Yesterday’s visit to the Ophthalmologist was uneventful; my eye pressure had reduced to near normal. He dilated by eyes, did lots of measuring and chart reading and decided we should give the drops more time to work before we went for surgery (so much for our Drs doing unnecessary work for the charges); so, I was remanded back to my optometrist for further monitoring.
We had all sort of time to kill, but with my eyes fully dilated I was not in the mood for much. We went downtown, walked about a bit, and had a nice lunch at a Southern Mexican style restaurant. The lunch special was “Taco Salad” (the waitress did comment that it was made from Salmon, but I said fine. What arrived was delicious, but would not pass muster as a “Taco Salad” (except it was in a shell) – the meat was large chucks of nicely broiled salmon, the beans were cold and black (and tangy), there was no cheese, the greens were a glorious mix of everything but Iceberg, and it was dressed in a lightly spiced vinegar and oil, no guacamole, no sour cream. Graet dish – but not a “Taco Salad”.
We came home about 1 PM. I expected the spend a miserable few hours of coping with the damn dilated eyes. Almost tripped over a large box the Mail Man had left on the stoop – I anticipated nothing that large from Amazon, it was too large for a slim self-published book – a bomb maybe?
Well, we got inside and while Woody paid the tax ( treats around for the dog, I set about diffusing the bomb. It had $10.85 of postage more than I would ever pay to ship a simple bomb.
Inside, lo and behold was a delightful tome and a nifty “Jesus” cup (Does Zack K have a Pat Pend?).
With my eyes, I was not about to read a book – but I couldn’t resist a peek.
So I peeked, and peeked, and peeked some more…I peeked till I could barely peek at all.
And was I surprised! No “Poor Little Me” litany, no “Misunderstood” Creative Artist, no dish-the-bitch memories – just page after page of fast-paced re-creation of the creative (and in one noteworthy instance, destructive) process. And, most of the “dish” was that the bitch was charming.
You know how when as a kid you’d go to a Saturday matinee horror film and find yourself wanting to scream “Don’t go down the cellar steps!” – well that’s how you feel when you see the best laid traps of Madam Machiavelli and her hench-husband bring about the bloody abortion of a very special creative enterprise aborning. That our intrepid author continued what became eventually a lost cause for redemption (I’m right, god dammit!) makes us pause and reconsider our measure of the man.
It’s fun to find all sorts of unexpected references to folks we know from other places - Lea Michele, from Glee. (of course there’s Barrett Foa, with nary a reference to his current high-profile status as a leading supporting character in the top rated NCIS-LA – an omission I attribute to the author’s not being familiar with every show new show on TV). But the author is no fancy famous-name dropper – the book is filled with kind professional references to all sorts of the great supporting cast behind the record business.
Any reader will move the author a few points up on their admiration meter.
To learn more about the makings of an album, and the makings of a man, read the book.
WARNING – reading this book with dilated eyes will make one teary.
der Brucer
A book about hundreds of shows, and hundreds of albums’ and hundreds of people and one or two eateries, and no Index. THERE IS NO DAMN INDEX!
