Sorry to see you go, Tom

I don't remember exactly when I first heard Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. I do remember back in junior high school, having an acquaintance who was fast on the way to becoming one of my closest friends talking Petty up enthusiastically--along with other bands I had not yet heard of, like Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, and Rockpile. Shortly thereafter, I was walking around with the organ riff from "Don't Do Me Like That" on auto-play in my head.

I was not a fan the way my friend was--is, but I certainly liked what I heard. I saw Petty for the first time at Madison Square Garden in the mid-80s, backing Bob Dylan. The Petty & the Heartbreakers segment of the show was miles above the Dylan segment. (though Petty had certain vocal stylings similar to Dylan--hello, singing through the nose--the key difference was that Petty sang so you could understand him. Dylan almost seemed to go out of his way to be incomprehensible.) I didn't see him in concert again for more than twenty years, by which time the band was (incredibly) past thirty. And while the show never felt like some tired, "We're in it for the money here's a bunch of oldies for ya" thing (the band was promoting a new album at the time and played four songs from it during the set), you knew every song. And they were all good.

After forty years, Petty was apparently planning to call it quits on the major touring and was looking forward to spending more time with the family and doing...well, whatever it is rock stars do when they 'retire'. This usually involves a quiet period followed by an unexpected album and tour. Sadly, we'll never get to see that. Thanks for the memories and music (and those goofy appearances on It's Garry Shandling's Show).



In Other News...

Yes, I'm going to get political. The Trump administration continues using "religious freedom" as cover for its assault  on "others." Last week saw the announcement of new rules allowing employers to not offer contraceptives/birth control as part of health insurance based on religious or moral objections. Never mind that this impacts some 55 million women, and will likely result in a huge uptick in unplanned pregnancies and abortions (at least until the GOP finds a way to overturn Roe v. Wade and brings us one step closer to the Christian Sharia they seem to crave). Meanwhile, last week the Department of Justice has taken the position that civil rights laws don't apply to transgender people from discrimination at work.Now, this would be fine if  the DOJ's position was that Congress should take action to extend that protection, but what's the likelihood of that? And what's the likelihood that this Congress would do such a thing? Yeah, that's what I thought.

And, still sticking with politics--in the wake of the horror in Las Vegas this week, I have come up with a way to actually get something done on gun control: convince Trump that the second amendment was written by Obama. You'd see an instantaneous shift in the meaning of "Repeal and Replace."

Happier News...

Louie DeBrusk was a high energy, low-skill player in the NHL whose best season saw him score eight goals for the Edmonton Oilers in 1992-93. What endeared him to fans wasn't the 24 goals he scored in 401 games, it was his willingness to fight. DeBrusk racked up 1161 penalty minutes in his career, fighting 214 times.

Jake DeBrusk is Louie's son. He is not his father. A highly skilled player taken in the first round of the 2015 draft, Jake made his NHL debut with Boston on Thursday night, and provides a feel-good moment in a week that desperately needed feel-good moments (stick with the video):


A priceless moment.

One last bit of hockey news for my Australian reader(s): On Saturday night, Nathan Walker became the first Australian to play in the National Hockey League--and soon thereafter he became the first Australian to score a goal in the National Hockey League! Congratulations to Nathan! [EDIT] I meant to include this, but forgot: the Australian Ambassador to the United States is...Joe Hockey. No kidding!

That's all I got. Let's hope this is a better week. How are you all?

Oh, forget it

I have a couple of posts in various stages of completion, but nothing complete enough to whip out and finish today. I really need to start getting ahead of this game again. Here, have some Tom Petty:




On a good note, The Magpie is now home for the summer following a very successful freshman year at school, The Catbird picked up a couple of awards at the high school last week, and I received more positive feedback on BARTON'S WOMEN. Further encouraged by the news about Last Man Standing, I've submitted a 200-word bit of flash fiction I wrote a while back to a couple of places and am taking a second look at some other short pieces that have largely arisen out of my writer's circle. Sadly, I have not done much in the way of heavy writing on my newer project. I've got some of the elements in place for it, but I think I'm still searching for The Secret Ingredient that will bring it all together. PARALLEL LIVES has been out on query for over a year, and I have to consider what I want to do about it. Aside from two early requests that went nowhere and provided little useful feedback, there has been zero interest in it. The question is, Is it my query, the opening pages, or something else?

That's about it for me here, what's new with all of you? Have a great weekend!

And On I Go

One step done and another begun
And I wonder how many miles? - Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia, New Speedway Boogie

Do you play video games? I'm talking about the relatively simple ones where your objective is to clear the screen, a game like Bejeweled or Zuma, or, going way back, Space Invaders or Pac Man. Those games start out easy enough. But each time you complete a level by clearing the screen, the next level gets harder. The music becomes more obnoxious, there's less time, the bad things move faster. Writing - rather, becoming published - is like this. Who knew?

This week I finally joined the ranks of the queriers (is that even a word? eh, it is now). I thought writing the book was hard. Don't get me wrong, it was hard. There were plenty of times I quite literally banged my forehead against my desk or exploded out of my chair and stomped around the house, indiscriminately dropping F-bombs as I went. But it was cake, it was level 1, compared to the query.

I've been trying to prepare for this stage since last summer. From time-to-time I would draft a query letter or two, play around with it a bit, before forgetting about it and getting back to the task at hand: finishing the damn book. But I finally got to the point where I said, "I've taken this book as far as I can go. I'm comfortable with sending this out now," and it was on to the query, which has become a full-time job in itself. How do you condense your 93,000-word masterpiece into three paragraphs? It's hard. Or maybe it's just me over-analyzing it, that's quite possible, maybe even likely. I started a fresh document with the best query. Each time I revised, I added the newer query at the bottom of the document. That document reached 44 pages before I finally decided I had it. Then I started a new one and did the same thing. That one hit 11 pages before I said "I've got it! This is good!"

Of course, now it's time to send it, and that means it's time to personalize the letter. And doesn't that lead to all kinds of crazy head-games? There are several agents out there that I'd really love to work with - how do you say that without sounding like a total suck-up? It's funny, I have gotten to the point where I actually AM confident about my writing, where I've thought I can shed this Doubting Writer label - now the query is setting me back to square one.

Well, it's done, the first few are out the door. By the end of the week I should have all of my 'first round' out, and then we play the waiting game. If my query is good, I'll advance to the next level, and we'll see how much harder it gets. And so, because I am now in the waiting stage, here's some Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I don't think I've played this one before; if I have, forgive me. Have a great weekend, all.