Tag Archives: author

Grand Junction

Merry Christmas Once Again

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Five months have passed since my last missive, and I apologize for that. I thought it would be appropriate to wait until the perfect night (Christmas Eve) to share some good news. And Lordy, with the year we’ve been through, we could stand to hear some good news.

Here’s the background. While recording my error-free memoir onto Audible and preparing to make it available to consumers nationwide, I touched toes with the long-time operators of KAFM 89.1, Grand Junction, a community radio station entertaining pioneers, Natives and their descendants on the western slope of Colorado.

Its 24/7 programming consists of approximately three-hour blocks awarded to volunteer deejays who help the station recover from #47’s attempts to financially starve audio media. Each of KAFM’s deejays has his/her featured genre of music. You can listen to anything from a Grateful Dead show to country music. Good-time rock, blues and new Americana run amuck, all of which provide a smorgasbord of brain stimulation.. Frankly, if you limit your audio choices to Spotify-type data, you don’t listen; it turns out to be background noise (better known as “mush”).

Something you may know: My book reveals how I became an imaginary announcer as a child. Now at the advanced age of 82, I was strongly encouraged to join up and become a volunteer deejay, following a poetry reading from my book in the nearby town of Fruita.

It all started over the last four months after I phoned two of the station’s presiders of sanity while they were on the air, and wouldn’t you know it, one thing led to another. Now I’m scheduled to assemble my first three-hour live show in February.

My building is appropriately decorated for the holidays.

The station streams over the Internet at https://www.kafmcommunityradio.org. Its nationwide reach also is called streaming, Mama!

That means all my friends and supporters will be able to hear and cheer on my Audible voice and selections of music beyond If I Said That I Would Love You: A Performance Poet’s Journey. Doesn’t this sound like fun? Two professional musicians led me on this path: blues artist extraordinaire Bev Conklin, known for keeping the blues alive in the Lehigh Valley, and Don Slepian, an extraordinary Poconos worldwide touring space-music composer/performer. Thanks, guys!

My air-chair name is going to be: “Mason from Miami.” The show will be called: “Organized Chaos.” Most of the music is from “Grandpa’s Vault.” And it’s in stereo.

Merry Christmas!

Sunset around my gypsy digs in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Grand Junction

Hello from Grand Junction

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On July 23, I drove 625 miles from Longview, Washington to Twin Falls, Idaho, exactly a thousand kilometers for those who prefer the metric scale.

Why such an exhausting day of travel? An out-of-control wildfire known as the Durkee Fire closed Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge interstate-highway from Pendleton to Baker City, forcing us to cross over the Cascades to US Highway 20 where we motored through the mind-bending scenic Malheur Canyon. a seldom touted area of East Oregon west of the town of Burns.

The remaining 500 miles on July 25 transversing mostly interstate highways through Salt Lake City to Grand Junction, Colorado, was a relative piece of Angel’s Food Cake. Arriving shortly after 5 pm, I chose to celebrate the safe end of our sojourn at the Grand Valley Grill’s happy hour, sipping on godmothers (Amaretto and vodka) while feasting on a savory large slice of meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans. The complete dinner was only 10 bucks.

Whoopee! Accompanying me on such a treacherous sojourn was Mary Schenk (shown above), who volunteered to host my hasty retreat from the Washington townhouse that was sublimely decorated by my late love in life, Alice McCormick. I could not have pulled off such an audacious relocation without generous assistance from Mary, a former neighbor who grew up several houses away from my childhood home in Hialeah, Florida.

two spirits
My tenancy required approval from two spirits shown above.

In case you don’t know, during the 1950s Hialeah contained America’s premier thoroughbred horse racing track. I was too young to enter the grounds then, except for Sundays. Since no racing was allowed on “the Lord’s Day,” the general public was admitted free to gawk at the hordes of white and pink flamingos taking up South Florida residence around the racetrack’s encircled manmade lake. Needless to say, I was enthralled.

Now that I have my computer finally set up, I am prepared to deal with the aftermath from Amazon’s unreadable publication of my memoir/love story, “How I Became a Lesbian (and other stories)”. And I think there is a solution. A professional musician in the foothills of the Poconos suggested I create an Audible version of the book before attempting its reissue. “More people are listening to Audible than are buying books,” he said. Considering my regard for his musicianship and history of providing assistance to fellow musicians, I have decided to follow up on this plan of action.

What do you think? Would you be interested in acquiring an Audible copy of the book? Does this idea sound good to you?

Feel free to give some feedback, because I don’t need a different kind of feedback while narrating my story in a recording studio. And if you don’t understand my play on words here, wait until you hear all of it!