Friday’s Featured Blogger; Aaron Frale of Ideas That Will Not Change the World
Subject: Aaron Frale of Ideals That Will Not Change the World
Location: Undisclosed Rehab Facility
I arrive at a rehab facility for my meeting with Aaron Frale. Apparently, he had decided to get a jump on his rock career early with a preemptive stay at rehab.
The only problem with that philosophy is that I don’t recall him being addicted to anything.
I’m led to a serene blue visitor’s area as I wait for Aaron to arrive. He comes in after a few minutes and sits at the table and I finally give in.
“Rehab, really?” I raise a skeptical eyebrow.
Aaron smiles. “You have no idea of the connections I’m making in here! I even met the guy from American Idol!”
“Simon Cowell?” I’m impressed.
“No, Ryan Dunkleman.”
I’m significantly less impressed. “But you aren’t addicted to anything!”
Aaron Shrugs. “That’s easy. Remember that old show ‘Rescue Me’ with Denis Leary?”
I nod.
“Whenever we have group sessions, I just tell stories from that show and claim it was me. If anyone around here asks, I’m a scarred New York City firefighter with a drinking problem.”
“You got it. You want to get this party started?”
“As they say in AA ‘there’s no time like the present’”
“They don’t say that in AA.” I shake my head and pull out my tape recorder.
***
Tell us about your site, Ideas That Won’t Not Change the World. What inspired you to write it? What are your goals with it?
Ideas That Won’t Change the World pretty much started out as a way for me to write comedy about science and technology. Most dudes go for the sports section of the paper, I go to the science and space articles. So when I read about robotic sex dolls trying to pass the Turing test or food printers, my natural sense of comedy takes over. Considering Python’s Holy Grail was my Holy Grail as a kid (I seriously watched it till I had it memorized), I tend to think of the silly outcomes of technology.
I’ve also branched to different topics when the mood strikes me. For example, I wrote about why the rapture would actually be a good thing because I thought about all the silly ways zealots like to control everybody else’s behavior or the time someone told me “Gay people didn’t exist until recently” and other such nonsense. I’ve even blogged about the time I ran through the airport with a cat.
As far as my goals for Ideas That Won’t Change the World, I would like to turn it into something like The Onion but with a science and technology focus. Ideally, I would love to find some other humor writers with a science/space/tech twist that would work for free while we build readers. And then talk about how we make it a career after we have enough readers.
Tell us about your books.
My books are basically collections of my humor essays. Man Versus Masterpiece Theatre is the best because I’m a better writer than I was. Porn Free Bibles is good and has some gems but as one reader pointed out ” it reads like you have a squirrel in your head.” On a side note, I picked the title because I wanted to cause controversy and sell some books. But it failed as I only ended up pissing off one thirteen-year-old kid, which you can read in the B&N reviews of the book (The kid really had it out for me. They have been doing a new one star review once a month for about two years or so now). Free Advicehas some good moments and raw writing but it is a grammatical train wreck because I was really young when I tried to first self publish and didn’t know what I was doing. People have told me revisit it and make a new edition. Maybe one day, when I have the time.
I do also want to say that Man Versus Masterpiece Theatre is all online for free by going through the archives of my blog (though the book is the “best of”). But I take the stance on it like I do with my music. If you like what I do and want to support me, please pay for it. If you like an independent writer, musician, or film maker, buy their crap. The only reason Hollywood makes the same terrible movie you saw last year, or record companies clone the same damn band every year, is because people are paying for it. If you pay for the music, writing, etc. that you like, you are voting for it. You are telling the world, please make more like this.
You recently took a trip to Ireland. Do the stereotypes hold true?
If you consider that pubs are more common than Starbucks, I would say there is some truth to the stereotypes. But in all seriousness, here’s a snippet from my blog:
“The US could really take a lesson in hospitality from the Irish. For example, there is a little protein called gluten found in wheat, barley, and rye that causes excessive burping and anal leakage in my digestive system; This condition is commonly known as TMI. When I ask an American server about gluten free options, the transaction transpires like this:
Me: Do you have a gluten free bread? That’s bread made without wheat, barely or rye
Server: We can use white bread instead of the wheat.
And if you are lucky enough in the US to have a gluten free option, they usually charge $2 more. I’m guessing they are using that $2 to pay for the gluten-free training class:
Teacher: Glutens are a short stubby people with comically large ears and noses. They are usually used to dance for the local lord while he claps.
Student: Couldn’t they just free the glutens? Like glutens but free?
Teacher: Sounds like we need a time travel field trip! Got to use the $2 extra we pay for bread somehow!
Back in the Middle Ages
The class watches a short stubby Mel Gibson with comically large ears and nose and a blue painted face rallies the troops.
Mel Gibson: They can take our lives but they can’t take our freedom. Unless they’re Jews. Am I right? Am I right?
Troops: Boo!
In Ireland, not only did just about every server know about gluten, they had options and they didn’t charge you more for it! We were at an Irish counter service fish n’ chips place and they made a fillet without the breading like it was no big deal. Try to deviate from menu in an American fast food place and they treat you like you asked them to ritually sacrifice a cow for you.”
You won an award for co-writing Hamlet: the Vampire Slayer. Tell us about it.
Hamlet: The Vampire Slayer was sort of the crowning achievement of a sketch comedy theatre group I used to do shows with. We’d do silly parody mash-ups like Dracula Goes to College or Beach Blanket Lobotomy (Frankenstein as a beach party movie) . Hamlet TVS was the most successful. When it was a live show, patrons kept trying to come see it after the show had closed. We decided to make it more permanent (theatre is fun but it disappears after the show closes). So we got $3000, a camera, some lights and sort of stumbled our way through making a feature (I do mean stumbled. Let’s just say we won’t get any technical awards for the film). It got in a film fest in Syracuse, NY and we got Best Writer during the fest. A professor of Shakespeare from NYU came up to us after the show and said he loved it. It’s up for sale on Amazon but we are no where near to the point of recovering our losses. But suffice to say if you like Airplane! like comedies, you’ll probably get a kick out of Hamlet TVS. And if you want to see my one speaking roll, check out the deleted scenes for the Midsummer Night’s Dream sequence. I play Mustardseed.
Tell us about Spiral and your upcoming album, Our Final Days on Bellicus Prime
So Spiral is my other creative life. I call it other because Spiral is really unique. I know just about every rock and metal band out there says they are unique, but end up sounding like every other band. But it Spiral’s case, it’s true. Almost every reviewer seems to have trouble pegging us for genre because of our style. But we sound like Peter Murphy, Marilyn Manson, and Lzzy Hale making love in a beat up pick up truck in a post apocalyptic landscape with Pink Floyd and Evanescence mutants shambling with Metallica and Tangerine Dream robot death armies. Or you can just hear for yourself with a song called The Snake from our most recent release Mind Trip in A Minor (that’s me on vocals for this one).
We really like to tell stories with our music. I’m a huge Sci-Fi fan so I usually end up writing the plot of our more Sci-Fi albums. Our Final Days on Bellicus Prime will be a little different from all our others in that it won’t just tell a story lyrically but each song will have a short story associated with it that will be published in a book by the same name. So for example, one song that I wrote from the album is called “Photographs”. There will also be a story called “Photographs” in the book. Basically Chris (the other core member of Spiral) and I split the stories up. Mine will read more like Star Trek episodes whereas Chris has the more wild and disturbing stories. To get an idea of our styles check out the plot of our first album The Death of Billy Jensen for Chris and the plot of The Capital in Ruins for me. It should be a good mix of stories and the music is some of the best we’ve written. You can get a taste of the album in this video:
What musician do you wish would fall off a cliff… (feel free to push a bunch off, like lemmings)?
I think the lemming analogy fits for One Direction because they are younger, more successful, and better looking than me.
Who do you think is the most underrated musician?
There is this band called The Espers that makes me musically ejaculate every time I hear their music. It’s rather inconvenient on the commute to work. I recommend the songs Caroline from the album titled III or Mansfield and Cyclops from II to start (Mansfield and Cyclops was the first song I ever heard of theirs and I was hooked). They have really dark and beautiful music. They have this rare quality in a band where I can just listen to their music over and over and get lost in it. My favorite bands have an album or two that I can do that with. Like The Decemberists for example, I can listen to The Hazards of Love over and over but while their other work is good, it doesn’t have same magic (exceptions of course for The Tain and The Mariner’s Revenge). However, with The Espers every album in their discography has that relistenability.
As a musician, what is your favorite rehab facility?
The pubs in Ireland are a great place to relax and recoup. When injecting 8 balls into your eyes no longer does it for you, you may as well stick to the tried and true ways of alcoholism.
What celebrities do you want at your intervention?
I would want Seth Rogen to be there because he seriously looks like me (I’ll even provide photos for proof). Once I hit rock bottom, we could devise some madcap scheme to switch places. I could finally full fill my dream of starring and writing comedy and he could be a rock star for a while. If I were to place bets on what would lead me to quit my day job (which is English Teacher by the way), I’d put it into Spiral. I’ve been interviewed a number of times as a member of Spiral but this is my first ever interview as a comedy writer. So thank you for the opportunity to have my virginity soiled.
***
I put away my tape recorder as the orderly arrives. “Mr. Gavin, its time to return to the common room for donut and movie night.”
“You guys get donuts?”
“You kidding,” Aaron laughs, “this place is awesome. We have everything. Indoor swimming pool, go carts, horseback riding. It’s like a vacation without the booze.”
That sounds nice. I could use a vacation. “Can I stay?”
The orderly shakes his head. “This place is only for people with substance abuse problems.”
“I do have a substance abuse problem,” I protest. “I’m addicted to pain killers, but it’s only in reaction to my incredibly complex life. See I’m a nurse, a very good one. But I have a lot of personal issues and to cope, I use pain killers. My name is Essa, but all my friends call me Jackie.”
The orderly goes to get the paperwork and I give Aaron a discreet fist bump.
If you want to check out Aaron’s page, he can be found here, his band Spiral can be found here. Or you could just kill two birds with one stone and follow him on Twitter.
