Found Footage Festival comes to BottleTree

The Found Footage Festival, the acclaimed touring showcase of odd and hilarious found videos, will debut its brand-new show in Birmingham this month. Hosts Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett, whose credits include The Onion and the Late Show with David Letterman, are excited to present their new lineup of found video clips and live comedy on Saturday, March 26th (8 p.m.) at the BottleTree (3719 3rd Ave. South). They are also proud to announce that the show will be preceded by a 25th anniversary screening of the legendary short documentary, "Heavy Metal Parking Lot." Tickets are $10 and are available at www.foundfootagefest.com.

The Found Footage Festival is a one-of-a-kind event showcasing videos found at garage sales and thrift stores and in warehouses and dumpsters throughout North America. Curators Pickett and Prueher host each screening in-person and provide their unique observations and commentary on these found video obscurities. From the curiously-produced industrial training video to the forsaken home movie donated to Goodwill, the Found Footage Festival resurrects these forgotten treasures and serves them up in a lively celebration of all things found.

Among the new clips to be featured in the Volume 5 program:

-Self-hypnosis videos about how to be a better lover, businessman, and bowler
-A 1986 home movie taken during a debaucherous weekend in Florida
-A collection of ventriloquism how-to videos that will forever haunt you
-A brand-new compilation of exercise videos featuring Cher, Lyle Alzado and the American Gladiators

The Found Footage Festival was founded in New York in 2004 and has gone on to sell out hundreds of shows across the U.S. and Canada, including the HBO Comedy Festival at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal. The festival has been featured on National Public Radio, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and G4 TV's Attack of the Show, and has been named a critic's pick in dozens of publications, including The Village Voice, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and The Chicago Tribune. The FFF can also be seen twice a week in a popular web series on The Onion's A.V. Club, in the hit documentary "Winnebago Man" and in a forthcoming book by Running Press.


ABOUT THE CURATORS

Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett began collecting found videotapes in 1991 after stumbling across a training video entitled, "Inside and Outside Custodial Duties," at a McDonald's in their home state of Wisconsin. Since then, they have compiled an impressive collection of strange, outrageous and profoundly stupid videos. Pickett, a writer/director, and Prueher, a former researcher at the Late Show with David Letterman, have written for The Onion and Entertainment Weekly and directed the award-winning documentary, "Dirty Country" (www.dirtycountrymovie.com), now available on DVD. They are also the masterminds behind the Kenny "K-Strass" Strasser yo-yo pranks that hit local morning TV news shows across the Midwest and have since racked up millions of hits on YouTube.

ABOUT "HEAVY METAL PARKING LOT"

Called one of the "greatest rock movies of ever" by Cameron Crowe, "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" will receive a rare theatrical screening at the Found Footage Festival in honor of its 25th anniversary. Videotaped in a concert arena parking lot before a Judas Priest show in Maryland in 1986, the short documentary began as bootlegged videotape but has since been hailed as an anthropological masterpiece by USA Today, SPIN, VH1, GQ, and Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. For more information about the film and directors John Heyn and Jeff Krulik, visit
www.heavymetalparkinglot.com.

ABOUT THE VENUE

The BottleTree is a live music venue with an emphasis on national touring acts, and also a wonderful restaurant that serves an eclectic mix of food that caters heavily to vegetarians and features locally grown, seasonal vegetables. The venue is located at 3719 3rd Ave. South in Birmingham. Tickets to the Found Footage Festival are $10 and are available at
www.foundfootagefest.com or at the door.

TEDx is Coming to Birmingham

TEDx is coming to Birmingham!

Birmingham – TEDxRedMountain will make its official debut in Birmingham on May 19, 2011 from 6:00 until 9:00 p.m. TEDxRedMountain offers an opportunity to connect with proven and successful visionaries who have propelled ideas into action and will feature presentations by local thought leaders focusing on the theme “Forge On: Galvanizing Ideas for the Future.”

Interested speakers and attendees must apply to participate in the limited-space event. Applications will be available at www.TEDxRedMountain.com starting March 11. Speaker applications must be received by March 31 and attendee applications must be received by April 15 to be considered for admission.

About TEDx (x = independently organized event)

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.

About TED

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The annual TED Conference takes place in Long Beach, California, with simulcast in Palm Springs; TEDGlobal is held each year in Oxford, UK. TED’s media initiatives include TED.com, where new TEDTalks are posted daily, and the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as the ability for any TEDTalk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. TED has established the annual TED Prize, where exceptional individuals with a wish to change the world are given the opportunity to put their wishes into action; TEDx, which offers individuals or groups a way to organize local, independent TED-like events around the world; and the TEDFellows program, helping world-changing innovators from around the globe to become part of the TED community and, with its help, amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Follow TED on Twitter at twitter.com/TEDTalks, or on Facebook at facebook.com/TED.

TED2011, “The Rediscovery of Wonder,” was held February 28-March 4, 2011, in Long Beach, California, with the TEDActive simulcast in Palm Springs, California.

Contact:

Tracy Smith
205-999-1845
tracybennettsmith@yahoo.com

Gail Cosby
205-910-7686
cosby1@bellsouth.net

New: BFP Music is Now Online

What is BFP Music? It's your music. We don't need to write some drivel about how your favorite band reminds us of King Crimson, or how we choose to categorize their sound, it's all like apricot wine, or chocolate truffles.

Our terms...local, local, local. If it has a local connection, you'll see it here. Old, new, future, we don't care. Primarily we'll focus on music from Birmingham. But we're game for Alabama stuff too. Country, pop, rock, alternative, we don't give a crap. If your pet rats make music on their exercise wheel...we want to see it.

You can view our posts at http://bfpmusic.blogspot.com/, stop by our Facebook page, Birmingham Freepress-music, or follow the link from our website.

The philosophy behind Free Press music is that art speaks for itself. We might fill in some details: show dates, history of the band, members, what the band members wore to bed last night, that sort of thing. But we intend to keep it simple. We might throw a comment onto the Facebook page. You might find a review, if it's really good, in the features section of the paper. But we intend to keep the boring stuff that nobody reads out of BFP Music.

Please email questions, comments or anything you want to see us post to: music@birminghamfreepress.com

OK then. That's that.

Cool Tree Stump Art

By Lee Waites

The neighborhood is unassuming, Roebuck Springs, a little historic neighborhood in East Birmingham. Its claim to fame is being the first suburb of Birmingham, established in 1910. Roebuck Springs is full of excellent historic houses, some very large, some very small, some fancy, some simple. It has managed to maintain its character for all these years, the houses displaying historic plaques including the names of the founders of each house and the date of its creation.

One of the best features of the neighborhood is the abundance of trees. The trees are an excellent habitat for wildlife. They have allowed the neighborhood to become an established bird sanctuary. They shade the houses and provide a buffer between the neighborhood and the hubbub of surrounding city life. Of course, where you have trees, you also have falling trees, which down power lines and knock out the cable. Since I used to live there I can assure you this happens frequently. They occasionally fall across yards and, unfortunately houses. After a storm you can drive through the neighborhood and see trees down on almost every street.

This is where I found Andy Cummings.

I was helping a friend move a friend when I drove up the street on a rainy day. I had to do a double take because there, on the side of the road, where there had been a tree, was now a sculpture, an image of three cranes with their beaks pointing skywards. I pulled over and snapped a few pictures with my phone and drove off very impressed, surprised and amazed. I assumed it was just an anomaly. Then a few days later I was driving again and I passed another one. On the side of the road I saw a man wielding a chainsaw, grinding away at a tree stump. I pulled over, hopped out and asked him if the sculptures were his doing. He told me they were. I felt guilty for taking him away from his work. But he was such an interesting guy, we talked for a good while, about life, about the Universe, politics, the economy. I told him about the BFP, asked if I could write up a little something, and he said that would be fine with him. I really had to, because this was such a great thing to find, serendipitous, freakin' cool, not in a fancy garden, not at a craft show, just there in these yards, in this normal neighborhood.

Mr. Cummings, who gets his jobs from word of mouth, has sculptures all over the state. When I met him he was working on an oak tree post, turning it into three bears, stacked one on top of the other. He says the customer just tells him what they want, then "It's like whittling, you just take out what isn't supposed to be there." When neighbors see what he’s up to many ask him about their own trees. In this way he just goes from project to project.

One of the most fascinating things to me was actually, to be crass, the price. I won’t go into detail, but the cost of having an extremely cool sculpture in your yard is so reasonable that I was shocked. It's close to the cost of simply having the tree removed and the stump ground by a tree service. Mr. Cummings also builds “rustic” play sets and many other custom wood structures. He likes to salvage wood, especially cedar. And he certainly puts it to better use than the city filling up a landfill with it. I highly recommend checking out his website and giving him a call if you need some custom woodwork, or if you need to feel better after the tree in your front yard takes out your porch.

www.andycummingsart.com

Face Book Satire Spins out of Control

by John Leander
BFP staff writer



There's been outrage today over a hideous comment that festered for hours on Sarah Palin's Facebook page. The comment was allowed to remain on the page while anything that might damage the conservative star's political standing was vigorously deleted.

Several watchdogs of the blog-o-sphere noticed and discussed the radically self-serving practice.

Here is the comment in its entirety, "It's ok. Christina Taylor Green [the nine year old girl killed in the Arizona shooting] was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly."

Here is how awful, heated, and hysterical the public discourse in this country has become. This opinion was meant to be satire and no one noticed. Granted, its not on the level of Swift's "A Modest Proposal," but if you take just a moment to really read it, (and read the discussion leading up to it) its an obvious parody.

Unfortunately for Tina King, her post fit in all too seamlessly with the hateful bile being spewed onto Sarah Palin's Facebook page. It's very sad to know that King's satire was immediately believable as the opinion of one of Palin's followers.

"I want to apologize for what was apparently an ill fated attempt at satire," Ms. King said. "I posted a comment that was meant to been seen as a brutal commentary on the violent rhetoric that has become a staple of the political discourse is this country."

Unfortunately, the "political discourse in this country," among Palin supporters is irrevocably saturated with "violent rhetoric." So much so, that an insane statement of rage passed as just another mainstream opinion of a popular and influential organization.

New Musician's Cooperative to Open in Norwood

The Musician's Cooperative of Birmingham will open its doors for the first time on February 1st, 2011. The 16 bedroom mansion is located in Birmingham's historic Norwood neighborhood. It will provide nearly 20 local musicians with affordable housing, practice space, and recording facilities.

The cooperative is part of an initiative to assist passionate musicians in networking with like-minded individuals. Members of the cooperative will work together to share resources, knowledge, and inspiration. “Its like a brotherhood,” says co-founder Tyler Trierweiler, “we feed off each other's creativity”.

In the past, the building housing the cooperative has been home to a bank, a reception hall, and an insurance company. The updated space will feature an in-house recording studio, rehearsal lounge, video editing suite, communal kitchen, meditation room, 5 bathrooms, and 16 bedrooms. Members pay $300 a month, including the cost of utilities. The building is zoned commercially, and founders of the cooperative are planning to create a coffee and variety shop inside the mansion which will be open to the public and run by members living there.

The Musician's Cooperative of Birmingham is a spinoff of another location which has seen great success in South Bend, Indiana. Like the South Bend Cooperative, the Musician's Cooperative of Birmingham will be democratically run by the residents living there. Regular events are to be hosted by the co-op including Sunday night dinners, weekday jam sessions, group meditations, and monthly house shows. Members work together to facilitate new projects that benefit both the cooperative and the community.

An innovative household video project serves as a way for members of the cooperative to reach out to new fans and followers. Members of the cooperative act as cast members of a documentary series posted as weekly webisodes. The series will follow the housemates as they move in, adapt to life in the cooperative, and pursue their musical dreams.

The Musician's Cooperative of Birmingham continues to seek new members before its opening on February 1st. Membership at the cooperative is open to all musicians and artists. If interested in moving into the house visit
www.themusicianscoop.com for more information.

'Anonymous' Issues Open Letter to Glenn Beck

Operation Payback AKA 'Anonymous' has issued and open letter to Glenn Beck. It's actually rather tame. Here it is in it's entirety:

Mr. Beck,

We have no problem with those who criticize us. We understand that freedom of speech includes the right to speak out in criticism of those whom you may not agree with. We have many critics, and we respect their first amendment rights.

However, in your recent comments, it seems that you and/or your editing team have mixed up a few details during your research on us. We at Anonymous wish to set the record straight, so that you and your audience will be better informed about us and our objectives. Hopefully, this will reduce some of the anxiety you may feel towards us in the process.

You see, Mr. Beck, we are not an organization. We have no leaders. We have no official spokesperson. We have no age, race, ethnicity, color, nationality, or gender. Anyone who claims to speak for all of us is, quite frankly, a liar. To be clear, the gentleman known as Coldblood was not sanctioned by anyone but himself to speak on our behalf.

Your attempts to formally link Anonymous to Wikileaks were misguided. We are not formally linked to Mr. Assange, to Wikileaks, or the break-off operation, Openleaks. To reiterate, we are not an organization of any kind.

You spoke of revolution as though it is necessarily a bad thing. Let us remind you that America was founded upon revolution. Furthermore, the world we live in today is the result of numerous revolutions that have occurred throughout human history – many of them being positive, and resulting in advancements for all of humanity.

You seem to imply that we are revolutionaries. We do not object to this - in fact, it pleases us.

Neither Wikieaks nor its founder have been charged with any crime in connection to any of the published leaks. Thus, we at Anonymous see any actions directed at silencing Wikileaks as an assault on our freedom of information and the freedom of those at Wikileaks to publish as they see fit.

Whether young or old, political or apolitical, moderate or hard-liner, the issue of freedom of speech and information affects us all. Please do not aspire to make the Wikileaks issue more divisive than it already is, Mr. Beck.

We embrace everyone from all walks of life, from all corners of the earth, to join us in our quest to protect and further enhance not only our rights to freedom of information and freedom of speech, but all of our human freedoms.

You are welcome to talk to us at anytime. We will answer any further questions you may have. After further dialogue, perhaps then you will see that you and we are not so different. Anonymous can be anyone, anywhere, at anytime, and that includes you and your audience as well, Mr. Beck. We simply wish to see the freedoms of all Americans and all citizens of Earth to be at the very least maintained, and wherever possible, strengthened and enhanced to their fullest extent.

Signed,

Anonymous