From day one I’ve liked the idea of e-cards (but) for the longest time the companies that ran these sites didn’t really speak my language.  They were  perfectly fine places to find a cartoon baby holding a balloon but my grandmother has no idea how to use a computer and she would have never received my ‘thinking of you’ message.

Then I discovered Someecards and Married to the Sea.

I won’t spend too much time talking about Married to the Sea.  The site uses (somewhat) Victorian era cartooning that it then adds captions to.  It’s a classic format but it can be overly cerebral at times and I often find myself wondering if I just don’t get it or if it’s just not funny.  I suppose Married to the Sea took a lot of it’s cues from The New Yorker.  On the other hand, Someecards is a force to be reckoned with.

Warning:  View with caution.  Some work environments may find a lot of Someecards material highly inappropriate.

You can find your basic ‘get well soon’ fodder on this site but you will most likely stumble across the pages and pages of material (I suspect) Bob Saget submitted as “a little too inappropriate for his live show.”   Everything goes though and I think that’s what I enjoy the most.  Doubly enjoyable is fact that a while back they started allowing users to create their own cards.  You can now use their cartooning and format to express your deepest (darkest, creepiest, funniest) thoughts and send them to your friends (boss, enemy, mistress) when you want to make them laugh (cry, faint, file a restraining order).  It’s fantastic!

I use Someecards to the fullest extent.  Some of the e-cards I create get sent to school friends that I hardly knew back in the day (and only see here and there on Facebook). Most e-cards though, I send to my special lady friend and kind of hope they never make it out of her in-box.

Anyway, here is a collection of my e-cards that fall into that “it‘s funny cause it‘s painfully true” category.

These e-cards are for all of us indie musicians,  or those of us who know an indie musician, or those of us who have dated an indie musician (I feel for you), or maybe just those of us who suspect the guy in the mail-room plays bass.

OK, I can’t help it.  I have to slip one in.  I’m not a choir boy you know.  I’m a musician.  Seriously, what do you expect here?

See you soon,

Ezra

Uilleann Pipes – I believe they have a “special beating” for those who call them bagpipes.

Magic Pipe – As a classically trained upright bass player That 1 Guy probably found this more interesting.

Glass Harmonica – Yet another awesome idea brought to us by Benjamin Franklin.

Laser Harp – Need I say more? The glasses are extra.

The Ramones

The Pogues

David Bowie and Bing Crosby

Adam Sandler

Colbert and Costello

Company Bio

In spring 2009, a young entrepreneur was sitting at a coffee shop when he overheard a group of business professionals talking about the sad state of the economy. “What might we do to save our boring jobs,” they asked. Being a problem solver (and inspired by the David Bowie tune Changes playing on the radio) the young man began to jot down notes. He came up with a business plan for a new breed of company. And he knew he was on to something! As fate would have it, not more than a few hours later, a former colleague contacted him via a social network site. The two set up a meeting for the next day and quickly agreed that they had an excellent idea. These were terrible times. They must save themselves. They must also save others. Their names? Johnny Sales & Ezra Closer. From this day forward they would be known as The Salesmen.

Sales & Closer started quickly developing The Salesmen sound. Some onlookers have remarked that they sound like “The Violent Femmes on Wall Street” or “The Cars mixed with Google.” Johnny and Ezra worked tirelessly to come up with the perfect musical sales pitches; sales pitches to lift the human spirit. The first prototype was “Now I Know Her Name“, a catchy tune that was praised by one listener saying “Sounds like a young Elvis Costello tune”. Heartened by their first attempt, they forged on for the good of mankind. Songs started to flow out of the duo, each one better than the last. This was the start of something special.

Expanding the B(r)and

Sales and Closer were happy with their early returns, but as any good company worth its salt knows, you must be innovative. They knew they needed a fresh mind to add some new energy to this promising start-up. The Salesmen put an ad on the site onemilliondollarjob.com. The responses were many, but one stood out from the rest. That response was from none other than Ms. Friday. Ms. Friday brought balance to The Salesmen and helped push their products to new heights.

The Salesmen Today

The Salesmen have just completed Cubicle Rock, a collection of songs that just might single-handedly help turn around the global economy. The Salesmen enlisted the help of a few fine associates to bring this product to the market; Mark Lemhouse (lemhousedesign.com), Matt Henry and Donal Turrentine (yourcomputergenius.com) tackled their duties with artistic fervor not seen by many these days. Dan Stieg Jr. (American Girls, Jatune) and Jason “Skippy” Carter of Wavelength Multimedia (Black Francis, Grand Duchy) provided timely technical support. Dizzy Reed (Guns N’Roses) provided the final touch to My Angel making it a product ready to sell.

The Future

When asked about The Salesmen mission statement a calm Johnny Sales smiled and replied, “Work is play with The Salesmen!”

Now is the time to change your future. Now is the time to have The Salesmen on your side!

Download as .pdf

If you want to book The Salesmen for your event, convention, show or look into licensing their music you can also email them here.

Before you go, don’t forget to visit our iTunes page!

Ezra Closer is an American; salesmen, guitarist, writer, and modern designer. In a lifetime spanning as long as he can remember, Closer has written; rock, orchestral, jazz, and concert band music. In addition to these accomplishment, Closer also arranges “atypical tunes for clarinet quartets.” He is currently working on David Bowie’s “Major Tom” for what he calls, “Four Clarinets and a Judgmental Audience.”

In his elementary school years, he acquired a love for stage when his third grade class was asked to put on a full production of both Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and “Comedy of Errors.” When asked if these productions were successful, Closer replies, “Of course not. But I memorized all of my lines and didn’t pass out during my monologues. So yes, they were successful.” In Closer’s upcoming autobiography, he also cites his fifth grade music teacher as a large contributing factor to his love of stage.

“Mr. Williams thought it would be wise for me to pick up an instrument. He had a trombone that was being neglected. He cleaned it up and showed me a few basics. I took it home for a couple weeks and sat on the couch playing along to all the commercials on TV. I appreciated how a well-greased slide could mimic an elephant or a passing prop-plane-but it didn’t really stick. I wanted something louder; well something a lot louder. After a few years of pestering, my grandfather gave me a guitar he had in his closet. I probably spent an entire year trying to teach myself the opening riff to “Smoke on the Water”. I’m pretty good at it now.”

Growing up in the military forced him to move all throughout the United States and parts of Europe. This wasn’t easy on Closer. He always found it difficult to keep up with the differences in language, more so, how words have different meaning, depending on where you are. He always found it odd that in the mid-west “a coke” wasn’t necessarily “a Coke”. It just meant you wanted a soda. You would say, “I’d like a coke.” Then they would ask, “What kind?” You then would say, “Root beer please.” On the west coast they call it “soda” and in the NW some will call it “pop”. Refusing to ever use the term “pop” or “soda”, Closer found it increasingly hard to fit in. It was difficulties like these that some say fuel his angst and unwillingness to retune his guitar after a solo.

Ezra Closer currently resides in Oregon and is a founding member of the NW rock band The Salesmen. He can currently be heard on their 2009 release “Cubicle Rock’.