Christmas Day Pics part 2

Christmas Day Pics part 1

Pre K At The Park Day

Bridget's class spent the morning at the park last Monday. Many of the parents came along too. The kids played on the playground equipment. I helped Bridget of course, but many of the other kids wanted help too--- a push on the swing or getting up on the monkey bars. Some of the kids came up and just started conversations. One boy told me that he was already 4 years old and still hadn't killed his first deer yet, but his brother was 7 and had. Interesting. The kids then went into the gym to have lunch and Santa Claus showed up. One of Bridget's friends asked me if that was the real Santa or a fake Santa. I said I didn't know how to tell the difference. Then she decided that he was fake. I asked if she was sure and she said that yes, she can just tell. She would know if it was the real Santa.

School Christmas program

Last Thursday was the school Christmas program. It was at the convention center and close to capacity so there had to be a few thousand people there. Each grade performed one song. I was too far away to get a decent picture, although I have a few of them following the performance. My one complaint about these shows are that you cant hear the kids sing. They play the regular version of a song through the loudspeakers--not a karaoke track---and all you hear is Burl Ives or whoever.The kids are singing but you cant hear them. Why cant they just stick a few microphones in front of them. They did that for us in first grade hundreds of years ago and it was just fine.

Photo op with Santa Claus

After Mass, Santa Claus was in the gym. The kids had a photo op with him as a lady and some other kids sang some Christmas songs. Frederick had a donut and the girls had some cookies and Sprite. The girls also had the opportunity to make a craft. Abraham started to cry while I was holding him and Father Vic came over and calmed him down. Christmas fun!

Why Abraham John?

A Clark Genealogical History

My Clark paternal line is that of Viking blood according to y-dna testing. At some point one of my paternal ancestors made his way to England, where his descendants not only adopted the Clarke surname, but y-dna testing also suggests the surnames of Hall, Poorman, Tindell, Fitzsimmons, and Chisholm. In addition, close y-dna matches have been made to families in what is now Finland.

The first paternal ancestor I have information on is Abraham Clarke, born in 1745 in North Carolina. (Sometime around 1800 the “e” was dropped from the surname.) He was a landowner in Rutherford County and a member of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church.

His son, Abraham Clark II was born in 1770, and served as a drummer (1780-81) during the American Revolution.

His son, Abraham Clark III was born in 1798. The family then moved west, first to the Nashville, Tennessee area, then to other areas, most notably Kentucky and Illinois. Abraham II eventually ended up in Iowa. Present day Kentucky has the highest percentage of the Clark surname of any state. What percentage of those are descendants of Abraham I is not known, but I have matched exactly on the y-dna test with another Clark family in Kentucky that also is a direct descendant of him.

Abraham III had a son John, born in 1840. John fought as a Union soldier for Illinois during the Civil War of 1861-1865. John lived most of his life as a farmer in Illinois but spent a short time in Arkansas. He had a son, John II by his first wife (she died young) in 1871.

John Clark II, who worked as a plumber, had a son, Fred Clark I, in Carbondale, Illinois, in 1916. Fred I traveled around the country in varying jobs. He lived for a short time in Louisiana and Missouri but spent over 30 years in Florida.

My father is Fred Clark II, a Navy veteran of 35 years, born 1938 in East St. Louis, Illinois and a resident of Collinsville, Illinois.

I am Fred Clark III, born 1963 in East St. Louis, Illinois. I lived most of my life in Collinsville, Illinois, but now live in Houma, Louisiana. I am a graduate of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. My wife is the former Lauren Lottinger.

My sons are Fred Clark IV, born in 2006, and Abraham John Clark (Abraham IV), born in 2008. Both were born in Houma, Louisiana.

In addition I have 4 daughters: Stefanie, born 1986 in Maryville, Illinois (during my first marriage), Colette, born 2000 in Metairie, Louisiana, Bernadette, born 2002, and Bridget, born 2003, both in Houma, Louisiana.


Abraham I, 1745-1810
Abraham II, 1770-1850
Abraham III, 1798-1859
John I, 1840-1916
John II, 1871-1951
Fred I, 1916-2001
Fred II, 1938-
Fred III, 1963-
Fred IV, 2006- and Abraham IV, 2008-

Abraham John Clark

I have a new son. Abraham John Clark, born at 7:06 pm on December 10, 2008. He and Lauren are both doing well!

The Rockouts

Here's a blast from the past---a rare picture of my band, The Rockouts (March 1983- October 1985). Basically started as a solo project after the breakup of the infamous E.V., the band had several different incarnations lineup wise. Eventually I brought in Mike Gassmann to take over lead vocals and Steve Knecht became the bassist over the final 16 months of the band. During the early days of The Rockouts, we often shared the bill with Mike's band the Bopalots (he was the drummer with them), and the last half of our career we often shared the bill with Joe Camel and the Caucasians, and The Primitives. The Primitives later evolved into Uncle Tupelo, which later split into Wilco and Son Volt.

This picture was taken at a party in an apartment following a show we played in Normal, Illinois on 16 November, 1984. I think the show was played at a club called the Gallery.
L to R--Steve Knecht (bass), me (guitar), Bill Stoner (drums), Mike Gassmann (vocals)

Veterans Day

The girls sang patriotic songs today with their classes for the Veterans Day celebration at the Houma Civic Center. Here are some pics.
God Bless the USA. The greatest country in the world.

Teresa's Birthday

Yesterday I performed a kids show for the birthdays of my niece Teresa and her friend Isabella. Practically everyone there was bilingual French/English so it was pretty interesting. Although I don't have any french songs, I spoke to them in my fractured franglais. The show went pretty well. The weather was perfect.

After the performance, me and Lauren had an intersting conversation with a french lady that works for the consulate.

Sidenote: From where I am standing in the picture, it is about 30 yards from the New Orleans Fairgrounds, where the Jazzfest takes place. I am facing the Fairgrounds, where a chain link fence seperates it from the property I am on.

Bridget's Birthday

Bridget celebrated her 5th birthday yesterday with a party. It was a good time. I did a mini-set, playing 3 songs and reading a story based on one of the songs.

Halloween

A few pics from halloween '08.
Frederick-Tiger
Colette-Hannah Montana
Bridget-Hannah Montana with no wig
Bernadette-Miley Cyrus

Post Living Proof

A few nights ago I had the opportunity to watch "Living Proof", a Lifetime channel movie I was in.

The Spago's scene was at about the 20 minute mark and the Revlon Run scene was in the last 10 minutes. As you know, I walked Angie to the table at Spago's. In the Revlon Run scene you can see me walk past Harry and a few seconds later I can be seen waaaay in the background. We got a real kick out of it here and shared some laughs about it. Lauren and Colette both performed unflattering impressions of me walking and Bridget said I walked like a penguin. Naturally I disagreed but this just goes to show that I can never take myself too seriously. My family won't let me!

Movie Guy

I worked on a movie on Thursday night/Friday morning--"Welcome To the Rileys" starring James Gandolfini of "The Sopranos". We filmed at the Omni in the French Quarter. The star is outside speaking to somebody on the sidewalk, right outside the window. I'm inside sitting down talking to someone. The hardest part for me was staying awake. We wrapped at 5 am.

This week, on the 18th, I am in the Lifetime movie "Living Proof" starring Harry Connick Jr. You can see me taking Angie Harmon to her table.

The picture is self photograph of me in a restroom in the Extras holding area about a block from the set.

(Note--I am not webcasting on Stickam this month as stated on my previous blog. Sorry for the inconvience. I will be webcasting soon, however.)

Webcast

I will be webcasting tomorrow, Sat Oct 4, 9-930 pm central time at live.yahoo.com/fredclark.
I will also be webcasting on Sundays in October from 10-1030 pm central time at stickam.com/fredclark beginning this Sunday, Oct 5.
Hope you can make it.

Darkin and other Indie Tales of Woe

Who The Heck Is Darkin And Other Indie Tales Of Woe
There are advantages to being an independent artist. I'm in control of my material. I can put whatever song I want on my album and can pick and choose the musicians for my band.
Naturally, there are disadvantages. Trying to get radio airplay is one. I've been able to get some airplay on college radio here in the USA and some indie themed shows in Europe. I was lucky enough to be able to get airplay on some small market commercial stations here in the USA for "Roll River On". Enough so, that I actually hit two of the national charts monitoring small markets. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to take me to the next level or to hit Billboard, but I still consider it a great accomplishment.
At the time "Roll River On" hit I had two distributors. Thanks to one of them, my Cd's are available to this day at hundreds of internet sites and can be special ordered at most music stores. The "Dakin" CD even made it into some stores via the distribution. Anyway, every week I was receiving reports of what stations were playing RRO. I would then find out what music stores were in that particular town, and forward the information concerning the charts, and contact info for the music store to the distributors, asking them if they could try to place a few copies in the stores. Even though the distributors had the capabilities to supply the stores, I was ignored. One of them actually told me that there was no reason why somebody from Kansas would buy a CD from a St. Louisan in Louisiana that nobody has ever heard of. Yeah--great attitude ----there is a station in that town where I am 2 on the charts--somebody is interested. Needless to say, I terminated my agreement with that distributor, but that is the kind of nonsense I have had to put up with.
You will also notice sometimes that if you come across the Living In Dakin's Neighborhood album it is listed as Living In Darkin's Neighborhood. Trying to get this fixed has been to no avail. I've contacted my distributor and everybody else I can think of including the Muse company, which was the primary company supplying information on album's at the time of release. (You may remember Muse machines in music stores---you were able to look up bands/albums on them. They have now pretty much been replaced by simple internet access.)
Along the same lines you will see I am often mistakenly listed in the "blues" genre. This is due to 1) a couple of song titles of mine using the word blues--even though they are not "blues" songs. (Would be interesting to see if things get screwed up if I use the word "rap", "jazz" or "heavy metal" in any of my songs).
2) Another reason may be that there is an excellent African-American guitar player from Chicago now living Los Angeles by the name of Fred Clark who is a session player for many major label Rhythm n Blues and gospel groups (including, for example, the Pointer Sisters). Somebody saw the words blues, and Fred Clark, and well, there you have it...
Being named Fred Clark is another issue. There are probably about a million of us with that name, and with the exception of my Dad and 2 year old son I think they are all in the entertainment industry. There is the actor who died back in '68, the guitar player in San Francisco, the guitar player in Connecticut, and the teenager in England who could be a major (expletive deleted) star once he quits trying to record everything himself and instead goes into the studio with a producer.
Anyway, my name is Fred Clark. I have a song called "Roll River On" on a CD called "Living In Dakin's Neighborhood". I am an independent recording artist, songwriter and performer. I am from Collinsville, IL and live in Houma, LA. Thank you for your support.

To read my other music blogs go to my my space site; www.myspace.com/fredclarkmusic

Cardinals

Yesterday I was sitting with Frederick, looking out the window when I saw three cardinals in the grass.(Yes,I know, I should have taken a picture, but didn't) Seeing cardinals here in Louisiana reminds me of home in Illinois, where they are the official state bird and plentiful. Also, it is the name of my favorite baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals, based just across the river from my Illinois home. (Sadly, the baseball Cardinals were eliminated from making the playoffs yesterday)

Now, mind you, I don't know anything about birds, but I began to wonder why I've never seen a cardinal as a pet. You would think it would be all the rage back in the St. Louis area. What makes parakeets and finches okay to have as pets and not blue jays or cardinals? Are parakeets "domesticated", and if so what makes it "domesticated" as opposed to a cardinal?

Yes, I know, kind of silly, just something that crossed my mind.

Fair Grinds Show

I performed at the Fair Grinds Coffee House in New Orleans last Friday. It was a good time. I think I put on a pretty good show. I enjoyed talking to Robert Thompson, the owner. He is very kind. The Fair Grinds has a very cool vibe and I hope to play there again sometime. If you are ever in New Orleans, check it out. It is on Ponce De Leon off of Esplanade.

Pic: Me with Robert Thompson

Blue Roof

Here is a picture of our "Blue Roof". Special thanks to Carlos and his crew for coming out on short notice to put it up.

Every time we have a major storm, we hear how the flooding comes farther inland each time. Barrier islands are disapearing. Officials have known about the problems since about 1950. 58 years and pretty much nothing has been done about it. Why? Corrupt local and state governments and federal indifference? It doesn't make sense to let south Louisiana wither away. We have abundant oil and seafood resources here. It just makes no sense to me.

Back in the swing of things

I'm hoping things will be getting back to normal a little bit this week. I don't feel up to talking about Hurricane Gustav too much right now. basically we came out of it okay. We have some roof damage causing a small leak, so we have joined the blue roof club.

Bridget had a minor arm fracture while playing when we were evacuated, but she is doing fine. Didn't even need a cast.

I've been having sinus issues, so aside from the day job, I have pretty much been trying to sleep when home. I am starting to feel a little better. I did perform a show last night. My preparation was minimal due to the evacuation and the illness, but the performance was not hindered by it.

Anyway, I will try to blog a few times this week.

There are some pictures of our Gustav experience on flickr at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fredclark/
(the roof pics were taken prior to applying the blue tarp)

Post Gustav

We are back home. Will blog soon.

Preparing For Gustav

We are preparing for Hurricane Gustav. There is a mandatory evacuation. After tomorrow I most likely won't have internet access for a few days but plan on leaving a message or two at www.utterz.com/fredclark as long as my cell phone is working.
As I write this (10:08 pm Friday) there are already gas stations here in Houma that are out of gas, Wal-Mart is extremely busy and many shelves are empty.

Frederick's First Day of School

Pics from the 2 year old's first day of school.

Mini Golf

Pictures from our golfing excursion.

New Video Series On Youtube

I've started a new video series-The Fred Clark Realty Show. Episode 1 is now available at www.youtube.com/fredclarktv. You can see me grill, on an exercise bike, hanging with the kids, showing off the Catsupfest plaque (as promised) and inviting a major star to dinner. Meanwhile, Lauren just wants to watch the Olympics! Catch all the fun at youtube.com/fredclarktv!

The New Schoolgirl

Today was Bridget's first day of school. She started pre-K. She was very excited and proud to put on her new uniform. She sang "I'm the new schoolgirl" over and over before it was time to go. I'm glad she has a couple of big sisters to sit with her on the bus.
We were anxious for her to come home after school. I'm not sure what Frederick thought, hanging out with Mom and Dad all day and no sisters to play with. Anyway, when the girls arrived home Bridget told us she had fun at school, she likes her teacher and made some new friends. Looks like she is off to a good start.

Other news: I received a special plaque today. (See my myspace music site blog)

Baseball vs Synchronized Diving

So baseball and softball are being discontinued after these olympics, but we are left with synchronized diving?

Why? Because they don't play baseball in Mozambique, Andorra, or Laos, but 8 people synchronize dive in those places?

How many thousands of baseball players are there in Venezuela, Japan, or The Netherlands Antilles as opposed to synchronized divers?

Bet they have some pretty big stadiums in Bhutan and Lesotho to accomodate the throngs of adoring fans for synchronized diving.

Maybe I am just "too American" to realize that synchronized diving is a more universally recognized sport.

Give me a freakin' break.

PS- The haze over Beijing is not smog, but dust from the Gobi desert brought in by the wind. We shouldn't say Beijing has smog. We might hurt someone's feelings.

Opening Ceremonies and 8th Grade Geography

I watched part of the Olympic opening ceremonies last night. My favorite part is always watching the teams from all the different countries marching into the stadium. I've always been fascinated by other cultures. While watching, I remembered the '76 Olympics, which was held during the summer between my 7th and 8th grade years. I had injured my foot that summer, and had to have a minor surgery, so I spent a few days in the hospital, most of which was watching the Olympics. One of the nurses was a track and field fan, and we found some common ground in a 800 meter runner by the name of Rick Wolhuter. I believe he was the favorite, but alas, he only took the bronze.

After arriving back home, I had to spend some time off my feet. We had a set of Rand McNally atlases, and if memory serves me right, it was a 12 volume set. So, with nothing better to do I memorized every country and it's capital in the whole world.

Every single one.

I'm talking all of them.

Fast forward a few months and I am sitting in my 8th grade geography class at Webster Jr. High, taught by the football coach, Coach Presson. The Coach kind of makes an offhanded remark about the capital of Botswana, thinking nobody would know and I very nonchalantly say "Gaborone". Of course the whole class (20 girls and 7 other boys) looks at me in bewilderment, and the Coach has to actually look it up. "How do you know that?" He asks. I tell him I know all of them. "What do you mean all of them?" and I say "I know every capital of every country in the world" So then he asks me a few more, and of course I get them right. Then one of the girls blurts out "Clark, you are so fruit!" Yeah, whatever. Anyway every day from then on the Coach would ask me the capital of some country. Once he tried to get me on a technicality but it didn't work. He never did stump me.

Unfortunately I have not retained that information over the years. In fact I had to look up the capital of Botswana to write this blog! Chalk it up to old age.

Ironically, I have never traveled outside of the United States.

Bob Newhart

I went to the bookstore the other day. I'm not going to say who it is, but it's not Barnes & Noble or Borders or a cool little independent, but it's the only game in town here in Houma, so it's where I go. I didn't have much cash with me, and wasn't finding anything that was in my price range that looked like anything I wanted to read, then I noticed they had a small used library book section and a Bob Newhart book for $3 caught my eye, so I bought it. Not only is Bob one of the great comedians of all time with 2 of the greatest sitcoms of all time, but he is also a distant relative of mine, and actually somebody I met during my Hollywood summer.
During that summer ('89)my buddy Kelly and I became friends with John Voldstad (the other brother Darryl--a blog for another day). John invited us to a taping of the show. (episode #1 of the last season) We met the whole cast with the exception of Bob. After the show, we were waiting for John while he was getting dressed and saw Mrs. Newhart, so we went over to her and told her we were friends with John, and that, like Bob, we were from Illinois and really wanted to meet him just to say hi. This was right outside his dressing room on the lot where his bronze Mazzeratti was sitting. Mrs. N said "Bob would love to meet you boys"... and she went inside to get him. About a minute later, Bob emerged with his glass of wine. The conversation started out about Illinois, which was kind of funny because Bob is from Oak Park, near Chicago, and we were from Collinsville, near St. Louis--some 300 miles away, and when we told him that, he had a classic Newhart style type deadpan comment about East St. Louis, which at the time was one of the murder and drug capitals of the United States. Anyway, we spent about 10 minutes with him and it was great. I didn't realize it at the time, but we are distant cousins--9th cousin, once removed to be exact--our common ancestor is Christophel Nuehart, born 1599 in Germany. (Yes I am genealogy geek guy!)
Picture is of the book I bought and, as promised, another cowboy hat picture of Frederick.

Hanging with the Fredman

Today I hung out with my good buddy, Fred the 4th. We went to a dollar store and as we were leaving he found some cowboy hats and put one on. Naturally, I had to try one on too, so I bought us each one. Then we went downtown and walked around for a bit before grabbing some lunch at Arby's. We had a good time.

Pic is of us in our new $1 hats. Yes, I know you can't see them real well, but hey, I took the picture. I'll try to have a better one taken of us soon.
fc

PS- I just posted a new blog on my www.myspace.com/fredclarkmusic site entitled Beverly Hillbillies???

First day of school

Today was the first day of school for Colette and Bernadette. Can you believe it?

No Depression

I was sad to hear about the cessation of No Depression Magazine. Named after the Carter Family song covered by Uncle Tupelo on UT's album by the same name, it is my favorite music magazine.
The magazine was the leading source of of the alt-country/americana/roots rock movement. I was buying the magazine early on, and had a subscription for awhile. Most of the time, I bought it off the rack.
It was always fun for me, as I knew or had met many of the artists that graced the pages. Although I never received a review or a mention, I did run a few ads following the Just Another Day release in '97, and it brought me some fans.
Happily, No Depression will carry on as a webzine and publish a couple of books each year. Yes, I will be checking it out, but the mag will be missed.
Pic: Fred No Depression ad, 1997

Lunch Date: Colette

Today was the lunch date with Colette. Originally, I thought she wanted to go to Applebee's. Yesterday she told me McDonald's. Today she told me Pepper's Pizza, which is the same place Bridget chose for her date. The service was exceptional. We had a good time.

It's hard to believe summer vacation is over for the kids. School starts on Tuesday, August 5th. (Way too early in my opinion. I'd like to see it start the Wednesday after Labor Day and end on the Thursday before Memorial Day)

Hannah Montana

On Saturday, I watched the Hannah Montana 3D concert with the kids. I know, hard to believe isn't it? These are strange times we live in. You just have to make the best of it. The kids enjoyed it, therefore I enjoyed it.