Drew Does Strings (Continued)

I have a few more pictures from my big marionette adventure last Saturday.

I haven't been to Universal City Walk in quite some time. I couldn't say when was the last time! I love theme parks and themed environments, so it was a blast just walking around.


I got there early so I could enjoy a cup of joe and have plenty of time to arrive at the venue. Whenever I do a gig like this, I like to give myself plenty of time to arrive. I tend not to bring a book, as reading for me is a very introverting activity, and I need to be at my extroverted best when performing.

Universal City Walk was just waking up. Pretty much the only people walking around were tourists on their way to the theme park.

After my coffee and rice crispy treat (the breakfast of champions!) I wandered over to the venue. B. B. King's Blues Club! What a hip place to do a puppet show for kids!

I was the first one to arrive. Yeah, yeah. I'm a dork.





I figured there would be a Lucille on display, and I was right! B. B. King seems to give these things away like Pez, so it's not like it's the Lucille. I still felt a sense of awe, looking over an instrument that B. B. King brought to life.

Respect.







The crowd is all lined up! Soon the doors will open and the show will go on!

Drew Does Strings

This is unknown territory for me. I've had an interest in marionettes as long as I've been interested in puppetry, but I've been a bit scared of the art form. So many strings!

Well, when I find myself scared of something, I find it best to just jump right in! I've put myself out there for marionette work over the past six months or so. This past week, I booked a marionette gig!

I had the pleasure of working with The TeenieTones today in their public debut at B.B. King's Blues Club at Universal City Walk. I had an absolute blast!

Marionettes are difficult, but the principles are the same with rod puppets or hand puppets. It's all about the little details that make the figure "come alive."

GRINDHOUSE

I grew up in the Nazarene Church, a fairly strict protestant denomination that absolutely forbid such sinful things as rock music and going to the movies. When other kids were beside themselves with joy over seeing The Empire Strikes Back on the big screen, I was reading the novelization (at age five) and collecting all of the Topps collector cards. At the age of nine, I had been to the movies exactly twice (to the best of my recollection): In 1980 mom took us kids to see Popeye, and in 1981 we saw The Legend of the Lone Ranger.

All that changed in 1984. While my dad was sorting his life out (one of many times,) Mom threw in the towel and took me and and my sister to the movies. The movie that kicked off our mad romp into "sin" was the hellacious Star Trek: The Search for Spock. We found a cheap-o "dollar" theatre in Longview or Tyler, Texas. Maybe it was Shreveport, Louisiana. We moved around so much, sometimes it all blurs together.

Anyway, we saw a lot of crap movies for cheap. Once, Mom took us the the movies on a school night, thus inaugurating my all-time favorite dinner: nachos and popcorn.

When I first caught wind of the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino joint project Grindhouse, it was a no-brainer. I can't say that I had the same experience that the filmmakers had growing up. I wish I had! So I don't speak fluent "exploitation" the way they do, but I love a good "popcorn" flick. With Grindhouse, we've got two.

Pamela and I trundled down to The Vista in Los Feliz, a gorgeous one-screener decked out like an Egyptian tomb. The seats were damn uncomfortable, but the popcorn had real butter!

PLANET TERROR is Rodriguez's film, a more-or-less zombie flick with the sort of non-stop cartoony violence he does best. The make-up effects are absolutely disgusting. We're talking pustules and tumors and blood -- lots and lots of blood. Rodriguez carries the "grindhouse" affectation further than Tarantino, playing with scratched film, jump-cuts, missing reels and even a frame burnout as narrative tools. What he does is take the cliches of crap-cinema, and churn out a great flick couched in a crap cinematic dialect.

DEATH PROOF is Tarantino's offering. He doesn't use the "grindhouse" affectation as much as Rodriguez, but when he does it's pretty damn funny. The best thing about this flick is Zoe Bell, hands down. She's an incredible stunt performer and, as it turns out, one hell of an actress. Tarantino kicks off the big car chase with Zoe Bell clinging to the hood of a 1970 Dodge Challenger, blasting full speed down a country highway. No CGI, just old fashioned car stunts.

(I haven't even commented on the faux trailers that accompany the two features. Hrm. Probably best not to. Except for this one thing: Eli Roth is one sick, twisted guy.)

I felt like a little kid again, clutching my popcorn and finding myself engrossed in the giant screen before me. And you know what? That's the best way to go to the movies.

UPDATE: My dad did try to compensate for the rigors of Nazarene life. He would, on occasion, rent a projector and screen "Christian" movies for the congregation (or just the youth group, depending on the selection). I recall seeing an "End Times" grindhouse flick at the tender age of four or five, the 1972 classic A Thief in the Night.

We lived next to railroad tracks back then, and every time a train would whistle it's way past in the dead of night, I'd wake up with cold sweats, worried that Gabriel had blown his horn and called my family home. I've since become a preterist, so I don't sweat the rapture.

So I guess I did have a grindhouse experience (of sorts) as a kid. Personally, I think I would've better enjoyed Death Race 2000 or Shaft.

I enjoy consuming a wide variety of viewpoints. I'm like Pac-Man, only with memes instead of pellets.

Anywho, one guy I check in on every now and then is Tim Boucher. He's an eclectic thinker and an honest spiritual seeker. He traverses vast tracts of thought like a Titan strolls across continents. He also has Google AdSense. The combination of interesting conceptual juxtapositions and Google AdSense leads to a webpage that sometimes looks like this:


Slash as Jesus? I think Tim would be proud!

Ever one to shove as many irons in the fire and/or oars in the water as possible, I have taken it upon myself to pursue writing with a bit more vigor. To that end, I am writing a couple of spec scripts to shop around in an attempt to snag myself representation and/or a freelance writing job or two.

I'm also reading Alex Epstein's wonderful Crafty TV Writing. I highly recommend it as well as Mr. Epstein's insightful blog.

So hey: fan wikis kick ass. Seriously. They're like show bibles only better, benefiting from 20/20 hindsight.

Here area few:

Lostpedia
The Office Wiki
Fireflywiki
Heroeswiki

Ah hell, just google "TV Series Wiki." What a great tool!

I would not be surprised if this format eventually replaced the traditional series bible.

DAHT Lessons

For episode one of the new season, I decided to do something very different from season one: I am spending more time and effort on the actual disembodied animal head portions of the show. The truth is that for the first season, I was much more enamored of Tex than I was of the "ensemble." Looking back at the original episodes, I believe this is clear as day.

Well, Tex is a pain in the ass. The rubber is starting to degrade (he is at least four years old, and not made of very high quality rubber to begin with) and the mouth mechanism is unreliable. I need to rebuild him from scratch, but I have yet to find a suitable rubber chicken replacement. (I can't believe that I've become a rubber chicken connoisseur. For some reason, my wife is not surprised.)

I think that focusing on the actual reason for the show is a step in the right direction.

Another lesson: I need to sort out my sound recording issues. Seriously. I had to ADR the "ensemble" bits because my external mic was on the fritz. I wasn't wearing my headphones (I couldn't find them!) so I didn't know the sound was f-ed up until I captured the video. I then used the on-camera mic for Tex's bits, and the sound is just atrocious.

Next, I learned that I need to compose a shot list before doing this thing. I storyboarded this episode, but somehow missed the fact that Cesare Piazza needed to walk from camera right to camera left without a log. Whoops! So I had to do a quick pick-up. (You can tell. The lighting doesn't match!)

Finally, we shot the Lost-esque "The Tempest" title card all wrong. By "we" I mean Pamela and I. She manned the camera (on the tripod) and the manual focus while I tilted and moved the card. It would have been far easier to place the card on a flat surface, light it, and move the camera. This is the most frustrating mistake for me, because I went to the Robert Rodriguez ten-minute film school (i.e. watched the special features on his DVDs) and he covered this very thing on the Spy Kids 2 disc.

So there are my lessons learned.

I want to add an additional note regarding what I call "Thrift Store Aesthetic." Obviously I'm shooting these things with no budget whatsoever. I'm actually trying to play that to my advantage. I could have done the Lost-esque "The Tempest" title card with slick, 3D graphics. It just seemed wrong. Sure, DAHT looks like crap. But I think that's part of the appeal.


Next up for DAHT: Twelfth Night, or What You Will!

Been a Long Time Since I Rock and Rolled ...

Season Two of Disembodied Animal Head Theatre has begun. Check it out.

(Yes, I have been watching too much "Lost.")

The final episode of "season one." Also the longest episode. I got pretty good at improvising (nonlinearly) both ends of a conversation!

Tex does Shylock. Need I say more?

This episode is very uneven, but I learned a whole lot doing it.

PEPPER REBORN

I've had the sad looking stuffed dog to the left since I was four. Maybe even earlier than that.

I've been doing his voice for as long.

I remember naming him Pepper. It was a cold, dark night in the family car, Mom and Dad in the front seat, me in the back with my new toy. The way I recall it, Pepper was a gift from my grandmother. I struggled to read his little tag, to see what his name was. In retrospect, it was probably something like "Patchy," but lit by random streetlights it looked like "Pepper" to me.

Pepper was my 'best friend' in the way that only a stuffed toy can be. We went everywhere together. At age five, I had a habit of falling asleep to music playing on an old 8-track player. "Best of the Beach Boys" and Elvis and Herb Albert's "Rise". That music would serve as my soundtrack as I fell asleep clutching Pepper close, dreaming about the two of us flying around in a biplane and sword fighting with crab monsters.

When Pamela and I were first engaged, and a staph infection sent her to the hospital in Little Rock, I brought her Pepper on my first trip to see her. (This is the only time I've ever given Pepper to another person.)

Our beloved dalmatian Holly got a hold of Pepper once, and chewed one of his ears off. Felicity yanked out his stuffing and bit off his eyes. So naturally, he is not looking so hot these days.

Well, I'm doing a duet with fellow Write Act Rep company member Jenn Scuderi for our upcoming 'Vaudeville' fund raiser, and I need a puppet. I was struggling to come up with an idea when it hit me. I'm going to resurrect my old friend Pepper. You can see the sketch in the pitcure: A simple puppet that matches the original coloring and captures the spirit of who Pepper is. I'm even planning on laundering my old chum and recycling him into the very fabric of the 'new' Pepper!

Disembodied Animal Head Theatre really went off the rails with this episode. But this is one of the very few times you'll ever see a puppet manipulated by Pamela! She's behind Mario de Netta's strings.

Pamela is not really "into" puppets like I am. She's a huge Muppets fan, and she enjoys tagging along to puppety things I occasionally drag her to. But she's not a puppeteer -- she's an actress who pretends to be a puppeteer every now and then.

And you know what? I'm okay with that! In fact, I am very happy that she has her own interests and pursuits.

PROJECT CORNER

Note:  If you enjoy this project, you might also enjoy my Tennis Ball Rod Puppet Project.  A classroom of kids in Belgium sure did!

Not a day goes by that I am not approached by some stranger and asked "hey, how do you make a pair of those 'practice eyes' that I've heard so much about?" It doesn't matter if I am in the grocery store, at my favorite coffee shop, or in a public restroom. The question rings in my ears like a ubiquitous alarm clock, plaguing my waking hours and haunting my dreams.

In the interest of showing that I know how to do stuff, I present ...

ANDREW'S GUIDE TO MAKING THOSE 'PRACTICE EYES' YOU'VE HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT!

[NOTE: Kids, do not try this at home. This project involves deadly, sharp objects and you will poke your eye out and/or cut off something important. Seriously.]

MATERIALS

Ping pong balls
Adhesive back felt pads (round)
1/4 inch stretch elastic
Needle and thread




STEP ONE

Carefully cut two parallel lines approximately 1/2 inch long, and spaced approximately 1/4 of an inch from each other. Do this to two ping pong balls.

(I used the printing on my ping pong balls as a guide.)






STEP TWO

Being careful not to crack open your incisions any further, cram one end of the 1/4 inch elastic into one cut and out the other.

Do the same with the second ping pong ball.




STEP THREE

Measure the elastic around your middle finger, ensuring a snug fit. Cut off the excess elastic, and sew the ends together.






STEP FOUR

Carefully place adhesive back felts on the ping pong balls to simulate pupils. As you do, ponder the words of great and powerful Jim Henson, who once said that the key to a character lay in the placement of its eyes.

Don't screw this up.


VOILA!

You're done!

(Be sure to bring your creation with you on dates. You'll score for sure!)




The thing you just made is the exact same thing you'll use when and if you ever audition for a puppetry gig through Disney (unless something has changed with their process.) It's good for practicing eye focus, movement and lip sync, and it costs a heck of a lot less than a "real" puppet.

Next Time on "Project Corner": How to improvise a bandage when you slip and cut yourself with an Xacto knife!

UPDATE:  Muppet Central forum user Rick has a few refinements to the above tutorial.  I would quote them verbatim here, but I haven't been able to secure Rick's permission to do so (if you are Rick or know him, ask him to drop me a line, would you?)  You can read his forum post here.  Thanks, Rick!

So far I'm really liking Revver. So much better than YouTube.

For starters, I'm not competing with pirated clips of popular shows. Secondly, I've already earned a (very) small amount of money.

I have to give mad props to Felix Pire of Los Titieres for encouraging me to go with Revver. (I did a day of work for Mr. Pire on Saturday. When the stuff I did is put online, I'll be sure to announce it here!)

Yeah, that's right. "Disembodied Animal Head Theatre" is on Revver now!

So maybe I'll make a little moolah on this. Emphasis on the "little."

My computing issues have been handled for the moment, and I will be able to return to regular blogging. Regular for me, which is once or twice a week.

I am working on a few projects, and I can't wait to share!

Well, I've been a little busy.

Here's a brief run-down of what I've got going:

I'm finishing up a treatment for a couple of producers. It's a horror film set in Wisconsin, and I'm having an absolute blast devising horrible ways to kill people off. MWA HA HA! (On a side note, the school psychologist who "examined" me when I was six years-old told my parents that I would someday be either of great benefit or great detriment to society. Guess which direction I'm leaning to with this project! MWA HA HA!)

I am directing a main stage show at my theatre company, Write Act Rep. The play is Juana by renaissance man Paul Casey, the story of "Juana la Loca" the mad queen who ruled half the world. Paul has dedicated a significant portion of his life to telling Juana's story. Was she a schizophrenic who went into violent psychotic episodes, or the victim of a patriarchal conspiracy set on snatching away her power? It's an incredible piece, and I feel very fortunate to have been trusted with such an epic story.

Juana will feature a cast of live actors and 25+ puppets (think "Julie Taymor" with a large dose of "Bread and Puppet Theatre,") multi-media elements, and one crazed director who makes a habit of biting off more than he can comfortably chew. I'm working on a director's analysis at this point, and hope to have a first design meeting in a couple of weeks.

Torrid Affaire will be read at Write Act on the 27th of this month. I'm hoping it can be rushed into production late this summer. It's a simple play, easily mountable given a month of rehearsal time.

In addition to all of the above, I am trying to work on some other writing projects (have to keep putting the future there!) I've been tapped for a couple of readings, and I'm seeking employment alternatives. Preferably industry related because, hey, I didn't move to Los Angeles to become an insurance salesman. (So if anyone of the fourteen people who read this have any juicy leads, call me!)

So there's the summary of what's what at present. I hope it explains why I haven't blogged in a month, and why I've postponed any forward motion on Disembodied Animal Head Theatre and Up To Bat until sometime in April.

("The Felties" is dead in the water at present. To be honest, I'm tempted to put the whole damn thing (rights, puppets, etc.) on eBay. I just don't think anyone would bid on it!)

GREG GRUNBERG

I would be remiss not to make public note of the fine acting Greg Grunberg exhibited in last night's episode of "Heroes."

Greg Grunberg got me to watch "Felicity." I really felt for his character of Sean Blumberg, a guy always trying to come up with that one really good idea.

He has done consistently good work on "Heroes" so far this season, with last night's episode of "Company Man" being the best yet. His scene with Claire (Hayden Panettiere) was by far the most compelling bit of drama in the series thus far.

So here's to Greg Grunberg, a journeyman actor who will no doubt grow and age into a seasoned great!

"Lost" is for Dog Lovers

Another canine on the set of "Lost!"

I'm hoping that Lulu plays one of The Others. Then maybe we can have a whole episode devoted to LuLu and "Vincent" playing sick mind games with each other, culminating in the shocking death of a series regular. Yeah!

You know those highly dramatic promo photos for Lost? Pictures of the cast on the island looking all dramatic?

Here's my favorite one:

Even in front of aircraft wreckage, labradors still look happy!

I love this dog. This is, as you well know, dog-actor Madison, whose character Vincent has been an object of much speculation. Bad things seem to happen to those who care for him, and he seems to have some sort of special connection to the island (by "he" I mean the character of Vincent. As is common with TV dogs, Madison is actually a female playing a male.)

I thought that Vincent left the island at the end of season 2, but apparently he's still with the survivors of Flight 815, as he is featured in next week's episode! Yay! I remember reading somewhere that the producers of Lost were planning on a "Vincent-centric" episode, with a Vincent flashback. I hope they do that.

If you're interested in how a "myth-arc" series like Lost is created and perpetuated, I would recommend listening the the "Official Lost Podcast" with show producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Interesting stuff!

This is the kind of artist I aspire to be:



John Mayer speaks fluent "music." (The good stuff starts 1:49 in.)

Some goodness from Seth "Mr. Clean" Godin:

The thing most people miss most is that they no longer have an excuse. Without a publisher/editor/boss to blame, your writing is your writing. Your followup is your followup. That means some people become trains without tracks. They just sit there.

He's speaking specifically about blogs, and how bloggers have the opportunity and inclination to cut through the B.S. and just say what they're thinking. Because there is no editor to pass through. As he points out, a lack of structure can then equal a lack of forward momentum.

That's where I am on DAHT, in case anyone was wondering. It is a train without a track.

It's also why I find it easy to commit to a pretty full schedule with Write Act Rep (I'm directing a pretty big play there this year: 20+ puppet characters, very epic) because there is a schedule. And plenty of folks to kick my ass if I miss any deadlines.

In my younger days, I was very willing to throw off the constraints of form and structure and just forge my own path. When you're a naive pipsqueak with more balls than brains, it's easy to hack your way through the self-imposed jungle you create for yourself. As I gather more life experience, I find that the truly remarkable artists, such as Mozart and Da Vinci, continue to study form and structure even as they are creating masterpieces. Mozart studied orchestral scores in his "spare time." Da Vinci's anatomical studies are very famous.

Even a guy like John Mayer, who could probably do nothing more than "Your Body is a Wonderland" for the rest of his life is a scholar of rock and blues, absorbing the strengths of great guitar players like Clapton and Jeff Beck.

A week and a half ago, I finally got around to watching An Inconvenient Truth. I expected Al Gore's little global warming movie to be, at best, an entertaining piece of propaganda. At worst, I thought, it will be the "PBS" version of "The Day After Tomorrow."

It was neither. I am struck by two things: 1) How passionate Al Gore is about this (and further, how humanizing it is to see him animated and interested in something) and 2) how compelling Gore's argument is.

If this movie had come out before the election, he would've won by a considerable majority. No doubt about it. Presidential politics has a way of washing out a candidate's personality and making them almost dead-stump-like. This is why it's easy for a charismatic guy like Reagan or Clinton to ride in and win two terms like there's nothing to it. Remember Bob Dole? Mr. Wet Paint. As soon as he lost his bid, and the pressure was off, he grew a personality. Same with Kerry. Same with Gore. In the arena of Global Warming, dealing with environmental issues, Gore has charisma.

And he doesn't just show slides, he builds a narrative.

I've stumbled upon a few "PowerPoint" "experts" on the web. Seth Godin has some good things to say. (And here's his free eBook.)

What's most interesting to me is the concept of PowerPoint as a form of theatre. Not doing a PowerPoint presentation on theatre, mind you, but presenting PowerPoint as theatre. It would be fun to create a PowerPoint play, complete with the PowerPoint slides and everything.

One correlation I can think of is this guy who does traditional slide shows as theatre. He uses found slides, and spins a narrative.

Another correlation is planetarium shows. Pamela took me to Griffith Observatory for my birthday, and the show under the big dome was certainly theatrical, complete with a storyteller who cooed her lines and wandered around with a glowing orb as her light source.

Anyone aware of PowerPoint Theatre? Or theatrically presented slide shows? Anything similar?

Irony:

IDEA GRAVEYARD

The Pirate Parrots Project.

My notes are scanty, but here's the idea:

A direct to video movie featuring a cast of bird puppets cavorting around like pirates. Specifically, we follow a band of lousy pirates out to make a name for themselves. The captain, an inept fop named "Roginal LeCoeur" fantasizes about being a true and proper scoundrel, the type of pirate he reads about in such books as "The Nasty Corsair." So he styles himself as "Blackbeard the Parrot," wearing an incredibly stupid looking black beard.

He heads up a pirate ship (I don't remember what I wanted to call it ... "The Sea Monkey" or something stupid like that) with a wacky, zany crew of misfits and n'er-do-wells. [I may update this later, when I have the chance to review other notes I have stuffed around the home office.]

Blackbeard the Parrot is tired of being a laughing stock, and decides to put his name on the map by rescuing the truly great pirate Captain Hookbeak, who was recently captured, tried, and sentenced to death.

What follows is a series of episodes culminating in the rescue of the merciless Captain Hookbeak. One episode involves our motley band running across a pirate ship full of "girl pirates" and the resulting bird orgy ("If this boat's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'!") Another episode has the crew liberating a slave ship. The big, climactic sea battle has canons blazing and feathers flying!

In the end, Hookbeak is made captain of "The Sea Monkey" and he places Blackbeard as his first mate.

This idea is not for kids, but not for the "usual" reasons (i.e. gratuitous puppet nudity and profanity.) The idea is to have a jolly tale of adventure on the high seas, and at the same time depict what murderous, cut-throat savages pirates could really be at times. Seriously, some of those guys were outright sociopaths. But just like an old-school slasher film, it's all in fun.

It would be shot entirely in-studio (reference Steve Oedekerk's "Thumb" movies for an idea of how closely controlled the sets would be) with liberal use of models and compositing.

All of the bird puppets would be based upon real species. Hookbeak, for instance, is based on the thick billed parrot. The pirates would represent a wide variety of birds (albatross, magpie, cockatoo, etc.) but the birds representing the Crown -- the killjoys, the government navy types -- would be fairly uniform pheasants. Maybe pigeons. Something very "English."

It really pains me to realize how unlikely it is that this particular project will ever be produced, if only because I would love to see it.

How about you?

John K blogged yesterday about the fine art of storyboarding, which got me thinking about The Felties.

I haven't posted about The Felties in a while, mostly because I didn't want to jinx the latest happenings. Then I remembered that I don't believe in jinxes. So here goes:

Pamela and I have been meeting with the very talented David Brownstein
about collaborating on a Felties project. Namely, "The Mimey and Clownie Show."

The idea is to go even smaller than my idea of a five-to-eight minute show. To create minute long, gag-driven videos featuring two or three characters. Since they're short, we can tape a few episodes in one day.

Now, if you've been following the harrowing tale of The Felties, you know that I've been thinking about going bigger. I'm talking about pursuing financial backing to do a pilot episode for a proposed t.v. series.

Doing just the opposite, taking the idea smaller, is very intriguing for a number of reasons. First, if the little videos were to go "viral" I'd actually stand a better chance of finding the financial backing for something bigger. Second, shorter videos are easier to put together than longer videos, as I've learned on DAHT. Third, and finally, I'd have something actually done on this stupid project that's been hanging around my neck like a large seabird.

So here is a peak at a very rough storyboard for an episode of "The Mimey and Clownie Show" entitled "Making Clownie a Man: How to Drink".








I'll post more about this project a little later in the week!

Foutaises, a short film by Jean-Pierre Jeunet:

THE BEST SHOWS (NOT) ON TELEVISION

[Yes, it's an all new blog series that I will no doubt lose interest in and post no further installments of!]

I have Kae and Bryce to thank for this. Had they not taped a bunch of episodes of "Roundhouse", I may never have seen the show.

A cast of talented singers, dancers, and actors. One of the writers of "In Living Color." A live band. New music and choreography every week. All culminating in a half-hour sketch show centered around a different theme each week, somewhat like a improvisational Harold.

A couple years back, I had the pleasure of working with David Sidoni at Disneyland. He's a great guy, very professional. The kind of guy you'd shoot hoops with, and let date your little sister.

In college, noted academic hermit Allen Partridge brought his excellent version of "Pinocchio" into the season as a touring play for area elementary schools. He was looking for a hook of some kind, a way to fill in the space between the scenes and propel the story forward. Pamela said "how about dance bumpers?" She loaned him Kae and Bryce's "Roundhouse" tape and he became very excited about the idea. Candy Mickels (who also played the eponymous wooden boy) choreographed the dance. I did the light design for the "home" show, produced on the main stage on campus. I did my best to ape the "rock and roll show" look that "Roundhouse" had.

Nickelodeon has a firm policy in place that should any show exhibit creativity, moxy and artistic skill, it is to be immediately cancelled or at least f-ed with so as to lose its soul and deteriorate into a mockery of what it once was ("Ren & Stimpy" for example.) Apparently Roundhouse was really good, because unlike "R&S" or "Pete and Pete", it hasn't found its way to DVD yet. There are four seasons of "Roundhouse", and an ocean of rabid fans. Paramount apparently doesn't like making money. One can find two episodes of the show on the first two SNICK compilation videos.

There is some sort of underground tape exchange as well, although I haven't cracked into it. I keep hoping that I'll run into some Chinese blackmarket DVD box set on eBay.

Damn. I should've asked Sidoni if he had any of the episodes on tape.

I finally watched The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa. This is one of those "must see" films for peeps in the industry. It's right up there with Citizen Kane as one of the "best films ever made."

Well, I concur. The movie is so good ... it's totally Airwolf. Whatever the hell that means (eh ... Airwolf Gotta Eat!)

The movie clocks in at a little over three hours long, yet maintains a subtle intensity that makes you ignore the clock, enthralled as you are in the story. The acting (for a Japanese film made in the 1950s) is almost inconceivably good.

Takashi Shimura plays the leader of the Seven, and turns in a performance as real and nuanced as anything I've seen in recent years. If you think Ken Watanabe is ... well, Airwolf ... you'll absoluetly love Shimura.

Japan's answer to Jack Nicholson is Toshiro Mifune, who plays the rough-around-the-edges and slightly psychotic Kikuchiyo. He was my personal favorite of the Seven. I don't want to spoil any plot, but there are very good reasons for his behavior, and when we finally find out those reasons, you can cut the pathos with a katana.

Great flick, and well worth watching. Look, I know from experience how it is. You hear that "such-and-such" is a good movie, and you watch it and find yourself aghast at the cinematic vomit parading before your eyes. "Why the hell is Joey Tribbiani flirting with the youngest girl from 'Party of Five'? She's like, twelve! And what the hell's up with that stupid looking CG monkey?" We've all been there. Well, this is not one of "those" movies.

I love free magazines and newspapers. Over the past decade, I've discovered a love (masochistic though it may be at times) for exposing myself to a wide, diverse variety of viewpoints. Just as the Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass would believe in six impossible things before breakfast, I try to consider many contrary (or just different) viewpoints every day. Predictably, this makes conversations with me very boring.

...

Oh yeah. I like this one free magazine called Arthur because it covers all kinds of neat, niche music that I wouldn't otherwise know about. Case in point, Earth. This ambient/drone group hails from Seattle. Their last album, entitled "Hex: or Printing in the Infernal Method" is heavy, tense, and very slow. If John Wayne had hung up his spurs and become a monk who drank a lot of coffee (past the point of the normal stimulant effect, where one experiences caffeine intoxication) this album would be his soundtrack.

It's also pretty creepy in places. Currently, I'm listening to it as I write a treatment for a supernatural slasher movie set in rural Wisconsin. Very nice.

GOTTA EAT!

The open source catch phrase. I don't know who coined it, and I don't care.

Use it and love it. It's funny!

Example 1:

BOSS: Did you get the memo about the TPS reports?

KEVIN: Yeah, but I didn't read it.

BOSS: What?!?

KEVIN: Hey ... Kevin Gotta Eat!

Example 2:

COP: Do you have any idea how fast you were going?

TOM: Hey ... Tom Gotta Eat!

Example 3:

DISGRUNTLED WIFE: Is that it? I was so close this time!

HUSBAND: Uh ... yeah, sorry about that. Hubby Gotta Eat!

Example 4:

STEVIE WONDER: And the Grammy goes to ... John Mayer!

[applause]

STEVIE WONDER: John Mayer regrets that he couldn't be here to
night to accept this award ... John Mayer Gotta Eat!

I could go on and on!

Deep down inside of me lives a nerd named Herb.

Herb loves science. He subscribes to Omni Magazine and haunts Radio Shack. He has fantasies of ordering that kit he's read about in the back of Popular Science, and building a hovercraft out of a lawnmower engine and riding it to school. That'll show everybody. He loved the "mytharc" episodes of The X-Files, and regrets that he's never seen a UFO. In grade school, he checked out every book on Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the paranormal that the library had to offer.

He's even been known to play old school pencil-and-paper D&D, although if you call it that, he'll correct you (it's AD&D.)

Friday night, Pamela took Herb to Grifftih Observatory for my birthday.

Griffith closed not long after Pamela and I moved out here. $93 million and five years later, it's open, and it's badass.

Highlights of the trip:

• The "cloud chamber" wherein one can "see" cosmic rays hitting a tray of super cooled alcohol. If I were the paranoid type, I'd be freaking out about the constant barage of cosmic rays that shoot through us every moment of every day.
• The Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theatre, and "The Once and Future Griffith Observatory" film. This is how you do an orientation film. I've been to so many museums in my life, and have fallen asleep in/walked out of just about every other orientation film. They usually suck. No sense of humor or wonder, no attempt at creating something people would be willing to pay to see (even though these films are free. It's the mindset. When you know that someone is going to pay good money for your product, you tend to make it a little more worth their while, right?) Oh ... and Nimoy rules all.
• The Planetarium Show. Just absolutely incredible. The Big Bang is couched as a modern version of the stories man has been telling about the sky since time immemorial. Just a great, non-confrontational way to present the theory. Oh, and the state-of-the-art star projector was amazing. Living in the big city, I find myself yearning for the clear, country skies of my youth. Would you judge me too harshly if I confessed to getting a bit weepy when the Milky Way was splashed out across the darkened dome above?
• Looking at the Orion Nebula through the 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope. I've never before experienced looking at the night sky through a real telescope. I understand the sentiment that Griffith J. Griffth expressed upon looking through the telescope at the famed Mt. Wilson observatory: "Man's sense of values ought to be revised. If all mankind could look through that telescope, it would change the world."

Here's a little treat to kick start your weekend!



" . . . in wonderful color!"

Thanks to DrowningKittens for posting this on YouTube!

"To this day, if I ever meet grownups who play ukulele, I love 'em." - Paul McCartney

I used to have a Ukulele. I gave it to my sister. She threw it away.

I've been on the lookout for a decent replacement for years. I didn't want to pay a lot for a new "Rock and Roll mandolin" At the same time, I wanted a quality instrument, not just a piece of crap I'd eventually hurl across the room in a fit of frustration.

I have much envy for the Amoeba Ukulele:

But $179 for a ukulele? Not even if it was autographed by Cliff Edwards himself.

Well, okay. Maybe if autographed by ol' Ukulele Ike. He's part of the reason I bought a ukulele in the first place.

The second reason? I couldn't afford a mandolin. This was back when R.E.M. released "Losing my Religion," thus instigating a new wave of mandos in mainstream rock music.

The Ukulele is deceptively easy to play. Except that there's nothing deceptive about it.

I performed publicly with my ukulele within weeks of purchasing it: I performed a 1920s song entitle "I'll Never Get Drunk Anymore" for a speech class my sophomore year in high school. I was a new transfer student from the desolate plains of Wyoming, by way of North Little Rock. (Yep, I went to three different high schools that year. Thanks, Dad!) Although my performance netted me a "C" from the substitute teacher, it did serve as a sort of audition for a bundle of energy named J.C. Macek III who promptly ordered me to join the band he was starting up.

Maybe it was the fact that a ukulele has four strings, but Macek assigned me bass guitar duties in Glamourous Vagrancy [sic], a "progressive punk-thrash" band noted for it's Rocky Horror Picture Show cover tunes.

Where the hell was I? Oh yeah. The ukulele. I was also inspired by Tiny Tim, having grown up on Johnny Carson.

Yikes. The late 70s - early 80s were far more forgiving of unattractive people. I mean, no offense to the late Tiny Tim, but ... woof.

So with sadness and longing in my heart, I have over the years scanned music stores for well-made, low-cost ukuleles. I've come up empty-handed for over a decade. I almost plopped $10 down on a piece of crap toy I found at a discount clothing store(!?) but better judgment overruled nostalgia, and I spent my money on a cup of coffee instead. Coffee: it warms the body and the heart!

So New Years eve, I talk Pamela into stopping by Sam Ash. (We like to go into the special acoustic guitar room, the one that's kept at a perfect temperature and humidity level, and play the most expensive guitars. I tell you, a $4,000 Martin & Co. guitar plays itself. Yum.) Browsing around, what should I find but a Carlo Robelli ukulele on sale for $19.99!

Yeah! I'll write it again in case you missed it and are too lazy to go back and read it again: $19.99! I was stunned. Pamela had to nudge me forward (I was standing on her foot) and politely ask an employee to mop up the pool of saliva I embarrassingly created.

I love Sam Ash, and I think the work they do with Carlo Robelli (i.e. making good, quality, affordable instruments) is to be commended. I scooped up a pretty little number, took it home, tuned it up, and played "I'll Never Get Drunk Anymore" for the first time in [censored] years!

Yay!

"Turn me on dead man ..."

My friend J.C. Macek III, a.k.a Brother Kneumsi, a.k.a. The World's Greatest Critic has posted his second annual 2006 Dead Man of the Year Award. This year the winners (there are two!) are ... oh, but you'll have to click the link to see! BWA HA HA HA HA!

The idea behind the award is to recognize an artist whose reach has extended beyond the grave, and whose contributions have in someway shaped the entertainment scene for the better over the past year. The 2005 Dead Man of the Year Award went to Willis O'Brien, the man who brought King Kong to life in 1933.

I think this is the coolest idea for an annual award. The great thing is, the runners-up can't have their egos crushed when they don't win! Ha!

Top 10 Entertainment Experiences of 2006

Last year I blogged about the Top 5 Entertainment Experiences of 2005. Well, I'm expanding it to ten this year.

The rules here are simple: It's not just about what movie I liked or what song caught my attention on the radio. It's about the whole experience. So although I may have seen a great musician perform live (Peter Frampton at the Wiltern) I may not include it here if the experience was lacking (A herd of rowdy fiftysomethings toking up en masse during "Do You Feel Like We Do." Yikes.)

So, in no particular order:

1) The Five Minute Show

I didn't want to put this on the list because I was planning on doing a proper write-up of how cool Pete, Sierra and their video podcasts are. (Seriously, I have notes to transcribe, including a list of hyperlinks to include.) If you haven't seen the show, go on over to www.thepete.com and see what I'm talking about.

Pamela and I have contributed to a couple of the episodes, and it's been a real blast! What's more, it's been inspirational for me to keep at my own web show (something involving disembodied animal something-or-others ....)

2) Bootlegging John Mayer in Irvine

Going to Irvine for a rock show is an all day affair. It's not exactly right down the street. Plus, Pamela went to the sound check, so we had to be there early.

Watching Mayer perform is always joy, but this time I brought along a little recorder to make a bootleg! It's cool, because dude allows it.

We got in the car after the concert, plugged the little digital recorder into the iPod FM transmitter thingy, and fired it up ... not a bad bootleg at all! We were pumped! Excited and cheering our coolness! One unfortunate bump later, and the whole thing was erased.

To say we were despondant would be an understatement. Eventually, the concert showed up online and we burned a copy. But for one brief, shining moment in Irvine, I was a dedicated rock fan making his first bootleg of a live concert.

3) Eli

What is the "true power" of YouTube, MySpace and all that? The fact that the people you meet, the musicians whose music you hear, the entertainers you see are real people. The internet as a facilitator of idea transmission is an empty thing without resulting action. Imagine if you couldn't actually buy anything off of eBay, just log on and look at other people's stuff.

I learned the "true power" of YouTube this past year when I encountered a busker named Eli who I'd only known from the internet. Standing in line for the motion picture classic Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny we saw him, manipulating a downtrodden figure to the tune of "St. James Infirmary."

The experience was like returning home after a long trip, and seeing the lights of your city on the horizon. An hour later, you're surrounded by those lights ... hell, you're contributing to those lights.

4) Garrick Pass starts blogging

I'm not joking when I say Garrick Pass is the Garrison Keillor of the IT generation. No one spins a yarn quite like Garrick, and similar to Mr. Keillor, it's never quite clear how much (if any) of what he says is made up or exagerrated for effect. Garrick just rings true. He should set himself up with some filk musicians and put together a weekly podcast/radio show where instead of "The News from Lake Wobegon" we get "This Week at 'Company Name Withheld ...'" Record it live at a coffee shop or something ...

Anyway, it's been a joy to check in on Garrick's blog (www.prettygeekything.com) everyday to see how life's treating him.

5) Octoberfest at the Getty

I heart the Getty. One weekend in October, Pamela and I were sitting around with nothing much to do. We decided to check out the Getty online to see if anything interesting was happening. Boy howdy! It was Octoberfest, with live music, folk dancing, a marionette show, and arts and crafts galore. Oh yeah, and a few new art exhibitions.

For the price of parking ($10) we had a full day's entertainment, and went home with a sack full of handmade stuff.

The marionette show, "Hansel and Gretel" turned out to be an operetta by Engelbert Humperdinck(!) In spite of that, it was a great show (ba-da-ching!)

6) John K at the Aero

Back in high school, a group of us conspired to celebrate Kilted Yaks Eve. I say a group ... I believe it was Victor Guidry that got the ball rolling and created the artwork for our invites. We all met at Stephen Suit's house, and watched Pamela's bootleg tape (Rubber Nipples! The Tiniest Giant! Space Madness!) I dressed up as the Yak (I put a paperbag over my head that said "Yak") and passed out shaving scum. What can I say? It was high school.

John K (who blogs at www.johnkstuff.blogspot.com) presented a number of finished cartoons and animatics of cartoons yet to be completed. By far the best cartoon of the night (and all time?) was "Boo Boo Runs Wild" wherein Boo Boo heeds the call of the wild, and Yogi and Ranger Smith get into a knock-down, drag-out fight.

Sitting in a full house of fans, cheering and applauding during the opening credits for Ren & Stimpy ... without a doubt a highlight of 2006!

7) Torrid Affaire

This is a bit greedy, but sitting in the booth at Two Roads Theatre, and watching six actors breathe life into my smutty little play was a fantastic experience. I felt like I had gone home for Christmas.

8) Pamela at Dar Mahgrab

I love watching my wife dance. I've grown to really enjoy bellydancing, thanks to Pamela. And as hard as it is for me to state publicly, I loooooove lamb. (They're just so cute, it feels wrong to eat them! But damn them all, they taste so good!) Dar Mahgrab is the kind of place Pamela and I would've gone to for dinner anyway. being entertained by my lovely wife was a bonus!

9) Bingo at the gay bar

I've only been to two bars in my entire life. The first was a hotel bar in Norman, Oklahoma where Andrew Rhodes and I had Heinekens. We've since developed good taste.

The second bar was Akbar Lounge in Silver Lake ... a gay bar. The reason for the "outing" was a fundraiser for Pamela's theatre company Write/Act.

BINGO! Lame prizes, abrasive hosts, and R-rated variations on the old classic. There was Rocky Horror Picture Show-esque call-and-response (caller: "N 50" us: "I'm 50! 50 Years old! I like to stretch and kick and stretch! Camel toe!") bad jokes, and lots of laughter. Great night, and I can't wait to go the Hamburger Mary's in West Hollywood for Drag Queen Bingo later this week. Yay!

10) Sherlock Holmes and the Saline Solution

I didn't include the Renaisance Pleasure Faire on this list, but it was definitely in the top twenty-five. The great thing about RPF was discovering the very talented Shelby and Shannon, which then led to Pamela and I booking it down to Cafe Fais Do-Do to see Shelby in Sound and Fury's "Sherlock Holmes."

It was a cold and rainy night, and a part of town we were not familiar. The theatre ... Okay, here's the thing: please keep in mind that this description is not an insult. The theatre was a run-down hole. The roof leaked, it was drafty and poorly lit. It felt like a great place to live, if you're a rat or perhaps a wino. That said, it was a magical space for theatre.

It was very fast-paced, cleverly written and well-performed. The "prologue" was without a doubt the best bit of theatre I've seen in a very long time.

Okay! That's it for 2006. I know I've left out many wonderful experiences, but I had to limit it or else spend the next couple of weeks writing. Feel free to fill me in on your favorite entertainment experiences of 2006 in the comments below, keeping in mind that it's about more than what movie you liked, it's about the whole enchilada, the experience!

OH HORROR!

My parents flat-out refused to let my sister or I watch anything rated "R" until we were into our teens, and even then, it was only under the watchful eye of one or both parents. Sneaking a peek at an "R" rated film without parental supervision was quite a treat, believe me! It sure beat the pants off of watching "Revenge of the Nerds" with dad or "Rocky Horror Picture Show" with mom.

Well one summer my sister Rachelle and I were dropped off to stay with our Grandparents in Arkansas for a week or two, along with our older cousin Kyle. That was a life-changing summer, for that was the first time I had ever really watched horror movies. Kyle was really into horror at the time. He was into King and Koontz, and introduced me to the wonders of chainsaws and ritualistic death cults. Yay!

The two movies I remember the most are The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Children of the Corn. Probably because they were both set in very rural areas, and we were staying out in the boonies ourselves. I've been fascinated by the genre ever since, but I've never really considered myself a "fan."

It took me quite a while to get around to Friday the 13th (parts 1 and 2) I'm sad to say. I considered (especially after Scream and The Ring that there was absolutely no way a couple of movies made in the late 70s and early 80s could possible be gripping or even scary. Boy howdy was I wrong!

Friday the 13th is a far better movie than it has any right to be. I'm not going to belabor it, but the film is low-budget, and it shows. The kills are, for the most part, very well staged and executed. Pun intended. And I admit it, I jumped a couple of times.

Friday the 13th: Part Two is to the first part what The Godfather II is to The Godfather. More of what worked, only better. F13th2 had me on the edge of the seat practically the whole time. The pacing was incredible! I couldn't believe it when the movie ended, it just flew past. And the kills really hurt! Damn.

Anyway, I'm doing research for a little horror project I've been invited to write on, and I just wanted to take the time to thank my cousin Kyle for forcing Chelley and me, Clockwork Orange style, to watch an endless stream of horror movies all those years ago.

He would know:

"Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public. . . . A man must be his own trumpeteer, he must write or dictate paragraphs of praise in the newspapers, he must dress, have a retinue, and equipage, he must ostentatiously publish to the world his own writings with his name, and must write even some panegyrics upon them . . . and must perpetuate his fame."
-- Benjamin Franklin

retinue: an entourage
equipage: a horse and carriage
panegyrics: elaborate public praise

It has occured to me that there must be an actual technique of fame. A recipe that, when followed, would result in broad public acclaim. Fame for the sake of fame. This technique, when coupled with actual talent and productivity would result in superstardom. This is the sort of thing one does not discuss for fear of being unseemly. One must not seem arrogant or egotistic, even if one is.

All I know is, if I could divine this technique and put it in written form, I'd make a mint selling it.

GO SEE ROCKY BALBOA

Pamela and I caught the late show at Mann's Chinese in Hollywood, along with a very diverse group ranging from old timers to a punk band. Every race and age bracket, couples, groups, single people ... every person present was part of a celebration.

If you bemoaned the Star Wars prequel, if you cringed when you found out Superman had a bastard son, and if you've been aching for a return to the way film makers made movies back in the 70s, when film makers gave a damn about story and character ... if you have longed for a movie that's both popcorn friendly and inspirational GO SEE THIS FILM.

Stallone has proven himself to be a very sensative and approachable movie star over the past two weeks with the Q & A he took part in on www.aintitcool.com. In Rocky Balboa we see that he hasn't been blowing smoke up our ass. He respects the audience and gives us a film that is a love letter to his fans as much as it is an homage to the film that put him on the map.

His performance as the Italian Stallion is as pitch perfect as it was in the first two films. Stallone is doing the kind of work in this movie that Brando should've been doing at this age. This is the Rocky who took Adrian ice skating, who keeps pet turtles, and who doesn't back down from setting a yahoo straight. At his core, Rocky is a fragile soul inside the body of a behemoth. Here it goes: Stallone deserves an Oscar nom for this work. He won't get it, but he deserves it. Stallone is playing a Greek god! He is taking on a character of mythic proportions, and he succeeds in his task. He is so fully plugged into this role that the Sylvester Stallone of countless action films disappears and is replaced by that slugger we all knew once upon a time.

There is only one hiccup in the entire film for me ... and awkward cut between two scenes that needs something transitional between them. But that's it.

I could go on and on, but just go see it!

"You or nobody ain't never gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit... it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward... how much you can take, and keep moving forward. If you know what you're worth, go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit." -- Rocky Balboa

IDEA GRAVEYARD

2002 is the year. Pamela and I have moved to Los Angeles, and the quality of Saturday morning entertainment is declining to all new lows. One morning I put pen to paper and sketch out an idea for the sort of place I wish had been around when I was a kid:

Saturday Mornings

An alternative to the "boob tube!" All ages 0 - 12, parents, grandparents. (not necessarily for teens.) An indoors amusement park/carnival. Safe, clean, bright, friendly atmosphere.

Live theatre (improv., chapter plays, etc.)

Puppetry

Healthy breakfast available

Hands-on crafts

Classic cartoons - cool new cartoons (on FILM)

City Museum-esque space. FUN-FUN-FUN for the whole family. Inexpensive and always a NEW experience (encourage repeat visits.) Open Saturdays 9 am -2 pm and Sundays 9 am -2 pm.

Part of the funding can come from major corporations who would love a chance to get new products into the hands of "test audiences." Saturday Mornings provides survey data (good work for 'struggling' actors) to these corporations. Not to mention corporate sponsorship of attractions (Disney World style.)

Saturday Morning would be a great place to employ a variety of artists in a real "Rump Revised"* type atmosphere. Controlled creative chaos.

Should be located in a centralized, easy-to-get-to area near a major residential area. We want to develop REGULARS. This is THE place to bring your kids!

Make the theatre space independently accessible so it can be rented out.

Building would ideally be a boring facade jazzed up with sculpture, paint, etc.

Indoor playground: EVER CHANGING MAZE. Habitrail style. Rearranged every few weeks! Multi-level.

Entry and common areas FILLED with BIG music. Classical and movie soundtracks. Awe-inspiring.

Could have a carnival atmosphere or area with a fun darkride (non -threatening to little kids.)

Dark ride should be interactive, but in a charming low-tech sort of way. Give the kids a way to take out their frustrations on archetypical fears (the Bully, the Mean Adult, the Boogey-man, etc.)

* "Rump Revised" refers to a college production of "Rumpelstiltskin Revised" written and directed by noted playwright and academic hermit Allen Partridge. The show had no budget, and we literally scoured the Humanities building for materials. The set was designed by Garrick "I'm too sexy for this contest" Pass to look like coral. The costumes were designed by Andrew Rhodes and his work took him to Washington D.C. to compete at the national level of ACTF. C.J. Ellis did the prop and graphic design. He built a fantastic creature head that made my puppet designs for the show look like fabric and foam covered crap. Pamela did make-up. Oh! Rodney Fadely did sound -- fantastic found music from the library's collection of vinyl. I know I'm missing something. Who did the lights? Was it Brumbelow?

Anyway, Al took off the leash and let us run wild. There was very little design consistency over all, and the show was a potpourri of cast-offs and leftovers. But the finished product was wild and crazy and wonderfully aesthetic. Sort of like the original Muppet Show. By "'Rump Revised'-type atmosphere" I am referring to and environment that creates a sort of free-wheeling, unabashedly whimsical orgy of creativity and fun. The City Museum in St. Louis accomplishes this sort of thing.

I hope you've enjoyed this foray into the Idea Graveyard. Who knows what we may encounter next?

READY TO CHOKE MY CHICKEN

[Hmm ... that title doesn't sound right. Oh well, at least it'll bring in some hits from Google.]

I've been avoiding Disembodied Animal Head Theatre as if it were a tofu sundae. My last attempt at shooting an episode was a couple of weeks ago. The changes I made to Tex (i.e. giving him wings and arm rods) suck and the new set piece (Tex's arm chair) is a bigger pain in the ass than trying to improvise two sides of dialogue shot a half-hour apart.

The new 'Heads are wicked awesome, and I can't wait to shoot the actual "disembodied animal head theatre" segments, but this stupid show hinges on a working rubber chicken. I wanted to start over from the beginning with Tex, build a completely NEW Tex puppet but ... get this ... I couldn't find a rubber chicken that met up with my exacting standards for how Tex should look! That's right. I now consider myself a rubber chicken connoisseur.

During my last shoot, I was moments away from hurling the offending rod puppet across the room when my lovely wife swiped him away and made funny for the camera. She lightened the mood enough for me to struggle through a couple more takes, and then I threw in the towel for the day.

I need to dissasemble what I've done so far and rebuild the damned thing. I don't relish this because I AM A LOUSY PUPPET BUILDER.

On the bright side, Pamela and I went to the Conservatory of Puppetry Arts open house on Sunday and had a great time. I bought a couple of little puppets. If I get around to it, Ill shoot some pix or video to share 'em with the world. Or at least the fourteen of you who read this.

I have a couple of other things/possible gigs in the works, but don't want to "jinx" them by going into too much detail here. We have all seen what 'going into too much detail' has done for The Felties. Ha ha. Heh. Meh.

So I'm in this 1950s review now. As this sort of thing typically happens, it happened rather quickly. Pamela was cast as a singer and dancer, found out they needed some guys, and I auditioned with my Epiphone dreadnought and "Twist and Shout" by the Isley Brothers.

just add andrew

It may come as no surprise that I'm an "okay" guitar player. I'm "okay" at a lot of things. For instance, puppetry. As a creative generalist, I am able to adapt and evolve as necessary to fulfill the demands placed before me. I NetFlixed the "House of Blues: Blues Guitar Level 1" dvd because 1) rock guitar decended from blues guitar and 2) it was the only one of two discs that covered lead techniques. It arrived, I popped it in, and decided right away to buy the disc.


John McCarthy is a good guitar teacher. He moves at a quick enough pace that I'm not bored to tears, and he gets to the meat of the matter pretty damn quick. The first of five chapters covers the basics of blues lead, the pentatonic scale ("penta" = five, "tonic" = note.) Learning the pentatonic scale is like blowing on a blues harp for the first time. You realize that you can't play a sour note with this thing.

I always figured lead guitar would come down to something like this. "Learn this scale. Play around with it."

Pamela and I were at Target last night, and we went back to Electronics to see if they had any Brian Bell (of Weezer) or Paul Stanley(of Kiss) guitars left. Not to buy, necessarily. I just can't get over the novelty of signature guitars for sale at a national retail chain.

I think it's great that Target is selling instruments. Guitars, basses ... even a drum kit! Music has always been a folk art. It's only in the last fifty or sixty years that folks have been priced out of buying decent instruments.

Walking down the aisle past the Fender, Washburn, and Gibson made "off-brands" we find the "HOB Blues Guitar" book and DVD on sale for $25! Score!

So to sum up: John McCarthy, Target, the House of Blues, and affordable instruments = w00+!

IDEA GRAVEYARD

Here's an idea that dates all the way back to December of 1997. Actually, it dates back to the Spring of '97 when I started working weekends at Oaklawn, the horse racing track in Hot Springs. Like so many ideas, it percolated for quite a while before I wrote it down. After college, I transferred over to the "Tote" department (basically the I.T. area in a racetrack, responsible for the servers that calculate odds.) I refer to a "Bob" below. That would be my old co-worker Bob Jackson, a great guy and big time NASCAR fan. So here it is, just in time for Christmas:

Vampire Movie Idea

There was a vampire special on the Discovery Channel, and I told Bob this idea, so I figured I might as well put to paper this old chestnut of an idea which has been roasting in the recesses of my mildly disturbed mind since my college days, shooting the ol' crapola with Brad McClelland regarding matters at the same time cinematic and macabre. And so ... imagine a deserted racetrack -- present day.

WOLFSBANE PARK. Deserted since 1957. It seems that too many horses dropped dead, having had their blood drained. It is now the nocturnal home of the role-playing game "VAMPYRE WARS." Young adults don costumes and play out a drama of two warring vampire factions and the innocent mortals who become "recruits." It's all fun and games.

But tonight -- an old psychopath breaks out of the local insane asylum. He is a former horse trainer out to rid Wolfsbane of its vampires.

Those young adults who would stop the horse trainer's carnage don't realize until it is too late -- WOLFBANE'S VAMPIRES ARE THEIR HOSTS! And the young adults are supper.

I can't find the notes, but I had this great idea for a gag where one of the young adults is chased down by vampire horses.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I recall the conversation that led to this idea. McClelland and I were tossing around ideas for a horror movie, and he told me about the time he attended one of these huge-ass vampire LARPs ("Live Action Role-Playing Game") that took place in an old abandoned shopping mall.

At the time I wrote this, I was in a band with my brother-in-law Brett, and we had written this sweet-ass song "Dying" (Pamela co-wrote the lyrics.) I thought it'd be killer to have live bands playing during the "game" and had this whole scene figured out using "Dying" as the backdrop:

Dying
music by Brett McWilliams
lyrics by Andrew Moore and Pamela Moore

Well it seems your sweet breath
Delivers up sweet death
Lay me down in my tomb
Lovely spectre of doom

Dying ...

You stole my consciousness
And you shattered my soul
Opened up your gates of hell
And you swallowed me whole

Dying ...

Bask in the afterglow
Red hot coals of desire
Can you feel my lava flow
Add your fuel to my pyre ... take me higher

Dying ...

"Dying", of course, in the Shakespearean sense. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say - no - more. So yes, it would be playing behind a vampire sex scene. ROCK!

Why don't I make these crappy movies? Hell, I'd pay to see 'em!

The Worlds Greatest Critic on cubicle living.

Here's just a taste:

However, one thing that is not discussed often enough is just how much people enjoy having their personal space violated in favor of your convenience. In order to alleviate this issue, please refer to this list of suggestions below which will ensure that you will be fully entertaining and endearing to your coworkers in a cubicle environment.

The food thing is right on. I used to have a coworker who'd bring hardboiled eggs and tuna fish to work. What's so wrong with that, you ask? We didn't have a refrigerator for her to keep them in. Mmmm. Room temperature eggs and fish.

Also, people who use their speaker phone to keep redialing a busy number. You know, there's really no need to keep dialing back. "It's been half a second ... maybe they're off the line!"

Fortunately, my experience in that type of office is limited. Unfortunately, I'm very familiar with working for someone in their home office. I'd like to see J.C.'s take on that!

Sly Stallone 2.0

Over at Aint it Cool News, Sylvester Stallone is answering fan questions in a no-holds-barred fight to the finish.

So far he's fielding a wide range of questions from the potentially embarrasing (questions about "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!" and his mother's invention of "rumpology") to the unabashedly geeky (Is he going to be in Tarantino's "Inglorious Bastards," how does he justify Rocky Jr.'s inconsistent age from film to film, etc.)

I highly recommend you check out this very candid Q & A series. It started on December 1st, and will run up to December 20th.

Stallone really gets it. He's promoting his new film, but he's doing it according to the new rules of PR. He's communicating directly to his audience, being open and honest, and not shying away from "icky" questions that any sensible press agent would shun.

As a result, I believe Rocky Balboa is going to be a Box Office K-O. I had already planned on going to see it ... Now I'm excited about it. Pamela's excited about it. The thing is, Stallone is a real guy. A bit boastful, but certainly aware of his own shortcomings. He talks about such flops as Oscar and Get Carter with a healthy sense of humor, for instance:

It [Staying Alive] was definitely a lot better than my version of GET CARTER, which caused many people to run out and perform self-inflicted lobotomies.

Great series. Check it out!