CONNIE CONVERSE ON VINYL!!!

The gentleman at Squirrel Thing Recordings have something awesome up their sleeves...but they need your help!

Look to the right of the screen!

You may now proceed to give me your lunch money...c'mon, it's for art!

This documentary not only asks the question “Who is Connie Converse?” but also, “Where did she go?”  To those who knew her, Connie Converse was a daughter, a sister, a sister-in-law, a friend, a scholar, a writer, an artist, a political activist, a composer, and a musician.  She was indeed all of those things, but as one can tell from the goodbye letter, Connie was much more.  She was a human in a lifelong battle with herself.  Each year brought more disappointment and loneliness as she struggled to connect herself to this world while seeking commercial success for her work.  Faced with major surgery, an impending trip to be spent sober with her mother, and a crippling sense of failure, Connie Converse drove off in her Volkswagen bug leaving only notes of goodbye.  The year was 1974 and she was 50 years old.  Connie was never heard from again, and all we have left is a filing cabinet of papers and her haunting, beautiful Musicks.

Although I am in the research/grant proposal writing/planning stages of the film, tricky circumstances have called for what might be my final chance to go to Michigan and speak with her brother, Phil, and sister-in-law, Jean. While I am in Michigan I will also be gathering materials to aid Lau Derette (the record label who released her album, "How Sad, How Lovely") with the re-release of a special edition. I will be purchasing a portable digital document feeder/scanner to obtain copies of as many treasures from the filing cabinet as I can, including her personal letters, pictures, and drawings.

My trip is scheduled for September 8-10 and I am attempting to raise any amount of money I can to subsidize the cost of travel, equipment, and other production expenses.  If you have a bit of fundage to spare, I would greatly appreciate donations of all denominations, from non-consecutive twenties to kind words.  I don't discriminate!  Soon I will have a website with a better promo video, pictures, an inside look into production, etc.  Of course I will keep you all updated as things progress.

I am so thankful for all of your support.  If it weren't for your belief in me, I wouldn't believe in me!

I need an intern.

3 jobs. Grad school. Documentary. 

More info soon about how YOU can help me spread the Gospel of Connie Converse.

If you would like to know right this second, please email:

connieconversedoc@gmail.com

My First Attempt...

Please disregard the less than perfect video composition and sound quality.  However, I needed to let some of this footage see the light of day!

Almost done...

I am working on a short piece consisting of the footage I shot in Michigan.  I'm hoping it leaves you mentally, entertainmently, and intellectually salivating for more.  At the very least, it'll give you more of an insight into the woman I've been talking about for a year and a half now.

Connie Converse is my life.

I've Done it!

I've cracked the LCD screen of white and begun a treatment for the Connie Converse documentary! Just for that, I'll post this picture of me with Phil & Jean Converse.  They're great people.

Long-Time-Coming-Update

A few things.


1) My computer has been in surgery at the Apple Store for the past week, so I haven't been able to do much "work" at home re: posting, editing, researching.  Hopefully I get it back today.  My keyboard and trackpad were deciding to randomly stop responding, usually while in the middle of some important task or another.  The gentleman who helped me was very nice and laughed at my description of the problem: "Trying to show you what's wrong with my computer is like having a little sister who is a bitch but your parents never catch her being one."


2) I have been in contact with a musician who is interested in the documentary project.  It'll be great to get a pro's musical perspective on her composition, melodies, arrangements, tonal changes, eeriness, syncopation, metronomeyness, rhythm, beats, fluidity, or whatever the hell it is you "technical" people talk about.  All I know is how music makes me feel.  More updates to come as it progresses.


3)  A week ago I thought of an interesting angle I haven't thought about before. It seems that people find themselves to be Connie fans via hearing her stuff on the Internet/technology either by seeing a blog post or listening to streaming radio. It also seems that Connie fans find each other over the Internet, too.  I have been contacted by a couple of fans who Googled, and I can't forget that I got a hold of Phil and the record company all via the Internet. It makes you wonder about the state of creativity and performing arts in our time vs. hers.  Would she have been commercially successful back then if she had a wider audience? What prevented her from being successful? How is technology changing the way we share our creative selves? Connie would've written a mean blog.  She probably would have had a hell of a niche audience, if nothing else.  Could she have disappeared so easily? There are dozens of us, though, who felt the need to take that extra step and do something about how wonderful Connie was. There's a group of people out there looking to make a musical, another group out there looking to write a play, and of course we had Lau Derette, a record company founded for the sole purpose of releasing her album. I will be meeting with the record company guy next week, hopefully. I think it would be great to try and find everyone who has been moved to do something about her.   I think this would have a lot more of a narrative push than just "boo hoo how sad her story is and I relate to it."Would she have been happier if she DID gain some kind of success?  Or, as my bro-in-law pointed out, would she be disappointed that her YouTube video only got 10 million hits as opposed to Rebecca Black's 148, 403, 627 (and rising) views?


4) I'm going to start taking drum lessons!  I've dabbled in piano, I've dabbled in guitar, and I am "ok" at them but pretty lackluster if I do say so myself.  Sure, I can strum through a handful of Wilco songs and Johnny Cash's "Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart," as well as tickle the ivories for "In The Mood" and "The Battly Hym of the Republic," but it doesn't leave me super-jazzed.  However, I have wanted to play the drums since I was 3.  Now I am finally paying attention to my life-long inclination for percussion.


That is all.

Tomorrow it begins.

I have not posted my analysis yet because I've been busy preparing for this weekend.  I actually have already written short pieces about the majority of her songs and have just a few more to get through.  It's amazing the kind of thoughts you have when you put on your headphones at a cafe in downtown Troy by the window for two hours.  I'll try to do the same thing in Brooklyn. I just have to find a good spot.  It's harder than you think.

Tomorrow I'm going to Ann Arbor tomorrow to spend the weekend with Phil & Jean Converse, Connie's brother and sister-in-law.  Given that I've never made a documentary before, I'm a little nervous.  I hope they know I do not claim to be a professional but I do claim to put my heart and soul into this. Here is my mantra: Conversation. Sequences. Close-ups. Conversation. Sequences. Close-ups. Conversation. Sequences. Close-ups. And fun.  Phil & Jean seem like lovely, lively people despite their self-proclaimed age.

One of my best friends is picking me up from the airport, which adds an even more intense layer of excitement on tomorrow's events.

Now I will try to sleep.  It's like Christmas Eve!

Can't is the cancer of happen.

First thing's first: no, I don't think Charlie Sheen is crazy.  Do I think that he did/does have a drug problem?  Yes.  Are his actions toward women questionable?  Yes.  But I think that he knows exactly what he's doing.  Did you see the Charlie Sheen cooking show?  He's just tapping into a bunch of contemporary internet humor veins: Chuck Norris, machetes, "warlock, troll, tigerblood" vocabulary, hashtags (#WINNING is the counterpart to #FAIL and he even says #EPIC).  He is fitting in right with this generation.  We love to be confused by celebrities and we love "crazy" people.  I'm not saying he's Joaquin Phoenixing and completely pretending, I'm saying he's Hunter S. Thompsoning.  He may be "unstable" and doing drugs, but he sure is entertaining and eerily articulate in his rants.  I don't feel bad for him.  My bro-on-law made a good suggestion for his kids: he should send them away until they're 16 with a very nice, normal family and then come back and say, "Hey, I'm your dad. I didn't want you all screwed up.  By the way, your college is paid for in full by my tigerblood."

Paul Crik has been making videos for his campaign called "Killin' it," which seems similar to "WINNING."  So I asked him about it and this is what he said:

Winning and Killin are like neighbors on the same caribbean island; different styles and different values in the home, but the overall attitude of making your view of yourself more important than what other people think is the same. Winning It.

Moving on.  I chose the title of this post because I believe it!  I've been a can't-er for a long time, but in the past few months I basically said F-THAT.  And now I'm moving back to New York City.  More specifically Brooklyn.  Even more specifically Williamsburg.  With a pretty cool roommate.  And I will be working at NBC.  In 30 Rock. I know, I'm still absorbing all of this information.  Just waiting on that grad school acceptance...

This May I'm going to Michigan to interview Connie Converse's brother with a couple of friends (ie my production crew).  We've even gotten a UMich film student on board to be our videographer.  Stay tuned for ways you can help our cause!  We only need a few hundred dollars to rent decent camera and sound equipment.  I'm going to try and partner up with a few of my favorite local businesses to raise some funds.

Project positivity and it will all happen.  There's nothing wrong with things going right.

                                                                       #WINNING

Why I Love Connie Converse #1

An excerpt from her "PROGRAM NOTES" to Connie's Guitar Songs:

"In general the songs of both volumes are arranged solely with an eye to change of key or pace. Were the composer to employ a descending order of her own preferences, the first hundred feet of tape would be jammed with indistinguishable sounds, followed by silence."