Take That Business Man

and now it's time to say goodbye

2007-04-20T10:26:00.000-04:00

This blog has been fun and I appreciate everyone who has come by and read what I have to tell.
But now it's over.
No explanations.
Goodbye.

Tax Time

2007-02-09T14:33:00.000-05:00

Went to see my accountant the other day to work out all the details for the 2006 tax season. Took a big hit last year and we're working on ways to keep it a little less this year. I've got faith in my guy though...he's smart.

This is his degree from Yale. See I told you smart.

Here is is telling me that the man (see US Treasury) is going to bend me over again. Not if I have anything to do with it. I wonder why he's smiling.

Branding...and everything you want to know about the companies that do.

2007-01-30T18:36:00.000-05:00

Karen sent this to me today.
Great stuff about the biggest/well know logos of all time.
Didn't see the Studio 5 logo on there...must be a mistake.

It blue, I know, but hey who cares.

Busy Bee

2007-01-28T11:49:00.000-05:00

Haven't been posting here very often lately. Been doing a lot of writing on Pistolero's blog and that has kept me from being here. Quick recap

-Back's been hurting. Had to go to chiropractor. feeling a little better.

-Working on some test animations for Dirt Cheep Music. Owner wants to see if "it's worth his while"

-Everyone I know is getting married this year. Or it just seems that way...5 weddings on the schedule for the year so far.

-2006 taxes are coming up. I learned a lot from being audited this year (for 2004) so I've been doing some more prep work. The tax man is a monster and we all need to have our defenses up against it.

-I've got a wooly beard now to keep my face warm.

-Karen and I are going to Morrocco in March for this years vacation. Very excited, no work for about 15 days.

-More transmissions later

We is on the TV Box

2007-01-18T12:01:00.000-05:00

Pistolero will be featured on MAV TV here in the next few weeks. We did an interview for their Mav Music show in October and it's finally done and ready to go up on the air.
Here is it is for those of you with out satalite.

Delta Plumbing

2007-01-17T11:19:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is . After 3 months of script changes and re edits the Delta Plumbing spot is finished.
Hope you enjoy because I'm just glad it's done.

Ohh...Athens

2007-01-15T20:34:00.000-05:00

Pistolero played in Athens this weekend and lo and behold the cops get called.
Thought I'd get my self a pic with the car...they won't let you do that when you're being arrested. Sieze the moment is what I say.

2007-01-15T12:38:00.000-05:00

Just thougt this was too funny not to post up here.
Pistolero live at the 10 High Tuesday the 16th.

Show Time

2007-01-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

Come one, Come all
Pistolero like you've never seen them before.
With Cellos and Acoustics
Pistolero
No Dissasemble
ISP
$7 door includes all the beer you can drink before it runs out.
Door is 9pm and we'll be starting promptly at 10 pm.

Alive and Kicking

2007-01-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

Dave and his brain want you to have a Happy New Year!

Years Best

2006-12-29T17:12:00.000-05:00

Every year all of us recieve christmas/new years/holiday/whatever cards. It happens this time of year because that's what the people like to do. It seems to me that I've been getting more and more as I get older. Maybe it's that I know more people than I used to or that friends have more money to spend on things like this or maybe we're all just getting to be those kind of people.

Regardles of why they come, I'm glad they do. I can remember getting the'christmas letter' from a family called the Riddells. They were mormons and lived down the street from me from age 4 to about 7. I can barely remember them living there. But I looked forward to getting the Riddell letter every year like I did the Sears wishbook (maybe not as much , but I did). The letter always came with a picture of the whole Riddell family together. Even when a member of the family was on a 'mission' (mormons, remeber) they would include a pic of whoever was missing. The other day I was at my folks house and I saw the latest incarnation of their family and I am happy to say that it's true, the mormons are breeding an army.

All that aside I decided to share with you my favorite holiday card that was recieved here at Worker Bee INC. Thanks you to James and Josie for the laugh.

The ISP Gang

2006-12-20T13:28:00.000-05:00

This is the ISP collective.
ISP is a group of like minded artists who've decided to stop waiting for a scene to happen and make one happen. There's a small space in East Atlanta that we all get together at to put up shows supporting locals and touring acts. It's cool.
We (all the bands involved) got together the other week to take a picture. It reminded me of this picture...
This is a famous picture of 50 or so of the greatest jazz musicians alive at the time. It was taken in Harlem. Oh to have someone in 50 years look at our photo...dreams.

Working in a coal mine....

2006-12-20T12:40:00.000-05:00

Been busy here at the shop lately. Had two 'big' shoots.
The first was with Delta Plumbing. We're doing an animated truck as their spokes...thing. Here is a pic from the shoot.

That's Mike M holding the boom , he's also doing the animations for us, and Evan Mc running the camera. Leisa Davis plays the woman washing dishes. It was quite a stretch for her. I'll post the finished spot here...'cuase it's going to be awesome!!

Two days later I did a shoot for Butler Brothers MX Team. They are an up and coming team in the motorcycle racing world. They race on dirt...as you can tell.

Evan was DP on this shoot as well...the difference... it was an HD shoot. There's really not much different in the way you go about things when shooting in HD, it just costs more. That's Stosh holding the reflector on the side and if you look closely you can see that the names on the jerseys they are wearing all say Butler...hence the name.
This will be the first national spot that Studio 5 has ever done completly on it's own. We are very happy about this.

Another thing we're (or should I say I) am very happy about...

...I've finally paid off the business loan that I took out to buy Studio 5. Three years of about 22% of my monthly spending is over. I sent this picture in with the final payment. Yea for me!

Anatomy #2

2006-12-15T11:12:00.000-05:00

Here follows the tale of how to make you very own super cool CD for your band.

First get some spray paint and a stencil. Stencils are easy to make, here is a great site
on the how to part of stencil making.
Our materials.---------------------------->

Buy yourself some plain 'ole cardboard CD sleeves. Slap your stencil on it and get to spraying. The stamp was made by Southern Stamp and Stencil company..Fairly cheap too.
Make sure you get some spray on the other sleeves that are waiting to be painted and presto.

Our Finished Product.------------------------->

Thanks to Brian Slusher of WeatherProof Records for recording and mixing the songs that you will be able to hear on this. Also thanks to ISP for having us that night. This disc will be available at shows only for a few months.

Growing Pains

2006-12-14T10:51:00.001-05:00

I have a problem working in groups. Not that I hate other people's ideas, it's just that they never seem to just say what they mean. I'm not sure if it's a product of a generation growing up being told not to hurt other people feelings or that a majority of humans don't like to make a cut and dry decisions.
That being said I know that I'm a bit of a control freak. This stems, not from my wanting to be in charge and tell everyone else what to do, but more from the fact that I HAVE to know what's going on in any given situation. What better way to know what's happening than to seize control and strangle the life out of it.
This dislike/distrust of 'committee' work can be illustrated in my day to day life. What I do for a living...I create TV spots that for the most part I complete on my own (and in cases where I do have to work with other people, it stresses me out and I am very demanding of them). I enjoy reading more than any other hobby I have...Alone, me and the story, that I read, at MY pace.
All this is just prologue though.
The real crux of this commentary is that I have, unknowing to me at the time, gotten 4 extra girlfriends. Mind you, I have a very nice relationship with a woman that I love and I am working very hard not to be too demanding of or confrontational with. She is smarter than me so she can handle my faults... And she lets me hold the remote control. It is a normal relationship one that fits into a definable category. I digress.
It started innocently enough, I just wanted to play some music. BOOM, next thing I know I have a date nights and there are talks about 'where we're going with this thing' or 'let's talk about the future'. We fight like wounded bitches if our faults are criticized and are as protective of our ideas as any mother bear is of her young. This is not like any relationship that most have ever had. Normally you fight with just one person and at he end of the day that is the only person to deal with. Not this fucked up poly/monogamous relationship. You get shot down and you think it's passed into the night only to realize that 3 of your 'girlfriends' have been talking about for 5 days afterwards. It is a dynamic that is utterly new to me.
I am not entirely ignorant of work place dynamics, I know that they exist, but I am no good at working inside of them. I was fired from my last 'real' job, because in the final analysis, I was unaware that people were talking about my work/me behind closed doors and therefore I did nothing to defend myself.
What does this all amount to? A head clearing rant...Yes. A cry for help...I don't think so?
I mean, I just finally, after more than half a lifetime of work at it, got a handle on having a relationship with a woman, and here I go getting into an even more confusing mess. A situation where there can be no control, only discussion and compromise. Strange place for a control freak to be.
I guess I'm growing.

A Christmas Show

2006-12-12T15:52:00.000-05:00

Should be great fun...We're up for Best Album Art.

Anatomy of a release

2006-12-08T15:24:00.000-05:00

My band is poor. Because of this we have to come up with new and inventive ways to put out our music. We're on the web...Along with everyone else. You can even download Pistolero songs from I Tunes now. This is all fine and well but in an age where you can use GarageBand to record your album at home and get a thousand discs pressed for about $1000 we were looking for something to set us apart from the rest of the heard. We wanted to have a product that people could identify with. Something that took time and effort to make and you could feel the love behind it. A little mushy I know, but we really wanted to the Y back in DIY (y=yourself).
Here follows the way we decided to do that.

We're poor, I think I said that, so we had to go with materials/skills that we that we can get for free or do ourselves. So I made up the cover from an old picture of some friends playing around.
I then sent the file down to our friend Rod. Rod works at Sign a Rama. They make things out of vinyl. He and co worker Jamie rasterized/posterized the file to make the detail...Well a little less detail-y. Then cut the picture out of long sheets of scrap vinyl. This is what that looks like.

While all this vinyl work was being done I went up to see the folks at Tape Warehouse (a god send for people that need blank media a lot). There I bought 250 of these little white cardboard sleeves and 250 white inkjet printable CD-Rs.

The band got together to do what is known as 'weeding'. You have to pull all of the little pieces of vinyl that are not going to be in the final product out. Before 'weeding' the pieces look like black pieces of vinyl with lines drawn in them. After weeding was finished, Rod got busy cutting out the sheets into individual pieces. These then have to be laid upon our little cardboard sleeves and the backing paper pulled off.

Remember while I was at Tape warehouse that I bought CD-Rs. Well, I happen to own a disc duplicator. So I threw the discs in the Bravo and proceeded to write 250 copies. Then I designed the disc label and had it printed on the disc once they were authored.

Back down to the sign shop where Rod was waiting with the finished packaging...

and Presto we have 250 new EPs to sell the kids, give to magazines and radio stations and possibly...Just maybe a label or two. All told we invested Just over $100 (and a little help from our friends) and we have and EP that is unlike any other that you'll see out today.
And the music is not bad either.

The Kissing Bandit EP will only be available at shows for the time being, so come out and support you local Pistolero. Each disc is numbered, just like ART.
I hope you enjoyed the lesson.

My Job

2006-12-04T12:53:00.000-05:00

My work takes me all over the place and this is a big reason that I got into camera work. I get to see things that many of my friends don't even know exsist (and neither do I until I get sent to film them). This weekend I went to a race in North Texas called The Last Man Standing. The were not joking in the name of the race. Out of the 147 guys who started 2 finished. That's right TWO!
The track was 44 miles long thru creeks and up hills and over walls. The finish line was right after a 8 foot high shear wall. Meaning the rider had to get his bike up and over a flat wall that was taller than he was staning up on his bike. The guy, David Knight, who won made everything look easy, breezing up walls and over rocks. He finished over and hour and a half ahead of the 2nd place guy. Here is some video I shot to let yo see what it was like.

This what I look like when shooting races like this..It's all hurry up and wait.

Mom and Dad in the Eighties

2006-12-04T12:40:00.000-05:00

The story that goes along with this photo goes like this....

My grandmother Perkins was down visiting the family and went to church with the family. She was perturbed to see that my dad did not wear a suit to church (My father wore blue Dickies work pants and a blue work shirt my entire childhood and teenage years, everyday!!). She and my mother went that week to buy him a suit. This photo was taken after a wedding so my grandmother would have a picture of my father in a suit to put up on the wall.

Check out Mom's hair and dad's lack of belly.

As a side note...
Did you know that I'm related to Steve Wozniak.
I didn't.

(My Uncle Ken)

At the Races

2006-12-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

This Thanksgiving Karen and I took a drive up to see my family in Virginia. While there we went to South Boston Speedway in...you guesses it South Boston, Va.
It was fun and we saw lots of guys destroy weeks worth of work and thousands upon thousands of dollars of car equipment.
This is my Uncle(s) Ken and Tim at the track.

As you can see, at this race track you can bring in your own chairs and cooler...a plus for any one. I made Karen try the famous Balogna Burger...she did not throw it up at me. Big fun in a small town.

2006-11-14T17:38:00.000-05:00

BYE BYE RUMMY!

2006-11-08T14:39:00.000-05:00

Now you're free to go head up a multi national and fuck America
from a board room instead of the Pentagon.

Foreshadowing???

2006-11-07T19:12:00.000-05:00

“It may be that Clinton is spending so heavily in New York to try to accomplish the kind of landslide that President Bush enjoyed in 1998,” said Mr. Toner, referring to the Texas governor’s race eight years ago. “The president’s 1998 race unquestionably helped lay the groundwork for a successful presidential campaign in 2000. History may be repeating itself.”

$29.5 Million against a guy who was not even considered a contender, though when you read about the guy, you can understand why (i.e. Douchbag).
To her credit, she has not promised the people of New York that she will serve out her full term. The next few years will be interesting.

Hope that everyone had fun voting.
Good luck to CS.
And away we go.

We Got Reviewed

2006-11-02T11:32:00.000-05:00

Performer Magazine reviewed The Last Fiore.
(Scroll down you'll find it)
I think they like us.
And you will to...After you come see us play tonight at ISP in East Atlanta.
Four doors down from The Earl...And it's free.
Kisses and Hugs

Typed in RANDOM at Google Images and this is what I came up with. Pretty, ain't it.

The beginning of the End

2006-10-31T10:07:00.000-05:00

My Space has issued a decree...
MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., said it will review all music files uploaded by community members to their online profiles. The files will be run through a music database from Gracenote Inc.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press

People are already leaving the site because of slow load times and enormous amounts of spam. It's being challenged by new 'secure' sites like Facebook and others. Now that they're going to start policing the site for copyright material, and it's all pretty much copyright material, all the kids in webland are going to bail. Looks like Tom got out at the right time.