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The Triumphant Return of Funky Friday

 

Well, hi! Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve paid everyone a visit from Blogland, but hey … life. Lots is the same (still hacking away at novel No. 2, still doing the freelance thing for multiple happy clients) but some things are different (the addition of voice over to my ever-growing list of professional skills – more on that some other time).

But one thing does and always shall remain the same – my ongoing search for new R&B, soul and funk that meets my personal criteria for awesomeness. And on that note, ladies and gentlemen, I present the latest single from the lovely Ms. Janelle Monae, “Make Me Feel.”

It’s probably a disservice to file Ms. Monae into the slot of “Prince protege,” but it is true that she was working on her latest album with the Purple One before his tragic death in 2016 and that he hand given her a helping hand here and there in the early parts of her career. Prince being the prolific songwriter that he was, it’s suspected by many that somewhere in the vaults of Paisley Park Studios, there sits a cache of material of such gobsmacking quality that we mere mortals couldn’t even conceive of it.

That’s borne out by Monae’s new song, which is a Prince original composition that he gifted to the singer from that very vault. Honestly, the fact that such a collection of quality songs exists otherwise untapped to this day is one of the great tragedies of the 21st Century, but I digress. Let’s instead be glad that Monae – and the rest of us, by extention – was the beneficiary of one of his last bits of open generosity.

The song itself reads like a master class on what both Monae and Prince bring to the table – playful, hip-grinding pan-sexuality; lyrical fun; sonic surprises (the tongue clucks that set up the initial beat, for instance). The video, meanwhile, is like one long shout-out to Prince, referencing multiple looks he sported during his too-short career. Let’s count ’em off:

  • The glasses Janelle wears as the “performer” in the club
  • Her dancers
  • Her see-through pants
  • Her jewel mail veil-clad guitarist
  • The interplay between the female friend with whom she arrives at the club and the male friend she meets there (“Who should I take home, her or him? Let’s make it both!”)

Honestly, it’s almost like seeing something amazing in your kids that you once only associated with a beloved relative who’s since left this mortal coil. Our dear Janelle pays an incredible tribute to someone who served as a mentor for her and as a guide down the path of funk, soul, rock and pop for the rest of us, and it’s frankly wonderful to see.

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Grab Hold of the Week Like That Ex Who Just Wouldn’t Let Go

Something about spring, the more agreeable weather and the additional daylight gets me back on the motivation train. The last few weeks have been marked by significant progress on the new novel, Mystery White Boy, and a couple of great events where people responded well to work both old and new.

But Monday’s are still hard for most of us, particularly as the weather grows better. Because you’re able to jam more fun into the weekend, the hangover seems extra severe when 7 a.m. on the first workday of the week rolls around. So what better to get you going than a healthy dose of good, solid rock. Continue reading → Grab Hold of the Week Like That Ex Who Just Wouldn’t Let Go

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Power Pop to Help You Power Through, Good People

Well, I don’t know about you, but around these parts it’s been kind of a rough week. I won’t go into the particulars, because what’s done is done, but I will suggest that now is the time, if you’ve been feeling a little down, to re-motivate yourself in a positive direction.

None of you will be surprised that the way I try to lift my spirits is through music. And while you might have felt more mournful than celebratory over the last seven days, I would suggest that it’s time for the mourning period to be over. Quit your bitchin’ and get to work. Continue reading → Power Pop to Help You Power Through, Good People

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Funky Friday: Sonny Knight and the Lakers Make New Sound Old

I’ve often joked that if I managed to make it to Heaven, I’d want my own horn section whose job would be to follow me around and punctuate my conversation with James Brown-style R&B call-and-response awesomeness.

More realistically, I’m constantly on the lookout for new bands that reach back to that classic soul sound and drag it (sometimes kicking and screaming) into the 21st century. Some bands try, succeed a little, then peter out (I’m looking at you, Red Hot Chili Peppers), while others, like Sonny Knight and the Lakers, do right by the Godfather of Soul. Continue reading → Funky Friday: Sonny Knight and the Lakers Make New Sound Old

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Returning from That Summer Place

It’s almost back to school time here in southeastern Pennsylvania, which means the kids will be terminating their summer brain dumps, rushing to catch up on assigned reading and trying to remember how to convert improper fractions to mixed numbers. That usually means time for the grownups to start getting their acts together, too.

I admit that I’ve slacked off this summer in a few areas – writing every day being one of the biggest. But where spring has always been the traditional time of renewal for nature, back to school time is, for kids and adults, typically the start of something fresh. It’s an opportunity to establish new routines and actually stick to them because so many other scheduled events depend on things running smoothly.

Yeah, this summer my word count for Novel #2 has fallen off, but I’ve also gotten the chance to do some things that will help make that book better even though I’ve spent a few weeks not actively banging away at it. One of those weeks was spent at our family’s own summer place, this one deviating from past years by switching the Outer Banks of North Carolina for Folly Beach, S.C.

New places equal new inspiration, so in lots of respects it was a worthwhile trip. I’m hoping it ends up as a salable travel story for the freelance writing side of my work, and there are always little details I can pick up from somewhere new to add into a story. Plus, as someone who sets his books in South Carolina but is based full time in Pennsylvania, it’s good to get back once in a while and get in touch with the people you’re writing about.

It’s also been good to go down some roads in my own reading that I don’t often travel. I tilted more toward the fantasy side of things with Fran Wilde’s Updraft and delved into the world of the Mafia – particularly as it relates to Philadelphia and Wilmington, Del. – in Charles Brandt’s I Heard You Paint Houses (look for an upcoming story on Charles and the forthcoming film version of his book in September’s Out & About magazine).

Novel #2 includes more of a criminal enterprise subplot, so it was great to read Brandt’s book and get a window into mob life beyond that provided in the Mafia film pantheon of The Godfather, Goodfellas, etc. And it’s always interesting to see what styles other writers adapt. Wilde’s is lean and tight, which keeps her sprawling, world-building tale to a reasonable and accessible length. While I’m not creating new universes out of whole cloth this time around, I’m trying to keep things leaner myself, so reading other writers who can do so is a bit like taking a master class in how it’s done.

So, here’s to parlaying my non-writing experiences and unassigned summer reading into some good, solid work on Novel #2 once everyone in the house gets back to their school year schedules. It might not be lounging on the beach or by the pool, but there will be plenty of that again next year.

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Pre-Father’s Day Funky Friday: Papa Don’t Take No Mess

Scattered across the Interwebs you’ll see a profusion of lame nostalgia from folks who maintain that their childhoods were the most idyllic and utterly perfect because of our borderline neglectful parents, helmetless Big Wheel obstacle courses, afternoons binging on ’60s TV sitcom reruns, hours of Atari and gallons of fully sugared Kool-Aid.

I decline to wax rhapsodic about days past because nostalgia gets us absolutely nowhere as human beings. Nothing was ever as good as you remember it, and the examples people so enthusiastically offer up as “better times” are just the highlights they remember fondly. Mixed in with those amazing examples of freedom and adventure were those days where we said, “I’m bored” one too many times and our moms just locked us out of the house. Continue reading → Pre-Father’s Day Funky Friday: Papa Don’t Take No Mess

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5 New Year Resolutions for the Aspiring Freelancer

2016-New-Years-ResolutionWith the new year, lots of folks cast their minds to a life change. For many, that change involves leaving the 9-to-5 working world and becoming a freelancer.

A while back, I was supervising my son at a birthday party for one of his elementary school classmates. The birthday boy’s father and I got to chatting about work, as dads often do in social situations, and he revealed that he was an engineer. He asked what I did, and I told him I was a freelance writer. When he probed for details, I shared my relatively flexible, work-from-home lifestyle as his eyes widened in awe.

“Oh, man! You’re living the dream!”

I demurred, as I often do when confronted with others’ disbelief, because I know in my heart that as good as freelancing sounds to people who don’t do it, it can have some pretty big ups and downs for those of us who make a living without being tethered to a single employer.

Sometimes I’m asked what the “secret” to a freelance career is. Truth: There is no secret. But there are a few commonsense steps you can take to prepare yourself if you’re seriously considering breaking free of the corporate cubical farm and going out on your own. Here, then, are my five things to do before you become a freelancer. Continue reading → 5 New Year Resolutions for the Aspiring Freelancer

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NoNoNoNo: The Tyranny of #NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo

We’ve now officially passed the middle of what all writers (and exasperated spouses/family of writers) know as National Novel Writing Month. And I have come not to praise this obnoxious exercise in virtual participatory nonsense, but to kill it, burn it, gather the ashes in a bucket and bury them. In a deep, deep hole.

But what is NaNoWriMo, as it is so frequently described and hashtagged by those writers the rest of us just want to punch in the throat? It is a challenge, issued to writers annually by NaNoWriMo.org, to pound out 50,000 words of a novel during November. Continue reading → NoNoNoNo: The Tyranny of #NaNoWriMo

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Novel No. 2’s Soundtrack Takes Shape

tapecollection

Call me an overachiever.

It’s not enough for me to just imagine characters and settings and plot and all the tasty ingredients that typically go into a novel. No, I’ve got to go the extra mile and imagine what those characters are listening to, what music might be playing the background of a given scene and what songs would accompany the film version of the story that I spend years imagining in my head.

And yes, I do it all for you, my beloved readers.

OK, not really. The fact is, I can’t help it. I’m an annoying hipster’s worth of musical knowledge packed into the body of a middle-aged prepster. The combination of the words and the music is just there, and there’s really not much I can do about it. Continue reading → Novel No. 2’s Soundtrack Takes Shape