The Sentimental Engine Slayer is an enchantingly eccentric tale of Barlam, a twenty-something misfit surrounded by lovable deadbeats. The audience is treated to Barlam’s perspective, a fantastical reality, as he journeys from boy to man in a world of sex, drugs, betrayal, and misguided revenge.

At the end of the movie Omar fielded some questions from the (somewhat befuddled) audience. What follows is a transcript of these interactions.

Q: The film seems to have dark elements. Does this stem from personal dark times in your own life?

A: This is a perception you know. To decide that something is dark is a judgment. It’s a part of life. Violence is a part of life. The birth of a child is violent for a woman and she bleeds and the child comes out and it’s painful. The explosion… the creation of the universe was violent and so to me it’s beautiful exploring that aspect of it. The more we judge things the more we suffer. And so this in the film was just a part to carry out the film. And to carry out these desires. I get to live out my secret desires through writing, through cooking, through expressing myself through poetry, through the film. We have all felt at some point or another “I want to kill that guy, I want to beat him to beat himself to death with his own shoe”. And so in this film I can do that. In this film I can kill everyone I wanted to kill, I make fun of everyone I wanted to make fun of and I can beat myself and I can do it in a way that is constructive and positive and it’s again exposing something about myself.

Q: Anxiety seems to really play a major role in the film. Have you had to deal with that in any capacity in any point throughout your career, and how have you dealt with it?

A: I think anxiety and tension is there for all of us all of the time. I don’t feel it in terms of… maybe I do feel it in terms of career. I don’t even know. I feel it now. I feel it being here and the lights are on me and you know I can’t see your face and yet I try and speak to you. I feel that tension, my family is here and so I feel the anxiety and tension of knowing that they’re here and they see the film and they will perceive something else about me. So everything is extremely personal all the time. So coming to Tribeca or going to Rotterdam and thinking this is a completely different culture and they don’t speak Spanish, and the English they do speak- the English in this film- is very particular to that region. How will they understand my film? And so there’s that type of anxiety… but this is a GOOD thing is what I want to say. It’s not a negative thing I am feeling now. I am feeling nervous now, I can feel nervous and I can thank this film for feeling nervous. I haven’t felt nervous since 1988 when I played my first concert. I felt nervous again when I met the woman that I’m in love with. And so these moments of being nervous, they’re small gifts. So now I can be nervous trying to explain my film to you and it makes me feel alive and it makes me feel good about myself. I don’t want you to think that the anxiety is a negative thing. It’s something to be examined. Once something makes us feel, once something makes us angry, once something makes us sad it’s something to probe into because we are only seeing one part of ourselves that we don’t want to look at.

Q: Where did you come up with the concept for this film? Do you watch many other films, etcetera, and what is your inspiration?

A: When coming up with the concept of films I don’t watch films. It’s the same when I make records- I don’t listen to music. Because already as it is, the films that I love and the music that I love is already so embedded in me that it’s very easy to put it in your pocket and, you know, go “Here’s my idea!”, and it comes out of your pocket. So that’s when I’m writing the films and making the films, you know, we don’t watch films. We listen to music… we do anything else but watch a film. Because it’s already too easy to unconsciously borrow, as everyone does.

Q: In the movie you have the scenes with the black garbage bags full of body parts, and the fact that the movie is set in El Paso. Is this a reference to the female murders of Ciudad Juárez?

A: I think a little bit of everything in the reference there is coincidence. That is a very big part of the reality growing up in the city of El Paso. For those of you who don’t know, they stopped the count back 1994 of over 700 woman that were murdered and buried in the desert. And the police in Mexico were doing nothing about it, and it seemed like a big cover-up and there are all these theories about who was doing all these murders. And it’s still going on. It’s still going on. And now they have made a few films about it, but it’s still going on. And now we have all these things going on with the military in Ciudad Juárez, and the drug war that is happening. It was definitely in the subconscious, of course. At the time years ago when I was in the band we made a video over there. The video we wanted to make, they had just played our first video on MTV and blah blah blah and they wanted another one and so we went and it was all about the woman. As we are making it, the second night we are there we get death threats at the hotel and so the director who was Anton Corbijn who some of you may know, he said “I’m out of here!!” and so he left. Then we turned the video over to MTV and they said “We don’t want this! No one wants to know about this, about missing people. We want something nice. Give us something nice. Give us smiles”. So the video was never aired. So it was something of the unconscious. I don’t know if in the conscious mind I thought of it.

Q: Thanks very much for making this film…

A: Thank the rest of the cast also! You know! Because they will make this film alone you know. These are all people who worked very hard; we worked 16 hours a day. Some people weren’t paid. The rest were paid very little. We all lived in the house in the film together, that was my brother’s house. If my brother was here I would thank him because we kicked him and my other brother and their girlfriends and their dogs and their cats out of the home so I could make the film. And I… slept outside of my editor’s house for a month in a van, there in Los Angeles, editing the film. And it’s their fault; it’s my family’s fault that we are here. Because at the time I made it like the two films before it and the film after it, I made it only to make it. I made it only to go through the process of it. Never thinking that one day.. you would perceive it, or that myself and maybe a couple others of us would see it.

Q: When was this film made?

A: This film was made at the end 2007. And at the end in 2008 we made another in Juárez. And hopefully if luck permits we will keep making more.

This film and miniseries remake is set during the 1930’s time period. Owing to this the usually uninteresting street outside my work was transformed with classic vintage cars and people dressed in olden day outfits, and vintage props throughout. It was very interesting during the day watching how each filming shot was organised and executed from the excellent vantage point of our second story office window.

This event was held at Fur nightclub and presented by GLOW. This was our first time at Fur nightclub and we were quite impressed! A very spacious bar, we had no problems with getting a drink and the sound system in the main room is excellent! Some extras in the club include energetic cage dancers and scantily clad barmaids. The dj booth is close to the floor level which is great for seeing the dj work his magic, and there is a raised dance floor up the back with excellent laser lights throughout, all culminating to create an excellent atmosphere to cut loose in. Here are a few pics and vids from the event!

Saturday, September 4th

Chemical Brothers  http://www.myspace.com/thechemicalbrothers

Paul Van Dyk  http://www.myspace.com/paulvandyk

Benny Benassi  http://www.myspace.com/benassi

ATB  http://www.myspace.com/andretanneberger

Sunday, September 5th

Armin Van Buuren  http://www.myspace.com/arminvanbuuren

Above & Beyond  http://www.myspace.com/aboveandbeyond

John Digweed  http://www.myspace.com/johndigweedforever

Fedde Le Grand  http://www.myspace.com/djfeddelegrand

Event Details

Electric Zoo Festival is a two day music event taking place on Randall’s island in New York City over the Labor Day long weekend in September. Now in it’s second year Electric Zoo is fast becoming an important date in the USA’s electronic festival calendar. Here are a couple clips we captured from last year!

David Guetta – When Love Takes Over @ Electric Zoo festival, New York, 2009

Deadmau5 – Ghosts ‘N’ Stuff @ Electric Zoo Festival, New York, 2009

The facts:

• Free Skype-to-Skype global calling  and IM
• Cheap international calls to landline or mobile
• Runs on 3G
• Won’t run if your wifi is active
• Won’t work outside of USA

I tested with a call from New York to New Zealand. At 2 cents a minute the call was crisp and clear. Secondly I made a free Skype to Skype call to London which was clear and without issue. I was very impressed! Skype can be kept permanently running on your device so calls can be received at all times.

Please be aware that Skype calls to domestic USA numbers will eat up your Verizon minutes!

To download the free application visit http://www.skype.com/mobile/skypemobile/

Install fix: On trying to download the application some users are receiving the error message:

“Sorry, Skype mobile is not available for your phone. Switch to one of Verizon’s best-selling Blackberry and Android 3G smartphones.”

To skip this incorrect check and go directly to the download page type this into your mobile browser: http://download.skype.com/rim/vrim5_0/Skype_mobile.jad

The filming studio itself is quite large in size (much larger than The Colbert Report studio). Seating in the studio allows for a crowd of roughly 230 people at capacity. Choosing your seating location is not an option, as the friendly assistants direct you to a spot that they decide upon as you walk in. This is not really a concern as all seats have a good view of the stage.

After 75 minutes of sitting in the crowd listening to mostly classic and modern day rocks songs the warm-up guy came out to greet the crowd at roughly 6:45pm. The comedian informs us to laugh and get excited when we see Jon, as this will keep the episode exciting for all. The comedian makes a few funny jokes about people in the audience and then at roughly 7pm Jon Stewart enters the studio.

Jon Stewart comes out with his usual enthusiasm and fields about six questions from the crowd. Our questions were of the usual garden variety (what animal would you be if any, what do you like about living in New York, what would be your strategy if Leno attacks…) and Jon was able to give quite humorous replies to these. After the crowd’s questions Jon jumps behind his desk to begin taping of the show.

Firstly the intro music is played, and as practiced beforehand the crowd goes crazy with yelling! Filming behind the scenes is rather interesting. Jon Stewart mostly follows the scripted Teleprompter (which we could see from our seats to the left of the studio), and the taping runs very smoothly, almost at the same pace as the actual airing several hours later at 11pm EST. In between the adverts Jon will get his makeup checked and make some silly faces at the crowd. Time between adverts is the same as on actual TV (I guess it makes it easier for airing  just hours afterwards).

Our interviewee  for the night was Democrat Anthony David Weiner from New York’s 9th district. He spoke on his push for universal health care and was interesting to listen too. David and Jon knew each other as students and so made some funny jokes about their history together– as well as the obligatory weaner joke (yes, it is pronounced that way).

At the end of filming Jon did a big wave and said goodnight and we were escorted out the side door on to the streets of New York. It was an interesting and enjoyable experience that I would recommend to all!

To check for tickets to a future taping visit http://www.thedailyshow.com/tickets.

We began our adventure at 3pm by catching the train down to the the very bottom tip of Manhattan Island. Being such a nice sunny Saturday afternoon the tourists were out in force! We caught the ferry over to Staten Island taking some photos as we went. We arrived at the Staten Island Ferry terminal and went for a quick wander around the surrounding neighborhood…. not much is happening near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. We had a quick pub meal and a beer at one of the few nearby restaurants and went back to Manhattan. Here are some pictures to prove we went:

After we returned from Staten Island we traveled up the west side of Manhattan and had a look at the new High Line gardens. This walk is a 2.3 kilometer elevated freight railroad, built in the 1930’s until it was abandoned in the 1980’s and began to grow a random variety of weeds and plants along the tracks. These plants were the inspiration for the redevelopment of the High Line into an above ground garden. 50 million dollars later these gardens finally opened to the public on June 2009.

At 5:30pm we were directed inside the building to a bag scanner/metal scanner area, just outside the Colbert filming studio, and were informed of what was requried of us once inside the stuido…. mostly LOTS of yelling! We ending up waiting for about an hour inside this holding area. Whilst we waited to enter the studio there was a TV on the wall playing classic clips from the show. Everyone was laughing and getting into the mood.

Around 7pm we were directed into the studio and into our seats. We were seated towards the left center of the stage in front of his desk. It is very interesting to note how small the entire taping studio actually is for the Colbert Report. The audience seats only 120 people (a third the size of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart), and because of this laughing/cheering is STRONGLY encouragred “even if you don’t understand a joke!”.

A comedian was the first out onto the stage to warm up the crowd. He spent most of the time making fun of people in the crowd and everyone was laughing along. One kid in a jacket and white singlet was singled out for being an “eastern european coke sniffer”. It was all very fun and when Stephen Colbert eventually took to the stage everyone was very excited!  Stephen feeds of the excitment of his crowd and tonight it seemed like he was more excited than his usual cheery self, which was great fun to see! First off Stephen had a brief Q and A session, where he spoke out of character about some of the bizarre people he meets and then fielded a few questions.

The episode for today was primarily about the “birther movement”, namely a bunch of weirdos not believing Obama is entilted to be the president of the United States because he was not born in this country… despite the fact that his ‘Certificate of live birth’ from Hawaii has been provided, aswell as two inserts in Hawaian newspapers annoucing his birth on August 4th 1961. This movement is so bizarre that even staunch Republican Bill O’Reilly has debunked it himself!

The person to be interviewed tonight was Arrianna Huffington, founder of the liberal news website “The Huffington Post”. The interview was interesting as I visit this site ocassionaly and didn’t know anything about it’s origins.

The taping lasted for about an hour and by 8pm we were done, three and a half hours before it is to be edited and shown on Comedy Central! We left the studio via the same holding area and walked towards home, enjoying a beautiful warm night in New York City.

Mr Jono was currently traveling in the UK during the event, and flew 14 hours each way from London just.for.the.event!! How he was able to clear customs into this country I will never understand.

Customs FAIL

After several hours of Jono drinking alone at the airport bar my plane finally arrived in Miami and we caught a cab to our accommodation for the weekend. Our accommodation was organized by a kid from South Carolina that I had never met before called Beau. Beau had advertised via facebook on the Ultra Music Festival events wall that they had a party house booked with a couple spaces available. We contacted Beau to lock in the last couple places and canceled our stay at our South Beach hostel. Luckily for us Beau was an amazingly organized individual and pretty much the entire weekend went off without a hitch!

Ultra Music Festival Day 1

We woke up on day one and began to drink! There were about 15-20 people staying at our waterfront house and it was pretty humorous talking to some South Carolinian kids with their southern accents y’all. Everyone was pretty knowledgeable about their electronic music and a wicked mix of music was played as we sat and drank some beers, finally enjoying some warmer weather after a miserable New York winter!

A few hours in the unthinkable happened and we ran out of beers, so our sober driver took us on a beer run to Walmart. Bad idea. On route to Walmart our car crashed in the middle of an intersection and our driver Tod had to pull over for a long chat with a very weird lady who did not have any insurance. Eventually Crazy Lady drove off and we went to a nearby gas station to grab some beers.

A few more cold beers by the pool and we eventually caught our taxi to the event. First up we went over and saw the final few songs from Brooklyn based Santogold. I was hoping to hear a bit more of her set though she sounded very tight! Next up on the main stage were the Ting Tings. They were great as always with a lot of energy and played all their usual crowd favorites.

Ting Tings

After Ting Tings left the stage we wandered over to the dance tent and caught most of the set from Melbourne boy Dirty South. He had a very large audience and it was the first time during the day that everyone in our group really got into it!

When Dirty South was all finished we walked over to the main stage and found a nice spot to watch Bloc Party…. Unfortunately Bloc Party front man Kele Okereke had developed some throat issues and so this band were not to play today. I had seen them in New York earlier that week and he had mentioned whilst on stage that his throat felt coarse so no surprises there.

After an hour of weird guys dancing around in green bodysuits to fill the empty Bloc Party time slot, the Black Eyed Peas came out on stage. They were surprisingly entertaining (I had very low expectations) with their music being sped up somewhat and a really good light show. A guest appearance was made by LMFAO playing their single “Im in Miami Bitch” which was fitting for the show. This was the Black Eyed Peas’ first show together in three years and I didn’t mind it at all…

Black Eyed Peas

Taking the stage next was David Guetta. I had been looking forward to this act all day and he was easily my highlight. Guest appearances were made by will.i.am, and for his latest track “Love Takes Over”, Kelly Rowland from Destiny’s Child. I quite enjoyed this song and it was quite a treat seeing it played live for the first time!

David Guetta

……Then the beers started to get at me. Tiesto was very good from what I remember (although I was never a huge fan of his) and it was a good way to round out the first day.

We eventually arrived back at our rental house, after a drive though South Beach, and after a quick swim in the pool I went to bed.

Ultra Music Festival Day 2

I got up in the morning and noticed Jono wasn’t in his bed. After a wander around the house I found him sitting by himself outside. He had been up all night and had only found about half an hours sleep on a pool lounger.

After a couple beers and a few shots of vodka we jumped into our unnecessarily extravagant stretch hummer limo and drove off towards day two of Ultra Music Festival.

First up we went over and watched the Presets‘ early afternoon set. It was very hot in the sun and the band seemed to be feeling the heat. Their set was a bit lack luster which was a shame as I had been looking forward to thema lot. Some of the songs in their set had been modifed to give them a new sound. This worked quite well for them.

Presets

After the Presets we made our way over to see a bit of the Pete Tong set in the Carl Cox tent. This was my first time seeing him and he was very good. I didn’t know any of his music but the crowd seemed to be enjoying it. After a while we left him to head towards the main stage for Infected Mushroom.

Infected Mushroom

Infected Mushroom were great! However hard I was imagining it may have been to enjoy an intense psytrance act in the mid afternoon Miami sun, people weren’t showing the signs at all. There was even some moshing up the front center, with most people enjoying a band that brought a lot of energy to the afternoon!

Next up we went towards the drum and bass tent. Knowing that most of my crowd were not fans of this music genre I told them I would meet them in an hour, and took off to see Chase and Status. It was good to see some drum and bass in the States, as I have noticed in New York it is not a very popular music genre at all. The people on stage and the DJ were very entertaining, dancing up a storm and the music was flawless. The new mix with Snoop Dogg on vocals “Snoop Dogg Millionaire” was a fun track. The set ended with their biggest current single “Pieces”.

Chase and Status

Next up was Cut Copy at the Bayfront stage. I really don’t understand the appeal to this band. The crowd however loved them and seeing some guys from home doing well was at least slightly entertaining. They played all their crowd favorites and informed all that they were doing this set as their final live show in about 18 months of touring. In their defense they brought a lot of enthusiasm to their set which the crowd responded to positively.

Game over! After a day and a half of no food, little sleep and too much alcohol I was becoming easily irritated. It was time for a break. We went and got some some Greek food next, and sat on a hill talking generic festival shit that one speaks in such a mental state. You know what I mean. After a long sit down we were feeling energised enough to hopefully make it through to the end of the day, so we went off towards the main stage to enjoy some Armin Van Buuren! This guy was great as always. It was excellent after the break and with the sun setting we were getting charged to go again. The light show for Armin was amazing. This guy is rated as the worlds number one DJ and he put on a fantastic show with some seamless mixes displayed, coupled with fantastic visuals!!

Armin Van Buuren

After watching a few tracks from final act Paul Van Dyk it was all too much and we began to make our way home. Back at the house a few wind down beers with the group were had, and we called it a night and went to sleep ending an amazingly enjoyable weekend.

Afterwards we all went back to Michelle’s flat nearby and annoyed the neighbors by playing Rock Band until the early hours of Saturday morning.