Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019

So what happened in 2018? In short: a lot. My goals for the year were as follows:

1. Put out two new albums of electronic/ambient instrumental music. Sanur was released in January, Harys released in July.
2. I released the book about my band The Stepford Five titled Are You Making A Sound? in March. It was a fun project and invigorating, more on that.
3. While I didn't publish a follow-up to Small Stories, I started the processing of fleshing out more stories. That probably won't be out next year, maybe 2020 or 2021. I interviewed my great uncle Mike about his experiences in World War II, transcribed his journal and have started the research process. Maybe 2019, maybe 2020, not sure on that yet. I did not move forward at all on my mother's journals, but I have them for a future year. Things got busy, more on that later.
4. The Black Sky moved forward in a big way, but then took a step back. Here's the gist, as I don't want to go into too much detail: in January, one of my query letters landed me representation with an agent at a large NYC literary agency. This was a dream come true, I was on the proverbial cloud nine for days. We talked on the phone, went over the particulars, the time frames, the (realistic) expectations and such. Immediately the manuscript started going out to publishers and then... well, kinda nothing for months. That's how it goes, waiting to find the right home. I outlined the sequel, and waiting to hear something. Every couple of months, I'd check in and get a short but courteous "we're in the process, it takes time, be patient" response. By the end of the year, after I had a call with my agent and later learned about some issues at his agency, we ended up parting. To be fair, he sent out the manuscript to the folks I would ecstatic to get to read it, and provided me the feedback he received, but it was clear he wasn't going to be reach out to smaller publishers, so at this point I've taken The Black Sky back under my wing and am looking for another option in 2019. I'm also considering a revised title.
5. Dig Me Out continues to grow, and 2018 was another stellar year with fun interviews, excellent roundtables and great episodes with our listeners. We have even more planned for 2019.
6. Let's start at the end on this one. By the end of the year, I came to the conclusion that my job had become a detriment to my health, my family and my creative pursuits, and I tendered my resignation. It was met with shock and, to the credit of the people I work for, an offer to amend my workload and hours to something more accomodating. Like a lot of people, I was unable to detach myself from my work for even any time off, and with the growth of our newly created division, could see how damaging this would become if the trend continued in 2019. In January, I'll be moving into a part-time role with more limited scope, and be able to reclaim some of the hours that had been whittled away over the past year.

I Need More Catherine Wheel

For Record Store Day 2018, the lone Catherine Wheel compilation album "Like Cats And Dogs," originally released in 1996, was re-released on vinyl. Although I missed out on purchasing it on the actual Record Store Day that occured the day after Thanksgiving, a Christmas Elf delivered it to my door on December 24th by surprise. I'm already plotting a reciprocal shipment as a thank you to that Elf, and listening to this release elicited numerous reactions:

I've Run Out Of Words

The new Failure album is good. Very good. Really good. Really, really good. I mean, what am I supposed to say? After a nineteen year break, the band released The Heart Is A Monster in 2015. That was also really, really good. To people like myself, their 1996 album Fantastic Planet is a pillar, a decade best, genre defining widescreen epic of mind-bending muscle and delicate dissonance.

The Heart Is A Monster shouldn't have been as good as it was, that break should have dulled the hard edges, but the band took all the elements of their time away, and reconstituted with cunning and bombast. The Stockton to Malone like weave of Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards vocals, bass and guitar duties was a thing of beauty, never showy, but draw dropping nonetheless, backed by the primal thump not-so-secret weapon Kellii Scott.

Good Advice From Goodfellas: Positive Life Lessons From the Best Mob Movie

Good Advice From Goodfellas: Positive Life Lessons From the Best Mob Movie by D.X. Ferris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'll be honest that, while I've watched Goodfellas probably as much or more than any other movie, I never thought of it in the way DX Ferris interprets it. As it it laid out, Goodfellas is one choice after another, and DX does a great job of framing it for practical application in the real world. As someone who struggles mightily to navigate the corporate world and it's intricacies, I found this both refreshing and enlightening. It's also a helluva lot of fun.

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