Friday, February 18, 2005

Amazon.com: Music: Lcd Soundsystem

Amazon.com: Music: Lcd Soundsystem

I'm not sure what the release date was...
but you can't find the damn cd in Houston...
Sound Exchange didn't get theirs,
and the girl with purple hair at soundwaves never even heard of them...
it's the party record of the year...
they get airplay on KTRU all the time,
and everytime I go dancing I either hear them or something that sounds so much like them I'm pretty sure it's them...
but I can't even buy the damn cd...

grrr...

how am I to disco in the privacy of my own home?

We think we have more time than we do

Lifehacker:
"People are consistently surprised to be so busy today. Lacking knowledge of what specific tasks will compete for their time in the future, they act as if new demands will not inevitably arise that are as pressing as those faced today."

that sounds about right...
I was sure this was going to be a week spent on the couch watching TV and I've managed to get one night to myself...
It's always hard to say no to an opportunity if you don't know WHY you have to say no.
I'm horrible at judging just how overcommitted I am,
but I'm glad to know it's a pretty common occurrence.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Ecstasy trials for combat stress

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Ecstasy trials for combat stress:
"American soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares."

Maybe if we'd just given X to GW and his crew we could have avoided this whole war mess to begin with...

universal truth

no matter how bad your job may be
it will be worse with a hangover

that is all

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

one more

people make excuses
not to spend
time with me

it's not like I'm the devil,
o.k.,
I am.
But I don't have to be
all the time.

We could
share a meal
a conversation
without me
imagining you
in a lake
of fire.

why...

why am I drunk blogging shortly after midnight?

because I'm crazy
because everyone I know is crazy
because it's better than drunk e-mailing
a woman I barely know
but would like to know better
and admitting that fact
among others

why the fuck not?
what have I got to lose?
what have you?
let that shit out.
really.
oh, yeah...
I guess there is that.

well,
fuck a bunch a that

or not

whatever

I give two kinds of advice
there's good advice
and there's what I'd do

sometimes they're the same thing
in which case
I'd ignore them entirely

if I were you
which I'm not
thank God

don't worry
it's not that bad
there is
no God

yeah,
so,
that's that.

Wonkette : Archive for White House

Wonkette : Archive for White House:
" Soon, only the pure of heart may be allowed to enter the briefing room. It'll be just like Dune! To get near Scott McClellan, some witch will make you stick your hand in a mysterious box and you'll either die immediately or get to go to the gaggle. "

working...damn work...
just must say...
HAHAHA! that's funny...

Warrenellis.com � Future Underground

Warrenellis.com � Future Underground
"People are disappointed with the future they’re living in. Since 2001, the refrain has gone up, louder year by year: 'This is the future. Where’s my flying car? Where’s my fucking jet pack?' Pre-millennium, we were living in an unprecedented density of imagined futures, and we assumed it was all waiting for us around the corner. And here we are, around the corner, and none of it is standing here."

which brings me to the shirt I'm wearing today.

damn future...

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | I Like to Watch

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | I Like to Watch:
"According to the article about the study, 'Light marijuana users smoked two to 15 joints per week, moderate users smoked 17 to 70 joints per week, and heavy users smoked 78 to 350 joints per week.' Yes, that's right: 350 joints a week. I'm just going to assume that someone else rolled the joints for the subjects in the study, because not even the most dedicated stoner I've ever met has the motivation to roll 50 joints a day. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the tedium of joint rolling is one of the leading factors limiting marijuana intake. "

ok...350...that's 50 joints a day...
that's more than two an hour if you don't sleep...
and if you smoke 50 joints a day,
well I bet you're sleeping... a lot...
so let's say there's 16 smoking hours in a day...
well, that's only 3.125 js per hour...
hmmm...
that's almost doable...

it's nice to know I qualify as a moderate somewhere...


Daily Kos

Daily Kos: "To be clear -- they can't even get the darn missile to launch. $8.8 billion will be spent on the program in 2006. "

if anybody has any connections in gov't I'll deliver a non-working missile defense system for only 4.4 billion...

Click opera

Click opera:
"My dear friends, you have understood nothing about production. Good production is about character, personality, intrigue, flamboyance, charm, fascination, license, not about levels, channels, separation, clarity, normality or competent engineering! It's about ravishing the ears by all means imagineable! It's about creeping out of shadows and repositioning conceptual frames, not about synching to SMPTE frames!"

Bravo!
Huzzah!
RIGHT FUCKING ON!

I think this is something I fundamentally understood from my earliest days of recording...
Charlie and I couldn't always get a good sound back in the Avijit days, but I know we always got an interesting one...

been thinking...

read my post about the weekend again and I realized I must sound like some kind of ass...
so let me clarify...
all the experiences I've had in theatre since joining up with the band for tamalalia 6 have been rewarding in and of themselves. I've taken every opportunity because they were things I wanted to do, and I've enjoyed doing them and learned a lot. IBP will be my homebase as long as they'll have me. That said, they are so overwhelmed with talent there that there's not always room for me to even help, much less really do what I want (acting, sound design) so I'm gonna step out and play in some other sandboxes for a while. When I first talked to Nodler about IBP I told him there wasn't another Theatre company in Houston I'd even consider working with. That's just not true anymore. I've had great experiences with Slump and Bobbindoctrin and I'm looking forward to working with Mildred's Umbrella and hopefully Dos Chicas.

There.
I feel better now.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Faust Fest

well,
just got back from Faust Fest...
what an interesting night...

some amazing stuff, and some stuff that was so damn close!

First off let me say that Jenny and Leni totally won me over with "The Edge of Space!! Living Rooms and the Perils of Ambition" and then bowled me over with "House of Lost Roosters".
I had seen their longer piece "Why do the Children Rust?" and while I thought it had some powerful imagery it really kind of left me cold... These two shorter pieces though, I really dug...
maybe because they were meaner.

The evening started with "...Space" in what was essentially the entrance to a hallway turned into a small theatre...
then we were led outside for a monologue...
"One Two" by Troy Scheid...
great performance, very literary piece...
In fact I can imagine working very well as a comic book...
that said as soon as I realized we were dealing with variations on the prisoner's dilemna and ARGH! WWII I took a step back from the piece and became really removed. The piece even kind of referenced that sort of response, repeating line likes, "They've heard this story before" and then talking about how this one was different. Ever since some fresh out of high school kid wrote a poem about the holocaust in one of my creative writing classes in college I have been turned off by art that uses the historical circumstances of WWII to try to teach us something or make us ponder what we do. It actually really makes me crazy. So for me to see past my own little prejudice here and be able to praise the performance means it was really good...and those of you who can hear a reference to the resistance and collaborators without rolling your eyes should really be able to enjoy the language and feel of the piece...and before anyone says anything yes I understand why it's relevant to talk of such things right now...
I wonder if Stephen Foulard does?

anyway, next off was a piece that pretty much succeeded on every level...
"Shatterings"
I want to make special mention of the sound design in this one.
Misha did a fantastic job. The music and the echoing voices in strategic places and various noises and effects all helped to strengthen the piece. But then it ALL worked together so well.
The performances were great. Real. Even the kid.
The all seemed like they really were the people they were on stage.
Of course it helped that it was so well written.
The language was good, nice, resonant...the phrases that repeated strengthened themes without beating you about the head with them. None of it felt redundant. The specifics seemed right while hardly mattering at all.
I mean every child of divorce has their story, and so does everyone who's ever fought through a breakup, whether their were kids involved or not. But so many of these moments triggered memories for me. I could write a lot more about this piece. But I won't.
The last piece was the most problematic for me...
"A Work in Granite" - the performers seemed to not quite be there at first...but when they got there, well, they were there...really strong performances from all three actors in this one. It was just a bit wordy, and often without much happening... I just found my mind going into editing mode and cutting here and cutting there. I'm a big fan of saying it with less. There's something to be said for letting language wash over you, sure...but there's also something to be said for having it hit you like a ton of bricks...well maybe it was because it was last and I was getting tired, or maybe because it was a bit more verbal and static that I did find myself just letting the language wash over me as sound...and I'm pretty sure that wasn't the point...
and, I know this is nitpicky, but having a stand in prop for the prop that stands for the central metaphor for the show? There wasn't one pedestal to be found in all of Houston?
I think this piece could be really strong (or maybe it is really strong already, just not for me) with just a little more production value and a bit more editing...

They had us moving all over this really cool art space for the performances and I was going to write a lot more about that and how seeing it work so well made me rethink a few things I've had on the backburner for a while...
hmmm....
anyway, I'm off to bed...

Pulp Decameron

Pulp Decameron

just a quick note to say you should be reading pulp decameron.

that is all.

Daily Kos

Daily Kos:
"Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire. As part of the agreement, revealed yesterday after it was secretly signed in January, the Labor Department agreed 'to give Wal-Mart 15 days' notice before the Labor Department investigates any other 'wage and hour' accusations, like failure to pay minimum wage or overtime.'"

ok...this is insane.
is this even legal?
can the DOJ sign away it's very right to protect the public?
this is bullshit.
can you imagine if this was the way cops handled everything?
"In fifteen days we will begin investigating the murder of...
and we think ____ did it."
grrr...

so, had a very amazing weekend...


"Le Mauvais Choix" went GREAT! 3 performances for 3 very different audiences,but everyone seemed to enjoy it...

the 8pm Friday show was full of dancers,

the 8pm Sat show was full of family

and the 10pm Sat show was apparently full of laughers!

Lots of the IBP folks and people who had just seen "Me-sci-ah"...

anyway, it went great.

Mathletes played a relatively low energy show Friday night for a pretty good crowd,and Saturday we rocked for next to nobody...

Jeff Miller, Walt, and a few other regulars...but we did rock.

Going to have to play with "Organ Failure" more often...

maybe Houston can become the sloppy pop capital of the world!


anyway..as a result of my work on "Le Mauvais Choix" I got offered(at least tentatively) a "designer in residence" position witha theatre company in Dallas...

meaning I'll be doing sound design for their next season...

of course I won't really be in residence as I'll be doing the work from here in Houston...


not only that but I had an audition Satuday and I got cast (more on that later) so now I'm just trying to work out my conflicts between Medea tech and the new show...


what this means to me is that the last few years of keeping busy and doing everything I was offered are finally starting to pay off...Instead of begging for sound design scraps, I'm gonna get to do a whole season, and I'm actually getting parts I audition for, so I maybe I can stop relying on handouts there too...

oh yeah, there was also a fire in a garage apt behind my house (one house and one yard over, but close enough)...and a bum showed me his rash...

FW: Odetta, Cullen Performance Hall, Thurs., Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m.



Odetta, "Songs for Social Change," Cullen Performance Hall, Thursday,
February 10, 7:30 p.m. Free and open to the public.

Join us Thursday evening, February 10th, as the folk music legend Odetta
explores through song the last century's struggles over labor rights,
women's rights, and civil rights.

A participant in the 1963 March on Washington, Odetta has collaborated
with Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Janis Joplin. For half a
century, she has been one of the most influential voices in American
folk music.

This event is sponsored by the University of Houston's U.S. Department
of Education Teaching American History grants and our partners, HISD,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Region IV Education Service
Center.

.


DANG DANG DANG!!!

If I weren't doing more tech tonight I'd go...

I iron my hair and listen to Odetta...

Odetta's amazing, and I didn't even know this was happening...