Tag Archives: molly lewis

the obligatory w00tstock post

Everything I could possibly say about w00tstock has already been said by Paul and Storm, who made a lovely list, and Molly, who made a comic that captures exactly how I felt the whole time we did our shows.

I loved feeling the terror and exhilaration of trying something totally new (The Trade, with music) that was raw and unrehearsed enough to allow for surprises every night.

I loved how totally geeked out we all were to be working with each other, too. I mean, I knew it would be cool to meet Adam Savage – the guy's a freakin' genius, after all – but I was unprepared for how completely and utterly cool, kind, and enthusiastic he was. And his 100 wishes are wonderful, especially that he, like I, wishes for his children to have careers that they love.

I loved feeling like we were creating something unique and special, that people would be talking about long after it was finished.

I loved how much fun we had every night, even though I was exhausted down to my bones by the time we finished our last show Wednesday night (actually, Thursday morning).

I loved how wonderful the audiences were at all the shows. Geeks truly are the best crowd, because even when they heckle us (I'm looking at you, Los Angeles front row) it was done with enthusiasm and love. Yes, even the hecklers were, in their own way, supportive.

I loved that we released the entire show under a Creative Commons license, so anyone who wanted to could record and share the show online. There are tons of videos at YouTube and pictures at Flickr, as a result. 

I love that I can blockquote myself right now:

someone recorded all of w00tstock 1.1 from Los Angeles, and uploaded it. It's an audience recording, so you can pretend you are actually sitting at Largo next to the guy who recorded it! If it's the guy I think it was, he had a magnificent pimp hat on. If it's not … well, now you know that there was a guy at w00tstock in LA with a magnificent pimp hat, and you have yet another reason to wish you were there, sukka.

>I love that that recording was done on a freakin' iPhone, and it sounds fantastic.

I saw a post this morning that pretty faithfully recreates the show in Los Angeles from YouTube videos, so rather than try to duplicate that for all three shows, I thought I'd share a couple of my personal highlights, in video form:

First up, a wonderful compilation … almost a montage … from the LA show:

Here I am, recreating the moment when Luke Skywalker saw the smoking hulks of his aunt and uncle. This probably isn't as funny out of context, but if you were at the show, you'll know why I was so amused by this. By the way, the flapping hair in the wind was all Molly's idea, and it killed at all three shows.

Kid Beyond absolutely blew my mind when he performed Wandering Star by Portishead … using only his voice to create loops. If you think this is incredible on video (and it is) you should see him perform live, especially if he brings his video mashups.

Finally, everything Molly did was simply brilliant, and her cover of Toxic is sensational, but I just adore her song about breaking up with Wikipedia:

There's more, of course. Paul and Storm got a lovely pair of, um, undergarments thrown at them in Los Angeles. The acoustic Date My Avatar was great. Jeff Lewis did comedy as Vork, and completely killed. Kasper Hauser made me laugh so hard at the 1.0 show I bruised my medulla oblongata. I've known Chris and Mike forever, but I'd never actually seen them perform as Hard 'n Phirm in person until the Los Angeles show, and I wish I hadn't waited so long to enjoy the majestic wonder of El Corazon live. Josh Cagan seemed a little bemused that we'd added him to the show, but after seeing what he did to just 30 seconds of Roger Corman's Fantastic Four craptacular, I hope he'll come with us for 2.0. And, oh yes, three different versions of The Captain's Wife's Lament, each longer and more ARRRRRRRRRtful than the last. Those two videos (I can't find a video from 1.0 at the moment), do a great job of capturing how much fun we all had together.

When Paul and I talked about w00tstock a million years (or a couple months) ago, we hoped that it would be successful enough to justify the time we would need to put into creating it, we hoped we'd have fun working together, and we really hoped we'd draw enough people to make it worth doing future w00tstocks.

I don't think we ever seriously worried about having fun together, but I was very worried about actually drawing an audience. When we sold out two shows in San Franciso, and only had 20 or so seats left vacant in Los Angeles – where it is notoriously difficult to get people to come out to see shows – we knew that in the future, there will be w00tstock v2.x.

I want to thank everyone who was in the show, and especially everyone who came to watch us, for making the three days of w00tstock so memorable and wonderful. I can't wait to do it again.