October 15, 2013

I'm going to be on an album cover

I was only vaguely aware that they still make vinyl records, but a French band has requested permission to put this photo (taken by my father) on the cover of their upcoming EP of songs about the spirit of Christmas. 

If a sevenish me guarding my loot by brandishing a BB gun that could put somebody's eye out doesn't represent the True Spirit of Christmas, well, I don't know what would.

78 comments:

Anonymous said...

ROTFL.

Sailer on lazy boy as baby Jesus in manger.

http://www.cathnewsusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Nativity-Scene.jpg

-------

Is this the band?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo0qfqIDQa4

Anonymous said...

It's a great picture. It's a classic.

It also looks like something that would be put on an indie band album cover.

Anonymous said...

How did they find it? Just googling around? Or are they readers of the blog?

Anonymous said...

Make sure you're getting royalties.

Liam MacDonald said...

That's pretty cool. I wonder if they came across it randomly or are readers. Didn't you check how many and where your readers were from recently, any French iStevers?

Anonymous said...

http://upload..org/wikipedia/en/b/b4/US_Vinyl_Sales_Graph_In_Units.png



but of course it's *who* is buying vinyl and the answer is: the cool kids.

marco lalo said...

Awesome dude.

The listener will never know that you're THE Steve Sailer though

They're in for a shock if they find out.

Anon87 said...

Let us know when/where it is available.

Anonymous said...

Nativist scene.

Longtime reader said...

Congrats Steve.

Picture is classic. Agreed.

Unknown said...

Brings back memories! All you need is your dad sitting on the couch reading Life Magazine wearing a tie and smoking a pipe.

Christmas at our house now looks just
the same only there would be an AR replacing the Daisy. J

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!

alexis said...

Did they tell you how they stumbled up on your picture?

Jokah Macpherson said...

Don't they know you're toxic because *reasons*?

Great pic, though. Do you get a free copy?

David Davenport said...

Steve, here's a suggestion:

Why don't you point and click into the iSteve archives, bundle some iSteve columns/blog posts together, and sell them on Amazon as Kindle e-books?

iSteve's Human Biological Diversity, iSteve Movie and Book Reviews, iSteve Hometown Los Angeles, etc. ... All excellent Christmas gifts.

You could conduct an extra special iSteve pledge drive -- loyal iStevies should buy 'em in advance! -- to raise capital for this venture.

maxsnafu said...

Have you cleared this with the ADL and SPLC?

Anonymous said...

Very cool.

Moshe

Anonymous said...

I'd be interested in the story of how that happened. I have a friend who was -- very briefly! -- a guest star in a Michael Moore documentary, and she had no idea she was in the movie until some co-workers congratulated her on it. (She has no strong opinion about Michael Moore, so she was OK with it, but it was still a shock).

Anonymous said...

Why don't you point and click into the iSteve archives, bundle some iSteve columns/blog posts together, and sell them on Amazon as Kindle e-books?

That's actually a really good idea. Amazon provides an interface where you just have to submit word docs and they turn them into e-books.

You should price them at at least $2.99, as then you get 70% of the revenue or something. If you price them lower, I believe Amazon takes most of it.

Mr. Anon said...

That picture captures the true spirit of our most important holiday..........Black Friday.

The rocket-ship with gantry is pretty cool. Was that one of those pressurized water rockets?

Cute dog too.

Jimmie B said...

I remember those ugly square vinyl-covered hassocks. Didn't they have a big vinyl button on the top, right in the middle? And that cool space-age telephone with the dial built into the bottom. I don't remember the space ship, though.

My big 7 year old gift was "Mister Machine". Took that sucker apart before New Years and never got it back together again.

I moved on to disassembling electric clocks, electric can openers, and broken toasters shortly thereafter and have never looked back.

Anonymous said...

I moved on to disassembling electric clocks, electric can openers, and broken toasters shortly thereafter and have never looked back.

None of them worked again either?

San Franciscan non-monk said...

Gonna take me a while to process this.

Anonymous said...

This is an OT question, but how do you make text italic in posts?

Bill said...

Damn that's cute. I'm so blessed to have a son myself.

Anonymous said...

*This is an OT question, but how do you make text italic in posts?*

Asterisks around the text. Goddamn it feels good to be barely useful.

Anonymous said...

26 year old here, I buy 5 or so records a month on vinyl. I'm a collector and amateur DJ. I also drive a 26 year old car, for what that's worth. I know a lot of other guys my age who buy vinyl. Most people my age are aware vinyl records are still pressed, but people more in Steve's age range seem genuinely surprised to learn vinyl is still around. a weird generational gap.

Anonymous said...

your dad sitting on the couch reading Life Magazine wearing a tie and smoking a pipe

Well at least photoshop in over Life a cover of Playboy.

Cail Corishev said...

Guys Steve's and my age grew up with vinyl, so we weren't sorry to see it go. We had crappy plastic turntables, and lost records because they got too scratched or got left in the sun and warped. We taped pennies to the armature to get the needle to stay in the groove instead of skipping. When it became possible to enjoy music without the popping and hissing, and listen to more than 5 songs in a row without having to go change the record, we never looked back.

Poppop said...

I just bought my first new lp a couple weeks ago since the early 80s. Sounds great. Of course its an early 70s recording. Still and all glad to learn after 50 years im still a cool kid.
I was bummed to learn they are mastering from digital not real analog tapes. But this has led me to start ripping old wax at high sampling rate to flac which my droid phone will play. Sounds awesome.

Laguna Beach Fogey said...

Awesome. Are Daft Punk releasing a Christmas album this year...? Finally something I can put on my LP record player device.

Anonymous said...

If Sailer's on the cover, the perfect album title is....


"Who? Whom?"

Anonymous said...

http://www.nickelback.com/media/videos/15691/20471

:)

Anonymous said...

Is that a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in the foreground?

AWWWWW, precious, precious. Very cute dog. Awesome adorable breed.

Rob said...

Anon 11.11:

How do you make the text italic in posts?

You make the text italic by putting before it and after it.

BB753 said...

An album cover? Why didn´t you tell us you were big in France? The next step is a rap record!

Anonymous said...

Looks like "Cowboys in the Mist" to me.

Power Child said...

Vinyl has apparently made a huge comeback in the last few years. iTunes and MP3s are convenient, but people like having a physical object to pore over. I remember as a teenager I just loved studying the album art on the CDs I bought. I still prefer to buy a CD over an iTunes album. And if I ever get my EP recorded, I'd give it to my friends on CD rather than (or at least, in addition to) emailing it to them.

DPG said...

Lesbians aren't gay.

Modern family makes an episode out of an iSteve theme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H68Z72PzP0Q

Anonymous said...

What's really sad, and uncommented upon, is to compare the demographics of the seven year old Steve then, to that of a seven year old white kid today.

Anonymous said...

iPadicals

Anonymous said...

he Fountain Valley School District has let its Spanish-speaking community liaison go and will replace her with a Vietnamese-speaking aide by the end of November, officials said.
The change mirrors a years-long shift in student demographics.
The number of Vietnamese-speaking students has doubled since 2009 and now makes up 70 percent of the district's 730 English learners. The number of English learners whose mother tongue is Spanish has declined steadily since 2009, when those students made up a quarter of all English learners. This year, they represent less than 14 percent.
“Our Vietnamese-speaking group is on the rise, and on the rise significantly,” said Julianne Hoefer, who manages the English learner program. “We can't keep up with our Vietnamese translation and interpretation.”
About 12 percent of the total student population is classified as English learner, although that number is much higher when bilingual and multilingual children are included, Hoefer said.
The total number of English learners has jumped by nearly a quarter in the past two years. Most of that increase comes from Vietnamese-speaking families, but the district also has seen an increase in Arabic-speaking students since the Arab Spring began in 2010.
There are now 62 Arabic-speaking students in the district, a threefold increase since 2010
This seems to be a new trend group in California Arabs, we around here worry about the Mexicans since they have large numbers and have a higher than average birth rate and are young but there are new groups that seem to slightly replaced them in immigration.

JI said...

Steve, what was your dog's name?

Anonymous said...

I'm not surprised.

That picture is classic Americana. Just beautiful.

I have similar ones, but they're terrible as photographs. It's an amazing blessing to have a someone in the family who shot Kodachrome and knew how to use it.

(Correct me if I'm wrong, please, but I've never seen a color print or negative from the period that looked so good.)

heartiste said...

They should name the new album 'Regret'. (Or 'Regretter') If the title doesn't make sense now, it soon will.

Steve Sailer said...

"It's an amazing blessing to have a someone in the family who shot Kodachrome and knew how to use it."

Right, in 1959 my dad shot Kodak slide film from about 1960 onward. Baby pictures of my cousin born in 1957 are on BW print film, but he upgraded his technology seriously soon after I was born late in 1958. On a long trip to Europe to investigate an airliner crash in 1959, he went to Germany and bought a Leica camera -- manual everything, but with an amazing lens. (From 1976 onward, I had latest technology Olympus SLR cameras from Japan, but the lenses weren't quite as sharp as my dad's ancient Leica lens.) My father's father had worked for a lens company in Germany in 1895, and had been Roentgen's delivery boy while the great physicist invented the X-ray. Then he worked for Bausch & Lomb, so high quality lenses were a family tradition.

I think my father switched to Kodachrome slide film around 1960, so outdoor pictures of me as a toddler are virtually indistinguishable from 21st century state of the art photos. For indoor pictures, he had a flash with a about a 6 inch silver metal reflector, which did a good job of lighting indoor scenes sufficiently, but wasn't as artful for portraits as the large, complex rigs that professional photographers use.

Steve Sailer said...

My dog's name was Topper. Cocker Spaniels were the most popular dog in the country in the 1950s, but the Cocker Spaniel Bubble led to puppy mills breeding poorly, so they collapsed in popularity as the 1960s went on.

Steve Sailer said...

Thanks, DPG, great clip from Modern Family, a 1994 iSteve article come to life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H68Z72PzP0Q

Steve Sailer said...

"We're Geniuses in France"

That was the title of Dale Chapman's zero-budget cable access sketch comedy show in Chicago in the 1990s.

Steve Sailer said...

Also, the sound quality you could achieve with vinyl records and a good stereo system by the early 1970s was highly impressive by the early 1970s, although expensive and requiring a hobbyist approach.

And don't get me started on the sound quality of long distance telephone calls a generation ago versus the awful sound quality of most calls today, which is a big reason Kids These Days text.

Anonymous said...

ITALICS:

<i>blah blah blah</i>

BEGETS:

blah blah blah

Anonymous said...

Is that a Red Rider BB gun? Better be glad you didn't put your eye out with that thing!

-Cloudswrest

Anonymous said...

Also, the sound quality you could achieve with vinyl records and a good stereo system by the early 1970s was highly impressive...

CD-ROM technology, at 44,100 [or 48,000] samples per second, with 16-bit samples, is perfectly fine for the average listener, whose hearing starts to buzz out at around 16kHz/17Khz/18KHz.

But it's horrible for the true "audiophile", who can hear tones way out beyond 20KHz.

So for many years, "vinyl", which does its best to make a true analog duplication of the original analog signal, was vastly superior to CD-ROM, at least until the introduction of these new digital sampling systems, which can take upwards of 200,000 samples per second, at 24-bits per sample.

Anonymous said...

That should be Red Ryder, not Red Rider.

-Cloudswrest

Anonymous said...

Any position on the current controversy over whether Ronan Farrow is really Woody Allen's kid or Frank Sinatra's? On one hand, Ronan is super-brainy and Frank was...well, not so much. On the other, Woody has always been ugly as sin while Ronan is ridiculously good-looking.

Anonymous said...

And don't get me started on the sound quality of long distance telephone calls a generation ago versus the awful sound quality of most calls today, which is a big reason Kids These Days text.


Could also mainly be that kids don't want to talk unless they really have to. Why talk when texts are faster and quicker. You don't have say as much (and thus don't have to explain as much) as LOL or LMAO etc etc

a couple of letters aptly makes the point in their world than several minutes of talking ever could.

Case in point: In the Aaaron Hernandez case, the dead dude texted "NFL" .

And the point is made.

Anonymous said...

re: the convenience of mp3s


this is exactly why people in their 20s like vinyl. i havent used a cd in years. why would i? if i want digital i can download music and played on my computer, in my car, in my stereo system, while im hiking, whatever. why would i want a cd?


if you want something sensuous in addition to your ditgital music then you want vinyl. you want the beautiful sleeve, the ritual of dropping the needle, the rich sound. its an indulgence, an aesthetic experience.

vinyl is classic. a CD is just outdated.

http://www.arcadefire.com/reflektorpreorder/us/

vinyl + digital + first in line for concert tickets. $20. thats what interests someone who wants to pay for music.



and steve is right. people forget how you could actually hear people on real phones.


something else young kids may not know: changing cable channels used to be instantaneous.

Anonymous said...

"Could also mainly be that kids don't want to talk unless they really have to."


Let's talk about the real problem: boomers still leaving voicemails and expecting you to listen to them. what the hell, old people? talk about a waste of time.

Anonymous said...


Let's talk about the real problem: boomers still leaving voicemails and expecting you to listen to them. what the hell, old people? talk about a waste of time


EXACTLY. See? You DO see it. Yes, it IS a major big time waste of time. At least in their minds. And if you truly want to understand them from their viewpoint, that's how they think.
DUH.

That is exactly how that generation sees it. If you've over a certain age, forget it. You don't relate to them and they feel that they don't have to listen to you Simple.

C'mon, quick quick quick and make it snappy! Five minutes to state your case and make your point when LOL will do? What time era are you from? Answer: The old one. Waaaaay back in the day.

And old = nothing to say in their minds. Get over it. Deal with it. Its a fact (for the majority)

I'll bet the baby boomers are the same way in their own way. They dont "hang" with the few 80 and 90yrs olds waxing eloquent about how train travel took 3 days across country and how great 78 Vinyls were. No sirree. They wanna hang with younger folks. What they still dont seem to get, is that for the most part, the young dont want to hang with them.

Welcome to human nature via Americana.

Honestly, what kind of pipe smoke is going on that anyone would seriously think that Vinyl's making a serious comback. Grow up. It aint coming back in any quantitative way.

If it did, the record labels would be mass producing it on the same level that they all did in the 70s and early 80s. They're not. It's over. Deal with it.
Time to move on.

CDs are disposable much more so than vinyl. Blank CDs are still very much in vogue. Get tired of em? Pitch em in the trash and get another 10pk for 3 bucks.

Cail Corishev said...

"And don't get me started on the sound quality of long distance telephone calls"

Yep. Used to be, there was one phone in the house, and you had to go stand there and speak loudly into it. With party lines and operators, there was no such thing as a private phone call.

Then we got phones in every room, and excellent quality and everything automated, so you could talk to someone across the world as easily and privately as if you were in the same room.

Now we have to step outside or stand on our heads to get a decent cell signal, and our conversations are being recorded so they can be perused later if some bureaucrat takes an interest in us.

The more things change....

Cail Corishev said...

"Why talk when texts are faster and quicker."

Yes, texting is awesome, even though the kids like it. No, I don't have long conversations back and forth via text. That's what voice is for. But when I just need to say, "Your package is ready to pick up," text is perfect. Or when I need to ask someone a simple question but don't need an answer right away. Most of my phone calls are of the quick informational exchange sort, not the chatting about life sort.

To handle those things by voice means calling, waiting for an answer, then either interrupting the person from what he was doing and exchanging pleasantries for a bit before getting to the 10-second point of the call, or waiting through a recording and leaving a voice mail which the other guy will then have to dial in and listen to before calling me back and interrupting what I'm doing to answer....

Anonymous said...

To handle those things by voice means calling, waiting for an answer, then either interrupting the person from what he was doing and exchanging pleasantries for a bit before getting to the 10-second point of the call, or waiting through a recording and leaving a voice mail which the other guy will then have to dial in and listen to before calling me back and interrupting what I'm doing to answer....


blah blah blah blah.....zzzzz


Know what? They STILL don't have to talk. Facebook has IM which gives the virtual appearance of talking voice to voice except its more or less texting or keying. Same effect.

Anonymous said...

If it did, the record labels would be mass producing it [vinyl] on the same level that they all did in the 70s and early 80s. They're not. It's over. Deal with it.

I dont think anyone is claiming its going to dominate again but maybe it will survive as a niche product.

Just because we have all sorts of modern electric lighting options now doesnt mean people dont want candles sometimes.

hbd chick said...

please tell me that you still have the rocket ship. (^_^)

Anonymous said...

I'm amused by the cover of the upcoming Nick Lowe Christmas album "Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection For All The Family".

-meh

Robert said...

Someone out there in corporate-music-land presumably thinks that vinyl is still going to make some serious money, to judge by this Wagner bicentenary project (a vinyl boxed set) which I saw yesterday at the sole remaining classical record store in my burg:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/release/wagner-on-vinyl-limited-edition-mr0003920892

Anonymous said...

Re Nick Lowe:

Quality Street is popular brand of confectionary in the UK (not in the US I'm guessing). Often sold at Christmas and in large tins, many of which live on in British homes as useful domestic storage containers.

Anonymous said...

Robert said...
Someone out there in corporate-music-land presumably thinks that vinyl is still going to make some serious money, to judge by this Wagner bicentenary project (a vinyl boxed set) which I saw yesterday at the sole remaining classical record store in my burg:



LOL

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Let's talk about the real problem: boomers still leaving voicemails and expecting you to listen to them. what the hell, old people? talk about a waste of time."

You'll have to forgive us. We come from a generation when people still, occasionally, had something worthwhile to say and to listen to. Since most of what you youngsters talk about is trivial, insipid, and wrong, you may not be able to grok that.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Anon said...
"Anonymous said...

Let's talk about the real problem: boomers still leaving voicemails and expecting you to listen to them. what the hell, old people? talk about a waste of time."

You'll have to forgive us. We come from a generation when people still, occasionally, had something worthwhile to say and to listen to. Since most of what you youngsters talk about is trivial, insipid, and wrong, you may not be able to grok that.




What was that? Rambled on and on and on so much there...what? All you were doing was chastising and taking sooo very long a time to get to the point.
Typical oldster, typical, most typical. Rather than engage the younger generations of your esteemed and learned wisdom you perfer much to make a lot of idle empty sounds which signify....nothing.

LMAO at your colossal ignorance.

You have a nice day!

Anonymous said...

Is it Nickelback? Please tell me it's Nickelback.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said,

"Typical oldster, typical, most typical. Rather than engage the younger generations of your esteemed and learned wisdom you perfer much to make a lot of idle empty sounds which signify....nothing."

Thus spake the Brawndo Generation.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

LMAO at your colossal ignorance.

You have a nice day!"

The generation that talks in internet acronyms and emoticons complains that we have nothing to say worth hearing.

as said...

I know everyone's told you this already, but it's a very sweet photo.

Topper is very cute. His ears remind me of a little girl with pony tails.

Anonymous said...

The generation that talks in internet acronyms and emoticons complains that we have nothing to say worth hearing.


Nah no, the claim is that IF you really did have anything worth saying, you'd MAKE your point a whole lot quicker.

Again, would the boomers reaallly want to listen to the generations before them for 2.5hrs about "when I was your age, blah blah blah blah." Ad nauseum and ad throwupem. Come on.

Come on.

Make your point. Emoticoms and acronyms make the point in far less time and everyone can move on whilst on the same page. Doesnt take like....forever to make the points.

Try. Not everything is a dissertation at the university level, specially when discussing ordinary life stuff.

QED

Cail Corishev said...

Also, it's possible to communicate quickly with texting without resorting to a single emoticon or LOL. Really, phones will let you use multi-syllable words and everything.

Anonymous said...

Really, phones will let you use multi-syllable words and everything.


Yup. You are right there. At least, up to a point.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said..

Nah no, the claim is that IF you really did have anything worth saying, you'd MAKE your point a whole lot quicker."

It may come as a surprise to a generation whose epic movies all involved characters from comic-books, but not everything worth saying can be said in 140 characters.

"Again, would the boomers reaallly want to listen to the generations before them for 2.5hrs about "when I was your age, blah blah blah blah." Ad nauseum and ad throwupem. Come on."

It didn't take 2 1/2 hours. But yes, I listened to the preceding generation, because I wanted to hear what they had to say. Don't worry though. I've no doubt that your children won't have any such delusions about you. Perhaps they will simply text you "STFU luser".