A Hair Metal Vortex 10

I think you'll forgive me when you find out I was remiss in posting last Friday due to a particularly impressive day. The flavor of such a slaptastic experience? That, my dear Vortex reader, you'll have to wait for until the end of today's housekeeping.

First, a dusting-off of last week's news. The winners for the Chase the Dream Contest were announced Friday. Though you'll notice there is no sign of my manuscript in the winner's circle, I am not one to rest on the cricket chirps. In fact, being a finalist has carried me beyond my expectations. I couldn't be more pleased with the industry and reader feedback along with the wonderful opportunities I've been given behind the scenes. Be sure to head over and congratulate the winners. And for those of you who voted for The Chosen One, may your Monday be a velvet-lined bag filled with trinkets of happiness. Thank you so much!

The Speculative Literature Foundation is offering a $750 grant to writers fifty and older who are just beginning to work at a professional level. Application deadline is March 31st.

Enough of you expressed an interest, via blog and email, to participate in a blog carnival. It may end up being the Large Hadron Collider of my blogging history, but it sounds like fun and there might even be dancing geniuses. I've selected March 31st because it is Gabe Kaplan's birthday and statistically the highest traffic day of the week for blogging. It was Gabe's idea to have prizes, so bloggers who participate will be placed in a drawing to receive a prize (I promise, it won't be a red telephone booth pencil sharpener or a Fabio CD) and everyone who comments at the Vortex that day will be placed in a drawing for another prize. It is my fervent hope that the event will drive new friends through all participants' blogs and Gabe will get some much-needed press. Here's what you need to do to participate:

1. Email me at la-mitchell@la-mitchell.com or comment on this post to let me know you wish to participate.
2. Prepare a March 31 post for your blog that aligns with the blog carnival's theme.
3. Visit all the blog carnival's sites and encourage your readers to do the same.

Simple, right? Some of you have already guessed the theme: TIME. What else is there at the Vortex? Remember, your post can be any format, any medium, any take, any ramble or a mad cluster of links, as long as it has something to do with TIME.

Now, on to something even more fun than TIME...

Friday night found me front row, center at a Dokken/Skid Row concert, sans ear plugs. I know what you're thinking: your cilias are dead forever now because of that? Yes, and it was beautiful save one thing. Was I the only one who didn't know Sebastian Bach wouldn't be there? Is there any crime greater than a teen infatuation left to languish into thirty-hood unnurtured? I came away wiser, though, and wish to pass that wisdom on:

A Hair-Metal Vortex 10

1. Beer spit from the mouth of an 80's lead singer that lands in your eye is infinitely more awesome than beer spit from the mouth of the skinny guy showing his butt crack beside you.

2. Aged groupies, let me tell you Victoria's real secret. Your right breast you tattooed that autograph into has stretched into a name worthy of the largest collective Puerto Rican family known to man. Cover it. Please.

3. Murphy's Law of Front Row, Center: Every band member will clench your hand but the one you most desire contact with.

4. Never underestimate a woman who has stood for five hours straight, forsaking liquid refreshment and bladder relief, to hold her territory. I may look the demeanor of Laura Ingalls, but I am acquainted with Iron Maiden's beast.

5. The drunkest guy in general admission will be the one still holding tight to the lighter-during-power-ballads routine. The sea of cell phone holders wearing Aqua net, beware.

6. Guitar players, no matter how advanced in age, still make those faces when trying to impress you with their riffs.

7. Don Dokken, while confessing to having the ass of a shar pei, still looked wicked hot in a pair of jeans. Thank you, Don, for not resurrecting those animal-print leotards.

8. Yelling "Watch out for that....amp" doesn't rise above the 150 db din of Slave to the Grind to prevent the non-Sebastian from spilling over backwards.

9. Asking the crowd to echo "Yee-haw" in Texas is akin to asking us if we all have longhorns on the front of our cars and ride horses to work. J.R. has left the building and so should you.

10. And finally? No one, but no one, can replace Sebastian Bach.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Chime in about the blog carnival and tell us about the last concert you went to...