in other news ...

... somewhere out in Beaver County there is in fact a 40 year old woman named Jamie who is actually crying.

Report: Rest of Van Halen tour scrapped

I should have kept my mouth shut last year.

Them Bones Part 2

Just so we're all on the same page ...

I first went to the doctor's office over two weeks ago because of some shoulder, neck and arm pain I was experiencing. My Primary Care Physician prescribed me to get an MRI of my shoulder and also referred me to see a Sports Medicine Therapist/Doctor.

The Sports Med. Doctor, while looking at the shoulder MRI, found an incidental bone lesion that worried her and immediately referred me to see a Bone/Tumor Specialist. In the meantime, she also prescribed me to get an MRI of my spine to continue to look into the cause of my pain.

So now the Bone Specialist, while looking into my bone lesion, also took a look at my spine MRI and pointed out to me that I have two herniated discs in my neck that worried him and immediately referred me to a Spinal Surgeon who I am now scheduled to see in two weeks.

Got that?

All of my doctor's visits have been through the same hospital so the sharing of my files/xrays/MRIs has been at every doctor's fingertips. This is a definitely a convenience but it has also resulted in each doctor finding something that 'worried' them that they were not directly looking for in the first place.

It's like the Sports Med Doc said, "I know you came in for this but hey, we found this" and the The Lesion Doc said, "I know you came to see me for this but hey, look at this." At this rate, I'm afraid the Spinal Surgeon is going to take one look at the herniated discs in my neck and then tell me something like my hip needs replaced or that I have diabetes ... or something else irrelevant to the situation. I mean, c'mon, what's next!?

Anyway, to recap, the image of the shoulder MRI, in which the Bone Lesion was found in the first place, doesn't show the entire lesion in my arm. The Bone Specialist needs me to get another MRI of my arm so he can get a better diagnosis of this lesion but he feels that this can wait until the herniated discs are taken care of. (the exact opposite of what my Sports Medicine doctor thought). He also believes that the lesion is just a cyst that has formed inside my arm bone where the bone marrow should be. Probably a result of a bruise that occurred when I hurt my shoulder/arm during the prolonged landscaping of my backyard last summer. The lesion is not showing up on regular xrays and it is not effecting the bone itself so he feels that there is no urgency with this. I also don't have any pain associated with the part of my arm where the bone lesion has occurred. Incidentally, he's also pretty confident that the pressure of the herniated discs on my spinal cord is causing most of my shoulder and arm pain and also why my left hand sometimes falls asleep (but we'll let the Spinal Doctor figure that out).

So we are now looking at the following in this order (I think ...):

Nerve Conductive Test on my left arm next week.
Spinal Surgeon visit the week after. (May result in therapy, injections or spinal surgery ... oooh! doctor's choice!)
MRI of my arm for the Bone Specialist follow up visit.
Then maybe we'll get back to that Sports Med Doc's follow up visit for the shoulder cartilage tear ...

Them bones ...

I visited with my UPMC Sports Medicine Therapist this week and got my MRI results back for my shoulder. I have a tear in the cartilage between the head of the arm bone and the shoulder blade. Not that big of a deal. I sort of expected this from all of the digging and lifting I did last year (landscaping) and this is what is mostly causing me pain. I could possibly use surgery but they want to look at other things first. I have to get another MRI of my cervical spine done tomorrow to hopefully shed some light on the other pain I am experiencing in my neck, left arm and shoulder blade area. Again, not that big of a deal, I've had a spinal MRI done in the past with the dye injection and all and I know this needs looked at. I'm also getting an EMG Nerve Conduction Test done in March to figure out why my left arm and sometimes hand keeps falling asleep. Okay ... this I've never had done before but I'll go along with it.

... but the kicker is that the Shoulder MRI picked up something they were not looking for ... an Incidental Bone Lesion was found in my left upper arm bone and now the doctors are more concerned with this and want this prioritized.

I basically went in for shoulder pain and I came out with a possible bone tumor! Wait what? Am I in the right place?

I had blood work done right away yesterday to look for any abnormalities caused by this Bone Lesion and the doctor called me last night to tell me that my blood work came back normal. That is a relief.

I'm seeing an orthopedic bone specialist first thing Monday morning to get a better diagnosis of this Lesion thing. Worse case is that they want to do a biopsy after my visit on Monday and then we'll go from there. Best case is that the Bone Lesion is only a bruise. It's all a little bit unsettling but I don't have any finite results yet so I'm trying not to let it bother me too much.

Score!

Nice. Just got me an Eat n Park gift card given to me by my elderly neighbor for shoveling her steps and driveway and cleaning her car off all winter. Now I just have to find me an Eat n Park since I haven't been to one since highschool.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

I had my very first MRI done yesterday afternoon. Seems I hurt my left shoulder last summer working on the landscaping in my back yard. Probably a result from the hundreds of pounds of dirt and rocks I shoveled and moved during the process. Anyway ... the more I exercise now, the worse my shoulder is getting. Time to finally get it checked out.

It was a long, tiresome day. Before the visit, I spent over an hour and half sitting in the waiting room in my backless gown, watching Days of Our Lives and Judge Judy with a bunch of elderly, sick people. Sort of depressing. The MRI itself wasn't too bad (not claustraphobic). It was very painful because of the way they had to have me lay in the machine with a cast contraption around my shoulder. Actually, I experienced a horrible new pain that I have never felt before because they had me lay in a way that I would never lay on my own ... and then, as proceedure, I had to hold still in that position, motionless, for 25 minutes ... ugh. Not fun. But I did my best to ignore it and I did almost fall asleep.

Oh, and to make the appointment even more special, there was some sort of field trip of med students coming through during my visit and they used me as the 'example' for the class. Four young, pre-med females all standing there watching me wince my way through the MRI while my butt is hanging out of my gown.

Awesome.

Next step is for me to meet up with some UPMC Sports Medicine people so they can have a further look at what might be wrong with my shoulder. That isn't until a few weeks from now. Until then, the docs got me on Vicoden, when needed, to ease the pain.

Planning Ahead and Getting Things in Order

I went out to the Shadow Lounge last night to support my friend's new Open Stage / Acoustic Music night called Netrock.

I got to hear some pretty amazing local artists last night, including Autumn Ayers and Paul Tabachneck. The crowd was pretty good for a wednesday night. I'm hoping to see more heads show up as this night builds.

While I was at the S'Lounge I was able to sit down with the owner and go over some of the upcoming events that I am promoting. We sat down with our calendars and figured out what's happening for the next couple of months.

First up @ the S'Lounge, Friday March 7th, I will be promoting/hosting the next Official Unblurred Gallery Crawl After Party featuring the music of the afro-electronique band Mifune. Mifune always draws a great crowd ... this coupled with the fact that the last Gallery Crawl After Party I helped throw drew in a packed house ... I'm hoping that this event will be off the hook.

Second up @ the S'Lounge, Friday, April 4th, I will be throwing another After Party for the Gallery Crawl but at the same time I will be teaming up with the people over at Justharvest.org, a local nonprofit anti-hunger / economic justice organization, to help them raise some money (and awarerness) for their group. All proceeds from the door will be donated to them. We'll also have voter registration available all night long. As for the entertainment, it's a ways off but we're thinking Spoken Word performances followed by the usual Northern Funk and Soul and Old School Hip Hop DJs.

The rest of my January Atlanta trip

I spent the rest of my time in Atlanta visiting with the 'Bowser-Kyles'.

'Beaner' and 'Buddy' took my to the impressive Georgia Aquairium.

'Bowser' took me to an incredible International Farmers Market.

The extended weekend was fun and relaxing; watching the rare occurance of snowfall in ATL, staying in to cook food and drink wine, getting the fireplace roaring, playing Wii and Guitar Hero, catching some football playoffs, going out for brunch, catching up with close friends and the best part, playing with and getting to know 2 1/2 year old 'buddy' a whole lot better.

I also got to catch up with my friend 'Blacktain America' who just moved to the ATL from the PIT. It was his birthday Sunday night when I spoke to him and he was heading out to a club to hear legendary house dj Kai Alce perform. I'm sure it would have been a great time but I opted to stay in and relax.

How I spent MLK day.

I just got back yesterday from another quick visit to Atlanta to see 'Beaner', 'Bowser' and 'Buddy'(formerly known as 'Jamhands'). The trip was a spur of the moment decision, with me buying the plane ticket Thursday afternoon and flying down on Friday. Frequent flyer miles - gotta love 'em.

The whole thing started last Monday when 'Mr. Kyle' e-mailed me about him thinking about going to see DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist in concert on MLK day. I simply replied, 'what if I flew down to ATL and went to the show with you?' ... and then the rest fell into place.

Visiting the 'Bowser-Kyles' is always a treat (I'll get into more of that later) but this trip was topped off with the chance to go and see DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist's all new, all 45rpm record DJ performance.

Back in 1999, the two collaborated on a live mix album called Brainfreeze, which was then followed in 2001 by Product Placement. Both albums featured them only using 45 rpm records (7 inches). Now they are touring with their most recent collaboration, entitled The Hard Sell:



This was the opening video that they showed at the concert to start things off. AS you can see, the film explained, in a great parody style of old grade school instructional filmstrips, the history of the 45 RPM single, the technical difficulty of mixing 45s (smaller surface area, they spin faster), and exactly how they were going to pull off this feat: using eight turntables going into four mixers, with effects processors and guitar foot pedals, allowing them to loop passages and sustain tones.

I own a DVD of their Product Placement tour which shows tons of concert footage so I sort of knew what to expect ... but seeing one of these legendary '45 only' shows live is something else entirely.

Unlike its two predecessors, The Hard Sell didn't strictly rely on only funk and soul records. This new set was extremely varied, going from kitschy (a robotic 4 on the floor "Rock Around The Clock" or a doo-wop "Eye Of The Tiger") to romantic (The Flamingos' "I Only Have Eyes For You" overdubbed with audio samples from the movie Casablanca) to Afro Latin / Brazilian Carnival Music. They even threw in some trashy electro, 80's metal and some more modern Rock and Roll ala the Foo Fighters and Metallica. Of course they still played a lot of funk and soul but it was scattered about in between the more eclectic segments. At one point, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist started recreating early 90's rap songs (songs from De La Soul's '3 ft High and Rising', Digable Planets, the Pharcyde) using only the original records and samples the songs were created from. It was incredible ... mostly a seamless performance, there were a few missed cues resulting in the old 'shoes in the dryer' sound, but the glitches made you remember that it was all live. They also just started this tour so I'm sure they are still learning what works and what doesn't.

But for close to two hours, Shadow and Chemist never stopped moving. When they weren't flipping through boxes to find the next 45, they were cueing one up, or looping another, or fiddling with the mixer. They even ended the show with a little performance using portable turntables hung over their shoulders so they could move around the stage.

Here are some videos that better explains what we experienced:





From the ATL show:

Steel Drum interpretation of The Doors


'Psychedelic' part where they stopped using the 45 adapters and let the records spin off center


The wide array of source music made it feel less focused than the all funk and soul sounds of Brainfreeze and Product Placement. This worked against them too at some points with a few segments feeling too long and showy and not that interesting. The crowd would seem to lose interest and start talking. (they didn't call it The Hard Sell for nothing i guess). I assume this song selection was an intentional move away from what's expected of them at this point though ... expanding what the audience has come to expect from an all 7" show. I really enjoyed this more eclectic mix and had a huge grin on my face when they played the Gilligan's Island theme set to the tune of "Stairway To Heaven". Ha.

Oh and Kid Koala opened up for them. Yeah, could you pack any more turntablist talent into one room for one night? I've seen Kid Koala about 4 times now but this was the best I've ever heard him play; more rock and roll, blues and reggae ... and he of course did his signature psychedelic juggling of double copies of Katherine Hepburn singing 'Moon River'.

Memory Foam Mattress

I recently purchased a Queen Size Memory Foam 10" Mattress for myself this Christmas. Not one of the really expensive ones but a cheaper knock off brand from overstock.com. I had previously been sleeping on an old mattress that I bought at least 8 or 9 years ago. Wow. The difference in comfort is amazing and I am sleeping better than ever now that I switched.

What is even more amazing is how they shipped the darn thing. It was shipped rolled up and vacuum sealed so that it was only about 1/3 the size of the full mattress. Fed Ex basically just dropped it off on my front porch so it was just sitting there in it's plastic lined, vacuum pouch when I got home from work. After opening the Mattress shipment it needed to sit for a full 24 hours to fully expand to it's original size. It reminded me of those little toys you used to get when you where a kid where you placed them in water and they grew to 10 times their original size.

Anyway ... I couldn't be more satisfied with this purchase. The feel of the memory foam vs. a spring mattress is definitely unique but I don't think I'll ever want to go back to sleeping on a regular mattress again.

HD or Blu Ray?

Blu Ray has just won quite a victory in the High Definition format wars the other day with Warner Brothers Studios committing to producing its newest line of high-definition DVDs in the Blu-ray format.

The company said on Friday that it would abandon the competing HD-DVD format in May and distribute all film and television discs in standard DVD or Blu-ray.

Dammit.

The war is far from over but it's not looking good for HD DVD anymore.

I have already bought a Toshiba HD DVD player and my HD film library consists of a few films (Planet Earth Series, Casablanca, The Shining, 2001 Space Odyssey) ... I'd hate these items to be worthless someday.

but then again ... if Blu Ray wins I'll just have to go out and get a Playstation 3.

Oh darn. :)

Movies I watched in 2006 ...

While we are at it ... here is my list from 2006.

2006 watched films

Some of my favorites:

The Devil and Daniel Johnston - Great documentary about a manic depressive musical genius.
Dogtown and Z-Boys - Flawless documentary film by Stacy Peralta about the 1970's Zephyr Skating Team. Nice narration by Sean Penn too. Oh ... and an incredible soundtrack.
Elizabethtown - Cameron Crowe does such a great job of translating all the eccentricities of a family to the screen.
Junebug - Great original character with great character development. No cliches here. Amy Adams shines.
The Last Laugh - a 1925 silent film with superb filming techniques such as long shots and difficult crane maneuvers.
Alice - a Jan Svankmajer film telling the story of Alice in Wonderland using tons of bizarre and surreal stop motion animation mixed with live action.
Nightwatch - A Russian Fantasy/Thriller part Science Fiction tale about vampires and the fight between good and evil with tons of superb special effects. Plus the most creative use of subtitling ever scene.
Roll Bounce - 1970s roller-skating coming-of-age comedy. Enough said.
Three Extremes - 3 stories by Japans top Horror/Thriller directors including Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Gozu) and Chan Wook Park (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance)
The Squid and the Whale - Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach, who was co writer of Kicking and Screaming (1995) and The Life Aquatic, the film is semi autobiographical about his dealings with his parents divorce when he was younger.

Movies I watched last year ...

The people over at The Internet Movie Data Base website have set up a nifty little system where you can store and rate all of the movies you have ever watched. You can then further store your list into any subcategories you want such as years watched, genres, want to buy, etc.

I've taken advantage of this system over the years to list the movies I've watched ... categorizing the films by the year I viewed them.

Now that we are into 2008 I can take a tally and it looks like I watched about 187 movies in the 2007. The full list can be viewed here.

Movies that topped my 'watched in 2007' list:

2001: Space Odyssey - Of course, last year wasn't the first year I saw this film ... it probably shows up on my list every year. It's on here because I bought the HD DVD version of the film at the end of the year. The ultimate Light and Sound show.

Angel-A - Just when Luc Besson said he may never direct again, he comes up with this beautiful film (6 years since his last directorial effort). The cinematography is brilliant and the acting is captivating.

Everything is Illuminated - Liev Shreiber's Screenplay Writing and Directorial debut is refreshingly original and surreal. I have never read the book the movie is based on but the film just shines with it's imagery and the Ukrainian broken English spoken though out the film is priceless.

Idiocracy - This is definitely not that great of a film technically speaking, and it barely makes my top viewings of 2007, but the subject and content is hilarious and hit's home in so many ironic places. This plus the fact that the movie is so damn quotable. Idiocracy is Mike Judge's (creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and the movie Office Space) look into the state of America 500 years into the future where everything in life has been dumbed down because of the laziness of our people.

Curse of the Golden Flower - This was the last film in Yimou Zhang's trilogy (the other two being Hero, and House of Flying Daggers) and was hated by critics. This film was my favorite in the trilogy. Taking place during China's Tang Dynasty, the movie focuses less on dazzling wire-fu fights of the previous films and more on the grand cinematography of epic war battles. Critics called the fight choreography unimaginative and the color palette too bright but this is what drew me in. I thought the film was beautifully shot and the vibrant colors breathtaking.

Playtime - 1967 French Jacques Tati film. Another one I have seen before 2007 and a film worthy of repeat viewings year after year. I reviewed the film here when describing 5 of my favorite films of all time.

The Prestige - I just like the way Christopher Nolan (and his brother Jonathan) tell a story ... and where else do you get to see David Bowie acting as Dr. Nikola Tesla?

The Shining - I bought this one on HD DVD last year also. The pale color palette of the film never looked so detailed before ... and the brilliant score has never sounded more haunting ... worthy of repeat viewings, blah, blah, blah.

Honorable Mentions:

Volver - I have a thing for Pedro Almodóvar movies.
Shortbus - Softcore where you actually care about the characters.
El Topo - The genius (or madness) of Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Diggers - Written by Ken Marino from the sketch comedy show The State
Children of Men - Reminded me of greats like Blade Runner and Brazil.
This is England - Growing up in England in the 80's. Enough said.
Tom Petty, Running Down a Dream - Clocking in at 4 hours long and I never got up once.

What did you get for Christmas?

What did I get? I got to learn the ins and outs of my furnace since it decided to stop working on Christmas Eve morning.

Yup ... busted furnace ... thank you Santa/baby Jesus.

Seems that the motor that drives the fan needed to blow the carbon dioxide out of the furnace stopped working. I have a high efficiency furnace so 90% of the heat is removed from the gas burners and the left over Carbon Dioxide is blown out of the house via PVC Piping (since it is too cold to rise on it's own via a flue duct) ... and as a fail safe for the furnace, if the blower doesn't turn on to remove the CO2, then the furnace doesn't light or else I would have a house full of a deadly gas.

I'm now on day 3 without heat. The thermostat is reading 50 degrees. Like I said, the furnace stopped working on Christmas Eve morning. I have a home warranty with a company that is very efficient, they had a local heating company ready to come out to my house within a few hours that same day ... but since it was Christmas Eve, I told them to wait until the morning of the 26th ... figured no one wants to be on call, working on a furnace, the night before Christmas. I wasn't going to be around my house most of Christmas Eve and Day anyway.

Now, today, the furnace people have been here and the part has been ordered. It could arrive later today or it could take as long as Friday before they get the furnace back up and running. It's pretty cold in the house but it's not unbearable ... I'm sure catching a cold is inevitable, though.

Chihuly Nights

Last night, I went and saw the Dale Chihuly Glass Exhibit at Phipps Conservatory again. This time I took my parents as part of their Christmas gift. The exhibit was supposed to end in November but they extended it's stay into the new year. It's a wonderful exhibit and I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't go one more time before it's gone. A few of my photos can be found here.

Netflix Grrrr.

I wrote a letter to Netflix last week complaining that they just seem to not have enough 'new release' movies in circulation. I told them that it was ridiculous that the first 18 movies in my queue were not available for rental because of 'long waits' but were indeed released ... I wrote that I have been a customer of theirs for close to 7 years and complained (maybe threatened) that I could easily go to a local Blockbuster to get these movies if I really wanted to.

For example, 'Transformers', which came out on DVD in October still has a 'very long wait' on my queue. Now I'm not 'dieing' to see this film ... it's just the principle that's frustrating ... that it's been over 2 1/2 months since it's release and they do not have a copy they can send to me ... also, 'Pirates of the Carribean 3' is on my list and I see ads for it's DVD release on TV every freakin' day but I already assume that I'll have to wait until next year to get it from Netflix.

I mentioned that even though I have some 375 movies in my queu, I was getting sick of watching 'older' movies while waiting an average of 2 months for the new releases to become available. Don't get me wrong, I like me my classics, foreign films, cult favorites and indie flicks, all which are usually in high supply from Netflix ... it's just that sometimes I want to veg out to the latest action flick or stupid comedy i.e. 'Die Hard 4', 'Knocked Up', 'Superbad', etc.

Anyway, since writing to Netflix last Tuesday, newer released movies have been freeing up on my queue. Including 'Transformers', 'Live Free and Die Hard', etc.

Maybe Netflix's customer service actually responded to my complaint. We'll see what happens.

We're Baaaaaack!

and I heard you missed us!

Great debut night to 'Brotha Mike's' and my new weekly DJ night last Friday. Hopefully this is a start to another exciting and long lived weekly party. It was great seeing so many people come out to support ... some people I haven't seen in many months. Shake it!

Friday Dance Party

The afterparty we threw the other night went extremely well. My buddy and I started promoting around 7pm during the gallery crawl on Penn Avenue (which the afteparty was 'officially' for). We introduced ourselves to all of the gallery owners and invited them down to the party - many of them actually showed up. Around midnight The Shadow Lounge was filled to capacity ... at least 120 paying customers were through the door. Everyone was dancing to the eclectic mix of Funk, Northern Soul, Retro, R&B and Boogaloo sounds provided by the Djs ... and over $600 was collected at the door for our 'special cause'. It was a blast.

The rest of the photos can be viewed here. The party was such a success that the owner of the venue wants to discuss having it happen once a month.

I'm down with that.

oh yeah ...

and Van Halen (the reunited Roth era Van Halen) just announced that they are extending their tour into next year ... and Pittsburgh was added to their list of cities they will be stopping in. Actually, I don't know how Pittsburgh was not on their list from the beginning ... I mean, seriously ... what city is not more Van Halen than PGH? C'mon.

Anyway, I am super psyched about this. I have total faith in these guys that the show will be one of the best rock shows I have ever experienced. In fact, after seeing them I'm confident that I'm going to have to start using a scale of 1 to Van Halen to describe anything that is near awesome.



I just hope they can keep it together long enough and avoid the inevitable band meltdown until they make it here.

Speaking of promoting ...

I also spent the weekend hanging out at the ALTO Lounge in Shadyside ... doing, ah, research ...

Starting Friday December 14th, 'Brother Mike' and I will be resuming our duties as hosts for the only 'House and Techno' music DJ night in the Eastside. We'll be residing over a weekly dance party at this place - every Friday night - offering up soulful house music and funky techno in a loungy, chill out atmosphere.

3 Big DJs from 3 Big Parties

Just when I thought I was out of the 'promoting' game ... this happens:
A buddy of mine and I threw this little party together in less than 24 hours. It will be the official afterparty for the Unblurred First Friday event taking place on Penn Ave. this Friday (even got it cleared with the Penn Ave Arts Initiative). Nice to know that the connections are still there after being out of the club promoting scene for close to a year. Got the venue free of charge, convinced all of the DJs to play for free, got the flyer design donated and even managed to offer up a pretty nice drink special on top of it all. The money collected from the $5 'suggested donation' cover charge will all go to a local benefit that I can't reveil at this time.