Most of you have probably heard sometime within the last couple months that I’ve been working on a book. I’ve joked about it a lot—my “opus,” my “turtle book”—but the truth is that putting this thing together has truly been one of the most demanding, stressful, insomnia-inducing, 24/7 kinds of crazy I’ve ever experienced. But also surprisingly rewarding. My life since December has been an absolute blur.

I call it a “turtle book,” and it is about sea turtles, but over the span of the project the subject transformed, and I like to think of the final product as more a creative study of passion and human habit/obsession. Most of the first 2 chapters outline the different turtle species, their threats, diets (blah, blah, blah), but the rest is about this group of volunteers—“The Turtle Patrol”—and the unbridled, completely unrequited love they have for the animals they protect. To most of these activists, it isn’t about the work or “environmentalism” in the traditional sense of the word. It’s about their “love” of the turtles, an almost spiritual bond they’ve formed with the beach. It’s about picking something, and calling it theirs.

I tried to add some humor; there’s tons of pictures, interviews; and at the end of the day, I think I was able to take a topic that didn’t at all seem to be “me” and meet it somewhere in the middle.

Releases April 10th. CLICK HERE to read the full back cover “pitch” and get in on the Friends & Fam 30% Off /FREE SHIPPING promo.

Now, as promised, the GQ-inspired “serious business-casual” back cover pic. And the About the Authors pic, too. You know, for laughs.

p.s. If you read and like the book, a rate or write-up on Amazon would be huge (if your last name isn’t Cavaliere). It will raise its search relevancy. Thanks! TRACKS ON AMAZON.

“It’s great to be back! back! back!”

IIIIIIIIIII’MMM BAAAAAAACCKK!

Ah, my grand comeback. My reunion tour. Oh, what a feeling!

The Mellotroniacs out there have been getting fidgitiy and bored. I’ve sensed it. Smelled it in the air, the sour musk of the forsaken, wisping through my window late at night while I was cooped behind computer screens and clicking, pondering exactly how I wanted to be represented in my first printed text. If I wanted to be represented. If I had the balls to represent myself. Or if it was smarter, and safer, to play journalist and stay neutral; be the keystrokes; be the information. That was the dilemma. But now it’s over. Ego won, as it usually does, and I tried as best I could to make the book I never thought I’d write my own. Which is better, I think. My name is on it.

Catch-up:  For those of you who don’t know, a few months back I was asked at work to take over a book project when the original author bailed because of time restraints. The project was about sea turtles. The time restraint was that it had to be written in two months. Two months ago, I knew absolutely nothing about sea turtles. So of course I accepted. Today, the world has Tracks in the Sand: Sea Turtles and Their Protectors–which I’ll make sure to give its own post within the week when I’m able to attach photos and “Please Validate Me By Buying A Copy” links. It releases on April 10th.

Between you and me, what I’m feeling is a weird, terrifying, amazing, horrible sense of relief, with flashes and mixed shades of pride. Relief because it’s over, and it was exhausting, and now I’ll finally have something else to talk (read: complain) about to my friends and family. Horrible because soon people will read it and I’ll be silently and not so silently judged. Terrifying because it’s over and now I have to think about starting my life again. Amazing because it’s over and now I have to think about starting my life again. And pride because it’s mine.

It’s something I never thought I’d write about, sea turtles. It’s something that was always just there, like school, given and in the background, and I figured I’d handle it the same way: with my eyes half-closed and my fingers half-crossed. But then something happened and the project changed from “work” to “my work.” This might be the last book I ever write–I knew that. And I only had about two months to research, pen and edit it. Then I’d have the rest of my life to see it either standing or slouching on my bookshelf. Oh… what a feeling.

I’m not gonna talk about self-consciousness. I’m not gonna talk about what those three words–”Wrote. A. Book.”–mean, how they sound coming out of acquaintances’ mouths, or how after awhile you force yourself to own them, force ego, force, to ever truly accept that the project is over and that it’s as good as it is and that’s all there is to it. Nope. Not gonna talk about that. What I will say is that it was an experience. And in the end, I took a concept (“Sea Turtles”) and feel like I made it into something else. It’s still a “turtle book,” yeah, but it’s more about the people that fight for the turtles. The people that love the turtles, to degrees that sometimes seem to border on the spiritual and irrational. And that’s a totally different story.

Before writing this comeback post, I thought for a while how I could change the format of this site. It’s been enough time now for me to realize that, no, I can’t do full reviews on all the movies I watch. I’m too anal and they take too long. And no, working full-time, I can’t cover all, or even a good bulk, of film/tv news without missing important stuff or being late and irrelevant. So the new format is still up in the air but, besides this long-ish opener, I’m gonna try taking a page out my good friend Kari’s blog (the always graceful and interesting A mi ver) and have a go at concise. Not vignettes, per se, but just tighter, more focused and readable. My writing is wordy and tangent-heavy as it is so it’ll be a challenge, but if it works I should be able to get a balance and rhythm going. One post, one topic. Shorter, more raw. That’s the goal.

I’m really glad to be back. It feels good–and I already have a list of things I’m excited about catching up on. Floating notes and flickering screens–that was the idea. And words. Let’s get back to basics.

WRESTLEFEST I

Know what looks great on a brand new HDTV? You guessed it: professional wrestling. I know, I know, it’s professional wrestling. And honestly, the DVD a friend and I rented for our night of pizza, beer and nostalgia was old and had terrible production value and wasn’t even full widescreen. But…wrestling! Who woulda thought? Back in the day we loved this stuff. Like, seriously loved it. The catchphrases, the betrayals, everything. Even of all the things I love most today, the movies that nail me to the seat and leave me thinking about all these deep ideas and careful camera angles… barely do they ever have the hold on me that wrestling did back in the ’90s. Back then, when a wrestler you loved was talking, you listened. You didn’t dare leave to get a snack or a drink. If you had to pee, you held it. When The Rock was facing Goldberg in a pay-per-view, you gathered your friends together and ponied up 60bucks to watch it. There isn’t a two-hour film in the world I’d throw down $60 to watch today. Never.

Thinking wasn’t encouraged during Raw Is Raw or Monday Night Nitro, and you know what? That’s what made it good. None of it was real, you knew that, and these characters…you didn’t have to feel bad for them when they got pulverized in the ring or Chris Jericho made a nickname out of them (oh, Stinko Malenko!). We turned our backs on our favorites just as quickly as their allies did in the show. It was never personal, it was wrestling.

CHUCK (Mondays at 9pm on NBC)

It isn’t the smartest show in the world, the best written, the best acted or…really the best anything. But dammit, Chuck’s fun. When you get home late on a Monday or Tuesday after spending all day cooped up in an office writing about the subtle variations between the herbivorous green sea turtle and the omnivorous loggerhead, sometimes all you want is to watch good-looking, good-hearted, and often hapless people make jokes, download CIA computers into their heads, reference pop culture and kick ass. On a lazy Monday night, is that really too much to ask?

Side-favorite thing: Hulu. Ok, add this to the list of things that I’m way behind the boat on. But Hulu’s fantastic. Now if I can only get my computer and PS3 to sync…

“Behind the boat” double-side-favorite thing: 30 Rock. Season 1 and Season 2 were good, sometimes great and always funny. But season 3 had me rolling. I love so much about this season, and if I hadn’t just caught up to the latest season and started the when-is-it-supposed-to-get-good? Lost, it would be way more than just a sidenote.

COMMUNITY (Thursdays at 8pm on NBC)

Yeah, I like Chuck. But Community…Community I love. For my money, it’s tied with The Office (which I didn’t include b/c…well, isn’t it obvious?) for best comedy out right now. It’s a treasure.

Apparently from the same guys who produced Arrested Development (which I’m too lazy to fact-check right now), the show definitely isn’t as good as Arrested, but it plays its hand kinda the same way. All the characters here, like in Arrested, are charicatures, but the show knows that they are, it plays off of the fact that they are. This isn’t bad or lazy writing, it’s the best kind of writing, the kind that takes a genre or medium that seems to have little where else to go and explores that very fact. Community is the result of what happens when a show with incredibly talented people behind it don’t try to reinvent the wheel as much as they do just try to make it roll as smoothly as possible…while at the same time making reference to the fact that there’s a wheel at all.

If you’re not watching Community, start. It’s what I look forward to most in the week.

…wow…just realized how pathetic that sounds…

ALL THINGS EBERT

I know I’ve talked about Ebert before so I’ll just say that if the only Roger Ebert is you know is Roger Ebert the Film Critic, you’re truly missing out. One of my favorite things around, Ebert’s blog is consistently fascinating. He talks cinema often–and you can always visit his homepage for full reviews–but it’s the personal pieces that get me. Always an equal mix of personal essay, social (or sometimes self-)criticism, and reflection, reading his blog is like watching a quick-shot slideshow of someone’s thought process, someone who’s constantly taking in and examining new information and art while also taking time to look back, having balls enough to say, “You know what? I’m getting old. So this is my life…candidly.”

The guy can no longer speak; letters are his primary mode of communication now, not sounds. And so reading his letters are almost like reading his thoughts, an ongoing thread etched in elegant prose about what’s going on behind his desk and screen and fingers and eyes. Unable to speak, the great Roger Ebert has never had more to say.

COMICS

Don’t call them funny papers. Comics…they’re misunderstood. Maybe they always have been.

But, this isn’t a “this is why comics are quality” piece. You can find that in a million other places. This is a “I just got back into comics after years away from it and I’m glad I’m back cuz they’re awesome” piece. Which is better, I think.

Y: the Last Man – I followed this series as it was written a few years back, then, for whatever reason, stopped before getting the last trade. What was I thinking! Don’t ask me how but Brian K. Vaughn is able to pull off the most flagrantly conscious “hip” dialogue on the planet, the most consciously conscious around. Which isn’t to say his writing isn’t smart, it is. But the dialogue…in other hands would tank. No doubt about it. Try to talk like Yorick Brown in the real world and just wait for someone to go all 4th-grade throwback and call you a poseur.

Daredevil – I just read Kevin Smith’s “Gaurdian Devil” run and just bought Frank Miller’s “Born Again.” This is me jumping in headlong. After that…Bring on Bendis! It seems the darker the superhero the more I like them. I like a hero who’s just, almost–this close–about to go insane. He knows what he’s doing is crazy but he’s torn. He’s tormented by his power, obsessed with it, in a way. It’s like he knows that if stops fighting crime, not only his city will fall, but people will stop writing about him. And that can’t happen, because like Henry in Goodfellas, then our hero turn into an average nobody like us…he’d have to live the rest of his life like a schnook.

JOHN HUGHES

So I have this list of directors I keep on my computer. The idea is that I write down someone I’m interested in, either from a movie that grabbed me and made me want to check out the oeuvre (what a word) or someone I’ve heard a lot about and feel like I “should” see.  Quentin Tarantino is an example of the first kind. He’s one of the first directors I checked out. Ingmar Bergman’s an example of the second.

Anyway, the idea is that I list these directors and then work down the list, watching each’s entire filmography in chronological order before moving onto the second. This has been a long process, but it’s one I find so rewarding–so much, in fact, that I’ll often put off a movie I want to see because I’d rather catch it in context. There’s so much more to a movie, I’ve found, than the actual movie. There’s the person/people making it, and their story and obsessions, their inclinations toward a certain theme or aesthetic, evolution and experimentation. Sure, you can watch Annie Hall a million times, but it’ll never really hold the same weight, it’ll never be so surprising yet make so much sense until you’ve seen all the “early Allen” slapstick comedies Woody made before it. You can watch The Wrestler, but something about it changes when you know that the same guy who made The Fountain put it together. I’ll say it: sometimes filmmakers are even more interesting than their films.

So John Hughes is next, and maybe after him Jim Jarmusch, or Billy Wilder, or the rest of Stanley Kubrick (finally). Tonight I’ll watch Sixteen Candles and next will be the (I fear, over-)hyped The Breakfast Club. I haven’t seen either of these movies, and I call myself a cinephile. Psh…

LISTEN HERE

*Caution: Beware of Truth Bombs*

Long story short, we talk about internships, their worth, what they’re all about. It was actually a lot of fun, made me think about how incredibly awesome it would be to do a regular show–or better yet, make a whole station–with people you get along with, to just sit in a studio all day talking about things you’re passionate about: Sports in the morning, Politics in the afternoon, Film and Media at night. Seriously, how much fun would that be?

Start submitting your applications for MikeyRadio to mellotronsounds@gmail.com. Personalities must be abrasive and opinions controversial.

For more information about the show and an archive of all “Cover to “Cover” episodes, go HERE.

The “Value of Interns” episode was aired November 21 and 28 on WNZF 1550AM and 106.3FM in NE Florida and streamed worldwide at www.wnzf.com.

]]> http://mellotronsounds.com/index.php/2009/11/30/then-there-was-that-time-i-was-on-the-radio/feed/ 0 http://mellotronsounds.com/index.php/2009/10/12/oh-my-god/ http://mellotronsounds.com/index.php/2009/10/12/oh-my-god/#comments Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:39:00 +0000 Mike http://wrestlingleak.com/index.php/2009/10/12/oh-my-god/ A Real-Life David Brent!

I could just imagine the meeting where this pathetic display was thought-up:

A bunch of Bank of America suits are sitting around a table brainstorming ways to commemorate their merger with MBNA. Someone pulls out a guitar, suggests rewriting a U2 song, making it about credit cards and performing it live, in shirts and ties, at a conference for their employees and investors. You know, to raise morale.

There’s silence. No one moves. Then a clap, just one, a solitary clap that builds slowly until everyone is standing and clapping and loud and excited. And then…

“Free Love on the Free Love Freeway,” anyone?

Thanks to Mike Birbiglia for posting this on his Twitter. Hilarious.

I bought “anti-microbial” socks today at Kohl’s. Not exactly sure what they are but almost positive I need them. Gotta respect the sole.

Been experimenting with colored socks, also, more expensive ones. You know, to see what’s really the difference. And don’t quote me just yet, but my findings just might be redefining everything I used to believe about footwear.

That is all.

-M

In the next week or so I’m gonna be taking it a little easy with the blogging, kind of. I’ve started working on a new home for the Mellotron Sounds machine and it’s wayyy more complicated than I anticipated. I want it to be more of a “site” site, hopefully fuller and more legit. So that’s taking a bit of my attention, picking a design and learning the new server. Plus, I’m trying to plan a trip right now. Thinking of calling it “The Graduation-Money Tour.”

Anyway, because of all that I’m probably not going to post any kind of full articles or creative shorts any time soon. But I’ll still be pounding out a bunch of trailers and videos and stuff, done up and polished with my exhilarating two cents. There’s so many exciting movies and CDs coming up right now and the teasers overfloweth, as do my high spirits, so a-blogging I must go!

The show will go on, folks. Like any seasoned entertainer, I know that there are a lot of people out there counting on me for exciting news and insightful commentary. I wouldn’t let those masses down.

Insecurity masquerading as cockiness,
Mike

(The seemingly random shot of Peter Gabriel is in honor of his brilliant Up album, that I absolutely can’t get enough of right now. (And because I couldn’t think of anything else…))

I meant to post this a long time ago. It seems to me the kind of thing that has to spread through word of finger (the virtual mouth), a smile you can’t help but share. One person may find it in their inbox from a friend, another from a girlfriend, the accompanying message saying only, “Try not to melt,” or “Dare you not to smile.”

Matt Harding, an ex-video game maker for Pandemic Studios, describes the video on his site as: “14 months in the making, 42 countries, and a cast of thousands. Thanks to everyone who danced with me.”

Enjoy the chills.

The Tronnies are the new kid in school, the cowboy that trots into town on his horse and takes over the joint, the trophies with the chipping gold paint that don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re actually plastic.

I feel like that’s really all the introduction something like this needs–any more and the spontaneity, the magic might be diminished. And honestly, all I want to do now is jump right in, hand out this gaudy gold Tronnie and hear the world’s applause. Just know that there’s no set schedule for handing out Tronnies. Award season can happen any time, pop up at any moment–and that’s half the fun! All something has to do is catch the Mellotron Sounds eye and its category will create itself. Something just has to be that bad.

Now all I need to do is make some kind of plaque–or statue. I’ll work on that.

But, without any further adiue, Mellotron Sounds‘ first ever Tronnie–the award for Most Irrelevant News Item–goes to…

LIMP BIZKIT’s Reunion Tour/Album

Oh, Fred Durst, you and your red hat. I’d like to imagine you jumping in celebration of your recent major award in the above photo. I also wish I would have been watching live when you said the following quote on Snoop Dogg’s MTV variety talk show, Dogg After Dark:

“When you have the chemistry, or something that really works, you can go away for a while and do your thing, but LIMP BIZKIT will never work like it’s supposed to work without the original DNA. The band sounds doper than we ever have, it’s tighter than it’s ever been, there’s something happening — something very special happening with us. We needed that break, and now we’re back, and it feels like we’re stronger than ever.”

Then there’s the masked Wes Borland–who I don’t remember looking this ridiculous in the “Nookie” video all those years ago. But I’m not gonna lie: I think the guy’s got spunk, maybe even a dash of panache. He’s got a good Ronald McDonald meets Maynard Keenan meets Alf thing going on. Just throwing that out there.

Here’s the setlist from their latest show in Riga. There are clips available of it, too, on YouTube that I was going to post–but really, come on–seriously–who the hell cares?

01. Space Odyssey (intro)
02. My Generation
03. Livin’ It Up
04. Show Me What You Got
05. Hot Dog
06. Almost Over
07. Rearranged
08. Break Stuff
09. The Truth
10. Boiler
11. Just Like This
12. Full Nelson
13. Counterfeit
14. My Way
15. Faith
16. Behind Blue Eyes
17. Nookie
18. Take A Look Around
19. Rollin’