Lordy, I can barely keep track of it all. Between Facebook status updates, learning TweetDeck and Twitter, producing my weekly vlog Stuck in VT for Seven Days and posting it to Facebook, YouTube, Blip and VCAM and re-running my cable access show The Deadbeat Club - which way is up and which way is down?
OK, this I know, tonight you can see some fresh Stucks on VCAM where they look much nicer than all pixelated on the internets:
January Episodes 111-114, 7Dtv15 Champlain Island Farmer's Market, Obama-rama, The One Fashion Event, Peace & Justice Center's 30th B-Day, Mayoral Debate 7Dtv
And also, a "new" rerun of The Deabeat Club started last night. I watched it with my mom and we had a hoot. As mortifying as it can be watching yourself blab like a mad hatter, DBC has been an interesting way for me to judge days gone by.
I get to hear myself talking about my dream job making a weekly arts and culture video featuring local VTers and then voila, 2 years later, I am living the dream baby!
Last night was an episode from the early days of Stuck in VT when I was trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. Stucks on the tremendous 07 VDay blizzard, Cindy Sheehan and Sonic Youth - I look back on those days fondly since I am now on Episode 118. Speaking of, I better get back to work. Like the rest, this episode refuses to edit itself.
The Deadbeat Club VCAM, Channel 15 Fridays @ 11:30pm Sundays @ 9:00pm
Playing in March/April: RERUN! DBC30, March/April 2007 New episodes when we can!
During mini-editing breaks, I uploaded some old Deadbeat Club content to Blip. Man, this brings me back. Makes me miss Travis and Keith and Mountain View Cemetery VERY much. Makes me ache a bit:
Oh and it also makes me miss Jake and Margaret, who are both dead now.
While we were shooting Running Wild, a crowd gathered to watch us dancing around the Merritt tomb. They applauded when we were done and we felt like movie stars...in a cemetery.
Despite all my procrastinating, I managed to get a solid first draft of the ad I have been slaving away at. Will they like it? Time will tell.
I miss you Keith and Travis!!! No one dances in cemeteries with me anymore!
Today was a good day. Rode the ferry across the lake, watched the news get taped live 3x, stood in front of Tom Messner's green screen (!?!) and played weather girl. Then home for a Flatbread brownie sundae reward.
Now, back to work.
DBC29 (January 2007) posted on Blip in which Suzanne Monroe tries to take over The Deadbeat Club. AS IF! ;)
You can see all 4 of 'em documenting the tragedy of burnt toast, a stolen container of yogurt (below), Aimee and Abbie leaving the office and finally, yours truly absconds and Suzanne gets my office (nicely played Suzanne). Scene.
An office really is fertile ground for drama, tragedy and soap opera. I hope I never have to work daily in an office ever again. The monotonous 9 to 5, the water cooler chit chat, the mundane mass emails, the time wasted at the photocopier and mail machine, all kill my soul bit by bit.
The last Offasty episode is about my departure from the 9 to 5 work world. Oprah hasn't called yet but things have turned out quite well for me career wise. I am nourished and inspired by the work I do and I feel like a part of this vital community - how fucking awesome is that?
In The Offasty I met my dear friends Suzanne, Abbie, Lesh, Kelly, and Tracy (and that is only the short list - I am talking about you Jack and Gary!). And for that, I am forever grateful.
And remember, you haven't lived until you've had a dance party with a xerox machine. Sigh, I miss you guys.
The Deadbeat Club is back SUCKER! Lock up your children, shield your eyes, nail down your silver - this is not for the faint of heart!
No not a new episode of DBC (she says while laughing nervously like someone about to have an editing-induced nervous breakdown because her G5 has not gone to sleep for 2 days straight) BUT you can watch some DBC on blip.tv. That's right, getting kicked off YouTube did not kill us, deadbeats are resilient like that.
So far I am posting the DBC Vlogs that I made towards the end of 2006. Ironically, I was just fiddling around with vlogging after a stint with The Deadbeat Club on cable access and lo and behold, in 2007 I got a JOB vlogging!? Miracles DO happen.
I remember being very sad/lost at that time but depression must lead to productivity because I made SEVENTEEN DBC Vlogs before YouTube pulled the plug on my channel due to copyright infringement.
Some of my favorites are the vlogs about being an Office Monkey, the tasty music of Scott Walker and the wholeness of Regina Spektor. Other vague subjects covered are love, apples, a fireplace, fireworks, the holidays, snow, mix tapes, junk shops, Montreal and dating. I wish I had more time to do personal vlogs like this again but I am NOT complaining!
Over time I will start to upload the entire Deadbeat Club catalogue. I think Blip has no size constraints so perhaps I can post entire episodes? The vlogs look a little washed out but oh well, that is The Deadbeat Club for you.
And I promise to someday make a fresh DBC, but first, monkeys must fly out of my butt! No seriously, I will. It is on my list and that is only 3 pages long and I am crossing videos off it one by one...
The December 2005 episode of The Deadbeat Club will play all month on VCAM. It is one of my favorites, The California Show.
I just got back from SF and montaged up a storm with CA pics and footage. There is also some Rock Star: INXS, old celeb news/gossip and a VT VS CA smackdown. Oh boy, I wish I had me some cable.
The Deadbeat Club VCAM, Channel 15 Fridays @ 11:30pm Sundays @ 9:00pm
The Deadbeat Club Episode 20 November 2005 Channel 15, VCAM Friday, 11:30 PM Sunday 9 PM
In which the deadbeats discuss all that they are thankful for and lots of celeb news. Mom talks about her new haircut and why it does not matter. Eva talks about why you should eat lunch. The small cats have a Queen lick fest that will leave you twitterpated. Eva and Margot dissect Rock Star: INXS as though it were a rare tribe from Planet ROCK!
Yes, yes. I know I am lazy and all The Deadbeat Clubs are two years old. But reruns can be fun and maybe you missed them two years ago? Hell, I don't even remember what is in most of 'em cause my brain is full of holes.
Now that I do not have cable, I can't even watch Channel 15 so how will I stroll down memory lane? Whaaaa.
Some day The Deadbeat Club will be fresh and new again. We, the undersigned deadbeats of Vermont, promise you this.
And in the meantime, WATCH Stuck in Vermont!! Fresh and new each week!!Dave Navarro is PPOD: Petite Prince of Darkness and he is suffering from Foot in Mouth Disease.
Rosie and Minx will drive you wild with their adorable little fast working tongues!
Ahhh, don't you jus' love those kooky deadbeats??
Never get enough of these furry lovebugs. Watch the licking commence below...
You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again. ~Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762
The littlest deadbeat also happens to be THE cutest. It is Opal, daughter of Josh and Allison.
Before Opal was on the planet, I worked in VFX with Allison and Josh at Tippett Studio. We worked long hours and made some cheesy movies. Their wedding was one of those affairs that you can't help but remember, so sweet and touching - such wonderful families merging into one.
And then they created Opal! And she just happens to be the cutest little deadbeat that ever walked the planet. Life is good.
DBC18 September 2005 Reruns all month Channel 15 VCAM Fridays at 11:30pm Sundays at 9pm
The thing is, I do not know when I will ever have time to make new Deadbeat Clubs. But when I meet strangers at parties who tell me that they love my family and how weird we are - well, that is when I know I have to make time.
For now though, here is another rerun running all month. DBC18 has lots of dancing, Office Space, celeb gossip and some Shelburne Farms bales of hay mixed with stop mo and Green Day.
DBC17, August 2005 VCAM, Channel 15 Fridays @ 11:30PM Sundays @ 9PM Playing for the month of August
Hopefully The Deadbeat Club, the cable access show I have been making for three years with my family is not dead, just snoozing.
It is the summer after all so it makes sense that we should be in re-runs. Still, it has been a while since I managed to find the time to make a new episode which worries me. Now that my job is making videos for a living (yes, I still pinch myself when I say that in case I have to wake up), it's hard to justify more time spent in front of a computer screen.
But there have been some talks amongst the deadbeats of another show so hopefully I can scrounge together the editing time. After all these years, making the show is a sort of family tradition.
Meanwhile, it is fun watching the re-runs. This month is an episode from 2 years ago. There is a countdown of Dizzy Dames plus a montage I am super fond of - hmmm, I wonder why!? Plus some new kitten madness, a dance number I did with Amy and some celeb trash news.
Howl of Howl's Moving Castle is our babe of the month. That's right, a cartoon character based on a novel character. Could we BE any more nerdy??!?! Oh and on a special note, the Howl montage might give you a seizure!
That's right, if that pint of Bud Light to celebrate/mourn their impending departure had not turned into FOUR bottles of bubbly-something-or-other, well, I would not be so damned late on this May episode of The Deadbeat Club.
Ok, perhaps blaming Casey and Brooke is silly (very...sniffle). Maybe I will blame the SpielPalast Cabaret and all those days of rehearsals and dancing around in my skivvies.
Or better, yet, I could blame Stuck in Vermont for all those exciting vlog assignments and late nights spent editing.
Or I could just shut up and say that if anyone watches The Deadbeat Club anymore (harder to do now that my YouTube channel was suspended), there is a May episodecoming. I swear. It is shot and everything.
I just need a smidgen of time to edit it. And it will most likely air in June. I find May and June to be pretty similar months when it comes down to it. I mean really, what is the difference?
Yes, I am a lazy loser. I know this to be true. But I wouldn't be true to my deadbeat roots if I wasn't, right!? And this heavenly hot weather makes editing in a dark, cold basement that much harder.
In other news, be on the look out for a Stuck in VT show airing on VCAM. Just imagine seeing your favorite VT culture scene tid bits without the crunchy, pixelated mess!
To quote the amazing Colin the Magog who scared the pants offa me whilst I was riding my bike Thursday, "Yow!" PS In other news, when bloggers collide! It is so nice to see bloggers in three dimensions talking and drinking and smoking and wearing fancy shoes and earrings. Bloggers Unite and Drink Booze! Yow!
OK, so don't expect too much because the new March 2007 episode of The Deadbeat Club was edited in one day. Normally, it takes at least 2 weeks to edit an episode - about 50 hours or so.
So please, if this one seems a little shabby around the edges, understand that it only got about 10 hours of solid snipping - and much of that time was spent sniffling as I caught that evil cold that has been making the rounds - careful, or I may give it to you next! ;)
All that said, please to enjoy the brand new spanking episode of DBC which will air tonight:
The Deadbeat Club #30 March 2007 Friday, 11:30PM Sunday, 9:00PM
There are a bunch of Stuck in Vermont bits (Sonic Youth, Oscars at Olde Northender, VT Blizzard, Mardi Gras, Cindy Sheehan) as well as some snippets from my DBC Vlog.
Plus a very casual celebration of three years of deadbeating, talk of the Valentine's Day Blizzard, Oscars 2007, Eva discusses vlogging, blogging, freelancing, and plugs the play she is in, The Trojan Women.
I am not sure why this episode fell by the wayside. I guess freelancing and vlogging for a "living" make it that much harder to keep on deadbeating. Plus, being in two shows at the same time...blah blah blah...I hope The Deadbeat Club never ends...I am not sure what I would do without it...!?
For many years now, I've been busting my ass to send out hand drawn Christmas cards far and wide. I even managed to mail them in 2005 when I was working Sundance in Salt Lake City (granted, that was a crappy card).
This year was too hectic to get cards out in time so I made a video card (also a wee bit on the crappy side but think of all the saved paper!). It is more info than you would ever care to know about the deadbeats as they look back on 2006 and forward to 2007.
Like a pack of hummingbirds on crack, the deadbeats cover lots of ground: The Road Warrior, red giants, white dwarves, eye lifts, flat screen TVs, 250 woody plants, trees and shrubs, dancing with office supplies, peak oil, sunsets, The Pogues, the lake, clouds and amputated testicles.
It's just another average day in the deadbeat universe. What will the future hold for this family of deadbeats? Watch and see...
Hmm, am I a YouTube fanatic? Sure, that sounds pretty accurate. I'll take it! The Sunday edition of The Burlington Free Press featured an article written by Matt Sutkoski about the weirdo Vermonters on YouTube and I was one of 'em! Yippee!
Even better, they somehow managed to pull a half decent still from The Deadbeat Club off of YouTube (where the resolution is ultra crappy) and they put it on the front page! Hello! Thanks Freeps! Nice Sunday surprise!
And as a super cool bonus, Cathy Resmer over at the fabulous 802 Online was nice enough to do a blurb about the Freeps piece. Man, too much love, my head is swelling! Mmmm...me likes!
A YouTube fanatic
WHO: Eva Sollberger, 33, of South Burlington has posted 149 videos on YouTube and has had at least 300,000 views of the videos.
CONTENT: Many of Sollberger's videos are clips of her local cable access show "The Deadbeat Club." Sollberger says she does the show with her mother and sister. The show, and the YouTube clips, focus on pop culture.
ATTRACTION: Sollberger said her YouTube videos have put her in touch with people from all over the world. Many are fans, some are not, but she even entertains herself with the people who dislike her videos. Her videos sometimes make a communication loop. She once did a YouTube book review, and within two days, the author noted the review on his blog.
QUOTABLE: "For me, a nobody, there's no other way you can communicate like that," Sollberger said of her YouTube videos.
FIND: Most of Sollberger's videos can be found by doing a search for "Deadbeat Club."
The Deadbeat Club November 2006 Episode 28 The Broken Show Sundays, 9pm Fridays, 11:30PM Channel 15
Tune in tonight to wallow in the death, destruction and pain. Good times for all! Fun for the family, only beware the cussing and corpses!
In my defense, I was barely awake when this show went to tape this morning at 8am, so I am hazy about what the hell this episode is about. Then again, I am never really all that sure.
Suffice to say, if you are a wee bit sad already, best to watch Desperate Housewives tonight instead of this downer. I blame Edward Gorey, yes, that is the ticket.
THE INSECT GOD
O what has become of Millicent Frastley? Is there any hope that she's still alive? Why haven't they found her? It's rather ghastly To think that the child was not yet five.
The dear little thing was last seen playing Along by herself at the edge of the park; There was no one with her to keep her from straying Away in the shadows and oncoming dark.
Before she could do so, a silent and glittering Black motor drew up where she sat nibbling grass; From within came a nearly inaudible twittering, A tiny green face peered out through the glass.
She was ready to flee, when the figure beckoned; An arm with two elbows held out a tin Full of cinnamon balls; she paused; a second Reached out as she took one, and lifted her in.
The nurse was discovered collapsed in some shrubbery, But her reappearance was not much use; Her eyes were askew, he extremities rubbery, Her clothing was stained with a brownish juice.
She was questioned in hopes of her answers revealing What had happened; she merely repeatedly said 'I hear them walking about on the ceiling'. She had gone irretrievably out of her head.
O feelings of horror, resentment, and pity For things, which so seldom turn out for the best; The car, unobserved, sped away from the city As the last of the light died out in the west.
The Frastleys grew sick with apprehension, Which a heavy tea only served to increase; Though they felt it was scarcely genteel to mention The loss of their child, they called in the police.
Through unvisited hamlets the car went creeping, With its head lamps unlit and its curtains drawn; Those natives who happened not to be sleeping Heard it pass, and lay awake until dawn.
The police with their torches and notebooks descended On the haunts of the underworld, looking for clues; In spite of their praiseworthy efforts, they ended With nothing at all in the way of news.
The car, after hours and hours of travel, Arrived at a gate in an endless wall; It rolled up a drive and stopped on the gravel At the foot of a vast and crumbling hall.As the night wore away, hope started to languish And soon was replaced by all manner of fears; The family twisted their fingers in anguish, Or got them all damp from the flow of their tears.
They removed the child to the ball-room, whose hangings And mirrors were streaked with a luminous slime; They leapt through the air with buzzings and twangings To work themselves up to a ritual crime.
They stunned her, and stripped off her garments, and lastly They stuffed her inside a kind of a pod; And then it was that Millicent Frastley Was sacrificed to The Insect God
Some odd things were happening in my social life, too. People I knew (female people) liked going to strip clubs (female strippers). It was sexy and fun, they explained; it was liberating and rebellious. My best friend from college, who used to go to Take Back the Night marches on campus, had become captivated by porn stars. She would point them out to me in music videos and watch their (topless) interviews on Howard Stern.
As for me, I wasn't going to strip clubs or buying Hustler T-shirts, but I was starting to show signs of impact all the same. It had only been a few years since I'd graduated from Wesleyan University, a place where you could pretty much get expelled for saying "girl" instead of "woman," but somewhere along the line I'd started saying "chick." And, like most chicks I knew, I'd taken to wearing thongs. - Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Cuture
Back in the 50s, a pin up photo of a naked pretty girl was not the sort of thing men looked at proudly in public. These days, the magazine stand is littered with pretty girls in various states of undress and the TV is packed full of shows detailing the lives of porn stars, strippers and the young girls who emulate them. Ariel Levy has written an interesting book which I hope to read soon, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, detailing the rise of porn culture and women's relatively new participation in it.
What was going on? My mother, a shiatsu masseuse who attended weekly women's consciousness-raising groups for twenty-four years, didn't own makeup. My father, whom she met as a student radical at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the sixties was a consultant for Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and NOW. Only thirty years (my lifetime) ago, our mothers were "burning their bras" and picketing Playboy, and suddenly we were getting implants and wearing the bunny logo as supposed symbols of our liberation. How had the culture shifted so drastically in such a short period of time? - Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Cuture
Like Levy, I was raised by an actively political feminist who didn't own make-up, bras, or jewelry and rarely deigned to buy new clothes. Our mother didn't watch TV, go to the movies or read trashy magazines. She didn't participate in popular culture in any of its various forms and she certainly did not abide by its rules of acceptable beauty standards.
Thanks to this, my sister and I grew up starved for pop culture and I spent most of my 20s figuring out how exactly to be a girl. I studied my friends to learn how to pluck my eyebrows, dress nicely, apply make-up and flirt. Thus, it seems perfectly logical that I would have an affinity for girly raunch culture, 60s pin up pics and the burlesque.
As does Levy, I have mixed feelings about our new pro-porn culture. In some respects, it is liberating and refreshing and in others, it seems exploitative, artificial and so unsexy. I am all for openness about sex and the body but it gives me the creeps to see young girls emulating these plastic goddesses who take off their clothes for a living.
Once again, it all comes down to commerce. Pretty girls have always been good for a quick buck and once you take their clothes off, the cash just rolls in. I can only hope that the future brings some more options for young girls than the hope of being a porn star, a stripper or having her own webcam show which caters to thousands of horny guys.
But it is hard to be critical without sounding like a tut tutting, finger wagging crone (not that I have anything against them, love you mom!), so I try to walk that thin line between enjoyment of girly culture and acknowledgement that it is a highly complex, convoluted situation for all of us and America has some serious untangling to do.
What was almost more surprising than the change itself were the responses I got when I started interviewing the men and -- often -- women who edit magazines like Maxim and make programs like The Man Show and Girls Gone Wild. This new raunch culture didn't mark the death of feminism, they told me; it was evidence that the feminist project had already been achieved. We'd earned the right to look at Playboy; we were empowered enough to get Brazilian bikini waxes.
Women had come so far, I learned, we no longer needed to worry about objectification or misogyny. Instead, it was time for us to join the frat party of pop culture, where men had been enjoying themselves all along. If Male Chauvinist Pigs were men who regarded women as pieces of meat, we would outdo them and be Female Chauvinist Pigs: women who make sex objects of other women and of ourselves. - Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Cuture
All that said, please to enjoy this video (embedded below) celebrating girly pin up pics from the 50s and 60s courtesy of Bunny Yeager and her most famous and dreamy model, Bettie Page. Despite Page's intense popularity, she ended up with next to nothing in the way of profits from her thousands of girly pictures.
Once again, it seems like the women in the girly business often get caught holding the short end of the stick while male slimeballs vacation in Bermuda (Joe Francis, I am talking to you). Still, I love these photos and the era they harken back to. One wonders what the future will bring and if we will one day look nostalgically at photos of Pamela Lee Anderson.
"Ah, remember the old days when busty models only had two boobs unlike the four-boobed bimbos of today, how quaint..."
Also, this video includes a segment on the former burlesque dancer, Dixie Evans and her wonderful museum, Exotic World, which Molly Lynch and I filmed in 1999 while driving across the country and making our road trip movie, Tits and Asphalt. Enjoy!
Eva the Deadbeat makes a monthly cable access show called The Deadbeat Club which airs on VCAM. Stuck in Vermont is a weekly vlog about VT culture and it is sponsored by Seven Days.
Deadbeats Celebrate 2005
About The Deadbeat Club
The Deadbeat Club is a cable access show which airs in Burlington, Vermont on VCAM's Channel 15.
Join Eva and her family as they discuss indie films, art, celebrities, nature, politics, babes and anything else that strikes their fancies. Explore your inner deadbeat.
The Deadbeat Club VCAM, Channel 15 Fridays @ 11:30pm Sundays @ 9:00pm
Playing in March/April: RERUN! DBC30, March/April 2007 New episodes when we can!
An obsessive super freak with an excess of random interests and influences which all converge in the act of frantic montage making. Watch at your own risk: MySpace
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Lordy, I can barely keep track of it all. Between Facebook status updates, learning TweetDeck and Twitter, producing my weekly vlog Stuck in VT for Seven Days and posting it to Facebook, YouTube, Blip and VCAM and re-running my cable access show The Deadbeat Club - which way is up and which way is down? 
