I took a trip out to Flemington NJ to visit Northlandz. This is one of the most unlikely and least known tourist attractions in the state. It is the fancy of one Bruce Williams Zaccagnino, an eccentric (and evidently rich) man. And I would liken it to the Watts Towers in the respect that through perseverance and doggedness, he managed to bring this unlikely fancy to reality. Two fancies, really. Trains and theater organs. And they come together in a rather large but rather ordinary looking building on the side of Highway 202 in Flemington NJ.

It looks like a suburban office complex from the outside. But the inside is entirely filled with one enormous model railroad layout. The tour walks you through various chambers in the building on multiple levels. You're likely to encounter Bruce himself at the admissions window selling tickets. He is unmistakably a character. Entering the first chamber you see a really large model railroad layout similar to those on display by model railroad clubs around the country. Trains enter and exit tunnels in mountainsides artfully blended into the walls of the chamber. And then you walk to the next chamber where the tunnels emerge and find yourself in a room about 5 times the size of the first one.

And as you progress through the building, the scenery, landscape, and overall scale of the display get progressively more and more outlandish, improbable, and thoroughly over-the-top. It takes about an hour to do the entire tour, and you walk about a mile. (That's a real mile, not a scale mile.) There are cities, canyons, bridges galore, and a recurring theme of outhouses. Some improbable statistics include 52,000 square feet of floor space, 8 (actual, not scale) miles of HO track, 4,000 buildings, half a million trees.

In the center of the building is a small theater with a number of theater organs installed. Yes, those gaudy consoles from the '30's to the '50's with multiple manuals and pedals and stops that look like juke boxes on steroids. And every half hour or so Bruce leaves the ticket window, sits down at one of the consoles and gives a little concert. He's a very good player. The tour through the railroad layout crosses through the theater three times at different levels. Talk about non sequiturs! The whole thing makes absolutely no sense and is absolutely wonderful.

Click on the picture above for a picture gallery. Click on any of the pictures in the gallery for an enlarged view.

I just got the word that I've been awarded a Formal Showcase at the NERFA (NorthEast Regional Folk Alliance) Convention. This is a regional folk music business convention (isn't that an oxymoron?) held annually in Monticello, NY. The dates for this year's conference are November 9 - 11. The Formal Showcase is a juried opportunity to perform for the 700 or so presenters, press, recording people, and other performers attending the conference. 14 showcasers are selected from about 200 applicants. I applied for and won a showcase back in 2001, and the results were significant for my career (such as it is). Not only did I convince the assembled multitudes that I could hold a place on a big stage, but more importantly, I think I convinced myself. I hope to be able to do as well this year.

"Ain't Never Been Plugged!" is well underway, and will be unveiled at a CD Release Concert on October 26 at the Minstrel Coffeehouse. It's all recorded, and I start mixing today. A bunch of good stuff on there, some of which is new recordings of songs I did on my 1987 "Rocking The Boat" cassette. Some great players helped me, including Jay Ungar on fiddle, Molly Mason on bass, and Eric Mumpower (who?) on bass clarinet. (Bass clarinet? Think of it as a bass guitar with a smile and a wink. Absolutely perfect for the right circumstance.)

CD Info...

To answer the title question of my second CD, I guess the answer is "Yes."

After 27 years at the same day job, I found myself out of work. My company, Mahaffy & Harder Engineering Co. closed its doors.

Well, it's a little more complicated. After several years of financial woes, the company went belly-up in January of 2006. They had designed and manufactured packaging equipment for the food and medical industry since the 1960s. I joined the company in 1980 as a machine design engineer, and found my niche. I worked there without a promotion (by choice) in the same position, becoming extremely proficient at my job and well satisfied and happy in my work. When M&H finally went under, they were bought out by the Ossid Corporation, another packaging machine manufacturer. M&H's line of products filled a hole in Ossid's product line, so it seemed a good deal for all.

Ossid's plan was to move the entire operation to their home base in Rocky Mount, NC. However a number of M&H's key engineering personnel, myself included, were not interested in relocating. So the plan was made that the manufacturing would be moved to North Carolina, but they would keep a smaller engineering and sales office here in New Jersey. This was to be an interim arrangement to last for 5 to 7 years until the North Carolina engineering staff could be brought up to speed on the M&H equipment. In July of 2006, the remaining engineers moved across the street to a smaller office, and continued our design work, with occasional trips down to North Carolina to get our hands dirty on the actual hardware when necessary. It was a clumsy way to do work, and by the beginning of 2007, the Ossid management decided to pull the plug on the New Jersey office. I was given the option of moving down there, or being laid off. I chose not to move.

I was officially laid off June 28. However, there were still some unfinished projects that needed completion, so they gave me the option of finishing those up working from home as a private contractor, rather than as an Ossid employee. At the last minute, they realized that at home I would not have access to an enormous amount of information and data from pre-computer days that was only available on paper. So they decided to keep the office open a few more weeks. (Their lease expired on September 30, anyway.)

I had not done a lot to look for replacement work. My financial situation is such that I could have retired years ago. But I really enjoy the work and the structure it gives to my life. My immediate supervisor was not in such a happy situation, however, with kids in college and a mortgage and the whole American dream to pay for. He had interviewed with a place in Mahwah, NJ called Polytype America. He told me that the job available was not for him, but it was right up my alley. So I gave them a call, and went in for an interview the day after I started my private contract work. I cobbled together a resume the night before. Didn't shave my beard or cut my hair. Went on my first job interview in 28 years with nothing but my qualifications and my professional experience to sell. In the "Professional Skills" paragraph of the resume, I wrote, "Taking concepts from a sketch on a napkin to complete manufacturing drawings and parts lists." The Chief Engineer read that, chuckled, and said, "We don't use napkins here. We use place mats." and showed me an example. That's when I got the good feeling about the place. Sure enough, a week later, I was offered the job, and accepted. One day, one interview, one job. Part of the deal is that I still get time off to tour. Not bad! I start August 7.

Here is a travelogue of my 2007 England tour. Click the picture to enter the tour.

I recently created a MySpace page. All us kids are doing it now. So I've been floundering around figuring how to make use of it and trolling for "friends" and generally being a novice. I also get a bunch of friend requests, and happily add them to my growing list. Most of them are from other musicians. But one was from a young woman with a cryptic screen name from Colorado. So I sent her a message saying I was happy to have her as a friend, but puzzled about how it came about that she sent me the invitation. Her reply is below. For those of you unfamiliar with the song she mentions, "Invitation to a Funeral" is a humorous Irish patter song I included on my first CD, The Modern Folk Musician. For those who have not heard it, I've put a link to the song from my MySpace page.

My name is Gina, and I am very, very pleased to talk to you, sir. [She calls me "sir" :-) ] It's actually a bit of an unusual story that leads me to your page, and I will tell it to you.

It was St. Patrick's Day in 2002. My parents had recently divorced, and my mother was moving to Pogosa Springs, Colorado. She and I were taking the last of her things up there one evening. The sun had just set, and it was a bit late to be setting out on the three hour trip, but we did anyway. As luck would have it, a bad snow storm hit while we were on our way to Colorado. At the half-way point of the trip, the road goes up a particularly steep hill, and we hit it going way too fast. The car slid sideways and we almost flew off the road - which would have sent us rocketing off a cliff. Luckily, my mom got control of the car again. After that, the both of us were scared out of our minds. No one else was crazy enough to be out in that weather, so we drove 15 miles per hour down the middle of the road all the way to Pogosa Springs.

My mom suggested that I try and find a radio station, even though we both knew that nothing would come in while driving through the canyons in the snow. Oddly enough, I did find a station, and as it was St. Patrick's Day, they were playing songs about anything green and anything to do with alcohol. On that night, while fearing for our lives in a snowstorm, we heard "Invitation to a Funeral" for the first time. Neither one of us could stop laughing as the tune filled the car. The song took the edge off of an otherwise horrid situation. It was midnight before we got to our destination, but we were a good deal happier and much more relaxed than we otherwise would have been.

Since then, Invitation to a Funeral has been one of my favorite songs to sing at SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) events or for any excuse I can come up with. I looked up the lyrics on your website and remembered (most of, I hope) the tune.

Well, that story was a bit more lengthy than I intended. Oops. At any rate, I thought that it would be nice to hear more of your music, and so I looked to see if you had a MySpace page and was pleased to find you. Thank you for having such great music!

~Gina~

You never know how your music will touch people in ways you never could have imagined. Thanks for letting me know about this, Gina. I am truly happy to be your friend.