Kermit’s Blog

Rough Concept for a Bottle Label

Believe it or not I’ve actually been blending my own private label rum lately.  I’ve always enjoyed drinking Dark Rum and Orange Juice and, many years ago, while Teresa and I were dating, I wrote a song on the beach in Negril, Jamaica called “Naked in Jamaica!”

I recorded a long, as well as a short version but have released neither.  The long version is twelve-minutes long but has a parody at the end using the song “Rawhide” which I have yet to get approval for.  I see the long version as an audio track for a film short one day but could release the short version as it’s all my material.  It may have Spring Break cult potential!

Here’s half of one of the chorus’s -

I’m Naked in Jamaica while I work upon my tan . . .

Refresh my drink, got time to think, and could while I still can.

The sun, the breeze, my drink, the view, I soak them all within . . .

It’s time to turn, so I won’t burn, and tan my tender skin!

Anyway, I decided I needed to come up with my own private label rum brand and just started learning about the whole process at a local distillery.  The first thing I learned is that it’s not a science . . . it’s an art!  Can life get any better!

Kermit

Last week another Gee Bee book character arrived at Fantasy of Flight and it’s Puff! She’s Zee’s cute little girlfriend in the story but a Gee Bee Y Sportster in real life. There were only two built but the orginals don’t exist anymore. I found this reproduction on the market and made a trade for it. The intention will be to put it together for display. While it had been flown a number of times by the builder, we want to take a good look at it and make a few changes. When I first got in the cockpit, the rudder pedals were too far back for my long legs and the ones in the front were even closer. For the time being it will make a great display.

Early next year we plan on doing some live action filming with the three Gee Bee airplanes for a DVD we are making and hope to place on PBS. We have already taken the “All of Life is a School” book and used the original illustrations with me narrating it to create a short video. We even included the song I wrote. I plan to add some live action footage with kids at Fantasy of Flight around the real characters and include some of the original historical footage that is currently on the www.geebeefun.com website.

So far on display at Fantasy of Flight from the book we have Gee Bee Zee, Jimmy G. Gee Bee, Puff, Matty and Stout. I acquired Missy a few months ago but she won’t arrive until around March of next year.

Plans are to make this new addition just like Puff in the book one day; including the bump cowl, the little wheel pant for the tail wheel and a covered front cockpit. Will she ever be pink? Well, I guess that depends on how much she powders her nose!

Kermit

We are slowly recouperating from last weekends events. Roar ‘n Soar was a big success and I will write a post about it when I get some final numbers and round up some great photos.  After I finished flying on Saturday, I headed off to a music festival called Riverhawk to do a photo shoot for a music video I am working on.

A friend of mine named Mark Johnson is a renowned banjo player and two years ago at this same festival he played a tune on stage he wrote and later recorded named “Katie Weeks”  after my daughter.  It was on his second CD Album called “Acoustic Rising”, which later went on to be nominated by the International Blugrass Music Association’s Instrumental for Album of the Year!  It also became one of the top requested songs off the Album on Bluegrass XM Radio.

Anyway, at the festival two years ago Mark told us to catch his act.  Katie was 2 1/2 at the time and dressed in a cute little cowgirl outfit.  We were all sitting in the front row and it was the first time Teresa and I had ever heard the song.  When Mark began to play it, Katie spontaneously got up, went out in front of the stage with everyone watching, and began twirling around the dance floor!

As you can imagine, everyone was very touched by what was going on.  About eight months later the CD came out and I began listening to it in my car.  It was a great tune and, as my thoughts flashed back to the scene of Katie dancing, words began to come to me.  I soon realized I was to write a song for it.  After a couple of months I had the lyrics done, went down to a recording studio, and laid some rough vocal tracks over the original instrumental.  Everyone I played it to was tearing up by the end of the song!

The vocal version has become “Daddy’s Little Girl” with the intent of recording the tune properly and creating a music video to go along with it.  I don’t want to spoil the final product but I hope to create an Internet Site where daughters can download the song attached to a Father’s Day card!  At some point, Father’s will be able to send it along with a card to their daughters.

As if I don’t have enough projects going on, I hope to have this done and launched by next Father’s Day in June!  I am attaching a picture of Katie dancing with Mark and I in the background from last weekend.  Just to give you a taste of the song the first verse and chorus of “Daddy’s Little Girl” goes like this -

You see that little girl . . . the one just over there . . .

Full of innocence and wonder . . . big blue eyes and curly hair . . .

Well, I just thought you’d like to know . . . that smile with skinned up knees . . .

Well, that’s my little girl . . . so watch her . . . if you please . . .

Chorus -

Watch her dance . . . watch her smile . . . watch her spin . . . laughing all the while . . .

And if you see that little girl come dancin’ ‘cross the floor . . .

You’d better grab your heart . . . ’cause it’s gonna melt some more . . .

Watch her dance . . . watch here twirl . . . watch her spin . . . she’s Daddy’s Little Girl!

Kermit

Last year I joined an Internet Marketing Group called AM 2.0 headed my Armand Morin.  Realizing the potential of the Internet, I have been trying to learn all I can to utilize it in the promotion of Fantasy of Flight and the products I am creating. 

 With the help of my IT department I have been working diligently to check off a 114-point list of items relating to our first promotional effort – my new illustrated children’s book “All of Life is a School”.  Once accomplished, we will be eligible to join a Platinum Group of Internet Marketers that are on the cutting edge of the business.

Well, while our athletes have been winning Gold at the Olympics in China this summer, we just got the annoucement this morning that we have completed our requirements and have now gone Platinum!  We have been invited to our first meeting in in Raleigh, NC early September.  As part of the two-day meetings, we will be given the opportunity to bring to the best minds in the business our ideas about what we would like to get input about.  And since we have a plan in place for the Gee Bee Book, I hope to bring to the group the concept we have for the song I wrote called “Daddy’s Little Girl!”

The instrumental tune was written by a friend of mine, Mark Johnson about three years ago and it’s on his second album called Acoustic Rising.  He is a renowned banjo player with a unique style and named the tune “Katie Weeks” after my little girl.  The album went up for the International Bluegrass Music Awards “Instrumental Album of the Year”.  And while it didn’t win, it is one of the most requested songs off that album on Bluegrass XM Radio.

 After we heard him play it at a music festival several years ago and got the CD, words and visuals began to come to me.  I realized I was supposed to write words to his music!  I have completed a rough recording but will be back in the studio for the final version.  Every father with a daughter I have played it to has been teary eyed by the end of the song.  It has great potential to be put to a short music video and we hope to find a way to bypass the “difficult to deal with music industry” and promote in via the Internet.

Stay tuned as we head towards a June of 2009 release!

Kermit