David Javerbaum created @TheTweetOfGod, which led to the hit Broadway play, "An Act of God," currently starring Sean Hayes; faced with low ratings, ABC fires network chief Paul Lee; singer-songwriter M. Ward revisits his early years in the Conejo Valley on his new album.
M. Ward breaks down some tracks from his new album, 'More Rain'
Producer and singer-songwriter M. Ward is having a busy year. He produced the legendary singer Mavis Staples’ new album, “Livin’ on a High Note,” which comes out Dec. 19, and he releases his own album, titled “More Rain,” on March 4.
The songs on the album were inspired by Ward’s childhood growing up in the Conejo Valley — on the outskirts of L.A. — and his current home of Portland. The Frame’s James Kim had Ward break down a trio of songs — "More Rain," "Slow Driving Man" and "Girl From Conejo Valley" — from his upcoming album.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
"More Rain"
The record begins with a sound collage of rain in the Pacific Northwest. The studio where I did a lot of work — called Type Foundry — it's the top floor of an old factory, and the rain comes right down on the roof and you can hear it. It's an important backdrop to the recordings, it's an important backdrop to the compositions and it's a challenge to live up there, but it's a perfect environment for music. Music, recording and writing music [are] the best tools for me on defeating this jail cell of gray.
"Slow Driving Man"
There [are] lot of songs about fast cars, and The Beach Boys have a lot of songs about How fast can this car go? I thought it would be interesting to have a song that's the opposite. "Slow Driving Man" comes from that place and it tells the story of somebody driving exceptionally slow and tries to get into a possible reason of why.
When you're singing a song that has a ballad tempo, you're able to experiment more with your voice, and you're able to take certain notes to a place that you just can't in a fast-paced song.
"Girl From Conejo Valley"
M. Ward - Girl From Conejo Valley
A lot of the record comes from me looking back on growing up near Los Angeles. I grew up in the Conejo Valley, born and raised out there. The more time you spend there you realize that not everything is as perfect as it looks when you're just driving up the 101 freeway. There's definitely some interesting characters and that's a little bit of where this song is coming from.
The song is about an ex-girlfriend who is now with these people that I never fraternized with. Sometimes when you think about the people your ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend is currently with, it makes you look at yourself a little bit differently. But in my opinion it's all a comedic thing.
Behind every beautiful stone there [are] some interesting bugs crawling under there and that's a little bit about how I feel about Conejo Valley. It's really wherever you go. If you spend enough time there — in any town no matter how perfect it might look — there's an underbelly to every community. I could see it a little bit more clearly now that I don't live there anymore, and I think that's how it is for everyone who looks back on their hometown.
M. Ward's new album, "More Rain," is out on March 4.
God is dead: David Javerbaum quits popular Twitter account @TheTweetOfGod
David Javerbaum was a writer and producer on "The Daily Show" for 11 years. Since leaving that show, he's written books, plays and worked on TV series like "The Late Late Show with James Corden."
He's spent lot of time cultivating the voice of God. He's done that in part through his play, "An Act of God" — which premiered on Broadway with Jim Parsons in the lead role and is now at the Ahmanson Theatre, starring Sean Hayes ("Will & Grace"). And since 2010, Javerbaum has been the brain behind the popular Twitter feed,
which has over 2 million followers.
The Frame's John Horn asked Javerbaum about speaking for the Almighty. Below is an excerpt from a longer interview which you can hear by pressing the blue play button above.
Interview excerpt
So, God started on Twitter — is that right?
David Javerbaum: Well, actually what started was I had an idea for a book, "Memoirs by God," and it eventually became a book. But while I was working on that book my editor suggested I open a Twitter account — sort of pre-publicize a book — and I did that over the course of a year. And by the time the book came out, the Twitter account had had such success people thought the book was a spin-off of the Twitter account, but in fact it was sort of the other way around.
But God is still busy on Twitter.
God actually — and this is an announcement — God is leaving Twitter. God's done with Twitter.
There was a Scalia post over the weekend. I think the post was one word, "Justice."
Yup.
Justice.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 13, 2016
That was it?
That's going to be it.
Why?
It's been taking up too much of my time and energy and mental agility. And I have other things that I want to do in my life and I just have to, at a certain point, just cut that cord. And the point was this weekend.
The triggering event was I got hacked. The Twitter account got hacked. God got hacked, which wasn't surprising. There were a number of obscene messages put up there briefly and then removed. There was a pornographic picture of Garfield. I just have to move on.
And also working on twitter for a long time, it just miniaturizes the way you think, because that's the medium. You're a miniaturist. And if I'm going to work on other things that require anything longer — i.e. anything else in the world — I need to stop doing that.
You're discontinuing God's Twitter feed. The last joke will be about Scalia — did that just feel right?
I'd been thinking about it for a while and then that hack happened. And then by coincidence that morning [that Scalia died] Stephen Fry said he was leaving Twitter. Now Stephen Fry is one of my huge heroes. And he just had enough of Twitter. He had told a joke — a very harmless joke in his opinion and in my opinion too — and just got a lot of grief and just said, You know what, this is not worth it. I don't like the cesspool Twitter has become.
This is the British actor.
Yeah, the British actor and well-known atheist. The quote he said was, It feels like I just removed a boulder from my chest. And it's great. I wouldn't characterize Twitter as being a cesspool. But I do feel just like for me personally it's time to move on. It was successful. It did very well. I somehow monetized it into a play which is really ridiculously miraculous. And I would like to think it was intentional, but it was not. It was purely happenstance.
What will you miss most about not being God anymore?
Well, I never claimed to be God... That's not true — in interviews I don't claim to be God. I think the thing I'll miss most is the thing I'm leaving deliberately. You tweet something and immediately you see people retweeting it and it feels like, Oh, you have made people laugh. You have caused people to react. And it's a rush. It's a limbic brain rush to do that. But heroin is also a limbic brain rush, and that is problematic. And after a while — it's been five-and-a-half years — and, again it was prompted by the hack. But I want to think about other things. I want to do other things. I'm done. If I have more jokes to offer or anything else to offer the world, I would like it to be in a different medium.
MySpace?
Yes, MySpace. Or CompuServe.
It turns out that God did reveal his plans to quit Twitter via his wife's account, @TweetOfMrsGod:
My husband
and I are leaving the Twitterverse for a new cosmos. There’s milk in the fridge. Good luck and godbye.
— Mrs. God (@TweetOfMrsGod)
You can still hear the voice of David Javerbaum's God in his play "An Act Of God." It stars Sean Hayes and is running at the Ahmanson Theater in downtown Los Angeles until March 13, 2016.