July 1, 2011
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The Big Bird

Tuffy P and I have been work on this owl mosaic for months. We finally finished it up last night and hung it out front this morning. All the tesserae have been cut from various tiles, broken dishes, bowls and vases using a little tile nipper which enables us to cut them to more or less custom shapes. The ground is 3/4 inch plywood and the cement is an acrylic compound which we’ve tested over a period of several years. The stuff seems to be indestructable. We don’t use any grout; we just sink the tesserae into plenty of compound.

Upping the scale on this, our third bird, gave us the chance to stretch out a little and mess around with different size bits, as well as different textures and introduce greater complexity to the whole piece.

July 1, 2011
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Ten more….

For train song #10, I’m going to turn to Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band performing That Train Song.

These guys are a three piece country blues band from Indiana – guitar, drums and washboard. They pretty much leave me speechless. I encourage you to check out some of their other material.

June 30, 2011
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Train song #11 features Billy May and his Orchestra

Posting a train song a day, eventually Marrakesh Express had to come up. I couldn’t avoid it. The thing is that I’ve never really been a fan of Crosby, Stills and Nash. However, I found this stylish instrumental version by Billy May and his Orchestra that I kind of like, so here it is…

Billy May was well known as a composer of television music, including the themes from Batman and The Green Hornet. He was also known as a trumpeter who played in top big bands in the 40s. I know there will some pop fans out there who will complain that I “dissed” CSN by posting the Billy May version instead but phooey on that. I know you can adjust. It’s my party and I can post what I want to.

Only 10 more train songs to go before we start into “Drivin’ Nails in my Coffin” – songs about drinking. So I suggest you prepare for the new series with a visit to your local liquor store.

June 29, 2011
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Meet the Prosecutor

As you will recall, a while back I was given a ticket because some policeman decided that he couldn’t read my license plate due to rust. It was a little rusty but it could be clearly read. I decided to try to have that charge withdrawn. To do that I had to physically show up at a municipal building to make an appointment with a prosecutor. This morning I showed up for that appointment.

The paper I was given didn’t direct me to the place to go but the person who arranged the appointment for me had said “upstairs”, so I waltzed right past the intake line-up and went up the stairs. Here I found a couple of security guys who directed me to remove any metal from my pockets while they waved a wand at me. They said I should go sit down at the far end of the room, which I did.

The fact that I was given an appointment for 9:00 didn’t mean I had an appointment for 9:00. It meant that a whole bunch of people had appointments for 9:00. Fortunately, the prosecutor was fast. He powered through his appointments. He looked at the charge and asked me if I had changed the plates. I showed him the documentation along with a picture of the old license plate, which I referred to as the alleged infraction. Charge withdrawn. I was in there for about 20 seconds.

I’m happy to not have to pay the $110 fine but still irritated that I had to jump hoops to make that happen.

June 29, 2011
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I know you’ve been waiting for this one….

Train song of the day #12 is Last Train to Clarksville by The Monkees. It was recorded back in 1966 and remains a nice little pop tune with a really catchy hook.

Here’s a fantastic instrumental version by The Shadows. The Shads were Cliff Richards’ group and they sure knew how to rock ‘n’ roll.

I also like The Four Tops take on this one with the groovy train sounds in the intro.