updates!

You may have noticed that this site looks a little different. Well so does www.bradwilson.us and www.barichrome.com! If you have time, check them out!

shopsins!

how are you?

Well, first of all, I just have NO time for anything but work and family. So, even in a fantasy world where I imagine that there are people that are waiting to hear what I'm up to, there simply isn't any time to tell you. I'm not even sure why I'm writing this extemporaneously at 10:47pm on a Friday night... I should be washing dishes.

We have two kids now, and they are beauts. I don't mean aesthetically, though I happen to think they are pretty cute, but in the very very unique, full of life, and unbelievably energetic and tiring to the parents way.

I've been travelling alot. I mean ALOT. This is tough for everybody. I'm going to do a little bit less after this next trip, I hope. In the past 3 weeks I have been to: London (during the volcanic ash debacle), NYC (back to), Maui, LA, Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and then back to NYC. It actually doesn't sound as crazy as it was.

Anyway, I used to have a great little photo page going over here, but since we got the Mac I haven't had time to figure out a new FTP client so I haven't been able to repopulate it with photos. I'll post an announcement here when that's up and running again.

I'm on Twitter now, so if you want to read my drivel, click here and follow me.

Proof read? Who needs to proof read (pushes the post button)?

this is so new york

For those of you that rely on this blog to get information about me, and I hope that is none of you, I'm still alive. I have two kids now. Time flies, don't it? By the way, you have to watch this video. I kid you not, things like this happen in NYC all the time.

live footage

This is live footage shot of me performing in the corporate show The Three Waiters, shot by someone in the audience.

jack knife

I took a picture of this guy right after I did a site inspection the day before an event at which I was going to perform. The next day when I went down to the same hotel, I noticed the same guy in a slightly different spot, but exactly the same position.

photo "published"

One of my photos from Barichrome that is also on my Flickr stream was featured on Gothamist.

Vincent Bradley Wilson

He was born at 11:50am, November 24th. He weighed 7 lbs, 13 oz. He and Sandy are doing great. I'm sure this site will soon turn into News About Vinny. Pictures to follow, I'm quite sure, over here.

i was rejected by coffee idol

Chock Full O Nuts had a contest to help choose a new singer for their famous jingle. I entered the contest and thought I had done a pretty good job, especially after hearing the other entrants the first week. However, the powers that be apparently have rejected me before America had the chance to vote and make me the next barista belter.

Click below to listen to my song. It sounds like it was recorded by a whole group of people, but I did all the voices. It was fun, even if I was totally robbed by a mammoth multi-national corporation.

A choir of Brads Sing the Chock Full O Nuts Jingle.

Click here to see pictures I took at the recording session.

dueling adjectives

Last night, while listening to an infomercial I heard the host effusively say, "Wouldn't it feel good to feel great?" That made me feel dizzy.

Unrelated: Three pictures

inefficient writing

I started writing an entry this weekend where I dealt humorously with a certain characteristic of people that are in my profession. It was getting quite long and it was then I realized this was due to my trying to explain why I'm not exactly like these same people. The problem is, though I'm ashamed of it, I am like these same people more than I would like to admit (if not exactly). I edited it down to truthfulness and found that it had become so short as to not be worth putting up at all.

what am i thinking

I made up another joke even more moronic than the other one. To force myself to produce something of quality for this site, I'm going to post it. The shame that I feel will act as a motivator to my creative juices.

Doctor #1: I've cut myself badly. It is clear that I'll meet an untimely end if I do not stem the massive crimson tide that is my blood.

Doctor #2: I would be happy to stitch that up for you, seeing how you are going into convulsions and have begun to foam at the mouth.

Doctor #1: No thanks, I'm a bit of a loner, and feel that this is something that I must do alone.

Doctor #2: *Suture self.*

*As with all my other incredibly stupid jokes, you have to highlight between the asterisks to receive your "reward."

my television debut

I grew up in a small city, one small enough that they announce the cafeteria lunch menus of local schools on the radio as a public service. It was large enough to have a television station, and to this day they insist on having Local News at 11, complete with all the high school sports highlights. And at least one year, they had the area school choirs perform Christmas concerts on live television. This is the story of my TV debut, a tale so traumatizing it doubtless would have killed any desire within me to ever become a singer if I had wanted to become one at the time.

I went to a small Christian School. My choir participation was forced, for a time by my parents, but I also seem to remember it being tied one's ability to play sports as well. Either way, the only proper attitude for a boy in my school to have was to hate choir (whether you actually did or not) and make the best of it by showing off for the girls whenever the Director wasn't looking your direction.

Which brings me to the music Director of my first televised performance. I think that directing our school choir must have been pretty stressful, because I can remember a few of them came and went during the time I was in there. I can't remember the name of the Director in this story, but her image is burned into my mind to this very day. She was pleasantly plump, sported a large permanent wave, and had the habit of wearing dark, slightly-too-tight paisley patterned dresses. These dresses unfortunately showcased her overactive sweat glands as the stains under each arm grew larger and larger during our performances.

We arrived on Television Hill and crammed our hot, polyester clothed bodies into the WHIZ studio. We were all understandably nervous as was the custom in the town in which I grew up. It was an expected character trait of all citizens that they shun the limelight at all costs; every public compliment was expected to be met with vigorous blushing and embarrassed protests.

We had prepared a Christmas Cantata, and it was a doozy. It felt like it took about 2 hours to perform. I had the embarrassing lot of being put on the front row, a by-product of my miniature size at the time, and I was very conscious of the fact that my knees were shaking throughout the performance. During commercial breaks I would think that I had gotten the situation under control, only to fall victim to a new outbreak of the shakes when the light on the TV camera came back on. I decided to take drastic measures and lock my knees.

Locking ones knees was a cardinal sin in our choir. Next to messing around with your tie or stomping on the riser there was nothing worse you could do. "If you lock your knees, you'll pass out" was an oft heard quote, spoken in the same tone of voice as, "You'll shoot your eyes out!"

But, desperate times called for disparate measures. I locked my knees resolutely and focused my energies on getting through the last third of the cantata. I was doing pretty well until I noticed colorful little dots around the edges of my vision. They were fascinating for awhile until I noticed that they were increasingly intruding on my sight lines. In fact, in a short while they began to advance in earnest on my Choir Director. I began to panic and in a effort to distract I forced myself to concentrate on the humor derived from my Director's sweaty pits, but nothing worked. The last thing I remember was my entire field of vision being a rainbow of blinking lights, with my Directors smiling face in the center, desperately trying to demonstrate how we should emote.

The next thing I remember is one of the mothers dragging me across the floor past the TV camera.

The fallout was pretty intense. I heard the lectures about knee locking, and also had to endure the results of a new invention: the Beta Video tape. This forced me to watch myself sway and collapse many a time thanks to the handy rewind feature. At the time, I secretly wished for the destruction of that tape, though now I would treasure a copy if I could find one.

superpowers

Yesterday I went see X-Men. After the movie, one of our group indicated that if he could have a superpower he would prefer to be able to shoot chocolate pudding out of his nose. He later amended his wish to be chocolate pudding out of one side and tapioca out of the other. His theory was that after a long day of crime fighting all the other superheros might enjoy a snack. At that point the conversation devolved into a discussion about snot and nose hairs and other things that one could potentially find in pudding that was shot out of a superhero's nose. We finally concluded that the massive force and volume of pudding that could be generated by one endued with superpowers would probably also eradicate any nose hairs or snot residue.

movie quote / real life

I was sitting in my hotel room watching a movie. In this movie, a nun sitting on a bus said, "We just passed Travers City."

The crazy thing was... (wait for it)...

I was in Travers City at that very moment! DUHN, Duhn, duhhhhnn!!!