Up the Tree

  • Badlands cover

    When I first heard True Blue from Dirty Beaches’ Sweet 16 EP, I have to say I was impressed. The romantic tone and undulating guitars made me want to sit by a fire on a beach at dusk, wrapped in a musty blanket with my best-girl, listening to the waves crash. It was just this over-romanticized vision of 1950s sound that got me hooked. As a sound, it was fresh and really got me interested.

    [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTch7g_gkfU]

    The Badlands album, however, suffers from too much of a good thing. While an EP of fuzzed out rockabilly guitars is fun, a full albums worth of difficult to decipher eclectic low-fi is a little hard on the ears. Sure there are some interesting moments on Badlands, but after about 4 songs — you get it. You get the whole thing. You think, I hope this changes a little from the predictability of the “dadada-dada-dadada-dada” and it doesn’t. It holds tight — to a fault.

    Even wonderful songs like Lord Knows Best begin to grate on your nerves after the repetition of the 5 songs before it. I want to like this album, because I really have been looking forward to it, but as an album it doesn’t hold up. It stubbornly marches to the end without the love or joy you might have expected from the standouts like True Blue or Lord Know Best. By the end, Black Nylon and Hotel gave me distinct impression I was being asked to leave the beach I had so enjoyed hearing snapshots of before.

    Rating: 40/100
    Released: March 28, 2011

  • I’m a pretty good talker. Not all the time mind you; but get me a drink, a seat, and a captive audience (preferably tied to their chairs) and I will talk their ears off.

    Unfortunately after a night of hardcore talking, which probably involved me telling you an embarrassingly personal story about an ex-girlfriend, people ask me to e-mail them all the things I was talking about. They also ask me to untie them.

    Below is a list, in no particular order, of what I’ve been talking about for the month of March 2011.

    Comedy Stuff

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBgoBjJkxfI

    • Kumail Nanjiani – Another great stand-up from Pakistan. Love his bit about Benjamin Button.
    • IT Crowd – Super funny BBC comedy about an english IT department.
    • Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace – Is a total cult classic BBC comedy in the style of old 1980’s tales from the crypt, Stephen King style horror. Probably the best show to convincingly do badly done.
    • QI – One of my favorite UK vices after PG Tips, Qi is a quiz show, but a quiz show unlike any you have ever watched before. The point is not to get the answer right, but instead to be interesting. Hosted by the incredibly smart and interesting Stephen Fry.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-6-0JTXMPo

    Tech Stuff

    • Stacey CMS – This little Content Management system surprised me because of how easy it is to use and install. No Databases, just easy to write templates and text files. Very good for the beginner. Can be completely pimped out as seen in the architecturally inspired theme Assemblage.
      Stacey CMS
    • TwentyTen Five – Based on an article in Smashing Magazine, this WordPress theme is wonderful for those wanting to dip their toes into HTML5. Based on WordPress’s default theme, it is very easy to work with and style. You can see templates I have built using it here on this website and on ElizaSkinner.com.
      TwentyTen Five
    • Pure Reader – For all of you who use Google Reader to read your RSS, the Pure Reader browser extension makes that experience amazing. Seriously, I cannot recommend it enough.
    • Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator – I do love me some smooth gradients, especially when I can create them in CSS3.0 ala an Adobe Illustrator style chooser. Found this via 25 Super Web-based HTML & CSS Tools an incredible resource for great web tools.
      CSS Gradient Generator
    • Calibre – If you own an e-Book, then you must have Calibre. Although the interface is chunky and pretty counter-intuitive, Calibre can convert any eBook format to any other e-book format. It also organizes books and allows you create e-books from a website’s RSS feed.
    • Roku Player – Still my favorite video streamer. If you subscribe to Netflix instant watch, you owe it to yourself to get a Roku Player.

    So, now you know what it’s like to have drinks with me. Pretty exciting right? My calendar is pretty open if you?… no? You have to?… go? Oh, okay, maybe next time. Here, let me untie you.

  • Sleepwalk With MeI’ve recently been reading Mike Birbiglia‘s Sleepwalk with Me: and Other Painfully True Stories and really been enjoying it. There have been some full on laugh-out-loud moments and I normally don’t laugh-out-loud while reading — I hate those people. But now I’m one of those people and I have been thinking, I should write more! Why don’t I write more? I have funny stories too?

    And so, I have been writing again. It’s taking a lot longer than expected and also longer than it takes to read Mike’s stories, which seems like a ridiculous thing to measure against, but I do. I think oh this is funny, I can do this too! And I start dictating in my mind, which is a terrible habit because my mind never writes anything I tell it down. And then I’m like PERFECT send it to press and my mind goes, sorry I wasn’t writing ANY of that down. I don’t even have hands, what were you expecting? Also ‘send it to press’? Where are we Citizen Kane, the 40s?

    I should really fire my mind and get a real assistant. Keep an eye out for some ridiculously embarrassing stories soon.

    Update: You should also check out my new bestie Kimmy Gatewood’s blog My Boyfriend Tolerates Me — very funny and has also been inspiring me to write more.

  • As a designer, I know how hard it can be to talk about your work. I have tried to create the 10 second elevator pitch and usually I feel like a total d-bag. Then I see this guy and realize, perhaps I can learn something from his philosophy?

    And by philosophy, I mean snorting cocaine off of a picture of myself, while standing front of a mirror admiring my ‘guns’.

    I love it when he looks into the camera.