Happy birthday, Robbie!

I can't believe you're a teenager now! Congrats! If you were Jewish, you'd be getting a whole heck of a lot more money than you got but I bet you did okay. We're looking forward to your annual summer visit. There won't be that many more of 'em will there? Pretty soon you'll be out and on your own! It's time to start preparing 'cause 5 years goes fast!

For Robbie's birthday, I managed to get the band back together for rehearsal. It was one of our worst ever. Frank still hasn't gotten "If You Try To Make Me Choose (You Lose)" to a workable point. Mike was sick so he kept collapsing between songs. It was pathetic. We couldn't even get to the first line of "Towel Cape Song" before falling apart. Even when we all knew the songs and were playing them at the same time, it just wasn't gelling. Frank was playing ahead of the beat, Mike was behind and I was trying to do both at the same time. There were some bright spots. "Waiting For The Siren", "If I Could" and "You Don't Know Me" come to mind but it's just so sad that this band is wasting its talent. I realize that this is our summer down time but it's still disheartening. We'll pull it together before our big show on June 30th but man, it looks as if it's gonna be an uphill fight. And again, it all boils down to the band being "long distance" and simply not playing.

I told them before practice that I wasn't feeling satisfied with playing once every couple of weeks and I let them know that I was going to actively begin searching for new projects. I love The Darlings and we ain't a-gonna stop but while we're slow, I want something else to work on. I just love to play music and I'm gonna. I picked up several phone numbers from the "musicians wanted" board at Nuci's before we left.

Amanda was out of town shooting a short movie to be called Jesus H. Zombie. From what I hear, it should be pretty hysterical. I'll let you know more when I know...

She got back into town in the early evening and we wound down with the Sunday night FOX lineup.

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Okay - say there was potential proof of alien life forms landing on Earth. It would be the top news story around the world, right? Well, apparently not because it looks like it's happened with only a minimum of media coverage. You can read about it here.

I spent most of my Saturday waiting around for Amanda to finish up all kinds of errands and projects that she had to tidy up. 'Twas tres boring. I did get a bit of work done, including updating the pics of me, Frank, Mike and the band. But I couldn't focus. It's weird how burnt out I'm feeling considering I'm not doing that much. And still, I'm incredibly busy. I don't know HOW that makes sense but it's a fact.

I watched several of my DVD's today. The most interesting (to me) were record label and media pitches for The Beatles Anthology. I know it sounds boring but the fact that The Beatles sold more records in 1996 than 1966 (or any year in the '60s) should be enough proof that knowing how they marketed it is good for someone in any of my fields.

Then I watched the A & E Biography of John Entwistle. It only reminded me of how much I love The Who and how I idolized him more than anyone when I started off as a bass player. It seems like every week or so we lose a legend and I don't really see that many that are stepping up to try and fill their shoes. I'm sure every generation thinks that but I'm starting to believe it.

Seeing people who loved and lived for music while sitting around bored waiting for others cause me to make a decision.

It's time for me to start looking for other musical projects. I love the Darlings and have no intention of disbanding it but I'm not fulfilled by that band right now. The only reason is because we're not playing enough and the guys just aren't around. I need people who are here, who are motivated, who are ready to go and who live and breathe music the way that I do. Maybe I won't even be able to find anyone. But I'm going to start looking...

When Amanda finally did finish all of her work, we went out to a wonderful dinner at TransMet. The last time I went there it wasn't good as it was when we first started going there but tonight it was as good as ever. Man, that's some good stuff. Then we walked around town for awhile.

There was a message waiting for me when I got home. It was Jerry from the record label that wants me to sign on. I called him back and we talked for an hour or so about promotion, publishing, distribution and all of that other necessary stuff. It was a great conversation and I'm hoping it was a solidifying of our friendship which should be the basis of a good working relationship. Again I say, we'll see.

Then Amanda and I walked around outside and enjoyed the summer evening. Crickets, cicadas, frogs and trains made it sound even more relaxing. Throw in a few fireflies and you have a nearly perfect summer night.

I edited photos most of the day, then uploaded them to Retna. It's just my usual boring, standard day.

It was nice to see that one of my pictures of The Flaming Lips is in the current issue of Pollstar. It should be on the site soon, too. I was beginning to get worried.

In the mail today, I got the new single DVD releases of The Who's 1989 staging of Tommy and their 1996-97 version of Quadrophenia. I watched Tommy today with the visual commentary on. I forgot just how bloated and overdone the version of the 1989 band was but the commentary was possibly the best I've ever heard about a musical project. That alone makes these DVD's worth buying. They came out last year in a single collection with both discs. Either way - it's highly informative and inspiring stuff.

I also got an invite from Alec Wooden from WUOG for us to be interviewed live on the air next Thursday night. It's for a new show that's modeled after Inside The Actor's Studio. We'll do about an hour give or take, play some tracks from the album and answer some questions. It should be fun. If we can, I'll be sure to post it at the site for ya.

I also saw this today. If you're an American, you should click the link and read the whole article. Since I know most of you won't, I copy and pasted a couple of highlights here. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Read the whole thing for an in depth, incredible accounting of the deception that lead us to where we are now.

From Rolling Stone Magazine:

Was The 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?
By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"...On the evening of the vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed, had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush's 174, with fifty-five too close to call.(28) In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating his relationship with President-elect Kerry.(29)

As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states -- including commanding leads in Ohio and Florida -- and winning by a million and a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing down Bush's neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North Carolina.(30) Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000.(31) ''Either the exit polls, by and large, are completely wrong,'' a Fox News analyst declared, ''or George Bush loses.''(32)

But as the evening progressed, official tallies began to show implausible disparities -- as much as 9.5 percent -- with the exit polls. In ten of the eleven battleground states, the tallied margins departed from what the polls had predicted. In every case, the shift favored Bush. Based on exit polls, CNN had predicted Kerry defeating Bush in Ohio by a margin of 4.2 percentage points. Instead, election results showed Bush winning the state by 2.5 percent. Bush also tallied 6.5 percent more than the polls had predicted in Pennsylvania, and 4.9 percent more in Florida.(33)

According to Steven F. Freeman, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in research methodology, the odds against all three of those shifts occurring in concert are one in 660,000. ''As much as we can say in sound science that something is impossible,'' he says, ''it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote count in the three critical battleground states of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error...''

"...The issue of what happened in 2004 is not an academic one. For the second election in a row, the president of the United States was selected not by the uncontested will of the people but under a cloud of dirty tricks. Given the scope of the GOP machinations, we simply cannot be certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office -- which means, in effect, that we have been deprived of our faith in democracy itself.

American history is littered with vote fraud -- but rather than learning from our shameful past and cleaning up the system, we have allowed the problem to grow even worse. If the last two elections have taught us anything, it is this: The single greatest threat to our democracy is the insecurity of our voting system. If people lose faith that their votes are accurately and faithfully recorded, they will abandon the ballot box. Nothing less is at stake here than the entire idea of a government by the people.

Voting, as Thomas Paine said, ''is the right upon which all other rights depend.'' Unless we ensure that right, everything else we hold dear is in jeopardy."

This is not a joke. This is real. We can't let this continue to happen. It's time to wake up and do something / anything to fix it.

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Thursday June 1, 2006

Rosie O'Donnell indoctrinates another one...

I have several friends who are Star Wars geeks. So what did you do today? Me, ah nothing. But I did meet Princess Leia!

Yep!

I covered the red carpet for the Jane Fonda Celebrity Roast tonight and in addition to Carrie Fisher and her mom Debbie Reynolds, I photo'd Jane Fonda, Ted Turner, Larry King, Big Boi from OutKast and Rosie O'Donnell.

The most fun part for me was when Rosie jumped the red carpet line and came out to meet a baby. I've got no problems with Rosie even though a lot of people I know do (In fact, someone very close to me had a particularly odd and unpleasant pseudo-encounter with her. If you don't remember, you can use your "Phone-A-Friend" lifeline to try and get the answer.). Those who don't like her better beware. She's back. And she's now going to be one of the co-hostesses of The View.

The red carpet lasted all of thirty minutes (if that) from start to finish and I was on my way home. At least I got to catch up a bit with Spark St. Jude before the event. When I got back home, Amanda and her acting coach Stephanie Astalos-Jones were working out some stuff for one of Amanda's upcoming projects.

Stephanie told us about a part she recently auditioned for that Amanda and I were all excited about. Apparently, one of the major television networks is doing a remake of the "classic" Rankin-Bass claymation special The Year Without A Santa Claus. Stephanie audition for the part of the teacher in South Town. Now, I don't know about you but Heat Miser and Snow Miser are a huge part of my childhood experience and even if this John Goodman starring remake suuuuuuuucks, I feel like I've gotta watch it.

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Not much to say today. I did a huge update here (last week) and started on this one. It was an exciting day, y'see!

I did get word that I've been credentialed for Retna to photograph the red carpet event for the Jane Fonda Celebrity Roast tomorrow night in Atlanta. Too bad I don't have the new camera. This would be the perfect event for it and its incredible speed.

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Aaaaaaggghhhh!

Today was one frustrating day. I had to take my Nikon out to the UPS Store to ship to the factory. Amanda had the car because her hands injured and she didn't feel like she could drive the truck with it. So I took the truck - I get the camera shipped off and get two lights away from home before it cuts out. It's something to do with the clutch. It freezes up and you can't even press it. I turned on my hazards, waited a minute, cranked it up again and it worked fine. All the way to the next light where it did the same thing. This time it wouldn't restart. I blocked traffic for a good ten or so minutes. A kind stranger came up to help but he couldn't do anything about it either. So we pushed it to the side of the road. I called Amanda as a policeman arrive. He was a nice guy too. He just wanted to check and see if I was alright. I told him I'd leave the truck there and come back and get it in an hour or so because I had a feeling it was a temporary problem. I then took the huge pile of packages I had to mail out and headed out across the busy highway. This must have to do with the heat. It did it a couple of times at the end of last summer. And today it was 96 degrees in Athens. I nearly dehydrated sitting in that truck waiting. It must've been 120 in there. Anyway - I took my packages, walked on to the post office at the mall and then walked on home. After a bit 'o' popsicle medicine to rehydrate and cool off, Amanda got home from work. So she drove me back to the truck and guess what? It cranked right up and brought me home with no problem. I'm telling you, it must be something to do with the heat. I get the camera sent off and now we have this to worry about!

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Monday May 29, 2006

Today Amanda and I drove back into town from our Memorial Day weekend. We had lunch at LHOP with Amanda's mom, swung by Grandma's and got on the road again. This trip was a little more leisurely than most but in the process of the leisure, I didn't have enough time to spend with friends.

When I got back I had a message from the other partner in the record company that I'm considering signing with. There's still nothing to get worked up about yet but this was definitely a step forward. You know I'll let you know when the time is right.

After that, I spent time answering my backed up emails and such. By then, the day was done.

Click here for last week with birthdays, benefits and "broken" hands.

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