Dylan

Pictures
More pictures (thanks Ann)

Life Update

Last post was about nine months ago... so how have you all been?

Many, many changes on this end.

Starting a new job in radio this coming Monday after clocking in some fulfilling, yet exhausting, time at a local television station. Everybody there was as nice as could be -- professionals and good people through and through; it was a fun and enjoyable ride.

Still working on a local cable television show as co-producer and editor, but along with my new job in radio (and its attendant normal daytime hours), my duties as a videographer will have to be reduced. I'll be concentrating more on editing the show instead of shooting it (I think my forté is editing anyway).

But I'm really excited to start working at this new radio station group; the people there are really nice from what I've gathered. I'll be doing more creative stuff (as in coming up with commercial ideas and writing commerical copy), some production work and -- hold on to your hats -- an on-air gig.

Me, on the radio? I guess that's no sweat since I've been on the air in the past at my college radio station and as a Jazz DJ at our public radio station. I've voiced and produced countless commercials that've aired on state-wide radio in the past eight years or so but I still wouldn't consider myself an "on-air personality." But commercial radio? A first for me and I'm terrified. But I've never been more up for the challenge.

What's been gestating for a few months...

...and why I haven't been around here as much...

The Scratchy Vinyl Productions website will soon be live.

And Scratchy Vinyl's first televised production will air on Oceanic Cable Channel 16 starting next Saturday! Check back for more info!

Click the image above to see a larger pict of the wifey's latest project, and click here for the back of the invite.

So can you spot her name?

It's the Shat!

You hear about a new William Shatner album and immediately you think: kitschy, loungy, campy, and 'why?'

Well, the new Shatner album (only his second) called Has Been is out, and while it may indeed have moments of kitsch, lounge, and camp, you can add to that list: touching, haunting, funny, and 'well done.'

Think of the album as beautiful musical backdrops infused with beat poetry and able backup from such artists as Joe Jackson, Aimee Mann, Henry Rollins, the electronic group Lemon Jelly, and Ben Folds.

As a matter of fact, Folds is the driving musical force on this outing: producing, arranging, and writing most of the music behind Shatner's musings. The whole enterprise (pardon the pun) is sincere yet funny, and wholly entertaining. Besides the standout cover of Pulp's Common People, there's the haunting and mesmerizing collaboration with UK group Lemon Jelly, Together. And Folds' strong melodic sense is abundant throughout the album, from the heartbreaking That's Me Trying to the comedic, faux-western title track.

I'm still here

Well, aside from my last couple of posts, it's been a while since I've posted anything new here. For almost two months, I've managed to write a little bit on a daily basis (and post here almost as often) about what's been going on in my life.

So here I am with an "I'm still around" post, and if I had a nickel for every kind of "It's been a while since I last checked in"-type blog post that I've read in the past, I wouldn't have...

...to be my own boss.

Yup,that's what I've been up to: Jessica and I are starting our own business. We got our GE tax license number, our business registered with the state, and our business account set up at our financial institution. I'll be buying equipment for our business sometime in the next three weeks, and hope to be in "full-on" mode by the end of October.

I'll make a more formal announcement when things get rolling (website, logos & business cards, etc.), but it's a really exciting time in our lives. Since I'm between regular jobs and I just can't sit on my ass waiting for that next opportunity, I figured this might as well be the time to have our own business, to see what it's like to work for yourself for a change, and to see if we can make a good living out of it.

A Punk Rock Opera

You wouldn't think the guys from Green Day would mature into a nicely-rounded, sensitive, and (shhh...political) punk rock band. But yes they have, with their new concept album American Idiot.

It's their most fully realized musical statement to date, filled with hooks and melody aplenty. Each song is instantly hummable. And while the whole idea of a concept album reeks of 70's-era excess (think middle eastern mountain ranges and navel-gazing psychedelic cheese), Green Day manage to pack a story about a disaffected schizophrenic youth with religious and authority issues coming to age in the media-overload world of today. Or something like that.

But you can just ignore the backstory and enjoy the music, man. There's the drop-dead gorgeous ballad, Wake Me Up When September Ends, about growing old, dealing with the passing of a loved one, and maybe - indirectly - dealing with the whole tragedy that befell the U.S. in a cold September day three years ago.

The only misstep is the pretentious (and there has to be some of that with any concept album) nine-minute Homecoming. While the other nine-minute opus on the album, Jesus Of Suburbia, succeeds musically and lyrically, Homecoming tries to tie up all the plot's loose ends but ultimately winds up sounding like a mess of half-finished ideas.

Anyway, it's an album I can't get enough of. Check it out. I'll end with my favorite lyric:

"Welcome to a new kind of tension
All across the Alienation."

Tomorrow (and next Monday) on Foreword

I'll be filling in for the vacationing host of "Foreword," a 1-hour morning show on Hawaii Public Radio, tomorrow and next Monday. So if anybody is interested (and live on Oahu, Maui, and the Big Island where the signal can reach), listen in from 8am - 9am on KIPO 89.3 FM.

A New Hope

Nothing to post today, except that tomorrow, there's this:

Star Wars Trilogy.

Quilts

Well, here it is: the world broadcast premiere of my "Hawaiian Quilts" news story that never aired on Hawaii Public Radio. It was a spec, or audition, piece that was going to be used to try and get me a part-time (once a week) news gig at the local public radio station.

Read the opening intro paragraph below aloud (it's the part the on-air news announcer would read before playing my report), then click on the link that follows to hear my report. After it's done, read the closing line aloud as well (and voila, your very own news show!). Enjoy!

A Hawaiian Quilt exhibit is celebrating the traditional relationship between flowers and quilters, while also raising environmental awareness. Hawaii Public Radio's Ryan Campuspos reports.

Quilts 2:14 (mp3, 2mb)

'The Nature of Hawaiian Quilts' exhibit will be on display at the Mission Houses Museum through September 18.

Election Day & the Orinoco Flow

Hard to believe it, but after 13 years of being an adult (or of voting age), today was the first time I've ever voted in an election. Aren't you proud of me? And it looks like I'll be voting as well in the General come November.

Anyway, enough politics: after lunch today, I had to take a crap. So we were at the mall getting some shopping done and I went to one of the mall's public restrooms and while I did my business, the piped in mall-wide muzak blared Enya's Orinoco Flow.

How fitting.

Average customer rating

Hilarious: My Beard, Reviewed by Chris Bachelder.

Art scene

Jessica and I went to an art exhibit opening earlier this afternoon at Windward Community College; we went because our good friend is a part of the show, with some of her artwork on display.

One of the highlights of the evening (besides the free pupus) was a Butoh dance performance by one of the exhibit's contributors. I've never seen a Butoh dance performance before (and from the looks of others at the gallery that night, I wasn't the only one) and it was, to say the least, intense.

Tattoo You

Can't wait to design one of my own:

HP iPod Tattoos.

They have a bunch of pre-made "artist-driven" tattoos, but I'll kindly pass on the Vanessa Carlton design. Just give me the template and blank "tattoo sheets" and I'll do fine thank you very much (I might even get my wife to design something, or maybe even use one of her existing pieces or art).

In any case, I hear HP will be selling the "print your own iPod tattoo" package later this month. And for those who still read Rolling Stone, apparently you can get a sample.

Update: Okay, maybe I can wait...

Onward

I've decided to pass on an opportunity to do a once-a-week news story on Hawaii Public Radio. I talked to the news director about my decision earlier this afternoon, and after I gave my reasons, it seemed her manner and tone of voice (we spoke on the phone) indicated that she really wanted to have me on the news staff (albeit on a very, very small part-time basis).

I'll still be around the station doing my once-a-week overnight gig and helping out on a few shifts when needed, so I'll still have the gas money coming in. In fact, the host of Foreword (a morning show on KHPR's sister station KIPO) gave me a call and asked if I could fill in for him two days in October. Too bad they stopped streaming, so those of you who may have had an inkling of interest can tune in.

But to those who can catch the station (either through traditional radio waves and digital cable) and do have an interest, I'll post more info later!

Now the question is: why have I really decided to pass on this opportunity? Hmmm... I'm not quite ready to share that information just yet.

Manifesto

Do you know what feature I want (besides crossfading on the iPod) in a future version of iTunes?

Well, it's more like a revision of an existing feature. Forgive me if you're not familiar with iTunes or don't know what the hell I'm talking about (if that's the case, I'm sorry, you'll find the following totally boring. You may continue watching Father of the Pride or Hawaii now).

Anyway, you play a song in iTunes (or on your iPod) and one cool thing it does is it keeps track of when that song has played.

The problem is that iTunes doesn't count the song as "played" until the whole song has played. Now that's all fine and dandy, but take this scenario for example: you're listening to your iPod (or again, iTunes on your computer) in Shuffle Mode, and some random song pops up. But you don't really feel like listening to Andy Gibb's Shadow Dancing right at the moment, so after a few seconds, you skip to the next track, Charlene's I've Never Been To Me.

What this means: iTunes doesn't consider the song you just skipped as "played" because you didn't play Shadow Dancing all the way through.

This messes up my system of hearing new and fresh songs on my iPod. I created a playlist on my iPod called Haven't Heards. It's a smart playlist feature in iTunes that chooses all the songs on my iPod that haven't been played in over a month (this time amount is programmable). Can you see where this is going? Let's get back to Andy...

While the Haven't Heards smart playlist picks all the songs that I haven't played on my iPod in over a month, along comes Shadow Dancing so I skip the song 'cause like I said, I didn't feel in the mood. So I skip it to the next random track but get this: to the iTunes brain, the song isn't considered "played" because it didn't play all the way through 'till the end. What that means is that the song (as well as others that I've skipped along the way) would more than likely pop up again due to the randomness of the "Shuffle Mode" and the universe. Shadow Dancing will, dammit, WILL, somehow show up again in Shuffle Mode.

So what I propose is a slight modification in the "song played" parameter within the iTunes program, say maybe mark a song as "played" after its first 5-10 seconds instead of having it play all the way through until the end.

Okay. Alright. Now that I got that out of my system, back to Father of the Pride.