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Interviewing bassist stories

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Okay, now it's two in the morning and I'm wide awake. Thanks, Scott! And you scared everyone away. Excellent.

See, everybody, this is what happens. Imagine what you just witnessed going on for hours, for days at a time. I probably just had another five years sliced off my lifespan. "Official Cause of death: Thunesian sclerosis."

"I can't allow you to be helpful, because then my own owness won't be my own!"

What did you just say? I'm sorry; I'm not mentally handicapped. I have it on good authority that I'm actually pretty intelligent. But I can't make head nor tail or what you're saying.

"Your assistance would have made a book that could not have been created by me."

What does that even mean? If you're doing all the talking, and I'm just there to record and transcribe, how in God's name are you not the creator? And what does it matter? You also didn't invent the computer that you would use to "create" your precious "creation," so doesn't that dilute the creativeness you're babbling about?

The only possible way you could have total creative control over writing the book would be if you stripped off your own skin and dried it to create parchment, chopped out a chunk of your tibia and carved it into a quill, and used your own blood as ink. Otherwise, honey--I hate to break it to you--someone else will have had a hand in your creativiest creation of all creationality.

Talking to someone makes it easier. The reason your wife is on your tail to write your book and you haven't gotten around to it is that IT'S HARD! Nonfiction is HARD! Sitting there all by yourself, trying to make it all come out on paper--especially if you don't write all the time--is a monumental task that requires so much time that those of us who actually write books are only capable of doing so if we have no lives. Our books are our lives.

It's an informed decision we make. Fathers, husbands, and touring musicians don't write books. It's simply not possible. We writers are solitary, because that's the only way it works.

Man, if I had a great story to tell and I had a pet writer offering to capture my thoughts by serving as a secretary and a sounding board and then turning all that raw material over so that I could then shape it into what I wanted, I'd jump at the chance. When I send you my latest book, you'll be astonished at the size of it, and you'll wonder how long it took me to research it and then write it. It took years.

And in my creation of it, I used all sorts of implements that I didn't invent myself. Does that make my book a big pile of poo? Because if you say it does, we'll have to settle it with flamethrowers at 20 yards in the morning.

Whatever that means.

Now I'm like Max Headroom. "How am I gonna get to sleep?" Maybe I'll just babble on into the ether for the next 12 hours.

I told you all this was my swan song. How can I possibly top what just happened?
 
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This thread just lofted it's way into the stratosphere of epic.

Thank you Tom and Scott for your immense contributions, both then and right here. I have often wanted to be the fly on the wall when reunions occur and this has been a delight.

I want to hear every detail you both can recall without being jailed. Skip that, tell us anyway and we'll hold a fundraiser for your legal defence.
 
Tomorrow--or later today, rather--will see either a mass exodus from the thread or an inundation.

I hope hardy souls like you stick around.

I'll probably have pages worth to catch up with after work today... It all has been a very enjoyable read.

Just a curious question, what's with your other books being military? Was it just something that interested you or did you have a background in it from a certain time frame?
 
I'll probably have pages worth to catch up with after work today... It all has been a very enjoyable read.

Just a curious question, what's with your other books being military? Was it just something that interested you or did you have a background in it from a certain time frame?
I like to compare myself to Tom Clancy on a miniscule scale. He was an insurance salesman or something who learned all about the Warsaw Pact weapons systems and finally wrote a novel on a war between the East and West. He's recognized today as the foremost expert on Soviet-era weapons.

I fully planned to be a full-time music journalist, but even after I gave Bass Player the two most notorious and well-known interviews in the magazine's history, my career came to a dead halt. I was the only Contributing Editor in a national music publication not allowed to write feature-length articles, even though I'd shown them I could do so.

Once the music-journo job croaked, I sulked for a long time and then pitched a book idea to a company that accepts queries directly from the author (most publishing houses go through literary agents), and that was how it started. Doing the research for the next two books has made me an expert, but by default. Nobody else is interested enough to find all the info and put it all into one place. My books are unique, in that there's nobody studying the field. So that why the Big Dog experts don't contact me.

The British recently found a buried World War One flamethrower on the Somme battlefield, the Livens "Large Gallery" Flammenwerfer, which was over 50 feet long and fired several tons of oil hundreds of feet. They rebuilt it and made a documentary special about it, and the end result was riddled with errors because they didn't ask the right guy, me. But they don't care. I don't have the pedigree, so my work is ignored or denigrated.

Thunes suffers a similar dynamic in that people won't even listen to his music, while offering up opinions about it. Dummies.
 
Tom,

Don't worry about maintaining an audience here. You'll end up with way more lurkers than posters because what would most of us have to add? We could keep telling you how cool this thread is and how awesome you are but you know that already.
 
I didn't read all twelve pages, so maybe this has been said, but the music business hasn't been about music in a long time. It's all about preening and prancing about the stage with 12 syncopated dancers while lip syncing to a soundtrack. It's Milli Vanilli on bass; I don't know why anyone would be surprised. Sex sells, not good playing and with the bass at the bottom of the food chain they figure they can teach some model a few notes and let them go.
 
Tom,

I also want you to know that your stories have given me such purpose. I don’t know how to direct my energy at the moment but, I know that I want to have great stories like these when I can no longer play myself.

Thanks,

Jeff
 
This is an incredibly interesting thread. I've never seen anything quite like it on TB. To top it off, Tom's writing would be outstanding no matter what the subject. Actually, the existence of this thread is like an unexpected stroke of luck for TB itself (especially since it seems there has been an unusual amount of trolling here lately.) Reading this thread makes it worth it all.

I agree. It has been difficult to read many threads on TB lately. The same old arguments being pushed by new participants. After 10 years, it gets old! This thread is a great departure. Great to see Scott Thunes chipping in! I'd love to know who Mr Smartypants is. Care to self identify? :ninja:
 
Still reading. Epic doesn't begin to describe it. Tom, you are our historian. You're building something important here, this is way past the realm of a fun Friday thread.

That being said..

I'm picturing an "Odd Couple" type sitcom with you and Scott Thunes. Of course, we'd all be way more interested in the behind-the-scenes reel than the actual show...
 
So don't encourage him. Not unless you have an I.Q. of about 370, lightning reflexes, and the ability to think ahead by decades.

I've read Mr. Thunes postings and have to agree with you Tom.

I'm a geologist and steered clear of the sub-profession of vulcanology for good reasons (searing heat, smoking gases, explosions). This seems a good time to use that sort of discretion again.

With my aging and semi-feeble mind, any sort of direct engagement would be foolhardy at best.

That said, I will enjoy whatever he has to say here.;)
 
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