Before we start, free fast paced Sci Fi and fantasy and free regular paced sci fi and fantasy. Also, the book above has a 50% off at B&N with this code: BNPSAMAK50. I wrote one of the stories in it and the short is a never released before short story in the Office Maxi universe that stars Maxi's mom at the height of her power.

Also, another short story of mine is in the first Keystone Codex free Sci Fi magazine. You can get it for free on the Keystone Substack. The theme for the first issue was My Cozy Apocalypse, and that more or less describes most of what I write. Anyway, it's free and meant as a way for indie authors to share audience. On with today's email:

My spouse and I are going to take our son to his first concert. The Barenaked Ladies and Fastball. Back in the 90s, I enjoyed both bands, but will admit that I didn’t even realize they were still making albums and touring. I suppose many musicians tour and create music long after their hit songs are paired with the term “classic.”

I used to joke that Native American casinos were like elephant graveyards, rockstars go there to die. They play their songs to the stalwart fans who are there to capture a little bit of their youth after taking their evening pill from the pill planner and sneaking Metamucil into the venue after nostalgically remembering when the bag hidden on their person used to hold other substances. When I heard the Barenaked Ladies and Fastball were going on tour, I thought this is it, this is the 90s going through its death throws, but then I realized that it’s not a casino, but a big venue.

It was large enough to have a lawn, and for us to pony out a little more for the tickets so we don’t have to be on the grassy area in the back. When I was younger, the lawn in the back where the rockstars are like little ants on stage was fine. Now that I’m older, I look up such need-to-know information like proximity of our seats to the bathroom. I’m not quite to the point of sneaking Metamucil into the venue yet, but give it some time, I’ll be there. I mean, I already take fiber gummies each morning.

Now, my son already likes Fastball, we have this routine where he gets four songs every night before bed time and The Way and Out of my Head are regulars. In fact, if those songs ever appear on the charts again, I’ll know my son has had something to do with it. Whereas Barenaked Ladies, he hasn’t heard much of them. My spouse and I were fans, owned multiple albums, and she even sang to him a Barenaked Ladies song when she was putting him to bed. But admittedly, we hadn’t listened to them recently.

So, I decided to play some Barenaked Ladies while I cook, which sometimes equates to music playing while we eat (honestly, it depends on my son, he’ll sometimes hear the music and dance to it at the table. Other times he’ll say, “Alexa stop.”). While we were eating, we were wondering if the concert was related to a new album or something and a short trip to Wikipedia later, realized that there were many albums since the last one we heard, Maroon. 

Anyway, we decided to have a listen to what they were doing recently and had realized something. Fucked up people really do make the best art. I mean, I know that’s a stereotype, there are plenty of writers, artists, musicians, actors, and so forth who have great mental health and healthy relationships with their peers and others, but those people don’t make the news.

Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies fame wrote a lot of those songs that I loved. And he had his fair share of mental health, legal, and drug problems. Classic musician stuff. I’m not sure if he was kicked out of the band or left, but either way, he is no longer a Barenaked Lady. Now maybe the album we had chosen to listen to wasn’t the best of the post Steven Page era, but it just didn’t have the spark that got me listening to the band. That’s not to say it was bad, it was a good album, but sounded like any other album from that era of music. It was the difference between stadium filling music and perhaps local movie theater turned rock venue.

We tried Steven Page’s solo stuff next, and were immediately struck by how much the spark was there. We were like, that’s what we love. This is what got us into the band in the first place. But the funny part was that it was a little too out there. Nowhere near the level of John Lennon and Yoko Ono making weird noises for an hour and a half, but still, you could tell that being in the Barenaked Ladies reigned him in all the best ways.

While there are some notable exceptions of musicians achieving new heights in their solo career, a vast majority just don’t have the magic. Listening to Steven Page was like hearing Wings or John Lennon. They have their moments where you understand the genius they brought to the band, but that lone genius is almost always never as good as the collective.

I have a theory about this. A group of talented individuals like the Barenaked Ladies or The Beatles, where each member could probably have their own solo career, and would make decent music on their own, make something truly great when working together.

Groups of people working to a common goal always makes something better than the loan genius ever could. I don’t know if Steven Page would have shined so bright if he hadn’t had the others in the band smoothing out his edges. I think the same happened with The Beatles.

I think the same is true with television. There was something I knew to be true as a kid. The movie was almost never as good as the book. But then recently with TV series like Silo and The Wheel of Time, I’m enjoying them far more than the books. I think the reason for that is that a writer can only put so much into any given project (I’ll be honest that I sometimes am on my third or fourth book when I have ideas that would have been great in the first book). But a team of writers, as is true with most TV shows, can put their collective creativity to work and make something better than the source material.

I think the reason why television has the opportunity to outperform a book where movies failed in the past is rather simple. TV has more time to explore the world like a book. Movies must fit it all into an hour and a half to two and a half hours. TV can afford to explore all the most interesting parts of a book. Then add the power of collective creativity, and you get something better than the loan writer can do on their own.

The lone genius is a powerful myth in our culture, but a myth, nonetheless. The Steven Jobs of the world only achieved what they did because of the talented people around them. Robert Jordan’s wife was an editor, and I would guess had a lot of influence on his books. There’s even some question about how much was Einstein’s ideas and how much was his wife.

Just like Steven Page and the Barenaked Ladies sans Steven Page had something magical when they were the Barenaked Ladies. And yes, there are Beyoncé’s of the world and Michael Jackson’s whose true stardom didn’t come until they went solo. However, I’m guessing that they have surrounded themselves with talented people and what better way to be able to harvest all the top talent then coming out of a successful music act.

I’m not arguing that geniuses don’t exist, I’m just saying that they are better in a group then they are in isolation and that when we look at the success of individuals, there are people working with them to help them achieve that success and when we put on a pedestal the achievements of one individual, we minimize or in some cases miss the contribution of the people around them. 

With that being said, I wouldn’t be writing if it wasn’t for the people who helped me get here. I would like to name them all but the list would be long, and the email has probably already gone on long enough. And I’ll be honest, memory isn’t perfect, especially mine. I fear if I did make such a list, I’d forget someone. But thank you to everyone who has helped me over the years, if it’s a minor grammar correction to full story editing, I appreciate all of you. 

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