Bard Bartering Begets Biergarten

Hi Friends,

This Memorial Day Monday (5/29/17) marks two years since I met my soul mate and fiancée (no, your eyes do not deceive you!) Deborah. So, we’re hosting a party to celebrate and you should come.

I bartered my rock-n-roll prowess in exchange for a sweet little biergarten music venue to have this informal social gathering. I will perform a few of the funny, angsty songs I know and then I will be joined by some musical colleagues on stage. Meanwhile, you’ll drink beer with friends and enjoy yourself.

Here’s the deets:

CACTUS JOE AND FIENDS

Monday May 29th from 2-5 PM

@ The Hop Garden Taproom and Biergarten

Totes free and open to the public, so bring friends!

Ciao!

CJ

February Album Writing Month 2017

Hello Friends.

It’s nine days into February Album Writing Month (FAWM) 2017, and I haven’t lifted a finger to compose even one song yet this month. I could give you a valid excuse – that I’m on a tropical vacation in South Florida and having a blast soaking up sunshine and looking for alligators, dolphins, and manatees (all of which have been spotted on this trip) – but I know my fellow FAWMers won’t buy that for a second. I was on a Caribbean cruise during FAWM 2016 and I still managed to pound out a couple songs with the help of a very portable ukulele. I didn’t bring the uke with me this time, but that’s still no excuse. I could whistle tunes into my smart phone mic or even just write some lyrics, and that would count, but I haven’t. I might, but probably won’t do anything until my vacation is over on Valentine’s Day. My plan is to kick it into high gear starting on February 15 and see how productive I can be the second half of the month. With a few successful collaborations, I might even hit the 14 song FAWM goal.

Anyway, this Florida trip has all kinds of inspirado for songs of a festive tropical nature. But I hate those kinds of songs. They are playing those kinds of songs in all the shops and restaurants down here, and they are annoying. Great…you live near the beach and drink fruity rum cocktails all day and watch hot girls in bikinis. Lucky you.

I am having tons of fun here though. Here’s a video for you of a manatee encounter we had whilst kayaking in Tarpon Bay, on the north side of Sanibel Island FL.

Anyway, stay tuned to my FAWM page. Maybe something good will show up there soon. How are things with you? Leave a comment.

*Note: You’ll see some collaborative songs on my FAWM wall, but these are mostly the work of my fellow FAWMer AquaMunkee, bringing to fruition some quick and dirty song ideas we hashed out back in January. Thanks Aqua!

Congratulations on Another Successful Trip Around the Sun!

Dear Friends,

I have to say I am pretty geeked for the new year, 2017, notwithstanding, you know, the big orange buffoon guy thing. I’m super thankful that I know you and glad you are happy, alive, and free. What I really want to know is what are your New Year’s Resolutions, if any? Leave a comment below and let me know if there is any way I can help you achieve your goals in 2017. I am happy to help if it’s within my power.

I don’t really have many novel new year’s resolutions, per se, but that’s mainly because I will just mostly be continuing on the goals and ambitions I have been more or less successfully pursuing for most of 2016: jazz piano, exercising regularly, learning Welsh and Spanish, playing music gigs, writing my books, avoiding drama, and generally being happy.

That said, I have a couple of short-term, high-intensity resolutions to implement in the first fortnight* of 2017, and if all goes well on one of those, I’ll have a slew of new goals and metrics to implement for the final third of 2017. All will most likely go well, but I’ll have more on that resolution in a couple of months when things firm up a bit.

For now, the most important resolution that you need to know about is that I’ll be taking a fortnight’s hiatus from social media starting on Sunday January 1. For my purposes, that means I won’t be accessing Facebook, Twitter, or other social media platforms for two weeks.

At all. In fact, I’ve already removed the apps from my mobile devices and will deactivate them on my home computer once I return to Wisconsin from my holiday travels with family in Colorado.

My reasons for this social media fast are sound and important, but mainly only to me. The long and short is that I think social media has become antisocial, artificial, and counterproductive. I think you know what I mean at some level. In any case, all you need to know is that you won’t be able to find me on social media for at least 14 days after the start of 2017, and perhaps longer if the beta testing phase is successful (which it probably will be). This resolution of mine is likely to have zero negative consequences on your life. I certainly hope so, because that’s kind of the underlying purpose of the social media hiatus in the first place. To wit, social media is pretty inconsequential and unimportant in the larger scheme of my relationship with you. If you want to meet me for coffee in the real world, that’d be glorious. I sincerely would like that and would be thrilled to hear what’s happening in your life (with the caveat that I have a strict moratorium on drama and negativity…positive people only!). If a coffee clatch isn’t feasible, shoot me an email instead (or simply call me if you are a really close friend who has my number).

If you try to interact with me on social media during my hiatus from it, don’t be alarmed or offended if I am completely unresponsive. Just know that I’ll be off doing more relevant and important things (to me) than contemplating deep, albeit mis-attributed, Morgan Freeman quotes and watching my liberal “friends” bicker with my conservative ones over ideologies they’ve both been force fed by their respective elitist establishment overlords.

Don’t worry. My blog posts will continue to auto-publish to Facebook and Twitter without any active participation on my part, so you can still stay connected with me. It will just be fairly one-sided if you go that route. If you leave a comment on a blog post of mine, I will make every effort to reply to it, but that’ll be about the extent of my online social interactions. If this hiatus should cause you any sort of adverse cognitive dissonance, I am sorry (in the sympathetic sense of the word, not the apologetic one), but if that is the case, I would posit that you may have an unhealthy association with social media and you may want to consider a social media fast yourself. I would be happy to buddy up with you on this if you can muster the wherewithall by the start date, this Sunday 1/1/17 (resolutions wait for no one).

If you aren’t otherwise committed on Saturday January 7th, I cordially invite you to my Rock-n-Roll Birthday Party @ the Come Back Inn (Madison WI), hosted by YOUR MOM (the band). FREE ADMISH. 9 PM until they boot us out. We can catch up then.

Hugs.

CJ.

*Note: A fortnight is British English for two (2) weeks. Don’t ask me how the word came to be. If I had to guess, I’d say it had something to do with British soldiers being holed up in a fort for two weeks surrounded by American troops during the Revolutionary War, but that’s total speculation. Why don’t YOU go google it and report back what you find. I mean, for God’s sake, you have the entire Giant Internet Brain at your fingertips, people…