It’s been ten years, but I’m back…

Hello, everybody.
I haven’t been on this forum in ten years, but sometimes RL brings us to some wild turns. Had my ups and downs singing on Bourbon Street, and I’m happy to say that after the two year debacle that shut everything down (aka The Kung Flu), I’m back to singing there again.

Those two years took a toll on many of us, financially. As many may remember, about ten years ago, I joined this forum bearing a couple of gifts… my animated visual excerpts from William Peter Blatty’s novel of The Exorcist. During the two years of not singing on Bourbon, I had to take a far less paying job at the local grocery store until things picked up again. I am so thankful to The Lord above that I have such a wonderful landlord who was willing to work with me during that time, and still works with me as I endeavor to pay catch up with my rent. During that whole “eviction moratorium”, I did not stop sending what I could each week for rent. I was accustomed (as a B Street singer) to making my month’s rent in a week of work. The stopgap job I had to take during the Great Shutdown barely allowed me to make 3/4 of my rent in a month’s time. But, I sent what I could. (Some folks took that moratorium to mean “Oh, I ain’t paying a dime, and they can’t evict me.” Many good found out the hard way that that was the wrong mindset to have.) Anyway, I’m doing much better, and was FINALLY able to update my character creation and animating software.

I always wanted to remake my one excerpt of Karras and Regan’s second encounter, if I could make better character models. Well, after ten years, I am indeed back at it again, and I have to say, my Regan MacNeil build is coming along beautifully! I am now working on her possessed form, and it is going to look even scarier than my first version from ten years ago. Father Karras will also look much more accurate, as well as the virtual sets. I think I’m going to redo the vocal tracks as well.

A side note: I was crestfallen when I learned of William Peter Blatty’s passing in 2017. I always wanted to meet him, and show him my animated projects from before. But here was something that stunned me. I had some viewers ask me if I had ever heard Mr. Blatty’s read of the audio book. When I said “No”, they told me that my read was pretty darn close to Mr. Blatty’s own (and I believe the audio book had been released in the 90s). Well, just about a year ago, I finally got the audio book and listened to it. I could not believe it either, how similar our readings of those roles were. I felt humbled and honored to have shared a mindset with such a great author, who, himself, should’ve been a voice actor as a side gig. RIP William Peter Blatty.