Shane Life

There are plenty of reasons not to see Michael Jackson’s This Is It.

I went in with an open mind. Despite his questionable legal history and lifestyle choices, you cannot deny his musical genius and I was interested in seeing the behind-the-scenes look as he prepared for what would be his swan song, a 50-night engagement at the O2 in London, completely sold out.

My dad was lucky enough to see Michael Jackson in Wembley Stadium during the Bad tour. I remember him bringing back the official program, glossy in red and black and white with Jackson in black leather and looking as tough as he could look with that crazy perm.

When I was eight years old, my brother and our close friends Gabe and Shannan put on a breakdancing show with The Jacksons Victory album as our soundtrack. Ridiculous, I know. But we were kids.

The footage that makes up This Is It was intended for Michael’s personal use only; with his passing, it’s the last glimpse we get of a brilliant performer, a quintessential entertainer and a musical talent we are unlikely to see again in our lifetime. We see him rehearsing the iconic songs he became known for over a career that spanned four decades.

Personally, I was always a fan of Michael’s music, but not like with other artists. Michael’s music was just always there, a part of the thread of our culture, and just about everything he did was totally brilliant.

Watching this 50-year-old man sing and dance and prepare to perform a 50-night engagement was fascinating. He was lucid and involved and inspiring to those surrounding him — dancers, backup singers, band, crew. In fact, watching the reactions of those around him as he rehearsed was one of my favorite parts of the movie. Hearing the dancers explain that they had no idea where their careers could go. This was the pinnacle for them. How could it get better?

The thing that really bummed me out was that this tour never happened. It looked EPIC in rehearsals. They also showed many of the extras filmed just for the concert — a new 3-D intro to “Thriller”, an awesome multiplying green screen effect for “They Don’t Really Care About Us” and others. But I left the theater feeling a bit unsatisfied if only that I couldn’t see the finished product. Michael Jackson was a rare combination of accomplished musician and enthralling entertainer.

While this is a nice documentary and great insight into what it was like to collaborate with such a genius, it really just left me wanting more.

Alli and I were watching The Big Bang Theory last week and a preview for that godawful Twilight saga knockoff vampire movie came on. Almost simultaneously, Alli and I asked, “John C. Reilly, what are you even doing?”

It got us thinking. There are some seriously strange choices being made in Hollywood by good (well, at least formerly decent) actors. So I thought I would write a little post devoted to them…hopefully to call them out onto the carpet.

John C. Reilly

You earned an Oscar nomination for your work in Chicago. You’ve garnered more than one Independent Spirit nomination. You starred in Scorsese flicks, including The Aviator and Gangs of New York.

Then came Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

After that, you became convinced that you were Will Ferrell’s best friend, shacking up with him for a myriad of stinkers, including one of the worst movies I’ve ever subjected myself to in my life: Walk Hard. Here’s a tip for you, John: next to your godawful timing, Will Ferrell looks like a comedic genius. That’s why he keeps putting you in his movies…you make him look funnier.

I’m not saying you can’t make people laugh, but let’s try something serious every once in a while. You were great in Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Maybe call Paul Thomas Anderson up and ask him what he’s got cooking…

The Rock

I’m guessing you have a development deal with Disney.

That’s cool. You do what you gotta do to pay the bills. But even folks who cash in every once in a while on big budget box office hits will occasionally throw in something that stretches you as an actor.

Look, I understand that it has to be difficult to feign interest as you star in kid movie after kid movie, but could you at least throw in Rundown 2 for me? God knows that Seann William Scott could use the work.

I really enjoy you as an actor. You’re charming and engaging and you’ve got great delivery and timing despite the fact that you cut your teeth as a pro wrestler. That being said, please stop trying to re-brand yourself as “Dwayne Johnson”. It’s obviously not helping your career since your last 5 movies are as follows: The Tooth Fairy, Planet 51, Race to Witch Mountain, Get Smart and The Game Plan. Your next flick, The Other Guys, by Adam McKay, looks promising.

But if it sucks, the people are going to take back their claim on your elbow.

Eddie Murphy

Norbit. Dr. Dolittle. Daddy Day Care. The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Meet Dave. Imagine That. These movies aren’t even worth linking. You do know that the release of Norbit easily knocked you out of the running for your Oscar win for Dreamgirls, right? Because it seems like you don’t realize it.

You are a part of one of the most successful animated franchises in history and your character is probably the most beloved out of the bunch. But don’t be like Donkey. Don’t be stubborn. Make some better choices. You have it in you. We just haven’t seen it in a while.

Cuba Gooding, Jr.

You won an Oscar. You starred in Snow Dogs and Boat Trip. POOF!

There went your career. NEXT.

Renee Zellweger

When not buoyed by good writing, be it from Cameron Crowe or Helen Fielding, or your singing voice, people can’t help but notice your annoyingly scrunchy face. And I wouldn’t mention it if your acting was not slipping either, but these days, it seems like you are just playing the same person over and over and over again in one bad romantic comedy after another.

Nicholas Cage

submitted by Wrytir

Pretty sad when a former Oscar winner has to lean on his Dan Brown-like National Treasure series to keep his career afloat. I know that not getting the Superman reboot was a big blow to Nic, but did you have to respond by going and making that one with the flaming skulls? Outside of one or two big wins, your careers seems like an experiment in crap. I know that you’re trying to burst out of the shadow of the extremely talented Coppola family, but did you have to stray this far?

Now, I am well aware that there is only one female on this list. It’s either that there are very few bad roles for females in Hollywood or that movies are dominated by bad male roles. I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll tell me in the comments. So who would you like to write a letter to asking them: What are you even doing?

I’ve got a bunch of half-written drafts sitting in my dashboard, just waiting to be published. I think I am being too picky about what gets published and what doesn’t. I’m not ready to get one of those Tumblr/Posterous thingies yet, but I like the idea of quick, portable content.

But it’s not something that is impossible with Wordpress…just something I’m not doing for whatever reason.

I also have a tendency to be long-winded. Maybe I need to try and focus on keeping my posts shorter.

What do you want to see?

The Chiefs shocked everyone in the NFL today by defeating the Washington Redskins at home 14-6.

14 points seems like 2 touchdowns, right? NOPE. 4 field goals by the greatest Chiefs kicker of the last decade, Ryan Succop and a safety at the end of the game by Tamba Hali. Madness.

It was an ugly game that was dominated not by defense, but by two offensive deadbeats who took turns turning the ball over and running into the back of their respective offensive lines. Larry Johnson somehow managed to put together his best rushing effort of the season, including his longest run from scrimmage (a whopping 17 yards!).

One of the worst things I saw during the game was the Gatorade dump on head coach Todd Haley once the team sealed the deal with Hali’s safety. Look, I know “a win is a win” but the victory only proves that KC as an organization is only run slightly better than Dan Snyder’s Redskins. Seriously, if there was ever a team that languished in mediocrity longer than the Chiefs, it is the Redskins (although they’ve been to the Super Bowl more recently, but who hasn’t?).

I don’t mean to be one of those people who is a pessimist about my favorite team, but I gotta call a spade a spade. The Chiefs are still one of the worst teams in the NFL. It just so happened that this Sunday, they were matched against another one team in that same lower echelon.

I just hope it doesn’t ruin our draft pick for next year.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been using an iPhone.

Anyone who knows me understands what a big deal this has been. I had access to an iPhone through work for my social initiatives that I was driving during the Cerner Health Conference (which were featured on KCTV5). I was controlling 4 Twitter accounts, a blog, a Flickr account and organizing a group of great volunteers.

My iPhone experience was predictably awesome. I spent about an hour getting used to it, downloading the apps I needed and then spending the money to download the apps I wanted.

There’s a ton to love about it.

The App Store

The user interface is slick and intuitive, but the biggest win for the iPhone is the iTunes store, which now boasts over 75,000 applications ranging from games to task managers to weather to about 500 applications for Twitter (not exaggerating). I downloaded several free apps and then with some Paypal money I had laying around (is that what cyber-money does?), I purchased a few other apps that I had either heard recommended or thought were interesting. Apple approves (or rejects) every application that is submitted and that is helpful in separating horribly designed apps (I’m looking at you, BlackBerry developers) from the pack.

One device for everything

I can’t tell you how much I hate filling my pockets with extra crap. I carry an iPod and my BlackBerry. While my Curve has the ability to handle music, the user experience of playing any sort of media takes far too many clicks and trackball movements. Imagine the difference between using a mouse with a scroll wheel to navigate web pages vs. navigating with arrows and keystrokes. It works, it’s just not very efficient.

It just…works

Everything about the iPhone is intuitive. From the gestures to the navigation…it takes about 10 seconds to get used to it and then you are multi-touching with relative ease.

Mobile browsing has no equal

Mobile Safari, the iPhone’s built in browser is so far past every other mobile browser on the market that it is almost unfair. And don’t even bring up your Opera Mini garbage. That doesn’t play here. I’ve used both. The iPhone browser is better in every possible way. It’s fast and awesome. It’s easy to switch from landscape to portrait browsing (just turn the phone). And you can make any of your favorite pages launchable like an app (which I did for Google Reader and Google Talk, since they don’t have apps).

BUT. There’s also stuff that kinda sucks.

Push Gmail is NOT Exchange

I don’t know if this is really Apple’s problem, but I really don’t like how Google decided to use the Microsoft Exchange settings to enable push Gmail. For people like me who want to have both Exchange email for work and Gmail email for home, I would need multiple Exchange accounts, which is not allowed. I ended up leaving Gmail as an IMAP account and using the Exchange account for my work. It made the most sense to me.

The network…UGGGHHHH

Much has been said about the complete suckage that is AT&T’s network. Not only are their costs ridonkulous, but they have completely under-delivered with nearly everything that they promised. MMS rollout took forever. People still can’t tether their iPhones to their computers. All these things are technologies that have been around FOREVER on other networks. Additionally, the 3G network doesn’t feel any faster than the Edge network and there are so many dead spots that you can never count on a consistent connection if you’re driving around.

Multiple calendars

I really like that the Palm Pre offers multiple calendars. With the iPhone, you only get one. If you want to check your Google calendar, you’ve got to go to the Google calendar mobile site (which is a nice experience in Mobile Safari, but still). I don’t get much use out of a calendar that doesn’t show me everything that is going on on all my calendars. I have multiple points of entry. This is one major reason why my next phone will likely be a Pre. (Well, that and I’m a loyal Sprint customer…)

What’s next

I’ve got a couple weeks before I can replace my BlackBerry. I’ve got my eye on the Pre, but the HTC Hero is on my radar as well. Unfortunately, I’ve likely ruined any semblance of a chance that they had at being happy with any non-iPhone device, but we’ll give someone a shot. It has to be a Sprint device for the time being.

Because I’m loyal to my local telecom like that…

But man…do I ever wish that Sprint had taken the opportunity to get the iPhone back when it had the chance.

I was extremely lucky to win tickets from Lost In Reviews to the opening night of the Spring Awakening tour in Kansas City this evening. (Disclaimer: I was not paid for this review.)

Alli and I were really excited to have a night out (on a Tuesday!) to see the 2007 Tony Award-winning musical with music by one of my favorite musical artists, Duncan Sheik.

The musical is based on a controversial German play by Frank Wedekind and focuses on the themes of sexuality and violence. The original play was banned in Germany because of its racy themes, but an amazing thing about the play is that many of the themes still ring true over 100 years later.

The show is staged very uniquely, with a simple, straight-forward set containing seating for audience member on the stage and several movable chairs that can be configured to portray a schoolhouse, a study, an oak tree (trust me on that one). There is also one minor moving part to the stage, but it’s almost unnoticeable. The lighting design for the show won a well-deserved Tony and is phenomenal. It was yet another part of the show that was unique…unlike anything I’ve seen.

The band is at the back of the stage — a piano, acoustic and electric guitars, upright bass, drums, maybe 1 or 2 other instruments. It’s an interesting choice because you notice them, but you don’t at the same time because many of the songs are performed directly to the audience, giving them more of a rock concert feel than the musicals that you’re used to.

And while we’re on the topic of the music, I have to talk about Duncan Sheik’s brilliant score and Steven Sater’s great lyrics. Somehow, they manage to take 1890’s German kids, have them sing indie rock songs with titles like “The Bitch of Living” and it all works. The performances by the actors at our show were phenomenal. I was particularly impressed by Taylor Trensch, who plays Moritz (arguably the third lead in the show). He was raw and his singing was on point. He really was the stand-out.

I really enjoyed this show as did Alli. I was amazed that something with its subject matter in a play over 100 years old could still be so relevant and meaningful. The singing was powerful, the music was eclectic and modern, yet fit the pervading themes of the show.

Glee fans (like me) will recognize Lea Michelle (who plays the diva Rachel) from the commercials since she was the original Wendla, the female lead in Spring Awakening. I think this kind of goes without saying (what with her being on a regular TV show and all), but don’t expect to see her.

For those theater-goers who might be interested in seeing the show, I highly recommend it, but that recommendation comes with a caveat: if you are easily offended, stay away. The musical embraces the same theme that Wedekind focused on in the play: sex. There are references and portrayals of masturbation, allusions to teenage sex and abuse, as well as homosexuality and abortion. As I was reading up on the background of the musical, I was absolutely floored that Wedekind’s original themes were still so relevant (and controversial) today.

There is actually a Parents’ Guide on the Spring Awakening website that may give you some idea as to whether you can handle it.

Understand, I definitely don’t want to discourage anyone from going to see it. I hope that people take the opportunity to go see this show while it is in town. Kansas City gets a small share of good touring Broadway musicals and this is one that you should not miss. That is, if you can handle it.

Derek Powazek on the key to SEO:

Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.

I feel like I’ve been saying some version of this since I had the chops enough to give advice on what people should be doing on the Web (not nearly as long as Derek). In my opinion, search engine optimization is about two things:

1. Write clean code – this means semantic HTML, with structure and presentation separated.
2. Write great content – see Derek’s comment above.

That’s it. When I was job searching earlier in the year, many of the web-based jobs I interviewed for asked me what my expertise was in SEO. I promptly told them the above two things. In my opinion, SEO is just about as easy as that.

For proof, if you search for “SEO” on Google, you’ll find that Derek’s post is on the front page within 24 hours (as of the time of this post). For a term like SEO to appear on the front page that quickly is unprecedented if you are an SEO specialist. If you’re looking for a better way of proving Derek’s point, I am guessing you’ll fall short.

Thanks for the post, Derek.

I’m still Brian Fellow!

Five years ago, I started this blog with a simple Blogspot account and an innocuous post titled “I’m Brian Fellow!” At the time, I was working at Perceptive Software and my buddy Kevin and I used to laugh constantly at this skit. It always makes me laugh.

In that post, I stated the following, in an attempt to introduce myself to the blogodome:

Things I like:

• hanging with my wife and dog
• movies
• music (I really really like my iPod + iTunes)
• Chipotle burritos
• the TV show “Alias” – the best show EVER
• Apple computers
• most EA Sports video games for PS2
• poker (only recently really, but I like it a lot)
• reading (but only sometimes)
• cheeseburgers
• Mountain Dew (most forms, though I have yet to try the new black kind)
• The Chiefs

Things I dislike:

• ignorance
• people who drive with their lights on during the day
• temperatures over 85 degrees
• people who don’t vote because “one vote doesn’t make a difference”
• pants other than jeans
• old navy t-shirts (they are too short for my long torso)
• the general refusal of PC users to accept the Firewire interface, favoring USB (for some god-forsaken reason) over it

I’m a generally happy guy. But I’m opinionated and when I think a certain way…I’ll tell you. Just FYI.

Most of this is still true.

Sure, “Alias” isn’t on the air anymore. And it definitely went downhill in its later years. I rarely play my PS2 anymore (although I might play a Wii if I had one with Beatles Rock Band. I still dislike ignorance and temperatures above 85 degrees (which makes the glorious weather in KC all the more…um…glorious). And while I would prefer to wear jeans everyday, I don’t, since I can’t really. At least not currently. Old Navy did something to their T-shirts and they fit better now. And I’m totally over the Firewire/USB thing.

But not really.

So it’s been five years since I started blogging. Not much has changed about me. I’ve always treated this blog as an extension of my real life and I hope that it is reflected in my writing and when people meet me.

I can’t believe it. 863 posts in 38 categories with 1,164 tags and 2,182 comments. Thanks for reading. I will keep writing and I don’t intend to stop anytime soon.