Crushing Krisis

Monthly Archives: July 2009

Weekending

Friday, July 3, 2009

I have eleven minutes to write this post. I will just pretend I am on a bus.

Somewhere shortly before or after Albany Elise and I stopped at a rest stop that supposedly had wireless. It did not. It did, however, contain a rather dubious “Fish’n'Chips” connected to Roy Rogers.

In the future i will refrain from eating mid-state rest stop fast food shrimps.

Last night around eight we arrived at Kat & Jeremy’s home slash small farm, situated just on the rim of the ~~sixth~~ thirteenth biggest town in Vermont, Middlebury.

As with our last Vermont excursion, there are lots of friendly people and very little cellphone and broad-band wireless reception. Kat showed us the special spot in her house where she can take cellular calls. There was no internet at the spot.

This morning Elise and I headed into Kat’s backyard to feed her chickens. I have recently discovered that – in defiance of my general bird-despising – I somewhat adore chickens, which makes my refraining from eating them all the more sensible.

(aside: are all people that work in libraries weird? if i worked in one would it just confirm i was weird?)

After the chickens we toured Kat’s robust garden, sampled fresh snap peas and committing as much cucumber beetle genocide as possible. Each patch of plants had its own story – trials by cold soil or pests, favorite growers and runts.

I don’t consistently commit to buying local, but after this weekend I think I will have changed my mind. I’m glimpsing not only a tiny microcosm of farm economics, but also witnessing the love and attention that goes into each egg and potato.

I don’t know that “organic” really means anything special to me, but local now means a lot more.

I also played some Michael Jackson songs on Jeremy’s banjo.

Time’s up.

Filed in elise, thoughts, vermont | | Comments (1)

very serious donuts

Saturday, July 4, 2009

It is almost ten in the morning, and I am eating a bacon donut.

Kat and Jeremy currently farm enough to support three or four families, but they have enough eggs to stock said three families, a small market, and a donut shop.

Conveniently, Kat works at a donut shop. It’s actually the nearest landmark to their house, which was convenient on Thursday when we had been driving for eight hours and discovered that state roads in Vermont don’t have a lot of clearly labeled cross streets.

If my biggest weak spot of culinary frivolity is ice cream, donuts are not too far behind. As a kid I would clench my entire body in genuflecting hope every time our car passed the Dunkin’ Donuts. I was under the impression that was the only source of donuts. Like, in the world.

Now, I know better – I know that homemade donuts are a different beast entirely. On certain Fridays my boss brings in a particular kind that – if I should be bold enough to eat a filled variety – causes me to lose my voice for over an hour.

They are serious donuts.

So, when Kat mentioned that she worked part time at (and supplied eggs to) the donut shop down the road, my Fouth of July plans solidified: I would spend the morning eating donuts, perhaps bookended by a tacit jog to and from the shop to give the illusion of offsetting the 1000+ calories of breakfast I’d be consuming.

Such is the story, and here I am at Trademark-Infringement Donuts. I don’t want to advertise the name, as they’ve been flying under the legal radar thus far. Let’s call them “Funkin’ Donuts.”

Here is today’s Funkin’ Donuts menu:

Cinnamon Sugar

Honey Glaze

Maple Caramel

Plum Homer *

Beet Homer *

Chocolate

Maple-Bacon

Lemon-Poppyseed

Orange Sourcream

Cake

* Homer donuts are crafted to look as similar to the legendary Simpson’s donut as possible. The Beet Homer has beet icing. I am eating it presently. It’s great.

However, it is the Maple-Bacon donut that approaches the donut hall-of-fame. It is a plain, circular donut with a middle hole, iced liberally with light-brown maple icing, and sprinkled with bacon sprinkles from local pigs.

My meat-avoidance is pretty specifically predicated on a distaste for pork, but when we’re talking about less than an ounce of bacon from a local pig probably well-cared-for enough that he had a name I can make a brief exception.

And that exception was really, really good.

I’m going to spend the rest of the morning celebrating America by seeing how many donuts I can eat in one day (previously: 10), talking to Kat about her neighbor’s diabetic cat, and plotting a concert I’m going to play in the donut shop when I come back in the fall.

Filed in Year 09, food, vermont | | Comments (0)

holiday tsunami

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Funkin’ Donuts update: Elise has arrived to appreciate a beet donut, as have a charming pair of older women eating the Fourth of July lunch special.

And suddenly it is hurricane-crazy rain outside. The rain is all you can see in any direction – up the road or over the mountains.

Both of us walked here from the farm, but I have the upper hand, as I am wearing swim trunks.

Unfortunately, I don’t drive, so me walking back to the farm in my swim trunks really only helps me, and it doesn’t help me to get back here with my guitar to record a “Live @ Funkin’ Donuts” video-cast.

Meanwhile, I still have a lot more Vermont milkshakes to drink. I need to get started.

Filed in day in the life, elise, food, rain, vermont | | Comments (0)

my unexpectedly rocking Vermont vacation

Monday, July 6, 2009

I played an unexpected concert on the 4th of July.

I bring my guitar with me just about everywhere I go. Parties. Barbeques. Vacations. My default social state is to be idly playing guitar, and I don’t like to subject other people’s instruments to my style of playing and non-stop litany of alternate tunings.

Not surprisingly, I was armed with my acoustic axe in Vermont this weekend. I didn’t expect I’d be performing anywhere, but figured our idle days would leave me plenty of time to rehearse my new AC covers and some newer originals.

Kat apparently took it as a challenge to find me a place to play over the weekend. And, of all nights to find an opportunity, the one she discovered was Saturday night – right on the 4th of July: a local open mic at the Ripton Community Coffeehouse, topped by a performance by local band Twist of the Wrist.

When I first hear about a venue I get a very tangible picture in my head; they are seldom accurate. In this instance I was picturing a small coffee shop – perhaps as a part of a larger general store or community center – with sparse seating and a small riser doubling as a stage. It would be a fun night out. I’d play some newer stuff, and maybe finally play my cover of “Independence Day” live!

Mindful of the tendency of Philly open mics to never start on time, we left the farm on the late side for our up-mountain trek up to Ripton. We arrived at the “community coffee house” to discover it was a converted church, its parking lot overflowing with vehicles. Inside there was a foyer with a box office staffing by a twinkling attendant. The main room had many rows of seats (all full!), a proper stage, a snack bar, and a balcony(!).

Once again, my mental picture was off by a country mile.

Filed in elise, guitar, performance, stories, vermont | | Comments (1)

The Happinomics of Magneto

Monday, July 6, 2009

Today on the bus an attractive, muscle-bound, black man was sitting across from E and I rocking to an unknown sort of music. He was wearing a muscle-shirt version of this Magneto t-shirt.

I turned to E and said, “That guy’s shirt is awesome.” She nodded in agreement.

Then I motioned to the man to take off his headphones.

“Your shirt is awesome.”

“You know who it is?”

“Magneto!”

“Yeah!”

We chuckled at each others fanaticism. He replaced the headphones in his ear and I went back to talking to E.

He smiled until we got off the bus.

Happinomics is an Ad Busters article about how small changes to the way we interact with the strangers around us can make us tangibly happier. In their example, the interaction is talking on the bus.

Filed in Philly, Year 09, comics, thoughts, weblinks | | Comments (0)

not-so-prompt prompts

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

In my Google Reader I have a tag called “PROMPT” that I affix to posts that made me think or feel something that I might like to share on CK.

I’ve discovered that prompts are best served fresh – ideally I should be writing a post about that intangible thought or feeling within a day or two of having it.

There are presently prompts on my list from as long ago as September. That is scary. It is sitting in the way of me being prompted to tell you about new thoughts or feelings. I need to flush out all my prior prompts so I can post about prompts promptly when they prompt me.

Let me see if I can string some together in a way that makes sense to us both.

Spezify is a visual search engine, but that doesn’t mean what you probably think it means. Spezify searches the web for text, photos, and social media mentions of your search term, and arrays the results in a collage on your screen. It’s a great way to catch a quick snapshot of a person, place, musical artist, or brand. See what it has to ~~say~~ show and tell about crushing krisis or Philadelphia. Link via Fresh Arrival.

The imitable Maggie of Mighty Girl posted about her husband’s project, Typekit. Typekit seems to still be in a closed alpha, but the gist of it is that it allows you to dynamically embed text in any font onto any webpage, regardless of if you (or the end user) has that font. You can follow the development on the Typekit blog.

In my humble opinion, Mighty Girl continues to be one of the definitive personal blogs on the internet.

Geekadelphia (an excellent blog) recently posted a mammoth interview with J. C. Hutchins. Hutchins parlayed the net-success of his podcasted 7th Son trilogy into a publishing deal and subsequent tangible book. Said book – Personal Effects: Dark Art – comes complete with an intricately crafted alternate-reality game component that expands the narrative far past the boundaries of the book. Probably the next piece of fiction I will read, and setting the bar high for the next evolution of the novel.

(PS: M. Hutchins dropped by to comment less than twenty minutes after this was posted. Nice to see his publishing deal hasn’t changed his net savvy :)

Matthew Sheret (who I found via Warren Ellis) is a writer and photographer with an intriguing list of projects. I am fascinated by his recent post This is a Souvenir, in which he details writing songs for an imaginary band, and how he’d like to take it a step further and have an imaginary record label.

I love that sort of thing – a simulacrum of the footprint left by actual media, but in the absence of said media.

(Speaking of Ellis, I enjoyed his dissection of what it means to be a “digital magazine,” and how that ought to be different from a bells and whistles flash interface with whosits and whatsists. His point (and mine)? You can change the method of delivery, but “magazine” should still mean “magazine.” But, can “newspaper” still mean “newspaper”? Compare to a recent Conversation Agent post about what happens when your local paper goes entirely online.)

Lane is a remarkable photographer I have been a fan of for a long time. Today she posted an unreal photo of a rainbow seen over the New Mexico desert. Recently she volunteered with Review Sante Fe, a local photography exhibition. She posted a sampling of RSF photographers, and their work was uniformly amazing.

Now that Lane is back in the US I need to buy a print from her.

I saw what was perhaps my first double rainbow ever a few Saturdays ago on the way to E’s show at The Saint in Asbury Park. It was so close it seemed like we could drive right to the end of it.

Filed in Philly, art, flicks, linkylove, memories, photo, weblinks | | Comments (3)

Escaping Mediocrity

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

I am not a major reader of mommy-blogs.

Sure, I have my certain mommy favorites, as well as several long-time reads who happened to be or become moms, but I don’t typically seek out new moms to read. They’re just in a different part of their lives than I am, at the moment.

All that said, Maverick Mom is a blog worth reading. It’s not just about motherhood. Or, maybe as of a month or two ago it was. Right now it’s about motherhood (and the rest of life) as an adventure that is helping blogger and entrepreneur Sarah Robinson “escape mediocrity.”

Escaping mediocrity. Does it mean anything to you? If not, you should read her gripping post about nearly losing her son to a riptide. At the end she has the wherewithal (and good humor) to compare the riptide to the tug of mediocrity.

Sarah’s post poses a challenging question: are we accepting the average because it’s easy, eventually to discover that we’re lost with no sign of what’s good, right, or successful?

I know the first impulse is to say, “Nope!” Our lives are awesome, right? We totally love them.

Okay, sure. But, loving life doesn’t exclude the chance that you’re settling for something. Can you honestly say you don’t have anything in your life that is disappointingly average – not as challenging or fulfilling as it could be? We all know I aim to kick ass at all times, but even I can cop to pieces of my life that aren’t living up to their potential. I wage a constant war on some of them, but in all honesty I let others slip by. Easy can be nice. Status quo is even keel.

If your answer about anything is “maybe” or “yes” or “omg, definitely,” then you should start reading Sarah’s blog, perhaps beginning with the escape plan she’s hatched to push past the mediocre elements of our lives.

Sarah, you are anything but mediocre.

Filed in betterment, linkylove, resolve, self-critique | | Comments (4)

Did CD Baby sell out indie artists on digital distribution?

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Earlier tonight Twitter was abuzz with news that CDBaby would be increasing their take on digital downloads from 9% to 25% to coincide with the relaunch of their digital shopfront.

I quickly called foul. That’s a fourth of your profit just for distribution via a paid download, and an increase of over 275% from the old model. CDBaby didn’t help to develop your talent. They aren’t doing anything specific to promote or expose you. We’re talking about charging 25% of your gross profit to host files and process transactions.

CDBaby noticed my cry, and tweeted in to placate my concern:

It was the only way we could offer single song downloads which is what artist said they wanted more than anything else. … we were actually losing quite q bit of money on 9% (losing, not breaking even). You’ll still make far more than any other store

Also, a good friend chimed in:

it’s sad that cdbaby increased their cut of digital sales, but they’re the highest payout & let u set ur own prices = lesser evil

Losing less money in a bank robbery is still a bank robbery. So, why are we settling for evil?

As a musical artist there are only three reasons to let someone who isn’t contributing to the content or quality of your music profit from you – exposure, ease, and expertise. Exposure means finding an increasingly wider audience. Ease is making things simpler and more affordable from a time/resource standpoint than if you did it yourself. Expertise is finding people who have talents and technology you don’t have on your own.

At a 9% take CDBaby lowered the cost of entry into digital downloads (iTunes takes much more). Since indie artists were using their expertise to sell records, it made their ease a big win over the enhanced exposure artists might get elsewhere being digitally stocked alongside with major label stars. CDBaby was taking a loss on album sales and hearing demand for selling single tracks, but the best answer isn’t wielding an outdated model in a field where they were hopelessly outmatched by competitors operating at a much larger economy of scale.

At 25% CDBaby is losing its edge on ease – even while implementing an artist-friendly uploader to take the physical middle-man out of their digital distribution. It all stems from flogging an expired business model – trying to find a way to profit on $.99 micro-transactions. If they’re making a profit on downloads, it’s a bare one – it’s mostly going to their credit card processing companies. And, their exposure level is still in the indie-leagues. They’re down to trading on expertise.

Having said all of that, the moral of this story isn’t the evil of CDBaby. I believe they’re trying to do something good for their artists that will also keep them afloat. I don’t envision or recommend a mass exodus from CDBaby.

Instead, I think it’s just one more sign that indie artists need to find a new way to turn a profit. I can give you a hint – it’s not by shilling their entire catalog for a $.75 on the dollar. How long will it take to recoup the five or ten thousand they spent on recording in $.75 increments, not to mention paying off producers, managers, and supporting musicians? Even longer than it did when they were selling CDs out of the trunk of their car, that’s for sure.

What’s the solution? I’ll share my ideas in future columns, but right now I want to know your thoughts. How can an indie, local musician turn a respectable profit with their online presence?

Filed in Making Music Work | | Comments (9)

Shake It Off

Friday, July 10, 2009

Last night our Arcati Crisis rehearsal ended with me in fantastic voice and looking rather delicious.

I decided to harness those powers to record my first-ever video for CK – of the reticent original song “Shake It Off,” that has proven nearly impossible to record an audio demo of.

Behold:

(Or, visit YouTube directly to watch “Shake It Off.”)

Filmstar. Rock’n'Roll Star. Wife.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Elise & Co. (aka Filmstar) rocked an amazing show tonight at the M-Room, followed by the obscenely sexy and awesome Stone Thrown (like Muse, but Philly-local and half-Asian).

Here’s Filmstar’s newest tune, which I am in love with. Note the Bowie / Karen O. dual influences.

(Or, head to YouTube to watch “Rock & Roll Star.”)

There is prelim talk of a worlds-colliding Filmstar v. Arcati Crisis party/show sometime in the fall. If that were to happen, I would play the shit out of a tambourine on that song.

Filed in Filmstar, elise, memories, philly music, video | | Comments (0)

still holding. always holding.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

I’m on hold with Sprint right now to make sure my old cell account is really cancelled so I can go on my merry way with my spiffy new android phone.

(imagine a world where we could just trust this stuff to happen)

Sprint’s hold music is always super-anonymous – very sincerely strummed acoustic guitars. Just now I got to wondering about how this music gets born.

Is there some closet rock star out there proudly strumming this little number in a coffee shop, being moved by its elementary melodic qualities, maybe prefacing with, “you can catch this tune on hold with sprint once every hour, and now we’re in talks with a major bank to get some plays with them as well”?

Or, is it some studio hack locked in his closet of equipment, churning out variations on a placating theme like arithmetic tables, thinking, “I have to suspend a second at least once every eight bars to keep the caller docile” because that’s the equivalent of painting a jail’s holding cell a pale pink?

Finally, am I the only person in the history of the universe to have this thought?

Filed in thoughts | | Comments (0)

no fear of flying

Friday, July 17, 2009

In less than twelve hours I will jump out of a plane.

I’ve wanted to skydive for a long time. Forever? Since before I started having the flying dreams, I think, so frequent and tangible that the power of personal flight started to feel familiar.

The flying – the being high above the ground part – is familiar. Even the rushing quickly towards the ground part, because, honestly, sometimes I am not quite so pro at the dream-flying. It always turns out okay.

The voluntarily leaping out of a plane in midair, no so familiar.

Mildly terrifying, actually.

That’s the paradox. There’s this thing I want to do, and I know I’m going to love it because I’ve dreamt of it for years. Yet there’s the tiny problem of getting underway. One second of hard part – the difficulty of taking one step and letting gravity take its course, and then fifteen thousand feet of dream.

That first step is the only thing I’m afraid of. At the moment. And not just tomorrow. In general. I’m afraid of single steps, but obsessed with what comes after.

Just afraid of that one step.

Poll me again on that one in the morning.

Filed in blamedrewscancer, dreamt, flying, thoughts | | Comments (2)

breakfast of champions

Saturday, July 18, 2009

I’m awake at 8am, just like any other day of the week.

I briefly debated if I should eat some sort of special pre-jump meal, but given my general lack of stomach for breakfast it seemed like an unnecessary temptation of fate to eat anything unusual before skydiving. I settled on my favorite meal and number one comfort food, Special K Red Berries with Silk Soy Milk.

(ps: Why is it called “Red Berries” when it only has strawberries in it? Wouldn’t you say that strawberries are the red berry with the strongest draw? Like, “OMG, I’m going to get some red berries today, I hope there’s some strawberries in there!” Did some other cereal copyright “strawberries”? Anyhow…)

I’m also a bit torn about how to style my hair and what underwear to wear – two factors that are clearly not going to have a net effect on my jumping experience

A few months ago I was yelling at my mom for not having a living will. The most dangerous thing she does is perpetuate a three-decade long smoking habit. So, jumping out of a plane made me feel like a bit of a hypocrite for not putting any affairs in order.

(PS: No one, under any circumstances, should tell my mom I am skydiving. This is one of those occasions that justifies my blocking her on Twitter. If she finds out she will hit me with the Italian fear/guilt combo so fast and hard that I won’t even let the man strap himself to my back, let alone jump off of anything with him. Anyhow…)

On the off-chance I die today, here’s all that I could think of while I was brushing my teeth:

I don’t like coffins. I want to be disposed of in a green way where the earth can just reclaim me. If that’s not readily available in Pennsylvania I’d want to be donated to science – with the caveat that they can’t dissect or otherwise alter any of my boy parts, because that is just weird.

I don’t like funerals. We went to a beautiful wake for Wes’s father last year that was full of music and might not have mentioned the “G” man even once. I really liked that.

If I get killed doing this I blame Drew’s cancer.

I didn’t get to far past that, because (a) I don’t think I’m going to die (and would like to keep it that way so, please mom, no calls), and (b) I was really hungry for that bowl of Special K.

I’m going to go take a shower now, and mull more over the hair and underwear dilemma.

Filed in blamedrewscancer, day in the life, food, mom, religion, thoughts, vanity | | Comments (1)

tweeting and flying like birds

Saturday, July 18, 2009

I’m presently two miles away from the Pennridge airport, the site of today’s insanity. (see also: last night and this morning)

You can follow along live on twitter up ’til jump time with me or our ground controller amanda nan, or the #blamedrewscancer crew: drew, schmidtultra, mikeyil, & brimil.

I know I have yet to explain why I am jumping out of a plane with the #blamedrewscancer crew. That’s another story entirely. Monday. Seriously.

I’ll check back in after I’ve flown.

Filed in Twitter, blamedrewscancer, stories, thoughts | | Comments (0)

nothing but rock

Saturday, July 18, 2009

(I was the third skydiver out of a ~~blame~~ plane filled with the organizers of #blamedrewscancer‘s upcoming Blame-a-Thon on 9/9/9.)

Filed in Twitter, Year 09, blamedrewscancer, flying, photos | | Comments (6)

What I Tweeted, 2009-07-19 Edition

Sunday, July 19, 2009

My best and most-interesting tweets of the last week (including extensive skydiving coverage).

Read my tweets they happen by following me on Twitter.

Filed in Philly, Twitter, blamedrewscancer, charity, garbage, memories, thoughts, weblinks | | Comments (1)

above the clouds

Sunday, July 19, 2009

(see more skydive shots or read a digest of my twitter coverage)

Filed in Twitter, Year 09, blamedrewscancer, flying, memories | | Comments (0)

Why I Blame Drew’s Cancer, pt. 1

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

It is just shy of 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday, and I am sitting on the floor of an airplane small enough that – sans wings – could fit into my living room. There is a parachute-bearing man named Rob strapped to my back.

Around me sit four other twenty-somethings, each with a parachute-equipped man affixed to their person. Together, we watch through the open hatch on the side of the plane as first the airport slips away, then trees, then clouds.

Suddenly, we are in unmitigated blue.

I’ve known these people for less than three weeks, but in just a few minutes I’ll be jumping out of a plane with them to Blame Drew’s Cancer.

I momentarily debate my sanity.

This story starts in my cubicle at work, of all places.

I had just exited a meeting about social media with Britt, a colleague, but not a direct co-worker. Back in my cube, we had a rapid-fire conversation.

“So,” Britt interrogated, “You blog, but you aren’t on Twitter?”

“I grabbed my username, but I’m not using it for anything.”

“I think you would like it.”

“But it’s just a never-ending Facebook status.”

“Try it. Try it for a week.”

“Britt, I don’t do anything halfway. If I try Twitter I’m going to insist on being the best at Twitter. That’s how I am.”

“Good.” She left me with a wink. “Try it.”

I’ve already unfolded the story of my Twitter addiction, as well as my visit to a meeting of the Social Media Club of Philadelphia. However, neither could prepare me for my next plunge.

It started innocently enough – I received via a Twitter acquaintance an invite to an event charmingly titled “Blame-a-Thon.” 24-hours of live blaming and live music on 9/9/9, all for charity? I didn’t really understand what it was about, but I love charity events, and I love live music.

I shot off a quick message to the organizer to see if he needed any help connecting with bands, and I got a prompt reply – that I should connect with the director of the event: Britt at BlameDrewsCancer.

Britt? Like, my work Britt? The same Britt?

Yes, yes, and yes.

Another rapid-fire conversation with Britt ensued. (As it turns out, all of our conversations are rapid-fire). The Blame-a-Thon was being thrown by BlameDrewsCancer. Had I seen that hash tag on Twitter? I had, but hadn’t completely understood it … dozens of people blaming things, both serious and ironic, on someone’s cancer? Seemed a little cheeky.

Britt said I ought to read up on BlameDrewsCancer, and invited me to tag along to her first meeting with the eponymous Drew to discuss the event.

I read up. Drew is a true digital native – a plugged-in, gagdet-wielding dude who hosted The Best Damn Tech Show. Period, blogs, twitters, and works at a tech startup. Just a month prior, his doctor diagnosed him with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

A lot of people would go to a negative, frightened place with this news – especially in the first month of their diagnosis. Not Drew. Drew decided that in order to beat cancer, he had to beat up on cancer. He had to make it the bad guy, the loser, the asshole. In his own words:

I’ve been blaming my cancer for everything. Lost keys, wallet, Phillies losing. Sixers picking a bad coach. Twitter going down and/or being slow.

Surely cancer can’t withstand that type of beatdown. But why do it alone? I wanted to welcome ANYONE to blame ANYTHING on MY cancer. … I have cancer, but cancer doesn’t have me

Less than 60 days later, close to 10,000 unique Twitter users had blamed something on Drew’s Cancer. That evening, I watched the number creep up on BlameDrewsCancer.com.

I was amazed by Drew’s story, and intrigued to hear about his upcoming Blame-a-Thon. I called Britt back and told her I was in for the meeting.

Little did I know what I was truly “in” for.

Filed in Philly, Twitter, blamedrewscancer, charity, corporate, stories | | Comments (4)

Why I #blamedrewscancer, pt. 2

Friday, July 24, 2009

(Read Part 1)

It is Saturday, at 2:30 in the afternoon. After a brief flight, our plane has reached its apex.

Now it is time to dive out of it.

The friendly chatter of the BlameDrewsCancer team falls away as the tiny cabin bustles with activity. Each of our tandem partners checks to make sure we’re completely winched together.

Then, before I realize it is happening, the plexiglass door over the hatch is slid entirely open, and Chris and his partner are duckwalking to the very edge of the floor. They tip out, into the blue, quickly disappearing from sight.

Drew is sitting next to me. I look him in the eyes, but I don’t think it registers. He will be the next to jump.

I find that, unexpectedly, I am completely calm.

On Monday, June 29, I met Britt outside of our office, and we took off for New Jersey to meet with Drew.

I had read up on the BlameDrewsCancer phenomenon, but I couldn’t say I completely understood the point of it. All I knew was that Britt was in charge of this mysterious Blame-a-Thon event, and that I had volunteered to take notes for her so she could stay focused on her dialog with Drew.

Otherwise, I was in the dark. Blame Drew’s Cancer was just a meme to me. I had never even sent an @-reply to Drew.

We converged on Applebees for our meeting. Me being me, I had never been inside of one before, and wasn’t entirely sure what sort of food they sold. I advertised the fact to Drew, a stocky, tattooed, slightly-imposing man in a baseball jersey.

Great, I thought. Way to endear yourself to the intimidating guy with cancer by advertising your never-ending weirdness.

Thirty minutes later the five of us – Drew, his friends Chris and Mikey, and Britt and I – were seated and eating. The following exchange kicked-off our meeting:

Britt: I brought charts!

Drew: I brought cancer!

This, I learned quickly, was par for the course with Drew – and a running theme of BlameDrewsCancer. Drew was sick of cancer being an unspoken “c-word.” He talked about his cancer loudly and without reservation, and welcomed questions.

Drew was fresh from chemotherapy, and Britt quizzed him on the details over salad. Yes, he had a permanent port in his body for the chemo, so the drugs wouldn’t burn his skin. No, it wasn’t too uncomfortable, but he wasn’t allowed to get any more tattoos while he was in treatment.

As we got into the thick of the meeting I took furious notes on the scope of the event. It would be huge. 24 hours of party, half of it at Philly’s venerable North Star Bar. We would need to coordinate live video streaming of the entire event. The band Stroke 9 was reportedly working on a Blame Drew’s Cancer theme song. Drew was now an official partner of LiveStrong, in a story set to break later that week on outlets like AOL and CNN – until then the news was embargoed.

In Drew’s words, we should “Think big.” When Mikey jokingly fired back, “Big like Tom Hanks,” Drew responded, “Sure, if you think you can get in touch with him.”

It was at that moment that I began to understand what Drew – and, by extension, BlameDrewsCancer – was actually about. It was about a no-holds-barred rebranding of cancer as something you could talk about, get support for, and live through. Really live.

Drew was only intimidating in that he had ideas with no boundaries, and he was looking for people to help realize them. By the time we headed back to our cars, I knew that I wanted to be one of those people; I had to be involved with Blame-a-Thon in a capacity more meaningful than just taking notes.

I did not suspect that “involved” would involve jumping out of a plane.

Filed in Twitter, blamedrewscancer, charity, health, memories, stories | | Comments (4)

Man In the Mirror

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Now a month after he passed, the MJ hoopla continues.

Rolling Stone finally got around to shipping an issue with him on the cover, with a solid accompanying article tracking his whereabouts over the last two years. Still has its lurid bits – prosthetic nose and Latoya trolling through Neverland looking for bags of cash – but it’s more of a portrait than most of the continuing coverage.

The thing that gets me about all the coverage is that people still don’t seem to know all that much about Michael Jackson as a musician. Like anything else, it’s just an echo chamber of the same small handful of facts on spin cycle.

For example, “Man in the Mirror” – a fantastically constructed song that has leapfrogged all of his freaky-video hits to become his official theme and lament. So very Michael, right? Definitive?

It may have been definitive, but it was one of the few big hits of MJ’s solo career that he didn’t have a songwriting credit on. It was penned by Siedah Garrett – an 80s pop artist, songwriter, and killer backing vocalist (frequently with Madonna), and arranged with Glen Ballard, best know as the co-writer and producer of Jagged Little Pill (as well as the debut of Wilson Phillips).

Rolling Stone‘s fantastic Smoking Section just interviewed Ballard about how “Mirror” got onto Bad at the last second.

Siedah and I wrote it for him directly. It was near the end of the recording for Bad — it was the last weekend before they wrapped up Bad — and think I had written something for the album but it didn’t get accepted. Quincy [Jones, Bad's producer] called me and said, “Don’t you have anything else for us?” He thought we were idiots not to try again, and Siedah had an idea, and we got together on a Saturday night, met at my house in Encino, and we just wrote it on the spot. It was really simple, we just wrote it on a Fender Rhodes, and did a quick demo with Siedah singing. It felt really good, but you never know. And we didn’t have time to dress it up, so I didn’t feel like it had a chance.

As for Siedah, at a recent service she briefly eulogized Jackson and then delivered an unbelievable solo turn on the song, backed by the tremendous Agape International Choir.

I started working on my cover of “Man in the Mirror” sometime last fall, and it only started coming together a week or two before Michael died. I love playing it, but I might need to wait a few months before doing it at open mics feels something other than opportunistic.

I’m sorry that Michael Jackson coverage has reached a point of backlash. Honestly, I would listen to him all day and cry two months ago, so I don’t see why I can’t keep doing it now.

Filed in current events, music, rollingstone | | Comments (0)

What I Tweeted, 2009-07-26 Edition

Sunday, July 26, 2009

My best and most-interesting tweets of the last week.

Quotes of the week:

People go rote w/pitches so easily. You have to think like a musician – the song has to have a hook every time. #journchat in reply to PRtini #

Would I rather keep watching this movie, or gnaw off my own leg to escape a bear trap? #

This day looked easy, but it totally wasn't. It's like an evil Decepticon disguised as something innocuous, like a trash can or a calculator #

"Ah, yes. I remember that summer. He was a roadie for WhiteSnake, I was a back-up singer for Boyz II Men."-Veronica Mars (That one kills me) #

Highlighted topics/conversations: broken model of record industry / cryingwolf & bad attitude on social networks / hating Benjamin Button / urinal dreams and murderous gay neighbors / songwriting and Whuffaoke

You should follow me on Twitter so you can read my tweet action as it happens.

Whuffaoke or Bust

Monday, July 27, 2009

I don’t have it in me to articulate today’s adventures quite yet, but:

Whuffaoke is a country-spanning karaoke tour based out of one amazing winnebago. They are also some of the sweetest people I have ever met. Over the course of seven hours I sang “Video Killed the Radio Star,” “Since U Been Gone,” “Semi-Charmed Life,” “Time Is Running Out,” “Don’t You Want Me,” and – amazingly, as I’ve never performed it before – “Here We Go Again” by Whitesnake.

In addition to not having it in me to articulate, I think I may have also lost the power of speech.

Whuffaoke continues on Monday at 13th and Sansom at 5pm sharp. Be there.

Filed in Philly, Twitter, blamedrewscancer, kelly clarkson, linkylove, memories, performance, photos, singing, stories, thoughts, weblinks | | Comments (0)

Monday Morning Remainders

Monday, July 27, 2009

Some links I’ve been meaning to share for a while that don’t quite merit their own posts, but work well traveling as a pack.

Last week Ad Age ran a great article on Social Media taking cues from indie music. They highlight four artists taking the lead in connecting to their fans on the web, and the #1 example is my personal fav Amanda Palmer, about whom they gush, “[She is] more sophisticated than almost anyone on the internet — musician, brand or otherwise — when it comes to gathering her audience around her and keeping the conversation going.”

In a not-dissimilar topic, NYT ran an article highlighting how bands are increasingly eschewing labels in favor of self-releasing or seeking alternate funding. Fluffy on content, but features Metric, whose self-released Fantasies is killer. Metric is my Garbage replacement while Shirl and the boys chill out. Metric’s manager just detailed the funding behind the record in an open letter; dense, but a fascinating peek into the Canandian indie industry.

Nerd Boyfriend is a photo blog that posts modern and vintage photos of well-dressed nerds you’d probably like to date, and offers suggestions of how to match their look. Their Scott Walker post is one of my recent favorites, both for fashion and photography.

“How to decide if you have a good job” is a fantastic post about start-ups, stress, and loving your life. It also give a bit of background inside into Alice.com, a novel start-up that regularly delivers all of your household necessities to your home at a discount over big box stores.

On the flipside, big box corporations are co-opting the “buy local” movement, the same way they’ve all undertaken “green-washing” their businesses. Disappointing on the surface, but there is certain a local element to chains with e-tailing encouraging people to continue to hit their brick and mortar locations or customizing their sales to a regional audience. Neither are bad things.

Um, the melting arctic has released a torrent of “biological goo” on the Alaskan coast and we are not alarmed why? Sounds like the beginning of a terrifying episode of X-Files to me. (via Cecily of Uppercase Woman).

September is a month dedicated to raising awareness of cancer in children. I’ll be busy planning Blame-a-Thon, followed by my corporate charity campaign. If your month isn’t so insane, you could host your own Alex’s Lemonade stand. If you don’t know much about Alex’s history, check out how Alex’s little stand can teach big marketing lessons.

That should be enough to keep you occupied on your lunch break.

Filed in Making Music Work, charity, dresden dolls, linkylove, weblinks | | Comments (0)

Why I #blamedrewscancer, pt. 3

Monday, July 27, 2009

(Read Part 2)

It is just past 2:30 on Saturday afternoon.

The bodies of Drew and his tandem partner are framed by stunning cerulean blue from the open hatch of the plane. Drew’s tiny, thickly-accented videographer has just tipped herself out of the plane.

Drew leans his head back against the shoulder of his partner.

“Three.”

“Two.”

I do not hear “one.” Their bodies arch out of the open side of the plane, dwindling quickly from view, as my tandem partner duck-waddles us closer to the hatch.

I jump next.

Drew accepted my pledge to get involved with Blame-a-Thon with zero hesitation, despite the fact that he didn’t know me from Adam. Actually, he had never met Britt in person before either, and hadn’t known Mikey for all that long. Only Chris, his co-host from Best Damn Tech Show, was a long-term friend.

His entire project team had been recruited via Twitter. A day later I found myself equipped with an official BlameDrewsCancer email address, pitching ideas and drafting documents.

So much for taking a break from event planning. That had lasted all of five weeks.

If the scope of Blame-a-Thon started big, then the ideas behind the scenes were gargantuan. We were reaching out to huge sponsors – businesses I’d never before dreamed of contacting as an individual. And, more and more events found their way onto the schedule – LiveStrong night at the Phillies, karaoke, bowling, sponsored evenings at National Mechanics and Buckhead Saloon, and maybe even a night at a local comedy club.

In any other organization I’d be wary of stretching too thin, but BlameDrewsCancer was the inverse. Every time we added another seemingly-insane item to our list, more resources and support emerged from the Twitter community. The pace of blaming and donations (all benefiting our partner LiveStrong) kept increasing.

Through our non-stop conversations I suddenly had a crew of best friends that I barely even knew. I even bought a new phone after a year of waffling just so I could stay in touch with all of their manic happenings.

My windfall of awesome new people is actually part of Drew’s end-game for the charity – he wants to use his experience with cancer to show people battling cancer (and their friends and families) that they can build their own dynamic systems of support through tools like Twitter, and then convert that system into the real world. In fact, Drew wants to help them do it.

Somewhere in there, we started to talk about skydiving. Chris and Mikey had done it before, and I mentioned wanting to tag along on their next trip. Britt said she was game. If Drew wanted to skydive, we could do it as a team, with our final member Amanda acting as ground control.

This is what impresses me the most about Drew, and about Blame Drews Cancer. Drew didn’t necessarily want to skydive. I at no point got the impression that it was something on his “bucket list” of things to do just in case cancer got the best of him. In fact, the idea of it occasionally seemed to send him into a panic attack.

Skydiving was an extreme, scary thing to do, and it seemed to me that Drew wanted to do it – fear and all – just to shove it in cancer’s face. He would pitch himself – cancer and all – out of a plane at an altitude of 15,000 feet to prove that Drew has cancer, but cancer doesn’t have Drew.

We picked a date. On Saturday, July 18 – a day after my six month wedding anniversary – I would leap out of a plane and hope to land all in one piece.

Filed in Twitter, blamedrewscancer, stories | | Comments (4)

Tuesday Morning Tech Links

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

I flag a lot of techie links, as if I’m going to go and use 39 how-tos or 87 productivity tools right there on the spot. That’s not how it works. You tuck that information away for when you need to look back on it. And a scattering of bookmarks across my five different computers is not a good tucking method.

Hell, even cloud bookmarking doesn’t really do it – for me a bookmark is for a page (in a book or on the web) I know I will come back to at a specific time. This sort of thing is more open-ended.

Luckily, I have the ultimate in permanent memory technology – a nearly decade-old blog.

Elise has been doing a lot of CSS work lately, which is an area of web design where I’ve fallen behind. Thus, I love this Getting Started with CSS guide, which is packed with 20 starter tools. (via @mayhemstudios)

Handy list of the 22 most useful free apps for your PC. At the beginning I was like – um, duh – but as it continues it will surely slip you a surprise or two. (via @robangeles)

In a similar vein, 30 open source apps for web designers is a litany of code- and image- editors and FTP apps that I’ve never even heard of before. (via @bkmacdaddy)

I sometimes have a blank moment where I’m futzing with my server can’t remember exactly what I’m supposed to be doing with my .htaccess file, and the next time I have that moment I’m going to re-read 16 Useful htaccess tricks.

If you are several dozen levels of “Internets Wizard” higher than that, perhaps you’d be intrigued by the Ultimate Round-Up of Fireworks Tutorials. I have Fireworks now, but what I haven’t had is time to level up my skills in it.

If you or someone you know is still Twitter-averse or a Twitter-virgin, they should refer to the mammoth Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter, which covers just about any question you could conceive of. (via @Sharonhayes)

Alternately, for the power-user, how about a guide to how to use twitter when you follow several-thousand people? Around 300 I felt hopelessly lost, and started searching for an external app to sort people into groups. This article takes a more organic approach. (via @danavan)

Finally, not really a tech link, but it appeals to this same crowd: What to include in your design contracts.

Filed in Twitter, webdesign, weblinks | | Comments (5)