Dr. Marcelo Venegas, Conscious Based Solidarity: A report back from Haiti.

On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake struck the country of Haiti with an epicenter near the town of Léogâne, approximately 16 miles west of the capital city of Port-au-Prince and its 2 million residents. The earthquake resulted in over 52 aftershocks ranging from 4.2 to 5.9 in magnitude. The Haitian government estimates the death toll to be as high as 230,000 and is expected to rise, with an estimated 1.3 million people displaced. International response called for immediate assistance to the country in attempt to mitigate further catastrophic suffering. One of those individuals motivated to act, was Dr. Marcelo Venegas, a doctor who specializes in HIV/AIDS treatment in New York City. I originally met Marcelo in the mid 1990’s and was fortunate to go with him and his brother, Rodrigo aka RodStarz of the hip hop group Rebel Diaz, as well as dozens of others from Chicago,  to join thousands in Cuba for an international solidarity conference. When I learned that Marcelo was traveling to Haiti to offer his medical expertise as part of the answer to the call to provide immediate assistance in the aftermath of the earthquake, I wanted to offer him the opportunity to share his experiences with the Insight Arts community and all others interested in receiving firsthand accounts of what was experienced the first few weeks after the earthquake.

Dr. Marcelo Venegas, has traveled around the world, and provided medical assistance in the aftermath of an earthquake that hit El Salvador in 2001, has also traveled in solidarity trips to Chiapas, Mexico, Cuba and many other countries. Marcelo graciously allowed me to interview him in the midst of his busy schedule. We began with him illustrating how he arrived at the decision to travel to Haiti.

Dr. Venegas: I have been an HIV doctor now for 6 years and I was working with this group which is the largest HIV organization in the country, located in NYC, called Housing Works. Housing Works has been working with FEBS in Haiti, for approximately the last three years. As a result, there has been an ongoing exchange of people from Housing Works going to Haitian HIV clinics and HIV community organizations already there. After the January 12th earthquake, we mobilized right away. There was actually a Haitian doctor whom I’ve worked very closely with for a long time, who lost her parents. After I heard of that loss, which hit very close, I decided to go and help set up a clinic that had been demolished by the earthquake. About five days after the earthquake, I arrived in Haiti, and created a make shift clinic that we stocked and propped up in one day, and started seeing patients right away.

So this was in Port-au-Prince?

Yeah, this was in Port-au-Prince, in this area called Delmas. We actually worked in two clinics. One is called Diaspora, it was actually a clinic that was run and supported by people in Brooklyn. There was another clinic that we set up outside one of the HIV community organizations there. They call them the HIV Associations and that’s the FEBS Plus clinic. I was there for a total of ten days. We began by announcing on the radio that the two clinics were open. I worked with a whole team including pediatrician who came down from Mass General of Harvard whom I had worked with before. We both belong to a group called Doctors for Global Health which is an organization for which he is the vice president and which I used to serve on the Board member. Doctors for Global Health does work in Central America. With them, I have done relief work in 2001 in El Salvador after an earthquake.  Planning for the trip to Haiti, we originally had a big group of like 8 doctors who were coming. We had a UN charter plane that, because it was really disorganized, ended up not leaving and finally had to pay for our tickets. In the end, only two of us, the pediatrician, Dr. Jen Kasper, and I went. As I don’t see children and she does, it was a perfect fit. We flew down into the Dominican Republic because the airport in Port-au-Prince was primarily taken over by US military flights for the first couple of days. So, we flew into the Dominican Republic, which was how most aid groups were getting in, and we crossed the border into Haiti and that’s how we got there.

At the height of the US military presence in the aftermath of the earthquake, there were approximately 20,000 US troops occupying Haiti. I don’t think the count was quite that high, by the time that you arrived. Did you have any interaction with the military? Did it impede the work?

Yeah. First of all they closed the airport, so, it really was like an occupation. They took over the airport and then sent away the aid groups like Doctors Without Borders and others that wanted to land there, like the Red Cross, etc. They essentially took over the airport and allowed only their military to have priority. So my first encounters with the military were with the airport. When we went to the airport to try to pick up supplies, it was fully militarized with US troops everywhere. They let us in because we had US passports when we went to get our supplies, which was a pallet of stuff that we had sent to us. But what impressed me from being in the airport was how much aid was there and not being distributed. I had patients that needed crutches, I had patients that needed other items that we didn’t have or had access to, that were all there in crates. To this day, the big question remains, where is the aid? It was all in the airport, in these huge crates. I’m talking about rows and rows, almost like a mile of crates that was not getting to the people.

What were the people on the ground saying?

Well the people were still in shock, but I just would have expected this massive immediate tent distribution. To this day, people are using sheets for makeshift tents. They’re not real tents. So the question remains, where the heck are the tents? Where’s the food? There’s a lot of criticism, especially from France and Venezuela and Cuba saying that the United States is taking over the relief coordination, and yet it’s so horribly organized. Then on January 28th, you have Bill Clinton at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the world’s top business leaders and powers, and he’s there asking for trucks, which is ridiculous. With all the aid that countries were sending, the telethons and so on, you would have expected more. It’s understandable that there is a lack of infrastructure because, first of all, there was a complete lack of government presence. And I understand that the UN was hit, the compound was almost destroyed and they lost a lot of their key workers and people who were in charge of a lot of logistics. But the inaction was just horrible. The issue of Haiti is a longer issue, where there was already a disaster before the earthquake in terms of hunger and poverty. I mean severe, severe poverty, where you read these stories with people eating these mud cakes to have their stomachs filled. Before the earthquake, you would have seen kids in a regular clinic that hadn’t eaten in two days, depending upon what sector you worked. But seeing these children still there after the earthquake, in addition to the horrible trauma that people had from facial lacerations to broken bones, to everyone still in shock… I would see patients in the morning and I would see them for 12 hours a day, nonstop. We’d see like a hundred patients a day. I remember everyone was in shock as a result of losing relatives. This one guy I saw for a pelvic fracture showed me a picture of his daughter who had been killed as a result of their house falling on top of them. You can’t even fathom the extent of human pain, you know? So yes, going back to the military question, we’d see military guarding the main hospital shooing people away that would show up for care. It’s the typical kind of the arrogance characteristic of all military. We saw these UN soldiers shoving people away and we actually saw people throw rocks at them.

Oh wow.

Yeah, they’re just so arrogant and the thing is it just doesn’t make any sense. You have this military, that doesn’t even speak the language, in somebody else’s country and just acting extremely arrogant. We went in a motorcade and were separated by the UN who was on the same road. They were passing and told us to go take a different route. I tried to explain to them that our convoy was going one way and if we turned another way we would break up. They were just very, very, arrogant. So they were arrogant to us, imagine how arrogant they are to the people there. The military have just a complete lack of cultural training. They were giving instructions in one place, and giving out food in English. They didn’t know how to work with people. They were trying to read instructions in Creole and got scared when the people began to come, so they packed up and left. That almost caused a riot.

Based on news reports, we knew that the presidential palace was destroyed. Was there any communication from some of the municipal governments in response to what was going on? What was the organization on that level, if any?

The response was almost absent. The one thing that they did have before I left, was this program where they paid people, particularly women, $2 a day to help remove the debris and clean the streets. They wore yellow shirts, so that seemed to at least work; at least people were getting paid, because see the problem was lack of income. Daily life was destroyed. Jobs people previously held were just destroyed. A lot of people would receive money through Western Union. You’d have these huge lines at banks and at Western Union for those getting money from abroad. But I had this sense that the government was just missing, especially the President René Préval government. Préval did this one radio announcement at the beginning and that was it. The coordination, at least from the health field, the main hospital specifically, was passed on to Partners in Health designated by the World Health Organization, not by the Haitian Ministry of Health. I knew the people from Partners in Health and I asked one main guy, “So you guys are running this?” He responded, “No, we’re running this on behalf of the Haitian people,” and I responded, “Yes, but you guys are still running it.” You would expect the Ministry of Health to be coordinating the healthcare and they were just absent. We had this guy at our HIV clinic, who is in charge of HIV representing the Ministry of Health, who pretty much sat in our clinic and said that people had access to HIV medications, which wasn’t true because when we drove down to the main site where the distribution points are, they were all demolished. We even went to the main hospital where he said they were also distributing medication, but people didn’t have access into the main hospital.   This guy would just sit with us in the clinic; he asked if he could eat some food, would hang out, you know, typical bureaucrat giving a bureaucratic answer. He was a doctor too, so I asked him, “Why don’t you help us see patients as opposed to just sitting there?” I felt kind of bad for him even after he asked for some cream for his feet when we were leaving one day. I don’t really condemn him, but how can someone in that position not play a more active role? This is the guy from the Ministry of Health who is responsible for HIV/AIDS. I said to him that these patients really needed their HIV/AIDS medication because what happens is that when you don’t take your meds for a window period, you build resistance to them. And that’s the issue right now in Haiti. You have all these people who are HIV positive, who were on medication, and who haven’t had access in the last two months, and who probably built resistance to re-starting their meds.

What were the rates of HIV infection prior to the earthquake in Haiti?

It’s one of the highest. I believe it’s upwards of 5%. It’s one of the highest in the world. It’s the highest in the Western Hemisphere, which goes right along with poverty. Haiti also has one of the lowest amounts given by the world, by the global fund for combating HIV/AIDS, even though they get a lot of Pet Fund money. The big criticism of Pet Fund is that, it’s a lot of money but it’s a lot of money for the drug industry and the makers of HIV medication, like Phizer, etc. They’re not for generics, there are still many, many, many, I would say nearly a million others that who don’t have access to medication.

What do you think are the political implications of how the earthquake emergency response has been to this point, to the 230,000 who died, and their families who are now living through the aftermath and rebuilding Haiti?

Well, you know, a friend who just came back, this doctor that I have worked with here in New York, came back with some impressions. One was that he said that what he experienced was like a re-colonization. His other impression was that it was like another Katrina. That may explain a lot of this militarization by the United States. He is this very mainstream Jewish guy from New York, Dr. Weinstein, who doesn’t have a lot of politics, but I was touched by his impressions. One thing he was very sharp with, was how all these NGOs are involved in this power play to see what region each organization will take over, in terms of whether it’s the healthcare field, or whether it’s distribution of food, etc. Who should really be responsible, who should really be organizing all this is the government and they’ve taken a back seat to the United States’ role there. I think the political implication is first of all, what’s going to happen with all of these people who are homeless? People who have pitched up their homes in tents and pretty much any plaza, any green area in the city, in the street even, they have blocked off streets, on the sidewalks, anywhere that can be set up with tents. You see these tent cities, refugee camps set up everywhere. The immediate issue is infectious disease. The immediate issue is protection of the vulnerable, like children and women, you know, in particular where there are accounts of rape going on, there are these 5,000 prisoners that escaped from the penitentiary and only 400 who were collected and picked up again. The streams are being overrun with human excrement. There are infectious diseases like dengue and cholera that are huge issues requiring immediate attention. Dysentery, you know, diarrhea, I’ve seen in children, lack of actual access to food. You have these coupons that were given out by the United States for 55 pounds of rice, which is ridiculous, which women couldn’t even carry, and that was a flop. The distribution of food is just immediate. People are still going hungry. So what’s going to happen with these people? There’s really no plan in terms of whether to re-distribute them into the rural areas or some kind of plan for the building of homes or alternate places for them to live. It’s a political issue because the question is, where is the money going to come from and how soon can it be done? The thick rainy season is just right around the corner and it’s really going to be a situation of chaos, where in a lot of areas it is already chaotic.

The Haitian people also have an amazing resolve and it amazes me. I think they are some of the most patient, calm people whom I have ever met. They have a lot of spirituality and they have been through a lot already. Many other people I worked with that were from countries like the Dominican Republic, were saying that if this happened in their country there would be riots, and so forth. Really the Haitian people have been very calm till now. So, in terms of political implications I think there are going to be both short-term and long-term effects where you are going to really see a massive exodus of people, some of which has already started to happen through a small program into the countryside, and into the rural areas. You’re going to end up with massive either shantytowns spreading, or refugee camps, like that which exists in other parts of the world, where you’re talking about a year plus, where people are not re-located and just stay there. Of course that leads to another broader issue related to living in refugee camps and so on. Which then leads to the question of what role will the United Nations play? What role will the United States play and other humanitarian agencies that are currently competing with each other? This is where my friend’s comment returns regarding the NGO power plays and their struggle to see who can get the bigger piece of the pie. Because obviously, a lot of these agencies are getting money to do the work in Haiti, and I don’t know how accountable that money is in terms of direct care to the Haitian people.

In stark contrast with the earthquake in Chile, the loss of life in Haiti is currently

You know I’m from Chile right, Aislinn?

Yeah I know, that’s why I have to bring it up (laughter). The loss of life is significantly higher in Haiti compared to the enormous record-breaking earthquake that occurred on February 27th in Chile. Can you speak to some of the reasons to this immense variance?

Yeah, I think that the immediate response to the variance that comes to mind is the gross national product. Chile, the Jaguar of Latin America, is what it was called, is probably one of the wealthiest, most economically stable governments. With the recent economic downfall, the reason that Chile did so well is because they kept a lot of the industry, the copper, really going and they didn’t invest in the people. Chile continued the privatization of a lot of their resources, particularly copper. Chile has become very wealthy from the Pinochet years where there was complete control (On September 11, 1973, with active support from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),General Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte led a coup d’état against President Salvador Allende’s democratically elected government. Human right’s reports state Pinochet’s government killed at least 3,197 people and tortured about 29,000[1]). You had the Chicago Boys[2], coming in with the Milton Friedman Group[3] which was really the model for neo-liberalism[4], where you have no organized labor, no unions to fight the complete privatization of pretty much all of Chile; Chile where everything that used to be public from social security, to telephones, to water, to electricity all now privatized. The interesting thing about the earthquake in Chile is that it showed the contrast between the rich and the poor, which has been hidden, pretty much by the press and by the Chilean government. There’s a huge mass of poverty that still exists in Chile and has been hidden because of the popular illusion, and image of Chile as a wealthy country. In contrast with Haiti, what are not as affected are the buildings, mainly because of the history of Chile’s strict building codes. In the 1960, the strongest earthquake ever recorded with a magnitude of 9.5, hit Chile and ravished many, many, buildings and killed many Chileans. Chile has a history of earthquakes. So you have these strict codes in the 1960’s that required that every building built had to be earthquake-proof. From that point of view, Chile’s history of being in earthquakes line of the fault, resulted in building regulations that limited the amount of damage, unlike what you have in Haiti. You can still see the wealthier buildings standing, like the US embassy, and so forth that were built with strict codes. These buildings are still standing and being occupied while pretty much every other building, was destroyed or not left standing. In the affected areas, like 70% of buildings were destroyed. There is a long history of poorly constructed buildings in Haiti. For example, in 2008, two Haitian schools collapsed a week a part that had been poorly built killing almost a hundred students. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, so obviously when you have natural catastrophes of any type, the poor are always going to be more affected, whether in Chile or in Haiti, and that’s exactly what you see in Chile. The poor are really, much more affected. Their homes are destroyed, and they are now homeless. There are tens of thousands of people homeless in Chile, particularly in the south where the epicenter of the earthquake hit. Obviously, the wealthy will shack up with their family members; or go to another home, or whatever. In the case of Haiti, where in Port-a-prince, the majority of the people were already poor, there’s really no hope, no alternative housing for them. The Haitian earthquake also affected some of the wealthier areas. When I went to this area called Pétionville, which is like where the wealthy are, after seven days of not having any real access to electricity or running water, in the middle of all this chaos, one of the guys who were working there at the compound said, “Marcelo, do you want to go and have a beer?” I was kind of shocked, I said, “OK”. We went to this restaurant which was like an oasis, with waiters and waitresses, electricity from a generator and running water. This was in Pétionville, and there were a whole bunch of white people there, French, a lot of relief workers too. Here was this restaurant that was open and running, and had the only light in the whole neighborhood. And this is in Pétionville which is like a wealthy neighborhood and suburb of Port-au-Prince. A lot of the houses were still standing. Everybody was still outside because they were scared to go in but it wasn’t as chaotic and crazy as other areas like Delmas or where we were working, where every building was pretty much destroyed.

Camille Chalmers, the coordinator for the Platform to Advocate Alternative Policy, who is in Haiti now and has been there for a while, is communicating via blogs and email, states, “We call on people to found an international solidarity network in the same spirit as the Sandinista international brigades, to help us in reconstruction tasks and also in getting out of our social crisis.” What are some suggestions, you have, or ideas you have for people interested in building solidarity bases here in the States?

I think there is a wonderful opportunity now. I support this group of young women who are going from New York to this clinic on the border with the Dominican Republic in Haiti. My ex partner, who is also a doctor, she’s going down with them in April. They have this whole kind of holistic medicine, more conscious based solidarity approach to working with people. This clinic they are going to has been running for a while on the border. The opportunity is about building.  There is a wonderful opportunity to build international solidarity. The work now is the long-term. The crisis, the immediate crisis, in terms of the traumas, and the effect because of the earthquake has passed. It has experienced this kind of sequella, where either, surgeries have to be re-done or infections are discovered because of poor hygiene during the surgeries. Looking at the more long-term conditions, the concerns are going to be dealing with the poverty and the lack of resources. The opportunity for international solidarity is definitely there and you know, I think it’s always been there. There have been brigades of people who have gone to Haiti in the past, such as Housing Works. Housing Works is an NGO that works with HIV/AIDS at a very conscious and progressive level.  I think this is where people who are progressive and people who see the issue is one of a political nature can really have a tremendous impact in terms of really getting resources there, as has been done with the Cuban Solidarity Movement, or the caravans that go to Cuba in a similar vein. There’s an opportunity to do the same here with the Haitian people and really build a more continuous and pragmatic way to deliver resources but to also really work with the people.

One of the thoughts we were tossing around was, “What if we really kind of had a progressive military?” We would see these US marines, two in the front and two in the back with a US medic or a doctor walking around, (resulting in) teams of five. The group Doctors Without Borders has this sign on their cars that has a rifle with a circle around it and a cross through it, indicating that they don’t have guns. We were saying, “Why is there a need for military here? This is not a war. And if there are military, why are they going around with their guns?” From the UN military to the US military, we were saying, “What if there was a progressive military that was really dealing with aid?” You’d need maybe one military personnel per block in order to have them work with the people to really reconstruct, and to remove the debris. We ran into countless Haitians that were from the United States, working with their families to remove the debris from their homes, either to find dead relatives or to just start cleaning the mess that they had that was their home. So this is an opportunity where you can really have people provide solidarity, but a conscious solidarity that really understands the dynamics of what’s going on there, and understand the historic dynamics of Haiti. Haiti where you have a president that was pretty much kidnapped by the United States and taken to Africa (Jean-Bertrand Aristide)[5], Now is an opportunity to organize people who understand the historic conditions of Haiti in terms of the role of the IMF and the role international powers have played to stop Haiti prospering as a country. I think there is a wonderful opportunity now to build conscious international solidarity with the people of Haiti.

If you are interested in joining a solidarity brigade to Haiti, please send an email to info@insightartsliberation.org. To donate to organizations that Dr. Marcelo Venegas is a part of that continue to conduct work in Haiti, please visit the following link: http://www.housingworks.org/donate/. To learn more about Housing Works’ programs throughout the globe, please visit http://www.housingworks.org/.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/10/AR2006121000302.html

[2] The Chicago Boys (c. 1970s) were a group of about 25 young Chilean economists who trained at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger.

[3] In October 1975 the New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis declared that “the Chilean junta’s economic policy is based on the ideas of Milton Friedman…and his Chicago School” http://reason.com/archives/2007/02/21/the-life-and-times-of-milton-f

[4] Neo-liberlism refers to economic policies based on neoclassical theories of economics that minimizes the role of the state and maximizes the rights of the private business sector.

[5] http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/03/01/aristide.claim/

[Via http://undergroundinsight.wordpress.com]

Producer J. Staffz Interview On The Come Up Show

Toronto producer J. Staffz was recently interviewed on The Come Up Show, a hip-hop and R&B radio show hosted by DJ Chedo. J.Staffz has produced for over 100 artists, including Tony Yayo, Belly, 40 Glocc, Yung Berg, Joe Budden, and Sean Kingston. Watch the interview to hear J. Staffz make a beat LIVE on the show, freestyle, and talk about working with Tony Yayo.

J. Staffz just released his first single “Can’t Say No” on Toronto’s FLOW 93.5 featuring Ashley De Carvalho and Drew James. So get familiar, because the future looks real bright for this producer. Check out his website http://www.producedbyjstaffz.com.

You can catch The Come Up Show on 94.9FM CHRW and Rogers Digital Cable 943 in London, Ontario, live every Saturday from 6-8pm ET or at www.thecomeupshow.com.

[Via http://thegoodiebag.wordpress.com]

C.A. Milson Books Available Soon in U.S. Bookstores

Horror Novelist, C.A. Milson has been in the writing world for years. Milson will see his book “The Chosen: Rise of the Darkness” re-released in American bookstores and online in early April.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PR Log (Press Release) – Mar 19, 2010 – Horror Novelist, C.A. Milson has been in the writing world for years, but it is today that he is finally seeing all of his efforts pay off. Recently picked up by Washington D.C.-based publisher, EDGE Publishing Company, Milson will see his book “The Chosen: Rise of the Darkness” re-released in American bookstores and online in early April.

“I am very excited by this opportunity,” stated Milson. “It’s one thing to be available online, but when it comes down to it, the true book reader wants to be able to go into a bookstore and pick up a copy any hold it in their hands before they purchase it. Being in stores and being represented by a real publisher who is going to have your back in printing and marketing is very important, not only for sales, but for credibility.”
Milson was originally introduced to EDGE Publishing Company by his agent, Charlotte, North Carolina-based, Amanda Clark, who is also President of Grammar Chic, Inc. Clark founded her company in 2008 and has a history of working with authors to help them realize their dream of being published.

“I started working with Chris on an entirely separate project in early 2009, but one day we started talking again and brainstorming and before we both knew it, we were arranging a time to speak with Phil Vera, President of EDGE Publishing. I had known Phil from a book that we collaborated together on in summer of 2009 and I just knew that Chris would be a great fit for EDGE,” stated Clark.

EDGE Publishing Company works with first time authors who are looking for an advocate to help them navigate the sometimes confusing publishing industry. A veteran in the printing industry, EDGE President Phil Vera has surrounded himself with experts in various facets of the publishing trade and has brought together a fantastic team that is going to be releasing approximately ten titles this year.

“I started EDGE Publishing Company to help authors. I had met many people who just didn’t understand the industry and when you have a quality piece of work, this can be upsetting and discouraging. I am proud to say that we are going to be putting many imaginative, incredible stories in print this year, including Chris’s work. I am very excited that I have been able to help him increase his exposure in the U.S. book market, especially since it was challenging for him, geographically, to be noticed,” stated Vera.

Milson, an Australian native now living in Samara, Russia has two television appearances scheduled in March and April to discuss his publishing deal and the re-release of his book. He will be appearing on SOBYTIYA TV on Monday, March 22, 2010 and on SKAT TV Vashe Utro (Your Morning), a local Samara, Russia TV show on a currently pending date in April.

EDGE Publishing Company is located at: 8939 Sweetbriar St., Manassas, VA 20110. You can reach the staff at EDGE Publishing Company by calling: (703) 724-9235. President Phillip Vera can be reached by email at: pvera@edgepublishingcompany.com. EDGE Publishing Company is online at www.edgepublishingcompany.com.

Grammar Chic, Inc. can be reached online at www.grammarchic.net or at (803) 831-7444.

C.A. Milson, through Grammar Chic, Inc., can be reached online at www.authorcamilson.com or at (803) 831-7444.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

For additional information or a sample copy, Contact: Amanda Clark, (803) 831-7444 or info@grammarchic.net. Please reference author C.A. Milson in the subject line of your email.

[Via http://authorcamilson.wordpress.com]

insane grocery bag interview

Insane Grocery Bag: First of all, I’d be a stupid idiot if I didn’t thank you for agreeing to this interview. Thank you.

Jeremy C. Shipp: I appreciate the thoughtfulness, but I never agreed to anything. You drugged me and locked me up in this broom closet against my will.

IGB: Oh yeah? Then why, pray teller, did you sign this consent form?

JCS: That’s a coconut with the words “Greedy Macadamia Nuts” written all over it.

IGB: I rest my case.

JCS: If I cooperate, will you let me go?

IGB: Of course. Like I always say, if you love someone, you have to let him go, and if he doesn’t come back to you, then you never really had him in the first place. I read that in a fortune cookie once, back when I was living inside a fortune cookie.

JCS: OK. Can we get on with the questions?

IGB: Right. The other day, a grape vine told me that you’re a writer. Would you mind writing “Greedy Macadamia Nuts” all over my face?

JCS: You don’t even have a face.

IGB: Then why, pray teller, did I buy this Halloween mask?

JCS: It’s pray tell. Not pray teller.

IGB: If your goal was to hurt my feelings, you just won first prize. Here’s your medal.

JCS: That’s just a tissue box with the words “Smarmy Hoof Cheese” written all over it.

IGB: Moving on. What inspired you to start writing?

JCS: Well, I—

IGB: Wow, that’s really interesting. Do you want me to shave your head?

JCS: No.

IGB: You didn’t let me finish the question. I was going to say—do you want me to shave your head now or later?

JCS: Never.

IGB: My ears of corn must be playing tricks with me, because it sounded like you said, “Feathered Milk Cruise.”

JCS: Alright, I’ve had enough. I just realized these chains are made of spam. I’m going home.

IGB: But Jeremy. You are home. That’s the twist ending.

JCS: Great. Well then, I’m moving back to my old house.

IGB: I didn’t see that one coming! With skills like that, you could be a writer.

JCS: Thanks.

[Via http://jeremycshipp.wordpress.com]

Shin Hye Sung: “My real goal is to pursue singing steadily”

Singer Shin Hye-sun, a member of the group Shinhwa, recently released his second album “Keep Leaves” in his third album collection. In the first album, he attempted various genres including alternative rock, British rock and swing, but the sale results proved unsatisfactory.

But Shin, smiling, said, “My company doesn’t think of it as a failed album. My initial strategy was to have two albums from very different genres comprise my third regular album collection. I wanted to do something new, maybe unfamiliar to the public. But fans loved the album (laugh). So thankfully, now I hear demo tapes not only of ballads but other music genres. My choice has expanded.” His second album features ballad songs, as he planned.

The title number “Why did you call,” composed by Ha Jeong-ho, tells the story of a man who can’t forget his love even after parting. Shin is particularly proud of his recording of “Even if it’s a Lie” written by a member of his concert band. The magnificent string sound of “I’m dying” composed by “Wanted” member Kim Jae-seok is comparable to a film O.S.T.

The ten-track mini-album will also function as a regular album. It topped weekly album sales on a domestic portal, and “Why did you call” climbed to number three on various music sites. Shin says he is upbeat and confident because he has returned to his forte of ballads in addition to the good response.

He says his hope, as a solo singer, is to have a song not only appreciated by fans but becomes a national hit like the Wonder Girls’ “Tell Me.” He said it’s tough for ballads to be enjoyed by all people, but he was inspired by the example of Baek Ji-young’s “I won’t love.”

He also noted that his group Shinhwa has yet to produce a national hit in the ranks of GOD’s “To Mother” and H.O.T’s “Candy.” He said Shinhwa has been a performance-heavy dance group and has thus been less recognized for their actual songs.

He has been a part of Shinhwa for ten years but as a soloist, he’s released just three albums.

He said, “Looking back on my band days, up until our fourth album ‘Hey, Come on!’ I don’t think I knew much about music, why I was singing, what songs worked for us, what the lyrics were about, what the album’s concept was and so on. I just mechanically sang.” Releasing his first solo album, he realized that the many years as a Shinhwa member was actual a “precious asset.” He realized he was even too shy to look straight into the camera, ducking his face in embarrassment.

“I was a complete novice but I couldn’t let it show. I wished I had studied more music from the Shinhwa years. Back then, our schedule was packed; we had no time to think about anything else. Fortunately, band groups these days seem to study music a lot.”

After an 11 year singing career, Shin stated his humble but number one goal: “My real goal now is to pursue singing steadily.”

Source: KBS Global
Credit: seoulfull.wordpress.com
Date: 4 Mar 2009

[Via http://shinhwalegend.wordpress.com]

Are you ready for that interview?

With a tough job market comes more competition and a greater need of preparation for the job seeking, application and interviewing process.  It is important to consider your answers, if not practice your responses to, questions that a potential employer or interviewer may ask.  In talking to attorneys, paralegals and others, I have gathered some sample questions.  I make no promise that these are the questions you will be asked; however, they are probably similar to some that you will be asked.

1.  What is your greatest strength?

2.  What is your greatest weakness?

3.  Where do you see yourself five years from now?

4.  What is the last book you read?

5.  What is the last movie you saw?

6.  What technology/software are you familiar with?

7.  Why did you leave your last job?

8.  If I went out right now and looked in your car, what would I find?

9.  What is the subject of CCP section 2034?  (A question for a person who claims to have experience as a litigation paralegal.)

10.  Do you have any questions?

The “correct” answer to these questions will depend on the interviewer and the situation, but you could prepare yourself by considering what you might respond to some or all of these questions.  It is important to prepare for as much as you can.  Your preparation will be obvious to the interviewer.

[Via http://paralegalessentials.wordpress.com]

Interview with Stephane Le Baube

The interview went well and was very interesting – Stephane hated the idea of the Red Book of Bali !
I did my best to try to convince him that it was beneficial, but he was set in his ideas… he said that a french man tried to do the same thing a few years back and it completely backfired, so hopefully the Red Book has more hope !

He justified his point of view quite well though, he has been working in Bali for more than 20 years now and I think he understands how things work here.. Then again, he might be wrong..

-> to see more about the interview, check out “Villa Bali/Gili”

O

[Via http://redbookbali.wordpress.com]

Kystatic Interview

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. First off can you tell us what part of the UK you from and how you started out as an artist?

I’m Krystatic I’m from the West Midlands, Wolverhampton and I started out as an artist when I was 12 really listening to rappers like Big L, Dr Dre, Nas and Ludacris. I use to see them on MTV Base with there top of the range music video’s and thought thats something I would like to do so from there I started but as the years went on I’m improving my flow and lyrics everytime.

What have you released to date and what would you say was your biggest acheivement in Hip-Hip was?

Well I’ve just released my new album Stepping Out the Box which will be on all download links soon and my biggest acheivement in hip hop is this new album because it has been getting a good responce from people so I’m looking to take that on board and focus on getting as many sales on all the download links RGS distrobute too.

Okay, let’s talk about your new project. Who produced it and what guests are involved?

 The new album was produced by Dezert Rhino, Rico Levant, SX and Smiffey, the guests on this album were Rico Levant, BD and Marisa big thanks to all of those for making this album spectaculer.

When did you start making this new project?

I started this project last year in October there was alot of planning involved.

When is it released and where is the best place to buy it from?

You can get the new album on all download links like Amazon, Itunes, MP3, etc real soon. Park Street will let you know when it will be released for you lot to download.

What formats will it be released on?

Well its going to be a digital release with RGS on itunes, Amazon, MP3, Grime Village etc to download real soon.

Do you think CD’s will become extinct soon because of the MP3? How do you feel about this as an artist?

Me personally no because alot of people still buy Cd’s Albums in shops it just downloading is more quicker for people to get your album than going all the way to HMV to buy it.

For those that don’t know what record label are you currently on and who are your label-mates?

 I’m not signed to record label at the moment but I’ve been working with my cuisin who runs a independant label called Tru Fam records and this where I recorded my songs and got the new album produced.

Can you give us all your relevant website links please?

 www.myspace.com/krystatikal

Facebook Search – Krystatic

Youtube Search – Krystatic

Before you go is there anything you would like to add or say?

Yeah big shout out to Epps, the whole of Tru Fam, Late and Tricksta

Thankyou for taking your time to interview me and people add me on those websites, I’ve got alot of new projects coming up for you lot to check out.

Interview by Tony Mitchell

[Via http://100percentuk.wordpress.com]

Parallels Between Anti-Climate Agenda and the Tobacco Industries Pro-Smoking Campaign

Treehugger.com recently drew attention to an interview with Steven Chu, Obama’s Secretary of Energy, published in the San Jose Mercury News, which draws interesting parallels between the anti-climate change lobby and the efforts by the tobacco industry to discredit the science behind the health issues surrounding smoking.

[Via http://benjaminaddy.com]

INTERVIEW: ERIBERTO ORIOL

We are very excited to announce our newest interview with Eriberto Oriol. . Eriberto was kind enough to let us be the very first to release the pictures he took of Blink-182’s set of their music video “Down” were Eriberto shot his son Estevan Oriol directing the video. Please take some time to read the interview here to learn more about Eriberto, his career, history, and lifestyle. Get educated!

[Via http://xwhereeaglesdarex.wordpress.com]

CANTERBURY interview 05/03/2010

Canterbury are a band on the up. They have recently been getting positive press across the board with their poppy brand of post hardcore modern day emo style rock (a description I‘m sure they won‘t thank me for but it does ring true). I met up with the two front men an hour or so before they took the stage at their recent show at the Westcoast Bar in Margate.

PW: So can you introduce yourselves

L: I’m Luke and I sing and play the keyboards in Canterbury
M: And I am Mike and I sing and I play the guitars in Canterbury, well, just one of the guitars. The other is played by James.

PW: Fist off and a most obvious question really. Why name yourselves Canterbury? Have you links to the City?

L: We knew we would be asked this question here of all places being so close to Canterbury. We haven’t ever played in Canterbury and this is the closest we’ve come.
M: We are saving playing in Canterbury for a better time I think.
L: We’re going to say for now that the reason is that we checked an online census and the City in England with the most Luke’s, Mike’s, James’, Scott’s and Bens is Canterbury. That’s the one we are going to give to Margate today.

PW: That’s the thing before I heard your music with a name such as yours I imagines either a progggy 70’s influenced sound or a straight up hardcore din? I didn’t expect at all what came out of the speakers. Canterbury is an odd choice of moniker don’t you think?

M: It’s largely to do with being just a pleasing word, when it’s written down, when it’s spoken.

PW: What about on a Google search, that’s got to be a tricky one?

M: We’ve only just got on there, if you type Canterbury now I think our YouTube video for Set You Right or our MySpace is the fourth entry that comes up now. We’ve beaten the City… almost (Laughs).
L: It’s working towards a sponsorship deal with Cathedral City Cheese
M: And the rugby team deal.
L: They can make us a nice kit. An away kit sponsored by Canterbury.

PW: You’ve been together since school and being so young in age have you found it difficult being taken seriously and because you are still a tight unit a few years down the line do you see peoples perceived opinions about you have changed?

L: I think that depends on the way you act. We’ve now had four years experience and we do get taken a bit more seriously than we used to and of course it depends on how the music comes across as well for instance when you show up to a gig and people are like ‘Who are these little kids?’ but whoever your playing in front of are the important ones. I think now that we have been around for a while and people know of us now I’d hate to think that we are not taken seriously. You can always trump a sound guy by beating them to questions before they ask you and you have a little fun with it that way. We have accepted that sometimes we do get treated like morons but then there are as many times when we get treated seriously as well.

PW: Some of this may stem from the press that you have received in the past. A lot of articles pick up on the fact that when you started out you were not allowed to play live because of school. What is the truth behind that?

L: Well, four of us were in boarding school in Hampshire. It wasn’t that we weren’t allowed to play live but it got in the way, a lot.
M: We had school on Saturday afternoons.
L: Playing gig’s were not the easiest things to do. When you’re boarding you can’t say like, ‘Can I Go and play a show tonight?’ Playing a gig on a Wednesday night and having school at 8.30 in the morning…

PW: Could you still pull it together at all for weekend shows?

M: Every now and then we would play a weekend show and in the holidays we would try and play as much as possible but we never played that much.
L: Instead we just wrote an album, we felt we had one year left of school so we took it semi-seriously and got ourselves a bit of education. We sat back and wrote an album so at least when it was time to play loads of shows we didn’t have just the three songs.
M: We really did just focus on the writing because it wasn’t really an option to be on the live scene at that stage.

PW: So you wrote this album during down time at school and after all the work you guys had put into the process you decided to record it in someone’s living room. It seems an odd and risky choice, how did that come about?

M: Yeah, Scott’s living room. We had the album planned out and we practiced the album and only that, rather than have 20 songs and picking 11 or whatever we had what we knew would work. There were a couple that did get taken out and replaced but we always had that (core). We had to record on a budget and we found this Pete Miles guy who at the time who was freelance. He was mobile and had a van full of gear and can literally make you sound so good.
L: Wherever you are.

PW: That is a good point. From the first listen the album sounds like money as if a huge budget has been blown on the thing.

L: It took 3 weeks and £3,000. There are some records that I wont in any way mention but you here how much money they spend and how shit it sounds as compared not in such to our record but the quality of the production of our record. Cheekily we did it. Why would anyone want to fly to America to record an album? I just don’t know. It’s not a scrappy album and I don’t think we expected it to come out as it did If I am being honest because all we had were these songs that we had been practicing in a village hall before we ever played live and then all of a sudden when we come to record them they sound way more in time than we do, not that we synthesized any of it artificially but because Pete Miles was so on the ball and he knew exactly how to capture everything we wanted to do. It just came out sounding better than we were. So for the next 6 months we basically had to learn our own record. And live we are sort of developing the songs our selves. Now we are 2 ½ years down the line and that’s where we are at now.

PW: So it’s been an age since you completed the recording then? Do you get bored of playing these songs now?

L: I wouldn’t say bored of the songs. We started writing the record between the ages of 16 to 18 and we waited until we were 20 and 21 to release it. Opinions do change but we didn’t grow out of it but we almost forgot it was our record and did other things.
M: we’ve only been playing maybe 5 of these tracks since we’ve been playing around and it does get a little degrading. On the flip side as soon as it was released and you see people knowing the songs that only you used to know.
L: It completely re sparked our love for it.
M: It gives the whole thing a new lease of life and there is not a song on that album now that I don’t enjoy playing live.

PW: I imagine you are tired of talking about it by now but the whole free download thing in hindsight for a new band is such a masterstroke.

M: For the first 2 years after we finished it we did knuckle down and try and get it released and then we thought about paying for a 1000 copies and just giving it out to people in our local scene because that’s how new bands do it. Then our manager found us and luckily we got a booking agent as well and it was they who convinced us to keep it under wraps to see what our options were.
L: A lot of people were thinking where has this band come from? They have this album that sonically sounds like a second or a third album but we basically could not play live.
M: We couldn’t play the record as people knew it; we scared quite a lot of people off.
L: Because we hadn’t been on the live circuit we had no one to release it to. I mean locally we were known and people from our school knew us but we had to wait for a platform in order for us to release it. We didn’t want 20 fans around the country and the record drips on for a few years and you get a miniscule fanbase so we toured for 2 years, built a fanbase of thousands rather than tens and then we released something to them that they could all get at the same time. Our manager was quite reluctant at first about the free download.
M: We didn’t have enough fans to physically release an album to.
L: For me it should be the done thing with a new band, how else can you get as many fans as possible? We can’t charge £10 for a CD when nobody knows who the band is. You can’t expect them to buy it. Saying that we now have released that album for free and we don’t know whether we are expected to release free records for the rest of our lives. There are so many people out there that want an actual CD though, to be able to read the lyrics. I would not want to ever do a release without having a physical copy as well.
M: Films, fair enough. People can pay £500,000,000 for a film to be made. We paid £3,000 to make our record. We paid for it and I would like that money back but we are alright without it. We have an amazing album that we are so proud of out of it.

PW: (As the doors open and a huge throng of people pile into the venue). Well I can tell you that in Margate you would not have a crowd of this size unless you had done the free download.

M: If we had have charged we would have sold maybe 1000 copies by now. That’s great, we would have grossed a bit of income to put towards a new van or fixing the van or fucking petrol. Doing it this way we had 10,000 downloads in two months, released it in the end of October and by Christmas had 10,000 copies out there. Of course if we had sold 10,000 units labels would be snapping us up. I’m not sure of the final figure but it is somewhere between 15 and 20,000 thousand now (05/03/10). We have had this donation scheme as well and people have been coming back and giving a bit of money, £3 here and £4 there. Some have just given a tenner and said fuck it it’s a good album or whatever.
L: The day we put it up we were in Birmingham on the Billy Talent tour and my phone was going crazy with all the people commenting on twitter and facebook. It was so exciting after waiting 2 years for people to have it.

PW: And why the title Thank You?

L: It was always the title; it was the title before we had the songs. I’m not really sure why. I think it was a case of ‘that would be a cool name for an album’.

PW: So what’s with the medical theme, Diver, Accident, Ambulance, Hospital all appear to follow a narrative path?

M: We don’t like to go too far into it because we don’t want to come across and this profound or annoyingly arrogant band but we did write a little story.
L: It was meant to be more fun than say an album that is just a collection of songs. We had those three songs Accident, Ambulance and Hospital which followed the narrative of a person in these situations. So we had these words as titles and when it came to writing the songs we fit the words to each song which is why it flows like it does. It’s there as a clue but fit’s as to what they are about. We came out with this because you asked about it. We haven’t gone around saying ‘We have this debut concept album’

PW: But it is always mentioned in reviews.

L: A lot of people have picked it up. And we wanted to create that (buzz) as well. I can’t ever imagine releasing music that is simply a collection of songs. It means a lot more this way for us playing it and a lot more for listeners working it out. The best albums always have some journey through them.

PW: So now you have reached the next level from local band to getting write ups in the national press and playing on big tours, how has playing with the likes of Cancer Bats, Hundred Reasons and Billy Talent in the larger venues affected your attitudes.

M: We had a period during the summer before the Billy talent tour where we did absolutely nothing and we were feeling like we may never play to anyone new ever again. Then in quick succession we had the Billy talent tour, then the Hundred Reasons tour and then we went out on our own. Our first ever headline tour and I was blown away everyday by the turnouts. Even in a place like Stoke, 100 people showed up and there were people singing along to every song. It was what we had been waiting for all that time.
L: It was an amazing step down though; we had just come from being first on a proper big tour, these little boys in these huge rooms. It was a steep learning curve. Those huge shows were really pressurised. If you fucked up, you fucked up in front of thousands rather than dozens. It was an interesting time last year getting a sneak peek of every aspect of success for a touring band.

PW: Stepping out in front of a huge audience for the first time must have been nerve wracking?

L: We’d played with Enter Shikari and You Me At Six a couple of times so we sort of had been there before.
M: Yet at Brixton Academy when we walked into the backstage area we turned into tourists. Everybody had their phones out. The balconies that never have anyone in them, I’d never seen them from that side of the venue.
L: And there is an evil security woman that’s always there and you could just flash her a pass and you were inside a room where only rock stars go. It sounds really corny but it was an absolute dream come true.
M: It was weird to go to the merch stand and see your t-shirts for sale, 100% dream come true. A massive live box was ticked. At the same time though it kinda feels like we earned it. It felt like we had been working towards that and we weren’t thrown in at the deep end. And of course playing venues that size you can grab yourself an instant fan base. And it was the middle of that tour that the record went active online.

PW: So what about the future, has a label picked you up or do you want to continue down the online route?

M: It’s only our friend really who put out the physical copy. He does work on an A&R desk at Atlantic records but he runs the Friends Vs Records label. It does have Universals distribution so we kind of have a foot in the door but it was nothing like ’Here is a load of money guys, I’ll put this out”. He is a really cool and hard working guy but it’s not like it’s label backing really.

PW: So you really are in the same sort of boat as you were previously in the fact that you don’t know how the next record is going to come out?

L: Definitely, yeah. We have this single, Gloria coming out on April 5th which is going to be a free download as well. We have been plugging this away to get on music TV and it’s on a couple of channels already. This should take us up to the summer time. I would like to be able to do a DVD of our story, it’s a fun tale.
M: As for being picked up, there are certain things a label can do for you. One of which is to be played everywhere which is the side of a record label that we really want. But they will pay for billboards and advertising in return for people paying full price for your album but what we could really do with is money to keep us afloat.
L: If I didn’t have to work a job I would be able to focus 100% on the band. After every tour I have to walk back into Tesco’s and it is the most depressing 9 hours of anyone’s life. So for that reason and I will completely unashamedly say it. I would love to get signed.

After the interview the band proceeded to rock the house. Mark in particular was completely chuffed with the turnout and reaction of the Margate crowd proclaiming the gig as his favourite ever show to the young sweaty throngs piled in front of him. I personally was on the fence with them, they are great at what they do but what they do isn’t really what I like. Saying that though, the guys managed to win me over. The song Eleven Twelve in particular is still stuck in my head today. What was most surprising was to find after an absence of Margate gigs for 4 years now there is still a crowd out there, hungry for live music. The future looks very, very bright indeed.

[Via http://wallernotweller.wordpress.com]

Esquire China - Green Leaders

[Via http://samanthanguyen.wordpress.com]

Local H's Scott Lucas In '02: 'Sometimes It’s Almost Better To Be Poor'

Scott Lucas seems pretty hungry these days. Not too long ago, he cranked out his solo debut, George Lassos the Moon, under the somewhat deceptive moniker Scott Lucas & the Married Men. And soon he’ll be turning his attention back to his true spouse, Local H, with a bevy of tour dates from mid-April through early June.

For posterity’s sake, here’s a Local H piece I scribbled in early 2002, around the release of Here Comes the Zoo. Here, the article finally sees the light of day online. As sarcastic and sardonic as you’d expect, Lucas also meditated on poverty and class struggles, the loss of hope – and “Big Momma’s House.”

—

Scott Lucas, the brainchild behind rawk duo Local H, is in your fucking face. Sardonic, bitter and downright hilarious, the Zion, Illinois, native is at one moment ready to tickle your armpit, then rip the rug from under your feet in the next. A sampling of song titles from his four-albums-deep catalog proves it in a nutshell: “She Hates My Job,” “ ‘Cha!’ Said the Kitty,” “All the Kids Are Right” and “Mayonnaise and Malaise” just skim the surface. In concert, the point is driven home even harder; at a recent pit stop at Los Angeles’s renowned club Whiskey, Lucas entered the stifling, sold-out venue in a massive gorilla suit. And he had it in mind to do the entire late-2001 tour in the thing, no less.

“A couple shows into it I realized it was a pretty stupid idea,” Lucas says in a recent phone conversation from his on-off Chicago base while taking a break from watching “Big Momma’s House.” “I was wondering how long I could do it until it didn’t become funny anymore, and keep doing it until it got funny again. That’s what I occupy myself with these days, those kind of thoughts.”

That and churning out some killer rock ’n’ roll music. Coupled with his indispensable sense of humor, Lucas is the creative genius behind a bass-guitar combo instrument which has allowed him to keep his Local H unit confined to himself and a single drummer – once the towering Joe Daniels, now former Cheap Trick drum tech Brian St. Clair.

But that’s not all, folks. With their indie cred permanently intact, Local H has accomplished a feat that, while seemingly brushed off by many, is indeed the ultimate-yet-unattainable aim for most. Read: airplay. “Bound to the Floor,” from 1996’s As Good as Dead (Island), became the sleeper radio hit of the year. The irresistible “Eddie Vedder” followed, granting airwaves one of the best lyrics to come out of the ’90s: “If I was Eddie Vedder, would you like me any better?”

The long-overdue Here Comes the Zoo also contains a swatch of tunes solid enough to nab the well-versed listener’s ear, but catchy enough for radio-philes: “Half-Life,” the first single, “Creature Comforted” and “Keep Your Girlfriend Away From Me.” Local H’s first release through former Island chief Chris Blackwell’s new Palm Pictures imprint, the 10-track effort might not reach the mainstream listener, but is a winner all the same. As for Lucas, he’s just happy to see the record – Local H’s first since 1998’s Pack Up the Cats – hit the stores … and without any corporate sponsorship to boot.

When Island was bought out by Universal, Blackwell quickly launched Palm and invited Local H to come on board. “I was ready to go there from the minute that that idea was brought up,” asserts Lucas. “He [Blackwell] has that kind of maverick spirit where he wants to beat the other guys at their own game, but wants to do it his way. And I really respond to that.

“I don’t feel like going to Palm was a step down in any way,” he adds. “We’ve got the resources that we’ve always needed. I don’t have to worry about someone swooping in and buying the thing. It’d be stupid for me to sign to another major-label corporation.”

Despite their new indie-label status, Local H managed to rope in another top-name producer for their fourth album – Jack Douglas of John Lennon, Cheap Trick and Aerosmith fame. Though he recruited Roy Thomas Baker (Queen, The Cars) for Pack Up the Cats, Lucas says he wasn’t expecting to land another legend. In an odd twist of circumstance, drummer St. Clair ran into Douglas at a wedding for Cheap Trick’s manager, who quickly agreed to produce Here Comes the Zoo.

What unique slant did Douglas offer to the album? “We wanted to make a record that was a little more rough around the edges and representative of what we’re like live,” says Lucas. “And some of Jack’s greatest records do that – the records he’s done for Aerosmith and Cheap Trick are very rough-and-ready. I don’t know what it is, it seems like people come to our shows and seem surprised at how we sound live. We were just trying to figure out how to get that onto record.”

Aside from the roaring riffage – furthered by visits by Queens of the Stone Age shredder Josh Homme and the Misfits’ rambunctious Jerry Only – Here Comes the Zoo is, lyrically, Local H’s bleakest outing. Says Lucas, “There’s some grim stuff in there. Not a lot hope. On all of our records, the last song always seems to give off a glimmer of hope. On the first record there was a song called ‘Grrrlfriend,’ it was a little cherry on top. The last record was talking about ‘It’s a lucky time with everything improving.’ And this record ends with a mass suicide.”

“What Would You Have Me Do?” is a 25-minute foray into a dark netherworld – the first half a creeping death, the second an atmospheric afterlife clogged with fuzzy, distant noise that furthers the macabre feel. Says Lucas. “I wrote this like it was New Year’s Eve 2000 and what was going to happen. I thought of all these people getting together in a house and drinking cyanide and killing themselves. That’d be quite the New Year’s Eve party.”

For the faint-sounding part two, Lucas and St. Clair held a microphone outside their studio window near Times Square, where they caught a variety of incidental noise: people buying Broadway tickets, a man clanging on a steel drum, cars and motorcycles chugging.

“If you listen real close you can hear me scream and shout,” Lucas says, “We wanted to do it for the vocals and see what we could get. We got sirens and a bunch of stuff by accident. We were listening to it and realized that it’d be really nice to have on the record. [You can] pretend you live in downtown New York.”

On a more socially conscious note, the last cut resonates with what Lucas signals as the album’s mission statement of sorts: “The whole record’s about selling out, getting old and losing your edge. What do you do, just give into that, or cut your losses while you’re still ahead?” “Rock and Roll Professionals,” for example, is a direct assault on bands more than ready to cash in their dignity for a Gap commercial appearance. The album title itself is a reference to Iggy Pop’s sarcastic jab “Success” from Lust for Life.

Though invariably linked with Local H’s transition from major to indie, the anti-establishment concept reaches far beyond just the music industry. “Half-Life” is about class struggle: “The upper class has a vested interest in the working class staying the working class,” Lucas declares. “The way beer commercials and everything is sold to poor people is to keep them there. Those people aren’t really given any handouts. A college education is so expensive, it’s not so easily obtainable. If you’ve got a station, your kids are going to be at that station, too. It just goes on and on and on. The only way to really get out of it is on your own.”

“Creature Comforted,” however, is a sharp critique on the self-made man. “If you climb that ladder and acquire all these possessions, in the end they possess you,” he continues. “You get fatter, older, you lose your edge. You don’t want to leave your apartment or house, you don’t want to stop watching TV. You stay inside the little cage you’ve built for yourself rather than keep yourself interested in what’s going on. And in that respect, I think sometimes it’s almost better to be poor, to keep yourself hungry. That’s better than getting fat and dying.”

Local H are slated to hit the road the day their new record is released – March 5. An eight-week tour will commence, followed by another potential headlining leg or opening slot. Per usual, guests will hop on stage to fill in with guitar solos, tambourines and toy pianos – instruments four arms can’t manage alone. Lucas sounds eager to hit the circuit again and perform in front of Local H’s typically mixed bunch.

“It’s really hard for people to get a handle on what our crowd is,” he opines. “I’m not really even sure what it is either, but I think the people who know the records inside and out are a diverse group. It’s nice when you see 15-year-old chicks up front toughin’ it out. I’ve never seen us as a macho-idiot band. It’s nice to have that reinforced.”

—

Somewhat-but-not-really-related:

• “Iggy Pop: ‘I Didn’t Want To Sell Out’ The Stooges
• “Iggy Pop Transcript, 7.18.03: ‘I Was Shooting Dope At The RIAA Awards When It Wasn’t Chic’
• Anti-Death-Penalty Hangman

[Via http://thebadpennyblog.wordpress.com]

5 Of The Best - Personal fitness tips

Published in Matchbox magazine

Matchbox brings you a very special Five of the Best this month, courtesy of fitness guru Matt Roberts.

In the depths of the last recession, Matt Roberts moved to London with an idea: he’d identified a niche in the market for personalised training, where athletes or regular clients could get tailored help in reaching their fitness goals.

With no banks willing to lend, he had to put in some hard graft to raise the necessary funds. But raise them he did and in 1995 Roberts managed to set up his first one-to-one training centre within a former art gallery. Today he owns four plush personal training gyms across the capital with a client list that boasts the likes of John Galliano and Naomi Campbell. The following are Roberts’s top tips on keeping healthy in 2010.

Interview with Laura Holt.

1. Staying Motivated

Set a distinct goal and a date by which you want to achieve it. Be crystal clear and devise a reward for yourself for when you reach that target – and a forfeit if you fail to make it. Your goal could be that you want to get into a certain size dress for a special occasion, for example. So buy the dress in a smaller size that realistically matches your target. You’ll have an incentive for getting your weight down – or you’ll have wasted your money.

2. The Fun Factor

The best way to avoid monotony in your routine is to mix up the intensities – with things like interval training – and by varying the activities. Part of the reason why triathlon has become so popular is because advocates can vary training up by going for a run one day, then a bike ride or session in the pool the next. It’s important to allow yourself a mental and physical break. Make sure you have different patterns you follow. Sit down on a Sunday night and plan your activities for the week ahead to help stimulate your workout.

3. Eating Better

The average female consumes between 85-105 grams of fat each day, when it should be no more than 60 grams. With men, the ratio’s roughly the same: we’re consuming 80 per cent more fat than we should be. Where possible, remove saturated fats from your diet (commonly found in fried foods and dishes with rich creamy sauces and cheese). Stay away from ‘bad’ fats (many mass-produced biscuits and the like still contain unhealthy trans fats), and focus instead on the ‘good’ ones, in sources including fish, nuts and seeds.

4. Working Out

One of the most effective ways to work out is through interval training. At least twice a week, throw a hill session into your running or cycling routine or change your speed when swimming for a minute or two. Push yourself really hard, to the point where you couldn’t carry on any further, then recover for same time. Keep this up for 45-minutes and it will raise your metabolism phenomenally. Working out at a constant pace raises your metabolic rate for about 8 hours – with interval training, the afterburn effect lasts for up to 48 hours.

5. Warming Down

When you’ve finished an exercise session, you really need to stretch. Cool yourself down by bringing your heart rate down slowly. For example, if you’ve finished a run, spend five minutes gradually reducing your pace to a slow walk before finishing by stretching all muscles.

VIEW THE ORIGINAL PRINT VERSION

[Via http://lauraholtlondonfreelancejournalist.wordpress.com]

Interview with Nick James

Nick James is the Seattle-area author of a forthcoming sci-fi series tentatively titled SKYSHIP ACADEMY. Hi, Nick, and thanks for talking to The Spectacle! Let’s dive in:

Q: Do you have a release date yet?

The first book in the series will be released by Flux in Fall 2011.

Q: Can you tell us a little about the story?

It takes place in a post-war America transformed into one big desert after a string of chemical bombings. Some folks have retreated into the sky, living on city-size crafts called skyships. Others have sought refuge in the Government’s Chosen Cities, protected from the elements by enormous domes. Both sides fight over mysterious green orbs that began falling from the heavens shortly after the bombings. They call them Pearls — and just one can power a skyship or Chosen City for months.

The story follows two teens on opposing sides of the struggle. Hapless slacker Jesse Fisher trains at Skyship Academy, preparing to steal Pearls away from the corrupt Surface government. Meanwhile, Cassius Stevenson works for an elite team of government operatives charged with powering the Chosen Cities. When the two clash — developing mysterious, frightening abilities — they’re pulled into a battle that threatens to unlock the true mystery of Pearls and trigger a new war.

Q: What drew you to this genre?

I was drawn to sci-fi and fantasy at a very young age. I grew up on comic books and went especially nuts over the big, multi-issue story arcs in my favorite series. Epics, I’d call them. I like reading about worlds that require some imagination, people that are relatable on a human level but get swept up in amazing, crazy adventures. I think children’s and YA writing is often the best example of this kind of storytelling. Kids aren’t afraid to express their imaginations and demand books that cater to that.

Q: What inspired this particular story?

I wanted to write a book that combined elements of some of my favorite contemporary adventure series (ARTEMIS FOWL, ALEX RIDER, MAXIMUM RIDE) with the kind of voice and characters from my favorite coming-of-age novels (THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER). So the initial spark was more of a mood and tone than a specific story. As the plotting fell into place, I drew on influences from my childhood, like the dialogue-rich storytelling found in comics and graphic novels. I ended up writing the series I would have picked up and loved as a kid, while making sure it was smart enough to appeal to my (slightly) more grown-up tastes now.

Q: What has been the biggest challenge so far in the writing or your path to publication?

I think any story that requires a lot of world-building is inherently challenging. You want to make the characters’ world feel plausible and real without overstuffing it and making it burdensome for the reader. A lot of my revision dealt with this. It was fun exploring this futuristic world and bringing it to life.

I feel that my path to publication has been relatively pothole-free. As with any author, it’s a lot of work, but I’ve enjoyed every step so far.

Q: What’s the craziest thing you believe in? Or how else is your imagination expressed in your life?

I really believe that life would be so much more interesting if it were a musical. I’m patiently waiting for the day when everyone suddenly bursts into song while going about their daily routines.

A few years ago, my fellow camp counselors and I decided to put this theory to the test and declared an all-singing day. The kids just sort of glazed over like we’d suddenly gone insane. The all-singing day lasted for about an hour. I guess that kind of shoots the whole thing down.

Q: Or maybe you’ll have to write that musical world! What did you read most as a kid?

I started out with comics, for sure. I was a really good student but always a little bit of a reluctant reader, as many boys are. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I started reading novels outside of school.

But I was always a writer. From my own fledgling comic book series, to an entire shelf’s worth of chapter books, I was my own little publishing empire.

Q: If you could live in a sci-fi or fantasy world not of your own making, which would it be? Why?

As clichéd as it sounds, I’d have to say Harry Potter’s wizard world. I’m not sure there’s a single person who’d turn down the opportunity to enroll at Hogwarts. It’s such a well-realized world. In fact, I even took a teaching internship at a school in England, half-hoping that they’d present me with a wand or something. Alas, no magic, but it was an amazing experience all the same.
Or maybe Philip Pullman’s England in the HIS DARK MATERIALS trilogy. It would be fun to have my own daemon!

Q: What are you working on now?

The second book in the SKYSHIP ACADEMY series, which will be out in 2012. On top of that I’ve always got other projects in the works, some finished, some just beginning.

Thanks for dropping by, Nick! Readers interested in connecting with him can find him on Twitter and Facebook, and we’ll look forward to catching up again between now and next fall!

— Joni, who’s ready to enroll in the Academy now

[Via http://thespectacleblog.wordpress.com]

Tests & Treatments : Virtually Amazing

Download Tests & Treatments : Virtually Amazing

Allison and Bryan are talking about Solitary 4.0 Episode 6! Going over all the spins, putts, punches, lies, mazes & air guitaring like the champs they are. All that and an interview with Bea Henington AKA #7!

Get a hold of us!
Website : www.NotMakeFriends.com
E-Mail : podcast@notmakefriends.com
Phone : (206) 202-3261
Twitter : @NotMakeFriends

[Via http://notmakefriends.wordpress.com]

rob mclennan Interview @ The Torontoist

My “critical interview” series continues in the electric pages of The Torontoist’s book section. In this, the fourth incarnation, I spent some time with the prolific poet, novelist, and essayist, rob mclennan. The headline at The Torontoist says that I “drop the gloves”, which might be true (why ask question if they’re not going to be hard ones?). But I don’t know, looking at the final interview with a hockey metaphor in mind, I would suggest that a colour commentator would describe this interview as chippy. It was a chippy interview, especially in that first period.

Anyway. rob should know three things. A. He has my respect, B. His Richard Brautigan book was the first collection of Canadian poetry I ever bought that wasn’t written by someone named Cohen and C. I like some of his books more than others. Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of the interview. But you’re better off clicking here and just going to the full thing.

**

jacob mcarthur mooney: well, to start, i’ve decided to adopt as much of the rob mclennan personal grammatical lexicon as i can: lower-case letters, few periods, etc; consider it both a homage and my personal stanislavskyian method-interviewing exercise. anyway, you’re a guy who publishes a lot of books; between the novels, the poems, and the essays we’ve seen as many as five new titles a year. my first question pertains to rob mclennan’s cutting room floor: what’s on it? anything? are you someone who writes at a prodigal clip, and then pares away; or are you someone who finds an eventual home for most of what he begins as a first draft?

rob mclennan: first draft never even makes it out of the house; editing happens regularly, and even daily. hell, i just cut 20% out of a poetry manuscript that im still trying to find a home for. you wouldn’t believe what gets left on that “cutting room floor,” including whole manuscripts. but why do i keep having to counter notions that everything i publish is first draft, and everything i write i push to publish? there were 3 unpublished novels i abandoned before white appeared in 2007, and 3 others not given up on yet, some going back a decade. some of those long essays (McKinnon, Fiorentino, Suknaski) took up to eight months to compose, revise, even with daily work. my second poetry collection was six years between the first few lines and final publication.

everything takes its own time, im just a few books ahead. apparently Kinsella is always four books ahead, between writing and publishing, in that queue. would he ever be asked the same?

[Via http://voxpopulism.wordpress.com]

Chef Vindex Valentino Tengker - Kerja Sambil Bulan Madu -

Chef Vindex

Harumnya bau makanan menemani sesi pemotretan kami bersama chef Vindex Valentino Tengker di main kitchen Hotel Four Season Jakarta. Senyum dan gayanya terlihat begitu luwes dihadapan fotografer kami. Vindex ternyata bukan orang yang sulit untuk bergaya di depan kamera. Maklum, ia terbiasa berhadapan dengan kamera dan lampu studio sejak menjadi chef di program “Taste of Indonesia” sebuah acara memasak yang ditayangkan Metro TV dalam session Indonesia Now.

“Sejak kecil saya biasa membantu nenek saya di dapur dan melihat bagaimana dia memasak. Dari sanalah muncul ketertarikan pada makanan, dasarnya saya juga memang suka makan dan cocok makan apa saja. Saya rasa memasak adalah bakat karena ada orang yang juga senang memasak tapi selalu gagal. Nah, saya tipe orang yang sebaliknya, mungkin tangan saya dingin untuk memasak. Setelah besar, akhirnya saya putuskan sekolah di perhotelan dan mendalami ilmu memasak ini,” ujar Vindex panjang lebar.

Pilihannya tidak salah, karir Vindex melesat cepat di dunia masak-memasak ini. Ia merintis karir di Amandari Hotel, Ubud Bali sebagai Indonesian Chef. Selanjutnya bisa ditebak, Vindex pun mondar-mandir menjadi chef di beberapa resort hotel dan bahkan sempat merasakan bekerja di Mallorca, Spanyol dan Los Angeles, Amerika Serikat. “Waktu tahun kedua bekerja di Spanyol saya baru saja menikah. Jadi saya boyong istri sekalian bulan madu di sana, itu pengalaman yang menyenangkan,” ujar Vindex sambil tersenyum.

Berbincang dengannya serasa tidak membosankan, sikapnya yang ramah membuat obrolan kami siang itu terasa hangat. Ya, kami ibarat dua sahabat yang lama tidak bertemu dan akhirnya saling bercerita kabar masing-masing. “Dulu sewaktu baru saja merintis karir sebagai chef, saya sempat gugup ketika disuruh menemui tamu dan menanyakan bagaimana rasa masakannya. Bagi saya hal itu tidak mudah, seperti orang yang baru belajar pidato di depan banyak orang.”

Pengalaman yang cukup dikenangnya adalah ketika pertama kali membuat makanan khas Indonesia untuk tamunya. “Waktu itu kami bikin rawon. Karena tidak tahu, bumbu buah kluwak yang kami pakai kualitasnya jelek sehingga rasa rawonnya pahit. Wah, harus bikin ulang deh dan lebih teliti lagi dengan bumbunya.” Kini selain dikenal piawai mengolah masakan Eropa, Vindex juga mahir menyiapkan berbagai menu khas Indonesia.

“Waktu tes memasak menu Indonesia, saya harus menyiapkan 60 menu Nusantara dalam waktu dua minggu. Ini tantangan dan akhirnya bisa saya lewati. Tamu-tamu mancanegara sekarang banyak yang suka makanan Indonesia, tidak lagi nasi goreng dan mie goreng, tapi juga rawon, nasi campur Bali dan menu-menu lainnya,” ujar pria yang telah dikaruniai dua anak ini.

Di usia yang relatif muda, 29 tahun, untuk ukuran chef eksekutif hotel bertaraf internasional seperti Four Season, Vindex tentu punya banyak pengalaman bertemu dengan orang-orang penting yang menjadi tamunya. “Ya, profesi ini memang memungkinkan untuk itu. Diana Ross, Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, Nicolas Cage sampai Donald Rumsfeld, Sultan Brunei Darusalam dan Ratu Belanda adalah beberapa nama yang pernah menjadi tamu di tempat saya bekerja. Meskipun tidak secara langsung bertatap muka dengan mereka tapi rasanya puas jika masakan kita bisa cocok dengan selera mereka. Beberapa tamu negara punya aturan sendiri untuk menu makanannya, kita tinggal mengikuti standarnya saja.”

Bukan tidak mau membuka usaha sendiri jika Vindex masih tetap setia bersama Hotel Four Season. “Tawaran untuk membuka resto memang banyak datang ke saya, tapi saat ini belum direalisasikan. Saya masih ingin berkeliling ke luar negeri dan kesempatan itu terbuka bersama Four Season yang punya 73 hotel di 22 negara seluruh dunia. Suatu saat nanti saya pasti akan memikirkan untuk stay dan membuka tempat sendiri. Bisa dimana saja kan, tidak harus di Indonesia?” ujarnya mengakhiri obrolan hangat kami siang itu. (yuk)

[Via http://pakdedungpret.wordpress.com]

There Is An Air About This Side Now

Arsenal did the business yesterday, 3-1 at the Emirates. Though it could very easily have 6 or 7-1. Needing to win by four goals to go clear at the top of the table, Arsenal created more than enough chances to accomplish that feat. The only problem was that most of those chances fell to Nicklas Bendtner, who had one of the most shocking matches in terms of finishing I’ve seen in a long, long time.

It’s a bit harsh to criticize Bendtner as he took it in stride and consistently got himself into great scoring positions all afternoon. Perhaps more importantly, the crowd stayed behind him even when he came off with a thin 2-1 lead. It was a stark contrast to the reception Emmanuel Eboue received last year after a similarly tough match. It seems that this season the supporters have far more belief in the side and are more predisposed to support the team no matter what as we are only two points off the top.

The star of the afternoon was Theo Walcott. Before the match, I wrote that Theo needed to brush off the criticism he’d received midweek and not try as hard as he did against Egypt to have a “big game.” Well, he did that. He could’ve easily had four assists to add to his goal. He used his pace intelligently (take that, Waddle!) throughout the entire match and more importantly the midfield was looking for and finding him.

Theo consistently got in behind the defense and, even more encouraging, consistently delivered quality final balls into the box from wide positions. I don’t remember a better all-around performance from Theo. It was a sharp rebuke to the harsh criticisms he endured following a disappointing match in mid-week for England.

People seem to forget that he is not even 21 and his action has been limited all season due to being overworked during the summer when he played for the U-21s. As he said in his post-match interview, physically, he feels as if his season is just starting. A dangerous, pacy Theo Walcott flying down the right gives Arsenal back a dimension which they had been missing with Theo out injured for most of the season.

I’d also like to point out the performance of Samir Nasri. Having been similarly affected by injuries this season, Nasri is also beginning to hit his stride. His assist on the first goal was sublime and, after Fabregas came off, he played well down the middle. There were some tense moments when Burnley equalized, but the side grabbed the match by the scruff of the neck and Theo broke the deadlock with a smartly-taken left-footed shot just inside the box.

The return of Arshavin was equally encouraging. Today, we saw what we have been missing with Arshavin and Walcott out. If we are to make a serious challenge, we need Arshavin and Theo back to full-fitness and firing on all cylinders.

Fabregas came off with a bit of a hamstring problem, though he was already getting ready to come off when he scored the opener. Wenger says he will undergo a late fitness test before the match on Tuesday. Obviously, we will need Cesc to have our best chance at going through to the next round of the Champions League. He didn’t look particularly hurt and it appears that the substitution was more precautionary than anything. I would expect to see Cesc starting on Tuesday night.

After having most of the side away for the entire week and playing against a Burnley side that was not similarly affected by the international fixtures, we once again showed mental strength after the equalizer. The win sets us up well for the visit of Porto on Tuesday night. We have built some momentum here and need to keep it going. Getting through to the quarterfinals of the Champions League would only add to this side’s growing confidence.

The sense of confidence and belief growing within the side is almost palpable. There is an air about them when they are on the pitch in difficult circumstances during a match. You feel that they will find a way to get the job done. Now we must overcome the slight deficit against Porto and keep our march towards the League and Champions League trophies.

THEO WALCOTT POST-MATCH INTERVIEW

ARSENE WENGER POST-MATCH INTERVIEW

[Via http://arsenalstation.wordpress.com]

Fátima di Santis: I was in love with my bag

Fátima di Santis, Brazilian handbag designer, did an interview with me last month. We already published on the GEVACRIL Lifestyle@Acrylics Blog, as well as on my personal blog. Fátima has great designs, unique and creative. Surely this blog will tell more about this designer in the future!

Enjoy reading the following interview!

KIKA: You are a fashion designer. Why did you choose this profession, and how came your specialization on  handbags?

Fátima: I started getting interested in fashion when I was still working as a hair stylist in São Paulo, but because I didn’t have much time left I couldn’t study at that time. When I moved to Curitiba my friend had a sewing machine and a roll of fabric, the more I tried to work with the machine the more enthusiastic I got, and started feeling like really learning it. In the beginning I used that same roll of fabric for everything. I tested until the fabric was used up.

My friend’s uncle, who is a fashion designer, was moving his atelier and he gave me some pieces of really nice material, I got very happy, because the material was really “Haute Couture”. So my first bag was done! The design was simple but the composition was sensational in my opinion. I was in love with my bag. Then I got a partial scholarship for a fashion course at SENAI, it was great and I learned a lot and so I became a Fashion Designer.

Bags are important accessories, I love making them and I love wearing them, I also adore Haute Couture and I want to make clothes too.

How do you create your designs?

My inspiration sources are infinite. When I am cooking for example I get some ideas looking at the shapes and colors of the vegetables, then I make a paper draft and try to realize the idea. When I am in my atelier I get inspired by the materials I have. In general it can be anything:  shapes, arts, cinema, TV… I am always seeking for something new and testing different things.

What is the speciality about your patterns?

I love colour compositions and using different materials. I am very happy with my work. I have a good partnership with a furniture designer who donates all his left over materials to me and I make beautiful pieces out of them while having low costs.

Since you are a Brazilian, what do you think is the typical Brazilian part in your creations?

Brazil is multicultural, it is colourful, beautiful, charismatic, open to the new, emergent, rich and above all sunny. Yes, there is a lot of Brazil in my creations!

While producing your handbags you have a focus on environmental issues as well. Can you explain us a little about this?

Many times, quite frequently, I use materials that normally would be thrown away (80% of my bags are made by using left over fabrics). So I am doing something good  to the environment and at the same time I gain something with it. It is really fulfilling, but it is not always possible to use left over materials, because I am focused on the “exclusive”.

What does the expression “individual style” mean to you?

It means to have your on style and opinion without corrupting yourself. I love the fashion world, I can impose my style into the fashion and change it. I use the fashion, it can dress me and also help me but it won’t change me.

You are selling your handbags basically on the Brazilian market and you are now exploring Europe. Can you tell us where our fashion girls and boys can find your bags?

Actually, I have friends from many different countries and most of them have my bags, so they are in Japan, New Zeland, the USA, England, Scotland, Argentina, Germany, among others.

The fashion girls and boys can find my bags on my Blog and they can place orders through my e-mail.

What’s your next step?

To learn other languages and improve the ones I already speak, English, Italian and French, and then: Conquer the world!!

Thank you Fátima!

Kristina, thank you very  much!

Merci beaucoup!

Gracie!

Dankeschön!

Obrigada!

__________________________________________________________________

More about Fátima di Santis:

Blog: http://fatimadisantis.wordpress.com/

Contact: fatimasantis(at)yahoo.com.br

[Via http://kikasfashion.wordpress.com]