Left Brain/Right Brain

This is an audio clip that’s been making its rounds on the internet.  It’s a story of an unsupervised left-brainer told in a most fabulous Southern accent. I was ROLLING on my office floor!!! Click on the link below:

Left Brain Grocery List

Non-Work, Non-Theater Randomness

After Sunday’s matinee, Sunshine and I went to see the new Star Trek movie on IMAX.

OMG!!! Run, don’t walk to the theater and catch this on the big screen!!! It was FANTASTIC!!!!

Don’t worry, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, there are no spoilers in this post. For the Trekkers who are worried about this movie ruining the Star Trek universe…you just have to see it! And for those who don’t follow Star Trek, it’s a great standalone movie! Yes, there are some inside jokes, but even if you don’t get it, it’s still a great movie! I plan on seeing it again – and I’m not a big Trek fan! I was completely sucked it – and that’s a rarity nowadays. Fabulous cast, amazing production and a great story!

Since my birthday is coming up (June10June10June10), I’m adding this to my wish list:

Click on the image for more information on this fabulous, fantastic tub! To quote the Manolo (no relation to my boyfriend Blahnik):

High-heeled Barbie Shoe, Glitter Disco Ball, Bath Tubs! Truly, we have achieved the sort of harmonic convergence of fabulosity.

Art Car & Other Stuff

Long overdue update…

I just open yet another show. Awake & Sing! is now playing at Main Street Theater and I’m stage managing this show. Before you ask, no, it’s not a musical. This play was written by Clifford Odet back in the 1930’s as a WPA project during the Great Depression. It’s a good, solid production with some fabulous actors and I highly encourage you to go see it.

Art Car 2009! This is the first year in a long, long, LONG time I’ve been able to go to Art Car. I had the difficult choice of riding in the parade with some friends who entered an Art Car in the parade or sit in the VIP section with bleachers, free food, free drinks and primo VIP parking. Yup, you guessed it, I opted for the VIP section! It was a great parade this year – over 200 cars in this year’s parade. Lots of fantastic cars in this year’s parade! I’ll be posting pics from the parade on my other blog, J’s POV’s, and on my Flickr site (click on the picture of the chicken on the right).

Featured below is the car my friends entered – the Rubber Chicken. The Chicken was suppose to be in last year’s parade, but they couldn’t get it running. This year’s fear was fire from the engine. They fixed it AND got it running. Loads of fun ensued!

Updates!!!

I’ve got a few updates, so let’s just jump right in.

Update 1 – New addition to the family

The latest Badrina finally made his arrival! Cole Huxley Hammond Badrina. Born Feb. 27, 2009, 20 in. long and weighing in at 7lbs. 2 oz. Click here for pics. Lola and Lolo hopped in the car and were on their way to Dallas with minutes after they got the call. Munchkin got to vote on his name which, by the way, wasn’t decided on until about 30 hours AFTER he was born.

Update 2 – New job

Technically it’s not new. Let’s say it’s a change in job status. And departments. Ok, it is and isn’t a new job. I’m now full time at the Houston Arts Alliance (yay benefits!) and have been shifted to a new department. Actually, the department is new for me and the agency. I am now a Programs & Services Coordinator in the brand-new Programs & Services department. They split one of the departments (Grants & Services) into 2. Grants is a stand-alone department and the Services half has now been absorbed into the new department. My duties have stayed the same, but now we have more programs in the works.

For those who have been keeping tabs on the trials and tribulations of my life, this is not the job I interviewed for. A few weeks ago, I applied for the Communications Manager position and made it all the way to a second interview. Obviously, I did not get the position, but neither did the other 2 who made it to the second round of interviews. We still have no Communications Manager. They did, however, offer me a full-time position at the agency, so it wasn’t a complete let-down. The upside is that I get to stay with some of the programs that I’ve been working on since its inception. And I get benefits (did I mention that?). The BIG upside is that I don’t have to freak out when I don’t get enough weeks to qualify for health insurance through my union!  Yes, I’m still working in theater and will continue to do so. This segues nicely into:

Update 3 – New Show

I am the stage manager and sound designer for Main Street Theater’s newest show, The Pie Dialogues. This is a world premiere with a director making his directorial debut at Main Street, Andrew Ruthven. (Yay Sunshine!!!!) It’s a 2 person show about a man and a woman and their ups and downs as a couple and as parents. We just opened and play until Mar. 22. Come see the show!!! (BTW – it has a rockin’ soundtrack!)

That about wraps it up. Check out the new baby’s pics and go out and support live theater!!!

If I Had A Band…

I did this on Facebook, but I decided to repost it on blog. I was having waaaaay too much fun with this, so I’m sharing this with everyone! If you decide to join in the fun, let me know where you are posting yours.

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What would your own album look like if you were in a band? Follow the directions below and find out…

Here are the rules:

1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random… Read More”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 – Post it to FB with this text in the “caption” or “comment” and TAG the friends you want to join in.

Yet Another List

I did the “Random 25 Things” list on my Facebook, so I’ll do this list on my blog. Besides, I now can’t be accused of failure to post. So play along with me and let me know where you’re reposting your own list.

USING ONLY ONE WORD! It’s not as easy as you might think! Copy and change the answers to suit you and pass it on. It’s really hard to only use one word answers. Be sure to tag the person you received it from!

1. Where is your cell phone? Desktop
2. Your significant other? Huh?
3. Your hair? Loose
4. Your mother? Busy
5. Your father? Taller
6. Your favorite? Shoes
7. Your dream last night? None
8. Your favorite drink? Appletini
9. Your dream/goal? Enjoy
10. What room you are in? Office
11. Your hobby? Sleep
12. Your fear? Complacency
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Vacation
14. Where were you last night? Theater
15. Something that you aren’t? Dating
16. Muffins? Blueberry
17. Wish list item? Neiman’s
18. Where you grew up? Houston
19. Last thing you did? Call
20. What are you wearing? Jeans
21. Your TV? Home
22. Your pets? Cats
23. Friends? Sure
24. Your life? Comedic
25. Your mood? Meh
26. Missing some one? Hmm…
27. Car? White
28. Something you’re not wearing? Shorts
29. Your favorite store? DSW
30. Your favorite color? Red
33. When is the last time you laughed? Today
34. Last time you cried? January
35. Who will resend this? Dunno
36. One place that I go to over and over? Bed
37. One person who emails me regularly? Andrew
38. My favorite place to eat? Depends

Alright Already!!!

Yes boys  &  girls! It’s the first blog for the new year!!! (Happy now, Nemesis??) I’ve been busy with incredibly mundane and boring stuff, so by the time I get home the only thing I want to do is go straight to sleep. No pics in this post – I don’t have them on this computer. I will get pictures up on the next post.

I’m getting ready to start the first of 3 back-to-back-to-back shows. I am excited about starting on another show. I was starting to crawl up the walls. The first show which I’m stage managing and sound designing (Pie Dialogues at Main Street Theatre, Feb. 21-Mar. 22 – shameless plug) is NOT set in the 1940’s!!! The timeline stretches from 1985 – now.  YAY!!! An era I have tons of music from!!!! I am, however, disappointed with my director.  I tried and tried, but I could not talk him into using some Tool or Manson. (Grrrrr.) Hopefully the show will have an intermission. I’ll try to slip in one or two songs when he’s not looking. (Um…I hope you’re not reading this, Sunshine!)

I’m also gearing up for a busy weekend. Sister-in-law’s baby shower. Yup, Munchkin is going to have a baby brother. Poor girl, she’s too young to realize they don’t come with a return policy. The shower will be here in town, so she’ll get to visit her favorite dog, Jock. My cousin from Portland, OR will also be in town for the shower. I’m trying to remember the last time she visited Houston. Needless to say, it’s been a really, really long time. So it should be a fun weekend.

I do have stuff I need to update you on, but it is going to have to wait for a few weeks for various and sundry reasons. The next post will have pictures. I promise!

Hello Again!

Yes, once again I’ve neglected my poor blog. It’s been real busy as of late. (I know you’ve heard this before – many times, as a matter of fact.) So let me give your a quick run-down on what’s been going on with me.

Shows (When am I not doing shows?) 

I recently did sound design for 2 shows: Main Street Theater’s But Not Goodbye and Town Center Theatre’s Merry Christmas, George Bailey. No, they weren’t back-to-back, they were at the same time. Both were BIG builds as far as sound design went. (And did I mention I was building them at the same time?!?)

Computer

The same time I was working on the aformentioned shows, my computer decided to quit on me. Apparently, the power supply on the motherboard was dying. That makes building sound designs, updating blogs, work in general very, very, VERY difficult! Naturally, the computer quit on me the night before my first day of tech for Main Street’s show. Luckily the show is running off of a computer in the tech booth, so I was able to use that computer to REBUILD (from scratch) the show. In less than 6 hours. (If there are any designers out there, you can appreciate what kind of feat that is.) However, that meant that any fixes (and there were many) had to be done on the computer at the theater. You may be asking, “Janel, when did you work on your fixes?”  At the only time available – between the hours of midnight till I had to leave for work the following morning. That was also the only time I could work on TCT’s show. Let me tell you, it was 3 very long weeks.

(BTW – I have my computer back, good as new. When I say “good as new”, I mean brand new, need to reload EVERYTHING back in and hope I can find my installation disks for many of my essential programs. The headache is not over yet!)

Work

I’m at the Houston Arts Alliance (temp-to-hire, so cross your fingers). I’m with the communications department and it now consists solely of people from the performing arts world. Ok, so there are only 3 of us in the department: 2 theater trash and 1 dancer. We are the crazy department but we’re lots of fun!!!

Truly Cool Ad

I got a big kick out of this ad. They BAKED a car for this ad – and filmed it in real time. It’s pretty awesome!

Here’s the making-of video of the ad.

I’m hungry now.

How Did Wayne Dolcefino Survive Ike???

Really!!! I want to know! Hurricane Ike took out houses, the Balinese Room and a whole side of the Flagship Hotel, but yet left Wayne Dolcefino standing and untouched.

For those of you who don’t know or are not from Houston or left Houston a while back, Wayne Dolcefino is Houston’s ABC affiliate’s investigative “reporter” (and I’m using that title very loosely). This time around, he decided to do a 4-part exposé on public funding for arts in Houston.  Instead of reiterating, I’ll just post the mass email I sent to o’ bunch of people last night this morning. At 3am. His part 2 had me so pissed I couldn’t fall asleep until 3a. So I’m working the National Arts Marketing Project conference on about 3 hours of sleep. (Yeah, he timed his exposé to exactly coincide with the annual NAMP which is in Houston this year. Thanks, Wayne!)

For those of you who don’t know, Wayne Dolcefino is doing a 4 part “exposé” on Houston’s public funding of the arts. Monday night (part 2) was, at least from the transcripts, worse than part 1 (if you can believe that). Yet another one of Wayne’s salacious, sensational, mis-leading, unbalanced and irresponsible pieces he’s pawning off as investigative journalism.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/13_undercover&id=6498916

A few things to note:

1) Municipalities that collect a Hotel Occupancy Tax can only spend that money on 7 possible categories that promotes tourism and the convention and hotel industry, one of which is the encouragement and promotion of the arts. It cannot be used for general revenue purposes or governmental operations.

2) Houston has elected to fund the arts exclusively through HOT, unlike other municipalities who fund their arts through a combination of HOT and general tax revenues. So unless you frequently stay in Houston area hotels for less than 30 consecutive days at a time, your tax money is not funding the arts.

3) Texas currently ranks 49th among all US state arts agencies as far as per capita funding. We fund $0.22 per capita on the arts. The national average is $1.18. First place: Hawaii – $6.92. (Anyone want to move to Hawaii with me?)

4) Just because only one civic art installation has gone up in the 2.5 years the Houston Arts Alliance has been operating doesn’t mean that the money have been squandered. HAA decimates the money to over 200 cultural and arts organizations & individuals – not just civic art. By the way, large-scale art installations (and most civic art pieces fall under that category) are neither cheap nor quick to complete.

5) Who made him the sole judge of what is and isn’t art? Personally, I like Margo Sawyer’s Synchronicity of Color and the piece that was to be installed at the new fire station downtown. I don’t need or desire my artistic tastes and aesthetic sensibilities to be dictated to me.

I do realize for the most part, I’m preaching to the choir. If you feel strongly about this (and since most of you fall under the arts category, this directly affects you), comment on ABC13’s website and HAA’s blog (www.haablog.com).