Episode #290: It's Been Traveling Like A Car With Four Square Wheels

This is pretty much how last week went: crashing hard after surfing through the dullness of reality.

The picture pretty much sums up the past week that was, in that there wasn't much of newness to it, just a leveling off from the plateau of freshness into the mesa of staleness.

The only thing of note that I was consistently working on, besides finally getting to the last stage of publishing the print version of my novella, which was fraught with serious examples of self-inflicted obtuseness that created extra work that didn't need to happen, was my post fantasy chapter outline/bullet points for my recently completed series.

One of my little quirks that will sometimes raise its fugly head is that I can be extremely....focused on certain peripheral items that are related to the original project that I would be working on. This chapter outline/synopsis is one such item.

This soon to be 150+ page monstrosity allowed me to go into further detail with my note taking, in that allowed me to properly plan out how certain chapters should be rewritten and/or revitalized. For example, some time during the second volume of the series, I decided to refocus on how I wrote chapters. Instead of writing a chapter with competing plotlines between two main characters (that ultimately became three) that would occasionally meet up throughout the series, I decided it would be easier to alternate chapters between each of the main characters.

This made things so much easier for me to handle, as each character would have their own chapter devoted to their particular plot line, plus all of the various tangents within that plotline, with the occasional crossover to the other plotlines, until the final three chapters.

So this is how I've been keeping myself occupied in the morning/afternoon/evening: churning out what I will predict to be 105+ pages of pure, unadulterated, board certified doctor scribble. And I do mean doctor scribble. My printing is bad to begin with, and my note taking has ramped up the scribble to the point of being undecipherable, like a court reporter's note taking.

Like it's now turned into a hybrid mix of printing/cursive handwriting, complete with words that are supposed to be, say seven letters long for example, being chopped down to maybe four, with no vowels and letters that could masquerade for six others (yes, my scribble is just. that. bad.). My scribble is what doctors should aspire to and what pharmacy techs should loudly curse to the bowels of hell over.

So....that's been my basic to-do list for the past couple of months, but up until last week, I was able to do other things around it so that I would break up the monotony of a dreaded, but highly necessary addition to the laborious proper editing of this series.

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Absolutely....in 2026, after I publish one final re-re-re-write of a previously published novella that I was severely disappointed with mere days after it went live.

Have a fantastic start to your month of September!

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

Episode #288: We Be Reviewing A Pop Culture Icon

Found this at my local Savers store (thrift store that's a slight cut above the Salvation Army) for about $6. This was the best of a not so good shopping expedition that day.

Even if you've never read the books, not seen the animated series (2006-22) nor the movie, chances are that you've heard of Curious George and his "owner" the Man With The Yellow Hat in some way, shape or form.

Curious George is a pop culture icon, much like Bob Ross is, in that all you have to hear is a particular phrase and presto! you instantly know who they're talking about.

On a personal level, I have very mixed feelings about Curious George. On one hand, I do believe I made a genuine attempt at reading the school age books  but quickly realized that while the illustrations were good, the story simply didn't keep my interest (I think at that point I was already reading way above my age level). But on the opposite side of the equation, the name was used as a bullying epithet that was directed at me during my late elementary/middle school years.

The end result of this potpourri of feelings is that as an adult, I've been very....meh...about Curious George. I mean, I don't go out of my way to be nasty about it, I haven't the need to defend it like Babar (another pop cultural icon), because most of the world doesn't have a problem with him on a cultural/revisionist basis. I certainly don't regress back to my childhood when other things are created from the IP like other types of IPs (e.g. Harold and the Purple Crayon cartoon series springs to mind).

But I do find it to be quite the blast from the past whenever I come across something that involves the IP, like the aforementioned commercial lithograph that was originally part of series carried by Target. Because even to this day some 50+ years later, it still strikes a (mostly) positive chord whenever I see or hear something about Curious George.

In conclusion, while I remain mostly ambivalent about Curious George, I have no qualms in recommending this particular blast from the past to others who might be curious, in a gentle George kind of way, about children's literature from their parent's childhood. After all, everyone needs to revisit something that was considered to be magical when they were a kid, right?

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

Episode #285: You Lie Like A Puddy Tat!

Taken in early July during my one, and it seems to be my only hike, up to the proverbial top of Cedar Mountain. I say "only" because I heard a rumor that a homeless person made themselves home in the back end of the closed Cedarcrest hospital near the fenced off area of the mountain.

There are very few words/phrases that can immediately change the direction of a given conversation/situation, whether in fiction or in real life, the moment they are uttered.

For example, "no", is a complete sentence that always changes the course of a given conversation/situation. Same goes for the "F"-bomb (there's a popular meme that periodically makes an appearance that describe all the wonderful ways grammatically it can be used (e.g. noun, verb, adjective, etc).

But my favorite phrase that I love to use for a given scene in a story is but two words in length, which can be divided into two sentences that can instantly change the direction/tone of a scene in a myriad of ways is, "you lied". Or as I often like to use it, "You. Lied."

I absolutely adore that nifty two word sentence because of the way it can be weaponized to move a story along in ways that can be totally unexpected. But, I never had to use it in real life, because unlike using it in fiction, there can be actual consequences when you use it in real life.

Until now.

As most of you know, I can be quite provocative with my blog posts, sometimes to the point where in 2021 I caused a rule change in my now former FB writing group after posting it (it was political in nature). So from 2021 until now, I had refrained from writing anything political, on any level (local/state/federal) on my blog. But I was inspired to write last week's post about the US Constitution, so because I used my former writer's group to post weekly blog links, I checked two days prior to writing with the admins for what kind of parameters would be required to post it.

I spend the day conversing with one of the admins (he lived in the UK, so five hour time difference) and hammered out what I thought was a solid compromise: direct people to my profile for the post in question. For an added bonus, I posted a link to an 8 year old blog post from one of my previous blogs.

So I post the link and directed people to my profile and all is good. Right?

Wrong. I come back three hours later to find my blog post gone. I eventually find it a queue for admin approval, which really annoyed me, because I had no DM telling me that my post was pulled. So naturally I came to the logical conclusion that I was lied to. Or in modern parlance, gaslighted. And as an added bonus, when I decided to make my annoyance known prior to leaving (after deleting the post in question), I found that my post was put into the queue for admin approval as well.

So not only was my post pulled AFTER getting approval for it, I was suspended (at least it seemed that way to me) and no one was going to clue me in as to why I was suspended or why my blog post was pulled for approval after receiving approval nor why my last post complaining about their censorship needed approval. In fact, as of the date of this post, no one has reached out to me from that writer's group to explain their actions.

As most of you know, I have major issues in being censored/lied to for/about my writing(s) over the years, both in the digital world and the real world, so I have a tendency to get quite upset when people choose to shoot first and ask questions later.

In the short term, I am looking for another writer's group in which to participate, one that is consistent on having sensible rules, with the occasional exception, as well as being honest about what they say. In the long term, while I haven't burnt any bridges with the half dozen friends that I have acquired through that group, I am being careful on how I go about broaching this particular issue with them.

Presently, that scene from the original Star Trek show, where Kirk says to Norman that whatever Harry Mudd says is a lie. Harry Mudd proceeds to say to Norman, "I lie". Norman ultimately cannot reconcile what Kirk said and what Harry Mudd had said and blows a chip, is how last week has gone in regards to my blogging.

Here's to telling the truth and learning how to say "no" without being wishy-washy about it.

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

Episode #284: Constitutionally Catatonic Conundrum of Chuckling

Every American's new number one favorite document to hotly debate about, is a home grown creation that promises more chills, spills and mega thrills than any measly book written by the same English author that gave us a dystopian novel about an animal farm.

This week's blog post came to me much like the bulk of my previous posts: during a bout of self-inflicted stupidity, in which I actually decided to open the pictured book and actually browse the pages.

Among the various sections that I had skimmed, one really stood out to me: Amendments Proposed But Never Ratified.

Did you know that since the inception of this wonderful country, more than 10,000 amendments have been proposed, and that the Constitution has been changed a grand total of 27 times, giving us a grand total of 27 Amendments, with the 27th being approved 203 years after it was proposed (1992 changes to congressional salaries). If you're wondering about the 26th, that was approved in 1971, and it lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

Any ways, I thought I would share with everyone a short list of proposed amendments that got seriously rejected by Congress, along with some enlightening commentary by yours truly. 

1. (1876) Abolishment of the US Senate: can you imagine the chaos if the Senate was abolished? Laws would actually be passed and a whole category of elderly people would actually have to become gainfully employed and have no real power.
2. (1876) The forbidding of religious leaders from holding a government office or receiving federal dollars: All NGO's would have to be secular. Even worse, they would have to perform continuous fundraising, and just about the only fundraising that the American public likes to participate in, is the purchasing of Girl Scout cookies.
3. (1878) An Executive Council of Three to replace the office of the President: a great way to legitimize bribery and corruption in the Executive branch. 
4. (1893) Renaming this nation to "The United States of the Earth": precursor to The Gulf of America.
5. (1893) Abolishing the US Army and Navy: no more of those pesky football games and definitely no more being the world's policemen. But hey, we can be protected by those stunningly brave social justice warriors, right?
6. (1894) The Constitution needs to recognize that the almighty Father and his Holy Son are the absolute authorities to human affairs: who needs separation of church and state when the church is the state and the state is the church.
7. (1912) Making marriages between races illegal: reality check, the unwritten/written law was declared illegal in 1967 with Loving v Virginia, which was affirmed by SCOTUS on appeal.
8. (1914) Finding divorce to be illegal: another reality check, spouses, usually female, aren't chattel that can be used and abused. They are living, breathing individuals who demand and deserve respect.
9. (1916) All acts of war should be put to a national vote. anyone voting yes is automatically drafted into the army: we could theoretically wind up with the largest perpetual peacetime army in the world. Of course, no one will respect us in the morning...or afternoon...or evening.
10. (1933) Limiting personal wealth to $1,000,000: adjusted for inflation, in today's dollars it would be $24.7 million. Can you imagine the outrage within the US Senate and House of Representatives that their personal wealth will be capped at $24.7 million? They wouldn't be able to...enrich themselves with all of those highly questionable (for us) financial maneuvers. I think I need to clutch my pearls tighter.
11. (1936) A variation of #9, with the difference being a majority rule affirming/denying that we should go to war: To be honest, while I'm neither a dove nor a hawk (realist perhaps?), this sounds like a happy compromise that neither side would like.
12. (1938) The forbidding of drunkenness in the US and all of its territories: this one is so far out of touch with reality that it should be written into an episode of the Twilight Zone or Night Gallery. Oh wait, this was written as an episode of the Twilight Zone, except that it dealt with the banning of being pretty/pleasant to look at and people got sent to a modern day reeducation camp.
13. (1947)  The income tax maximum for any individual should not exceed 25%: the earliest proposal for a flat tax, which of course would send one party into an absolute meltdown, because this means that they would actually have to stick to a budget. What a novel concept, sticking to a budget. I think I can actually hear the loud thump of jaws dropping to the ground.
14. (1948) The right of citizens to segregate from others: back then we as a nation were trying to desegregate ourselves and we eventually succeeded. Fast forward nearly 75 years, and we've sadly come full circle, as college/university campuses have now self-segregated themselves to the point where at some campuses, there are separate graduation ceremonies for each ethnicity attending.
15. (1971) American citizens should have the alienable right to live in a pollution free environment: yes. we do. Will it happen? not in mine or my children's lifetime...unless both sides find a realistic compromise that each side can live with.

So as you can see, some of those proposed amendments were so far fetched that they got seriously torpedoed by whichever legislative body they were introduced in. While others, even though they make minimal sense now, were just too radical to be passed by hypocrites on both sides of the aisle.

I know the above list seems to be a genuine exercise in obtuseness, but those were the people we voted for back then, because unlike today, the reps were a microcosm of their constituents. Which meant they proposed bills/amendments that accurately reflected the viewpoint of the people who elected them.

Reality is always conceptual when it comes to politics these days, because more often than not, the people we elect often present a facade of what they think will get them elected. Once elected, the facade drops and we're left with someone who doesn't truly represent us because they have an agenda that, more often than not, does not coincide with their constituents agenda. Once entrenched, they're almost impossible to get rid of.

Happy whatever day of the week you happen to be reading this post. I sincerely hope that this post gives you the briefest of chuckles to brighten your day, and makes you think about the people who represent you on whatever level, and ask yourself, do they align with your values, and if not, what are you going to do about it?

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

Episode #283: How To Keep Busy While Publishing

This was taken during my first real long distance hike up Cedar Mountain. The deer was gracious enough to allow two photos to be taken before they made a right turn down the mountainside (as you're facing the photo).

I know the blog post title sounds just a tad redundant, but I made the mistake of trying to publish my book in July, which is the busy season for publishing. The end result to this madness is that timelines are often stretched out, which for people like myself who don't have real deadlines to meet, are sometimes put on the back burner.

So the seriously obvious answer to the question posted above is keep writing. But what should you specifically write to keep yourself occupied? Short stories? I cranked out about ten short stories of various word counts from a low end of 2,500 to a high end of about 12k. How about a novel? I don't quite have the brain capacity for writing another full length novel. What about writing a novella? I might have the brain capacity for that.

But where would I get the germination of a story idea for a novella? That is a toughie, but it was a problem that I was willing to tackle, so to speak. I had one that I had recently put on the back burner this past spring because it was becoming a cluster....bomb of a mess, so I actually thought about taking another look at it. But the idea that I eventually came up to fix it was one that would need some serious brain capacity to work on and that was something I really didn't want to pursue (changing the character focus completely around by making the incidental characters the main focus and the main characters the incidental focus).

So I turned to the short stories that I had previously written, which I had previously talked about here. While nine of the ten stories written were major rewrites that ultimately used the original story as a outline, nine of those stories didn't possess anything that would inspire me to explore further. But that tenth one, it had everything needed to nudge me to take that risk of expanding it.

What did it possess, you may ask?

The short story possessed the ending. I originally rewrote it to emphasize that the assignment that the main character was to carry out was their final chance to actually complete an assignment, or face the ultimate consequence for failing to launch. I'll still have to re-re-write it again to make it fit the setting/aesthetic of the novella, which will be feudal Japan, specifically the Shogunate eras of feudal Japan.

Which if you think about it, is a lot easier to research than it was to research my fantasy series. I mean, one country (Japan) as opposed to four continents and two planets, one of which was due to world building; one time period versus multiple times periods; and finally one ethnicity/culture (Japan) versus six (five original: Mayan, Aztec, Incas, American and English; and one made-up: Pod People).

So after choosing the story that seems to promise a whole lot of prior to that could be successfully written to turn it into a novella of some kind (trust me, I already have, based on the actual content of this story, mentally written the entire outline of how events should unfold leading up to this particular ending, which is something I almost never do), the issue now becomes how much time I can spend mentally/physically working on it while waiting for the creaky wheels of self-publishing to advance back into my personal realm of frivolity.

The main reason as to why I'm waffling about devoting all kinds of time and energy to this novella is once I get the manuscript completely formatted for e-publishing (KDP, e-pub and Word), I'll have to apply the brakes as I need to pass on the specifics for the print version of the cover. And that can easily become a cluster....bomb of titanic proportions if I'm not careful.

So presently, I am following my own advice and have started working on yet another novella while waiting for phase one of my book to come back to me. My only hope is that I can easily pick up the proverbial pieces to the novella and re-start from where I had originally left off at, and not have it turn into something that showed so much early promise, only to flame out faster than a flambe dish at a fancy restaurant.

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

Episode #280: Is My Inertia That Blatantly Obvious?

This is about the only real selfie that you will see on any of the social media platforms that I use. This was taken between 2004 and 2013, as this was used on my very first blog "Cedar's Mountain" (you can find the link in one of the tabs above this post).

Before I get into the topic at hand, I want to make an observation: does anyone find it how remarkably obtuse some spammers can be when they ignore a caption that states comment moderation is enabled and post just the same? You would think that they would program their bots to ignore blogs/websites that have that policy enacted and just hit the ones that don't moderate. Right?

Back to the topic at hand: Inertia.

For the past month, I've been pretty much stuck in a holding pattern with publishing my upcoming novella. I was becoming so afraid of pulling the trigger (aka severely third guessing myself), so I started doing all kinds of things to avoid pulling that trigger. Things like:

1} Getting the short story bug and writing almost one dozen stories for maybe a short story collection in the future, although one of them is calling out to me saying "expand me to a novella", and I may do just that in the future, as soon as I can figure out how to work in that short story.

2} Beefing up my c.d. collection. I've temporarily stopped purchasing music from Amazon, and not because of some altruistic vibe of shopping locally, but simply because current life events have dictated that my frivolous Amazon spending be directed to non-frivolous Amazon spending.

But I did shop locally, as in I supported my public library by purchasing gently used c.d.'s (most of which were $1). I'm always of the opinion that used c.d.'s are the way to go if you're intrigued about a particular artist, past or present, but not intrigued enough to drop $10-$20 on a new c.d. in order to satiate that need.

3} Beefing up my DVD collection. Most of the DVD's that I've purchased came to my attention directly due to pay-cable t.v (e.g. HBO, Showtime, Encore) going through spurts of overplaying movies for a couple of months to gin up interest before taking them out of rotation (before the advent of streaming, most of the major pay movie channels had over a half dozen offspring that required content)

The movies listed are ones that I did not see first run, but saw on cable, which due to overplaying, got me hooked: Quigley Down Under (cool western featuring Tom Selleck); The Shawshank Redemption; Kung Fu Hustle (The gentleman who did the fight choreography for Crouching Tiger and The Matrix did it for this one); Falling Down (in my opinion, a truly underappreciated Michael Douglas film. Fun fact, it was filmed during the King riots of '92); Major League: Back To The Minors (fun fact, the Buzz are based on the real AAA team, the Salt Lake City Bees); and everyone's favorite spaghetti western: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

And finally, 4} re-re-editing a previously published novella. Or, that was the basic idea. Two years is a long time to go from not appreciating the original rewrite (went from the normal 3rd person/past tense to 1st person present tense) to having serious thoughts of leaving the bulk of it alone and just perform some continuity tweaks.

The short version, I have a previously published novella, A Taste of Pain, that ultimately I was not happy with the end product in a myriad of ways. In short, it should've been published as an e-book exclusive, without all of the fluff at the end (e.g. chapter samples of two other books to pad out the page count), which is one thing I'm giving serious thought to. But in regards to leaving it alone, after sitting down with the intent of re-re-editing it back to a traditional voice*, after tackling the first couple of chapters I came to the sobering thought that this story was flowing pretty good in 1st person/present tense view. Like it was a lot more personal/intense in that particular viewpoint than others.

*3rd person/past tense is usually the traditional method. But let me warn everyone, I've actually written stories in all three voices, because you know, I like to challenge myself.

The good news to all of this, is that the reason for the inertia has fundamentally changed. The original reason of being afraid to pull the trigger (my choice) has been replaced by simply waiting to receive the first version of a book cover. Only when I approve the cover for the e-book will the book formatter be able to start the process on their end. Until then, the inertia remains stuck in the same holding pattern, yet now, it's not by choice.

Contentment is a concept that has numerous paths to explore and no single path is the actual chosen one.

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

Episode #279: Sometimes Life Feels Like A Venn Diagram

Believe me, this blast from the very distant past (like early 2000s) kind of matches up with my state of being for this past week.

My life currently feels like a Venn Diagram. For those who need a tiny refreshment of minutia on what it is, please click on the offered link. Everyone else, I apologize in advance for bringing up something that horrified normal people in 2024.

To elaborate just a tad, I had a lot of things going on in the past few weeks in which the only common denominator was me. So, with that being said, let's explore this human equivalent of a Venn Diagram with me being the central connecting point to all four circles.

Circle #1: let's say this one features my recently completed fantasy series "Sister vs Sister". Because of the general state of blue funkiness that I was in, I decided to do one last round of pen edits before I really put it away for the next year or so. Going through that five volume monstrosity didn't really do anything to negate the blue funkiness, because afterwards, I really felt just a little bit...lost. Like an actual hardcore empty nest syndrome.

Circle #2: let's say this one features book reading. Normally I try to keep up with my reading by consuming at least two books per month, but lately, my heart really isn't into consuming books, new or used. As I've mentioned previously, I really had to push myself to finish the book, because even though the topic intrigued me, the content was just...meh. Because it was meh, this 240+ page tome really did a number on me, as I was torn between DNF'ing this bad boy and pursuing the sunken cost fallacy to the bitter end. Suffice to say, the latter was chosen.

Circle #3: this one is a toss-up between two writing related options, so.....Jeopardy? And my answer is, writing fresh stuff. I spent the better part of two months writing nearly one dozen short stories as a distraction to actually doing the item in the final circle. Out of those nearly one dozen stories, one of them had ultimately planted the seed of writing yet another novella, featuring the two main characters from that story. So here I sit, mulling over that particular idea. Or rather, that idea gently nudging me saying, "write me, write me...you know you wanna."

And finally, circle #4: my novella, "To Live Is To Die Young". After completing all of the necessary tangents that are required for this novella {e.g. title and blurbs}, I finally pressed the proverbial Pay Now buttons and did just that, to the tune of $450. Yay me!

So we have four properly labeled Venn slightly illogical circles, none of which actually touch/intersect with each other, but do intersect with yours truly. Which if you really think about it, is quite odd. In theory, all four circles should have at least one thing in common with each other besides the main point, which in this particular case, is me.

But...they do not. Unless you count that they were all vehicles for my procrastination, which really doesn't work for me. Absolutely none of them have a common.....wait a minute.....wait a minute....okay, let me stare at the screen for thirty seconds.....

at this point, G.B.'s legendary muse walks up to him and slaps him upside the head like Moe does with Larry, Curly and Shemp. He promptly slides out of his chair, but is immediately caught by his muse and placed back in his chair. She sternly shakes her finger at him before silently walking away with a swagger in her stride.

Dumbfounded, which is a normal state of being at least once a month for him, G.B. suddenly picks back up where he had left off at previously.

Well, I'll be a McDonald's ice cream cone. They do have at least one thing in common with each other: reading! No, really. Think about it for second: circle #1 requires a boatload of reading since editing is being done; circle #2, no-brainer since a book is being consumed; circle #3, needed to do reading because one has to proof their stories to makes sure there's no typos etc.; and finally circle #4, reading was definitely needed while putting together one monster manuscript for the formatter to begin work on (my formatter of choice requires the entire novel/novella to be one entire manuscript, no matter how many pages/chapters it has in order to create the necessary files for KDP/Print/Non-KDP platforms).

Huh...so we had a come to your deity of choice moment while writing this heartfelt lament featuring the almighty (to some) Venn diagram. Which, if you really give it some thought, is about a bogey over on the golf course of life for me. More often than not, I will arrive at a conclusion a few minutes after the train left the platform, only to belatedly realize that making that stop at my local mom & pop coffee house allowed to arrive at that wrong conclusion, thus missing the train.

So now what this post boils down to is to pay closer attention to your surroundings, because while you're focused on the beauty of the blossom in your hand, you're completely ignoring the vulture standing on the arm of the cacti who is counting down the minutes to when his dinner will be served al dente.

Having good eats is not the same as being good eats. Paying attention to finding a common denominator to the multi-tasking that you're performing can only breed success in the long run. But definitely pursue finding that common denominator early, otherwise the end result will be something like this:

"A blog post that started with good intentions, but stumbled so badly out of the starting gate that it has no choice but to flail its arms in a cartoonist manner while running like Woodstock flies."

Happy Monday to one and all, and to those who are parents, whether dual or single, I sincerely hope you had a very good Father's Day.

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

Episode #276: I Don't Really Want To Know...

You know your week has gone from the frying pan into a mud puddle when you can't even come up with a decent backstory for the picture that graces your blog post.

How bad has my week been?

Well....it has taken me about a week and a half to determine, with the help of my ISP, that my Chromebook has a bad hardware problem with the network. Which means that the EOL has come one year earlier than expected.

Ultimately, we persevered, as by the time this post has hit your feed (either RSS or Facebook), we will have our new computer up and running (EOL date is about this time in 2032).

With that being said, the reality of this post is that there's no real topic to opine about beyond the computer issues mentioned previously. The one silver lining (or bronze lining depending on what your opinion is of Alphabet Inc.) is that none of what I have is tied to Windows, which means that in a pinch I can access what I got via my smartphone.

Having redundantly restated my previous statement, I think the best thing I can do right now, is to link up to an old blog post from one of my archival blogs. I got at least five to play with, four if you disregard the adult oriented blog, with a blog post count in the excess of 1,200.

So please peruse this short post from one my old blog's called Father Nature's Corner, which was active in the early 2010's. The topic of choice is how/where I purchase my music from. A couple of things that you should be made aware that are contained in this nearly nine year old post.

1. The link for the blog "I Are Writer" does not exist. At one point I had a Tumblr blog to post my musings, which lasted less than a year before I decided to nuke that blog to infinity and beyond.
2. I'm pretty sure that this post was written in between a couple of retail apocalypses, so there are references to retail stores that have sadly gone to retail heaven.
3. My c.d. count from that post has grown by 25% since 2016.

Beyond those three notes, please enjoy that short post on my musical tastes and hopefully by next Monday, I should be back to my old self.

I sincerely hope that your past week has gone much better than my past week and I also hope that your current week is going lights-out fantastic.

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

Episode #271: When Research Fails To Connect

Random picture from the mountain that makes one yearn for the sanity of Father Nature this Spring.

As most of you know, I enjoy supporting my local public library by shopping at their internal bookstore for gently used books/cd's/dvd's at three times a month.* I find it's an economical way to pump up my respective collections of media.

*my public library has two book fairs for all of the donated media they receive year round and what doesn't sell there, goes into the bookstore. They also cull the collection and sell those items in the store too. All monies raised goes towards various programs that are not covered under their general budget.

For example, my haul for the past month featured music by: Tower of Power; EmmyLou Harris; Jethro Tull; Annie Lenox; G.E. Smith; Barenaked Ladies;18th century popular music; Chevelle and early 19th century folk/ballad music. Books include a bio of a seafaring Victorian lady and a look at the London underworld from pre-medieval days to the present (late 90's/early 2000's).

Today's post is about the creator of the early 19th century folk/ballad music. The official title of the c.d. is "The Battle of Plattsbugh: Music from the war of 1812", and the artist in question was Connecticut native Stan Ransom aka The Connecticut Peddler.

Now as I'm want to do whenever I come across an old (in this case 24 years) c.d. is to see what kind of current info I can find on the artist/musician in question. So I went to his website listed on the back to see what I can see. Found a lot of stuff that was grossly out of date: the website was last updated some 13 years (it had Adobe flash player, so yeah...) ago, a defunct like button to a FB page and the last release listed was maybe in the early 2000's.

So off we went to go a-Googlin', and while we had some initial success by finding a newspaper article from the 2010's about the gentleman in question, any further dive would require spending money on a subscription to a paper that I neither wanted nor had any compunction to read. So off we went a-Googlin', this time for an obit.

Now you may think that searching for an obit is a bit strange, but in the bio link on his apparently defunct website, he was born in 1928, so a good assumption on anyone's part would be that he is no longer residing among the living. Alas, I found some obits, but not for the gentleman in question. In fact, the last thing I found for the gentlemen was a LinkedIn entry from 2020 thanking everyone for their birthday wishes.

Ultimately, this is where we decided to end our research. If I want to search out for any of his remaining c.d.'s, I would probably have to try my luck on Ebay. It's a rare occurrence for me when my research doesn't pan out in any meaningful way. In fact, I think this is the only time I wound up shooting a total cap gun with my research, as every other time I've done similar media research, I've always had a conclusion, good or bad, that I could live with.

I always want to be successful whenever I perform a personal research project, and this one felt like a complete failure to launch for me. 

So my question to you, my drive-by reader, is this: have you ever done a research project, personal or otherwise, that became a complete total bust/total zero when all was said and done?

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

Episode #268: To Use What You Were Given Sometimes Takes Guts

"My dude has fallen over in shock and he can't sit up!"

Reality is that I have very bad balance and I happened to bump into my c.d. rack, thus the new resting position. But, after reading my post, you may agree with his response.

Today's post is probably going to be a bit of a sticky wicket, so to speak, so I'm going to do my very best to keep it sensible. I would like to also note that I will also try not to deviate too much by covering certain facets that have already been discussed in greater detail elsewhere.

Personally, this particular topic has been a steady part of my writing for the past dozen years or so, which is directly due to me creating super strong female characters that would use everything in their arsenal to accomplish their goals.

The topic in question is weaponizing sex, or as Pat Benatar eloquently stated in a song that was ahead of its time: "Sex As A Weapon". Even though this topic is geared to both sexes, this post will concentrate more on women than on men.

What prompted me to write this post was a particular YouTube music channel that I subscribe to that features a very talented female Japanese guitarist based out of South Korea. It seems like from day one, she initially attracted subscribers using what God had graced her with (with some very creative cosplay costuming that always (barely) stayed within YouTube's ToS) and kept them with her exceptional musical talent. 

So I got to thinking about how this particular issue often plays out in other venues/avenues, sometimes voluntarily: e.g. concerts, cosplaying (of all types, including what's mentioned above) and involuntarily: e.g. pro wrestling, track & field and other sporting events. And fiction, which is a separate category of its own.

note: I am not touching on the topic of adult entertainment, simply because that's an extremely volatile issue that I do not wish to engage in.

Now I'm old enough (reluctantly knocking on the front door of 60) to remember the before of the involuntary weaponization of sex, where the athletic uniforms for track & field weren't so blatantly provocative as they are now. Ditto goes for professional wrestling, where the clothing attire for women was in the vein of one piece leotards (similar to what gymnasts wear). I'm pretty sure that the after of the involuntary is something that most everyone reading this has seen the aftereffects: exceptionally tiny uniforms for track & field, and booty-shorts and tinier than normal sports-bras, along with some....enhancements for female wrestlers (if you think I'm kidding, check out any video/t.v. program/facebook page that involves ladies professional wrestling for confirmation).

For those of you who have partaken of today's music scene, or even going back at least a decade, you have seen performers dress in ways that emphasizes what they got, sometimes modestly, sometimes not. Even though they may draw you in with their talent, sometimes it's that weaponization that keeps you hooked, like a double edge sword.

Whether it's voluntary or not, it still involves making a highly personal decision about how each performer wants to use what they got in order to make money. Some people are very comfortable in their own skin, and thus have no problem in using what they got to get what they want. Others may be comfortable in their own skin, but simply do not want to cross that particular line in the sand.

Now I mentioned that fiction is its own separate category. The reason why I believe this is that every writer often injects their own morals/mores into their stories, because more often than not, a given character in a given story is an extension of some type of the writer.

In my particular case, using sex as a weapon in my stories was always thing, no matter what level of weaponization was being applied to a given story. This was basically showcased in my fantasy series "Sister v Sister" where, for example, the Queen of the Pod Planet was forced to weaponize what the deities had graced her with in order to get what she needed to effectively rule the planet. It wasn't pretty and it was quite humiliating at times, but I tried to make it so that everyone in the Queen's inner circle knew how bad it was, so they tried to help mitigate the degradation she was forced to endure as much as possible.

I think what it boils down to, at least in the real world, on how much is a woman willing to compromise their personal beliefs in order to have the career that they'd decided to pursue. The fictional world is far more nuanced, in my personal opinion, since no matter what the medium may be, it's the writer that builds that character and decides how much of themselves do they want to be injected into their characters.

For me personally, I do not question how a person, male or female, wants to use what the deities of their religion had graced them with in order to have a fulfilling life. As my very opinionated/well-informed daughter is often fond of saying, "my body, my choice.", and that is a mantra that I try to abide by (which is why, for example, tattoos do not bother me whatsoever, and even if some did, my opinion does not matter).

So my friends, what's your opinion about women using sex as a weapon, either voluntarily or involuntarily? Please keep in mind, I'm not touching upon the industry that is exclusively for adults whatsoever. I'm only touching upon what the general public, ages 15 and up, sees on a daily/weekly basis.

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

Episode #267: It's An Extremely Casual Road To Nowhere

Spring is really, really, really trying to make an appearance on the mountain this month. Let's give this little guy three cheers and a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!*

*for those of you who do not know, this word is now a worldwide sports meme, both audio and video.

Have you even sit down in front of your computer, open up your brain after opening up a freshly blank document and start pounding away on a story idea/blog post that sounded "oh-so-promising",  produce maybe five paragraphs, then realize it wasn't such a hot idea after all, so you nuke that mess and start all over again from scratch?

Glad to know that I'm not the only one with a slushie-brain in a tidy world.

Anyways, I wanted to give a writing update this week, but consider how few "hits" I get from people to visit, as opposed to my non-writing related blog posts (averaging about 36 hits per week), I wanted to spice things up by bringing back my Abnormal Reviews reviewers Ted & Bob, to liven things up. Alas, I had no such luck, as per the opening paragraph, it was a downhill ride to the cesspool of nonsense, thus we decided to flush it away.

So here we are, a little flummoxed on how best to give a writing update w/o people yawning until they cry. But since we have that can-do attitude of stubbornness, we're going to give it our best shot. To begin at the beginning, we have our recently completed novella, now called "To Live Is To Die Young".

Unlike last year, when it literally took a village over the course of two months in order to come up with a title, long blurb, short blurb and even a cover design for my novella The Mortality of Familial Love, this year, for my upcoming novella, it literally took me a total of seventy-five minutes, spread out over three days, to come up with a title {pen, paper, and nailed it on the ninth try}, a long blurb {fourth draft was the keeper} and a basic outline for a cover design. It's currently on the back burner due to budgetary constraints and the lack of a short blurb.

And since I needed to stay occupied in some particular way, we decided to work on a short story collection. I have three short stories {two original and one re-edit from a blog posting} already in the can, so it took me but twenty minutes to go through all of the short stories from my defunct short story blog and find a half dozen suitable specimens that I can rewrite. I also decided to write one fresh story featuring my wonderful literary muse, who was finally given a proper name and in this story, was elevated to be an upper-crust member of society.

The fun thing about this story, in addition to being low-fantasy, is that it's sprinkled quite liberally with concepts from my recently completed five volume fantasy series {e.g. telepathy, intraspace travel and sentients/empaths}, and most importantly, the story is basically writing itself. Like I'm just the conduit for the main character {my literary muse} as well as the supporting cast. It's only been about one calendar week, as of the date of this post, and I have the equivalent of 13 typewritten pages hammered out.

So this is my, what I hope to be, a lighthearted writing update. I say 'lighthearted', because I don't think I've had a long period of time where a short story simply flowed out of my pen to paper, nor did getting three of the four major items needed to publish a book completed with relative ease.

I like things to be easy in my writing life. Makes me feel like I can actually complete something without getting aggravated.

A very happy Monday to one and all.

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

Episode #265: It's Never Simple!

Harbinger of what we hope will be a pleasant Spring 2025.

The title of this week's blog post was a favorite saying of a wonderful old supervisor of mine back when I was a newbie state employee in the late 90's. She would often utter this phrase whenever she came across a particularly annoying government rule that was explicitly designed to make something 10 times more difficult to complete than it needed to be.

I found myself thinking about that particular phrase when I was trying to come up with something to write about this week {fun fact: this year marks my 17th consecutive year as a blogger, having started in 2008}, and after pondering about during a Saturday evening nap, I realize that blogging is painfully similar to writing a novel.

Point A: Trying to come up with a topic (blog) or an idea for a story (writing). Both have a gestation period, but a blog's, due to circumstances, is the equivalent of the lifespan of a house fly; while a story idea's gestation period is the equivalent of the lifespan of a fruit fly.

Point B: Fleshing out a blog post to the exact point where it can keep a reader engaged is a tricky endeavor, since if you make it too long, people will step out and not finish reading it. Make it too short and people will get the idea that you write clickbait; while fleshing out a story idea is an easier endeavor, in that the only limit you have is your preferred production type (e.g. short story, flash, novella).

Point C: Engaging the reader. A blog post, above all else, must engage the reader in a topic that they would want to know more of, in some particular way. Make it too esoteric, and you'll attract a minuscule fraction of the actual audience you want; on the other hand, a story idea often has a built in audience to begin with, and it often boils down on how you wish to expand and expound upon said idea in order to keep that built in audience engaged.

Point D: Offensiveness. Obviously, you have to tread a very fine line of a hair follicle when it comes to writing a blog post, with the main reason being is that you run the very real risk of alienating part of your audience if you write about a hot-button issue (politics for example) in specific terms rather than general terms (national politics vs local/state); a story idea is the complete opposite, in that while you may alienate some with the way you expand/expound on your story idea, the bulk of your audience with not be alienated.

Point E: Well, I don't really think there's a fifth point to be had, as I basically covered the four main differences between blogging and writing. 

However, in summation, it's never simple when it comes to blogging, because if you make a direct comparison to writing, blogging has way more rules that you have to perpetually navigate on a (in my case) weekly basis, whereas when it comes to story writing, the only rules that you have to navigate are those in your chosen length and genre. 

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

Episode #260: Playing Nice In 2025

A winter scene of both discontent and peace of mind {photo taken in the mid 2010s}.

I've been going through a spate of blahness this week, in that things that would normally roll off my back decided to affect me mentally. Which in turn kind of affected my blogging, as I had a very difficult time in coming up with a suitable topic to blog about. But, as you can see, I did, so here we go.

Back in my younger-ish days (say three decades ago), I was very much, as I like to call someone today, a Richard Cranium with my interactions with people. I didn't bother playing nice with people, made a complete nuisance of myself online, and all around I was generally not a very nice person to be around.

Fast forward to now. I'm a father and a grandfather and I've managed to mellow out quite a bit, both with the general public as well as my family. I'm way more tolerant and easy going with my RW interactions. Online though, is a whole different enchilada.

Life is way more polarized online now, than it has been before. It really doesn't matter what platform is being used nor what topic is being discussed, it's gotten to the point where you can simply start a flame war simply by pointing out the fallacy/hypocrisy of a person's argument. Especially if the person is a part of the entertainment industry (granted, this is a very big umbrella).

Lately, I've been forced into the position of unfollowing people on the various social media platforms, as it seems to be the only way that I can give myself peace of mind while following a basic tenet that people have seem to completely abandon today.

Scrolling on by. Not watching. Not reading. Completely ignoring.

I learned this lesson early on while participating in socialized media. Basically, it works like this: no one is forcing you to read, to watch or to listen to anything that you come across. If you no like, you no have to participate. It's just that simple. Normally, if I see something I don't like, I don't pay attention to it and I try not to engage, which in today's world is very hard to do.

The hive mind is a terrible thing to experience, mostly because the hive mind will often be led by people who portray themselves to be open-minded, but show themselves that they're anything but. I have experienced this on numerous occasions, and it pains me deeply whenever I'm forced to deal with it. Constructive debate is always a good thing, and I enjoy a healthy difference of opinions. But it's hard to have a healthy debate of opinions when the other participants don't want to....well, participate.

So, it truly saddens me when I'm forced to go NC or LC with people who I've known for years (mostly online), simply because of their inability to play nice, at least with people who do not share the same viewpoint as they do.*

*this is the closest that I will come to laying out the actual reasoning to me going NC and/or LC with others. pretty sure you can make an educated guess.

It bothers me greatly when my online world is nothing like my real world. It was, at one point decades ago. But now, people completely embrace the keyboard commando ethos with their online world and ignore the collateral damage they leave behind. The collateral damage is very much real and quite destructive in the long term.

I'm turning 60 this year, and to be frank, I'm way too old to be dealing with the close-minded hypocrites of the modern world. It's tiring, dull, and very unimaginative, especially if you're dealing with the hive community of whatever topic that is being bandied about (e.g. writing). I have better things to do with my time than to make an attempt at engaging in a polite discussion with people who choose not to do so.

Thank you for allowing me to bend your ear about playing nice in 2025. The one thing that you should take away from this, is that sometimes, you have to stay in your own lane if you want to maintain your peace of mind online. There is absolutely no shame in applying the philosophy of "scrolling by" in your online world, nor is there any shame of going LC or NC with someone in your online world.

Peace of mind is something we all can strive to acquire and enjoy, especially in today's noisy online world. Remember, you have the power to simply walk away and unplug. Do it today, and you'll feel better tomorrow.

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

Episode #256: How Do I Write Thee? It's A Complicated Process

To semi-quote Yogi Berra, "It's deja vu all over again."

Even though this was taken two days after Christmas 2023, we were greeted by the same exact display two days after Christmas 2024. Makes me want to play this Valentine favorite from my high school days.

My writing process, for lack of a better word, is "complicated". It wasn't always this way though, as previous to 2021, I wrote like every other writer on the planet: with a computer (laptop/PC/any other computer related device). But unlike everyone else, my output could be calculated in weeks/months, instead of hours/days.

And the worse that my genetic malady affected my hands, the more that my output dried up. Until finally in late 2020, I decided to become like the writers prior to the creation of the computer and typewriter, and do everything with pen and paper. I had last done pen and paper with my blog between 2007-2009 before the motivation dried up, so resurrecting the pen and paper seemed like a no-brainer.

But, a funny thing happened along the way of doing my writing the old fashioned way (not completely as draft 1A was transcribed to the computer): I began to actually pay attention to what I was writing for characters and scenes. For those who constantly battle with variations of the old adage of "distractions often drain the creative juices dry", I managed to bring that battle to a well deserved stalemate.

Here's how I managed to accomplish this feat of daring-do.

1.  I do not have Meta Inc on my phone, nor do I play with any other of the popular socialized media platforms save YouTube (I am forever connected to Alphabet Inc). In fact, I have seven apps that get regular use: two music/podcast apps, two news apps, YouTube, a crossword puzzle app and a sports app.
2. I use Google for research purposes while I'm writing (e.g. grammar, culture, religion) at least 97% of the time with the remaining 3% used for crossword puzzle breaks to recover from hand fatigue.
3. Because of the previous two points, my actual total digital time spent while I am actually writing totals about one hour, out of a typical six hour blocked out day for writing (normally 2 hours in the morning, an hour in the afternoon and the remaining three in the evening), with the remaining non-sleep hours doing other non-computer things.
4. Finally, more writing by hand equals less total time spent on the computer per day. Add in the fact that I'm happily retired and enjoy doing other things than doom scrolling on my computer, and my total time on the computer per day is a generous 1.25, 1.5 if I'm struggling to properly start a new chapter.

So what is the cumulative result of this digital malnutrition? A vastly improved writer. Allow me to elaborate.

I've long ago, at least 15+ years, paid closer attention to the books/stories that I was reading, partially to see how the good reputable writers properly crafted their stories. While I did, and continue to do, pick up valuable writing tips, I was often at a loss on how to properly apply them. Only when I had consciously decided to make the switch to pen and paper in 2021 was I able to really apply those tips.

Unlike when I was exclusively using my computer to write, in which beefy characters/scenes were frustratingly inconsistent, using pen and paper forced me to slow down my thought process by a factor of twenty. This slowing down allowed me to properly use the various writing tips that I had acquired, e.g. judiciously drip-dropping background info so as to more fully flesh out the characters, which in turn made my stories to be (hopefully) more compelling.

As with every preferred writing style/routine that a person decides to use, there were a few minor inconveniences that took me a very long time to get used to.

1. Word count: this was the first major hurdle that I had to overcome. I believe I've explained this elsewhere in the past four years, but to refresh everyone's memory, I never lost the ability to cramp my printing yet maintain that legibility at the same time. In short, I've learned to estimate what my word count per chapter is based on the amount of handwritten pages I would generate. So roughly 20-22 pages of handwritten text would equal about 12 computer pages totaling 5,300 +/- words per chapter. Consistently I might add.
2. Mistakes: this was the second major hurdle that I had to overcome. In short, I learned to use great quantities of liquid paper/white-out and blank file folder labels if I'd made a mistake while writing. This has basically forced me to double/triple check to make sure that what I was writing was what I'd wanted to write. In extreme cases, this would lead me to doing the following laborious task.
3. The type of mistake that would send a story off in the wrong direction: There were times throughout my current project where, after taking a break to think about what I had written while doing other things, I would realize that a particular scene was going in a direction that did not jive with the a given plotline. This would necessitate, regardless how bad the error was, to rewrite from where it began to stray and make it right. The amount of aggravation I would have to go through to fix and get the story back on track would boggle your mind. 

To be fair, point three is where I would often envy normal writers, because for them it would be the simple matter of either wiping out the entire error and restarting, or printing out and restarting, both of which required a few clicks of the mouse to fix and only two to three minutes wasted. For me, to fix an error of that magnitude would require, depending on the severity, fifteen to twenty-five minutes to fix.

Still, the one main point that I had managed to accomplish by writing with pen/paper, is that I was able to forcibly slow down my thought process so that everything coagulated properly, and most importantly, made sense. I often had the problem, no matter what stage of life I was at, to miss things while writing so that the final product did not make sense, or worse, shoot from the lip (aka, speak/type without thinking, often with disastrous results).

In general, I am extremely happy with the way I now create my stories, both fresh and rewrites. My aggravation factor is almost nil since changing, which is directly due to being able to concentrate more fully on what I'm writing (especially when I finishing up for the day, more often than not, I don't stop in the middle of a thought, but carry it through to the natural conclusion), whether it's a particular character or a specific scene.

I will say one thing though, that I have carried on/carry forward one particular computer related process to my current process, and that's printing out every completed chapter written. T.L.; D.R., there is a serious issue of control freakiness/microscopic micro-managing attached to that last statement. Blog reader beware, as the fat writer has a closing aria for the intermission of Act III.

It's Monday of the official first week of January 2025, why aren't you still on holiday?

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

Episode #253: Me Plus Automobile Equals Stressful Anxiety...For Others

Christmas 2024, where metal is king because the real thing is just too darn expensive (among other peripheral issues) this year. Plus, from what I understand, it took less than an hour to put up and decorate.

This week, I have a topic that strikes fear and stress in the members of my immediate family: automobiles.

Specifically, me and anything to do with automobiles.

First off, let me admit to this one important and highly salient fact: I am a 100% complete Richard as a passenger. I am actually proud of the fact that the moment I got my license at 16 (going on for what will be 44 years of being a menace on the roads), I turned into the mega-Kevin of the passenger universe.

If my ass wasn't planted behind the steering wheel, I became the kind of passenger that you would pull over to the side of a dark desert highway and push out of your car with a pointed metallic object. I have mellowed out in my older age, but I still wear my thorny crown with pride. Except on the rare occasions that I'm a passenger in my daughter's car, then I absolutely behave myself.

Now, onto the main topic of this post: my driving.

I make no excuses for my positively thuggish driving, as I was taught to drive by my dearest mother when I was a lad. Now she just drives bad. Period. End of discussion. Unfortunately her bad habits had also worn off on both of my children as well (she taught them), but that's a story for another time.

The key difference, in my humble opinion, between thuggish and aggressive, is that thuggish driving requires spatial awareness and acceptance that you drive like a jerk, but not jerky enough to draw the attention of Officer Unfriendly. Aggressive driving requires no acceptance of personal responsibility and a high level of narcissism.

I will also admit that my thuggish driving is an equal opportunity destroyer of cars. It really doesn't matter what kind of car that I drive, my driving habit remains the same, thuggish but obeying the basic rules of the road.

Here's a short list of the cars that I have owned/driven over the preceding four decades of life, most of which were driven into the ground/destroyed in an accident. In no particular chronological order, I have owned/driven the following:

Ford Pinto; Grand Torino; Chevy Malibu Wagon; Acclaim; Camaro; Hyundai; Ford Escort; Oldsmobile Alero; Nissan Altima; Toyota Celica (manual); Monarch; Ford Ranger.

Pretty sure that I've owned way more than 12, but you get the basic idea. 

In general, I do cause a lot of anxiety and stress with anyone who happens to be a passenger in any car that I drive. To be honest, I have to be one of the only people that I know that absolutely tolerates backseat drivers whenever I drive. I had people who straight up tell me that they will not ride with me due to the way I assault the road.

And I do not differentiate between highway and residential/town/city driving. Having resided in a suburban area located just outside the capitol for about fifty years and having worked in said capitol area for about twenty-two years, my driving has remain consistently the same: thuggish but obeying the house* rules of the road.

*When you drive in the city, normal rules of the road do not apply, but those that were modified due to certain circumstances do.

Now, lest you think that I drive severely stupid on residential streets, I do not. I am very well known in my local neighborhood, so I actually make sure to drive uber-responsible (e.g. posted speed limit or below, eyes open so wide that my entire head disappears). And if you think that after reading all of this that your opinion of my driving is low, just wait when I decide to tell you of my adventures as a pedestrian. BWHAHAHAHAH!

In general, I scare people with my driving, whether that other person is a fellow raging maniac behind the wheel, or a trapped passenger beside me. I drive badly and where I live in Connecticut, I am not considered to be an anomaly, but a normal member of the automotive society. If this was another time long ago, I probably would be the model for those news stories about bad drivers.

One more aspect of my driving you should know about that puts me a cut above everyone else save my two adult children, is that I still remember the majority of the back roads in my state from my days borrowing/returning newspapers/microfilm to various academic institutions. So not only can I still get from border to border to border without taking the highway, but I still remember what route numbers go N/S & E/W and where I generally is in a given part of this state.

Sadly, knowledge like this is rarely passed on to the younger generation these days. I mean, you should be able to in a pinch read an actual road map to get from point A to point B (last real road trip I had a road atlas with me and we were able to plan everything out down to the very last detail), but just like having to use an actual telephone, it's a very lost art.

So, how are your driving skills these days? Good, bad, average, or just so ugly that you're the proverbial answer to the insult of "you got your license out of a cereal box"? Inquiring minds might want to know, if only to avoid you as much as humanly possible on the roadways.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #252: Where Oh Where, Are My Blog Words?

We all need a little flashback to warmer times right now, and Happy little flowers can often bring the warm fuzzies to lighten the mood.

About once about every five months, I open up a blank blog screen, only to find myself staring at said screen and thinking to myself, "And I am here because....why?"

Which as a person who dabbles with the various parts of grammar is not a good question to ask myself. So when I sat down in front of the computer, and asked myself that very exact question, I knew a micro-second later that this was going to be ONE OF THOSE POSTS. The kind of post that starts off with good intentions but immediately pivots to being exactly like a t.v. series that jumps the shark when it comes up with a dream sequence that immediately wipes out the previous season's plots.

So the first thing I did (unnaturally for me) was to stare at my vast record collection to see anything popped out to me for a topic. Unfortunately, beyond noticing that I have several Jim Reeves records, nothing jumpstarted my brain cells. So we continued with our mental wandering to see what else could jumpstart my brain cells.

I briefly thought about giving a writing update, but instead I began ruminating about what kind of contract I would enforce on anyone who would want to option the movie rights to my series (you can spurt your liquid refreshment at the computer screen now). T.L.;D.R.: my series actually checks off a multitude of very important identity boxes in order to be given proper consideration for dipping into the cesspool of Hollywood.

So, after making that right turn at Truth or Consequences, we continued on our vainglorious journey for a writing topic. We briefly stopped at the music depot, to see what kind of topics, if any, they had for sale, but alas poor Yorrick, I knew him Horatio. So we stepped out of the music depot and thought about going to Homeless Depot or the railroad depot, but instead we made a stop at the mail depot.

Unfortunately, beyond getting a very thick guidebook to....drum roll please....MEDICARE! and griping about lost mail (that's a mind-numbing story within itself) and T-Mobile (another mind-numbing story within itself), nothing of any political import was to be had. So, yikes! and away we went to trample through the forest with our band of stoic manly men.

After trampling with my band of stoic manly men, we decided to exit the forest with blisters on my fingers and bunions on my toes in order to continue my search for a blog topic. Now if you've made this far and you're scratching your head wondering just exactly what the blog topic is and where are my blog words, let me tell you my dirty little secret.

To borrow from Jerry Seinfeld, this blog post is about absolutely nothing. Buuuuuut, it's a nothing that managed to bring a smile to your tired face on this mediocre Monday morning, because my friends, you read a post about nothing in particular. Unless you count someone dropping over a dozen pop culture references to be actually something, then you read a post about something.

Either way, you found a way to occupy anywhere from sixty seconds to one-hundred five seconds of your day absorbing a piece of fiction that contained absolutely nothing of import. Which means that my job is done here until next Monday, when we get to do this all over again not live in front of the studio audience, but via the compact disc. Or cassette, depending on what decade I would like to briefly reside in.

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #251: Cover Me Softly To Better Music Quality

This was taken on one of my few full scale (for me) hikes in Cedar Mountain this year. Legs are to the point where going up an incline greater than 1% causes great pain, but the peace and tranquility I do get in the aftermath is well worth the aggravation.

This week's post was inspired by a mediocre e-zine article that I had via the M$N news aggregate that listed their version of a top 20 cover song list, and one of the covers mentioned was "Boys of Summer" done by a mediocre alt-rock band called The Ataris.

Now I've listened to that cover and that mediocre version is the only standout of the mediocre collection surrounding that song. 

Stating my opinion about a mediocre cover song by a mediocre band perfectly segues into my personal opinion that cover songs fall into three distinct categories: versions done by quality indie bands/artists that exceed the original; versions done by known bands that equal the original, even when they put an unusual twist; and versions done by known bands that sound like they were phoned in or done to make a quick buck.

Four artists that immediately come to mind that fall into the first grouping are Post Modern Jukebox, Violet Orlandi, Frog Leap Studios and Broken Peach. They managed to harness the power of YouTube and parlay that exposure into live stream concerts, higher quality videos, original songs, original full length c.d.s (the former has 10 c.d.s out, two have released/are releasing their debut and Frog Leap has released about 80+/- full length downloadables) and tours. I highly recommend checking them out as all four are fantastic artists.

The second grouping, known artists that have done covers that have equaled/surpassed the originals, are the ones that I will truly rave about, because their covers show that they actual care about the final product. Some examples are as follows:

1. I Fought The Law by the Dead Kennedys: This particular song actually got me hooked on the DKs back in the early 2000's. It's a skewered version that features the events surrounding the deaths of activist Harvey Milk and S.F. mayor George Moscone.
2. In Bloom by Sturgill Simpson: This is one of the few cover versions of a Nirvana song that absolutely knocks it out of the park. It's moody, dark and in my personal opinion, is how the song should've been played originally.
3. Boys Of Summer by The Hooters: This is the song that triggered me to write this post. This cover by The Hooters, is performed in the way that I believe does this song justice: lightly dark, foreboding, melancholy for what was illicit for a brief moment in time. In my personal opinion, the song should've never been presented with an upbeat tempo.
4. Black Betty by Ram Jam: This was the best rework cover of a song that the artist never received a writer's credit for. The original was done by bluesman Leadbelly, so it was a down tempo bluesy kind of number. And for an added twist, Australian band Spider Bait did a very cool cover of the cover.

Now to present some examples of those who basically do covers to either phone it in or to make a quick buck. Sadly, these few examples are ones that get played a lot on commercial rock radio. There are a lot to choose from, since it seems that every well known band has done covers, with the majority of them being just average/mediocre. Note: there will be no links as I don't want to add any more to the seven I already have.

1. Whiskey In The Jar by Metallica: For me, this cover only stays true to the original lyrics and nothing else. Having grown up on Roger Whittaker (my father had odd tastes in music when I was a child), the original version of this song was a lively Irish folk tale, almost like a jig. The version by Metallica was something that just hurt my ears to listen to. Turning a song into a metal song doesn't instantly make it good...but it does give it the potential for it to be a money-maker/way for a metal band to keep their name in the public eye.
2. Everlasting Love by U2: This was strictly a cash grab/keep the name out there between releases. The original is an uptempo sub-three minute song that makes you want to sing along to. This bleechy cover does nothing for the listener, as it's bombastic arena rock at its absolute worst.
3. Last Kiss by Pearl Jam: Strictly a cash grab that offers no variation to the original. They turned a decent "teen death song" (a sub-genre in the late 50's that featured songs like this one and "Tell Laura I Love Her") into something that a no-talent person like myself could play blindfolded. The insipid drum beat sounds like it came straight from a recording studio from the same time period. Just. No.
4. I'm Down by Adrian Belew: This was, in my opinion, an uninspired version of the Beatles classic. It just really didn't do anything for me, and it was definitely suited as a "B" side to the "A" side of "Oh Daddy!" (Billboard 100 chart). I kind of put it up there with the uninspiring bootleg version performed by the Beastie Boys.

It's sad that one can remember the bad versions of well known songs more than the original versions of the same song. There are a lot of cover songs that I've heard over the decades, courtesy of college radio and internet radio stations like SomaFM and believe that at least 70% of them are really good, and this includes all genres that I've been exposed to over the decades. It's the remaining 30% that bothers me to the point of being exceptionally unbent, because it's often those 30% that get the most airplay.

So I hope you've enjoyed my pleasant little diatribe about cover songs, and if cover songs are your jam, please check out SomaFM. SomaFM is another link in the chain of the only good thing to come out of California: music. They have a channel that is called "Covers", which plays nothing but in all possible genres.

Happy Monday!

{c} 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved