Category Archives: Unpacking The Writer

Love Makes The World Go Round ► Unpacking The Writer

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Reflections on the last month

Whew!!! It’s been a whirlwind couple of months and it’s long past time for another Unpacking The Writer.

As longtime readers of Not Now Silly know by now the Unpacking The Writer series is a monthly look at what’s going on inside this writers head. This month I’ll include my heart.

Last week, for Throwback Thursday, I wrote about my Nuptial Nostalgia Tour, a 2-week road trip in which I visited Toronto and Hamilton, cites I have lived in. Meanwhile, Pastor Kenny Responds to my latest Pastoral Letter called The Trunk Lost In Transit, which means all my gentle prodding to have a dialogue about God, Atheism, and the LGBT communities has paid off. There will be more to come in that series.

My numbers for the past 30 days. Click to enlarge.

Since the last Unpacking The Writer I’ve also written about Tuli Kupferberg, U-Roy, Yma Súmac, Arthur Godfrey, and Linton Kwesi Johnson for my newest series A Monday Musical Appreciation. Under the rubric of politics I’ve also written More Proof the Palin Family Are Liars and Grifters; taken a well-deserved slap at Bill “The Falafel King” O’Reilly; written about the day Frederick Douglass Escaped; and concocted a little thing called Donald Trump, Demagoguery, and The National Shrine of the Little Flower.

I’ve also written A Message to Facebookers, an effort to vanquish the trolls on my timeline; reported that Don Knotts Is Back in a highly anticipated Morgantown update; written about Murder and Morning Television; and launched Throwback Thursday with The Westerfield Journals.

It’s been a very productive month. 

One of the statistics the Blogger platform returns to me is what search terms people have used to arrive at the Not Now Silly Newsroom. I always find this a weird, but interesting list. In the last month 2 people have arrived here by searching for “harris faulkner tit pictures.” I’m sure they arrived disappointed, since there are none. (Not that I wouldn’t want to see said pictures myself.) Two people have arrived here by searching “headly westerfield” and 2 by searching “where thevsidewalk [sic] ends headly wersterfield [sic],” which links to one of my more popular series on institutional racism in Coconut Grove.

I’m also celebrating an anniversary, of sorts. I’ve been writing Friday Fox Follies, my weekly column for PoliticusUSA, for a full year now. It’s a challenge to write because it’s carefully crafted by using the actual headlines found on the interwebs and put in prose form. It’s a lot of fun (for me, at least) when it all comes together, but there are times it has to be forced more than others. In fact, as soon as I publish this post, I’ll begin the next FFF column.

However, I’ve saved the biggest news for the very end: I fell in head over heels, madly, crazy in love. Incomprehensibly, it’s been reciprocated and I am happier than I’ve been in many years.

TO BE CONTINUED . . . 

Don Knotts Is Back ► A Morgantown Update

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The Don Knott’s Memorial is back in its place
of honour in front of the Metrpolitan Theatre.

Avid readers of my Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research series will remember 2014’s Travelogue, A Tribute to Don Knotts ► Morgantown’s Favourite Son. I am happy to be able to provide a NNS Update.

Morgantown has been on my Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research itinerary for the past 3 years. On my 1st visit, way back in 2013, I was delighted to discover a wonderful brass plaque embedded in the sidewalk in front of the historic Metropolitan Theatre, honouring Don Knotts. The Met was where Knotts got his start in Show Biz as one half of a ventriliquist act. His dummy, Danny “Hooch” Matador, was the other half.

Last year’s shocking sight

Last year, when the Not Now Silly Newsroom sent me on the Don Knotts Memorial Nostalgia Tour, I knew I needed an updated picture of the Knotts star. I was shocked — shocked, I tells ya — to discover it missing. I went inside and demanded to know where the Don Knotts tribute had gone. The ticket takers knew nothing, so I spoke to the manager. He was not sure where the star had gone, but he sent me up the street to the Morgantown Visitors’ Center.

While no one there really knew the whereabouts of Don Knotts’ Memorial plaque, my visit was fortuitously timed. The front of the Visitors’ Center was dedicated to a large, biographical, shoestring display honouring Morgantown’s favourite son. That report is documented in A Tribute to Don Knotts ► Morgantown’s Favourite Son, so there’s no needed to repeat it here.

Maybe it was last year’s Not Now Silly Investigative Report — or maybe it had just been returned on schedule after it had been repaired — but I am delighted to report that the Don Knotts Memorial Star is back in its place of honour in front of the Metropolitan Theatre.

I’ll be returning to Morgantown next month, possibly twice, on the Sunrise to Hamilton Road Trip for Nuptials. Not Now Silly will use the time to investigate what’s new in the world of Don Knotts.

Launching Throwback Thursday with The Westerfield Journals

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RECENTLY REDISCOVERED: These are the pages in my journal I thinking
aloud before I have my first-ever interview for my first-ever writing job.

I must have impressed because I was hired for Record Week soon afterwards.

Back in the day, long before there was a computer on every desk, I kept a journal. 

I now have more than a dozen of them weighing down one of my shelves. They are all a multi-media hodgepodge of words, collages, to do lists, calendars, phone numbers, and naked, uninhibited thoughts. Just the usual, yannow?

I’ve recently posted a few of the pages of my journal on my facebookery and people seem to like them. My friend (and former workmate at Island Records) Kathy Hahn reminded me how much she loved reading through my journals and how they anticipated internet postings, but in an analog format. It was a truly Smack My Head moment. I had never considered that before, but she’s absolutely right. Page after page of my journals mimic what I would later try to recreate on the innertubes.

In college I wrote a regular column called “Octoroon Expressway” for the alternative
newspaper. The journals have lots of collages made from 4 for a Quarter booth pics.

Maybe it’s a side-effect of aging, but I’ve been rifling through my past a lot lately. With my journals it’s been fun to see what I had written years ago. Some of it I remember writing. A lot of it I had forgotten about totally. Some of it I wouldn’t dare publish today, despite it being obvious humour that more obviously failed. I clearly had no standards back then. Now I have some.

Several years ago an unnamed friend at an unnamed publishing company
was convinced a compilation of my journal pages would make an interesting book. It was something I had never considered before, but she convinced me to go through all of my journals and highlight interesting pages with
Post It Notes. She thought some pages could be published
“as is” while some would need some text for context. However, she thought a compilation would provide a time capsule of the era.

I did as she asked and then packed all my journals and sent
them to her. She had them for so long that became worried that I’d never
get them back. Whenever I’d request them, she’d tell me that she thinks
she had her editor convinced, just give her a little more time. Eventually, the publisher passed on the project and I finally got my journals back. She had them for almost 2 years.

My staff photographer was longtime friend Steve Feldman

Now, as I launch a new totally original feature (because no one has ever used the expression Throwback Thursday before), I thought it would be nice to show a few pages from my journals every once in a while.

My new totally original feature Throwback Thursday will be, like my many journals, a hodgepodge of ideas and thoughts. However, the connective tissue will be that they will all be about history, whether it’s my history, or that of the world at large.

If you follow my Twitter of Facebook feeds, you will know I often exclaim that history is complicated. Hopefully, Throwback Thursday will simplify some of that complexity.

Throwback Thursday will provide a bit of fun for me as well. I’m looking at it as an archaeological project, whether I’m mining my own life, or digging up little-known facts and events from history.

So, dear readers, tune into the Not Now Silly Newsroom every Thursday at this time for a look back on people, places, and events that will delight, infuriate, or simply confound you.

Two journal pages that describe a Paul McCartney concert in Toronto, followed by a Bob
Marley concert in Detroit the next day, and being hassled by the cops in Southfield, Michigan.

The gal in the photographs only went out with me for my Paul McCartney All Access passes. We never dated again.

Announcing A Road Trip To Canada

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Fans of my research road trips have a brand new reason to celebrate. The fun’s not over just yet. The next marathon road trip is called The Sunrise To Hamilton Road Trip for Nuptials. 

A dear friend in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, is getting married and I will be standing up for him, tuxedo and all.

Because this will be the first time I’ve been back to Canada in a decade, I’ll be spending a few extra days in Toronto visiting 2/3rds of my children.

I have also been in contact with my dear friend Barbette Kensington, who is helping me throw a public get-together at Lola, 40 Kensington Avenue, Toronto, on September 16th. Click HERE to R.S.V.P.

There’s an outside possibility that I’ll have to go to Canton Township again to interview someone who wasn’t available in July. We’ll see how that gowes as it goes, but that’s why it’s on the Google Map at left. Otherwise, it’ll be the same route coming and going.

Because of the topography and the vagaries of the Eisenhower Highways System, it looks like I will be passing directly through Morgantown, West Virgina, once again. By the time I’m done, the people I know in that berg will be sick of me.

There won’t be any time on this trip to make arrangements to visit people along the route. However, don’t forget the get-together on September 16th in Toronto’s Kensington Market.

Road Trips, Writer’s Block, and the Uncommon Cold ► Unpacking The Writer

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So many things I can waste my time on when I should be writing

If you’ve only been following along at the Not Now Silly Newsroom, there’s not been a lot to follow since I began the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. Apologies.

While I had great plans for updates all along the trip, I only managed to keep my Facebookery and Twitter feeds up to date, sorta, more or less, mostly less. The Not Now Silly Newsroom took a back seat because, frankly, it was just too easy to pull out a phone, splash a few pics into the mix, and fool myself into thinking I’ve kept my readers in the loop. I know better because there are some readers who only get their Not Now Silly news from the World’s #1 Not Now Silly news source.

Moreover, my cute little [paid for] phone app failed, so I couldn’t update the Not Now Silly Newsroom in real time. It sounds like I am making excuses — and I guess I am — but it seemed that setting up the laptop was an ordeal. Three separate times I set up at the Starbucks at 10 Mile and Greenfield (Oak Park, Michigan), when my phone would ring and I’d have to pack it all up to meet someone from my research files.

[This particular Starbucks is known to the coffeenoscenti as Mel Farrbucks because it’s on the site of his former car dealership. In just the last month Mel Farr died. ►►► R.I.P. ◄◄◄] 

In terms of material for The Not Now Silly Newsroom, this trip provided more stories [yet to be written], on a variety of topics, than any previous Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. Coming soon: stories on the Viola Liuzzo Playground; Michigan’s crazy MMJ Laws, Dab Wars, and the Marijuana Movement; The Shrine of the Little Flower and the anti-Semitic Demagogue who built it; a Don Knotts-Morgantown Update; and another action-packed Pastoral Letter to my childhood friend, Pastor Kenny Wilson, with whom I managed to squeeze in an all-too-short reunion after more than 45 years apart.

Bouncing around in the very back of my brain is a possible article of things I witnessed in cheap motels. Due to ‘Merkin ‘Ceptionalism, there are families living full-time in motels across this country. Seeing children so used to motel life that they talk to arriving strangers was a shock, with more shocks to come. This article will require more research and, quite possibly, more road trips.

However, I also have to admit to several disappointments on this trip: Because of various problems [see below] I was forced to skip several stops on my itinerary: The Harriet Tubman Museum in Macon, Georgia; the Gilchrist Block Club, because no one answered; all my Jim Bloor side-trips; The Old Slave Mart Museum in Charleston, South Carolina; an overnight in St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continually inhabited city in the United States; and a quick trip over to Oveido, Florida, to meet a guy I’ve known online for decades, but have never met. All jettisoned in the end.

However, to be perfectly honest, my biggest regret on this trip is that Mark Koldys refused to take up my very public request to help write the Last Chapter of The Johnny Dollar Wars. Not only had I hoped to finally meet the hypocritical and cowardly MoFo, but I wanted to gain some closure and insight into why a former Wayne County Prosecutor would head a coterie of cyber-bullies who attacked me almost daily for more than 3 years. I guess I’ll have to write the last chapter alone.

Another visit to Coffee Jr. High School. What a difference a year makes!

Where was I? Oh, that’s right. I was excuse-making.

I no sooner left Canton for my return trip than I got sick. After the first night I merely felt stuffed up and told my hosts that it felt as if I was having a pollen reaction, even though I’ve never had one of those before. It didn’t feel like I had a cold.

At my next stop, Morgantown, West Virginia, I needed a nasal mist because I could barely catch air, but it still didn’t feel like a cold. I went to sleep in a cheap motel and woke up with one of the worst colds I have ever had in my life. I rolled around in bed for a few hours feeling miserable before I realized I still had 15.5 hours of driving ahead of me.

I barely remember the rest of the trip home. With each mile, the cold got worse. Then, because I wasn’t challenged enough, the A/C in the car started to work intermittently. It would go from frozen to having to open the windows if I didn’t want to suffocate from the heat. There was no Mr. Inbetween. Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. It was a recipe for catastrophic illness.

When I finally got home I crawled into bed and stayed there for an entire week. Between swigging Nytol like it was the cure for life, and changing my t-shirt every few hours because I’d sweat right through them, I know I put a few dinners on the table for Pops. It was difficult doing that and still staying as far away from him as possible because I didn’t want to dose him with whatever I had.

Funny tangent with a not-so-funny ending: A few months back I finally demanded that Ian Christie, of Webitez, set a date on which the site would finally be finished after agreeing to build it a year ago. I took that as a FINAL DROP DEAD date and actually put it into my calendar as a daily, repeating appointment that said GO NUTS ON IAN. It went off just as I started the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. Every single day on the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research I was reminded that Ian allowed another deadline to pass. By the time I got home, I was already primed to kick his ass. Then he gave me the perfect excuse.

You can read the result of that saga in Webbitez Bitez ► A Consumer Report. However, here’s the takeaway: to write that I post I pulled myself out of a sickbed. At the time it seemed like a Herculean effort to slam words together and to finally write everything about Ian Christie I had been holding back for months.

The Shrine of the Little Flower

Then I collapsed back into my bed for the remainder of the week.

Here’s the other, even sadder, takeaway: Foolishly, especially after Ian had disappointed me so many times in the past year, I still put all my Not Now Silly Newsroom eggs in the Webbitez’s Bullshit Basket. When that fell apart, it felt as if all the wind had been taken out of my sails. I’d stare at the computer, but I couldn’t seem to write a word.

I’d sort and resort the pictures I took on the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research, but I couldn’t seem to attach any words to them. I’d stare at black pages in my notebooks hoping to get inspired, without any luck. I’d pull up the blogger software only to be reminded that I wanted to be on Word Press template under my own domain name by now. So, then I’d go look at Word Press templates for hours until I could no longer remember which ones I liked and which I hated.

Then, I’d do it all over again.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had real Writer’s Block like this. This came from a deep, dark hole. Usually it’s really just a matter of procrastination, not staring into a blank abyss, hitting the brick wall of depression. I felt incapable of putting down any words whatsoever. That realization didn’t help the downward spiral.

My entire adult life has been spent writing because I am a writer. Now I didn’t even want to write. It was a crisis of confidence. Sure, I need to write, but do people even care what I write about?

Then it came time to produce my weekly Friday Fox Follies for PoliticusUSA. Fibs, Frankenstein, and Fabulosity was a lot of fun to write, but — more importantly  it acted as a brain-cleaner, clearing out all the cobwebs that built up since I left on the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research.

One good thing is that during this time I realized that the Not Now Silly Newsroom had grown stale. I’ve been jotting down a few ideas to refresh the site. As well, I’m still looking at Word Press templates. Since I’ll probably have to purchase it, I’m being very careful with this choice. I’ve had to live with my Blogger choice a lot longer than I wanted. I’m also trying to see whether I can figure out, on my own, how to transfer all the posts here to a new site. Apparently it IS doable.

Not that writing has been easy, mind you. This post was begun Friday afternoon (right after my Friday Fox Follies) and, as I complete the final edit, and drop some ‘art’ onto the page, it’s now early Tuesday. If I keep editing this sucker it’ll never get posted. And, I’ll squeeze all the life out of it. It’s time to let it go.

However, I’m on the road to recovery. What would you like to read about next?

Sunrise to Canton Road Trip Report #1

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A road trip of 3,000 miles starts with the first coffee at my local.

Apologies to the regular readers of the Not Now Silly Newsroom for no updates. It’s been a hectic trip so far.

I left on the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research 8 days ago and I’ve not checked in here, tho’ my facebook profile’s been full of it.

The northern leg of the trip was not without its challenges. The first problem I encountered was a leak somewhere in the air conditioning drainage system. While the A/C worked fine, the passenger side of the Buick POS started to fill up with water. The carpeting was soaked and I decided to run without the air in order to let it dry. But, it was hot. Real hot. Hot enough that I had to turn on the air again.

The next problem was all on me. I somehow miscalculated things and arrived a day early in Ohio. I called my friend — who was part of the 2nd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research — that I was supposed to meet in Centerville (“A real nice place to raise your kids up.”) to tell her I was 2 hours away. Considering she wasn’t expecting me until Thursday, she was quite surprised. Luckily her schedule was flexible and we met at an Asian restaurant for lunch.

However, that meant I was still a day ahead of schedule and my next visit in Columbus couldn’t happen until Thursday afternoon, just because. Considering I had already driven some 1,200 miles and 20 hours, kipping in the car for 4 hours in northern Georgia, I was totally bagged and needed to sleep. So, I found an inexpensive Days Inn in Dayton to spend the night.

Funny story: Because the car also has a security issue I decided I had to take everything into my room. It took 3 trips and it was very hot. When it was done I fell on the bed exhausted and took off my shoes and put my feet into a giant wet spot on the carpet immediately beneath the air conditioner. This was the exact same problem I was having in the car.

The view from my room. Look, there’s Pop’s Diner!

They were great about giving me a new room, but the new room was on the other side of the building AND on the 2nd floor. So, I loaded up the car, drove to the other side of the building, and lugged all my crap up to the second floor. By the time I was finished I just went to bed, even tho’ it was only about 6PM. I was spent.

The next day I met up with a friend in Columbus, Ohio, I’ve known online for many years and who was a stop on the original Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. Only a family emergency kept us from meeting again last year.

Then, Detroit the following day. I’ve been doing some deep research on a number of topics. I have been given entree to a world that few people get to see from the inside. This will become a long Not Now Silly Investigative Report, which I’ve already started writing. Hopefully, I can finish it before I get home, but you never know.

Additionally, I’ve been researching the National Shrine of the Little Flower, which will be my next post, and the Viola Liuzzo Playground and Homestead for another article. I’ve already been in touch with her daughter Mary and hope to get a phone interview with her while I’m here.

Tonight I’m going to a Drum Circle in Detroit at the corner of 7 Mile Road and Woodward. I can’t even imagine something like his happening right there. Just this week:

[I]n Detroit, a task force of federal, state and local police agencies
executed a dozen search warrants and made two arrests along a two-mile
stretch of Woodward and nearby streets, from McNichols north to 8 Mile,
Detroit police said. The agents targeted homes, a gas station and other
sites where police said suburban heroin buyers had been driving up to
buy heroin almost as easily as making a run for coffee.

A drum circle right in the middle of that? I’m so there!!!

Packing Up The Newsroom ► Unpacking The Writer

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My old house to the Viola Liuzzo Playground is just over 1/2 mile

The 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research begins early tomorrow morning and the excitement is building.

Yesterday I told someone that driving is my “happy place.” There’s nothing I like better than to get behind the wheel, crank up the tunes, and cruise. I have many hours of that ahead of me over the next few weeks and am looking forward to it.

Excitement is also building — I hope — among those folk who signed up for a visit during this year’s road trip. Several of them are repeat customers, so I must be doing something right. A few of them are brand new to the Aunty Em Experience. I’m looking forward to seeing them all.

Among my stops are Centerville, Columbus, Elyria, Akron, and Columbus, all in Ohio. I’ll be retracing my steps in West Virginia, the subject of last year’s A Tribute to Don Knotts ► Morgantown’s Favourite Son. The last 2 stops will be to visit people in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and Oviedo, Florida. The latter is someone I’ve known in Cyberville for decades, yet we’ve never had the chance to meet.

During this year’s Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research I’ve also scheduled several stops for Racial Research™ along the route. I’ll be visiting the Harriet Tubman Museum in Macon, GA; the Old Slave Mart Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, with a stop to pay respects at Mother Emanuel Church; and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. Through sheer synchronicity the Wright Museum is holding CALL of The DRUM: An International Drum Summit on the weekend I’ll be there. I’m taking my claves.

As well I plan to stop off for a night in St. Augustine. I’ve been there once and found it incredibly beautiful. It’s the oldest, continually inhabited city in this country. Ponce de Leon was tramping around there and I can’t wait to see it again.

There’s been no word from J$ on whether he wants to help me write The Johnny Dollar Wars ► The Final Chapter? There’s still another 10 days for him to decide whether he has the cajones to confront the man he relentlessly cyber-bullied for more than 3 years. Regardless of whether he participates, the final chapter will be written.

However, one part of this trip only got added to my itinerary yesterday, and it’s an interesting story. Have a seat. Relax.

In preparation for this year’s Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research I was looking on Google Maps for the name of a park in my old neighbourhood. If I remember correctly, this park once had a water tower, torn down in the late ’50s or the early ’60s. I have vague memories of playing on the girders after it was ripped down, but before they had been hauled away.

What I discovered on Google Maps came as a shock, mostly because it came as a total surprise. It’s the Viola Liuzzo Playground.

I had no idea this park was named after a Civil Rights Martyr from Detroit. I had no idea Viola Liuzzo came from my old neighbourhood. This is a woman whom I have read about so many times in so many books. I’ve watched documentaries in which she has appeared prominently. Tara Ochs plays her in the movie Selma.

Brownsville Herald – April 4, 1964

The house I grew up in was slightly over a half mile from the Viola Liuzzo Playground. [See map above] In 1964 I was 12 years old yet I knew nothing of any of this. Whyzzat? This is as local as it gets. Cross burnings in my neighbourhood? Really?

When I visit Detroit this time I am going to visit this park. It’s my plan to write about it and, more importantly, write about my ignorance of the fact that her funeral, with Martin Luthur King, Jr., attending, happened practically under my nose without me realizing it.

I have now been in contact with Mary Liuzzo, Viola’s daughre, who identified 19375 Marlowe Street as the house that Viola Liuzzo left behind to join the Freedom March in Selma, Alabama. She never returned, having been murdered as she was ferrying Freedom Riders to several locations. A week after her death a cross was burned on her lawn.

Hopefully, one of the other people I’ll be seeing on this trip is Pastor Ken Wilson. We grew up across the street from each other and recently reconnected losing track of each other 45 years ago. Ken has become a bit infamous over the last year. As Senior Pastor of the Vinelands Church in Ann Arbor, a church he founded in his living room 40 years ago, Wilson wrote what I believe is a very important book. “A Letter to My Congregation” argues for full inclusion and acceptance in the church of the LGBT communities. For his troubles, he was kicked to the curb by Vinelands Church — or he resigned in mutual agreement. However, that hasn’t stopped him.

It’s to Pastor Kenny that I’ve addressed all my Pastoral Letters. However, I’ve just learned there may be a scheduling problem and a reunion with Kenny may not be in the cards after all.

Curious, I’ve just asked Ken electronically. While he was aware that Viola Liuzzo was a Civil Rights Martyr, he was also unaware that she was from our own neighbourhood and was as ignorant as I was about the cross burning just a mile and a half from where we lived.

This is going to be the best Sunrise to
Canton Road Trip for Research ever!!!

Treacherous Double-Dealing ► Unpacking The Writer

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In our last exciting episode of Unpacking The Writer, Bang The News Slowly, I revealed my part in a brand new grassroots campaign to get Harry Nilsson inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Funny story. The wheels have come off that bus, but before I tell you how, here’s a reminder of what I wrote last month:

The most exciting news of the last month is the campaign to put Harry
Nilsson in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Every year when the RnRHoF
nominees are announced I scream, “What about Harry?” Then when I see who
is finally inducted, I just shake my head in despair. This year I
decided to do something about it.

Just a few days before last month’s Unpacking The Writer, I fired up a facebookery called Harry Nilsson for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
It was only a few days later that I discovered there was a similar page
started much earlier than mine. Had I known, I would have signed onto Harry Nilsson belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,
started by Todd Lawrence, instead. Todd and I connected soon afterwards
in IM. I assured him that I didn’t consider my page competition to his
and that we should cooperate for the greater good. It can’t hurt that
there are two such pages because we travel in different circles.

It wasn’t long before Todd asked we could add Gabriel Szoke, moderator of the Harry Nilsson facebook fan page, to our IMs. Then the 3 of us started kicking around various ideas to put #HarryintheHall. None of our plans are ripe enough to be revealed, but I can assure you that they are grandiose.

That was then. This is now, just a month later.

I probably would have kept this unpleasantness on the facebookery, and far away from the Not Not Silly Newsroom, had I not woken up yesterday to find that I was reported on facebook for contravening Community Standards.

No, really!

A post of mine (a rant, to be fair) was removed from Harry Nilsson for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the page I created to help in this campaign. Some crybaby went running to facebook to whine. That’s why I’ve reproduced it below, in case it’s removed again:

I had hoped not to air this dirty laundry, but I have now been contacted
by several people who appear to have had very similar experiences as I
have. Therefore, it’s time to go public.

 I started up this
facebookery not knowing there was a similar page started before mine run
by Todd Lawrence. When I discovered it, I contacted Todd and we agreed,
in essence, that we would work together cooperatively and not look at
the other as competition. All for ‪#‎HarryintheHall‬!!!
As we strategized in IM, he asked me if we could include Gabriel Szoke,
who was operating one of the Harry Nilsson facebookery pages. My
attitude was, “The more, the merrier!” Anything to get #HarryintheHall.

That’s when everything turned to shit. While we agreed to work
cooperatively, I seemed to have the only person who understood what that
means.

I don’t want people to get the impression this is sour
grapes, but ideas I had were rejected. That is, until either Todd or
Gabriel came up with it a week later as if it was BRAND NEW. This ain’t
about taking credit, it’s about losing a week’s time in getting
something done.

When I called them on it, I was told we needed to
look forward, not backward. That phrase — an insidious form of
blame-dodging I’ve seen before — was to come up more than once.

We
agreed to agree on all actions, but suddenly emails with typos in them
started going out before we had even agreed on the wording or who would
be getting them. Again I was told to keep looking forward, not backward,
when I mentioned that we had agreed, yadda, yadda, yadda.

I was
tasked with writing a Manifesto, which I did because writing’s my game.
My manifesto was rejected out of hand. [I want people to understand I am
*NEVER* wedded to my words. 40+ years as a professional writer has
allowed me to work with any kind of editor from mild to red pencil
fiends. Editing improves the product. This isn’t about ego.] I was then
asked to ‘punch up’ what I thought was an inferior and pedestrian
approach as a manifesto. Eh? Oh, well. Anything to get #HarryintheHall.

So I started punching up this piece of shit. (Sorry, Todd. It was
awful. At least mine took a non-pedestrian approach to the topic. It
wasn’t dull, tedious, and cookie cutter.)

Meanwhile, I’d continue
making suggestions and Gabriel would tell me that I was stepping on his
toes because he’s the expert in that field (graphics, apparently). Yet,
time after time my expertise as a writer — one who has developed entire
media campaigns for record companies — who has written for all media,
was rejected. Cute, eh?

F’rinstance, I said that memes can be dashed
off in a minute and to prove it I fired up the Ol’ Meme Maker, made
one, and posted it here. Gabriel went wild in private, accusing me of
jumping the gun before we *AGREED* we were ready. He made me take it
down.

*AND*, he took personal offense that memes can be dashed off, because that’s his field.

Again, when I brought this up I was told we are looking forward, not
backward. However, once he started calling for memes on his Nilson [sic] page,
he didn’t seem to care how ‘dashed off’ they were.

I was made to
feel as if my expressing an opinion in this triumvirate was totally
inconvenient. More to the point my opinion seemed inconvenient to
Gabriel trying to be The Point Man on everything, the one who will get
the credit and be able to hobnob with celebrities.

However, even
though I foolishly believed we were working cooperatively, I suspected
Todd and Gabriel of talking and making decisions behind my back (but
have no way to prove that). Actions kept getting made that hadn’t even
been discussed. That needed coordination between them.

Suddenly, and
without discussion or warning, there were a bunch of folks added to the
Put Harry in the Hall Google Group that we had been communicating in as
a trio. At first I thought, “The more the merrier.” However, just as
suddenly I was deleted from the Google Group.

No one ever spoke to
me about it. No one ever explained. In fact, I only discovered it for
myself when I thought the group had gotten too quiet, so I went to look.
If my removal was mentioned in the Google Group I would have no way of
knowing, of course.
However, I always suspected that I presented a
threat to Gabriel grabbing all the credit for himself. I was expressing
my ideas there and some of them might have been good. People may have
agreed with me. Best to get rid of me quietly before I upset his
applecart.

Right then and there I decided to stop punching up Todd’s wishy-washy essay on Harry. HEY! I can take a fucking hint.

As I say, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go public with this, but this
morning I received the following IM from someone I have known online for
DECADES:

QUOTE: Hi Headly. Quick heads-up to be very careful of
Gabriel Stoke and his supposed Nilsson promoting group…he is only
interested in self promotion and is ousting any of us who have tried to
promote Harry on the Internet. .. He booted Roger Smith earlier and when
I messaged him to suggest that was not a good thing to do he booted me
and has blocked me from his group…. ENDQUOTE

He booted Roger
Smith? He booted the man who has had a Harry Nilsson tribute website
longer than than anyone else in the entire world? That Roger Smith? Hoo
boy!!!
However, I discovered, much to my regret, exactly the same
thing.

I will be the next person blocked because of this post. However, I
thought I had a duty to those people I had already talked to privately
about [SPOILER ALERT!!!] helping to mount concerts ALL AROUND THE WORLD
on Harry’s 75th Birthday. [But, I bet Gabriel wants to take all the
credit for that, too.] There had already been progress on Toronto and
Detroit shows and I had started putting out feelers for a show here in
Florida. Whether those will go forward or not remain to be seen.
Yesterday’s 74th birthday celebration left a very bad taste in my mouth.
I went from being very excited to be on the ground floor of something
that appeared to have enough momentum to achieve its goals, to being
turned into a passive bystander by two self-aggrandizing jerks, who are
only out for themselves. I can remain passive no more.

Apologies for the
drama, folks. Anyone who wishes to contact me privately to tell me of
their trials and tribulations will be welcomed. Maybe I’ll turn it into a
blog post, or a book.

If facebook is going to take my stuff down, I’ll post it here where it will not only stay, but will get even more eyeballs than where it had been. Congratulations, whomever reported me to facebook.

Meanwhile, what else is going on in this writer’s world this month?

The excitement builds as I am less than a month away from the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research. There’s still time to sign up if you want to get the full Aunty Em Experience.

This year, so far, I have tentative stops on the northbound leg planned for the Black History Museum in Macon, Georgia; Centerville, Ohio, “a real nice place to raise your kids up”; and Columbus, Ohio, which I was forced to skip last year due to a family issue.

I have more tentative stops scheduled for the southbound trek: Elyria, Ohio, to tour the new Elyria Art Depot; Akron, Ohio, where I will be taken on a tour of people and places important to Jim Bloor (to whom this road trip is lovingly dedicated); Steubenville, Ohio, where I will walk in the footsteps of Dean Martin, with whom I share a birthday; Wheeling, West Virgina, for a much needed coffee; Morgantown, West Virginia, the site of last year’s A Tribute to Don Knotts ► Morgantown’s Favourite Son; The Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, Ohio; St. Augustine, Florida, just because it’s so old and so beautiful; and, lastly, Oviedo, Florida, before arriving home.

As of now, and subject to change, my trip will take 16 days, 5 hours, and 2 minutes (according to Microsoft Streets and Trips, a program no longer available) and I will have traveled 3063 miles, not accounting for side trips for sight-seeing. 

I wish I were leaving right now.

Closer to home, I have been rethinking the entire Headlines Du Jour column. 

I had been aggregating these headlines 3 days a week: Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. However, the last month I’ve had to skip it a few times because of other commitments.

I’ve been compiling Headlines Du Jour for several years now, but it’s become something of a trap. It takes, on average, 2 hours to format the headlines I’ve collected since the last time. It takes even longer if I’ve been too busy to collect headlines before aggregating them.

To be perfectly honest, I’m bored with it.

I’ll continue with Headlines Du Jour until I leave for the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research, when it would have gone on a natural hiatus.

Whether it returns, or not, remains to be seen. I haven’t given up on it entirely. However, if I continue to compile the Headlines Du Jour, I’ll need a way to invigorate it. Feel free to send your suggestions.

As the Not Now Silly Head Writer I’ve been given a unique experience. Several of the candidates in Miami’s District 2 race have been talking to me OFF THE RECORD, everything embargoed until after the election. I’m hoping it will coalesce into a series of BEHIND THE SCENES stories about this election, which will be Miami’s most contentious.

As well, I have been going along with them on door knocks. The ground rules are that any conversation with voters is ON THE RECORD, but the stroll and chats are OFF THE RECORD.

Here’s what I can report: Almost everyone wants to talk about the current Miami District 2 Commissioner, [allegedly] corrupt Marc D. Sarnoff. The voters bring up his name before the candidates do. Which makes this a good time to remind readers about ABT — Anybody But Teresa, a little facebookery I fired up. It’s dedicated to making fun of the idea that [allegedly] corrupt Miami Commissioner Marc D. Sarnoff thinks he can buy and bully a commission seat for his wife, who has never shown any interest in city politics in the past 30 years.

Lastly, at least for this month, I have a number of posts half finished, for which I am waiting for callbacks, or am still researching the topics. If I finish them all, I’ll be very busy in the next 3 weeks, before I leave for my road trip.

Next month’s Unpacking the Writer will come from the road if I find the time.

Announcing the 3rd Annual Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research!

,

Yes folks, it’s that time of year again, and YOU’RE ALL INVITED!!! *

Every summer, for the last 2, I’ve taken a 2 week road trip to Canton Township, Michigan and back. Ostensibly, I am headed to a huge family reunion, but I use this road trip for several purposes:

  • It provides me with an opportunity to recharge my batteries;
  • It gets me to places I’ve never seen before;
  • I am able to do some deeper research into several long-term writing projects;
  • And, most importantly, it allows me to meet up with friends, both old and new, along the road.

None of my dates are set in stone because my itinerary is totally dependent on YOU, my readers. 

I can, however, give you a rough outline. I will leave Florida on, or about, July 14th, to arrive at my most northerly point in the Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research on, or about, July 17th. My return leg will start on, or about, the 27th of July, so I can be back in the Not Now Silly Newsroom no later than July 30th.

The northern leg of the Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research will be — most probably — the western route shown above. My return trip will probably be the eastern route. However, even that is totally dependent on you. My route could change drastically as more people sign on.

HERE’S HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED: If you’d like to get the full Not Now Silly Experience™, send an email to AuntyEm1@gmail.com, with ROAD TRIP as the subject. Let me know where you live and the dates that are best for you within my window(s). As my itinerary fills up, and we get closer to the dates, I will check back with you on specific dates and approximate times to drop in for coffee, or meet you at Starbucks.

Read all the previous years’ entries in the
Sunrise to Canton Road Trip for Research

There’s one bit of excitement already scheduled. I will be getting together with Pastor Ken Wilson, author of “A Letter to my Congregation; An evangelical pastor’s path to embracing people who are gay, lesbian, and transgendered into the company of Jesus.” Kenny is my oldest friend in the world. We met when  we were 5 years old, but lost touch soon after I moved to Canada in the early ’70s. We reconnected last November when I learned about his book and started my series of Pastoral Letters, addressed to him. We’re going to visit the old neighhbourhood together.

Last year’s visit produced While Detroit Crumbled, Gilchrist Street Hung On. I can’t wait to see what a visit with Pastor Kenny will produce.

This year’s Sunrise to Canton Road Trip For Research is dedicated to Jim Bloor. 

Sadly things got confused during last last year’s Sunrise to Canton Road Trip For Research and my trip to finally meet Jim had to be cancelled. We thought, quite naturally, that there was always next year, or that we’d meet up if he had to come down and inspect his Broward properties.

That will never be.

*  Provided you’re somewhere along my route during my travel dates

Bang The News Slowly ► Unpacking The Writer

, , , ,

Here we go again, readers! Unpacking The Writer is a monthly pulling-back-of-the-curtain to reveal the inner-workings of a one-man news operation. Let’s get right to it.

The most exciting news of the last month is the campaign to put Harry Nilsson in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Every year when the RnRHoF nominees are announced I scream, “What about Harry?” Then when I see who is finally inducted, I just shake my head in despair. This year I decided to do something about it.

Just a few days before last month’s Unpacking The Writer, I fired up a facebookery called Harry Nilsson for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was only a few days later that I discovered there was a similar page started much earlier than mine. Had I known, I would have signed onto Harry Nilsson belongs in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, started by Todd Lawrence, instead. Todd and I connected soon afterwards in IM. I assured him that I didn’t consider my page competition to his and that we should cooperate for the greater good. It can’t hurt that there are two such pages because we travel in different circles.

It wasn’t long before Todd asked we could add Gabriel Szoke, moderator of the Harry Nilsson facebook fan page, to our IMs. Then the 3 of us started kicking around various ideas to put #HarryintheHall. None of our plans are ripe enough to be revealed, but I can assure you that they are grandiose.

There are 3 ways you can help, dear readers: 1). Stay tuned; 2). Join our facebook pages; 3). And, watch this. A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night is a sublime BBC production of the LP of the same name. It is one of the few times in his entire career that Harry Nilsson sang live, even though there was no audience and it’s certainly not Rock and Roll:


This is definitely not Rock and Roll

Meanwhile, the Not Now Silly Newsroom has been busy breaking actual news during the past month. 

Since our last exciting episode I’ve written [in chronological order] about Richard Nixon (once again); attended and reported on the campaign kick-off of District Two Candidate Javier Gonzalez; finally told my Sally Kellerman story, which I had been threatening to do for years; wrote about the Bicycle Shop (again), which resulted in a $1,000 fine against Aries Development; and, if that isn’t enough, wrote about a rip off of Miami taxpayers by the valet parking companies — connected to Aries Development through family — and alerted the Miami Parking Authority to this scam. [What’s more is that I’ve been constructing longer and longer sentences.] I’ve been busy little writer.

I make no bones about it: I’m always delighted when I can score points against Gino Falsetto, the rapacious owner/developer of Aries Development. Rather than go through all the reasons why, just read Happy Birthday Coconut Grove!!! Now Honour Your Past. Then join Save the E.W.F. Stirrup House on the facebookery and help me make this campaign go viral.

A PERSONAL MESSAGE TO GINO FALSETTO: When I began writing about the E.W.F. Stirrup House more than 5 years ago, I phoned and emailed several times to get your side of the story. You never gave me the decency of a response, even if it were to tell me it was none of my business and to get lost. However, that did not deter me from trying to save the 120-year old house and the amazing legacy of Ebenezer Woodbury Franklin Stirrup. However, I’d still love to hear your side of the story. Contact me. I promise to be as fair to you as you have been to Coconut Grove history.

This month’s Top Ten Posts

Tangent over, dear readers.

Those are the writings that appear above the surface. What’s below the surface? Well, to start with, there’s always the ongoing research on other stories still to be written. Then there are those stories only partially written. On those I’m either stalled because I’m looking for additional information or have hit the wall on that topic, hoping I’ll eventually return to it. Writer’s Block is a cruel mistress.

But, that’s only what’s just immediately beneath the surface. That’s what will, in all probability (but only if things go well), rise to the surface and eventually appear on these pages. Not everything does. There are currently 23 posts in draft form and I know that not all will make it to the front page of the Not Now Silly Newsroom. To compare: there are 747 posts here, not including this one.

Of course, there are deeper layers. F’rinstance, my continued exploration of Drum Circles. I am trying to solve — in an intellectual way — why I feel such an unworldly attraction to them. The fact of the matter is I’ve never been a joiner. Most of my adult life I’ve eschewed groups the same way Groucho said he wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have him as a member. However, since my first encounter with a drum circle (a story I tell in The 32nd Annual King Mango Strut), I try to join them whenever I get the chance. I’ll even drive an hour to go to a drum circle.

I play the claves, mostly, but occasionally will play the wood block and, even more occasionally, the cowbell. When I’m playing cowbell nobody shouts, “More cowbell!” because I’m terrible at the cowbell, which takes far more rhythm and wrist than I’ve got. When I play cowbell, I play real quietly, hoping I’ll eventually find the groove. I never seem to.

I was recently discussing my attraction to the claves with one of my drumming buddies. It actually started with mutual book recommendations. I suggested she read Dr. Oliver Sacks‘ Musicophilia; Tales of Music and the Brain. I’ve read Sacks books for years, loving his case histories. Reading Musicophilia explained part of my attraction to drum circles and my relationship to music. From the book blurb:

Our exquisite sensitivity to music can sometimes go wrong: Sacks explores how catchy tunes can subject us to hours of mental replay, and how a surprising number of people acquire nonstop musical hallucinations that assault them night and day. Yet far more frequently, music goes right: Sacks describes how music can animate people with Parkinson’s disease who cannot otherwise move, give words to stroke patients who cannot otherwise speak, and calm and organize people whose memories are ravaged by Alzheimer’s or amnesia.

Music is irresistible, haunting, and unforgettable, and in Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks tells us why.

Here’s a true confession: When I was growing up I was constantly told, “Stop fidgeting.”

However, I wasn’t fidgeting. I was keeping an internal rhythm with my feet or hands. I would be tapping my fingers and toes to the music I heard playing in my head all the time.

However, it took me a very long time to realize that not everybody hears music in their head all the time. I’m always hearing music in my head, but only when there is no music; especially if there is no music. Sometimes the machinery I hear on the streets is converted to song as it passes through my ears to other receptors in my brain. Leaf blowers cease droning to become a background pipe organ to a brand new song my grey matter invented on the spot.

When
there’s no music playing, I can have entire swing bands playing my own
arrangements in my own head. Or a Blues band rocking out to a tune
that’s being made up on the spot. I used to do this more often when I
was in my late teens. In fact I remember several hitchhiking trips
when I composed entire tunes in my head. I would write down the lyrics as soon
as I got the chance. I can still remember some of them, which have become far more elaborate in my head over the years.

When there’s actual music playing, my head, hands, and feet keep a counter-rhythm to it, or add trumpet parts, or other vocals. But, only in my head, translating those complexities into seemingly spasmodic jerking of my fingers and toes.

Maybe I should have been a composer/arranger, but I play no instruments and can’t read or write music. However, when I am at drum circles, that part of my psyche seems to get a workout. When I’m in a drum circle I play what I think of as the accents with my claves. Sometimes (in my head) it’s what Ella would sing when she was scatting. Other times I hear my little rat-tat-tat bursts as the parts for a brass section.

I know I have entered my personal groove at a drum circle when what I hear is melody and not strictly rhythm. While I’m not sure I described it so that it makes sense to my readers, it makes perfect sense to me, which is what counts.

If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll recognize Pops, to the left. After my mother died a decade ago, I came down to help Pops. It’s not that Pops really needed my help. He played golf 4-5 days a week. However, he’s of a generation that knows where the kitchen is, but never mastered the magic required to get a meal on the table, unless it came out of a microwave. That’s has always been my main role here.

Pops turned turned 89 on Valentine’s Day and, for the most part, he’s been healthy. But, he’s slowing down. There are fewer chores around the house I’ll let him do. However, it’s hard. I remember how sad he was when I told him that I was taking the laundry away from him. It was one of the household jobs he had to learn when my mother went into the hospital, and he was so proud of himself. He argued for a while, but finally gave in.

Two weeks ago, during a routine pacemaker check-up, it was discovered that it was not getting any signals to his heart. One of the wire leads became corroded some time since his last check-up 3 months ago.

That was the bad news. The good news was that his heart was beating well enough on its own that he didn’t require an immediate operation. We scheduled a pacemaker procedure for the following week, after adjusting some of his meds. This past Thursday he went in for the operation to replace his pacemaker.

Normally, this is an outpatient procedure; a quick in and out. However, because of Pops’ age, they thought it was a good idea that he be kept overnight. I spent about 15 hours at the hospital last week, split over 2 days. I brought Pops home on Friday and he’s been taking it easy ever since.

Now you’re all caught up until next month.