Saturday, the secret project kinda fell apart.

I mean, I’ve been working on the secret project since, um, August. One night, on a whim, I decided to just start writing a thing in a specific medium, and then over the course of the next few weeks, I worked on it more. And I’ve been working on it, in some form, since then. And Saturday was supposed to be a really big culmination of everything. And then it snowed. Due to scheduling issues over the course of the next, um, month and a half, we won’t be back on track until some time in January. I’m thinking late January. Luckily, I had a bunch of booze in my apartment.

So, I was able to complete some other aspects of the secret project on Saturday; just not the monolithic glorious clusterfuck that Saturday was supposed to be. And then I got drunk.

Long story short: Matty in cutoff shorts at a bar.

In other news (hey, remember that?!?), Veronica Mars is one of the best TV shows ever created.

So, I’ve been working on the secret project for, um, two monthsish now, and it’s just started moving. Like, it’s on its feet. And it’s very exciting. I’m very excited about it. Everyone else involved (and there are many people involved) are excited about it.

But I can’t talk about it, and it frustrates me.

Actually, I talk about it in real life as much as I can, as well as the “Matty is considering a move to L.A.” thing (backstory: I posted a “status update” on facebook when I was considering a move to L.A. in passing, since it was a reference to an Art Brut song, and everyone kinda jumped on me to ask about why I would want to move to the (apparently) most horrid place on the planet. The answer: my top choice for grad school. But I don’t really want to talk about that either.).

But it’s moving, which is a lot more than I can say for most of my projects. And it’s going well. Better than I could ever have hoped (and someone is going to have to remind me to talk about why when I finally do start actually talking about the secret project, because I have a million thanks to give to one person regarding their contributions to the project. Not that anyone else involved is less thanks-worthy, but this one is adding more to the project than I could have ever dreamed, in ways that I would not have thought of. Everyone else is doing perfectly awesomely, but this one’s a genuine surprise.)

The thing, though, is that I don’t want to jinx it by talking it up too much. And I don’t think I would, but I’m just so into this project that I don’t want to screw it up. I mean, I’ve actually screwed up in several ways at this point, mostly due to my own assumptions about things that I really need permission for. But I don’t…care. I’m taking things in stride, compromising with myself, not overexerting myself. And I’m enjoying myself.

So that’s as much as I’m willing to talk right now. Sorry if this was a huge cock-tease.

Hurm.

Haven’t posted in a hot minute because of things related to me getting various projects done, which prevents me from working on other projects. Such as updating this blog. But here’s my status report from this post:

• Secret project that I came up with a couple of weeks back and don’t want to talk about is actually going extremely swimmingly. It involves me writing a lot, which is fantastic, and we’ll hopefully be going into the editing phase within the next week or so, and then I’ll get to implement it. As soon as that’s going, I’ll start talking more about the nature of the project, its origins, and then, shortly thereafter, I’ll share it with you all. Until it starts getting implemented, though, I don’t want to jinx it. I’m superstitious like that.
• Book Club is not as up and running as I’d really like it to be, as in not, but I plan on getting that all started extremely soon. But that’s not so tough because I’ve got people counting on me.
• I figure the mix is done, as it is in the ‘tester’ phase. I’m not going to try to clean up the “Bump” to “Fancy Claps” transition because I…can’t. It’s not going easily, and I just don’t think it’s a good use of my time. I’ll upload it without the “tester” modifier, and make it a permanent fixture of the Music section.

I guess the #2 use of my time has been the secret project, but the not-so-secret project that is the Omega Wolf show that goes up this weekend has been #1 of late. I’ve been promoting like hell, though not on here, sadly. I don’t know why I said “sadly”, as my readership consists partly of people who are probably (hopefully) already going, and partly of people who don’t live here. However, since my promotion machine is in full effect, I feel obligated to say the following:

Omega Wolf Productions presents:
The Office Window
a Tragical Romp Through History
or
a Historical Romp Through Tragedy
(a sketch comedy show)

Saturday, September 1 and Thursday, September 6 at 7:00 pm (doors open at 6:00 pm)

The Bryant-Lake Bowl
810 W. Lake Street
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Tickets available at the door, $8-12 (pay what you want)/$6 with a student ID.

Check us out on MySpace.

In short, it’s a sketch comedy show, with the theme of tragedies throughout history as seen from an office window (our title was almost “Tragedies Throughout History As Seen From an Office Window”, but it was deemed too long. It was also almost “Death of a Salesman and Many Others”, which I hated for a variety of reasons, but others thought was brilliant). I wrote two sketches. I’m not in it for a variety of reasons that I’d rather not get into (although I’ll say it had everything to do with me, and not that I’m on the outs with the troupe in any respect, so don’t go thinking that).

I’ve been promoting it like hell. If you’ve seen me of late, chances are I’ve given you a handbill. If you’ve been in Uptown lately you’ve seen posters that I hung up (you’d better have fucking seen them) (sidenote: while out putting up posters this past weekend, I saw a poster that I hung up for our last show, Murder at Death Cabin, at Lake and Aldrich. That was six months ago.).

I’ve also been doing some sound designing, by which I mean I’ve been downloading sound clips and putting them together using garageband to make them more dynamic. It’s ridiculously fun. I got to create two battle background tracks (as heard from the Office Window): one for a 20th Century battle, one for a 19th Century battle. I got one clip by recording something from YouTube through my computer’s microphone. The first clip I created was for one of my sketches, and it involved layering seven different versions of a sound (that I downloaded from one of the absurdly many royalty-free sound effect websites), tracking down the right nature sound (the problem with people who put up royalty-free sound effects is that they like realistic sounds. And that’s good, I suppose. But I really prefer more sensationalized sounds. Like, real-life sounds are actually kind of ambiguous without the proper visual sometimes, but when you go to a show, when you hear something that I picked out, I want you to go “Oh, that’s definitely a pebble bouncing across the water” in stead of “what is that? Is that a bubble popping?” Like, most guns sound depressingly like popcorn.), and throwing on a Sisters of Mercy (the band, not the nuns) song sample. If I continue making sound effects (and I’d like to, which means I probably will. That’s how Omega Wolf works.), I doubt any will be as fulfilling as that one.

(Sorry if the overuse of parenthetical statements was distracting in that last paragraph. While writing it, I lost track of where the original sentences were going several times.)

But I’m really pumped for the show, and I hope as many people can go see it as possible. I know I love it.

I start working tomorrow (after a five fucking month respite). Wish me luck.

I hope you’re all aware of this.

I’m spending today on three projects.

#1 is something I came up with yesterday, and haven’t really stopped thinking about since. I’m not going to talk about it yet, but it’s very exciting, and I hope to talk about it soon.

#2 is the book club. Since putting out several notes to determine interest, I feel like I’ve got enough to start actually planning this thing. I’ve created a page to manage the book club on. It’s sparse for the moment, but I’ll be keeping track of things on there once we get rolling. Actually, this seems like a job for Google Groups. But if it comes to that, I’ll probably keep the page anyway.

#3 is hopefully finishing the mix I’ve been working on. I think there’s only one transition I really think needs work, and a second that could use some tweaking, but I’m pretty satisfied with it as a whole. Then I can start working on the next one. Woo hoo!