It’s official. Ted’s podcast, Life In The Ted Lane, has reached 1000 downloads!
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Fixed! Academy of Natural Sciences, Muppet Mayhem, National Autism Awareness Month –
Life In The Ted Lane
Ted visits The Academy Of Natural Sciences., and he talks about the closing of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and a new documentary about autism called SPELLERS, the new Muppets Show about the origins of The Electric Mayhem, and National Autism Awareness Month. Production Written, Conceived and Directed by Ted HarrisEdited by Ted HarrisTalent: Ted Harris and Lindsay Harris-Frieltheme music by Vincent Friel Resources: The Academy of Natural SciencesThe Muppets Mayhem: What We Know So Far (Looper review)Spellers: The Movie WebsiteThis episode's audio file was fixed by Lindsay to remove dead air at the end of the episode. Otherwise, the episode reflects Ted's original work. Do you want a 4" sticker with the LIFE IN THE TED LANE art? Take our survey!Audience Survey for Life In The Ted Lane(You can also answer anonymously and still get a sticker, just follow the instructions at the link.) for more information, visit us at 6630 Productions Write us a review on Podchaser or Apple PodcastsMay your life be filled with magic!
Ted has some new paintings for October 2022. He’s been thinking about social justice, the climate crisis, and corporate greed. Of course, as is par for the course for October, he’s thinking about Halloween.
A Toxic Environment
Global CrisisQuoth The Raven, NevermoreThe Evils Of DisneyThis is a very peaceful picture, a perfect spiritual picture, it was inspired by the hippie movement and has a little 1980s vibe. There is a teal-green background with a girl dressed in a white gown with blond hair with a crown of pink flowers
her eyes are closed because she is meditating
Ted is working hard on puppets and new art. He is also planning Uncle Scary’s Halloween Show, and maybe hopes to do some Christmas videos. New episodes of LIFE IN THE TED LANE and additional puppet videos are coming soon. He is also planning new paintings for The Merakey Gala.
Not only is Marooned Tunes back for another season, but also, Life In The Ted Lane is rolling along.
Marooned Tunes: Sci-Fi, Swinging London and Commerce
Episode 3 of Season 2 came out this week, and our castaways discussed The Who’s album The Who Sell Out. Before that, in Episode 2, we explore Joe Meek’s instrumental space adventure, I Hear a New World. Our Season 2 launch is a clear* favorite, with Edgar Winter’s paean to Scientology, Mission Earth.
It’s the 2000’s, and Brian Wilson is having a bit of a renaissance. With so much attention to Pet Sounds and the lives shows surrounding them, he decided to revisit the nadir of his career. In 1966 “Smile” was to be to The Beach Boys what “Sgt. Pepper “was to the Beatles, an artistic statement and triumph, but it never happened. Due to drug use, mental collapse, and pushback from the record company and certain band members, Brian went into a tailspin that he could never pull out of. In 2004 Brian Wilson, with the help of Van Dyke Parks and members of The Wondermints Wilson returned to Smile and completed it. Was it worth the wait? Listen and hear what we think. The Writer: Lindsay Harris-Friel The Classical Musician: Ruth Dubb The Rock Guitarist: Vincent Friel The Pun Addict: Ian Williams And special guest star Symone the Wonderpup. Concept created by Vincent Friel and Brendan Carr. Sound design, title music, and engineering by Vincent Friel. For more information, visit our website at https://6630productions.com/marooned-tunes Don't forget to use our Libsyn code M-A-R-O-O-N-E-D to get up to two months of free podcasting services, excellent audio, and unlimited bandwidth.https://libsyn.com/ If you enjoyed this show, write a review so we'll know what you think, and others will, too: RateThisPodcast.com/maroonedtunes. Copyright 2021-2022 6630 Productions https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=MAROONED
*Clear, get it? You see what I did there. Ahem. You can experience Marooned Tunes in the player above, or in your favorite podcast app.
Life In The Ted Lane: Ted’s building new skills.
Not only is Ted having adventures (the zoo! Cape May! and more!) and bringing you the most important news about The Muppets, Broadway, Hollywood, and autism, but also his podcasting toolbox expands rapidly. In addition to learning to edit transcripts with Descript, he’s also learning to edit audio in Garageband and how to make a podcast from start to finish with Alitu.
Fixed! Academy of Natural Sciences, Muppet Mayhem, National Autism Awareness Month –
Life In The Ted Lane
Ted visits The Academy Of Natural Sciences., and he talks about the closing of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and a new documentary about autism called SPELLERS, the new Muppets Show about the origins of The Electric Mayhem, and National Autism Awareness Month. Production Written, Conceived and Directed by Ted HarrisEdited by Ted HarrisTalent: Ted Harris and Lindsay Harris-Frieltheme music by Vincent Friel Resources: The Academy of Natural SciencesThe Muppets Mayhem: What We Know So Far (Looper review)Spellers: The Movie WebsiteThis episode's audio file was fixed by Lindsay to remove dead air at the end of the episode. Otherwise, the episode reflects Ted's original work. Do you want a 4" sticker with the LIFE IN THE TED LANE art? Take our survey!Audience Survey for Life In The Ted Lane(You can also answer anonymously and still get a sticker, just follow the instructions at the link.) for more information, visit us at 6630 Productions Write us a review on Podchaser or Apple PodcastsMay your life be filled with magic!
Hello, everyone, This is your pal Ted Harris and I have some new paintings I did. When I was in Cape May New Jersey I saw the beach and I was inspired to do these paintings when I came home.
The beach at Cape May New JerseyThe dunes at Cape May
What I was up to this past July
I worked on a new episode of LIFE IN THE TED LANE and it is amazing, I also went to The Swarthmore 4th of July celebration and I enjoyed it and we saw fireworks, we also went to Cape May New Jersey and we went to the beach,
The next episode of LIFE IN THE TED LANE is coming soon and we hope you enjoy it, In the meantime, you can catch up on our adventures on the podcast app of your choice, or click the player below.
Fixed! Academy of Natural Sciences, Muppet Mayhem, National Autism Awareness Month –
Life In The Ted Lane
Ted visits The Academy Of Natural Sciences., and he talks about the closing of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and a new documentary about autism called SPELLERS, the new Muppets Show about the origins of The Electric Mayhem, and National Autism Awareness Month. Production Written, Conceived and Directed by Ted HarrisEdited by Ted HarrisTalent: Ted Harris and Lindsay Harris-Frieltheme music by Vincent Friel Resources: The Academy of Natural SciencesThe Muppets Mayhem: What We Know So Far (Looper review)Spellers: The Movie WebsiteThis episode's audio file was fixed by Lindsay to remove dead air at the end of the episode. Otherwise, the episode reflects Ted's original work. Do you want a 4" sticker with the LIFE IN THE TED LANE art? Take our survey!Audience Survey for Life In The Ted Lane(You can also answer anonymously and still get a sticker, just follow the instructions at the link.) for more information, visit us at 6630 Productions Write us a review on Podchaser or Apple PodcastsMay your life be filled with magic!
There’s a joke that’s been coming back in my mind for a while, now. I can’t remember the details, and it makes me crazy. I don’t know if it’s a joke, or one of those academic urban legends, or both. Here’s what I can remember.
Students in a theology course at a prestigious university spread a rumor amongst themselves. The rumor was that the class was very difficult, requiring a lot of reading and study, but the final exam was easy, provided you had some inside information. It was rumored that the exam was only one question, a long essay, and the question was, “describe and explain the life and times of the Apostle Paul.” This was a lot of information, true. But if you were ready for it, you could narrow down a ton of your studying, and sail through the course.
So far, the rumor had turned out to be true. For many years, the students came in, sat down, and were presented with the final exam question: describe the life and times of the Apostle Paul. Students told their friends, “dude, you gotta take this class, it’s not totally easy but you really only have to know this one concept for the final, you can sleep through all the lectures on whatever else.”
Finally, one year, the professor who taught the course got wind of the rumor. When the students came in for the exam, they were provided one essay question.
“Explain the existence of God. Cite examples. Use both sides of the paper if necessary.”
The students stared in disbelief. They hadn’t prepared for anything resembling this. Some of the students walked out immediately. A few tried to scribble out a haphazard answer, before shuffling up to the front of the room and sheepishly putting their papers on the professor’s desk. One student, however, did something different. The student started at the question for a long time, then started writing. The scratching of the student’s pencil was slow at first, but gradually it gained speed, in the way that comes from confidence. The student carefully filled both sides of the paper in small, neat handwriting, using proper paragraph and essay structure.
When the exam time was almost finished, the student brought the paper up to the front desk. By now the room was almost empty. No one was left but the professor and the lone student. The kid’s pencil was chewed down to a nub. The professor had stopped doing other work and had just watched the kid scribbling away, with a bit of amazement. No one else had even hung in there and tried to complete the exam.
“Listen,” said the prof, “You’re the only one who hung in there and took this exam seriously. I mean, there are a few half-hearted tries that were handed in, but nothing even came close to a reasonable exam answer. I’m giving you an A+ for the entire course.”
The student said, “You sure you don’t even want to read it?”
“I don’t have to,” said the professor. “Students like you are the reason I teach. Have a great summer.”
“Are you positive?”
“I’ve got my grade book right here. Look. A Plus. That’s ink. It’s done. Now go on, get out of here, so I can go home. Go play frisbee on the quad or something, you’ve earned it.”
(I heard this story in the 80s.)
The kid said, “Okay,” and skedaddled out of the room as quickly as possible.
The professor looked down at the paper, thinking about how he’d happily put an end to the rumor about his easy exam, and thought maybe this would mean he’d get good students next semester. Good students, like this kid. Right?
“Explain the existence of God. Cite examples. Use both sides of the paper if necessary.”
The kid ‘s opening paragraph read as follows.
“Who are we, as mere mortals, to explain the existence of God? Such hubris goes against everything we have learned this semester. Therefore, I will take this time to describe and explain the life and times of the Apostle Paul.”
It bugs me that I might not be telling this joke correctly. Maybe the message I’m taking away from this story is something I’ve mis-remembered and made up, not the real intention of the story. I’ve tried looking for it in theological humor message boards, academic humor message boards, so on and so forth. The punchline has been popping up in my head a lot lately. My friend Nick and I were discussing this joke recently. I said I couldn’t figure out why it kept sticking to me. He suggested, “Write what you prepared, not what they demand. ”
There’s more to it than that, but Nick summed it up pretty well. Lately I’ve been not writing as much. I worked on writing and rewriting Season 2 of Jarnsaxa Rising for about a year, and now we’re in the editing and production stage. I’m feeling a little bit guilty right now for taking time away from doing dialogue assembly. The itch to write gets answered by the demon of doubt, saying, “who would want what you write?” And I worry a lot about writing what people want, as any playwright will tell you. After three or five or seven full-length plays, there’s only so much looking within you can do, without looking outside. With a social media infested world, by the time you get together enough information for a reasonable play idea, it’s become last year’s meme.
But, honestly, if you want to write about The Orville or incentives to recruit volunteer firefighters or Westworld or kitten season, it doesn’t really matter if someone else wrote about it first. As Kerouac said, “it ain’t what you write, it’s the way atcha write it.” Actually, I don’t know if he said that, but a friend of mine had a coffee cup with that quote on it attributed to him, and we both worked at Borders at the time, so it’s not too far-fetched.
So, why can’t I toss out a bunch of pop-culture observations, like R. Eric Thomas, and still write good plays, like R. Eric Thomas? Actually, these days I’m writing audio drama, but the reason for switching is a thorny one, and I’ll save that for another time.
So, anyway. My point is, does anyone remember this joke? Does anyone know anything about it? Am I getting the message correctly, or is the story something else? Am I mis-remembering The Three Little Pigs and thinking, “wow, the pig that built the house out of sticks was a genius?”
My other point is, I disagree with Joanna Robinson, I don’t think Terminator Dolores and Evil Young William are all that bad, because characters have to start out horrible for their eventual redemption to mean anything. But I like listening to Joanna Robinson.
Really, my point is, we should all be writing with fearlessness, and reading with fearlessness. Tennessee Williams used to write “Avanti!” at the top of the page when he started writing for the day. Onward and upward.
After so many years of putting it off, I decided now would be a good time to do something about my studio (middle bedroom) and its ability to screw up my mixes. I went with a package deal that involved 4 columns and 8 12x 12 squares of fiberglass and cloth to negate any standing waves or other audio anomalies that can make listening and editing a chore. My monitors also had to be adjusted again but I have yet to “tune” the room. But for now, everything sounds fine. Later on, I am planning to get sound blankets for the windows to diminish any outside noise. I wish I had a few grand for a Whisper Room.
Slowly I’m getting my set up as comfortable and efficient as possible. Looking into a more comfortable chair. The one pictured here is an IKEA special and not really designed for long-term sitting.
From 10:30 onward I basically removed furniture and prepared the walls for the metal impaling plates that needed to be screwed into the drywall. There was also a lot of vacuuming as well to keep and dust from getting into anything. A lot of time was spent going back and forth with a pencil and laser level but I managed to get everything done, put back and running by 4:30 pm. I think I know why people put this important step, it’s time-consuming but I would agree with most folks who do podcasts, voice over, or any kind of recording. Invest in some sound treatment and abatement before pouring money into gear. A good sounding room will get you better results the first time around than a plug-in.
I was lucky to keep my blackboard where it was as well as the guitar hook for my headphones. The lava lamps are a nice touch. Patch-bay and cable snakes on the way for ease of plugging in equipment. I like to use my guitar effects pedals for recording and mixing so having the patch bay will make that much easier.
Stil editing dialog and hopefully I can finally get down to creating sound beds, fx, and music cues. Got a three day weekend coming up at the end of the month so I should get a lot of work done in that department. But for now, it’s getting the words in order.
And now some very rare photos from the recording os season 2 of Jarnsaxa Rising
Below we see “Da Gooch” looking very pensive, maybe we should have given her the fancier mic than the stock SM58?
Crow T. Robot was far too wasted to contribute any commentary or witty lines to the proceedings
It’s pretty clear that I have run out of anything more interesting to say so I’ll leave it here. Of course, if you do not have a clue about some of the jargon I have used, feel free to drop me a line.
In six days, Vince and I are going to take A Big Risk. We’re going to get on a plane (Vince hates flying) and go to Minneapolis, Minnesota. There we’re going to hand a script to a room full of people, most of whom I haven’t met (first-draft readings take a pint of my blood), and we’re going to read it, rehearse it, record it, and make a serial podcast out of it.
This is Jarnsaxa Rising. Ancient Norse Gods use humans as pawns to battle each other. When an ancient giantess takes human form to engage in eco-terrorism, a corporate team tries to stop her, and learns who the real enemy is.
Vince testing our portable recording setup.
The script is stylistically different for me, in narrative and in craft. I’ve never written science fiction or fantasy before. Adjusting to audio drama is also new for me. Vince has done a lot of sound engineering and still experiments with it for fun. He’ll be performing all of the sound engineering and writing all of the music. We made a sketch comedy podcast episode to prove to ourselves we could do it. Now we’re getting involved with other people and going on a journey.
Carin Bratlie believed in me enough to produce Traveling Light years ago, and now we’re going to go take a leap of faith together again. She’s assembled a solid, smart cast, and she’ll be directing.
They say life is a bowl of cherries in Minneapolis.
Right now I feel like my viscera is all clenched up in the center of my chest from excitement and anxiety. I’m rewriting the big final battle of the story, and I want to make everyone proud.
I know so many people who complain at being left out of opportunities. There’s so much “they don’t want me because I’m too (x, y, z) for them” that I hear, and I want to be in a culture of saying “yes, and.” This is one of those times where we can step up and build the sandbox in which we want to play.
Speaking of building your own sandbox, progress on Jarnsaxa Rising continues. In addition to the script, I’m working on “meet the artist” posts for the podcast’s blog. Every time I open up my e-mail, see the performers’ headshots and read their bios, I get all warm and giggly inside. This project is going to be Really Good.
And last night it rained, finally, so the garden is getting wild again. The red lilies are blooming and doubling and trebling, and the morning glory vine has started to fight with the lavender, but they’re no match for the mint, so I have to get in there and break up some of this battle.
Mint vs. Lavender vs. Morning Glories. QUIEN ES MAS MACHO?
Once upon a time there was a playwright who was really, really bored.
She sent a Facebook message to a friend, a director, who was never bored, halfway across the country. The message was, “I need something new to write about, throw me a prompt.”
The director said, “Just above the 60th parallel in the Baltic Ocean, a team of researchers arrives at an abandoned wind farm, to investigate some unexplained energy surges. They discover that the wind farm has become sentient. And hungry.”
The writer said, I like this, and she researched and thought and imagined. Five years later, we have this:
It seemed like a great play idea, with multiple characters and the wind turbines themselves being played by actors who rotated giant rain sticks, as if the gods and humans and everyone were all embodied in the wind turbines. But the story was too unwieldy. It made more sense to break it into episodes and do it as a podcast. So, basically, it’s a science fiction fantasy revenge tragedy that takes place in a dystopian future and the ancient past.
and that’s what I’ve been up to lately.
So, I’m writing the script. I’m eight episodes in, with hopefully only two more to go. although two of the episodes may get merged into one. Vince is doing all the sound engineering. Carin is directing, she’s found a cast, and we’re going to Minneapolis to record it in July. We’ll edit the files in August, and launch the podcast in the fall.
I’ve been taking a Coursera course, called Sagas and Space, about Norse culture and how they thought about themselves. It’s been inspiring and helpful, particularly Terry Gunnell’s guest lecture on “Spaces, Places, Liminality and The Supernatural in The Old Nordic World.”
I’ve been learning a lot about Indiegogo. This is our campaign, in case you like this and want to help. We’re just over 5% funded, with 41 days to go. I get about two messages a day from people who want me to pay them to retweet the campaign or add it to a directory. which feels like adding my needle to a haystack.
“OMG! This is, like, SO much better than Serial!”
Tonight, I have writer’s block. I know what needs to happen next, everything is outlined. As I write, I feel like I’m stumbling. There’s a lot of new things that I’m learning: writing purely for audio instead of live audio-visual performance, using episodes, using non-linear narrative. some information is missing, and I don’t know what it is, but without it, I can’t confidently move forward. I’ll get it, I just have to find it. I also know that writing doesn’t come from inspiration, inspiration comes from writing.
Fortunately, I have a really good cast, good people who have said, “sure, I’ll climb aboard your wagon.” I just want to make sure I don’t disappoint anyone.
I wanted to go to bed early tonight, so I can get up early tomorrow. It was hot today and it’s supposed to be hot tomorrow, so I’d like to have some of the cool hours of the day at my disposal. I want to get up early, pull weeds and water the flowerbeds before the rest of the world gets moving. The local amateur pyrotechnic aficionados are setting things off, which upsets the dogs. They’re being pretty good about it, but I can hear them shuffling around anxiously.
I think I’m just going to lie down and listen to an audiobook, and hope that settles me down.
Not only are the Sestras of Team Leda my personal trainers, but also, as a result, I can survive car crashes, get stabbed through the side with rebar, run, fight, shoot with accuracy, and dig a grave through a cement floor. Impressed?
Don’t be. I may be exaggerating. Let me back up a bit.
During the summer of 2013, I lost about eighteen pounds. This happened through a combination of hopping up and down on an elliptical machine at Planet Fitness, and eating mostly blueberries and almonds in order to win the respect of [popular Philadelphia actor and local vegan] Doug Greene. It was fun, for a while. Then,
a) I learned that Doug Greene’s kindness is so vast that he really doesn’t care if I eat things which can not be easily foraged, and
b) The televisions at my local Planet Fitness succeeded in driving me out of there. That’s right. The terrorists’ televisions won.
Here’s the battle. I had a pretty good system for making regular exercise part of my life. Roll out of bed, pull on the pile of work out clothes I thoughtfully placed [okay, dumped] on the floor next to the bed the day before, put earbuds in ears, and with my gym only a few blocks away, I’d be at the gym and on the elliptical, chugging along to “Doctorin’ The Tardis,” before I really woke up.
Unfortunately, the Wall Of Televisions across from the elliptical machines were extremely distracting. The morning parade of anorexics, invented health scares, and celebrity bullshit which passes for news drove me far away from sense and sensibility. One day I saw Olivia Wilde, being interviewed about her role in a movie in which her character allegedly liked to drink a lot of beer. I thought, she doesn’t look like she’s ever touched a beer in her life. She’s as light and luminous as a snowflake. She probably eats nothing but organic arugula and pure mountain spring water. Then, some weird part of me thought, you could look like that if you ate only twelve handfuls of almonds a day. It’s possible. And just look how much better her career is than yours.
Fortunately, some reasonable part of my brain (the part that likes eating, moving around and having cognitive function) said, NOPE, that’s not a healthy mind set. I got my priorities in order. After that, the televisions at the gym made me so angry, that I stopped going to the gym. Music wasn’t enough to keep me going, with TV flashing and flickering away in front of me.
Recently, I was talking with some friends about how I wanted to write a Tv drama spec script for my portfolio. My co-worker Kevin suggested that Orphan Black might fit my sensibilities. I hate sitting and spending copious amounts of time staring at something without doing something else along with it, so I thought, I’ll watch it at the gym. I bought the iTunes season pass for the first two seasons, and away I went on Leda’s Big Adventure.
This show is absolutely ideal as a companion for cardio, especially if you’re stuck indoors at one spot*. Its style, as a one-hour adventure-sci-fi-drama- is ideal for a 45-minute workout.
TV writing is formulaic, even for a genre-defying show like Orphan Black. Dan Harmon’s narrative structure method shows this formula best. Essentially, with a 40-45 minute show, you’re going to have moments of tension every five or six minutes. Every other moment of tension will be a major moment of tension, and they will increase in intensity throughout the story.
To try to make things simple, these are your big turning points of story.
1) A person is in a place of comfort
2) But they want something
3) They enter an unfamiliar situation
4) Adapt to it
5) Get what they thought they wanted
6) Pay a heavy price
7) Return to where they started
8) Having Changed.
In the case of a serial thriller like Orphan Black, you’re not going right back to the beginning, necessarily, you’re only back to square one in the sense that you’re still fighting The Bad Guys. Your favorite clone makes progress, but not enough for her to win freedom for herself and her family.
So, when you’re working out, these points of tension will make you move faster. The first ten minutes or so, even if they start with Sarah or Cosima or Allison or Helena in a major pickle, are at least a pickle with which the viewer is familiar. The episode is establishing itself, and this gives you time to get warmed up. After about ten minutes, our heroine gets presented with a new difficulty, and that makes the tension pick up. Usually, by about fifteen minutes into the episode, there’s a bar fight, a critical code to be cracked, or a chase that makes the viewer more tense. So, the natural response is to do what? Move faster. Each conflict increases the tension, leading to a plateau, and then another increase, until the inevitable cliffhanger ending, which leaves the viewer wanting more.
Mirror Neurons being what they are, we can’t not get tense along with our favorite characters. Every time they get into trouble, we do what they know they should do; tense up, and run, or fight. It’s a perfect thing to keep you going when you’re at the gym. There are some exceptions, however. When Paul pressed the stolen (spoiler object) into the palm of Felix’s hand, I hauled on the brakes on the elliptical foot pads so hard that I almost fell off of the machine. So, be careful. This show is not to be taken lightly.
It’s true that many television shows follow this formula, and probably any one-hour drama or police procedural could fit the bill. Why not just go to the gym a couple of hours after dinnertime, and catch one of the many variations on CSI or Law & Order? Because this is Orphan Black, and it’s a whole new modus operandi in story.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
One actress, Tatiana Maslany, plays the main characters, all of whom share the same DNA, but are as different as chalk and cheese. Each of them has secrets, and has to pretend to be something she’s not. Anyone who wants transformation, or has just had a very bad day (why else would you get on an elliptical machine?) can empathize with Clone Club. The clones battle and support each other in similar but unique voices, much as different facets of one human’s personality. Yet they all work toward a common goal; independence and safety for themselves and their family. Because one actress plays all the roles, the viewer gets pulled into the concept of transformation. The body becomes immaterial; what matters is the clones’ desires, actions, and manners of self-expression. For someone who’s trying to get more exercise, this hits home. Ultimately, the premise of Orphan Black is, “Is biology destiny?” Is our body all we are, or can be? For all women, we want to feel like our bodies are less important than our personalities, thoughts, and desires. In the case of Orphan Black, the human body is a part of oneself, but not the entire existence.
Having this show accompany me as I work out makes me more excited to go to the gym. It makes me think about the body in terms of strength, health and autonomy. It distracts me from all of the usual chatter in which we engage, concerning fitness and working out. Maybe I’m not doing this because I want to look like the women on The Today Show or Good Morning America. Maybe I’m doing this in case I ever have to dodge a sniper’s bullet or run for my life or fight off a bunch of armed goons. The characters on this show are flexible but tough, capable of change, but focused, and always moving up. It’s the best workout companion I’ve ever had.
I have not yet seen Season 3, other than the occasional trailer or sneak peek. Like I said, I don’t have cable (although Episode 1 of Season 3 is available online. BUT FOR HOW LONG???). As far as I can tell, some of what the new season concerns is how big business (i.e., Dyad), can control the human body, how the government and military can get involved (such as in the case of copyright), and what people can do with their bodies. These ideas scares me, particularly since we see this all the time. We see it when women starve themselves to fit a business’ idea of what a clothing size is, when people make choices about food, self-care, residence or birth control based on what corporations say is safe and healthy. I’m glad this show is exploring these ideas, in an interesting and inventive way.
And no, I never wrote the spec script, because I was too busy being in love with the show. I probably will eventually, anyway. Wide Open Spaces made the semi-finalist level for the National Playwrights’ Conference at The Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, so I can’t possibly be that bad at this whole thing, right?
So far, the rumor had turned out to be true. For many years, the students came in, sat down, and were presented with the final exam question: describe the life and times of the Apostle Paul. Students told their friends, “dude, you gotta take this class, it’s not totally easy but you really only have to know this one concept for the final, you can sleep through all the lectures on whatever else.”
There’s more to it than that, but Nick summed it up pretty well. Lately I’ve been not writing as much. I worked on writing and rewriting Season 2 of 
After so many years of putting it off, I decided now would be a good time to do something about my studio (middle bedroom) and its ability to screw up my mixes. I went with a package deal that involved 4 columns and 8 12x 12 squares of fiberglass and cloth to negate any standing waves or other audio anomalies that can make listening and editing a chore. My monitors also had to be adjusted again but I have yet to “tune” the room. But for now, everything sounds fine. Later on, I am planning to get sound blankets for the windows to diminish any outside noise. I wish I had a few grand for a Whisper Room.
I was lucky to keep my blackboard where it was as well as the guitar hook for my headphones. The lava lamps are a nice touch. Patch-bay and cable snakes on the way for ease of plugging in equipment. I like to use my guitar effects pedals for recording and mixing so having the patch bay will make that much easier.
6630 Productions 