Over two months since I've written?? Goodness. I had no idea it'd been that long. Wow. Well, a lot's happened, but nothing too earth-shattering. Maybe one or two things.
Band shows. Yes, they've been occurring. More Swishbucklers than anything else, really, but still.... SXSW was pretty decent this year. Four shows, four days. Not bad. Let's see if I can get through all this in an almost linear fashion.
In the month of February, the Pocket FishRmen had shows two Fridays in a row. February 8th we played the Nomad, always a favorite venue, and what I remember of the show is good. Cannot remember who we played with, though. Probably All Monsters Attack. I only remember two drummers being at the show, though. Hmm.....oh, yes! Sexy Finger Champs. There we go. Yes, very fun show. We'd drawn the last slot, but enough folks stayed around to make it an overall good time. (Funny how quickly I'm forgetting these shows and line-ups. I don't know if that's a good sign or not.) February 15th, we played at the Limelight (formerly Wacky's, I remembered!) in San Antonio. That show turned out much better than I feared. It was Patrick's birthday show, so the line-up was Harvey McLaughlin, us, and the Sandworms, another band of Patrick's that plays infrequently, as in almost never. The audience built steadily through the night, and all was great. We even got all individually asked by this young woman there if we would play her swingers' party sometime in the summer. We'll see if that comes to fruition, but I think we all agreed to it if it involves enough money.
Now, one thing that I didn't mention yet. When I was driving to the February 8th show, I noticed the temperature gauge in my HHR didn't move from the stone cold position, which indicated that most likely the thermostat was stuck open. I made it home fine, but after discussing the situation with a few folks, Matt Silaski insisted on coming over to help me change the thermostat. I readily agreed. He's a great dude, and it's a job I didn't feel like tackling all by myself. So, he did. The thermostat was truly trashed, and together, we had it changed out within a couple of hours. Without losing much coolant, even. All was good, all the way through the trek to San Antonio on the 15th.
On Friday, the 22nd, Michelle and I did our frequent grabbing of Chinese food before she went to work, but I took a side trip to get some gas at a station near the house. Right as I was pulling into the station, a bunch of warning lights came on the dashboard, and the ol' HHR started running as if it were missing a cylinder. Despite going ahead and putting some gas in the car, I thought this might be it. I'd been waiting for the signal to go on to a new vehicle for awhile (largely with the "I'll help you" urging from my mother), and this was the final straw. I limped the car home and immediately began the search for a new one. I had Michelle take me to get a rental the next morning, as I searched.
The rental car was a 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport, and I liked it quite a bit. The 2019 Santa Fe (no Sport) was a model I was looking at already, and this was the early favorite. I also looked at the Honda CR-V, Ford Flex, and the Toyota Rav4. Either the size just wasn't right, or there were other issues. The Santa Fe was the one. Plus, I just liked the dealership. They didn't pressure me at all, and kept lowering the offer without me even griping about anything. The whole experience was as painless as it could be. I bought the one I test drove. Had it by that following Tuesday. Which was good, because, due to an impending band Mardi Gras trip, Michelle and I had to bump our anniversary dinner to Wednesday night (our actual anniversary was that Friday). I had a new car to take us in! First new car I've ever owned. Hope it lasts a long, long time. I plan on babying it as much as I can.
But, of course, fetishing my new car was short-lived, as I had to take off on this aforementioned band trip. The Hickoids/Swishbucklers were going to play Louisiana around Mardi Gras. I say "around," because we actually left after playing Lundi Gras night, but hey, close enough. Cody wasn't with us for the first couple of nights of this trip, so it was Swishbucklers and Hickoids (with Tommy Rowsey on guitar) on the first night in Lafayette (Friday, with We Are The Asteroid), and Swishbucklers the second night in New Orleans (at the Saturn Bar). The Lafayette show was tons o' fun, although I don't think the Hickoids were at our best. We hadn't had much time to prep with Tommy on guitar. I still had a blast at the show. Saturday night turned out pretty well, although Dave Catching's band played before us, and the crowd had dwindled before we hit the stage....or floor. At least, we got to park on St. Claude, right out front.
Being Mardi Gras and all, we were staying Biloxi, about an hour plus away. We had already checked into our hotels there before driving back for the show. And, then it was back to Biloxi, to bunk for the few hours before the next day.
Sunday morning, I felt like garbage. Not sure what was up, probably just lack of sleep, but I felt awful. We were expected at a party in New Orleans that all the folks we were involved with were going to be at. Some sort of chefs' party. Good food, in other words. And boy, did the food perk me up. I felt better almost immediately after eating. Sometimes, the fix is very simple. And it was a good thing I felt better, as both bands had a show in Hattiesburg that night. After we picked up Cody from the airport. Yes, he flew in for the last couple of shows. We played at a pretty nice bar there with a band called Space Trash. I fell in love with this band almost immediately. Not the most polished, not the most dynamic, but I think they'll get there. The ideas were certainly there, pretty original, and they were great folks. I wish them well.
We got back to our hotel at a decent time, and I finally got some decent sleep. Which helped for the next day, most definitely. One downside, though. I got bitten several times by bed bugs during the night. Yes, you read that right. My first time for this (I think). Tom was staying on the couch in the room, and he was bitten as well. Patrick was in the same bed as me this night (he'd been at the casino the first night, pre-Cody), but he didn't get bitten at all. Something was up. I had checked the bed for bugs, as I usually do, but can't vouch for how thoroughly I checked. There will be more on this development as this post progresses.
Monday, it was back to New Orleans. We had some time to ourselves before the show, and I spent some time in the Quarter (trying to dodge parades!), before heading to our show, which was at a bar called Gasa Gasa, uptown. I ended up walking all the way there. Wasn't a problem, although after making the trek, I wonder if there weren't a couple of areas locals would have said "you didn't walk through there, did you?!"" I ate at a burger joint near the bar and showed up a little ahead of schedule. And Gasa Gasa was a great time. The Hickoids shared the stage with Dave Catching's band and the Gools, the same two bands the 'bucklers played Saturn Bar with. We had to get a drum set together, as the house kit the bar supposedly had was pieces at best. Well, the drums were fine, but the hardware was pretty much non-existent. Anyway, great show. Great friends there (special appearance by Jacky Morgan!). And we got in the van and drove home. Yes, all the way. I picked up the mid-Louisiana shift for the second straight time.
Let's see, what's next? Well, I got home, and Tom was convinced we'd been bitten by bed bugs in Biloxi. At that time, I still thought it was a couple of very large mosquitoes. Once I looked at the bites online, I realized he was right. So, I quickly washed all my clothes, and after seeing some sort of small bug under my backpack, washed and dryed that as well. I told Michelle what had happened, but since nothing of mine other than my backpack had been near the bed, was hoping for the best. I still thought we might have brought in some strays from somewhere else, as Tom and I had walked around the area quite a bit Sunday morning. I suppose we'll never know. But I did tell Michelle to be vigilant, although I thought we were in the clear.
The following Friday, the Swishbucklers had a show at the Brick at Blue Star in San Antonio. While I like the place itself okay, it's not the best place to have bands play. It's one of these multi-use things, with several businesses and yet not much room for parking. After unloading (which you can't even do near the door), I had to park about four-tenths of a mile away. Sucky. Don't know if I'll agree to shows there anymore. Or so I write. Ha! Anyway, the show itself was fine, although the makeshift stage they had was somewhat rickety and a bit small. Still, we had a good crowd. Sex Pump played after us, and I thought they were great, but the crowd had started to dissipate by then. The opening band....I forgot the name....we played with them at Paper Tiger before....was especially great, playing punk covers from the "glory days." Great deep set list.
The following week was SXSW....and I think I'll stop this post here. There will be more to come on the subject of bed bugs (did they, or did they not have them?), and of course, rock and roll. And other things. I've missed writing. More to come.
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Sunday, February 3, 2019
A Week and a Return to the Grind
Hello, fair reader. I haven't turned this laptop on in a week, so I know it's been a week since I've written. So, what's up?
Last week was "back to work" for us gubbimint employees. Monday went much smoother than I thought it would. I figured after five weeks off our computer systems would be F.U.B.B. (thank you, Wishbone Ash), but to my surprise, no. I signed on with the usual effort and all seemed good. There was a small problem with updating my GERS password, but I'll deal with that later. (I know that last sentence might as well have been "I snortered my lubiar, next to the myutra" to the non-government employee.) So, work was resumed. Not a whole lot of work, mind you, as our projects schedule is pretty much fried now. And that was fine, as I managed to get sick during the latter part of the week, and having something meaningful to do during the day might have been a bridge too far. I'm still feeling a bit ill but have been better the last couple of days.
Tuesday night, the Hickoids had our first rehearsal in a while. We started going over ideas for recording at Dale Watson's studio in Memphis, which will happen in May. Danny Grace will guest, and it should be a blast. Of course, Tuesday night is when I began to feel ill, so by the end of practice, I was just wanting to get out of there. Still, we accomplished.....something, I think.
By Thursday, I felt terrible. I guess a low-grade cold had finally taken hold. Michelle had the same thing a couple of weeks prior; it just took its sweet time getting to me. Thursday night, Pocket FishRmen rehearsed, but up until three hours or so before rehearsal time, I didn't think I was going to make it. But I did. The way the rehearsal room is set up now, I only have to replace the snare drum and kick pedal, and I'm ready to play. Very easy. If I would have had extensive setup to do, I would have cancelled. And I'm glad we rehearsed; it went really well. I went back to the hammered double kick during the "We Kill Evil" chorus for the first time in years. The band (and I) preferred more of a tribal approach during the choruses, but after years of trial and error, I never came up with a way of playing that which felt right. I just went back to the double kick metal part. Sounded fine to me. It's manly, too. And after practice, I felt somewhat better. The cold has lingered since then, and I'm still not fully well....but close.
Wednesday, I received the Severin bundle which was technically my birthday present but had been held up by a manufacturing delay. I'm still going through all of that, but damn, is it nice! The bundle included Blu rays of "All the Colors of the Dark" (a Sergio Martino classic), "All the Colors of Giallo" (a feature-length documentary on...guess what?), a quartet of cheap American Mondo movies, and "Skinner," a 1993 horror movie that...well, it's interesting. There were also two enamel pins, one of Sergio Martino, and one of Edwige Fenech. The quality of these surprised me....they're heavy suckers! There was also a t-shirt of "All the Colors of the Dark" characters, created by my buddy Craig Merritt's company, Pallbearer Press. And.....black gloves, so you can dress as a giallo character yourself. I would have left off the "All the Colors of the Dark" logo, but hey, they fit my gnarled old drummer hands!
The "All the Colors of the Dark" release includes two cuts of the movie, a DVD version, and the soundtrack on a separate CD. There is a commentary by Diabolique Magazine's/Daughter of Darkness Kat Ellinger, and several other interview features (none with Edwige Fenech, though.....boo).
The "All the Colors of Giallo" release includes four hours of giallo trailers with optional commentary by the aforementioned Ms. Ellinger. I'm about 60% through those now, and man, is that some entertainment! I won't spoil it here, but Ms. Ellinger makes an observation about Lucio Fulci during a "Don't Torture a Duckling" trailer that would have caused a full spit take from me if I would have had liquid in my mouth upon hearing it. Hilarious! There is also a DVD containing a number of Krimi (German crime films, which largely pre-date and inspired the giallo genre) trailers; I haven't watched any of those yet. There is also a third disc, which is a CD sampler of soundtrack music.
The American Mondo collection contains these four films: "Mondo Bizarro," "Mondo Freudo," "Ecco," and "The Forbidden." I've watched "Mondo Bizarro" and about 40% of "Mondo Freudo." Both of those contain optional commentary from Johnny Legend and now-deceased memorabilia collector Eric Caidin, which must have been recorded at least ten years ago. I watched about half of "Mondo Bizarro" with the commentary on, and I'd suggest doing that. Johnny, as a scenester in Hollywood during the 60s knows a lot of the locations and a lot about the people involved in the making of these movies. For the uninitiated, these films were inspired by the Italian Mondo craze of the 60s ("Mondo Cane," etc.), but whereas those movies largely had "real" footage (I suppose that might be up for debate a bit), these American Mondo movies were largely the opposite. "Mondo Bizarro" closes with what is supposed to be white slave trade going on in Saudi Arabia.....with the hills of Los Angeles clearly visible behind the setting. It's rather hilarious, especially with Legend's commentary. When the legendary Vito of the Hollywood scene appears, I remembered I'd seen shots from this in a Zappa/Mothers documentary. Legend is certain that some Mothers are in the movie in other places. There is also a nice video interview featurette on the disc that documents the.....documentaries. I still haven't popped in the "Ecco"/"The Forbidden" disc yet.
"Skinner" was a trip. A film directed by Heidi Fleiss' boyfriend when that scandal broke, starring Ted Raimi, Ricki Lake, and Traci Lords. What else do you want to know? In many ways, it's very reminiscent of "The Silence of the Lambs," but at the same time, I think it's its own movie. I was surprised at how well made it was, especially since it seems very low budget. But it's effective. I'll watch it again, I feel certain. Creepy. The KNB guys worked on the special effects, but one of the special features explains that they weren't there on set; they just sent the stuff over to be used. Nice practical effects, though.
Another thing occupying time is that I'm continuing to transfer old cassettes to mp3 format. I finished the Lather transfers and have begun the Puffy Brutha Man transfers. So far, I haven't found the "Pump First Then Pay" cassette amongst many others I have, but I still have the original master tape of the recording. I need to get that transferred, and now I have more motivation. So far, the sound quality of the tapes hasn't been as bad as I had feared. The tapes (so far) have been in pretty good shape. Whew. I thought most of them might turn to powder when I started the transfer process. So far, okay. It's a slow process, though, being real-time conversion. And I have to pretty much babysit the transfer. It'll be a while before I'm done with this.
And that's the report......two more weeks of work. Maybe more.....who knows?? End, cold, end!
Last week was "back to work" for us gubbimint employees. Monday went much smoother than I thought it would. I figured after five weeks off our computer systems would be F.U.B.B. (thank you, Wishbone Ash), but to my surprise, no. I signed on with the usual effort and all seemed good. There was a small problem with updating my GERS password, but I'll deal with that later. (I know that last sentence might as well have been "I snortered my lubiar, next to the myutra" to the non-government employee.) So, work was resumed. Not a whole lot of work, mind you, as our projects schedule is pretty much fried now. And that was fine, as I managed to get sick during the latter part of the week, and having something meaningful to do during the day might have been a bridge too far. I'm still feeling a bit ill but have been better the last couple of days.
Tuesday night, the Hickoids had our first rehearsal in a while. We started going over ideas for recording at Dale Watson's studio in Memphis, which will happen in May. Danny Grace will guest, and it should be a blast. Of course, Tuesday night is when I began to feel ill, so by the end of practice, I was just wanting to get out of there. Still, we accomplished.....something, I think.
By Thursday, I felt terrible. I guess a low-grade cold had finally taken hold. Michelle had the same thing a couple of weeks prior; it just took its sweet time getting to me. Thursday night, Pocket FishRmen rehearsed, but up until three hours or so before rehearsal time, I didn't think I was going to make it. But I did. The way the rehearsal room is set up now, I only have to replace the snare drum and kick pedal, and I'm ready to play. Very easy. If I would have had extensive setup to do, I would have cancelled. And I'm glad we rehearsed; it went really well. I went back to the hammered double kick during the "We Kill Evil" chorus for the first time in years. The band (and I) preferred more of a tribal approach during the choruses, but after years of trial and error, I never came up with a way of playing that which felt right. I just went back to the double kick metal part. Sounded fine to me. It's manly, too. And after practice, I felt somewhat better. The cold has lingered since then, and I'm still not fully well....but close.
Wednesday, I received the Severin bundle which was technically my birthday present but had been held up by a manufacturing delay. I'm still going through all of that, but damn, is it nice! The bundle included Blu rays of "All the Colors of the Dark" (a Sergio Martino classic), "All the Colors of Giallo" (a feature-length documentary on...guess what?), a quartet of cheap American Mondo movies, and "Skinner," a 1993 horror movie that...well, it's interesting. There were also two enamel pins, one of Sergio Martino, and one of Edwige Fenech. The quality of these surprised me....they're heavy suckers! There was also a t-shirt of "All the Colors of the Dark" characters, created by my buddy Craig Merritt's company, Pallbearer Press. And.....black gloves, so you can dress as a giallo character yourself. I would have left off the "All the Colors of the Dark" logo, but hey, they fit my gnarled old drummer hands!
The "All the Colors of the Dark" release includes two cuts of the movie, a DVD version, and the soundtrack on a separate CD. There is a commentary by Diabolique Magazine's/Daughter of Darkness Kat Ellinger, and several other interview features (none with Edwige Fenech, though.....boo).
The "All the Colors of Giallo" release includes four hours of giallo trailers with optional commentary by the aforementioned Ms. Ellinger. I'm about 60% through those now, and man, is that some entertainment! I won't spoil it here, but Ms. Ellinger makes an observation about Lucio Fulci during a "Don't Torture a Duckling" trailer that would have caused a full spit take from me if I would have had liquid in my mouth upon hearing it. Hilarious! There is also a DVD containing a number of Krimi (German crime films, which largely pre-date and inspired the giallo genre) trailers; I haven't watched any of those yet. There is also a third disc, which is a CD sampler of soundtrack music.
The American Mondo collection contains these four films: "Mondo Bizarro," "Mondo Freudo," "Ecco," and "The Forbidden." I've watched "Mondo Bizarro" and about 40% of "Mondo Freudo." Both of those contain optional commentary from Johnny Legend and now-deceased memorabilia collector Eric Caidin, which must have been recorded at least ten years ago. I watched about half of "Mondo Bizarro" with the commentary on, and I'd suggest doing that. Johnny, as a scenester in Hollywood during the 60s knows a lot of the locations and a lot about the people involved in the making of these movies. For the uninitiated, these films were inspired by the Italian Mondo craze of the 60s ("Mondo Cane," etc.), but whereas those movies largely had "real" footage (I suppose that might be up for debate a bit), these American Mondo movies were largely the opposite. "Mondo Bizarro" closes with what is supposed to be white slave trade going on in Saudi Arabia.....with the hills of Los Angeles clearly visible behind the setting. It's rather hilarious, especially with Legend's commentary. When the legendary Vito of the Hollywood scene appears, I remembered I'd seen shots from this in a Zappa/Mothers documentary. Legend is certain that some Mothers are in the movie in other places. There is also a nice video interview featurette on the disc that documents the.....documentaries. I still haven't popped in the "Ecco"/"The Forbidden" disc yet.
"Skinner" was a trip. A film directed by Heidi Fleiss' boyfriend when that scandal broke, starring Ted Raimi, Ricki Lake, and Traci Lords. What else do you want to know? In many ways, it's very reminiscent of "The Silence of the Lambs," but at the same time, I think it's its own movie. I was surprised at how well made it was, especially since it seems very low budget. But it's effective. I'll watch it again, I feel certain. Creepy. The KNB guys worked on the special effects, but one of the special features explains that they weren't there on set; they just sent the stuff over to be used. Nice practical effects, though.
Another thing occupying time is that I'm continuing to transfer old cassettes to mp3 format. I finished the Lather transfers and have begun the Puffy Brutha Man transfers. So far, I haven't found the "Pump First Then Pay" cassette amongst many others I have, but I still have the original master tape of the recording. I need to get that transferred, and now I have more motivation. So far, the sound quality of the tapes hasn't been as bad as I had feared. The tapes (so far) have been in pretty good shape. Whew. I thought most of them might turn to powder when I started the transfer process. So far, okay. It's a slow process, though, being real-time conversion. And I have to pretty much babysit the transfer. It'll be a while before I'm done with this.
And that's the report......two more weeks of work. Maybe more.....who knows?? End, cold, end!
Sunday, January 27, 2019
Holding Pattern? / "The Psychic" / Duolingo
So, here I am at the weekly writing group meeting without an idea of what to write about. Not the first time, but this might be the first time I've begun writing with the words "without an idea of what..." included in the initial missive. Has it come to that? It can't have. Let me dig.
On the watching front, we watched the Lucio Fulci film "The Psychic" last night. Ronin Flix/Scorpion Releasing has put out a nice new Blu ray edition of that one, after the Severin released DVD had been out of print for quite a while. Glad I've finally learned to not shell out money for out of print boutique label releases. It seems that these labels are not only flourishing but seem to be increasing in number as well. Just wait a few months, and another label will pick up the rights and issue an even better edition! Anyhoo....
"The Psychic" was released in Italy as "Sette Note in Nero," or "Seven Notes in Black" (thank you, Duolingo!), although for some reason the screen title is "Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes." The movie is a thriller with some horror elements in it, although for folks who are accustomed to certain Fulci movies' gooiness, it might seem disappointing. Michelle and I liked it quite a bit. Michelle loves the stylish set piece films, and this one was loaded with that. There was clearly a budget in play here. The synopsis is: the main character, played by Jennifer O'Neill (Hermie's objet de desir in "Summer of '42"), is clairvoyant and begins having visions of what she thinks is a past murder at her new husband's country manor. I thought the movie was perfectly paced and had (rare for these Italian movies) a decent English dub job. For most of these Italian genre movies, I watch with the English dub on, as you see most of the actors, regardless of nationality, speaking in English anyway. I like the mouth movements to match, even if some dubs are fairly atrocious. Not the case with this one. Four stars! Here's the only thing I can find on YouTube directly connected to the movie (it ain't a trailer):
I mentioned Duolingo earlier. That's something I discovered last year and have been consistently using since August. It's an app designed to teach other languages, and I've bought into it completely. And by that, I mean I bought the Plus version, so I have all features enabled. I began with Italian, trying to learn some Italian before our Italian trip in October. And I needed something to while aways some time during the Hickoids' August tour, and Duolingo certainly fit that bill. Unfortunately, I don't think I used it as I should have before going to Italy; I still didn't have many basic skills in Italian by the time we went on the trip....things like counting and basic phrases used in travel. If I were to start in Duolingo today, I would have done it a little differently; there aren't any real helpful instructions with the app itself, although I believe there is a helpful Wikia page.
But now, Duolingo has reached epic proportions in my life. I've decided to brush up on Spanish and French with it, and have added Czech, German, and Japanese to the languages I'm attempting to learn. I've gotten all crazy go nuts with it. Plus, as one of the Duolingo advertising phrases reads, "15 minutes on Duolingo will have you learning another language. What can 15 minutes on social media do for you?" I like that thought.
There are apparently other language-learning apps out there. I can't compare them, as this is the only one I've used. Plus, I bought the dee-luxe version, so I'll be staying with this. At least, for the next eight months or so. You have a few different learning methods in Duolingo, all included in the lessons. You have straight translation from the foreign language to English, there is English to the foreign language, there are speaking exercises (although this one is a bit wobbly; I know for a fact I've butchered some pronunciations and still pass muster), and there are exercises where you transcribe spoken words. The listening and speaking exercises can be temporarily turned off if you aren't in a place where you can use those options - that's a nice feature. There are also pre-tests you can use to place out of some basic lessons; I used that for Spanish and French. I got a bandmate using it for Spanish, and he's stayed with it, too. We'll see how I do with Czech and Japanese, which are both fairly daunting. Czech has nothing even remotely close to English or a Latin root to work from, so that's a crazy one. I feel like I'm picking some of it up, but it's a crawl at best. Japanese I just started last week, and that one begins with Hiragana....yes, symbols. Oh, boy. Well, we'll see.
And tomorrow, it's back to the day job. It will be interestng, to say the least, to see how that goes. First of all, I wonder if I'll even be able to log on to our system. After five weeks, who knows what will have taken place. I'm going into the office, and my shift starts after all my work compadres, so they will have tried before I do. I'll know at 9:30 am tomorrow. I figure all projects will be scrapped and started again; maybe not the material already built, but the demands will have changed. Hoo boy. Thanks, gubbimint. And then we might have to go through all this again in three weeks. I love being a football. Good thing I have drumming and other interests.
Oh, one more thing. I finally, after looking at them for six months or so, bought a cassette to mp3 converter and have begun converting my old cassette tapes to digital copies. Unfortunately, most of the transfers I've done so far have a fair amount of machine noise bleeding in. Some more than others. It seems that's going to come with the territory, although I did upgrade the transfer the cable to minimize the noise somewhat. So far, I've managed to transfer most of the Lather stuff I have with some success. (Lather was a three-piece band I was in from April of '92 to October of '93). I have unearthed a healthy stack of tapes to do this to and suspect I'll be doing a lot of this next week, when I'm working at home again. I can just run this stuff in the background while I figure out whatever the hell it is our crippled work organization is supposed to be doing now.
I have now run out of topics for this session. Stay pretty!
On the watching front, we watched the Lucio Fulci film "The Psychic" last night. Ronin Flix/Scorpion Releasing has put out a nice new Blu ray edition of that one, after the Severin released DVD had been out of print for quite a while. Glad I've finally learned to not shell out money for out of print boutique label releases. It seems that these labels are not only flourishing but seem to be increasing in number as well. Just wait a few months, and another label will pick up the rights and issue an even better edition! Anyhoo....
"The Psychic" was released in Italy as "Sette Note in Nero," or "Seven Notes in Black" (thank you, Duolingo!), although for some reason the screen title is "Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes." The movie is a thriller with some horror elements in it, although for folks who are accustomed to certain Fulci movies' gooiness, it might seem disappointing. Michelle and I liked it quite a bit. Michelle loves the stylish set piece films, and this one was loaded with that. There was clearly a budget in play here. The synopsis is: the main character, played by Jennifer O'Neill (Hermie's objet de desir in "Summer of '42"), is clairvoyant and begins having visions of what she thinks is a past murder at her new husband's country manor. I thought the movie was perfectly paced and had (rare for these Italian movies) a decent English dub job. For most of these Italian genre movies, I watch with the English dub on, as you see most of the actors, regardless of nationality, speaking in English anyway. I like the mouth movements to match, even if some dubs are fairly atrocious. Not the case with this one. Four stars! Here's the only thing I can find on YouTube directly connected to the movie (it ain't a trailer):
I mentioned Duolingo earlier. That's something I discovered last year and have been consistently using since August. It's an app designed to teach other languages, and I've bought into it completely. And by that, I mean I bought the Plus version, so I have all features enabled. I began with Italian, trying to learn some Italian before our Italian trip in October. And I needed something to while aways some time during the Hickoids' August tour, and Duolingo certainly fit that bill. Unfortunately, I don't think I used it as I should have before going to Italy; I still didn't have many basic skills in Italian by the time we went on the trip....things like counting and basic phrases used in travel. If I were to start in Duolingo today, I would have done it a little differently; there aren't any real helpful instructions with the app itself, although I believe there is a helpful Wikia page.
But now, Duolingo has reached epic proportions in my life. I've decided to brush up on Spanish and French with it, and have added Czech, German, and Japanese to the languages I'm attempting to learn. I've gotten all crazy go nuts with it. Plus, as one of the Duolingo advertising phrases reads, "15 minutes on Duolingo will have you learning another language. What can 15 minutes on social media do for you?" I like that thought.
There are apparently other language-learning apps out there. I can't compare them, as this is the only one I've used. Plus, I bought the dee-luxe version, so I'll be staying with this. At least, for the next eight months or so. You have a few different learning methods in Duolingo, all included in the lessons. You have straight translation from the foreign language to English, there is English to the foreign language, there are speaking exercises (although this one is a bit wobbly; I know for a fact I've butchered some pronunciations and still pass muster), and there are exercises where you transcribe spoken words. The listening and speaking exercises can be temporarily turned off if you aren't in a place where you can use those options - that's a nice feature. There are also pre-tests you can use to place out of some basic lessons; I used that for Spanish and French. I got a bandmate using it for Spanish, and he's stayed with it, too. We'll see how I do with Czech and Japanese, which are both fairly daunting. Czech has nothing even remotely close to English or a Latin root to work from, so that's a crazy one. I feel like I'm picking some of it up, but it's a crawl at best. Japanese I just started last week, and that one begins with Hiragana....yes, symbols. Oh, boy. Well, we'll see.
And tomorrow, it's back to the day job. It will be interestng, to say the least, to see how that goes. First of all, I wonder if I'll even be able to log on to our system. After five weeks, who knows what will have taken place. I'm going into the office, and my shift starts after all my work compadres, so they will have tried before I do. I'll know at 9:30 am tomorrow. I figure all projects will be scrapped and started again; maybe not the material already built, but the demands will have changed. Hoo boy. Thanks, gubbimint. And then we might have to go through all this again in three weeks. I love being a football. Good thing I have drumming and other interests.
Oh, one more thing. I finally, after looking at them for six months or so, bought a cassette to mp3 converter and have begun converting my old cassette tapes to digital copies. Unfortunately, most of the transfers I've done so far have a fair amount of machine noise bleeding in. Some more than others. It seems that's going to come with the territory, although I did upgrade the transfer the cable to minimize the noise somewhat. So far, I've managed to transfer most of the Lather stuff I have with some success. (Lather was a three-piece band I was in from April of '92 to October of '93). I have unearthed a healthy stack of tapes to do this to and suspect I'll be doing a lot of this next week, when I'm working at home again. I can just run this stuff in the background while I figure out whatever the hell it is our crippled work organization is supposed to be doing now.
I have now run out of topics for this session. Stay pretty!
Friday, January 25, 2019
Smorgasbord of Angst
Howdy. I'm 57. Been around since late 1961. Not the oldest person I know of, for sure, but old enough to have "seen a few things," as current Farmers Insurance advertising goes.
What a state of heightened confusion we live in now. A good bit of the world, certainly, but I'm going to focus on America for this writing. The government, or certainly some integral parts of it, is shut down and has been for 33 days or so. There doesn't appear to be any easy way out of this one, largely due to the current leader elected to be President. Even if he hadn't owned the shutdown on national television, I think you'd be hard pressed to find another person to directly blame for it. Over a wall. Literally.
I've found other writings stating a lot of these same things, but I boil the current state of affairs down to two main instigators, the commercialization of the news and the internet. Kurt Andersen, a writer I admire tremendously, likes to point to the 1960s and technological advances as these instigators, and I think he's largely correct, although I tend to think of the 1960s separately as a social phenomenon. Andersen looks to the 1960s as a time where people began to feel freed of "the way things were" in previous American time periods. And it's an interesting point; I just like to look at more immediate causes, perhaps.
When I was a kid, there was no cable, or at least, we didn't have it where I lived. We had three networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC. (When I lived in the Rio Grande Valley in the late 60s/early 70s, we only had two channels to choose from. One network's prime time programs were shown amidst some late night programming; "Mission: Impossible," my favorite, for instance.) Each network had its evening nightly news program, 30 minutes, and each local affiliate had its nightly news program, 30 minutes. That was it. Maybe a special report would cut into programming if something really devastating happened, somebody's assassination, for sure. Other than that, the news was done.
The evening network news carried the really heavy stuff, such as the death toll from Vietnam that day. That stuff's burned in my brain. As many have pointed out, that was the first televised war, and I arrived just in time to see it. Bloody soldiers lying on the ground, some wrapped in makeshift tourniquets or whatever was available, was a common visual accompaniment to my dinner. The local news generally contained a recap of important national news but was more fixated on what was happening locally, including weather, but also included sports news and human interest stories. Not a lot of bite in the local news, usually, and people probably preferred that.
But that was it. In late 1979, things changed. The Iran Hostage Crisis began. In an attempt to keep people informed, networks would broadcast after the late local news with any updates on the crisis. After a while, there wasn't much in the way of updates, but people were watching. So, ABC decided to create Nightline, a 30-minute rehash of what had happened in the crisis (if anything). Soon, this format expanded to take on other topics and brought in people to provide opinions. The next thing you know, we had CNN, debuting June 1, 1980, a 24-hours news channel. Now, from an advertising point of view, with a crisis going on, this made sense. Unfortunately, from a hardcore true news point of view, this was terrible. You don't have to have too high an IQ to realize there just is not 24 hours worth of news to report, not on any day. So, what do you fill the news up with? You fill it up with "news." And by that, I mean a continual repeating of the day's headlines, followed by panel after panel of qualified and unqualified people commenting on these headlines. What does it mean? What's next? How does this impact your Aunt Sally's tomato garden? And on and on. Gradually, we had more and more news networks, some more committed to actual news programming than others. Some networks had their opinion people drive the overall tenor of the network (I think you know the ones already). All of them kept real news reporting in there somewhere, but for most of them, it constitutes the minority of their airtime.
As a sidebar (or maybe not), one of my favorite movies of all time (in the top three, for sure) is "Network." Although the movie was made in 1976, it's completely relevant today and shows how damaging commercialization of news is. Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote the original screenplay, was one prescient person. It's chilling in a way.
And then you have the advent of the internet. Information without any sort of knowledge or integrity check flying anywhere and everywhere. I don't think I even have to elaborate on this too much, but it's easy to see the negative effects of this, even if the internet (and technology) have brought us some wonderful advances. One thing the internet has done is made everyone a star, even if only in their own little world. I mean, look at what I'm doing here; writing in a blog I don't even publicize (yet), writing just because I can. And like to.
And so, if everyone's a star, egos rise. And then, everyone starts to think that his opinion is vital, important, and perhaps original. But mostly, that that opinion is the correct one. Humility has gone by the wayside. I'm right, you're wrong. Read the comments section after any online news article for a full examination of that (once you wade through the obvious trolling).
Now, if you put all this together, with commercial news channels spewing mostly biased opinion, and people free to spew the spew online....well, you see where we are. My mother often says "I liked it when we had three networks." Although I like watching Netflix as much as anyone else, I have to agree with her when it comes to certain things.
I don't know if I have much else to say on this issue; certainly, I have no ideas to correct course. In the meantime, I mostly watch PBS for news. But then they have sponsors, too. Sigh. Back to the drums....
What a state of heightened confusion we live in now. A good bit of the world, certainly, but I'm going to focus on America for this writing. The government, or certainly some integral parts of it, is shut down and has been for 33 days or so. There doesn't appear to be any easy way out of this one, largely due to the current leader elected to be President. Even if he hadn't owned the shutdown on national television, I think you'd be hard pressed to find another person to directly blame for it. Over a wall. Literally.
I've found other writings stating a lot of these same things, but I boil the current state of affairs down to two main instigators, the commercialization of the news and the internet. Kurt Andersen, a writer I admire tremendously, likes to point to the 1960s and technological advances as these instigators, and I think he's largely correct, although I tend to think of the 1960s separately as a social phenomenon. Andersen looks to the 1960s as a time where people began to feel freed of "the way things were" in previous American time periods. And it's an interesting point; I just like to look at more immediate causes, perhaps.
When I was a kid, there was no cable, or at least, we didn't have it where I lived. We had three networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC. (When I lived in the Rio Grande Valley in the late 60s/early 70s, we only had two channels to choose from. One network's prime time programs were shown amidst some late night programming; "Mission: Impossible," my favorite, for instance.) Each network had its evening nightly news program, 30 minutes, and each local affiliate had its nightly news program, 30 minutes. That was it. Maybe a special report would cut into programming if something really devastating happened, somebody's assassination, for sure. Other than that, the news was done.
The evening network news carried the really heavy stuff, such as the death toll from Vietnam that day. That stuff's burned in my brain. As many have pointed out, that was the first televised war, and I arrived just in time to see it. Bloody soldiers lying on the ground, some wrapped in makeshift tourniquets or whatever was available, was a common visual accompaniment to my dinner. The local news generally contained a recap of important national news but was more fixated on what was happening locally, including weather, but also included sports news and human interest stories. Not a lot of bite in the local news, usually, and people probably preferred that.
But that was it. In late 1979, things changed. The Iran Hostage Crisis began. In an attempt to keep people informed, networks would broadcast after the late local news with any updates on the crisis. After a while, there wasn't much in the way of updates, but people were watching. So, ABC decided to create Nightline, a 30-minute rehash of what had happened in the crisis (if anything). Soon, this format expanded to take on other topics and brought in people to provide opinions. The next thing you know, we had CNN, debuting June 1, 1980, a 24-hours news channel. Now, from an advertising point of view, with a crisis going on, this made sense. Unfortunately, from a hardcore true news point of view, this was terrible. You don't have to have too high an IQ to realize there just is not 24 hours worth of news to report, not on any day. So, what do you fill the news up with? You fill it up with "news." And by that, I mean a continual repeating of the day's headlines, followed by panel after panel of qualified and unqualified people commenting on these headlines. What does it mean? What's next? How does this impact your Aunt Sally's tomato garden? And on and on. Gradually, we had more and more news networks, some more committed to actual news programming than others. Some networks had their opinion people drive the overall tenor of the network (I think you know the ones already). All of them kept real news reporting in there somewhere, but for most of them, it constitutes the minority of their airtime.
As a sidebar (or maybe not), one of my favorite movies of all time (in the top three, for sure) is "Network." Although the movie was made in 1976, it's completely relevant today and shows how damaging commercialization of news is. Paddy Chayefsky, who wrote the original screenplay, was one prescient person. It's chilling in a way.
And then you have the advent of the internet. Information without any sort of knowledge or integrity check flying anywhere and everywhere. I don't think I even have to elaborate on this too much, but it's easy to see the negative effects of this, even if the internet (and technology) have brought us some wonderful advances. One thing the internet has done is made everyone a star, even if only in their own little world. I mean, look at what I'm doing here; writing in a blog I don't even publicize (yet), writing just because I can. And like to.
And so, if everyone's a star, egos rise. And then, everyone starts to think that his opinion is vital, important, and perhaps original. But mostly, that that opinion is the correct one. Humility has gone by the wayside. I'm right, you're wrong. Read the comments section after any online news article for a full examination of that (once you wade through the obvious trolling).
Now, if you put all this together, with commercial news channels spewing mostly biased opinion, and people free to spew the spew online....well, you see where we are. My mother often says "I liked it when we had three networks." Although I like watching Netflix as much as anyone else, I have to agree with her when it comes to certain things.
I don't know if I have much else to say on this issue; certainly, I have no ideas to correct course. In the meantime, I mostly watch PBS for news. But then they have sponsors, too. Sigh. Back to the drums....
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Stage Managing and Other Duties
It's another Shutdown Monday. (Sing that to the tune of the Prince/Bangles song.) Will it ever end? We've been assured back payment through legislation signed all the way through......but damn!
I finished with another Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival tattoo convention at the Long Center this last weekend. It's three days of fairly brutal work, most of it mental. This year's went pretty smoothly, although there was time drama and a bit of sound drama. More on that in a bit.
I've been involved with the convention since its inception, in 2002, leading to the first one in 2003. I've known the creator/head honcho since 1995, and she had been talking about doing one in Austin for a couple of years before actually throwing down and making it happen. My initial involvement was only in creating and maintaining the website. That website still exists, although it's been modified much over the years. For a while, Head Honcho had five conventions going in five different cities, so the website expanded greatly. It's a website that's looking creaky now, as most folks have moved to content management systems to streamline content and make websites look like everybody else's (i.e. boring). Still, it's functional, easy to navigate, and yet, I'm slowly working on replacing this website with one built in WordPress. Work for later.
Over time, HH decided she wanted to add entertainment to attract more customers, so she asked Michelle to start performing bellydance in conjunction with the convention. So, when the Austin convention was still at the Red Lion hotel, Michelle performed in adjoining areas. Bands would also perform in areas away from the main floor, but that idea became less attractive after a while. Other acts began to be brought in, specifically sideshow acts. For quite a while, a guy named Chris Longo did the announcing at the convention, and I always thought he was rather good. He knew a lot about the tattoo world and could always fill up time with interesting stories. I would always show up and talk to folks I knew at the convention and just hang out in general, but I had no specific job at the time.
I can't remember what year it was, but HH asked if I would be the announcer for the next convention. I told her I'd like to, but I really knew very little about the tattoo world (basing that rationale on the previous announcer). She said that doesn't matter.....give it a go! So I did. Around the same time, or maybe it was the next year, she realized she really needed someone to wrangle the performing talent, and I got that job as well. I wasn't quite a stage manager at the time, but that's what I became. So now, however many years later, I find myself the website maintainer, convention announcer, and stage manager for all the entertainment. It's a lot, but I always pull it off somehow. And with very limited/creaky equipment.
So, 2019's convention went fairly well overall. There were a couple sticky areas, but we plowed through. I'll try to give a basic rundown of what I do.
I get to the convention floor on Friday about opening time, grab the wireless hall microphone (courtesy of the Long Center), and begin setup of the entertainment stage. Our stage setup is pretty basic and doesn't take too long to accomplish. We have two sets of preset LED lights, so I put those downstage left and right. We have a simple four-channel PA (an old one of mine; it's being replaced for next year) and two speakers with that. Pretty simple. I usually make hall announcements every 30 minutes or so on Friday, and then when I can on Saturday and Sunday (more on that later).
Announcements usually consist of what entertainment we have for the evening, details about the convention (we have a Kids Area, after party info, tattoo contest categories and where to sign up, Tattooed Gloves boxing info, etc.), and "notices" (we found your credit card, phone, etc.). It's harder than it sounds, as none of this is written out, and I pretty much wing it each time I turn the mic on.
Entertainment runs Friday and Saturday nights, and Sunday late afternoon. This last one had Michelle doing bellydance, the Jigglewatts Burlesque troupe (who've done this about seven years now), the Lizard Man sideshow (he's going on seven or eight now), Altercation Punk comedy (first time), and the Divas of Illusion drag show (third time for them). On Friday night, we always have plenty of time for entertainment, because it's the first thing hitting the stage. Saturday and Sunday are different stories. We have tattoo contests both days, and we hold them on the entertainment stage, beginning at 2:00. And the amount of time the contests take is highly variable, due to the uncertainty of number of contestants, how long the judges will take looking over the pieces, etc. What this means is both Saturday and Sunday could get way behind timewise and become a major headache for your poor stage manager. In other words, if the contests run overtime, then that is likely to push the entertainment later, and well....people can become unhappy quickly.
And we had a big case of that on Saturday this year. Now, over the years, we have streamlined the contests to run pretty smoothly. I'm the announcer for the contests, and I'll call people to line up and get ready to go on stage. They'll go up there, show the work to the judges, and then exit to get their picture taken. The last few years, we've had our trophy presenter really step up to the plate and help out tremendously in not only keeping contestants wrangled but in signing up late entries (we usually have a ton of those, and once you've opened that possibility, everybody seems to want to sign up as late as possible). So, imagine you're sitting there for several hours, calling up contestants and info about what they're showing, coming up with your own ever-so-witty asides, occasionally switching to the wireless hall mic to announce something in there, having people interrupt you to ask you questions while you're trying to do all this.....well, it's a mess sometimes, but it's kind of a fun mess, I have to admit. Once the contests are over, it's time to strike stuff from the stage and get everything ready (music, lights, etc.) for the entertainment. Saturday.....uh.....
So, this year, Saturday was loaded with contestants. I mean, loaded. And to make matters shorter timewise, we had added comedy to the slate of entertainment, so that meant another 30 minutes was taken up. Not good. We'll have to change that next year, no doubt. This year, the entertainment to begin at 6:00 began at 7:00. That's not a good thing to do to performers who may have gigs elsewhere they have to get to. And a couple of the Jigglewatts performers on Saturday had to leave for other commitments, so I let them go on first, followed by Michelle. Which was a good thing, too, as I had Michelle scheduled first for some reason each day. The bad thing about starting as late as we did was that the audience had dried up significantly by the time Michelle had finished. There was most definitely a smaller crowd on Saturday than we had on Friday, and that's never the case. Friday is usually our slow night. This time, it was the entertainment portion's best audience. Weird. But understandable. I think we should have the comedy on Friday only, if we're going to do it next year, that's for certain. Or trade it for something else on Saturday. The drag show was not happy with the lateness of their slot on Saturday, and I can't blame 'em. It's tough when, as stage manager, you're the face of the entertainment machinery, but you have absolutely no control over the clock.
Sunday was better. We had time for everything, but a sound snafu happened during Michelle's performance. The music suddenly "went out" toward the end of her performance, due to, I think, the main volume having a dirty pot. The PA being used incorporates a PA head that I bought in 1988, if that tells you anything about what I'm working with here. The aux RCA inputs on the front feed directly into the main channel, so I can only control the music volume on whatever device it's coming from. After some scrambling, I got the music back on in about a minute, and Michelle, to her credit, jumped back up and finished her number. She was a trooper, for sure. I do have HH convinced we need a new PA before next year, and I'm shopping for one now.
So, that's about it to report about this year's tattoo convention. Other than Saturday's lateness (and we still got to the Tattoo of the Day contest only 25 minutes late, by some small miracle), everything went fairly smoothly. Next year, the convention is in a larger hall, so that should be interesting, and I hope, better.
End the shutdown!
I finished with another Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival tattoo convention at the Long Center this last weekend. It's three days of fairly brutal work, most of it mental. This year's went pretty smoothly, although there was time drama and a bit of sound drama. More on that in a bit.
I've been involved with the convention since its inception, in 2002, leading to the first one in 2003. I've known the creator/head honcho since 1995, and she had been talking about doing one in Austin for a couple of years before actually throwing down and making it happen. My initial involvement was only in creating and maintaining the website. That website still exists, although it's been modified much over the years. For a while, Head Honcho had five conventions going in five different cities, so the website expanded greatly. It's a website that's looking creaky now, as most folks have moved to content management systems to streamline content and make websites look like everybody else's (i.e. boring). Still, it's functional, easy to navigate, and yet, I'm slowly working on replacing this website with one built in WordPress. Work for later.
Over time, HH decided she wanted to add entertainment to attract more customers, so she asked Michelle to start performing bellydance in conjunction with the convention. So, when the Austin convention was still at the Red Lion hotel, Michelle performed in adjoining areas. Bands would also perform in areas away from the main floor, but that idea became less attractive after a while. Other acts began to be brought in, specifically sideshow acts. For quite a while, a guy named Chris Longo did the announcing at the convention, and I always thought he was rather good. He knew a lot about the tattoo world and could always fill up time with interesting stories. I would always show up and talk to folks I knew at the convention and just hang out in general, but I had no specific job at the time.
I can't remember what year it was, but HH asked if I would be the announcer for the next convention. I told her I'd like to, but I really knew very little about the tattoo world (basing that rationale on the previous announcer). She said that doesn't matter.....give it a go! So I did. Around the same time, or maybe it was the next year, she realized she really needed someone to wrangle the performing talent, and I got that job as well. I wasn't quite a stage manager at the time, but that's what I became. So now, however many years later, I find myself the website maintainer, convention announcer, and stage manager for all the entertainment. It's a lot, but I always pull it off somehow. And with very limited/creaky equipment.
So, 2019's convention went fairly well overall. There were a couple sticky areas, but we plowed through. I'll try to give a basic rundown of what I do.
I get to the convention floor on Friday about opening time, grab the wireless hall microphone (courtesy of the Long Center), and begin setup of the entertainment stage. Our stage setup is pretty basic and doesn't take too long to accomplish. We have two sets of preset LED lights, so I put those downstage left and right. We have a simple four-channel PA (an old one of mine; it's being replaced for next year) and two speakers with that. Pretty simple. I usually make hall announcements every 30 minutes or so on Friday, and then when I can on Saturday and Sunday (more on that later).
Announcements usually consist of what entertainment we have for the evening, details about the convention (we have a Kids Area, after party info, tattoo contest categories and where to sign up, Tattooed Gloves boxing info, etc.), and "notices" (we found your credit card, phone, etc.). It's harder than it sounds, as none of this is written out, and I pretty much wing it each time I turn the mic on.
Entertainment runs Friday and Saturday nights, and Sunday late afternoon. This last one had Michelle doing bellydance, the Jigglewatts Burlesque troupe (who've done this about seven years now), the Lizard Man sideshow (he's going on seven or eight now), Altercation Punk comedy (first time), and the Divas of Illusion drag show (third time for them). On Friday night, we always have plenty of time for entertainment, because it's the first thing hitting the stage. Saturday and Sunday are different stories. We have tattoo contests both days, and we hold them on the entertainment stage, beginning at 2:00. And the amount of time the contests take is highly variable, due to the uncertainty of number of contestants, how long the judges will take looking over the pieces, etc. What this means is both Saturday and Sunday could get way behind timewise and become a major headache for your poor stage manager. In other words, if the contests run overtime, then that is likely to push the entertainment later, and well....people can become unhappy quickly.
And we had a big case of that on Saturday this year. Now, over the years, we have streamlined the contests to run pretty smoothly. I'm the announcer for the contests, and I'll call people to line up and get ready to go on stage. They'll go up there, show the work to the judges, and then exit to get their picture taken. The last few years, we've had our trophy presenter really step up to the plate and help out tremendously in not only keeping contestants wrangled but in signing up late entries (we usually have a ton of those, and once you've opened that possibility, everybody seems to want to sign up as late as possible). So, imagine you're sitting there for several hours, calling up contestants and info about what they're showing, coming up with your own ever-so-witty asides, occasionally switching to the wireless hall mic to announce something in there, having people interrupt you to ask you questions while you're trying to do all this.....well, it's a mess sometimes, but it's kind of a fun mess, I have to admit. Once the contests are over, it's time to strike stuff from the stage and get everything ready (music, lights, etc.) for the entertainment. Saturday.....uh.....
So, this year, Saturday was loaded with contestants. I mean, loaded. And to make matters shorter timewise, we had added comedy to the slate of entertainment, so that meant another 30 minutes was taken up. Not good. We'll have to change that next year, no doubt. This year, the entertainment to begin at 6:00 began at 7:00. That's not a good thing to do to performers who may have gigs elsewhere they have to get to. And a couple of the Jigglewatts performers on Saturday had to leave for other commitments, so I let them go on first, followed by Michelle. Which was a good thing, too, as I had Michelle scheduled first for some reason each day. The bad thing about starting as late as we did was that the audience had dried up significantly by the time Michelle had finished. There was most definitely a smaller crowd on Saturday than we had on Friday, and that's never the case. Friday is usually our slow night. This time, it was the entertainment portion's best audience. Weird. But understandable. I think we should have the comedy on Friday only, if we're going to do it next year, that's for certain. Or trade it for something else on Saturday. The drag show was not happy with the lateness of their slot on Saturday, and I can't blame 'em. It's tough when, as stage manager, you're the face of the entertainment machinery, but you have absolutely no control over the clock.
Sunday was better. We had time for everything, but a sound snafu happened during Michelle's performance. The music suddenly "went out" toward the end of her performance, due to, I think, the main volume having a dirty pot. The PA being used incorporates a PA head that I bought in 1988, if that tells you anything about what I'm working with here. The aux RCA inputs on the front feed directly into the main channel, so I can only control the music volume on whatever device it's coming from. After some scrambling, I got the music back on in about a minute, and Michelle, to her credit, jumped back up and finished her number. She was a trooper, for sure. I do have HH convinced we need a new PA before next year, and I'm shopping for one now.
So, that's about it to report about this year's tattoo convention. Other than Saturday's lateness (and we still got to the Tattoo of the Day contest only 25 minutes late, by some small miracle), everything went fairly smoothly. Next year, the convention is in a larger hall, so that should be interesting, and I hope, better.
End the shutdown!
Sunday, January 13, 2019
Shutdown Continues / "Singapore Sling"
So, the government shutdown continues. On and on. And on. And on. I'd really thought by now I'd be back at the ol' day job, but Washington, DC has become an utter circus of dysfunctional personality. All it took for someone as unqualified (in every way) as Donald Trump becoming President to see this to its ultimate lockup. Good God.
A few folks have suggested that Trump becoming President may be a good thing in the long run and instigate a reset of our entire government (its officials, not the Constitution). I'm starting to think that just might be the case. But it'll be a long, painful process. In the meantime, I just try not to think about it too much. The annual tattoo convention I work for is next week, so that'll keep me occupied for a few days. And make some much needed scratch toward impending property taxes. Now, we federal lackeys are supposed to be paid when the shutdown ends, per bills passed in the House and Senate. So that'll be money for doing nothing; I couldn't blame people for people being pissed about that one. Yep, one fucked-up situation.
In the meantime, I finally watched a film I've had in the ol' collection for several years but had not watched - "Singapore Sling." This is the kind of movie that's hard to write about. I would even suggest visiting other websites to read about the film; not sure how my synopsis will turn out, but here goes.
There are only three characters of note in the film (you see glimpses of a couple of others at times): a man who's apparently a detective, and a mother and daughter, who look very close in age. The detective speaks Greek, while the mother and daughter speak English. The mother lapses into French at times. But there is so little dialog in this movie, I would say that even if you have an allergy to subtitles, there's nothing to worry about here.
The movie is gorgeous to look at, despite what happens on screen, being shot in black and white with very interesting noir-y lighting. That may be the best thing about the movie - it's simply beautiful. The plot? Let's see. The detective is looking for a lost love named Laura and has just been shot somewhere, somehow. We see the mother and daughter burying a body, during which some the body's internal organs fall out along the ground - in gorgeous black and white. Sometime after this, the detective, after sleeping in his car for some time, makes his way to the women's house. They bring him inside, and things pretty much stay there the rest of the movie. The women alternately take care of the man, masturbate with fruits and each other, torture the man, torture each other....let's see, what else? Whenever the man starts talking about Laura, we see the daughter dress differently (there's also a portrait of her in the same garb). Music from the 1944 film "Laura" plays whenever this subject comes up.
So, you can see this is one interesting film, and it's arresting to watch, even if not much happens during its 1:51 runtime. In fact, one of my major criticisms of the movie is its running time. You could easily cut 20-30 minutes out of this and not lose a thing. The atmosphere of the movie is thick; it's established in the first 2-3 minutes. An hour-fifty-one was not necessary and I think works against it. Still, I would recommend this movie to certain art movie afficianados. Myself, not sure I'll watch it again, but I'm glad I did. I'll just put it that way. I'll also say that I've already forgotten how the movie ended, and I just watched it two days ago. So, again, plot is not important here.
Michelle and I actually made it out of the house for the second Saturday in a row. We went to the Parlor for We Are The Asteroid (missing Sabbath Crow....waaah!), saw a play at Ground Floor Theater and then went to see The Beaumonts at DaveFest at Kick Butt Coffee. Busy night for us! Other than a weird interaction with a very unsavory door person at Kick Butt Coffee, all was a lot of fun.
I suppose I should write about this weird interaction, just to get it off my chest. It turned out Kick Butt was crazy busy when we got there, and that was great to see. Dave Prewitt has long deserved this sort of respect. Michelle and I walked into Kick Butt. I didn't see anyone checking any IDs, anything like that (I hadn't been there in a while and couldn't remember what their protocol was). After walking in, we walked by a table which two women were sitting at (neither of us saw them when we first walked in). One of the women looked up at me with a really shitty look and said something I didn't understand. I bent down, and she said something about the show taking donations. I said okay and then asked what folks had been giving in general (just to get an idea). This woman then actually yelled at me "well, first I need to put an X on your fuckin' hand!!" I looked at Michelle who gave me a "yes, she did that" return look. So, I extended my hand so she could put the X there; she did the same to Michelle. I reached in my wallet and gave some money to her, but I was pretty stunned. I realize after writing about it here, it all seems rather benign, but I was pretty steamed inside. I saw Mike Flannery talking to her later, so I suspect she works at Kick Butt. I have a feeling I'll be boycotting that place for a while. I did mention it to Dave when I saw him later, and he seemed concerned, but that was not the time for me to tell him about it. So, for now, yay, The Parlor! Yay, Ground Floor Theater! Fuck Kick Butt Coffee. And all hail Dave Prewitt!
Life goes on....
A few folks have suggested that Trump becoming President may be a good thing in the long run and instigate a reset of our entire government (its officials, not the Constitution). I'm starting to think that just might be the case. But it'll be a long, painful process. In the meantime, I just try not to think about it too much. The annual tattoo convention I work for is next week, so that'll keep me occupied for a few days. And make some much needed scratch toward impending property taxes. Now, we federal lackeys are supposed to be paid when the shutdown ends, per bills passed in the House and Senate. So that'll be money for doing nothing; I couldn't blame people for people being pissed about that one. Yep, one fucked-up situation.
In the meantime, I finally watched a film I've had in the ol' collection for several years but had not watched - "Singapore Sling." This is the kind of movie that's hard to write about. I would even suggest visiting other websites to read about the film; not sure how my synopsis will turn out, but here goes.
There are only three characters of note in the film (you see glimpses of a couple of others at times): a man who's apparently a detective, and a mother and daughter, who look very close in age. The detective speaks Greek, while the mother and daughter speak English. The mother lapses into French at times. But there is so little dialog in this movie, I would say that even if you have an allergy to subtitles, there's nothing to worry about here.
The movie is gorgeous to look at, despite what happens on screen, being shot in black and white with very interesting noir-y lighting. That may be the best thing about the movie - it's simply beautiful. The plot? Let's see. The detective is looking for a lost love named Laura and has just been shot somewhere, somehow. We see the mother and daughter burying a body, during which some the body's internal organs fall out along the ground - in gorgeous black and white. Sometime after this, the detective, after sleeping in his car for some time, makes his way to the women's house. They bring him inside, and things pretty much stay there the rest of the movie. The women alternately take care of the man, masturbate with fruits and each other, torture the man, torture each other....let's see, what else? Whenever the man starts talking about Laura, we see the daughter dress differently (there's also a portrait of her in the same garb). Music from the 1944 film "Laura" plays whenever this subject comes up.
So, you can see this is one interesting film, and it's arresting to watch, even if not much happens during its 1:51 runtime. In fact, one of my major criticisms of the movie is its running time. You could easily cut 20-30 minutes out of this and not lose a thing. The atmosphere of the movie is thick; it's established in the first 2-3 minutes. An hour-fifty-one was not necessary and I think works against it. Still, I would recommend this movie to certain art movie afficianados. Myself, not sure I'll watch it again, but I'm glad I did. I'll just put it that way. I'll also say that I've already forgotten how the movie ended, and I just watched it two days ago. So, again, plot is not important here.
Michelle and I actually made it out of the house for the second Saturday in a row. We went to the Parlor for We Are The Asteroid (missing Sabbath Crow....waaah!), saw a play at Ground Floor Theater and then went to see The Beaumonts at DaveFest at Kick Butt Coffee. Busy night for us! Other than a weird interaction with a very unsavory door person at Kick Butt Coffee, all was a lot of fun.
I suppose I should write about this weird interaction, just to get it off my chest. It turned out Kick Butt was crazy busy when we got there, and that was great to see. Dave Prewitt has long deserved this sort of respect. Michelle and I walked into Kick Butt. I didn't see anyone checking any IDs, anything like that (I hadn't been there in a while and couldn't remember what their protocol was). After walking in, we walked by a table which two women were sitting at (neither of us saw them when we first walked in). One of the women looked up at me with a really shitty look and said something I didn't understand. I bent down, and she said something about the show taking donations. I said okay and then asked what folks had been giving in general (just to get an idea). This woman then actually yelled at me "well, first I need to put an X on your fuckin' hand!!" I looked at Michelle who gave me a "yes, she did that" return look. So, I extended my hand so she could put the X there; she did the same to Michelle. I reached in my wallet and gave some money to her, but I was pretty stunned. I realize after writing about it here, it all seems rather benign, but I was pretty steamed inside. I saw Mike Flannery talking to her later, so I suspect she works at Kick Butt. I have a feeling I'll be boycotting that place for a while. I did mention it to Dave when I saw him later, and he seemed concerned, but that was not the time for me to tell him about it. So, for now, yay, The Parlor! Yay, Ground Floor Theater! Fuck Kick Butt Coffee. And all hail Dave Prewitt!
Life goes on....
Sunday, January 6, 2019
"Rojo Sangre" / What Else? / Roy Haynes
Hello. The government shutdown continues with no end in sight. I've started to lose track of what day it is for the first time in my, I suppose, working life. Weird. Guess I know what retirement will be like now. Except I'll be prepared for that. But really, I have no idea how long this is going to go on. Especially with this utter madman in charge. Ugh. I'll start to feel the real effects of it in another couple of weeks. I have enough money to see it through for quite a while, but still.....
Anyway, the only movie I have to write about today is "Rojo Sangre," which for some reason I thought I wrote about years ago. Apparently, I didn't. I was in a discussion with some friends a couple of nights ago about Paul Naschy, and I recommended "Rojo Sangre" as a good late example of his work. After thinking about it some more, I thought I should watch it again to make sure I was remembering correctly. To my relief, I was.
"Rojo Sangre" is from 2004, putting Paul Naschy at about 70. He wrote and starred in the picture, the plot having to do with an aging actor looking for work in a cruel, young person's world. The early scenes of him at an audition and on a set are pretty painful to watch. But I like how Naschy tempers the character by making him pretty crude at the same time. It gives the whole thing a nice balance. Anyway, Naschy's character ends up being recruited through his agent to be a "doorman-entertainer" at a nightclub specializing in, let's say, interesting and fleshy entertainment. He accepts and begins a new chapter in life, including the "removal" of people he sees as undesirables. That's as far as I'll go into the plot. Quite interesting, and it's nice to see Naschy's screenplay made into a movie as this late stage of his career. This could have been the type of film where it becomes "oh look, isn't it cute, Paul Naschy's on the screen again!," but it's definitely not. Kudos to whoever got behind this project to see it through. The direction is effective, although it contains plenty of the early 2000s variety of "ooh, look, we can create this effect digitally, and this effect digitally, and...." I still recommend it.
One last thing about "Rojo Sangre," though....currently, there's only one domestic DVD version of this around; it was put out by Shriek Show and Fangoria. Unfortunately, it's non-anamorphic, and if you need subtitles (I do), you can't zoom it on your screen without losing the subtitles. An annoyance, for sure, but I keep thinking this might see a better release sometime down the road.
It's kind of funny - after years of spotty writing in this blog, the government shutdown has given me the motivation to write almost daily. With the exception of Friday, I think I've posted every day this week. Good exercise, but now I find lacking a bit in topics....let's see.....
Recently, I picked up an interesting box set dedicated to one of the greats of jazz drumming, Roy Haynes. It's titled "A Life In Time," contains three CDs and a DVD, and has an interesting concept. The first two CDs cover Roy's career playing with many different folks, interspersed with occasional tracks credited to Roy alone. The third CD is credited to "Roy Haynes' Hip Ensembles" and is a bit more "fusion-y," I guess. The DVD has a documentary and some filmed performances. I enjoyed the set more than, as a drummer, I thought I would. The career CDs are pretty fascinating. Most of the tracks feature Roy in some way or have a brief solo, that kind of thing. But then there's one song, where he's playing in Sarah Vaughan's band, and he's basically just keeping half note time on the hi-hat. A really great sampling of a really great drummer's career. Roy's in his early 90s now, and I don't know if he's still playing. He was in his 80s, for sure; there's plenty of video evidence out there. Fascinating, and inspiring.
More information about future Hickoids touring is coming in. We're going to play the Muddy Roots festival in Tennessee at the end of August and then shortly after, hightail it to Europe to play a Spanish festival the next week. It's looking like we'll spend the bulk of September playing in Spain and France, perhaps Italy as well. There's a chance Michelle might join me at the end of the tour, and we can continue gallivanting in Europe. We'll see. Again, this shutdown might play havoc with whatever sort of leave situation I have. Ugh, again. The uncertainty.....
And I'll close with that for now.....
Anyway, the only movie I have to write about today is "Rojo Sangre," which for some reason I thought I wrote about years ago. Apparently, I didn't. I was in a discussion with some friends a couple of nights ago about Paul Naschy, and I recommended "Rojo Sangre" as a good late example of his work. After thinking about it some more, I thought I should watch it again to make sure I was remembering correctly. To my relief, I was.
"Rojo Sangre" is from 2004, putting Paul Naschy at about 70. He wrote and starred in the picture, the plot having to do with an aging actor looking for work in a cruel, young person's world. The early scenes of him at an audition and on a set are pretty painful to watch. But I like how Naschy tempers the character by making him pretty crude at the same time. It gives the whole thing a nice balance. Anyway, Naschy's character ends up being recruited through his agent to be a "doorman-entertainer" at a nightclub specializing in, let's say, interesting and fleshy entertainment. He accepts and begins a new chapter in life, including the "removal" of people he sees as undesirables. That's as far as I'll go into the plot. Quite interesting, and it's nice to see Naschy's screenplay made into a movie as this late stage of his career. This could have been the type of film where it becomes "oh look, isn't it cute, Paul Naschy's on the screen again!," but it's definitely not. Kudos to whoever got behind this project to see it through. The direction is effective, although it contains plenty of the early 2000s variety of "ooh, look, we can create this effect digitally, and this effect digitally, and...." I still recommend it.
One last thing about "Rojo Sangre," though....currently, there's only one domestic DVD version of this around; it was put out by Shriek Show and Fangoria. Unfortunately, it's non-anamorphic, and if you need subtitles (I do), you can't zoom it on your screen without losing the subtitles. An annoyance, for sure, but I keep thinking this might see a better release sometime down the road.
It's kind of funny - after years of spotty writing in this blog, the government shutdown has given me the motivation to write almost daily. With the exception of Friday, I think I've posted every day this week. Good exercise, but now I find lacking a bit in topics....let's see.....
Recently, I picked up an interesting box set dedicated to one of the greats of jazz drumming, Roy Haynes. It's titled "A Life In Time," contains three CDs and a DVD, and has an interesting concept. The first two CDs cover Roy's career playing with many different folks, interspersed with occasional tracks credited to Roy alone. The third CD is credited to "Roy Haynes' Hip Ensembles" and is a bit more "fusion-y," I guess. The DVD has a documentary and some filmed performances. I enjoyed the set more than, as a drummer, I thought I would. The career CDs are pretty fascinating. Most of the tracks feature Roy in some way or have a brief solo, that kind of thing. But then there's one song, where he's playing in Sarah Vaughan's band, and he's basically just keeping half note time on the hi-hat. A really great sampling of a really great drummer's career. Roy's in his early 90s now, and I don't know if he's still playing. He was in his 80s, for sure; there's plenty of video evidence out there. Fascinating, and inspiring.
More information about future Hickoids touring is coming in. We're going to play the Muddy Roots festival in Tennessee at the end of August and then shortly after, hightail it to Europe to play a Spanish festival the next week. It's looking like we'll spend the bulk of September playing in Spain and France, perhaps Italy as well. There's a chance Michelle might join me at the end of the tour, and we can continue gallivanting in Europe. We'll see. Again, this shutdown might play havoc with whatever sort of leave situation I have. Ugh, again. The uncertainty.....
And I'll close with that for now.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)