The art barn Art Blog

2011-03-20T14:24:00.002-04:00

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME!

Hi guys. Every once in a while, I get a SPAM message someone tries to sneak into the comments section of this blog. When that happens, I sometimes take a look around and read a few old blogs.

I was never the best blogger, but in looking at these old pages, I can't help but miss it a little. In these pages I see a snapshot of the guy I was when I left Portland, left Art Barn, left a long term relationship and came home like I was Willie C. from "Beautiful Girls."

It's been a long time since I wrote most of these messages. And it's odd, so much and so little have changed. I'm 33 now, not 27. I still live in the same house in Bridgton, but now I live here with a girlfriend (who recently became my longest-term girlfriend ever) and this puppy that just makes me laugh constantly. He makes me think of Toto, and this passage in particular.

"It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly."

I have money concerns again, like I did when I was 27, after having finally lost that lucrative job I stumbled into. And I still haven't finished my movie. I banged my head against that wall for so long, and finally I decided that while it'd get done some day, the Masters degree and a host of new projects had to pull me from it. It'll never make me a penny, but it needs to be finished. Other projects COULD make me a penny, though, and rolling a boulder up a hill is only rewarding for so long. There are so many other boulders and other hills. Even Hercules got to have 12 daunting tasks.

My newest task has been trying to break into writing/illustrating. It's gone better than the past adventures did. I finished a book and self-published it, and it took an entire year of my life, but it made me stressed like never before and happy like never before, which is, I guess how all new things work for me. Take a look at it over here.

I hope you have all been well, and honestly, if this is the only way you'd been keeping up with me than you must've thought I was dead or missing. Others have died or gone missing in this same passage of time. If it can happen to Hunter Thompson or Kurt Vonnegut, than what chance do we all have?

2010-05-03T22:14:00.000-04:00

New blog for my book!

2010-02-05T11:33:00.001-05:00

NEW PORTFOLIO SITE...

http://www.zombiebomb.com

2010-02-05T11:20:00.001-05:00

We made a giant fish out on the ice, but then we had to knock him down so we didn't accidentally kill a snowmobiler.

2008-08-04T09:29:00.002-04:00

MY COUSIN REALLY WANTS ME TO WRITE A BLOG SO...

So my very pregnant cousin Karen, whom I love so dearly, really wants a blog. She's wondering why I haven't been writing much in the last few months, challenging whether I have done anything of note since I last posted.

Oh, cousin! I've been BUSY! I went to see the Dropkick Murphys and the triumphant return of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, who haven't played in Maine for eight years. We last saw them in 2003, which was one of their last shows before they broke up. Well, they're back, and they are terrific - a young kid behind me came stumbling up to the stands after and said "that was the greatest live band I've ever seen!" And I smiled.

I went to the show with Karl and his 3 year old, Ryan, who loves the Dropkick Murphys. Unfortunately, Ryan was tired because Karl had taken him to Chuck E. Cheese AND disc golf first, so he slept through the entire set. Maybe it was the ear plugs we gave him, so we wouldn't give him permanent ear damage, but he was out like a light. He stayed up for the Bosstones, though, so at least he got to see most of the show. It was super cute, though, to see him sleeping there. Also of note, at one point the singer dude for the Murphys , Ken Casey, laughed that his own three year old was asleep in the stands. We thought it was fun to think that Ryan wasn't the only toddler there.

On other Ryan fronts, we attended his third birthday and had a lot of fun. They had a bounce castle, and of course, Karl was in the thing the entire time, bouncing up and down. The bounce castle didn't get really crazy until Brian Levasseur and I went in there - then it was about 600 pounds of bouncing men in action.

We also got to go to Story Land with Ryan the next day. Story Land is like New Hampshire's answer to Walt Disney World. It's a cute little place that I hadn't been to since my friend Greg's nephew Ryan was a toddler. Ryan just got his license, so that tells you something! I'd tell you more, but you know, there's a lot that's happened lately.

I had my 31st birthday! Julia and Josh and Mom and Dad got me an iPhone. I was PSYCHED. It hasn't yet come in the mail - it's been ordered and everything, but it should ship this week. Josh knew that they had them in Apple stores, so we took off to the greater Boston area to find one. As we got there, we started calling stores... only to find that only one store had them in stock out of five or six. I asked the lady to hold one, explaining how long we'd been driving, but she could not. But she said that they'd still have them in a half hour, which was our ETA. And... they didn't. It took us too long to get there, and as we approached the store we saw that they had just closed off the line that you could get into to pick up the phone. The lady explained that we could come back at 9 tomorrow. We explained that we had left from Maine that afternoon, and that we couldn't be there at nine. She said to check the website to see if they had a shipment. We explained that we had. She said that they'd be in stock for most of the day tomorrow. We explained that 8 o'clock PM was the earliest we could possible get there since I worked until 5. Annnnyway, there was simply no chance. So we had Rainforest Cafe and then went home. I'd call the trip a success.

We also went to a Red Sox game. Now, this was immediately pre-Manny trade, so it was sad to see him out there, half-assing it up. But even though the Angels smoked us, it was so cool to be at Fenway again after 8 years or so. And Youk got a homerun, so who can complain. Also cool? We took the Downeaster train in to the game. Sure, we got back at 3 am, but it was worth it. If only the jabbing jackass on the train ride home would have spoken quietly enough for us to have SLEPT. Mom put napkins in her ears, Erin texted me talking about strangling him, Brian asked loudly if I had any duct tape, Dad slept with his arm around his head, and Faye was just worried one of us was going to do something really embarrassing! Finally, Josh got up and politely explained that he was making it hard for the rest of the train to sleep. The man ventured that he was amazed anyone would try to sleep on the train (at one am, no less!). Of course, Julia slept through almost all of it!

What anyone who didn't know might have guessed, the biggest news of the summer is that Josh came home. After two years in Dubai, he's back among us and looking for work. Liz will complete her summer term and join us in Maine very soon as well! And I say not a moment too soon.

I have no real point to all of this, but this is a quick summary of all of the events of my summer so far. Oh, and I played disc golf and a bunch of mini golf.

I also have lots of thoughts and professional shake ups to discuss, but I had a lot of and then, and then, and thending to do. I can extrapolate on any of the above points, so feel free, Karen and whoever else, to let me know what you would like more of!

Oh, and I didn't even get started on my home theater building discussion! Another day, another day!

2008-06-10T09:28:00.003-04:00

GOODBYE, SAAB

My Saab is finally gone, dragged off to that scrap yard in the sky. Or somewhere in Naples. On the plus side, it's not sitting in my backyard.

I got my 1987 Saab 900S in the summer of 2000 with money from the RKO/Art Barn Alien Abductee Theater project. It cost me $2500, but it had really low mileage for a car that was already 13 years old. It was one of those little old lady who only drives to church on Sunday deals. And if that was what the car was used to, it certainly had a change of pace when I bought it.

Over time, I had to put some money into it, but it never became one of those beaters that cost more to keep on the road than it was worth. Ultimately, I must've spent $4500 on the car in the six years I drove it, and about $1000 of that was cosmetic work from a little accident I got in on the way to the mall. Not a bad years per dollar ratio, I must say. I was a lucky guy!

I can remember the day I got the car - hopping behind the wheel after being a motor vehicle leper, exiled to bumming rides since an accident I had in 1997. Almost three years without a car, riding shotgun with Jack and, before her car died in the summer of '99, Arielle. We gave the dude who was selling it a check, jumped in, turned up the radio to "Jumpin'Jack Flash" and off we went.

Vonnegut once wrote that the greatest high he ever had was getting his driver's license. Well, I had already had my license for six years, but after all that time away from the car, believe you me, I felt that same high. Things were going well - my business venture was a year old and was already paying such fat cash that I could afford a car that was merely a decade old! Look out world, here we come!

The car did well by me. Arielle added a Sproing Monkey (which is what it sounds like - a ceramic monkey on a giant spring) to bounce on the dash while we were driving and years later I added a giant fin sign to the top of the car to advertise The Mad Monkey Cafe when I was running that business.

Things got a little rough for a while in 2003 and 2004. The car died in a big way on the way back from Sean and Heather Fletcher's wedding (and I had to spend the night in the worst motel ever). It died on the way to pick Sarah Stepp up before Karl and Bri's rehearsal dinner (and I sat in the car and tested energy drinks for the Monkey, shaking and drinking, cold, frustrated and way overstimulated). It died on the way to visit Sara in North Conway (and I sat on the top of some backwoods hill in order to have the guy AAA sent tell me that the problem wasn't what he thought it was, and that he'd have to come back with a wrecker).

To be honest, when they towed it off for good this week, it was so nice to know that I wasn't going to have to pay anything for what happened next.

But in 2006 it came to the point where the ol' Saab wouldn't pass inspection. It was running okay, but there was rust on the frame and I was advised to start looking elsewhere for my vehicular needs. We took it out one last time to shoot some "vehicle driving at night" shots for the Lobster Movie, which was kind of funny because it wasn't inspected and we were looping around Main Street over and over again. It must've looked pretty conspicuous to the two cop cars which were passing by (and slowing down) frequently. I thought for sure we were going to get pulled over, but we didn't, and we got our shots. At the end of the night, the Saab coasted into the corner of my back parking area and there it sat...

... for way longer than I ever intended.

At first, Jimino, who used to fix the car, offered me $50 to buy it as scrap. But Tristan said he needed a car for the winter and asked me to hold off. So I held off. Nothing ever came of it. Then, I started thinking about movie reshoots, and how cool it would be to trash the car on camera, so I held it a little longer.

It wasn't until this winter, when I wrote the reshoots and saw no place for the car in them and THEN the snow fell so deep we ran out of driveway space into which to push the snowbanks, that I realized that this car was not only fulfilling the Maine white-trash-dead-car-on-the-lawn-dream, but it was wasting my very minimal yard real estate.

SO we came up with some phone numbers and I made some calls. Within three hours of making the call, a wrecker was here, dragging the car off of the lawn. They gave me $225 for it, which was more than I expected, but it was still sad to see it go.

As it receded down Route 302, I could just make out sproing monkey bobbing on, back and forth, a chimp against the current, ceaselessly on the dash.

2008-05-06T09:48:00.002-04:00

TEACHING

Last night, my friends Zach and Ed stopped by. They were students at Lake Region when I was teaching there, but I never taught them. Zach now works as an Ed Tech, assisting special education students at the middle school level. I assuming talking with him is the reason why my head's been swimming this morning, bringing me back to the topic of teaching.

I liked teaching, but in some ways I find myself haunted by it. Every mistake I ever made is etched in my brain, and I revisit each, even today. A few times, I made factual errors, a few times I made judgment errors, many times I made scheduling errors by not getting things done in time.

I hear I did well at the job. The kids liked me (but what do they know?) and I liked them (but what do I know?). My peer reviews were great and my end of the year reviews were better. I had the respect of many of my peers and the fear of the rest. Okay, actually, no one feared me. You get the point, though. I was good at it. But I felt like an impostor, and looking back on it a few years later, working at a new job for which I feel incredibly qualified, I still feel guilt over the mistakes I made in that classroom.

I know my former students don't care or mind. They held me to a lower standard than I hold myself. And I corrected my mistakes, usually soon after making them. But I still look at that experience and place a big question mark over my head. I really loved it, but I was always scurrying. I handled things well, but I usually wondered what it would have been like if I had done something differently or better.

I've been studying the idea of "intelligence in the wild" - street smarts, if you will. Schools generally teach questions with clear answers. But life rarely rewards that kind of knowledge. Real life is a much more confusing and troubling place. For me, school was a great example of that. There are no correct answers as a teacher. Like a parent, you make constant judgment calls, and each one has repercussions throughout the rest of your relationship with a student. Sometimes you let some attitude slide because it's not the right time for that fight. Sometimes you have to crack a head or two in order to nip an issue in the bud. Sometimes you get an idea across the way you planned in your head, sometimes you're banging your head against the wall. As a wiser fellow than myself once said, sometimes you eat the b'ar, and sometimes the b'ar, well, he eats you.

You never know if you were 100% right.

I look back to the job, and the thrill of that ambiguity stays with me. But my own shortcomings from that time period, professional and personal, stay with me too. I feel like my mistakes were etched in stone, or worse. They were etched in the minds of a room full of 17-year-olds.

On second thought, maybe they weren't even listening. I guess like anyone, I think people think that what I have to say makes a much greater impact than it does. But I know that comfort comes with getting your sea legs, so to speak. I felt more comfortable on day 100 than on day 1. I like to wonder, in some alternate universe, what my life would be like if I was still in the classroom.

2008-04-21T07:58:00.003-04:00

WRAPPING UP MY VISIT TO FLORIDA...

(Which I shouldn't say because I'm off to WDW today)

I've had a great time down here in the Sunshine State - every day has been in the 70s to 80s, every night has been in the 60s or 70s. The water is warm enough so you don't shiver as you jump the waves, which were spectacular yesterday. All in all, it's been great. My parents and the Levasseurs have been amazing hosts and sidekicks, and although we don't have Josh here to photo document our every move (and make sure we don't take the wrong turns in the theme parks), I've been trying to fill those roles.

I'll put up some pictures when I get home, which, oddly enough, I'm kind of ready to do. I'm having a great time, but sometimes I feel like life at home gets all backed up when you're gone, whether it's the freelance projects that I haven't been looking into or the friendships that go undeveloped. And sometimes it's hard to cut loose entirely when you are otherwise preoccupied. I suppose wherever you go, there you are.

That's not how my brain usually operates, but it's how it's feeling today. Of course, by the end of tonight, I'll be so overstimulated and exhausted by marching 8 miles and taking in the sights of the "Happiest Place in the World" that I won't have time to think a thing!

Anyway, I'll be home tomorrow with stories to tell and work to do, rugs to vacuum and relationships to decipher. But until 11 o'clock tonight, all I have are photos to take, songs to sing, friends and good times to reminisce about and thoughts of a "great big beautiful tomorrow, just a dream away".

2008-04-17T10:25:00.003-04:00

ADAM DURITZ SAYS...

I was listening to a podcast that came with the new Counting Crows cd in which Adam Duritz discusses his thoughts behind the songs on the new album. One of the songs is called "Insignificant". It's not one of my favorite songs or anything, but the commentary he made proved interesting.

About the character in the song:

"He doesn't want his life not to matter. That's always been important to me. Insignificance was the worst thing. Happiness would be nice. Sadness is terrible. But insignificance... that's truly the worst thing of all. It always had been, until maybe now."

I think maybe I've spent a lot of my life feeling the same way.

Happiness has always come relatively easily. When I put aside my absurd goals or achieve my absurd goals, I generally feel pretty great. Since I've spent a lot of time striving, I haven't felt that release so frequently lately. That said, if I need happiness, it's generally a quick step away. It's something I can clearly visualize how to attain.

I don't fear sadness so much anymore. I used to fear it fairly compulsively when I was always happy. Now, I think I understand that particular banshee a bit better and it's less frightening as a result.

But I still fear insignificance. I still want to do something larger than life. And not having done that yet is troubling to me. But I keep rolling along. I'm sure achieving my goals won't end my hunger to do interesting things. But every step I take I feel like I further cement my own passions and blaze a bit more of a path through this world.

I just want to leave footprints that it wouldn't take John Locke to track. I want to leave the biggest and brightest graffiti across the world.

2008-04-02T23:18:00.002-04:00

NIKOLAI'S SKIS

Nikolai printed out my clown drawing and then cut it into tape, which he affixed to his skis. Then he spray painted the clown into the negative space on his skis, which were recently painted white. The result's a bit homemade looking, but it's still pretty funny.

2008-04-01T10:33:00.000-04:00

HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY

Here's a clown I drew the other day.

2008-03-16T09:44:00.002-04:00

HEY MAN, NOW YOU'RE REALLY LIVING

Hey all. I know I'm not the blogging machine I once was. I've been ignoring events both minor (countless skiing trips to Sunday River and Mt. Abram) and major (like the birth of my newest Collier pal, Annabelle). I guess I've been feeling a few different things. Foremost among them is a certain boredom or ennui or whathaveyou. I guess I've been feeling like there isn't much going on, and to report what is going on is making too much out of too little.

And once that mindset kicks in, man, I'm done for. The same has been true with my side activites and my workout plan and so much else. I simply have too much time to be bothered to find things to do.

I haven't been uncreative, I'm just not really a landslide of enthusiasm. And I'm not really inactive or unhappy, either. I'm just here.

But I'ma feelin' the winds of change. Things have been a lot of fun for me in the last few days. Julia's home, random friends have been dropping in, activities abound. And Bridgton is looking livelier, too.

First of all, having Julia home is a real blessing. It had been an arduous winter to say the least, and it was wearing on me. Her semester had been no different. So getting back together was simply great.

Before she got home, though, I needed to vacuum. So I ran down to the new Reny's in Bridgton to buy a vacuum. They didn't have one, but it's amazing how Bridgton's little store has turned into this retail behemoth. And just next door is the new Magic Lantern. I finally went there to see "Horton Hears a Who" and the place is spectacular. I was astonished. We all laughed that the place is in Bridgton.

I'll say this. It's not the biggest movie theater I've ever been in (I've been to Walt Disney World's AMC Theaters). It's not the fanciest (I've been to Mann's Chinese Theater in LA). But holy sweet baby Jesus. It's by far the nicest boost to Bridgton, Maine since Pleasant Mountain added night skiing. It's beautiful - great seats, good prices, under a mile from my house, and it's easily the classiest theater in the state. Add to that the fact that they have already showed "There Will Be Blood" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" - straight up ART FILMS in a town of 5,000 and shown in a theater that doesn't reek or have three seats in someone's closet somewhere (I'm looking at you, Movies at Exchange Street). Dude. I'm impressed.

Anyway, last but not least, Karl and I finally got to the St. Patrick's Day Dropkick Murphys show. We traveled down to Lowell, Mass yesterday for the 2 o'clock show, and it was terrific. They had Irish stepdancing little girls on stage, musicians from UMass Lowell playing string whatnots in the background (I couldn't see what they were playing exactly - sorry, Julia), a team of bagpipers, a full choir. Karl and I fought our way to two people back at center stage for a good chunk of the show. By the time it ended, we had slid to stage right/center, with crowd surfers kicking our heads and sweaty fat guys on all sides. I got offered a tug off the guy in front of me's flask of whiskey, which was warm, but welcome. It was a wild show, with close ups of the action projected on screens on the sides of the stage, a real rarity in the kind of bands we're used to seeing live.

SO ANYWAY, life continues, but for now with a real shot in the arm. As the snow gradually reveals a driveway underneath, and the eventual promise of a lawn in front of my house, and with the clocks set so that we keep the light until after6 o'clock, things are only looking up up up. Julia's home for another week, and we're going to ski three or four times this week - that heavy spring skiing that I live for. Early next month, I've got plans to hit a condo at SUGARLOAF for the reggaefest again with Greg and Stacy and Jen and Jon and a few others, and then it's off to Florida to see the folks and spend some time soaking my tubby winter belly on the beach.

And then, who knows, maybe I'll miss the flooding and the mud and come back to find late April looking a lot like summer... but I doubt it. All this snow has to go SOMEwhere.

2008-03-12T10:59:00.003-04:00

FOR THE CREATIVE PEOPLE

Luke sent me this. I think somehow the fact that it's a visual interpretation of something we have all felt makes it kinda interesting.

"When do we do our best work? When we’re excited about something. Excitement breeds motivation. We do our best work when we’re motivated. A great way to stay motivated is to work on something new..."

Click here to keep reading!

2008-03-05T12:41:00.001-05:00

POLKADOT CADAVER VIDEOS

I made these. Enjoy them, please.

2008-02-21T23:01:00.002-05:00

JULY 21, 1984 (my seventh birthday)

In Jackson, Michigan, a factory robot crushes a worker against a safety bar in apparently the first robot-related death in the United States.

That is the greatest thing I've ever read. I want to commemorate this event every year by having a robot crush someone on my birthday, but each year it'll be the newest and coolest form of robot that will do the crushing.

2007-10-31T09:22:00.001-04:00

UPDATE

I have to admit, I've grow kinda tired of the andthenandthenandthens that this blog has devolved into. A lot's happened since I last posted, from concerts with Karl (the Voodoo Glow Skulls, who I last saw in 2003), single day flights to NYC for work (I got a bit of a promotion, which ruled), a little something known as a WORLD SERIES win (which tends to take up a lot of your time as it happens).

I've been to Massachusetts for a weekend with my lady in which we watched the ALCS games, ate at a Rainforest Cafe, wandered around Salem and walked the Minuteman Trail.

I've been out to bars with Dorian, celebrating his thirtieth birthday the same way we celebrated his 21st, with way too much alcohol. Andy and Lauren weren't present this time, but I hear they are still alive, which is fine by me. We did take a cab home from the city, which was also kinda crazy (and police recommended).

And we had a Halloween party at Greg and Stacy's, in which I dressed as a Tiki God and won a pie eating contest, which I only entered under duress. John Boutelier would have won, but his Borat moustache fell off into the pie and he almost choked on it. So I came to play, and play I did. I did not, however, go to drink, since it was only the day after Dorian's birthday and I was still settling back down. The usual crowd was there and the costumes were pretty rad.

Today is Halloween. I'm going to go see Ryan Patrick Collier dressed as Ratatouille after work.

I think the Family Guy and Boondock Saints are not bad, but c'mon.

The end.

2007-10-06T19:43:00.000-04:00

SIMPLE PLEASURES!

Today I'm hanging out, drawing and watching "Darby O'Gill and the Little People". I just ate a big bowl or two of Special K Red Berries and I couldn't be happier. Last night the Red Sox won, the Yankees lost and all seems right in the world.

2007-09-27T20:20:00.001-04:00

INTERESTING IDEA FROM ONE OF MY EDUCATION BOOKS

I'm not going to cite this MLA OR APA style. Bite me, rules! This is a quote from Mezirow, maybe.

Many of our most guarded beliefs about ourselves and our world... are inferred from repetitive affective experience outside of awareness. Because of such affectively encoded experience each person can be said to live in a different reality.

Cool concept, huh?

2007-09-26T09:51:00.000-04:00

RILO KILEY

Friday night, Julia and I met up in Boston to see Rilo Kiley. She was home for her grandfather's birthday. Unfortunately, we missed the opening acts, which included Grand Ole Party and someone else, I believe, but as we entered Avalon and found a place to stand, the band took the stage.

It was really quite a great show - not only do they sound as good live as they do on their albums, but they sounded a bit heavier, as a lot of bands do live. I love that - like when I saw Toad the Wet Sprocket in 1994 - the distortion that comes from live guitars is so much grittier. I loveitloveitloveit.
Anyway, Jenny Lewis totally knows how to rule a crow like Fred Savage rules the power glove (imagine, both Jenny Lewis and Julia in the same room at the same time. My heart swoons). They played most of my favorite old songs and a few of the new songs began to grow on me. And surprisingly, Blake Sennett did a song from his solo band, The Elected and Jenny did "Rise Up With Fists" from her solo cd, which is the best song ever (next to Megadeth's "Symphony of Destruction" at least).

My only complaint was the length of the show. Maybe it's because we missed the opening acts, or maybe it's because they played only a one song encore, but the experience seemed over a bit too soon. I suppose that's a great testament to how much I enjoyed the show!

The only issue was that we gt home at 3 am and I got up for the Jimmy Fund Golf Tournament at 7:30. That part kinda sucked. Hey, I should use that as an excuse for my poor golfing performance! Hey! - it was the lack of sleep. The lack of sleep. Yeah.

2007-09-25T08:59:00.000-04:00

MINIGOLF CHAMPS!

Guess what we did on Saturday? Here's a hint...

> I would like to thank you for you for participating in the first ever Mini-Golf
> for a Big Cause Putt-a-Thon! It turned out to be a great day raising over
> $10,000 for cancer research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute!

Pretty good hint, no?

Tuan, always looking for a mini-golf adventure, heard about this on the radio. For only $20 (plus sponsorship) you could go golf your little brains out (and apparently help cure cancer, too, which is a nice side effect that doesn't usually come with our minigolf). Luke, Tuan and I signed up, and Luke landed us $150 in sponsorship for the always lovely Chute's Family Restaurant in Windham. The deal? We would dress in aprons and hats and stuff, like we were line cooks - sexy line cooks - and play our little hearts out for 54 wonderful holes of mini-golf.

We rounded up another $50 or so from family and friends, had a big breakfast at Chute's (which was so delicious that I stuffed myself enough to turn down free food when I got to the event) and headed to the parking lot of Bob's Discount Furniture for a game. It was fun! Though Bob's overwhelmed everyone with swag that was unrelated to the minigolf (Bob's mugs and t-shirts anyone?) and made us play the 18th hole in their showroom, they also threw down the hot dog and lemonade hookup for our refreshment needs. The Q97.9 van was there blasting shitty pop tunes and face painters and balloon animal makers rounded out the crowd. Luke's son Brucie loved his balloon dog, and Tyler and Gillian hung out being the sleepy infants that they are, mommies in tow.

And their daddies (and their daddies' tubby friend) rocked the golf. See proof:

But not only did we raise money for the chilluns, we also had a champion amongst us. In the top ten, it's the asianiest of us all -

> The Lowest Scores

> #6. 125 Tuan Nguyen

To Tuan's credit, a 125 for 54 holes of minigolf is way decent, but the REAL champion's score of 112 was just scary. That's just over a two on every hole. Just try not to make a few mistakes in 54 holes, I dare you.

To see us posing nicely:

Or, if you prefer to see things as they realy are:

Thanks to Chute's and our other sponsors for your help! We had fun and did a Good Thing.

2007-09-19T09:59:00.000-04:00

OKAAAY, KARL.

So this weekend I went to Laurie and Patrick's wedding in North Carolina. Laurie lived on my floor sophomore year of college and dated my roommate Andy for a couple of years. Hell, she even dated my brother briefly and I dated one of her roommates at one point, as well. Anyway, although I consider Laurie and I very close friends, I hadn't seen her in an inordinately long time.

Anyway, I flew into Raleigh on Friday night. I was supposed to be in at 11:30. I got there at about 2:30. The storms that have been raging lately - you know, Hurricane Whatshisface or the ice storm or whatever it is - were tearing the hell out of Atlanta, so the flight that was connecting to us in Dulles didn't even leave the ATL until after we were supposed to be leaving DC. So that sucked. I was getting really impatient and annoyed, sitting in a silent terminal surrounded by people staring at each other. Julia called, and I didn't even want to talk because I felt like everyone else would hear me and it seemed like some kind of annoying conversation violation.

Eventually I left the crowded section and sat in a dfferent part of the terminal and chatted with Julia and watched Larry King and OJ's former sister-in-law Denise Brown squabble. The real highlight was when Larry King called the sister "Nicole", who, of course, is the one OJ already stabbed to death 12 years ago.

Anyway, Dorian, who had been hanging out at bars and strip clubs waiting for my arrival (apparently being hit on by a very drunk, very pregnant lady), picked me up and we were to our hotel by 3.

I woke up to an 10 o'clock phone call from our friends Mike and Kate. Mike and Kate were married back in, oh, 2001, I suppose. It was before the movie was shot and after Jack and Karen got together. Anyway, they wanted to go out for breakfast. That was truly cool - I hadn't seen them much since they moved down to Florida in 2000. We had gotten together for their wedding, for New Year's 2000 and twice when I went down to Florida and looked them up. After we had bagel sandwiches, we swam around in the hotel pool and talked about Mike's new career as a mortician, which he starts officially next month. It was nice and I learned a lot about the process of working with the dead. Did you know that it's frowned upon to have sex with them? True story.

They dropped me off at my room to get ready at about 2 and I was ready by 2:30, but Dorian had to iron and stuff. He took a while while I sat there all dudded up, so we were about 2 minutes late for the ceremony.

Here's where it was.
In the interior photo, we were sitting by the lady in the red. Of course, I found this picture on the web, so she wasn't there. Too bad, Dorian might have been interested. She doesn't look pregnant.

The choir wasn't there, either. I guess they only come in for special events. I always figured it was like a Rock-a-thon, they just hang out and sing until they collapse, but I guess you have to bring them in separately.

Anyway, the ceremony was really amazing. They talked a bit much about Jesus for my liking, but that seems to be the price you pay to have giant stained glass windows around you and stuff. I mean, this was probably the most impressive church I've seen in the US. It was also fun to see Laurie for the first time in years while she was up there getting married. I like not seeing the bride before the ceremony... maybe not by not seeing her for FIVE YEARS before the ceremony, but you get the idea.

After the wedding, Mike, Kate, Dorian and I wandered around the campus and then went to the reception place, a nice little restaurant near Duke. The reception didnt start for three hours, so we kicked around and had a few drinks. Then we went next door and had a few more drinks.

By then, the wedding crowd was rolling in, so we went back to Paradiza (or whatever the hell it was called). I had wondered before how they would fit a reception in their dining area - well, they didn't have to. Behind the restaurant they have an enclosed by walls but open air courtyard with a waterfall wall thingy and little sculptures and stuff. It was beautiful. They put lights in the trees, too. It was so romantic I almost kissed Dorian on the mouth.

We mingled and snacked and I remet a few of Laurie's friends and met a few for the first time. I met Patrick, Laurie's husband for the first time, too, which was weird. She had been in the south for grad school and her residency and stuff, with this super busy schedule, so I hadn't seen her in the entire time they'd been together. It was a shame, but I was really glad to make the appearance when I did or I might have been drummed off the team. The Laurie and Patrick team.

The music was good, and the bar was open. I think the food was good, but I was just scarfing and drinking. I perhaps could have savored it more, but I had to get my dance on. Mostly it was just nice to see Mike and Kate (and their baby pictures). I got their kid, Mikey, a stuffed moose at the airport even though he's a truck guy. Airports don't carry Tonkas. He can already say and identify every truck or piece of heavy machinery in the universe, including "excavator" and he's only two. I can't wait to meet him someday - probably after they move back to Jersey.

After the night wrapped up and I had danced myself into a frenzy (though less sweatily than usual - it was a perfect temperature for dancing), Dorian and I said our goodbyes and hugged some people and then tried to get another beer or two, but I was too tired. Dorian got bored of my falling asleep at bars and dropped me off for the night, while he continued his night prowl.

The next day we slept through the checkout time. I woke up and hit the hot tub and then flew home in slightly damp shorts, but it was worth it. The hot tub was there, you see, and I didn't want to miss it.

Speaking of things not to miss, Karen also attended a wedding this weekend and blogged beautifully about it. Read it and then wonder why you even bother to read my blog, which is a series of "and then, and then and thens".

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=6545760&blogID=311013152

I don't really like her thesis that we are all outsiders at weddings, but I suppose that is the case. I'd like to think that it is all dependent on the couples themselves - a couple that opens themselves to everyone maybe will make more available hosts and everyone will feel more a part of it. I know I was surprised how much Laurie time I got at her wedding, but maybe that was just because we were the only ones who wanted to dance to Save Ferris. Or maybe it's because I chained Patrick up in a bathroom stall.

Anyway, Karen sparked an interesting discussion between Julia and me about weddings and what we strive for and aspire to. For the first time ever, I have thought a little about how I would want my wedding to be.

But the question is how we will fit the head table on an elephant's back and if it's possible to dance in chain mail. Only time will tell.

2007-09-18T09:18:00.000-04:00

I WANT TO BLOG ABOUT THE WEDDING...

But I still owe OLD blogs! The one I'm still hankering to blog about is my thrilling concert weekend. And what better time to do it than right now, since I have a NEW CONCERT to go to this very Friday!

So, for my 30th brithday, Julia went all out and got us concert tickets to go see a band I really love - Counting Crows. I've loved them... well, pretty much ever since I stopped making fun of them for being too hippie-dippy back in 1994. One day I was making fun of them, then next I was falling asleep to "August and Everything After" every night of my senior year of high school. If I wasn't asleep and peaceful by "Rain King", something screwy was going on. And the year I taught at Lake Region and lived in Portland was the year that I started almost every single day with "Hard Candy", which was their new album at the time. There's just something about Counting Crows that make them great for starting and ending days.

Anyway, Julia got me the Counting Crows tickets (and they were no novelty scissors, but they were pretty rad). Playing with them were opening acts Live, who I had seen in 1995, and Collective Soul, who I have always liked without really caring one way or the other about them. I'm sure they made an appearance on more than one of our high school mix tapes. So it was a superstar lineup from 1995 (though in my eyes, Counting Crows have stayed up there in the upper echelon ever since they started).

We packed up a big lunch and got to the MerchantsAuto stadium just in time. Julia got us sandwiches from Morning Dew, which is SO good, and crackers and hummus and cheese and trail mix and bottled water, and when we got to the gate... security wouldn't let us bring food in. So we wandered out front and shovelled down what we could. Then we walked to the other gate and the lady waved us in, despite the fact that we still had food. She didn't care. So that was pretty weak, but at least we still had some trail mix and a bottle of water or two.

One thing that was odd was the crowd. Families were wandering around, old people were there. It was just very unlike the ska and punk shows I'm used to going to, in which I'm the oldest guy there. Well, unless Josh is with me. Then he's the oldest guy there. And some girl's dad who didn't dare just drop her off might even be older.

The show itself was good. We sat for the openers, just because it was comfortable and the night was cool in that late August way. Collective Soul was good - they played a bunch of stuff off of newer albums that I had never heard. The same was true for Live. Julia asked about their cds and I said about how I liked the first two and didn't love the third one, but I had no idea how many albums they'd released until they said, "This is a song off of our seventh album!" Weird. I guess I stopped paying attention. But Live is energetic and they know how to rock, for sure. I sometimes wish they'd tone down the preachy lyrics, because although I believe in being socially conscious, sometimes I think it distracts from why people should care about them. Why should people care? Because music is fun and makes us feel good and dance and respond in a multitude of ways. Their preachy lyrics bring me out of that and make me think too much about what is trite and what is not, and the line artists have to draw between implying "important things" and outright saying them.

Anyway, Counting Crows rocked. We headed down to the floor and into the swirling mass of drunk people. The band played some really great sounding new songs and they almost entirely escaped the thing I feared the most. See, I bought their live cd "Across a Wire", and was struck by how Adam Duritz just doesn't sing the songs correctly. He makes up new melodies and phrasing and plays around with the song the entire time. He acts out the more sentimental songs as if he was on a theatrical stage. He kind of noodles around, "wanking" for his own amusement. I hated it in the live cd. But live, I kinda liked it. It was really interesting, watching him perform, as if performance was based on more than just reciting the words and singing the songs. He was ACTING.

And it almost always worked. Sometimes, though, in songs there's a snippet that I love exactly the way it is, and these snippets create songs for me. For example, Jerry Garcia has a little interjected "...You know" at the end of "Casey Jones" that just makes the song for me. In some Reel Big Fish songs, Scott busts out a little harmonizing that makes a mediocre song great. So sometime, when Duritz deviates from the song, he loses something that is just integral to my love of the song.

Fortunately, he didn't deviate as much in most of the radio singles. I think he knows what his bread and butter is. But with their consummate performance skills, honed in 14 years of touring together, their amazing lighting and some breathtaking melodies and lyrics, there's a reason these guys have long been one of my favorites.

They ended with a great encore, and then they played a snippet of the original recording of "California Dreaming" and Adam led a sing-along to end the night. It was an odd thing I'd never seen before, but it really fit, and I think gelled the crowd into some kind of community.

I told Julia that I have seen most of my favorite bands live. I've sought out almost anyone I've ever counted as a favorite, and yet I'd never seen these guys. Now I have, and I'm very glad I did. So, thanks again! You are a nice girlfriend.

Now, although this post should be over, I really want to contrast this show with the show I saw three days later.

Dorian bought Ozzy's new cd, and in it was two free tickets to Ozzfest 2007. So Monday morning I went to Dorian's and worked using his wireless internet all day. We got to the Tweeter Center in Boston after 5, just in time for the second stage to begin. We saw four bands, Lordi, Static-X, Lamb of God and Ozzy. No Counting Crows fans were to be found.

Lordi is like Gwar - they're hilarious. They are Finnish and they are never shown without their prosthetic makeup on. The lead singer originally wanted to design makeup, apparently, so his mask is made of a bunch of latex pieces which are each attached in a painstaking process before each show. The others all have single piece hard helmet style masks which they just pull over.

These masks are apparently hot - one of the dudes had a steady stream of sweat dripping out from under it. Look these guys up on youtube sometime - they have some of the weirdest, funniest, most cinematic videos I've ever seen.

I like Static-X. They were one of the only "nu-metal" bands playing and they might have been the band I liked the best. Probably heresy, but it's true.

Lamb of God was just brutally heavy. You could see them dividing the crowd - the older Ozzy fans, who looked like a bunch of bikers, seemed nonplussed. The younger fans liked them better than Ozzy. It was odd - they were the real NEW metal, Static-X felt very 2000, Lordi seemed like Kiss, almost, and Ozzy seems very 70s/80s. Between the group of them, they covered the metal spectrum from birth to now. Not every fan liked every band equally, but it was still a hell of a show.

Ozzy was fun to see just because, well, he's Ozzy. It's like seeing the Stones or the Dead. No one else will ever be them, and no one will ever be Ozzy. It's cool to see the original up there with musicians he helped spawn. And his band was insane - Zakk Wylde is a guitar legend. And I was psyched to again see Faith No More's Mike Bordin, this time playing as Ozzy's drummer. I had seen him once before playing with Korn when Dave Silveria was injured. I never saw Faith No More, but at least I've seen two members of the band live.

The oddest thing about the show was the seating. We were in an arena with locked down chairs and there was NO floor. Because of this, if people wanted to mosh, they had to brave the rain and go up to the uncovered seats in the back. They had to go to the cheap seats. So oddly enough, I was jostled around more at the Counting Crows show than I was during Lamb of God. Go figure.

At least there was one thing both tours could agree upon.

$9 beers.

2007-09-17T09:46:00.000-04:00

AND THE SMOKE CLEARS...

This summer was all flash and adventure. Josh was home, Julia was home, things were a-roarin. Even after everyone left, Jack and Karen came into town for a wedding, Isaac came into town for a bachelor party, I left town for a wedding. Things have contuinued to keep reeling. And although I'll be in Boston for a concert next weekend AND playing in a minigolf tournament AND having Julia home for the first time since she went back, I'm looking at my schedule for the hours after work this week, and it looks like the dust has begun to settle.

Last week Jack came in on Monday. He had some web design and stuff to do, so it was cool - during the days we got some stuff done and in the evenings we had adventures. We picked up Murphy and went to the Great Lost Bear and ate sickening amounts of wings and then we saw "Shoot Em' Up", which was amazing. It is completely a cartoon - so critic proof that I can't even see why the critics bother to comment one way or the other. The dude flings himself through the window of a moving vehicle at high speeds, shoots a bunch of guys, and rolls away unscathed. In some parts he's chasing after a baby, and it literally feels like a Roger Rabbit cartoon with Clive Owen in the role of Roger Rabbit. But with lots of guns and graphic, graphic violence.

Paul Giamatti is in it, all eyes and nostrils, hamming it up and just being relentlessly amusing.

As Jack said, we laughed more than we do at most comedies. It was definitely well done.

Jack and I also:
Played Guitar Hero
Played Ultimate Stratego with (and ultimately decimated) the Colliers
Watched Con Air
Went to Denny's
Went to Ricky's Diner
Watched Silent Hill

When Karen came up, we hung out some, played some SUPER Scrabble (which I got for Karen for her birthday, which is still over a month away). It's crazy - a two day event. So many letters. Such a big board. Quadruple word scores. Crazy.

We also went over to Mom and Dad's for Dad's birthday dinner, which was fun. It's just nice to hang out and socialize with everyone together. When we got home, Isaac and his friend Brian had just gotten back from their bachelor party and a little jaunt to Platinum Plus, which, as one might suspect, left Isaac a bit nonplussed. We all were half asleep. I especially was, since I had been staying up until two or three with Jack looking up old friends online and playing games and stuff and still getting up for work while Jack slept until 11. Friday morning I had breakfast with Isaac and Brian before they left town and I got home as Jack and Karen were getting ready to leave for the wedding they were going to.

And yeah, it was Arielle's wedding. But really, it's not as affecting for me as you might guess, so don't look for any kind of ... well... anything from this end. I just figured I'd have to mention it or it would seem like I was intentionally leaving it out. You vultures! You come looking for the train wreck, don't you. For shame!

All in all, it was nice having Karen and Jack around. They are two of the absolute best friends I've ever had ever ever ever, and I miss not having them around. They should quit their jobs and come be little entertaining monkeys for me. Then I can shout DANCE, MONKEYS! DANCE! And we can all have happy times, 24/7. To paraphrase Andy Samberg, they were put on this planet to give men succulent rubdownz.

Speaking of succulent rubdownz, I went to a wedding on Saturday...which I will tell you about in the NEXT THRILLING INSTALLMENT!

2007-08-07T11:14:00.000-04:00

I AM A SELF-INDULGENT, NAVEL-GAZING WEEN.

But you knew that, since I am a blogger.
I took some Harry Potter quizzes to see which house the Sorting Hat would put me in. It was a curious series of results.

First - the difference between the houses.
Gryffindor - brave, daring, and chivalrous
Ravenclaw - clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable
Hufflepuff - friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working
Slytherin - cunning and hungry for power

http://www.thealmightyguru.com/reviews/harrypotter/docs/quiz-house.html
This one was cutesy and it put me in Gryffindor. It probably does that with everyone because the main characters are Gryffindor.

http://www.quizilla.com/users/Knockturn/quizzes/The%20Ultimate%20Sorting%20Hat%20Quiz/
This one was too obvious and lame and put me in Hufflepuff.

http://www.bactroid.net/sorting_hat.php
Now we're getting somewhere. This quiz was pretty thorough - about 75 questions that aren't obviously leading you to ne house or another. It ranked me as follows.

Gryffindor: 19 points (Higher than 98% of other quiz takers)
Hufflepuff: 17 points (Higher than 97% of other quiz takers)
Ravenclaw: 9 points (Higher than 38% of other quiz takers)
Slytherin: 2 points (Higher than 30% of other quiz takers)

http://www.personalitylab.org/cgi-bin/ccq_hogwarts_process.cgi
This one seemed most thorough - lots of questions about lots of stuff, a 1 -9 ranking system for each question. It ranked me as follows.

69 - Gryffindor - brave, daring, and chivalrous
77 - Ravenclaw - clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable
76 - Hufflepuff - friendly, fair-minded, modest, and hard-working
60 - Slytherin - cunning and hungry for power

Obviously the testmaker's interpretation of which house means what has a lot to do with this. If you see Ravenclaws as bookworms, that's different than seeing them as clever. I might not be a Ravenclaw, because I would think they actually think things through before doing them. I don't always do that so well. Still, I guess that's better than being a Hufflepuff. They are friendly and loyal, but they are kind of the big weenie dork house. Boy, they are nice. But they are also huge wusses.

Maybe I would live off campus and start an Animal House.
Either way, I just wasted my whole lunch break on these quizzes.

2007-08-06T13:32:00.000-04:00

SUPER DONKEY DEATH CAR

Nivana's Wikipedia entry translated to Japanese and back again, via Google Translate.

ORIGINAL ENTRY:
Nirvana was a band from Aberdeen, Washington, formed by Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic, that had signed to Seattle independent record label Sub Pop. The group released its debut album Bleach in 1989, with Chad Channing on drums. However, Channing soon left the band and the band was in need of a permanent drummer. After seeing a show by hardcore punk band Scream, Novoselic and Cobain were impressed by the group's drummer, Dave Grohl. Following Scream's unexpected disbanding, Grohl contacted Novoselic, made his way to Seattle, and was soon invited to join the band. Novoselic said in retrospect that when Grohl joined the band, everything "fell into place"

TRANSLATION
As for dream Krist Novoselic which signs to the explosion sound of the submarine of the record label of the Aberdeen and Seattle independent person it was the band from Washington which is formed and with Kurt Cobain. The group released the bleach of the debut album, in 1989 of Chad Channing of drum. However, Channing to go away from the band directly, as for the band the permanent drummer was needed. After looking at the show due to the hardcore flat tire band scream, [debu] Grohl, it could impress Novoselic and Cobain with the drummer of the group. Novoselic which communicates unexpected by, Grohl of the dispersion which in scream Seattle which continues was made in that method and was invited in order directly to connect the band. As for Novoselic when Grohl connects the band in reminiscence, as for everything “it was settled well”, that you said

2007-08-06T09:09:00.000-04:00

I THINK IT WOULD BE NEAT

I think it would be neat to have been born in 1900. That way, you could keep track of your age really easily.

2007-07-24T10:13:00.001-04:00

I AM AN IMPULSE BUYER

I just bought the monitor pictured above. It's a 20 inch Acer display. It does not come with a jetpack, despite what Buy.com might tell you.

Now if I only had a keyboard with a working "up" key, I'd be styling.

2007-07-24T09:37:00.001-04:00

I GOT PRESENTS

I got sweet presents for my birthday, and I thank everyone who gave and gave and gave some more. They gave until it hurt, and for that, the holy light will shine upon them from my lovely smile.

But seriously folks, I got cool shit. I'm not going to run down the whole list. I am just going to say what comes to mind. This does not make these gifts my favorite gifts, simply the ones I thought of first.

I got a putter, which I have dubbed Black Thunder, to help me rule at mini-golf. This was from the Flying Nguyens, a circus troupe I met in aught-six.

Josh and Liz gave me a mountain of things, including a tiny, cape-less Spider-Man. He cannot fly, despite the lies Rae-Anne tells her baby. They also gave me an awesome book of art from Banksy, the bad-ass graffitti artist.

I got two singing cards, one with the theme to Pirates, and one with the theme to Batman. Awesome. They are on my fridge, alternately protecting and looting the contents within. I also got a magnet with a pirate and a sticker about piracy and a game devoted to being pirate-y.

I got bad-ass cds and dvds and graphic novels, to give me my entertainment fix.

Julia surprised me with tickets to see Counting Crows, Live and Collective Soul. Despite my sadness to see that these three bands have to team up to draw a crowd, I have to say that I'm psyched to see Counting Crows for the first time. I've loved them ever since I stopped making fun of them in 1994. I saw Live in 1995, but they have released 32 albums since then and I never even thought about seeing Collective Soul, but I remember liking them back in the day; I'd like to catch up on their music to prepare myself. It's going to be great, I'm sure. But even if Collective Soul bites, Counting Crows is one of my favorite bands, so I KNOW they'll rock the hiz-ouse.

I also bought (with birthday money) tickets to go see Rilo Kiley this fall. I've been loving up on them ever since the Fletchers recommended them a few years back. I'm not sure I'm into their new single, but they are amazing all in all, so I'm equally psyched about that.

I also got the super rocking new version of Monopoly, when the financial quantities make sense and you can buy Jacobs Field (though why would you want to?).

But ultimately, I just had a great day swimming and playing in the lake. We had great food and desserts and we played disc-golf with this little set-it-up-in-your-own-yard set mom and dad got me. I enjoyed myself immensely.

2007-07-21T09:21:00.000-04:00

THE LINE KING

Julia had never seen all of Fantasia or Fantasia 2000, but since she is a straight up music geek and I am a straight up animation geek, we knew that it very well could be the common ground between us. We've been watching portions on and off for the past week or so, and last night we watched what I had forgotten was one of my favorite pieces of film of all time - the "Rhapsody in Blue" segment of Fantasia 2000.

I have loved Gershwin's catchy melodies since we sang a Gershwin medley in middle school Honors Chorus and I have loved Al Hirschfeld's art forever. Eric Goldberg, the animator who brought us the Genie, based his Genie designs in part on Hirschfeld, and when it came time to direct "Rhapsody", he went right to the source, asking Hirschfeld's permission to adapt his work fairly directly.

The resulting piece is a beautifully designed slice of New York life, with both a classic NY composer, Gershwin, and the guy who attended practically every theater opening in NY of the last century, Hirschfeld.

It rules.

Anyway, I busted out the Hirschfeld book this morning, missing both him and Joe Grant, another animation legend who has passed since Fantasia 2000 came to be. In the book I found a quote that made me feel kind of introspective, especially since it was on my own birthday.

Hirschfeld's wife presented him with this quotation from Thoreau upon his birthday in 2001.

"There was an artist
Who was disposed to strive for perfection.
His singleness of purpose and resolution,
And his elevated piety endowed him,
Without his knowledge,
With perennial Youth.
As he made no compromise with time,
Time kept out of his way,
And sighed at a distance,
Because it could not overcome him."

Al Hirschfeld passed away in 2003 at the age of 99, but this sums up his way very nicely. I think it sums up how I would like my life to be, as well.

I don't dare ask for another 60 plus years, but I'll take what I can get. And with art like these gentlemen's filling the world, I think I'll love every minute of it.

2007-07-20T09:11:00.000-04:00

LORDY, LORDY, LOOK WHO'S ...30?

So here it is. The moment that you are supposed to fear from the moment your last landmark birthday passes. After double digits, all the teen years, after you're able to smoke and buy porn, after you're able to drink... it comes down to this. After 21, all you've got left is decade markers. And my 30 year decade marker happens tomorrow.

And this from the man who fears two things, change and failure, I am A-freaking-okay with it.

I know, you might think that this is one of those "the lady doth protest too much" moments, but who are you calling a lady, jerk?

I HAD my quarterlife crisis years ago. I wasn't suicidal or anything, but I sure as hell didn't know where I was going. I was moving fast but paying less attention to the bearings on the compass and simply acting out of fear that if I stopped somehow I would end up being someone I didn't want to be stuck somewhere I didn't want to go. It sounds irrational to me now, but I can see it really clearly. I didn't want to do common things in a common way and I was so afraid that that's what happened to people who didn't do "important" things. Yet somehow all that frantic striving resulted in, you guessed it, me being someone I didn't want to be stuck somewhere I didn't want to go.

Now I'm in a good place. It's not that my image of "important" has changed - I think I've always valued friends and family and all that more that doing work. But I've achieved a balance. I'm less concerned about my success happening at a young age and I'm more concerned about living, making money, making art, and just not wasting time. As long as I'm taking creative strides, I have no need to be richer earlier than some people or more successful sooner. I can see where that perspective came from - it used to be my goal with school and with Boy Scouts. But the Great Wide World is a lot harder to conquer than the "Ctizenship in the Nation" merit badge. Like with the Oscars, it's a honor just to be nominated. It's an honor just to get to play. Now I'm a smaller fish in a bigger pond posing as a bigger fish in a smaller pond. King of the microcosm and just hoping to place in the macrocosm.

In your twenties, you're all want and confusion. It's a generalization, but it was true for me and for many of my friends. I wanted success so bad I was burning up. Many of us moved around a lot, looking for SOMETHING, whether it was to Dubai, LA, Washington, or back to Maine. A lot of us worked like crazy, trying to be the ants and not the grasshoppers. And somewhere along the way, our twenties went "buh-bye".

Now I'm so glad I'm in Maine. I've always felt very centered and empowered here, especially in the summer, when there is a spark of life on top of that feeling of well-being. I love that friends and family are here, though some are just in town for the summer. I love my job, my salary, my time I have free right now. My insurance, my vacation days, the trips I have planned. I love a lot of things about my life right now. I'm not going to unfairly curse my 20s or laud my 30s. But I do know that the older I get, the more perspective I have. I've seen more things and felt more things. When I was 20 I've never been in love, I'd never had a broken heart, I'd never owned a home, I'd never been to LA to live, I'd never pitched a TV show or shot a movie. I'd never had a client or even used Flash. I'd never written a script, been truly alone, been truly loved in return. I'd never graduated college.

I'd never questioned what I was going to do with myself. I'd known since I was a little kid and was barrelling furiously towards being that person.

I have no idea if I'm that person now. But I am the person that 1977-2007 have shaped me to be, and I am happy to be here. I guess next we keep living. Maybe I'll still be around to give you an update in ten more years. Maybe I'll be sitting right at this same desk with the same job and the same friends. Maybe I'll live somewhere far off and be doing strange and bizarre new things. Either way, I hope I'm here to let you know, and I hope you are here to read it.

2007-07-13T09:36:00.000-04:00

CONCERT FUN!

Last night my brother, Julia, our friend Steve, and Karl all hopped into Julia's car (which I got to drive) and headed down to one of my favorite venues (Hampton Beach) to see some of my favorite bands!

We missed Against All Authority, but we entered just in time to catch the lights dimming for the next opening band - Streetlight Manifesto. Karl has had a man-crush on these guys for years, and I can see why. They are as tight as they sound on their albums and the lead singer, who used to front Catch-22 back before I had heard them, is amazing. Julia, who had never been to a ska show (but went because she loves me) really liked their musicianship, and I can see why. She was also into the bari sax sound. I have to admit it IS nice to see a ska band that still has a large horn section. For a while, when my favorite ska bands would lose members, they would all be unreplaced horn players.

Speaking of, Reel Big Fish was up next. It wasn't the best RBF show I've ever seen, but it was pretty damn great. They played a couple songs off their new album, exchanged their usual witty banter, and rocked the proverbial socks off the crowd.

One sad note - it was the first show of theirs that we had seen since Matt Wong left the band for family life, and although he's a fan favorite and a founding member, the band carried on beautifully without him, replacing him with the former bass dude from JFC. Still, the leaving of Wong leaves a Wong shaped hole in the band, and leaves our favorite third wave crew minority-less.

I love RBF like I love my pancreas, so I'm always so happy to see them play. We were stationed over by Scott, and he amused me a good deal. I was made happy by the rock.

But it had not ended yet! Next up was Less Than Jake. With a frantic, Price is Right themed set and a Voodoo Glow Skulls degree of energy and antics,these guys were fun and mean to jackasses in the crowd. They made one kid come up on stage because he was annoying and they proceeded to tell him that he was annoying. Chris handed this kid a mic and said something to the effect of "Everyone is obviously here to see you." And then stood to the side while this kid got booed. It was kind of the rock band equivalent of turning the bus around and no one gets to go to Funtown.

Then later he made some poor girl come on stage and requested that she make out with the loser kid, which she did because of (and this is just a guess, not a clinical diagnosis) her cripplingly low self esteem.

They played a chunk of Pezcore, and then a chunk of Losing Streak. I had hoped for a little more Hello Rckview, but you really can't go wrong, either way.

For LTJ, we were over by Roger, the back-up/co-lead singer/bassist's end of the stage, which was cool, because he came down after and said hi to people. We were walking past, so I ran over and told him how great they were. He responded that he had seen me over in our little sparsely filled edge of the crowd and thanked me for getting into it, which was nice. I told him how the last time I saw them was at Warped in '97, and he laughed and did that thing I do when I realize that a decade has passed, kind of a "whew" type exhalation of air at the missing decade - a one for my dead homies kind of thing. He told me that he was glad they had played some old stuff, then, but I told him I really liked the new stuff as well.

It was nice.

Then, because we were all sweaty, we changed shirts for the drive home. I fortunately had a shirt in Julia's trunk, and Karl brought a shirt. But Steve, poor Steve. He had to wear one of Julia's flowery girly shirts home. And Julia is tiny, so it fit badly.

We waited in the parking lot as long as we could to see if Steve would get propositioned by truckers, but it was not meant to be.

2007-07-02T10:23:00.000-04:00

BARELY BLOGGING

Hey all. I know I have been away, and I'd like to say that I'm back, but we'll see. The summer is now underway and Julia's home, Josh'll be home from Dubai this weekend for the first time since Christmas (and he'll be home until the end of July!) and Dorian's up this week. I first disappeared from the ol' blog when graduation time rolled around. Suddenly I had lots of functions to go to, which is odd considering that this was the first year in a while that I had nothing at all to do with the school.

I went to the Senior Awards night because they surprised my Mom, who was retiring, by dedicating the English Wing of the high school to her. I went to Graduation because my Dad was the guest speaker (and he delivered about the bestygraduation speech I've ever seen, which is amazing and great to witness, especially when you are sweating out of fear that it might not go perfectly). I even went to the school's end of the year party, because Mom was roasted by her fellow teachers in a pretty amazing video about her career and life. Very funny, but with a few heartleft moments, too. And I got to contribute a bit of good natured ribbing as well.

So for the beginning of this month, I was in full on graduation/ retirement mode. I have to say it was a very exciting time, getting a chance to attend events for my parents and be proud of them, after all the years they attended events for me. I felt like Chelsea Clinton.

Hopefully i'll be able to tape dad's speech off of LRTV, our local public access station and post it online.

2007-06-04T11:47:00.000-04:00

SOME OF YOUR FRIENDS ARE PROBABLY ALREADY THIS FUCKED

Here's an article from rock producer Steve Albini (Surfer Rosa, In Utero) about how bands get the raw end of any corporate deal - how even a band that is selling a solid amount of records can still make no money. It's a pretty quick and interesting read for anyone who is interested in commercialized art and/or the music industry.

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

2007-05-25T10:09:00.001-04:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO ?

Ha ha! There's this website, see? Called "Open Letter", see?

It's filled with letters that people should have sent to other people. It's a bit emo for me - the kind of thing that is a bit self indulgent. Typical letters say things like:

"When I saw you with him, I knew what you had said that day was just words. I know you were just being nice, but I think you broke me... All I wanted was a chance."

And these letters are LONG. Like, okay-we-get-it-LONG.

http://ishouldhavetoldyou.blogspot.com/

Anyway, I wrote one. It's currently at the top of the page on their site.
If you check this later on, look for the letter that begins "Dear Jim Belushi".

2007-05-22T13:55:00.001-04:00

SOMETHING HAPPENED

I just finished the book "Something Happened" by Joseph Heller. I read it because a while back, I had read a review by Vonnegut that had sparked my interest... here's some of the review. I agree (as usual) with Vonnegut, so I'll keep my own thoughts on the novel to a minimum - he has a better way with words than I.

The New York Times book Review
By KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

The company that made a movie out of Joseph Heller's first novel, "Catch-22," had to assemble what became the 11th or 12th largest bomber force on the planet at the time. If somebody wants to make a movie out of his second novel, "Something Happened," he can get most of his props at Bloomingdale's--a few beds, a few desks, some tables and chairs.

Life is a whole lot smaller and cheaper in this second book. It has shrunk to the size of a grave, almost.

Mark Twain is said to have felt that his existence was all pretty much downhill from his adventures as a Mississippi riverboat pilot. Mr. Heller's two novels, when considered in sequence, might be taken as a similar statement about an entire white, middle-class generation of American males, my generation--that for them everything has been downhill since World War II, as absurd and bloody as it often was.

Both books are full of excellent jokes, but neither one is funny. Taken together, they tell a tale of pain and disappointments experienced by mediocre men of good will.

There is a nattily-dressed, sourly witty middle-management executive named Robert Slocum, he tells us, who lives in a nice house in Connecticut with a wife, a daughter and two sons. Slocum works in Manhattan in the communications racket. He is restless. He mourns the missed opportunities of his youth. He is itchy for raises and promotions, even though he despises his company and the jobs he does. He commits unsatisfying adulteries now and then at sales conferences in resort areas, during long lunch hours, or while pretending to work late at the office.

He is exhausted.

He dreads old age.

Mr. Heller's rewriting of this written-to-death situation took him 12 years. It comes out as a monologue by Slocum. Nobody else gets to talk, except as reported by Slocum. And Slocum's sentences are so alike in shape and texture, from the beginning to the end of the book, that I imagined a man who was making an enormous statue out of sheet metal. He was shaping it with millions of identical taps from a ball-peen hammer.

Each dent was a fact, a depressingly ordinary fact.

"My wife is a good person, really, or used to be," says Slocum near the beginning, ìand sometimes I'm sorry for her. She drinks during the day and flirts, or tries to, at parties we go to in the evening, although she doesn't know how."

"I have given my daughter a car of her own," he says near the end. "Her spirits seem to be picking up."

Slocum does his deadly best to persuade us, with his tap-tap-tapping of facts, that he is compelled to be as unhappy as he is, not because of enemies or flaws in his own character, but because of the facts.

What have these tedious facts done to him? They have required that he respond to them, since he is a man of good will. And responding and responding and responding to them has left him petrified with boredom and drained of any capacity for joyfulness now that he is deep into middle-age.

Is this book any good? Yes. It is splendidly put together and hypnotic to read. It is as clear and hard-edged as a cut diamond. Mr. Heller's concentration and patience are so evident on every page that one can only say that "Something Happened" is at all points precisely what he hoped it would be.

The book may be marketed under false pretenses, which is all right with me. I have already seen (British) sales promotion materials which suggest that we have been ravenous for a new Heller book because we want to laugh some more. This is as good a way as any to get people to read one of the unhappiest books ever written.

"Something Happened" is so astonishingly pessimistic, in fact, that it can be called a daring experiment... As far as I know, Joseph Heller is the first major American writer to deal with unrelieved misery at novel length. Even more rashly, he leaves his major character, Slocum, essentially unchanged at the end.

He is able to say, apparently in all seriousness: "The world just doesn't work. It's an idea whose time is gone."

This is black humor indeed--with the humor removed.

It is no casual thing to swallow a book by Joseph Heller, for he is, whether he intends to be or not, a maker of myths.. "Something Happened," if swallowed, could become the dominant myth about the middle- class veterans who came home from that war to become heads of nuclear families. The proposed myth has it that those families were pathetically vulnerable and suffocating. It says that the heads of them commonly took jobs which were vaguely dishonorable or at least stultifying, in order to make as much money as they could for their little families, and they used that money in futile attempts to buy safety and happiness. The proposed myth says that they lost their dignity and their will to live in the process.

It says they are hideously tired now.

I have now suppressed my own dread. I have thought dispassionately about "Something Happened," and I am now content to have it shown to future generations as a spooky sort of summary of what my generation of nebulously clever white people experienced, and what we, within the cage of those experiences, then did with our lives.

And I am counting on a backlash. I expect younger readers to love Robert Slocum--on the grounds that he couldn't possibly be as morally repellent and socially useless as he claims to be.

People a lot younger than I am may even be able to laugh at Slocum in an affectionate way, something I am unable to do. They may even see comedy in his tragic and foolish belief that he is totally responsible for the happiness or unhappiness of the members of his tiny family.

They may even see some nobility in him, as an old soldier who has been brought to emotional ruin at last by the aging process and civilian life.

As for myself: I can't crack a smile when he says, ostensibly about the positions in which he sleeps. "I have exchanged the position of the fetus for the position of the corpse." And I am so anxious for Slocum to say something good about life that I read hope into lines meant to be supremely ironical, such as when he says this: "I know at last what I want to be when I grow up. When I grow up I want to be a little boy."

What is perhaps Slocum's most memorable speech mourns not his own generation but the one after his, in the person of his sullen, teen-age daughter. "There was a cheerful baby girl in a high chair in my house once," he says, "who ate and drank with a hearty appetite and laughed a lot with spontaneous zest: she isn't here now; and there is no trace of her anywhere."

We keep reading this overly long book, even though there is no rise and fall in passion and language, because it is structured as a suspense novel. The puzzle which seduces us is this one: Which of several possible tragedies will result from so much unhappiness? The author picks a good one.

I say that this is the most memorable, and therefore the most permanent variation on a familiar theme, in that it says baldly what the other variations only implied, what the other variations tried with desperate sentimentality not to imply: That many lives, judged by the standards of the people who live them, are simply not worth living.

2007-05-13T09:34:00.000-04:00

I FOUND A TAPE WITH AN OLD FAVORITE OF MINE

A Weird Al song...

I'll Be Mellow When I'm Dead

I don't care about your karma
I don't care about what's hip
No space cadet's gonna tell me what to do

I won't swim in your Jacuzzi
You can't make me settle down
I'd rather kick and jump and bite and scratch
And scream until I'm blue

I may as well be hyper
As long as I'm still around
'Cause I'll have lots of time to be laid back
When I'm six feet under ground

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

When are you
Cosmic cowboys
Gonna get it through your head

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

I can't stand the smell of incense
I don't really like to jog
No Joni Mitchell eight-tracks in my car (ooh)

I hate anything organic
Even health food makes me sick
You won't catch me sipping Perrier
Down in some sushi bar

I tell you, now's the time to go for
All the gusto you can grab
You'll have plenty of time to be low key
When you're laid out on the slab

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

When are you
Cosmic cowboys
Gonna get it through your head

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

I don't want no part of that vegetarian scene
I won't buy me a pair of designer jeans
No redwood hot tub to my name

I got all that I want
And if it's all the same to you
I don't need a course in self-awareness
To find out who I am

And I'd rather have a
Big Mac or a Jumbo Jack
Than all the bean sprouts in Japan

So don't ask me what I'm into
I don't need to prove I'm cool
I'll break your arm
If you ask me what's my sign

I won't tell you where my head's at
I don't need to see no shrink
Psychosis may be in this year
But I'm really not that kind

And I'm in no hurry to be casual
In fact I think I'll wait
Until I'm pushing up the daisies
(Like, wow, man, can you relate)

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead I'll be mellow when I'm dead

2007-05-12T20:56:00.000-04:00

WHEN WILL THE PAIN END?! WHEN, DAMMIT!

I just re-threw myself into my movie, working frantically on it all of a sudden, as if there was an impending deadline (my birthday, perhaps? Who knows.) Anyway, after quite a few days of fairly productive work, I get home from a lovely meal with the Colliers and find that the most recent save I made was corrupt, and it saved over a version that was not corrupted.

It's not going to undo too many days of work, but sometimes I feel like Michael Corleone - Everytime I try to get out, they pull me back in! This movie won't let me finish it. It won't be done. It's just going to hack away at my soul until I'm more bitter than I even am now.

I think when it's done, it will be like a great student film. Not earth shattering, but fun and dumb. But until then, it's like a fucking knife planted square in my gut. With one of those backwards serated edges. And every time I try to pull it out...

2007-05-07T10:45:00.001-04:00

THIS WEEKEND or DAN FLIRTS WITH ALCOHOLISM

Finally, I'm writing about the weekend I just lived.

So, Andy Painter, my best friend from 3rd grade, fellow Concert Choir singer in high school and member of the same Scouting group that I was in is turning 30 next month. A few month back, his wife Becky asked me to help her put together a surprise party for last weekend. The surprise, of course, was that his birthday is in a few weeks and he wouldn't be suspecting it. I said 'yes' and we started contacting people.

Andy came up on Friday to "stay with me for the weekend". His sister, he was told, we driving through his area on Saturday, so he was going to stay with me and then ride back with her. He was utterly convinced by this all. So I picked him up at the Portland Train Station, which was sweet, because he brought me a growler of beer. He's a brewer, and despite the fact that this beer wasn't his own brew, he knows what he's talking about. We stopped at (where else) THE GREAT LOST BEAR. Andy was in charge of beer selection, and we had a few great drinks. The most interesting was a smoked beer, which I'd never had. You could literally taste the smokiness, as if it was beef or something. Weird. We also has wings and I enjoyed my favorite, a Bayou Burger, medium rare. Goodbye, diet.

We stayed up late catching up - after all, aside from one long Mad Monkey visit this winter, Andy and I hadn't spoken since graduation. Of course, we picked right up where we left off - better even, as we weren't ever great friends in high school. I think we both still liked each other, we just had our own things going on. Of course, the yearbooks came out, too.

On Saturday, Greg called because he couldn't get a ride to the surprise party, so we had to invent a ruse to get Greg to ride with Andy to his own surprise party. It was fun, though, because Greg is entertaining and it gave us all a chance to chat. The funny thing was that Greg dressed up some, so much so that he thought he blew the surprise by being dressed too nicely. But Andy hasn't seen Greg in a long time, so he had no idea how Greg dresses.

On another note, Greg has lost 28 pounds and is looking really good. I've been working out a lot, too, but not eating as well as he does, and I haven't seen much change. Perhaps a diet is soon going to be added to my regimen?

We got to Portland and I stalled getting tot he restaurant, trying to make sure everyone had time to get there. Luke Stevens, who I hadn't seen since graduation, either, was there, waiting outside with his wife. Andy saw him first and was like, "Is that? No way!" We went over to say hi, but I was stuck for a way to explain why Luke and Mrs. Luke were going inside with us. So when Andy said, "What a coincidence!" I had to say, "Not entirely. Come inside."

Andy's whole family was there, along with a small crew from school and a few friends of his from college. We had a few beers and I had a grilled tuna wrap, which was almost sushi-ish tasting. Good stuff.

I think Andy was impressed and surprised.
So I went from no beer in months to about seven talls in two days. Not too bad, but a bit of a change.

On the way home, Andy had left with his wife and son and dad and sister, so Greg and I decided to hang out for a while. We sat around and he played some new stuff on his bass and we chatted. Then his girlfriend Stacy called, wanting to get a drink for Cinco de Mayo. They wanted to go to Tortilla Flat, along with Jen Boutellier and Matt Bretton. I was still stuffed from eating more than I was used to with all of our celebrating, but I decided I'd go along for the ride.

I ended up having four margaritas. It was fun. Of course, once I got a few in me, Stacy offered me her leftover fajitas and I ate them, continuing to be stuffed. Dorian came into town and met us, which extended our stay (meaning I had more magaritas as a result).

Then we stopped at Montebello's in Raymond because there was DJ there. He was God Awful, but we saw some girls we knew from school, Ali and Kate, so we hit the dance floor with them. A group of obviously underage girls were there, hammered and really obnoxious, and Stacy kept going over and ripping on the DJ for the terrible songs these girls kept requesting.

Eventually we went home, pretty much at 1. We stayed to hang out at Greg's for a while. Dorian works a night shift, so he was wide awake, but I'd been up late with Andy the night before and by 2:30 I was crashing out. Finally we went home. I had been up since 9, drinking on and off since 1, and I got to bed by 3. I know that 11 or 12 drinks in 12 hours isn't much, but for me these days, well, I was a bit goofed up.

Yesterday we packed up the Monkey couches and drove them back to Dorian's. They were his victory in the divide-and-conquer Monkey shwag dissection. Tristan came along with Dorian and Nikolai rode along with me. Nikolai spent half the ride either hanging out the car window like a puppy or making a glove out of red duct tape.

After we dropped off the couches, we headed to a REAL Tiki Bar I'd always wanted to visit - the Bali Hai in Lynnfield, Mass. We pass it driving to Dorian's, but I'd first notcied it on a trip to Bentley with Alex Steed. I swore to go there someday. When Josh gave me my "Tiki Road Trip" book, I looked it up and knew I had a place to go. I was very excitied - these places from the good ol' days rarely stay in business or stay tiki themed, so it's a great find to see a straight-up tiki bar (and not the Florida style tiki bar - this is the real deal).

The place was in a bit of disrepair - not that it was too rough, it just looked a bit dated. The light box style pictures on the wall were old and a bit faded portraits of life on the islands. The lamps were cool - made from seashells. The food was chinese and polynesian, though I had Schezewan Beef, which was delicious. The drinks were strong. Dorian got a Dr. Funk and I had a Fog Cutter and a Zombie. Tristan and I both bought mugs. And finally, I was home and in bed by 11 at least one night this week.

2007-05-07T10:07:00.000-04:00

WEEKEND IN MASS

I'm still one weekend behind, but I figured I'd better give you an update!

I went to Massachusetts to visit Julia last weekend and it was fun. I missed her Friday night concert, just because it's pretty much impossible for me to leave early enough on a Friday to get there in time for her concert, but I got there soon after. I got very lost briefly on the way while driving on the backroads of Northern Mass, once even practically ending up back in New Hampshire, but it turned out okay.

On Saturday we did the walking tour of UMASS Amherst, her campus. It's pretty amazing - like someone built a little New England liberal arts school campus, like Colby or something, and then at some point they gave up on making the campus look like it was made of related buldings. It's the kind of place where you see a beautiful old chapel directly next to a giant cement monstrosity that could belong at RIT if only it was fitted with a layer of brick. The result is weird - like a few campuses were mushed together. Parts are beautiful, and other parts look like their from the Eastern Bloc.

It was also the biggest campus I've ever seen. And I mean, I'm used to big campuses. RIT had 13,000 undergrads. BU had 16,000. Amherst has almost 20,000. And though I've seen decked out Student Unions, theirs has a barbershop and entire chains of eateries. So it was impressive.

After our tour, we went to the Eric Carle Museum of Picturebook Art (http://www.picturebookart.org/), which was cool. An exhibit of African-American children's book art was on display, and one room featuraes a lot of Carle's work. Another room has little craft displays, where children can go in an learn a different crafty technique weekly. We went in an played with some linoleum block stamps and made a sign for Julia's door.

Next we went to Northampton, which is a cool little town. We had giant burritos, found some cool little shops, and bought 14 records for $5. I also found a Poison tape for only $1. I gave it to Greg when we got home, since he and I used to listen to the same album in 6th grade.

That night we got sushi on a whim and then we went to see Hot Fuzz, which was funny and awesome. It was a great capper to the evening.

The next day, we got delicious sandwiches at a cool little shop with a bluesy old-timey band playing, then we got crackers and cheese at the grocery store and we had a picnic. We wanted to go to the top of this nearby mountain, called Mount Sugarloaf, oddly enough, but the road was closed and the hike looked a bit more strenuous than we were (I was?) feeling, so we found a picnic table and had a nice little meal. We had passed a mini golf place on Saturday, so I told Julia we'd have to go back on Sunday, which we did. It wasn't such a good course - almost all par 2s - but it was fun, and a welcome digestive break after our picnic.

Then I drove home, glad to have seen Julia (who is a nice girl).

It was a bit odd to be in that setting again so long after I went to school myself. I kept waiting to be found out, like I was undercover as a teenager, Cameron Crowe style. Staying in a dorm is so odd after you've grown out of it - it's like paying too much to be in the world's crappiest hotel, with public restrooms and flip flops int he shower stalls. But I also can remember how fun it all was. I really enjoyed dorm life, though I have to admit I thought it was much better sophomore year when I was in a suite. And maybe it was even better junior and serior year, when I had my own apartment. It all comes down to the bathrooms and having space to run away to if you need it. Granted, I would take my current situation over any dorm anywhere, but I have to admit that living in a dorm, never knowing who might pop in or when you might end up on an adventure, was a pretty good time.

But then again, sometimes it's nice to have a restroom to yourself.

2007-05-03T12:21:00.000-04:00

MY FLORIDA FUN
I'm still working on this, so make sure to check back later to see the full effect with captions and stuff.

My folks were in FLorida for a couple weeks, so I decided kind of spur of the moment to hop down and join them for four days or so. I had vacation days to use up, so it was a good plan - my first paid vacation!

We planned on going to Disney for a day and to the beach for a day and kind of just play it by ear. But when I landed in Orlando Wednesday night (after taking the wrong concourse to the wrong baggage claim), Dad and Brian were waiting for me with a surprise.

First off, let me add that I though I was flying into the littel Sanford airport, so I was quite surprised to find myself in Orlando International. Dad had set up my tickets for me, so I had no idea what the hell I was doing!

Anyway, the girls' softball team had been in Florida playing at the Wide World of Sports. Part of the package deal they get includes Disney passes which are good for two weeks, despite the fact that they were only there for under a week. So Dad and Brian had gotten a call from JR, who is their coach, offerring us their unused passes.

In other words, we had as many free days at Walt Disney World as we needed.

The cool thing about this is that it removes the franticness from the trip - we just took our time. Heck, it was free, after all. So instea dof going on Friday for a marathon day, Thursday we decided, around noon, to make the drive to Orlando from my parents' trailer in Merritt Island.

We got to the Animal Kingdom at around 1:30 or 2.

Erin and I on the way in to Animal Kingdom:

We saw the new Nemo musical stage show, which seats over 2,000 people. As usual, Dad commented that this show, if it was in Maine, would be the biggest thing in the state. Here, it was just another attraction. But it was impressive. The songs are only so-so, but the spectacle was impressive. People dong flips on wires, puppets, all sorts of crazy stuff. The jellyfish were the real high point - they were lit from within and moved on poles in a cool, floaty way.

As soon as we stepped out of the show, we headed for Expedition Everest. It's rare Disney adds a new E Ticket ride - a real A lister. It's even more rare to add to Disney's impressive mountain range - Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain.

Expedition Everest didn't let us down. It's a worthy addition - even more so than Rock N' Roller Coaster, which is heavy on thrills but painfully short on theming. Everest has a great design, themed cars, hell - it's got a yeti. Nuff said.

Expedition Everest:

Mom and Erin entering: Even Mom dared to do it!

Well themed train cars:

The steep climb up Everest:

I got to ride with Dad so Erin and Mom could scream together!

I thought the ride might be Thunder Mountain-gentle, but after you reach the broken train tracks and start going backwards, you realize that this isn't your parents' train ride... though they were there with me!

Monkeys! We saw one monkey take a nasty digger off his perch and into a tree. He caught himself, but he was freefalling a good 15 feet!

Have I pointed out my awesome Pirate shoelaces? They say "Carlos". I got them at Christmas Tree Shops the night I saw Children of Men.

The Levasseurs and I went on Kali River Rapids because Mom and Dad had to take off to get to Cirque DuSoleil reservations they made to celebrate their anniversary. Kali River Rapids is so great - I can't imagine what the Animal Kingdom was like before this ride came in... and now with Everest, let's just say the Asia section is WDW's best new real estate! We went twice, which worked out poorly for Faye, who got soaked on the second trip and stayed that way all night. I stayed remarkably dry.

Next we headed over to the Magic Kingdom.

A nice sunset, as seen from the Monorail on the way into the Magic Kingdom.

Like anyone who is awesome, we think Pirates are cool. Every kid in that park had a sword, practically. Pirate fever, apparently, has swept Disney World.

We hti Pirates and then walked across the park just in time to meet Mom and Dad, who were beside themselves about the Cirque DuSoleil show. Dan 1 ended with Tomorrowland, and Erin and I messed around with the long exposure function on my camera and got some cool effects.

I also saw a few attractions I had yet to see - the new Alien Encounter redoo with Stitch as the focus makes brilliant use of the same ride convertions as before, but in a funny, more fitting way. The new Monsters Laugh Floor ride is interesting - it's the new technology that the characters on screen speak at the cue of a microphone that a cast member uses off screen. This way it appears that the Monsters from Monsters Inc. are actually talking to you. The lip articulation is ROUGH, but even Mom got a bit of a kick when she first realized that they were saying the names of people in the crowd. I still miss the show it replaced - TimeKeeper, but that attraction has been closed and halfassed for so long that at least there's something new in there.
And as far as Disney scaling back their feature animation department a few years back? The fact that the three Tomorrowland attractions we visited were all based on animated films shows that these films don't even NEED to make money at the Box Office - it's all fodder for the parks, my friends.

Oh, I forgot - we also did the good ol' Carousel of Progress, which Erin loves. Inexplicably. It is a cool ride, but it's SO dated now.

It also needs to be reiterated - Buzz Lightyear is still one of the best rides out there, combining a dark ride setting with a shooting gallery.

Day 2 began in EPCOT. We got there late again - 2 PM - parked at the Yacht and Beach Club and wandered in by way of the International Gateway. Of course, we did Imagination first!

Next, we went to The Land. This was the biggest disappointment of my trip - I used to love the bright colors and the cool little food court. Now it's all fancy pants, with classier (lamer) colors and a better food selection. Lame. I'm a traditionalist. That said, the seating area is much improved, with lots of little barriers to keep people out of your way. But that came at the cost fo the cool fountain that used to reisde right in the middle.

The did add Soarin', which is a sweet ride. I'd seen it in California before, but it was my first ride on the East Coast.

Even the topiaries were into the Pirates theming!

One of the best changes to anything this trip was the drastic improvement of the Mexico ride. With all new animation replacing the early 1980s film clips inside the ride, the new attraction keeps some old elements, but rethemes the entire attraction to the old Disney features, "The Three Caballeros" and "Saludos, Amigos". The animation is absurdly good, too, helmed by former WD Feature Animator Eric Goldberg. Classy, classic stuff. I was mucho impressed.

We left Mexico just in time to see a beautiful sunset. God, it's nice to be outside when the sun is setting. We're all inside too much in life, methinks!

Mom, Dan and Erin watching the Illuminations fireworks.

The Levasseurs left the next day, so my folks and I had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. I bought some gifts for babies and stuff, and then we went for a walk. In the Magic Kingdom. Because we could - it was free. HA!

The next day we hit the beach. Mom and Dad thought it was chilly, but I swam for a long time.
The next morning I went home. I'd tell you more, but I'm sick of typing and no one actually read this far anyway.

2007-04-26T19:41:00.000-04:00

SHUGALO!

So Sugarloaf had their big ski reggae weekend a few weekends back (after we got that foot or so of snow... in mid April), and Julia, Stacy and Jen and I decided to go. I have only skied Sugarloaf once - it's a bit further away than Sunday River, the other of the big two in our state. But it was reggae weekend, dammit, and I had free tickets still from my Winterkids freelance work.

What was cool is that Julia and I had free VIP passes because of Winterkids and Jen and Stacy had Season's Tickets, so my pass booklet had four extra passes that we didn't need. So what did I do? I scalped those bastards for $120. So my day of skiing was worth cash in hand.

We had a great time, mostly because it was such a fun crew. Julia got along great with the other girls, which made me happy, and aside from almost rear-ending Stacy's car on the way home (one guy turned and a line of people slammed on their brakes... but my brakes needed to be fixed so I swerved, Knight Rider style, out of the lane so I wouldn't hit Stacy) the day was a hoot.

Because it was reggae weekend, all day bands were playing. A few were pretty good, but one lead singer, a pit stained rastafarian kept shouting "Shugalo!" in between every song. We were laughing at him a lot. Although he was actually dreadlocked and black (most of the bands were college rock white kids with phony accents, which they held onto even when speaking), he was still inferior as a reggae musician. So he looked the part, but didn't sound it. I think his cries of "Shugalo" were to cover up the sound of crickets between songs.

After the band, Julia and I left Jen and Stacy at the beer tent while we went up for two last runs.

I was mocking the guy on the lift when Julia was like, "OH! He's saying Sugarloaf" realizing that it wasn't just a funny noise. I made fun of her a bit for missing that in the first place, while laughing about it, and then we went for the last two runs.

When we got to the bottom, I was STILL mocking this dude, and Stacy says, "That MUST mean something." She had just called her brother to have him look it up. I said, "It does mean something. SUGARLOAF."

We had been mocking the dude for over an hour and Stacy and Julia hadn't even realized what he was actually saying.

So I made this, using the Sugarloaf logo, and mailed it to Stacy.

2007-04-26T19:34:00.000-04:00

CARTOON I DID FOR A GRADUATION PARTY

The parents of this gang of kids, who have been best friends since middle school, hired me to do this. I thought it came out pretty well, despite the fact that it's tough to piece together much from one reference photo.

2007-04-26T19:32:00.000-04:00

FREE DRAWING

I kinda like my coloring. Maybe I should be making graphic novels...

2007-04-26T12:53:00.000-04:00

WOKE UP THIS MORNING. GOT MYSELF A GUN.

I just got back from Florida and it was amazing. I have lots to say about it, and lots to say about other stuff, but not right now, okay?

TC sent me this site the other day.
http://video.glath.com/

While I work, I have been listening to streaming episodes of The Sopranos this week. It's been fun - I've cleared most of season 3, along with all of the Cartoon Network show Frisky Dingo and season 11 of South Park. It kind of reminds me of the old days, when Jack and I would slap in VHS tapes and animate all day. One day, I remember we watched (or listened to, more like it) seven movies, including Braveheart. It's funny how much sitting that is.

But I was talking to Adam Toews the other night and he said something I've always felt is true - how nice it is to sit down and work - like really work. How nice it is to animate for 15 hours straight. It sounds boring, but I assure you, once you get into it, it's not.

Anyway, I'll come up with more sometime soon. Until then, he's a drawing I did while I was away, just to tide you over.

2007-04-17T10:33:00.000-04:00

FUNNY PICTURES OF MEEEEEE!

SO Julia sent me a link to this picture generator thing.

http://morph.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/

I uploaded a picture and did funny things.

We started with this image from the last time I was in Florida, 2004.

Creepy baby me:

Creepy kid me:

Creepy lesbian me:

If I had a Monkey Baby:

If Tuan and I had a baby:

Me with shoe polish on my face, I guess?

I hope I have this much hair when I'm old:

Oh, by the way, the Death Clock website says I'm going to die on October 2nd, 2052, so be nice to me!

2007-04-17T10:25:00.000-04:00

FLOODING

It's still raining. So it has been a foot of snow last week, followed by snow two days ago and then rain since. So all the new snow and the old snow are melting. So half of the state of Maine is flooded.

Check out these pictures Rae-Anne sent. This is from the road in front of their house.

Fortunately they live on a hill. So do I, but there's a swampy area behind my house that has risen a lot. Of course, it would have to rise another twenty feet before it would be in my house, and considering how bad the weather is versus the fact that it hasn't risen that much, another twenty feet would be more or less impossible - like Al Gore's most feverish nightmare brought on by crack and late night snacking.

Anyway, I hope everybody gets their basements pumped out and that everyone is safe. And stay tuned to this blog for ark building directions if it gets really bad..

2007-04-17T10:20:00.000-04:00

SCHOOL SHOOTINGS AND STUFF

Last night my friend Nikolai and I were watching the news about the school shooting in Virginia, which is, apparently, the worst massacre in American history. The newscaster said that President Bush was considering visiting the campus to speak.

I laughed - "He'll visit a school where 33 people were killed, but only fly over New Orleans?"
Nikolai's response?

"Yeah, but the people in Virginia were white."

He was kidding, but what's sad is the degree of truth there probably is to that statement. A bunch of impoverished black Americans? They get a fly over.

A bunch of upwardly mobile college students? Now they are worth his time.

2007-04-13T10:39:00.000-04:00

I SAW GRINDHOUSE

And it was good. I can't wait to get the world's most decked out DVD set, with the complete full versions of both films and lots of other crazy stuff. This movie is like a fanboy explosion - just a big, campy, ridiculous, messy, funny, wonderful thing. It might not be the best films from either director, but the combination, the packaging, the overall theme of the whole thing is brilliant.

THE END.

2007-04-13T09:58:00.000-04:00

KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

"What is it? What can it possibly be about blow jobs and golf?"
-Martian Visitor

Kurt Vonnegut died the other day, and I'm okay with that. So it goes, eh?

He was one of my favorite writers ever, and so I decided to try to find a passage of his about death... Then I realized that everything he writes is about death. He's discussed the deaths in Dresden, the deaths of his family members (particularly his sister's death from cancer and his mother's suicide) and his own death in great detail.

He discussed the death of his own idol, Mark Twain, a lot, too. He mentoned that when atheists get old. they get ornery, citing Twain's work as an example. Vonnegut was an atheist, yet he liked to talk about religion.

And Vonnegut got ornery, too. Whether he was telling it as he saw it about the current administration ("Our President is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.") or predicting the end of the world, filled with fat poor people and rudeness all around, Kurt Vonnegut said things differently. He did not say that he would spit down the Bush administration's throats or call them Nazis. He left that to one of my other literary heroes, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

His last book, which he said would never be finished, was about a stand-up comedian watching over the end of the world. It was titled "If God Were Alive Today". I think it must have been as autobiographical as most of his writing - in Vonnegut's eyes, he was the one joking as it all came down. Maybe the story could never be finished because Vonnegut knew that he would never make it to quite the end of the world. But he certainly suspected it was close.

So despite dying the cranky death of an atheist, he still managed to conjure up some hope in his readers that maybe he lives on, through his novels or maybe just out there on a spaceship with Kilgore Trout and some strange plunger-shaped aliens or some such hoohah.

He wrote once:

"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

Kurt never averted his eyes from the ugliness of the world in order to make it easy for himself or for his readers. But he also saw all the beauty and all the wonder of it, the good that was out there and the better stuff we could have if we weren't so damn human.

Hi Ho.

2007-04-11T10:11:00.001-04:00

PEEPING TOM

This HAS to be a video installment of my blog. Because I simply do not have the means to express what I just saw.

That was one of the most amazing shows I've ever seen. Not only did the rapper Pigeon John rock my shit as the opening act, but the second act was Automator favorite Miho Hatori, from Cibo Matto. She's this amazing little asain singer who uses crazy, almost Portisheadesque basslines. So the opening acts surprised the hell out of me. Really great stuff. Worth the price of admission.

But then Mike Patton took the stage. It was a long wait for them to come out, but you can tell who's rocked arenas before. Mike Patton can make an entire crowd go absolutely nuts. It could be because he is, himself, absolutely nuts.

He came out in a doo-rag and a bulletproof vest.
He mocked the Red Sox just to get a rise out of the crowd before the song "Don't Even Trip".
He made a dude in the crowd say "chowdah" for him.

These videos don't do it justice, but you should watch them anyway.

They encored with a cover of "Across 110th Street" which was bizarre. But Patton always liked odd covers. Speaking of, this video is worth watching for Patton's dead lizard stare at the end. They are so obviously putting people on - a metal band doing a straight faced Lionel Ritchie cover. Classic.

Mike Patton - Lead Vocals - Need I say more?

Butterscotch - Beatbox - taking the place of Rahzel, formerly of The Roots, was 21 year old beatboxing sensation Butterscotch. She was tiny, but insanely good. Watch the videos of her below!

Imani Coppola - Backing Vocals/Violin - a singer/songwriter/musician probably best known for her 1997 hit "Legend of a Cowgirl"

Dan the Automator - Mixing/Effects - Automator is my favorite producer. He did Lovage (with Patton), Handsome Boy Modelling School, Gorillaz, Deltron 3030.... everything he touches is amazing. And I was amazed he was THERE!

D.P. Holmes (Dub Trio) - Guitar
Stuart Brooks (Dub Trio) - Bass
Joe Tomino (Dub Trio) - Drums - Dub Trio guested on one Peeping Tom song, so I was psyched to see them as the backing band. Sweet.

General Patton -

Rahzel -

Butterscotch - (you can even see Pigeon John in the crowd! Also there's a link to a Pigeon John/Butterscotch duet)

2007-04-10T10:21:00.001-04:00

DAN'S CONCERT LIST

Since I am going to see Peeping Tom tonight, and because Julia and I were discussing this, I decided to take a stab at listing all the concerts I've ever been to and the years in which they occurred. I will try to only include fairly major acts, as shows at The Mad Monkey and the times I saw Maine folk band Schooner Fair may not count (and are hard to remember). I am also only going to count rock shows. Since some of you guys hang out with me and have a better memory than I do, feel free to add to this list. I think I'm making stuff up about who was there.

This has been modified since the original posting. Mostly because I forgot about seven shows.

May 27, 1986 - Charlie Daniels Band (with Alabama) - my parents like Charlie Daniels, so we went to this show when I was very little. I kind of remember the crowd and heads in front of me.

September 29, 1989 - Rolling Stones, Steel Wheels tour. With Living Colour. Foxboro. With the family.

September 26, 1991 - The Greateful Dead. Boston Garden!! With the family and some of the Lobster Pound Crew.

1993? Rustic Overtones. Prom. With Angela Mancini (and the rest of the school, but she was my date).

Senior year.

December 2, 1994 - Toad the Wet Sprocket. With Milla Jovovich!?. The State Theatre. With Greg and Wendy and Erin, I think.

Spring, 1995 - Live. Bowdoin College. Ummm? With Wendy and Ben Rand?

August 10, 1995 - The Horde Tour. Blues Traveller, Ziggy Marley, G. Love (the first of many), Black Crowes. Joan Osbourne was on the second stage, but we only half payed attention. I remember hearing her while we got water. This was at the old Seacoast Performing Arts Center in Old Orchard Beach, in the old outside stadium where our old minor league baseball team, the Maine Guides, played. I was with Tuan and some other people? Jaime? The Windham girls? Who knows.

Also of note - it was a hippie concert performed the day after Jerry Garcia died. My first memory of G Love was his playing a cover of the Dead's "Friend of the Devil". Damn.

Off to college.

Fall, 1995 - Helmet. With Skeleton Key. Water Street Music Hall. With Doug Levinthal and some of his friends.

Winter, 1995 - Rusted Root. With Geggy Tah. The War Memorial? With Andy and my roommate, Mike Barbus.

1996 - G Love, Fun Loving Criminals. At RIT. There were more bands, but we didn't see them all. With Andy? Other people?

1996? - Reel Big Fish. With Nerfherder. At Milestones. A new ska sensation. Kind of a big event in a tiny tiny club. Parry Gripp from Nerfherder was in the crowd next to me during RBF and we talked to a lot of the band afterwards. I wish I could remember who I talked to, but I think it was Tavis or Grant. I know Andrew Gonzales. So only members who left the band, I guess. With Karl, Andy, Bret and I'm sure some more kids from Ellingson.

1996 - They Might Be Giants and Violent Femmes. SUNY Geneseo. With A car so full of floormates that people were in the trunk.

1997 - They Might Be Giants. RIT

May 3, 1997 - G. Love - Emanon Festival at RIT. I forgot all about this show but I just found it online, and there's no way I missed an on campus G. Love show, especially when I still lived on campus.

May 18th, 1997 - H20? The Pietasters, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, the Swingin' Utters - The Armory in Rochester. Noteworthy as my first Bosstones and first Pietasters show. With Karl, Andy, Bill and Bret. Pete? Dorian?

Summer 1997 - The Warped Tour. The Amazing Royal Crowns, Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, The Mighty Mighty Mosstones.
Orlando, Florida. With Ellen and some dude. Talked to Aaron Barrett. Decided I liked Less Than Jake. Almost died from heat exhaustion.

199? - Helmet at RIT

199? - Squirrel Nut Zippers. With Bio Ritmo. With Andy and Laurie and Dorian and Scott and... people?

199? - Reel Big Fish at RIT. With Frenzal Rhomb. With Karl and Andy and Dorian?

Spring, 1998 - Jimmies Chicken Shack at The Creek in Rochester. Shitty, tiny redneck bar (with indoor volleyball - weird, huh?), but a favorite band of ours, especially in that era. Later on, friends of ours would be close friends of theirs, which is strange. Our friend Alex even lives (lived?) with their drummer. The opening band was the worst, Dr. Zoo, and Danny Finlin practically booed them off stage. With Dorian, Jack, Danny, Andy and I'm betting Karl was there, but who knows. Those were in his absentee frat years.

1998 - G Love at Water Street. The infamous 3 and a half hour show. G played practically the whole time. It was amazing. He had the King's Court guys with him, too. The opening act was some girl singer songwriter who was very good. With Andy. Karl? the Pope? I forget.

1999 - The Toasters. With Scofflaws (right Karl?)- RIT (in some shitty cafeteria?!) With Karl and Andy.

September 22, 1998 - Family Values Tour - Orgy, Limp Bizkit, Ice Cube, Korn. The War Memorial. With Jack, Andy, Karl (?), Dorian

February 12, 1998 - The Pietasters at Water Street. With Karl and Meredith. Andy?

Post college.

1999 - Cake. With Karl, Jack and Arielle.

June 30, 2000 - Summer Sanitarium - Powerman 5000, Kid Rock (ick!), Korn, Metallica. Foxboro. We missed System of a Down, who played first. I was pissed. With Jaime, Karl, Jack, Arielle, Michelle Laderbush.

2000 - Margret Heater - The Recher Theater. Jack, Arielle, Neil, Todd.

2000 - Godsmack video shoot - Asylum. Karl.

2000 - Goldfinger. With Mest. Asylum. Karl and Arielle and Jack? Andy? Who knows?

Fall 2001 - Margret Heater - The Recher Theater. Arielle, Neil, Chris. This was right after September 11th.

2001? G Love. The State Theater. Andy and Arielle. One of the lesser G Love shows I saw. I was a bit disappointed.

October 7, 2001 - Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger (With Mest and the Movielife) - Crouching Fish Hidden/Finger Tour. With Mest again, I think. Jack, Karen, Arielle, Karl, Andy

December 11th, 2001 - Weezer. With Tenacious D (and Jimmy Eat World, who we didn't actually see). The Civic Center. With Jack and Neil and Arielle and Steve, I think. Jack says this is when Karen lived in maine, and now that I think about it, I remember her being there. Sorry, cousin!

June 13, 2003 - Pietasters, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Catch 22. Hampton Beach. With Karl, Bri and Arielle. One of the Bosstones' last shows. Boo. Great venue, though.

August 3, 2003 - Suzanne Vega. Downton Disney, CA. House of Blues. Josh's then girlfriend got us free tickets to this show. It was the night Jack and Karen asked me to be in their wedding. Jack, Karen, Josh, Michelle, Neil, Arielle.

February 29, 2004 - The Toasters. With Animal Suit DriveBy. At The Big Easy. With Andy and Karl.

November 19, 2003 - Primus. The Cetral Maine Civic Center. With Karl and Bri - but yes, Karl, Darcy WAS there. So was Dave, I believe.

2003 - Mike Doughty. In Mass somewhere. One of his tiny rock shows. With Steve, Andy and Arielle.

2004 - Dropkick Murphys. The State Theater. Karl made me do it, but the show blew me away. I helped some former students off the stage after a big song when everyone went onto stage. Apparently that's weird - to be the teacher at the punk show. One of the students I helped down passed away since - Brittany Douglas. I will think of her every time I think of that show. But at the time, it was a great show.

2005 - That dude who sang Rockabye. In Memphis. With Sarah. We got bored by the seventeen opening acts and the smoke was bugging Sarah, so we left before he went on.

April 08, 2005 - Reel Big Fish. Bowdoin. With Karl and a pregnant Bri. Karl says Josh was with us, too, but I think he was not. Too bad he doesn't read his little brother's blog so he could weigh in... Reel Big Fish has called this one of the only shows they ALL were happy about - apparently it was one of their best shows ever. This was before Josh came home from LA but after I was teaching, because I saw kids from school there.

June 25, 2005 - Reel Big Fish. With El Pus. Josh and Karl and I went. Amanda Nguyen was there. El Pus blew our DOORS off. Josh and I decided to go the next day.

June 26, 2005 - Reel Big Fish. With El Pus. Hampton Beach. So good. Maybe even better than the night before?

February 16, 2005 - Goldfinger. With Josh. Axis in Boston. With a cd of weak new material, this wasn't their best show, but Josh was psyched to see his old LA favorite in the East.

September 15, 2006 - Dropkick Murphys again. This time up in Orono at Ushuaia, with an amazing opening act. No, not Clit 45, they sucked. But the Welch Boys were tremendous. With Karl. And we gave Ropple a ride, too.

October 6, 2006 - Regina Spektor. At Avalon with Julia. So amazing!

October 26, 2006 - Lady Sovereign. At Paradise Rock Club in Boston. After the State Theater, this is one of the coolest venues I've ever been to. With Tristan.

2006 - Subject Bias and Tree By Leaf. At the St. Lawrence Arts Center in Portland. This was to shoot a video for Subject Bias. They also played twice at the Mad Monkey.

April 10, 2007 - Peeping Tom at Paradise Rock Club. With Pigeon John and Miho Hatori from Cibo Matto. With Tristan and Dorian. One of the best shows I've ever seen.

UPDATED:
July 12, 2007 - Streetlight Manifesto, Reel Big Fish, Less Than Jake at Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom. A great show and a great time. With Josh, Karl, Steve Robinson and Julia.

August 17, 2007 - Counting Crows with Live and Collective Soul at MerchantsAuto Stadium, Manchester, NH. Three bands from my high school days. I liked Counting Crows a lot.

August 20, 2007 - Ozzfest 2007. Ozzy with Lamb of God, Static-X and Lordi. At the Tweeter Center in Mass. A free show with Dorian. Very good time. I like Static-X a lot and I thought Lordi was a RIOT. Cool to see Ozzy up there in person on what could be his last tour. You never know...

September 21, 2007 - Rilo Kiley. Avalon in Boston. With Julia. Great band, great show. We missed the opening acts, but I'm not going ot hold that against Julia for too long. I could kind of hear them as I stood on Lansdowne waiting for her for an hour.

October 15, 2007 - Voodoo Glow Skulls with Left Alone, El Grande and
Skamasutra at the Station in Portland. With Karl. This was the night of one of the ALCS baseball games against Cleveland (we lost but won the World Series despite). Karl and I kept ducking into the bar to check the score during the opening acts.

I think I'm missing a Pietasters show... Hmmm.....

March 15, 2008 - The Dropkick Murphys (3) St. Patrick's Day show, Lowell, MA. At the Tsongas arena where the UMass Lowell hockey team plays. With Karl's perennial faves Big D and the Kids Table and Everybody Out. Front and center, baby.

2007-04-10T09:47:00.000-04:00

TRIP TO VERMONT

I never told you guys that I went to Vermont a couple of weekends ago!
My good friend Marybeth, who I used to teach with at Lake Region, and her husband Isaac, who was briefly my roommate at Fessenden Street, moved to Vermont when Isaac finished his law degree. He works as a clerk for the state Senate in Vermont.

I hadn't seen these guys since Josh and Liz's wedding, so I made the trek out to Vermont. It's such a nice drive, and it's still a treat for me to have the free time to make a trip like that.

Here are a few of the amazing places I passed...

http://www.vermonthistory.org/

http://www.maplewoodgolfresort.com/golf.php

http://www.mulburninn.com/

The beautiful Vermont History Museum is right by MB and Isaac's place, which is an old Victorian house that they have the top floor of.

I got there around noon on Saturday and we chatted for a while. Then we adventured. First we drove to the smallest stape capital in the US, Montpelier.

Now, I'm in classically bad shape - I've been skiing and working out since the Monkey closed, but as of that trip, it had been about a week of working out to compensate for two years on my ass. Also, strong legs do not help in a cardiovascular situation, apparently. So when we went for a hike, I was not conditioned for it. I was still really glad we went - it was so gorgeous out - but it was also a reminder of what a lump of shit I am. But we "hiked" (mostly uphill walked) up to this cool stone tower and looked out over the area, which was cool. Then Isaac showed us around the Judge's chambers where he works. It was cool to see his whole process and to discuss how this court business really works.

Here I am being a judge.

Next we walked around a bit more and then did something more my speed - we hit Ben and Jerry's. We tried a free sample of Phish Foood and continued on. I had been to the Ben and Jerry's plant once before as a kid, but not since middle school, so that was cool.

Next we went to a cider press fresh cider making place. We drak lots of free cider (it was pretty much free smaple day). I bought some cider bbq chipotle marinade (which was amazing) and some maple mustard with horseradish (which was amazinger).

We went to Stowe and I bought a journal to write script ideas in.

Then we had pizza and played Scrabble.
I came home the next day after a walk around Barre, where they live. Here I am in Barre (with Isaac).

They might not be in Vermont much longer, so I'm glad I had a chance to visit! Thanks guys for your hospitality and stuff.

2007-04-10T09:36:00.000-04:00

WALK TO END WARS AND BARRY MANILOW

Throu8gh web wandering, today I landed on the website of a Mr. Bill McDannell, who wants to see our country change its perspective as a nation of this world. In order to do so, he has been walking for months - from San Diego to Washington DC. He doesn't expect the petition he hands Washington to make a difference, but he hopes it might at least make them think. It's interesting, powerful stuff, if for no other reason than to read about the characters he meets as he walks!

http://www.wtetw.com/index.html

He mentioned Barry Manilow in one passage, particularly his song "I Write the Songs". As soon as I heard the title, I thought of the amusing Eels B-Side, "I Write the B-Sides". I figured I'd check Barry's lyrics to see if that comparison was intended by Eels.

I write the songs that make the whole world sing.
I write the songs of love and special things.
I write the songs that make the young girls cry.
I write the songs, I write the songs.

Now compare this to Eels.

I write the B-Sides that make a small portion of the world cry.
I like the seaside and singing songs that make you not wanna die.

Ha ha! Eels is even more amusing that I previously thought. YAY!

2007-04-03T13:42:00.000-04:00

ONE MORE REASON TO LOVE FAITH NO MORE

FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Faith No More was famous for showing their disdain for MTV...on MTV. This can be seen in the Hanging with MTV performance during the Angel Dust era, where the band continuously interrupted a flustered VJ while she was trying to introduce the next video.

I've seen that video. It's awesome. They just keep screaming and then stopping. She begins to speak again, and they begin screaming again.

I'm going to see Peeping Tom, one of Mike Patton's new projects, next Tuesday night. I plan to be amazed.

2007-04-03T09:46:00.000-04:00

I HAVE ACTUALLY DONE STUFF...
But I'm only going to tell you about Netflix. Ha ha ha!

015: COFFEE AND CIGARETTES - Jim Jarmusch - 3 out of 5 stars.

I am not very prepared to make an indie feature. Like, a for realsies indie feature.
This movie is an hour and a half of people smoking and drinking coffee. It contains 11 vignettes, each of which is under 10 minutes long. It's is sometimes slow, sometimes crazy, sometimes nonsensical, sometimes thrilling, in the sense that you can see the magic being made when it happens. It's like the actors are poking and prodding and waiting, and then suddenly something great happens. Sometimes it doesn't, but often it does, and when it does, it's worth the wait.

My favorite sections have to do with Bill Murray meeting the Wu Tang Clan's RZA and GZA, Alfred Molina meeting Steve Coogan, and Cate Blachette talking to her grouchy, bitter cousin... who's played by Cate Blanchette.

Good times. You've gotta love stuff that's very indie.

016: THE STATION AGENT -Tom McCarthy - 4 out of 5 stars.

This is a nice little film about a dwarf who inherits an old, closed down train depot, intent on settling in and not talking to people, a lost woman whose young son has recently died, and the wacky cuban hot dog vendor who brings them all together. It's alternately funny, sad, and heartfelt, and I liked it a lot.

It's funny how great Peter Dinklage is in the role, but because he's a dwarf, you almost wonder if this part can do anything for him. It was also cool to hear how low budget and how independent this movie was on the commentary track - it felt like a bigger production than it really was.

Well cast, well written, awkward and interesting.

Anyway, my next Netflix post will be about Gus Vant Sant's Death Trilogy. I'm two films deep into it, and I'm sure such polarizing films'll provoke some kind of response out of me.

2007-03-26T11:15:00.000-04:00

013: BROKEN FLOWERS - Jim Jarmusch - 3 out of 5 stars.

Another post modern Bill Murray silence-fest. Well done. Very subtle, with no real resolution or clean breaks. Just a lot of questions, characters, and a great performance by Jeffrey Wright. Also, it's kind of nice to see Sharon Stone again. I liked it. Beautifully done, but hard to be emphatic about one way or the other. It's just so slight.

014: LAYER CAKE - Matthew Vaughan - 3 out of 5 stars.

I realize that this was supposed to be kind of a "Lock, Stock" of recent yars, but I felt like it only partially hit. I like Daniel Craig, especially when he's at his iciest. It's strange to see him play a character who isn't entirely in control of a situation, especially since I know him as Bond first and foremost. It's a good movie, and I really like the villainous guy who explains how the Layer Cake works. But ultimately, it feels like 'Snatch" with less of a sense of humour and a bit less style. I'd rather rewatch that film, to be honest.

2007-03-26T10:26:00.000-04:00

I APPARENTLY ONLY STEAL SURVEYS FROM TC

I like the idea of this survey, but it might be boring...

--------10 years ago----------

1.) How old were you?: 19

2.) Where did you go to school?: Rochester Institute of Technology - I was a sophomore.

3.) Where did you work?: 19 was the summer I went from working at the Lobster Pound with my family to working at Walt Disney World. My then soon-to-be roommate Pete and I applied and drove down together and had one of the best summers of ANYONE's life.

4.) Where did you live?: E10 - Ellingson, 10th floor. With Jack and on the floor with Karl, Pete, John, Andy, Dorian, Scott and Lou Lou, Kate, and Su. And deaf people.

5.) Where did you hang out?: My room. It had a name, but I don't need to repeat it. My mostly on my computer under my bunk bed with Jack on his computer under his bunk bed, animating the day away.

6.) Did you wear glasses?: Sometimes.

7.) What car did you drive? I drove my very first car - a Saab I bouth that fall and crashed at the end of that summer on the way back from the aforementioned Florida trip. I was glad I didn't die, but now, in retrospect, 10 yeats later, I'm very glad i didn't die.

8.) Had you been to a real party yet?: Yeah - at the end of freshman year.

9.) Had you had your heart broken?: I'm sure I thought I had. Probably by Heather or Brenda or someone. I believe I was still referring to Brenda as "Satan" and Heather and I didn't begin talking again until the next fall. I was a bit... dramatic.

10.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Single like a mother. Oh, and then I dated Su. It was awful.

----------5 years ago----------

1.) How old were you?: 24

2.) Where did you go to school? Indeed. 3.825 or something on my BFA for Illustration. Recognize!

3.) Where did you work?: art barn, my own company, doing freelance design and animation. I had yet to become so poor that I got my "real job" teaching, and yet to be successful enough that I could quit my "real job" teaching..

4.) Where did you live?: Portland, ME - Fessenden Street.

5.) Where did you hang out? Pizza Hut on Forest Ave, The Great Lost Bear, home playing games and having fun. WORKING a lot. I think we had an office that year down by Sebago Brewing in Portland.

6.) Did you wear glasses?: Sometimes.

7.) Who were your best friends?: Jack, Arielle, Neil. I think this was after Andy and I were getting along and right after Karen went back to LA. Maybe this was before we hung out with Murphy a lot. TC lived with us then, as well. It's hard to place a year when you went through roommates like we did.

8.) Who was your crush?: My crush? Erika. But I hadn't seen her in four years and I was definitely devoted to my then-girlfriend, Arielle. And she and I got along pretty well during this era. It only started to go to hell this spring and continued to go further to hell until a year and a half later when we finally called the game because of icy winds and general disillusionment.

9.) What car did you drive?: Saab number 2, which I only retired a few months ago. It was my noble ride for a good solid six years.

12.) Had your heart been broken? Yeah, but by a greater problem then girls. My heart was broken by the souring of my dream to become someone through art and writing and stuff. I didn't give up, though, and at the time I was even bold enough to decide to make a feature film, which would begin shooting that summer.

----------Today----------

1.) How old are you?: 29

2.) Where do you work?: At home making banner ads and stuff. I have benefits. It's easier than teaching and pays better. I recently finished up at my other job - slinging cappuccinos at the Monkey.

3.) Where do you live?: Bridgton, Maine. I've been in my house for three years.

4.) Do you wear glasses?: Sometimes.

5.) Who are your best friends?: The Stephen Edwards family, The Karl Collier family, The Tuan Nguyen family, The Finlin/Thumms, Dorian, The Levasseur family. I consider the Mad Monkey crew, for all of their idiocy and various weirdnesses, really close to my heart.

6.) Do you talk to your old friends?: Now that I have free time I'm going to go visit the Wilhems in VT this weekend - Marybeth and I became great friends in 2003. I'd like to visit Beth in Austin once my movie is done - it's a reward I've promised myself. Why? Because I still like Beth a lot and because symbolically, I need to have my movie done before I go to Austin. It's home to Robert Rodriguez, who dared me (through his writings) to make the movie. And I actually have chances to hang out with Rae and Tuan and Tyler now that we don't own a business together.

7.) What kind of car do you have?: My new sister in law's VW beetle. 1999, and she's all muddy and bad ass right now.

8.) Has your heart been broken?: How many times do we have to get into this? Yes. And let's move on.

9.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Taken, and in a very good way. I am impressed and lucky,

2007-03-23T09:31:00.000-04:00

AN ADVENTURE!

Yesterday I had to work until 5, but when I left the house for lunch I noticed it was gorgeous out. A perfect day to hop up to the mountain and get a couple runs in. But as these things go, the old motivated bastard in me talked myself out of it, citing it as impractical. We're supposed to meet up with Karl and Bri at 7:45 in Lewiston, which is an hour away. So we'd get to the mountain by 5:30 and ski until 6:45? Not impressive.

Thus begins our story.

Julia isn't having it. She wants to ski, dammit. So I start calling friends. When I call Tristan, he drops some unfortunate knowledge on my ass. Since it's the last week of skiing, the mountain closes at 4. It is already 4:30.

But when I call Julia to give her the unfortunate news, she just says we should go to Lost Valley. Lost Valley is a rinky dink mountain, but it's right near Karl's house. And we have free passes there. And they close at 7.

So we load up at 5:15 when I'm out of work. Julia speeds like the champ she is, but we still don't get there until 6:15. We ask if we can still get passes and they look confused. I'm assuming very few people buy passes right before the place closes. Hell, at Lost Valley I wonder how many people buy passes at all. On spring weeknights, it's probably all regulars.

So we get on the hill by 6:25. The air is warm and nice, we're dressed in spring clothes, it's late but still very light out. All of a sudden I realize what a Good Idea this is.

Lost Valley is so small we get about 8 runs in. The guy at the lift tells us after our second run that we could probably get five more runs in, at the rate we're going. Tuan calls while we are on the lift to tell me about his new car, and buy the time he's done telling me about it, the lift ride is done. It's that short.

Lost Valley ain't seen nothin' like this! We tear the place up. We do our favorite run four times. We have a very good time. And after about 35 minutes of skiing, we're ready to go.

I'd never been to Lost Valley before. Josh raced there one time and said it was molehill-esque, but I have to admit I found it charming, if a bit tiny. The website says the rope tow goes up 1,700 feet, but I wonder if that's measuring the lenght of all the rope combined or something. They also say "Lost Valley Ski Area has grown and now hosts one of the largest ski schools in Maine with nearly one hundred instructors, employs about the same number of lift attendants and support personnel...' I can't imagine they have 100 regulars, let alone workers, but maybe if you combine all of them for the last decade it's true. With only two chairs and a rope tow, it's doesn't take a genius to realize that six positions for two shifts a day takes a lot of days to add up to a hundred. There were preobably twelve people working there last night total including the lodge, cafeteria, and ski patrol, outnumbering the number of people on the hill.

But it was nice - like a town cut a little path for the kids and someone decided to run with it. For a good solid hour or two of fun under the lights, I recommend it. It might not be a destination, but it was a good time. I could see it being very worth Karl getting up there after work for an hour or two (it's only ten minutes from him) and it's a great place for kids. I'm so glad that Julia made me go!

It's funny, I'm totally the old curmudgeon with her - she gets all fired up and happy and I get all "Blah! That's unfeasible! Blah!" I don't hesistate to say that I get stuck in ruts - that I am becoming Set In My Ways. She's wonderful, because she opens me up to new things. And every once in a while, I'm better because of it.

Oh, and after that we watched Karl play 75 games of volleyball in order to win a league he's been playing in. I would say that they were the best B2 quality league in all of Lewiston. But that's not this post was about, so screw that. Ask Karl about it if you want to know more.

2007-03-23T09:11:00.000-04:00

WHY SHANNON AND JEREMY ARE COOLER THAN WE ARE.

Yesterday I had to dig out an old paper for Karl and Bri, so last night I did a little nostalgia/house cleaning and went through my file cabinet from 2000-2003. I found some interesting stuff - photos of a bunch of skinny kids (and me... who was never skinny), stuff about a life path that I had kind of committed to wholly, but a path that I got lost from in the shuffle. I found old art barn promotional materials, copies of Nationally Distributed magazines that had our work in it, even a Hollywood Reporter that mentioned us. It was odd... kind of fun and kind of this big question mark about what the hell has happened in the last four years to justify the lack of similar materials with more recent dates.

Of course, there's the Master's Degree and this little coffee shop thing...

In my looking, I ended up online. Anyway, long story short, I found this...

http://pics.livejournal.com/rivercityrandom/

Here's their blurb.

>>>>This costume party was held Friday, March 17th, 2006 at Shannon and Jeremy's apartment in Riverside. It was based on the Flash cartoon "The Sith Rejects" by Art Barn. The cartoon lists a bunch of "also-ran" Dark Lords following the naming structure of Darth Vader and Darth Sidious, i.e. replacing "in" in the words "invader" and "insidious" with the word "Darth." Hence in The Sith Rejects, you get names like "Darth Bred" and "Darth Ternal Bleeding". Anyway, we came up with our own "Darth" puns and made costumes based on them, and had a fun night of food, games, and taking off certain articles of clothing ;) You know, wholesome family entertainment. I think we're the least threatening Dark Lords that you'll ever come across. <<<<

That's right. People we don't even know had a party that was better themed or executed than any party we ever had based on a goofy idea we came up with on the way to the accountants many years ago. What's weird is that some of their costumes are the same as some of the drawings that we did for a sith rejects sequel that we built and designed and then never bothered to release. Basically, I had yet to do the intro animation and then I lost track of it, missed my Episode II DVD release deadline and then didn't bother. Anyway, here's someone's version of Darth Diana Jones. Maybe I'll dig those sketches up and put them on someday... I have to admit, though, I never thought of Darth Terpretive Dance. Classic.

I wish I was there... then again, according to the pictures of me on my Lake Region class reunion website, maybe it's best I wasn't. Though apparently I wield a giant inflatable penis and a funnel with equal abandon.

2007-03-21T09:02:00.000-04:00

012: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH - 5 out of 5 stars.

I'm going to cut down on reviewing movies, per se, as I'm not really trying to write very good reviews, yet i'm subjecting you guys to them. It's just Not Fair (that one's for you, Julia).

I saw 'An Incovenient Truth' and was really impressed with its candor and Al Gore's easy charm. A few notes I found interesting...

Ebert wrote: "In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to."

The film's distributor, Paramount Classics, is donating 5% of the box office receipts and Gore is donating all of his proceeds from the film to The Alliance for Climate Protection.

The Associated Press contacted more than 100 top climate researchers and questioned them about the film's veracity. All 19 climate scientists who had done so said that Gore conveyed the science correctly.

President Bush, when asked whether he would watch the film, responded: "Doubt it." He later stated that "And in my judgment we need to set aside whether or not greenhouse gases have been caused by mankind or because of natural effects, and focus on the technologies that will enable us to live better lives and at the same time protect the environment." Gore responded by saying, "The entire global scientific community has a consensus on the question that human beings are responsible for global warming and [Bush] has today again expressed personal doubt that that is true."

50,000 free copies of the film were offered to the National Science Teachers Association, which declined to take them. Laurie David, one of the film's producers, said in a Washington Post op-ed piece that the NSTA wrote her in an E-mail that the DVDs would place "unnecessary risk upon the [NSTA] capital campaign, especially certain targeted supporters." Supporters of the NSTA include companies like ExxonMobil.[44] In public, the NSTA argued that distributing this film to its members would have been contrary to a long-standing NSTA policy against distributing unsolicited materials to its members.

Ugh. No one is free. Everyone has a cost, whether it's what they need or what their contributors need. I consider myself irritated, but if I wasn't so lazy, I'd be militant!

2007-03-15T21:28:00.000-04:00

NETFLIX: VOLUME 6 - QUEER DUCK and SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC

010: QUEER DUCK - Mike Reiss - 0 out of 5 stars.

So freaking bad. Queer Duck is a feature length web cartoon. The quality is literally the same quality as on the web. Now, I don't need it to be Fantasia, but holy goat crap popsicles, this film looked bad. And if it had been funny, too, well that might be okay. But the jokes were all shitty puns and the story was cobbled together and episodic.

It was absolutely awful, with the exception of the voice actors. They, especially Kevin Michael Richardson as the gay alligator character, were very good.

Hey, Kevin Michael Richardson was the guy in BASEketball who had been a greeter for one season at the Desert Inn and now plays for Minnesota. I recognized him immediately during the special features - I only know this because he gave the single best line reading of the word "shit" I've ever heard.
A close second is Belushi in Animal House saying "Ho-lee shit-t".

Stay away from Queer Duck - yes, it's stooping for a genre, and yes, I'm not in that demographic. But just because you're gay and you like cartoons doesn't make you retarded as well. Gay cartoon fans deserve better.

011: JESUS IS MAGIC - Liam Lynch - 3 out of 5 stars.

Yes, she did recently get in trouble for saying "chink". But you know what? Sarah Silverman is funny. This movie is so full of racist remarks that it is almost shocking. Yet it's not racist. Much like a cartoon character can be funny saying horribly despicable things, so, apparently, can a cute little Jewish woman.

But it's all a send up of racism - Silverman has an amazingly well cultivated persona that allows her to say these things with a straight face, but actually be needling America for at least partially believing and reinforcng these same stereotypes. It's crass, but it's inflammatory. It gets you thinking.

Of course, like with any shock performers, in the wrong hands this material becomes that which it lampoons. But fuck it - I'm not an idiot. I can safely say I can hear these things without becoming a bad person. And if other people can't handle it, perhaps we should crush them with a giant rock like they did with Piggy. It's better than me having to watch tame comedy.

2007-03-15T21:13:00.000-04:00

SKIING AND DRINKING (it's nice.)

This back to life thing is amazing. The weeks take forever and are filled with things to do.
Friday was Greg's 30th birthday, so I went over there for the party, which was a lot of fun. I finally learned how to play flip cup, and although I won't be travelling the world to compete like Dan F., I have to admit I was fairly impressive.

My house is way cleaner than it was just a week ago.

Sunday I went skiing with Stacy and it was awesome. I saw Darcy, Anne McVeigh, who I hadn't seen forever, Sarah Lowell, some people from school, my cousin Missy and family... pretty much everyone. Afterwards we hung out in the lodge and had a beer or three. It was so warm and so nice that when Tristan called on Wednesday to see if I wanted to ski after work, I went up again.

We were rained out after five runs or so, but it was about 60 with a warm breeze, so who cared?

I saw 300, and I was amazed and impressed and happy. It made me giddy - in fact maybe more so than Sin City did. Of course, I knew the whole story of Sin City going in. But I also think 300 was a more unconventional, visionary kind of film. A few shots in it were breathtaking. I can see why all this CG is so appealing - how else could you create those shots?

Anyway, tomorrow's Stacy's birthday party, which should be a sequel to last Friday's shindig. And then Julia comes home and all is good.

Oh, and Tyler Nguyen made his first visit to my house today. He pooped and stretched a lot. It was definitely his kind of place - I do those things here, too!

2007-03-13T00:57:00.000-04:00

I LOVE MARILYN MANSON

I was just watching interviews with Marilyn Manson on YouTube. Can I just say that I find him so insightful and impressive? He says things I think - he's just willing to be a freak in order to gain access to the media in order to make his statements.

Plus he rocks.

But really, between watching those and, yes, reading Hunter Thompson again, I am further aware of how in love with the counterculture I am. Mainstream culture is sucktacular. We're a bunch of pansies who need to be shaken out of our ruts and gut punched.

I have been marking pages of Thompson to share - pretty soon I will unleash it on you.

2007-03-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

AH, 2002...

I was just reading a review of Scooby Doo: The Movie from 2002 (don't ask) and it began a little something like this...

"According to our papers, we last cleaned House back in 1990, when it seemed a good time to take stock of Hollywood’s situation with regard to its so-called 'A and B-list.' You may remember this. A new decade lay before us and certain people just had to go. Yahoo Serious, gone! Steve Gutenberg, gone! Andrew McCarthy, gone! Patrick Dempsey… Ah-ha! I saw that! Not many people here even know about Patrick Dempsey. Why? Because, he’s GONE! Ladies and gentlemen, with the release of “Scooby-Doo,” I believe now would be a GREAT time for an inventory blow-out in the Hollywood House of Starpower."

Patrick Dempsey - from a joke in 2002 to TV Hottest Doctor Mc Whateverthefuckhisnameis in 2007.

So take heart, Corey Feldman. Your time will come.

2007-03-11T21:17:00.000-04:00

NETFLIX: VOLUME 4 and 5 - LIL' PIMP, BLUE, BOTTLE ROCKET, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE

006: Blue - Krzysztof Kieslowski - 4 out of 5 stars.

I hesitate to give this film all four stars because it wasn't that enjoyable. More or less, this French film involves a woman retreating from life when her family is killed, save for her, in a car accident. So the entire film, she runs from the world, trying to connect to nothing. Ultimately she succumbs to her innate need to connect to people and places.

It is beautifully shot, deep and rich and beautiful. But it's not that fun to watch - it's mostly a series of quiet rooms that she sits in and floats through. No doubt this is why the Netflix disc's description mentions her husband's "mysterious" death.

Umm, he is killed when a car he is in crashes. She is there. She witnesses it. We SEE the aftermath. That makes the death itself less than "mysterious". She uncovers a bit of intrigue, but really, it's all besides the point. This is a character study, a meditation, and trying to sell it as anything else is weird and dumb.

007: The Squid and the Whale - Noah Baumbach - 4 out of 5 stars.

So close to a five, but since I've never yet broken that barrier, I will refrain yet again. This is the best film I've rented so far, I think. I found myself thinking about it and discussing it all week. A family comes apart and everyone's various dysfunctions surface. But it's funny. Jeff Daniels is super amazingly good, as is the rest of the family, particularly the Culkinesque Owen Kline, son of Kevin and that Phoebe Cates chick.

Anyway, this movie is real and grim and raw and good. It has elements of autobiography and elements of wonderfully weird departure. Unfortunately, the audio commentary track rarely immunates where these separations exist - it would be a truly illuminating extra feature. See it like crazy.

008: Lil' Pimp - Mark Brooks, Peter Gilstrap - 2 out of 5 stars.

I got this because it's all flash animated, and had a budget of around one million. Inspiring!

But it sucked. A few jokes didn't fail, and William Shatner was funny, but most of the rest was weak. All the characters had different line weight for the thickness of their outlines, which was an odd and clumsy choice, and the animation itself went from being overly flash tweeny looking to too choppy within the same shots.

But the backgrounds were actually very nice, so I consider it a worthwhile thing to watch if you feel like looking at nice flash backgrounds. Everyone else should avoid this unless they are very easily amused.

009: Bottle Rocket - Wes Anderson - 3 out of 5 stars.

I hated this the first time I saw it, back in 1997. Since then, I have begun to worship at the altar of Wes Anderson. So I decided to revisit his first feature film.

And I liked it a bit better. It's fun to see his signature style developing on screen. It's fun to see a very young version of Luke, Owen and Andrew Wilson. It's fun to see big Futura title cards and think about how many of my favorite films use that same style. But as a film itself? It was obviously cheap, and it shows promise, but give me The Royal Tenenbaums anyday.

2007-03-07T09:40:00.000-05:00

JACK JACK JACK JACK

Jack came up and visited, and I could list our experiences, but mostly they were unlistable. Killing hookers and the like.
Actually, we ate a lot of ribs and wings and went to Bean's. We went to Newbury Comics and ran into Lloyd, a guy we used to play volleyball with and hadn't seen in many years.

It's weird - Lloyd hasn't seen me since Jack left, probably, and then he sees us together. It must keep his view of our little sliver of the world very tidy, having the two of us in the same place. It's like if you saw your whole graduating class at the mall together, because in your mind they all belong together. But then why didn't they invite you?

We saw Zodiac. It was good and violent and interesting.

We saw Karl and Bri. They were not violent, but they were good and interesting. We all went to the Bear.

We played a lot of video games. I don't know if you people realize this, but I took home the tv and the coffee table from the Monkey. So now I have quite the living room set up. We played Sega Genesis and Nintendo on the giant tv. All the old games, and some weird ones like Puzznic and Wall Street Kid that we'd never played. Wall Street Kid is SO stupid - you start with $500,000 and have to invest in stocks to make more, but all the stocks that do well are the ones you buy tips to hear about. If you don't make a million in a month, you can't buy a house and your girlfriend leaves you. Good game for kids, I'd say.

On Friday, we intended to go out, but then a big snow storm struck. We got about a foot, easily the second biggest storm of the winter. We were snowed in, so we walked down to House of Pizza and hung out. Then we trudged home. It was actually kind of fun, and I'm glad Jack got to see some serious snow.

Mostly, we did very little, which made me feel bad, as the last time I went to LA we did LOTS of stuff. But Jack liked doing very little,so I was happy. Good times, good times!

2007-03-05T10:05:00.000-05:00

NETFLIX: VOLUME 3- SIDEWAYS

005: Sideways - Alexander Payne - 4 out of 5 stars.

I really liked Sideways, but I don't feel like writing about it. And I've beena bad Netflix monkey lately, too busy closing businesses, eating at the Bear and Buck's BBQ and the Hous eof Pizza and hanging out with Jack, who was up for some post-Monkey-funeral video game and food fun.

I liked Sideways because it was so real and true. Things don't always work out, but that doesn't take away our humanity or our selves. It just makes things move kinda differently. Everything about it existed to sell that realism and truth, and I liked it for that.

2007-02-26T09:53:00.000-05:00

SAM CLARKE'S MONKEY ARTICLE

Sam's a friend of our from the Monkey. He used to be in the band RGP that played at our shop and now he's a freshman at Emerson. We like him and, along with a lot of the ol' Monkey gang, we'll miss him.

From the Windham Independent.

How do you say goodbye to a dear friend? Although he is still with us today, his days are limited, and as of Sunday morning, the Mad Monkey Café will be no more. It grieves Dan Edwards and Tuan Nguyen, the Monkey’s caretakers, to pull the plug on such a friendly, fun-loving creature; however, it's time has come.

In this time of mourning, I feel that I should honor and remember the caffeine-loving primate that touched the lives of so many and expected so little in return.

As more and more big businesses were coming to our community, the Mad Monkey saw a problem. Sure, the proximity of these new services made shopping easier and provided many job opportunities; but the Mad Monkey knew that something was missing.

He remembered what it was like to be a teenager in the Lakes Region and how boring it could be. Anything fun to do was either too far to drive or too expensive to afford with weekly allowances or minimum wage paychecks. While others complained and whined as they played Nintendo in their basements every night, the Mad Monkey knew that words would get us nowhere. And so he took action.

In October, 2005, the Mad Monkey began providing the community with a place to meet lots of friends, have lots of fun, and drink lots of coffee. I remember how I felt when I first visited the Mad Monkey. It was like a dream come true. Finally, someone had done something for us, the little people.

The Mad Monkey wasn’t like other businesses. He took the time to get to know everyone that passed through. To the Mad Monkey, there were no customers; just friends that came to eat and have a good time. Looking back, it chokes me up. The Mad Monkey knew us all so well. He knew that when I came in thirsty that I wanted the most delicious smoothie ever created. Every time it was a different smoothie. And every time it was more delicious than the last.

It wasn’t just about knowing everyone’s “usual.” The Mad Monkey also took stake in our personal lives. He’d ask us how school was going when we were home on breaks and then regale us with stories of his glory days in college. He’d show us his latest independent film or yo-yo trick. He always had something great to say, but was also always there to listen.
The Mad Monkey loved listening to music too. He loved the local bands and solo acts and gave them a place to perform. He even produced a compilation CD, giving local musicians even more opportunity for exposure to the community. My old band mates and I have the Mad Monkey to thank for hosting our farewell concert; a memory that will stay with me a very long time.
Community was very important to the Mad Monkey as well. He’d hold quirky celebrations for April Fool’s Day and Halloween. The greatest celebrations of all were the Festivus gift swaps around the Festivus pole. But the Mad Monkey didn’t need a special occasion to have a great time. He loved it when people would surprise him with parties, usually after plays and other performances, and was all too happy to provide them all with delicious snacks and drinks. It was his goal, and I like to think that he achieved it, to provide a place where everyone knows your name. In fact, whenever my friend Doug would come into the café, we’d all shout his name, just like in Cheers. That really illustrates the atmosphere of the Mad Monkey: friendly, warm, and welcoming.

Above all, the Mad Monkey just loved to have fun. He had shelves full of board and card games. We’d spend hours playing Apples to Apples or working on a puzzle of the ocean. It breaks my heart that my friends and I will never be able to finish the game of Risk we started in the summer of 2006. We’ll just have to call our battle for world conquest a draw. Oh, and the video games we’d play. We’d have night-long tournaments of Tetris and Puzzle Fighter. Thanks to the Mad Monkey, half of the Lakes Region youth are now officially Guitar Heroes. It didn’t even matter if we had those things at home. They were just more fun to play with the Mad Monkey.

Despite all the good he did for the community, the Mad Monkey was never one for publicity. He kept hidden behind Ray’s Barbershop and a great deal of people didn’t even know he was there. He struggled to compete with other, corporate coffee shops, who could care less whether or not we got into the school we wanted, or bought a sweet new bass guitar, or were having any fun.

And now the Mad Monkey has met its last days. His friends can’t bear to see him go, and have frantically thought up plans to save him. But real life is no Empire Records. No bake sale or battle of the bands will keep our dying friend alive. Only a miracle can save him now.

If you wish to pay your respects to this great and humble hero in our community, his last days will be Friday and Saturday, February 23 and 24. Visiting hours will be from 11AM Saturday until 1AM.
Friends, let us not dwell on the sadness of his demise, but on the joy of his life. Join me, now, in raising a mug in honor of the Mad Monkey Café; hangout, coffee shop, friend.

2007-02-23T10:07:00.000-05:00

I THOUGHT THIS WAS WONDERFUL...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VskbxuehP3I

I never liked U2 that much, but there's something to be said for an open celebration of life and the human spirit that they seem to sometimes just hit right upon. I was going to just send this to Julia, but you guys have been good too, so I guess I'll share it with you.

But you're not getting any of my apple cinnamon oatmeal (with apple chunks).

Ooh, by the way, apple is a great all purpose sweetener! I made some bitter chili yesterday and instea dof adding sugar I added some finely chopped apple and it worked great. The whole shebang got a bit sweeter and the apple flavor just mixed right in!
GENIUS!

2007-02-19T10:11:00.000-05:00

NETFLIX: VOLUME 2- A Scanner Darkly - City of Lost Children

003: A Scanner Darkly - Richard Linklater - 3 out of 5 stars.

I'm still not sure what to say about this film. As a Phillip K. Dick fan who has never read any of his full novels, I have to admit I guess I'm more of a fan of his concepts. He's been utilized left and right in Hollywood, from films like Total Recall to Minority Report to the incomparable Blade Runner. But rarely has one of his books been as faithfully adaspted by fans for fans as in this film. One needs to look no further than the Dick festival of ass-kissing (festival of Dick kissing?) that is the commentary track to see that these people love their source material. But as a film? Alas, I cannot fully recommend it.

Richard Linklater is one of the most exciting filmmakers of our time. Who else gives us "School of Rock" and "Bad News Bears" along with "Waking Life" and "Dazed and Confused"? He's one of those "refuse to be pingeonholed" outsiders, and I love him for it. I have loved a few of his films, too, especially the achingly sweet "Before Sunset". It's because of this film that I love him and because of this film that I love "Before Sunrise", which isn't nearly so good. I disliked "Waking Life" because of its slightly pandering philosophy and its sloooow timeframe in the same way that "Slacker", a monumental achievement as to how it galvanized young filmmakers into action and set off an army of indie brats, was more interesting conceptually than it was in actuality.

The same is true for Scanner. It's interesting looking - all traced into the computer frame by frame from footage Linklater shot and edited first. This is one of the great plusses of the film. It adds an air of surreality, even beauty, to the film. It's largely not that distracting and allows one of the great special effects of the piece, a suit that visually shifts constanrtly so the wearer appears to be an ever changing array of people instead of just one. On this effect hinges the crucial main metaphor of who we are and what we appear to be. It's a Great Thing and I admire that choice.

Unfortunately, this is about all that is done with it. The rest turns into exchanges that are useless, albeit vaguely entertaining, to the plot. Sure they add little bits of character here and there, and it's all kind of cute and clever, like a nice set or an interesting camera move. But the plot gets lost and jumbled aside all the pieces of the book that they just couldn't sacrifice. True, Scott Frank might have taken liberties with adapting Minority Report, but at least HIS film is more coherent as a result.

I am glad for many parts fo it,t hough. I'm glad someone knew what to do with the energetic freak Woody Harrelson - I've always thought that he was ready for more. Kudos to the ever-brilliant Robert Downey Jr. for another inspired performance, and yay for Winona Ryder, who is even beautiful when traced (and her warbly, broken voice is great for a voiceover role, which this almost kinda is).

Boo to the usually great Lucas himself, Rory Cochrane, who was apparently unaware that traced rotoscoped animation would play like live action. He's stuck playing to the balconies as if he was a cast member in the horribly unsubtle film of The Producers. He performance is outlandishly twitchy and big - it's set on 11 in a movie that's set at about 7 and it hurts my eyes far more than the animation does.

ANYWAY, I liked it for the ideas, I disliked it for being a great film that's worth seeing. It's better than Ultraviolet, (another special effects and concept heavy, plot invisible flick) in that regard. It's better than Slacker. It's better than Waking Life by a long shot. But it's not as great as I had hoped.

004: City of Lost Children - Jeunet and Caro - 4 out of 5 stars

I saw this for the first time in the theater when I was in college. I loved it then and I love it now. It's bizarre, well designed, well acted, nuanced, ridiculous, great, clunky, everything in one. I think everyone should see it. But I have to admit, this many years later, the plot seems thin, even to me. The CG seems forced and plasticky to me now. But it's still a Pan's Labrinthine modern adult fairy tale, and in that way, it's quite breathtaking. The use of Rube Goldberg-esque devices and weird monsters speak to the entertainment I enjoyed as child. The color palette speaks to the adult me. I only recently realized that Darius Khondji, the guy who shot Se7en also shot this film. His work shines, but I can only assume that given the scale and scope of the soundstages of City of Lost Children ANYTHING he shot might have looked good.

One cool note from the commentary - some of the actors wore very pale makeup, knowing that Khondji's color adjustments would make them more orange that they were. This way he could push the other colors further without making the actors look horrid.

Sweet.

Next in my queue is "Blue" and Sideways"

2007-02-18T10:17:00.000-05:00

HUDSON HAWK REALITY!

You know that "Grease: Youre the One I Want" reality show in which people compete to be in a new stage show of Grease or some such crap? I had a dream the other night that someone was doing that with the Bruce Willis movie "Hudson Hawk". You could try out for any part and then they would put you in a shot by shot remake of the original, but with YOU!

I was thinking about it, and I started to tell someone about this show I saw and ad for the other day... and then I realized that it HAD to be a dream. Who would ever make this show in real life?

And then I was sad.

Because I would like to try out for the part of Tommy FiveTone.

2007-02-16T10:19:00.000-05:00

WILLING

I was on the phone last night with Mikey, an old RIT frind who I love to death but haven't seen in over three years. Pretty much, he's lived in Florida and I've been working. How is it that we, as people, spend so much time time lonely when most of us know dozens of people who we love? What is it about our societies, our careers, the homes that we buy - why do we spend time creating distance? My happiest times were when all of these people were together. Is that why I felt so inspired to make a coffee shop? A place for everyone to put on the brakes and stop and sit together for a minute and recognize that company is a good thing?

This got me wondering what I do. What umbrella could all of my different activities fall under?

I've decided that I attempt to will things into existence. To deflate this a bit, I guess maybe the same could be said for many people, and in my defense I'm usually amazed at how flimsy these things are, but from coffee shops to unfinished films, this could be what I aspire to do. Call it desparation. Call it a last ditch effort by a doomed 20 something - we're all doomed, I just feel acutely aware of it - to make a crater in the Earth that tourists can see for years to come.

I think Arielle, knowing me as well as she did, accused me of this same thing - this willing stuff into being thing - years ago, so I can't take entire credit or blame for the idea. Or maybe I can. I forget what she said and what she didn't - either my memory's shot or it just feels the need to archive what she said shabbily out of rudeness. It wouldn't be the first time. For the first year after we broke up I killed characters that she represented in more script concepts than one could imagine and then felt the need to tell her about it. Ah, life when you are me. I don't expect you to understand, but I'd be honored if you did.

I sometimes wonder if the things I birth are more hollow because I am made up of little else but the desire to make things. But I don't THINK that's true... just a reaction, I guess. But are these things worth making or it just a series of knee-jerk reactions to existence fading?

I think if I could keep a few lasting connections and if I could make some kind of indelible mark, maybe I could stop burrowing and searching and working so much. If I was just a bit more assured that my life has had some kind of purpose, I could just be. But in order to feel that, you actually have to feel it. It can't be said to you. It can't be invented out of kindness or out of rationalization.

Until then, I burrow and build contraptions and pray against the mildly stiff winds that will take them apart.
What to build next?

p.s. - I'm the most self indulgent blogger who ever lived. Pity me!

2007-02-14T19:26:00.000-05:00

I WANT TO MAKE BABIES WITH THIS TRAILER

http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/grindhouse/t1_large.html

2007-02-12T16:26:00.000-05:00

NETFLIX: VOLUME 1

I hope to document my Netflix viewing in this blog. Feel free to skip these if you don't care, but just so you know, I'm an interesting guy with interesting opinions on interesting films, so you probably ought to listen.

001: Munich - Steven Spielberg - 4 out of 5 stars.

At first I worried that I wasn't going to like Munich. It begins slowly, with a minimal amount of excitement, because the inciting event is shown mainly through TV cameras and through the eyes of people who are watching the event from a distance. Spielberg's violence is rarely glorified, which is a plus, but I worried that the film would not delve into ass-kickery for ass-kickery's sake. And actually, it didn't, staying rigidly focused on the outcome of violent acts much more than on the violent acts themselves.

But this turned out to be okay, even for an action junkie like me, because of the skill behind every very clear, very deliberate choice. Some of the shots were startling, even dazzling in their movement - I especially like one that passes through a car, resting occasionally on reflections of characters in the rear and sideview mirrors, indeed, reflections seemed omnipresent in the film - and the lighting and photography of the film was quite beautiful. One watches this movie and knows how Daniel Craig got to be James Bond - his eyes are ice and his lip juts out of his profile like it's another character.

Anyway, the movie really caught me when the main character (the terrific Eric Bana) meets with Papa, one of the men who supplies him with information - the scene takes on a degree of pastoral beauty lined with an undercurrent of threat that is palpable, and from there, the film really takes off, ending with a stark (and perhaps undersubtle? I'm still wrestling with this) connection that makes the story a real allegory for our times and an illustration of the results of vengeance. We know how this story continues, and that gives it a real darkness. It is a haunted film.

002: True Grit - Henry Hathaway - 2 out of 5 stars

Ugh. I've always wanted to see more John Wayne films since I saw and enjoyed The Searchers. But I dunno... True Grit? I got this particular film because this is the one that earned Wayne his Oscar, but I'm sure now that this award was for a career, not a film. The girl was annoying, the Texas Marshall was embarrassing. Really, the only high points were when John Wayne (who is a badass) rides and shoots two handed at the same time. I also really liked seeing a young Dennis Hopper and a young Robert Duvall - their performances stood out as starkly REAL compared to a lot of the other people on screen - like a new school of acting brought into an old genre pic.

Ultimately, though, the thing that was the most disconcerting is that John Wayne reminded me of Chris Farley in this movie. When Wayne's character was drunk, his eyes bugged out like Farley when he did that overly worked up face he did so well. And though John Wayne wasn't Farley fat, he was a bit rotund in this film.

I can see how Wayne became such an icon, but for me, right now, this film didn't compare to the Westerns I love, like Once Upon a Time in the West or Unforgiven.

I received the movies on 2/6 and sent them back out on 2/12, but normally I hope to get them out faster (and send out one at as time instead of viewing both first).

Next in my queue is "A Scanner Darkly" and an old favorite - "City of Lost Children"

2007-02-12T16:12:00.000-05:00

MY LONG WEEKEND

A guy came in yesterday to the shop and said that he'd never work 5 days a week again. I told him I might never work 7 days a week again and he laughed. Then I explained how I had worked more hours this weekend than he did during the week PLUS what I worked during the week. He called me crazy and I agreed.

This weekend became a bit of a trainwreck for me after taking on Tuan's shifts as well as my own at the Monkey. It's not like it's hard work being there, but being in any enclosed space for an average of 15 hours a day for three days gets tiring. Each day I was either late or almost late and coherent or almost coherent. So today, upon another day in which I woke up and barely made it to my computer, Tuan and I decided to close down for the week. We have a concert on Friday, and the high school vacation begins on Friday, so we're going to close until then.

Why? Because the lost revenues will barely equal $400. Because our septic tank is frozen and our landlord is too cheap to pump it, making our septic real estate a bit more important than usual. Because Rae needs Tuan at home and I need to get some freelance work done at night. I can make more in two hours at home than the monkey makes in a night. So ultimately, this decision is a smart one financially, though it is sad to take our last 13 days of being open and turn it into our last 9.

But all I know is that today I actually had a real lunch, I just ran a mile on the elliptical trainer, I might take a nap tonight, and hell, maybe I'll even catch some 24. I might do some work, I might not. But I don't HAVE to do anything beyond my one regular job. And THAT is like Christmas.

2007-02-06T23:43:00.000-05:00

BRIGHT SPRING MORNING

SUBURBAN LEGENDS

The time is right to begin
Lets get going once again
For once in your life just let go
I'm getting sick of everything
Tired of what the next day brings
What I need is for you to follow my lead
The sun is shinning bright outside
I think I'll go for a ride
I plan not to ever return
Lets run away from here for good
Forget this dusty neighborhood
The open road is calling and begging for us
Go roll down the window
Go crank up that radio
Lets drive until we hit the sky
It's not about where we will go
Lets start living life before we die

True, it's all in my dreams
Yeah
You are all in my dreams
Yeah
What I need is a long holiday
What I need is to get away..

Go roll down the window
Go crank up that radio
Lets drive until we hit the sky
It's not about where we will go
Lets start living life before we die

2007-02-06T09:26:00.000-05:00

UGH!

I am currently in a world class funk. I feel like I can't finish enough work each day to make me feel satisfied, but keeping working is driving me stir-crazy. I'm excited about Tuan and Rae having a baby, but I can't get excited about anything I'm doing. I am in a land of very little passion about anything and very little room for optimism.

And yet things are going okay. The fact that a healthy baby has been born and that I have been fairly productive is very good and good, respectively. Having some time to myself when the coffee shop closes is starting to sound more appealing.

I think my issue is that I have nothing that I want right now. All of the things I like and that I'm looking forward to are ahead of me. The coffee shop's closing? Then let's finish it and get on with things. I've got shit to do.

Going in every day and waiting for the month to end, and then waiting for the season to end and then waiting for the year to end seems like not much living at all.

I seriously need purpose (and no - this is not the place to insert a purpose for me, it's just a meditation on this time in my life).

Because as of late, I am deeply, deeply dissatisfied.

2007-02-06T00:22:00.000-05:00

TYLER NGUYEN, MEET EARTH - EARTH, MEET TYLER NGUYEN

Hey everyone! I'm beside myself - we at the Monkey just got the call. After about 48 hours of being awake and 72 bajillion hours of labor, Tuan and Rae's son Tyler Nguyen was born. He's somewhere in the seven pound range and according to Tuan, "he looks just like me". Not meaning "me" as in Dan, but "me" as in Tuan. Then again, as Adam mentioned, they ARE both Asian, so yeah, they would! HA!

Anyway, I'm so psyched. I've had friends have babies before, but I knew Tuan when we were kids, high schoolers, adults and most places in between. The concept of a sequel is amazing and baffling and just fantastic. It's a great next installment of this insane story.

I couldn't be more happy, proud, amazed... anything. Tuan and Rae are amazing, and I want to be one of the first to say that I can't wait to meet this kid - if he's anything like his parents he's sure to be one of my favorite people.

YYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!

Oh, and by the way, I'm not opening tomorrow so I can go meet this kid. Don't hate on me if you can't get your smoothie fix - this is once in a lifetime stuff.

Love and Monkeys,
Dan

2007-02-02T22:47:00.001-05:00

WHAT DO YOU EVEN SAY ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS?

2007-02-02T15:00:00.000-05:00

ALL GOOD THINGS...

This is lifted from the Monkey's myspace blog, which I dislike. I hate writing stuff twice, as you might know, so Imagine how pleased I was to have to write this, of all things, a second time.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hi everyone. Dan here. I just got off the phone with Tuan and it is definite. Those of you who have been expecting it, well here you are:

The Mad Monkey Cafe will be closing its doors on February 24th, 2007 at 1 am.

If you had no idea this was coming... well... where have you been?

It's funny, we've known that we were in trouble for months. Our business is down drastically from last year - we make in a month what we used to make in a week - but we've been trying to combat it. More shows, more signs, more promotion. But honestly it comes down to a few things. Our location, despite having lots of parking and cheap rent, attracts no one besides our dwindling number of regulars. The break-in that occurred on December 27th put us into a bit of turmoil and business has been even slower since. We will be getting insurance money from the break-in, but as we learned when Tuan's house was robbed, it can take up to a year to get the insurance money to which you feel you are entitled. Also, in our almost two years that we've been working on this place, we never got paid a cent. And we're fine with that, because we love the place and believe in it. But we can't start operating at a loss in order to stay open. We can't pay for the privilege to work an extra 45 hours a week on top of our other jobs. We're dumb, but we're not that dumb.

We did our best. And that means a lot to us. And we also had fun and met great people, and that means even more.

We're geniunely going to miss all of the people we've met, the games of Puzzle Fighter and Tekken and Guitar Hero and Apples to Apples and, dare I say it, Knight Rider. You guys have been great, from the Mug Club Members, to the people who lent us video games and even video game systems (which we'll give back), to the people we've seen everyday for almost a year and a half. We'd also like, once more, to publicly thank Dorian, our lone investor. He is, more or less, the secret third man behind The Mad Monkey, and without him, this never would have come together. And yes, you'll get your money back, too.... eventually.

Anyway, we just want to say thanks again. For not going to Tim Hortons or Starbucks. For taking a chance on a different kind of place. It's people like you who keep small businesses alive, whether it's Bull Moose or Chute's or The Freaky Bean or The Nickelodeon or Shawnee Peak. After all, what do Ray Kroc, Sam Walton and Dave Thomas all have in common? They all opened a bajillion dollar chain? Yes. Also they're dead and their companies are run by committee. And they don't live in Maine. So thanks for allowing a place like ours a chance to thrive in an overly corporate, homogenized, chain store fast food world.

We're not quite done yet. We still have a lot of beans to grind, flavor shots to distribute and mugs to sell. Some of our products will be going on sale this month, after all, I don't want a case of them sitting around my basement. And we've got a metal show next Saturday (three bands and a cover charge) and a free show from Subject Bias on the 16th. They're going to help us close things out on a high note. We'll be closing the following Saturday night (the 24th) and packing up our stuff on the 25th. Please stop by sometime this month and say hi.

Thanks again. We'll miss you lots and lots!

Tuan and Dan

2007-02-01T09:31:00.000-05:00

PROTECTOR OF THE KENNEL - ECTO-PLASMA, ECTO-SKELETAL

I uploaded ANOTHER film to youtube. After years and months and hours of harrassing Arielle (okay, one email) she sent me a bunch of old art barn cartoons. I just threw "Weeglot's Christmas Glorp" online at youtube. And for those of you lazy chimps that have not yet favorited my movies on youtube, just this once I'll give you the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sYHuiM3KNQ

I am not going to use this time to recount the number of views on other videos, as I mentioned I would whenver I posted a new one, because, honestly, it'd be sad. Wow! Three more people watched Vote Quimby! It's not substantial enough. But I'm keeping an eye out. It'll be fun to see if dozens of films will make tons more traffic or not.

I've got some new On the Lot stuff to edit tonight. I also might begin a kind of video obituary for the Monkey - just a little love letter from me to one of the monsters I've created, only to see the townspeople chase it into the hills and stone it to death.

One time Josh got a fish that we named Eno, because we drove by the "ONE" bank in Windham and Josh saw it in the mirror or some such thing. When we got him home, we were all excited. We held out the net to pour him into before we put him in the water... and we missed the net. The open drain swallowed him up and he swam off to the sea... or gasped to death in the trap in the drain.

So this morning has me thanking Greg and Seth for helping me shoot last night, opening too many blogs, myspaces, youtubes, onthelot pages and so on, and hoping that the monsters you unleash into the world have long and favorable lives and don't gasp and sputter in the pipes like Eno did.

That especially goes out to Erin, whose boutique in NYC opens pretty soon - http://www.clarabellanyc.com/blog/ ... and for those of you with children...

2007-01-31T09:38:00.000-05:00

AN IM CONVERSATION THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN REPEATED

CAST:
THE VELVET ROPES: Ed Ropple
DAN EDWARDS: Dan Edwards

THE VELVET ROPES: Fun fact: the 5 1/4" floppy was invented at Wang Technologies.

DAN EDWARDS: What's odd is that I often have a 5 1/4" floppy wang.

-fin-

2007-01-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

I'M CAUGHT IN THE GRIP OF THE CITY... MADNESS

I just had the most volcanic night of sleep ever. And no, this does not mean I suffered from frequent and earth-shattering nocturnal emissions.

I woke up dozens of times last night with bizarre, almost feverish dreams. Between 4 and 8 I was constantly interrupted.

Today I plan to direct a segment of my "On The Lot" TV show sumission. Perhaps this relates?

In one section of my dream, I was driving a bucket loader away from the first cast meeting for "The Producers", and I was trying to find Martin Short and Nathan Lane to tell them that they had given a nice speech, but I simply couldn't stop the bucket loader from driving.

In another section of my dream I was, Roger Rabbit-like, left in charge of a tiny, tiny, baked potato-sized baby and a toddler and a pug while I was at The Mad Monkey Cafe. I was messy, so I was trying to change my clothes in the bathroom when a whole crew from Windham High School showed up. Of course, as soon as I got my clothes off in the bathroom, I realized the entire bathroom was made of windows, like a peverse version of Hopper's Nighthawks.

The dreams were varied and odd and I felt like Raoul Duke trying to wrestle my way out of the Fear and Loathing and into the shower so I could begin my day. It's odd - I'm not tired now, but I'm certainly a little goofy feeling this morning. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

2007-01-30T09:14:00.000-05:00

ROMPER STOMPER

I'm not the world's biggest Russell Crowe fan. I like him in the right parts, but I think sometimes he's forced into a leading man position when he's much more interesting as some complex character who's off to the side somewhere. LA Confidential got it right - he gets to be heroic while still being layered and difficult to peg down. And yes, he was amazing in The Insider, which was a great piece of filmmaking. But you know, even Gladiator seemed a little paint by numbers to me.

Oh, I know. Get mad at me! I don't like Gladiator! Drum me out of your little movie club. Fine. I'm taking my laptop and going upstairs.

Anyhoo, last night I was bumming around my very slow coffee shop (granted, not many Maine businesses are kicking at 9:30 at night) and we decided to throw in Romper Stomper, the Australian skinhead flick that got Mr. Crowe a lot of his attention stateside. It's from 1992 and ol' Rusty looks young. Even the bump between his eyes looked younger. But some things were still the same - his intensity, the rawness of his performance, his way of elevating his material through his persona.

It was a kick ass film - the kind that helps you understand why someone said "Put this man in Virtuosity!"

Now there's a movie I haven't seen since the theaters. I should Netflix that bad boy.

2007-01-29T10:41:00.000-05:00

YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMIN!

So, I realize I'm a barely blogging bastard these days (as well as being an alliterative animal) but I have excuses from the ceiling to the floor. First and foremost is work - I've been getting freelance work like crazy on top of my regular work, so time where I might normally stay online blogging after work gets out has turned into time I'm putting into other work. On the plus side, I'm making a bit of side money to put towards my car, on the down side I've been kind of tired.

Also Julia had been in town until two days ago. Saturday marked the end of the world's longest winter break, and now she's back doing what she does over there in Amherst. So I have to admit, that was awesome having her around. I kind of forget what it's like to be in a partnership - like a true, mutual, you cook the meal I'll wash the dishes you vacuum I'll sweep kind of thing, which I havn't had for ages. It's nice. You should ge tthat if you don't have it. I admit, it doesn't make me excited for the next few years of having it intermittently, but I can't do anything about it, and I have strict policy against being upset about something I can't change.

In other news, we might be putting the final few nails in the coffin of The Mad Monkey. I'm not here to be pessimistic about it, but business has been off this year, and despite some valiant efforts we're making now to turn things around, I'm afraid it just might not be possible. Who knows. We're committed for February, and no doubt with us pouring more money in we could make it to the summer, and in the summer we could pay back the money we put back in and then go into the fall debt free just in time to have business drop off and begin accumulating debt anew. It's a vicious cycle and I'm not sure exactly when to allow it to perpetuate and when to just accept it. The fact of the matter is that we love the place and we've met great people because of it, but we've also never been paid for it. We could keep operating it and make no money - that's fine. But when it starts costing us money for the priveledge of working another 45 hours a week when I make good money on my own? I dunno.

I'd miss the living hell out of it if it goes away. I can say that.

Last but not least, the Subject Bias video is garnering great traffic - it's up to my third most watched video after only a weekend. I'm also noticing a substantial jump on my other videos - they've all bumped up another 20 views or so. It's a drop in the bucket, but it's a step, right?

I was thinking, while looking at this, that I wished I had a readout of what these videos were at before I posted the new video.
So as a purely academic exercise, from now on when I post a new video, I'm going to write down where the other videos are traffic-wise, and then we can track my gradual conquering of the world, hit by hit, Rocky style.

Vote Quimby - 1,015
Kiwahkwe trailer - 542
Subject Bias - 430
Flash Paxton #01 - 123
WinterKids - 73

Oh, in other news, Vote Quimby broke up. Be sad with me.

2007-01-26T01:19:00.000-05:00

MY NEWEST VIDEO

I've finally completed the Subject Bias video for "Slightest Twist" and it's up on youtube. It was a pretty fun process, and although it didn't go as quickly as some of my other directing gigs, I think the final piece is pretty nice. It'll be fun to see what kind of traffic it drums up, considering that it's garnered 31 hits in the time it took me to go to dinner and shoot some pool. It's going to beat my WinterKids spot's youtube traffic by the time I wake up tomorrow.

Next I have to complete a tv spot I've been working on which is due on Monday. I have Sunday off, so that should be easy enough. Then I've got a couple new Flash Paxton shorts to get up.

Anyway - I'll tell some tales of afternoons and coffee shops sometime soon - for now just watch the video and be glad to be alive.

2007-01-16T13:21:00.000-05:00

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE...

...I let an album play all the way through on my iTunes. An album like eels' Electro_Shock Blues isn't so great as a collection of singles, even though all the songs are great. But let that sucker play through? Hoo boy.

Just listenening and thinking. Here's "Ant Farm".
Love you guys.

I hate a lot of things
But i love a few things
And you are one of them

Hard to believe
After all of these years
But you are one of them

Walk down the street
I'm thinking:
Everybody move along
I've got a sad-hearted needing
To belong

Nevertheless
It's all the mess you made
But i can let it go

Walk down the street
I'm thinking:
Look at all the ants in a farm
I've got a sad-hearted feeling
To harm

Hate a lot of things
But i love a few things
And you are one of them

2007-01-09T11:16:00.000-05:00

SO MANY COMMENTS

I was amazed to have six comments wiating for me today! It's cool to know that people are reading this - the trials and tribulations of a coffee shop running, big business working, independent film editing, small town living sonamabitch like me. So thanks. It made me feel giddy in my bones and junk.

Hey Sean - send me your new address - i still have your comics!
Off to lunch with the folks!

2007-01-08T09:48:00.000-05:00

WEIRD WEATHER

It was in the upper 60s - maybe warmer - the other day. We had the windows and doors open. It's January in MAINE. Weird.

Discuss.

2007-01-08T09:28:00.000-05:00

THE BREAK IN

I just realized that among the things I haven't blogged about (liking "The Fountain", liking the new Nick Hornby book, liking "Blood Diamond" okay despite the end credit music, et al.) is that The Mad Monkey was broken into. On the 26th, I left at around midnight after chatting with Tristan and Toews and this girl Elyse and some dude she's friends with. Jasan Stepp was in playing some of his sweet new Phantom Communique music for us, so it was worth the stay, and we had plans for some Chu Chu Rocket on the Dreamcast after we got home. Little did I know that I better get used to the Dreamcast because the other video game systems were about to dissappear.

The next day at about 2 I get the callfrom Tuan's wife Rae-Anne. She's upset - the Monkey has been broken into and the person has stolen all the video games, the video game systems, the dvd player, assorted other little stuff, and the cashbox which had about $250 in it. I start kicking myself immediately - usually we don't leave out the games and Tuan never leaves money in the register. I always did, but often I'd take out the cash drawer and put it away. I had done none of the above.

The person tried to break in through the window, but after they broke the glass (the custom size, expensively tinted glass) they realized that the frame was screwed shut, so they went around to the door. They tried to get through the door, but the door bested them and they only succeeded in messing up the doorknob. Finally they went to the other door and just mashed it in. So not only is the stuff gone, but we've got some expensive ass doors and windoows to replace.

It seems that they only took the good controllers. Does that mean it's someone who knows the place, or are the good controllers just more clearly the good controllers? Ah, that is the question.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Really, I mean, we're insured, this could be okay. But in some ways, this just feels like adding insult to injury. Wer're a small business. We struggle. Something like this brings me perilously closer to keeping the doors shut and just leaving. Of course I won't. Like with art barn, like with my movie, like with everything I trudge on. But I just wonder how our dinky dink place could have been a better place to break into than so many others (despite the location and lax security, we don't have much to take... especially now).

2007-01-04T11:22:00.000-05:00

STATE OF ME.

A few details on my life and then I'll let you move on.

Last night we saw the uneven but interesting movie "Blood Diamond". It was good, but it switched between action and speechifying on the diamond trade too clunkily. Like, "Hey, let's talk about diamonds for eight minutes. Shit! A helicopter!" And then they run and stuff blows up. It's all well done, but there's no FLOW to it. The flow, apparently, is the thing. Also the movie ends with a political rap song. This is so weird and so off tonally (despite the subject of the song being about he diamond trade) that it actually made us laugh AND mock the song for about fifteen minutes on the way home.

I HATE the word "Pwned". If you haven't heard this "word", then you are a lucky monkey.

From Urban Dictionary:
A corruption of the word "Owned." This originated in an online game called Warcraft, where a map designer misspelled "owned." When the computer beat a player, it was supposed to say, so-and-so "has been owned."

ARGH! I hate it so!

And last but not least, I had an interesting chat with mom about the concept of blogging. Mom thinks it's an odd thing to do - to care so much about what you have to say that you just do it and throw it out there into the universe. As if our every thought or opinion on a movie or song is actually important. It's funny - this is, largely, a generational divide. Mom comes from a time when people had to have something worth saying to be able to be published. The internet has broken down that wall, but for people born in the 40s and 50s and 60s, that concept still exists. For those of us younger than that, either we have a stronger sense of entitlement (which I would say we do) or we just don't value the sanctity of the internet so much. I don't proofread this (obviously). I don't construct a thesis. I write this like I talk - the ideas come and I blurt. And even if only a dozen people read this, it's interesting and fun for me.

Yeah, it's self indulgent. Yeah, it's odd. But this is the internet - a classroom full of people screaming at the top of their lungs without their hands raised and no doubt in their mind that their words will land somewhere. And I personally could care less where they land. It's all in the yelling.

2007-01-04T10:56:00.000-05:00

WAAAAARRIORS!

I need me a gang.

A few things have sparked this. First off, I've been reading Nick Hornby's "Housekeeping Vs. The Dirt", a collection of short essays from The Believer, a magazine published by The Polysyllabic Spree (i.e. the people who run The Believer, Dave Eggers included) who Hornby describes as "all dressed in white robes and smiling maniacally, sort of like a literary equivalent of the Polyphonic Spree." His descriptions of this gang, this army, this crazed group of writers and publishers and layout artists and other such madmen makes me envious.

I also have been watching too much of the twisted puppet show Wonder Showzen. That show is brought to us by members of the band pffr, a true collection of madmen, friends and wives all. It's kind of a version of what art barn could have been if it had ties to South Park and Andy was the creative head of the group. Think disgusting cartoons and weird things that should not exist being forced upon the world. It amuses me.

And lastly, I've had a bit of a crew lately. We packed five people in the ol' VW on the way to the movies last night. People from the Monkey, Murphy and me. Not all artists, but a true collection of weirdos who grew weirder on each other's weirdness. And it made me happy.

So anyway, I like that. It's a big part of fun for me - travelling with a crew. A gang. A posse. And then we can make wild and ca-razy things and force them onto the world. It'll be fun.

2006-12-29T11:29:00.000-05:00

NEW YEAR'S REVOLUTION

I'm listening to the "Pirates of The Caribbean: tCotBP" audio commentary while I work today and I just head something I want to adopt as my New Year's Resolution.

THE THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO DO IN ORDER TO BECOME A PIRATE (from screenwriter Jay Wolpert, I think)

One, steal a small ship.
Two, make a black flag.
Three, declare war against the world.

Once again, it's on.
2007.

Woot woot.

2006-12-21T13:46:00.000-05:00

NEW YEAR'S SURVEY I GANKED FROM TC's MYSPACE

I was chatting with Danny today and while paying for the high priced phone sex conference call we were on I realized that my new credit card expires in 2011. Twenty-freaking-eleven. I was telling him that I remember when I was a kid being astonished to think that I would be 22 at the turn of the new millenium.

Of course, a few turns of the head later and I was 22. On that night, a crew of us got together for what would be our second annual New Year's Eve party - it was the first time most of the ol' RIT crew were all in the same place, and it was great. art barn had just begun six months prior, and we had landed a few jobs and moved to Portland. We had yet to pick up the RKO Alien Abductee Theater job that brough us a good deal of professional success and happiness, and on which I am still promoting my work, but it was right around the corner.

It's now seven years later, and my mind swims with that concept. I'm a little fatter, on the road to being a lot better off financially, and art barn still plods along with some great projects. But ultimately, it's not about the strides we take, but the reflection on those strides that reminds us where we're going and where we've been.

So here I go again on my own. Going down the only road I've ever know.

*ahem*

In 2007:

1. Will you be looking for a new job?
Hell no. Of my three jobs, I can't say I dislike any of them.

The Mad Monkey is still social and fun. It struggles, but in a noble way. It's brought me a lot of friends and I wouldn't trad eit for the world.

art barn is amazing for me. I'm currently finishing the first feature script that I have really had to shepard along the whole way, and it's challenging and rewarding. I'm hoping the first draft will be done over the holidays. The movie progresses. I can't wait to show you all the cheesy special effects I've cobbled together in Photoshop and Premiere.

Traffix is great. Not only does it pay the bills, but I got my first Christmas bonus. It wasn't as huge as what I've heard some people get, but my God - it was free money. I just went Christmas shopping with a wad of it and way very pleased.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
I am entirely satisfied in my current relationship. Julia is a madwoman, but she's supportive, interesting, cute and wonderful. I think I will do my damndest to keep her around for a while.

3. New house?
I can't bleieve I've spent threre years in THIS house. I love it, though, especially since I've been attempting to decorate. I think I will spend all of 2007 in this house, sans roommates, working my little brains out.

4. What will you do different in 07?
I will attempt to ge tthe biggest project I ever began completely finished and the biggest prject I've yet to begin started. Or maybe I'll end up on tv. I think 2007 will be a grea tyear for me, but I'm not sure it'll be my breakout year. I think it might be the year I do the leg work that paves the way for my explosion into the entertainment world. But we'll see what happens with Kiwahkwe...

5. New Years resolution?
As it was every year of my life, lose weight. I don't want to be hot, just thinner. Especially if I tackle any more movies. I can go bald and I can be fat, but I can't go bald and be fat.

6. What will you not be doing in 07?
Putting up with bullshit. I know who I am, what I am, and what I want. No more pussyfooting around. You know how James Bond goes through walls and not around them? Dan in 2007 right there.

7. Any trips planned?
Not that I know of. I will finally have vacation days this year, and my parents are going to Florida, but mostly I think I'll be here keeping on keeping on.

8. Wedding plans?
I don't think so... I think all my friends got married or are single. But who knows. A year and a half ago, Josh was single and now he's celebrating his 4 month anniversary and living in Dubai. Life tends to make us do what it wants us to do.

9. What's on your calendar?
The Warbirds show tomorrow night at the Monkey, Subject Bias on the 16th of February, and a few birthdays.

10. What can't you wait for?
Something to click. It's like I'm Batman falling off a building, but he shoots five Batarangs up. One of them is going to catch, but I have no idea which one it'll be.

I also look forward to seeing my ladyfriend.

11. What would you like to see happen?
Again - one of those things to click. And a little more time to hang out, maybe?

12. What about yourself will you be changing?
Very little. But again, I hope to lose a few pounds. I also hope to become absurdly successful.

13. What happened in 06 that you didn't think would ever happen?
Probably the beginning of my very unlikely relationship. I also was surprised last December when Josh and Liz got engaged (not that I didn't think that would ever happen). I never thought I would teach middle school, which I did in 2006. I never thought I would fly Josh and myself to Vegas, which I did in 2006. I never thought I would take a long weekend in LA to see "SNAKES ON A PLANE", which I did in 2006. From June on, 2006 kicked ass.

Holy crap - I also never thought a high(ish) paying job would fall out of midair and land on me, which happened in 2006, enabling me to eliminate some debt, buy a car, and take the aforementioned trips.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
Hopefully Josh and I won't have a strained relationship in 2007, but he's in Dubai, so God only knows. I think as long as I pay for the car fast enough, he'll be happy.

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 06?
No. Unless I get absurdly paid, then I ight by new stuff that looks the same.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?
I don't drink much, so I'm not going to do either, I suppose. I like it.

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
It's good, so we're cool. Nowhere to go but down. Honestly, though, Mom, Dad and I have a really good thing going these days.

18. Will you do charity work?
Doubtful. Then again, does the Monkey count?

19. Will you go to bars?
Not really. Though I want to take Toews out for his 21st birthday. Karen got me good and plastered for my 21st, so I did the same for Dorian and now I want to do the same for Adam. Its a tradition I treasure.

20. Will you be nice to people you dont know?
No. I'm pretty good with strangers.

21. Do you expect 07 to be a good year for you?
I do. I think it's just part of a longer bridge, but I think it might be a leaps and bounds year. Hope upon hope. If not leaps and bounds, debt reduction and nice, quiet, good times of 90 hour weeks and web animation.

22. How much did you change from this time last year til now?
Not much. I became a bit more of a member of the card carrying grownups club, but I also started taking my art more seriously. I now look at 2002-2006 as this weird detour from who I really am professionally that is now getting back on track.

23. Do you plan on having a child?
Not if I can help it. But with Ryan Patrick and Tyler, I should be all set. I'm really looking forward to having a Nguyen baby in my life.

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?
I bet. But who knows? 2006 left me questioning a few self-righteous people I know. Sometimes it amazes me how much people can turn - like suddenly they have a million issues they've never brought up before. But as long as people are straight up with me, I think I'll be straight up with them. Everyone else can figure out what to do with themselves.

25. Major lifestyle changes?
I'm kind of hoping my basic lifestyle stays the same. I'd love a bit more activity and bit more adventure. Other than that, I'm cool.

26. Will you be moving?
Not unless Kiwahkwe is a hell of a lot better than I think it is.

27. What will you make sure doesn't happen in 07 that happened in 06?
I teach at a middle school. Hell, I teach at all. I love the job, but again, my art has suffered far too long (and I say that in the least precious and pretentious way possible). I don't mean that my art is essential, but I like it a lot more than I like hanging out with other people's kids and dealing with other people's issues.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans?
I'm having people over. So far, I think Julia, Tuan, Rae, Tyler, maybe Karl and Bri, Murphy, Dorian, hopefully Josh and Liz (?) and whoever else is part of my gang will come and spend a fun evening with us. Games and drinks and friends, just like the good ol' days.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
Dorian. And by kiss, I mean sex. He's a good pal. Or maybe I'll kiss Julia. We'll see.

30. Wish for 2007?
You know, I just really hope that The Mad Monkey makes it through the year. I think its a good place and it does good things for good people. I'd like to see that continue for the forseeable future.

Everyone - peace and love in 2007! Thanks so much for everything you've done and meant to me. I'll see you in 2008, unless I die, and then, hey, thanks for real for everything you did. Unless you killed me, and then you're a prick.

2006-12-18T20:17:00.000-05:00

ANOTHER BUTCHERED THINGY FROM THE ARTICLE

Not that I didn't say this, but check out this quotation from the article.

"You don't need to do the expensive part of the business, like maintaining an image through promotion and advertising, to succeed," Edwards said.

UNTRUE. And yeah, I said it. But my point was that you don't need to PAY to promote stuff - you can do it online. It was an excerpt from a much larger idea.

But Kevin and the Subject Bias guys promote incessantly. They constantly advertise. We try to do the same with the Mad Monkey myspace site.

See the difference? So do I.
So sorry, Subject Bias guys! I didn't mean that the way it sounds!

2006-12-18T17:49:00.000-05:00

THE ARTICLE

Here's that article about the video and stuff.

http://www.mainetoday.com/iherald/061218youtube.html

Forget the Napster disaster. iTunes didn't stand a chance.

At least with those looking for free music online.

Just when it seemed the World Wide Web had succumbed to $1.99 download deals, at least one site prevailed.

In 2005 YouTube entered the arena, and before filmmakers could say "lights, camera, action," music was being broadcast through YouTube.com in the form of videos. It's a consumer media site that lets people watch and share original videos, free of cost. Founded by a former employee of Paypal, and recently sold to Google for $1.65 billion, it was the first easy way for people to make video available on the Web.

Now, YouTube is to local independent artists as MTV is to major labels: a direct tube between musicians and their fans. The site has become an unconventional gateway into stardom for musicians � and for filmmakers.

"I really believe YouTube and Myspace are changing everything for filmmakers. You can put out controlled images online and people from all over the place see it," said Dan Edwards, 29, a Raymond-based filmmaker. "People who own the expensive video equipment no longer hold all the power."

Local up-and-coming indie rock music group Subject Bias recently hired Edwards to create the band's first music video, set to be aired on YouTube in early January. It will appear on MySpace soon after. The Subject Bias video release will be the second home movie Edwards has created.

Off their newest album, "And This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things," the video will feature the track "Slightest Twist." During the past month, Edwards recorded the band out and about in the Portland area. The final session for the video took place Dec. 8 at the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center on Munjoy Hill. Edwards captured every possible angle, sitting in the front row, and slipping behind the red velvet stage curtain and sliding back out only his camera lens.

That was the easy part.

Later, from his home, he downloaded the footage onto his laptop and began trimming three hours of footage down to three minutes. Edwards expects that will take him about eight hours total.

When he is finished with his narrative he'll download the video to YouTube, where it will be cataloged with about 65,000 existing clips, many of them music videos. It's a number that makes it near impossible to track down a specific one unless users know what they're looking for.

However, Jennifer Nielsen, YouTube marketing manager, said, "YouTube has created new ways for musicians to rise up on the site, including launching Musician Channels in June where the top subscribed musicians have more visibility on YouTube." MySpace also comes in handy for that.

A click of a mouse on the YouTube site lets users like Edwards create an embedded link of the music video, which they can cut and paste onto a Web page like Myspace. That's where Subject Bias does most of their promotion, and has a whopping 25,000 "friends."

"Now, Flash, MySpace and YouTube work together to give everyone what they need to do this," Edwards said.

When the music video finally plays, the product will be reminiscent of something you'd see on MTV or VH1, except completed in far less time and with a longer shelf life.

"Musicians don't need a slick and expensive music video to have success on YouTube. All they need is a little creativity and a camera to create something truly original," said Nielsen. "It provides a worldwide stage and a massive audience for up-andcoming artists."

But thanks to a growing number of 20-somethings like Edwards dabbling in new media, many YouTube music videos do have a professional edge.

"I wish we had this in college, all those films we made could have been published," Edwards said. That was in 1999, when lowbudget, independent and studio films, shot on fast schedules by big-studio standards, were finally succeeding in Hollywood.

Edwards graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a degree in illustration, and moved to Maine to open a Web design business, which has since been closed.

There is no longer as great a need for professional Web sites for musicians, but Edwards considers that a positive.

"Now, YouTube is a step better. Homemade movies are not just shown in living rooms, you can edit it professionally and publish it to the world. They can be seen by a bazillion people," said Edwards.

"You don't need to do the expensive part of the business, like maintaining an image through promotion and advertising, to succeed," Edwards said.

While he will barely break even by the time he completes the "Slightest Twist" music video, Edwards said he is just waiting to unload his talent onto the site.��

�� "It's like before we were selling stuff out of a trunk, and now online anyone can get into that trunk," said Edwards.

2006-12-18T09:42:00.000-05:00

I'M IN THE PAPER...

So that article about the Subject Bias video is in the paper this morning. I look balder than I am in the main picture, and there's a nice serial killer picture of me that goes with it, too. But there's a blurb on the front page and a big ass picture right on the front of Section D. There are plusses and minuses to the article.

In the PLUS column:
*It's a good little ad for Subject Bias (but not quite enough. It's more about the internet than about any of us)
*It calls me a filmmaker.
*I sound vaguely intelligent, even though I used the word "bazillion".
*It says I got one shot by "slipping behidn the curtain" at the concert. I cannot really slip much of anywhere, but this makes me sound (presumably) agile.
*It leaves in the respect and big ups I gave to Trey and Matt, and other internet sensations. My quote is that South Park, when we first saw it, was "bizarre and sick". It's meant to be a compliment. And it kinda, by some weird degree of extrapolation, compares me to them.
*There's a picture of Cartman on the page, guaranteeing that someone will look at it.

In the MINUS column:
*It says I live in Raymond.
*It says I used to have a web business, which is now defunct (sorry to the three clients I'm currently making websites for!)
*It makes no mention of ANY of the work I've done before - the movie, the Margret Heater stuff, the RKO stuff, any of it - with the exception of the one other music video.
*It kind of makes it sound like I'm some shlub with a nice camera and not an actual professional.
*She refers to what I make as "home movies". Although technically they ARE, the connotation is a negative one in my humble opinion.
*Ugh. I just reread it. It refers to "20 somethings like Edwards dabbling in new media." God, i spend way too much time for this to be called "dabbling". That's like say ing Hitler was dabbling in genocide.

But it's press. And soon enough, the world will be mine. Start picking out your continents, my children; they'll go fast.

2006-12-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

MORE BAD COMEDY

Last night I heard the Bob Marley (the comedian, not the "One Love" guy) "song" "Christmas in Maine". If there's anything that makes me want to put a bullet between my eyes this holiday season, it's that.

Let's start this off by saying that this was the first thing I had EVER heard from Bob Marley back a few years ago. When I found out later through "Boondock Saints" and seeing his live standup that he's actually pretty funny I was amazed. I hated this song that much.

Well, dust off that old turd, because it's the holiday season again.

I'm sure this was just his way of doing something that would get on the radio locally. Comedy doesn't get on the radio unless it's in song form, be it Weird Al's parodies or Adam Sandler's Hannukah song. So he wrote this piece of crap comedy song about Christmas in Maine.

The formula is one of those old, bluesy, "dah duh dah dah duh" and then he says something dumb. Repeat.
In the song, he manages to mention falling on your ass and getting taken to Maine Med, being sick of hearing Jolly John, a local car salesman who advertises a lot, say "Hi Ho", that the Maine Mall is crowded, so on, so on.

The thing that has always struck me about this kind of easy and pathetic "comedy" is that it's missing an element.
Freaking JOKES. All he does is name checks. And yet people eat it up like it's Bellinis (see how I just name checked a place around hear famous for their large portions? I could be Bob Marley!).

It reminds me of David Spade's classic (to Josh and I) HBO special "Take The Hit". Spade mentions seeing the Eagles, and that the Eagles keep namechecking their town in "Hotel California".

EAGLES: On a dark ARIZONA highway...
SPADE: (excited) Whoo! That's us, dude!
EAGLES: Cool Scottsdale wind in my hair...
SPADE: My buddy lives in Scottsdale!

This is all Marley is doing with this track. He's name dropping places we've been to. He has a similar track about the turnpike exits in Maine. Each one is followed by a generalization about what the people are like in that area. I like low percentage humor, but being that self-referential, with no effort made to globalize or widen the scope of your comedy, just shows his desire to capture one small facet of the world. It's niche comedy.

When I went to LA, I remember driving on roads mentioned in Sheryl Crow and Tom Petty songs and it made me excited, like I was somewhere. I guess this Bob Marley stuff is a attempt to make Mainers feel like they have that some thing - an area worthy of interest. And we do. But it's going to take a lot more than mentioning the mall we all shop at or the same car ads we all watch to make good comedy.

It's gonna take jokes.

2006-12-14T09:32:00.000-05:00

DAVID VS. LARRY

Apparently David Cross ( a funny comedian) recently made fun of Larry the Cable Guy (...dare I say it...an UNfunny comedian).

David likes to say what he actually thinks in a very dickish way and sometimes it comes back to haunt him. So afterwards, Larry, in a Rolling Stone article, attacked David for being overly intellectual and biased against the south. David, not to leave well enough alone, crafted a very long, scathing and occasionally hilarious response on his site. Here's David's follow up, an open letter to Larry the Cable Guy.
http://www.bobanddavid.com/david.asp?artID=183

An excerpt I enjoyed:

It's kinda like you're this guy who speaks for all these poor, unfortunate souls out there who wear shirts with blue collars on them, work hard all day to put food on the table for their family (unlike people who wear shirts with white collars or wear scrubs or t-shirts or dresses or costumes that consist of flannel shirts with the sleeves cut-off and old trucker hats) and pray to the American Flag of Jesus to protect them from the evils of muslims, queers, illegal immigrants, and the liberal jews who run Hollywood and the media. I guess one could say that you're "telling it like it is". And considering the vast amount of over-simplification you employ to describe with sweeping generalizations, all of America and the World that "don't make no sense to you", as well as your lack of sensitivity, and second grade grammar, one might be led to think that you are somewhat proud of not appearing (or being) too intellectual. Combine that with your sucker appeal to the knee-jerk white Christian patriot in us all who would much rather hear 87 fart jokes than hear a joke in which the President (the current one, not the last one) or the Pope, or Born-Again Christians, or Lee Greenwood get called on their shit for being the hypocrites that they are, and I think we've got a winner!

David goes on to more or less call Larry a poseur from the Kentucky and Florida who was private school educated and who dumbs himself down to make ridiculous amounts of money. He says that he doesn't even MIND this, but that Larry should let go of the righteous indignation about his values being challenged by someone like David. He isn't actually Larry the Cable guy, so he doesn't need to stay in character all the time.

It's an interesting time in the US and I think the popularity of this character says something. We enjoy being dumb. Ignorant reactions to world events and fart jokes and shoot all the towel heads humor goes a long way in the US today.

I'm not sure what to say or do about that.

2006-12-13T13:34:00.000-05:00

I AM AWESOME

I was growing a beard for a few weeks. It never got too long, but was still the most beard I ever did grow.
Earlier, in a fit of boredom, I decided to end this beard having. But instead of doing my normal thing and shaving it all but the goatee, I shaved ONLY the goatee, leaving me with the Admiral Burnside look.

Here is a photo I just took of what I look like.

I am now officially awesome. Couple this with the car that doesn't run and is rusting on my back lawn, and perhaps I am also white trash. Good to know.