Marsha Roberts's Blog: Anything That Suits My Fancy Blog!, page 2

New Release! The Mutinous Boomer Audiobook!

NEW Audiobook Release! I’m thrilled to report that my Mutinous Boomer book can now be downloaded and listened to! The grand and glorious actress, Della Cole, who starred in our production of “Letters from the Front” for many years, is the narrator. My book has been graciously described as “5* Soul Candy!” Della makes each morsel delightful! In the coming days I’ll be blogging about our long association and how this audiobook came about. But, for now, I just wanted to share the excitement of having my book sound so very beautiful and would love to hear your thoughts on it.

Now on Amazon, Audible and iTunes – just in time for summer travel! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007H0RS60

Marsha – The Mutinous Boomer!

Confessions of an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer and her Parable of the Tomato Plant

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Published on May 27, 2014 15:46

Authors Supporting Our Troops comes to a (technical) end #ASOT2014

Originally posted on Armand Rosamilia:

Today is Thursday May 15th 2014, the cutoff date for the Authors Supporting Our Troops event started in mid-January. I had to set this date because, while the four months going have been awesome and the support overwhelming, it was beginning to overwhelm not only me but Special Gal and two rooms of the house.

$A fraction of this year's book donations.$

When I began this venture (thanks to author Joe McKinney, who did a smaller version last year), I was hoping for 500 books to ship overseas. I got about five times that amount, and every day brought another box of books and more excitement as I opened the box, cataloged and photographed and posted the books on Facebook.

It also let me see how very cool and generous people could be as well. Authors and non-authors alike donated money to help with the shipping costs, many people purchased special shirts we made for the event…

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Published on May 16, 2014 07:19

Mother’s Day Perfect Gift $.99 Kindle Sale!

A Bestseller in Amazon’s “Happiness” Category, Confessions of an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer and her Parable of the Tomato Plant was written by a woman (me!) and for women. The perfect Mother’s Day gift or to just treat yourself! Although I’ve been thrilled by the response I’ve received from my readers who are men, my Mutinous Boomer book has a decidedly female outlook and voice. To celebrate Mother’s Day, you can find out for yourself why it’s been called “5* Soul Candy!” ~ “Funny, touching and inspirational” ~ “A Charming and Uplifting Read!”

Have a wonderful weekend and remember Mutinous Boomer Rule #1: Be Happy!

Marsha

Visit me on my website: http://www.mutinousbabyboomer.com/

Get the Deal on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007H0RS60

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Published on May 09, 2014 11:55

HAPPY MOM’S DAY TO ALL YOU INDIE MOM AUTHORS!

Originally posted on RectorWriter:

THIS DAY IS FOR YOU INDIE MOM AUTHORS! SALUTE!

So many of our great indie writers are not only women, they’re moms too. We want to celebrate the enormous impact they’ve made in so many lives, in the great books they have written, and more importantly in our families.

If your an indie mom author and would like to participate in this celebration, please send pictures of yourself and your book cover (can be a promo picture like below if you prefer), a brief description – please, no more than 50 words – along with a link to your Amazon sell page (or whatever link you prefer), to rectorwriter@aol.com. I’ll do my best to get them all displayed, but if I can’t, it won’t be for lack of effort. So please cut me as much slack as you can, ladies.

My first shout-out goes to the mom/author that’s most important…

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Published on May 09, 2014 07:52

ASMSG Blog Hop ~ Interview with Author Dianne Harman

I’m taking a brief intermission from my “Angels, Miracles and Dogs” blog to welcome you to the ASMSG Electorate Blog Hop and RAFFLECOPTER GIVEAWAY!

ASMSG is a dynamic group of authors from all genres who have come together to help get the word out about their books: new releases, bestsellers, books in a series and individual gems – they’re all here! Over the next few weeks, a selection of authors are swapping interviews in their blogs and I’m very happy to be part of this team of dedicated writers.

Check out the dates and blogs at the end of this interview. You wouldn’t want to miss any of the insights shared by these fascinating writers. Please take a moment to share and tweet and comment and whatever else you are inclined to do to pass along the news of this unique Blog Hop!

Plus – don’t forget to enter the RAFFLECOPTER with free e-books available to the lucky winner! Lot’s of great books are in the prize package!

It is my pleasure to interview a very special author: Dianne Harman:

First off, I have to say that Dianne is one of the few people I’ve met online that I consider to be a friend. We initially virtually “met” through the Goodreads Boomer Lit Group and then I began to notice that everywhere I went online, there was Dianne! Active in all areas of social media, a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post and a prolific blogger – all the while continuing to turn out novel after novel – I HAD to meet this woman! And I’m so very glad I did. She’s a delight!

Dianne’s personal and professional background includes a wide range of experience, which gives her a great deal to draw from as she formulates her stories and characters. She owned a national antique and art appraisal business for many years, leaving that industry and opening two yoga centers, where she taught yoga and certified yoga instructors. Dianne has traveled extensively throughout the world, most recently dividing her time between Huntington Beach and Sacramento, California, with her husband, a former Senator.

Dianne has published two best selling novels in her Coyote Series: the award winning Blue Coyote Motel, a psychological thriller, and Coyote in Provence, a cozy mystery with lots of food, wine, and fine art! Her political novels, Tea Party Teddy and Tea Party Teddy’s Legacy, feature a multicultural romance set (very convincingly!) in the California political scene. I’ll get Dianne to share some thoughts on her terrific novels, the writing process and more! Now, for the interview:

MR: Dianne, you’ve had such a diverse professional background, how did you end up being a writer?

DH: It’s something I’d always wanted to do, but I never thought I had the necessary “credentials” to do it. Someone gave me a copy of Stephen King’s book, On Writing, and he more or less says, Just Do It, and I did!

MR: At what point did you go from writing to thinking of yourself as an author? And was this a significant transition for you?

DH: It was probably after I’d published two books. I realized that writing had become extremely important to me. You know the old question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” Well, one day I decided that’s what I wanted to do!

MR: The first book I read of yours, was your first, I believe: Blue Coyote Motel. Where did you get the idea for the feel-good-anti-aging formula, coupled with travelers who found themselves in such a dilemma in a motel in the middle of nowhere?

DH: It was a very strange thing. My husband and I were guests at a boutique motel in Palm Springs, California, for a wedding. Our son was the best man. The bride was the daughter of an international children’s surgeon and guests had come from all over the world. It was in October and 106 degrees out. We welcomed the air-conditioning. I remember turning to my husband and saying, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if someone put a ‘feel-good’ drug in the air-conditioning and everyone felt good all the time?” I started writing the book on my iPad that afternoon. That night I sat next to a priest who wore a huge cross. He went in the book. At the wedding dinner, I was seated next to a couple who had gold mines in Brazil. They went in the book. And I kept meeting the rest of the characters!

MR: Great story, and it does make it seem like it was “meant” to happen! Continuing with the Coyote Series, I’m a big fan of Coyote in Provence.

MR: You captured the beauty of that area of France while giving the reader an extremely enjoyable mystery. I was particularly fascinated by how you brought us into the world of fine art, especially since you owned an art appraisal business for years. How much of your past experiences have you interwoven into your books?

DH: I own the Alfred Mitchell painting that’s in the book and I’ve spent time in Provence in the small village. So certainly, some of my experiences – like how the wine is put in jugs (fascinated me) – are in there, but it is a work of fiction. And I love to cook so food is a big part of that book.

MR: Oh, I love knowing that you actually have that Alfred Mitchell painting! Lovely piece of trivia! Speaking of writing about what you’ve experienced personally, I recall that your first political novel, Tea Party Teddy, stirred up a bit of controversy, especially in California. Could you tell us a little about that?

DH: I knew when I wrote it was going to be controversial and it was. I got a couple of bad reviews from “staffers” in Sacramento who worked for people similar to the ones portrayed in the book. While it is a work of fiction, almost everything that took place has happened or is happening (currently one Senator has been indicted and another one just found guilty – and I’m talking about the last couple of weeks).

MR: What impact did all of the hullabaloo have on your second “Teddy” book?

DH: There are some very fine, honorable, honest politicians. I wanted to portray that side of politics as well.

MR: You’ve published four novels so far and in the process have created dozens of characters. Who is your favorite and why?

DH: My favorite character is a private investigator, Slade Kelly, and judging from the comments I receive, I’m not the only one who has fallen in love with the incorrigible investigator. I probably like him so much because he is just so very human, not unlike each of us!

MR: What has been the most rewarding experience to come out of your writing?

DH: It happened last week. We were at a reception and several people had read my books and commented favorably on them. The man the reception was being given for introduced me as the “distinguished writer of best sellers!” Wow!

MR: In the process of writing and publishing your books, what’s the smartest thing you did?

DH: Hire someone to do the art work and the formatting.

MR: And what mistake did you make along the way that you would advise any writer to avoid at all costs?

DH: Thinking I could format a book!

MR: You often blog about the entire process of publishing a book, from writing to marketing and obviously keep up to date on the indie-pub world. How do you feel about where things currently stand for independent authors?

DH: I think this is just the beginning. Our children and grandchildren have grown up with tablets and twitter. Everything is electronic for these generations. I see eBooks continue to rise. My granddaughter comes over and wants to know what books I have on my iPad for her. She’s never asked what books I have in the bookcases!

MR: Where do you see the industry going? And perhaps I should also ask, where would you like to see it go?

DH: There will always be people who like the feel of a print book between their hands. My son and daughter-in-law are voracious readers, but they prefer print to eBooks. There’s room for both. So saying, I sell 8 to 10 times more eBooks than print, so I do think that’s the future of the industry.

I haven’t talked about genres, and yes, we did meet on a Boomer group, there’s not that many of them. I have maintained for some time that the boomer lit genre is ripe for the picking. There are 75 to 78 million boomers in the US alone and from what I’ve researched, very little literature that deals with that group. One day a couple of years ago I was searching on the internet for books for boomers. A handful. That’s still on my bucket list – to write books in that genre. I have one that needs some editing, but after my next book is published, the third in the Coyote series, I intend to polish the boomer book and publish it!

MR: Is writing your career path from here on out? Do you see yourself always being an author?

DH: Yes.

MR: Any closing thoughts?

DH: Thanks so much for having me. And for those of you who have not read Marsha’s wonderful book, Confessions of an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer and her Parable of the Tomato Plant, order it now!

MR: How typically kind of you, Dianne. It has been a delightful experience to get to know you a little better and to share you and your books with the readers here.

Further information about Dianne and her books can be found at:

Amazon: http://ow.ly/s6pN5

Smashwords: http://ow.ly/u4Fb2

Web Site http://http://www.DianneHarman.com

Blog: http://dianneharman.com/blog/

Now in the days to come, hop on over to the other author blogs and get to know some of the most dynamic new writers of our time. Here’s the schedule:

March 18, 2014

Kirstin Stein Pulioff http://www.kirstinpulioff.com

Ceri London http://cerilondon.wordpress.com/

March 19

Stefania Mattana http://dailypinner.eraniapinnera.com

March 20

Maer Wilson http://maerwilson.com/

March 21

Sandra Robinson http://missscarlettflame.blogspot.co.uk/

Luca Rossi http://www.lucarossi369.com/search/label/EN

March 22

Melodie Ramone http://revenge-of-the-ginger.blogspot.com/

Anna George Othitis http://annaothitis.tateauthor.com

March 23

Khalid Muhammad http://agencyrules.com

Su Williams http://dreamweavernovels.blogspot.com/

March 24

Christoph Fischer http://writerchristophfischer.wordpress.com/

http://www.christophfischerbooks.com/

March 25

Hunter S Jones http://www.thehuntersjones.blogspot.com

Lillian Roberts http://lilianroberts.blogspot.com

March 26

Murielle Cyr http://www.muriellerites.wordpress.com

March 27

Ian Hutson http://www.dieselelectricelephant.co.uk/

Jinx Schwartz http://bit.ly/PSAAxI

March 28

Dianne Harman http://dianneharman.com/blog/

Shane KP O’Neill http://www.draculachronicles.co.uk/

March 29

Tina Power Traverse http://writersonthewharf.wordpress.com/

Ann Rothchild http://christinamandara.wordpress.com/

DON’T FORGET TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!

VERY COOL BATCH OF BOOKS:

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/d496871

Thank you so much for joining us on our ASMSG Author Blog Hop! We hope you enjoy each and every one of the interviews. And I, your favorite Mutinous Boomer, WILL be blogging soon about Angels, Miracles and (of course!) Dogs! Because there’s a good reason that DOG is GOD spelled backwards!

Marsha

Marsha Roberts, Author

Confessions of an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer and her Parable of the Tomato Plant

http://www.mutinousbabyboomer.com/

View more on Marsha Roberts's website »

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Published on March 19, 2014 15:16

There’s a Reason that Dog is God Spelled Backwards!

I’d love to be a dog for just one day, living in our house, being taken care of by me and my family. Now that’s the life! I’d have the best seat in the house, get my tummy rubbed whenever I wanted and could stretch my legs out and find the most comfortable position in the universe to sleep in. But most important, I’d be able to answer the nagging question: what are dogs thinking about? I mean, how do they know so many things?

How does a dog know that when you’re packing your suitcase it means you’ll be leaving him for a while?

How did my dachshund Zack know when I had a migraine? It was the only time he was allowed on our bed and he would lay at my feet, occasionally carefully easing his way up towards my face to check on me, like a gentle nurse. Such a comfort.

What was Shadow thinking when a hummingbird zipped into our patio and hovered right in front of him? How did he know to be still and quiet? He was in wonderment as much as I was. A mystery.

What do dogs have to do with me as a writer? Everything. My dogs have been with me like great friends through good times and bad. They lay at my feet while I write and do silly things to make me laugh so I don’t take myself too seriously. I can’t imagine life without dogs, which brings me to my point: there’s a reason that dog is God spelled backwards. They are always there for me, loving me unconditionally and I don’t have to do anything to win their approval.

So many examples I could give, but I’ll start with how I came to write my first book. The incident that became my first “parable” was about a tomato plant (of all things!). I was in my garden breaking up some seriously hard ground. My dogs Smokey and Shadow thought this was very entertaining. Mom had finally revealed the dog within, on hands and knees, burrowing into the ground. Smokey, my floppy-eared German Shepherd mix, was satisfied to lay in the shade and watch (after carefully positioning himself where he could guard the perimeter!). But Shadow was not to be left out of this blissful endeavor. Our shaggy little version of a black lab exercised his rights as the perpetual puppy and with his goofy grin, happily joined in the digging.

After I had my unexpected moment with the tomato plants, my dog parade followed me back inside, always my buddies. They both snuggled close to me on the sofa as I wrote about what I had just experienced. Who knows? Perhaps their sweet innocence was part of the inspiration that was to come. Part of the magic. I like to think so.

When I wrote “The Parable of the Tomato Plant” I had no idea it would be the beginning of a book. It was written more like an entry in a diary, then I slipped it into a rarely used drawer and forgot about it. Several years later I found myself as lost as I had ever been. Like so many other people, we had been hit hard by the economy, and I was feeling pretty beat-up by life. Looking for something else entirely, I opened the small drawer and found those few pages tucked away, waiting for me. When I read the “parable” I cried, smiled at the ironies of life and felt more hopeful. My dogs breathed a sigh of relief as my mood lifted. Embedded in what I had written was a clue as to how to get my life back again.

Holding those hand-written pages I realized that it was a bit of a miracle that I had found the clue on that particular day, when I needed it the most. I wondered how many other clues were hidden away, tidbits of encouragement laying dormant. Over the coming months I would discover many other clues in the daily miracles of life. Valuable information previously unseen was there for me to uncover, like so much buried treasure. Signposts pointing the way.

And that’s how “Confessions of an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer and her Parable of the Tomato Plant” began. When I came to the conclusion that I had a book inside of me that needed to be written, my dogs looked up at me with anticipation. With their keen doggie-sixth-sense, they knew something was afoot!

Albert Einstein said, “There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” My book is about what happens when I chose the latter: real life collided with real miracles!

I would love to hear your thoughts on miracles and dogs and anything else that comes to mind. Feel free to leave a comment here or connect with me through my website or social media links. Have a wonderful day full of miracles and, of course, dogs!

Marsha

Marsha Roberts, Author

Confessions of the Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer and her Parable of the Tomato Plant

http://www.mutinousbabyboomer.com/

Confessions of an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer and her Parable of the Tomato Plant

View more on Marsha Roberts's website »

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Published on October 17, 2013 16:19

The Long and Winding Road – For Real! Part 2

Continuing from last week, we’ll pick back up The Now Explosion Rock ‘n Roll Miracle Story when Bob had just been given the 45 RPM record of The Long and Winding Road after he had said, “I’ll do it for free.” Genii Macaulay had responded, “You’re hired.”

Everybody always thought Bob was on drugs. He wasn’t. He was on film. Who needed drugs when you had film? The bug had bitten him very young and he had been infected with it ever since. After school he would study the craft of making movies in the FSU library not far from his home in Tallahassee. He would save his lawn-mowing money to buy precious rolls of 8mm film and make his kid brother Randy jump through hoops (figuratively and literally!) for the camera. He graduated to Super 8 a few years later when everybody thought his “hobby” should have been long gone. He had done whatever was necessary to learn how to make films and it never once occurred to him he wouldn’t eventually be successful at it.

All of that had been in preparation for this moment. He was incredibly excited, but to see him you wouldn’t have known it – because he was focused like a laser beam. There was no way he was going to blow this opportunity to shoot for The Now Explosion!

He drove straight home to his apartment on Campbellton Road, sat down on the sofa and pulled the 45 out of the paper sleeve. He knew he would never forget the feeling of pulling this piece of round vinyl out of this particular square, paper pocket. This was it.

He slid the 45 down the spindle of his record player and played The Long and Winding Road over and over again. He liked it, but thought it was an unusual piece, a little sad for the Beatles. He got out his stopwatch and a legal pad and timed out the lyrics, the chorus. He jotted down the words and the visuals they brought to mind until finally a storyline began to emerge. He could see the scenes play in his head, it was already becoming a movie. When he got to the point where the entire song was a visual in his mind, he stopped playing the record and wrote out the script shot-by-shot.

He called a friend, an aspiring actress who had been in his 15 minute 16mm epic and told her he was going to put her on TV, but she had to be ready before dawn. Alva Sanders was quiet for a second, then said, “Okay.”

Actual camera used!

He had just enough sunlight left that Thursday evening to get shots he needed of the flowers that were the pride-and-joy of the older lady who lived next door. She said it was fine for him to take pictures of her flowers, but she had never heard of The Now Explosion. The sun was setting, so he quickly got shots of his apartment complex while there was still enough light.

He needed a photo of a handsome young guy for the girl in the film to think about and as he rummaged through his drawer, he almost laughed out loud that the only one he had on hand was Randy’s senior high school picture.

Whether he had wanted to be or not, Randy had always been in Bob’s movies, he might as well be in this one too! Bob stuck the photo in a frame and grabbed a shot of it. The next thing was the clock on the kitchen wall. The only other thing he could shoot inside his apartment were rings on the table. Although he was about to hop out of his skin with excitement, he knew he had done everything he could that night. He set his alarm for 4:30am.

He pulled up at Alva Sander’s house at 5:30am so they could be at this open field he’d found west of Atlanta ready to shoot when the sun came up. It was too early to talk much, and besides, Bob was deep in thought about how he was going to pull this off.

He knew precisely what he wanted to do from the moment they arrived. He placed Alva at one end of the field and he was positioned on the opposite side. With a long lens, he shot a scene of her running through wild flowers, silhouetted against the rising sun. And so he continued methodically, working through the hand-written script, timing each shot with his stopwatch.

Several hours later they finished with that location and went back to Alva’s parent’s house. The light was perfect in Mrs. Sander’s bedroom, so that’s where he placed Alva, looking longingly out the window. He was finished shooting there by around noon and Alva’s mom had sandwiches ready for them. He gulped his lunch, said a quick “Thanks!” as he ran out the door and hurried downtown to get shots of people on the streets. He was a man with a vision, a stopwatch and a deadline!

He arrived at Cinema Processors lab around 2:00pm and Phil, who ran the lab, had his film in the “soup” a few minutes later. He screened it there, thought it was pretty good and was back at WATL by 3:30. Genii was too busy to look surprised that this insistent young man was back in her office already, she had two phones and three cigarettes going at the time.

She showed Bob where the editing room was and said to let her know when he was finished. There was a Movie Scope viewer with a 3″ wide screen, a single gang synchronizer for measuring the footage as he cut it, a cement “hot” splicer and a pair of film rewinds. He had no way of running the music with the picture when he was editing, so he had to rely on his stopwatch settings that he had also used when he was shooting.

Okay, I’m going to take a breath and say that again, just to make sure you heard me: HE HAD NO WAY OF RUNNING THE MUSIC WITH THE PICTURE! He used his stopwatch to figure out where to cut!?!! Now, keep in mind, this was the original film he was cutting, the same film that had been running through his 16mm camera a few hours before this. There was no workprint, this was newsreel style and there was no avoiding that splice marks would be visible. True guerilla filmmaking – no mistakes allowed! Impossible to keep it in sync with the record – inconceivable!

It was about 6:00pm when he was finished cutting The Long and Winding Road, and Genii called Bob Whitney and a couple of the staff in to screen the film. There was a small record player on the conference table, they turned it on and cued the film up in the projector. I have absolutely no understanding how they got the film and the record started at the same time, but they did!

There was no reaction from the group as they watched Bob’s film. Miraculously, it was in perfect sync with the record. Bob thought it looked great and was waiting to be congratulated, but there was only deathly silence when the film ended. Everyone just kept staring at the blank screen. No one had ever seen anything quite like it and really didn’t know what to make of it. Before this, they had been primarily taping teenagers dancing with psychedelic effects in the background or dancing outside with simple outdoor scenes.

This film was something different entirely: a story showing sincere emotion and intercutting seemingly unrelated scenes that amplified those emotions. Her loneliness contrasted with the lonely, crowded streets; the beauty of her love as reflected in the flowers but contrasting with the stark and ugly apartment complex – all shot in available light for heightened realism and a more personal feel.

He had put his heart into it and now Rector’s heart was in his throat as he thought, “Oh shit, they hate it!”

Whitney looked at Genii, nodded his head, and Genii said, “Okay, we’ll see.”

Later that night the film was transferred to 2″ quad video tape and put on an individual reel ready to go into the show’s rotation. That was Friday.

Bob went home and collapsed. He was exhausted and a little confused, but still confident. How could they not like it? I did a terrific job! He would be up and waiting in front of the TV set at noon the next day.

About fifteen miles away, as the crow flies, I was waiting in front of the TV set too. The new Beatles song, The Long and Winding Road had just come out. I had heard it on Quixie that week on the Skinny Bobby Harper show and was hoping it would be on The Now Explosion. Great song and pretty poignant since the Beatles had just broken up about a month earlier. It didn’t come on right away, but after about half an hour, I heard Skinny Bobby say in his best I’m-the-most-charming-DJ-in-the-universe voice, “And now the latest hit from the Beatles, The Long and Winding Road.”

And there it was, the film Bob had been shooting just the day before. He sat stunned, wondering how many hundreds of thousands of people were watching it. It was beautiful, he had done it, just like he always knew he would. Then the phone rang and Alva was screaming, “Did you SEE it?! Did you SEE IT?!” A few minutes later the doorbell rang, it was the lady next door all aglow, “I just saw my flowers on TV!” And then Randy called and said somebody had called him and said they had seen him on this television show and “What the hell, man?”

The break up of the Beatles wasn’t what concerned me that Saturday as I watched the images of The Long and Winding Road flicker hauntingly across the screen. It was the break-up of a much more personal nature that I was consumed with. My boyfriend and I had just broken up. We had been together for over two years and had thought we would always be together. As I watched the girl in The Long and Winding Road, that girl was me.

She even had long, dark hair like I did. And she looked at the picture of the boy she loved, just as I had done a hundred times. She was broken-hearted too, and I cried as only a seventeen year old girl can cry. I cried for her and for me.

How could I have known that it was the young man who had made The Long Winding Road, Bob Rector, who was destined to be my husband.

The Long and Winding Road was by far the most requested video of the weekend.

On Sunday afternoon, Genii called Bob and asked him how many films he could turn out in a week. “Oh, one a day,” he said, not thinking for a second what shooting five films a week would entail. Genii told him to be in her office first thing Monday morning and she’d give him the records he would shoot that week. He asked her if he was going to get paid and in typical Genii no nonsense fashion she said, “Yeah” and hung up.

Forty-three years later Bob Rector and I have been happily together for almost thirty-eight years. What’s the story behind that? Well, I’ve already written that one, in my Mutinous Boomer book!

But, now we find ourselves thrust unexpectedly into the world of The Now Explosion once again. How in the world did that happen? Well, I’ll tell you…

Last October, our son Matt, who just so happens to be a musician himself, emailed his dad, “Get ready for a trip back in time, I know how you don’t like time travel but I think you might like this. Click on the link to be transported.” Bob didn’t think anything about it because Matt is always sending us movie trailers and such, and everybody knows Bob isn’t fond of time travel. But, Matt was right, he was instantly transported when he clicked on the link and saw Alva Sander’s face.

He called out for me, his face was flushed – he had been hit with a bolt from the blue. I stood behind him, my hands on his shoulders and we both watched as forty-three years melted away, our eyes misty from the sheer power of the memories.

The Long and Winding Road indeed.

By Marsha Roberts

Author of Confessions of an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer

http://www.mutinousbabyboomer.com/

View more on Marsha Roberts's website »

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Published on April 28, 2013 12:24

The Long and Winding Road – For REAL! Part 1

I’m starting a new series today and you might wonder what it has to do with “Angels, Miracles & Dogs!” However, let me assure you, the story I will begin telling you today is nothing less than a miracle – a Rock ‘n Roll miracle!

I was seventeen in 1970 and what I was watching on TV that Saturday afternoon was pure magic. It was also history in the making, but I didn’t know or care about that at the time. All I knew was that it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. My favorite music, Top 40 hits, with neat psychedelic effects, everybody dancing. I just couldn’t sit still and watch – I had to dance too!

It was The Now Explosion. Perfect title. It exploded into our lives, changed the landscape of television programming forever and was gone as fast as a stick of dynamite, altering everything and everyone it touched. I know, I was one of them.

Fast forward forty-three years and there I was, sitting in the room with four of the original innovators:

Bob Whitney – whose brain had imagined The Now Explosion and whose charm had sold it.

Genii Macaulay-Leary – the woman who had played Den Mother and Drill Sergeant to a talented bunch of renegades (AKA the Producer!).

Bob Rector – the filmmaker whose distinctive vision brought a new form of story-telling to music “videos.”

Bob Todd – one of the two original DJ’s whose enthusiasm was so contagious that he kept us glued to the TV set for hours on end.

It was a little surreal to see these four together after so long. Each had their own memories to share, experiences that had been separate and quite different, but a part of the same whole. I listened, mesmerized, as they started assembling the puzzle pieces of this brief, shining moment that had left such a distinct mark on so many. Yes, it had been a brief, shining moment – our own Rock ‘n Roll Camelot.

I realized I had been placed in that room with these people for a reason: I was supposed to write about it. Not only had I been a huge fan in 1970, but I had gone on to be a Producer myself and knew very well what it took to get an extraordinary program like this off the ground.

This is not a story that can or should be told in a linear fashion. It is as free-flowing as the songs of the time. Our time. After the three incredible days I spent with these bigger-than-life personalities I was left with one overriding question: Why had it stayed with us after all these years? It only lasted a few months, but we never forgot it? Just like Camelot, it lived on in our hearts and minds. Why?

I’ll attempt to unravel that mystery in the coming weeks and months as I write about the phenomenon of The Now Explosion. If you experienced it for yourself you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. If not, then take a moment and think back to 1970, the year after Woodstock. America was in the middle of a sea change and we, the Boomers, just big kids at the time, were riding the crest of our own wave…

On most Saturday mornings my dad would have to practically drag me out of bed to get my chores done. Sometimes he even tossed a cup of water in my face – seriously! (Full disclosure here, he was laughing when he did it!) But the spring of 1970 was different. I bounded out of bed and tore into my chores with a vengeance. I had to get them done as quickly as possible so I could be sitting in front of the TV set at precisely 12:00, tuned to Channel 36.

It was May 9th and I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk to keep me company as I waited impatiently for the-best-show-in-the-world (as far as I was concerned!) to start. Later that evening some of my friends would join me, but until then, I was happy to be by myself, so that nothing would disturb me as I soaked it all in.

I had no idea how lucky I was to be living in Atlanta, Georgia. Because of that quirk of fate, I was able to experience the magic from the very beginning, which had been March 14th, and I didn’t want it to ever stop.

Across town, a young man who worked in the stock room at Lord & Taylor’s was also waiting for it to start. Bob Rector wanted to shoot film more than anything else in the world. Always had. He had heard about The Now Explosion and was interested because it was being produced in Atlanta, but he had never seen it. He had recently finished making a short 16mm film of his own called “Farewell Performance.” He had convinced family and friends to chip in ten to twenty bucks a piece so he could buy the film, get it developed and finished. His entire budget was about $250.00 to make his 15 minute epic. It had been shown on the local PBS station a few times, part of a support-your-local-filmmaker sort of thing. That was good enough for him. As far as he was concerned, he was ready for the big time now.

They had been on the air for eight weeks, but nothing was routine. It was always flying by the seat of their pants, hoping that it would all come off once again, using equipment that was never designed for this type of non-stop, live, request-driven video programming.

Behind the stately columns of a dignified looking building on Briarcliff Road, a handful of people were running at a frenetic pace, getting ready to put twenty-six hours of music on the air. But not just any music, the best, the most popular, the Top 40 records. The songs we listened to over and over again like it was our job. But now, we didn’t just listen to it, we could watch the music. The music came to life!

Making this “life” happen on the Saturday marathon were two technicians, one at the board and one ready to switch the 2″ video tapes of each song as they were requested; several kids manning the phones, ready for the requests to come in; and of course, you have to have DJs! To introduce the songs and keep us captivated while the tapes were being changed out were Atlanta’s two most popular disc jockeys from the #1 radio station: WQXI – “Quixie in Dixie!” Skinny Bobby Harper and Bob Todd were preparing to be tele-jockeys for the weekend. They were our VeeJays. The resident grown-ups, Bob Whitney and Genii Macaulay, were somehow holding all of the pieces together when the clock struck 12:00.

What made this weekend different? They didn’t know it, but lightning was getting ready to strike once again.

As Bob Rector watched what was happening on his television set, something clicked. He wasn’t up dancing like us teenagers, he was studying it, thinking, visualizing. What he saw that weekend was fresh, modern, even ground-breaking, but it was also the catalyst for his fertile imagination. His twenty-two year old brain was percolating and by Sunday night he knew this was what he was going to do: The Now Explosion. But he was going to do it differently.

He promptly quit his job at Lord & Taylor’s. After all, he had better things to do with his time – he was going to make movies. He announced this fact to family and friends, who looked at him a little mystified, but he hardly noticed. There were things he had to get ready for the next step.

Thursday morning he tucked a 16mm copy of his 15 minute epic under his arm and walked confidently into the Channel 36 reception area and asked where the office of The Now Explosion producer was. The secretary, presuming by his manner that he had an appointment, told him the office was upstairs. Without hesitation he leapt up the stairs, barged into Genii Macaulay’s office and announced, “I want to shoot for The Now Explosion.”

Unfazed, Genii looked up from a desk stacked with papers, records, index cards and an ashtray. Her big, intense eyes glared at Rector and, as was typical, a cigarette dangled from her lips. “We don’t need anybody.”

“But I’ve got some great ideas.” She repeated, “We don’t need anybody.”

“But I can do it better than those guys and I’ll work cheaper.” She sighed impatiently, “We don’t need anybody.”

“I’ll do it for free.”

“You’re hired.”

And with that, she pushed around the stack of 45 records and pulled one out, “This is the new Beatles song, see what you can do with it.” It was The Long and Winding Road. She went to a large closet where the film stock was kept and tossed him three rolls of film. Then her phone rang and she waved him out of the office. And he was off!

Everybody always thought Bob was on drugs. He wasn’t. He was on film. Who needed drugs when you had film? The bug had bitten him very young and he had been infected with it ever since. After school he would study the craft of making movies in the FSU library not far from his home in Tallahassee. He would save his lawn-mowing money to buy precious rolls of 8mm film and make his kid brother Randy jump through hoops (figuratively and literally!) for the camera. He graduated to Super 8 a few years later when everybody thought his “hobby” should have been long gone. He had done whatever was necessary to learn how to make films and it never once occurred to him he wouldn’t eventually be successful at it.

All of that had been in preparation for this moment. He was incredibly excited, but to see him you wouldn’t have known it – because he was focused like a laser beam. There was no way he was going to blow this opportunity.

That’s it for today! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!

Part 2 of The Long Winding Road – For Real! will be posted next week, so stay tuned! That’s when you’ll hear how Bob Rector actually made the film, meet Alva Sanders of 1970 and more! I would love to hear from any and all of you, your thoughts, your feelings…

Marsha

Marsha Roberts

Author of Confessions of an Instinctively Mutinous Baby Boomer

http://www.mutinousbabyboomer.com/

View more on Marsha Roberts's website »

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Published on April 18, 2013 14:29