March 26th update

My new friend, the ass-kicking photographer Christopher Sedgwick, just sent me a private link to shots he took Monday night. Let me share a dozen of them with you. My sole saving grace is that I have him beat on price: 12 E-Z payments of free (to my homies), LOL. (Although, he is in fact freely sharing these with us.)

Now, that last shot is especially a MoFo (I had to tell him 'dude, it's OK, go backstage'). I am no fan of "headroom" in general (I also push the envelope -- probably to excess, but, hey, it's my blog -- on angular 'horizon tilt'). In fact, I ascribe to the old "60 Minutes" theory of shot framing, which basically established that it was OK to "cut off" the tops of heads, etc (e.g., and that artful directional asymmetry was a good thing), that people had a subliminal "Gestalt" cognitive capability enabling them to "fill in" that which is implied beyond the frame, enabling you to dive in more dramatically (it is now SOP in film shooting). Here in Chris's backshot of Jerry, you see an elegant use of at-once "headroom" and the artful "half-moon" clipping of that par-can at the top. Beautiful.

That's some understated yet dramatic pro shit, right there.

Excellent stuff, Chris. Thanks for sharing.
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OK, THIS IS AWESOME

Cheryl and I have dear friends, among our very best, back in Knoxville TN, Anne and Mike McKinney (we really miss them). Mike is an architect, and Annie is a nationally respected attorney. I met her back around 1980 when she became one of my songwriter demo clients at my little hole-in-the-wall South Knoxville studio (where I cut my own demos). For a time, we were both members of the Nashville Songwriters' Association.

When we met she was an IRS tax enforcement attorney who wrote great songs on the side (most of them hilarious parody/send-up tunes). I have an old cassette tape of an audio program I produced for her in which we put one of her "C/W" songs entitled "My Heart Ain't Broke (but she could sure fix it)." I played all the tracks on the tune, and we brought this local Merle Haggard clone singer in to do the vocal. It was hysterical.

Well, a month ago she put up her first YouTube video, taking a snarky swipe at our new Treasury Secretary William Geithner. As I post this it has gotten 421,507 views. Yikes!

She has embedding disabled (Annie, we're gonna have to talk about that), or I'd just put it here directly on the blog, but here's the link. My comment on her YouTube site:

LOL! Anne McKinney is one of my dearest friends. We first met back in the early 1980's when she was working as an an IRS tax enforcement attorney who wrote wonderful parody/send-up songs (and other great original stuff) on the side. I owned a small studio, and cut her demos for her (Annie, I still have the master tapes -- but nothing to play them on any more!) Anne is a one-woman Capitol Steps, and is the most delightful person. We miss ya, sweetie!

Talk about "viral." Wow. That is just so cool. She will shortly surpass a half million hits.
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OK, I gotta jump down to Burbank tomorrow to pick Cheryl up and bring her back home so we can go to an old friend's wedding on Saturday. She was gonna fly up (she's been in SoCal all week doing project QA audits), but I thought it'd be just nice to do the drive, and then get to spend 5 or so extra hours with her (with Kenny Loggins blaring in the car, Nick!; scroll down in that link, haha). Won't be any net time difference for her.

If we are out of the wedding reception in time, we'll be at this Saturday's Herman Matthews hang at The Bootlegger, and ask that y'all show up too to support our brothers. You'll get to see BobbyG in a danged tux, LOL.

RED STATE UPDATE

Speaking of funny videos...


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