Month: July 2005

Sometimes I like to run through a whole bunch of topics at once.

Adrien’s gig last night, upstairs at World Cafe Live’s “Bard Sessions,” was fun. I only recognized two of the songs she played, so she must have been writing a lot since the last time I saw her. This was my first trip up to World Cafe Live after hearing a lot about it. The sound guy had to duck down behind all these boxes and crates to get to the mixing board. Either that or he was just hiding from someone.

Kristin took a few photos at the show.

I posted a not about this above, but I’m playing at the Treehouse on Saturday, August 13th with John Shaughnessy as part of Collingswood’s monthly 2nd Saturday event.

I saw a few movies this week and here are some quick reviews.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Try not to compare it to the original, because it can’t win. There are some genuinely funny moments, but Burton & Depp’s interpretation of Willy Wonka irritated just as much entertained.

Happy Endings – Great. Lisa Kudrow is fantastic among a huge cast of intertwining stories. I don’t even want to say anything about it other than you should see it.

Identity (on DVD) – Jeanne thought it sucked, but I liked it. Bad weather forces a bunch of strangers to spend the night together at a motel.

A Mighty Wind (on DVD) – I’m starting to think Christopher Guest is overrated. I liked This is Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman, but can’t get into Best in Show or A Mighty Wind. Best in Show was too over the top and a Mighty Wind is played too straight (with a few exceptions).

Update: I forgot to mention that Buddy Guy was awesome on Friday night at Penn’s Landing.

Read on for a few spoilery comments about each movie
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – One thing that always bothered me about the original was the loop on top of the elevator for attaching a cable. The thing could fly! Why did it need the loop? I’m glad they solved that problem in the new movie.

Happy Endings – The press reviews are surprisingly mixed, but I loved it.

Identity – I read a theory that Timmy is actually the doctor’s attempt at therapy and that’s why he tries to destroy the other personalities. That’s what he’s designed to do. When time runs out, the doctor abandons that strategy and tries to use Edward to find the violent personality. The last thing Timmy needs is to be abandoned. At the end, Timmy kills Malcom’s “mother” and Malcom kills Timmy’s “father.”

A Mighty Wind – I did like the part where the Folksmen were talking about how their label sucked so bad that when you bought their album you had to punch your own hole in the record.

My good friend Adrien Reju is playing World Cafe Live tonight (Tuesday) as part of their “Bard Sessions” thing and it’s hosted by John Francis Maher.

I didn’t think Google Maps could get any better, but now they’ve laid street names over top of the satelite photos. You can find this if you choose “hybrid” in the top right of an address.

Check it out.

If you’d like the chance to win $25 (through iTunes or Paypal) from GadgetMadness.com, join the latest OMI private game, Odzilla!

The show last Friday went ok. I played a longer set than I planned while waiting for the Stand In to get there. They showed up and played about 5 songs and were pretty good, although their sound was clearly too big for the room. He was nice enough to thank us for not going back upstairs to the coffeehouse.

They had us play in the “remix room” which was in the basement.

Thanks to Kristin for taking a bunch of great shots, especially the one below of Pat.

More photos here.

It took a little over three years, but this site just had it’s 1 millionth page view according to the stats page.

Who is the smartest person who ever lived?

It’s an interesting question and I have no criteria for how to pick the #1, but these 5 should definitely be in the top 10.

Sir Issac Newton – Invented Calculus and showed us how ordered the universe was.
Albert Einstein – Changed the way we perceive the universe with general relativity.
Aristotle – The basis of modern reasoning (I picked him out of thin air over Plato and Socrates).
William Shakespeare – He’s probably remembered more because his art is able to last and is more accessible, but his plays are still the literary peak of mankind, over and over again.
Leonardo Da Vinci – The renaissance man of the renaissance. He could have lived to be 500 and still not lived up to his potential.

Anyone else I’m missing? My original list had Thomas Edison, Alan Turing, and Jon von Neumann, but that’s because I’m biased towards the mathmeticians who laid the groundwork for modern computers.

If I had to pick a #1, I’d probably go with Newton.

Update: mike made the suggestion to put Mozart or Beethoven on the list and I agree.

I just got added to the lineup for this Friday at The Eleven East Cafe in Glassboro, NJ w/ Kilpatrick and the Stand In. I’m opening up the show in their “Remix Room” where I’ll be playing a 30 minute set of mostly originals.

Check out EEC’s Virtual Tour. It’s Wizardry-esque and I half expected to fight skeletons if I took a wrong step.

Kilpatrick promises to promise not to play Cisqo’s Thong Song, but that’s never stopped him from playing it before.

You may have heard about a concert here last week called Live 8 to indirectly benefit starving Africans and directly benefit sellers of cheese fries.

We got there as the Black Eyed Peas were playing and actually got a decent spot near the stage. I couldn’t actually see the performers, but I think my taller friend could. I could hear everything perfectly. Too bad the philly lineup sucked.

Here’s my quick review:

* Alicia Keys – Didn’t hear her.
* Black Eyed Peas – To be honest, I thought these guys were Eagle Eye Cherry until two months ago. There were surprisingly decent.
* Bon Jovi – I took shelter in my friend’s apartment durng Bon Jovi’s set.
* Dave Matthews Band – Utterly forgettable, unless their bus driver drops poop on you.
* Def Leppard – What has 9 arms and sucks? I love that joke.
* Destiny’s Child – No reccolection of this at all.
* Jay-Z – Best of the day by far.
* Josh Groban – Was this guy a runner up on American Idol or something?
* Kaiser Chiefs – The only band I really looked forward to seeing played first and I missed them.
* Keith Urban – I’ll assume this was the country singer I heard although I thought that was Toby Keith.
* Linkin Park – They weren’t too bad with Jay-Z, but their songs are terrible.
* Maroon 5 – I remember when the guy from Maroon 5 came out with Stevie Wonder, but I don’t remember them actually playing by themselves.
* Rob Thomas – What has two arms and sucks?
* Sarah McLachlan – I think they only let her play half a song.
* Stevie Wonder – Good set Stevie. Only one crappy ballad out of about 4 or 5 tunes. He sounded awesome.
* Toby Keith – I was probably sitting down for this one.
* Will Smith – I know it’s a crowd favorite, but when you only have two songs to play and one of them is the theme song to your sitcom…

Even though my review is overwhelmingly negative, I still had a good time. Everyone around us was cool and I saw only one little fight (and my mom got scared!)

(Quick note: Notice the spelling of Philadelphia in the link I just posted)

At one point during the day I saw a guy with about 20 press passes next to me and I asked him, “Can’t you get any closer with all those press passes?” and then he wanted to ask me a few questions for WHYY about the acts and the cause and whether we needed to cheer as loud for Steve Wonder because his hearing was extra sensitive and it would seem just as loud to him. I said we should cheer as loud because he’s that much better than the other acts.*

* Parts of that last paragraph may not be true.

I can’t wait for Live 9.

I’ve been trying to write a review of the new White Stripes album for a month and I’m about to give up. I still can’t tell if I like it and I’m willing to bet that if it’s taking me this long, I don’t.