Posts categorized “Links”

There are lots and lots of independent movies floating about the world and the internets in various stages of production. Many of them have Kickstarter campaigns. One of them is called “Winning Dad.”

How is it that this movie came to garner my support when so many others have not? Well, for starters it’s being made locally: all Western Washington cast and crew and whatnot. For another thing, it’s got a pretty intriguing premise that fits very well into our enlightened, Pacific-Northwest mindset:

Colby’s dad knows his son is gay, but he doesn’t like talking about it. He respects it, but ignores everything about that aspect of his son’s life – he doesn’t even know about Colby’s long-term boyfriend, Rusty.

Increasingly committed to Rusty, Colby hatches a plan to trick his father into camping with Rusty under the pretense that Rusty is Colby’s straight friend and future business partner. Colby is convinced that, given the chance, his father and his boyfriend will get along great…

But what REALLY sealed the deal for me was the fact that my pals Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount were hired to write the soundtrack for the movie. The ENTIRE soundtrack!

Here’s their Kickstarter vid so you can learn more:

As an added bonus, they’ve also hired Ellen McLain, who you probably know as the voice of GLaDOS from the Portal games (and in Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Pacific Rim extravaganza) as one of the on-screen characters in the film. She’s also gotten involved in the Kickstarter campaign, and let’s just say that this time the cake is NOT a lie:

And what’s that song that was playing in the background during that video? Why it’s “Skatepark” by Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount!

SOLD!

Be like me (you know you wanna) and support this film’s Kickstarter campaign. Also find them elsewhere on the internets:
There’s Facebook: – http://www.facebook.com/winningdad
Twitter: – http://twitter.com/winningdadmovie
and their Newsletter: – http://eepurl.com/p5dHn

Today’s Google Doodle is pretty durned awexome:

Google’s Red Doodle

See, it’s the 200th anniversary of the publishing of the 1st edition of the Grimm brothers’ collection of Fairy tales. Which included Little Red Riding Hood.

Anyway, if you haven’t already, click here and enjoy the story of Little Red Riding Hood told entirely with pictures and no dialogue, done in an art style that I absolutely adore (does anyone know how to find the artist credits for these Google Doodles?).

Now we never have to wonder, because there’s an amazing resource: the incredibly-cleverly-named website www.howmanypeopleareinspacerightnow.com

When I wrote this post, there were 3 people in space:

You’re welcome.

I am friends with SO many musicians, so this was bound to happen eventually: Two of my friends’ bands are having Kickstarter campaigns at the same time!

First off is Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount, with their Kickstarter for their next album, Five Letters from Far Away. Also, they might be running for president in 2016 and Geoff needs a better hobby than making a heap of rocks. Here’s the explanatory video:

And second is Nathan Geyer the Orange Fool’s Band Locust Street Taxi with the Kickstarter for their next album, their final album before they become famous. This is kind of an all-or-nothing proposition for this band; they say that if this album doesn’t make them famous then they’re callin’ it quits. Here’s their video:

Two worthy Kickstarters at one time!? What is someone to do? The answer is simple. Give pledges to both by following these links here!

• Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount
• Locust Street Taxi

That’s what I did. So can you!

Yesterday after din-dins we went down to the Tacoma Art Museum because it was the kick off of 2012′s Tacoma Arts Month (which meant you could get into the museum for free). There was some sort of awards thing, but we didn’t go to that. Instead we enjoyed some of the food & drink provided in the lobby, then wandered through some of the exhibits.

An Andy Warhol exhibit is opening this weekend, but it wasn’t open last night. Instead we wandered through Michael Kenna‘s exhibit. Michael Kenna is a black-and-white photographer. All of his prints are 8″ × 8″ in size. I really like his stuff. He tends to do scenes that have some haziness to them (and he really excels at scenes where you can’t tell where the sky ends and the land/water begins) with a shock of a pitch-black object (like a tree) in the foreground. Like this:

Kussharo Lake Tree, Study 7, Kotan, Hokkaido, Japan, 2007

Anyhoo, you can see a lot more on Michael Kenna’s website. We’ll probably go back later this month to check out the Warhol exhibit.

But a really cool thing that happens during Tacoma Arts Month is the Art @ Work Studio Tours thing that’s happening this Saturday & Sunday.

Basically here’s how it works: A bunch of Tacoma artists who have studio space around the city open their doors to the public so you can go in and see their actual artistic processes. Some of the studios even have hands-on projects that you can do. It’s a pretty spiffy way to see what’s going on in with your local artists. We’re looking to do some re-decorating and would like to support local people as much as possible, so we’re hoping we’ll find some good arts for our walls this way.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight I’m going to Dorky’s. Y’know, for culture.

Last Saturday Carrie & I (and two of our friends) headed out to Leavenworth for its annual Octoberfest.

The verdict? Leavenworth was awesome. Octoberfest… not so much.

We all really loved walking around Leavenworth, eating in the restaurants (we went to Gustav’s for lunch, where I had a massive Reuben, then Baren Haus for din-dins, where I had a schnitzel done cordon-bleu style), and poking through the shops (we bought many cheeses at the Cheesemonger’s Shop and many meats at Cured).

But the actual Octoberfest itself was underwhelming. For several reasons:

• It was held on one of the only ugly streets in Leavenworth, right up against this depressing, concrete facade. One of us joked that this was the “East Berlin” part of Germany being represented.
• It was expensive to get in, and you didn’t even get any beer tickets with admission. Those were extra.
• None of the beer offerings were in any way exceptional. You could get better beers in most of the restaurants downtown.
• It was kinda frat-like. Or Douchey. Take your pick from those two adjectives.

I’m pretty sure this was another “I’m too old for this” moment. We left town before 10:00 PM (we were staying at one of our cohort’s parent’s house over in Monroe). That said, Leavenworth was lovely with its changing leaves and dramatic mountain setting. The food and drink outside of Octoberfest was delicious. And the company was delightful. Of course I didn’t take any photos.

I would love to return to Leavenworth in the fall sometime again, but I would completely skip Octoberfest and just go bar-hopping in the town itself or something.

On Monday Google did one of my favorite of recent Google Doodles, this one based on Little Nemo, the old-timey comic strip created by Windsor McCay. You should click this image and enjoy, then come back here for more info:

If you don’t know about Little Nemo, you really should take it upon yourself to get some educamation about him. Here’s some primers:

The Comic Strip:
Little Nemo began as a comic strip at the turn of the 20th century, in which Nemo has a series of short adventures in Slumberland that always end with him waking up in his bed. You can read a whole bunch of these amazingly-drawn strips at the Comic Strip Library here. Here’s an example of one, the famous “Walking Bed” sequence:

Little Nemo: The Walking Bed, 1908

The Animé:
In 1989 there was an animé version of the charachter, Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland. It unfortunately is not exactly stellar entertainment. There’s some excellent animation, but the screenplay went through too many hands. Eventually the screenplay was co-credited to Chris Columbus, of The Goonies, Home Alone, and Harry Potter fame. The whole movie is actually on YouTube right now, but due to the dubious legality of it, you might not be able to watch it for long:

The Video Game
There was also an excellent and quite difficult NES video game that was released around the time of the movie, called “Little Nemo: The Dream Master.” In it you throw candy into various animals and then climb into them and wear them like pajamas, each one giving you a different ability (frog lets you jump high, mole lets you dig, bee lets you fly, etc.). It’s really a classic of the NES, and you can play it online at NESCafe (again, of dubious legality) right here.

The Songs:
The “Little Nemo: The Dream Master” video game, of course, inspired the opening line of The Crazy Boy Floyds song “Scrambled TV Super.” Wot’s that? You ain’t never heard that song? Well, take a listen:

Yes, that’s right: “Sometimes you crawl into a frog, and wear it like pajamas as you hop along your log.” Pretty sweet, I know.*

And then, of course, rapper Mega Ran wrote a song about the video game that samples the 8-bit music from the game! Take a listen:

It all just keeps going! Little Nemo forevah!

*Full disclosure: I wrote the music for the “Scrambled TV Super” song, so I might be a bit biased.