|
|
"I was absolutely
entranced with the Brilliant Expressive work of the man credited only as Ted The
Fiddler" Dirty Linen Site Updated 10/28/08 Perhaps I spoke too soon... I lost my Hard Drive this morning and I can't seem to reach my web host on the phone or via e-mail, so I may not get back to writing for some time.... but hey? Looks like we're on track for another Big Time Birthday Bash this Dec 23 at the Colonial at 8pm with Will and Randy of the Manatees! So mark your calendars in case this whole web site or my computers take another nose dive! 9/23/08 Well... looks like I'm back. My web hosting company got sold to a company in Canada, and I never got notified, but just as I was trying to update my page here Thursday, I found out. I couldn't do anything. Too bad too, because I was hoping more of you would have shown up Fri night at Molly's in Phoenixville for the Manatees and Fitzwater Station just Sunday. Sunday was the big season closer for the Fitz summer concerts and boy was it swell... but.... now.... it's History. This week the Stumble Down The Mountain Boys are playing the annual EDIS BBQ, but at the Wilmington Country Club early this Thursday. It's not open to the public, but I just want every one to know, just because you don't see us doesn't mean we aren't still around. Saturday I might be out at the Phoenixville Farmers Market with the Joe Hillman Band, but that's undetermined at this moment. Saturday Afternoon, we'll be launching the new chapter of the Laurel & Hardy Fan Club at a showing of three of their films at the Colonial, and then I must rush up past Herford, Pa to play with Ray Atkins and two guys from the Robert Hazard band up at the new venue Landhaven. I'm very excited about this, because Ray has been on a writing splurge and has a great batch of brand new songs, plus some of the classic tunes we've done as part of the Manatees. Hopefully I'll get to update more of this web site, but for now, that's it and I want to see if I can save this page and get some sleep... Hopefully the web site problems are fixed! 9/12/08 I'm off to the Radnor Hunt Club for some big three day event they are having with a Fri BBQ kick off. They plan to have a line of Horse Drawn Carriages tomorrow up to the Club where a group of Vintage Cars are lined up. I just got back from the huge Porsche East Coast Holiday where I played with Muddy Harp Hodsgson. Boy! was that amazing. Great people, great food, great Cars. So it's Car month for Ted. I'm late, so I must get going... I Wonder if any one saw Craig Fergusson last night? One of the best "You should vote this Nov" speeches I ever heard. The man is a National Treasure. So is Whoopee Goldberg this morning grilling John McCain!..... well, you had to be there. 8/22/08 I just got off the phone with Will Hodgson, and I wanted to mention I will be with the Manatees this Sunday at Fitzwater Station. I'm in the middle of painting my Kitchen and I can't stop to update anything really, so you'll just have to look up the information for yourself, but if you've ever doubted my ability to play Reggae and Rock & Roll, come see us this Sunday, Aug 24th, plus I often get to do more of my own tunes than I do with my own band!!! We also talked about future gigs at Molly Maguire's in Phoenixville, and Fitz and one other that I've already forgotten about.... the mind of Musicians... back to painting... I will update the schedule as soon as I get a chance! 8/12/08 So now G. Bush wants to make the Endangered Species Act Extinct.... just great... New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years. The Interior Department said such consultations are no longer necessary because federal agencies have developed expertise to review their own construction and development projects The Fox will be guarding the Hen House. 8/8/08 Very sorry to hear of the passing of Walt Slinkard. He was my drummer for many years and is on some of my early recordings that we are just now thinking of releasing... Walt and I had our Hay Day in a Band called The Hawks with Steve Hawkins in the mid 90's. It was a loud boisterous Country Rock Band. Our Philosophy was to be as obnoxious and drunk as possible and still play.... much to our surprise, we soon had an Audience lined around the block where ever we played! It was amazing, but it was killing me, so I quit.... sure was fun though... We also played at the Hilltown German Club for close to three years straight in a band called The Hole Band. It was really just Walt and Ric Lake and I. They had all the crab legs you could eat and we'd bring home huge garbage bags full of crab legs! Yep, we had our times... 8/1/08 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay I was just watching Bill Moyers on PBS and had to shut it off I got so upset.... How does a guy like Tom DeLay get elected in the First Place? and why isn't he in Jail by now? I just wonder these things... 7/22/08 Very sad to hear of the passing of Artie Traum. He was very generous with his time and talent any time he showed up at the Philadelphia Folk Festival where I met him many times. He will be missed. He was the only other guy I met one night, who knew the Destruct Code for the Star Ship Enterprise. 7/21/08 The CD release party for the Manatees turned out to be for their studio album produced by my old producer, Dave Ivory. So I’m not on that album, but I am assured, I will be on the next one under construction while we speak. It was a great time though. We saw lots of old friends and I did get to play on several tunes. At some point I may make available the recordings I made with Dave Ivory way back in 1986 at his Dome Studio in Royersford, Pa. I never thought I had enough finished cohesive stuff to put out a recording back then. I got excited, being in the studio for an extended time, working on my own material and tried to do too much and simply ran out of money. I realized later, I was actually making two albums, but never finished either of them. We’re thinking of releasing what got finished and calling it “The Lost Recordings”. I certainly don’t think I wasted the time and money. It was like going to College for recording and I’ve used what I learned that year on every project I’ve worked on since. The success of “Down Home, At Home Jam” was directly due to what I learned from Dave Ivory and his generosity letting me sit in on many, many 3am recording sessions of all sorts of Bands and musicians and the freedom to experiment on my own with his equipment on my own recordings… with the help of my long time buddy and engineer Paul Brown. 7/17/08 Well, the Lowe’s saga got resolved, but not until I spoke three times on the phone with them, and drove to their store. One call I waited 20 Minutes on hold, and the Oaks store I drove to is about 20 minutes one way…. As you get older, I think you get angrier over your wasted time, because you realize you have less of it. You can’t get that wasted time back. Since 90% of these store clerks and managers are young, they don’t understand why older people get upset over that… I’m hopefully sitting in with the Manatees this Fri night at Chaplin’s, the new Music café in my home town of Spring City. There is an opening act, so we’ll go on around 9 pm I think Will said. This will be an Album Release party for us, but if there are too many musicians involved, I may sit this one out. I’ll be there though. I am on the new CD. It’s a really small club though, and a really small stage, and when I spoke to Will on Monday, he hadn’t seemed to realize that yet and as many of our fans know…. The full blown Manatees takes up a lot of space with Carl’s huge Keyboard set up, Roy on Peddle steel, and a Horn Section. It also gets way too loud to even hear my fiddle, but it sure kicks ass! So even if I don’t get to play, you won’t be disappointed if you stop by. They do charge a cover. You can Google “Chaplin’s The Music Café” to find out. Blob Fest at the Colonial was a huge success and it seems to grow every year. Thanks to every one who helped make it possible. 7/7/08 After hanging out with and e-mailing Paul Krassner, I feel complelled to post this. You can look Paul up. We just had the film Chicago 10 and so I e-mailed him. He sent back a 6 page letter about what they left out of the movie. I did some poetry slams with him in New York. Be sure and read his "Dropping Acid with Groucho Marx"
The BBB that will handle your complaint is:
BBB of Metro Washington DC & Eastern
Pennsylvania I got a flyer in the mail for Lowe’s home improvement centers advertising a “Buy 5 get one free” sale on "in stock" vinyl and wood fence. The sale price was supposed to be good through July 7th… On Sunday June 29, I looked online and saw that their web site can access my local store’s inventory. It will say if an Item is available or not at, and if you go through the check out system and enter your quantity, it will give you a quote on Price, plus Delivery. I noticed that the quantity I wanted didn’t seem to be registering in my online shopping cart. I assumed that meant they did not have sufficient quantity on hand for my project. I also noticed that I could change store locations to check prices and availability at other stores. My nearest store is Pottstown, Pa. I found that the style and model of Stockade Fence I wanted seemed significantly cheaper at their Oaks, Pa store. So I phoned the store in Oaks, Pa to ask if they had the amount of Fencing I needed and if they would honor the Flyer if I bought it online, or did I have to come to the store? The man I spoke to told me, yes I should see online, the extra free panels of fencing when I went through the check out system and if I didn’t, they would give me a gift card for the difference… I printed out a sheet of paper with the Oaks Store price on it, for reference. You can clearly see the web site says “Store Location Oaks, Pa” and the price of the Fence as $24.88… so I went ahead and bought 16 panels of item #50520 Dog Eared Pressure Treated Stockade Fence. With $75 delivery and tax of $28.38 it came to $501.46. No where could I find any reference to the 3 free panels I should be entitled to according to the ad. Mathematically I did not see a discount of $74.64 either, the cost of three panels at the price of $24.88… I phoned the Oaks store the next day and asked if I needed to come into the store? I also wrote an online complaint to Customer Service. I was told on the phone, that I could come into the store and return the fence, then buy it again, and they would honor the flyer… So Wed July 2nd, I drove to the Oaks Store. The Oaks Store could not find a record of my transaction. It turns out, because of an error in their software, I actually bought the fence from the Pottstown, Pa location… Brad Cherry of the Oaks store called a guy named Craig at the Pottstown store, and they agreed to add three more panels of fence to my delivery. I was satisfied with that, but when I got home a few hours later, there was a message from Craig at the Pottstown store, claiming that because the regular price of the fencing was $32.97, the price I paid of $24.88 reflected the buy five get one free and so they would not honor that and I was only getting 16 panels of fencing! I got a call Saturday from their Delivery people asking me about the Delivery Monday. I spoke to the man and explained that I was not happy with the situation and after some discussion, he agreed that it was their mistake and I was indeed owed the extra three panels of fence. He told me he would call the Pottstown Store and straighten it out for me…. A few hours later, I once again found a message on my machine, this time from Matt at the Pottstown Store saying he had added two more sections to my order…. That’s still one panel short. I’ve wasted a good bit of time driving and on the phone now to straighten this out and I just think it’s a clear case of False Advertising. Since this all started, they have changed the price of the fence and raised the delivery charges and it’s only July 6. The sale is not over until tomorrow according to the mailed out Flyer. One other time I drove up to the Pottstown store to buy a Ladder they had advertised in a Flyer and was told it was not available. That’s why I phoned the stores this time to make sure they had what I wanted and to confirm the details. As far as I’m concerned, they still owe me $24.88 or a free panel of Fencing. I was reluctant to cancel the order, and place it again for fear of paying the higher delivery costs they instated since Sunday June 29. I agreed to three extra panels simply to make it easy for them. I really only needed 16… I think a Refund of $74.44 or three extra panels of the same Stockade Fence is what I want. If they send 18 panels tomorrow, then it's only $24.88 or one panel. It's being delivered tomorrow Monday July 7th. Buy 5 get one free means just that, no amount of price juggling can work that out mathematically. I ended up calling their national Customer Service number Monday Morning and a very nice woman from N. Carolina answered and helped me, but I was on hold for a while waiting while she called the Pottstown Store. She then connected me with the Manager there who said he would put the three panels on the truck for me…. But! Then the guy tried to justify or explain to me that the price of the fence was set up to reflect if I bought 5 and one was free and the original price of the fence was $29 something!!!!! The last guy I spoke to said $32.97!!! I still have the answer machine messages if any one wants to sue me for posting this. I can prove everything. Lowe’s, or the manager of Pottstown is woefully math challenged!!!! It's Monday July 7, 2008 9:30am and about a half hour ago... they delivered 19 panels of #50520 Stockade Fence... I don't think I'll be buying anything else from Lowe's for quite a while... 7/4/08 Jeepers! I just realized there is now a link to my web site from the Colonial! I never get around to reading our own Newsletter that often.... guess I'd better get on with the revamping of this web site! right now, it's a mess. So happy 4th to every one. Phoenixville is pulling out all the stops today and hopefully the rain will stop by this afternoon. There will be a couple unveiling/dedications today, plus music in the streets and fireworks tonight right down town. Should be a great party, but hard to park. I know I'm going early because I need to be ready for the Blob Plaque unveiling at 7 and to run the projectors for Iron Man tonight. I wanted to add a cartoon or an old Serial episode to the program, but with the Fireworks, I was afraid the movie would run to long. The movie is slightly over two hours. Hope to see some of you there and at Blob Fest next week. 5/27/08 The Stumble down the Mountain Boys will be in the Malvern Memorial Parade this coming Sunday, if the weather holds out. Last year it rained on us and Ric's bass amp got wet and blew up! So we'll hope for the best. I've lost track of how many years I've done this, but several people think it's over 20 years now!!!! The one steady job I've ever had. 5/11/08 OK! Today the Stumble Down The Mountain Boys will be at Fitzwater Station along the Canal just East of Phoenixville. You can check my Where's Ted pages to click on a link to the Fitz and get directions and details. We're kicking off the first of the summer concerts today. This year I think John has the music booked every other weekend. I'll be over there with the Manatees too in a couple weeks. I've forgotten the Date though, but that's also a very good afternoon.... The Fitz has been one of my favorite places to play for the last 10 years or more. John Dodd and Ric Lake and I got together Friday Night to go over a few tunes for Today and it sounded better than ever so I'm really looking forward to this afternoon. 4/24/08 Ah! Summer!!! Well... spring, but.... Ah! Summer!!!! We’ve got gigs!!! I realize this is short notice for this Sat, but I’ll be at Historic Sugartown from about 2pm until 5:30pm both strolling and playing on a stage near the food. The Stumble Down The Mountain Boys will be opening the season at Fitzwater Station again this year and we’re also in the Malvern Parade yet again. Ex Mayor John Flint thinks it’s over 20 years now we’ve been appearing in this annual parade. So you see, I can hold down a steady job after all! You can check out the “Where’s Ted Playing" page to get all the details and I’ll also try to update the Point Concerts I have listed, but you can always check the Colonial Theatre web site for that too. We’ve got Dickey Betts next Wednesday Night back for a second time at our venue…. Site Updated 4/8/08 I don't know if any one will notice this, but I'm getting hit with so much spam... I'm pretty sure my domain here has been compromised, so I'm shutting off my e-mail. Probably forever. I'll keep the domain so the web site stays up and can be found from Google, but I no longer have or use e-mail. If you need to reach me.... use the telephone. So much for modern technology. I guess this is a form of Identity Theft. I was getting over 100 spams in less than 5 minutes, all addressed to some version of me from some other version of me. Today it became unbearable and unmanageable. 3/17/08 Well, as you can see it's been a VERY long time since I updated my site. I just got back from Cinefest in Syracuse, NY. 4 days of non stop films from the early days of sound and the silent era. We're talking films as early as 1914-15 up to around 1940. About 16 hours of films each day.... yes, I said each day! It's one of the bigger gatherings of film preservationists in the world too. People who work every day restoring and trying to make available our film past. The Movies are a walking talking time capsule of American History and social attitudes. The main reason I'm writing today is I will be playing at the Sly Fox tonight from 7pm until 10pm for the first time in a long while. This film Festival used to be the first week in March, but they've moved it to the second week to try and cut down on the bad weather from the lakes up there in upstate New York. Generally that wipes out St Patty's Day for me. I'm not around any more. But... This year it fell on a Monday and I'm back in time, and so the Tradition of Ted & St Patty's Day at the Sly Fox goes on! See you there if you discover this in time. 9/26/07 Ah! The Blog, The Blog! What to say.... I have nothing to say, but I just posted some new Point Concerts on the Schedule list for the Colonial Theatre. Also September 29th at 3pm and Midnight. I should be on TV again on WYBE PBS in Philadelphia. It's called Spotlight with Dianne Canney and I think this show was about Motorcycles and Movies about Motorcycles 9/4/07 Summer is now History. Yes we did play a few places. I just never got around to updating this web site. I don’t know at this point if any one reads this, but I do want to get better at keeping it updated. 05/22/07 So... we had a great time at Fitzwater on Sunday. The first of the season there. We got a little rained out, but got two good one hour sets in. I was sitting in with Randy & Will of the Manatees. I'll be there with the Stumble Down The Mountain Boys on Fathers Day, so mark your Calendars. 4/14/07 Time zooms by and I realize I haven't updated the web site. There are a couple of new dates for the Stumble Boys and a whole lot of new Point Concerts on the Schedule page. 04/03/07 So.... I have not said beans in months. I think I'm too drunk now to say anything, but I'm here. Thinking a lot about a lot of things. Just waiting for a couple of people to die so I can really say what I think.... I put a notice here on the home page that I was planning to redo this whole site very soon. I just realized that was a year ago! I haven't had time to do anything. The older you get the faster time seems to go... There is a great new club near my house called Chaplin's. I hope you'll check it out. Nothing new to report, except I'm thinking of creating a page for myself to rant and rage on. Ted's Blog, because of a suggestion from Gene Shay that I'm the original Blogger. I used to write these long multi page letters to people and I got pretty well known for it in certain circles. Mostly Musicians. Now it's all the rage in the internet, and I certainly have some things to rant about with these elections coming up. I haven't been able to send out a Newsletter since I got DSL service, so I'm thinking about resurrecting the hard copy version. Normally I'd keep it updated here at least, but I haven't had much to say lately. Too busy to write actually. The Newsletter was never intended to be a Blog. It's more of an advertising gimmick. I tell a funny story and you remember it and me with a good feeling, plus I'd list my upcoming Appearances. A Blog is different in that it can go on and on on anything I chose to write. Most Blogs I think are interactive, but it will take a while until I can get that working here. I still don't know much about web design, or the software, but I'm learning. I've got a song I wrote listed on Folk Alley's Open Mic, you can go there and Vote on it and see if more people will notice it. Folk Alley is a wonderful Internet Radio station. This web site is about to get a Major overhaul. Keep checking back to see what's going down. |
 |