Joe B

Comic Con 2009

2009-07-19T22:10:13Z

Just checking if anyone else is going... Thought maybe a couple of people on my friends list might be headed out.

I'm getting in Thursday bright and early. If I'm not too wiped, I'll try and post links to pictures in the mornings...

Neat, Neat, Neat

2008-11-07T02:57:20Z

Cool -
The Damned on the Craig Ferguson show for TWO nights - their first US exposure since God knows when.

First show...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS-r-ir90sc

Not Cool -
Craig Ferguson's intro to the band

Cool -
Dave continues the tradition of wearing a tux to live shows

Not Cool -
Dave tries to establish the new tradition of wearing a monocle...

Cool -
The bass line rules no matter who plays it (Capt. vs. Stu)

Not Cool -
Capt. tries too hard with the guitar behind the head thing...

Cool -
I still get a major chub from the band

Not cool -
I get a chub over nearly 50-year-old dudes...

Compare and contrast to the Damned that I grew up with...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgGmQvqtZUo&feature=related

Dave's leather pants still look cool. I was ten years younger, but the Damned were still 20 years old. This is the Damned I fell in love with...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG7uXsvhe8U&feature=related

Ahhhhhhhh.... What the F*&K happened?!?!? Why am I so OLD!!!!

So what have we learned? Joe's old. The Damned rule slightly less because they;re getting old (the new album is still better than Springsteen's or AC/DC's). Monocle's? Never a good idea.

But, I still love Dave and the Captain. And while somewhat cheesy - since it's in the middle of an 80s British comedy - I'll leave you with the moment I fell in love with the Damned - a clip from the Young Ones...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yElzKHKA9fc

The Big Time

2008-03-14T23:16:24Z

Hey, I've finally made it!

joezilla @ 2008-02-13T22:29:00

2008-02-14T04:41:08Z

Well, I was just complaining that no one on my journal commented on the trailer for Tsunami Beach Club. Then I realized that I had not yet posted it. Be aware... Anthony (who directed the film) hates the trailer. He said that the trailer makes the film look like a cheesy horror film instead of a psychological thriller. I told him, "since you don't have the right for final cut on the film, don't be surprised if it IS a cheesy horror film."

For those of you interested, here is the trailer:

http://breakoutent.com/film/tsunami_beach_club.php

I've been promised a "story by" credit by Anthony, so we'll see how that pans out once the movie is released. The film is on imdb, but they don't list story credits, so I'm still on the edge of my seat...

joezilla @ 2007-12-22T17:14:00

2007-12-22T23:20:38Z

	I received 92 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds here Canon powershot

By the way - the trailer for "Tsunami Beach Club" is up and online here. Anthony hates it, as he says it makes it look like a cheesy horror film, when the script was much more of a psychological thriller. I say, "if the shoe fits"...

Hopefully, I'll see the final cut before end of January and will be able to make a better determination. Next up, we're writing a Western and hoping the same production company will pick it up.

I am so out of it.

2007-10-30T00:04:04Z

Why didn't anyone tell me about this?

(I'm looking at you MFBob...)

It's Official

2007-08-24T03:01:18Z

Anthony just left me a message. Filming on "Tsunami Beach Club" is locked and 100% set to begin on 09/22. The filming schedule is complete and will run a full two weeks.

I'm working on a final rewrite tonight based on a few more notes we received. Anthony is gearing up for production and is, apparently, already working on logos and promo materials.

Tomorrow I'll be pricing flights to LA and trying to negotiate some free time from work to head out to work on the set. I'm not sure what I'll be doing, but Anthony says that they can always use another PA willing to work for free in exchange for a film credit.

joezilla @ 2007-08-18T19:14:00

2007-08-19T00:24:03Z

Well, it's official good news/bad news. The good news is that the movie definitely got the green light. Filming is set to begin in LA on 09/16. The shoot is scheduled for two weeks. I'm going to try and fly out for at least the first week in order to hang out on set and help with any last minute rewrites.

The bad news is that the producers told Anthony that Jeffrey Combs is definitely out. One of the producers has a personal connection and was hoping to get him at below-market rate because he has a break in his schedule. However, he declined the offer. I can't really blame him - when I heard what they were offering vs. what a typical rate would be, there's a wide gap. Still, it was nice to dream...

In the meantime, the producer of "Tsunami Beach Club" has asked us for three more treatments - a "teen sex comedy", a "thriller", and another sci-fi film. We've packaged up two thriller treatments that we already had written, and Anthony has asked me to move forward with the teen sex comedy. At first, I thought that the teen sex comedy was so far outside my wheelhouse that it wasn't even worth considering. After a couple of days spent mulling it over, though, I've got what I feel is a decent concept. I'm hoping to pound out an outline tonight (no pun intended) and have the treatment done by end of next week.

But, you know, I was thinking. Based on the actual human experience, shouldn't the teen sex tragedy be a much more common genre?

Here Comes the Big Rush

2007-08-14T03:53:33Z

Just a quick update before bed...

Big shout-out to mfBob. I haven't seen Bob in almost a year, but he managed to make the time to come check out my new home last Saturday. Good wine, good friends, and good tunes. What more could you want? For the first time in a decade, we collaborated on a drunken mix CD - and I can't for the life of me remember half the songs on it. I'll have to ask Bob for a copy next time he's out this way.

Got some good news on the motion picture front. After far too long, it looks like one of the scripts that I authored with my friend and (sometime) collaborator, Anthony, will actually be produced. I wrote the outline for "Tsunami Beach Club" with Anthony over nine months ago. Way back then it was because the film production company he worked at was asking for a "haunted house" movie. After producing "Snakes on a Train" (not Plane, Train...), Anthony had some disagreements with the company and they parted ways.

To make a long story short, he's now working with another production company and they've given the greenlight to "Tsunami Beach Club", which after half a dozen rewrites is now more of a gonzo/sci-fi film than horror. The new company he's working for isn't so much into horror as the last place he worked.

Through the re-write process, I introduced Anthony to the works of H.P. Lovecraft. There were many parallels with the new version of the script he was working on to other Lovecraft stories I had read, so I sent him links to a couple of short stories, and he drew some inspiration from them for the latest revision. As luck would have it, the producer of this movie knows, and has worked with Jeffrey Combs. As of tonight, there's a 50/50 chance that Combs will be playing the lead role in "Tsunami". WE'll have a definite yes/no by Saturday. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Anthony will also be directing this one, and principal photography starts either the week of 9/15 or 9/23. I'm hoping to get some time off work (and away from home) to go out to the set for a week.

If this one goes well, they've approached Anthony about signing to do three more movies with them, so I'm furiously trying to create full treatments out of the other outlines we have written over the last year.

I'll post more as I find out more info.

P.S. - Alicia, if you stumble across this entry, I lost your e-mail address. I posted mine as a reply to my previous post. Drop me a line...

For those who love LOLCats

2007-07-08T15:09:16Z

Here comes LOLMetal:

http://warehouse.carlh.com/article_141/

Sorry, Bob - no Belfegore... But I think we need some photos of Jon Mikl Thor or GuyMannDude.

joezilla @ 2007-01-28T18:14:00

2007-01-29T00:14:53Z

Well, it's been quite a while since I've updated. I just wanted to stop in and let everyone know how it's going.

There's been a lot of excitement in our lives over the last year - providing me a myriad of excuses for not keeping this journal updated as frequently as I'd like. Let's see if I can break this down to one piece of news at a time, so as to increase the chances that I might actually post again in the very near future.

The big news now is that we bought a new home. With the girls getting bigger, seemingly by the minute, it was time to get out of the old house and into a new one. I think that the photos and online tour of the home are still available online here:

http://tours.tourfactory.com/tours/tour.asp?t=305182&slink=0

We close on the house Februry 1st, so the pictures will probably come down on that date.

For the last month, we've been living in my parents' basement apartment while waiting to close on our new home. It was just too hard on Angie to try and keep the home in condition to show, as well as to leave the house on short notice when people wanted to tour the house. So, we've had limited access to e-mail and no access to our old home phone number. Most of our stuff is in storage, and it's amazing how little of it we need on a day-to-day basis. We've been considering moving since about last March, when we thought we were going to move to Lincoln (which is another story). We started moving things into storage way back then and I've only had to go back once to find something that I needed.

As for our old house, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we finally have that one sold, too. We have an offer on the house that is contingent on a home inspection that is set to take place on Wednesday. I know the person buying the house, though, and trust that he'll close on the house as scheduled. We've already talked about the cosmetic things that need work, as well as the little stuff that needs repair or replacement. He's planning on fixing all that himself and turning the place into a rental property. As long as he keeps to his word, everything should be done and closed by Feb. 22.

Hopefully, we can then put this behind us and move on to the next adventure.

joezilla @ 2006-02-15T20:02:00

2006-02-16T02:06:37Z

A small part of me just died...

"Are there any pirates on the ship?"

2005-09-11T04:59:23Z

I was supposed to see the Bucs play the Vikings this weekend (a game I think that the Bucs *can* win). But I couldn't find anyone to go with me.

I was supposed to see Devo play a few weeks ago in Chicago, but I couldn't find anyone else to go with me.

Anyone noticing a theme here?

I did get to see a Cubs game while in Chicago, though, which was an OK consolation prize - even though the Cubs choked the game away.

My hatred for Boston grows by the day (Sorry, Jess...) I'll explain soon. Especially since I've now purged my friends list...

Should the Bucs win tomorrow, I'll celebrate like a madman. Should they lose... well, I expect them to lose, so it won't be too distressing. That means things are finally back to normal.

Two quick things...

2005-08-14T04:39:56Z

I'll be in Boston this weekend to meet with the management of Major League Lacrosse - coming in on Friday morning, seeing the game on Friday night and leaving Sunday morning. Anyone else going to be around in Boston around then?

Also, there's this, too:

You're all about the music. Not too incredibly
mainstream, but not too incredibly underground.
It's awfully hard for anyone to oppose you,
seeing as how you rule.

What band from the 80s are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Good Luck

2005-07-01T02:55:03Z

Only time for a quickie... journal entry, that is.

I just wanted to wish mfbob good luck on his procedure tomorrow. Hope your groin is feeling well soon, dude...

This is for you, Bob.

joezilla @ 2005-05-24T00:23:00

2005-05-24T05:33:25Z

Sweet Jeezy Pete's...

I bought a 20 gb iPod tpday for about 30 cents on the dollar. It was a great bargain, except that it took me almost 5 hours to figure out what was wrong with it and to fix it... Now, watching the 3,800 songs in my music library load onto the new iPod that I rebuilt like Frankemstein's monster, I feel like the Wicked Witch of the West - "Fly...fly, my little monkeys..." Get thee into my new portable device.

Also, even though I missed Bettie Serveert last time, they're coming back to Omaha in late June. I'm rapidly feeling better. My karma is recovering from the Devo ticket prices with a vengance. Now if only the Dance Hall Crasher would reunite for one last tour...

Yet, now I'm so tired. Work tomorrow brings a conference call wih Marvel Enterprises to discuss a new Marvel Visa card.

ptbf... (my sign off ref has been upped to 100 points)

America.... Fu*k NOOOOO!!!

2005-05-24T04:57:00Z

So I'm sitting here watching my new Team America DVD (probably the funniest movie last year), trying to install my new iPod Shuffle, which I bought with my baseball and basketball winnings from my last Vegas trip (about $550). I just won another cool $50 on the Pistons and the unders in tonight's game. I'm also installing the new copy of OS X Tiger that my bro-in-law gave me. How could life be better?

"Hey", I think to myself, "time to buy those tickets to Devo in Chicago".

SIXTY-FIVE bucks per TICKET?!?!?!

OK - so buying a ticket to Devo is worth $65 to me. But, I promised a couple of other people that I'd spring for their tickets as well. I guess there's another $130 down the de-volutionary tubes, I'm going to call Gerald V. tomorrow and see if he sees the humor in me paying a huge surcharge to Dan Akroyd in order to see him perform. Maybe beween Jerry and the local rag (The Reader) I can score free passes, if not backstage...

Talk about a buzzkill... I need another Keystone Light. :)

joezilla @ 2005-05-14T20:00:00

2005-05-15T01:09:11Z

I realize that I'm probably the only person I know sitting home on Friday night and watching the NBA playoffs, but I put some cash on the Heat sweeping the Wizards. At a juicy 20-1, I couldn't resist. However, Shaq decided to sit out tonight, so I may well be screwed. Especially since Michael Doleac (yes, Michael Doleac) is proving to be a much better player than Alonzo Mourning. Although, to be fair, Doleac stil has all his internal organs...

I just wanted to say that it was totally worth it to watch this game, though. Even though I may lose my $10, I'll make it back by not seeing the Fantastic 4 movie. The promo they just showed was painful in the extreme. Magic Johnson playing basketball against The F4? Terrible. I finally figured out what bugged me about the FX of Mr. Fantastic stretching. When he stretches his arms, he's not supposed to have knobby elbows. Plus, the Thing looks like a Ninja Turtle. It's actually worse than the costume in the Corman version.

C'mon Dwayne Wade... do me some justice.

Whoa...flashback.

2005-05-09T02:46:14Z

OK. So i just downloaded some Duran Duran from iTunes ("Rio" to be exact). So why is the number one iMix recommended to me "Gay Pride: Boys"?

I'm having flasjbacks to the first time I used eBay. I searched for all the old bands I loved in the 80s - Dead or Alive, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Pet Shop Boys, etc. Every time, they were categorized as "Gay Interest". Maybe I *was* gay in high school. But no one told my genitals...

Either that, or else the 80s made most teen boys "gay". Which would explain why Scott Bakula became popular in the early 90s...

I better turn on some Halen to get the testosterone flowing.

joezilla @ 2005-05-08T21:04:00

2005-05-09T02:08:42Z

I know that it's late, but Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.

joezilla @ 2005-05-01T17:54:00

2005-05-01T22:56:22Z

Saw Hitchhiker's Guide last night in order to review it for the local weekly. Here's the review:

"Mostly harmless."

Since I'm paid by the word, I may have to pad it a bit.

The road is F^@*ing Hard, My Friend...

2005-04-25T03:27:35Z

OK - just got back from Vegas again. These work trips are killing me. This time, at least, Angie got to tag along for the ride. Wednesday through Saturday is a little long to spend on the road - even in a relatively cool place like Vegas.

And I'll be back there in less than a month. I've got follow-up meetings scheduled in the very near future. The one cool thing is that every time I'm out there, I'm getting to know the resort managers a little better. This time, the manager at Mandalay Bay hooked me up with one of her VIP hosts to get us free show tickets and free VIP access to the Mix, as well as access to the Foundation Room at the House of Blues. The passes to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at the House of Blues were a bonus. I wanted to schedule my next trip to coincide with the George Clinton show, but that's only a couple of days before the girls' birthday. Maybe if I can be back by Saturday... Otherwise, the B-52s are playing a beach show in June and Fishbone will be there around the same time. Combo-show in June!

Speaking of Vegas - can anyone suggest a good, sophisticated drink I can order? (mfbob, I'm looking at you...)

I feel silly ordering beer or wine at the nice clubs, but the last time I was in Vegas with mfbob ordering mixed drinks, I wound up with an Old Fashioned, which makes me feel, well, old. I'm looking for a young, hip, mixed drink that's masculine, but not stodgy.

"Celebrate while you still can, cause any second it may end..."

2005-03-27T03:59:03Z

So the girls are finally on a much more manageable schedule. And that only took about 10 months....

Anyhow, they do manage to sleep about 10-11 hours per night now. Which means I'm finally back in the realm of the living, rather than wandering in a sub-human state, as I did for the last year.

Today Angie asked me how long we've lived in this house. It's amazing that we've been here for less than two years. So much has happened in that time. But it also makes me think how long it's been since I've seen many of my old friends. OmaCon was ages ago, and it's been even longer since I've been lucky enough to hang with Alicia or Julia. Perhaps someday soon...

Now that the girls are older and my job demands have changed, I'm doing a lot more traveling. I'm in Las Vegas at least once per month for business, and will soon be headed to San Diego, Washington, Tampa, and New York. The affinity credit card business is much more interesting than I ever would have thought. In fact, we head to Washington in mid-April to discuss a co-branded Wizards of the Coast Visa card. If I'm really lucky, we'll be able to convince our main contact at Wizards to run a D&D session overnight in one of their conference rooms at WoTC HQ. Now there's a (nerdy) story I can tell the grandkids.

By the way, here's some fairly recent pics of the kids, should anyone be interested. Kara's a little Cubs fan already.

By the way, is anyone besides me way excited for "Kung Fu Hustle" to hit the theaters? Last year's best movie, by far, was "Shaun of the Dead". Between "Kung Fu Hustle", "Old Boy", and "Ong Bak", I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever lust for an American produced flick again.

I have high hopes for "Batman Begins", but, really, how many times can they go back to the well for Batman movies?

"Revenge of the Sith" is another matter. Of course, I'll see it. But did we really need the prequels? Lucas has done nothing with these three movies other than to crap all over his legacy. With the original trilogy, he stated that his aim was to recreate the old serials. His mistake with the prequels was that he went back to explore the development of the characters from the original trilogy. The Flash Gordon serials never went back to show what happned to Ming in his childhood to make him such a bastard. We never got to visit Commando Cody's past to see how Pumpkin Boy built his improbable jet pack. Why? Because no one who watched those serials cared... just get on with the story.

Anyway, I guess I was wrong. The babies are waking up.... ptbf

I'm making this too hard... (Get your mind out of the gutter!)

2005-03-25T05:01:39Z

OK - I'm trying to find a scientific method to whittle my list of the best CDs I own down to 10. Here are some others for whom the bubble burst tonight. As I get closer to the top 10, the reasons for elimination may seem more capricious, but that's the way life is...

R.E.M. - "Dead Letter Office"
I hate to cut this one. R.E.M. is a longtime favorite of both me and mfbob. In the end, I have to disqualify this one for two reasons.
1. It's a collection of songs assembled after-the-fact. It wasn't recorded as an album, per se.
2. What pushes this CD into greatness is the addition of the original R.E.M. ep, which wasn't part of the original release.
I'm disqualifying EPs from this list (see below), so I can't count the original REM EP as part of this collection.
Sorry, Michael Stipe - them's the breaks...

Parliament - "Greatest Hits"
This is too tough if I'm allowing greatest hits CDs. And as much as I love Parliament, the never put together a full album tight enough to make this list. Even my favorite album "Gloryhallestoopid" had too many lenghty misfires to hit the list. I respect George Clinton for trying to stretch every album into a concept piece, but the P-Funk couldn't take the restraints of a single album. My apologies to Bootsy...

Kraftwerk - "The Mix"
See above. While this is technically an album of "new" material, I had to put the squeeze on any work that included material from previous albums. While all the songs have been remixed, I can't justify its placement in the top 10. I still contend that the iPods were made for this CD.

Oingo Boingo - "Boingo Alive"
I decided to exclude all live albums as well. While this is technically a live, studio album featuring tracks not available on previous albums, I had to nix it since it's mostly new versions of previously released songs. This rule also put the kibosh on Swing Out Sister's "Live at the Jazz Cafe". Still. the Boingo Alive versions of "Winning Side", "Mama", and "Goodbye - Goodbye" rule.

Sahara Hotnights - "Kiss and Tell"
Axed due to the fact that I'm factoring in longevity in my ratings. In four or five years, this may earn a nod, since it's the only CD I listen to while working out nowadays. But for now, it's just too new to place on the list.

"Run, Lola, Run" and "Next Stop, Wonderland" - Soundtracks
These soundtracks are too gloriously and wonderfully intertwined with the fantastic films that I experienced on the big screen. To judge them against albums that were not soundtracks wouldn't be fair.

And here are a couple of bands that, surprisingly, were shut out...

They Might be Giants
A lot of great songs and a lot of great memories. Unfortunately, every CD had too much filler material. Even the fact that we had an anthem about going to mfbob's to watch MST based on one of their songs couldn't save them.
"I'm goin' down to Bob's house / Bob's a friend to me / He lives way down in Bellevue / And that's where we will be / Down by the base, the base / And that's where we will be / We're goin' to watch ourselves some MST" ( to the tune of "Cowtown")

Lush
Again - a lot of great songs, but never a complete album of greatness.

Dead Can Dance
I don't know why. I've loved their music for so long. It's hard to measure their eclectic music style against more traditional bands, though. It's like I love them in my head, but my heart leans in other directions.

So - I'm down to 18. I swear that this list will be down to 10 by this weekend. And then you'll ALL BE SORRY! um, I mean, I'll post the list...

ptbf

joezilla @ 2005-03-21T21:31:00

2005-03-22T04:31:36Z

I guess I never realized how hard Rolling Stones editors had to work.

I sat down tonight, intending to start listing the top 10 albums in my collection, but got sidetracked by how many truly good CDs I had in my collection. I've been working for over an hour and am still unable to narrow it down to less than 18. Of course, some are truly good CDs, and some are mediocre CDS, but that I have a soft spot for due to one reason or another - either they recall my misspent youth, road trips with mfbob, or both.

As I try and narrow this down, I'll go ahead and list those that just missed the top 10:

Falco - "3"
Garbage - "Garbage"
Laurie Anderson - "Home of the Brave"
Lush - "LoveLife" (maybe the greatest first 3 tracks in history, but the rest is hit or miss...)
Mary's Danish - "There Goes the Wonder Truck" (I recall listening to this cassette in the car with mfbob when we worked at FDR in 1990)
Moonpools and Caterpillars - "Lucky Dumpling"
Pet Shop Boys - "Very" (if only because mfbob and I belted out their version of "Go West" while blasting across the wastes of Eastern Colorado, heading to Denver, at 3 am)
P.I.L. - "That What is Not"
Pizzicato 5 - "Happy End of the World"
Portishead - "Dummy"
Ramones - "Mania" (I tried to exclude greatest hit collections...)
Reel Big Fish - "Cheer Up!" (had I just been through a nasty break up, this would have ranked in the top 5. I wish mfJeff would listen to them. They have the greatest F.U. album of all time...)
Sarge - "The Glass Intact" (May still make the top 10, since I still lust for Elizabeth Elmore. Should they come anywhere near Omaha, I'll be there. If there's a god in heaven, Erica will see her new band
The Reputation" when in Tucson on Mar 20 at the Vaudeville Cabaret and mgrasso will see them in Boston on April 21 at TT the Bears. This is the band that I ripped off, er, that influenced me for Chet's band in our Changeling game...)
Rose Chronicles - "Shiver" (Blasted good music from Nettwerk Records in the earl 90s - before they turned into vagino-centric wusses)
Shonen Knife - "Happy Hour" (This one just missed. It's SOOOO Happy, like an episode of Teen Titans that's just Cyborg and Beast Boy playing the new Sony P2P... Plus it pi*ses off Jake. BONUS!)
Siouxsie and the Banshees - "Tinderbox" (Love it, love it, love it... but I don't need to be that dark any more. It's the Bizarro Shonen)
Soundtrack - "Run Lola Run" (I went directly from the movie to the record shop to buy the CD. But would the music be as great if I hadn't seen the movie?)
The Sundays - "Static and Silence"
They Might be Giants - "Factory Showroom" (I Iove it, but it's such a hodge-podge. You can't leave TMBG off a greatest hits list, but none of their albums are solid from start to finish. This is as close as they get. Close, but no ceegar...)
Soundtrack - "Next Stop Wonderland" (Gets bonus points for introducing me to Bossa Nova music. Aside from "Run, Lola, Run", it's the only time I've driven straight from the theater to the record shop. While it's one of my top 10 movies, it doesn't crack the top 10 albums.)
Velocity Girl - "Gilded Stars and Zealous Hearts" (Still the one I listen to when I'm depressed. Didn't age as well as I hoped.)
Visqueen - "King Me" (Still too new for me to put in my op 10 ever. It still rocks....)

So stay tuned for my top 10 CDs of all time. Hopefully you'll see something you agree with. If not, well, that means you're:

a. too old and crusty
b. a young punk and you don't know what you're talking about

ptbf...