14 Years

Jun. 18th, 2025 09:01 pm
ericcoleman: (Default)
The day before, when we had got to the hotel and realized that I had forgotten my stage rig. It was sitting by my desk at work.

Also Pauly Shore was sitting on a bench in front of the hotel working very hard on us noticing that we weren't supposed to notice him, but of course we were supposed to. But hey, it was Pauly Shore ... so we ignored him.

My boss overnighted the case to us. The hotel lost track of it for a bit, but we got it in time to play our first show.

14 years ago today. The very first full length Cheshire Moon show.

Looking at the set list is fun. Half covers, we still do one of them occasionally (She Moved Through The Faire). We only play two of the originals still, Out Of The Light And Widow's Garden. We will occasionally play If I Were The Rain if we have a second voice for it.

Pronouns (parody of Wimoweh)
Child Of Stars
Lighthouse
If I Were The Rain
Out Of The Light*
Halley Came To Jackson (Carpenter)
Temple Of The King (Dio/Blackmore)
World Walker
Follow That Road (Hills)
Swamp Witch (Stafford
Bloodletting (Napolitano)
She Moved Through The Faire (trad)
Widows Garden*

Since then ... a couple things have happened.

Let's see, over half a million miles on three vehicles. Two wonderful train trips. We flew to England. 4 Albums, three EPs and a couple of singles. Pushing 200 songs written. 200+ shows played (I lost count a few years ago). GOHs at 10 cons, played at many more. 300+ episodes of FilkCast. The Filk Hall Of Fame.

And all because two people met walking down a hall at a con.

The most important thing. Lizzie is sitting across the room from me while I type this. With me retired we're together all of the time, and that suits us so well.

15 years together this fall. 14 years married. The best time of my life. Thank you, all of you, for giving us this life.
ericcoleman: (Default)
A wonderful school is in danger of closing. Everything is explained here. Help them out if you can! Spread the word if you can't!
https://www.gofundme.com/f/saving-dreamflight
ericcoleman: (Default)
Thanks to the efforts of Bryan Baker, we have a live album!
We play songs!
We tell stories!
We digress!
Eric only plays THREE instruments the entire show!
So gather up your farm fresh produce and listen to us live at Demicon 36!
https://cheshiremoon.bandcamp.com/album/cheshire-moon-demicon-36
ericcoleman: (Default)
Lawrence Dean, Cat Greenberg, Ju Honisch & Katy Droege-Macdonald, Harmony Heifers, Harold Groot, Rhodri James, Nancy Louise Freeman, Capplor, Bardz At Large, Suzette Haden-Elgin & Randy Farran, Clam Chowder, Dandelion Wine, Foot Pound Force, Bryan Baker

Available on iTunes, Google Play and most other places you can get podcasts. We can be heard Wednesday at 6am and 9pm Central on scifi.radio.

filkcast.com
ericcoleman: (Default)
And I kinda stuck to it as well.

my FHoF speech )
ericcoleman: (Default)
It's been lovely. I've been sleeping late and taking it easy. I have managed to accomplish very little this week, as planned.

The only real problem is that I am having problems with my vision. Things were blurry earlier in the week, and have turned into frequent double vision the last couple of days. The doctor found no evidence of neurological problems, so I am going to get my eyes checked as soon as I can make an appointment. I can't drive. Computers, phones and iPads are a little combative but cope-able. I have a lot of stuff to learn how to use in the weeks ahead, and this is going to make that trickier.

Unlike every year for the last 8 or so, this is my biggest health issue this winter. I've been very healthy, BP has been great, I've lost a few (very few) pounds, and my lungs are doing wonderfully.

Generally I am doing good. I'm anxious about money, as expected, it was a bit weird getting my last paycheck. Still, my whole attitude is much brighter.

We're busy the next month or two. A wedding next weekend, two cons in April, and one the first weekend of May.

Then we're quiet for some time. We'll go see Lizzie's family at some point, but no other travel in the foreseeable future after that. That's weird, we thrive on that.

If I get recording moving we may re-open our Patreon page, it's been quiet for a couple of years now. The money made there before paid for the studio updates, anything in the future will go to getting the music out there.

Callenwood and Shifting City are first and second on the list. The first depends on learning the drum software, the second on learning a drum machine. We've been trying to get Callenwood done since 2017. I've been working on the Shifting City music for four years. Our last full album came out 7 years ago. We have so much music we want to get out there. The quarantine year is still weighing heavily on us. Cope and energy are still in small amounts. I'm hoping on being more active now that I am not stapled to my work laptop.

We're doing our best to keep moving along. We'll see how it goes.
ericcoleman: (Default)
As we generally do, we are taking January off from FilkCast. But we don't want to leave you without music for those 5 weeks. So we are leaving it up to you.
Give us your favorite filk song. Yes, just one, if you give us more than one ('cause choosing one can be hard, I know, oh, and Hope Eyrie is already on the list) Lizzie will dig into her massive collection of dice and roll for it!
We will take all of the songs mentioned and make all music shows out of them. If we don't have a song mentioned, we will do our best to go find it!
Help us play FilkCast the home game!
ericcoleman: (Default)
Bryan Baker, Dandelion Wine, Roberta Rogow, Linda Short, Gary McGath, Boogie Knights, Duras Sisters, Bedlam Bards, Summer Russell, Technical Difficulties, Heather Dale, Three Weird Sisters, Nathaniel Johnstone, The Scrap Merchants

Available on iTunes, Google Play and most other places you can get podcasts. We can be heard Wednesday at 6am and 9pm Central on scifi.radio.

filkcast.com
ericcoleman: (Default)
This was the second time I have had the good luck for this amazing event to happen near enough that I could witness it.

I have lived an interesting life. I have seen (and done) a lot of amazing things.

I almost walked right past the Mona Lisa. This was before the various problems over the years, and it was presented like it was just another work.
I spent hours with the paintings of Claude Monet, always my favorite.
I have spent hours staring at A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
I have seen Niagara Falls (and will again in two weeks) and been on the Maid Of The Mist.
I have taken the Cass Scenic Railway to the top of Bald Knob in West Virginia.
I have stood at the foot of Mont Blanc.
I have climbed the stairs to the top of the Duomo in Florence.
I have seen the David, and walked towards it past the Prisoners & Slaves.
I have seen the moon rise over a very still Adriatic Sea, casting a reflection in the water as far as I could see.
I have walked on the Acropolis.
As an aside, that week I stayed in a hotel in the red light district of Athens.
I have stood on the stage of the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus.
I took a train through Yugoslavia in 1975, well before it opened to the world. Everything was grey, and the guards were terrifying.
I took a train through valleys of Switzerland.
I have seen a couple dozen cathedrals all over England and Europe.
I went on a boat trip on Loch Ness. Nessie ignored us.
I have been on the Autobahn and saw a car pass us so fast I couldn't make out what it was.
I have taken a train over the 9000+ ft tall mountains just west of Denver.
I have scrambled up the sides of mountains in West Virginia.
I have driven along the Eastern Continental Divide many times.
I lived for a summer in Rae-Edzo on the Great Slave Lake in the NW Territories. It never quite got dark.

None of that compares to seeing a full eclipse in person. It is rare that I am without something to say, but I really have no words to describe the feeling. It's the greatest thing I have ever seen. And that I was able to share both of these moments with the love of my life makes it even more wonderful.
ericcoleman: (Default)
The Unusual Suspects, Court And Country, Lawrence Dean, Joe Bethancourt, Bill Marischiello, Downtown Freddy Brown, Steve Macdonald, Debs & Errol, John Anealio, Dan The Bard, Kathy Mar, Charming Disaster, Tania Opland & Mike Freeman

Available on iTunes, Google Play and most other places you can get podcasts. We can be heard Wednesday at 6am and 9pm Central on scifi.radio.

filkcast.com
ericcoleman: (Default)
Actually pretty good. The last couple of months I have had back problems which are almost entirely resolved. I had to sleep semi-sitting up on the recliner for a month or so. Laying down caused a lot of pain.

I am slowly coming back to playing guitar. My hands are doing very well. I don't have my speed up, nor my calluses where I want them yet, but I'm getting there.

My lungs are good, I mean really good. I am not as worried this winter about them. Doesn't mean that I am taking too many chances, but less stress is good.

And of course there is the whole thing with us asking for some help, and our friends taking that as a dare. The response helped us immensely and gave us a piece of mind that we have not had in a couple of years. I can never be able to properly express my thanks.

The Shifting City project keeps, well, shifting. I am still looking for the point of view for the lyrics. I am on story line #4 now. Three of them are connected and the direction I am going seems promising. I have all this music, I need words.

FilkCast is done for the year. We put together a month of just music shows and they are already uploaded and scheduled so we have 5 weeks off. Our intention is to get a lot more done with our music in that time.

My weight is a problem, I am the heaviest I have ever been. I still can't get around well, but now that the holidays are over a lot of the temptation is gone. Back to no soda, no chocolate, no fast food, a lot less sugar and simpler snacky things.

Having the trike at the end of the summer helped a lot, but I need something with a more powerful engine. I can still only do so much of the pedaling myself, and not having pedal assist means that even the slightest inclines become difficult if not impossible. We do have a place nearby where I can go several miles with no real struggle. I want spring to get here so I can get back to that.

The new car is ridiculous. We're slowly digging into what that screen does. It came with a few months of Sirius radio, so Lizzie has been listening to nothing but Christmas music since we got it. We were listening to the pop Xmas channel and became the musical MST3K. We've spent several evenings wandering around town looking at Christmas lights. It's our favorite thing to do this time of year.

It gets amazing gas mileage, we can't wait to take it on the road to see what it gets there. Once again, we would not have had the means to be able to do this if it wasn't for the help from our friends.

Our passports expired in 2019, not too long after we got back from England. We sent off the renewals yesterday. That means that FKO is a definite possibility. We need to see our friends.

We're still not dealing with people well. 14 months of isolation did both of us a lot of damage, physically and mentally. Hopefully there will be a couple of road trips and a couple more cons in 2024.

Speaking of which, who will be in Indianapolis for the eclipse? Talk has gone around about there being filk happening somewhere. There are a lot of filkers in the area, and since Lizzie's family lives there, it's where we're going to see the eclipse.

This ended up a lot longer than I thought. If you got this far, say hi, I need to hear from people. I do feel isolated sometimes. Not as badly as I did, but we really don't go much of anywhere, especially with it being so hard for me to get around. We are heading to Winter SACC in a few hours, see some local friends, play some music. We intend to drop in on the 24 Hour New Years Filk tomorrow.

This year has been hard, but it is ending well. Now to make next year better.
ericcoleman: (Default)
FOOD!
Bardz At Large, Virginia Taylor & Gary McGath, Bill & Gretchen Roper, Blind Lemming Chiffon, Lynn Gold, Joey Shoji, Rennie Levine, Tom Smith, The Salacious Crumbles, W Scott Snyder, PDX Broadsides, ChikënFist, Adam Selzer, Avalon Rising

Available on iTunes, Google Play and most other places you can get podcasts. We can be heard Wednesday at 6am and 9pm Central on scifi.radio.

filkcast.com

FOTLR 20

Dec. 1st, 2023 10:15 pm
ericcoleman: Cheshire Moon (Cheshire Moon)
Next week we are playing our first online show in a very long time.
We will be playing in the Festival Of The Living Rooms at 6pm mountain time Saturday Dec 9th.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1344170922891907
ericcoleman: (Default)
Apparently overnight our friends decided to take the goal as a dare. We didn't so much make our goal as kick it aside and go skipping into the next county.

This morning my lovely wife, after she woke up (I never really went to sleep, pain is being weird), said to me "you are no longer allowed to have imposter syndrome". This after she stared at the screen in amazement for a couple of minutes.

With the help from all of you we will get rid of the medical debt, pay down some credit cards, and give my eldest son and his wife something nice for his new baby.

The main thing is we can now make a car payment without worry. Lizzie has been shopping, looking for the right vehicle. We're probably going to go smaller than the van, which I will miss. We hope we can find a vehicle we can afford that can carry both of our trikes. We can travel for music easily enough. One of the reasons we bought the van is because we frequently carried another person when we went. Sometimes a friend, sometimes one of my kids. That is going to be much rarer now, really only going out to eat when we are at a con. But all the instruments will fit easily into the back of an SUV.

We are both in a massive state of relief today. Yesterday we both felt like we had been pummeled, mentally and physically. Today we are both still tired, but much more relaxed.

Thank you, thank you so much. We are so privileged to be in this community. We are so privileged, much to my amazement sometimes, to be so well loved in this community. You have made our next few months so much easier than they were going to be. We love you all, and wow will we give a lot of hugs when we are able to get back out on the road.
ericcoleman: (Default)
We didn't want to do this, but we have no real choice. It's all in the GFM description.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/transmission-died-this-was-the-bridge-too-far

Bridge

Oct. 26th, 2023 09:04 am
ericcoleman: (Default)
Kathy Mar had a wonderful idea. Jeff Bohnhoff made it happen. A lot of Filkers joined in. We are honored beyond belief to be included in this wonderful album.

Bridge
A collection of songs about the things that bring us together.

https://bridgealbum.bandcamp.com/album/bridge

An update

Sep. 25th, 2023 02:32 pm
ericcoleman: (Default)
It has been a matter of question for some time as to how my guitar playing was going to go. I was having all kinds of problems with my hands. Trigger finger in my left index finger, so playing anything where I had to bend that back was almost impossible. My right index finger and thumb were in pretty much constant pain. I can’t lift things very well, so just putting on a guitar is difficult/.

I worked out what was bothering my right hand, and took out out of the equation. I have very little pain or stiffness now.

I pinged my doctor about the left hand, ready to go talk to the surgeon who has worked on my hands before. My doctor wanted to see me first. I ended up with a shot, something different than what the surgeon has given me before, and ya know … it worked. Playing a D chord hurt … a lot. I had to snap my index finger back straight, and that sent a surge of pain through my entire body. I had been playing in alternate tunings, playing songs that took one or two fingers to play, and even that hurt. Last week I picked up a guitar and ran through some chords. The real problems, D, Am and Dm were all easy. My hands are weak, but that is just a matter of playing every day.

We have our second show this year next month, and that is a real frustration. Not that we have a show, but that it is only our second. I’m still hoping on getting a place to play locally, but that is still elusive.

My old bouzouki has gotten to where it is probably more effort to fix it up than replace it. It needs a fret job, a new bridge, the neck may need to be trued. I have a Sweetwater credit card and don’t have to pay things off for months to years. I have a lovely Gold Tone bouzouki. I hate the strings, they are brutally heavy, but lighter strings are on the way (The strings I used on the old instrument are too light for this). She is taking a bit of getting used to, but we are coming to terms with each other. Lizzie says her name is Angelique.

We went to Wisconsin this weekend to see Alexander James Adams play. We really shouldn’t have spent the money, but we desperately needed a bit of road time. Traveling is so much of who we are, and we have done so little even as the world has become a little more sane. It was worth every penny. We saw great music in a great place. We saw dear, dear friends who we do not see often enough.

Then today I contact my CPAP provider to see how I was doing on the requirements for the insurance.

We owe a fair amount of money for health related things right now. We have monthly payments going out, which take up all the money we would normally spend for things like travel and cons. Today I was told that I was not in compliance, and insurance would not pay for the CPAP. So we’re another grand in debt. So now I feel like a complete idiot for taking a road trip and for buying an instrument.

I’m hoping on being able to get out of all this medical debt in a year, and the rest in two years. We’ll see how that goes.

The podcast is both wonderful and a strain. It gets hard to pick songs. Our library has grown to ridiculous levels. But people are being more vocal about it. There was a great deal of silence for a very long time, and that makes someone who suffers from impostor syndrome, well, get very worried. Thank you to everyone who has said nice things. We need to hear that.

The trike riding continues. We about to the end of the season for that, but we are going to continue for as long as we can.

I worry about diving back into the depression I was in for much of the last several years. We both need to find ways to find joy. We need to play, we need shows. Cons are out of the question generally, since they cost so much. We are doing the two Iowa cons, and those because they have both been so good to us. We need to finish the re-writing of two albums, and see about getting them recorded, but that is more money than we have, and more than I think we can raise. I have two finished songs for my synth project. I need to get those properly recorded, mixed and released. And it’s so hard. Lizzie’s job can be kind of mind-numbing. It takes so much of her energy. Mine is mind-numbing in a totally different way.

I need to get myself playing guitar (or something like it) every day. I need to do the same with my synths. Getting better sleep because of the CPAP has made me sharper. So I am more inclined to be creative. I need to keep that going.

We need to find a local place to play. The problem is that original music has very few outlets in this town, and even fewer for an acoustic duo.

Life continues to be a struggle, but I am more hopeful than I have been. Although it is likely that some that is the anti-anxiety meds. I turn 65 at the end of the year, so all of my medical stuff is going to change. We’ll see how that goes.

So how are you?
ericcoleman: (Default)
This was the weekend we needed.

We've been feeling so confined not being able to travel. It's going to take us a year or more to get out from under the medical debt from this year. We're going to go to Icon in Cedar Rapids middle of October, then not another until Demicon next May. And do understand, we are doing fine, it's just that the money we would normally use to go interesting places is being used for something else right now.

Alexander James Adams posted that he was going to be playing in Wisconsin and we decided we had to go. It's a pretty short drive. We have places to stay. It's going to cost us gas and food.

Saturday morning, we hit the road on time. We took the north route, which is much prettier. We could feel the stress melt away as we drove. And got to Sara and Mike's house right when we wanted to.

Everything was set up outside, and it was lovely. The feel of the place is amazing. We would see the occasional bird of prey go swooping by. Sara said they have a family of deer, with two little ones, who wander through occasionally.

There were a lot of dear friends. We got to chatter at people we don't see often enough. We finally got to meet Sanci face to face. She is indeed as sweet and wonderful as she seems to be.

And there was a good crowd, 50+ people. More? I'm a bad judge of these things.

Alex, as he does, put on an absolutely compelling show. Songs and stories. He always amazes.

After we hung out for a bit, chattered at people, got to meet our hosts (I only know her from FB).

For the record Sara & Mike, you put on one great party! It was the nicest time we have had all year.

We headed out, pinged Evan & Alyse, who we were staying with. Told them we were going to go grab food at the Holy Place. She asked us to pick up Beef Shwarma for Evan.

We finally got to their place about 9, chattered for an hour or so, and then we collapsed.

The four of us headed out to breakfast at The Point Pancake House. Lizzie and I had gone there the last time we stayed at Evan & Alyse's. I had one of the best omelets I have ever had.

Lizzie drove home. We did stop at another Holy Place on the way out of the Chicago area and grabbed sandwiches and hummus for later.

We got home to sweet kitties. We'll sleep in our own bed tonight.

We needed this so much. Thank you, Sara & Mike & Alex, for giving us a reason to take a wander.
ericcoleman: (Default)
We hit a milestone this morning. 50,000 DLs on FilkCast.

I didn’t expect this to fly. I figured there would be a few episodes, and then gone. I did not expect 215 episodes, 50k DLs, and that does not include SciFi.Radio listens.

We’re coming up on 5 years. The November 8th show will be fun, our celebration of that time.

Thank you everyone for your continuing support.

Profile

ericcoleman: (Default)
ericcoleman

June 2025

S M T W T F S
12 345 67
891011121314
151617 18192021
22232425262728
2930     

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Aug. 9th, 2025 10:27 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios