blacksundae

Gregory Conley over at Your Video Store Shelf (who once gave my own Rise of the Undead a very nice review) is being sued over a negative review. Bizarre stuff. Read all the updates.

It’s me, your old pal Non-Shannon, back after a long absence!

I’ve been keeping busy with The Invincible Czars for the past few months, and I’m happy to report that we’ve finally put the finishing touches on our Nutcracker Suite CD! I can only describe it in vague terms as a sort of rock/klezmer/polka-y madness. I’m on it as a guest musician, since they’d started recording the album long before I became a member of the band, but hey, it’s still awesome!

We’re doing a plethora of shows in Austin and Houston in December playing exclusively Nutcracker stuff. Recently, we’ve appeared on KUHF in Houston (the NPR/classical station) and on Fox 7 News in Austin, so I’m, you know, famous now. No autographs, please.

KUHF appearance

Fox 7 video (their website)

I’m doing my best to try and convince you all to move to Austin. Is it working yet?

My co-worker Tommy changing the marquee at the theater where I manage.

This little bugger was clawing at the window of the theater the other night. I’d never seen one in the wild* before.

*If El Cerrito counts as “the wild.”

You may not know it, but I am the resident musician here at blacksundae. In fact, I’m sure you didn’t know that, as I’ve never posted anything remotely music-related. Well, my friends, that is soon to change.

In college, I played multiple wind instruments, took opera lessons, and even attempted the viola at one point, but ever since graduating I’ve felt out of the loop (all washed up, pink-slipped, etc.). When I moved to Austin, things seemed to get even worse–I landed the squarest job I’ve yet had, as an analytical chemist, and even though Austin is known for its vibrant music scene, I just couldn’t find the right band for me. I guess it must have taken me exactly two years to settle in, folks, because suddenly, things are lookin’ up for Old Gil!

Meet my new band, The Invincible Czars:

Oh, I do love them so. This is the first non-school-related band I’ve ever really performed with, so I’m all giddy like a meddlin’ biddy.

Anyhoo, what this means is that now that I am much BUSIER, I’ll be more likely to post here, especially relating to music in all its various, wondrous forms. Don’t ask me how that makes any sense. Oh, and they have a MySpace, too. I mean, WE have a MySpace.

!

I had a dream last night. I was wandering around a cineplex looking for a specific theater. The cineplex was unique, as it was one theater stacked on top of another, twenty high, with a carpeted path coiling up around them like the exit ramp of a parking garage.

Each theater was decorated differently. I saw a few of them (a Tiki theater, a theater that looked like the deck of the starship Enterprise), but I couldn’t find the one I was looking for, which was covered in a dome of glass. Beyond the glass was salt water and fish and sea turtles. Kind of a reversed fish bowl. I had only seen pictures of this, and really wanted to see it for myself.

After searching for a while, I decided to ask someone and tapped a security guard on the shoulder. He spun around and, to my surprise, turned out to be Fred Ward. We talked about his career for a while. He was still bitter over the critical and commercial failure of Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, and blamed that for his having to do things like star in Tremors II: Aftershocks and work as a security guard.

I woke up right about then.

Speaking of theaters, some of you may know that I work at one now, and am a manager trainee there. Last night I was helping to clean up after a showing of The Simpsons Movie as the credits were still rolling. So I’m sweeping up, and this row of theater seats show up at the bottom of the screen and this pimply, animated teenager starts sweeping around them.

“Being assistant manager isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” he mutters.

I laugh, smiling a bit sheepishly, as I navigate around leaving patrons.

He continues, “Four years of film school for THIS?”

“Oh, COME ON!”

Not cool. Not cool at all.

For 2 instances of the word “shit” and 6 instances of the word “zombie.” [via Eat Our Brains]

UPDATE: Much better. Now it’s an R for five fucks, two hells and a crap.

My grandfather in 1940.

I’m trying to set up a Twitter feed that is updated automatically by the RSS from this blog. Here goes nothing…

UPDATE: Bingo! It works. If you can receive text messages on your phone, you can now get updates whenever there’s a new post on blacksundae!