Self-Aggrandizement: October 2006 Archives

Get-Up
Filed October 30, 2006 7:45 PM.

As on most Halloweens past, tomorrow night I'll be playing big band jazz at the venerable Theater for the New City's Vintage Halloween Costume Ball, a masquerade party replete with liquor, food, live music, and weird, weird East Village types.

And, setting aside how my lack of trumpet practice time over the past month may leave my chops worse than mangled by the end of a two hour set holding down the solo trumpet chair, I'm primarily concerned about my lack of appropriate apparel. In prior years, the tuxedo dress code left me with little choice on the costume front, aside from toting toy gun and martini glass in my best attempt at Bond chic. This morning however, the bandleader emailed to say that we'd now be free to costume ourselves however our swinging hearts desire. Which leaves me, in short order, to come up with my best attempts at items-already-available-in-closet assembly.

As my backup choice is to wrap a bow and ribbon around my neck, going as god's gift to women, I'd better think fast.

Sayonara Carbonation
Filed October 30, 2006 7:31 PM.

Why is it that waitresses at Japanese restaurants always insist on pouring bottled beer into glasses while holding said bottles a solid foot above said glasses?

Check, prease.

For the Film Biz Dorks
Filed October 24, 2006 8:04 PM.

A quick note for all aspiring film entrepeneurs in New York City:

The Institute for International Film Financing, based in San Francisco, is now branching out to our fair city. It's a great group in which to network with other business-minded film folks, and their inaugural NYC event this Thursday evening has an impressive lineup of speakers. Plus, me.

I'll be talking about finding and seducing investors, and I promise the talk itself is far better than the name (which I didn't come up with myself), "THE FILM ENTREPRENEUR'S GUIDE TO SUCCESS: Strategies for Funding Your Film Co & Keeping Investors Happy".

Other folks will be talking about deal structure, courting hedge funds, tax credits, profitably distributing documentaries, and approaching film investment from a quantitative perspective.

While I realize most of you fell asleep even just reading that last sentence, I also don't doubt there are a handful of folks who wet their pants a little bit at the prospect of that lineup. If you're one of them, come on down, and certainly pop over to say hello.

Good Advice
Filed October 23, 2006 11:24 PM.

From the New Yorker, courtesy of Jess

Hooked on Crack(Berry)
Filed October 23, 2006 8:28 PM.

Over the past four years, I've gone through six Treos. One, admittedly, I lost while making out drunk in the back of a cab. But the other five, through no fault of my own, and after merely standard smart-phone use, self-destructed in sudden, unexpected, work-derailing ways. So, this time through, when my latest Treo stopped answering incoming phone calls, I decided to look into other options. I may be slow, but eventually I catch on.

For a few weeks, I Googled cellphone reviews obsessively, and even considered leaving behind my long-loved T-Mobile (with whom I've been since their Voicestream days), in search of the perfect smartphone. Fortunately, however, the bluebird - or, rather, the BlackBerry - of happiness was in my own backyard, as I eventually settled in on the spanking new T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl.

During my Treo years, I endured countless 'refrigerator phone' jokes, was often forced to reply, "actually, that is a phone in my pocket, and I'm not just happy to see you." So the Pearl's form factor alone was nearly enough to convert me. Thinner than a Razr, swankily silver and black, it had a look that, refreshingly, implied 'indie film hip' rather than 'corporate tech support worker not-so-much'. In fact, it didn't even include a belt clip.

And, it turns out, it works well, too. The phone sounds clear, the email functionality has been far better than the Treo's, the PDA software syncs cleanly with my Mac, the weird two-letter-to-a-key QWERTY is far, far better than I feared, and the Google Maps application has more than serviceably replaced Vindigo, a piece of software I'd previously assume I couldn't possibly live without.

Plus, as an added bonus, Jess' corporate BlackBerry is apparently attached to her like a pacemaker, allowing me to harass her via BlackBerry Messenger IM throughout the day or evening. Which is good, as we're both inexplicably semi-retarded when we speak to each other via phone.

So, in short, the BlackBerry Pearl = crazy delicious. If you're carrying any other smartphone, do your dorky self a favor, trade in for one of these suckers, and get as close as you can - while still, frankly, remaining kind of a smartphone-carrying loser - to looking at least passably cool.

Cohabitation
Filed October 17, 2006 6:22 PM.

Rob Barnum, who heads up Cyan's West Coast office, arrives in town early early early tomorrow morning via JetBlue red-eye, with his fiance Sophie in tow.

On past such trips, with both of us decidedly more single, and with our company equally bastardly cheap, Rob opted out of hotel booking, instead taking over my living room's fold-out couch.

So, out of old habit, we didn't book him somewhere to stay at the time he booked his flight for this trip, about a month or so back. We thought nothing of it, until late last week, when we realized that wedging a nearly-married couple along with me into my Manhattan-size apartment would, in short, be remarkably, awkwardly cramped.

So, for the balance of the week, I'm essentially gifting my home to those two crazy kids, and invading Jess' instead. It will be, by far, the longest contiguous stretch of nights she's had to put up with me; I give it four nights, tops, before my insisting on alternative pronunciations of words like 'equinox' leads her to punch me in the face.

Update: Jess texted to say she wouldn't punch me in the face. She'd kick me instead.

A Tale of Two Showers
Filed October 16, 2006 7:36 PM.

Right: Redken Pommade
Left: Neutrogena Shaving Cream

Guess which one I smeared through my hair this morning after shower number one, and, resultantly, before shower number two?

CringeyWYG
Filed October 12, 2006 11:10 AM.

While I've read at Cringe in the past, next week I'm returning for a special quasi-Cringe roadshow, being held here in Manhattan (rather than out in Brooklyn, Manhattan's waiting room), in conjunction with the WYSIWYG reading series.

From the producer:

The WYSIWYG Talent Show, NYC's first and only all-blogger reading and performance series, teams up with the diary-readin', poetry-spoutin', full-on adolescent angst of Brooklyn's Cringe reading series for the first time ever at 8 p.m. on October 18, 2006 with CringeyWYG!

Every month The WYSIWYG TALENT SHOW brings you readings and performances from some of the blogosphere's best and funniest writers, musicians, comedians and performance artists. And every month Cringe brings readings of teenage diaries, journals, notes, letters, poems, abandoned rock operas, and other general representations of the crushing misery of their humiliating adolescence. Together, they fight crime! Okay, not really, but it WILL be funny.

The WYSIWYG Talent Show's "CringeyWYG" performs Wednesday, October 18 at Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery between Bleecker and Houston). Doors open at 7:30 p.m., show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $7 at the door. For more information visit wysiwygtalentshow.org, queserasera.org/cringe.html, www.bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505.

With performances by:

* Sarah Brown
* Lindsay Robertson
* Marc Balgavy
* Joshua Newman
* Jason Boog
* Chris Hampton

About the performers:

Sarah Brown is the host of the Cringe Reading Series, the editor of the upcoming Cringe book, the executive co-producer of the upcoming Cringe television show, and the 1933 Oklahoma State Ladies' Trickshoot Champion. She is equal parts eight-year-old girl, 16-year-old boy, and 70-year-old man, so in the movie of her life she will be played by Liza Minelli. You can find her online at queserasera.org.

Lindsay Robertson writes a blog called lindsayism.com. She's written for GQ, MTV, ComedyCentral.com and Jane, among others. Until she discovered comedy in her late teens, she was planning to be the next Sylvia Plath.

During his final year of college, Marc Balgavy (http://balgavy.com/blog) created business cards for himself. Beyond listing his likes (Hal Hartley and graham crackers) and dislikes (dirty dishes and word searches), they listed his parents' phone number. The cards also featured a black and white photo of him wearing a bleached blonde goatee. In the intervening years he's realized those cards were the turning point where "filled with potential" met "easily distracted by go-nowhere projects."

Though it was for other, equally dorky, reasons that Forbes called him "a veritable Doogie Howser," Joshua Newman has been keeping a computer diary since the age of ten. He currently posts his entries online at www.self-aggrandizement.com, and spends the rest of his day running indie film studio Cyan Pictures and drinking heavily.

After spending two years on top of a mountain in Peace Corps Guatemala, Jason Boog chased the dream of every skinny Midwestern writer boy with glasses: to starve to death in New York City. He completed the graduate journalism program at NYU in 2004, and now works as a staff writer at the Institute for Judicial Studies (judicialreports.com). He writes the blog The Publishing Spot (thepublishingspot.com).

WYSIWYG creator and curator Chris Hampton has been blogging at Uffish Thoughts (uffish.com) since blogging wasn't cool. By day, she works at a Big Gay Nonprofit and in her spare time she knits, pimps WYSIWYG at every possible opportunity, and obsesses over Project Runway and punctuation. She grew up in Arkansas but has since fully recovered.

About WYSIWYG:
"Urban Storytelling for the Internet Age" – Now in its third year, the WYSIWYG Talent Show is a monthly series of readings and performances by bloggers living in or visiting NYC. Every month WYSIWYG showcases a variety of themed evenings featuring topics on everything from bad bosses and drugs to extreme gayness and summer camp. Each installment is an evening of funny and touching stories, songs, and performances from some of the best writers and most interesting personalities on the Web. More information can be found at wysiwygtalentshow.org.

About Cringe:
Cringe is a monthly reading series hosted by Sarah Brown at Freddy's Bar & Backroom in Brooklyn. On the first Wednesday of each month, brave souls come forward and read aloud from their teenage diaries, journals, notes, letters, poems, abandoned rock operas, and other general representations of the crushing misery of their humiliating adolescence. It's better and cheaper than therapy. More information can be found at
queserasera.org/cringe.html.

GF
Filed October 11, 2006 11:04 PM.

As I haven't blogged about it for several weeks, a handful of readers have written in to ask if I was still seeing The Girl, who I'll henceforth call Jess, mainly because that's her name.

And, in short, yes I absolutely still am. In fact, for her birthday last Friday, I gave her a small, metal Eiffel Tower, redeemable for a long weekend trip to Paris. So, yes, still dating, and, yes, still serious. But, at the same time, and contrary to my brother's strongly held belief, I absolutely, positively, 100% will not be proposing while in Paris, or at any point in the near future. A long-standingly commitment-phobic tiger can only move so fast in changing his stripes.

Also for her birthday, I gave her a cake. About two weeks before the day, she told me that she didn't really like birthdays, and didn't really want any presents. The next day, she pointed out that perhaps she'd like a cake. The day after, it was a cake from Carvel. Then a vanilla ice cream Carvel cake. Then, day by successive day, one with some chocolate ice cream at the bottom, and a layer of oreo crunchies, a round cake, one with a ring of blue frosting and rainbow sprinkles and "Happy Birthday Jess!!" in pink icing on top.

On the morning of her birthday, I went to pick up the pre-ordered, pre-specified cake, and discovered that, while almost perfect, it was instead emblazoned with "Happy Birthday Jeff!!" in pink curlique. And though, in the end, I had them fix it, lest her friends think I was a total moron, I was sorely tempted to keep it Jeff-ed, as I was rightly sure she'd think it was uproariously funny.

Which is, in short, why she's exactly my type.

Alive
Filed October 11, 2006 3:22 PM.

Just a quick note to any family and friends who may have heard the breaking news that a small plane just hit a building on the Upper East Side, to say that I'm alive, David's alive, my girlfriend's alive, and all of Cyan's employees are alive.

Back to work.

F. Scott, Redux
Filed October 10, 2006 6:35 PM.

On the requests of a slew of readers, from both her site and mine, Sarah Brown and I returned to my living room about a month back to record a second episode of The F. Scott & Friends Bourbon and Brylcreem Hour.

Sadly, it's not quite as raucously funny as the last one, largely because we kept forgetting what we were talking about, leaving me to slave poorly over Garageband for the last month, cutting random short bits together into something vaguely coherent.

It does pick up after a bit, though we get sort of NPR towards the end as we sober up, at least until we leave the table to get more liquor and then return to give up on podcasting altogether, defaulting instead to singing "Jackson" very, very badly along with June Carter and Johnny Cash.

All in all, it's good stuff. But the next one should be even better. Sarah and I are hitting the microphones again this weekend, this time with some topics and stories planned in advance, and I guarantee it will be at least as hilarious as both episodes added together and squared.

Until then:

The F. Scott & Friends Bourbon and Brylcreem Hour, Episode 2

[On some browsers, you may need to right-click and 'save the link as...']

(Time: 38:33; Size 18.2MB)

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Guest Blog: Josh Lilienstein on Medeski Martin & Wood
Filed October 4, 2006 12:21 PM.

With recorded music ever easier to find, fewer and fewer people take the time to go see their favorite groups perform live. Which is a shame, because a good live show is an experience completely unmatched by disembodied sounds floating out of living room speakers. My old friend Josh Lilienstein recently emailed along this summary of a MMW concert he attended. I'm posting it up here in the hopes that it will get a few more readers out of their chairs, and into clubs, bars and concert halls.

If you go see one popular band this week, this month, this year, or this decade, these guys should be on your radar. When was the last time you saw a concert where all three members of the group (plus the special guest) were ALL incredible musicians? When was the last time that you heard improvised music that made a crowd get up and dance? When was the last time you saw a jazz concert where each of the musicians onstage traded off leading the group, instead of trading solos?

As soon as i could find a musical reference, they were on to the next. Ellington degenerates into chaos which is rescued by funk slipping into blues, at which point the guy on the standup bass grabs his bow, hits the reverb pedal, and launches into Hendrix, soaring into a Miles Davis bebop breakdown and across the Florida keys to mid-century Cuban dance hall, shimmies out to Mariachi shores and back-to-Africa tribal chants, dropping the bass into some deep house, devolving into 80s metal, with country western rock and roll gracefully saving the day, and Indian raga bringing us back into downtown New York jazz. And that was just the first song. They played for two hours.

Medeski, the keyboardist, is a master of his craft. He actually used, often in ridiculously complex combinations, three keyboards, a moog, a sequencer, a sound board, and a record player. Often, in order to somehow account for genius, we imagine that impressive people had been born in the wrong decade; thankfully, this guy was not. Using a historically-informed musicianship and contemporary instruments, he shows up an entire generation of DJs and computer geeks.

The Bros holla'ed. The tube-top girls grinded. The fat man clapped and jumped along. The hippies twirled. The stoners passed joints with a smile. The intellectuals bobbed their heads while scratching their chins. Something for everyone!

When was the last time you saw a drummer who was subtle? Who had a real dynamic range? Who used every snap, crackle, bop, wheeze, and thump he could think of to move the music instead of making noise?

When was the last time you really wanted to hear the bass, and actually could? Have you ever seen a standup bass played like a Stratocaster? Ever head a saw (yes, a saw, placed on the bridge of the bass so it resonated) ROCK the party?

Those of you who were involved in improvisational music thirty years ago need to see the fruits of your movement. Those of you who feel alienated from popular culture need a reality check. Take your kids. Get high. You musicians out there, go get inspired.

[Catch an upcoming MM&W show near you.]

Follicular
Filed October 3, 2006 8:44 PM.

It was about three and a half years back that I decided to grow a beard. I did it on a whim, as an exercise in sheer laziness, and for what, I assumed, would be a rather short stint.

But, after a month, having drawn nearly positive reviews, I decided to stick with it. I settled into a medium length - setting five on my now trusty Remington Precision MB-30 Beard Trimmer - and weathered such early bearded conundrum as whether I should shave pre-tropics, to ward off the apparent peril of inverted beard-tan should I stick with the beard in the short term, only to decide to lose it mid-fall.

As the priority of faux-aged gravitas waned in favor of general indie hipness, I clicked my Remington down to setting four, and then, about nine months back, to setting three. By now, even a day or two past setting three scruffiness (or, as per this weekend, four solid days past), I start to look and feel a bit too 'man of the woods' for my own taste. So, increasingly, I've taken to nearly daily trimming. And to nearly daily neck-hair trimming, a region I previously shaved completely, as it - if allowed to grow past its current merely scruffy state - yields a distressingly Amish look.

But, through it all, and despite subtly varying forms, I stuck with the beard. A few times along the way, I shaved completely, curious to see whether I still preferred my more hirsute self. And, each time, the beardless version looked, well, a bit less like me.

So, for the foreseeable future, at least, the beard stays in the picture. Which, taking into account savings on razors and shaving cream alone, should get me retired to the Bahamas just that much sooner. Albeit with a rather serious inverted beard tan.

Get-Up Filed October 30, 2006 7:45 PM.

Sayonara Carbonation Filed October 30, 2006 7:31 PM.

For the Film Biz Dorks Filed October 24, 2006 8:04 PM.

Good Advice Filed October 23, 2006 11:24 PM.

Hooked on Crack(Berry) Filed October 23, 2006 8:28 PM.

Cohabitation Filed October 17, 2006 6:22 PM.

A Tale of Two Showers Filed October 16, 2006 7:36 PM.

CringeyWYG Filed October 12, 2006 11:10 AM.

GF Filed October 11, 2006 11:04 PM.

Alive Filed October 11, 2006 3:22 PM.

F. Scott, Redux Filed October 10, 2006 6:35 PM.

Guest Blog: Josh Lilienstein on Medeski Martin & Wood Filed October 4, 2006 12:21 PM.

Follicular Filed October 3, 2006 8:44 PM.