with increasingly less frequency, at least in this forum.  In actuality I'm in a very talkative mood but lately I've been enjoying contributing more to the Usenet newsgroup alt.music.mike-keneally (I'm so pleased that it's alt.music and not alt.fan - thanks Ninja).  The interaction here is more valuable to me at the moment than this forum, which can sometimes lapse into a kind of pontification (of the most well-intentioned sort, ahem).  Anyway, if you want to converse, I've really been enjoying using the newsgroup for that purpose, so head on over.  With the holidays upon us I don't know how regular my participation will be in the days ahead, but I'll be around.

I had some genuine apprehension regarding making some of my personal belongings available for auction on eBay - appearances, you know - then I relaxed and realized that as time goes on, as my duty in life becomes clearer to me, appearances really don't mean a sack of beans.  Plus it's good to take a step back and look at reality in the big world: thanks to the peculiar nature of celebrity, things which belong to me have more value to a greater number of people than things which I create, and it feels like a very logical time to wave bye-bye to useful items which just happen to be no longer in use in my work and life.  In any case, I would appreciate you checking the auction out.  Fifteen percent of any money generated will be donated to the Make A Noise Foundation, a non-profit organization (founded by Steve Vai and Rich Pike) dedicated to musical education; you can check out http://www.makeanoise.com for more information.

There were some angered and protective reactions from Keneally fans to a very unfavorable review of "Dancing" which was posted at jambands.com.  I can understand the motivation, when a favored artist (especially an artist of the "unsung" variety) gets hatcheted, to strike out at the author of the piece.   But for me the interesting thing was the writer's wholehearted appreciation of "Nonkertompf" - a pretty clear indication that the guy is not a mindless prosecutor of anything not "jammy."  While there were some thoughtless and contradictory things in his review, I don't think it's unreasonable that the author didn't enjoy "Dancing."  No one's obligated to, plus I'm opening myself up in a very vulnerable way in my work nowadays, and vulnerability by its nature is ripe for the kicking.  I've not seen the last of bad reviews.   I smiled when I read the jambands.com one - felt like I was really getting somewhere.  

I'll see a number of you at the Baked Potato on December 30, and hopefully more of you at the newsgroup.  Bye for now and thank you!!

Mike Keneally now because it’s long enough! I’ll finish praising my Yo Miles! cohorts, discuss our show at the Fillmore, deal with sundry other things and do my big discussion of "Dancing" in the next MTTY, coming surprisingly soon.

Loving Orange Crush SO much these days, I remain your friend,

Mike