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past news... September 19, 2004 - Today a final Denver memorial for our friend Eric Vandermay was held in Denver City park. The weather was pleasantly cloudy and breezy. Eric's family were present as was a large group of friends. Everyone ate fantastic clam chowder, barbecue and pies galore. Friends dug a hole at the base of a tree planted in Eric's honor and sprinkled his ashes into it. Eric's parents are now driving a slow route back to their home in Cape Cod. __________ August 21, 2004
- This past Wednesday, August 18, 2004, our friend Eric Vandermay passed away
unexpectedly. Only 33 years old, Eric (also known as "Shasty") was a warm,
teddy bear of a guy. He was an excellent photographer, writer and cook, and he loved
well-executed theme parties, cigars and riding his motorcycle. He had recently
suffered a broken leg in an accident caused by a drunk driver but was making a full
recovery. He died from a pulmonary embolism (a post-surgical blood clot). __________ August 16, 2004 - chris isaak, r.e.m., they might be giants, yo la tengo, talk talk, delerium (yes that's how they spell it), cole porter, the beatles, matthew sweet, lloyd cole, old 97s, hooverphonic, radiohead, gillian welch & david rawlings, enya (do you have a problem with that?), sufjan stevens, the jayhawks and enigma. there, we said it. where's the lightning bolt. __________ August 15, 2004 - casinos are surreal. we know that word is overused, but when you walk through the crowd at a casino you have to wonder about the average expenditure to return per customer and whether he/she leaves feeling empty and used, closer to a payoff or what. we don't know if we're projecting, but just beneath the surface the whole scene seems sad and pathetic. still, we (us here typing, not the general population, although they might include themselves) are glad they exist as the massive, extravagant mirages they are. __________ August 14, 2004 - today, with heartfelt thanks to the doctors and staff at vanderbilt university hospital, frank shiveley turned 70. frank can do anything he could ten years ago and probably more, including mow the lawn, remodel the kitchen and watch bluejays on the bird feeder. __________ August 1, 2004
- as we were saying, 'sooner or later the car stopped dead on the shoulder of a nebraska
highway will be yours...' our friend eric vandermay just got banged up good by an
uninsured, drunk driver. to help pay his hospital and rehab bills, there will be a benefit
show tuesday august 17th at cricket on the hill (13th & downing in denver). __________ July 29, 2004 - everything is set up to be indifferent and (by default) oppose you. there isn't much point fighting it. __________ July 21, 2004 - if you want to know what it's really like, imagine yourself on the deck of an enormous ocean liner at night, 300 miles out. no one else is on board, but the ship moves swiftly at 20 knots. hang yourself over the rail and stare at the water forty feet below. then look out to the impossible, black horizon. when you throw yourself over, there will be two and a half seconds of acceleration before you shoot fifteen feet below the surface of the surprisingly warm water. now your list is short and simple, and you always knew it would come to this. you will thrust yourself to the surface instantly and wipe your eyes to see which side it's on. the giant wall of white steel is is directly in front of you. the bottom drops out of your stomach and the hum moves through you. you lunge directly backward in the water, roll over and stroke and kick with everything you have. it feels as if you're a tiny version of yourself, your legs kicking in cement and your arms waving through a whirlpool. you try to maximize every stroke, to thrust and kick and glide like a dolphin, but you're going backward. and now everything - the birthday parties, the sunday schoool shoes, the shoving, the awkward attempts to speak and contain, the sinking and hiding outside at school dances, the model airplanes without the interior finished - it's all coming back to get you in the form of three forty-foot propellers. you try to have perfect form. you command your arms and legs to move you a safe distance from the pull. but within seconds you feel it in the bottoms of your feet - the draw and the sucking. it will be gentle at first, then it will softly grip your knees. you'll slap twice more at the surface and then it will yank you backward and downward like an innertube tied to a motorboat. as you are pulled down toward the giant blades, it will remind you of being a child at the beach, being sucked under by a big wave for the first time, and it will be completely black. __________ July 19, 2004 - someone please make it stop. i really don't want it to begin again. __________ July 12, 2004
- rumor has it this weekend eric finally attended a wedding without forgetting the gift,
fogetting to wear a belt and without offending everyone at his table with
stories about gas station burritos and long drives to the desert. the bride and
groom seated him with couples from japan and india, and a single woman from germany with a
wedding diamond larger than a liebenabschnittsgefarte. __________ July 11, 2004 - this is the last time we'll mention stephanie abrams of the weather channel. or hillary andrews, heather tesch or sharon resultan (also of the weather channel). we've been receiving inquiries as to whether we have ties with ms. abrams and possibly her email or even a phone number. one poor confused soul screamed at us to stop ridiculing stephanie. we have no idea how this person concluded we've said anything unkind about stephanie abrams, but judging from his grammar we think he might have needed help just logging on, so we didn't take his rant to heart. __________ July 1, 2004
- sooner or later, the car stopped dead on the shoulder of a nebraska highway will be
yours, and it will be you walking 3.2 miles at dusk to the nearest exit. you'll
watch the last bubble of orange vanish below the horizon and be thankful for the half
moon (and you'll thank yourself for grabbing a jacket at the last second as you left
home). you'll be a bit surprised no one pulls over to offer a ride, but as it grows
darker, slightly afraid of someone who might. even though you've worked hard to
be true to yourself and treat others how you'd like to be treated, you'll feel completely
alone and as if your life has always been moving slowly backward as each 18-wheeler
thunders by and each luxury sedan rockets effortlessly past you to the horizon. __________ June 22, 2004 - this week your humble servant and host plays drums for alt-country studs buckskin stallion at the fox theatre, makes a quick trip to chicago to eat brats with family, then returns to play the westword music showcase with both his own band and alt-country renaissance men buckskin stallion. although eric the insomniac's primary family unit lives in nashville, there's a splinter cell in the windy city. cousin wayne gets married this weekend. __________ June 21, 2004 - today is the longest day of the year. it's also the day earth is furthest from the sun. unrelated, this low-fi mish-mash of crude ramblings and drawings is edited and maintained by a small team of socially inept high school kids and middle-aged former truck drivers based in findlay, ohio. one member of the web crew recently insisted we devote a news entry to stephanie abrams of the weather channel. well, the denver contingent that usually provides "content" for this site (we set that word apart because what's delivered to the web team and what ends up on the site are usually miles apart for good reason) finally saw stephanie abrams in action the other day. and...well...we're more suprised every week there hasn't been a protest by groups championing the 99.4% of meteorologists who don't look like stephanie abrams. if such a protest occurs, we'll aproach it the same way we've approached your host's neighbors' efforts to keep out wal-mart -- armed with a remote control, a glass of milk and a bag of shortbread cookies. __________ June 10, 2004 - the kind folks at internet soap opera City's Edge have asked to license more music from us. we highly recommend you visit their site and download an episode. and there's a review of el diablo's ep in this week's Westword. thought(s) for the week: a good night's sleep can work wonders. sending a card and photo to your grandparents will probably make their week. eat more fried chicken and ride your bike somewhere every day. __________ June 8, 2004 - eric's trip out west was cut short (to the point where the car was only half-loaded and didn't leave the garage) due to (among other things) the important hollywood screenwriter developing fairly serious strep throat. so your sleep-deprived host has used the past two weeks to catch up on the female cast of the weather channel. he has yet to see one without a giant rock on her finger or enormous capacities for dew-point trivia retention. __________ May 30, 2004 - your disheveled host is currently on the road co-writing, recording and making a video for the new album with the fantastic screenwriter/director team dave kajganich and greg fitzsimmons. it's eric's first trip to los angeles and he hopes to get pictures of the neon signs in the old-town section of las vegas along the way. he also hopes to avoid the mojave rattler (featured frequently on animal planet) when filming in the desert. __________ May 21, 2004 - the albums "love story" by lloyd cole and "i can hear the heart beating as one" by yo la tengo are a couple of those things that frighten you a bit because if you connect with them you know they're incredible, and it's a bit spooky so few people seem to have heard of them. and how someone could find the movie "magnolia" boring and messy as many critics did seems odd as well. but fortunately piles and piles of underappreciated movies and songs exist (ask tequila mockingbird for a copy of "sometimes" or "drunk again"). and lander, wyoming exists. you'd never know by looking at a map what lander is like. it's a bit southwest of wyoming's geographic center, lying at the feet of the wind river mountains. the wind river range is one of the longest and widest in the u.s. it's also one of the least accessible in all the rockies, requiring a full day of hiking just to approach the peaks. lander also borders the enormous wind river indian reservation ("indian" is printed in the 2002 rand mcnally). and with no major city for hundreds of miles in any direction, there seems a feeling of leftover openness and wildness. it's a beautiful place surrounded by a spectacular and empty landscape you have to see. in a couple weeks eric the awkwardly verbose will play drums for the great band buckskin stallion at a street festival in lander. __________ May 17, 2004 - sooner or later your life will flash before your eyes and you might wonder why you didn't jump from a perfectly good airplane, drive to nova scotia or try out for a play. we're plagued by thoughts of something vague that went wrong long ago and which we're always trying to fix. we meaning us here typing. not you. we don't know what happened but it's as if shards of it are imprinted inside us. the look of an old rotating clothseline, the october sky or a 1974 dodge duster can bring things to the surface. we hope when our life flashes before our eyes, the answers will be included. almost completely unrelated, you can vote for eric the infrequently articulate as local singer-songwriter of the year at www.westword.com frankly we don't care either way. __________ May 10, 2004 - an ep of the new album is now available. it's titled "el diablo's ep" and is exactly twenty minutes and sixteen seconds long. we'd say what we think but there might be eleven-year-olds reading. today is niece jackie's eleventh birthday. totally unrelated, we firmly believe in doing more with less, and that great things come from being backed into a corner. we've been wrong but we don't care. __________ May 6, 2004 - in a few weeks, eric the junk-food king will load recording and photography gear into the 1992 two-door with a/c and subwoofer and head for the land of swimming pools and movie stars. he's going there to record and film. it's very high-profile and secret and will involve powerful, fabulously wealthy directors and screenwriters, and possibly a spot on hollywoood squares or vh-1's "i love the 80's" (probably 1983 since eric the trivia-afflicted is good with patty smythe, bonnie tyler and stevie nicks image-recall). junk food note: burger king's fries are much-improved. __________ April 28, 2004 - there are far worse ways to earn your bread than to drive circles around a large city and its vast suburbs. just like it's amazing more three-chord songs can be written when so many are already out there, it's bizarre you can spend eight years at the same address without knowing there's a great burrito place two blocks from your door, or that there's a beautiful, wide-open horse farm you've never seen within minutes of your downtown home. if you could spend your days either in a cubicle writing and executing test scripts for corporate credit card transaction procesing software, or delivering closing papers, title documents and the occasional gift basket around town and country, which would you prefer? the answer is easy after you've done both. especially if you have a good car stereo. new song on the music page. "el diablo's ep" comes may 10th. __________ April 26, 2004 - a visitor suggested that our awkward little patchwork of pointless ramblings, uncomplicated hyperlinks and low-fi graphics disappear completely in favor of something more flashy (like the visitor's). we listened to some of the visitor's music online and decided against advising him to spend more time working on his songs and less on his website. sadly, other people will do that in less direct, more painful ways. we know how dumb we look in our underwear by the way. __________ April 21, 2004 - last night your disheveled host and his band the deserters recorded a live set and interview in boulder station kbco's famous studio c. bassist miles marlin was late setting up, having been on a mission to find the stool sarah mclachlan used during her session. no word as to when the show will air. the people there were very nice, though no one could find sarah's stool. __________ April 13, 2004 - 4/11 and 4/13 are the birthdays of sister kristie and brother scott respectively. kristie wished for a set of ginsu knives and a an inflatable purple milka cow. brother scott wished for the yoko ono box set. currently eric the insomniac is mixing live recordings for an excellent salsa band out of boulder named la candela and an avant-garde guitar concert by an incredibly creative fellow named tom copson that featured prepared guitar great janet feder. eric and his band are trying to make time to record a show in kbco's famous studio c. __________ April 3, 2004 - release of the new ep and albums has been delayed because of recording projects for clients and things we can't say. not bad things. at the end of april eric the unstable will be in l.a. to co-write and record an ep and to make a video for a song on the upcoming album. today is the 30th anniversary of the tornado super-outbreak that spawned 147 twisters. the shiveleys lived close to where the most powerful of the tornadoes tore a path directly through a small town. in the weeks (and years) following, children who lived in the area used up their black crayons drawing tornadoes and funnel clouds. __________ March 15, 2004 - currently the new album is being recorded. soon you can add two cds to your collection. "el diablo" is an entirely new album. you can hear some of it already on a few college radio stations. "point of failure" is a collection of songs & whatnot from all of the albums. plus some other stuff so you feel you're getting something unique. we sincerely hope you enjoy them. both are scheduled for release july 1, 2004. an ep from el diablo is scheduled for release may 10, 2004. thanks for listening.
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st. elizabeth's hospital is three miles from where the wright brothers spent over a month calibrating their wind tunnel. if you think deep pockets have always been essential to success, or that money (lack of it) is between you and your goals, consider what the wright brothers did with no financial support while keeping their bike shop afloat. there is no substitute for desire, work and perseverence. consider their 1903 flyer was deemed a success, but it made fewer than a half dozen flights before it crashed beyond repair (a few hours after the famously photographed first takeoff) and the brothers then headed home to dayton to begin the next design. it was another six years before they flew smoothly and regularly, and they spent two of those years grounded as their patents were processed, all the while their competitors making advances. despite having no financial backing, no college education, having to wait out governmental bureacracy, hearing skeptics call them hoaxes and watching others take the headlines, orville and wilbur wright stayed focused on their own, lonely as it must have been. and through uncompromising attention to detail, unfathomable patience and sheer determination, they created a giant machine that flew and flew under control. along with NASA placing willing human beings in a duct-taped washing machine and somehow slinging them to the moon and back unharmed, that has to be one of the greatest acheivements in human history. yet it's a simple story: two average but fiercely determined men stuck with their goals and tended to all the little things, and the big things took care of themselves. five years to the day after jfk was assassinated, eric was born at st. elizabeth's and was soon released to a house in troy, ohio. the house, owned by frank and sandy shiveley, was also the display home for the new subdivision (and is shown on the back cover of eric's first album). frank and sandy got a real deal on the slightly used furniture in the model home. to this day it's their "good furniture" in the infrequently used living room. eleven years later frank and sandy would relocate to nashville, land of plenty for those in the room air conditioner ("RAC" to the carpetbagger) manufacturing sector. but not before a few important events came to pass... 1971 - sister kristie joins eric and brother scott. she enters a world and household that preys on those quick to believe in santa claus and the headless horseman 1972 - at a world series game at riverfront stadium betweeen the cincinnati reds and oakland a's, without warning a b-52 flies over the stadium and seems to fill the entire sky as it passes. 1974 - mom shiveley takes eric and his brother scott along for errands on a warm april day. the errands take them east of dayton where the skies grow dark and surreally purple. as they return home in early afternoon, storm warnings on the car radio are frequently punctuated by the static of lightning strikes. around dinnertime an F5 tornado (the most powerful on the fujita scale) tears through xenia, a small town 30 miles to the southeast. the twister's path is directly through the heart of town. that night almost 150 tornadoes touch down throughout the midwest and eastern u.s., and to this day many who lived near xenia ohio in 1974 cannot separate its name from the events of april 3rd. 1977 - eric's father tries one first and last time to coach him at baseball. star wars is released. upon moving to nashville in 1978, stereotypes of the city as a non-stop elbow-rub with country music stars were immediatety shattered as frank and sandy shiveley settled the family into a quiet subdivision south of town. the only stars the shiveleys saw shone above in the clear southern sky. although connie smith lived directly across the street, the (then unknown) judds were three houses up, and the shiveleys became best friends with the family two houses down, who happened to produce hee-haw. also, waylon jennings' bass player was one street over and the man next door wrote many of kenny rogers' hits. anyhoo, grade school and high school and college seemed to happen on their own and we hate to make sweeping generalizations, but anyone who enjoys the ages 12-22 is insane and possessed by the devil. in college eric bounced from a couple schools in tennessee to miami university in oxford ohio, where everything and everyone looks like an item from a j. crew catalog. careening aimlessly toward a graduation date, eric picked creative writing as a major with only four semesters left. he scratched out a few short stories, fumbled miserably with poems, was always fifteen minutes behind the debate in writing workshops, and finally wrote a capstone story about a little girl whose pets keep exploding for no apparent reason. after college, eric was faced with the realities of rent, the need for a car to drive to work, and the need for work to pay for the car. a real go-getter and reward seeker, eric landed a great job in transaction processing. specifically, he performed alpha tests and managed beta tests for point-of-sale terminals and the software that supported them. fascinating! the list of new versions and custom packages was endless and included the intriguing worlds of bonus dining programs and debit cards. he attended meetings where everyone talked over his head about aligning data streams, and salespeople said things like "we don't wanna throw out the baby with the dishwater," and "that's just water under the dam as far as i'm concerned." eric would later admit the only part he enjoyed about the work week was the first hour of donut friday. then one day eric looked up an old friend and found this... www.davidtolk.com
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