Jonathan Brown » Culture

Day at Typhoon Lagoon

Jonathan Brown — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 22:13:56 +0000

Alex and I went to Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon for the day. I thought it was an excellent opportunity to put iPhone 4’s new cameras, video quality and iMovie for iPhone through its paces. The entire movie was produced on the iPhone 4. Not bad…for a ::cough::phone::cough.

No antennas were harmed during the production of this movie.

Posted from my YouTube account.

Ladies and Gentleman… The Bartles!

Jonathan Brown — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:35:12 +0000

Each year on Christmas day my family gathers in the recording studio to record a Beatles song with intentions to reproduce the instrumentation, sounds and performances as closely as our talents allow. This year, we’re releasing our first album recorded between December 1998 and December 2008. We called it Crappy Road. Check out The Bartles!

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My New Guitar

Jonathan Brown — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:22:14 +0000

My First Guitar - Chiquita Travel

Believe it or not, I’ve been trying to play the guitar since I was six years old. After a few years of playing old school rock band—a baseball bat for a guitar and lunch boxes and dinner trays for drums (pots and pans are so cliché)—my older brother and I had perhaps the most awesome (early) Christmas ever. I received a Chiquita travel guitar, red, very much like the picture to the right—and equally as awesome as the one Michael J. Fox used to blow up Doc’s massive speaker in Back to the Future—and my brother got a practice pad drum kit. And we started our second band, or the first with real instruments, which ever way you want to look at it.

Fast forward twenty-six years…now I run an I.T. department and my brother still beats on pots and pans (literally) and anything else that makes a sound when you hit it, including real drums. And he gets paid! That’s crazy, right? I mean, people actually fly him around so he can play drums for an hour or so. Get a job, man!

Over the last twenty-six years I’ve owned quite a few crappy guitars. I’ve had a Silvertone acoustic (my Dad’s old guitar), Fender Squire II, Yamaha acoustic, Yamaha nylon string classical and an electric Epiphone Special. All of them equally tawdry, inferior touch and sound, but good enough for me to barrel my way through fake books and what not to amuse myself.

My Gibson ES-137c

I’ve always wanted that one good guitar. A guitar that excites me, that stares me down and messes with my head. A guitar that I can’t put down. A guitar technically well-built with good intonation, electronics that don’t flake out, nice action and a unique warm sound. A guitar that will make me want to practice scales!

After a little inspiration (a viewing of It Might Get Loud), I decided now was the time to go get myself a real guitar. My dream guitar is a Gibson ES-335, but even used they are still very expensive and more than I’m willing to pay for a hobby. I searched local guitar stores for other semi-hollow bodies that fit my budget.

My older brother found my next guitar at a local shop. I’m not going to mention the name, because quite frankly, I think they really suck. He SMS’d me a picture and price, so I researched the model and put it in the back of my head. I continued to research other guitars.

Then last Friday evening, after dinner, I visited the guitar shop to see if the guitar my brother found was still there. It was, so I asked to take a closer look. I plugged into a Fender Blues DeVille and began noodling. I was sold. The guitar felt really good in my hands. It had great action and a big silky warm blues sound. After thirty minutes of the worst guitar-store riffing you’ll ever hear, I bought it.

It’s a 2003 Gibson ES-137 Classic. Lisa asked me if I was going to name it. The first name that came to my mind was Maud because it has a big fat butt just like the elephant Alex and I saw at the zoo earlier in the day. But really, who names their guitar these days? That’s cheeky.

The Beatles Let It Be Album

Jonathan Brown — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:33:17 +0000

I picked up the latest addition to my Beatles record collection this morning.

Posted from my Flickr account.

Summer Camp to St. Augustine

Jonathan Brown — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:05:18 +0000

I accompanied Alexandra and her summer camp to St. Augustine today. Alex, her friend, Nico, and I drove separately following the bus up to St. Augustine. Once we arrived, we were on our own. We visited Castillo de San Marcos (The Fort), walked down St. George Street, ate three meals (plus cotton candy) and finished our day at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum. It was super hot and being in The Fort was what I imagine a turkey feels like in an oven. All in all, a good time. My favorite moment? At lunch (technically our second lunch in two hours) when Nico decided that the 8 oz. New York Strip steak with two sides special was “calling his name.”

Social Ghost, 1/30/09, The Social

Jonathan Brown — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:06:17 +0000

Photographs from the Social Ghost show on January 30, 2009. Most of these were taken by Lisa.

Toy Bike

Jonathan Brown — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:55:28 +0000

Fooling around with the iPhone camera and free apps. This was taken with Vint Shift, an application that simulates tilt-shift photography.

Posted from my Flickr account.

Iconic Wrigley Field

Jonathan Brown — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:20:56 +0000

Posted from my Flickr account.

Harry Caray!

Jonathan Brown — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:14:58 +0000

Posted from my Flickr account.

Alex in Go Fish!

Jonathan Brown — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:45:41 +0000

On May 23, 2009, Alexandra starred in her first play as “Mako” the shark in the NextGenKids.com production of Go Fish. This is a group of kids in grades K through 2nd. It was a very cute show and, obviously, we were very proud of Alex. I created six separate videos for each musical number. Read through to see all six parts. Enjoy!