The search for Hotel Palomar in Dallas yesterday was no problem. I had just visited the place a month ago for a Bing search engine discussion. Oh yes, I sampled the Wi-Fi at the Kimpton property … as my friend Steve Plunkett pretty much wowed the crowd with his opinions on how Bing works and how it should work.
Yesterday, the PingWi-Fi film crew hit Hotel Palomar for the media kickoff of the Dallas International Film Festival. One assumes this is hashtagged #DIFF on Twitter, but that is conjecture on my part …
Anyway, international is the “key search term” for this story. The most outgoing, most interesting peeps we met were the representatives from Univision — of course the Hispanic media TV, Internet giant.
Ha … I tried to wow Mr. Herrerea and friends with my “fluent” Spanish (which is actually a memorized poem about a burro and two dogs …).
Seeing they were unimpressed with my bilingual bravado, I resorted to the time-honored tradition of name dropping. “Oh … you guys are in Hispanic media … you MUST meet my friend Gustavo!” Ha … they already knew Gustavo … I realized Gus was a big man about Dallas … But I didn’t know he was about as well known as the 6-foot-8 “Eduardo Najeras” of the world. (Yes I caught a little of The Mavs game on the tube downstairs in the Central 214 Bar before the media event.)
Back to film … Perhaps the more interesting part of the night was when the power went off to begin the party. Yes, some people were in the elevators when the lights went off. I vote they get the door prices, for the record.
No doubt the PingWi-Fi team will attend the Dallas International Film Festival, again this year, no matter what they call it. And we will be on the lookout for beautiful people, schwag and most important, Wi-Fi networks to upload photos, tweets and blogs … “Action!
From Press Release:
Lineup marks return to Dallas International Film Festival by filmmakers Alex Gibney, Steve James and Tim McCanlies
Dallas – The Dallas International Film Festival announces films that will screen at this year’s festival (April 8-18) including films starring Michael Douglas, Jesse Eisenberg, John Goodman and Tilda Swinton, and films directed by returning Dallas International Film Festival filmmakers Alex Gibney, Steve James and Tim McCanlies.
My first Wi-Fi road trip — an 18,000-mile excursion a few years earlier — wrapped up in Austin with a quick visit to the Wi-Fi Alliance world headquarters and another music festival.
So, Austin’s recent SXSW festival was not my first rodeo, but it certainly wasn’t the end of the road either. And frankly this time I hit more old favorites than new Wi-Fi hotspots. But that’s okay. For me, what makes Wi-Fi special is that it creates a gathering place and community.
Usually, I can find some pretty interesting stuff to upload with Wi-Fi too … say like photos of any one of the thousands of people doing their part to keep Austin Weird on 6ixth Street during SXSW. (Here is a heartfelt ballad … a tribute to them … complete with slow-mo thrashing.):
So, my gig is to review Wi-Fi hotspots … everywhere I go … connecting the dots coast to coast. I am so obsessed with this that I once proposed to my sponsor that I strap on a wireless router and become a walking Internet connection. We didn’t do it. (The negotiations broke down when they wanted me to wear a Star Trek ensign’s uniform. Ha! Can you believe that? I of course held out for the captain’s suit …) But anyway, if you are interested, I still own the URL www.humanhotspot.com … I digress …
It is a magical day at PingWi-Fi. Through the magic that is Facebook, I know that I have a friend/colleague who is working in Santiago, Chile. Ha! If he would sign up for Gowalla or FourSquare, I could tell you what restaurants he frequents. What I can tell you is that he has Wi-Fi at his hotel … That tip, thanks again to Mike on Facebook.
Here’s some more magic. Do you use Google Analytics on a Website? It allows the blogger to see how many people hit a site — for example like PingWi-Fi .com — each day, from anywhere in the world. I can even tell you what terms you Googled or Binged to ping the site … so watch yo self.
Anyway, although I have had readers from Chile in the past, I am man enough to admit that the numbers have not been significant. Then there was the whole earthquake thing. I think my Chilean audience plummeted 90 percent after the quake … crashing down from like 9 hits per year … to like 1 or 2. Help me with the math.
But this much I do know. Mike, I know where you stay! So .. You better be hitting the site. Don’t give me no excuses about connectivity, because you already told me (and therefore the world) that you have Wi-Fi. Don’t tell me yo too busy. Because I see your updates, dude.
So, rest assured I will be watching to see if you decide to ping or not to ping PingWi-Fi.
Let’s make it interesting. If you do hit the PingWi-Fi Website, you can have either the PingWi-Fi t-shirt worn by the spokesmodel in this photo. Or you can get the guitar. One stipulation — if you choose the guitar, you have to pay for it. But I know people. I can make it happen for you.
So … there you are … We WILL be watching your Internet habits.
Don Letts, a Clash survivor, music sample pioneer and film director is also a diplomat.
I pushed hard to get Letts to feel my pain and side with me — an independent journalist turned away from an indy music festival by the media credentials staff. Turning away the little guys while giving free passes to the affluent corporate journalists sort of flies in the face of the whole spirit of an independent/artistic festival. Yet it happens time and time again.
Letts would have none of it, remaining neutral …
No worries, mon … I just fly under the radar and get all the blog content I want … there is plenty to go around.
So anyway, Letts wouldn’t bite off on my cause. He just laughed and said he never had to work to get into an independent festival. Instead he just pours himself passionately into his art. (I think that means someone else takes care of all the paperwork. ) If only it were so easy for a blogger who foots the bills, totes the tripods, tests the mikes, shoots the photos, writes, edits and hawks the t-shirts.
“Just a song before I go …” Ha … Austin streets were deserted this morning … prolly the biggest hangover day of the year, as SXSW festival ends. I bet there are not very many people who could stomach the Texas-shaped waffles back at the hotel this morning. I digress …
As I walked, waffled-powered that I was, I was lucky enough to see one other human on the street — well, one who didn’t live on the street — so of course I struck up a conversation.
Awesome. The lady had the most delightful British accent … always a good ice breaker on this side of the pond or Lake Austin or whatever. I probed and found out that she worked for The British Embassy music showcase, ironically, the venue where I spent most of my time at SXSW.
Quickly, I forced some PingWi-Fi schwag on her … LOL … actually she accepted it as a token of international relations. Okay … that works for me and sounds much better than shameless self-promotion.
She probed too, and I told her that Ten Bears was one of the better bands I saw at the British Embassy. Her comment was that they might have been better if they had brought their instruments.
This week PingWi-Fi traveled to Austin, Texas for the SXSW festival. I am the guy NOT dressed in black – LOL. If you have not attended, it is a two-week assault on the senses, with everything in the worlds of film, interactive and music. Interactive is over … I am focused primarily on the music now.
Last night I saw three of the bands at the British Embassy showcase … hmmm … It was 10 bucks, but I think I would have paid $12 if they had thrown in earplugs. Quite frankly, some of the music was a joke. (The crowd was perhaps too polite or lame to know.)
The best music of the night rose to the level of average — at least The Smith Westerns were fun to watch. But every band was high-decibel in a small joint. I made earplugs of napkins and rocked on. (Interesting to note that the door people at the embassy were concerned that a journalist wanted to bring in a camera. Yes … I am sure these bands don’t want any publicity from their visit to SXSW … LOL.)
Anyway … You see it all at SXSW … but the thing that surprises me most is the legends you may see walking through the exhibit hall … totally unrecognized by most of the “music heads.”
It happens everywhere. I saw Seal walking through the aisles of the Consumer Electronics Show, unnoticed, a few years ago in Vegas. Last year, I stopped and talked with Jimmie Dale Gilmore of The Flatlanders at SXSW. No one knew who he was … although some said, “oh yeah” when I reminded them of his role as “Smokey” in “The Big Lebowski.”
This morning at SXSW, I positioned myself at a table near the front door of the exhibit hall at SXSW and in walked a rock ‘n’ roll dinosaur … and no one even batted an eye. Well he is not a dinosaur … but has cut enough great recordings to be legend worthy … but he just doesn’t look the part, with his shoulder-length wizard-white hair and his thick, tear-drop lens glasses. It was J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr … a cult favorite band featured at one time or another in any music mag that matters.
Did I just let “sleeping dinosaurs lie” so to speak? Ha! No way. I pushed up to the front of the line at the cappuccino stand beside him and asked for an interview. Man … I felt bad. He croaked out that he was too groggy from a night at SXSW. Understandable. So I let the man have his caffeine in peace.
The point … man … if you pay attention there are some really important people just passing through and mingling with the little guys … even the bloggers.
Most importantly, I met another big dude yesterday … a big B.A.D. dude – Don Letts, the director of the film “Strummerville.” I say B.A.D. dude, because in addition to “Strummerville,” Letts shot all The Clash music videos and later went on to play in the band Big Audio Dynamite, or B.A.D. with Mick Jones after The Clash broke up.
I sat down with Letts to discuss on camera the Strummerville film and foundation, and of course to trade Clash war stories. More video will be posted later. For now, I will post this clip about the origins of music sampling.
The SXSW screening was the premiere of “Strummerville,” but this isn’t Letts’ first visit to Texas. In the early 80s he said he was crawling around on the ground, in the Austin dirt, blowing on the behind of an armadillo to make the critter perform for The Clash MTV video classic “Rock The Cashbah.”
From the get-go, let me say that the Wi-Fi network at the Flaming Lips concert in Denton, Texas was sub-standard … because there wasn’t one.
No worries. Most of the audience was toting 3G and 4G phones … and I think their messages were mainly photos and “look at me at the Flaming Lips concert” texts … so that was probably sufficient.
But, if you read this blog, you know I expect to find Wi-Fi everywhere. Not to mention, The Flaming Lips are notorious for high-tech stunts with personal audio devices passed among the audience … or multiple recordings played at once in difference cars or on different boomboxes to orchestrate an original piece of music as all the pieces come together at once.
Can one really know what to expect from The Lips? No doubt this concert stop was an unexpected pleasure for many.
The Flaming Lips played to help grow NX35 — an upstart music and technology conference in Denton, home to a world-famous UNT jazz lab and a perennially cool alternative scene.
Ha! … so anyway, there was No-Fi last night, and the electrical system was a bit touch-and-go as well. (Bless Denton’s up-and-coming-festival hearts, it is somewhat comical that one of the festival sponsors is the local electrical utility … I digress …) More than a couple of times, the entire sound system/light show went dead, cutting short Wayne Coyne’s intro — the singer’s signature walk over the heads of the audience in his own personal bubble.
HaX2! … I have to say, I thought Coyne looked like he was about to freak out, at first, when he was 30 yards deep into the crowd, in his bubble craft, and the lights went out. He hauled bubble back to the stage! I mean who wouldn’t — considering an unpredictable crowd might overreact.
But cooler heads prevailed and Coyne regained his composure immediately.
In addition to his showmanship, singing and pure charisma … I tag him with a new description — Crowd Whisperer, to coin a phrase.
Things could have gotten nastier than a Who concert. (I haven’t seen an official estimate, but there were probably 5,000 people there, ready to see one of the premier live acts.) It was written on every face. Everyone wanted a $35-per-ticket show, even though admission was free.
Not to worry. Coyne keeps a bullhorn on hand … probably more for creating a synthetic voice, old school .. But it works for public address too.
Showman Coyne grabbed the horn and made light of the power outage … in the language of the kids … with lots of f-bombs to win them over.
Perhaps his best line — something about a house 3-4 blocks away, where a woman was apparently firing up a toaster oven and knocking out the power at Denton’s North Texas Fairgrounds. Let’s just let her have a little toast and then we can get on with the show, he said. (I paraphrase.)
Power shortages aside, what a great show. The Flaming Lips are just fun! Their show is about 50 percent really creative, pulsating music, 30 percent performance art, 20 percent Cirque du Soleil and now, 10 percent crowd control. (Yes, I know that doesn’t add up.)
Well … any great showman knows some of the best theater is theater of the mind. So, Coyne told the crowd what he would have done IF things had gone as planned — explaining how he would have rolled/walked over both sides of the audience. Then he instructed the audience to imagine it as if it had happened and to pretend it was somewhat miraculous and the best thing they had ever seen.
Before there were links, there was this TV host/author named Art Linkletter. He was famous for the phrase “kids say the darnedest things.”
They do.
My friends have a young child who has just started preschool and apparently they spend most of their time counting … so he counts everything. He told his mom he wants to count “chicken nuggies” “twains” “twattors” … whateva.
He also counts tweets — my tweets — since my funny head photo appears beside them. That’s so fun. I have a reader! He recognizes @PingWiFi on Twitter … so some mornings he says he want to count the “Tents.” That is his name for me. (It is none of my business, but maybe the school needs to spend a little less time counting and work on those verbal skills … just kidding.)
So, inspired by the fact that I have at least one devout reader, I tweet (therefore I am).
Are you on Twitter? At first glance, I too wondered what all the fuss was about. Upon closer inspection, I learned the magic of the hashtag — the # symbol.
Occasionally, I blog about nothing — dating back to the days before I migrated my content over from a MySpace blog.
Remember MySpace? I digress.
So … “blogs about nothing” — it’s what I know most about.
Well … I was driving home the other night thinking about some friends who have a new baby. That thought reminded me of when I was in that stage of life.
Who can forget that very first time when the doctors/nurses scatter and leave you — the new parents — in the hospital room with an hours-old newborn?
Sheer terror! “Wait! What do we do? You’re not going to just leave us, are you?”
It got better.
As my daydream continued, I thought about what an adjustment it is — a complete life overhaul — to suddenly have another human joined to your hip … figuratively speaking … a human who messes itself at the most inopportune times … a human who will swallow any object it can gets its pie hole around … blah, blah, blah.
Well for me, this whole parent thing was quite an adjustment.
I wonder how new parents make it.
It occurred to me that I used to have to play mental games to make myself more relaxed in this new “job description” — dad.
Here’s an example.
My first Christmas as a dad found me babysitting one night. (Or, if it was my kid, would that be care giving?) I didn’t know what to do with an infant, or maybe technically a near-toddler. So, I decided to do something I enjoyed and to incorporate the child into my fun.
Well … that Christmas, I tried my hand at America’s Most Absurd Videos.
I shot this video with lots of holiday colored lights and a tree in the background. Occasionally, the camera would catch me whizzing by — in and out of the frame.
In the background there was music playing loudly — not exactly a Christmas carol — it was R.E.M.’s “The End of the World As We Know It.”
