how come no one celebrates my alcoholism like john cheever's?

this is a very funny article. i can relate.

she & him concert

i went to the most spectacular show last night: the she & him concert at the academy of music. the "she" is zoey deschanel, whom i've only known as an actress playing cool quirky roles in indie films, and m. ward, whose music i've loved for some time. it was interesting seeing him basically just playing & singing backup for her, when he's such a monumental musical force in his own right. i think that was part of the beauty of the whole thing.

my friend marc got the tickets a long time ago, but quite recently he decided to go on an impromptu journey to the midwest to visit his soul-brother. so i had to find someone to take the other ticket or else sell it to a stranger. you wouldn't believe how hard it was for me to find a taker! problem #1 is that i don't have a lot of friends around here w/good taste in music. and those i do have didn't answer my emails. i ended up taking my new friend andrew, who is 21 and never heard this kind of music before. i was really worried that he wouldn't like it, and so was he.

as it was, we were both completely enraptured. who knew that both she & him would have such great stage presences? and they had great chemistry too. they had a backup band for part of the show and for other parts it was just the two of them. the lighting was perfect & cast them in a very surreal light. zoey had a headband on that made her look a little like pocahontas. she was unbearably cute. and her voice is really beautiful.

this is the first actress-turned-singer that i really love, who isn't cheesy & just trying to make a buck in a new way.

well i feel really bad for marc that he had to miss the show, because he would have loved it. but i am thankful to him for turning me on to this whole thing.

after the show andrew & i drank alcohol and ran around town like drunken fools. i had my LED hoop with me at that point and got some more drunken strangers to try hooping, which is always fun. that's what i'm doing tonight, LED hooping in the park with kevin (no alcohol though - i've learned that i really can't hoop at all under the influence. it's quite odd.) kevin & i decided that we've been performing a great public service with our late-night LED hooping: our hoop lights attract drunken people leaving the bars, and they come and hoop off some of that drunkenness before getting into their cars & driving away. who knows- maybe we've saved lives!

anyway... i'm listening to "she & him" right now. it's so hard to stop listening to them. please check them out at sheandhim.com or on their myspace page. enjoy!

the fruit of my loins, i mean labors

oh what a month it's been!!! hooping season is in full swing, i've got my sister's maniacal cat pancho living with me, and i just spent the last 4 or so weeks working with marc israel (great filmmaker & a true friend) on a music video for his newest song, "barkley the cat". i'm very fond of this project (and kind of sad that it's over) and i'm also very very fond of barkley, the cat. he's going to be living with me and pancho for a couple weeks as marc takes off into the great unknown... which will be interesting.

i hope you like this video. after everything i went through this year i am so happy to have finally worked on something i can be proud of. it was an awful lot of fun. also, i did this drawing that's used for the thumbnail/poster frame.


"Barkley The Cat" - Marc Israel music video from Marc Israel on Vimeo.