(posted Jan. 28, 2008)
It was probably fortunate I hadn’t put too much time into this blog so far. [“Blog”….it still sounds like a cartoon sound effect for the squishy impact of something unpleasant to me.]
Nonetheless, it was a major inconvenience when what little I’d established went “poof” with the emergency transfer of my website to a more reliable host at the start of the new year.
Of the three lengthy posts I’d managed, I found a copy of the first one. The third had been copied (with permission) on Doc Phillips’ own blog site…I was flattered. So I was able to retrieve it from there. The second one, about the similarities between jazz music and voiceover demos…well, if I had a copy of it anywhere it was probably on one of the several hard drives that have failed on several different computers since last fall. Yeah. It was that kind of year.
It’s all Bob Souer’s fault that I even started a web log. He talked me into it. It was also Bob Souer’s fault that I had anyone at all reading it. He plugged it quite eloquently on his own well-read blogpages, directing traffic my way I would never have attacted so soon on my own.
And again, it is Bob Souer to blame that I am once again at liberty to unleash my mental overflow on an unsuspecting world via the world wide web. Unsure how to help me re-construct the pages by phone, he spent the better part of his Sunday (and if it wasn’t the “better” part, I hope it was at least a “good” part) driving almost three hours each way, puzzling over my particular set-up for two more hours along with my own web-guru, Lou Dalmaso, and finally…giving up on the way it was supposed to work, the way he had his own website set up on the same service…he ended up devising another means to the end which they used to call “jerry-rigged” in those old movies.
And behold…it lives again!
Aside from using the time for face-to-face visiting and dinner with some other area talent, I’m sure he could have had a much more comfortable Sunday afternoon at home.
What did it cost me? Some pleasant time talking with Bob’s talented son, Eric. Plus dinner for Bob (over his protests) before he headed back home.
As with Bob, as with Lou, as with so many other people I’ve come to know as true friends…I cannot for the life of me figure out anything I ever did to command so much attention and devotion. Of course, that’s assuming I had anything to do with it in the first place. Some people just enjoy helping others, asking nothing more than that the favor is passed along when the opportunity arises.
That crazy lady in the Tennessee Williams play blathered on about depending on “the kindness of strangers…”. That’s okay for you, ma’am. But me? I’ve lost count of the times I’ve gotten by on the kindness of friends. I’ll take that any day.
And as to that…if you know anyone who might have squirreled away that second blog about the jazz angle (which, of course, was the one that generated the most number of positive comments!!!), I’d love to retrieve a copy. It’s not of earth-shattering importance. But it’d be just one more example to prove the point of this piece.
Meanwhile, the previous posts are replaced below.
And Eric, I will indeed finally get to that promised piece about meeting Mel Blanc…which, come to think of it, was only possible through the kindness of yet another set of friends.
But that’s another story.
— over and out —
