Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle. This week I am taking a break from my story to introduce my novelist who will be penning the blog today. Tomorrow is the release of her final book in the Musicology series entitled, Musicology: The Epiquad. My novelist is going to talk a little bit about this book which is an epilogue presented in four parts. Here is the synopsis:

All insane things must come to an end. In the aftermath of the shocking Musicology finale Ruby takes off on tour with Robbie Sexton. Max assembles a music group with two of the contestants and another familiar face and books them a gig in Las Vegas. But unexpected events and smoldering relationships send the members lives spiraling out of control as they seek to establish life after reality competition.

I very much enjoyed this final book in the series my novelist wrote under my tutelage. Very few novels make people laugh. My novelist hopes her books are amongst those which do. I will be back next week with the next installment of What I Found in the Trunk. Until then, here is my novelist.  

Tomorrow the final novel in my Musicology series entitled Musicology: The Epiquad releases. The Musicology series is a five-book comedy/satire compilation which chronicles the course of one season of a fictional music reality television show. The story starts out with two aging former lovers, a successful diva and a bankrupt music producer who are hired by their friend, a reality television host and producer, to save his dying show. The diva and the music producer agree to work together as mentors but not judges on Musicology and after being strongarmed by their television producer friend, find themselves voyaging together to five locations across the contiguous United States to scrape up any college age/new adult singers they can find to audition for Musicology. Along the way they pick up where they left off in their bizarre life in the fast lane relationship. When they finally find a solid handful of kids they return to Burbank, California where we get to watch them narrow down the contestants until they assemble a motley crew of disparate singers. The Circle of Ten (the ten finalists) are assigned rooms to live in at Max’s mansion where the kids become friends, enemies and more. Not to mention the diva has a secret concerning one of the contestants that could not only get the show canceled but could land Musicology in serious legal liability.

I wrote the book series with the idea that despite its length it would read fast and funny as well as having moments that were sometimes poignant and sometimes devastating. Because of its raunchy and highly explicit content, the book series is not intended for readers under 18 years of age. I watched and continued to watch hundreds of hours of reality competition shows over the course of the three years it took me to write all five books. In fact, I still watch some of them. The Epiquad in many ways was the most challenging of the novels because it takes place during the year after the show has finished its season and it needed to wrap up the story in a way that gives the reader a wholly satisfying ending. After I completed writing the books it occurred to me there were two plausible ways to end the series and so before I copyrighted all the books, I wrote an alternate ending. I have released only the original ending at this time.

I wanted the series to have a cinematic and highly entertaining feel to it with a lot of dialogue so the books could be easily transferred to film. I received a writing degree and an acting degree and then went on to finish a two-year professional actor training program in New York City as well as a yearlong screenwriting program at the UW and wrote a few screenplays before turning to novels. I often think of my novels as readable and comprehensive plays or screenplays. In fact, I tend to refer to my chapters as scenes. I like my characters to pop off the page. I like to be able to tell anyone what my character is like and be able to answer just about any question about them. In other words, I probably know my characters better than I know real people. In fact, it is difficult if not painful for me to have to move on and meet new characters as I am so married to them.

But a writer cannot continue living in one world alone and I am presently finishing up another satire which I will keep you updated on. Until then, Gigi is going to return next week with another chapter of her story What I Found in the Trunk. Until then, the first two books of the Musicology series, Musicology: Volume One, Baby! and Musicology: Volume Two, Kid! will both be FREE to download to Kindle on Amazon next Monday, June 14^th and Tuesday June 15^th.

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and the first four installments in my Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist! and Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. The fifth and final book of the Musicology series, Musicology: The Epiquad will be releasing this Friday, June 11, 2021. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!!!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: BAD EDUCATION (2019)-HBO Max

Earlier this week a story broke about a young thirty-year-old named Casey Garcia who is the mother of a 13-year-old middle school student. She decided to try an experiment: could she, after dying her hair, pose as her daughter and attend school. Would she get caught? And if she did how long would it take the school to realize she was an imposter? As it turns out not till the end of the day. She was able to enter the school, say hello to the principal and another faculty member and attend all seven of her classes, including eating lunch without a mask on, for the entire day. It wasn’t until the last teacher, thinking she was the woman’s daughter asked if she could speak with her at the end of class. The teacher was stunned when she found out the student was the student’s mother and responded with one word: “Why?”

I for one am on the side of Ms. Garcia and do not think she should be persecuted for her act. She proved a point and for that matter she is not the first young woman I’ve come across who has pulled something like this off. When I was going to the university there was a student a couple of grades ahead of me who went down to Pioneer Square and posed as a homeless woman for three days (do not try this at home). At that time she was taken in by the homeless community who treated her very well and provided her food and a place to stay. Nowadays they would probably just shive her and take her money. I hope I’m wrong.

I also knew a university student who was the editor of his college newspaper who came to my high school and posed as a new student to do a study on high school students. Now in this case the school knew about his experiment, but the students didn’t. He did indeed pull off his ruse and went to classes for about a week or more and fooled the entire student body. Bear in mind he was a senior in college and not a freshman, so he was about twenty-one or twenty-two years old at the time.  

The point is, as the Amazing Randy said, “No matter how smart or how well educated you are, you can be deceived.” The argument the mother is trying to make is we cannot afford to be fooled living in this now absurdly dangerous world. We need to change. The schools need to change. The public and private school system is so notoriously bureaucratic and filled to the brim with employees who can be scammed at the drop of a pin. Is this not the laughably perfect target for a dangerous person?

Which brings me to my stream of the week. An excellent little film about fraud. Fraud to the tune of eleven million dollars…stolen from the public school system…and it’s based on a true story. Dr. Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) is the superintendent of the Rosylyn Union Free school district in Long Island, New York, and Pam Gluckin (Allison Janney) is the assistant superintendent. Together they can boast under their leadership the school district has risen to number four in the number of students accepted into Ivy League universities. Because of their desirable schools the property values in the area have also risen allowing for a large flow of money into the school district. Dr. Tassone is a master propagandist who can schmooze just about anyone…except student reporter and co-editor of the school newspaper Rachel Bhargava (Geraldine Viswanathan) who is working on a “puff piece” about the expensive new sky bridge the school wants to build. After Tassone’s suggestion to make sure she investigates her piece well and Gluckin’s reluctant suggestion she looks through the school financial files, Rachel’s research leads to a paper trail of school credit card purchases that appear to be strangely suspect. By the way, Rachel Bhargava’s character is based on real Roslyn high school student Rebeckah Rombom who was the first to break the story via the school newspaper and went on to graduate from Dartmouth.