Gauthic Times #99 News & Other Stuff from Bill Gauthier, or Hello, There, and a List

Hello, friends!

What a strange week this has been, but also a good one. At work, I was roped into helping do something for the school that I quite enjoyed. My boss got a substitute for me so I could work on the project and it made me see–even more–that I thrive in a situation where I’m being creative and being left alone. G had her first basketball game of the season and the second one is in less than an hour as I write this intro on Saturday morning.

The real weird thing is that I got 12 new subscribers on Patreon, with one being a paid-member, in less than 24 hours. So, if you’re reading this on Patreon: Hello, there! How’d you find my Patreon? Did someone share it Thursday? Anyway, welcome and I hope you enjoy!

Let me get into this week’s update.

Welcome to the 99th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and Christmas songs.

Becoming a paid-Patron on my Patreon would help me write even more. On Patreon, I write about things in more detail than I do in the newsletter or on my website and include the actual names of my works-in-progress and not just codenames. The lowest tier for Patreon is $1 but at $5/month, we’re looking at some serious help.

If every subscriber or reader of this newsletter, or every social media follower I have became a Patron at even just the $1 tier, I could write more and pay my bills better. The same would happen if they bought copies of my books.

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You can also get my collection Catalysts or my novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed.

Anyway, let’s go!

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Last night (Friday) I hit page 372 in Project: Amusement Park. I’m back in 2024 where, I believe, I’ll be for the rest of the novel. There’s still plenty left to get through but it is weird that the right side of the binder is now slightly thinner than the left side, since I spent so much time with it being the opposite.

Two characters that had been mentioned in passing in the novel are being introduced in the section that I’m editing now. Is it strange to introduce important characters more than halfway through the book? Who cares?

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I’ve been seeing a lot of Spotify lists hitting social media, along with the a few from Goodreads and the like. There’ll be no Spotify list from me because I don’t really use Spotify and if Amazon Music, which I do use, has one then it’ll be comprised mainly of 1980s New Wave and Hamilton because my wife and daughter listens to it Amazon Music more than I do (though I did listen to songs from Bruce Springsteen’s concerts that were featured in his documentary Road Diary). I’ll be waiting on the Goodreads list until I’m closer to the end of the year because I’m still reading two books that I hope to finish before the calendar flips from 2024 to 2025.

I’m weird in that I don’t love music the way so many around me do. Don’t get me wrong, I love music and I constantly have music running through my head, but I tend to stick to a few things and really learn them and study them. I don’t listen to music on my way to work and find it gives me a headache if I try. I rarely listen to music on the way home and usually prefer silence. When I don’t want silence, I’ll listen to an audiobook or podcast. I wonder why that is.

My mother loved music. She had a fairly large taste for music and it was a constant in our home. She definitely leaned more toward pop, easy listening, and country than she did hard rock. She didn’t share my love of Bruce Springsteen but could listen a little bit, She also had some fairly solid views on music. She usually hated live performances if they deviated too much from the recorded versions. Still, music and dancing was something she loved. She wasn’t physically able to dance at my wedding to Pamela and it still hurts me to think about that.

Pamela loves music, too, though I don’t tend to like her music any more than she likes mine. There is a spot in our Venn diagram of music where artists like Elton John and Sarah McLachlan reside and a few others out of nostalgia, but she was the only person sitting at the Springsteen show in 2009 as I tried not to openly weep during “The Rising” or “Jungleland.” Though she got me more into David Bowie.

Music was something she shared with our daughter, G. For awhile, G only listened to music from Pamela and only recently opened herself up to my love of Billy Joel. She’s discovered the music from Hamilton and is in her school chorus.

I think of this because it’s the time of year where people are listening to Christmas music and bitching about Christmas music. So, as someone who is mostly unqualified to list music, here’s my list of favorite Christmas songs:

1. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey. I can’t help it. I fuckin’ love this song. I would take it and rock it up if I had my Bruce Springsteen tribute band. Yeah, you read that right. I’m lame.
2. “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. This will be the Boss’s first appearance on this list. I love the energy from the recording that is played every year. It’s silly and fun.
3. “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love. If you don’t love this song, your heart is in ice. Sorry.
4. “Run Rudolph Run” by Chuck Berry. You can’t really go wrong with Chuck Berry.
5. “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms, or by Hall and Oates. I feel like I’ve heard other harder rock versions, too, that I liked.
6. “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)” by the Chipmunks. The Christmas with the Chipmunks was an annual album when I was growing up. Their renditions of many classic Christmas songs reside rent-free in my head much to Pamela’s horror. And this song is my favorite.
7. “Winter Wonderland.” I don’t have an artist because I don’t have a favorite version, I just like the lyrics and to sing it when I’m doing chores.
8. “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon. It’s a meditative song that goes big by the end. It makes me happy.
9. “Blue Christmas” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. I’m not a huge Elvis Presley fan and his “Blue Christmas” was one I put up with. When Springsteen and the E Street Band performed it in 2010, I loved their arrangement. He also turned me onto another song that I kinda despised, “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees.
10. “Silver Bells” by me. When I’m singing this song as I wash dishes or fold clothes, I do a really nice, soulful version. You’ll never hear it because anyone who hears me sing it will think my Crohn’s disease is acting up and I have a stomachache. Trust me, though. If I had a band and the ability to sing…you’d melt.

A runner-up is Springsteen’s version of “Merry Christmas, Baby,” but I don’t love it enough to put it on my very serious list above.

I know my list will cause riots in the streets and I’ll be yelled at but the masses, but I must remind you that this isn’t me saying these are the best, but they’re my favorites. And in this time of peace and love and presents, I think that’s good.

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I’m still interested in what people think about me revising the essays I’ve written about the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Right now, it seems like the interest is in me publishing the essays as a book. I’d have to find a publisher or do it myself. We’ll see.

If you haven’t taken the poll, why not?

Here is the poll!

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And here we are at the end. Thank you for reading and for your support!

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