CollisionWorks

It's Friday, so it's cat blogging day. But I've got a lot of work to do on the plays, so I've been concentrating on that.

I spent most of the day spread out on the bed looking at the fragments of Spell I have so far and trying to organize them and write new bridging material, with the help of my iPod and the inspirational mix I've made for this show . . .

Moni walked across my pages and hunkered down above me in a stack of unused stereo speakers and shoulder bags:

Hooker, meanwhile, became demonic in the living room:

And that was all I could get of the cats today.

There were a couple of good items on Modern Mechanix, though, including this ad:

And this article asking an important question:

Almost done with the work for the day. Didn't realize how much I grit my teeth when I work - my last dentists have pointed out I have some serious bone growths in my upper jaw from grinding/gritting my teeth. Now, mostly recovered from the teeth pulling, the gritting I've been doing today has caused a VERY sore lower jaw. Well, almost done anyway. Almost dinner time.

Oh, yeah, there's stuff to share. A grab-bag. Lemme get rid of these things that are clogging up my blog reader, just sitting there, saved, mocking me, MOCKING me, I tell you . . .

(can you tell that I'm bored and nothing is coming to me as yet on the scripts I should be writing?)

First, I just saw on the TV that there's a National Geographic special coming up on the recently-unearthed scrapbooks of Karl Hoecker, adjutant to the commandant of Auschwitz - an amazing look into the heart of "the banality of evil." The New Yorker had an excellent article on the subject, which isn't online but there's an abstract HERE and a gallery of images from the scrapbook HERE.

This is certainly a fine, honorable, and serious subject for a TV special. It is, in some ways, nothing new (I've spent a lot of time and much of my work on the subject of how normal people do evil things), but more examples never hurt in getting this important idea across, which so many people try to ignore or reject.

However.

They have chosen one of the most unfortunate, badly-pitched titles for such a piece that I think they possibly could. I understand why they went with this title - the sentiment is appropriate - but I don't think they quite perceived how this would sound or read - I found out about this by hearing an announcer stentoriously read it at the end of a commercial and I cracked up, mistakenly thinking I had Comedy Central on or something and it was a joke - and right as I typed that sentence, they played the spot again and I broke up again.

See, they've titled the show:

NAZI SCRAPBOOKS FROM HELL

Again, I understand the title, but the effect of the combo of the words "Nazi" and "scrapbooks" (about as sweet and Norman Rockwell a word as I can think of) and the construction "FROM HELL" (for at least two decades now an appendage used on the end of innocent phrases in a parody of exploitation film hyperbole) is just NOT what the makers of the special were going for, I would imagine.

See, just then, right as I typed that last period, they ran the commercial AGAIN on the TV next to me, and I was all taken in and abashed and moved again until the title was read so, SO seriously, and then I lost my shit again. It doesn't get old, hearing one of "those voices" use the (sensitive, serious, sad) tone you do when you are, say, doing a promo for a Holocaust documentary and winding up with a title more appropriate for a Roger Corman film.

I get two images in my head - one is a cartoony image of some kind of Jim Henson's National Socialist Babies, with 'Lil Adolf 'n' Eva and Baby Goebbels and Goering and Himmler (with their faithful dog, Blondi) playing together and fighting over the glue sticks, crayons, rubber cement and sparkles as they make their scrapbooks of unbelievable monstrosities.

The other image is of sentient monster scrapbooks, dripping blood and ichor like in some EC comic book, wearing swastika armbands and wandering a suburban landscape, wreaking horror and havoc.

Maybe it's just me.

And speaking of "those voices," here's a video created for a Vegas industry gathering that features the unfamiliar faces of several of the most familiar voices in the USA:

( IN A WORLD . . . )

Some links of interest:

io9 has a nice post about the 1970s toys The Micronauts, which I had and loved (I got a giant, almost complete set for Xmas of 1976) which led me to two other Micronauts sites that brought back great memories, MicroHeritage and The Micronauts Homepage.

These toys were the BEST - great figures, vehicles, and playsets - loads of fun - with lots of moving parts, including neat plastic missiles that really fired with some power. Unfortunately, some dumb kid shot one of those cool cool supercool missiles into his throat and choked, and wound up spoiling toys for all of us for years after, which weren't allowed to have neat shooting missiles like that anymore. Actually, I think they were still able to have them, but they had to make them bigger with foam tips, and then some stupider kid choked on one of THOSE from an original Battlestar Galactica Viper toy (very cool, but I never had one), and that was IT for neat shooting stuff. Jeez, we used to throw Jarts around each other and get set on fire by Estes model rocket engines, and it was FUN!

Stupid clumsy kids . . .

From PingMag, "The Tokyo-Based Magazine About 'Design and Making Things'," an interview with and great set of photos by Frederic Chaubin of Soviet architecture of the 70s and 80s - some amazing buildings here, like sets from SF movies.

From Neatorama, "Mathematician Michael S. Schneider saw a wave form of the well-known drum sequence known as the Amen Break. It’s a drum 5.2 second sequence performed by Gregory Cylvester Coleman of The Winstons and has been sampled and used by countless artists since it was recorded in the 60s. Schneider, seeing the waveform through the eyes of a math professor, recognized a pattern, a relationship called the Golden Ratio. So he began to analyze the drum sequence and its deeper meaning."

Here's two found images I grabbed recently from other websites that collect "neat stuff," but I forgot to put down what sites those were. Oh, well.

Tyler Cannon pulled off quite a feat. Nice job, kid.

And please remember to bow down before The Lizard King:

From LP Cover Lover, a jacket that suggests that the best way to demonstrate high fidelity is by recording a deranged bikini-clad model talking to her hand puppet:

(and the sidebar . . . "Hunting thru Audioland with Gin and Chimera"? Wha?)

Dear god I WISH they would stop running that NAZI SCRAPBOOKS FROM HELL commercial every ten minutes or less on this channel - I guess the National Geographic channel (or, as they annoyingly call it in some promos, NatGeo - ugh) doesn't have a lot of sponsors, and there isn't anything else interesting on right now besides this (fascinating) show on a murderous chimpanzee.

Nice description of a movie from the onscreen channel guide for the Cable TV here, for Curse of the Fly (1965): "A mad scientist tries out a molecular disintegrator on people but cannot get the hang of it." Yeah, that can be a pain.

Here's a wonderfully classic sexist Folgers Instant Coffee ad:

( Sometimes a candle ISN'T Just a Candle . . . )

Paul Anka smells like teen spirit . . .

( A mul-LAT-to! An al-BI-no! A mos-QUIT-o! My lib-I-to! )

And if you haven't seen this one, which has been making the rounds, it's quite worth it . . .

( CHARLIE ROSE by Samuel Beckett )

And I hope the weather is as beautiful where you are as it is here.

( And pretty much everywhere, it's gonna be hot! )

Enjoy.

Shows that are up or coming or upcoming from collaborators and friends that you should see and they will be fun and relatively cheap and then you can smile and have a good time and then have maybe some cookies or something and a nice glass of something tasty and then we can have world peace or something:

Matt Freeman's When Is a Clock? has opened. The last two pieces I saw of his at The Brick were terrific and hysterical (An Interview With The Author and Trayf) and I plan on seeing this one . . . whenever the hell I can. If, unlike me, you're not rehearsing, like, six shows right now and have some free time, see the damned thing. Runs April 15 through May 10 at Access Theater.

More info is HERE; tickets are available HERE.

James Comtois' Colorful World opens at 78th Street Theatre Lab on May 8th and runs to the 31st. I think they were rehearsing next door to us at Battle Ranch last night -- Michael Gardner asked, "Did I hear Jessi Gotta's laugh?" Apparently so, as a big mess o'cards got left there afterwards. It's a riff on superheroes in a recognizable, real world in the vein of Alan Moore's Watchmen. Again, hope I get to see it.

If you can, tickets and info are HERE.

Coming up at CSV-Milagro shortly is the new entry in Stolen Chair's "Cinetheatre Tetrology," The Accidental Patriot: The Lamentable Tragedy of the Pirate Desmond Connelly, Irish by Birth, English by Blood, and American by Inclination, created by Jon Stancato & Co., which combines Errol Flynn swashbuckling films with Greek Tragedy. Really. April 25-May 17.

Info HERE, tickets HERE.

And at the home territory of The Brick . . .

The season finale of Penny Dreadful - Episode 6: "The Earth Shook, The Sky Burned" - will play this Saturday at 10.30 pm and Sunday at 2.00 pm. I'm lighting this one with Berit, as always, and also acting in this one as George Westinghouse (a comment on my usual position as supplier of power to the show?). It's a corker of an episode to end the season with, and will have people eagerly awaiting the return in September.

Tickets are HERE.

Finally, Babylon Babylon has a final preview tonight and opens tomorrow (with big party to follow).

I've been describing this one plenty (as I've also lit this, though it still has another name on the homepage . . .), so I needn't say much more, but the show has really turned out well, and it's quite exciting to see so many good actors (31!) all working together at the same time on the same stage.

Here's a photo from production photographer Ken Stein, taken at the first preview:

I have a bunch more nice shots from the show, but I'll put them all behind a cut here for easier loading . . .

( Hail Ishtar! - photos from final dress and first preview )

This show runs from April 18 to May 10. Blog is HERE, tickets are HERE.

That's all for now. More tomorrow. See some theatre.

Last night's rehearsal went great. {phew}

I wound up with only four actors plus myself, but we set up the basic set, played the music, I described what ideas I had at that point, and immediately new, good ones began appearing, as the piece began to come clear.

Good discussions with the actors as well, and I'll have to be on my toes and keep up with them. I had planned one scene that took place out of the office setting where the rest of the show takes place, but had always been disturbed by leaving the setting for just the one scene - I figured it would work anyway, as the sequence is kind of a big, exciting, flashy one. I got called on that by an actor last night, who noted the structure and feel of the piece seems to demand the unity of staying in the office the whole time. And, yeah, he's right. So I have to rethink that scene. Dammit. The assembled came up with several good suggestions for that, but just starts in the right direction, no solutions.

My nerves have pretty much abated on this show - it opens way off on July 30, and in a few hours last night, I solved maybe half of the confusion in myself about what was going to happen in the "blank spaces." I also discovered I need to find two more songs to put in to make transitions work, and one other song I have in there may not work.

Now I'll see if I still have all the actors I thought I had for this show. I could do it with the ones I know I have now, but it's a bit heavy on the female side onstage right now, and that doesn't work right for this show.

25,597 tracks in the iPod - here's a Random Ten for this morning:

1. "Blue Velvet #1" - WFMU - station promos
2. "Fotomodelle" - Piero Umiliani - Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso
3. "I'm Gonna Dance All Night" - The Equals - First Among Equals - The Greatest Hits
4. "Walking Down Madison" - Kirsty MacColl - Galore
5. "Fiabla Bolero" - Franco Ferrara - Music Scene: Musica Per Radio - Televisione - Films
6. "Satellite of Love" - Lou Reed - Transformer
7. "Let's Go Away for a Mashup" - Totom - Bastard Pet Sounds
8. "Code Monkey" - Jonathan Coulton - Thing a Week Three
9. "Sequenza Psichedelica" - Piero Umiliani - Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso
10. "Crazy Sally-Ann" - Sit N' Spin - Enjoy The Ride

What th-? Real random, iPod. Two tracks from the same 60s Italian movie soundtrack? (which I think is some kind of softcore "study" of Sweden) Well, I guess that will happen on random.

And in the land of cat photos, here's Hooker and Moni curled up together last week . . .

And here's one from the last half-hour - Hooker has been sweetly curled up against and around my feet since I got up and got on the couch and computer, purring and making happy grunty noises and mushing his forehead into my toes. So I grabbed the camera to try and get a record of how adorable he was and can be. He stopped being adorable the moment after I took this and took a big chomp into my foot. Ow. I think you may be able to see the transition happening here from sweetness to BAD KITTY . . .

Tonight, we show The Magnificent Ambersons (final 88-minute version, of course) on the big big screen at The Brick for cast members and friends who want to come by (if you're in the latter group and I neglected to email you, let me know). Tomorrow, more making stuff up on Everything Must Go. Looking good.

Tomorrow we start work on the Gemini CollisionWorks shows for 2008. First reading of Ambersons. We will have 15 people out of the 18 people cast (and 21 people that we need) there. That's pretty good, considering how difficult it is to get everyone together with conflicts as they are (I'm going to have the Ambersons cast together in full a total of five times before we open).

Today I have to go get scripts copied and do some sound editing (since I'd like to play the Herrmann score under the reading, and some of the tracks run together in ways that won't work so well for that).

The scheduling seems to be working better than I'd anticipated. A couple of big problems have come up for a couple people, but mostly I'm getting responses back with either "Oh, here's a couple of conflicts that have come up since my last email" or "All looks good. Great!"

Of course, I've only got back 18 responses from the 43 actors cast in the four shows as yet, so I might be looking ahead to big problems, but for now I won't "borrow trouble," as Berit always reminds me.

Currently in the iPod, 25,512 songs. Here's what comes up this morning:

1. "Cha Cha Heels" - Eartha Kitt - downloaded from somewhere, god knows where, probably the WFMU website
2. "Ingen Visjoner" - Haerverk - Stengt pga av haerverk 7" EP
3. "Batucada Erotica" - Michel Colombier - Bananatico: European Airlines to Rio
4. "Sofa #2" - Frank Zappa - The Best Band You Never Heard In Your Life
5. "Repetition" - The Au Pairs - mix disk from Daniel McKleinfeld
6. "Burn Bridges Burn" - The Fugs - The Fugs Final CD (Part 1)
7. "Rene" - The Small Faces - Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake
8. "Stake Out" - The Negatives - Stake Out / Love Is Not Real 7"
9. "Picture of Dorian Gray" - The Futureheads - 1-2-3-Nul!
10. "Pick It Up (And Put It In Your Pocket)" - Stan Ridgway - The Big Heat

And this week's kitty photos -- here's Moni on the bed:

And with Hooker on Berit's suitcase:

And since I've still got a backlog of videos to share, behind the cut are three live performances from Mr. Iggy Pop. First, a 1977 rendition of "The Passenger" in Manchester, England (unfortunately it kinda peters out at the end as it cuts off with the transition to the next song). Then, a short and sweet performance of "I Wanna Be Your Dog" from a 1979 Old Grey Whistle Test.

And finally, Iggy & The Stooges from their performance at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions. Oh, no, they weren't inducted, yet again. However, that fine Detroit girl Madonna was, and she herself requested (apparently in protest at them being ignored again) that her hometown boys be the ones to perform her songs at the ceremony. So The Stooges performed "Burning Up" and "Ray of Light" for an obviously pleased Madonna and some confused-looking record company weasels (though there seems to be enough fans in the audience to give them a pretty good ovation at the end). The Stooges and Madonna. Below.

( I'm So Messed Up, I Want You Here )

Enjoy.

So Episode 5 of Penny Dreadful, "The Deb of Destruction," which I directed and designed, went by on Saturday and Sunday and went over quite well. I was really pleased with how it came out. We had good houses both shows, and it's a good thing we've now added the extra matinee for this monthly series - it was getting to the point of having to turn people away from the one Saturday night show, which we probably would have had to do this weekend without the extra show.

I really enjoyed doing this script, which had a bit of a Lynchian-Twin Peaks feel to it (one cast member called it Penny Dreadful: Fire Walk With Me) - good broad melodrama, scored with big loud Bernard Herrmann music from Hangover Square, White Witch Doctor, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, and Citizen Kane (used most often for the scenes involving William Randolph Hearst, of course).

I was busy up in the booth running the show most of the time, so I didn't get to shoot many pictures of the show, but my camera was passed around on the floor (mainly in the hands of Matt Gray, I think), and a few shots came out okay.

Becky Byers was quite impressive as Abigail Pierce, the Deb of Destruction herself:

The dialogue-free, tense dinner scene (which I scored with the aria from Citizen Kane) was, as expected, the highlight of the show . . .

Unfortunately, we didn't get any shots of it from runthrus where it was done full-out to its VERY bloody conclusion.

Apart from that, I wound up with just a few behind the scenes shots, like this of Christiaan and Bryan planning something . . .

. . . this of our William Randolph Hearst and Abigail Pierce relaxing before cue-to-cue . . .

. . . and what I think is a self-portrait by Matt as Leslie Caldwell, Detective of the Supernatural . . .

Apart from that, the UTC#61 shows at Walkerspace went down, and I got to see Cat's Cradle at least, and we ended the six-episode run of the sitcom for the stage 3800 Elizabeth at The Battle Ranch.

Now, Berit and I can move onward properly to our shows for the rest of the year: The Magnificent Ambersons, Spell, Everything Must Go, and Harry in Love.

Of course, I also have a sizable role in next month's Penny Dreadful, as it turns out. {sigh}

PS As mentioned in the previous post, I've been getting complaints from some friends and family about this page taking forever to load, not loading completely, or just plain crashing the browser (usually Firefox, it appears). I think this has something to do with the amount of photos and videos I've been posting. I've started putting the videos behind LJ cuts, and if that's not enough, I'll do that more with posts containing lots of photos. Let me know in comments if there's any improvement already. Thanks.

Well, the horrible sickness that's been all over Berit for most of the week, and seemed to be just lingering in me at a low, tolerable level, has decided to come forth in all its glory for me today, with wracking coughs, joint pain, tissue aches, and a head that both pounds and is light and confused.

I was supposed to be at 3800 Elizabeth rehearsal today as stage manager, but had to call and beg off at around 10.30 am, feeling a little guilty as I wasn't quite so bad at that point. By an hour later, no guilt about it, I'm really sick.

And, unfortunately, I am going to have to go in tonight to Tribeca to help out with the Cat's Cradle box office as promised, mainly because I'm hoping to have a chance to audition someone from that company for Ambersons before the show. I don't know if I'll be staying for the show as I'd hoped, though. Tomorrow I have rehearsal and performance of 3800 in the afternoon and evening, and if I can't audition that person tonight, I'll have to do it at The Brick at 10.30 am tomorrow morning. I'll need rest.

I keep falling asleep for little unexpected naps and having unpleasantly specific dreams about having car accidents (swerving to avoid hitting a dog at Ditmas and Ocean Parkway and heading for the trees; taking a turn on the BQE a little too fast and sideswiping into the crash resisters at the southbound construction point where the road is temporarily forked; etc.) - and I always wake up right at the decisive point where I will either definitely have the accident or might just possibly avoid it, which leaves a horrible feeling of unfinishedness in my waking self.

And of course I'll be driving into Manhattan later tonight as the F Train is screwed up this weekend. Nice.

Last night we finished the shoot on Daniel's video with the one-shots of me in the kitchen scene. Pretty quick, pretty simple. I got to see the rushes of the slasher movie footage we shot on Wednesday, and it looked even better than I expected. Hysterical. Daniel sent me some frame captures from the footage we shot Thursday, in the basement and on the stoop - in the last post you got to see what the lighting actually looked like on the set, so here's what it looked like in the camera:

That's me as the slasher film director with my crew.

And there I am, freezing, on the stoop outside (hiding a knife behind my back, being paranoid).

This has to be done for a contest by early next week, so hopefully it will be somewhere online soon enough for me to point you to.

The book I'm reading that keeps sending me to sleep (not a reflection on the book, but on the difficulty of reading right now) is This Is Orson Welles, his interviews with Peter Bogdanovich from the 60s-70s. I often remember this as more of a collection of Welles' tall tales and fabulisms than it is (don't get me wrong, Welles' stories are often better than the truth, but they get tired once you've read them a dozen times). There's a lot of gold in Welles' observations. Two passages stood out to me this time, regarding current or recent concerns of mine - this first, recorded in a restaurant in Rome in 1969:

PETER BOGDANOVICH: You've been quoted as saying the theatre is on its last legs--
ORSON WELLES: Sure . . .
PB: --but that it's always been dying.
OW: Everybody's said that, ever since the Greeks. The Fabulous Invalid, that was what Kaufman and Hart called the theatre. They wrote a play with that title, and one of the characters was based on me, I'm proud to say . . . for the record, I hope I didn't seem to be saying that the theatre is finished. Great artists continue to perform in it, but it's no longer hooked up to the main powerhouse. Theatre persists as one of those divine anachronisms -- like grand opera (which I much prefer) and classical ballet (which I don't really dig at all). A performing art, more than a creative one, a source of joy and wonder, but not a thing of now.
PB: The "thing of now," of course, being film?
OW: Number One. And then there's television, still largely undiscovered territory . . .
PB: How about radio?
OW: An abandoned mine.
PB: That means radio has become another anachronism?
OW: Sure, like silent movies -- a victim of technological restlessness. Radio still functions in a way, of course; but the silents are wiped out. That's like giving up all watercolors because somebody invented oil paint. And black-and-white is going the same silly route. For me, radio's a personal loss, I miss it very much . . .

I am a bit wistful for the time (which I still remember the tail end of) when film was "the thing of now."

This next bit (recorded in Hollywood, late 1970s) must have stuck in my mind in conceiving Ian W. Hill's Hamlet:

PB: You said [Shakespeare] wasn't interested in the bourgeoisie.
OW: That was an age, you see, where there was lots of room at the top. In his plays, the common folk are mainly clowns.
PB: You'd say he was a snob.
OW: He was a country boy, the son of a butcher, who'd made it into court. He spent years getting himself a coat of arms. He wrote mostly about kings. We can't have a great Shakespearian theatre in America anymore, because it's impossible for today's American actors to comprehend what Shakespeare meant by "king." They think a king is just a gentleman who finds himself wearing a crown and sitting on a throne.

I was also going to post a couple of videos of Marianne Faithfull at different points of her career, but I need something more cheerful, so here are three videos to laugh at, laugh with, and get all touched by.

( Now behind a cut for easier loading . . . )

Oh, boy, I'm getting woozy here. Better lie down and put on a video or something and rest a bit. I've been thinking of watching Terry Gilliam's Brazil, but that might be a hair too nightmarish in my present state.

Ah, who am I kidding, that's exactly how I like it. Brazil it is then . . .

Supposed to be the last night of shooting on Daniel's DV short last night, but it took longer than anticipated, it was very cold, and I got worn out -- or whatever you call it when you do enough takes in the cold that you can't think straight anymore and begin to forget where you are entirely when "Action" is called ("wait, what? why am I standing on this stoop? why am I holding a scarf in this hand? why is there bright light on me?").

So we're coming back tonight to do the one-shots of me in the kitchen scene, which are all that remain, but which will probably require many many takes of me slowly going crazy, at varied levels of incremental looniness.

Not many pictures from last night - my camera battery died early on (maybe from the cold), and I was in most of the shots, but I got a couple. Here's the reverse angle in the basement scene, after the Director of the slasher movie calls cut and we see the ultra low-rent production (as Sally McKleinfeld and Jenny Tavis get onscreen cameos as boom and camera operators, joining Michele Schlossberg as Production Manager):

And here's Daniel and Sally getting Michele's entrance onto the stoop, right before my camera battery went out:

Came home to more and more casting worries. I can cast just about all of the roles in my own four shows except for one major one in Ambersons that I may have no one for (I thought I'd have someone, but it looks to not be working out). This is really good and I should be happier, but that one part frustrates me. I saw plenty of good people at my auditions, and more good women than I have parts for, but NO ONE at all right for this part. I've got some time, but I'm a month behind where I want to be (if still a month ahead of where I usually am).

And Penny Dreadful, which of course is what's coming up immediately, is having bigger casting worries. As Berit says, I need to just calm down and keep working, it'll work out fine (a lie, really, it works out fine maybe 87% of the time. maybe.). Yeah, I just want to get it right. The idea this year was to get everything done much MUCH more in advance than I'd ever done before, and it's getting to be just much more.

Which reminds me - I've been so worried about the rest of the casting that I've been neglecting getting Harry in Love, which is fully cast, in motion. Two of the cast members are still busy on other projects, I think, and can't do anything right now, but I should be checking in with all of them . . .

Meanwhile, back in the iPod (25,154 songs), here's what comes up as I write:

1. "A Man and a Woman" - Sir Julian - Ultra-Lounge 11: Organs in Orbit
2. "That's Why They Call 'Em Moms" - Peer Pressure - S/T 7" EP
3. "I'm Free" - The Who - 09/29/69 Amazing Journey Live at Concertgebouw Amsterdam
4. "Take Me Just As I Am" - Lynn Collins - James Brown's Funky People (Part 1)
5. "Anna (live)" - Arthur Alexander - In Their Own Words - at The Bottom Line
6. "Butsi" - Las Comadrejas - We Are Ugly But... We Have The Music
7. "Suzie-Q" - The Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones No. 2
8. "Monsieur Dupont" - Sandie Shaw - Those Classic Golden Years 04
9. "Good Gin Blues" - Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band - mix disk from my Dad
10. "Shortnin' Bread" - The Fabulous Playboys - Lost Legends of Surf Guitar

A pretty laid-back, relaxing mix. Nice.

The cats have been little darlings recently, especially Hooker, who won't leave me alone and just wants hugs and affection all the time. Usually when I'm trying to type on here, or make notes in a show notebook, or read some research material. Not a good combo. Finally got some new shots of them, though.

Hooker on the windowsill, for once not interested in my attention:

And Moni on the couch, wanting a bellyrub from Berit:

And both of them, curled up on the bed, almost under the pile of scripts and show notebooks I was coming in to get:

Finally, ladies and germs, please welcome Mr. Trav S.D. to the blogosphere with his new home in the orthicon tube, Travalanche!

We continued shooting Daniel McKleinfeld's video short yesterday afternoon/evening.

It was a bit more of a pain to light the basement than I thought, as we were just putting gels around 250w bulbs in cliplight fixtures, and we rapidly discovered that the gels would melt very VERY quickly if they came into contact with the bulbs for even a fraction of a second. So lighting took longer, but shooting actually took shorter than anticipated. Looked great, especially in the shots where I also slashed across frame with bits of green, which I was handholding over a Lowell light.

The basement scene was the faux-slasher movie that opens the piece, so I went all out with silly horror colors -- Dario Argento as filtered through cheap 80s horror. This picture's been Photoshopped to try and make the light/set look more like they did through the 24fps DV camera, but it doesn't really have the right contrast and color. Close, though:

Here, Jessi Gotta is ready to go as the Prom Victim:

Below, Daniel practices the shot of Jessi entering the basement to hide from the Killer.

Ah, I see we now have the corsage on her wrist. It was forgotten for the shooting of one shot, requiring a redo, and the bad continuity actually wouldn't work even in this "bad" movie within the short. Of course, that was one of the two shots that required Jessi to be exposed to sub-freezing cold in that dress, and half-barefoot, as she enters the basement and closes the grate behind her.

It got REALLY cold out there last night. I had been boiling my hands, even with heavy workgloves on, holding the light in the basement, and thought it would keep me warm outside, but it didn't do a damned thing except cause the gloves to smoke (there may have been some oil residue on them). It wasn't pleasant at all for Jessi.

Tonight we're shooting a full outdoor scene that I'm acting in. I've been established as wearing a light t-shirt covered by a light suit jacket. I can't really wear another layer without it showing or looking weird. Damn.

And here are some more of the joys of shooting -- Jenny Tavis (PA/Script Girl), Jessi Gotta (Victim) and Danny Bowes (Killer) are waiting for the camera setup. Danny spends his time texting. At least it's actually somewhat warm down here in the basement by this point (it wasn't when we started) with all the 250w lights on:

More joys of waiting, this time in the enjoyably-appointed antechamber to the basement proper. Danny and Jessi wait again for Daniel to get the shot set to return to the scene of the cheesy slasher movie. My job as lighting director is pretty much done, so I'm waiting to get on set and act myself as the director of the horror epic.

Tonight, Michele Schlossberg and I freeze out on Daniel's front stoop for the last scene and shoot day (and we shoot my one-shots for the kitchen scene). It'll look good though - Daniel has done a rough cut of the kitchen scene and it's working. That was quick.

And I actually had time to go through yesterday and look back at the auditions I've done to date and fit people into the shows where I need them. I have to see two more people at least, but if the ones I'm planning on seeing pan out for the parts I think they'll be right for, and everyone accepts the parts I offer them, I could actually have all of my shows cast in two or three days!

Except for Penny Dreadful, where we're not getting men of the types we need. Dammit. Goes up on March 15. Double dammit.

Last night, the first day of a three-day DV shoot for a short-short piece by Daniel McKleinfeld. Quite fun, actually.

Three scenes, three locations (all in and around Daniel and Sally's home), one per day. Nice and leisurely, really.

I don't think I'm supposed to describe it in any detail, but it involves the cast and crew of a small, lousy little slasher movie behind the scenes on the set - so the photos of us behind the scenes aren't too different in some ways from what we were shooting. I was performing in the piece as the writer/director of the crappy movie and was also acting as what the Brits used to call (in one of my favorite now-obsolete job titles) "Lighting Cameraman" - that is, I lit the sets but didn't touch the camera at all except to check exposure.

Daniel asked for Cassavetes-realism for the scene of the crew talking about the film in the location's kitchen, so we lit it pretty much with practicals, with 250w bulbs in the fixtures, with a few 40w and 60w as fill light on faces here and there. We're shooting 24fps video, which requires light something like shooting 400 ASA 16mm movie film, to my eye - much more than the DV I've shot before. Looks lovely, though, the 24fps.

For the other two scenes, I have to light realistically again on the front stoop of the building at night - just pumping in more light to look like the real thing, with fill again - and I also get to light the scene from the film-within-the-video, in the basement, where I get to do deliberately bad, Friday the 13th/80s slasher movie lighting: general, low, unjustified midnight blue glow with impossible-in-reality slashes of green across it and silly patterns of red thrown against things. I enjoy imitating silly lighting - maybe 'cause I actually somewhat like the extremity of it sometimes and enjoy the chance to go overboard. And more so.

It was a fun group and a fun shoot. Here, Daniel watches his wife Sally throw blood on Jessi Gotta in her prom dress (she's the "victim" in the slasher film):

Jessi - who played the Ophelia-figure in my production of Havel's Temptation and Ophelia herself in Ian W. Hill's Hamlet - knows how to act in a bloody prom dress, going all coy:

Daniel (on camera) and Sally (on boom mic) set up the two shot of Danny Bowes (making, apparently, his film/video debut as the "Killer" in the slasher film) and Michele Schlossberg (as the production manager):

Daniel wasn't noticing where he was walking so much as he set up another shot, and kept walking further and further back into Michele's space, where she had tried to wedge herself out of the way. It was suggested that Michele treat the director as they like to be treated, and she obliged - Sally was amused, Daniel remained oblivious:

It took forever to get the right frame for this shot - Daniel looks for just the right place for the two-shot of Jessi and Josh (real-life gore makeup specialist playing it onscreen) as he applies latex to her neck:

Oh, great - I get to do the lighting I like at the end of the scene! My character, deranged, sees everyone in the room laughing at him in distorted, expressionistic shots. So we got to go for that Murnau-Last Laugh effect by having Daniel come in close and hand-held on everyone in the room one-by-one as I shook a 250w bulb in a cliplight at them from a short ways away - looked great through the lens, looked kinda silly on the set (Sally took this shot):

Leaving shortly for auditions for my own shows - back to the video shoot tomorrow and Thursday. More photos then.

Well, I - or extensions of me - have been showing up elsewhere online.

In the one that I was expecting, and had mentioned before, the interview I did with Jon Stancato of Stolen Chair Theatre Company is now up at ArtRadio: WPS1.org -- you can hear it HERE.

I think this is a pretty good half-hour discussion (they thankfully cut the 30 second lull where I went up on anything to say, having jumped to the "finale" question five minutes too early). It mainly works because Jon is so together in talking about his company and their work - I just have to suggest something slightly and he goes off into talking quite articulately about it, and without sounding "prepared."

As for me, Berit just cracked up on hearing my intro, saying that I had completely gone over-the-top into "NPR-land," and that I sounded like I was in one of those Alec Baldwin SNL sketches about the "Schwetty Balls." Yeah, true. I think I was a hair nervous to start, and put on a "radio voice" to feel comfortable doing this (it's not a Firesign Theatre voice, but it comes from the same part of my brain that pulls out those voices and characters so easily). I get looser and sound more like myself as the program goes on. Though Berit also points out my annoying "you know" vocal tic. Ugh.

I was worried immediately after the recording that I had "inserted" myself into the discussion too much, which was supposed to be about Stolen Chair, of course, but as Jon had specifically asked me to do this as a fellow theatre artist, I felt I had to turn it into a discussion a few times rather than a straight "interview." Still, I was really uncomfortable about it right after the recording, but listening to it now, it seems like just about the right amount of me in proportion to Jon.

I wince a bit at the way I say I've been doing this much longer than Jon, 10 years, and he notes that he's been doing it for 6, which isn't so much of a difference - but I think I was including in my head the 8 or 9 years or dithering around as solely an actor and techie-for-hire before I got myself together to start producing and directing my own shows, which he (smartly) never went through. I still felt like "the old guy" who took forever to get himself even slightly together (and still really isn't) talking to the younger guy who was really together right out of the gate and is on his way to bigger things.

In the end, a nice piece about Stolen Chair, I think.

To my surprise, one of my snow photos of Gravesend, Brooklyn wound up in a post at a favorite Brooklyn site, The Gowanus Lounge.

Then I was surprised to find my digital camera videos getting more hits than expected on YouTube. Not much, but not what I expected just from posting them here. Turns out they had also wound up in a post at Gowanus Lounge. Nice.

I've seen five people thus far in auditions (and, amazingly, all good thus far) - seeing more tomorrow and Saturday. Today, Wednesday, and Thursday, I'm lighting and acting in a short video for Daniel McKleinfeld. I think I'm coming down with something (I have an odd-feeling throat, as does Berit - she thought it was just from working long hours in the moldy basement of Walkerspace, but it's looking less likely), so I should stay well away from auditioners and fellow actors.

And I have to get to work on Penny Dreadful. Let alone finish with casting my shows. How did I get this busy right now? I was supposed to be able to leisurely get my shows together right about now . . .

Long day today that involved a lot more slogging around in snow in a very heavy winter coat for long periods of time than I had anticipated (or certainly wanted).

It was, however, kinda pretty most of the time, even while I was sore and annoyed.

This is the second recent snow that has come down in big, puffy, soft flakes that blow attractively and collect softly. I think this has maybe happened only twice before (if that) in the nearly 7 years B & I have lived out here. Brooklyn doesn't quite always look as I think many of my family, friends, and other out-of-town readers may think it does.

It was lovely again on Avenue S when I went out to the Duane Reade on an errand this morning . . .

And also on East 2nd Street . . .

But I was still not all that happy about walking around in the stuff . . .

I was cranky, but I thought the neighborhood looked nice from the subway platform . . .

And, zoning out on the F Train, I looked out and felt myself flying over Brooklyn. I hadn't tried out the video mode on the Xmas Camera yet, so I decided to do so and attempt to capture the flying feeling of zooming over McDonald Avenue . . .

( Now behind a cut for easier loading . . . )

Once in Tribeca, I was sent off on an errand that wound up being, for the first part, a wild-goose chase as I walked up and down Broadway from Walker Street to 4th Street and back, finding one (pitiful) item out of six or seven needed. I was achy and unhappy, but a Broadway Snowman in Soho cheered me up . . .

And once the show was up and running, and my box office duties were complete, I was able to leave Walkerspace and go home -- and as I hit Walker and Church, there was one of those views that bring back years and years of NYC memories, and songs, and feelings, and make me feel oh so good about living here sometimes . . .

Sometime in December of 1987, I went out and bought Brian Eno's albums Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (by strategy). I hadn't heard any of the songs from either, but I was familiar with his following two "song" albums, so I thought I should get the first ones. I decided to listen to them for the first time while on an evening walk - I was trying to lose weight by walking at least 90 minutes an evening; I'd bring two CDs and my immense, heavy, early-model Sony Discman, walk away from my dorm for the length of one record and return with the other.

So I started up Warm Jets and started out from Washington Square South.

When I hit Canal Street and Broadway, walking West, "Driving Me Backwards" came on, and music and view came together suddenly in a perfect synthesis. It pretty much looked like the photo above, but more so - more steam, more mist, more shafts of light, more reflections. And that, with the insistent piano driving the slowly-grinding song, sparse but wide, seemed to connect the NYC I was now living in with all those images from the movies I had seen for years. Most of all, I felt like I had walked into Taxi Driver. Scary, but alive.

Then, the beautiful "On Some Faraway Beach" came on as I walked around some beautiful buildings in Tribeca, and the spell changed.

A couple of years later, I got Eno's book of lyrics (with paintings by Russell Mills), More Dark Than Shark (but one deadly fin), and he doesn't say much about "Driving Me Backward," but I was surprised to see he does say that when he saw the film Taxi Driver (the song predates the film by 2 years), he felt a kinship to this song in the film . . .

Ohohohohohohoh oh

Doo doo doo doo doo doo dah

I'll be there.

Oh driving me backwards

Kids like me

Gotta be crazy

Moving me forwards

You must think that I'm lazy

Meet my relations

All of them

Grinning like facepacks

Such sweet inspirations

Curl me up

A flag in an icecap

Now I've found a sweetheart

Treats me good just like an armchair

I try to think about nothing

Difficult

I'm most temperamental

I gave up my good living

Typical

I'm almost sentimental

Ah Luana's black reptiles

Sliding around

Make chemical choices

And she responds as expected

To the only sound

Hysterical voices

And you - you're driving me backwards

Kids like me have gotta be crazzzzzy i-i-i-i-i-i-i

Doo doo doo dodoo dodah I'll be there

Work proceeds on the four shows. Darius Stone has joined the cast of Harry in Love - waitaminit, Darius has the same name as a character Ice Cube played in some movie? Well, that's a pain for Google searches. I now have lists of the "preferred" casts for each of the four shows - each of which, apart from Harry, with its nice little six characters, has had to expand by two to four actors as I realize I need more performers and different types in the casts.

Emails are out, waiting to hear back for the next step. I have a handful of people to audition as well. Also been working out the calendar for both myself and The Brick for the rest of the year. Looks good. Looks busy, but not crazy.

There are now 22,998 songs in the iPod - let's see what comes up this morning . . .

1. "Besoin de la Lune" - Manu Chao - La Radiolina
2. "Just One Look" - Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - Beat of the Pops 16
3. "Shadows on the Very Last Row" - The Cleftones - For Sentimental Reasons
4. "Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel" - The Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra - Film Musik
5. "There's No Satisfaction" - Manfred Hubler & Siegfried Schwab- Vampyros Lesbos (Sexadelic Dance Party)
6. "Out Out Out" - Ice 9 - Out Out Out 7"
7. "The Third Man Theme" - The Don Baker Trio -Ultra-Lounge 11: Organs in Orbit
8. "Strawberry Letter #23" - Brothers Johnson - Jackie Brown soundtrack
9. "When I See Mommy I Feel Like A Mummy (live 1978)" - Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - I'm Going To Do What I Want To
10. "Not Yet Remembered" - Brian Eno & Harold Budd - Ambient 2: The Plateaux Of Mirrors

I was thinking it was a pretty boring mix this morning - songs I'm glad to have in the iPod, but none that leapt out at me and made me really glad to hear them this morning - and then the Brothers Johnson track showed, and made me quite happy, though it's also a kind of overcast song for an overcast morning, and then the Beefheart just made all good. And the Budd/Eno matches the rain and light on the window.

What for cat photos today? Well, most of my photos are of the cats being hugged or lying around like meatloaves. Are they active? You bet.

As when Berit discovers that a fake flower lying around from old props has caught Hooker's attention, and she dangles it for him . . .

He goes for it, getting the brief attention of Moni, who has the attention span of a goldfish . . .

Causing her to make a leap at it, to his surprise . . .

Getting it briefly in her paws, she sniffs it and finds it uninteresting . . .

And she immediately moves on, forgetting the toy ever existed, and the more determined Hooker continues the assault . . .

Okay, I have a few things to do around here today (mainly descend to the dank prop storage in the basement and find some costumes I'm going to loan to Henry Akona for Hiroshima - some lab coats and a "radiation suit," which is actually Edward Einhorn's anyway, that I borrowed for the midget spaceman avatar in Symphony of Rats and put on The Brick's effigy of Santa Claus).

Go wake Berit now and get on with the day - amazing that the construction in the apartment next door hasn't woken her, it's unnerving me and scaring the cats. Don't know what they're doing, but it's sounded like they've had the bathroom wall out over there for weeks and weeks now. We can hear the conversations they're having in there as if we're in the same room, which makes it unnerving at times to use the john while they're over there yelling at each other about how best to do something - it sounds like someone who lives in the apartment doing the work with a friend or relative who either is a contractor, or has a lot of experience with remodeling, or at least thinks he does. As Berit says, after trips to the bathroom listening to their profane "discussions," "I've never learned so much about grout in all my life!"

Last night, around 2.30 am (so this morning, really, I guess), I finished the script for The Magnificent Ambersons by Orson Welles: A Reconstruction for the Stage. That felt good. Been imagining this project for years now - always figured it would stay an idea or paper project. Glad I have an excuse now (The Film Festival: A Theater Festival) to jump it up into reality.

When done, I sat back, skimmed it briefly, felt good. Then had a snack and a drink, went over it for editorial niceties and spelling for a half-hour or so.

Then, around 3 am, I sent it out to three of the actors I knew I wanted for the show, who had already expressed a specific interest in doing it.

I have other actors in mind, but I have to write more explanatory cover letters about the project before I send the script to them.

Went to bed, slept well.

Got up, went over the script again, this time listening to Bernard Herrmann's original score in my headphones as I went, timing it out, imagining how the scenes would play with the music. Pretty heartbreaking, actually.

I read out the end credits (as Welles does in the film and as I will in the show) several times with the original music cue (unused in the release cut of the film). So beautiful. I had to finally just force myself to stop or I'd have been doing it over and over again all day long.

I started collecting images from the film from where ever I could find them, as research and just for fun, as I can't watch the film right now, and spent some time cleaning them up in Photoshop.

(I have a bootleg DVD copy of the Criterion laserdisc on loan from Michael Gardner, but while it plays in The Brick's DVD player, it doesn't like playing in our PS2 or iMac - the two ways we have of watching DVDs at home right now)

Got an email from Timothy McCown Reynolds saying yes to playing Eugene Morgan (the Joseph Cotten part) - if the rehearsals can be worked out and there are no conflicts. Huzzah! One down.

Kept at work. Got interrupted by Hooker the Cat having one of his epileptic seizures (first one since July, as far as we know). Calmed him down, held him, cleaned up the mess that happens with this. Made sure he was comfy. Went back to work.

More emails about to go out. This is exciting. I'm actually going to do this damned thing.

OK. Now I need to find that understudy for a Pagan Reveler that I need for Merry Mount on Sunday . . .

OK. This meme I got from queencallipygos was too fun and disturbing for a music geek like me to pass up:

Go to this convenient compilation site right here http://longboredsurfer.com/charts.php and find the five years you were in high school. For each year, admit to the song that was your favorite at the time, then decide which one you now generally consider to be the best song on the list. Lastly, pick the year's worst song, snarking optional. (I’m adding a category: A song that’s not necessarily your favorite or you hated; more like a guilty-pleasure, “Oh, that’s so typically [insert year here]!”)

So join me then, as we return to that fine fine superfine time in the history of popular musics and aftershocks that be known as The Early-to-Mid-Eighties. Won't you? Thank you.

1982

I generally was still listening to my parents' "old" Beatles and Stones albums primarily. And comedy records, musical theatre albums, movie soundtracks, and other geeky things. I had also started to listen a bit to Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, and other NYC things that had been going on since the mid-70s. Pop of the time didn't make much of an impression, and from that year's top 100, I can see why. Couldn't talk to girls. Very "in-my-head."

FAVORITE THEN: Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - "I Love Rock N' Roll" / J. Geils Band - "Centerfold"
FAVORITE NOW: Willie Nelson - "Always on My Mind / The Go-Gos -"We Got the Beat" / The Cars -"Shake It Up"
WORST (AS SEEN NOW): Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder - "Ebony and Ivory" / Christopher Cross -"Arthur's Theme"
"THAT'S SO 1982:" Buckner & Garcia - "Pac-Man Fever"

1983

Went away to the Northfield Mount Hermon School. Made the immediate conscious decision to be more gregarious. Wanted to meet girls. Went to lots of dances. Was thought a good dancer, enjoyed myself a lot. Looking back, I see this was actually a pretty damned good year to be 15 and hitting the dance floor. Started buying 12" single dance mixes. Spent lots of time with very cute and insecure sci-fi/fantasy/gaming geek girls.

FAVORITE THEN: Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) / David Bowie - "Let's Dance" / Stray Cats - "(She's) Sexy & 17" / Golden Earring - "Twilight Zone"
FAVORITE NOW: Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) / Prince - "Little Red Corvette" / Jackson Browne - "Lawyers in Love" / Toni Basil - "Mickey"
WORST (AS SEEN NOW): Journey - "Faithfully" / Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney - "This Girl Is Mine"
"THAT'S SO 1983:" Men Without Hats - "The Safety Dance" / Greg Kihn Band - "Jeopardy"

1984

Stopped going to dances so much. Started meeting girls through various creative pursuits. I think the music suddenly sucking mightily might have had something to do with it, too. Was also getting more into proto-punk, post-punk, new wave, and hardcore (oddly, actual punk punk would have to wait until college and my education from roommate/best friend/Crash-Course Guitar Hero, Johnny Dresden). Started hanging out with goth and punk girls (oh, I sighed so much over that trenchcoated punk girl with doe eyes like a Jaime Hernandez drawing, who played every kind of saxophone there is and her hair was perfect). Didn't listen to most of what was out there in the "real" world. I seem to have not missed much.

FAVORITE THEN: Prince - "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" / Nena - "99 Luftballons" / Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" / Yes - "Owner of a Lonely Heart"
FAVORITE NOW: Prince - "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy" / Eurythmics - "Here Comes the Rain Again" / The Go-Gos - "Head Over Heels"
WORST (AS SEEN NOW): Steve Perry - "Oh Sherrie" / Paul McCartney & Michael Jackson - "Say Say Say" / Ray Parker Jr. - "Ghostbusters"
"THAT'S SO 1984:" Rockwell - "Somebody's Watching Me" / Quiet Riot - "Cum On Feel the Noize"

1985

Stopped being very gregarious. Theatre, writing short stories and poetry, and photography took over my life. Spent all my time in Silverthorne Theatre, at my desk, in the darkroom, or hanging with a female friend in one of the dorm smokers (back when a prep school like this had a room in every dorm where the 15-18-year-old students could go smoke whenever they wanted, with parental permission), or wandering the dark woods around campus. Mooned over a number of different girls I didn't think would give me the time of day - years later, discovered to my horror than more than a few of them were doing the same about me (idiot! idiot! IDIOT!). The school year 1984-1985 is an odd blur in my memory, with almost no specifics, unusual for me (and I wasn't doing drugs, though everyone around me was). Started a radio show on WNMH, first called "Transintercontinental Doormat," then, when I briefly teamed with my late friend William Hill McCarter, it was "The Ian W. Hill McCarter Show," then finally "Ugly Radio." Played a wild mix of classic rock, no wave, show tunes, spoken word, minimalism, and lots of Frank Zappa and Firesign Theatre. Nothing you would have heard on the radio otherwise. Got picked for the school's Performing Dance company, one of the coolest cliques (the only really cool one in the creative arts) at the place - and it also counted as a varsity sport, so I didn't have to keep doing things I hated to fulfill a sports requirement. In retrospect, had a lot of friends; wouldn't have thought so at the time.

FAVORITE THEN: Dire Straits - "Money for Nothing" / Prince & The Revolution - "Raspberry Beret"
FAVORITE NOW: Bruce Springsteen - "I'm On Fire" / Don Henley - "The Boys of Summer" / 'Til Tuesday - "Voices Carry"
WORST (AS SEEN NOW): Harold Faltermeyer - "Axel F" / U.S.A. for Africa - "We Are the World" / Starship - "We Built This City"
"THAT'S SO 1985:" Murray Head - "One Night in Bangkok" / a-Ha - "Take On Me"

1986

More theatre. More radio. More writing. More confidence. Got a varsity letter in Dance (yes, really). Slowly discovered that I - who saw myself as the dirty, nasty, ugly, unpopular outsider artist - was actually quite a popular and liked guy. Had no idea how to deal with this, so didn't (still can't - I enter almost every situation assuming everyone dislikes me and I have to find a way to please them). Hung more with hippie girls, discovered what Berit calls my "fetish" for strong, athletic-bodied, plain-speaking, dirty-blonde New England girls. Girlfriends since have had at least three of these qualities, go figure (just realized that). Went away to college in NYC, and everything exploded wonderfully in color, and light, and noise, and movement. A good time to be 18 in NYC.

FAVORITE THEN: Peter Gabriel - "Sledgehammer" / Prince & The Revolution - "Kiss"
FAVORITE NOW: Pet Shop Boys - "West End Girls" / Prince & The Revolution - "Kiss"
WORST (AS SEEN NOW): Paul McCartney - "Spies Like Us" / Dionne & Friends - "That's What Friends Are For"
"THAT'S SO 1986:" Falco - "Rock Me Amadeus" / Eddie Murphy - "Party All the Time"

Hmmmn. More than I intended to share. These lists brought back a whole lot in an odd Proustian rush. Music will do that - at least it does it to me.

Which gives me a link to some silly photos from the Rock Band party B & I went to over at Daniel and Sally McKleinfeld's last night . . .

Berit, as much as she tries to deny it, is the star guitarist/bassist of any fake group she's in . . .

And there was a pretty strong lineup for the fake band "Barbary Coast," with Sally & Daniel McKleinfeld, David Polenberg, and Berit on vocals (she's VERY accurate, but she can sing only either in an operatic soprano or like Grace Slick) - here seen figuring out what song to try next . . .

We all switched out on instruments from song to song, so I was allowed to try the drums when I could play them on "Easy" without negatively effecting game play . . .

But I sometimes wound up having to keep up above my skill level, and there were intense periods of sweat and concentration (here with Jenny Tavis, David, and Sally acting as groupie) . . .

Sometime we gotta see if we can do this on the big BIG screen at The Brick . . .

So, I lost a day there or something . . . between New Year's and travel, I was a whole day ahead of reality in my head, believing it was Thursday when it was, in fact, Wednesday.

Which is why I referred to Skidoo being on in just over 24 hours when it is just over 48 hours.

At least it made me go and get cat photos ready for a day from now. And I have three to post then, but here's the leftover I didn't have "space" for, showing how Hooker likes to help me when I'm trying to work on scripts at my computer:

And, since this is a miscellaneous-kinda post-thing, here's some links of recent that I've enjoyed:

1. In M.I.T.'s Technology Review, John Hockenberry writes about the horror that is today's "infotainment" from his experience at Dateline. Cheery. Yeah. Yeesh.

2. Ellis Weiner at What HE Said clearly and simply lays out the views, statements, tactics, and apparent beliefs of today's right-wing and asks the pertinent question, "The Republicans: Crazy or Nuts?"

3. From the more humorous side of our Hell in a Handbasket Department, Cogitamus appeals to thus both of the political and the geeky persuasion by comparing the GOP Candidates with their villain-analogues from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Enjoy.