Saturday, May 25, 2002
Dammit. June gloom arrived in Southern California right at the start of Memorial Day. We've had three weeks of sunshine, but now that a three day weekend comes around, so do the clouds. I suppose I shouldn't bitch. I live in a neighborhood with an annual average temperature of 72 and three hundred days of sunshine a year. A month of cloudy mornings just make July that much better. But I did really wanna put that top down for the weekend.
Jim Parisi
Friday, May 24, 2002
Yay! It's a holiday weekend. Crap! I got on another plane this morning to fly back to San Jose. As a writer I have a somewhat natural predisposition to be an observer of people and events. I'll sit in the airport and watch the rest of the briefcase crowd going from account to account. The same rumpled slacks, the same Tumi case, the same flashy watch. Occasionally I see a guy, usually pushing sixty, his stomach hanging over the belt of his pants, his wrinkled white shirt straining to hold it in. I can see the tired look in his eyes. I can tell he's given that same goddam pitch so many times it haunts him in his sleep. Sometimes, on my downdays, I'm terrified I could be looking into a mirror - or at least a window to my future. Sometimes I wish I could love what I do. Don't get me wrong. I have a great gig. Lots of travel. Interesting customers. A great group of colleagues. And some good compensation. But really, my job only finances the things that I love. And without that love for what I do, without that passion, occasionally I feel like a hack. Like an impostor. A tourist in an industry I don't really understand. I think I need a weekend of perspective.
Jim Parisi
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
Sorry for not having any new stories for you, but for the last three weeks I have been suffering with some really nasty carpal tunnel problems. Damn I never realized how much that crap hurts. I have a lot of ideas queued up for stories, but I can't type for very long right now. Hence, no updates to clutter your mailbox. Maybe this weekend I'll suck it up and will start plugging away again. In the meantime, I'll give some blasts from the past. I get asked a lot which of my 80 or so stories are my favorites. So here is my Top 10. This was tough to narrow down, and there are quite a few I would love to add (like Dating Disasters, When Animals Attack, Travel Requirements, New York, I Don't Know), but I consider this my personal best of. I know of all the stories I have written, Fleeced, Best Man, Dating Disasters, and Africa: Perspective received the most reader response. I'm curious, which one was your favorite?
Best Man
Adventures in Springerland
Fleeced
Africa: Perspective
Africa: Meredith
Valentines
Reckless
Passage
Silk
Tree
Jim Parisi
Ugh. I'm finally back home. I've spent a lot of time sleeping on a lot of planes in the last two weeks. I might have to fly back to San Jose on Friday. I do not relish the idea of flying on a holiday weekend. All the novice travelers will be out in force. Screaming babies, grandmas walking way too slow when I'm in a rush to make my flight, toddlers who insist on kicking the back of my seat, airport neophytes who try to get through security with a nail file. And don't get me started on bad luggage. I much prefer the briefcase crowd. Sure they are boring greasy sales goobers but they sure know how to fly well
Jim Parisi
Monday, May 20, 2002
Every few months - usually at the end of some corporate road trip - I buy a handful of books to read during those rare moments of free time, on exercise bikes, airplanes, and before I fall asleep. I am about finished with the last book from my last literary shopping spree. I'm in the market for some new reads. Does anybody have any suggestions? What are your favorite books? What books have you read lately that made you go WOW? What books made you stop and think? I'll read nearly any genre (though I rarely read any trashy pulp fiction unless it's really good or really bad trashy pulp fiction). Send me some suggestions.
Jim Parisi
Sunday, May 19, 2002
You know, my little rant about the guitar solo got me thinking about glam metal. It's the one rock genre that hasn't gone mainstream retro yet. I suspect this is just a matter of time. Hell, the hair bands, Motley Crue, Poison, Def Leppard, etc are all staples on Behind The Music. I think glam metal is the disco of the 80's. Sure, artistically it sucked, but the sound was, at least for a time, really, really popular. Throw a few androgynous guys together, write a catchy song about parties and sex (did hair bands ever sing about ANYTHING else?), add a good guitar solo and a music video complete with candles, sports cars, spandex, and a few chicks in bikinis, and you were bound to have a hit. Of course, R&B has been following a similar blueprint for success for a twenty years - minus the guitar solor of course. And the hair. And the spandex. But you get the idea. It took a decade or so before trash disco made it back into the clubs onto the late night airwaves. It's probably about that time for glam. Let a few trendy teenagers "discover" Twisted Sister and Ratt and it might well be only a matter of time before hairspray and tight leather pants find their way back into the mainstream. Who knows, Rikki Rachman might actually have a job again soon.
Jim Parisi
