DeanMail - Boobles, Honkblatts & Boing-D-Boings Hey Folks, Sometime in the early '90's, I sat down and drew a handful of sketches of a collection of strange and whimsical musical instruments with silly names like the Booble, the Honkblatt, the Boing-D-Boing, the Jingle-Lingle-Lily, the Tone Stones and the Laser Harp. CLICK HERE TO VIEW Much to my surprise, England's very first Children's Museum, The Eureka! Children's Museum, commissioned me to go ahead and build them. It was one of the oddest contract negotiations I've ever been involved in. How much does a Booble cost to make? Or a Boing-D-Boing? And how do you actually go about making one? Who knew? Not me! Not anybody!! Despite those baffling questions, I managed to put together a talented team of fabricators including Jim Shanley and Matt Lees, rented space along the Hudson River and proceeded to create these unusual and amazing instruments. They became an instant hit at the museum and during the '90's I got commissions to create dozens of Music Atrium Instruments for children's museums and theme parks around the world. (note: I never stopped writing songs, though!) After a decade and a half, the Eureka! Children's Museum finally retired the exhibit, but there are still Boobles and Honkblatts on almost every continent and millions of kids have played on 'em and enjoyed them over the years. Only problem is... they're expensive to make, so few museums can afford 'em these days. Curiously, or cynically ;-), depending on how you view it, the Chase bank is conducting a grant contest providing $250,000 grants to 13 small business around the US. That kinda dough would enable me to produce a traveling 'Music Atrium' which smaller museums could afford. Now I realize that the odds of me being awarded one of those grants is somewhere in the neighborhood of a million to one. Of course, the odds of me being commissioned to build them in the first place was probably a billion to one. And frankly the odds of me being born at all were probably a zillion to the 10th power to one (give or take a power). And yet, here I am! ;-) So, I figure what the heck, I'll give it a try. If you care to, you can help and it won't cost you a penny - only about 60 seconds of your time. If you'd like to increase the admittedly remote odds of my company, Cool Stuff for Kids, being awarded a grant to build more Boobles, Honkblatts and Boing-D-Boings, all you have to do is... 1. Go to the CHASE Mission Small Business website: www.missionsmallbusiness.com 2. CLICK ON 'LOG IN & SUPPORT' 3. ENTER my business name: Cool Stuff for Kids into the 'business name' field 4. And VOTE for: Cool Stuff for Kids That's it. All kosher and legit! It's a long shot, but hey, you never know! ;-) Thanks for lending a hand. Maybe one day I'll be able to bring a Booble or Boing-D-Boing on tour with me and you'll all get to squeeze a Booble or honk a Honkblatt or jingle a Jingle-Lingle-Lily! Really, it's great fun!  And perfectly legal! ;-) Have yourselves a fun weekend! And happy two-days-after-the-official-start-of Summer!   Dean PS: My new 'Dean Friedman Music App' is now available in the official iTunes Store: 'Dean's Music App - iTunes'  and also the official GooglePlay Store for Android devices:  'Dean's Music App - GooglePlay'  Check it out! PPS: If you absolutely insist on purchasing tickets to my upcoming UK/Ireland gigs, I'm certainly not going to stand in your way. All you have to do is go the GIG section of www.DeanFriedman.com. See ya! Deano  copyright (c) 2012 Dean Friedman Productions If you would like to be removed from Dean's email list, please send a reply email with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject.