Tom Lorenz

On Sunday I blew off a photo shoot I was supposed to conduct at Burlington County Footlighters. Totally forgot about it. After many an apology, I showed up tonight to finally get it done. What did I do to make up for screwing up two days earlier? I damn near burned the place down.

Allow me to explain.

There’s an area set up in one of the rooms of the theater that has a plain background, two ordinary work lights and two light stands. It’s commonly used for taking headshots, so that’s where I set myself up. I put the tripod together, got the camera set, then set about plugging in the lights. I had gotten a couple of extension cords from a supply closet, so I unfurled the first and plugged it in. After that I got the second cord, unfurled it and plugged it in.

When that was done I noticed a funky smell in the room. I looked up. Gray-black smoke was billowing from the first lamp. Then it hit me. Y’know those cardboard sleeves that light bulbs are packed inside? Well, each of these 100 watt bulbs still had those on them, and when I plugged them in, they turned on right away. I was joyfully unaware of either of these things. Except, of course, when I saw/smelled what I had done.

Immediately I sprang into action. I screamed hysterically quickly grabbed the smoldering sleeve off of the first bulb, then while trying to decide what to do with it, I pulled the sleeve off of the second bulb. Pretty smart, I thought. At the same time, I thought how much that moment resembled the shot in Airplane! when Ted Striker is handed his airline ticket for the smoking section. Fortunately I knew the building well enough to be able to walk down the steps, turn left into the men’s room and run that sleeve under some water.

With that out of the way, I got the headshots done lickety split and got my pyromaniacal ass out of there before I could do any more damage. Before I left, however, I left the two sleeves next to each other backstage along with a note pointing to them as “before” and “after”. Here’s your moment of irony: that’s the one thing I did not photograph.

After a year and a half, I have cancelled my SiriusXM account, effective May 10. Why? Let me count the ways:

1. All I ever listened to was Howard Stern. Not much else on SiriusXM is very compelling to me.
2. Internet radio was taken away from me. It’s now an extra $3 a month for that. And even then, it’s only Sirius channels. Can’t get baseball games.
3. The only way to get MLB broadcasts is to buy a new radio. And again, online listening isn’t an option.
4. Nobody ever gave me a straight answer when I emailed them three times about the King Biscuit Flower Hour. In fact, one person gave me a bad phone number to call for information!

The least I want is to be able to have what I had before: Howard Stern on my radio and online at work for $13 a month. That much would now cost $16. If I want baseball (and I do), the only way to get it is to buy a new radio. I could go for their base A La Carte plan for about $8 a month, but [a] I’d have to buy a proprietary, non-portable radio for $100, [b] I wouldn’t get internet radio at that price, and [c] even if I added internet radio for another $3 a month I wouldn’t get baseball on it! There’s also the $20 per month All-In-One plan. Pro: radios start at $40. Con: no internet radio (and all that that implies).

When I add it all up, it’s simply not worth it. For $9 a month I can view tons of Netflix content and get two DVDs per month, all using equiment I already own and can continue using even if I cancel that membership. That, my friends, is a great value. Sirius wants me to pay more than twice that to get all the content I want, buy a new radio (and trash my old one), and still be unable to hear baseball online? Sorry, no.

Time to check the MLB site to see how exorbitant their listening packages are.

I got a call from Heather (the writer/producer of Sunshine Again) the other day telling me that production is moving forward once again. She has rewritten the scripts to give them a more comic (an in her words, “snarky”) feel, which was welcome news. She has also gotten all but one role cast. As you may know, we were two actors short for the live shows, then two of the actors we did have ended up quitting. Now both of them have been replaced, two others are on board, and she even found a new puppeteer with scads of experience.

On top of all that, she found a good studio to work in. The bad news: it’s in Queens. The good news: it has parking. And kraft services. Nothing wrong with that! At least I know I can drive directly to the studio, have a place to park on premises, and not worry much about food. The little things really do mean a lot. More good news: since Andrew, David and I all live down by Philly, she said that she’ll come down here to rehearse with us, rather than have us drive up to her in Queens. Nice.

So things are back on track and moving forward. Yesterday she sent new sides and a couple of music tracks to listen to. It’s not much, but I already like the way the script has changed. It’s a lot more fun than before.

I still haven’t gotten a shooting schedule, but she needs to get in and out of the studio within eight weeks, as it’s gonna be taken up by another production after that. I’m just looking forward to getting it done! It’s a great project and I’m so anxious to see how it turns out.

One of my all-time favorite albums is The Blues Brothers’ Briefcase Full Of Blues. Today I listened to it again and noticed a prediction Dan Aykroyd made on the opening track:

By the year 2006, the music known today as “the blues” will exist only in the classical records section of your local public library…

Good thing he was wrong about that! I know, I know; it was written for laughs. Still, I’m happy it didn’t come to pass.

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook the other day. I like it so much that I thought I should post it here for others to enjoy.

Arguments against the equalization of marriage rights for gay couples:

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Brittany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

The other day I was driving home, reflecting on all that has happened to me in the last year. It’s no secret that I have had problems with my town’s community theater. Long story short: I participated for five years, took part in seven shows, directed two others, and created and ran their web site. Then when I detailed a plan in public for the long-term survival of the group, the rank and file took that as an attack on the group’s president and roundly ostracized me. Sadly, that came only after said president had already made it abundantly (and indirectly) clear that I was no longer welcome.

Since that time, I went back to the neighboring community theater where I had started out years earlier and got cast in another show. Then I was asked to join their board, followed by a stint running their sound board for a different musical. A few months later I was cast at yet another nearby community theater, after which I signed on to be on their board as well as their new webmaster. As if all that weren’t enough, I was cast in a NY theatrical production and DVD series. In my own town’s community theater I am a pariah. In Haddonfield, Burlington County and Brooklyn, I am welcomed with open arms, both as a performer and supporter.

These are the things I was thinking about as I drove. I have made many new friends this past year and reconnected with many more. I have also found a level of acceptance that I have never experienced before. While  it is sad that these things aren’t happening in the very town in which I live and that I adore, I am so very grateful that they are indeed happening.

And for the record, I do still want the Collingswood Community Theater to be around for many years to come and wish it the very best. I still fear for its future, but sincerely hope it will grow and mature and that more people will get involved.

After two days of working on Sunshine Again in New York, my head is swimming. Of course, sleep deprivation plays a part in that, but there’s a whole lot more to it.

Let’s start with yesterday. I left the house at 7:40 to get to Brooklyn by 10:00. With my trusty GPS suction-cupped to the windshield, I was on my way. The drive was fine, only hitting bad traffic once I crossed the Verrazano Narrows bridge, but even then the traffic kept moving. Usually.

Parking was the next hurdle to be cleared. By 9:45 I had found the theater easily enough and was even luckier to find a parking spot less than a block away. Then I saw the sign: No Parking Mondays 11:30am–1:00pm. Shit. Then the fun really began. It took another twenty minutes, but I did finally find one off the corner of 3rd & Union, which turns out to be right across from the Holiday Innwhere I’ll be staying Friday night.

We all met in the theater’s coffee shop: Frank, Ron, Lakota, Heather, Phil and me. Lakota I hadn’t met before, but knew she has been involved for a few months. Phil was brand new, having just been cast a couple of days earlier. We talked, I emailed, Tweeted and Facebooked (thanks to the free wifi in the house), then we headed down to the downstairs theater to rehearse. We’re gonna perform in the upstairs theater, but couldn’t rehearse there for some reason.

The rehearsal was a pretty casual affair. Far from what I’m accustomed to, but that’s all based on community theater experience. This is a very different animal. Lots of things were still being worked out. The blocking, of course, as we had never been on a stage of any kind before. That was simple. Then there were the muppets. Heather (the producer and one of the performers) wasn’t happy with the puppeteers she had hired, so she decided that the cast will fill in for them. I’m only doing a little bit in one scene, but others are doing far more. It’s a lot of fun to watch.

The big pain in the ass was that I had dressed for the photo shoot that was supposed to happen first thing. The photog never showed. Luckily I had brought a change of clothes so I wasn’t stuck in a turtleneck and sport coat all day. As a Plan B, we took my dopey little Casio camera, put it in the hands of one of the owners and had her take some shots.  Most came out blurry, but we did what we could.

By about 2:00 we were done, so I went back up to the cafe, whipped out my MacBook Pro and set about finishing the Number The Stars program, which had turned into a big mess–and I didn’t help things by dragging my feet. I spent about an hour on that while stuffing a bagel down my throat.

The drive home was uneventful, which is always a good thing. I got home by 5:00.

Today was an experience. Still trying to wrap my head around all that went on.

It started with my iPod Touch alarm going off at 4:00am so I could get my ass ready and over to 30th street in Philly in time to catch the 6:30am BoltBus to NYC. And I did. The main selling point for BoltBus is the free wifi access. What a luxury to be going 65mph on the NJ Turnpike and tweeting and Facebooking and emailing birthday wishes to relatives who probably weren’t even awake yet. It almost made up for the lack of elbow room.

We pulled up to the curb at 34th St. & 8th Ave. around 8:50, leaving me over an hour to get to Herald Square station, buy a MetroCard and take the R down to Brooklyn–all of which happened with ease. Signage was clear, ticketing was simple, and I even caught the right train. Got to the theater at 9:40 and finally had breakfast.

We ran through the live action stuff once, after which our no-show photographer from yesterday came in. It was a missed email on her part that caused the mess, so she apologized profusely and coughed up a box of Dunkin’ Donuts fare. Apology accepted!

She shot like a woman possessed. With digital SLR and long lens in hand, she had us go through some songs while her shutter snapped and snapped and snapped away. Within a ten minute span she must have taken upwards of 200 shots. Seriously. There has to be something usable among all of those photos!

Just after noon we were wrapping things up and about to head over to the recording studio when Phil finally showed up. More than two hours late. No phone call, no nothing. Just strolled in.  Worse still, even after Heather let him go, he still hung around to try to get Lakota’s phone number. Nice, eh?

Since Ron can’t sing, he didn’t join us at the studio, so it was Heather, Frank, Lakota and me on the R train to 28th St. station. After walking a few blocks we found the studio. Or so we thought. It was the right address, but it looked less like the location of a recording studio than the location of a mob hit. To call this place “nondescript” would be to call way too much attention to it. Picture an ummarked alley with razor wire atop the walls, a door about halfway down that alley with a hand-painted number at the top, and no fewer than four rickety doorbell buttons around it–none of which featured a studio name.

After about five minutes of unresponsiveness from any of the buttons, Jimmy strolled up. This is Jimmy Madison’s studio. It’s small, but it has everything one needs to make great recordings, including a decidedly analog signal path. It’s also digital in all the right places, which simplifies his life tremendously.

He had four Neumann mics, AKG headphones and carpet-covered music stands (Manhassets, of course) all set up for us. We spent the next few hours recording our vocal tracks. Some as a group, some individually, some in between the two. My mic proved to be problematic, so he switched it with another Neumann.

About halfway through the session, Bob Cranshaw came in. It’s kinda like being a baseball player and having Willie Mays show up in the clubhouse. Bob is a legend. Think about all the Sesame Street songs you knew as a kid. You know his playing, because he played on everything for at least the first twenty years of the show. He has also played with some of the biggest names in jazz, most notably Sonny Rollins. He is our music director. How amazing is that?

And what a wonderful presence he is. Calm, sharp, gentle and funny. How funny? The ringtone he chose for when his wife calls his iPhone is a ship’s red alert klaxon. And he’s into this project. Wow.

But wait! There’s more!

Bob was great friends with Sesame Street’s original and long-time music director, Joe Raposo. I play Joe on the show. Bob has been curious about me since Heather showed him my headshot. According to her, he saw it, then bent backward laughing, saying “That’s Joey!” She also sent him the song I added my vocals to the other night, so he was very intrigued by me. And there he was on the other side of the studio glass. Pressure? Moi?

He hung around for a couple of hours while we did out thing. If we weren’t on mic, we were in the control room talking to him. When it was time for him to go, we shook hands, but then he pulled me in for a hug. This 76 year old legend–this guy whose playing I grew up with–was pulling me in for a hug.

And then it happened. As we were hugging, he said: “You are the spirit of Joey”. Folks, it’s rare to find me at a loss for words, but there I was, dumbstruck. Now, I’m not going to flatter myself into thinking that I am anywhere near the level of Joe Raposo. He was a monster talent. Still, to have that kind of validation from that man was nothing short of breathtaking and humbling. I’m still trying to come to grips with it.

After we left Jimmy’s studio, the first thing Heather said to me was that Bob doesn’t hug everybody. Once again, all I can say right now is: “wow”.

Frank had left the studio a couple of hours earlier, so it was just Heather, Lakota and me walking to Penn Station. After they dropped me off at the BoltBus stop, I ambled across the street to Quiznos for a boring sandwich before boarding the bus to come home. We rolled away at 7:00pm and got back to Philly less than two hours later.

What a day. What a couple of days! Tomorrow it’s back to the real world for me. But only for two days before the madness returns!

After more than six years and four different models, I am not exactly an expert on iPods, but I have spent a lot of time with them and have come to appreciate their differences. I’d like to talk about them a bit and pass along some of the things I have learned about them.

My first iPod—the original model—was revolutionary. It completely changed the way I listen to music, which is something I can say without a hint of hyperbole. The sheer bulk of my cassette Walkman made it a deterrent to regular use. That plus the inflexibility of having only one cassette in the thing. If I wanted more choices, I had to lug more tapes around. The Discman wasn’t much better. But the iPod gave me dozens of albums to listen to and let me change from one to the other with minimal effort. And don’t even get me started on how iTunes and its smart playlists contributed to this personal listening revolution. I mix tape that once took hours to compile would now get done in minutes—often automatically.

Its successor, the 30GB “video” iPod, gave me options I never had before while increasing portability. Now I could fit hundreds upon hundreds of albums on a single iPod and bring along videos and video podcasts. I can’t tell you how many commutes were spent sitting on the train watching Channel Frederator. Again, I had a wealth of diverse music available to me at my fingertips. It became rare for me to leave the house without my iPod, just because it gave me so much to listen to.

The iPod Shuffle (in glorious orange) is a marvel, but works very differently from my previous iPods. I got it so I could listen to music and podcasts while exercising. Its diminutive size and sturdy, built-in clip make it ideal for that. You can clip it on and forget it’s there! I often clip it onto my cap for a near-wireless feel.

What used to frustrate me about it was that it would reorder my podcasts to play the latest one first, then the next latest and so on. Nice idea, but I liked to get caught up starting with the oldest podcast, then work my way up to the most recent. For a long time that was impossible to override, but it looks like a recent software update took care of that.

What continues to frustrate me, though, is that the Shuffle is monogamous with iTunes. It will sync with only one library at a time. My older, hard drive-based iPods had no problem with me plugging them in to my work Mac and syncing there. Not the Shuffle. If I plug it into my work computer, it wants to delete everything and start fresh. With its small (1GB) capacity that’s not always a problem, as long as I anticipate it. Still, it’d be great if it could be a little less faithful.

Which brings me to my newest toy, the iPod Touch. Oh, what a glorious toy. As a former Newton user and devotee I was holding out for a PDA that more closely resembled what the old Newtons could do. While the iPhone goes well beyond those capabilities, its exclusive deal with AT&T is a deal breaker, so I went with the Touch. This thing is so sweet. WiFi lets me get online at home, at work and many other places, and the apps that are available let one use it and customize it in myriad ways. While the task manager gets the most use during the day, the Facebook, Twitter and Google apps keep it busy at night as well.

As a music player, however, it doesn’t suit my needs very well. Its interface is almost completely visual. All my other iPods have tactile feedback which allows me to manipulate them without looking. The Shuffle can stay clipped to my collar or the video iPod can stay in my pocket and I can alter the volume and skip songs without looking. Not so with the Touch. If it’s something I can listen to straight through, it’s not a problem, but this morning I wanted to hear the same song over and over again. That meant taking the Touch out of my pocket every two minutes and thirty seconds and figuring out how to go back. Not a huge deal, of course, but with my other iPods I barely even have to think about it.

The Touch is also every bit as monogamous as the Shuffle. Maybe that’s a function of the solid state memory. I don’t know. The bummer there is that I don’t bring my enormous iTunes Library to work every day, so I can’t sync the Touch from there. If I want to sync my calendars I have to do it at home. Again, not a huge deal, but one that could probably be made easier.

Thus, I have four iPods now, each of which fills a certain need. Well, all but the original iPod, actually. That one has been retired. Still works! If I want a lot of songs available or need to move forward and backward within songs with relative ease, the video iPod gets the call. If I have a set of songs I want to listen to without me monkeying with things, it’s the Shuffle. The Touch serves my non-musical needs very, very well right now. It may even replace the clock radio on my night stand.

I threw my FreeNAS box in the basement this afternoon and hooked it up to the router by way of an Ethernet cable. That made all the difference. I only had to wait about 30 seconds for MST3K to start playing. That box via wifi was a dog, as was the external drive I shared through the Airport Extreme Base Station. With those I waited several minutes for the same file to start.

Now I am confident enough to move forward with my media server aspirations. I can get a 1TB hard drive, toss it into the FreeNAS box, load it up and expect to be able to view all of that content via Boxee.

The thing I am most looking forward to is having family videos on the server. It’ll be so much more convenient than going disc by disc.

The next step, however, is to wipe down the Xbox’s hard drive and build it up again from scratch. XBMC runs on it, but it won’t play a thing. Even the shortest video stops loading after about 90%. That ain’t right, so I figure that nuking it from orbit is the only way to be sure.

My focus with this XBMC project has shifted just a bit.I reached a plateau a while back and moved along to the service part of the rig. Specifically, I set up an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station with an external drive hanging off of it, shared. From that point, I worked on getting Boxee to play nicely with it. In short, it sucked. Rather than streaming the videos, my MacBook Pro would first load them, then play them. It took forever to start watching something, making the system unusable. It did a great job streaming online, but not from the shared drive.

I’m not sure where the problem is, so I decided to take a different approach. Yesterday evening I repurposed an old PC as a FreeNAS box. Nice thing about that is that it offers UPnP service, which XBMC totally accepts. I’m hoping to have better results with that than with the Airport share. We’ll see.