Gina’s World

I found an article/column topic my PAMusicScene.com boss will absolutely hate! Normally, my boss Gina Tutko Usalis goes along with almost every topic I conjure up to write about for her website (except for the one about puppy fornication, which I finally agree that in hindsight pulling it was good and she has better judgment than I do.). But this one I know will make her skin crawl, and there’s not much she can do about it!! HA HA!! She’s trapped!! The only thing she could possibly do to change today’s column is edit its content and replace my stuff with her own content, after I submit this article to her, although thankfully she doesn’t normally do that because she xxxxx (editor at work inserts own comment) - PAN.A.CE.A FOR PRESIDENT!!

My article/column topic is none other than… Gina Tutko Usalis. She created, runs, maintains, owns, controls, demonizes, etc… PAMusicScene.com. She also writes a column called ”The Local Beat”  for the Pottsville Republican Herald newspaper on a volunteer basis.  So far since last year I’ve written about 17 articles for her, and I’ve never even met her. The only way we have ever communicated was via modern technology. Along with countless emails, I talked to her on the phone once, and she filmed Toolshed Jack twice at benefits, but other than that, as far as meeting her and talking face to face, she’s both Batman and Cinderella to me, always sneaking off into the night.

I first found out about her 3 years ago from MySpace. For you kids out there, MySpace used to be this popular website, the end. And I blogged countless hours over there on MySpace for Toolshed Jack. Gina, in her early days of dementia, somehow found and really liked what I wrote, and kept bugging me to write instead for another website that she was involved with at the time. I turned her down about a thousand times before eventually I decided to write these columns just to exploit her current PAMusicScene.com website popularity to boost the attendance figures for Toolshed Jack. Or maybe because there’s another reason I write for her that my evil little brain doesn’t want to admit.

You see, Gina Tutko Usalis is a good lady. Whether you know it or not, Gina does not get paid to do what she does. Ever see advertisements from businesses on this website? That’s because she does it not for any profit but because she loves it. And let’s not kid anyone… She is the queen of this website. Myself and a bunch of contributors write little columns for her from time to time, but most of the articles and upcoming performance information come from her. And most of that is because she really wants to promote live music for up-and-coming bands. This niceness of hers, by the way, involves confusion no more shocking and dominant than what she does for and how she helps promote Toolshed Jack.

Remember, Toolshed Jack is a cover band. The next original song we perform will be the first. We consist of four guys with other full-time jobs, and outside of Schuylkill County would not be recognized anywhere. We wouldn’t be recognized on a 100 foot billboard that says, well, fill in your own joke here. In other words, although her beloved Pan.a.ce.a and other bands with recording contracts will always dominate her heart (along with HotWingJones), she for some bizarre reason keeps coming back to us nobodies in TSJ. This was painfully evident when she recently emailed me within the last month to see if Toolshed Jack had any Christmas songs for her right-column December videos. I thought Gina would have dumped us on the side of the road months ago. Yet for crying out loud, there we are playing Run Run Rudolph directly beneath a video by The Hooters.

So needless to say, I have no idea what makes this magnificent woman tick. Now to top it off, there is a genuine bashfulness about her. Not amongst her friends, mind you, but in the musical community. She doesn’t want to be a celebrity: She lets that honor go to us ego-hogs that grace the musical stages. She is the amplifier for us, one you don’t plug into a wall. Somewhere and for some reason, she is leading the charge in eastern Pennsylvania to get the word out that it is still exciting to go out and watch a band play. And with DJ’s now getting cheap credibility for being glorified iPods, we musicians need the likes of Gina more than ever to remind people that live music is (and always will be) where it is at.

I’m about halfway finished and I think I know what Gina is thinking by reading this: “God I hope he’s almost done.” She HATES this, mind you. And I will admit that I sometimes can’t understand her motives, either. I am Captain Cynical, and anyone that does anything just out of the good of their heart is full of cow dung. I’m from the school of thought that everybody does things for selfish reasons, ultimately. But never have I gotten that feeling from Gina. She’s always been absolutely great with me and my band. She’s been outstanding with all the other bands, too, if I may speak for them. Gina, aren’t you absolutely HATING all of this public praise? HA HA!! Is it hot enough in this spotlight for ya?? Want me to turn it up even MORE?? I am enjoying this way too much.

Now let me tell you how/why Gina needs even more credit. I once blew an assignment she put me on. One time about a year or so ago she asked me if I would create a page on Wikipedia for PAMusicScene.com. She was very busy and nicely asked if I would do it. Now I don’t know if any of you out there have ever tried submitting information to Wikipedia.org. Your information’s accuracy goes through more spot-checks and analysis, in the internet world, than Osama Bin Laden at an airport in Washington D.C. going through a security check under TSA surveillance while wearing a t shirt that says “I drank too much and I’m bombed.” If your information on Wikipedia doesn’t factually check out, you are not only edited out of the page you are trying to submit to, the page itself you created will probably also get booted forever. You are not allowed to advertise on Wikipedia, and although they let Gina originally CREATE a page for PAMusicScene.com, adding information that sounds like promotion puts you at a risk.

Her/our thinking was because this website is basically non-profit, that creating a page with basic information should not be a problem. After all, your huge websites like pepsi.com have their own Wikipedia pages! To make a long story short, although I tried my best to not make the page sound like we were a PBS Pledge Drive, it undoubtedly sounded/read like I was trying to sell something (although I have no idea what). They zapped the page from existence the very next day. I had to report the sad news to Gina.

Gina was incredibly cool with it. Perhaps Gina feels pity for me or something which is why she takes things easy on me. My guess is that she feels incredible sorrow and pity for me because she accidentally saw my senior year photo in my high school yearbook. But nonetheless, in CLASSIC Gina Tutko Usalis fashion, she assured me that she was only thinking about strangling me for a completely unrelated reason. No, seriously, she was cool, she completely understood what had happened, and thanked me for my efforts. And I felt that thanks from her was genuine. She was pleased that someone was trying to help her out, even though I dropped the Wikipedia ball.

So without question, from Scranton to Shepton, Harrisburg to Hazleton, Reading to Ringtown, Gina Tutko Usalis deserves a standing ovation from the collective list of Pennsylvania’s musicians statewide. Her tireless efforts are absolutely astonishing, and her work ethic second to none. Her choice in humor column writers is questionable, but outside of that her dedication to the promotion of live local music puts her in her own class. Gina, I know you absolutely hate all this attention, but we music folk on the other side really don’t care: Good people need to be celebrated, not hidden. We all hope you have the passion to do what you are doing for many more years, not just for our own selfish reasons of popularity, but because you’re good at it and we need you WAY more than you need us.

Happy Holidays!

Brian from Toolshed Jack
Brian@PAMusicScene.com

** Editor’s Disclaimer:  “The opinions expressed in the commentaries (article) do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Gina Tutko Usalis or any subsidiaries.”

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