The Squirrels Reflect on Another Great Week

February 17, 2012 by Squirrel · Comments Off
Filed under: Chris Tarry, Humor, Music, Newsletters, Other Stuff, The Squirrels 

To say all of us squirrels went nuts would be quite an understatement! And by nuts we mean the crazy, happy, holly shit, kind of nuts (not the real nuts we had to let Jerry in Legal go for last week after it became apparent he was hiding cashews in a compartment he’d chewed into the wall behind the water cooler).

Why did we go nuts? Because we here at Chris Tarry headquarters (which as you know is staffed by a group of highly intelligent squirrels) got word that Chris’ album Rest of the Story was nominated for two Juno awards!
Boy, were we ever excited. Cindy in Dispatch made Chris a chocolate cake with these cute pink-icing squirrel paws on top, and Frank in Accounting got a few of us together to make a card using paper from around the office that didn’t have the corners chewed off.
Stanley in Sales (who was on loan from our Australian office due to a recent staff shortage) wanted to know what a Juno was. “It’s like a Canadian Grammy,” I said, and then someone made a joke and yelled, “Crammy!” which, I admit, was pretty funny, but ol’ Stanley thought they’d said “cranberry” and cranberries are like crack to squirrels so you can imagine how long it took us to calm him down.

“What categories was he nominated in?” a few of the squirrels wanted to know. “Best Contemporary Jazz album and Best CD Packaging,” I said, and everyone started to clap, which didn’t really sound like clapping at all, more like a bunch of tiny cats trying to escape from a room.

Just as everyone started to calm down the phone rang with news that Chris would be touring the Canadian jazz festivals this year. Summer (the squirrel not the season) in Publicity (who is, btw, the hottest squirrel in the office), suggested a possible pin up calendar that featured female squirrels as a way to promote the tour. Summer said she’d be in it and that she’d be willing to wear nothing but the fur she was born in. Dennis in Logistics practically fell out of his chair.

“People, people,” I said. “Let’s not get carried away, touring season is still a ways off. There’s plenty of time to come up with good ideas.” And that’s when Lenny in Inventory raised his hand and let everyone know that we were almost out of Books. “You mean Rest of the Story books?” I asked, and Lenny wiggled his whiskers (which to us squirrels means yes), and said that after the books sold out, Rest of the Story would be reprinted as a normal CD as opposed to the super-cool book of short stories and music combination it was now. “Well then,” I said, looking at Summer who was now sitting in Dennis’ lap. “Let’s get the word out. Get them while they’re still available!”

Summer scurried over to her desk and picked up the phone. “Get me Mark Zuckerberg ,” she said, and because we’d had such a great week, the rest of us just kind of stood there to see what would happen next.

The Squirrel’s say Thanks

July 2, 2011 by Chris Tarry · Comments Off
Filed under: Chris Tarry, Humor, Music, Newsletters, Other Stuff, The Squirrels 

So all of us squirrels decided to pitch in and get Chris and Michelle something nice for their new baby. Randy in Craft Services suggested a basket made from the extra den twigs he had lying around and Nancy from Purchasing wanted to get the kid this t-shirt that said, “I love nuts.”

“You realize how bad that sounds, right?” I told Nancy. As far as Randy, well, I told him what I told everyone else, which was, “People, please, this is a baby, not some squirrel winter project. We have to come up with something nice, especially after all Chris has done for us.” Then I went into the whole thing about Chris rescuing us from the woods, how he could have easily hired one capable person in place of three-hundred super intelligent squirrels, and that we should count our lucky stars. At which point Gus in Automotive raised his hand. “Yes, Gus.” I said.

“What about a jar of peanut butter? Every kid loves peanut butter,” he said.

“Come on, everyone! Let’s get our heads in the game!” I said, and then François the Parisian squirrel intern yelled something that sounded vaguely like “baguette” and Vince from HR gave him this look like, What’s a baby going to do with a baguette?

I decided to break everyone into small groups and brainstorm, told them I’d be back in an hour and that the ideas better be flowing by then. When I got back everyone was all cuddled up in these little squirrel balls and sleeping like it was the middle of winter!

“Come on!” I said. “Chris and Michelle just had themselves a little monkey. This is big news!”

The word “monkey” was a mistake. Nothing scares a squirrel more than the thought of a rampaging monkey so of course, this is how they pictured the new baby, all monkey hands and jumping around everywhere. I spent the next three hours coaxing squirrels down from the ceiling, from behind the lunchroom table, and in the case of Roger in Sourcing, from under the new handmade office rug Chris picked up on his recent trip to Venezuela.

“I’m not coming out until I’m sure there’s no monkey,” said Roger.

The rest of us at that point were standing in Chris’ office laughing at Roger under the rug. Susan from Outreach was doing this amazing monkey impression, her squirrel cheeks bulging and paws in the air like a real squirrel monkey, which, made sense as it was no secret around the office that an uncle on her mothers side was an actual squirrel monkey.

At that point, Chris walked in with Michelle and the little one in tow. Roger poked his head out from under the rug and got a good look at what we were all seeing; this beautiful tiny person all wrapped in pink cloth and sleeping away in Michelle’s arms.

“Everyone,” said Chris. “I’d like you to meet Chloe.”

A couple of us climbed up on Chris’ shoulder to get a better look. Roger, having now fully removed himself from the rug, walked over to Michelle and asked if he could see.

“Gently,” said Michelle. And Roger was so gentle, his little squirrel feet on the edge of Chloe’s blanket, his whiskers vibrating as he sniffed the air just incase we were pulling his leg and there really was a monkey inside that pink bundle.

“She’s beautiful,” said Roger and then turned to the rest of us like he wanted to say something, which he did. He started slow, little visible tears in the corner of his beady black eyes. “Family,” he said. “Family is the best gift we can give her.” And then the rest of us clapped a squirrel version of a clap, which, surprisingly, sounds a lot like a thousand cats scratching at a door. Michelle smiled, reached down and picked up Roger and kissed him on the top of his furry head.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”

At that point everyone was gathered around Chloe and Michelle and I could see Chris off in the corner watching, this smile on his face like I’d never seen. I figured he’d be telling us all to get back to work any minute now, after all, there were new CD’s to sell, gigs to book, reviews to file, and none of it was going to get done by itself. But I could see this change in Chris. This look like everything was going to get done somehow and to worry about it just seemed pointless. Because this was life, this moment, this family, and it was all that really mattered.

Herman is nuts, and other CT updates

May 20, 2011 by Squirrel · Comments Off
Filed under: Humor, Newsletters, Other Stuff, The Squirrels 

(From left to right) Kenneth, Herman, Phil, and Me

Another CT Update brought to you by the staff of highly intelligent squirrels who work at CT Headquarters.

Kenneth the I.T. guy comes into my office, his little squirrel paws flailing above his head, screaming something about how he didn’t mean to do it, that it was a mistake, please don’t fire him, two hundred and fifty kids at home, six wives, the tree mortgage, blah blah blah. So me, being head squirrel here at CT Headquarters, says, “Didn’t mean to do what?” And that’s when he takes me up to the seventieth floor and shows me the cables connecting the CT.com servers to the outside world. They’re all chewed through and I can see the unmistakable marks left by Kenneth’s squirrel teeth. “Did we forget to bring our lunch again today?” I say, and Kenneth just stares at me with this sheepish look on his face, his little squirrel whiskers all folded under his chin. “Chris isn’t going to be happy about this,” I say, and man, am I right.

A few hours later Chris is on his back under the hulking mass of CT.com computer servers trying to plug stuff back in. He’s all, Kid on the way this, and Haven’t-got-time-for-this-shit that. He doesn’t fire Kenneth, exactly, but lets just say, the department he transfers him too isn’t what one would consider “essential.”

“How do you guys expect to sell a new CD that is only available online if the computers are down?” says Chris. He’s got the fifty of us gathered together in the conference room for an emergency staff meeting. Chris looks around and calls on Herman from purchasing. “Herman,” he says. “I’m making you the new I.T. guy.”

To say that Herman is excited would be an understatement. He’s does this little thing where he chases his tail around the room for minute and then climbs up the table in front of Chris and wraps himself up in this cute little ball on Chris’ shoulder. We all know Herman is showing off, but he’s wanted this job bad, we all know it, he never shuts up about it. Everyday in the lunchroom, he’s all, I know computers better than anyone, I’m a level sixty on World of Warcraft, I had the first iMac, I was the first to have all of Chris’ albums on my iPod, yada yada yada.

In the meeting, Herman tells everyone that chewing though wires won’t be a problem with him, he hasn’t eaten nuts since the Apple II came out, and reminds everyone that that was like thirty years ago. Phil from accounting turns to me a says, “Really? This guy? Since when do we squirrels live thirty years?”

So, for a while, Herman does pretty good. He doubles Chris’ Twitter posts. Facebook calls and says they like how he’s customized Chris’ fan page and can they interest him in an extra twenty thousand a year and this whole winter/nut layaway plan. Herman, of course, reminds them he doesn’t eat nuts so the negotiations go nowhere.

When Chris finds Herman’s stash of squirrel porn hidden on a computer Herman thought no one checked, he’s even angrier than when Kenneth chewed through the wires. Next thing you know Kenneth is back from wherever he ended up, but this time with strict orders to wear this cute little squirrel helmet with a facemask during working hours so he won’t be tempted.

Chris bumps Herman back down to purchasing where he eventually falls, totally and completely, off the nut wagon. I find him stuffing nuts in with CD orders, nuts behind the coffee machine, he even tries to convince Chris to record some of his old CDs with lyrics about nuts. Sadly, Chris is forced to release Herman into the woods, which, happens rarely around here, but it does happen.

So, that’s the last few months. Kenneth is doing great, CD orders are up, and we continue to charge ahead boldly here at CT Headquarters despite Herman’s absence. God’s speed Herman. God’s speed, my friend.

The Squirrels.

And then, week three..

April 5, 2011 by Squirrel · Comments Off
Filed under: Humor, Newsletters, Other Stuff, The Squirrels 

Chris Tarry
It was week three in the life of Chris’ new album Rest of the Story, and everyone at CT Headquarters (who are, in fact, a team of highly organized and intelligent squirrels), looked around the office and noticed we were out of CD’s. “Quick, we need more!” everyone said.

But Books that are also CDs don’t grow on trees (trust us, we’re squirrels, we know a thing or two about trees), and it would take time to ship more from the super-cool Rethink designers up in Canada. ”We must have sold out at the Toronto gig,” said Stewart from Accounting, and after running the numbers he let the whole team know that yes, in fact, the band had sold out of every CD they’d taken with them to Toronto. “Tom at The Rex in Toronto called and said it was some kind of CD release sale record!” said Jenny from Marketing. “Apparently he’s sending us hats.” To which we all cheered, because everyone loves squirrels in cute little squirrel hats.

But what all this really meant was that we had to sit around on our little squirrel paws waiting for the new shipment of CD/Books to arrive, which meant there wasn’t much to do, which meant Chris was upset paying a team of highly intelligent squirrels to sit around the office and, in his words, “Just count nuts and shit.”

And then, a few days later, Chris walked in on Larry from HR and Jenny from Marketing actually counting nuts right there in the middle of the break room table, paperwork strewn all over the floor, fur flying everywhere, Jenny up on the table in what was obviously a compromising squirrel position. Needless to say, Chris wasn’t happy. “This is not a party,” Chris said to us after he’d gathered everyone together near reception. “This is jazz, this is serious business!” Fred from the Pop Music division stifled a laugh and the rest of us just kind of stared at Chris in that way squirrels do before they run off in three directions at once.

So, because we were waiting for CDs it was a slow CT press week. “Can’t send out to reviewers if we don’t have CDs,” said Guss in Legal, and we were like, “Tell us something we don’t know, Guss.” Man, that guy, always the wet squirrel to every party.

We managed to pull together a few things, more blogs chatting up the awesome CD design, a couple of choice album quotes that Vince from Finance wrote down on the office white board with his squirrel-sized Sharpie in hopes of lifting the general malaise of the team.

Then, Bass Player Magazine called. They wanted an interview with Chris and asked if we were interested. “Hells right,” we said and worked out out the details right there on the phone (July or August issue). After that everyone ran to find Chris to tell him the good news. He’d fallen asleep on the couch in the conference room, copies of “Best Baby on the Block,” “Baby 411,” and “What To Expect When You’re Expecting,” open and highlighted on his gently rising chest.

“He is so very tired,” said Walter in a thick German accent (he was visiting from the European office that week). “Let him sleep,” I said to the group. “Next week is going to be busy.” And with that, we all quietly scampered back to our desks. “This is jazz,” I heard someone say as we walked away, “this is serious business.” And I smiled, because they were right. And like that, the team was back in action.

Sincerely,

The Squirrels.

Two Weeks in the Life of a New Album

March 25, 2011 by Squirrel · Comments Off
Filed under: Chris Tarry, Humor, Music, Newsletters, The Squirrels 

It’s been a wonderful first few weeks in the life of Chris’ new album Rest of the Story.

First the various design blogs went crazy after pictures of the album (designed by the totally awesome Jeff Harrison at Rethink Canada) surfaced. Tweets were tweeted and faces-were-booked while everyone in CT Headquarters held their breath and watched as the whole thing went kind of viral. Which, for a jazz CD is a very good thing, to go viral. DesignWorkLife was the first on the scene, and then things just kind of took off from there. Which is a good thing for a jazz CD, to take off.

In Chicago, on the fiftieth floor of the eighty-five story offices of Nineteen Eight Records (the only place from which this new Chris Tarry CD is available), 19/8 Records CEO and General President Guy, Anthony Mollinario, was overheard yelling at his roughly ten-thousand subordinates:If this Tarry person makes me walk to the mailbox one more time, I quit!

Then the literary sites took notice. Two of the biggest, HTMLGiant and The Rumpus called saying they needed to chat to this Chris Tarry dude immediately, needed to find out what this book that was also a CD thing was all about. So we located Chris (who’d taken refuge inside a mountain cave, the same cave previously reserved for the hiding of the helicopter from the long-dead TV series Airwolf), and put them in touch. You can read what they chatted about here: HTMLGiant interviews Chris Tarry. The Rumpus interviews Chris Tarry.

After that, the reviews of the music started trickling in. The first to get his mitts into the sonic pie was Canada’s own Peter Hum at The Ottawa Citizen (and we say mitts, because, well, he’s Canadian and most definitely (probably) owns mitts). Here’s a quote: Rest of the Story is imaginative, energetic and vivid, deftly crafted by musicians who transcend pigeonholes to simply be expressive and personal.

And then Kerry Doole over at Exclaim Magazine: Not your average jazz CD, this one…this superb effort deserves wide recognition. And Kerry was kind enough to plug the writing that appears in the book: Tarry proves himself a fluent wordsmith via stories that are imaginative and haunting.

From there Jeff Harrison hooked up with the amazing team over at Chairman Ting (who might have the coolest name we’ve ever heard), and they made a video of the new album in all its glory. And it is in agreement here at CT Headquarters that this video is a much better video than Chris’ really bad, and hastily prepared, video put together for the release a few weeks ago. So we suggest you run (click) on over and watch it.

And then YouTube called (it doesn’t sound anything like you’d except on the phone) to tell us that the crazy-obsessed CT Fan Adam Stevens had quietly slipped though security during the band’s free afternoon clinic at Humber College this past week. Before the video camera could be pulled from Adam’s cold tazered hands, these three videos were posted. Scroll, Rest of the Story, Jump The Shark.

There were a few other things that happened over the first few weeks of Chris’ new album Rest of the Story, and they too were unexpected. But, Chris only paid us for one day of coverage because he figured, like most jazz musicians figure, that there would only be one day of coverage for the new release, two tops. If there were two days of coverage (which he promised there most certainly wouldn’t be), he would simply buy everyone at CT Headquarters a couple of hamburgers to help make up the difference, perhaps a Star Wars action figure or two. Needless to say, this was not sufficient.

So, while we to work out our contractual arrangement with Chris, we leave you with another bit of news, Calculating Stan Walderman, one of the four stories that appear in the book section of Chris’ new album, Rest of the Story, took 2nd place in Freefall Magazine’s Annual Prose and Poetry contest.

Congrats Chris!

Now pay up!

Seriously,
The Chris Tarry Team of very intelligent (and hard working) squirrels.

(From left to right) Tim Squirrel, Stanley Squirrel, Ron T. Squirrel, and Hugh Squirrel (no relation)

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