Hello Madrid!

ON'D has left the Jersey Shore. We had a packed outdoor screening where John Waters was in attendance. Curious neighbors watched from their windows as the Captain's farts made the debut en español. The Rizoma Festival is small, truly independent and insanely fun. Here I am with director Dylan Mendoza O'Neil, talking about the festival, the food and the wine.


Here (below) you see (left to right) director Ari Gold who screened his film "Adventures of Power" at the festival, with Gabriela Marti, the founder of Rizoma Festival, Sir John Waters, Dylan, and Tosso Hettinger, composer for ON'D.


We had many amazing meals. On the day of our screening, I got an email inviting us to lunch with John Waters, Pedro Almodovar, and Spanish TV and music stars Alaska and Mario.




Oh, Big Blast, show me a sign... all over Madrid, there were mannequins hanging out.

Species Feces

Boy have we been busy. Up to all sorts of things - some fun and some no fucking fun at all.. but here on the ON'D Express, we strive to satisfy your cravings for fun and we leave the shit behind. We do, however, want to stress that there is good shit and bad shit, and we definitely support and nurture the good shit..
First off, some of us crossed over the volcano, and visited the fatherland. Now we all know that the Germans love themselves some good 'ol dirty shit, so we figured, let's do a little screening for our friends and family. We got to use the basement of a great spot Annapam and projected our little mutant picture for a small crowd in the intimate space which is something like 500 years old. I am almost certain we showed the most fucked up shit that the space has ever seen. It was tons of fun, and ON'D picked up a bunch of new fans. Guten Tag, ya'all.

***

We returned to Brooklyn and hit the ground running. Tosso (the master behind the soundtrack of ON'D) had a pretty fancy pants gig with his band, Grupo Irék last week - they played at the Plaza Hotel for Sting and Trudy Styler's Rainforest Alliance. It was a dinner / live auction which followed a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall with Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Lady Gaga, Debbie Harry, Shirley Bassey, Mary J Blige... I was rubbing elbows with Christopher Walken and Bette Middler. It was fucking fun.

***

Quite unexpectedly I got a visit from my old friend Curtis Brown and his family yesterday and we had a lovely breakfast in our garden. The visit was short and he had to hit the road and head back north after only a few hours. I gave him the gift that keeps on giving. The best game ever for road trips. The best pastime for people of all ages. A simple game that I came up with - it is something that I call "Species Feces" and the rules are quite simple. Come up with a poop that rhymes with the animal's name from whence it came. I will give you a few freebies and I hope that you will come up with many more..
Here are the obvious ones for beginners:
Cat Shat
Dog Log
Bird Turd
I got a text message at 2a.m. some months ago from the West Coast contingent with two simple words:
Lemur Steamer
And Curtis, the Harvard man, emailed me this afternoon, just a day after our visit, with a few gems:
Budgie Fudgie
Viper Diaper
Gorilla Flotilla
Now believe me, I have lots more of these, but I am going to leave some for you... So let the creative juices start flowing.

All about Otis Regrets : Tosso Hettinger

Brooklyn based composer, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist TOSSO HETTINGER was born in Augsburg, Germany. Since the mid-nineties he has been performing, writing and recording music with some of NYC's best jazz, funk and underground musicians.
Hettinger performs regularly with the Cuban band Grupo Irék and the singer and percussionist from his band are also featured on the soundtrack for Otis N' Dwayne. He formed Otis Regrets when he began recording the music for Otis N' Dwayne with his wife, Anne Bernstein.
Otis Regrets: Music for Otis N' Dwayne is Hettinger's second film project- he recorded several songs on the upcoming feature Mango Tango. Below is footage from a recent performance with his band, Grupo Irék.

songs for the captain

The Captain sure is a special guy. He is quite manly, has a great moustache and his friends love him a lot. So I thought, let's dig up some songs for him. Perhaps these weren't all written for The Captain specifically...



This Styx classic is surely one of your favorite sing alongs. Plus, it offers a great opportunity to show off your air drum skills. The energy level rises, the tension mounts... "come sail away, come sail away, come sale away with me..."



Of course, we have to include The Captain and Tennille in this collection. "Do that to me one more time..." 'nuff said.



Before you head off into the sunset, let me share one more thing. In case you haven't seen it yet, here is a video by yours truly of "Love Song for Captain" which was written for and inspired by The Captain.

Tosso the doodler

Tosso likes to doodle. He doodles all over the place. He converts window envelopes into wide mouthed monsters. Every magazine cover in our place has been improved by his inking. A few years ago, his mom dug up some of his old doodles. I think that when I was bored in class, I obsessed about Duran Duran... Anyway, here are two of my favorite examples of his active imagination at work - from way back when.

as one journey ends, another begins

For me, the journey began something like twelve years ago. My friend Curtis Brown was visiting me in Brooklyn and he brought along a copy this movie he was working on... This was back in the days of VHS. A group of about ten or so friends gathered at my D.U.M.B.O loft (my rent at the time was $325.00 a month) to watch Otis N' Dwayne. I, for one, was certainly not prepared for the hours that followed. The movie was mashed together with "scene missing" flashing on the screen every few minutes. I had never watched a film-work in progress before and thought that this was all part of the crazy style of the movie. Anyway, it was more like a collage - a series of images and ideas held together with crazy glue. I really did not understand anything as I watched it. But I didn't care. It was visually arresting and I knew that I wanted to know more and would watch it again some day hopefully.
Fast forward some eleven or so years... Otis N' Dwayne director/producer /co-screenwriter Dylan O'Neil is visiting NYC and drops by a BBQ I am hosting in my back yard with his childhood friend and my old friend Curtis. I start telling everyone about how the two of them made this amazing movie... Naturally, I asked when they planned on finishing the film - seeing as it had been in production for over a decade already. Dylan asked my musician husband Tosso if he wanted to do the soundtrack for the movie and the collaboration was born. Soon after, I started writing songs with Tosso, recording vocals and cheesy keyboards... Over the past year, we created an entire soundtrack of original songs (except for one cover) and scored the movie as well. I never expected to be doing any of this.
We are putting the finishing touches on our baby right now, cleaning up the sound, pumping steroids into it. Soon, we will begin applying to film festivals and raising the funds we need to help finish what Dylan and Curtis started so many years ago.
Welcome to the Otis N' Dwayne blog. We hope you enjoy the ride.