Robb Montgomery

Here’s a little dittie for a sunny Sunday afternoon

This song was written a few years ago in my studio when my brother’s wife, Allison Montgomery, add libbed some brilliant lyrics to a little keyboard pattern I had just penned.

What an imagination - she writes of all the pain of filing paperwork in ways today that I can relate. All that she says in the song (And is in real life a social worker!) is that she wants to do is “help the hurt. Can’t do that with paperwork.”

I have returned to a month of postal mail, have already filed three reports and proposals fro clients, booked thousands of dollars in new flights and have two more reports to file for the US AID funded project I am working with to help journalists in the Middle East. No good deed goes unpunished.

One report goes only to one group, the other to the sponsor and all of the filing has to follow the reporting rules of the funder. And you have to “CC” the right people for each report or you will not get paid or get your contract signed. Not BCC as I learned today - Ahhh. I may have just learned something valuable in writing that passage. . .

Anyways, the system works - but I couldn’t say it is very friendly, timely or efficient - it’s government work after all and that means . . . sigh . . more paperwork.

Not complaining too loudly - it is nice to be to needed now and also in future for the project.

Puh, I will get a reprieve next Sunday when I head out to Pennsylvania to produce a series of all day video and audio journalism workshops with master trainer Craig Duff at America-East - the second largest press trade show in the U.S.A.

OK - no phone calls please, and shut the door behind you on the way out - I still have homework to do . . .