We just got back into the rehearsal schedule. It’s good to hear some of this music out loud again…and working on it is always rewarding.

Tons of material. Tons of songs. A few got cut and a few more need a bunch of help. But…we are playing only songs that no one has heard before…which is always terrifying.

Hope to see you there…December 8th at Barrow Street Theater.

Drinks afterwards. go to our website for more.

I’m reviving this blog. Call me crazy.

Not much new has happened here since we got back from Orchard Project in June, but we’ve been writing like crazy and probably have enough material for three shows at this point. Which means it’s time to kill some babies.

This baby was inspired by Arian’s track: birth and parenthood in the digital age.

FATHER ABRAHAM’S BLUES

My baby daughter’s eyes and weight and size can be selected
Via PDA in time to save the day and be corrected
Her DNA is mine to play with if I do elect it
And my happiness I buy over the counter and inject it

While psychiatrists whose iron fists look strangely anorexic
Show me pictures of teenagers in bikinis eating breakfast
And then ask me how it feels to be born and raised in Texas
I said, “Man I’m not from there but as for me I’m feeling restless.”

My best friend had a headache so the doctor amputated
Then they posted it on YouTube where it soon was highly rated
And professors and investors lifted glass and celebrated
As they watched their stocks in Eli Lilly rapidly inflated

While senators reached across the aisle and resonated
Until Hillary she cried out, “I have been inseminated
By a certain founding father whose name shall remain unstated.”
But soon hints were dropped that Independence he had Declarated

So geneticists sang Yankee Doodle Dandy and paraded
Down Sunset Boulevard where all the actors stopped and waited
For a speech by Mary-Ellis Bunim in which she berated
The cast of Gossip Girl who then slinked away deflated

The whole thing watched by 60 million Nielsen estimated
Before word got out that William Gates III had copulated
With the ghost of J.P. Morgan who then soon released a statement
Saying, “It’s possible. I can’t recall. I was inebriated.”

Sweet Samantha touched my knee when I was only seventeen
And it left a stain that won’t come out no matter how I clean
She said, “Come to me when you are ready and I shall receive.”
But I overslept and showed up late and now it’s only me

Riffing a little more on that last post…

A lot has been made about the relationship between the individual liberties enjoyed by a society and its cultural output. Athens as a city-state; Florence under the Medici; Elizabethan England; American during and after the New Deal.

A lot has also been made about the internet and its abundance of choice. By extension it’s implied (see below) that the exercise of that choice becomes an expression of our individual liberty.

So I wonder: if we really are in the midst of a revolution in freedom and choice, can we expect the arts to flourish alongside it? Has anybody picked up on signs of that already?

Talk to me…

-T

Check out Katherine Seelye’s column in the Times today and the website it discusses:

Worth pointing out here two of Internet for Everyone’s guiding principles, as listed on their About page. Quote, “To make sure every American can benefit from the new economy and guarantee all citizens play an active role in our democracy our nation must embark on a national campaign to connect every American to a fast, affordable and open Internet.” And, “Every Internet user should have the right to freedom of speech and commerce online in an open market without gatekeepers or discrimination.” (italics mine)

That harnessing liberal rhetoric to the cause of the internet is nothing new makes it no less striking here. The question is: who’s making these connections and are our individual freedoms really at the top of their priority list? eBay and Google are two members of the large initiative. In 2007 they raked in nearly $6 billion and $10 billion in gross profits, respectively. It doesn’t take an economist to theorize that wider access to broadband would inflate those numbers even more. Nor does it take a psychologist to perceive that those figures – more than democracy, freedom of speech or the public interest – are what really concern the Internet for Everyone alliance.

Populists or robber barons?

For new heights in disingenuousness, give them credit for the following:

“Open Internet access makes free speech a reality for everyone. Freedom of the press extends only to those who own one — or so the saying goes… But the Internet has changed all that, delivering the press — and in theory its freedoms — to any person with a good idea and a connection. Yet powerful political and economic interests are exploring new ways to filter or block user information on the free-flowing Web.”

In theory, indeed.

-T

So I have been working on this song where all the lyrics are either from company slogans or literally the ingredient list off of the side of a cereal box. I will be uploading a version of it in a couple of days….

my head has really been into the constant selling that we may never become aware of because it has simply become our way of life. I was looking around my home today and for someone who doesn’t buy much, there was an amazing amount of product placement, you know…..anyway.

Rod

Link courtesy of Mr. Jeff Devine:

http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11482452

Phorm’s claim that what they’re offering is a service for the web user as opposed to the advertiser would be the blackest obfuscation if it weren’t so utterly transparent.

Does anybody ever click on sponsored links anyway? I honestly can’t remember a time.

Personally I’m less concerned about whether targeted ads, or the means by which they’re delivered, constitute an invasion of privacy or not (on a certain level they’re inevitable; all ads are targeted in one way or another) than I am about the sheer avarice – even existence – of companies like Phorm. Have these people really nothing more productive to put their energies toward than the indiscriminate selling of things – anything – to Joe & Jane Webuser?

-T

Andy just asked me where the blog entries were.

We’ve been out of town at Silo and Orchard Project and internet access has been limited. But we are back now and more on both of those will be up soon.

Meanwhile check out this article Andy sent us, apropos of the new show:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

-T

So this is not exactly news, but it’s germane:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hx_WKxqQF2o

Check it out, and then check out this funny response by Kimmy and Randy…

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QDZ5gNmBvKE

Arian told me to just write anything, so that’s what I’m doing.

I was reading something last night about the Adams-Jefferson letters (which we used in Sweetness & Light btw), and it made me wonder what if that correspondence had been carried out in google chat:

JA: hey whats up?

TJ: not much

JA: u still think a weak federal government was the true meaning of the revolution?

TJ: yeah, pretty much

JA: youre crazy

JA: im still kinda mad at you

TJ: you have a right to be

TJ: sorry about all the slander

JA: ugh dont remind me

JA: lets just be friends again

TJ: cool

JA: cool

TJ: alright i have to go renovate my mansion and found a university

JA: see thats what i need – a hobby

TJ: ill talk to u later john

JA: alright later

TJ: later

(Thomas is offline.)

Check out Byrne playing this building.

Click here.