Having received three rejections in two days (one each by phone, e-mail, and letter), I had started writing a “discouraged” blog, but had to give up—I really can’t stay discouraged too long. I usually can find things to keep me busy, and happy if not satisfied. I’ve toyed with the idea of announcing to my colleagues in the city managers association that I’m going to award a prize for the best rejection letter—there are still a few cities I haven’theard from. Prize will be one of my CDs, of course—that won’t cost me any money.

Time to assemble a setlist for the Garibaldi Museum concert (26 June). That’ll be an hour-long show, and between the songs from the Failed Economy Show and the March concert in Bay City, there’s a good 3-1/2 hours of material to pick from. We’ll have a different lead guitarist—Wayne, if he’s interested. Practice a week from Sunday. The suggestion was made that I write up a setlist of about 15 songs, and have the band pick a dozen of those (which would be just about exactly an hour’s worth of music). Works for me.

My choices? Well, I’d start with the ones people seemed to like the best from the Failed Economy Show. Those are:

For Their Own Ends (Southern Pigfish)—folk-rock

Final Payment (Gem Watson)—Gospel two-step

Dance a Little Longer (Woody Guthrie)—swing with strong beat

Things are Getting Better Now That Things Are Getting Worse (Gene Burnett)—also a two-step, but a little faster and in a different key

So 20th Century (Coleman & Lazzerini)—ragtime

Un-Easy Street (Stan Good)—two-step

Eatin’ Cornflakes from a Hubcap Blues (me)—mod. slow & sleazy quasi-blues

Free-Range Person (me)—fast bluegrass

First four are the ones that got people out of their chairs and dancing. Rest are ones they didn’t dance to, but seemed to like the best. And then from the Bay City concert, where the songs were mostly mine:

No Good Songs About the War—mod. slow two-step

Armadillo on the Interstate—slow & sleazy

Tillamook Railroad Blues—mod. slow traditional blues

Bluebird on My Windshield—fast trucker rhythm

Dead Things in the Shower (me & Bobbie Gallup)—pretty fast two-step

A couple more? ‘The Termite Song,” maybe, because it’s really fast, and “Duct Tape,” because it’s one of the most-requested. We could close the show with “Duct Tape,” or one of the fast-moving Woody Guthrie songs, either “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad” (which the Grateful Dead used as a final number) or “Worried Man Blues” (which the punk-rock band Screamin’ Gulch used to use). Another possibility: “Doing Battle with the Lawn.” It is lawn-cutting time again on the coast, and with all the rain we’ve had, people—the guys, anyway—ought to appreciate the sentiments.

John (bass) and Dick (harmonica) are familiar with all of these; Chris (drums) only knows the ones we did at the Failed Economy Show. Wayne (lead guitar) was at the Failed Economy Show, so he did hear all the songs we did, plus he’s been to enough Friday Night Group sessions that he’s probably heard all of my songs on the list. We could be okay without a lot of work, in other words.

The other thing I’d like to do, if possible, is record some of these—with Wayne playing lead guitar if he’s willing, and me if he’s not. (There are a few of the Failed Economy Songs where I could do a decent lead—but not many,) I understand our videotape didn’t come out very good, and the audio recorder only caught a few songs (its memory wasn’t as big as everybody thought)—but we did have people sign up to be notified when the CD came out, and I’d hate to disappoint them.

TO DO: Talk to the owner of the Ghost Hole Tavern about having me take over playing music Wednesday nights (I don’t think Jeff is coming back); talk to the librarian about her little PA (cheap, I hope); music Friday night at City Hall and Saturday afternoon at the Tillamook Library. A Beth Williams song to musicate, now that I have time, and a lead guitar track someone wants me to do on a blues. And rejection letters to apply for. Can’t forget those.

Joe