Indie!!!

Ah, the joys of recording indie style. Today I recorded the vocal track for "Pagliaccio", it was truly one of the most desperately indie experiences of my life (besides doing the make up for an indie film two years ago for actors who were supposed to have cancer, we barely made it to "set" in the director's car...but we can talk about that later). First off the owner of the "dungeon" (studio) that we were recording in had never done an audio recording before, so he had nothing set up. (Now, I have to tell you, I am not complaining here, this was all at the peak of humor for me! =) )
And the two mics that he tried kept blowing out the system, so I ended up singing in a resurrected compression mic that looked like an alien with two mini silver antennae!! It was hilarious! Well, the compression mic had nothing to stop the "pops", so we had to wrap a piece of foam around it!!! You all would have died laughing to see me singing into this TEENY little compression mic covered with foam!!! The picture here shows me at first with one of the normal "I am signing for the talent show" mics. After we got the track laid down, the computer died, and I am not kidding, 17 times!!! Loosing everything!!! The poor sound engineer was so stressed out that he didn't know what to do. I kept commenting on how nice and cool it was in the basement studio and then I looked over at him and sweat was pouring down his face, poor guy! Ah, it was the BEST!!! (Unbelievable though how amazingly good the recording sounds.)
As I sat there, watching the stressed out sound engineer who was looking in his "bible" or manual to find out how to "bounce" the track onto a CD, I had to chuckle...and my mind wandered back to that drive to the movie set two years prior, and upon entering the director's 20 year old hatchback, saw that all of the overhead lights were hanging down and swinging by their wires...I did a victory sign with my hand and just thought "INDIE"!!!!!

Flag Day (God Bless America)

Flag Day in Provo, Utah is a serious affair.
There is a huge American flag retiring ceremony in Downtown Provo that I never miss. This year it was at a large parking lot in front of a grocery store. In the mailer that they sent to all Utah County familes, they printed the starting time for the ceremony as 7:00 P.M., which as it turned out was one hour too early, and I have my suspicions that perhaps that "misprint" was by design. I sat and waited and waited. One of the things that caught my attention was a group of cub scouts sitting in front of me on the baseball style bleachers that had been set up to accommodate the fellow patriotic-flag-burning-hot-dog-eaters. And in this group of boys there was one in particular who was quite precocious and obviously a master at the art of divination. With all of the seriousness in the world he leaned over to his best friends just opened can of 7up, and with the flourish of the wisest sage he bestowed the information that from the way that the top of his friend's can had popped open (a game that kids play) that there was "a girl that like(d) (him), but more than like."
I had to chuckle. This same nine year old blonde boy was screaming obscenities about the President later on in the ceremony....his mother was horrified. Ah, our future is in good hands.
God, please bless America. (Please)

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