Bammer Files

Major Music Trivia Moment: Martin Rev

2010-12-18T13:27:00.000-05:00

Just stumbled on this clip of M.I.A. playing Letterman earlier this year.

Suprised and delighted to see Martin Rev playing keyboards! Rev played keys in Suicide, an experimental late-seventies New York City art-synth duo with Alan Vega. If you didn't already know that, now you can impress your music-nerd friends the next time they start going off about who started what trend and who did it best and who never sold out and all that. Just be like, "Well, everybody knows electronic music wouldn't be what it is today without Suicide. They were so, like, germinal*, you know? Industrial, House, Synth-Pop - it all started with Suicide!" Even the folks who don't know what you're talking about won't dare to disagree. Trust me. It's like when somebody starts talking about indie rock and they bring up "Pet Sounds" as the real source of everything good that's on College Radio. Just nod, Dudes. It's a Beach Boys album, btw. Never listened to it, but I hear it's germinal.

*germinal - the gender-neutral form of the word "seminal." That's how I roll.

Check out: Martin Rev

Steampunks at Booklyn

2010-12-15T17:12:00.000-05:00

This weekend, I went to Can't Abscond, an awesome Steampunk-inspired illustration show at Booklyn Artists Alliance, an artists' and bookmakers' organization in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

If you're not familiar with Steampunk culture, don't panic, Dudes. Here's the official description according to Steampunk.com:

"Steampunk can be defined as a subgenre of science fiction that is typically set in an anachronistic Victorian or quasi-Victorian setting, where steam power is prevalent. Consider the slogan: 'What the past would look like if the future had come along earlier.'"*

The show's illustrations ranged from simple ink drawings, to watercolors, to slick posters with computer finishing. Many of the artists presented characters and tableaux from Steampunk stories they had created (I'm going to go ahead and treat Steampunk as a proper noun - I have no idea if that's correct- just go with it). One artist in particular, LeerReel, created fantastic original illustrations and posters with details that told the background stories of the characters in her images. I loved her poster, An Average Friday,where the battle-weary Max relaxes after a brawl with a cigarette and an arrow through his arm. What a tough guy.

I first heard of Steampunk culture from the Boing Boing blog's regular postings of amazing Steampunk-themed objects, like this wedding cake, this Professor X wheelchair, this radical terrarium, this apocalypse-friendly leather mask... you know what, I could keep going, but if you want to see some dope Steampunk creations, go to the Boing Boing homepage and type "Steampunk" in the search window. Also, if you just can't get enough, here's some other links:

Steampunk Magazine

Steampunk Emporium

Steampunk Workshop

If you're in New York, go check out the Can't Abscond show at Booklyn before January 5, 2011. It's a really cool show in a great work/show space with friendly artists who answer lots of questions (thanks Marshall).

*You can read a longer description here.

Book Report: Suckerpunch by David Hernandez

2010-12-06T18:32:00.000-05:00

Reading David Hernandez's Suckerpunch was a lot like Monday mornings in high school when something really fucked up happened to one of your friends over the weekend and on the one hand you're not sure if they're going to be back at school again or how you should treat them when they do come back, but on the other hand it was so messed up you're not sure if you dreamed it.

I loved how so much of the story took place in non-location locations. Seedy motel rooms, an airplane graveyard, an abandoned house. Places grown-ups don't think about because they can misbehave in the privacy of their own homes. Places teenagers need if they're going to do all the drinking, smoking and falling in love that needs doing when you're high school.

Suckerpunch makes a great young-adult novel because it so closely captures the anguish of the in-betweens that teenagers feel. Almost old enough to care for themselves but still tied to the rules of the parents that raised them. Old enough to see where their parents screwed up but not free enough to shake off the wreckage of parental mistakes. The small group of friends in this book carry heavy burdens together; abuse, neglect, and parental death to name a few. They also deal with these monster problems terribly. They get frustrated, get high, and make clumsy plots for revenge. Basically, they do exactly what kids their really do in similar predicaments.

Wham City Comedy Tour

2010-11-21T21:21:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to see the final performance of the Wham City Comedy Tour last night, and those amazing whackjobs showed up with two hours of raw, wicked, brilliant comedy. If anybody's on the cutting edge of funny, it's Wham City. Seriously, they're fucking lunatics. The fully-equipped-with-awesome show included live music, sketch, performance art, multimedia, and videos screened on a bedsheet hung up between live acts. Sooooo DIY - can you stand it?

Opener Adam Wade’s awkward joke-stories of a painfully lonely adolescence, outcast even by the marching band, set the tone for a barrage of incredible surreal, oddball assaults on life, popular culture and all forms of comedy. All of the sketches, videos and stand-up routines were hilarious, but the stand-outs included:

Alan Resnick’s technically deft and charmingly goofy “Motion Capture Your Life,” a special effects presentation of pure timing genius.

April Camlin's surprise vaudevillian abilities made my night. Wham City seemed like an unlikely forum for ventriloquism but she kept the act dark and desperate and made it fit in exceptionally well.

The Creepers brought some serious determination to give us ladies the sleazy business until we ran home take a very long, hot shower in hopes of washing away the memory of their ultimate sleaziness in stereo. Fucking hilarious.

This is a short, short list. There were were so many amazing moments during last night's show. I hope Wham City has more comedy tours in the works - they completely blew me away.

Links to check out:

Show Links:

Super There Will Be Blood

2010-11-03T12:26:00.000-04:00

Super There Will Be Blood from Tomfoolery Pictures on Vimeo.

There is nothing better than taking an ultra-serious-epic-saga-drama movie of tragic proportions and turning it into a cheap side-scroll video game. Nothing better in the world. God, I love technology. I LOVE YOU TECHNOLOGY! Keep doing what you're doing! All of this? Love it!

F**K YOU

2010-08-23T15:35:00.000-04:00

When I was in high school, I listened to a lot of punk rock, my brother listened to a lot of gangsta rap, and we both cursed and swore like true disaffected youth. Our parents and teachers would often lament the damage that consistent use of expletives could wreak on our vocabularies; that we might limit ourselves accidentally by swearing too much. We always argued that cursing often provided the best expressions, and that sometimes they were the only suitable words. This song proves us right. Plus, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

Comedy Royalty

2010-08-06T17:26:00.002-04:00

I just watched Paul Mooney: Know Your History and laughed like crazy. I remembered him from the "Ask a Black Dude" segments on Chappelle's Show, but I didn't know until recently that Paul Mooney has been a comedian and comedy writer for over 30 years. Know Your History combines a fantastic stand-up routine with interviews and personal asides. If you love comedy, this is your comedian. Unless you're uptight about race humor. Skip it in that case.

People Who Died - Music for the Deep Sads

2010-07-13T21:00:00.001-04:00

I first heard Jim Carroll's song, People Who Died, when I was thirteen, on the cassette soundtrack to Pump Up The Volume. I never thought of it as a cautionary tale - it was seductive. I was naive and morbid as a teenager, and I thought it was romantic to have a life so torn up by drugs and violence that you would be able to write an entire song listing the names of your dead friends. Now that I know enough dead kids to write that list, I don't want want it. It's not romantic; it's a waste. It's unfair, senseless, and a total waste.

Since I started high school, about two people I know have died every year. This year the numbers went up and I can't understand it. How is it my life is so full of death?

I guess I used to run with a bad crowd - but not a gun-toting, hard-timing crowd. Just people who partied harder than your average bear; suburban kids who aspired to tattoo or tour with their band. Slightly outside the norm, but not shockingly ill-behaved. Just passionate kids who loved to live.

In the last two months, three people I know died. One from a self-inflicted gunshot - he left his wife and children behind at 34. Another was a troubled but energetic guy I've known for 15 years - they just found him - alone. Dead at 35. Then there was the prettiest girl in my brother's high school class - murdered by people she called family at 28.

What will I do when I have children of my own and they become teenagers? Keep them away from skateboards, facial piercings and graffiti? Will that save them? Make them learn a foreign language instead of the guitar? Keep them out of all-ages shows? Discourage them from drawing? Is there any teenage rebellion that doesn't turn deadly later on?

Life gets harder when you're left behind. I wish I could take these death and give them some meaning or try to live for today or something. I'm just confused - and I don't understand why I made it through.

Bamford is the Way

2010-07-05T13:15:00.002-04:00

If you've never heard of Maria Bamford, I'm so glad to be me today. Please bask in all the sweet insanity of my favorite comedian of all muthafreakin time:

Episode One: Dropout

YOU'RE SO WELCOME!

Now Reading

2010-06-26T18:18:00.001-04:00

I've been reading Willie Vlautin's The Motel Life, a book I stumbled on purely by accident. It's so good, I thought I'd share it. It's a gritty story about troubled men running away, but more than that, it's a gorgeous picture of low-rent, run-down Americana. As a story, it's like peering into the lives of the children of the people who erected the world's largest ice cream cone back when families took road trips to odd-ball destinations like mermaid shows and amusement parks. There's so much decay and loss, but there's also love and empathy - it's just a great book.

What are you reading?

What's Your Favorite Music?

2010-06-24T10:14:00.001-04:00

What music do you love?

I've been making sampler CDs for friends from my collection, and it's so fun, I want to do it for everyone. So what do you like? Maybe I can share a band with you that you've never heard before. Send me a list of a few of your favorites and I'll burn you a sampler. It's like Pandora radio, only more analog. But still digital. Whatever. Send your mailing address, too.

Here's a few bands I've been loving the heck out of lately:

Breathe Owl Breathe
Celebration
Dan Deacon
The Von Bondies
The Veils
Port O'Brien
Frightened Rabbit

You got any gems you think I'd like? Send them along.

xoxox ACB

Keckler Live!

2010-05-02T17:19:00.000-04:00

Watching Joseph Keckler at the Transmodern Festival in Baltimore recently revived the joy of live performance. Keckler's set moved darkly through performance video, experimental animation, original piano compositions, lounge-y covers, and witty monologues. As an artist, he celebrates the banal indignities of office work, reminisces on spooky childhood stories, and reveals dozens of characters in minutes. I have seen the future; the future is Joseph Keckler.

Talking Beasts video

Joseph Keckler's website

Imaginutrient

2010-04-03T22:11:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: My favorite Terry Gilliam movie is "The Fisher King" - if you didn't like that particular expression of Giliam's vision, you might want to skip The Imaginaruim of Doctor Parnassus.

I wasn't sure what to expect from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but I surely did enjoy it, Y'all. This movie is full of great performances from both the stars and supporting cast, fantastic imagery (real and CGI), and epic themes (death, immortality, desire, religion). Watching "The Imaginarium" gave me so much food for thought, my brain had heartburn. Hey-oh!

Visually, it's everything a Gilliam fan could want. A dirty urban backdrop frames the old-timey carnival wagon as it carts the gang of players around. Objects appear comically tiny or ginormous. The CGI scenes offer acid-laced-wonderland morality plays. The costumes are ornate, ratty, and utterly charming.

The stars of "The Imaginarium" gave great performances, but I personally enjoyed newcomers Lily Cole and Andrew Garfield. I'd never seen either of them before. They both added so much to the film and really held their own against the other, more seasoned performers. Garfield is a champ of physical comedy, a sincere and vulnerable actor, and cute as a button. Cole played against her porcelain doll looks with a fierce and fiery attitude. I hope they both get equally interesting roles in the future.

Sooo The Imaginarium came out in DVD recently. I'm going to get it for my aunt's kids. They have a HUGE television. It's going to look great.

But srlsy, I mean, srsly you guys. The movie was really, really good. Srsly for reals.

Sample Sale: The Devil Wears Deep Discounts

2010-03-16T14:19:00.001-04:00

I've been temping a lot lately - low pay, relatively pleasant office environments, kinda boring. So when I got offered a gig at a big-ticket fashion sample sale last week, I said yes right away. I couldn't wait to get up close to some haute couture that is so far outside of my budget, it's in a monetary stratosphere. How's the weather up there, silk-wool blend?

I was still excited on the first day, and many of the clothes did not disappoint. Some garments were downright gorgeous - thirties-style silk gowns with amazing details, smartly tailored trousers, elegant suits and blouses. Unfortunately, many of the clothes were painfully nouveau riche - bedazzled, bejeweled, sequined and studded just for the sake of gaudy ornamentation. I saw a perfectly respectable bias-cut jersey dress spoiled by faux-aztec princess beading. And that was just at the neckline. Some dresses were doused in heavy beading - at 10 pounds a garment, they were worth their weight in suck.

My favorite pastime quickly became mocking some of the more hideous pieces on display. My personal favorite was a sky-blue leather jacket, originally priced at $38,500.00, and blindingly ugly. It looked like a reject X-men costume, or like it was made from the hides of amazonian tree frogs. It also sold on the first day. I guess some shopper had an Avatar fetish party to attend.

My early-onset optimism wore out quickly, thanks to the bitchy fashion-house crew, and the hard-core discount customers. The expertly seasoned pushy-lady-shoppers were rude beyond even New York City standards. And crafty! Every time I had to move a rack of clothes or sort things to get re-hung, they were right there, trying to sift through the project. I guess they wanted to snag something good before anyone else - understandable, but it got really old, really fast.

The fashion-house crew were disorganized, mean, and totally superficial - living up perfectly to industry stereotypes. It was like an episode of Ugly Betty - minus that actual status. Apparently discount high fashion is even more cutthroat. Who knew? With a few kind & helpful exceptions, they were intolerable. They'd bark directions like, "Make this look nice," then disappear, then re-appear when the looking-nice project was half-done and demand that it look a certain way. Sigh. They wasted so much time, it was incredible. They got angry at us temps for asking for breaks and requesting that we actually leave on time. Redonk.

On the bright side, thank goodness fashion exists if it keeps the vapid, short-tempered, power-mad superficialites occupied. As long as they work in a luxury industry they won't run amok in government or somewhere else that really matters, right?

Was, Am, Will Be...

2010-03-05T13:08:00.007-05:00

Last year I graduated from a "Top Tier" law school, passed the New York Bar in one go, and moved to Brooklyn to be a freelance writer and entertainment attorney.

For several months, I've been applying to media blogs, copy writing and editing jobs wherever I see them posted. Despite my creativity and experience, I often find that I'm missing some of the key requirements for the jobs I covet.

Sometimes, when I read the expectations on job postings, I think to myself, "but I'm a good writer!" When I'm feeling unworthy, it sounds off in my head as "Ahm a gewd rye-TAR!" I can just see Lou Grant from the Mary Tyler Moore show saying to me, "So what? This is New York City, kid, you think you're the only egghead with a Thesaurus knocking around? Next I'll find out you've got spunk." For the record, Mr. Grant hates spunk.

It's been 3 months since I moved back. They weren't kidding about the recession. I'm scraping by as an office temp and eating gobs of ramen noodles while furiously searching for meaningful employment. I have clients, sure, but they're all start-ups and none of them can pay me right now. Still, as tough as it's been finding work, I've been able to rediscover my own resilience and resourcefulness - traits that sometimes get dull in scholastic settings.

And writing. Oh, writing, how you've saved my sanity.

After years of reading/commenting/reposting, I finally started my own blog. Yes, sure, it's one more voice in the fray. But it's mine, and I can be as irreverant, wacky, opinionated and random as I want. The more I write, the more I want to write. The more I research stuff to blog about, the more I learn. The more I do, the more I know, and on and on.

So no big writing job on the horizon. No rich clients, not yet. But the writing is going great, the ramen noodles don't taste too bad, and, man, do I love this blogging thing...

That's What We Make

2010-02-27T23:03:00.004-05:00

I just saw "Lemonade," a documentary about laid-off advertising execs, and I freakin' love the message, Dudes! It's all about turning scary situations, like getting laid-off, into new opportunities. All the people in the film lost their jobs and took huge chances to do what they love. Awesome.

I couldn't have seen this film at a better time. My freelance career looks a lot like volunteering. I'm temping for less than 1/3 of the money I could reasonably expect to make in my skill set. Next week, I'll be applying for food stamps so I don't have to keep putting groceries on my credit card. Money's tight, yo.

Sometimes I think, why did I do this to myself? Move to Brooklyn with no job? In a recession? Am I an idiot? At these times I get tense and scared about money, especially my student debt, then I get angry at credit card companies for their government-endorsed usury, then I get ashamed with myself for not managing money better (what money?), and then it sometimes spirals even further down from there. If I'm lucky, I remember to take the dog for a long walk and breathe deeply to get my head in the game. If I'm unlucky, I might pace around my apartment in a mini-panic, too scattered to know what to do next.

Tonight I was deep in the going-solo-boogie blues and I was lucky enough to see "Lemonade". It reminded me that I made my choices for a reason. I never wanted to work in a big company, I wanted to work freelance, help start-ups, and assist awesome projects. Even though I'm not the best paying gig in town, I'm already a better boss of me than any boss I had before. I network my ass off, work on interesting research topics, get excited about start-ups, help creative people around me, and take steps every day towards my goals.

Seeing the movie reminded me that I'm brave - I'm super freakin' brave to do what I do. It's scary, it's uncertain, it takes tons of time, it's hard, and if I fail it will be all my fault. Well, good for me! And good for the filmmakers and the people featured in "Lemonade".

The mighty freelancers; may we live or die by our guts, hearts, brains, and our home accounting software.

Old Oak Trees: Still My Heart

2010-02-24T21:59:00.003-05:00

Oh Geography is gonna make a mess of me - Thao Nguyen

Thinking about place - about the specificity of a place and my place in any place and where the place might be and if there's more than one place and if so how many and whether or why.

Saw the movie "Away We Go"; my surprise tearjerker of the season. I'm no longer a movie crier - thanks pills! - but I wept so hard on Sunday night that I had to be consoled.

Why? It wasn't the movie. I mean, it's a lovely story but it slapped me in the face with my childhood - and not in a general way - in a very specific, piercing and unintended way.

Here's why-

My parents moved me and my two younger brothers from Washington D.C. to rural Florida when I was eight, R* was six and D*was three. Our town had a handful of paved roads, no traffic lights and no street signs. We took our own trash to the dump and picked up our own mail from the post office. My parents were married in the early seventies under a huge live oak tree in the backyard of our house. They had bought the homestead as soon as they could afford it.

We lived in a two story white wooden house with a huge porch, a curved banister, rooms connected by too many doors, high ceilings, old dark wood floors. There were double front doors facing double back doors. Both sets of doors opened to create a breezeway in the summer. We had no TV, not until I was twelve or thirteen. We had bonfires. We set off dozens of fireworks. The house shook every time a train passed behind the yard.

There were almost no other children in the area so my brothers and I played together. We hid from the enemy in the dark crawlspaces between bedroom closets and the roof. We stacked cardboard bricks at the foot of the stairs and caused mass destruction on blanket-sleds of doom. We played on the railroad tracks, leaving pennies for trains to turn to brown stains. We explored the woods and the the family graveyards behind the house. We collected change from all over the house and walked to Mr. Israel's corner store where we bought brown paper sacks of penny candy, played pool and arcade games in the air conditioning, drank Suwanee brand sodas and ogled the pink and orange pickled eggs and pigs feet on the counter without ever daring to eat them.

After the first year in the country we started spending most of our time in a house my father renovated in Tallahassee. My parents fought, divorced when I was fifteen, and my Mom moved to the country house alone. She took roommates at different times to keep the mortgage payments going - a manic-depressive carpenter, a grouch, an albino snake-breeder, a family of cons, a career girl. She worked as a waitress. She renovated the house and let us paint our rooms any color we wanted. She ran out of money and sold the house to a famous writer. My dad remarried twice. So did Mom, but to the same man.

In "Away We Go" this couple are expecting a baby and they can't decide where they belong. Her parents died and his parents are moving to Belgium. They end up at the house she grew up in, where she had a wonderful childhood with her parents before they died.

So these young parents-to-be drive up a Florida backroad shaded by palms and live oaks to an old white wooden house with a double front door and a double back door, textured glass, columned porch, curving wood banister, and the indicative coating of cobweb debris that always accumulates in rural Florida no matter how much you dust...

I was hit then with the most acute sadness for the place my family left behind, and all the pain we've incurred since the summer after we moved there.

The couple on-screen go inside, the man opens the backdoor and the air entering the breezeway pushes back his hair. They decide they are home, and all I thought was...

FAIL! They will never give their children the magical childhood of many dreams, not unless they die before divorce, adolescence, alienation or worse, because as adults their children will only remember the good times through the nearly opaque filter of the bad times, and the good times remembered will only remind them how much they've lost, what they never had, what they don't know or understand.

All I can think to do is getcha getcha getcha good

I shocked myself with my own cynicism, by how much the place itself still means to me, how the sight of spanish moss on branches equals heartache, and how sometimes I cannot seem to forgive now matter how much my parents deserve forgiveness and more.

What is it about place? I feel at home almost anywhere I find people I love, and these people are spread around Europe, Africa, North and South America. In the U.S., I find people I love in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, the Carolinas, Virgina, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Texas, Maryland, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, New York and, of course, Florida. I have no roots, own no car, no home. I fly at least six times a year and I love to learn the new streets, neighbors and friends.

But the breezeway cobwebs moss wood windows covered me in grief and longing for days.

I am a smoky plume

What is it about a place?