E-mail Day

E-mail is an all day project as I answer it so infrequently. I know what you're thinking: "Hey Weezy, maybe if you answered your e-mail more often it wouldn't pile up on you." Well, no. Because if I answered it right away, the same people would be writing back constantly. Trust me, I've tried it. Anyway, as usual I've deleted most of the stuff because I don't have time to answer it. Sorry if you're one of those who didn't get a response. It's probably not because you're a dick or anything, but just because I don't have time right now.

Also, if you want to use one of my bands' old songs for a movie or something, it's really not worth asking right now unless you're willing to pay for the master use/synch license up front plus mechanicals per unit. Setting up a license takes time, and time is money. I'm flattered to be asked but given the choice between devoting my time to now or yesterday when the pay is nothing, I have to take now.

Same deal if you want a license for covering a song. If you want to do it I'm probably going to give you the license but you need to pay the mechanicals.

Back to the mailbox.

Belated Mission Statement

So. When we left off last week, your intrepid correspondent was sitting down with Ms. Choi to go over tunes while awaiting the arrival of one J. King.

I've been busy of late so our session consisted primarily of going through a tape of ideas from the last 5 or 6 weeks and noting yeas or nays from JC while cringing at some of the more poorly conceived numbers, an activity usually undertaken in privacy, like masturbation or watching FOX. We settled on 3 or 4 ditties that seemed to have potential, and brought back one that I'd left for dead, at which point Mr. King rang the buzzer. He suggested a new ending for a pure pop number that I hadn't figured out how to wrap up, and gave the thumbs up to a couple that were on the bubble, before entreating JC to work out some piano parts for one of his own new ones, a terrific little tune in a Pet Sounds/Village Green vein.

Standing outside smoking a cigarette, it hit me, as it often does in times like these, how fortunate I am to be able to do this stuff for a living. 20 years ago, I would have thought such a future way out of my reach; sitting around with my pals working on tunes all day would have seemed too good to be true. If you've ever thought that it would be really cool to write songs and play music for a living instead of getting up and going to a job every day, you're absolutely right. I can't say I'd encourage anyone to give up college or the day job to give it a shot as it's really not all sunshine and lollipops, but times like these help me realize that I have the best job in the world.

Which brings me to the mission statement I meant to write when I moved over here from the old blog. The old blog was a mishmash of stuff, completely unfocused and maddeningly (or so I'm told) focused on sports. The new leaf has turned, friends, Romans, countrymen; forthwith you shall be treated (or subjected) to a slice of life at Weasel Manor from the creative perspective, more-or-less daily. Sort of like a blog version of that MTV reality show about the drummer from Blink-182, minus the money, fame, and civilized weather. That doesn't mean I won't pop off about baseball or the NHL or politics once in a while, but I'll try to keep it in context. It also means I'm going to be dumping a bunch of links. No hard feelings, bloggers - just trying to maintain focus.

For the past couple dozen moons, life has treated your narrator very well indeed, a statement I don't make lightly given my serious superstitions regarding the acknowledgement of good fortune ("Life's been really great lately!" "Oh? Very good, sir. By the way, your test results just came back. You have rectal cancer."). But none of this good fortune has been wasted in obedience to the old Scottish genes, standing around waiting for the other shoe to drop. Of course it's going to drop: nobody's gotten out of this world alive yet. It's the little things that make everything matter. Not coincidentally, the little things are always the subject matter of the best songs.

Not everything is hunky dory, naturally. There's the matter of a large sum of money owed, the hiring of litigators to secure same, and the usual discomfort we all feel as we try not to puke all over ourselves on the Tilt-A-Whirl of life, but just as the tide rises and falls and day turns to night and then back again, your faithful narrator will continue to report back for your amusement as I attempt to navigate the leaky canoe through the choppy seas of life on this earth.

Old Folks Night At The Bottom Lounge

Last night's gig went a bit better than expected considering that unforeseen circumstances prohibited us from rehearsing beforehand. We were able to run through most of the set in soundcheck which helped shore up the old confidence a bit. Taking a new band live is always a baptism by fire but when you've done other stuff that causes people to actually pay attention, the pressure intensifies and the only solution is to go out and play hard and not worry too much about the little things. My E deciding to tune itself a step down in the middle of one of the songs did not make life easier, as I was convinced that lack of rehearsal and too much daydreaming had me playing the wrong chords, but once I sussed out the situation I cranked it right back up. And when our poor drummer, who had played the entire set flawlessly, ended the last song a measure early, it somehow served more as a comedic coda than anything else. Well, for us anyway. It'll take some time to get our sea legs but we've got a hell of a good band. The other SBB cats did great, and all in all it wasn't half-bad for our first official gig.

Joe King was kind enough to act as our roadie, and he subcontracted the merch gig to two sweet kids from New Hampshire who had driven out for the show, Sluggo and Jessie, a.k.a. The Other Jessie. The Geezers were absolutely brilliant. Funny, clever, tight as hell and cranking out one great tune after another. These cats are even longer in the tooth than yours truly and they sound about a thousand times better than most kid bands here in Hog Butcher central. The Pink Lincolns, no strangers to the Geritol lifestyle themselves, were better than I think I've ever seen them, and I've seen 'em a lot - they work great as a four-piece. Mr. C. Barrows was on his best behavior, so there were no punches thrown, no trips to the ER, etc., but they rocked the house regardless. Thanks to both bands for giving us a slot on the bill.

The Lincolns' tour manager was good enough to work with Jack the soundman to tape our set, so once Mass has gotten a chance to find one or two tunes that I didn't completely screw up, we'll throw 'em on our web site. We'll have some pics up there soonish (including more than one including our guitarist Pat), but here are some teasers in the meantime.

Soundcheck

Soundcheck

Sweet Black And Blue

The Gang after the gig, L-R: Joe King, Mass, Ms. Pixie, Your Trusted Reporter, Mssr. Vapid, SBB drummer Philip Stone, Jenny "J.D." Choi, The Original Jessie

Meet The Author

I finished the rewrites on the piece I sold to Rush Hour and on the whole I'm pretty happy with it. It stands on its own but it's also meant to be a sample of the novel I'm just starting. Rush Hour is a young adult literary magazine; my piece will appear in a theme issue dealing with Teens In Trouble or something like that. The piece is untitled as of now but it will appear under my real name - Benjamin Foster; I would've gone with Ben Foster but for the fact that some Hollywood actor is walking around with that name. I'd like to meet him someday to compare horror stories.

The only thing I haven't finished yet is the author bio, which I can't seem to even start without tasting vomit in the back of my mouth. The editor sent me examples from other authors appearing in the same issue but I got sidetracked when I ran across the name Tabitha Soren, the ex-MTV veejay and wife of Moneyball author Michael Lewis. See? Everything comes back to baseball. And daydreaming, of course, as I imagine receiving an invite to a swanky soiree at the Soren/Lewis estate, being feted by by SF's Elite in an orgy of champagne and caviar and unpronounceable French entrees. But such fantasies don't have the power they did in my youth, as I've learned over the years that meeting famous people really isn't all that exciting. Besides which, seeing as how Soren and Lewis bring home the bacon by writing, said banquet would likely consist of something more along the lines of a low-key barbeque in the backyard of an El Cerrito tract home that I hear about on the Internet four years after the fact. But if you're going to daydream you might as well bring out the big guns; I see nothing wrong with indulging myself on occasion.

So the author bio sits unfinished, taunting me. My agent wants me to make mention of Screeching Weasel, which may account for the puke-mouth, while I'm seriously considering just making a bunch of stuff up on the premise that it's unlikely I'll ever be asked to write one again. Best to just hold my nose and dive in, I suppose.

The Coolest Cats in the Sandbox

Thanks, Lynn, for teaching me how to upload photos!

This one's from the gig with the Queers on the 10th:

L-R: M. Giorgini, Phillip Aaron Presley, Popeye Joe King, Your Befuddled Narrator

The New Weasel Manor (A Belated Note)

As mentioned on my other blog, I was having trouble setting up the new home here at MuNuvia/Movable Type. Lynn, who put my name up for consideration for a freebie blog in the first place, was kind enough to step in and help out your technologically-challenged working boy. It's still a bit bare bones over here as I haven't yet had the time to sit down and sort out things like color schemes, but the mere fact that I'm up and running has a lot to do with the behind--the-scenes work of Lynn. So thanks much, Lynn, and if I'm ever up there I'll be sure to buy you a cup of Tim Horton's finest blend.

Great.

Somebody has decided to pretend to be me over on Myspace. My wife wrote the guy and told him to knock it off. His response? It's a joke - it's a fan site. I'm not REALLY pretending to be Ben Weasel. Right. Except for the multiple assertions that it really is me. Anyway, I don't have and have never had a Myspace account. I don't ask women to send me naked photos of themselves. Etc.

The whole "it's a joke" thing is the motto of the Internet generation - that generation that says, "Sure I called your mother a douchebag. Can't you take a joke?" Or, "Sure I called your mother a douchebag. I have a right to my opinion" as if what follows from being entitled to an opinion is the right to never be criticized for it, or told it's uninformed, or just plain wrong.

Anyway, the complaint went in to Myspace a few days ago but typically we haven't heard back. In any case, the bird's still the word over here at Weasel Manor. And given that accountability seems to be a foreign concept over at Myspace, feel free to write to them and complain about this guy.

Really. I'm Working.

Weasel Manor is hosting a doubleheader today. Jenny's on her way over to work on some Sweet Black & Blue songs, then Joe's coming by this afternoon to work on the Queers material. There will be a bit of overlap as well, as Jenny's been enlisted to help out a bit today with one of the esteemed Mr. King's songs.

Deadlines loom large of late and as of 11:11 a.m. your faithful narrator is still unshaven and untouched by soap and water even after having risen at the ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m. Truth be told, I haven't even gone over the ideas from the last three weeks on my tape. And, of course, Ms. Choi has just arrived. We'll see if inspiration strikes; after the wailing and gnashing of teeth has died down and the smoke clears, I'll see if I have enough left in the tank to report back.

Pope Benedict XVI

I have to admit that my heart sank a little when Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was announced as the new Pope. It was a knee-jerk reaction, one formed more by the popular characterization of Ratzinger as the Vatican's doctrinal Rottweiler than anything else. That Ratzinger has toed the orthodox line isn't news to anyone, and I've never had a problem with that. The notion of practicing religion from anything but the orthodox perspective makes no more sense to me than does the idea of trying to use a racing video game to drive to the supermarket.

My negative reaction upon hearing Cardinal Ratzinger's name announced to the world was based on things I'd read and heard here and there, but I'd researched very little of it.

Problem one was regarding comments which I'd been told Ratzinger made regarding capital punishment, specifically that many Catholics have misinterpreted the documents of the Second Vatican Council to arrive at the erroneous conclusion that the Church is strongly opposed to capital punishment in all but the most extreme circumstances. Having gone fishing on Google for information, I've come up empty-handed in regards to this quote. All I've been able to find is that Ratzinger seemed to agree with Pope John Paul II's encyclical Evangelium Vitae, which argues that unless "the defense of society would not otherwise be possible," capital punishment is unacceptable in the eyes of the Church. I've not been able to find any statements made by Cardinal Ratzinger that contradict Evangelium Vitae. If any readers have evidence to the contrary, please e-mail me.

Secondly, I was very much disturbed by Ratzinger's comments on Buddhism. Buddhism, Ratzinger was widely reported as saying, is "an auto-erotic spirituality" that "seeks transcendence without imposing concrete religious obligations". If this were indeed Ratzinger's summation of Buddhism, it would be remarkably ignorant. However, as Professor Donald Mitchell points out, "In fact, Ratzinger was not speaking about Buddhism as such, but about how Buddhism 'appears' to those Europeans who are using it to obtain some type of self-satisfying spiritual experience." Put into context, Ratzinger's comments no longer seem ridiculous - in fact, they speak to the heart of the problem of so many Westerners' forays into Buddhism.

I can't help but think that much of the criticism of Cardinal Ratzinger has been due to his unflinching defense of Catholicism. People who state their convictions unambiguously are often disliked less for what they say than for what their opponents imagine they actually mean.

However, there is one thing about the new Pope that bothers me a bit. In his book "The Spirit Of The Liturgy," Cardinal Ratzinger takes on rock music:

Modern so-called "classical " music has maneuvered itself, with some exceptions, into an elitist ghetto, which only specialists may enter -- and even they do so with what may sometimes be mixed feelings. The music of the masses has broken loose from this and treads a very different path. On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (populus). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. "Rock", on the other hand, is the expression of the elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a sometimes cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of the crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit's sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments.

The suggestion that the Holy Spirit can't or won't work through rock music seems dubious, to say the least. But then again, Pope Benedict XVI is a 78-year-old man. Do we really want a Pope who digs Green Day?

We Call This "Work."

I'm just sitting here waiting for Joe King of the mighty Queers to come by so we can work on some new Queers tunes. He was supposed to be here at "a little after eleven" but remember kids, we're on Joe King Time now so anytime before 1:30 must be considered punctual.

My own songwriting has hit a bump in the road, not so much due to lack of creative nectar flowing from the old melon, but more due to a whole bunch of other stuff on the plate. I'm supposed to get together with Ms. Choi this week to iron out some wrinkles and throw some ideas against the wall to check for adhesiveness but we have a gig on Sat. and then JC and Philip Stone leave for a month-long tour, during which time I hope to buckle down and exit May with 12-14 A-list numbers.

But a full social calendar aside, the process this time around is a bit more painstaking than usual - actually, that's a pretty serious understatement - because I'm throwing songs out at a pretty incredible rate in order to keep only the best ones for this particular band. It kills me to toss aside good songs but they have to work in context and this band, like any band, has its own idiosyncrasies that must be played to. Being that the band is new, this is an even more daunting task, and when you factor in a female vocalist and keyboards, you're left with a pretty small collection of appropriate material. But it still beats standing behind the register at the Amoco minimart.

Miracle of miracles, The Shadow just walked in a mere 45 minutes late. This has to be some kind of record. Onward and upward.

The New Pope

Watching as the Cardinals prepared to file into the conclave this morning I couldn't help thinking that speculation about a new Pope that focuses primarily on the growth of the Church in Africa and Latin America may be way off the mark. Growth is good and by and large the Church is thriving in these areas. Won't the Cardinals be more inclined to elect a Pope from the West to address the shortage of clergy, the drop in Church attendance and the rise of secular humanism? These problems haven't quite reached crisis levels in the U.S. but Catholicism in Europe is in dire straits. The U.S. is home to only 6% of the world's Roman Catholics, but the West sets the cultural tone for the rest of the world, and conservatives - who make up the majority of the voting Cardinals - see the rise of secular humanism as a major threat to the faith.

The new Pope can, of course, be effective regardless of where he comes from, but I wonder if the Cardinals won't want to send a clear message to the world with their choice. Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras would probably make an excellent Pope - and a Central or South American Pope might be better poised to address the issue of many Latino-Americans joining Protestant churches - but I can't help but think that a conclave of conservative Cardinals will be more likely to embrace tradition by electing a European Pope. Cardinal Ratzinger is too controversial and would seem to only have a shot if the conclave deadlocks until enough time has passed to change the vote to a simple majority. Cardinal Tettamanzi would seem to suffer from being a front-runner while Cardinal Schönborn is probably seen as too young. I don't like to speculate about this kind of thing too much but I'm guessing that the next Pope will be a European whose name isn't on the "papabile" list, or at least not near the top. In any case, if you believe that the Cardinals are being guided by the Holy Spirit, it's probably safe to expect the unexpected.