A Book, etc.

Hey everyfolk!

First I want to thank everybody who made Dragon House an enormous success. The audience especially - a guy can't ask for a cooler group of people to look uncomfortable in front of. Sadly, I didn't tape the show, but a video production might be in the works for the future. Until then, here's the script. Why would anyone want to read the script? I have no idea. But here it is anyway. This is the production draft, without all the song notes. Eventually I will get Mike Hart's amazing songs posted. If anyone has pictures of the performance, send them to me and I will post thems!

Secondly, for all those who participated in "Puppets for Poor Kids," I thought I would introduce you to the two puppets that I got to give away.

Meet Thornwald and Gulp. If this doesn't change a kids life then I don't know what will. Beatings maybe.

So, based on the response to a random facebook query, I have decided to produce a Newt Jersey book. It will be a well put together collection of comics and humorous essays and microfiction. After I reach thirty comics, I will stop drawing new comics to focus on creating content and figuring out the nitty gritty.

I really want to work with a print/bookmaker, so if any of you know someone in the VA who might be interested, give me a holler.

I am to presell and fund the book through kickstarter.com, so I hope to put together something that people actually want to own. Maybe the quality of the paper will make up for the poor quality of the drawings themselves. Stay posted for progress, and make sure to check out the last two comics before Newt Jersey goes on indefinite hiatus!

There's quite a bit brewing at the moment for the summer, so stay posted all you crazy individuals.

Oh man, and just let me plug Honey Maid Chocolate Grams. They are like regular gram crackers, but heavier and more substantial and with chocolate. Buy them and feel good about your life.

Oh man it's sunny today. I love it.

Go outside and do a funny dance!

Bryan

A Big Furry Thanks

I want to extend a stubby armed puppet hug to everybody who came out to "Puppets for Poor Kids" on Saturday. The response was overwhelming, and I am ecstatic to say that we raised

$13.28

which is phenomenal. It just about covers a really special puppet for a really special random kid. So if you came, feel good about yourself, because you just made a puppetless kids day, and gave him something to take to college with him when he grows up because he hasn't learned how to sleep without it.

I will post pictures of the puppet when I order it, which will be very soon.

Stay posted for info on my upcoming musical, "Dragon House," which will be going on Thursday, April 22, 8-9PM.

Puppets for Poor Kids

This Friday and Saturday is Culture Shock at SUNY Purchase. It's an awesome festival with bands and food and rides and everything a boy could want. Check out the set list, because it's definitely a list.

Sadly headliner Los Campasinos will not be able to play, due to the eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajokull ruining British airspace. Eyjafjallajokull was totally my favorite Icelandic volcano, but not anymore.

So, drown your sorrows and springtime urges in philanthropy, and stop by "Puppets for Poor Kids", a fundraiser organized by Max Dashevsky and I. We will be by the WPSR second stage collecting money and small pocket sized things to go towards buying a puppet for a child in need. A child in need of a puppet.

Puppets provide companionship, are an amazing catalyst for imagination and creativity, and do wonders for a child's social skills. Studies show that kids who play with puppets have 130% more coolness.

So stop by - I will post the times as soon as they are announced, in the comments section of this post, and on my twitter. (which you can see there------->)

And remember, a hand without a puppet is really not a hand at all.

(ps. Chaz Monster is done! Expect it to be posted soon.)

April Fools, Puppets, etc.

April Fools.

Oh man, that's about ten days late.

Whoops.

For all the folks who downloaded The Night Owl Chirping, it was something of an April fools joke. So it's really not the best thing I've ever done. Only close to it. If you didn't download it, then heck - download it anyway. The more things you have on your hard drive, the larger it's soul is. Think about it.

So there's crazy lots of stuff going on. I'll try to untangle it -

I bought a little moose at a toystore in Plesantville, NY.

His name is little baby doo doo moose and he's a finger puppet. Expect to see him in something someday, like a play or Owl Soundboard album cover. Or just on my finger at three in the morning.

I also bought a balsa wood glider - its crazy to pay the cost of a burger for something and then not eat it because it's not a burger but instead play with it for hours and hours.

Part of me feels like our entertainment and a great deal of other things we experience (food) is over produced.

Another part of me loves that.

But really, all we need is a balsa wood plane and a moose.

Today, Luke Francy did all the shooting for a short film that I scripted.

It's called Chaz Monster, and was a project I developed for Matt Lents, a senior in the Acting Conservatory at Suny Purchase. Matt is a freaking amazing actor, and I'm so excited to have something on his demo reel.

It's something of a love story, that follows a guy who is attempting to put together a web blog with his puppet, and also convince a random girl to fall in love with him.

It's not autobiographical, I promise.

You can download the script here, if you fancy.

I will post the movie when it's finished, so you get your popcorn ready. Or just eat it now. I won't tell you not to eat the popcorn if you want it. But if you still have it when Chaz Monster comes out, then yeah. Get it ready.

Set the date - April 22 is the Dramatic Writing/Photography collaboration at Suny Purchase.

I will have directions etc as the date approaches, because you should be there.

It's the premier of Dragon House, a musical. Mike Hart, composer and renaissance man, has finished the tracks and I am in the process of writing lyrics at the moment.

The songs are beautiful. Amazing.

And get this: Mike is going to start rehearsing a live band.

I will get to sing with puppets for roughly twenty minutes while a live band accompanies me.

And people say the American Dream is dead.

Our dragon is on loan to Luke at the moment, as he is playing Chaz in Chaz Monster. He's a working dragon, thats for sure.

Also puppet related - Max Dashevsky, a fellow dramatic writer and funny guy at Purchase, and I will be doing a show on the WPSR second stage at Culture Shock. We cannot reveal exact details, but it will be a puppet show, rest assured.

Stay tuned for a time and location on that.

I need to blog more, and not just dump crap I'm doing on the reader. And by the reader I mean the search engine crawler that passes over my page every month or so, slowly creeping towards sentience.

Please, go out and buy a balsa wood plane. I don't know where. I don't think dollar stores sell them anymore.

Give one to someone you love, and that day will be the best day of their week. Unless of course they get two balsa wood planes the next day.

In that case, the person who gave them two is much cooler than you.

But don't worry.

There's always little baby doo doo moose.

And I've completely lost it.

Good night, space station.

Keep on makin' that gravity.

And protein paste.

Mmmmm protein paste.

Ps - If you listened to the Owl Soundboard, and would like another one made for you. For you specifically, then tell me so in comments.

Free Pre-Release of New Album

Hello adoring fans,

First here's a big hug.

You can put your arms up. Thats right, hug me back.

There we go.

Second, I'm posting a link to my first album.

Before I send it off to have 1000 copies pressed (don't worry, I'll make more),

I want my closest circle of fans to get a taste of it for free. As long as you promise to delete it and buy the real thing when it comes out for only 10.99 in CD or 7.99 on Itunes.

I've got some people working on some reviews right now - sputnikmusick, cokemachineglow, pitchforkmedia, popmatters, and somebody who's friends with someone at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

But the only reviews that matter to me are the glowing ones showered upon me from you, my fans.

Just shower it on me. Please.

I don't mind.

So, without further ado, I present the official pre-release of Owl Soundboard's first album -

The Night Worm Chirping.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ovkwdmynean

Don't worry, it can be your favorite album forever.

-Bryan

The Rainbow's End

The hole in the backyard of the old house would fill with water every time it rained. A big brown puddle, that’s what it looked like. Blake Paisley would cut through that backyard on his way home, and was prone to jumping into puddles - a compulsion that had gotten him into a bit of trouble before. One day, hurrying home in the pouring rain, Blake was for a split second lost in the euphoria of finding a new puddle in the midst of an otherwise crummy day. His heart must have skipped as he leapt into the air and came down with both sneakers together into the water. He was never seen again.

Nobody knew how far down it went - you could drop a rock down it and not hear a sound. It just gobbled it up. As a matter of fact, in so far as anyone remembers, the hole has claimed a frisbee, three baseballs, two footballs (one Nerf), one RC car, and of course Blake Paisley. But it wasn’t a bottomless pit - if that were the case then the proper authorities could be called in to categorize it and deal with at accordingly. Easy. But no - a half a day of steady spring showers and it would fill right up. It had to have a bottom. But then, where was it? And where were all the things going?

Then one April day, April 24th specifically, it began pouring a rain like nobody in town had ever seen before. It was like a solid wall of water descended over the houses, swallowing up all the air. Stores were closed, people stayed home. The streets filled with water. Kids tried to race tin-foil boats from their front porches as parents nervously watched the water rise. It rained all through the night and into the next day.

And it was that morning that things started to rise out of the hole. They bubbled up one after the other - baseballs, footballs, something resembling a raccoon, an old fashioned lawn mower. Then came the skeletons. They spilled out over the lip of the hole, caked in mud like it was flesh. A pile of tangled bones began to form around the hole. It grew taller and taller, and fell over. The water washed the mud away, and the bones began to stick out bleached white in the pouring rain.

The next morning, the sun came out. A crowd formed in the street. Everyone in the neighborhood came out to see the big rainbow that cut a wide swath across the sky. In fact, somebody pointed out, the rainbow seemed to end in their neighborhood. Everybody got really excited - nobody sees a rainbow and doesn't wonder who’s neighborhood it ends in.

So they ran up the street, and over a block, and up another street. Finally, they saw that the big beam of light lead to right behind the old house. Around back, they saw the most surprising thing - the rainbow came down and hit right next to the pile of bones. Right into the hole. The bones had been bleached white by the water and the morning sunshine. They reflected all the colors of the rainbow so beautifully. Reds and purples and greens danced on the peoples faces as they followed the rainbow down into the darkness with their eyes. They were so close to seeing where it lead - at the bottom of that hole was the deepest secret left on the earth; what is at the end of the rainbow.

So they did the only sensible thing - they jumped down into the hole, after the rainbow, one by one.

The town remained empty for a few weeks, before new families moved into the houses. It was just too nice of a neighborhood to be so empty, the new neighbors thought. They wondered why anyone would leave such a place.

They noticed that the hole in the backyard of the old house would fill with water every time it rained. They thought it was the most curious thing.

Hip Hip Huzzah!

Gentle readership,

Salutations! The Newt Jersey doc how has an official 86 views. That's more than people I have met in my life. Thanks internet! I never expect you to become self aware and take over the world. Because you're my friend.

I've been a busy bee (thats right, a bee.) these past weekdays, putting together all sorts of projects.

One I'm particularly excited about - A bold band of Purchase Dramatic Writing students are putting together a production of theater-type pieces inspired by photographs of photo majors. Details of the production itself are sketchy, but my project is well underway. I'm a draft into a musical with puppets that has something to do with the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The extremely talented Mike Hart (you may know him from the crapload of films he's scored, including the one I wrote) is quick at work on the score, and I can't wait to write my first lyrics since those terrible songs I wrote in highschool. We've all got them.

For a taste of what I've done with my arsenel of puppets (yes it's an arsenel,) check out this video I made for a contest.

I'm also working on a one man show/musical about Batman. It follows him and his trusty guitar Robin on their patrol, the night of the anniversary of the murder of the Wayne parents. Look for a performance at the Co-op, with donations going to buying a little kid a Batman toy for Christmas.

My big screenwriting project right now is an adaptation of the Phillip K. Dick short story "Precious Artifact." It's my first long form bit of Sci-fi and I'm excited. The story follows Milt, an engineer who has just finished overseeing the terraforming of the first portion of mars. He comes to earth to investigate some mysterious happenings, and finds out (in classic Dick style,) that bum bum bum - nothing is as it seems! Ohhhh no!

When it's done I'll post it, so as to confuse all of you.

That's all. For you who have been following Newt Jersey in the Independent, they are a few weeks behind. Once I actually do a good one, I will start to make them current again. Look for an opportunity this semester to write a Newt Jersey strip to be printed and posted, with credit to you!

That's all for now, Mission Control!

Now how do I turn this thing off...

Is it this thingy here? Nope?

Oh here, it's this switch.

There.

Whew.

Now, time to eat some peanut butter.

Mmmm peanut butter.

But I can't eat peanut butter without my special hat, can I?

No I can not.