Roland is interested in doing a duo. He is, I think, more confident than I about our ability to make money doing this, but I agree that the two of us sound way better together than we do separately. We’ll (tentatively) get together at his place Saturday night and discuss what to play, and maybe record a couple of things. It sounds like he’s got more sophisticated recording equipment than I do (plus he doesn’t labor under the difficulty of being mostly tone-deaf).

I want as quickly as possible to have an EP of us doing four songs (two by him, and two by me, I think) that I can peddle around to potential venues; I know I can do this on the Tascam, and produce a record-quality result—but maybe Roland can do it better. Beyond that, I want to create a “These guys are great!” brochure, with photos (which again, I can take). I don’t know what the local market looks like, but I can sure find out. We should have a setlist of about two hours of stuff we can do flawlessly (I think that will just take a little practice).

The 2nd Street Public Market in Tillamook says they do have some openings for entertainment; I do not know what (if anything) they pay. I have let myself get talked into doing a shift (unpaid) running the front desk at the Market (I’ll try to limit that to one shift a week), and that should both keep me in touch with what they’re doing, and ensure they don’t forget me.

Roland also might work as a fill-in lead guitarist with the band. We’re going to need one, I think—Mike Simpson isn’t guaranteeing he’ll be able to do more than Garibaldi Days and the Bay City Centennial gigs over the summer (and having got a peek at Mike’s summer schedule in the studio, I can see why)—but I have two more gigs I’d like the band to do: the benefit for the Food Pantry, and the “Joe Concert” at the Arts Center September 25. And the latter gig is paid. (We likes paid. We wants paid.) There’s also still the potential for the September Rocktoberfest, provided Mike and Tim Croman can convince the Chamber of Commerce to pay the musicians. (I’m not sure whether they’ll be able to do that—but I think the concert probably isn’t going to happen any other way.)

At our Wednesday all-acoustic jam at the Garibaldi Pub, blues harpist Dennis “Doc” Wagner requested I do “that Southern Pigfish song” (“For Their Own Ends”), which the rest of the group had never heard before—and Roland did a fine lead, especially considering he’d had it thrust at him out of the blue. It is different from just about everything else I play.—and I figure if he can handle that okay, everything else should be comparatively easy. (The rest of the group said they liked the song, too.)

Beyond that, I feel like I’m waiting again for a growing list of things (and I know I have no reason to be anxious—I just want feedback, to bolster my sense of self-worth). Jobwise, I feel I’ve applied to run the world (and I still have more jobs to apply for)—I’ve applied to be interim city manager in two towns, a city recorder, a city clerk, an assistant city manager, a deputy assistant city manager (yes, there’s a city that actually has one of those), risk management person for an insurance co-op, a bank manager, an accountant for the county (didn’t Glen Campbell write a song about that?), graphic design guy for the newspaper I write for, a city planner, “development director” (fund-raiser) for a non-profit doing grassroots political training, public records officer for a university, and a state job whose exact nature escapes me at the moment. And probably a few others. (There are a bunch of other state jobs to apply for, too—though I wonder why the state is hiring so many people when they’re simultaneously talking about laying off so many people because of budget cuts.)

On the music front, I think the only people I’m waiting on are the Willamette Writers group; I’ve answered other ads on Craigslist, but I’ve learned from experience not to expect a response. And there’s Saturday’s Great Intergalactic Puppet Show to get ready for—it’s maybe a 10-minute performance (just a 3-page script), but the advertising has attracted a whole lot of attention over a very short period of time, and now it’s time to deliver.

Joe