So there we were. All the months of recording, mixing, production, promotion, preparation for the new CD and at last it was time to stand on stage and play it. And it was a blast! We played in three worlds Saturday night. First, to our audience at Soulfood Books. (Thank you all for coming out!) Second, in the virtual world, Second Life. (Thank you all too!) Third, via live streaming video.

The video was a late surprise. We stopped by Soulfood Books Friday night and discovered they’d just added streaming video. I grabbed the url, posted it to my blog and emailed some out of town friends. Compare that to weeks of notices, press releases, emails, phone calls and smoke signals about the other two avenues to watch. And yet more people watched the show by video than any other way.

I’ve been mulling that over. Attending a show is like dating. There’s some commitment involved. You have to choose it over any other possible activity for the evening. You have to dress and get in the car and drive somewhere and be at least minimally sociable. Even though Second Life is easier once you’re familiar with it, you still have to get an account and learn basic skills to manage it.

But video is a slut. YouTube proved that. Ease of access outweighs almost any other consideration. Video and audio quality might suck, but it doesn’t matter. It’s irresistible.

Very well. I’m not proud! Here are the video archives from the CD release party, laid out spread-eagle for you. Just click.

There’s more than one way to be part of our party for the release of our new CD “Moon Falling Down” tonight. Join us from anywhere in the world.

• Soulfood Books, Redmond. This is where the moon will fall to earth tonight. The party starts at 7 pm with visiting friend, Alex Whitmore playing a set of his hilarous songs and continues with the Lunatics from 8 – 10. 15748 Redmond Way. Free.
• Second Life. We’ll have the whole band on stage together at a mega party on the internet. If you have an account, click this link to go directly to the show. (And here to get a free Second Life account)
• Live Streaming Video. Bandwidth-willing, the show will be streamed live on the internet. Go to the Soulfood Books website and click on “Soultribe TV” to watch.
• Live Streaming Audio. This will probably be the best sound quality outside the actual venue. Put this link directly in your browser to listen: http://97.74.80.31:8063. The show stream will also be simulcast on several internet radio stations. I will update the list throughout the day, but for starters: Indie Spectrum Radio

Oh, and wherever you’re coming from, don’t forget to pick up a copy of the CD!

It would be hard to overstate the influence and popularity of Goran Bregovic in Eastern European music of the last three decades. For anyone from that little piece of troubled real estate, the opening strains of one of his songs has the power of levitation. Bodies rise from chair to floor to table top, voice rise from murmurs to drunken brays, glasses rise and crash tinkling to the floor and crunching underfoot.

I remember one night when we were playing at a club. An inebriated Serb pulled a wad of bills out of his pockets and gave it to us to play just one song again. $72! We played it three times.

Last night, Bregovic, traveling with his Weddings and Funerals Band played in Seattle for the first time. We were among a tiny minority of Americans in a sea of rapturous ex-pats. What a great night. Gravity lost its grip on us too and we rose and danced, hands to the sky.

Of course I had to choose a song about the moon!

Synchronicity is everywhere. My CD “Moon Falling Down” is being released this week. Sunday, an ABC mini-series about the moon crashing into the Earth aired. And also this week, my son, Eric, shared a charming scene he had written for his scriptwriting class about the moon coming down to earth in human form.

The assignment: Take a Mother Goose rhyme and use it to write a children’s play.

The Moon
by Eric Gordon (with help from Rowan Dart)

The man in the moon
Came down too soon,
And asked his way to Norwich;
He went by the south
And burnt his mouth
With supping cold plum porridge

[It is a gorgeous summer evening at the park. JACK and JILL, brother and sister, ages eight and nine, respectively, are both standing face-to-face, inches from each other, glaring, JACK’s face is smeared with BBQ sauce, Jill’s is clean. Both of them are holding onto a plate fiercely, on which is one last serving of plum pudding.]

JACK
You already had two plates!
JILL
I’m older than you, and Mommy said that I need to eat if I want to grow up and be a big girl!
JACK
Yeah, but Mom said peas and vegetables! [Yank yank yank]
JILL
You’re gonna break the plate! [Tug tug tug] If you break it I’m telling!
JACK
Noooooo, don’t be a tattle tale!
JILL
Give iiiiit!
JACK
Stooooop!
[At this dramatic juncture in the narrative, a young boy approaches. He might be glowing, it might just be that he’s very pale and wearing all white, it’s not clear. Either way, he is the MOON.]
MOON
Hello.
[JACK and JILL freeze, then look at MOON.]
JILL
[suspiciously, who does this newcomer think he is, interrupting their epic struggle?] Who’re you?
MOON
I am the moon. Please, what are you doing?
JACK
You’re the moon!? Cool!
JILL
Don’t be stupid Jack, he’s not moon! The moon is a giant ball of rock up in the sky! [She points upwards dramatically to the sky, where there is no visible moon.] That’s what Mrs. Morison said in school.
MOON
I am not a ball of rock. I’m a [slowly, as if quoting] An-thro-po-mor-fic per-son-i-fi-kay-shun.
JACK
What does-
JILL
[overriding him] What does that mean?
MOON
I…uh…It means I’m not a big ball of rock. [He shrugs]
JILL
Well if you’re the moon, what are you doing on the ground?
JACK
You’re always so bossy. He can come to the ground if he wants to! [To MOON] I’m Jack, and this is my sister Jill.
MOON
Hello Jack and Jill. I wanted to see what the Earth was like, so I hid from the Sun behind the Earth, then I hung onto a comet until I was close enough to get to the ground and fell down.
JACK
That must’ve been scary!
MOON
It was, but I landed in those trees, so it didn’t hurt.
JILL
[Determined not to be left out of the conversation.] Nuh-uh, Landing in some trees would hurt!
MOON
Have you ever felt a leaf? They don’t hurt at all, they’re really kind of soft. [JILL looks like she wants to keep arguing, but MOON powers through before she has the chance.] So what were you doing when I landed?
JILL
Jack was being stupid.
JACK
Nuh-uh! You were bein’ bossy again! AND trying to take the last plate of pudding!
[MOON sits down cross legged, and watches them argue with interest.]
JILL
Well you had the second-to-last plate!
JACK
No! Dad did!
JILL
You lying little-
MOON
Ah, I get it! This is a fight?
JILL
It wouldn’t be a fight if Jack would stop hogging all of my pudding!
JACK
[Sulkily] ‘s not your pudding…
MOON
Then, do you two…hate each other?
[The siblings are thrown off their stride]
JACK
What!?
JILL
Well…not really.
MOON
But you were yelling at each other.
JILL
Yeah, well he’s trying to take all the pudding.
MOON
You must really want that pudding
JACK
Mom makes the best plum pudding in the whole world!
MOON
What does pudding taste like?
JILL
You mean you’ve never had pudding!? [horrified]
MOON
No.
JACK
What d’you eat off in space?
MOON
Stardust, mainly.
JACK
What’s that taste like?
MOON
I don’t know, I’ve never eaten anything else. I don’t think it really tastes like anything, but it leaves you feeling nice and full.
[JACK and JILL make eye contact and come to a silent agreement. Compared to MOON’s plight, their argument seems petty and unimportant. Here is a soul who is truly more miserable than themselves, even if he doesn’t realize it.]
JILL
Hey, uh, Moon? If you’re coming all the way down here, you should at least try out people food…
[JACK hesitates until JILL gives him a nudge.]
JACK
So uh…d’you want to try our pudding?
MOON
I thought both of you wanted it.
JILL
Well, you know, we can get it all the time, but for you it’ll be sorta special like. Like your first people food.
JACK
Yeah.
MOON
Well, if you’re sure you don’t want it.
JACK
No, you can have it.
JILL
But you owe me!
[JACK gives MOON the pudding, who tries it. MOON coughs and splutters.]
MOON
Wow! It’s really hot!
JACK
It’s not that hot.
MOON
Well, stardust is really cold, like snow.
JILL
If you don’t want it can I-
[But MOON is digging back in to the pudding, making “omnomnom” noises. He eventually finishes the plate.]
MOON
Wow, people food is amazing!
JACK
Tol’ you Mommy makes the best pudding! Hey, wanna play a game?
MOON
Thanks, but I need to go back up into the sky before the sun notices I’m gone. She’d get mad.
JACK
Aw…
MOON
But I’m really glad I got to meet you!
JACK
Bye Moon!
[JILL waves. MOON exits. Scene end.]

I would not have subjected myself to the ABC mini-series disaster that is “Impact” had it not been for the incredible synchronicity factor: The release of a movie about the moon falling down the same week as the release of my CD Moon Falling Down.

Before I comment, let me torture you with the trailer.

I hardly know where to begin. I’ve watched some really horrible disaster flicks. But this one made me wish the moon actually would annihilate the Earth if that’s what it would take to wipe it from my brain. I could start listing the occurrances of blitheringly bone-headed Bad Movie Science, but I have a life and others will surely do it for me.

Instead, let me talk about the art of telling a story. To illustrate I will compare Impact with another movie currently in theaters: Up.

One challenge that faces scriptwriters is the lack of exposition. How do you explain important concepts and fill in back story?

Elmore Leonard wrote his great essay 10 Rules of Writing to help him remain invisible when he’s writing a book, to help him show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”

The opening few minutes of Up show an entire life story with hardly a word. I was so drawn into the arc of these two lives that I couldn’t stop my tears at the conclusion. They didn’t need to explain everything. An entire tale can reside in a few small details.

Impact is filled with endless lectures thinly disguised as dialogue. You can tell when they’re doing it: Any time you’re watching a movie and a conversation suddenly makes you want to cram popcorn in your ears so you don’t have to hear it, chances are it’s not really a conversation but a writer shoving his big fat writing into the story. I keep hoping the characters will rebel.

Here’s an example: At one point two scientists and a bright astrophysics grad student have just learned that the meteorite that plowed into the moon was no ordinary rock, but a fragment of a brown dwarf. The bright astrophysics grad student says, “What’s a brown dwarf?” whereupon one of the scientists launches into a textbook explanation of a neutron star. (To say the moon was struck by a piece of a brown dwarf is like saying the moon was struck by a piece of Jupiter’s atmosphere.)

The only reason the grad student (who apparently slept through Astronomy 101) existed was to cue the exposition.

Do these people not read their own scripts? If it doesn’t sound like something a person would say, rewrite it until it does.

My only cynical hope is that it was calculatedly bad so that people would stay tuned out of sheer stunned amusement at the absurdity. (“Sporadic reverse gravity! Martha, they can’t possibly top that one! Wait…”)

Nah.