The Jade Lounge is located on 24th & SE Ankeny.

It’s a lovely place to play, and a loverly place to eat and drink while listening to Cooper and I play some tunes.

Love Shag

Well, it’s finally here. The moment I’ve been waiting for…my new website. Much thanks to The Feef at Nighthawk Studios for designing, building, and maintaining my old sites for all these many years. Throw money at that boy would you!

But there comes a time when you have to put up something new, and though Feef bore my many calls for last minute changes with great patience and humor, and tended my whims ever so promptly, I felt like the old boy needed a break. So I thought a little painting trade would buy me a new look and greater ability to make all the little neurotic changes myself.

Well I didn’t think that. Some guy did.

Yes, a so called friend of mine offered to design a website that I could control the content myself from my own home and in exchange I would paint his appartment as a gift to his girlfriend. It was his idea and didn’t he ever sell me on it. I won’t bore you with ALL of the little details but here’s the bottom line. I did a professional custom job to specifications. I painted his entire appartment. 2 bedrooms w/ ceilings, a HUGE hallway, 11 doors w/ trim, his dirty bathroom (behind the toilet icky), a kitchen with all the cabinets including under the sink (also icky), and the living room.

In some cases I used my own materials, including primer, paint, and rollers/brushes/tarps/plastic etc. I showed up early, and stayed late. 40 hours on time and under budget, with some extras thrown in at his girlfriend’s request. During the job I had a medical emergency, but called ahead, still worked a half day, and still managed to come in on time and under budget.

Well, after I finished, he would not return my phone calls or my emails, which started jovially but eventually became more serious, but never rude or disrespectful. He sent me an email that hinted that he was having some kind of personal trauma drama that prevented him from returning my calls or my emails, but on the same day I got a spam mail from him promoting new tracks from his band (with whom I had sat in SEVERAL times and scored him a couple sit in drummers when he needed them to save a gig).

It was clear to me he was blowing me off. I had no way to tell, as he would not communicate with me. I eventually showed up at his door (to which I had a key and had let myself in and out dozens of time during the job) at 11:30 on a Monday morning. He wouldn’t answer the door, but I was persistent, and he eventually came to the door, RED IN THE FACE SPITTING ANGRY at me, accusing me of being red in the face spitting angry, and threw me off his porch (not literally, not physically…I think we know how that would have turned out…).

Then he pretended to care and feigned contrition and promised to whip me out something cool. You can always come home to The Shag so I took him ONCE AGAIN at face value. He missed every single deadline,was never less than an hour late to any meeting with me, and never had anything substantial to show me. Once he had some stuff that was CLEARLY thrown together in the hour he was late to meet me, and claimed he would charge THOUSDANDS of dollars to a paying client for it. At the final meeting his equipment didn’t work, then I never heard a word from him again…well…

I want to end on a positive note so let’s zoom forward to last month, early December 09. The original unpleasantness took place over the holidays ‘08. It has been a year. I wrote it off, made peace with my decision and stopped being so upset by it. What does this ass nuts do? He emails me OUT OF THE BLUE asking for my mailing address so he can send me money for my work.

Do I believe him? Of course not.

I don’t even want to engage him, so I send him an email with nothing but my mailing address; no greeting, no goodbye, just the address. I figured he was baiting me to tell him off, so that he could justify “not paying that asshole if he’s going be like THAT!” He replies and apologizes that it has taken so long, and wishes me well.

THAT is truly the last I heard from him. I just wonder if he plans to call me every Christmas, “Hey Sean, just wanted to remind you that I screwed you over in 08, just in case you were over it…you know…emotionally. Well that’s it. Talk to you next year!”

But let’s back up. Matthew Hagget, songwriter, artist, rapper, drummer, lover to one lucky woman, and web designer DESIGNED ME A NEW WEB SITE. I painted his basement and GOOD GOD he delivered! What is up with THAT! Well, I hope you like my new website, and I hope you like the story of how The Shag finally got his website.