You know how Starbucks has the quotes on the side of their cups? I got this one today:
So-called “global warming” is just a secret ploy by wacko tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21st-century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable. Don’t let them get away with it!
– Chip Giller
Founder of Grist.org, where environmentally-minded people gather online.
Nike + (it's built into the new iPod touch...finally)
Mad Men (with Hulu, DVD, OnDemand, and iTunes, there's no excuse, folks)
Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish (working through the noise to get to the substance)
Picasa 3 (a great free piece of software is even better than before)
All Things Considered and Morning Edition (just break the knob off)
Facebook (Matthew told my wife "I wanna read that face book!")
Hey, all you future fathers out there, remember this. When your 2 year old is in the other room, and he's just recently showed an interest in potty training, and you decide to honor his request to be by himself while he sits on the potty, and though you've told him to let you know when he's done...there's nothing more terrifying than hearing, in a tiny voice, the words, "it's messy", coming from the other room.
I usually take the Nielsen ratings with a grain of salt, but this is a staggering and hopeful number. 40 million viewers watched Obama's acceptance speech thursday night, more than the American Idol finale, the Oscars, and the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. If you're one of the few that missed it, you can download the entire speech from iTunes.
I really like Al Gore but he didn't win an Oscar. I keep hearing this mis-statement every time he's mentioned on television, but it's not true. Davis Guggenheim won the award as the director of the documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth". Just one of those things that bugs me...anyhoo.
Hey kids...what if I told you you could download Tom Waits's July show at the Fox in Atlanta, free & legal with great sound quality? And what if I also told you you could get recent shows from She & Him? Jim James? Steve Earle? The Black Keys? Well, you're in luck. Full-length concerts are available for download from the NPR Live Concerts from All Songs Considered Podcast. You can subscribe here in iTunes or just download the shows you want.
Here are some photos I took during our week in Myrtle Beach. Some I wanted to post on 31 Photos, but we didn't have internet access for a good part of the trip, so they're here.
Great story in Wired today about a fellow who, for years, has taken his old 78s and digitized them and put them online as MP3s. Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Spike Jones, Fats Waller, Ernest Tubb, you name it. It's an amazing collection of music.
Just a reminder to folks in the Chattanooga area who are looking for something to do on Sunday. The Hunter Museum is FREE on August 3rd from noon to five pm. You can read about their special exhibition in this previous post. I think it's pretty spectacular.
From www.huntermuseum.org:
FREE First Sunday
Visit the William Morris exhibition, stroll through the Hunter Museum galleries and enjoy free studio activities. Enjoy the big band music of Sweet Georgia Sound on the Hunter Museum Terrace from 2 to 4 p.m. FREE First Sundays are made possible by the support of Regions Morgan Keegan.
I'd like to invite all of you to participate in an experiment cooked up by my friend, Josh Kring. During the month of August, you'll take a photo each day, and post it at 31 Photos (directions on posting are on the site). Hopefully we'll have a bunch of folks participating.
You do not have to be a professional photographer to do this, you basically just have to know how to turn the flash off on your camera! Yes, there are rules, so read them below and remember...Art is born of constraint, and dies of freedom!
The Rules:
-no cropping
-only use available light, (no flash or extra lights)
-no Photoshop or color correcting what so ever
-no in camera color effects, (as in selective color on the Canons)
-no more than 4 self portraits
-each photo must be taken that day
-only post one photo a day
One of the few people I would have loved to meet when I was working in New York was Neil Young. Looks like I migrated south about a year too early. Neil sat down with Charlie last week. You can watch it here.
Also, if you like Neil but don't have a lot of his music, hurry to Amazon now, because their MP3 deal of the day is his "greatest hits" for just $3.99. I know, I know, don't get me started on how this compilation doesn't even begin to cover the best of Young's career. If you're new to the music, this is actually a nice place to start because you get a lot of great songs from both Rockin' Neil and Contemplative Neil.
We had a chance to see the impressive William Morris special exhibition at the Hunter Museum in Chattanooga today. I wasn't familiar with his work, but I'm taken with these intricately detailed glass sculptures that compose an amazing collection very diverse in size, color, and style. Myth, Object and the Animal will be shown through September 29th. Be sure to check it out for free on the first Sunday of each month from noon to 5pm.
Photo Credit: Rob Vinnedge
This could possibly be the coolest shoe-related story of the decade. Remember those awesome shoes that Marty McFly wore in 2015 in Back to the Future 2? Well, Nike's making 'em. Well, a version of them anyway. No power laces...yet.
I took this photo on my phone this morning from the car window. Needless to say, the gas station isn't open anymore.
My mother emailed me this awesome photo of me on the first day of 2nd grade.
It's kind of tough to make out in the photo, but note the sweet, sweet Michael Jackson t-shirt (detailed at right). You know how you always wanted to wear your very best clothes on the first day of school? Apparently, at age seven, this was it.
Great article on The Atlantic.com about the current state of General Motors and the company's huge bet on the Volt.
Just finished the Wilco documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. It was on Sundance channel so I TiVo'd it and have to say I thought it was pretty good. Made me wanna go back and listen to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot again. If you're not familiar with Wilco's music, check this out. On their site, you can listen to a few complete live performances and even select the songs within the set. I'm partial to Impossible Germany, Either Way, and Hate It Here from their latest, Sky Blue Sky.
Chris McGowan, writing for the The Huffington Post, suggests Amory Lovins as Energy Czar for either McCain or Obama. Lovins is founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute and is unbelievably smart when it comes to practical solutions to energy problems. Of course, I suggested Al Gore would be a great Secretary of Energy in a previous post, but Lovins may be an even better choice. His non-partisan status is definitely a plus and there's no denying he's got the chops necessary to steer our energy policies in the right direction.
Played paintball for the first time with some friends this weekend. We had a blast but I think we all realized we should have done this 10 years ago when we were a bit more nimble and when we had more disposable income. We are old.
(p.s. here's a tip...wear long sleeves)
Here's a quick blog post about Tom Waits, one of the artists I most admire. First of all, you need to read this blog post at his record label, Anti. Mr. Waits interviews himself and the results are quite entertaining.
Secondly, he's playing at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta in July and I pray I'll be there to see it. So close, yet so far away.
And lastly, there's a lot of chatter online about the new record from actress Scarlett Johansson. She's teamed up with Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio (a band I like and respect) to make a record consisting almost entirely of Tom Waits covers. A) This seems like a horrible idea. B) I've heard pieces of the record (not the whole thing) and it will take some convincing to persuade me that this is not a horrible idea based on what I've heard. C) The samples that I did hear made me want to stop listening to what I was hearing and go put on original Tom Waits recordings. So, I guess that's a good thing.
This is the first time I've ever seen this and once I get a four-hour block to myself, I'm gonna figure out exactly what it actually means:
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
(Thanks Scott)
If you have eight minutes to spare today, check out this early muppet footage for La Choy Chow Mein. It's great.
Matthew counted to ten perfectly for the first time yesterday. He doesn't do it correctly every time yet and when he does make a mistake it's often this: He skips seven and eight. Erin and I have a theory that this is due to that ubiquitous Feist song that we've been playing for him in the car. He loves it.
1,2,3,4,5,6, 9 & 10...I read on her site that she's recently recorded a version of it for Sesame Street. Let's hope Elmo corrects her before the country's run by a generation of children for whom the numbers seven and eight are completely foreign.
I started listening to the automatically-produced "top 25" playlist on my iPod yesterday and was a little surprised to see a bunch of tracks from Neil Diamond's 12 Songs. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's a great record. If you haven't heard it, forget everything you know about Neil Diamond and give it a listen. He's got a new one coming out next tuesday called Home Before Dark. It's also produced by Rick Rubin and I'm anxious to hear it based on the single streaming on his site. It's worth a listen.
Every now and again, I'll re-discover a website. The Onion's AV Club is one of those sites. Check out the "primer" on Elvis Costello and the article about the wisdom of Kurt Vonnegut as examples of the cool work they're doing over there.
This is pretty awesome. You wanna contribute to the Watchmen film?
There's a contest going on asking you to create a tv commercial that looks like it was made in 1985 for Veidt products. The winners may actually be used in the movie. Check it out here.
We saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall this weekend and while it's not for everyone, I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard in the theater. The cast was top-notch, especially Russell Brand, Jack McBrayer, and Mila Kunis (who knew?). I recommend it to those not easily offended by male nudity.
The "One Week Only" feature at the new site Pitchfork.tv is now playing the 2004 documentary loudQuietloud about the Pixies reunion and if you're a fan or curious, it's worth a look. But if the "one week only" name is to believed better get over there today.
Here's a very interesting tidbit from the NY Times piece on Jason Segel, the amusing co-star of one of my favorite current sitcoms, "How I Met Your Mother" and the new film, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". By the way, Richard Roeper suggested he'd have to make room on his list of 50 funniest movies for this one so I hope he's right.
And despite his regular appearances on prime-time television, it is only in the prelude to the release of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” that he has found he can now take meetings with the studios, production companies and casting directors who previously shunned him.
In one such meeting, with Disney, he offhandedly mentioned that he would like to write a new movie for his childhood idols, the Muppets; within days the studio had signed Mr. Segel and Mr. Stoller to write the script.
(“I want to revive them to their previous glory, before they became a novelty act,” Mr. Segel said. “When it wasn’t, like, ‘Muppets Underwater.’ ‘Muppets in the Sahara.’ ‘Muppets on the Moon!’ ”)
Battlestar Galactica begins its final season tonight. If you're a fan, I'm sure you already knew that. If you "don't like space", just think of it as a soap opera.
Ever notice folks sometimes use the word "weary" when they really mean "wary"? The wife and I think we've figured out why. They're taking "wary" and combining it with its synonym, "leery".
Wary + Leery = Weary.
Yup. We're that boring.
Seems one of my favorites, Elvis Costello, won't offer CDs of his upcoming release, MOMOFUKU and will be releasing vinyl as the only physical format. The LP will be packaged with a code to download a digital copy of the record. I think I'd buy every record this way if they were reasonably priced.
Thanks to Billboard and Wired.
When I heard the Supreme Court would be reviewing the second amendment (DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA V. HELLER), I wondered if the amendment's odd punctuation would play a role in the decision. I did a quick search and was delighted to see this article in the Times just a few days prior addressing the very subject.
Mickey sent this to me. Very funny. Love the McSweeneys lists.
If you're not familiar with Eddie Izzard, this New York Times article is a decent place to start. I became a fan after watching his stand-up special, "Dress to Kill", and listening to it countless times in the car much like I used to do with Bill Cosby tapes when i was a kid. He'll be touring the US soon. Check here for dates. I saw him in New York a few years ago and he was great. Don't miss it.
I'm a fan of Shepard Fairey (the Obey Giant guy) so I was thrilled to see his contribution to the Obama campaign. You can purchase the limited edition print here.
check out this article in the NY Times about the upcoming film and director Nolan in particular.
At the grocery store today, a slightly disheveled man wearing sunglasses asked me directly:
Okay, this is cool. If you're my age, you know Randall "Tex" Cobb from Raising Arizona, The Golden Child, and from the funniest exchange in Fletch Lives:
"Bend Over"
"Ben? Nice to meet you, Victor Hugo"
Well, the Coen Brothers walked away with adapted screenplay, director(s), and best picture. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor. It's a really good movie. The one award I was really hoping they would win was for editing because I wanted to see "Roderick Jaynes" accept the award. The introduction of the nominees last night included a great photo of the imaginary film editor. Well, maybe next time. In the meantime, enjoy a piece of his bio from the No Country For Old Men website:
Does Kevin Spacey do the voice-over for "previously on In Treatment"?
Watch the first 8 seconds here and add a comment with your vote.
Who I'd Like To See At Bonnaroo 2008:
* Pearl Jam
* Metallica
* Jack Johnson
* Kanye West
* Chris Rock
* Robert Plant and Alison Krauss featuring T Bone Burnett
* Phil Lesh & Friends
* My Morning Jacket
* The Allman Brothers Band
* The Raconteurs
* Willie Nelson
* Death Cab for Cutie
* B.B. King
* Sigur Ros
* Levon Helm and the Ramble on the Road
* Ben Folds
* The Bluegrass Allstars
* Iron & Wine
* The Swell Season
* Talib Kweli
* Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi Soul Stew Revival
* Broken Social Scene
* Bonnaroo Late Night Chat About with David Cross
* Robert Randolph's Revival
* Rilo Kiley
* Mastodon
* Drive-By Truckers
* Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet featuring Bela Fleck
* Aimee Mann
* Janeane Garofalo
* Jose Gonzalez
* Zach Galifianakis
* Donavon Frankenreiter
* State Radio
* Brian Posehn
The wife and I are enjoying a new show on HBO called In Treatment.
It's one of those shows that makes you glad you've got TiVo.
A half-hour each weeknight is made up of a therapy session.
Gabriel Byrne is fantastic in it and the supporting cast is great too.
There are monologues here ripe for interpretation by psychology majors that need theater credits.
Other Things There Will Be, In Addition to Blood
A McSweeney's list by Meredith and Scott Rodkey
I'll be voting in the Georgia primary tuesday morning and I hope that if you live in a primary state, that you'll be voting as well.
If you live in Georgia, you can find your polling place by clicking here.
If you're outside the state of Georgia, here's the national page that will help you find all the information you need:
USA.gov Voting Information
Saw this over on the Politico.com site.
If you type in "Find Chuck Norris" at Google
and hit the I'm Feeling Lucky button,
you get this.
Here's a fun story. After sending my Xbox 360 back for repairs a second time, I finally got it back earlier this week. I plugged it in, fired it up, and you guessed it...it DOES NOT work. This time, instead of "repairing" it, they're sending me a new one. Seems I'm not alone.
According to the NY Times, The MPAA now says it was wrong to blame illegal downloads by college students for 44% of the film industry's domestic losses. Apparently, they say college students are only responsible for 15% of the losses. I'd like to suggest that the studios are partially responsible because they're making stuff like this.
I had the chance to see an advance screening of the new 3D Imax film U23D (thanks Best Buy!). Despite some "ghosting", it was by far the best 3D I've yet seen. It wasn't overly gimmicky, in fact the film focused mainly on accurately reproducing the performance space and so I got wrapped up in the music, much as I did when I saw the band perform in Memphis years ago. Great setlist, so if you're a fan of the band, definitely take the kids and go to the Imax.
By the way, these Irish kids are an incredibly tight and expansive band. If you didn't see it, read Springsteen's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech here. There's no better description of who they are and what they do.
I just finished reading Watchmen and I'm really interested to see how the film will develop. The little bit that I've read and seen online leads me to believe that it will be a pretty faithful interpretation. I like the casting I've read about (Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan and Jackie Earl Haley as Rorshach) although I wonder how well some of the younger actors will portray "retired" superheroes.
I've been thinking alot lately about the future of music sales and how this will change with technology. Folks like Rick Rubin, David Geffen, and my friend Josh, believe the subscription model is the future of the industry. They say you'll pay a certain amount each month to gain access to virtually any music you're interested in hearing. It sounds great, but I'm not thrilled about having to pay yet another monthly bill. And since the beginning of recorded music sales, we've owned our music. I just can't believe that we'll all be content to pay $19.95 per month (Rubin's figure, not mine) to essentially RENT music. If I decide I can't afford it anymore, I'm stuck with...NO music. We're collectors of music. That's part of the fun of it, right?
What about a "rent to own" option? Say you've rented for 12 months and you decide you can't afford it anymore. You decide you'll stop paying, but you'll get to keep a portion of the music you've downloaded equal to the amount you've paid. For example, you've spent $239.40 for the year ($19.95 per month) and you've downloaded 500 songs. When you leave the rental agreement you get to keep 239 of those songs (you didn't think the record companies would round up to 240 did you?). You choose which ones you want.
Has this been proposed anywhere? Your thoughts?
UPDATE: PLEASE SEE THE COMMENT BELOW. THERE'S AN IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION MADE BY ONE OF THE THREE PEOPLE REFERENCED IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH. OBVIOUSLY I APOLOGIZE FOR THE MISREPRESENTATION.
Here's a great article about my friend and co-worker Srdjan Plecas, in today's Chattanooga Times Free Press.
There's an amazing group of free concerts (Jose Gonzales, Iron & Wine, Rilo Kiley, Bjork) from NPR's All Songs Considered podcast.
Click here to go to the iTunes page.
Also, check out their new NPR Music site.
I was talking to a friend the other night who had never watched Lost and I suggested that he should rent the first three seasons on DVD and catch up before we get too far into the fourth season which begins on Jan. 31st. I just discovered that all three seasons of Lost are streaming "in HD" on abc.com. Forget renting the DVDs. The quality's pretty good, so if you wanna save a few bucks and don't mind watching on your computer (I know, that's the dealbreaker), check it out.
Amazon's got a real shot at dethroning iTunes when it comes to selling major-label music online. They just announced they'll be selling Warner Music too without any kind of DRM, and they're doing it cheaper than iTunes. The ability to purchase music cheaply, legally, without strings and to play it on any player, including iPod and iPhone, is the only way ANYONE could compete with Apple in this market and it's taken Amazon's clout to make it happen. And it's not just music. They're also selling e-books with the Kindle which was pretty well-reviewed and movies that can be downloaded directly to the TiVo. We've done the movies a few times and have been moderately happy with the results. Once they work out a few kinks, it'll be great. They'll often have deals on relatively new rentals. We paid only a buck each to rent The Lives of Others, Hot Fuzz, Zodiac, and Ocean's Thirteen. Four movies for what it would cost us to rent one movie from Blockbuster and no trip to the store.
The DRM is a real pain though. If I start watching a movie at 8pm on tuesday night and my son wakes up and I can't finish the film that night, there's a 24 hour countdown 'til it disappears from the TiVo. It'll take a few years of competition before the restrictions are loosened for film rentals and books, but it's a trend, and I'm sure we'll get there eventually. Just don't expect to get there without some kicking and screaming.
This is a test of Hulu's embed capabilities. This SHOULD be a Kings of Leon performance from The Tonight Show. If it is, enjoy.
Great conversation last night on Bill Moyers Journal with Benjamin Barber about consumerism and democracy. The best part? There's no commercials. Enjoy. You can watch video or read the transcript here.
I just watched the Extras series finale that I recorded the other night. It played like a feature film. More serious than the regular episodes, I thought, and rightfully so. It's an odd series that way. Definitely a comedy, but comfortable being more. The show at times felt a diatribe about our fascination with celebrities. And yet Gervais himself seems to have an obsession with the idea of fame. Take a look at his most recent stand-up DVD. I love his talent and his integrity and can't wait to see what he does next. Apparently a film called Ghost Town will be released this summer also starring the very funny Kristen Wiig and Cameron Frye himself, Alan Ruck.
Aimee Mann released One More Drifter in the Snow last year.
It's a great Christmas album. If you're looking for new tunes to stir that holiday spirit in the coming weeks, you could do a lot worse.
I didn't hear about these 'til today so I assume others may have missed them as well. Go to http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/missingpieces to watch. Here's the official description:
Lost: Missing Pieces are 13 two- to three-minute stories of compelling, new, never-before-seen moments from the hit television show LOST. These newly-created scenes (not deleted scenes from previous episodes) reveal answers and new details about your favorite characters. For each story, we leave it up to the fans to figure out where these pieces fit into the overall mythology. The new stories are from the same creative team responsible for the series and feature the show's main actors in stories that have all the compelling values that make LOST one of the most popular dramas on television around the world.
I'm not sure if there's a contest for "most rockin' Thanksgiving photo", but if there is, I think we've got it won, hands down.
(I just hope we're not brought up on charges by the SMC)
I'm really excited about the new documentary from one of my favorite filmmakers, Jonathan Demme. It's about one of my favorite people.
Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains should be out soon. 
Here's a pic of me and my sister at the Carter headquarters a (very) long time ago.
