Crushing Krisis

The Newest Oldest Blog In New Zealand

parties

Gina’s Bachelorette Adventure, Pt. 1

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This weekend was Gina’s (she of Arcati Crisis, high school, and many madcap adventures in between) bachelorette party.

In 2008, my bachelor party (planned by Gina and four of my other closest friends) was an 80s Prom entitled “Like a Virgin.” It came complete with DJ, decorations, catering, and friends dressed in period fashions – with hair to match. Plus, the DJ was actually a karaoke emcee, and all of the 80s tunes were sung by my friends and I.

Now, I am more than a little competitive. Not in the playing sports, head-to-head, high score kinda of way. I could care less, but not by much.

No, my style of competitive is “anything you can do I can do better.” Like, my blog is the longest running in Philadelphia, or I have the most expansive guide to collecting X-Men on the internet, or when Bruno Mars tracks came out for Rock Band 3 I wouldn’t let bro go to bed until we had 100% and were ranked in the top 30 internationally of all harmony vocalists.

Thus, when I was charged with planning Gina’s bachelorette party along with her best friends Kelly (a chemist in Belgium) and Mikki (an architecht & non-profit organizer in Seattle), I had something to prove. I had to conceive of the most memorable, most epic, and most fitting Bachelorette Adventure possible without actually having Gina go on tour with Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young.

My first impulse was to plan something with music and the 80s, but… surprise! Gina had already won the “Best Party Ever” designation in that category.

As Kelly, Mikki, and I talked about it over the course of several months, we kept coming back to a “this is your life” tour through Philadelphia landmarks. It was a cool idea, but didn’t sound fun. There’s your house! There’s your high school! Isn’t this awesome!?

No.

We kept talking. What if it was a City Chase version, with special clues and teams racing the city? Cooler, but not the best format for celebrating around a single person. But, what if each location held a special challenge for the team – half Amazing Race, half Double Dare?

Now we were getting somewhere. We picked some locations and made up a few challenges. It was sounding somewhat entertaining, but not EPIC. It was lacking a grand scale and a clear theme, other than walking around Philly for eight hours.

Then, I had a not-rare-but-not-nearly-common-enough stroke of mad genius while idly humming one of Gina’s Arcati Crisis songs, “Fisher Price,” which goes a bit like this…

There comes a time when you realize
That you don’t get anymore chances
There’s no extra lives
You don’t get big from a magic mushroom
And you don’t find coins in an underground room.

My epiphany? Gina’s Bachelorette Adventure would be a video game. A real life video game that was part Super Mario Brothers, part Grand Theft Auto, and part live-action role playing game – all with Gina’s favorite parts of Philadelphia as its world map.

It sounded suitably epic, but would it make any sense to Kelly and Mikki… or to Gina and the 20 friends she asked us to invite?

Tune in for the next installment to hear how our motley trio planned to turn Philadelphia into a massive game board, and how having crafty and artist co-conspirators elevated my insanity to a whole new level.

http://arcaticrisis.bandcamp.com/track/fisher-price

something like life

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I’ve got this elaborate editorial calendar telling me what to write and when to post, but if I just stick to the calendar that sucks a bit of the me out of the blog, eh?

Life continues to be a non-stop whirlwind of communications and music, which is exactly what I’ve always wanted it to be, so yay for the continued status quo! When not in actual rehearals I’m writing songs (for the soundtrack to Eric Smith’s novel), a novel (for NaNoWriMo), and a blog (just because, and for NaBloPoMo).

As it happens,Gina is also writing songs (at the moment, as a soundtrack to Boardwalk Empire), a novel (she’s the one who convinced me to do NaBloPoMo), and a blog (she is not the only one of us who exerts peer pressure).

I think this is pretty much what I imagined our adulthood would be like as a seventeen year-old, except for I’m married to someone way hotter than I imagined and Gina is engaged to a lawyer.

Speaking of: Elise, who has the same hectic rehearsal schedule as me but less of the writing, has starting painting the house in approved non-vomitorious colors. I think it’s very “nice” that she’s painting, which is to say I think painting (and, in general, decorating) is something people with too much money and spare time do to occupy themselves.

The only photographic evidence of us as Lucas and Corey from Empire Records, courtesy of our friend Tina, who was such a perfect Rachel Berry that it was a little disturbing. Note E's gold star, awarded from Rachel.

(Lest you think I am debuting this sideways insult of my wife here on the blog, she’s been hearing it for years. I’d wager she’d be happy if I just blogged about it and stopped whining about it in the house.)

As someone with neither money nor spare time, the whole process is perplexing to me. She had to use special gray primer on our dining room walls, which took an entire day to paint on and when she was done I was like, “Awesome, it’s gray, can we leave it like that?” and she had to explain that it was just the primer.

I’m all about gray. I think grays are totally exempt from every being vomit-inducing. Now the dining room is cranberry. I hear that’s supposed to aid in digestion, so I stood in it while I was eating raviolis before rehearsal last night. I ate them pretty quickly, but I think that’s just because I hadn’t eaten anything for about 22 hours. I’m not sure about the digestion angle.

The one downside to my constant flurry of words and sounds is it doesn’t leave a lot of time to interact with people I’m not writing or rehearsing with (or for taking things out of the dryer, but that’s another story). I think my next availability for a dinner with friends might be in December.

A snapshot of the last ten days of my life: Saw three concerts (one in New York), rehearsed three times, started three new songs for my soundtrack to Eric Smith’s book, tried to find a way to post three times daily here at CK (still working on that), wrote almost 7,000 words for my NaNoWriMo novel, and dressed as Lucas from Empire Records for a Halloween party.

Oh, and occasionally ate, slept, and watched 30 Rock.

If you did more than that in your last ten days then I want to know what else you could have possibly fit in and kind of vitamins you are taking.

Please note: methamphetamines do not count as “vitamins.”

I #blamedrewscancer for being a Philebrity

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I have a story to tell you.

I met half of the #blamedrewscancer crew at Fuzion at around seven for the Philadelphia Area New Media Association (PANMA) holiday party.

That is not the story.

We were at PANMA for some brief networking and catching up with friends, but our end destination was The Trocadero, where Philly blog fixture Philebrity was holding their non-denominational X-Mas party slash year end awards.

Blame Drew’s Cancer was up for the “Outstanding Do-Gooders of the Year” award. Polling had been open and transparent, so it was easy to see that we were getting creamed by Phillies’ Shane Victorino from day one. As such, we didn’t marshal much of a vote – eventually coming in fourth, behind even Mayor Nutter for his ballsy budget bluff.

The four of us – Britt, Mikey, Libby, and I (plus Libby’s awesome husband, another Peter) rolled in to the Troc fashionably late, and occupied the “Reserved” table closest to the stage. Our innate rowdiness took over shortly, and we were hooting at the house band (shout out to BC Camplight) and yelling “Hut!”at any reference to Lady Gaga.

Okay, maybe that was just me.

Suddenly, it was time for our award category. Philebrity Captain and one of my personal Journalist heroes Joe Sweeney read down the list of nominees. When he hit #bdc we cheered, the crowd cheered for us, and he continued down the list.

End of story? Not quite.

Joey Sweeney: So, Shane isn’t here tonight, so we’re going to give this award to Blame Drew’s Cancer.

Team Blame Drew’s Cancer: ???

No, he was not joking. Suddenly we’re being gestured at and motioned towards to the stage and then we’re on the stage and then I’m hugging Joey Sweeney and then, inevitably, I am standing in front of a microphone gaping at a rather large crowd seated at round tables all Golden Globes style and I am like, omg I think now they want me to talk.

Luckily, there is video to document my surprising coherent trip through award show aphasia:

(Take note of my neck-bobbing walk down the stairs, as it figures in to the next bit pretty heavily.) [Read more…] about I #blamedrewscancer for being a Philebrity

Our Battlestar Galactica Halloween as Baltar & Head Six

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Last night E and I dressed up as Head Six and Dr. Gaius Baltar, respectively, from the cult Sci-Fi hit Battlestar Galactica.

Head SixDr. Gaius Baltar

E is not in Six’s standard spaghetti-strap dress, but Six can be spotted in this style at least once in the series.

Baltar & Six

Also, note the spot-on bracelet and ring, which E made herself.

Six & Baltar, enamored

My costume was much more subtle, as I was effectively E’s accessory for the night. I simply grew some scruff and slicked back my hair. For fun, I carried two corner-cut Vice-Presidential memos (as we were ostensibly circa seasons one and two – post appointment to VP, but pre swearing-in as president).

Six, hand of God

One memo was the results of tests with the Cylon Detector. The other was a draft of Gaius’s inaugural speech, complete with parenthetical asides to Head Six (presumably floating over his shoulder in devilish fashion as he wrote it). Writing in the Dr. Baltar voice was very fun.

Out of two parties four people knew who we were. The best comment we received was by far:

I’m not sure who you are, but you both look really sexy. You should introduce yourself as, “Hi, I’m sexy.”

Oh, and SyFy – né Sci-Fi – the purveyors of the show we paid homage to, thought we were “Awesome!”

‘Nuff said.

I (mostly) #blamedrewscancer for my disappearing week.

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By rights and logic I really ought to be asleep right now, but if I don’t recount the past week it’s going to sleep out of the memory banks and completely disappear into the ether. At least this way I can prove that it actually happened.

So. If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been since that last post and why I am not writing you wonderfully detailed bulletins about my life, here is the download.

A week ago right now I was up late on the couch, laptop on my chest, firing out #blamedrewscancer emails. (Yes, I know I owe you the last chapter in the skydiving story. All in good time.) Around the time I planned to go to sleep National Mechanics emailed me and Mike(y) to ask if we were planning to bring some live acoustic cover music with us to the #bdc event next Thursday (i.e., TODAY).

Um, no. We had talked about it and thought music might be overwhelming. Given the open invitation, suddenly I was firing emails to all of my Philly artist friends who carry a bevy of covers, trying to find a bill for the night.

I fell asleep mid-email in that same position – lying on the couch with the laptop on my chest. When I awoke just shy of ten on Thursday morning (don’t worry; I had the day off) I literally opened my laptop before I opened my eyes. I had originally allotted the day half to #bdc and half to myself, but it wound up being double #bdc, and then some. Project managing, writing emails, talking to Drew, rinse, repeat.

It kept churning into the night (interrupted only to spend three hours researching my own well-documented credit history because – to the best that I can discern – CHASE is a bunch of predatory frauds. Without getting into my personal finances, they sent me a letter changing my terms that was blatantly untrue. Like, each “reason” they listed was immediately and factually refutable. The letter I wrote to them in response, it’s a beautiful thing. Elise speculates that they’ve never encountered such a document before in their lives. I can’t wait to fax it.)

Then, Friday. After work I found myself in a telecommuting menage a trois with Drew and Britt. What I couldn’t tell you then and can now reveal thanks to TechCrunch breaking the story earlier tonight is that I was working on a sponsorship proposal for 23andMe.

I started occasionally following 23andMe shortly before they were a Wired cover story in November of 2007, to the point that I knew just who they were when Cecily K. recapped her experiences with their commercial testing kit a few months ago. The reductionist version is that you spit in a test tube for them, and they report back to you about your predisposition for health and disease, and on your family history.

Point being, 23andMe is a real, tangible brand to me – a brand providing a valuable and potentially life-altering service. And I was proposing that #bdc (and, by extension, me) should be their business partner in a sponsorship.

So, yeah, just a little stress on Friday. Luckily, Drew is a wonderful human being who can make me laugh and cry remotely via instant message, and between the two of us everything was fine and from Britt’s abstract we all created a really wonderful proposal.

Saturday E and I headed to the burbs to assist in moving some friends into their first house (YAY!), and then I had a two hour intermission before heading with Gina to West Philly to play a house party fundraiser for her FringeFest play, Fefu and Her Friends. I’ve never played a house party before in a formal sense, where I was billed as a feature and was expected to play for some certain amount of time. It was awesome, but it kicked my ass – even when I wasn’t on I was still ON, from six at night to four in the morning.

In that ten hours, I played three or four hours of music. I also met, mingled, sang, and danced with some of the most beautiful and talented people in Philadelphia, namely the cast of Fefu and their amazing friend Ed, who is half lounge-singer and half space alien come to earth to reclaim Prince as one of his people.

Also, I played an on-command version of Cher’s “Believe” totally off of the top of my head, and at some very late point (possibly as late as present?) Gina, Wes, and I sang an epic three-part harmony version of “With or Without You” with Gina and I clustered around a single mic in a vague sketch of Springsteen and Van Zandt.

Then I slept. Until, like, seven at night on Sunday? All I know is that any time I was halfway roused during the day I would restart The Matrix and be asleep before the scene with the pills.

Um, where are we? Monday? Three or four hours of rehearsal with Gina directly after work (as we are providing some covers support TONIGHT while we await the arrival of the proper musician who will grace us, one Chris Huff), including playing an entire set live for TwitCam, followed by further rehearsal on my own.

Tuesday one of my other cover-songs leads came through in the form of my good friend and former TrebleMaker Kate, who showed up at my house with a setlist of 20 songs to bash through with me – out of which we were to craft 45 minutes of rockin’ cover music for TONIGHT (which is rapidly approaching as I continue to write this post).

Another four hours of rehearsal later and we had our set, packed with lots of stuff I had never played before, like Katy Perry, Aerosmith, and Evanescence … plus some familiar favorites.

Then, tonight, I baked. You see, somewhere in the midst of the days/paragraphs above, team #bdc decided that the best possible component to add to a benefit night at a local bar packed with acoustic music was a bake sale, and I – inexplicably and against my nature and better judgment – volunteered. (My altruism may have had something to do with wanting to play with the Kitchen Aid standing mixer my groom’s party bought us as a wedding gift.)

A dozen dozen cookies, half-a-dozen lead sheets, and half a half-dozen loads of laundry later, and it’s 4am. Music starts at our event in a mere 16 hours. I still have not had a proper rehearsal for myself, and I just hours ago realized I don’t have another set of my preferred strings (a particular issue since I just broke one).

Goodnight.

In Which I Confess to Lazing

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If we define me by being musical and active and despising passive expenditures of time, then I think it’s safe to say that I went through a bit of an Anti-Me month in February.

Mostly due to video games.

Let me back up a step. In 2004 I gave up network television as a concept; it figuratively and literally doesn’t exist to me anymore, the latter because we haven’t had a vestige of television reception for going on three years.

Since 2004, 95% of the television I have watched (intentionally or not) has been Eagles games. And, because we don’t have reception of our own, most of my Eagles-watching is done with friends.

This season the group of friends happens to also be a group of depraved video-game maniacs, and when we decided to get together for one post-playoffs hurrah we did nothing but play video games.

I haven’t given up video games in the way that I gave up television, but they do make me wary … mostly because I spent a year and a half of my life doing nothing but playing City of Heroes. Sure, there are a handful of site updates and new songs to prove I was alive, and also I was apparently maintaining a relationship at the time, but I was also putting in 40+ hour weeks in at work and on the game.

Well, after our little party I decided that owning a video game system wouldn’t be the end of the world. It wouldn’t be connected to the internet, so it couldn’t suck me in the same degree as City of Heroes. And, much in the way we selectively view TVDs of good shows to replace our lack of television, I would only buy and play games that were compelling. It would be a social and intellectual pursuit.

Right. And then I bought We Love Katamari and a month of my life disappeared.

It’s not that I played video games for the entire month, so much as that video games were emblematic of my lack of energy for creative pursuits. Not lack of inspiration, mind you, but lack of energy.

Merrily, I was right – a non-networked PlayStation doesn’t have the kind of grip on my immortal soul as an internet world full of unique superheroes. This iteration of gaming in my life is merely a distraction, not an addiction.

But then I think – how much blogging could I have done while I was thumbing a joystick? How many songs could I have recorded? Et cetera, et cetera?

Who knows. Life doesn’t work like a metric conversion scale. Could I have recorded an awesome album, or did I simply not have anything to say creatively?

A retrospective answer is meaningless; it’s a question you and I need to ask ourselves each time we pick up a remote or a controller.

This week my answer is “you have plenty to say – start talking.”