Thursday, December 25, 2014

Yeah It's Christmas Time Again

Well it’s Christmas again. It’s a well-known fact that I’m not much for celebrating holidays and such. Right now at work they’ve been playing some abysmal Christmasy music over the loudspeaker which drives me crazy. I’m talking bland, elevator type of stuff with no vocals that just grates on my ears. It’s really the worst excuse for music ever invented and instead of putting me into a nice mood it pushes me in the opposite direction. Seriously, if I wasn’t able to listen to my IPod I’d probably end up going on a murderous rampage. Okay, I’m not serious and I don’t want to lose my job but you get my drift. It boggles my mind why they want to force this dreck on people.

Before I got married I never put up a Christmas tree nor did I decorate the house, more to the point I never decorated for any holiday. It’s just not my thing, I’m not into it. My wife, however, lives for this stuff so I indulge her and let her do what she wants so long as she leaves me out of it. My role is mainly to get things down from the attic and put them back up when she’s done with them. Other than that I’ll climb the ladder and put things up when she can’t do it but that’s about it. Of course our son gets into it, he is seven after all and yes I do love seeing his reaction when he opens his gifts.

I’m not a total Scrooge or anything. I do buy gifts and I don’t get upset (well not too much) when others can’t contain their upbeat spirits and go around wishing you a Merry Christmas. That’s alright, just don’t start waxing poetic on how much the holiday spirit means to you or you risk chunks being blown your way. Personally I am very hard to buy gifts for. Most of the things I’m interested in aren’t available at your local store. You can’t just bop out and pick something up. If it’s clothes I’m very finicky. The texture has to be right, I don’t like labels on them so, no v-necks, etc., etc., etc. Really I like plain, dark or earth tone colors but I have been trying to break out of that just a little.

Musically it’s extremely hard to know what I don’t have and would like since I get most of my stuff from smaller record labels/stores over the internet like Dirtnap or Razorcake. If it’s from a mainstream act or a large label you can generally count me out. My reading habits are quite eclectic as well so unless it’s a gift card for Powells or some like place you risk being disappointed in my reaction. At this point you might be saying “screw this guy, why should I want to get him anything?” and I can understand that but I can’t help the way I am. So deal with it.

My wife and I have learned that it’s better for us to get our own gifts or just tell each other outright what we want. It just makes sense to get somebody you love something that they actually want or like rather than something that you would like them to have. During my many years I’ve had far too many clothes sit in the bottom of my closet for a year or two before it’s okay to give them away than to ever want that again. It can be quite disappointing to receive something from family that you would never wear in a million years over and over and over.

Hey, at least look at it this way, Christmas is almost over so you won’t have to worry about reading something like this from me for another year. If you’re lucky that is, you never know when I’ll get the urge to write about anything. At least you’ve got that going for you, right? Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Bah Humbug.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

At Last It All Comes Together

Clearly you can see that I haven’t been writing or podcasting much later. The long and short of it is my laptop bit the big one and is down for the count. It has a black screen and beeps seven times, pauses, then repeats ad infinitum. Until I get the time to investigate it more thoroughly or the money to fix it outright I’m having to do without.

The problem is everything that had to do with my podcasts (intro music, descriptions, list of songs played, archived episodes, etc) are on there along with a ton of music that is for now unavailable to me. Even worse is all of the pictures and videos of my family and other things that I’ve done that aren’t backed up anywhere else. Piling even more on is all the things that I’ve written such as my lyrics, spoken word, movie scripts, stories and blog stuff. As you can see this makes for a rather disconcerting time for me.

In order to do something with the time I would have otherwise spent on these endeavors I’ve been consoling myself by putting together my office/mancave. Well, really it’s just the third bedroom in our house that until recently had been occupied by a friend of my wife. She moved out (the friend not the wife) on pretty short notice and immediately I seized the opportunity and started making it over in my image.

The best thing has been that as I’ve been able to consolidate all of my music in this one place. Ever since we’ve been married my music has been spread out all over the house (and garage and truck) out of necessity. One of the pleasant by products from this gathering is I’m finding a lot of stuff that I had forgotten all about and I get to re-discover it all over again. Unfortunately I’ve also found quite a few empty cd cases for some good groups that I just cannot find the cd’s for. Time will tell but for now I’ve got some focus and a purpose and that feels pretty good to me.



Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 073: The Road To Judas Priest

Well, I decided to upload this one early. The more I thought about it I decided not to wait and see if I could get it uploaded after the long drive we're facing tomorrow. Why chance it and besides, I'll be tired and the prospect of staying up trying to make hotel wi-fi work for me isn't too appealing. So it's early like a birthday or Christmas gift. You're welcome.

As the episode title says we are on our way to see Judas Priest in Denver, Colorado. Now I've seen them before in Stuttgart while I was stationed in Germany but Tommy (my co-host for notmovingpictures podcast) has never been able to see them. He's seen a lot of concerts but it just never happened for him. Until now that is. We plan on going up Pike's Peak and seeing the Garden Of The Gods as well. What's that got to do with this episode you ask? Not a lot but I felt like talking about it. Just when I thought I had figured out the mono/stereo problem it was made very clear to me that I in fact had not. So the lineup remains fluid until the very last bit of recording. Ah well, at least I'm on a road trip and that means a lot.



Judas Priest - Breaking The Law
Smashing Pumpkins - One And All
The Dead Milkmen - Pretty Music For Pretty People
Freedom Club - Stranger
The Estranged - The Subliminal Man
The Clash - Know Your Rights
The Returnables - Love Letters
Urge Overkill - Tequila Sunrise
Company - Rising Up
Hospitality - I Miss Your Bones

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter:@notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Some New Words - Land Of Lies

Sitting in church yesterday letting my mind wander (sometimes that's the best I can manage) when what should appear but an idea. That idea once written gives birth to more words than I originally realized were there. Today as I typed the result of my wandering mind and edited it as I went I now have this. Is it pretentious? Boring? Overhyped? Judge for yourself, for me it's just what I wrote and believe. Take it as such.

                                                               Land Of Lies

Surrounded by false prophets
Some well concealed
Others hiding out in the open
They've had years to practice
Daring you to open your eyes and fully acknowledge just what they are
Confident that you won't to the fullest point of arrogance
Even if you do they'll keep enough sycophants under their thrall to continue their lives of excess
They bluster and shriek their idiocy and the masses bleat out their answering call
Mesmerized by the unfounded affirmations of honor and trust
This has become a land of lies
What once was wrong is now right
The land that I, my father and his father served
For those hearing this sitting there shaking their heads in agreement
Giving a "yeah right" vote of confidence to these words
STOP
It's you I'm speaking to
Don't blindly agree because it sounds good or it's the newest trend
Think a little
Use your brain
Make a decision for yourself based on reality not on someone else's idea of correctness
Don't turn me into a false prophet
Don't make me into that which I speak against
Or do I overestimate myself and perhaps you?

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Is It Worth It?

I wrote this yesterday sitting at the mall observing the people that were out in force doing their holiday shopping.

I'm sitting here at the mall watching my son play at the Xbox station. It's right next to Starbucks. There are a ton of people waiting for their beverage of choice. The thing is, they're really slow on delivering those drinks. People have been standing in a loose mob waiting patiently for their addiction. I've never had Starbucks, never even been a coffee or even warm drink person so I don' t know if the wait is worth it. I mean, how good could it be?

It would have to be pretty amazing to make me spend my time idly standing with the rest of the herd waiting for my fix. These people are in line for at least twenty minutes if not more just to PLACE their order. Then it's even longer to get your drink. That time could be better spent sitting comfortably attempting in vain to make the "free" Wi-Fi work on my tablet. It's not gonna happen but at least I've been trying. That's gotta count for something, right? Right?

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 072: Frustration Part Deux



And I thought last week was frustrating. I've recorded and deleted parts of this episode more than four times. Everything looks fine individually but when I out it all together suddenly files change from stereo to mono. It makes absolutely zero sense. Of course after making the last change I had to re-record all of my audio and edit it and.........well you get the point. It's enough to make me wish I could afford to buy some good software and take a class on how to use it. But I can't so I end up trudging forward with what I've got. Frustrating? Immensely, at times. Ah well, I keep telling myself that it's worth it because I enjoy doing it (overall) and perhaps the handful of listeners think so too. Enough bitching, here's the music even though it's a day late:

Radioactivity - Other Life
Generacion Suicida - Estoy Sangrando
Toxic Reasons - War Hero
Jason And The Scorchers - Last Time Around
Lone Justice - I Found Love
The Long Ryders - I Want You Bad
Wednesday Week - Why
Parasitic Twins - It's Shoved (Melvins Cover)
Defiance, Ohio - The Calling
Belgrado - Those Times

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter:@notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Some People Just Deserve A Trick

Seems every year after Halloween I write about how things used to be. You know, less people are giving out candy than when I was young or how I would go out trick or treating by myself and now that's just not possible. So am I doing that this year? Well a little and then I'll pass on a story from when I was young. This year I noticed that if three or four houses close together were giving out candy my son referred to it as a jackpot. When I was his age almost every house was giving out candy. You could walk down one side of a street for several blocks and then come back on the other side and your bag would be bulging.

My complaint (as always) is that if you have your garage light on and your porch light on AND you have house lights on but you do not answer your door because you are not participating then you are a jerk. If you don't treat and meet the already mentioned qualities then you deserve a trick. It made me wish I had some rotten tomatoes to throw. But I didn't so I couldn't, not that I really would. What kind of message would I be imparting on my son if I did that? I just don't get why people do that on this one day of the year. It's cruel and unjust I tell you.

On to my promised story. Towards the end of my trick or treating career perhaps around twelve years of age (I can't remember exactly when, hey, I'm old) I had a near incident. I'd been out with a friend but he'd already departed for home while I had chosen to continue on to an area I'd never been to before. It was further out from my normal "territory" than I was used to and it was getting late. The lure of more candy was great however and I pushed on.

My luck was not great. Maybe because people had already given out their candy, maybe people in that area weren't participating that much that year, it's hard to say. With my prospects dimming and very few houses having their lights on I turned and started making my way home. Not long after that I heard a car pull up and a kid I didn't recognize got out. If you're thinking he was also trick or treating late like me then you'd be wrong. He called out to me "hey kid" and started walking towards me.

At this point every fiber of my being screamed out that this was wrong, something bad was about to happen. I kept walking and he kept calling out to me progressively getting louder. The car he had materialized from was pacing him down the street. Suddenly, before he could get too close to me, I decided to make a run for a house that still had it's porch light on close by and started knocking on the door loudly. His cries of "hey kid" changed as he flung epithet after epithet at me before jumping back in the car as the front door of the house opened.

The car peeled out and raced off and I was safe. I don't recall if I even got candy from that house, my mind was consumed with frantic thoughts of how close I had been to getting beaten up and having my bag of candy stolen. Clearly it was time to go home, it would have been most unwise to ignore this omen. My head was on a swivel as I warily walked the rest of the way home. The slightest noise had me spooked that the car was returning and the kid was going to finish the job he had started. None of that came to be thankfully and I made it home safely with my candy intact.

Personally while I believe the kid who wanted to assault me and steal my candy was a scumbag but really I feel that the person driving the car was an even bigger scumbag. It's one thing to go out intending to steal but the person (brother, cousin, neighbor?) was old enough to drive and still took him out knowing what he wanted to do. Hell, maybe it was his idea in the first place. What a role model. There you have it, my story of what almost was. I hope that kid didn't get anybody else that year or any other but even moreso I hope that at some point if he didn't feel some remorse for his actions then he at least eventually got his karmic comeuppance.

Hopefully my son will never have something like this happen to him but if he does perhaps I can teach him to be prepared and ready to defend himself. Of course it doesn't hurt that he's a big kid, much bigger than I was at that age. Unless of course I'm still taking him around when he's twelve or thirteen years old which I probably will be doing. I don't think a thief would have the guts to do it with an adult around. Here's hoping we never have to find out.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Usurpers One, Two, Three

I have this old recliner in my house. I've had it al least since I got out of the Army in 1995 and maybe even longer than that. It's hard to say, I mean it isn't like I made special note of the date I received it because I'm sure I never dreamed that I'd have had it this long. My mother gave it to me so perhaps she could recall. Moms tend to remember details like that in my experience.

For the longest time it was my chair, my place of refuge.Then I got married. At first my wife always left it for me to sit in but gradually she started to sit in it more and more. Then we had a son and as he got older the more he tried to claim it from me.

However recently there has been another who has increasingly tried to make claim on it. The latest usurper to my throne is Alex The Cat. Ever since he adopted us he's become more demanding of what he feels is his by right. My recliner is being taken from me and there's nothing I can do about it. First a wife, then a son and now a cat. Such is life.




Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

notmovingpictures Episode 028: Losing Friends, Unrealized Dreams And Other Things

It's time for a solo rant again. Some things have been weighing on my mind as of late and I just had to get them out. I've been reading this journal that I briefly wrote in at the time that I was almost out of the Army in 1995 and then afterwards. It's made me realize that even back then I was a major procrastinator. I wrote about so many things that I wanted to do and even intended to do but never did. In fact, I recently have been slowly moving towards doing spoken word poetry and even fusing that with music but I basically was talking about doing just that thing all those years ago. Perhaps back then it wouldn't have amounted to anything and now is the right time. I have always been a late bloomer in life.



I also have had a few things happen with friends such as an old friend that I had to cut loose because he was just toxic to me and another incident that I don't really wish to share the details of. So I muse on losing friends and if I ever really knew him. I've got enough turmoil in my life as it is and I don't need any more from a supposed friend. I also speak about how societal wise this country is moving towards making you pay for your mistakes or actions from decades before now. As if you could never grow and learn from what you've done in the past. It's insane in my opinion.

Another thing I meander around is being stuck in a job or place in life where you can't do or say things without worrying if it will jeopardize your job. Of course a common subject on the podcast is that I feel  marijuana should be legal, medical or otherwise. There's a few other things I delve into like the whole Ebola scare and manufacturing fear but I'll let you hear it all for yourself. The past week or so has been a reflective period for me, one spent thinking about what was, what is and what may be. Nothing too deep, right? Right. That's what I do, think deep, sometimes too much so, and learn what I can.

Opening Music: Alloy - Live To See The Day
Closing Music: Public Image Ltd - Disappointed

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Older episodes can also be found @ www.archive.org, just search for notmovingpictures

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 071: An Exercise In Frustration

If I could say only one thing about this episode it would be that it has been an exercise in frustration. Everything was ready but when I tried to put the pieces together the first song suddenly would only present itself in mono and everything that came after changed to mono as well. Eventually I decided to drop the track and add another but that meant I had to record the first two audio parts again. Since I was already re-recording I decided to do the third audio section as well since I had left the name of a song off originally. Once that was done I started to edit again and for some reason the front and back  ends of the audio sections were cut off. In a fit of anger I deleted it all, closed Audacity and then started editing all over again.........at 2am. That time it finally worked out well, okay better than the previous attempts, and if you want proof then you gotta listen.



Freedom Club - Stranger
Vic Ruggerio - Parking Lot
The Creeps - Ghost
Red Dons - Cold Hearted
Frozen Teens - Hopeless City
It's Raining - Days That Don't Begin
Marc Riley with The Creepers - Favourite Sister
Two And A Half White Guys - Bob
Pura Mania - Tus Ojos
Constant Insult - Constant Insult

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter:@notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Ska Beat 11/23/97

This is the second ever show of Ska Beat. It seems that while I was intent on taping the first few shows I was somewhat less diligent in actually hitting record or turning the tape over. As a result there are some unknown songs on here since I missed the part where I say what they are and can't find my old playlists. It is what it is. The sound is what it is as well. Like I said before these tapes are old and sometimes the equipment at WMUL emitted a buzzing sound, especially when talking. Still, this is an exact example of what I was doing at this exact moment in time. And trust me, I do get better at this, I've heard it on tape and you will too, as I get the other tapes out. So take a listen to what I was listening to:



Unknown Song
New York Ska Jazz Ensemble - John James
Skinnerbox - Move Like Ya Gone
The Slackers - Cooking For Tommy
The Toasters - Daddy Cry
Los Pies Negros - Siempre Igual
Buck-O-Nine - My Town
Ska King Crab - Mike The Barber
Dance Hall Crashers - He Wants Me Back
Magadog - Semi-Sweet
Supertones - Unite
Let's Go Bowling - Cumbia Del Sol
Save Ferris - Super Spy
The Skoidats - Granted
The Aquabats - The Story Of Nothing
Save Ferris - World Is New
Oi Skall Mates - Nutty Sound
Unknown Song
The Upbeat - 17 @ 17
Mephiskapheles - Introducing The Yellow Passion
Hepcat - Bobby And Joe
The Allentons - Pyramid Five
Madness - The Prince
Voodoo Glow Skulls - Malas Palabras
Laurel Aitken - Mad About You

I have chosen to include all of the Public Service Announcements, weather updates, mistakes and whatever else was recorded along with the music. Yeah, I'm that lazy. Be warned, the shows were taped on cassettes and as such may suffer from sitting around for the last seventeen years or so. WMUL had an ongoing issue of a loud hum that would periodically present itself when I was talking but normally it went away while the music was playing. Often I forgot to hit record or to turn the tape over at the midpoint of the show so there will be gaps in those songs as well as some being omitted entirely. I've tried to annotate when that happened and if the songs didn't make it on the tape I leave them off of the playlist.

What you end up with is a snapshot of where I was and what bands I was going to see in the latter part of the 90s. It was a great time to see live music as many ska bands came through the Huntington area on their way to somewhere else. Unfortunately I've lost my playlists from so long ago and my memory isn't what it used to be so there may be a few unknown artist and song listings. I'm not going to let that hold me back on posting these shows. Feel free to leave a comment and square me away on anything I've messed up or forgotten. Additionally I used to fill in at various times to keep WMUL on the air and I have about five tapes of those shows to go with the twenty odd tapes from Ska Beat. It's been a blast listening to these tapes and remembering a time in my life that is completely different from where I am now. Hope you enjoy the show because I definitely enjoyed doing it.

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com  Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Time Off From School

So my son is out of school today and tomorrow for Fall Break. Next month he's out for a week for Thanksgiving and then of course in December it's two weeks for Christmas and New Years. Man, kids today have got it made. I don't even remember if we got s Spring Break much less a Fall one.
So do kids have too little school, too much or just enough? Who knows? Who cares?

Ah well, at least it means I get to spend some time with him before I have to go to work. I need to squeeze some time in for the park or something else he'll like. Maybe some video games too, just for bonding though. Not because I like playing them or anything. It's just important for us to spend time together whatever we end up doing.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Is That A Road Trip I See On The Horizon?

After recording the latest episode of notmovingpictures last Saturday I was preparing to leave Tommy's house when I remembered that I saw that Judas Priest was touring. I guess I let it slip my mind because the date they would be in Kansas City was a bit close and I was fairly sure it was too late to organize a road trip. While I was able to see Judas Priest in concert when I was in Germany Tommy and his son Chris have never seen them. They were extremely excited but that only intensified when we investigated and found that they will also be in a suburb of Denver on November 19th smack in the middle of our birthdays.

Mine is on the 16th and Tommy's is on the 24th. What better way to say happy birthday than to take a road trip? We haven't traveled to Denver before (I've been there solo for work) and were hoping to go next year if Rush is playing there when they go on tour. While that may still happen we are planning on going this year. After all, it has been over a year since we've taken a road trip. We've even got the whole eat local thing in the works as well. Tommy saw a place called The Buckhorn Exchange on Man Vs. Food that looks right up our alley. Plus they have a birthday club where you can get a discount for your entrée based on your age. You better believe we'll take advantage of that.

Now all I have to do is find some other cool things to do in Denver while we are there. Shouldn't be too hard. A record or book store or maybe a punk band playing the first night we're there would fit in nicely as far as I'm concerned. I'm quite sure we'll find something to occupy our time. My seven year old asked me if he was going and I had to say no. He'll be in school at that time. If it were the next week when he's off for Thanksgiving then perhaps it could happen but not this time. All this and Alloy is playing a show at The Shrine here in Tulsa on the 13th and Agent Orange is there on the 26th of this month. The future's looking bright.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

notmovingpictures Episode 027: Talking About Alloy, Pain Relief And More

Luck was with me Saturday night, I was able to go to Tommy's and hang out for awhile. While we were doing our usual talking I decided to break out the recorder and get another episode on the books. It is always hard for us to get together so when we do I try and record. It doesn't always happen though. This time we talk about Tommy's band Alloy who haven't been shall we say, operational. Well, they've got a show lined up for November 13th at The Shrine. We also talk about a different project merging spoken word and music together for Me, Tommy and his son Chris. As we shift to discussing taking a chance and realizing your dreams, doing it instead of thinking about doing it, we then progress to pain relief. Specifically medical marijuana, CBD oil, Kratom, Kava Kava and more. It's a lengthy talk over a vast array of topics and it's pretty cool, at least from my standpoint.



Opening Music: Alloy - Live To See The Day
Closing Music: Alloy - Silencer (demo)

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Older episodes can also be found @ www.archive.org, just search for notmovingpictures.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Playing Hooky

This past Thursday as I was getting dressed for work I looked over at my wife who hadn’t been feeling well all day. Besides me going to work it was also time for her to go pick our son up from school. She had been laying down and sat up and at that moment I knew what needed to happen. Still, I asked her if she was going to be okay and she merely shook her head no. Next I asked the all important question concerning my job, “Do I need to call in?” This time she nodded her head in the affirmative and asked “Can you?” It was now my turn to nod in the affirmative and I did call right after changing my clothes again. No sense in walking around in work clothes when I don’t have to. Then I was off to pick our son up.

Naturally he was surprised to see me but very happy as well. I informed him what was going on and we traveled back home so that he could change his clothes and get a snack. After checking his school work we left the house (my wife was soundly sleeping at this point and I didn’t want to wake her) and I treated him to a long overdue visit to our comic book store. Yes I did indulge him (and myself) before we blasted off for the library where I again indulged him and let him play on the computer there for over an hour. Oh yeah, we got some books too, that’s always important. We tried going to a park (okay two parks) so he could play for a few minutes before it got dark but it was no good, both were deserted, so instead we monkeyed around for as long as we could.

Returning home once again this time for some dinner we found my wife awake and feeling much better. Before getting ready for bed I went over my son’s spelling words with him so that he would be ready for his test the next day. It turned out to be a very relaxing and very different kind of night for me. I got to do things with my son that I normally don’t get to do on a weeknight because I’m always working. My wife usually helps him with his schoolwork and takes him places. I normally take him on the weekends to do stuff or we do it as a family. That made it all foreign territory for me but in a good way.

It almost felt like I was playing hooky from work even though I wasn’t. I was just taking care of my son and letting my wife rest. As a matter of fact it did remind of those times in high school when I did cut school for a day. Don't worry, it's not as if I was a horrible delinquent or anything. It's just that once or twice a year the pressure of dealing with everything that was high school and life would build up until I felt like I needed a break. So I’d stay home and my older sister Teresa would write me a note and forge our mother’s name on it and all would be well with the world. That’s what Thursday night felt like for me, a nice break where I was able to relax and enjoy my family and life.

It also served to underscore for me how fleeting these times are and if I go around putting things off or waiting for a better time I’ll miss a lot of things. I need to schedule a day off here and there occasionally so that our family can get together and enjoy our time together. Work can wait but doing things together that only helps to strengthen us as a family cannot wait. All you have to do is blink and time will pass you by and you’ll never get the chance to do it again. Thursday was my reminder, let’s hope I keep remembering and doing it. I owe it to them.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

The Nameless Faceless Boy


          He was a small lad and even as he gained his age he never quite made it to the levels achieved by others. Still, his stature (or lack thereof) was perfectly suited to aid him in his quest to go unnoticed as he slid and skulked down the back hallways of the school. After all, attention only brought about humiliation and pain, both the mental and physical kind. Bullies were always a plentiful commodity. Different groups had their own nicknames for him and others like him. They always thought they were so funny and cool. Years later if pressed his classmates could only admit that they knew of him without really knowing him. Although they found this to be a peculiar thought, rarely, if ever, would one of them actually spend any time ruminating over him. It just wasn’t done. After all, his kind was beneath them. It just wasn't done. If they had bothered to take even a few moments to speak with him they would have found underneath the shyness and insecurity an intelligent, gentle and surprisingly caring young man. Of course they never did, speak to him that is. It was far easier to ignore him until one of the more aggressive classmates chose to publicly humiliate him. Then they merely laughed at him.

          As a matter of fact it was doubtful that any of them noticed when he left school, never to return. There were no questions regarding if he had moved, if he was sick or injured or what exactly had happened to him. One day he was there and the next he was gone. Poof, like magic. They neither cared or even noticed his disappearance. Life continued on as usual, another of the lost ones fell into his place. After all, the”haves” always need someone to be the focus of their unwanted attention. So another unnamed one took his place and he fell between the cracks of their memory. As far as they were concerned he no longer existed. Except he did of course. He traveled to another place. Another counselor lamented that she wished she could have gotten to him sooner so that he could have reached his full potential. He managed to continue his incognito ways although he did slightly peak out of his shell. There he began the long trek to become who he should have always been. The process was a long one but in the end he learned that it's never to late to make an impact. It's never too late to realize your dreams. It's never too late to become the person you want to be. It's never too late no matter what they say. The only one who can hold you back is you. So let yourself go just like he did.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Caught In Your Lie

Okay, This is a fresh one, done tonight. Although it's not about someone close to me it is about someone I have to interact with several days a week. That alone makes it worth getting off my chest since I cannot say it to his/her face at this time. So I got that going for me.

New minted freshly hired from without
Didn’t take long for your colors to show
Given the chance to come clean
Show some character and admit it
Caught in your lie and still you persist
Caught in your lie and still you resist
You’d rather stand on your pedestal
Shout how you’ve been wronged
Any attempt to do the right thing
Burned after you’d crossed that bridge
Caught in your lie and still you persist
Caught in your lie and still you resist
Push the issue and take it as far as you can
Your mock outrage at the front
Until you run up against the final wall
I’m already tired of carrying your dead weight
Caught in your lie and still you persist
Caught in your lie and still you resist
Can’t wait ‘til you’re gone
Can’t wait ‘til this charade is over

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 070

As usual I've waited until very late to try and get this out so I'll make this short and sweet. The first three songs are from Dirtnap records releases, I just got them last week. The last three are from the Megalith records sampler that you can get from their bandcamp page. I've been listening to my old Ska Beat tapes so naturally I've been wanting to put a lot more ska on the podcast. That's a good thing. Anyway, here's the music for this episode.\



High Tension Wires - Incorporeal
Bad Sports - Nothing In This World
Airfix Kits - Leaving
Red Dons - My Life In Exile
The Blame - Little Girls In Hollywood
Cortez The Killer - Brian Jones Haircut
Teenage Cool Kids - Reservoir Feelings
Bomb Town - NJ & NY Posse
Mile 21 - Fool You
Westbound Train - A New Hope

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Ska Beat 11/16/97: The Very First Tape

UPDATE: I had to go to Podomatic to get a media player to work.

  

******I am having difficulty embedding the player from the Internet Archive. Until this is fixed you can go here to stream or download the show.******



A long time ago in a place far, far away a radio show called Ska Beat began. Well, okay, actually it was 1997 and in Huntington, WV to be precise. A little over two years after leaving the U.S. Army I found myself helping out at WMUL, Marshall University’s radio station as a community volunteer. After suggesting non-stop that WMUL needed a ska show due to the genres increasing popularity I was informed on a Friday that I was to be doing the show on the following Sunday at noon and I needced to get my butt in the studio. With an hour or so of training I did indeed make my debut one week before my birthday.  I didn't think to record that show but I did on my birthday, November 16th, 1997. The show ran for almost three years mostly in the Sunday noon to 2PM timeslot before shifting to a Thursday evening 8-10PM shift.

I have chosen to include all of the Public Service Announcements, weather updates, mistakes and whatever else was recorded along with the music. Yeah, I’m that lazy. Be warned, the shows were taped on cassettes and as such may suffer from sitting around for the last seventeen years or so. WMUL had an ongoing issue of a loud hum that would periodically present itself when I was talking but normally it went away while the music was playing. Often I forgot to hit record or to turn the tape over at the midpoint of the show so there will be gaps in those songs as well as some being omitted entirely. I’ve tried to annotate when that happened and if the songs didn’t make it on the tape I leave them off of the playlist.

What you end up with is a snapshot of where I was and what bands I was going to see in the latter part of the 90s. It was a great time to see live music as many ska bands came through the Huntington area on their way to somewhere else. Unfortunately I’ve lost my playlists from so long ago and my memory isn’t what it used to be so there may be a few “unknown artist and song” listings. I’m not going to let that hold me back on posting these shows. Feel free to leave a comment and square me away on anything I’ve messed up or forgotten. Additionally I used to fill in at various times to keep WMUL on the air and I have about five tapes of those shows to go with the twenty odd tapes from Ska Beat. It’s been a blast listening to these tapes and remembering a time in my life that is completely different from where I am now. Hope you enjoy the show because I definitely enjoyed doing it.

Laurel Aitken - Sally Brown (in progress)
Jump With Joey - Jack Lord Ska
The Specials - A Message To You Rudy
Madness - One Step Beyond
The English Beat - Ranking Full Stop
The Toasters - Don't Let The Bastards Grind You Down (stops about a minute in, wrong song played), I'm Running Right Through The World
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Let's Face It
Fishbone - Ugly
Hepcat - Dance Wid Me
Regatta 69 - The Fiasco
The Skoidats - Rootsawalkin'
Reel Big Fish - Sellout
Let's Go Bowling - Grover's Harem
THe Aquabats - The Theme Song
Skankin' Pickle - Rotten Banana Legs
Skavoovie & The Epitones - Bli-Blip
Los Hooligans - Swing Right Rudy (cuts off as tape ends and is switched)
Mento Buru - Try And Try
Isaac Green & The Skalars - Don't Count
Supertones - Supertones Strike Back
The Scofflaws - Ska Groovie
Voodoo Glow Skulls - Los Hombres No Lloran
Shoulderhopper - 67 Beetle
The Pietasters - Factory Concerto
Save Ferris - World Is New
Five Iron Frenzy - Third World Think Tank
Bim Skala Bim - Pete Needs A Friend
Cherry Poppin' Daddies - Don Quixote
Spring Filled Jack - Running Man Looking Through The Mirror)
The Allstonians - Brighton Memories
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - The Impression That I Get (tape cuts off)


Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 069:

Just when you thought I might not get this episode out in time here I am with another helping of ten fantastic songs. I could go on and on about why I chose these songs or give you tons of details about the bands and so forth but I won't. After all, I do want to get this uploaded in time so without further ado, here we go.



Bad Sports - Get You
Generacion Suicida - Mierda Ciudad
The Muffs - Weird Boy Next Door
The Marked Men - Fix My Brain
One Timers - I Don't Know
Dogmatics - Thayer Street
The Three Johns - English White Boy Engineer
Big In Japan - Suicide A Go Go
Belgrado - No Answer
The Skints - Culture Vulture


Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

What's Going On

I haven't been posting a lot this month but it doesn't mean I haven't been busy. One of my new projects has been converting the cassette tapes I have from when I was a community volunteer at WMUL (Marshall University's radio station) where I did a ska and reggae show called Ska Beat (from 1997-1999) to mp3 format. I only have about twenty or so tapes plus a few from when I filled in at other spots but it is time consuming mainly because I have to listen to them to write down the bands and songs. Once upon a time I kept my playlists but now I have no idea where they are or if indeed I still have them. As far as editing I decided to leave everything in, all of the Public Service Announcements, all of the Marshall stuff and even all of the weather announcements. I loathe editing that kind of stuff and besides, it's a testament of where I was and what I was doing at that moment of my life. The only thing I have been editing is the beginning of the recording, when the tape was turned over (not always timely) and at the end. That's pretty much it. I've decided to upload these file to the Internet Archive instead of putting them up through Podomatic as a podcast. That will start as soon as I write a few paragraphs about the history of the show.

Another new project is also music related but in a much different way. I've talked with Tommy and his son Chris about doing a spoken word/music project with them. There is no name for it as of yet but honestly it was something I thought about doing in the mid-nineties when people like Maggie Estep made it seem possible and Henry Rollins was all over the place doing spoken word. Somehow it never happened for me even as a personal, local thing and I buried it away in the back of my mind piled over by a ton of other ideas that I always wanted to start on. I finally realized that if it's going to happen I have to make it happen and since Chris and Tommy's bands are kind of on hiatus it only makes sense to do something creative together. Writing lyrics has been fun and personally rewarding for me but sometimes in my head I hear things differently than in the regular lyrics format so I want to see where this can go. It's going to be a learning process for me so we'll see how it ends up.

I have been writing but most of it has seemed incomplete or partially written to me so I've been reluctant to put much of it online. If it's a first draft and sure to change that's not a problem to me but I don't even feel that most of the new stuff is at that point yet. I need more hours in the day to work on it. Or to have money so that I don't have to work. Yeah, that'd work. It's not gonna happen but it's a nice pipe dream. Writing words for my new project is a very different process. Instead of presenting ideas in a concise manner now I get to indulge myself and get wordy. Problem is most of the time stuff comes to me I'm nowhere close to paper and pen or a recorder or it's not a situation where I can use any of those things. Case in point, while in the stage of half sleep this morning I had music and words come to me but by the time I was awake enough to try and write them down it was all starting to fade. Then the cat jumped in my lap wanting attention and my cellphone started ringing intermittently so I only got some of it down. Hopefully I can look at it later and have something else present itself.

That's about it, everything I've been working on besides doing things with the family and working a fulltime job. It's a lot but as I said earlier, if I want it to happen then I've got to make it happen. I have to start it because nobody else is gonna knock on my door and say they're there to help me do what I want to do. Resistance will always present itself in many forms to block you. Go read Stephen Pressfield and he'll tell you all about it. As for me, I have to get back to work, in one form or another.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

notmovingpictures Episode 026: Don Solo Rants Again

Ah yeah, it's time for another solo episode of me (Don) ranting about what I feel is important or whatever is bothering me at the moment. Before getting to that however I first talk about my newest artistic endeavor, getting the tapes from my old radio show Ska Beat uploaded on archive.org. I don't have a timetable but I have started listening to them to get the artists and songs (lost my old playlists) and get an overview of the quality of the recordings, etc. Here's the deal, about two years after I got out of the Army I became a community volunteer for WMUL, Marshall University's campus radio station where I ended up doing a ska and reggae show for almost three full years. I've got around twenty five tapes that I recorded of my show as well as a few times where I filled in for other time slots and played, ska, punk, indie and so forth music. It's going to take some time to get the tapes converted and listened to but I have started and it will be a look at what I was doing 1997-1999.

After talking about that I started my rant about (the lack of) customer service that I experienced in a four day period from Dell, Talley's and Mom's Family Diner and how one of them differed from the other. Then I gave an update on what happened to getting the medical marijuana initiative on the ballot in the next election. Spoiler alert, it failed but the fight will go on. You can listen below or just go here, whichever you prefer.



Opening Music: Alloy - Live To See The Day
Closing Music: Alton Ellis - Ska Beat

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Older episodes can also be found @ www.archive.org, just search for notmovingpictures.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 068: The Episode From Hell

This episode has been a lesson on perseverance for me. Originally I had planned on using three other bands to start the show and at first everything seemed fine. That is until I tried to assemble all of the parts together. My first audio section suddenly was sped up and I sounded like a chipmunk. I tried changing the order of the songs then tried to eliminate one and bring in another but then the songs started sounding either sped up or slowed down. It was exasperating and finally I said the hell with it and chucked the songs and started over with the ones you see now. If you're asking just what were the original three songs well, that's for me to know. At some point I may try and use them again, you never know, it could just be my laptop or Audacity acting up. Stranger things have been known to happen. Anyway, enough boring tech stuff, the new songs work and sound great. They would have been used soon anyway. Enjoy below or go to http://bit.ly/1ujyZXU



Bad Sports - Can't Just Be Friends
Holly And The Italians - I Wanna Go Home
Back Seat Romeos - Zero Ambitions
Shock Nagasaki - These Are Our Streets Now
Crown Court - Trouble From London
Bleached - For The Feel
Terrible Feelings - Hollow
Nerve Beats - T-2
Mary Monday And The Bitches - Popgun
Poopshovel - One Pass Away

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Something Else New That Doesn't Have A Title

Right after I wrote "move" last week (and I mean literally within seconds) I started this one. As usual it's just a first draft and I haven't touched it since. It's unknown if it will turn out to be something more or if pieces of it make it into something else. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

untitled

Can’t play a guitar
No good to pick up sticks
The only thing I’ve got going
With the pain the words eclipse
We go down the well
Past the rabbit hole
Searching for that piece
Of my soul that was stole
Heard the words you been singing
Reaching into my mind planting seeds
Help me find a way
To get rid of my disease

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

notmovingpictures Episode 025: Vacation Talk



This episode is a bit, well, lengthy. Okay, to be honest it's a conversation mainly about my family vacation. Tommy and I talk about almost everything we did like the daytrips to NYC and Atlantic City, buying vinyl records and talking about trying new things musically. It does get a bit wordy and kind of drags for a bit. I loathe doing a lot of editing to notmovingpictures but believe it or not I did do some. Really I like to pretty much present things as they are, warts and all. With that you have episode 25, you might want to skip this one.

Opening Music: Alloy - Live To See The Day  
Closing Music: The Go-Go's - Vacation
Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Thursday, August 28, 2014

move - New Poem/Lyrics

I'm not a hundred percent satisfied with this most recent piece that came to me on Tuesday but it is what it is. I'll definitely be working on it in the near future. It just feels like it will need something but I can't quite put my finger on it.

                move

don’t like it around here no more
stayed past my welcome
now I feel disconnected
the only thing constant is change
and I’ve got a big one in mind

change my face, change my shape
move out of state, then go further
pull up stakes catch a plane
get the family to rearrange
and then we start to live

a new land’s been calling
better find a way to make it work
words, thoughts and ideas take shape
hindered by self doubt and fear
i just don’t know the language yet

what to do, how to do it
when do I get to live that life

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 067

Some new stuff this week mixed in with some old stuff as well as some obscure stuff. I included Agent Orange because they'll be playing in Tulsa in October. The Dirty Mugs are from Tulsa and they add their twist to punk with an accordion without sounding Celtic at all. It works, trust me.Some songs are from albums that I DIDN'T buy on my vacation but I wrote their names down and looked them up after the fact. Expect more of that in the future, as well as the stuff that I did buy and some Dirtnap Records stuff I ordered if the Post Office ever gets around to delivering it. That's about it this time.



Parquet Courts - Black And White
Future Virgins - Cheap Seats
Short Dogs Grow - I Got It Right
Agent Orange - Everything Turns Grey
The Dirty Mugs - Dance With Me
The Eat - Communist Radio
Homeowners - Lost In The South
Ghost Pains - Kids For Rent
Blooper - Tinted Windows
Disaster Committee - Puppet Show

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Vacation Visit To The Record Store

One of the things to remember about going on a family vacation is that most of the activities will be for the family to do together instead of what only one person wants to do. Please note that you should never force your family to do things that are only your interest because they’ll be bored and if they’re bored they will complain and if they complain that will ruin the good time you are trying to have. You see where I’m going with this, it’s just not worth the hassle of arguing about things when you should be enjoying what you’re doing. For instance, I knew that when we took a day trip to New York City on our recent vacation that unless there just happened to be a music store right across the street from someplace that my wife wanted to go, then it wouldn’t be happening for me. One thing you need to know about me is that I can spend hours in a music or book store drifting from spot to spot as I painstakingly go through the racks and stacks looking for that one gem that will make my face light up.
 

While I knew that I wouldn’t be having that experience (someday, someday) in NYC, that knowledge was softened somewhat when I found two shops in Easton, Pa where we were visiting along with a trip to a flea market. On our second day In Easton I spotted Sackers located at 60 Center Square which is a strange address since Sackers is right by the traffic circle. It’s a comic book/music/pawn/collectibles store contained in a very large space. Unfortunately there is a ton of stuff there and most of it is piled over and the owner even admitted that he didn’t know for sure everything that he had. The comics were the main draw for me here as the records were pretty standard fair. It was just a lot of music that was popular years ago but not much that was rare or unusual, stuff that could be found pretty much anywhere. Still, I had a good time walking around looking at things.

Later, I found out that roughly one block away there was an actual record store called Used Grooves at 401 Northampton St. Unfortunately, it was closed by the time I was able to walk by. Still, just being armed with the knowledge that it was there was enough to have me salivating at the bit for a chance to go in and peruse their stock. As luck would have it, or more accurately not have it, I wasn’t able to visit it for at least five days due to other plans. There just never seemed to be a time for me to get away on my own so that I could satisfy my own selfish desires. That sounds kind of lewd, doesn’t it? With some patience sprinkled with some artfully crafted hints to my wife like “I really want to go to that record store” eventually my time came. The skies opened and my prayers were heard as we had a break in our schedule, an open day to relax and my wife and mother-in-law dropped me off, probably so they wouldn’t be forced to listen to me whine about it anymore.

The only caveat however was that my son wanted to go with me. If you want to spend time without looking at a clock I would advise you not to bring a seven year old along for the ride. Their attention span is short at best however I couldn’t deny him. He just loves tagging along with his old man, hanging out and eventually I think these kinds of events will help open him up to more in life and he’ll become a well developed young man. So there we were, we walked in and I was greeted by row after row of vinyl records. I didn’t know where to begin so I just drifted over to the rock-various artists section and slowly flipped through what was available. Pretty fast I found two compilations, one featuring American punk and rock bands and the other U.K. bands. It was all music right up my alley and I gleefully clutched them to my chest.

Right about this time the questions started. Not the “Can I help you with anything” but the “When are we leaving” kind of questions. The (not-so) little guy had exhausted his patience already and wanted to move on to greener pastures. I however did not share that opinion and was far from ready. I knew then that I wouldn't be able to spend the amount of time that I wanted and that a deal needed to be brokered so that I could stall him just a little longer. With promises from me that we were only going to stay “just a little longer” he seemed to accept his fate, temporarily at least. As I moved towards the front of the store I saw a rather small section that said Punk/Hardcore and knew that I'd found my spot. Quickly I started flipping through the bin as I looked at vinyl with some band names that I knew (alright not a lot) and even more that I didn't know. This is far from a setback however, it's just what I like, the chance to find some new to me music. It's even better if they are local to regional bands that never released a great deal of albums. There's a different kind of joy when you unearth some really cool music that for whatever reason never made it big.

After I made my way completely through the bin I had more albums than I knew my wife would be cool with me bringing home. With virtually no previous knowledge about these bands I had to make some hard decisions and fast. Besides, my son was starting to grumble again. That's when the saleslady came to my aid. She showed my son that there were records for children right below the bin that I was looking in. It only took a few seconds for him to locate a Batman book and record set that cost more (a paltry $10) than any one record that I was looking at. As he excitedly looked up at me (something that will only happen for a few more years, the kid is huge I tell you) and asked if he could have it there was only one answer I could give. Of course he could have it. What kind of selfish jerk would I be if I denied him while I was indulging myself? Besides, I want to bring him up right, with a love of the vinyl. Now we just need to work on his patience. Yeah I know that only helps me also get to spend time on the things that I like but hey, at least it's something we can enjoy together and that's always a fathers job. Bring them up right and they'll remember days like this forever.

By the way, we also went to a flea market in nearby Quakerstown where I was able to find and buy the only punk record there. Not only that but I also haggled down the price an extra dollar. How's that for patience and persistence? If only I had more money to spend, I'd end up broke.


Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Lonely Man

This is something I started last Sunday and after a few days I had the time to look over it. I decided to change nothing for now. Perhaps in the future it may evolve but for now it is what it is. By the way, I was thinking of the song "Every Man For Himself" by Articles Of Faith.

A lonely man
A solitary one
Driven by fear
Pain and suffering
Hard lessons learned
Confusion abounds
Reluctant to change
Separate by choice
Suspicious of motive
Of strangers needs
Cynical and twisted
It comes down to
Controlling life's greed

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 066: It All Starts With The

This episode is a look back in time at an era when music was drastically changing. People wanted something different and music started evolving. None of these bands had a major impact in the U.S. although they should have. They did however have an influence on a ton of other artists. The U.K. bands were far more successful however none of them lasted. It's almost as if they were put here for a purpose and then once that was accomplished they moved on to different groups, different endeavors in life. I know I'm romanticizing it but what else have I got to do? Oh yeah, and all of the band names this episode start with "The."



The Weirdos - We Got The Neutron Bomb
The Zeros - Don't Push Me Around
The Bags - Survive
The Jam - Down In The Tube Station At Midnight
The Ruts - In A Rut
The Undertones - Jimmy Jimmy
The Circles - Billy
The Plugz - La Bamba
The Dils - I Hate The Rich
The Nuns - You Think You're The Best

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

A Day At The Beach

Contrary to published reports a great white shark did not beach itself in Atlantic City on August 6th. That was just me taking my shirt off to go swimming. Seriously, I don't tan so much as I burn. I'm a mutt who has German, British, Irish, Scottish and even a little bit of American Indian blood in his ancestry but it's the U.K. parts that come to the fore in my physical appearance. I'm pale, hairy and covered in freckles so you can understand why I tend to stay out of the sun. Getting sunburned is never a pleasant experience but on this occasion it was definitely worth it. Besides, the weather was quite nice and there was lots of cloud cover so it turned out to be rather minor which was a pleasant surprise.

Now I can say I get it. I understand the allure of the beach for those that live or grew up near one. Now I'm talking about a real beach here, not one like I've written about going to before with the family that was created at a lake near here. I'm talking about a proper beach at the ocean. My wife is one of those people, she is from Lima, Peru which has a lot of beaches close by. She's told me stories of walking thirty to forty minutes to get to the beach with her brother and cousins when she was young. I never really understood what would draw you to walk that far, to be in the heat, to get sunburned (okay they didn't get burned), to put up with crowds and bugs and everything else that goes with it. Until now that is.


While on vacation visiting my mother-in-law (amongst other relatives) we took a day trip to go to the beach in Atlantic City. I thought it would be nice for my wife since she hasn't been to a beach to swim since she came to the United States over eleven years ago. That's saying something since like I said, she grew up living very near the beach and used to go all the time, especially when she was young. My own experiences with, as I refer to it, a real beach, were confined to a vacation in North Carolina when I was about ten or eleven years old and one in Spain where I was on leave for a week while I was stationed in Germany in the U.S. Army. For the former I was an undersized, scrawny, easily sunburned (yeah I know I'm beating this point to death) and massively insecure kid and for the latter it was winter and the water was freezing cold so I didn't get to swim. In other words, my exposure to the beach was very limited at best.

We met up with a friend of my mother-in-laws who was in from Peru visiting her sons that live in Atlantic City and once together we set off for the beach. I thought I'd swim for about twenty to thirty minutes, get out and cover up while relaxing before getting back in the water for a bit with my shirt on and my bald head covered. That didn't happen. Instead, something wonderful occurred. As I said, the weather was great, lots of clouds, not a lot of the sun beating down on us. After I got in the water and waded out to chest level I really began to enjoy connecting with the water, determining whether to dive under individual waves or float over them. My son was learning to boogie board and he was having a blast. Later he started following my lead as I taught him everything I had just learned. My wife was also enjoying her time in the ocean water once again. We were getting used to the strong pull of the water as in came in and out, from different angles, over and over and over.


Basically I felt the connection to nature. As much joy as I saw on my son's face as the wave caught him on his board and propelled him forward I know it was showing just as much on my face as I went further out and stopped attempting to battle the waves and instead tried to move with them. Now I understood why people want to live so close to the beach, why they want to spend a lot of time there, why they enjoy learning to boogie board or surf. It's a natural thing to want to spend your time and do things there. Now I get it. The joy I felt was worth the fatigue that came from resisting the tide, it was worth getting bitten by flies, worth the fearful shame I had of people seeing my pale, overweight body without a t-shirt on and absolutely, positively worth the sunburn. Nor did I care that I smelled of the ocean when we went to go eat afterwards. None of that mattered because I felt my family and myself  bond with the sea.

If you think I'm being melodramatic for the sake of the story well, you are wrong. If you don't believe me I don't care, you weren't there. I was. I simply advise you to get yourself to a beach and find out for yourself. Make up your own mind with real life experience. With any luck you'll have a similar experience to mine, something to remember and share with your family. Now I want more, I just have to find a way to make it happen more frequently, something not easy in a landlocked state like Oklahoma. It's doable though, now that I get it.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Monday, August 11, 2014

notmovingpictures Episode 024: Thoughts After The Supersuckers and The Dirty Mugs Show

This is a short solo episode that was recorded on my ride home after watching The Supersuckers and The Dirty Mugs on July 22nd at The Shrine in Tulsa. Once again, the audio in episodes recorded while I am driving suffers greatly due to the noise of the truck, the recorder moving around and so forth. I talk about the small crowd (hey, it was a Tuesday night show in Tulsa), the lyrics/poem that I wrote before the bands came on and I close with a gripe and a stolen bit from Doug Loves Movies. Oh yeah, I also forget at the end to say over and over and over and over......and over. You should be able to tell but if not, it's about the selfies.



Opening Music: Alloy - Live To See The Day 
More Opening Music: The Supersuckers - Creepy Jackalope Eye
Closing Music: The Dirty Mugs - Dance With Me

Email: notmovingpictures@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Older episodes can also be found @ www.archive.org, just search for notmovingpictures.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Visiting With My Father

One activity I forgot to mention the other day about the things I've done on my vacation was that I had a chance to go see my father, or more accurately, his grave. My father passed on in 1999 and his latest wife (he's been married at least seven times that I know of, I've written about this before) didn't want my aunt and my dad's twin sister to let his children know. You see he had married her after leaving my Mom and then all those years later he had returned and married her again. Anyway, she didn't want his original firstborn children to know anything about his passing on I suppose so that we wouldn't show up at his funeral and spoil the little myth that they had built up about their marriage and life together for all of the people that thought they knew him.


Anyway, I'm getting far too off track here. Since the Ft. Indiantown Gap National Graveyard is right off of the highway that takes you to Hershey, Pa we decided to stop by on our way back home, after we had all of our fun. When they do a burial there you do not get to see them put the casket in the ground. They have a spot where the do the whole military ceremony thing with the folding of the flag and the twenty-one gun salute and then you go on your way. So the first and only time I had been there I never actually knew where he was to be buried. I was able to look up the information online and it didn't take very long to find his grave.

Once the grave was found my wife, son, mother -in-law and her husband stood there for a few minutes and then they gave me some personal time to do whatever I wanted. I'm not sure I believe that a persons ghost or soul or a piece of it or whatever lingers on at their gravesite. I think it can for the place they died, especially if it was a violent demise but I'm not convinced about their final resting place. Still, there were some things I never got the chance to say to my father face to face that I needed to get off of my chest.

I won't get into the details but I was the one who stayed with him from the middle of my junior year of high school until I dropped out of college, I had his back in a manner of thinking. Then he treated me worse than everybody else and it took some time to forgive him but because of the situation there was no closure over what he had done. I forgave but didn't forget which was the sensible thing to do when dealing with him. Now I finally had a chance to get some things off of my chest in the only way that remained. It probably worked out better this way, at least now I didn't have to hear any lies.

It only took about two minutes and I was done, with as much closure as I'll ever possibly be able to have. That's the way it goes, I can't change any thing that happened so I just have to deal with it. Life goes on and hopefully lessons are learned and not repeated. Hopefully.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.


Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Ten For Tuesday Episode 065: From The Pages Of Razorcake

This episode comes directly from the pages of Razorcake magazine #80. Every artist was featured in the magazine or at least were in an ad. Razorcake is a really great punk magazine that comes out every two months. It's not expensive at all so you should do yourself a favor and check them out. Lot's of great stuff there. Besides, they also do podcasts, are a record label, a book publisher and more. I'm sure I'll be getting a lot more music from them in the future.



The Marked Men - Right Here With You
The Joliettes - Quicksand
New Creases - Covered Bridges
Million Dollar Marxists - Parasite
Mind Spiders - Worlds Destroy
Dott - Leave Tonight
White Murder - Harold's Place
Nervosas - Window
Crusades - Beacons
Sedatives - Backlash

Ten For Tuesday is a podcast dedicated to playing the music I couldn't find anywhere else. The music I like varies from style to style, genre to genre and era to era. You will hear punk, ska, rock, Americana, metal, country, rockabilly and more from all over the world. It doesn't matter if it's a major label or indie as long as I like it then it gets played. The motto is Less Talk More Music which means you won't hear me waxing poetic for fifteen minutes between songs. At TFT its all about the music...and me of course.

Email: tenfortuesday@gmail.com Twitter: @notmovingpics
Blog: www.notmovingpictures.blogspot.com

Old Episodes can be found by going to www.archive.org and searching for Ten For Tuesday

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Monday, August 4, 2014

Vacation Thoughts So Far

I've been away on vacation and haven't had any time to write anything until now. So far things have been, well, different. We are spending two weeks with my mother-in-law and her husband, sort of. The original plan as it was explained to me was that since her mother's apartment was too small for all of us we would simply rent the downstairs apartment from them which is unoccupied. Where she lives in Pennsylvania there are a lot of houses that have been turned into apartments. Most of them are halved and then there are upstairs and downstairs apartments on both sides. That way a two-story house now generates more rent money and it's easier to rent out apartments than it is a full house.

As I said, their plan was for us to rent the downstairs apartment for two weeks. Then we would sleep on air mattresses and do everything else in the upstairs apartment. Only, the landlord wasn't willing to do this. No landlord approval means there is a major problem in this plan. Luckily a friend of my mother-in-law lives about a block and a half away. She graciously has allowed us to take over her living room and sleep on the aforementioned air mattresses. Even more luckily she has a daughter just a little older than my son and they have become fast friends. Not so luckily it is hot in the apartment and there is a neighbor who has a penchant for blasting music all hours of the day and night. Nothing is perfect in life and I just try and accept things for how they are.

What makes it easier is the knowledge that we cannot afford a hotel room for two weeks. Still, it will be nice when I get back to my routine and don't have to worry about intruding in the lives of another family. So what have we been doing with our time? We went to the Crayola Experience which our son loves. In fact, he loves it so much that we got annual memberships and in less than a week we've been there three times. We've been to a Peruvian restaurant where we met an unbelievable number of Peruvians that my wife knew in the brief time she lived here. We went to a Lebanese festival and watched some of their cultural dancing. There's been a visit to a comic book/record store, swimming at the Y as well as visiting family members.

Friday was a day trip to New York City. Now, you have to know that my wife and I differ greatly on vacations. If it were just me visiting I would have eschewed the touristic sites and gone into Brooklyn to find record stores to cater to punk, ska, metal and other indie music. I'd find a hot dog cart and later a pizza place. Then my visit would be a success. I'd also go to Red Bank, NJ and visit Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash (Kevin Smith's comic book store). But this isn't my visit, it's my family's visit and that means my uber-tourist wife gets things done her way.

First was the Statue of Liberty where we faced long cattle like lines, overpriced food and hot weather. Next was a drawing in the park that looked nothing like my son. A short subway ride later we exited and walked a few blocks and were in Times Square. Times Square was populated by teeming masses of idiots who walked as if they were the only people around. They texted and drifted along halting and stopping at odd intervals, cutting across or just plain stopping to gawk or take photos. I include my wife in these goings on. As I said, she is the uber-tourist and she lives for taking pictures of mundane things like getting on the escalator at Toys R Us (we've got one back home but it's only one floor). I have to admit I bumped and then shoved my way through a few knots of tourists just to keep up with my family and I'm not ashamed about it.

One thing that has been made apparent is that I couldn't live in NYC without the hate coming out. I'd find myself becoming very dark, cursing out people and getting into fights. Let me rephrase that, all of that would be true if I had to exist in the tourist areas of New York City. If I could be in normal areas I'd probably have no problems. As we were making our way to the Port Authority to catch our bus home I was insulted by a stereotypically rude New Yorker for no reason and yeah, my first retort was to simply curse him out and advise him to keep walking. A few minutes late of course I was able to compose the perfect rebuttal insult that would have left him grasping for thoughts but by then it was too late. I don't know, maybe that's his thing, being the rude local to all the yokels. Good luck with that life and all the anger you invoke.

We've been to Cabelas, an outdoors type of gigantic store where I got some cool shorts (no you can't get a picture of me in them). Today we went to Hershey's Chocolate World in Hershey, Pa. It's the one place where my son didn't mind my wife making him pose for pictures. Here's a tip for you though, don't put the chocolate that you just spent a lot of money on in the trunk of the car. I already knew this but was over-ruled. Now everybody knows after it was all turned into more of a liquid than a solid. We've got even more things on the horizon. A day trip to the beach, more family visiting, a trip to the laundromat and another record store that I've found here in Easton. There'll be more though, we're not quite halfway through our visit yet. I see my feet hurting more and my wife making me pose for more pictures with things I don't care about. The things I do for love.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Monday, July 28, 2014

New Lyrics Written At The Supersuckers & Dirty Mugs Show

Last week while I waited for The Supersuckers and The Dirty Mugs show at The Shrine to start I got an idea and started writing it down on the envelope my ticket was mailed to me in. It was the only paper that I had on me at the time. Unlike the Alejandro Escovedo show, this time I made sure that my new lyrics/poem were not lost. Below is the scan of said new lyrics in all their roughness:



 

After I took a look at them I made a pass at the top page and it changed a bit. Some of the stuff on the backside was not connected and came out later so I'll hang onto those scraps, you never know when they'll come in handy. Below you'll see the finished (for now) product.
 
working man

present me with questions
none of which I like
pronounce the company motto
invoked with a straight face
I know that your way or the highway
doesn’t coincide with my way
you like my results but
say my methods gotta change
haven’t you ever heard
don’t fix what ain’t broken
just another example of dumbing
it down to the lowest common denominator
everybody is on even footing around here
no child’s been left behind
appearances are all that matter
what if I don’t want my participation trophy?
 
Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.