CONTEST HAS ENDED! WIN Tix to live podcast of Uhh Yeah Dude in Seattle
December 12, 2011 in Comedy, The Web, With Video
CONTEST HAS ENDED!
[CLICK HERE to jump directly to giveaway]
Back in the early 2000s, I lived in Olympia, Wa and there was a lot of DIY music and media production happening in the small college town. People were mixing albums in their basements, silk-screening posters and T-shirts in their kitchens, and using DV, High-8, and/or Super-8 cameras to record short films in dusty fields and damp alley ways. My friend Mac Dawg was taking advantage of the fact that we had a local public access station to create his own programs. His original idea was to film a fictional, biopic-style sitcom based around Kurt Cobain in the 80s, referencing his tenure as an Olympia resident. Being a Jewish Puerto Rican in his early twenties who had dread locks and mutton chops at the time, he came to the conclusion that I would be the perfect person to star as the dead, blonde, white grunge-rock icon in the re-imagining. The project never actually came to fruition, but, during a random house party at Mac Dawg‘s house, I came up with my own idea for another program by the name of “TANGENT.” The basic premise was that I would have guests on, like an informal talk show, and then just consistently shift the topic on them. [I only have brief glimpses of memory pertaining to coming up with the idea... I was really drunk.] One morning Mac Dawg wakes me up with a phone call and asks if I’m ready to do the show. “What show?” I asked. I thought that he might be referring to the Cobain thing again. He explained that it was my idea and that I should get ready, because he was planning to film it that morning. I threw on a slim, denim 1970s pantsuit (just vest and pants) and a large plastic dollar sign necklace, bought a case of OLY stubbies and came up with/scribbled down some topic ideas onto a piece of scrap paper during the ride over to his basement, where the video equipment was set up. Between being awaken to sitting in the basement getting miked, it was probably 1/2 hour total. It was about 9am, I had taken down enough alcohol to get rolling and we went from there. There was no real podcasting back then and there was no Youtube whatsoever. There was no real direction for the program either and, although I’d like to believe that it had it’s moments, there was a decent amount of aimlessness involved. I imagine that doing an improvised standup routine must be similar to trying to carry an unscripted program and helping it to remain interesting; it can get awkward quicker than you may think. If I we could have harnessed those select moments, expanded them, and worked tirelessly on them for years, I could still only have hoped to yield something half as effortlessly smooth and entertaining as the podcast, “Uhh Yeah Dude.” Read the rest of this entry →
As is far too common these days with the deaths of celebrities, and even more-so legends, there was a lot of disputes regarding both Brown‘s will and where his final resting place had been. Much like we witnessed last year with the death of Michael Jackson, family members and others actually argued about where to rest the musician’s body. They had already transported it all over the goddamn East Coast as it was, so I guess they figured that they could shift it around a bit more. I’m sure it’s all in keeping with whatever they feel James would have desired because, honestly, who wouldn’t want their lifeless corpse dragged around by horses, redressed constantly, put on display, and then buried and reburied after their death? First his body was temporarily placed in a temperature controlled room at his estate, before being moved to an “undisclosed location“, as his common-law widow, 
