WWOZ NEW ORLEANS Is Where I Find My Heaven

"And there goes the last DJ

Who plays what he wants to play

And says what he wants to say

Hey, hey, hey

And there goes your freedom of choice

There goes the last human voice

There goes the last DJ"

-Tom Petty

WWOZ is a Jazz Station that broadcasts from New Orleans. It's amazing that to find a radio station that feels like home, I have to listen to one in a different continent to me. It's even more amazing how fresh and new and original it is, especially considering most of their playlist is pre-1950.

I'm not even a big Jazz fan. I know the names Benny Goodman and Harry James -- but then so do everyone. WWOZ is special. It's about the music. It's the only station I know that is about the music. Sometimes I HATE what they play, but most of the time I am truly blown away! Radio sucks these days. We all listen to the same thing and we're told what is good and every now and again we find something that sounds unique or interesting to us -- but what is it really? It's just another version of John Mayer or David Gray--- but WWOZ is something special.

"There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly. " 

-Boris Vian

It's crazy when you think about it. We have this heritage of music-- in particular, in regard to WWOZ; it's Jazz. What is Jazz? I don't even know what it means to be Jazz, or what qualifies. But the instruments, the sounds, the recordings, the voices, the LIFE -- God, it's just amazing how much life is in this music. How are we not listening to this stuff every day? How did we get to the point that a few corporations owned all the stations and played the same tracks on repeat to us? I mean, I like Rod Stewart; but how comes they ended up just playing the same three hits of his again and again? Who decided radio should be this way? When did we just give up on wanting to hear something inspiring and ALIVE and powerful?

In New Orleans it's about the music. They live it. They breath it. Someone dies, and they bring a brass band to the funeral. This is why I love the internet -- when we remember to get off Facebook, we find gems like WWOZ. For those who think time travel doesn't exist, you haven't lived! A man can play a saxophone in 1938, and I can be jogging in 2010 and listening to a live recording in my headphones.

Sometimes they play stuff I don't like -- but that's better than commercial radio.. you don't like or dislike what you listen to on the normal stations, you just play it and listen along to the same Lionel Richie song and whatever new song Miley Cyrus has released.

WWOZ matters. I'm just glad it exists. Because it's not meant to be around anymore. We got rid of music a long time ago.

"And you may think you control things
But there'll be more just like me

Who won't give in

Who'll rise again"

-Tom Petty

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No Laughing Matter

What do surfing Facebook and creative productivity have in common?

NOTHING.

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1.19am On A Wednesday

I got some 'notes' on the screenplay of my new movie which I'm shooting this year, and the guy didn't get it at all. He missed the subtlety and the humour. And three days before that I read the coverage for a screenplay I'm rewriting for someone in LA, and that reader didn't grasp that screenplay either. And today I was part of a reading and was excited by a young Asian actress and a young black actor. And Pete Postlethwaite is dead.

I would never say 'I was excited by a white actor,' and therein we see the problems that still face our industry, and our world; this stuff isn't equal. As much as I loved these two actors, am I going to cast them as my leads? Is anyone? And if they do will their characters be stereotypical? You still can't put a young Indian girl in a lead role without people thinking it's some kind of statement. And nobody will do it until someone does it so who is it to be? If you look at the demographics of America, or England, or any country you're in.. The ethnicity and gender of the movie characters are nowhere near that of its people. I'm not starting a big drive for equality, but don't you find it interesting?

And Pete Postlethwaite is dead. Actors worry about their looks and their relevance and their weight but then Pete Postlethwaite dies and you realise: all that matters is the acting. And those beautiful but vulnerable actresses we know who struggle with anorexia and those male actors we know who are barely comfortable with their own personalities... you want them to really look at Pete Postlethwaite, or Emily Watson, or Stockard Channing or Morgan Freeman-- because what matters is the acting. And some actress somewhere misses another meal and it's all because she thinks it'll make us cast her; and it's just heartbreaking.

We're in a world where nobody understands our scripts, our art. And it's a world where actors disappear further from themselves as they try to morph into something just to fit in. And Pete Postlethwaite dies and Gerry Rafferty dies and Heath Ledger dies and all we care about is their beautiful art. We want more of it. We crave it. We live for it. Somehow we keep forgetting it.

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2011 WEBLOG AWARDS - Entertainment Category

Last year, Kid In The Front Row won the 'Best Entertainment Blog' in the 2010 Weblog 'Bloggie' Awards. I just want to let you all know that the voting has opened again for the 2011 Awards. Winning last year was a very meaningful thing for me. As a blogger -- it brought a new wave of readers and friends, which is exactly what I'm here for. 

If you have enjoyed this blog over the past year, and deem it worthy; I'd really love to have another shot at being one of the nominees in the 'Best Entertainment' category. Last year, I was up against nominees that were bigger sites run by numerous people, and a couple of them had a more corporate interface. Any victory for a small site like this, is a victory for independence, for doing things from the heart, and for focusing on creativity and inspiration and a passion for movies, rather than reviewing the latest superhero movie or for posting rumors about who Kristen Stewart is dating. My point is; those sites don't need support, this one does. The voice of the Kid In The Front Row who loves story, and romance, and inspiration--- those Kids have been diluted and disregarded by an industry and society that doesn't value them in the way they once did. 

Any vote or nomination or award for a site like this is important. It's important to me personally and it's important on a bigger scale because it means: people still care about the things we care about. And that is why I blog.

You can nominate me in the Best Entertainment Category by going to this website: http://2011.bloggi.es/ -- Thank you so much!

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Stuckness - When A Writer Goes Blank

There's nothing worse for a writer than stuckness. Okay, maybe having no hands is worse. Apart from that, being stuck, or blank, is probably worse. Am I talking about writer's block? Maybe. But sometimes there's something else-- it's like a distinct blankness that descends over your day. You can't write your script, you can't write your emails, and you can't talk to people without being grumpy. 

The worst part is, everyone has advice! "You just need to write through it," or "well, you need to focus on your inner writer" or some other thing they read in a book about writing. But that takes away from the uniqueness of it. Just like nobody can tell Diablo Cody how to write Juno, nobody can tell her how to get over her stuckness, if she ever has it. In fact, it makes it worse. 

What is this stuckness I talk about? It's a thing you wake up with -- you're grumpy before you've had your cereal, and for no known reason the Gods have decided you will not be writing today. Here's something I've experienced: the ones who tell you "just write through it, that's what I do," are often the ones who don't write very good stuff. If you can write all the time, then something is wrong. The best writers always want to write and are always doing everything they can to write, but sometimes they come across the stuckness and have to deal with it by taking a walk, or a holiday, or by getting high and throwing their laptops out the window. They need to get out of the train they're on. That's what it's like --- a stuckness brought on by being in one place that is heading nowhere good.

You need that insight that comes from a new experience, or a serendipitous event, or by being suddenly in danger. You need that insight. The best writing is usually writing about the girl you loved when you were fourteen, or the time you and your friends got stranded in Estonia when you were twenty three. The problem is; once we've written the hell out of them, we're left with five months of sitting at your desk and your only experiences are the different types of teabags you've been drinking. You ignore social opportunities, because you want to write, and you ignore film recommendations because you want to watch your Woody Allen collection again. You keep it too close to home, you follow your path a little too closely. Of course, your path is the path, but all paths take on new directions. I'm bored of talking about paths already. This is the stuckness!

The comfort with the stuckness comes from experience. You know that it's part of the creative process. So is the bad newbie writer telling you how to deal with it. You probably did that too back when you were a bad writer. The stuckness comes when you really want to write something amazing, or when you have a really big project to be focusing on. The stuckness is telling you this is important. you need to see things differently.

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