Roll Over

Voting in NYC

brent — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 12:43:57 +0000

We got up early today to vote, evidently so did much of our 'hood.

It's taken nearly 45mins to walk the sidewalk along Hayden Hall, and we've yet to turn the corner. Maybe a machine is broken… we always have the pull-lever kind, tho much of NYC is supposed to be on electronic machines by now. Not sure which kind I trust more anyway.

There is a district with hardly any residents in line, and they all get to go immediately to the front. There is talk of our building seceeding to that district. Watchout 80th, revolution is afoot!!

Taping for "Man of the People" continues…

brent — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:00:29 +0000

(It's never on "tape", but you get it.)

Today at our second-to-last recording session for Man of the People, we are joined by even more Broadway talent!

Stephen DeRosa guest stars as insult comic Cappy Goldstein in Episode #8 "The String Kids" airing October 14. Hunter Foster and Brad Oscar are political consultants Doc and Wendell in Episode #9 "How To Lose An Election" airing October 21.

Don't miss Episode #7: "The Lawn Law" which airs tomorrow. Signup for email notifications and join the MAN OF THE PEOPLE Facebook group, too.

New web comedy "Man of the People" online now

brent — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:45:47 +0000

A new comedy web series I'm working on, "Man of the People", went live yesterday. Episodes are free and posted each Tuesday until Election Day (Nov. 4). I am the audio producer and editor for the whole series, and we're having a blast. You should really check it out.

Think 'The Nixon Tapes meets The Office'. Each episode of "Man of the People" is comprised of the "found" audio tapes of Francis "Woody" Woodson, the acting mayor of fictional small-town Daltonville U.S.A., as he records his time in office for posterity (and any future autobiographers).

Created by Kleban Award-winner Jeremy Desmon and his team of writers and voiced by amazing Broadway theatre talent (including one of the current Jersey Boys), each episode snatches an issue from the headlines of the 2008 election season and makes it local.

Our first episode, "Woody Takes on Childhood Obesity" was posted yesterday. Next week, "Woody Battles Big Oil" (canola oil) followed by the Reverend Wright-inspired "Mr. Doug's Haircuts for Boys".

To listen, just visit woody4mayor.com. There is a web-based player for each episode, or subscribe to our iTunes podcast feed to automatically download (and sync to your iPod) each episode mp3 (and sync'd to your iPod) when it's posted.

You can also signup for an email notice, subscribe to the RSS feed, and join the "Man of the People" Facebook group.

broadwayworld.com: Broadway Talent Creates 'Man of the People' - New Online Comedy Series
playbill.com: Arcelus, Gabler, Koplin, Holmes and Weisman Featured in Man of the People Web Series

"Last Days of Left Eye" DVD release coming Sept. 9

brent — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:43:45 +0000

"Last Days of Left Eye" is available for pre-order on Amazon for $17.99 and ships September 9.

If you're still mad that Mo'nique's "Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School" preempted seeing our names in the credits, get yourself a copy and re-enjoy the movie too.

Click the image below to purchase from Amazon, and Frankie and Roscoe will get a scoop of food on you.

This brings the number of titles in the FatLab DVD library to three — Waking Dreams, Through A Glass, Darkly, and now Left Eye.

(Netflixers, click here to add "Left Eye" to your queue.)

Previously:

iPhone Remote app + Airfoil + Airfoil Speakers = iTunes Heaven

brent — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:00:47 +0000

My iTunes library lives on our laptop, but I'm often on our other "big" computer and want to listen to those tunes. I could stream between iTuneses, but I want this listening to count — i.e. increment play counts, let me change star ratings, etc. You can't do that with iTunes streaming.

But now, with 2 computers, a wireless network, an iPhone running OS 2.0+, four cross-platform apps (3 of which are free), and a little scotch tape, my dream is possible.

You'll need the following apps: iTunes, Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil ($25), their companion app Airfoil Speakers, and Apple's Remote for iPhone
Open Airfoil Speakers on the destination computer.
Open Airfoil on the source computer and select "iTunes" from the source list.
In Airfoil, activate the connection to the Airfoil Speakers computer. (iTunes will launch or relaunch, and Airfoil will establish a digital link to the destination.)
Get your iPhone on your Wi-Fi network
Open Remote, select a tune, and press play!

Demo Reel of Children's Theme Park Show Music

brent — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:50:28 +0000

For three summers now, FatLab Music has supplied soundtracks to theme parks for IAAPA Award-Winning medley shows, fireworks spectacles, and lately, more and more kids' shows. We provide original theme songs, reinterpreted arrangements, karaoke-style transcriptions, audio editing, pre-tracked vocals, and so on.

We are the "music guys" for two great companies: RWS & Associates Entertainment, Inc., whose live entertainment character properties include the CBS Television lineup and HIT Entertainment's portfolio ("Thomas and Friends", "Barney", "Bob The Builder"), and Manhattan Creative Group.

Our shows are wrapping up their summer season, so we thought it was a good time to share a demo reel of some of our Children's Show work to-date.

[0:00] "Beyond The Castle Walls" - Original music and lyric
From Beyond The Castle Walls (RWS)

[0:39] "Garfield The Great" - Original music and lyric
From Garfield The Great & Friends (RWS)

[1:04] "Believe" - Arrangement
From The Spirit of Christmas (RWS)

[1:18] "Kidapalooza" - Original music
Lyric by Stephen Tomac
From Kidapalooza (RWS)

[1:35] "Rockin' on Route 66" - Original music and lyric
From Rockin' on Route 66 (RWS)

[1:53] "Who Left My Bologna In The Sun?" - Arrangement
From The Hopsicals (MCG)

Overheard in the Theatre

brent — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:07:39 +0000

Overheard at [title of show], Lyceum Theatre, 7/31/08
10 "fucks" into the show, whispered Orchestra Left, Row H.

X: "Holy" what?
Y: "Holy Fucking Shit".

Overheard in the Theatre

brent — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:05:21 +0000

Overheard at [title of show], Lyceum Theatre, 7/31/08
Before the show, Orchestra Left, Row G.

A: I'm going this show next week that Whoopi Goldberg is in.
B: Do you know what it's called?
A: No. Someone from work organized it. I mean, it's not like work is paying for it, but…oh here. Xanadu.
B. Xanadu? Are you sure?
A. Yeah.
B. You know who was in the movie, don't you? Olivia Newton John. Is Whoopi in the lead?
A. I'm sure she would be.
B. Wow. She is a far, far cry from Olivia Newton John.

Hello World from my iPhone

brent — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:36:53 +0000

This is my first post using the new WordPress iPhone app on my new phone.

We got in line at 7:45a at the Soho Apple Store. We had our vouchers by about 9:00a. It took another 2.5 hours to get phones. The actual activation took 4 minutes per phone.

Below is the last photo taken by my Razr:

***UPDATE***
Our friend who left the line around 9:00a with his voucher returned at 4pm and had his phone by 4:10. :(

Overheard in the Theatre

brent — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 01:38:07 +0000

Overheard at The Gazillion Bubble Show, New World Stages: Stage 3, 7/26/08 matinee
63 minutes into the show.

The fire alarm.

All theatres were evacuated mid-matinee to Urban Plaza while the Fire Department fixed the air conditioning. Audiences returned to their seats over 30 minutes later. We did not.

My iPhone 2.0 wishlist for MobileMe Family Packs

brent — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:59:47 +0000

[Note: I was away the first week, and with the ongoing heat and reported 4+ hour lines at all three NYC Apple Stores, I still don't have my own yet.]

Updating Mike's first-gen iPhone to 2.0 was no problem. As everyone warns, give yourself an hour or more to complete the update. The firmware and software updates finish in about 20min. But because the update performs a full wipe, all your media needs to be recopied and that's what takes most of the time.

So far, iPhone 2.0 is 95% awesome. Of all the advertised improvements, the most noticeable are Calendar (color distinctions and general iCal-iness now), Contacts (search is handy), Calculator (flipping to scientific mode is just cool), and of course the App Store.

And by far, the sleeper hit of the App Store is Apple's "Remote". Seriously, this could be the best thing about iPhone 2.0 for me. More on that ridiculousness in a later post, I think.

In the fallout of the botched MobileMe launch, it's been hard to determine what issues were temporary and which were just limitations of MobileMe on iPhone 2.0. I've spent a little time testing things, and here is my wishlist:

Allow data sync between MobileMe Family Pack accounts
This one is major, and central to the slightly misleading impression given by the MobileMe tagline "Exchange for the rest of us". Some have said "It's MobileMe, not MobileUs," and that's true. It functions great as "Exchange For Me", but a tiny change (to features that feel more like bugs anyway) could turn a MobileMe Family Pack into "MobileUs".

Family Packs provide 1 primary and up to 4 sub-accounts — each with their own Contacts, Calendars, iDisk space, and Email address. There is no sharing of data between them as far as I can tell (confirmed here) except possibly some way to transfer files thru shared iDisk folders. Family Packs are simply a quantity-discount over buying 5 individual accounts.

But Apple, why not take the "Family" part seriously and make Family Packs "just work" the way a family works? Our desktop and laptop computers sync to one primary MobileMe account, so that we benefit from all the integration goodness .mac has always had to offer. We have our own @mac.com email addresses, but we share common calendars and contacts. It's even fairly simple for a sub-account holder's iPhone to participate in this little makeshift family workgroup. You just enable only their sub-account Mail and then enable Contacts, Calendar, and Bookmarks for the primary account.

That works great, but the main problem is this: Push Email is an option for sub-accounts only up until any data sync option (Mail, Contact, Calendar, or Bookmark) from the primary account is enabled. An iPhone can only actively "sync" to one MobileMe account, so sub-account holders (or grandfathered .mac Email-Only accounts) must choose between push email or over-the-air data sync. Once anything from the primary account is turned on, "Push" becomes "Fetch" for the sub-account. I have confirmed this on Mike's iPhone, and a lengthy Discussion Thread on Apple's support site details it further.

My hunch is that Apple chose to limit the persistent push connections to just one per iPhone. Allowing multiple push accounts would enable runaway connection demands on their servers.

However, MobileMe has certain quirks that essentially make this Push Email vs. Sync decision for you. The biggest is that calendar colors from iCal are communicated to your iPhone calendars only after an over-the-air sync (feature or bug?). Your initial iTunes USB-sync gives your calendars a confoundingly random color scheme. I'm not about to retrain myself on new iCal colors, so if the only way is thru MobileMe data sync, the push email takes a backseat.

Settling for Fetch email is a small price — but it's annoyingly second-class. Another drawback is only the primary account has web access to the data synced from the desktop. MobileMe's online apps are amazing replicas of their desktop equivalents, and giving out the master password so all users in your "Family" can access the Address Book just isn't always an option. To the "get your own individual account" crowd, that still wouldn't allow Mike to share calendars and contacts with our desktop apps. And to the "use someone else's services then" crowd, we're extremely pleased with (and heavily dependent on) our @mac.com email addresses and the .mac integration way-of-life. Going without Push email is annoying, but not enough reason to forego data sync (except Contacts…for now, see below).

There are two solutions to this that I can think of:

On an iPhone with multiple MobileMe accounts enabled, allow Push privileges for only one account and force all others to switch to Fetch. (This would retain the one-connection-per-phone limit.)
Enable the MobileMe Family Pack primary account to sync selected data with its sub-accounts.

I really hope Apple goes the Family Pack route. Email-only's are being phased out, and having inter-Family-Pack-account sync happen on the server would be tremendous. Imagine a Family Calendar that all the kids can view on their computers, and a Family Contacts group that means the kids' AIM Buddies don't clutter up Mom and Dad's Address Book. Family Pack users should have the option of treating their accounts as either 5 distinct users or as a true mini-workgroup environment "for the rest of us".

Re-enable selecting a subset of contact groups for over-the-air sync
A major drawback to over-the-air MobileMe contact sync is that you lose the ability to choose which groups to sync.

When a MobileMe account's Contacts sync is enabled on an iPhone, iTunes then defers management of Address Book sync to the phone. I had hoped that meant you could continue to selectively sync only certain Address Book groups (in the same way iTunes allows). Alas, all contacts and all groups now sync to Contacts on the iPhone. (Thankfully, there is search now.)

+1 for Push Sync, -1 for feature removal.

A simple iPhone Settings screen or an additional config page on MobileMe's account settings web page could easily replicate the disabled preferences formerly set in iTunes.

And, that's it for now for my wish-and-a-half-list. I'm sure I'll have more to say when I finally get my own phone. And yes, I've written all of this to Apple iPhone Feedback, and I encourage everyone do the same for your own gripes. I do think they listen. And I would like to think I encouraged a few features that appeared in iPhone 1.1.x updates. Let's hope to see some more in iPhone 2.1 — and beyond!

Transitions

brent — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:07:38 +0000

Here is track 3 from Through A Glass, Darkly, "Transitions". Billy is lost to his first high.

(We just got back from the GALA Choruses Festival 2008 in Miami. At least two major choruses will be performing "Darkly" in the coming year. More as this develops.)

See the Official Site for complete information on Through A Glass, Darkly.

from Through A Glass, Darkly - commissioned by Dr. Stan Hill and the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus

Previously:

My URLphabet

brent — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:01:22 +0000

In a blank browser window, type each letter of the alphabet and record the first autofill result returned.

Mine as of June 26, 2008:

Overheard in the Theatre

brent — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:24:54 +0000

Overheard at In the Heights, Richard Rodgers Theatre, 6/25/08 matinee
Exiting the theatre, post-show, one matinee lady to the other on the warm-fuzzy ending.

Well, that was a nice circumstance.

Big Week In Review, In Pictures

brent — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:11:53 +0000

Through A Glass, Darkly premiered on PBS in Minnesota last Saturday night, while Go-Go Beach simultaneously turned 100 (performances…ever) the same night.

"Darkly" video producer Emily Goldberg with Mike at a TPT screening in Saint Paul

Sunset falls on Go-Go's 100th at the Showboat Majestic, Cincinnati OH

More photos, including a rare Lorie Line sighting outside of the Christmas Season, are seen in this photo album.

And if you missed it in Minneapolis, Through A Glass, Darkly DVDs are on-sale. Order now from the TCGMC website. The video is *amazing* with the concert portion bookended by incredibly moving and personal interviews with some of the cast and artistic team. Get your copy today!