Happy Christmas from Arlo

Arlo's got his new Christmas bone. Wishing everyone a Merry Little Christmas and the best in the New Year!

End of 2010

Who the hell am I to critique music? I've never recorded a song. I don't even play any instruments. I've been appreciating music for as long as I can remember and I generally tend toward stuff most people haven't heard. Here is a list of the albums and EP's that have stuck with me this year. The two trends I've apparently enjoyed most about music this year is good harmonies and 80's style hazy, reverb-echo.

Top Albums / EP's of 2010

Local Natives - Gorilla Manor
the Morning Benders - Big Echo
Wild Nothing - Gemini
Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
Twin Shadow - Forget
Librarians - Present Passed
Casa Castile - Vake EP
Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr - Horse Power EP
Gigi - Maintenent
Beach Fossils - Beach Fossils (this song is on a 7", not on this album, but they don't have any videos...)
Wolf Parade - Expo 86
Parenthetical Girls - Privilege Pt. 1 & 2 (Parenthetical Girls are releasing their next album over the course of... a year(?) one 4 song EP at a time)

Favorite 15 Songs of 2010 (songs not found on the favorite albums/EP's list above)
LCD Soundsystem - dance yrself clean
Rafter - no fucking around
Warpaint - billie holiday
Born Ruffians - what to say
Woods - death rattles
Black Keys - tighten up
Tame Impala - remember me (it's not on innerspeaker)
Books - I didn't know that
Cee Lo Green - fuck you (that's a catchy tune)
Suckers - before your birthday ends
Dumbo Gets Mad - eclectic prawn
Forgetters - vampire lessons (blake schwarzenbach's return!)
Gayngs - cry
Inlets - bright orange air
Reggie Watts - fuck shit stack

Biggest DISAPPOINTMENTS of 2010:
Maximum Balloon (Come on David Sitek, was this just a bunch of crap you had laying around the studio and thought you should release as something outside of TVOTR?)
Interpol It's no wonder why Carlos D left. Nothing has been that good since your debut a decade ago. boo.
Menomena (What a boring album. Sometimes Less is LESS...and dull)
the National (Every song on this new album has the same pace and tempo. They are better than this.)
Miles Kurosky (Remember being awesome in Beulah? What happened?)
Best Coast (I guess I was expecting more, what with all the hype around this band. It's nothing new or different. "Boyfriend" is a decent song, but it does not live up to the hype)

New Discoveries in 2010:
Yo La Tengo
I know, what kind of indie music nerd am I? I never really gave them a chance, but one day I purchased I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass simply because I love the title. It's a great album and I'm stupid for not getting into them before.
A continued fascination with Raymond Scott. I'll bet this guy was a lunatic with a brilliant, one-channel mind.
Nino Rota. Specifically the soundtrack to Giulietta Degli Spiriti. It is one of the coolest sounding albums I've heard in a long time.
Jonathan Fire*Eater. Where was I when these guys were all the rage in NYC? I fell hard for these guys and collected everything I could find in about two weeks. They are so much better than the Walkmen. Crazy. Get their EP Tremble Under Boom Lights and see how awesome they are.
I got into finding weird, obscure oldies in 2010. Some easy to find, some just strange.
Highlights:
the Treniers - poontang
Thurl Ravenscroft/Roberta Lee 45 - wing ding ding / I wanna talk about texas
Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons - beggin'
Byrds - you showed me (turtles song / cover)

Also - I don't understand how the Arcade Fire album that came out this year is topping everyone's lists. It sounds like they are doing their best Bruce Springsteen impression all over that thing.

Holiday Coffee

I work for a wonderful family owned coffee shop in Portland, Kobos Coffee. This is the holiday coffee we're packaging and selling this season. I love that the decaf snowman has been decafitated.

M&M's

My Holiday M&M's commercial is on line.

Daylight Savings

This is what I did with the extra hour of daylight I saved today.

the Ponys - let's kill ourselves from Curious Comedy on Vimeo.

I was listening to the Ponys and got inspired to make a video. I took footage (for free) from Archive.com, which is supposed to be public domain footage. If you look and listen carefully there might be a hidden message in here somewhere...

Love Gun

Who's Love Gun do you prefer? Paul Stanley & Kiss
Love Gun - Kiss by joelneto
or Cee-Lo Green & Lauren Bennett?
Love Gun - Cee Lo Green feat. Lauren Bennett by RU2010
It's kind of a tough call.

Neutrino Halloween

The Portland Neutrino Project at the Curious Comedy Theater
"Curious zombies"
October 29, 2010

Curious zombies from Curious Comedy on Vimeo.

Halloween

I'm against dressing dogs up in people clothes, so this year for halloween we let Arlo pick his own costume. He decided to go as the dog who got eaten by pillows. Good boy.

Local Natives

It hasn't been since I first heard Grizzly Bear's album YELLOW HOUSE that I've been this obsessed with a new band / album.
If you are not listening to the Local Natives yet, you need to get on this train.
Their album GORILLA MANOR is the best thing I've heard in a long time. It's been out for 10 months and I've listened to it over a hundred times. I love everything about it.

star wars

I'm not much of a start wars fan, but I thought this was pretty funny.

Scary Neutrino

Pinkerton's Revenge from Curious Comedy on Vimeo.

This show is best seen in the live setting. This movie is created on the fly. The audience is in the theater and we run out and shoot scenes - the tapes are run back to the theater and projected as the next scenes are being shot.

The upload quality is not the best here, as it's a 30 minute movie - but this is a good sample of what the Neutrino Project in Portland is like.

and so we don't end on a scary, bad note - we also do silly movies:

Short Short Jollies from Curious Comedy on Vimeo.

With each live production, the audience chooses the genre.

Right Hand Reg

The new Curious Comedy Sketch show opens this weekend. It's called Right Hand Red and it's game themed. You will receive a bingo card with ticket purchase. When you come in there will be four game stations around the theater where you can play Connect Four, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots and more!
When the show begins, we will pull a number out of our Bingo ball machine and the audience will cross it off their Bingo cards. Each number has a corresponding scene that will be performed. The running order will be different with every show - and if you get BINGO you win a prize! It's very fun, very different and very exciting.
Come check it out Fridays and Saturdays at the Curious Comedy Theater!
Written by and starring:
Alex Gavlick, Bob Ladewig, Don Colliver, Gabe Dinger, Jack Morrison, Joe Boulenbaugh, Josh Fisher, Katie Behrens, Laura James, Stacey Hallal & Virginia Jones

www.curiouscomedy.org

Paris Recap 2

Of course these were in most of the places we stayed. I'm sad to say I never used one...

I saw a lot of fun signs around, which is what most of my pictures are of. Something about the signage of a different culture catches my eye. No walking with children allowed on this small street near Sacrecure.
All of the parks we visited have roped off/fenced off grass sections. People are not allowed to walk or sit on the grass in Paris. All the lawns are well manicured and have little paths cut through the lawns where you walk. In one small park where our apartment was, they even had a tiny section cut out for dogs.
and whatever it is you're thinking, just know that you do not have priority.
In La Maison de La Vache Qui Rit they had a lot of old advertisements all over the walls. This one caught my eye, for obvious reasons.
And while we were there we ate a lot of different cheese, but none of them were as tasteless as this kind... (Ha Ha). My body still has not come back to West Coast US time. I'm waking up between 4 and 5 AM every day. I should be asleep right now, but I can't. Damn you, timezones!

Paris Recap 1

We had a lot of fun on our long trip to France. It's hard to make it all make sense in a recap right here - and I have to upload my pictures one at a time, so I'm doing it step by step. Here is the first batch of pictures and brief explanations of some of the things we did while in France.
As part of our accidental creepy tour of Paris, we stumbled into two different cemeteries, one where Oscar Wilde was buried - and the other where Serge Gainsbourg was laid to rest.

At this park there was a little pond where French children could rent tiny boats to push around with sticks. So Cute.
Check out this lovely park
Hung out around Montparnasse for a while
and of course... the famous french tower thing.

final work day

And finally, after 4 days of working with La Vache Qui Rit, the presentation went well - they're excited about Character findings and now know what their main story conflict is, Stacey has gone to bed... in her new Parisian dress. How adorable.

Back in Paris

We left the small town of Lons at 8 this morning and made our way back to Paris.
For tonight, we're staying in the Hotel Bedford, but we're moving to the Apartment we rented tomorrow. Everyone from Character is doing the presentation this afternoon / evening. I spent a few hours wandering around the area we're in. We're near a huge Opera and everything looks exactly the same. It's pretty touristy with a lot of American stores to shop in. Not sure what I'll be doing tonight, but I'm happy to be back in Paris.

Lons Le Saunier

We took two trains for a total of just over three hours Southeast from Paris. We are maybe 60 miles from Geneva? Something like that. It is a small town that is home to La Vache Qui Rit (Laughing Cow Cheese). We set up the Character camp at Le Maison de la Vache Qui Rit this morning. I'm pretty sure it's the whole reason this town exists. Yesterday, when going from the local train depot to our hotel we asked a depot employee, the guy at a pizza place and our cab driver all "What is there to do in this town?" The most popular answer was "Pfffftttt!" Bonne Chance. The second most popular answer was Masion de La Vache Qui Rit - so luckily that's where camp is.
It is a beautiful French village with a lot of charm, narrow roads and nothing to do. We are staying at Hotel de Parenthese. The Parentheses Hotel... I think they're waiting for something exiting to put between the parentheses...

France arrival

We traveled nine hours into the future over the course of the day/night. I am writing you to let you know - it looks good. I realized that I will not be able to post any of the pictures that I'm taking, so I will have to go back and update each blog post I make while I'm here in France, because my phone has to send my pictures to my account.
I used to be able to plug in my phone and access it like a hard drive, but A) I didn't bring any firewire cables and B) My new phone doesn't even operate that way...
So - I will write up what I want to write and do my best to remember to post pictures at a later date.
We left Portland around 10:30 Thursday morning and flew 25 whole minutes to Seattle.
We then left Seattle headed for Paris around 1:15 pm Thursday afternoon. We arrived in Paris at 8:45 am Friday morning, boarded a train and made it to our hotel.
We unpacked our stuff and went out in search of a light lunch. We found some decent stuff (pictures of funny-named boulangerie stuff and crazy meringue things). Got a good picture of Stacey taking a bite of a gigantic coffee meringue.

It's lovely. Now we have to do our best to stay awake until 9pm tonight - we're fighting off jet lag. ugh.

Home Again

We had a great time away from Portland over the past week and a half.
Saw plenty of friends, family and fun times happening. It's nice to be back home, if only for two and a half days. How cute is this baby???

Stacey and Matt at the alter, about to use the powers vested in them to marry Sarah and Arnie.

A strange upload of a picture of Natalie and Stacey on the Addison redline platform. Hello friends!

Another pretty view of the chapel with our good friends Scot and Holly posing as the happy married couple on a bridge.

where the hell is Galena, Illinois?

We set off around 11 am from Chicago and headed Northwest to Galena. Holy crap is it far away from reality. I can't remember the last time I saw this much corn. Arnie and Sarah's wedding is this afternoon and things couldn't be prettier. It's a strange town, but I can't think of a better place for these two weirdos to wed.

Pictures from our Austin show

The festival had a photographer at every show. We got some good pictures taken of our performance thanks to Roy Moore for taking such great pictures of us.

Friends!

We spent today seeing as many friends as we could. It was so great to see all the wonderful people we haven't seen in far too long. Thanks to everyone for being such great people and listen to us bother you about coming to Portland.

Here's Jay and Melissa with their beautiful baby boy, Colin. We love these jerks.

These are things that make me laugh

remix song:

Chicago 2010

We have been in Chicago about 24 hours now. It hasn't changed a bit. Of course, we've only been at the airport and around wrigleyville - so I haven't seen all my old haunts yet.
There is a huge Target a few blocks North of where we used to live... so I guess that's one change.
I had to pick up one of these today, while I was out grocery shopping for the dinner we're making our hosts tonight.
Our hosts. Sarah and Arnie. They are getting married this weekend, which is the whole purpose for our visit. Don't they already look like a perfect couple, here at dinner last night outside at Leona's..? Too perfect.

New Pals, mini golf

Today, as part of the improv festival we had a mini golf challenge. We were put into teams with other improvisors from around the country and played a two hour round of mini golf. it was great. I was on a group with my friend Joel from Seattle, a couple (Tom and Anna) from Minneapolis, Jeff Griggs from Chicago, and Rod, Raychel and Prescott - who I never found out where they were from. It was a lot of fun... even though it was hot as Texas.

Also, I found a flickr page with a group of photos from our show on Friday. Thanks to Roy Moore for taking and posting pictures of us in action! Click this link::> Jean Louis

Austin

Fun things I've learned about Austin since I've been here
1. Austin's Capital Building faces south so they will have no problem turning their back on the rest of the country when they declare themselves a sovereign nation.
2. Ironworks - a famous Austin BBQ joint with their own BBQ sauce recipe tastes, to me, just like the BBQ sauce at Mcdonalds.
3. Also - they have Texas' most impressive salad bar

Checked in, Checked out (shows)

We made it to the Salvage Vanguard Theater this evening. We checked in and got our badges / T Shirts and we checked out a couple shows.
Grandma Hates Technology was a very fun, cute improv show. A father/daughter team who improvise together. She's twelve (I think) and already a very clever improvisor. They're from New Jersey and they're not muscle-bound idiots!
Available Cup Holders - holy crap. The improvised set they did was hilarious right from the beginning. A group of "actors" putting up a play from the first table read - to the final show night. A ridiculous format for a team of 4 great improvisors. They had us laughing for 45 minutes straight.
Jill Bernard and our host Asaf did their two person set called Switch, in which Jill had the line of the night, "You are about to have the most magical evening of your night." Ridiculous.
She then surprised Asaf with a scooter she has been taking collections for, from the Austin improv community. It was pretty great. He was shocked. Now he'll never have to ask for a ride again.

Good first night for the Out Of Bounds comedy festival. Tomorrow night, we perform!

Hey Austin!

I made a postcard for our show here at the Out of Bounds festival. If you're in Austin, come check us out.

Made it to Austin

We left our home in Portland at 4 am and have landed in Austin.

Hey everyone... Austin is freakin' HHOOTT!! No joke. I forget how spoiled we are in Portland because we have weather. Austin - so far: Dry and Hot.
We were picked up by one of our hosts (Tom... thank you, Tom) and were driven back to Asaf (and Tom)'s apartment, where we'll be staying this weekend.
Asaf then took us out to lunch and grocery shopping so we could stock up and not have to spend thousands of dollars on food at every meal. Look what Texas has. Individual servings of jalepeno peppers, packaged for your convenience.
Also - we have a pair of weiner dogs as neighbors. Fun times. We'll be checking out the festival tonight and performing tomorrow.

Jean Louis world tour!

Tomorrow at 6:15 am our flight leaves Portland - headed to Austin Texas for the Out OF Bounds Comedy Festival. We will be performing Friday night at 9pm. Check out the
Out Of Bounds Festival for more details. I hope to keep up-to-date posts here during the trip.