Emmy and I went out last night. Ironically, while she is now officially back in Chicago for keeps (well, at least until Thanksgiving) - I, on the other hand, need to maintain my commitments in Aurora until I can find a new job out here. At least that's a lot more motivation to pick up a job in Chicago now.

I got back into Chicago around 10:30 and we went to Clarke's for dinner. I met her friends John and Troy afterwards at their apartment. It's amazing to me how much gay men apartments look alike - I think that they must all come pre-furnished with the following:

* at least one poster/DVD/CD from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (usually all 3)
* at least one poster/DVD/CD from Hedwig and the Angry Inch (usually all 3)
* at least one poster/DVD/CD from Tori Amos (usually all of those, and more)
* at least one item of self-done painting/artwork hung prominently on the wall
* at least one item related to Sponge Bob Square Pants
* various stuffed animals
* "boomerang" shaped ash trays

It's kinda funny.

They were cool guys, even if they were really tired when I met them. Or high. Or both.

We came back to my place and watched Penn & Teller episodes, Ebichu, random VHS tapes I bought from thrift shops and all the other quirky shit I like to show people. I think we finally fell asleep at 7am. She had to go out to IKEA with her dad and uncle to get furniture for her new place today, so she left 'early' this morning - I think it was around 10 or so. I was barely concious enough to say goodbye.

It was a very good night.

We're going to see March of the Penguins tonight.

I finally got my hands on the George Washington DVD (Criterion Collection). George Washington is one of my very favorite films and is (well, would have been) a big impact on Malaise. I identify with director David Gordon Green more than any other of my 'favorite' directors, because he was rougly 25 when he made this film - and it's reflective of pretty much everything I love about film. The sun-drenched, saturated colors and beautiful images. Calm, slow and deliberate pacing. Haunting, vaguely melancholy while hopeful and with a pinch of awe of life. Characters, drama and images. That's what I want from film.

But, almost more importantly to me, this DVD features my favorite short film - A Day with the Boys.



This short was made in 1969 by Clu Gulager, who is apparently a very well-known character actor (a look into imdb shows he's still working today...).

The film begins as a simple look into the antics of a group of young boys - playing with plastic guns, rolling down hills, finding insects and snakes. Getting dirty, having fun. Then things become much more sinister in one of the great "surprise" endings in film. It's a stunning art film that manages to tell a narrative, which are to me the best kinds of films. Gulager uses tons of effects in the film - stills, ultra-magnified film stock, slow motion, polarization - among many others. These effects could have easily looked amateurish (this was Gulager's first and last directing gig), but with the gritty film stock and 70's era clothing and 'tone' - it is pulled off beautifully.

I really cannot say enough good things about this film (or George Washington for that matter). If you can get your hands on this DVD, you're in for two great film experiences.

More images from A Day with the Boys.. because I can't stop thinking about the photography in that film:

The weather has been strange this week. At night it gets to around 50 degrees and feels - and smells - like fall. I can feel the end of summer creeping in steadily and I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand I'm happy to be going back to Chicago because for one thing - Emmalee will be there. Plus Stu will be there. Plus Pat S. Plus my class schedule is awesome.

On the other hand, this weather and these smells remind me of the past two falls and how this one is different than those. And it's different by choice. But I can remember how I felt then and how good it was. I feel claustraphobic now. Being at home this summer has been a huge change of pace from the last two summers. Just now, sitting at home at 3am typing on a computer in my room across a 56k connection. I don't know if this is a case of two steps forward and one step backward, or what..?

Being back in my hometown means that I've been seeing old friends and acquaintances, at least in passing. A girl came up to work today who used to be my co-worker, and who I went to grammar school with for 8 years. I've known her for most of my life. Shes' 22, same as me. She's married (I think) and pregnant (I know). In a year or two, that could be me. I hope it's not, but it is possible. It's all so much more complicated now. I can remember images, not really memories per se, of her in grade school. Back then we were all just possibilities. We had nothing that we were tied to, no real responsibilities - except possibly school. Now, my generation is increasingly less "possibilities" and more "probablilities". People who will "probably" end up like 'this'.

These past 2 months have been like Garden State. Being back in your hometown, and seeing the people who never left or stayed gone. People whose lives have, effectively, come to their fruition. That girl has very few prospects left. She's a mother now, and she'll always be one. That's it. The End. I can't even face the possibility of being like her. I refuse to be her. At 22, I will not allow my life to be it at its climax. Every other day I've seen someone I knew either in grade school or high school, and most of them are already at that point. Most of them, are the exact same people I knew back in those school days. I hope that I am not.

Fuck that. I know I'm not.


I think the problem is in Chicago I have a lot more to divert my attention and keep me from having these feelings at night.

I've been looking forward to tomorrow (well, today actually) all summer. Today is the day Emmalee comes back home. But it never really dawned on me that this day would signify the beginning of the end of summer as well as the end to so many more things. And now, literally hours before - it's all coming to me. A lot of things are ending, for a lot of people - and it's bothering me. Just listening to Stu talk about how many people are leaving Steak & Shake was bothering me. Because people are leaving.. everywhere. It's all going to be so different from now on.

And even still, that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is the chances that none of us will ever be happy. All I want is for the people I care about to be happy. To feel some sense of satisfaction, with it all.

Avoider... Fun. Addictive. Like crack. But without the losing your teeth thing.


In other news - and this is kinda odd so bare with me - is it just me or is the circumcision debate EVERYWHERE now? I've seen it on 20/20, Penn & Teller: Bullshit, The Roe Conn show, freaking Finiak started asking me about it and I swear to god every single online forum has at least one, usually more, threads of people yelling about it. I've been listening a lot to old Bone albums lately (specifically E. 1999 - Eternal, which I really think is one of the best rap albums ever. A classic. Better than Tupac's All Eyez on Me... but not Me Against The World). I was wondering about what they've been doing since their last (and .. not so classic) record, so I joined a forum to read about their latest exploits. Sure enough, in the anything goes part of the forum what do I see? A fucking circumcision debate... in a Bone Thugs ~n~ Harmony forum. WTF?

Anyway... I'm trying to learn Flash Animation. If anyone knows any good online resources/tutorials for someone stupid trying to learn something complicated (ie: me) please comment with links, yo!

Honestly, Flash's interface looks to me like Premiere, if it was designed by a team of really pissed off retarded 5 year olds.

So, a couple years back I bought the Chris Cunningham "Director's Label" DVD. It was a collection of music videos by Cunningham as well as commercials and video art installations. I purchased it based on my admiration for Cunningham's Bjork music viceo "All is Full of Love". On the disc was a trailer for a project called "Rubber Johnny". This is Rubber Johnny:

I hung out with Pat tonight and that has lead to some observations:

• I really miss my radio show. All of them. And I am not eager to do, nor confident in, No Radar. I'll spill the beans now because a) no one reads this blog and b) no one cares - No Radar was going to be a series of radio plays. We'd record six episodes of a show then play them week by week as we recorded the new series/episodes. I have 15 pages of a script done for this but I cannot in any way see this as being either successful or something we'd keep up with. This shit is hard to do. This girl, um, Ashley I think, read those pages tonight at Steak & Shake and said she liked it. It's not that I dislike the story I'm writing (I wish I could make it a film, but that - with my budget - is impossible) but that I dislike the format. Radio plays, regardless of their charm, are a dead medium.

• While I disagree with a lot of the way Pat thinks now, he did seem more like Old Pat than ever before. His laugh sounds more like it used to. I'm happy for him. I hope this Pat sticks around a while.

• I need to make another film before summer is up and I'm trying desperately to think of something to do, but I can't. I'm stuck. I know what's going to happen, as soon as I get back to school and am not around all these people who want to be in something, I'll think up an idea but lack the means/time to do it. This sucks.

• http://studiokanzen.com/films/touch/touch.wmv --- My 16mm b&w film from last semester, "Touch". No website for it yet. It's real short. I'm still waiting on re-dubbing the dialogue for the color film I did. I'm also unsure about the title of that one still... I think it's going to be called, "One Night Fall". I dunno. I'm in a fucking rut. As usual.


At least I'll be seeing Emmy in a week. And she'll be back in town for real.

I finished watching Paranoia Agent tonight, about 4 days after I started. Yeah, that was a waste of 6 hours. No idea what the hell that anime was about, the heavy handed consumerism message not withstanding. A pity, because the first 4 or 5 episodes were really good. I'm surprised Satoshi Kon dropped the ball so severely with this one at the end, whereas the endings of Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress were close to being the best aspects of the films. Fully satisfying finales. This left me more bewildered at how badly they messed up at the end and the epilogue pissed me off. It was as close to having a video of Anno yelling "Too bad!" at the end of the Eva TV series as I think any anime studio has the balls to do.

Ah well, back to Samurai Champloo, since Naruto's charm and interest is taking a break (ie: they're deviating from the manga).

So I've been sitting in front of a blank MS Word document for the past two fucking hours trying to write something funny. Just a funny scene. Two, maybe three, pages of dialogue that contain things that people would consider funny. And I can't do it.

I cannot, to save my life, write comedy. I am not funny.

All I can think of is serious stuff - serious stories. Drama, suspense, revenge, action, politics. Etc. Funny stuff is what people like. Funny stuff is what people watch. Especially online.

Maybe I'm trying too hard. I wish I had some Johnnie Walker.

Hmm, that picture of me in the right makes it look like I have gigantic eyebrows.

That's not funny, either.

So then, girl made the mistake of mentioning to me in our email correspondence that she had a LiveJournal but that, "i won't tell you it with out checking it first because im pretty sure i wrote about you and id be embarrassed if you saw it". And thus, with that bit of info I set out to find it. About 15 minutes later I succeeded. Shhhhhh! Don't tell her.

For the record, it was all untrue stuff. Like how I'm awesome and fun and cool. Muwahaha. My plan is working perfectly. Soon she shall know the real me and how lame I truly am!!!!

I got the third season of Red vs Blue yesterday on DVD at Gamestop. I've been watching Red vs Blue since about the middle of the first season and, without sounding too sentimental, I really am happy for those guys and proud of them. They've grown a lot since the first season (you can see the progression of professionalism from the original season one DVD opening, to the super cool, super awesome, season three opening with the credits). It's sort of like the way I feel towards Giant Robot magazine. Watching that grow from a small, photocopied fan zine, to a professional, glossy paper, print shop magazine. The RvB guys just got contracted by the Independent Film Channel to do a six part series of The Strangerhood for cable TV. How fucking awesome is that? Kudos guys. Kudos.

I hope that some day there's someone saying that about my little circle of would-be creative geniuses. Of course, the fact that my group is tied together by thinner threads than I ever knew possible... I doubt all of us are going that way together.

I wish I could find a new niche. The thing about RvB, AnimeRadio, MegaTokyo, and the like - is that they are all based around existing pop culture. A niche. They feed into and off of something that was already there, which to some extent allows them a built in audience (I am *NOT* saying that in a bad way). It's the same with why Otaku no Radio was 100x more successful and popular than either other radio show I did. It was about *ANIME* and only anime, and anime fans are - lets face it - easy to woo and gain loyalty from. If it's about anime, anime fans will dig it. You can't just dick around and it takes work to maintain that following - but it allows you a shallower pool to try to swim in.

The Kanzen films I've done are outside any niche like that, except maybe "student short film fans" niche. But that's... not really something one can gain a following out of. I'd love to experiment in machinima work, but it's too hard because RvB will always be at the back of my head. I don't want to imitate any more than I already do.

But when all is said and done, I'd rather create my own niche - my own popular culture - than base one off someone else's.

I haven't written here in a while for the simple fact that I haven't been online for more than 15 minutes in the past 2 weeks. But now, things will be different. I'm still in Aurora at least until the end of July, but my mum bought a new computer and it's in my room. Just set it up and got online less than 2 hours ago, actually. And what else to do than update my blog?


I finally showed Stu the materials for No Radar, and he gave them his support but wants the project to go in a direction that I didn't expect it to. And it really doesn't bother me. I'm still somewhat doubtful that this will come to fruition, for the simple fact that although Stu and I are putting a fair amount of work into it, I still have virtually no support or communication in any way from Pat. I asked Stu if Pat still liked me and he just laughed and said that Pat had asked him the same question. If I still liked him. He's working a lot now, so it's hard to really get in touch with him.

I'm still confused about the whole Pat situation. All the things he was once passionate about he's dropped. Videogames. Movies. Mood altering substances (I'm not sad to see that one go). Programming. That's the one that really got me. After spending many nights listening to him ramble on about his theories on AI programming and C++, and only understanding every other topic but nodding approvingly all the way, to have that payoff with nothing is kind of disturbing. He was so into it, now he has nothing to say about any of it. And I don't know why.

He doesn't want anything anymore. He doesn't want to do anything. Including school. Last I heard? He wants to move to the woods. Become a hermit I guess.

I feel like I don't know him anymore. There's so much inconsistency with my friends. I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't know if I'm consistent. And I don't know which is better.

I hung out with Alyssa and Doug tonight. It's nice seeing people from my old circle of friends. I wish Karen could make it out with us once in a while. I also wish Marisa could. And Katie wasn't in Wisconsin all the time. Still, just hanging out with Alyssa is fun - even if we spend a fair amount of time just talking about what happened before. Reminscing.

To that end, I've learned that Johnnie Walker Black Label scotch is my favorite scotch.

I'm kinda looking forward to the school year. Stu will be in Chicago, which will be awesome. David's out of high school - and we're still debating moving in together in November. Added to that... Emmalee.


I finished a book, Towing Jehovah, about a week or two ago. My second book of the summer., after The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Sort of a Theology/Philosophy/Sci-Fi/Fantasy story about God dying and falling into the ocean. I really liked the message it seemed to push. A bit too Atheistic for my taste, but the basic theme was good. If I was a sucessful filmmaker, I'd be buying the license to adapt it to a film, because I think it would make one hell of a motion picture. Now I'm on to Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Bought it two days ago at Borders. Michael recommended it to me after I watched Haibane Renmei. I'm only 35 pages in, but I have no idea what the hell is going on. But, that in mind, I really like what I've read so far.

I wish I had my Software DVD I burned in Chicago with all my "essentials" on it. I've gotten FireFox, AIM and mIRC... currently downloading DivX. Doing all this on a 56k connection is interesting. It really makes one appreciate the wonders of DSL.