Episode #304: My Den {1}-Getting Into The Groove

Sometimes, you just need to be anti-social in order to have a peaceful relaxing day in your neighborhood.

When I sit down to write, I need almost total silence in my surroundings. Doesn't matter where I am, indoors or out, I need to be as close to complete silence as humanly possible, which is saying as lot, because my den is directly below the living room, and the great outdoors, well, you got the occasional car, peoples and animals. So 96% is the best that I can shoot for.

When it comes to transcribing, that is a completely different topic all together. I need my proverbial white noise to help keep me focused, whether it's MLB (summer), podcasts or music. I know it's odd, but this works for me. Today's post will feature my favorite artists/collections that have become my go-to white noise when I'm transcribing.

Even though this is a top ten list, to quote a stale YouTube channel, it's just a list with no discernible difference between artists, only what I choose to pull out to help me concentrate. With the disclaimer out of the way, let's hit the ground jogging.

1} Any new stuff: I'm still heavily into buying used and the occasional new c.d., even though the new has become fewer as the months/years pass by. So whenever I'm ready to transcribe, I will often pick through my TBP pile to see if there's anything to pique my curiosity or fit my particular mood. I should note that I have quite the eclectic collection, so...yeah.

2} Schoolhouse Rock: Back when Schoolhouse Rock was going through its 90's renaissance, my brother picked up a 4 c.d. collection from Rhino Records (now out of print). It eventually came into my hands some many years ago, and it has become one my fave go-tos for transcribing music.

3} Children's music: I'm a fan of children's music from my younger days, when thought and time were given to create songs  that would last, so I have two c.d.s: one featuring Marlo Thomas & Friends and one by Carole King. Strangely enough, both c.d.s were created for t.v. specials back in the 70's and the 80's respectively.

4) Weird Al Yankovic: Been a fan of his music since the late 80's, when I had first heard his stuff on Dr Demento (formally a nationally syndicated radio show), and I got hooked. I have a few c.d.s of his and his stuff is so earworm inducing that even decades later, I can still remember chucks of melodies to dozens of his songs, both hits and non.

5} Samantha Fish: A really great blues guitarist and I first got into her via a FB friend who had posted a link to one of her videos. And as I'm want to do from time to time, I started acquiring her back catalog. I'm still a few current releases behind but I'm hoping to rectify that in 2026.

6a} & 6b} Sanmy Kershaw/Maddie & Tae: I rarely listen to 'country pop' and these two artists have become the exceptions. With the former, I found one of his c.d.s for sale at my local library, my curiosity was piqued and the rest they say, is history. As I'm want to do, I'm currently working my way through his back catalog. As for the latter, I first heard their hit 'Girl In A Country Song' on college radio. Curiosity properly piqued, I found the riotous video and immediately bought the c.d., and I'm also in the process of acquiring their current catalog.

7} Billy Joel: Like him or hate him, he has created some interesting music over the decades, so I have about six c.d.s that make it into my rotating playlist periodically.

8} Band Maid: An all female Japanese hard rock band that was brought to my attention via YouTube algorithms, which as of late is how I'm exposed to new music. Got hooked really bad and spent a pretty penny acquiring their back catalog and mostly present releases.

9} Train: Popular alt band from the late 90's through the early 00's. Acquired several of their c.d.s, with the latest being a live release from the later 2010's. Fantastic band even when nothing is charting, they're another of my go-tos.

10} Johnny Cash: About several years before he passed away in 2003, he teamed up with producer Rick Rubin and created a series of phenomenal c.d.s that were collectively called "The American Recordings, vol 1-6". This collection features original, classics and covers from well known artists and even duets. I highly recommend this particular music series (note, he won a Grammy for his version of 'Hurt').

I have a bonus recommendation that I would love to pass on to everyone: a cover band tthat is called Broken Peach.

They're a Spanish band who performs phenomenal cover-mashes. They tour mostly on the Spanish coast, have a multitude of releases on Spotify and came out with a c.d. of original material a couple of years ago. They came to my attention via YouTube's algorithms when one of their annual Halloween videos cropped up on my front page, "Tainted Love/Sweet Dreams Are Made of These", which in a span of four years has hit nearly 10 million views.

So my friends, I sincerely hope that you enjoyed my quirky top ten list of music I like to listen to while transcribing. I do want to add one option more to the list: everything else in my collection in case the top ten list doesn't do it for me at the given moment.

Happy Monday, and may no fourth be with you, just the magic number of three.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #303: A Plethora Of Plots, But Only One Destination

Flashback photo from when even the animals were chill, circa early 2000's.

A comment that I had made earlier in the month on a blog post about secondary characters got me to thinking about how I was able to successfully pull off the mammoth complexity on what seemed to be on the surface, a basic plot: husband is kidnapped. Wife and ex-wife go play fetch.

Simple, direct, home-grown and has the hallmarks of a pedestrian story. But what if I told you that out of that basic premise, I managed to weave over one dozen plots that involved more than an equal number of characters, all of whom had one singular target in play: the husband.

Granted, the most plot lines that I managed to write for a given novel/novella was three (my recent novella has three plot lines), and I certainly didn't plan on having to deal with so many plot lines within a given story. But after the dust had officially settled in 2025, I have to say that I am very pleased to say that pulling off such a mammoth complexity as this was a worthy feather in my cap (and a headache for a future post) that I would like to share with everyone.

~~~~~~

1} For starters, we have the original plot line that begat nearly one dozen other plot lines: husband is kidnapped and his wife and his ex play fetch. From here, we have our second plot: ex-wife is connected physically/mentally/spiritually with her ex, and now that connection is broken. So she wants to retrieve him in order to restore that connection and become healthy once again.

2} Our third plot line is as follows: the wife has a betrayal by those who she thought were family (non-blood) and that betrayal revolves around her husband.

3} Our fourth plot line that revolves around this husband involves the mercenary who was hired to perform the kidnapping, with the person who hired her being plot four point five, because both plot lines are tied at the hip.

4} Our fifth plot line plus the additional half, involves a powerful person from the ex-wife's past. He wants to help her achieve her goal, but knows he can't directly help her, but can indirectly. The additional part of this plot involves two others whose main objective is to help retrieve the husband so that they may achieve their goal of freedom.

Presently at this juncture, we have five main plot lines along with two sub-plot lines, all of which center around the husband. Let us now continue.

5} Our sixth plot line revolves around the half plot point from number four, as this person was the actual catalyst for the original plot point. Do not fear though, as this plot point has an additional plot point that involves a recently added member of her retinue.

6} Out of the next three plot points, two of them indirectly involve the husband, while the third involves catalyst from point four and point six and the added member of point six. Our seventh plot point involves the wife who indirectly caused the death of her sentient; our eighth plot point involves the ex-wife from point two, who kills the close family member from point four, with the half plot point involving the reincarnation of that particular member. our ninth plot point involves the added member from point six who takes a traitor in their midst.

7} Our tenth and final plot point involves two people who were caught on a camping trip and turned into edibles. However, they were given the opportunity to earn their lives back by performing a task for the mercenary, and if you'd guessed it was something to deal with the husband, you would be correct. The half plot point is that one of them becomes an involuntary host to a sentient who has a week to prove their worthiness or else.

In conclusion: out of ten official plot points, we have one sub plot point doubling as a full plot point, three sub plot points and one plot point that has no ties to the husband whatsoever. Fifteen plot/sub-plot points spread among eighteen characters, with only one plot point not connected to the husband in any way, shape or form.

I don't know about you, but I personally find it impressive that I had fourteen plot/sub-plot points tied to one person and managed to properly resolve every single one that was tied to the husband to everyone's satisfaction. Even though I don't think this is something that I'll be able to repeat anytime soon, I genuinely believe this has made me grow quite a bit as a writer, because it's showed me that with a little patience, I can handle up to triple the previous amount of plot points that revolve around one person.

I think I have a better understanding of what it takes to create a complex book series, especially one based in the fantasy genre, and why it can take multiple years to finish the series.

Here's to a happy Monday and stress free first week of the official Christmas shopping season.

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #302: When Music Clashed With Reality, It Made You Think

What advertising was like back in the mid 2010s: cartoonish and cringeworthy.

Back during my younger years (that would cover 1980 thru 1999), I used to hear all kinds of songs that were based (sometimes loosely, sometimes not) on real events. Those songs would always make you think and sometimes search out the event in question that piqued your curiosity.

For example, my earliest memory of a good song based on a real event was Ohio by CSNY (listened to it a lot on oldies radio). Unless you've been living under a rock or in a non-Western country, the song was about a shooting that took place during a protest of the Vietnam War at Kent State University.

As I grew older and expanded my musical horizons to include non-commercial  radio stations, I would often hear other songs based on real events that received a lot of notoriety upon release.

The punk band The Dead Kennedys performed a cover of I Fought The Law but reworked the lyrics to have it based on the shooting of Harvey Milk and George Moscone by Dan White (he of the Twinkie Insanity plea). I heard this one on college radio because no same commercial radio programmer would in fact, add it to the playlist.

A few years after the previous song listed, the Boomtown Rats (Bob Geldof's original band) wrote a song based on a school shooting in California called I Don't Like Mondays, which was the reason the shooter gave for shooting up the school. Now that song still gets fossilized on the classic rock/alternative radio stations. Song itself has quite the orchestral feel to it, which is perfectly suited for the lyrics.

Fast forward almost two decades, and now you have a solid major label debut from one of those flavor of the month 90's alternative bands that had one banger of a release then got forgotten about. Seven Mary Three released an exceptionally dark c.d. that produced two radio friendly hits: Cumbersome, and Water's Edge. Water's Edge, according to the band, was based on a real life event that took place in Chicago. It seems that a young woman was being chased by two drug dealers and they boxed her in on a bridge. Frantic, she took her only route available for her to escape: jumping off the bridge into the water below, where she ultimately drowned.

Staying in the same time frame, R.E.M. created the song What's The Frequency, Kenneth, which was based on an incident involving CBS news personality Dan Rather, when he was attacked by a mentally ill man who kept repeating that phrase throughout the attack (note, he wasn't caught until almost a decade later).

Drift back to 1991, you have the song Tears In Heaven that Eric Clapton wrote as a tribute to his young son who tragically passed away after falling out of an apartment balcony.

These few rock songs are the only ones that stick out to me, if only because the majority of songs like this are done in other genres, like Bluegrass, Americana & Folk, which can pack a more powerful punch and leave a far reaching lasting impression.

Are there any songs that you know of that are based (loosely or completely) on real life events?

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #301: Back In Ye Olden Days When Comedy Was Memorable

A blast from the very distant past: sidewalk art via the road, circa 2010's, as performed during the annual Waterfall Festival. It's funny how images can conjour up a tenuous connection to a random song, in this case, The Spirit of Radio.

As most of you know, I am quite ambivalent to most forms of audio that originated during my teenage years which are currently being fossilized on an hourly basis on commercial radio.* There are however, a few exceptions, of which one is comedy. I grew up/came of age in what I consider to be the 2nd golden age of comedy (late 70's through the 80's) and is where I often retreat to when I want to listen to good comedy.

*the stuff being fossilized today I remember listening to when it was actually fresh.

I actually have quite a bit of comedy in my record collection that ranges from old time (Lily Tomlin), to really old time (Victor Borge), from crass druggie (Cheech & Chong) to the strangely topical (Vaughan Meader and Rich Little), to name just a few. But I rarely venture beyond that 2nd golden age of comedy, simply because the majority of today's doesn't really do anything for me (I will admit to watching some Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence in their collective prime though).

However, amongst the baker's dozen or so of comedy records that I own, there are three that I do cherish from my favorite comedian-turned-to-very-competent-actor, Steve Martin.

~~~~~~~~

Pictured to your immediate left is one of those albums, which in today's world the front cover featured would probably get you into trouble for being the "T" phobic word.

Like most adults who grew up in the seventies, my initial exposure to Steve Martin was through his novelty song "King Tut" (also had my first exposure to censorship on vinyl with the B side called "Excuse Me"). This novelty song of his piqued my curiosity enough to search out his comedy albums, of which three: the one pictured to your left, "A Wild And Crazy Guy" and "Let's Get Small", are part of my collection.

I felt his humor really connected with me on a personal level and some of his bits, like the aforementioned "King Tut" and "The Cruel Shoes" became absolute comedy classics. The man was an absolute legend as a comedian and I personally believe he was way ahead of his time with his comedy.

I for one, was truly sad when he stepped away from being a comedian and moved in other forms of entertainment, like acting (the majority of his movies were commercial/critical successes) and music (he dipped into bluegrass with his banjo playing, and became quite the solid entertainer in that endeavor). In general though, his comedy is still, some 40+ years later, my go-to humor of choice whenever I want to have a chuckle or two.

He was my introduction to the type of comedy that you really don't see much of these days: clean with the occasional swear word thrown in. In my later adult years, I came to appreciate his comedy as well-written sketches that actually relied on talent with the English language as opposed to 50 ways to use the "F" bomb in grammar. I think subconsciously, I wanted to emulate that with my writing: playing around with the English language just enough to make my stories interesting without an over reliance on select adjectives (trust me, creating a kneecap insult that replaces a swear word/multiple swear words is not the easiest thing to do).

He will always be a comedic legend in my book. A legend that people often strive to emulate but haven't yet completely succeeded in doing so.

So I leave you with this question: who is your favorite comedian, past or present, that has influenced you in a particular way?

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved