Bob – Writer’s Block, and The Story of Malibu Bobby

Dear Diary …

The current case of Writer’s Block continues well into its 2nd month. It is a horrible feeling, not being able to put words into sentences that tell a coherent story, staring at a blank monitor screen for hours on end, wondering if I will ever be able to write again.

It happens to writers on occasion. It is visual laryngitis , intellectual paralysis, which has no known cure. Like the common cold, all you can do is wait it out, taking steps suggested by friends that may have worked for them, but do not work for me. The words cannot be forced, bribed, or cajoled into forming sentences that eloquently, humourously, or intelligently convey what is on your mind.

It is like being trapped at the bottom of a well, unable to cry out for help.

…and rather than leave the page blank, I have, this week, decided to reprint a column from 2011, when the juice was flowing and I could write three of these a week. At least there are some new links and pictures for your dining and dancing pleasure.

There are still more stories to tell, laughs to share, and adventures and opinions to commit to paper …and as soon as I can …I will.

In the meantime ….

Bob Continues to Explain Why the American Music Awards Were So Darned Magical

Miss Part One? Click here

There were only 4 responses to my request for comments favouring a Part 2 concerning the 2019 AMAs, 3 of which half-heartedly clamored for one (probably because they are nice people and thought if they didn’t it would hurt my feelings), and the 4th from an old friend and fellow scribe/music hostage/old guy complaining about how impossible it is to read these columns because of the white words and black background.  The words are actually light grey and the black is called “Midnight Black”, but try as I might (and believe me, I’ve tried), it can’t be done. AND, If I change it, 2500 columns will be affected and look like poop, so, sorry Richard. Also, having Glaucoma makes reading black print on white difficult for me, producing headaches and the occasional sneezing fit, so …I will send my friend a copy of the book when it’s finally done, which will be black on white, but with not many pictures, because other than my own personal pictures, the pictures I use in these columns I swipe from other sites and some want me to PAY for them! I mean, really …have you EVER?

Now then …where were we ….?

Bob Explains Why the American Music Awards Were So Darned Magical

So rarely does an Awards Show come along that enthralls as well as entertains, educates as well as enlightens, and stinks up a room less than a Tour Bus full of Used KFC Buckets, 2 Weeks worth of Green Day’s unwashed sweaty stage socks, and the urinal odor of R. Kelly’s bedroom, but this year’s AMA’s managed to do just that.

Not by much, really, but still ….

Segarini Time Machine – October 11th, 2011

Hello there …

This will be updated next week. In the meantime, due to a busier than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs week and weekend, this gem from 2011(written before many of you were born), is the lead in to next week’s blockbuster column.

Until then, have a week’s worth of nice days, look both ways when you cross your fingers, and quit pulling the goalie looking at pictures of Margot Robbie (or however she spells her name.

I Remain,

The Scarlet Claw

GARY PIG GOLD – FOR PETE’S SAKE

Can it really be true that Rolling Stone publisher/magnate Jann S. Wenner has personally conducted a decades-long campaign to bar The Monkees from induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Peter Tork certainly thought so.

“He doesn’t care what the rules are and just operates how he sees fit,” Peter told the New York Post in 2007. “It is an abuse of power. I don’t know whether The Monkees belong in the Hall of Fame, but it’s pretty clear that we’re not in there because of a personal whim.”

GARY PIG GOLD – “THANK YOU MASKED MAN”: THE WACKY LIFE, AND GRIZZLY POSSIBLE DEATH, OF JIMMY ELLIS (aka ORION ECKLEY DARNELL)

First, there was Elvis. Amen! Then there was Ricky Nelson and Johnny Hallyday. Perhaps even Conrad Birdie.

Of course P. J. Proby could often sing “movie Presley” – and much later surely do “Vegas Elvis” – better than the true specimen, Terry Stafford hit U.S. Number 3 with an o.k. “Suspicion” mind during the very height of Britishmania (personally, I much prefer the 1970 Viv Stanshall / Keith Moon interpretation), and who can even forget Ral “This Is Elvis (sorta)” Donner and possibly even the Dick Clark-approved Ronnie McDowell? There was a real cool guy here in T.O. called Subway Elvis too, but he was always getting thrown in jail.

Frank Gutch Jr: Canada! Drake Is Coming! (Angharad Drake, That Is); The Omniverous Trailers;

There are musicians who are outstanding and there are musicians who are unique but seldom do you find one who is both.  I have found maybe a small bucketful during my lifetime who rise to the fly (as fly fisherman are wont to say) and most of those would be under your radar but they are there, regardless of cynics’ belief that music is dead.  My problem is that when they do come along, I am so like Chicken Little that few believe it.  Most take my loud cries of ecstasy as another of my many elaborate hoaxes, though I wonder how they know because they haven’t heeded my advice anyway.  You want to know what discouragement is?  Discouragement is posting a video or audio track, getting 17 “likes” but only three more views or listens than when you posted it.  I guess it is most times easier to click a button than to actually listen.

Frank Gutch Jr: Paradise Is Paved, Here Comes the Parking Lot… plus a Voluminous Collection of Note(s)

Goldband Studios is gone.  Here I have been spending the past few years singing the praises of Research Turtles— I call them the boys from Lake Charles— without realizing that the city/town/parish also was home to Eddie Shuler and Goldband.  Dumb me.  I have known of Goldband since I was in college, having found them through That Dorm Guy who was somehow plugged into anything and everything musical.  I look back now at him and wonder how he was able to find so much music in a land with pretty much nothing but Billboard Magazine to guide him, but he did.

Frank Gutch Jr: In Anticipation of Moon Palace; The Space Opera Trilogy; and Notes and Nothing But the Notes…..

The stars have finally aligned, sports fans!  You can delete my queries about Carrie Biell because I have found her after a ten year search.  I should say that my buddy at KEXP radio, Tom Smith, found her.  Well, maybe a friend of Tom’s.  Or a friend of Tom’s friend.  Ach!  It doesn’t matter.  The important thing that she is found.  The other important thing is that she is writing again and has already jumped back into the deep end of the musical pool.

Frank Gutch Jr: Can’t You Smell That Smell; Meet Bob Blackburn (and Bob Blackburn); the Annual John Rocker Report; and Notes… It’s All About Baseball, Sports Fans

That’s right, sports fans, I smell baseball.  When I was a kid, sports were seasonal.  When the seasons changed, so did the sport.  It’s hard for me to relate to sports these days.  Football goes all the way into February.  God knows when basketball ends (seems like it goes on forever— in the Pros, at least).  And baseball ends about when the snow flies.  But it always begins in Spring and  it’s Spring now.  Almost.