Chrismowder.com

Thursday

02Jul

Live! on Stage

Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 12:13PM

Yesterday was a very busy day at work as I was trying to piece together the end of a few sections, figure out if I needed to do an illustration for the front page and work out some issues with a new computer system and some ad design craziness. But, it was also time for our Kicks! Crew to head back out for another round of photos and thus not everything was so tough.

This time around we set out for Broadway at the Beach. We did a group photo on a fake surfboard for this week and then set out to find a club to shoot in for next week. Since it was only 4 in the afternoon, most every club was not yet open, but we made due and ended up shooting some stuff of us all playing pool together at Broadway Louie's. However, the really interesting part of the day was when we headed up to the Carolina Opry.

One of our reporters, Monique, had set us up to go into the Opry with the owner's daughter and get some shots of us up on stage for our upcoming issue which will be themed around shows, concerts and performing. I've been by the Opry plenty, but never seen a show there so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The building itself is very nice — they moved to this nice, new location like 10-15 years ago after moving up from where The Legends In Concert theater is now — but what I was really impressed by was the theater.

Sure the setup of the place was nice (and huge), but it I had really expected a dark stage with no one around when we were shooting our stuff. Instead, they were preparing for their show that night at 8 p.m. and we got probably 15 minutes where the cast & crew halted their sound check so we could run around in the midst of the stage in its full glory. There were spotlights a going every which way, the technician was running tests on all sorts of laser light arrays, and the stage manager guy even gave us microphones to pose with.

Suddenly it was like all six of us were living out some sort of secret "American Idol" fantasy and all the ladies were traversing about singing and dancing, breaking into Michael Jackson and random showtunes. I figured it was more or less a once-in-a-lifetime type of experience (although I know what business I'm getting into if this whole design thing deosn't work out) so I figured I need to snap a few pictures with my camera phone. Whether do to my phone quality of my lack of photo abilities, they didn't turn out too great, but I think you'll get the idea.

During the actual shoot, our photographer had us all sining a big "Laaaaaa!" as loud as we could and doing a sort of jazz hands, step-and-pose sort of tap dance thing which my Y chromosone apparently prevents me from doing very well, but overall I think it went pretty well. I will be anxious to see how the photos turn out in the paper, but regardless of that I still got my 15 minutes on stage and that was more than enough for me.

Chris Mowder |

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Friday

26Jun

TSN Beach Photos

Friday, June 26, 2009 at 4:24PM

Sure, it's been hard lately and there are still plenty of scary signs and a few horrible injustices in the newspaper business, but on days when things aren't so bleak, work is still pretty fun. Here's an example of why I still love my job...some photos we did recently of the Kicks! camp counselors as we our calling ourselves, the features staff that will be putting together a series of fun summer stories for our weekly entertainment magazine. And we still have 5 more weeks of acting crazy to go. Thanks to all the ladies for participating and to Randall Hill for shooting the photos.

Chris Mowder |

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Sunday

21Jun

Father's Day

Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 8:08PM

Let me preface this entry by saying that it's whole purpose is to procrastinate from writing a story, finishing a flyer and designing some other random things I've been telling people I'll get around to. That said, today was a very nice way to spend a Sunday, celebrate Father's Day and spend some time with relatives.

Started the day up early to play some video games and continued to get won over by Tiger Woods Golf 10. I was convinced at first that it was too complicated and that I was no longer interested in playing a golf video game, but after a few days of play it is getting more and more interesting... I still can't shoot better than like +6, but I'm making progress. I decided to go full on with it and build a character with a photo game face (where you upload photos and the game molds you into a character in the game). It took quite awhile for the game to compile/build the model, but in the end I was thuroughly suprised how much it resembles me and how far they've come with that technology since the old Tony Hawk Underground game where they skinned a wierd smiley picture of my onto a 3-d model that ended up looking like a grotesque skeleton sort of thing.

After a few rounds of golf, we got ready to head north to meet my family (mom, grandma, grandpa, and great aunt) for a Gospel brunch at the House of Blues. Heidi had Miles bring me a father's day gift which he had finger painted himself. It's no Monet, but I think any hopes I have of him becoming an artist are definitely alive and well at this point.

Brunch was great, and it is something I must suggest you try sometime if you have never been there. It's a little pricey (what isn't these days?) but the buffett is huge and full of great food from the full breakfast spread of waffles, eggs, grits, potatoes, fruit, etc. to a hearty bunch of southern lunch cuisine including, beans and rice, ham, chicken wings, mac and cheese and more. The atmosphere is also quite fun as they have a live band playing great gospel tunes and giving some very fun commentary and even a little bit of preaching in between.

We then headed over to Barefoot Landing and shopped for a bit, and I DO mean shopped considering my grandma and her sister were involved (those ladies can SHOP). It was ridiculously hot, somehwere in the 95-100 range, but I RARELY get out to that area so it was nice to get a chance to browse around.

On the way home we stopped by DQ and grabbed an ice cream cake, which is the standard Father's Day fare for Heidi's dad, and the went home where I proceeded to crash for a couple hours. Then her family came by to eat the cake and watch some of the NASCAR race, we played around with the baby and even tried out some ladderball (more on the beach games later...).

Although I was a little worried that Heidi had forgotten my begging, it turns out she was on top of it all along and in addition to Miles' painting she also got me the canvas and easel I have been asking for as a Father's Day gift. I was very happy to have it, but now I'm feeling some pressure as I look at the blank canvas in my living room that needs painting. I want to do something worthy of being hung in our new house, but I also want it to be something funky and fun. If only I could draw like this I would probably just steal from this Major Lazer video, because this is about the coolest thing I've seen in awhile.

Major Lazer - "Hold The Line" ft. Mr. Lexx and Santigold

Overall, it's been a pretty great day, maybe even good enough that I won't mind working the rest of the evening...or maybe so good I'll continue it by vegetating and watching some "True Blood" before I start anything mentally taxing.

Chris Mowder |

Summer music (so far)

Friday, June 19, 2009 at 8:44AM

It's been awhile, but I've been listening to tons of great stuff this summer so far, it's just tough with all the things going on to remember to blog. It seems my production always drops off heavily during the summer months, but I suppose that is good because it means I am getting a break from sitting at a computer all day.

So anyway, here's a quick list of some of the new albums I've been rocking the past month or so as well as the clips of my current faves from this week:

311 "Uplifter" - A return to form for these guys. Check out "India Ink," "Jackpot" and the lead single "Hey You" if you haven't already heard it.
Method Man & Redman "Blackout! 2" - It's not the original, but good to hear these cats running together again. They're still at their best being the stoners they are on "Dis Iz 4 All My Smokers" but I also dig "City Lights" feat. Bun B.
Busta Rhymes "Back on My B.S." - Tried it. Don't hate it. But I didn't want to keep listening. TOO commercial. Get back to your roots Busta.
Colt Ford "Ride Through the Country" - His rhyming cadence is horrible at times and somewhat comedic, but if you've got the country blood in you and you enjoy songs about beer, trailer trash and the Waffle House, this country-rapper is worth checking out.
Incubus "Monuments and Melodies" - I don't have to tell you what I think of this one, obviously I'm a big fan of an Incubus greatest hits collection. But I do like that they added alot more than just a "best of". Some great rare tracks, especially the acoustic version of "certain shade of green" and even a couple new ones that are pretty good.
Street Sweeper Social Club "Self-titled" - It's not Rage against the Machine, but Tom Morello puts down rage-esque jams on several tracks. The MC (who I don't recall his name, but he used to be part of The Coup) is plenty skilled but in the end some of his politically-charged rhymes come off sounding a bit manufactured. Still, as good Rage nostalgia as you can get these days and worth a listen.
Tanya Morgan "Brooklynati" - Spent an entire 3-4 hours with Tanya on repeat the other day while designing the flyers for their show. They are fresh and they consistenly bring insightful rhymes of the type you appriciate a little more every time you hear them. On the new album I love the tracks "Plan B", "She's Gone" and "We're Fly".

On to the crack music tracks of the week...

Chali 2na feat. DJ Nu-Mark "Comin' Thru" - 2na, the Jurassic 5 vet, has a new album out and I was so disappointed in his previous solo effort that I almost didn't check it out...but boy was I pleasantly surprised. There are plenty of great tracks and I had a tough time choosing between "So Crazy" and this one, but YouTube ultimately made the decision for me.

Kidz in the Hall "Middle of the Map pt. 2" - This isn't even current (the album was released in 2008) but I've gotten re-hooked on it recently and I have to put it up because the beat to this song and "Middle of the Map pt. 1" are two of my favorite Black Milk beats of all time and that's saying something because the kid is outstanding on the boards and truly one of my favorite producers. I dare you to listen and not bob your head.

Part 1

Chris Mowder |

UGLY TOURISTS

Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 4:36PM

Here's my million dollar idea of the day that you are all (all 5 of you) welcome to steal. I would like to start a blog of entirely ugly tourist photos. Myrtle Beach has to be the ugly tourist capital of the world and thus I feel not capitalizing on the boon of fat, white people in ridiculous clothing would be a major FAIL on my part.

This all started from a newsroom conversation of how we could manage to get more half-naked people and other ridiculously "only in Myrtle Beach" moments into the paper and online. While the others involved in the conversation had much more palatable ideas which could possibly be useful in the future, I couldn't help but fixate on the future of this "Ugly Tourist" idea.

Now, shouldn't I go out and do some leg work on this idea before sharing it with the world, probably. But that's just not how I work...I'd rather blab on about something that will likely never happen, because as long as I don't actually attempt to turn the idea into something concrete I can go on believing forever that it could actually be a succesful idea for a blog.

Still, keep your eyes peeled for some future updates as I will surely be on the lookout for ugly tourist photos now that it's in my head. And just so you can get a basic idea of what to expect, here's a few I found on Google Images.

Can't take your eyes off it can you? So wierd.

Chris Mowder |