Rock and Roll Love Story : A Novel

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Dud
2007-12-16 17:08:00
The much tauted nor'eastern dumped an inch of freezing rain and slush on North Jersey, and while it was a pain to shovel out, it was nothing much to write about.We're all home safe and warm with all the Christmas parties and holiday concerts either behind us or just ahead of us.I've decided that I am not going to buy a new laptop. Instead, I will be buying a Fender Stratocaster or Gibson Les Paul Studio guitar. I'm going to teach my son and daughter, who are in their teens, how to play rock and roll!!My daughter is upstairs now discovering my Green Day CDs!

Weekend
2007-12-15 20:46:00
I've spent a busy Saturday doing chores and running errands before the big nor'easter comes Sunday. It's Christmas and its very busy in the northern New Jersey suburbs, and all the stores are crowded.The credit card bills came this week and just in time, the drug reimbursement from Blue Cross Blue Shield arrived. I'm fighting with Blue about another matter. They usually pay up in the end but it's an incredible bureaucracy.The new doctor specialist reversed the downside of my disease with one visit this month, and the diabetes is now under control. Hopefully I can get a better diet and exercise program going, and I will be looking more like the RR Silone who inspired the athletic rock star, Ronnie James DeRenzo, of Rock and Roll Love Story.We had the staff Christmas party last night. The new boss had a few drinks and showed her fun loving side and even the Darth Vader Chairman of the Board cracked a few smiles and pressed the flesh. The salmon was excellent and the cookies were ...
More About: Weekend

Questions for God
2007-12-12 16:45:00
Why are rich people always unhappy?Why are the pretty girls all crazy?Why do fat girls have the best personalities?What is the reason for pain?Why did God create carnivores?Why is everything that you really want just barely out of reach?I have a million questions like these. These are just some of the questions that are bothering me today...
More About: Questions

Had Enough
2007-12-11 03:17:00
I don't know about you but I am really sick of working for a living. I am totally ready to cash out and live the life of a rock and roll writer.I find myself looking at Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster guitars again and wondering if anyone would buy an album by a 49 year old rocker who never had a big hit before. I have some tunes from the 70's band that I think are pretty good. All I need is a hot young drummer, a bassist and a couple of pretty girl backup singers and I will be set.If I had a multiplatnium seller, I would still have my minimalist escape fantasies. I can't see myself in a Mazerati or a McMansion. I would live a very simple life and donate my money to worthy charities like Bob Geldof does.The novel is the big thing I have to sell at the moment. I've had some nibbles from major producers and journalists but so far they all wanted something from me. Nobody is hanging out breaks cheap in this world.I never give up. Although I have only been in this job in the...

Escape
2007-12-09 18:01:00
It's not a cabin in the wood this week. Too cold, too many leaves.It's a swank hotel room on Sunset Strip in Hollywood. The room has a king sized bed, a big screen TV with sound system, a loveseat, an easy chair, a desk with chair and Internet access and a fridge for the beer and wine.There's no kitchenette, microwave or coffeemaker. When I want to eat or drink anything besides beer or wine, it's room service or a trip out into the California sunshine.There is a pool with starlets around it.The pickup truck is now a red Mustang GT convertible.In a Pullman suitcase, I have a set of golf clothes, Dockers, underwear and socks for the week. There is a laptop equiped with Word for my novels with Itunes and noise canceling headphones and a library of 200 mp3 albumns, best ofs, must haves and compilations of the greatest rock and roll.Aside from a pair of Addidas, a watch, a belt and a wallet with a driver's license, Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO card, Triple A card, library card and a V...
More About: Escape

At work
2007-12-08 17:57:00
I'm puttering around with the novel at the moment.It's Christmastime, one of my favorite times of year. It's been snowing just a bit to make it white and I am not sick of it just yet. It's been a very busy and hectic year and we've just barely kept the checkbook balanced. With the new job and the paying off of some loans, we should see the light of day by spring. If we don't spend a lot on keeping the house up, we'll have some money to play with and maybe we can talk about publishing this novel.
More About: Work

Pearl Harbor Day
2007-12-07 18:32:00
Please remember Eric Hernandez a soldier from the New Jersey Highlands who was killed in Iraq this week.And all the other brave men and women who have served us.
More About: Pearl Harbor , Harbor , Pearl

Winter
2007-12-05 21:12:00
It's a snowy night deep in the mountains of New Jersey and I am burning the midnight oil planning music and art programs for the small, exurban town I work for now. Yesterday I was thrilled because I saw a young buck on my way through the woods. I have a program night and hopefully the weather won't be too messy.An ad agency working with MTV emailed me about putting a promo for spot on this blog. I don't want to say no to MTV so I am looking into it.In keeping with my new committment to health, I took the carbohydrates out of the checklist for the one room cabin in the Carolinas. The wine and the beer stay in because to take them out would be a sacriledge.There's probably still too much food in this cabin.The woman in my life says she doesn't want to be in a one room cabin with me. She needs a two bedroom Cape Cod cottage at the least. She'll probably bring a lot more clutter into this place but I don't want to be there alone and I am like a dove or a wolf : A mate for life. ...
More About: Winter

You'll have to bear with me
2007-12-03 15:30:00
The checklist below is because I am in retirement mode. Originally it was a cabin in upstate New York but then it snowed and I thought to hell with that. The wood burning stove and perculator coffee pot got exchanged for an electric stove, microwave, an 8000 btu air conditioner and a programmable coffee maker.Otherwise, I tried to stay true to the ideal of the original Walden.I am working on bits and pieces of the novel. Stuff is coming back to me about the band that I had forgotten. For instance the passing of the lead singer of Quiet Riot -- Cum on Feel the Noise, Momma We're all Crazee now" --- made me think of the Slade originals and how they influenced Speed Limit.I hope to finish off the changes and have the woman in my life read this. But she has set down some pre-conditions and I have only recently embarked down the road to those lifestyle changes that she wants.Hopefully there will be a healthier, happier me as we head into the new year.
More About: Bear

A Minimalist's Checklist for the One Room Cabin in the rural Carolinas
2007-12-02 01:41:00
Wood burning stove with oven for roasting turkey, duck, chicken, roast beef and fresh breadStone fireplace with popcorn popperbearskin rugcast iron frypan for cooking bacon, ham, eggs, sausage, steak & hamburgers (we're going to be on the Adkins diet in this cabin)old fashioned stove top perculator coffee potcoffee grinder (manual)cast iron dutch oven for the vegetable steamer, spaghetti, rice and soupgridle for the eggs and pancakesrefridgerator stocked with the above food stuffs and plenty of red wine, cheese and beerbutter for the bread and eggstwo comfy chairsbrass floor lamp for readingdesk with chairmultimedia laptop equipped with speakers, CD-DVD, TV tuner, Itunes and Internet radiobrass King sized bed with woolen blankets and quilt, 4 down pillowschest with six drawers; three for my LL Bean, blue jeans, longjohns, thermal socks and three for a woman's clothinghis & her hiking boots2 fishing rods & fully equiped tackle boxeskitchen table with 2 windsor chairslib...
More About: Room , Rural , Cabin , Minima

I'm so tired
2007-11-21 21:26:00
I usually have a pithy quote and a picture of a wild turkey around here on Thanksgiving but this year I am out of pith, and since there are plenty of real wild turkeys in the Highlands these days, I thought that tact was a bit worn out.Some late hour changes are underway on the novel, but nothing really serious. Financially, we're tapped out and nobody has time to copy edit this thing, so that's where we are.I mean to keep the blog going but I am taking a long, well deserved rest.
More About: So Tired , Tired , Tire

Hard to Believe
2007-11-16 02:25:00
The lady in my life who inspired the physical visage of The Fabulous Shelly was a combination of the images you see here of Morgan Fairchild and Nicole Kidman. She was in fact, the prettiest woman I have ever seen anywhere in my life.
More About: Hard

Layla
2007-11-11 12:24:00
The face that launched some of the greatest rock and roll love songs in history -- Layla , Something, Wonderful Tonight, Have you Ever Loved a Woman -- it's all Patty Boyd that Eric and George are singing about....

Back by popular demand
2007-11-11 12:21:00
The stats showed these two ladies came up in your searches of my page more than anything else.Here are Lori Maddox, above, and Pamela de Barre, left, the supergroupies of Led Zeppillen who inspired The Fabulous Shelly character in my book.
More About: Popular , Back , Demand , Pula

On Sabbatical
2007-11-09 19:08:00
Hi folks, this is RR Silone. If you wandered across this blog in the past, you know I was once very active posting several times a day about the news and the book, Rock and Roll Love Story. But then I got a great demanding new job in the beloved Highlands of my home, and since I left the inner city, I just haven't had much to say.About the news, I am less sanguine. Whether it's the Bush Presidency or the Baby Boomers losing their touch as suceeding generations fail, I can't say for sure but we have been in a dark age since about 1999, the last time a great flowering of art was in full bloom.This book, while it is about the post punk, pre-grunge movement of alternative music and blues of the late 1970's and early 1980's, is a by product of that Millennium era. It was inspired by an incredible daydream I had that lasted weeks and months. I wasn't quite well all during that period, and I am just amazed that the best writing I did was when I was at my most desperate.But now that t...

Just dont have the time
2007-10-31 00:37:00
It's not only that. I really don't have much to say. People have been bashing Bush for eight years now. The 2008 Presidential election is a year away and we're all sick of it already. Iraq doesn't get any better for all the bottles of ink and electrodes of email that get devoted to it.Moreover, there's nothing at all happening in music. If you own about 50-60 BEST OF CD's from the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's, you've got everything worth having. I actually have most of that right now. You can shuffle 60 CDs all you want but after a while, it all gets to be kind of tired.I really don't have much time for anything. I have just enough energy to get thru my day.I hope it starts getting better soon. I suspect I have a few more years of heavy lifting before an end is in sight.Till then, interested readers will have to read what's already here.
More About: Time , The Time

Too Busy To Comment
2007-10-19 03:42:00
I'm hard at work at my day job. I'm much too tired at night to think, and my weekends are filled with errands. People comment that I don't email them anymore but then again, they don't email me for weeks. I'm a little tired of being the one who is keeping it going.I don't know what to do about this blog. I want to keep the idea going in the public eye but I am not close to publishing at the moment. To be frank, I am a bit tired of this novel.I think its a good novel, as good as any of the fiction that gets published today. I strongly feel that the process of writing a novel and getting it published is much too difficult for the average person these days. There is a vast library filled with unpublished works of merit and worth because the system is too closed off.Agents don't return your phone calls or mail. Publishers, forget it.
More About: Comment , Busy

Clapton is God? Not quite!
2007-10-13 19:57:00
That was a saying that emerged in the 1960s surrounding rock guitar legend Eric Clapton. It's interesting to see what Clapton thinks about that today!Larry King asked Eric how he finally beat his drug-alcohol addictive personality, which almost killed him several times, and said, "I found God and I get down on my knees at my bed and pray to Him every morning and night for knowledge about what I am supposed to be doing and keeping myself sober!"Harder than the addiction was the pain of coping with the loss of his five year son Connor, but Eric says, "I often wonder why but I have accepted that it is not my place to know why...."Is Britney Spears listening? Probably not. Eric says he offered Britney the use of his reknown drug rehab center in the Bahamas, but Britney turned him down...In Rock and Roll Love Story, Ronnie James DeRenzo turns to faith in a higher power to solve the demons of manic depression. I won't give away the ending but his when back is to the wall and he needs a ...

Composite character number two
2007-10-11 05:09:00
There was no one woman in my life who is the Fabulous Shelly, and in reality, Madeline was the closest thing I had to a girlfriend at this time. There were a number of girls from college who influenced the Shelly character, one very pretty girlfriend I had much later, the one love of my life who is also the yin yang of the Abby Warner character, and a second cousin who is an actress in Hollywood who has always been the most supportive person of my artistic career. All these people influenced Shelly.But Shelly you should is more of a fantasy figure that anything else. She is every school boy's fantasy. I had a few women flit thru my life that fitted this description but they were all unatainable.
More About: Composite , Character , Number Two , Char , Hara

Composite Character
2007-10-11 04:54:00
There were actually four guys in my band. I was the lead guitar player, Char lie was rhythm guitar, Dave was the bassist and Dom was the drummer. We didnt have a drummer for the longest time, and that held us up. When Dom joined, things just took off because he was great drummer and his distant cousin was John Travolta (reputedly) and he had a lot of Hollywood and music industry connections.Dom had a real punk personality and he asserted himself on the band. Dave the bassist was my song writing partner, and we had a Lennon McCartney like relationship with me as Paul. Charlie was the peacemaker.The first version of the book had all four members of the band acting much the way they did in real life. No dont get me wrong Dom was critical. In fact when the agent wanted to give us a contract at Maxwells and take us to CBGBs he told Dom privately that he wanted me and Dom, and the other two we were going to lose.But for some reason when I wrote this story, I didnt give the Dom character fu...
More About: Composite , Character , Hara

Scaled down
2007-10-07 16:36:00
As you can see the posts have slowed down here, and we're down to only about 60 slices of my novel. I'm cutting back in another sense, in that I will only maintain my blog listings with Technorati, Globe of Blogs, My Space and Blogcatalog. I just don't have the time and energy to keep up with a dozen search engines.I'm being more realistic about this book. A number of things have to happen to make it a reality and we're not close to any of those things right now. This blog has been going on for two years and the novel has been in development for seven.Is this going to happen? Yes I really think that is. But I am just too busy right now, and I am doing the best that I can.

She's a rock star not a role model
2007-10-07 02:44:00
I've spoken out in support of Britney Spears in and the past and I continue to encourage her to get professional help as she faces these many difficult problems in her life.Britney actually inspired and influenced Rock and Roll Love Story a great deal because she was shooting to the top when I first began writing it. The first chapter in the novel opens up in the school cafeteria because of something that Britney said to her mother on MTV about writing a book about her life. Coincidentally my band just happened to born in the State College cafeteria and the action I describe in the book is pretty much the way it happened in real life.Whether you like it or not, Britney is the major star of her generation. She may not be in top athletic shape right now and her voice has always needed assistance, but she has the number one song out there right now and no one can take that away from her.The people who created Britney are as much to blame for her current problems with the media as anyo...
More About: Rock Star , Model , Star , Role

Postscripts
2007-10-06 22:27:00
I'm happy and exhausted by my new job, and that usually doesn't make very good art. The family situation is peaceful, and there are only a few warning signs about my health of which to be concerned.I haven't forgotten about the book. Indeed I have been thinking about the music my band played 30 years. I was very lucky to find a rare CD of David Johansen and the Dolls, Critical Music, which reprised many of the hits we covered, like Cool Metro, Donna, Funky Funky but Shiek and the Animals medley.When I get the chance, I will try to work them into the novel.

Still here
2007-09-26 14:48:00
I am alive and well and working in the beautiful Highlands, my eternal home.I am very happy to be in the Skylands and I am doing well but I do not have much time for the novel. The Fabulous Shelly/Abby Warner person in my life has gone back to work and there won't be a Christmas publishing.Maybe next spring? In the meantime read the many posts here and enjoy!

Britney
2007-09-16 22:58:00
If I was Britney Spears, I would just give up and go into retirement. Hollywood wants her up there writhing around like a 16 year old teen age prostitute in heat and while the formula worked for enough years to make her worth over $100 million dollars, and it is really not what Britney Spears is all about.Whatever you might think of her, Britney is just a simple country girl from Louisiana who can sing and dance a bit, nothing more and nothing less. It was always the dynamic conflict between the virginal Britney and the seductress Britney that made the thing go. The studio and the star making machinery turned her into this international sex symbol creature. No one who ever spent any time in that kind of role lived a very happy life afterwards -- just look at Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nicole Smith to name two.Face it, folks, she is just a Southern girl, a single mom with two kids trying to get through her life. It helps to have a ton of money off course, but give me a break! Do photogr...

Greenspan on Iraq
2007-09-16 22:41:00
No one would ever accuse Alan Greenspan of being a liberal. He is one of the most fiscally conservative Republicans in America, and his opposition to the Iraq war shows just how wrong Bush is, and how deep the anger over this war is. In fact, Alan Greenspan is a Republican in the truest, best sense of the word. Certainly no isolationist, he believes deeply in the free market and the global economy which have made America so rich and so strong. Not coincidentally, formerly Communist countries like Russia and China and Vietnam which saw the light have experienced all kinds of runaway growth. During his tenure as Chairman of the Fed, we had one of the largest peacetime expansions of the world and US economy in history. It's just too bad that someone like Greenspan could never be elected President. He's old and bald and short and skinny and Jewish and he doesn't sound bite or stand up there like an actor. He just tells the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be to either middle...
More About: Span

Progress
2007-09-15 17:56:00
Well the new job turned out to be great but its a lot of work so don't expect much from me in the next few weeks. They really expect you to hit the ground running and I want to do well for these people as its a great opportunity.
More About: Progress

At work
2007-09-10 01:36:00
I'm starting a new job tommorrow, so I wont have the time or energy to do much posting this week. It has been rather slow. A person I love who inspired the ying and yang characters of Shelly and Abby decided that she wasn't going to finish reading my book right now, and that just about kills it for a Christmas publishing date. The reaction was more Abby than Shelly, and that set me back to the rewrite to see what I could to salvage the ending.Ex libris tells me that they can do a full mock up of the publishing and on demand with a marketing program for under $1,000. That's a good price but its right in line with IUniverse and I haven't decided yet that I want to self-publishing. Self published books dont get reviewed in Publisher's Weekly or Library Journal, much less the New York Times.I'm not really sure how important that is however. The people who read Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal are trade people and librarians. While a good review would be nice, I don't think...
More About: Work

Keep posted
2007-09-06 16:07:00
Yes, I haven't been very active here in the last few weeks but there is still a lot posted on the books. By popular request, I've uploaded images of Lori Maddox, left, and Pamela DeBarres, right, the inspiration for Rock and Roll Love Story's Shelly Williams. The Great Pavarotti died this morning. He's not really a rock star but he had rock star status in many parts of the world...

I've been on vacation
2007-09-05 22:04:00
Nothing much happened regarding the book these past two weeks. That new job in the mountains has been consuming most of my thoughts.
More About: Vacation , Been