A place for fellow ne'er do wells to converge in an orgy of laziness
and mindful mindlessness....oh, and watch cool videos
As part of my full-time 7Days job, I am making all sorts of cool new web content such as editorial vids that accompany an article, sort of like a photo used to. Below is a chipmunk video that goes with a story that you can read this week in Seven Days! Consider it a sneak peek!
HOLY SHIT! It has finally come, the day is finally here! I knew if I waited long enough my life would have meaning! The Spice Girls are reuniting to make a pot of money and I am gonna go see them in concert! YES YES YES!
On a side note, it is hellah hot (heat brings out my inner Californian DUDE) and I rode down Main St one-handed on a bike filming skateboarders and didn't drop my video camera - not even when I hit that bump and almost lost control of my bike. OH YEAH!
The month of July is going to be one hell of a ride for me so I snuck in one quick moment of summer fun at the Sunset Drive-In before going underwater.
Fresh Flatbread pizza was delectable, cold beer, good company, balmy weather, heavenly cola, sweet-n-sour candy, screens for the car windows and Johnny Depp seeing visions in the land of the dead.
It was a swell night, even if the pirate battles seemed neverending and the mosquitos never stopped swarming. Ok July, bring it...
What a weekend. Geeks, strawberries and chipmunks. Wow.
Above is a pic from Geek Week at the Langdon St Cafe in Montpelier. Liz Drake took the ab0ve pic and you can see more of Friday night's Sputnik show as well as a ton of other awesome local bands and events at her Flickr account.
Be on the look out for a Geek Week Stuck in Vermont vlog this week.
Above is Zena stuffing her face. I now know more about chipmunks than I ever thought possible. Did you know they eat insects, fight with each other, are solitary creatures, live in burrows under the ground and store their food in pantries!? Plus, now that a chipmunk has eaten out of my hand, I can die happily.
Sunday was a meeting of the blogs. In the old days there were ladies who did tea and now there are ladies who do blogs - and eat berries. Molly, Suzanne and I hit up the Intervale for some yummy strawberry picking/eating. Heavenly.
Below is the lovely Undead Molly (whose birthday is almost here) holding up a mutated "Bunny Berry."
Above is the matriarch of the Chipmunk Clan. Her name is Little Girl but do not step foot in her territory if you are a chipmunk because she will rip your leg off! Just ask Scardey who is a 3-footed chippie as a result - and he is her own son!
“The still must tease with the promise of a story
The first artist that really captured the essence of what I wanted to do when I grew up was Cindy Sherman. Her series of grainy black and white photographs of herself playing different working women on average moments in average days in their average lives each told a story far beyond the 2 dimensional image.My new pal Matt made this awesome video about a wild event at Alcatraz that happened 2 days after I left SF (sniffle).
Hip hop artists, painters, sculptors, cabaret performers - all invading the desolate and beautiful island of Alcatraz in the middle of the night!
Wish I coulda been there. Too bad we don't have an Alcatraz to visit in the middle of Lake Champlain! ZOWIE!
Matt Petty is my new internet friend. He is the art director at the SF Chronicle and he makes these super cool videos on the side. They are the closest thing I have found to Stuck in Vermont out there in the alt weekly online media scene. Matt's vids are called Art Adventures and they are about these uber cool obsessed Bay Area artists AND they have MONTAGES!!!! YIP!!
Below, Mr T dolls, I PITY THE FOOL WHO DON'T WATCH THIS VIDEO (this exhibit is SO San Francisco, we loves it):
I met Cindy Sheehan on a rickety old bus during a blizzard. She was stumping for Bush's impeachment back in March and I was vlogging her visit to VT.
After spending a day with her, my impression was that she is a complex, single-minded individual. She never once stopped talking politics, even when she looked ready to drop. She was on a mission.
Her affect on other people was also interesting to watch first hand. People had to touch her, hug her and tell her their stories. She left a trail of fans everywhere she went. If they didn't love her, they hated her and called her an "insult to the word mother." She was anything but mediocre.
Now she is selling Camp Casey and taking a break from the mad media malestrom she has been caught up in since 2005. We are MySpace pals and that is where this bulletin (below) came from.
Her departure from politics makes me sad even if I understand and sympathize with her decision. It isn't easy being America's Most Reviled/Adored. As she joked on the bus, Michael Moore once thanked her for taking the pressure off of him.
And even though I know Cindy is no angel, I also know she did the absolute best she could to make this world a better place as best as she knew how. Thanks Cindy, peace out!
| Jun 19, 2007 4:18 AM | |
| Subject | Turn, Turn, Turn by Cindy Sheehan |
|---|---|
| To everything there is a season. A time for war, a time for peace. Ecclesiastes, Hebrew Scriptures I wish I could say I thought of something profound as I saw the president and his wife’s picture on that billboard on Hwy 317 in my rear view mirror on my way out of Crawford today. I will be back for the final weekend farewell to Camp Casey on July 6th, but I won’t be back as the owner of property there, or as a leader of the American peace movement. The protests that were Camp Casey I and II that evolved into the five acres on Hwy 317 (Lone Star Parkway), which was known as Camp Casey III, definitely were effective and served a relevant purpose in the national discourse of the pros and cons of the war. In an occupation that was and still is kept far from apathetic American eyes, summer ’05 was one of the first times the cost of BushCo’s Iraq fiasco was made public and many people sympathized and resonated with and some even traveled for miles to be with the Mom in the ditch. When I announced that I was going to put my five acres up for sale in Texas, the horrible anti-peace; anti-American group, Move America Forward announced that they would buy it to erect a “Memorial.” This group still cheer-leads and supports a war where our troops are clearly being misused and mal-treated by their civilian leadership and celebrates each death as a sacrifice for the neo-con, obscene, and Orwellian idea of “freedom.” Move America Forward is still collecting money for their memorial, which will never be built on my old property and if they really wanted to buy it, they wouldn’t have sent out a press release---they just wanted a few more minutes of fame off of my misery! Into all of the drama, radio talk show host Bree Walker enters. She could not bear the thought of Move America Forward or any other right-wing fascist group buying Camp Casey, so she cashed in her corporate buy-ins and bought my land to leave as a legacy to peace---and a true memorial to our children and the people of Iraq who have been killed for corporate and political greed. Bree is putting her money where her mouth is, too, and we Camp Casey-ites were relieved and overjoyed when she purchased it! I was in Crawford this past week to transfer the deed to Bree and to take care of some last minute business. Selling my land and kicking the Crawford dirt off of my flip-flops was bittersweet. I have had some of my highest-highs in that ½ horse town, but also some of my lowest lows. August ’05 was the happiest, yet the 2nd most stressful time of my life. The people who saw my sunburned face, wild hair and chapped lips every time they turned on their TV never saw me tossing and turning in my tent or trailer on a nightly basis totally stressed out about the Rovian smear campaign and worrying about what lies were going to be told about me, or what attack was coming next. It seemed like everyone with an agenda from “Israel is the culprit” to “9-11 was an inside job” flocked to Crawford to have a moment in the blazing hot sun with me. Soldiers came from Ft. Hood to secretly be in solidarity with me and parents of live and dead soldiers also came: Mostly to stand in solidarity with me, but some to try and take Camp Casey over to mold it to their own agendas. I fell in love at Camp Casey and had my heart broken again there. I found true friends and learned how to distinguish between true friends and people who only pretend to be your friends until your usefulness to them is over. I smiled more than I frowned; I laughed more than I cried; I danced badly and sang out of tune; I received more love than animosity and I think thousands of us were given renewed hope and energy because Camp Casey existed. I will always be grateful for this experience that did have an intense and positive effect on the world but I am also content I have chosen a new direction and can rest easily in the fact that we did do good. It’s time for someone else and something else to manifest itself in Crawford and time for some of us to ride into the beautiful Texas sunsets that I definitely will miss. I think when one is heading in the wrong direction, it is always prudent to change direction---even if you have to pull over and ask the way to go, and very imprudent to stay a ridiculous and mistaken course. I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love, support, and financial support that has come my way since my resignation from the peace movement. My medical bills will be paid off and because of Bree’s generosity, I have a financial cushion to help me on to the next phase: helping humans who have been hurt by US corporate imperialism. I want to also thank everyone who has helped me along the way so far and encourage people to stay their courses if they think they are being productive and supported. The millennia old season of war is getting tiresome and while never good, is growing in evilness as the people who run the wars become more corrupt, callous and as far removed from their conflicts as they can possibly get. There is a season for peace---I hope for all of our sakes we reach it soon. Cindy would like to invite everyone to her 50th Birthday Party and Camp Casey final celebration the weekend of July 6 to 8 at Camp Casey in Crawford, Tx. RSVP to CampCaseyMom@yahoo.com or Tiggerloli@aol.com |
Courtesy of StrangeMaps and Junk Thief! I think it pretty well maps out this strange new online landscape we inhabit. What a perfect compass with which to map out my everyday activities.
Now take me through the Gulf of YouTube and around the Bay of Angst Captain Ahab! I have a HOT date on The Lonely Island (upper left hand corner)!
“To look at the cross-section of any plan of a big city
Today I drove downtown for the first time since I've been back from California. It made me glad to be greeted by the breathtaking views of Lake Champlain while driving down Main St. Still, things do feel smaller here. It is sort of like my scope just shrank.
Tonight at Selene Colburn's work in progress, "The History of the Future Suite" at the FlynnSpace, I saw a dozen or so familiar faces. They were from all sorts of different local places like VCAM, Pure Pop, SpielPalast, the Smittens, Kasini House, the Old Northender and the Flynn Center. Burlington really is a small town.
As a new member of the alternative weekly newspaper scene, I felt it my duty to sample the alt weeklies available in Northern California: East Bay Express, SF Bay Guardian and SF Weekly while on vacation last week.
Within their pages I found fewer arts & culture articles and fewer features than in our own dear Seven Days. However, I did find a hell of a lot more risque ads for escort services, "massage," and plastic surgery - eat your heart out American Apparel. As a biased observer, I would have to say that we hold up pretty damn well with these Bay Area behemoths, with fewer resources and a whole lot o' VT spunk.
Inside The SF Guardian was an interesting story about the San Francisco Chronicle (SF's equivalent of the Burlington Free Press) and the San Jose Mercury News laying off a quarter of their staff. Ironically, the Chron created a blog to help axed staffers find new jobs. Yes, the blog giveth, and the blog taketh away.
The Bay Area news market is about to be flooded with about 160 out of work reporters, not to mention more over-priced houses as fired journalists default on their mortgages. It is a sad state of affairs when the biggest paper in the area cannot afford to keep its employees and suffers from mysterious financial losses. And odder still, the Chron's online site, SF Gate, flourishes in the midst of these cuts.
Papers are in an awkward stage at the moment. The advent of online media is threatening to wipe out print journalism as we know it and yet, according to this article in the Guardian, paper's online sites such as the Chron's SF Gate have yet to rake in any sort of tangible profit.
"Indeed, SFGate.com is among the most regularly visited newspaper sites in the country, and the model has greatly expanded the paper's readership. But Curley explained that local advertisers "don't necessarily want to reach someone in Zurich who might be interested in reading our political analysis." For most papers, online ads still generate remarkably little revenue." - Paper trail BY G.W. SCHULZ
So what is the future? Are blogs, vlogs, Craig's List and YouTube the future? Are skintennas next? During my time in SF, I had some interesting YouTube discussions that led me to believe that even The Mighty YouTube is struggling with the same financial insecurity beast of burden. They are not sure how to make money off their content yet either. No one is.
Will it all unfold like the first dot-com bubble and its inevitable POP? Will the airy quality of online media amount to miniscule profits and fade into the ether? And if so, what will take its place?
Well, being a vlogger, I have to stay positive and hope for the best. I mean, I look at it this way, where else can we go at this point but up? There is money out there, I can smell it, my Spidey sense is tingling!
There was another article in the SF Weekly about blogger Jeff Wolf who was recently let out of prison after spending 7 months there refusing to give video footage of a G8 protest to the government. Writer Matt Smith joked about the ambiguous lines drawn in the sand between journalism and "bloggerism" which are becoming more and more transparent these days.
Amateur blogger Josh Wolf last week revealed he'd become a professional journalist, in the process helping professional journalist Matt Smith emerge as an amateurish blogger.
- Stern Reprimand, Matt Smith
Cross-overs like this are bound to happen. I didn't go to journalism school but some journalists at WCAX joked to me that no one needs to anymore. If journalists want to be bloggers and vice versa, then which way is up?
During his seven and a half months of incarceration — the longest anyone has spent in jail protecting source — bloggers and writers for newspapers hotly debated whether Wolf was a "true" journalist or just a blogger, and thus whether or not he was truly fit for status as a journalistic martyr. Cogniscenti fretted: was Wolf a journalist, or a blogger, or an activist, or an anarchist, or something else? - Stern Reprimand, Matt Smith
Jeff Smith seemed a wee bit irked by this entire affair and you can see him speak about it in his video and blog. Read the comments if you have time, talk about snarky! Smith was accused by many as being sickly jealous of Wolf's marytr-status; well, who wouldn't be?!
Who knows what the future holds for alt weeklies, but for a bit of good fun, check out Jeff Wolf on Stephen Colbert (watch video). Stephen Colbert crossed over from comedy to TV to politics so I suppose anything is possible.
And oooh, the landscapes, the majesty, San Francisco, the Bay Area, they never cease to amaze me, and when you combine 'em with the people, well, YUM: cheese and baked goods and massive renovation in North Berkeley, heavenly meatballs in Piedmont with Robin, crazy views from Sarah's bird's nest in the Fillmore...
I spent much of my vacation marveling quietly to myself and savoring these awesome fluttery feelings whilst riding on BART trains, the 38 Geary bus or in my friend's Bugs, Minis and Miatas.
"That's right," I said and then I told them the story of my recent move to VT and how shocked I was when the people at the DMV were NICE in Vermont, chatty even, laid back!
More Cali blogs to come, pictures a plenty even if I did manage to resist bringing my video camera. But look at this here, a Castro collision of Junk Thieves and Deadbeats over tea as chronicled by Monsieur Thief.
Jeff is not much for birthdays, surprises, attention or large groups of people. So he did an amazing job of hosting, even after Charlie went to bed. What a swell 40 yr old guy.
