Quixote Wednesday Update: Dan Labowski & Michael Bly Band @ Desiderio’s, Big Words Radio Onward & Upward!

Now that we’re taking a fresh approach to the concept of Quixote Wednesdays, I thought I’d spend today on some positive topics. Instead of jousting at big, heartless corporate windmills, let’s take a look at local music and a few other things, shall we?

Dan Labowski started a new open mic night at Desiderio’s on Broadway. He’s a great guy, a fantastic musician, and you probably know him better as the lead singer of the Buffalo Music Award-winning super group Suckerpunch (who, coincidentally, played a helluva concert for Big Words Radio on Episode 27) as well as the lead singer for No Excuses. The open mic is every single Tuesday, it starts at around 9:30 p.m., and it’s open to everyone: musicians, comedians, you name it. So if you’re not doing anything one of these Tuesdays, come up and see Dan do his thing! I didn’t realize how diverse Dan’s style was myself until I heard him play a few opening sets. I’ve seen him play out every week for the last four weeks at Desi’s and truly deserves a bigger turnout. Having hosted an open mic myself (way the hell back in 2001), I know just how hard it is to start something new and get a following going. Open mics aren’t as predominant as they were back in 2001, so again, do me a solid and support my buddy!

I’m also pleased to announce that Michael Bly (another former Big Words Radio alumn from Episodes 17 & 18, respectively) will be performing THIS SATURDAY at Desiderio’s on Broadway at around 10 p.m. Mike is a dear friend of many years, a hell of a performer and a great showman. He’ll be playing some material from his upcoming CD Release this Saturday backed by the entire Michael Bly band, so do yourself a favor and come on out! It should be a great concert and the wife, myself and Intentionally Bald Mike will be there rocking out and slamming shots along with the rest of Lancaster’s party people!

Are you noticing a theme here? Big Words Radio. After two and a half back-breaking and grueling weeks, I’m proud to announce that ALL 35 original episodes of The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour have been transferred to the new web site complete with pretty pictures, quick download links and relatively accurate posting dates. What does this mean? This means that I can FINALLY start posting all of the new shows from the last six to eight weeks. What’s that web site again, you say? Glad you asked:

bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

So get the hell over there and download to your heart’s content! And when you get there, you may notice a BRAND NEW EPISODE that you won’t find anywhere else on the web! This morning, I edited, produced and uploaded legendary Buffalo Music Award-winning band Black Widow’s hour-long performance from the Gregg Sansonne: We’ve Got Gregg’s Back benefit. The sound quality was crystal clear, the band brought the house down, and the emcee was less than despicable (yours truly). You may notice that there’s no episode number attached to the post and there’s a damned good reason for that: there are FOUR more concert shows from the same day and I’ll be posting them all in a row! By this time next week, each performance from Busted Stuff, The Mick Hayes Band, Only Humen (with a cameo from Michael Bly) and Gregg Sansonne himself will be up on the new site in chronological order! Not to mention the fact that it’s free! So click over, download those bad boys onto your Ipods and rock out with some great Buffalo Bands compliments of Big Words Radio!

I’ve got a lot more in store for that site and now that the past is taken care of, I can start tinkering on the present and the future. I’ll save a few surprises for next week, but check the site often and you might hear a show before I mention it.

So to recap: Dan Labowski open mic at Desiderio’s every Tuesday from about 9:30 throughout the evening. The Michael Bly band this Saturday at Desiderio’s. The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour at it’s new home with a new show. Have a great rest of the week and hopefully I’ll see some of you out this Saturday!,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update!: The Last Fandango

After oversleeping on Saturday for a 7 pm reading at Caz Coffee Café (long nap), it was a relief to discover that Jeff Finlayson, Kyle Kaczmarzcak and Diane Meholick kicked one of the last two MOV shows off without me just fine. I felt like a dick for not showing up early like I normally do, but this is another sign that it’s time for a break. We had a great time and a great show and I’d like to personally thank everyone who came out for the reading. Due to my tardiness, the event was not recorded, so if you missed it, you won’t have an opportunity to hear it online at a later date. Sucks to be you.

I can’t help but take stock of the six month run that Jeff and I have had together traveling around as the MOV and on good days, I’m very grateful for the process we went through. On bad days, it seems like the agony of being in a rock band without the money or the groupies. All in all, it was a great concept and Jeff and I have become stronger friends as a result. A lot of new material has been written as a result of our constant feedback, reading the work out, and interacting with the public. A while back, I said that I regretted ever having a part in the inception of the Monsters. I spoke too soon.

Jeff is a very talented writer and he now has a new book (and a half) of new poems that he’s drummed up because of our tour. Instead of writing a mountain of new material, I’ve learned to spend more time editing and to elicit editorial wisdom from my peers, so my third collection of poems will be a tighter, more concise collection with less dreck and more concentrate. The MOV experience was like boot camp for us, in a way. We are hardened professionals now, and the thought of reading my poems in front of an audience is no longer horrifying and frightening. Jeff and I talked Saturday night after the show and he wants to continue the moniker. Because of the Slapstick launch in the summer (and a much-needed rest after fourteen months of writing and promoting), I won’t be continuing on after May. However, Jeff will. With any luck, other area poets will join him in the hopscotch-style readings we founded together with Carrie Gardner.

We’ve got one more reading in May at the Center For Inquiry with distinguished poetess Christina Wos Donnelly hosted by Perry Nicholas and I couldn’t think of a better way to round out the end of the junket. I try never to say never, but after that, I’m out for awhile. If any area poets are interested in joining Jeff in the non-locale-specific gauntlet, please feel free to email him directly at:

Dullroar25@hotmail.com

That’s all I’ve got for today. I’m pretty goddamned tired. Tired of promoting, tired of writing (after a year and change of it) and tired of putting my face and my name out there. It’s clearly time for a break. Some writers have the ego, the drive, or the tenacity to keep plugging, promoting and assuring others that their work is worth reading and I’m not one of them. In a semi-professional career spanning almost a decade where I’ve never promoted any one book for more than three months, I’m tapping out for a bit. I’ve had enough for now. I’m sick of myself, I’m sick of both poetry books, and I’m sick of leaving my house for another scheduled engagement. It takes a certain kind of person to continually tour the circuit and I don’t have that quality. At the heart of it, I’d always rather spend any night quietly at home with my wife or quietly out at a bar anonymously. I stopped doing any of this for ego reasons a long time ago. Even this is redundant.

Make it out to the Center For Inquiry on Wednesday, May 6^th at 7 p.m. for the final reading for the original founding members (plus Christina) of the Monsters Of Verse. We’ll razzle, dazzle and amaze. Ten slots are also open for open readers.

As for everything else, all of the original episodes of Big Words Radio are almost complete. The process is time consuming and aggravating, but all 35 episodes should be done by week’s end. Expect a new episode next week. And the final installment of ‘Pronunciation’ (a lengthy essay on my wedding and everything surrounding it) hits the pages of Night Life magazine this week, so scoop it up for the final word.

In two more weeks, I can have my life back. I hope it still fits. I’ll talk to you all in two days for a new Quixote Wednesday Update,

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: The Damage Done

For all intents and purposes, this will be the last week that I write about the Gamestop crusade. After six months of raging against the inconsistencies in leadership, their unscrupulous business and merger practices, and the prejudiced hiring decisions of Buffalo DM Lisa Roper, it’s time to move on. Online, that is.

The damage has been done and will continue to chip away at the company by remaining online. You might be surprised to find that if you search ‘Gamestop Buffalo’ on Yahoo or a number of other web search engines, one of the posts from this web site will pop up on the first page. What does this mean? This means that if I stop writing tomorrow about the wrongful terminations, the gender inequality in Lisa’s district, and everything else that we’ve covered, curious people online will continue to discover what a reprehensible organization they’ve unwittingly supported and (hopefully) make a conscious decision to stop shopping at Gamestop.

This is getting redundant for me and for my core readers. Many people inside the company have emailed to express their support for what I’ve done since my termination in October and to let me know that they read the site every week and have discussions about it with other employees. Thanks for that support, but now it’s your turn. I’m done fighting battles for those of you who are too foolish to leave the company or too deluded to think that you won’t be ‘phased out’ when the time arrives and your salary is more of an expendable loss than the skill set that you’ve helped shape a merged company with. If you think it won’t happen to you and you’re still employed with Gamestop Inc., then you are a fool. This particular phase of the battle is over for me. You can have it now.

I made a decision last week to start investing my energies into other avenues off line. Organizations and individuals that have been fighting this brand of injustice a lot longer than I have. I’m no longer going to be making this battle a matter of public record because there’s a lot more work that can be accomplished by running dark, making some phone calls and meeting with some professionals in state and out of state. Trust me when I say that I’m not done with this situation by a long shot. After today, though, you just won’t be hearing about it online anymore.

On this particular topic, I’ll leave you with a relevant quote that’s been pinballing around in my head since this nonsense began back in October. A year ago, it applied to me. Now that I’m gone, it applies to every other former Electronics Boutique employee who seriously thinks that they’re going to retain their job in the long term:

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Catholics, but I was not a Catholic, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Good luck.  If anything groundbreaking happens where this is concerned in the next six months to a year, I’ll let you know after the fact.  Take care,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! When You Go Your Way And I Go Mine

I’ve got good news and bad news. Which would you rather have first? As a pessimist, we’ll get the bad news out of the way before the big announcement!

The bad news is that there won’t be any new episodes of Big Words Radio until later this week. I realize that its been awhile since all the shows I talked about have hit the virtual airwaves, but there’s a reason for that. Long story short, Think Twice Radio has added a number of new shows and it’s next to impossible for my producer (the honorable Richard Wicka) to devote an inordinate amount of time to any one show. After joining the ranks at Think Twice Radio last June, I’ve come to respect his unending reserve of energy, his boundless creativity, and his commitment to creating free pod casts, video and television segments, and photography exhibits. I’ve learned more from him about multi-tasking and getting the most out of each and every day than perhaps any other person I’ve ever met. I don’t think you’d disagree that my output has risen considerably in the last year and I have Rich (and a few other factors) to thank for that. So what does this mean for The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour, you ask? I’m sure you can see where this is going…

In the last week, I’ve been quietly (and obsessively) building a new home online for the show and transferring each episode over piece by piece. I’ve also been re-mastering some episodes, adding pictures for each show, and adding additional bonus content. In October, when Uncle Hal had a guest spot on Big Words Radio, I stopped by the week afterwards and did a co-host gig on his show. With Hal’s permission, Episode 61 of The Pissed Off World Of Uncle Hal is now posted on the new site directly after our Big Words stint! Kinda cool, huh?

The problem with all of this (in the short term) is that I wanted to publish the pod casts in the order that they were originally released, and 35 hour long episodes cannot conceivably be moved overnight. As of this morning, I should be up to about Episode XVI. So in order to GET to all of the new content up (and believe me, I’ve got something like 10-15 hours of great show material just waiting in the wings), I have to post the first 35 shows. Instead of taking a short cut and skipping ahead to the present material, I’d rather do things right the first time so that the site looks sharp and so that all the previous episodes are preserved for posterity. Whether you knew it or not, effective June 2009, individual shows will start ‘phasing out’ on the Think Twice site one by one as they reach their one year mark for server retention purposes. This is something I’ve been stressing over since November, and now we’ve found a solution.

What does this mean for Big Words at the Think Twice site? Rich and I have found a solution. You can still find all the previous shows there. Until they start disappearing in June. Going forward, though, you can look forward to hearing every in-studio recording at thinktwiceradio.com FIRST (including my hour with Harvey Pekar on May 13^th. Shortly afterward, those shows will also go up on the new Big Words Radio home. The big difference is that you’ll ONLY be able to find the One Man Mobile Unit Episodes on the new site. Confused? Hopefully not. In the long run, this is for the best. Trust me.

I’ll be racing to get caught up on every episode and hopefully I’ll be posting 36, 37, 38, 39 and so on by week’s end or the beginning of next week. And for your edification, here are a few more bonus features for the new web site: no lag times, easy downloading, pretty pictures, and direct access. A few people have complained to me about sound drop-offs halfway through each show. That’s not going to be a problem anymore. You can either listen online or download directly without any hassles and listen at your leisure or upload it onto your portable MP3 device. Or (preferably), you can burn the shows onto a disc and share with friends! So ladies and gentleman, start your downloads!

I can now track stats and traffic for the show and the majority of my numbers (and online presence) will now be determined by the amount of downloads each show receives. Think of it as a syndication agreement where no one is making any money. I’ve really come to love doing the show and I’ve met (and talked to) a lot of funny and talented people in the last year. The rest of you have been severely supportive with your feedback, too, and I tend to prioritize based on reader or audience response. There’s no point in writing or recording if nobody’s interested, but thankfully, the hits have been climbing since the show launched last year, and it’s going to be a long time before this gets boring. This is a growth cycle that was bound to happen and the time just happens to be now. So where is this magical, mysterious web site, you ask? The site address is so easy to remember that you probably won’t even need to write it down:

http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

So what the hell are you waiting for? Click the link, check out the new digs, and by all means, download to your heart’s content! Please VISIT at your earliest convenience, let me know how you like the new interface, and email with your feedback! I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised and mildly impressed! It took a lot of work, but it’s worth it.

Here’s this week’s scoop in a nutshell: Uncle Hal and I will be teaming up again this week for the first time since November for a brand new episode of The Pissed Off World Of Uncle Hal. The corrections for Slapstick & Superego are complete, so copies should be available in about 4-6 more weeks (just in time for a summer launch!). As for Night Life, Part III of ’Pronunciation’ (my long essay about the wedding and the events surrounding it) hit’s the stands this week. And as always, there are plenty of new reviews up and running over on ’The Dirty Bomb’ at donsatomiccomics.com.

I think that’s everything. As soon as the new shows are up, you’ll hear about it here first. As soon as the book is available, you better believe I’ll let you know. And if anything else happens, well, you get the picture. Have a great week and enjoy the new home for Big Words Radio!

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: Playing Favorites

We’re going to go local one final time and then next week I’ll wrap the last six months up in a happy little gift bundle for once and for all. For reasons I’ll be going into next Wednesday, these will be the last two Gamestop-centric Quixote Updates.

As those of you who’ve followed this series know, the Buffalo Market has its share of stores that can do no wrong. This isn’t to say that they don’t commit wrongful acts or seriously misstep the boundaries of common sense in the world of retail, but thanks to Lisa’s frequent and obvious favoritism, they manage to operate their locations free from consequence. Let’s look at Kim at Galleria and Aliyah at University. Now that we’re fully entrenched in Annual Review season (and the prejudiced scores that Lisa gives out regardless of performance weighing heavily towards her ‘pals’), you can bet dollars to donuts that these two stores will get high marks despite demonstrating a frequent and increasing loss of sales, product and customer service.

The Galleria store where Kim (DM Lisa Roper’s ‘friend of the family’) was appointed lost MULTIPLE Playstation 3s over the holiday season. A customer (or perhaps a thief who didn’t buy anything) managed to stroll into the store, scoop up a number of these bulky hardware units (valued at $400-$600) and walk out of the store with them. NO written documentation was given. The entire issue (like all of the issues that have cropped up in the past) was swept under the rug in the same manner in which Lisa ceremoniously ripped up Lewis Sebastiano’s (the newly appointed store manager in Amherst) corrective actions. Can the Galleria location do enough business to afford losing this many units from a loss prevention perspective? Apparently so based on Lisa’s official response, being that nothing important happened and that no one else needed to know about it.

Taking things one step further, Kim’s annual inventory was delayed as long as possible to hide the shrink damage of such an obvious hit to store profitability in an effort to sweep things under the rug. As a stockholder, I honestly wonder who would want to support a company that reinforces this kind of gross negligence and a lot of people are wondering what sort of supervision Lisa has (if any) that she’s allowed to run her stores with so much autonomy and flagrant cronyism.

Moving over to University (another store who’s inventory was delayed until it absolutely had to be scheduled from a company standpoint), their annual score clocked in at a hefty .64% loss over less than a twelve month period in relation to overall store sales. We know from previous reports that one employee was too busy punching a customer outside of the store (again, no documentation) to worry about loss of company product. To put things in perspective, a score of .30 or lower is considered acceptable by company standards. .64% is typically a store that results in a store manager’s immediate termination. Since Lisa picked a seasonal woman for the job, it would admit crippling negligence on the District Manager’s part if this were to happen, so again, the rules have been pushed aside to lend credibility to an appointed supervisor who shouldn’t really be in charge of anything and never should have been hired into the position in the first place.

Two clear cut cases of massive loss prevention damage in one District alone. A District that keeps losing money (per store) every single year that Lisa is allowed to run her thirteen or fourteen stores into the ground. My question is this: If thirteen stores aren’t being conditioned to make money for the company, then what is their purpose as a retail entity?

It doesn’t make much sense, but then again, not much that Lisa’s done has.

Stop by next Wednesday for the final word.

Tom Waters

Monday Update! Five Minute Video Premiere/Happy Dyngus Day!

Dyngus Day is literally one of my favorite party nights of the year, and it’s one of the only times when you can hear so many great Buffalo Polka Bands, pig out on reasonably priced buffets (especially the smoked Polski Kielbasa), and use a water pistol in a bar without getting rolled. Because of this, this Monday Update will be especially brief since I’d like to get a nap in before the evening’s festivities commence.

Night Life hit’s the stands this week with Part II of ‘Pronunciation’, a new essay that covers the events before, during and after our marriage in September. It’s a serious essay (and a long one), but the pacing seems right and the piece flows well, not to mention that there was a lot of info to cover.

There was a MASSIVE new amount of content uploaded onto The Dirty Bomb in the last week (3 graphic novel reviews and a comic-related update having to do with Dean Haspiel and Harvey Pekar), so if you haven’t yet, scoot yourself over to donsatomiccomics.com and click on ‘The Dirty Bomb’ link on the home page. I’d give you a direct link, but WordPress has been an unconscionable pain in the ass lately with site links.

As far as other freelancing gigs go, the ArtVoice assignments keep chugging along. I wrapped up a sharp interview with CFI resident ghost hunter Joe Nickell last week that should be appearing soon. You can also feel free to check out ‘The Department Of Goofing Off’ in this month’s online issue of Acid Logic at acidlogic.com and if you’d like to comment on the graphic novel reviews in a larger national forum, throw your two cents in over at comics bulletin.com.

Aside from that, I don’t have a lot of news for you. There are a lot of radio shows under production right now, but none have popped yet. Check back for a heads up as soon as I get it. I’ll be appearing on Time Warner Cable public access for the next five weeks (as well as online for the next two years) with a segment for Think Twice’s ‘Five Minute Video Series’ (entitled ‘I Push People): Here’s the web site address and subscriber channel info straight from my producer, Richard Wicka:

http://www.hotftv.net/five-min-series/five-min-index.html
(Adelphia cable subscribers can watch the Five Minute Video Series:
City of Buffalo: Fridays channel 20, 7:00 PM
Suburbs of Buffalo: Mondays channel 20, 10:30 PM)

With a mug made for radio, I’m not sure how I feel about the segment (I haven‘t even watched it yet), but I’ll try anything once.

That’s it for this week, folks. I’m twenty pages away from correcting every last bit of Slapstick & Superego, so we’re getting down to the very last of the pre-production snafus before rolling the book out some time in June or July. Have a safe and festive Dyngus Day and don’t forget to swing on back in two for Quixote Wednesday!

Doing shots every time the Pennsylvania Polka plays tonight,

Tom Waters

Massive Dirty Bomb Update!

If you haven’t been reading any of the graphic novel reviews and updates at The Dirty Bomb over on the official Don’s Atomic Comics (!) web site for the last three months, then I just feel sorry for you, because you’re missing out.

As of today, I posted two more reviews and one massive update with privileged Big Words Radio info as well as some more celebrity news over on the Dirty Bomb.

I haven’t been re-posting Dirty Bomb info here because you’re just going to have to go over there yourself if you want to find out. I try to throw a little something extra onto each site that I write for, whether it’s Acid Logic, Comics Bulletin, Facebook, Myspace, or any other intraweb-enabled thingamajiggy.

So GO TO THE DIRTY BOMB already! Do not pass go or collect $200! What the hell are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Oh, a site link might be useful, eh? Fair enough. Here’s your link, so go check it out!

 

 

http://donsatomiccomics.com/WordPress/

Quixote Wednesday Update! Reason #348 Why You Should Open An Account Far Away From Bank Of America…

Since Lisa and the majority of the Gamestop managers are on vacation this week anyway (since there’s actual work with the preposterous ‘Game Days Sale’ to be done in stores, which is being relegated as we speak to underlings who get paid far less), I’m going to take a break from sticking the screws to Gamestop this week.

In the spirit of Quixote Wednesdays, let’s take a look at Bank Of America. Honestly one of the worst banks I’ve dealt with in my lifetime, which would explain why they only have about three locations in operation in the greater suburban Buffalo area. I had a horrible customer experience with BOA last week (not the first and CERTAINLY not the last) and I’d like to share it with all of you.

I keep a floating idea of what my budget is in my head. I was off on that budget by about a hundred dollars last week. As a result, I incurred two $35 overdraft fees from Bank Of America. First of all, I’ve paid out a good $5-800 of overdraft fees in the last year mostly relating to pre-wedding financial situations. $35 is a preposterous amount in terms of an overdraft charge and I would like to think that a bank that I’ve been doing business with for five years would be willing to meet me halfway after paying so much for so many charges over the course of a calendar year.

When I realized my error at one of the two functioning ATM machines within a forty five minute drive, I drove home to try and speak to a rep. This was on Friday night. It took about ten minutes to navigate through their automated phone system and the FIRST rep I spoke with told me that their computers were down and that she’d have to transfer me to a rep with a working computer, and to hold please. I was disconnected, and had to redial the 800 number and go through the entire automated system again. The second rep (in a different state) had a nonworking computer as well, so she transferred me to a THIRD person. After an hour on the phone, the third customer service associate told me that she contacted Bank Of America (doesn’t she work for them?) and that they weren’t going to reverse any of the charges. I’ve lost more than an hour of my life to their horrific phone system to find out that I can take my overdraft fees and shove them.

I have a checking account and a consolidation loan with BOA. From where I live, BOTH ATM’s are often inoperable or non-functioning in ANY weather conditions, so when I withdraw money, I end up having to pay Bank Of America’s unreasonable handling fee of $3 in addition to whatever neighboring bank has the technology to run a functioning ATM.

My point is this. If I have to pay YOUR ATM fees because you don’t have enough locations to suit me and your ATMs only work 30% of the time at best, is it asking too much to wipe the slate on one or two of the fees that I’m responsible for? If you fuck up, it’s my fault. If I fuck up, it’s also my fault. That’s not exactly a two-way street.

Bank Of America made the mistake of sending me a follow up survey via email today and I took the time to fill it out comprehensively and vehemently. As soon as my consolidation loan is paid, I plan on setting up accounts anywhere else. I’ve also been with HSBC for the last twenty years and I’ve never had these kinds of problems with them. For an industry that took a massive payout and pissed the free money away on sectors that wouldn’t fix their growing crisis, you would think that they’d take their average consumer’s occasional missteps with their budgets a bit more reasonable.

On this Quixote Wednesday, I’d like to offer up a massive ‘Fuck You’ to Bank Of America. If you knew how to take care of what few customers you still have, maybe you’d be able to open more locations to adequately serve us and you might have the funds to allocate towards working ATM machines, computers, or customer service reps who were allowed to make decisions that benefit the company. I truly hope that you’re the next bank to close it’s doors. Truly.

Tune in next Wednesday when I’ll resume the Gamestop Crusade. Enjoy your vacation, folks. We’ll all be here when you get back from escaping your stores when actual physical labor and something that resembled real work was required of you.

Have a great week,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Tying Up Loose Ends…

After a long, strange trip for over six months with the Monsters Of Verse promotional junket, JR Finlayson and myself are in the final furlong and we can see the finish line for this particular race. We’ve got about four weeks of scheduled bookings and appearances and then we’re done. Part of me is relieved and the other part of me will miss sharing the experience (and some fantastic conversations) with so many other talented poets, writers, disc jockeys, musicians, graphic designers, cartoonists, etc. What’s so nice about this trip through the spanking machine is that we can all look back whenever we want by listening to the entire tour (or the better part of it) on the Monsters Of Verse site at thinktwiceradio.com. I’ve been putting a lot of the tour to bed from a psychological standpoint in the last few weeks and even considered ’retiring’ both Breathing Room volumes to their rightful place on the shelf next to my other collections so that I can move on and focus on other projects. Four more weeks.

Our next official stop will be at Caz Coffee Café from 7-9 p.m. in South Buffalo on Saturday, April 25^th . The lineup will include (but won’t be limited to) JR Finlayson, myself and Kyle Kaczmarzcak. From what my calendar says, this will be one of the final two engagements for MOV.

As for everything else, I’ve been quietly working on a volley of assignments for ArtVoice. If you nab a copy of this week’s issue on stands, you’ll find a small piece that I wrote about the Center For Inquiry and author William Lobdell’s book Losing My Religion in their In The Margins section. Once May rolls around, I should start knocking out assignments in rapid succession, but in the mean time, it’s been a matter of how much time I have in my week to devote to which project based on priority.

This week’s issue of Night Life kicks off the second week of the month with part one of ‘Pronunciation’, a brand new four part essay about our wedding and everything surrounding it within a six month window. It’s a more somber piece and it clocks in at around 6 pages, but the pacing seems warranted given how much information there was to disseminate.

And I’m almost done proof-reading the only copy of Slapstick & Superego on the face of this planet before forwarding the corrections off to VLR Designs. I originally wanted the book done by May and it appears as if I’m the one holding up the production slate right now. I’ve been looking at the presentation and appearance of this collection as the new template for all Doubt It Publishing book releases going forward, so we’re all putting a lot more perfectionism into this collection than any I’ve worked on to date.

Additionally, I’m unsure as to whether or not poke the scorpion with a sharp stick (my next poetry collection) feels finished at 100 pages or not. The Pre-Launch Questionaire sent out a few weeks ago worked wonders on what readers would like to see happen with Slapstick, so I may be ‘test-paneling’ responses for the ideal poetry collection according to readers likes and dislikes in the future as well. That collection, though, is at least six to seven months down the road.

Finally, I keep forgetting to thank Christopher Schobert from Buffalo Spree for his spectacular write-up/review/interview of Breathing Room Volume I: Free Verse in the December issue of Spree. Thanks, Chris. You did a stupendous job and quite a few friends brought it to my attention. There’s also another local write I wanted to thank and I had no idea the article came out until someone sent me a link about two months ago. Charity Vogel from the Buffalo News wrote a very nice blurb back in November regarding both Breathing Room collections and I just wanted to take the time to thank her for her efforts. You can still check out her write-up over at:

buffalonews.com/entertainment/booksliterature/story/481433.html

 

Many people don’t realize just how many complimentary copies go out (and have been going out) for every single collection released so far to almost every single newspaper, radio station and bookstore in town (for the last ten years) and how little many of these media outlets do to return the favor. Even a tiny paragraph on a slow news day can work wonders for a title. It’s always the same guilty parties, too, which is surprising and frustrating. In most cases, complimentary copies come out of my pocket. Ideally, it would be nice to see more write-ups, calendar listings and reviews in the future, but I’ll be exploring some new options and improved business practices with all Doubt It Publishing titles from here on out.

For the current poetry collections, a lot of the old guard has kindly relented and started taking notice in print, in bookstores (locally and nationally) and on the radio. Breathing Room I & II aided in improving the learning curve in terms of how to effectively market and sell a poetry collection. This summer, fall and winter, Slapstick & Superego will be a quantum leap. Mark my words, Buffalo, because the Doubt It Publishing name-branding will commence in about two to three more months.

Bonus Poem! Conduct Unbecoming

This week has been a bitch and a half and I was thinking about this poem earlier today.  It applies to quite a bit.  Instead of giving a ten minute explanation for a one page poem, though, I’ll just let you read it.  It’s from the upcoming poke the scorpion with a sharp stick, which I’ve been working on quietly with what little free time I can spare as of late.  Enjoy! -Tom

Conduct Unbecoming

i would rather tell people

exactly

how i feel

when i feel it

than mince words

pretend that there isn’t a problem

or join the longstanding tradition

of stabbing others in the back

or misdirecting my anger on those who aren’t deserving of it.

i prefer to go for long periods

without saying anything

in favor of lashing out

saying something i’d regret

or resorting to physical violence.

i choose to beat myself up

by various methods

instead of

channeling my rage, confusion or sadness

towards the people i love

& when all of these subroutines & behaviors fail me

i default

& retreat inward

for a season or three.

It’s a sad, dysfunctional, pathetic, pathological world

when i’m the misfit for carrying on as previously stated

& the norm for dealing with others

is quite to the contrary.

Quixote Wednesday Update: Roper Hyperbole

Quixote Wednesday Update!

 

I was seriously considering skipping this week in favor of mentioning my show tonight (April Foolfest 2 at Desiderio’s on Broadway at 7 p.m. with special musical guest Lenny Revell), but after receiving 151 unique site hits last Wednesday on my site within 3 hours, I certainly don’t want to leave my readers (inside the company and without) uninformed. That, and I’ve really been looking forward to this installment. Lisa (in classic Lisa fashion) is on vacation in the Dominican Republic this week during a crucial week where she should be checking in on Game Day Sale Compliance, but she hasn’t done her job this far, so why would she start now? At any rate, without further ado, here is your Quixote Wednesday Update…

A few weeks ago, myself and a small army went to the Department Of Labor downtown to contest my rights to unemployment benefits in a mediation hearing. One of the perks to showing up for this brand of circus is that I had access to my file before the hearing itself along with all of the paperwork gathered up to that point. One such document was an internal Gamestop transcript of my previous DM Lisa’s recollection/delusional fantasy as to what happened the day she marched in and terminated my employment with the company for no reason.

The day after she railroaded me out of the store on one of her personal and highly prejudiced witch-hunts, she had to report back to Estela Reyes, an internal HR person who was most likely required to keep a file at corporate on this particular wrongful termination. While I wasn’t allowed to make copies of any of the documents in the aforementioned file, I took copious notes on the glaring fabrications of what happened versus what Lisa claimed to cover her own ass for your enjoyment:

-Lisa alleged that I was on a Final Warning for Loss Prevention policies. The Final Warning I received was for a separate company policy entirely and it was issued to me in February of 2008 (coincidentally the last time I was on a vacation, which seems to be the only time she can be bothered to visit stores that aren’t run by her buddies). 1. Lisa herself told me that all Final Warnings revert to writing warnings after three months. 2. The Final Warning was for Marketing Compliance, as I was late setting up an in-store display. How in the hell does setting up signs and posters relate to Loss Prevention and how can a DM parlay that into a case for terminating someone?

-Lisa claimed that I ’rambled’ out on the sales floor to her about buying my books after she showed up out of the blue and fired me. Bad move. As a writer, I have a pretty comprehensive sense of recall and that day remains fairly crystal clear in my mind. 1. The first thing I did after finding out that I lost my job was inform Lisa that I wasn’t going to freak out because doing so wouldn’t do any good. I asked her if it was okay for me to let my new wife of two weeks know so that she was in the loop. During the uncomfortable silences in the back room after what she had done, Lisa mentioned to me that I would make out okay since I had just released two collections of poetry. After that, I joked (in one sentence) that now she would have to buy one of my books. How a joke to lighten the severity of the situation would amount to rambling is beyond me. In all likelihood, Lisa was glossing the situation over to justify replacing yet another male manager in her District with a female. 3. This entire exchange happened in the back room of the Thruway store location. Not one shred of this happened out on the sales floor and there were no witnesses the entire time that we spoke. When I left and walked out onto the sales floor, I took my various awards and prizes with me and quietly said goodbye to the staff that was working in a calm and collective manner. I’m unsure as to how any of this was converted to ’rambling on the sales floor’, but that’s another indicator of how unfit and deluded this woman is when it comes to lying about how she does or doesn’t do her job.

-It stated on the report that I was offered to look at any supporting documentation as to why I was being terminated. 1. I was NEVER offered any supporting documentation. She walked in like a robot four days after returning from my honeymoon and after almost eight months of no disciplinary action, she showed up and let me go for a reason that was pretty far-fetched. Again, at NO time was I offered to see paperwork that was relevant to the situation. That would have been nice.

-There’s a lot more from this single conversation that I’d like to cover, but I’ll save the rest for next week. I’d love to keep going, but there are so many glaring inconsistencies that I’d run the risk of ‘rambling’. Heh. I almost wonder if Lisa would attest to the same conversation if she were swore in and in the presence of an appointed judge or if she would actually let some truth fall off of her twisted and fairy-tail-spewing tongue. Maybe we’ll find out soon, maybe we won’t. That’s all I’ve got for this week. Rest assured that I’ll have plenty more Gamestop fables next Wednesday!

Tom Waters