The surest way to stop posting on your blog...

Is to start a real one;

I know.

I know, I know, I know at this point I don't even deserve this thing. I have horribly abused my privilege. If there was a social services for bloggs I would not even get a day in court to argue my case (But I may be in court for several charges of neglect).

So, there I've said sorry, and really what's done is done.

Onto the nonsense:

So what have I been up to in the past three years since my last post? Well summer is over thank god. I truly think that there is a direct connection between my depression, and the season of the burning sun. Fall is where I start to feel human again. I know that most of this is due to the fact that with the fall, theatre season gets going again, but I also feel a certain magic in the air at this time of the year. And in particular with this season, I have a lot to feel good about. I have the whole year worked out from here until June. I'm directing a short Beckett radio play as a podcast for the DC Beckett fest., I'm acting and doing lighting design for the Skriker for Forum, then I'm acting in King Lear for WSC, and finally I'm acting in Macbeth (YES I SAID IT: MACBETH MACBETH MACBETH!!! GET OVER IT!!!!!) So, while we still aren't busting down walls of convention, and kicking the crutches out from under the stilted, big budget focused, marketing oriented, "deadly" theatre creating scene that dominates far too much of the land in the District, I am at least working on with some great people on some interesting projects. If all goes well it will be a great year that could lead to bigger and better things.

The same cannot be said for the Warehouse Next Door. Yes, it's official the warehouse as we know it is soon going to shuffle off this mortal coil. Though the music venue as a whole is not going to die I fear everyday that it will not live up to it's previous glory. Here is abit of the backstory, and a little more information. Roughly six months ago our bosses met with each member of the WND individually to broach the subject of moving it from it's current home to the building between that space and the cafe. We all hinted that this might not be the best idea. The acoustics are, to put it mildly, not so good, the space is very small, and finally it just isn't the room that people all over the country have been used to coming to and playing in for the last three years. We scrunched our eyes shut, crossed our fingers, and held our breath. After a week or so.....nothing. We thought we had dodged the bullet, and that would be that. Oh what little naive wrongards we were. Six months later, out of nowhere, the deal was done; I had sent one last pleading e-mail, and was asked again to meet with them (in Disneyworld the meeting would have gone something like this,"Okay, we admit it, you're right. Keeping the integrity of the space is the only way to ensure long-term success. It won't be easy, but we've gone ahead and agreed to your idea to use the time and money that would go towards the change over into making the space better. And we've finally agreed to hire you as the full time space manager and band booker. Now let's get down to business.") I was ready with my arguments to fire off in the name of the Warehouse. "It cost a thousand dollars last month just to run the air conditioning." * * *
And with that I had nothing. Don't get me wrong, kids had agreed to help; they were all gung ho about doing benefits. It was hard to explain to them that while two hundred dollars from a great night is most appreciated, it would in no way shape or form begin to put a dent in the tens of thousands of dollars worth of losses that we've accrued EACH year for the past three years. I am, for the record, not happy about this, and I still smell a certain door in the wind. However, I can at least applaud the Rupperts for keeping the music venue. And though I had threatened to quit should this take place, at the end of the day I just couldn't imagine not being able to set up shows (mostly on my terms, for whoever I wanted, and always always always all ages). So let's look at the future. It's true, the space will not be as large as the Warehouse space we have now, but they are knocking out walls to make more room. They are also getting rid of the seating that is in there now, since we won't need it. My two big sticking points for this change is that we have to have as much space as possible for people coming to see the show, and that we MUST put some sort of warm acoustic paneling in the space. I will try my damnedest to keep as much of the sound quality in the new space as we had in the old. Next, we can't do as nearly as many punk/metal/hardcore shows anymore. But this would have happened anyway, since we need to do more "normal" shows to increase income. I'd rather do about one awesome, aggressive show a week, than not do any shows period. I sadly won't be able to do many random shows for area metal bands anymore, but you know, if Unholy Grave comes back then it's on. We are going to start doing dj nights as well. Smaller Saint Ex style nights in the cafe, and larger Black Cat style nights in the space. That way we could even have a show in the new WND and dj's in the cafe. (I mean c'mon anyone that knows me knows I can't even begin to lie about not liking dj nights.) The biggest change will be that the new entrance will be through the cafe. They're going to knock a hole in the wall somewhere, and make that the new way into the space. This also means that we will not have a bar specific to the Warehouse (if any of you are familiar, Emily is leaving and this makes the whole world cry just a little. It really won't be the same without her.) The cafe bar will now also serve as the music bar. Well that's about all I can say for now. The change is taking place at the beginning of November, and I don't have an eta on the new space yet. All I can do for the time being is take a break from booking, be ready for what's to come, and try not to cry. Even though we still going to be here, I want to thank every band that played the original space, everyone one that came to shows (for sadly there were not enough of you), and mostly everyone that ever worked or helped out there.

Now back to the trivial.

I recently got a new record player. My family was nice enough, about a year and half ago, to buy me a turntable for my birthday. With all their good intentions they had no real idea of what to look for, so what I received was tantamount to what a record player might look like if radio shack manufactured it. Don't get me wrong, at the time I was thrilled, and I put that poor plastic horse to work. Unfortunately that was the one thing the instruction manual forgot to put on the "never" list. It lasted about a year, then became cantankerous, and finally threw in the towel all together. In the six months that followed I was without a way to listen to my beloved vinyl. Which was not to say that I stopped collecting records during that time; on the contrary my lust just increased. So much so that I finally reached my breaking point. I think it was when my parents found my long lost record collection from college (a time when I didn't even have access to a record player, but still insisted on hobbling a paltry collection together.) So I did what I always do in times like this, spent hours on the internet agonizing over which one to buy. Every now and then I'd go to the Technics page and just cry. I knew that had to find something affordable, but I still wanted a dj turntable with direct drive. This pickle cast me to the land of Gemini's, Stanton's, and Numark's, which is what I ended up getting in the end. A Numark Direct Drive, battle turntable. Which I later found out meant,"huge buttons everywhere, and a deck large enough to act as a flotation device." I also realized that my tonka turntable had the one thing this device didn't: an internal amp. Yes, you too can sit in the privacy of your own home listening to music at a level only a dog can hear, lightly floating over a deafening hum. I could have cried. Finally, two weeks later I had my very own wee pre-amp, and was back in the game. And here's what I learned about records and music since then:

Burning Witch rules. Period.
Why do I only own one Venom album?
As my collection of Unholy Grave records increases it only helps me realize that I don't have enough Unholy Grave records.
Underprivileged Nation was better than your sorry screamo band (and they were real punx too!)
We are the people who would like you to know that if you can't see your vision you have nowhere to go. But don't fret this is why we called and this is our chant' the ones who make a difference can dance, dance, dance....
I don't know which is better, the First Two Years album, or Teaching Revenge.
I still think Envy was better live last time than their new album, but who can beat a double colored vinyl limited release?
Late night impulse buys of limited release Pink Razors albums are always a good idea.
Lemuria doesn't play in DC nearly enough.
And Finally, To Live a Lie Records is the best record label in the world, and I will fist fight you if you disagree (oh wait, this excludes any Common Enemy releases. Yes, we finally got those ceiling tiles replaced)



Finally, I'm moving into a new place. I cannot tell you what a good idea this is. When you have a dream that you get into a fight with one of your roommates, and when you wake up you want to start hitting them to feel that joy again, you know it's time to move on. I'm only going to have one roommate now, and however crazy we both are it's at least parallel to the point where we should have few problems. After about two weeks of hard searching we finally found a great, large, two bedroom apartment, with hardwood floors. The only problem? It's in Iceland (read: "Petworth") I now have to live with the fact that it will take me two weeks to bike to anyplace that I need to be. (Note: it now takes me less than ten minutes to bike to Sparkys and the Black Cat from where I live). The two trade offs are the great price, and Christina promising to hook me up with hot ladies if I agreed to this. Considering the later I think that's fair enough. We move in in a week and a half, so it's all going down soon. Whatever happens, I know a change will do me good.

I suppose that's all I have for now, we'll see if I post again in the next six months........