I'm almost, ALMOST caught up on sleep.
... is right here. Also, here at Time itself.
Just a little SEO experiment here, my friends. Nothing more to see. Move along.
Also:
Tim Tebow
Kim Kardashian
Make money online
Cheap iPad deals
Might as well shoot for the moon, right?
P.S. That kid is gonna hear about this FOREVER. Start tracking down Nirvana baby now, big fella.
My brother-in-law Toby Summerfield is the head honcho/maestro/impresario behind Never Enough Hope, a traveling, rotating collective of Chicago-centered musicians that create some of the most intellectually and emotionally challenging music you're going to hear. And they're gearing up for their next recording session, scheduled for this June. And they want YOUR help. But we'll get to that in a second. First, here's some fascinating material, Toby on how to write for a 30-piece orchestra:
Now. What you need to do is go over to Kickstarter and pledge some coin to help Toby get this next recording session rolling. There, you can hear some more of his music and get a sense of what you'll be a part of. You can do it, friends. Even a buck helps. And Toby will thank you. I'll make my sister get him to.
Spent some time talking with John Harris of Yahoo! Sports Radio last night about the gargantuan Kentucky Derby/Talladega article. 'Twas fun:
I'm almost, ALMOST caught up on sleep.
Holy sweet heaven, this is ridiculous. "Theme park ride from Russia" sounds scary enough, but this is worse than you can imagine. Yeah, it starts slow, but that builds the dramatic tension. Wait till it REALLY gets going:
Bleaugh. Anybody got a breath mint?
[Via Geekologie]
My daughter hit me up to write about rewriting for her English class. I think she got out of doing homework for this. You'll note that I backpedaled off some of the words I'd usually choose to use, and I also mentioned Instagram to make it seem like I'm hip to the kids' fresh lingo these days. Anyway, here you go: the secret to great writing.
People often ask me what the secret is to writing. It's like they think there's this little one bit of hidden knowledge that, if you learn it, you'll become a rich and famous author, beloved by millions who read your books (or at least see the movies based on them). Guess what? There is. Gather round, lads and lasses, and I'll tell you:
The secret to writing is rewriting.
That's it. That's it right there. Sure, there are great authors who wake up and spit out paragraphs of timeless prose, who can roll out of bed and write lines that people will be reading a hundred years from now. But those types are few and far between; they show up about once a century or so. For the rest of us, it's all about writing something down, looking it over, deciding that some (or all) of it stinks, and tearing it down to build it better.
This isn't like building a bridge. You get halfway through a bridge and you decide you don't like it, you don't get to knock it down and start over. You're stuck with what you've started. But the words you write for your next research paper aren't written in stone. Heck, chances are they're not even written on paper at all. Don't get too attached to them, and for heaven's sake, don't just write the first thing that comes to mind and think, "Heck with it. That's good enough. What's on Instagram?"
The writing gets it out on the page. The rewriting makes it shine. Ernest Hemingway, an author you may or may not have read but should, rewrote the final paragraph of "The Sun Also Rises" 39 times. One paragraph! Thirty-nine times! He did that because he knew that last paragraph had to be absolutely perfect, to say exactly what he wanted it to say.
(As a side note: Hemingway said that what every writer needs is a very good ... well, let's call it a "garbage detector," though he didn't use the word "garbage." What he meant was that you need to be able to read your own writing and know when it stinks. And generally, if it's a first draft, it stinks, no matter who you are. Your garbage detector will go off, and you should listen to it.)
So when you're planning for time to write, don't just plan on writing your paper once. Plan on writing it two or three times. (You probably don't need to do it 39 times.) Sure, it'll take more time. But you'll get closer to the truth, and -- guess what -- closer to a very good grade.
Now, you'll pardon me. I've got to go back and make sure this says exactly what I mean hope it says want it to you need to hear.
Dammit, Princess Leia put the wrong DVD in R2-D2 (language NSFW, but then you've gotta expect that with Tupac):
Best part? 'Pac's reply when Luke asks, "What is this?"
Tip o' the ol' blaster-shield helmet to The High Definite.
"Missing me yet, bitches?"
Yeah, caption this however you wish.
(FYI: No idea of this photo's source. If you know, email me and I'll give credit.)
This one needs absolutely no introduction:
And yes, that's two Journey posts in a row. I promise I won't write about "When the Lights Go Down In The City" tomorrow.
[Via Hollywood Babble-On]
As a culture, we've slid out of '80s nostalgia and we're well into the '90s revivals now — just you watch; there'll be neo-Blues Traveler and neo-Candlebox bands coming along any day now — but before we bid adieu to the '80s for another decade or so, let's isolate the most '80s moment in music history.
It comes, naturally, in a song by Journey, that most quintessential of '80s bands. A hundred years from now, movies will still feature "Don't Stop Believin'" as a handy cultural touchstone ... although the Michael Bays of the 22nd century will probably use it in a World War I flick. (Hey, it all happened about the same time, right?)
Anyway, the moment I'm talking about doesn't come in "Don't Stop Believin'," but in "Any Way You Want It." The song itself is indelible '80s material, starting with the very first verse:
She loves to laugh
She loves to sing
She does everything
She loves to move
She loves to groove
She loves the lovin' things
And really, who doesn't love the lovin' things? And who doesn't love a woman (no name necessary, though it was probably "Heather" or "Stephanie") who loves those lovin' things? The '80s were a pastel, bubbleheaded decade, culturally speaking, and songs like this are a big reason why. I imagine Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain vomited blood when they heard this song.
ANYway. So the subject matter is pure '80s, and the music — big, fat Neal Schon power chords; multitracked Steve Perry vocals, drums that sound like someone's pounding on a plastic cooler, none of that scary low-end bass — is a master class all by itself. Add in the video, with its "play the jukebox" motif and the classic lip-syncing band (and utterly creepy ending), and you've got all the elements of a time-capsule moment.
But let's distill further. It's my contention that the ultimate '80s moment comes at the 2:20 moment of this song, the bridge right after the solo. Steve Perry's soaring vocal: "She said hooooooold on, hold on, hoooold on..." is the entire '80s distilled down to a ten-second John Hughes/Cameron Crowe/Reagan/Madonna/"Alf"-implied sound bite. That's it right there. Package that, bottle that, make it the world's ring tone, and we'll be back to the days of big hair before you know it.
Here's an astonishing photo from earlier this week in Oakland: a shot of eight separate lightning bolts hitting the Bay Bridge in the space of 20 seconds. Snapped by amateur photographer Phil McGrew, this is a spectacular look at nature in action. (Thank heaven he didn't Instagram it.) Beat that, Avengers movie!
Anyway, could've been worse. Check out this bridge collapse from a few hundred miles up the coast: the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse in 1940:
Sweet merciful crap. I'm staying off bridges FOREVER.