Closed Roads

Its been about a year.  A year since we discussed ourselves on the open road.  It was all worked out, I would do the driving and you would provide the playlists as we swept across the country.  Of course the plains would be the starting point, what else do we know really.  The beauty of this trip, this once in a lifetime trip is that neither of us knew where we were going.  There was no need for a map, just driving forward, lest one of us had the urge to lean right, or possibly left.  So much of the country to see.  So many instances to stop, jump out of the car and run across flint hills.  Pause a moment to make a snow angel in the OK dunes.  Enjoy a Polaroid with the historians of the Ozarks.  Just take a moment to look around corners and find spaces under rocks none others have found.  Too busy with the board room or that final edit.   Relegated to the passage of songs and pictures shall this trip be enjoyed; neither one of us willing to budge in the wrong directions.

October 11, 2011

Enough

Life is this game, a rat race.  Sometimes you will feel as though every goal, every task, every desire has been met, completed, and fulfilled.  Other days will find you asking what you are doing it all for in the first place.  Nobody ever ends up at the end of the street that they started heading down.  Either way, through the highs and lows, it will never be enough.

And in this rat race that will never be enough, we yearn.  We yearn for more tomorrows and gasp at the amount of yesterdays that have graced us.  Is 40 the new 30?  30 the new 20?  The truth is there is no new ages.  40 is 40 and 30 is 30.  These things will never change and the things that you wanted to do when you were 18 will never be the same things that you will want to do when you are 28.  But what matter is it to you if when you were 18 you had the time of your life?  Furthermore, who cares what you did when you were 18 is 28 feels so great.  Either way, having the ability to ponders tomorrow and reflect on yesterdays will ensure, it will never be enough.

And in this rat race that will never be enough, we yearn for which we do not have, wondering if one day it wi

A Broken People

I'm sure we all understand that we are not perfect beings.  Not a single one of us can be the first to cast a stone.  While this is blatantly obvious, perplexing is the thought that at any given time one person can be the change.  Make the difference to see all that has been hidden from you previously.  Its nothing more than the blind leading the blind.  We all have suffrage and dilemmas which make it impossible to see what the horizon bestows upon others.  Those others still will yearn for what they themselves have missed that you so desperately cling, as if it were to disappear at any moment.  We are not adults out of spontaneity, we are planned, molded, developed, f@#^ed.  No one is designed so perfect as to see all that others have to offer.  Maybe being satisfied with the knowledge acquired is just an excuse to not covet what I don't understand.  Remember this though, this in it of itself, laissez-faire, is not something people are just born with.  It is a calculated mechanism in which those overloaded with experiences are reduced to interpreting none as opposed to selecting pertinence or worse yet, interpreting all stimuli.  Over time, the failed plans, failed developments will begin to show through.  Most of us have been quite successful in hiding flaws as we are instructed to do so early in the molding.  Every now and then we will unfurl these truths for others to bare witness.  To see what is so closely guarded.  Those that witness may make an attempt to mend this tapestry, change or add what they see before them, make a complete piece of a broken fabric.  What is failed to see is the exquisite differences between theirs and yours.  Both are misshapen, riddled with holes, poorly colored in areas and beautifully polished in others.  The idea here is to not fix what has been presented, rather to be in awe of how different a life can be planned, molded, developed, and f@$ed within the same species.  Though one day the two fabrics may become one, in the beginning; they hadn't the slightest bit of similarity.


This piece was written 21 Dec 2011.

Yet to be titled Video

I am currently in the works of putting together an music video for an undisclosed band at the time.  They are undisclosed as I haven't mentioned that I would be blogging my ideas and what not.  Anyway, I am approaching this piece as a 3 minute or so silent movie, that just so happens to have a song slapped over the top of it.  I have consulted a couple of people and am definitely needing to consult a couple more but I am beginning to think that what I have is starting, slowly albeit, to head in the a good direction.  The idea that is currently running through my head is as follows. (And remember, it is coming right off of my head so if it doesn't make sense, well, then you see how my brain works.):

I am thinking that World War III has just ended about 4 years prior.  This was a war of nuclear arrogance and as can be imagined, the world is in ruins.  A population of 7 billion humans has been decimated to roughly 50 million.  These people are now indigenous to the areas in which they survived.  Formerly, The Midwest United States, The Russian Tundra, Antarctica, Greenland, and Northern Canada are all that remains.  These 50 million are those that are deemed healthy.  All others living are referred to a roaches.  Roaches (so named after experiments during the 20 century demonstrated their resistance to radiation) are humans in spirit, and not much else.  Most no longer have faces as they are generally severely burned.  Most have never stood a chance but some, some have began their treks to the safe zones on the planet as there is no flora, or fauna to be eaten in their native waste zones.  In the former state of Missouri a pharmacist at an unknown place begins feeding a female roach that has made it to the barrier.  She carries with her a backpack, full of masks.  These mask have come to represent her mood as her face is covered in cloth, too burned to recognize the humanity she once had.  Most roaches approach the bluff and attempt to climb to the safe zone, but with little success.  The Pharmacist begins feeding her for two reasons: 1. she still wears a cross around her neck and 2.  She never attempted to climb but rather just knelt, not to pray, but just to wait, hoping.  A bond quickly develops between these two.  Our pharmacist continues to feed her and and occasionally creates new masks for her, as hers are so badly worn.  We also see he is beginning to not see, but create the love of his life in the masks that he is creating for her.  The bond deepens and soon he begins to devise a plan to bring her in to the city, bring her into the safe zone.  The food he has been feeding her has heavy doses of (insert drug name referencing Iodine here) so he believes that the city shall be safe.  Further he can finally prove that his treatment works in an effort to help others across the world.  He sends notes indicating his ideas and gets her to agree to spend her days here, above the bluff, with him.  The night of the attempt the Pharmacist is standing by waiting for her to appear through the tunnel in which she was instructed to enter.  We discover that the masks he has been creating are replicas of his deceased wife, who did not make it through the war. 

Now I have this ending one of two ways.  1.  He reveals the cross that he has been wearing this whole time, she emerges from the tunnel and he lives to quickly die of radiation next a second chance wife.  He dies happy and she becomes patient zero in the treatment of nuclear radiation exposure.  She is grateful to save humanity, sad her pharmacist is no longer with her.  Upset that the treatment that she help guinea pig is not being used for the other roaches, who begin coming to the bluff in droves, kneeling, waiting, hoping.

2.  He reveals the cross that he has been wearing this whole time, many roaches emerge from the tunnel as she has disclosed the plan to many in an effort to save her friends, her "species".  The local authorities are quick to react to the breach and in doing so kill the Pharmacist while he is watching her run by, with a weeping mask on.  She is sad for him, ashamed of having mislead the pharmacist.  She removes the cross from her neck and throws it behind her.  It lands in front of our pharmacist, a blank and dead stare.

Corporate Frenemies

Hello, this is what competition is all about.  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  I think what I like about this commercial is that is pokes fun at the culture that has become synonymous with Apple buyers.  At the end of the day folks it is still a corporate company, just like Samsung, Wal*Mart, Goldman Sachs or any other company that Occupy Wall Street is currently protesting.  Occupiers protesting Apple?  I just blew your mind didn't I?

Render Queue

I have a couple of clips that I am rendering out so I thought I would take the time and write a little on here.  So lately, I am trying to remember what it was like before Facebook existed.  Before I was connect to 500 plus people every waking moment of the day.  It makes sense that we as humans yearn for such a connection and yet its also a curse.  I have so many of these friends and hardly ever talk to any of them.  And when a conversation does spring up it tends to be empty and half-hearted.  Lately it seems as though that is really the only kind of conversation that I have with anybody.  The GF works and goes to school enough that we don't get to spend as much time as we'd like to.  It's funny that when we do have a real conversation it throws me off a little bit.  It just doesn't happen often enough.  But, we will have this holiday week.  Finally.  Yay!

There was a time in my life when I was spontaneous.  When I had a list of 20 people that I could call and something interesting would materialize.  These times, that list of 20, the something interstings; they have all eroded from my life.  What replaces them is a constant push in business interests in an effort to make more money.  The goal is to make my 30's more enjoyable, more travel and what not.  I am maybe growing impatient waiting to work through the next 3 years.  It is partly my fault for this dilemma because there was a weening effort on my part as well.  Those moments of spontaneity became less and less interesting and more revolved around drinking at some location.  Soon the location even became mundane.  A look at those 20 folks today will not reveal anything different from those same folks ten years ago.  So what am I supposed to do for fun now?  Searching for it is getting a little tiresome.

Holiday Rush

Excuse me, I am trying to get out of here.  Well, it is the holiday rush, so who are you to sit here in line as if you had nothing else going on.  My clients are needing all there work yesterday.  The very fabric of their family structure hangs in the balance.  My edits could make their season or crush all hope of their survival.  Just as well, I have a house to clean and grill to prep.  We decided this year Thanksgiving will be done here at home on the BBQ.  Yeah it is a little non traditional but non the less I still need supplies, and fast.  Have you no plans other than to stand in this line and listen to me rant about the season.  And don't even get me started on the gifts.  So many gifts.  I think people refuse to by anything for themselves the last quarter of the year in hopes that others will do it for them.  Don't see much good in that do you?  See, I figure folks just end up getting disappointed really.  Sure they may get some of what they want.  Who the hell really knows what they want anyway!?  They only thing I want right now is to get the hell out of this store.  I have a client meeting in an hour and phone conference thirty minutes after that.  Shit, wait.  Maybe it was a conference call in thirty minutes and a client meeting an hour after that.  Bah!  What is with this lady anyway, who needs that much Koolaid the Wednesday before thanksgiving.  You know you don't say much man.  My clients are kinda like that too.  I need an assistant; she. . .(pause). . . or he should be here doing this.  I think I have waited here so long that it is actually costing me money.  Look at this damn toy.  I don't even know what this toys do anymore.  But the bosses little girl needed something, right?  Hopefully I'll get a promotion out of this or something.  It's $60 dollars.  In fact look at all this shit in the basket.  None of its for me, except for the toothpaste.  Ridiculous I say, I'm going to spend $135 dollars.  Know what I'm gonna get outta the deal?  That's right, toothpaste.  Well, theoretically it will save me hassle and nagging later, but you know what, I think it just gives everybody to check something off the to do list and move right on down and start up on the next one.  Hell I wish I had a nagging list,  too busy filling other people's request.  You know what would be number one?  Getting the hell out of lane 13 here at this damn store and getting to the damn meetings and phone calls that I am can't even remember the damn order and time of because I am too busy buying whatever the hell this toy is and rendering out this video before tomorrow so that I can relax.  (Pause)  Well hell buddy if you don't wanna here what I have to say you can move to another line.  Look sir all I am doing is trying to vent.  And I never touched you so I don't think that was very appropriate at all.  Bah, shit. other loud noises.  Look officer this guy shoved me first.  All I am trying to do is buy this stupid toy for some kid that I don't even like and get out of here to a meeting.  No I don't have time to go with you and talk about it.  Shit Shit.  O come on, man.  Are the cuffs really necessary. Bah!!