The False Ducks Blahg

    Today is the last day in 2021. I’m not sorry to say I’ll be glad to see it gone.  2021 wasn’t a bad year but any year, especially the second in a row, where we’re all still dealing with Covid 19, isn’t anything to brag about.  I thought I would take a moment to look back on this year and list some of my accomplishments.  So here’s another self-serving blahg but really a blahg to help remind me what I did do this year and what might be left to be done in 2022. 

   Well, I wrote 21 blahgs in 2021, 22 if I manage to get this one posted today, so that’s pretty good.  I looked at my blahg situation and realized back in January that if I doubled down, I could reach the 100 blahg mark by the fall.  I did even better by publishing the 100th blahg, THIS IS 100, PART ONE, on August 25th and if you include this blahg, again pending it’s publication today, this will be number 107.  I posted my first blahg, THE BLAHG & THE MOST HAPPY SOUND, on August 2nd, 2011 and ten years later I’m still writing.  If you want to know more about me or what I’ve been up to in the past 10 years then read the previous 106 blahgs or at least the recaps THIS IS 50, PART ONE., THIS IS 50, PART TWO, THIS IS 100, PART ONE, and THIS IS 100, PART TWO. 

   In addition to the 100 blahg goal, I had set some other tasks for myself.  If you check out the first blahg I posted in 2021,  THE FALSE DUCKS VIDEO BLAHG #4: OH, DIDN’T I RAMBLE, I detailed some other things I wanted to do this year.  The corresponding blahg, THE RAMBLE UNPACKED, updated details on some books I wanted to read, some albums I wanted to listen to, some movies I wanted to watch, and a cuckoo clock I wanted to repair.  I accomplished all of that and more.  I also continued on a goal to watch all of Bette Davis’ films in chronological order.  I think I had started this goal in 2020 and it continued this year.  I had started with Bad Sister from 1931 and worked my way through to “Pocketful of Miracles” from 1961, which is a Christmas movie, before taking a break for the Christmas holidays.  That’s a total of 71 films and it would have been 72 if I could have found a place to watch her second film, “Seed”, from 1931.  If anyone knows where I can view this film, please let me know. 

   I also got back to collecting all of the volumes in The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak.  I had previously purchased Volume One because it contained the release of “I had no head and my eyes were floating way up in the air” which was submitted in the 1970s for publication in Harlan Ellison’s “The Last Dangerous Visions”.  That anthology has never been published but that lost Simak story is available in the new Simak anthology “I Am Crying All Inside and Other Stories: The Complete Short Fiction of Clifford D. Simak, Volume One”.  I began to purchase all of the other volumes because they also included his War and Western stories in addition to his short Science Fiction stories. Open Road Media Science & Fantasy who publish these volumes usually will release four volumes at once in electronic format then months later will release them in paperback format all on the same date.  I had purchased the first eight in paperback and was waiting for the publication of volumes 9-12.  The electronic versions of these last four volumes have been available for a few years but only Volume Eleven, “Dusty Zebra And Other Stories”, was released in October this year.  Why skip nine and ten and also omit twelve?  It boggled my mind.  My wife got me Volume Eleven for Christmas.  Here’s hoping in 2022 we see the other three missing volumes in paperback. 

   Looping back to the topic of Covid 19, I am proud to say I have both vaccines and a few days ago on December 27th, I got my booster shop.  My arm was sore for a day and I was tired the day after receiving the booster but everything else was fine.  My message for everyone for 2022:  GET A VACCINE OR GET YOUR BOOSTER!  My brother and his wife and children didn’t get to come up to Canada for Christmas this year because the family came down with Covid 19.  I know my sister-in-law was pretty sick for a few days but I shutter at the thought of how worse it could have been if she hadn’t had her vaccines.  That’s all I’ll say about Covid for the rest of this blahg. 

   Just before Christmas, my daughter Abbie and I were able to attend the Transformers Convention in Mississauga, December 10-12.  The convention in 2020 had to be cancelled due to, I’m not saying it because I promised, and this past July’s convention was moved to this December.  My daughter and I usually have a blast at these conventions and we had a good time this year as well.  Here are a couple of YouTube videos of the dealer room.  They’re not mine but it gives you an idea of how much product is to be found. 

   My daughter found some treasures and so did I.  The convention also has panels with artists and voice talent and Saturday night of the convention usually features a script reading.  All attendees can audition for the script reading and Abbie was chosen for the script reading in 2019 but I had never been chosen.  I wasn’t going to audition and we were just hanging around in our hotel room when I decided to go down and watch others audition.  At the last minute, I did an audition for a character called Tripredacus.  The audition line they gave me made it sound like this character was a gangster but everyone auditioned with loud booming voices.  I decided to try out with an Edward G Robinson public enemy number one gangster type voice and I was selected.  I had to text Abbie and she managed to get down in time to see me do the reading with the others who had been selected.  She took some audio or video and when I get it from her, I’ll post it here. 

   I was very pleased to be selected for Tripredacus even though I didn’t know who  that was.  Later research from the Transformers Wiki for Tripredacus, https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Tripredacus, explains that he’s a character from Transformers Beast Wars.  Here’s their explanation: 

Tripredacus is a slimy “Battle Master” who prefers to emerge from underground to attack Maximal fortresses in the dead of night, tenaciously crushing all before him, spreading plague-like destruction wherever he goes. The weapons of his composite members form a slashing mega-missile launcher that he uses to tear his way into battle.

Tripredacus is composed of the three-member Tripredacus Council:

• Ram Horn
• Sea Clamp
• Cicadacon

I don’t know if that is clear to you but that Transformers Wiki entry also detailed that in 1997 the three figures of Ram Horn, Sea Clamp, and Cicadacon were released separately and all three could be combined together to make the Tripredacus figure.  After my script reading triumph, I was determined to find these three figures to combine into my own Tripredacus.  On Sunday, Abbie and I returned to the Dealer Room to search for the three figures.  I had set a price point of $60 for my Tripredacus but if you check that out on Ebay, it’s way too low.  One dealer did have a Ram Horn complete for $40:

I decided to keep looking.  Eventually Abbie found a dealer with an assortment of bagged figures.  In one bag, in a box on the floor, we found the other two figures, Sea Clamp and Cicadacon 

The figures were complete except their weapons and the dealer wanted $40 for the bag containing the pair.  Abbie and I were looking them over and wondering what the odds were that we’d find these two together when the dealer offered to sell me the pair for $20.  This was a no-brainer!  I decided that these two for $20 plus the Ram Horn from the other dealer for $40 would match my price point of $60 for all three figures.  Below is an image of my Tripredacus that Abbie combined for me this week from Ram Horn, Sea Clamp, and Cicadacon: 

   Another accomplishment from this year was the work I have done with Fresh Sound Records for the upcoming 2022 release of the complete recordings of Linda Keene.  I can’t talk more about it and I can’t share the booklet mock up that was sent to me but stay tuned.  The release is going to be spectacular. 

   In my last blahg, THE 2021 DEAD FROM THE NECK UP CHRISTMAS SPECIAL, I posted the new Christmas special I completed with my friend Stephen Dafoe and our announcer, my other friend, Bryan Dawkins.  That deserves re-posting because it too was another accomplishment for me in 2021: 

   I think I’ll quickly end this blahg before it becomes a brag fast.  Some of my blahgs this year introduced or reintroduced some forgotten bands, especially Bob Scobey, as well as some forgotten songbirds.  I was thinking about doing another blahg on some more forgotten songbirds, which I may yet do in 2022, but I’ll end this blahg with a song by one I recently discovered.  Her name is Dottie Reid and she only did a handful or recordings with bands led by Buddy Rich, Benny Goodman, and Muggsy Spanier.  There are also some live remotes available of recordings she did with these bands.  I’ll save those recordings and her biography for another blahg but I came across a V-Disc recording she did with Johnny Blowers and Gang in 1948.  Here’s an image of that V-Disc: 

Here’s her version of “Born To Be Blue”: 

What a beautiful version of that song from a forgotten songbird.  More on her, in a later blahg. 

   Tomorrow is New Year’s Day and the start of 2022.  Let’s hope it’s special for all of us and we find ourselves healthy and happy.  Celebrate every day and all your accomplishments.  In 2013 I closed a blahg with the following quote and it too bears repeating:  “After wishing everyone health and hugging and kissing, Frank Sinatra would always close with “In the next year, may we find peace in the world and peace among ourselves.”  That’s an accomplishment I’d gladly toast to!  Happy New Year!

Tags: Clifford Simak, Covid 19, Dead From The Neck Up, Dottie Reid, False Ducks, FRANK SINATRA, Scott Henderson, Tripredacus

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