The things that work on my mind I find fascinating at times. I saw the Others a couple of days ago. It was an alright movie, a mental scare which I prefer, but it didn’t get to me like the Sixth Sense did, for example. I’m afraid of the dark in the first place and I find our house a little creepy anyway, so after seeing the Sixth Sense I had trouble navigating the house alone late at night. Forcing myself not to rush through the hallways and things like that, always expecting to hear the brush of someone passing behind me who wasn’t supposed to be there. I sort of assumed I’d have the same thing after having seen the Others but it never occurred. But then a day later I was reading Everything You Know Is Wrong, in particular the article on Columbine and the alleged third shooter and then the article on how much information was available before 9/11 as to what was coming down. It was about 2 am when I was reading and I decided to go to sleep. Making my way down the hallway I had the same paranoia I had expected to have the night before. I suppose the scary movie we live in is a lot better at leaving me with lingering irrational paranoia.
Onto the completely unrelated…
Monday I got an invitation to play International Pop Overthrow out in LA again this year. Anyone who’s been reading this for a while will know that is a little unexpected to me. Not just because of how I thought they felt about last year but also because I got a major brush off months ago when I asked about doing the New York IPO. But nevertheless, here we are and they want me back. Which is great and helps to file all the rest away as a combination of my neuroses and the fact that they can be a little goofy and scattered at times which can come across as indifference. SO. All that said, I did something that a lot of people may consider foolish.
I told him no.
With apologies to the natives, I can’t afford to travel out to LA. I enjoy playing the festival and I enjoy visiting the people I know there. But I also know that the festival so far hasn’t done much at all for me in the way of adding fans. I have done more to win over the pop crowd just by getting reviews and the talk last year on mailing lists when “Jeff Lynne” started floating around the internet. I did sell CDs last time, unlike my first trip out, and it’d be nice to see how well Camera Obscura would do out there since it wasn’t out last year. But the amount of money it will take to get myself and the band out to LA to play a 20 minute set for free is just too much. Aside from which, there are two other IPO festivals during the year, both of which are on my side of the country, for god’s sake. Why he keeps booking me to go to the furthest one from me is beyond me.
I emailed him back and explained, in less detail, that I just couldn’t afford the trip. I asked him if he could put me in the Chicago or New York show that it would be much easier for me, that I could make that trip pretty easily. He wrote back yesterday to say he understood and that he’d get back to me about New York, which happens late in the year (Chicago is pretty much already booked, it takes place next month). Hopefully he will.