A quick note to anyone who’s been thinking of grabbing one of Afterhell’s black tees at Cafepress: They’re running a promotion right now where you can take $3 off a black tshirt purchase until June 23, 2006. Just use the coupon code BLKBETA2 at checkout on the Billing and Shipping page.

Jamie insisted I post about this.  Luckily I found an excuse to put it on the “Afterhell” blog!  If you hurry, you might find it.  Hurry, before it’s gone!

We’ve seen what Russell T. Davies can do with “Doctor Who.”  But what could he do with “Mystery Science Theater 3000“…?

Virtually since day one, I’ve been openly and bitterly opposed to right-wing politicos.  I scan partisan hacks with a jaundiced eye, regardless of where they land on the political spectrum.  I don’t need reactionaries of any stripe.  But for the longest time, I’ve held a unique distrust for conservatives in American politics.

Now check my math, but wasn’t the first scandal in United States history the work of conservatives?  Puritans, the religious conservatives of their day, got it into their heads that women were good wall hangings.  Right-wingers are the first to kill, the most eager for war, the most hungry for money and power, always the most afraid.  Attacking southeast Asia?  Their idea.  That third-rate burglary in a hotel.  Trading arms for hostages.  I could go on all day like this.  Then again, listing only their colossal screw-ups through history might crash the entire ‘net.

Okay, I’ll stop sitting on your chest and tell you what’s with me and neocons lately.  Illegal immigration.   I’ve been meaning to get a good flame going on this one too.  And yes, I’m Hispanic.  That doesn’t change the fact that their obsession with our southwestern border is becoming a right-wing fetish.

Mayhaps it’s arrogant of me, gentle reader (and kindly fuck yourself with sweaty gelignite if you think it is), but I’m sick of it.  Their whiny fears.  Their rabid complaints.  Their panicked backpedalling at justified accusations of racism.

C’mon, of course it’s racism.  They hates us little brown people.  They’s a-scared of my parents, my aunts and uncles, my nieces and nephews.  And yet they’ll tool around a parking lot in a pick-up truck and (ha-ha) picks themselves up a handful of “guest workers” for two bucks an hour.

And you know it’s about us beaners.  They don’t care if a white glassy-eyed psycho soaked in blood crosses the Canadian border.  If you’ve got a tan and can’t wait to make a decent living, you’re…an illegal alien!   Aliens!  Invasion!  Time to kick your hard-working, naturally tan ass back to Mars!

Boot.

Here’s the clincher.  Frank Luntz, professional Mr Potato-Head look-alike and neocon newspeak architect extraordinaire, had lent his skills at warping language and discourse to this issue some time ago.  Y’know, sort of the way Sir Isaac Newton had equations lying around just in case someone had to track a comet.  Luntz and his ilk prepared a document chock full of Orwellian doubletalk and catchphrases for this very subject.  And now it’s making the rounds on the Internet.

I’ve been going over this document.  It’ll cost me my blood pressure, but one must know thine enemy.  Admirable advice.  (Yeah, I’m going serious link-happy today, kids.  Good luck keeping up.  Marcel Proust ain’t got nuthin’ on me.)

Anyway, this is how Luntz’s Ministry of Truth intends to “frame” the discourse.  Make note of this.  These psycho-linguistic potholes are going to come at you from every aspect of the mainstream news media — viral advertising in its purest form, at its most brilliantly executed.  These are the words, the metaphors and verbal images that you’ll be bombarded with.  This isn’t some tinfoil hat conspiracy at work.  It doesn’t have to be.  All it has to be is ubiquitous, persistent, and repetitious in order to work.

“Linguistically, as you enter the debate, there are four key themes that must represent the core of your message:  prevention, protection, accountability and compassion.”

There, he states his intention to co-opt those words, to re-define what they mean whenever anyone in this country talks about immigration.  And now, their ideal framings for those four important words….

[On prevention:]  “If we stop the inflow of illegal immigrants, we can start to address the problems created by illegal immigrants already here.”

It doesn’t take much time for anyone to notice how absurd that premise is.  If prevention was really of interest, they’d stop illegal immigration at the source.  They’d work with the Mexican government (such as it is) to give the Mexican lower class a reason to stay home.

The hardline right-wingers paint Mexicans as moochers, as if they’re coming across the border to have fun at our expense and because they like to commit crimes.  In reality there are two simple reasons why people are crossing the border.  First, they want to make a decent living.  To feed their families, to live in good health, with dignity.  Second, they want to be free.  Violent crime is rampant.  And half of it comes from the local police.  Negotiate with the Mexican government, address these issues productively, and two-thirds of the human traffickers on that border will be out of a job.

But the neocons don’t really care about the poor.  They buy into the Calvinist view that you’re poor because you’re too weak to be rich.  In other words, they’re not really interested in getting to the heart of the problem.  All they want is scapegoats.  For two bucks an hour.

[On protection:]  “For most Americans, protection is as much about economic security as it is about homeland security – so say it and personalize it.”

Uh huh?  Yet neocons aren’t the least bit concerned about infiltration from the Canadian border.  And they should.  I don’t mean the Travis Bickle wannabe several links up.  I mean terrorists crossing the northern border, as they did back in 1999.  The Millennium Plot — the one the Clinton administration stopped.

But then you probably don’t remember that, do you, little neocon?  Too busy scanning dresses for protein stains.

Don’t let these yahoos play this protection scam on you.  The scary 9/11 card is their favorite play, but in the end, it’s just a ruse.  Uninspected cargo containers, chainsaw-wielding nutjobs, it doesn’t matter to them.  They don’t care what’s coming across our borders unless it’s got a darker complexion.

[On accountability:]  “Those who flaunt the rule of law should be held accountable.”

How about those who flout Strunk & White?  Fraggin’ morons, the whole lot.  Hey, at least when I do it, it’s a stylistic conceit or an honest mistake.  (A…an…?)  Meanwhile the Melanin Police over there insist on making English the official language of the United States when they don’t even know how to use it.

I dunno, what do you expect from the rabid followers of the Great Decider?  Maybe they were thinking of him when they made that error.  Little neocon, considering your complicity in torture, violating everyone’s civil rights, corruption, and elective wars, you don’t exactly have the moral high ground on any issue.

Just to be fair, let’s give ’em another bite or two at the apple.  It’s fun to watch them choke when they find the worm.

“We need to say to those who commit crimes: ‘you’re out of here.’ We’re not going to fund you in jail, we’re not going to pay for your food, and we’re not going to allow you to work out on weights. We’re not going to pay for your cable television. […]  We will deport you within 72 hours….”

Ooh, zero tolerance on vatos, man.  They’ll bust you, stick you in a cell and give you the first decent meal you’ve had in weeks!  But just for three days, ese.  Four days is gonna help the terrorists win.

[On compassion:]  “I do have compassion for illegal immigrants, but if I have to choose, I’m going to choose American citizens first….”

Fine, pick your own pinche grapes.   And clean your own damn house while you’re at it.  Then keep going till you clean up the whole federal government.

You don’t have to choose between immigrants and American citizens, Mr and Mrs Small Government.  Streamline the immigration process.

These losers like to gripe about how the country “punishes people who play by the rules.”  They’re the ones who set it up, made it bloated with bureaucracy, let it fall apart, and later replaced it with the Bureau of US Customs and Border Protection.  They’re also the ones who make cracks about clearing out crowded restaurants by simply shouting, “La migra!”

Wanna try it again?

“We believe that everyone deserves a second chance. If an illegal immigrant working here would like to re-enter the country as a guest worker and as a legal immigrant, they should be given that chance.”

Gotta love these neocon claims of compassion for people they secretly despise.  Whether they come in legally or illegally, neocons are still gonna bitch to high heaven about immigrants clogging our schools and our emergency rooms, about them taking our jobs and moving into our neighborhoods with their smelly cooking and how they breed like rats.  Burdening the country’s safety net…the very safety net they want to tear down.

Of course the true hypocrisy behind Frank Luntz’ s pre-manufactured bromides:  Under a section called Words That Work With Hispanic Republicans, the report suggests the following line:  “If we take human life seriously, we will take these human trafficking rings seriously.”  Not a point of policy.  It’s a talking point.

Talk.  That’s all they’ve got.  They don’t want to fix the problem.  They only want to sound like it.

Meanwhile I’m going to keep talking about it — burning — until they come clean or offer some real solutions, whichever comes first.

So you know this is gonna go on for a while.

Halloa, back at the homestead.  We didn’t keep up a day-to-day journal of the World Horror Convention, I’ll grant you that.  But we managed to go there and back again while staying in one piece, getting neither sunburned nor stoned on absinthe.  Lemme give you a thumbnail sketch.

Day Three:  Friday.  The first full day of the convention.  Our base camp in the dealer’s room was all ready, so all we had to do was uncover our tables and…sit, mostly.  I’d gotten a dealer’s membership instead of a full one.  For all intents and purposes, I had clearance to be in the dealer’s room only.  Ironically I shouldn’t have been allowed into my own panel.  We got lots of confused glances from passersby who scanned our wares.  We explained the disks were all audiodramas.  The glances went from disoriented to downright suspicion.

Yes, suspicion.  A furrowed brow and an apprehensive glare worthy of a spaghetti western hero.  Perhaps it was socio-political tension, a residue of fear that we worked for the NSA.  Maybe a prior case of mistaken identity was taking place.  Oh frack, I thought to myself, who do I look like now, the leader of the freakin’ Symbionese Liberation Army…?

Whew, it turned out that it was nothing of the kind.  The prefix “audio-” had conventioneers positively befuddled.  (If you meet one of these people, tell them to click that link.  Also, be a dear:  Smack ’em on the head on the behalf of every single frustrated English teacher throughout the land.)  Jamie hit on the idea of telling everyone we were selling radio theater.  Worked like a charm.  When told that, they instantly got excited.  Then they moved on to the next table.

Writer Lawrence Santoro came in for the first of many visits to our table.  We’d met him the night before, but he was exhausted.  Friday morning was our first chance to go into detail about our show, WRW, and Transdimensional Media.  That marked the first of many encounters with writers, editors, agents, and even customers that weekend.  A few might even be in town for the UFO Festival this Saturday.  Shiny.

No, wait, now this–this–was really shiny.  We’d tried to make contact with any number of other people, including family, while we were in the Bay Area.  Just when we thought it was just us against the world, we met up with Peter Fagan for the first time in six years.  Years ago we’d worked on a painful amateur film project.  Somehow we’re still friends anyway.

Day Four:  Saturday.  That morning we heard incoherent grunts and murmurs from our fellow dealers.  They hadn’t been bitten by zombies, thank God.  Rather, it was a little hair of the dog.  We were among the few completely sober people in the whole con.  I resisted the urge to wave pictures of ships at sea in front of the afflicted.  ‘Tweren’t the only urge I had to sit on either.  We were sitting across from dealers in goth corsets.  Fortunately our sales were picking up quickly enough to distract me.  By the end of the day, we’d sold all our copies of WRW’s “Frankenstein.” 

We’d also met up with writer Simon Wood for the first time that weekend.  Very charming fellow.  Very clean.   It was a relief to see him, I admit.  At least I’d managed to meet my fellow panelist.

Panel…oh, ta ma duh, the damn panel.  That was the following day.

Day Five:  Sunday.  Closing day.  Lastday, Capricorn 25.  “The Sounds of Horror” panel.  We’d asked the convention staff whether they were going to do a panel on radio horror.  They said “Great idea!” and nothing else for several months.  Suddenly I’m told that I’m going to be the moderator for the panel.   I hadn’t done any public speaking in a hundred years.  And I had to moderate the panel, the first time I’d ever done it.  I’d read up on the job of moderating con panels.   I wanted to put my notes on index cards, but couldn’t find any.  I wrote them out in a spiral notebook, writing question after question, comments as well as comedic gags. 

All the advice I’d found turned out to be flat-out wrong.  Like a fool, I believed everything I’d read.  The articles said to avoid jokes.  Avoid jokes?  Until then, I’d always heard it was best to open with a joke.  Draw as little attention to yourself as possible?  Well, that kinda flew in the face of our reasons for being there, to promote “Afterhell.”  Wait…no audience participation till the end?  No shameless plugs?  Don’t introduce your panelists?  Introduce them while…plugging their work?!  How does that work? 

It didn’t, of course.  Utter BS, the lot of it. 

The dealer’s room closed early that day.  Everyone wanted to go home, including us.  And it was just as well.  I got tired of ignoring attractive goth chicks trying on corsets in front of me for four days straight.  Packing all our wares as fast as possible, Jamie and I ran late for the panel.  We ran in, period — with everything we had, looking like the well-equipped refugees we really were.  We set our panelists’ table while con-goers trickled in.  I welcomed them and apologized because Jamie and I being so out of breath.  They looked confused.  Again with the deer-in-the headlights look.  Mentally I tossed out half my plans and broke all the rules I shouldn’t have learned.  I introduced the panel, then explained briefly about “Afterhell.”  People in the audience started sitting up, now curious.  I told one joke, prepared to watch it crash and burn.  lt broke the ice faster than you can say “CFC’s” and took a little tension out of the room.  The second one, totally improvised to cover up noise from the next room over, made everyone loosen up even more. 

By the time our discussion had run out of steam, it was ten to the hour and I told everyone that’s all we had, thanks for coming. 
The response was a quick, surprisingly energetic round of applause.  Courtesy or not, we took it as a weary victory and headed north for home.

The only consolation I had…well, the beauty of it was that I had several.  Good sales, good contacts, good response.  People’s eyes widened with interest, nodding with approval, whenever they heard our sound clips.  And those CD’s were moving.

And now we don’t have to.  Later.  Got cat barf to clean up.

Well, here we are in San Francisco on the second day of our trip.  We would’ve posted something sooner, but we’d gotten only two hours of sleep.  Getting ready for the trip down south got kinda sorta rilly-rilly hectic. 

Day one:  We stopped across the bay, in Alameda.  Y’know, where they keep the nu-clee-arr wessels.  Thanks to the folks at the Willamette Radio Workshop, we were blessed by the hospitality of former Portlanders Bob and Laura Lundy-Paine for our first night.  There was lasagna and kittens and everything.

Day two:    After a quick stop at my favorite Mexican restaurant in the whole fricking world — it’s mine, you understand?! mine, mine, mine, go, go, go! — we hit the Golden Gateway Holiday Inn, the site for this year’s World Horror Convention.  It doesn’t start till Friday, but today was time to sign in, set up our tables in the dealer’s room, and say a few hellos. 

The real horror (hence the mention of Bowie and Bing) began once we had to pay for our parking space.  It wasn’t a parking fee.  It was a ransom.  And they didn’t even accept plastic.  We had to go back into the hotel just to use the ATM.  At least highwaymen didn’t make you load their guns before they robbed you….

Fortunately we’ve already gotten some interest from would-be customers.  And the con hasn’t even started yet.

Just a few quick updates:  We have a Volume 2 promo now available on the Listen page of our website.  If you want a taste of the whole disk and the “Sleepless Days” podcast wasn’t enough, fire up the RSS feed on your podcasting software or try the direct download. 

Hopefully that’ll tide everyone over for a little while.  We wanted to do a fully fledged podcast in April, but the first few weeks of May are going to be really busy.  From May 11th to the 14th, Jamie and I will be at this year’s World Horror Convention in San Francisco.  We’ll have a table in the dealer’s room where we will have for sale copies of both Afterhell CD’s as well as some tasty wares from our friends, the Willamette Radio Workshop and Transdimensional Media, the purveyors of the sci-fi noir classic “Dry Smoke and Whispers.”

I’ve been pegged to host an audio horror panel which will include Jamie, author Simon Wood, and the good wishes of writer-producer Lawrence Santoro.  Larry was slated for the panel, but the poor guy has to book it to SFO early if he’s ever to fly back home.  Something about a sinking ship.  Anyway….

Also we’re going to be at the UFO Festival on May 20th at the McMenamin’s Hotel Oregon, helping out while the intrepid folks from WRW will perform live the Mercury Theater adaptation of…

Was it “The Time Machine?”  No, that’s not it.  “The Invisible Man?”  Or maybe “The First Men in the Moon?”  Nah, that’s not right.  It was something by H.G. Wells, I know that.  Or was it Orson Welles?  I always get them mixed up.  Uh, maybe I can get back to you on that….

Ever wonder why you hear about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, but never about this stuff?

All-White Jury Acquit Milwaukee Police of Brutality Charges
(This link includes a rush transcript text and downloads of the story on “Democracy Now.”)

New White House Policy Chief Was “Brooks Brothers” Rioter

CIA Expands Operational File Secrecy
This gets complicated, so I’ll encapsulate the story a bit with quotes from the article:

• As they do every ten years, the CIA “conducted a review of its ‘operational files’ last year.”
• This refers to a file’s status as either “operational” or open to the public.
• Instead of removing files from operational status, the CIA “added twenty three new file category exemptions.”
• In other words, they’ve just made fewer files available under the Freedom of Information Act.
• They also twisted the law to do it.  The statute addresses only the curtailing, not the extension, of a file’s operational status.

The next time you read the paper or fire up the tube, ask yourself:  Are you sure you know what’s going on?

It’s been a while since I’ve made a posting on the personal blog here.  Much of my time and resources have been tied in completing Afterhell Volume 2, which is finally done.  Then came a slight rush of attention when “The Sonic Society” broadcast the pilot ep, “Dark Descent.”  Last week Eddie, one of our cats, had a bloody but fortunately minor crisis with one of his paws.  That required a few harried rides to the vet and the first of many pills for the poor guy.

As soon as all that was sorted out, my body practically crashed.  One bright side of that is, since I have to take a lot of rest, it gives me a chance to catch up on Old Time Radio shows and podcasts.  I’ve been listening to everything from TWiT to the 1950’s Nightwatch.

Of course not every podcast is ultra-shiny.  Once in a while, you find a popcorn kernel that didn’t pop.  Sometimes you find out that’s irritatingly awful.  So what have we got here in my big bag o’ podcasting.

This one is golden, fluffy, and buttery.  Here’s another.  This one too.  Now how about–ooh, here’s a bad one.  The Babylon Podcast, Show #5.

Wait, I hear you say, it’s a podcast about Babylon 5, one of the best TV shows evar!   How can it possibly be bad?

I impart a sad truth, grasshopper.  There’s always someone ready, willing, and able to ruin a good thing.

Anyway I tried Babylon Podcast #5.  I downloaded it months ago, but didn’t get a chance to go over it until this week.  And as starting points go, it’s a fitting one, I suppose.  (I R so clevar, R I not?)

BP#5 features an interview with Kurt DeFilipps, who was an assistant propmaster on the Babylon 5 series.  I figured, “They’re gonna talk about props.  Nothing controversial there, just a mess of trivia and a few laughs.  An easy listen fer sure, dude.”  It starts out well.  It’s a fun interview.  The end of it fizzles out, the way people keep talking long after they’d run out of things to say.

But it’s a fan-run operation.  These things happen.  With a little practice in front of the mike and behind the controls of a sound editing program, it gets sorted out eventually.  Same thing with the opening — they do their own self-indulgent version of the Season 1 B5 titles (“It was the dawn of the Third Age of podcasting….”)  God, it’s so childish.  Embarrassing and totally pointless.  But hey, they’re having fun.  It’s cute.  You cop it to enthusiasm and move on.

The rest of the podcast, however, is like passing a stone the size of a bowling ball.  Left to their own devices, podcasters Tim Callender and Summer Brooks lay into the pilot ep, “The Gathering.”  What’s the fraggin’ point in that?  It’s an easy target.  The pathetic, misshapen thing can’t even defend itself.  Everyone knows how bad it is, even with the TNT edits.  No great challenge to attack.  No real insights to offer, either.

It’s one thing to discuss or study the ep, but it’s another to just rag on it.  Tim Callender and Summer Brooks don’t bring any hard info to bear for context –like the fact that the production process on the pilot ep was a mess, low on money, short on time, director Richard Compton being forced to maintain order on his own, all facts documented by jms himself at conventions when he was promoting Season 1.  Instead they griped about the things they didn’t like.  Delenn’s ring.  Stewart Copeland‘s music.  The props.  The sets.  How various plot elements didn’t mesh well with the rest of the series.  How telepathy was handled.  How the Vorlon ships has logos on them (?).  How we didn’t see the Centauri Republic in the series resemble a tourist attraction as described in the pilot.

They can’t even respond to criticism with any semblance of credibility.  People were a little surprised by their criticism of Stewart Copeland’s music.  Granted, his score for the pilot didn’t resemble Christopher Franke‘s “Requiem for the Line” motif or anything.  But jeez!  Tim Callender snarked at a comment on the Babylon Podcast blog, “Yes, I was aware of Copeland’s pedigree (I also like his Klark Kent stuff).  And the Police recorded ‘Walking On The Moon’, so I suppose there’s an SF connection in there somewhere. 🙂 “  So he likes Stewart Copeland’s bloodline.  Nice thing to say, I guess.  And somehow a strawman in desperate need for an SF connection wanders into discussion on his way to see the Wizard…

Meanwhile Summer Brooks simultaneously backpedals and slags in the same posting:  “I didn’t think I ripped Copeland’s score at all… I just thought that the music changed the tone being set for the story. […]but honestly, does it stick in your soul like Franke’s theme does?”  Translation:  I didn’t rip Copeland’s score, but since I didn’t, I’ll take some time to do that now.  And of course the soul is an objective standard for anything.  Ugh.  It’s like watching Barry Bonds dig himself in deeper.

Jeez, did they like B5 at all?  Yes, they did like the fact that G’Kar didn’t cry out, how “he didn’t make a sound!” when he was being crushed by Delenn’s ring.  Even though he did.

They’re doing the best they can, I guess.  I mean, they confuse “Hunter, Prey” with “Points of Departure,” “Walkabout,” and “In The Beginning.”   Or nitpick things to death and call it geeky fun.  But they’re doing what they can.

Okay.  Fine.  Just keep me out of it.

By virtue of jms’ writing, Lawrence DiTillio‘s writing, Ardwright Chamberlain‘s voice work, and Jeffery Willerth‘s forebearance, one of my favorite characters on the show once said, “A stroke of the brush does not guarantee art from the bristles.”

After this, I have a much more clear, much more bitter understanding.  [sigh] Let’s head back to the barn….

Thanks to our good friends at CD Baby, “Afterhell: Volume 2” is now available for sale! Click on the album cover or the “buy the CD” below to get to our CDBaby.com page:

OLLIN PRODUCTIONS: Afterhell — Volume 2 Horror/dark fantasy audiodrama, this time with an edge of black comedy.

We will be updating the rest of the Afterhell website soon, with new information about the Volume 2 cast, a promo audio clip, and links to some of our creative partners.

We’d also like to thank all of you who have taken the time to check out the CDBaby page for “Dark Descent.” Over the last few months, visitors to that page have risen to an average of 2 per day. Maybe not much in the world of webdom, but it makes us happy! We’d love to see the numbers for “Volume 2” go even higher, though…. 🙂

Finally, those of you who have purchased or are about to purchase either “Dark Descent” or “Volume 2,” we would love to have a review from you! You can send it to us, or post it on our CDBaby or Amazon pages. Do be honest — if there’s stuff you weren’t entirely happy with, we don’t mind if say so — but keep it polite.

As always, thank you so much for your support.

Sorry I disappeared for a few days.  I was going to post something by popular demand.  A command performance, as it were.  But I just plain crashed on Sunday.  One part illness, several parts fatigue.  I slept through half the day!  (If not for DST, I might’ve slept for only a third.  Bah dum-bump.)  Jamie figured I crashed because I finally could.

Why is that, you ask?  Volume 2 is complete.  Mixed, mastered, burned, pressed, and packaged.  Distribution is in work.  The folks at the Mark Time awards have already gotten their batch.  A whisper in a gently shadowed corner told us the artwork has already blown them away.    And we’ve just sent copies out to CD Baby.  We’ll see what everybody else says.

Finally.  Whew.  We’ve been banging on this thing for nearly two years despite toil and trouble.  No cauldrons bubble, though.  I kicked those over and told them to keep the racket down.

A quick heads-up to one and all…we’re using a different CD case for this release.  Instead of the standard CD jewel box, we’ve opted instead for a Super Jewel Box CD case courtesy of the folks at Jewelboxing.  We’ll break the horrific news to them shortly.  But anyway, each case has a latch that holds it shut.  Press it in and the latch opens.  It’s a little confusing at first.  I’m still getting used to it and it was my idea to try it out!  On the bright side, these cases are pleasing to the eye and well built.  It’s sturdy enough to survive more than a few car trips.  If you use a baseball bat on it, you’re on your own.

We’re also giving copies to cast and crew whenever we can.  For most, if not all, this is their first opportunity to see the artwork and hear the final mixes of each story.    We’ve already gotten a few responses, which have so far boiled down to “Wow!” or “How do you open this, again?”

On Saturday, Sam Mowry and Cindy McGean treated us to a really nice wine bar (that I won’t tell you much about because I want to keep it a secret as long as possible) to celebrate.  We all took turns locking and unlocking the case as well as fondling the cover insert. 

On Monday, Jamie and I went to Grendel’s Coffeehouse in downtown Portland for one of David Loftus‘ readings that month.  It also gave us a good excuse opportunity to show off the new Volume 2 CD and some promo cards for it.  David has been waiting patiently for this disk ever since he first came in for “Sleepless Days,” so it was a real pleasure to give him the finished product.  I got an unexpected charge when a few people started asking for promo cards.  If I’d known, I wouldn’t have used all 50 cards as coasters for my cup of chai.  But seriously, folks….

And of course Tuesday saw the first half of our debut on “The Sonic Society.”  A trickle of compliments and sales has started up. 

I’m hoping for a deluge.  But that comes later.