Saturday, September 25, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Southern Hospitality
Roy and I were in Austin this past weekend. Our friend Mike, who has JetBlue's All-You-Can-Jet pass this month, has been flying all over the country and was headed there as well to meet up our friend Ed, who's stationed at Fort Hood about an hour outside the city.
Some of you may already know this, but Roy and I were born in Texas, in a (what I imagine to be) sleepy town called Bedford just outside of Dallas. Our family moved to Southern California when we were 7 months old, though, so we never got the opportunity to get properly acquainted with our birth state. Still, though it may very well be illusory, I've always felt a tie to the state of Texas, what with its softly-hued dusks, wide flowing plains, and smokey scents of home. Of course, it's also entirely possible that whatever sentimental feelings I have toward this hypothetically mythical land may have arisen purely out of my love for "Friday Night Lights" and my blanket affection for a nonspecific idea of the South, itself a misguided conflation of what should be many unique cultures and qualities. Regardless, I gots a thing for Texas and, aside from two previous trips when I passed through Amarillo on my way to somewhere else, this was my first foray into the state since I had left it over 23 years ago.
One of the first things I saw after getting off the plane was a woman wearing a tie-dye T-shirt emblazoned with the logo "Keep Austin Weird." The city managed to live up to the claim, although not in an over-the-top way. Austin is weird, but only because it's filled with so many different kinds of people, places, and ideas. In the middle of the city lies the University of Texas at Austin, which fulfills both your Southern university stereotypes and your more generic partying-college-kids stereotype. Travel a few blocks southward and you'll hit Downtown Austin, which squeezes towering skyscrapers belonging to various financial institutions right next to 6th street, a lively but unassuming stretch of bars, restaurants, and music venues. Sprinkled in are places like the Museum of the Weird and the purportedly haunted Driskill Hotel. On the weekends, the police close off the adjoining streets to traffic to allow revelers to walk down the street unfettered. Head south of the Colorado River and you'll come to South Congress (affectionately abbreviated to SoCo by some), a shopping district with an abundance of food carts selling everything from Tex-Mex to bratwursts. Need a pair of boots and a cowboy hat? You can find those here. Austin has all the traditional makings of a middle tier-sized city, but its charm is all its own.
Roy, Mike, and I arrived in the city first and headed to our hotel to wait for Ed to drive down from Killeen. The lock on our bathroom door was broken, which is only relevant because I was on the can when Ed arrived, and the broken lock meant Ed was able to walk right in and hand me a 32 oz.-er. This is one of many reasons why I love Ed. After a belt-busting dinner of barbeque, we hit up 6th street and were very happy to discover how cheap the drinks were. Much was imbibed, some naps at the bar were taken, and debauchery followed. The only lowlight of the evening was a smoke-choked bar we hit up at the end of the night that did funny things to my appetite for the rest of the weekend. Our second day found us catching brunch in SoCo and sneaking in a little bit of window shopping at Allen's Boots. College football, a second barbeque dinner, and a low-key evening out rounded out our Saturday. Sunday was alternately rainy and sunny. We got some fantastic Tex-Mex from Torchy's Tacos and visited UT Austin, which is also where my parents met some thirty years ago. I e-mailed a picture of us standing on their campus to them and I got e-mails back with more exclamation points than I ever suspected my parents capable of wrangling. We spent the evening sharing one last bar crawl with Ed, as he had to head back to base in time for work the next morning. He deploys to Iraq next month.
Austin was good to us. The only thing I missed doing was catching a movie at the historic Alamo Drafthouse, but that's okay because I now have a reason to come back. It's interesting, only knowing a place as an idea for so long and then finally seeing it in the flesh. Admittedly, Austin probably isn't the best representation of Texas, but it's a damn fine city nonetheless. Next stop -- Dallas, or maybe some booney-ass town in the middle of nowhere. I'm game. May my Texas dalliances continue.
Skyline.
Capitol building in the rain.
Hiding out from the rain under a tree.
Hiding out again.
Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium, where the Longhorns play.
Roy's shirt becomes unintentionally ironic here.
Country-Folk band!
Of course Ed finds the one thing relating to California in the entire state.
Rainy day on 6th street.
On the move.
Some of you may already know this, but Roy and I were born in Texas, in a (what I imagine to be) sleepy town called Bedford just outside of Dallas. Our family moved to Southern California when we were 7 months old, though, so we never got the opportunity to get properly acquainted with our birth state. Still, though it may very well be illusory, I've always felt a tie to the state of Texas, what with its softly-hued dusks, wide flowing plains, and smokey scents of home. Of course, it's also entirely possible that whatever sentimental feelings I have toward this hypothetically mythical land may have arisen purely out of my love for "Friday Night Lights" and my blanket affection for a nonspecific idea of the South, itself a misguided conflation of what should be many unique cultures and qualities. Regardless, I gots a thing for Texas and, aside from two previous trips when I passed through Amarillo on my way to somewhere else, this was my first foray into the state since I had left it over 23 years ago.
One of the first things I saw after getting off the plane was a woman wearing a tie-dye T-shirt emblazoned with the logo "Keep Austin Weird." The city managed to live up to the claim, although not in an over-the-top way. Austin is weird, but only because it's filled with so many different kinds of people, places, and ideas. In the middle of the city lies the University of Texas at Austin, which fulfills both your Southern university stereotypes and your more generic partying-college-kids stereotype. Travel a few blocks southward and you'll hit Downtown Austin, which squeezes towering skyscrapers belonging to various financial institutions right next to 6th street, a lively but unassuming stretch of bars, restaurants, and music venues. Sprinkled in are places like the Museum of the Weird and the purportedly haunted Driskill Hotel. On the weekends, the police close off the adjoining streets to traffic to allow revelers to walk down the street unfettered. Head south of the Colorado River and you'll come to South Congress (affectionately abbreviated to SoCo by some), a shopping district with an abundance of food carts selling everything from Tex-Mex to bratwursts. Need a pair of boots and a cowboy hat? You can find those here. Austin has all the traditional makings of a middle tier-sized city, but its charm is all its own.
Roy, Mike, and I arrived in the city first and headed to our hotel to wait for Ed to drive down from Killeen. The lock on our bathroom door was broken, which is only relevant because I was on the can when Ed arrived, and the broken lock meant Ed was able to walk right in and hand me a 32 oz.-er. This is one of many reasons why I love Ed. After a belt-busting dinner of barbeque, we hit up 6th street and were very happy to discover how cheap the drinks were. Much was imbibed, some naps at the bar were taken, and debauchery followed. The only lowlight of the evening was a smoke-choked bar we hit up at the end of the night that did funny things to my appetite for the rest of the weekend. Our second day found us catching brunch in SoCo and sneaking in a little bit of window shopping at Allen's Boots. College football, a second barbeque dinner, and a low-key evening out rounded out our Saturday. Sunday was alternately rainy and sunny. We got some fantastic Tex-Mex from Torchy's Tacos and visited UT Austin, which is also where my parents met some thirty years ago. I e-mailed a picture of us standing on their campus to them and I got e-mails back with more exclamation points than I ever suspected my parents capable of wrangling. We spent the evening sharing one last bar crawl with Ed, as he had to head back to base in time for work the next morning. He deploys to Iraq next month.
Austin was good to us. The only thing I missed doing was catching a movie at the historic Alamo Drafthouse, but that's okay because I now have a reason to come back. It's interesting, only knowing a place as an idea for so long and then finally seeing it in the flesh. Admittedly, Austin probably isn't the best representation of Texas, but it's a damn fine city nonetheless. Next stop -- Dallas, or maybe some booney-ass town in the middle of nowhere. I'm game. May my Texas dalliances continue.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Taking the Stage
Late last month, Possible Productions had the opportunity to work on some of the video content for Jay-Z's set during his landmark "Home & Home" four-show tour with Eminem. They played two dates in Detroit's Comerica Park and two dates in New York's Yankee Stadium. Figge and Alex, after working their asses off in New York and Detroit, sat out the Yankee Stadium leg of the tour to go back home to L.A. so they could focus on the video content for Deadmau5's VMA set (which looked fucking fantastic. See some of it here). Possible Production's two All-Access passes thus transferred to me and Roy, so on Monday and Tuesday, it was off to the Bronx with us.
The show, to put it mildly, was amazing. Much of my love for hip-hop has waned in recent years, but Em and Jay are two of the biggest reasons I fell in love with rap in the first place. They also happen to be two of the biggest (with Jay being arguably the biggest ever, no?) hip-hop icons working today. I was excited, but 2002 me would've lost his freaking mind over going to a show like this. 2010 me played it much cooler. Either that or I'm just a lot more jaded now. Probably the latter.
My concert-going phase, which only bloomed in the last few years, never really overlapped with my hip-hop phase, so this is one of the first hip-hop concerts I've attended. I'm familiar with the kind of energy rock shows and music festivals can generate, but I was curious to see if rappers could create that same kind of buzz without the help of soaring melodies or epic solos. Eminem's relentless vitriol, occasional goofiness, and overall sincerity (not to mention a catalogue of hits) helped him command the stage. He put on a good show. But you haven't seen stage presence until you've seen Jay-Z live. That man commands 40,000 strong on swagger alone. Throw that in with his increased touring activity over the last few years, and you have somebody who has mastered how to put on a good show. He knows exactly what his strengths are and when to hit the crowd with something to really stir them up. And nobody in this business seems to have friends like Jay has friends. A slew of guest appearances ensured the night stayed interesting as the concert ran past midnight into hour four.
Awesome show aside, what really put the night over the top for me was just seeing our company's work up on the screen. There were definitely several moments when I found myself looking around the stands of Yankee stadium, packed to the seam with screaming fans, then looked to the stage only to see something I helped make, right there on the screen (though most of the credit goes to Figge and Casey McClain, an animator we hired for the gig), and wondered "How the hell did I get here?" Anyway, making some money and getting the company's name out there on cool shit like this is definitely an unbelievable experience, but here's to hoping it's just the first step towards a future of doing our own projects, our own way. On to the next one!
Now for some pictures (taken on my phone, so forgive the general crappiness):
The view from left field.
Look! Team USA in the crowd! Handy-dandily labeled for easy recognition!
Em and 50.
Oh yeah. He brought out the fucking Doctor. That's him on the bottom left.
Hova!
You knew he had to do a Biggie tribute. That's Possible Productions' work, by the way.
Chris Martin on the left, Jay with the hands up.
On day two, instead of Chris, he brought out the queen Mary J. Blige!
She ripped a quick solo set.
Blurry picture of Jay and the boy Drake.
And then he brought out Beyonce!
Not the best picture of her, but the clearest one I have.
More Possible Productions on the screen! This one Roy and I actually shot.
Same with this one. Marcy!
Aaaand even more Possible.
I grabbed some video of various songs throughout the concert, but I don't have a way to process the footage right now. Assuming I don't succumb to general laziness, I'll post those later.
The show, to put it mildly, was amazing. Much of my love for hip-hop has waned in recent years, but Em and Jay are two of the biggest reasons I fell in love with rap in the first place. They also happen to be two of the biggest (with Jay being arguably the biggest ever, no?) hip-hop icons working today. I was excited, but 2002 me would've lost his freaking mind over going to a show like this. 2010 me played it much cooler. Either that or I'm just a lot more jaded now. Probably the latter.
My concert-going phase, which only bloomed in the last few years, never really overlapped with my hip-hop phase, so this is one of the first hip-hop concerts I've attended. I'm familiar with the kind of energy rock shows and music festivals can generate, but I was curious to see if rappers could create that same kind of buzz without the help of soaring melodies or epic solos. Eminem's relentless vitriol, occasional goofiness, and overall sincerity (not to mention a catalogue of hits) helped him command the stage. He put on a good show. But you haven't seen stage presence until you've seen Jay-Z live. That man commands 40,000 strong on swagger alone. Throw that in with his increased touring activity over the last few years, and you have somebody who has mastered how to put on a good show. He knows exactly what his strengths are and when to hit the crowd with something to really stir them up. And nobody in this business seems to have friends like Jay has friends. A slew of guest appearances ensured the night stayed interesting as the concert ran past midnight into hour four.
Awesome show aside, what really put the night over the top for me was just seeing our company's work up on the screen. There were definitely several moments when I found myself looking around the stands of Yankee stadium, packed to the seam with screaming fans, then looked to the stage only to see something I helped make, right there on the screen (though most of the credit goes to Figge and Casey McClain, an animator we hired for the gig), and wondered "How the hell did I get here?" Anyway, making some money and getting the company's name out there on cool shit like this is definitely an unbelievable experience, but here's to hoping it's just the first step towards a future of doing our own projects, our own way. On to the next one!
Now for some pictures (taken on my phone, so forgive the general crappiness):
I grabbed some video of various songs throughout the concert, but I don't have a way to process the footage right now. Assuming I don't succumb to general laziness, I'll post those later.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Whirlwind
Cinnamon Chasers' music video for their song "Luv Deluxe," off the album "A Million Miles from Home."
Pretty fantastic.
Pretty fantastic.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Comic Relief
It's been a rough week. Enjoy some comics.
The first one is an ode to Bill Watterson's timeless Calvin & Hobbes strips done by comics writer Brian Azzarello and artist Lee Bermejo, and was included as a bonus strip in the latest issue of DC Comics' Batman/Superman. Such a sublime blend of Watterson's art and humor with two of DC's biggest (and most charming) villains. Click to enlarge.
The next one is a shockingly well done fan comic from Live Journal user tongari mashing up Christopher Nolan's Inception and Neil Gaiman's iconic graphic novel series Sandman. It helps to have both seen the movie and read the series, but I think any fan of the film will enjoy this. Keep in mind this does deal with spoilers for both the movie (kind of heavily) and the comic series (only lightly).
The first one is an ode to Bill Watterson's timeless Calvin & Hobbes strips done by comics writer Brian Azzarello and artist Lee Bermejo, and was included as a bonus strip in the latest issue of DC Comics' Batman/Superman. Such a sublime blend of Watterson's art and humor with two of DC's biggest (and most charming) villains. Click to enlarge.
The next one is a shockingly well done fan comic from Live Journal user tongari mashing up Christopher Nolan's Inception and Neil Gaiman's iconic graphic novel series Sandman. It helps to have both seen the movie and read the series, but I think any fan of the film will enjoy this. Keep in mind this does deal with spoilers for both the movie (kind of heavily) and the comic series (only lightly).
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