A YEAR AGO AT THIS MOMENT, I was sitting in my home office listening to the final hour of my favorite radio station ever, AuralGasms.com. After a lifetime of musical obsession and two decades of hearing just about everything released as a music critic, during the last half of the 2000’s, I found something I never expected to find — this online radio station that perfectly matched my personal tastes — and I listened to…
I’VE ALWAYS BEEN IN LOVE with the trappings of Christmas. Over the years I’ve made Christmas caramels to give away, written and recorded Christmas songs to play for friends and family and, yes, even penned Christmas stories. You should see the lights strung around my house. I love this season! And this year, I finally put together a short collection celebrating it. Christmas Tales, a short collection that can be read by the entire family,…
I LEARNED TODAY that one of my favorite directors of all time died this week. Jean Rollin, whose French films of the ’70s and early ’80s — Living Dead Girl, Fascination, Grapes of Death, The Escapees, Two Orphan Vampires, The Iron Rose, Fiancee of Dracula, Demoniacs, Night of the Hunted, Lips of Blood, Requiem of the Vampire, The Nude Vampire, and so many more — revelled in sensuality, horror, sadness and the surreal passed away…
SO THIS AFTERNOON, at our company Christmas party, I found myself playing keyboards in a “staff band” after just a couple practice sessions. We played a handful of holiday carols — including a take on “Blue Christmas” with “Santa Elvis” at the mic to sing. We even managed to stumble through renditions of Van Morrison’s “Gloria” and Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”. The kazoo solos by the audience, (who were all provided with budget instruments to help…
