Oh my goodness. this shit rules. My mom has been talking up Guitar Hero to me after her experience doing it for her big LAN parties at the EMU, but I played it last night with my political gang over at Fred's and I now understand what all the hype is about. It's awesome!

I see a near-future where you have a pocket-amp-sized device that plugs into the controller port and has a standard pickup which can actually teach people to play guitar for real; online concerts are coming soon. Twelve-year-olds will love this stuff.

On the side, we also got to watch the technological equivalent of Girls Gone Wild, which is funny too.

Anyway, NYC is treating me well as usual, although I am beginning to pine for the routine and comfort of home. I still have some road ahead though: five more days here and than at least three or four in SF doing some meetings and (cross fingers) attempting to buy a car.

I believe I'm mostly caught up on the two network shows I follow: BattleStar Galactica and Lost. The former is having a gangbusters third season, the latter losing its edge.

It's not an easy thing to make a good network serial drama. The form demands you have 25 episodes or so, each 45 minutes long and broken up by commercials. That's a lot of chapters to fill. Network executives mess with the work in progress trying to tease out better ratings, and they're usually not looking at making a great piece of culture, just how to get more eyeballs next sweeps.

The people who work for HBO have a much easier time of it: 12 one-hour episodes with no commercials and you pretty much get to make the whole thing. Input from the parent company comes in the off-season and you've got an entity that sees the long-game of DVD sales as a big part of their margin, so they want a quality product.

That being said, it's instructive to watch what happens as one show ripens and another deteriorates.

Well, I lost a post I wrote about Lost somewhere in the last couple of days. Bummer.

Anyway, I caught up on the first three episodes, and I like it so far. It's unrealistic, but that's sort of the point; the show is interesting to me because it's about allegory and psychology and mystery. There's danger in that kind of narrative unraveling as things get "explained," but so far so good (e.g. w/the bear cages).

Also, loved the (highly unrealistic) shout out to the HC in Locke's dope-plantation flashback. Also also liking the new strong female leads among the others (including Trixie from Deadwood!).

Yeah, my other post was a little more substantive. What are ya gonna do?

Click and see. The fact that this sort of thing is not allowed makes no sense to me. I mean, the ads for Fahrenheit 9/11 were much more disparaging to Boosh.

Can't wait for the networks to stop mattering.

Washington, Washington... 6-foot-20, fucking kiling for fun:

Here come's George, in control
Women love his snuff and his gallant stroll
Ate opponents brains
And invented cocaine
He's coming / He's coming
He's coming / He's coming

And as an extra bonus, something my old colleague Jeremy Rosen made which strikes me as an excelent little production. Seems like something I would do with Frank if the times were different.

Conversations with Fiona Apple:

Finally, one for real politics. This is possibly the best "go vote" ad I've ever seen. It's intelligent, it's sophisticated, and it's humorous without being self-depricating. It's Women's Voices Women's Vote:

If there's any one thing that could get the progressive bandwaggon (health care! health care!) going in this country, it would be if younger/single women started voting in greater numbers.

This should be good...

How about an "OC" parody set against the backdrop of Humbold County? Everyone here seems to think it'll be grand fun. Basically we intermingle people's local drama (names changed, etc) with the forms and structures of Fox's TV-show, and have a bunch of fun making little five-minute episodes.

Could be a good little project.

How about an "OC" parody set against the backdrop of Humbold County? Everyone here seems to think it'll be grand fun. Basically we intermingle people's local drama (names changed, etc) with the forms and structures of Fox's TV-show, and have a bunch of fun making little five-minute episodes.

Could be a good little project.

Got Season 3 Episode 3 in ye olde torrentfeed; I'm still not watchin', as Mark, Kells and I just got through the first season. Lookin' fwd to it though.

Hung out with good old Joe Felice and his traveling companion Jenny the other night here. They were passing through on down from camping up in Shasta. We talk a bit about where our lives are going, Joe pointed back at NYC and being an artist again, and good for him. He's a witty mofo, will do real well for himself if he keeps at it I think.

It's interesting, my relationship to the creative process and how it's evolved. I haven't really tried to make anything in a long time, and I'm finding myself rusty, heasitant and nervous. Some people like to blow smoke at me for my blogging, but I hardly think these chicken-scratching amount to much from an artistic standpoint.

Sure, I turn the odd phrase that's maybe worth keeping, and I find the medium to be a great avenue for self-expression, but I've always been one to observe a wide and gaping chasm between self-expression and something worth paying attention to. This puts a bit of distance twixt me and a lot of other artists in that I think of the audience as final arbiter of worth (if no one "gets" what you're doing, you're not doing very good).

Point is, I try to have high and rarified standards for this here Bachelor of the Fine Arts. I'm playing with my little video camera and suddenly feeling the urge to rehearse. I think this is good, something I should do. Rehearsal is a positive thing, a sound practice and essential part of any quality craft.

Rehearsal starts with some writing off in a room. It needs time and privacy. I should probably get started then, eh?