Molly Lewis

The way to garner the most votes in a contest at Quick Stop Entertainment seems to be writing about something really funny and nerdy. I wrote a song about Mr. T and I wrote a song about Wikipedia, and it got me this far. Our ultimate final masters double secret probation challenge was to write a song with three distinct musical movements that comes together to form a cohesive whole (think Bohemian Rhapsody), and I somehow turned out a basically not funny song about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Who do I think I am, Sarah Vowell?!

I feel I should explain: My original plan was to write a song about the original Star Wars trilogy (presumably making up something like “The A New Hope Mambo” which would’ve folded into “The The Empire Strikes Back Polka,” so on), but I haven’t seen any/all of the three original films from start to finish since I was maybe 8, so I was like “It’s cool, I’ll just rent all 3 original films and watch them over the weekend.” Then it was Monday night and I’d only watched A New Hope, and so I was like “Aw, nuts” and scrapped that idea, in favor of a Plan B I didn’t actually have.

How I ended up deciding to write a song about the Lincoln assassination is still beyond me. I mean, I understand that in the abject panic associated with deadlines I’ve been able to press some my idea-coal into diamonds (e.g. I just got an A- on a paper I wrote at 4:00 in the morning, in which I’d decided at the last minute that Tupperware parties symbolized all the virtues America was trying to defend in the Cold War) but somehow the Lincoln assassination stumbled out of my brain. It’s not like I have some preexisting fascination with the Lincoln assassination either, I had to do just as much research as would have been involved in the Star Wars idea.

Also, WHY DID GEORGE LUCAS GO BACK AND ADD STUFF IN THE REMASTERED VERSION? I hadn’t seen the films since I was a wee lass and so my memories of the trilogy are all from the VHS. What were those giant monitor lizards he just threw into the desert with the sandtroopers? Why the random unnecessary floating robots in Mos Eisley? Why that random scene with Jabba and Han Solo locked in a lover’s quarrel? And if he went to the trouble of going back and “updating” all this stuff, why does Kenobi’s lightsaber still obviously look like a metal rod in the final duel with Vader?

THESE ARE QUESTIONS THE INTERNET WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO ANSWER FOR ME.

(And what is it with me and random caps lock? Who do I think I am, Hodgman?)

Anyway, the voting is here. I’m up against the crab rangooners and all-around swell guys we all know as Paul & Storm.

“Crab rangooner” sounds like an embarrassing racial slur your grandpa would use.
(“That rangooner in the kitchen cooked my burger too much, now it’s all dry.” “GRANDPA. That’s not what you call them!”)

I hate shameless plugging as much as anyone else, but I put up my other three songs that I wrote, on this here very Songs page, and I included the option to purchase lossless FLAC files, which I’m told are magical things but as a Mac person I guess I’ll never know.

Also worth mention: I did a live show on Ustream.tv last Saturday, from about 7:30pm PDT to maybe 9:00ish? It was a crap-ton of fun and I will surely do it again soon, though I will probably take requests ahead of time, and I will broadcast from a place with more reliable internet. Also, I’ll be sure to broadcast much earlier so our friends in the UK can watch too.

I was talking to my mom over break about how we’re so used to being plugged into Google and email and Twitter at all times, and so this will actually be kind of an interesting experiment, to go through Monday without being able to access the internet from anywhere.

I COULD turn on my laptop or my phone if I really wanted to, but I want to leave the phone charged in case of an emergency, and I want the laptop to remain charged as long as I can still do the same work and surf the same web from any computer.

I refer to it as “going analog”, but really I’m not. I still have email, IM, Twitter, and you can actually text message from Gmail. I gave Derek the extension to the study hall I’ve been camped in this afternoon and he called me. Considering I don’t really leave my dorm room, the lack of mobile internet hasn’t really proven such a loss yet.

I’m probably going to be writing down drafts of Tweets on my arms so I don’t forget them before I can get to a computer. You can bet money on it.
I have a Moleskine notebook that’s not really getting any mileage. Maybe I can put that into use and save my arms the degradation.

My song is posted. It’s about Mr. T, and it’s called “I Pity The (Song) Fu.” I would link straight to the file right on this here blog page, but that would prevent you from going to the Song Fu page and throwing it your damn vote.

I’m not all that competitive, but votes would be nice.

I struggled to fit some excerpt from this into my song for this week, but I couldn’t find a place to non-awkwardly slip it in. But the time is right, and I want to share it anyway.

The passage quoted below is chapter I of Mr. T’s 1984 autobiography, the unambiguously titled Mr. T by Mr. T, which I found in Long Beach’s recently-extinct used book store Acres of Books. Weighing in at 276 pages, it is unquestionably the greatest $4 I have ever spent.

I have checked and double checked to make sure that this text is true to the original. All grammar, punctuation, and syntax from hereon out is all T. (The occasional underlining is mine.)

→ I did not make this up.

because there are MP3s for sale on this very blogsite.

http://sweetafton23.com/songs/ ← thar

Both Road Trip and MyHope, the two originals, available now.

I spent all night setting the E-Junkie store up, so I’m having a hard time finding words to zazz that offer up

but now it’s there.

I’m going to sleep now. Good night, internet.

As some of you have already reminded me, I have been accepted into this round of Quick Stop Entertainment’s Masters Of Song Fu (third from the bottom, beeyotch).

This week’s challenge is to write a happy song.
I don’t see how I could muster that, as I am SO FREAKED OUT.

Don’t mind me, I’ll just be drowning my sorrows in this here Tree Top.

I discover new things about myself all the time. Among the more recent discoveries:
→ When I’m nervous, my appetite is zilch, and I pee every 15 minutes.
→ I’m terrible at keeping blogs updated.
→ I’m terrible at keeping my phone charged.
→ Seattle and Portland seem to like me.

Some of the videos are already hitting the internuts, but I took a break from being my boring self this weekend and played two shows with Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm (I doubt most of you actually need those links), at the Moore Theater in Seattle on Friday, and then the Aladdin Theater in Portland on Saturday. I didn’t mention it on the YouTube or elsewhere because JoCo didn’t mention it, and so it was kept on the down-low.

I have a YouTube playlist going of other persons’ footage from the event. So far it’s a work in progress, and I titled it “kicking the Northwest in the teeth” (and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible, Pacific northwest. ♥) I’m waiting on a video of the “Toxic” in Portland, with baited breath.

It’s always an honor to tag along with the power trio — I can’t really thank them enough for being as genial and entertaining as they are, and letting me go to fantasy camp every so often. I had a blast.

I’ve found that the manic peak from job-shadowing nerd stars is coupled with the crushing dread returning to normal life, but I’m learning how to come down a little softer each time.