Primitive UFO's

its absolutely pissing down with rain, as it has for at least the past 2 weeks . We've had a few brief breaks for 'partial sunshine', but otherwise brutal winds, torrential rains, flooding and the overall general mayhem that accompanies these storm systems that pile up on each other...
Of course, I'm out there driving in it. I've been "full-time" at Oregon Taxi since February of 2015, where my 'meat and potatoes' is the ride source account: mostly driving older folks to medical appointments. The owner of the cab I'm driving has been really great to me, and offered plenty of 'overtime' in the form of extra hours in the taxi, beyond what I'm paying on the lease. The trick is that I get complacent about the early morning hours, I'm able to come in later than I 'need to', and run the cab later, with the potential to make more. The hitch is that there is no guarantee of actually making more, and I find that the early morning clinic runs are about the only consistent hours with heavy activity. So if I sleep in till 7 am, I'm (potentially) missing out on some of these high dollar runs to the outskirts of civilization around here. There is not any guarantee, however, that if I DO get in bright and early, I will make money, the distribution of work is so random and haphazard. The cab company has figured out my old tricks and implemented a more randomized distribution of these better paying runs. So there is no merit award based on performance, and being better or more patient in the job only pays off in the health and wellness category, based on lower stress level for the driver (me). So I have this nagging feeling that I'm a slacker, and that even one small traffic collision could wreak havoc.
yet I persist.
music-wise I'm keeping busy with four projects:
The Soothesayers
Davy Jones' Locker Combo
Pirate Radio
La Petit Mort
with my calendar of events at: www.fredxmertz.com
my daughter and I are flying down to L.A. to see my mom and step dad, but I don't have plans for actual Christmas Day, and I had actually hoped to be in the cab (it might be snowing that day) but I think the regular Friday guy is keeping his day shift...
meanwhile, its just me and my animals around here.
Soothesayers played at Naughty Dottie's Dirty Flirty Thirty party Saturday.
I took Tim Kinney up to Portland Sunday to see X and Mike Watt, but haven't been out since then.
I'm not currently dating anyone, but I'm available! I discontinued my OKCupid, because it was OKStupid. The only ladies I took an interest in were people I've already known, and I feel like a creepy stalker with the 'wink and kink' interface of reading internet profiles and looking at candid photos.
Hope this finds you all well, and I wish you a Happy and Festive Solstice celebration, whatever that may mean to you!

and TOMORROW:
Wed 23
First Annual Krampus Holiday Special!!!
The Googins (Local punk Eugene)
Lucika (Metal)
The Soothesayers (Eugene Female fronted Garage Punk)
Astern (Metal)
Come celebrate The Holidays at Old nicks
First Annual Krampus Holiday Special!!!

Naughty or Nice show up and rock out to this awesome Lineup :
You never know you might get a visit from Father Christmas, but knowing you.... Krampus might be waiting on the shadows......... Gruss von Krampus! $3
9:00 | $3-5 sliding scale

Puddletown Paddys, or whatever my acoustic Irish group is called, played live on the radio.
the DJ/host at KWVA last night, Aaron was a super cool cat.

our set was very hit and miss. it was difficult to hear each other and Nathan hadn't practice with us at all so timing was off on his vocal parts.

high points were BELA CIAO, HOPS & BARLEY, of course, the GENERAL GUINNESS.

Aaron said that KWVA had been mentioned in an article on the front page of the NY TIMES, and that we may have had over 400 listeners via streaming internet. No apparent activity on the myspace page tho.

we had lots of fun, but we need to practice practice practice

Puddletown Paddys live on KWVA on Saturday December 6th at 8 pm.

Soothesayers play a wedding at Cozmik Pizza! on December 20th. No word yet how many guests I'm allowed, or if there is a limit. These are some folks that saw us play at Tiny's a few weeks back, and asked us to play Sex Pistols covers at their wedding! I hope we get paid! but if not, at least it will be cool photo op.

JP has a recital at Cozmik Pizza this saturday at 4 pm, I think... Sothesayers probably recording with Chris Ross thru the weekend.

cheers

FxM