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SEXPOSÉ: The Gentle Readers 2000 Diary Archives

• January/February 2000 Edition
• May 2000 Edition
• July 2000 Edition
• October 2000 Edition

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I should wait to write the news, but I can't delay for another couple of weeks, so here goes.

While I am looking forward to eating a large pizza all by myself, what I'm really excited about is rock and roll music. We've been lying low, trying to decide exactly what to do while we wait for our album to come out. But we've been practicing and working on a few new songs: a reworked version of "Confucius & Mark Twain" off our first record, a beautiful song that I remember from my youth by the 5th Dimension, and we even tried switching instruments a bit, but that was unproductive. Linda and Greg can both play guitar, but neither Susan, Greg, or myself can play the drums. So we gave up on that. The four of us playing guitar and singing along is really too much to bear. Though as an aside, every year I have a bad songwriter's party where guests must present (sing, play, act out, whatever), the worst song they can write. It's a great time, and we get to hear some really horrible stuff. Greg's song was "Give me One-hundred Percent of Your Soul." It was unbearable, but not the worst song of the night. My friend Susi French won with "Scattered, Covered and Smothered: A Waffle House Love Story." Her prize was a lovely numbered lithograph of Joyce DeWitt, which I know she covets even though I've never seen it around her house.

Anyway, a lot has happened since the last monthly news, so I'll do a quick update and be done:

Susan: Susan Fitzsimmons, our singer and guitarist, totaled her car in October, I think. Her Miata got hit squarely by a Jeep Cherokee. Susan was fine, and the car really handled the impact nicely, but it apparently costs $4,000 to repack the airbags on one of those babies, so the insurance company bid it adieu. However, she found a great deal on a newer one, and made out like a bandit. Susan also started rock climbing a bit (everything in moderation ... ), and had a birthday. I guess we all did, so never mind. Oh -- but Susan's birthday was on the night of a show, and she got all slurry. But I can't tattle, or I get my hand slapped (at the least).

Greg: Greg, our bass player, also bought a new car. A used Civic, actually, that his sister cut him an insider's deal on, if you know what I mean. High five. Greg was offered and accepted a smoked duck that Susan received for Christmas but declined to ingest. She started cutting the layer of fat off the duck, and could not proceed. Greg was so excited about the duck. We gave him other stuff for Christmas -- a music store gift certificate, a super bad zip-front Puritan sweater from the Salvation Army - but it was the duck that really excited him. He went on and on about it at practice. I guess you just never know.

Linda: Ok, the car thing continues here. Linda bought herself a new car for her birthday (yesterday). It's fast and black and has a sunroof and a stick shift and it was made in Japan. I don't really know what's wrong with her. She wanted this car like I want a tall sandwich right now. In her own way, Linda hinted that she wanted me to retract what I said in the last news about her not wanting to go to a museum. But I'm not going to do it. In fact, I'll go so far as to tell you that she's not even a vegetarian any more. She's defensive about it and I'll get in trouble for this. Susan and Linda and I recently went to see the Green Mile. Susan and I succumbed to the overt psychological manipulation (Tom Hanks is an evil sorcerer), and we got misty-eyed. Linda did not, and she told us after the movie that she is the master of her emotions, making Susan and I feel like little whiny babies. Round one to Thumper.

Lee: Ok, about me: It's been an interesting fall and winter. I broke my foot a month before the marathon I was supposed to run, and so I am now scheduled to run the Myrtle Beach marathon February 19. Foot feels fine; training is proceeding nicely. I worked a lot during the fall, laying out a book at home for a client. This project went on and on, and finally after an extended period alone in my house, I called Susan and said "you've got to come get me out of here right now," which she did. We drank beers, I felt better. When I was really down, I went outside and washed my house. Really. Cleaned the gutters, swept the leaves off the roof. We women were gifted with advance coping skills. And the new Freedy Johnston album is great -- don't let anybody tell you different.

My love is alive (and also like oxygen),
Lee

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To paraphrase ourselves, there is no moral of the story. The only thing I know after eight years as a Gentle Reader is this: well, okay two things: that I play in a band with the very greatest people ever in the world and every show no matter how lousy the conditions it is the most fun I ever have, but more importantly NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE THE WORD "GENTLE" IN THE NAME OF YOUR BAND. What a nightmare this is. We seriously debated changing our name last summer, but we thought as sort of an act of contrition we would keep it. Why rebrand ourselves?

When we started, we thought the name was slightly intelligent and somewhat amusing. We just assumed that everyone read Miss Manners. As it turns out, people who have not heard us seem to think we must be the musical equivalent of the Lifetime channel. They hear our name, find out there are girls in the band, and blammo, we're easy listening. Harmless. Benign. Innocuous. Lillithy. This hurts us deeply. We're a guitar band with a pseudo intellectual name that has generally bitten us in the ass. And yet it suits us, and this causes us great psychological distress. Are we just so ten minutes from now, or are we totally uncool? [It is not necessary to email us a response.]

I told Paul Mahern once that we had an image problem and his reply was "You're the f***ing Gentle Readers! That's the whole thing right there!" And so in moments of despair, like when we're billed as the Gentile Readers (or something Genital), I hold his comments near and dear and grit my teeth in defiance. We ARE the Gentle Readers and what's a good band name anyway? Third Eye Blind? I don't think so. How about Blink 182? What the hell is that? Or Limp Bizkit? No sir. Magnapop is the only good band name ever. And nobody ever thought they were a pop band. How does that work?

Now I've gone off on a tirade and Susan will email me a spanking.

Our Susi French Connection show (this is our little side project) was a spectacular success. We played a bunch of '70's songs at Eddie's Attic with our good friend Becky Shaw. People seemed to have a lot of genuine enthusiasm for Spiders & Snakes; Waterloo was the clincher. We'll do it again in the fall (sorry Greg). And our third record "HiHoney" is out or coming out soon, and it's at least the musical equivalent of Oxygen. We hope you like it.

And I said, YES I DO.
Lee

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and Bat the Rat is the title of a recent magazine article that Susan sent over to me today via email. Here is part of it:

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The idea for the fly swatter originated with the health officer of the State of Kansas, Dr. Samuel J. Crumbine. While attending the opening day of the Western League baseball season in Topeka, the doctor had a brainstorm. The score was 2 to 2 in the 8th inning, with one out and a Topeka runner on third. The crowd began to take up the shout "Sacrifice fly! Sacrifice fly!" When the batter missed the first pitch, a voice from the stands cried, "Swat that ball!" The two shouts came together in Dr. Crumbine's mind as "Swat the fly!" The slogan would sweep the country and inspire the invention of the "fly swatter". (From Food Talk)

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Susan is all excited about our new Gentle Readers fly swatters (often pronounced "sworter"), which we just ordered and should be here momentarily. In a fell swoop of marketing genius, we decided the perfect accompaniment to our GR ice scrapers would be a warm-weather product. This was inspired by a recent Sunday morning at my house when Susan dropped by to pick up the van. We were having coffee in the kitchen, and suddenly a giant insect (it certainly was fly-like, though I'm no expert) began a regular series of dives and swoops around our nostrils and ears and over our mugs.

Luckily, when I bought my house it came with a hook in the kitchen full of old fly swatters. As Susan swung madly with the Butterfly (in a lovely shade of goldenrod), we both noticed that it was imprinted with this: "Advertising is a good idea! Call Jack... at .... to discuss..." and we thought "Hell! Advertising is a good idea, and advertising on a dog gone fly swatter is the best idea in history! We're geniuses!"

And sure enough, Susan surfed the net soon after, and she found the very best one - the fly swatter in the shape of a guitar. I could not believe our good fortune! So it won't be long now my friends before we are able to provide you with the absolute most killer (I did not mean this pun) rock and roll promotional item in the universe. Is this not reason enough to come to a show this summer?

It may give you added incentive to come on down if you know that Brandon Bush is playing keyboards with us lots, and now it's like a big rock show. We have Linda playing drum solos, Brandon doing his thing, Greg wearing tight brown polyester pants, Susan endeavoring to "Sex It Up" as a nice woman at a recent show recommended, and I am working on a little pelvic thrust move that I think will be really Rock And Roll.

Our record is picking up at radio; some influential stations nationally have put us into rotation and we're getting interesting feedback. A club on the East Coast called us yesterday because the guy that does the booking heard us on the radio and he said we have a sound that will be big. Or a big sound. Or we sound big - a plus-size sound?

Steve Craig here at 99-X in Atlanta said the record was "amazing" in his show this week, and predicted it will be the music he prefers to have sex to in the foreseeable future. Creative Loafing said it may be "the perfect record for the year 2000." We've been to Chicago; we've been to Bloomington, Indiana. We're off to New York, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, etc. in August, and I think we're playing the Atlantis music conference here in Atlanta as well. And, as of this week, we've started writing the next record. I want to call it something that has a swear word in it and Susan has expressly forbidden this. Ever since a handsome youngster told her a few weeks ago that he thought she looked so sexy when she sang (and other people thought so too), she has been trying to wield her evil powers over me. She's been trying crap like bringing a NOTEBOOK to lunch when we talk band stuff. As if.

Anyway, Brandon (who keeps song charts in his Palm Pilot) has us nearly ready to Kozmo.com. Susan has WebVan-d; Linda has discovered Mulletsgalore.com (uh, parental advisory). I am heavy into The Future SUV (http://poseur.4x4.org/futuresuv.html) right now. And Greg just bought a computer (squishy rubbery sound of Ms. Packman eating those little dots here). Seriously, I'm sure he'll have email sometime during my lifetime.

Finally, we played with a woman named Julie Doiron in Chicago last month and her album is great. She won a Juno (the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy) this year for best alternative rock album, which shows how truly advanced Those People are. The Wooden Stars back her, and the record sounds to me like Cat Power meets The Sea and Cake. It's very quiet and deliberate and we like it a lot - she's on Tree - a label out of Chicago - in the U.S. Check it out.

It's July here. They don't call it Hotlanta for nothing.

Lee

P.S. I put this at the bottom because it's a painful to me: our label is doing some switching around with their distribution network, and for about a week our record was not available through some sources (Amazon.com, etc.). Please note this was just a glitch in the system and not the end of the availability of our catalog. Though we have VERY LITTLE of our HIGHTLY DESIRABLE PRODUCT left and soon THERE WILL BE NONE and entire fortunes will be won and lost on EBAY as the bidding ESCALATES OUT OF CONTROL for Gentle Readers material, YOU could still get a reasonably-priced, previously unused copy of any of our records right now, anywhere. Flatearthrecords.com is a rock-solid source.

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Then that weekend Susan and I went gambling in Biloxi, Mississippi, which Susan assured me would be a cultural experience I would not soon forget. I have not. I still miss those few hundred dollars, and every time I see a "7" - on a billboard, in an email, on TV - my adrenaline races. There is nothing like sitting next to somebody's chain smoking grandmother at 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning, watching her rip $100 bills out of her wallet and play four slot machines at once, winning over and over. I think it's fair to expect an ode to Biloxi on our next album. Gambling is evil, in summary.

In August, we played the Atlantis Music Conference here in Atlanta. We played at a new club called the Riviera, which had just featured shows by Great White and Vanilla Ice. When I drove by the other day, Eddie Money was on the marquis. Lots of disco ball. Not much else to tell you there. The next day we played a benefit for some folks in Pine Lake, GA, who were doing the Avon Breast Cancer Walk. We sold more CD's at that show than we have in almost a year, and there was a woman in the crowd who went to the same high school Susan did, in Carmel Indiana, back when the kids dressed in skins and you could drink the water straight from the crick.

Toward the end of the month, I went to Washington, D.C. for a combination of work and pleasure. May I recommend the Museum of Health and Medicine to you, at Walter Reed Army Hospital? If you're a fan of civil war battlefield injuries, skeletons, specimens and oddities (a giant hairball they removed from a stomach), you'll be simply delighted with this treasure trove of artifacts.

The band hit the road during the first week of September. We were supporting radio airplay of our last record in Pittsburgh, New Jersey, and New York City. We played live on the radio. We luxuriated in a really nice rented 15-passenger van (our own van, The Blue Ox, is small and lazy). We ate some food, gazed at the wonder of Asbury Park's boardwalk, visited with friends, did some sightseeing, and drove a lot. Everyone was so gracious to the band on the trip, and we treated each other like the ladies and gentleman that we are. Generally. It was a highly pleasurable experience.

Since then, Susan has wrecked yet another Miata; again, not her fault, and this one is fixable. I think she is listening to St. Germain and Richard Ashcroft right now. Linda plays occasionally with a bad 80's cover band; we played with them in September and it was a really fun time. Enough beers and "Jessie's Girl" seems very profound.

Brandon is like the wise, sage Yoda of the Gentle Readers. He once toured with a band after college and lived (as a pack-a-day smoker, which he is not anymore,) on a per diem of $3/day, so he doesn't complain about much. In a 2 - 2 vote, he's the tie-breaker, and if things in the set go poorly, he plays the beginning of "Jump" by Van Halen, which jolts us all into a new reality, for better or worse.

Greg decided that his favorite bad '70's song (for our next SUSI FRENCH CONNECTION show) is "Having My Baby." It's really funny - at 27 he's a little too young to know most of the great bad '70's songs, but when he heard that Paul Anka numbah, he just lost it. He's decided he's singing the woman's part ("I'm a woman in love and I love what's going through me..."). It is a truly horrible, atrocious song, and I can't believe we ever sang along to it doing errands and driving to Grandma's house. We should know better. Oh hell - forget it. Go Dawgs!!

Finally, Susan, Brandon and I have been on the same wedding schedule this fall, which has been nice. Weddings are happy occasions, as long as they're not your own, and so we've been enjoying ourselves quite a bit, between the parties and the actual events. My Mom and Sister have been to visit this fall, and I found an old (40's?) Gibson acoustic guitar at a flea market last weekend, and so I am preparing to enter the gentle strumming period of my musical career. Finally, I can express what I really feel inside! For now, though, I want to express that I can't stand the new Radiohead album. Ick.

As always, thanks, love, and remember to Walk on the Sunny Side of the Street -
Lee

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