Last year, I was given the tremendous opportunity to play at my cousin’s wedding. It was easily the most memorable performance that I’ve ever had, hands down, and as equally stressful. A month before the wedding, Matt and his soon-to-be wife, Amanda, had requested that I play a song during their first dance as a couple, with one stipulation: the song couldn’t be a cover; it had to be one of my own. Matt and I mulled it over for a bit before coming to the very real conclusion that, at the time, I didn’t have a song appropriate enough for such a memorable occasion (other than “Harder to Stand”, which, lyrically, would be a poor, poor jumping off point for a marriage). So, I told Matt and Amanda I’d write them something in a few weeks and have it ready to play on their wedding day, October 1.

This is the end result, aptly titled “First Dance”. Crank it. This track isn’t yet mastered.

It took more than two or three months to get this recorded, in between daily reporting and pesky night meetings with the newspaper. On weekends, I’d tinker (there’s really not a better word) with it, fiddle with piano parts. The following week, I’d sneak back up to the attic and put down a bass line. Break for another week, then come back to do vocals. Go snowboarding, sleep and re-record guitars. Come home from work and mix. And so on. Glad it’s finally done. Onto the next track.

Lyrics:

Do you mind if I stay for a while,
and find a home in your goodness?
And usher the mornings in,
from here ’til eternity’s end?

(As sure as day is night,
a spinning world and turning tides
For you my heart will yearn
as sure as dawn’s return).

And this, appropriately, will be track 1 in what I predict to be an 8-song record that I’ll be tinkering with this year (Quick word: Last year, I had planned to do a record, got about four songs in and thought, “Nah, let’s start over”. I’ll put those songs out sometime).

I’ve got about five other tracks in the queue, ready to get laid down. Per usual, I’ll post the songs as I finish them. Hope you like.

Keep in touch,

Lou

Early today, our Kickstarter campaign finished up after 35 days on the circuit. Not only did you, faithful friends, help meet our $3,000 goal, you obliterated it by a cool $400. That, for lack of a better word, is rad.

All I can say is thanks. Thanks for your time in following our project. And, certainly, thanks for contributing your hard-earned dollars. All for a film that a large majority of you have yet to see. We hope to change that very soon.

There were about 100 of you who donated. It’s been fun going through the list of names — I see some of my longtime friends who I grew up with, Charlotte, NC coworkers and friends (looking at you, South County Regional Library), a couple of “Oh wows” (Anne Flournoy?! TED Fellows?!) as well as a few folks who are relatively new in my life. Truly blessed to know you. Thank you to:

Mandy Caster
Nicolas Pakler
TED Fellows
Chad Luzier
Matthew
Mark A Brisky
Dan Gigante
Matt
Rusty Mott
Josh Karst
Jayson Greene
Mark Riley
Debby Mooney
Ritter4life
Jamie Shaner
Lisa Scanlon
Ann Hurlburt
Nichole Gonzalez
Maggie Perrigo
Jeremy Neely
Rick Trietley
The Froebels
Stephanie Farr
Michael Mitri
Emily Hurlburt
Saprina Wilkins
Cherie Lunger
Valerie Goole
Jim Sauer
Ashton Neff
Michael Cole
Bill LaRue
Sue Swihart Bastiani
Charles Fiegl
Dave Demarest
Ryan Michelle
Kelli Dochstader
Dale and Pat Metler
Roseanna Wilson
Crystal Luzier
Delon Basdeo
Peter W. Taylor
Jonathan Sean Kugel
Margaret Kunz
Bill Brand
Joyce Sico
Anne Flournoy
Susan “Gidget” Landgraf
Matt Retchless
Jeff Telford
Matt Alpaugh
Kevin Fleischmann
Madeline Z.
Jon Barton
Nicholas Waldron
Pat Waldron
Rob Hurlburt
Connie Mooney
Ben
Daniel
Valerie Hedlund
Mike Connelly
Kelly
Stacy Orlowsky
James H. Perry
Tony Burke
Piggy and Tink
Justin Follett
Sandra Dorn
Elizabeth Budnik
Joel Colombo
Kelly Hoolihan
Jason Ortiz
Jeff Streitel
Lindsey Glover
LORI
Ed Dittenhoefer
Krista McConnaughey
Katie
Richie Barie
Aaron Kiffer
Seamus Mooney
Lisa Helms
John Bennett
Katie Kemp
Haggs
Bryan Greene
Molly Josephine
Mary Karst
Brad
Mary Kallenbach
Ed Kowalczweski

Next up, Hurls will be entering “Zeus” in precisely 17 film festivals AND putting together the DVD packaging for those who received a copy as a Kickstarter incentive (wait until you see what Hurls’ insanely talent sister, Emily, put together. SICK.)

And, on the music front, I’ll be releasing a new track off the record sometime in the next two weeks. More on that shortly.

My good buddy, Matt Alpaugh, has a very rad site up at www.indiefieldguide.com. Recently, he’s been posting similarly rad videos of his and his new wife’s excursions.

One of his most recent videos features a mumble-y song of mine, called “Dirty Dozen Dimes”, a leftover track from the Zeus Soundtrack project. Have a look (and listen), and then be sure to keep regular tabs on the Alpaughs, their site and Matt’s band, These Are a Fisherman’s Favorite Dreams.

I always figured I’d make a poor salesman, and there’s been little evidence over the years to prove otherwise. Making a pitch has never been my thing, unless the product or commodity worth pitching is worth a damn. This, my friends, is one of those instances. Let me don the saleman’s cap for the next few graphs.

If you, the reader, and I have shared a conversation in the last couple of years, or, at the very least, you happened to stumble upon this blog and its inconsistent posting schedule, then you’ve likely heard about an independent film I co-wrote called, “Zeus”.

It’s about a dead gym teacher and a few of his former students, who reconnect in Western New York to pay tribute. Well, the film is finished, and we’ve set up a Kickstarter campaign to help raise funds to get it into some festivals. Here’s a link to our Kickstarter page, where you’ll find everything you want to know about the film.

We’ve set an ambitious goal to raise $3,000 to help cover entry fees into festivals and pay back my writing buddy’s sister, who pitched us a grand and a half for film insurance. So far, our friends and, humbly, a few strangers have donated more than $1,500 toward “Zeus”. This on top of the $700 folks donated during our three screenings in Olean and St. Bonaventure University (Those funds partially covered the cost of film insurance, which was $1,500 total).

For those unaware, Kickstarter is a wonderful asset for DIYers trying to fundraise for projects that would otherwise be fiscally impossible. It works like this: Artists set the target dollar amount for their project as well as various incentives for donors; people donate; only after the goal is met does the artist get any of the money.

With that said, we are currently at the halfway mark of both our targeted goal and our 30-day deadline. This means we have 15 days to raise another grand and a half.

Friends, we need your help to meet our goal. Consider making a pledge – $1, $5, $500,000, whatever. Or, at the very least, send this message along to your friends and tell them you know these two, rad Olean and Hinsdale, NY, artists, who dig their hometowns so much they wrote a goofy movie about it. And, get this, the movie that they wrote and filmed for basically nothing, casting their friends as “actors”, is actually PRETTY DAMN COOL, particularly the soundtrack, which was written and recorded by this dude in his apartment on Garage Band (Speaking of which, have you downloaded the soundtrack? It’s free right here ).

By making a donation, you directly help us get “Zeus” out there and get some sweet shwag in the process. Please consider getting involved and pass the word along. We’d appreciate it.

Thanks for reading,

Lou

Well, it’s another year gone. Another list of January goals reduced to a heaping pile of ha-has, mixed in with some victories big and small and, in retrospect, 12 solid, satisfying months. Yes, as Old Blue Eyes once sang so sweetly, it was a very good year.

The end of December is when I skim through my book journal (Yes, I have one. Shut up), scroll through iTunes and – new this year – pull up our house’s Netflix catalog for the reads, listens and movies that meant the most to me in 2011. Most were not, in fact, released in 2011.

Onward!

All things being said of a great 2011, it was a bad year for reading. Not nearly as much time to read this year and the majority of books I did manage to finish were merely so-so or, in the case of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick”, about as enjoyable as passing Skittle-sized kidney stones. (As for the lone “new” book: allow me to state for the record that, despite receiving literary fellatio from countless periodicals — except from the NYT’s Book Review, strangely — Murakami’s “1Q84″ is so incredibly, tragically, epically dull.)

On to the books:

#1                          #2                       #3                         #4                      #5

“Atlas Shrugged” is the hands-down winner. Epic, philosophical, poignant, eye-opening, wrist-splitting, all of those things. This was my second read through “Underworld” and enjoyed it more so the second time around. Delillo still occupies the top spot as my favorite author, and his 1998 novel, walking through 50 years of Cold-War era America, is simply put a staggering piece of art. “Malcolm X: Life of Reinvention” provides insight into the complexity and brilliance of a man most know through his seminal autobiography. A hard look – flaws and all – at an influential American orator, writer and leader. “The Imperfectionists”, a book for any print journalist, a novel consisting of 10 or so newspaper men and women of varying levels of proficiency and tact, struggling to find their way at a fading newspaper. “Homer and Langley”, a short book about two reclusive brothers living in downtown NYC, who try their best to shut out a changing America and fail.

Films. We’ll keep this brief.

     #1                          #2                         #3                          #4                       #5

1. Sarah’s Key 2. The King’s Speech 3. Social Network 4. Get Low 5. Biutiful

Music. It’s always a good year for tune-age. With so many bands hawking records, it’s never been easier for the casual music fan to sit back and let the best records float to the surface.

I remember as a teenager scouring mp3.com (anybody remember those days?) for unknown pop-punk bands. Those days are long gone. Technology changed, and so did my priorities. Today, I do little searching; great records – and the buzz that precedes them – find me. A couple of the newer records on this list, for instance, were placed in my hands by friends who insisted that I give it a listen. Bon Iver, Joy Formidable, Justin Townes Earle, M83 were records that friends (sometimes persistently) threw into my lap.

1. Bon Iver s/t – beautifully done. “Perth” is song of the year. 2. Refused “The Shape of Punk to Come” – Bratty, pissed-off hardcore. Timeless. 3. Justin Townes Earle “Harlem River Blues” – simple songs with strong melodies. The title track is classic. 4. The National “Alligator” – Gave this record some serious time this year. This band’s catalog is just stellar. 5. John Coltrane “Blue Train” – great dinner-making music, and the lady and I made plenty of dinners. Also made for smooth, trying-to-meet-deadline-on-this-f@%ing-school-board story. 6. M83 “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” – epic Euro electro-pop. This was my “I Wouldn’t Have Enjoyed This 5 Years Ago” Record of the Year. 7. Ryan Adams “Easy Tiger” – this was Year 2 of delving deeper into Adams’s stuff. At this rate, I should get to his newest record sometime in 2025. 8. Joy Formidable “The Big Roar” – I was hooked after “Whirring”. Loud guitar rock that’s not afraid to get a little shoe-gazy. Enjoyed this immensely. 9. Fleet Foxes “Helplessness Blues” – for a record that sounds so beautiful, it just doesn’t grab me. I’m baffled by this. Still, a few phenomenal songs on here. 10. Wu-Tang Clan “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” – I listened to Wu’s debut for six months while applying for jobs. I owe them.

Honorable mentions: Miles Davis “Birth of the Cool”, Radiohead “Hail to the Thief”, Sam Cooke “Definitive Collection”.

Time to punch the clock on the week and head home for Christmas. Bona’s game tonight. See you at the bar afterward.

Reporting live from the Buffalo Morose site: My partner in crime, Jeremy Hurls, has undertaken an ambitious and bitchin’ video project for December. Dubbed “ViDeocember”, he’s shooting a short film each weekday throughout December and posting it on the site.

Have a look. The Christmas Tree one is just precious.

Such a short post would normally be best suited for Facebook or Twitface, but this movie was so damn good, I thought it deserving of its own post.

Happy December. Be happy.

For weeks now, I’ve been haphazardly following the Occupy Wall Street events across the nation, not really sure how I felt about the cause. My initial feelings toward the Occupiers were of criticism for what I assumed to be the usual gutterpunks and djembe pounders, waving their fists at The Man, demanding generalities. Some would argue that I’ve just described the Occupy movements to a T, and they might be right. Who knows.

Little by little, though, my thoughts on the Occupiers collective efforts have softened a bit.

I had a conversation with a relative over the Thanksgiving holiday, and, passionate as he is about such things, this person proceeded to recite the usual reasons why the Occupy movement is useless, an aimless waste of time.

“What are they fighting for?” “What do they hope to accomplish?” he asked repeatedly.

After monopolizing much of the conversation, I changed the subject to something else. Afterward, mulling over his vehement opposition to basically everything, I came away thinking that whether or not Occupy embodies a unifying cause is beside the point. People are pissed off. That’s the cause, and frankly it’s great to see. We should be pissed off.

A few days later, I received a text from a friend who recommended Matt Taibbi’s masterful piece in Rolling Stone on Occupy Wall Street.

Sums up, I think, the feelings of not just Occupy sympathizers but the majority of us dulled by the impending arrival of what Taibbi so eloquently describes as “another turn on the four-year merry-go-round, and the thought of having to try to get excited about yet another minor quadrennial shift in the direction of one or the other pole of alienating corporate full-of-shitness [that] is enough to make anyone want to smash his own hand flat with a hammer.”