award

i am a little flabbergasted but thrilled to have learned that i've won the award for best folk rock vocalist on garageband this week for the song 'the president's eyes.'
i'm going back in the studio this month with john, the other half of our band stember/newell, to record a couple more songs with a cellist and guitarist but in the meantime, check out 'the president's eyes' here: http://www.garageband.com/song?|pe1|S8LTM0LdsaSiYVmyYW4

myspace is dead

i have been officially convinced that myspace sucks and have, at the recommendation of my friends, become beholden to facebook.
god help me. i said it would never happen.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=701312241

podcast 4

this week, the podcast comes from long island as christopher j. scott and evan ferrante and i settle into the hamptons to work and play. topics covered: a theory of asses, what it's like to be treated like a toddler and a slew of relatively random pictures.
enjoy!
http://ia350635.us.archive.org/3/items/UnnamedPodcastEpisode4/UnnamedPodcastEpisode4.m4a

check out my home interwebbularly!!!

Check out my new podcast (with pictures!!!)
Seriously, this is too much fun.
http://ia340909.us.archive.org/2/items/UnnamedPodcastEpisode3/UnnamedPodcastEpisode32.m4a

october 2007 and music

i can't explain my excitement but it's tangible and overwhelming. i have no patience. i want it now!!! but i guess i'll have to await its release in october of this year.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/

also, i got an email from my friend john telling me that a song we'd worked on was being featured as track of the day tomorrow, may 18, on garageband.
i think i'm supposed to tell people to click on it because it increases visibility or something, so click on it!
http://www.garageband.com/artist/StemberNewell.

the story behind the making of the song is that john, who was my neighbor back when i lived on 7th st. and avenue c, had written the song and knew i liked to sing (i imagine he heard me through the walls) so we sat down one day to record on his mac, and the rest is- well, you know.

to all young filmmakers

actually, you don't have to be young.
i recant.

filmmakers, all! i am relaying a post from moby's blog that should bring joy, and perhaps even a consequent tear, to your eye. the weeks and months you've spent laboring fruitlessly to obtain a music license for your remarkable noir art house film are over.
go thank the lovely and generous vegan man.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

today we're going to launch a new version of moby.com

today(or tomorrow, because we're very organized) we're going to launch
a new version of moby.com.
it's in many ways kind of similar to the old moby.com except for a few things:

1-it looks completely different. and when you look at it, don't forget to move
your cursor around the home-page. things are hidden there.

2-it probably works better. rob, the web-master, has improved the basic architecture
of moby.com so that it will, in general, work better. i'm technologically illiterate, so i have
no idea what exactly he's done. but it's better. than it was.

3-the discography area has been updated and is now almost comprehensive.

4-and here's the biggie(well, at least i think so)...there's a new part of moby.com called 'film music'. it's essentially
a function that allows independent and non-profit filmmakers to download and use my music
for free. we're starting with about 60 pieces of eclectic, unreleased, film music, but over-time
i'll continue to update it and add more music.
these 60 pieces of music can be downloaded and used for free by student filmmakers and indie
filmmakers and, basically, anyone making a non-commercial* film, be it 2 minutes long or 400 minutes long.
if you're a filmmaker(or are in need of free music for a non-commercial film or video)you can
sign up and download and use this music for free.
i have a lot of friends in the independent film world, and their biggest complaint is that it's
either expensive or onerous to license music for their films.
so that's why i'm making a lot of my music available for free use for non-profit, independent films.
i hope you find it useful.

i hope you enjoy the new moby.com.
please look below for the *.
-moby

*-yup, the asterisk. the music in the film-music part of moby.com is available for free use
for student films and independent films and non-profit films and shorts and etc. the music
is available so long as these films are not used for commercial(i.e-making money)purposes.
if you use the music in your film and your film goes on to make money: great, and congratulations.
before your film makes money, though, you'll have to apply for a commercial license
for the music. i PROMISE that the commercial licenses won't be expensive or difficult to obtain.
and any money that this music generates from commercial licenses will be given to a charity.
this year that charity will be the humane society.
ok, i hope that's clear. thanks.

abortion

i thought this was a compelling story surrounding a turbulent issue. it comes from a blogger named rhiannon. read and judge for yourself.

Monday, January 22, 2007
A story, which partially defines why I am pro-choice. A young couple, Ellen and Jeffrey, recently married. Ellen becomes pregnant. They're ecstatic. They have their baby, Justin. He's beautiful. Long eyelashes, porcelain complexion, incredible smile. He is everything a parent could want in a child.

After a while they notice that Justin's not holding his head up, when he's at the age when he should be. The doctor suggests doing excercises with him to increase his muscle mass. This doesn't work. A second doctor runs tests. After doing an eye exam, he notices right away a cherry-red spot in Justin's eyes; a dead give-away for Tay Sachs.

What is Tay-Sachs? In a nutshell, Alzheimers in infants. This disease can only be aquired in utero, and eats away at the child's central nervous system until he is dead, usually before the child's 5th birthday. There is no cure. Treatments do little to prolong a meaningful life for the child.

Ellen and Jeffrey are devastated. At the tender age of 10 months, their beautiful baby boy has been diagnosed as terminal. They have to watch their baby die, knowing that there's nothing they can do about it.

Over time, Justin loses control of his crying. In restaurants, patrons approach Jeffrey and Ellen asking them to do something about their child, unaware of his condition. His eyes become very feeble and sensitive to light before he loses his sight entirely. When taken outdoors, he is given sunglasses to wear. An abnormally large tongue, another trait caused by Tay-Sachs, causes Justin to have siezures.

After a while, caring for Justin at home becomes too emotionally draining, so Jeffrey and Ellen take Justin to a hospital where he can receive 24 hour care. They spend time with him daily in the hospital. Eventually Justin loses his sight comletely, and his ability to move at all. Medical professionals at the hospital keep a close eye on him, making sure to turn him and move him, preventing atrophy and bedsores. He becomes mentally retarded. He never loses his startle reflex, meaning when people approach him, he jumps in surprise. Whether or not he became deaf will never be known, as eventually, he was unable to physically respond to anything or anyone. A music box was placed in his crib, in the hopes that it would provide some kind of auditory stimulation, providing he hadn't lost his hearing. Again, we'll never know.

At the tender age of 3 and a half, Justin passes away. Jeffrey and Ellen are so destroyed that in order to move on, they must move into a new home, as their first home held too many devastating memories. Over 20 years later, Ellen still says that the second house saved her life. She says little about their first home, only that she "couldn't stay in that house."

Justin had an intoxicating smile, and he loved orange sherbet. Ellen and Jeffrey speak often of him, and what a happy child he was, prior to Tay-Sachs taking over his body. They recorded his laugh so that they can still hear their happy baby. They visit his burial site twice a year; once on his birthday and once on the anniversary of his death.

During Justin's life, Jeffrey and Ellen had two more sons, Brent and Adam. Prior to their births, Ellen had amniocenteses to make sure neither of them had Tay-Sachs. A fourth pregnancy, was also tested. That child was a Tay-Sachs baby. Unable to put themselves or their child through the devastation the three of them had already experienced, they chose to abort the pregnancy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I do not see abortion as a means of birth control. Abortion is an extreme procedure, that takes quite a toll on the human body and should not be performed lightly. After only one abortion, a woman can become unable to carry or give birth to anymore children.

Though I've never had children, been pregnant, or had an abortion, I understand why Ellen and Jeff made the choice they made. I cannot imagine the devastation of losing a child, especially when all you can do is sit back and watch him being taken from you, not being able to do anything to help him.

This is why I am pro-choice.

http://rhiannonrocksalittle.blogspot.com/2007/01/blog-for-choice_22.html

america

have you heard that our 'decider,' oh no, sorry... i mean our 'commander guy'- otherwise known as king george (as in, 'the madness of')- has threatened to veto a bill that would classify violence against gays as a hate crime?

that's right- george doesn't mind if you attack the gays and mangle them with bats and wire. hell, have at them! he also doesn't care about the young men and women he sends to iraq without sufficiant training or gear. why bother protecting them, either? or how about those fine folk in new orleans? i mean, first off, they're black, and secondly, they're poor, so let's just forget about them. they're a lot better off in the astrodome anyway, right barbara?

i'm sorry but WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS MAN STILL DOING IN OFFICE!?!

i live in america, i am an american, and i don't understand what country bush thinks he's in. as far as i can remember from those old textbooks i read back in high school, people came to this country to escape persecution. though if you're gay, black, muslim, poor, hispanic, or young these days, you may be wondering if those were pages you read that or just dreams you remembered.

i don't mean to curse or chastise america. this country is and forever will be my home, and i recognize and appreciate that we enjoy unparalleled freedoms here that most others never have and never will be fortunate enough to know. i recognize that this is what makes america great; that we pioneer the way for freedom.

so why, i ask you, are we now moving backwards?
i ask you only because the man i should be asking, the man responsible, doesn't seem to want to hear anything i, as an american, have to say. he has repeatedly shown that he's not interested in hearing anything of truth or significance, like whether certain countries in certain regions of the world have had certain weapons of mass destruction or not.

i don't understand bush's america.
i have never seen it.
when i look out my window, i see a mexican bodega, a pakistani cab driver, a french cafe, a japanese sushi restaurant, an african-american couple, and two romantically affectionate girls, all peaceably walking together under the glow of a colorless stick figure beaming from a crosswalk light.

that's the america I know and love, and no one in that america seems eager to war with other nations or deny their fellow citizens the right of protection from ignorance's continued persecution.
i can only come to two conclusions, then.
bush is either:
a) not an american, or
b) someone who doesn't look out his window enough.

what would the DSM-IV-TR say?

i have at home the sexy equipment that i've been using on the first radio documentary i was hired to do (which i would post but can't, as it's an intellectual property i don't own) , so i sat down for a half hour tonight to record my third podcast- a rambling slew of opinions about the stories in google news, the new york times, and international herald tribune. i discovered in the process of transferring the file from my flash recorder to my computer, though, that the file had been corrupted and therefore, no sound was captured.

which means i've effectively spent a half hour talking to myself.

and not just apathetically.
no.
i was speaking passionately about truth and fiction, race and religion, wolfowitz and britney spears.
i mean, THE pertinent issues of the day!
and for a whole half an hour!
which, in actuality, was more like forty minutes!
which officially qualifies me as crazy!

so what i want to know now is, when do i get the brownie patch?

be there