This is the land of the Weird Beards

Shrouded in a blue-green haze, Brian Skidmore was strumming his ukulele and describing a phone call he received from the President of the United States.

“He just called to ask if I could stop playing the ukulele, so he could continue his war campaign freely,” the 36-year-old Skidmore shouted to a packed Oasis Pub in New London.

He then launched into the chorus of “Patriot Act:” “No way man! I’m a robot, but not your robot,” leading the band – and a good portion of the audience – with the boyish zeal of a punk rock Willie Wonka.

It’s a safe bet that Skidmore never actually received a phone call from the White House, but with Skidmore and his band, the Weird Beards, it sometimes can be difficult to define the boundary between fantasy and reality. The Weird Beards are adept at blurring the lines – between musical genres, between individual songs and even between who is and isn’t in the band.

Along with Skidmore, the core band includes bassist Jake Kaeser, acoustic guitarist Jay Silva, drummer Tim Donnel and trombonist Pango – but the actual membership roles vary significantly. Members range in age from 27 to 37 years old, with the exception of Kaeser, who isn’t saying how many years he has on the rest of the group. Weekly rehearsals cultivate an all-are-welcome atmosphere that spills over into the live shows, where as many as 12 Beards might end up onstage.

“It’s a tribe,” says Donnel.

“It’s not like there’s a limit,” says Silva.

Skidmore adds, “I just want to play music with my friends.”

Read the full story here: www.theday.com/article/20120504/ENT10/305049977

 

Trainer sees past cerebral palsy

When Sarah Best left home for college, she had never caught a ball.

Born with cerebral palsy, Best had always had difficulty with simple physical tasks that were easy for other children. The tight muscles that are a common symptom of her condition can benefit from regular exercise, but Best had never found a trainer who could adapt a program to her disability. During her sophomore year at Mitchell College in New London, she finally found someone who could help.

Her mother, Ellen Best, recalls a moment in the kitchen of their Pound Ridge, N.Y., home during that academic year. “She wanted something I had and I said, ‘Here, catch it,’ and she caught it and we were like, ‘Whoa!’” Read the full story here.

I usually work in team with a writer, or solo on a video-only project. This started as a video only project, but the story generated enough interest in the newsroom that they asked me to write as well. It was a good lesson in storytelling for two different platforms. With video, I’m always trying economize my interviews, getting the basics of the story so I can devote most of my time to shooting and telling the story visually.  This approach makes it easier to edit a video quickly, but makes things difficult when it comes to writing. I finished the video first, then wrote a quick lead and outline for the text story. When I sat down to do the actual writing, I discovered that there were a good number of specific details I was missing.

When a reporter is conducting an interview for print, they often go back and ask lots of specific, detail-oriented questions. The subjects answers can help enrich a written story, but are generally useless in a video interview since they are short and often without context. When I was conducted the interviews, I didn’t know I would be writing a story as well, so I ended up having to go back for a few details via email.

New London poses for a ‘Big Picture’

Shot with two still cameras and two video cameras with the help of my co-worker Jenna Cho. I conceived this idea thinking back to last years event where the photographer stood on a balcony across the street. I arrived to find he would be shooting from a ladder on the plaza, which essentially relegated Jenna to standing with a HV-30 in one hand and using her other hand to steady an overextended tripod.

NL students and police take on K2 and Spice

I guess living in a suburban neighborhood makes me naive. Before reading some stories in our paper, I have no idea that convenience stores could sell synthetic marijuana substitutes and the glass pipes and bongs for smoking them. It was cool to find out that some local high school students cared enough to take some action.

Song Spinner: Gone for Good

One of my favorite responses ever to an interview question: Reporter Rick Koster asked the bassist if the tone and content of the songwriter’s lyrics affected the way he played the song, to which he responded “I still don’t know what the lyrics are.”

Kris Dunn career highlights

Assembling highlights for one player from four years of game tape was not an easy task, but I managed to pull this video off in two days of work.

Basketball unifies Montville students