The Night Shift... Continues!

Here's where we go to kick back after the races with our pals. Pour a tall one, punch a few buttons on the jukebox, and relax...
User avatar
draglist
Site Admin
Posts: 13794
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 7:23 pm
Location: Waldorf MD
Contact:

Postby draglist » Thu Jul 30, 2009 7:51 pm

Good luck, John. I hope you can find something solid so that you can save your energy for Pee Wee. You are worth so much more than $100 a gig. But you know better than anyone what your market will support. I wish I had enough sponsorship to pay you and others for draglist work. bp
Bill Pratt
Draglist.com - Crowdsourced drag racing history.
Headlines and Results: http://www.draglist.com/
Drag Lists: http://www.draglist.com/draglist/draglist.php

User avatar
WildcatOne
Posts: 6732
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:17 am
Location: Houston, Texas
Contact:

Postby WildcatOne » Thu Jul 30, 2009 8:39 pm

Thanks, guys. I didn't mean to whine, ya know. It just gets frustrating because I have been given excellent recommendations from my references and I have the drive to do it...I'm talking about a day job as well as graphics and music...there is either no money to hire people with or they look at my age and don't think I can do it anymore or something...they go for young, cheap people that they can get more out of? I don't know. I don't know what the reasoning is. I only got one possible gig response to the email I sent out and he said it would be hard to pay that much, I guess I'll find out. It's something I can do that isn't subject to scrutiny. It's a matter of the money being there. I'm branching out with a pedigree behind me in music, but there's not many bands working out there...could be bad timing on my part...also, I've looked at websites of the bands who know me, and the Pee Wee Bowen Band is by far busier than all of them combined. Pee Wee has to turn down half of the gigs we get offered because we're already booked. Often he refers other bands to cover the gigs he has to turn down, and they've done us the same favor...there are a few other bands doing what we're doing but not many. So I don't expect to get offered much unless I do my own thing outside of that...I haven't considered that option but I might. I am encouraged by today's activities, though, as well as the kind words spoken here. Something good just might happen. I'm keeping the faith. Thanks again, WC1
Life Is Good!
http://www.peeweebowenband.com
Support Live Music!

Rapid Randy Baker
Posts: 8075
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:05 am
Location: Des Moines, Iowa
Contact:

Postby Rapid Randy Baker » Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:02 pm

WC, I am sorry to hear you are struggling right now. Keep the faith buddy you are way too talented for something good not to happen for you and Debbie.

Laura and I are keeping you in our prayers as well. :D
NITRO PILOT

[url]http://.www.rapidrandy.net[/url]

1320

Postby 1320 » Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:02 pm

Hey Cat! I read that you were looking to do Medical Transcription training. MTEC is the online school to train at. I work for Webmedx, and they recently purchased the school. It is out of Ohio. My daughter trained there. Very excellent MT training. Since Webmedx owns the school, chances are you would be picked up by them for work after you finish school. They are a wonderful outfit to work for. They pay you well and treat you well. Just thought I would give you a head's up. I wish you the best in all of your employment endeavors. Wish I could have been in Eddyville with y'all.

Cheryl

User avatar
WildcatOne
Posts: 6732
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:17 am
Location: Houston, Texas
Contact:

Postby WildcatOne » Thu Jul 30, 2009 9:33 pm

Thanks, Cheryl and Rapid and Laura. Great tip from 1320 and I will follow up on that. I have seen stuff on the internet that says "Free Government Grants! Billions of dollars to give away!" Hey, how about us? They send you a CD, they say you pay only for shipping. I would use a grant to get us leveled out here and pay for that school's tuition. I'm just not sure if any of that hype about "I got $150,000 in 24 minutes! I'm set for life now!" is real and if it's actually a scam...guess I oughta run it by Snopes or something...Thanks again, WC1
Life Is Good!
http://www.peeweebowenband.com
Support Live Music!

User avatar
WildcatOne
Posts: 6732
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:17 am
Location: Houston, Texas
Contact:

Postby WildcatOne » Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:10 pm

My boss from GRI called me the other day and asked me to come in for 8 days this month. They aren't making enough dough there to hardly pay the bills, but the artist they have has to take off for that time and my boss thought of me to fill in...he was true to his word. He told me back in February that he was going to be in touch about work in the future and he followed up on that promise. He's a good man. I told him I'd come in and do it on the same pay cut everybody else had to take. I will also tell him when I'm there that I can do more than just that one gig...he knows that, too, and he's going to call me in here and there until the economy allows him to bring me back full-time. Also, within 24 hours of my posting the ad offering my services as a hired gun, the phone rang. Gigs came in. I'll be working with Texas Coast/End Game and On-Time Airlines, 3 Bay Area bands that for the most part operate outside of Pee Wee's schedule. I probably mentioned that I went to Pee Wee FIRST about doing that. Pee Wee Bowen has been a PRINCE to me and he fully supported my decision, he's even been helping advertise me to people at our shows. Speaking of our shows, every one we've played in the last month and the ones coming up are all total sell-outs, standing-room only, and word got back that people are buying tickets to our shows in advance and then scalping them. I told Pee Wee last night, the future looks so bright, I have to wear sunglasses to look at it. Yesterday was Pee Wee's birthday. He's 66. When Pee Wee pointed at me to do a song, I got the HRA crowd at the Nessler Center in Texas City to stand up and sing happy birthday to him before we played the song. BP's coming to town later this month and his attendance at the Bella Vita concert has the Phantom Kruizers and Pee Wee Bowen all a-twitter. They are rolling out the red carpet for Bill Pratt...the show that night is sold-out and it's going to be in what I would call a small auditorium, big stage, full decorations all over with Pee Weebilia, and lots of great food, full free bar and plenty of fine willing ladies to utilize his dancefloor skills. It's going to be a great night...but getting back to my musician-for-hire deal, I mentioned to my buddy Steve that I was advertising myself as a bass player but I don't have a bass rig because in 2006 I had to do some emergency wheeling and dealing with the bass rig I had in order to replace the stuff that was stolen out of my van. Steve called me day before yesterday and told me to come over and pick up the Fender Precision Bass he bought for me on eBay. It's black with a maple neck, and the pickguard is the perfect size for the DragList sticker that BP gave me at DLN IV...just like my keyboard and Telecaster have...the guys I'm hooking up with play a lot of Eagles, Steely Dan, Joe Walsh, and their original material is great...the singer is a cop, he's a talented guitar player, songwriter and vocalist all at once, the guitar player is an old friend who played in bands from the same circuit the Ciytkings, Wildcats and Shakedown played, and we finally get to play together in the same band. Will miracles never cease? I'm hoping that these idealistic goals will come through and we'll be OK with me doing this. I'll jump on a job in a minute and still do the music. Just have to see how it all pans out. So far it's off to a great start. Cheers, WC1
Life Is Good!
http://www.peeweebowenband.com
Support Live Music!

User avatar
draglist
Site Admin
Posts: 13794
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 7:23 pm
Location: Waldorf MD
Contact:

Postby draglist » Sun Aug 09, 2009 1:56 pm

Thrilled to hear all these great things, John. Good things come to good people... cliched but true. I can't WAIT to come down and see all this magic in person. bp
Bill Pratt
Draglist.com - Crowdsourced drag racing history.
Headlines and Results: http://www.draglist.com/
Drag Lists: http://www.draglist.com/draglist/draglist.php

User avatar
pro70z28
Posts: 11682
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:17 pm

Postby pro70z28 » Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:23 pm

8) 8) 8) 8) 8) COOL DEAL 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
15th Annual DRAGLIST Nationals Sometime in 2020. Somewhere in the USA.

User avatar
WildcatOne
Posts: 6732
Joined: Sun Feb 26, 2006 10:17 am
Location: Houston, Texas
Contact:

Postby WildcatOne » Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:37 pm

I had to look at the band's website to remember where we played Friday night...we played 4 full shows this weekend and I couldn't remember that far back...it was at Texans Sports Bar&Grill in LaPorte, right next to Deer Park, the birthplace of Texas. The Battle of San Jacinto was fought and won there by General Sam Houston, who was wounded there. They captured Santa Ana up the road, wearing the uniform of a private. They brought him to Sam Houston, who was laid up with a bullet in his leg, and Sam Houston gave Santa Ana a good talking to...Santa Ana thought he was the Napoleon of the West...he was responsible for the massacre at the Alamo, the battle of Gonzales, the Mexican empire that he envisioned as his own claim to New World domination...anyway, Sam Houston let him go. He told him just get out of here and leave us alone, willya? And don't ever come back...then he was elected president of the Republic of Texas once the government got put in place...he resigned when the senate voted to secede from the Union when the Civil War started, a while after he signed statehood papers...but I digress. Texans is a nice place, what I saw there were a lot of pretty young girls with tattoos all over their arms, legs, hindquarters, hands and necks, and the boys there are dripping with tattoos...they don't seem to realize that the skull-and-crossbones sitting on top of a marijuana leaf on the back of their hand will not only help to determine their career path, but it will also determine the social strata of their choice of mate. I saw a dozen girls who were actually quite pretty walk past and their tattoos were revolting. Can't actually envision one of them in a wedding dress unless she was swigging a beer with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth...but that's just me. I'm old-school. Getting a tattoo was forbidden to me when I was in my youth and now I'm too old to give a damn about getting one. But there's something about those girls that kind of made me sad for them...they're marked for LIFE now...

Saturday afternoon we played at the Galveton Convention Center for Congressman Ron Paul's birthday party. It's a cavern there, and it was packed. Thousands of people. We played, went through the motions, so to speak, for one hour and then the politicians took over and we left. That night we played in Pasadena at the Lone Star Club and had a great night, we caught second-wind and tore the place down.

I got to the Cock-Eyed Seagull yesterday at 11:30AM, brought my amp in and set it up so anybody who wanted to could use it and they did. The music went all day, it was hot as an oven in there and even worse outside because there was no shade to speak of and what precious little shade there was, was being polluted by thick columns of barbecue smoke. It was a gruelling ordeal...we played last, at around 7:45 and our set ran till around 8:30. The place was packed, they jumped, we played our best, they had a light show on us and it was like floating in space, but we got through it...the whole band was soaking wet at the end and we were all pretty glad to leave because it was so godawful uncomfortable there, but we did our part for Jim Shortt and I appreciated us being the headlining act. Jim was smiling down on us.

Many of the acts that played yesterday were at Blues For Becky...Dave Nevling and the Blues Katz, Ronnie Hall and Green Onions, Lynn Raggio and Slide Effect, The Grateful Geezers were there, Tommie Lee Bradley sang with the Delta Flyers, Annette Metoyer and Trudy Lynn were there and sang, it was a great tribute to a truly great man. We should do it once a year from now on...but in the Spring or Fall, when it's cool...

One thing stood out yesterday...there were a lot of standout moments but there is a guy here in town called Mean Gene Kelton. He's one of the hardest-working Southern Blues players around. He's got an image...long-haired guy with a cowboy hat, biker shirt, slinging a guitar and being "Mean Gene"...somehow he ended up sitting with me, Debby, Kyle and Nick at the benefit and we visited for half an hour with him. He is one of the most intelligent, articulate, creative and compassionate people I've met in a long time on the music scene. We made friends. We had laughs, shared stories, he talked to the boys and he talked to me and we just had a great time with Mean Gene Kelton. Just goes to show ya, folks often aren't what and who you might think they are! Gene's a great guy and a big supporter of the Bay Area music scene.
http://genekelton.com/

Funny thing happened Saturday. After we played at the convention center, me and Sylvester decided to stop off at the Chinese restaurant on 61st street in Galveston on the way out of town and grab a nice buffet meal. Well, the band has these Hawaiian shirts that all match...so we're walking in there with matching outfits...floweredy shirts, black pants, sunglasses...I said ya know, we could pass for a same-sex marriage here. "His-and-His outfits". All we'd have to do is hold hands and they might give us a discount! We didn't hold hands, though. Otherwise it would have been a perfect little scenario...
Cheers, WC1[/url]
Life Is Good!
http://www.peeweebowenband.com
Support Live Music!


Return to “Dangerous Bill's Cafe Noir”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests