It’s happened… One month has gone by, and I haven’t structurally changed a single thing in any one of the 90 stories that comprise those six collections on michaelaba.com. Oh, sure - I’ve noticed an accent that went missing on the word “fiancée”, and I’m sure the instances where “onto” should have been “on to” - and vice-versa - are unlikely to be as random as I hope… But I HAD to give the editing a rest. I DO think it’s over. I’m at peace with where these stories - many of them long-lost and rescued from years past - now stand. I’ve actually been enjoying skimming over the iPhone versions on the subway.
And yeah, I’ll probably give them all another quick look around Christmastime.
So what have I been doing with my free time? Well, now I’m trying to resurrect many of the songs that are still MIA on my website. The 23 songs that were left-over from the GarageBand period have been no problem to organize - they’ll be on a basement screen under the Songs section in no time. But get this - there are 64 (!) demos of songs I recorded back in the days we all used cassettes. I had a Tascam 4-Track cassette recorder and I used to record a new “album” nearly every year. I ended up with 7 collections.
After the Tascam recorder broke down, I spent the next several years continuing to write, and by the time my unwillingness to learn GarageBand finally broke down as well, I discovered I’d composed another 73. I spent a winter recording what I called “The Never-Ending Eight”, to keep the chronology going. My brother Tom had graciously digitized the music I’d copied for him years ago, but I only recently realized there are still 23 songs lost, trapped in seven hopefully-well-preserved cassettes, in need of equipment I no longer possess.
So… I’m on a mission to find a working cassette deck, and then purchase an adaptor that can transfer these lost songs to my computer. This seemingly-achievable goal could likely be accomplished by a reasonably intelligent person in a week or so. I’m hoping to get everything square and somewhere on the site by, I don’t know - maybe Thanksgiving.
And yes, I’ve got many new songs I want to record as well. The ninth collection awaits! And as I type this sentence, the idea of finishing by the start of 2018 feels naïvely optimistic… But then again, “Naïvely Optimistic” might end up being the title to one of those songs…
So yes - as I sang in the song “The Perfect Orgasm”, the work is never done. (THAT song, BTW, is on the first CD on my Songs page - check it out!)
I’ll report on my progress in a month. Thanks again for checking out these blogs - and for listening to the songs! Keep those (generally supportive) reviews coming!
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