Sunday Off

02009-07-19 | Uncategorized

I enjoyed a slow morning in Sparks. Watched Tokyo! on my laptop, a 2008 film that contains three segments written by three non-Japanese directors. Didn’t care much for the first two films that, but the third and last film, by a Korean director, was amazing and easily the best of the three. Beautifully filmed!

I received an email from a fan who did not like that the concert at Boulder Station was “only” 75 minutes long. (((BTW, we played very well and received a standing ovation)))

I get at least one or two emails like that after every show in Las Vegas. Most casinos, with the exception of the Nugget in Sparks/Reno who let us play for 90 minutes, limit performances to 75 minutes (((as do clubs where we do two shows a night))).

It’s pretty simple, really. Casinos want to lure people to gamble. They offer shows at a decent ticket-price and hope that some folks stay to play the slots after the concert. The longer the concert, the less likely it is that people stay in the casino afterward – I am sure this is based on research or experience.

Let’s look at the ticket-price-to-concert-length ratio:

Ticket prices at the Celebrity in Phoenix, where we played a full show, were $45 and $65. Tickets at Boulder Station in Vegas went from $24.50 to $45.50. 120 minutes for $45 = 2.67 minutes per dollar, versus 75 minutes for $24.50 = 3.06 minutes per dollar. Or, if you prefer, the Celebrity charged 37 cents per minute and Boulder Station charged 32 cents.

So, your dollar actually buys you more music at Boulder Station. That’s pretty much all there is to it. A solution, of course, would be for clubs and casinos to print their time-limit on every ticket. Or should they?

Also, if you want to see a band in a small venue, chances are that they will play two shows and the performances will be shorter. That goes more or less for the Blue Note in Manhattan, Anthology in San Diego, One World in Austin &c.

Other stuff:

The Freedom to be No One
Poetry is abandoned in favor of reason.

And music is abandoned in favor of accounting. We abandon poetry and music at our peril, because I believe we need and crave grace and elegance and creativity in our lives. And, beyond music and poetry, those qualities also need to inform the things we use, the things we surround ourselves with and so on. Quality over quantity. A few useful and beautiful things are worth more than thousands of possessions. (((a great 75 minute performance is a great performance and easily better than a mediocre 120 minute performance… although I have to say that we had a really, really good night in Phoenix last week – but you’ll get my drift!)))

one hundred push ups
Stephen and I are on that push up plan. On the grass in Newport, in Santa Barbara, in the Rialto theater’s green room, in the Vegas hotel today. So far neither of us reports any problems playing guitar…

Slashdot Science Story | Swine Flu Kills Obese People Disproportionally
“Bloomberg is reporting that the World Health Organization discovered a single, surprising characteristic that’s emerged among swine flu victims who become severely ill: They are all fat. Infected people with a body mass index greater than 40 suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal. The virus appears to be on a collision course with the obesity epidemic. WHO officials are gathering statistics to confirm and understand this development.

Played around with the Brushes iPhone app. That would certainly work really well on the rumored Apple tablet… A useful invention would be some kind of silicon-tipped brush, which would offer more control than a finger-tip.