With our current president looking at purging the U.S. penny from the American currency system, others seem to be of like mind, as evidenced at Always Ice Cream in Annapolis, Maryland. Repurpose instead of disposal on their minds. Because yes, pennies have become devalued in a climate of high inflation and inflated sales taxes. The word “tariff” become the most cringe term in our lexicon these days.
Each of the ice cream shops on Main Street in the historic town are logjammed with customers, to the point you might find yourself needing a hop out of line to the bathroom as I did in my recent trip to Annapolis with TJ. We’d come out of Middleton Tavern an hour beforehand and strolling the back streets off the main drag, me loaded up with the local ale. Something had to give. Luckily, she held the fort in line, so to speak.
It’s a unisex restroom, so anyone can get a look at it, but there’s something stark and amusing to find an entire floor tiled with wall-to-wall pennies. Squat or stand for your business, you will be captured by the sight and wonder to yourself how much time and effort the owners took to come up with this novel design. Or you might find yourself counting them, trying to approximate a total like one of those candy in a jar guessing games.
Just don’t let your ice cream melt in the process!
Banging time at the Maryland Writers Association’s Author Showcase at Liquidity Aleworks in Mt. Airy, MD yesterday. My wife, TJ and I were promoting our books, spotlighting her YA mystery novel, Fantasies Are Murder and my horror collection, Behind the Shadows.
TJ for the win in sales! Good hanging with our fellow authors including chapter sister, Jean Burgess!
What a terrific signing event at Snug Books! Thank you, Ricky and everyone who came out with books already in-hand and for grabbing my older stuff. A hugely entertaining chat about horror and the questions y’all came up with were wild. Absolute blast. Pick up your signed copies of Behind the Shadows, Coming of Rage and Revolution Calling at Snug Books, 4717 Harford Rd Unit 1C, Baltimore, MD 21214.
With baseball back in full swing (see what I did there?), I always find myself in the opening month or so letting my mind drift to Saturday afternoons the syndicated This Week in Baseball would air. The ESPN of its time, along with ABC’s Wide World of Sports, TWiB was a half hour (22 minutes with the commercials) corralling of Major League Baseball highlights. Always coming with the hope your favorite team would make the cut in Mel Allen’s wrap-ups and feeling deflated for a few minutes when they didn’t.
Mel Allen was always good for snappy banter, especially in his preludes, accompanied by the iconic, popping instrumental, “Jet Set,” by Mike Vickers. The shows always following Allen’s shadow with the string and horn glory ride of John Scott’s “Gathering Crowds,” accompanied by a montage of legendary plays from the times.
TWiB ran from 1997 to 1998, and it already feels like a time capsule. Well, it is a time capsule, 27 years since the program ended. The game has changed much (and for the better) but nothing remains as heroic in sound as that triumphant march through TWiB’s fadeout. The opening and closing music being my constant earworms at any given point in the year. I miss kneeling on the floor at my dad’s apartment on Saturdays after we’d visited my grandparents and sometimes hitting a tavern called Hertsch’s. TWiB was as much as my life as cartoons, pro wrestling and comic books.
“TWIB” Intro: “Jet Set,” by Mike Vickers
Closing Credits: “Gathering Crowds,” by John Scott
“TWIB” Intro and Closing Credits Music in Their Entireties:
Last night, Visions of Atlantis, the crown jewel of pirate metal, laid down a gem of a show at Lovedraft’s in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
This Austrian band has been around since 2000 and has run through 20 different roster members and 3 touring players. Drummer Thomas Caser remains the only original member. They began as a folk-based, symphonic metal act in the spirit of Nightwish, Epica, Kamelot and Leaves Eyes, featuring a female mezzo-soprano lead vocalist teamed with a male lead. Usually the trope in this sublet style of metal music is the clean vocals are fielded by the female, hard growling by the male. Not so in the case of Visions of Atlantis, where both stationed are thrown operatic clean.
The band’s first female vocalist, Nicole Bogner, sang for five years before departing Visions of Atlantis and tragically dying in 2012. When I was still in the music industry, Visions of Atlantis’ 2007 album Trinity came across my desk and an interview slot with then-vocalist Melissa Ferlaak. What I remember of Melissa back then was she was a sweet person to chat with. I remember rating Trinity a solid eight of ten for whomever assigned it to me, but I never foresaw the juggernaut of catchy, keelhauling, symphonic power metal this band would later become.
In 2013, current female lead, Clémentine Delauney from France joined Visions of Atlantis and behind her in 2018, singer, composer, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, sound-engineer and producer, Michele Guaitoli. The shift in ideology for Visions of Atlantis became a fantastical pirating motif (no doubt speared by the success of Alestorm and the scores of popular Viking metal bands) as showcased by the band’s spectacular current trio of albums, Wanderer, Pirates and Pirates II: Armada.
Cinematic in scope, Visions of Atlantis have found their heading, pun intended, on these bombastic and gorgeous voyages into what they liken to a “pirate party” when performing live, clad in vintage buccaneer garb you won’t score at your local Renfaire. A pirate party was exactly what we were treated to last night, with fans clad in pirate gear, hopping and jumping around the floor as Visions of Atlantis steamrolled all of us with relentless energy, culling their set from the aforementioned three albums. As epic in a live setting as their latest recordings. Even more so. Clémentine Delauney has become endeared to the metal scene, a darling of this brand of symphonic based escapism who put on as much as a show as her cohorts. The melancholy angel stole the limelight where appropriate, checking herself down as compliment to Michele, who is as stellar as his immediate peer, Roy Khan of Kamelot.
My cell pics could only work so much magic. I find myself longing for my old pro camera and the days I would be in the photo pit reeling off better shots than these, but they should be sufficient enough to convey what me and my old buddy, Mark, whom I haven’t seen in a light year bore witness to: A freaking incredible night of siren-filled cutlassing.
This Sunday, April 6th, TJ and I will be featured together at the Maryland Writers Association Author Showcase from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm at Liquidity Aleworks in Mt. Airy, MD. We’ll be reading selections from our new books, Behind the Shadows and Fantasies Are Murder, along with other local talent such as Amy L. Watkins, Sam Polakoff, Frank S. Joseph, Jean Burgess, Lea Harrington, Steven R. Hirshorn, Jim Beane and others. I’m reading second, so come early! The brewery’s address is 8 N Main Street., Mt Airy, MD 21771. See ya there!
Roads Lesser Traveled 