Many of you have been kind enough to ask how well Podcamp went. I say kind enough rather than cruel enough because it actually did go quite well -- then again how were you to know that? Somehow the five-minute idea that Mike Place gave me was somehow extended out to a half-hour. I made quite a few contacts, which will make my volunteer job a lot tougher. Here's to socialized productivity!
The biggest eye-opener of Podcast, however was the juggernauty presence of Twitter. Just about every single person I talked to asked me my Twitter information. By the end of the day I finally said "Check Twitter in the next few days and look up 'rexbasior' because that will undoubtedly be my Twitter name."
It's not like I've been resisting Twitter up to this point. I'm not that guy. I really love Facebook already and haven't OD'd. I understand that many devote too much of their lives to these social interweb things, but there's really no reason to protest the concepts outright.
I'm now on Twitter for anyone interested. I admit I still don't understand it, but they made it fun right from the beginning. They started with a list of "interesting" people I may want to "follow," which means I guess that I see their status updates as they happen. The suggested list included quite a range of personalites: Penn Jillette (I wonder if his kid Moxy Crimefighter is on Twitter?), Dave Matthews, Soulja Boy, Has Cheeseburger. From the big list I decided to follow Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder), Levar Burton and Spencer Pratt. Since last night, through Facebook and emails I've added Depeche Mode, Jim Gaffigan and Weird Al Yankovic.
Here is my very first Twitter entry:
just started twitter. i guess i'm "tweeting." is that it? caw! caw! wipporwil wipporwil look up here look up here! hey you guys!
Check me out. I'm rexbasior. I'll probably add a button or something soon. We'll see if it's worth liking.
So back to Podcamp. Toward the end of the day I found myself more relaxed and actually participated. The result was my winning a hat. A baseball hat. Longtime friends and astute readers of my internet presence know that I don't actually wear caps like this. I won it, though and it is kind of a cool hat and it's says "Podgineer" which is pretty geeky; so I think I'll wear it after all.
I do look really weird in it though. Ever see that old X-men cartoon episode where Wolverine infiltrates the Friends of Humanity by posing as a normal human being? He whips a baseball cap on and he looks totally abnormal. I'm not saying I look like Wolverine or anything, but I do have Wolverine hair and burns and stuff.
Oh, yeah. It's the last day of March and I'm finally revealing my March mustache.
Found a piece of interesting technology on my blogosphere prowl. Thanks (M)ary. There's this site called xtranormal and what it does is animate your text for you. So here's my first little animation. The character below isn't really me. He's just a confused, hilarious soul.
This is weird. I really am presenting at PodcampSLC -- I guess today at 11:50.
I'm telling you now, so you won't come. You won't come anyway, it costs 20 bucks to get in. I'm pretty nervous. I think I have about five minutes worth of total B.S.ing that I need to extend out two a half hour. I want to go the full half hour because if I open it up to questions it will give me several chances to look even stupider.
I need to talk on "The Future of Podcasting." Yikes. I'm no prophet. I'm not even a professor. I gotta get up and say that the Pinpoint SLC model we use is where independent podcasting is heading. I need to say that last sentence for 30 MINUTES.
This week I bought three sets of concert tickets and am considering buying four. Lots of times when I splurge I splurge in sets. (ps.. I'm a tool) After watching Fever Pitch (the Colin Firth one written by Nick Hornby, NOT the Jimmy Fallon one) late last night, I realized that all four musical acts are actually British.
I've been constantly pulled to the motherland. One day I'll get there. It'll happen. I'm not much of a beans on toast guy, but I bet there are tons of good Chinese places there. Even while watching the movie I thought of how fun it would be to wander real English streets with soccer hooligans.
Back when I went to Israel ten years ago, I found myself hanging out with some of the European students. One Brit there wore his Doc Martens constantly (even at the beach) and had a giant Union Jack beach towel. Sorta punk, but definitely allegiant to the Queen.
One day he was dissing pretty hard on the United States at a steady stream and great volume. One of us was finally like, "Hey, take it easy. You're the guys who lost the revolution!" Then, I remember this well, he looked right at all us Yanks and said (with EXTREME sarcasm): "Oh? Is that when we let you have your own country?"
We all chuckled. No hard feelings. We won the war, but I've always felt that the British won the music. They gave us a country but since then there have been several very successful British invasions in music. In my opinion, they've dominated.
Anyway, let's talk about the shows I'm going to.
Lily Allen -- April 8, 2009 8:00 pm -- In the Venue Buy tickets!
Lately I've had a real good time saying her name "Riry Arren."
If you're reading this, you know I've had a healthy obsession with her for the past few weeks. I first took notice of her on Saturday Night Live. I'm pretty sure she performed "LDN" and "Smile" from her first cd.
Notice how different she sounded back then. She was a little more reggae, a little more Nellie McKay-ish. Here's the complete new song of hers that everyone has been telling me lately how much they love.
What the heck. Here's her cover of the Britney Spears song "Womanizer."
The Ting Tings -- April 9, 2009 9:00 pm -- The Urban Lounge Buy tickets!
Maria has been very adamant lately about how much I'll enjoy this show. They're sorta electronic I think, but they mix the beats and the loops live on stage. That means there is an element of improvisation and "live-ness" that may be missing from the average electronic show. My buddy Scott is a bouncer at the Urban Lounge. He seems pretty excited that the Lounge got the show. In his opinion The Ting Tings are very well liked by pretty girls, so maybe that will get some of my guy friends to come along (and some of my chick friends too probably). I don't know much about this band. Based on the clip below, they're sorta electro-loopy-cheerleaderish. Lemme tell ya though. Ten minutes after you watch the clip, it'll still be pounding through your head in a good way.
Franz Ferdinand -- April 21, 2009 6:30 pm -- The Great Saltair Buy tickets!
Haven't gotten the tickets yet, but I'm pretty sure I will.
I bought the original Franz Ferdinand album when it came out and didn't think much of it for the first six months or so I had it. Eventually, it really really grew on me and I realized it may be in my top ten favorite albums. Everybody knows "Take Me Out," but most of the songs on there are way better (including the super-gay "Michael" and the weirdly groovy "'40"). I saw these guys at Saltair in pre-promotion for their underrated second album. Good. Times. Before the show I was able to meet the lead singer at an X96 meet and greet. We talked music a bit. He was extremely gracious and nice and genuine. That always makes the music sound better.
Here's their new song. I love the toward the camera intense walk. I'm gonna film myself doing an intense toward the camera walk someday.
Depeche Mode -- August 25, 2009 8:00 pm -- The E-Center Buy tickets!
My first Depeche Mode show was in 1994 on the second leg of the Songs of Faith and Devotion Tour. Just about my favorite live show ever. I learned years later that the lead singer was in the middle of his romance with heroin and everyone in the band hated each other at that time. Never would have guessed. I've seen DM three times since then and Dave Gahan's solo tour once. If they do a show, I go. It's tradition I doubt I'll ever part with. Who knows how many shows that will be. This very well may be the last one. Of course they've milked me plenty for the past 20 years, what's another 20?
Depeche Mode shows are incredibly entertaining despite what they are on paper. The nature of the music means that much of the music isn't performed live on instruments. They've added A LOT more instrumentation lately, but unless I'm misinformed they still have a backing tape that plays the entire duration of the show. Nevertheless the show and spectacle of it all is brilliant and needs to be seen. I love just going to the E-Center every three years or so to see some of "my people."
Here's the new one. The album isn't out yet. I think it comes out April 21st or something.
Thanks to my good friend Jake for getting me what I asked for. I think I like the cd even better than I thought I would. Wonderful stuff. Check out the current song of the moment and see if you feel the same way.
In the meantime, disorder persists -- or at least it's directed right at me.
My new Canon camcorder continues to thwart me. Canon continues to thwart me. Weeks ago I went through all the time and expense of shipping it off to Irvine, California to fix it and they sent it back with a note saying they fixed one of the problems I complained about (they didn't even mention the other one). Okay, now here's the best part: the problem they claimed to have fixed wasn't even fixed. On top of all that, I just realized that a girl left me for Irvine several years ago.
I attempted to talk out their customer service guy last week in hopes of simply getting a new camera for the inconvenience. He informed me that the warranty only covers items being fixed and not replaced. If the engineers determine that an item can't be fixed, then the warranty is void. In my lamest way possible, I explained my fear that Canon could simply void all warranties if they wanted to since they were the ones determining what could be fixed and what couldn't. Obviously, the guy didn't have a response worthy of easing my annoyance. He even said that the camera could be shipped several times before the engineers decided the unit needed replacing and replacement options for me wouldn't be available until then.
I tried to be a little bit mean, but when I hung up the phone I realized that I can't be that way, at least not effectively. I mean to say that I'm all super-nice and rainbows and sausages or whatever. In actuality, I'm actually quite a negative and essentially mean person. Thing is, when I get emotional, I get useless and embarrassing. Rather than being a focused laser of cruelty I become a big dumb bag of incomprehensibility.
So I sent the camera back today with a stern (but ultimately non-menacing) note. What will happen?
Also, I accidentally ordered something on-line last night. I was just shopping around for shiz, and I thought I'd see how much stuff was with all the "free gifts and offers." The order deviously went through before the price confirmation screen. The free gifts and offers ensured that the cost wasn't doubled, but actually quadrupled at least. Super-embarrassing and mega-lame of them to do this to me when I was already so annoyed with the world already. I got the confirmation email immediately, but the phone customer service told me I couldn't cancel the order until it went through the system. Once it was shipped, however, I'd be stuck (or at least stucker). Despite the obviousness of their being aware of the order already, I played by the rules and caught it in time.
Is it any wonder I hate leaving my house? They're all out to get me. Perhaps I should lose the internet, though.
Sorry it's taken so long to report on the movie. Maybe I figured I'd been talking about it too much.
Anyway, to sum up, I really really liked it. Usually, I hate it when a movie follows the book too closely. This, however, is an exception. It was SO close that a huge amount of admiration must be thrown at the makers.
Still, at the same time, taking so few chances GUARANTEES that the book is better than the movie. And for the most part reading the trade paperback of Watchmen is still the way to go.
There were a few tiny things that the movie went the extra mile in.
Probably the most original thing to come out of the movie was the opening credit sequence. Even though it didn't provide the essential backstory it probably needed to, it set the perfect tone for the re-written history that takes place in the story. Some highlights to this highlight: the reveal that The Comedian assassinated JFK, Silhouette kissing the nurse on V-J Day, Dollar Bill shot-up and stuck in the revolving door.
Also, Zack Snyder seems to be getting a surprising amount of credit for his re-tooling of the ending. I must say, that probably do like the new ending better. I think it wraps the story up more nicely to turn the action back around on Dr. Manhattan rather than introducing a completely new element. I am starting to see some flaws in it though. Maybe Alan Moore needed the alien component in there because all the other countries on Earth continued to war around even when they had the fear of Manhattan when he was a pawn of the United States.
I didn't like how they actually called themselves "Watchmen." In the book, the costumed masks never had an official organization called "Watchmen." In my opinion, the reason Moore called the series that is because the superheroes themselves didn't understand that they were acting as unnecessary watchmen. The PEOPLE understood that, which explains the graffiti "WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?"
Strangely, the other best parts of the movie are the ones that probably should have been excised for time -- like the extended soliloquy of Jon on Mars about his origin (which was absolutely beautiful). I also appreciate that they included the prison sequence of Rorschach. I think it would have been very easy for Snyder to simply have Rorschach evade prison and move the plotline forward early.
I heard the studio wanted to also cut the funeral sequence of The Comedian. Hey, I'm not even going to blame the studio heads for that. It makes sense to do so. I'm really glad they didn't because the guy who played The Comedian was the highlight of the entire film for me. In my opinion, he's EXACTLY how I envisioned the character and the flashback sequences during the funeral scene were awesome.
Love to the guy who played Rorschach as well. Silk Spectre and Ozymandias? Not so much.
So yep. Totally liked it. Here's The Cinematic Experience Review:
Here's an image of me taken at our IMAX screening. Yeah, I dressed as Rorschach, although I probably should have dressed as a naked, blue Dr. Manhattan.
So the numbers are coming in about the movie and I sorta hoped for better. What is mostly mind-blowing is the discrepancy in the numbers between Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
I don't usually associate with Metacritic. Maybe it always grades down. 15 points may not be much of a difference, but when J.R. told me a couple of days ago that the reviews were pretty rough going in the reports were 75 on Rotten Tomatoes and 30 on Metacritic. 30.
That's not too hard to believe considering that Metacritic highlighted the review of esteemed Anthony Lane of The New Yorker. I didn't read the review in its entirety (fear of spoilers -- and yeah, I know I read the graphic novel three times -- I still haven't seen the screen interpretation of said graphic novel), but here's how it ends:
I'm not even sure where to start with this. It's not like Watchmen was ever a comic strip. It was, I suppose, a comic book -- but even the highest educated snob in the nation ought to know that 90% of comic books aren't actually comedy. Not that I should compare Watchmen to Shakespeare or anything, but can you really justify hating Hamlet if you say "Where did the comedy go?" as the play finishes?
Perhaps getting in the right frame of mind helps. Joe disliked the book. The first thing he said to me was "there was not one redeeming character in the whole thing." For the most part I agree, but where he found annoyance, I found pleasure. Perhaps I'm morose, melancholy and morbid; but I've always gotten a bigger kick out of the antagonism in the arts and entertainment I subject myself to. I take more out of peoples' failures than successes. Maybe that's why The Old Testament is so wicked fun. Negative conditioning works better for me.
So a few years ago I read a story where the superheroes are failures. I can see why anyone would have a hard time enjoying that. The trick of course, is to distinguish what the message is. Is the message that superheroes are dead and therefore heroism is dead and the world is stuck in relentless entropy? It may be easy to think. In my own warped way I find stories such as these incredibly optimistic. The world may very well have no one to depend on, so that's where we come in. The world very well may have ended 30 minutes ago. Is it time to give up now? For most people -- for most heroes -- it would be. Watchmen spells it out. But is it right? Nope. The answer isn't given, but the question is asked... and answered rhetorically.
So sorry Anthony Lane. I love comedies and I love happy endings, but they have little value without tragedy.
My hope for the movie has picked up a little. Since I grabbed the Metacritic image several hours ago the critical praise has shot up to like 54. This week marks my first association with Metacritic and I'm not sure I'll continue. Among the new critics coming in is of course is Roger Ebert's high praise. The guy tends to go all over the place though -- especially with superhero movies. One reason I like reading his stuff is because he personalizes his experience a lot more than most.
Also, Maxim finally broke the three-time streak of people I gave my copy of Watchmen to who hated it.
So now it's a party. About 20 of my friends are going and my birthday celebration that started last week, comes to a close in about 40 hours. Even Joe is excited. This can only mean one thing: I'll hate the movie.
David Edelstein from New York Magazine makes a much better point.
Way too many people complain when movies diverge from the source material. I have the opposite complaint. If there's no difference between book and movie, what's the point of the movie? Where's the new life? Are we creating or are we Xeroxing? Anyway, good point David.
*sigh* I'll be doing the same thing when Ender's Game finally comes out. In the meantime...
