Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Cameron's house

"The place is like a museum. It's very beautiful and very cold, and you're not allowed to touch anything." - Ferris B.

Cameron's house from Ferris Bueller's Day Off is for Sale.

Don't ask me why i know these things. Just ask yourself why you don't know these things.

"Now's the time to buy!"

Friday, May 15, 2009

Movie Review: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days


As Jaime was out of town for a week, I found myself in an predicament: entertain myself while without spending a dime – I’ll have more expenses then I care to admit once we buy our new town home. I didn’t eat out the entire week she was gone, always packed my lunch and cooked at home. I found myself rummaging through her DVDs over the weekend and popped in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days starring Mathew Mcconaughey and some blond chick.

This complex modern kinda sorta adaptation of Guys & Dolls reveals a dark underbelly of the young urban professional life and is a bold whistle blowing expose’ to the tough reality of what it’s really like in the advertising biz. Or none of that stuff. Mcconaughey plays Benji-boo-boo (or something), a Manhattan ad man. A Creative Director? Account Guy? Who knows, but he worked with an art director that acts just like some copywriters here at CP+B, and a copywriter that acts just like some golf caddies I know. Benji-wenji’s Soho loft made me a tad covetous and his silver and black Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, paired with the sunny spring weather here in Colorado, reminded me I want one, bad.

“Blond chick” made me glad I’m not dating anymore and that Jaime’s not insane. Yes, I realize I could acquire “blond chick’s” name from IMDB in an interwebular nanoflash, but “blond chick” is funnier, you know it, and I’m much too proud and progressive of a movie reviewer to use such an archaic crutch as IMDB. Puh-leez.

Lessons learned from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: Chicks dig motorcycles, courtside NBA Finals Knicks tickets grow on trees like lollipops (don’t think about the logic of this analogy too much), and all’s fair in love and war...and advertising, but I already knew that (pay no mind, FTC big brother, I kid).

All in all I give it two thumbs up and two big toes down down out of 5 gold stars. That’s the apples to oranges ratio equivalent of a B-, which would allow you to get into UC Santa Cruz and have a relatively lucrative career as a botanist/self-promoted author but maybe not UCLA with a fanciful career as a screenwriter. Unless you transfer as a Junior and know the dean of admissions, which – I do. He reads my movie reviews when his wife is out of town and he’s bored.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Soiled Dove is back on.

The shoot was pushed a week later. May 29th will be good. Ignore my weepy post below. And come out to the show if you're around.

Monday, May 11, 2009

understandable random breakdown

was just going through this director's reel and came upon this spot. darn tootin' funny.

Friday, May 8, 2009

It was bound to happen.

It has happened. Until now, my sometimes life consuming "day job" only butted heads with my music ambitions in the sense that it was a huge time commitment, even for a "day job." It leaves much less time for writing and refining my sound then would be ideal, but "ideal" is a stupid hope for a musician like myself, and I've never whined that I wasn't swimming in time, freedom and disposable income, while I sit around and play guitar. I am grateful for my job and I'm lucky to have it. It's pretty kick-A as day jobs go (even if it does creep into the night pretty often). I've only sought for balance. In my usual foolishness, I have wanted to do/have a piece of it all.

Friday, May 29 was slated to be a great show at a great venue - the Soiled Dove Underground in Denver, opening up for Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband. I will now be in LA on a TV shoot that night, unable to return until Saturday morning. Basically, 16 hours too late to play the Soiled Dove. The thing that pains me the most is that I know people who have already purchased tickets to this show to see me. Plus, I will really miss the extra revenue of playing this show at this time when Jaime and I are trying to buy a home.

It was not a fun thing to call up the Talent Buyer at the Soiled Dove and tell him I had to go back on my commitment and he had to find someone else. I hope I haven't completely tainted my rep.

I have a responsibility to my employer and as much as it pains me to admit to my struggling independent songwriter colleagues, my priority is with CP+B (= blasphemy that may result in complete loss of respect from many of my talented musician friends). This is the first time I've really had to let a venue down and go back on my word. Let alone a stellar venue like the Soiled Dove, and a stellar show like Ryan Shupe. It stings. I'm hurting today, and I'll be hurting in LA on Friday, May 29. Maybe I'll write a song about it. When I get the time. Back to work.