Another Side

Why does the universe conspire to prevent me from hearing african music. It's happened for at least half-a-dozen world famous African and I always missed them because I was out of town or once I had a gig. Tonight takes the cake. I make arangements to see Sidi Toure but I'm not sure of the start time and I get there too late. 

Which got me thinking...How come a guy who's always late be so far ahead of his  time. In the publishing world, at least. When I was still working with hot type at the Sherbrooke Daily Record, I was envisioning a more photographic process. When we were pasting up pages with Letraset, I was lusting after a $100.000 Cumpu-something. Then I embraced desktop publishing and dreamt of owning my own Laserprinter - right alongside my little Mac SE (with no internal hard drive), instead of driving to Montreal every time I needed something printed. My first desktop publishing on the Mac was a 1 page flyer for the local health food store and it had to be printed in two halves because printing the whole thing at once required more RAM than we had (1 Meg, I guess). Then you move ahead a few years and I'm producing newsletters for the Blues Society and The Jazz Festival, organizations that were barely started with computers and then diving into the online world. Then as I was exporting stories from the newsletters to convert for the website, I was wishing that it was the other way around. Use the web to assemble and edit in a collaborative process and when everybody's happy you click "Print" and out comes a newsletter! That would be beautiful but nobody's invented it yet. This is the mission of Blainco PubIishing Solutions and I'm looking for some tools that do that.  "Content Management Systems" (CMS) have opened the door and they are getting better. But now they've all been made obsolete because from now on, everything to do with publishing will have to be designed with the mobile/hand-held device in mind.  OK, back to the guitar, Brian.

Another quote for the Day

"Each of us has the potential of being given a gift by the divine, which results in the body and soul becoming unified ... a great many people will experience the blessings of the divine ... Through it, the human being will first be made healthy, and then peace of mind and joy in life will be increased." Dr Mikao Usui

Quote of the Day

"My number one commitment is to promote inner peace based on warm heartedness"  Dalai Lama

This is the funniest press release in ages

(forwarded by Richard Flohil - I guess this what they call "going Viral")

THE JITTERS, SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17, C'EST WHAT (67 Front Street East, at Church) ***EARLY SHOW*** 8 pm start

Aww, come on. THE JITTERS again?

These one-time 80s radio kings HAD a reunion already, didn't they? Isn't once (or twice) enough?? Surely they did well on their "If We're Going to Sell-Out, Let's At Least Make Some Money THIS Time!" Tour.

But Jitters lead singer Blair Packham says no, appearances to the contrary, The Jitters "did not make out like bandits on our last reunion shows. In fact, we barely covered production costs," he said, with an embarrassed grin.

But what about all of the glitz, the glamour, the conspicuous consumption that former band members were seen engaging in these last few months?

"You must be referring to Matthew Greenberg's coat made out of precious ancient gold coins," said Packham, continuing, "Matt doesn't wear that anymore. Too heavy in the summer." Well, that and drummer David Quinton-Steinberg's name-lengthening. Surely THAT was an expensive, yet unnecessary process? Trying to hide my incredulity, I reminded the still-ruggedly-handsome lead vocalist that Quinton-Steinberg was formerly known as either "Quinton" OR "Steinberg" but never both at once! The legal bills to make that official must have been extravagant. "David always had an identity problem, and he confessed as much to us one night on our plane as we were jetting to St. Tropez," Packham told me. "It was always 'Punk?' 'Lawyer?' 'Punk Lawyer?' He wanted to straighten it out and become the fully-rounded individual he knew he was inside. But you didn't mention Danny Levy," he said, slyly looking over his glass of Dom Perignon. That's true, I allowed, not having heard much about the Jitters lead guitarist in recent years. I seem to remember something about Danny being a dog aficionado, I murmured, unsure. "Yes, that's true, but the rumours about him investing in the breeding of a super-dog with opposable thumbs so that Danny wouldn't have to tune his own guitars are COMPLETELY false!" said Blair, with more bravado than was credible.
>
> Look, I said. All I've heard is that THE JITTERS are appearing once again at C'EST WHAT (67 Front Street East, downstairs, at Church Street) on SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17 at 8 pm. And I heard you guys are only doing it for the money. Packham looked me unabashedly in the eye and said "So what if it's true? Do the math! Every person in the place will have paid ten bucks to get in and by the time C'est What is filled to its capacity of 80 people, we will be rich, rich, RICH!!" He cackled, theatrically (though it didn't spoil his still-youthful appearance). I pointed out, gently, that even if everyone DID pay full price (Bloody unlikely, I added, given guest lists and families and so forth...), the band would end up, after expenses, with about six hundred bucks to split four ways. "Um, right, well..." said a deflated Packham--though he maintained his excellent and youthful posture despite this quick reality check. "well, of course, we're also doing it for the music, man. The MUSIC, do you hear me??!"

Quote of the Day

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."

- Bob Dylan