A conversation

Kerry and I had just begun our weekly meeting, seated in our favorite booth at the Tally-Ho. While waiting for our designated minutes-taker, Nicky, we discussed the cultural landscape.

Kerry: For the longest time, I thought Jane Seymour was the Gerber Baby.

Me: Really? I have to confess I don't know who was.

Kerry: Turns out, she's not.

Me: How do you know this? And why is this a thing?

Kerry: I was online trying to find out more about Anthony Bourdain's trip to Spain.

Me: Okay, this isn't how I thought the story would begin.

Kerry: And while I was surfing, this old bat comes up on the page and claims SHE was the Gerber Baby. It just doesn't seem plausible. She looks so old and Jane seems more the right age.

Me: For a few minutes, I wondered if Mr. Green Jeans was Frank Zappa's dad.

Kerry: That was a thing for a while, wasn't it?

Me: Yeah. Eons ago. That pre-dated my skepticism. And my awareness of Snopes and Wikipedia. And my friendship with Geo, of course.

Kerry: I still want it to be Jane.

. . . . .

Postscript, with apologies to my wingwoman:
Ann Turner Cook was the Gerber Baby.

As for Mr. Green Jeans, the wiki has this to say: "Mr. Green Jeans was the subject of an urban legend that claimed he was the father of the late musician Frank Zappa. The confusion probably arose from the title of song by Zappa, "Son of Mr. Green Genes", from Zappa's 1969 album, Hot Rats. Zappa was, in fact, the son of Francis Vincent Zappa, Sr. The rumor has also been attached to shock rocker Alice Cooper." What I found most surprising about his brief wiki entry is that he died in 1987 in East Stroudsburg, Pa, only a hike over a mountain from my hometown.

Rockin' Horse Corral, again

I'm delighted to say that another photo from the flickr photostream of the Bethlehem Mounted Patrol Unit received some love from Rockin' Horse Corral.

Here are Raven and George on patrol one evening this summer. They looked like they were posing so I had to oblige with a click.

[click on the photo for a larger view]

And here's the permalink to the entry in the Rockin' Horse Corral Winners Gallery... but do yourself a favor and scroll through those amazing photos.

Rockin' Horse Corral

One of the sites I garden for the Bethlehem Mounted Patrol Unit is their Flickr page. I've joined a few groups—both law enforcement photo and horse photo communities—and occasionally I contribute a photo or two to these groups.

One group I like is Rockin' Horse Corral. Some of the contributions are overwrought with type and watermarks but some are particularly stunning and make the group worthwhile. They have an award structure where if your contributed photo receives three award comments on your photo, you're allowed to post the image in their photostream of winning images.

I was very happy to see that one of the shots made it into the winner's gallery! This is a shot from the Blueberry Festival at Burnside Plantation. [You can see the entire Blueberry Festival set here.] After each demonstration in the turnout, the mounties would do a meet-and-greet near the barn and many kids queued up to pet the horses' noses. I tell you, I never grow tired of watching children approach the horses in what is their first-time contact. It always melts my jaggy old heart.

Here's a young lass meeting Raven, Pharaoh and George. She was so sweet and tentative but they acted like the gentle giants they always are with children.

[click on the photo for a larger view]

And here's the permalink to my entry in the Rockin' Horse Corral Gallery. Check out some of the gorgeous photos there!

Model horses

This has to be one of my favorite photos that I was able to capture of the Bethlehem Mounted Patrol Unit. This was after a demonstration in the turnout at Burnside Plantation at their Blueberry Festival. I owe it to serendipity. And clicking quite a lot.

The mounties were speaking with a television reporter who is out of frame. The horses? Well, who knows. There was a pony ride in the orchard behind me. Maybe they were interested in that. Maybe they were curious at the sound of my shutter. And then again, maybe they have just become total hams.

From left to right: Raven and Officer Timothy Brooks; Pharaoh and Officer Jon Buskirk; George and Officer Michael Leaser.

[click the photo for a large version]

If I didn't love you...

[ click and crank it ]

If I Didn't Love You is from Squeeze's third album, Argybargy and
was released in 1980 only in the U.S. as 7" and 5" vinyl.

The version here is actually a demo recorded by Glenn Tilbrook, lyrics by Chris Difford. Right now I prefer this stripped-down demo to the track on the original Argbargy. This is available on a deluxe edition of Argbargy, released in 2008 from Universal U.K., and the song list has been expanded from 11 to 36 tracks. The song list includes live material from a 1980 concert at the Hammersmith Odeon.

Listening to this is going to make you wonder why you stopped listening to Squeeze. Soon you will rummage through your dusty
vinyl collection only to give up and spend a small fortune on mp3s.
You might also want to look into Spot the Difference, release date
August 3, 2010.

Consider yourself warned.

Things that happened this week

I'm typing this on a Sunday, slightly incredulous that so much happened this week, especially some significant moments. Some of it seems like weeks ago—kind of like I was living in compressed time.

First of all, Trebuchet has been charting consistently at CD Baby and for WEEKS has been on their front page for their Top Sellers list. In fact, I did a little stalking searching on their site and found that a number of the Maestro's albums are featured on their genre and "mood" pages. For example, in Funk Rock, three of his albums are at the top of that list: Trebuchet, Coelacanth and Interrobang. We love the Baby! And we love you fans most of all. Thanks so much!






















Rock on!
[You can click any of these images to embiggen, a term I appropriated from Dr. Plait.]

Speaking of Geo, he was a Guest Rogue on show 260 of Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. The show was recorded about a week prior to this post but uploaded while the SGU gang was at TAM8 this weekend. It was offered in their feed today and it is chock full of awesomeness and SCIENCE. If you're not already a devoted fan of SGU, perhaps you might consider checking them out. They are indeed one of the 900-pound gorillas in the skepti-sphere and we love them a bunch. The work that they do and the panache with which they do it continue to inspire us.

As for the conference—damn! TAM8 and I couldn't go. Oh well, maybe next year, y'all. For the time being, I'm making my plans for Dragon*Con. Yes!

The highlight of my work this week was the Dark Øverlord Media deadline for THE STARTER by Scott Sigler. On Tuesday the 6th, I uploaded the final files to the publisher for the interior book design. I'm profoundly honored to work with Scott and A Kovacs and fortunate to have the mentorship of Glen Edelstein who was one of the creative directors at Random House for a skabillion years and now is my secret weapon and book design ninja. As for Scott and A, while I was working on THE STARTER, they were involved in a leg of the ANCESTOR book tour and there was never a single moment when they didn't make themselves accessible to my endless questions via email, text and phone. Go Krakens!




While working, I make endless pre-flight scribbles. That sheaf of paper is a fraction of the original manuscript. [HEY! I see what you're up to. Clickety-click to enlarge but it won't tell you much more about THE STARTER.]



While working, I make endless pre-flight scribbles AND non-sequitur notes just because that's the closest available note paper. Honestly, I have no idea what this was about. That's how crazed I was.

And when I was through with that deadline, I had a case of serious work hangover so things like this became essential for decompression. It's very silly and very sweet. [If you think the video is about the baby, you didn't watch it. Watch it!]

A favorite distraction blog to visit lately has been vovchachow. Geo's sister, Lesia, is a cook at a Ukrainian camp for kids, a camp they attended when they were growing up. She started the blog at Geo's suggestion—she's a top-shelf raconteur and I wish she had more outlet for writing. It must be quite the slog, working in that kitchen, but Lesia makes the journal re-telling pretty hilarious. My Ukrainian is rudimentary at best. Although she sprinkles Uke words throughout her posts, it doesn't matter that I don't know the vocabulary. It only adds to the flavor. This should be a screenplay. Check it out.

For fun, mid-week I documented a training session with the Bethlehem Mounted Patrol Unit at Burnside Plantation. They train frequently but I thought this might be an interesting session to shoot. They were going to review some obstacle and desensitization exercises but they were also going to kick it up a notch and involve gunfire this time. Recently they had detonated firecrackers with great success so this was a logical step. They started the exercise with the ponies at a distance and fired sim rounds into the woods. Of course, they employed all necessary safety measures. They brought the horses closer and closer to the officer firing the gun. [FYI: a Glock 17, the model they use on the job, outfitted to deliver paintball cartridges.] Since George seemed to be the least fazed by the gunfire, Officer Michael Leaser actually shot a round from atop the horse. George didn't even flinch. Quite astounding. After this exercise, there was more training in the turnout with obstacles. They're getting ready for the Blueberry Festival at Burnside and want to give the attendees a demonstration. One of my favorite moments was Pharaoh's head being covered by a raincoat. He really could not have cared less. Given the way he loves to nap, he might have thought it as just time for lights out.

Officer Michael Leaser with George at Burnside.

Pharaoh and the raincoat.

As the week progressed, plans started to come together for an evening in Manhattan next week. Magically, a package from FedEx appeared. [And NO, they're not off my hate list just yet. FedYech, that is.] You're looking at a signed copy of original Squeeze vinyl—on the original shrink wrap—from their 1981 release. It was a wildly generous gift from my friend, the amazing Mean Guy. The autographs are from Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook. I'll give you a moment to absorb that. And yes, the album has been given a place of honor in the studio. The only way this could get any better will be actually attending the concert.



A prized possession, joining the ranks of the Sheer Brick Hall of Fame, including an autograph from Bill Bruford, an autographed copy of Death from the Skies, and Hoops and Yoyo characters signed on their bums.

I am a camera

[ click and crank it ]

Here's one for all you shooters out there. A little stalker-y but, hey, it has the word "camera" in it and who doesn't dig that?

If you haven't listened, thinking it's The Buggles tune by the same name, fear not. Entirely different thing. Go ahead, listen.

Sounds kind of nineties, but it's actually from 2004. I stumbled across this tune today and got a huge kick out of it. It's from The Golden Virgins, a UK quartet. They were only around for a few years and disbanded in 2006. The tune is from their one album Songs of Praise.

Rather throwaway but it's got a nice gritty wall of guitar. Combine it with a summer evening and a couple of cold ones and you'll start flashing back to all the nights you wasted in Hoboken.

One fine day

[ Click and Listen ]

I've heard it suggested: what a different world it might have been if Mama Cass had shared her sandwich with Karen Carpenter.

You can ponder that for a while but I prefer to take a few minutes’ break for a studio dance party.

You're listening to:
One Fine Day, originally recorded by The Chiffons and covered by
the Carpenters in a medley on their album Now and Then.

Catapulting onto the charts...

In an automatic email from their warehouse, CD Baby asked that we send a skabillion more CDs for Trebuchet. After some conversation with the Maestro, I called CD Baby to inquire if that request was for real. “Oh yes,” the young man said, “That's for real!”

Later that day, Geo stopped in the studio and said, “Check this out.” And he brought up CD Baby on the screen. There on the front page as the featured Top Album was Trebuchet. I was so jazzed, I didn't have the presence of mind to take a screenshot. However, I did get a shot of the Top Albums list.

And then I realized that it had made the Staff Picks, too!

Here are the screenshots of what I saw. [You can click the images to embiggen.]

Pretty damn cool.

If you're a fan of Hrab's music and haven't purchased the album yet, you might be interested to know that the Golden Ticket is still floating around out there. That means that the person who receives a Trebuchet CD with the Ticket inside is entitled to their own George Hrab show—and the Maestro will travel to their location and perform a living room concert for them.

Many MANY thanks to all the people who purchased the physical album, as well as the digital downloads, both at CD Baby and all the other digital distribution sites.

You rock the Geologic Universe!

- - - - - - -

This, just in!
And now my collection of Trebuchet screenshots is complete.
With thanks to my super-amazing friend, Mean Guy.