Finding Fellini

American Icon: Stetson

2011-08-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

via Stetson

Just Because ...

2011-07-09T14:23:00.001-07:00

... someone tells you a story doesn't mean it's true.

Made In China - How America Celebrates Freedom

2011-07-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

Dangerous Writing

2011-06-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

The film is done! Such a relief. It's been such a long journey filled with expectation and distraction and four long years of life in general that it's difficult to feel a sense of accomplishment just yet. It's creeping in here and there. Per usual I have a lot of other stuff going on as well right now, so that's part of not feeling finished. And, quite honestly, it isn't finished. Just like finishing a script and wrapping principal photography are but stepping stones, getting to this stage just begins the process of helping the film find an audience. And frankly the idea of making people care is more daunting than the previous steps. Especially since along the way I often said we were making a film that no one cares about.
Until now, if I can manage a successful promotion campaign. I've actually been in the process of redirecting my career toward marketing communications. While that may seem like a slam dunk, it actually seems very daunting to me. Writing nice things about a brand or a non-profit is one thing - selling my won artistic vision from four years ago is quite another. Deep breaths. Making the film was a process. Promoting it will be as well.
We're doing the footwork to build a website. We submitted it to the Bend Film Fest where we're hoping it will premiere. I've made a list of other potential festivals, including the NW Film and Video Festival. I've sent queries to a few people about sending them screeners. Mixed results so far.
One idea I've been thinking about is creating 100 Fans of Dangerous Writing and then trying for a 1,000 and so on. If I can get 100 people to like the film and help spread the word, that will help keep the promotion focused. It's so much easier to think about 100 people than the world at large. Just writing these finite numbers gives me ideas!

What's the Matter With Kansas?

2011-06-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

I'm reading this book by Thomas Frank about how conservatives successfully convinced the Middle-American working class to support the interests of big business. By conflating the outcomes of the culture wars and business regulation, Middle-Americans are now under the impression that they're voting Republican to get even with Wall Street. As a result many have lost their jobs and have raised picket signs not in response to the rich getting richer, but to denounce abortion and same-sex marriage. It's a sickening story that we have seen play out with increasing momentum over the past twenty-five years.
Frank does a great job of keeping things moving while articulating the depressing facts of the devolution of our culture. He's even pretty funny at times, "... leadership had taken long pulls from the bubbling bong of New Economy theory."

Turnaround

2011-05-29T21:08:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy lately. More so than in a very long time. It's been kind of draining and also very invigorating. I suspect that the growth I'm experiencing isn't even apparent to me just yet. One thing that I've noticed is my ability to get things done like never before - and not just the things I'm passionate about. Or perhaps I've become more passionate overall. Not sure about that. Anyway, I've been one to generate a lot of activity but I haven't always been one for finishing things. Old story - great starter ... not so great finisher. That's been especially true over the past few years regarding film projects. It just eluded me and then I would keep making films and the editing backlog grew and grew. We've been chipping away at that and the experience has been good in many ways. It may even be one of the reasons why I'm finding the finish line more often lately.
Recently I've been working on a campaign for a non-profit. Doing a very comprehensive strategic plan. It's been a tough assignment for many reasons and I've wanted to quit many times since the second week. I've been able to stick with it. There was even a moment when the only reason I had for sticking with it was the feeling that I needed to practice hanging in there. Eventually there came a point where I had the opportunity to make a video for the campaign. It came about because I was writing a proposal for a training program and I realized that a training video would be a much more efficient means of conducting the training. But the Board thought a video appealing directly to the audience would be even better. I was excited to bring my work as a filmmaker to my work as communications strategist together. There was also a feeling that I was getting in over my head, taking on too much. An incident just after I committed to the larger scale video seemed to confirm my folly, but once again I persevered.
We shot the video last Sunday. By Tuesday night I had a rough cut. By Wednesday noon I had an alternate version. And by Thursday night, early Friday morning I had a finished video.
It feels really good to have the unfinished project monkey off my back. Now can I get some love in the health and fitness arena, please?

Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere.

2011-04-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe this was ever a successful campaign.

Dangerous Writing - Steady Progress

2011-04-11T22:06:00.000-07:00

Work was scheduled for this weekend for DW. I received a progress report tonight. Good news - almost all of the music has been mixed and synced. My immediate reaction: good thing we waited almost a year to do two days worth of work! Oh well. It's moving forward; that's the important thing. We'll do another review this weekend and then after a few tweaks it will be ready to be color corrected. That should take another week or two. The deadline for the Bend Film Fest is May 15th. We're aiming for that. Seems more than likely. Which is very exciting.

DW Spotting Session #3,247

2011-04-03T05:50:00.000-07:00

We did it! Finally sat down and opened the Dangerous Writing music edit today after almost a year.

Wait.
Pause.
Earworm:

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

Oh, yes. Always good to remember that I'm human.Thanks, Morrisey.
It felt good to get back to DW. I still like the film a lot. And I'm really trying not to get into feeling badly about letting it sit and all that should have stuff. I will admit that there are very easy solutions to some of the problems that have kept me from being very eager about getting back to it. For instance, there's this scene that I wanted to put some romantic, sentimental saxophone in the background. My musician friends worked on it for me but didn't come up with anything that worked. One of them told me I was asking for too much and why didn't I just buy some cheesy needle drop if that was all I wanted. Good point. I found something on audiovillage.com for about sixty bucks. Problem solved. Moving on. Sheesh.
As inefficient as this process has been - I can't count how many times I've gone through our songs and cues and the scenes that need music - the film has benefited from the protraction. I'm both more relaxed about the outcome and more capable of solving some of the problems we were experiencing. Choices made in haste or to follow convention are easily recognized and improved.
One of the skills I've been trying to polish is keeping things simple. With big projects like Dangerous Writing I often get overwhelmed by trying to take it all on at once. Like today, it's tempting to start thinking about the website again. Yes, it would be efficient to work on that while Jordan does some mixing. My fingers just paused as I wrestled with why that doesn't actually turn out to be true. Perhaps because I already have a lot going on and if I get overwhelmed I'm more likely to drop the whole thing for several more months. To be truly efficient in this case it would be best to keep it slow and steady. Support Jordan's efforts until the current task is crossed off and then move on to the next item on the shortlist of finishing the film. A finished film always speeds up the creation of a press kit and publicity materials. An old mantra brought back to serve:

Social Media Engagement/Canibalism

2011-04-03T05:14:00.000-07:00

cLioTellsHi(s)Story

2011-03-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

cLioTellsHi(s)Story from Neal Corl on Vimeo.

Just finished this short that we shot in 2007. I think it's the most successful of all my shorts. Very happy with it and glad to share it.

Awesome Vintage Boot Label

2011-02-01T15:17:00.000-08:00

(Reblogged from a A Time To Get)

I love this from a graphic design perspective as well as a fetishist of all things vintage. I have many pairs of Red Wings, both vintage and new. But the only jump boots I ever owned were the Corcoran's tI bought while in the military. Those boots shined up much better than the regular issue 'cruit boots and helped earn me at least two three-day passes during Command Inspections. They served me well for years after the Army as well. Though they weren't as comfortable as Doc Martin's, they were a little less specific, especially in the late 80s when Docs were associated very negatively with Skinheads in Portland. Then they were hopelessly ubiquitous in the early 90s. My jump boots were my footwear of choice especially when wearing anything other than Levi's during that period. I passed the boots on to a friend after they were about ten years old. He wore them daily for a few more years. Pretty good value for their original sixty dollar price tag at the PX in Germany in the mid 80s.

The Master Says 371

2011-01-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

Hollywood gives a young girl the aura of one giant, self-contained orgy farm, its inhabitants dedicated to crawling into every pair of pants they can find.

Veronica Lake

(The Selvedge Yard inspired this return to an old Finding Fellini favorite - The Master Says.
Photo and quote reblogged ibid.)

Factory Fascinations

2011-01-26T22:37:00.000-08:00

I noticed on Facebook today that one of my very young friends, a very interesting model with whom I've worked, posted some pics of Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgewick. N is about the same age as I was when I was fascinated by all things associated with Andy Warhol. However, in my case it was the 80s. There was no treasure trove of images and videos at my fingertips in cyberspace. I checked out every book I could find at the library and read them. Few of Andy's films were available on VHS. I went to see Warhol's films at the SF Art Institute, which was totally informal – a 16mm projector and a bunch of art students sitting on the floor in some foyer. I listened to the Velvet Underground. When I was living in Germany, one of my German friends was somehow able to convince Nico to come meet him for coffee when she was in Munich while on tour. Obsession with the Warhol crowd was Stefan's and my bond.
I'm not saying it was better or worse back then, it was simply different. You had to work harder for much less and a lot more got left up to the imagination. Andy thrived on mystery and salacious gossip. He, like many of us, would probably have a love/hate relationship with the digital age.

Set of Lumberjack Storytime

2011-01-21T18:32:00.000-08:00

This is the bedroom.

This is the front of the cabin in the woods.

This is the gravesite. The crosses were actually

little sticks about three inches long in front of little

piles of dirt that I shoveled with a plastic spoon.

I Must Have Been Insane

2011-01-19T01:51:00.001-08:00

Cancel My Subscription to the Resurrection

2011-01-19T01:43:00.000-08:00

The Uninvited

2011-01-19T00:23:00.000-08:00

Old News That's News To Me

2011-01-18T17:30:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/science/18prof.html?src=me&ref=homepage

I've been studying mathematics lately to prepare for some upcoming Statistics courses and possibly the GMAT. I also want to refresh and augment my skills as my children advance in their study of maths.
Coincidentally, I found an interesting article in the NYT today about making math more fun. Which led me to search for more information on Ulam's Spiral leading to this video on the simple importance of prime numbers.

We had a long chat about primes in the car the other day, identifying them and exploring their rules and patterns. I just showed these videos to my kids and I saw some lights go on in their eyes. My son commented that you could create a video game based on patterns. Yes.
I recently read an Eleanor Rooselvelt quote to the effect that low-minded folks talk about other people and high-minded folks talk about ideas. It feels good to reach a little higher.

A Jacket To Want

2011-01-18T00:26:00.000-08:00

Lumberjack Storytime

2011-01-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

Lumberjack Storytime from Neal Corl on Vimeo.

We shot this almost five years ago, but just got around to finishing it. The bulk of it is meant to go into a larger film that's also in progress, but I thought it could exist on its own as a short. At first I posted it on Facebook only, it quickly got a few likes and then nothing. I was frustrated because I see people pass around stuff that isn't all that good all the time. And people always ask to see some of my stuff.
The whole experience led me to redefine how I use Facebook. I've decided to use primarily it as an address book for old friends and colleagues. I continue to keep tabs on those who post status updates and I've even commented here and there, but I am rethinking sharing what's going on with me. I'm sure there's a better interface in the pipeline than Facebook or Twitter for personal news sharing. I think they can coexist in ways that earlier social networks didn't. For instance, I love having people that I worked with on photo jobs in NY in the 90s amongst my friends, but I don't think they want to hear about how much I love the Blazers or what my middle child said after school today.
Anyway, here's the film. Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it.

Finding My Way

2011-01-12T17:03:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure that I associate with too many people that aren't involved in some sort of self-searching, some of us more successfully than others. I know a number of people that are extremely self-actualized. As I know quite a few that are putting much more effort into getting more lost. I spent a number of years seeking obliteration myself. I suppose the toughest things to sort out are those periods when our ambitions are in conflict with our conditioning. That is to say when we really want to find our way, but find ourselves unable to effectively navigate the pathways we're seeking. Sometimes in spite of our fervent efforts we undermine ourselves both consciously and otherwise. I find that the two key things to making progress are courageous perseverance and seeking guidance from others. The Greeks had a name for thinking you can go it alone - hubris. A trait I'm all too familiar with.
There was a time that Finding Fellini meant finding greatness and recognition equal to Federico's. I was also interested in learning about Fellini in order to become a better filmmaker. In time, I became less prideful and self-interested and more open to Fellini's humanism. Eventually I gained the humility necessary to recognize pursuing a career in film was no longer in my best interest. I recently read that careers in the arts and, or glamor professions, are subject less to job markets but more to a high-stakes tournament. Few people win, most lose, some take jobs in ancillary roles, some enter tournaments with lower stakes, with and without hope for reentering the grand sweepstakes, and many others withdraw. My withdrawal from the Tournament of Aspiring Directors caused me to experience some crises of identity and a sense of failure.
I tried to refocus my energy on a career in Public Health, but ultimately decided that a complete career transformation, including five plus years of schooling was not in my best interest either no matter how passionate I felt about it. In the interest of capitalizing on the skills and contacts I already possessed from my years working in film, I began producing photo shoots - an ancillary role in a parallel industry. It has been sometimes fun and fruitful, but I don't see the likelihood of it capturing my attention in the long term for various reasons. I have not shut the door on photo production opportunities and will continue to leave it ajar for the foreseeable future.
I've been researching and contemplating my next career for most of the past year. I've looked into many things. Some of them involved entering more tournaments albeit on a less grandiose scale. I explored a career in fashion for several months. I hesitated to tell too many people about it for fear of setting myself up to appear fickle should I decide, like my public health aspiration, that it wasn't to be. I took a few sewing classes and did some drawing. I paid a lot of attention to inspirations and possibilities of success. It intrigued me, but there were many things that didn't feel right.
On the advice of a trusted friend, I decided to stop looking for an ideal career and to take a good look at what skills seem to be common in my long and varied work experience. I bristled at that initially. "What? Do you mean something like, What Color Is My Parachute?" I asked cynically. Ever earnest, my friend said, "Exactly that."
So I got that damn book and every time I started reading it I got a headache and felt tired and hungry and wanted desperately to go back to bed. Part of me feels as if I am aiming at some sort of consolation prize of a career that capitalizes on my organization or leadership skills. As such, the questions regarding what I really want out of life are like salt in my wounds. At best.
I spent most of my twenties trying to lose myself. I wanted nothing to do with convention. My heroes were denizens of the underbelly. I never wanted to buy a house or own much of anything, but I wasn't keen on being entirely destitute so I worked mainly in nightclubs and restaurants among other short-lived dalliances in various fields. In spite of my apathy and disdain for convention, I demonstrated a vigorous and dedicated work ethic and the ability to anticipate what kind of experiences and environments would attract the affluent, hip and beautiful by the hundreds. I was a leader and an organizer, responsible for large staffs, budgets, logistics, musicians' careers and investors' money. These skills seemed like common sense to me. In my mind, any idiot could run a business. I took it for granted that I was able to step into these businesses without any formal training or guidance and not only assume operational control, but increase revenues as well as raise their prominence.
I never really wanted to be there. I thought of myself as a writer or a furniture designer. Anything but a businessman. Nightclubs are all about make believe. Nothing seemed very real. Besides I never went looking for any of these jobs. They always came to me and when I was desperate for some income, I often took what was offered even if I would have preferred a less demanding job as a bartender. Because of these factors, it's been difficult for me to see that the skill set I used as a club manager and promoter has value. That the things that came easy to me are transferable and marketable competencies.
I regarded my film producing skills in a similar manner. I worked with producers along the way that often seemed to need my guidance or simply just get in the way. I never thought I wanted to be producing in the first place, but when I was subject to someone incapable of meeting my expectations I saw it that I had to put that hat on as well. Now I see that while that make sense, it has often been inconsiderate and insensitive. Being a good team player means helping one another out, not shaming those that are less capable. The takeaway, though, is that while I was doing okay at the creative aspects of filmmaking, my logistical talents were in abundant evidence. I was often distracted from my storytelling ambitions by my attraction to making sure things were happening efficiently. Clearly my mind is compelled by such challenges.
When I started producing photography, I thought that with my storytelling ambitions behind me, that I would be able to focus strictly on coordinating production. However, I found that while I didn't need to be the main creative force on shoots, I couldn't fathom not offering input into casting, locations, wardrobe, art direction, prop styling and, in some cases, composition. I don't feel as if it's an ego-driven desire. More of a DNA thing, really. I never stepped on any toes with my input and I'm told that for the most part it was not only welcome but appreciated. One of the photographers I worked with asked me to help him communicate with the models. He had heard me talking to the background talent and admired my director's voice. I appreciated his taking notice. There was no resentment on my part that I was better at an aspect of his job than he. Though I see that I have skills that benefit the creative process. And I really need some sort of creative stake - not primary authorship - but some sense of involvement beyond coming in under budget and making sure there's lunch for everyone. Again, those are skills to be sure and I need to make sure I account for them. While ensuring that I don't sell myself short.
I've been trying to explore what lies between the two extremes of my career pendulum. There must be jobs that are both creative and administrative; right? It's taken some digging and I haven't quite sorted it all out, but I'm definitely making progress toward discovering them. The jobs worth having are going to take more work to get than some of the jobs I've had in the past, but probably less work than it was taking to become a working film director. I've just go to keep striving to balance not making it either too easy or too hard on myself. I'm starting to feel some hope of finding a career that is neither booby prize nor beneath me, but that will not only make good use of my aptitudes and skills but encourage me to discover ever greater talents.

Political Spoof from 2008

2011-01-12T16:03:00.000-08:00

Political Spoof from Almanac Pictures LLC on Vimeo.

I improvised the voiceover for this video by Jordan Karr-Morse and Travis Huntington. It was supposed to be a temp track, but it ended up they couldn't find anyone to do it better for the final edit.

This Old Man ...

2010-12-28T15:56:00.000-08:00

... doesn't mess around with Knick-knack-paddywack.

Jolly Old Saint Prick

2010-12-24T12:39:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve. I grew up with no Jews around so I never thought to call the holidays anything but Christmas even though I didn't think about Christ on the day after I was six. Merry Christmas. Sounds nice. Comforting. All this Festivus shite is exactly that. Shite. More made up shit. I'm not bagging on Kwaanza. I went to a celebration a couple of years ago and it was touching. I try to say nothing but Happy Holidays these days. In my mind that means Christmas and New Year's rolled into one, but I'm coming to an understanding that the world is wide open and there are many iterations of the winter holidays occurring near the Solstice.
I've spent many a Christmas Eve in bars around the world. And in a Midnight Mass or two. I've shacked up with Jewish girls that had Christmas trees in their New York apartments. And once when I was stranded on a layover there was another old girlfriend that was a non-Christmas observing member of the tribe that picked me up from the airport. We drove around San Francisco taking pictures of empty laundromats and walking around the streets of the Mission that were quiet for once.
I have kids now, so there's a tree in the living room and some stockings hanging above the hearth. There's a big stack of presents in the garage that I wrapped a week ago from Santa. Tonight we'll put out some cookies and milk for the fat man. We'll read The Night Before Christmas. We'll eat bagels and lox tomorrow morning and open presents one at a time, going around the room until every gift has been received. It will take a long time. We won't talk about Jesus. We will say thank you several times and express our gratitude for more than the gifts we open. We'll eat roast duck as has become our family tradition. I'll assemble some toys in between skimming some of the books I'm likely to receive. Later I'll watch some basketball. The Blazers are playing.
Christmas hasn't always been a holiday that I've cherished or celebrated with joy and reverence. I had some disappointing ones as a kid. Jokey cards from convenience stores containing IOUs. Drunkenness. Violence. Stark reminders that all was far from well.
I've experienced a few odd ones. Like the time I was stranded in an apartment in Germany with a drunk Klansman from Missouri. It was my German girlfriend's place. Petra was a student at the local art college. She was away with her family, but let me stay there to get out of the barracks over the holiday. The redneck came with some friends that stopped by earlier and stayed behind when they left for some reason. The other guys were supposed to come back but there was a snow storm or something. In between telling me maudlin bigoted stories, he suggested that we put on Petra's underwear and just lounge about in them. It would be funny, he said. Finally, to shut him up about it, I let him call his family on her phone and listened to him blubber about missing them so. When the beer was gone I drank a bottle of Jagermeister that she had under the sink. It was the old style, regular shaped clear bottle with a hunter on the label. This was long before it became a craze in the U.S. and as far I'm concerned it should have stayed under the sink.
I'm never lonely on Christmas anymore. I don't talk to any of my friends. Or even think about them much. Some of it is having a family of my own that demands my attention. And the other is having four hundred of them just a few taps of my iPhone screen away. Facebook has taken a lot of the mystery and the romance out of old friendships. Reading holiday greetings in the form of status updates prompted some frustrated feelings in me earlier today. The festivus shite. But also the attempt at warmth through such a cold medium. Doesn't feel right somehow. Every time I hear the text alert on my phone I dread one of those mass holiday greeting texts. They make me feel lonely.
We went to the Nutcracker last night. Thankfully most people still dress up for it. My son was relieved he didn't wear a tie for nothing. He told me he thought it was going to be like when we went to the White House, that we would be the only family dressed formally, as he calls it. I tried to explain that we were dressed almost casually in comparison to dress a hundred years ago. I was thinking while watching the dancers that such a spectacle is less profound when we carry portals to almost every imaginable visual stimulation in our pockets. It isn't the same as a living breathing company of ballerinas twirling and leaping to a live orchestra on a beautiful designed stage, but it does diminish it a bit. I don't want it to, but it does somehow.
My children are excited to get a bunch of gifts and spend a couple of days with both mommy and daddy home. It's a special time for them and I'm glad to be a part of it. It's how I feel about most things religious; why do you have to make such a big deal out of things? The Natural World is amazing; do we really need to attribute it to God whipping it all up in a week? Talk about diminishment. Did we really need to invent this whole babe in a manger hoohaw just to get people to stop all the regular life stuff and have a feast and share some gifts? We do need tradition and ritual in our lives and I do suppose I've oversimplified things.
Anyway, I just needed to ramble a bit. Happy Holidays.

Les Dragsters

2010-12-22T11:32:00.001-08:00

I couldn't imbed this awesome video that Ray Gordon shared with me for whatever reason. Tous jaillissent, le link ést icí. Appreciéz si´l vous plaît.

I'm Moving to Sweden

2010-12-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

Art Therapy

2010-12-14T22:38:00.000-08:00

This guy in Upstate NY was brain damaged in a bar fight a few years back. He built a miniature fictitious WWII era town called Marwencol in his backyard populated by figures representing people from his life and his imagination. He took pictures of his scenes like the one above. His photographs were discovered by a NYC gallery which led to a documentary film. Marwencol the film is supposed to be damn good. Sounds it.

Time Marches On

2010-12-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

The projects I've yet to finish were filmed longer and longer ago. Honestly the only progress I've made of late is to not fret about it too much. I don't like that they're unfinished. Most involved have moved on. As have I in many respects. It feels pretty crappy to have such big projects that so many invested so much time, energy and good feelings into go neglected.
I've picked up the ball and tried to move toward the goal line only to fumble it so many times over the past few years. I'm lacking the heart to pick it up again. I try once in a while, but something invariably comes up. I'm weary of bugging people. Unanswered phone calls. Canceled meetings. I'm not really blaming anybody. I understand it's the nature of such a project. I enjoyed some of the process and learned some things along the way. One of which is that I don't want to go through something like that again.
Time may well be marching on, but the nagging feeling I have about Dangerous Writing in particular is not likely to go away until I manage to see it through. Even though it seems there's no joy left in it for me, I am committed which is why I'm putting it out there again.
But why is it that I would rather go the dentist than do the remaining work on this worthy little film? Can it be that when it's finished it can be judged? Or that it may be a final reminder that I failed as a filmmaker? I'm both terrified and bored by such questions. Moving on is what I would like to continue to do. Unfortunately, there's only two ways to do it - finish the films or don't finish the films. I don't seem to truly want to do the work to accomplish the former and I can't bring myself to accept the latter.

Throttled

2010-12-06T08:27:00.000-08:00

Shoe Dog

2010-12-02T22:48:00.000-08:00

I love the Brannock Device. So simple yet I've always approached the Brannock as if not just anybody is qualified to operate it. I worked as a shoe dog for a bit back in the 80s when I was 20 and 21. Started at JC Penney and then moved up to Nordstrom. Though we had a few Brannock's around, we generally took the customer's word on their size. I was never able to look at a person's feet and know their shoe size, thankfully I didn't sell shoes long enough to acquire that power. There was a man at JC Penney called Mike that had been selling shoes for over twenty-five years. Mike could do such things. I remembered him from when my parents took me to get shoes when I was a kid. He liked that I remembered him until I started outselling him and then moved on to Nordstrom.
Actually, initially I worked in Men's Sportswear at Nordstrom and that was much easier than selling shoes. Stand around the sales floor folding a few lambswool v-necks until someone needs your help. After a few months I took a job as the assistant manager of the Annual Shoe Sale. That wasn't really selling as much as organizing. After the sale, I was fed up with retail and worked as a bike messenger for a while. Then I moved to San Francisco and after a lousy couple of weeks as a messenger there, I got a job doing window displays at Macy's. For a short while I went back to Nordstrom's at San Francisco Center. My girlfriend at the time worked there and Macy's had laid me off while the Holiday decorations were up. Nordstrom offered me a full-time job after the holidays and the half-yearly sale, but I told them I had to go back to Macy's. Though I never did go back to Macy's for more than a couple of days here and there. The next few months I was poorer than poor. Man. It was bleak. My girlfriend moved out and took the bed with her. My friend moved in but he didn't have any furniture nor any money. We slept on wadded up clothes. We walked all over the city or sat around our empty apartment reading books and listening to punk records, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea. We found a case of MJB coffee packets in a dumpster and took a break from tea. We didn't eat much. Top Ramen. We got really skinny. But we always paid our rent and our bills on time. I started working in nightclubs around that time and eventually started living right again.
I never worked in retail again. I probably wouldn't mind it. I was always good at selling, earning top commissions in my department. Never pushy, just attentive, suggesting things that I honestly thought would be something the person might like. I doubt I would want to sell shoes again, though I notice that, in general, shoe salesmen don't provide the service they once did. It's rare that they'll slip the shoe on your foot anymore. That's how we did it. Up and down, back to the store room, up and down some more. Stacking the boxes and restocking them. It was serious work being a shoe dog, an appellation in which we took pride.

Flat Track Saturday Night

2010-11-28T22:06:00.000-08:00

I'm producing a photography show for Ray Gordon called Throttle that's going up at W+K in February. We went down to the State Fairgrounds in Salem last night to see the indoor flat track races and get some images. Mine is the camera behind the camera. You'll have to wait until next year to see what Ray grabbed.
It was cold and loud. I was impressed by the speed and bravado of some of the top riders. I liked many of the vintage and custom bikes. I was charmed by the little kids and the women, even though admittedly most of them could out ride me. Even the abundant and garish Moto-X Fox apparel had its appeal. The crowd was very mixed and visually interesting. Big Saturday night. That's three big Saturdays in a row for me. The Fairmont Kea Lani in Maui two weeks ago. Last weekend it was poker with some of Portland's political elite and this week it was dirt bikes with a bunch of gearheads and rednecks.

Mugs & Mirrors

2010-11-28T21:48:00.001-08:00

The Tedious Genius

2010-11-28T21:40:00.000-08:00

The only Orson Welles film that I like is Touch of Evil. I love the Third Man, but Carol Reed directed it. Citizen Kane – oh, I see its profound merits, but I could take it or leave it to be honest. Orson Welles doesn't really have my admiration. I find him mostly sad and his relentless commitment to his own ideas is mind-numbing and leaves me cold. But this photo is a beauty. I find Welles the most charismatic when he's frozen in singular moments.

Darling, will you get me a glass of water?

2010-11-19T17:01:00.000-08:00

Oh Yeah, Happy Veteran's Day ...

2010-11-11T09:23:00.000-08:00

... to me! I'm a veteran of the Cold War. The longest war in American history, spanning seven US Presidents. Ronnie Reagan was my commander-in-chief. While you were sitting around back here in the homeland listening to Dire Straits and Steve Winwood, I was one of the soldiers waiting to defend the Fulda Gap from an invasion of Soviet tanks. And now the only thanks I get is a consistently incredulous, "You were in the Army?" Yes, I was and I served with pride.
I did, actually, and though I was being a bit cheeky above, the threat from the Soviets felt very real at times. Seems long ago and almost totally irrelevant now, but it was a wonderful time in my life. One of the best things I have done for myself. While half of my friends were at the The University of Oregon, a slightly more enhanced version of high school, and the other half were safely cocooned in elite institutions of higher learning around the country, I was learning a technical job in addition to being a soldier alongside young guys from all over the country and its possessions serving under men that had fought in Vietnam. I spent my weekends in Paris, Berlin, Munich, Venice and many other cities. I skied the Alps. I drove my Mercedes on the Autobahn daily. I dated women from all over Europe aged 16-30. And for just two years of my life, that was hardly a prison sentence as I've outlined, I received almost $30,000 for college. In the early 90s, that paid for two years at a private school or four plus living expenses at a public university.
Since 9/11 and the mockery of all that we've been doing in the Middle East, I'm a lot less patriotic than I once was. But there was a time that I put a mean spit shine on my boots and a starched crease in my BDUs. As I stood at attention holding a salute at reveille each morning, I did so with intense pride.

Tasseled Loafers and a Flashback to 1993

2010-11-11T08:58:00.000-08:00

The Alden tasseled loafer. A classic that's been around long before 1993. Though that's when this NY Times article was written about the politicization of the shoe. It renders that moment in time rather quaint.
In '93, I was in college wearing black suede Pumas or a pair of Red Wing work boots that I still have and wear. I'm sure I had at least a few more pairs of shoes than that, but it certainly was a time that I traveled much lighter.
I didn't wear these things in '93 nor any at other time in my life. The closest I had was a cordovan kiltie loafer that I bought at a thrift store in the 80s. Though I don't recall wearing them much. Anyway, like many men's shoes, the tasseled loafer exists in a sort of no man's land for me. They're traditional, but not classic. Truth be told, I don't really like any men's dress shoe without a heavier brogue sole. A running board they used to call it. Otherwise they look too dainty, especially on anything over a size 11. Slightly effeminate without taking too much risk. Middle of the road and ho-hum.
They really do look like the perfect shoe for legions of lawyers in off the rack suits that have too much break in the trouser legs. Now, if I had nothing but time and money on my hands, I might consider this shoe with a bold plaid cuffed trouser worn just a little short with no break. Maybe a fine pair of bright yellow socks, like the pair I bought at Harrod's over ten years ago that still look brand new. I could see sitting at an outside table in the summer, crossing my leg over my knee and letting one of these slightly ridiculous shoes just hang there for all to see, giving them pause to wonder if I'm serious or not. Were I to wear a short sleeve shirt, they might get the wink and the nod. Or they might turn and run.

Please Refrain

2010-11-10T23:21:00.000-08:00

These phrases make me cringe: "~~Get 'er done~~", "~~Just sayin'~~", "~~Beyotch~~" and "~~Really?~~" Not cute. Unoriginal. Very overused.
I also realize why soccer will never ever appeal to the lowest common denominator of sports fans in the U.S. – American fans are truly disappointed when every pass isn't a touchdown, every swing of the bat isn't a homerun and every shot doesn't go in the basket with an and-one. Last night at a Blazer game I could hear a collective groan after the visiting team scored in spite of rabid chants of "De-fense". This apparent disappointment less than ten games into a long season in a game that the Blazers led by ten or more points for much of the game. I can understand having a visceral response to the other team scoring when the game is on the line, but to be disappointed whenever the opponent scores is troubling. The lowest a team has scored in a single NBA game in the past fifty years is 49, the lowest season long average is about 82.
~~Really~~, sports fans? Do you really think an NBA team isn't going to score? ~~Really!?!~~ They're the best players in the world. They go out every night and ~~get 'er done~~, ~~beyotch~~. ~~Just sayin'~~.
Unfortunately, writing that has just caused me to shiver in shame is all to common in the snarky cool cultural garbage bins of social media and the blogosphere.
I need to go take a shower now.

K♥-10♣-9♦-4♣-3♣

2010-11-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

"Sometimes nuthin can be a real cool hand."

Rising Sun

2010-11-05T01:41:00.000-07:00

Oh so 80s ... oh so 40s ... oh so Meiji Restoration ... oh so Karate Kid ...

The military flag of the Imperial Navy was banned at the end of WWII only to become le graphique de rigueur of New Wave fashion.

I love that I see it on tee shirts from the 80s and in the Pacific Theater war movies with which I've lately been obsessed. I'm not so keen on its use in the Karate Kid promos.

What an amazing graphic. Flags are awesome.

Pictures of the Floating World

2010-10-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

This is a nineteenth century Japanese woodcut of the green grocer's arsonist daughter, Oshichi, by Utugawa. Oshichi is character from the Edo period in the seventeenth century. Legend has it that she fell in love with a temple page she met during a fire and started another fire thinking she would see her love again. She was caught and burned at the stake.
It's from the Library of Congress collection of pre-1915 woodprints. One could do a very beautiful blog reposting images from any one of the LOC's collections. The WPA/Dorothea Lange stuff is among the most notable, but there are thousands of noteworthy images.
I love the historical photos, but these Japanese woodcuts really thrill me. I love the patterns and the use of space. The term floating world refers to the ethereal topics of the prints. I wonder if it also refers to the floating images in the composition as well. I will try to do some research. I remember learning a bit about these in Art History, but the focus seemed to be more on their influence on Modern painters such as Cezanne, Matisse and van Gogh. I don't know, they didn't turn me on back then as they do now.

Sawdust Mountain - Eirik Johnson

2010-10-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

I came across Eirik Johnson on 20x200. I think I've said it before, but for so much of my life I wanted nothing to do with the Pacific Northwest. There was a sign on a North Beach storefront in San Francisco when I lived there in the late 80s and early 90s that read "I'm dying to get out of Portland, Oregon". Every time I saw it, I read it with the joy of someone that feels as if he is finally in the presence of someone who understands. Oregon offered me nothing, worse than nothing actually, as far as I was concerned.
My attitude started to change about twelve years ago, coinciding with the death of my mother – gee, I wonder if there's a connection. Since returning to live here about six years back, my appreciation for my roots has continued to grow.

Seeing collections of photographs like Johnson's hits me in various ways – simply as nostalgia and as affirmation of my feelings of displacement. I am attracted to the charm exuding from these landscapes and portraits, feeling both an appreciation of their vintage as well a deep familiarity with their subjects. At the same time I'm reminded of my feelings of never feeling a part of this place. Which at this point in my life is more of an affirmation than estrangement. I really felt like I didn't belong and these photographs confirm that perhaps I didn't, but I was here nonetheless.

Scratchings

2010-10-24T11:02:00.000-07:00

I just did this on my phone. Not sure if it's the name of my new blog. Or if I'll use it in any way, but it's very cool to have a tool like this.

Here are a few other quick drawings I've done getting familiar with the app. I'm not sure why I would be hesitant to share as I wrote in my last post.

iDig

2010-10-24T01:37:00.000-07:00

This blog is cool. I've been using the same drawing app on my iPhone for a couple of days. It's a lot of fun. Not quite ready to share any of my drawings, let alone start a blog of them, but I'm enjoying it. It's made start to see the world in ways that I haven't for a long while.

Geronimo - What You Think You Know

2010-10-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

When I hear this man's name it sounds so familiar that I am certain I must know a lot about him. But the truth is I do not.

Sore Fingertips

2010-10-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

I read in the past few days that ninety-some percent of the sewing in couture garments is done by hand. That knowledge combined with my appreciation of sashiko and a hole in my favorite jeans has led to very sore fingers from hours of pulling and pushing a needle and thread over the past couple days. What have I gotten myself into now?

Sashiko

2010-10-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

A Japanese hand-stitching technique traditionally used by fisherman and farmers to repair holes in fabric. Also used decoratively as embroidery and for quilting. So beautiful and meditative.

The White House

2010-10-12T07:17:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of months I've been in communication with my Member of Congress trying to arrange for a tour of the White House for my family during our trip to Baltimore and Washington. I've been anticipating it with some anxious fervor I must admit. Our scheduled time was at 8am today. We got up very early, made even more difficult by the fact that we haven't adjusted to this time zone. Normally a three hour difference isn't a big deal, but with small children it's an issue. My son and and I wore ties, he in a blazer and me in a suit. The ladies wore dresses and pretty shoes. We ate breakfast at our hotel and arrived about a half hour early. It was important to me to not be harried and especially to not be that American family on vacation in togs that I would not wear to mow my lawn. We weren't the only family to take some care with our dress, but we were in the minority to be sure. In and around the White House people took notice of us. There didn't seem to be any judgment, but it struck me that a family dressed semi-formally is so outside of the norm.
The tour itself was fine. Limited to the social areas of the East Wing, there was much talk of wallpaper, chandeliers and paintings. It was all very beautiful and if I tuned into C-Span more often I would probably recognize the rooms we visited more readily. Our guide was a Secret Service agent that was very articulate and took great pride in his presentation. I was a history major in college and have always had a fascination with the Presidents. His many anecdotes were familiar and I enjoyed seeing all the original paintings. All but George Washington lived there over the years. (Washington was instrumental is the design and location of the residence however.) Yet, it seemed more museum like than haunted with their presences. I didn't really get the sense of the many great men and women that have lived and visited the White House. Maybe it was the ropes cordoning off all but passageways through the rooms and the many tourists, orderly but numerous.
I was impressed by the view of the south lawn from the Blue Room, the oval room whose shape is said to be suggested by George Washington so that no one could hide in its corners and the model for the Oval Office in the West Wing. We exited out the main door under the north portico. I had a feeling of elation as we did so and also an exhale of all the expectancy and anxiety I've been experiencing. Because of all the anticipation this is likely one of those experiences that will reveal itself to me over time. I've learned not to be too critical of my adventures that were fraught with angst as they approached. That written, I realize that I was present for our visit, so there's an even better chance that the experience will unravel for me over time.
Or perhaps it was no big deal and I'm just hopelessly middle-class.

Charm City

2010-10-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

We're in Baltimore this weekend and it's incredibly difficult not to be on the lookout for characters from The Wire. Then I recall that many of them were killed in action and then I sort of remember that it was all a fiction.

MCM - Mid-Century Maniac

2010-10-06T23:07:00.000-07:00

Neal Cassady

From the Toil of the Hand - Bleeding Madras

2010-10-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

The following is something I found buried on Land's End's website.

This essay appeared in the January 1989 issue of our catalog. Venture with us to the heart of India, where the ancient tradition of handweaving cool, cotton Madras plaids continues... as we approach the 21st century.

Madras. Beauty from the toil of the hand.

By Don Carlsen
In all the world, there are but precious few handwoven fabrics left. Our Lands' End Madras is one of them. And photographer Archie Lieberman and I flew halfway around the world (after being "shot" with most every antibody known to man) to bring you the story of how it's made, and the people who make it. Madras (the city) lies approximately 10,000 miles east and west of Dodgeville, and 12 degrees north of the equator, in southeastern India, on the Bay of Bengal. It's the capital of the federal state of Tamil Nadu, which is nearly the size of Wisconsin, and has been the center for the handweaving of cloth in India ever since there has been cloth woven there.
The first Madras fabrics.
Cloth historians (a "lot" very difficult to pin down) say that the first cloth handwoven in (or near) Madras was made of yarn spun from the tip-skin of ancient trees, and was called "karvelem patta". Many centuries later, about 3,000 B.C., Madras cotton assumed its rightful place as king, and bore the name "gada". Sometime during the 12th century, gada, not adorned with a stripe, or stripes, caught the fancy of Africa and the Middle East, and was exported to these lands to be made into headpieces. And, in the 1500's, a much refined Madras cotton was first block-printed by hand with floral or temple designs, and became the traditional garb of Madras villagers until plaids came into vogue in the 1800's.
The Scottish connection.
Many people I talked to in Madras said that we have the Scots to thank for today's beautiful plaids. (Or "checks", as all of India calls them.) They believe that the native handweavers simply copied (with some modifications) the tartan patterns worn by the Scottish regiments that occupied southern India in the 1800's. And, certainly if you whip out one of our catalogs, and compare our authentic Madras plaids and our authentic tartan plaids, you will see a striking similarity. Also, the basic and traditional colors of both plaids are much the same: blues, reds, yellows, browns, greens and whites.
If ever I was in mortal peril in India, it was on the road to and from Panapakam, where drivers put the pedal to the metal, and pass at will, with fearless disregard for the people, cows, bullock carts and other vehicles coming from the opposite direction. I can't begin to tell you how many close calls we had, but I can tell you that I feel lucky to still be on this planet. (Or, was it just dumb karma?)
Remember bleeding Madras?
The bleeding Madras fad of the 1950's and '60's, brought the world's attention to Madras, both the cloth and the city. And in the cloth's heyday, over 150,000 new plaid patterns were fashioned, using homemade vegetable dyes that bled, ran and blended to create a stunning effect. ("Cool" was the word we used, way back then.) Today, of course, Madras no longer bleeds, because it is dyed with man-made, color-fast dyes.
But this, really, is the only difference, between then and now, in the making of the cloth.
The making of Madras.
Madras is hand-dyed, hand-warped, hand-woven and hand-finished in almost 200 tiny Tamil Naduan villages. And all these precious, time-honored crafts are encouraged and protected by the government of India, which should make hand-weaving buffs the world over sleep easier for years to come.
First, the cotton.
The chief variety of cotton used to make our Madras yarn is "Varalashmi", and it is grown all over Tamil Nadu. It has a very short staple — 1" to 1.25" long. And it is very soft and fragile. So much so, that if combed, it most likely will break. Consequently, after ginning the cotton to remove the seeds and dirt, it can only be carded before being spun into yarn.
Slubs!
Lack of combing gives our Madras cloth one of its more distinguishing and charming features: slubs. "What are 'they'?," you ask, uneasily. They're "bumps," tiny thickenings in the yarn that endow our shirts with an unexpected texture and character. And, along with slight misweaves, are a signal to the world that our Lands' End shirt has been truly and authentically made of cloth handwoven in Madras.
More about yarn.
While I am on the subject of yarn, it seems only right to mention that we specify a higher count for our shirts than most others do: 80 very fine "60's singles" yarns to the inch in the warp (the length) and 80 fine "40's singles" to the inch in the weft (the width). (Lesser shirts usually have but 60 "40's singles" to the inch, in both directions.) Our higher Lands' End count "packs" the fabric, and makes it sturdier, while also giving it a softer hand.
On the road to Panapakam: the story begins, and almost ends!
Panapakam is the village we visited, for three days running, to watch the dyeing, warping and weaving operations. It is about 40 kilometers southwest of Madras, has a population just slightly smaller than Dodgeville's, and like Dodgeville, is situated in the middle of farm fields. (Maize, sugar cane and cotton.)
Yarn-dyeing.
Our Madras yarn may be dyed with the latest, commercial, color-fast dyes, but it's still dyed the ancient, time-honored way: by hand and by eye, by the hank. I watched as Sundram, a venerable masterdyer in the village of Panapakam, worked on a shady, smoke-filled patio at the rear of his house. The smoke came from a pungent wood that fired a vat of steaming spring water. Sundram first dipped water from it into a container. Then, he added and mixed salt, soda, fixing agents and, finally, the dye — an indigo. When he judged that the color of the mixture was right, he dipped a pure, white hank of yarn into it, over and over again, and as the yarn "took" the dye....
It bloomed into a beautiful, pale, pastel-blue!
With obvious pride, Sundram held the dyed hank in the sunlight, and showed me how perfectly it matched the hanks he'd already dyed. Dyeing is a skilled craft, perhaps even an art. And, in Sundram's family, the "how to" of it had been passed down from father to son, for several hundred years. Sundram told me that when he was younger, he had made vegetable dyes the ancient way: from indigo, thathiripoo flowers, alampha bark, rice skin and various roots. And, he'd mixed them in earthenware pots made by his wife. Before we left, he found a pot in his attic, for us to look over.
On the road again.
The next day, we arrived in Panapakam at dawn, and watched a warp being made in the coolness of a grove of tamarind trees. Warps are always made in the early morning, in Panapakam, and usually in the shade, because hot sunlight will fade the warp yarns. The warpers first set up a bamboo warp frame, then attached dyed "60's" yarn, a strand at a time, to the beam at the foot of the frame, then "walked" it 60 feet to the head of the frame, and sleyed it in one of two reeds there.
No way will the warpers beat the sun, I thought.
Honestly, I didn't see how they'd make it. Our pattern called for a 50-inch wide warp, with 80 yarns to the inch. According to my math, that meant 4,000 yarns would have to be "walked" from one end of the warp frame to the other, before the sun grew hot. No way!
But by 10 AM, the warp was finished.
Then it was inspected, and frayed yarns were replaced, and broken yarns were tied with weaver's knots. Next, starch sizing was slung on the warp yarns with bristly brushes, and burnished with bamboo sticks, to give them a smooth, even finish for weaving. And finally, the warpers tied off the yarns by colors, rolled then up on the beam, and carried it to the master weaver's cottage. Warping is arduous, painstaking handwork. But in Panapakam, it is work that is done with care, and poise and dignity. And these are qualities that most certainly show up in the Madras shirts on the pages of our catalog.
"Time out!"
At this time, after spending two days in Panapakam, I was beginning to feel that it and Dodgeville could almost be "sister villages". Both are neat, clean and sit smack in the middle of farm fields. And the people of Panapakam, like the people of Dodgeville, are country folks: straightforward, helpful, friendly. There are more similarities, too. They take what I'd call a simple, Midwestern kind of a pride in their work. And they spend their afterwork time with their families, or playing cards or talking with the neighbors, while the children play. I remember leaving Sundram's house that first evening, just as the sun was setting softly on the fields. Spices and cooking smells were in the air, because it was supper time. And the streets were quiet, peaceful — just like they are in Dodgeville, after a long day of hard work.
The weaver's trade.
The following morning, we went back to Panapakam, to watch the handweaving of our cloth. And Mudaliar, a tall, thin bespectacled man of about 40, was the masterweaver I interviewed. He lived in a small, whitewashed brick cottage, among a cluster of brick cottages that all had handlooms built right into the foundation, benches and all. The size of Mudaliar's wooden loom surprised me. It was huge: about 12 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 8 feet high. And he told me, proudly, that his grandfather had built it from scratch. When we had first walked into the weaving room, I had noted that the loom had already been dressed with the warp that we had seen being made in the grove of tamarind trees. And, as I watched now, Mudaliar spread water on the yarns with a wet cloth to make them more "workable." Then, he sat down on the bench, put the first shuttle into place....
And he began weaving.
It was my first look at handweaving, and I was fascinated. Pushing foot pedals attached to the harness, Mudaliar raised and lowered the warp yarns, while he sent the shuttle flying and weaving through then, with his hands. The room and the cottage were filled with a rhythmic "clack-clack, clack-clack" made by the flying shuttle, and the reed stick packing the yarns. And I watched in wonder as beautiful, colorful cloth for a Lands' End Madras shirt was created, and grew, right before my eyes.
Beauty from the toil of the hand.
Mudaliar and his wife Ammal, taking turns at the loom, wove enough cloth for many Lands' End shirts that day. And I wondered who, in America, would be lucky enough to order one of them.
On to the banks of the Arani!
The next morning, our last in Madras, we traveled north for the first time, to the Arani River: "the washing place." The pure, spring water of the Arani is reputed to give our Madras a special softness and texture, because (as one Madrasan told me), "It lies light in the hand." And I don't know whether it was the power of his suggestion or not, but the water actually did feel unusually light when I held it in my cupped hand.
Fresh, pure, spring water bubbled up, and filled a hole in the dry river bed.
The washers had dug the "washing hole" that morning, and I watched as they spread 25-foot lengths of cloth in the water and let them soak. Then they worked the cloth back and forth with their hands and bare feet, cleaning and finishing it, while they sang.
I sure hoped that Archie's pictures turned out.
After the cloth was washed, it was spread out to dry on the river bank. And at day's end, the bank was totally, colorfully covered with hundreds of lengths of Madras cloth, drying in the hot sun. "Beautiful" was the only word I could think of. And all Archie could say was, "Ahhh", as he shot roll after roll of film.
Goodbye, Madras.
Our assignment in Madras ended as we left the banks of the Arani, knowing that the Madras cloth we'd left drying there would go on to further assignments of its own. More washings. Travel to our shirtmaker in Georgia, for his fine touches. Countless inspections by Lands' End Q.A. folks. And finally, hopefully, delivery to your home, and others, where I know that it will be warmly welcomed, greatly admired and comfortably worn. To be sure.
And, now, if you will allow me a short postscript:
On the plane headed homeward, sometime after midnight, and somewhere over Russia, I started thinking back about what I'd seen on my trip. And, mostly, I thought about the people, and their skill in the making of our Madras cloth. "Making clothing remains essentially an art form." Gary Comer has said. And, maybe, nowhere else on earth is this more true than in Madras. There, I'd seen people dye, warp, weave and finish cloth with their hands, eyes, and hearts, giving it pattern, grace, beauty — and most assuredly, "life". And, I knew that I would think often of these people, who lived and worked in the middle of farm fields, when I was back home working, in the middle of farm fields.

Ranch Truck - Southeastern Oregon

2010-10-06T18:04:00.000-07:00

Bandanna Watchband

2010-10-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

I made this watchband out of a bandanna scrap this weekend. It took about five minutes. For now I just tie it on with a simple knot which is easier to do with one hand than I thought it would be. It's very light, soft and comfortable. I've noticed a lot of people checking it out this week. Nobody has said anything, but I'm not taking that as a bad thing. I'm sure it's been done before, though I haven't seen anybody else rocking it. Yet.

Learning to Sew

2010-10-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

I made this drawstring bag out of scrap fabric in a sewing class last week. It was good practice for creating seams, a hem and a buttonhole. It was also nice to create something tangible and usable within a very short time. One of my daughters has already claimed it.

Signatures

2010-10-06T17:34:00.001-07:00

Keeping Pace

2010-10-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

I mentioned starting a new blog and I continue to explore the possibilities. One of the things I'm trying to do differently is to slow down and allow myself to be a beginner. One of the reasons I've been holding off on launching a new blog is to make sure I know what I want to do and to do it at a natural pace. I really want to launch it fully formed and mature. Which is completely unrealistic. So I'm trying to ease my expectations of myself. And remind myself that I did a good job with Finding Fellini - over a thousand posts over five-plus years with dedicated readers from all over the world. All without any promotion. Last year was fairly dormant around the time I first thought it time to move on, but otherwise it's been regularly updated. I read a lot of blogs and most are not very well maintained.
I have a lot of ideas about the new webblog, which essentially will be a style blog. I've been reading fashion and style blogs avidly since last spring. There are many that I like, some that I find overrated and others that seem quite brilliant. I like the street fashion photo blogs like Street Peeper, which is international, and Urban Weeds, here in Portland. I want to do some of that. I already do street casting for photo shoots, which I really enjoy. But I like to write, so I'm pretty sure that I won't be doing that exclusively. I'd also like to do it on the road, so some of the people I would feature might not have a clue that they're fashionable at all. Mister Mort mixes in the unintentionally fashionable in his style blog. He also mixes it up between street fashion shots and other writing. One of his stated agendum is to help men develop their style.
Personally I want to steer clear of any teaching. I think my filmmaking career would have been better off had I resisted the call to teach at least a bit longer and perhaps indefinitely. No regrets, just want to learn from my experience moving forward. I want to be very clear about it. I like teaching and often people suggest that I'm good at it, however I want to make sure that whatever I might teach next comes only after I am well established in my field.
Anyway, I'm checking things out around the internet, in my own head and a little with my feet and hands. It's slow moving for a guy like me that usually throws himself into things. There's a talent to that, but it also comes at a price. Like spending years on film projects that really should have been finished within a few months or a year at most. I attribute that to spreading myself too thin, being too keen on the next thing and, of course, plain old fear.
I really like the name Red White and True and I could certainly do that .blogspot or .typepad, but if I wanted my own URL, it's already taken by true.com, a web dating service. Why they had to snatch up the former, I'm not really sure. Anyway, red, white and true has the obvious American connotations I embrace, but it's also a nod to the land of the rising sun. The Japanese are skilled and devoted keepers of the flame of American vintage fashions, of course. We'll see.

Orlando

2010-10-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

There's a little town in Cuba that will forever hold my attention. For three days I was the Pied Piper of Matanzas. I would have stayed longer had I not met a musician from Havana called Orlando. I was staying in the private apartment of two sisters and though they had asked that we not bring girls back to their place, one night we did. What started with the simple intentions of hanging out on the roof with two girls that we met while riding our bicycles, ended with the usual parade of followers, this time in the living room of the two sisters.
Being the head of the snake takes its toll. Were we in America or Europe or Mexico, the endeavor to hang out on the roof with a couple of young ladies would have been much more discreet. An invitation to the girls with an explanation that we were staying at someone's apartment and we needed to be mellow would have yielded something along those lines. Were we with a bigger group, a polite goodbye would have sufficed in breaking off on our own. Not so in Cuba. The tail of the snake lingered in the hall outside the apartment, persistently knocking on the door asking to see us. The sisters would then come to the window and call up to the roof to let us know the others were anxious to know what we were doing. Then the girls with us got in a screaming match with the sisters. My girl was very insistent that we meet the next day so I could buy her a new electric fan. By the end of the night we had to shove people out the door and down the stairs telling them to scram and in some cases hitting them off with a couple of bucks.
Quietly watching all of this from the sofa was Orlando. He had a great smile. He was there to play a gig the following day. He suggested we leave for Havana the morning after that.
The rest of our time in Matanzas and getting to Havana is another story. Orlando hooked it up, though not without the usual Cuban shuffle of getting in and out of a few cars and vans. He took us to a great old house to stay in in Vedado, the nice old residential area of Habana. We had the whole top floor to ourselves with a terrace and a semi-private entrance for twenty bucks a night. Orlando introduced us to a woman that lived above the music school where he taught just down the street. She cooked breakfast everyday and occasionally other meals for three or four of us for the next couple of weeks. Some of my happiest memories of Cuba were the meals we ate in her kitchen.
Orlando took us to rumba parties where we were the only foreigners. He showed us hidden places in old Havana. Not places where Hemingway used to hang out (though I did visit Finca Vigia while in Cuba), but little passageways that seemingly led to nowhere. At the end of which he would knock on a wooden shuttered window. He'd then ask me for three dollars and hand it off when the window opened. A few minutes later the window would open and three tiny cardboard boxes packed full of congri were passed from the darkness. Dinner. Three bucks for three people. That's very cheap even by Cuban standards. Especially for foreigners who are expected to eat only at state-sponsored restaurants where a tasteless hamburger is ten dollars.
But there are great private restaurants run out of the back of apartment buildings and homes all over the city where you can eat well for about three or four dollars per person. You just have to know how to find them. And be willing to walk through someone's living room while they're watching television. There are jineteros all over the place trying to hustle you to guide you to places where they get a kickback. Thankfully we could ignore those annoying bastards. Orlando introduced us to his best friend and his sister, who were both dancers. The five of us went all over Habana day and night, usually by bicycle. Orlando's sister often rode side saddle on the top tube of my bike. She was the only woman I hung out with in Cuba that didn't ask me for money. Of course we paid for all of her meals and drinks when we were together as we did for Orlando and Jose. It seemed only fair - they were always showing us a good time for less money than we would have spent had we not been with them.
The last night we went out to ice cream at a place in Vedado. It was a celebration. I wasn't drinking alcohol at the time, but the other three guys were sharing a bottle. They got a little drunk. They had bought us little Che Guevara key chains as gifts. I still have mine. We walked back to the music school and continued saying our goodbyes. I ran over to my room to get my Persols to give to Orlando. He had lost his sunglasses - some cheap pair - earlier in the week. I think I had the case with me, too. He and his sister were standing on a staircase just above me. I passed the sunglasses over the bannister to him. He was thrilled and put them on immediately. Then he pushed his sister toward me and told her to kiss me to thank me. He was drunk and it truly was the only creepy thing he had done the whole time I had known him. I liked his sister and normally I would have liked to kiss her, but it wasn't right. She and I exchanged a look that let me know we understood each other.
A few minutes later we all hugged and said our final goodbyes. A year or so later a friend of mine went down there from New York. I gave him their addresses and some gifts to take. He met up with our friend that cooked for us. She told him that Orlando had gotten out of Cuba and gone to France. He defected while on tour. I'm sure he's doing fine wherever he is.

Set at Liberty

2010-10-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

I moved offices a couple of months ago, emptying my latest studio of all my film gear. I'd been there for over two years, almost three. It was a sublet and my landlord was vacating the building. Even so, it had been time for me to move on for a while. As I did so, I noticed that what I really wanted to do was be rid of it all. Even though I continue to earn a mostly passive income on rentals, that wasn't the thing preventing me from letting it all go. I dreaded sitting down and categorizing each item to be sold on eBay - too much history. Too many feelings of grief. Yes, grief. I made films for a long time. And I spent the decade before the decade that I made films wanting to make films. That's twenty years of an emotional connection to something. And let me tell you, or remind you if you know something about filmmaking, it's a very consuming endeavor.
I haven't talked to my father in years. I don't miss talking to him. I have given up hope that talking to him can be anything but painful, that the best I could hope for is polite indifference. Nonetheless, one day he's going to die and when I learn of it, I will be sad with grief. And that's how I feel about filmmaking - I know we're done with one another and I accept it, but it isn't without some remorse and heartache.
And yet, there is a profound feeling of liberty to be set free from one's own inertia whether it be familial, vocational or otherwise. This last week I arranged to sell my entire gear package in one go. I've got a check for half of the agreed upon sale price in my wallet at this moment. And believe me, I will cash it.

Filmmaking Update

2010-09-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

Went and watched the almost finished Lumberjack Storytime short that I wrote and directed. It's an outtake of sorts from our feature film Made Crooked. It's Tara's story that she tells to get a reaction out of her father and brother about having wanton sex with two burly lumberjacks, which is acted out humorously in costume by Tara, Travis and me. We shot it in a warehouse, but it looks like it's in a cabin. I covered the props with foamcore cut to the shape of the original furniture in the cabin, we then projected images of the cabin onto the set. It was fun to do and I dig the results. Gave Jordan a few notes on the sound design and we discussed the titles. We shot it so long ago that we were having trouble remembering who worked on it for the credits. Moody? No, we hadn't even met him yet. Et cetera. Funny.
It's almost finished and we discussed what to plug away on next. I wanted to finish another short, but I had to admit that we really need to get back to Dangerous Writing. It's so damn close. So tonight's the night. Expect some updates soon. Soon as defined by Neal and Jordan that is. So don't hold your breath, but do count on us to stick with it until the damn things are finished.

True Grit

2010-09-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

Love the movie. For about fifteen years I've been contemplating getting TRUE GRIT tattooed on my knuckles. Have yet to read the book. Think I will, but I'll be buying a vintage copy as the latest printing has something to do with the Coen Brothers remake of the 1969 film starring John Wayne and Glen Campbell. I'm not mad at the Coen Brothers for their remake. I might even go see it. And I understand the movie tie-in covers in order to sell more books. But just from an aesthetic point of view which book would you rather have on your nightstand and, or in your satchel for a week?

Get Low

2010-09-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure this was the best film I've ever seen, but I enjoyed it. I'm much more forgiving of matinees in general, as we saw it earlier this afternoon. There were many long stretches where I was all in, a couple moments where it dragged and some sort of a rush to bringit all to a not so tidy end. I liked the acting and the much of the story. Bill Murray always distracts me as most comedians tend to do in dramatic roles. As charismatic and talented as many of them are, they cannot seem to take on the role as an actor can. As Robert Duvall can and does in this film. There are films, more often in supporting roles, that Duvall remains more himself than his character, but Get Low is not one of them. The kid from Sling Blade was very good. Sissy Spacek pretty good, too, though her character didn't have that much to do.
The sets and the costumes were amazing. A lot of period films get the styles well, but the clothes as if they either brand new or in tatters. I have a pet peeve of seeing the bottom of a pair of shoes propped up on a desk in a film and it's obvious they're straight out of a box never worn outdoors. Bill Murray's shoes have a hole in them, which is perhaps taking it too far, but actually a very telling detail that isn't revealed until late in the film.

Rationing

2010-09-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

List of rationed goods during WWII.

Noms de New Blog, etc.

2010-09-26T10:58:00.000-07:00

Once again, I've been thinking it's time to move on from Finding Fellini.
I really don't want to make movies any more, and the storytelling I want to
do just doesn't seem to feel right alongside all this other stuff.
And if I were to promote a new blog, I'm not sure I want all the baggage on FF.
The new blog will likely be along the lines of what I've been posting lately –
men's vintage and heritage clothing, Americana, fashion, Indian robes, travel.
I do think Fellini was intent on finding the beauty and mystery of our lives and exploring
the above things is certainly along those lines, but it feels like a new direction that merits
a new template.
I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to write fiction of any sort. Which doesn't mean
that I don't want to write or tell stories. Storytelling is a very broad term. At least in the ways
I term it. Pictorial artists, designers of all ilks, nightclub promoters,teachers, musicians, bloggers – we all tell stories.
The great thing about a blog is that it's so free-form. You can go in any direction your heart desires. But for it to be relevant to those that might enjoy it, it needs to be focused and consistent. There are those that might enjoy traipsing all over the place with me, but I get the sense that it's the exceptional reader that's game.
Also I don't want to kill certain elements. The progress meter for Sway - the novel I started but am unlikely to ever pick up again - is something I want to preserve. I don't want to kill it. I'm okay with it being frozen in time. But I don't want to answer for it. I don't want to put myself through talking about when it might be finished or what it's about. I enjoyed writing it (perhaps typing is better, as someone once famously criticized Kerouac's On The Road), but I don't necessarily want to go back and review it or try to improve upon it. That's all I have to say about that.
It's better for me this way. And if it's better for me, I think it's going to better for the internet.

Red White & True
Original Glory
Wiseacre
Proven Classics
Hooligan Sailor
America Indeed
John Brown Chronicles
Rockabilly Hero
Three on a Match

To be continued ...

Heritage

2010-09-24T23:21:00.000-07:00

According to Esquire, the buzzword in men's style this fall, with most every brand exploring its archives and trumpeting craftsmanship and authenticity in its collection.

As an avid follower of such things, I wholeheartedly agree. I happen to enjoy seeing companies like Levi's and L.L. Bean go back to their roots. I have a closet full of L.L. Bean Signature.

Proven Classics

2010-09-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

Portland Outdoor Store
Brooks Brothers
J. Press
Paul Stuart
Filson
Luchesse
Red Wing
Pendleton
Langlitz
Wessco
Lee Storm Rider
Mackintosh
L.L. Bean
Belstaff
Ben Davis
Barbour
Harris Tweed
Florsheim Wingtips

Waxing Silly

2010-09-23T20:36:00.000-07:00

It's Fall, so the fashionistas are really going for it. When I lived in New York City it always made me laugh to see all the slaves trying to wear the cashmere sweaters in the IT color of the season when it was still very warm outside. Or when Uggs were the thing - women couldn't stop themselves from wearing shearling boots in the heat of early September. One year my mother bought me a beautiful leather car coat that was insulated for my birthday, which is in late August. I'll admit it was very difficult to wait until it was properly cold enough to wear it. I'm sure I pushed it.
What would be the fun of fashion of one didn't push the limits. I have suffered much judgment since early high school for my daring to step outside the mainstream. Living in Portland, one can hardly leave the house in anything but jeans without being accused of dressing up for a fete. I miss living in NY where people check each other out, but rarely offer any verbal comment.
There's a little company called The Hillside that makes ties, pocket squares and scarves out of chambray and other unlikely fabrics for such items. I have one of their chambray ties in charcoal. But, the IT item of the fall amongst the fashion types that I follow on the web (some of their links can be found to the right) seems to be the waxed cotton tie. There's no way I'm going for it. I love the idea of waxed cotton, but don't really like clothing made of the stuff. I don't like the smell when it gets wet nor its stiffness when it's wet or dry. A necktie is unlikely to get very wet, but the idea of stiff, unforgiving waxed cotton around my neck makes me bristle.
I had a waxed cotton Barbour barn jacket that I got in Scotland several years ago, but I finally gave it away after trying so hard to like it. Then a couple of years ago I couldn't resist buying a Filson Tin Cloth Logger. I love the look of it. And I've worn it during a downpour on the deck of a sailboat and in the Oregon woods without getting wet or cold. I can't always say the same for gore-tex. But the Filson is most often unwearable. Maybe I'm not going about it very well. I seem to spend more time going out to dinner or coffee on rainy days than sailing or standing around in the woods. It's super stiff, though not as smelly as my Barbour. You have to take it off before you get in the car. In my Bronco or pickup it was okay to sit down, but steering felt way too cumbersome. I've had it for three years and it's as stiff as the day I bought it. Lately I've threatened to sell it on eBay. I don't think that's going to happen. I just need to get a jacket or coat that I can wear in the rain that isn't a parka made of some sort of modern technical fabric and save the Logger for appropriate occasions that are neither indoors nor sporty. Unlike my fellow Portlanders, I can't bring myself to wear gore-tex or fleece when I'm not engaged in the activities for which they was designed. An early spring trip up the Columbia on a sailboat - Filson. Skiing on Mt. Hood in January - North Face.
Even so, you will not see me wearing a waxed cotton necktie anytime soon. The tie paired with a white oxford and the Filson logger would make quite a statement. But it would be very uncomfortable and I don't care how cool some very cool people say it is, if you can't wear clothing effortlessly, you shouldn't wear it.

Butterflies and Demon Pirates

2010-09-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

Sailor Jerry is to traditional tattooing as Matisse is to 20th Century painting. So good that you almost look past him. And because prints of his work have seen many commercial applications. Like listening to the Beatles in an elevator, the genius of the melody transcends the cliche. I love Sailor Jerry flash as I love Matisse and the Beatles.

HEIRLOOM

2010-09-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes
Roses
China
Silver
Linens
Seeds
Jewelry
Watches

Noun

heirloom (plural heirlooms)

A valued possession that has been passed down through the generations.
A crop variety that has been passed down through generations of farmers by seed saving and cultivation.

Little Bit Wm. Faulkner, A Little Bit Steve McQueen

2010-09-21T21:29:00.000-07:00

A behind the scenes look at the creation of Billy Reid's Workwear line with Levi's.

A Gimlet Eye

2010-09-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

Le Mensch

Le détermination

L'allurement

Le Rat Rod

Le travail

Boobies

2010-09-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

From the age of about 6, I wanted some x-ray specs. Underwear would have been fine to spy upon, though some flesh would have been good, too. I used to check out the ads in the backs of comic books for these things. I was pretty sure they didn't work and that if they did, I probably shouldn't have them. Either way, there was no way I was going to let my mom in on the fact that I had a desire to see through women's clothing. She would not have thought that was very cute.
Years later a friend of mine asserted that by that stage in our lives, we had enough experience to know what a woman's breasts looked like through their clothes. I'd say I would agree with him for the most part. Though modern bras are very adept at subterfuge. And natural breasts are anything but cookie cutter. I don't think I've ever experienced two alike and that includes the ones on the same chest.
I was obsessed with boobs from a very young age. I really loved Cat Woman. I've never been into the size as much as the shape.
I wouldn't call myself a boob-man, because I like tushies, too. I never really recognized a girl's butt as being attractive until I was in the sixth grade. It was very impressive though. I was standing on Hawthorne after seeing a movie at the Bagdad. I'm thinking it was a Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder flick, maybe Stir Crazy, though my memory isn't quite that good. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that was it. Anyway, we were waiting for my friend's parents to pick us up afterward. Matt said something like, Look there's Julie S. She didn't go to our school, but she was well-reputed to be a fox. (To use the parlance of that time.) It was the first time I had ever seen her. She was standing in front of us. And there it was, one of the greatest butts of all my middle school years. (I tried for years to get a date with Julie. I finally gave up. And then later, during high school, I dated her younger sister briefly.)
My early obsession with women's chests was probably a result of not being breast fed. I would suppose that explains a lot about me if anybody buys into Freud anymore.

J. Crew Sells Out

2010-09-16T20:55:00.000-07:00

They're selling out not in a Warholian fashion, but in a retail way. The jacket above is of the type of heritage American workwear coveted in Japan and lovingly and painstakingly recreated and reinvented by companies like Kapital. It's beautiful stuff. The jacket above is neither vintage nor Kapital. It's a collection created by Heller's Cafe, a vintage clothing museum in Seattle, and Warehouse, a Japanese denim company, for J.Crew. It just launched and much of it is sold out already.
I also noticed that J. Crew just released a shawl collar sweater with toggle buttons much like some of the Kapital coats we shot this spring. Of course fashion is endless recapitulation and replication, but it seems like J. Crew has really jumped on the Japanese, and perhaps specifically the Kapital, bandwagon.

They are going for it. Check out the facial hair and the unkempt locks on this male moodle. I do notice that though they may go for the bohemian stylings, they still can't abandon their youthful demographic. Only a company like Kapital has the cojones to cast an old blue-eyed bastard like my high school classmate Robbie Daigle shown here in Kapital's beautiful 40s wool melton wool with hand-tied rope toggle buttons.

Wasted

2010-09-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

I Know These Guys

2010-09-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

City of Culver City

2010-09-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

I've been in Los Angeles since Saturday. (I flew on September 11th.) I'm staying at the Culver Hotel. My room is right next the H of the HOTEL sign in the photo. The hotel is historic, built in 1924. The exterior and the lobby are very nice. The rooms and upper hallways not so nice. I do love the view from my room though. I'm right on the end of the building so I have those two windows facing west as well as two facing south and one to the north. Nearly panoramic. I like seeing the lights and sky to the west at night as Washington and Culver Boulevards intersect. John Wayne owned this joint long ago. One if its other claims to fame is that the actors playing the Munchkins stayed here while the Wizard of Oz was being filmed.
Many of my friends have asked why I'm staying in Culver City. No particular reason. Last time I was here, I stayed in Santa Monica. I like being near the beach, but everything else is too much of a shlep when you're out there. One can experience the openness of this area on foot. You have to get in your car to go anywhere at many hotels in LA. Except for downtown, but I didn't feel like staying downtown this trip. The purpose of which is mainly restorative and to see some people. I like the simplicity of being around here. Some of the architecture is nice. And the hills to the south feel like some sort of uninhabited border, the other side of which could be a vast western desert instead of Inglewood and LAX. The streets are very clean without it seeming posh or exclusive. There are some good restaurants just across the street such as Ford's Filling Station and The M Cafe. There's a movie theater to the right of the plaza in the photo. I saw The American there the other night.
The scale of Culver City feels very comfortable. I first drove through here late one night many years ago before it was revitalized. Then a couple of years ago my friend had the privilege of opening a new play by David Mamet at the Kirk Douglas theater.

I was staying with him, so the night I went to see the play we went over to Culver City and had dinner at Ford's before he went to work. I roamed around by myself until curtain. It was a typically beautiful Los Angeles evening. Everything had a nice feel to it. I've stayed all over the place down here. I don't know that I would make Culver City my forever go-to spot in LA, but it's got its advantages.

Kapital Casting

2010-09-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

Two of the models above are professionals. The rest are friends, people I found on the street and my son. I like street casting. Especially for a company like Kapital that favors interesting faces over the usual ho-hum plastic people.

19th Century Fonts

2010-09-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

Big Sur Revisited

2010-09-10T09:39:00.000-07:00

The powerful feel of Big Sur's enormous sky above as I got to know the character and his world had become part of the book and stayed with me as I continued to read it back in the Pacific Northwest.

I love that I carry that sky with me - both the infinite, pacific blue of its days and the sparkling cosmos in the gloaming black of its nights.

I've Found This To Be True

2010-09-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

Movies are impossible to make and they ruin you,
but children run and run.

Adult Reading

2010-09-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

I just finished The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Barry Udall a few days ago. A very enjoyable read. Reminiscent of John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany – but better. Better because it was less sentimental and not as corny. Irving's books almost felt like guilty pleasures when I read them long ago.
Now I'm reading Timothy Egan's The Big Burn. I've been wanting to read The Worst Hard Time, Egan's book on The Dust Bowl, before his latest book, but it didn't turn out that way. I was given a biography of Teddy Roosevelt by one of my acting students years ago and I wanted to read that prior to The Big Burn as well. I've learned though, that sometimes you just have to dig in. I love reading history. I was a history major, actually, though that seems very long ago, and as I specialized in Mexico, it seems even more remote. I even earned a lifelong membership to Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society, though I've yet to put that on a resume. Growing up I loved American History. I had a set of encyclopedias in which I wore out the entries on all the American Wars and the Presidential biographies.
However, in the early 90s when I went to college, I was studying Spanish and Mexican folk art. And there was a renowned scholar of contemporary Mexican history that had just come to Portland. I became his student. When I went down to the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla - the USC of Mexico - for a semester I took a seminar on The Mexican Revolution. Professor Schuler's lectures and assignments prepared me well. Even though the course was conducted in Spanish, I earned an A+ on my first essay exam.
One of the joys of blogging is to be able to recall such forgotten moments in one's life. It has no relevance and to mention such a minor triumph seems almost immodest, but it I think it's good to remember such things. To write them down and make them real. For no one other than myself, and perhaps any reader that needs a reminder to recall their own small victories.
What it does for me is to evoke the whole person that I am. To overcome my habit of editing myself to the point of nullification at times. I am a pinball. I ricochet from one interest to the next, immediately forsaking much of my hard-earned recent experience, gathering all of my energy for the next target. I roll bright, shiny and confident toward it, though I feel the chaotic randomness of my path acutely. Pinball really is a good metaphor for my life as it is a seemingly random game that actually can be played with skill and sometimes bravado.
It's important for me to remember as my fascination with 20th century American History reignites that my Mexican scholarship wasn't a waste or something to ignore. However distant it may feel. To be honest, it felt distant when I was studying it. Not only was it history - events in the past, but it was foreign in so many ways. As I traveled around Mexico, meeting people and staying with friends' families, they often remarked that I knew Mexico geographically and historically better than they. Maybe this is part of the greater puzzle that I am trying to piece together - no matter how much someone says I know, I tend to doubt it. Fear.
One thing I'm coming to view as a strength is the seeking and the chasing – the ricocheting pinball rolling at a high speed toward yet another pin, knowing full well it's not going to find stasis as it hits the bumper but will likely gain velocity and a new course. This is a pivotal insight. For so long, I've been trying to find some sort of equilibrium. For others to hear this usually produces at least a scoff. I'll admit it's a funny way of going about it. Reminds me of the wisdom to know that the playground bully is often the most afraid - tough to believe, especially when his wrath is coming at you, but invariably true.
I have no need to justify my interest in the subject of Timothy Egan's National Book Award winning, New York Times bestselling book. Plenty of people didn't drive through forest fires in the early 70s with their grandparents or study history in college or have an acting student that was obsessed with Teddy Roosevelt or have an affinity for vintage American work wear or have an old friend that's a legendary forest firefighter have read this book and enjoyed it and have done so presumably because they feel connected to the stories within simply because they're human. Maybe that explains my need to enumerate my qualifications - I don't find it easy to connect. Maybe because I'm a steel ball bounding about. And maybe because I find it so god darned difficult to be satisfied with simply being human. It doesn't feel good enough much of the time. It's important that I don't beat myself up about this. I can just take a look at it. I must really want to, because it's pouring out of me. Today all I really wanted to blog about was what I've been reading. To be really honest, I just wanted to post the image of the cool slide from the New York Public Library archives I found at the top of the page. But the thoughts come. And then they go. And some of them come around again and again.

Dogs That Chase Cars | The Nuances of Seeking

2010-09-05T16:03:00.000-07:00

Some dogs are born to run and to chase. It's in their nature, certainly, but it proposes danger to both chaser and chased should the operator of the vehicle react recklessly or be exposed on a motorcycle or bicycle. There are steps owners can take to modify and, or prevent such behavior. I've been chased on my bicycle and motorcycle multiple times. Scary. Not fun. On a motorcycle it's not so bad as it's easy to decelerate and then take off to throw off the dog's angle of pursuit. On a bicycle it goes against every instinct to slow down when being pursued. Once in the woods of Pennsylvania I had to jump off my bike and scramble up a tree as a Rottweiler got way too close for comfort. One thing each of these experiences has in common is that every time the owner acted as if this was completely surprising behavior on the part of their dog. I have a friend whose dog has a tendency to chase bicycles. When they're out for a walk she keeps him on a short leash when bicycles approach. Many people don't. The owner of the Rottweiler actually told me that her dog wouldn't hurt me as he growled and bared his fangs from the base of the tree in which I was seeking sanctuary. I would submit that she had an opinion of her dog that was unrealistic. She was delusional.
Yesterday I caught up with an old friend. We were very close in the late 90s. We were business partners and we traveled extensively together. Some of my favorite stories involve him. We lived life to the fullest during that time. Things happened to us that seem like tall tales. Since he and I didn't speak for the past ten years, many of those things started to feel more mythical than actual. There was no bad blood, we just lost touch -- he's definitely not the type for social media. So we talked and got caught up. He asked me what I was into these days. It's a question I expected from him. The basis of our relationship back then was he was Mr. Gerard and I was Wiseacre. We had pencil thin moustaches and wore spectator shoes. We got fitted for custom-made zoot suits and hats together by Valentino in Las Vegas. Everything we wore was either vintage or custom-tailored. Our pictures appeared in publications such as Life, Esquire and The New York Times. On Wednesday afternoons we got straight razor shaves from a barber. Before I could answer, he posed some guesses. And before I could reply with much depth, we were off on another tangent. At some point he said, "You're a chaser. You were always chasing something." He admitted he followed me when he could, but sometimes he couldn't keep up. I got a little tongue-tied. I wanted to deny his claim, but I thought about it and I told him he was probably right. I admitted that there always seems to be something that catches my attention. I'm a seeker. It wasn't easy to say it unapologetically. I think I've long equated being a seeker with being lost. It's a stretch for me to see that being curious and adventurous and sometimes reckless is part of my nature and that it's made me the worldly, sensual and sophisticated man that I am. I want to hold onto that -- to accept and embrace the multitude blessings in my life that have come about because of my nature. Because it's much better to be a seeker than to be delusional. Even though sometimes they feel like they're one in the same.

Io Sono L'Amore

2010-09-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

I love Tilda Swinton. She's powerful and gorgeous and sort of grotesque. She's not afraid to contort or expose her body and soul in unflattering ways. She's an actor from the old days of film - her beauty is a result of her artistry rather than just another pretty face.
My friend suggested this Italian film called "I Am Love" the other night. "Tilda Swinton is in it." All he needed to say for me to agree. But it was god awful. It tried so hard to be good the first third. Which was annoying, but there were many beautiful shots and settings and people to get to know. They were all presented as if the filmmaker thought he were Rossellini. But he isn't and Rossellini's once avante-garde manner of introducing a place is now passé. Tilda was amazing in the first act, however. She palyed the patrician wife perfectly and quietly. So tall and regal. She has such an expressive body in the simplest of ways. (Think of her in Michael Clayton. Her physical life was amazing.)
Then the second third of the film a lot of stuff happened without motive, but again, it was pretty. But not that pretty. Or simply pretty the way some blond women are pretty - kind of boring. The film was so dull that Tilda Swinton getting very naked did nothing for me. If kind of make me feel like she had wasted something in exposing herself so in this dog of a film. It seemed as if the filmmaker stopped trying. And then in the third act, it was if he was trying really hard to be bad. The music got really overt. Opera would seem understated in comparison. Agonizingly solemn and at once tragically hysterical. As we walked out of the theater my friend said he was glad he saw it for one reason only, that he would be able to use it as a barometer for film tastes. If he met anyone that loved it, it would tell him a lot.
I still love Tilda, but I won't blindly go see another film just because she's in it.

Swooning

2010-09-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

Swooning is a physical sensation often brought on by a profound feeling of adoration. It is experienced as a sort of electrical charge traveling from the chest downward, sometimes all the way to one's toes. It is usually followed immediately by a sigh and a relaxation of the muscles accompanied by a heady giddiness. To swoon is often amorous in connotation, but it can also mean to experience generic symptoms of light-headedness, dizziness and, or fainting.
This more debilitating swoon is known as a vasovagal attack. A vasovagal attack is a condition involving slowing of the heart, reduced blood pressure and reduced blood circulation to the head which reduces the oxygen supply to the brain and can lead to fainting or convulsions. The condition is brought on by over-activity of the vagus nerve, a remarkable nerve that supplies nerve fibers to the pharynx (throat), larynx (voice box), trachea (windpipe), lungs, heart, esophagus, and the intestinal tract as far as the transverse portion of the colon. The vagus nerve also brings sensory information back to the brain from the ear, tongue, throat, and larynx.
The condition is more common in females than males and is often associated with conditions such as lack of sleep, illnesses involving fevers and excessive fasting.
Of course these things are related -- we experience many sensations in the organs and body parts listed above when we love. It makes sense that as the tenth cranial nerve, the vagus nerve transmits mucho informaccion from our heads downward. In a new love affair there is little sleep to be had, falling in love is often associated with fevers and one rarely has an appetite when in the throes of early courtship's passions. These symptoms are also common for parents of newborns. There are other objects of beauty, both in the natural world and things manufactured, that make one weak in the knees.
I wanted to give the physical sensations of appreciative adoration a little thought tonight, because I've been swooning all the goddamn time lately. I'm finding Fellini all over the bloody place – life is freaking grand.

We Really Shouldn't Bomb Iran ... Ever

2010-09-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Eyes Without A Face

2010-08-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Oh, the random joys of living in a digital world. By the way, if you're over forty, think of how often you read, said or heard the word digital in the first two thirds of your life compared to the past third.
So anyway ... I was enjoying the morning today. No reason to jump out of bed and take the day by storm for once. The soft light was casting shadows on my walls and ceiling of the lovely patterns of the tree branches outside my window. I was playing some Billie Holiday on my iTunes. All was well in the world.
Then one Billie gave way to another and Billy Idol's Eyes Without a Face started. It felt so out of place and remote. Not in a bad way. Maybe like a status update from someone that you don't know very well on Facebook -- mildly inappropriate and unwelcome somehow. But there it was. In between Billie Holiday and Billy Riley. Just one song from some random 80s collection.
The song always reminds me of a message left on my answering machine in high school. I was friends with a guy who later went on to become one of the founders of a major social networking site. He had a very deep-toned and distinct way of speaking, very drawn out and bassy. "Neal, what's up, power? What would it be like if your girlfriend had eyes without a face? Call me back, it's B____." As if I didn't know that or could ever forget it.

The Perfect Gift

2010-08-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

Today is my birthday. Several months ago I bought three Pendleton muchacho blankets commemorating Oregon's sesquicentennial. They're beautiful blankets that come with a beautifully written letter from Oregon's current First Lady. I'd been waiting for the right occasion to present them to my children. I didn't want to give them to them for Christmas as they would get lost in the shuffle. Nor for their birthdays or other special occasion as they would hardly be welcomed instead of a desired toy or video game. This morning I decided that my birthday would be fitting. They opened their boxes as I read the First Lady's letter just after breakfast. I could tell they got it, each according to their age, and that it was a gift joyfully and proudly received by all. Throughout the day I noticed my son proudly laid his on his bunk bed. My older daughter used hers as a cloak of invisibility. My youngest as swaddling for her favorite doll.
After dinner and birthday cake, they presented their gift to me – the Pendleton robe pictured above. It is described below. As a long time collector of Pendleton and other trade blankets, this exchange of gifts was very touching. I was especially proud that my children enjoyed the richness of their blankets and were able to keep it a secret all day that they too had a blanket for me. Especially as I read the letter explaining the tradition of exchanging blankets to show respect.

Our Father’s Eyes is a tribute to the men who watch over and guide us as we journey through this earth. Diamonds represent the eyes of a father. They are symbols of the clarity and wisdom with which he watches over and guides his children. Within the diamonds, outstretched arms of the father reach to embrace his children. Arrowheads signify the unwavering protection a father provides for his family and the direction that he offers to his sons and daughters. In traditional Native American symbolism, arrows pointing to the right offer protection and those pointing left ward off evil. Feathers signify the spirit and creative force as well as honor. On the left the spirit feathers of the father await birth. On the right, feathers remind us that our father continues to watch over and send us his prayers after he passes on. The traditional step pattern echoes a father’s lifesteps from birth, to adulthood, to old age and finally to the spirit world. The wave design represents water and the ebb and flow of life’s ups and downs through which our father offers his love and support.

SF Kitchen

2010-08-20T08:18:00.000-07:00

Big Sur

2010-08-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you what I was doing there nor who I saw while there nor where I stayed nor anything specific at all aside from this: after a few days up on those mountains and down on those shores, the back of my neck felt like jelly. A magical place to let go of some tension. An unforgettable few days.

Four Wheels in Big Sur

2010-08-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

Live Fast

2010-08-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

I'm temperamentally inclined to slow living, or so I'd like to think. Yet I'm very impatient and impulsive. So there are times that the stream of life is a rushing wall of water crashing through my normal existence. The profferer of the Canada job called me two weeks ago with yet another job that I accepted and spent the following eight days completely absorbed by. It went well.
Then I spent another week wrapping that job and recovering physically and organizationally. So here I am, sitting quietly on a Friday night. Thinking about old friends and more exciting, but not necessarily better, times of my life.
The motorcycle has proven to be a very good idea. I'm enjoying that.
What else? Not really sure. I'm not writing or missing writing. I'm trying to stay connected to finishing Dangerous Writing, but it feels like a chore for the most part. I do want to see it finished, but the process is a trudge to say the least.
I just moved out of the office I've had for the past two and half years. I had to go through all the detritus of making movies and teaching acting. I tossed a lot of it. Not most or anything drastic, but I let go of somethings that I've been hauling around for a decade or more. Part of me would like to see all of it go. I'm not very attached to it. But some of it still makes me money through rentals and the occasional job, though the more photo jobs I do, the less I want to make movies for any amount of money.
The other reason I find it hard to let go of my film-related stuff is that it is stuff that has value, or so it would seem. I had a collection of scripts from the 60s-80s that I offered to whoever on Facebook and to the NW Film Center. You can get a lot of them online now, but these were copies from the studios and from the time when there was no internet. There were no takers. I tossed each of the one to three pound bricks into the recycling skip at my old office. And that was that. Times change within and without.
I have an old film camera that I need to sell as well. Part of me wants to heft its heavy metal case up into a corner of my attic and see what the world thinks of it in twenty years. But my attic is mostly empty and I'd like to keep it that way. So I'll donate or sell my beautiful and trusty old Arriflex to someone that will find a use for it.
My father-in-law once reminded me that money is just an exchange for time. That holding onto stuff that you think you could sell or use again someday is really just shorting yourself time.
Since I tend to live faster than I often realize, I suppose I shouldn't short myself time by hanging onto possessions that no longer serve me.

When One Door Closes ...

2010-07-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

This week I got calls for two very interesting jobs that involved a lot of travel with the promise of generous pay. I'm at the stage of producing photo shoots that just getting the calls is fun and encouraging, especially good jobs such as these.
I heard about the first gig Monday morning. It involved going across Canada from BC to Nova Scotia by car for two weeks. Initially I thought it was a producing job wherein I would be asked to shoot some behind-the-scenes stuff. Right up my alley and a very exciting proposition to get to an opportunity to see Canada in such a way. I've got some other stuff going on right now that makes this trip even more appealing - let's just say, it's a very good time for me to get out of town. In my excitement, I didn't realize that what they were really looking for was a director of photography. It took a couple of days. Even before that I was offering to lower my rate to make it happen. But once I lowered my rate they wanted to see some work samples that closely matched their brand messaging.
Ugh. Before I continue with this post, I have to vent. I hate brand messaging. The only way I'm able to work in advertising at all is as a producer, because in that capacity I'm taking care of the photographer and the crew, making sure they have all they need to do a great job for the client. I don't really want anything to do with the product and I'm perfectly happy not being asked what I think about such things. I'm much happier making sure we find a perfect location or cast the best talent and, most importantly, that we have good food to eat. I like to book travel arrangements, too. I also like to create budgets and schedules and to assume the responsibility of staying within their limits. I'm sort of like John Cusack in Say Anything - I don't want to buy, sell, process or distribute anything bought, sold or processed ... something like that. I don't want to photograph anything that doesn't have anything to do with the people that I'm working with that I find interesting. I can't stand the schlock. So behind-the-scenes, making-of type videos and photographs are my bag. I like observing people doing interesting things. I like authentic behavior. While models are posing the photographer is trying to manipulate them to best sell the product, but my pictures of that process are about something else. I don't want the client to see my pictures most of the time.
Anyway by Wednesday it was clear that the Canada job was not for me. I was bummed, but also glad to know that I need to be clear about what I'm trying to do. I thanked the photographer that put me up for the job while reiterating that I'm very interested in work as a producer. And that while I'm producing, I'm interested in and capable of shooting behind-the-scenes stuff that could be used for content in some cases.
Then, the very next morning, I received a call from a photographer's agent that asked me to put together a bid for a job that would take he and I and a small crew around Oregon for three weeks taking pictures of cultural figures and places. I don't know yet if we'll get it, but can you imagine if I had said yes to a job that I wasn't really right for and missed out on a job that's EXACTLY what I want to be doing?
Even if I don't get either job, it was a lesson is staying lucid about one's intentions and goals.

10 Steps to a Better America

2010-07-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

1.    Stop Immigration
2.    End Free Trade
3.    End White Discrimination
4.    Stop Interracial Marriage
5.    Stop Foreign Aid
6.    Stop Homosexuality
7.    Stronger Law & Order
8.    Support Small Business
9.    Defend Gun Rights
10. Live by the 14 Words:
       "We must secure the existence of our race and a future for our
       white children."

This according to The World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan based in Sharpsburg, Maryland.
Their motto is, "Be a man, join the Klan."

Almost Picked a Winner

2010-07-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

Manic Monday

2010-06-29T01:46:00.000-07:00

I've made the most out of Monday, getting up early and now refusing to retire. I worked a lot. I enjoyed most of it. The work was successful, which helps. Of course I shouldn't be tied up by results, but you know ...
There was a point today after spending some time with an old friend's parents after the first part of my workday that I felt extremely happy and connected. After that I rode my motorcycle to have dinner with a friend. He shared some strange stuff with me. Stuff he's shared with me before, but today I just had to tell him I was confused and that I understand why he might be confused about his behavior.
I was distracted when I was with him. As I've been distracted all evening. I did some web page stuff for work. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be and that made me happy, but it took a very long time and ended up being tiring and tedious.
I like the motorcycle. Glad I got it. I need some sort of bags so I can ride it when I have stuff to carry. I've been a lot more comfortable on it the past couple of days. It's weird. Like something has opened up in me, yet when I feel that way it feels reckless. Maybe it's carefree and I'm being paranoid.
There's been a fair amount of communication in my life recently that I may be misinterpreting. Perhaps more paranoia. I don't know. Maybe it's that I'm out in the open, living more. Not hiding out in my accustomed ways.
I used my new camera for another job today. I like it. It's pretty amazing to be able to shoot stills and HD video with the same camera.
Feels like some things in my life are changing fast. That's the likely source of what I've referred to as paranoia. It's probably more simply a case of just shaking things up a bit. Quite a bit, actually.
Maybe the reason I don't want to go to bed is I'm dreading a couple of tomorrow's appointments. I was looking forward to them, but like I said, there's been a lot of change happening.

Portland, oh Portland

2010-06-21T02:26:00.000-07:00

I was born in Portland and have lived here for about two-thirds of my almost forty-three years. I've lived in other places that captured my imagination and my heart for a time, yet I've always returned here. For many years it was because my family was here, though that's no longer the case. Sometimes I came back here because it wasn't working out someplace else. There were times that I thought I might not ever return and others when return was inevitable.
This city has changed considerably over my lifetime. There are a lot more people. New buildings. New people. Neighborhoods that used to be undesirable now have reputations as destinations worth checking out or investing in. I don't know. A lot of it is hype. Some of it is cool. You really have to decide for yourself. I just moved to a very nice, but very uncool part of town. I like it a lot more than I thought I would. But I'm not going to suggest you move here, unless of course your needs are similar to mine (good schools, families, trees, big houses that are not new construction on big lots for under 650K). The New Seasons just down the hill from my house is just a good grocery store. In North Portland and Southeast, where we lived over the past few years, the New Seasons offer more than the opportunity to buy locally at a reasonable price without going to a farmer's market. There seems to be more of an agenda aside from shopping for groceries in those Eastside stores. I really like to buy food that comes from a farm rather than a factory. And I suppose that could be a political choice, but it really isn't for me. I eat at restaurants all the time that buy crap from food factories. I would rather not, but life is too short to try to sort all that stuff out. That's part of what I like about living on the Westside.
For many residents of Portland these issues seem to be the type of thing that preoccupies them. Riding bicycles is a political statement. Eating is a political statement. I ride bikes. Sometimes I even put my bike on my car to drive to a better place to ride it. I like all the bike lanes in Portland. I'm guilty of turning right across bike lanes sometimes without giving that extra bike-specific look in spite of logging over three thousand miles on a bike myself last year. When I forget to look, am I bad person?
Last weekend I took a motorcycle safety and skills course. One of the questions on the written test was, Why do drivers in cars and trucks have trouble seeing motorcyles? The answer was because motorcycles are relatively smaller than the other vehicles on the road. There was no moral quotient. One of the things that they emphasized is that as motorcyclists we are responsible for being aware of the fact that we are hard to see and that we should ride as if we're not seen at all. Again, this wasn't suggested as a political compromise, but simply to preserve our physical safety.
So no, I'm not a fan of the smug and the arrogant. Yet I'm really supportive of getting people out of their cars and onto bicycles or onto mass transit. And I appreciate laws and traffic devices that encourage and require me to watch out for bicycles. As I appreciate the growing awareness of the many issues that the residents of Portland trumpet: safe food, safe water, sustainability, all that fantastic stuff that hardly anybody had anything to say about just a few years ago.
A former news editor at The Portland Mercury just left Portland and wrote this farewell on his blog. A friend brought this to my attention just yesterday. I have mixed feelings about it. First off, he's young. Secondly, he's English. And third, the Mercury just doesn't inspire a lot of admiration on my part for incisive journalistic content. Still, I think he makes some fair points. But the problem is that he's speaking to a very narrow section of Portland. He's now in New Orleans, a perfect destination for someone seeking an authentic experience in their place of residence. A recent post talks of getting his hair cut by an eccentric local. I used to get my hair cut by a very unknowingly eccentric barber in a tiny shop across from Civic Stadium. Carl the barber was there for years in the big green Multnomah apartment building that has been replaced by a high rise with some slick corporate street level anchor tenants. Maybe if Matt Davis had moved here in the early 90s (when he was still a teen) he might have liked Portland more.
Back to point number two as to why I can't take this guy too seriously - he's English. I find English people very suspect in general. They take a lot of pride in never being sincere. Always giving you the wind up and taking the piss. It's amusing for awhile, but I'm too old for all that now. Imperialism is in their genetic makeup. While they may seek authentic culture, they are all too eager to improve upon it. Another thing I don't trust about English people is their accents. No matter how long they live abroad, they still retain their accents, yet when their pop stars sing, they sound American. Okay, now I'm taking the piss. But there's some truth to what I'm saying. And yet another thing about the English, they often live somewhere other than England and go on and on about how rubbish everything is. I've spent a bit of time in England. I enjoyed myself and found a lot to like, but it's pretty clear to me why they're bitter in general and why they're in no hurry to get home again.
There was a time that people moved to New York to become New Yorkers, but in the past twenty years or so, those that move to New York want the city to accommodate them. This is a problem everywhere in the digital age. And yet, in an age of rampant global cultural homogenization Portland seems to be emerging as a distinctive place. How could this be?
Portland is not perfect. It's pretty. It's easy to live here in many ways. (Maybe too easy. Davis blogs about putting his emergency kit and his evacuation plan together for the upcoming hurricane season. He jokes about not having experienced the trauma as some other residents down there have. I just received an email yesterday from a New Orleans native friend that referenced his Katrina PTSD in a somewhat more sober manner.) Portland is kind of provincial. It's not very snarky. The weather often stinks. You can get out into the countryside very quickly compared to cities in California or the East Coast. There's a lot of creative stuff going on here that's pretty interesting given how relatively small Portland is compared to other American cities. There isn't a very fascinating cultural heritage here - logging, fishing, some soggy little native tribes scattered about the region. It's fairly homogeneous racially. Though over the years I always seemed to have a variety of friends in Portland of different races and politics in spite of this being the whitest city in America not run by Mormons. There are a lot of rental houses that can be shared by a lot of young self-proclaimed hipsters so that they can live cheaply and create a weird little quasi-artistic subculture. They're kind of annoying in their rigid lemming-like limited fashion sense and their disinterest in the contributions of the generations that preceded them, but I suppose they bring something into the equation of what makes Portland earn its identity. I miss some of the mom and pop businesses and Carl the barber, even though I wouldn't dare let a barber like him touch my hair now that I've been getting $75 haircuts for ten years.
And when I've gotten sick of Portland, I've left. So a fond farewell to those of you that don't like it here. It was probably a good decision to move on. It probably won't do any good, but I suggest you drop the animosity. It's just a city. And you never know, you might end up back here someday. I did.

Digs and Gigs

2010-06-18T00:31:00.000-07:00

I gotta get back to that DW trailer. But first there's a plumber coming in the morning. I would rather call a plumber and shop for a new tap for the kitchen and a new dishwasher than cut that f*ing trailer. Editing is not really my thing. I can do it quite well, but I don't enjoy the process. I need results quicker than is prudent. I did get back to the music this week, though. Rejected a song that the composer brought me. Hated doing that, but it just didn't feel right at all. He had the idea to contact an old friend of ours that specializes in the type of music I want for that particular scene. After D. left I composed a quick blues strut in Garage Band to play under a bar scene. Need to add some barroom chatter and glasses tinkling and maybe some sort of jukebox effect filter for the blues tune. I knocked that song out because I'm really tired of losing momentum on DW. I really want to finish that goddamn film already. I'm just not that interested in making films as a writer-director right now and yet I need to finish what I started.
I got a call to produce a cool photo shoot for one of the awesome photographers in town. It's for a prestige client and agency. I worked up the budget this morning. Even if it doesn't go through, I was really happy and encouraged to get the call. I'm hardly broke, but I need to earn some money. Mainly for my psyche. Filmmaking was starting to feel like a giant vanity project. Doing something that I like doing, that I'm qualified to do and getting paid well for it has been a long time coming. I've made plenty of dough in my life, but I haven't enjoyed the ride on a paying gig for a long, long while.
Earning money on that photo shoot last month and the video gig I'm working on currently felt really good. I want to keep it up and the potential gig I worked on today is heartening.

Avedon, Stegner, Curtis, Hatfield, McCoy ...

2010-06-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

The American West. Says a lot. Ralph Lauren made his fortune on it. Hollywood spent much of the 50s and 60s filming it. I've lived most of my life in it.
One of my great-grandfathers walked behind a covered wagon from Minnesota to Oregon in the late 1800s to his family's new homestead, the wheat ranch where my father grew up and my grandmother and two of his sisters still live. Pendleton, home of the famous rodeo and woolen mill.
I spent my first seventeen years yearning to get out of here. I wanted to be in New York and Europe. I lived in the latter and then settled on San Francisco before making my way to the former. I longed to be part of the East Coast establishment - educated, sophisticated, genteel. Preppy. Throughout high school, Lisa Birnbach was my guide and fashion consultant. Wanting to go into some sort of foreign service career and sometimes Wall Street seemed attractive. Then, suddenly I realized that wasn't me at all, and I wanted to be an architect and a painter wearing leather, engineer boots and riding vintage motorcycles. Levi's four sizes too big with a Ben Davis work shirt or a crisp white tee. Working as a bike messenger, window display artist, in nightclubs and as a graphic designer. A psychobilly bohemian, looking the part and only occasionally building or painting something. Then finally to school to study architecture, then painting, then history, then Spanish; thinking academia might be the answer while rediscovering hip-hop. The clothes were the same, except I swapped the leather jacket for a Carhartt and pulled a stocking cap low to my brow. I swapped the vintage bikes for a Chevy low-rider hooptie. Whenever the cops had a chance to stop me, they did and I always ended up sprawled on the pavement while they searched me then the car. When that got boring, there were more vintage cars, but nicer and with drop-tops. The clothes changed to DaVinci shirts and crisper jeans with a turned up cuff. The music rockabilly, early country and jump blues. I wore an Open Road Stetson and Justin ropers. I scoured thrift stores across the country, sometimes selling things that weren't my size to vintage dealers. The outlaw literary hero, living the life without doing much writing, doing my best to look and carry on like Johnny Cash and a cowboy version of Charles Bukowski rolled into one. I then stepped into a life as a cartoon character living concurrently in the late 30s -early 40s and the mid-90s. I wore tailor made suits and hats, danced the lindy-hop in spectator shoes, drank in speakeasys and dated girls with complicated hairdos and vintage dresses. I could continue, though things settled quite a bit after the Swing phase. Basically, there's a trend of fetishizing fashion and lifestyle choices. I cringe at the searching and the vanity while admiring the resourcefulness and the energy.
I haven't been inspired by this type of thing for a while. I recently embraced athletic and outdoorsy clothing which I'd abhorred for much of my life, realizing that such activities were better enjoyed wearing the proper gear, but I never wanted to be seen in a social environment dressed as such. I rediscovered preppy to an extent. Brooks Brothers opened a store in Portland. It felt comfortable to a degree. A little stiff. Funny how it coincided with reconnecting with many high school friends after more than twenty years. I'm certain many of them assumed that I had been dressing in the same manner since high school. I rather liked giving that impression as I felt slightly embarrassed by my various clothing fetishes over the years, especially in the eyes of my conservative peers.
To my credit, over the years I rarely totally abandoned one look for the next. Most of the time I repurposed my wardrobe, transforming the way I combined things rather than swapping out my entire closet. (Though I must admit that my zoot suits were worn primarily as Halloween costumes for a few years after the Big Daddy Swing phase and though I have no foreseeable use of them, I cannot part with them.) And once I added permanent ink to my body the tattoos, many of them vintage flash, served as long-term commitment to a bit of an outlaw rockabilly legacy.
Original Glory is largely about trying to hold onto an idea of the past through one's devotion to fashion, though the characters' view of their style is so myopic that they don't see it as fashion but a direct embodiment of themselves and their ideals.
Anyway, lately I've come around to design and fashion with a renewed appreciation. I've been wearing my handmade cowboy boots that once cost me a month's pay. I bought a motorcycle - the Bonneville. I've been reading up on Pendleton blankets and Native American history. I've been researching cowboy boots and bought a few pairs of gorgeous Luchese's at a church rummage sale yesterday. I'm going to start going on some buying trips in search of boots and blankets. I plan to keep the blankets for my growing collection and sell the boots on eBay or to a friend that's a retailer of vintage western wear. While I'm on these buying trips across Oregon and other western states I'm going to be photographing locations and people for my production resource library. And I'm going to make the effort to get to know people in these communities by attending their fairs and other community events. Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to play matchmaker between city and country folk in various ways over the coming years.
And all the while, I'll have some time to myself out on the road to explore my own stories. I'm sure my fascination with the American West will ebb and flow as it always has and that I'll discover many other interests along the way.

Some Things That I Like

2010-05-31T23:11:00.000-07:00

Handmade cowboy boots with a walking heel
Making someone laugh
Mountain Biking
Playing Tennis
Tennis Rackets
Chambray
Fountain Pens
Short Stories
NBA Basketball
Pictures of Bob Dylan from the 60s
Jean Gabin
Fassbinder
Fresh Sawdust
Dark Chocolate
Flat-chested women that don't wear bras
Red Guitars
Pickup Trucks
Skeet Shooting
Snow
Goatskin
Fresh Eggs Softboiled
Pendleton Trade Blankets/Indian Robes
British and Italian Vintage Motorcycles
Cashews
Lemonade
Mexico
Japanese Gardens
Old Soda Machines
Canoes
Sergio Leone Films
Hardcover Books
Leather Medicine Balls
Push Lawnmowers
Sitting in a proper barber chair
Big Noses
Rumba
Mismatched Cufflinks
Antlers
Boxing Gloves
Records
Walking in New York, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid and San Francisco
Oysters

Nothing is ever as difficult as you think it's going to be.

2010-05-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

I was feeling some measure of despair over the past few weeks. I laid off the regular fitness routine in February or so, but I was working all day seven days a week on the house. My jeans were falling off of me. I had to punch a new hole in my belt with my Leatherman. Then the house was finished. We moved in. My wife left town for most of March and April. I didn't get the garage organized, so my home gym was covered and surrounded by all the stuff that needs to be organized or sold or given to charity. My personal training clients and I didn't reconnect after the lay-off. And I didn't need the new hole in my belt or the next one after about six weeks. Then the Kapital job happened and I ate way too well for two weeks. And drank a lot of Cokes for comfort and energy.
I felt a lot of anguish about letting off the fitness and gaining some fifteen or twenty pounds - I didn't know exactly as I didn't really want to get on the scale until yesterday. Not only did the vanity aspect bother me, but my body just wasn't working the way it had been over the past year and some. And my clothes were feeling tight. I had a lot of doubt and fear going through my mind. I couldn't seem to get out the door for a simple walk. It all seemed so huge in my mind.
Last Monday I made up a spreadsheet to track my movement and mediation for the week. I managed to meditate every day and to get in some yoga daily as well. I went for a couple of walks. I scheduled a session with a trainer friend after telling myself for weeks that I couldn't call Eric until I had gotten some level of fitness back. I sent him an email early in the week with the subject line: Help! He, of course, was understanding and got me in on Friday for some boxing and conditioning. Then yesterday I did a TRX suspension intro class that was half strength and half stretching. I really liked it. It reminded me of Pilates but without the holiness.
Another benefit of the meditation – I notice that I am better able to be mindful when eating. Twice this week I brought food home from restaurants when I got full. I have some ideas about improving my tactics for better eating that I want to start practicing. One thing I need to resume is recording what I eat. And I want to challenge my sense of need and obligation, transforming my energies into a desire to nourish and respect myself rather than an onerous duty driven by fear/ego.
Last night I went to bed sore but feeling in my body. I woke up energized. Took a long walk and came home and did some housework. Now we're off to Bend for the night. But first, I want to get in some meditation.

%Y@hYxf$*!!!!!!

2010-05-29T14:07:00.000-07:00

Shit, fuck, goddamn motherfucker! I don't like this fucking news at all. In his irreverent honor I'm going to write the most obnoxious blog entry of a eulogy for the craziest bastardo to ever grace the silver screen. I loved Dennis Hopper the actor. And the director. Who cares about the crazy unwatchable shit he made. If all he ever made was Easy Rider, he's a greater filmmaker than Orson Welles, the other misunderstood great-actor-turned-one-hit-wonder-helmer. I think Easy Rider is a masterpiece not only for its craft but for its cultural significance. The film defines the American New Wave, or New Hollywood as it is also known, that brief period of beautiful films financed by the studios in the late 60s and early 70s. All those gritty little films that reflected the cultural revolution of that time - Midnight Cowboy, Two Lane Blacktop, Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Fat City, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Dog Day Afternoon, Badlands, The Last Picture Show, Five Easy Pieces ... I could go on and on and on. Basically almost all of my favorite American films were made between 1965 and 1975. Until Speilberg and Lucas came along and created the blockbuster epidemic that along with video destroyed the hope of seeing very many gritty personal films in a theater near you. It's over and that sucks, but I am sure glad I got to be a part of it however young I may have been.

Dennis Hopper the man seems like a total nut job. I'm not really that turned on by his kookiness and dysfunction in life. But where he was able to channel it and focus long enough to act in or direct a film, I've always been a big fan.

When I was eight and nine, my mom was married to an outlaw biker. It was a dark time in my life in many ways. Of course it was also a very vibrant time as well. Kind of like surviving a war. Everything is pretty vivid in my memory. My step-dad was a huge Easy Rider fan. This was just before VCRs. Yet somehow we managed to see it on tv a few times. We had the soundtrack album. My stepfather had Harley wings patches and stickers on everything - his truck, his jackets, his lunchbox and thermos (he was an ironworker). I remember the time he took me to a Harley shop and said I could get a patch for my jeans jacket. I chose this one:

It was more Peter Fonda/Wyatt/Captain America than Dennis Hopper/Billy. My stepfather was a little disappointed I could tell. That period of my life was not something I was eager to celebrate for a long, long time. When I started getting into filmmaking, I finally revisited Easy Rider. First through the cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs. The Hungarian really saw America as it was at that time and captured it beautifully. As I watched the film several times, I came to appreciate how masterful it really is. Initially Kovacs didn't want to do the project, but Hopper pestered him until he did. Hopper knew what he was doing, even though he was whacked out through much of its filming. The Mardi Gras and the graveyard funeral march scenes were shot months before principal photography with a 16mm camera like the Arri S in the photo above. They had dropped acid and were just shooting some tests while scouting and writing the script. Even if the film was a result of accidental and incidental factors, it doesn't take away from Hopper's vision. Like I said, he knew what he was doing.
In high school World Lit we studied Apocalypse Now in relation to Conrad and Yeats and the other books on Kurtz's nightstand like The Golden Bough. Our teacher was fresh out of Brown and a devotee to the 60s and 70s. We read all sorts of the new Vietnam war literature that was coming out. It was not a traditional high school class. The teacher lives in SE Portland and I run into him from time to time. We have interesting conversations and I thank him for that class. Anyway we watched Apocalypse Now frontwards and backwards. We wrote papers on it, comparing it to Conrad. I loved the film and still do. I seem to recall finding Dennis Hopper distracting and annoying back then, preferring Willard and Kurtz and the other guys on the boat. But later on, Hopper became one of my favorite characters in the film.
When I came home from being in the Army in Germany in the mid-80s, one of the first films I saw was Blue Velvet. Hopper was frighteningly present and bold. His performance was far more chilling than any of the visual shenanigans. He alone makes me love and fear that film. I have an aversion to watching it because Frank Booth is so god damned disturbing.
Through his work, Dennis Hopper will always be with us for better and for worse. That sort of immortality is what many of us long for. He definitely earned it. Rest in peace, you crazy fucking cocksucker.