The News from My Bed

Turns out, it’s not all that hard in here for a pimp…not if you don’t have to leave your bed to get the word out.  Okay, not exactly the same thing, but it’s working for me…sort of.  I’m well aware that I don’t have a ginormous media footprint, what with my six regular readers and all, but here I am nonetheless.  What am I doing?  Oh right, let me tell you about my friends who actually get things done, rather than moi (who yammers and dodders). 

Once upon a time, I was a barfly.  Hard to believe, I know.  I went to the same bar all the time and I was very attached to my bartenders.  When they left I would grieve.  In an attempt to hand me over cleanly, without the dénouement, David told me he had hand-picked Katherine as his replacement with me in mind.  She was a writer…a good one…I had nothing to worry about.  Years later after she’d left the bar and we were friends I told her this story and then Katherine told me the truth, which was a very different story indeed.  She’s quite good at knowing the difference between the two, which she proves expertly in her debut novel Rules for Saying Goodbye

Rules-TaylorThe main character is also called Katherine Taylor and while the truth is omnipresent in every description, these are not strictly the facts of Katherine’s life.  I know Katherine and I know her stories and yet I couldn’t put this book down, partly because I couldn’t wait to see how it ended.  I laughed out loud at how smart her humor is in prose and paused at how gently she can provoke emotion.  Glamorous and enviable at times and all alone in a crowd (even if it’s a crowd of two) at others, the fictional Katherine Taylor wears shoes well worth walking in.  Buy the book!

So, before I departed Corporate America to pursue creative endeavors that’s exactly what my friend Russell Brown did.  I totally copied his paper, except he finished the test.  2007_race_you_to_the_bottom_026He made a movie!  I know everybody’s friend made their first feature the other day and they can’t all be good, so I had fairly low expectations when I sat down at the screening.  I was totally floored!  It was beautiful to look at and meaningful and there are real actors, you know, doing real acting—not like in everybody else’s friend’s first feature.  I knew Russell was smart and savvy, but I had no idea he had full-blown characters in him who felt so much and could move me so deeply.  The film is called Race You to the Bottom and it’s available on DVD right now.  Check it out!

Back when I had the office job I wasted time trolling strange websites, just like you.  My favorite was TheSpark.com where Christian Rudder operated this quirky corner of bizarre experiments wherein he cultivated a nasty case of Athlete’s Foot and got people to gain 30 pounds in 30 days. bishop-allen-broken-string Once I saw the Date My Sister Project, I had to meet the guy.  I tried to get him and his partner to do a book and he said, “Thanks.  I just started this band with my friend Justin and I’m going to see how that goes.”  I may have scoffed.  He sent me their demo and I’ve been hooked ever since.  The band is Bishop Allen and their new record is The Broken String.  You should totally buy it and listen to it and love it, but don’t forget the buying it part!  My new favorite song is, you guessed it, The News from Your Bed.  Oh and they’re currently on tour, maybe coming to your town this very day.

Hopefully, at the very least, Katherine will listen to The Broken String, Russell will read Rules for Saying Goodbye, and Christian will see Race You to the Bottom—they’ll tell their other friends who actually do things, everyone will be duly admired and appreciated, and I’ll have it in writing that they heard it here first…my pimpin’ cred established for doing not very much at all, as per usual.

Hillery

Hillery eventually learned not to say everything that came to mind. Some were too good not to write down.

One Reply to “The News from My Bed”

  1. Ack! I loved the projects that Christian Rudder used to post on The Spark. When I was single, I think Christian Rudder was one of my future ex-boyfriends. The Date My Sister Project was one of the funniest online things I ever watched.

    As one of your six readers, I’ve bought and read Rules for Saying Goodbye and watched Race You to the Bottom already. So I guess the only thing you managed to pimp out to me is Bishop Allen. I’ll have to check them out.

    Happy day, friend. I LOVE the new bike.

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