What are we doing here?

Coachella happened this past weekend and alas, I wasn't there. Sad.

But Prince was there. Yes, the shortest guitar god of our generation was rocking with a vengeance. Or something.

AND he covered Radiohead. It's pretty fucking cool so you should check it out.

You know, I never realized how hard he shredded until I saw a video of him and a few other guys covering The Beatles', "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" where he unleashes a sick solo.

Find both vids below:

Prince - "Creep"



George Harrison Tribute (Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Prince, etc...)

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Oh. My. God. The News Media SUCKS

I just saw on the CNN Political Blog that they conducted an interview with the douchebags wearing A&F shirts that were sitting behind Obama during his PA concession speech.

CNN sucks.

1. Hire Tony Snow.
2. Interview frat boy douchebags.
3. Suck.

Those are the tenets by which CNN clearly operates.

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The Stare

I've noticed something interesting living here in New York City: most celebrities don't like to be recognized.

You'd think that the efforts expended in starting a career and getting public recognition and success would cause you to be grateful when a common, peasant-like non-celebrity recognizes you sauntering along 7th Avenue. However, this is clearly not the case.

I've seen a few minor to minor/slightly-above-minor-celebrities since I've been here. Here is a small list:

Lisa Loeb
Michael Ian Black
John Cho
Jerome Bettis (The Bus)
Isla Fisher (The very small Bus)

Definitely no one on that list is what you would consider A-List. Although, one of them totally has a Super Bowl ring, but I'll let you guess who that is. (Hint: It's Lisa Loeb)

Today I was outside, walking down 7th Avenue, passing by Carnegie Hall, when Steve Young jogs by. As he was jogging closer, I did whatever any non-celebrity does when confronted with someone he has seen multiple times on television - I stared. There's this funny thing that happens when you notice someone like this...you look, your brain processes the information, you know you recognize them, you try to figure out where from and then it hits you. Celebrity!

I should note here that I don't really care about celebrities very much. I've worked with some of them and they're generally not that interesting. I wrote lines for and met Kevin Bacon. I talked about Peter Jackson horror films with Chris Barron of the Spin Doctors. I arm-wrestled Hulk Hogan (ok, I didn't do that. BUT, I did share many Miller Lites with him, shooting the shit in an LA recording studio). They're really not that big of a deal. But it changes slightly when you encounter them in a non-work environment.

Anyway. The best thing that happens about encountering a celebrity on the street is the eye contact and then fear that instantly hits the celeb. This is the unspoken conversation that occurs:

Non-Celebrity: I think I've seen you before.
Celebrity: Fuck, you know who I am.
Non-Celebrity: You're on my TV!
Celebrity: Fuck, you know who I am and you're going to call attention to it.
Non-Celebrity: Do I care enough to say something? Probably not.
Celebrity: I haven't had much press lately, I hope they say something. I mean, no. Please don't. Well...I could use a mention on Gawker.

The end.

So in the past week this has happened to me twice. Once today with Steve Young, once on Tuesday night, while talking to Annie on the phone, waiting to go into the She & Him show at Webster Hall. (She & Him is the supergroup(?) of M. Ward and actress Zooey Deschanel). Zooey Deschanel walked by me. We made eye contact, we had the unspoken conversation and then she passed and went into the venue.

Every single celebrity I've seen on the street, this has happened with.

Lisa Loeb - check.
Michael Ian Black - check.
John Cho - check.
Jerome Bettis - check.
Your Mom - check.

and

Steve Young - CHECK.
Zooey Deschanel - CHECK.

Every. Single. Time.

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Daily Inspiration

Here's a video that always inspires me.



Doesn't matter if you like the band or not, but this video is pretty amazing.

Basically the song is about the thousands (millions?) of people that travel to LA to realize their artistic dreams. And the video was set up like an audition for musicians to come in and play/sing to this RHCP track. They had no idea that the band was there too and the moment that they come out and surprise the unsuspecting hopefuls is just so...perfect, that makes this probably my favorite music video of all time.

The fact that this is the closest that most of them will get to fame is inconsequential, I guess. Ha.

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Speak of the Devil

This past weekend, my roommate Jeff and I had a few people over to make a movie. The thing is, we didn't have a script, a concept or any sort of notion of what we'd make. The experiment was to see if we could make a movie in a night, with no pre-conceived notions of what it would be.

Four people came over, making us six total. Jeff had the idea of using the 48-hour film festival style of being forced to use a specific line of dialogue and being assigned a genre and a character name. Everyone wrote their suggestions down for each of those requirements and put them into a hat. Selections were picked. They were:

Genre: Horror
Line of Dialogue: "Are you mad? You're going to kill us all!"
Character: Tar Johnson

We picked a prop too, but that was after we started planning the movie and it didn't end up making it in. Boo us.

So out of these ideas, we built a story of an old blues musician, wrongfully murdered, and spiraled into a big backstory that involves all of rock history and multiple MURDERS!

I could explain and explain, but the best thing to do would be to watch it for yourself!

Remember, this was conceived, shot and edited in about 12 hours. Total! So please keep that in mind when watching - this is not a hollywood produced film. But it's also more amazing than any of those!

The Devil's Chord

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I should start "Jon Rolling"

You know there's a rule in comedy where you start with a joke that's initially funny. You keep it going and it becomes unfunny. But then you keep dragging it on and on until it becomes funny again.

That's what's going on with the concept of "Rick Rolling".

If you happen not to know what it is, it's the "meme" of posting a link that you claim is one thing, and the link actually goes to a video of Rick Astley singing, "Never Gonna Give You Up". It was funny for a while, over a year ago when it started, then it got completely UN-funny.

But then recently the New York Times picked up the story, someone asked Rick Astley about it and sales of his record label re-released his Greatest Hits record due to high demand.

And more recently, the New York Mets started an online poll to decide what song the Mets will play during the 8th inning of every home game. So, sites like Digg and Fark encouraged readers to vote for "Other" in the poll and write in "Never Gonna Give You Up".

5 million people did.

The Mets responded, initially saying they would not be playing the song and instead, fans will cheer loudly for which song they want to hear for the rest of the year. Internet users were angry and said so. The Mets reasoned that even though the majority of those votes were not by Mets fans, they will play the song today, and each day play one of the other songs and see which is the most popular - kind of a nicer way to do the same thing.

BUT, they played it today. Here's part of the video broadcast after coming back from commercial in the 8th inning:




That's pretty amazing, if you ask me. It's gone back to being funny again. But just for a second.

Oh, and then there's this.

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Inspiration

This is the kind of stuff I need to see on a daily basis:


Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

This video actually gave me chills. It's so well done, so fun and free and...simple. Clearly the blocking took some time to probably get right, but it's a bunch of people hanging out, having fun and creating something awesome.

That's the point, isn't it? That's what I need. This is what I need to watch everyday to remind myself that life isn't my job. Life isn't my lack of commitment to complete projects. It's creating. It's doing. It's being.

My roommate, Jeff, and I are hosting a "Film Party" next weekend to get together with some people and make some shit. We have no preconceived notions of what we'll create, but hope that whatever it is, is fun to do.

Creative expression + Motivation - Fear = Awesomeness.

That's the equation by which I will live my life from this point forward.

Thanks for listening.

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