Sheesh.
Last post was something of a groaner. Remind me not to get that verbose again.
School is busy and constantly toeing the line between awesome and un-fun. I'm always doing things last minute. It's something I bring upon myself, and unfortunately its the only way I can give anything the sense of urgency it deserves.
Thank goodness I spent three hours today programming a universal remote, and reading Conan stories. Productivity gone boink!
The last few days have been really interesting, from the unironic and unexpected standpoint of creative inspiration. I'm not superstitious or anything but it seems like the stars have aligned into the formation of a giant, driving stick in my back. I feel a need and fundamental desire to get things done, to take action! Ah! Here are some of these influences, in order of appearance.
SATURDAY
Puppy whistlin
Kephalid, givin me a hard time.
SUNDAY
Saw this on the big screen. A truly "mad" film. Made me feel like a child in its scope and flawlessness. Also incredibly funny!
MONDAY
Andrew Stanton stopped by NYU, because apparently this is where Pixar children like to go to escape the evil clutches of their super cool parents.
He also happened to give a lecture on writing and story that, apart from being one of the most concrete and insightful storytelling lectures I had ever heard, absolutely blew my mind.
SOMETIME IN BETWEEN
Season 4. Yay/ wtf episode 1?
TUESDAY
NBA OH YAAAAA
WEDNESDAY
700 pages. He signed my copy of Breaks of the Game tonight. I told him "The best thing you ever wrote was the blurb on the cover of 'Breaks'." I don't think he heard me.
(The page above is one of my favorite all time passages in any print. How good is that anecdote?!)
Anyways, I feel good about work now and am excited to get stuff done.
~~~~
Sports Team lost its second in a row tonight, and it was winnable. We were within four points with 10 minutes left. Kinda fell apart.
My thigh is sore, and for some reason I can't wait for it to eventually bruise up.
I just watched Nash hit a game winning acrobatic left handed layup to beat the Clippers (ack) and now I'm going to bed with positive thinking. That's all anything is really. Thinking.
True, this blog has been nothing short of turrible in the last few months, which is, I'm not ashamed to say, kinda the norm for the internet (and me). I read a stat somewhere about blogs and unused blogs, and how close to 98% of all blogs were considered "dead" or whatever (probably because of lack of concrete statistical facts). Which makes sense. I guess it's a little inaccurate, considering 30% of blogs are Nigerian pop-up scam blogs, but it's still an important number. It also closely aligns with Blake LaRue's "98% of all his ideas go unmaterialized" stat, which he can unfortunately back up with hard conceptual evidence.
INSTEAD, I started keeping a sketchbook. It began sometime in 5/09, which is conveniently written with whiteout on the spine, and kind of petered out in September. I picked a little Canson one, mostly because Connie's always looked awesome, and mostly because it had a $3 rebate on it (that I never filled out). As my first major sketchbook, I didn't know how to approach it, and intimidated by the tremendous amount of the blank pages, I think the early entries are random juvenile musings made at the Astor Place Starbucks during my lunch breaks. They're some of my favorite and most pointless entries. I don't think you need to know what a sketchbook is about before you start it, because success is measured more in the persistence and discipline of the book than its achievement of some overarching goal.
The book, currently unfinished, ended up documenting a 3 month period of my life in occasionally shocking detail, mostly because of the dual responsibilities it assumed. I developed a tendency to write "diary-ish" entries along with the doodles, emotional and bitter and insecure ramblings that often overtook the feeling of the page. Text did end up pushing aside pictures for large sections of the book, as the more time I spent with it the more comfortable I became with dumping thoughts, ridiculous as they may have been (and almost regrettably honest).
But these are fun (or at least important) to look back on. They are so narrow minded, so focused on distinct moments and days, that they do everything a good diary should do: capture the feeling of a human being at an exact moment, without any perspective.
I guess this is sort of a longwinded introduction to my original point, which is that I want to start using this blog as a dumping ground again, and try don't feel bad about it being too much of "something". Blakecity, like many things in my life, has never quite worked out, and fell short as a cohesive web-experience. I can think of many words to describe it, and my attitude towards it, and since I love using loaded adjectives as excuses for behavior, I'll throw some out there now: restless, unfocused, inconsistent, disappointing, and just plain forgotten.
But this is a new post, you say. This is a sign of things to come. A green sprout through a crack in desert sand. New life!
I guess so. I want to make a zombie pun or something but I won't. I want to make this post more significant than it should be, but I won't (<--- this is the type of thinking that ruins blogs, and makes comeback posts so difficult). I won't even make any promises, because almost every idea I've "promised" to follow through with has failed reviews of everything I own, music videos of my youth, dream doodle contests, random pictures from my desktop, my essay on pandacam, etc.) So here is just a post.
To the right of this entry is a new feature on my website, called the Amazon widget box. To blogs with high levels of readership and influential cultural significance, this Amazon widget could provide some sort of revenue, but I'm expecting nothing of the sort. I like to think of it as an easy way to show things I enjoy with pictures and prices next to them (clearly the two most important characteristics of any item). I also like lists.
If I do update it I will post a few thoughts as to why I chose the items I did. If I fail to succeed at anything in life, it will most surely not be as a lover and promoter of all things I enjoy.
1) Michael Crichton. Pirates. $9. THATS ALL.
2) Raymond Carver short stories. I'm reading it right now so if you get it we can read the stories together and talk about them. The first one is really great and is about a boy who fakes sick to stay home to masturbate, hitchhike, and catch fish, in that order.
3) Because it makes me wish I lived in the backwoods of West Virginia. Short Stories. Author killed himself at 24. Very pretty writing.
4) On of my favorite longform comic books. It's actually all about the plants. Fantastic b+w art.
5) Melancholy on Mars, then more melancholy back home with Rusty Brown. Chris Ware: The greatest living artist? People will take classes on him in the future. If only he wasn't so sad...
6) The best series on TV (when Jackson Publick writes the episodes). An incredibly well animated and often hilarious one otherwise. Worth the $20 bucks for Dr. Killinger and Dr. Quymn episodes alone.
7) "2 for 1 special?" Where is my magic time machine that transports me to the world of this movie?
8) Early 90's Boston band. My favorite. The first 5 songs are the best cd of all time. The rest is cool too. But if I had to choose the best cd of all time it would be the first 5 songs of "On Fire" and the last 6 songs of "Today". "Galaxie 500" looks very nice in this font so I won't forget to write it.
The fisherman The guy riding a Reindeer The guy scratching his butt and the pope
can you find them?
I'm in a state of reflection as I leave for home in a few days. Interested to gain some perspective on the last few months. Also really want to start writing my public access show.
I'm sorry Blakecity. It's just not really working out too well. But I know you'll be there for me so I guess I'll keep you around.
Hope all has been well. I'm doing okay over here. I'll be in NY until about August, and then San Diego for a bit, and then before anyone knows it Summer is kaput! and we're wearing jackets and long underwear again. Things seem to be moving so quickly now.
Frankly I find it a bit deceptive to be posting so sporadically (even if it is the summer) because it suggests that I've been off the internet this whole time, hanging out on the beach, partying, playing video games, finishing all the books and movies I've bought but haven't read/seen, eating mexican food, etc.
doodle, june
If only this was the truth. No, in reality I've been all up in the internet as of late, and in a bad way. I'm not getting anything done, eating a lot of Trader Joes nut mix, checking facebook in upwards of 10 times an hour but not doing anything with it, and, most productively, probably watching about two hours of NBA videos on Youtube per day. There's a lot of incredible stuff out there. Fascinating characters, specimens and freaks of nature, exciting calls and finishes, weird home video segments, snippets of stars out of their element, funny forgotten clips of players before their respective primes; it's a gold mine.
I'll get to more of these later, but recently I've been watching the entirety of the 1984 NBA finals, often called the best finals ever, with Bird's Celtics (before McHale even started) versus Kareem and Magic's Lakers. I don't know who goes through the trouble of posting this stuff in its entirety (something that could be asked legitimately for almost every web video, and is often explored by my good pal this guy). Anyway, it's a great series, and there's a lot to take in, from the presentation of the broadcast to how damn loud the crowds were and how good Kareem actually was. I could probably go all day but yeah I don't like typing.
I do want to talk a little bit about the NBA finals, because they happened, and I watched a lot of them, and sort of fell in love with basketball again in the process (see above).
It takes a pretty heartless, fair-weather basketball fan to just leap head- first into a month-long binge of game viewing, blog reading, thoughtful postgame analyzing, and constantly scrambling to find a TV to see said games, but that's sort of how it all happened. I watched a good number of games on shitty Justin.tv live web streams, which feels both diehard and pathetic.
All in all, I was really impressed with how the finals played out, and took on a whole new understanding about how the media tries to put together specific narratives throughout the playoffs to try and "establish" what these finals are "really all about". Which is mostly bullshit. If I hear another time about how Kobe "needed to win this one without Shaq" I think I'm going to vomit.
Thankfully, I won't have to, and there was definitely a wealth of just pure, good games throughout the finals that will sit fondly in my memory into the offseason (which I have taken a greater stock in). Other than the mega tease and premature ejaculation of the Celtics/ Bulls series, we saw a really promising first round victory by the Rockets, summed up nicely in this buddy comedy postgame press conference.
The streakshooting Magic were a surprise, and with Skip-to-my-lou, Turkoglu's ugly shooting, Rashard Lewis's Egyptian goatee, and Dwight Howard's twitter, a lot of fun to follow. I really became fascinated by Stan Van Gundy though. He has a brutal honesty in his press conferences which is weird, because his responses certainly feel nicer than packaged, programmed answers, but he does tend to beat his players up pretty bad.
In the end, I'm happy LA won. We saw three incredible games (2 through 4), a lot of bogus storylines crushed, Dwight Howard dealt a "learning experience", and a particularly awkward coach-announcer brotherly connection. But in the end, Kobe still needs the most dominant center in the league on his team to win a title.
This is one of the few times I will congratulate Pau Gasol. He deserves it; he absolutely punished Howard in the post all series. But he looks like a 6 year old kid in this picture. With a moustache. Gross.
In the next few posts, I think I'll talk about some of these things. basketball life aspirations amazon widget bicycle things to discuss in the next blog music comics mocca subletting for august
I read this comic called "Eschew" the other day, collected strips, good stuff. Find it here.
BELOW YOU WILL FIND
Some old scans I keep telling myself to photoshop but never do
Kinda embarassing, anyone want to go to some summer life drawing?
Just drew my summer to-do list on a napkin. One listing read: "Do 3 comics" Ya'll better hold me to it.
Big Baby can push whoever the hell he wants after hitting a shot like that. Celts Magic and Rockets Lakers tomorrow hopefully I'll be done with school by then to watch some of them games.
It's been a while. Shame I have nothing to offer you. Our relationship is like a really depressing version of The Little Drummer Boy, because I don't know how to play an instrument. Aww shucks.
Jesus this blog is lazy. Lots of good movies out. Want to see some?
fast and furious - have to see it in a theater with a parking lot (post-movie drifting/ peel out session part of the experience) - made 72 million opening weekend wow
Anybody want to set me up with a summer job? I'll literally do anything. I am 98% legitimately interested in/ 2% romantically considering working as a deckhand on a boat somewhere. Deadliest Catch envy is partial but not complete excuse for this. If I can get an animation job or a fun internship or a weird job that pays well then that would be cool too. I promise I'll work extra hard and not whine about anything.
What is the purpose of blakecity anymore? What a crappy city. Like Detroit without the evident decay or sadness. I've got to get a real website and a real girlfriend and a real haircut. In the words of the procrastinator,
I shoot a movie in a coupla hours. yay! wish me luck.
It's about two bros.
and pizza.
hopefully back to normal soon. blake
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Hey folks, I'm not avoiding you intentionally, I swear. I'll get to those dreams soon, they were really awesome, but first I want to direct you to the holy grail of the internet, a shining beacon of hope for the future of the world wide web:
Monday was a crappy day. I overslept, lost this shirt on ebay, and when I eventually did go to school it was without my backpack. I didn't notice until, waiting at the subway stop, my train arrived; I reached down to pick up my bag like I customarily do and grabbed nothing. I panicked for like three seconds, an in one sweepingly lame moment of realization, admitted to my own incompetence and stepped on to the train. I ended up skipping my class anyway.
BUT
In spite of these pretty minor hitches (and some really crappy pickup basketball that evening), Monday couldn't have been that bad, because MONDAY comes after SUNDAY, and on SUNDAY night, THIS happened.
I mean,
THIS.
And then, THIS
Woo!! So excited. Tom kinda looked like he was bummed Angels and Airwaves wasn't getting a best rock Grammy. Maybe that's why he's giving up his U2 stadium rock band to go back to what really made him big. Regardless, this is a really cool day, and I'm excited for the tour more than anything else. I never saw them when I was a kid and hopefully Tom will still cuss...
I've been "trying" to get into the habit of writing down my dreams when I wake up. There's definitely an art to it and I can't say I'm very good yet, but every so often I awake from a deep sleep in a groggy limbo-state that allows me to, albeit somewhat retardedly, jot down the details of whatever happened so clearly just before. Obstacles include not finding a paper or pen in time, falling back to sleep, going to the bathroom, and just generally not remembering/ caring.
Rereading the ones I've written is always exciting and fresh and totally fucking batshit goofy. In a way it's kind of like trapping thoughts from one world and bringing them into another. Like fireflies. OOOH...
NEW BLAKECITY.COM CONTEST
Hey readers, draw a picture of this dream I had. Click to enlarge. Translation follows.
"DREAM" (lol dreams are always in italics)
"TWO GIRLS CLIMB UP A SKYSCRAPER with a complex harness/ metal bungee system, Where they have suction cups on their hands. When one jumps off the topfloor bungee line (?) the cord snaps and she goes flying into the water. Somehow both ?...
There is a boat nearby with scuba and safety equipment but it has no paddles.
Michael Cera is in another boat, wearing strap sandals and socks. He has little sympathy."
Please spend as little time as possible. Best picture wins a cookie.
---------------
Also here is a song I have been listening to all day. For anyone who likes Burial or dubstep or just a dark, intense/mellow (?), trippy sort of Rap-jam, here is Pinch. Let it soak in.
oh god there is so much good Charles Barkley material out there.
I HATE
RAFA
This brat right here,freak of nature PUNK, no respect, fucking pulling wack ass angles out of his ass every other shot, seriously he grabs his ass after every point, no lie. And he hits wack angles too, like stuff that isn;t physically possible. Except I don't admire it at all it's bullshit to me. C'mon Federer please just smack his returns down the line or something like you do so well and get your first serves in and don't try to play points with this guy.
If you're up at 5 AM on sunday you can watch the match here.
http://aus-rogernadal.blogspot.com/
It's gonna be a dooozy!!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
At the Union Square Walgreens, in line to buy a Coca-Cola after the m83 show (excellent!), I photographed this fantastic baby t-shirt that, incidentally and hilariously enough, foretold what I would become later that night.
I Love You, Man - Redband trailer
This looks good. Along with Adventureland I am pretty excited for some comedies in 2009.
Lately I have been more interested in good comedy, in how good comedy works, in the structure of jokes and gags and stuff. I definitely want my color sync to be funny, I guess.
(Note: This post was supposed to come a week or so ago. For posterity's sake I'll put it up unedited)
Back in New York city!
(just me and my girl in the citay)
It's been a really nice almost-week here, and I've gotten the chance to relax and settle down with some cold hard venting, a Christmas party, Super Mario Galaxy, book-buying, Edamame Hummus, and pickup bball.
I saw this guy on the subway. He played a decent version of "All Along the Watchtower", after getting off to a particularly shaky start. What a microphone rig though! All into an amp in his backpack. In addition to witnessing this, I also: watched/ate/waved my face in pretty snow that fell like ripped cotton, pulled my hamstring slipping on ice, ate samosas, and saw former roomate Michael Brink and Bjork on the street within the same 24 hours. NEW YORK SITY!
No, in all seriousness, it's been a positive couple of days, but I am scared crapless by the amount of shit in front of me and the inevitable stress and anxiety that creating work tends to bring. I wish stuff would come easy sometimes. I wish that I could intuitively crank out 10 pages a day or set my mind on an idea that I could follow through on, or even have fun FINISHING something. Unfortunately, the masochist in me not only knows this isn't going to happen, but is silently preparing myself for the struggle to come, rather than finding ways of making things more manageable. SIGH
I just want to go back here for a little while. Just a little while.
Winter Break was quite fun.
God why are some Blink-182 songs so sad? I've really fallen in love with this band, in the utmost, completely unironic sincerity, over the last six months. They really provide some genuine insight into the joys and failures of young love, as well as singing about Sombreros and Star Wars. They're far less immature and crass than their image suggests, and as I was never really into/ allowed to listen to them as a kid, there's not an excess of nostalgia in my appreciation; these albums are very good and complete on their own, even to a 20 year old kid in an era long after pop punk mattered.
This one, the last song off Dude Ranch, is particularly sobering.
