Welcome to my new peeps. Or, new person if you wanna be a dick about it.

Hi there. Let me finish battling this robot and introduce myself.

Almost there. And, done.  Now, before I introduce myself, I want to thank everyone who helped me get www.mattgrim.com up and running where you can see my work.

Okay, let me introduce myself.

I am Matt Grim. I have five sisters and no off switch. I'm an avid people watcher, cinephile, superficial philosopher, occasional reader, amplified conversationalist, and writer.  The nickname "The Brotherless Grim" comes from having five sisters. Five sisters who won't date you, Nick Jones, so stop already. God I hate you. And love you.

                
Colleague = Comrade.
I think the measure of a man or a woman lies within how enjoyable they are to share a beer with.  For me, the best people are the ones who will stay up all night to perfect something, but can kick back every now and then and have a beer. And by "now and then," I mean weekly.  Basically, I love hanging out with ad people when we don't spend the whole time talking about the biz.  Or, I love hanging out with screenwriters when we don't spend the whole time gossiping about the biz.

My Colorful Past: My past is pretty wacky.  It ranges from being in a cult for two years as a kid to working as a beekeeper for a summer.  Yeah, there's a lot of great stories which lead to how I got here. But the fact is, I am here and I'm ready to go.

We can talk about everything else over lunch, or a jog, a climb, a snowboarding session, a live show, or whatever you feel up to doing.  See you there.

www.mattgrim.com

When I asked the Czechloslovokian whore for directions,

She must've assumed I wanted sex because she responded quickly and positively.  Once she figured out Brian, my cohort in traveling Europe, and I were lost and weren't looking for sex, she told us to Fich off.

Nice, she told us to fich off, not fuck off.  She must have thought we were German, not American. 

So there we were, lost in Prague without a clue as to how to get back in the direction opposite our forty minute bus ride.  We walked around and saw the coked out whores of Prague, the slums of the outlying projects, and basically everything else we didn't come here to see.

On the plus side, there weren't any tourists within eyesight. On the not so plus side, we were about to get stabbed and bleed out in the slums of Czechoslovakia. After an hour of wandering about and asking whore after whore for directions but getting only a cocked eyebrow from one as she asked "Do you both?" as she slowly unzipped her fanny pack to expose a multitude of condoms. Cheap, expired looking condoms.


"No thanks, we want to go to Prague." -Brian
"Fich off." -Czechoslovakian Prostitute.


I didn't take pictures because I didn't want to die. Sorry, use your imagination and pretend you're in a cobble stone ghetto. In your sandals, shorts, and rain jacket at 2 in the morning local time.

As it turns out, we went the wrong way. Big surprise.  We found a sweet woman who took pity on us and steered us in the right direction.  Fast forward an hour and we're in a tavern being served on by the rudest waitress in all of Prague.  Her blue eyes were venomous and I'm pretty sure her tongue was forked. But, the beer was fifty cents a litre so we put up with it and gave her a five cent tip, which she loved us for. 

I guess waiters and waitresses never get tips out there, big surprise.

So there you have it, the story of how Brian and I spent most of our first night in the slums Prague talking to whores and trying to get directions.  Next up is the story of how my foot got aids in Prague when my sandal broke and we still had a three mile walk ahead of us.

Stay tuned.

The Banksy Movie

It sounds awesome. I saw a preview before for it when I went to see "The Ghost Writer." It's all about the street art movement with artists like Banksy who create beautiful pieces illegally.

I'm gonna see it because it's all about a guy who tries to document the street art movement. He tries and fails miserably because he's never done a documentary. I love a guy with balls like that. My kinda guy.

Anyways, he becomes an internet celebrity and something completely different comes out of this project. Maybe the movie will suck, maybe it won't. At the very least, it's a way to give props to Banksy and everything he's done. So, I'm gonna pay my $10 to see it.

You should too.

Let's celebrate.

I hate you Brad Marshal.

FAT MATT

I'M USING CAPS TO DESCRIBE HOW EXCITING THIS IS TO ME.

FATMATT.COM

the xx

Ahh man, first off: don't use Blogger. It's the slow one of the blogging bunch, the final pick.  I was deep into a story about the xx, a band I love dearly because they make sweet love to my ears on a regular basis, and Blogger shut it down on me. I lost everything. 

So, I'm rewriting the bastard. Here we go.

Kevin, a good friend I road tripped the coast of California with, got me into the XX when we worked together in Chicago.  After putting them on heavy rotation for a few writing sessions, I fell in love.

I fell in love because the xx is an intimate trip.  It's gentle, subdued, but loaded with style.  This works perfectly for me because when I write, the background music has to be raw and sedated. Think ambient electronics or chilled out live recordings.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2jmPoUK58s)

Sigur Ros live at the Icelandic Opera House is my default, they have such a peaceful sound (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWR-jJ3v1pk&feature=related) followed closely by Radiohead's live recordings.

Here, listen to the live piano version of "Like Spinning Plates by" Radiohead. Listen close and you can hear Tom Bjork hypnotize thousands using only his vocals, 88 keys, and a few englishmen.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utcsErz3hjk&feature=related)

Back to the xx.  I'm hot for this band for two reasons: percussion and vocals.
The percussion feels as smooth as water babbling over skeletal remains of fallen climbers in a mountain stream in the Austrian Alps.

The vocals feel naked. intimate. exposed.

Vocalists Tomy Madley Croft and Oliver sim make a lifetime of intimacy be felt with every shared note they sing, hum, and speak.  The tension between the magnetism of their voices and the meticulous percussion is gratifying. On every note.

It's a beautiful relationship they let us be part of. Intimate like when Bon Iver went deep into the Northern woods of Wisconsin to find his soul, then came back with this:  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62i9Sodwp5o)

At the end of the day, I say the xx is a talented group of emo hipsters who are talented enough to be emo hipsters for a living. Gifted bastards.

This Justin: The Brocast

For the past two days, I've spent more time than I should on this podcast idea.  I think it's gonna be a smashing failure and I'm pumped to orchestrate it.

The running joke behind this is we're not meeting in a room. We're meeting through a ghetto conference call. I'm using skype, g chat, and my iPhone to make this a disjointed attempt at a conversation.  Basically, I'm forcing my best friends from Germany to have an awkward conversation with each other.  And Brian gets it the worst because he's always on the iPhone talking and listening through the speakerphone.  Ouch.

The Deustch Bags are back in action!

This Justin: The Brocast