Video Blog - Mon. 5.29.2006

NunBun, William Jefferson, Illegal immigration bill, Congress and Bush do some things

More information on the Nun Bun here.

Video Blog - Thurs. 5.25.2006

Cajones, secret meetings, exclusive statement from the Governor's office, blog round-up and other things not having to do with anything...enjoy...

Best viewed with your volume on.

Also, here's the complete "Sopranos" opening sequence. I had to make it smaller as it ended up being a more pixelated. That's why I'm also providing a WMV version for your viewing pleasure... Sopranos_Nashville.wmv (5.8 MB).

Video Blogging to Continue

Check back here tomorrow morning. I've decided to do these video blogs twice weekly instead of just weekly.

Tomorrow's episode...Secret meetings, the Governor's office makes an official statement, a round-up of blogs and some other things that have nothing to do with anything.

I'm also attempting to cut the time down a little bit due to you people and your short attention spans. :)

Video Blog - Monday, May 22, 2006

I'm not sure how long this will last, but I decided to put together a video blog. It's extremely experimental at this point, but I'm toying with the idea of doing one once a week or so. We'll see.

You'll love it...you'll hate it...just watch it.

Spoon Bender Buys Elvis Home

I'm not sure if you noticed, but last week famed spoon bender Uri Geller (and partners) won an eBay auction for Elvis Presley's first Memphis home. Geller, not surprisingly a collector of Elvis memorabilia (not that there's anything wrong with that), said that he received a sign from Elvis himself telling him that the home would be his (not that there's anything wrong with that either). Geller and his partners plan on restoring the home potentially turning it into a museum and bringing children from Palestine and Israel to see it.

In other news, Lionel Richie seems to be big in Baghdad. Big in the obsessive kind of way...the kind that brings grown men to tears. In other words, Lionel Richie is to Iraq as David Hasselhoff is to Germany. Forget the bombs. Let's just drop a little love...in the form of Lionel Richie.

Improv and Contracted Killing

I'm apparently in an improv troupe now. I'm now entering yet another strange and eccentric chapter in my life which is actually a continuation of strange and eccentric chapters that first started years ago when I worked for the U.S. government hunting down and killing boll weevils. And you think that's a joke? I was one of the best contracted killers out there. I'd hunt them down with precision showing no mercy. I was like the Boba Fett of boll weevil hunters...except I didn't fall into a sarlaac pit. You try making it out on the mean rows in the cotton fields...see how long you last.

So, it looks like I'll have to put my plans on hold for now so I can commit some time to improv'ing...or however you say that. Speaking of which, I'm wondering if improv is any place for a mighty warrior. That might disqualify me on the spot if not. We'll see.

There won't be any shows with the new troupe until September, but I'll definitely let everyone know when our first show is. But remember, if you do come out to a show, hecklers will be shot on site.

In the meantime, you should go to some of the Improv Nashville shows. There's normally one every other weekend. Check out the schedule here and add the group as your MySpace friend.

Who knows...if you go, you might meet that baby that trades walnuts for gold.

Have a nice day!

More Pictures

More pictures that I took at Bob's fundraiser last night can be found on a Flickr account for Bob.

I also just uploaded some archive pictures I took of Ed Bryant back in January. I added them to my politics set.

Lots of Pictures Yesterday

Got lots of pictures yesterday. I started at Bob Krumm's fundraiser in Hillsboro Village...

Then, I worked my way over to Music Row for a crawfish boil (where I also saw Fritz)...

Finally, I ended up at 12th and Porter to hear my friends Ide play...

All in all a pretty good evening.

Also Tonight. Bob is 40.

If you have some time between the hours of 5:00-7:00 tonight, you should go on over to Bob Krumm's birthday/fundraiser event. This is Bob's first official fundraiser. It's being held at McDougal's Village Coup near the Belcourt Theatre. $40 to get in. Details over at Bob's place.

A Good Cause

Check it out...be there...hear some good music, see some cool art, and support a great cause for my friend Darci's mom. May 31st.

As an aside, Ide is playing tonight at 12th and Porter at 9pm with AutoVaughn, Copper and Forget Cassettes. $5 to get in.

Be there as well. Go...seriously...now...fast.

There might even be a 4-year-old there that trades gold for walnuts and chocolate.

A trip to Holiday World

When I first heard the term "Holiday World," my impression was that of one of those stores in the mall that only lasts for about a year that specializes in only Christmas items...year round.

Holiday World is actually a theme park in Santa Clause, Indiana. It's been around for 60 years, and I didn't know about this little holiday goodness until Tuesday when a teacher friend of mine asked if I wanted to go along on a trip to Holiday World with the 4th grade class of a local elementary school.

Not wanting to be a hard charger, I took my friend up on his offer and got up at 4:30 am yesterday to go meet them. Off we went on a three hour bus ride up to Indiana.

Now, normally, I would do my research before embarking on such a journey, but I made the decision to go at the last minute and didn't take the time to do such an investigation. In my mind, Holiday World was going to be the equivalent of Ghost Town in the Sky located in Maggie Valley, NC. Apparently it closed down in 2002, but at least I made it there before that happened. Ghost Town in the Sky was kind of cool in a sort of depressed, native American casino sort of way...except they had this one awesome roller coaster that a chain smoking Indian ran. He was pretty cool as he let us keep riding it, but I'm fairly certain that he hated his job. I wonder if, one day, while operating the chair lift he just decided to give up and quit.

Much to my surprise (after the three hour journey and a viewing of the movie Snow Dogs), Holiday World is nothing like Ghost Town in the Sky. It's actually closer to what the mythical Opryland themepark used to be...except with less music...and more holiday goodness. Something else that is exceptionally exceptional about Holiday World is that it is home to several cool wooden roller coasters. I'm not talking about some standard wooden roller coasters....I'm talking about world-class and ranked wooden roller coasters. That includes a brand new one that will, no doubt, be ranked as the top one in the world this year...the Voyage (the name sucks, but the ride rocks).  Air-time of 24.2 seconds; Track length: 6,442 feet (1.2 miles); Maximum speed: 67.4 mph; Five underground tunnels; 173 feet tall, with drops of 154, 107 and 100 feet; 2 min., 45 sec. ride time; Eight underground traverses; Three 90-degree extreme banked turns; First drop's angle of descent a U.S. record: 66 degrees...and that's just what I copied and pasted from the web site.

Well, after a fun-filled, sunny day, we finally headed back home to Nashville. Three hours back (along with another viewing of Snow Dogs and See Spot Run...which had Bobby "Bacala" in it, by the way), and we found that my friends's car had been towed by the teacher of the year because he parked in her parking place. I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet she's a union member.
And that's all I have to say about that.

All in all a good day. Now if I can only get all that Christmas music out of my head.

More:  I forgot to mention that Holiday World offeres Free Drinks ALL DAY long. Just go into their little "Pepsi Oases" scattered around the park, and get as much free fountain drinks you want. What can beat that? Well...maybe "a 4-year-old child to whom you can give some walnuts and chocolates and get gold from him"...but we're not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Speaking of which, I'd like to meet that 4-year-old child who will trade some walnuts and chocolate for gold. Seriously.

Portrait Blogging

Yes, a lot of photoblogging lately. Tonight I got my friend Shawna to sit for a few photos. You can see all of the final results over on my Flickr account.

Empty Chairs

Here's a different take of an image I took last year. Through the miracle that is Photoshop, I decided to take the original colour image and allow only the chair to keep its colour but leave everything else black and white. I think it tends to draw the viewer's eye to the chair itself. Plus, it's such an interesting shade of orange.

The next image was one of my favourites from the Abandoned Asylum set, so I decided to just post the original colour version of it.

And, of course, this next one tends to be the crowd favourite from the set. I titled it, "The Colours of Insanity:"

The best pictures from that series seem to be of empty chairs. I think it tends to show the left-over human side of this place with a bit of lonliness. Former patients - people - used to sit in those chairs. Now it's lonely and serene, yet the insanity remains.

I tend to be drawn to empty chairs in abandoned places. I think that's one of my reoccurring themes. Perhaps I'll get a series of them to put together to show one of these days.

I'll also leave you with this empty chair from another abandoned place:

Lynchburg Blogging

Yes...slow blogging. However, I did get some pictures this weekend from a trip to Lynchburg. I had a cousin come into town, so I took him down to the Jack Daniels Distillery for the tour.

See the whole set as well.