Time for a Bedtime Story

It's about that horrifying album cover pictured in the previous post. The original photo was taken on a family vacation to Sleeping Bear Dunes on Lake Michigan. The 3 kids in the rubber raft are our daughter and her two cousins, being pushed around by Mr. Ether. They were all having a good time until a big wave came; the two younger kids started crying and the picture was taken for posterity.

Mr. Ether doesn't really have an iguana head; even I draw the tolerance line somewhere. But the band -- which he later joined as its electric bass player -- thought the photo, with a little alteration, would make a good album cover. And our daughter received a credit on the album.

A few years later, my brother is living out in Salt Lake City. His (now ex-)wife works in the public library and one of her cow-orkers is a guy who believes British author David Icke's theory that malevolent reptiloid beings are taking over the Earth. This guy finds an album in the library collection: The Reptile Palace Orchestra, Iguana Iguana! The name is enough to get his hackles up, then there's that scary picture on the front, and even more alarming ... in perusing the credits he finds someone with the same last name as his cow-orker's husband! What can it all mean?

The next chance he gets, he approaches my brother with the album. He asks him, in what I imagine to be a quavering voice, if he can explain any of it. "Oh yes," my brother says. "That's the band that my brother-in-law is in, and in fact the reptile on the album cover is my brother-in-law and the little girl is my niece." The poor guy is completely freaked out. My brother reports that the guy has approached him on more occasions to ask him about it, perhaps hoping that the answer will be different. Maybe my brother will laugh and say, "Ha ha, I was only kidding. I don't know any of those people." But he doesn't (bwahahahaha)

My brother relates this story to Mr. Ether. The band thinks this is too perfect of an opportunity to pass up. They name their next album We Know You Know.

(And just so you know, the band was completely unfamiliar with David Icke when they came up with the name Reptile Palace Orchestra. The Universe works in mysterious ways.)

BTW, click on "Mr. Ether" above and then listen to his song Impeach the Moron. And if you know how I can add that to my blog, please leave me a comment telling me how. Thanks.