Have you seen those ads for a Sony HD TV with "Lo-Def" sports? It featured what's called "The Play," the shocking, unbelievable ending of a football game between Stanford and University of California in 1982.
Here's a seven-minute video of the ending of the game. If you like football at all, you'll love this:
The cultural critic: Where my dad and I are way too alike!
Click to see a larger version:
UPDATE: I neglected to mention that this comic is called Arlo & Janis, and is a favorite of mine and my wife's. The cartoonist, Jimmy Johnson, also has his own web site that he updates a few times a week with comics from his archives.
Organic food is better, bucolic and just the right thing to do, right?
BusinessWeek begs to differ in its story: Exposing the organic myth.
(Stonyfield's) main facility is a state-of-the-art industrial plant just off the airport strip in Londonderry, N.H., where it handles milk from other farms. And consider this: Sometime soon a portion of the milk used to make that organic yogurt may be taken from a chemical-free cow in New Zealand, powdered, and then shipped to the U.S.
For some companies, it means keeping thousands of organic cows on industrial-scale feedlots. For others, the scarcity of organic ingredients means looking as far afield as China, Sierra Leone, and Brazil — places where standards may be hard to enforce, workers' wages and living conditions are a worry, and, say critics, increased farmland sometimes comes at a cost to the environment.
Since I'm home nursing a head cold -- feels like an ice pick in my ear -- it's a good time to get all philosophical on y'all.
But first, if you haven't done so yet, go over to my MySpace page and listen to the first song there, "River." It should open in a new window and start playing the song automatically. Note that you can read the lyrics there, too.
Then come back here.
I'll wait.
...
Now, what if I made such home recordings available for free downloads, with the request for a donation if you like the song? Would you give up a buck or five for the starving musician?
Or do you think more old-school? Do you need to have a CD in your hand for songs to have real worth?
Because, face it: I will likely never even be offered a record contract, nor would it be a sure thing that I'd accept one if offered. But technology has made a contract increasingly obsolete.
I can now record music, including vocals, on my little eMac computer, create cover art and such on the same computer, send the music files and art files through the Internet to a CD printing company, and get my CDs in the mail in a couple of weeks.
Then, I can set up a Web-based store though which I can sell my wares via credit card or PayPal.
Plus, I can send my songs to iTunes and other online music stores and sell them there. (Not that I've actually *sold* any songs on iTunes, but still.)
And then I can sell related merch for exorbitant prices.
I'm not trying to figure out how to make gobs of money with this hobby/calling of mine -- although if anyone has a spare gob, ask for my mailing address. But I am trying to figure out how to make this perhaps pay for itself a little more. (The monitor speaker we just bought? $300.)
So anyway, don't be surprised to see me try some stuff online in an attempt to raise awareness of my music and to raise some cash to support it. Let me know if you have any ideas or comments along the way.
Anyone who has paid attention to my list of "musicians who have influenced you" would see Michael Card at the top of the list. So when we found out Michael would be performing here in Fort Wayne, Mary and I knew we would be there.
I have ten of Michael's albums on CD, plus another one on cassette somewhere. So I am not just a casual fan. But I haven't kept up with some of his more recent CDs, like his album on the life of the apostle Peter, or on the book of Revelation, or on the book of Hebrews. His songs are intensely biblical and he brings an intense level of scholarship to them.
The concert was a celebration for local church Wallen Baptist's new sanctuary. So Michael brought his album of new music -- full of songs of lament.
But although Mary and I were afraid the concert would be full of music we didn't know, he put everyone at ease very early in the evening by performing perhaps his most well-known song, "El Shaddai." The two-hour (!) concert was a pleasing mix of older and new material. He was even unashamed to play the first song he ever wrote. 
Needless to say, we bought his newest CD, which considering the subject matter, has a more bluesy-jazzy flavor to it in parts. Michael natural melancholy now has a home -- especially now that he's not a major label telling him things like he has to follow up a dark song with a happy-snappy song, which happened on his "Poiema" album. Gah.
OK, I've rambled on a bit, but it was a sweet and funny and sad and moving concert. Well done and thank you, Michael.
Hey, the gig at The Anchor Room went pretty well, in my humble.
Not only did a good number of people show up, which is a nice change. Also, my dear wife says my vocals sounded better, and we think it's all thanks to the Galaxy Hot Spot PA5X140.
Simply speaking, when you're performing on stage with amplifiers, you can't hear yourself very well. You can hear the echo off the back wall just as well as the original sounds from your amp. So you need an additional speaker pointing back at yourself so you can hear all of the music at the right time and the right key. A monitor helps a vocalist not go out of tune.
Thanks to everyone who showed up! Next gig on November 3.
My friend and coworker Steve Linsenmayer came over Saturday morning, and we went around the neighborhood, taking pictures of me. I needed some professional shots of myself for flyers and posters and stuff like that there.
Instead of picking a few photos and posting them here, I thought, why not show them all? But who has the time to look at 433 photos?
Well, you do! Here are the photos, all in less than a minute.
433 still photos as a 45-second video on Vimeo
Thanks to Steve for the great photos. Thanks to Apple's GarageBand for the groovy music loops. Thanks to Vimeo for hosting the video. (Fort Wayne native Zach Klein is one of the guys who created Vimeo.) And thanks to Scott Greider for, unbeknownst to him, giving me the idea to post video.
Also, you can click here and download a high-quality version!
I've been having some fun with Shutterfly, and here are some photos from our recent trip to the Fort Wayne Children's Zoo.
To see our photos, just click on the alligator -- if you dare!
Honestly, this is what I brought home from the store tonight:
Well, I finally did it. I recorded a song with (shudder) vocals and have posted it online. So you can hear it.
You can go to my MySpace page to hear "River," my newest song. The lyrics are slightly rough in a couple of places, but you can hear the song with what I think is the right emotional timbre.
And don't forget my next gig, coming up at The Anchor Room. Get the details.
Come check out the new coffeehouse in Churubusco and hear me play and sing! La la!
It's called the Mountaintop Coffeehouse. I believe the mountaintop refers to the coffee, not to the location.
I'll begin at 6:30 p.m. Hope you can make it.
Here's your reminder: I'm in Auburn, Ind., tonight, playing at the Cupbearer Coffee House. (Strange... some of the links on their web site, like More Upcoming Events and Special Drink of the Month, don't work. Hm.)
The directions are easy peasy: Get off the interstate, drive toward Auburn, turn left on Grandstaff, find said coffeehouse on left.
If you don't show up, you won't get to hear my new song, "River," with lyrics right below this post.
For more information, you know the drill: Go to my engagements page on my web site.
