Let's Have A Partita!

The Website is Up!

2007-08-06T12:06:00.000-05:00

It's up! After fierce battles with CuteFTP and Dreamweaver, I have come out victorious. Paulstadden.com is now a site which you can visit. So please, go check out my website if you please. It would mean a great deal to me. Thanks for reading...

On the Debate

2007-07-27T22:45:00.000-05:00

Well, many of you, and by that I mean, all one of you, will notice there wasn't a post today on the debate on art. First, I've been very busy because I just bought a nice chunk of hosting for a website. I've been working on that pretty much since I got up this morning. Then I watched Apocalypto with my family. Second, I'm getting tired of debating. I'm not sure what else I can put into this argument, at least in terms of my energy and time. This is something that easily could go on forever, and I just don't feel like it. Think what you want on the subject, folks. I have to work on my voice work and production because I want to get a job so I can raise my bank account above double digit numbers, so that's where my focus has to lie. My apologies to all who enjoyed reading what's been said, and my especial apologies to Ted, whom I made a deal with to keep it going as long as we felt like. I'm tired and I have lots of work to do in other areas, particularly my new website.

On another note, I'm not sure how much I'm going to continue updating this blog now that I have a website proper. If you'd like to keep reading (and I hope you do), then start checking paulstadden.com by next week. I've already begun designing the site, but I still have a lot of work to do.

Thanks for reading.

Cartoon Rhythm

2007-07-23T21:12:00.000-05:00

After the last post, I started thinking about how voice actors must perform appropriate to the characters as they appear on screen. Then I remembered something from John Kricfalusi's blog about animating to a beat. Here's the quote verbatim:

"All classic cartoons were timed to musical rhythms or tempos. That's why they automatically feel good when you watch them. Most modern animation is timed straight ahead and actions fall haphazardly with no definite or structural relationship to each other. They feel jerky and not as fun as old cartoons.

"A real cartoon is like music. It should feel good, no matter what the content or subject matter is about. It should make you bounce to it.

"Genndy Tartakovsky times his cartoons to tempos and so do I. We are among the last holdouts to this tradition."

That got me thinking about the voice over aspect. Today, voice artists record the dialogue, and then animators fit the visuals overtop. This is unlike the cartoons of the thirties (and almost all Japanese cartoons with the exception of Katsuhiro Otomo's work) where the animation is done first and the voice artists record their dialogue overtop. This meant the animators had almost total freedom regarding the rhythm and flow of the animation because they'd never have to fudge around the vocal tracks. Now, if the voice artist has an idea for how a line must be delivered and that idea is completely different from the rhythm that the animation director had in mind, there's a conflict. If an animation director wants to keep an authentic 1930's "bounce" to his cartoon, he'll have to give very specific directions to the voice actor or accept the performance he gets and animate around it.

I like the idea of the voice talent and the animators working closely because the end product is more complete. Since the characters in cartoons are not actors with mind and voice combined, rather a combination of the ideas of the voice actor and the animator, it only makes sense that the two have similar ideas for the performance of the character. This is especially important if an animator wants to retain the traditional animation "bounce" without making it into a parody.

What do I mean by bounce? Well, as Kricfalusi said, "A real cartoon is like music. It should feel good, no matter what the content or subject matter is about. It should make you bounce to it." The characters bounced to the rhythm of the music. To see what he's talking about, watch Bimbo's Initiation, one of the greatest cartoons ever made and practically the defining work of the medium. The characters bounce and sway to the music, giving the characters life and visual interest.

Now, watch this modern take on the concept, an episode of the fantastic Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat from 1995 entitled, Space-Time Twister. This episode was directed by Lynne Nailor, formerly of Spumco and ex-girlfriend of John Kricfalusi. The Spumco influence is everywhere, from the authentic bounce and rhythm to the surreal yet believable cartooniness. It is an excellent piece of art that somehow slipped past the studio heads. Well, didn't slip past for long because later episodes of the series are far more conservative and much less cartoony, and aren't as fun to watch. Space-Time Twister works because it's much like the human imagination: based on reality, but it bends and twists because it's not wholly bound by earthly physics. The later episodes are more "realistic," in terms of the characters having less stretch and squash and no exclamation points jutting from their heads, but they're less beautiful because they abandon their cartooniness. The jokes are more arbitrary, the colors are more haphazard, and the characters are less flexible. Still, I'm glad we have the first season to cherish.

As much as I love Charlie Adler, I'm afraid The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat went downhill in the last season when Charlie Adler took over the voice of Felix from Thom Adcox-Hernandez. It's not Charlie's fault at all, he was in the weakest season of the show. The cartooniness was gone by that point and there wasn't as much for him to work with. Anyway, I'll bet the directors in the first season worked closely with Adcox-Hernandez and the other voice actors to make sure they got that bounce in their voice to match the bouncy imagery. When watching the episode, Now Playing Felix, I conducted along with some of the dialogue and found that the writers had written the dialogue (and the voice actors performed it) with music in mind. They weren't singing, but the words with emphasis came on downbeats, the sentences were more like operatic recitative. This combined with the animation to make something that was very comfortable and very fun. It's not reality, but a shadow of reality. It's based on how we think and feel.

Now, let's look at something that tries the traditional bounce, but fails because the bounce is intended as parody. Parody of the 1930's style is obvious because the bounce is arbitrary and overdone. The dialogue is also in parody, with the voice actors either calling too much attention to the rhythm and thus make the speech stilted, or by imitating the nasal sounding 1930's radio announcer voice. The best example of this I can think of is an episode of Disney's House of Mouse that featured genuine 1930's Disney cartoons. The episode also featured a Mickey Mouse cartoon that was meant to emulate the 1930's style. It fell flat, especially next to the real cartoons that were in the episode. The reason the cartoon failed was it was parody rather than imitation. Lynne Nailor captured the spirit of the old Felix the Cat cartoons even if they weren't exactly like the Otto Messmer shorts of the 1920's. She respected the old style and added her own touches. Disney, however, thinks that the old ways of animating are antiquated and the only reason anyone could enjoy them is to laugh at how primitive they were. Well, Disney is wrong, I'm afraid. There is far more artistry in Otto Messmer's limited animation Felix the Cat shorts from the 1920's than any of Disney's toons. Messmer appealed to our imaginations, whereas Disney tried to make things "realistic." Instead of making cartoons that related to the audience better, he removed everything that makes cartoons fun. He removed the magic.

I wish I had a link for you to this cartoon, but I don't. I tried to find it on Youtube, but it's not there. I even tried finding the name to the episode, but there are no descriptions to any of the shows on Wikipedia, IMDb, or Disney.com. You'll just have to find it yourself. Sorry.

So, in short, we must have respect for the cartoons of yore and take cues from them when we work on a cartoon. Make your voices appealing. Use rhythm. If the animators aren't going to talk to you, try to infuse the dialogue with good rhythm and flow and force them to animate your characters with that same bounce. Better yet, hook up with an animator that does use rhythm and bounce in his toons. I guarantee that even if your cartoon is cancelled after half a season, those cartoons will live on and inspire the next generation of good artists.

Time To Absorb Some Great Voice Work!

2007-07-23T19:04:00.001-05:00

I'm willing to bet you know the name, Mel Blanc. "Hey, that's Bugs Bunny, right?" Yes, yes it is. Now, do you know why you know Mel Blanc's name? "Uh, because he did Bugs Bunny?" Well, yes, that's part of it, but not the whole story. You see, I always took for granted that the name, Mel Blanc, was synonymous for "Voice Actor" just because he was so good and so prolific. I mean, how could the guy who did the majority of the voices for Warner Brothers' cartoons not be famous?

There's a problem with this theory, however. Let's explore that. You've heard of Yogi Bear, right? "Yup!" Well, who did his voice? "...uh, Mel Blanc?" Sorry, incorrect. It was Daws Butler. How about Rocky the Flying Squirrel? "Mel... Blanc...?" Nope, it was June Foray, the most important living voice actress, possibly the most important of all time. Oh, and who did Elmer Fudd? "Ok, now I know that was Mel Blanc!" Well, that's true, Mel Blanc did voice Elmer. "Yes! Got one!" At least, he voiced Elmer in maybe 10% of Elmer's appearances in the classic cartoons. Most of the time it was Arthur Q. Brian, and when he died, Hal Smith. "Oh."

There's a reason Mel is famous beyond his being the best and being prolific; He was a marketing genius. When he was negotiating with Leon Schlesinger for more money from his Warner Brothers cartoons, Leon refused. So, Mel got an idea that would make him far more money than pay raises from Schlesinger; Credit. In the 1940's, nobody but the studio heads got much credit for what they did. If you were a lowly animator or voice actor, you were unknown to the public because "Leon Schlesinger" or "Pat Sullivan" were all the public ever saw on the cartoons. This is why Felix the Cat fans had no idea, for decades, that Otto Messmer was the real genius that drove the animated shorts. Pat Sullivan's name was all they ever saw. But Mel knew getting credit was the future if he wanted more money. So, he asked Schlessinger if they could put "Voice Characterizations by Mel Blanc" in front of all the cartoons, and they did. Even if people like Bea Benaderet, June Foray, Stan Freberg, Arthur Q. Brian, and Kent Rogers starred in the cartoons, too, Mel was the only name they saw.

The fact that the original Warner Brothers shorts were aimed at adults, not kids, didn't hurt, either. While a kid may have seen Daws Butler or Don Messick's name at the beginning of a Hanna Barbera short, he probably wouldn't have remembered unless he were a voice over geek. People in positions to hire voice actors, namely adults, were the ones who were seeing that "Voice Characterizations by Mel Blanc" credit. So, they did hire Mel. Lots of 'em. In fact, Mel would even go to work at Hanna Barbera alongside fellow actors Butler and Messick, his biggest competition, in shows like The Jetsons, The Flintstones, and Secret Squirrel. He was also on Jack Benny's TV program and even landed some work in Spike Jones' orchestra, singing in songs like, "Clink, Clink, Another Drink."

While Mel's deal seems a bit self serving, it has aided in raising the level of voice over art in the past eighty years to something beyond, "Hey, let's get somebody to give Felix some cat sounds. Larry, get in here!" Thanks to his stroke of genius, voice actors have realized that what they do is pretty special and deserves recognition. Now, AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) and SAG (Screen Actor's Guild) have thousands of voice performers signed up.

Let's not forget in all this that Mel was also the best of the best. Yes, in the early days, he did alter tape speed to create new voices. For example: at first, his Daffy Duck voice was just his Sylvester the Cat voice sped up a few cents. He later learned to replicate this speed trick with his voice because of having to do the characters live. But, that aside, his choices for the characters were nothing short of genius. Let's just take Bugs Bunny for a second. I believe he changed the characterization for Bugs slightly depending on who the director was. Listen to the Bob Clampett Bugs and then listen to the Chuck Jones Bugs. The difference is striking, I find. The Clampett Bugs voice matched the visual. While Rod Scribner was making Bugs look like a stretchy, squashy ball of manicness, Mel matched that with his loose, crazed vocalization. When Bugs was under the direction and pen of more conservative animators like Bob McKimson and Chuck Jones, the voice became more serious, more collected, more street smart than wacky. I have to believe that Mel knew the styles of the people who made the cartoons and let that influence his take on the voice.

We, as voice actors, need to understand how our voice will fit the final product, and Mel Blanc is the best example I can think of. If we get to do a cartoon, we need to pour over pictures of our characters, and even test animation if we can. Get to know the animators, understand how they're going to make your character move. Unfortunately, much of the voice over work these days is rather impersonal. Unlike the 1940's, there aren't going to be any "house voice actors" for the major studios anymore. Theatrical shorts with high budgets are a thing of the past, and almost all cartoons are either aimed toward children and are bland "purple and pink" monstrosities, or are ultra vulgar flash based mutations made for Adult Swim. Very cookiecutter. What will most likely happen is that you'll get a gig after nightmarish networking, walk into the studio, get handed a script, and do a reading that's over in as few takes as possible. That doesn't mean you'll never get to work with the animators on a project. John Kricfalusi, for example, makes sure he gets voice actors whom he works with during the recording so they'll deliver the right reading for a given character, and even does voice work himself (Ren in Ren and Stimpy, Citricet in The Ripping Friends). Also, his work is the most artistic and cartoony of all current animation. Doug Lawrence (better known as Mr. Lawrence) does the big three in cartooning; Writing, Directing, acting. He's written, directed, and acted in Rocco's Modern Life, Spongebob Squarepants, and Camp Lazlo (my favorite cartoon on TV right now).

I don't want to get off topic, the genius of Mel Blanc, but I wanted to show you that pockets of the old ways can be found in the modern system. Now, what you need to do is get onto Youtube and Google video to look up the following cartoons:

1. Falling Hare. This is my favorite Bugs cartoon of all time. It was directed by Bob Clampett and animated by Rod Scribner. Mel at his finest, too.
2. Fresh Hare.
3. Southern Fried Rabbit. I warn you though, this cartoon is one of the infamous "Censored 11," a list of cartoons banned from television because of their racist nature. In other words, lots of Blackface and cultural stereotypes. Just watch the cartoon as a cartoon, leave your easily offended sensibilites at the door and watch it for Mel Blanc's brilliant Bugs Bunny. It's also the last Bugs short directed by Tex Avery.
4. Baseball Bugs.
5. Case of the Missing Hare.
6. Wackiki Rabbit.

Once you're done watching these public domain shorts, and your appetite is whetted, go out and buy the DVD's of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons. You'll be glad you did.

Anonymity, Thou Art A Sweet Friend...

2007-07-21T13:01:00.000-05:00

The other week, I made a huge change in my career direction. Rather than go the route of teaching for the rest of my life, which would result in me becoming a walking ball of stress and rage, I have decided to go into voice over, and everything that comes with it.

Despite what you may think, voice over is not just talking or doing funny voices (you wouldn't think that, of course, if you've ever read my blog before). No, a "good voice," like Orson Welles' or Gary Owens' is not necessary, or in some cases, even desirable. A good voice actor must convince the audience that he is the character in the copy. All that without the audience even seeing the performer.

In many ways, voice work is the quintessence of how I feel about art in general:

1. Present a shadow of the world without being an exact mirror of the world. Hence the terms "Suspension of Disbelief" and "Escapism." We paint worlds with only our voices. We don't talk how normal people talk, we talk how they think and remember. The way we remember conversations happening is in gross charicature, "He was so angry, steam came out his ears!" That sort of thing. People believe the world in the copy if we appeal to their emotions and perception. If we don't, then we are just reading words on a page.

2. It takes the focus off the performer and puts it on the performance. The person listening isn't wrapped up in, "Hey, that's _______ doing that voice!" When the audience is wrapped up in who is performing rather than whether the actors are any good, then the art has suffered. Voice over artists must "get outside" themselves and portray a character that will reach the audience. Let me give some examples.

Lorenzo Music, the voice actor behind Carlton the Doorman on Rhoda, Pete Venkman on The Real Ghostbusters, and, of course, Garfield the cat, was the distilled essence of what it means to be a voice over performer: invisible. He prided himself on never being seen by his audience, yet his voice was on a cartoon every Saturday morning that featured a fat, orange cat. He got inside the character and made sure that the audience would believe Garfield really sounded like that and said such things.

In Dreamworks' Sinbad of the Seven Seas, Brad Pitt weaved elaborate tapestries of blandness with his voice. I never believed the character, not just because I couldn't get past the fact that the voice was Brad Pitt's, but because he was so bad. While the animated character of Sinbad waved his arms and flitted about, making grandiose gestures, the voice that came out of him sounded like a prepubescant Ben Stein: Flat, directionless, and disconnected from the words he said as well as the character that we saw. A good voice actor makes you forget that he's there. He speaks as the character, from inside the character, rather than "at" the character like Brad Pitt did for Sinbad.

Now, I have by no means "arrived" in my abilities to represent a believable character. I have much training to do. But, natural ability combined with passion, focus, training, and good opportunities will result in someone who can convince an audience that the voice they hear is talking just to them, or that the characters they see on screen are real and exist somewhere.

You'll notice I took my picture off the top of the page. It was unnecessary. Why do you need to know what I look like? When I work on voice over, I want the image in your head to fit with the voice. If you picture me, then what's the point? If I do a character in a cartoon, look at the cartoon, not me. If my voice can't convince you that the "being" you see onscreen is real, then I have failed my job.

The Objectivity Or Subjectivity Of Art

2007-07-20T10:53:00.000-05:00

Today's post is part of the continuing debate with my good friend, Ted Stoltz, over at Notablogtm.com. You'll notice a change in the title of my post from last week. I realized that the title, "Objective of the Imagination" is not a very debatelike title. Since this is a debate, I want to reflect that.

Now, as per our rules, we have a 1,500 word limit. I usually start out way over and have to pare down. This week, I'm doing something a bit different. I used quotes from Ted's posts and put in responses to specific points. I am not counting the quotes from Ted's post as part of my word count. Cry foul if you must, folks, I had no other way of getting my points in and the responses wouldn't make much sense without Ted's part. Besides, this makes it seem a bit more like a live debate, so it'll flow better. The only problem is, unlike a real debate, Ted can't immediately respond to one of my points, so you'll just have to wait until Monday for his end. Because I am taking this tactic, I won't count against Ted when he uses quotes from my post. He usually comes under the word limit by a bit more, anyway, so it's not as big a deal for him. If you add up the words that I wrote, you'll find they come in under 1,500 words.

Also, I used material from his Wednesday post, I Just Got To Level 20 in Sending Email. There are no rules against this, but I want to play fair, so I'm just letting you know. Ted, if you like, grab anything from any of my other posts.

_____________________________________________________

Ted: I asked about the absolute standards of beauty, not beauty itself. While a working definition of beauty is helpful, it is not where the disagreement lies. Since Paul’s argument is that beauty in art is based on objective standards, we need to know what these objective standards are. Paul attempts to define one of them by saying, “Men find fertile women beautiful because we have a natural instinct to produce offspring.”

Paul: Our sense of what's beautiful arrives to us from the outside world. Instinctually, what we find beautiful is what will do us good. Ugly, what will do us harm. Consistency and comfort we find beautiful, which is why soft pillowy clouds are beautiful. Jaggedness and hardness we find ugly, such as sharp rocks at the bottom of a chasm. In art, we can represent an ugly subject in a beautiful way, using our skill at our craft to make use of symmetry, the golden mean, balance, what have you. We can also represent beautiful things in an ugly way, such as a poor drawing of a large eyed puppy. Just because someone sucks at representing something doesn't mean that thing isn't beautiful. The poor drawing of the puppy may be horrible to us because of its poor lines, jagged edges, and lack of balance. It has become a monster. The technical cannot be separated form the conceptual without both suffering. A person must have the technique to represent his idea accurately, and he must have a good idea to execute.

"Yes, but what about things that can do us harm but we still find beautiful, like an erupting volcano?" Alright, good point. Here we deal with a mixture of several aspects. One, we probably do not find it beautiful, per se, but perhaps "powerful" and "awe inspiring." I would find a 3,000 foot tall pile of rotting corpses really impressive ("How on earth did they do that?"), but I certainly wouldn't find it beautiful. Besides, if we are there to actually witness a volcano erupting, assuming we were from a far away vantage point and wouldn't get hurt, there are aspects we would find beautiful. The roundness and softness of the billowing cloud, the symmetry and balance of the mountain, etc. These aspects by themselves are beautiful, though we would be terrified out of our wits at what they combined into.

Ted: The “normalcy” of humanity is not borne of some objectivity existing either inside or outside the brain. The normalcy in the human condition is nothing more than the hump of the bell curve. We define normal by looking at the traits that most people have. But the standard distribution itself yields extremes—which must also be considered normal. A world which did not have a standard distribution—where everyone is the same—would be the abnormal world. It wouldn’t correspond with our observations. To say that someone’s standards are abnormal because they fall outside the “normal” range (whatever that is) may be true in the semantic sense, but it certainly should not be used as leverage against them. These people will always exist, and the fact that they do exist in a certain percentage is normal. Furthermore, they must be taken into account, and not simply dismissed as abnormal.

Paul: Ok, if you want the word "normal" to mean "mathematical average." I'm using normal to mean "functions well." Sure, everyone being the same would be a strange world. The people in our world have wide ranges of being smart/stupid, tall/short, that sort of thing. Some people have good imaginations, some don't. Life ain't fair. Some people can more easily recognize beauty, some can't. Ed Wood wouldn't know a good film if it bit him in the can. Orson Welles did. What's the difference? Something objective because we're rating them as artists. Anytime we say something is "good," "bad," "right," or "wrong," we are appealing to something from without.

John Williams is a superior guitarist to, say, me. It's not just craft, he makes superior choices to myself when playing a piece of music. He knows that to affect an audience, he must perform a piece with "hills and valleys," in other words, slight changes in tempo, dynamics, and tambre. If I believe that the same piece must be performed flat throughout, I am not just an inferior player, I am an inferior artist. The piece will not affect the audience as well as if it were performed by him. Now, I know that pieces must be performed with such hills and valleys, but that may not be the case for someone else. Is his artistic vision inferior? Sure. Until he learns what it takes to write or perform a piece that will move an audience, he ain't goin' anywhere artistically. He'll play to a small fraction of people who also don't grow and perform pieces very flat. And yes, their experience of the music will be worse, because without those hills and valleys, they won't be carried anywhere by the music.

Ted: Furthermore, this view point could be argued to confirm my initial claim, not refute it. Whether or not you personally agree with other people’s standards is completely beside the point. Paul said, “Sure, we can say we believe everything’s subjective, but we sure don’t function that way.” Disregarding the fact that I made no such claim as “everything” being subjective—who sure doesn’t function that way? Obviously some people do; you just called them a problem! The standards must be subjective, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this “problem”.

Paul: I meant "function well." Sure, insane people function. People who mutilate themselves for fun function. They don't function well.

Ted: Couldn’t two people with subjective opinions of beauty still find some common ground, and thereby not be lonely?

Paul: Yes, but they're appealing to something outside of themselves to do it! They're saying, "Hey, I enjoy this thing, and you enjoy this thing, let's both enjoy it!" It's no longer just in their individual heads (if it ever was), but between them for both of them to look at outside of themselves.

Ted: The utter chaos that happens in games doesn’t really get recognized for what it is because there’s no real risk there. I know the study talks about how games prepare one to be a risk-taker, but let’s be honest. They don’t. There isn’t really a real risk in an online game. There’s a lot of inconvenience, but it never impacts your real-life life. Because of this, the game is hugely tolerant of error. It has to be, not just because there are a lot of stupid people playing, but because it’s a game and it’s supposed to be fun. Nobody would play a game where, when you die, you’re dead and that’s it. That’s no fun, and nobody plays games to have not-fun. So in games today, you can screw around all day—you can have your utter chaos—and still get things accomplished with cursing and an utter lack of organization and only the most rudimentary chain of command because the game is extremely forgiving.

Paul: Are video games art with objective standards for enjoyment? You bet. Someone makes a game where you die once and that's it? I agree with you, that guy's an idiot who made poor art. *PS, this is the one taken from the Wednesday post.

Ted: I don’t understand the claim that we’d be able to literally do anything. (We’d be able to do literally everything? Fly, perhaps? Why should this be true?)

Paul: I meant "literally anything in art." If I take a tree and plant it in my living room, is it my work? Nope, that tree was made by nature, not me. If it's art, it's God's art, not mine.

Ted: Why should you be concerned about what other people’s standards of beauty are?

Paul: Because people with inferior conceptions of what is beautiful try to tell us that the 5,000 years of artists believing in something outside themselves that compels them to make art is resulting from a false philosophy (though that philosophy produced the greatest works of art this world has ever seen) and we need to accept that Fountain and 4'33" are just as good because human thought has really advanced in the last 30 years. Second, these same people are becoming in charge of the art world and are telling people that they can do what they like, as long as it makes them feel good. I'm all for feeling good, but I'm also for growing intellectually and artistically, which ultimately results in my feeling better than if I lived in the narrow conceptions of my own mind.

Sometimes we don't like what's best for us at first, but we learn to like it and eventually like it better than what we liked before. If someone tells me McDonald's hamburgers are better than filet mignons, I don't deny that he feels that they taste better. I also believe that he has an inferior palate and would benefit in the long run from trying out filet mignons. If he still doesn't like them, then I won't use him as my restaurant guide. Nor will I ask him where to take my boss for lunch.

Ted: It doesn’t matter how much you study the masters, or drive for that “objective standard” because there is no objective standard. You can’t make work everyone likes. So you make work for you.

Paul: Calling them "the Masters" means they have something the rest of us don't have. Do they not only have better skill, but better imaginations? Sure. Not only do they represent images better, but they also pick images depending on their beauty (if they use images at all, abstractionists take the parts down to their core: Light, Shade, Texture, but still rely on the standards of beauty). Is a well executed painting of a puppy more beautiful than a well executed painting of a rotting corpse? Sure. The pic of the corpse may be beautiful, but it's not as beautiful, because it has an ugly subject.

I won't be able to make work everyone likes. In fact, there are plenty of people I hope don't like my work. I want my work to appeal to people with high levels of imagination as well as craft. Whether I will achieve that, I don't know. I am certainly not (at least right now) on the level of people like Johann Sebastian Bach, Mel Blanc, or Ernest Hemingway. I may never be, but it is the high level that they attained that pushes me to continue.

Ted: Is there ugliness? Sure. Is it full of amateurish mistakes? Of course. Does some of this ugly, amateur work get picked up and make it big? Absolutely. This doesn’t mean there is a more noble standard to which we should all be striving, but it may mean that you find yourself unable rest until you get recognition for your not-ugly, not-amateur work. If you truly have great work, the ugly stuff shouldn’t bother you. But even if you have the greatest work of all, you will still have people who find your stuff ugly, boring, or trite.

Paul: So there are objective standards in art? If we can say something us ugly, there is an objective standard of beauty to which we aspire. The ugly stuff bothers me because the average person 100 years ago could identify something as good art. In J.S. Bach's time, average people could play an instrument, read sheet music, and compose music, as well. Artists from every field were reaching to the world as fellow artists, something which has been lost. Now, the average musician plays to people who don't know anything about music, and therefore they cannot critique his performance and aid him in improving. If the average artist shows someone a picture, the person says, "I don't know art, but that looks good to me." The average beer drinker thinks Miller Lite is "the good stuff." It drags down the overall quality of what we do, and people can't tell the difference anymore. Art has suffered. I have no problem with certain people finding my art crappy, if they're poor artists. If an artist is good enough, his work will appeal to experts and laymen alike, and aid in restoring the artist's place in reaching out to fellow artists.

Now, when I talk about what art is and what it is not, I refer mostly to the involvement of the "artist," not just the quality of the end product. John Cage did not "write" 4'33'' because any aspects of performance are totally out of his control. The credit for the "performances" should go to the audience shifting in their chairs, and the traffic going by the theater. His prepared piano material, however, is art. It's just bad art. Besides, sometimes the propaganda surrounding a great piece of art is true. We see it and say to ourselves, "Wow, this is beautiful. How could anyone not find this beautiful?"

Guitar Lesson #2

2007-07-18T10:48:00.000-05:00

Time for your second guitar lesson! Last time we discussed the basics - how to hold the guitar comfortably, how to agress upon the guitar (play the thing), and some rudimentary note identification. Now, we're going to get into sheet music.

Here's a handy diagram that demonstrates how to find the notes in sheet music on the neck of a guitar. Let's define some terms. When I say, "string one," that's the thinnest string, the one closest to the floor. "String six" is the thickest string, the one closest to your head. When I say "up the neck," that means you are getting closer to the body of the guitar. "Down the neck" means you are getting closer to the headstock. When you think "up," think about the notes getting higher in pitch, not necessarily a physical direction.

Now, using the legend you have here, let's learn a simple piece of music.

I have written out the first half of Beethoven's Ode to Joy from the 9th Symphony. Let me give some explanation as the difference between lengths of notes. When I write that quarter notes are "one beat," that corresponds to one pulse, or, if you have a metronome handy, one metronome click. If you're counting to yourself (1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4...) you would play a note every time you said a number. Half notes last for two beats. So, if I were to write out a line of half notes, you would only strike the strings every other beat. The emphasis would be on beats 1 and 3. Some people play half notes as if they were just two quarter notes back to back, striking the strings on both beats of the half note. If this were the case, wouldn't I just write a pair of quarter notes? We need notes that indicate longer and shorter periods of time. We'll get into longer and shorter notes in another lesson.

As you learn this, do not just "play through" at performance speed until you "get it." I guarantee you will make mistakes the first time you play it, everyone does. If you play the same mistakes over and over, you will just reinforce those mistakes and they will become habit. Unlearning mistakes takes much more energy and work than just learning things right the first time. So, start slow. Very slow. So slow, you have to think about each note as you play it. Compare this to reading a book one word at a time, absorbing and studying each word as you see it. You'll get faster over time, don't just start out at breakneck speed. Yeah, it's boring, but this is where we separate the people who really want to learn from those who think they'll be Eddie Van Halen after a week.

Now, in addition to starting out slow, making sure you have the correct notes from the very start, we're going to learn the piece in a different way from how most people are used to memorizing material. I want you to focus on just the first two measures (measures are the spaces between the vertical bars in the sheet music). Get those perfect in one lesson, then put the guitar down. Don't go any farther. The next day, sit down with your guitar and play what you have learned. If you notice you've made any mistakes, correct them by playing it as you learned it, the wrong way, and then correct it. You must bring mistakes to the surface and understand what you did wrong before you can correct anything. Now, once you're satisfied that you learned yesterday's two measures, learn the next two. Repeat this process until you have the whole piece.

The reason we learn pieces of music like that is that every part must be strong. When the audience goes home, they are going to remember the beginning and end (mostly the end), the rest is glorified filler. If your piece begins and ends strong, the audience will forgive mistakes made in the middle. You can even learn the piece backwards, focusing on the last two mesaures, then working on the previous two, etc. That way, you'll always know where the piece is going, and it will be easier to memorize. That's a trick that my guitar teacher, Jimmy Chandler, taught me, and David Russell reinforced when I saw him at the 2006 GFA Competition.

Practice well, learn the piece, and we'll pick up another day!

Vicarious Manhood 3000

2007-07-16T09:47:00.000-05:00

Beer. Cars. Guns. These are things men want, but can't buy because their wives won't let them. Now you can add the new Vicarious Manhood 3000 to that list. According to all modern advertising, men are knuckle dragging simpletons who watch football, drink watery beer, and live in their garages. Whereas women are portrayed as divinely infallible sarcastic goddesses who know they can control their husbands by withholding love, something men think they need 24/7 thanks to a culture that tells them so. So, if you don't want to sleep on the couch tonight, even if you actually bought that Swedish memory foam mattress and have chronic, debilitating back problems that can become permanent thanks to a night on a futon, don't, and we mean don't, buy our product. Just listen to some of our testimonials.

Man 1- I bought a Vicarious Manhood 3000 and my life has been misery and woe ever since.

Man 2- I do not deserve a Vicarious Manhood 3000 because I am a man and men have constant dirty thoughts and I need to start sharing my feelings instead of playing with icky fossil fuel guzzling toys. My wife told me to say that.

Man 3- I tell you what, I would love one. But, I just spent all my money on a Prius. Man, I hate those things.

Why do we advertise something you can't buy? Because we're jerks. We're Men.

VICARIOUS MANHOOD 3000!

*Brought to you by a guy who thinks modern television commercials are indicative of cultural decline.

Yeah, this was a pretty easy one to write. I think I wrote it after watching one of those "dumb dad can't stand up to his own kids so the mom has to take charge" commercials or tv shows. This is getting pretty irritating. Somehow, the idea has wormed its way into the culture that it's ok to make fun of the things men like, but it's sexist and wrong to make fun of anything women like. Boys on tv shows do "dumb boy things" like playing cowboys and indians, building soap box derby racers, and generally being little boys. The girls, however, pursue more intellectual pursuits like brushing their dolls' hair and having tea parties. Aren't these things merely different? Aren't men and women here on earth because they fulfill specific roles? Why put the other sex down for doing stuff that they like? If a woman wants to go buy shoes, I don't say, "Huh, dumb woman off to satiate her need for shopping." No, she wants some dang shoes because, thank goodness, she can afford them and wants them. So why put down men because we like beer, guns, and motorcycles?

Why does it seem safe to make fun of men? Is it because we're generally too polite to say anything? Is this principle the same reason we can get away with shows like Moral Orel, but a Norwegian newspaper runs a comic depicting Mohammed and the middle eastern world is ready to tear people apart? Or is it that people have a knee jerk reaction to perceived patriarchal patronizing from fifty years ago and feel that we must swing the other way just to make things fair? Why don't we stop knee jerking and saying, "let's see how you like it" and just show things the way they are? Commercials, movies, and tv shows would be a lot more relatable.

One of the biggest aggravators for me is the show, Johnny Test. Pretty standard fare; a boy who's a spy owns a talking tog and they go on adventures together. The thing that bothers me is the dad in the show is an effeminate stay at home dad, and the mom is a type A, no nonsense business-woman. No problem with a strong mother, mine is. She's helped me and pushed me when I didn't give my best, also she's the hardest working person I know. In fact, pushover mothers are unpleasant to watch, too. That's why I don't like the comic strip, Zits. But why the effeminate dad in this series? He's emasculated and very hard to look at. He's a freakin' castrati. How on earth does his son respect him? The show also features Johnny Test's twin sisters, who are brilliant scientists. Is anyone else getting tired of the "I can do anything you can do" agenda crammed down our throats? This show features almost every liberal agenda I can think of, though they haven't made Johnny and his dog lovers yet.

What the **** happened to cartoons being funny? Cartoons fill a gap between literature and visual art. They are supposed to be fun to look at and tell a compelling narrative with funny characters. Now, they seem to be conveyances for indoctrinating children. And lest you think I'm being one sided, I'm not too fond of most "Christian" cartoons, either. Most of them are preachy, but contentless. They tell a moral, but the art suffers. I agree with the message, but the message is all there is. It doesn't come across because I'm too wrapped up in the poor animation, poor voice acting, poor dialogue. There are a few exceptions, I like Veggie Tales, for instance. But that series isn't preachy, it exists in a world which presupposes Christian Morals, rather than trying to overtly preach for 22 minutes, hitting the viewer over the head with the blunt end of the premise. Ultimately, though, if I am going to watch something preachy (there seems little choice these days), I'd like to watch something with which I agree.

I think my point is best summed up in the "Star Trash" episode of The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat. Felix is on board a ship bearing a strong resemblance to the USS Enterprise, which is dumping garbage on our planet. The captain, in response to Felix complaining about this, says, "Why should you care? You people use it as a dump, anyway." Felix responds, "Oh, no. We're in a cartoon with a moral."

Drawings

2007-07-14T20:25:00.000-05:00

Some of these are old, some are recent. I have always wanted to work on my drawing ability, but have never had the time. These represent the ones I am willing for others to see. These also represent a non visual artist's attempts at doing visual art. I would love to improve, but that may take more time than I am willing to put in. In any case, here they are, complete with explanations for their origins.

Here's a character I was working on for a story. It's set in an animal world, much like Disney's Robin Hood. Animals allow for character establishment from the moment the character appears on the screen. Take the white rabbit for instance. It symbolizes meekness, a world class introvert. Mine was for a story about a young keyboard virtuoso named Thomas, who is a scrawny, nearsighted (I realize only one of the pictures featurs him with glasses, but they're a big part of the story) white rabbit that had lost part of his right ear as a child. The other character in the story is a priest named James, portrayed as a fox. The fox, of course, insinuates intelligence, even cunning. James had been a child virtuoso as well, but was exploited by his foster parents for personal gain. James left that way of life to become a minister in the Anglican church. The story takes place in 1830's England, around the time the Monarchy was losing power and the Romantic era was beginning in full swing. James represents the old ways, the traditions that he had to fight to uphold in his life. Thomas represents the innocence of youth and the struggle on the part of the older generation to protect the younger from a destructive path.
I also realize that some of my pictures feature a rather adult looking Thomas. Well, that was from when I wanted to carry the story later in his life.

These are characters for a steampunk story I started writing entitled, Harmony and Counterpoint. The title is a nod to Jane Austin's way of titling some of her novels, such as Pride and Prejudice, or Sense and Sensibility. The story centers around young adventuress Clare Bridewell, part of a secret society charged with protecting cultural artifacts belonging to Britain. She is the Harmony part of the story, harmony being the focus of composers once highly contrapuntal music fell out of favor. The other is Alexander Abott, a young priest (yeah, another priest character, you gotta problem widdat?) who feels useless in his role of living in the church, only existing for helping out with services. He, of course, is the Counterpoint. Imitative Counterpoint was the main way of composing in the late Renaissance and Baroque, but was largely abandoned in the Classical era. Though it's antique, it's also very complex. Like Alex... anyway, this'll take far longer to explain than I feel like.

This was from my time of video game obsession, about 9 years ago. I loved Sonic the Hedgehog, but I also loved guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. So, I combined them. That's about all there is to this.

This started out as the hat. I was getting frustrated with my inability to draw a halfway decent hat, so I went to the Wikipedia section on Fedoras and tried to draw the Fedora pic they had using as much detail as possible. Then, getting annoyed at it being just a hat, I decided to draw a person underneath. I'm pleased with my results considering there was no planning that went into it at all, but there's still a lot that bothers me, such as the question of his arms' existence. Where are they? I'm not sure. Oh, and his tailor had no idea how to make a collar. Oh well.

As a contrast, here's a sketch my Stepfather, John made in a few minutes while he was talking on the phone.

Here's a Christmas card sent to me a few years ago by a friend of the family, Bob Hustead. He died last year at the age of 88. Bob was an art teacher for most of his life, and was the mentor of my Stepfather, John. Great man, he was.

Well, that's it for today, critique to your heart's content, or just glance and move on with life. Whatever you like.

The Objective of the Imagination

2007-07-13T01:25:00.000-05:00

Today's post is part of an ongoing debate between myself and my friend, Ted Stoltz. We had been debating by email, but its informality led to procrastination (mostly on my part). Ted suggested we take our arguments public so could make ourselves stick to a time table and get some real arguing done. This is better for both of us because you, the reader, get to put in your two cents. The format is that Ted posts on Mondays and I post on Fridays. We respond to particular arguments raised by the other person in 1,500 words or less. We carry on the debate as long as we care to do so. Ted went first on Monday, so this is my first post on the matter. Ted has already gotten more response than for any other post he's done, so this is shaping up to be an exciting and rousing discussion. If you're knowledgeable about art, then I ask you, put in comments. Please, chip in. And remember, this is not just visual art we're debating, but the entire foundation of imagination. So join us, as travelers on the road for truth. That is what any good debate is supposed to be.
_____________________________________________________

My argument is that imagination is objective. I am convinced that we can have good ideas and bad ideas, good concepts of beauty and bad concepts of beauty, and that beauty is a universal we appeal to. I do not mean to limit imagination, only that our minds appeal to what is already good and beautiful and we are only rearranging parts rather than creating that which did not exist.

Objective:
1. Not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased: an objective opinion.
2. Being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject.
3. Of or pertaining to something that can be known, or to something that is an object or a part of an object; existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality.

Ted's argument is that imagination is subjective:
1. Existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought.
2. Pertaining to or characteristic of an individual.
3. Placing excessive emphasis on one's own moods, attitudes, opinions, etc.

I understand completely where Ted is coming from. When someone writes a book or makes a movie, we say it is "his vision," or "her creation." It is natural to attach such words to what we do. Our minds are very complex, and we are all unique individuals with our own quirks and idiosyncracies. We can conjure thoughts that seem to appear from nowhere.

That being said, we are all still humans. We have the same hardware and it works the same as the person next to you. This is why we can say someone has a short attention span or a high aptitude for concentration. It is why we can say someone has a chemical imbalance. We know that "normal" is not up to our whims, and we make comparisons against our knowledge of the objective truth for the sake of being able to function. If not for the objective, we'd be quivering masses unable to relate to the world. We couldn't tell what we're supposed to do in any given moment or know whether something is right or wrong. Sure, we can say we believe everything's subjective, but we sure don't function that way. And with no ability to share an experience of beauty with another human, we'd be pretty lonely creatures, too.

Let us define beauty: Beauty is commonly defined as a characteristic present in a person, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning or satisfaction to the mind or to the eyes, arising from sensory manifestations such as a shape, color, personality, sound, design or rhythm. At least, that's how the Wiki explains it.

Men find fertile women beautiful because we have a natural instinct to produce offspring. When we are attracted to that which is incapable of producing offspring, that is a problem, not diversity. If all men were conditioned to find infertile women attractive, that would be disastrous. When we tell ourselves that our instincts for curvaceous shapes are wrong, or at least subjective, our eyes may go to other things and cause us trouble. This situation is bad. We must say that. Do people have the right to be attracted to rotting corpses, animals, and inanimate objects? Sure, they can confuse whatever they like, but it's still a confusion and unhealthy. There are reasons why we find certain things beautiful. When we don't, that may indicate a problem. What we find beautiful has impacts and ramifications in all our life.

You write, "I’m not particularly fond of Albrecht Durer because I think his figures are somewhat stiff and lifeless, but there’s no denying the artfulness of his work." Right here you momentarily agree with me. You are saying that his work adheres to some objective standard of beauty or artfulness. I could say his figures exemplify motion and life, and there'd be no ability for debate between us if things were truly subjective. But Durer's figures are lifeless. If they weren't you'd be beating your fists in the air when you said that, and it would be a meaningless statement. His forms are a bit lifeless, and that detracts from their beauty. That doesn't mean his drawings don't adhere to a high standard of beauty, they do. It's just that there's room for improvement, which is only possible when there are objective standards, existing outside of ourselves.

You also write, "To say that no one’s standard of beauty is better or worse than anyone else’s might be a bit blithe—but to say that your standards of beauty are not the same as other standards of beauty found throughout the world is a fact. They are not the same." I agree. I do believe that art of other cultures, be they Russian, Japanese, or Indian, is very beautiful. But they all exist at the same level of beauty. They are merely different in style. I do say that there are people with poor conceptions of beauty, and I have no problem saying that. I believe Orson Welles had superior conceptions of beauty than Ed Wood, and Johann Sebastian Bach than John Cage. When we start debating the merits of Bach and Mozart, that's something else. I hate Mozart's music, I think it's repetitive. But it is beautiful. He had a genius for harmony and melody, even if his structure was a bit thin. But just because it's beautiful doesn't mean I have to like it. I don't fault people for liking Mozart, likes are subjective. But the fact that both composers elevated what they did to high level of beauty is not subjective, it's very objective. And we must be able to tell that. We must see their flaws, and understand them so we can grow.

Are there intellects as great as Mozart or Bach that existed in other cultures and wrote entirely different styles of music? Yes! But they knew about beauty, too, and knew that there are certain aspects to different types of consonances and dissonances that have particular effects on the listener. The Greeks knew this, and this is spelled out in Plato's The Republic. When listening to Indian sitar music, I find it relaxing. I should. If I found slow tempo sitar music to be the audio equivalent of caffeine, I'd be a messed up individual. I'd hate to think what would happen if I listened to Metallica.

I believe that if a culture does not revel in beauty, but rather ugliness, we are not obliged to say their standards of beauty are just as good as anyone else's. If an entire people says that watching others get tortured is beautiful we would rightly say they are depraved, not entitled to their own opinion. I use an extreme example, but it serves a purpose. If ugly becomes beautiful, and subjectiveness rules, then how can we make good art, or art at all? The dark means the same as the light, the rough as the smooth, the vast as the cramped, and so none give the impression they're supposed to. It is the objective that allows for diversity! When we call ugliness what it is, it can have the proper effect on us. When I say a tritone is ugly, that doesn't mean that it's not useful. It creates tension in a piece of music which heightens the sense of relaxation when it resolves to a consonance. But I do not call a tritone beautiful, though it leads to beauty. If I called it beauty, there would be no tension or resolution and a piece of music would go nowhere. It would not be interesting.

Also, our skill sharpens our sense for what is beautiful. A carpenter may see an untrue angle that I don't. Does that mean when I do see what he sees, the piece of furniture is less beautiful than it was before? No, it means that I am coming to recognize an objective quality that I didn't see. When I train my ears to hear out of tune notes, does that mean that I am removing beauty from what was beautiful? No, I am recognizing an imperfection and an error, and am conforming to an objective standard. Rather than this being constricting, this elevates my senses and I can enjoy things more than I ever have. Because my mind gets acclimated to what is without and external, it gets the "right" ideas.

The point is, all these qualities are imposed upon us from without, and don't emanate from within. If imagination were subjective, we'd be able to do literally anything, and I'd bet no two people would find the same things beautiful. The fact of the matter is, we make judgments, and we share interests. This, to me, points to an objective world of imagination from which we draw, rather than humans being the wellsprings for what is considered beautiful.

Psalm 23

2007-07-10T21:28:00.000-05:00

The LORD, the Psalmist’s Shepherd.

A Psalm of David.

1 The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3 He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

The amazing thing is, the greatest book (or rather collection of books) is available online free of charge. It can be found in just about any hotel, and it's outsold every other book ever printed by such a wide margin, best seller lists assume it will be at the top from the get go. The words inside will surprise you, regardless of your preconceptions, I know it did for me. It's the Bible, of course. Pick it up, it will shock you. Start with the gospels, they're pretty radical.

Guitar Lesson 1

2007-07-05T11:05:00.000-05:00

It's now time for that guitar lesson I promised. Let's start with the essentials. You will need:
1. Your guitar. For today's lesson, let's assume you have an electric or steel string acoustic. Nylon string classicals are a different metter, and I'll deal with them in a separate lesson.
2. A comfy chair. Find one with a back to it, you'll want to use that back.
3. If you don't own a metronome or a tuner, buy them as soon as you can.

First, let's deal with proper sitting position. Sit with you're butt in the crevace in the back of the chair. Don't waste any seat. Put your feet flat on the floor in front of you. Now, place the guitar on your right leg (left if you're a lefty) with the bend in the middle of the guitar body resting around your thigh. That's important, and needs stating, because I've seen people try to balance their guitar on the large round part near the bottom of the body. Now, place your right bicep on the top of the guitar (again, left for lefties) so the front edge of the guitar is placed in your elbow pit. You should be able to swing your arm freely over the face of the guitar. Now, to hold the pick, make a "thumbs up" sign with your picking hand. Place the pick point out (or side out if you like, but the point of the pick must be aimed down) and secure the pick with your index and middle fingertips. Grip the pick hard enough that it doesn't fly out of your hand, but not so hard that the pick can't move.

As for your fretting hand, let your arm droop by your side and release all muscle tension. Look at your hand, it will appear to be gently grabbing a palm sized ball. Keep your hand like this as you place it on the neck. Put the pad of your thumb on the back of the neck and keep your fingers rounded as they go to press on the strings. Keep your hand looking like this, don't grip the neck like a baseball bat. Your wrist should be straight, if your hand moves from this relaxed position, your wrist will bend more than it should. To play on the strings closest to your head, move your entire arm up the bring your fingers to the string. Then, to reach the strings closest to the floor, float your arm down, keeping your fingers in the same rounded shape. The rule is, keep the arm looking like it's hanging my your side: straight wrist, thumb opposing the fingers, fingers staying round and relaxed. I say "rule," but some peoples' hands do funny things. If you are incabable of having a perfect looking hand, don't sweat it. Lots of people have "improper" hands yet play well.

Now we're ready to play. Practice playing on any given string. Match which string you fret with which string you pick. Fret the string as close behind the fret as possible. This will ensure that you don't get any buzzing. Such placement isn't always possible, but we'll shoot for it as much as we can. Make sure you press on the string with the tip of your finger, and not the pad. Using the flat part of the finger is a differenct technique which we'll discuss later. As for your picking hand, strike the string in a circular fashion. Make a small O with your picking motion. You want to hit one string and not the strings around it. Once you've gotten the hang of that, try alternate picking, where you strike the string with upstrokes and downstrokes. When doing alternate picking, the motion is more like a V. You need to come down on the string like a fighter pilot descending on a target, only to come away once you've struck your goal. Then, do the same thing with your upstroke, and your motion will resemble that V mentioned earlier.

Once you've gotten comfortable with how your hands are moving around on the guitar, it's time to start playing some real music. Take your fretting hand and place it on the neck. Put your first finger (index) on string one (the closest to the floor), fret one (the farthest one from the body, next to the tuners). This is the note, F. Now, put finger 3 (ring) on fret 3 , same string. This note is G. Now, play the open string. That's E. We call it the high E becaues the open 6th string (closest one to your head) is also an E, but is a much lower pitch. Now that you know E, F, and G, you can perform the following little exercise:
E F G F E F G F G E F G E

Try to keep all the notes on a constant beat, the point is to switch between notes smoothly and in rhythm.

Ok, that's enough for today, next time we'll work a bit on some new strings and find some sheetmusic we can look at, ok? Have a blessed day!

More writing exercises

2007-07-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

It's time for another writing exercise! This time, I was planning to write the first paragraph of a story about those triplet aliens I posted about a few days back. As I started to write, I realized that I was running out of words to describe intelligent beings. I was unable to go on, not wanting to rewrite the first two sentences for the sake of one word, when I realized my difficulty over one word could be the story itself. The exercise I made for myself has many goals:
1. Better blocking around the dialogue. Allowing the dialogue to flow naturally without awkward breaks that wouldn't exist in real life. If there is a large section of blocking between dialogue, it must be due to a silence on the part of the characters.
2. Better dialogue.
3. A perfect level of backstory. Not too much, not too little.
4. Leaving just the right amount to imagination of the reader. I don't have to describe every little detail about how the characters act or what their surroundings look like, I just have to hint at them and let the reader's brain take over without giving them any false images.
5. Being subtle about the characters' setting, not coming right out and say it. You should be able to figure out when and where this takes place very easily, maybe a little too easily.
6. Clever description without being heavy handed.
7. Telling a story from the perspective of one character without describing things he would have no way of knowing.
8. Having my facts correct. I hate it when I watch movies that feature easy to check upon mistakes like V8 sounds for a car that has an V6, period films that feature guitars yet to be introduced. Both those mistakes were featured in Back to The Future. To be fair, the added a V8 sound for the Delorean because it sounded way cooler than the pathetic Volvo V6 the car featured. Still, it's a mistake, and they should have explained some sort of engine transplant.
So, without further ado, I give my short story beginning.

The Triplets of Mr. Penfold

The creatures of this universe take for granted that they are what they are. Even when a being of a given species wonders what it would be like to have just a few of the unique qualities of another...

I froze as I typed that last sentence. "Shi..."

"Hold it, unless you want another 10 pence to go in the swear jar." My wife scowled at me from the top basement step.

"I can't find another word for 'species.' Just be quiet a moment and let me think."

My hands hovered above the keyboard, waiting for commands from my brain they weren't receiving. I furrowed my brow and stared at my withered digits as if that would move them into action. My wife had owl's ears and could detect a half swear word from 200 paces. It annoyed me because cursing helped me think. Still, when she poked her head from behind the basement door, she became adept at forcing her gaze through my skull and out the other side like an awl. My desire for profanity was no match. Besides, half my income was going into that blasted swear jar.

My wife stood silent at the door, but continued her piercing stare into my frontal lobe. At last, she became exasperated. "Well, if you can't think of a word, look in the thesaurus," she said as she headed back down the stairs.

"I've looked in the bloody thesaurus, and there are only three words that fit." I threw my hands in the air. "I've already used them and I can't put the same word twice in the first two sentences of a novel. People will flip it shut and save it to use as tissues."

"Then rewrite the thing. You've done twelve books in your life, you should know what to do by now," her voice receded into recesses of the basement, "and that's 10 pence for the swear jar."

"For what? 'Bloody?'"

"20 pence."

I sat back in my creaky chair, the typewriter looking dejected as I failed to think of more words to write with it. My lungs forced out raspy sigh and I reached for another cigar. It was my fourth one since I sat down to write. Under normal circumstances, my fingers whisked over the keys of my friend, the black Oliver No. 15 that rested on my flamed mahogany desk. I would lean into the machine, like a bicyclist racing to the top of a hill, forcing onwards through a mass of thick words, only to fly down a series of simple blocking descriptions or cheap dialogue. Today, however, was different. My cigar clung to my lip as I pulled it away, unlit.

I was writing a story about another world. A planet far beyond our most powerful telescopes. Tales of other worlds teeming with life are no new fad. C.S. Lewis introduced Out of the Silent Planet 19 years ago, and H.G. Wells wrote his War of the Worlds 59 years ago. I wanted something a bit different from those established books, however. The dominant beings on my ficticious planet have a curious difference from ourselves. Every female gives birth to identical triplets. These triplets are all the same sex, and remain together their entire lives. They look no different from you or I, but each of the triplets are limited to specific functions within the unit. One is the breadwinner, it does all the hard work earning for the sake of the household. The next is the procreator, the one responsible for bringing forth more of its kind and rearing the resultant children to adulthood. The final triplet is the one who lives life for the other two; traveling, pursuing hobbies, creating art. When these creatures marry, they marry another set of triplets, ending up with six people per home. Each couple performs their tasks, whichever role they've been assigned by nature, never complaining or thinking it odd.

My story concerns a particular couple who gives birth to a single child. An unprecedented event in my world, to be sure. This sole child has characteristics of all three of the triplets it was supposed to be. It can procreate, perform laborious tasks, and even understand a work of art. My world breaks into a massive upheaval, with many decrying this aberration as an omen for the end of their world, while others see it as a sign of a new beginning. But that's where my idea ends. I don't know how to finish the story. Not that I'm facing that problem at the moment, thanks to the English language running out of suitable words for my first two sentences. I scowled at my old friend, the Oliver typewriter, frustrated beyond what I'd ever felt when writing.

"Bah," I stepped over to the basement door, yanking my coat off the antique rack, "I'm going for a walk."

Remember when cartoons were cool?

2007-07-03T10:51:00.000-05:00

I love cartoons. In case you haven't read any of my previous blog entries, I wanted to make sure you knew that. Recently, I've been spending a lot of time over at the blog of animator, John Kricfalusi. I used to be skeptical about a lot of Kricfalusi's claims of what makes animation appealing. I felt, because I tend to focus on writing and verbal gags rather than visual ones, that overly cartoony animation was distracting. After reading Kricfalusi's blog on animation, I've done a reversal. I've tried to look for the concepts he talks about in the cartoons I watch, and it's striking to realize just how right he is about so much. Genuine cartooniness from masters such as Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett enhance the story rather than take away from it. All elements must blend and balance, both the visual and the auditory.

That's not to say I don't still love well written but poorly animated cartoons, it's just that now I'm beginning to recognize the gap that exists when the animation is seen only as a medium for the characters mouths to spout dialogue. Why shouldn't the cartoon be pleasing to look at? Moreover, why shouldn't it reflect the talents, even geniuses, of those who animate the cartoons?

Why not take the concepts that make an acknowledged masterpiece, like Botticelli's The Adoration of the Magi, and place them into a cartoon? The Adoration of the Magi is a wonderful example of balance, geometrical in its design without being blocky and inorganic. The soft triangles that the crowd forms point toward, and exentuate, the baby Christ and the Virgin Mary. The shapes aren't immediately recognized, but are subtle, subconscious arrows pointing toward the focus of the painting. It is breathtaking. Also, the shapes are not perfect and symmetrical. They bend, they flow, like organic structures should. The basic principles of composition structure of this painting could be used in the background of a cartoon. Why not? The shot may only last for three seconds, but an image that draws viewers into the animated world is worth the effort. It's far better than staring at arbitrarily placed objects that have nothing to do with each other.

So, for you animators out there, it may be worth checking out John Kricfalusi's blog. I'm not much of a drawer myself, but I want to be able to recognize good art when I see it. Voice over is my game, but the underlying principles of balance, forethought, and organicness (is that a word?) still apply. I urge you, look at John K's examples, read over his manual on Background Art, listen to his ideas. If you disagree with Kricfalusi, you'll at least find ammo for your arguments. Either way, you'll come out knowing more than you did.

Also, I'm adding the link to his blog on my links page. Easy access! Whee!

By the way, I'm going to start posting bits of guitar lesson type junk on the blog. What's the point of a guitar degree if I'm not going to share what I've learned? That's right, no point at all. Besides, it will force me to practice more. And by more, I mean at all.

The weirdness that is my brain.

2007-07-01T22:09:00.000-05:00

Time is precious. Very precious. So precious it is, that we are each given a very small portion of it, yet must work and work to do make some sort of important contribution within the unknown fractional amount we have. I, on the other hand, have decided, apparently, that I will "credit" my time to the future.

Let me explain.

When I feel I have something important to do, I want lots of uninterrupted time in which to do it. I plan on taking this time at some future date, let's call this date "Wednesday," when I have no guitar lessons or meetings that I have to go to. What ends up happening is I get 1/50th of the work done I wanted, get annoyed with myself, and tell myself that I'll work extra hard the next day. In other words, "Thursday." When I wake up Thursday, I take forever to 1. Get out of bed, 2. Shower, 3. Eat breakfast, 4. Read the Bible and have a time of prayer (this is actually one of those things that ends up getting scrunched to the end of the day when I have the consciousness of a narcoleptic Kiwi bird). By the time I'm ready to start on my project, it's time for me to go give a guitar lesson. My students won't show up, yet I will have wasted my time with two 45 minute car trips and nearly an hour of sitting in an office. Upon returning home, I'm tired from doing stuff, but I've accomplished no real work. All the sacrifice without the benefits.

Now, this diatribe is a million miles from where this article was supposed to start, being all ill-formed in my brain and whatnot, so let me get on track.

The other day, I was at Red Lobster with a couple friends of mine. We'll call them "Joey" and "Mike." Which are their real names, so it's convenient. We were having many discussions about rather random topics, such as movies, when we started talking about clones. It was an innocent enough topic, but it started my neurons a firin' (hence the title of the article today).

I started thinking about the strangeness of our universe and the many different creatures that may exist way out in the cosmos. I remembered the movie, Multiplicity, starring Michael Keaton and Andie Macdowell. The movie featured Michael Keaton as himself and his three clones, each representing a different part of his personality. Neat enough concept, taking advantage of the "clones in movies" craze about ten years ago. But I wonder if this concept couldn't be taken further.

Let's say we go to some alien planet far beyond any star we've yet seen. The dominant species on this planet has a peculiar trait. Whenever a female is pregnant, she gives birth to identical triplets, all of the same sex (male or female, no two boys and girl mixes or anything). The triplets stay together all their lives (in terms of proximity, not physical attachment) each performing a different function within the family. One of the triplets would be the worker, whether it means earning money or raising the family. The next would be the reproducer, the one that passes down the genes to the next generation. The last one would be the recreational triplet, going out and experiencing life. When these creatures get married, they would stay together as triplets. In other words, triplet brothers would all marry a set of triplet sisters, and would live in the same house and share the same meals, everything. Perhaps they could share memories somehow, some sort of cord that they would attach to each other to share the experiences.

I would like to see what would happen when a mother would give give birth to a single child that had the traits of a standard set of triplets, three in one. How would his society react to such a person? He would be complete in every way, yet might be more limited because he has to do everything himself. How would he live?

So, you see, the moral of this article is that I spend lots of time thinking about the world and the basic premise of stories, but I never get to the nitty gritty of writing them. Kinda sucks.

The Self as an Idol

2007-06-29T12:48:00.000-05:00

Anyone who walks into the art department of any given University is greeted by an overwhelming sensation that the focus is not on art, but the self. All paintings, sculptures, videos, collages, and the like are about the individual artist's struggles. Upon meeting the so-called artists, one finds human beings that revel in faux depression as expressed through self indulgent "art" (the truly depressed seek real help). The images are sometimes clever, always literal, steeped in the arbitrary, and never reflect a universal problem. All the images that hang on the walls have rejected any notions of beauty, instead throwing off any use of the word "representation" in favor of real ugliness. Beauty is the new ugly. If one calls these peoples' work "ugly," it is a compliment because they feel that "ugly" is "real."

Even Oscar Wilde, bizarre and radical as he was, understood that aesthetics is not just a pleasing pursuit like it's a hobby, but something necessary for human happiness. The choice to focus on something outside ourselves that lifts us up rather than adhering to some humanist notion of staring in at our ugliness in a losing battle to make it go away, was at the center of every art for millenia. As I walk outside, I see life and death. In the garden behind my house, there are beautiful and exotic plants and trees that take my breath away. There are also plants that are dying, but their seeds have already been sewn, bringing forth more of its kind. It lives, having been given life by something long dead, and now it gives life facing its own death. I see carnivores that devour helpless herbivores, but in the process feed their own carnivore young. At every stage, death brings forth life, ugliness transformed and seen through the veil of beauty. The artist has a similar task; giving his own life to create the beautiful. Even in the representation of the hideous and grotesque, he does so with skill, imagination, and yes, even beauty. These are lost concepts now, as navel staring rules over all.

The reason I bring this up is because I had really come to accept it. Movies come out that make comments and references to things that are so current the movies will be incomprehensible five years from now. Art is reduced to inane concepts such as "painted sculpture" and "video collage." Acting is reduced to the representation of the actor's feelings, and actors wonder why they're typecast. Music must be automatic and spontaneous, thus any sort of training is seen as stifling creativity. Writing must be automatic or else a story idea is scrapped. One is not considered a writer unless he has vomited forth three books by the time he's twelve. Time, honing, work, it's not valued. I found myself face to face with my unspoken belief that unless I accomplished a goal inside five minutes, it would never happen. That is, until I started reading Michael Chekhov's To The Actor.

I read about Michael Chekhov, who had trial after trial, and only found the success he had been seeking much later in life. He abhorred the notion that the actor must rely only on his own experiences in order to be able to portray a character. Focusing inward to be able to reflect universals is a sure way to find artistic incest, but not a way to develop a character. Chekhov differed in this from his teacher and mentor, Konstantin Stanislavsky, inventor of method acting. I believe Chekhov was correct in his break from Stanislavsky's method acting, and the proof is in Chekhov himself. His characterizations were often preferred over Stanislavsky's, and Stanislavsky gave Chekhov the highest compliment, "He is my most gifted student."

I would like to reproduce some of Chekhov's writings on art and imagination. I found it to be very enlightening. I hope you do, too.

Chekhov's To The Actor - Chapter One: Imagination and Concentration

The great German director Max Reinhardt confessed, "I am always surrounded by images." Charles Dickens wrote in his journal, "I have been sitting here in my study all morning, waiting for Oliver Twist who has not yet arrived!" Goethe declared that inspiring images must appear before us as God's children and call to us, "We are here!" Raphael saw an image moving within his room that later became the Sistine Madonna on his canvas. Michelangelo complained despairingly that images pursued him and forced him to sculpt in all sorts of materials, even solid rock.

How can we question the beliefs of these master artists and writers that their imaginative life came to them from outside themselves? And would they not scorn the narrow conception of creativity that relies solely upon personal memories and efforts? They would undoubtedly feel that today we deny our communication with the objective world of imagination, in direct contrast to their free excursions into it. The creative impulse of the masters was an expansion toward the world beyond them, while ours is often a contraction within ourselves.

The old masters of European and Asian culture might even shout to us, "Look at your creations. They are not confined to reproductions of our petty, personal lives, desires, and limited surroundings. Unlike the artists of today, we forgot our individual selves in order to be conscious and active servants of otherworldly images. Truly, we did not want to be slaves to these unguided visions. But in our work, we incorporated them like an unexpected blessing. Why are you then creating so many specimens of ugliness, disease, and chaotic contortions? Is it not simply because you are too concerned with yourselves alone and not your art?"

The conviction that there is an objective world in which our images lead their independent life widens our horizon and strengthens our creative will. Developing and assuming new conceptions concerning the creative process in art is the way for the artist to grow and to understand his or her talent. One of those new conceptions is the objective existence of the world of the artist's creative images. What is the reward of artists brave enough to acknowledge the objectivity of the world of imagination? They free themselves from the constant pressure of their too personal, too intellectual interference with the creative process, the greater part of which is intensely personal and takes place in the sphere that lies beyond the intellect.

Later, Chekhov writes:

Poor indeed is the imagination that leaves the artist's mind cold, and poor indeed is the influx of wisdom to such an artist, when one hears him say, "I have built my art upon my convictions." Would it not be better for an artist to say that he has built his convictions upon his art? But this is only true of the artist who is really gifted. Haven't we noticed that the less talented the person is, the earlier he forms his "convictions" and the longer he tenaciously clings to them?

I really enjoyed this section of the book, not because I enjoy being proved right and only read things that "preach to the choir," but because it forced me to accept that I had become complacent in my pursuit of my crafts, be they music, writing, or acting. If I really want to hone my abilities, I have to sacrifice to do it, to accept that I must study, practice, and work in order that the force of creative imagination might work through me to its highest degree. I must adhere to time honored principles, humbling myself to accept that I must learn before I can contribute. Instead of thinking that I'm going to throw out all the work done by previous generations and replace it with my own ideas, I have to look to what is done, what is universally accepted as master work by master craftsmen. That is the only way I can grow. Indeed, it is the only way anyone can grow.

Domesticated Animals that Didn't Work Out.

2007-06-28T13:00:00.000-05:00

1. Carrier Pythons
2. Lap-Horses
3. Teacup Bobcats
4. Bomb Squad Sloths
5. Drug Sniffing Tarantulas
6. Guard Plankton
7. Attack Yeast
8. Truffle tracking Gorillas
9. Seeing Eye Baboons
10. Cart pulling Blue Whales

Would you like another Pabst, sir?

2007-06-26T09:30:00.000-05:00

Here's an article I wrote several months ago. I wrote it before I learned the custom of writing a query letter, then writing the article. Oh well, it was a bit of therapy for me anyway. Every time I go into a restaurant, I see people sucking down Coors Lights, Bud Lights, Miller Lites, and Michelob Lights, all of which have the rich bold taste of distilled sweat. Fabulous. At family functions, I will ask for a beer and am always greeted with choices that range from "flavorless" to "not quite so flavorless as the last choice, but still rather flavorless." Meanwhile, the wine fans are sipping on a bottle of Pinot Noir that would have sucked my bank account dry had I brushed past it in the liquor store. I don't want to get ahead of myself, so just read.

Recently, while watching television, I saw a commercial. A misleading commercial. A commercial filled with vicious lies. Lies that made me want to weep in front of even my most manly friends. It featured a man and his wife at a neighborhood barbecue. Let's call the man "Gary." Gary looked rather jolly, at least as jolly as anyone can be at your average barbecue. In the middle of a conversation with some friends, he glanced over to see a guy, let's call him "Steve," about to drink a NONDESCRIPT WATERY BEER. That's not actually what it said on the bottle, but work with me here. You get the idea.

Gary's face turned to a look of sheer horror (wouldn't yours?) and he began to sprint toward Steve, who was about to take a sip of some WATERY BEER. Our hero, Gary, got there just in time to stop his friend from sucking down an inferior generic beer. I was happy at this point. He did what any of us would have done; keep a horrible macro-brew from soiling a beloved compadre's gullet. I waited for Gary to hand Steve an Ommegang Three Philosophers, a North Coast Old Rasputin Imperial Stout, or perhaps a Stone Ruination Imperial Pale Ale. It was a moment of joy, perhaps some real breweries were beginning to advertise on TV! Then, a bottle of Miller Lite appeared. What? What was that doing there? I kept my fears at bay with the thought that there could be some sort of ironic twist. Maybe Steve would look really disappointed and slap the Miller Lite to the ground, pulling out a Three Floyds Behemoth Barleywine from some hidden pocket. But no, he looked thankful! Gary, the jerk, walked away satisfied with himself. A NONDESCRIPT WATERY BEER was replaced by a VERY SPECIFIC AND QUITE OVERHYPED WATERY BEER.

The problem is that most people think beer is supposed be thin, highly carbonated, and taste vaguely of gym socks. When wine enters a conversation, it is spoken of in glowing terms befitting saints and organ donors. Everyone understands that a great bottle of wine must be several years old, carry a high price tag, have a ridiculously long name, and originate from some manner of valley, preferably a "Napa." Someone mentions that he's spent $125 for a 2003 Robert Mondavi Reserve Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and no one bats an eye. I mention that I've spent $10 on an Alesmith Speedway Stout and the entire table looks at me as though small, screaming monkeys are trying to extricate themselves from my nostrils. "Couldn't you have gone to the corner store and spent the same amount of money on a case of Miller?" they'll say to me. For some reason, people know that there are vast, unending differences between various brands of things in every other aspect of life, such as cars and toothpaste. However, the same person that will, with his dying breath, swear Colgate is the Balm of Gilead, will also claim that all beer is identical, save the label.

I think most of the confusion about beer comes from the fact that people don't know what they're missing. Most corner stores only carry brands such as Budweiser, Miller, Yeungling, and Coors. Shoppers see these "beers," and think that's all that exists. Now, I'm not here to judge anyone, that is not my goal. I think Old Milwaukee tastes like weasel vomit, but if other people like it, great. The problem is, people buy Pabst, Michelob, Colt 45, and the like, and they compound several problems:

Liquor Stores think that since these beers are selling like crazy, that's all they need to order. Supply and Demand. As long as we demand skunky seltzer water, they'll supply skunky seltzer water.

Those who only drink macro-swill and never taste the real stuff do themselves a disservice by becoming trained to like low quality beer. Imagine a person who's only ever eaten McDonald's hamburgers but has never tasted a filet mignon and you'll get the idea.

The macro-breweries will continue to think that they can keep making yellow fizz water, label it beer, and rake in obscene profits. I like to call it "Aggressive Stagnation."

Thankfully, micro-breweries are slowly restoring the respect for American beer. While their outputs may be small, their impact has been huge. No longer do beer geeks turn their noses up at the thought of drinking a Stateside brew. Quite the contrary, the majority of the world's best beers are crafted in America. Unfortunately, finding them is rather tricky because quality beer has an uphill battle. First, it's always difficult to locate expensive luxuries, no matter what that luxury might be. Where's the nearest Ferrari dealer? I don't know, either. Where can I buy a Faberge Egg? Probably not within a hundred miles. Second, most people already think beer is fit for frat boys on benders, so why would a liquor store carry a beer that costs $8 per 11 ounce bottle? As far as they're concerned, that's like carrying $100 bratwurst.

We, as consumers, need to send a message to the macros by refusing to buy their products. Money talks, and when Anheuser-Busch realizes that ridiculous notions of alcoholic energy drinks simply aren't viable, they'll understand a change is in order. Yes, you read that right, in 2005 they introduced a caffeinated beer, Bud Extra, to a very confused public. So, it keeps people awake while they get drunk? The macros apparently have no idea what people want. If they realize they are losing business to the micros, they will begin to change their tune. Don't believe me? There was another much maligned market that decided enough was enough and opened their eyes to reality: Fast Food.

Mainstream hamburgers recently had a revolution, thanks in large part to Hardee's. They proved that corporate owned burger joints don't have to be plebian sanctities of cheapness. Why not have %100 Angus Beef hamburgers made to order? Just because people are in a hurry, don't have a lot of money, and need quantity over quality doesn't mean that fast food has to be garbage, right? Yeah, Taco Bell tacos will keep me alive, they're cheap, and I can pack 'em down my esophagus like nobody's business, but I'd much rather spend the extra dollar and get a Hardee's Six Dollar Burger. Why? Because I want the things in my life to be high quality. It's a mindset that is the antithesis of "buying in bulk." Ironically, it's also the mindset that will save macro-brewing.

As much as I criticize the corporate beers, I must admit they have the wherewithal to brew consistently, it's just that they brew consistent crap. If they turned their focus to improving the recipe of their generic pale lagers into something closer to what Sam Adams makes, they would not only stay viable in the face of increasing heat from micro breweries such as Dogfish Head, Southampton, Founders, and Three Floyds, they would flourish. The Hardee's model is the only way to longevity for the macro-breweries. If Miller could brew the beer equivalent to Arby's Market-Fresh sandwiches, and kept the price under $6 per six pack, I'd drink it. Flavor is king for me. I don't care if Miller can make beer that sells for $10 a case. If I don't enjoy drinking it, why bother?

So far, the macros haven't been challenged into caring. I often see people walking out of the liquor store carrying cases of Natural Ice to their cars, and I want to intervene. "For the love of all that is holy and good," I scream in my imagination, "what are you doing to yourselves? It's alcoholic corn water!" But I bite my tongue and let them get on with their lives. I drive home hoping they have friends in their lives that will share the truth. This scenario wouldn't even be an issue if corporate brewing would give a care about upping the character of the end product to something that we as a nation could be proud of.

What's the solution? Start spending your money on real beer. I know it will hurt at first, but you'll not only get used to stronger brews, you'll come to realize there's been a void in your life. Yes, I'm being dramatic, but it's to make a point. What we spend our hard earned money on should not be cheap, low quality garbage. I don't want to drive a 1973 Ford Pinto, I don't want to eat Ramen Noodles three times a day, I don't want grade F meat in my sandwiches, and I certainly don't want to drink beer that can only be described as "vague." Life is too short to waste on blandness. Send the macros a message, force them to improve. They will. Trust me, they'll have to.

Telepathy: Could we achieve it?

2007-06-25T09:43:00.000-05:00

I'm always very wary about modifying the human body. God made us the way he made us, and other than taking care of our bodies, I'm not sure that we should be doing much. There are scientists who are interested in modifying how our cells replicate so that we can live as long as we want, maybe 1,000 years or more. There are others who would like to implant devices inside the human body, such as new limbs and new eyes. Some even suggest that nano-technology would replace our white blood cells because such a system would be able to destroy any disease without being fooled by diseases such as AIDS, where the virus takes on new shapes the white blood cells don't recognize.

I've been wondering recently about something we've all read about in science fiction and fantasy, and I've been wondering if it's possible; Telepathy. There are never any real explanations given in any of the books I've read as to how telepathy works, it just does. So, I began thinking of an explanation. Now, I don't think this would be a good idea to implement on the general public because thoughts are such a private thing. You think lots of people are in therapy now... But, if we could find a non invasive way to read thoughts and kept such technology out of the wrong hands, the judicial system in this country would all but disappear. Why worry about a jury when we could read the thoughts of the defendant? Nikola Tesla was working on a form on mind reading, but it was more "thought projection" than mind reading. He thought that if we could convert electrical signals that our brain is giving to our eyes into a data stream that could be translated by a receiver, we could have a television output of someone's imagination. Also, a new lie detection system has been developed where a suspect is made to wear a hat-like electrode covered patch on his head, and the device monitors which parts of the brain are active as he gives his story. If the memory center is the most active part, he's telling the truth. If the part of the brain reponsible for imagination and, for a lack of a better word, storytelling is the most active part, he's making up everything he's saying. It's pretty neat, but it's still not true telepathy. What I'm suggesting goes a bit further.

In many science fiction movies, aliens can communicate through telepathy. They are "advanced" and no longer need innefficient speach organs to relay information, they think to each other and can transmit thoughts. How is this being done? I think the most likely explanation is that they have a new part of the brain that can receive projected brain waves and translate them into coherent sentences or images. Just as our brain receives information from our eyes and (through many collaborative parts of the brain that recognize lines, textures, light, and even faces) translates the stimulation of the optic nerve into something we recognize, these aliens can read each others' thoughts. Let's say we can see into their heads. There's a section of the brain that can generate independant waves from the rest of the brain. They are very strong, using quite a bit of electrical energy. They generate very specific waves depending on what message the alien wants to send to his cohorts. Inside the other alien's head, we see a similar organ in the brain, but this one is only for receiving. It picks up the waves given off by the other alien and, just like the eye, forms usable information from it. These organs can receive information from only so far. Just as sound waves dissipate when travelling through the air so that we can perceive distance, the aliens' organs can only receive information from a particular distance. Maybe that distance is different depending on the strength of a given alien's transmission or reception organs, but it's all about the same.

Now, lets say some agnostic/atheist/pragmatist scientist thinks this is a neat idea. Unconcerned with playing God, he decides to begin experimenting on humans to develop such a system. Would he succeed? I don't know. I'd like to think that the human body wouldn't be able to stand such bombardment because it's already designed just fine to begin with, but I'm no scientist. With every leap in technology, what we previously thought impossible becomes matter of fact. Would I want to read other peoples' thoughts? No, I would not. I wouldn't want them reading mine, either. Living in a fallen world, I know my own cynical and black heart. I don't want to see into other peoples'. But, not everyone feels the same way. Would you?

Obscurity is fun! Until one's penchant for obscure stuff causes one to be isolated from the rest of humanity! Whee!

2007-06-23T11:33:00.000-05:00

A couple years ago, Suncoast Video produced a series of commercials based around the idea that they carry far more videos than oversized general stores like Wal Mart. In the commercials, a bespectacled fellow walks up to a perpetually stoned employee in what appears to be the afformentioned Wal Mart. Our corrective lensed hero tries describing a movie to the employee due to his poor memory of titles. The employee continues his daunting task of spacing out, and the man with glasses looks at said employee like the brainless horror he is. Then, with the suddenness of an air horn blasted behind the viewer's head from an inconsiderate sports fan at a high school football game (what, that's never happened to you?), the glasses wearing man is teleported to a Suncoast, where he finds a kindred spirit in an overenthusiastic employee who can figure out the title of any movie based on the loosest of descriptions that customers with glasses can offer. He leaves the store with his every hope and dream fulfilled.

Sigh.

If only this were reality. You see, it really stinks being a fan of obscure media. Here's how my average visit to Suncoast Video goes down.

Clerk: Hi, welcome to Suncoast Video. How may I help you?
Me: Hello, I'm looking for a DVD.
Clerk: You've come to the right place. We carry all the most popular titles.
Me: Yeah, I know, but I'm looking for something that's hard to find.
Clerk: (with smugness and disdain for my implication that they may not carry what I want) Well, we'll just see if we have it in stock. What is it you're looking for?
Me: The complete works of Russian animator, Yuri Norstein. Or Image Entertainment's Masters of Russian Animation collection vol. 3, the one that contains Norstein's Tale of Tales.
Clerk: *Awkward silence and obvious hatred*
Me: So, do you have it?
Clerk: It appears we do not. Is there something else I can help you find?
Me: Yes, I'm also looking for the original Orion dub of Akira.
Clerk: We have several copies of Akira, it looks like they were released in 2001. Is that it?
Me: No.
Clerk: Ok, anything else you're looking for?
Me: How about Black and Blue?
Clerk: (The smugness is back because he thinks he's caught me in a mistake) Ah, if you're looking for the N'Sync album, might I suggest a record store?
Me: No, Black and Blue was originally a concert video released in 1980. It features performances of the Dio led version of Black Sabbath interspersed with performances of Blue Oyster Cult. I take it you don't have it.
Clerk: (The hatred is back) No. We don't.
Me: Here's an easy one for you. Do you have Metropolis?
Clerk: That's a Superman movie, right?
Me: Good day to you.

You may think that I am trying to sound superior and more refined than the poor people behind the counters of movie stores. I'm not, I'm just remarking how much it sucks liking things that are obscure or out of print. This is a detriment to getting work, despite what it may seem. Let's say I were going to write a script for a television show. I'd put in all the references and types of jokes that I like. Considering I share interests with about 137 people on the planet, chances are good that my script will be rejected. The average person does not want to hear dialogue like this:

Guy 1: Hey, did you see that special on Bose–Einstein condensation last night?
Guy 2: Totally, almost as interesting as the reproduction of Lon Chaney's London After Midnight that was on after.
Guy 1: Damme! Did I miss that? I'm as disappointed as when I was outbid on that Scott Ross plays Scarlatti Laserdisc on ebay.

See? That's no good.

Just for the sake of adding a photo to my "About Me" space.

2007-06-22T18:23:00.000-05:00

Look, it's me! 20 pounds ago! And with much shorter hair! And I have a shirt on! Also, much clearer skin! In case you're wondering, that's my Daphne Blue Fender 50's Strat. I scalloped the fingerboard and added a set of Bill Lawrence pickups, which make it play and sound much better than stock. Also, because of my hand troubles, I'm using Ernie Ball 8 guage strings. They are, in case you are continuing to wonder about the things I'm writing, the thinnest strings on the market.

Looks like I had a slight fisheye effect going on with my camera here, I swear my nose isn't that W.C. Fields-ish. Why do I look annoyed here? I'm the only one in the room.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

2007-06-21T21:28:00.000-05:00

Remember when you'd get up early to watch cartoons on Saturday morning? Of course you do. You pine for those days like a mealworm for... meal. I'm out of analogies.

Anyway, I long for the old days when I'd look at the TV guide for reasons to lose sleep. The Tick, Pinky and the Brain, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Real Ghostbusters, The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Adventures of Tintin, Garfield and Friends, The Transformers, Tazmania and many more would drag me out of bed when I normally wanted to snooze. It was a time when the Saturday morning cartoon was at a transition period, where the last vestiges of the Rocky and Bullwinkle American pride and history could be seen in shows such as Animaniacs (the president song in particular) and Histeria. Also, it was time when animation quality was beginning to improve over the Hanna-Barbera tripe that had been peddled to kids since the seventies. You know, Josie and the Pusseycats, Scooby Doo, that kind of crap.

Now I get up on Saturday to be greeted by Japanese shows that can loosely be described as "animated." Perhaps I need to be Japanese, but I just don't get them. There must be an ancient tradition going back to the Muromachi period where warriors would do battle with small creatures (that can only say their own names) trapped in red and white orbs. In order for the brave samurai to face off, they would have to shout, "I choose you [name of orb-trapped creature]!" The creatures would battle to the death, and whichever samurai warrior owned the winning animal would get the merchandising rights to sell the creature's likeness to American children in the form of cheap, yet very complicated toys.

I also wake up to see that every show I was convinced would be cancelled mid-pilot is nearing its tenth season. How on earth has the awful Ed, Edd, and Eddy survived? It's animated in faux squiggle vision, but doesn't have the wit or charm of any squiggle vision show. Ed, Edd, and Eddy's main downfall is that it's steeped in neverending frustration. I don't care for a single character, yet we are forced to watch their borderline psychotic lives.

How is it that Courage the Cowardly Dog, Invader Zim, and Dave the Barbarian fizzle like cheap seltzer, but Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends thrives? First, it's animated with Flash. Unless your name is Mike or Matt Chapman, you'd best stay away from Flash. Foster's looks as flat and bland is its namesake, Foster's Lager (at least, it would take me several cases of Foster's Lager to enjoy this show, and, ironically, it would take several cases before I enjoyed the Foster's Lager, too). I had high expecations when I heard that Craig McCracken, of Powerpuff Girls fame, was making a new show. It's rare that my disappointment transcends vague metaphorical feeling to become a tangible entity, but it happened as I watched the one and half hour too long one and half hour pilot/movie. My disappointment oozed out of my left ear, grabbed its hat and coat, and left its first cousin despair to keep me company. After the first strike, the show's use of Flash, the second strike whizzed by home plate in the form of an abusive older brother who never gets caught doing bad stuff, but convinces the parents that the innocent younger brother is the culprit. This is a tired plot device that was worn out the moment it was invented. It's frustrating. It's easy to write. It sucks. Foster's continues, in nearly every episode mind you, to use the "I need to cover up what I've done by lying, though in the end of the episode I'll confess and find out it wasn't that bad in the first place" writing technique. I know my dryer will fold my laundry for me before any of the people who make Foster's ever read my blog, but I need to say it: You can do better, guys.

Honestly. I could explain, in boring detail, all the cartoons I hate and those I love, but I'd prefer to leave you with some numbers to explain my feelings:

The merchandise generator Digimon is still on after 8 years.
The laugh a minute Freakazoid lasted 2 years.
The painful Hey Arnold! lasted 8 years.
The brilliant and hilarious Invader Zim lasted 2 years.
The show that most makes me feel like I've been kneed in the groin, Ed, Edd, and Eddy, lasted 8 years.
The gut busting Dave The Barbarian lasted 2 years.
The spectacularly horrid South Park is still on, after 10 years.
The awesome Megas XLR lasted 2 years.
The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy has been on for 6 years and is inexplicably growing in popularity.
Sonic The Hedgehog (Satam) was dead after 2 seasons.
Pokemon will never die, no matter how much I wish it would.
The Tick, which features the best one liners any cartoon has ever dared to air, was cancelled after 3 seasons.
Catdog somehow lasted for nearly 7 years.
Duck Dodgers in the 24th and halfth Century was too funny and well written, so it had to go after 3 seasons.
Yu-Gi-Oh! hurts, and yet it lives.
Sheep in the Big City apparently didn't cut the mustard and was put to pasture after 2 years.
How long did Scooby Doo run? Decades?
Joe Murray's excellent Rocko's Modern Life left our world after living 3 seasons.
Doug got 7 seasons and a movie.
Futurama got 4 seasons and the boot.
The awful and poorly written Rugrats lasted a baffling 13 years.
Sam and Max, which I consider to be the height of cartoon hilarity (outside of the classic Warner Brothers animated shorts) received only 1 season.

And there are plenty more deserving shows that never got to go to series: Space Usagi, Bloo's Gang, The Ignoramooses, Mina and the Count, Snoot's New Squat, Uncle Gus, and countless others. As much as I complain, there are shows that have slipped through the cracks and managed to last. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was, until the Simpsons overtook it a few years ago, the longest running cartoon ever made. Spongebob Squarepants continues strong, and some of the show's best episodes came from the last couple seasons. The Fairly Oddparents is doing well, despite its quality. The Angry Beavers and Kablam were granted 4 years, pretty good runs for Nickelodeon programs. As it should be, The Powerpuff Girls stayed on for a good 8 years. Other shows that deserved instant death, received it, like the spectacularly awful Atomic Betty and the confusing Yakkity Yak (the confusing part is that it exists, it had to be green lit by somebody). I don't know that anyone was sad about Capitol Critters and Fish Police getting the axe, though I have bit of nostalgia for them because they premiered just as I was getting interested in animation as a separate entity from live action.

In short, the majority of the cartoons that defined my Saturdays were the ones that were either too old fashioned to last in this era of politically correct nonsense and trendy commercialism, or were to quirky and imaginative to become mainstream. A shame, because it means quality alone does not guarantee success in the world of television production.

The Terrible Travesty Team

2007-06-20T11:40:00.000-05:00

I like reading funny columns. Dave Barry... uh... Dave... Barry... Ok. So I like reading funny columns, but the only guy I can think of is Dave Barry. I've read other ones, believe you me, but I can't think of any.

Wait!

Of course! Ted Stoltz! Ok, so he's not know internationally for his columns, rather he's a video production manager, but he still writes columns. You see, he's a friend from high school, one of the few I still keep in contact with. Indeed, the only one I talk to on any regular basis. He has a blog... forgive me, it's a "Not a Blog"... which I read whenever he updates it. His style of humor is a bit different from mine, and by that I mean he's actually funny.

Lately, he's been doing a bit of reminiscing of the sketch/movie team he was a part of all throughout high school, the Terrible Travesty Team, or TTT for short. Since his last name is very close to mine in the alphabet, he sat only a few seats away in homeroom. Many mornings I would show up and he would be showing a video on the TV that floated above the teacher's desk (The apparatus that held the TV off the ground always looked precarious and flimsy to me. Still, I didn't have to sit underneath it). Over time, I realized that the people who were in those videos were the people crowded around Ted every morning. The regulars were; Dave Casey, Aaron Hendren, Kathie Hendren (Aaron's sister), Graham Woolley, Sean Sethy, and occasionally a few others such as Alexis Gates, Dale Strickler (well, he was a part of our homeroom, but he wasn't always there), Justin Nissley, and Matt Fuhrman. Listening in on their conversations was something else, they were always talking about what their next project would be. "Projects," I thought, "what for projects?"

The first time I engaged any of them was in the cafeteria. Our lunch system worked so that there were three lunch periods; A, B, and C. It so happened that I shared one of them with Ted, Sean, and Dave. Since I didn't recognize anyone else (it was my freshman year and all my old friends had other lunch periods), I sat with them. I remember that 1. Ted looked like Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, 2. Sean inexplicably talked about Zeppelins exploding, and 3. Dave would raise one eyebrow a lot. I had absolutely nothing to say. I think I mentioned Packard Bell computers for some reason, trying to start a conversation. It went over like one of Sean's Zeppelins.

Over time, I got to know them all, and realized that they were a team that made movies. They called themselves the TTT, though I initally heard it as the TTP. "TTP?" I asked, "Like Dilbert's The TTP Project?" "No," Ted said, "TTT, as in the Terrible Travesty Team." "Ah," I replied. End of conversation.

During one lunch, Graham and Aaron were talking about how their band, Kage, needed a singer. I told them that I could sing, and it was as simple as that. I went to their house, brought my guitar (just in case) and we jammed out for hours. It was fun, but later I found out that they were disappointed with my lack of singing and my penchant for wanting to play the guitar. I was fired, though I didn't know for months. I would call up on the Saturday mornings, and was constantly told that they weren't having practice that week. Huh. I was very mad at the time, but I got over it and moved on. They got another friend, Eric Boyd, who turned out to be a better fit, anyway. Eventually, Boyd was their bassist and Aaron moved to vocals. I still have their demo cd, which is enoyable. They were pretty straightforward metal, rather on the harsh side, but good. I don't think they ever released a followup.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, the movies.

They would always show the movies in homeroom in the morning. Ted says he didn't like others to see them, but I couldn't tell. I always thought he was proud of his creations. I know I would have been. Everyone seemed enthusiastic and liked to contribute. I thought about asking if I could be in one of the movies, but it looked like such a well oiled machine, I didn't really feel like asking them to install another cog. It would have made life rather difficult on them, and after reading Ted's retropective on their moviemaking experiences, it seems like it was the right choice. Mutual friends were always asking the TTT if they could join, or at least be in one of their productions. It made the productions difficult because there were always too many people, or they slowed things down (monomyth, anyone?) because they didn't know the process.

Over time, I did get to do one thing with a couple of the TTT folks: Unknown Physics Matinee 4000. In case you don't know, that's a slight variation on the name of the cult TV show, St. Elmo's Fire. I mean, Mystery Science Theater 3000. Dave, Ted, and I had access to the TV room and the school, where they shot the morning news, only because Ted had a car and we could stay as long as we wanted. We had stayed after school before because Ted and Dave needed a camera man as they shot some footage for one of their movies. I think it was From Beyond, but I'm not sure. I remember Ted getting irritated as I popped on camera occasionally. I found it hilarious. He didn't.

Anyhow, Ted and I had somehow ended up in the school play, Fahrenheit 451. It was a blast to do, and it gave lots of us an excuse to put off homework. I got to be one of the fireman, which meant I was one of three people that were allowed to use the firepole. Ted and I also had lots of fun mocking the fellow who got to play Guy Montag. His name was Eric, I believe, and was a nice enough guy, but he had some strange acting habits. For one, he made odd choices concerning which words to enunciate. "Why AM I standing HERE?" And then he would bug out his eyes, thrust his head forward, gape his mouth, and adjust his shirt. Ted and I mocked him mercilessly for this, which, in retrospect was probably a bit hypocritical given my limited acting ability at the time. Ted, on the other hand, had landed the role of the main baddy, Beatty. He was fantastic.

Now, lest you think that Fahrenheit 451 has nothing to do with UPM4K, it does. Mark my words. You see, some of the cast decided to pull a Mystery Science theater on one of the tapes of the play. They weren't very good. Ted suggested we could do better. I suggested we make fun of the Francois Truffaut movie version. Ted and I wrote comments at my house, Dave came on board, and we shot it at school. Our silhouettes appeared at the bottom of the screen, and the illusion was complete. I remember that our heads looked bizarre; I looked like a pumpkin with ears (I had a caucasian afro at the time), Ted's head looked like pole, and I think Dave's was perfectly spherical. UPM4K was terrible fun, so we decided to keep doing it. All in all, we spoofed most of Fahrenheit 451 (we ran out of time, cutting off my favorite comment), and The Thing From Another World. Dave decided he didn't want to do it anymore, so Ted and I spoofed Them!, and then Matt Fuhrman came in and we did Battlefield Earth. I gave the tapes to a friend, Julius Von Brunk. We never saw Battlefield Earth again. A real shame, because that was probably my favorite one. I stupidly lost it, and I think Julius still has the others. We never made any more, though I really wanted to. Ted and I tried another one about a year ago, where we made fun of the the first episode of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Ted didn't have the appropriate cables to get the video synced, and then he lost the tape. Oh, well. It was fun to make it, anyway.

By the time UPM4K wrapped up, it was the end of senior year, and everybody went their separate ways. Dave moved to California, Graham went to college in the midwest, Kathie got married, Aaron... uh... Alexis... um... Sean... let's see... Ted stayed in town and went to the Pennsylvania Acedemy of Fine arts and got a real job (Unlike myself. I haven't even showered yet and it's noon.). The TTT was over, too, though Dave and Ted kept trying to make things. They occasionally made shorts, but the team as an entity, a collective dedicated to making ever funnier and longer productions, was done. Though I wasn't a part of it, I was sad that there would never be a From Beyond 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Now I sit and write a blog that about 10 people read, thinking of characters for a voice over demo, hoping that I won't have to teach guitar forever (No, put your fingers there. No, there. Fret 5. FRET 5. The silver things on the neck. The neck. The thing sticking out of the guitar. The guitar. The gui... PUT YOUR FINGERS ON FRET 5! DO IT NOW!). The TTT shows me that no matter how silly my voice stuff is, home projects can lead to real jobs. And remember guys, if you ever need an Elroy Jetson or Homer Simspon voice for Fatal Killings 2: Jaw's Revenge, I've got a mic, a computer, a toasty voice, and more free time than any human has a right to.

Silly Rabbit, Shameless Intelligence Insulting is for Corporate Execs!

2007-06-19T14:01:00.000-05:00

The latest Trix commercials feature dozens of smiling kids, yet again preventing a relatively innocent hungry rabbit from getting one bowl of cereal. This is no change of pace, but the same commercial states that Trix are in a "New Puff Shape!" To put this in a bit of context, were you to buy a box of Trix no more than two months ago, you would have found that the box contained literally dozens of super sweet fruit shaped cereal pieces. Little bananas, little berries, etc.

It seems however that the execs over at General Mills have decided that maybe Trix are a little too exciting. Or maybe the awkward shapes of the cereal were getting caught when small children failed to chew their Trix into suitable sizes for their narrow throats? Anyhow, the cereal is now in a simple puff shape, much like the far less sweet Kix cereal. Now, according to the commercials, this is exciting and new. Yes, Trix look like pellets that popped out of rabbits that have been eating tie died t-shirts. But, what the commercial doesn't mention is that this is what Trix looked like for decades.

I remember when Trix moved to the fruit shapes it had for the past ten years. "New fruit shapes!" they declared. "Exciting, now your sickening little sugary chunks are shaped like things that, in real life, are healthy!" But, memories are short, especially regarding the cereal's target audience of people who still think members of the opposite sex are infested with cooties. It's obvious that the Overlords at General Mills are betting that no one who remembers the change will care enough to do anything. And they would be correct. This is probably the most you'll ever read on the subject, and even I hardly care. I get a good chuckle out of the commercials when I see them, but that's as far as it goes. Of course, I'm looking forward to, let's say, 2015 when Trix ads will proclaim, "Puffs are out, representations of seeded fruits are in! These exciting, never before seen shapes recall the tastes that inspired the flavors in our cereal!" I for one, am not buying it. Not that I'd purchase Trix anyway, but once I have children, they will know the truth. If I remember. Or care.

Inspiration vs. Imitation

2007-06-18T11:07:00.000-05:00

Everyone has been inspired by luminaries in given fields. Animation directors look to people like Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett, guitarists to Andres Segovia and Francisco Tarrega, race car drivers to Manuel Fangio and Mario Andretti. As an aspiring voice actor, my heros are people like Mel Blanc, June Foray, Rob Paulsen, Jim Cummings, Bill Scott, and Dan Castellaneta to name but a few. Most people who desire to enter the world of animated voice over start out watching the cartoons they love and trying to imitate the voices they hear. My love for voice over started very young, when I would pour over the one tape of Looney Toons I owned (on Betamax, no less) and start reciting the lines in approximations of the characters' voices. When I learned that most of the cartoons the Warner Brothers produced used one, two, or at most three actors per short, I was suprised, to say the least. How could one person provide three, four, or five distinct voices? Not just voices, either, but convincing voices? What were they doing?

I watched a lot of cartoons growing up (I still do. I'm grown up physically, but not mentally, I suppose), and though animation is what catches the eye and immediately draws us in, its the voice over work that keeps us there. Without convincing characters and dialogue, we wouldn't watch any form of dramatized fiction. Don't get me wrong, I love animation. Cartoons must be pleasant to look at, and the more epic, the better. But there are plenty of cartoons that have horrible animation and yet are classics because they also have brilliant writing and talented actors behind the mics. Rocky and Bullwinkle, for example. The animation was cheap, looking as though episodes were completed the week they aired. I never watched Rocky and Bullwinkle as though it were Yuri Norstein's Tale of Tales, dazzling me with artistic visuals. I watched the silly Jay Ward toon because it was hilarious. I loved June Foray's Rocky and Natasha, Bill Scott's Bullwinkle, Paul Frees' Boris, and the dozens of other excellent characters and voice over artists. Saturday morning animation quality has improved over the years, but writing and voice acting has stayed consistently high.

So, as I started mimicking the voices in these cartoons, I realized that I could pull some of them off with convincing accuracy. For a while, I thought this was as far as I needed to go in order to break into animation. What can I say? I was young and stupid. Now, I'm a little less young, and a little less stupid. It's great to be inspired, but that inspiration can't lead to imitation, or we'll never be successful ourselves. Cover bands never get recording contracts. Dread Zeppelin aside. Even they got contracts because they found their own way of performing Led Zeppelin's music: Reggae with an Elvis impersonator on vocals. I still think that's lame, but it's novelty. Anyway, my point is still valid: They made it because they had something unique to offer. Just because I can pull off a Homer Simpson well doesn't mean I'll get work. Sure, it impresses friends, but why would an agency hire me based on that? Why wouldn't they hire Dan Castellaneta, who not only created the voice, but can deliver consistent quality because he's a seasoned professional?

What we need to do as beginning voice actors is find what our individual voices do best. Start with your natural speaking voice. Listen where it goes up and down, how you begin and end words, and what your accent is like. Do you tend to modulate your voice a lot? Does it go higher as you get more excited? Do you break into falsetto at all? Do you let the ends of words drop off? Do you find that you have a particular accent, such as Southern Drawl, Brooklyn, or Pennsylvania Dutch? I'm from Lancaster Pennsylvania, so I've found that my accent causes me to say a few words in strange ways, unique from anywhere else in the country. I've lived in Pensacola Florida for six years and I've taken in some southern habits, but when I go back to Pennsylvania, I hear my accent "flare up." It was especially telling when I recorded a skit with my friend, Ted Stoltz. He still lives in Pennsylvania, so we decided to record the skit into our respective computers and we would listen to each other over the phone as we said our lines. I sent him the files I made and he edited them together. As I listen to his end of the sketch, I realized he sounds very Lancaster county. I've lost it a bit, not only from having been away for so long, but because I've been trying to get rid of it.

Read this sentence and listen as you say the words:

We'll go because you're going to help them for sure. Are you comfortable with that?

The way I said this before I started working on my diction was:

Wull go becuz yer goin' ta help thum fer sher. Are ya comfterble withat?

Some of the things in there are pretty common, such as comfterble for comfortable, and yer for your. Wull instead of we'll is a hard one to break out of for me. Also, separating words was difficult. With that becomes one word: withat. This mostly happens with words like, "That's stupid," or "hit Tom." They become, "Thatstupid" and "hitom." They need to separate, if only subtly. "But saying them separately doesn't sound conversational," you say, "they're awkward!" True, but you have to be able to pronounce them correct before you can say them in a colloquial way. Besides, this is all about helping you pay attention to your voice. Also, voice quality is important, too. How does your voice sound? Is it raspy? Is it soft? High? Low? These are important things, because you need to know how to market your voice. If you have a good pirate voice, you're not going to get a lot of work in Tampon commercials. Right?

Also, take acting lessons. Learn how to act with your voice. Take dialect lessons, learn how to do different accents. The difference between two of your voices can be as little as a slight English accent on one, and a straight Midwest tone with the other. People are going to hire you based on how well you can be understood, how believable you are, how easy you are to work with, that sort of thing. They don't care how good your Spongebob is if you sound like a guy sitting in a room reading to himself. There are voice over demos that people make which feature them doing hundreds of different voices, but they're all bland and one dimensional. Listen to Richard Horvitz or Jim Cummings, their characters voices are all variations on their natural speaking voices. However, they are very good actors with their voices, and can create many characters by changing how they deliver lines or adding a bit of an accent. Watch The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (but not for long, otherwise you'll start to claw your eyeballs out) for a good example of Richard Horvitz's voice acting. He plays Billy and Billy's dad on the show. They are two different characters and the audience accepts this because Horvitz gives them unique personalities. "But," you say, "that's a father and son. They're supposed to sound alike!" True, but then there's Jim Cummings in Bonkers. In Bonkers he played both lead characters, Bonkers and Officer Piquel. They both sounded like Jim Cummings, but he performed them as independant entities.

Go ahead, imitate your heros. It's a great way to get yourself inspired to start trying your hand at voice over. Sometimes, your imitations of other characters will help you develop your own. Homer Simpson's voice started out as Dan Castellaneta's impression of Walter Matthau. The Brain is Maurice Lamarche's impression of Orson Welles. But those characters are not ruled by their origins, and neither are the voice actors. They developed those impressions over time so they could become three dimensional. You need to do the same. Heck, I know I need to.

Steamboy

2007-05-31T22:05:00.000-05:00

I just got home from seeing the "film" Spider-man 3. In case you don't know, I put "film" in quotes like that because quotes indicate sarcasm in writing. Yes, Spider-man 3 was indeed on cellulose (or whatever movie makers use these days) but that doesn't mean it deserves the prestige of being referred to as a film. I've had a run of bad luck lately with movies, going from bad to worse: Children of Men, 40 Year Old Virgin, Borat, Pan's Labyrinth, several minutes of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (just like being in black hole, this movie will make its viewer feel as though seconds are years), and just now, Spider-man 3. "But," you'll say, "you titled today's post, 'Steamboy.' What gives?"

What gives, as they say, is that Steamboy has been the only home run of any of the movies I've seen in the past week. Indeed, it is the most visually stunning animated film I've ever seen, other than maybe Akira. A fitting comparison because both were created by the same writer/director, Katsuhiro Otomo. His first feature film, the masterful Akira, was then the most expensive animated film ever made and was a perfect example of the Cyberpunk genre. It has remained at the top of the list for my favorite animated movies due to its scope, its epicness, its dystopian yet technologically advanced future Tokyo, and the afformentioned animation quality. It had its disturbing moments, but I was so taken with the story and the atmosphere that I couldn't help but get drawn into the animated world (forgive the pun). Steamboy retained the breathtaking visuals, the imaginative technology, the intricate detail, but it dispensed with the depressing and "punk" elements that drag down most Cyberpunk and Steampunk stories. Steamboy, of course, was a Steampunk story, so it did have the ever prevalent "science will save us" attitude at the forefront. To be fair, there were moments in the movie when that was called into question by some of the characters, but in the end, they decided science alone will save fallen mankind.

But, I digress.

I don't expect any Japanese cartoons I see, especially ones from a predominantly Cyberpunk writer, to take a Christian worldview, but the "man is its own savior" philosophy has been failing us for hundreds and thousands of years.

But, I digress more.

Steamboy captured me the way no film has in a long time. I miss hand drawn films, so this was a breath of fresh air. Yes, there were bits of CGI thrown in, but it was still mostly traditional animation. Akira was completely drawn by hand, which is why I still feel that it edges out Steamboy ever so slightly. Akira achieved its incredible visuals through ink and cel, no computers in sight. That said, Steamboy is a marvel of moving art, and I'd be hard pressed to think of a film I'd rather sit and stare at.

For some, incredibly realistic animation is pointless. John Kricfalusi, for example, decries animation that copies reality because it removes inherent strengths from the medium. He points the finger at Disney, claiming that since animators started copying his style, animation has been reduced to mimickry. Well, I for one love animation but have difficulty watching overly cartoony motions accompanied by silly sound effects. I adore Bob Clampett, but I would have great difficulty watching Sleeping Beauty in the Clampett style. I see no reason why both styles can't coexist. To me, watching a Disney film is watching moving paintings. Imagine watching a Rembrandt in motion. Besides, animation still affords those working in the medium plenty of opportunities to make things that are impossible in real life. Steamboy or Akira would probably have reached $300 million if they were live action. In fact, the effects in those movies would have been nearly impossible 20 years ago. The epic and the grandiose is a huge strength to animation because there are virtually no limits to what the medium can portray. If I wanted to feature a mile high room in my movie, there would be no way to build that. Call up any architect or set designer and he'll hang up. However, if my movie is animated, it's a matter of including said room in the storyboard and telling the animators what the room looks like. In animation, a character can be 200 feet tall or an inch tall. In animation, the characters can throw lightning bolts from their hands. No expensive special effects, no make up, just ink and imagination.

Steamboy features advanced Victorian era technology (hence the Steampunk designation) that meets all expectations for fans of Katsuhiro Otomo's reputation for detail and gigantism. I put it to you that if you are a fan of the Steampunk genre and good animation, you will not find a more satisfying example. So, please do yourself a favor; stop going to see "Knocked Up" and "Disturbia." Treat yourself to a visual feast.

iPatch

2007-05-28T12:32:00.001-05:00

Yarrr! When I be out looting passing ships for their booty, sometimes I get bored. Making scurvy dogs walk the plank can be tedious business! Thank goodness Apple introduced their new iPatch music listening doohicky. When I'm sailing the seven seas, I can jam out to all my favorite tunes, like "Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum." And, I don't have to hear my tone deaf, idiot crew singing it anymore! So, do yourself a favor and steal a wee shipment of Apple's iPatch. Or you'll be sorry!

P.S. I used this pic from the Wikipedia. I'm not sure as to the picture use policies, and considering all the trouble I've had with them, I'd really like to not get sued. So, if you are from the Wikipedia and the use of this picture is not allowed, let me know before you send the cops to my doorstep.

Reconciliation

2007-05-16T21:24:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed that there are times when two people just can't find the right thing to say? You don't mean to offend the other person and they don't mean to offend you, but you both end up offended anyway. Why does that happen? Why can't two people just stop and try to get to the heart of what the other person is saying? We as humans seem to want to take things out of context and try to find the worst meaning for things. We push and push to make the other person upset because we think we'll feel justified, but when it happens, we just feel worse. At some point, we apologize, but we're not really apologizing. We're really just trying to make ourselves seem like the better person. We long to have the other person to come back and seek reconciliation so we don't have to try it ourselves. In those times when the other person does come back, often we respond bitterly anyway. Do we do that because we think that's how we're expected to react?

Interview with a Gecko

2007-05-13T20:06:00.000-05:00

Recently, I had the pleasure of introducing myself to the hottest new cartoon character since Kwicky Koala. You've probably seen his face on the billbaords near your home, or along your highway. Yes, I'm talking about Glenn Gatsby the Gecko. He's the hippest of the hip, all the way from his sagging pants with the tail-hole to his studded tongue, which makes it difficult for him to lick his eyes.

I had been leaving messages with his agency for months, trying to get an interview, but my good friend, Roger Rabbit, warned me not to get my hopes up. "P-bbbbbblease, Paul. He's probably busy with that new Scarlett Johansson vehicle. The little punk, thinks it's the first time any cartoon characters have starred in a live action movie. I mean, hello?"

I didn't let myself become dejected, however, and began contacting some of his high profile costars, including one Timmy Turner, of Fairly Odd Parents fame. I sat down with him at length to try to garner any information I could about the elusive gecko. As I asked Turner what it was like working with Gary, he furrowed his brow, put his hand to his chin and remained silent for a moment. "Well," he said, "I don't think anyone knows the 'real' Gary. I mean, I've tried wishing for Gary to open up to me, but he still remains an enigma wrapped in a mystery. I'm quite taken with him." A pretty mature response for a boy who dresses in pink.

My break came when I spotted Gatsby at a clothing store on Rodeo Drive. His entourage was very protective, though the head bodyguard was an old friend, Peg-Leg Pete of Mickey Mouse fame. I begged him to let me have an interview as Gary's suit was being tailored. "Anything for you, old chum," Pete told me. "And by 'anything,' I mean give me fifty bucks."

One Ulysses S. Grant later, and I was in like Flynn. I sat down with Gary in a pair of posh leather chairs as Scully from Bloo's Gang brought us a pair of Rochefort Trappist Ales. Gary seemed relaxed, though his head did dart around quite a bit. He looked at me straight on with his left eye and checked out the store with his right. It was somewhat disconcerting, but that's to be expected. What did suprise me was his voice. Since all the roles he's had in the various television shows have been non-speaking, I didn't realize how much his tongue stud affected his speach. Let's just say his saliva glands worked overtime.

Paul: Gary, it's a pleasure to finally meet you.

Gary: It'sh a pleashure that ish all yoursh. (Slurps up his Rochefort by sticking his tongue through the mouth of the bottle, which is difficult because of his piercings.)

P: I understand that you don't like to give interviews, so I'd like to thank you for taking this time to talk to me.

G: Yesh. Don't let it happen again.

P: (polite chuckle) Of course, of course. I'd like to talk about your line of men's fashion, if I could. You were on the cover of the latest GQ magazine in a wonderful suit made of faux lizard skin.

G: It wash real.

P: I'm sorry?

G: The shuit, it wash real shkin.

P: And where did you get this skin?

G: It'sh mine. (Slurps more beer and licks both his eyes) Collected over three yearsh.

P: Fascinating. So, how is it that such suits can be made for mass production? You obviously don't shed enough skin to...

G: I'd like to anshwer that by changing the shubject.

P: Alright. Let's talk about your latest movie. I understand you're working with Scarlett Johansson. Tell us, what is she like?

G: She'sh the only pershon who truly undershtandsh me. Jusht like my lasht eight girlfriendsh.

P: I see.

G: Yesh, I think we could really be a great couple for the nexsht few monthsh. (Snatches a fly from the air with his tongue, though the fly gets stuck in his tongue stud.)

P: I've read that you have some lines in the movie. I know all your previous roles were non-speaking. Were you worried about talking on camera?

G: No, not really. I've been dubbed over by a fabuloush voishe actor.

P: Oh, really? Who?

G: Ernesht Borgnine.

P: Aren't you worried that his voice won't quite suit your character?

G: Baby, when you're ash hot ash me, you don't worry about anything. Beshidesh, we didn't have to pay him.

P: Interesting. So, what made you get into show biz in the first place?

G: My parentsh were in the moviesh, and I figured it would make shenshe to capitalishe on that.

P: Really? What roles have they played?

G: Handbagsh.

P: Ah, I see. Was it difficult living in the shadow of your parents?

G: No, it'sh hard to be upshtaged by clothing.

P: Disturbing. Now that you've established yourself as an actor and a fashion guru, what is your next major step?

G: I'm working really hard on animal rightsh. I feel, ash a gecko, that I have an obligation to help out my animal brethren. Plush, I get to act all shelf righteoush around people who don't give ash much ash I do. It'sh shomething I learned from my good friendsh Cameron Diash and Julia Robertsh.

P: I'm glad you give so much to a worthy cause, but you do realize you aren't actually related to real geckos, right? You're animated.

G: It'sh Hollywood, I have the money and the ideology that allow me to do and be whatever I want. Reality ishn't an isshue.

P: True. Well, I'd like to thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to talk to me.

G: I'd like to thank you for interviewing me, but I won't.

And with that, I was promptly thrown out of the building. Still, I am fascinated by Gary Gatsby the Gecko, there really isn't anyone like him. I've known a lot of cartoon characters over the years; Ren and Stimpy, Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Don Coyote, both Ignoramooses, and even an elderly Elmer Fudd. None of them had the sheer charisma of Gatsby.

So, with that, I hope you enjoyed reading my interview. If you see Gary when walking down the streets of L.A., run. Run away as fast as you can.

Mythbuster Science Theater 3000

2007-05-11T13:39:00.000-05:00

After leaving his hit show, Mythbusters, 10 months ago, Adam Savage visited the offices of Legend Films in hopes of talking to former Mystery Science Theater 3000 host, Mike Nelson. "I've always been a fan of MST3K," the enthused Savage said, "and meeting Mike is like a dream come true for me." After being routed through several offices, Savage finally got to shake hands with the former MST3K host. As luck would have it, Kevin Murphy, who was the voice and wrangler for the puppet, Tom Servo, was in the office at the time. "Adam came in and shook our hands," Murphy remembered. "He was so excited. As soon as we sat down he started pitching an idea to Mike for resurrecting MST, but with his own personal twist."

As Savage expounded on his idea, Murphy and Nelson became more and more intrigued. Yes, the show would still be called MST3K, but the M would now stand for "Mythbuster." "I had the idea one night as I was with my sons, watching a video of some horribley performed experiment on Youtube," said Savage, "I mean, these guys were doing everything wrong you could imagine, and when it blew up in their faces, they were shocked. I was making fun of the video beginning to end, pointing out what they were doing wrong, and cracking jokes the whole time. My sons were laughing their heads off, so I began to put two and two together." And so the seeds were sown for Savage's Mythbuster Science Theater 3000.

After the pitch to Nelson and Murphy, the trio went in search of networks so they could pitch the idea. "The goal of the thing, as I've gathered from Adam," Nelson said, "is to have a show where we point out the flaws in other peoples' experiments, in a funny way, of course. In the process, we are teaching the audience how to properly conduct the experiments they see. The host segments we used to have on the show will be replaced by scientific experiments." Bill Corbett, voice and puppeteer of Crow during the last few seasons of the original MST3K, came on board at the last minute. "Mike, Kevin, and I were already doing the Film Crew thing, and then they told me about this. I'm such a huge fan of Mythbusters, I just asked them, 'where do I sign?'" The quartet had a meeting with Discovery Network president, Billy Campbell, who quickly became intrigued by the idea. "I was actually pretty tired that day, having just flown back from Australia," recalled Campbell, "and I actually wasn't to thrilled with having to sit through a pitch. Adam is a pretty energetic guy, and I just wanted to sit in my office and sleep. As soon as Adam, Mike, Kevin, and Bill got through with their pitch, however, I was as excited as they were. I told them we should definitely go for it."

Two months later, they were busy shooting the pilot episode. Jamie Hyneman, Adam Savage's former co-star on Mythbusters, helped out with the production. "We're used to doing things fast around here," Jamie said, mustache blowing in the breeze, "so when Adam asked if the old Mythbusters crew would help out with making a new set and a bunch of puppets for the show, I couldn't say no. We worked round the clock for the better part of five days making a new Satellite of Love, and we turned M5 into a new Deep 13." In the pilot, Hyneman and Savage play a new set of evil captors for the trio on the SOL, Mary Jo Pehl having turned down the opportunity to reprise her role as the maniacal Pearl Forrester. "My MST days are behind me," said Pehl, "I was sad the show ended, but I've moved on, I'm doing other things. I wish these guys the best, but I think it will actually be a stronger show with those Mythbuster fellahs."

When the show aired for the first time on December 16th, 2008, it received rave reviews. "Everybody thought it was hilarious and informative," said Savage, a huge smile covering his face, "which is exactly what I wanted." The first episode centered around explaining the new premise, as well as how Mike, Servo, and Crow ended up back on the Satellite of Love. After coming back to earth in the final episode of Myster Science Theater, #1013 Danger: Diabolik, the crew was subsequently hijacked by an evil pair of scientists looking to get an unwitting temp worker to perform their experiments for them. "My character receives all this scientific training, and he's supposed to fix what's wrong with other peoples' experiments," Mike Nelson comments about his role on the show, "and I'm also supposed to come up with my own experiments. It's really a lot of fun."

When asked about the future and longevity of the show, creator Adam Savage is optimistic. "I think the show should last a long time," Savage said with a smile, "There's a never ending series of people who make fools of themselves performing experiments and Mike, Kevin, and Bill are never short of jokes. I think it could last eleven years, just like the original MST3k."

Here's hoping he's right.

Writing Exercise

2007-05-11T13:24:00.000-05:00

Here's a writing exercise I did recently. It was part of a series of exercises designed to improve dialogue writing. This particular assignment was to write a story, but from the perspective of one person to another. There must be interruptions, questions, responses, etc. from the person who is listening to the story. Here it is...

Avery and Philip sat across from each other at a picnic table in Central Park. They had a ratty chessboard made of solid wood between them. Avery was deep in thought, and was winning. Philip hunched over the board, his poker face studying his few remaining pieces. Avery took the opportunity to tell his opponent a story.

"You know, last week, my daughter came to visit me." Avery said.

"Do tell." Philip did not look up as he said this, but remained focused on the game.

"Yeah, I was so glad to see her. I thought she was going to ask me for money, that's all college students ever want."

"Mmmhmm." Philip reached for his last rook, but put his hand to his chin, instead.

"So she showed up with this guy. He looked like he was maybe ten years older than her."

"She." Philip still didn't look up.

"What?" Avery was annoyed at the interruption

"Grammatically, that sentence should end in 'she.'" Philip moved his rook two spaces. Avery took it with his queen.

"Anyway, she's talking about how great he is, and I'm getting this feeling like there's something going on between them that shouldn't. When he left the room, Angie starts telling me that she wants to spend the rest of her life with him." Philip looked up for the first time as Avery said this.

"Wait, Angie said that? But she's always been so shy," Philip said, "what happened?"

"Yeah, it was weird. So I asked her what she meant by that. I noticed her eyes were doing that thing, you know, where she can't keep eye contact?"

"I know what you mean. She did that when she wrecked your car." Philip reached for a pawn, but reconsidered as Avery went for a bishop.

"Exactly. So I knew something was going on. So I said to her, 'you want to marry this guy or something?' And she started crying. That's when the guy, whatshisface, comes back in. He's looking at me like I'm a monster or something, and starts talking about how he's going to rescue her from my 'oppression.'" As Avery talked, Philip lost two more pieces, a bishop and his queen. He was down to a knight, two pawns, and his king.

"What did you do?" Philip said.

"I was about to say something to the guy when Angie stands up and starts tearing this guy a new one. It was bizarre. A minute before she's telling me how wonderful he is, and then she lays into him. She's saying how she hates his drinking, how he's lazy, and how she hates him pressuring her into marriage and all this stuff."

"That's incredible."

"Yeah, so I'm just sitting with my chin on the floor as she tells him off, and then he starts crying."

"No kidding?"

"Yeah."

"What did you do?"

"After she was finished shouting at him, he starts shouting. While he's crying, no less. So I've got two people in my living room, crying and shouting. I tell 'em both to can it and just calmly explain to me what's going on."

"What did they say?" Philip moved his king one space, trying to buy time. Avery took one of his pawns.

"He's been telling her that they need to get married so they can get tax write offs and such, and how it would be great for them. He's just a bum with no job, still living with his parents and she's easily manipulated which is why he's been going with her."

"That's a sticky situation. How did you resolve it?"

"I told him to get the hell out of my house and never talk to my daughter again. He doesn't want to leave, so then I throw him out. He's swearing up a storm and," Avery laughed a little, "has the nerve to ask Angie for a ride home."

"Really?" Philip looked shocked.

"Yeah, really. I told him to take a hike before I call the cops on him and he cheeses it. So Angie spent the night at my house. We had a good long conversation about guys and how she should wait and get more experience in the world before she commits like that."

"Bravo." Philip gave a polite clap.

"Yeah. Then she asked me for money." Avery cackled, and Philip let a noble bellow.

"That's good. Sounds like you did the right thing." Philip moved his knight to face Avery's bishop. Avery moved his queen four spaces left and smiled.

"Checkmate. See you tomorrow?"

More Birch related email

2007-05-02T11:53:00.000-05:00

I have recently been corresponding with a fellow named George Waller. He was a frequenter of the John Birch custom shop back in its heyday, and even ordered what just may be the only 10 string/5 string doubleneck bass in the world. He's given me lots of very valuable information, and I am going to post it here so that the Wiki allows me to post the information.

Email with George Waller
April 22, 2007

Hi Paul,

To answer your questions;
I think it is possibly the only 5/10 string duo in the world at that time, in fact I can't recall seeing another one at any time. I paid £600 cash for it -- a lot of money at the time. It was built in 1975 if I remember correctly. I moved to London in 1976 and sold it in P/X for a 1961 Precision bass. I did some local recordings with it, but they have long since been lost.
The bass was originally WHITE, but the colour started to "yellow" after a very short time so they did the "greenburst" colour for me free. I was the original owner of course, and I think the guy who sold it to Songbird music bought in London when I sold it, and he moved to Toronto many years ago, so 3 owners at most (including Songbird). Andrew no doubt has the name and address of the other guy! Everyone just stood and stared at it on stage--it was a real showstopper!
Why did I sell it-----well, I'm a short guy of 5ft 6" and that thing weighs over 17 pounds-----------get my drift?? It was huge!!----I now play a 1976 Alembic Series 1 bass and that is huge as well, but I can cope with this one . www.Jaydeesupernatural@ukonline.co.uk is the address of John Diggins who worked with JB at the time. He is the guy who designed the electronics and most of the stuff for JB guitars and is a real genius. He now has his own company with just himself and his son, and they make top quality instruments. You can contact him as well if you like! He remembers both me and the bass very well-although I had hair then!

Keep in touch

George

Email with George Waller
April 23, 2007

Hi Paul

Yes I know them all personally! I used to go down to the shop/factory (it was like a converted suburban house) in Rubery just outside Birmingham. Arthur was even shorter than me, and must have been about 60 at the time, so I assume that he has gone to the happy guitar factory in the sky. I don't know if JB is still alive, as he was no youngster at the time either!!
I think Alembic inspired Johnny Diggins!--they inspire EVERYONE.
If you need anymore help-------just ask------------but keep in touch anyway

Take care

George

Email with George Waller
April 24, 2007

Paul,

When I visited the shop on several occasions, I met Black Sabbath-they were having guitars made as well. I also saw and played the "shamrock" bass that they built for Barry Devlin of Horselips. I saw and played the "spade" that they made for Roy Wood, and also saw the heart with the arrow through it that they built for MUD.
The shop was just a house in suburbia. The kitchen was changed to the Spray room, another room was for woodworking (Arthur's domain). Upstairs was for electrical work and set ups etc and offices. It was literally a 3 bed house with the upstairs rooms looking out on to the main street!
I've enclosed a pic of John Diggins (as I remember him) at the start of the JayDee guitar period. I'll try and get more pics if possible for you, but Diggins told me that all the old catalogues etc had been lost in a fire.

George

Email with George Waller
April 24, 2007

Paul

I do remember going down to Rubery to collect the guitar because JB had called me to say it was ready. When I got there, there was still a problem with the 10 string bridge. He offered to put me up in a hotel, but I just drove the 320 miles back home to my own bed and picked her up a week later.

George

Email with George Waller
April 25, 2007

Paul,

I remember Arthur's voice----he had this typical soft yet full Birmingham accent(which is quite unique). I remember the door to the upstairs set up room was always wedged open -by a Gibson EB3 front bass pickup!!! Arthur (and indeed the 3 of them started to call me Mr. Waller at the start, but I soon changed that, and we were all on first name terms. Arthur even used to make me tea and coffee or go to the local shop for some beers for me. These were REAL nice guys.

George

Email with George Waller
May 1, 2007
Forwarded response from John Diggins to the following questions:
1. When did you leave the John Birch shop?
2. When Birch stopped building guitars in the eighties, did people come to you for Birch style guitars? Were you seen as a surrogate John Birch?
3. What did Arthur Baker do when Birch quit luthery?

Hi Paul,

Here is the reply to your questions from My Friend---John Diggins:

Hi George

Here are the answers to the questions:

1. I left the John Birch shop in November 1977
2. People did not come to me for Birch style guitars
3. Arthur Baker came to work for me as production manager.

I hope these help

All the best
John

New Post!

2007-05-01T12:02:00.000-05:00

I didn't know where to post this, so I'll post it here. This is incredibly rare, as this is now serving as a forum for the email correspondence with various John Birch people. Hope you enjoy.

When I'm out traveling the world, many people ask me, "Would you like fries with that?" And I always have to answer the same way, "That is the eternal question, isn't it? We are always seeking more in life, over-indulging if we get half the chance. Where is the line? Can we expect that 'a little bit more' will really satiate us? Why are we never satisfied with what we have? It's true that we're never sure exactly how much we'll need in life, and taking that little bit extra may give us just enough energy to sustain us until we find sustenance again. Still, in this modern age, is that ever really a worry? When we do find ourselves in a situation of extreme lack, where we are so removed from society that we can't feed ourselves if we wanted to, isn't it usually self-induced? I think so. So, at the risk of sounding pretentious and self aggrandizing, I must say no, I don't need it. I am nourished by the knowledge that I don't let my 'eyes outweigh my stomach,' as it were."

The one who asked me the question always responds, "That'll be $6.39. Pull around to the first window." But, the underlying tone of their words always grants me access to their true feelings. "Bravo," I hear them thinking to themselves, "A slap in the face of rampant consumerism. I applaud you sir." Beneath their blank stares as they hand me my coinage, which is always carefully placed in the half broken coin tray of my 1979 Chrysler Cordoba (and yes, the Corinthian leather is rich), I can tell that they respect me. They look at me as if to say, "Why do drive that old piece of crap?" But I know what their words imply, "A true sacrifice you perform, sir, driving a vintage automobile when you could have funded the capitalist machine by purchasing a new car. You surround yourself in aged opulence, and passive safety thanks to your conveyance's sheer girth. Also, since you have the V-6 instead of the V-8, and not all cylinders are firing anyway, your fuel mileage is not Brobdinagian, and you can continue to sneer at SUV drivers as you fill your 25 gallon tank with 87 octane. I would tear up, but I must maintain my reputation with my coworkers as someone with a gruff exterior, but with a heart of gold."

As I pull away, a plume of smoke and a slipping fan belt announce my departure, and I think to myself as I drive 3 mph under the speed limit that I've met a kindred spirit in the form of an underpaid, acne ridden 15 year old who has rashes in unspeakable places. I then weep as I enjoy my single patty Whataburger with extra onions.

Emails about John Birch

2007-02-28T11:41:00.000-06:00

The Wikipedia requires that all sources of information be accessible to the general public. A very good idea, it keeps people from saying whatever they like in an article. So, in accordance with that, I am going to post some of my correspondance with various people about the John Birch article. I have edited some of them slightly for spelling and format.

John Carling, owner of John Birch Guitars (jc@johnbirchguitars.com):

January 15th, 2007
Hi Paul

I have read your review so far and its about right in its content with a few revisions.

John Birch first got involved in guitar building as a young RAF officer based in the South Pacific Islands in WW2. We formed a band the Wykki Islanders and as supplies of instruments were hard to find they built them out of RAF parts.

Not sure quite how he got into guitars in the UK but after a few years certainly got the business established with his new approach to guitar building.

I attached a picture with John Birch, Roy Orbison, John Diggins and Arthur Baker.

As to the section on the New John Birch there is more info you might wish to include.

During the 1993 to 2000 period put the guitar business on the map, and it was a period of
looking to improve on the original guitars and pickups. This was well underway when John died.
His request was for me to carry on the business as by now had learned everything about guitars.
As an ex pro musician and technician I have continued to improve the present products and services.

The new versions of the SY2 and SG Special and all the others are regarded as better than the original 70s versions.

( I would appreciate if you could revise the part in the text of a" copy of the Iommi SG" and replace with "a new version of the SG Special based on the original" ) This is important to state this correctly.

Eaton guitars are a subsiduary brand i started after JB had died. This allows us to offer a wider range of products and retain the JB professional guitar range as well.

In 2003 the Eaton metal faced LP won Best Guitar of the Year Award by UK Guitar mag.

As well as the website there is an Ebay UK Shop John Birch Online.

Finally we have in the planning stage a John Birch Centre which will include Archive exhibition area, workshop and retail sections.

Hope this helps,

Best Regards

John Carling

January 15th, 2007
Hi

I will look up JB date of birth, he was 74 when he died, Nov 6 2000.

Please feel free to use any pictures and we could go into long explanations in the technical
aspect of guitars and pickups if that is relevent in your listing.

Regards JC

February 1st, 2007
Hi

John Birch was born in Nottingham, West Bridgford and returned to his original home were he finally lived and worked there until he died.

There is another original guitar with interchange pickups ( I sold to Nicky Panicci in LA late last year.

Nicky worked with David Bowie in the 70's. and USA Band Girls School.

The guitar is one featured in the original catalog page Artists models.

Regards JC

John Diggins of Jaydee guitars (jaydeesupernatural@ukonline.co.uk):

January 23rd, 2007
Hi Paul

Here is some more information for you. I hope you can make some sense of it!

The interchangeable pick-up idea came from Tony. The pick-up routes went all the way through the body, with copper contact points along one edge of the pick-up route situated near the back of the instrument. The pick-ups were assembled on a plinth, pre adjusted for height. The pick-up surrounds were fitted to the front of the instrument so that when the modules were slotted in from the back they engaged into the surround at the correct height. The pick-ups were held in place with sprung loaded clips that located into a vee slot routed into the side of the pick-up cavity. When in place, the pick-up housing was flush with the back of the instrument. Contacts on the pick-ups were also sprung loaded and made contact with the adjacent copper points in the pick-up cavity. The only one I know of still in existence is owned by Greg Dorset (Rockstars Guitars)

Just to answer a question from your earlier email, the pick-ups we are going to make for Tony's Old Boy replica will be the p90 size, which means I will be able to make this size pick-up in the future.

Best Regards
John

January 19th, 2007
Paul

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, we are extremely busy at the moment.

John Birch himself was involved mainly on the electronics side of the business. I myself was responsible for the designing and the woodwork. Arthur Baker was like a production manager. His job was to break down the manufacturing into different processes, and then devise the best way to carry them out.

The very first guitars were 24 fret SG's, both black and white. There were also a few 24 fret Les Pauls. The fingerboards on the first guitars were Brazilian Rosewood. This then changed to Maple a couple of years later.

John used to advertise his pick-ups and guitar customising in a magazine called Beat International, this is how I got to know about him. One day I decided to visit him with a guitar I had made, and he offered me a job.

With regards to the pick-ups, I recently had Tony's 'Old Boy' in my workshop as he has asked me to make a replica of it for him. This means I will have to replicate the original style pick-ups. I have taken some good photos of it if you want them.

The pick-up in the neck position is actually a Biflux.

The Magnum X is different from a Multiflux. It was 20k, with no extra wiring capabilities other than to reverse the phase.

I have never heard the Gibson Iommi pick-ups so I'm afraid I can't comment on them.

I hope that this has been helpful.

Best Regards
John

Ian Seaton of Rare Guitars (Iseatrock@aol.com):

January 23, 2007

Hello Paul, I would be delighted if you used a pic of it. You are right the pu's are multiflux. The controls are far more complex. As you look at it The one on the right is master volume, the toggle is p/u selector, the 4 numbered ones are vol/tone for each p/u. It is the top two that are mind numbing. The top right is two position, the left, three. They seem to work on all, front and rear, switching between, phasing and turning off the pickups. It also makes a difference where the pickup selector is as that appears to alter their function completely! So far I have managed to get about 10,000 different tones out of it and I am still learning.
You will have seen on my website that I refer to it as a "early 80's" , Greg Dorsett has told me it is definitely a early 70's custom job but who it was made for I have not been able to find out. A little mention on your site would be appreciated and if you want any more pics let me know.
It is the most fantastic guitar, as I said on my site in my 51 years of guitar playing I have never come across anything like it. The man was a genius.

Ian.

That represents every email source I used in the article. I hope that it is informative and interesting to you!

Paul Stadden

Yet another post? I spoil you people rotten.

2007-02-22T23:27:00.000-06:00

Well, I know it's rare that I update this page, but I have a reason. That reason is:

I forget. A lot.

Now, understanding that, I also have aspirations to do an actual website. I'd really like to have something that offers more control than this blog, and I'd really like to be able to easily post whatever I like. Right now, uploading sound or video files is a pain (actually, I don't even know how to do those things), and I really don't get any subpages. I know I've complained about this before, but things were different then. I was... uh... thinner. Ok, now that I have that non sequitor aside, I still want a website. You see, I've gotten into luthery (the building of musical instruments, specifically guitars), and I want to have a place to offer my services. Also, I'd like a place to post my compositions and articles. I want something decent looking, something that doesn't scream, "I am so lazy and poor that even though my livelihood may depend on it, I don't feel like putting in the effort to have something that looks like it was put together by beings more intelligent than banana slugs." You know, something like that.

So, please don't feel insulted (I'm assuming anyone actually reads this anymore) if you don't see constant updates. I have a life, and my ego is beginning to wane, anyway. I want a place that is a bit more pragmatic than a forum for my pontifications and self-serving rants. I want something that can potentially make me money. That may sound yet more self-serving, but the real fact of the matter is, I want so very badly to bless God in all I do. I want to do what I do well, do it for the glory of God, and not try to make myself look like an all knowing guru in all endeavors in which I benevolently dip my glowing, all-powerful hand. So, a website proper, one that actually costs money (gotta spend it to make it, despite Bill Maher would sarcastically tell you), is in my near future. Also, I want to actually make connections and try my hand at different things. Can't do that sitting in my room playing the Halo demo all day, no sir. Max Payne on the other hand...

Great Blogs... of the Present!!!!

2007-02-06T21:30:00.000-06:00

I was recently feeling nostalgic for some of the cartoons of my youth. Of course, since I'm 23, the cartoons I feel nostalgic for are only just now getting respect. Oh, sure, it's easy to get a tear in the eye when Bugs Bunny pops onto Cartoon Network's Boomerang, or to feel like a kid in the 1950's again when Yogi Bear steals that pic-uh-nic basket (in fact, you'll even shave your hair down to a buzzcut, break out the jeans that are two inches too short, the high-top Converse, and the short-sleeved plaid button up shirt, all of which looks dorky on a 58 year old).

But what about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Or Batman: The Animated Series featuring good ol' Kevin Conroy as Batman? Or how about Cartoon Network's What A Cartoon show featuring lots of cool, independent short films (most of which were unfairly destined for obscurity)? Well, I remember the What A Cartoon show, and thankfully, my generation is the one that controls Youtube and Google Video. I got to watch one of my old favorites, the brilliant and short lived, Bloo's Gang. Animated by the incredible Mike Milo (his animation always looks so freakin' smooth!), it captured everything that I loved about the Hanna Barbara toons of yore; the wacky voices for the wacky characters, over the top situations, talking animals, and lots of kid-friendly but adult-aimed one liners. It also had more refined animation (I think Scooby Doo was actually animated the week it aired. It was the worst drawn cartoon... well, I'm getting off topic), that 1990's bizarre flavor (look at Scully's eyes! LOOK AT THEM!!!), and, of course, talking animals.

Milo had another short, The Ignoramooses, that was equally well done, but neither one took off. While Dexter's Lab, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, and the Powerpuff Girls took off and got their own series, the Milo cartoons just fizzled (as did most of my favorite What A Cartoon segments. Anyone remember the one with the rabbit and the bat playing minigolf?). But, thanks to the internet, I just got to watch both of Mike Milo's brilliant shorts! And by shorts, I mean short cartoons, not underwear. I don't even know if he wears underwear. Also, he has a really cool blog, and a bunch of links to various videos he's made. Plus he's a Christian, which means not only will I agree with the worldview espoused in all his toons, but they'll be fun for the whole family! Except that no one else in my family like cartoons (except you, Uncle Mark, you're cool). So please, check out his site/blog. You'll be glad you did. Because I won't have to hurt you.

http://blog.animationinsider.com/

Oh, and I'm putting it in my links page.

It's back! Sorta.

2007-01-27T00:25:00.000-06:00

Well, the Birch article is back up. It's in some netherpage, but it's up. The irony is, it's more easily accessable now than it was before. You can find it on Google. Just type in paulkstadden and it's the first or second thing to pop up. I'll be adding more to it over the coming weeks, so look out!

John Birch (Luthier)

2007-01-15T11:28:00.001-06:00

I have been working my butt off on a wikipedia article on the guitar builder, John Birch. I have been talking to people who own John Birches, People who knew (or know) celebrities with John Birches and even who own those famous John Birches, and I have even been talking to people who knew him, including the man who now owns John Birch guitars, John Carling. It's been pretty smooth, except that the Wiki is really strict on picture use. I have gotten pics sent directly from Carling, and have gotten permission to use pictures from him and others. Still, I have to properly tag and label each picture before I put it up, which means I have to re-upload every picture I've put up, which is a lot.

Oh, and the article has also been deleted.

I am quite angry, as I put a lot of work into it. I have requested an undelete and contacted the fellow who deleted it. Oh, and he deleted it with no warning, by the way. It seems he thought it was "spam," or, in other words, an advert for John Birch guitars. Quite frustrating, seeing as how I was not backing it up on my hard drive as I thought that I would be notified before any deleting.

Fun, fun.

Celebrities are a strange sub-species.

2007-01-08T10:02:00.000-06:00

All essays must have a thesis statement, explicitly stated in the introduction and then restated at the end. It provides an opportunity for a cohesive argument on a point that the author feels strongly about. It must be clearly stated, and the author must try not to stray from the main point when presenting arguments. Fortunately, I believe I have picked a thesis that has plenty of supporting evidence: Celebrities are, in general, hilariously dumb and hypocritical, and therefore have little right to comment on political and moral situations. Keep in mind that I have no illusions about being a political science whiz, but I try not to get in front of cameras while spouting unrealisticly simple solutions to complicated problems ("I think the terrorists just need a hug!").

I'd like to present several categories that highlight my point. First is the dumb celebrity that honestly thinks he's a scholar and a genius. Secondly is the celebrity that is mean spirited and dumb, and also has a self-made forum for their beliefs. These are the ones that insult men far smarter than themselves, while adhering vehemently to ludicrous ideologies. Thirdly is the celebrity that seems to have been left here by his fellow aliens who were getting a bit sick of him. These are the ones that live in a bubble called "Hollywood." This way they are well isolated from anyone who may disagree with them and/or knock some sense into their silly noggins.

A good example of the first kind is Jeneane Garofalo. She says myriad dumb and abrasive things about anyone who disagrees with her. She honestly thinks that anyone in the Republican party is pure evil and that the party as a whole desires the destruction of the planet. She isn't interested in intellectual discourse, just making slightly witty comments to "support" her position. At no point does she use any of the actual rules of logic to make a point, she usually sticks to logical fallacies such as the ad hominem (argument against the person: what a person has done does not mean that what they believe is wrong. Ie. Freud was a cokehead, therefore all of psychoanalysis is wrong.) and affective terminology (using language that is insulting as a way to demean an opponent. Ie. calling God a Flying Spaghetti Monster.). Now, if this were the exception rather than the norm, and she were ignored by the media, that would be one thing. However, she is welcomed with open arms by the media, and people actualy listen to and laugh at what she says. Much like Bill Maher. He confuses wit with intelligence.

Bill Maher is a good example of the second kind of celebrity. He has his own show, and loves to use it to mock the Republican party and anyone who disagrees with him, no matter how much smarter than him the person may be. He usually has a panel featuring other dumb celebrities that he can agree with, and one person who he does not agree with. Usually the one he doesn't agree with is either a bad arguer, or just doesn't care. He had P.J. O'rourke on one episode and I was waiting for P.J. to argue Bill and his cohorts into the ground (He had two other people on, a woman who I believe runs a very liberal "news" website, and Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20). P.J. didn't say much, which disappointed me. I have seen occasions where Bill has mistakenly featured a good arguer, but usually he relies on his wit and utter lack of logical thinking to make hiself seem superior. There's a lesson, when you can't win the argument, rely on sarcasm to make it seem like you've got the upper hand. Also, he has an audience which, of course, agrees with him. Bill is never short of "woo's" and "yeah's" from his like-minded biological laugh-track, while the person who is actually making good points gets light appluse at best. Of course, the best example of this type of celebrity is Michael Moore. He makes delightful propoganda that would make Joseph Goebbels proud. He's incredibly blind, stating that "there is no terrist threat" in his Fahrenheit 9/11. Quite a shocking statement. Of course, since he's so high up in the political chain, and has been present for every meeting between the president and his chiefs of staff, and also is a member of the CIA and is privy to all military intelligence, I can see how he can make these claims. Oh, no wait, he's just a rich Hollywood idiot. There's a reason it used to be called Hollywoodland. It's because the people that live there are about as intelligent as the animatronic puppets found in most theme parks.

Finally, we get to those people whose statements are so outlandish and bizarre, that they generate more "huh?"s than anything, and, of course, do it from the blessed sanctity of their bubbles in Hollywood, New York, or any town in France. I believe the ultimate person for this category is Barbara Streisand. She was at a Democratic Fund-raiser when she decided to quote some Shakespeare for the goal of denigrating the American people and their leader, apparently a quote about how patriotism is a double edged sword, and that the people were blinded with it and worshipped Caesar. I decided not to quote it directly since, well, Shakespeare never wrote anything of the sort. She also said "I don't care what you say about me. Just be sure to spell my name wrong." I'm sorry? Come again? Is that intended to be humor? Perhaps in some sort of ani-verse where dull, intestinal gas producing statements are seen as comedic gold.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have enjoyed all of these people in various projects that they have been a part of. Jeneane was great in Mystery Men. I have seen standup routines by Bill Maher that have made me bust a gut. Michael Moore had some really funny jokes in Canadian Bacon (ignoring the political stuff, of course). Babs has been in some good comedies over the years (Meet the Fockers doesn't count). However, these are the kind of people that would take brilliant piece of writing, such as "Nearer My God" by William F. Buckley, and make fun of the typos (having found nothing in the actual writing that they could make fun of.) I just wish they would stick to making entertainment and leave out the political stuff. So please, if you're a rather dumb celebrity, please don't go hide in France. Stay here, make your movies, Alec Bladwin. Don't go, Johnny Depp. Make a sequel to "Shallow Hal," Gwyneth Paltrow. I think you're all very good actors.

But please, please, shut the heck up.

Guitar Hero is a false idol. A false idol, I tell you!

2006-12-30T00:11:00.000-06:00

I tried playing the game Guitar Hero 2 the other day. It has a funky controller that looks like a guitar. It features five multi-colored buttons near the headstock that act as the fretted notes. Also, there's a little lever where the pickups would go that moves up and down to simulate picking the strings. Here's a picture.

To play, the game plays the audio of a cool rock song and shows five lines of "strings" that run from the bottom of the screen back into the distance. Then, small bumps start moving along the strings toward the player, and the player must hit the strings (push the white bar on the body) and press the appropriate buttons to play the notes. If the player screws up (which he will, it's inevitable), he is greeted with an unpleasant "twang!"

Now, I was at Best Buy, waiting for my turn to have my hand at this thing, minding my own business. Unbeknownst to me, the game was preparing to embarass this poor man. I got up there, looking forward to doing Black Sabbath's War Pigs, a song I can play well in real life on real guitars. I set it on medium difficulty, thinking that would be just fine, or even a little too easy. It was after about 4 seconds that I realized that this game effectively removes all need for actual guitar playing skill and replaces it with something completely different yet nearly as difficult, though quite useless in the real world. It's just an exercise in pushing buttons at predetermined times. Actually, it's even possible to do it with the volume down because the player can just watch the screen and push the buttons in the right order. Plus, that little guitar controller looks ridiculous. Really ridiculous. It's kind of nice in that it gets kids off their butts and get them headbanging, kind of like the Wii, but it seems to me that after adding up the cost of buying a Playstation 2, the game and controller, and any extra crap like a new faceplate for the guitar, I could get a cheap guitar for the same price (about $220). And then I'd be learning a useful real-world skill. But, I guess it's comparable to learning a race track in Gran Turismo 4. It's nice if I don't feel like purchasing an old Cizeta Moroder and heading down to the Laguna Seca course. Well, actually, no, learning to play the guitar is more realistic a goal. So, instead of spending the cash on that game, go get a real guitar. NOW!

Humor a rare commodity.

2006-12-28T23:52:00.000-06:00

I have learned something from the copious amounts of television I have been watching for the past couple of weeks; most people on TV just aren't that funny. I'm not trying to sound like some humor snob, as if I'm a connoisseur of funny. I do believe, however, that if one is going to get a job on television, he must have to go through some sort of humor training. People who buy guns have to get licenses, people who play an instrument have to practice, so perhaps television writers should start practicing humor, much like Sherlock Holmes practiced logic riddles, or like the Kennedys practice covering up the horrid secrets of their family members.

I think it would be wise to study the different forms of humor, and to try to think up of various funny situations withing those forms, and then try combinations and apply them to various storylines.

1. The twist.
I realize that plot twists in and of themselves are not necessarily funny, but a good twist gets us laughing because we expect one outcome based on many years of conditioning, but are then delivered an unexpected surprise. This is usually based upon a familiar joke that most people know, but giving it a new punchline. For example, a joke can start with the classic, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" However, the punchline in this case would not be the familiar, "To get to the other side!" but perhaps "To get away from his OVERBEARING MOTHER." (that last one requires a situation where a grown man is being once again berated by his loving, yet smothering mother in the presence of family and friends. Works even better if they are all animated chickens.) Or it could be answered with, "No really, I have no clue why a chicken would cross a road," which could be responded to with light, sympathetic laughter from the others in the room. He then repeats his assertion that the concept eludes him, only to receive quiet stares until someone breaks the ice. This brings me to the next concept...

2. Fourth wall shattering bad jokes.
Sometimes a cliched bad joke can be used only if it is going to be the springboard for reactions from other characters. Such as if a character tells a bad joke, but not only does no one laugh, but tumbleweeds blow past and people actually start cringing in shame from the joke, causing the teller to begin sweating nervously and apologize profusely. This category of joke also contains my personal favorite; mocking bad plotlines that are obviously just excuses for shoddy writing. This has two sub-categories, which are the person-is-dumber-than-anyone jokes, and the this-was-all-a-big-misunderstanding jokes. The first contains that episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel started working at a candy factory. They can't even wrap candy properly, and so they start eating it, stuffing it in their bras, and just generally act like blasted fools. Now, whenever anyone uses this scene in a comedy, it's obviously to point out just how danged stupid that episode and things like it really are. No one in their right mind would act how Lucy acted, and yet we're supposed to laugh at it on its own terms. Using that scene in a parody, even largely unchanged, still places it under a very self-conscious, "you believe anyone ever thought this was funny?" type of attitude. As for the this-was-a-big-misunderstanding plot device, this is easy to make fun of because it is rampant in its undisguised form. Look at the first Shreck movie. The last half of the movie is dedicated to a misunderstanding that could be cleared up with ten seconds of coherent explanation. Shrek misheard Fiona when she was speaking with Donkey. She said, "How could anyone love an ugly ogre?" She was referring to her transformation into an ogre when the sun went down, and was fearing Shrek wouldn't like her. Shrek heard her and assumed she was talking about him. Then, in a a genius bit of unrealistically contrived dialogue, they danced around the actual issue and were sure to not say anything that might accidentally give away what they actually thought, lest the audience's patience never get tested. It was frustratingly contrived and pathetically indicative of lazy writing. However, when used to deliberately mock this style of plot movement, it turns into something wonderfully witty. Let's say a couple go on a honeymoon to Hawaii, and there is a superspy that goes on the same plane. When they are walking out of the airport, they bump into each other and get their bags mixed up. The husband says to the spy, "Hey, we've got similar bags. In fact, they're identical. It would be an utter shame to get them mixed up," he begins juggling the bags like tennis balls, "Phew, but I gotta be going. And I'm pretty darn sure this is my bag. See ya!" Then, in a good use of joke style one (the twist), they could both have their correct bags, just to defy convention. But, considering the spy has some pretty volatile stuff in his bag, that brings us to style three...

3. Over the top violence.
Banana peels are tres passe. Anvils on the head are old hat. It's the really huge stuff that tickles our funny bone these days. Why have a small explosion that takes out just one building when there can be a huge explosion that takes out the city, only to have the city be rebuilt and shining for the next scene? Guns are also required to be ludicrously huge, and the bigger they are, the funnier they are. Especially if they leave a huge, perfectly round hole in whatever they shoot. Extremely elaborate setups are also quite funny, as the viewer isn't sure when the setup will end, or what the payoff will be, and sometimes the more anticlimactic, the better. A huge cannon that shoots a pea sized projectile, for instance. Or a Rube Goldberg maching that fails on the last step. This can be combined with styles one and two, such as a nuclear bomb that only goes "phhooot" and fizzles out, but explodes as soon as someone says "That was close." Which brings me to my next style...

4. Well timed lines and good ol' fashioned uncomfortable silences.
The line, "that was close," would only work in that situation if the bomb went off right as the person was saying it, or after a long, awkward silence. Otherwise, it seems to conventional and won't tickle the funny bone. Awkward silences after odd or disturbing phrases are quite funny especially in a one on one situation. I realize this seems a lot like style one, but this is not presenting any twists, and it's not like style two because there's no bad joke being made fun of. This is all about interaction and reaction. Let me give you an example of how awkward pauses can add humor to a scene. First, you'll get no pauses, and you must assume that the person who is listening to this fellow speak is a caring, kind, hospitable person.

Burt: Well, I don't know what to say. After the last car accident, I had ruptured my lower intestine, and was in the hospital for two months eating out of a tube. It was impossible to bathe myself, and had to have a nurse do it for me every day. I was so happy to get out of there, I felt so free.

Now, this Burt fellah doesn't sound funny at all, right? Just kind of depressing until you find out that he's out of the hospital and you think, "good for him!" Until you realize that perhaps might mean more exposure to the pains of the world, but you try not to think about it too much. Now, let's hear him bounce off another person.

Steve: Hey, Burt, how the heck are ya?
Burt: Well, I don't know what to say.
Steve: Oh, come now, I'm sure it can't be that bad.
Burt: After the last car accident, I had ruptured my lower instestine, and was in the hospital for two months eating out of a tube.
Steve: (unpleasant, unmoving pause) Uh... well, I don't feel like having sausage any more, ever.
Burt: It was impossible to bathe myself so I had a nurse do it every day.
Steve: If you're looking for help in that area, I would recommend the entire human population before myself.
Burt: My terribly flaky skin made it difficult.
Steve: (head in hands) Oh, no, no, no...
Burt: I was so happy to get out of there, I felt so free.
Steve: Yes, I feel free, too, in escaping an UNPLEASANT PERSON TO TALK TO.

Now, seeing as how I'm tired, I'm going to leave the list at this point for now.

Tootles!

Head On... to a new ad campaign

2006-12-27T20:31:00.000-06:00

There are times in a company's life when it must be introspective. Those involved must look at all aspects of the company to try to drop dead weight, improve certain functions, and overall turn it into a well oiled machine. So, when I see commercials for a pain reliever product that feature people randomly popping in to make fun of the very product they are hawking, I begin to wonder if the CEO has not overlooked a brain lesion left for too long. Of course, for him to approve this ad campaign, it must be a lesion the size your average truck tire. The ads I'm talking about, of course, are the Head On commercial series. Now, having seen their commercials before this bit of marketing lunacy, I must say that it seemed like a pleasant, if not wholly worthwhile purchase. Simply open up a stick of Head On and apply it to place on the body that is feeling muscle or arthritis pain. Sounds good to me. I even remembered what the product was, thanks to the catchy name and short video of a guy applying it to his forehead. Then one day I was doing nothing more nefarious than watching Jeopardy when I was mentally punished by Head On's new advert. It was nothing more than one of the Head On commercials brutally halted in the middle only to feature a somewhat repulsive, snide sounding person in no make-up (I've been on sets before and have been on stage, and I can say that without make-up, an actor looks like a member of the Munsters, at best) bellowing in a sarcastic tone, "Head On, apply directly, Head On, apply directly... I hate your commercials and I think they're annoying. But I love your product." Now, I'm no ad wizard, but I think that a company calling its own commercials annoying is poor marketing. AMC tried it, and they only got ingested by Chrysler in 1988, which, in turn got feasted upon like a stunned wildebeest by Mercedes (Oh, sure, call it a merger all you want, there aren't many "mergers" that involve such Borg-like assimilation as DaimlerChrysler). Besides, the new commercials are far more annoying than anything on television. No, wait, that's not entirely accurate. They are the single most annoying ad, in any medium, aver devised. And I'm including the old PetSmart ads as well as those Got Mac? commercials that encourage me to get more PC's, just to spite Mac. I'm even including horrendous ads I have seen in old National Geographics from the teens, back when cigarettes were healthy and snake oil cured tuberculosis. So, maybe they should get introspective, eh?

Video game futures?

2006-12-26T14:53:00.000-06:00

I just stopped playing World Rally Championship and Gran Turismo 4 for the Playstation 2. Gran Turismo 4 is an incredibly realistic driving simulator, getting car physics perfectly and making a near true to life racing experience. World Rally Championship is a mayhem simulator. I can take a rally car of my choosing, all of which sound like they have chunks of granite in their transmissions, to one of many mountainside rally tracks. The gearing in these cars is so short that it has to shift to fourth before it hits 20 mph, making the driver in the car look like he is having a caffienne induced spasm as he shifts, puts his hand back on the steering wheel, and then snaps his hand back to the shifter all in a fraction of a second. The real fun comes when one realizes that the car can be taken off any of the many cliffs and jumps that line the sides of the road. Now, unfortunately, the game only allows for excursions of three seconds before it teleports the car back to the track. This does not detract from the fun, as it just resets the game after taking the car into a football-like spiral off a canyon wall. When the car comes back to the track, it has dents, dings, and makes a ludicrous amount of smoke. The best part is that there is insufficient clipping in the car model, so the smoke just pours into the car. It's especially fun to go flying off a hill into a passing sheep or spectator because the simply do not budge. They are apparently made of some sort of titanium alloy and have shafts that stick into the bedrock. When one takes an in car view, it only adds to the hilarity that the driver and navigator are completely calm. Even as the car careens over a several hundred foot high jump, the navigator keeps his head burried in his map, even calling out future turns as the valley floor rapidly approaches, and the driver continues to not blink, ever, just like real rally drivers. So, I guess it is realistic after all. Having watched rally racing, I realize that these are not humans driving these vehicles, but some sort of androids. In the thirty seconds that the camera is pointed at the faces of the "people" in the car, there is no blinking, sneezing, coughing, shifting, scratching, or breathing going on by either the driver or the navigator. I think that they truly would not notice if they just flew off into nothingness. The driver would still be turning the wheel in accordance with the turns that he would encounter, were he not hurdling towards certain doom, the navigator would be completely oblivious to the fact that gravity has now started pulling in the opposite direction as the car is now upside down, and the specatators would still be snapping photos and shouting things in various foreign languages. So, that makes me wonder why tracks such as the Pike's Peak course still exist in our modern age of intense and constant lawsuits. It seems to me that if a driver had a nervous tick, he could go off the track with such speed that he wouldn't hit the bottom of the mountain until everyone there had enough time to pack up, go home, get dinner, feed the pets, take baths, and go to bed. Meanwhile, the driver of said car would have completed the course in his mind only to find that he would be able to construct a crude glider from materials found inside his own car and fly to safety before his car hit the bottom of the stupifyingly tall Pike's Peak. All this, of course, makes for a very fun video game. Except I haven't figured out how to have my driver make a glider when he spins off the top of a tall mountain so he can save his own butt. In all my games, he just looks kind of contented with his fate. Anyway, all that being said, Gran Turismo 4 is still a far superior game. So there.

Things! Look out! Holy Diver, you've been down too long...

2006-12-12T00:40:00.000-06:00

Well, if you want to know what's been eating up all my time, here it is.
The Official Sam and Max website has an excellent "make your own comic" section, and I have made somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty or thirty under the name "Johnny Dames Rio." Yes, an obvious reference to Ethel Merman. I mean, Ronnie James Dio, singer for Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio, Black Sabbath again, Dio again, and now Heaven and Hell, which is Black Sabbath by another name, then presumably Dio again. It's ludicrously addicting, and there's some really good ones on there. Unfortunately, there's also a bunch of seriously crappy ones. I wish I could say mine are always awesome, but hey, I'm human and imperfect. I think they're funny, but if I didn't, I wouldn't have posted them. So, go make some!

Newness

2006-12-07T22:22:00.000-06:00

Yo, I'm back! How are you? Really? I'm sorry to hear that. Well, it's nice to see you, anyway. I'll update more later!

A new post, just for you!

2006-11-25T21:27:00.000-06:00

Well, I just got back from New York! I'm also typing with one hand, and I have recital in a week. So, I won't update again until after December fourth. Here's some photos I got from the Hard Rock Cafe.

This is Tony Iommi's Gibson SG that he used on Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master of Reality, Volume Four, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and Sabotage. These sold a combined 10 million copies in the U.S., and defined the heavy metal sound. It is this guitar that, for me, is THE heavy metal guitar, and is the reason I bought an SG.

I can't believe that I got to see this. Paul McCartney is the reason I began to love rock. This is, I believe, the first Hofner he had. It is a right handed bass, and he has said that he first got a Hofner violin bass because it was so styled that he could flip it over comfortably for left handed use. They also had the suits they wore on the Ed Sullivan show, but I didn't get a chance to get a shot of them.

Here is the Fender six string bass that Jack Bruce used on Cream's Disreali Gears. It can be seen on the inside cover next to Eric Clapton's Fool painted Gibson SG.

Here is Johnny Cash's acoustic, which I couldn't really get a good look at. I don't know what the brand is, but it's probably a Martin 000 style. That's also the famous photo of him giving the finger. I'm not sure how much I wanted that in the shot, but it does help to establish whose guitar it is.

Blehh!

2006-11-13T21:49:00.000-06:00

I have been very ill. I have had some sort of virus. Wait, that's not entirely accurate. I have some sort of virus. What is it? Not sure. Think it has to do with my saliva glands. The left side of my face is puffed up, not as much as last week, but still not pleasant. So, what have I been doing? Lying around in bed watching tv. It wasn't fun. I have come to loathe lying around, being uncomfortable and useless. Got no guitar practice for the past few days. And I have a recital in less than a month. Not fun! However, God is good, I have improved much, and I have retained the music that I have learned. I popped open the scores today, and started score reading it went great, and I know my mind is back!

Update

2006-11-03T22:47:00.000-06:00

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been busy, and then I got really sick last week. I'm still getting over it. Here's some pictures.

Here's me with Martha Masters. I got her to sign a CD for me.

Here's me with David Russell. He is the cleanest player I have ever heard of. I sat in the front row at his concert and I barely heard any squeaks or buzzes, and he never has any on his records.

Here's me with Andrew York. He is probably most famous for his compositions. Unfortunately, he just left the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.

Here's the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. That's Andrew York, John Dearman, Scott Tennant, and Bill Kanengiser.

Here's Denis Azabagic and Jason Vieaux finishing the Rodrigo Concierto Madrigal. They were amazing. The orchestra was also fabulously tight, and is the best school orchestra (possibly the best orchestra) I have ever seen live.

Movie Trailer

2006-10-15T22:17:00.000-05:00

Matthew, if you're reading this, the movie trailer will be up soon.

The GFA

2006-10-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

I just got back from the GFA competition. For those of you not "in the know," as "they" "say," The GFA is short for the Guitar Foundation of America. It was an amazing week of watching and talking to the best guitarists in the world, as well as spending buttloads of money on CD's and sheetmusic. I will post pictures soon, just as soon as I get them off my camera. If you want to know who was there, just go to their website. On a sad note, I got to see the final performance ever of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet with Andrew York. He is going to be replaced by Matthew Greif. I'm sure Greif is an awesome guitarist, but Andrew York is such a luminary in the field of classical guitar, and the quartet regularly played his compositions, that it's a huge gap to fill. It won't be the same without him. But, Greif will slowly but surely be welcomed by the audiences to come, and I hope he works out well with them. Godspeed, Greif!

Subject Line Here

2006-10-08T18:45:00.000-05:00

Here is possibly the rarest muscle car in the world. Think your '71 Hemicuda convertible is rare? Sure it is, but there are more of them than there are of these. How about a '69 ZL1 Corvette? There are twice as many ZL1 Vettes as these. 427 Shelby Cobra? This is more rare. 1963 Z11 Chevy? Rarer. How about Shelby GT350 R's? Rarer. The '48 Tucker? Easy to find compared to these.

So, just how rare is this... whatever?

Firstly, this car is the 1971 AMC Matador Machine. How many were made? About 50.
They came with either 360 or 401 cube engines, and a choice of either a three speed automatic or a four speed manual. This particular car has the 401 with the four speed.

It is also the only Matador Machine left in existance.

It is rumored that one with the 360 and an automatic still exists, but I have never seen a picture of it, and I've only ever heard one reference to it, and that was from a guy who said he'd heard another guy mention it. No AMC sites mention it, so as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't exist.

This particular Matador was in bad shape for a long time, having been so rusted out as to be near unsalvageable. But, Brad Denning restored it immaculate condition, and is now red with black stripes running from hood to trunk.

This website

has links to the car as it looks now. It is in a museum like it so rightly deserves.

Now, there is a bit of debate over this car, as it seems some contend that there was no such thing as a Machine package for the Matador, but that people just call any of the hot manual transmission equipped 360 or 401 Matadors "Machines." The automatics could be had without the go package. They assert that the only true Machines are the Rebel series with 390 v-8's that appeared in 1970. There were about 1200 of those made, and were advertised as Machines. When the Rebel series became the Matador series in 1971, the muscle car era was winding down. Any muscle packages were really downplayed, if they were advertised at all, for the 1971 model year. It's true that AMC didn't really play up the Machine package for the Matador, but as far as I've seen, it was possible to "build" a Machine from the parts ordering list and that would be considered a Machine. The Go Package, a package available to many of the more performance oriented cars in AMC's lineup, would get you a Machine. It consisted of the high performance, 4 barrel carb topped 285 horsepower 360, or the 330 horse 401, fifteen inch by seven inch steel "Machine" wheels with Polyglas radials, space saver spare, Power Disc brakes, and the Handling Package, which included a sway bar and heavy duty shocks and springs. So, while your Matador with the 401 and four speed might not have said "Machine" on the body, it certainly was one. And it certainly performed like one.

I personally would love to buy a good condition Matador that came with a lesser engine and tranny combo, such as a 304 with a 3 speed, and then convert it into a Machine. Body and interior parts for AMC's are hard to come by, but there are plenty of speed parts still in existance for the transmissions and engines. In fact,

Indy Cylinder Heads

can make a quite hot all alluminum, fuel injectd 401 if a customer desires. It could then be hooked up to a Tremec six speed... But that requires a good bit of cash. So, in the future some time.

Consant Updates! Sometimes!

2006-09-30T22:37:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is, the wrist. A rather complicated bunch of tendons, muscles, nerves, and bones. An amazing bit of creation, it is also quite easy for some of us to damage ours. If you've fallen, on yours, don't delay. See a doctor right away.

How can you tell if some part of your wrist is injured? There are several possible problems that can cause wrist pain. Here's a few:

1. Misalligned bones. This can cause the tendons to have to take a different path, and can cause inflammation due to the tendon having to move at an angle rather than straight, like God intended.

2. Damaged tendons. They can be torn, or have growths on them, which will cause pain when they have to move through their sheaths.

3. Muscle issues. Whether the muscles in your forearm or wrist are torn, have knots, or are otherwise injured, it can cause pain in your hand. Sometimes, pain in the hand can be a result of a muscle problem elsewhere in the arm. Personally, when I get pain in my index finger, I can massage the knotted muscle in my forearm and the pain goes away.

4. Growths. There can be growths, such as cysts or even tumors, that grow on or next to the tendons which can cause pain and limited movement.

Talk to your doctor about potential problems with your wrist, and don't let it go for too long. If you do, it will be harder and harder to fix.

YYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-09-28T22:52:00.000-05:00

Could it be? I never thought I would see it happen, considering the last time it happened was 3 years before I was born. Could it be that Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward could be touring and recording again? According to

Joe Siegler's very respected and accurate Black Sabbath site

, it very well could be happening again. Now, I consider this lineup to be the absolute greatest lineup of musicians in heavy metal history, and it only put out one album (Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell) and toured for a few months before drummer Bill Ward had to leave the tour due to health issues. I had always loved Black Sabbath for its thick, sludgy guitarwork by Tony Iommi, and the thundering rhythm section of Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, but was never too keen on Ozzy Osbourne's singing. Also, I absolutely love Ronnie James Dio's voice, I think it is the best in rock, but was never too hot about Dio, and I just kinda like Rainbow. But Dio in Sabbath was like cloud 9 to me. And as good a drummer as Vinny Appice is, I just wish that it could have been Bill Ward behind the kit on Mob Rules, Live Evil, and Dehumanizer. So, Heaven and Hell has always been the epitome of rock albums for me. 8 truly classic tracks that stand against anything ever put out by the Metallicas, Megadeths, Judas Priests, and Iron Maidens of the world. The best I could do as for seeing this lineup live was finding bootlegs of live shows, but that's a poor substitute for the real thing. If this reunion and tour happens, I will spend any amount of money to see one of the shows. Although I'm not one for rock concerts (constant shouting, smoking, people jumping around, even sometimes women taking their tops off, and always horrendously filthy toilets, if there are any, that is), but I can filter that crap out if it means seeing these guys live. And besides, I don't want to be one of those rabbit hole Christians who only goes to Christian things and never has an impact on non-Christians. Also, they're all in their fifties. Heck, Dio is in his sixties. How long are they going to keep touring? I gotta see 'em now! And so do you! Buy some o' them freakin' tickets!

'Nother Script

2006-09-25T22:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, here's a concept I had for a show about a guy who hosts a talk show that features superheroes. I wrote three scripts, each takes about three minutes to go through, which, ironically, is about how long it took me to write them. You will be able to tell because sometimes the writing sounds unnatural or like it lost it's focus. It's certainly not streamlined, but I wrote it because I wanted to establish some characters and remind myself of the premise so I could go back and perfect it when I wanted. I just never got around to that. So, here's some background info:

Peter Simmons is a balding, aging tv show host who has gone nowhere in his career, but finally landed a semi-decent job interviewing superheroes. They don't respect him, and just see it as forum for publicity and a quick paycheck. His producer, Helen, doesn't like dealing with him, but since Peter has a tendency to get nasty with the guests, she sticks around to make sure he stays in line. Several characters that don't make it into this particular script are Larry, the inept sound guy, who has a terribly grating voice and personality, Steve, the laidback and ineffectual stage manager, and Rick Nelson, who works "in the booth" doing some unknown job, and always brings his son, Billy, who has no mouth/brain filter. I thought it would be funny to go one step further than movies like Mystery Men and make the superheroes not only commonplace, but secondary to the actual story. I have complete confidence that this idea will not get stolen because my readership is a cozy single digit number. Also, all ideas here are now copyrighted. And I don't know who'd really want it that badly. So, here's a little snippet of one of the interviews. For this episode, the board that controls the cameras has had coffee not just spilled, but poured all over it. So, the whole crew has had to move over to a neighboring set...

Peter Simmons: Hello, and welcome to “Inside the Superhero’s Mind”. There’s been a bit of a set change this week, as you can see. We are currently on the “Cooking With Oils” set, which the host, Gerard, kindly let us use. After we bribed him. And for some strange reason, the network also decided to let the audience from “Cooking With Oils” watch our program.
Audience Member: You aren’t Gerard, YOU SUCK!
Peter: You’ll have to bear with us folks, we’re not used to having an audience. Anyhow, my guest this week is a recognizable face, he’s been in countless television commercials, was Time magazine’s man of the year, and has been on every major talk show on basic cable, please welcome “Perfection” Guy Powers.
PG: It’s tolerable to be here, Paul
Peter: Peter.
PG: Interesting you assume I care.
Peter: So, “Perfection” Guy,
PG: Please, my friends call me Guy. You can call me Mr. Powers.
Peter: I see. Well, Mr. Powers, how come it took you so long to be on our show?
PG: Well, the truth is, I didn’t even know your show existed until last year.
Peter: So you didn’t watch it until last year? We’ve been on for over five years.
PG: I never said I watched your show, heck, I STILL don’t care about it. I can’t sit through five minutes of it. My agent said this would be good publicity.
Peter: (stunned silence, light applause from audience) Ok... well, how did you get your nickname “Perfection”?
PG: I’m Perfect.
Peter: That’s it?
PG: Yup.
Peter: Oh, come on, no person is perfect.
PG: I am.
Peter: Ok, well, going a little deeper than that explanation, who originally gave you the name?
PG: I did.
Peter: So, no one else gave it to you after noticing some heroic deed, you just started calling yourself “Perfection”?
PG: Yup. Perfect people can do that kind of thing. It's one of the cooler perks.
Peter: Let’s delve a little into your past. When did you first realize that you had what it took to become a superhero?
PG: It all started when I was five years old. One of my toys rolled under my Dad’s car. So, I picked it up and tossed it aside.
Peter: What, the car?
PG: Yeah, it went pretty far. Landed in some guy’s yard. Crushed one of those plastic pink flamingoes. That was pretty cool.
Peter: Was your dad angry?
PG: Who?
Peter: Your dad, was he angry?
PG: Oh, man was he ever.
Peter: What did he say when he found out what happened?
PG: I don’t know, he was in the car at the time. He knew what happened pretty quick, I guess.
Peter: Right. When did you first perform your first heroic act?
PG: Well, one day, when I was five, this guy kept screaming that his cat was in this tree. So, I ripped the tree down and shook the cat out. But was the owner grateful? No. He started yelling at me, and was all “You killed my tree” and “You were the guy who threw the cat up there in the first place.”
Peter: Fascinating. When did you first design your costume?
PG: Well, I believe I was five at the time. I was really into stuff like “Superman” and “The Flash” and “Cosmopolitan.” I wanted something that said “I’m strong, I’m fast, and I have good fashion sense.”
Peter: And of course you had to make new ones as you grew.
PG: No, no, I’ve been the same size since age three.
Peter: Lovely image. Now, I read in the newspaper recently that you got married, congratulations.
PG: Oh, yeah. “Married.”
Peter: What’s that supposed to mean?
PG: None of your biznotch, monkey boy.
Peter: Biznotch? What the heck does that mean? Helen, advanced knoweledge of ebonics was not part of my job description.
Helen: Keep going, Peter.
Peter: So, Mr. Powers, where is your wife? Is she here tonight?
PG: No, no. In fact, I really hope she’s not watching this.
Peter: Why’s that?
PG: Stay out of my personal life, toupee-jockey.
Peter: I don’t wear a toupee! This is my real hair! It’s just that the top part of my hair has kept its color better than rest of my head, that’s all.
PG: Fine, Captain Denial. Small, furry animals just crawl up and die on peoples’ heads like that all the time.
Audience Member: YOU TELL HIM, PERFECTION DUDE! WHOO! YOU SUCK, SIMMONS!
Peter: Wonderful. So where do you and your wife live?
PG: New York and Boston.
Peter: Oh, you guys have two homes.
PG: No, I live in New York, she lives in Boston.
Peter: Well, Mr. Powers, what was your first television commercial?
PG: I got to do the voice of Scotchy, the angry Scottsman. It was for this breakfast cereal that was supposed to be like “Lucky Charms”. It was called “Down and Out Whiskey-O’s.” The only problem was, our target audience of ages five to seven couldn't get the cereal. Some alcohol age limit or something. Also, they said Scotchy was too aggressive for beating a cardboard “Lucky” using a cast iron shillelagh.
Peter: I see. Well, we have time for one more question. Mr. Powers, what do you consider to be the hardest part of your job?
PG: Having to do shows like this.
Peter: That’s all the time we have this week on “Inside the Superhero’s Mind.” I’m your host Peter Simmons, and my guest has been “Perfection” Guy Powers. Stay tuned for “Cooking With Oils” with your host, Gerard.
Audience Member: GERARD RULES!

Well, well, well.

2006-09-22T22:31:00.000-05:00

I thought that I could update this daily. Hmmm. Not so. Well, I gotta figure something out here...

Hello, again.

2006-09-19T09:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I think my readership has dwindled to a quite sterile "zero." I will try to get a real website sometime soon, once I can either get on my father's host, or my own host. In the meantime, please enjoy... uh, well, I guess I'm the only one reading this, so, uh, yeah. Enjoy your blog, Paul.

The sorry state of comics

2006-09-13T08:45:00.000-05:00

No, I don't mean standup comics, though they are in a sorry state these days, having been unable to elicit a laugh without the words "sex," drunk," and "republicans are dumb" for the past 10 years. No, I mean the kind of comics you and I read in the newspaper, or on our particular newspaper's website. What kind of comics eat up 90% of the page? Why, utter crap of course. Let's look at some of them, shall we?

Fred Bassett: There is no excuse for this comic to be on the page. Not only is it dull and repetitive, but the man who created it died 15 years ago. No, it hasn't been taken over by new artists and made less funny, like what happened to Pogo or Nancy so many years ago, or Shoe more recently. The strip has always been terrible. I understand rerunning old Peanuts strips, or the Katzenjammer Kids, but Fred Bassett? Is he really such a cultural icon that we need his unwelcome presence?
Now, I own three dogs, so the charm of reading a dog's mind could interest me. The problem with Fred is, he has the same kind of thoughts as that one weird, unfunny person we kinda know, but don't like to talk to for very long. (For those of you who kinda know me, it's not you, so don't worry about it.) In other words, the thoughts of Fred Bassett are the kind of thing that someone with no sense of humor would say in a group setting, causing all the "nice" people to chuckle nervously, and the ones who aren't nice to say something like, "What does that even mean? Dude, just quit talking."
I keep thinking that Fred Bassett is missing panels, and that somewhere there is an editing room floor with unused punchlines, ones that would make us laugh, and shed light on why what strips we did see tended to go nowhere. But, considering that the creator is dead, he probably asked for them to be burned so that no one could go fix the strips later.
This also got made into a television show in England. We haven't even gotten a television show for Get Fuzzy yet. Scary.

Drabble: If you've read this strip, you probably don't know it. Ok, imagine a comic with writing that doesn't have the wit and pinache of Family Circus, the artistic vision of Hagar the Horrible, or the insightful wisdom of Zippy the Pinhead.

Ok, still don't know? Well, ok. It's about a college age guy who's rather dimwitted, but not charmingly so. He lives with his parents who are also dimwitted, and, in a truly shocking reversal, he has two kid siblings that are intelligent and "with it." This brings a side point I feel compelled to make. I would like to stop seeing comics that make the kids out to be the smart ones and the parents/adults the morons. Who exactly pays the rent and has life experience, here? That's what I thought.
Now, Drabble isn't the ordinary dumb that we find in people who smoke and play the lottery but are afraid to fly, he's not the kind of dumb that leads to shoplifting in front of a security camera, no, he's the cartoon kind of dumb. That "aw shucks" kind of dumb. He's the guy that would walk out of the room with one of your chairs because you said, "Take a seat." Yes, he's the completely unrealistic, that-would-never-happen-in-a-million-years kind of dumb. Now, this kind of idiocy can be made funny if it has a foil, such as reality. This kind of dumb works well when it is pointed out in a fourth wall breaking type of situation, where the dumbness is called out and shown for what it is, making fun of the conventional "cartoon dumb" stereotype. For example, if someone did literally "take a seat," another person in the room could begin mocking the tired cliche, thus making it self-referential, as if the viewer wasn't intended to find the joke itself funny, but the fact that anyone else ever found that joke funny. However, Drabble has none of that. It presents jokes you found unfunny before a time when seatbelts were mandatory in cars and people knew smoking was unhealthy, and it expects you to laugh at them. Well, no thanks.

Funky Winkerbean: Good heavens I don't want to write this one. You see, I used to love Funky Winkerbean. It used to be hilarious. The characters were interesting and it had them in funny situations, a win-win scenario for character driven people vs. plot driven people. Then it happened. One day, my father read to me a newspaper article that featured an interview with Funky Winkerbean's creator, Tom Batiuk. He talked about how he wanted to take the strip in a new direction. That direction?

Unfunnysville.

He turned it into a soap opera, and it started with Les Moore's wife getting cancer. See, that's representative of a twofold problem. First, the strip went from clever and entertaining to cheap drama. Second, it still retained part of what made it clever: the names of the characters. I'm sorry, but I just can't take a strip seriously when there's a crisis in the life of a man named Les Moore. And Funky Winkerbean became an alcoholic. I can just imagine this AA meeting. "Hello, my name is Funky Winkerbean, and I'm an alcoholic." The moderator would look sternly over his horn-rim glasses and say, "Now if you aren't going to take this seriously, we won't get anywhere. What's your real name?" The old Funky would have said something witty, something suitable for the third and final panel. Something that would make us chuckle and feel satisfied, like a feature on the funny pages should. The new Funky would look pensive and disheartened. He would utter in a depressed tone, "That is my name. I have felt disdain from most of the world my entire life due to the unfortunate moniker my parents saddled me with. They could have chosed any name. Steven, James, Alan. But, instead, they gave me the name 'Funky.' They were alcoholics, too, and they thought it would be funny to watch me go through life in pain and misery." At this point the new Funky would shed a single tear, his lip would quiver and everyone around him would shift nervously in their seats. Isn't that hilarious?

Sally Forth: Has anyone ever actually read this strip?

Opus: I also don't want to write this one. You see, as much as I disagree with Berke Breathed on his politics, I did always enjoy Bloom County. I liked the characters. Even when he was bashing televangelists (I don't like a lot of televangelists either, but when someone on the left does it, they take every shot at Christianity as a whole they possibly can), and making fun of Republicans, I still loved seeing the interaction of Oliver with his father, Opus and Steve Dallas discussing Deathtongue, and Hodge Podge and Portney playing Star Trek. Every character was great. Then he stopped doing Bloom County and did Outland, which I also enjoyed. He wasn't as political then because Clinton was president, and he didn't want to make fun of a Democrat. But then came the strip, "Opus." You see, Berke has jumped on the extreme liberal bandwagon. I can't say I was surprised, but it's poisoning his otherwise great cartoon characters. I'm getting tired of the same crap that Israel is just as bad as Hezbollah, George Bush is an idiot (the man has an MBA from Harvard. What's your degree in, again, Berke?), and war is evil. It's not that he's trying to make a point, or that any of the liberal strips are making a point. They aren't trying to better the world by pointing out evils and inconsistancies. They just say these things because it will get easy laughs from people who think like kids. You see, children think the world is easy to figure out:
Be nice and get along with everyone. Can't we just talk it out and be friends?
Everyone who disagrees with me is dumb.
I won't believe something firmly, so I'll just say I don't know. That makes it easier when I'm wrong.
We all should be ourselves and think what we want to. And people who don't think that should be made to think that, just like the rest of us.
People should give me things just because I'm me. Why should I have to work for things?
Evil people are just misunderstood. They need a hug.
The government should take care of me and feed me and pamper me and clothe me and...

And I'm really sick and tired of seeing all this on the dang comics page of all places! The great Walt Kelly used to make two different versions of his Pogo strip, one that was political, and one that wasn't. That way, the paper could decide if they wanted to run the political one or not. He didn't believe in subjecting the readers to his political views if they didn't want him to. And yes, he was a liberal. A liberal I happen to respect for this very reason.

Now, this is quite different from a strictly political toon like Doonesbury or Mallard Fillmore. They are about politics. If Breathed wants to go that way, fine. Let him. I just want him to make up his dang mind about what Opus is. Is it just funny? Is it political? If it's just a funny strip, leave the political crap out!

I would write one on The Boondocks, but that would be too easy, and I would get too aggravated thinking about it.

Rose is Rose: I believe this is the most hated comic strip ever.

For Better or For Worse: Same as Funky Winkerbean. Used to be funny. Became a soap opera. I liked it better when the Pattersons were an actual family. Now, Mike and Elizabeth are grown up and have their own lives. Their dog, Farley, the icon of the strip, died. April is in High School now, and will be off to college soon. I don't mind strips that have the characters age, but that doesn't mean the strip has to get serious! Some cynics will say, "Was it ever actually that funny?" My answer would be, "Not on the level of a Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes, but yes." It rose above the average, maybe in the B+ range. I liked it. But, as the kids grew up, no longer did we have the interplay of the parents with precocious kids or hormone laden teenagers, like in Zits. We suddenly had a bunch of... people. And just watching people live out their lives is none too entertaining. Mike and Elizabeth suddenly had to deal with real life. So it was a bit like being thrust back into reality, myself. When the strip featured the kids as kids, the reader felt like a kid. We could just enjoy ourselves and the jokes, sans responsibility. Hey, the kids got into trouble, they said funny things, they went on family vacations and things went haywire, but then they grew up. We watched Mike have a kid and deal with being a dad. Elizabeth got attacked by a guy at college. It suddenly became stark and serious. I looked at it and the smile shrank from my face as I realized that this life stuff is what we all have to deal with as we grow up. I like growing up, but I don't dwell on it. I certainly don't want to dwell on it when I'm reading a dang comic strip.

Well, I don't feel like writing anymore. My hands hurt and it's almost midnight. It felt good to write that, though.

Thanks for reading!

Well, hi there.

2006-08-29T17:47:00.000-05:00

Well, it seems as if the world is less than on fire to buy Eternal Idol. I think I'll just have to ramp it up!

Anyway, there's lots of cool stuff going on right now, and you should definitely be involved in those things instead reading a dang blog. I would, however, like to point out another growing problem, at least as long as I have your attention, that is. The problem?

The misunderstanding between "try to" and "try and."
So many people say that they will "try and do something." This is horrendously grammatically incorrect. What that sentence implies is the person speaking is actually going to perform two separate functions. He will try something, and then he will do something. I wouldn't even mention this, except that I'm reading it and hearing it from the pens and mouths of well educated people. The problem with that is that the grammatically educated must be on the front lines of the battle keep the language intact. There is a movement to simplify the spelling of the English language with official spellings being much more phonetical. "Though" becomes "tho," for example. The problem is, that for someone who is learning about the etymology of the words he speaks, this becomes confusing. What happens when prefixes become different depending on the word they modify? "Telephone" becomes "telafone," but "telepathy" becomes "tuhlepuhthy," and so on. The "tele" prefix has become meaningless and lost. For one word, it's "tela," but for another it's "tuhle." Dictionaries would be a confusing mess. I understand things like the metric system and how they can help us. Sometimes simpler is better. Advertisements, for example. If an ad tells me what the product is and why I need it, I don't need pyrotechnics and celebrities. But language is something that's supposed to unify a people, which means certain standards must be upheld. I understand removing silent u's from words like "colour," but a line has to be drawn before it gets out of control. I like being able to read books written 200 years ago because it's written with words I speak on a daily basis. What will happen to the next generation of people if we keep dumbing down the language? Our kids won't understand a single book written before... last week.

The Help Eternal Idol go Gold Foundation

2006-07-28T23:07:00.000-05:00

I would like, if I may, to be serious for a moment (given my reputation, that may be difficult). There is a great problem that should concern all heavy metal fans out there who care about quality metal. That problem is:

Black Sabbath's Eternal Idol has not gone gold.

Now, this may seem like a bit of sarcasm, as if I didn't really like this album or that it doesn't deserve to go gold (to go gold, an album must sell 500,000 copies). Quite the contrary. I think that this is quite an incredible album of music, and there is not one song on this album that I do not actively love.

I think I should give a little background here.

Black Sabbath's Eternal Idol came out of a very tumultuous period in Sabbath's history. Tony Iommi, the guitarist, was the only original member of the band at this point, and the band had already gone through a slew of drummers, singers, and bassists. This album featured the vocals of the late, great Ray Gillen, but he left the band and his vocals were re-recorded by the excellent Tony Martin. Bassist Dave Spitz never showed up for recording sessions, so his parts were then recorded by bass legend Bob Daisley. Eric Singer, former drummer for Kiss and Lita Ford, left after finishing his drum tracks, and Bev Bevan of Electric Light Orchestra was brought in to clean up some of his tracks. To further complicate matters, Bob Daisley never stuck around for the tour, and Bev Bevan only played one show before leaving. Jo Burt filled in on bass, and Terry Chimes from The Clash came to do drum duties. Stalwart keyboardist, Geoff Nichols remained loyal, a testament to his commitment to Sabbath during his 25 year tenure. The band faced severe financial problems, having finally escaped the grip of manager Don Arden, only to face the neglect of Patrick Meehan. On top of this, their management booked them to play apartheid ridden Sun City in South Africa, having lied to the band about its location and political problems. The group only played about 20 gigs on the tour for this album, after which they were done with the Warner Brothers record label. The album received no support by Warner Brothers, and without any tour dates booked in America, the album tanked, reaching 168 on the billboard charts in America. Tony Iommi slowly picked up the pieces of Sabbath after this; signing with new management, getting a new label, recruiting legendary drummer Cozy Powell, and recording what was essentially a come-back album for Sabbath, The Headless Cross. Unfortunately, after Headless Cross came out, Eternal Idol was a distant memory.

Unfortunately, America and the UK suffer from "if it ain't Ozzy, it ain't Sabbath" syndrome, so the excellent Dio and Martin led albums are pushed by the wayside. However, this can be reversed. I'd like to start with just one album and move on from there. The Eternal Idol can go gold! It just takes an effort by us fans to spread the word about this excellent album. I have yet to read a truly negative review about this album. Usually I simply see the same lack-of-Ozzy comlaining that plagues any Sabbath album review from 1980 on. It's full of great songwriting and excellent performances, especially from the very young but very talented Tony Martin and the ever impressive Tony Iommi.

So, spread the word! This album can be found at Amazon.com (specifically, Eternal Idol, American edition or Eternal Idol, remaster if you want the remastered version from Castle records) You can also find it in some stores. Generally, Virgin records superstores will have a copy. I've also found it in FYE. But, make sure to check any record store, just in case. And even if they don't have it, they can usually order it for you, and it won't cost you any more than if they had it in the store.

As you can see, it's not very expensive, about half the price of a CD that just came out, and you can just tack it onto an order you're placing for other things. Doing some birthday or Christmas shopping? Why not spend the extra $11 for a brand new copy of Eternal Idol? Looking for a stocking stuffer for that rock fan in your family? The Eternal Idol will fit in most stockings! Or maybe you're buying some textbooks for school. What's an extra $11? It'll be nice to listen to once you're done cramming for that psychology exam!

So, what are you waiting for? Buy it now!

Update:
I have started the online petition! Please don't sign unless you already own or plan to purchase a copy of Eternal Idol. Sabbath fans, let's support them! Just go to The Help Eternal Idol Go Gold Petition and sign up.

Nother Update:
The Eternal Idol is available on iTunes! Go download it!

More? You want more?

2006-07-25T13:16:00.000-05:00

Ok, I really need to get this blog circulating. What I actually need to do is get a website proper. My scope is too huge for a one page blog! Yes, I could link several together, but that just won't fly. But, fear not! I shall continue to update this blog as frequently as possible until I get a website of some kind. I just need to earn more money. I need one of those "job" things. Oh, I teach guitar, but with less than ten students, I'm not exactly rolling in a bathtub of cash. I could, however, roll around in a handfull of change, but that hurts. Especially when the coins start poking ribs and whatnot. But, after a bit of digression, I'd just like to say that one never knows when the person on the other end of a phone line is wearing pants.

SONAR Home Studio 4

2006-07-19T17:03:00.000-05:00

Here's what's been eating up all my time. I love SONAR, it allows me to make music without actually having to pick up my guitar. MIDI rocks. It also allows me to make basslines, drum tracks, and even use exotic instruments such as the sitar and instruments that cost more than I'd care to spend, like a grand piano. It's really cool. Then I can record my vocals (or anything else) into a microphone. It allows me to loop, copy, and otherwise distort the tracks. It's ludicrously cheap, something like $150, which will beat the crud out of any 4 or 8 track recorders. SONAR can have up to 64 simultaneous tracks, whereas a TASCAM 8 track is limited to, well, 8 tracks. One only needs a powerful enough computer to run the software, and a decent mic to plug in. Also, I recommend going to Amazon and buying The Everything Home Recording Book, or The Mixing Engineer's Handbook. So, don't delay, visit Cakewalk.com.

I be back, yo.

2006-07-15T17:11:00.000-05:00

Well, it appears I'm back now. I know you're all so excited that you're probably passing out like crazy. Well, expect some neato updates just as soon as I feel like it.

Expect nothing from me. NOTHING!

2006-06-30T22:52:00.000-05:00

I am going on vacation for a couple weeks. I hope you all can find things to do with yourselves until I get back. I trust you can keep out of... Hey, you! Yes, you in the back! Settle down, or I'll get the hose. I mean it!

New Posts

2006-06-25T21:22:00.000-05:00

Well, typing is rather unpleasant for my hands, and I have much work to do. I will try to make future posts require little typing and will try to rely heavily on things already prepared. So, for now, I leave you with this very odd picture. It is the side of Holy Trinity Church. This is, or was, a viewing window. Yes, this church used to be the country's first drive through mortuary. Enjoy.

Actors are NOT necessarily Voice Actors.

2006-06-23T22:24:00.000-05:00

There is a great and growing problem these days, and it should interest you a lot. In fact, it had better interest you if you know what's good for you. Capisce?

So, what is the problem, you say? Why it's the greatest threat to the burgeoning young voice actor today:

Celebrities getting hired for voice over parts.

This is an especially heinous crime in light of the fact that most screen actors are very poor voice actors. Now, before I get into too many details, let me preface this a little with some history.

In the early days of animation, voice over parts were done by whoever happened to be handy. Popeye was originally voiced by his lead animator, and at one point Woody Woodpecker was voiced by creator Ben Hardaway's wife. However, people such as Mel Blanc and Daws Butler became very talented in the area of acting with their voices, and eventually studios began to hire specific people to do the voices on their cartoons. This was much better for the end product, of course, as the performance was much more believable and deliveries could be made by people with comedic timing, good acting ability, and the ability to perform in many different types of voices. For example, Mel Blanc was the voice of Bugs Bunny, Secret Squirrel, Barney Rubble, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, and pretty much all the Looney Toons. Daws Butler voiced Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Elroy Jetson, and is pretty much the Hanna Barbera equivalent of Mel Blanc.

The voice over business is not just cartoons, either. With the advances in technology over the past eighty years, areas for those who can perform with their voices have exploded. Commercials for television and radio, computer software, even the voice for telephone answering services and airport trains provide areas for people to make a buck using their voices.

However, in the seventies, something started happening. Celebrities started doing voice overs. Now, at first it wasn't really an issue. Perhaps the celebrity had a distinct voice and didn't come with a too high a price tag, such as Jim Backus of Mr. Magoo and Gilligan's Island fame. But, slowly but surely, bigger names started appearing in voice over roles.

The problem really took off in the nineties, as we suddenly had people like Mel Gibson doing Pocahontas, and Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury in Beauty and the Beast, not to mention John Cusack and Meg Ryan in Anastasia. Eventually we started seeing cartoons that featured celebrities, such as Christopher Lloyd in the edutainment cartoon, Cyberchase. Now we have Gene Hackman doing commercials for Oppenheimer Funds.

So, what's the problem, you ask? Isn't it a good idea to get big names to draw in crowds to a movie?

Well, let me dispel that little myth with some good examples. These are a few of the many, and I could easily go on for an hour about Disney alone, but I'll narrow it down to four.

1. Dilbert: A show with very clever writing and mediocre voice acting. Many jokes that could have been funnier were given a poor delivery by the voice actor. The frustrating thing is, there were some very good voice actors in there, but they were generally secondary or tertiary characters. The best line from the entire series was from an episode that featured Dilbert going to Elbonia to inspect one of their manufacturing plants. At the factory he found babies, the elderly, animals, and even dead people working there. The hilarious line was given by the dictatorish foreman, as he cracks his whip, saying, "Get back to work, you lazy corpse!" The line is pretty funny, but he said it with such authority, as if this were a chronic problem that is solved by a whip crack. Daniel Stern, the voice of Dilbert, delivered his lines pretty much the same way every time; whinily. He sounded like he was merely annoyed with everything, even things that pleased him. I just pictured Daniel Stern sitting at a mic, saying after the session was over, "Well, I said my lines. Can I get lunch? Can I go do something else?" Equally wasted was the smug and irritated sounding Dogbert voiced by Chris Elliot. Jason Alexander as Catbert also gave a monotone and one dimensional performance. Kathy Griffin, Larry Miller, and the rest of the supporting cast were a bit better, but Maurice Lamarche (of Pinky and The Brain fame) playing the Garbage man was probably the best, due to his familiarity with being behind a microphone, though he wasn't given many lines, and the lines he got were OK at best. The problem was that the material given to the cast wasn't served as well as it should have been. They were screen actors and comedians that were put into somewhat unfamiliar territory, and it showed. Larry Miller was also on Buzz Lightyear as the wise cracking robot, but since that was a one-dimensional character for the most part, and one that required good joke delivery, it was a better fit for him. The material was good, it just needed a more experienced cast of voice actors.

2. Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas: Dreamworks animation decided that cartoons simply couldn't survive without celebrities and computer effects, so they threw a buttload of both into this turkey. Brad Pitt gave what I consider the worst voice over job I've ever heard in this movie as the largely uninteresting Sinbad. Michelle Pfeiffer tried to sound sexy as the evil seductress/goddess, Eris. She sounded instead like she was deeply committed to the ways of half-hearted sarcasm and unconvincing smugness. Catherine Zeta Jones fared well, but didn't do any better than any Candi Milo or Kath Soucie could do. Joseph Fiennes was the best of the lot, but had about 12 minutes of screen time and probably ten lines. It was an example of poor voice talent getting a lot of screen time, and good voice talent getting none. I believe voice over legend Jim Cummings had about one line. He should have been Sinbad, darnit.

3. Over the Hedge: ATTENTION DREAMWORKS: Bruce Willis is a terrible voice actor, don't make up for it by giving R.J. over the top facial expressions. Also, microphones and cameras should fill out a restraining order on Steve Carell. I think that he had a lot of voice coaching like, "No, way too understated, give it MORE." And he did, but perhaps they shouldn't have kept saying that to him after every take. And why on earth did you have Avril Lavigne? Did anyone care that it was her? I think the most well informed casting decision was William Shatner. How often does someone say that? I mean, the man's great with his voice, and I don't think he comes with a high price tag. I wish I could say that about the other cast members.

4. Osmosis Jones: Chris Rock I understand. Even David Hyde Pierce to a certain extent. But Lawrence Fishburne? I mean, why? Did he give a vocal performance that someone half his price tag couldn't deliver? Or is it because "and also starring Lawrence Fishburne from The Matrix" sounded good on press statements?

So, there are my examples of poor voice acting from otherwise mostly OK screen actors. But, there's another problem than the hit or miss performance given, and it's one I've mentioned a couple times:

Money.

Tom Hanks got paid $5,000,000 for doing Toy Story 2. Christine Cavanaugh got paid less than $40,000 for doing the voice of Babe. Do the math.
You can get almost a guaranteed better voice over performance with someone like Rob Paulsen, Frank Welker, Jim Cummings, Grey Delisle, Cree Summer, Charlie Adler, Richard Horvitz (my favorite living voice actor, mostly for his work as Invader Zim), or perhaps voice over legend June Foray, voice of Rocky the Squirrel, Warner Brothers' Granny and Witch Hazel, and a slew of others. And you could hire them all for the price of one Robert Redford or Tim Robbins. And they would give a much better performance. So, why would you do anything else?

Also, celebrities taking all the voice over spots makes it that much harder for prospective voice over artists to get work. With all the established voice actors being forced into doing more low paying gigs, how are those who want to break into the biz supposed to get any gigs themselves? I mean, how strapped for cash are these celebrities that they need to do voice overs? And why do production companies not yet understand that hiring a big name actor doesn't mean you'll get a good performance, especially if their schedule doesn't allow them to perform with their fellow actors, but have to bounce lines off of the director or, worse yet, just remember where they are in the script. An experienced voice actor can do that. I doubt that Ewan McGregor can do that without it sounding jerky, or taking forever to get a good take.

So, why on earth don't you get voice actors to do these roles? I don't care who's in a dang cartoon, as long as they turn in a good performance!

So, for those of you who are interested in voice over work, I recommend that you visit the Voicestarz link on my Links section. It's a voice over coaching class done online, and it's owned by the very versatile and talented Tara Strong of Powerpuff Girls fame. Also, head over to Amazon.com and purchase the excellent book, The Art of Voice Acting by James Alburger.

For those interested, here's a list of screen actors that are allowed to be in cartoons, they've earned it with all the voice work they've done. It also helps that they not only do good voice acting, but that voice over jobs probably make up as much work for them as on screen acting does.

1. Mark Hamill
2. Wayne Knight
3. Clancy Brown
4. Brad Garrett
5. Kevin McDonald
6. Katey Sagal
7. William Shatner
8. Charlton Heston
9. Danny Cooksey

And here are posthumous mentions, and deservedly on this list:

1. Peter Ustinov
2. John Ritter
3. Phil Hartman
4. Orson Welles
5. Terry Thomas
6. Jim Backus
7. Long John Baldrey
8. Elizabeth Hartman (No relation to Phil Hartman, was Mrs. Brisby in The Secret of Nimh.)
9. Roddy McDowall

And no voice over list would be complete without the five most influential voice actors of all time, creating the golden era of voice over work:
1. Mel Blanc
2. Daws Butler
3. June Foray (still alive, and almost 90!)
4. Paul Frees
5. Don Messick

Read me! Read me now!

2006-06-18T23:41:00.000-05:00

Well, I was making a rather long post about the fact that celebrities are terrible voice actors, but the post got lost without having been saved. I'll still do it, but it will just be a while.

Instead, I'd like to share this opportunity to share with you all something very valuable I just learned.

I am not perfect.

Yes, you read that right. For those of you who don't know me, hello, how are you? What's your name? A pleasure to meet you. Also, I must tell you, that I think very highly of my knowledge in various areas, especially in music. I'd like to think I know a fair amount about both music itself and music history. The problem is, there's a lot I don't know.

And I hate that.

The second thing:
I get very annoyed with people and don't share it. Such as when people pick arguments with me. I hate that. I want to tell them to shut up and go away. I want to tell them they are idiots, don't know what they're talking about, and I want to slap them around a little. It's partly my desire to get along with everyone that I hate arguments, but it's also my ego. I like being right. So, how do I not share it? I try to be tactful with the people who argue with me. I try to be nice and share my thoughts. I don't tell them that I'm tired of arguing, I just go on and do it. I try to be fair, but that's really sucking.
Here's the problem:
When someone is dead wrong, I want them to know it. When I am dead wrong, I want to make sure that the other person knows that I didn't hear them correctly/misunderstood the question/that I was in fact agreeing with them but phrasing it differently/didn't know they were talking about that particular thing or else I would have conceded the point. The point is, I like looking good.

Another thing is that I have no idea many times how to deal with people. I am quite tired of being nice to people who aren't nice to me, and I'm tired of feeling like I have to be nice. I'm tired of seeing milquetoast men on TV and in my daily life. I'm tired of having to constantly battle the temptation to cave in to peoples' desires simply because they are willing to argue longer. For once I just want to tell someone to shut the heck up.

That being said, I also want to be able to completely forgive. I don't like walking around with the bitterness of niceness and the mask of tactfulness. I want to be able to forgive someone when they wrong me, to deal with it well rather than give some bland, "oh, it's ok, I didn't even notice." No, I want to acknowledge when someone has hurt me. Even more, I want to acknowledge when I have hurt someone else. Few things suck more than 1.Apologizing for something I didn't do, and 2.Not knowing when to ask forgiveness and the person I've hurt just stews because they won't say anything. Of course, the first one is on us. We need to let go of what doesn't matter, and as with number two, expect people to tell us when something is bothering them. If we want to be able to tell someone that something they did hurt us, we must expect the same of other people. I must realize I am not responsible when someone won't tell me something I did hurt them, and they just internalize it and act nice towards me (I hate it especially when I do it). However, I want to do my best to make sure that I am as straight with others as I can be, but I can only control my end of it.

So, if I have offended anyone out there, please forgive me. I'm sorry, I have no excuses, and I just plain apologize.

As for those that have hurt me:

Cram it.

Kidding, of course. What I mean to say is, I forgive you. I love you very much, even though I'm bad at showing it. I don't feel like continuing to rationalize my behavior and beat myself up, so there it is. Now get off my back.

Anywho.

I really want to be not so concerned with spiritual checklists and be focused on Jesus. Instead of making sure that I've given tracts to five people today, I'd rather focus on Christ and let Him shine through me wherever I am. I'm really tired of putting Him in a box and making Him in my image. It's supposed to be the other way around, I hear. After all, He's very good at shattering my expectations.

After all, He set us free. Totally and completely free. 100%.

Now, before this post goes off in another direction, as I'm getting tired and it's late, I'd like to nip something in the bud. "Surely," you say, "You don't mean totally free. You mean free to do the right thing." Well, yes, we are now free to do the right things that before we were incapable of doing. But we are free to do bad stuff, too. It's the age old problem we face: true freedom means we'll be free to screw the heck up. It's the only way we'll ever get real love. Robots are free to obey their programming, but nothing else. We, however, are not robots. We are free to obey God's commands, and free to break them. The difference is, that when we see God, and we look up to him the same way we looked up to our fathers when we were little, with that combination of reverance, awe, and respect, we want to do anything to please Him. It becomes our joy. We're in his family when we trust Him. We see that, when we become part of His family, we never get kicked out. We may get sent to our room, and even disciplined, but never shunned. In fact, it seems, the more we screw up, the more we get loved. Hmm. Man, that's pretty different from how I've thought about God. I really wish I'd known that sooner. Of course, being that I'm human and always will be, I'd still have made the mistakes I've made. It just would have helped me live a little while I was making them.

How should we then live?

2006-06-09T22:43:00.000-05:00

That's the Question that Francis Schaeffer uses as the title to his landmark book on the history of philosophical thought, and the role of Christianity in today's society. I make Question capitalized because I believe that it is the question that all other questions eventually point to. Usually it takes an interrupt in the flow of life, but at some point we will all ask the world, "ok, that's well and good, but what's really expected of me? What do I have to do?"
An interesting question, indeed. It immediately assumes that there is something to which we must conform, or rebel as the case may be, and that life does indeed matter to someone other than ourselves. As selfish as that question may be in some peoples' mouths, it still assumes that there is something else pushing in asking something of us. We scarcely ask the question expecting to hear that we should keep doing what we are doing. So, then, how on earth should we then live?
One of the questions that leads up to this question, of course, is "why are we here?" But, that inevitably forces us to act on our answer to that question, because we must live out the answer, wherever it takes us. We do it unconsciously. Everyone is striving for purpose, and we are all acting out on whatever purpose we think it may be. Again, the main Question remains, "how do I live?"
Well, there comes another question, which again, leads to the above question. That is, "what is morally right and wrong, and should I care?" We don't wonder how we are to live if there is nothing we think we must live by. Some purpose that not only builds up ourselves, but those around us, and even the community at large, one we feel we must serve, subvert, or try to create or join another.
This question is not merely a surface question, ie. something we can ignore as a result of someone being down in the dumps for a while. No, this is at the heart of every human. Even the most vile person on some level rationalizes their behavior, having believed they've answered this question correctly, though they may have to continually convine themselves they've answered it, or their conscience has been dulled. The most "moral" person asks it because they want to know whether they are going in the "right" direction. It is not a question invented by religious types trying to get everybody to "conform, man." It is asked by everyone, even those who would deny its validity. We cannot help but feel that there is something outside ourselves, something to which we must conform.
It is a question that we ask from deep within ourselves when we see evil and when we see good, and when our version of reality is challenged. After all, if it is the pinnacle of all the other questions, it has little do with rebellion for the sake of rebellion, or conformity for the sake of conformity. It was a question asked by very few in Nazi Germany, though it was asked. Nearly everyone was under the power of Hitler. An insane man leading throngs of desperate people. If simply observed from within, the entire system of people was completely degenerate. It showed that mankind cannot be the center and progenator of morality, since everyone can become deceived and debase. It takes revelation, from outside, to break through that wall. Mankind cannot be the only arbiter over mankind. Moral law, of course, means nothing without things to govern. It also cannot spring from that which it governs, as it could then be changed whenever the whims of the makers would change. Man, as has been amply proved, is not perfect. So, who were those people, you ask, who defied Nazi Germany in a time when everything was corrupt? Those who understood the transcendental quality of morality. Those who understood that though the Nazi's seemed like they were actually improving the economy, that they had a chance of winning the war, and that they were certainly in control of peoples' destinies, they actually were built on an idea that they were simply cogs in an ever progressing machine, a machine that had no purpose for anything other than the gratification and advancement of those who are most fit. Those that defied the Nazi machine saw that all human life mattered, that though the Nazi's promised a superior race, it was built on hatred, corruption, and a shifting morality. They were morally bankrupt because they had denied that there was anything greater than themselves. Only when we can look outside of ourselves will we see anything worth living for.
So, how should we then live? We must look to the lawgiver, the one that cannot shift, that cannot be bribed, that cannot become treacherous. God, as He has revealed Himself to His creation in Jesus Christ (God with skin on), must be the One to whom we look. Not a very popular idea in Western culture as it (ironically) adopts Eastern philosophy.
It's easy for we who have never had to face evil to claim that whatever someone wants to believe is ok. How many in the military believe that it's ok to believe what you feel? They are battling a people right now that have an ideology that says anyone unlike them must die. If what someone believes is harmful to themselves and/or others, than it must be done away with. Agreed? Even those who claim to be into pluralism and a doctrine of "whatever" can agree with that. Well, then, where does that moral law come from? If it's an absolute to which we must adhere, who says? I know who says, and not because I found Him, but because He found me. I did nothing to seek God, but He still sought me. He cares for His fallen creation. He sees the pain in this world. He understands our inability to live how we should. He understands that people die, and rather tragically. He sees that.
We must live as those who believe that we are under moral law, not above it. We must love how God loves: that we would do what's best for others even if they don't like it at first. We must care for the poor, the unloved, the unlovely. We must be passionate about what we do, no matter how mundane it seems. We must fight vehemently for what is right, even at personal cost. In short, must be like Christ. It is hard, and I'm not saying I'm perfect at it, far from it. It's much easier to write it on this page than do it. However, Jesus said that he would not leave this world without leaving us a Helper. The Holy Spirit guides us, enables us, and reminds us about where we must go and what we must do. All we have to do is ask, and He'll show us what we need. It's not always in the time or in the way we'd like or expect, but it's always exactly what we need. We need Him to be warriors in this world, active not passive.
That is how we should then live.

Bach Bow: Bonafide or Bogus?

2006-06-05T23:43:00.000-05:00

There has been much debate in the twentieth century regarding the so called "Bach Bow." People on both sides of the debate feel that the issue is resolved, and that it's strange that people in the other camp don't agree with their own. Here I am going to try to present both sides as best I can, with the info available to me.

There are very good arguments on both sides, which is probably why the debate continues. However, it should be noted that the believers in the Bach Bow are decidedly in the minority. Now, what is the Bach Bow, you ask? The Bach Bow, or curved bow, is a violin bow that is curved outwardly so that the hair of the bow can touch all four strings at once, allowing the player to perform true four note chords. To see such a device, the ones made by Michael Bach (no relation to J.S.), are available at Bach.Bogen. Interesting thing about the Bach.Bogen is that even though there is much on the site about Baroque and Classical repertoire that was supposedly written for the curved bow, Michael Bach, in a master class with Janos Starker, admits that he invented it for the performing of modern music. He even seems a bit surprised that Starker suggest it for the use of J.S. Bach's cello suites. There are other modern curved bows, such as the Vega/Bach bow made for violinist Emil Telmanyi, but it is not commercially sold, to my knowledge.

It is called the Bach Bow because the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, as well as the solo Cello Suites, contain four note chords that are possible to perform two ways: one, with a curved bow, playing all the notes at once, or two, broken up by playing the notes separately, which is how one does it with a modern bow. I'll get more into the details of the debate later, but suffice to say, the supporters of the curved bow use anecdotal evidence, period paintings and engravings from Germany that show curved bows, as well as Bach's violin music to argue for their curved bow. The argument actually has two flavors, one that says that Bach had to conceive of a bow for his music, or that it was standard in Germany during Bach's time to use curved bows that required thumb pressure to keep the bow hair taut, but that it was unpopular outside of that relatively small region during that era. More on this later.

The modern French and Italian bows we use are curved inward towards the hair and are much more useful for fast playing, as they wouldn't bounce as much as a curved bow would, though they don't allow for the playing of more then two notes at a time. This means that whenever a violinist sees a chord in the music, he must arpeggiate it, whether he likes it or not.

So, who's right? Let's take a look at the evidence.

1. Bach's music.
Supporters: The music contains four note chords. At points in the original scores, Bach writes "arpeggiate" and at other places does not. This means that he intends for some chords to be broken and others played as normal chords, which is only possible with a curved bow. Therefore, there must have been a curved bow at the time capable of playing four strings at once.
Detractors: There are places in the music where he wrote beams and barlines that would be idiomatic of writing for a player using normal violin technique. He was thinking linearly, not harmonically, so there's no reason to think those chords are block chords. The curved bow, therefore, is not a necessity.

Well, in this argument, which is correct? Well, yes, the score does say "arpeggiate" in certain places. However, does that mean that he intended all other chords to be block chords? Not necessarily. After all, Bach could have meant for the chords to be played as groups of two notes, with the bottom two notes (or top, as the case may be, depending on where the melody goes) played first, then the other two. This is normally how a violin player plays a chord. Now, with the passage marked arpeggiate, he could have meant that the chord was to have each note played individually, such as one would do on a guitar or keyboard. It's an entirely different effect from the standard way a violinist would play a chord. So, it's not necessarily indicative of writing for the curved bow.

2. Interpretations with the two bows.
Supporters: Hearing broken chords is not what Bach would have wanted. He was a musician who enjoyed cleanliness of performance, demanded the most of his performers, wrote what the ideals he heard in his head, and found whatever he needed to make his ideas reality. He would not have put up with the non-polyphonic bows, but would have sought out or made a bow that would have fulfilled his vision. Therefore, modern interpretations with modern bows do not hold to his vision, creating an inferior musical experience.
Detractors: Bach understood very well the idioms of his time, bound himself to them and yet always made the most out of them, and always made sure that what he actually expected out of performers was possible. He would have understood what the violin was capable of, himself being a violinist, and would have accepted the sounds it afforded him. The renditions by Rudolf Gaehler illustrate this clearly, as he plays unsubtley, vulgarizing the music by playing jarring four note chords, then switching back to single note lines, and keeps dissonant notes sustained that were meant to fade into nothingness. Modern violinists with their modern bows are much more able to create subtlety, with their focus on the linear line rather than the harmonic implications of every chord.

Well, what we have here is two arguments in one: What type of composer Bach was and how this impacted what he composed, and the interpretations as a result. As for the first argument, yes, Bach did have great ideals in his head. He wrote beautiful, long, flowing lines that would make a singer or wind player pass out if they tried to play them as written. He simply didn't care that they had to breathe. However, he always conceded and edited his music or allowed for breath marks for the sake of the performer. We have no record of him making a wind instrument capable of his melodies, he always settled for what was at hand, making the most of it. His music was difficult, yes, and was very interested in the logical limits of what a given instrument could do (he wrote trumpet parts going into the 21st partial, which is insanely difficult for any brass player), but always conceded to reality. We have records of only one instrument that Bach made because he couldn't get the sound he wanted out of any other instrument; the Lute-Harpsichord. It was a harpsichord with a bowl back, gut strings, and no dampers on the strings. It sounded very much like a lute, and the lute repertoire could easily be performed in it. However, we have records of this instrument existing, and Bach having it built, though there are no surviving examples of one. We do not have any evidence that Bach ever had a curved bow built for him, and as far as I know, never wrote about a curved bow. If it was so important to the performance of his solo violin music, why would he not write of it?
The second argument is that the interpretations with the curved bows are lousy. I have never heard Telmanyi's interpretation, but I have heard a bit of Gaehler's. The problem is not in the bow, but the fact that Gaehler is just an ok violinist. He's not Heifetz, he's not Perlman, and he's not Stern. He's not bad, by any means, he's just not great. His interpretation lacks subtlety because he's just not as top notch as they are. If Itzhak Perlman were handed a curved bow, I'm sure he could do wonders with it. I would love to hear Telmanyi's interpretation and stack it up next to Gaehler's, but I have yet to get a copy (it's about $40, which I don't feel like spending right now). So, in short, one cannot dispense with the idea of a curved bow based on the interpretations at hand. There are two that I know of. We'll need to wait until someone like Joshua Bell decides to experiment with a curved bow to really be able to tell whether the Sonatas and Partitas by Bach are better with or without a curved bow.

We also have to remember that we can't always guess what Bach would have wanted with his music. Human beings are complex and things that composers are quite ardent about in one area they may be lax about in others. Bach's intentions, since he did not write them down, are unknown to us. Did he like or dislike broken chords? I don't know. I doubt anyone does.

3. The paintings
Supporters: Period paintings from Germany clearly show curved bows being used by string players. So, 1. It was normal to have bows capable of playing chords, but almost no music demanded it, thanks to the largely contrapuntal writing of the time which did not demand individual players be able to play complex chords on their own, though some did take advantage of the capabilities of such a bow, or 2. The bows were arched to keep tension of the hair, much like a bow for a bow and arrow, and was simply a precursor to the more modern Tourte bow. Though, if one desired, he could simply slacken the hair, and use it for chordal playing, which is what Bach probably intended.
Detractors: The paintings rarely show bows arched enough for the type of chordal playing necessary for four string chords. And even then, they also show rather inaccurate instruments, being very cartoonish and unrealistic. The notion that these bows were meant to play polyphonic music comes from a rather literal interpretation of these paintings.

Well, here we run into an interesting issue, and possibly the strongest evidence for the supporters of the polyphonic curved bow. There were indeed bows at the time that were arched. Waidler makes rebec bows, and arched bows up to 71 centimeters, which is about 27 inches. That is plenty long enough to use as a violin bow, and from the picture that I've seen, it leaves a good four inches of space between bow and hair. It's possible that Bach could have used such a bow for his sonatas and partitas. However, no surviving evidence shows this to be the case. Also, Waidler's bows are Renaissance copies, not Baroque, and also, I don't believe that they are copies of German design. From what I know, Bach never wrote about any kind of special bow for his music. Also, all surviving bows from Baroque Germany are not as arched as they appear in the pictures, and are not curved enough for polyphonic playing were not intended for use on violins. As for those highly curved rebec bows, it was undesirable and indeed bad technique to push hard enough to play on three strings at once. So, unless Bach had been presented with or sought out an old very large rebec bow, and never wrote about it or told anyone who kept diaries, it's looking like this is not the solution.
It's possible, however, that there are no surviving bows due to the complete abandonment in the Classical of all Baroque idioms. It could have been that German string players, not wanting to appear behind the times, abandoned their arched bows, and went with more modern Italian and French bows. After all, if no one cared about these bows, and they were confined to a relatively small region to begin with, then it's conceivable that they existed but disappeared. After all, early brass instruments are quite rare, with only a handful still existing from the prized Nurnburg artists of the late Renaissance and early Baroque. And there are no surviving examples of Bach's lute-harpsichord, which has much evidence supporting its existence. Still, direct evidence supporting a bow capable of, and intended for, four note chords doesn't exist. There are accounts, such as that of Georg Muffat's, that Baroque German violinists kept tension of the hair with their thumb. However, this does not prove that they were capable of chords, but simply that the hair was kept tight with the thumb. It is possible that an author, not knowing what is essential to report, would report something so curious as that. However, I think he would have been more keen on reporting that the violins were making a strange sound, that of four note chords. But that report does not, to my knowledge, exist.

So, who's right? Well, the case isn't looking very good for the curved bow. I want it to have existed very badly myself, but the evidence is pointing in the other direction. To sum up:
1. Bach made a big deal about inventing new instruments or using them for that which they weren't normally intended. He didn't write about any curved bows, or at least no such documents exist.
2. No surviving polyphonic bows exist, and there is no contemporary literature that I know of that speaks of four note chord playing.
3. The paintings are accurate in showing arched bows, but they just aren't as arched as they appear in real life.

So, while it would take a lot of extremely delicate circumstances for the Bach Bow to be a reality, it seems that it probably did not exist. Oh well, it's still interesting, anyway.

If you're interested in the early days of the Bach Bow speculation, you should check out Albert Schweitzer's fantastic biography on Bach, specifically volume one. He was an ardent supporter of the Bach Bow, but his ideas have since been rejected by most of the musicological community. A shame, though, that more people don't at least give the curved bow a chance, even though it's a 20th century invention. It would certainly make for an interesting alternative for a lot of violinists.

Of course, as a guitarist, I think that the sonatas and partitas work best on a guitar, with its expanded range and ability to play six note chords. But, then, I am biased.

Hello?

2006-06-05T00:35:00.000-05:00

Yes, I will update soon, I promise. I have been having wrist and hand issues that make it unpleasant to type (pray it gets better, all one or two of my readers), and also I have been uploading my music library onto my new iPod! That takes a ludicrously long time, especially with how many cd's I have. I have a big essay on the "Bach Bow" brewing right now, as well as some scripts that need modifying, and, most important of all, a great theological essay coming soon!

So, sit back, and hold tight, cause I'm back!

Course, I never really went anywhere.

How long does it take for someone to be gone before they can say they're back? Or is it that they went somewh...

[At this point the administrator decided to nip this impending rant in the bud.
Be thankful.]

The Debate of the Ages! Ok, not really, but it was fun.

2006-06-01T20:43:00.000-05:00

Ok, I had a lot of reaction to my Wha' Happen'd post (one email), so in the fine tradition of my forebears, I argued my butt off. However, it's always fun to debate with someone who actually argues back with good arguments. A rarity these days. Also, considering that he put me on his blog, I decided to return the favor. So, here is what is likely to be the longest post ever; the unedited email debate of the past week. Ok, so I edited for line breaks and a little spelling, but the important stuff is all here.
By the by, for anyone wondering, I have been debating Ted Stoltzfus, an old friend from Pennsylvania and a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Art and Design. Check out his own Not a Blog , and enjoy. I hope you've enjoyed the debate, and it may be picked up in the future.

By the way, It works well if you picture us as a pair of elderly British men sitting before a fireplace in a Victorian home, each with a glass of brandy and huge mutton chops.

Ted:
Hey, I read your latest blog entry and I typed an entire comment in the little box before I realized that blogger doesn't allow for anonymous comments. So I'm emailing it to you instead. Comment was: "Mixed media" is not an art movement, it's a medium. Specifically, a medium that uses multiple media. Neither "Fountain" nor the works of Pollock are mixed media, while there are other works that you would probably not consider to be representative of "anything goes" which *are* mixed media. Some Saturday Evening Post covers by Norman Rockwell come to mind. If you want to criticize certain artists or even entire movements, that's fine, but try to get the terms right. That's like me saying, "man, atonal music is lousy. Especially the kind with notes."

Paul:
Fair enough, and your point is valid. I should have clarified that when I mentioned mixed media, I was naming a medium I dislike, a medium I see as a representative of a philosophy I don't like. The same as saying that serialism is a form of composition I don't like as it represents the larger movement which was atonality. Mixed media is to avante garde what serialism is to atonal. A form versus a concept. I did not state that, so I will certainly have to go back and edit that. (And so I did)

Ted:
Here's kind of where the anaology between music and art breaks down. Mixed media is used fairly often, and it's quite simple to make an aesthetically pleasing piece of art with more than one medium. It happens all the time. Contrairiwise, I don't think it would be easy to make a serialized piece of music sound good, because you're required, by definition, to use all the notes in the scale. I don't think there's an artistic equivelent to something this restrictive.

I think rather than "mixed media", what you really thinking about is collage. Collage is a form of mixed media, and it's a lot more difficult to pull off because you're using found images, rather than making your own. Still, that's not to say you can't make pretty pictures with it.

>>Mixed media is to avant garde what serialism is to atonal.

I'll admit: I tried to figure this out, but this sentence doesn't make any sense to me. Mixed media is a medium. Avant garde is a temporal distinction, not limited to visual art. Serialism is a method. Atonality is a musical quality.

Mixed media isn't a form or a method; it's just more than one kind of "stuff" on the canvas. Ink and watercolor: mixed media. Pencil and ink: mixed media. Colored lithographs: mixed media.

I'm willing to bet that you have nothing against mixed media itself. Maybe you're thinking of collage?

It sounds to me like you're against modern art in general, although you have to be careful with this because I highly doubt you consider *all* modern art garbage. I mean, I don't consider all modern music garbage, even if it did spawn some garbage-esque things such as atonality. I guess you'd want to critisize certain movements in modern art, like minimalism.

But Dadism: come on! It's hilarious! The point was to offend people's sensibilities as to what art was back in the 1920's. The fact that you're *still* offended eighty years later... well. It's working, right?

Paul:

Atonality is far more than a musical quality, it is indeed seen as an entity and a philosophy on its own. It encompasses (to me at the very least) an attitude toward music, a way of looking at the history of music, and indeed an idea of what music is. Atonality questions what can be construed as valid music in the same way that Avant Garde questions what art is, and indeed requires that things be new and different. I use the term Atonality perhaps a bit too loosely here, but every time the subject of atonality comes up, it always comes up as a distinction from traditional musical idioms. It discards many (if not all) of the basics of harmony that musicians took for granted since the advent of true harmony in the late Renaissance, and melody is almost incedental. It is so emcompassing to say that something is "atonal" that it cannot be used to simply as a designation for a particular medium to work in, like it would be to say that I am writing a French Baroque Opera, or even a Sonata, or that I am writing in a Romantic or Classical idiom. Atonality represents utter chaos and a questioning of what music is so much so that there are many subcategories within the idea of atonality. When one writes an opera, the basics of form go back to Monteverdi in the early 1600's, though it has grown more complex since then. However, someone can write an Atonal symphony, sonata, partita, opera, or whatever. And people talk about atonality like it's all the rage and that we are finally loosed from the bonds of the tonal world that we had to exist in for centuries because we hadn't progressed enough yet. This I see as being very similar to people in the art world moving away from traditional methods and mediums. Painting is out, painted sculpture is in. I unfortunately am ensconsed in crap art when I go into the art building over at school. One student took a McDonalds poster, tore it up, and folded it over itself. It was hanging in the stairwell. It was replaced by what appears to be pink foam insulation (these were unfortunate attempts at installation pieces). The students are urged to move away from from doing paintings, and instead working in the freedom of mixed media. I am not making this up, nor am I paraphrasing. I have no problem with well executed mixed media, as Picasso and Matisse have done. I also have no problem with well executed Atonal music, Verklarte Nacht by Schoenberg being a wonderful piece of music. But these men were geniuses of the form, and probably would have excelled whatever direction they would have gone in whatever era the found themselves in. The definitions of Mixed Media and Atonality are perhaps too broad for the arguments I am making and this is where you are certainly right. Collage is a better object of my dislike (though there are occasional collages I like). However, these things end up being havens for the untalented and unimaginative, as well as dumbing down the truly creative. Minimalism has this tendency. It is very easy to make crap minimalism, but very hard to make good minimalism. I think about 90% of Philip Glass's works are fairly boring (I love his Dracula soundtrack, however). As for Dada, I am not offended by it, just profoundly bored by it. It's not provacative to me, it just makes me want to go to sleep. The more someone says, wringing their hands, "Ho ho, look at these paraplegic people having sex with cow corpses over an American flag with the words 'no nukes' written on it! Hah! And I'm gay! And Republicans are evil!" the more I want to shrug my shoulders and go to Hardees for a thickburger. I don't go pasty, mouth agape. I expect that kind of stuff. Now, if an artist drew a landscape with children laughing and holding hands, then I would worry. What I want to expect are profound statements that catch me by surprise, make me think, and dig into my soul. When I go in to a museum and see a page torn out of a Playboy with the words "racism is wrong" written on the butt of the centerfold, I shudder to think that it's probably worth more than my car, and then I blink, sniff a few times, and move on to the next gallery. As for Avante Garde that I like, I love Salvador Dali. I love Surrealism. However, Salvador Dali's paintings impress me on a technical level as well as being wacked out. They aren't that engaging to me on an intellectual level (except his pseudo religious stuff, which very strangely gets used on the covers of a a lot of Christian books as those paintings were not from a traditional Christian viewpoint. But, I digress), but I love the detail in them, and his optical ollusions are awesome. Oh, and yes, making interesting 12 tone music is super hard. Frank Zappa tried and quit. Aaron Copland eventually left it. If you want to hear an interesting spin on 12 tone music, check out Ron Jarzombek's compositions. His website is ronjarzombek.com. He's also probably one of the best living guitarists.

Ted:

That's all fine and good, but you understand about mixed media, right? Again, the two "art" pieces you cite *aren't mixed media* (well, the pink one might have been).

Because mixed media is used very frequently by a lot of people, I have to disagree with you that it's a haven for the untalented. That's like saying America is a haven for liberals. Just because there are a lot of liberals in America doesn't mean there's a direct relationship there. Likewise, just because mixed media attracts its share of bad artists doesn't mean it caters to their uncreative-ness. The reason so many things (good and bad) get classified as mixed media is because as soon as you use more than one medium in a composition, it becomes mixed.

The term "mixed media" is wholly independent of style, intent, compositional format, dimensionality, theme, even the media itself.

Also, use paragraph breaks!

Paul:

No, I know they aren't mixed media, they are installation pieces (Actually, the McDonald's poster was mixed media, it was painted by the person as well as torn up and hung. It was just hard to tell it was painted because the paint she used was nearly identical to the colors already on the poster). The mixed media that annoys me is people making a simplistic sculpture, slapping on some different paints, and then calling it "painted sculpture." The reason I firmly believe that it is indeed a haven for th un-talented is because there are so many areas and mediums that are difficult to work in and get any result, let alone a bad one. Take writing in the Palestrina style for example. To write a late renaissance vocal piece in the idioms of Palestrina takes lots of work and requires a good imagination to make something that follows the rules. It gets even more difficult when one tries to write in more than two voices, let alone 6 or more like Palestrina and others would sometimes do. Hardly anyone even tries to write like that anymore, not just because it's gone out of style, but because it's incredibly hard to get any results out of it, let alone good results (Randall Thompson could, and I recommend his Alleluia, even though it's not entirely in the idioms of Palestrina, it comes as close as most modern composers are willing to get).
And time after time, the only people I see who say they are working in "mixed media," "found art," "installation pieces," are doing horribley conceived and unimaginative crap. You are correct in saying they are rather broad areas, and I imagine even a Giotto fresco could be considered an installation piece. However, just as in "chance music," "serialism," "quotation collage," or other modern types composing, they don't end up (99% of the time) giving more freedom to the genius, they give a forum where the unimaginative can say, "Hey, writing fugues and symphonies are hard. But, I could do a quotation collage!" It is almost always as such when anything is possible. The person who works in the given medium does not exploit all that is available to him, but instead does what is easiest. Geniuses like Charles Ives can do a quotation collage and have it come out as something quasi-interesting. But, most people who do one realize that it means less work. Just like someone who will do an atonal sonata. They don't have to adhere to music theory rules, so they can write a piece in five minutes. Again, there are geniuses in the field, such as Copland, Schoenberg, and Berg, but they are quite the exception rather than the rule.
The reason Bach's music is so transcendental is because he would work in one of the most limiting and challenging forms available to him, to see if he could make musical what was not inherently musical: the canon. It's hard to write a good canon, especially with all the rules one must adhere to, but Bach could write incredibly emotional and moving canons, even making it harder on himself by imposing restrictions such as diminution, agmentation, retrograde, follower at another interval than an octave, inversion, etc. It gave his genius room to flourish. He had to think about everything he was doing.
It's the same as in math class when we must solve very difficult equations with many restrictions and rules. We must use all our brainpower within the restrictions given to come up with a result. There's never a "free math" day, when we are given a pile of numbers and told to arrange them in any pattern we see fit. There would certainly be a genius or two who would make something great out of it, but the average person would flounder, not knowing where to go next. This is my problem with many of the modern mediums, those who teach and practice them simply don't make the most of them, but take the easy way out. It's the same as with the teachers where I am. They don't do difficult, challenging things that require thought, they do the easiest things possible and urge their students to do the same. This really annoys me because while those teachers might have gotten training in traditional disciplines, most of them are not giving that to their students. Instead, they urge them to do things like the afformentioned installation pieces, and things like painted scultpure (which again, in and of itself is fine, but is bastardized so much). There are only a couple of teachers at my school who do work in traditional painting methods, and they are always being sabotaged by the rest of the department, who recently employed a 27 woman with horrendous education and no talent simply because she is a young woman. The students hate it because they want to be challenged by their teachers and they just aren't. And when the students stand there to have their paintings critiqued, they are criticized for working in painting, which to the teachers is a dead medium. The painting teachers put up with this stuff a lot. They get criticized for being dinosaurs and narrow minded, when the most incredibley vicious and narrow minded crap spews out of the mouth of these modern teachers (I mean vicious, the young woman teacher mentioned above called a student's painting incestuous, simply because it was a painting). They don't allow anyone to have a traditional view of the mediums, calling things what they are, or allowing there to be definitional boundaries so people can tell what's what. They call painted sculpture, "paintings." Painting takes a two-dimensional flat surface and creates the illusion of depth, another world, a window that we can look through. Even the most abstract painting (which I do like, if well executed) is about this. But, the teachers here blur the lines so they don't have to think. Again, I understand what you're saying, and you're right that I shouldn't be so hard on *good* mixed media, *good* avante garde, or *good* installation art. But, even though some can do genius punk music (The Clash), it is still a haven for the untalented. So I see it with mixed media, found art, and other mediums of the sort. I hope it's different in other parts of the country. But, what I've seen here, the more broad the working area, the dumber the results.
You are an intelligent fellow, and artistically inclined, so I imagine you can work well with such freedom. But, as you also know, there plenty of hacks who gravititate towards this stuff because it's harder to tell what's crap and what's good. The average person can see what the difference is between a good oil-painted portrait and a bad one. It's hard even for experienced people to tell what good found art is and what bad found art is.

Ted:
Here're a couple of things I disagree with.

1. You can't compare math and art. Period. Don't even try. A "free mathday"--while funny in an absurd kind of way--is just plain nonsensical. Math is defined by its rules. Eliminate them, and it's not math anymore. But art is *not* defined by its rules. If it were, we'd still be creatingthe canonical art whose purpose it to tell a story as seen during themiddle ages or roman times, or even ancient Egypt or Greece. There hasbeen no advancement in art without rule breaking. This is opposed to mathwhere new rules are invented (or discovered, if you will) while the old rules still apply. Naturally the old rules still "apply" in art--if your intent is to do something in the style where certain rules are required and you follow them. But that's not the only way of doing things. Analogies between math and art don't work.

2. In many cases, you equate "difficult" with "good". People are taking the easy way out, not working to their potential; their art is crap. Geniuses of the craft are looking for restrictions, challenging themselves to do the best they can; their art is fantastic. Why is something better art if it's hard to do? I agree that often, difficult art is better, but just because something is easy to do, does this make it bad?

3. You said:

>>Painting takes a two-dimensional flat surface and creates the illusion of depth, another world, a window that we can look through. Even the most abstract painting (which I do like, if well executed) is about this.

This is NOT what painting is about. Some painting is, but not all. Not even close. You can't generalize as much as you are in this discussion. If you want to talk about a particular type of painting as being about this, fine, define your terms. But this statement is just flat-out wrong.

4. Finally, I'm curious: why do you even care? In a previous email, you said something like bad art is something you just yawn at and move on.

>From Hamlet: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

Despite this (and, no, I'm not calling you a lady, just taking a quote to illustrate a point), you go out of you way to write these very long, in-depth essays about the downfall of traditional art in modern society. Why?

Frankly, when I see bad art in galleries, I don't care. I don't feel threatened. This is opposed to seeing bad writing get published. When that happens I very much feel threatened and annoyed, as evidenced by the number and strength of Not A BlogT entries I've written on bad science fiction and fantasy.

But when you get right down to it, most bad avant garde art exists in its own universe, seperated by opinion, not to mention location, from ordinary people. (This is why bad writing annoys me--it is popular with a great number of ordinary people whom, I believe, should know better.) But bad art is no threat to me because, as long as it is sufficiently bad, no one will take it seriously (as they shouldn't), and the artist will forever be trapped in a lackluster existence of producing just enough bad art to survive, if that. The worst of them get government grants, but that's a different topic.

The point is: art that is bad hangs around with other art that is bad, out of the limelight. Sure it might be worth something, but even if one person buys a piece of art for thousands of dollars, it doesn't mean that's what it's worth. The first purchasers might be the only ones willing to pay that much.

Finally, I'm willing to bet that a vast majority of the art at your school is worth precisely zero, including the faculty pieces on display. Just because it's in a gallery doesn't mean it's worth anything whatsoever. In fact, many times art is in a gallery just *because* it's not worth anything. If it were worth something, it would be hanging in someone's living room. This is especially true for art schools. If you want to see real art, go to a real art gallery.

Paul:
I would contend that math and art can be compared. So much of art is based in mathematical principles, whether one talks about the visual arts or music. Case in point, for visual arts, Botticelli made amazing paintings that relied on geometrical figures, which is central to its beauty. A fugue by Bach (ok, a fugue by anyone, really) reveals much of the mathematical mind of the person who wrote it: the symmetry of form, the balance, the interval relationships. The most obvious comparison is in the music of Schoenberg, where the music appears to have been produced by a giant calculator, especially Serialism (which, much as I don't like Serialism, it is still music, though it's getting close to the boundary). Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky is patterned after a cathedral's architecture, relying on geometrical form for its construction. As you say, remove the rules and it's not math anymore. Completely correct. Same with art. Yes, within the specific mediums there is so much subjective freedom, the same way there is more than one way to solve a given math problem, or to arrive at a proof. But, blur the lines, destroy the unique and special properties of given mediums, and they become meaningless and lose their timeless value. The rules are there to show what can be done, not simply what can't. Heck, there are mathemeticians that spend their lives analyzing sound frequiencies, trying to figure out why certain things are pleasing to the ear, trying to find a perfect tuning system, or what bracing will make a guitar soundboard resonate better. Advancements have been made, or simply changes? Aesthetics have been around for thousands of years, so while styles may change, such as Baroque giving way to Classical, what's beautiful and daring pretty much stayed the same. Bach used chromaticism long before it was in vogue, and is just as disturbing to the unjaded ear as it was then. Chromaticism has always suggested the same things, it's just that people use it more now. Plato wrote on what different types of sounds in music would do to a person's mood. The tools have not changed, really, and while rule breaking (necessary as it is in many cases) really just leads to a change of style which is based on a culture's own preferences. Beethoven used parallel fifths, which were against the rules of composing according to the Baroque ideals. However, it is precisely because of their effect, which had been known of since, and even used during, the Medieval. Heck, Bach, the quintessential Baroque composer used parallel fifths when it suited him. Was he still firmly in the Baroque idioms? Yes. He did nothing in a Classical style, yet he broke that rule. Debussy broke many rules for his pieces. Yet, he himself said that one need training to know how to break them effectively. The rules are always there to show what certain things will do, and are not a list of thou shalt nots. I am trying right now to learn to compose in the Palestrina style, which requires hard work as it has many rules. I am going to learn them, and then learn how to break them. Palestrina occasionally broke some of the rules, but not many, because he wanted a certain sound, a sound that his era considered good. Then, in the Baroque, they tried to go back to the Palestrina style, but did so with their culture's ears, and it ended up sounding Baroque. So, it was actually worse, in that sense. It was merely different music from a different era, and couldn't really be mixed with theirs. Was the Baroque music better? Only if one liked it more. Was it more complex? In many cases, no. Some of the most difficult keyboard and lute music ever written comes from the late Renaissance, from composers such as William Byrd and John Dowland. It wasn't an advancement, it was a shift in what was valued about certain note patterns. What sounded good to the Renaissance ear, did not necessarily to the Baroque ear. The idioms that the Baroque composers used already existed for the most part, the Renaissance composers just didn't like them. Once composers grew tired of the Renaissance idioms, they latched onto new ones. Or at least, unused ones. The idea that the music was getting better is actually a large reason why we don't have much of an idea as to Baroque performance practice. The Classicists thought they were the pinnacle of musical evolution and completely forgot and did away with Baroque performance idioms. It's a shame that so much unpublished Baroque music was lost during the Classical because the performers of the time gave little to no credence as to their worth. I apologize for making it sound like I equate difficult with good. I do enjoy virtuosity, but that's not all that exists in the musical world. Much of the world's most beautiful music are simple folk tunes, study pieces, or slow Adagios. It all depends on what's difficult about a given piece of art. Someone can take hours of painstaking work and composing to create a piece that a child could play. Case in point, Bach's Minuet in G. It is a very easy piece that anybody who's taken a year of piano can play. But, it belies wonderful craftsmanship that is the product of many hours of intense training. It takes, in my opinion, such training to make something simple that's worth anything. Conversely, a five year old could write something that the greatest virtuosos in the world could not play, simply because it requires things the player may not have, such as twelve fingers, inexhaustible lung capacity, etc. John Cage wrote a piece called One8. It is a Cello piece that only cellists with a bow that can play four strings at once and fingers big enough for the stretches can play. It is, unfortunately, typical John Cage: boring, long, easy to make, much of it left to the discretion of the performer. So much so, that he almost didn't write it. Everything is concept without depth. Ideas without execution to match are just that: ideas. However, it seems that the more someone is into a given field, the more complex things they will enjoy within that medium. Easyness must have context. If everything someone does is easy to produce, then what are they doing? Generally things that are easy to produce have little to no thought behind them and are not provocative or interesting. Pieces such as "Fountain" are not timeless and transcendant because of this. Clever as it is, that's all that is. Duchamp did that stuff, from his own admission, because he couldn't paint. He even laughed at his own followers that took it so seriously. "Fountain" makes a comment on something very much of the time and does it in an easy and obvious way. But, people still emulate it.
Goya's painting of the Napoleanic War was time specific, but he portrayed it in a way that represented the timelessness of the man's inhumanity to man. It required great skill and was (and is) a masterpiece. Now, he has some very simple drawings, but they belie the fact that he is capable of incredibly complex things, as evidenced by the technique involved in them. So, in that sense, they have context. The problem is that most of the works I see are very temporal, making comments on things that are going on today in a way that's easy for the viewer, regardless of training or cultural background, to comprehend. Now, this in and of itself is not a bad thing. Most people can probably glean the message of Goya's above mentioned work. However, the comment is expansive and subtle, drawing the viewer in to a moment in history that has universal ramifications. Today's art doesn't do that. It pokes fun, makes a wry comment, but the joke is over as soon as its told. Much of this also has to do with a denial of indivudual meduim's unique and special properties.
Painting for example. When mixed with other media, it loses it's uniquness. When a 3 dimensional object is introduced in a painting, it ceases to be a painting and becomes something else. The metaphorical is lost and literal is introduced, thereby eliminating the need to think. Because if a painting is not about its plasticity, then what is it about? Of course, plasticity is a painting's ability to bounce the viewer between two realities; his own, and the painter's. Even an abstract painting, if done with cool colors gives the illusion of distance. Parchment the illusion of age. Warmer colors give the illusion of life and closeness. The paint becomes transubstantiated in the hand of the artist, it becomes blood, or rock, or water. This is medium specific, and destroyed when mixed with other media. If someone wants to mix the media, fine, they may do so. They may do as much found art as they like. The problem is, most of the country (except New York, where painting is coming back), does take this stuff seriously, especially the art students who areinterested in being a part of a community and sharing feelings and beliefs, not about making transcendental art. Therapy art holds no interest for me. Neither does issue art. They don't last, and they never will. Even Picasso's Blue Period paintings, born out of misery, were not simply therapy for him, and weren't even about him and his struggles. He was more interested in timeless truths, conditions, eternal struggles. Today's art is based on opinions, which are fleeting. It is born out of peoples' desire to change rather than add to. Rather than building on the past, they scoff at it. To sum up, (I know I've taken a lot ink... uh, paper... um, ones and zeros), I am bothered that most of the country's art departments take stuff that is supposed to be whimsical seriously, force their opinions on those that want to build upon and contribute to the traditions of the past, and obliterate definitions designed to help, enlighten, and guide. The problem is that most of them think they are being independent and tolerant, though those that don't follow their "new" way are considered dinosaurs and old hat. This is changing a little bit with the authentic music scene, and painting coming back in large cities, but the rest of country needs change. If people want to do John Cage and Marcel Duchamp type stuff, they have all the right in the world to do so. I just don't want them calling it art, telling me I need to change, and telling me that their chance compositions are as musically valid as the Goldberg Variations.

I'm giving Ted the last word this time, mostly because I don't feel like typing anymore.
Ted:
There is something we disagree on completely and I don't think we're going to resolve it with discussion or a thousand more. But it's good because at least it'll make us think about what art *is*, which isn't something I've done much of.

First of all, certainly math and art can be *compared*--anything can be compared to anything else. What I meant was that art and math are not analogous in the way that you tried to make a comparison two emails ago. Art has mathematical elements, of course, even if these elements are subconscious. This is the basis of aesthetics which says that certain proportions are more beautiful or pleasing to the mind than others. But this fact alone does not mean they can be compared in the sence of rules, right and wrong, etc.

The rules of art are not just in place to improve aesthetics. As you said, some rules exist to define a style. This is true even when the rules serve to hamper the aesthetics of the finshed work. The "rules" of aesthetics--what makes something look pretty or not pretty--have not changed in thousands of years and, arguably, are hard wired into our brains. The rules of art have changed, often leading to new things which may or may not be aesthetically pleasing. No one can argue that a painting with correct perspective is more beautiful than, say, a medieval manuscript with no perspective, even though the latter breaks the rules of perspective. Likewise, you also cannot argue that a picture done today which breaks the rules of perspective is less beautiful or valid artistically than one with correct perspective, even though the rules of perspective are now clearly understood, whereas in the medieval times they hadn't been discovered yet.

But here is what I think is the real crux of the whole debate. We have two different definitions of what constitutes art. From our writings so far, I've gathered:

You believe that it is the craftsmanship and aesthetics that define a piece of work as art. You believe that great art is independent of context and is universally recognized as being art.

I believe that it is the ideas and context which defines a piece of art. I also believe that pleasing aesthetics, while enhancing a piece, are not necessary as to whether or not something is art.

>From both of us, I can come up with examples which support this. Let's take our favorite piece that we love to debate (and love to hate), Cage's 4'33".

Taken out of context, it is, literally, nothing. There aren't any notes. You can't play it for someone. Because of this, you argue, it's not music. It's not aesthetically pleasing because it doesn't have any aesthetics at all. There is no craftsmanship involved. As soon as Cage thought of the idea, the piece was done. No skill to play; no skill to write. Nothing. Not music.

On the other hand, I'm looking at the idea behind it. Taken out of context, no, it's not music. But the context of 4'33" is that you're sitting in a concert hall, there's a piano on stage, and a pianist comes out and sits in front of it. Any person would expect tones to be generated by the pianist via the piano, shortly. But it never comes, because the point is to hear the silence of the music hall: scuffles, polite coughs reverberating through the venue, the uncomfortable squeak of
a chair. I consider it music because it is the logical conclusion of writing a piece with nothing but rests, with the intent to highlight something other than the music iteslf.

Is it aesthetically evocative? No, not really. It's not really anything.

But the *concept* behind it and the *context* in which it's presented make
it music to me.

Let's do another. Duchamp's fountain.

This one you haven't come out yet and actually said "this is not art". Maybe you're thinking it, but that's moot, anyway. You've compared it to other pieces that are undeniably art, asking "what has happened to our art?"

Boiling this down to its very basics (at the risk of gross oversimplification) we get the following:

Paul's standpoint:
Craftsmanship: None. Duchamp didn't make it.
Aesthetics: Very Little. It's a toilet, for cryin' out loud. I don't
want to look at that.
Conclusion: Not art, or only art because it's so well known now, not
because it's any good.

Ted's standpoint:
Concept: High. A reaction against established art "stuffiness". Funny.
Context: Art Gallery.
Conclusion: Art, whether you like it or not.

This is an intellectual view, of course. Intellect vs. emotion.
Emotionally, the previous two examples aren't really art. They shock and annoy. Intellectually, many things not typically considered art must be considered as art, not to mention the idea that comes into play that one cannot truly appreciate the art unless you know its background, history, and context.

Neither of these views is right or wrong, but I think mine is more defensible. It certainly makes it easier to dismiss "art" which appears, for all practical purposes, to be actual art.

For example, I read an article a while ago about an elephant painting. The paintings weren't *bad*. Abstract, but nothing that you couldn't find something similar to in the MoMA. The article went on about how "art isn't just a human thing, we have to revise our definitions of what makes us human, blah blah blah." Gut reaction: not art.

If you're looking at it in a gallery, it does look like art. You'd have no idea. Bad, rather stupid art. "My 5 year old could do this" kind of art. But art nonetheless.

But if you know the history, it's easy to say from an intellectual point of view, "this is not art". Context: art gallery. Okay, that's a start. But the idea behind the art? The reason, the motivation? There isn't one because it was done by an elephant. Or perhaps there is one, but since we can't know the mind of the elephant, we can't really know. On this point, I can say definitively, not art. At least not until we know more about pachyderms.

The problem with trying to define art as stying within certain rules or by having certain physical qualities, is that you'll always have pieces that just straddle the edge.

I know you're not saying this, but just as an example: if someone said "John Cage's 4'33" isn't music because it doesn't have notes." Someone else can say, "okay, if he wrote another peice called "A flat" which consisted of the pianist playing a single A flat for two seconds, then it is music because it has a note." (I don't know if he did something like this or not; I'm just making it up.) Anyway, I think you would think that it is also not music, or at least very much stretching the definition.

So, there it is, folks, a debate about what constitutes art! Form you're own opinions! As long as they're good!

Good Afternoon, or whatever it is when you're reading this.

2006-05-30T22:18:00.000-05:00

Hi, thanks for reading, I appreciate it. Both of you. Now, I have just realized how hard it is to keep up with this. Heck, my emails are hard enough. I have an email from someone that's been sitting in my inbox for two days because I just know it will take me an hour to respond to it (you probably know who you are, if you're reading this, and if you aren't, then THHBBBWWTTT!). Anyway, I wanted to post today just to say I did, and I think I'll upload another somethin' somethin'. Here's a poem I did in poetry class last year making fun of Lord Byron's poem, "Don Juan." It's pronounced Don Jew-in, by the way, had nothing to do with Don Juan, and it was dedicated to one of his critics. I felt that it was a rather sarcastic and quite pompous poem as he used a lot of French, did a good deal of fudging the spelling of words so they'd rhyme, had Roman Numerals separating the verses, and made lewd remarks about the critic. So, I figured I'd give him a taste of his own sarcasm! Ha! Of course, he's been dead for about two hundred years, so... uh... well.

I use his rhyme scheme by the way.

If you want to, just type the French words into one o' them free online translators. I don't feel like it right now.

Ralph Fiennes
(pronounced ral-ff fee-enn-ez)

I
Lord Byron! You're such a very good poet,
So clever and witty. All other artists must
Bow down to you. Though most don't know it,
you actually rule all poets in the (crust)
afterlife... what happened? I was interrupted wit'
some parentheses. Now this poem is a bust.
I think such literary devices that exist only to make
things rhyme properly make poems sound fake.

VX
Perhaps you and John Cage are getting along
splendidly, as I feel there is about as much
philosophical oomph to to 4'33'' as your greatest song.
Compliments such as these can touch
a nerve if I'm not careful. If I go on too long,
simply tell me, and I'll address your szuch.
At the very least, and certainly last, I have the honor
of being compared to you by critics, in some measure.

JFK
Lordy, if that is your real name, I really should
be nicer, after all, you are very famous.
Jealousy is poison, te sachez, and I very well could
kill myself with it. But you can't blame us,
(ok, you can blame me) if I desire occasional good
reviews of my work. Why, a speeding bus
would hit me with less force than one word from
one of these bloodthirsty critics. They call me a bum.

THX
He that rests on his laurels will have pollen on his butt,
as they say. But who is they? And have they
ever sat on laurels themselves? I say, I don't know what
that phrase even means. But it sounds good. Hey!
I know! Perhaps I should aspire to be more like the great
John Milton! Then my writing would surelay
be worthy of a legacy! Although, I'm not sure I would desire
my legacy to be, "misunderstood by people who glamorize fire."

Z?
Well, I'm finished now, and I hope that I wasn't too savage,
I really do admire your work, Mr. Byron, I just
Wanted to have a little fun. I just don't like feeling average,
aspiring to be great. Of course the fact is that most
of my writing in life will be done in classrooms. A badge
of honor really isn't necessary. To be thrust
into the limelight is not really appealing to me. I can't
see how how you handled it (you didn't). Thus ends my rant.

Gratiafied

2006-05-29T20:44:00.000-05:00

While you're here (all one or two of you), take some time to head over to Gratiafied. It's another blog here at e-blogger, so it'll be easy to get to. If you need it, here is the url: gratiafied.blogspot.com. It is a veritable cornucopia of hilarity and good posts. It's run by the one and only Mark Babikow, one of the reasons I wanted to play guitar in the first place. I must give credit much of my family with my musical desires, my Dad and his Silvertone, my Mom and grandparents with the Kazuo Yairi classical. However, Uncle Mark, having given me some cool guitar gadgets, showed me why guitar was cool, what with his sunburst Yamaha and extensive Stevie Ray Vaughan records. So, go check out his blog, I'm sure you'll be glad you did.

Wha' happen'd?

2006-05-26T17:19:00.000-05:00

Both are equally artistically valid, right?

What has happened to art and music? Why on earth do people consider chance composing "music", or mixed media "art"? *(I need to point out here that I am naming mediums that exist within larger concepts, namely Atonality and Avante Garde, these are just particular mediums that annoy me. These just seem to be the ones I hear about most. I could just as easily have named serialism or found art. In fact, the urinal above is found art. Thanks to Ted from thettt.com for pointing this out.) The answer lies in everyone's desire to be special and cutting edge, part of something that is new for the sake of being new. The final frontier in the early part of the twentieth century (or so people thought, anyway) was atonal music. Atonal music, in short, is music that has no tonal center, or "key." There are no chord progressions, no feelings of rest, and consonances and disonances are of equal value. It means that in the world of atonal music, one either can do whatever, meaning that any ability for expressing oneself has gone out the window, or that one has to follow mathematical patterns to such a degree that a calculator would be able to do the same job. The visual art world felt a similar blow with the same types of philosophy in the Avante Garde, essentially a forum where the old dividing walls that showed what a given discipline had to offer were destroyed. The Dada movement, which was self-proclaimed anti-art, typified the move away from tradition. Anything went, such as Marcel Duchamp signing his name to a urinal and hanging it in a gallery or Jackson Pollock tossing cans of paint at a canvas. My main complaint is that all of this was 1. Done for the sake of being new, not better. If someone wants to break a rule for the sake of expressing something that otherwise was inexpressible, that's fine. However, breaking a rule and changing the definitions are two different things. 2. There was little to no respect for what came before. It's ironic that those who started the change (Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berg, and others) highly respected the former masters such as Bach, Beethoven, Haydn and countless others. In fact, as these 20th century men matured, many of them reverted to "ancient" forms of the Baroque and Classical era. It was the art world in general that latched onto some of their ideas and created inept and half-baked imitations. That seems to be common in every era of art. That being said, I still blame Schoenberg and his utterly unmusical serialism for much of the modern philosophy of music, because even the most "well executed" serialism is novelty at best. 3. It requires little musicianship, and indeed little skill in general. Much of what I hear "serious musicians" doing nowadays is atonal music. The problem is, it is indistinguishable from that which a five year old could produce. People do it because it's easy. It insults the truly genius because they have no room to shine and are quite stunted by this "freedom." How can they say they are genius when the only works that the musical elite will accept are "modern" atonal works? It insults the learned because they are told that we all need to be the same, and that their knowledge is just bigotry toward the ignorant, and that if one were truly enlightened he would become modern and independent. Just like most people have been doing for millenia.

Gould Grief!

2006-05-24T22:04:00.000-05:00

Ok, bad pun aside, Glenn Gould is my favorite pianist, bar none. Why? you ask, so smugly behind your tight lipped grin underneath your pencil thin moustache and long black cigarette holder with a half used Lucky Strike sticking out of it. I'll tell you. 1. His incredible rhythm. No matter how fast or slow he plays, he is like a metronome. Even with buttloads of rubato, he always gets the tempo back. 2. His sound. He has such wonderful precision and is so allergic to wrong notes (as one of his recording engineers put it), and his tone is fabulous. Such a firm, clear attack and evenness of sound (only partly to do with his pianos, which always had stiff action, he would have sound that way on any piece of garbage piano he put his hands to). His staccato made it easy to hear even the densest of contrapuntal textures. 3. His concentration. He could focus on as many melody lines as he wanted (a shame he never recorded the 6 part Ricercare from A Musical Offering). 4. His output is mostly Bach. 5. He was a perfectionist. I don't like hearing mistakes, especially when they are recorded and I have to hear them every time I play a record. Never happens with Gould (except for his live recordings from the fifties and early sixties, but those were just because he had no control over the recording process and hated performing before audiences). 6. He admitted when he didn't like a certain composer or piece of music, and sometimes refused to record them. He disliked Mozart (I don't like his music either, but Gould didn't like him) and refused to record the Fugue from the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. So, with all that said, do yourself a favor and get the following records:
A State of Wonder- both 1955 and 1981 recordings of The Goldberg Variations in one package, including the superior analog version of the 1981 recording.
A Consorte of Renaissance Music- recordings of Byrd, Gibbons, and Sweelinck
Bach Keyboard Concertos
Well Tempered Clavier books 1 and 2
The Gould Variations- a best of that's halfway decent, the best part is it has video of him playing pieces from The Art of the Fugue.
The Two and Three Part Inventions
The Silver Jubilee album- has some of his mock interviews poking fun at music critics, as well as some fine piano playing.
So, there you have it! A good beginning to Gould! Next time, Wanda Landowska! Maybe!

Another fine day...

2006-05-24T21:24:00.000-05:00

By gosh, it's another day and I actually feel like posting on this darn thing. I just realized I made a lot of promises my first day that I have to keep. Well, I guess I'll start off with something easy. Here's an exchange I envisioned as being something out of a MAD TV Abbot and Costello routine. It works well if you imagine "Kirk" as a young fellow walking along a dirt path, scratching his head as he looks at directions hastily scribbled on a used napkin written under the influence of Nyquil at four in the morning by an old Army buddy. He comes upon a dirty general store that has two bib overall totin' old fellers sitting on a couple of creaky rocking chairs that would go for a fortune on Antiques Roadshow, but instead are being used to elevate the combined 138 year old buttocks of these dirty old timers from gravity's harsh ways. Now that you have that lovely image in your head, enjoy the following:

Kirk: Excuse me, could either of you gentlemen tell me how to Horgslort?
Coot1: Well, let's see now, I reckon I could...
Coot2: You reckon you could? Do you "reckon" often? Do you also "dagnab" as well?
Coot1: Well, don't you reckon?
Coot2: I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can fully reckon.
Coot1: I can reckon. I am fully prepared to reckon.
Coot2: Well, I'm not prepared to reckon. It's too early.
Coot1: What does the time of the day have to do with your reckoning capabilities? I'm up now and I have no problem with reckoning.
Coot2: Yeah, well, you got up earlier than me.
Coot1: That doesn't make sense. Are you making any progress toward reckoning?
Coot2: I think I might, wait, wait, no not quite...
Kirk: Gentlemen! Please!
Coot1: Son, this doesn't concern you. Well, if you can't reckon, can you hornswaggle?
Coot2: I don't even know what that means.
Coot1: It's one of them old coot words we always use. I think it's a kind of pasta made from horns. And swaggle.
Kirk: I just want to know how to get to Horgslort!
Coot2: Well, why didn't you say so?
Coot1: He did say so.
Coot2: I was just saying that for comedic effect.
Coot1: Then you are a comedic genius.
Coot2: Son, you are in Horgslort.
Kirk: Really?
Coot2: No, not really.
Coot1: Son, you're about as quick as a turtle walking through molasses uphill with a lead safe on his back full of copies of War and Peace.
Coot2: Ooooh, good analogy.
Coot1: I know, I've been waiting for a chance to use it.
Kirk: Are you guys gonna tell me how to get to Horgslort?
Coot2: If you haven't figured it out by this point, we've just been messing with you. Son, I've never even heard of Horgslort.
Coot1: I've heard of it. I've even been there. It's where I met my wife. And my other wife.
Coot2: Why didn't you tell me that? I thought one of the signs of a good friendship is that people share things with each other. Ya varmint.
Coot1: What, you're Yosemite Sam now?
Kirk: Just tell me how to get to Horgslort!

And that's all the further I got. I think it came about after thinking about the two redneck fishermen in The Blair Thumb. By the by, this won't happen often, but I have just presented uncopywrited material FREE OF CHARGE. Enjoy it. And, if you are unsatisfied with it, you can return the unused portion for an item of equal or lesser value. Oh, and don't steal from it without my express permission. Of course, if you ask, it won't be stealing. So, uh, yeah.

I saw the news today (oh, boy)

2006-05-23T23:54:00.000-05:00

Well, this will be my third post tonight (not counting drafts), so just what the heck do I do with my spare time!? In answer to that I'd like to change the subject and leave you with this parting thought on my first day with all of you (all zero of you at this point):

It's easy to focus on what the rest of the world wants of us, it's even easier to focus on what we want for ourselves, but it's most rewarding to allow for God to determine our focus, and in time, we'll find that's the easiest and most natural thing of all, and we'll have to fight to do otherwise (unfortunately, as long as we're in this world, we will).

Toodles!

Ok, no, I didn't just say "toodles."

Right?

Lutefisk? No, Guitar Fisk! Ok, I'm sorry, that was bad.

2006-05-23T22:46:00.000-05:00

Well, as I said, there would be musical things on this blog! So, here's the first one. This is me with the greatest living guitarist, Eliot Fisk. You simply must go to Amazon and listen to his recordings of the Paganini Caprices, and look at his cd "Fur Eliot" which has his excellent transcription of Scarlatti's K27 sonata. Matter of fact, one of Fisks teachers was the Great Ralph Kirkpatrick, the man who re-codified Scarlatti's sonatas in the 1950's and replaced the old numbering systems for Scarlatti's sonatas. I am so glad to have met Fisk and to have seen him play. It is really something else. If you get the opportunity, go, and take your friends with you!

By the way, on looking at this picture, I realize that I was a lot thinner then, and that was only a year ago. Wow. I've gained a good 15 or so pounds since then. Such is life!

Good Gravy

2006-05-23T22:31:00.000-05:00

Well, they said it would never happen. They said it was impossible. Yet, Tony Danza got his own talk show AND they made a fifth Planet of the Apes movie. Also, I am doing my own weblog. Yes, it is part of a community of blogs rather than one of my own domain, but this is far cheaper and easier to deal with.

But, I digress.

Welcome to my weblog! Here you will partake of rantings of the political sort as well as religious discussions (I don't like the word "religion," people put weird connotations to it, and after all, how many of us practice what the apostle James calls, "true religion?" But that is a topic for later!), various mp3s of my own compositions, essays on music topics, links to other peoples' blogs (you must check Gratiafied), possibly cartoons and scripts (all copyrighted of course, I am a musician and we are very anal about copywriting things), and all the things that you'd expect to find in a weblog. I don't expect many people will read it, which is why I'm not too afraid to print anything I like. Besides, the only way to shock people these days is to tuck in my shirt, go to church, use clean language (hell isn't swearing, it's geography), and vote republican. Oop, there I go on a diatribe. Sorry folks, I just get pissed when I hear people lauding guys like Eminem while they don't know who Glenn Gould is. Not that I can fault someone for that really, I mean not everyone likes classical piano. But they should. Anyway. To wrap up my first post, I'd like to say, thanks for reading, and if you can stand my pea soup thick sarcasm, then we're well on our way to becoming fast friends.