Laughing Your Way Into The New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

'09 is coming to an end...it seems to have gone by quickly...was that 365? Felt productive, but, quick. Did lots of performing, started a new full length piece, recieved another grant from the wonderful Marsh Theater...got thru another year with the District...spent another amazing year with the beautiful Susan and made alot of music. That sounds like a good year....and here is a really great way to end the year for us all. My very good friend Bruce Pachtman is producing...not one, but, two very funny events for New Year's Eve. Not a bad choice between them....

LAUGHTER AGAINST THE MACHINE
W. Kamau Bell, Nato Green and Hari Kondabolu are bringing in the new year at the Phoenix Theater in San Francisco....

click here to find out more info;

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/88709

3 FOR ALL & TRUE FICTION MAGAZINE
Internationally known Improv Troupes join forces at the Cowel Theater, Fort Mason

click here to find out more info;

https://www.fortmason.org/tm/tm.cgi?tmEvent/tmEventDefault.html?
P_SEQ=693

Richard James

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !!!! to all my family and friends

A while back I wrote and recorded a holiday story that I shared with a small circle of family and friends. It was a "one-take" recording at my good friend and collaborator Mark Kenward's downstairs studio....the story is called "Richard James: A Holiday Story"

Well, now through the magic of technology....I am able to share this piece with even more family and friends. How cool is that?

...I wish you all things wonderful for the holiday and the new year!

Click here to listen!

So, a few months back, I was going around asking folks if they had seen "The Hurt Locker". Most people looked at me with that furrowed brow "Huh?"...kinda stare. No one I knew had seen it and I know some real cinemahounds...and because of that I started to wonder... had I seen it?

I mean it was all under suspect circumstances, no witnesses, I had taken my self to the movies no girlfriend or buddy...just me in my favorite little movie theater, CINEARTS, in Pleasant Hill. I can remember coming out of the theater a little disoriented...wanting to talk to someone about it and having no where to go with my thoughts.

So, I believe I tucked it away....forgot about it...or I had never seen it...not sure.

Then I read that "The Hurt Locker" has won several awards lately including the Los Angeles Film Critics and New York Film Critics Circle awards for "Best Film".

...and like an old acid trip...the film comes back to me, as clear as if I just saw it this past weekend. This movie is intense...visceral...it was something that I felt as much as watched.

It is about the soldiers in an Army bomb squad unit in Iraq...the movie is well written by a guy named Mark Boal and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, both of whom were also nominated for awards. not that I need the LA or New York critics to validate my opinions....remember I am the guy who told you to see "Bubba Ho-Tep" (the best Elvis/Zombie/Kennedy conspiracy movie ever made)