"good tired"

I'm exhausted from running about! Today I woke up in San Gabriel, walked dogs in Mount Washington, went to choreography & modern dance class in Pasadena, dropped Patrick off back in San Gabriel so he could walk OUR dog, recorded some tracks for Artichoke in Highland Park, ran back to San Gabriel to print scripts and pick up Patrick for rehearsal, and then went to a History of Water rehearsal in Silverlake. Yee-haw! After that, it was over to Rosemead to buy a full-length mirror at Target, and home to San Gabriel, where we ate some vegan cake and took the dog on another 2 mile walk wearing ankle weights. Then I strapped on the headphones and practiced Johnny Cash songs on the electric guitar for my upcoming gig with Cash'd Out. Now I'm making tea. It is bedtime.

Tomorrow the forecast is very much the same, as I've got lunch dates, more recording, 2 band practices (evangenitals and artichoke), a drummer (with drums!) to transport, and all of the scheduling intricacies of being part of a one-car, low-carbon-footprint family to work into it all. I love it.

improv, oh improv

you make me want to tear off my face and crap on it

and yet

for your golden rod

i grasp

why am i still awake? it is so late. i've been obsessing on Facebook and trying to start promoting the Evangenitals show in Canoga Park on April 21st. Canoga Park??? who lives near there?

Hey y'all

My improv group HAMMERSPACE (which consists of myself, Patrick Ian Moore, Robin Reiser, and Shaughn Buchholz) is performing TONIGHT in the iO WEST's Andy Dick Experimental Black Box Theater at 8pm.

It's fun, it's free, and it's a great opportunity to watch us perform terrifying feats of making shizzz up and trying not to panic. Weeee!

The iO WEST is located at:
6366 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
between Ivan and Cahuenga, corner of Cosmo and Hollywood Blvd

The entrance to the Andy Dick Black Box is on the Cosmo side of the building.

Come and get it!

xoxo
julio

Evangenitals in Austin - The Photos

Evangenitals in Austin
Originally uploaded by juliocrockett

I finally posted some photos from our recent trip to Austin and SXSW on Flickr. Huzzah! Video is coming soon, as our friend Chris Haro has been chopping away at clips from Izzy Cox's performance (check out YouTube, he's put about 6 different videos of her performance up so far), next he'll be putting up the Henry Bermudez solo set, and then the Evangenitals.

Unfortunately, he ran out of battery power and didn't get the Artichoke and Clock Hands Strangle sets on tape. Oh well... they shall live on in my memory, and any of y'all who live in Los Angeles can check out Artichoke on April 19th at Molly Malones!

All in all, the trip to Austin was a much needed spiritual journey into a very musical land and I can't wait to hit the road with this crew again.

xoxo
julio

The Bruise of Rock...

Tonight I sang backup for Artichoke and played the Tambourine. That may sound like a walk in the park... HOWEVER... the way *I* play the tambourine is a full contact sport! Check out the battle wounds:


You can imagine how messed up I look after playing the tambourine on Gasoline with the Evangenitals... with my groin. Youch!

After the Artichoke show I ran off to Hollywood and performed Improv at the iO WEST, then I ate a Vegan burrito from Cinnamon in Highland Park. Now I'm going to bed. I think I've earned it. :-)

Love,
Me

Life is full. Full full full! Almost done moving into my new place, the car broke down (but I've got a big tax return coming in that will pay for it!), LOTS of rehearsals for plays and gigs and music and improv.... and now, on Monday I'm going to be driving down to San Diego with Georgie to audition to be the June Carter for the best-ever Johnny Cash cover band "Cash'd Out". Anyone that knows me seems to think that this is the "day job" I was BORN to have... it's only a question of me not freaking out and dazzlin' them in the audition. Heck, it would be awesome to be in ANOTHER band with George Bernardo, that's for sure. :-)

Before that big day, though, I've got two shows in one night (Friday the 28th) -- Artichoke at La Casa Blue (9:30pm) and Hammerspace (my Improv team) at iO WEST (Andy Dick Experimental Black Box at 11pm)-- to get through. It's a lot, and I'm loving it.

Saturday and Sunday we have to officially finish moving, clean out the old apartment (throw a couple of rehearsals and a class show for our Improv class on Sunday) and turn in the keys Monday morning. Then, at around 1pm I'm jumping in a car with Georgie to head down to San Diego... and DESTINY! In the meantime, I've got all my Johnny and June tunes on repeat play and I'm getting ready for greatness.

Say a prayer for me. :-)

- Juli

Moving and Shaking.

Something is happening in my world...

Charles Francis Richter would be impressed with the momentous shifts, some detectable by the human eye, and some not, that are going on in the life of one Reverend Juli Crockett of the Evangenitals! To list but a few, I've suddenly decided to move from my (way too expensive) South Pasadena apartment that I have loved and lived in for over 2 years into a place that is WAY less expensive (literally half the price), bigger, and I love even more. Huzzah! And I'm going to be roommates with one of the Evangenitals' biggest fans, which is awesome. And perhaps a little weird, but more awesome than it is weird.

Patrick and I will be packing up our joyful, art-filled, vegan lives and our joyful, energy-filled vegan dog and taking this show on the road... just 5 miles away, but it makes all the difference in the world when I don't have to sweat about the rent payments and can focus on a life dedicated to making art -- outside of any semblance of a 9 to 5 job. I LOVE IT!!!

We're skipping school tomorrow to pack. :-)

Last Friday night Lisa Dee, myself, (that's Evangina!), guitarist Henry Bermudez, and Timothy Sellers of Artichoke all jumped in a car and drove to Austin to catch a taste of SXSW and play a day show on Sunday. It was a much-need breaking out and breaking away from the day to day, and also a grand display of willingness and mild insanity. The whole thing made me indescribably happy.

Brian and Jerimi, a WONDERFUL couple who restore any lagging faith that any of us could have in humanity and the generosity of the spirit, put us up in Austin and took great care of us. I barely know these folks, and yet they opened their hearts, ears, home, and fridge to us... for fun and for free. Incredible. I also discovered that Austin has free health insurance for musicians and the audiences actually TIP... what am I doing here? I love LA. It's twisted.

It was great to play with Izzy Cox. I've missed her. She is a powerful performer and I look forward to doing more shows with her when she comes out to LA again. We also DEFINITELY plan to return to Austin next year, if not sooner. Now that Henry is going to be playing with us, we are indeed a road-hungry band... we want to play play PLAY and bring the Evangenital joy to every pair of ears that will listen.

I'm going to be posting the photo-journal from the Austin trip on Flickr real soon. I'll post links here when I do.

Tonight we played a fundraiser show with Veruca Salt in downtown LA and we debuted a never-before-seen/heard Evangenitals lineup featuring Joey Ninja of Ninja Academy on bass and the aforementioned Henry Bermudez on lead guitar. It rocked my socks off! I am excited to be revisiting our old tunes with new energy and explore and reinterpret them -- stretch 'em to the snapping point and see what their spine looks like. Constantly changing, exploring, questioning, enjoying, refreshing... I dig it. "The Hole" almost burst into a Reggae jam tonight, people. It was AWESOME!!!

So, the short version is: the flow is flowing once again, the universe is giving me the green light on all things, it seems, and I am revved up and ready to GROW! The party is about to get started, and you're all always invited.

Love, always and already,
Juli

i can't believe i'm taking off for Austin in just a few hours! this is CRAZY!!!

SXSW, here we come!

I friggin' LOVE my apartment in South Pasadena, but they keep raising the rent!! Arrrgh! So, I'm now looking for something affordable anywhere betwixt Hollywood and Pasadena (as in under $900, and the more under the better)

It would be for myself, my man, and our vegan dog Wookie.

Any ideas?

i stay up way too late... it's ridiculous. my internal clock is all wacko. i get cookin' at 2am and i gotta ride that wave and keep working while the creative juices are flowing, so i don't get to bed till 5am. it's not practical... but creativity ain't often practical, i've found.

i'm excited as hell about the History of Water piece, as i've had some mini-breakthroughs in my mind and i'm seeing things clearly.

perhaps i should count my blessings and call it a night.

I am busy as hell... and I've brought it on myself! I have an appetite for more more more and I am certainly getting my fill.

Technically, I'm a full time student working on my PhD dissertation for The European Graduate Shcool. On top of that, I've recently started being an "almost" full time student at PCC, taking 11 credits of performance classes including Choreography, Modern Dance, Voice & Movement, Mime, Musical Theater, and Improv. On top of THAT... I'm enrolled in the improv training program at iO WEST and I start Level 4 on Thursday, which includes student shows in addition to classes every other Sunday. Oh yeah, and my Improv group Hammerspace starts performing shows on Saturday night. On top of THAT... I'm creating a new theater piece for the 24th Street Theater in my "spare time" about the History of Water.

And in the midst of all that, Lisa Dee and I are heading down to Austin for an Evangenitals gig on the fringe of the SXSW madness on March 16th at Thunderbird Coffee along with Timothy Sellers from Artichoke and Henry Bermudez from Unpopable.

With the artistic life in overdrive, I can't seem to find any time to WORK! Hopefully my big 'ol Evangenitals Radio Play Push will pay off soon and we'll start selling a bunch of albums.

There's been a few interesting new developments that I'm excited about, such as, over on Last.fm, enough folks have listened to Evangenitals tunes to merit our own station. That's right, you can just type in "Evangenitals" and they'll play you an awesome station of related muzak. I've been especially enjoying listening to our tunes up against "Iron & Wine" and "Bonnie "Prince" Billy"... good stuff and an honor to be played in their fine company.

If you're not down with Last.fm yet, I highly recommend downloading the player. It's free custom radio, folks!

And finally... George Bernardo is Awesome. Need Proof? Watch this:

Frank Zappa meets the Marimba

Alright you Diggers out there... Digg this! It's Evangenitals drummer George Bernardo playing Frank Zappa on Marimba and it's friggin' awesome!!!

read more | digg story

I just took a bath with Epsom salts in it and I fear it is not going to be enough to prevent my body from going into muscular shock in the morning. It has been a while since I've been in a dance class. :-)

Lately I've been thinking about video blogging, ala iJustine, because it seems easier to turn on the camera and talk about my day rather than type it out... however, I look like hell right now so I'm glad to be writing this (I'm invisible!). It seems the first week of my adventures in Community College caused me to break out like I'm in high school again. It's wonderfully humbling.

Today I had to dress in leotard, tights, leg warmers - the whole 9 yards - for Modern Dance and Choreography classes. Truth be told, it is a kind of fashion that I have secretly wished to participate in since I was a child. Leg warmers and "shrugs", half shirts over leotards with the tights on the outside pulled up real high and some short-shorts over the black tights. Walking with feet turned out and pelvis WIDE OPEN through the campus.... it's pretty ridiculously fun. I woke up terrified to go to school, but ended up in the library after class making copies in my thigh-high leg warmers. FREEDOM FROM FEAR!

My mother, as always, is incredibly supportive of my sudden and profound return to focusing on performance. God bless that woman. She's been doing a lot of Kayaking in Florida, drifting around and seeing manatee's up close and personal. I love it. There are rumors that one of her books (Tangerine) may get made into a movie. Things are in progress, moving and shaking... we shall see. It would be amazing if it all happened. Especially if it happened SOON! :-)

Tomorrow -- Voice, Movement, Mime, and Musical Theater. I am hereby immersing myself in every art form that I mocked and ridiculed as an arrogant artsy undergrad. Glory be.

Keep Art Alive!

The 1 Second Film & the Collaboration Foundation could win $10,000 to help develop their nonprofit collaborative arts organization... and all you have to do to help them win it is VOTE FOR THEM on IdeaBlob! It only takes a minute (literally) to sign in and vote. Please, give this link a click and help "KEEP ART ALIVE" as our friend Mike Alva says! :-)

Hello?

Who would have guessed that "Hello" would be the run-away mini-hit from the new Everlovin album? Patrick, that's who! It was always one of his favorite songs on the album, and it looks like that's the track that is proving to have maximum cross-over appeal.

Thanks be to Addi's balloonhat video for putting it all into perspective and into the public consciousness!

Due to popular demand, I have just added "Hello" to our songs on Myspace. Woo-hoo! Now folks can hear it whenever they like and add it to their profiles and stuff.

The message of the music... DON'T FORGET TO LOVE YOURSELF, PEOPLE!

You can grab the tune here: http://www.myspace.com/evangenitals

In other news, I just entered us into some College Music Contest in which we could win some money and some great opportunities, so please VOTE FOR US!
http://contest.cmj.com/bands/142

xo
juli

I'm loving what's been going on with this Balloon Hat video. What a dope-ass mini-sensation. Now I'm going to watch "Battlefield Earth" and think about making a video for Ode to Scientology. Woot woot!

read more | digg story

What a difference a day makes...

Yesterday I became obsessed with getting radio play for the new Evangenitals album Everlovin. I was totally inspired by the recent success of the breakups on the CMJ charts (yay!) and figured that it's time for me to get crackin' on an idea that I had a long time ago.

When I quit my full-time "regular" job (if working at a sex toy company can be called regular) the plan was to throw myself into the Evangenitals full-time. I was working as a Marketing Director for a big 'ol company and thought that if I directed all that marketing savvy at the band, then maybe, just maybe, I could support myself on Evangenital Joy alone. A lot of good stuff has happened between now and then, but the band hasn't gotten the full force of my attentions that I would like it to. So, now is the time.

In the past 24 hours I have written to a BUNCH of radio stations that play something like "our kind of music" and over 1/3 of them have gotten back to me with a positive reply so far. 1/3!!! That's some good odds!

There was only one "negative" reply, which was:

"I suggest you rename your group if you want airplay on our radio station."

These are some of my very favorite emails to respond to. My reply:

"Thanks for the straight-forward reply! Though I would love to have our music on your station, we already have far too much invested in this name and have broken down too many semantic walls of judgement to abandon it now. :-)

As an ordained minister and student of philosophy, the word "Evangenital" (which I happen to own the trademark for) is not in any way meant to be offensive (playful, yes!), rather it is an incredibly valid linguistic combination that accurately describes the passionate joy that informs our music:

Evangelical: characterized by ardent or crusading enthusiasm; zealous.
Genitals: the organs of creation

Though our band name may not be a match for your station, I hope you give the music a chance. That's where the message is at.

Cheers,
Juli"

Kill 'em with kindness. That's what my momma taught me. :-)

So... let me tell you about today!

Addi (of Balloonhat.com and Unpopable) emailed me this morning to say that he used our song "Hello" in a video that he made of him doing balloon hats at a nursing home. It is a beautiful video and such a great use of the song I was reduced to gooey pudding inside when I watched it.

Then I went for a SUPER FANTASTIC bike ride with Patrick all over South Pasadena and Highland Park.

When I got back, I called Nirvan (of The 1 Second Film and the Collaboration Foundation) and it turns out he had seen the blog I posted on The 1 Second Film site and submitted Addi's video to BoingBoing, who then featured it on the front page!

The video has now gotten over 4000 views so far and "Hello" is showing up as one of the Evangenitals "top songs" on iTunes!

Then Patrick and I went to the LA Opera to see the final dress rehearsal of "The Broken Jug" and "The Dwarf"... which was friggin' awesome! The sets were AMAZING. I loved it... especially "The Dwarf".... and I don't even love Opera that much. And I saw Timothy Sellers from Artichoke there, a few rows in front of me... he didn't see me though. I was in the back a slipped out during the applause! Woo-hoo. Home in 13 minutes flat! I love it.

Upon returning home, I had gotten a couple MORE positive responses from radio stations, one of which even asked for the Evangenitals to do a "station ID" to put in their permanent rotation. Glory be!

Yes, I'm definitely feeling good about making the Evangenitals my full-time job for while. Radio waves, here we come!

Inspirado.

If you haven't notice, The Evangenitals are on a bit of a hiatus. Brett is working a film editing gig, the Valentine's Season has meant that Lisa got consumed by her Flower Industry job, George has been makin' bucks playing with Cash'd Out, and I've been trying to get my life in order and figure out what I really want to be doing with it at this point in time. I think everyone needed a big 'ol break after the Road to Oprah tour. Although, I am already excited about the next tour we take. I really liked touring, which is a good thing, considering that we're the type of band, I'm told, that is really going to make our mark (and money) on the road. I'm glad I'm cut out for it!

On Monday I'm meeting with a man from USC to talk about possibly doing something with my next theater piece there, which is super-exciting. On Tuesday I'm starting some mime/musical theater/improv/choreography/modern dance classes at my local city college, part of the 'ol "honing my instrument" routine. My new improv dream-team "Hammerspace" started getting together to practice for our upcoming show on March 8th. I'm working on a bunch of new songs for the Evangenitals. My student loan checks came in. It's Valentine's Day and I'm in LOVE. I'd have to say things are going alright!

Yes, you heard me right.... I'm taking MIME!!

The Collaboration Foundation (aka The 1 Second Film's parent organization) is currently on the front page of IdeaBlob. If we get enough votes, we could win $10,000 toward our "Idea"... which would be amazing. So please vote for the Collaboration Foundation if you have a moment to register and vote.

Today I got totally inspired and started seriously pursuing some more Evangenitals radio play for our new album. I sent out a gang of emails and got some good responses, so that's promising. Tomorrow I'll be getting a bunch of CD's "radio ready" and sending them off on their fantastic voyage onto the airwaves! I figure that's something I can really get into while the band is taking a break. That and launching semi-complicated sales. Ahh... to be obsessed.

On Myspace, the Evangenitals are approaching the 30,000 view mark, which seems like it should be some kind of a big deal.

Evangina is in the planning stages of a covers album, and the long-awaited Evangina album PEAS should be available on iTunes any minute!

So things are good, right?

How are you?

Today I did something I hardly ever do... I wore underwear. Why, you ask? Well...

I was having a theater-filled day with my main squeeze Patrick to celebrate the closing of the play (that he was starring in, that's right!) and one of the stops on our tour of Los Angeles theatrical offerings - right after seeing Del Arte's production "The Golden State" at the 24th Street Theater was the smash-hit sensation "Point Break Live" going down on weekends at Charlie O's Bar at the Alexandria Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on Spring Street. Aww yeah...

Now, if you don't know already... Point Break Live is a live theatrical version of the awesome classic movie "Point Break" in which the Keanu Reeves character is picked from the audience. I had been invited to the show by friends involved with the production (Bill and his wife Anne - who's sister is the producer of the show) so I was real excited to go. My friend Shaughn Buchholz had recently gone and gotten picked to play the lead role of Johnny Utah, so I had a general idea of what we were in for.

So, the underwear. The underwear was for the rare chance that I got up the nerve to "audition" for the role of Johnny Utah AND was the audience favorite AND got picked by the director to play the part. If all of that HAPPENED to happen, then I would need to be able to do costume changes backstage... thus, the underwear.

As for why I never wear underwear... that is for another blog post.

As luck would have it... I *DID* muster to courage to audition for the role, and much to my surprise, I got it. That's right folks. For a few hours tonight, my name was Johnny Utah. I had to wear a wet suit, was soaked, smacked, fondled, tackled, squirted, and otherwise abused much to the delight of the crowd. I did exactly as I was told and delivered a most monotone and deadpan performance, only speaking what was on the cue cards, and only moving when told to move. I got to hang from the ceiling in a harness, chase a man through the streets with a gun, yell a lot, and learned to surf in the mix. It was exhausting and awesome.

I highly recommend the show. Tobias Jelinek, who plays Bodhi (the Patrick Swayze character) and Jennifer Jean who plays Tyler/the Lori Petty character (and studied improv at Second City AND we've had the same teacher - Scot Robinson of The Lampshades) were friggin' inspired. And Christi Waldon who was my personal PA and helped me survive the whole show was absolutely adorable. I will be eternally grateful and in awe of her energy.

Great cast, great concept, a great friggin' time at the theater. Thumbs up, yo! What's more... I got the whole thing on tape! Woo-hoo!

All in all, today was a very good day. I'm exhausted, I'm inspired, I've got fake blood in my hair. It's a wonderful life indeed.

Today I woke up (earlier than has been usual - I've been staying up REALLY late), wrote in my journal (my REAL journal, not online stuff), and did PILATES! Yes yes YES!

Any day that starts with Pilates is a success, dammit! I used to be much more regular with the Pilates when Lisa and I were neighbors and we could start every day the Pilates way... *sigh* now I have to self-motivate. I think my impending Modern Dance class is quite the motivation! Yee-haw.

THEN... I canceled my cable (hooray!) which made sense, seeing as Patrick and I stopped watching television 2 months ago, and went by The 1 Second Film office to drop off some tapes from the Road to Oprah tour and our bomb-ass fund-raiser at Mr T's Bowl with 8-Bit and saw some awesome new videos that they are working on, went to Target and bought an actual HOME PHONE (which is going to be ye 'ol "business line" for the Evangenitals central office) which will hopefully reduce my exposure to tumor-causing cell-phone radio micro-waves.

THEN... my friend and frequent actor in the theater I create Shaughn Buchholz came and picked me up and we went off to PCC to see Patrick's play. Post-play, one of the gals in the cast, who happened to be a huge fan of the show "Scrubs" (that Shaughn had the recurring role of 'Jason "Cabbage" Cabbaggio' on for a bit) and happened to be a HUGE fan of Shaughn's character, came out to have her picture taken with him, which was awesome. I love those moments of excitement and joy, on both sides. As Shaughn pointed out, actors spend most of their time auditioning for parts that they DON'T get, so to have someone get real excited about the work that you DID do is pretty nice.

Now we're going to get down with some "Glengarry Glen Ross". Awww, yeah.

FYI: Patrick's play closes tomorrow night, so if anyone lives in the LA-area and wants to check it out, there's a matinee at 2pm and I'll be at the 8pm show.

Peas,
Juli

I went to see Patrick in a play tonight. He's the lead in Tina Howe's "Museum" at PCC. He was great and it's always awesome to see him up on stage living the dream. Glory be!

I've decided to go "back to school" in a sense... even though I *am* in school (working on my PhD dissertation for EGS).... I am also going to take some classes at the 'ol Pasadena City College. It seems I'm on a journey right now, getting back in touch with my love of being an actor/performer. It started with the classed at the iO WEST that I took in preparation for the Road to Oprah tour, where I was going to be filmed a lot and wanted to get as comfortable with myself as possible as soon as possible, and I totally fell in love with improv, the training, the theater, and all these old ideas and dreams about being an actor came back.

When I was in high school, I was OBSESSED with acting. My big dream, since my first play in Kindergarten where I played the Queen of Hearts and got to sit on a throne and wear a cool dress, was to move to New York City and be a STAGE ACTRESS. I got into NYU (Tisch School/Playwrights Horizons Studio), moved to New York, and started directing. I did a couple student films (directed by my then-boyfriend) and cameo roles in plays for friends, and eventually abandoned being the performer completely.

This wasn't a bad thing. I got really into directing and became really good at it.... good enough to get an MFA at CalArts in directing, do some pieces at the REDCAT & 24th Street Theater and gain the respect and admiration of some awesome collaborators. Pretty good! Directing totally changed my view of the theater. I got real experimental and enjoyed coaxing amazing performances out of other people. It seems I was going through a phase where I simply couldn't handle the attention/disappointments/pressure/etc of being an actor. It terrified me. Directing was akin to being the great OZ... I could hide behind the curtains, pull levers, flash lights, and blow people's minds. I love it.

The performance desire was still there, though - suppressed, repressed - and eventually it started kicking its feet and demanding expression. I think that's where the boxing thing came from, and why I was able to so passionately throw myself into it. And the band... the band was a huge step toward my getting back in front of an audience, facing them, performing *to* them... not just beating the tar out of someone in front of them. Improv was another step. Now PCC is one more step. Step by step... someday... I'm going to be on BROADWAY, dammit! Or something like that.... we'll see where the passions lead me next.

Driving through New Mexico
Originally uploaded by the1secondfilm.com

Last night at about 3am I suddenly was inspired to go on a wild "tagging" mission on Flickr. Part of the inspiration came from my discovery of the new features on Blogger which allow you to add slide-shows and videos to your page, based off of keywords. So I jumped on Flickr and went keyword crazy... making sure that I had "The Evangenitals" and "Juli Crockett" on every awesome photo from the Road to Oprah tour that I could find.

The thing I realized is... there are a TON of awesome photos from the Road to Oprah tour because, it turns out, we to a ton of awesome places and had more perfect moments and photo ops than you can shake a stick at. That's not to say there weren't hard times and disappointments and all that other goo that life flings at you... but holy moly, there are so many pictures of people looking downright glow-wormy with big smiles and amazing vistas behind them.

I still can't get over the fact that we actually DID it. We bought a bus, we fixed it up, and we drove it across the country in pursuit of a dream. And we're still pursuing the dream... dreams are funny that way. They are quiet pursue-able. One foot in front of the other, we keep trudging toward it.

Amen.

I'm so happy to be back in my own house. I love housesitting in the fancy house, but I do miss my little apartment (HOME!) sooooo much every time. Ahhhhh..... back in the saddle again.

My hair is so dirty when I take it out of the ponytail holder, it stays up. That's gross. Time to shower. :-)

My hands and feet get abnormally cold. I think I may have bad circulation or something. Of course there's also that "cold hands, warm heart" saying... but I'm thinking it's circulation. Need more Yoga in my life.

I took an African Dance class at Heartbeat House last night and my spine aches today from all that rib & hip thrusting. I love African Dance. I need more dance in my life.

The Evangenitals are officially slated to host a day during SXSW at the Thunderbird Coffee House. Izzy Cox and some other friends are going to come out and play with us... whomever "us" is going to be for that show... seeing as Brett is doing a Hollywood editing job right now, and Georgie and Chesney are far too professional to be running off doing gonzo trips to Austin for no guaranteed $. Lisa and I, however, are totally down for tent-living and mad-cap touring... so we're off! The 1 Second Film crew may be coming along with us (read: Nirvan) so there's a chance we will be heading to Austin in the Road to Oprah bus, which would be super-fly.

It's time to start rehearsals, both for my History of Water piece that I'm creating with Avatar: The Last Airbender composer Jeremy Zuckerman, but for HAMMERSPACE - my improv team that Patrick and I hand-picked and are crafting into the greatest show on earth... or something like that. We start doing shows in April, and we want to be READY!!

Things are gonna get busy, but that seems to be the way that I like them. I am so grateful to have the full-up life that I have and people around me who get it. Lisa and Patrick, for example, totally get it. If there's any room left on the plate -- FILL 'ER UP! Life is short, life is long, life is for living so let's get on with it. Pack it in! Pack it in!

Now if only I could prioritize, write some grants, and get some more money to make some more art!

Long day today...

Patrick and I stayed up super late last night playing with new designs for the soon-to-be-utterly-revamped-for-improv-comedy-etc SouperKlawBrazzz website. Hit the hot tube (ah.. the joys of housesitting), watched some Home Movies, then off to bed.

I love Home Movies. I am secretly in love with the utterly hopeless and damaged Coach John McGuirk. I guess it is not so secretly now. It is one of the greatest animated cartoons ever. I FRIGGIN' LOVE IT. Home Movies = Highly Recommended. Netflix that shizzz. You'll get over the shitty, shaky animation. Trust me. :-)

Patrick had rehearsal for his play today, and I had some student loan nightmare stuff to handle (god, please send me that student loan money soon!) and then it was off to the iO WEST for Improv Class. Patrick runs the light for the Tuesday night show, so I go to class and then stick around and watch the Harold teams until he's done for the night. Powerhouse and Sweetness are consistently alright, but GOAL with Dave Hill & Eric Hunicutt KICKS ASS! My improv teacher, Karen Graci, is on the team too. They are awesome and fun and flawed and human and supremely talented. I dig it. I'm inspired by it. I'm working toward it, dammit!

I've decided to take an Improv class at PCC in the Spring because a legendary dude is teaching it. Good reason, eh? I love school. I am not in the least bit ashamed by the fact that I will probably want to stay in school, to some degree, forever. FOREVER! I will probably also NEED to stay in school because my student loans are horrific, but that's another story. :-)

PCC is a hidden jewel of insanely awesome professors. A little diamond in Pasadena... right there on Colorado Blvd.

It looks like the Evangenitals may in fact be playing SXSW. That is supremely exciting.

I heard from Mike Flynn today, and that just put a cherry on everything. I hadn't heard from him in ages, and he's alive and well out there in Lowell, MA. For those of you who know me well, you've probably heard me speak of my undying love and adoration for one Mister Mike Flynn, formerly of Venice Beach (corner of California and Electric Ave). It made me all warm and fluffy inside to hear his voice again, and know that he and his woman are a-okay.

Life is good. Money is tight. Love is in the air. I'm opening up.

How are you?

Day two of the new devotion. I will ride this MC Chris-spiration until it doesn't do the trick anymore, and then I can switch to Perez Hilton, lord of the blog, for my daily blogging motivation.

Today was an awesome day of suiting up and showing up. Yesterday I hid from the world. Today I was OUT in the STREETS with a PICKET SIGN! Yes sir, I was in the big crowd of picket-teers in front of Fox Studios as a supporter and representative of the iO WEST with a few of my fellow improvisors/interns. There were a gang of celebrities there, and luckily one super-excitable fellow with me to point them out.

Such luminaries as, "Elaine's 1st boss from Seinfeld", "the girl dwarf from that one episode of Seinfeld", "that dude from SNL", "the bald guy from Anchorman", and Skylar from Heroes (I spotted him!), Justine Bateman (I shall never forget "Satisfaction"), and a bunch of other folks whom I half-recognized but would need Patrick and his ludicrously encyclopedic brain to tell me who they were and 6-degrees 'em from each other on the spot. Patrick is currently in intensive rehearsals for his next play that opens on February 7th, so he couldn't be there. Alas! If the strike is still going on when his play closes, we'll be sure to hit it together.

It was an awesome thing to be a part of... there were many honks of horns supporting the striking writers and one nice old lady even drove up and passed a box full of French Pastries to help the strikers to keep up the energy. Good stuff!

After collecting our picket signs, I was off to the iO to return 'em, treated myself to some alone lunch at Truly Vegan. GODDAMMIT I LOVE TRULY VEGAN! Seriously, it's so friggin' good I can't stand it. YUMMY! And pretty dang cheap, too. God bless that joint. Side note: Patrick and I saw Eric Stoltz picking up food there once. Sub-side note: This was not intended to be a celebrity name dropping post, but seriously, the more time I spend in Hollywood, the more of THEM that I seem to see.

So, then I was off to Los Feliz for a meeting with Nirvan & Dana Bean about the Collaboration Foundation and Grant Writing. What we are trying to do with this Collaboration Foundation and The 1 Second Film and the 5-Phase Plan is simply crazy... outrageous.... impossible! And it's super-inspirational and I'm so friggin' happy to be a part of it.... whatever part of it I can continue to be, I will, cause it's a mighty big vision, and I love those.

If you're not a producer of The 1 Second Film, you totally should get on board, and when you do, add me to your crew!

So, that went on for a while and we gabbed about recent viral internet phenomenons and I headed home to make some tea and take care of my puppy. I'm house-sitting (and car-sitting a Hybrid SUV - woot woot!) right now, so there's a lot of volleying between places. Thanks goodness for the bomb-ass GPS in the Hybrid... I would have never been able to navigate all that Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Los Feliz action today on my own.

Driving the SUV also gave me the opportunity to listen to the Everlovin album while driving around today. It's kinda of weird listening to my own voice, but gosh darn it that album is friggin' GOOD. On certain cuts, no amount of negative self-talk and low self esteem can stop me from really experiencing the music. For example, "We Just Get Along".... that song came out sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet! Listening to it made me really love the Evangenitals and everyone's contributions on that album. There are moments where ever single person who played/sang/worked on the record gets to shine... and that's a pretty beautiful thing.

To bed, to bed
To rise again tomorrow?
Who knows
xo
juli

Mc Chris is awesome. And not simply for his outrageous talent, dope ass music, improv comedy, participation in rockin' adult swim cartoons, unique business model... no, I'm talking AWESOME because of his ludicrously committed blogging regularity. That guy's communication with his cyber-friends-a-plenty is friggin' inspirational.

In fact, he's inspired me to try to get back on the beam with this blogging stuff. Open up. Live in the digital age. COMMUNICATE in the CURRENT MODE of COMMUNICATING with the WORLD AT LARGE... or whomever happens to be out there reading. Even if it's nobody, it's kinda therapeutic and the equivalent of a modern ritual to B.L.O.G. ones thoughts and experiences, so... TAA DAA! Thank you MC Chris.

So, what the heck IS going on?

2008 started out busy as hell, it seems, yet also in slow motion. The Evangenitals are still kind of in a stupor after the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual exhaustions of the Road to Oprah tour, so Evangina was playing a ton of shows. Right now we're waiting on a couple of dates for both bands, so the calendars are empty, and that always makes me really uncomfortable.

For the past couple weeks, though, my calendar NEEDED to be empty, as I was teaching theater workshops up at my alma mater CalArts for my History of Water project with the supremely awesome sonic artist Jeremy Zuckerman. That was an incredible experience, and I've been super-tired and doing this fighting off a cold/giving into a cold dance since it ended.

In the meantime, I've performing improv and taking classes at the iO WEST (I'm in Level 3 now, and it's kicking my ass -- this is the level where you face your improv demons!)... so here's the real deal....

Long ago, when I was but a girl in high school, I was CRAZY about acting. Since I was in Kindergarten, I wanted to be an ACTOR. I went to one of those "Fame" schools in High School, as an ACTOR, and then I went to NYU and started DIRECTING. Acting quickly fell away (I did a couple short films and plays for friends) and I focused more and more on DIRECTING. I went to CalArts and got my Master's in Directing.... of course, I started boxing at the same time I started grad school (misdirected performance desires?), and then I graduated, retired from boxing, started a band, yadda yadda yadda... the point is, I'm suddenly overcome with the profound desire to get back into ACTING. HORROR OF HORRORS!!!! I am seriously out of shape for that... it's been a looooooong time. But of course, I've been doing all this other stuff that has given me a rather interesting foundation as an actor.

And then there's the question of finances. Yes, another phenomenon that has taken over my life is my total (seeming) inability to work a "regular" job. Call it stubbornness, call it impracticality and denial, but there simply has to be a way out of the rat race. Seriously now. I can't do it anymore. Technically, I'm working for The 1 Second Film (sort of) helping that production along... however it seems that I'm having more and more difficulty doing ANYTHING that isn't DIRECTLY related to my creative life. Yes, yes, I know that it may sound like I'm being a big, selfish baby and maybe I am... but maybe it's about time. At the end of the day, it's like the song says... Fuck 'em All. I'm going for the brass ring, dammit. I'm reaching for those friggin' STARS!!!

So, I'm going to try to start blogging more... from the heart, from the hip, and all that shit. Hopefully it will bring us closer together and we can inspire each other to greater and greater feats of human experience. Or not. Either way, I am loving you from over here. :-)

Alright, for any Office Space fans in Los Angeles, this is big news:

Ron Livingston (that's Peter from OS if you don't know) is going to be hosting "The Armando Show" at the iO WEST (formerly the improv olympic) in Hollywood on Monday January 21st (that's TONIGHT!)

So, if you could come on down and/or help spread the word to other Office Space fanatics, this is an awesome opportunity to see him performing LIVE improv comedy. Heck, you can also bring all your Office Space memorabilia and have him autograph it... take some pictures.... all that fanboy stuff that I AIN'T TOO PROUD TO DO!!!

The show is at 10:30pm, only costs $10, and half the box office goes to the WGA Writers Fund.

For more info about iO WEST, you can go here: www.iowest.com

Cheers,
Juli (an Office Space uber-fan)

Del would be proud...

Bill Murray speaking at Manhattan High School where founding father of long-form improv Del Close was inducted onto the Wall of Fame.

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juli meditating on the florida coast

juli meditating on the florida coast
Originally uploaded by the1secondfilm.com

This was a very good day indeed on the Road to Oprah tour. :-)

Happy Holidays!

Hope you are having a wonderful week full of cheer with your near and your dear.

I don't know how, but my improv team "Not From Chicago" won AGAIN last week, which means we will be defending our defending our hard-won Student Cagematch Champion Belt at the iO WEST's Andy Dick Theater in Hollywood TOMORROW NIGHT (Thursday) at 10pm.

As an added bonus, my dearest Patrick Ian Moore will be joining the team this week -- the first time we shall ever perform Improv together! -- as many of my teammates are home for the Holidays.

And to make this night even MORE momentous... IF we win this next match, we get the opportunity to compete on the MAINSTAGE (which is a big deal in Improv-land!).

So... there are many reasons that we'd love you to come, the primary one being that the whole thing is more or
less a popularity contest, so it is imperative that we have folks come out to laugh, cheer, and VOTE FOR US.

We are raw, we are rough, and we are willing to make arse's of ourselves in public. Huzzah!

Hope you can make it!

Much love & laughter
Juli (of the Genitals)

Come see "Not From Chicago" in
The iO WEST Student Cagematch
Thursday December 27th
Andy Dick Theater (entrance on Cosmo)
10pm
FREE!

(there's valet parking and everything! cheap bar!)

iO WEST is located at:
6366 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
Corner of Hollywood & Cosmo
http://www.iowest.com

My boy Patrick's art is being featured at one of downtown Los Angeles' best artist collectives, CATALYST - artist collective, this month!

They are having an awesome Dub/Electronica Art Party tonight from 10pm - 2am, and it's only $10 ($15 if you come after 11:30pm).

Patrick has 7 pieces hanging in the show, and it's happening here:

CATALYST – artist collective
2079 e 15th St
unit 330
LA 90021 CA

3 blocks West of Santa Fe, building runs from 14th to 15th Street

You may follow this link into your web browser for a google map:
http://www.google.com/maps?q=1941+Santa+Clara+St,+Los+Angeles,+CA+90021,+USA&ie=UTF8&z=17&iwloc=addr&om=1

===============
Directions from Westside:

10 East thru downtown
exit Santa Fe - South
Take Right on Santa Fe
Take 1st Right after Olympic on 11th St (ignore sign that says 12th St)
At end of Street Take Left on Santa Clara (you can only go Left)
park on Left side across from huge brick building
use door next to “sec C” under the address
go to 3rd floor & knock on metal door at head of stairs

===============
Directions from Hollywood or the Valley:

101 South past downtown
Exit 7th St
Take Right on 7th St
Go over bridge & Take Left onto Santa Fe
Take 1st Right after Olympic on 11th St (ignore sign that says 12th St)
At end of Street Take Left on Santa Clara (you can only go Left)
park on Left side across from huge brick building
use door next to “sec C” under the address
go to 3rd floor & knock on metal door at head of stairs

Note: Just to confuse you the building has a second address – 1941 Santa Clara St. (same place kids but more accurate with all online maps & navigation systems).

Holy crap!

My improv team "Not From Chicago" hath done it again. Tonight we won our 2nd Student Cagematch at the iO WEST, which means we're going up against a team of frisky newcomers next Thursday at 10pm. Mark your calendars!

Patrick is going to be joining my group as a "guest star" to fill in for vacationers, so this will be a rare opportunity to see the two of us improvise together for the FIRST TIME EVER! Woo-hoo!

We need LOTS of friends to turn out and VOTE FOR US because.... (drumroll please).... if we win NEXT week, we become the challengers in the MAINSTAGE cagematch at the BIG theater! That is very important in Improv land. Seriously.

So, please mark your calendars now... and please, please PLEASE come out and support us. The longer we win, the more experience we get on stage, and the better performers we become. There's only one way to get better in improv, and it's trial by fire, people! Come see us get burned. :-)

Love,
Juli

This Thursday night at 10pm my improv team "Not From Chicago" will be defending our hard-won Student Cagematch Champion Belt at the iO WEST's Andy Dick Theater in Hollywood.

If you don't know what any of that means, let me explain:

A few months ago, I started taking Improv classes at iO WEST (formerly the Improv Olympic) and I fell in love. I found a nice group of dorks who enjoy making fun and furious long-form improv with me and we formed a team. We call ourselves "Not From Chicago".... as we are not from Chicago. Get it? Don't worry about it.

The important thing is that we participated in our first Cagematch last week (competitive improv!) and due to the fact that a bunch of friends turned out to vote for us, we WON! The whole thing is more or less a popularity contest, so it is imperative that we have folks come out to laugh, cheer, and VOTE FOR US.

If we win 10 times in a row, we end up on the Wall of Fame. If we just win a couple more times, we get to have the valuable experience of performing improv in front of a live audience.

For our first Cagematch, I hardly invited anyone I knew because I was petrified. Luckily, my teammates delivered and their friends turned up en mass. This week, it's my turn to show my bare ass to the world (metaphorically) and invite my friends and loved ones to come watch me wrangle with this new passion of mine. I am raw, I am rough, and I am willing to make an ass of myself in public. Huzzah!

Hope you can make it!

Come see "Not From Chicago" in
The iO WEST Student Cagematch
Thursday December 20th
Andy Dick Theater
10pm
FREE!

(there's valet parking and everything! cheap bar!)

iO WEST is located at:
6366 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
Corner of Hollywood & Cosmo

My improv group "Not From Chicago" just won our first student cagematch ever at iO WEST! Huzzah!

It was my first time performing Improv in front of an audience, our first time performing in front of an audience together, it was messy as hell, and tons of fun.

Yes, I know I didn't really tell anyone about this or invite anyone... I was scared! I wanted to get the first time out of the way in semi-private (Patrick was there to keep me calm) and NOW that it's over, I'm ready to shout from the tree tops and do my part to stack the audience in our favor. :-)

The whole Student Cagematch thing is more or less a popularity contest, so it is imperative that we have a bunch of friends to vote for us. The longer we stay in, the more experience we get, so that's awesome.

So I hope y'all can make it next Thursday and see me be a total spazz on the stage!

And be sure to come to the Evangenitals Record Release Party on Sunday, too!

Good times.

the muck of sickness is upon me!

my nose is caked with slime & gunk and my throat feels like i swallowed broken glass. i tried to walk the dog and felt as if i were going to fall over. by the end of the walk i felt a little better, though my skin felt rather prickly.

i am now embarking upon a shower to cleanse myself of two days of sweat and sickness and purify my very soul. somehow i feel that this will cure me. i've got some dr bronners peppermint soap in there, so i know that i shall be blessed.

amen.

I am eBaying!

That's right... I have officially and most joyfully burst my "selling on eBay" cherry. It is probably equal parts financial desperation and need to clear out some shizzz that I don't use at all, and it is fun!

The first item I put up was this video and film editing book that I bought long ago when I thought I was going to go to an editing school, and then didn't. It was really expensive, and still is, as you can see here:



I have a bunch of really good editing books that I'm going to be putting up for bidding. For someone who is actually an editor, I would think they'd be a score, so tell your editing friends to jump on the bidding train! I held onto these books forever thinking that I would someday read them and spend long hours learning to edit. This afternoon, in the midst of a crappy cold, I came to the realization that I've got other fish to fry and different artistic strengths to focus on! Huzzah.

Ends Well thats All
Originally uploaded by juliocrockett

I'm very excited about this!

I haven't seen Patrick in a play since "The Lonely Shopgirl" in 2001, and that was friggin' awesome.

Supposedly they've got him running around in tights and wigs and flouncy shirts and he's sword-fighting and melodramatic-ing and all sorts of other silliness.

The play opens this Friday... I'll be going to the opening & closing nights and one in the middle for sure, so if you'd like to join me drop me a line!

Woo hoo...
Julio

250,000 Empty Bottles = One Man's Floating Mexican Island Paradise

If you can’t afford to buy your own tropical island paradise, why not build your own? The original (now destroyed) Spiral Island sported a two-story house, solar oven, self-composting toilet and multiple beaches. What now? Its creator is building a new recycled island paradise that he plans to float out to sea and travel around the world on!

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Sign of the Apocalypse???

Here is something I never expected to see...

The Evangenitals at WalMart???

Crazy times we're living in! I dig it. :-)

Finally.... someone has reviewed our new album! Thankfully, they really liked it. :-)

Peter is a fan from the UK that we met when we opened for Trainwreck at the Knitting Factory. He came to see Trainwreck, and left loving the Evangenitals. I was hoping he would really dig our 2nd album, especially after waiting for it to make the long journey across the Atlantic.

You can read his review on our album page at CDBaby.com, and hopefully, for those of you who have heard the new album, it will inspire you to write your own!

http://cdbaby.com/cd/evangenitals2

You can also log in and review the album on iTunes. Every review is incredibly helpful, as it helps us get "star ratings" and spreads the good word about the Evangenitals.

And now, here's some Awesome News:

*We're on Last.fm! http://www.last.fm/music/The+Evangenitals

If you are not familiar with Last.fm, I'd highly recommend checking it out. It's incredible internet radio.

*We got an awesome write-up from Orphan Records!
Check it out!

*George's Birthday is on November 17th!

*We're playing a welcome home show at Mr T's Bowl with Ollin on November 26th!

And if you haven't seen/rated/commented and passed on the new Evangenitals video to everyone you know... you can do it here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3kMky9EinZY

Remember, anything you can do to help spread the word about the Evangenitals helps to keep the dream alive, so thanks for everything!

Cheers,
Juli & The Evangenitals

NEWSFLASH! Rabid WEEN fan calls out the Evangenitals for "antic ripping"

I don't know how many of you frequent the Ween Forum but if you know me at all, you may know that I absolutely adore that friggin' band and they are a huge influence and inspiration to me. So you can imagine my combination of giddiness and utter despair when this forum post was brought to my attention:

"So, this band rips off WEEN'S stage antics... The band is the Evangenitals."

To be fair, I was totally doing an homage to Ween's "Painting the Town Brown" live album that night, which, if you don't know it, means that before and after every song I would say, "This song is ______, by the Evangenitals." Any serious Ween fan who listens to a lot of live albums and bootlegs would probably pick up on a number of shout-outs and nuances on my "stage antics" that are inspired by Deaner and Gener. Those boys are like icons in my mind that help me get through shows without having a panic attack. When in doubt, I simply pretend like I'm Gener prancing about in a Hawaiian shirt and his Las Vegas-worthy bravado helps me get through the night.

In the end, it seemed that the Ween Forum members, who are usually horrifically cutthroat, came out on the side of the Evangenitals... considering that Ween is a band who is known for the frequent homage, cover, rip off, and riffing on the styles of those who came before.

In other news, Ween's new album "La Cucaracha" has been on rotation in my iTunes with a horrific frequency lately. To be honest, I can't stop listening to it. That and Devendra Banhart's "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon". The Devendra Banhart album is getting an average of 3 full plays per day, while Ween's La Cucaracha is coming in at an average of twice a day.

Banhart does have a bit of an advantage, though, as the album has a lot of super-mellow cuts which means I can keep playing "Smokey" late into the night in my apartment building without disturbing my neighbors. "With My Own Bare Hands" wouldn't go over so well at 3am... however, it has earned its place on my "if I were a stripper" playlist! It is filthy, fierce, and delightful. I love it.

The Evangina show last night at TruXtop gallery was awesome. It's always a crazy and incredibly vulnerable experience when Lisa and I strip the Evangenitals act back to its barest bones and do the femme duet thing. Luckily it's also always a really beautiful and validating experience as well, as folks really respond to the sweet simplicity of our two voices and the minimal guitar accompaniment.

I was playing a new (to me) guitar, a really awesome junior Epiphone electric that super friend and super fan Albert gave me as a present. I am loving its sound. I mainly played bass lines and finger-picked on the tunes while Lisa covered the strumming and rhythm parts. It was super-intimate, super-tender, and ridiculously fun. We brought along our bin of play-along instruments and closed out with "Home"... which has now become a tradition since the Road to Oprah tour.

We did a few new tunes/covers... including the Ramones, Misfits, and some Bob Dylan. Good times! The art show was great, and I loved the gallery/space. Be sure to pay them a visit, check out the art, and support this new gallery. As for Evangina, I'm thinking that we need to get out on the town and play some more gigs. It's really good practice for us to put our asses on the line like that. :-)

feelin... grand

juli crockett @ grand canyon feelin...grand
Originally uploaded by the1secondfilm.com

this was a definite highlight of the Road to Oprah tour. :-)

CD Exchange with Academy Award Winner Barbara Trent

CIMG7773.JPG
Originally uploaded by the1secondfilm.com

While in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on the Road to Oprah tour we stayed at Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Trent's amazing farm house.

In the morning, we exchanged some Evangenitals CD's for her award-winning films.

Good trade!

We helped make history!

CIMG7964.JPG
Originally uploaded by the1secondfilm.com

While on the Road to Oprah tour the Evangenitals and The 1 Second Film crew stopped off to help paint the World's Largest Ball of Paint in Alexandria, Indiana.

Here's a bit of "Ball of Paint" trivia: The only other celebrity to do so is Tom Green!

Please allow me to introduce myself...

So I was sitting at home starting to doodle on some music for this "History of Water" piece that I'm working on and I decide to try to play "WATER" on the guitar. I figure the best way to do this is to convert the word to Spanish (AGUA) and play the nearest chords to those letters (I substituted "D" for the "U", since a "D" is like a "U" that fell over against a wall)...

I ended up jamming for about an hour on what turned out to be a variant way of playing the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil"

MERE COINCIDENCE???? Or is there some deeper connection here betwixt the Devil and Spanish Water? More to be explored...

It's nice to be home again. :-)

This is possibly the greatest music video ever...



This is Kate Flannery (Meredith on The Office) and Scot Robinson (my improv teacher at IO West, who was in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burghttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifundy) as "" - an awesome and slightly tragic lounge act duo that perform the first Saturday of every month at the Improv Olympic in Hollywood. I highly recommend the show.

If you like that video, their mash-up of Mandy/Brandy/Candy/Andy will knock your socks off!



Please take pleasure in loving them. :-)

Blogging has been tough from the Road to Oprah. Too much going on, and when there is down-time we're usually in the middle of nowhere with no email/web services.

Chapel Hill with North Carolina was amazing. First we got biodiesel at Larry's Coffee in Raleigh NC and then we crashed at academy award winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Trent's house. We ate fresh veggies from her garden, ate under the stars on her back porch, and had a good old fashioned musical hootenanny after dinner.

In Washington DC the whole trip became a grand success when Michelle Brown gave us a check for $10,000 at a house party and became our #3 producer and the top personal donor to The 1 Second Film. We also got some awesome footage in front of the Capital Building and the Lincoln & Washington Memorials.

Baltimore is an incredibly beautiful and desperate city. There were more boarded up buildings and run down/uninhabitable neighborhoods in Baltimore than there were in New Orleans. We happened upon an event where Montel Williams was speaking and tried to get some time with him, however, we were kicked out of the area when folks began to get more excited about The 1 Second Film and our Road to Oprah tour than they were about Montel's free pharmaceutical drug program.

Linda Evans of the University of Baltimore got us hooked up with nice hotel rooms for the nice, which was super fantastic, then we were off to Philadelphia in the morning. We stopped at Baltimore Biodeisel, which shared a building with a truly fantastic Organic Market where we loaded up on some great juice, coffee, and B99 biodiesel.

Philadelphia was a beautiful town and Nirvan's friend Rebecca from New College was a beautiful host. The place we played, Silk City Lounge, was a super cool renovated old 50's diner. The night could have been planned a little better, ran WAY late, and had really slow transitions HOWEVER we still played a great show and rocked the house that we had at 1am on a Tuesday night. :-)

On to Brooklyn! The event at Vox Pop was a crown jewel of the Road to Oprah tour thus far. So many old friends whom I hadn't laid eyes on in quite some time. It seemed almost everyone in the Evangenitals and Road to Oprah crew had some friends and/or family in New York that came out to see us on a rainy night in Brooklyn. Eric Talbert (who helped organize the event) and Webster from Golden Birds (the other band that played) are friends of mine from The European Graduate School in Saas- Fee, Switzerland and this was the first time that I had seen them on US soil! My brother (photographer Jaisen Crockett) came out, Dan Paquin from Dirt Bike Annie (RIP) whom I went to NYU with was there and gave me his new album of 15 second punk songs. Sean Lewis, performance artist extraordinare made an appearance. My favorite costume designer in the universe Irina Kruzhilina. Good people all around!

We slept in the bus on Flatbush Ave and right now we're driving down Houston heading toward Washington Square Park. We just rolled by Ground Zero and saw the big hole in the ground. In a few minutes we'll be heading up to Harlem to meet documentary film legend Albert Maysels, director of Grey Gardens and the first man to film the Beatles in the US.

More soon, I hope. The Road to Oprah is growing near the end!

Stephen Colbert helps explain The 1 Second Film

Colbert helps sum up the absurd yet epic collaborative quest of The Second Film he is producing. Video has cameos with many of the celebs involved. I think I finally get it!

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Sweet Carolinas

Last night’s show at the Guitar Bar in Savannah was awesome. It’s continually bewildering and wonderful that the Evangenitals manage to connect and communicate with folks beyond our own backyard. We had a nice helping of SCAD students in the crowd last night, and once we got a sense of their sensibilities, we started to cut loose with some Fuck ‘em All/Gasoline action. We had such an awesome sing/play-a-long for “Home” that we decided to throw in the Vagina Song as well. That was a big hit. Many copies of Everlovin’ were sold simply so that folks could have Fuck ‘em All on hand as the new theme song to their lives. I got lots of good hugs. A great show, a great night, and a great city. At least the few blocks that I saw.

I loved the Southern Gothic feel, the low-handing moss off the trees, and the fountains. There seems to be a strange merging of deterioration and growth going on there -- lots of old historical buildings, lots of construction, and lots of vacant spaces/buildings for sale. So far Austin, New Orleans, and Savannah have been my favorite towns, as far as look/feel/vibe/scene/etc.

That morning we played at a Veterans Memorial Nursing Home in Daytona, Florida. And yes, we played those old, dirty war vets Gasoline! ☺ They wanted to hear something spicy, and we gave it to them. We got some great footage of our “Home” sing-a-long/play-a-long there as well. This should be one EPIC music video!

The night before we were supposed to play at the amphitheater in Port Orange, FL… however the park security had other plans! We were told that we couldn’t play there, so during all the discussion and commotion the Evangenitals shot an impromptu music video for “Not Quite There” with some local skaters. Huzzah! The young skater boys were super-sweet and helpful and really excited to be in a movie. When we get back from this trip Brett will be able to start editing all this footage and we should have a steady stream of videos coming out on YouTube, right about when Everlovin’ becomes available on iTunes. That synchronized marketing, baby!

The night before THAT we were in Tampa, Florida playing the Skatepark of Tampa (SPOT) which was an awesome experience as well. We stepped up on the stage to play for a bunch of shirtless, angry, mohawk-wearing, punker skate kids that were TOTALLY won over by the Evangenitals joy. My sister Jaimee and new brother-in-law Tom came out to the show, as well as my old friend Dwayne from High School..

So much is happening it is all blending together and difficult to explain. I’m so glad there will be video tape and photos and a lifetime to keep writing songs and telling stories about it all.

I’m in love with the land and the sky and the trees. This land was made for you and me.

Unforgettable

Grand Canyon
Originally uploaded by the1secondfilm.com

This is one of those moments in my life that won't be forgotten anytime soon...

Similar to pulling out of New Orleans, I can still remember the feeling of the wind on my face, the smell of the air, the temperature, everything.

Oh, America... you are beautiful. :-)

Kyle MacDonald and Juli Crockett Trade!
Originally uploaded by juliocrockett

This was a geeky highlight of the Road to Oprah tour for me so far. I got to trade Evangenitals' CD's and some stickers for Kyle MacDonald of One Red Paperclip fame's new book, a patch, and some stickers. It was pretty awesome.

He and his wife, Dom, tagged along from our Tallahassee show at The Warehouse to my mom's house in St Pete and The 1 Second Film's presentation at St Pete High. He and Dom came out to the Evangenitals' show at the Skatepark of Tampa (SPOT) Transitions Art Gallery before heading in the opposite direction than us... to New Orleans, where we had been just days before. It was really cool to cross paths with them on the Road to Oprah!

Oh, Albuquerque!

What an awesome town Albuquerque is... at least the Knob Hill area/few blocks that we explored during our stay. We rolled into Albuquerque really late Monday night/really early Tuesday morning after driving all night and pulled up in front of what the GPS thingy told us was Nirvan’s sister (and awesome jewelry designer) Dream Mullick’s house. Unfortunately, it was NOT Dream’s house that we pulled our noisy Road to Oprah tour bus in front of at 5am-ish. It was Susan’s. Fortunately, Susan was a real sweetheart. A stewardess for Southwest Airlines who offered us coffee, cereal, and a bed to sleep in if we needed it. No wonder her garbage man has a crush on her!

We all hit the hay pretty quickly after saying good morning and good night to Nirvan’s Mom, sister, and boyfriend Sterling. While I slept until the smell of food cooking woke me up in the afternoon, Brett (who slept on the bus), was awakened by Susan bringing him a cup of coffee. She then took him on a tour of Albuquerque. Oh yeah, and did I mention that she left 3 boxes of cereal and a carton of milk on the steps of our bus for us? God bless Susan the stewardess!

Upon awakening, we were off for some local promoting of that night’s event at the STOVE Gallery. There was a big animation festival in town, so we figured we’d hit that, and then the college. En route to the Animation Fest, we attempted an ill-advised U-turn, which caused our trailer to jackknife and busted the hitch. We stashed the caboose in a High School parking lot and called Dream, who proved to be our guardian angel on this stop. She took Levi to the auto shop while the rest of us hit the animation fest where we met some awesome folks from the Adobe company (who may donate some software for The 1 Second Film and website) as well as some nice Volunteers who really dug the project, the tour, and engaged us in a much-appreciated hug-fest.

Everything got fixed and we all regrouped to head to the space and set up, where we got to have our first “official” band practice with the current lineup (for 30 minutes) before the show started. At first it didn’t seem like many folks were going to turn up, but then the trickle turned into a stream and at one point in the evening we did have quite a nice, packed house.

At one point we had a crowd of people sitting at the edge of the stage (just like the old days!) playing all kinds of instruments – from tambourines to xylophones to sleigh bells to kazoos – for one of my favorite renditions of Home that the Evangenitals have ever played. Everyone was playing and singing at the top of their lungs and we got it all caught on tape… coming soon to YouTube!

It is my great hope that Mike and Nirvan will get the illusive “intro video” up on YouTube today so that we can start sharing the VIDEO version of all of our various and sundry adventures and encounters on the Road to Oprah, as well as my random ramblings.

It’s wonderful: I miss LA and I’m loving this life on the road. Ah, the miracle of simultaneity. We’re in the midst of a few brutal days of driving and playing. Texas is huge, and it’s where we’re heading and right smack in the middle of where we go after that. Right now, we’re closing in on Roswell, NM to shoot some footage of the Evangenitals and the Aliens (and impromptu Ode to Scientology video perhaps?) and then to Carlsbad Caverns to play in the caves. After that, we drive as far as we can before passing out for the night, in the hopes of behind close to Austin in the morning.

Oh Austin!

Albuquerque, here we come!

Brett is behind the wheel of the bio-bus and we’re driving to Albuquerque right now, after spending the day at the Grand Canyon. We intended to go see the giant meteor crater in Flagstaff after the Grand Canyon, alas… the canyon proved too grand and we had to stay there for hours and hours. It was amazing and it was my first time seeing it.

The shuttle drivers of the Grand Canyon National Park gave us the 411 on THE prime spot to park the bus right next to the canyon for the ultimate photo op. We played on the roof of the bus for tourists from Florida, Alabama, Sweden, and North Carolina. We shot a music video (Home) on the very edge of a cliff. We saw a rainbow and sang the “Rainbow Connection” which inspired a woman to give us a dollar. The moment was so beautiful it made Lisa Dee cry. That was the second time the kindness and open kindheartedness of a stranger made her cry today. I’d say that’s a pretty good day!

Sarah made another amazing dinner (vegan pasta!), Brett and Nirvan did the dishes, Lisa chopped the veggies (I helped), and Levi and Mike hung out with the missionaries in the converted school bus parked next to us (George was sleeping). It turned out that the missionaries (who seemed, at first glance, more like leftist hippies than missionaries) didn’t like the name of our band (The Evangenitals). So, we improvised a new song about the forgiveness of Jesus Christ that the folks back home in Los Angeles will truly love.

We’ve written two new songs so far about the trip, the film, and Nirvan (the creator of this whole beast!) that I’m pretty excited about. One is seriously gypsy inspired, and the other reminds me a bit of old Poi Dog Pondering.

Tomorrow night in Albuquerque is our first “official” performance/presentation at the STOVE gallery from 7pm-11pm. I hear there are going to be breakdancers and I’m pretty excited about that. Everybody is getting along well, so that’s awesome. You never know how it’s going to turn out when you put 8 people in a bus for several days with not a lot of sleep, not a lot of space, and no showers so far. Thankfully, in Albuquerque we’ll be staying at Nirvan’s sister’s house and there will be hot showers, hot meals, and beds that are bumpy and on wheels.

CIMG6974.JPG
Originally uploaded by the1secondfilm.com

Day One: Road to Oprah Tour

The mission was to conquer our own town first. The plan: hit the set of Stephen Nemeth's new movie (a Phillip K Dick novel that Ptryxxx has actually been cast as a featured extra in!) then off to Hollywood Blvd, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Venice Beach for the sunset.

We made it as far as Hollywood Blvd, where Darth Vader leaped into the Road to Oprah bio-bus just as an electrical fire broke out, causing lots of stink and smoke, melting the wires, and making the bus immovable from the curb in front of the legendary Chinese Theater. Not a bad place for a film crew to break down!

We made the best of it, called a giant tow-truck/flat bed, and had the truck towed of to Chuy's (our awesome electricians) and waited for news. The bright side of it was that we got some great footage of costumed characters, skateboard tricks on top of the bus, an awesome street band, and other goodness that you'll soon be able to see on YouTube.

Right now we're crossing the Hoover Dam after driving to Vegas late last night, getting kicked out of a parking lot this morning, and meeting new producers at a grocery store in Boulder City. At the Hoover Dam inspection checkpoint, Officer Rivera of Homeland Security became the newest producer of The 1 Second Film. Awesomeness!

We're now headed through the desert and on to the Grand Canyon!

More news soon. In the meantime, check out the new photosets on Flickr and videos on YouTube!

Love,
Juli & the Genitals

Our band's new home....

DSC_0121
Originally uploaded by the1secondfilm.com

For the next month... the caboose is our stage, and the Road to Oprah is our destiny!

1 Sec Film visits YouTube and Google along Road to Oprah Quest (w/ PICS)

Digg Update: Remember The 1 Second Film anyone can produce for $1? They raised enough to buy a school bus, converted it to a bio-diesel RV, and are now driving it 10,000 miles to ask Oprah for a buck. To start the trip off, they got invited to give presentations at both Google and YouTube. Here's how...

read more | digg story

BEHOLD!

The new Evangenitals poster!

What do ya think?



Thanks to Misha Birmele for working his logo and design magic on this one... and thanks to Steve Diet Goedde for the awesome photo!

xoxo