DBCV9: Montreal

Time for a trip across the border with Eva and Scott:

DBCV8: VT Sunset

Oh my, what a weekend. Is a new week really starting again...already? I need a weekend to recover from my weekend please! Sheesh, it seems I barely have time to have a weekend and blog and vlog about said weekend before a new week begins!? NOT FAIR!

Many thanks go out to the fabulous Seven Days crew for letting me tag along to my 2nd Seven Days XMas party (also thanks to my sister for bringing me!). Those cats know how to throw a damn fine holiday bash with tasty food (thanks Plan B), booze a plenty and a gift exchange to rival all others.

Just how does Diane the Santa do it: handing out gifts, engaging in witty reparte and keeping her drink fresh?! Duh, in leather pants of course! Tee hee!

Thanks Pamela and Paula! You guys and your gang are the best, no wonder your paper is so damn good!

A fun Saturday afternoon trip to a junk shop in Richmond lead to many musty smelling finds, some of which will be under the Christmas tree this year. Scott walked away with a bunch of Life magazines from the 20s and 30s to collage with. We marvelled at all the happy faces contained within - were people happier in the old days or were they just better at faking it?

I left decked out in fine jewels and laden down with many mildew covered books about the human body and true crime. Nothing like a day spent driving along snow covered VT roads and poking through dusty piles o junk that no one else wants (vlog to follow later, me hopes).

It is a funny thing about auditioning. It never gets any easier, at least, not for me. I can count on two hands how many auditions I have been to in my lifetime and they still fill me with apprehension. Even though I know and love Lois Trombley, my amazing and wonderful dance teacher, I was still dreading auditioning for her dance troupe, Speilpalast Cabaret on Sunday. Wouldn't staying in bed with a nice book and a cup of tea be a far better way to spend my time? Eh?

Of course, I was being totally silly because I auditioned for Spielpalast last year and had a blast. Definitely a fun way to spend a Sunday and far more fun than most uptight auditions, it is more like a happening dance class with improv to boot!

So after dragging my butt out of bed and down to the Rose St Coop, I was pleased to see that I knew most of the other people auditioning, small world! And we had an entertaining afternoon acting, dancing, singing, making funny faces and playing make believe. So thanks Spielpalast for the fun audition and I am glad I got my butt out of bed!

Finally, time to unwind after the auditioning adrenaline rush with beer and burgers at VT Pub and Brewery and then down to the waterfront in time for the magnificent sunset over Lake Champlain. And to commemorate, here is another vlog which is dedicated to Nelson Muntz of The Simpsons (who knew he had such a complicated backstory?):

"HA HA! I touched your heart!" - Nelson Muntz, The Simpsons

DBCV8: VT Sunset
12/10/06

DBCV7: Dating Tips

Yes, yes, I know this is too long to watch (Steve) but what can I say, I am learning how to self-vlog-edit, slowly. This here is a video response to a dating dilemma posed by "Marti" on my "Introducing Fuchsia" post.

I do not know who "Marti" is or even if she/he is a boy/girl, straight/gay, American/British or perhaps she/he is just spam? Still, it is an interesting question, one many of us face:

What to do when the fellow you fancy stops calling?

Below is my long, rambling answer with some help from my favorite films and Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman:

DBCV6: Junk Shop

“Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window;
Why, why, says the junk in the yard”
Paul McCartney

In which Eva and Scott explore a junk shop in Richmond Vermont and find many obscure, mildew-covered goodies and ancient remnants of the past.

Best of all are the Life Magazines and their ads full of sickly sweet, forever-smiling happy people. Some of my favorites are the Camel ad which joyfully proclaims that "More doctors smoke camels than any other cigarettes."

Oh, you don't say! Not to mention the fact that Camels do not cause throat irritation. Lung cancer, maybe, but no throat irritation! Hurrah, pass me that butt!

And I especially love the bandaid ad which proclaims, "Never neglect a thorn stab." You would think the population was full of thorn stab holes! Perhaps we are? And of course, every fellow wants that "Just combed look all day long."

The great thing about these ads is that they are not all that different than the ads nowadays. It is all the same crap being sold: Coke, Bud, sugar, cars, bandaids, hair gel, underwear, shoes. And they are selling it the same way they always do: Your life is incomplete without this insert product here.

On that note, the junk shop is the ultimate weapon for the anti-consumer this holiday season. Junk shops collect all the worn out, long forgotten items that supposedly should have been thrown out long ago.

The old magazines, books, dolls, knick knacks and doo dads that you are supposed to replace with something new and shiny - if you are a proper Capitalist that is. I mean, COME ON, you want to get ahead, right? You want to be the successful envy of your neighbors - then get out your credit card Buddy!

As we shop ourselves to death this holiday season and buy bigger cars, smaller phones and even tinier IPods, you have to ask yourself, when will it all end?

In a big bloody Mad Max style oil crisis revolution? And long after this day comes, what will the residents of the future think of our sick consumer fascination with the "new" and the "better?"

In the future, perhaps only junk will remain. And the new things we currently hope so desperately to own will be piled high on our big pile o' junk. And the planet will be just one big junk shop with bartering and trade our only way of owning things.

The junk shop as revolution, dig it man:



Note to self, next time, bring my video camera and interview the cool old guy who owns the junk shop, or better yet, his neato wife!

DBCV5: Light My Fire

I am still trying to work out some sort of a format for my fledgling vlog (sheesh, I can barely get the hang of this here blog and now I am attempting to vlog - this is sure to end badly). DBCV5 is a little shorter (thanks Steve) and instead of making one big monster vlog, I tried to break it up into parts (the next 3 parts are upcoming and involve Scott Walker, Regina Spektor and most important of all, my new glasses).

I figure if I just keep on making them, some sort of a structure will work itself out eventually. That is sort of what happened with my cable access show, The Deadbeat Club. As unsure as I was when I was throwing together the first episode (at the last minute, what else is new?), I went through with it and turned it in to the station because I knew no one was going to watch it (talk about no pressure).


Over the years (we're coming up on our 3 year anniversary!), I shaped and molded the show into its current form and it is always evolving. It has been really fun watching the DBC reruns play because I can see what worked better then and what works better now. Some elements improved (sound transitions) and others changed drastically (more polished).

For instance, in the episode that played tonight, DBC9 from December of 2004, there were WAY too many movie clips and they interrupt far too often. The rhythm of the show suffers because the film clips keep busting in. Nowadays, I try to let the show play out more organically with longer talking bits and fewer cuts and edits. It feels better to let us mess up here and there and to keep the "fair use" clips to a fair minimum.

Still, who can say if The Deadbeat Club has really gotten better? In fact, as with the last time reruns aired, I got a nice email saying how the show was getting better and better. The only thing is, these are old episodes, so if they are better, does that mean we are getting worse? OK, too much thinking and nit picking is going into this here blog post and I have to wake up in 5 hours and deal with 3,000 little kids. Eeek! Time for bed!


So, after all that blabbing, here is another installment of the DBC Vlog. DBCV5 details the early December mood in Burlington Vermont, complete with our recent storms, our first snow, the holiday season and shopping galore.

And to cap it all off, make yourself a cup of hot cocoa, cuddle up with an animal and curl up by the fireplace (video monitor). This fire will keep you warm as the winds gust outside, Lake Champlain rages against the shore and winter creeps up on us...slowly...

DBCV5: Light My Fire
12/3/06

PS There are also some shout outs to Nathan in Austin, Texas and Tonci (and his dog!) in Split, Croatia!

DBCV4: Mix Tapes

I have wanted to do a weekly vlog for a long time now (thanks to Richard at Burlington Telecom for the idea!). Since I finally have some spare time on my hands (we love 4 day weekends!), I am playing around with different vlog formats and ideas.

Embedded below is experiment #4: a looong rant about mix tapes and how my musical tastes have been shaped by them and the people who gave them to me. Not to mention some readings from Nick Hornby's (whose name I butchered - egads, need spell checker!) High Fidelity about the art of mix tape making and its role in seduction.

If you have ever made me a mix tape, then you just might be mentioned in this video so beware! Most of the music is male but I guess that is cause most of these tapes were made by guys...hmmm...I guess the mix tape is a sort of dude thing:



Any comments are welcomed (such as, "omg, did you really stay up until 7am making this dumb ass video?"). I am still pretty unsure of what or where to go with this vloggey thingy (sort of how I feel about the bloggy thing as well!):

DBCV3: Office Monkey

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Late Wednesday night, most of our office had already fled the building as it was the day before Thanksgiving. As with most things I dislike, I had put off doing a loathsome invoice mailing all week and could put it off no longer.

Although there is something to be said for mundane, mindless jobs, I have a particular distaste for invoice mailings. Perhaps because I do them so often and it feels like each one brings me just a little bit closer to death's door.

To spice up the proceedings, I made this little video and asked the scintillating question, "Could a monkey do my job?" The verdict is still out. You be the judge.



Have a great Thanksgiving and be thankful that you are NOT a monkey doing invoice mailings!

Now this monkey can pig out and watch DVDs of The Office (check out this ultra dreamy montage of Pam and Jim), she's earned it!

Got no check books, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I got the sun in the mornin' and the moon at night. - Irving Berlin