With politcal season upon us here in the USA and the impending primaries and than next year with a vote for a new president I thought it might be good to have more political related content on here. So I'd like to start off with this video that you should take the time to watch.
Here's a nice video to start off the work week. Enjoy.
I had meant to post this blog a few weeks ago but I've been too busy to do anything. Today I had a bit of time so I figured better late than never. I just wanted to give a shout out and some props to my good friend Meany-Quin over at Threesixty5 for completing his first year of his self-portrait project. Before any one says it yes he does know that it's not an original idea and many people before him have done similar projects. He even has a few links to other people who have done self-portrait projects. The most notable of them are Noah K Everyday and c71123. In fact, if you go onto YouTube and search videos by typing self-portrait everyday or some combination of those words. You'll get a whole list of similar projects. But that shouldn't take away from Meany-Quinn's dedication of completing his first year(I wouldn't of lasted that long) of what hopefully will be a long self-portrait project. Now like I said earlier go give him some props!
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When most people hear the name Jimi Hendrix they automatically just think of him as a guitar player. Yet, if you were to really listen to Jimi, I mean really listen to him you'll quickly realize that he was also a fantastic lyricist and alot of his song lyrics verged on poetry. Here's a great example of Jimi's lyrical power.
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So I thought I would stick with the marijuana theme I started in my last blog. I stumbled upon this video in which a federal marijuana user testifies for the legalization of marijuana. Yes you read that right he's a federal marijuana user. He gets his weed from the government. In fact part of mine and your US taxes pays for the growing of his marijuana. He's one of only a handful of people that still get he's medical marijuana straight from the government. Anyway just watch the video it's pretty interesting and from the looks of it the guy can use some Ritalin also. He's a bit hyper.
Related Posts: How to Make Hashish
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Just in case you have alot of extra marijuana trimmings laying around the house, here's a video that shows you how to make hashish from it. This seems like a great project that the whole family could have fun doing.
We all at times, daydream about finding a wallet on the street with a wad of cash and no identification in it, to let us know who it belongs too. Well at least that's what I daydream about. So, last night when walking up my front stoop my heart skipped a beat as I looked down and saw a wallet laying there. I quickly picked it up and looked inside. I immediately saw a drivers license and the address on it was actually just down the street from me. So, on the walk there, curiosity getting the better of me I looked thru the rest of the wallet. I found the usual stuff business cards, club membership cards and a wallet photo of his kid. There were two items though that did stick out. The first being the box cutter that was in the wallet and the second being a business card of a parole officer. Great, just watch the guy try to mug me as I try to return the wallet to him.
So I get to the apartment building and look at all the buzzers. I see the apt number that was listed on his license but the names don't match up. I buzz it anyway, no answer I buzz it again, still no answer. So what am I going to do with this guy's wallet. I just can't throw it away. I come up with the idea of dropping it off at the police station that's on my way to the subway station.
So I leave my apt a bit earlier then usual this morning since I have to stop in at the police station. I go up to the front desk and tell a cop that I have this wallet I found. So, of course I can't just drop the wallet off he has to fill out a report. He gets my name, address, where I found the wallet, what time it was when I found it and he than asks me for my phone number. This is where I experience a brain freeze and have to think for a second. I than rattle what I think is my phone number and that's that. As, I'm walking out of the police station I suddenly realize I had in reality given the cop a combination of my home and cell phone numbers. I know it's early in the morning and I hadn't had my second cup of coffee yet but hell your home phone number is something every kid should have memorized by the time he's 6-7 years old. Maybe, I'm getting early onset alzheimers?
Well in any event I guess I've added some check marks to my karmic value, which is always a good thing.
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This is the last of the CMJ related posts, it sure has taken me awhile to finish them all. I guess I've been wasting my time elsewhere.
The other movie screen I got to see during the event was for the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story. This film is a feel good dark comedy about love and suicide starring Patrick Fugit and Shannyn Sossamon. Patrick's girlfriend breaks up with him and he decides to end it all. He slits his wrists but unfortunately finds that there is no end only an afterlife that is strangely similar to his old life except much suckier(is suckier even a word?). In this strange purgatory limbo where everyone who has committed suicide ends he, he finds a job at kamikaze pizza. Soon he is befriended by a Russian punk rocker that killed himself by pouring beer over his electric guitar while on stage, thus electrocuting himself. Patrick soon discovers that his ex-girlfriend has also committed suicide so him and Eugene(the Russian Punk Rocker) set out on a road trip to find her. Along the way they pick up Sossamon, who claims she's not suppose to be here and is in search of The People in Charge so she can straighten out this misunderstanding. They also come across Tom Waits who is running some sort of magical hippy commune.
You would never think that a film about suicide could be so funny and heart warming at the same time but that's exactly what this film accomplished. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this film, hell(no pun intended) I'm even thinking about going to go see it again, it was that good. Unfortunately though since this is what they call an independent movie,this movie might not be at a local theatre near you, but I really urge you to seek out this movie and see it. After the movie there was an Q&A with the director, Goran Dukic. He had said that the movie only cost $1 million dollars to make, which isn't alot in the movie making world. In fact that's only one 1/20th of what Tom Cruise gets paid for a movie. Someone than asked him what he would of did different if given more money to make the film. He replied, nothing except maybe have better food on the set and some air conditioning since they filmed in the desert where it hovered around 100 degrees fahrenheit. He said the more money you have doesn't necessarily equate a good movie and some times it makes a movie worse, case in point(my thoughts not his) all the new Star Wars movies and any Jerry Bruckheimer movie made, except Transformers which I did like.
Now I don't want to give up where the movie ends up but let me just say that sometimes the person who you think your in love with really isn't the person your in love with. I hope that makes sense because reading that last sentence left me scratching my head. And one more thing, you can end up finding love in the strangest of places, even purgatory.
Wristcutters Official site
Wristcutters @ imdb
Wristcutters Trailer
Related Posts: Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, CMJ Music Marathon NYC, Photographing Michael Diamond, Brad @ Highline Ballroom, NYC
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I got to see a screening of this documentary a few weeks ago, during the CMJ festival. Originally this wasn't the movie I intended to go see, but due to other factors it was the one I ended up seeing.
As you can gather from the title, this film was about Joe Strummer of The Clash. Julien Temple, the director also did a documentary about the Sex Pistols called The Filth and the Fury, but you might know him better as the director of that cinematic masterpiece, Earth Girls are Easy. I never listened to The Clash growing up or knew much about them. My knowledge of them began and stopped at their Rock the Casbah video. It wasn't until about a couple years ago that I ended up acquiring some Clash records(yes I still call them records although they were really mp3s) and getting into them. So seeing this movie was pretty interesting, in that I learned more about them(specifically Joe Strummer), how they formed and their music. You learn how Joe Strummer(not his real name of course) acquired that name, due to the fact of how he played his guitar. The thing that interested me the most was that Joe was originally a hippy of sorts and started out playing more of a Rock-A-Billy/Folk type of music and you can see that influence in some of The Clash's recordings.
Now like I said, the movie was good in the fact that it provided me with a bit more knowledge about Joe Strummer and The Clash, yet this movie had its faults and to me they are some major faults. The one that was the most glaring was that there are numerous interviews with people who knew Joe throughout his life, but not once are you given any information as to who they are or their connection to Joe Strummer. The movie watching experience would have been more enjoyable if their names appeared on the screen at least once, as they were being interviewed. The other problem was the length of the documentary, although it was only around 2 hrs long which is normal for movie nowadays, the pacing of the movie made it feel even longer. Towards the end of it I was getting really antsy and was just thinking to myself when is this going to end. The first way that this issue could be remedied would be to get rid of a few of the interviews that just didn't make sense or felt so out of place in this movie. The director freaking interviewed Martin Scorsese, John Cusack, Bono(with his corny sunglasses) and Johnny Depp who was still in character as Captain Jack Sparrow. These interviews just served no purpose, they didn't drive the movie forward or add anything relevant to it that wasn't already provided by the other interviewees. So with that said my advice to you if you want to see this documentary, is to wait till it comes out on DVD so you can watch it in chunks and skip past those interviews.
The one thing that stuck with me from the movie was Joe Strummer's definition of a punk rocker. He said a punk rocker is just a hippie with zippers. That's just classic.
Coincidentally or not, later that night as I was waiting for a subway, a kid probably no older than 15 comes strolling down the subway platform dressed in text book British punk rocker uniform of the late 1970's. You could of taken a picture of him and put it next to punk rock in the dictionary it was almost too good to be true. He had a 2 foot high mohawk sticking straight up, a Romanes style leather jacket with lots of zippers and tight black jeans on. I'm also sure if I would of gotten a closer look he would of either had a safety pin through his nose or ear and a bunch of extra ones on his jeans or jacket. Ahhh the youth of today.
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten official site
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten @ imdb
Related Posts: CMJ Music Marathon NYC, Photographing Michael Diamond, Brad @ Highline Ballroom, NYC
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Only 2 foot '9 inches tall, Weng Weng fights crime in the Phillippines as Agent 00. Track by THE CHUDS (www.myspace.com/chudsunderground) Video edited by John R. www.rroom.org Dedicated to the true Mack... Weng Weng
Last Saturday, my girlfriend received a frantic call from our friend who had given us the CMJ passes. She couldn't find any photographers to photograph a movie screening at Tribeca Cinemas, of the new Joe Strummer documentary by Julien Temple and supposedly a few celebrities where scheduled to show up for the event. (I'll review the movie at a latter date.) She asked if I would be able to do it. Now event photography isn't really my thing mostly because I'm not much of a people person and I've never done it before. I'd much rather go out to an open field and photograph a blade of grass blowing, in the wind. She did get us the free passes and you should always help out a friend in a jam, whenever possible so I happily agreed to do it. So she sent a car to pick us up since we wouldn't of been able to arrive there in time if we took mass transit.
Well when I get there, I'm told that Steve Buscemi and The Beastie Boys are scheduled to show up to the movie. This is going to be interesting, I thought not only would I be photographing The Beastie Boys but also Mr. Pink. So it's getting closer and closer to the start of the movie and no one has showed up yet. Finally, just as the movie is starting I'm told that it doesn't look like either one of them will be making an appearance and I should just go in and watch the movie. Fifteen minutes into the movie, I see a silhouette of a skinny guy with an afro walk into the theatre and I instantly recognized him as MIke D.
After the movie, Mike D is cajoled into standing in front of a CMJ backdrop and having his pic taken, by me of course. When I looked thru my viewfinder I couldn't believe what I saw! Mike D looked like an old man, he looked way older than his 42 years of age. Now granted this wasn't a professional photo shoot, there's no retouching done to smooth out the lines and the flash I used was a bit harsh but still. Gone was the image of the beer swilling, trucker hat wearing young punk hip hopper that I first saw when I was 14 years old during the Licensed to Ill tour. I know that they've matured and have grown out of that phase along time ago but for alot of people that is the image of The Beastie Boys that they hold in their minds. Yet for me, the moment I looked thru that view finder it was washed away for ever. 
Now I had wanted to somehow tie in some Neil Young lyrics "It's better to burn out than fade away" and The Who lyrics "I hope I die before I get old", but I just wasn't sure where I wanted to go with that. It's just at some point should musicians and actors just fade away from the public spotlight when they reach a certain age and appearance so as not to destroy the fans image of them. Take for example Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Kurt Cobain(who unfortunately took Young's lyrics to heart) . As tragic as their too soon deaths were and the fact that they will never be able to create more art for us to enjoy and to enrich our lives, we will forever have these lasting iconic images of these artists when they were young and in their phyisical prime, burned into our psyche. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying that when artists reach a certain age that they should stop what they're doing. There alot of older established musicians still making great music, but maybe they should do it in seclusion so as to not destroy the public's iconic image of them. Am I just being selfish and shallow in thinking this way? Maybe I should stop here so as not to have my argument misconstrued and dig my grave any further. I guess what it comes down to is that I prefer young Elvis to old fat bloated Elvis. I'd love to hear your views on this topic.
Related Posts: CMJ Music Marathon, Brad @ Highline Ballroom
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Ok so for my regular readers I just want to let you know that for the next week or maybe even month or so, this blog will be under construction. For some time now I've been wanting to change up the design, color and look of this blog but I've never gotten around to it because I've been wasting time with other things like work and school. Yesterday, I received a complaint about my use of white text on a black background. This hasn't been the first time that said person has complained about it(you know who you are). You see, white text on a black background is a bit of a design no no and can cause eye strain for some people. It never really bothered me that much and I kind of liked how it looked, but than again I'm not a graphic designer so what do I know. So, since the people(or should I say person) have spoken and it has been in the back of my mind to make some changes, there is no time like the present or maybe tomorrow to do so. While in this transitional phase I highly encourage your opinions and suggestions about what you don't like and what you do like. And, yes before anyone says you want more porn, I would agree but this is a family fun blog and just think of all the children that come here.
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As I mentioned in my previous post, I had gotten free passes to the CMJ music marathon here in NYC. The first night of the music marathon I had found out that the band Brad was playing over at the Highline Ballroom, a small little music venue located in NYC's meatpacking district.
Having first heard of Brad way back in 1993, when they released their debut album Shame, which ended up being one of my favorite albums of that year, with its soulful funk grooved rock jams. I had always thought that that was their only offering and that the band kind of just disbanded, but unbeknownst to me they have steadily been putting out albums since then. They're currently working on a fifth album due out soon. So when I saw that they were playing I was pretty excited to go check them out.
Now for those of you who don't know one of the members of Brad is Stone Gossard who some of you might realize is a guitarist for that little known band Pearl Jam. Now although that would be one reason to go check them out the real reason to listen to Brad and to see them live is for their singer Shawn Smith. I had never seen pictures of the other members of Brad so I was surprised to finally see where this extremely soulful voice come from. Shawn Smith looks like a combination of Meat loaf, Ronnie Van Zant(singer from Lynyrd Skynyrd) and one of the actors from the defunct HBO series DeadWood. Looking at this guy you would never expect a voice like that to come out of him, yet it does. Even though Stone Gossard, contributes to the signature sound of the band the real star of this band is Shawn Smith, not only can this guy sing he also has a commanding stage presence.
The one criticism about the show is that they had this special guest guitarist playing with them. This guy looked like your middle aged uncle who still thinks he's in his twenties. He had 1980's style long hair that was pulled back into a pony tail which was just barely covering the bald spot on the top of his head. He also wore sports styled sunglasses throughout the entire performance(maybe he just had a cataracts operation I don't know). I could of lived with those two strikes against him but the camel that broke the straws back would be his constant guitar solos that really just didn't fit in with the rest of the music. He would start his solo and stroll up to the front of the stage and place one foot onto a monitor and get into that cliched 80's style rockstar guitar pose that says hey look at me aren't I so cool! I just didn't get his whole schtick, maybe he was crying out for attention, or just trying to relive his former glory days. He was just so distracting from the rest of the band . What would of been an outstanding stellar show was just a pretty good show, all because of him.
So the next day I did some Googling to find out who this guy was. Well, it turns out his name was Kevin Wood. He was a member, along with his brother Andy Wood of the band Malfunkshun, who some considered the "godfathers" of grunge, along with The Melvins(my favorite) and Neil Young. So, finally the connection was made as to why he was there. You see his brother Andy after Mulfunkshun broke up, formed a band called Mother Love Bone which featured Stone Gossard. Just days before the release of their first album Andy Wood died of a drug overdose. The significance of this is that if that didn't happen Pearl Jam may have never existed since Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament would than go on to form the basis of that band.
So enough with this grunge music history lesson since this post is getting way to long. I will leave you with this, if you have a chance to see Brad live, do so and hopefully they won't a guest guitarist, who is an aging rock star trying to relive his past on stage with them.
Brad @ Myspace
Brad official website
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Last week was the CMJ music marathon here in NYC. My girlfriend and I were lucky enough to score some free passes to it, since one of our friends is the marketing director for the event. The CMJ music marathon was 5 days of, yep you guessed it music. It's similar to the South by Southwest music event in Austin, Texas and the North by Northeast event in Toronto. Essentially the vast majority of music acts that are featured in the festival are unsigned bands trying to get signed to a record label or it's a band that's already signed but is just trying to get more recognition. Peppered throughout these unknown or barely known bands are a few bigger named bands that also play during the event.
Now if going to see live music isn't really your thing, which if that's the case I'm sorry to hear that since it's one of the few things that keeps me young at heart. There are other things to do and experience during the week long event. The most notable of these is movie premieres/screenings with a Q & A session afterwards with the director.
So, hopefully in the next week or so I'll find the time to post some of my reviews and recounts of some of the things I heard, the things I saw and the things I did. So please stay tuned.
One more thing, if your wondering what CMJ stands for, your not alone. I was in the dark about it too, so I came up with some of my own ideas that ranged from the very catchy Christian Music Jamboree to the plainly obvious College Music Jam. Finally I had to ask my friend who had gotten me the passes what CMJ exactly stands for. As it turns out it stands for College Music Journal. Well if you ask me that just doesn't have the same ring as Christian Music Jamboree but what do I know I'm not a marketing director.
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There's a new The Ordinary Adventures of Tomas out now. Go check it out, it's not like you have anything better to do.
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The other day, when I was walking to work I noticed that they were filming the new Sex in the City movie on my work block. Well it wasn't too hard to notice because they had the whole road closed off on the south side of Bryant Park. There were also throngs of people jamming up the sidewalk because everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of Sarah Jessica Parker or SJP for short. Below you will see a very blurry photo of her. It was taken moments before a rather large movie security officer blotted out the sun and told me to leave the premises immediately. I also "accidentally " positioned myself in the backround for a few of the scenes so hopefully I'll make the cut and not be on the editing room floor.
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It's political season here in the good ole US of A and with the primaries up and running there's bound to be a bunch of good stuff that I can not only waste my time with but waste your time with too. The following clip is of Massachusetts Republican Mitt Romney being asked a question regarding Medical Marijuana from a guy in a wheelchair suffering from MS. He asks Mitt if he would have him and his doctors arrested for using medical marijuana. Essentially Mitt sidesteps the question with some vague political speak and turns his back on the guy to greet other people with his fake plastic smile. What a douche bag. You know I would almost have more respect(if that's possible) for Mitt and other politicians if they were just more up front with their views. If they said what they really felt instead of using political speak and general round about answers to questions. Yet in this day and time in our country you can't do that and still get elected.
Radiohead is releasing their new album, In Rainbows today(Oct. 10th). This is their first studio album in 4 years, since Hail to the Thief. You might be saying big deal so Radiohead has released a new album. Well you see the big deal is that Radiohead no longer has a record contract with EMI, that ended with Hail to the Thief, fulfilling their contractual obligation of 6 albums. So with no record deal they decided to offer their newest album straight to their fans with out having to deal with a middle man(i.e record stores) as a digital download.
Ok, Ok you may still be saying big f'ing deal, well Radiohead is allowing you the fan to determine how much you want to pay for the new album yourself. Yeah you read that right, YOU set the price! So if you want to pay a penny for it you can! Although you'd be a bit of a cheapskate if you did that. You could also conceivably not pay anything for it and set your price as nothing and I'm sure alot of people will be doing that, hell it even crossed my mind. Yet I determined that Radiohead is a good enough band(understatement of the year) for me to shell out some of my hard earned cash. So I went to their site typed in a price I deemed appropriate, payed it and 3 minutes after downloading the DRM free album, I'm listening to it. It couldn't of been any easier.
Could this be the way of the future for bands to sell their music, just totally bypassing record companies all together? Or is this really something thats only feasibly for more established bands who already have a built in fan base? I guess only time will tell.
Official Radiohead site: Dead AIr space
If you haven't already clicked the In Rainbows link above than click here to purchase it.
For more Radiohead goodness check out this blog
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So in a post I did last week, I talked about how one of my professors said that a condom can be used to waterproof a microphone, when are recording around water. To my surprise non-lubricated can be used to waterproof a variety of things. Nayy seals use them to waterproof firing assemblies. Here's a guy who shows you how to water proof your digital camera. The same technique can be used for other electronic devices. Here are 20 more uses for condoms other than sex and for waterproofing electronic devices.
Related Posts: The Sound of Pee
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If your in the mood for a popcorn movie, with some scares, alot of great action, some good special effects and a whole lot of ass kicking done by Milla Jovovich then go see this movie. If not then don't go, hows that for a movie review. This movie is what it is and it doesn't try to masquerade as something it's not. I was going to talk about the plot and premise of this movie but it doesn't really matter and is really just secondary, the plot is just a means to fuel all the action/fight sequences.
This is the third installment of the Resident Evil movie franchise and I fully expect at least another one in the future due to the very very open ended ending that was in the movie and plus the fact that these movies make a butt load of money. I won't give away any spoilers but your left hanging on a couple plot points and they basically set up the next movie with the end of this one. In fact they just should of put to be continued at the end of the movie.
So to make a short review even short if you want to see Milla Jovovich kick some zombie ass then go see this movie. Ali Larter of Heroes fame also stars in this movie and gets in on the ass kicking too.
Resident Evil: Extinction @ imdb
Resident Evil: Extinction official site
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So I don't normally blog about my personal experiences here or anywhere for that matter but this is just too funny and weird not to blog about. I'm currently in graduate school studying visual effects for film/animation and one of the classes I'm taking is digital audio for film. In the class, we're learning how to create foleys and sound effects and then editing them into a movie. This past monday, our teacher showed us a short 2 minute movie that had absolutely no sound to it, we would be creating and adding all the sound to it. This is were the story/class gets interesting or maybe I should say a bit weird.
The movie consisted of our teacher walking into a men's room, going up to a urinal, peeing, washing and drying his hands and than walking out. Now granted we thankfully didn't actually see him do any actually peeing, this men's room has the great dividers in-between the urinals. Yet we could still make out the moment he unzips his pants, whips it out, pees, does a little sigh, shakes it off and puts it back in and zips up.
We can't actually record someone peeing into a urinal because as the teacher said that would probably get him fired. So we than proceeded to have an in-depth 20 minute discussion about all the sounds we need to recreate from the moment the zipper zips down until it zip backs up and and how to recreate them. We then proceeded to the nearest men's room to start recording. We only go so far as to record the sound of the men's room door opening. Next week will be the big week were we will be spending essentially the whole class in a men's room recording sounds for this oscar worthy short film.
Since we will be using microphones around water, our teacher asked us if we had any ideas how to keep our microphones waterproof. He seemed kind of annoyed that no one knew the answer to this because he thought it was so obvious. He than went into his backpack, pulled out a condom(unlubricated) and held it up high over his head.
So not only will we be spending class time in a men's room but we will be using condom wrapped microphones to do our recording. Yep higher education at it's finest.
Writing out this blog post got me thinking about the old philosophical question, if a tree falls in the woods and no ones there to hear it dose it make a sound? I guess this could be applied here also. If a man pees in a urinal and no ones there to hear it does it make a sound?
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