The Creative Process

Follow me on Tumblr

2011-06-06T18:51:00.002-05:00

So, until Google and whoever makes Internet Explorer start playing, nice, you can

follow me on Tumblr

(go there now for photos and video of the Dia:Beacon museum last weekend)

because ever since I upgraded to Internet Explorer Version 6, the "publish" button on Blogger no longer works and I have to save all my posts, then go back into the list of posts, check the new one, and click "publish all" which is a pain in the neck. So I'll be on Tumblr in the meantime. Reset your bookmarks.

Also, THIS IS HAPPENING?! Really? How am I gonna swing this?

2011-06-04T10:10:00.001-05:00

Concert footage

2011-05-28T23:27:00.003-05:00

As promised, finally got my concert video of the Damien Jurado/John Vanderslice concert up. It's on the last post of the last page of the Tumblr video scrapbook mentioned in the next post. But ALSO, I noticed that several other people took video of the rooftop scene. Since we're all standing in a circle, I thought it'd be neat to splice a video of all the different perspectives at once. It was a neat experiment, probably would have worked better with more angles. But here it is, some of it is my footage, some other people's:

A Year in Sum

2011-05-28T16:42:00.000-05:00

I just got back from the Book Expo. Exhausted. But it was a ton of fun.

Last year, I did a year's worth of photos and video summing up the year. I made one this year but I guess the video files aren't the right type because now it crashes every time I open it, so even though I was done making the montage, I can't share it with you!

Instead, I'm just rendering little bits of it and dropping it into tumblr. Totally not what Tumblr is for, but let's try it. I've finished it now, so have a look and see what you think of this format. Maybe the computer will be nice later and let me render the whole thing.

http://jerseyyear.tumblr.com/

Busy week

2011-05-14T00:27:00.012-05:00

I know not a lot has been happening on this blog lately. But then lots of stuff DID happen this week and Blogger was out of commission for two days! So let me try to do a recap of this week: This week, I was invited to the Theatre World Awards in June, wrote a letter to Mark Wing-Davey (of Hitchhiker's fame), met Jerry Stiller, and saw both Damien Jurado and JohnVanderslice live in concert. Oh, yeah, and this took over my life today, but I'm not even going to get into that now.

We had a book launch for a book at work, and Jerry Stiller and a bunch of other famous people came to celebrate Jerry Orbach by reading from the new book. I shook Jerry Stiller's hand and thanked him a couple times. At one point, he pointed at me and asked my co-worker "Who's this?!" It was kind of odd, but funny.

Then, tonight I went to see Damien Jurado in Brooklyn. Technically, he was the opener. I didn't really care who the headliner was. He doesn't have a lot of stage presence since he just sits on a stool and plays guitar and sings, but he's sure talented. He had a woman sing with him for a while too (Melody, was it?). I'll post some video later. Here is someone else's video of him singing everyone's favorite song Ohio. Wished he would have played his harmonica. But still a really great performance.

Turns out the headliner was actually really cool. I hadn't heard of John Vanderslice before, but he's this really happy rocker who knows how to connect with his fans. "May is Audience Participation Month!" he said. Apparently he'd done a shout out on his email list or something asking for anyone who was going to be at any of his shows who would like to perform with him. So each night, he wrote their names on his hand and would call them up on stage. So tonight we had a beatboxer, a guy who sang and played tamborine, and a girl who sang. Their equipment kept crapping out on them, but I wasn't a fan of the synth sound anyway. The music was actually good. At one point, after tons of coaxing, he convinced his road manager to come out of the sound booth and crowd surf! Video of that to come. Then later on, John himself did some crowd surfing.

Haven't even gotten to the best part yet: he goes "Okay, let's sing the last few songs on the rooftop!" So he, Damien, and the band lead the ENTIRE AUDIENCE through the building, up the stairs, and onto the roof where all the musicians stood in the middle with fans crowding around close enough to bump into the musicians, and everybody else knew all the words and sang along. It was like some kind of weird cult, haha, but it was tons of fun. Definitely not what I was expecting. I'll post video later, but it was almost exactly like this.

Talking Funny

2011-05-07T23:05:00.002-05:00

I'm not only interested in things that are funny but also things ABOUT comedy. I think the concept for this special below would be really interesting even if it was 4 professional comedians I haven't heard of. But all four of them being ultra recognizable makes it all the better. What's interesting most is the things that they disagree on.

Thoreauvian Flash Fiction

2011-04-28T21:25:00.003-05:00

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity."
--Henry David Thoreau

I'm starting a new writing project. It's a collection of flash fiction stories, all inspired by Thoreau quotes. I've written five already. They will go here once I revise and type them. For now, the website has the quotes which inspired the stories, but not yet the stories themselves. So you can read the quotes and wonder to yourself what inspiration came from that.

A couple timey-wimey reviews

2011-04-23T10:57:00.007-05:00

First off, I recommend Source Code, directed by Duncan Jones. It's not time travel exactly, but still "timey-wimey" as Time Out NY called it. It's more to do with quantum mechanics--the mind and alternate universes and whatnot. It's basically 12 Monkeys meets Groundhog Day. It was better than I thought it would be. I was worried it would be too much like an action film, but it's more psychological and about character interaction than it is an action movie (which is good). There's a fair amount of refrigerator logic. Not that anything was wrong with the plot, but there are things that you realize later on. Definitely something to watch twice, not because it was confusing the first time, but it was enjoyable and you'll probably pick up a lot the second time.

And now to the Doctor Who series 6 premier. Didn't get anything done all day (except the doodle on the left) because BBC America correctly predicted we needed a series 5 marathon all day. Well actually I was at church for 2 hours setting up for Easter brunch, but the rest was just watching TV.

As River would say "Spoilers":

First off, the monsters: quite a scary, monsters that you forget about when you can't see them. So they've always been here on Earth and people just forget they've seen them? It's a bit like the quantum mechanics idea that your brain will not perceive anything it can't understand even if it's right in front of you, so there could be aliens all around you and you don't know it. It's also a bit of the weeping angels gimick where you have to keep looking at them, which makes them scarier because they look scary.

Second, Mark Sheppard is awesome, and it's really cool that he has a big role in these episodes. I wasn't expecting him to have an American accent since he's British and it's a British show. Oh, and how cool is it that his own father plays his older self? But, does Mark Sheppard only do TV shows that have both cowboys and space travel? Sorry, Firefly joke.

Third, nice new spin that it's not just that the Doctor and River meet each other out of order, but in opposite orders. I didn't really think much of the fact that the first time the Doctor saw River, it was the last time that River saw the Doctor. Now we know that the first time River saw the Doctor was the last time the Doctor saw River. So, that probably means that she's going to kill him, right? Hard days ahead, in prison for killing the most extraordinary man she's ever met. I hope they'll be a little more surprising than that.

2011-04-09T20:53:00.002-05:00

I just read that there's going to be a movie called "Them" and I don't know who will be in it, but I do know the crew:

Written by Mike White (who wrote School of Rock)
Produced by Mike White and Jack Black
Directed by Edgar Wright (who directed Shaun of the Dead, etc.)
Based on a book by Jon Ronson (who wrote Men Who Stare at Goats)
Wow, that is amazing waiting to happen.

Podcast - Plain Ketchup - Celebrity Sleaze

2011-04-02T12:04:00.001-05:00

Various 2

2011-03-27T18:49:00.002-05:00

The first day of Spring, it was warm. The second day of Spring, it snowed.

I don't usually do memes, but I did this one when I had 35 minutes to kill. So check it out here If the video stutters, click the "YouTube" logo in the bottom right of the video screen.

Author event on Friday was super fun. Photos here (they're they last ones in the album)

I own this t-shirt now.

Second interview for the podcast last week with Michael Palascak. Super cool. Stay tuned for those animations. In the meantime, Michael on Letterman:

The Men Who Stare at Goats

2011-03-24T18:28:00.004-05:00

I know I normally post my book reviews on my other blog, but I don't feel like it, so there. This is a review of the book The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson, and it's great timing because I just found out via Twitter (Jon Ronson is on Twitter: @jonronson) that he's just updated jonronson.com. Even though I am a big fan of goats (totally disagree with the military in this book who says that forming an attachment to a goat is nearly impossible), it's not the goats in the title that drew me to this book. It was listening to Jon Ronson on Robin Ince's Utter Shambles (listen here) and then later on Robert Llewellyn's Carpool (watch here). I had seen the trailer for the movie and was undecided about if it was too cheesy. But listening to the author, I became interested in how absurdly funny the American military was in the '70's according to the people Ronson interviewed.

The Men Who Stare at Goats is a story about the US government and military trying to use paranormal forces to their benefit, especially different kinds of psychic powers: walking through walls, reading minds, seeing the future, stopping the hearts of animals ("affecting livestock from a distance"), and brainwashing. However, their inability to completely master any of these things mixed with the bureaucracy of it all makes it hilarious. For example, the military had a psychic spy team, but since they didn't technically exist (according to the books), they were not given a coffee budget and were most cross about being the only branch of military to have to buy their own coffee. Throughout the book, Ronson--the writer/narrator/journalist--digs deeper and deeper, discovering how much of this secret effort lies under our American history (9-11, Heaven's Gate, Guantanamo Bay).

I have not seen all of the movie, but I did see about half of it on YouTube. I was shocked to realize that nearly everything in the movie is in the book--very little made up. The things they did make up were trivial:

Ewen McGregor's character is supposed to be Jon Ronson but is not named Jon, is American instead of British, and has this whole cinematic backstory about his girlfriend leaving him for his one-armed editor.
They changed character names and combined some of the characters because there are a lot of characters in the book. However, pretty much all their actions and a lot of the dialogue is word-for-word from the book.
The action adventure part of the movie was obviously exaggerated and in some cases made up. George Clooney's character (Lin) is in the book called Pete, and he does beat Jon up using his Predator weapon and by knocking him to the floor (sharp edges!) and all that--that's true--but they were not meanwhile being held prisoner in the desert and all that drama.

Ronson does an excellent job making the real sound ridiculous. Not that these people needed a whole lot of help from a journalist to sound crazy, but Ronson uses phrases like "when he was busy staring a goat to death" or "Guy, next time you go to Fort Bragg with a hamster, can I come?" This wouldn't make a very good fiction story. I'm not a fan of realistic investigation novels that were made up, but as non-fiction, it sounds made up, it's that insane.

Walking through walls: Both the book and movie begin with a military officer trying to walk through his office wall, failing, and being frustrated that he couldn't do it.
Invisibility: When the military failed to learn how to become invisible, they learned to just be unseen
Sticky foam: Like in the Incredible Hulk, the military created a sticky foam that they spray and it solidifies. They only used it once: to stop a riot by creating a wall between them at the food, which only lasted about a minute before the riot climbed the wall, and the foam was abandoned.
Goat staring: Supposedly, Guy Savelli killed a goat once by just staring at it. They had something called Goat Lab in the military, which was a secret shack where they had to de-bleat and lock in place a bunch of goats to keep them from giving away its secret location. It was meant as a way to teach people how to save the lives of dying humans by practicing on goats, but ended up as a place for people to practice psychic powers of stopping hearts. Ronson suspects in the book it may have been a sick goat.
Visions: Visions of something or someone near the comet Hale-Bopp fueled the Heaven's Gate cult and their suicide.
Brainwashing: They used music as a method of interrogation. In one method, they blasted music non-stop for days--the same song over and over--Metallica and the I Love You song from Barney--in Iraq prisoner holds. In the other method, they played the song once and at a normal volume. One of these was Matchbox 20 (hey, I like M20). Here, they suspect, may have been subliminal messages, or an attempt at them. This was done in Guantanamo Bay. The strangest thing was that the writers to some of the songs they used to torture prisoners wanted to cash in on the royalties, no sympathy for the people being tortured.

The book starts out fairly simply: Ronson wants to track down who stared a goat to death and if it's possible and how the government can use that power. But it spirals into really serious stuff. In fact, one of the people he interviewed had to video tape him while they talked (this is the guy in the movie who has the video of him staring at his hamsters until they fall over and who said the Lockness Monster is really the ghost of a dinosaur--both true stories). Ronson didn't know why he had to be on video tape at the time. But later, he found out, he had been one of six people to call him that week asking if he could stare a goat to death. The other five had been al qaeda.

My only regret is that Ronson was not able to wrap up all of the mysteries that he presented. And maybe he left in all the questions that he couldn't answer because he wants people to know that there is more to investigate and we should keep our eyes peeled. But at the same time, in a narrative, I expected that any questions he brought up would be answered. So when we don't find out who the mysterious Ron is, and we don't find out what happens with the guy with the hamsters at the very end, I feel a lack of closure. But maybe that's why Hollywood came in to fill in the gaps.

Overall, very enjoyable. I'm also interested to hear what Ronson's got to say about memory and about madness in his other writings.

Media Announcements

2011-03-23T17:56:00.004-05:00

1. Independent Film Channel announces it will air Rhett and Link's new TV show on June 24th. Commercial Kings. Link to announcement.

2. Terry Pratchett and Terry Jones are creating a TV series based around the Watch in Pratchett's Discworld series. Is this for serious? If they're using the real characters from the books, including my favorite character in anything ever, this could be my new favorite show. Link to announcement.

3. They've already cancelled Outcasts in the UK. Lame. I hope we still get it here on BBC America.

4. Someone is finally making a Good Omens mini series. I think Terry Gilliam was supposed to direct this film a long time ago, I believe but he just sort of...didn't in that Terry Gilliam way. His films are brillliant...when they get done. Instead, the production company Prime Focus is doing Good Omens. It's a cult classic, and most people consider it the best thing that came from Pratchett or Gaiman, but I like a lot of their solo work better. I still want to see it though. I want to know who they've cast for Crowley and Aziraphale because this has been a subject of much discussion on the interwebs for over a decade now. I think Terry Jones is working on this one as well. (There are too many Terrys in this post!)
Link to announcement

5. I missed watching Stephen Merchant on Graham Norton last week, but I watched it on YouTube. He's doing a standup show in NYC on December 20th. Exciting. I've also just noticed that I missed the Graham Norton episode in February with Brian Cox. Really must pay attention.

Various things

2011-03-20T20:54:00.003-05:00

The first being the new clip from our podcast:

Also, I saw the movie Paul that I've been waiting a long time to come out. It isn't bad, certainly. Some of the humor is a little too low brow for my taste, but it was definitely still funny. They cater a lot to the American audience that likes that over-the-top dumb humor, but there's some good subtle stuff in there too. Like there's this one scene, and I don't know if I remember it just right, where they're having an emotional crisis, and one guy goes, "Do you want tea?" and the other guy goes "No!" and the first guy goes "Yeah, they don't do good tea here [America]. They leave the teabags in."

Also, while I'm animating, I am listening to a book on tape: The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson. Haven't seen the movie yet, but it doesn't seem to be available as a download or rental on iTunes or Amazon yet. The book is really funny. It wouldn't make for good fiction, but it's great as non-ficiton. I'll do a proper review of it when I'm finished.

British telly

2011-03-13T12:27:00.003-05:00

Doctor Who premiers on BBC America on April 23.

Outcasts is coming to BBC America! But it just says "coming soon." When BBCA, when? This is the first reference to "from the makers of Life on Mars" that I've seen. Which makers? Matthew Graham isn't involved (though he is writing a couple episodes of Dr. Who this season) and Ashley Pharoah isn't involved either. So...not really the makers of Life on Mars, then really? But Danny Mays is sure to give a smashing performance.
http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/426/index.jsp

Idiot Abroad season 2 has started production.
Speaking of Karl, how about a round of Rockbusters?

Dirk Gently movie review

2011-03-10T21:40:00.006-06:00

This review is not full of spoilers but you still might want to watch the movie first. It's about an hour long. Here is the first part. They are all on YouTube until someone deletes them for copyright infringement.

Someone finally posted Dirk Gently on YouTube. Umm...I actually liked it. Was not expecting to like it at all. The plot line is very different from the book, and the character Dirk is played completely differently. However, it's actually pretty funny. Not to the degree of Douglas Adams, of course, but they've trimmed it down to be much much much simpler.

There is no alien or electronic monk or ghost. These are the things I liked about the book: it's a supernatural detective story, and I was annoyed that the movie didn't have ANY of that. But then they did bring in a timey wimey element, and that made things okay.

They took the real heart of the book and went in a different direction with it. They grabbed onto the whole thing about the interconnectedness of everything and made that the central focus. It's very easy to follow compared to the book. I had to read and listen to the book several times before I completely understood what all the different parts of the story had to do with each other. The movie is dumbed down but more digestible. However, the humor is subtle in that classic Douglas Adams way. There are a lot of physical jokes that they don't call attention to. (I like that instead of having a white board, he just roller paints his chalkboard white every time he wants to erase). Also, they grabbed onto the whole thing about Dirk and lost cats. That became the focus.

The biggest change is that in the book, Susan is the daughter of the wealthy Gordon Way who goes missing (and is the ghost in the story). In the movie, Gordon had gone to college with Dirk, Richard, and Susan, and is Susan's ex-boyfriend. Very different. But he still goes missing, so she's just as concerned about his whereabouts.

The secretary part is pretty accurate, but I'm sad they left out the part where Dirk is on the phone and Richard has to keep writing "You have no secretary!" That is classic. In fact, someone else has acted out that scene perfectly here at this video. <-- This video (completely unrelated to the BBC video above) is actually extra cool because the actor who is playing Dirk was a friend of Douglas Adams and is the inspiration for Dirk.

As for characters, I think Dirk is supposed to be a little bit older and is described as a podgy tornado. He is a bit devious and con-man in a way, but I always figured him for being legitimate with the unfortunate appearance of being a con-man simply because he actually believes in the interconnectedness. The backstory that they give him in the movie suggests that he is actually a con-man most of the time. Richard is played as more of a loser than in the book. In the book, he was very intelligent, not to mention employed. Here he's kind of a layabout. Susan's probably about the same. There were no Michael or Reg. Reg was so important to the story, it seems strange that he's not there, but since they left out the whole ending of the book (book spoiler alert) where it turns out Reg is responsible for sparking life on Earth, I guess it didn't matter. But no electric monk either. Perhaps this gives them room for more episodes to fit in all those details, building up to being more and more supernatural. The sequel book did include Thor the thunder god, after all. I did hear that this was meant to be a test pilot episode. So I hope they make more.

The Karl Pilkington Metaphor Matching Game

2011-03-10T18:01:00.007-06:00

It's very simple. Try to match column A with column B based on the metaphors of Karl Pilkington. Doesn't matter if you don't know who he is (though you should). Try to guess. Or just enjoy mixed metaphors.

A .................................................................................................B

The Egyptian Pyramids are like .........................................an alien on the "Boswell" incident

Flowers on a cactus is like ..................................................a bit of weird art

Karl in Brazilian parade garb is like ...................................a restaurant only flogging ketchup

The stance of the Christ the Redeemer
Statue is like the stance of.................................................Andy Pandy on crack

Treat the world like ..........................................................someone testing out a Biro

Hummus as a meal is like .................................................a bungy jumper

Steve Merchant dancing is like......................................... a Kate Bush video

The Chinese alphabet is like .............................................putting lipstick on an ugly woman

Hazy sky of China is like ...................................................a head

Being naked for an operation
would make Karl look like .................................................a game of jenga that's got out of hand

Plain Ketchup Podcast Ep.1 Part1 - Front Matter

2011-03-10T17:56:00.002-06:00

I command you...
Visit plainketchuppodcast.com
Be our fan: facebook.com/plainketchup
Follow us: twitter.com/plainketchup
Join our team
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Sign up for our mailing list
Buy t-shirts and mugs on our CafePress store

Atlanta

2011-03-07T19:02:00.014-06:00

Went to Atlanta on business. Got to see Coke World and the Olympics park during downtime. Here are some photos.

And now it's into a ten-hour workday week (also known as catalog time) and cauking the draft out of my room. No wonder Jesus followed in the footsteps of God and not Joseph the Carpenter. Being handy is hard. The next curtain I accidentally cauk to the wall and I'm trading this tube of vinyl adhesive for a crown of thorns.

The Lee Camp Show

2011-02-26T07:47:00.000-06:00

I went to Lee Camp's comedy album release party at the Tank with my roommate and her boyfriend. The night began with a futile attempt to find a Dunkin Donuts in Times Square which turned to sitting in an Irish pub for a while before the show.

It started with the star of Sirius XM's "The Alt Comedy Show" Mark Seman playing guitar and a kazoo (in a harmonica holder) and rapping. I don't think anyone was prepared for that, but it was quite funny, and there was a Light Bright.

Then, JR Havlan--emmy award winning writer for the Daily Show--did some standup, and despite not doing standup often if at all, was very funny, doing bits about Facebook and Blue Tooth and gym showers.

And then of course Lee Camp did an energetic 45-minute set of mostly material I hadn't heard before, save some things he's been putting on YouTube lately. However, just earlier today, I was thinking about an old joke he did about sweatshop workers stitching cries for help on clothing and wondered why he doesn't do that joke anymore. Well, tonight he showed a video of himself sneaking shirts into retail stores that say things like "My fingers really hurt" and "Help me." Very funny. There were also two other videos--one of him trying to convince people to have an obesity exchange program for children, and one of his phonecall to the governor of Texas office.

But mostly the show was fast talking, hard thinking, and energetic. As always, we leave with that "Yeah, we really should do something about our screwed up world" because it's a bit like motivational speaking comedy. If ever there's no laughter, it's because people are still processing what's just been said and you can literally hear the delay in the laughter, which is actually quite cool because it means people are really thinking and processing the ideas. It's not your typical "You know when" comedy or "Women, eh?" comedy.

After the show, I bought a CD from Lee, which he signed (below) and I gave him his free Plain Ketchup t-shirt for guesting on our podcast (above). He invited me out to the Irish pub around the corner afterward with some other people. So the three of us, having a good half hour before we had to leave to catch the last train home, went over to the pub. Lee's wife bought a round and we talked to her a bit. Then I got into a coversation with the opener JR. We chatted at length about Karl Pilkington. Not even kidding. He seems like a pretty cool guy. I gave him my card with our podcast URL on it before heading out.

On my way out, I said bye to Lee, and he reiterated that he thinks we've really got something here with the podcast, and how funny it was. I hope to God he's right. He gave some advice on climbing the comedy latter, and then I had to go catch the train. Really was a fantastic night. If you didn't got to the show, you certainly missed a good one. But you can watch some of the same content on his YouTube channel, like here:

Updated

2011-02-22T09:52:00.002-06:00

yay greenscreen

2011-02-20T17:35:00.000-06:00

I Really Like Your Pants

2011-02-19T00:16:00.003-06:00

Hey, I know this is a one-in-the-morning post, but I'm not delirious. There's this new website called yourpants.org, and I'm not into forums, I'll be honest. The last time I used a forum was probably middle school. However, there is a folder of threads in there that simply asks people to post about whatever project they are cuurently working on. So I jumped on the opportunity to pitch our podcast to any artists who might want to join our ranks. Now, this might not sound like it would work, and normally it probably wouldn't. However, the important ingredient I have not yet told you: This site was created by and is supported by Hank Green, which means the creatively energetic (or energetically creative?) online community nerdfighters will be dominating this space, and nerdfighters love projects. I've already gotten 3 replies in 1 day, which is more than I got from a week of unsolicited emails to artists I admire. Long Live Your Pants and May it Bring Us Imaginative Friends. (Oh by the way, if you don't know who Hank Green is, go to Google, and just type "Is H" and before you hit enter, see what Google suggests for you.)
Okay, I just spelled "will" "whil" so I need to slaep... slep... sleep now.

RIP Don

2011-02-14T23:08:00.003-06:00

One of the professors at UW-L has passed away from pneumonia. I never had Don LaCoss as a teacher, but I tried really hard to get into his class because everyone said he was their favorite but I never could because it was always the first section to get booked up. He was married to one of my English professors, so he'd come to our English Club socials like kickball. Here's his blog.

The above photo is the only one I can find on my harddrive, but I have hundreds of English Club photos. I've always liked this photo because Butterfield is sitting nonchalantly in the background holding a plastic pitchfork (It's Halloween.) The boy is Don's son.

Other people's videos

2011-02-14T20:53:00.004-06:00

So...I was kind of far back at the Josh Ritter concert and totally didn't realize that the other guy on stage was John Krasinski. I wish I'd known that when I was actually there. I thought he was brilliant in "Away We Go." But it's okay. Someone has taken video of the entire segment where Rainn Wilson is talking (so it includes the part where he reads the new lyrics to the next Josh Ritter song!) and then John Krasinski comes out on stage briefly:

I found what the song was supposed to sound like when Scott was less drunk from their performance in Boston the night before. Here's that video.

Here's from the NY performance, the whole "The Curse"

Here are two videos someone did of David Mayfield at the Josh Joplin Concert: I Just Might Pray (you can hear the person with the camera singing along).

This one actually is my video. Someone has asked for the rest of this song, so I posted it. It's more of the drunk singer from the Josh Ritter concert.

Podcast Sneak Peek

2011-02-13T21:22:00.000-06:00

Josh Ritter Concert

2011-02-13T02:17:00.011-06:00

It's the weekend of Josh concerts. Josh Ritter performed at Terminal 5, which is this huge room, standing room only, with a couple of balconies. Very different from yesterday's tiny coffee shop/bar sitdown concert yesterday. Plus there were several thousand people there rather than the 30 or so at the 92Y in Tribeca.

The opener was Scott Hutchison from the band Frightened Rabbit. More on him in a minute. Guess who came out and introduced Josh Ritter. Rainn Wilson from The Office. How random is that? You can watch part of his speech in the video below. He used a computer to predict the lyrics of the next Josh Ritter song.

I'd seen Josh Ritter once at City Hall, which is a sit-down theatre and I was in the last row in the balcony. This was a very different experience. They played a lot of the same songs, but were just as cool. The band is still awesome, but the one dude in the mustache didn't get a solo verse, which is unfortunate because he blew everyone away last time. The show was high energy and it was all very well-rehearsed. They even turned on the discoball for one song.

Twice, Josh read some things that people had sent to him to read out as a Valentines Day statement. They were mostly things like "Thanks for being the best person in the whole world" and "I love you even though you don't close your dresser drawers" and "I want to ride with you in a boat and feed dolphins." But one of them was an actual proposal--Yikes! I didn't know where they were, but I hope she said yes for awkwardness sake.

They did most of my favorites: The Curse, Girl in the War, Harrisburg, but they did not play Another New World. I heard some that I haven't heard before (I do not have all his albums) but the ones I didn't hear before were all so good, now I want to get those. That's what happened last time I saw him in concert: I went home and bought the songs I liked.

Okay, I have to tell you about the funny part now. So at the very end, there was supposed to be this big deal song where Josh calls out Scott, the opener, and they sing together, but for some reason, Scott isn't coming out. Josh is calling for him, and it's getting awkward, so he sings a different song. When he finishes, Scott comes out on stage and they sing their song. What we all notice part way through the first verse is that Scott is hammered. I don't mean just a little tipsy. Totally plastered, and it was the funniest thing. You can see Josh trying not to lose his composure. I'm 95% sure this wasn't faked. If you want to see a clip, it's at the end of the video below. And then when Josh and the band are doing the big encore song, Scott runs out on stage part way through, grabs a drumstick and starts hitting a symbol. The drummer and the other band members had to hold up their hands to stop him from hitting it when he wasn't supposed to. It was pretty hilarious.

Here is some footage I shot. Please watch. It starts with Rainn and ends with Scott.

Josh Joplin Concert

2011-02-12T01:27:00.007-06:00

He's still got it. I honestly think this is the best Josh Joplin concert I've seen yet. I was skeptical because the venue is low-energy--a sit down at tables kind of venue, but the show definitely did not lack energy, even without a band backing him up.

What I liked most was the selection. The show started with two new songs I've never heard before, moved to some old Josh Joplin hits, one Among the Oak and Ash song, and then a REALLY old song. I simply could not believe that he played Talkin' Folksinger's Blues. I only ever heard that song on his Early Years CD.

But let me back up and tell you about the opener, David Mayfield (pictured: the guy with the beard) (click here for music video). Again, I was skeptical because I thought it would be too country. I like folk, but I really don't like country. However, he was teriffic. Crazy-good guitar skills! I have never seen anyone play a guitar by changing the tuning pegs instead of putting down fingers on the frets. He also put on this extremely awkward persona, so even though he'd 'let down his hair' while he was playing, when it was time for him to talk, he was hilariously awkward. For his last song, he starts singing "The sandy...no, that's not it." (Which, if you're not familiar with Josh Joplin's music, his most famous song "Camera One" starts with "The sandy haired son of Hollywood...")

David Mayfield played with Josh on pretty much all the songs--they're good friends as well as fellow musicians. They did a more rocking version of One Becomes Two. He hit pretty much all the favorites: Camera One, Dutch Wonderland, Gravity, Here I Am, I've Changed. His Cowboy was very cool: "You've got a hip hop thing happening there," David Mayfield said.

We also got the backstory on some of these songs. Nine years of listening to some of this music, I'm not sure I wanted to know that Cowboy was written while watching Baywatch. But the story about how Josh tried to wrestle his brother when he was little by diving off the bunk bed and breaking "lots" of ribs was priceless.

There were some people in the audience who responded to some of Josh's comments loudly, and Josh kept turning to David and going "Uh oh, it's getting interactive again." Also, it was funny that there was a very slow wardrobe change throughout the show. If you look through all my photos, you'll see that Josh starts with glasses, a hat, and scarf. And piece by piece, he would lose items one way or another until he had none of them left.

It sounds like there's a forthcoming Among the Oak and Ash CD, and maybe even a Josh Joplin CD, so I look forward to those.

Here is some footage I shot of the event. There are several excerpts. Please watch!

Podcasting and Music and STUFF

2011-02-08T21:43:00.006-06:00

Lindsey and I recorded our very first interview for our podcast. Considering I'd spent the morning in a panic because my computer decided to just stop talking to the wireless router for the first time on the morning of our first recorded Skype interview, I thought the interview went really well. Lee Camp had some great stories about cliff diving and giant spiders and more, but you'll just have to wait until the episode comes out. I think Lindsey and I will become better hosts/interviewers as time goes on. We're recording the second half of the episode, with Luke and Nicole, later this month. We're still looking for some more drawers and animators, though I do have three other people contributing now. I also did a call out to any musicians who want to submit theme song, ending credit song, segment jingles, and background music.

Other podcast news:
Lindsey is setting up our Kickstarter page, so soon you will be able to donate money to us and get "fabulous" prizes. If you have suggestions of fun things we could give away to our donors, please let me know. We're still brainstorming!

I downloaded an MP4 converter, which means we should be able to get our show on iTunes for only $15/month (this is why we need donors, by the way). You do not know how thrilled I am that we do not have to upload gigantic AVI files and pay a fortune.

T-shirts and stuff. A variety of Plain Ketchup STUFF is available for purchase on our CafePress site. However, Lindsey and I are looking into cheaper alternatives to order stuff in bulk so we can give our donors, volunteers, and special guests fun things like t-shirts. I have just ordered one from Vistaprint, and I will assess the quality when it arrives.

Widescreen. Podcast is goin' widescreen, my friends. This means a small retooling of the website since I didn't design it to be wide enough to fit widescreen videos. But this does mean that we can make a full magazine spread in a 720x405 screensize. Being a MagCast, this is important.

I am also creating a drawing tutorial for anyone who wishes to submit artwork to us. Watch the progress here.

If you visit our Bios page on the website (plainketchuppodcast.com), you will see that I've cut our character intro (auditions) animation into parts to serve as cast bios.

We are also looking into both Google Adsense and Google Adwords.

Also, it's pretty much agreed I have the coolest family ever:

Auditions and Speech

2011-02-06T09:31:00.003-06:00

Brand new animation! I would post it here, but YouTube has a new embedding code called an iFrame and everytime I try to post it here, the internet browser shuts down. Sooooo....you'll just have to go to the link.

Also, I saw the King's Speech finally. I was skeptical because of all the hype, and I'd be the first to tell you if it wasn't worth all the buzz, but I actually really liked it. Whether it's the best picture of th year, I don't know, but the cinematography was BRILLIANT. It's such a beautiful movie, totally worth seeing in the theatre. Also, the acting was great. I don't have anything against Helen Bonham Carter, I've always liked Colin Firth's roles, and I simply love Geoffrey Rush in all his movies. Oscars all around. Speaking of Oscars, if this film wins best picture, that's two years in a row for Guy Pearce, isn't it?

Showtune Showcase

2011-01-31T21:39:00.010-06:00

One of my authors (left) was showcasing the songs that he wrote/composed in NYC tonight. Singing the songs to his accompaniment was a cast of talented performers including Mark Linn Baker--yeah the curly haired one from Perfect Strangers (below on the left)--who sang a song based on a word that someone auctioned the song to be about. That word? Defenestration: The act of propelling oneself out a window. What luck! This is one of my favorite words. When I go to improv shows, I always make sure I have words to say in case the actors ask me for a theme. Those two words are always defenestration and ladle.

This was such an amazing show. It didn't even matter if you hadn't seen the plays because you pick it up from the context in the songs. Some gave me shivers and some were hilarious. And Birdland's food is excellent as always. Thumbs up across the board.

Plain Ketchup

2011-01-29T22:26:00.002-06:00

I've been animating our 10-minute character introductions for Plain Ketchup, our podcast. It's pretty funny. It's basically American Idol for standup comedians, and we are all terribly unfunny.

Have you seen the new update? We have a e-store on Cafepress.com! You can buy shirts, bags, etc. with our logo on it here.

Also, are you following us on Twitter? You don't have to have a Twitter account to read our tweets. You just have to go to http://twitter.com/plainketchup

Georgia on my mind

2011-01-26T19:22:00.003-06:00

Today it was decided I am going to go to Atlanta for the first week in March. Actually it was decided a long time ago, but I somehow didn't get the memo. But that's exciting! I'm a big fan of traveling, especially to places I haven't been.

Also, I've been watching Russian movies lately. I really don't know why. So far, my favorite is The Irony of Fate, The Sequel, which is directed by Timur Bekmambetov. He is now officially on my list of favorite directors. I didn't even know this was his movie. I just started watching it and I was like "Hey, I recognize this style!" I'm not a fan of rom com, but I was laughing out loud at this one. This guy breaks into this woman's apartment and when she comes home, he pretends he's drunk and got there by accident. Actually, I'm not really sure that's true. His father's friends got him drunk on purpose so that he would wind up accidentally in this apartment, and his first act is to use pepper spray as deodorant. You can watch it on YouTube here.

New podcast animation is coming along. Very funny. And I'm collecting artists and animators to help. Any good drawers want to be part of the ketchup team?

Weekend January

2011-01-23T17:55:00.003-06:00

Had a super weekend. Went to the Met Museum of Art with a friend and looked at photos and instruments (no balalaika, what?). Ran into some people I'd seen a couple days before which is a ridiculous coincedence considering the size of this city and the minute number of people I actually know. A friend came to town causing me to meet lots of people I'd never met before. I videoed his keynote speech at the writers digest conference (see left), and I may be appearing in his web series...thing. I also put some art on my wall (see below) that I found online.

Also, Michael Palascak who said he'd guest star on our podcast was on Letterman this week (See below). Plain Ketchup now has a Cafe Press where you can buy stuff with our logo on it. Yay. Oh, and Idiot Abroad premiered in the States on the Science Channel--funny stuff.

Golden Globes

2011-01-21T22:13:00.003-06:00

A lot of press is fake, but man, does the press about the Golden Globes really hammer it home. They are lying through their teeth to say they are shocked at how Ricky Gervais did not take the awards ceremony seriously enough. The only reason they hired him is because they knew he'd be offensive, and he's been announcing for months that he planned to be more offensive than last year. I admit, I was expecting it to be MUCH more offensive. I've seen his standup (Carnegie Hall!), I know what he's capable of, so the fact that the press is pretending like the HFPA and celebrities are in a huff about it is a terribly poor lie. They did the same thing last year, said that McCartney was upset when he wasn't. He's not actually in trouble--it just makes for a more interesting story, and maybe the HFPA like that because it gets them press and separates the offensive things said from themselves, even though they hired him knowingly.

I liked Colin Firth's speech, but Geoffrey Rush should have won an award :(

New Years Special - Plain Ketchup

2011-01-16T22:01:00.002-06:00

It took two weeks to animate this. I hope you enjoy it.

Comedy

2011-01-15T23:03:00.003-06:00

1. I've realized that an animated podcast really is the perfect medium. Today I rememberd when all the students at NYU were required to invent a magazine. I thought up one that was about comedy--interviews with comedians about their craft, etc. (okay, much like Punchline, the online magazine). My idea didn't get picked and nothing became of it. Then I read What The Bleep Do We Know, which has nothing to do with comedy, but is laid out in a really cool way, and I thought it would be cool to do a book on comedy with all the sidebars and stuff like this book. But now I see that you can interview someone, keep the actual audio of the interview, and make it more fun to watch than just a documentary. The only thing is animation takes a really long time, so I am now trying to recruit animators and drawers to do a little here and there to help get the episodes out faster.

2. I started reading a book called Satiristas, which is a book of interviews with comedians about comedy. It's so good! Each interview is only a couple pages long, so you never get tired of a subject. I've only read about four interviews so far, but it's really fascinating stuff, even if I don't know who the comedian is.

3. I went to a comedy show today--not a standup or improv show. It was scripted, and there was a little audience involvement. It's called "The Annihilation Point." It was a corny sci-fi spoof. They basically take all the twists in all the sci-fi movies and combine it into an hour and a half long story. It was much better written than I expected. I could tell you some jokes, but most of it is in the delivery. Here's my favorite though:

Person 1: Explain a time paradox to our audience.
Person 2: Okay. It's like...say I have this red notebook. If I go back in time and paint the notebook blue, then what color would this notebook be?
Person 1: Blue.
Person 2: No!!! Purple!

There is some footage online. I think it's 2 years old. But it is the same actors:

Meat in my Teeth

2011-01-11T21:59:00.002-06:00

I don't think I've posted this on my blog yet. Please make this video go viral. Cheers.

Things I watched today

2011-01-09T21:44:00.002-06:00

1. Looking for Ms. Locklear
This is Rhett and Link's independent film/documentary. I hadn't seen it yet because it costs like $15 bucks. But now it's available as a rental for $2 from YouTube. I hadn't heard of rentals on YouTube before. It makes me nervous. It's fine for now because the things that are going up are going to be things that wouldn't have gone on YouTube anyway, like this film. But watch that slippery slope. Either YouTube will start making us pay for a little more inch by inch or people will realize that they can make money by charging people for their YouTube content. And then no more good free videos.

But the movie was really heartwarming. R&L meet a lot of interesting (and weird) people on their quest to find their first grade teacher. They end up getting involved in a political movement on their journey.

2. Ricky Gervais Show season 2 episode 1
You can watch it here:

This episode includes Karl's movie pitch which is hilarious. And someone has actually put together a real trailer for it:

3. Splice
I saw this when it first came out, but I got it on DVD. They had a special director behind the scenes bonus feature, which I liked because Vincenzo Natali is my favorite director. But no commentary? There are so many undertones to the movie, I hope they don't get lost on people.

Twitter

2011-01-09T19:02:00.002-06:00

Please follow Plain Ketchup on Twitter. I'm going to try and stick in a lot of funny one-liners that I (and Lindsey) can come up with.

http://twitter.com/plainketchup

.

Actor Pete Postlethwaite (1946-2011)

2011-01-05T17:58:00.003-06:00

I have to say that I was still holding onto the dream that Pete Postlethwaite would be Sam Vimes someday. (Sam Vimes is my all time favorite fictional character.) Terry Pratchett, creator of Sam Vimes, said that even though the Discworld artist Paul Kidby depicts Vimes like a Clint Eastwood, he always imagined him as a Pete Postlethwaite, which I'm sure is what inspired the illustrator for Pratchett's kids book, Where's My Cow (see below).

Speilberg said he was the best actor in the world. Inception will be much sadder now.

Winter Break

2011-01-04T19:34:00.004-06:00

Actually, yes you can still have Winter Break even when you are out of school...if there is a blizzard and all the flights are cancelled. I went home for Christmas and ended up staying a week longer than intended. It actually worked out though because I got to have Christmas on Christmas, New Years on Christmas Eve, second Christmas on New Years Day, record a podcast, and watch 26 hours of Lost with my brother.

Meanwhile, Lindsey and I are plotting to take over the world with our possible new LLC.

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T16:30:00.001-06:00

Happy Christmas

2010-12-24T07:22:00.001-06:00

39 Degrees North: Christmas Card 2010 from 39 Degrees North on Vimeo.

WNJS clip of episode 3

2010-12-23T08:20:00.002-06:00

So, we have an entire episode 3 of We're NOT John Stamos recorded, but I don't know when I'm going to get around to animating it since we're working so hard on the new stuff. You've seen part one of episode 3. This is what I've animated so far of part 2. It's the funniest part anyway. Most of it is still with no animation software, but you can probably see the parts where I started testing the new software out. Enjoy!

PS. We've got two things in the works before episode one comes out: A New Years Resolutions teaser, and a character introduction piece, the latter being recorded this holiday weekend LIVE. The former already recorded via Skype.

Comedy Writing and Animating

2010-12-20T07:44:00.002-06:00

I felt kind of bad that I'm not really working on a writing project at the moment. I'd go to the NJ writers group and they'd be like, "What are you working on now?" and I'd be like, "Uh, nothing. I'm taking a break to work on my podcast," which is kind of blasphemy, and I understand that because writing is really the most important thing to me out of all my projects. But I realized something last night. Now that Lindsey and I have decided to script all of our podcast episodes (except the features where we interview celebrities (which ones? Here, here, and here)), I realized that we are now officially comedy writers. We are writing comedy for broadcast. How cool is that? I wrote what I thought was a funny 5-minute piece about my New Years Resolutions (I have to do a playback to see if it actually is funny). And now we are going to write character intros, which I hope is funny. These guys here did an awesome job at introducing the characters on their podcast.

Also, I have animated a rough version of our new intro. Some of it needs to be tightened because parts are really slow and some too fast. The default has that motion blur on it, but I didn't realize it until I got to the last shot where I turned it off. I don't really like the blur--I think I will keep it off from now on. We will be auditioning for music to go behind it. Also, we have like 49 fans on Facebook already and we hardly know any of them. Very cool.

We're not Not John Stamos (Exciting Podcast News!)

2010-12-12T14:50:00.005-06:00

Lindsey and I are armed to the teeth with new podcast goodies! We've revamped the show for 2011 and given it a new name: Plain Ketchup (We're just plain saucy). And we have

a new website !!! plainketchuppodcast.com
a Facebook Fan Page !!!
a Twitter account !!!
a YouTube channel !!!
a Vimeo channel !!!
a monthly e-newsletter !!!

All we need now is the blog (which will be supplied by Libsyn once we start paying them), a Kickstarter page for donations (which Lindsey is handling this week), and...umm, episodes. But the episodes are going to be fantastic because

1. We have a cool new structure--it's like a magazine without all that hard reading stuff.
2. I have new animation software that makes things look a little smoother (and takes less time to make).
3. We are having special guests! I've already gotten a yes from one of my absolute favorite comedians, my all-time favorite singer/songwriter, and I'm querying a comedian who Lindsey and I are both huge fans of very soon. We have a list of other potential guest stars, but we might hold off until we have episode 1 up so that they have something to see before deciding yes or no.

Goals: Raise enough money on Kickstarter to afford the web-space to be on iTunes, and sell schwag on CafePress.

Also, we're taking applications for regulars on the show at jaimeandlindsey@gmail.com. We're also looking for a theme song, and any volunteer collaborators are much appreciated.

So, please like us, follow us, subscribe to us, join us, bookmark us, digg us, stalk us, whatever it is you kids do. Spread the Ketchup! (Ooo, I just made that up, that was good.)

TV teasers

2010-12-11T22:39:00.003-06:00

Dirk Gently trailer...

A scene...

Doctor Who Christmas Special trailer...

Writer Events

2010-12-10T18:13:00.005-06:00

The ironic thing is that when you do anything worth blogging about, you don't have time to blog because you're doing those exciting things. Been very busy lately.

Here are pictures of author events this week. One author asked trivia questions and the winners get to accompany him to a Broadway or off-Broadway show. The other author screened a hilariously terrible Christmas movie (a 50 year old Mexican film about Santa and Merlin vs. Satan called "Santa Claus") which you can watch on YouTube:

I also led a free workshop on social media for writers at the local library this week. It went really well. I think I inspired some people to take the next step in their internet marketing. People asked a lot of great questions, and you can download the workshop presentation here.

Pictures and podcasts and complaining

2010-12-05T09:37:00.003-06:00

1. I bought some art for my room. Look at this ridiculous goat with his tongue out. I'm going to laugh every time I look at it. [link]

I also bought a few of these because I think they're really really cool.

2. I am so over the Montclair bus system. Third time now that I've gone to catch a bus in the cold or rain and it just never came. I'm not an idiot--I can read a bus schedule, and the NJ Transit site says the same thing as Google Maps, but the buses just don't come, and I keep missing church. So this morning was a lovely walk,stand,walk in the cold to no avail and getting locked out of the apartment because Fed Ex said they left a package at the front door, which they didn't, and the door closed behind me, and thank god my upstairs neighbor was home because I had no coat, phone, wallet, or keys. Curse you too Fed Ex.

3. Very very very exciting news with the podcast. It's starting to take shape. It's going to have a new name because we don't want to be sued by John Stamos' people (turns out even celebrities names are legally protected). And we're collecting applications for some more regulars. We'll still have special guests, of course. There's going to be a website, blog, new Facebook page, maybe a Twitter, new YouTube, new Vimeo, e-newsletter, the works. Now we just have to think of a name.

Work videos

2010-12-01T18:22:00.002-06:00

Imagine my surprise when sifting through all the publicity hits at work to find that one of the reviews used MY video for their online magazine. Here's the review with the video. So my video shot up to 133 views, which still isn't much, obviously, but it's better than what it had been. Too bad the quality of the footage is so bad.

Also, here's a recent piece of work I shot and edited. One of our authors' book signing:

Melissa's CD Launch

2010-11-29T18:55:00.006-06:00

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.

Elling

2010-11-27T23:14:00.003-06:00

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 Fraser at 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'Hare was 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.

Dirk Gently - the movie (well, TV movie)

2010-11-22T19:37:00.003-06:00

Oh my God, I've been waiting ten years for this.

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.

Kate Nash

2010-11-20T22:47:00.005-06:00

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!

More photos on Facebook.

This is my video, so you should watch it. It's only 2 and a half minutes long:

24

2010-11-20T16:28:00.002-06:00

Happy brithday: Here's a book review.

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.

Kate Nash concert tonight. More on that later.

Abusing my right to blog in order to show YouTube clips

2010-11-16T18:55:00.002-06:00

I was watching Castle last night and I could have *died* laughing at this part:

I like Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. But seeing them together is hilarious. (Suggested by the Approval Matrix in NY Magazine) From The Trip

The Curse by Josh Ritter...with puppets

The Comic Strip

2010-11-15T19:25:00.005-06:00

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.

Vlog => TV?

2010-11-11T19:53:00.003-06:00

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.

It's a jungle out there

2010-11-08T19:47:00.017-06:00

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.

Bobby gave 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?

At AES, there's no line in the women's restroom.

MORE PHOTOS CLICK HERE

Just for fun, here's my favorite travel story. I think Jaeger showed this to me. I promise you'll laugh your pants off.

2010-11-02T21:42:00.003-05:00

1. I am an alum. Look.

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.

If you have been...

2010-10-31T13:48:00.002-05:00

The new Car Pool looks really cool.

Also. Doctor Who 2011 airs April 17th 9pm (EST) on BBC America. The Christmas special is obviously around Christmas though. Neil Gaiman's writing an episode. Mark Sheppard's starring in 2 episodes. Should be good. Don't know about Torchwood?

a couple quick things

2010-10-27T21:31:00.002-05:00

1. Did a podcast test with Lindsey and Nicole. The outcome: it is possible to record using Skype and calling a landline or cellphone at the same time. It does cut in and out sometimes, which is going to be a hurdle.

2. I'm happy to hear that there will be one final episode of Robin Ince's Utter Shambles before the series is over--a special Halloween one. I so love the podcast as an art form. I'm going to start watching or at least listening to Robert Lewellyn's Car Pool again. I have a lot of catching up to do.

3. I accidentally kicked a rat today and it squeaked just like the toy ones.

Utter Shambles season recap/review

2010-10-24T10:17:00.003-05:00

Alas, it appears season 3 of Robin Ince and Josie Long's podcast has come to an end. I thought it was a bit slow to start this season but it really picked up and became fascinating and hilarious. I hope they do more. Some highlights...

Ed Byrne was on Robin Ince and Josie Long's Utter Shambles week 2, which is brilliant because Ed Byrne is always great. Here is a photo of the three of them with Robin looking particularly gloomy.

Episode 5 was pretty great because they talk about Douglas Adams and Doctor Who and Douglas Adams writing Doctor Who.

I also really like Episode 7 because Jon Ronson's 12-year-old son gets to partake in the conversation and he sounds really intelligent, but it's also nice because when they reference people who lived in the 30's, they stop to explain who these people are to the son, which is helpful for me knowing what's going on as well. Plus they talk about which celebrity would they keep a secret for, which is a great game. Can I steal it? Also Jon Ronson (Men Who Stare At Goats) talks about this interesting article and documentary he did about false memories. I'm not talking about blocking memories but actually remembering things that didn't happen. Also, Jon Ronson was on Car Pool and talks about how Men Who Stare At Goats is based on a true story that happened to him. Now I want to see the movie. Did you know the military tried to splice the DNA of goats and spiders?

And my new favorite thing from Josie (with Robin doing some of the voices).

Here is the Alan Moore clip I was telling you about last time I talked about this podcast:

Danny Kaye

2010-10-23T19:05:00.002-05:00

About a year ago, I blogged about a play I wanted to go to called Danny and Sylvia, the story about the early years of Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine. I waited too long and the play was gone, and I regretted not going. The play was back again this year and I made a point of it not to miss out on it this year. Today I went to see it with a friend from church. It was completely worth it.

First off, I was supposed to meet my friend at 4pm and she didn't have a cell phone with her, so when my train got delayed by half an hour, I couldn't contact her. I was on the train pulling out my hair, which was fine because everyone else around me was gritting their teeth and making faces too. Thankfully I had a book with me to help distract me. So one second I'd be snarling at the invisible conductor telling us it's all because of a stupid football game and the next minute trying to stifle laughing at Robin Ince's Bad Book Club. But more on that when I do my book review of it. Luckily, we were able to meet up and were not late for the show.

We had front row seats in a very intimate theatre, St. Luke's, so we were just a couple feet away from the actors. Except the point where we were inches from Brian Childers when he got off the stage and sat in the lap of the lady two seats to my right. It was part of a number where we as the audience were playing the role of the audience at a night club Danny was performing at. He is singing and flirting with this old lady (the average age of the audience was like 85) and he turns to her husband and pushes him aside and says "Get out of here." It was hilarious.

Basically the show is the history of how Danny and Sylvia met and their relationship as a couple and in business, with the emphasis on the business. It was really interesting because I watched this documentary (seebottom of post) the other day and it has this very glamorous depiction of Danny's life and his marriage. But the play shows how much they argued, how uncomfortable Danny was with Sylvia running his whole career, and how he wasn't even sure he was in love. When she decided they were going to get married, he ran away and hid in a hotel room for three days before calling and telling her he couldn't live without her. He was extremely hesitant about the whole thing though. He also did the London Palladium without her, which really made her mad and almost broke up the relationship, but he wanted to prove that he could do something on his own and that some of the credit for his success was his own. I am assuming the creators the play did their research. I don't know how much was fictionalized.

The play was a combination of songs written for the play--it wasn't just a guy pretending to be Danny Kaye and sing all his songs, it was an actual story--and classic Danny Kaye songs. For one song, he even encouraged the audience to sing along because people knew it, and they sang along. The play begins with The Maladjusted Jester, my favorite song! And then he quickly recaps the pellet with the poison. He does an impressive Tchaikovsky, Ballin' the Jack, and ends with an amazing rendition of Minnie the Moocher.

Brian Childers plays Danny Kaye. Overall, he was pretty good. His voice doesn't sound like Danny's to no fault of his own, but occassionally it sounds exactly right. And he definitely definitely nailed the accent. Oh and that classic Danny Kaye laugh! The hair was a really obvious wig which distracted me, but maybe it's because I was so close to the stage. There was some dancing, but he had to wear suitcoats the whole time and he was sweating enough as it was, so it's probably good they didn't have him do too much. His singing was great--not exactly like Danny Kaye, but close.

Kimberly Faye Greenberg plays Sylvia Fine. Aparently she was in the TV show Buffy, but we don't know as who. I don't know what Sylvia was like, but the acting and singing was good. And she definitely comes across as headstrong and brilliant.

Funny thing I learned:
Danny Kaye (Kaminsky) worked briefly for Sylvia's father and drilled holes in the wall with the dentist drill and her father always talked about that mess to people, so when they first met at an audition, she recognized his name.

Oh, and if you want to watch a Danny Kaye film, take your pick. They're all here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Huilifoj

Today and forward

2010-10-18T18:50:00.003-05:00

Look what I made today.

And here's a short story.

I am going to California in November. I've never been to California before. Adventure!

I'm seeing Danny Kaye this weekend. Okay, so Danny Kaye's dead. But I am seeing Brian Childers.

Speaking of plays, I just got this thing in the mail for 45% off Elling on Broadway, which is coming to NY in November starring Brendan Fraser. Waitaminute. I'm not on anybody's mailing list. Who knows that I like Elling? Is somebody up to something? Anyway, go rent the movie.

In November, I am also seeing Kate Nash and going to a social media for authors class. On the same day.

Just things to look forward to.

Going Places

2010-10-13T19:43:00.006-05:00

Melissa's CD has arrived in the mail!
Going Places is Melissa Clampffer's debut album. She has that deadly combination of being an awesome songwriter, awesome singer, and awesome pianist. Definitely check her CD out.
You can buy it on DigStation now,
and very soon on CDBaby and iTunes, I believe. And if you don't trust me, just listen to "Please Come Home" on her MySpace page. Then you will want the whole album.

Oh, did I mention that I did the album art? I did the front cover, the back cover, the CD itself, and the thank you page.

Melissa also has a new website that's just getting off the ground at http://www.melissaclampffer.com/.

I'm excited to go to her CD launch in Philly. She's super talented, and I just love these songs!

I have also created a Facebook Fan Page for her, so check that out for some fun stuff.

I also made this promo vid:

Book Launch in a Bar

2010-10-13T19:34:00.006-05:00

Last night, we had a book launch for one of our authors Keith. It was in a bar on the lower East side of Manhattan. Loads of people came. They had Beatles playing on the radio and A Hard Day's Night playing on the screens. It's a Beatle themed book, obviously. They sold out of all their books. All in all an A+ success.

Keith's sister Lori took some photos: (left) Keith signing copies of his book. (below) Mike (on the right) one of my co-workers and the editor of this book enjoying himself at the party.

Podcast Episode 3 Part 1

2010-10-12T21:12:00.002-05:00

Episode 3 part 1 of The We're NOT John Stamos Podcast is up now. This is not using the new animation software yet. I did get some free music from Lindsey though.

If for some reason you're not getting sound on the embedded video below, here is a direct link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFhVuXdWfMk

Small things

2010-10-09T08:30:00.006-05:00

I'm excited to be going to Philly at the end of November to attend Melissa's CD launch concert. More about that when I get the CD in the mail.

Currently: Animating episode 3 of the podcast and editing my novel from last year's NaNoWriMo.

Book launch party on Tuesday. Looking forward to it.

There seems to be a real life Burbank with a Baedeker going on over here. As you see, the fan page seems to be by Josh Joplin, but some posts are by Mr. Henry. Can I have my idea back? EXAMPLE POST:

Josh Joplin i can't do the self checkout lines anymore! i refuse to check my self out! -- Mr. Henry
August 5 at 2:40am · Comment · Like · View Feedback (10)Hide Feedback (10)
Jon Van Order, Lidia Hasenauer and 2 others like this..

Josh Joplin What are talking about? You don't even shop for yourself. you have poor mrs. himmelman pick up all your "essentials" - which by the way adds up to a weeks worth of groceries.
August 5 at 3:08pm · .

Edward Hodgins Mr. Henry does have a point though, in the past didn't stores pay cashiers to scan and bag groceries? Now we are expected to scan and bag on our own? Where is that money going? I have not noticed any price drops. Another thing...does the laundry detergent go in with the ice cream or the bags of cereal?
August 5 at 4:52pm · .

Tim Pendergast I perfer to use the self checkout. I'm better at it than of most of the cashiers and I can actually put more than one item in a bag.
August 5 at 6:43pm · .

Victoria Lange Cameron It totally depends on how long the cashier lines are.....
August 5 at 7:47pm · .

Josh Joplin Once again, Josh you have it all wrong: Mrs. Himmelman does only get me the new essentials: eggs, milk, sugar, coffee, bagels, a few chops, tuna, some deli meats soda and seltzer, fruit, vegetables, orange juice, and few other odds and ends... and i've already told you this but 80 is the new 60! --Mr. Henry
August 6 at 9:34am · .

Lidia Hasenauer Does Mrs. Himmelman deliver on the west coast?
August 6 at 10:00pm · .

Birdland

2010-10-05T17:43:00.004-05:00

Last night was Cast Party at Birdland, which is a Broadway-themed open mic night. This happens every Monday night, but last night was the only night they'd be promoting a book that I'm the publicist for. The guy who wrote the foreword, who coincedentally is also one of my authors, gave out some books to people who answered trivia questions correctly. Also, the performances were amazing! Everything from hits like Singin' in the Rain and Georgia on my Mind to lesser known comedic numbers. One guy even played the violin and piano at the same time--outstanding. And then there was one woman who I can't even describe properly, so I took some video for you (below). She played the piano well. But the only lyrics to the song she wrote were "Calamity Jane" over and over for ten minutes before the host had to cut her off. It was the strangest thing and I couldn't help but laugh myself to tears. But almost every single person who performed is a star--either on Broadway or Off-Broadway or even Australian TV. Including the actor who currently plays Lurch in the Addams Family on Broadway. Such amazing talent. Everyone had a really great time.

Here's some photos.

Idiot Abroad - now playing

2010-10-03T16:39:00.002-05:00

We're two weeks into An Idiot Abroad. It is at least as funny as I would hope it would be, and I did have high expectations. The best bit in episode one is Karl eating a toad and trying not to puke. India's a good episode too. It's all on YouTube.

My YouTube Account

2010-10-02T10:21:00.002-05:00

I now have 76 videos uploaded to my YouTube account. The most popular with 26 comments and 12,422 hits (?!) is Holloway Road. I'm not sure why, but it gets massive traffic.

I think I may start a separate account for the podcast once we start getting some guests on. I have one special guest already agreeing to do it, which I'm very excited about. And Lindsey and I think we've got this Skype thing figured out, though the quality's not perfect. And I'm starting to get a hang of the animation software, but I'm terrified they're going to charge me twice because instead of letting the 30-day-trial run out, I just went online and bought it and it said if you don't call to cancel your trial, they'll charge your card and you get to keep it. I can't seem to get into contact with customer service, so they'd better have canceled my trial. Anyway, tangent.

Also, just uploaded a new video to my YouTube account here:

The Mythical Shoe Has Arrived

2010-09-30T22:13:00.002-05:00

You can stick your finger up the bottom of my Chucks and touch my sock, so I decided to buy new shoes. And what shoes did I buy? Mythical shoes, of course! They come with a guitar pick--who can resist? The first 5 hours were extreme comfort, but then the back started pushing on my Archilles tendon, so I need to get one of those things that pushes your heel forward.

Week with Jenny & Melissa

2010-09-26T13:12:00.004-05:00

Jenny and Melissa came up from SC to visit for the week. We had a ton of fun. Yeah, there was a lot of transit mishaps, but everything else was great.

They were supposed to fly into NYC and get to my place by 11:30pm on Wednesday, but because of a plane delay, the subway running really slow, and the conductor telling them the wrong train to get on, they didn't arrive to my place until 3am (1 plane, 2 taxis, 2 subways, and 2 trains later).

I had to work on Thursday and Friday while they explored the city, but Friday night, we were able to go to the open house at my work where they had a thousand people from the city looking at our new green building. There was free food, artwork, and live jazz with a 9-year-old drummer. All very suave and rich, but it was fun. Then we went out for frozen yogurt and watched Hot Fuzz.

Saturday, after checking out the farmer's market in Union Square, we went to a Broadway Musical called In the Heights with Jordin Sparks (solo clip of her in the musical) from American Idol. The story was okay, but the singing and dancing was great. Very talented people. We all really enjoyed it.

We went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and went downtown to the Laugh Lounge for some live comedy. The MC and the first comedian were starting out pretty rough, but Lee Camp was hilarious as always. We had to leave early to catch the 11:11 train back to NJ, but the F train was unexpectedly down, so we ended up missing the train and having to take the 1:20 train. So we got back around 2am and had to get up at 5:30am so they could catch their cab to LaGuardia. Transportation was just bad this week. But everything else we did was tons of fun.

Podcast news

2010-09-22T19:47:00.004-05:00

I need to tell you some new things regarding the We're NOT John Stamos podcast. Lindsey and I have been chatting a lot and we're ready to make this thing bigger. We had our first three episodes, but now we're readying to increase quality by me getting better animation software and by inviting guest stars.

Software
I tried Flash and after an hour, I couldn't get the green ball to move across the screen. I tried Anime Studio and in half an hour, I got a cartoon girl to dance around my screen. I think I'm going to buy this one.

Guests
We'll try to get some guests of funny people that we know to start off with in while we're working out the kinks of our program. Then we're going to up it to YouTube stars and comedians. Maybe even other people like musical guests--who knows. I wrote a nifty press release. Lindsey and I are compiling lists of guests as we speak. Assuming Luke and Nicole are still game, it will probably be the four of us plus a guest.

Skype
The problem is that the four of us are scattered across three cities, so we'll need to use Skype. Who knows a cheap way to record Skype conversations? We also have to make sure that all of our computers have decent enough microphones or else it will sound bad. This also means that our guests will need good mics on their computers. I wonder if I should buy a cheap but decent Skype mic/headset to UPS to our guests to borrow and then ship back. These are all things we have to work out before letting any special guests on the show.

Social Media
We're on Facebook: www.facebook.com/werenotjohn
We're on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/channels/werenotjohn
We're online: http://werenotjohn.blogspot.com/

I'm trying to get it on iTunes but it seems...complicated

In the days ahead

2010-09-22T19:44:00.003-05:00

So excited for this week which will include a Broadway play, a stand-up comedy show with my favorite comedian, an open house thing at work, and most of all Jenny!

But as I sit here, her plane's been delayed for an hour because of rain and a crazy person they had to force off the plane. I told Jenny I'd turn off my interdimentional bubble so that I could occupy the same space and time as the rest of the world to make it easier to find me, and it worked! A minute later, the storm left and they re-boarded the plane. Not kidding! Yay.

Things that made me laugh this week

2010-09-20T20:08:00.002-05:00

1. Dad's latest YouTube creation

2. Diaolog in church:
Pastor: What are some other planets in our solar system?
Kid 1: Jupiter!
Kid 2: Mars!
Kid 3: California!

3. I feel really terrible for laughing at this. I know it's wrong. But the similarity between these two photos, especially with Ricky wearing sun glasses. I'd post a link to Ricky Gervais's blog here, but he doesn't have individual posts (someone needs a lesson in social media). He was annoyed that the media caught him and Karl out for a walk, but when he saw the picture, he couldn't believe his luck. Here's the photo they took. And here's another photo Ricky posted.

4. On a similar note, Karl Pilkington and Warwick Davis in a room together in this video.

5. Robin Ince's new blog.

6. Walter on Fringe. I haven't really gotten into Fringe yet. I'm trying. I think I'm a bit spoiled by Torchwood and all those spooky investigative kids shows I used to watch. But Walter makes me laugh.

7. The Wal-Mart Song by Rhett and Link

Podcast trailer

2010-09-17T23:00:00.001-05:00

I made a trailer for The We're NOT John Stamos Podcast so we can get some guest stars. It's basically a few clips of episodes one and two. There's a Facebook Fan Page, website, and I'm thinking about using the Vimeo community and iTunes.

Also

2010-09-14T20:29:00.003-05:00

This video is backward. Way to go, Rhett and Link. That is awesome.

Also, Lindsey has a new blog. Link in the doobly-doo (sidebar, for those of you who don't speak nerd).

Also, I read some excerpts of Burbank with a Baedeker at open mic night.

Also, Lindsey and I had an exec meeting about the podcast and want to invite celebrity YouTubers and other generally awesome people to guest-star on our show. But we need to look credible, so "like" us on Facebook. Also, I want to download the 30-day trial period for Flash to see if it is worth buying. This might make my animation process go faster and maybe even suck slightly less.

Also, I just booked a killer book event for October 4th at Birdland. Quiz night is going to be encorporated into Cast Party, which is a Broadway themed open mic night. If you're in New York, check it out.

Weekend with Melissa

2010-09-12T20:15:00.005-05:00

What a super weekend! Melissa came to visit from Philadelphia and we spent most of the weekend playing in the city. We went to some markets, had goats milk ice cream, I got my own private concert of Melissa's songs when we went into Guitar Center (I will tell you all about her CD and my involvement in it when it is on sale), we got free dinner for finding a roach in the pasta (we should have told the waitress we didn't want the full New York Experience), and went to see Let's Have a Ball at the Upright Citizens Brigade. These guys were so hilarious. And one of them I recognized from TV (2 Guys and a Girl, Tenacious D, among other things). After the show, we hung out in Borders, waiting for our train. I started reading the third Hunger Games book, which I suppose I will end up buying at some point. Then I had what I can only think of as an anxiety attack for absolutely no reason, which was basically when I went to sleep, every time I started to fall asleep, I would jolt awake. That was annoying until 5am.

On Sunday, we went to the Brooklyn Book Festival. Lunch was White Castle, which I have not eaten before. Melissa was very excited because they don't have them in Philly. They don't have them in Wisconsin either. Before it started raining, we wandered the festival, browsing the tables. Jill from Archipelago did a talk on the International Stage (see photo: she's in blue on the right). And then just before leaving, we went over to the Freebird tent for Eric's book signing and said hello (see photo below).

Then it rained, so we decided to try to get Melissa on the earlier bus, which meant standing in the rain for an hour, and the guy still didn't want to let her on the bus! But thankfully another guy came along and let her on. I went back to my apartment and passed out for two hours. What an exciting weekend.

I'm leading a workshop

2010-09-10T19:47:00.003-05:00

I've just signed up to lead a workshop for the evening of Dec. 9th. It'll be a how-to workshop on social media for authors (and un-published writers). I've been plugging away at this blog:
http://socialmediaforauthors.wordpress.com/ . My first real blog meant to be read by people I don't know. Exciting. I'll probably just keep adding to it a couple times a week until I run out of ideas, and then add things as they come, for social media is always changing.

Also, Melissa is coming over tomorrow from Philadelphia. Excited!

Idiot Abroad Episode 0

2010-09-06T18:37:00.002-05:00

Sky 1 did a 20-minute preview episode for An Idiot Abroad (Karl Pilkington's travel show). You can watch it here until YouTube takes it down for violating copyright laws. Funny stuff.

Part 1

Part 2

The Play's The Thing

2010-09-05T23:25:00.002-05:00

Went and saw a play tonight. Great all around from the acting to the staging to the beautifully written language. It's called Bright Images and it was just here for one night only. I think I may see that Danny Kaye play in Brooklyn that I didn't get around to seeing last year.

After the play, I went to an Itlian restaurant with the director, playwright, and their families and had lovely chat--music and art and spirituality. It was a refreshing night out. But I've had caffeine after 3:00 and may never sleep again. It's 12:30am, so happy labor day.

I didn't mention this before because I was just so annoyed, but my favorite Barnes and Noble--or at least a tie with the one in Union Square--is shutting down because they can't afford the space anymore. Hey, realtors: If the richest book store in America can't afford your space, who can? It's B&N Lincoln Triange. Yeah, this is where I met Zoe Caldwell and Spike Lee and various other people. They have such a great event space. I was envious of the guy who's in charge of organizing all their events (practically one every day some months!) because that would be a really fun job. But now they're taking it away. Boo.

Cemetery Junction

2010-09-04T21:51:00.005-05:00

I saw Cemetery Junction today. This is the first Ricky-Gervais/Stephen-Merchant film. Boy could you tell it was theirs. From listening to their sense of humor in their podcasts to watching extras, this film oozed of their fingerprints. Not that this film is a comedy. There are quite a lot of funny moments--almost all of them inappropriate because it's a contrast between the immaturity of the youth they're trying to leave behind and the respectable adult world--but it's a drama. It's a somewhat autobiographical drama about Reading, the town where Ricky Gervais grew up. The premise is that there are these few young adults who are feeling trapped in this tiny little town and want to make it in the real world, but are somehow stuck in this rut that doesn't allow them to leave. It's interesting knowing that this is about Ricky's hometown because he did go from a very modest background to being ultra rich and successful. And yet, he's not saying that it is good or bad to leave your tiny town that you've never set foot out of, because some of the characters in the movie stay in Reading for good reasons and some leave for good reasons. You get this sense in the end that it's not about staying or leaving, but it's a personal thing--you need to do what is best for you.

It's hard to really give an in depth review of this film because it does exactly what it says on the tin. You can watch the trailer. It's not hiding anything. It doesn't make the movie look better than it is, but it also doesn't hide any surprises. It holds together. No plot holes or character inconsistencies. Little bit of drama. Little bit of mildly crude humor.

Lot of good actors. Haven't seen any of the main characters in it, but Ralph Fiennes plays the boss, Ricky Gervais plays the dad. You also get a cameo from Stephen Merchant and one shot of Karl Pilkington. The cops are Steve Speirs (Extras) and Burn Gorman (Torchwood).

Worth seeing once at least.

You can click the link above for the trailer. Here's part of the blooper reel. (This scene did not end up in the movie, by the way.)

Remake Despondency

2010-08-28T09:13:00.004-05:00

Reasons to make a remake:
1. If the first one was bad but the story had potential
2. If the first one was good but too loaded with pop culture from another time or place to make sense for this audience
3. The first one was good for its time but the special effects sucked and you can do better

But why in the world would you try to remake something that's already good?

I put to you the example of Death at a Funeral, which is a modern British comedy that Americans remade with Chris Rock. What was wrong with the first one?

And now my current peeve, Arthur. Can you really cast anyone but Dudley Moore as Arthur? I'm not saying the new movie is going to be bad even if it does star Russell Brand, but what in the world do they hope to accomplish in making another one? (article)

And what about State of Play? I just rented the British one from the library and it's really good! I had low expectations. I only rented it for the reason I bought Tuesday--Life on Mars sentimentality as it is John Simm and Philip Glenister together again. But even though the genre is not my cup of tea--a political thriller--it's actually really captivating. And what a cast! You've got the chief of police Philip Glenister versus head of the newspaper Bill Nighy. What a combo. And then you get the stars John Simm and David Morissey, plus Kelly Macdonald from The Merry Gentleman, James McAvoy from Wanted, and Simm's buddy Marc Warren. What do you need to remake it with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck for?

Film Industry, we know you've already sold your soul, but just stay away from Hitchcock and Jimmy Stewart movies, okay?

ohmygod new technology. wot?

2010-08-25T18:30:00.002-05:00

What is this magic software that can do this? I am in awe. But I am in awe about most technology. Yesterday the guy that does all our tech work came in and made my computer run faster and made it so it logs me in instead of the girl who doesn't work here anymore like it used to do and oh yeah made it so I can access my work computer from home. I don't understand but I am in awe.

Rules like punctuation and capitalization and run-on sentences have gone out the window for this post because style is meant to reflect state of mind, yes?

A Social Media Blog

2010-08-22T14:01:00.003-05:00

A lot of people have been asking my opinion about WordPress lately. I've never actually used it. From what I could tell, it is more involved--you can basically do whatever you want with the code to create your own look--and you have more freedom. But I decided I should try it out myself and I found I was right. It's very complicated because there's just so much you can do, and it uses a lot of terms that WordPress has made up. I was a little lost at first, but then I read the instructions and it makes perfect sense now.

So, I started a blog on WordPress called socialmediaforauthors.wordpress.com aka Spirit Guide 3.0. There's not much on it, but I have a list of things I want to cover. That way, when authors (either at work or if I start freelancing) have specific questions, I can send them a link to a specific post on my blog that explains everything.

Stuff on TV

2010-08-21T21:27:00.003-05:00

Torchwood news. More details are coming out about next season's characters. Speaking of Torchwood, just found out that Naoko Mori (Tosh on Torchwood) is going to play Yoko Ono opposite Christopher Eccleston (the 9th Doctor) in the upcoming Lennon Naked movie.

It looks like OUTCASTS will be airing on BBC America at the same time as it's on the BBC in UK. It's sort of an Earth 2 meets Firefly. I hope it's good.

Dead Like Me creator Bryan Fuller has just signed on to adapt John Christopher (author of The Tripods novels) novel "The Lotus Caves" into a tv series for SyFy Channel.

An Idiot Abroad premiers Sept. 5 in UK. New promo:

My first Broadway play

2010-08-15T20:21:00.013-05:00

Stanley Tucci's taller than me. What gives?

I got a 50% off coupon to see Lend Me a Tenor from a co-worker. It was still expensive, but I knew it must be a sign because I wanted to see this show since it first came out. Our high school did it, so I know the story's funny. Also it stars Tony Shalhoub and Justin Bartha! I'm really glad I went. It was the funniest show I've ever seen. The biggest applause came when Shalhoub backward kicks a chair and it slides across the stage and right into its spot under the desk. Shalhoub goes "You're too kind." And he gets a bigger applause. So he finally glances back to see where the chair landed and then turns back to us and goes "I know." A riot of a show. So much talent. This was Justin Bartha's first show and he carried it so well, from weasely sounding Max to Italian opera singer impersonator. Bravo all!

After the show, I went to the stage door. There were already a bunch of people there, so I wasn't very close and therefore completely missed getting an autograph or picture with Justin Bartha. How devestating! But then it started raining and the crowd thinned a bit. The other actors came out and I got some autographs from them.

.

Then to everyone's shock, Stanley Tucci comes out and starts signing autographs! How amazing is that?

We had to wait an hour after the show before Tony Shalhoub came out. Real nice guy, but I could tell he was tired, and I think his voice needs a rest, so I didn't try to get a photo with him like everyone else. I got his autograph though!

Top: Anthony LaPaglia
Left: Brooke Adams
Right in purple: Stanley Tucci
Bottom: Mary Catherine Garrison

Tony was smart enough to sign inside the playbill because it was raining.

Who is this person in this picture. Squint real hard. Can you tell?

It's only Eddie Izzard. Not kidding. He brushed past me on his way out and hardly anyone reacted! Very strange.

More pictures on my FACEBOOK ALBUM

.

New Story: A Rose for Grandpa

2010-08-14T13:25:00.002-05:00

I finally was able to complete a story. It's inspired by that news story I read a few weeks about about the oldest man in Tokyo. I'm really excited about it, probably because I've had writers block for SO LONG. The last thing I wrote was Burbank with a Baedeker, and I finished that months ago. Since then, I've been starting and stopping novels and short stories, always seeing the flaws in either plot or style and getting tired of it. Finally here's something accomplished. Here lies Writers Block. Stay dead.

Anyway, you can read my story (first draft) on my writers blog. Enjoy!

New Utter Shambles episodes

2010-08-13T08:05:00.002-05:00

Two of my favorite comedians Robin Ince and Josie Long have a podcast together. Their first season was called Show-and-Tell. The second season was called Robin Ince's Utter Shambles. And now a third season is called Robin and Josie's Utter Shambles. I'm excited that they've chosen to do a third series. Episode one just went live yesterday! You can listen to it for free on Comedy Central Online.

The premise of the show is Robin, Josie, and their guest bring in an artifact which inspires conversation. This rarely happens as they all tend to get sidetracked and don't get around to anything they planned to say. But it's funny to listen to. I still stand by that the best episode is episode 6 of Show-and-Tell.

Episode one of series three wasn't the best episode ever, maybe because I had high expectations. It guest starred Alan Moore of the comic world: V for Vendetta, Watchmen, etc. They started by talking about something I didn't understand. I generally don't know Robin's references anyway. I don't know if this was a cultural gap or a generation gap. But eventually the topic moved on to how do you define whimsy, people pretending to be you on the internet (Alan said someone online pretended to be him and said he hates children and he had an identity crisis, wondering if he was really Alan Moore at all), and parents buying you things you don't want that are loosely related to your interests (like Robin's mom knew he liked comedy, so she got him a white knitted sweater with a picture of Charlie Chaplin's face on it).

The best bit was when Alan says "When you invited me onto this show, I was worried you wanted me to be your Karl Pilkington. You two would discuss something and then go 'Alan, what do you think?' and I'd say [puts on Northern accent] 'Do you think a crocodile could evolve from a stapler?'" (I love that Karl Pilkington is a household name now.) To which Josie responds, "I'm perfectly aware of my role in this podcast." As Robin has pointed out, all she really did in the last series was occassionally say something random and eat fruit loudly.

What's up, Torchwood?

2010-08-10T20:50:00.002-05:00

Here's a bit of news this week on the TV series Torchwood. Earlier this year, FOX was going to remake Torchwood for American audiences, but still produced by Torchwood producer Russel T Davies and starring Torchwood star John Barrowman. However, in April FOX dropped the idea. With such an extremely liberal show, can you blame them? This is a relief.

However, next summer there will be a fourth season (10 episodes) that takes place in the US and other parts of the world. It's still produced by Davies and co. and still starring John Barrowman, Eve Miles, and Kai Owen. Title at the moment: The New World. Is it normal for people to put a title on a season? I understand that season 3 was Children of Earth because it's a mini-series. Sounds like this is a 10-hour plotline as opposed to stand-alone episodes. Sounds epic. But they're playing it on Starz. Don't you have to pay for that? :(

Here's the article.

Good things and bad things

2010-08-09T19:57:00.003-05:00

Bad Things

Spending Sunday night watching the Director's Cut of DayWatch only to find they didn't change a dang thing. What, do you have to watch it in Russian to see the differences? I may not have this film memorized shot-for-shot, but I know it pretty well.
Some teenager trying to run me over with his car and then laughing about it
Waking up at midnight last night to the sound of the cat rolling a tampon under my door. wtf, mate. But I did laugh pretty hard.

Good Things

Church picnic
Watching some guy standing in the doorway at work struggling with a full-size plastic skeleton
After a long writers block, I'm writing again
I just bought 50% off tickets to see Lend Me a Tenor on Broadway (closing night) starring Tony Shaloub (Monk) and Justin Bartha (National Treasure) for this Sunday.

NightWatch Director's Cut

2010-08-07T20:08:00.003-05:00

I watched the director's cut of NightWatch, a favorite film of mine. I'll probably watch the director's cut of the sequel DayWatch tomorrow.

The differences were interesting. At first, I wasn't thinking the changes warranted a special release, but then we started getting characters and full scenes that weren't in the original. Here are some of the bigger changes:

Anton has visions of the future. In the theatrical release, we see inside his head when he has these visions (like when he's on the subway and sees Sveta for the first time, we see that he has a vision of a plane crashing). In this version, all we see is Anton screaming a lot.

However, when the data analyst is looking up the weather, he sees a future version of the website and reads that a plane will crash, so this is how we get that information. In the theatrical release, he saw on the weather page that there was a tornado warning. There is only one mention of a tornado warning later in the movie, but there is no real tornado, just the vortext which looks like a tornado of crows.

We continuously come back to a married couple who are on the plane. These characters were not in the theatrical version. I don't know how necessary it is, but it helps us connect and care about the safty of the plane more.

Yegor is watching some cartoon show instead of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I think it makes sense that he's watching Buffy because in the next scene, you can see he's widdled himself a stake.

Ignat. Ignat is a character in the books that is just as important as Seymon or Tigercub and Bear. He's not in the theatrical release at all. This entire subplot was missing, but they never really wrap it up in the director's cut, so maybe that's why they left it out. Ignat is this magician who seems to make people better just by being near him. Women fall in love with him a lot. In the movie, he's already given up the world of others, planning to get married to a girl, but Seymon practically kidnaps him to make him go woo Sveta and find out who cursed her. This scene is straight out of the book. He attempts to get close to her, but fails. In the movie, he fails because he is thinking about his fiancee. As soon as Sveta finds out he's engaged, we see the plane's power go out. This shows a direct connection between Sveta's mood and the safty of the plane, which we didn't really get without this scene.

Also, in the grocery store, we see something from the books that isn't in the movie anywhere else: Ignat uses low-level magic to shift a shoplifter's morals slightly in the Light's favor, which is mostly prohibited. I did get a kick out of that the shoplifter was an elderly man stealing grapes instead of some kid.

The biggest difference is that Anton knows that Yegor is his son right from when he finds out that his ex-wife is his mother. In this version, he had overheard the others saying to the fortune teller "Why did you lie to him. You knew it was his child." So Anton's known for 12 years he has a son? In the theatrical version, he hadn't heard that. He doesn't hear that until watching a video clip on the computer later on in the movie. This makes way more sense because I don't think he would have left Yegor alone if he knew he was his own son and not the son of his ex and her lover.

The music in the credits was in Russian, but I think it was a song specifically about NightWatch. I could hear the repeated words like "Gorodetsky, vampire, Svetlana, Zabulon, and other character names." I wonder if there's a translation in lyrics somewhere. [edit: yep, here it is.]
There are other differences, but mostly just the way scenes are cut together.

There was also a making of on this disc that I had not seen before. It's interesting to hear that they were all worried about this film because a lot of people's reputations were on the line. And then it turns out to be a box office smash. Also, it was interesting that so many actors took the good/evil thing so seriously. Daria actually said that if her character was a fraud fortune teller, she'd do it, but if she was a real one, she wouldn't do it because what if she says these magic words and something really did happen in real life? And the reason they picked Zhanna to play Alica, the evil girl, was because she wasn't an actress, but a pop star, someone who is a "seductress of the masses" so she could play evil and not have to worry about it. What a strange thing to say! And I didn't know this was her first acting gig. She gives an awesome performance in DayWatch.

Come on, you know this trailer is awesome:

Tuesday

2010-08-06T20:49:00.003-05:00

So, I finally watched Tuesday, a movie I've been waiting for for years, and overall, I was disappointed. The acting was fine, the directing was fine, but the writing? Now, don't get me wrong: within the scenes, it wasn't too bad. Dialogue was believable, etc. But A) We didn't get very in depth with the characters and B) What was that ending? I'll get to the ending in a minute.

What's it about: Three...well technically four...groups of people all decide to rob the same bank on the same day at about the same time. We know from the start someone stole the emerald, but we don't know who until the end.

Structure. The movie is set up to allow little twists to show up every time we see a scene again. It jumps around in time a lot. Mostly that doesn't get confusing. Each time we see a scene again, we see it from a different person's perspective and get another piece of the puzzle, like the movie Vantage Point but not quite as repetitive. We know they're all trying to steal the emerald, but we're not sure which one got away with it. We get each character in the police interrogation room, we see each of them planning their scheme, and we see each one on the crime scene. So it's a good structure to that extent.

However, this is the shortest movie ever. No wonder it only cost 4 pounds. They have a three-act story here and they stop at the end of act 2! Things were just starting to take shape. The ball never drops. We find out who has the emerald, but not if he/she gets away with it, what he/she does with it, if the others get blamed, etc. There's all these loose ends--Will Silver and Angie ever confess to each other that they're bank robbers? What's the deal with Billy and Angie--is there jealousy there? WHAT'S GOING ON?

Also, I mistook this for an action movie. I assumed because it was a heist movie, it would be action and a bit of comedy like the Italian Job or something, but there's no action and no comedy. I mean, on the whole, it's okay--I wasn't annoyed while the movie was going on. I wish they would have...you know...finished writing the script.

But I have to say, the cover art on this movie is probably my favorite cover art. Actually, the whole movie's quite arty if you look. The first scene is done in stills and voice overs. Have not seen that before, at least not for such a long length of time. But it was kind of cool.

And it stars John Simm and Philip Glenister. Sam and Gene back together again, even if this time they're on the other end of the law.

Just today and things

2010-08-05T21:59:00.002-05:00

Work is very fast-paced, which is good. I had literally 50 things on my Things to Do List that I just started yesterday. But good stuff is happening. Today we found out we're getting one of our authors on TV to talk about John Lennon's death. I chatted with one of my authors who is also a sci-fi writer. We're trying to select a famous comedian to write a forward to one of our books. Oh and I had a nice long conversation with the delightful guitar tech for Pink Floyd. Never a dull day.

I showed up to my first meeting at the local writers group (this is a different one than the one I go to in Manhattan). They seem really nice and really in tune with working hard to become better writers and legitimately supporting each other in it. Click here for my thoughts on our poetry workshop tonight.

I ordered stuff off Amazon.co.uk. I don't understand why it's so cheap. I think I got 3 movies for under $15 and the shipping wasn't that bad. Came in the mail today. Anyway, so you'll be getting reviews soon from me on Tuesday, a movie I've been dying to see for like two years, as well as the director's cut of NightWatch and DayWatch, and Robin Ince's new book.

Playlist.com

2010-08-03T21:33:00.002-05:00

I've just discovered playlist.com, which I THINK allows you to listen to any playlist I create without you needing an account. I'm not really sure, so let's try it. Click play and see if it works. If it does, you have some great music to listen to that I just put together for you. These songs are good, I know already, but I'm using the site to create playlists of music I haven't heard before, which is quite exciting because it's free. And legal as far as I can tell because like Pandora, you can listen to music, but you can't download it for free.

Why I shouldn't be a newscaster

2010-07-31T20:20:00.003-05:00

While the rest of the world is going crazy over Chelsea Clinton's wedding, there are only two things I find newsworthy from this week:

1.Mummy in PJs (A Rose for Emily, anyone?)

2. Goat on trampoline (ohmygod I want one)

Doctor Who Season Finale

2010-07-25T14:52:00.004-05:00

I had high expectations for this season of Doctor Who since the writer of the season was the writer of all the best episodes while Davies was in charge. I kept waiting for an ultimately awesome episode. And while most episodes were pretty good, a lot feel short of my expectations. But looking back on it, it was actually a pretty good season. Really can't complain about the new doctor or companions.

Last night, on BBC America, was the season 5 finale. I think this was the ultimate episode I was waiting for. The Doctor saves the universe (once again) but in ultimate sacrifice, and his companion in turn saves him. There's a lot of messing about with time, which is cool. Also, we get to see things from previous episodes in the season that didn't make sense in a new light. It all comes together--there were clues all along.

I remember that when I went to see the premier in New York, Matt Smith was there and he told the audience to petition the BBC so that they would let the doctor have a hat next season. There's a part in this episode that I can only imagine is Stephen Moffat getting back at Matt Smith for all those letters he received. The Doctor picks up a fez he finds ... oh nevermind, you can watch it yourself below. Poor Matt may never get his hat.

I absolutely love that the TARDIS is something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I didn't catch it when the Doctor was telling his story, but when Rory said "Like the old wedding saying," I started laughing. Was the entire season (the whole leaving on the eve of Amy's wedding thing) a set up for that?

You know, at the part where you realize that their situation was similar to Amy's memories, I wouldn't have written it that their situation was fabricated based on Amy's memories. No--I would have made Amy or Amy's memories or part of Amy's existance the thing that was fake because at that point the Doctor has already pointed out that nothing in Amy's life made sense. But anyway.

I also liked that they brought back the Nestine Consciousness (spelling?) from the first episode of the first season. It's all full circle. But looks like we'll have the same doc and companions back for next season. Can't wait to see where they take us, especially since they still haven't answered the question as to why the TARDIS exploded in the first place.