Saturday, October 18, 2014

Behind the Scenes of the Scene: Why Visit California? This anecdote & short film show 1 top reason!

Pulled out of Pittsburgh and was workin' on a TBone over Albuquerque on a jet to the promise land. Evan Edelist picked me up in San Diego and we sawRusted Root at the House of Blues San Diego #GasLampDistrict ... truckin' up Rt 1 stopped to see Pam Hodor Stroffolino in Laguna Beach where we bought shoes for me to send to Julia Allison which I ended-up doing chilling in a comp'd pool cottage at Chateau Marmont #SunsetGate #WeHo (but really only trying to get the attention of JA's friend Mary Rambin) after Rusted Root's show at House of Blues Sunset Strip & staying up in West lake Village where the scenes for this Behind the Scenes of the Scene in L.A. take place = RR Suspicious Minds & Send Me on My Way live clips w/ fun crowd, backstage dressing rooms & VIP after show party w/ Michael Glabicki Liz Berlin Patrick Norman + footage at Hollywood Emmy Guy home w/ Liz and my Chateau Marmont writing areas 2007 and not to be mistaken with 2008 stay where I met the famous & influential cinema artist actor/director Jim Sheridan at Chateau Marmont & I managed to get him on RR's guest list for the HOB Sunset show as Jim's daughter fabulously started singing Send Me On My Way when I invited them --- Jim & I came together over my poolside reading of The Living Theatre: Art, Exile & Outrage - that being what I told Bill Siddon's backstage (the Siddons who managed The Doors and M. Glabicki) when he asked how I hooked-up w/ Glabicki's favorite director (which was true and I also shared with Siddons how that book stated that Jim Morrison wrote a check for $2, 500.00 to help the Living Theatre keep on keeping on as Bill acknowledged Jim's fascination with it) ... funny recalling Jim Sheridan poolside on the phone w/ The Edge and talking re: project with Bono and he mistakenly grabbed my white tee shirt similar to the one he had (i wrote a poem about it: "Jim Sheridan stole my tee shirt") ... any way, enjoy my short film #OnTheRoadAgain
Beginning of Suspicious Minds and the winding down of Send Me On My Way "live" at the House of Blues on the SunsetStrip. .. And backstage footage with Michae...
YOUTUBE.COM

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Why I Wander, Dear _ a new bluegrass poem/lyric _ "Happy Halloween Birthday Dear Tiffany"

Why I wonder, dear,
What it'd been for you
to have been my wife
Why am I wondering
if we coulda made a life
Maybe that's why I wander
thru the honky tonk neon lights
Still think'n, still sittin' & drink'n
When's it gonna work out all right
I remember that big storm in South Carolina
We held each other under some shelter so tight
And the one night we didn't want to say goodnite
And now seeing two people holding hands
Walking down along where waves meet the sand
I go back to that walk on the beach to your daddy's pool
Among all those big giant homes and tall palms & pines
Guess why I'm still wondering if you woulda been my wife
Why I wonder, dear, if we would've made it all right
The colors run on the leaves like when you left for University
I sent those Lauren dresses to you at your Athens, GA sorority
I wouldn't leave the big city and you were in your Southern Living
Yeah, I still have that picture and read that article like it was yesterday
Oh, What could've been me or us I guess why I wander, dear . ..

Fall, October 2014
"Happy Halloween Birthday Dear Tiffany" (title 2)
"Why I Wander, Dear" (title 1)
by john alan conte jr
mystrawhat.com  & the new everyday media

Me Age 2 & Some Girl in Puerto Rico at a Luxury Resort Who Picked-Me-Up


Thursday, October 9, 2014

Move Away (a new poem/lyrics by john alan conte jr. & mystrawhat.com)

Move Away
When the lies are so see thru
New ones pile up with shifting
Sands in time moving away
From me so true now realizing
I get to go back to being me
And you're nothing but stuck
In the muck being you
And I'm happy I'm me cause
It would sure suck being you
Best of the Roses (but not rose colored glasses, mystrawhat.com
10/8/14 4:45pm

Monday, September 22, 2014

Domestic Violence in NFL + across the meadow: behind the curtain



On Monday, September 22, 2014 8:22 AM, John Conte Jr <mosshead7@yahoo.com> wrote:


This is the view from my back porch where I enjoy playing acoustic 6 string guitar and spending time with my wife & dog. Taken Sunday at sunset.
Behind the curtain across the meadow on Myrtle Lane in Edgeworth Saturday a 48 year old man attacked his wife with the kids in the house and then the Swat team and his suicide with a bunch of guns in the home.
Where are our priorities for the value of life, each other and what is moral, what is criminal, what is suspicious, what should be investigated, what is warranted for charges, what resources should be deployed for prevention?

mystrawhat.com


                                         Edgeworth, PA September 21, 2014

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

an early Christmas



Merry, merry, merry Christmas

It's Christmas in my heart

Merry, merry, merry Christmas

I hope all year
I play the part

Merry Christmas baby

This song is living in my heart

Merry, merry, merry Christmas

You're my holiday candle in the cold wintry dark

Merry Christmas, baby,
 and on New Year's Eve
you're the one
I'm kissing for a brand new start

Merry, merry, merry Christmas
3x

This song is living in my heart

Merry, merry, merry Christmas
Merry Christmas baby
Merry, merry, merry Christmas





Good Wishes, John A. Conte Jr.
mystrawhat.com
&
the new everyday media

(so maybe soon I'll find myself with a rented mcmansion in a gated community for a week with nothing to do but hang out by the pool and hot tub with the dog and a Fender Strat and an MacBookAir with Garage Band & maybe some sleigh bells to record this song for my wife Deanna from her everyday Joe 6pack husband for an early Christmas present where I email her the YouTube link with this song on her December bday?)



Deanna Conte Port Royal Plantation Planters Row Hilton Head Island, S.C. 1998
I had been going to this home here every year since I was 12 in 1982 and I used to daydream at the pool on the beach how when I was older I'd drive in from somewhere cool in a fancy car and have a good respectable wife and we'd visit with the family but we'd be staying on our own at the South Beach Marina Inn in Sea Pines Plantation near the Salty Dog and Calibogue Sound where my Uncle Tony & Aunt Jo Jo lived.
So this was pretty cool that in 1998 I was at the World Headquarters of
The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta doing business and  I had rented a Mustang convertible and my wife and I stopped in to see the family on Planters Row in Port Royal before heading on down the road to our place I booked at the South Beach Marina Inn 1998 (been married a year) 


Monday, September 8, 2014

Rusted Root "live" L.A. House of Blues SunsetStrip 7 full songs from photo pit + special bonus ...

7 links to mystrawhat.com productions YouTube page New Everyday Media where there are full video clips / songs listed here-there I recorded in photo pit at L.A. House of Blues SunsetStrip 2007
+ some photos here I'd taken there & mementos from then 
(just click on youtube links listed for each full song)
Michael Glabicki '07 john conte mystrawhat.com productions L.A. HOB
1.     
     everyone got off. ..filmed an extended Rusted Root "Ecstasy" on Sunset Strip in House of Blues photo pit #WeHo July2007 = a worldly, spacey, bluesy, jammy version. ..So glad to have had the opportunity be-ing there in California hanging with you '06, '07 & '08 #roadtrip #tour 


2.     


Ffeaturing DAVY KNOWLES on lead guitar w/ Rusted Root = 
filmed "Dance in the Middle" Rusted Root on #SunsetStrip in House of Blues photo pit #WeHo Los Angeles Times Relix Magazine Rolling Stone ... glad I was there by happenstance filming & successfully captured Davy Knowles pure ecstatic joy on stage here & well rather as RR's Patrick Norman says, "a brilliant English blues guitar player. And great guyy too." 
#DanceintheMiddle
"Dance in the Middle" Rusted Root
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbJPcL1bNmw

3.     
 ffilmed Animals Love Touch Rusted Root on Sunset Strip in House of Blues photo pit #WeHo July2007
Animals Love Touch Rusted Root  

                                    Liz Berlin '07 john conte mystrawhat.com productions L.A. HOB
4.     
f    
    filmed Stereo Rodeo Rusted Root on Sunset Strip in House of Blues photo pit#WeHo What a pretty & interesting song this is ... So glad to have had the opportunity be-ing there in California hanging with you 
'06, '07 & '08 
#roadtrip #tour  Dirk Miller Preach Freedom Patrick NormanLiz Berlin Michael Glabicki

Stereo Rodeo Rusted Root

                           Michael Glabicki '07 john conte mystrawhat.com productions L.A. HOB
5.     

f  
    filmed Scattered Rusted Root on Sunset Strip in House of Blues photo pit#WeHo 
Can feel the California King Snakes out in the California desert during this one .... 
Michael Glabicki & Patrick Norman of Rusted Root & the loving participatory L.A. crowd

Scattered Rusted Root
6.       
    
  filmed Cat Turned Blue / Superstitious Rusted Root #SunsetStrip in House of Blues photo pit #WeHo

                                  Liz Berlin '07 john conte mystrawhat.com productions L.A. HOB
7.     

      
   filmed this L.A. Rusted Root "VooDoo" on the Sunset Strip in the House of Blues photo pit #WeHo 
#voodoo 
w/ Preach Freedom 






in addition to these fine video clips / songs i filmed at L.A. House of Blues on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California I am working on editing special bonus "all access" backstage dressing rooms, VIP aftershow party + beyond that "all accces" never before seen on-the-road in L.A. footage





Best of the Roses,
john a. conte` jr.
mystrawhat.com
&
the new everyday media

Monday, August 18, 2014

Intercession: mystrawhat.com productions short handheld film fieldtrip by John Alan Conte Jr


A groundskeeper told me I could enter the tomb of the Prince-Priest Father Gallitzin and place my hands on the box that contains his body and say a prayer. Something compelled me to visit this official Vatican approved Basilica of St. Michael the Arch Angel which the Prince-Priest Father Gallitzin founded in pioneer Pennsylvania. It drew me like a magnet. I was curious to see the scope and scale of the land & property the Prince-Priest Father Gallitzin whom my private Catholic grade school I attended from K-8 was all about and then and capture and the physicality of time & space here and the body, mind, spirit & soul. For this meager effort as if a boy on a field trip doing an iMovie for his mother I believe a was granted intercession 
August 15, 2014
Best of the Roses, John
mystrawhat.com & the new everyday media

 JohnConte Aug 2014  photo credit Brian Franks AE, House 15143 taken at Industry in Lawrenceville (acorss the bridge from Millvale)
                         

Intercession 
mystrawhat.com productions short handheld film fieldtrip by John Alan Conte Jr

The composers appropriately applied are Julius Rontgen and Beethoven.

(watch here on my New Everyday Media YouTube channel)

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Heinz Hall: my Bill Maher + Butcher & Rye review #summer2014

Heinz Hall: my Bill Maher + Butcher & Rye review #summer2014

                    video = Heinz Hall: my Bill Maher + Butcher & Rye review #summer2014


                                               SEE note from Georgetown #DC #summer2014



                                                           COMING SOON to mystrawhat.com ...
                                         In This Place: A Book of the Nineties by John Alan Conte` Jr.

(my 1st book of poems published in 1992. this book opened a lot of doors for me on many different levels. i recall my father reading the poems i had written & collected before he agreed to helping me publish and he thoughtfully said, "Johnny, you are either a genius or insane. ..because i don't understand this." However, thankfully & gratefully my father's acquaintance who was Chair of Department of Communications at the University of Pittsburgh, Ted Windt, having published and teaching courses on Presidential Rhetoric was strongly supportive of me not only towards my father but making connections for me with those poets & cast of characters of the Beat Generation. They got it.

I intuitively knew mainstream consumption was not ready for such new serious poetry and I kept along a grass roots path of doing random poetry readings across the country and in pockets of Milwaukee and used these poems as lyrics = Was doing a gig with Deerfield Beach's house punk band Post Face and I did a couple songs with them as a singer in Little Haiti Miami area in front of a fantastic crowd
But yeah I lost a game of pool to a local in which I had to do push-ups.
Push ups with the pool stick on the floor my nose had to touch.
#goodtimes 
mystrawhat.com
&
the new everyday media)

                                                              me: 1989


   

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Slow Country Love

Slow Country Love.

I saw you gettin' up in your boyfriends truck
And I was wondering would you like to
 forget about your plans
Roll those tinted windows down 
Grab a beer with our toes in some sand looking at cool waters 
I'll lose my tie - say goodbye to your boyfriend he'll be there when you get home - believe me - not much hotter
I'll call you Courtney & you call me, hey man, & remember
today is the only day there is for now until tomorrow & that's 
what we make of it with any slow country love that's left out there 

Written on the spot in the parking lot 3rd person point of view daydreaming I was RYan Adams.
mystrawhat.com
& the new everyday media
                                                                  #summertime

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Bill Murray Crashes Billy Gardell's Kennywood Days _(short film title "Caddying for The Lama")

Bill Murray Crashes Billy Gardell's Kennywood Days _(short film title "Caddying for The Lama")

Last summer I worked on a short story published on my blog that received a decent amount of traffic about a giant rubber duck in the 3 Rivers (confluence) of Pittsburgh, Billy Gardell (star of Mike & Molly), Wiz Khalifa (just busted in San Antonio, TX for weed just like Willie Nelson was and has his own strain of marijuana named after him), and the mayor of Pittsburgh (#ThereIsPedutoAgain).

Well given that the New Yorker has a current piece in its Culture Desk section describing Bill Murray as an "internet jester" as he magically appears across the country and in a world of the web desperate for clicks, unique views & #newmediabuzz he inserts himself in everyday occurrences people post on social media sites and makes these things extra special = I am having a little fun writing this piece.
#BillMurray Crashes Billy Gardell's #KennywoodDays _(short film titled "Caddying for The Lama" promises to be funny)

Bill Murray is even more famous for this latest brilliant intuitive use of new media and everybody who has enjoyed "Where's Waldo?!" is anticipating where this internet jester new media star will pop up next!



Gardell who reigns from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania  is proud to have such blue collar rusted roots from the big Steel City whose football team the Pittsburgh Steelers have won more Super Bowls than any other team in the NFL and for the hit star of Chuck Lorre's CBS Primetime Show Mike & Molly to have his DVE Morning Show buddies at WDVE Pittsburgh and 50 carefully selected "yinzers" from the loyally faithful WDVE audience have their own Kennywood Days at the iconic Kennywood Amuzement Park in Pittsburgh = is like Billy Gardell's Super Bowl being played in front of his own hometown crowd in his hometown city.

But Gardell is actually nervous this #newmedia Bill Murray may upstage him by actually showing up at Kennywood Park July 11th 2014 and photo-bomb him during Billy's big photo-op in the park with the average everyday DVE listener.


"Look O'Connell, this is how you handle it, OK. When you meet with Murray let him see you're relaxed, not nervous, not intimidated because if he senses that we'er done. Done! You hear me, O'Connell!! You know how important this is to me, right?! OK, so just play a Belushi and ask if you can order room service and you deliver what I told and just as the room service arrives with its armies of wait staff and trays you finish my message and get up and bolt out the door like you're Dave Matthews who just took a shady shit on Rusted Root's tour bus and your leg of the tour with them has ended.

Now let's go over it one more time. Look Mr. Murray here's what Billy wants me to relay, ""You are hilarious with those gopher faces & killed it in What About Bob but don't make this photo-bomb during my Kennywood Days your Rushmore. Listen, Pittsburgh is my city. My city! For Father's Day I got 4 new Steeler tee shirts & 4 pair of sweat pants and I opened each one of them up like I'd never seen Steeler gear in my life. Oh, look at this one! Oh, look at this one! Yeah, you go up to Punxsutawney!""


Stay Tuned-In ...


Best of the Roses, mystrawhat.com 


#TheNewMedia #BillMurray "Internet Jester" says #TheNewYorker ... & We keep hoping for another Pittsburgh Bill Murray event @NewEdayMedia: @NewYorker like when he was here for GroundHogDay & KingPin & Pittsburgh loves him for those stories but now we want #NewMedia#BillMurrayGroundHogDay

Friday, June 6, 2014

Cyril Wecht Letter to My Mother Is Humbling to Read Regarding My Dad's Passing

Under normal circumstances I would never publish a letter from Cyril Wecht to my mother however the passing of my Dad has affected many of you whether you called him 
Attny Conte, Mr. Conte, John, Uncle John, GranDad or dad.







Attorney & Mrs. John A. Conte


Best of the Roses
(both of my grandmothers on mom & dad sides were named Rose),
Johnny

Monday, June 2, 2014

John Alan Conte, Jr. Endless Tour Project Interview #GratefulDead (Pittsburgh, PA) YouTube


©1995 robbi cohn/dead images...Jerry Garcia 6-30-95 Pittsburgh, PA
Grateful Dead 3 Rivers Stadium 


Here is a few minutes of the couple hours I spent with the Endless Tour Project a couple weeks ago on a Monday evening in Point State Park #GoldenTriangle

Thanks to Joanna for trucking to Pittsburgh to interview me Monday and Liz Berlin via Skype Tuesday on the big monitor at the Creative Life Support offices inside Mr. Small's Theatre in Millvale (across the bridge from Lawrenceville).

This is a very Grateful Dead family sponsored project and I am honored to be a part of it.

John Alan Conte, Jr. Endless Tour Project Interview (Pittsburgh, PA)
Published on May 24, 2014
John Conte remembers rain pouring down during the Grateful Dead's final Pittsburgh performance in 1995 as part of the Endless Tour Project. www.endlesstourproject.com.

click on this YouTube link to watch here on YouTube




Best of the Roses, John
mystrawhat.com
     &
BIGnewEdayMedia2014