a while. Then of course I can't resist reading it over after it's been subbed...and that's when I start finding rookie mistakes like the same words/phrase used six times, etc. And then we have what happened yesterday -- I sub without reading the letter from the editor because I'm so busy reading the stories they publish and checking out the names of the authors that I neglect to read anything else before subbing.

Oh well.

In other news, have I mentioned how much I despise Tom Cruise? I hated him from the first time I saw him in Risky Business. This is sexy? I was mystified. And now that he's revealed to the world that he's also a complete lunatic and not in a good way...feh. Who the hell wants to see Mission Impossible III? Christ, the old black and white T.V. show reruns have way better plots and acting. I'm so tired of special effect blockbusters without any coherent storyline starring idiots.

You want sexy? I'll show you sexy! From the Robin Slick "Neil Gaiman Collection":



Funny story about that, too. My daughter was doing homework with her boyfriend here yesterday and they're both music industry majors. Julie's boyfriend had to do a paper on a concert he saw recently along with producing a ticket stub and/or photos from the show. Julie asked me to send her the link to my photobucket site so they could pluck some Project Object photos off it.

"Eww, Mom, why do you have all these pictures of Neil Gaiman on your photobucket site?"

Eww? How can she possibly say that? I wondered.

I admit it, I was as dumbfounded as I was mortified/embarrassed. But then I remembered her father. Oh. Right.

"Oh, those photos aren't mine. They belong to my friend Susan Henderson," I replied.

Luckily, being a totally self-absorbed twenty year old who never reads my blog, she bought it and was already onto the next topic as I slinked out of the room, muttering to myself like the madwoman I am.

Later,
xo
P.S.
In case you are wondering about the title of this post, it is, quite fittingly, from David Bowie's "Thursday's Child"...