Will is a producer and songwriter in Atlanta. He's a fan of people who wave back and speaking in third person.
album antifolk apple bob book books direct dylan fit free future futurism games georgia indie internet internettools launch mario movie movies music myths nintendo online paper phone player pop record regina rock side spektor stumble stumbleupon tech technology thenational tools tv upon video videogame videogames web wii wiifit will youtube
So I left Atlanta yesterday morning to come down to Montgomery, Alabama. My little sister is getting married today and I've been trying to find the moment to write this blog.
My plan was to unveil some of the things that I do outside of blogging at some point. I planned for that to be a little here and there, but it seems we've reached the end of the line, and so my moment to be self-indulgent is now.
I'm a music guy first and foremost. I engineer at a studio during the day, try to write songs outside of that, and I try to catch as much live music as I can. I graduated from Berklee College of Music in May of '07 with a degree in songwriting and moved down to Atlanta very soon after that. I work at a place called Nickel and Dime Studios and we work with a variety of different talent. Most of it is rock oriented which I tend to enjoy. One of the perks of having a studio job is the studio access. Whenever there is no one booked in a room, I try to take advantage of that and work on my own music. Here's a couple of tunes I've recorded recently :
A Certain Fool
Admit
World, Win Me Over
I've been messing with recording music for about ten years, and I've come to realize just how important it is to the craft these days. Imagine Claude Monet describing to another person what they should paint on the canvas instead of Monet just painting it himself. That's my analogy for an artist who goes to a studio and has someone else produce and engineer their stuff. I'm not saying it never produces results...I'm just saying...
Here's a video of me in my natural element. In the wild. On candid camera. This is just if you were curious. (I'm the guy in the red shirt)
I also fancy myself a big movie buff, and I have gotten involved with scoring some short films and cartoons. If you're in the Atlanta area then keep an eye out for them. One is being shown now called Hitler's Brain and another called Gypsy Crepe will be shown in just a couple of months around town. Here are some mock scenes of some scoring I've done (please excuse the acting!)
Romantic Scene
So iggli....Its been real. I absolutely loved getting paid for writing and I will miss it. I will also miss this particular crowd of bloggers which was very diverse, always entertaining, and super informed. I wish you all the best and I hope we keep in touch.
For more :
http://www.myspace.com/willmitchell
So I got Wii Fit last Wednesday and I've been "working out" with it every day since. The truly remarkable thing though is how committed I've become to trying to lose weight. The fact that my weight is now represented on a day to day basis (via a line graph), makes me super conscious of the things I am eating. I substitute fruit for fries now, I have stocked up on lower calorie frozen meals (Morningstar, Lean Cuisine), and I try to replace water with my other favorite drinks. This is all so I can get closer to my goal in a video game more or less.
I initially tried to set my goal for 10 lbs. in two weeks, but Wii Fit advised me that this would not be healthy and asked if I would like to go through with it anyways....I opted for "no." If Nintendo wants me to take it easy and go at a nice pace, I'm all for it. I changed my goal to 7.5 lbs. in two weeks and got started.
My friend Johnny also got Wii Fit last Wednesday and is already down 17 lbs!! That's just insane, and probably unhealthy - but its still pretty remarkable. To be fair, Johnny has been eating healthier for a little while now. He also was fairly active outside of Wii Fit over the weekend having to tote around a full-size organ (and Leslie cabinet) and then going knee-boarding at the lake. He is psyched about the weight loss though and looks forward to getting rid of his gut.
I'm at a nice loss of about seven pounds and I already feel my pants fitting loser. The combination of yoga, strength training, aerobics, and balance games has also made me more flexible, and my back feels 100% better than it did two weeks ago in the midst of my sedentary lifestyle. Many of the exercises concentrate on the user maintaining good posture which has led to my healthier back.
Oh, and did I mention my feet don't hurt anymore? I had no idea why my heels always hurt at the end of the day...I guess it was pretty common sense that I was putting too much weight on them. It was strange at first when Nintendo showed me what my center of balance should be. I initially felt like I was leaning forward as if asking for a kiss (or to be punched in the face.) I then began to realize that I just needed more weight on the balls of my feet, and I've become fully conscience of that now.
Now...The disclaimer is this :
I was very inactive up to a week ago. I move around a little bit at work, but I didn't worry at all about what I ate. I never had any kind of workout regimen, and I was all around out of shape. I'm not out of the dark yet or anything...I'm just telling you this to be fair. If you're a professional athlete that does work out on a regular basis, you're not going to get too much of a work out with this. The daily body test is still very informative for anybody that wants to be more aware of the day to day changes of their weight. And the balance aspect of it is great for people who want to develop better posture.
If you're in the category of unmotivated slacker, (like I am/was) when it comes to working out, this very well might be your ticket to the beginning of a healthier lifestyle. I am very, very happy with it.
If you're anything like me, you've been collecting movies, music videos, and tv shows from the ole internet for a while now. Me? I've got a CD booklet dedicated to movies, shows, and music videos all burnt to DVDs. For a long time it was just my way of documenting the movies so I could delete them from my harddrive. If I wanted to watch the movie again, I'd have to go through the not-so-speedy process of hooking my laptop up to the TV thru S-Video (plus audio thru the headphone jack). Its easily done, but its a huge time waster. Products like Apple TV seem great, except they're more apt to play iTunes formatted files and mpegs, not to mention they're pretty expensive. So what's the other option?
The Philips DVP5960 DVD Player
I got mine for less than $60 at Target and went back for another one for my bedroom. The unit plays .divx, .avi, .mpg, etc. It will not play .mov files which has been the only hurdle I've run into. A simple video conversion program will fix this issue. The unit also has USB direct, 1080i Upscaling, HDMI output, component, and composite output.
One of the only other problems i've had is using their ultra defiant remote control. I'll either have to have a super kung fu grip or i'll have to walk to the unit to skip scenes or pause. This is annoying. But the sheer convenience of being able to watch all of my burnt DVDs instantly can't be beat. This is a great alternative to an AppleTV especially if you have a bunch of DVDs laying around as it is. Just another option for you movie freaks.
Nintendo's WiiWare launched this morning at 9AM PST. WiiWare is a service that allows users to download smaller games directly to the Wii's hard-drive. This is giving smaller development companies a great opportunity to make games for a major console. There will be new titles up every Monday morning just like the virtual console games. The titles that went up today are :
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles : My Life as a King - 1500 Wii Points ($15)
Players build a kingdom by obtaining more "power crystals." This is done by recruiting soldiers and sending them on quests.
TV Show King - 1000 Wii Points ($10)
A trivia game which uses Miis. There are 3000 different trivia questions which cover everything from geography to pop culture.
Defend Your Castle - 500 Wii Points ($5)
As the title suggests....You must defeat all the enemies before they reach your castle. This was originally a very popular flash game. The new Wii version has a new graphic style and supports simultaneous 4-player co-op mode.
LostWinds - 1000 Wii Points ($10)
This is an adventure/platformer that uses wind to help control your character. You will use the wind to reach high places, stun enemies, and solve puzzles. This is the best looking WiiWare game so far and also boasts a fantastic control scheme.
Pop - 700 Wii Points ($7)
Pop is all about popping balloons before the timer runs out. The game-play mechanic is simple and fun.
V.I.P. Casino : Blackjack - 700 Wii Points ($7)
This game is....wait for it......blackjack.
Its supposed to look pretty good and it features local multiplayer....But that's about it.
All in all I am very excited about the launch of WiiWare. It gives me a chance to play different games and I don't even have to drag my lazy ass to the store. My only gripe so far is the lack of hard-drive space on the Wii. I had to delete all of my N64 games before I could download any WiiWare games....And now I am almost completely out of space. Nintendo keeps promising they're working on this issue, and I really, really hope they mean it.
In other news, The Nintendo Channel launched last week. This channel features video previews and trailers of several games as well as interviews with Miyamoto etc. One of the best features of the new channel is the ability to download DS demos directly from your Wii.
Also, Boom Blox finally released last week. And I am already hopelessly addicted to it. The game-play is so straightforward and fun. Its the new Wii Sports and its a puzzle game. I know that doesn't make too much sense, but you just have to try it. That's it for my Nintendo spiel. Go get some games.
GreaseMonkey is a plug-in for Firefox. I'm sure many of you have heard of it or are currently using it right now. Basically...GreaseMonkey is a plug-in that allows "user scripts" to work with Firefox. An example of a user script might be "Facebook Auto-Login." This script allows you to be automatically logged in to Facebook every time avoiding any unnecessary mouse clicks. Its not Earth-shaking stuff here, but its nice to have. Here are some other scripts that I like and use :
inYOf4ceBook - This little gem will show you a bigger picture of the tiny thumbnails throughout facebook (on your home page or on wall posts) when you roll your mouse over.
Facebook AutoLogin v2 - This, as mentioned above, gets rid of the need of logging-into facebook.
Greased Lightbox - This is one of the most popular scripts around. It takes images from facebook, Flickr, deviantART, Wikipedia etc. and centers the image and darkens the rest of the computer screen around it. It also offers the ability to cycle quickly through images by using the arrow keys.
Download Video - As the name suggests, this lets you download videos from your favorite sites such as YouTube, break.com, GoogleVideo, and MySpace.
YouTube Grayer Googler - This script is supposed to make your YouTube video larger...It doesn't....But what it does do is make YouTube all black instead of white....Which I love. Its much easier to look at for extended periods of time.
Once you have GreaseMonkey installed, you can manage your scripts under the Tool MenuBar in FireFox. You can turn individual one's on or off or delete unwanted scripts.
For more scripts for the various sites you visit, check out userscripts.org.
Mario Kart Wii
While most of the video game world is anticipating Grand Theft Auto IV; i'll be awaiting the release of Mario Kart Wii on April 27th. This new version of Mario Kart promises to be a "bridge" title between casual and hardcore gamers (like a gateway drug). This is accomplished with a nice blend of skilled racing and outlandishly cheap comebacks....but that's how the game has always kind of been. A new wheel will ship with the game adding yet another casual selling point - motion sensing steer control.
For the hardcore Mario Kart fans there is a huge online multiplayer experience. It includes 12 person grand prix races, ghost races, and 12 person battle mode. There are also leader-boards and many, many stats that are saved each time you race. Some of the other perks include a golden wheel icon by your online name if you race exclusively with the motion sensing wheel (and rock at it) and star icons for letting the online community know that you've been around the block and are a force to be reckoned with. Nintendo has really stepped up their game and brought an extensive multiplayer experience to the table. One that works also.
"If you cheat and fail you're a cheater. If you cheat and succeed you're savvy." - Eric Cartman
I produce music for a living (and a lack thereof). I know many of you other fellow bloggers are knee-deep in this industry as well so I expect that most of you have heard of auto-tune or maybe even quantization. These are both tools to fix the imperfections of recordings that are being engineered, and they have already raised their own share of debates on what is art and what isn't. Well, there's a new tool on the block and it raises the same philosophical question that Jeff Goldblum poses in Jurassic Park "your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
Melodyne is a plug-in that has been around for a couple of years and it essentially creates a graphic layout of the notes being sung or played on an individual track. It also gives you the ability to manipulate the length, pitch, and timing of the notes in a very user-friendly/click and grab layout. Peter Neubacker, the inventor of Melodyne, has been hard at work on the next edition of the plug-in, and he has really out-done himself this time. And frankly, he might have gone too far. The new Melodyne has a new capability called Direct Note Access. Direct Note Access, or DNA is a brand new technology that allows you to pick apart a chord recorded in audio. Here is the demonstration video below and it is truly astounding :
Yes there are many fantastic uses for this plug-in. I particularly like the idea of fixing one or two notes in a chord on a take when the rest of the take is perfect. Let's face it, one of the hardest parts of making a great recording is capturing a passionate performance. Its truly hard sometimes to repeat that passion over and over again in order to get the perfect take. I can see real benefits with this software in that regard. I guess my biggest fear is that this program will be taken advantage of in more synthetic ways than artistic. With some of the harmonic presets allowed within Melodyne, a simple three chord progression can be manipulated to be something quite remarkable while the creator never has to learn new chords on his or her instrument. Maybe I'm just mad that I bothered learning an instrument when it seems like I could just brush my hand over the strings and then mess with the whole "music" thing later in post-production. I guess only time will tell.
When I was about 10 years old I had a lost weekend where I decided that I would get in shape with my Nintendo Entertainment System. I decided I would try to work out at least once a day by playing World Class Track Meet (remember the Power Pad?). This only lasted the first day that I tried it. I was too young to have the attention span, I wasn't dedicated, and I really didn't need to work out. I was a pretty skinny kid. Flash forward to now and I could use some exercise and being able to do this interactively will soon be possible with Nintendo's Wii Fit game and peripheral coming out this May. Its guaranteed to be less than $100 for the peripheral...This probably means $99.99. But that's still an agreeable price in my opinion. You get the Wii Balance Board and the game for that. Here's a trailer for those of you who live behind the Iron Curtain or under a rock :
I think its interesting how video "games" are evolving. Some of the most revolutionary ideas these days are not games at all. Brain Age, for example, is Nintendo's scientifically evaluated software which effectively makes your mind more alert on a daily basis. This is one of the biggest system sellers for the Nintendo DS to the "casual market." Which essentially means that my mom will play it.
I am currently playing Ubisoft's My French Coach (Nintendo DS) and relearning French for the second time. Its entertaining and very gratifying to play. I highly recommend any of Ubisoft's language titles if you need to refresh on some long abandoned second languages.
It seems as if Ubisoft is on the casual band wagon as they are bringing many interesting titles out these days. My Word Coach is essentially for the native English speaker to broaden their vocabulary. Its out for both the Wii and DS, but I can't see myself wanting to brush up on vocabulary in front of the television with the Wii.
There have been many interesting titles that involve the player taking care of something or someone for years. Truth be told, most games involve the player taking care of his character in a sense. A first person view simulates taking care of oneself while a third person view simulates taking care of the (or your) character. Ubisoft is trying to reach out from the screen in a very new way with a game titled My Life Coach. This is a new title coming soon for Nintendo DS that aims to make us happier and more responsible people. The idea is to take care of yourself through suggestions the program makes to you. The only one we've seen so far is from this screenshot which asks if you'd rather eat breakfast tomorrow or walk your dog for 30 mins. That's not so impressive. I don't have a dog and I already eat breakfast. If I did have a dog and I needed the DS to tell me to walk him, I'd suck at life and I'd have a pissed off dog. But I'm optimistic for this title and will be picking it up when its released at some point this year. 
Let's just hope it doesn't turn out to be anything like this :
Wow. This is just awesome. Browsing through some of my friends "stumble favorites" (see StumbleUpon), I came across callthefuture.org - an awesome site that lets you call anyone you want anytime in the future between now and the next two years. That's pretty damn nifty. Some of the uses they suggest include reminders and appointments blah blah blah. One of the more sly uses is calling yourself during a meeting you want to get out of....(I could see it being used as a bad date safety net as well.)
You simply type in the number you'd like it to call, the text message you'd like the robotic voice to read, the type of robotic voice you'd like to read it, the caller id number that you want to show up, and when you'd like it to happen. My only wish was that the site was able to promise a call even farther in the future. Maybe up to ten years even...I would have it call myself ten years from now to keep me in line. That would ensure the kind of surprise that could seem shocking enough to make me reassess where I was in life or something....
It would obviously be much harder to guarantee that this website would still be up and running in ten years. On top of that the chances that I'd have the same phone number by then could be even slimmer. According to statistics I will have lost enough of my olfactory senses by then that I will believe that scotch tastes good; which will inherently make me classier. So at least there's that.
Ah, but look at me digressing like an asshole. You can freak out your friends with a creepy robotic message at any time of the day or night or use it to get out of some tight spots. Just make sure you plan ahead, you sneaky bastard.
Call the future at callthefuture.org
Jenny Lewis, if you don't know her, is a singer, songwriter, and musician who put out an almost solo album about two years ago entitled Rabbit Fur Coat. I had never heard of her until I heard Rabbit Fur Coat soon after its release and immediately bought it on iTunes. The album features fantastically lush harmonies thanks to The Watson Twins. Here's one of the "singles" called "The Big Guns" - one of my favorites from the record.
I had heard of Rilo Kiley and might have even heard a few songs, but I never made the connection until I visited Jenny Lewis' Wiki (Jenny is the lead singer of Rilo Kiley). You see....The other day I was watching a movie entitled The Wizard. It stars Fred Savage and is basically a huge promo for everything Nintendo back in the early 90s. I did not remember ever seeing it as a kid, and now that I myself am totally obsessed with Nintendo I decided I should give it a view. The movie was just as awful as I had imagined saved only by a few perverse moments of nostalgia...I did notice however, that in the opening credits it said Jenny Lewis. After a few scenes I went to Wikipedia to verify that this was the same Jenny Lewis I had been hearing on Rabbit Fur Coat. And to my surprise it was her. She actually got started as a child actress as you'd find out on her wiki, and starred in such films as Troop Beverly Hills, The Wizard, Foxfire, Little Boy Blue, and Pleasantville. She's also been on a number of TV shows and got her start on a Jell-O commercial!
Here's a scene from The Wizard featuring Jenny Lewis.
I caught a Jenny Lewis performance on David Letterman and that prompted me to buy Rabbit Fur Coat. Its a pretty amazing record which has guest performances by Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie), Conor Oberst, and M.Ward. Some of my favorite tracks are "The Big Guns," "You Are What You Love," and "Handle with Care" (a Traveling Wilburys cover).
A little more digging around on good ole Wikipedia and I found that Jenny Lewis has guested on one of my other personal favorites Cursive's The Ugly Organ. She's also on The Postal Service album Give Up and Bright Eyes' Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground. I guess I could have named this blog "Its a Small World," but would anyone have read it then? I find it fascinating how interconnected the entertainment world is. Maybe its the soap-opera watching soccer mom in me. There's no reason for this last video, but I saw it when looking for some vids on youtube. Here's Jenny Lewis' reaction to the Paris Hilton sex tape. Have a good day.
This is just a little write-up of my experience at Regina Spektor's show the other night Feb.29th, 2008 live at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, GA. Hooray![Read More]
One very famous meeting of two very revolutionary musical entities took place on August 28, 1964. That meeting was between Bob Dylan and The Beatles. Upon reading an article entitled "Let's 'Ave a Larf," I realized that one man in particular was more responsible for this union than anyone else. He was the writer of this article I came across, and his name is Al Aronowitz. Al explains in his article what a task it was to have this meeting arranged, but just how beneficial it was in the long run of popular music as Bob Dylan and The Beatles casually gave each other the courage to try radically different things. 
Al Aronowitz was commissioned to write an article about Bob Dylan in the Saturday Evening Post. This is how they initially came to meet one another. Sent only to do his job, Al could not help falling in love with Bob Dylan. Being a writer, he was entranced by Bob Dylan's words. They became good friends to the point where Al would hang out with Bob as he wrote such songs as "Tambourine Man." Al had been hearing The Beatles on the radio, as Bob had, but Al was falling in love with The Beatles music. Not by their words so much, but by their sound and their voices. Bob's girlfriend during those days, Suze Rotolo, also liked The Beatles, and Al and her would gang up on Bob about them. Bob thought The Beatles were merely trying to sell records to teenagers. Al wanted, however, for Bob's lyrics to reach those same teenagers. When Al professed the idea to Bob, he envisioned stadiums filled with screeching teenage girls, "it'll never happen," he said to Al. It was months later that Al dragged Bob Dylan to the hotel parking space across from the Delmonico in Manhattan.
Al soon got the chance to meet The Beatles when he was commissioned to write on The Beatles' arrival to the United States. He soon got to know John Lennon well enough and proposed the idea of him meeting Bob. John said he would like to meet Bob when he was his "ego equal." "Yeh, I wanna meet 'im," Lennon told him, "but on me own terms." By the time they did meet, Bob was still very "high on his hill," while John was very anxious to meet Bob. John had been truly affected by Dylan's music, and it was after hearing Bob Dylan's first album that John sat down and wrote the song "I'll Cry Instead."
Al Aronowitz at this point had been sent off to write about the most influential characters of the 1960's including other artists such as poet and writer Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Hanging out with the likes of such folks in the '60's influenced Al to try experimental drugs of that era. He was especially fond of marijuana and smoked with Bob often. He and Bob had joked about one of the Beatles' lyrics that they thought said "I get high, i get high, i get high." So when the two went off to meet the Beatles, however still reluctant, Al decided to bring his stash of pot with them and have a very "mellow" meeting between the artists.
Al and Bob arrived in their blue Ford Station Wagon to the hotel just as Brian Epstein (the Beatles manager) and the Beatles had finished their room service dinner. In the lobby of the hotel, cops blocked their way up via the elevators until one of The Beatles' road managers, Malcolm Evans, saw them and showed them up to the floor The Beatles were staying on.
On the floor were TV personalities, and media, among other artists such as Peter, Paul, and Mary, and The Kingston Trio all waiting to meet the fab four. Al, Bob, and Victor were all ushered directly into the room the Beatles were staying. There, the four British boys had moved from their dining room area to the lounge area of their hotel room to have some drinks. An awkward introduction ensued between the Beatles and Bob and both parties were grinning ear to ear. Bob requested some cheap wine, but by the time it arrived, he had already started drinking harder alcohol. Al proposed they smoke, and all four Brits confessed that they had never tried the stuff. Al and Bob laughed swearing that they heard them say "i get high, i get high, i get high." John corrected them with the words "i can't hide, I can't hide, I can't hide." Al, unable to roll joints, offered the grass and paper to Bob who did a very sloppy job of rolling. Al explained the aroma of the substance and suggested they go into the back room of their suite, as they did. There, Al offered the joint to John who gave it to Ringo and said "you try it." Ringo protested, and John made a crack about Ringo being his "royal taster." Ringo began smoking the joint, unaware of pot smoking etiquette, Ringo did not pass the joint to John but smoked the whole thing like a cigarette. Al told Victor, to roll more for the other gentlemen and he did. Soon Ringo was laughing, which made the rest of the group start also. Ringo pointed at Brian Epstein who was having trouble controlling himself, and they started laughing harder. Epstein kept saying "i'm so high, i'm so high. I'm on the ceiling." Paul declared that he was thinking for the first time and instructed Malcolm to write down everything he said. It's sad that specific conversation was not released in the article, but all the same its not necessary to read what was said to understand the effect.
The Beatles' album HELP! came out shortly after this initial meeting which showed that at least the Beatles were veering away from pop covers and mainstream love anthems. Most of the album had been completed by the time they met Bob Dylan, and had their first encounter with "grass," but their next album, Rubber Soul, showed a completely new perspective on songwriting from anything they had written before.
Rubber Soul is a masterpiece in my opinion. The album shows The Beatles writing for themselves rather than their audience. Songs like "Nowegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", "You Won't See Me", "Nowhere Man", and "Michelle" are songs about personal encounters and the ways the writer, whether it be John, Paul, or George, percieve the events. Before their mainstream songwriting may have been based off of personal experience but was written subjectively in an attempt to maintain universal subject matter. Rubber Soul shows that The Beatles now live in their music which does not destroy the universal theme, but shows the listener that personal situations are just as universal as subjective stories with no character. In the song "Nowhere Man," for instance, "he's a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody." The lyrics might be based on a character that John Lennon, the writer of the song, knows. However, they might just be nonsensical lyrics derived in his head. But in either case, the "nowhere man" becomes a character in our imagination. A real person that maybe we have met before, or are meeting for the first time. Seeing visualizations come from intelligent lyrics doesn't just give hope to the musician, but also to the listener. Most listeners have the intelligence to be offered more in depth situation in lyrics and still become part of the story in the song. And who could be a better teacher than Bob Dylan?
And if you're wondering how the Beatles might have affected Bob Dylan... Well that will probably always be open to speculation. But let's look at the dates. The meeting took place on August 28, 1964. Bob Dylan released his first album with electric guitar, Bringing it All Back Home, on March 22, 1965. And then he played the Newport Folk Festival on July 22, 1965 which has been said to be one of the most pivotal events in rock and roll history. The album Bringing It All Back Home was filled with electric blues guitar songs and lyrical genius in such songs as "Maggie's Farm." The album pleased many and upset many as well; the die hard folk fans who saw Dylan as a purist were outraged. But no matter who you were, the undeniable hit song "Tambourine Man" left everyone mesmerized. And then only months later Dylan released Highway 61 Revisited which had what Rolling Stone called "the greatest song of all time," "Like a Rolling Stone." In my opinion, what wounds were still open with the folk purists, were healed when "Like a Rolling Stone" was released. The song is a total folk song lyrically, but in the medium of a laid back country rock feel. Bob Dylan had just brought folk music back to mainstream, but now was attempting to bring folk music into another genre. Or several, at that.
Bob Dylan got started on the East coast of the United States, but was writing anthems for the counter culture youth of the West coast and all over. When Bob Dylan met the Beatles, he essentially introduced them to this counterculture. Drug commercials today still say that marijuana is a gateway drug to other drugs. Personally, I think it is with some people, and not with other people. But with The Beatles, I can only imagine what drugs it led them to do in the future. The Beatles and Bob Dylan met a few more times after this initial meeting. I would bet they had a great time, which might have reminded Bob Dylan what being a kid is. He was only a few years older than The Beatles. The rock and roll music that had influenced Bob Dylan to write in the first place was now boiling inside of him. If he was to speak for the youth of that era, he might as well represent every aspect of it. The fact is that American music is not about being a purist. There's enough of that in the world already. America is a boiling pot of thousands of cultures and Bob Dylan is aware of that in his music and in his lyric writing. The Beatles reminded him what his goal was again. Not to immortalize a style, but to resurrect old ones to create an entirely new one. I think it's safe to assume that we might not have the same music from The Beatles or Bob Dylan today if they had not had their meetings in 1964 and 1965. If we didn't have that, no telling what we would not have today.
Most things are picking up speed these days : self-scan check-out counters in the grocery store, online airport check-ins, and ordering food online. If you're trying to keep up with the fast pace of society, then you might want to check out some keyboard shortcuts. I'm on a Mac; so these are going to be tips for other Mac users. (Sorry PC folks)
Now I know these aren't going to be news to most of you, but there are a couple handy keyboard shortcuts that will make your computer navigation that much faster. And if you're already pretty experienced with shortcuts, but you haven't heard of Quicksilver....Read on.....
Here is a list of some basic keyboard shortcuts that will make your computer experience much more efficient :
-Pressing Command (Apple) and Tab will toggle between the various programs you have open. This takes out a lot of the mouse work of clicking back and forth between programs.
-Pressing the Command key and Spacebar will open up your Finder tool. This allows you to quickly type in a file you are searching for and have it brought to the forefront.
-Command and "H" will quickly "hide" (hence the "H") most programs out of sight.
-Pressing F11 will slide all windows you have open off of the Desktop allowing you to have access to any desktop icons or files you need.
-Command & "C", Command & "X", and Command & "V" are your copy, cut, and paste commands respectively.
These are very basic keyboard shortcuts that every Mac user should know. But if you really want to get serious about fast navigation you need to check out Quicksilver.
Quicksilver is basically a launch application. At its core, it allows you to type in part of the name of an application or file and Quicksilver will bring it up for you. Want to open iChat? With Quicksilver, you would simply press the Ctrl key and Spacebar to pull up the launcher (shown above) and then type in part of the word "iChat" (until iChat pops up) and press Return. iChat opens immediately. That's cool enough, but it goes far deeper; as the video below will explain further.
Here's a good example of one of its powers....I've got a list on my computer that is just a list of band names. I open it a lot - because I think of a lot of funny or interesting band names (let's call it a hobby). With Quicksilver, instead of finding the file, opening it, and then adding the band name to my list...I can simply hit a few keys and have it automatically added to the end of the list. Want to create a new text file? Simply pull up Quicksilver (spacebar and ctrl) and start typing. If you type more than a word or two, it will take the text and create a new text file for you. Want to define "biopic"? Don't open your dock, just pull up Quicksilver and type the word, press tab, then type define, press return and there you have it. It sounds like a lot, but it really takes a quarter of the time it takes to open your dock and click on the dictionary. Quicksilver is a very versatile program that has a shit ton of functionality. There have been a number of videos made on how to "train" yourself to use Quicksilver so you'll be a total ninja, and i'm posting the first two here. If you want further instruction, i've posted a link to the third and final installment of the tutorial...Yeah, its a bit of work...But the end result is a lot of time saved.
The best book i've read about my favorite band, Pink Floyd. Don't miss this one.[Read More]
I recently stumbled upon a website that had a wild looking toy. It was Bleep Lab's Thingamagoop; and being a man of trinkets, i had to get one. So I did. I got one. And here is my very first "vlog" (video blog) to show you what it's all about :