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I will be playing George Kittredge in this Radio-Play-Style production of the Philadelphia Story at OCTA on August 15 & 16th at 8:00PM, and Sunday August 17th at 2:00PM. Tickets are $10 and you should call ahead for reservations at 913-782-2990.

We will be performing this show as a radio play complete with advertisements, songs, and live sound effects. If you haven't seen this show or movie, it is a great show.

This year, Tracie, Tori, Emma and I are all in Leawood Stage Company's production of Annie Get Your Gun. The show runs 7 nights (July 17-20 and July 24-26). The show is at 8:00 pm in Ironwoods Park, which is located near 147th & Mission Rd. Admission is free.

We've been working at this 5 days a week since June 1, and are very excited for everyone to come see the show. Bring your lawn chairs or a blanket to sit on.

Anyone with an interest in dance should go see City in Motion at the Gem this Saturday night.

Tickets range from $10 - $18 and can be purchased at the door or at the evil, evil Ticketmaster.

For those that complain that this town has nothing to do, perhaps you should actually try something new?

So, the citizens of Kansas City passed the no smoking ordinance yesterday. Although it is a flawed bill (you can still smoke on casino floors), it is a great step forward for the city.

I smoked years ago, so I have some perspective on this. And take my perspective for what it's worth, which is absolutely nothing.

So, let me answer these questions as I used to answer them when I did smoke. My position has not changed.

Why is this good for smokers
Admit it. No one (even smokers!) likes going out for the night and coming home smelling like you've bathed in an ashtray. Your clothes stink, you stink, your hair stinks.

Also, you smoke too much. I know, who am I to say, but it's true. I smoked about half a pack per day, but I could easily go through a pack in a couple hours drinking. Which compounded the hangovers. Ten times worse.

But I like to smoke when I drink
So did I! So, here was my little secret: I either went to drink at places with patios where I could smoke, or I went outside to light up.

Outside???? That might work for those librul Californians with great weather, but it gets COLD here in Kansas City. And HOT!
It works fine in New York as well, and it gets just as cold and just as hot. And talk about smokers! They're everywhere. Walk by any bar on a Friday night and see the massive throng out front smoking. They're not miserable.

I used to love going out in NYC as a smoker. I smoked half as much and felt twice as good. And the smokers there didn't seem to mind.

But why should you loser nonsmokers get to enforce your will on us?
Because it's a public safety issue. You have to wear a seatbelt in your car. Oh yeah, and we're also the majority. Suck on it.

Trust me, there are plenty of nonsmokers that will go out more now that they don't have to factor in a shower and a load of laundry :)

I stopped going to a place I loved to see shows because the smoke was so bad. I often choose not to go out because the smoke makes me feel like absolute shit. It did then also, but I was desensitized to it. Trust me smokers, most of you will appreciate this.

But what about the poor bars? Studies show that x% of bars close when smoking bans are enforced.
Not my problem. Adapt or die. Business owners seeking safety should sell their businesses and get a government job.

But shouldn't it be up to the business owners to decide?
No. The people spoke. This is a democracy. That's how it works!

I used to think the free market was capable of deciding this, and that some bar owners would see an opportunity and go smoke-free. But it never happened. So the people did something.

But it was backed by deep pocketed corporations who wanted an edge!
So, they got the people to follow. What's new. And just because someone has a motive, doesn't mean that the outcome is necessarily bad.

And, I'm sick of your whining. "But this...", "But that..." Get over it and move on with your life. In the grand scheme of things, this is trivial.

From his blog:

Call me crazy, but when given the choice of developing new applications for a deterministic platform connected to a specialty application box connected to a high definition TV with a remote control or a best efforts internet platform connected to who knows how fast a connection to a PC running who knows what operating system connected to a monitor and a keyboard, I will take the first option.

Duh?

But it's not about what is easier. Sure, it's easier for newspapers to keep the same business model as the last 100 years, but that's not working so well.

It's about leveraging the strengths of a given platform, not comparing it apples-to-apples against something completely different. It's about getting viral views, and having content worth spreading. Sure, that's much harder than controlling a network and forcing shows and ads into people's eyeballs, but the alternative is much worse. I can assure you there are people willing to do the hard work.

It finally feels like spring is here. To celebrate, here's a bunch of great songs about the sun!

Tumblr is a simple yet powerful blogging platform that solves a couple big gaps that most blogging platforms neglect.

With a tumblog, you can enter your account information from all your online sites: Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo, and any other service that has RSS feeds (Last.Fm and tons of others).

What this does is keep your blog up-to-date and fresh even when you're not blogging. I'll go through several-month periods where I don't post. But with my tumblog, my Flickr photos show up. My twitters show up. My Youtube videos show up. My reblogs from FeedDemon show up.

Here's how mine is setup:

Initially tumblr only allows 5 external feeds, but you can request more (I have 6):

• Importing from NickDavis.com (this site - personal weblog)
• Importing my Twitter updates
• Importing my YouTube videos
• Importing my weekly top 5 Last.Fm artists (through a Yahoo! Pipe)
• My Flickr Photos Tagged "tumblr"
• This is an advanced maneuver, that allowed me to get over the tumblr feed limit. I created a Yahoo! Pipe that combines several feeds:
  • Importing my FeedDemon "republish" clipping folder. FeedDemon (my RSS reader) allows you to set up multiple clipping folders, and each can have its own RSS feed. So, if I read something I want to republish, then I right click it and choose "Send to Clipping Folder-Republish". I also use this method to share liks with Tracie - that republish feed shows up in her Google Reader.
  • My del.icio.us links tagged "republish"
  • The iLike songs I like.

You can also blog like any other service. It's free and simple to setup. I set one up for Tracie and she loves it. So much, in fact, that she helped her sister set one up. Let's hope this spreads! I'd love to keep up with more friends and family this way.

On Thursday, Tracie and I went to the Beaumont Club to check out Gogol Bordello. If you're not aware of them, New York-based Gogol Bordello claims to be a "Gypsy Punk" band. Fronted by the unique Eugene Hutz, who starred in Everything is Illuminated alongside Elijah Wood, the band puts on a kinetic performance that could leave you exhausted just watching.

Since I am now shooting for (partly local) music blog PopWreck(oning), I was able to get in front for the first 3 songs with an official photo pass. To say it was my toughest assignment yet would be an understatement.

The show was packed, much more packed than I would have imagined. The crowd was definitely alternative and punk, heavily tattooed and ready to mosh. My first realization of this was when 6 massive stage bouncers took to the front of the stage. One looked down at me and said "If I tap you on the shoulder, MOVE!".

With me that night was my Canon 20D with my 85mm 1.8 attached, and my 5D with my 24-70 2.8L attached. Both cameras were set to spot metering, tungsten white balance, 1600 ISO, aperture priority. To be safe, I was bracketing a full stop on the 20D. I would normally have put the 24-70 on the 20D and my 70-200 2.8L on the 5D, but that lens is at Canon now for repairs.

The band took the stage like Kansas Citians take to a buffet. Game on. I perch down and try to get focused, but the lighting was awful. The basic setup was a bunch of red lights, with occastional full-on white lighting. The white balance was fine for the white lights, but the red lights leave everyone very, very red. Most of those shots are the ones in black and white.

I'm used to shooting mildly-energetic indie acts: Singer-songwriters, power-pop, and the like. They're 90% in front of their mic stand, 10% moving. Eugene Hutz is 93% running, 4% jumping, and 3% flinging sweat everywhere. I'm pretty sure he never stopped moving. In low light he was almost impossible to shoot. I was glad to have that f1.8 lens at times, but it needed to be much wider. When Hutz was 24 inches away, that 128mm (effective) lens was way too long.

30 seconds into the first song, I get the first tap on the shoulder and was guided stage right. Seconds later a body comes flying over the barrier wall. I retake my spot and 30 seconds another tap and another flying body. 20 seconds after that a drink is in the air and it's raining some liquid substance. Who knows.

So Equene is everwhere, bodies are flying, and mysterious liquids are coming down. Did I mention this was a difficult shoot? Difficult, but a ton of fun. It's these shoots where I'm glad I had everything set correctly before the gig starts.

For the third song I go stage right just in time for a flying body that actually resists the bouncers. All 100lbs of this girl gave quite a struggle. The bouncers did an admirable job removing her without force, and an even more admirable job keeping a body from falling on me.

After the 3 songs I retreated to the back where I found Tracie sitting. This is a show where you either are up close and moshing with the crowd or you're way in back. Neither of us had it in us, so we were in the back, which at the beaumont means not much of a view. Oh well, I had mine.

I should probably mention that Tracie has a blog.

Brendan is featured in the new iPod touch commercial:

Brendan Benson
What I'm Looking For
The Alternative to Love