Holy cow, it’s been over a year since I built the last Iced Ink song. Usually I average about 2 a year but this past year managed to put a cork on that flow. Doing the freelance graphic/web design thing has been one of the greatest things to happen to me (THANK YOU former employer for laying me off!) and a real edjmacation. The only problem is it has driven me batty doing nothing but simultaneously working and looking for work every single second that I wasn’t sleeping. “Work/Life balance”? What’s that? 
August was a crazy month. Due to sudden lack of work I was forced to find and go back to a full time IT job. When August rolls around in NYC everyone and they mama leave town for the Hamptons, Upstate, other states, countries, planets… basically anywheres but the city. Suddenly all (or most) work and clients disappeared. Even a few people who paid me to start their sites managed to fall off the face of the earth (my kinda clients)! It was time to go back to a real job doing the IT thing again, and that I did. My new job is in Manhattan. I truly missed being in “the city” every day during the 3 years I worked in a ghost town (by comparison) in Brooklyn called DUMBO. Being in Manhattan is like being in the internet. Everything is immediately at your fingertips and the people watching is second to none. As far as that part of going back to work is concerned I fucking love it. Every day I’m right smack dab in the middle of what I fell in love with in the first place. I get to spend my lunch breaks walking around in the analog internet. (I am still doing web/graphic work on the side, FYI. If you’re in need you know where’s to find me!)
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The other major and much more fun landmark August event involved my rock and roll dinosaur geetar gawd Ace Frehley. He released a new album in August and I’ve been listening to it nonstop. It has been the perfect inspiring nostalgic distraction from the reality sandwich of re-employment. With that album release came a few unexpected Ace encounters. The day I had my job interview for what is now my job turned out to be very interesting: The very second I got into the elevator to go to the 11th floor for my interview I found out that I’d won a pass to a very small VIP listening party for the album that Ace was going to show up at. I had to spend the next hour mentally sitting on my hands and behaving in a job interviewy manner. It was hard to pay attention and refrain from doing a golden ticket song and dance number.
Z0MG
A few hours later there I was in Gibson Studios at the Ace party standing next to the man himself. It was great to bring the permanent autograph situation full circle and show him my tattoo. He said “That’s great! You should show it to the cameras.” Seconds later my new favorite picture was born.
The following week the rekkid was released and Ace did a CD signing. There was a strict NEW CDs ONLY policy as far as what he was signing. They say that all the time at those things and typically the rule isn’t adhered to, but this time I watched in disappointment as he was declining non-CD items of people ahead of us. I took my chance and slipped a print of the photo I’d brought from the VIP party in front of him. He was rad enough to sign it and whisper “Hide that, don’t show it to anyone!”
Can I get a “F**K YEAH”?
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Shortly after the rock star whirlwind and receiving an offer letter from what is now my employer a rather twisted idea for a guitar riff appeared in my head from out of nowhere. I
took said riff, channeled all of the job anxiety and Ace shenanigan excitement into it, and baddabing, the song “Jetson” was born. The thought of going back to work conjured up a cartoon bubble of George Jetson being screamed at by Mr. Spacely, and as fate would have it on the new album Ace randomly bursts into the end of his instrumental track and says in that meat head Bronx accent “DID ANYBODY SEE GEORGE JETSON?!” and laughs at himself. Good stuff. For the record, thankfully the new boss couldn’t be any further from Cosmo Spacely… So Far.
Click below to experience “Jetson”. For those of you who don’t know how these tunes are born this is not the live Gregg/Ethan/Mike Iced Ink (which you can hear here). The songs are built by me on my computer with fake drums. I’m already excited to hear what it will sound like in real life!
https://soundcloud.com/micycle/jetson
