Ever start something silly that just sort of takes on a life of it’s own? Welcome to Snaildartha: The Story of Jerry the Christmas Snail. It started as a silly little idea: Make the Life of Buddha into a Christmas story oh yeah and make it a snail. The story was originally created to be read by Shawn Stewart as part of the Red Eye Collaborations Uneasy Listening series Holiday extravaganza. Cause nothing says Christmas like a whole mess of feedback.

Time marches on as Time is want to do and in 2003 we retooled Snaildartha this time as a Soul Jazz record, a Christmas gift for friends and family limited to 100 copies, then we gave it away free on the internet. It sounded , well kind of awful but it was free, two years latter we remixed it and it was released on Innova, as a limited edition of 500, and it did quite well. Then of course Tower records folded, and most of the copies disappeared into the either, now you can buy it from Innova, for a reasonable price, or on GEMM or Ebay for a ridiculous price (last time I checked about $35 (us)

All the while every holiday it seems my bandwidth bills would spike up in December, that’s when I remembered the original was still up.

So now we are taking it down, but not to fret here in its stead is the remixed, remastered version yours for free. Sure its available on Itunes but the labels never sent me a check, so pppbbbtttt to them. And Happy Holidays to you!

The band here is truly something else Organ by Scott ”Pink Slippers” LeGere master session player and demigod of the Ecletone records label, On Drums the Buddha of the beat Mr. Terry “Poker Face” Haanen, and rounding out the musical trio Free Jazz legend George Cartwright , one of the many things that makes this record special is that it marks a much more melodic side of his playing, as opposed to the insanity of his group Curlew.The story is told (and mostly written by)by Comedian and raconteur Matt Fugate. Mixed by Brian “don’t give me nickname” Jacoby .Mastered by Bob ”What’s with all these strange capitalization last names” DeMaa and produced and directed by me ; Chris Strouth.So here it is Download and spread the wealth, its Creative Commons licensed and you can use it as lon as its not commercial.

Happy Holidays from all of the Snaildartha 6 and your friends at AlliedChemical.com

PS: these are the liner notes from the original l release just for the purists:

So dig it: in your hands you hold a special Holiday gift just for you. well that would be the case if this was the disc, but since it’s the Internet you probably have something else in your hands…like a mouse! The Story was written by Matt Fugate and myself a few years ago for the Red Eye Uneasy Listening series Christmas Show, where it was read by Shawn Stewart, who still is annoyed about some of the tongue twisters she had to pronounce. To be honest I don’t remember what year that was, anyway suffice it to say Britney Spears was still a virgin.

The story hasn’t changed too much since it debuted. It was one of those ideas that I always wanted to revisit, so here it is, reborn as a soul jazz record. Well, a soul jazz record about a Christmas snail, that’s really just a thinly veiled retelling of the life of Buddha. But isn’t that what Christmas is all about; Jazz, Buddhism, and Snails. Well, it has as much to do with Christmas as a fat guy with a thing for elves.

As to why you have a copy, well, you must be pretty special because there are only 100 of these made.Ok well again since your seeing this on the internet you might not be as special, I mean i am sure your special to someone not necessarily to me but someone must like you.Even GW Bush has friends, granted there all on the board of Haliabriton but they must like him. Just a little bit of holiday cheer that comes from the heart, for people that are special to us, and of course you poachers on the net who might like it as well.
Happy Holidays,

It’s a little easier on my bandwidth if you just get the zip download, but if you want to here what it sounds like then here are the first two tracks:

Rhapsody In Snail
(1 Meg)

<A Snail is Born
(4 Meg)

This work
is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License

There are a lot of Minnesota’s: The Garrison Keillor Minnesota with Uff Da’s aplenty, lots of pie and coffee, Sven and Ole, Lutefisk and Lefsa, astute literary references and a romanticized notion about the past. There is the Cohen Brothers Minnesota as embodies in the movie Fargo, with Uff Da’s aplenty, lots of pie and coffee…Um ok I guess the Cohen brothers version and the Keillor version are a pretty similar, well save for the whole bloodthirsty wood chipper thing.

There is the Prince Minnesota, which is a much funkier one then the aforementioned, with its God meets Sex bass lines, it’s Doves crying and its Purple Rains, this is not to be confused with the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis Minnesota, which is a different kind of funky one that made us a destination spot for the diva of the moment, a reason for the celebrity sighting. Well out side of those here for the Hazelton Minnesota- that’s the one of temperance, and soulful understanding a place for mediation and repair.

Let us not forget the punk rock Minnesota the Replacements one, of course there is the Hüsker Dü one (ones a little harder, ones a little drunker- I’ll leave it to you to decide which is which) There is the Minnesota that’s National Public Radio, and the one that is NASCAR, and the one that is Rhyme Sayers. All states have more then on identity, but Minnesota seems to be more profoundly schizophrenic. It is one that gave the world Guy Noir and Mac Lethal. F Scott Fitzgerald and Jessie the Body.

Which brings us to one of the truly odd things about my home state- Christmas Decorations. Before you get all PC on me (which by the way would be a very Minnesota reaction) this really is about decoration for Christmas, when was the last time you saw a really tacky Chanukah display? Christmas is the holiday when otherwise sober Lutherans, deck their snow-covered lawns with enough lights to make the Vegas strip seem dim and inflatable snow globes with licensed characters cavorting about. It’s a season that makes wearing a fur-trimmed cap not only socially acceptable, but encouraged.

Do realize oh dear and gentle reader, that I am rather fond of this seasonal decorative disorder; when my neighbors’ homes light up their dull facades and bring forth their inner Liberace. It is these kind of acts that give me hope, seriously how messed up can the world be if the guy next door has the word “peace” light up like an airport runway in his yard, It certainly is a better thought then the sign it replaced which consisted of “These Colors Don’t Run over a an American Flag Motif”. So it’s a change of heart or an irony he hasn’t picked up on.

I spent my Christmases as a kid in Hibbing MN, which is really known for two things 1) being the worlds largest open pit mine-essentially the worlds biggest hole and 2) being the childhood home of Bob Dylan. However what Hibbing always brings to mind is the wonder of Christmas decoration, as a kid living in the suburbs, I thought that Hibbing was much cooler then where we lived. They had a downtown, with a movie theater and a joke shop. It was right out of the Andy Griffith show…well minus the Hillbillies.

Downtown Hibbing got decorated with shiny tinsel decorations in the shape of candles and snowflakes, the kind of decorations that they stopped making in 1965 but keep putting up now matter how much disrepair they are in. All the trees on the boulevard were lit up with fairy lights, and all the windows had the greetings of the season.

As for the neighborhoods, many of the houses had giant painted Christmas Cards lit up in the front yard, and most of the houses had bags with candles in them that lit up the sidewalks, which lit the path for the neighbors to visit. In our neighborhood of Fridley the neighbors coming by meant something was wrong, but here it was a big party.

My parents resented being there, they kept making jokes about small towns and nothing to do, but had we been home we would just be watching TV, and at least in Hibbing they had cable. Sure I had no idea who all the people visiting the house were, but they all seemed pretty happy to see me, and thee all brought candy, which as a chubby eight year old is always on the plus side.

As I got older I saw my Grandparents work wit their neighbors throughout the fall, to coordinate with the neighbors for the holiday season, making sure that the neighborhood followed a theme. I think of this every year when my south Minneapolis neighborhood can never pull together any kind of gathering for National Night Out, or that none of the kids from the neighborhood trick or treat there, they all caravan out to “the Mall” where shopping and mini Snickers bars dance their unholy dance.

Yes I am a sentimentalist dear reader, but if you can’t be sentimental at Christmas time when can you. My Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, or Churches, it’s the peanuts Christmas Special, and Frank Capra movies, it’s a remembrance of days that have passed, and dreams of what is to come. Its the moment to remember what wonder is like.

Happy Holidays Everybody!

Today is Veteran’s Day*, not that you would know it. Sure the banks are closed as is the post office, and I believe if you present your veterans card at the Sizzler you get half price off your entrée with the purchase of another entrée at full price, and of course the thanks of the nation.

America has a weird relationship with its veterans, well let me clarify it with veterans of wars other than World Wars one and two, or as they seem to be thought of “the good wars”. These are the wars that they make glowing documentaries about, the ones glamorized in a million movies, TV shows and every other kind of fiction imaginable. We fought the Nazis, liberated Europe, kicked Japans ass, and got the girl. With a minor obligatory nod to the people we fought along side, which of course was most of the world minus the Axis powers. Since there aren’t a lot of WWI vets roaming about, World War 2 is the clear cut noble war to talk about, at least as it’s presented in our history books, and the veterans of that are considered are greatest generation. They have become the basis of our modern mythology.

Not to take anything away from them, because lets face it they were pretty great. They were the shoulders that built the latter half of the 20th century. But lets look at the war itself. One of the reasons we can feel good about WW2, is that from the 21st century perspective it seems pretty clear-cut; we were attacked by Japan, who were at the time Hitler’s evil little buddy. Hitler was a bad man who killed a lot of people because of race and religion. Which is a pretty good reason to dislike someone. From today’s perspective it seems pretty black and white: Hitler was bad so we had to fight him.

Thing is, it really wasn’t that black and white at the time. Hitler had been working the genocide machine for close to ten years in Germany prior to the US involvement. Ten years of going yeah maybe we should do something, (Darfur anybody?) When we did get involved was when we were surprise attacked at Pearl Harbor, except now we know that the government was aware that Pearl Harbor was a very likely place of attack. Then the rumors abound that this was used by FDR as a setup to go to war. Before I get too far down conspiracy lane the point of the matter is that war is never a clear-cut simple thing. It has a multitude of purpose, civilized nations don’t go to war over just principles, and they go for principles and gain.

We talk a lot about freedom in Iraq, but freedom doesn’t seem to be a big motivator for action in Darfur, or Burma, or anywhere else that doesn’t have a lot of resources to offer.

When it comes to veterans of the not so easy wars, like Korea, Vietnam, the myriad of South American scuffles that made up the 80’s, and Gulf wars I& II, we tend to confuse the singer and the song. Some Vietnam vets found themselves booed when they got off the plane, we have progressed a long way since then, now we just ignore it. Your average US citizen is really unencumbered by the war, sure gas prices are higher but most folks see no relation between the two events. Citizens aren’t saving grease droppings like WW2, there is no rationing, in fact it’s the opposite, like it’s our patriotic duty to shop. What is the price of freedom? $12.99 at Wal-Mart (regularly 15.99, a $3.00 savings!).

Our current vets come home to lost jobs and indifference, and fighting in abstract war I suppose that it’s fitting, but it is hardly fair. We do have a tendency to confuse the soldier with the war, lets face it the Iraq war isn’t exactly popular amongst the masses. It’s a war, much like Vietnam, that we don’t want people to go to. Honestly, what war would we want to go to? No one outside of the members of the military and politicians really want war, and even a good chunk of them don’t like war but they understand it as a necessary evil.

Our vets are like a friend who we owe money to and don’t want to pay back; sure we owe them but for whatever reason can’t give it back. So we avoid them, don’t acknowledge them because we don’t know what to say. We return their bravery with cowardice.

Just the act of being of being a solider is brave, whether you’re on the front lines or in an accounting division, because you have to give up free will. Joining the army is like signing a contact to do as you’re told. They say jump into the abyss, and you jump regardless of the consequence. It’s a trait that I truly admire to have such faith in an entity that it will see you through. To have faith in your country without question, to follow an ideal even if you disagree with the administration or their execution of duty.

It’s a different job ethic from those of us who live in cubes, and feel gypped if there is not a cake for our birthday in the conference room. So for our current soldiers we put magnetic ribbon on our cars and every once in a while there is a news story about a plucky third grade teacher who gets a letter writer drive where anonymous citizens write letters to anonymous soldiers thanking them. What do we do to show for the troops that are back? Well they do that half off thing at the Sizzler.

*Well to be specific it’s only Veterans Day in America, and Canada, everywhere else it’s just a standard issue Monday.

Halloween has come and gone, while some of you dear and gentle readers were garbed in Targets fanciest dress, working hard to help a bartender pay off those pesky college loans, I was sitting in a field. Waiting for the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. He and I have made a regular date of this for some time. Though I am not sure if it’s a he or she, all I can say with any certainty is that its a pumpkin, a well appointed pumpkin mind you, in one of those suits that you only see on Bond Villains. If you were wondering if I am in fact speaking of the same Great Pumpkin from Peanuts fame I indeed am, of course, it must be said that Linus got it wrong, The GP (as he is known to his friends) doesn’t deliver toys to all the good little girls and boys in the world, rather he is the gatekeeper of the ghost and demons of the otherworld.

This is a pretty heavy responsibility to put at anyone’s feet, let alone a member of the Squash family, but the GP seems up to the task. As to why the regular meet up with myself, well it appears that most of the believers in the Elvis of the Pumpkin set are fictional, and its very difficult to set up a lunch date when people don’t believe you exist. Rather then meeting in a pumpkin patch, GP suggested we move to a rather fashionable bistro uptown. One of the perks of having a dinner with a mythical creature is that you don’t need reservations.

We sat in a private section away from the revilers and over single malt scotch, and simple meals, I had the lone vegetarian option of parmesan dusted gnocchi, GP on the other hand had a very rare steak, in his defense he did point out that turnabout was fair play…indeed.

As stated part of the duties of being the Great Pumpkin are keeping the ghosts of the otherworlds at bay, he functions not as a jailer; rather more like a housekeeper, his only option is whether to keep the door between the two world locked or unlocked. Now you may believe that the door has always stayed locked or at least that it always has been in our lifetime. Oddly not true, 1974 for example. The whole Watergate, Vietnam war thing really pissed off the great one. So he unlocked the door, for the rest of the Nixon administration and all of Ford’s. Sadly the only ghosts that crossed over were the recently passed specters of the cold war. GP felt so horrible about their staying that he promised to Lock the door for all of the Carter administration, not realizing that he had left the specter of doubt locked, he of course befriended Regan and the two had a very profitable relationship for a time.

You would think American politics would be outside the mystic/spiritual/fictional realm but just like in the real world the rumbling of our actions spill over into their universe as well. As GP said” There is just something ridiculous about two crows arguing over the right way to handle capitol gains, their crows for Gourd’s Sake. Honestly how would they even pay taxes on mice they caught?” So the GP finds himself under pressure to keep or let doubt stay on this side of the door, of course he agreed, after all what other choice did he have they do count on the aid packages and all. You can’t really blame doubt, he has made a lot of friends, got a nice little house in Richmond, VA, and it is an easy commute to DC. He makes a good living and is raising a big family with his wife Guilt, and all the little doubts running around the house.

This makes the Pumpkins job mainly ceremonial, though it is a ceremony that goes unobserved. Think the Queen of England without the pomp or circumstance. The only ghost of note is doubt; technically guilt is whole other union. Not many people in this day an age fear the ghost of Long Dead Trees, or the ghost of the really big scary thing, that looks somewhat like it might eat you. Though the GP swears he is very witty and fun at parties, and the Specter of yesteryear is so not scary that he is in talks with the A&E Network to start in his own reality show.

So the Pumpkin and I drink our drinks and tell our tales, we laugh over the antics of the ghosts, and lament about the ghosts in the making. It goes unsaid that our actions over the coming year will have any truly profound results, because they never are; they are slow except when they are lighting quick and move unpredictably save for their own inevitability. The Great Pumpkin picks up the tab, putting it on his corporate black Amex card.

There is no doubt that I believe in the Great pumpkin, but that’s easy for me, it’s hard to deny someone’s existence if you have had dinner with them. I know that next year in a different restaurant we’ll meet and tell parallel stories and drink parallel drinks to what was had tonight. The world will have changed completely as much as it remains the same, neither the GP or me might change the world but we show up to work and do our best. Beyond that what can anyone ask of man or mythical creature?