Dedicated to my longtime friend and teacher, who was recovering from knee surgery the day I finished this work.
There would have been no "T.R. MacDonald Artworks" were it not for Diane Simmons.
In January, we began paying tribute to new clients.
"You can't grow your business without 'em."
And here's this month's FAVORITE NEW CLIENT...
It's so cool to be "the voice of pork."
4-month-old Clara Ziegler of Austin shows off the pipes, which should go nicely with her 1-year-old sister's music and drumming skills...click below...
We in the East are really tired of this.
I have two words ... "Tucson ... Arizona."
Meanwhile, back here in Annapolis...
As a former radio guy, I can’t tell you how excited I am to know that the FCC just voted to regulate the Internet.
We in the broadcast industry lovingly call the FCC ‘the worst bureaucracy in Washington”—which is really, really saying something given the existence of HHS and the EPA and the VA and DHS and about a dozen other really, really wonderful Washington bureaucracies. Oh, and did I mention the IRS?Of course, supporters just want to 'protect consumers.' What could go wrong?
This is a grand day in the history of America—it’s about time Washington moved in to control something as broken as the Internet.
Lord knows I, as a small business owner, can’t get on the Internet now and get really good speeds and do my business and help the economy without such assistance from our Nation’s Capital.
I am today one prouder American. If John Phillip Sousa were around today, he’d be composing “The FCC Regulation March,” which of course would be in a very slow tempo. But we could march to it. And we better do so, if we know what’s good for us.
This new FCC chairman, Tom Wheeler, seems like such a great man.
Of course, he didn’t allow any public disclosure of the regulating document before the FCC vote, or public comment thereon before he and his cronies rammed this baby through, but that would just slow things down. And we all know bureaucrats never want to slow things down.
In this new age of total transparency, we should have been able to figure out what was in this deal.
And here it is:
Get out your wallets, boys and girls.The best part of all of this was the response by my cable and broadband provider, Verizon. After FCC adoption of the regulations subjecting Verizon's 21st Century technology to the Communications Act of 1934, the company sent their response out in Morse Code.
Very funny.
Inspired by the frozen waterfalls and gorges we saw on our Thanksgiving, 2013 trip to New Hampshire.
This started out as a closeup of Arethusa Falls, but then I incorporated impressions from a falls and gorge east of Mt. Washington.
Every art calendar needs a "January" painting, and my 2016 calendar now has one.
Terry recently began his sixteenth year as 'the voice of the Washington Post' and its decades-long daily edition radio promo campaign.
Written by the Post's Mike Greenberg and produced for three decades by the dean of DC audio engineers, Jim Bloch of Blochhouse Media,
the promos highlight the features of each day's Washington Post. It's quite a process.
Once the editors of the paper decide on the next day edition's structure, Mike Greenberg produces a script and delivers it to Jim and Terry by 5 - 5:30 PM Eastern.
Jim connects with Terry by ISDN and directs the reads. Terry then ftp-transmits the full-bandwidth winners to Jim, who mixes a master radio spot and ships it to
a digital transmission center in New York. They deliver the spot to radio stations all over the DC area by 7 PM Eastern for next-day air.
The ad campaign has been called 'Hall of Fame worthy' by marketing pros.
And the closing phrase, "If you don't get it, you don't get it" is well known to most everyone in the Nation's Capitol region.
The richly filmed series presents a new view on several of the important events in the life of the man venerated by billions of souls.
Some of the best sequences in the series are the street scenes and seldom seen views of Jerusaleum.
And, of course, as the old blockbuster movie once said, it's still "The Greatest Story Ever Told."
One of our numero uno go-to places anywhere is Longwood Gardens in the Brandywine Valley south of Philadelphia.
Originally purchased, saved, developed and then left to posterity by the DuPonts, it is an absolutely fabulous gardens and massive indoor conservatory.
We journeyed there in early January, while they were still featuring their annual Christmas lights displays. But we love their blossoms most of all.
These are some of Terry's photos. Caroline has hundreds and hundreds more--and she's a much better floral photographer.
If you ask nice, she'd probably be glad to ship you a zip-file of her shots.
We know what you're saying: "Oh, great. Now they're going to break out the family photo album!"
Sorry, it's just if Terry didn't put these here, he'd be in big trouble with Caroline. She's such a softie about these girls...
Okay, one more and we promise to stop.
1-year-old Ezme Ziegler has shown a love for music ever since she first came into the world.
Recently, her mom bought her a fun new toy at a neighborhood yard sale.
Take a look...just hit the play button below...
We're starting a new feature on the old blogspot. We are going to begin paying tribute to new clients.
You can't grow your business without 'em.
And speaking of growing, here's this month's FAVORITE NEW CLIENT...
Graves Show Productions hired Terry to narrate the off-stage voiceover elements for TFI'S 2015 Convention, happening next month in Scottsdale.
As Terry immediately said to Mike Graves,
"GOOD CALL. I AM THE PERFECT VOICE FOR THE FERTILIZER INSTITUTE!"
TFI. We love 'em.
Here we are 15% of the way into the 21st Century.
I don't know about you, but sometimes I long for the good old days.
In that spirit, in 1999 I produced an audio tribute entitled, "Ode to the 20th Century."
You can hear it by clicking on the CD cover below.
My two oldest brothers told me at the time that I needed to 'turn down the music.'
The man who mastered the piece for CD, the late legendary Louis Mills (dean of all Mid-Atlantic recording engineers) told me, "Son, don't change a thing."
I went with Louis. Heck, he worked with Leopold Stokowski. See what you think...just click on the cover below...
