I Hope That You Have A Cool Yule 2019!

 

Well, that's a wrap on this blog for another year!  And, I suppose the decade as well.  We'll see what 2020 and the Twenties in general have in store for us.  Until then, I hope that you have a cool Yule!  

Looking back, on the blog, I released a few songs this year including an album of the noisy demos.  I also chucked up some poems that needed a good home.  I even found the time to do a Thirsty Bear & Hungry Snake strip.  Mostly, it was videos this year as I work my way through my remaining VHS tapes.  I have a few more left.  If there are any good performances from my old bands and whatnot, then I will share them here.  I also will be devoting quite a bit of time to my new novel, Edna's Employment Agency, which should be released next year.  Beyond that, we will have to see what the year holds.  If you missed anything this year, please just use the sidebar dates to check them out.  See you . . . next decade (only get to say that once a decade)!  In the meantime though, please feel free to take this 1980 Ziggy ornament off my hands . . .  

Wred Fright On BookTV

In 2003, Canada's BookTV did a nice feature on the Perpetual Motion Roadshow I was on. They incorporated the footage we took on the tour along with what their camera crews in Toronto and New York City shot. Unfortunately, I never got the raw footage back from the Chicago tape (everything else was on the other tape). Maybe someday I will get to see it. The Chicago stuff in this video is all I have ever seen of it. And, while we're on the subject of old grievances, seeing the copy of The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus zine at Quimby's in this video reminded me that they stiffed me on the consignment. At that point, all one had to do was check-in once a year to collect one's money or one's zines, but at some point they decided to purge the store and sent postcards out at some random point, so even though I had dutifully checked in each year, I had moved, never got the postcard, and they disposed of the zines that hadn't sold. Uh, thanks, guys. I never consigned anything else there as a result. Cool bookstore though! Overall, this tour was really fun, and this video gives a nice summary of it. I also like that Canada got to see me get interviewed drinking beer and brushing my teeth outside, fortunately, not at the same time! That night in New York sleeping on the towel was rough! The only worse night's sleep I ever had was also in New York on a floor where Michael Jackman's dog kept running laps all night around the apartment and running over me each time. The lesson there for me is avoid sleeping in New York, I suppose. I also like the woman hiding her face in the NYC audience. Was she a celeb? In the Witness Relocation Program? Or just shy? Whatever the case, she's probably not thrilled the damn video's on the Internet forever.

Wred Fright On The Perpetual Motion Roadshow Part 2 Of 2

This is another performance from The Perpetual Motion Roadshow in September 2003. This one is from the Cincinnati stop where we were joined by an awesome hip-hop duo called Crack Heist. They were quite funny. It looks like for this stop, I channeled dead professional wrestlers again, which was always improvisational, but if the crowd chose a heel, or badguy wrestler, they were usually sure to be made fun of by the heel, which happens here. I probably also read some from The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus, which was finishing its zine serialization then. I bought that Mexican wrestling mask for $20 at a comic book convention in Pittsburgh. I certainly have had some fun with it.

Wred Fright On The Perpetual Motion Roadshow Part 1 Of 2

The latest videotape that I went through was raw footage from the Perpetual Motion Roadshow that I went on. I have fond memories of that whole tour. It was with Jessie Lynn McMains (then known as Jessica Disobedience) and More Or Les. Even though we did not know one another before the tour, we had a great time together. The Perpetual Motion Roadshow was an idea by Jim Munroe to form a tour circuit for indie authors so that everyone didn't have to start from the beginning every time an indie author wanted to do a book tour. This goaround of the tour attracted some attention from BookTV, a Canadian television network devoted to literary matters, and they had us take a video camera to document the tour for their feature on us. The video is a hoot! We met some strange folks on the journey and had a lot of fun doing so. We also taped some of our performances, and that is what I am sharing here. This performance is from the Ottawa tour stop. I tried to do a different show every night figuring my tourmates would get bored seeing me do the same thing every night. At this stop, I read a bit from The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus and then put on my Mexican wrestling mask to channel a dead professional wrestler to give advice to the audience. At the end, you can hear Jess.

New Mark Justice Book!

My buddy Mark Justice has a new novel out, and it is very different from his first, which was a cozy mystery.  This one is a hard-boiled Western!  I very much enjoyed reading it and gave him a blurb, which he used on the back cover.  If you like Garth Ennis's work and Deadwood, then this is your kind of story!  I love the tagline:  "They sent him to Hell.  Hell sent him back."  According to Mark, this is the start of a series of pulp Westerns starring Gauge Black.  I look forward to reading the rest!  Oh, and he's not done writing cozy mysteries either!  He is a writer with quite a range!

"Edna's Employment Agency Theme"

I wrote a theme song for my forthcoming novel.   This is it.  The novel should be out next year, if not earlier.  It's a comedy about a staffing firm.

Wred Fright - "A Nose Is A Nose Is A Nose"

This is another video courtesy of Jimi Imij. This one comes from a 15 August 2000 show at The Mantis Gallery in Kent, Ohio USA. My buddy Bob had booked a few bands from Milwaukee to play town, so I played an opening set. At the time, I was finishing my dissertation and didn't have time to play in a band, so I did some solo gigs. I wrote this song after reading a Phil Ochs biography. At one point, Ochs got a bit wacky and created an alter ego called John Train who was more of a drunken trainwreck. I like the song, but the subject matter makes me sad. It would have been grand if Ochs had been able to hang in there longer. It would have been interesting to see how he would have responded musically to punk and new wave. My favorite part is the acappella bit at the end, especially the audience joining in with some handclap percussion. I don't play the song much anymore; it's not in the currently 40 or so songs that make up the set. I doubt it will ever find its way back in, but one never knows.