Hey Hun! We're Playing Ping Pong!

Truly a victim of incessant laziness and copious amounts of procrastination, I've let this blog sit out in the sun since July of last year. Not without good reason though,the work side of things decided to put a deathgrip on any chance of me having a life outside of my office walls. 12-15 hour days, 6/7 days a week is now the norm, almost consistently since October. Not much else to say. Things are supposed to slow down in February. I so get Springsteen/Blink 182 now.

Surprisingly enough, I have allowed a few extra activities and thoughts to slip through the cracks. In no particular order...


-I GREW A BEARD. TWICE.

While not really a bold leap into new, uncharted fashion divaness and more just of a desire to perpetually stroke my face, I've been rocking a beard since mid October. I hear it's what smart people put on their face, so I figured I should get one.

-FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS IS THE BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION.


So I basically find it hard to function without this show. It's entered the recesses of my brain that help me accomplish basic tasks such as eating and sleeping, I once allowed myself only 2 hours of sleep just so I could get caught up on Landry's murder subplot. And at work I sometimes wonder... will Saracen and Julie patch things up soon? When is Smash going to have his career-ending injury (Feb. sweeps maybe?) Won't Tyra just run off with Landry already? Am I really watching my fourth episode in a row of this show?

These are questions one shouldn't grapple with, but suffice to say that there is nothing better on television right now than Friday Night Lights. Granted, I watch all the new episodes on NBC.com and the writer's strike has allowed shows like this to start airing without a double blink from anyone. Still though, while everyone seems to be going nuts about The Wire coming back on the air, FNL has been quietly building a pretty awesome season. Going off my initial reactions, I thought the show would be a soapy teen drama about sports and small town life and... it is... but... OH MY GOD you guys it's like so much better than that. The drama. The character development. The emotive post-rock guitar interludes! OK, in all seriousness though, I'm addicted. It's a really good cheeseburger.

-I LIKE DOGS.


This new bundle of energy does laps around the apartment and 4AM just to show off her class and spunk. She bites ears and pees on random people. Her favorite show to watch with me is Friday Night Lights though, so I can't fault her. She's pretty adorable. I'm a fan.

-I DOWNLOADED LOTS OF THINGS.




Apparently thinking a nuclear holocaust would strike soon, I stockpiled about 25GBs worth of stuff from these two indispensable torrent sites. When Brooklyn breaks away and starts to float out into the Atlantic, at least I'll have plenty of Nunsploitation and Jem Cohen flicks stacked for the trip.

-I MADE LOTS OF MIXES THAT I DIDN"T POST.

The so-called 'Pudcast' is on numero two now, but over the course of the fall I made probably 4 more that fell behind the couch in my mind. Here's one I drew up recently though:


PUDCAST #2
1- Collections of Colonies of Bees- "Flocks I"
2- Don Caballero - "You Drink A Lot of Coffee For A Teenager"
3- Talibam!- "Rambo's Passeggiata"
4- Matt Valentine & Erika Elder- "You Matter"
5- Grouper- "Little Gray Cat"
6- Robedoor- "Penitent Runes"
7- Labradford- "Disremembering"
8- James Carr- "Let's Face Facts"
9- Songs:Ohia- "Division St. Girl"
10- The Drones- "I Don't Ever Want To Change"
11- Mika Miko- "Sleepover Slumber Party"
12- Times New Viking- "(My Head)"
13- The Clash- "Lost In The Supermarket"
14- John Cale- "Buffalo Ballet"

Download it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?di91gyxkvgi

-I SHOT A MUSIC VIDEO.

Still in the editing stages at the moment, but I'm tickled pink from what I've seen so far. It's a video for Marissa Nadler, a wondrous folk angel who allowed me to make a video for her cover of Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat."

The video was shot in a mind-bending weekend right before Christmas around Manhattan, Central Park, and in particular my well-meaning but beyond small Bushwick apartment. I shamelessly forced people onto my couch to drink alcohol and pretend to have a good time for four hours while I barked out orders to my cameraman Spence to make the visuals look more cool n' shit.

Despite my failed tryout as a future David O. Russell I think the crowd had a decent time mucking it up and playing Apples to Apples. The footage turned out beautifully and has since made it difficult to not do a 90 minute version of the video. I'm not sure if these will end up in the video or not, but here's some stills from the 'party' scene section of the shoot c/o Adam Brown...














Clearly drunk on his own power.