The Three Hundred and Sixty Fourth...

Number Three Hundred and Sixty Four:

El Nopal, Lunch, Carnitas

So Justin and I hit the best Mexican place in the east end, maybe one of the best in the city, El Nopal, and who do we see but Beth Brown and her boy! We sit with them and have some fun conversation while her son does some wacky things like a napstache (well, ISH) and taunts a french fry or two up the nostril. Good times! It was a pleasant surprise, especially for the next to last Napkin Moustache! I suppose I should start getting reflective over this, but I might just wait until after it is all said and done, to continue to post on the blog about it, then we'll see where it can go from there.

Other cool news:

Apparently, Dogfish Head did another limited run of their Miles Davis inspired Bitches Brew beer! I totally went to River City Cellars and bought two bottles! I never got to taste any last year, and only had one bottle in storage. Now I will be able to sample and save another. Sweet!

ONE MORE!!!

The Three Hundred and Forty Fourth...

Number Three Hundred and Forty Four:

Visual Arts Center, Pumpkinhead

Yes! This is an ACTUAL prop from the 1988 Stan Winston flick Pumpkinhead. Doc Gillespie, wise sage of horror film, brought props as part of the fun that the James River Film Society had tonight with it's first Halloween Showcase. I was a part of it, as curator for the opening film, Pickman's Model, by Giovanni Furore, based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story. Fangoria was also there representing. Geeks of Doom Bobby Morgan in the house too, running the triva contest between movies! Great night, we had about 60 people show up! More icing for the cake, please, you ask? Sure! Richmond Macabre writers Melissa Scott Sinclair, Michael Baughan, and cohort Beth Brown too! WOOT!

The Three Hundred and Thirty Seventh...

Number Three Hundred and Thirty Seven:

Home, Dinner, Leftovers

After yoga, it was some quick leftovers before deciding what to wear on television tomorrow. It's been kind of funny because Beth and I have been telling each other what we are maybe wearing so we don't clash on camera; like a couple of gals going out on the town! hahahahahahaaaaaaa Anyway, I think we have decided! Tomorrow is going to be an action-packed day. I might, no, I MUST get a napstache while getting ready to get on the television!

The Three Hundred and Thirty First...

Number Three Hundred and Thirty One:

Fountain Bookstore, Book signing

Great time in the Slip at a great bookstore! We had a number of people come in and purchase the book. Then Beth, Michael Baughan and myself signed copies and chatted with folks about it. Kelly, the owner, is absolutely awesome. She plugged the event, she hung up a banner out front, she showed people coming in the store the book while they browsed and totally sold some of them on it. So very full of greatness.

Window display @ Fountain.

Beth, Michael and I having some fun.

Later, I went to Carytown to pick up some cheese at River City Cellars for a party we are going to later. I pop into Chop Suey and our book is being proudly displayed. The guy behind the counter told me it was doing well too! Yay! Further evidence that local bookstores ROCK!

On the counter at Chop Suey.

Also awesome? Our Wedding Anniversary! Happy Anniversary Lisa!

The Three Hundred and Twenty Sixth...

Number Three Hundred and Twenty Six:

The Poe Museum, Book Launch

Today was our book launch party of Richmond Macabre : Nightmares from the River City at the Poe Museum. Wow! What terrific event! The weather was getting cold, threatening rain, perfect for the day full of moody soundscapes, creepy book readings and getting to know everyone that contributed to the book.

Lisa and I showed up around one to help set up with co-conspirator Beth Brown. Everything started to come together around 15 minutes before the event. Beth and I could tell when someone walked in who looked like one of the writers. (We had met NONE of the contributors before today, that was kind of cool!) After a while, chock full of great atmospheric music by my pal Sean Lovelace and Brian, the first set of readings by the authors began. I was one of them, I thought I did a pretty decent job. After the first set of readings, more musical interlude followed as well as the invitation for people to tour the fantastic Poe Museum. So surreal, and awesome, was when people started coming up to me asking to sign their book! Wow! Kind of special, neat. It was great to see so many people interested in a collection of short horror fiction set in and inspired by Richmond, Virginia, something that I (and I am sure Beth) am very proud to be a part of! It's kind of like the reward for the hard work of putting this project together.

Next, the second set of readings began, also great. Ending the afternoon with a massive book signing by the 13 authors that appeared for the event. There were a lot of special moments for me, too many to mention here, but there will be some pictures on tomorrow's blog of the event. Such a great time, perfect!

The Three Hundred and Twenty Fourth...

Number Three Hundred and Twenty Four:

Home, Breakfast, Eggs

Despite my tired look (Hey! Give me a break, it's 5 in the freakin morning!) I was excited about today. Not only do I do my Friday Breakfast Blend on WRIR 97.3, but our interview on one of my favorite local radio shows Wordy Birds aired today! It sounded great too! You can listen to it here. All in preparation of the Book Launch Party at the Poe Museum this Sunday from 2-4PM! Should be wonderful time!

The Three Hundred and Twentieth...

Number Three Hundred and Twenty:

Home, Dinner, Pizza

Had an interview for the book with Liz Humes, host of the wonderful book show called Wordy Birds on WRIR 97.3. I think Beth Brown and I did a great job. Beth did well, of course, she has done this before, and while I have been interviewed for things like a t.v. segment for my job and bands, the book was a little different. I think I did all right though!

Picked up a pizza pie on the way home, in time for some Antiques Roadshow!

The Two Hundred and Eighty Seventh...

Number Two Hundred and Eighty Seven:

Home, Dinner, Pizza, Leftovers

Grabbed a leftover slice of pizza on the way out the door to meet Noah Scalin and Beth Brown regarding the Richmond Macabre book. (By the way, available at the Barnes & Noble website for early order now!) We had limited screen prints made of the cover, so we numbered and Noah signed them this evening. We listened to some old awesome 78s on a Victrola. Awesome! Oh, I guess I haven't shown the cover of the book on this blog yet:

So great!

The Two Hundred and Eighty Second...

Number Two Hundred and Eighty Two:

Home, Dinner, Fajitas

Some exciting things today. No, I'm not talking about the 1 billion sneezes and nose blows due to allergies, I am referring the release of our book Richmond Macabre! Beth picked up the limited prints of the cover by Noah Scalin today, and they look phenomenal! I already want 5!!! We met with the event / education coordinator for The Poe Museum, as well as the curator and one of the contributors who happens to work there. The museum was more than happy to host our Book Release! So great! Sunday, October 2nd, 4-6PM. And, to put the cherry on the kick butt sundae, they also want us at the Poe Memorial Service (Death-a-versary) later in the week on Thursday, October 6th from 6-9PM. We hope to have lots of our contributors around to read and sign copies of the book at both the events. Feels like things are off to a great start!

The Two Hundred and Seventy Fourth...

Number Two Hundred and Seventy Four:

Athens Tavern, Dinner, Athens Chicken

Great day today. First, Beth Brown comes by my work and delivers two proof copies of our Richmond Macabre book. We high five the awesomeness. Check out the newly vamped website! Then it was a good day on the road, one of my favorites on the Bookmobile.

Well, you could throw the rocks in the glass, sit back and enjoy the bourbon and say that was a good day, but wait there is more! Hope and I then attended this terrific program called Shop Class, a week to week run of artistic endeavor, helping you create, listen and do more than sit around waiting for the next season of WHATEVER to come on the T.V. Ours was with Noah Scalin, natch. One of our pre-assignments was to bring a bag full of stuff that you were either going to recycle, throw out or give to the thrift store. It was really great for Hope to see Noah give his talk about creating something 365 Days, and creativity in general. I saw her head working things out while listening. That's good.

After his brief talk, he told us we had to quickly think of something we wanted to create. Hope chose a snake, I chose a house. Then we had about an hour to create 30 of them with any of the junk on the tables. It was fantastic to see 30 people frantically and creatively make their idea in so many different ways, eventually tearing things apart to create them. After we created each one, we then took a digital picture of it (for an optional Flickr share later), then moved on, letting people either destroy it to make their project or to reuse the materials for something else. Pretty soon people were leaving the work tables and all over the place, using items not from the piles, creative juices flowing, Noah encouraging, various people photographing.

One of Hope's snakes. The chairs! Awesome!

One of my houses. With garage, trophy wife, lawn gnome.

Afterwards, and Hope and I only did 16 each --one person made 52! -- we all talked about the inspirations and how we could use it in our lives. Very awesome energy! Great art series!

Then to top off the evening, we went to Athens. Swell day!

The Two Hundred and Fifty Ninth...

Number Two Hundred and Fifty Nine:

Home, Breakfast, eggs

I know! My posts are so boring these past few days! Hey, cut me some slack, Beth Brown and I have practically finished the Richmond Macabre book and it should be out soon!

The Two Hundred and Fiftieth...

Number Two Hundred and Fifty:

Home, Dinner, Chicken tomato pita awesomeness

I think my ratio of doofy dumb shit happening today to totally freaking awesome stuff happening today is about 8:1. So screw the 8 bad things, the GOOD things that happened were awesome. Noah Scalin has been working on and excited about doing the cover for our Richmond Macabre, which looks completely what the three of us were digging! Kick ass! IN TUNE! So there is that, which is all I really need to get through today, hell, the week. The other good stuff today though? Great yoga class and a tasty homemade dinner; some sort of tomato from the garden salsa that Lisa made, and me grilling some chicken, onions and green peppers. Freaking good!

So 8:1, who cares, the good kicked the bad in the pants and sent it home to momma!

The Two Hundred and Forty Third...

Number Two Hundred and Forty Three:

Balliceaux Restaurant, Dinner, Burger

Another fine habit that Lisa and I have gotten into has been the Secretly Ya'll... storytellers that happens every once and a while at Balliceaux. We usually have Gina hold down a table for us while we finish yoga, but she was at the beach this week and we wound up standing for a bit. We got to see Beth Brown do her fun tale about a moonshiner relative then a few others before we decide to go to the restaurant bar in the front for burgers. Intermission broke and we chatted a while with Beth, her pal Jeff, and Paul Ginder, before grabbing a beer and finding a crowded booth to sit at and watch the second half. The second part is the out of the hat portion, which can sometimes be more interesting because these are not practiced tellers, but random people spilling out tales, with often hilarious results. A terrific event for RVA!!!

The Two Hundred and Forty First...

Number Two Hundred and Forty One:

Home, Dessert, Bev's Homemade Ice Cream

So many missed opportunities for a Napstache today....but I think it worked out well. I first was thinking that while in Carytown today I would do a 'stache at Cafe Ole, but left my camera in the car. Then I had this great vision of having Beth Brown and Noah Scalin BOTH doing a 'stache with me (maybe) while we met to talk about which stories were going to be in our upcoming Richmond Macabre anthology (with Noah doing the cover), but I forgot to suggest this and take the picture because it was in my computer bag, as opposed to where I usually keep it; in my pocket. Then after Djing at WRIR, Lisa and I went to Mekong, where we hung out at the bar a while after dinner, I left my camera at home in the computer bag. Note to self: to insure Napkin Moustache, just keep the damn camera in your pocket. Lisa came up with a brilliant suggestion as we were leaving Mekong; let's go pick up some Bev's to take home where you can do the picture! Yes! This picture might be the most recent picture to post 'stache! Instantstache!

The Two Hundred and Thirty Eighth...

Number Two Hundred and Thirty Eight:

Tastebuds American Bistro, Dinner, Bacon wrapped shrimp with Hanover tomatoes, cucumbers, lavender potato salad and blue cheese vinaigrette

So I was sitting around the house, after not having band practice, and the baseball game being cancelled, wondering what to do for dinner. Then, the writer-guy in me decide that I wanted to go to a bar, sit and read the last of the submissions for Richmond Macabre before my meeting with Beth on Saturday, as well as Noah about possibly doing the cover.

My first thought as I biked was Dots, but that tends to get crowded and loud, perhaps too much for trying to read. Then my other choices were The Mill and Tastebuds. Now I like them both, but I really like the vibe at Tastebuds for this intention and sure enough, bar space was available. Had a great meal, recommended by Andrew, the owner, who swayed me away from the tasty enough Chicken Marsala for the shrimp, which was delicious! As I read and ate, Tim Kaine came in for dinner, I was SO TEMPTED to ask to do a Napstache with him, but I chickened out. I mean really, HOW would you even try to explain that to him? You can't, not without some kind of diagram and web access.

On the way home a weird creature crossed the street ahead of me, it was a raccoon!

The One Hundred Fifty Sixth...

Number One Hundred and Fifty Six:

Mekong Restaurant, Dinner, Spicy Crispy Chicken

After a nice visit with Beth Brown, author and my co-conspirator with Richmond Macabre, at a local author showcase (with: Rich Babbit, Roger Bruner, David H.C. Carter, Edward Wright Haile, Walter Griggs, Shara Lanel, J.S. Lee, Lee Rice, Bill Roberson, Douglass Walter and Richard Wenzel) it was off to Mekong for an early dinner. After all, I had been up since FOUR this morning; insomnia kind of sucks!

One of my favorite, most unassuming, easy to get along with waitstaff in Richmond is Thui (or Tooey) from Mekong. I know I am probably spelling it wrong but okay fine. She is familiar with us, daughter of the equally awesome Lian, who is brother to most the awesome An --a great great example of fine family restaurant. Thui without question took a photo with me doing the napstache. After some tasty beer, yes, the BEST beer taps in Richmond, hands down, we headed for the bar to chat with An for a bit. He has grown into his celebrity status wonderfully. A man that knows his customers, his staff, and his establishment, and runs the joint well. A good man. Cheers!

I'm gonna give this one a...

Thuistache!

The Ninety-Seventh...

Number Ninety-Seven:



Office, Lunch, Chick-fil-A sandwich

I couldn't roll with the Bookmobile crew out to eat today, which was fine by me because they went to Olive Garden. I was waiting for my co-conspirator Beth Brown to come by the office to drop off some flyers for a book we are putting together. Richmond Macabre: Nightmares from the River City Horror Anthology. This is an idea I think we both had separately, then kind of got connected and talked about it, and are now kicking Anthology ass! I am very excited about this. We hope to not only get some seasoned, known authors, but also some new talent on the scene. Either way, it is going to be something that I feel will be a literary landmark for Richmond. It is kind of the next step after the Richmond Noir book that was released last year. Years from now, if someone wants scary local fiction to read, I hope they will turn to this book and be thrilled and chilled. So we are getting the word out and calling for submissions and flyers are another way to throw the net out, so to speak. Anyway, after Beth swung by and we chatted a bit, I went up to the fried chicken on a bun with pickles shack and picked up my usual; a sandwich on wheat bun with side salad instead of fries. Good stuff. And so is this flyer!

Macabrestache!

The Fifty-Ninth...

Number Fifty-Nine:





Thai Diner Too, Lunch, Red Tofu Curry







Met with author and new pal Beth Brown this afternoon for lunch to discuss an anthology writing project that I will not yet disclose, but it is going to be GREAT! Very much look forward to this and it seems like we are getting some other people interested as well. It was great talking out the finer points and ideas for the project as well as reflect on both of our 365 A Day projects and how they are going; she does a Trinket a Day. Then a quick walk to Chop Suey to see WonTon and approach Andrew Blossom. Wheels are in motion!