Can You Feel the Love Tonight?

Mrs. Chickenshorts is not very happy with me right now. You see, I was absentmindedly singing my own twisted variation of the Elton John and Tim Rice song (up there in the title to this post) and I was overheard by my kids. It was completely innocent on my part (can't you just see the halo atop my cranium?), but now there's a disjointed chorus of little voices all over the house singing "Can you smell my butt tonight? Does it really stink?" Mrs. C just glares at me now.

Walk This Way Too

I posted that picture of Rufflebutt walking so I figure I should post a picture of me that shows how she learned to walk so well:

Walk This Way

I haven't talked about Princess Rufflebutt for awhile. She's growing up fast! She has just started walking a couple of weeks ago so I grabbed a camera and took some pictures of her yesterday and put them into this animated gif:

Water War Zone

Five years ago today, just after we bought this house, I was outside enjoying myself in the sunshine. I've said before how the 24th is a holiday around here. So there I was, minding my business, when three or four of my neighbors walked into my yard. I had just met them days before and I would have thought they were there to welcome me to the neighborhood if they hadn't been dripping wet and carrying buckets and water balloons. Suddenly I remembered that there was a tradition around these parts. Every year on Pioneer Day a huge water fight breaks out in the neighborhood. I desperately bolted around the back of the house to the other side only to realize, too late, that they had me surrounded. Once I was drenched, and had spread out my wallet and it's contents on the concrete to dry, there was nothing to do but join them and spread my misery. We succeeded in coaxing another neighbor out of her house on the pretense that she was helping us to get yet another person out of her house.

It's been like that every year since, with me not prolonging the inevitable but just plunging headlong into the fray. But last year, I decided, was my last year. I had plans in the back of my mind to avoid the whole mess by packing up the family and heading out to the park for the day. Except that I forgot. Today I was downstairs playing my guitar and minding my own business once again when I heard a knock at the door. It was those dealers of a watery death, armed with fat, bubble-shaped guns, and buckets waiting for me to come up and face the unavoidable fact of living in this neighborhood. Only this time, I didn't want to. I told my kids to tell them I wasn't coming up. They came back giggling. My 50-something, grown-up neighbor, they said, was calling me a chicken liver. I said, "Tell them I don't want to get wet." I listened as my five-year-old went to the door and said, "My Dad's a chicken." I endured this a while longer, waiting as the ten or twelve aquaterrorists filled up at my hose. At one point I was able to sneak past the opened door and go upstairs to foolishly peer at them from behind the curtain. Finally, and with one last, "Dinky, you're a chicken liver," and a, "Tell your dad he's a coward," they were gone. I breathed a sigh of relief, called the kids together, and said, "Come on. We're going to the park."

A Beautiful Novel

The kids and I just finished reading another book. This time it was North to Freedom by Anne Holm. The book has been around the house for ages and I never paid any attention to it. It belongs to my wife and she recommended it for our little book club the boys and I have had going. So the other night we went for it and I'm so glad we did.

Twelve-year-old David has spent much of his life in a concentration camp. He knows very little about the outside world and almost nothing about his parents. At the beginning of the story, he is given the opportunity to escape, which he does. The only instruction he's given, aside from how to get out of the camp and where to find some meager supplies, is to go North and try to make it to Denmark. He has no idea what is waiting for him there but it's all he has to go on so he makes the attempt. Along the way he makes some important discoveries about himself, about God, and about other people.

The novel was the perfect length but I found myself wanting more. I had become aquainted with this marvelous little boy and I wanted to spend more time with him. The lessons he taught all of us as we followed the tale will stay with me for a long time. It's nice to find a story that delineates the difference between good and evil. The book is intended for children and, as the word "Nazi" is never mentioned, the reader will most likely not equate the mysterious "them," as David refers to his enemies, to Hitler, which is just as well. As one reviewer says, "The ambiguity [tells] the lesson that evil [is] evil, regardless the political justification." The kids seemed to enjoy it, too, though not quite as much as I did. I spent most of the time in tears, hiding my face from the boys. They, on the other hand, when I had read the last sentence, said, "That was good. What's next?"

If Only I Could Write Like That

This is beautiful writing. Like when you really like something, like a flower, maybe, because it's so beautiful and smells good. . . Oh hell. I can't even write badly. I'd be no match even for this contest.

Actually, I think the runner-up should have won.

Local Boy Makes it Big--Hmmph!

Jealousy is a strange thing. This guy, Ken Jennings, didn't even exist a few weeks ago, and now I hate him. Just kidding. I'm happy for him. I really am. I've been close to the story because I do the promos for the show, which is on our station, so every week I'm reminded of how he's doing. I even know in advance of the general viewing public. I guess that makes me sort of special, eh? Nah. No one I know cares much. It is fun to watch someone from the area do so well, though. I don't even wish it was me up there. I couldn't handle the pressure. Unless every category had something to do with classic or alternative rock or Shakespeare (yes, you read it right, I'm a Shakespeare nut) I would absolutely suck. You could ask me what my name is and I'd flub it. So keep going Ken! We're rooting for you... you little jerk!

Cool by Association

Wow. I post a few pictures of my new "friends", Tears for Fears, and suddenly I have 75 hits in one day. I'm used to about 25. Apparently someone has posted a link to my site on a Tears for Fears Yahoo group. Now I'm getting emails and comments from lots of people and I can't even go to the Yahoo group because I'm not a member. All I did was meet the band and now I'm famous...well, for a minute or so at least. Here's another picture of my good buddies, Roland and Curt, in case it prolongs my good fortune.

The Magic Kingdom? Not Quite.

For those of you not from Utah or Idaho, we have our own amusement park here called Lagoon. Actually, I'm not sure who gets amused by it. I surely don't. It's a hack job of a Disneyland rip off; an immobile traveling carnival that doesn't go anywhere, only the barkers are not hardened criminal types, they're 16 to 18 year old kids whose purpose in life is to squeeze a little more cash out of people who were already robbed for parking money and the entrance fee. A family in my income bracket has to take out a loan to go to this park. Now that's amusing. One obnoxious young woman was shouting at us to pay her two bucks for her to guess our weight or age for a chance to win something worth about twenty cents. She kept on and on about it until someone behind us said, "We don't have any money," to which she replied, "Why do you come to Lagoon without any money?" I wanted to say, "We had some until you raped us at the gate!"

Then there are the rides. Every day we have to endure commercials about the new attractions like "The Spider and the Fly," "Cliffhanger," and "Samurai." The ads make them sound like they're worth the arm and a leg you'll be handing over to ride them. But take it from me, they're not. I love a great ride. I'll do anything--drop straight down sixty feet, for instance--but I guess I've been spoiled by the real parks. Since my grandparents lived in L.A., we'd go to Disneyland every year. Also, I was a child then and everything was bigger and more exciting. I want that experience everytime I go to Lagoon and I don't get it. I might be getting old, but if I have to mortgage everything I own to ride on some contraption, it better be the equivalent of a base jump!

When my mother called a couple of days ago and said she was getting our family tickets to Lagoon, the kids went nuts, of course. And that is one way in which I can enjoy Lagoon. My children are young enough that they haven't been on a real rollercoaster yet. I coaxed my eight-year-old on the Spider and, though he didn't want to go on it at first, it became his favorite ride. The kids had a lot of fun. They love Lagoon. But then, they aren't the targets of the greedy barkers and they don't understand the implications of an 8 ounce bottle of water costing six bucks. So Lagoon is 150 acres of magic to them. To me it's a vacation from which I need to take a vacation.

I Feel so Fresh...And Frolicky

Scott got me the pictures at last! There's one of Dr. Covey signing my copy of his book, and one of our soundstage after a production. They painted it to look like a jungle. It was so life-like I just had to frolick in it. There's a closer shot of me doing just that. There's also another picture of the "Rockstar" and her guitarists and one of me running camera with some of the crew during her show.

Heros

I've been putting this off because I've been waiting for the photo, but I can't wait any longer. Since I don't have my own camera, I'm always at the mercy of my friend, Scott, whose new, really expensive, digital camera always seems to be around. Unfortunately, this particular event wasn't as cool as, say, Ala*nis or Tears for Fears, so the photo's taking an inordinate amount of time to materialize in my inbox.

To me, though, June 22 was a great day. I was a cameraman on a satellite-broadcast of a leadership seminar. The series is broadcast from all over the country--wherever the leadership expert happens to be. I saw that Mikhail Gorbachev and General Tommy Franks are soon to be presenters on the program. In this case it was one of my personal heros, Dr. Stephen Covey. I've been reading his books for years. He was very engaging with us. He smiled a lot, made us feel at ease. After the program, he started pounding the floor with a staff he'd brought, saying that in the British Parliment that's what they do to tell other's they've done a great job, so he was applauding our performance as a tv crew. I took my copy of his 7 Habits book to him and he signed, "Leave a legacy!" on the inside cover.

Wow!

This summer's movie line up looks like it's really shaping up. I just saw a trailer for the remake of my number one movie (if I had to pick a number one.) I had no idea The Manchurian Candidate was even in production. The trailer makes it look great. They had to change the story, obviously, and they don't try to hide the fact that Meryl Streep is the evil mastermind, as they did with Angela Lansbury in the original, because we've all seen it and it wouldn't work, right? So this means there's probably some huge twist ending. A better replacement for Frank Sinatra couldn't have been found. Denzel looks absoulutely terrific in the role.

Then there's the follow up to what might be my second favorite movie. I just hope the The Bourne Supremacy is as good as its prequel.

God Bless America

Happy Fourth! No big fireworks. Around here when the holiday falls on a Sunday, they do all that stuff on Saturday. We lit our meager supply in front of the house tonight. Little fountains called "Junebugs" and "Glittering Jewels" and other awe-inspiring names. They didn't inspire much awe in me, though the kids were plenty excited. Fortunately, no one on our street obeys the restrictions on fireworks so we got to see some pretty cool stuff smuggled in from Wyoming. I felt like the whole valley was sounding off, trying to be heard celebrating freedom with explosions. After our tiny display was over I went in and watched the Boston Pops fireworks show on CBS. It was amazing. They put a lot of money into that. I wish I could have been there.

In ten days we get to do this all over again. We celebrate the 24th of July with almost more zeal than we do the 4th around these parts. That's when the pioneers allegedly came into this valley and settled it. Salt Lake City doesn't have a parade for the 4th but it has a huge one for the 24th. I've only gone to it once and that was when I had to shoot it for the tv station. I got yelled at for being in front of people who'd camped all night for their seats. I'll never forget that.

I have updated my drawings page. There are no new drawings there, just a new way to display them. It's pretty simple. I'm still in preschool when it comes to html. But I'm trying.

Napoleon Who?

A few months ago my friend Matt took off from his job here at the station to work on a small independant film in Preston Idaho for a few weeks. He's done this before and we don't think much of it, but now it seems that he was working on a gold mine. The film, called Napoleon Dynamite, is taken from a short by the same director that I just watched a couple of weeks ago. It was funny but it didn't strike me as a film that might go anywhere. I just watched some clips of the feature from the electronic press kit (EPK) and it's hilarious. Matt's in the b-roll on the EPK and every scene in the movie contains a landmark that I recognize. And now I'm seeing the lead, Jon Heder--just a guy from BYU--everywhere. He was just on Letterman and the movie's getting a lot of press. I haven't seen the whole thing yet, but I'm excited about it.

For the Lack of Anything to Post Today

Here's a picture of me editing with a client:

We'd Live on Ice Cream . . . On Coney Island

This song keeps going through my head. I wonder why.

It's All Happening At the . . . Delta Center

And I'm not there, which required a huge paradigm shift on my part. Simon and Garfunkel are playing in concert as I type this and I was almost there. My friend Scott bought a pair of tickets as soon as they were available for $300. But he wasn't satisfied. Section 7 row 11, isn't good enough. So, when he found a pair of 10th row center seats available, he snapped them up. Of course he'd be able to sell the other pair, right? I mean, it's Simon and Garfunkel, for crying out loud. That's something that was never going to happen again. Never mind that the price is obscene and exclusionary and elitist. He came to me, knowing I'm a huge fan, and proceeded to ridicule me because I wouldn't buy the tickets. I don't care who it is, I'm not paying that much to see them. It's ridiculous of them to think they're that special. I'll admit they're pretty special, but not enough for me to take food out of my kids' mouths or run up my credit card bill. The memory of a great concert only lasts so long and then I'm wishing I had it on video so I could recall what was so great about it. That's not worth $300 bucks.
So he began making the rounds. He hit up everyone he knew. Finally, last thursday, he took out an ad in the paper. He hit me up once more but not for money. He wanted me to give him some edit time for the tickets. I wanted a definate number of hours and we agreed on 30--a very generous settlement on my part: That's only $10 bucks an hour. The station charges $250 for my services and I ask at least $40 when doing freelance. So I was going to the concert. However, this all hinged on the tickets not selling. Frankly, I was secretly hoping they would sell. I mean, 30 hours? Come on. I came to work yesterday and he told me how many bites he'd had: None. Zilch. Nada. So I was still going to the concert. I had the tickets in my hand today and I invited my friend Steve to go with me. Then the great and awful thing happened. Someone bought his tickets. I was glad. Glad for me and glad for him. But still...Simon and Garfunkel. If they'd only lower the price about a hundred dollars a ticket. Hmmmm.

Tears for Fears

I try to be professional at these things and usually I am. I never become a "fan", following the artists around and asking stupid questions like some little kid backstage at an N-Sync concert.
But there are times, like yesterday, when I'm so captivated by the musicians' abilities and my experiences with their music, that I have a hard time containing my excitement. Tears for Fears inspired that sentiment in me. The experience was an about-face from the one with A.M. The band didn't seem to need any "space".
I pretty much stayed in the corner, having nothing to say that I thought they would want to hear. But the other guys on the crew were chatty as always. My friend, Dick, couldn't get over the pianist's t-shirt, which had a picture of John Lennon spinning DJ-style at a double turntable, and Mike talked a lot with the drummer about the drummer's other band, of which Mike is a fan.
Everybody was quite friendly with us, and they were very accepting of the cameras, which were in their faces most of the time. Even when they cleared the room for the sound check and we all started to leave, they called to us camera guys and said, "Not you. You guys can stay and film it."

The sound check turned out to be a pretty painful experience at first. There were some problems setting up the board with all the mics and headsets needed to record the drums, bass, piano, and guitars.
It took about 45 minutes to resolve it while the 65-plus radio station listeners who were invited to the intimate performance waited in the atrium downstairs. I could see frustration on the faces of all the band members, particularly the drummer, Nick D'Virgilio (who also plays with the band, Spock's Beard), and Roland Orzabal, but it was definately tense for all of us.
The sound setup was entirely the responsibility of the radio station, not us, so all we could do was sit there and watch. But the wait was worth it when the soundcheck began.
They did parts of "Call me Mellow" and "Who Killed Tangerine" from their soon-to-be released Everybody Loves a Happy Ending. We were all digging it. Most of us are huge Beatles fans and the obvious influences of that band on this one were not lost on us.
After running through the songs and tweaking the levels a little, Nick asked about the order of the songs and, Roland said, "The same as yesterday: Mellow, Tangerine, Heaven, Everybody, and Seeds." Then he looked at us and said, "Let's do it." We brought the listeners in and seated them all around the band.

The interview was sparse, but that didn't bother me. I was there for the music. After discussing the breakup of Roland and Curt, which they were fairly open about, they kicked into the first two songs. Roland's vocals were amazing. The high notes were crisp right up into the falsetto. And Nick's backup vocals on "Tangerine" during the line, "It's not over" made me tingle.
After the show the listeners were lined up down the stairs, through the atrium and around the corner into the hall, where they waited turns for pictures and autographs. Roland and Curt were both very engaging and funny with everyone.
After 20 minutes or so when that was done and I asked them if they would be in a picture with the tv crew, Roland said, "You'd think we were famous!"
The thing that struck me the most about this experience after the last one was how accomodating they were to us.
They seemed very willing to be on camera and have access to the obvious promotional opportunity there is in having a local show about them broadcast. This is by far the best of these I've been involved with.
The pictures were taken by my friends, Scott Frederick and Bret Barton. I'm the one in the Utah Football T-Shirt.
Be sure to go out and buy the new album, "Everybody Loves a Happy Ending" when it comes out September 14th. Take it from me, it's going to be great if the three songs I heard are any indication!

Are You Ready for This?

First of all, let me clear up some confusion. The rock star I met the other day was extremely nice. She even made little old me feel comfortable around her. She had an amazing singing voice and the guitarists were nice guys as well. I chatted with one about playing the guitar, which is a hobby of mine.

I made it sound like she was a diva but she wasn't. It was her "people" I had a hard time with. Here's a photo of her with our crew:


OK. Now that that's all cleared up, I can depress you all. This blog has really turned into a downer lately. But I've got to chronicle everything that's been going on. That's what I started this thing for anyway.

There's a kid in our neighborhood--I think he's about 22 but I've known him since he was sixteen. He's a great kid, very considerate, a HUGE sports fan, and just a nice guy. About a year ago he noticed his eyes going blurry. He went to several eye doctors and no one could figure out what the problem was. It kept getting worse and finally he was given an MRI. It turns out that he has a massive tumor that covers the whole top of his brain. They're starting chemotherapy now. I haven't been up to visit him yet. I was told he was coming home but they've kept him there for over a week now. I need to go see him.

Are you just totally bummed now? Wait! There's more!

Not living in Idaho has its drawbacks. I'm not up on all the news there. I guess my parents think I can pick up this stuff telepathically so they don't call, but I guess my dad and his twin brother have both been diagnosed with prostate cancer. In fact, my uncle has been undergoing radiation therapy for over five months. My dad doesn't want to go that way. He's opting to have his removed. He doesn't like the idea of having a glow-in-the-dark butt. They both act like it's nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, emotions don't flow easily from either of them.

Do you want to know what I got for father's day? Aside from all the lovely cards my boys gave me and the wonderful new shirt and tie from my wife (I love new clothes--before the washer has had a chance to take the life out of them), I got a huge, devastating migraine. It consumed the whole world for about eight hours. My body wanted to get rid of anything and everything I would put in it. I looked dead. I couldn't lie down and I couldn't sit up. It hurt to breathe. Pain relievers didn't help. Finally, my wife got me a Diet Coke and I sipped it very carefully for about twenty minutes. The headache went away after that. But it came back around midnight and I was up until 4:30am when it finally went away again. How's that for a nice gift?

Stick with Me, and we Might go Places...I Hope.

Tension filled the building when I walked in this morning. There was a lot of anticipation but no one really knew what to expect. It had been over a year since we had been involved with one of these things and now there was the added distraction of having it at our building instead of at the radio station. We had worked that out with them because they were remodeling their building and needed a place to have their little live (in this case, almost live) interview with a rock band that they frequently broadcast. What we were to get out of it was the chance to video tape it and possibly ressurect the show we had attempted a while back. The only thing was that, now that everything was arranged, it looked like the tour manager for this particular artist wasn't keen on the idea of having cameras there. When you think about it, it is kind of unusual. Here's a big rock star who decides to do a promotional radio tour and suddenly she finds out that one of the stations has a loose comraderie with a tv station and would like to televise the brief performance. So I guess I can understand. That doesn't help the disappointment I feel when I hear something like that. Couple that with the fact that everyone keeps asking me about camera angles and lighting when I would rather leave all of that to someone else. They do that because I'm the one who'll be editing it and I know what I want. Yeah, right. I don't know anything.

Anyway, the artist turned out to be very nice and cordial. It was the people surrounding her that made her seem like a diva at first. I've experienced that before. Which leads me to a very sappy thought I had earlier. I've met a lot of celebrities and many of them have been very nice, but there are the snitty little jerks who think the world revolves around them. (Let me make it clear that this particular artist is not one of those.) These people have people who reinforce that to their face. They go for anything they need, they make sure the riders--the instructions to the venues including things like, "You must have only green m&m's and a packet of white BVD men's briefs"--are lived up to, and they tell them whatever they want to here. Sometimes that can be detrimental if one of these divas is on a creative path that the public just can't get their heads around. If no one is there to help them see their error they may just end up without an audience and without the money they're used to. Then what happens to the yes men? They disappear. There's no reason to hang around anymore. That's why I often wonder why my wife hangs around me. There's no money and no fame, nothing particularly special about me. It must be something a lot deeper and I'm sure there are times when she can't figure it out, either. What I'm trying to say is, I'm sure glad she sticks with me even though there's absolutely no glory in doing so.

We weren't able to shoot the whole performance. We were told to shut off the cameras in the middle of the first song. I don't know how we'll make a show out of it. You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the artist's name. I don't want to alienate anybody with comments that might be construed as negative. If you really need to know who it is, email me and I'll send you a clue and you can guess or whatever. I'll post some pictures as soon as I get them, too.