Photo Friday (Vol. XX*XIX) [small world edition]

I apologize in advance to most of the readers.  Sometimes you find yourself at a big dinner party where you know it would be rude to whisper some private story to friends sitting nearby... but you just can't help yourself.  The host glares and some of the guests feel (justifiably) excluded as you and your friends share your private joke.

This is going to be sort of like that... except in this case it's the host being rude.

A million years ago, in another life, I was a professional musician.  I didn't depend on music for my livelihood... but I was very fortunate to be paid to do something I enjoyed as often as I liked (2-4 times a week).

Well, a friend from that former life was nice enough to email me some pictures from a photo shoot we both attended for an album cover about 16 years ago.  It was for my friend Lenny Solomon's 'Sgt. Shlocker' album and it should be obvious what look he was going for.   I'm on at least one other of his albums... but this was the only one where I made the cover.  :-)

The funny thing is that present at this shoot were a blogger I follow  regularly... his wife... two of his kids... and about 7 or 8 of the people who regularly comment here at treppenwitz.  Who would have ever guessed that even though our lives all went in very different directions, that we would all still be connected so many years later?

Here are the pictures (sorry about the quality... these are old, scanned shots):

First up is your host (on the right), and my good friend Jordan.

Next are a couple of kids who some of you may know in the blogosphere as 'Fudge' and 'Moe'

And this is my fellow blogger... the man now known as Psychotoddler (a name by which he also refers to his youngest daughter) That's his wife (Mrs. Balabusta) and Moe behind him.  Yes... he looks a bit like Captain Crunch:

And finally, a really bad scan from the web of the album cover (I'm in the back row... 6th from the left).  There is also a tug at my heart as I look at the last picture since the guy standing two people to MY left (right as you look at it) is an old friend, J.J. Greenberg (OB"M) who was killed in September of 2002 while riding his bike.  I can't look at this album without being reminded of what a terrible loss the world suffered that day. 

Anyway,  I won't 'out' the rest of you unless you 'out' yourselves first (or someone does it for you!):

Well, there it is... If you'd like to see what the psychotoddler kids look like these days, go here.

Shabbat Shalom!