Matt Getty

The Dead Weather -- A True Supergroup

2009-07-14T21:12:00.005-04:00

If you like your supergroups raw, loud, dark, and just a little bit evil, then you've been looking for The Dead Weather for a long time. Take one part White Stripes, One part The Kills, and two parts Queens of the Stone Age, add in a dark twisted root of American blues, just a touch of dirty swamp water, and an ungrounded electric current, and you get the Dead Weather--Jack White's latest side project to outshine his day-job as White Stripes frontman.

As great as White is and as much as his signature marriage of simplicity with raw rock power is all over the Dead Weather's sound, it's front-woman Alison Mosshart who really shines here.

She's always had a haunting soulful yet edgy voice in her work with The Kills, but the muscle she lends to songs like "Hang You from the Heavens" and "Treat Me Like Your Mother" just make your ears sweat. Her vocals swagger all over Horehound, the band's first album, clutching their crotch, spitting raw sex in your face, and setting her apart as the ballsiest rock-god I've heard since Plant's teenage years.

You can hear the whole album for yourself if you don't believe me. Better yet, if you're quick, you can hear them live at the 9:30 club.

Best Michael Jackson Tribute

2009-07-13T22:34:00.003-04:00

Check out eternalmoonwalk.com for the best Michael Jackson tribute I've seen so far.

What I love is that it's more about the inspiration than man.

Fanfarlo -- Harold T. Wilkins

2009-07-09T23:04:00.005-04:00

Great song, great album. They have a knack for sounding carefree and effortless but poignant at the same time.

Me = Best of the Web

2009-06-30T22:20:00.002-04:00

The Best of the Web 2009 Anthology, guest edited by Lee K. Abbott, is now available, and it features my story, "When My Girlfriend Lost the Weight" plus an interview with the world's best writer ever. OK, the self-proclaimed world's best writer ever.

If you enjoyed that, why not support mattgetty.com?

Random Sentence From a Story in Progress

2009-03-11T23:51:00.002-04:00

I watch her calves as she storms off down the hall.

Sorry, there is no more at this time. I juse used a random integer generator (http://www.random.org/integers/) to tell me what sentence from a draft of a recent short story I should paste here.

Consider it a glimpse, an experiment in freeing language from context, a reason to keep writing.

Barbie Abuse

2009-03-10T21:20:00.000-04:00

Look's like it's not just the main character in You Will Behave:

TheStar.com | living | For 50 years, girls have loved to mutilate Barbie

Ken in the News

2009-03-09T09:47:00.000-04:00

You gotta love the attention Barbie's getting due to her upcoming 50th birthday. You'd think that might give You Will Behave a little bump in sales, but I guess it still doesn't come up in any Barbie-related searches on Amazon. In any event, it's nice to see Ken get a little virtual ink:

Ken's sad and lonely life in Barbie's shadow. - By Troy Patterson - Slate Magazine: "Boy Toy"

Midge Walkcycle -- The Sneak

2009-02-20T20:28:00.001-05:00

Here's another walk-cycle with Midge. This one is a sneak:

If you enjoyed that, why not support mattgetty.com?

Wordle to the Wise

2009-02-19T19:38:00.013-05:00

I found a great little design tool on the Web called Wordle. It creates word clouds from your text with the size of words dependent on their frequency. Here's an example from You Will Behave:

You can also modify the font, the layout, and the color. Here's one for She Falls Down:

Midge Skipping

2009-02-17T23:42:00.007-05:00

Here's a 3-D animation test skip-cycle for Midge.

This was made in Blender 3-D, based on the excellent reference provided in Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair.

If you enjoyed that, why not support mattgetty.com?

Cracked

2009-02-09T10:18:00.004-05:00

Here's another simple 2-D animation.

If you enjoyed that, why not support mattgetty.com?

The Smile -- 2D Animation

2009-02-06T20:28:00.001-05:00

Here's a quick 2-D flipbook animation I made:

Take Your Time -- Free MP3

2009-01-24T21:00:00.003-05:00

Here's an anthem to procrastination 12 years in the making:

(To download, right click here and select "Save As".)

I first wrote a version of this song about living a bit more slowly when I saw how quickly my two young cousins were growing up. They were 4 and 2 at the time. Now they're 16 and 14, and my own kids who are suddenly 6 and 4 recently got me thinking along these same lines.

Taking your time may be a virtue, but I figured 12 years were enough. I couldn't wait until my oldest daughter had her driver's license to record this, and since '09 is the year of finishing, I thought it was time to finish this one.

As usual, there's a de-mastered version after the jump. I thought a vintage 1970s 45-sound would work here.

(To download, right click here and select "Save As".)

Best of the Web 2009 Honors "When My Girlfriend ..."

2009-01-23T21:10:00.003-05:00

"When my Girlfriend Lost the Weight" has been selected for inclusion in the Best of the Web 2009 anthology. Yippee!

It comes out in July.

Reading Disorder -- Free Flash Game

2008-12-12T22:30:00.007-05:00

I think I just made the world's first Flash game about the pervasiveness of an unhealthy feminine ideal in the media. It's called "Reading Disorder."

Of course if you're into this kind of thing and you appreciate a slightly twisted take on the issue, check out "When My Girlfriend Lost the Weight."

Play With My Head

2008-12-06T00:34:00.002-05:00

. . . literally. Well, no, not literally, I guess. But not figuratively either. Perhaps it would be most appropriate to say "representationally," but where's the fun in that?

Any way Click here; you'll get the point.

Come on, give it a shot--you know you want to throw my head around.

Can't Decide -- Free Electronic MP3

2008-12-04T21:12:00.004-05:00

So there's a huge stack of unfinished electronic songs floating around on various hard-drives of mine. And guess what . . . they've been unfinished so long now, I think it's safe to call them finished.

Here's the first of several let's call them "musical sketches" I'll be posting sporadically over the next few weeks:

It's called "Can't Decide," and it's a nervous yet aggressive little electronic toe tapper.

Listen:

Download:
Right click this link, and choose "Save As"

I may use some as background tracks here and there, but for now I'm going to make like I'm putting together my own personal "Best Of" compilation--only without the best. Instead I'll just comb through the archives and dig up all the little "bonus" "previously unheard" tracks not good or "finished" enough to make it onto any of the standard releases. Hey, if I don't do it who will? It's been a long time since i got a call from Rykodisc.

Let me know what you think.

Kill all Punchibas -- Free Web Game

2008-12-03T22:00:00.002-05:00

Hey, wanna shoot weird little trolls wearing one boxing glove? Then have I got the game for you! I just finished making "Kill All Punchibas." Give it a whirl, and let me know what your high score is.

What are punchibas? Why are we killing them?

These are good questions, and I wish I had the answers. It's a cruel world we live in. Punchibas love to punch, and for this they must be shot.

It just doesn't seem fair. If we could only talk to them, perhaps we could find a reasonable solution.

Unfortunately, programming some sort of artificial intelligence that would create the illusion of communication between the punchibas and you is much more complicated than programming a first person shooter with a simple animation of the punchibas exploding in a cartoon mess of limbs and blood.

And maybe that's why our world is the way it is. Perhaps God is just a tired programmer with limited Actionscript skills . . .

But can we really afford to be asking these questions when there are so many punchibas left to kill? Get to work.

Punchiba

2008-11-26T23:46:00.003-05:00

Seriously, you want more?

Yochiba

2008-11-24T21:23:00.001-05:00

That's all there is.

The Icky Bug Machine -- Free Web Toy

2008-11-19T21:17:00.007-05:00

Would you like to make some bugs? Would you like to squish some bugs? Either way, check out the Icky Bug Machine I just made.

Instructions:

Press the buttons to make bugs. When the bugs begin to disgust you, click on the bugs to squish them. When you become overwhelmed by all the devastation you have wrought, turn off you computer, and go talk to someone you love.

The Fantastic Blue Balloon Machine

2008-11-18T17:23:00.003-05:00

Check out the new Web toy I made: The Fantastic Blue Balloon Machine.

It will make you happy--unless you're really really sad. Then I can't help you.

Instructions: Click on the button to make balloons until you have produced sufficient balloons to produce happiness. If you produce too many and can no longer handle the joy, click on the balloons to pop them until you have reached a satisfactory number of balloons.

Repeat as necessary.

Participation:

Let me know how many balloons it took to make you happy.

Free Children's Song -- MP3

2008-11-16T22:46:00.003-05:00

Here's my tribute to my favorite record from my childhood:

Download for free (right click, and choose "Save As").

When I was six years old, my favorite record was "Dumb Ditties." It was filled with novelty songs like "Beans in my Ears," "Martian Hop," and "My Ding-a-Ling." My brother and I played it endlessly on our plastic Fisher Price record player. We dragged and dropped the needle to our favorite sections so often that you could see the scratches from the other side of the room.

Every time I heard the pitch-shifted scatting on "Martian Hop," all I could think was "Why doesn't everyone make music like this?"

As a tribute to "Dumb Ditties," I thought I'd mix a de-mastered version as well to get that vintage 1978 Fisher Price record player sound:

Midge and Bimboo at Printer

2008-10-16T19:44:00.005-04:00

"Midge and Bimboo" is now at the printer. I'm waiting for the first proofs, which should arrive in about a week. In the meantime, here's an electronic version of the completed book.

Midge and Bimboo

2008-09-02T22:09:00.023-04:00

There's a children's story developing here. Stay tuned . . .

Here's Page 1:

This is Midge.

Here's a new cover image and page 2:

This is Bimboo.

Bimboo wants to eat Midge.

Page 4:

Midge should run.

Page 5:

Midge runs.

New Page 5:

Midge runs.

New New Page 5:

Midge runs.

Page 6:

Bimboo runs.

Page 7:

Bimboo chases Midge.

Page 8:

Midge comes to a cliff.

Page 9:

Midge can't run anymore.

Page 10:

Bimboo opens his mouth.

Page 11:

Midge has an idea.

Page 12:

Bimboo charges.

Page 13:

Midge jumps.

Page 14:

Bimboo falls.

Page 15:

Midge is safe.

Page 16:

For now . . .

Alternate textures: