My Blog Post For November

You know, I have some spare time. I really do. It's just that I've been spending my spare time watching a lot of television. Like, almost to the levels I watched television at before the MyFaceTwitBlog craze. But unlike my habits back then, I watch mostly junk right now. Seriously, I've been quoting an episode of "Wife Swap" since Friday and I'm way too into "The Pick Up Artist 2." Just be thankful, waning readers, that I haven't felt passionate enough about these shows to do a "Kid Nation" style weekly review. Or maybe I should be doing that. Anything to get me writing again on a regular basis is good.

On the subject of writing, I'm writing a sketch show my friend and new teammate on Iron Ruckus, Frank. It's going along fine, I just have to get some ink cartridges and a suitable work station so I can be productive again. The main excuse I will use that isn't Celebreality related for why I don't write is that I used to do it all at work. Now I can't since work is crazy busy all day everyday. But back on track, we'll be applying for a slot at UCB sometime early next year I'd say, probably Spring-ish actually. But it's happening!

Iron Ruckus performed in Cage Match on October 23rd and had not only our best show ever, but one of the Five Best Improv Shows I've Ever Done. We lost to Hot Sauce but the audience seemed to enjoy us more. Or at least they were very, very into our show. There were people actually sitting on stage, so I'd actually guess that this was the biggest crowd I've ever performed in front of. And, by the way, the five best improv shows I've ever done are...

• Bad Data's 18th show, at the Parkside Lounge on January 13, 2008
• Final ImproVerité: The Documentary class show on May 6, 2008
• First Shannon O'Neill 501 class show (as McCama, currently known as Daddy) on August 12, 2008
• X-Men improv show at Bad Date IV on October 11, 2008
• Iron Ruckus Cage Match on October 23, 2008

This has been a good year for improv. But...well, before 2008 I had only performed a handful of times on an indie team and in class shows. I can't believe I've only been doing this at this level for a year. It seems like an eternity. In a good way. Right?

I'm pretty lukewarm on the new Of Montreal album. The Kills "Midnight Boom" is really good. 2008 has been a pretty lackluster year for music, for me at least. Tell me more things to download.

And lastly, there's a lil' survey going around asking questions about if you were on a team full of seven other yous. So, a team full of eight Brett Whites.

1. What is your team name?
The Stakes

2. What music do you come out to?
"Milk Crisis" by the Go! Team, about six seconds in.


3. What warmups do you do?
Hugtag, Beastie Boys, Any variation on that one where you have to follow multiple patterns at once while making eye contact. This is seriously called like, 8 different things, but I like all of them.

Ear Pain

I've been suffering with my Apple earbuds ever since I got my iPod over three years ago. They fall out of my ear, can't handle bass well, get really stiff in the winter, and fall apart pretty easily (I'm on my third pair). They also don't get loud enough and never drown out the noise of the subway. I've never been a fan of them. I've been contemplating replacing them so I can squeeze all the juice from my music library orange (awesome metaphor! high five!). I finally did.

I bought JVC Marshmallow Soft Inner Ear headphones.


I chose the cool blue color because, well, I'm not going to use pink head phones. I was pretty stoked upon buying them and ripped them open as soon as I got back to work (I bought them on my lun-wait, don't get a lunch break). I read the instructions (they came with instructions! They contain so much power that I have to read before I can handle them!) and learned that I had to use my forefinger and thumb to press the marshmallow down before putting it in my ear, thus allowing it to expand inside and allow nothing but rock inside my brain. I was kinda cautious at the notion of having to touch them before putting them in my ear, knowing that that meant putting a vicious cocktail of NYC germs in my ear multiple times a day. Whatever.

I tested them out by playing The Go! Team, a band whose sonic adventures I was certain were being stifled by my crappy iPod earbuds. It sounded thin. And soft. And kinda tin canny. I fiddled with the settings on my iPod, changing the EQ from "rock" to "bass booster" and then "electronic." Not much of a change. I knew it wasn't a bit rate problem since I've been importing my songs at the highest bit rate as of late (I used to do 124 which sounds fine to me but, well, now I have the fear of having to re-import all my music if I ever start detecting sound loss). I had been told that the JVC had a pretty awesome bass sound that I was obviously not hearing, so I played "Umbrella" by Rihanna and set the EQ to "hip hop" (right?). Eh, okay. Nothing special.

I didn't touch them for the rest of the day, not out of disappointment, just due to lack of opportunities.

I merrily put them on this morning, eager to try other songs. I started off listening to the Roxy Music album "Country Life." All the songs sounded so sad, and not just "Bitter Sweet." "The Thrill of it All" sounded weak. Weak! No, that's not right! I told myself this had to be because the album is old and wasn't meant to be listened to on such high-tech headphones as my new $25 JVC Marshmallow headphones. Okay, fine, whatever. I then went back to listening to The Go! Team, whose songs sometimes purposefully sound poor so this did nothing to make or break my opinion on the headphones.

I needed something a little more melancholy and "Automatic Stop" by The Strokes seemed to be the answer. "If this doesn't sound good," I thought to myself, "these headphones are done for." If one of my favorite songs from one of my top 3 albums of all time doesn't sound pumped full of new blood by the millions of ear-bits and sound-modulators (or whatever is in fancy headphones) then these headphones are garbage. It sounded lame. Julian sounded so muffled. Okay, I told myself that this had to be because Julian has an effect on his voice for the first two Strokes albums and and and Fabrizio's drums were critiqued as sounding like sticks on cardboard (only for the song "The Way It Is" but I convinced myself that it could be possible for the rest of the album). I was subconsciously listening to old songs or songs with purposeful sound flaws so I could justify having spent $25 on headphones that may be worse than my earbuds.

I knew I had to put them to the ultimate test.

I had to listen to "Tick Tick Boom" by The Hives.

Backtracking, "Tick Tick Boom" is a song that sounds like an entire angry gang of guitars are beating up your inner ear canal when you listen to it. The guitars cut through your ear wax like switchblades and the howls of Pelle sound like your own personal death cry; they go to your soul and make you feel completely helpless. That's what they sound like on my earbuds.

The song sounded like The Monkees on the TWENTY FIVE DOLLAR JVC headphones. And not stereo Monkees, mono Monkees.

Done. That's it. Over. I'm going back to the earbuds for whoever knows how much longer they'll last (the rubber around the speakers are starting to give already, ugh) and these headphones that cost more than a two DVD set of Roxy Music videos are being downgraded to my work computer only.

Geez.