The Perfect Song Blog

Arrgggh!  If I gathered up all the time I’ve spent in learning curves and stretched them all into straight lines they probably could have taken me to Australia and back!  Tuesday night (after dinner at McDonald’s — and I’ve decided that grilled chicken is my M-junk food of choice), Jared showed me again the steps to upload an audio chapter.  This time I wrote down each step.  I type them up and printed them out.

There are 18 steps.  18!

I showed the list to Jared who now was working on Dave Fetzer’s problem.  Dave’s my assistant producer of the college podcasts.

Jared glanced at the list.  “That looks like quite a few when you put them in a list,” he said, nodding.  He picked up a pencil and crossed one step out.  “You don’t need that one.”

Seventeen steps.

I spent two hours last night moving through the 17 steps, text messaging Jared in between.  I think I had things so screwed up he couldn’t even find me.  Finally at 10:30 we both gave up.

“Dear FTP gods,” I prayed, “help me through this and I’ll never use RSS in vain again!  I will love mp3 for as long as it’s the preferred file. I will never take URLs for granted again.  Please, FTP god folks just let me post!!

I went in again tonight at 7:30 after taking a 20 minute nap to gather the strength I knew I needed for the ordeal.  It is now 8:45.  I made it through all 17 steps only to find the “publish” button had disappeared.  Where in the hell’s name does a “publish” button hide?

Friends, I am one frigging step away from publishing Chapter 2.  All I need is the stinking publish button !

I am going to walk calmly downstairs, fix a drink of pretty strong character.  I am  going to sip it as I sneak back up the stairs and try to ambush the lousy publish button.  I know it’s not far away and when I find it I will give you chapter 2.

sincerely,

www.dennismiller.net/homeoffice/mindnumb/learningcurve/

We learn the origins of Mendel’s obsession to write the perfect song in
Chapter 2 of The Perfect Song Audio Book.

File: Chapter 2

Length: 15:31

Size: 14.2 MB

We learn how Mendel, a frustrated young song writer, heads off across America on foot to gain experience and learn to write the perfect song. He roams, writes, and in frustration, throws away his songs. Poul, a directionless, lazy man who hates nature, is wandering aimlessly.  He finds some of the songs and picks them up, sealing his fate, setting the direction for the rest of his life.

File: Chapter 1

Length: 00:11:26

Size: 10.5 MB

Jared, my young guide in all things cyber, met me at McDonald’s for a quick supper before we started to work on my site and the  audio version of The Perfect Song.  I look forward to the informal meeting for a couple reasons.

1. We exchange information about the podcast world and other things he’s discovered.
2. I eat so rarely at places like McDonald’s that in a perverse, somewhat masochistic way, I look forward to eating there.

As we stand in line, he talks while I study the lighted menu boards that hang solidly above the window that separates us from the cooks who are doing God knows what to the various McDonald concoctions.  I study the menus because McDonald’s meals are a fairly new thing to me.  Every sandwich beckons: “Try me!  I look really good!  I’d fit well in your tummy!”

I clutch a coupon that says if I buy one sandwich I can get one free.  Finally it’s our turn.  I decide to go with the chicken ‘n bacon (ever notice that fast food restaurants have eliminate “and” from their vocabulary?  If an “and” enters the store it is immediately taken out back and shaved down to ‘n.

Kind of like rock ‘n roll.  Chicken ‘n bacon.

“You want it crispy or grilled?”  The woman behind the counter asks.

“Grilled,” I say, opting for the healthy style and feeling like an idiot because no one in the civilized thinks anything in McDonald’s is healthy.

“Let’s see.  For my free one, I’ll take the chicken nuggets.”

The woman shakes her head.  “Can’t have that.”

I’m confused.  “Why not?”

“It ain’t a sandwich.”

Of course.  Silly me.  If it doesn’t have a bun slapped around it, it ain’t a sandwich.  I order the quarter pounder with cheese.

We sit down and begin talking.  Jared has his standard quarter pounder, fries and shake.  He opens the ketchup bag and empties the runny stuff on the placemat in the plastic carrying tray and dabs his fries in the pool.

I tear off a big bite of my chicken ‘n bacon.   It’s large and messy, and good.  I take another bite and white stuff oozes out of the bun onto my fingers.  Hard to tell what it is.  Mayonnaise?  Ranch dressing?  Elmer’s glue?

I want to tell Jared I feel like I’m in an X Files episode but he seems happy swapping his fries in the ketchup pool

We talk and I eat.  The sandwich gets messier with every bite.  This is something that has to be built into the recipe: “The sandwich will gradually self-destruct until the McDonald’s eater is holding what appears to be a formless mass of processed high calorie sludge.”

I followed the ‘n sandwich with the quarter pounder.  It wasn’t as messy and, to tell the truth, it wasn’t as good.

It was also a mistake to eat it.

More later.

This is a brief introduction that sets the tone and mood of the novel. Music was composed by Nathan Miller.

File: Introduction.mp3

Length: 00:02:46

Size: 2.6 MB

This afternoon Leigh and I (and the dogs) drove over to Tops for supplies.

“Want a cheeseburger?”  I asked.  It was 2:30 and I was hungry.

“Sure.”

We stopped at the drive-thru window and ordered three kids’ size cheeseburgers.  (Yes, we bought one for the dogs to share, after I removed the pickle for myself).

The window on my side was still rolled down from ordering.  I looked out to see about 50 seagulls in a weird mathematical formation on the pavement.  All of them were staring at me.  It is a strange feeling to have an army of white gulls standing still, staring at you.

A couple took wing and hovered around the open window.  I started to close the window and realized they were waiting for food!

Damn, a trained seagull army in the Wendy’s parking lot.  I tossed out a piece of bun. About 10  of them pounced.  The one who caught it got a little beat up, like the player whose tackled and then piled upon by other players in a football game.  He didn’t seem to  mind it.  They all resumed their spots and commenced staring again.

I”m thinking:  This is one fine situation for a seagull.  How many people stop to eat their Wendy’s food and toss scraps out for the entertainment?  If I were a seagull and had the choice of working my ass off trying to catch fast, slippery fish or plant my talons on a parking lot and catch freshly cooked junk food, I’d chalk it up as a no-brainer and go for the grease!

I started tossing the bun pieces up into the air and the really good ones soared and caught it before it hit the ground.  If one did miss it and the bun fell, 10 squawking food-chain beggars fought to snap it up.

I wondered if this was a permanent crew or if there were others and they took shifts.  Does every Wendy’s have a gull flock?

Just as I was on my last piece, Zeus, the German Shepherd, stuck his massive dark head out the window.  With a few shocked squawks, they rose en masse and headed out.  I overheard one of them on their way out: “Holy shit! Did you see the size of that dude?”

The party was over, for all of us.

Everyday is perfect if we accept every moment in this continuous life flow.

Ran over to the mall today to check out Sam Goody’s, which is going out of business.  Everything is 50% off but I walked out with nothing.  How much stuff can you gather and actually  use in one life?  As I walked in, a short, squat man in his 60s leaned against the wall by the entrance doors.  His black tousled hair looked greasy and needed cutting.  He was smoking , concentrating totally on the cigarette as he put it to his lips, drew in, inhaled, then exhaled a long cloud that was immediately sucked outward by the wind.  Between puffs, he stared at the cigarette.

He wore large black-rimmed glasses that were so thick, when he glanced at me his eyes were magnified, giving him the appearance of a surprised owl.  He dirty, faded jeans were baggy and he just looked like he smelled bad.

Later, after I left Sam Goody’s I stopped in at a Friends of the Library used book sale where people pushed through the books for the last day bag sale.  All you can fit in for $3.  I wandered around, remembering the days when I bought a bag and filled it.  Sometimes I filled two.  I’ve owned thousands of books.   My life isn’t long enough to read them.

As I walked out the Owl Man stepped in, gazing from left to right, looking confused.  He bought a bag and I knew he would fill it.

*                *            *

Finished the audio version of Chapter 5 of The Perfect Song.

Once Jared helps me with the RSS  feed, I’ll begin posting it

I didn’t realize it had been so long since I’d posted.  I’ve concluded there are too many ways to communicate  these days.  I have two active email accounts, a myspace and facebook account along with my website perfectsong.net.  But my young teacher Jared recommended creating an account here and I agree it’s much more user friendly.  So I’ll be here on a more  regular basis.

I’ve been working on an audio recording of my novel The Perfect Song.  I commissioned my son, Nathan (check out his website at pushdawn.com ) to write some music beds.  The introduction and first two chapters are done.

I’m going to try to post one chapter a week.  It will be available, of course, to everyone.

More tomorrow.