Timberrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

I spent the early part of June thinking a lot and writing a big article for JazzTimes about ESP-Disk'. In a way, it was six months in the making because I did my first interview for it back in January. For four months, I just thought about it, without really picking up until May. At that point, I conducted some follow up and support interviews and started writing. When I have an opening scene/paragraph in my head, I'm set. So I dug in and, in a remarkable display of organization, I turned the piece in the weekend before it was due.

Considering the state of the world lately and how screwed up things are, and the lack of strong leadership anywhere, it's been hard to get much done. So I was happy to finish that. It was a rare situation where I forced myself to write long - go over my word count - and pare it down over the course of several days later. Even with a 2500 word count, I still find things that I would like to include but can't. Having those extra days helped you come to the conclusion of what is really needed and what can be left out.

Somewhere along the way of writing that article, I decided to skim the comments left on this blog. It used be that I would get an email whenever there was a reply posted. Not anymore. So I totally missed the comment that appeared at the end of last October's post about buying an original copy of Erica Pomerance's ESP album which came from......... ERICA HERSELF!! (Fanboy warning.) I realize there were some things in the post that might leave her miffed but hopefully you can tell that I was over the moon when I got the record. But the fact that she would find me, read the piece and comment....I felt so flattered.

Correction: I felt like a dope that it took me two freakin' months to see it. (She commented at the end of March.) By that time she was probably long gone and she's probably forgotten about me. Oh well, she knows I'm out here.

Then, just when there seemed like there might be a break in the dark mental clouds, at least for a moment, a tree fell down in our yard Tuesday night. I came home from work and Jen and Donovan were watching Some Like It Hot. I had a little something to eat and eventually joined them in front of the t.v. (I have never seen the film all the way through.) At first I thought some animal was running across our roof, which happens occasionally since our roof abuts the neighbor's yard. But the sound kept going and all of a sudden there was a loud crash. I was worried for a second that the big dead tree had fallen into our house. But what happened was a tree in our neighbor's yard had fallen across our yard, taking out our tool shed in the process. Just what you want to hear at 11:45 at night.

The good news is there was no major damage and no one was hurt. The bad news is, it was just hard to deal with yet another thing weighing on my mine. And the idea that there is something else in nature that could mess up our house (besides rain and the slim chance that critters might get in). It's an irrational feeling I get, but it's a feeling that can be hard to shake.

Thankfully, the tree is gone now. The day after it happened - the first of my two days off this week - I got a tree guy out to look at it, Then he had his crew get rid of it yesterday. They did pretty quick work of it, truth be told. Now I just need to get the shed out of there. But I had a guy come out and take a look today.

This was going to be a short intro to a review, but I think the review will just come later.