Hotel Chelsea (July 2, 2024)

A typically fun night at Hotel Chelsea in Second Life. Photo by Kat.

Well hello there! Nice to be back here, writing about music and life and stuff, and not in bullet-point format. I had an absolutely excellent show Tuesday night at Hotel Chelsea in Second Life, and we'll get to that momentarily.

So, What's Up?

Since I spend every other post on this silly blog reviewing the important information of the moment, I thought we could all use a departure from that stuff. For no reason at all, I just made a list of my 50 favorite films of all time. And here they are, in chronological order. By the way, if I make this list in a week or two, it will be at least somewhat different. I'm inconsistent in my tastes. Such is life.

• Sunset Boulevard (1950)
• Seven Samurai (1954)
• Rear Window (1954)
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
• The Graduate (1967)
• Scrooge (1970)
• A Clockwork Orange (1971)
• Harold and Maude (1971)
• Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
• The Godfather (1972)
• The Sting (1973)
• Blazing Saddles (1974)
• Young Frankenstein (1974)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
• Taxi Driver (1976)
• The Bad News Bears (1976)
• Annie Hall (1977)
• Alien (1979)
• Airplane! (1980)
• The Elephant Man (1980)
• The Shining (1980)
• Time Bandits (1981)
• Blade Runner (1982)
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
• This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
• Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985)
• Full Metal Jacket (1987)
• Raising Arizona (1987)
• My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
• Goodfellas (1990)
• Total Recall (1990)
• Reservoir Dogs (1992)
• Forrest Gump (1994)
• Pulp Fiction (1994)
• The Usual Suspects (1995)
• Fargo (1996)
• Trainspotting (1996)
• Boogie Nights (1997)
• L.A. Confidential (1997)
• The Big Lebowski (1998)
• Saving Private Ryan (1998)
• There’s Something About Mary (1998)
• Being John Malkovich (1999)
• American Beauty (1999)
• Fight Club (1999)
• The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003)
• Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) 
• The Death of Stalin (2018)
• Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019)

Are there more artistic or more important or more influential films than there? Yes, hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. But these were the ones that somehow impacted me at some point in my life. By the way, in case you didn't notice... I've seen relatively few films in the past 10-15 years, and I suppose the ones I did see weren't amazing enough to knock something else off this list.

Anything Else?

Um... no? Yes? I don't know? My time has been divided between mostly mundane life responsibilities (working, keeping myself alive in various ways, occasionally wedging in a minute or two to strum a guitar and record some tasty riffs) and staying awake and alert in regard to the massive wave of political and governmental madness that's been at the top of the headlines in recent weeks.

I mean, I knew all of this was coming. I could see this a mile away from the moment that I accepted that the 2024 race would be between Biden and Dumples the Clown. Also triggering my Spidey sense was the awareness that the trajectory of technological and communication tool development was going to massively impact how information -- right and wrong -- would be disseminated for this election cycle.

And lo and behold, no surprises. So while I'd love to be spending much more of my time being a musical genius or otherwise enjoying pleasant and peaceful things, it's all the more likely that from now through November and perhaps beyond, a greater percentage of my attention will need to stay focused on the more important big-picture stuff. Ya know, saving our democracy, avoiding an autocratic dictatorship. That kind of stuff.

Random side note: while I have lots of great mics and instruments and software to record with, when I have a fresh new idea, I literally pull out my phone or tablet and capture that idea as quickly as possible. That way, I always can come back to it if it's worthy of fleshing out as a song.

Hey, How About That Show?

That was super fun. I had no idea before that very day that my pals Max Kleene and Beth Odets would be performing as a duet directly after me. I happen to check SL event listings before popping into world, and was quite happy to see this lineup.

I've probably performed adjacent to Max as much or more than any other musician in Second Life over the going-on 18 years I've been involved in the music scene there. Our performance styles do seem to work well together for similar crowds. And Beth, whom literally everyone adores, is an outstanding musician and is a dose of spirit-lifting goodness in her own unique, manic way.

Me doing my thing. Photo by Kat.

Rocking my crowd while Max and Beth's people filtered in. Photo by Kat.

The combined crowd of the folks there to see me and the slightly larger batch of folks arriving to see Max and Beth led to a pretty packed house in the midst of my show, which was fun. It always is, and I've told you many times before, my perception of a show isn't tied to the number of people who make up the audience. But when you have a good show in front of a big crowd, well... all the better.

I didn't have any particular theme in mind for this show as I put together the set, but I think I had some subliminal process going on where almost every song I played had a bit of double-meaning, either on its own or when viewed through the lens of the world's current events. Except, of course, the Woody Guthrie song which, as great songs tend to be, is quite direct without a lot of room for interpretation required.

I think they knew what I meant about the fascists. Photo by Kat.

Playing rock and roll on a summer day has side effects.

Hotel Chelsea set list...

Pigs On The Wing - Parts I and II (Pink Floyd) 

Shame Chamber (Kurt Vile)

Summer Breeze (Seals & Crofts)

Pecan Pie (Golden Smog)

My God Is the Sun (Queens of the Stone Age)

It's Good to be King (Tom Petty)

Thank U (Alanis Morissette)

*Don’t Dream It’s Over (Crowded House)

Old Man (Neil Young) 

All You Fascists (Woody Guthrie)

Fly Like an Eagle (Steve Miller)

Just Like Starting Over (John Lennon)

*Max & Beth Get Onstage - Improvisation (Zak Claxton)

*Indicates the first time I've done this song in SL.

Big thanks to everyone who hung out at the show, with extra special sauce for the following people who helped support it!

Buck Dezno, Rusty Seisenbacher, Beth Odets, Rill Andel, Mari Visage, Trouble Streeter, cristoofarr Resident, Alex Zelin, Kat Claxton, my terrific manager Mali Beck, Hotel Chelsea manager Shyla the Super Gecko, and Chelsea's great staff.