Unruly Mix: Tales of Music, Artists, Posers and Misfits
Stories for People Who Don't Like to Read
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Don't like to read? I get it. Give me a classic book of fiction and I enjoy it. The excitement begins with the first paragraph as I admire the prose millions of others have adored. After 30 concentration losses, 40 daydreams, 50 distractions, and 60 hours, I might finish the first chapter. The odds are against me finishing the second. Not a chance in the world I’ll finish the third.
Give me a biography of Sergio Mendes or an inch-thick book on the building of the Golden Gate Bridge and I’ll finish in a week. Such are the challenges of a fragmented imagination with a thirst for knowledge that no one else values. That’s where my writing comes in. Granted, in blogs, I enjoy writing about technology, and it is as much an education for me as it is for the reader.
As for Bob Deakin stories, such as the ones featured in Unruly Mix, they are short and to the point. They celebrate details and anecdotes that a kid of the 70s growing up in the suburbs would appreciate: music, television, pro sports, and weirdos.
Incidentally, I can’t find a Sergio Mendes biography. Am I going to have to do this myself?
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Unruly Mix
Tales of Music, Artists, Posers and Misfits
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The characters in An Unruly Mix don’t fit in, anywhere. The only entity that brings them together is the setting of Burnham, CT. Some are natives, others from nearby, and a few pass through. Burnham is a peaceful town on a little mountain with residents who keep a firm but loosening grip on the values nurtured by generations past.
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Patience is a virtue, and the instinctive urge to resist change is bypassed by the strength of their faith and confidence in the knowledge of history: Do the right thing and be confident everything will be all right.
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In this first of three volumes of short story humor by author Bob Deakin, we meet the characters and see the redeeming qualities in some, the destructive tendencies in others, and the unseen and unexpected circumstances that form the foundations of future conflicts.
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Purchase at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
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Late on Side B you made the awkward decision to include Ronnie Milsap’s “It Was Almost Like a Song” followed by Barbara Mandrell’s “(If Loving You is Wrong) I Don't Want to be Right.” Emotional confusion anyone?
-from Unruly Mix
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Also in The Year Without a Santa Claus, the Snow Miser was voiced by Dick Shawn, who played LSD (Lorenzo St. DuBois) in the original The Producers film in 1968. As the Snow Miser, he sang one half of the Snow Miser/Heat Miser ragtime-style showstoppers. Yep. Same guy.
-from Straw Hat Weirdo
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Otherwise happy, comfortable people scramble to look away, walk in other directions, draw attention to something else or strike up conversations about anything but Mr. Skinny Mini and his wares. The prettiest girls cringe, the toughest guys recoil and rambunctious children sit quietly by their parents. Even smoke from a distant fire drifts in another direction.
-from Skinny Mini Clears the Beach