So, posting about last Friday night’s amazing trunk show has proven harder than anticipated… we’ll get some pics soon enough, but in the meantime…
As a “professional” business, we undertook sending out Christmas cards this year… and man do I totally understand my Mom’s boxed wine IV now.
While I assembled those soon to be legendary cards, I got my envelop-lick-on to the following (which, by the way, make sick presents for those whom you know not what to get):
I can’t even begin to say enough about this album. I download insane amounts of obscure funk/soul/afro/psychedelic rarities… and this album sinks every battleship the most serious collector could bring.
Had the leak. Bought the album cause I believe in voting. Can’t touch this. Kid is insane. Listen all you want and you’ll un-entwine sumfin new err’time.
Okay. Listen to this album and if you don’t understand why I love it, email Ryan Nerone, and, from Thailand, he’ll explain to you why I do and why you will. 1.) Boston Band (which guarantees a listen from me) 2.) R&B/Punk Rock 3.) First band I’ve ever heard cover Lars 4.) the SLF cover 5.) If the Bosstones hadn’t existed, this band would’ve carried that torch.
And that’s all I gots tonight. Christmas Cards & Christmas Lights.
Lots of pictures to post from the party Friday… Will get those up tomorrow, but for now we just want to say THANK YOU to our family, old friends, and new friends that came by and truly made it a night to remember. We really appreciate the support and can’t wait for 2008!
In the meantime… Catching up on all my favorite websites and thought I’d post some stuff you can buy yourself while Christmas shopping…. please, let’s be honest, I’m not the only person that throws a little something in for myself when buying presents for everyone… am I?
Don’t forget our big trunk sale this Friday night! It’s obviously gonna be the jam. I could write about the great deals you’ll be able to get there and how our clothes make great “where’d you get this?!!” presents, but all I really need to say is that there will be FREE BOOZE.
Put on your most festive Christmas sweater, and be there. We’ll definitely be going out after, maybe to the Highlands, hopefully to Twain’s in Decatur, so make a night of it.
Now I’m not a very big fan of Dashboard Confessional, mainly because I’m not an overweight adolescent girl who wears too much eyeliner and cries when I hear the band, but this is still pretty cool….
Right out of school, GAC grad makes music video, wins prize
By Adrianne M. Murchison The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 12/10/07Grant Carden has wasted no time in getting his film career off the ground.
Last year, the 2006 graduate from Greater Atlanta Christian School in Norcross, moved to Los Angeles to attend the New York Film Academy’s one-year program.
In November, a music video he co-produced with his classmate won Dashboard Confessional’s video contest. The video by Carden and film partner Dillon Magrann-Wells, both 19, was selected for Dashboard Confessional’s new single, “Thick as Thieves” from “The Shade of Poison Trees” CD.
The video will soon be on Fuse TV. And MTV may not be far behind, according to Sean-Michael Dore, from Dashboard Confessional’s record label, Vagrant Records.
Carden and Magrann-Wells, who is from Lafayette, Calif., finished their film school program in June.
“My dream is to write and direct feature films, that’s what I’m out here to do,” said Carden, who lived in Duluth before moving to Los Angeles. “I’m happy to start with music videos. It’s a great start.”
Carden and Magrann-Wells came up with a unique concept to capture the lyrics of Dashboard Confessional’s rockin’ but intense song about friends or lovers sticking together under the most horrid of circumstances.
In a simple white setting, Carden, a magician since childhood, performs card tricks. The cards revealed are peppered with the song’s words —- “secret,” “breathe,” “sinner” and so on.
The video beat out 160 competitors —- many of them with high-tech productions. But the music group and its label wanted more than a plush-looking music video, said Dore.
“We kind of made it a point not to focus on videos that looked incredible,” he said. “[Carden and Magrann-Wells' video] was about being clever and just working with what they had. They had a good concept and it was probably the most low-budget.”
Magrann-Wells filmed the video in one take, but it was an arduous task for him and Carden.
“The first time we shot it in seven hours,” said Magrann-Wells. “But we got one of the words on the card wrong and had to go back and do it again, and then it took five hours.”
Their hard work paid off. They will split $2,500 in prize money and several VIP Dashboard Confessional concert tickets.
The video has inspired the former GAC student, who won several theatrical awards at the Gwinnett school, to start his next venture, a film company. “[Under] Carden Films, I’m going to start making short films, music videos and spec commercials to build up my reel of edited clips,” he said.
However, I am sure that I’m sick of that Antares Autotune Pitch-Correcting vocal effect used in every hip-hop song on the radio today. Thanks, Akon. And don’t think you’re innocent either T-Pain.
Navy coach Paul Johnson has an agreement in principle to become the next head football coach at Georgia Tech, three people close the hiring process told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Friday morning.
But as has been the case during this crazy season, it is not a done deal until Johnson signs the contract.
Johnson, 50, was scheduled to meet later in the day with his team at Navy, where he is scheduled to take the Midshipmen to the Poinsettia Bowl on Dec. 20.
Several coaches, including Wake Forest’s Jim Grobe (Arkansas), have seriously discussed other jobs only to change their minds at the last minute.
But this much is clear, according to one person who talked to the AJC, Johnson will either stay at Navy or he will become the next coach at Georgia Tech, replacing Chan Gailey.
If Johnson signs with Georgia Tech later today, the next question will be about the future of Jon Tenuta, the Yellow Jackets’ defensive coordinator. Tenuta has been serving as interim head coach since Gailey’s firing on Nov. 26 and is preparing the team for the Humanitarian Bowl on Dec. 31 against Fresno State.
Contacted Friday morning, Tenuta would not speculate whether he will remain as Georgia Tech’s defensive coordinator under Johnson.
“My job is to manage the football program and get our team ready to play Fresno State,” Tenuta said. “I look forward to that because our players deserve every chance to succeed. I have made that commitment to them.”
Johnson, who is 107-39 in 11 seasons as a head coach, won a pair of national championships at Georgia Southern in 1999 and 2000. He took over a Navy program that was 1-10 in 2001. He has won five straight Commander in Chief Trophies, which goes to the top school among the service academies. He is 11-1 in six seasons against Army and Air Force.
Johnson’s decision to come to Georgia Tech will send a ripple throughout the coaching carousel. Johnson entertained strong offers from SMU and Duke, which are still looking for coaches today.
Johnson was named Navy’s 36th head coach on Dec. 9, 2001. The program had been 1-20 in the previous two seasons and Johnson was 2-10 in his first season in Annapolis. But over the past five seasons he is 43-19.
Johnson has been successful at Georgia Southern and Navy by running a version of the triple option offense. But over the years he has made it clear that if he landed a job at a BCS school, his offense would be more diversified. He spent eight seasons as the offensive coordinator at Hawaii (1987-94) before going to Navy as offensive coordinator (1995-96).
Johnson then took over at Georgia Southern where he was 62-10 with two Division I-AA national championships. He was on Erk Russell’s original staff at Georgia Southern when the program was started in the early 1980s.
A native of Newland, N.C., Johnson has an undergraduate degree from Western Carolina and a Master’s Degree from Appalachian State. He and his wife, Susan, have a daughter, Kaitlyn (14).
Check out these pictures from mine and Lauren’s Christmas tree hunt. Below the pics is the story of our beloved Christmas trees.
The largest tree ever hunted at this farm. Way to go Lauren!
Almost as big, but not quite.
Don’t worry it’s not a baby, it’s just a different breed.
Don’t be fooled, this guy was feisty!
Lauren and myself decided to go get our Christmas tree yesterday and we thought it would be best to do it in the style of our ancestors. We thought it would be quite a testament to go through the extreme dedication and willpower that it took for our families before us to hunt down and capture these rarely seen but highly coveted “Christmas Trees”. We have, in this age of instant gratification, lost the respect for the year round planning and even luck that it took to capture a live Christmas Tree. Christmas Trees were not even known to exist until the early parts of this century. Named after the scientist who discovered these previously thought to be mythical creatures, Christmas trees became the obsession of an entire nation. Christmas trees were not known to exist because of their “unusual” way of life. Unlike most living creatures, these trees did not show their faces until the dead of winter and the fact that they thrive in such cold environments explains why they were not discovered until we had the capacity to handle those frigid conditions. Father Christmas, as his students called him, camped out for 3 months in sub-zero temperatures before he became the first human to lay eyes on a living Christmas tree. “I can’t explain to you the you the feeling I had. I was the only person in the world who had ever seen this creature alive. I felt excited, honored, and humbled…….and really really cold”, said Father Christmas. Father Christmas’s excitement soon turned to horror as Christmas trees were hunted to near extinction. As the news of his discovery spread like wildfire, more and more people wanted to be the first person to hunt down and kill a Christmas Tree. Hunting a Christmas Tree took a tremendous amount of cunning and bravery and successful hunters were treated like today’s movie stars. It was customary after a hunt to display the tree inside your house as a sign of manhood. Christmas Trees would have been eliminated if it wasn’t for the Christmas Tree Act of 1909. The Act’s main contributor was the most successful hunter of the time. Chris Tinsel realized that although hunting these trees was challenging and fun, it did no good if there were none left to hunt. The act protected this sacred tree and preserved it’s spot in history. Thousands of people who were in awe of it’s natural beauty began Christmas tree farms in order to up the population. It turns out that Christmas trees do very well in captivity. Within a couple years, Christmas Trees had made a full recovery and were even considered in some areas to be over populated. Today, Christmas trees thrive in many different climates all over North America. Today you are even allowed to hunt Christmas Trees, but they have to be on official Christmas tree farms and although it is still very hard to do, it does not compare to those who did it before us out in the wild where anything was possible. I felt a real connection with my family heritage when I was out on this farm, although it’s more like a range. The Christmas Trees are there but you still have to track them down. Merry Christmas Tree!
Friday night was Stomp and Stammer’s (local music ‘zine) 11th birthday and if the lineup above wasn’t impressive enough, Esperanza made it out as well. The following is a brief photo journal of the evening:
Holy Beard Batman! Ek was sporting a new, and improved, look. He smelled of Old Spice.
We met up at the Yacht Club for a couple drinks before the show. Dr. Lauren Adams was in the house.
We finally made our way into Variety and after situating ourselves noticed this gentleman in front of us. We were so astounded by his Technicolor DreamFannyPack that this snapshot had to be taken. It would the topic of endless discussion all night.
The most popular act was apparently playing outside that evening… Cigarettes! Good lord, you’d think these people would never be able to have one again.
DannyBarbs totally Pike’in out before Black Lips.
That’s like a Rolling Stone shot.
Only cause I couldn’t get a shot of the nasty hood grill.
Ran into him at the Majestic much later that evening.
I can never resist throwing little Danny on top of the crowd and watching his World Famous Crowd Surfing Acrobatics. Like a fish to water I tell ya. Anyway, this just happens to be the only known picture of the man in action. Awesome.
Haven’t gotten my pics from Friday on my computer yet for that post, but in the meatime, for fun, here’s a .jpeg pattern that after downloading, you can tile on your desktop to wrap your computer with Esperanza cheer this holiday season.
OK, so while I gather my thoughts for a post about last night…
I tried to type this 40 times, but due to a wicked brown bottle flu that’s left me like lego today….. uh, in bits…. I can’t come up with anything witty, or even well written for that matter, so here goes:
Ghostface Killah is awesome.
PLEASE check out The Big Doe Rehab album for what may be my absolute favorite rekkid right now. This guy is the king of outdoing himself.
And if anyone is thinking of getting me something for Christmas, “The World According to Pretty Toney” is at the top of my list. Click the pic! I been extra nice!
Based on the following MTV2 skits compiled below:
The “Hustler’s Diet” bit about oatmeal is particularly great as Ghost cracks himself up.
Look for a detailed account of Friday night insanity in a bit…
