Adam rocks the house

Many years ago in 1997, I started recording an album that was to be called "Peter the Slaughterer"(it still isn't quite finished, and is now called "The Story of PeterGrey".) I hung out a bit with the sound engineers Chris, Adam and Mike. After the studio closed down in 1998, my album sat dormant until I started work on it again in 2001. I got an email Wednesday from Chris in Montreal (he works at Musique Plus, French Canada's answer to MTV) telling me that Adam was having a CD release party with a live performance at Café Dekcuf (spell it backwards if you don't get it). I went, and it was like stepping right back into 1997. Everybody was there and we all had a great time. Adam was entertaining. A girl threw a "thong" style pair of turquoise panties on the stage, so he wore them as a headband for a song. Adam did his "movie ad" voice and said things like "In a world of wonder and hardship, only THIS AUDIENCE can drink enough beer to marinate in." I reacquainted myself with various musicians, learned what gigs theyhave coming up that I could go see, got emails and URLs and took pictures of the show for Adam#2 the bass player, who was playing a 12-stringbass.

I am Invincible! (and I'm a geek)

I now have the power to capture VHS tape and television to my computer and edit it. All because of an astute purchase on eBay. Yay. My performance on TV earlier this month is first in line to be transferred to digital media. The cartoon script "Sonnet Crescent" is pretty much finished. The people whose personality quirks it blatantly lampoons seem fairly pleased with it, and not apt to take it too personally, so long as they get to be part of the fun. Wow. I wish I'd been able to afford to go to the huge comic/sci fi convention in San Diego this week. Guests included Halle Berry, Kevin Smith, Angelina Jolie, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Robert Englund, Hugh Jackman, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, Mark Hamill, Michael Madsen, Quentin Tarantino and many others. Also, with all the talk about a new Batman movie, and with how bad Batman movies have always looked and been, it was cool to see some raving fanboys (obviously costuming and propexperts) put up an online little movie short called "Batman:Dead End" with Batman in a cloth and leather suit (not rubber) that looked good. It has the usual choppy, "too much in too little time with not enough story" problem we have grown accustomedto in Hollywood blockbusters and the work of teenagers with video-cameras alike, but is worth checking out for the great job they did on the look of everything, especially Batman, who is meaner than he ever was in a movie before.(Batman spitting out blood after being hit in the face helps add that kind of grittiness that seems more realistic. It's pretty much impossible to get in any kind of a physical confrontation and keep all your dignity, to staylooking cool, clean and undisheveled)

Celtfest 2003

I went to Celtfest again this year. Missed hearing Danny O'Connell and Kelly Sloan perform (they're local acts) but enjoyed Newfie singer extraordinaire Dave Anthony, who has a powerful voice and a frenetic stage presence, with the usual songs sung about people fightingand drinking while pubs (or ships or fair lasses) burn down. One song rhymed"arthritis" with "colitis". It was windy and damp, and rained off and on,but we hung tough and enjoyed what was being done on the little stage in the hollow of the hills with forest around. I only saw 7 or so kids I taught while student teaching last year in this small town, but went unnoticed by them, being out of context and having more of a beard and shaggy hair than they're used to. Lots of piping and some outstanding stepdancing from four sistersin a family group called Searson. A bevy of young girls with hairflying in the wind, stamping rhythmically, but somehow also appearing next to weightless, like they were on wires. Wirework special effects in movies never impresses me much, but trampoline performers, gymnasts, dancers, martial artists and other people who appear like they can almost fly make my heart pretty much stop while they're in the air.

The crap you can get on eBay!

This attractive plastic duo, engaged in not-quite solitary vices! I had the one on the left (Aquaman) when I was about 6. It was the first action figure that I bought. The hole in the hand (for putting weapons and objects in) was perfect for threading string through, and then you could slide them down string or thread stretched out the window to trees and so on.

First Blog Post

I'm newly-certified to teach high school English, and find that July isn't a good month to talk to schools about hiring. They've all disappeared to cottages, no doubt. So, I'm just trying to pass the time without spending any money, despite having recently discovered eBay. I'm doing swimming and writing a script for an online Flash cartoon I think I will call "Sonnet Crescent"