Oodles Of Doodles CCCXLV

Here are a couple of great doodles from the back of the record I just shared with you, The Blazers & The Yodelin' Guides-Track! Songs Of The Skiers (Kapp 1218, Mono, 1960). Pretty cool, eh?

A Day Early-Part 3-Finally, Something New

I promised something new today, and here it is. The third installment of today's ski-themed post is this gem from The Blazers and The Yodelin' Guides. I think this one is the best of the three I'm throwing up today, so if you only get one of them, this might be the one. I think that you'll really get a kick out of this one, and it has a couple of songs that might even qualify as seasonal, not just skiing. Be my guest and get a copy of The Blazers & The Yodelin' Guides-Track! Songs Of The Skiers (Kapp 1218, Mono, 1960). This record was pretty beat up, so it's got quite a lot of noise on it that I couldn't do much with. And one track even has a skip in it, so if you like your vinyl clean as a whistle, perhaps you should skip this one.

1. Ski Trails
2. Winter Song
3. There's A Tavern In The Town-Vive La Compagnie
4. S.B.B. (The Swiss Railroad Song)
5. She'll Be Skiing Down The Mountain-The Man On The New Pair Of Skiis-Wham! Went The Skier
6. The Happy Wanderer
7. Hop-Sah-Sah
8. Ski, Ski, Ski
9. We're The Gang-Give A Cheer
10. The Weggis Song (This track skips at one point. Sorry...)
11. Beer Barrel Polka
12. It Happened In Sun Valley

In addition to putting up track listings for you this year, I'm trying to scan in the labels of all the new shares. Old shares aren't going to have this added bonus, but all the new ones should have scans of the A and B side labels included in the download. You'll also find scans of the front and back covers in there, but you knew that, didn't you? I try to do a good job for you.

PS-I'm aware of only one other skiing LP, but I don't have it in my collection. If you're lucky, you can still get it over at the excellent Stax-O-Wax blog. Tell her I said howdy!

A Day Early-Part 2

Here's the second rerun of the day from two years ago, another ode to the joys of skiing. I can't say much about the pastime that I didn't cover in my previous post, so I'll just skip right to the good stuff. If you don't already have it, go download Ray Conrad-The Cotton-Pickin' Lift Tower And Other Skiing Songs (Prestige International INT 13039, Mono). This one is much better than that previous one. Here's the track listing:

1. Round-Bottomed Bogners
2. The Cotton-Pickin' Lift Tower
3. Skiing Billy (Duet With Rosalie Sorrels)
4. In The Mountains Near Alta
5. Two Cubes With A Slug Of V.O.
6. The Ski Instructor
7. The Mineshaft Song
8. The Last Ride
9. Skier's Bible School (Duet With Rosalie Sorrels)
10. Stretch Pants Lament
11. An Ounce Of Prevention
12. The Skier's Daydream

A Day Early

Well, here it is, the day before Thanksgiving, and I'm itching to get started with the Christmas sharity. But I've got a few albums that really aren't Christmas that I want to get out there, so I've decided to get them out of the way today. This first one is a rerun from a while back that I haven't re-highlighted in a while, and like the other records you'll get today, it deals with skiing. Now, being from Florida, skiing to me has always been something you do on liquid water, not the frozen kind. And it involves a boat, not a lift. But I guess there are some people out there who think it's fun to strap some sticks to their feet and throw themselves over the side of a snow-covered precipice. More power to them. I wish them the best of luck. I tried it once, but it didn't work out so well. Anyhow, this is a rerun from two years ago, but if you missed it then, here it is again. This is Six Family Mountain-Takin' A Ride With The Wind (National Ski Patrol NSP-1001, Stereo).

1. Takin' A Ride With The Wind
2. Snowbird
3. A Reason For Winter
4. Wrong Mountain Blues
5. Let It Shine
6. A Nice Place To Live
7. Chumley's Bus
8. Nobody In The Canyon
9. Country Mountain Shakedown
10. Vanishing Skyline

(Yes, I'm going to try to give you track-listings this year. I figure it will help the folks out there who are in search of a particular song. I don't know if that will last the whole season or not, since it adds significantly to the amount time it takes to throw up a post, but we'll see.)

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXLIV

I found this great set of four color doodles on the inner sleeve of a record I was scanning the cover of for the upcoming Christmas sharity marathon here at Ernie (Not Bert). The record was on Columbia, but the inner sleeve was from RCA Victor. All of the records advertised were in mono, and the highest catalog number was for a record released in 1958, so that's the date I'm gonna give you for this great doodle. The text across the top of the sleeve said POPULAR-JAZZ-ORIGINAL CAST SHOWS-MOVIE SOUND TRACKS, so you can figure out which doodle stands for what as an exercise. I've seen this artist before, but I can't find any of the other doodles I've shared to link to right this second. I think it's the pointy feet that gives it away.

Sunrise At Night

I got the opportunity to go see the space shuttle Endeavor launch last night, and what a light show that was! I was worried that I wouldn't get any pictures of it, because of the wind and the 14 mile distance. That, combined with the general difficulties of shooting at night had me worried, but I wound up getting a decent shot or two. Could have been better, but I was happy to get anything. This shot is just a few seconds after launch, so you can actually see the shuttle thanks to all the reflected light coming off of the steam clouds rolling out from under the gantry. Most of the other shots once it got in the air only show flame shooting out for hundreds of feet behind the shuttle, which isn't itself visible. Biggest drawback of the trip was the ride home, and the three hour traffic jam on a section of the ride that should have only taken about 30 minutes. And that was after we waited an hour for the traffic to clear. Oh, well, that's the price you pay, I guess.

Back For More

Some little rabbit told me this sculpture was back in town, but this weekend was the first chance I'd had to get down there and see for myself. Sure enough, they've brought back Unconditional Surrender by Seward Johnson to the Sarasota Bayfront. Technically, this isn't the same sculpture that was here before. The earlier one was a styrofoam model, and this one is a finished aluminum piece. It also looks a little smaller to me, but that may just be my eyes and my memory letting me down.

Kiss Me, I Voted!

Get Out The Vote

Don't forget to go vote today! Back in 2000, the election here in Florida was decided by less than 600 people. That's all my friends, plus all your friends, plus all the people at my cousin's wedding last month. And this election promises to be even tighter. So no excuses, just go vote!

Oh, and don't forget to buy my calendar...

Get 'Em While They're Hot

Well, here they are, the next-to-final proofs of the 2009 calendars I told you about. They're going to make about three minor changes to some of the text on these, and then they're being released to print. They get printed at 24" high x 36" wide on fancy coated glossy stock that you can write on with a dry-erase marker. For those of you who didn't read my earlier post, I took the pictures on both of these, and the company I work for decided to use my shots. The photo of Liberty Enlightening the World above was taken when I was in New York for 9/11 this year, and the photo below of Cleveland after dark was from a trip up I made a couple of years ago.



I went ahead and ordered a few of these calendars for myself, and I would love to give them all away. But they weren't cheap, so if you want one, I'd be happy to sell them to you at $20 each, shipping to the US included. Just drop me a line if you're interested, and we can work something out. My email is ernie.not.bert (at) gmail.com. Supplies are limited, act now! Well, don't act right now, I haven't got any copies yet. But soon... Oh, the dry-erase pen is included! Bonus!

Happy Halloween 2008

Here are a few Halloween-themed tracks for your enjoyment. There are only 8 (I think) here, 'cause I've been pre-occupied with another holiday that's coming up soon. But I know you'll enjoy these as much as I did. As usual, they're all from my own vinyl, recorded with love and care right here at Ernie (Not Bert) Central. The link is right here: Halloween shares 2008 Don't forget about last year's share, too! Oh, the vultures above were just outside the Saturn V Center at Cape Kennedy earlier this year. Heaven knows what they were doing there...

OK, I've got a few minutes here, so let me see what I'm actually sharing.

Johnny Puleo And His Harmonica Gang-Ghost Riders In The Sky from Western Songs (1959)
Manny Albam-That Old Black Magic from Brass On Fire (1966)
Shep Fields And His Rippling Rhythm Orchestra-Satan Takes A Holiday from One Man-Two Bands
Irene Reid-Theme From Bewitched from Room For One More (1965)
Pee Wee Hunt And His Orchestra-Boneyard Shuffle from Dixieland Detour
Arthur Winograd Conducting The Virtuoso Symphony Orchesta-Funeral March Of A Marionette from Marches For Children (1959)
Phil Harris With Orchestra Conducted by Buddy Cole-Some Little Bug from The South Shall Rise Again (1959)

Short list, but good stuff. Like I said, I've been obsessed with Christmas music for the past three months, so this is all I had on my hard drive for you.

7-Election Huh?

So, 7-Eleven is having this deal where they offer you one of two coffee cups in their stores. You can get either a cup that say McCain, or you can get a cup that says Obama. You're supposed to grab the one for the candidate you support, then they post which cups they sell more of on their website, http://www.7-election.com/. Simple enough, I suppose. I'd been meaning to take a look at that website for a while, and I finally remembered to do it today. I saw the map above, where the grey states don't have 7-Elevens, the blue states are states that sell more Obama cups, and the lone red state, North Carolina, is where they sell more McCain cups. OK, that's a pretty fair representation of the way the polls are running. If you hover over each state, it gives you the actual fraction of Obama and McCain cups being sold in that state.

I sent the link to a friend in NC, giving her a hard time about her state's McCain support. Then I noticed some odd math when you hover over North Carolina. If you look close, they show North Carolina as being 59% John McCain to 51% Barack Obama. Hmmmm, so 110% of the people in North Carolina have cast their vote via cups at 7-Eleven. And they say we're bad here in Florida when it comes to voting. Now, I've seen some stores in Palm Beach County selling purple cups, so I suspect there's going to be a recount in our future...

And That Makes 100

Those of you who have been paying attention will notice that my Christmas record counter hit the 100 records mark today. That means I've recorded 100 records, many of which I hope to share with you this Christmas season. 100 was my goal, but I think I've still got a few that I want to record, and I'm sure things will come up during the season that I rush to record and share with you. Some of those are things that I wanted to listen to, and recorded them, only to find out later they are on CD, so I can't share out everything. Some of them are re-recordings of things I've shared previously, either because I found a better copy of the record or because I thought I could do a better job than I did some years ago. I've tried to be much more quality oriented this year than I have in the past, at least on certain things. I'm sure my selection of records isn't the best, but it's all at least mildly interesting. I've used a lot less noise reduction this time around, and I've been very happy with the sound I'm getting. I'm recording lots more stereo records than in past years, and I'm making sure to record mono records in mono this time, too. So I hope you're all as excited as I am about the Christmas season this year. Oh, the total number of tracks I've recorded for the season is 1336, for a total of 2.5 days of music. :)

FYI, it took me over four hours to record the one hundredth record. Five of the eighteen tracks skipped on me, but I had a spare that I was able to get four of those tracks off of. That fifth track skipped on both records, but it was in different places. I was able to splice the two of them together and get a good take for you. I can't hear the splice, and there are clicks in other places that you might think are splices, but aren't. So if I didn't tell you what I'd done, you'd never know. I was also shocked to find that noise I thought came from scratches in the record were actually in the master recording (or maybe in the stamper), since they showed up in identical waveforms on both recordings. Weird, huh?

Now if I only had all these LP covers scanned and Photoshopped...

Couple More Calendars

Here are a couple more calendar possibilities for you to ponder. The folks at our Cleveland plant wanted a calendar that showed the Cleveland skyline, and I dug way back in the archives and found these unused (well, not entirely unused, but not previously published...) shots from a couple of years ago. I think they're going to go with the night shot above, but nothing is set in stone yet. Feel free to leave your opinion down in the comments. One of these shots will be used in addition to one of the Statue of Liberty shots I showed you early, not in place of those. I don't know if I'll have copies of both calendars or not, but maybe...

One More Thing

Go RAYS!!!

A Flash Of Red

I found the picture above in amongst all of the stuff I shot during my last trip to Ohio in June. I remember chasing this red-winged blackbird up and down the side of a canal near downtown Cleveland, but I didn't think I'd gotten any decent pictures. I must have missed this one when I was reviewing my shots for the day. As you can see, he's got his lunch, or at least a juicy appetizer, held firmly in his beak as he flies back to the nest.

Popular Vote Or Electoral College

Here's your chance to participate in the great democracy that is Ernie (Not Bert). Sort of. I've got the opportunity to get my pictures on a spiffy new calendar this year, and we've narrowed it down to a photo of the statue of Liberty Enlightening The World. But which shot should it be? I've picked out four of the best from my trip to NYC last month, and here they are. Which one do you like the best? My first choice was the one above, and it's the one I've done the most work on. I had to play with the sky a little to get it to the shade of blue that I like, but I wouldn't admit to that in court.

Shot two is another good one, you can see her left hand holding the tablet that's engraved with the date July 4, 1776. (Some people think that's where Emma Lazarus' poem is, but it's not.)

Picture number three is probably the odds-on favorite here in the little contest. That's probably because it squeezes in all of the important elements of the statue. You get the face, the crown, the tablet and the torch. I've also done some touch-up work on the sky in this one. I don't think it came out as blue as I wanted, but it's sufficient.

Number four is a detail of the face, with a little tiny bit of fake blue sky to the right. I like this one, but those streaks across her face (from water leaching some rust out of the joint to the left of her eye) detract from it too much. I like it, but I don't think it's the best.

While I was playing with the sky in the picture up top, I threw this one together in a hurry just to see what it looked like. There's a little tiny sliver of sky still edging the sculpture, and it shows when you look close, so this one won't fly, but I just wanted to see how it would look.

There you have it. Four choices. Which one is your favorite? And would you be interested in buying one of the calendars this picture will appear on? The calendars are about 2' x 3', with the picture printed at about 9" high and 27" wide. It's got the whole year on the face of it, and is printed on glossy paper that allows you to use it as a dry erase board. They'll sell for about $20. I figured I'd ask and see if there's any interest. I'll have to piggy-back my order onto the company's order, so I need to know about how many to get. If you're interested, leave a comment or drop me a line.

PS-Your votes don't really count. It's like the electoral college around here. You can vote all you want, but they tell you who wins. :)

Why I'm Not A Wedding Photographer

Plenty of people have asked me to shoot weddings and other events for them, and I've always politely declined. Part of the reason is that I think I don't take good people pictures. I don't have any real experience with using the flash and getting good flesh tones and all that jazz. The other reason is my lack of concentration on the task at hand. As I mentioned a second ago, I shot pictures at a wedding this evening, and right about the part where they read their hand-written vows, I spot this osprey flying along the water's edge looking for dinner. So what did I get a picture of? The vows? No. The osprey? Yes. Of course. Why ask a silly question?

Congrats Kayla & Ash!

My cousin got married tonight. I shot a thousand or so pictures of the festivities, trying to capture all of the stuff that the professional photographers might miss. That was hard to do as they seemed to be pretty on-the-ball. But as far as I could tell, they didn't get any silhouettes! I tried to watch what they were doing to learn a little something (while staying out of their shots), but all I really got was a bad case of lens envy. Hopefully the shots I got will add something to the memories of the event.

One Week's Notice

Just a quick update on the stolen car business that some of you may remember from a couple of weeks ago. I got served today with a summons to appear before a State's Attorney next week. I guess they want to get an official statement from me or something. We'll have to wait and see how that goes. In the meantime, I'm keeping my eye on my car just about every waking moment...

Not Exactly Wall Street

What the devil is this all about?

Out On Bond

Uh-oh, looks like the accused is out on bond! I'm going to go move my car to right outside my window so I can keep an eye on it. I wonder if they'll let me bring it in the shop? That would put my mind at ease a little more. The adjusters are supposed to come look at it today to see if there is any damage to the front end or the underside from the towing. I think it needs an alignment, and maybe some new front tires. Tires don't respond so well to being drug across the asphalt when they can't roll.

Whodunit?

I can't seem to link to it, so here's a screen grab from the website of the Manatee County Sheriff's Office. Remember, all people are innocent until proven guilty, even if you did find your car in her back yard while she was at the tag agency with your license plate trying to trade it in on a new one.

And We're Back

Just like that, my car is back. Well, there's more to it than that. Someone thought it was theirs, so they took it (had it taken, actually, by a towing company, who is also now in trouble). I pointed out that it was not theirs, and got it back. They caught the lady at the tag agency trying to exchange my license plate for a new one in her name. I'll never understand people. But she is now in jail. For how long, who knows? I do have to drive it in someplace tomorrow to get the front end checked out for damage due to the rough tow job, but at least I know how I'm going to get home tonight.

Gone In A Flash

Someone has stolen my car. I parked it here this morning, and now it is gone. I kid you not. Who would want a nine year old dirty car? Updates to follow. I can barely think right this second.

Last Night

Thought you might be interested in seeing the sunset from last night. I know it's a day late and all, but it's still nice. This was down in Venice, about an hour south of my house.

Wrong Photo

When I walked through the New York Public Library recently, they were installing a collection of sports photos along a hallway. Lots of people were busy hanging pictures and lots of other people were looking over their shoulders to make sure everything was hung correctly. It just struck me as funny that the one above was marked as the "Wrong Photo". I don't know why I thought that was so funny, but there you go.

Another Pomodoro

Did I mention that I found another sculpture by Pomodoro? I don't think I did. This sphere is located out front, and just to the left, of the United Nations complex in NYC. I didn't know it was there, I just stumbled across it as I was walking by, but I knew what it was when I saw it. I spotted my first Pomodoro in Charlotte, NC. This one is not quite as high, but it's a full sphere instead of just a cylinder. You can't get close to it, so I couldn't tell if it moved or not.


Look close and you can see me in there, with an unrecognizable chunk of the New York City skyline rising in the background. I tried to get a shot with the UN building behind me, but that would have been the section of the sphere where the interior was exposed, so it wasn't reflective.

Loud Cars

No, not cars that make a lot of noise, but cars that are somewhat ostentatious. As I was walking around downtown Manhattan on 9-11, I found these two cars that people had brought down there in honor of the date. They weren't being used in any official function that I could tell, and they weren't found anywhere really close to each other. I think the one below was affiliated with some police organization, but I'm not really sure. Both of them just served to demonstrate how deeply affected many people were by the tragic events of September 11th, 2001.

Fabulous Coney Island!

Who wouldn't want to visit Coney Island when they're in New York City? Well, someone who's been to a decent beach really shouldn't. I was terribly depressed by just about everything I saw. I wanted to go out there, and go we did, but what can you expect from a beach with a subway stop? Turns out that it's the end of the line in more ways than one. There were actually permanent signs erected stating not to enter the water. Just great.

Pretty much all of the fairground type attractions were closed. I guess the parachute ride above is one of the symbols of the area, but it looked like it had been closed for years. The rides below had only recently closed, but closed they were.


The only real high point of visiting the beach in Brooklyn was the upside-down girls in bikinis. Can't complain about that.

The Bronx Bombers

One of my goals while in NYC was to visit all five boroughs. Coming up with stuff to see in some of them was a bit of a challenge. I didn't know anything about the Bronx, so I wound up heading for Yankee Stadium. I arrived right in the middle of a game, so I tried to get back out of there in a hurry before the game let out. The picture above is the old stadium, the one that's been there since the twenties. Right across the street is the new stadium, scheduled to open next year. At least I can say I was there. Later that day, by complete accident, I wound up at Shea Stadium, home of the Mets. More on that later.

Two For The Price Of One

As you may or may not know, there are currently two space shuttles on the launch pads waiting to blast off to space. I figured this was too good a photo opportunity to pass up, so I headed over to Cape Kennedy this past Sunday with telephoto lens in tow. Unfortunately, security is tight, and they wouldn't let us out to the usual shuttle vantage point to the East of the launch pads. You'll have to make do with three different viewpoints from something like one to seven miles away. And only one of those spots lets you actually see a shuttle without a gantry in the way. The top photo is from the causeway between Cape Kennedy and Cape Canaveral. Someday soon I hope to get a pass to shoot a launch from this spot, as it's the closest the public can get during a launch. It's $60 or so for admission, but at only 7 miles distant, it's half the distance from where I usually shoot. The detail down at the bottom is shot from this same spot, and I think that's Atlantis you can see quite clearly. It's Endeavor on the other pad, for those of you keeping score at home.

This view is from the observation platform near where the crawler takes the orbiters to the pad. It's four stories up, so this is probably the best picture of the three, and the light was just right when I shot this. However, both machines are hidden by their launch platforms.

This is the view from behind the Apollo/Saturn 5 center. Still quite a ways away, and the shuttles are still hidden from view.

And as I mentioned above, this is Atlantis on the pad and ready to go from about seven miles away. Don't mind that seagull in the picture, he'll be gone pretty quick when they fire up those solid rocket boosters.

The (Temporary) Waterfalls Of New York City

One of the things I saw in NYC that surprised me were these temporary waterfalls. They were an art project designed by Olafur Eliasson, and were only in place for a few months this summer. They are all visible from a few spots on the East River, I first shot them from the South Street Seaport. The one above in under the Brooklyn tower of The Brooklyn Bridge. You could hear it when you walked over it, but there were no views of it looking straight down, I'm afraid.

The falls above were the ones the farthest away, out on Governor's Island. I thought about going out there, but I never did.

The shot above is from the Brooklyn Bridge itself, looking underneath the Manhattan Bridge on the Manhattan Island side. Pretty cool view, if you ask me.

And last but not least was this falls just South of the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side. I took all four of these pictures on my big NYC picture day. I spent 17 hours out and about, shooting 3200 pictures during that time. As you can see, the shots aren't exactly going to get me any contracts with calendar manufacturers, but I enjoyed shooting the shots.

Under The Bridge

No, this post isn't about the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it's about the view from underneath the Manhattan Bridge in New York. That's the bridge you see above, shot from the Brooklyn side of the East River. Nice little park down there, perfect for shooting pictures like this. I'm sure you've seen similar shots in movies, I know I have. I shot this after walking across the Brooklyn bridge, and right before I walked over the bridge in the picture. It was a long day...