Self-editing is overrated. Or is it?

Sunday, December 31, 2006

365 days of weird - what could be better?


Well, I know that I've been big on the lists lately and I've also talked about the 365 Days, 365 Plays project, so this is a great way to get all of this in one package:

The good folks at UBU put together this TRULY WONDERFUL project called the 365 Project, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Basically, it's an mp3 of some strange song or piece of audio for each day of the year, and many of them are just spectacular. You wanna hear Orson Welles argue about peas? Or Louis Farrakhan sing calypso ballads about transgenders? Or simply the kids outsider classic "I Like Cheese"? This is the list for you.

If weird is what you're after, go ahead and hunker down. This is gonna be your year.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Might as well as get up to date (so that you can be hip for the next 24 hours)

You ever just feel like "Dammit, I can't keep up with what's cool and what's not! I can't take it! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Hey, relax, settle down.



Pitchfork Magazine and I have got your back. Just head over here to the list of the coolest 100 songs of the year AND there's a link to either an audio or video version of each one of them.

Memorize that list and you can hold your own in any party with people of any age.

And you thought I didn't care about you....

Friday, December 29, 2006

Your typical redneck dilemna.

OK. Let's say you're a redneck.

You've got the week off for Christmas, you've already drunk yourself silly, gotten in a fight with all of the members of your family as well as most of your neighbors and now you're completely bored. AND it's still two days til Christmas.

What do you do?

That's right.

Pick a fight with the bees.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

My 4 year old, the comedian.



So my son Huck has really been cracking me up lately. I know, all parents think that their children are cute, but honestly, I'm falling down lately at some of the things that have been coming out of him.

The latest gag goes like this:

So we're driving in the middle of this HELLISH traffic jam on the way back from Dulles Airport into Baltimore, and I mean this is a jam that could only happen in DC. My son, whenever he gets bored or idle or basically anytime, now has gotten into a habit of making noises to pass the time.

In the mix of horns, engines and music in the deep background, I begin to hear this building sound from the backseat:

"beatabeatabeatabeataBEATABEATABEATABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."


(short pause)

"beatabeatabeatabeataBEATABEATABEATABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."


I turn to my wife and say "We have a budding Foley artist in the backseat."

"BEATABEATABEATAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH..."

"Hey!"
I say, in an attempt to settle things down. "When you grow up, are you gonna go into show business?"

Without missing a beat, he says "No, I'm going into Kindergarten."

(short pause)

"BEATABEATABEATAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH..."


In other news, I know you see that link to the right of this for The Funky 16 Corners by Larry Grogan, which, to my mind, is one of the greatest blogs out there, with its incredibly thorough and entertaining audio guide to super-obscure vintage funk and R&B. Honestly, the mixes that this guy puts together are truly spectacular and, as a true record geek, he has my complete respect and admiration.

His most recent mix, dedicated to James Brown, is not to be missed. With all the attention being laid out for the Godfather, Larry chooses to highlight what is quite possibly the most obscure part of his career, namely his instrumental recordings on the Hammond organ. That's right, this is about James Brown the musician, not the showman. And while nobody is gonna proclaim that JB was an organ virtuoso, this is a fascinating look into a side of James Brown that hardly anyone knew about.

Check it out here. You'll be glad you did.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

I can't explain this.

OK, I hate Maury Povich. I do. I have no idea what Connie Chung sees in him. But, unless I'm so clueless that I just cannot accept this at its face value, what I see here is one of the great moments in the history of post-modernist comedy.

This can't be real, can it?

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

My contribution to the 365 Plays/365 Days Festival




In November 2002, Pulitzer prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks sat down and committed to writing a play a day for the next 365 days. The world premiere of this play cycle, 365 Days/365 Plays, will be performed as a yearlong national festival simultaneously in major cities and communities around the country. From November 13, 2006 to November 12, 2007, over 600 theaters in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Washington D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, the Carolinas, Mississippi River towns, and university campuses will create the largest theater collaboration in U.S. History.

This is where I come in. As an ensemble member for American Theatre Company in Chicago, I was asked to be a part of the podcast version of the Dec 25-31 week of the festival. The plan is that there will be one night of live performances on Friday, December 29th, at 10PM, following a performance of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO SHOW at ATC. General admission to the 365 DAYS event is free.

But, in addition to that, there would be these alternate podcast performances that would be on American Theatre Company's website for that week. I chose to do Days 1 and 2, and basically I sorta took these over and became the actor/director/sound designer for the whole thing. I'm really happy with the way these came out. So I hope you like them too.

The first one is called "Photos With Santa", and stars me as Santa, Toy DeIorio as the Elf, and my wife, Jamie Pachino, as the angry mom, (who is, in fact, a wonderful mother, but nevertheless threw herself into the part with glee.)

Click here to listen.

The second one is called "Even In A House Like This" and features me doing the whole thing. I know that sounds like a sketchy proposition, but trust me on this.

Click here to listen.

Go here to subscribe to the ATC podcast for every day this week or go here to find out more about the festival.

My hats off to Heather Myers-Grum and Wendy Whiteside for putting this together for ATC, and more specifically, for putting up with me taking FOREVER to get this done.


Enjoy!

Monday, December 25, 2006

James Brown - 1933-2006



Oh, I cannot begin to tell you how much I would not like to blogging about the death of James Brown on this day. Christmas day. I mean, I knew it was coming but, dammit, come on. Not today, the one full day off that I get all year.

Well. What can I say?

When I was 5 years old, I got my first record ever. It was a 45rpm of James Brown's "Mashed Potatoes (Part 1)". The first time I put that record on, it literally sounded like I was receiving a message from another planet. It was the strangest thing I had ever heard, the lyrics were indecipherable. There was something about mashed potatoes in there, but I swear to you, you can listen to that song today and you will absolutely not be able to tell me what that song is about. And then when it ended, I turned it over, there was "Mashed Potatoes (Part 2)", which was the same thing!

But the beat that came out of that little crappy record player made me get up and dance, and I didn't even know how to dance. I just got up and followed the beat, which was the greatest thing that I had ever heard.

That was the first time James Brown changed my life.

When I was 16 years old, I was working in a second-hand record store in North Carolina, a customer came in to sell a used cassette copy of James Brown's "Live At The Apollo 1962". Now, at the time, I didn't know it was the first live album ever recorded in pop music. I didn't know what the Apollo Theatre was. I just bought it from the guy on a whim, put it on that night driving home in my car and then didn't get home until 5 hours later, because I couldn't stop listening to it and I basically ran out of gas because I couldn't stop driving. I listened to this one moment on that tape over and over, which is 8 and a half minutes into the medley of his ballads towards the end of Side 1, where he's just riffing over "Lost Someone", and the band is like down to a whisper, and you can literally hear a pin drop in that auditorium, and James is just working the crowd like no one ever before.

He just sings "You know, sometimes I just wanna scream!" and all the young girls scream in return. He sings it again - "I just wanna scream", and the young girls scream again. And then James screams this amazing soul scream that is just unbelievable, and it just seems to last FOREVER as it slowly transforms into this beautiful sweet note that he lands like a feather on everyone. It's this spellbinding moment that literally takes your breath away, and at the moment that your jaw has hit the floor, James just takes the whole room and stomps into "Please Please Please" and the place is JUST FUCKING PANDEMONIUM. You can literally hear the entire place just lose their fucking minds, people are literally hysterical with what they've been given. My eyes are filled with tears as I type this, and it's exactly the way I felt when I was sitting in my car, unable to get out. It's the closest thing to a religious experience that I have ever had, and it was the second time that James Brown changed my life.

When I was 20 years old, I bought a James Brown cd called "In The Jungle Groove", which I will admit that I did not have high hopes for. It was around the time of Sinead O'Connor's "I Am Stretched On Your Grave", which had sampled the beat from "The Funky Drummer", and Polygram, sensing the chance to make a quick buck, assembled a bunch of outtakes from those sessions in an attempt to cash in on people who were attracted to the beat. Deep in that disc, however, is this MONSTER remix of "Give It Up Or Turnit Loose", and I mean, this was clearly recorded at the height of the JB's - you've got Clyde, Bootsy, Catfish, Bobby, Maceo, Fred, Pee Wee, they're all there. And there's this moment about 6 minutes into the track, where James breaks it down, and then builds the groove back up one instrument at a time. It's literally watching the anatomy of a funk locomotive built from the ground up, and it's probably one of the most influential moments that I've ever heard in terms of orchestration of a groove. That song stays with me every single time I begin to write a piece of music. It was the next time that James Brown changed my life.

When I was 22 years old, and starting to think about the direction that my band The Nubile Thangs would take as I was beginning to write songs regularly for them. Then, "Star Time" - the legendary box set came out, spanning The Godfather's career from the 50's through the 80's, and god damn! The variety was astounding! It just blew me away how many ways that he could find to lay down a groove. Every single track was a winner, and they were all different. I listened to those CD's over and over again, and learned about how to write a thousand different kinds of music, but that all have a cohesive identity. That was the next time James Brown changed my life.

Now I'm 37 years old. Last month, my 4 year old son and I were playing basketball in the back yard. He said "Hey, Dad, let's put on some music" and the first thing that I saw in my cluttered office was "Star Time". I grabbed disc 1, advanced it to "Mashed Potatoes (part 1)" and walked back outside, expecting to see my son playing.

He wasn't. He was dancing. He had no idea what he was doing, but he was dancing to James Brown. It was beautiful. It was the most recent time that James Brown changed my life, and the first time that it changed my son's. I'm sure it won't be the last for either of us.

There has not been one day since I was 5 years old where James Brown didn't have some part in my day, directly or indirectly. I literally owe what I've achieved to his influence. His music helped to make me who I am.

Now, he's not a role model for living. And, lord knows, the last two decades have not been good for him. I was THIS CLOSE to driving to see him in prison, during the drug charge in Sumter, South Carolina. Ironically, the day before I was gonna go, the prison actually closed visits from the public as there was a waiting list of 300 people who wanted to see him. To this day, I have no idea what I was gonna do when I got there. But I just felt that I had to go, and tell him what he meant to me, and to hang in there. It's probably for the best that I didn't go, but those feelings remain.

He's not perfect. No one is. But he changed music, he changed society and he changed me forever. Anybody working in modern music owes something to James Brown.

But to me, he'll always be Soul Brother No. 1.

Rest in peace, James. You've earned it.


Go here to listen to WMFU's 6 hour tribute show to JB.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

MERRY XMAS, BABY! I'M BACK! FINALLY!

Look, I know, I know.

We had a thing. A relationship.

After a full 10 months of publishing something every day, I up and left on you for two and a half months. I'm a very bad blogger. Very very very very bad.

What happened? Well. It's like this.

It all started back in October, where I went through the single worst theatrical experience ever. And, for anybody who knows me, that is really saying something, as I have been through some pretty crazy stuff in the line of duty. I'm talking about something where almost EVERY SINGLE MOMENT SUCKED and almost EVERY SINGLE PERSON INVOLVED WAS A TOTAL SHITHEAD. I would tell you the story, but honestly, it's not a funny story. It's a sad story, and it truly brings me no pleasure to tell it.

But I've learned a couple of valuable lessons, and they will definitely be applied in the future. The biggest thing that I learned is, once and for all, that when famous people do theatre anywhere except on Broadway, they feel that they are doing you a huge favor by just being there. They are not unjustified to feel this way, of course, but it does really does drive home the point that you are simply there to validate that viewpoint and that's it. All sort of normal working conditions that one might be used to, such as such as logic, trust, or artistic achievement, are now void in that situation. They are irrelevant, and any initiative to reinstate these things will be viewed as a direct threat. Ignore this rule at your own peril.

The second thing that I have learned that you cannot put a square peg into a round hole. You cannot, even if you have the biggest hammer and you keep hitting it over and over again, even if you throw endless amounts of money at it, even if you have the world's most qualified people swinging the hammer, even if you're willing to swing until your hand is bloody and you've broken the hole that you're trying to get into, YOU CANNOT DO IT.

(long breath)

And that's always good to learn. I've been in this kind of situation before, but there was always at least one ally that I could count on to sort of bootstrap the thing into something worthwhile, but this time? No one. Just me.

So it took a lot out of me. And, you know, I'm blessed that, shitty experience or no, the jobs keep coming. But that also means that these feelings that I got as a result of that experience, that would contribute to burnout (which I have to be very careful about), now sorta have to be repressed until I can get a break to expunge it all. You can't really do that when you're working, because the only way that I'm able to work 24/7 is through a completely positive attitude, and something like this would just weigh all the other jobs down. So, I had to lay low. As they used to say in high school football, "keep your head down and keep pumping your legs." And, no, I didn't actually play high school football.

That, and the fact that there was just this avalanche of work that hit that I had to get done. I mean, crazy amounts of "Hey, we need this right now" coupled with a huge heap of "You can read my mind, right?". Of course, the answer to that question is "No, I can't, but yes, I will."

Through this all, I would get lovely emails from people saying "Hey, where'd you go? I want the blog back." and I would think "Yeah, man! I want the blog back too!" but, you know. I just couldn't. I'm really sorry.

But, OK. Seriously. I'm here now. I know we've had our ups and downs, but, this time, baby, I SWEAR I'm here for real. I promise to not to ever leave you hanging again for that long, and I promise not to mention Iggy and The Stooges again for at least 6 months. (although did you see that their reunion disc is finally coming out? With Mike Watt on bass, no less? Their first album in 33 years! All right, all right, you're right. I'm sorry I brought it up.)

As always, I promise to fill in the empty days between October 7th and now, so PLEASE. You have to scroll down and read all the rest. It will all show up in the next couple of weeks. I have so much to talk about. Seriously.

All right. There you go. I'm back.

Tell your friends.

Kill Yr Idols.

xo
Lindsay

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Let's talk about my new computer!

Oh my god, this day has finally come. I have a new computer.

Let's talk about this for a second.

Below is my old computer.

















It's Mac Powerbook Pismo G3. It was manufactured in the year 2000. You heard me. 2000. Now I haven't had this particular one since 2000. Oh no. This is my sixth one. You heard me. Sixth.

Now, why, you may ask, have I stuck with this particular model so long? Well, for one thing, it's built like a tank. It can really take a beating. It's black, which is cool. But the biggest reason is that I can run OS 9 on it. That's right.







I am the last human being on this earth running OS 9.


Oh, I heard all the jokes. "Hey, Carrie Bradshaw, when you gonna upgrade your computer?" Followed by snickering and pointing! I SAW IT! I'M NOT BLIND!

You see, you get a certain way of working that works, and naturally you wanna stick with what works! That's not so crazy, right?

BUT! All things must change eventually, and the time had come for me as well. I needed to finally upgrade to OS X and get a decent machine from this century.

Fortunately, a couple of months ago, I met an EXTREMELY nice guy from Apple who offered to help me get a new computer at a discount. I met him at a 4 year old's birthday party. There were approximately 100 children in some sort of birthday-cake-driven mosh pit of bicycles and wagons, and there was a collection of dads trying not to look involved over on the side. Most were talking about sports, but there was this one guy who was very friendly, and we struck up a conversation. Next thing I know, I'm grilling him on the employee discount and he mentions 25%. 25%! HOLY CRAP! I practically jumped in his lap! He ultimately agrees, god bless him, and I'm on the list for the new MacBook Pros!

SO! Check it out! I got the new MacBook Pro 17" with 100GB hard drive @ 7200rpm.




Oh, did I mention? It's Ferrari Red!!! No, you're not going crazy, that is the actual color. It's a custom paint job from Colorware in Minnesota, and I have to say that they did a fantastic job. It looks sensational, and the compliments have been non-stop.

OK, I have to say that OS X has been really easy to adjust to so far, but I haven't really done anything too intense yet for work, so I will let you know about that soon.

But I have to say it's been so cool to embrace my inner computer nerd after so long! I'm reading Mac World again, I'm looking up new shareware, I'm visiting bulletin boards about inside Mac information! It's been so long that I've been living in isolation that I totally forgot how much fun it is to be a genuine super computer nerd again! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

But here's the coolest part! As it turns out, there is a way to run OS 9 on an Intel Mac! There's a new emulator that you can run on the Intel machines called Sheep Shaver (would I make a name like that up?) that allows you to run your old OS9 stuff on it! Here, take a look!



Follow this link for more info.

As my friend who follows this kind of thing said to me "That is the single stupidest thing that I have ever seen."

Well, maybe. But now I can be both on the bleeding edge and hopelessly stuck in the past at the same time! It's a dream come true.

Well, it is for me.

I SEE YOU LAUGHING OVER THERE! I'M NOT BLIND!

Friday, December 22, 2006

The joys of Christmas....


are always just one take away.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

I would rather pay for free.




OK, so I'll admit that I'm new to all this, but the .Mac thing is totally wack. $99 a year for some server storage and an email address I'll never use? What the hell?

Let's be honest. When it started, a .Mac subscription (or, even earlier, the free iTools service) was a revolutionary, cutting-edge service. Offering HomePage web hosting, iDisk, a mac.com email address, anti-virus software, Backup, iCards and iReview, it represented something new and innovative in the best Apple tradtion.

Since then, the Internet and a growing bundle of Web 2.0 services have eroded both the value and the innovation of a .Mac account.

Thank god for The notMac Challenge!

The notMac Challenge is offering a prize of $10,000 to the first developer to come up with a open-source dotMac replacement service. Kent, the driving force behind the notMac Challenge is offering to match dollar for dollar contributions from the public towards the US$10,000 ($12,732) prize.

To win it, you will need to come up with "a free replacement to dotMac's client-based services that's easy enough for a first-time Mac user to install and so fully and transparently integrated that a long-time dotMac user wouldn't notice the difference."

I think it's genius. And long overdue, even for a person who's been here for 5 seconds.

Go here now and make it happen!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Wait. Those are not our children.

I don't know if this is true or not - it was forwarded to me - but it's a good story:

Some people build swimming pools in their back yards, but outdoor pools in Alaska just won't work.

Since this particular family lives on the outskirts of Anchorage, they decided to build a sturdy, colorful playground for their 3 and 4 year old sons, with smooth-stone gravel all around it to avoid knee scrapes and other injuries.

They finished building it on Saturday evening, and the following morning, as the mom was about to wake up the boys and have them go out to play in their new play center, this is what she saw from the upstairs window:







Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Oh my god, I have so been there...

Monday, December 18, 2006

Strange Noises...



Well, I just finished working at Arena Stage on Noises Off, which was a really lovely experience. Everyone was as nice as you could possibly imagine, and the whole thing was a real pleasure.

One of the things that theatres have started doing recently is having someone of the theatre maintain a blog about the shows, as a way of having a dialogue with the public. I think that this is a pretty swell idea and while I'm not sure how much interest it actually generates for the theatre, it's a great way to get inside the process of how things are done.

For Noises Off, Jay Russell, an actor in the play and a truly very nice guy, blogs about his experience of putting the play together. Let me tell you, these actors worked their asses off putting this thing up. Anybody who thinks that Noises Off is a piece of cake should try it sometime, it is really an INCREDIBLY physically demanding show and these guys did a fantastic job.

Anyway, I was completely caught off-guard about the very nice things that he said about me, which came from this conversation about how exactly I do my job.

Click here to read about our conversation.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

I've totally had this flight attendant

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Surprise, surprise.

Your results:
You are Lex Luthor!
A brilliant businessman on a quest for world domination and the self-proclaimed greatest criminal mind of our time!


Click here to take the "Which Super Villain am I?" quiz...

Friday, December 15, 2006

What my dreams look like in Japanese



Thanks to Jason for bringing this to me.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Hey! Let's go play with a drum machine!

It's right here!

It's fun!

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

OK, this kinda freaked me out for a second.

Yeesh.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Are you the worst burgular in the world?

Of course not. Because you are not this guy.


Monday, December 11, 2006

A fantastic mp3 site!

Stumbled across this site today called Bradley's Almanac and it's a real treasure trove of live recordings of great bands!!

He just posted excerpts from the big Touch and Go birthday festival and it's really spectacular.

Check it out here.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Wow, how cool is this?



The grand-prize winner in Altoids' Tin Million Uses competition was Jon Lennon of Ithaca, N.Y., who turned a Ginger Altoids tin into a theremin, a device that uses light to generate sound.

Not only is he back from the dead, he made an Altoid theremin!

Imagine indeed!

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Paula Abdul is drunk as hell.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Who is the comedian?

I'm sitting in tech at Milwaukee Repertory with my friend (and set designer) Todd Rosenthal, who is the only guy who I know who likes digging up stupid stuff on the internet as much as I do.

Here's his favorite video to watch at the moment. This is the trailer for the movie "Comedian" starring Jerry Seinfeld. Ironically, the trailer does not feature Jerry Seinfeld at all, and is funnier than anything else in the movie.

 
Google
 
Web hellifiknowblog.blogspot.com

Example