INT. J ROLAND KELLY - NIGHT

I’ve written a lot about the future role of MIDI in popular music. Two weeks ago I wrote about a software plug-in that I wanted created that would convert audio to MIDI in real time, and then play the MIDI as if it were coming from a real MIDI controller thereby allowing you to control a synthesizer with an organic instrument such as a guitar.

It already exists.

In my wanderings on the Internet it wasn’t like I didn’t find it right away, but it did take a while for me to understand what I was looking at… hey, is that a hole in the ground?

It took longer to write the blog posts than it did to download, install, and implement the conversion software. I feel a little strange about that, but the one consolation is that I predicted EXACTLY how the software would work.

Plus, it’s something I really wanted, and so now I have it. That’s a win.

First the lesson on audio plug-ins:

1. Steinberg created the Virtual Studio Technology (VST) plug-in system for Cubase. It had complicated and expensive licensing, it only became popular after third-party developers started to disregard the licensing rules. VST is now the standard plug-in format for most DAWs in the windows environment, including Adobe Audition 3.

2. Apple went their own way and created a new system for plug-ins on the Mac, which they call Audio Units (AU).

These plug-ins work at the operating system level and should work with whatever sound recording software you have installed at the time (that use plug-ins).

So, now the plug-in (this is really cool and I recommend that you try it even if you are not a musician)…

Widisoft makes an Audio to MIDI conversion audio plug-in to be used directly in the sound recording suite (DAW) that you are using. They have VST and AU versions of the plug-in.

I am going to focus on the Mac, if you need this for windows (or VST) you can find instructions on the Widisoft website.

You can try the plug-in for free. It will last 20 days, but will only work for 15 seconds before cutting out for 15 seconds, working then not working etc. It costs $80 dollars to purchase, which I recommend, it works well and I’ve not seen anything like it.

The whole thing should only take a few minutes.

1. Download the audio to MIDI conversion plug-in here.

2. Install it with the instructions (a few seconds).

3. Follow these instructions to get it to work with GarageBand.

That’s it. Now you can control a MIDI Synthesizer with an organic instrument in GarageBand.

Plus… Audio Unit Plug-ins breathe new life into GarageBand eliminating many of the things that make it suck. True.

-J Roland Kelly

It has been one year since I had my last drag. I set this post to publish on the one-year anniversary of my last puff at 10 pm on November 15th. Last year (2007) that date fell on a Thursday night.

I had been a smoker for six and a half years, having started at the ridiculously ripe age of 21. In the place from which I come, at the time I started smoking, 25% of all adults smoked and 50% of all young people smoked, and one day I just found myself on the wrong side of the line.

In the course of those 6 and a half years I smoked cigarettes, cigars, and a corncob pipe; each exclusively and each for months at a time, all in a quest to find what my forefathers found so magical, and in the end (unbeknownst to me at the time over-commercialized spirit of connoisseurship) I found none of it magical.

In half a dozen different ways, I must have quit half a dozen different times, but as they say about the one thing that you eventually find… it’s always the last place you look.

I finally found what I was looking for in a series of three writings: Junkie by William S. Burroughs, The Tobacco Timeline, and most importantly of all (the only piece of written work that I will claim saved my life) The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr.

Before I quit, I never would have imaged that books were my way out. I had spent most of my time dealing with different forms of nicotine replacement therapy. Which I strongly do not recommend as reasons explained in Allen Carr’s book.

If you are struggling to quit, you don’t live in quiet desperation, and don’t lose hope, just read the first 20 pages of The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, you’ll know that your card has been pulled.

As it turns out, I read the very last edition of Allen Carr’s book; he was to die of lung cancer a year after publishing it, and it was just as I started reading it.

It has to be one of the cruelest twists in the world that people die of smoking related cancers 30 years after quitting.

The book is a good read even if you are a non-smoker. It contains a lot of de-commercialized truths that are censored in the American mainstream. I can never view the medical community, businessmen, or drug addicts the same way again.

To this day, I’m still impressed with the wisdom of the book.

When it comes to The Tobacco Timeline, it is just amazing; the further that we get from the days of big tobacco the more un-biased information that is revealed. This is one of the very unique stories in human history, you might think that you have heard it, but I promise you haven’t heard all of it.

William S. Burroughs and his works need no introduction.

These are three honest books about Tobacco and addiction in a world full of misinformation. My advice is to go to them first, don’t buy something you see on TV, and don’t believe everything you hear.

You can’t trust anyone, in the Jim Jarmusch film, Coffee and Cigarettes during a conversation with Iggy Pop, my hero Mr. Tom Waits says about smoking, “you know what they say… you never really quit.”

Those words have resonated with me, through all my time as a smoker, but you know what… Tom Waits is wrong. Read the books.

Plus I have an interesting story about when I actually quit—

I had spent the whole previous year cutting down, and getting really fat. As I said it was a Thursday when smoked my last smoke. I went the whole next day at the office without smoking, and my car was loaded up with camping gear and 5 $80 dollar bottles of tequila.

My plan was to spend the first three days camping.

After work, I drove 40 miles to Henry Coe State Park just South of San Jose. Parked the car. Got trashed. Really meant to put up the tent but slept in the car.

The next day hiked (staggered?) two miles away from the ranger station to a walk in campsite. Around 7:30pm, about 45 minutes after it got dark, and after a day alone with five bottles of expensive tequila, I felt like I was being watched.

It wasn’t the alcohol, I really was. I found two eyes reflected in my little AA battery flashlight, and they where maybe 100 yards away. I had drunk with coyote that had lost its fear of people and ventured into the campground the previous night, I thought it was something like that.

That coyote was real attentive.

So, I walk towards the eyes with the flashlight up above my head (like a cop), bottle of Patron still in my other hand, when I’m maybe 25 feet away I realize what I’m looking at…

And while I didn’t freak out, or move, inside I was filled with real terror, almost a panic attack. I was looking at a mountain lion.

The mountain lion was broadside to me, looked at me for a moment and then on silent pads ran towards the tree line where I couldn’t see it.

I felt like I almost had a heart attack, and briefly thought I should take better care of myself.

Very focused, I got my backpack out of the tent, stuffed in my sleeping bag (and a few bottles) and walked back to the ranger station in the dark.

Mountain lions are supposed to be the most elusive animals on the planet. They are not supposed to let a human walk up to them. They are not supposed to be 2 miles from a campground. This was BULLSHIT!

The next part of the story I would entitle: Through a Dark, Drunkly…

…because I still had to walk two miles back to the ranger station. And it seems like the walk back in the dark, not knowing if you are being hunted would be scary. Here’s what I thought about…

When I was a much younger camper, I heard a story that’s meant to get under your skin. Roughly, it’s a kind of a ghost story evolving a kid, maybe 10 years old, maybe two miles away from home playing out in the country, when he sees a ghoul, who smiles at him and them disappears into the ground, and the kid has to walk back home at sun down, alone, wondering if this ghoul will get him.

I always wondered what if I was that kid. When I was 20 or so I was taking a bus out of Mexico City, when I looked down from a highway upon one of their infamous shantytowns. I had never seen anything like it at the time and I thought, shit, if I suddenly found myself down there, I would rather just be dead, then to have to find my way out.

Anyway, the walk back to the ranger station made me feel like I now know what it’s like to be that kid or what it’s like to find yourself in one of the rough Mexico City Shantytowns, basically after the initial moments of terror, and near panic attack heart attack it’s all focused adrenaline precision from there.

Nothing can be as bad as the first fright, so it’s all down hill from there.

When I got to the ranger station I told them the story and they said I was full of sh!t, that mountain lions don’t get that close to people, unless they are hunting and then you won’t see them until you are being attacked.

But I know what I saw. I spent the next week reading about them. They most actively hunt just after sundown, and the fact that I saw one’s broadside means it wasn’t hunting me, as they stalk, hunkered down the same way as a housecat.

For the last year the mountain lion has been my anti-smoking totem. I couldn’t start smoking again because then I would have to quit, and to quit would mean going back to where the mountain lion lived.

- J Roland Kelly

Not to be confused with all the other movies you didn’t see with titles like The Bank Job; this one came out in February of 2008. It’s a British film directed by Roger Donaldson and written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.

At its heart is a conspiracy theory film, but it’s told with the style of a “crime is cool” picture. This makes it a little unique and worth looking into, if you are developing such a project.

First let me give you the premise of the film: small time crooks get a hot tip that the alarm is off in the safety deposit box room of a well-to-do London bank. They rob it, and find cash, jewels, and everything you might expect, but they also find deposit box after deposit box of dirty secrets belonging to some of the most powerful people in England. This apparently is a true human event, it happened at Lloyds Bank of London on Baker Street in 1971.

It’s hard enough to develop a story with full artistic license; it’s a little bit more difficult when you have to stay within certain historical facts. I think there are certain things about this film that really work, and certain things that this twist in style completely ruins.

Most conspiracy theory films are 3.5 hours long, boring, and directed by Oliver Stone. I don’t mean to start an argument, but I don’t think conspiracy theory film is a genre that has been figured out or gotten right.

And so I think of Oliver Stone, but I also think of Michael Moore, go figure.

The Bank Job doesn’t fall into any of the traps, the film is fast (only 1.5 hours long), completely dramatized, and interesting. In this way the film works and wins. It stands alone as a film, even if the viewer doesn’t care about the historical details it’s still a good bank heist film. I chuck that up to good screenwriting.

Here’s what the film loses with all that dramatization: the magic that it’s a true (or almost true) story.

Also, I didn’t like how the film was advertised, movie posters with some guy holding a gun looking tough like it was a “crime is cool” film. It doesn’t do justice to the fact that this is a truly unique and f**ked up event in human history.

I’m not reviewing this film because it’s good, I actually think it’s somewhere in the middle. I’m reviewing it because it’s a unique attempt with an unbelievable real life event. That and…

I saw this other film a number of years ago; I can’t remember the name of the movie, another bank heist flick, where they also rob a safety deposit room. The film was just a “guns and money” film, but when they open one of the boxes (with explosives I think) there is a split second where you can see one of the boxes contains an explicit photo. I totally can’t remember that film, but I do remember the film never addressed the explicit photo in the safety deposit box.

Why was there an explicit photo in a safety deposit box? That’s a story in itself, and it opens up a whole new world. As a filmmaker or a screenwriter, an image like that is one you should try to create.

As it turns out, that film just referenced the conspiracy theory about the London 1971 bank robbery and left it at that. The Bank Job is all about that one particular robbery and I had forgotten about how badly I wanted to know the story about that explicit photo until I started watching the film.

I dig conspiracy theories films from other countries, mostly because I’m not emotionally attached. I couldn’t watch Oliver Stones’ JFK without some baggage, but a conspiracy about trying to keep the public from knowing that Princess Margaret was a complete sl*t, well… who the f*ck is princess Margaret? Just kidding. Kinda.

Okay, I’m done with the screenwriting movie review bit, let me tell you about the conspiracy, it’s so interesting I can’t resist. I see why this was developed into a film; these safety deposit boxes were a window into the world of the powerful. They story should have been told long before, but maybe a certain royal person had to die first (Princess Margaret died five years ago at the age of 70 something).

Here are the facts: four petty criminals were arrested for robbing the safety deposit box room of a famous bank with high-class British clients. Most of the money and such was never recovered. The robbery was really elaborate, it involved leasing a commercial building by the bank and tunneling. Four days after the robbery, the news media was asked by the British government to stop reporting on the robbery, as it had to do with national security. After the four men were arrested, their identities were kept secret, as were the length of their prison sentences. They would remain hidden from the public for 30 years. A file containing information on one person thought to be blackmailing the royal family at the time has been made classified until 2054; the crime happened in 1971. Lastly, the filmmakers of The Bank Job were asked by the British government not to release the film. Since this “asking” had no legal weight, the filmmakers released the film.

Here’s the conspiracy: the reason that that a few petty criminals (more than four) could have pulled off a major bank heist on that scale was because they had help from the MI5 (turning off the bank alarm, working behind the scenes, etc. maybe). The idea is that the MI5 were using the bank robbers (unbeknownst to them) to retrieve photos of Princess Margaret having sex with a guy in Trinidad that were stored in a safety deposit box of a black militant, who was using the photos to blackmail the government to avoid prosecution for certain crimes he was continuing to commit. Things changed when the bank robbers realized what kind of stuff they were finding in the safety deposit boxes. The story goes that most of the bank robbers traded the photos and secret documents to the government for new identities taking with them most of the treasure. The black militant was hung in Trinidad, his house burned to the ground, his file closed until 2054. The government pinned the crime on four people, letting the rest go.

But here is the best part of the story (this is true), of the roughly 265 safety deposit boxes that were broken into, the insurance was never collected on over one hundred; so, that’s a lot of rich people (the crème of the crop in London) that didn’t want to admit what they had in their box, and that is the stuff of legend.

The film makes reference to just three items allegedly found in the boxes: the pictures of Margaret having sex (I mentioned the execution of the Trinidad guy), pictures of well known public figures in a high dollar brothel (it was raided afterwards, true), and a ledger sheet from an organized crime boss of police officers that were on his payroll (Scotland Yard underwent major clean-up of corrupt cops after the bank robbery).

Yeah, so all very interesting but what’s more is that one of the guys who was in prison for 30 years for this crime (without giving away his identity) gave an interview to a British newspaper about the robbery before the release of The Bank Job.

What did the rest of the safety deposit boxes of the powerful contain, when they didn’t contain valuables? He said surprisingly, many contained handguns (you know the assumption), and also terrible amounts of ch!1d p*rn*gr*phy. He said that every one of the bank robbers was disgusted with the later, and would leave it in its box facing up so the cops could trace it back to the owner, a noble gesture.

But still it’s strange, my attorney consistently reminds me that when I’m in the middle of a major bank heist I shouldn’t do any thing that might let anyone know that I understand the difference between right and wrong.

I guess laws are different everywhere.

The last cool thing about the film- the London police in 1971 drive series II Jaguar XJ-6 cop cars. I had a series III.

Google the name of the film, you will find information on the conspiracy. It’s good reading.

-J Roland Kelly

The average pay is $150 per month. You’re in a $5 room. Everything is still. It’s 10 pm. Ta-Da. The MacBook Pro starts up.

No. Hell No.

I couldn’t find a way to turn off the start-up sound on my Mac without installing this program: StartupSound.prefPane.

There was some question as to if it would work on a modern Intel MacBook. I had no trouble. I don’t know why this isn’t just built into the operating system, except Steve Jobs is an arrogant son of a bitch.

Ta-Da… Come steal my laptop.

The majority of laptops I’ve seen of travelers are Macs.

Because of the Jobs & Pixar connection Wall-E (in the distant future) starts up with that Ta-Da sound. I don’t want to hear that sound past 2012.

Steve Jobs you’ve been warned. Watch it, buddy.

-J Roland Kelly

A couple of years ago, on my way out to a new life in California I was standing by a overloaded Geo Metro smoking a cigarette at a rest-stop somewhere along I-40, watching a guy watering his dog, and to make a long story short: I struck-up a conversation with said guy, who was going to where a circus was bedded-down for the winter and I received an official invitation… to run away with the circus.

If you roam around long enough anything will happen.

I started a conversation with a guy in my Quito hotel that turned out to be a writer David Joshua Jennings, on assignment for a travel guide. We talked about teaching English abroad, he said he was meeting people for drinks later, invited me out, and that is where I met Quito screenwriter, filmmaker & musician Carolina Arroba.

I saw her little studio, listened to her new unreleased album, and read the screenplay for the film she is currently shooting. F*ck yeah. I’m not allowed to say anything about any of this, but I’m going to see if she will give me an interview, I’ll post it to this blog.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Carolina.

-J Roland Kelly

Above photo by Chris Falcony

Quito, Ecuador

 When I first got off the plane in Quito, I was exhausted. My cheap ticket from San Francisco ($550) was too Indiana Jones like, from SFO to LAX to Panama City to Quito. All of this was over night, and took 12 hours with layovers.

The flights themselves where not long enough to get comfortable, and I have a habit of getting good and exhausted before a trip even begins; it’s always been that way with me.

Maybe getting deliriously tired is my way of calming the nerves.

After all, what does it take a normal person to move to a foreign city with no connections?

So, there I am in the newly remodeled Quito airport trying to stand up straight and look okay for customs, and the first thing that I remember is that Quito is very high at an altitude of over 12,000 feet.

The air was thin, and I had been living almost at sea level in California.

No problems with customs. Ecuador offers a 90-day visa for US tourists. It’s my understanding that I can just cross the border and get another 90-day visa when the time comes. I guess I’ll find out in October.

I got my backpack, hid my cash, went outside to the smell of car exhaust (I’m getting less tolerate of these types of things and I think they use ¨dirty diesel¨ here), walked away from the airport, got a taxi, and started for the cheap side of town.

In the taxi, I realize how this routine is second nature to me.

Each time I put my backpack in a closet, I think never again. I even burned my passport once; then three months later spent 80 bucks to have it replaced for a trip to London.

This time things are different; my backpack hasn’t been dusted off since Western China in 2004 (excluding moving to California, which is it’s own country). In the down time, I’ve tried focusing on expressing myself in different artistic mediums but the backpack stays with me.

Now, I’m trying to bring art and travel together. It might be magic, it might be disastrous. I’ve never tried this combination before, but I figure others have made it work and I still have some youth to burn.

Back in the moving taxi from the Quito Airport, the driver says something into a CB radio that I don’t understand, which could be anything in Spanish ¨I’m leaving the airport, be back in twenty minutes¨ or ¨I’ve got the gringo, get ready,¨ just in case I calmly locked the three doors, leaving his door the only one unlocked.

At the first sign of trouble, I decide (and it seems totally rational at a time like this) I will kick this old man’s head off and take control of the taxi, but there never was a first sign of trouble, nothing bad ever really happens, and getting half crazy is half the fun of traveling.

I fell asleep in a five and a half dollar hotel room, woke up in the middle of the night, when nothing was open, went back to sleep, woke up in the afternoon and thought damn this place looks like San Francisco.

I had a good laugh; I didn’t pick up on that the last time I was here. It took me 12 hours to get to Quito from Mountain View, California.

How long does it take to get to San Francisco (North Beach) in accident laden rush hour traffic or public transit from Mountain View? I’ve been stuck in traffic for over three hours.

Commuting in the Bay Area, I will not miss.

Since the first night, things have been good. I am staying in the historic part of town (El Centro), which people just call the ¨Old Town.¨

It’s beautiful, and I found out they don’t allow cars into the old town on Sundays.

And even better, on the last Sunday of every month they close the main drag here from one end of the city to the other for every thing but bikes.

All of this has been reassuring, I was worried that since my last visit Quito might have fallen apart. There’s been a coup, multiple new presidents, etc. but costs are still low, crime is down, the things that needed to stay the same, stayed the same and things that needed to change, changed.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing is perfect, if I were half the man I were five years ago (slamming fist on table) I would take a power-washer to this place, who-ra.

- J Roland Kelly

Plus I can do a 45 in 35.

I´m here in Quito. I found a place for the month with free internet for $165. No problems with the visa. Don´t show up in Quito hung over as it is a very high city. Full report to come. J Roland

There’s a lot of talk about 3D films coming back. Over the weekend I went to see Journey to the Center of the Earth in Real D to see what all this noise was about.

The new 3D is going to be huge. I now know what all the noise is about; I was blown away. I always thought these were gimmick films and I didn’t bother to see one until just now.

But man, it was magic. I was like a kid. Take an unsuspecting woman to see one of these new 3D films; if the two of you haven’t seen one you will be bonded forever.

I have been wrapped up in film history films for too long. I’ve been watching French New Wave films as of late, and I couldn’t believe I let something like this pass.

The whole experience was fantastic. The glasses themselves fit over my real glasses, I forgot that I was wearing them. Everything on the screen seemed new again.

In terms of storytelling Journey to the Center of the Earth was not great, which is why you should see it. You don’t want a story getting in the way of wigging out on this new Real D.

Smoke in 3D; just imagine it.

There have been a number of animated stories in Real D, and Beowulf was also released in it, but I considered these children’s movies. I don’t see children’s movies because I’m an art snob, and there you have the reason that I’m only now getting floored by this.

I suspect that here are a number of people in this boat.

Sitting in the theater, watching this film, I realized that most of the standard continuity film edits no longer work in 3D. There was a time before Sergei Eisenstein, when one character looking at something and then the camera looking at that something, and the audience connecting the link between the two, didn’t exist.

How basic is that? Editing.

The train could be filmed pulling into the station and then what? Hitchcock would have still filmed the train going into the tunnel, the perv.

Anyway, when I was in the theater I had a feeling that something as basic and simple has yet to be done with 3D.

This will be huge. The previews for other films at the beginning of Journey to the Center of the Earth where also in 3D, there are a lot of these Read D films coming.

Go blow your mind, see if you are the genius who will come up with the new 3D Battleship Potemkin.

Here’s a tip. Get there early, so that you can sit directly in front of the screen (not off to the side). The effect is diminished as you move off to the side.

Even the freaking credits at the end in 3D were interesting. 

-J Roland Kelly

Read the local paper. Take a walk. But read the local paper. Check out this story from my current town of residence Mountain View, CA.

No car, no recourse ?Vacationer returns to find his car towed, auctioned and up for sale on Craigslist — by a tow company employee

Seeing this story makes me remember how much I despise tow truck drivers. Full disclosure. They’re dirty carnies.

I think getting a car towed is something that we all have in common. It’s happened to all of us, or one of our close friends. It seems to happen at the worst time.

It’s not something you can really protect yourself from because cars never get towed when they are blatantly parked illegally; it’s only on some trumped-up charge, and it’s the kind of thing that will burn in the back of our minds forever.

That’s a perfect audience for a story.

And yes, I had my car towed a couple of weeks ago. It cost $400 to get it back, and it was a hassle.

The car was stolen by the City of Mountain View when it was parked on the public street in front of my apartment for more than three days.

There is some code against this (22-1651-O). I’ve read it. It’s so badly written, every car in Mountain View, just in terms of math, breaks this law.

Someone should take Mountain View to court.

I bike commute during the week, so yeah it was parked. The real reason my car was “towed” was that some neighbor wanted my spot.

I regret that apartment complexes have worked out deals with towing companies to tow away the cars of friends that are visiting (also, happened to me) and that municipal governments have given letters of marque to these pirates to profit-share in the bounty.

There’s no semblance of legality about this.

So, what’s the story with these tow truck drivers? I think everyone wants to know.

I don’t think I’m the only person that would put a documentary about this on their netflix list, and certainly I would chuckle if some big-screen serial killer turned out to be tow truck driver.

To the gentleman in the news story: I’m sorry your car got stolen by carnival folk, but If it makes you feel any better I will buy the exclusive rights to your story for like $10. 

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I went to a screenwriting workshop taught by Terrel Seltzer who worked on the screenplay for Chan Is Missing. I was thinking about it. I dig this film. I like it because it is shot Dinosaur! style, and I like everything shot Dinosaur! style.

I think it’s an inspiration to all of us what you can do with a single camera and a good-looking city for a backdrop. Forget permits, just move to a city long enough to know how to get away with it.

With this film, and because it is low budget, you get to see real 1982 San Francisco.  No closed off streets, no one is holding the crowd back during shooting, none of that, just a small group of people with a camera trying not to get noticed in a larger group of people.

Also, the film has some significance for me. I first saw it on a 30 inch flat-screen monitor, when I thought 30 inch flat-screen monitors were unbelievable large. I had just moved to the Bay Area and I was living in a closet in San Mateo, and it was the first Indie San Francisco type film that I saw. 

The film was made by this guy.

-J Roland Kelly