Yeah, I shot a video.  Actually, Allie shot and directed, I acted and edited.  I think as I make more of these they’re going to get easier.  So without further ado….

You see how craftily Jonathan Nail usurps this picture with his wit and charm.  We were at a networking event last week, a pre-screening for the Streamy Awards, which happen in the Spring.  Yes, I’ll be there.  I’m scoring Jonathan’s masterpiece webseries “SOLO The Series,” which Allie is producing.

I’m compiling a list of Indie bookstores in and around Los Angeles.  Why?  Because I’m going to try and get them to sell my book.  And one of those lucky stores will be the site of my first signing.  Pants Optional.  Except Jamie Fishback.  He needs to wear two pair, inside-out.

Also, I’m shooting a commercial.  Most likely tomorrow.  I might even have the damn thing edited and posted by tomorrow night, but don’t hold me to that.  I wanted to hire Michael Bay to shoot it for me, so that I could be running through the city with things exploding around me, and guns being fired in every direction, and a plane crashing right behind me, and I go into a roll and the plane goes over me by like 3 inches, and it all happens in slow motion, and then, in the dust of all the destruction, I raise the book up to the camera before the screen goes black.  Michael Bay, call me.

Since that’s probably not an option, we’re shooting the commercial ourselves.  I hired Allison Vanore to direct, because she has an eye for the camera.  Also, she works cheap.  I’m paying her in peanut butter and pearl onions.

At the very least tomorrow, I’ll talk about the process.  And if I’m on the ball, you might get to see it.

I’ve known Gina Yates and Jason Burns (pictured above is Gina and Jeff Phillips, the other third of LAGenX, who I met the day of the broadcast) from LAGenX for a long time.  I’ve been following Gina almost since the beginning of my time on Twitter, and reading the ramblings of Jason for about the same.  Gina and I met at my first tweetup, which you can read about in the book (Porn Icon Ron Jeremy stopped by too), so when the release date for the book was nigh, I approached Gina about pimping out the book for me on their Saturday morning radio show, LAGenX.

Gina thought it would be a great idea to talk about the book on the air.  A few weeks later she asked if I wanted to come over to the studio for an on-air interview.  Then Jason had to take a weekend off and suddenly I was guest hosting.  If you’ve never listened to LAGenX, you should start now.  It’s a great show that broadcasts on Saturday mornings from 11am to noon PST.  Gina, Jason and Jeff Phillips talk about current events, new music, sometimes even sex toys.  I swear, ask Jason.

I met with Gina and Jeff 3 hours before the show to go over the format.  Gina Yates is funny and full of energy all the time, like a rabbit in heat.  She also likes cats.  A lot.  She had over 30 of them in her condo.  Every one has a name, and they all sleep in her bed.

OK, fine, she has 2 cats.  But they get more respect from her than Jason and Jeff do.

Jeff Phillips is a musician, a spectacular one, so we bonded immediately.  Jeff is funny, laid back, and has a bet with Gina that involved him washing her car in a speedo if he loses.  If Gina loses, she has to wash his car in a bikini.  And no matter who wins, Jason gets to sit in the driveway with a cocktail and a lawn chair, laughing and taking pictures.

Jason Burns is also know as the voice of PHAL in the upcoming webseries “SOLO The Series.”  I’m pimping it out here because I’m scoring it.  And it’s damn good.  The show, not the score.  Well, the score is good too, but only because the show is.  Jason has the perfect voice for radio.  And phone sex operator.

So, over coffee and eggs, we talked about current events, what I wanted to cover about the book, whether or not I had to wear pants on set… the usual stuff.  I was nervous.  I’d never done radio before.  But I was also excited, it was the first promotional opportunity I’d had for the book.

We went across the street to the studio and went on the air.  Gina and Jeff have this flow to their conversation.  They’re both so good at what they do that it’s second nature to them, and as someone on the outside, I had to find my place.  It took me a few minutes, but I found the flow.  And I had fun.  The trick was not to think about how many people were listening, including my parents, but to treat it like a conversation with Jeff and Gina, just like we had at breakfast.  It was great, we even had call-ins.  Who called in and what did they ask?  You’re going to have to listen to find that out.  The podcast of the show is archived here:

LAGenX Podcast – Episode 45 – January 16, 2010

And you can subscribe to LAGenX on iTunes here:

LAGenX on iTunes

I will tell you that @cartermason made an appearance, and made a “wang” joke that bombed.  Listen to LAGenX this weekend, and if you call in, tell Gina and Jeff I sent you.  Tell Jason to go f— actually, just tell him I said hi.

The image above came from http://www.wordle.net/, which lets you take a slew of words and create art out of them.   I was referred to the site by successful author Michael. C. Cordell, or as I know him @SoCalVillaGuy.  His book “In The Foothills” is a collection of poetry and short stories, and is available on Amazon.com now.

I quit.  I don’t want to go to even one more f**king networking event.

I was complaining on Twitter this morning about “networking.”  I hate networking events.  Yes, I know how important they are, and this statement doesn’t mean I’m going to stop going to them.  But I am not a fan.  One-on-one meetings with people?  I will do that every day.  I love meeting people face-to-face and learning about what they do, and explaining what I do.  Meeting a group of people I don’t know and trying to make conversation at said event?  I’d rather vomit.

It’s not that I’m not social, I love being around people.  But I feel like networking events are akin to speed dating.  You get this short period of time to give a speech about who you are and what you do, and hope that the people you’re talking to remember you among the other 50 people they’re going to meet that night.  There is no part of that I equate with “fun.”  I feel like I’m constantly on edge, and always “on,” and I’m never relaxed, no matter how many drinks I’ve had.

The more of these f**king things I do the better I get at it, so I assume, at some point, that I won’t mind doing them.  I’m still waiting for that point.  I think, so far, talking about the book is easier than talking about myself as a composer, because the book is a physical thing that’s graspable, whereas music is much less “tangible” to sell someone on, particularly music that’s not part of a CD or band.

So yes, I want to quit.  But I know I can’t.  I’m making plans to embark on a book tour of the west coast, which right now included Bakersfield, San Francisco and Portland (get ready, Portland tweeters!), and that tour is going to be nothing but networking.  Maybe I will return embracing it like a small orphan you find on your porch, in the rain, wearing a potato sack with the words “I’m Yours” written in Sharpie on the front of sack.  But you’re in the middle of making dinner for your girlfriend, and your feet are getting wet, and you can’t even take care of a dog let alone a kid, like the stray dog you found  but forgot to feed so it ate from the trashcan and died, and then the ASPCA came over and reprimanded you.  I mean, it wasn’t even your damn dog, where do they get off telling you you’re a bad pet owner?  Then you realize you’re still standing on the porch with this kid looking up at you with big, sad eyes, so you pretend you don’t see the orphan and slowly close the door and go back to the kitchen, stopping at the TV to turn up the volume in case the orphan starts crying.  Where was I?  Oh yeah.  Quitting.

Not today, networking events.  I’m not ready to give up yet.

The book is starting to prepare for takeoff, and I’m wearing my pilot uniform.

This picture of Allison and I was taken this morning at the Burbank Small Business Networking Breakfast.  It was taken by Jenny Beatty of Bandwagon Graphiks, who apparently had nothing better to do than take pictures during a networking event.  Not shown: Carter Mason picking his underwear out of his butt.

The book is starting to grown some wings.  This morning I brought my last copy, a proof, to the event to show to people when I introduced myself.  I was talked into selling it by a very persuasive man, who didn’t care that it was my only copy and a proof.  I kept saying no until he waved money in my face.

I’ve been trying to perfect my pitch for the book, each time I have to “sell” it to someone it gets a little tighter.  At the networking breakfast, which is a great place to meet other small business owners and held every month (Burbank Small Business Group) by networking whore Carter Mason, I got a chance to talk to people about the book and why I wrote it.

Then I had a meeting with Liz Grover, who talked to me about her own process of writing a book (which will clearly outshine mine) and told me that if I ever visited her hometown of Portland, Oregon, that she’d help me organize an event to promote the book.  I think this will be happening.  That means I get to drink with @writeinmovement, which is a long time coming.

Then I sat down with Jenn Page, who has already purchased a copy of the book and wanted to meet me despite that fact.  She’s the queen of filmmaking events, and is full of so much energy I wanted to siphon some.  She’s also a theater trained actress, so give her a follow if you’re on Twitter.  Unless you’re Jamie Fishback.  Then you need to stop stalking her.  And me.  I’m taken, Jamie, give it up.

If the book was a prop plane, I’d be cracking my knuckles and grabbing the propeller right about now.

Last night I partook in drunken tweeting with these people.  They’re troublemakers (one of them is related to Allie), you have to watch them every second.  Fortunately for everyone involved, I wore pants.

You have to be careful when you tweet while drinking.  Especially if you’re me, because the majority of my friends are on Twitter, so there’s no anonymity whatsoever.  I’m already on the edge when I’m sober on Twitter; being drunk is sometimes enough to push it too far.

If you live in Long Beach, you need to try Pizza Pi.  They have amazing pizza, and they’re fast.  It’s the only pizza I’ll order in California now that I’ve had NYC pizza and been spoiled.  We ate pizza, drank lots of wine, and laughed.  I even played music I was working on, which never happens.

I also worked on some more book-related marketing yesterday, which involved taking part in other people’s blog comments.  It’s a lot like Twitter.  If you want to bring more people to your site and/or blog, you need to read and take part in their blogs as well.  Just like Twitter, you need to show that you care before you expect other people to.  So I spent some time reading blogs, some of them new blogs I wasn’t subscribed to before.  It’s exciting to see what drives others to create and succeed, and there are very few times I don’t learn something from another person’s post.  Give it a try.

… was spent with this woman.  Last night.  I made her a four course meal, complete with crème brûlée.  I gave her roses and a ring with emeralds, and she bought me a beautiful set of harmonicas, which came from a comment I made during our trip to the Tucson Film and Music Festival last year.  We watched a documentary about the harmonica, and I remarked that it made me wish I had one so I could learn.  And she remembered, and bought them for me.  Now I’ve got to convince Jonathan Nail to write in a harmonica part for Scott in SOLO the Series so I have an excuse to record.

I know what you’re thinking.  ”You’re not 16 years old, so I find it hard to believe that this is your “first” Valentine’s Day, you moron.”  That’s true, I’ve been in relationships before, and I’ve spent Valentine’s with other people.  But this one was decidedly different.

It’s very easy, especially when you’re in a relatively new relationship, to say “This is the best (fill in the blank) I’ve ever had!”  Everyone does it.  I’ve had three major relationships in my life before this one, and multiple Valentine’s Days.  I can’t remember any that were horrible, but there are literally none that stand out.

There are some reasons for this.  There was infidelity in past relationships (my marriage, in one word, was “poisonous”), and the relationships themselves were unhealthy.  It was only after therapy (which I am a huge advocate of, you can find more details about my therapy experiences in “In The Belly Of The Fail Whale,” including the reason I fired my first one) that I realized that there was a pattern in my relationships that was causing them to be unhealthy.  That pattern was broken with Allison.

So when I say that this was my “first” Valentine’s Day, it really was, because I feel that 2009 was my “rebirth.”  And not in a wacky religious way, in a way that opened my eyes to the world in a way I hadn’t seen it before.  I give a lot of that credit to Allie, but most of it was my willingness to let Rob be Rob for the first time in my life.

On a side note, this blog is finally starting to roll, and you’re going to be excited about upcoming posts.  I plan on talking about the process of writing the book, including stuff that didn’t make it into the book (maybe even some saucy stuff) and details into the marketing I’m doing to promote the book.

I’m also going to treat the blog as an extension of the book, in that I’ll be talking about my life in Year Two of Twitter.  That means it’ll be incredibly personal and open in the same way I was open in the book, which I hope you’re reading.  Not this second, but right after you’re done with this blog post.   Think of this blog as the detailed outline for the next book…

I suppose, at some point in the writing process, it occurred to me that people would be reading my book.

I didn’t really think about it, I tried to write the book like a journal, it let me open up without worrying about judgment.  But there was definitely a point when I realized that people would be reading this thing.  I think it’s the day the proofs showed up at my door.

Staring back at me was a a print version of me without pants.

Really, the “Pantsless” thing is a metaphor.  I’m very much naked in the book, I’ve opened myself up to people in a way I’ve only done to a few my entire life.  It was exhilarating and terrifying all at once.  Suddenly, the book was out and people were starting to read it.

As a composer, the hardest part of my job is giving music to people to judge, but it’s also the most important part of my job.  Without opinions other than my own, the music can’t become what it needs to be to fit the film.  For the book it’s different.  Once it’s done, it’s done.  There’s no collaboration after the fact, it is what it is.  And that’s even scarier, because it means it will forever be judged by it’s content.

Fortunately (so far), the people on Twitter that have commented about the book have either loved it or been great liars.  I am lucky to follow amazing people on Twitter, they are friends in the truest sense of the word.  And that makes me want to share things with them, things about myself that aren’t apparent on the surface.

So yes, I am naked in my book.

And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

That’s right boys and girls, the book is finally out.  Trust me, I’m as glad as you are.  I’ve got some exciting posts coming up about the writing and publishing process, and info on book signings and a launch party.  You can purchase the book from this site (if you want a signed copy) or from Amazon below.  Make sure you subscribe to the rss feed or email updates so you don’t miss a thing!

Guess what?  The time has come for the book to be released out to the wild.  ”In The Belly Of The Fail Whale” will be released on January 22nd, but you can order a copy now for pre-order only sales prices!  Go to the order page for more details. Psst.  It’s right HERE.  They’ll be more posting soon.  By me.  The guy who may or may not have pants on.