Author Archives: Gray Rinehart

Campaign Chronicle, 3 Weeks to Election: My Distant Cousin Founded This Town

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As I began my run — okay, my ambling walk — for the empty Town Council seat, I was surprised to find that I am related to the man who founded Cary, North Carolina.

Back in 2011 I wrote about my family connection to the Pages of Williamsburg, Virginia, and at the time I didn’t give any thought to the possibility that those Pages might be related to the Page family here. But they are.

First, it’s important to point out what my friends have known for a long time: the Gray Man was adopted when he was young, which muddies the water a bit when it comes to tracing lineages and such. For those who don’t know the story: I was born Thomas Graham Lipscomb, and my father was Thomas Page Lipscomb. He died when I was three, and my mom later married Herbert Wade Rinehart. Shortly after moving to Georgetown, South Carolina — where I learned about the Gray Man and latched onto the legendary ghost as my alter ego — my stepfather adopted me and I became Graham Wade Rinehart. Or, as most of my friends know me, Gray Rinehart.

I first wondered about the connection when I was on Chatham Street in downtown Cary and noticed a historical marker about William Hines Page (with whose statue I’m pictured below). Oddly enough, before I thought about whether I might be related to him I thought about a friend of mine named “Hines” from grade school. But once the possible Page family connection came to mind, it was easy enough to check out.


(On the Cary Town Hall campus, I’m standing next to a statue of a distant cousin who was Ambassador to Great Britain and the son of the town’s founder. See any resemblance?)

William Hines Page, who was at one time Ambassador to Great Britain — itself something of a nod to the family history, since Colonel John Page originally came from Britain to settle at Williamsburg — was the son of Allison Francis (Frank) Page, who founded Cary and served as its first Mayor and postmaster. He built the Page-Walker Hotel, which stands behind the Town Hall building and is now an art gallery and focal point for local events. Frank Page’s father was Anderson Page, whose father was Lewis Page, whose father was Robert Edward Page, whose father was Mann Page II, whose father was the Honorable Mann Page.

The Honorable Mann Page, it turns out, is our nearest common ancestor.

The Honorable Mann Page had another son, about whom I wrote in that linked blog post: the Honorable John Page, who was friends with Thomas Jefferson at the College of William & Mary. The Honorable John Page’s son was Major Carter Page, whose son was Dr. Mann Page, whose son was Carter Henry Page, whose son was Carter Henry Page, Jr., whose daughter was Katherine Carlisle Page. She was my “Grandma Kate.” Her son was Thomas Page Lipscomb, my natural father.

Thus, as near as I can figure from looking at canon law relationships, Frank Page — Cary’s founder — was my fourth cousin, three times removed.

I doubt that makes anyone more or less likely to vote for me for Cary Town Council. But it’s an interesting coincidence!

___
Election Day for the Cary Town Council race is October 6th, but early voting begins on September 24th!

Have you told anyone about my campaign? It’s easy! Just share this post on social media or forward the link to anyone who lives in North Carolina (especially the Research Triangle area or the Town of Cary). Better yet, download a Print-It-Yourself Flyer in either color or black and white and put it up in your office or at your favorite hangout. For additional updates and info, sign up for my newsletter using the form in the right sidebar or visit the election page on my website. Thanks!

Spending Disclosure: As of this date, my campaign has spent a total of $84.

This blog post was “paid” for, at the cost of $0 and whatever time it took Gray to write and upload it, by The Gray Man: Service, Leadership, Creativity.

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Blogging the New CD: C is for Christ’s Hard Sayings

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Third in a series of blog posts about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

Some people reading this may be averse to anything that even hints at Christianity, its tenets or its practices. That’s okay. But even people who do not follow Christ can often recognize and sometimes appreciate things he said.

Consider “Turn the other cheek,” for instance. Many people might recognize that sentiment without knowing that Jesus said it, or without knowing how subversive it was at the time.* Like many of the things that Jesus taught, however, it’s easier to say than it is to put into practice. To apply it to a recent situation in science fiction and fantasy fandom, had more people been able to turn the other cheek the great Hugo Award Fracas of 2015 might have resulted in fewer hurt feelings and fewer damaged friendships.

The truth is that Jesus said some things that are difficult to understand and difficult to embody. As a result, the practice of Christianity is sometimes hard to accomplish.

Follow me, and learn to fish for human souls
Follow me, leave your family and your home
Follow me, I don’t bring peace, I bring a sword
Follow me, and let the dead bury their own

— “We Want the Easy Road”

Some of those things are hard to figure out, and some are hard to do, on top of the basic problem of dealing with doubt and uncertainty day by day, and of trying to make the most of whatever measure of faith we may have. This song, then, is primarily about dealing with the difficult things that Jesus said, the things he said that fly in the face of the way we think the world works or should work, and above all else the one thing he said that can confound us whether we ignore it or we try to obey it. And that was simply, “Follow me.”

What are we to make of the things he said? At times during the song you get some of my reactions:

  • “It sounds so good, you knew it would, all the pleasant things you said”
  • “It sounds so odd, these words from God, so we ignore the hard things you said”
  • “It sounds absurd, these things we heard — all those crazy things you said”
  • “We close our ears, don’t want to hear, are we sure that’s what you said?”

And as the good things he said transition to odd things, to things that sound absurd, and to things that we may not want to hear, I conclude that quite often we want the easy road rather than the straight and narrow, the wine and the bread of communion rather than the sweat and sacrifice of service.

A loaf of bread...
“We want the easy road, the wine, the bread.” (Image: “A loaf of bread…” by James Lee, from Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Whether you are a believer or not, whether you have ever even thought much about who Jesus was or what he did, I hope you can find something to ponder in “We Want the Easy Road”. And if you like it, go ahead and share it with others who might like it, too.

___
*If you want to know more about how turning the other cheek or going the extra mile would have been subversive acts, drop me a line.

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Campaign Chronicle, 4 Weeks to Election: People Who Shouldn’t Vote for Me

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I wrote this post while riding in the van on the way home from Dragon Con, the largest science fiction and fantasy convention in the Southeast. You can judge for yourself whether that may have anything to do with the content.

Don't Blame Me...I Voted for Kodos
(Image: “Don’t Blame Me…I Voted for Kodos,” by Steve Snodgrass, from Flickr under Creative Commons.)

We’re still counting down to the Cary, NC, Town Council election, and if you don’t live in Cary — and particularly in District D — you can’t vote for me even if you might want to. (You can, however, always write me in for some office in your area; I will not renounce my Anti-Candidate availability.)

However, you should not vote for me if …

  • You want the government to do everything.
  • You want the government to do nothing.
  • You don’t proceed when a traffic light turns green because you are too busy messing with your cell phone.
  • You dislike or disapprove of the U.S. military.
  • You dislike or disapprove of all public safety professionals, especially police officers.
  • You regularly watch and derive significant entertainment value and home economics tips from television shows about “real housewives,” and/or frequently seek life advice from people who are famous primarily for being famous.
  • You believe that your rights include the right to take rights from others.
  • You believe that other people exercising their rights represents an existential threat to your rights.
  • You are a member of Al Qaeda or any other group that has sworn enmity to the United States of America. (Hat tip to James Galt-Brown.)
  • You think having more money or things makes you a better person.
  • You think buying something on sale leaves you with more money in your pocket than not buying it at all.
  • You think the solution to all our economic problems is for the government to just print more money.
  • You would let this or any other Internet list make up your mind for you about what you should do. (Hat tip to Martin Shoemaker.)
  • You believe everything you read on the Internet.
  • You believe everything that politicians tell you.
  • You don’t necessarily believe everything that politicians tell you, but you find their empty platitudes and impossible promises comforting.
  • You call all Muggles “mudbloods.”
  • You have no discernible sense of humor.

I could have come up with many, many more such examples. Probably you can, too, and I welcome any suggestions you’d like to put in the comments.

And remember: If you are eligible to vote but don’t, you relinquish a power that was yours to use, and for which others have sacrificed much.

___
Election Day for the Cary Town Council race is October 6th, but early voting begins on September 24th.

Help spread the word about my campaign: Share this post on social media or forward it to anyone you know. Or, if you live in North Carolina, especially in the Research Triangle area or the Town of Cary, download a Print-It-Yourself Flyer in either color or black and white and put it up in your office or at your favorite hangout. For additional updates and info, sign up for my newsletter using the form in the right sidebar or visit the election page on my website. Thanks!

Spending Disclosure: As of this date, my campaign has spent a total of $84.

This blog post was “paid” for, at the cost of $0 and whatever time it took Gray to write and upload it, by The Gray Man: Service, Leadership, Creativity.

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Blogging the New CD: B is for Baen

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Second in a series of blog posts about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

Shortly after I finished up my first album I started writing a tribute song about Baen Books. I’ve been quite pleased to work as a Contributing Editor for Baen for many years now, and I’m equally pleased to include this song on my new album.

We’ve got Weber, Drake, and Ringo, and Correia and Bujold
Some of the finest stories that you’ve ever been told
Lackey, Flint and Kratman, Spencer and Van Name — look for the
Dragon and the rocket ship, on the books we call Baen

— “The Books we Call Baen”

One of the tricky things about this song is that I used an existing tune, and one that Firefly fans in particular will recognize: “The Hero of Canton.” Since “Baen” is pronounced “bane,” it seemed natural to adapt the phrase “the man they call Jayne” into “the books we call Baen.”

The difficulty came when I started trying to fit the names of various authors into the chorus. If perhaps you don’t recognize all the authors’ names in the chorus, they’re David Weber, David Drake, John Ringo, Larry Correia, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, Tom Kratman, Wen Spencer, and Mark Van Name. It was a fun challenge, though, and I like the way it turned out!

Also, if you’re not sure what I mean by “the dragon and the rocket ship,” take a close look at the Baen logo:

In the negative space of the plume of that launching spaceship, you’ll see the profile of a dragon. Thus the logo itself captures both the science fiction and fantasy sides of the publishing house.

Using an existing tune caused me some additional problems. Since I hadn’t written a parody of the original song, I needed to get permission to record the new song, and that proved to be quite the adventure. “The Hero of Canton” was written by Firefly producer Ben Edlund, and I tried several different avenues of trying to get in touch with him — trying to send a message via the man who played Jayne, Adam Baldwin, for instance, and asking Sean Maher (who played Simon Tam) when I saw him at MystiCon in Roanoke. I began to despair of success, but in May I finally achieved a breakthrough in contact. Even though Mr. Edlund said he wasn’t completely sure he could grant me the right to record it, he gave his blessing to the effort — and that was enough for me.

My first version of the song included an extended ending chorus with the names of additional authors, but between the time I wrote it and the time I was recording the song we added several new authors to the Baen family — and since some of them were friends of mine, I didn’t want to leave them out! So began a quick rewrite of that extended chorus in order to shoehorn more names in.

I know I still left out some authors — I hate to think how long the song would be if I tried to include every author in our catalog — but the final chorus now mentions Chuck Gannon, Dave Freer, Michael Z. Williamson, Frank Chadwick, Ben Bova, Sarah Hoyt, Ryk Spoor, Tony Daniel, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, Jody Lynn Nye, David B. Coe, Steve White, Brad Torgersen, Catherine Asaro, Timothy Zahn, Travis Taylor, Elizabeth Moon, Robert Buettner, Mike Resnick, Eric James Stone, Steve Stirling, John Lambshead, Les Johnson, Anne McCaffrey, Jerry Pournelle, Andre Norton, Larry Niven, Harry Turtledove, and Robert A. Heinlein. And even though I mostly only mention their last names, that’s still a lot of syllables to put together!

As you might imagine, there are a few “in jokes” in the song, but even if you have no idea who Joe Buckley is or what an eARC is, I hope you’ll smile and sing along to “The Books We Call Baen”!

___

Reminder: I’m playing a concert as part of the Dragon Con Filk Track, this Sunday the 6th of September at 4 p.m. in the Hyatt Regency’s Baker Room. Come out and see me!

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Campaign Chronicle, 5 Weeks to Election: Various Political Thoughts

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I’ve done a little canvassing around my district (still lots more to do!), but so far I’ve found that most people have expressed similar preferences on what they appreciate about living in Cary and … let’s say, what they find annoying. And since I’ve been talking with folks who could be my constituents one day, I thought I should relay some of my thinking about what you might expect from me in terms of political service.

First, a reminder: Election Day for the Cary Town Council race is October 6th, but early voting begins on September 24th!

Liberty
Looks as if this eagle is deep in thought. (Image: “Liberty” by Joel Olives, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

For about as long as I’ve been running this blog, I’ve occasionally written about political topics — long before I started this “election countdown” series of posts, at least. In this current series, though, I’ve discussed how my long practice in telling people “no” may have made me a poor political candidate, why I’m not making any promises to anyone, and how you can help spread the word about my campaign.

But some of my older posts might be instructive to people who are deciding whether to vote for me.

I did a series of posts called “If I Were My Own Representative,” for instance. In that series, I discussed my intention to understand, as fully as possible, any bills I would be voting on, why my default position on legislation that would hurt people would be “no”, and the message I hope I always deliver, that the U.S. is still “the greatest hope for peace and prosperity in the world”.

I also wrote a series of posts in which I floated various ideas for tax reforms, such as taxing long-term investment income at a lower rate than income from short-term speculation, eliminating taxes on interest from savings below certain amounts, and phased-in business taxes to help young businesses succeed.

And I’ve written about broader political topics, like putting civility back into civil discourse, metaphors for the opposing ends of the political spectrum, and why we shouldn’t punish good people when bad things happen.

I hope voters who might be considering me as their candidate will read a few of those that interest them. I don’t expect anyone to read through all of them (those series, for instance, were longer than just the ones I mentioned), but reading a few would give anyone a deeper look into how I think about political subjects. I have more political posts to choose from, too — plus some that I didn’t even categorize as such. But for a quicker assessment of what I’m about as a candidate, consider this:

  • I believe the fundamental purpose of government is to preserve your (and my) rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;
  • I believe that our rights, both individual and collective in the form of the government, should not infringe on the rights of others;
  • I believe that government action intended to help anyone should be carefully evaluated on the basis of who it is likely to hurt in the process, and rejected if the benefits do not justify the cost;
  • I believe in being accountable, by which I mean being “able to give an account,” i.e., able to explain my reasoning for actions taken … and not taken;
  • I believe that many if not most people who present themselves as politicians take themselves far too seriously; and
  • I believe that serving in office is more important than running for office.

If any of that appeals to you, I hope you’ll consider voting for me.

___
Help spread the word about my campaign! Share this post on social media or forward it specifically to anyone you know who lives in North Carolina, especially in the Research Triangle area or the Town of Cary. Or download a Print-It-Yourself Flyer in either color or black and white and put it up in your office or at your favorite hangout. For additional updates and info, sign up for my newsletter using the form in the right sidebar or visit the election page on my website. Thanks!

Spending Disclosure: As of this date, my campaign has spent a total of $84.

This blog post was “paid” for, at the cost of $0 and whatever time it took Gray to write and upload it, by The Gray Man: Service, Leadership, Creativity.

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Blogging the New CD: A is for Anti-Candidate

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First in a series of blog posts about the songs on my new CD, Distorted Vision.

Since I’m currently a candidate for a real political office — the District “D” seat on the Cary (NC) Town Council — it seemed appropriate to start this series of posts by focusing on a political song. A disclaimer is in order, first: Nothing in this blog post should be construed as having anything to do with the office I am seeking, or with my actual campaign.

This is about the Anti-Campaign.

I’ve been unknown, and rarely sung, I’m an Anti-Candidate
And I’d serve in any office, in any district or any state
But I have a little problem, it’s an introvert’s disgrace
I’d rather rely on social media than to meet you face to face

— “The Anti-Candidate Song”

I started the Anti-Campaign during the 2008 election cycle because the idea tickled me: I made myself available as a convenient write-in vote for any office, anywhere. It became a running gag, and now even has its own bumper sticker!


Bumper stickers are $2 each plus shipping and handling. Buy yours on my Bandcamp page.

And every campaign needs a theme song, right? Well, in this case the campaign has two.

The first Anti-Campaign theme song was “I Think I’ll Run for Congress”, which was on my 2013 album Truths and Lies and Make-Believe. “The Anti-Candidate Song” is something of a sequel, and like “I Think I’ll Run for Congress” it pokes fun at politics and politicians.

“The Anti-Candidate Song” plays off two characteristics that the first song attributed to the candidate singing it: arrogance and megalomania. In the first song, I sing that politics

… fits my arrogant, megalomaniacal personality

and in this song I sing

I may be arrogant and megalomaniacal but it’s just because I’m great

I leave it as an exercise to you to decide how much of that is true, and how much is the kind of convenient falsehood which career politicians seem to spin so easily. (And, if you will, how much of the Anti-Campaign as a whole infuses my real campaign.) But I will point out that if you look closely at the bumper sticker in the image above, you’ll see it says, “Arrogant & Megalomaniacal: What could go wrong?”

In the end, even if you can’t quite be sure whether I’m being serious or silly, I hope you find something to smile about when you listen to “The Anti-Candidate Song”!


___
Reminder: I’m playing a concert as part of the Dragon Con Filk Track, on Sunday the 6th of September at 4 p.m. in the Hyatt Regency’s Baker Room. Come out and see me!

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Next Weekend: Dragon Con! Here’s My Concert & Event Schedule

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It’s almost Labor Day weekend, and that means I’ll be heading to Atlanta for another Dragon Con! I look forward to a nice, quiet, relaxing time … with about 60 or 70 thousand of my closest friends!

Actually, since Dragon Con is (so far as I know) the largest general science fiction and fantasy convention in the Southeast, I’m sure it will be its typical exciting, exhausting but ultimately rewarding time. I’m particularly grateful to my friend Alethea Kontis and the folks on the Dragon Con Filk Track who have invited me to perform at various times through the weekend.

Here’s how the convention is shaping up for me:

Friday:

  • 2:30 p.m. — Meet, Greet, Filk — Baker Room, Hyatt (tentative)
  • 5:30 p.m. — Filk & Cookies — Baker Room, Hyatt (tentative)
  • 7:00 p.m. — Princess Alethea’s Traveling Sideshow with Alethea Kontis, Leanna Renee Hieber, Lisa Mantchev, Delilah S. Dawson, Zac Brewer, and David B. Coe (D.B. Jackson) — A707, Marriott
  • 11:30 p.m. — Open Filking — Baker Room, Hyatt

On Saturday, I should get to be a “fan” for part of the time — go to concerts or panels or the Art Show — and maybe even watch some football when I’m not in the Dealer’s Room (where our Baen Books authors will be signing at the Missing Volume bookstore); and if possible I’ll make an appearance at:

  • 2:30 p.m. — InstaFilk — Baker Room, Hyatt (tentative)
  • 11:30 p.m. — Open Filking — Baker Room, Hyatt

Sunday is my busiest day:

  • 1:00 p.m. — Baen Books Traveling Road Show and Prize Patrol! — art, previews, and free books! — Regency Ballroom V, Hyatt
  • 4:00 p.m. — Solo Concert! — Baker Room, Hyatt
  • 5:30 p.m. — Match Game, a fannish version of the TV game show, with Van Allen Plexico, Melinda M. Snodgrass, and Teresa Patterson — Embassy Ballroom A-B, Hyatt
  • 11:30 p.m. — Open Filking — Baker Room, Hyatt

That’s right: as soon as the Baen Road Show is over, I’ll be giving a concert featuring music from my new CD, Distorted Vision, as well as favorites from Truths and Lies and Make-Believe — and more! I plan to have CDs with me wherever I go, as well as “Anti-Candidate,” “Another Romulan Ale” and “Tauntauns to Glory” bumper stickers, so flag me down if you want one!

If you’re going, I hope we’ll get a chance to chat. If you’re not going, or if we simply don’t find each other, you can always sign up for my newsletter to get the latest info on my different projects.

Have fun storming the convention!

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Campaign Chronicle, 6 Weeks to Election: STAR TREK, Slush Reading, and Politics

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Or, how years of telling people “no” may have made me a poor political candidate.

I’m afraid I don’t know how to tell people what they want to hear.

First, a story from this past weekend. On Saturday I went to Lazy Daze, the annual arts festival here in Cary, armed with a few brochures — yes, I finally broke down and spent some money — to hand out if the occasion arose. It was a lovely day, and I saw a couple of my opponents out and about, one of whom was working the crowd pretty hard. (I did not see my third opponent, who reportedly was also campaigning hard — and in a way that might be considered a bit devious.)

Anyway, I wandered the booths and examined the wares, bought a great 2016 calendar featuring some spectacular calligraphy, and at one point a gentleman walked by me and said, “Nice shirt.”

Since I was wearing my STAR TREK United Federation of Planets shirt, I turned and said, “Live long and prosper!”

To which he replied, “Qapla’!” (If you’re not up on your Klingon, that means, “Success!”)

We both laughed, and I mentioned that a friend of mine is the founder of the Klingon Language Institute,* so we chatted for a minute and I asked if the fellow lived in town. No, he said, but his in-laws did — and when his mother-in-law happened by, you better believe I gave her a campaign brochure!

So my STAR TREK shirt led to a campaigning opportunity, which was probably the furthest thing from my daughter’s mind when she bought it for me.

Broken mask
Sooner or later, it seems every politician’s mask breaks. (Image: “Broken mask” by Josef.stuefer, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

My other campaign stops have been less successful, though, and I think I may have figured out why.

One stop was sort of a pro forma meeting, because I anticipate the group’s endorsement will go to a particular candidate they have worked with for some time. It was a quite pleasant meeting, though, and I feel I at least provided a little entertainment value.

At another stop, however, I definitely turned off some potential voters by — again — refusing to commit to specific courses of action without knowing all the facts. My “if I don’t make a promise, I can’t break a promise” message fell rather flat, and one attendee approached me afterward to explain why they were disappointed in it.

I was surprised. Even though the halls of government are littered with the shards of once-shiny promises that wound up shattered through neglect or by design, and though the fingers of the electorate are bloody from picking up the broken pieces and trying to fit them together into something, anything, useful or beautiful, it seems that people are willing to accept and even desire more promises without substance, goals without plans. I wonder if it’s a matter of needing hope, even if it’s a slim hope, even if it’s ultimately a false hope.

If so, I’ll say it straight out: I’m not the guy to give anyone false hope.

My day job, when you get right down to it, is to disabuse people of their hopes. Every person who sends in a manuscript to Baen Books hopes it will attract our attention, hopes we will accept it and publish it and help them achieve that dream of publication. But the raw facts are that we publish a limited number of books every year, only a small portion of those can be by new authors, and we receive many hundreds of submissions in the slush pile for every potential “new author” slot.

I applaud every writer who slogs through completing a manuscript, toils over that manuscript to ensure it’s as good a story as it can be, and takes the risk of sending it in for us to evaluate. But I still have to tell almost every single one of them “no.” And even when I write to someone whose work is good enough for us to consider at length and in depth — whose manuscript two, three, or even four of us will in time study and pick apart — I have to tell them that the answer may, in the end, be “no.”

In other words, I make no promises. I do not try to bash any writer’s hope, and I do not try to crush any writer’s dream, but I will not give any writer an unrealistic expectation.

And so, I will not give any voter an unrealistic expectation.

If that is what you need as a voter, if you are desperate for some slim hope and willing to take the risk of almost certain disappointment, then I apologize that I cannot be the kind of candidate who will feed that need. I hope (and I mean that without irony) that you find and support the kind of candidate you need.

But if you are a voter who can tolerate deliberation, who can stand deep examination of issues, then I hope you can understand my position — and maybe even support me.

___
*Dr. Lawrence M. Schoen, if you must know.

Reminder: Election Day for the Cary Town Council race is October 6th. Help spread the word about my campaign! Share this post on social media or forward it specifically to anyone you know who lives in North Carolina, especially in the Research Triangle area or the Town of Cary. For additional updates and info, sign up for my newsletter using the form in the right sidebar or visit the election page on my website. Thanks!

Spending Disclosure: As of this date, my campaign has spent a total of $44.

This blog post was “paid” for, at the cost of $0 and whatever time it took Gray to write and upload it, by The Gray Man: Service, Leadership, Creativity.

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Release Day! DISTORTED VISION is Now Available!

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Almost 2 years to the day since I released Truths and Lies and Make-Believe, here comes my second musical collection, Distorted Vision.


(Album cover photography and design by Christopher Rinehart. Click to go to the Bandcamp page, to listen to or purchase the album.)

Like its predecessor, Distorted Vision is another collection of songs mostly inspired by or referencing science fiction and fantasy, as well as songs about the marvels and misfortunes of life itself. I consider it to be a second helping of “truths and lies and make-believe.”

Where T&L&MB had ten all-original tunes, this new album has eleven songs, including two which use existing tunes. I intend to write a series of posts examining each song on its own, but here’s the running order with a few basic notes:

All the above links go to Bandcamp, which is the only place the album is available at this time. At Bandcamp you can listen to the songs, purchase a download of individual songs or the whole album, and order a physical CD for me to send to you (and, yes, I ship them myself).* I will make the album available on CD Baby soon, and from there it will be available on Amazon and other outlets — and the songs themselves will be available for streaming.

If you never listened to Truths and Lies and Make-Believe,** but you’ve heard me play guitar and are a little leery of how these songs might sound, let me assure you that just like the first album I did not actually play any of the instruments on this one. My friend Mark Minervino was once again the studio musician par excellence, and also engineered and mixed the songs, and my friend Brian Ceccarelli of Talus Music mastered the CD so the sound quality would be uniform. I couldn’t have done this album, or the last one, without them!

So if this sort of thing interests you, or if you’re just curious, or even if you just want to humor me, I hope you’ll give it a listen — and that maybe you’ll find something you like enough to buy! And if you know someone else who might appreciate it, by all means send them a link to the album or to this blog post.

Thanks, I hope you like what you hear, and let me know what you think!

___
*Note that physical CDs won’t ship until close to the end of the month. Sorry!
**Really? It’s been out for 2 years, and you haven’t listened to it yet?

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Cover Reveal: DISTORTED VISION

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The new CD is almost ready! So, offered for your consideration, here’s the front cover:


(Click for larger version.)

And here’s the back cover:


(Click for larger version.)

The photography and cover design are by my son, Christopher Rinehart.

The album was recorded at Stormghost Studio, Cary, NC, and MKM Studios, Scarborough, ME; engineered and mixed by Mark Minervino at MKM Studios, Scarborough, ME; and mastered by Brian Ceccarelli at Talus Music, Apex, NC.

I’ll be releasing the electronic album later this week, and physical CDs will be available shortly thereafter.

Stay tuned!

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