BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

… Ben had turned up the volume slightly on the television when the Saturday night movie had been interrupted for a breaking news update. Brandee Street, her cameraman, and the pilot had been arrested all right—but not before getting the morbid video into the station’s hands. Even through the overblown colors of the malfunctioning set, you could easily make out Ben, Constance and me on the balcony of the apartment. We had fought a desperate fight, but in the end the sheet had fluttered enough to give at least a partial view of the woman’s nude remains.

We all stared silently at the picture as the talking heads behind the anchor desk identified us each in succession. It was all we could do to stifle disgusted sighs as they proceeded to tag us with a sensationalized nickname. A moniker that would unfortunately not only stick for some time to come but was also picked up immediately by every other station and newspaper in the bi-state area. We had been christened “The Ghoul Squad.” …

Some of you may recognize the above paragraphs as having been excerpted from Never Burn A Witch, the second novel in my Rowan Gant Investigations series. And, if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter it’s a fairly good bet you’ve already heard about the “official” RGI GHOUL SQUAD. But then, maybe you haven’t, so that’s why I am going to flap my metaphorical gums about it here.

One of my fans, Walter Hardin Jr. to be exact – as I definitely want to give credit where credit is due – mentioned to me that I really needed a “Street Team” to free me up from some of the time-sucking promotional activities that come with the whole “being an author” profession. I thought I knew what a “Street Team” was, but soon discovered that there are two types – professional and fan-based. It was then I remembered something from my youth – The KISS Army. I was never a member myself, what with Styx being my ear candy of choice, but believe me I went to school with many of the KA inductees.

So, I did a bit of research. Then I researched some more. Then I got together with my publicist (Wendy) and my pa/publicist (Scott). They both gave me some great input. Then I ran it past a couple of friends, one of whom had done time in the music biz – they all had great input too. Some ideas were weeded out, others were solidified. The ones we liked most got a quick swipe of the photo fixative lacquer – sorry… had an old 1960’s Polaroid moment there… Anywho, it seemed like in the matter of just a few days I went from, “Street Team? What’s that?” to “YEEHAAAAA! Street Team!”

Better yet, a whole bunch of folks out there in Interwebz land did too…

And so, the RGI GHOUL SQUAD was officially born.

Complete with its very own website and everything, the “Squad” was set to go live January 1, 2010. But, that was before I committed premature post-aculation. By this I mean, while starting to write the posts that would fill the news section of the RGI GHOUL SQUAD website I neglected to turn off the ping.fm updater. As soon as I let loose with that first post it was all over Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace – not to mention a few other social networking venues.

Email began to pour in – “The join link doesn’t work!”, “There’s a password on xyz link so I can’t get to it!”, “I want to join right now!”… and so on. You get the picture.

Suddenly, I was busier than a cat covering up sh*t with all my email answering to explain the situation. But, I just couldn’t keep up. Don’t get me wrong, I was – and am – ecstatic that so many folks expressed an interest in the “Squad”. I simply wasn’t prepared to handle my screwup.

So, instead of fighting a losing battle I focused my energies and resources on making things happen a little quicker. Therefore, the RGI GHOUL SQUAD officially went “live” 18 days early – this past Sunday, December 13, 2009 to be exact. Hmmmm, 13… Seems kind of fitting in a lot of ways.

If you think you might be interested in checking out the “Squad,” its benefits – and responsibilities – then maybe even joining up, you can find the official website at www.rowangant.com.

Just be aware – I am NOT going to wear all that facepaint, breathe fire, spit fake blood, or even sing Rock And Roll All Nite…

Well… Okay… Maybe I’ll sing, but only after a few beers.

More to come…

Murv

Sometimes we simply can’t see the forest for the trees.

Yeah, I know that’s a cliche, but it rings true on a daily basis – especially as we age. I suppose it’s because we become mired in our own personal view of the world, often times forgetting to spritz a bit of cleaner on the windows of our minds.

That’s when kids come in handy. They don’t yet carry a mortgage on one of those “glass houses” in the overpopulated suburb of Myopia where most of us tend to reside as adults. And, every now and then they will fire up some metaphorical dog-poo on your doorstep that causes you to open the door and see things for what they really are.

Flaming poo, obviously, but let’s not digress…

You see, awhile back the O-spring smacked us with one of her verbal firepoo bombs…

E K was helping the munchkin with what can best be described as a guided meditation. You see, she was pretty much in the midst of a growth spurt and was experiencing “growing pains” in her legs. We all had them. It’s just part of the process. Of course, O-spring is a bit on the sensitive side so she perceived these as not so much a “nuisance pain” as flat out torture.

Now, E K and I have nothing against pharmaceuticals – as long as they are necessary. But, we aren’t the kind of folks who believe in popping a pain pill or antibiotic at the slightest twinge or sniffle. Therefore, instead of loading the kid up on Acetaminophen or some such, the Evil Redhead switched into mommy mode and was trying to soothe the short person by helping her get her mind off the ache.

During the “guided mediation” however, O-spring continued to talk and complain about the growing pains. Finally, E K told her she needed to stop talking and concentrate on meditating to make the hurt go away.

The kid fell silent for a couple of minutes and everything seemed to be working out when she finally spoke up once again. Apparently, she had been giving this whole meditation thing some serious thought.

“Mommy,” she asked. “How can I meditate if I can’t talk? I have to be able to say Om… Om… Om…”

You know, you just can’t argue with logic like that. Well, you could, but we’re talking about a 9 year old (at the time)… Do you really think you’d be able to win?

More to come…

Murv