Subliminal Advertising

Is it just me, or does the new “Shake Weight” look like a new amazing invention to subliminally work on a person’s ability to effectively pleasure a male?

Paper or Plastic

A friend of mine just sent me an article from WIRED magazine about a 16 year old Canadian High School student named Daniel Burd who found a way for plastic to decompose in just 3 months.  

#1 Song in America – July 28th, 2009

Hello America.  Here are the lyrics to your #1 song:

Black Eyed Peas – “I Got a Feeling”

Actual Black Eyed Peas: served fresh with some boom boom pow

The Room

Amazing movies are not created. They are meticulously born from a single person that takes on the roles of director, producer, writer and actor. This multi-layered individual has to have a less than proficient grasp of human emotion/acting in general . There has to be loose ends, major plot points that are never revisited, a creepy kid, over used San Francisco establishing shots, beautiful rose pedaled sex scenes, semi-decent green screens, a football and all the while exploring the explosive topics of drugs, adultery, cancer, best friends and betrayal. If you have not yet seen the 6 million dollar, 2003 movie “The Room” by writer/director/actor/producer Tommy Wiseau then please keep reading.

How To Get Inspired To Write

Don’t go anywhere! You’re in the right place! You want to write something, a short story, a song, a simple blog post, an essay, a novel!? But you’ve got writer’s block, or you just don’t feel like it. I’ve been there buddy; let me help you, let me be the wind beneath your wings. Did my reference bring about images of the Bette Midler song? Did you know that she didn’t even write that song, that song wasn’t even written for her originally, but she gets all the credit? Life’s just not fair sometimes right? Well you know what Bette Midler’s got? She’s got moxie (and so do you) and that’ll get you a long way. So first things first, I’ve gotta tell you, the best way to get inspired to write is through shear will-power, you need to sit down and just start hacking away, stream of consciousness if you have to, and often times what you write in those feverish sessions won’t be an outline or a treatment for a future piece, it will be the piece itself! But you want something more, you don’t just want to get something on paper, you want to write something great. The bad news is it takes time; the good news is it takes experience and you’ve got that. You may have heard the advice “write what you know,” but I’m telling you to take it a step further, you don’t just have experience, but you have passion, everybody’s passionate about something and writing with passion is what will make your words powerful. Don’t rely on wine, or marijuana, or stimulants for inspiration. Those things aren’t necessarily bad in and of themselves, but F. Scott Fitzgerald is remembered as saying that if he hadn’t been drinking so much while he wrote later in his career, what he wrote would have been a lot better. You don’t need a substance to get out what’s in your head. You need a comfortable chair, no distractions and will power. So close your browser, stop reading this blog, open your word-processor and start typing!

You be the judge…

Larry King asks Joe Jackson about when he thought Michael may have become addicted to painkillers…

The Teacher and the Learner

On January 27th, 2009 American author John Updike passed away.  I can’t say that I’m well versed in regards to his writing or that his novels have meant much to me.  This was illustrated perfectly when, after hearing of his death, I spent the next 10 minutes thinking about two books of his I enjoyed – A Painted House and The Client – only to realize that those were written by John Grisham not Updike.  However one Saturday morning, Updike’s words found a way to have profound impact on me.

Dear Mr. Updike: I'm sorry I mistook you for a different author post mortem.

After a hard day’s work, my idea of time is based on what is playing on the radio during the drive home.  At work I deal with meetings, schedules, conferences calls, and all sorts of calendar related minutia to the point that once I’m outside the confines of my vocation I subconsciously block the idea of time altogether.  This is likely the reason that I’m late to everything on the weekends.  That combined with pure laziness and  a complete disregard for other people’s time.  

Bark At The Spoon [live @ Stubb’s // Austin]

Spoon has had a very large “to-do” list since releasing the critically acclaimed/commercially enamored 6th album (get ready for it) Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga back in ’07.  Said list probably went as such:

1. Spend new money on black shirts

2. Look for new hip, dimly-lit & velvet lined clubs to creep out in

3. Produce sophomore LP of up and coming Brooklyn band

4. Buy more milk from local grocer

5. Curate three day self-headlining “festival” during the hottest summer in recent memory at outdoor venue in one-time hometown

6. Try to find more annoying title for 7th album to further frustrate the fingers of journalists & bloggers

Upon Seeing THE HURT LOCKER

I went to see a fantastic film entitled THE HURT LOCKER over the weekend.  My desire to see it was the direct result of a positive response on rottentomatoes.com and because of the review (and blog) that Roger Ebert wrote.  Instead of reviewing the film myself I’ll just focus on two main areas of thought I had afterwards.

FIRST AREA OF THOUGHT:  Directed by Kathryn Bigelow.

Why have I never heard of this talented director before?  Three things about her in relation to me: