30 Day Photo Challenge – Day 7
Posted: December 8, 2010 Filed under: friends | Tags: 30 day photo challenge, gold record, gotee records, relient k Leave a comment »Day 07 – A picture of your most treasured item
This one was particularly hard because I don't really have any "treasured items." Sure it would stink if my computer broke down, but...yea...I guess I'm not really that close to any of my material possessions. That's a good thing, though, right? That being said, I had to choose something, so I went with this gold record I got for working on a Relient K album. When I received it, I was genuinely pleased.
Year in Review (2009)
Posted: December 29, 2009 Filed under: friends, humor, movies | Tags: 2009, academy awards, american music theatre, amt, audition, avenue q, bill cosby, capital lights, coffee, dining in the dark, dj hero, fulton opera house, gotee records, hershey, hershey theatre, ireland, jim thorpe, john allen, john blowers, keller brothers, Lancaster, lost, michael jackson, midget, mitch mcvicker, nashville, national comedy theatre, new holland fair, new moon, new york city, nissley vineyard, nyc, oscar, oscars, pa, party, pennsylvania, review, saturday night live, snl, square one, the foreigner, twilight, year 1 Comment »2009 – YEAR IN REVIEW
- January 4 – I auditioned for The Foreigner at the Fulton Opera House. I didn’t get it or anything, but call me weird, I like auditioning. It’s just another excuse for me to get strangers to laugh. On purpose.
- January 11 – My pal John Allen was in town for a conference. I know John from my days working at Gotee Records in Nashville when I was in the Radio Promotions department and he was in Sales. Sarah and I met up with John in Hershey, PA. It was really nice to re-connect and introduce him to my better/crazier half.
- January 17 – I went hiking with my friend John Blowers in the Pennsylvania mountains. Somewhere. I actually don’t have any idea where we were, only about a half hour or so from Lancaster, so if he wanted to kill me and hide my body he very well could have. But he didn’t. I guess that means John’s my friend. :)
- February 3 – Sarah and I watched the touring production of Avenue Q at the Hershey Theater. There’s nothing quite as fun as introducing your wife to the world of foul-mouthed puppets. And Gary Coleman.
- February 22
- February 27
- March 17-24
- April 19 – My pal Mitch McVicker came to town and performed a concert at our church. Even better than watching him perform again was getting to catch up with a good friend.
- April 24 – Sarah and I went to a Capital Lights concert with our travel buddies Alyssa and Ashlea. Weeks later, the band announced they are breaking up. Coincidence?
- May 15 – Sarah and I traveled to New York City for the weekend. I rejoined my friends at the National Comedy Theater and jumped in the Friday night shows for a great night of improv. I am happy to report that JT, Chris, Paul, Dan, Cohen, Kevin, and Jason have not lost the funny.
- May 16 – Sarah and I hit some NYC tourist spots and that night we were in the live studio audience for the season finale of Saturday Night Live. It was everything we dreamed and more.
- June 23 – I broke a molar eating an ice cream sandwich.
- July 8 – After two weeks of temporary crowns, my molar was finally completely repaired.
- July 17 – Sarah and I attended a barbecue at Dustin and Janelle’s house. It was a great evening of friends and hangin’ out, capped off by an amazing Roman candle fight between Jeremy and Dustin.
- July 24-26 – Sarah and I returned to New York City and this time we brought our friends Ryan, Alyssa, and Ashlea with us. I performed at the National Comedy Theatre Friday and Saturday night and the rest of the time was spent giving them a whirlwind tour of the city.
- August 8 – Sarah and I went to Nissley Vineyard (the place I proposed to her two years earlier) with friends to enjoy a nice evening in the countryside.
- August 13
- August 28 – Posted my 200th doodle.
- September 12 – Sarah and I saw Bill Cosby perform live at the American Music Theatre. Despite the fact that he looks older, he’s still the same old Cos.
- September 18 – I had a voiceover audition at Max Films. Nothing has come of it (at least not yet) but again, it was something fun to do on a weekday afternoon.
- October 1 – I hung my doodles at a local coffee shop, Square One, as part of their monthly rotation of local artists. The theme for the month was Halloween, so I displayed my collection of doodles of movie villains
- October 3 – Sarah and I went to the New Holland Fair and were shocked to find they imported everyone who attends the county fair back home in Indiana to attend this one, too. Either that, or everyone who goes to fairs looks the same.
- October 7 – After months of hunting, Sarah and I picked up our new car, a Ford Focus from Keller Brothers. If you’re in the area, we highly recommend them!
- October 26 – Married to Sarah for two years and she’s still my bestest friend.
- October 30
- October 31 – At our Murder Mystery Party, everyone got dressed up in fancy clothes and we pretended we’re a lot more civilized than we actually are.
- November 14
- November 20
- December 4 – We attended a surprise birthday party for our friend Alyssa. It was a successful covert surprise operation.
- December 5 – My dear friend Nik (another Gotee Records survivor) is in town and Sarah and I get together with her for coffee. I probably sound like a broken record, but it’s so nice to re-unite with old friends and catch up!
- December 12 – My pal John had a poker night (guys’ night out). We tried to keep it as manly as possible, considering the snacks consisted of deli meats, apple cider, and hummus.
- December 24
- December 26 – For the second year in a row, Sarah’s sister and her family (The Tatmans) visited us for a week . We played games, watched movies, and hung around the house. Basically everything you WISH you did on vacation.
There’s one highlight I didn’t post because it happens every week: Sarah and I have some good friends over on Tuesday nights to watch Lost. Our usual gang of misfits includes some of our closest friends in Pennsylvania (Alyssa, Ashlea, Dustin, Janelle, Monica, Tammy, and Tyler). Sure, we’re all fans of the show and enjoy the twists and turns, but most of all we love having an excuse to get together with good friends. In a time of virtual social networking, nothing compares with actually hanging out with others.
Thanks, everyone, for a great 2009. Preparing to enter 2010 is weird. 2010. It looks really super futuristic. If I don’t have a flying car by 2015, I’m going to be mad.
Top 10 Movies of 2008 Pt. 3
Posted: December 24, 2008 Filed under: movies | Tags: 21, bank job, brad moist, cloverfield, dark knight, gotee records, incredible hulk, indiana jones, iron man, kingdom of the crystal skull, quantum of solace, the happening, vantage point, wall-e, wanted 3 Comments »Part 3 of my Top Movies of 2008 series is written by Brad Moist. Brad lives in Nashville where he works at Gotee Records in A&R. As big a fan of movies as he is, he’s probably an even bigger music fan, and releases a great music top 10 list each year.
Pink Slipped Away
Posted: August 14, 2008 Filed under: humor | Tags: charles schultz, fired, fred astaire, gotee records, harrison ford, pink slip, rejected, walt disney 2 Comments »Conclusion
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog about trying to get a copy of my pink slip from when I was fired at my job at a record label. The reason for trying to get a copy was because of what was written under “Reason for Termination”: No radio experience. (For those of you who didn’t bother to read the other blog, I had just finished a 3-year stint in radio before coming on board.)
My pal Brad put me in touch with Sara at Gotee Records to see about getting a copy of my paperwork and she was really cool about it. Alas, I heard back from her today and although they did indeed find my file, my pink slip is nowhere to be found inside.
I have to admit, I’m a little depressed about it. Why? I’ll explain by giving you some true stories:
- Walt Disney was once fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”
- After Harrison Ford’s first performance in movies, the studio vice-president called him into his office and said, “You ain’t got it kid , you ain’t got it … now get out of here.”
- Charles Schultz had every one of the comics he submitted to his high school newspaper rejected .
- A memo written in 1933 by an MGM testing director after Fred Astaire’s first screen test said, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” Astaire actually had the memo framed and placed over his fireplace.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’m better than or even nearly as good as any of the people I mentioned above but man, I really wanted my own little piece of irony to hang on the wall.
Pink Slip Proof
Posted: July 24, 2008 Filed under: humor | Tags: christian. fired, gotee records, nashville, pink slip, record label, terminated, WJTL 1 Comment »I’m having trouble contacting an old employer.
I used to work at Gotee Records, a Christian record label in Nashville. Before making the move there I worked at WJTL, a radio station in Lancaster PA for 3 years (I’m actually back at JTL again, so that worked out).
Not long after I got to Nashville, people started being let go from Gotee under really weird circumstances. Two years later, it was my turn. The best part is, it was one of those weird situations where the guy doing the firing couldn’t come up with a valid reason to let me go, so he had to make something up. On my pink slip under “Reason for termination” the excuse he put down was “No experience in radio.”**
I thought this was hilarious but have since lost my copy of the pink slip. I tried to get in touch with the HR department at the label to get a new copy sent to me. I actually want to frame it and put it in my office (I’m sorry, but when something is funny, it’s funny). I called the label today but got an automated message saying “Please hold for assistance” over and over again and was never connected to a real person. So, if anyone reading this has a hook-up…hook me up.
It’s all in the name of comedy.
.
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** Interesting footnote: The promotions manager who fired me? He’d worked there only a couple of months longer than me and his previous experience was working at a coffee shop. For realz, yo.
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UPDATE
A few minutes after posting this, my buddy and co-former Gotee employee Brad gave me the heads up on the person who could possibly get me what I was looking for. He gave me her email address and I sent her a friendly and polite email requesting a copy of my pink slip.
UPDATE #2
Approximately 30 minutes later I received an email in response to my request. She told me she’d see if she could get it from Joey (co-owner and co-founder of the label) and she would keep me posted. So far this is going much smoother than I anticipated.
Find out the final outcome by reading this post.
B-rad is Back
Posted: March 8, 2008 Filed under: friends, humor | Tags: apollo stump, blog, brad moist, fridge decor, gotee records, Guitar Hero, menards, mono vs stereo, search Leave a comment »One of the coolest things I like about this blog is seeing what people searched that led them to my little corner of the web. It’s always interesting to see just how many people do a search for “Menards” (a lot more than I would ever guess), “fridge decor” (people search for that?), and “Apollo stump” (I can’t say I blame them for that one…I often wonder how that tradition started, too).
Of course, I am sure my blogs help very little in providing them the information they were actually looking for. Instead of data pertaining to the department store, how to decorate your refrigerator, or insight into strange theater traditions, they get blogs about body parts said with English accents, a plea for free stuff, and a short story about a Jewish guy and Mo’Nique.
Another search a lot of people enter is “Brad Moist” which is curious, as he is a buddy of mine I worked with at Gotee Records who then went on to found his own record label, Mono vs Stereo. I used to have a link to his blog my blogroll (on the right-hand column of this page)but he recently took it down. I am glad to say, though, that now people can find him again as his new site is up and running. And for once, I can help. When people do a search for Brad they may actually find him, rather than my silly blog about Guitar Hero.
Where Ed meets Ed meets Ed
Posted: December 1, 2007 Filed under: friends | Tags: audition, gotee records, katinas, kheris, michael w smith, pillowman, reading 2 Comments »Today is going to be a pretty interesting day in that it will include a few different aspects of my life all rolled into one. I guess it’s not unlike Scrooge where he visits various points in his past all in one day. Except that I’m not an old miserly British guy disgusted by the Spirit of Christmas. But I’m getting there and my Ebenezer muttonchops are still a goal I dream of attaining one day.
But I digress.
First on the agenda is an audition at a theater in Ephrata. They are doing a production of the play “The Pillowman.” I’d heard of it before but didn’t know much about it. A bit of research revealed to me what an intense and dark drama it is and that would be fun to do. I’m not going in with huge expectations. It looks like it’s only a cast of 4 people and I’m sure there are four people around that are more talented than I am. It’ll still be fun to go in and audition. I haven’t auditioned for anything in a while and I’m looking forward to flexing my chops again.
After the big audition I’m heading out to Chuck and Ann’s to pick up a recliner they are being so generous to hand down. I am definitely looking forward to reclining.
Later in the afternoon I am driving up to Reading to interview The Katinas. They are in concert with Michael W Smith and I first got to know the guys when they were still on Gotee Records and I was still working for the label. They are the real deal and not only will it be fun to record a video interview with them for work, but I’m just excited to see the guys again. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen them and can’t wait to hang out, even for a short time.
And then, tonight, I’m going to see Stacey’s brother Aaron perform in his band Kheris. They’re playing at a place called Reflections and I’m looking forward to that. I’ve only seen them play one time (at the Purple Door festival) and I definitely liked what I heard. Sort of a U2 meets Coldplay meets coolness vibe.
And of course, best of all, is the fact that Sarah will be with me on each adventure. She’ll get to see me in actor-mode, ex-radio rep mode, husband-moving-furniture mode, and out-on-the-town mode.
Not a bad way to spend a Saturday, really.
Funky BREWSTER
Posted: March 16, 2007 Filed under: friends | Tags: blog, brewster, gotee records, insight, writing Leave a comment »There was a guy working at Gotee Records while I was there named Brewster and he’s pretty much one of the coolest guys I know. You know the kind of person I’m talking about. As soon as you meet them you wish you were best friends so you could hang out all the time and just be around someone so cool.
Unfortunately, Brewster wasn’t around very long after I got there and soon his adventures led him to Florida, so I never got to know him as well as I would have liked.
Thanks to the miracle of MySpace, I (and you) still have a chance to get to know him a little better. He’s been writing some blogs lately that are, excuse me for gushing, pretty darn amazing. I’ve seen people cut and paste little inspirational tidbits here and there, but Brewster writes some things that really hit home and get you thinking. And then gets you to take action on those thoughts.
So find Brewster, take a look around, and subscribe to his blog. It’ll be more than worth it.
