The Writer's Life 8/1 - Music

I watched another of the music videotapes I made, this one circa 1996. In fact, there was a clip from Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve featuring Kiss doing I Wanna Rock n Roll All Night  just before the ball fell to usher in 1997. There were some fabulous babes stage side, as there were in a Doobies Brothers reunion broadcast on PBS. They did a smokin' version of Long Train Runnin' that went on a little long for my taste. Chicago appeared on The Tonight Show to promote their reunion tour, and tore it up on 25 or 6 to 4. There were four breakout artists on the tape: Beck doing Devil's Haircut on Leno, No Doubt doing Don't Speak on SNL, and Luscious Jackson doing Naked Eye and Republica doing Ready To Go, both on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, back in the days when I had the stamina to stay up to one-thirty AM just to tape a four minute performance. I'm not sure the latter two bands had any follow up hits, but both of those songs were fine. There were two clips of Elvis Costello, both from Late Show with David Letterman. Costello has always been a daring artist, delving into different forms. He teamed with Burt Bacharach on a standards-like song from an album they did together, and with Debbie Harry and the Jazz Messengers on a wonderful take of Don't You Go Away Mad. At the time, I had become interested in Jazz, and the tape ends with a couple of tracks I no longer find interesting, although I really enjoyed a three-tune set of saxophonist Richard Eliot earlier in the tape. The guy has unbelievable lung capacity. It's amazing his heart didn't give out or his face explode. I looked for a link to Live's performance of Lakini's Juice from SNL on youtube, and was disappointed not to find one. Not only was the performance spectacular, the lighting was ingenious. Instead, here's a link to Republica on Late Night:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djW8rZgFxaY Enjoy.

Steve, an old buddy who used to trade gold futures at the Exchange, has launched a new venture, a website for people stuck in airports. We actually go back further than our years in the wacky world of commodities. He was a student at John Dewey H.S. when I worked there as an aide in the late '70's. He has been nice enough to give me some free publicity, running ads for the digital versions of A Hitch in Twilight on the site. So, if you're ever stuck in an airport and want something interesting to do while killing time, check out the site:  http://meetattheairport.com/ Good luck, Stevie.

I had a chance to pay back Simon, the 84-year-old vet who has donated so many books to me. Knowing his love of movies, I dug up seven books, one on Hitchcock, three on famous quotes, and large volumes on Streisand, the Fondas, Woody Allen and Around the World in 80 Days. "His eyes lit up like a Christmas candle," to quote a phrase from my own novel, Killing. He later returned with even more books. He and Herbie were johnny on the spot when the rain came, helping me get my wares to my car. Thanks, guys.

Visit Vic’s sites:
Vic’s Third Novel (Print or Kindle): http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic’s Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic’s Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic’s 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6 Vic’s
1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic’s Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3f