Blogger's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes

In the course of searching for various pictures I've backed up, I'm always coming across others that I had forgotten of that are interesting in their own right. To say the least. So, in this short blog are just a couple pictures I felt just had to get out. Who knows, maybe a hundred years from now, they'll be ones that the Smithsonian are displaying to explain this crazy era. The first one is a good case in point.

This photograph is from a Hallowe'en gig I played back in the late '90's. As you can see, "Elvis" is posing with "the KKK." What can be said about this but what a strange combination?

This is another Hallowe'en picture, taken this year of 2007. A Pirate and Strawberry Shortcake. I went dressed as a French Guy, complete with a loaf of French bread and somebody in the club was kind enough to use my camera to take a picture of me with Strawberry. Maybe I'll post it someday.

This is a picture of an eggplant my father grew - I thought it looked just like Pinocchio. The eggplant went on to have it's 15 minutes of fame because this image was shown on a local television station's newshour and was seen by people in the whole tri-state area! That includes Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. Here is a link to download that clip, if you'd like to see it for yourself: Eggplant that looks like Pinocchio.

Pictured here are the "Chicago 10." My girlfriend at the time this was taken, (around 2003), standing just to the lower right of me, was a big fan of Simply Red. We went and saw them perform at the House of Blues in Chicago. The other people in the shot were some she had met on the band's website. We all arranged to meet and have dinner together before the show. Since we arrived at the House of Blues so early, we managed to be able to stand right against the front of the stage. Within slobbering distance from Mick Hucknall, the lead singer. What a thrill that was!

This last picture is just a self-portrait of another one of my submarine sandwiches, which I make so well. If you think this sandwich is huge, you should see the one my brother made one year!

I'd say this should just about do it until I can think of what my next blog's subject will be about. Who knows?

Sounds Of Christmas

I may have mentioned this before, but one of my all-time favorite blogs is Ernie (Not Bert). Ernie posts something that is near and dear to my heart - Christmas music! What he does is to go to thrift stores and find used albums, (yes - those big, black round things that revolve at 33 1/3 rpms!), record them to his computer and then upload them to the internet so that anybody that wishes to can download them. How great is that? I have personally downloaded several albums that he has offered and play them frequently. If you're interested, be sure to cruise on over there, (after you've finished here, of course!) and see what he has to offer! He starts uploading them after Thanksgiving, so he's got his season started already. Here's that link. Be sure to tell him that Kenny sent you over!

Well, I too love Christmas music. So much so that I usually record a Christmas CD each year to give out to my family and friends as a stocking stuffer gift. There have been around a dozen collections so far and I have loved recording each one. The great thing about doing it all yourself is that I not only get to sing all the voices and play all the instruments, I get to pick the songs! Of course, I pick all my favorite Christmas songs - from classic carols to modern pop hits. I even include some that I have personally composed on each CD. So, with no further ado, here is my most recent release, one from a couple years ago: Sounds Of Christmas by Kenneth Dwain Harrelson.

In case you're wondering whether or not to download it, here is a track listing to further convince you of it's Christmasy goodness:

1 We Wish You A Merry Christmas
2 Please Come Home For Christmas (the one the Eagles did in 1978)
3 Glory To God In The Highest (my own composition)
4 Deck The Halls (With Boughs Of Devo)
5 Angels Foretold This Glorious Thing (another one I wrote)
6 Feliz Navidad
7 The Chipmunk Song (yes.... that one with the Chipmunks!)
8 Mary's Little Boy Child
9 It Came Upon A Midnight Clear (my favorite Christmas song)
10 Away In A Manger (the old medieval version)
11 Angels We Have Heard On High
12 Little Saint Nick (the old Beach Boys classic)
13 He's Santa Claus (And He's Comin' For You) (another one of my originals)
14 Listen The Snow Is Falling (the Yoko Ono song that was on the flipside of John Lennon's Happy Xmas [War Is Over] single)

Well, there you have it. If it turns out that lots of people like it and ask for more, then I might upload another one - my first Christmas CD, Peace On Earth, seen below:

Bubblegum Music

Yesterday, November 17th, I went to Henderson, Tennessee with the drummer in the band I'm currently in. We went down there for a thing called the Caravan of Stars XIV, a concert featuring rock and roll artists from the golden age; i.e. the 1950's - 1970's. There were several artists there, including Dickie Lee, Carol Conners from the Teddy Bears, Jimmy Gilmer, Jim Yester of the Association, Bo Donaldson and the Haywoods, Eddie Brigati of the Young Rascals, Jerry Yester of the Lovin' Spoonful and Dennis Tufano, the lead singer of the Buckinghams. But the group I was most interested in hearing, and in fact the reason I found out about the show in the first place, was the 1910 Fruitgum Company.
You may remember them from such hits as the 1968 number 2 smash, Simon Says, 1 2 3 Red Light, May I Take A Giant Step, Goody Goody Gumdrops, Indian Giver, Special Delivery and others. The trip was well worth it! They put on a great show, as did all the other acts there. My seat was in the sixth row, right in front of the middle of the stage, so of course I got several good pictures of everybody. But, since it was the 1910 Fruitgum Company that I primarily went to see, I'll just post a few pictures from their part of the show.

Frank Jeckell

Mick Mansueto

Floyd Marcus

Out Of The Blue

Chances are, you'll recognize the above image as that of a Hot Wheels diecast toy car. It seems like they've been around forever, but in reality, they were only introduced in 1968. I had a few of those original releases, but sadly they're no longer in my collection. I do still have a collection of Hot Wheels, but only one that I started later on in the mid-1970's. They have released thousands of varieties it seems like and they never cease to amaze me at their creativity in coming up with those new designs. Of course, they always have the perennial classics such as this 1932 Ford Roadster:

And some such as this 1940 Ford 2-Door Sedan:

But, what many people may not realize, the good folks at Hot Wheels have designers hard at work to come up with vehicles that are not based on real cars. These are cars you won't find anywhere else, such as the Street Scorcher:

What amazes me the most is where they are able to come up with these futuristic vehicles such as this way cool surfing mobile called the Deora II. They apparently just pull designs like these from out of the blue:

Sometimes, though, I think these far-out, futuristic designs are all too common in their basic nature, and that the draftsmen at Hot Wheels just fall back on something they've seen in real life. They just try to pass it off as something you've never seen before. What prompted me to think this was I was sitting at my computer bidding on a Deora II on eBay one day and looked out the window at my Ford Taurus station wagon sitting below. I saw the back end of it in a whole new light and realized where the inspiration for the Deora II had come from. See if you don't think so, too:

On the Deora II, the way to get inside the vehicle is through the front - the whole nose of the car lifts up like a gullwing door. Kind of like the hatch on my station wagon. Maybe I should apply at Mattel as a designer. I think I could do work like that.

Meet Me In St. Louis

To most people, St. Louis, Missouri begins and ends with the famous Arch. True, the Gateway Arch, completed in 1965 and towering 630 feet above the banks of the Mississippi River is an inspiring monument, but the city of St. Louis has much more to offer if you only look around.
To start out with, my first suggestion would be to visit the world-class St. Louis Zoo. I've been there several times and find it fascinating each time I go. The cost to enter this zoo is free! The bald eagle below was photographed on a trip I took there in 1991:

Another fine place to visit is the St. Louis Science Center. It is a complex of buildings spread around on both sides of the interstate with a connecting covered walkway that takes you right over 8 lanes of speeding traffic. The clear floors to look straight down always give me vertigo, though. In the IMAX Dome across the interstate from the James S. McDonnell Planetarium pictured below, are more great things to see, including the original Gemini 6 space capsule that took Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford into orbit, December 1965:

If you're sports-minded, there are several national teams located in St. Louis. Of course, there's the 2006 World Series Baseball Champions, the St. Louis Cardinals. I was in town the day after they won the pennant and let me tell you, the place was a madhouse! Remind me not to book a trip there in October again. Below is their new stadium, that as you can see, was still partly under construction last October while I was there, but they were able to still play games in it:

St. Louis is also the home of the St. Louis Blues hockey team and the NFL franchise St. Louis Rams. I'm a huge Rams fan and always catch their games on television. This is their new facility, the Edward Jones Dome, and it opened in 1995:

There are lots of other places of interest, the Botanical Gardens, a tour of the Anheuser-Busch breweries, Knot's Berry Farm is close by, Union Station, a great place to shop, and many more too numerous to mention. (Or for me to remember right now, apparently.)

But, don't forget to see the Arch. A trip to the city should include a ride up into the Gateway Arch where one can see the entire St. Louis skyline:

While visiting the Arch, there are several other points of interest right by it to also take in. There is the Basilica of St. Louis, a lovely, towering cathedral in the heart of the downtown area; the historical Old Courthouse, pictured below; and the riverfront is where one can take cruises and go back in time riding an authentic riverboat! One I rode on was called the Becky Thatcher and we went for miles up and down the Mississippi River. It is pictured just below the Old Courthouse:

Or you can just take a leisurely stroll along the riverfront and see the sights. While I was there this past October 2006, the weather was so mild that there were still artists practicing their skills along the water:

Another place that has begun to put itself on the entertainment map, as far as I'm concerned, is the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. It is located just off I-70 on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis. They hosted Bob Newhart there last October and that was what took me there. He stills puts on a great show, let me tell you! Don Rickles was appearing there this October 2007, but I had already made trip plans to see the 1910 Fruitgum Company in Tennessee later in November. (They sang the Number 2 smash hit song "Simon Says," back in 1968.) This is the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center below:

I have to relate an amusing story that happened to me while I was there this past October, although it wasn't very amusing at the time. I had stopped on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River to get some shots of the Arch from across the water and I managed to get them, but just as I was finishing up, along comes this vehicle that looked very official. It had "Police" written all over the side of it. Turns out it was just the Railroad Police and they had this silly rule about not climbing on their tracks or something like that. I got away with nothing other than a stern warning. You can see me below as the guy was running a check on me:

All in all, St. Louis is a great to place to visit and I would highly recommend it to everyone. One place that, sadly, is no longer available to see is the old Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals used to play up until the end of the 2005 season. I took in many games there throughout the years and loved the graceful curves of the old stadium. That's it pictured in the lower-right hand corner below:

Yabba Dabba Do Watch This Show

Well, a new show premiered on ABC-TV tonight, October 2nd, 2007. And, let me tell you, I was highly anticipating it! If you've ever seen a commercial on TV lately, you're probably familiar with the ads featuring cavemen, run by the Geico car insurance company. I find those ads very intelligent and witty. Well, whoever comes up with new television ideas picked a lulu when they decided to bring these characters to life with their own show. The show is named Cavemen and the premise is that somehow Cro Magnon man has survived and lives in the modern world alongside Homo sapiens. They're not as stupid as the historians led us to believe, and in fact, the modern version is quite cosmopolitan. They go to clubs, work in malls and even play squash! How more integrated into society can you be than that?

The first episode, which was entitled "Woman Embarrassed By Caveman," introduced the main characters: The lead caveman, Nick, his best friend Joel and Nick's brother Andy, who all share an upscale apartment. In the opening, Nick is afraid to tell his roommates about his new girlfriend because she's a Homo Sapiens and he knows that Joel says they should date within their own species and would not approve. Andy is trying to get over his ex-girlfriend Susan, so he doesn't really care who his brother dates. We see that Nick works in a Swedish furniture store and that the roommates all belong to a health club where they play squash together alot with a caveman friend of theirs.

All in all, I found this comedy, which didn't have a laugh-track, to be intelligent and funny. No lowbrow humor here, even though the main characters have lowbrows! I don't know how the general public will feel about this show, and whether or not it will last very long, but I plan to enjoy it and watch it as long as it's on the air. I only hope that all the bad press it's been getting doesn't prevent people from even giving it a chance and have it cancelled before it had an opportunity to be viewed. I'm even recording the episodes to my computer so that I can burn them to dvd and preserve them. We'll just have to see what the ratings turn out to be like - whether they start strong and fall off, start low and stay there or build gradually as the weeks go by and it turns into a hit. I'll keep you posted.

My New Car

On Friday, I took possession of what Ricardo Montalban would have called, "My new car." It's a wonderfully roomy 1996 Ford Taurus GL Station Wagon. Now it will make it much easier to get my musical equipment to the next gig - with the rear hatch, everything just fits right in the back. I have other plans for this automobile, but more on that later. For now, it will just take over the shuttling duties from my other car.

This isn't the first station wagon I've owned. In fact, it's the third. My first one was purchased in 1980 and it was a huge land-yacht of a machine, a 1971 Dodge Polara behemoth that must have been forty feet long. At least it seemed like it. And to the other extreme, my second station wagon, acquired in 1999, was a tiny, almost too small for me 1984 Ford Escort. The back seat did lay down, however, and I was able to stuff my musical equipment into the back of it somehow.

But, the main reason I got this present station wagon is because there's a car club near my town that I've been wanting to join for a few years, but never had a car. Well, I finally got the car of my dreams, a swoopy, rounded cutie that has a lot of potential for turning it into a great street cruiser. The first thing I'll do to it is to lower it closer to the ground. Right now, it sits much too high in the sky for my liking. Then, after it's way down on the ground, wider tires and custom wheels of some kind. I'm thinking brushed aluminum S/T's. My ultimate goal is to rip out the V-6 it currently has, which is wedged in sideways making it a front-wheel drive and replacing it with something a lot more peppier. Perhaps a 351 and converting it to rear-wheel drive. I always wondered why that if they designed this car as a front-wheel drive, why it had the hump through the middle of cockpit, even though there wasn't a driveshaft under there. Well, I guess they put it there for people like me who would want to go the trouble to convert it back to "normal."

One final thing I'd like to do to it someday, but this would be a lot of work, and that is to convert it into a two-door station wagon instead of four. Kind of like the old Chevy Nomads of the mid-50's. As I make progress on my customization process, I'll keep everything posted for all those enquiring minds out there. Here is the car as it looked when I first brought it home on Friday:

Oh, and just so my other car doesn't feel left out, here is my beautiful 1991 Ford Thunderbird LX: