bloggie blog

So it has come to this. My motivation for this entry is solely a desire to get in one more post for the month of July. I have 3 hours and 59 minutes to write this entry.

Tell you what? Let me link to a few friends slash bloggers I read pretty regularly. Lots of these people don’t live in Boston anymore, but that’s where I met them.

Erin Fast, Fran Betlyon, Jeremy and Rachel, Katie Clifford, Neil Jenkins, Marissa Turley Benson, Dave Evans.

There you go. Happy August, everybody!

Progressive Congressman Promotes Bill in 7/8 Time

I loves me some Onion Radio News pretty much every day, but it tickles my fancy even deeper when it mentions odd time signatures and wah wah pedals. The music geek inside of me is very happy. And the political geek.

You say you don’t know Doyle Redland of the Onion Radio News? Click the above link now immediately right away soon ASAP stat this very second! And subscribe to the podcast! Doyle Redland is the best curmudgeonly fake newscaster on this planet!

What is 7/8 time, you say? It’s the time signature used for Money by Pink Floyd, from the album Dark Side of the Moon.

Question for y’all: Are there other popular songs in 7/8?

Last week, the following shows were nominated for the major award Outstanding Drama Series: Big Love, Breaking Bad, Damages, Dexter, House, Lost, Mad Men. These are all good shows, but nobody is pointing out that there were no nominations in the second half of the alphabet. Conspiracy! Zedists!

Okay, seriously. Damages, House and Mad Men shouldn’t win because of the simple fact that for all of them, the previous season was better. Dropping a notch rules you out in my book, even if still very good. Lost? Please.

That leaves Big Love, Breaking Bad and Dexter. All so good! I can’t choose! Better go do some more “research.” Where’s the remote?

kink.fm – A Consumer Warning from Dave.

I’ve been experiencing exactly what Dave mentions at the above link: automated calls requesting somebody named Jeffrey to call 800-414-8319. I called and told Palisades Collections to stop calling my home number. Whatever you do, don’t enter your SSN at the prompt! And don’t give them any personal information whatsoever, including your name.

There’s a nickname people have tried to give me a few times over the years. Ashworthy. I’ve never been fond of Ashworthy. I’ve never hated it and insisted people stop using it, but I’ve never been fond of it. And not just because as a nickname, it’s longer than the name it nicks, which goes against one of the main points of nicknames. In fact, one of my favorite nicknames of all time is Kevin Kevin Ashworth, as I was called by several lovely coworkers at Ab Initio Software in Lexington, Mass.

Perhaps one of the reasons I’ve never been fond of Ashworthy is that it’s not a name, it’s not a real thing, it just doesn’t exist. Or so I thought. This week I am reading the play Moonlight and Magnolias by Ron Hutchinson, which fancifully imagines how the screenplay for Gone With the Wind might have been created. The writer Ben Hecht is laughably unfamiliar with the big, famous book and must write a screenplay in just 5 days. At one point he gets the name Ashley Wilkes wrong and says Ashworthy. And there you have it. In print. The existence of Ashworthy.

Not that I want to be called that. Kevin is still fine. Kev is okay. K-dawg, K-Ash, Kevin Kevin Ashworth, dude. So many other things to call me first. Okay?

Upon the recommendation of a fellow Cornellian at a recent alumni gathering, I put 5 small Los Angeles theaters on my list. “See their shows,” that list. I’ve seen about a dozen productions in the smaller theaters around LA, and they always have glaring weaknesses, but I will keep exploring, I promised, with this new list of 5.

First up, The Road Theatre Company. Last night I saw their current production, The Unseen, written and directed by Craig Wright. (I wish he had been there: I’d like to see if I remind him of Peter Krause. But that’s another story.)

My review is short and simple: “This is good theater.” The 3 actors are very good. Nice work, Douglas Dickerman, Matt Kirkwood and Darin Singleton. The direction is tight and compelling, the tech solid. The play itself — intense, dark, disturbing, horribly brutal at one point, but oh so intelligent in most places, particular in the dialog of Wallace — left me sitting there saying only a quiet “Whoa.” But the non-stunned part of me shouts, I found it! I found high-quality theater in Los Angeles. Glory be!

(My only complaint: the special effects are on the loud side a couple of times. Good writing, acting and directing provide the best jolts.)

Congratulations to the Road and their fine team. Congratulations and thank you.

I am on Twitter: @kevinashworth. I joined Twitter long before moving to Los Angeles, long before it occurred to me that I could follow LA people in The Biz on Twitter. I joined in large part because I used to work with @livia, who is married to @biz, the founder of Twitter, and I went to a party at their apartment in Wellesley before they moved to California. Good people. So. I joined 546 days ago, according to whendidyoujointwitter.com. In comparison, the Twitterers I reference below all have under 150 days on the service. Not that length of time using Twitter matters much.

Anyway, over the last couple of months, lots of industry people have started Tweeting all the time. And it’s useful information for people new to LA. So I follow. But it’s dangerous. I think I have mis-Tweeted, and I think I crossed the personal-business divide. Damn, and damn. But I’m not the only one who is confused! Consider two Tweets from today:

@DanielleCasting: crashing an audition is possibly the worst thing you can do to yourself.. even if your agent tells you to give it a try..don’t do it!!!

@TalentAgentLA: RT @agentCESD So many actors have a magical best friend who is “slightly less attractive” but “gets out more than I do.” Voila, a crash!

Two talent agents encourage actors to crash auditions, but one casting director says never do it, no matter the aforementioned encouragement from your agent. Talk about confusing! Who are you going to believe? The answer might be this: Don’t crash Danielle’s auditions, and crash other auditions very selectively. But it can be confusing, this Twitterverse of ours. Next step for me is not to crash selectively, but to try to make amends for crossing the personal-business divide. Hmm. Tweet me your best ideas!

A bit of silly computerizing today. My dock spells out the word “SEXY!” and I agree, my desktop is sexy!

The photo is from my recent trip to Arches National Park, where we were mesmerized by this iridescent cloud as we stood under one of the “windows.” The icons are from Quicken, Entourage, Excel and Yahoo Mail! as a Fluid app. The only trouble with this lovely setup: the dock is too huge, but I had to magnify it for the screenshot. Enjoy! Now back to our regular dock size.

The new iPhone is good, so I think it’s time to tell all the world once again information that I find really helpful as I try to get around town. This is how I get street addresses from my home Mac to my mobile iPhone with ease.

Requirements:
0. Want to get a street address to your iPhone more easily.
1. Use Safari or Firefox on your computer at home. (IE is untested.)
2. Have a server somewhere that runs PHP and can send you email.

Basically, if you have access to a server, here’s an easy solution I call Mappie Map. It’s kind of like iPhoneSender, but you don’t have to type something every time you use it.

First, create a script file on your server and name it iphone.php:

< ?php
function mystrip($s) {
	$s = trim($s);
	$s = str_replace("\xA0",' ',$s);
	$s = preg_replace('/\s+/','+',$s);
	return $s;
}
$to = "YOUREMAIL";
$address = $_REQUEST["address"];
echo $address . "<br />";
$subject = "Map: " . $address;
$address = mystrip($address);
$message = "http://maps.google.com/?q=" . $address;
$from = "Mappie Map YOUREMAIL";
$headers = "From: $from";
mail($to,$subject,$message,$headers);
echo $address;
?>

Then drag this link [Mappie Map] to your Safari bookmark bar and click on it after highlighting an address in your web page.

Of course, you’ll have to edit the bookmark first, with your server name; you’ll have to edit the other script with your email info, too. Once it’s running, click on the bookmarklet, a new window pops up showing the sent info which you must close manually, and you’ll soon get a message from Mappie Map. Just tap on its contents, and the address will now appear in your iPhone’s Maps app without you having to type it in. I find this real real handy. Leave a comment if you find it handy, too!