What a great weekend. First a Broadway show and then off to Philadelphia for Melissa's CD launch party. It was a fantastic concert! Melissa had a whole band and 50+ people showed up at the Tin Angel to watch. There were a couple songs in the set that I haven't even heard before because they're not on the CD, including a funny one about the parking enforcement. If you want to hear any of Melissa's songs, she's got them all up on her new website. Or just buy the CD. If you get it from digstation, she gets more of the profit, but it's on your normal music selling websites too.
I will be putting some of the video I shot up at some point. I shot the whole show, but I need to edit it and get it approved before putting it on the Facebook page, etc.
After the show, a bunch of us went out to the bar from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia called Mac's, and we took this picture:
I'm on the far left, then Len, then (below) Melissa, and Julie in front. Melissa's dad in the back fourth from the right.
I first heard about Elling when I heard one of my favorite actors John Simm was starring in it in West End (London). Curious, I watched the movie. I loved the movie, so I was thrilled when I got a mailer a couple months ago announcing that it's coming to Broadway, and with Brendan Frasier no less. Now, it was supposed to run for 20 weeks. It opened the Sunday before Thanksgiving and is closing the Sunday after Thanksgiving because they couldn't sell enough tickets. Come on--it's the holidays, give the show a CHANCE! Upset by the news that the show is closing, I rushed to get tickets for tonight's showing.
The story in a nutshell is about two roommates in the mental institution who, after years, are finally let out to live in the real world. They are set up with a two-bedroom apartment in Oslo. The story is about them trying to function in society, Kjell getting a girlfriend; Elling just trying to make friends, find his purpose in life, and live autonomously from his dead mother's memory. There is poetry and a road trip and a birth and the dreaded social worker.
It was great! I can't believe they want to shut it down. It's not a comedy in that it's pee-your-pants funny through the whole thing. It's more of little chuckles, but all the way through. The story and characters are very true to the movie, but I wouldn't be surprised if any of the actors said they hadn't seen the movie because they definitely make the characters their own.
I wasn't sure about Brendan Fraserat first. I do like him in all his movies. But he acts Kjell's character with a pause between each word rather than just speaking slowly, which I was skeptical about. But he really grew on me in the role as the play progressed and did a marvelous job. Bravo.
Denis O'Harewas stu-frickin-pendous as Elling. Oh my god, the way he slipped in and out of sanity just using his voice was great. I loved what he did with the mockery tone he would take when he got annoyed. I'm not sure Elling does this in the movie, but it's hard to tell because I don't know the language (it's a Norwegian film). Elling is very moody and just slightly delusional and very very funny. But you do feel bad for him because he's trying to cope with the loss of his mother.
Jennifer Coolidge plays Kjell's girlfriend (and some small roles). I recognize her from lowbrow comedies like Legally Blonde. She was good.
I'd forgotten how many great things there are in this story. Elling deciding to be a famous enigma by hiding his poems in boxes of sour kraut. Elling's inability to answer the telephone. And "I'm allergic to alcohol. It makes me do things I'll regret."
I'm sad that this play, Brendan Fraser's Broadway debut, is closing after only a week. But even though people know that it's closing and anyone who bought tickets for later dates had to get their money back, the theatre still wasn't packed. There were only about a dozen of us in the balcony, if that. They even told us we could go down to the first level, but we would have had to sit in back. We actually had pretty good seats, second row balcony in the middle.
There were actually quite a lot of people waiting at the Stage Door after the show. I wanted to, but it was really really cold and it just wasn't worth it. Plus, if it was anything like Lend Me a Tenor, it could be another hour before they came out and I didn't want to miss my train. It was weird going home because they said anyone wishing to switch to the Montclair train at Newark would have a 2 hour wait, which would mean that the 11:30 train wasn't coming, so I called a cab to meet me at Newark, but when we got there, we were all confused because the Montclair train WAS there, and I had to cancel my cab. But anyway. Off to Philly.
Stephen Magnan as Dirk Gently, Darren Boyd as Richard MacDuff, and Helen Baxendale as Susan Way. Okay, I don't know any of these actors, but that's okay. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams is my favorite book, in my opinion even better than The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Although there is a radio adaptation and even a stage drama, there hasn't been a movie or TV version yet. Now, thanks to the BBC, there will be. Well, there will be a pilot anyway, on BBC 4, but if it does well, they will make more episodes. And since the book's not very episodic, the plot is said to be "inspired" by the book rather than a direct adaptation. We shall see.
It sort of fits to do this now, since detective shows are SUPER popular, on the BBC too. I mean, even sci-fi and detective shows are in, like Torchwood and Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes. Though Dirk Gently definitely came first.
This is the second time I've seen Kate Nash in concert, the first time being maybe three years ago in Minneapolis, and boy was this performance different from that one. Now, she seems much more grown up and punk rock, but maintains that sweet politeness between her hardcore songs. I do wish she would introduce some of them, but she didn't do much talking.
The opener was Peggysue. I'm not really sure what genre they are. Sort of folk, but from the UK, and not like the folk I listen to with harmonica and stuff. It was accordion-washboard-tamborine folk. But they weren't bad.
It was definitely more of a punk rock show than I think a lot of people were expecting. If this was the punk crowd, they'd be jumping around, moshing. But instead, it was a lot of young people (like REALLY young) just standing there, not even nodding their heads. I was standing next to this one girl my age and we're like "Wow, we feel old." There were kids in the audience, like fourteen-year-olds. It was strange because I thought they served alcohol in this venue.
Anyway, she played all my favorite songs: Mariella, Skeleton, Birds, and the new ones of her recent album as well. They had quite a light show going on here, much bigger production than in Minneapolis. But same as then, she did about half the songs on guitar, half on keys, and a little just jumping around with the mic. Can I saw how amazingly funny it was in Foundations because everyone is singing along, but that means you've got a crowd of New Jerseyers singing in British British accents. Hilarious. I think the best performance was Merry Happy, I suppose because the rest of the show was so punk. What I like about her is that she'll do sweet and then punk all in the same song, but Mariella and Skeleton rocked pretty hard live. It's good to have Merry Happy and Birds to tone it down a little.
It was a good show though. She went about 1:45, not including the opener. We were the last stop on her tour. She likes the vegetarian restaurant we have in Montclair. In the end, she threw drumsticks and some kind of booklets into the audience. One nearly landed on my head and everybody dove on me to get it. I just wanted to get out of the way!
I didn't do a whole lot on my brithday. Made cookies for the office and went to writers group. I presented this short piece, asking for advice on what this story should be about, because it's not really a story yet.
But last night, my friend took me to a show called Fuerza Bruta. It was the trippiest performance art ever! It was really cool, though. I liked the running man (video) 'story' the best. Basically, the stage is the same as the where the audience stands. The actors are all on wires and doing stuff above you and also in your own space right next to you. The actors are dancing with the audience right there on the floor sometimes. There's a mist/fog machine, and also a guy in a DJ booth who hoses the audience off every now and again. The stage hands also keep making the audience move to other parts of the room throughout the show to get them out of the way for massive set pieces like the treadmill and stuff.
So there's this running man on the treadmill and he gets shot a lot and has to set up tables and chairs that keep falling down and you pretty much just see him in these really frustrating yet daily situations until the end when he and two others are on a ledge and have to jump off into an exploding wall.
There's also this giant clear plastic swimming pool above us that is lowered down while about four girls are running around and jumping in the water. At one point they all start body slamming it and I swear it sounds like it's going to break. And it's inches from your head! People were actually putting their hands on the plastic and the actresses would respond to it. It was very strange.
Then we went out to a Danish restaurant, which had fancy things I've never heard of, but it was all very good.
Today I went to a social media class. I learned more than I thought I would, but to be fair, I didn't think I'd learn anything. It actually helped me with the way in which to explain things to authors, hearing someone else explain social media to authors.
I went to the Comic Strip in NYC with my friend David this weekend. Lee Camp was one of the 10 comedians (I know, me going to a Lee Camp show, weird innit?). It was actually a pretty cool venue, but I'm very glad we didn't end up right in front because those guys in their slick gel hair and fur-lined leather jackets got picked on by every comedian. "What is this, West Side Story? Are you a Shark, is that it?"
There was a nice mix of comedians. Lee was funny as always, with some material I hadn't heard before. He starts out saying how weird it is that we're all here at a live, in-person show. These days it's like a shock to see someone who's not in a screen. But it's mostly funny because it's so true. The people sitting in front of me were texting through the whole show, and they're sitting dead front and center. One comedian had to pause the show to get them to promise to stop, which only lasted 'til the next guy came on. Even the audience was annoyed. That comedian makes fun of their Twittery lives: "Just let the world wonder for an hour where you went. 'Oh my god, an hour ago, he said he was going to take a crap and we haven't heard from him since. I hope he's okay!'"
Here's some Lee Camp at the Comic Strip. David was happy they have a proper comedy club brick wall.
The host was much funnier than the host at the Laugh Lounge. He started the show by asking everybody in the audience where they were from. Most were from other countries. Romania, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia. When I said I live in Jersey, he had to explain to the Scottish guy behind me not to go to Jersey.
Most of the comedians were pretty funny, but there was this one guy who wasn't invited, but he's apparently some big star, so the host asked if he wanted to do ten minutes. And I don't know if the guy was drunk or what, but it was the most disjointed, distracted set ever. When he saw that he wasn't making the audience laugh, he reverted to really loud Chris Rock impressions over and over. When he got off, we were just like, "What was that?"
There was this one guy, Ross Bennett. He was a little older with a whole different vibe than any other comedian. He gets out and he's like "Trust me, I'm just as disappointed as you. Every time I come out in the middle of these comedy shows, I don't feel like part of the act. I feel like I'm interrupting your party. Like this is your basement. And your parents are gone for the weekend. And I'm the neighbor." He was pretty great:
Also great was Jermaine Fowler:
There was also this guy who made fun of his girlfriend for doing the victory arm pump all the time. "The only time you should ever do that is if you're six years old and you just found out it's taco night." A few comedians later, this comedian comes out and she does the arm pump thing and goes "Tacos!" And I thought, okay, she's seen that guy's set before. Nope. That's the girlfriend. She claimed it was a total lie and she doesn't actually do that. The weird thing about her set was that most of her stories seemed to involve cannibalism in some way. Usually comedy is funny because in some way you can relate to it. When Ross Bennett does his thing about how now he's getting older, he makes noises when he doesn't want to: one grunt noise when he's doing something, and one sigh noise once he's done it. It's funny because you can relate. However, her jokes were like "Have you ever looked at a baby and really wanted to eat it?" Now, this would be hilarious if it was some kind of secret desire everybody has that she brings to light but I have a feeling most of us were like "Umm...no...?"
Then I missed my train because I thought it was at 11:30 instead of 11:11, so I had to wait for the 12:30 train to take me to Broad Street, then had to wait 'til 1:30 for the Montclair train, but the screens at Broad Street were frozen, so I couldn't tell if there was a train coming. Then I realized that TECHNICALLY it was Monday now and trains don't run that late on Monday. But the schedule made it look like 1am on Monday was still counted as the Sunday night schedule, but I wasn't sure. The only people around were this older couple making out on the platform, so I had to interrupt them to ask if the train was coming, which they explained in a few different languages that they didn't know. Luckily, the 1:30 train did come and I didn't have to call a cab.
Don't get me wrong--I'm excited for Rhett and Link's YouTube shows to be picked up for a pilot for the Independent Film Channel, but this is the second vlog (out of like 4) that I watch that's been picked up for a TV show. I thought that vlogs are the next generation of media, better than TV because you can watch it whenever you want, you have input into what goes into it, and you can communicate with the creators and other fans. So it's strange the way TV is trying to drag YouTubers backward into the old TV mode like it's better or something. They'll make more money, yes, and it would be exciting to see them on TV, and it will probably increase their fanbase because there are still a lot of TV-watchers who don't watch vlogs. It just makes me think a little about the heirarchy of media and snobbiness of the old TV guys and the allure of their money. Hmm.
Good luck Rhett & Link, though. I hope the rest of the series gets picked up.
I just got back from 5 days in San Francisco. My first business trip! It was the Audio Engineering convention "AES." There were four of us from HL: me, Kevin, Brad, and John. Turns out Kevin & I actually attended the same college at somewhat of the same time.
My cabbie on the way to the airport was actually invited to AES and used to live in SF. On the plane, I was in the last seat, and they ran out of lunch by the time they got to me, so it sucked not having lunch during the 6 hour flight, but I got to watch two hours of Doctor Who and an hour of Still Standing on Direct TV.
When I got to SF, I walked down the road a little before Kevin and Brad got in, their flight delayed 6 hours and without luggage.
We set up the booth, which took 4 hours. We ordered a big flat screen TV, and we couldn't find the box for it. But there was a suspicious little black box. We opened it to find this dinky thing in the picture. Looks ridiculous on that huge pedestal! And the DVD player didn't even work. Kevin tried unjamming it with a screwdriver to no avail. Can anyone say Spinal Tap Stonehenge?
Here's our booth when we were done. We went to Lefty O'Douls for dinner for some local flavors. It was right after the big parade for the Giants, so everyone was obsessing over the game on TV.
The next day, we started the show. I was in charge of setting up the author signings. Dave (left) was involved with the big exhibitor party we went to on Saturday night.
Bill's book on Quincy Jones was the highlight of the show, which is why we needed a TV, but we ended up using Brad's laptop. We had 13 autographed copies to giveaway and sell.
Moses signed some books on Saturday and Sunday. We hung out a lot over the weekend, but decided we needed nachos at 11:30 at night and got a little sick off them. I have to admit his iPad was the first one I ever used. The Twitter app was annoying me though.
Bobbygave 2 workshops on social media. I learned a lot from the workshops and even though they made us do the signing in the booth (because of some union thing), he did sell out of his social media book by the end of the weekend and had to put in some additional orders.
Friday night, I met up with a friend of a friend, Max, and we went for sushi. A plus for me being clumsy with chopsticks and launching vegetables into the air! Then we climbed up to the highest point where we saw the building from Vertigo (left) and strolled through China Town.
Saturday morning, I got up early and took a 20 minute walk down to the water to get breakfast at the farmer's market. I absolutely loved it. Everything was so pretty as the sun was just coming up.
Saturday, I drew 4 names for the winners of the raffle for signed Quincy books. Two of the winners were there, so it wasn't too awkward with lots of people standing around.
Saturday evening was the big party for exhibitors. Glow sticks. Electronic music. Funny lights. Dancing drunk people. Chatted with Moses most of the time. Wasn't really digging the scene. This is when we ditched the club for poison nachos and attempted to relocate the hotel in the dark.
Despite feeling a little sick, I worked the show on Sunday. Got up early to go to Walgreens for medicine. It was raining, and everyone was huddled outside, waiting for the store to open. One guy said it was like Black Friday for umbrellas.
Brad and John were gone, so it was up to us rookies, me and Kevin, to tear down. The crew took FOREVER to bring our boxes and it took 3 hours to pack up. But I think we got most of it right.
I feel like I complained too much in this post. It was an absolutely amazing trip and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
Oh, and I made up a riddle: What's the difference between BEA and AES?
2. LittleRadge has gotten me hooked on TeeFury, which is a website with a genius sales plan. They put up a new t-shirt everyday, always with some kind of inside joke for people who are fans of something, submitted by various artists around the world. But you only have 24 hours to buy that t-shirt and then it's gone forever, so there's no loss in having people mull it over for a few days--they must impulse buy. Brilliant. And dangerous. This is the one I bought.
3. Did a video shoot at an author event. Will upload video when it's done. Here's a photo. Need to pack for California now.
What a great weekend. First a Broadway show and then off to Philadelphia for Melissa's CD launch party. It was a fantastic concert! Melissa had a whole band and 50+ people showed up at the Tin Angel to watch. There were a couple songs in the set that I haven't even heard before because they're not on the CD, including a funny one about the parking enforcement. If you want to hear any of Melissa's songs, she's got them all up on her new website. Or just buy the CD. If you get it from digstation, she gets more of the profit, but it's on your normal music selling websites too.
