SUCKA PUNCH!!!!!!!!!

8.30.11
10:25 pm

Had an excellent hurricane with Christina.
They need to shut the world down more often so I can spend some quality time with my One and Only.

Media Consumption Round Up!!!

After ignoring its existence for months, I finally opened up InFamous 2 and gave it a spin.
Not all that surprising, it's a lot like InFamous 1, but with...uh...more...InFamous 1.

Chris and have watched the second of the three Girl movies, The Girl Who Played With Fire.
Dark and Swedish.
Like the book but with less research.

Watched Sucker Punch because I heard it was massive HD eye candy.
Turns out it was.
I kept expecting someone to just turn towards the camera , throw up the Metal Horns and yell, "Sucka Punch!!!!!".
There was this great moment when Jon Hamm (?!) has this wonderful look of confusion on his face.
Of course it's because of something his character was confused about, but I thought, just for one tiny second that he was about to look right into the camera and say, not "Sucka Punch!!!!!!!" but "I'm in Mad Men, what the fuck am I doing here?!"
But he didn't.
My loss.
Back to my point:
I keep hearing people complain that there was no plot.
.Well...yeah, it's Zack Snyder.
I thought we all had an agreement that if Zack Snyder is to be allowed to direct things, someone has to write an amazing script.
Like Watchmen.
That was a good Zack Snyder movie because he didn't have to write anything.
Sucker Punch was...well, it was just too obviously teenage masturbatory material for me to get anything out of it.
Seriously, teens, the Internet has, literally, thousands of hours of free, high def porn just waiting for your sticky little fingers.
You can probably even find an Emily Browning look-a-like if you searched long enough.
I'm glad that, after such a waste of time like Sucker Punch, that she is doing a serious movie like Sleeping Beauty with a script and all that.
I hope this doesn't just turn out to be mindless titillation as well.

I've also reached the last episode of the first season of Breaking Bad which I jumped into because I've heard enough good stuff about it to tickle my pickle.
My Television Pickle.
I'm enjoying it, even though it drags occasionally.
It's pretty amazing to see Bryan Cranston play this role after watching Malcolm In The Middle for so many years.
This guy is hardcore.
I've watched the first...season or two of Weeds and I have to say that Breaking Bad wins.
Mainly because the stakes are so much higher; growing marijuana can't cause you to explode.
I know the fourth season just started and it'll be interesting to see how they keep this going.
I'm hoping they don't pull a Dexter where they almost totally reveal everything at the end of each season but never quite do, ostensibly resetting everything back to one for each new season.
We'll see...

Sadly, a Great Sickness has descended upon me, rendering my voice moot for the continued recording of The Grind Show.
Which blows.
I am so fucking close...
The book is three quarters recorded and half edited, not counting the tweaks ordered from the God King, Tucker, the Maker of the Word Who Must Be Lauded Above All.
I'm honestly astounded that I made it this far without getting sick.
Well...we'll see who is boss.
Soon...nothing will stop me...

I am going to go pee pee and go home.
And I'm taking my gondola with me.
SUCKA PUNCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crunchy Bits

8.16.11

8:53 pm

 

Very tired today.

Bear with me.

There is a bear with me.

 

WHY I am tired pertains to a thing that Digitas and I have going on...

I have booked three out of three recent auditions, plus a re-record for an earlier project in the past week.

Two of these bookings in one day, both of them (along with this morning's re-record) all paid for by Digitas.

I don't know who is running this company, but obviously they think they owe me some money.

Or they realize that I'm a hot, young talent.

Probably both.

Which I'm fine with.

The two bookings on one day were pretty damn disparate: the first was a growly, kill-the-kids-because-they-won't-survive-what-is-about-to-come-to-pass-and-death-would-just-be-more-merciful voice over for Harley-Davidson cookware.

Or vacuums.

I can't quite recall.

I think I may have mentioned that audition here a while ago...

Whatever the case, I got it and recorded it in the same booth with a bunch of characters from Grand Theft Auto IV were recorded.

Which I thought was cool until I talked to my engineer who informed me that Rockstar (the makers of said game) were total shitheads.

Bummer.

From that booking, I went across the street pretty much to record a lot of text, while maintaining a level of enthusiasm that, if used in every day affairs, would result in repeated tazings, in a crazy short amount of time.

Like five lines in seven seconds.

This was for Optimum Online.

Which also makes cookware and batteries or something along those lines.

Before that, I played a talking dog in the style of Christopher Guest from Best In Show.

The first two are straight up television commercials, but this is a fun one: in late August or early September, on Zyrtec's web site, you will be able to play a sort of choose-your-own-adventure game involving talking dogs.

I am the bloodhound in episode two, which I believe is called Parks Unleashed.

It was fun as hell and the folks in the studio were also fun as hell.

When I came in, they were recording some sort of rap about lobster rolls.

And I continue to love my job.

The same can be said of the Optimum session: Chris, Chris, Brian (who'd won an Emmy!!!), Laura (who's voice didn't register on autotune...but that's neither here nor there), Bill, T.J. and...Melissa, I believe.

Between the actual recording session and waiting for the client to call, we all hung out and got to know one another a bit.

Very cool people, all of them.

And, thanks to one of them, T.J., I had my first Chick-a-cavo sandwich from Lenny's.

That man knows a good sandwich when he sees one.

Chicken breast, avocado, roasted red peppers, melted provolone and toasty beard.

As mentioned above: I continue to love my job.

Then, early this morning (the equivalent of 4 o'clock in the morning for you Daylighters), I was called in for yet another Comcast/Xfinity spot.

Specifically to remind folks that Boardwalk Empire is starting up again on September 29th.

Or 25th.

I'm not paid to remember, I'm paid to spit buttered leather.

AND, I found one a few days ago, that the Flumist "Pick Your Nose" campaign I was involved in was nominated for a Webby, which has something to do with Huey, Dewey and Louie's relation, that little duck chick.

Still haven't found the actual thing I was involved in...it's an app that has a bunch of different people saying "I want to pick my nose".

Could someone with a smartphone check this thing out?

Then...don't tell anyone...but I recorded a scratch track for a super secret thing that Ray is working on for Batman...or some other super secret organization.

I can't remember, but I already told you, I'm not in the remembering business.

I'm in the spitting buttered leather business.

So, in other words, I've had a pretty good run, despite my sweatiness...or...perhaps...because of it?

 

And during NONE of these recording sessions have I been dissuaded from buying an iPad.

In fact, pretty much everyone at these sessions that has one says it is fun as hell.

Consensus has pretty much been that it is more of a toy than an actual life-tool, but, fuck you, I like toys.

 

Also:

Since I obtained a Twitter account, I have been using up a lot of text messages (I have a lot of very interesting and exciting things to say) and I was reflecting that, although sometimes I find it odd that I'm writing a tiny message on a tiny keyboard when I'm holding a telephone, literally, in my hand, there are just so many things that would be weird if you called someone and said it rather than texted it.

I mean god forbid you got into a conversation with someone.

That would suck apes.

Curse this information age.

Maybe Marilyn Manson had it right when he totally coined the phrase "DISinformation age"!!

No.

No, he doesn't have anything right.

Poor guy.

 

Over the past two days I have watched Supergirl for the first time since I was 7 and, just this afternoon, Apocalypse Now.

Okay.

This is going to totally sound off the wall...but they were basically the same movie.

Basically.

Although Supergirl was a total piece of badly produced and edited shit, Faye Dunaway looked like she was having a ton of fun and some of the practical effects were actually pretty cool.

And Supergirl is a cutie.

So is Martin Sheen.

According to his son, Charlie, who is also an actor, he watches that movie once a week.

Charlie, not Martin.

And Apocalypse Now, not Supergirl.

That might give some insight to his whole...thing.

I went into Apocalypse Now knowing only that it was supposed to be nuts.

One thing stood way out and that was the creepy chaos at the last U.S. post on the river, that scene at night with all the fireworks.

Man was that effective.

Killgore was fun too.

The whole surfing thing was wonderfully surreal.

Overall though, I think I saw this way after the fact and could have done with less close ups of sweaty people's eyes.

I then found out about all the crazy shit that went on behind the scenes and decided I'm done with this one.

I would like to maybe watch some West Wing this evening, just to freak myself out.

 

Just a few moments ago I finished the Millennium trilogy.

Satisfying read, if, at times, a bit...oh, I don't know...focused on the minutia of Swedish finance.

I do get the point the author was making though, about how reading about the inner workings of the Swedish financial system is as painful as actually being ass raped.

Apparently, Stieg Larsson did not like economics as the whole trilogy was written to support that fact.

But I appreciate his dedication to the joke.

You know I do.

 

That would have been a great segue.

 

Since picking up those two Submarines albums after the Eels show, I've formulated an opinion of them.

Want to hear it?

While the lead singer's voice can be crazy saccharine at times (she sounds a lot like the lead singer of The Cardigans from time to time...fair warning) and the subject matter just so adorable and twee that listening to it is like burying your head in a bowl full of rambunctious puppies, there's a sincerity there that not only makes them tolerable, but endearing.

As for the music itself, if there were just a little less effort put into the production, this band wouldn't be worth mentioning, but the additional noises, instrumentation and layers add enough to make things interesting and to warrant repeat listening.

The songs tend to be sunny, wonderful (as in full of wonder) and joyous.

I'm referring to the two later albums, "Love Notes/Letter Bombs" and "Honeysuckle Weeks" (fae title, no?), and not their first album, "Declare A New State" which is a bit too underdeveloped for my bitchy tastes.

Standouts from the latter albums include: 1940 (a bit sexy, if you can handle it), Tigers, Swimming Pool (sweeter than an actual swimming pool full of cotton candy and Care Bears) and You, Me and The Bourgeoisie (in which they manage to make an attack on consumerism cute...it's insane).

I probably wouldn't go out and buy their albums...as I just did...but track them down on MyBook or FaceSpace and give them a listen.

You could have just lost two legs and an arm in a combine accident and they will manage to make you smile.

Try it.

 

I've also been listening to Mike and Tom Eat Snacks, a weekly podcast on which Michael Ian Black and Tom Cavanaugh (from Yogi Bear and Ed) pick, eat and rate snacks.

They deliver exactly what they promise and their friendship is evident and hilarious.

 

I have nothing else for you.

And that is a relief.

Hip Flop

6.21.11

 

7:06 pm

 

I finished The Girl Who Played With Fire last night.

It ends on a cliffhanger!!!

And the third and final book picks up right where the second left off!!!!!

I really am a sucker for stuff like that...

Anyway.

I thoroughly enjoy the second book, but I still plan on taking a bit of time before I dive into the third.

Anticipation and all that.

On the whole, I found Fire to be more enthralling than Dragon Tattoo, as you already knew the characters and there was a lot less information about Sweden as a country and financial entity.

There was a metric shit ton of coffee consumed though.

I have a strange feeling that the writer is a fan of They Might Be Giants.

Or maybe just coffee.

But seriously, the only thing people drank in the first two books was coffee and the only thing they ate, no matter what time of day, was sandwiches.

There are a few exceptions; Billy's Pan Pizza, ham pie, bacon pie, fried sausage and an occasional apple.

I'm not really sure why these things caught my eye...maybe because I don't drink coffee often?

 

Might pick up A Clash of Kings again, but...no, I won't.

 

In other news, Phil is on his way to do some desert research for the next Grind Show book.

The working title: Cock Slap Sandwich.

Quite frankly, I think it's ridiculous.

There should be a hyphen in there.

 

Just last night I picked up the new SONOIO release, RED.

Not sure why Alessandro Cortini is so fond of caps, but, whatever, he's Italian.

I enjoyed his first volume, BLUE, better.

This one seems...I don't know...forgettable.

BLUE only had a few good tracks on it, but he's making some interesting stuff, so I'll keep buying it.

And I have been buying it, not just downloading it.

He's not signed to any label and he's ex-NIN, so that carries some weight with me.

Although the only ex-NIN thing I've actually really enjoyed has been Tweaker.

And Manson has him now.

Hopefully, he won't have been able to leach all of Chris Vrenna's talent.

 

Recorded chapter eight of The Grind Show last night.

1/5 of the way finished.

I'm going to try to record a chapter a night until the thing is done.

As long as my voice is able and I don't have an audition too early the next day, this should be done in a month or so.

I think it's going well, but I completely understand why editors and people along those lines exist.

Paging Edward Excellent

6.13.11

3:54 pm

I've just finished reading a huge interview with John Linnell regarding, for the most part, the presence of computers in his life.

At one point the seemingly inevitable question of how computers have affected the distribution of music came up and Linnell mentioned that he feels less people are listening to albums, preferring to buy individual songs from iTunes and other such digital marketplaces. He talked about how more people would prefer to have a playlist of songs rather than a related collection they would sit and listen to.

And I'll agree.

You know why?

Because bands, chiefly because of this recent development of the ADHD way of listening to music, have stopped putting effort into the whole album.

They think, "Well, there's three singles...it doesn't matter what else we put on here" and thus another musical turd is born.

I hate the word 'turd', by the way. 

As I was saying, I don't think this is the band's fault, it's our fault as consumers with the attention spans of a hummingbirds.

I didn't grow up with LP's, so I never had that whole "listening to a record is a ritual" thing, but I did have cassettes and, more often than not, I would listen all the way through. Because, even if one particular song on the tape wasn't my favorite song, it was still by this band I was listening to and I like them enough not listen to the rest of the album, so why would I skip this one? And plus, a song is, what, four minutes? What's the big deal?

Granted, I have lost that respect of a lot of music.

I have just as many playlists on my iPod as the next person, but I will often still slap on the first track of an album and let it play, because that's how these artists intended it to be.

How could I call myself a fan of a band if I only like three songs per album?

The issue is, as I said before, that these bands I like seem to think that no one is listening to their albums as albums anymore and have started putting less effort into the music as they used to.

And then fans only listen to three or four tracks per album.

And then bands make albums with three or four good tracks.

It's a vicious cycle and it fucking blows.

And it's never going to stop until either: a. fans start taking time to listen to full albums as full albums or b. bands start making albums that are so enthralling that people have no choice but to listen to them in their entirety.

Now, people are stupid and fickle and hummingbirds etc. as I said before, but these bands (technically) are artists.

So, sadly, I'm going to have to put them blame on them.

How do you get people to listen to more than three or four tracks off your new 13 track album?

MAKE BETTER SONGS.

BETTER SONGS THAT FORM A BETTER ALBUM.

This feels obvious...is this too obvious?

I mean, has anyone called the VP of Music and told him, "hey, fucko, tell them to make better music and people will buy more music"?

Am I really out on a limb here?

Whatever the case, there are at least five bands that I listen to whose albums I will gladly listen to as wholes.

I might pick my favorites and put them on a playlist, but that doesn't mean I'm going to discard the rest of them.

It's disrespectful.

Now THAT sounds weird coming out of my fingers...

Hm.

I might be rambling, pointing out the obvious, but, seriously, things aren't going to get better.

 

Switching things up: I am almost done with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I decided, now that I'm near the end, to watch the trailer for the Fincher remake and see if I could match scenes with scenes.

I can.

Then, I watched the trailer from the original Dragon Tattoo movie to see just how necessary this remake is.

Seems that the answer is: not very.

I can clearly see some guy in a suit in somewhere in Hollywood (perhaps the VP of Showbiz?) meeting with David FIncher and laying it on the line for him:

Okay.

Some people will never see a movie, not matter how great, as long as it has subtitles.

So.

We like money and are running a tad short on ideas at the moment, so we'd like to replace the all Swedish cast and crew and script of the original The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie with James Bond, the cute, smart chick from The Social Network, that German doctor from Thor and the Avengers movie, have the director of Fight Club shoot it and get hot, new Oscar Meat©® Trent Reznor to do the score.

What do you think?

And I suppose that David Fincher said yes.

Anyway.

I saw The Hangover 2 this weekend with Jeannie, mostly to try and catch the Dragon Tattoo trailer, you know, the one specifically engineering for theatrical presentation, but it wasn't there.

Movie wasn't bad though, so, whatever.

Have no idea how they are going to top themselves for the third Hangover movie...quite frankly, I'm a little frightened.

All right.

Enough talk.

9:22 pm

Just finished The Girl etc. etc. etc.

Planning on watching the original film in a few days.

I think I may jump into the second in the series as soon as I've finished typing this.

I hope to Christ that there is less research and coffee drinking in the second and third books.

One thing I will say, I am greatly looking forward to a Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score for this movie more so than I was for a movie about the creation of Facebook.

For as good as that score was...SO incongruous.

In fact, I'm hoping some Nine Inch Nails fan with more initiative than I sets certain scenes from Fincher's Dragon Tattoo with some of the Social Network score, as I've always felt that stuff on that would have been perfect for a rape/murder type movie.

Dark Side Of The Network?

Social Side of the Moon Tattoo?

Certain scenes in particular have such potential for perfect pairing with Reznor and Ross' stuff...

Anyhoodle.

I was thinking about picking Song of Fire and Unfinished Manuscripts back up, but...I'm not going to.

Eat it, G.R.R.M.

EAT.

IT.

10:46 pm

 

Only three chapters into The Girl Who Played With Fire and I'm hanging on every word.

I do so enjoy the second book in a series that doesn't take twelve chapters to catch you up on what you missed.

As long as this book revolves around these events and has nothing at all to do with Swedish economics, government, agriculture, mining, binary thought engines or anything else...I'm set.

I even enjoy the stuff about Salander and math.

I've always been a numbers kind of person and her new obsession is wonderful and fascinating to me.

Man, I hope these first few chapters are good indicators...

Jumpy Stomp

6.8.11

5:01 pm

 

First things first: after being out in the sun for about thirty minutes, most of my body is bright red.

"Paul", one may ask, "knowing you, why the fuck would you ever choose to be out in this weather?"

Well, yes.

Fuck you.

I was just helping a brother out.

Alan needed a huge madman to destroy a box in front of him and Jess Howell for Bob Greenberger's roast next month.

And I, being that helpful, box-destroying type, of course, agreed.

We were also running hella behind on the shoot and so I had no time to get home to grab my stuff for work, so I've been here for the past two hours or so with nothing but my thoughts...and my sunburn.

I'm going to streak home on my break, stand in a cold shower until my genitals disappear and then get my stuff for the final four hours of today's sadness.

"What stuff"?, did I hear you murmur?

No?

Well then...I began to find the second book of the Fire and Ice series a bit...annoying and decided to check out Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy.

As I said before, I'm learning a lot more about Swedish economics than I ever would have thought from such a lauded book.

How the fuck can out fasterfasterfaster culture have accepted such a slow-starting book?!

It's astounding!

On one hand, it makes me think people are getting smarter, on the other hand, this book isn't nearly as fun as I thought it would be.

Larsson certainly understands the definition of "juxtaposition" though...one paragraph has one main character reading quietly through a binder of decades old police reports while, in the next paragraph, the other main character is being brutally sexually assaulted.

I'm almost halfway through and beginning to get into it, but the pace, at least of the sections following the financial journalist are dryer than the sheaves of papers he's spent most of his time sorting through.

ZING!!!

Take THAT, Mikale Blomvkist!!!

I'm curious as hell how Fincher is going to make this an interesting film.

Then again, I had that feeling before The Social Network and...well, he didn't really make an interesting film, per se, more like he made it...engrossing.

But, seriously, the first quarter of the book is like one big library scene.

At one point, the financial journalist is being set up for a long story and he actually says, "look, get to the point".

I pumped my fist in utter unanimity and prepared for the chase to be cut to...but then the person telling the story says, "you must be patient" and the first responds with, "Okay."

Christ...

Phil liked it very much because he said he found it grounded the book.

Look, grounding is one thing, but watching the ground as rain dries on it?

I'm especially rankled by the fact that I put down A Clash of Kings because it was dragging, not knowing I was in for a history of Swedish industrialists.

AND NOT EVEN REAL SWEDISH INDUSTRIALISTS!

FAKE SWEDISH INDUSTRIALISTS!

I CAN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT THESE PEOPLE THE NEXT TIME I'M INVITED TO A RECEPTION AT THE SWEDISH CONSULATE!!!

But, like I said, the book is growing on me.

Hopefully it will pick up.

And hopefully Fincher will find some way to reconcile his awesome, tense, insane directing style with this tinder-dry story without doing anything ridiculous.

And, again, like I said, I'm only about halfway through this thing.

Everything could explode on the next page for all I know.

I'll weigh back in when I've finished it.

 

Meanwhile, I've decided to record no more than two chapters at a go with The Grind Show, for the sake of vocal integrity.

Chapters one through three are all edited and ready to rock, while four and five exist in their rawest, unedited forms, waiting to be glossed.

Not sure when that will happen, as all I want to do in this horrible fucking weather is die, scream at the sun and die again.

I'll do my best though...for science.

 

Time to run home.