Goat Man Wishes The Phone Would Ring (And So Do I)

I hate phones, but sometimes I get so sick of Facebook communication. Sometimes it feels so impersonal. Phone calls take more effort, but sometimes I really like them.

I've spent years hating phone calls. But now that the whole world is transitioning over to text/Internet-based communication, I miss hearing people's voices. And on days like today - when my phone doesn't ring at all - I wish that someone would work up the old-fashioned initiative to call me just to say "hello."

Of course, there's a good chance they'd be saying "hello" to my answering machine. I'm notorious for not answering my phone. But that's besides the point.

In other news, I searched my entire house today and finally found my purple notebook that has been missing for a couple of months. I archive my entire life in notebooks and am terrible at keeping track of them, so it's not completely weird for one to go missing. But the notebook in question had the main theme and some important notes for my "Goat Man" musical I mentioned in my last post. I was about to give up and start over on the theme when I found it in the very bottom of a box buried in the closet (don't even ask how it got there - I'm not really sure...). There was much rejoicing.

Then I opened the notebook and realized that the theme wasn't as developed as I thought it was, and the notes weren't as extensive as I had remembered them being. But it inspired me a little bit. Actually, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon excavating old songs from several notebooks and trying to make sense of the play's plot line.

It's a messy job but it has to be done.

I'm still a little stuck on why Goat Man is a goat man. He is half man, half goat and I don't really know why. I don't want the reason to be something bizarre/disgusting, but I want it to be believable within the story's suspension of disbelief. I've been reading up on Greek mythology (thank you, Wikipedia) in hopes of gaining some sort of insight on how one becomes a goat.

But alas, no real insight was gained. So I'm sitting here wondering if having a reasonable explanation about Goat Man's goatyness will really matter to audiences. Maybe it's just a weird gene that runs in his family? Maybe he ate too many oats as a kid?

Hmmm. He's in a psychiatrist's office for half the play anyway, so maybe the fact that he doesn't know how/why he is a goat man can become a plot device.

It's ridiculous. I've got almost 20 songs in the works for this project but barely know plot details. I know it's (mostly) a comedy. And a love story (goat meets girl, anyone?). And a musical. An existential rock opera in the key of despair, to be exact.

There I go walking that line between quirky and dumb again...