KRAD's Inaccurate Guide to Life

Cassie Zukav, the protagonist of the stories "Ragnarok and Roll" (in both Tales from the House Band Volume 1 and Apocalypse 13) and "I Believe I'm Sinkin' Down" (in Tales from the House Band Volume 2), as well as the very old "How You Can Prevent Forest Fires..." in 1997's Urban Nightmares and the upcoming "Undine the Boardwalk" in Bad-Ass Faeries: It's Elemental, and, of course, the short-story collection Ragnarok and Roll: Tales of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet now has a Twitter feed!

So if you want to keep up with Cassie, go to @CassieZukav on Twitter!

Wrote 2000 words of "God of Blunder," the last story I have to write for Ragnarok and Roll: Tales of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet. I'd already written a thousand, so the story's at 3000. Hoping to finish it tomorrow.

An excerpt:

Then Bobbi and Jana nodded at each other and slammed into the opening chords of AC/DC's "Back in Black." Bobbi also sang that, her sharp soprano fitting nicely into Brian Johnson's lead vocal from the original, and man did she kill it on the guitar solo.

The place burst with an explosion of applause, but the band didn't even wait for it to die down. Jana went to the keyboards, Ginny started the rat-tat-tat of the opening to Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll," which Bobbi also sang, and she slammed through guitar on. When she sang the final "lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely" a cappella, then took a great dramatic pause before "time," I got goosebumps.

Bobbi then took a break from singing lead as she started up the guitar riff that opened the Rolling Stones's "Gimme Shelter." Chet's deep bass provided the lead for that one, but Bobbi sliced through the harmonies and yet another killer guitar solo. She was always good, but she just basically took over three great riffs by Angus Young, Jimmy Page, and Keith Richards and made them her own.

After "Gimme Shelter," Bobbi leaned her left wrist on the strings, and I grinned. It was Waddy Wachtel's turn to be supplanted by a short, skinny blonde chick in a Key West bar. Bobbi sang this one, too: "Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks.

At this point, half the bar was on their feet, several people were dancing in the area directly in front of the stage, everyone was cheering and screaming and yelling, and I looked down to realize that I hadn't touched my beer since the first chord of "Back in Black."

I have previously extolled the virtues of Key West musician Michael McCloud, and since I'm in the midst of another Cassie Zukav short story, I figured I'd do him again. This song is especially appropriate, as it's an all-too-common phenomenon in Key West: someone who comes for a vacation and never leaves. Indeed, it's what happened to Cassie. :) Here's Michael McCloud at the Schooner Wharf Bar, singing "Just Come Down for the Weekend." (Be warned, the camera work could charitably be called unsteady.)