Get Out and VOTE!!!

I've almost forgotten about the blog thing since life has taken a couple of zigs and zags. Things are stabilizing here at Crisis Central (a contradiction if I ever typed one) so I will keep this one short and sweet.

Once a year we are obliged to get off our butts and make the trip to our local polling places to go into the little booth with the curtain thing going on. I will do so as I have done almost every year since 1976. There are actually some newcomers running for local offices so I have real choices.

I've gotten more effin' robocalls this year than ever before- and I've enjoyed hanging up on them. Most of them were from the established folks who are instilling fear of young folks and people with darker skin. I'm glad they out-gas that way, though, it makes my choices more justifiable.

Your griping has more legitimacy if it is punctuated by the throwing of the little lever thingy-dingy. If however, you are not willing to pull said lever thingy-dingy, please give the rest of us the courtesy of shutting your mouth about things political.

The wife-type carbon-based life form (a.k.a. The Mistress Of Mainstream) is in the political maelstrom in a big way. That said, she struck a sore point with me by asking who I would vote for in the local election cycle. I gently (meaning without swearing) reminded her that there was a thing called a secret ballot... and to me that is sacrosanct. Nothing but love for ya, wifey, but it ain't none of your bid-ness.

Tomorrow, get up from in front of the computer/tv/easy chair/hookah/whatever and get your parts to the polling place and make like a citizen!

Peace be with you,

Glenn

PS- Listen for the new opening song on My Mid-Life Crisis starting the day after Election Day. It's time...

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

After an abbreviated summer we rush headlong into fall, so it would seem. I'm still sleeping indoors and doing voice auditions on a daily basis between two web sites. And of course, still doing RandoRadio on a weekly basis.

Little by little the puzzle pieces fall into place. I'm finding more interesting music from local people and Facebook people that are not so geographically local- but just a mouse click away.

I'm still at one cat here, and he is sounding more and more like Cyriak's critter in this Youtube video--



Every now and then I get a bee in my bonnet about changing the name of my show. After all, how long can one reasonably maintain the notion of ongoing Crisis without any solution? What am I attracting by continuing to give life to this notion?

But most importantly, what in in the name of Pope Bob WOULD I call this show? The usual playlist looks like it has been put through a blender (and I'm sure I would incur the wrath of some copyright lawyer by calling it Radio Free Cuisinart). A consistent musical theme simply isn't there, especially if I get going into some obscure ethnic genre and obsess on it.

Perhaps the blurb on the Rando Radio Website would give a clue- "the road less traveled"... almost sounds like an NPR thing. The Firesign Theatre line always lurks around- "you can't get there from here!"

Decisions Decisions Decisions.

I will keep on keeping on, and remain open to suggestions.

In the words of the late Robert Anton Wilson, "Keep the lasagna flying!"

Peace be with you,
Glenn

Cats, Katz, et.al (but I'm not sure who Al is...)

To quote my friend Captain Weird, "Greetings fellow Earth People"!

It has been a time of losses and gains- I'm happy to report that the latter outweigh the former and all is well as long as I let it "be".

Let's get the loss out of the way. After 16 years I had to assist my beige tabby cat Nicky in dropping his body. His biological functions started failing very quickly and luckily I was there to monitor the situation and act accordingly. The folks at Hudson Valley Animal Hospital In Valley Cottage, NY were the absolute greatest in their empathy and caring support in my situation. My profound thanks to Dr. Puzzio and every staff member there, and R.I.P., Nicky.

Now for the good stuff. I am an unabashed fan of Nora the Piano Cat. The latest adventure in this world reached a new high for me as the YouTube video of Catcerto was posted. Lithuanian composer Mindaugas Piecaitis became taken with the ongoing videos of Nora and contacted her human friends, Betsy Alexander and Burnell Yow!. (Yes, the exclamation point is part of his name) He edited portions of the videos and composed a piece that was performed this past June. Here is the video-

I have a soft spot for this cat, and I'm waiting for this recording to be released so I can legally play it on RandoRadio (since everyone knows we don't do unauthorized bootlegs).

The next good event that has broadened my view of the musical world is meeting (via FaceBook) trombonist/composer/bandleader/ lordknowswhatelse Marco Katz- Here is a link to his website.
In addition to his formidable musicianship he cares deeply about the business world that musicians and performers have to machinate in. Please check out his site- and if you find him on FaceBook tell him I sent you.

I'm back to pursuing voice work, learning Microsoft Publisher 2007 and doing my best on my new airshift at RandoRadio. I'm on from 1:00 pm until 3:00 pm on Wednesday. I'm enjoying being a part of this wonderful group of people who bring music of all genres to the web. And they haven't changed the locks on the studio door so I can still get in. I guess that's a good thing.

That's it for now, so click on all the embedded hyperlink thingy-dingies, Check out Nora and Marco and keep listening to RandoRadio! It shouldn't be a total loss...

Peace be with you,
Glenn

The Best Crisis Is A Movable One!!! Wednesday For The Win!

Greetings to all! Nine months of steering yellow-painted vehicles around Rockland and Westchester have given birth to a fresh view on life and its weirdness. The only reaction I can abide moves me to shitcan logic and go forward with a mixture of intuition, amazement and inspired action. Allow me to elaborate (otherwise this will be a real short blog entry):

I had run myself into a real funk by last autumn, and utter desperation led me to respond to one of many postcards that had been sent out by a local school bus company. In addition to getting a commercial driver's license, I discovered the skill of getting up before the chickens during the dead of winter on a daily basis. The Abraham-Hicks folks call this "contrast". After a while, I was calling it a job.

The good thing about about this was experiencing the oft-stated concept "the darkest hour is just before dawn". And I learned it day after day. Now, to quote the great philosopher Roberto Duran, "no mas!!!"

In this round-about fashion I'm announcing the moving of my RandoRadio program to Wednesday afternoons from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm Eastern Daylight time. I will maintain the mandate of running the roads less traveled, just like the blurb on the website says.

More will be forthcoming as I further transition into a new world, and I will stifle the urge to paint my car "National School Bus Chrome".

Peace be with you,
Glenn Carella

Almost safe for human consumption...

Yes, it has been a stupid long time since I have posted to this blog. Two things have contributed to this- my survival job and Facebook. By way of explanation-

My stint at school bus driving is coming to an end. June 26 is my last day. This gig served the purpose of getting me out of the doldrums when the economy tanked and enabled me to re-structure my debts so it is much cheaper for me to continue sleeping indoors.

Now I will be able to resume full-time auditioning for voice-over work and grasp other opportunities that are presenting themselves. I am heartened that several of the small business people that I am friendly with are seeing the tides turning. In a little over two weeks, it will be my turn to go back into the water.

I have also acquired some new work habits and skills that will enable me to get more out of each new day (not the least of which is the ability to get up much earlier than I ever have).

As for Facebook- while I still enjoy the GrayBloke's YouTube explanation (scroll further down my blog entries) I find myself being able to wrap my brain around this thing. Even more important- so do a number of my contemporaries. That makes the whole thing a lot more fun!

My RandoRadio program is flowing fairly well of late and it too is great fun every Saturday afternoon. The traffic on the way to the studio is getting more evil as the weeks go along and I will have to compensate- when all is said and done, it's all good.

I will leave you with a YouTube video that was responsible for jump-starting my inspiration. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Click here to see it- they disabled the embedding.

Don't forget to visit the RandoRadio website by clicking on the Rando logo at the top left of my blog page. I'll be back sooner, I promise.

Peace be with you,
Glenn

When pigs fly... or when Swine Flu...

I think it was Obama's consigliere Rahm Emanuel who alluded to never wanting to waste a perfectly good crisis. The monetizing of this one particularly sticks in my craw. While the best way of preventing the spread of this illness is proper and frequent hand washing, a company called Purell bought a full page ad in today's New York Times pulling a quote out of a document from the Center for Disease Control and using it to pimp their product. Who knows how many other papers this has run in- and a full page NYT ad is around $140,000. You still pick up the bottle. The germs are still there to get to someone else. The germs that survive the Purell are STILL on your hands.

WASH. WITH. SOAP. AND. WATER.

I spent ten years around folks whose livings were made in American hospital operating rooms. Trust me, they all WASHED.

While we are on the topic, in the same issue of the Times (the paper whose mission it is to keep me crazy) had this article about the inability to contain this illness. Here is a link to the article.
The one line that made my head spin was a quote from a Dr. Michael Osterholm that showed how vulnerable we really are in an economic sense when the concept of closing the borders is invoked. Not only would we have no source for sterile hospital masks, gloves, gowns and other related stuff but even important drugs and/or the raw materials needed to make them. Then he said "Our global just-in-time economy means we are dependant on others... A Kellogg's Nutri-Grain bar has ingredients from nine countries in it"

So let me see if I get this straight. If the borders were to close tomorrow one of the largest cereal companies in this great land of ours couldn't manufacture a freakin' cereal bar? How are we supposed to successfully build the next generation of automobiles when we can't make a cereal bar under our own power? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

If this was no more than a marketing opportunity for some well placed pharmaceutical companies, the governments would do what they did a few years back for the SARS epidemic. Lock down cities and whole parts of countries and ground flights to MAKE SURE that travel is restricted. The company I used to work for was sweating bullets during that episode because it had moved most all of its production to Singapore, and NOTHING was going in or out for a while.

Luckily, there seem to be no major issues in the suburban area that includes Garnerville, NY. There will be a facility wide Arts Festival and here is a link to their website. RandoRadio will be celebrating its first full year of streaming- webcasting- digital hurling- whatever. Go click on the RandoRadio picture at the upper left and go to OUR website to see more of what we will be doing. We will also be asking for some kind of economic stimulus because RandoRadio Is Too Big To Fail!!!

Of course, the main idea is you will hear the effects of your stimulus with us immediately, not months or years down the road.

Time to figure out what will really work for the live show this Saturday. Check out our website and give a listen.

Peace be with you,
Glenn

"You Can't Get There From Here"

And if you are a Firesign Theatre aficianado you know the next line is "...but I'm looking for the same old place!" I'm on the cusp of another show and running through some of the stuff I will be playing tomorrow. Sometimes there is a method to this process and other times it depends on what snakes have been stirred up in my head during the past week. It can fall into place nicely or it can get really ugly.

While I am pulling stuff that ties in with my own sensibilities I have to remember that I am doing programming for a listener base that is used to what "RandoRadio" is. One of my bugaboos is trying to find a way to reasonably incorporate that which is known as "classical music" into a free-form format and I have not been successful quite yet. There are fewer and fewer venues for this kind of music save some NPR stations and even that is becoming more of a piecemeal thing.

I was royally pissed when the local NPR station WNYC-FM pulled its daytime classical music programs after 9/11. They believed it was more important to simulcast their AM talk show stuff and keep New York City gazing into its own navel. Good bye Steve Post and Margaret Juntwaite. They relegated Mr. Post to the junkheap and you may hear Margaret every now and them if you're lucky. As our friends across the pond say, "oh, sod it".

I'm listening to the Sufjan Stevens CD "Michigan". If he only had a clue that 5 years later the tumbling automobile business would give this release even more significance. The track playing now is "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider). I should tie that in with the new John Rich song "Shuttin' Down Detroit".

Please click on the RandoRadio globe picture to visit our website and consider some economic stimulus to keep us going. RandoRadio Is Too Big To Fail!!! Just keep telling yourself that.

Peace be with you,

Glenn