CRT

The end of a very busy day. Hard to believe that after many, many months, our first Brilliance Audio release is only 4 weeks away! A CHRISTMAS CAROL will be our first release. So far, this has only been available as a download or in a 4-CD set from our previous publisher - but now it's gone solo! Also in November, Zorro is ready to cross-swords with some pirates, and Buck Alice will be plotting against the Actor-Robot in Walter Koenig's new release: BUCK ALICE AND THE ACTOR-ROBOT

Q: How cool was it for CRT to work with a Star Trek Legend?
A: Pretty damned cool.

What else? OH - next week on our Sirius XM show on Book Radio, they will be broadcasting OLD IRONSIDES AND THE BARBARY PIRATES and OLD IRONSIDES - ESCAPE TO THE WIND.

SPEAKING OF WHICH

Many years ago, at an Officers Mess Dinner at the Billionaires Boys CLub (AKA The Lannam Club in ritzy Andover - and no, I am not a billionaire, we just looked that way in our dinner jackets) I was sitting next to the then Captain of the USS Constitution - Old Ironsides, the oldest commissioned warship in the world. Every year tug boats pull it into the harbor to turn it around in its berth (so it weathers evenly).
So, I asked this Captain (his name escapes me) if the ship was capable if being under sail - for real - with no tugs.

"Yes" he replied.

I took another swig of port (and I hate port, but that's what you do at the billionaires boys club before the cigars come out)

"So, why doesn't it sail?" I asked.

He then said something amazing. "Because" - said he - "No Captain wants the responsibility, should something go wrong, of being the commander who lost Old Ironsides."

I looked at him and said with astonishment - "Huh! That's too bad."

Well, low and behold - some time later, it was announced that Old Ironsides was being rigged for sail.

I - kid - you - not.

Special riggers were called in from the Coast Guard, and the crew of the Constitution was drilled in setting canvas and all that is required of sailing under sail.

In July of 1997 she sailed under her own power to Marblehead, Ma. before returning to Boston. What an amazing site it was. What was more amazing was that it was her 200th Anniversary.

I often wonder if it all started with a glass of port.

How 18th Century that would be.