The Mountain Goats “This Year” from A Bruntel on Vimeo.

TUBACHRISTMAS 2011
The 24rd Annual MINNESOTA TUBACHRISTMAS Concert will be Sunday,
December 11, 4:00 p.m. at Central Presbyterian Church, 500 Cedar St., St. Paul.

Audience Admission Free.

Free parking (see directions)
For directions and parking info see:
www.cpcstpaul.org/directions.html

To Play the Concert:
If you play Tuba, Sousaphone, Euphonium or Baritone you are invited to play. (NO other instruments)
All ages welcome. There will be over 100 players. (Players age range from 10 to 80+)

Registration: 2:00
Rehearsal: 2:30
Concert: 4:00

Registration fee $5
Music book $18
Hats & Scarves available $15 each.
Head bands $10 each

Decorate your instruments.
Bring a music stand if needed.

A good song for Halloween, and it just seems entirely fitting to the moment right now.

“Hey Parker, ready to go again?”

“I think so.”

“It’s getting pretty late, so we probably won’t make the Loring Park Art Fair, and might have to make a quick trip though Powderhorn.”

“That’s okay Kearn.  I’d rather be well rested and enjoy what we see.”

“Okay, let’s go hop in the car.”

After a brief drive across town, we hopped out, and…

"There it is Kearn, let's go!"

"Look, they even have my sized steps!"

"Sure are a lot of them though."

5 minutes later... "Come on Parker, I want to get your picture by the sign."

"CHEESE."

"Enough photo ops Kearn, let's go see the art fair!"

"Look Kearn, the sign says there are geese in this park. If we see any, we should ask them if they know where Minne is."

“That’s a good idea Parker.”

So, after much ado, we finally made it over our first booth of the Powderhorn Art Fair – Dan Parker’s Parker Project (no website to link to):

"It's like he knew I was coming. Not only did he make a sign for me, he made me a bunch of little friends too!"

"Look, this friend even comes with a snack!"

"And this one's all ready for Halloween. I bet Minne would like him."

"Hmmm, still no geese out on the lake. But a nice view of the park. Let's see what's over here."

Next we walked by Jon Offutt’s House of Mulciber booth.

“Oh Parker, you have to take a look at Jon’s work!  It’s really beautiful.  I’ve seen it at some past art fairs.  Just look at these ones up on the top shelf!”

“But I can’t see Kearn, I’m too short!”

At that Jon came over.  “Hi there little guy, just hop right on up there so you can see better.  Here, I’ll give you a hand.”

"Thanks Jon! That's much better!"

"Wow, these really are nice. I've never seen a glass vase that looks like a landscape before. It looks good enough to eat."

“Parker, I’ve already told you, you can’t eat the art.  Now come on, I think I hear some music you might like.”

“Okay.  Thanks again for the lift Jon!  Hmm, I do kind of like that sound.  Where’s it coming from?”

"Here it is. These guys are way too good to not have a crowd. Let's get some people and have a party!"

"Now that's more like it!"

“Kearn, I’m getting thirsty.  Could we go get a drink?”

“Sure Parker, it looks like that next booth, Ascension Art Glass, has a water bowl out front.  Maybe you could ask the pretty girls working there if you could have a drink.”

“Excuse me miss, could I have a drink from you water bowl?”

“Why yes, of course!  That’s what it’s there for!”

"Thank you!" *lap lap lap lap sluuuuuuurrrppp*

“Come on in and take a look around.  Hop on up, I bet you’d look great in yellow.”

"Kearn, I'm sitting in art, hehehehe"

“Here, take a look at some of our other tables too.  Hop right on over!”

"I feel like I could fit in pretty well here."

But, just as we had started talking with the super nice people at Ascension Art Glass…

"AHHH, Surprise Raptor Attack - RUN AWAY

Parker got spooked and ran off again.  (Raptor courtesy of Kay Schneider of Iowa City, IA (no website). )

By time I caught up to him, he had wandered into a strange land.

"Where... where am I?"

It turns out he was in Steve Brewster’s Moon Bay Artglass Studio (no website) of Poteau, OK.

"What a strange, beautiful land. But, Kearn, it looks like they're starting to pack up."

“It sure does Parker.  I think that may be all the art we’ll see today.”

“Okay, but we still have to go check if there are any geese to talk to before we go.  Come on!”

“Slow down Parker!”

"Come on Kearn, I see some ducks and geese landing now."

*run run run run*

*run run run run*

"Excuse me," *pant, pant*, "excuse me, Mr. Goose!"

"Yes?", "Mr Goose, have you seen Minne the Lake Creature anywhere around here lately?"

"Indeed I have my good sir. I saw her just this morning, down this way, at Lake Hiawatha. If you seek her, then that is where you must go.", "Thanks Mr Goose!"

“Come on Kearn, we’ve got to get home and tell Sinclair we know where Minnie is!”

To be continued… (though probably not for a couple of weeks).

Parker has woken up from his hibernation with a lot of energy and ready to go, while Sinclair has still been a bit groggy lately.  Parker has also decided to have the tattoos on his back removed, so people don’t keep confusing him with his beloved brother, who he got them in honor of.  If that none of that makes any sense, you can catch up by reading the existing posts in the Dino Saga series.

“Good morning Parker, what are you up to?”

"I was just reading your blog post about the art fairs this weekend. They sound fun! Can we go?"

“Sure Parker. Are you planning to buy some art while we’re there?”

“Maybe, what does it take to buy art?”

“Just some money.”

“Oh, let me go grab mine!  I’ve been saving up!”

"Let's see, I've got one dollar, forty-two cents, a button, a broken zipper, five bits of string, and a Jack of Spades. Is that enough for an art?"

“Um, I don’t think so Parker.  Most places don’t take bits of string as a form of payment.  But we can still go look.”

“Okay.  Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

And out the door we went.

"Wow, it looks like there's a ton of art here. Let's get going."

"I'd hate to meet the painter that goes with those, I'm small enough compared to normal sized people!"

“You know Parker, we’re going to be doing a lot of walking today.  I know you have the energy for it, but do you think you feet will be able to hold up?”

“Hmm, you’re right, they might get sore.”

Luckily, the first place in the Uptown Art Fair is the Uptown Running Room.

So, we stopped by their sidewalk sale to see if the friendly people there could help us out.

"Hi there. I would like a pair of art fair walking shoes, please."

"We don't usually stock dinosaur shoes. Hmmm, this is the smallest pair we have for your foot type. Give them a try."

"They seem a little roomy in the toe, but let me take them for a jog to see how they feel."

"Nope, definitely too big."

“Okay, we could always order something in your size, but for today maybe Kearn can just carry you when your feet get tired.”

“Yeah, I could do that.  Thanks for trying Running Room people!”

Parker was getting anxious, “Okay, now let’s go see some art!”  So, our first stop was Daryl Harwood and Kevin Murphy‘s booth.

They make Ikebana flower bases, which have little spiked clusters in them you can put the flowers on so they’ll stand up straight, and have water.

"And we actually make them using leaves from our garden for the shape of each piece."

"They look good enough to eat!"

"Come on Parker, we should go before you chip a tooth, or slip onto one of those little spikes."

Next, we stopped by the music stage Old Chicago had set up, which seemed strangely empty.

"I was born for the stage..."

"AND THAT BIRD YOU CAN NOT CHAAAAAAANNNGE, AND THAT... um, Kearn, could you move the mic down a little bit, I'm getting a lot of feedback here."

After Parker’s set, and three encores, we continued on, and found a Volvo dealership had set up shop at the art fair.

"That's right ladies, I'm not only beautiful, but apparently I'm safe too."

“Hey Parker, how do you think the ladies would like you in this old car?”

"Hmm, it's okay, but I was thinking maybe a convertible..."

"Now that's more like it. Bugs in my teeth, the wind on my tail, and the open road ahead."

“Hmm, but Parker, can you reach the pedals?”

"Umm, not really..."

"And more importantly, I can't reach the radio. I guess this isn't the car for me after all."

“Well, let’s see what else they have.”

"Kearn, look! This one has a big screen TV in the trunk! Oh, wait. That doesn't make any sense at all."

“Parker, could you come over here and jump up real high?  I want to get your picture with the Uptown Theatre sign!”

"WEEeeeeeeeee!!!"

“Kearn, all this jumping is making me hungry.  Can we go back and eat those flower stands we saw earlier?”

“No Parker, I don’t think the artists would like that very much.  But, we can see if we can find you some real food.”

“Here, let’s ask this guy if he know where we could find some food around here.”

"Excuse me Mr Chino, would you know where we could find some dino snacks around here?" "Um, I guess I'm not familiar with dinosaur dietary needs, but you might want to check with my friend Latino."

"Excuse me Mr Latino, would you know where we could find some dino snacks around here?" "Why yes! If you head over towards Calhoun Square, you should find all manner of confections!" "Thanks Mr Latino!"

"Boy, I hope confections means food. There's Calhoun Square! Let's go!"

To be continued…

Alice Cooper’s I’m Eighteen as covered by Creed:

Tegan and Sara’s Nineteen:

Also, I found that one of the media players on my computer (VLC) lets me play an mp3 of the Nineteen at 67% speed, which is about perfect. Also, I’ve decided my imaginary band’s cover of The Con would really be best as a punk rock version a la Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies.  From the same VLC trick I’ve found that at 150% speed The Con starts to sound like a mix of Japanese pop and death metal – it’s kind of great.  Also, at 150% speed, The Nobodies by Marilyn Manson is hilarious – gets sort a vaudeville, lounge singer, show tune, dance mix feel.

And while we’re at it, I got nothing for 20, but for 21 and 22 – Billy Bragg’s A New England (yeah, the years aren’t in the name, but it’s the opening line, and a great sounding one.)

Via a friend’s Facebook post.

Been stuck in my head for a couple weeks.

Kind of reminds me of Fear the Boom and Bust.

And I imagine this one at about 2/3 of the tempo so it grates just a bit, and throw in a few more voice cracks on the long held out notes, with the word “nineteen” breaking into an all out vocal chord spraining scream roughly every other time it occurs:

Note that said metal band would include some awesome special sound effect reverb thing that would make me sound like twins.

Now I just need to learn to sing, or play a normal rock band instrument. Somehow I don’t think tuba would fit in the average metal band. Though I do think it would be great for doing a solo cover of The Cave by Mumford and Sons, or perhaps a tuba / banjo duet with percussion played on the bell of the tuba:

(Previous Tegan and Sara here.)

• Swiss Miss, posted that it was from BrownChickenBrownCow
• Who posted that it was from mikehudack
• Who said it was from pberntsen
• Who got it from bethtucker
• Now, Beth Tucker doesn’t say where she found it from explicitly, but if you click on the picture, it takes you to ReadWriteWeb (and if you look at the url, she apparently found that through her google reader feed)
• Now, strange thing here, if you go to the ReadWriteWeb page, you notice something different about the image – it has where it came from (Noise To Signal) *in the picture*.  Which means before it got into the Tumblr ecosystem (read – cesspool), the image had as a part of the image where it came from clearly noted.  Someone along the way didn’t just copy the image and repost it without noting where it originally came from (laziness), they saved it, opened it in a photo editing tool, cropped it to remove the attribution of who actually made it, and then posted it to their Tumblr blog (purposefully stripping the source).  All the blogs in that chain point back to Beth, so I would assume that’s where the change came, but that the glory of Tumblr – everything is reposted without credit (stolen), so who knows where she stole it from without accrediting it?
  *Note – Updates and clarification on what actually happened here in the comments below, which includes facts and sensible / rational explanations rather than ranty speculation like the above. *
  Someone else may have cropped it to remove the attribution, and then she took it from their site and didn’t attribute them.  Who knows?  And, as icing on the cake, who is this Beth Tucker?  Well, if you read her “About Beth” page, she apparently used to be a lawyer.  Gee, wonder why that didn’t work out.  Oh yeah, and she talks about herself in the third person, because that’s sane.
  * Update – sorry, cheap jab. I’m a dick when I get on a humor/rant roll. I think it tends to be more amusing if you know me / if it’s in person and you get a bit of the George Carlin-esque-ness of it, which doesn’t always translate well to written form. I’m working on a new blog theme/skin that should highlight this a little more.*
• Now, if you did click on the image on Beth’s Tumblr blog, and got to the ReadWriteWeb page, there is both the water mark on the image for where it came from, and a link to the creator’s site, but not to the specific comic.  I’ve seen lots of people argue either way for if you should link to the specific piece of content or to the site as a whole.  I tend to favor linking to the specific piece of content (left over from documenting page numbers for research papers), but really either way works, as long as you actually give credit to who made it.  So, we’ve finally made our way back to some sort of accreditation.
• ReadWriteWeb links us to Noise To Signal, who actually made the cartoon, and we can do a quick search, and, about 7 steps from where we started (you could link this cartoon to Kevin Bacon quicker), we find (trumpets sound) the actual original cartoon.  Now, here’s the part that makes all of the above even more ridiculous (and I would say even tops the lawyer part) – the original comic has the following right under it:
  

  Post this cartoon on your site:
  Copy and paste this embed code…

  That’s right, on the original comic’s page, there’s code you can just copy and paste to put it right in your site, without having to download it, crop the credit off of it, and re-upload it.  Simple as can be, ctrl-c, ctrl-v, publish button, done.

And it’s not just that the four or five Tumblr blogs above reposted this cartoon without noting where it was from, if you look at the bottom of each, it has a list of other Tumblr blogs that have reblogged it since then (or liked it), which on the first two is 530 additional people.

Now you may say, “One comic that made the rounds, big deal.”  But, the thing is I come across this all the damn time with Tumblr.  Someone posts something cool on a site that usually accredits things well and it leads back to Tumblr, where there’s no clear attribution of where it came from, so people give up and just say it was from there.

The above is actually one of the only times where a chain of accreditation went into Tumblr and I was able to find the way out back out.  Most of the time you can’t even search for where it originally came from (even with tineye, which is awesome), because it has been so heavily reposted on Tumblr without notes on where it came from, that the search engines just show you a hundred Tumblr links.  There’s been a ton of things I’ve come across and would love to post here, but won’t, because due to the glories of Tumblr, I don’t know who actually did the work to make it, and probably never will.

The reason this really pisses me off is because the whole web is based on sharing and copying (in case you didn’t know, everything that you’ve ever looked at on the web, including this, has gotten copied to your computer before you ever saw it – that, at a technical level – making copies – is how the web works).  But people share things on the web with at least the slight hope that they’ll get some form of credit for it.  At least a link back.  For a fairly poor metaphor – bands let their music get played on the radio for free so people will hear it and want to hear more of their music, and, ideally, buy a CD or some mp3′s or come to a show.  The internet and the world of blogging works a lot the same way.  But, in my mind, Tumblr is the equivalent of a band playing the song American Pie and either claiming they wrote it, or that it’s by Madonna.  Or, more accurately, a band lip syncing to the original recording of American Pie, and then claiming they wrote it, or Madonna did.  Unless you’re Don McLean, you can’t claim you wrote American Pie, and you can’t claim the person singing it in the original was you.

This is why I hate Tumblr.