Slackjaw's Forum

Well it was bound to happen eventually. I’ve been playing music now for 25 years and just last week I received my first royalty check. Yeah that’s it up there in the corner, a brand new check made out to me for $15.68 for the 730 plays of the song I wrote called Christmas Heart and Soul . Since Sweetie sings lead on this one she’s been bugging me for her half, but so far I’ve just told her that the record company needs to recoup it’s costs and as soon as it does we’ll split it 50-50. PlayNetwork , for those of you who don’t know, is a company that puts music into stores to better your shopping experience. It’s called foreground music as opposed to background music I guess. They are the company behind the music you hear at Starbucks, Eddie Bauer and Old Navy, just to name a few. I’m fortunate enough to know someone who works there and he’s been a big supporter of my music, both with Sweetie and with The Prairie Dogs and though I have yet to go into a store and hear anythin...

She got to hold him for a while. Ike was in a good mood, not all that fussy like he’d been the day before, and so they sat there for close to half an hour I’d guess. He’d smile or laugh or try to look backwards out the window. We liked Dixie. She was in town for a traffic safety conference and so on Sunday after it was over, she and her sister in law stopped by. She brought some pictures of Jesse to share and told us his story of the day he died and we showed pictures of Ike and of his first eight months of his life and of the transplant and everything that followed. She told us her story of moving from South Dakota to Selah and how her daughter was just now 17 and driving and about the tree that they planted at the barren spot where his car crashed. It was heavy at times but not morbidly so. Mostly we marveled at how total strangers could have that deep a bond. I was told, “That’s some head of hair you’ve got!” by the sister-in-law and that cracked us all up. When it c...

He had trouble staying in one place. He could create the illusion of a sedentary existence, but every four years or so he would pack his things and move, cutting ties and moving ahead to make a new life for himself. It worked well for the most part, choosing flawed lovers and menial jobs that allowed him to walk away and start from scratch. He could chase his dreams that way he said, but he never did, in fact he never even really tried. He was like his mother, though he didn’t see that in himself. His mother came from another time when marriage and divorce was more the norm and co-habitation was still living in sin; At least in that part of the country, in the middle American small town part of the country where they always seemed to live. He liked to travel, and by the time he was thirty had traveled more than his mother ever had. It made him feel worldly, and somehow like he’d escaped the past and all those stepfathers and half siblings and small towns where he was alw...

Well I’ve been working on getting the Prairie Dogs out and about on the web these days. I spent the beginning of the month sending our CD around and seeing if we could get some reviews and try to generate a few sales at the same time. Right now we’re one of the featured artist at Radio Indy where I’ve uploaded a few songs and you can hear us both on their main radio stream and on the acoustic stream as well. Go by their site and help support independent radio if you can. Oh, and tell them that the Prairie Dogs sent you and that you’d like to be the featured artists on the main page! We’re also on the radio in Germany at Alooga and in Belgium at Goldenflash as they both were kind enough to ask for CD’s when I put them up for sale at our site on CD Baby . Also our CD just got put on the main page of Kweevak, another spot on the web for independent musicians. They have promised me a review, but so far it’s not up yet so be sure to look around and come back often for upda...

Well we got back into town yesterday afternoon not too much worse for the wear. It wasn’t, in the classic sense, one of those “relaxing” weekends, but even a bad day at the beach is a pretty good day anywhere else. We pulled in Saturday afternoon to the typical sort of weather you you’d expect to find out on the coast this time of year. Wet, but not raining: a sort of misty haze that leaves you feeling like you’ve taken a shower without ever having turned anything on. The dunes were a swamp, and for the first time that I can remember, there were large lakes in the middle and you had to do a lot of searching to make your way through the maze without getting you feet wet. I can’t say I was all that successful, as I managed to soak one of them pretty good trying to get Ike’s new stroller over a narrow body of water, but everyone else came out ok. The older boy was soaked from the waist down after about five minutes playing in the surf anyway, but managed to walk the whole wa...

Sweetie and I are celebrating our 22nd anniversary of our first kiss/date thing this weekend by going away to the ocean with the boys. It’s also Ike’s fourth birthday and what better way to celebrate then by watching the winter storms batter the seaside town of Ocean Shores from the comforts of our own hotel suite. Last year when we went, the weather was kind and the sun shone and we wandered about in our bare feet. Ike loves everything about the Pacific Ocean, and even at four, understands its great power and beauty. We’re bringing board games though, I mean, we’re not that stupid. The place has an indoor pool, hot tubs and a sauna, fireplaces and large living rooms to spread out and read books and easy access to the beach; a necessity when traveling with Ike. We leave Saturday and come home Monday. I have registration for school on Monday morning, which we’ll do on the way back from the beach as Olympia is on the way. There’s an evening writing class I’m interested in ...