Rock and Roll Love Story : A Novel

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Lady Bird
2007-07-15 01:41:00
I never noticed it till recently but there are trees lining a lot of the highways in Northern New Jersey and along some sections of highways like the Parkway and Route 287, there are wide sections of woods and shrubs. In my town, coyotes and deer and wild turkey live in those woods. In an area that's very densely populated, it really makes a big difference.Believe it or not, that's all because of Lady Bird Johnson, who was the First Lady during most of Sixties and who was one of the very first environmentalists. Back then they called it conservation and it was a new idea.Lady Bird came up with the brilliant idea that the roadways that were destroying the scenery could be cleaned up, the billboards could be taken down, and trees and wildflowers could be planted. They called it highway beautification and it was all her idea.She did other things too. When LBJ was up for election in 1964, the Civil Rights Act was very unpopular in the South and most peopled blamed Johnson for leading ...

Oil
2007-07-15 01:03:00
And about that last post, an Arabic person might read it and get the idea that all I really care about is the oil...That's not true. I want the West to take the difficult steps towards alternative, renewable energy and energy conservation. For our economic well being, and for the well being of the Planet Earth.Anyone who enjoys about a book about an American rock star probably isn't going to care very much that I don't like radical Islam. I don't like radical Christianity for that matter. I have problems with the Pope...

Incredible Bungle
2007-07-15 00:48:00
Senators Richard Lugar and John Warner are well known as Republican representatives who are very knowledgable and savvy about defense and foriegn policy issues. They've just introduced a bill to enable President Bush to pull our troops out of the Iraq mess.It's a step in the right direction but it's too little, too late. And it really doesn't address the real problem we are going to have after that.The fact is, Saddam Hussien was a minor annoyance who posed no strategic threat to the United States. The Navy and Air Force had him neatly confined to his own little space, and he couldn't threaten Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or any of his other neighbors in the Gulf area. Since he had a strangle hold on Iraq and was a deadly enemy of Al Qaeda, we really should have left him alone and minded our own business. He had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 and the pin money he provided to Palestinian suicide bombers was trivial.Saddam was a cruel tyrant but he was much prefered t...
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On tap
2007-07-14 22:48:00
When Ronnie James DeRenzo meets the Fabulous Shelly for the first time, he can't believe that she is paying money for bottled water when water from the fountain in the college cafeteria is free....I wrote that scene seven years ago before the great political correct movement against bottled water began a year or so ago. In fact, my tap water bill for the past three months -- including showers for four people, dishwasher, laundry, toilets, drinking water etc. -- was only $106. The town I live in has its own well of mountain spring water, it's completely free of chlorine, ozone and other chemical tastes. In fact, it tastes better -- sweeter -- than Perrier or Evian...Yesterday at the Shore the cooler ran out of drinks and we were sent to the snack bar for refreshment. Four bottles of water for $8. I couldn't believe it. We only spent $15 on gasoline and $21 to get on the beach. Bottled water is more expensive than gasoline or beach front property!!!Do want to know what the Greenest...

The Jersey Shore
2007-07-14 17:00:00
Bradley Beach, just south of Asbury Park, is one of New Jersey 's best kept secrets. Rocket and the guys quarter there one summer when they're headlining the world famous Stony Pony...
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Vacation
2007-07-14 16:42:00
Spent a very nice day at the Jersey Shore - the water was clean, the beach was wide and tidy, and there were fish and crabs in the surf. I've been with the Jersey Shore thru good times and bad times and I'd have to say right now that our beaches are in much better shape than Florida's. We haven't had a hurricane in a long while and the state has been pouring money into beach preservation projects and pollution control. We've come a long, long way in twenty years since medical waste from New York City and sewage was washing up on the Shore.I'm still on vacation but I am home and I may post here or there.
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Back to vacation
2007-07-08 01:34:00
I wrote a lot today. Maybe more than I should have. I will leave it all up for your review in the coming weeks, and I am going back on a vacation from this blog.If you want to post, please feel free. Your comments are welcome and I do return all email that is not spam.
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My story
2007-07-08 01:15:00
So I finally came clean about my past in a couple of blog posts ago.I suppose that a certain sort of mercanary, far right conservative would read my story and call me a whiner and a loser who deserved every bit of misfortune that came my way as result of my liberalism and support of universal health. Who would blame me for the immorality of my failing health and pronounce that an angry God had exacted his revenge.Perhaps some of that is true. What I did was not without ego or hubris. I have come to accept that about myself. God judges those who judge others most harshly and in the heat of battle I really couldnt help but judge people who so radically disagreed with me.Suffice to say those reformed enemies who came to respect me after our battles did not hate me in the end. The true blue conservatives who really believed with all their hearts that the right way was the holy way, I have nothing but grudging respect for. Their insights on the problems of the poor weren't all that far ...
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The meaning of the infidelities in Rock and Roll Love Story
2007-07-07 23:29:00
A few posts back I mentioned more about my past and my life than I originally intended to divulge. It is important. I am not going to take it down. People should know my story and understand it.I've told you that the love interests in the novel, Shelly and Abby, are the yin and yang of the same spiritual presence -- both inspired by the same woman, as opposite as they are.I told you that the original subtitle of the book was "Edging every closer to personal responsiblity -- and never quite getting there."So now I have to tell you what all the various infidelities in this book are all about. They're not there strictly for sex appeal, although I will admit that I do want to sell some books here.I am in a 20 year relationship with the same woman. I have never been unfaithful.We got to the point where I was sick and miserable and toxic and unlovable that with all the financial pressure of supporting us bearing down on her, she just couldnt stand living with me anymore.I wrote this boo...
More About: Love , Story , Rock , Roll , Meaning

No endorsements for President
2007-07-07 19:11:00
I am one of those people who believes that the 2004 was a desperate emergency and everything that has happened with this failed Administration since has proven to me that I was right. However, as ardently as I believed that I just did not make an endorsement for President that year because I am not in the business of telling people what to think, or choosing between politicians. I want the Bushies to read my book too!If I ever get any fame and recognition beyond this blog, I will use it to advance the cause of universal health, world peace, the environment and the rights and well being of the mentally ill and handicapped, just as I am doing now.I will tell you that I believe the 2008 race will come down to Mitt Romney versus Hillary Clinton, and that would be good because either one of them stands to make significant progress towards universal health insurance. I'm not going to say Rudy or McCain or John Edwards or Obama wouldn't be good choices either, because they're better tha...
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A good question
2007-07-07 18:53:00
If Ann Coulter is such a fire breathing conservative, why isn't she at home baking cookies for her kids instead of taking away a high paying job from some man?Ann, darling, I love you! You are a Dead Head for Chrissakes! Why don't admit that you have a feminist hippie steak in you?Come over to the green side!
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The Who's Who in America
2007-07-07 18:30:00
I'm not going to reveal at this time exactly what I did to warrant an entry in the Who's Who in America under my real name because that would be giving away too much of my identity.Suffice to say I was doing something very similar to what I am doing with literacy and technology in the 'hood right now only I was being paid a lot more money and I working with a lot of very rich men and women in a big corporation. When the issue of health care reform came up in my institution, I reluctantly went out on a big limb and risked my job to fight for the rights of the underserved. It was an extremely unpopular fight but right in the middle of it, Hillary Clinton decided to tour my facility and what she heard when she got there convinced her to give her press conference in my department.I was fortunate in one sense because the CEO of this rich corporation was a strong backer of universal health and she saved my job. However, she retired and I was left alone at this place. By that time, many...

What do we tell our kids?
2007-07-07 18:00:00
Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, dropped out of college to start a business that was considered a career backwater at the time. Britney Spears dropped out of high school to chase stardom and she's worth $100 million for singing songs dressed like a teen aged prostitute. Alex Rodriguez didn't go to college and the Yankees pay him $25 million a year to hit a ball with a stick.I on the other hand, gave up a promising stint in a rock band to stay in college. I achieved a gaudy 3.8/4.0 average as an undergraduate with two majors, and added a Masters degree from an Ivy League University.What am I doing after 27 years in the workforce? I'm using my liberal arts degrees and IT savvy to help a desperately poor city with its literacy and education programs -- I'm earning peanuts. I'm starving. I don't have a vested pension yet. If I wasn't in a partnership with a woman who earns a lot more money than me, I'd be living off beans and rice in a studio apartment.So often we hear ...
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Money where my mouth is
2007-07-07 17:18:00
Regarding the last post, I am driving a car right now that gets 42 miles per gallon. I am forced by bad luck and a bad economy in my field to drive 300 miles a week to work, and with gas at $3 a gallon, my fuel bill every week is just $25. My car cost me $14,000 brand new, it has air conditioning, automatic, AM FM stereo with a CD player, seats four comfortably, is good in snow with front wheel drive, has plenty of pickup and Kelly Blue Book says its still worth $10,000 although its four years old and has 63,000 miles on it.So yes, you really can have your cake and eat it too. It's not the most exciting car I ever drove but at this point in my life, thrills and chills and sex appeal takes a back seat!
More About: Money , Mouth , Where

Live Earth
2007-07-07 16:59:00
My native New Jersey, the most densely populated state, joined California, the most populated state, in creating some of the toughest and most progressive carbon restrictive sets of laws in the world.It's not that we don't enjoy our cars, our air conditioners, our heated homes and our American lifestyle in New Jersey. We just all very concerned about the effects of global warming and the shrinking wilderness here.A bunch of wild living rock stars getting together for a big, messy concert for the environment is of course of open to criticism. Roger Dawlty of the Who correctly pointed out that a rock concert is the very last thing the environment needs right now.But I do think there is a signicant point to be made here.In fact, places like California, New Jersey and New York City actually have some of the smallest carbon footprints in the United States even without tough new laws like Governors Schwartznegger and Corzine and Mayor Bloomberg want to see. That's because we limit our ...
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Simplistic
2007-07-07 02:20:00
Fred Thompson hasn't been a candidate for very long but already he is whipping up some very dangerous populism.Talking about the war on terror, Thompson echoed the simplistic jingoism of the failed President Bush by saying we "are in a war of good against evil."Really?Are the Fatah militants who are fighting extremist Hamas good or evil? Are the Druse militia in Lebanon who oppose Hezbollah good or evil? Are the Iraq Sunni insurgents who have been battling the US and are now turning against Al Qaeda good or evil? Are the Chinese, who have been helping us with North Korea but threatening us over Taiwan good or evil? Are the Saudis, who are supposedly helping us against Al Qaeda in Iraq and selling us oil while their religious schools and charities funded the 9/11 hijackers good or evil? Are the Russians, who are helping us with Iran but warning they they might target Europe with nukes again if we based interceptors in Poland good or evil? Are the Mexicans who are sending us both oil...

Blogging -- Still out to lunch
2007-07-06 20:27:00
There have been some posts here and there but I am still largely on a vacation from this blog and not much has been happening with the first novel. Two people I love have copies of it and have promised to read it by summer's end but they're both very busy with career and kids and I'm not holding my breath.Until they have their say, there is not much point in continuing my efforts in this regard. One of my readers has had a huge personal stake in my life, and her approval would be necessary to put this into press. I am not a person who fires off half cocked or takes big risks, sometimes to my detriment, I will admit.So I wait, not always patiently.I was rereading Old Man & the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and it struck me that he had many wives and numerous editors and he probably never needed anyone's approval, completely unlike some one like F. Scott Fitzgerald who was always writing with Daisy in mind one way or another.Rock and Roll Love Story was conceived in my desperate lonelin...
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Nothing New
2007-07-06 20:18:00
And regarding a previous post, I think you see the problem with an artist like Christina Aguilera. She's a knockout blonde and a sensational vocalist with a range that has barely been tested. I love Christina! But aside from "What a Girl Wants" and "Genie in a Bottle" there really hasn't been a memorable song which has done her phenomenonal talent justice. Her last album consisted of mostly reworked blues songs which sold really well and showcased her talent. She can do Etta James better than anyone on the planet. But there's nothing new there.Where are the great songwriters of today? Why can't someone get Christina a decent new song to sing?Take the White Stripes. I love their sound. Jack White just rips right out of late Sixties with a psychedelic blur that's straight from the Hendrix era. Obviously this is a retro guitar kick ass rock and roll band of great talent and potential. But as yet they haven't come up with a killer record yet. There are no anthems.Is it the times w...
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Retro?
2007-07-06 20:16:00
I think what happened with guitar oriented rock and roll is analogous to what happened to classical music...there was a peak with Beethoven, Mozart and Bach etc in the late 1700's and after that there was nothing for centuries. accomplished musicians of great talent master these works but they are unable to create anything new which compares to it...our grandchildren and great grandchildren will probably be discovering the Beatles all over again many decades from now...there will be great cover versions by new artists but the three chord song spector has played itself out. there's not going to be much new...Green Day's "American Idiot" was probably the album of the decade in that respect, just the way "Nevermind" by Nirvana was the pinnacle of the 90's...you have to go all the back to 1984 to find albums of any quality beyond those two...
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It's all Bush's fault
2007-07-06 00:46:00
The opening of the new Millenmium seemed so promising! 1999 was a great year for music, movies, TV...I was home most of 2000 and I was never bored...great job interview after great job interview...new music on MTV...Post 9/11 the whole frigging world changed. Everything got shut down and closed off...America entered a new dark period that threatens to last for generations....9/11 was the last great loss of innocence. First came the JFK assasination, then Vietnam, then Watergate...Finally 9/11...Those 70 year old media titans who have a strangehold on the economy won't let go. The Baby Boomers who seemed so revolutionary in their 20's lost it completely by the time they turned 60...the new Gen X and Millennium era leaders are gender benders lost in multicultural diversity...in trying to fill every niche market, they have over homogenized the mass audience with so many supersized Big Macs and Vanilla Shakes...Obesity is now the greatest health problem facing the developed world. And...
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Fourth of July
2007-07-04 01:58:00
Johnny Rocket is very proud to be an American.
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Diana
2007-07-01 16:52:00
Princess Diana befriends newly minted pop star Johnny Rocket and the Queen is not amused when he suggests they are related.Di would be 46 today. She is greatly missed...

Shameless
2007-06-28 02:33:00
Hey Paris Hilton! I'll make you a deal. You want to be a great lady? A patron of the arts?I will pay for the book publishing at IUniverse if you spring for the ad campaign and marketing at all the major newspapers and magazines that review rock and roll and new fiction. My real identity is a secret, but if you appear with me at a book signing, I will give you the exclusive at my coming out.You're much too tall to play Shelly or Abby but there is a Hilton Hotel in the second book worth mentioning.It's about rock music and mental health, so its a worthy cause!
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The Press
2007-06-28 02:26:00
A lot of us are working very hard at our lifetime dream trying to get some positive publicity but about the best thing that can happen to anyone is to get into a car accident with Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Ann Coulter or Rosie O'Donnell.I really dont know what the secret is, I really dont.
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Dead on Arrival
2007-06-28 01:14:00
Bush's plan to tax people who have good health insurance is as brain dead as any of his other programs. People who have good insurance are not the problem. That was most of the problem with Hillary's misbegotten plan.You have to leave those folks alone.Anybody knows that if you want to discourage something, you tax it. If you taxed people who got good health insurance from their bosses, fewer companies would offer good insurance. And since people with good insurance subsidize the system, the whole health care system would collapse.When Bush says he wants an ownership society, he's talking through his hat. What he means is that he wants the rich and the corporations to stop paying for health insurance and Social Security and he wants to shift the costs to you.The only thing you would own is the bill.Thankfully Bush is so weak that he cant even get an immigration bill through a Democratic Congress that favors immigrants. His health plan stands a snow ball's chance in hell of passi...
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On Vacation
2007-06-27 15:30:00
I've been blogging now for two years without a break, except for the weeks we went to Florida. We're not going away this year but I have decided to take a little break from blogging.Work on the novel will continue however. I dont know when I will be back but I've left you almost 100 posts almost exclusively about Rock and Roll Love Story -- probably too much for the casual reader to wade through.When I come back, I hope to have some new ideas to share with you. Without giving it all away, of course!
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Summer Solstice
2007-06-21 17:31:00
The first day of summer means Surf's up at the Jersey Shore. When Rocket and the band get themselves an agent, they wind up playing at the legendary Stone Pony in Asbury Park.
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Art imitates Life
2007-06-18 16:04:00
Recently American Idol Kelly Clarkson stood up to studio biggie Clive Davis.When I wrote Rock and Roll Love Story seven years ago, Rocket and the band defied Clive -- with disastrous results!
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The family phone at Rocket's new mansion at Malib...
2007-06-16 18:21:00
The family phone at Rocket's new mansion at Malibu Pines is a source of frustration and intrigue for a paranoid and often spaced out Johnny. It's the kitchen phone that Shelly and the kids use to order take out pizza and Chinese, and some people who shouldn't have the number -- the deadly Santerio's drug gang? -- make crank calls on it The police and the phone company are not taking Johnny seriously. One of the more interesting couples that gets the number, who Johnny befriends, is Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. Kurt, who is bipolar, has a lot in common with Johnny, and Shelly spends hours on the phone with Courtney trying to help. In the end however, the rock star that used to be straight arrow Ronnie James DeRenzo just can't understand the drug taking that plagues Kurt, and you know how that story ends.
More About: Family , Phone , Mansion , The Family , Mans

Way to Go Courtney!
2007-06-16 02:05:00
Following doctor's orders that she stop smoking, Court ney Love has already cut her nicotine consumption in half ? to 20 cigarettes a day. "I'm going thru hell trying to cut back on smoking," Love writes on her Web site. "I'm down to a pack a day from two, but it's a pain and each fight of the urge is a little mini war." Love, 42, recently revealed on her blog that her doctor had discovered pre-op nodules in her throat. "He guessed exactly how much I smoke too and told me I'll have to get surgery," she wrote. Now, she says, "[I'm] trying to get to half a pack a day and then quit when I get to 10." The former Hole singer, who has conquered heroin addiction, adds: "I think of all I've been through and I can do this." She's certainly not lacking for willpower: She's shed more than 50 lbs. this year thanks to healthy eating and yoga, and says her diet now includes whey shakes, Kyo green tea, flax seed and omega 3 oil.