Sorry for the delayed follow-up. Amelia is perfectly fine, by the way, but here’s the rest of the story:

As I was saying… Alison was doing the responsible thing; trying to get information as to the protocol for treating a suspected raccoon bite or scratch. Of course, once the phone call became an official incident report the bureaucratic machinery of the US Department of Agriculture and the NY State Health Department started turning its wheels. By the time the report had passed from one agency to another the story had escalated from ‘mother raccoon defending her babies’ to, ‘rabid raccoon attacks monkey, unprovoked’.

There was talk of the Board of Health conducting a house raid, confiscating Amelia, then putting her down, as the only means of determining whether she had contracted rabies. After several rounds of frantic phone calls, it was finally determined that Amelia could stay with us, but under house arrest. Because of exposure to a potentially rabid raccoon, Amelia was put under official quarantine by the US Dept. of Agriculture and Board of Health.

According to the protocols for quarantine that means that Amelia has to spend six months in a secure facility (our bedroom) in order to determine that she is completely rabies-free. An official from the board of health comes to visit once a month to monitor Amelia’s health (She is fit as a fiddle).

And that’s the tale. Amelia remains under official quarantine until November when we plan to have an out-of-quarantine party and toast Amelia’s good health. As I’ve said, Amelia is perfectly fine. As is the mother raccoon and her three babies who made a temporary home inside my Sneaker Car which is housed in our shed, under the deck. By the end of the summer, they finally left their mobile home for a more permanent abode in the forest.

A happy ending for all.

[NOTE: Picture of Hannah with Amelia taken around 1990.]

It all started when Amelia, our 35+ year old capuchin monkey, went out to sun herself on our deck. There was a bloodcurdling scream and Alison ran out to the deck to discover Amelia locked arm in paw with a raccoon twice her size.

Amelia has lived with us longer than both of our human children and we do tend to consider her as just another - albeit hairy and very short - kid. So, Alison did what any mom would do under the circumstances: ignoring her own personal safety, she faced off against the raccoon, grabbed Amelia, and with a few swift kicks, yanked Amelia away from the furious tussle. The raccoon retreated into the bushes adjacent to the deck.

At first, Amelia appeared physically unscathed, though clearly emotionally traumatized by the encounter.

(Imagine yourself sunning lazily on your deck - never having actually seen even a picture of a raccoon - and then being attacked by such a creature, more than twice your size.)

Once we noticed that the attacking raccoon was actually a young mother defending her three babies - actually three wriggling balls of fluff, cozily ensconced inside a 5gallon planter - we were somewhat reassured as to her motive for the attack. Given that raccoons are nocturnal creatures, an aggressive raccoon launching a midday attack is almost guaranteed to be rabid - this raccoon, on the other hand, appeared to be a perfectly healthy mom, in the act of defending her young, as any typical mom would do. Of course, you can never tell for sure.
It was only when, upon closer inspection, Alison discovered what appeared to be a tiny bite mark or scratch on Amelia’s leg, that there was renewed cause for concern.

A certified veterinary technician and a registered nurse, Alison did what one would consider to be the responsible thing to do - she called the US Department of Agriculture to ask for advice on the protocol for a post-bite prophylactic vaccine for small primates.

Wrong move.
(To be continued…)

Had a fun show at the Dockside last night. Just wanted to say thanks to the folks who braved the cold to show up at the gig. First time I’d performed at this venue and it turned out to be a comfortable, nicely laid out restaurant/bar space with really good food and a helpful, friendly staff. It’s always a little stressful doing a gig, out-of-the-blue, so to speak, as opposed to a string of dates as part of an extensive tour. By the end of the tour I’ve usually managed to figure out my set and learn most of my lyrics, but it always takes me a few gigs to get up to speed. (O.K. Maybe a few weeks;-). So, an isolated one-off gig is always a challenging sort of adventure.
Anyway, all went pretty well and I only had to sneak a peak at lyric sheets on a few tunes. Folks drove up from Connecticut and New Jersey, as well as from all over Westchester and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I’ll definitely be playing there again.

Now, I’ve got to start getting ready for my Turning Point gig on April 1st, which looks to be turning into a special show with guest slots from a handful of really talented local musicians. This one will be recorded for subsequent broadcast on a six part radio series I’m working on for BBC Radio Scotland to air this summer just before I commence my tour. It should be a lotta fun.

More next time.

Don’t slip on the ice!

Hey Folks,

First off, a very belated, but heartfelt, happy Groundhogs Day (yeah, I know it was two weeks ago). As I shoveled frozen blocks of ice off my driveway, pelted by gusts of sleet, I was warmed by the comforting knowledge that Puxatawny Phil did NOT see his own shadow and that, according to legend, spring is virtually over the horizon. This is putting a lot of faith in a giant, near-sighted rodent, but, hey, you’ve gotta believe in something.

But, I’m afraid the reason for this newsletter is not as uplifting as a fuzzy, chubby, groundhog.

I’m writing to alert everyone - working musicians especially - to a peculiar new internet scam which seems to be specifically targeting musicians with MySpace.com profiles (although the scam itself is clearly adaptable to any independent service provider.)

I know that all of us receive Internet Scam emails on a regular basis and are generally adept at recognizing them for what they are, however there was a personalized and tailored aspect to this one which caught my attention immediately.

It began when I received the following curious email:

Hello,
How is Business and your profession?, My name is Micheal Jones,I am a legal practisioner by profession and i based most in the united kingdom, The reason why i am contacting you is in regards to my wife {Mrs Sharon Jones} will be Celebrating her 40th Birthday Party soon, precisely on the 20th of febuary 2006 ,please check your availability for this date because I will like you to take care of the Music aspect of the event.
I came across your profile and am impressed with your services,experience,your kind of music of course is okay by me.
The venue address of the event is We are expecting about 80-100 guest & its going to be an indoor party. The party starts 12pm-5pm according to our program of the event. You are to start performing when it is 1pm till the end of the party. There will not be any dance from guest nor familly for any reason what we only need from you is for you to just give us interesting music. All expenses would be taken care of by me,Please I want the best service from you, because she is my only wife & i love her so much. So your best production is needed at this occasion.
Please let me know your CHARGES to work for 4 Hours on that day,1pm -5pm
when the event will be ending,moreso let me know how you plan to move down here with your electronics? I will want to put it to your notice that i will take care of your hotel only if requested from you,please let me know how many of you will be coming for this event?
I hope to read from you soon & also to have your service QUOTE which will only include your travel,feeding,and your service fee.I look forward to your response and also your price package so that i can make quick arrangement of paying you a deposit payment so that you can book my wife event on your calendar.

Pls email me back asap.

Best Regards,
Micheal Jones.

NOTE: All emails from Micheal Jones - represented in blue - were formatted exactly as shown, including all spelling and grammatical errors.

I had two simultaneous reactions:

1. One, I was immediately suspicious due to the spelling and grammatical errors and overall misuse of language and context plus the reference to a ‘deposit payment’, which I recognized as the standard ’scam’ device for acquiring a victim’s bank account details.

2. Two: In spite of all the above ’scam alert’ warning alarms that rang in unison like our local Indian Point Nuclear Reactor emergency warning system, the specificity of the music performance party details lent it a tiny grain of believability. (of course, that grain of believability is what all of these scams rely on.)

Again, I was instantly suspicious, but I have to confess that, despite my suspicion, I was intrigued as to how the correspondence might play out, in part, because I do tend to get unusual, but authentic, email on a regular basis and, in part, because like any working musician, my curiosity is always piqued by even the most remote possibility of actually getting paid. .

So, I decided to reply and I quoted him an exorbitant fee of $20,000 for playing his wife’s 40th birthday party.

He replied:

Hello Dean,

Thank you for your as soon as possible reply, i really appreciate it and that shows your puntuality in your works, like i said i really value your musical experience and here is my wife’s party address

Jones Planet,
Cragwood Road,
South Plainfield,
NJ 07080-2448.

I will like to inform you that i will like to know if there can be a price reduction in the price beause the party is a indoor party and like i said i just want to make my wife happy, i will be waiting to hear from you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Micheal Jones.

As someone who is occasionally challenged by conventional scheduling (tardy), I was pleased to be acknowledged for my ‘puntuality’, and thus, theoretically, more inclined to grant him the price reduction he was requesting.

It did seem curious however when, upon typing the venue address into GoogleMap, I zoomed into a satellite photo of an industrial parking lot. Hmmmm… I thought, what an odd place for a birthday party!

I decided to grant him a generous 25% discount on my fee but asked for more detailed information on the venue, including a contact phone number to help confirm the actual location. He replied…

Hello Dean,

Thank you for the email and for the discount approved for my wife’s party, i really appreciate your concern and effort, To be honest you a very wonderful guy and i am really looking forward to meeting you on or before the party.

Well regarding the price i believe its okay by me and more also here is the anwser to the required information:

1. Name and Address of the hiring individual (Michael Jones):Jones Planet,Cragwood Road,
South Plainfield,NJ 07080-2448
2. Phone Number of the hiring individual (Michael Jones):+447024052978. here is my home phone at the event venue 908 922 ####.

Venue address and phone number:Jones Planet,Cragwood Road,South Plainfield,
NJ 07080-2448.

Contact person at Venue to discuss technical electric and setup information in advance: Micheal Jones.

Please do get back to me with the rest details and information you might needed.

Regards,

Micheal Jones.

It did feel good knowing that he considered me to be a ‘wonderful guy’ and clearly this was going to be one helluva birthday party, but I remain puzzled by the fact that the UK phone number he provided was a non-working number and the New Jersey phone number was an internet, call-forwarding ,voice-mail account which anyone can acquire from anywhere in the world, for about $20 a month. And according to GoogleMap the party was still going to be held in an industrial parking lot.

When I pointed this out to him he seemed slightly put out and reassured me as follows:

Hello Dean,

Thank you for the email again,well i will like to inform you that my address is a private location and you have nothing to worry about, the party is taken place in my venue, i will arrange how you will get there without any mistake, you just relax and let me handle that.i am waiting for the performance agreement and lets make continue with other procedures.

Best Regards,

Micheal Jones.

At this point, I was becoming disturbed at what was clearly an internet scam designed to extract money from hardworking innocent musicians, but Alison encouraged me to carry the charade further and suggested I make the following offer to see what his reaction might be…

Hi Micheal,

I don’t know if I mentioned this but my good friend is a professional animal trainer and has a 6 year old dancing bear. Would you be at all interested in having a dancing bear at your party? (He doesn’t eat much.

Just wondering.

Regards,
Dean

As you might expect, my penpal was not in an especially flippant mood…

Hello Dean,

I dont think that would be neccessary, because like i told you the party is for series of mature and professional people whom i dont think would want to watch a bear entertain them and i would like a professional performance from you,please do get back to me with the information of where am to send a check for the initial deposit $, and the performance agreement.

Regards,

Micheal Jones.

I appreciated the fact that the party was for a mature professionals and that a dancing bear might be considered inappropriate entertainment. In retrospect, I was also glad I hadn’t included Alison’s other generous suggestion - that, for an additional fee, I offer to provide his wife with a ‘night of pleasure’ for her birthday. I suppose he might have taken some exception to that.

In any case, he was not dissuaded at all by the dancing bear, and shortly thereafter I received the following email…

Hello Dean,
Many thanks for the contact detailes, and all the plan you have in mind regarding the upcomming event. This is how the payment will be made to you,I will instruct my associate to mail out a payment on your details in the amount of 8000$ and once it deliveres to you by the UPS courier services , you can then go ahead and deposited it into your account,Remove your deposit amount as planned and help me make the transfer of $3,750 to the Food Caterer who will be responsible for the Cook and also for the Drink at the party.I will want you to bring along the remainder of money with you after you are done with Your own part of money and aslo the food caterer’s fund.

I hope to trust you with this splitting of fund and let me know if you have some western union outlet arround you where you can easily make the transfer to the Cook.I hope to read from you to know if you can be trusted with this or not.Regarding the phone number itrs working perfectly, but if you cant reach me on that here is another number which you can reach me also on+447024067877 or +447031838903,I will like to inform you that my venue is not a secret is a open place and here is the venue address is a simpler form Jones Planet,108 Cragwood Road,South Plainfield,NJ 7080-2448. I will mail you a copy of the signed contract as soon as possible so you can print your copy out.

Best Regards,
Micheal Jones.

Anyway, at this point the details for the endgame of this scam were becoming apparent, what with the convoluted distribution of funds, and I finally sent an email telling my prospective employer to cease all communications.

But, I am taking the time to describe the strange encounter for your benefit, on the off-chance that other musicians out there (or any similar indie profession) may become targets of a similar scam.

Because here’s the truth, even though I knew, with absolute certainty, from the very first email, that this was a scam, there remained, even through to the very end, the tiniest glimmer of irrational hope that this was actually some rich UK based attorney, to whom English was a second language, whose wife was a huge fan of my music and who was willing to part with bags of cash to hear me sing my songs in the parking lot of an industrial complex in the wilds of New Jersey. That hope (or natural greed) is what these folks prey on.

In other words… the scam touched a nerve. Which is what creative scams do.

Anyway, because this scam was targeting musicians - and apparently musicians with profiles on myspace - I felt compelled to alert folks to its existence.

So, fellow entrepreneurs, do be warned. Don’t take any wooden nickels, avoid gigs in industrial parking lots, and most importantly… watch out for dancing bears.

Sincerely,

Dean

Well, there you have it.

As you can see, I did stay up late one night animating that cute little koala bear. (no easy feat, by the way) I have to say, it’s really satisfying getting this one done.

Lots of quick gags and routines I got a real kick out of animating and they still crack me up. Let me know what all of you think out there; most favorite bits, least favorite bits. I confess it’s easy to lose perspective when you’re animating dancing alligators.

As always, the most challenging part of this production was completing it within my modest budget of fifty cents. Imagine what I could accomplish with a whole dollar! Although I don’t think a polar bear getting triple scale would have improved the finished product much. So, maybe I was better off not having to deal with some of those spoiled, neurotic ‘A’ list animal actors.

Anyway, the idea is for this to go viral, so if you’re so inclined you’re definitely encouraged to send it to your friends and add links to your websites.

A warning to parents though: This is what happens when you watch too many cartoons as a kid - you stay up late at night making your own.

Peace,

Deano

Survived a long day of tedious logistics arranging for the car to be towed from one garage to another. Made an appointment for the adjuster to come make his, uh… adjustment. Justly, I suppose. And just then… got an email asking for a quote on a Booble, Honkblatt, Tone Stones and a Jingle-Lingle-Lily. From gloomy to a glimmer. From dismal to daffy. From serial to surreal.

Meanwhile… here’s a sweet video that a young lady named, Grace Chambers, produced and is featured in, to a soundtrack of my recording from the Treehouse Journals CD, ‘The Saddest Girl in the Whole Wide World’.

Check it out at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8e9bK3Tk2Dg You’ll enjoy it.

Speaking of videos, my newest Flash animation, “A Terrible Pickle” is just a few days from launching. Stay tuned!

Deano

Not that I needed any reminding, but tonight proved again that worrisome axiom that life can turn on a dime. (which raises the inevitable question: what does life turn on in other currencies? Anyone?) Driving earlier to pick up Sam at the train station, when, seemingly out of nowhere, a deer darted in front of the car. It just appeared in the headlights. Bam! And then, just as suddenly, disappeared. Leaving a hefty chunk of itself in my fender and totaling the front end. I’m fine - just a little shook up. The car now has a stupid grin where the front end used to be.

I’m not complaining though. According to insurance company statistics, there are 1.5 million traffic accidents on US roads, each year, involving vehicles hitting deer, resulting in approximately 100 human deaths and 13,000 injuries.

So, even though I’m having a lousy evening - tow-trucks, insurance companies, body-shops - I realize it could have been a lot worse.

I could have been the deer.

.

I keep finding more of these on YouTube and they always give me a chuckle:

1. U-Conn (Connecticut University) a-capella group singing my song ‘McDonald’s Girl’ based on the Blenders arrangement:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ7YLY4NpSo

2. This one is just a funny little snippit based on some Japanse Anime’ and the Blender’s recording of ‘McDonald’s Girl’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEik6g0CZto

I’m getting a little hungry just listening.

Deano

I’m really torn. It’s midnight and the pressing question is: do I animate this cute koala or go to bed?

Just a quick note to let you know that my good buddy, Matt Lees, has one of his amazing crossword puzzles published today in the Saturday, New York Times! This is quite prestigious and I encourage you to pick up a copy and give it a try. It’s a challenge, but lotsa fun. And don’t feel bad if you can’t do the whole thing, I could only finish half of it and that was with help from the whole family.

Some of you might recall that Matt created the puzzles, Matt’s Mindbenders, in my DeanZine which you can still find in the Newsletter section of my website at www.deanfriedman.com They’re a lotta fun.

Anyway, Mazel Tov (congrats) to Matt. And a Happy New Year - LaShana Tova - to my tribe and best wishes to you all. (Oh, by the way that’s a hint.)
Deano