Saturday, March 26, 2016

Hey There, It's Me!

Photo by https://pixabay.com/en/crocus-garden-end-of-winter-670378/.
Black Sabbath's Paranoid starts spinning. I just finished my own somewhat extended jam session, and now I am chilling and listening, looking out my windows. All is right with the world again; the birds are singing and there is a soft glow, but, I imagine, the backyard kinda smells like dog shit.

A lot has taken place in my life in the time since my last posting. Maybe that is the reason for the slight bitterness. Maybe I should just clean up the yard.

Getting a job was nice. The job is pretty fun too. There is a lot of typing involved, which, I realize, is what is improving my guitar playing. Finger strength is half the battle, apparently. Having a guitar and place to go jam with my friends was basically how I made it through grad school.

It's the spring thaw! We are old and lazy now, and it is too cold to jam in the garage in the winter. We could, but we're all cold babies. That, and it's hard on the instruments. Trust me, we cannot afford to have those cymbals get any worse. The way they are is okay, though. We can just market it as "low-fi." We are the biggest fans of our music, and that sort of thing totally appeals to us.

Wait, wait a second. I just totally forgot about a key piece of information that, unless you have checked out my ABOUT page lately, or my social media, you might not have noticed. I write for a magazine now! The Devil Strip!

It's a lot of fun. I like getting to interview people who are doing what they love for a living, or who are chasing doing what they love for a living. It's really inspiring, and it gives me a chance to get outside of myself and think about all of the cool stuff that other people are doing in my community,. Plus, I think, a little humility is good for me.

Sometimes, I get nervous about how my stories are going to turn out, but then I just buckle doing and work harder, and they seem to turn out okay. Not just okay, though. Maybe even... Good? I don't know. I guess that's for the readers to decide.

I really hope that people dig my story about The Funny Stop, which will be in April's Devil Strip. I had a lot of fun doing those interviews, and Pete at The Funny Stop was a big help in putting me in contact with the two comedians who I interviewed. He was also very happy to answer my questions.

For my other story, I  interviewed the guitarist of Puscifer, which is fronted by (Tool and A Perfect Circle's) Maynard James Keenan . The guitarist's name is Mat Mitchell, and he was very nice to speak with me the night before the current leg of the tour got under way.

Also, if you haven't checked it out already, last month I interviewed Neil Zaza, an Akron native who just happens to travel the world and play guitar for a living.

My goal now, is to get settled into my new routine and stay busy! I hope to still write these blog posts every Saturday, or, rather, I hope that I get back into writing these blog posts every Saturday. It is a good excuse to get to Nervous Dog and drink dark roast coffee all morning.

Hell, I do that anyways. It is nice to be productive, though.

It's also nice to be busy enough and productive enough that I can really justify just enjoying my weekends. Life is too short not to enjoy them. So long as I enjoy it, I will continue doing it, and that goes for everything I just mentioned--except the job. Yeah, that is kind of necessary.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Short Story, "Starving America," Now a Free eBook

A short Story By Gabe Gott
Herman O'Toole dreams of entering
 an eating competition, if only he can
if only he can survive the day.
While I missed my Saturday post due to family obligations, I did have something planned, something that I was editing and formatting, something that I finished today: free short fiction!

I originally wrote "Starving America" six years ago in an Intro to Creative Writing class at Kent State, and I published it on this blog around five years ago. Since then, it has spent some time as the very last story on the FICTION page. Now I have re-edited it, reworked parts of it, and republished it as an eBook, which is exclusively available on Smashwords.

It also seemed fitting to reintroduce this story right now due to the current political climate. We live in a ridiculous world.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!