The Perfect Song Blog

I’m going to have the surgery I’ve been putting it off for years. It will knock me out of commission for at least a week.

So I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to accomplish while I’m down. I’m looking at this as a kind of forced, albeit painful vacation.

Here’s a partial list of what I want to do.

Revisit some old movies:

Casablanca (for the fifth time).

Unforgiven (for the fourth time).

Raiders of the Lost Ark (lost track of number of times I’ve watched this).

B horror movies that I loved as a kid and appreciate anew as a trash loving adult. You know, classics like The Brain That Wouldn’t Die and Attack of the Giant Leeches

TV shows:

The Twilight Zone (I taped the whole series during a marathon on the Sci Fi channel a few years ago)

The Office (may be my favorite show of all time, right up there with 24, Lost, and The X Files.

Books:

Deadline by John Dunning who combines a great detective with the world of rare books which was a passion of mine for years.

At least one book by Hemingway to reconnect with a great author who was an early influence on my writing. Maybe A Moveable Feast, one of the few Hemingway books I haven’t read.

One book by Jim Harrison, one of the great living authors.

On The Road. My son bought me the 50^th anniversary edition for my birthday. It was an influential book on both my literary appreciation and my writing. I’ve read it three times. The second time was at lunch hour in my car in the parking lot of Ames where I worked as a shoe salesman for two weeks. (That is truly a footnote).

Seneca Myths and Stories, which my daughter gave me for my birthday. I’ve always been interested in myths, which you can see in my novel The Perfect Song.

Firefox for Dummies to learn some more things on this browser that I’ve been using for two years.

MacBook for Dummies. I’ve had a Mac for a year and barely used it. It’s time to change that.

Is this enough? I don’t know. I want to mix the classical and the cheesy.

Escargot and French fries.

That’s what life is all about.

Anybody have any other suggestions?

It’s 10 p.m. as I sit at my wireless laptop in a Days Inn & Suites, in Frostburg, Maryland.

Leigh and I started out this afternoon at 12:15 and arrived  five hours later. It  would have been faster without the construction on I-76 and I-68 in Pennsylvania and Maryland.  I’m giving the presentation to the University System of Maryland PR folks held at Frostburg State University in the beautiful Compton Science Center

Frostburg is a lovely old town laid out on a hill with restored buildings from the 19^th century.

When we checked in, I asked Leigh where the campus was she said, “The Acropolis is two lights down and to the left.”

“What’s the Acropolis?”  I thought this was a slang for the center of the campus.

“It’s a Greek restaurant that supposed to be wonderful,”  she said, reminding me how much she loves Greek food.  I shouldn’t have been surprised.  We found it on Main St..  The atmosphere was dark, peaceful, with wall drawings of Greek figures.  The cooks are Greek  The food subtle, fresh and authentic.

Driving back, a little old lady stopped in front of me and took a long time trying to back up into a parallel parking spot.  I slowly drove around here.  A pick up truck was coming toward me.  The driver was a type A dude with a big horn which he laid on hard.  He was probably in the right.  I shouldn’t have gone around here and I felt really stupid for doing it, but I think he was a little theatrical in his horn blasting.  Still it was a “cringe moment” (meaning I know I was wrong and cringe every time I think about it, and for the rest of my life I’ll never do it again).

Then I turned down a one-way street going the wrong way.

Fortunately an early evening fog was setting in and my white Taurus with the bright yellow “The Perfect Song” sticker faded into the mist so people couldn’t get on their cell phones and call friends and say “watch out for an idiot from New York State who drives around old ladies trying to park and then tries to escape by going the wrong way on our one-way streets.”

The fog was so bad  that  I gave up on finding the Frostburg campus.  We stopped at a Rite-Aid so Leigh could find a contact lense case because she’d forgotten hers.

I wandered around, listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival doing “Who’ll Stop the Rain” while looking at massage liquids.  There are too many choices anymore.  When “Who’ll Stop The Rain” came out in 1970, you had only Vaseline.  Creedence left the charts and K-Y jelly appeared.  Now there are liquids that heat up, make you tingle, and promise to make you think of Tahiti.

I don’t necessarily want to think of Tahiti when I make love.  And I don’t think certain body parts should have liquids applied to make them tingle artificially during sex.  Creedence wouldn’t have wanted them either.  Creedence is more of  the “Run Through the Jungle” type.  I think they would frown on any liquid that makes your wiener warmer than it’s supposed to be.

Back to our room.  Prepare for tomorrow’s presentation.  Answer emails.  Read.

Leigh and I sit in the Jacuzzi.  She likes it hot and I lose a lot of fluid sweating.

I wake up several times during the night, thinking, I suppose of tomorrow’s presentation.

I always get nervous before a presentation because, basically, it’s a show, and when you do a show, you put everything into it.

It’s a moment in time that you never get back.  So you give it all you’ve got.

More later.  Here’s a photo.

I was just checking my traffic facts (well, I do every night) and was amazed to find I have readers in 25 countries around the world.  There’s a big readership in Panama (thanks, folks) as well as groups of readers in Europe, Russia, Canada and the middle east.

I get involved in the regular postings that I forget that all this started with the Perfect Song Website, whose original purpose was to promote my novel, The Perfect Song.  The book, which still gets glowing reviews from readers, is available at Amazon.com or iUniverse.

All proceeds from the book go to the Perfect Song Scholarship Fund at Mansfield University for future writers.  So if you buy the book, you’re helping future students.  If you want to read the book for free, it’s on my website.  I also recorded an audio version.  Then, if you want to make a donation, you can do it on the site through paypal or send a check to the Mansfield University Foundation, Mansfield, PA  16933.  Mark it: The Perfect Song Scholarship Fund.

Thanks to all my “perfect songsters”  for letting me share my life and thoughts as I make my way through this adventure called life.