'I Have Learned to Respect the Power of Activism'
A Conversation with Alan Adelson & Kate Taverna
'Tis the eve 'fore Thanksgiving and already I’m pooped, painstakingly pecking a path with cutesy alliteration through a 43-minute interview I conducted with a guitarist/vocalist for a pretty cool Albany band. Heavy into fantasy, science, and literature, erecting galaxies through riff-roaring rock ’n’ roll as God and Heinlein intended. We gabbed equipment, concepts, primates, the Thin White Duke, and other multibrowed amusements.
​
I was gonna wrap it up tonight, sketch it into reasonable cohesion, and post it in the dire wees, but it’s been what they call A Week. In a productive way, though. So I’m gonna set it aside for a couple of days, nail a second necessary exchange for the piece (the band’s confirmed plot-master), and run it next week with a pair of others I’ve scheduled.
So this week we have one new story. But it’s good. Former colleague Audrey Caro graciously accepted the "Women Playing Hamlet" assignment and came through.
We kindasorta go way back. She’s an ex-Lee Enterprises captive like me, but with enough So-Cal-raised wherewithal to bail when the working environment was merely interminable. I’d see her about once a week at the Democrat-Herald office, sneaking in after most of the newsroom had slunk home, sending her Lebanon Express pages directly to the backroom printer. At the time we editors were responsible for submitting our own pages to the plate stage, a thankless, potentially expensive task.
​
But she soon left for greener fortunes at smaller, locally owned operations (the only way to fly if you value even a scintilla of independence — and that’s often the best they offer.).
​
Now, like me, and so many others, she’s her own marquee, her own brand. I was lucky to land her. She actually went to school for journalism. Me, I etched a few syllables into beer-soaked papyrus and called it a career despite an ascent by the thick of my stupidity. Thank you, Audrey. Check’s in the soup.
​
The holiday crept my way (kept it on the down-low) with as much stealth as it did at the dailies. Last year at this time, Jim Day and I cranked out two newspapers in one evening so I could scramble to keep my plans. Or maybe I worked. Hell, I don’t remember. Stuffing was consumed at either a dining room table or my newsroom desk, washed down with a ritual cranberry yam burrito and Gravy Sprite.
​
But I'm older now and these are slower times. I’ve been plopped on my bed gazing at this laptop since morning, alternating between freelance and Mid Valley Noise business and contemplating a pair of outside opportunities. On top of that, my trusted device decided it was full (fucker don't even eat!) and burped my Microsoft Word program from desktop to oblivion, forcing me to work strictly online.
But in better news, my commemorative 50th anniversary Creem rag landed, and I may manage the time and/or energy to consume more than a few paragraphs. If you consider yourself a writer, I demand you shell. Kiss me later.
Tonight: Rest, read. Tomorrow: peppered potatoes, coma. Next week: the future. Smell you then.
​
Cory Frye
​
P.S. In case I forget: Thank you.