Almost time to publish the 2010 Worklist; I’ll hold off one or two more issues of the blog, though, and let the Christmas concert get out of the way. Updates, first.

The “I see dead things” sweatshirt came out good—I only had to re-print the design four times to get that right, but it ironed on the sweatshirt just fine. I can wear it Saturday night at the Christmas show—if I dare. Lorelei, Polly, Beth and Joanne got their Joe Songbook packages; I have some more to make, but I need more labels (I can get those Friday, when I go into town to help daughter move). Whitney and Dawn, the ringleaders of Life’s SubtleTease, the burlesque troupe, are interested in doing another show (yay!).

I found normal guitar tablature for most of Bruce’s Christmas Potluck songs, and transposed them into the keys he sings ‘em in. I was sure it existed after I looked at Bruce’s sheet music for the Elvis song “Blue Christmas,” and found that full of diminished-ninths and flatted-elevenths and other “fruity” stuff, too—and I know the King didn’t use chords of more than one syllable, because I’ve seen him play on TV. (And I can play “Blue Christmas” myself using only four one-syllable chords.) Same for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”—it has only three chords, and there’s not a diminished-ninth among them.

The only song I couldn’t find normal tablature for was “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” (not surprising, since it’s a Perry Como song—but why is Perry Como listed on the Internet as a “country guitarist”?).

And the Christmas Potluck gig did come across mostly okay. Bruce sang some, and I sang some; I think I do a better job of working a crowd, but that may be the result of my own paranoia—I don’t want to risk losing the audience’s attention, so I never give them a chance. My stuff is a little less conventional, and I noticed they were listening. Biggest hit of the evening (I was told so) was my rendition of “Santa, Baby.” I even got a scarf and bling-bling (from two ladies in the audience) to wear while I was singing it.

We were missing Chris the drummer; he’s been sick, and we hope he’ll be back in order by Saturday’s Christmas Show. There is no way to tell. This flu season has been real hard on a lot of people.

No word from the Tillamook Revitalization group, which I assume means I did not get the job. (Too bad; it would have been fun, I think, even though the pay would have been absolutely awful.) It’s okay; I’ve got a couple of applications in the pipeline (both city manager jobs, of all things) and a couple more to apply for. Come January, though, I think I might as well become a full-time student if I can figure out a way to afford the classes (and keep the mortgage paid); I am not doing anything productive spinning my wheels applying for jobs nobody wants me for.

I have decided—we’ll see how well I can pull it off—that I’m going to stop being dependent on the vagaries of reality. No, that’s not a return to the Glorious ‘60s (I lived a very sedate, normal kid’s life in the ‘60s, anyway); rather, I mean I’ll just go ahead and plan what I want to do, rather than waiting to see what happens with a job or anything else. If I want to go to Nashville for a week next summer (one of the things that was going to end up on the Worklist again), I’ll simply plan on it, and save up for it—and if Divine Intervention wants to throw any curve balls my way, I’ll deal with them as (and if) they happen.

I have developed (or re-developed) a number of things I can do—writing, graphic design, music, &c.—and have managed to get (or get back) a little bit of a reputation for it, I think. The Operative Question is whether it can generate an income—I could use one of those. Probably that should top the 2010 Worklist: “Figure out how to make a living off this stuff.”

Joe