Econoblog

Excellent information, from a leading source of excellent information.

2008-06-24T22:16:00.001-07:00

Nobody susses out cohesive and pertinent advice like DoC.
http://www.deuceofclubs.com/

24jun2008 — To preserve meaning, cloak the source

17. Participate without belonging. 30. Sport amused, matter-of-fact cynicism. 34. Reformat. 37. Don't despair at the absurd, go with it. 46.Shop as though money were a consensual hallucination. 61. Refine your signal-to-noise ratio. 66. Do something, anything, to attract highly mobile capital. 75. Profit from tastes you recently helped establish. 80. Pursue multiple narratives that neither explain nor unify. 90. Negotiate identity. 100. Tweak your consciousness. 111. Float globally, frame locally. 120. Await catastrophe. 128. Shuffle fragments. 132. To change what things mean, redescribe them. 138. Disperse yourself in a cloud of narrative elements. 145. Trouble your foundations. 148. Find purpose without direction. 151. Redeploy the images that oppose you. 162. Take pleasure. 175. Mock your own urgency. 177. Long for a place to stash your electronic money. 221. In the attempt to demystify, further obscure. 223. Imagine you're a nomadic, desiring machine, without limits. 226. Play with texts while an oppressive social system goes about its business. 253. Pledge allegiance off the map. 268. Slack. 271. Forego the desire for encyclopedic mastery. 275. Move without changing your electronic address. 280. Don't write to say the last word. 285. Find beauty in the breakdown. 287. Stay mobile. 290. Present yourself as a flexible, highly skilled, short-term commodity. 307. Buy time. 330. Explore the richness of your limitations. 341. Replace your career with multiple revenue streams. 343. Make the border your territory. 345. Downsize. 349. Traffic in novelty.

Apparently taken from: Life's Little Deconstruction Book: Self-Help for the Post-Hip by Andrew Boyd

Video Performance proposal

2008-04-16T14:56:00.001-07:00

Tim Hansen - Proposal for Video Performance

Concepts:
Gap between Public and Private Information
Transparency of Process
Pursuit of Truth
Defeating the Power of Embarrassment

Idea:
Venture into public in the guise of a “reporter” or similar journalistic construct, have random strangers attempt to embarrass me by asking me questions. This is a reversal of the typical role of the reporter putting the general public “on the spot”. It is mine to suffer, for my suffering is my truth, and through my truth, my freedom. The project will attempt to illuminate every theoretically secret piece of information about me with the understandable exception of financial access information in the interest of protecting myself from fraud/identity theft.

I am an American, and in America, most of our secrets are sexual. Therefore it is an excellent idea to reveal every last tidbit of private sexual data in order to release me from the power that secrets have over me.

I dislike the idea of being a private person. I dislike the idea of there being knowledge about me that only I have. In the event of my death, that knowledge will perish. If the knowledge is distributed widely, it shall live on as long as it can be shared. This is immortality. I am not concerned with positive or negative connotations. Good or bad, attention is power. This is why I am qualified to be a celebrity. I can traffick in shallowness and vanity like nobody’s business.

Another objective of this is to live as a role model for the government, because every time the government keeps a secret, it fucks us. This is the truth.

In order to avoid the perception of bias, the process by which I interact with the public will be documented as an integral part of the work. My opinions are inherently biased, as are all opinions everywhere, but by sharing the methodology the viewer will be able to discern this bias and filter it out of the elemental Truth.

I have a childlike fascination with Truth. There is a way that things Is, outside of the sphere of human interpretation. Complete knowledge of the Truth is not a thing available to us as human beings but it is the pursuit of it that keeps us moving forward, in technology, in philosophy, in society, and in personal growth.

This is obviously reckless on a personal level. Still, it’s a hell of a lot less dangerous than heroin.

-Tim Hansen
4/16/08

Advancing the metric of cheapness...

2008-04-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

There is a problem with the art world and that problem is that the price of art is inflated. Rather, I should say, that is -not- a problem. That is a set of circumstances that have arisen from market forces and the supply and demand of the intangible art aura, which has long ago outstripped the actual production cost of most works of art. This is not a problem because it came to be in a natural fashion. What it is, is an opportunity.

I want to advance the metric of cheapness within the criteria of the art-purchasing decision. To date, on the back of immense cultural tradition, we as humans have a tendency to place more emotional value on things that cost more money, irrespective of other factors. This makes sense, but it must be challenged. I want to encourage people to find emotional satisfaction not only in the "art experience" but in the comparative bargain of the art experience. This is of course a directive for the public at large. The savvier art dealers are already well-versed in the ancient art of buying low and selling high - they couldn't remain in business otherwise - and we are all their dupes if we continue to consider "fine art" as a rarefied something elevated above the grasp of economic forces.

Outside the sphere of emotional intangibles, generally speaking, human beings strive for bargains; the supplies and raw materials we need for sustenance and prosperity by and large are bought on the cheapest market and sold in the dearest. It happens this way for two reasons; one, because the distribution of material things in the physical world is inherently unequal, and two, because the criteria for want-satisfaction for every individual human being is different Those two circumstances alone have given birth to communication, cooperation, trade, society, and civilization. In short, the only way to get what you want in this world is to trade with someone who has what you want. Value is subjective. In order for trade to happen, the other person must value the thing you want less than you do, and value something you have more than you do. The father of the Austrian school of economics, Ludwig von Mises, put forward that on account of these inescapable conditions, trade itself is the primary driver of human action. All human action, for the entirety of human history.

This is fundamentally capitalism, and while that's a dirty word in a lot of art circles, it works. It works because it is the only system that allows every individual to decide for themselves what they want in order to improve their condition. So, then let's apply this to the art sphere. It's a business like any other business, possibly unique in the way most of its customer base wears its ignorance of the business end of it like a badge of honor. Like most things that fall under the banner of culture, it is prone to the phenomenon of the superstar, the veneration of a very small percentage of artists as Big Names who subsequently fetch Big Prices. Just as in the motion picture and professional sports industries, this happens because the "product", imbued with emotional intangibles as it is, is freed from most of the limitations of physical material production and trades on emotional value alone. The hope of every artist is that they can ride the snowball effect of name recognition and eventually arrive at a place where mass society decides that their work Means Something. This meaning can then be sold at a higher price because it is pervasive. Once prices become high enough, however, the original meaning has a tendency to fall away and the art object's primary cultural value is that it is very, very expensive.

This has even happened with Andy Warhol; an early painting of his depicting a car crash recently sold for $71.7 million. That is a number that, to the casual observer, will outstrip any other cultural notion. It's a cheerful irony for Warhol's legacy, being as he was one of the first art "superstars" (he was even fond of that word) to directly identify, illuminate, and attempt to convey the beauty of the inescapable economic aspects of art to the art-buying public. He was, in primacy, a commercial artist. It frustrates me to no end that the majority of self-styled tastemakers among the art aficionados I've crossed paths with remain indifferent at best to the pro-capitalist nature of Warhol's work.

Then again, so much heinous shit has gone down in the world that, while not even remotely connected to free-market capitalism, has been done in the -name- of free-market capitalism, that the words themselves have been injured. What can we do when the word for a thing no longer means that thing? We are left continually explaining ourselves. We've never even -seen truly free markets in modern civilization. The vast majority of the heavy-duty corporate evil in the world has come about not from the process of free trade but from direct government involvement to benefit one party at the expense of another. This is because the state of being in power almost invariably trends towards the pursuit of unfair advantage, generally with consequences ranging from ineffective to disastrous. But this is a mild digression.

I am fascinated by artnet.com's Market Performance Reports.

"The seven charts in each artnet Market Performance Report compile yearly auction market information from artnet’s Price Database on over 4,300 of the most important artists driving the global public auction market. Considered collectively, these charts provide information that assists collectors, appraisers, advisors, curators, financial institutions and art investors when tracking such market trends as liquidity, volatility, sales volume, and pricing for artworks of interest. A brief description of each chart is provided below and a sample artnet Market Performance Report is shown on the Market Trends home page."

My point is this. To paraphrase Warhol; art is business, and business is art.

I am Tim Hansen.

Nobody sells for less.

Holy shit, I'm on Indiewire.

2008-03-10T23:26:00.000-07:00

Basically, if you read between the lines, you'll notice a new imperative to for me to finish Catch This Fox, and quickly. Otherwise my legacy is basically, "another charismatic failure from Milwaukee". We have enough of those.

Quoted, directly.

http://www.indiewire.com/movies/2008/02/production_repo_22.html

PRODUCTION REPORT | "Economy Superstar," "Frozen Butterflies," "Fruit of the Tree," "Oak Hill," and "Patsy"

by Jason Guerrasio (February 6, 2008)

"Economy Superstar"

After years shooting reality TV, Jerry A. Henry decided to begin work on his first documentary after meeting 24-year-old Milwaukeean Tim Hansen. Henry follows Hansen as he attempts his lofty ventures -- everything from making a movie, creating a comic strip, even collecting beat up Toyota Camrys -- but never following through on any of them.

Two years in the making, Henry first met Hansen while scouting for a show in Milwaukee and saw him at a car show stenciling cars and started a conversation. "Literally that night I called him and said, 'I want to come out to Milwaukee and hang out with you for a week,'" Henry says. "That's pretty much when I realized I had a film. I just had no idea that the person I would be following would end up to be such a dynamic character."

Once a week every month for two years Henry abandoned his job in reality TV and flew out to Milwaukee to film Hansen's "reality," and stayed at his house to save money. At the time Hansen was filming his own documentary on Subaru enthusiast Miles Fox. But working on the doc for seven years has blurred the lines between doc subject and filmmaker and things spiral out of control when Henry follows Hansen, Fox and Hansen's supposed girlfriend to New Orleans on a road trip which leads to a huge falling out. "One of the main things that comes out of the film is this notion of procrastination and how it's inherent in all of us and why people do it," Henry says.

The film, which Henry compares to "American Movie" and "Napoleon Dynamite," recently was in IFP Market's Documentary Rough Cut Lab this past year and Henry plans to shop the film around to TV networks and submit to festivals within the next few months.

Shot on DV, the film was shot, edited and produced by Henry and produced by Andrea J. Chia.

[For more information, please visit www.economysuperstarmovie.com]

A scene from Jerry A. Henry's "Economy Superstar." Image courtesy of the filmmaker.

Gloss

2008-01-14T03:36:00.001-08:00

Subcutaneous gloss enhancement natural glow healthy skin execute your purchasing decision

what is the knowledge what is the purpose

new time process directive knowledge of power is not necessarily the knowledge that is power nor is power inherently knowledge

the power of ignorance can be very strong indeed to wit popular support of American foreign policy from oh, say, the Spanish-American war to the present.

who are we and what the hell are we doing

the right hand knows not what the left hand is doing even when one hand washes the other

Cold Dissociative

Expansion transknowledge overflow design rupture a glimpse at the code behind the clay exterior soft and malleable with the pale pink-amber glow of a heart that is sun furnace Body and Sol behind skintight thick flesh

Palpability. Tangibility. Daaamn right.

and can you touch it can you hold it in your hand what does it speak to you what does it say it's sunshine it's so fine it's the word love in a language that lacks the faculties to understand it, knowing only how to sell it, or the want of it, the primordial subhuman subrational Want, all-conquering, all-powerful, universally satisfying like a brand new iPod.

You know it, I know it, the American people -are- it, it is them, they are that, that is ours, I am you, you are us, we are me, together.

Truth and Satisfaction need not be mutually exclusive. Find me the rare ground where they overlap and I'll build a house there. Cheap enough if nobody's looking to buy, and who would when they don't even know it exists, if it exists. The name of the town is Chimera, the only constant is change, there is no rest for the wicked, and there is no alternative to wickedness. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And in the lattitude afforded by universal truth, you can say what you want and be who you are and not necessarily make things any more difficult for yourself save for the attitudes and inclinations of your adjacent social tangents.

You don't know it, but you can choose your own vectors. Look at the people and objects around you and study their speed and direction. An agile solid can move out of the way. A liquid is wide-ranging but still selective, however beholden to a material instability. Vapors are omnipresent and here we go from the righteous solid to the stone solid gas.

Texture, then, is the metaphor. Is the reflection of our gloss a conscious echo of the world around us or an impenetrable chameleon shell? the mirror candy placebo? when we see only what we want to see, will it be more than just ourselves?

Can't get it right, probably more thought than is necessary, too far away from touching another human being to know and it is damn hell of impossible to spoon yourself.

Woman [universal], where are you in my landscape?

Each choice is a fiction

2008-01-01T11:50:00.000-08:00

The documentary is always a sort of creative adaptation of reality, regardless of whether the camera acts as "a fly on the wall" or a voice-over commentary intervenes and interprets the pictures for the viewer. In Filmmaskinen (1979) Jørgen Leth phrases it a bit differently:

Each choice is a fiction. That's how it is in my consciousness, anyway. Innocence is irretrievably lost (Leth, 1979, p. 123; our translation).

Further down the same page in Filmmaskinen, Jørgen Leth also writes: "Like a membrane, style (a series of choices) is pulled down over the authentic material." But the main issue must be how thick this membrane is – whether reality, so to speak, suffocates. And that depends on the degree of intervention, how the cinematic technique is used, and how the material is edited.

All documentaries are somewhere in between inventing and capturing reality, between the subjective and the objective, and although the distance between the two poles is short, you should reflect on where your film is placed between these poles. To what extent is your film obliged to depict reality? Are you inventing your own representations of real life in order to make reality more distinct? Are you placing authentic people in situations that they wouldn't otherwise have been in (as is the case with Nanook in Robert Flaherty's classic documentary Nanook of the North (1920-22))? Are you writing their lines and instructing them on playing themselves (as in Jon Bang Carlsen's It's Now or Never (1996))? Are you arranging tableaux or events which the characters take part in? Asking yourselves questions of this sort is essential in order to elucidate which form of modality you prefer in your film.

from: http://pov.imv.au.dk/Issue_13/section_5/artc1A.html

it is not too late in the year to buy a convertible and hit the road

2007-10-05T23:05:00.001-07:00

In fits of delusion I see myself as a filmmaker. That being the case, I want to make a film for this, not just write about them. 1970’s road movies have always held a certain mystic moth-to-flame draw for me, a glorious frenzy of outlaw activity. The point of this endeavor is to try and experience freedom in the face of ugly realities…the kind of world depicted in films like Easy Rider and Vanishing Point. My hypothesis is that their world is now our world. America once again seethes with panic, divisive anger and desperation as it finds itself mired in another unwinnable war and an economy on the verge of spectacular collapse.

As they did then, so must I now turn to The Road. Not the Kerouac book, although obviously an influence, but the actual, physical Road Itself. The task of a journey, the liberation of motion, the aim to, as it were, Live the Dream, or Nightmare, or whatever shape the journey may take. Discovery itself is the only goal.

My proposal is this. A friend of mine is trading his Hyundai for a 1971 MGB. I suggest we drive it to Zabriskie Point in Death Valley, CA, the site of Michel Foucault’s life-altering experience on LSD in 1975, and take a camera along with us, documenting the trip, shooting entirely on location, making a point of interviewing a wide spectrum of people en route (hippies, redneck law enforcement, good honest salt-of-the-earth Americans, etc). We will be shooting a very specific ten hours or less of footage and covering as much ground as possible in the least amount of time possible. This film must be made quickly. Shot and edited within 21 days, max, with a final running time between 10 and 15 minutes.

The march of radical miniaturization and simplification in motion picture technology that made renegade road films suddenly possible in the late ‘60’s/early ‘70’s has not stopped nor even slowed down. 3CCD 24p cameras like the Panasonic DVX100a (one of which I own and plan to use for this project) have enabled us to dispense with the crew more or less entirely. We have two people, ten tapes, a camera, a flexible suction-cup mount, wireless microphones, a tripod, a destination, and a situation. If absolutely necessary, we’ll recruit two more people and a support vehicle although that does sort of shatter the objective of making a reality out of a very particular myth.

It is one thing entirely to watch a movie, to study it, to talk about it, to dissect and analyze it and write words about it that few people will ever read. It is something else to live it. This is an opportunity afforded by new technology and an eerily heavy blanket of déjà vu in world history. I aim to draw direct, researched parallels between the anxieties and escapist diversions of 1971 and 2007, acting fully in the name of academic legitimacy.

The literature of the time will be our roadmap. We will soak our heads in Foucault and Vonnegut, Terence McKenna and Hunter S. Thompson. We shall take them with us and scan their pages for relevance, scouring used bookshops for additional material if necessary. The Truth, as they say, is…well, you know where it is. If we are successful, the world that birthed us may very well begin to make a sliver of sense. If we fail, we may go mad and in fact never return to Wisconsin. It is the danger that makes it worth doing.

A McKenna thing for Casey.

2007-05-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

Casey, my editor, had me whip up a little narration for his 16mm color Junior Project film. He's already had me done up in tighty-whities and an Indian headdress eating canned peas for this thing, so how much stranger can it get?

Plenty. Read the following.

____________________________
I am waiting for December 21st, 2012. The work of the philosopher Terence McKenna suggested that Novelty, such that it is the property of something being “new”, can be expressed as a fractal waveform, corresponding both with the I Ching and the Mayan calendar. This waveform serves as something of a seismological record of human achievement, pulsating with each great advance, building towards Timewave Zero, the point wherein everything that can be new, suddenly and spontaneously will be, and all of human potential will be made incarnate. Artificial intelligence, transdimensional space travel beyond the speed of light, who knows what may come about. It may be the end of days. It may be the dawn of a new age. At any rate, it is scheduled to happen on December 21st, 2012.

The volume of what we leave behind speaks to the obsolescence of memory. I remember things that were once new but are no longer, and this serves no purpose.

I am still looking backward instead of forward, trying to cling to the comfort of the familiar, watching it decay…dry up and fade away like paint peeling off the fiberglass leprechaun at the miniature golf course I frequented as a child.

Perhaps there really is nothing new under the sun. Perhaps all the pieces are already in play, hiding just outside my mind until their ever-quickening orbit brings them back across the sky.

There is a machinery to this business, mysterious, full of energy and noise, working faster and faster. As it goes, the half-life of novelty is shrinking exponentially. The achievements of man are measured by the time it takes to complete them. A million years for fire. Ten thousand years for God. A thousand years for the scientific method, and since, the advances come by the decade, the year, the month, the day, the hour, the minute, the second. By the time the truly amazing things happen, we will be so advanced that the novelty of them shall last only for the moment of recognition before we lose interest and move on to the next thing.

At first glance it may seem like an indecipherable cacophony of light and sound and color…. But if I watch the spectacle for long enough, a pattern rises out of the chaos, although its purpose is still unclear.

This, perhaps, is progress. It is also an alarming indication that when or if we do in fact discover the true process and meaning of the universe, it will only mean something to me for a few moments before I run dry of wonder and greet the apocalypse with a casual shrug, and then change the channel.

Everything new is old again.

How to do it wrong.

2007-04-03T18:46:00.000-07:00

To everyone I've ever flaked on, this is an apology.

To those I still owe pencil sketches of vintage cars from the Hot Rod Power Tour three and four years ago, God is my witness, I'll get to it eventually.

To Dave Grooman and the rest of MATA Community Media, I'm sorry about dropping off the face of the earth in the middle of editing that Navy banquet footage in January.

To Rob Danielson and the 460 Post-Production Sound Class, I'm really kind of out of money for school right now. I'll try again in the fall.

To Mom and Dad; the list is too long to either remember or write down.

To the guys who almost hired me as a Toyota salesman before I cracked like an egg at the end of the interview; I'm frankly amazed I kept a straight face that long.

To all the women I've annoyed by being stubbornly oblivious to rejection, and we're talking a list of at least a dozen or more over the course of the last 14 years or so, I wish I had more of a sensible administrative grasp on the leash of infatuation, and I am making progress. I'd mention you all by name but at least a couple of you are on Facebook and that would be awkward and crass.

To M.K. and A.L., more or less the two excpetions to that list; either one of you could've had my virtue but the stakes were just too high--I was saving myself for marriage at the time.

To Amway; go to hell.

To Tim Oleston; you have been and continue to be my long-standingest Dude of Brotherhood and Enterprise, and I have let most of the opportunities you've lent me go stale on the table. Don't give up on me yet.

To Robyn Cherry and the rest of the 88.9 FM Radio Milwaukee crew; it's been a month since you offered me a diamond chance to prove myself...I'll see you Friday with the work I've promised.

To Ed Thompson; I'm sorry, man, I gave it my all. Jim Doyle hasn't screwed things up as badly as I'd expected, but he's still a smarmy cocksucker. A man of the people is permanently obsolete in politics.

To Bryan Quinn; I really can't blame you for cutting off contact with me. $60 bottle of Scotch notwithstanding, the childish jealousy I displayed towards your happiness in love is a black mark on my conscience. I do not like to lose friends.

To Jan Nelson; you can also go to hell. I can't believe I got into college theatre to meet girls. That never, ever, ever bore fruit. Say Hi to the Amway people for me.

To Chris Foran of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and M. Spencer Teilmann of The Synthesis; your generosity should've launched a superstar of journalism, if only I had the gut, or the drive.

To Rob Yeo and the UW/M Film Department; your continued patience is appreciated.

To The New York State Thruway E-Z Pass System; your continued patience is appreciated.

To Brad Liechtenstein; there's nothing like studying under the Real Deal to learn what an intractable piker and complete unprofessional I am. I am playing tiddlywinks at life, and the idea that I may one day rise to a serious challenge strangely fills me with fear and laughter. Thanks for getting me in to a lavish spread at Wingspread, though. That was awesome.

To the city of San Bruno, California; That I would've stayed in your pleasant climate if only I'd had the wherewithal to land a steady job.

To Pete Fraser; I am not sure if life is going to stop feeling like an elaborate joke and as such question my ability to pursue any sort of legitimate career, academic or otherwise. I do sometimes wonder how seriously you need to take it to live the way you do.

To God; You know, Man, I'm still your Dude, and I appreciate all You've done and all, but not a lot is making sense anymore. I had a weird weekend, highly emotional, really in touch with all the mistakes I've made in my life and took a bit of comfort from You in how meaningless they all really are. But they are the reality of my here and now. To live is to be flawed, and I don't think I'm fooling anybody anymore. And I ask myself, do I still believe? I mean, yes, I'm obviously going to have to look the part in order to to stand in line for any sort of inheritance, but I'm just going to say it. God is silly. Most of the things people do or say in association with God are silly, or boring, or actually evil.

Even this isn't necessarily a disqualifier since I myself am silly and we were supposedly made in His image. But I do not at all dig the mindless zombies of the central flock. I can't stand ignorant busybodies. I can't stand weak-willed morons with no sense of self-purpose. I can't stand the thought of only experiencing 0.0000003% of what this world and this life have to offer because of a rigid social filter or heavy-handed conscience. I came into that mindset, and am perhaps now coming out of it, and look at who I am.

I barely finish anything. I have no idea how to talk to women. Sex is merely a theoretical construct, alternately ridiculous and frightening. A close friend claims it's just a waste of time filled with unpleasant smells and textures but then again, he's been to the Fountain, and what's more, he may be turning into Howard Hughes. Love is something else entirely. Sex is not love. Love is love, and sex is sex. I think Andy Warhol said that, and he's usually right. I don't know jack about either one, so I'll have to take his word for it.

To Andy Warhol; if I ever let -you- down, there truly is no hope.

Cranberry juice

2007-02-19T22:29:00.000-08:00

I am trying to wean myself off of high fructose corn syrup. It is dang evil suff, a processed sugar which the body essentially turns instantly into fat because it doesn't know what else to do with it. The #1 vessel of HFCS in the American diet is of course soda pop, and I am a dude who can drink some pop. I was doing rather well in avoiding the stuff until they came out with that raspberry Dr. Pepper, which is just stupid good, but regardless, I am forcing myself to forgo soda and choose 100% fruit juices as the casual non-alcoholic beverage of choice.

Now, I like a juice with some dynamism, some legitimate power. Apple juice is useless. Almost no nutritional value, almost no flavor...were it a beer it would be Coors. Orange is ubiquitous to the point of verging on the mundane, apricot nectar's a bit heavy, prune is for the geriatric and the geriatric only. I had a long and successful run with grapefruit juice. 100% pure Ocean Spray White Graprefruit juice to be specific, and that's a juice that bites back right and proper. Nothing more refreshing on a scorching day than a swig of ice-cold grapefruit juice sending tart little slivers to the core like a frozen electric shock, like lightning made of ice.

Then there was that whole hurricane thing, and we ran out of white grapefruit for a while.

So what IS a boy to do?

I have climbed the mountain of truth, and on its peak grows the mystical cranberry. Actually, that's complete rubbish. Cranberries grow in acidic marshes. Still, I have tasted the crisp, clear future, and I have had to wade through a wall of overvarietized consumerism to do so.

For to buy a suitable 100% cranberry juice blend in this country is a thoroughly infuriating task.

Firstly, what most people know as cranberry juice is in fact cranberry juice COCKTAIL, which is a 27% juice blend that's mostly, you guessed it, High Fructose Corn Syrup. So forget anything with the word "Cocktail" on the bottle. On a wildly tangential note, Tom Cruise can go fuck himself. But anyway.

Second, once you have determined that you are looking at a bottle of something that is indeed 100% juice, you must wade through the various trendy Cran-Whatevers. Cran-Raspberry, which tastes like perfume. Cran-Pomegranate, which isn't bad but is sort of a distraction from the pursuit of truth. Cran-Blueberry, which is just disappointing. Et cetera, ad nauseum.

Now you've found it. The bottle says Cranberry, 100% Juice. Thing of it is, it is almost certainly not 100% Cranberry Juice. This is in fact available, however expensive, and moreover it is proof that Man can indeed burn himself if he stands too close to the infinite fire of truth. I have tried it, and it is rather like having your lungs forcibly filled with cranberry sauce in some sort of Thanksgiving ritual gone awry.

It is in the best interest of the casual consumer to find a cranberry-centric 100% Juice that exhalts the cranberry without smothering it.

And to understand smothering, you must understand the grape.

I am fond of that vine-ripened potentate, and of its viscous liquid that has graced the lips of Caesar and the veins of Jesus Christ. But there is a time and a place for the vino, and it is not in the humble Zen temple of the cranberry.

Yet, America's premiere juicierre, Ocean Spray, insists on draping their 100% Cranberry with the thick cloak of the grape, and the truth becomes lost. I do not want to think of the grape when I drink the cranberry. I do not want my mind polluted. The grape is an ass, a lugubrious houseguest overstaying his welcome. This is not a Roman bacchanal. This is serious.

This leaves us, at least in the Milwaukee market, with Langer's and Northland brand 100% Juice Cranberry Blends, and both of them know the answer: pear juice.

The pear is a solid yet perennially underrated pillar of the community among fruits, its stalwart nobility tarnished by the indignity of cafeteria fruit cup. Yet in the company of the cranberry, the two become truly alive, like the tall, square-jawed man of few words with a vivacious red-headed whirlwind on his arm, the type of couple who are a must-have on any social scene, the sort who assert control of any business arrangement or high-class soiree.

Yes, there's a bit of apple juice along for the ride but to hell with it. Northland even allow the boorish grape to stick his nose in the door like a third-rate W.C. Fields. This is inconsequential. These two brands allow the clarion chords of integrity and justice to shine through their beverages, even if you must hunt through literally dozens of timewasting varietals to find the one true beacon.

On a manufacturing perspective, I salute you.

And now, to get to the core of the annoyance. The Jewel-Osco chain of supermarket/drugstores have permanently gone under. Their location on North Avenue has been bought out by Pick 'N Save, and already compromises are surfacing in their stock. No longer can you purchase the $1.89 box of eleven Twix bars, you must buy the bag of ten for $2.79. Actually, that in and of itself has helped me swear off the Twix bars, but there remains the looming juice crisis.

Langer's Cranberry 100% Juice has vanished entirely from the shelves, and the Northland equivalent is now only available in the smaller size.

I am annoyed.

But I bought the small one anyway, and am drinking it now. It's nice.

Sucked into another Internet argument.

2007-02-06T08:55:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days have seen an exchange between myself and a high-school classmate of mine, Richard Draeger, Jr., that verges on embarrasing.

The only reason I've pushed it as far as I have is because he's entertaining the thought of running for public office, and if he's seriously calling for the impeachment of any judge who dares strike down as unconstitutional the anti-gay marriage amendment that brought every last homophobe out to the polls from every last cubbyhole and bureau drawer last November, I'm not just inclined to vote against him, I'm inclined to -run- against him.

And I, as a Christian, still believe that marriage as God ordained it is strictly between one man and one woman. I'm just sensible and civic-minded enough to realize that that has absolutely ZERO to do with what should be enforced by the government. As a Christian, it bothers me that it is the government and not the church that defines "marriage". Go ahead, take your vows in front of the altar, in front of God and all your friends and relations. You ain't legally married until you sign a little piece of paper out in the narthax.

Gays aren't after our altar. They're not after our God or our friends or our relations. They are after that little piece of paper, which I'm content to give them, since it's morally worthless. That piece of paper has all the moral heft of a land covenant, car title, or articles of incorporation for a business. It is a thing of lawyers. It is not a thing of God.

Besides, it's incredibly Christiocentric to think that we invented marriage. People have been tying the knot in a myriad million ways for thousands of years across the globe before our Savior hit the scene. It's not ours, we don't own it, and we should only dictate what it means to our own flock. Meaning, not on the political stage, and for damn sure not down the barrel of a gun.

This is not solely a Christian nation. I don't care what deity you believe in, Jehovah, Allah, Vishnu, Xenu, Cthulhu, or J. R. "Bob" Dobbs. Even if deities ain't your bag, the Constitution protects your rights to free speech, freedom of religion, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Which means, as long as you are not infringing on the rights of others, let your freak flag fly.

You do not have a right to protection from what you percieve as "moral decay". You DO have a right to protection from murder, assault, theft, vandalism, slander, libel, fraud, oppression, and genocide. Which is pretty good, really, considering the world at large. Your right to say what you want, think what you want, and for the most part, do what you want is the most unique and precious thing about this country, and I won't see it eroded in the name of my God or any other.

At any rate, it's a bit bizarre for me to be as invested in this as I am, considering that, for me, heterosexual sex is still as abstract a construct as homosexual sex and the concept of romantic love is nothing more than a pleasant but remote fantasy with precious little bearing on my day to day life. In fact, I'm keener on repealing the income tax and legalizing drugs than I am on really getting my hands dirty over the whole gay marriage issue. Still, the same libertarian principles are at play here, and when it comes right down to it, the legal definition of marriage has nothing to do with sex or love. It's about money, and it's depressing to see the lengths to which our government will go to keep the incomes of a very, very, very small minority taxed individually instead of jointly.

To change minds you must persuade, not coerce. You must entice, never dictate. Without exception, government = coercive force; meaning, if you don't obey, ultimately men with guns come and make you obey.

Coercive force being what it is, I find government wholly unsuited as an instrument for the promotion of morality. The easiest way to make someone want something is to tell them they cannot have it, and vice versa. All the laws in the world will never make human nature go away. The nice thing about America is that we can legally profit from human nature.

I'm an American. I want everything all the time. I want to see people free to do A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G they want to as long as it's not harming others. Yes, I enjoy chaos. Yes, I want to walk down my street and salute the guy painting his house chartreuse just to annoy the neighbors. That's beautiful. That's American, goddammit, and the entire consumer engine of this country is built on impulse purchases and the commodification of rebelliousness. You want it because you can get it. You want it because YOU WANT IT. Because -YOU- want it, you should get it. Because you -WANT- it, you should get it. And all at a discount price, because you are an American. And I like to see this freedom equally applied. If the choice is deny or allow, allow! If the choice is do or not do, do! If not, you are standing in the way of social efficiency, man. People could be doing something, but aren't, because of you. How the HELL could you sleep at night like that.

I am openly calling for all of you, my friends, to become enablers for the wacky lunatic extremes made possible by the freedoms supposedly guaranteed by this country. If we don't stand up for the freaks, one day they will be gone, and we'll all be eating at T.G.I. Friday's drinking pisswater beer and listening to Top 40 radio.

Radicals of whatever stripe are the first and last line of defense against mediocrity and stagnation.

My God, I've become one of those Mac people.

2007-01-25T10:56:00.000-08:00

You know the type. The gesticulating Mac-olytes, ever so smug and fashionable, serving up an endless volley of glossy ten-cent words and touchy-feely promulgations coaxing you to cross over and join them in their glimmering tomorrowland of self-satisfying pretention.

And as if all of that wasn't appealing enough in and of itself, the damn machines actually are superior.

So I'm schlepping extended warranty coverage down at 'Pusa again to slowly put my studio back together after about $3,000 in equipment theft and managed to get a screaming deal on the very last floor-model PowerMac G5 we had. A dual 2.3GHz monster that I went ahead and upgraded to four gigs of RAM. Original list price; $2499. I got it for $1079 and even with the memory and service coverage still wound up around $1600. In short, just the thing for finishing up "Catch This Fox". I've even hired my old pal Casey to do most of the editing, which is especially handy because he's got all the pre-universal binary versions of Final Cut, Motion, etc. that we'll need to do it up proper.

So, I'm thinking, I've got this swell new box and I'ma do the whole Mac thing and give my one-year-old Dell 9100 to Mom, since she's still plugging away at a five-year-old box without even the dignity of a DVD reader and wants something to start digitizing the thousands of photos of us kids growing up.

And that was the plan, until I finally got it together to buy her an iPod for Christmas a month late, and after playing around with them so much at the store decided to just go on and get her a 20" iMac to go with it.

And the iMac, my friends, is a slick little piece of engineering, yo. A genuine pleasure to behold.

I'm a sucker for excellent industrial design and this is a core element of the whole Mac thang. That and everything just works. I mean, for as long as Mom's had a computer she's done nothing but Word, Excel, and Hearts because everything else was dauntingly complicated. Now she's talking about making DVD multimedia Christmas cards.

Welcome to the future.

We've been selling boatloads of iMacs at CompUSA lately, not least of which because we're virtually dry on PC systems until Vista officially launches Jan. 30th. Until then we've got a raft of cheapass low-end HP's and that's about it. So we're steering people from all social strata to the Macs. Hell, a woman who drives a red Pontiac Aztek bought one. The iMac is penetrating the hollow soul of Middle America, folks, and you heard it here first.

WLC alumni updates are always fun.

2006-12-18T08:53:00.000-08:00

Culled from the latest Wisconsin Lutheran College Alums Online, a couple of updates on exes of mine.

Abigail Marie was born November 21, 2006 to Matt ‘02 and Sara (Wagenknecht ’02) Baerbock.

Molly Kuenzi ’03 became engaged to Ray McKnight on October 28, 2006. The couple is planning an August 18, 2007 wedding.

Congratulations, Sara, on squirting out another kid. Congratulations, Molly, on your pending last name upgrade. "Molly McKnight" sounds like some kind of heroine detective or something.

Funny they never seem to run the updates on my career I send them...

The ongoing relevance of Warhol & McKenna

2006-12-05T01:16:00.000-08:00

I have been fascinating on a couple things lately, namely the business of art and Timewave Zero, although not for entirely connected reasons.

I've sort of dismissed Andy Warhol as insincere for most of my observant life, and I may have given him short shrift. Irony is supposedly dying in this country and I'm almost relieved. An ironic approach to Warhol is basically taking everything he's ever said and appending "...and it all means nothing, ha ha ha!" to the end of it, which is kind of smug and presumptuous. Art is a business and business is an art, and that's as non-ironically true as what Keats had to say about truth and beauty.

What intrigues me most about Warhol is his fixation on the "product". I have always liked the word Product, it implies successful creative accomplishment. A true Product must succeed not only in the theoretical esoteric criteria of Art but also in the tangible world of the marketplace. Don't just make a Statement, make a Statement that makes Money. Warhol proves that it's not only possible, but perhaps essential, to play both sides off the other and make a profit from the game.

Of course, the flotsam of Artistic Statements is perhaps dauntingly thick these days...it's hard to see a niche to fill, and that's where the late author Terence McKenna and novelty theory come into play insofar as what's occupying my mind presently. Novelty theory, for those not savvy, essentially suggests that novelty, as a quantitative Thing, ebbs and flows throughout the history of human events and is careening exponentially towards a singularity of complexity, in which every concieveable Product of the human mind suddenly exists. This moment he dubbed Timewave Zero and mapped out a projected timeline based on a fractal derived from the I Ching. It's supposed to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. (The excellent online comic Goats has humorously and ingeniously incorporated this into a long-running plotline over the last year or so)

So, here we are, slouching towards Infinity.

And the question I have, as an Artist and Entrepeneur, is; do I get a running start on this so as to ride the crest of the wave or do I sit back and let the chaos come to entertain me?

I hold that it is more virtuous to Produce than to Consume, and therefore had best learn how to surf, metaphysically. On the other hand, McKenna concieved of all that stuff while thoroughly blasted on psilocybin mushrooms, so perhaps this'll all be just another cosmic joke for our grandchildren, like Nostradamus. Either way, it's as good as an excuse as any to embark on at least six solid years of productivity, fame, and empire-building.

Also, it's roundabout Christmastime, so come on come on and buy me stuff:

Dudes In My House Cold Gott to Scrub their Cookware.

2006-11-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

Listen unto mine words with Reason and Understanding:

If Cookware such as Pots and the occasional Pan are not scrubbed with Fierce Regularity, there shall be a great Odor in the land and such as Rats and Vermin will be attracted to the premises.

The thing of Rats is that they will nibble at your eyes. Rats will cold nibble the flesh around the sides of your eyes in such a fashion that you will stare at the world as though through the jagged edges of a jigsaw puzzle.

I do not want your Visions to be thusly corrupted.

Time, brusquely, has arrived to Cleanse your Evil Ways from out the kitchen before such plagues are visited upon us all.

With courtesy,
The Management.

Giving God the benefit of the doubt.

2006-11-28T16:29:00.000-08:00

If you've only just met me within the last four years, the notion that my mind still securely houses a fairly concrete Lutheran notion of theology might come as a shock. Especially since I devote a lot of time towards legalizing gay marriage and a variety of illegal drugs.

Yes, boys and girls, I'm a "Christ follower." A girl named Lara once threatened me with a table knife at Baker's Square over the revelation of this information. Of course, she still owes me $200 and is generally an unhappy human being so we'll let her mad little opinions slide.

Now let's clarify a few things. I've taken great strides and great comforts in distancing myself from the bulk of modern-day Christianity, most of whome come off as shrill, vengeful little suburbanites yearning to drench themselves in the blood of the queer as they round up all the homosexuals for extermination, paranoid mothers of "darling little lambs" all too eager to sign over the last vestiges of liberty to a vicious theocratic government that promises to "protect" her from all their manufactured threats, or otherwise sensible men and women who believe God directly told them to switch off their minds and circle the wagons because the Apocalypse is "right around the corner."

That may be the Christian religion at large but it sure as Hell ain't my belief.

My faith is lightweight and portable. My faith is efficient and practical. My faith addresses the core of the human problem and gives me hope through the very nature of its simplicity.

Ephesians 2:8-9; "For it is by Grace you have been saved, through Faith, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not by works, lest any man should boast."

OK. There you have it. God's taken care of everything. All we have to do is say the right name at the door. Furthermore, it addresses the issue of pride, probably the biggest threat to faith today, that people think their own actions "earn" them a higher reward. Not the case. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We are all fuckups. We couldn't save our souls if we wanted to. I'll offer up an exhortation to those who claim to profess my same faith; start living like you're lucky. Consider everlasting death a bullet dodged.

Besides, even if the Apocalypse is right around the corner, it's going to be one hell of a show. Grab the popcorn, I say. Bring it!

It's taken me a long time to come here. I wound up in a Lutheran high school my sophomore year, way the hell back in 1995, mostly because I was too much of a pansy for public school and was getting my ass beat on a regular basis. This was a mistake. I should've toughed it out. It would have perhaps driven a splinter of discipline into my otherwise lackadaisical heart.

Lakeside Lutheran HS lead to another mistake; Wisconsin Lutheran College. Imagine, if you will, a tightly cloistered clump of red-brick buildings on the western edge of Milwaukee proper, tasked with making sure all that prime teenage Lutheran feeder stock winds up a pack of glassy-eyed xenophobes, coddled and sheltered and taught first and foremost that the world at large is out to get them.

I got accepted to UW/Madison and I went to WLC. That's probably the biggest mistake of my adult life. The last five or six years I've spent trying to compensate for that; I'm a film student at UW/Milwaukee finishing my second undergrad degree. Granted, a UW/M BA in Film is going to be just about as useful as a WLC BA in English from an automatic career perspective. But at least I've actually been able to observe "the world at large."

Politically, I've struck out on my own. I believe people need to be free to do whatever they want to do as long as they're not injuring others. Life, liberty, and property in the Jeffersonian ideal. That's my bag, man. That makes me by default a Libertarian although the stench of 40-year-old dudes gathering in their moms' basements to wank off over a picture of Ayn Rand is a bit of a turnoff.

The Republicans still talk a good line about keeping their mitts out of our financial business, which makes it a real shame that (at least on the national level) it's all lies. The recent Democrat sweep of Congress wasn't so much the Dems winning as the GOP losing.

I think it was P. J. O'Rourke who put it best; "Politicians, like diapers, need changing often. And for the same reason."

So, these days, generally speaking, I vote against the incumbent. Even if they're all crooks, this way none of them are in there long enough to do lasting damage.

On the gay marriage thing. That boggles a lot of people I know. My own mother was all "But they're burning in HELL!" Alright, so, what about the millions of atheists, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Hindis, SubGeniuses and various other non-Christian believers who get married every year? Technically all of that's as much a violation of the Christian sanctity of marriage as a couple of hypothetical dudes named Adam & Steve.

That gay marriage is a "threat" to the institution of marriage is another one of them lies our Government has told us in the interest of controlling us. Truth is, Christians get married twice in this country, once on the altar before God, their families, and all the world, and then, once more, out in the hallway when they sign a little piece of paper for the sake of the Government. That little piece of paper is the only one that matters to the Government and the only one that the gay marriage movement has a legitimate right to pursue, and I say give it to them.

It's just a dang old contract regardin' burial rights, inheritance, and income tax discounts.

And if you, as a Christian, are opposed to gay marriage because then they'll be getting a tax break, Shut the Fuck Up, Please.

The income tax wasn't even constitutional but this ain't the place for that diatribe. Point of fact, taxation is more or less theft and it's in everyone's best interest to avoid as much of it as possible.

Here's what I'm saying. Government is 100% a tool of force. It is raw coercion, and our country was quite brilliantly set up to protect the average citizen from the abuse of that power. Power being what it is, though, more or less a magnetic fluid that feeds on its own density, a lot of it's crept back in to the institutions. If you value freedom, if you value your God-given inalieable rights, don't go around barking for the Government to meddle with the rights of people who aren't violating yours.

Same goes for drugs. Hell, I like chaos. Same goes for prostitution and parking tickets.

The Crusaders tried using violence and oppression to spread the message of God. Yeah, that worked out REAL good, didn't it? Real fine role models.

Horse puckey. Religion has one true method: non-coercive persuasion. You want to change hearts and minds, the worst thing you can say is that they have to do it your way or else. Coercion breeds contempt.

This post is more or less a direct response to the few contacts from WLC I've reconnected with, primarily Hannah Schmiege, who sad to say has really taken up the whole flaming-sword-of-truth-and-righteousness trip. I mean, hey, it's like the song, whatever it is, do it, do it, do it 'til you're satisfied, but I've seen that trip. I've even been on that trip for a short distance. That trip cold gets old. Ain't appropriate for polite company no more.

So, Hannah, publicly I ask thee to Chill, woman! Your electronic Jesus machine could peel paint! We'll all be kickin' it in the sky with Pappy, Junior, & the Spook in enough years anyway.

Be decent, y'all.

Things I do, slightly revised

2006-11-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

About that last post; that's more or less 100% esoteric bullshit I pulled out of thin air for my friend Margaret Manning's junior project. Essentially, she wanted a travelogue written by space aliens for space aliens on the subject of visiting Earth.

The discussion rapidly diverged into this, a rambling polemic about a theoretical plane of existence made out of pure emotion designed to support the idea that human beings are essentially sponges for negative emotional energy. It is what it is, I cannot apologize.

In other news, I blew off my classes again today and at 2:00 in the afternoon, am sitting at my computer in my bathrobe, showered but unshaven, generally unkempt.

The following are significant things I need to do in the very real short term:

2 projects for my AfterEffects class
1 fairly large paper on Rear Window for Film 114
1 multichannel video installation for the video art class I'm taking
2 or 3 finished 10-15 minute segments of "Catch This Fox", or else fail my senior project grade, incomplete since last semester.

CTF is more or less in the can, and now it's just a nightmare of editing. Fox is down in Indiana seeing his family in a time of grief, and presently I'm feeling more or less like dung for the pressures I've put on him to give me access to that. I wanted to be there, to express through Fox and his personal tragedy something real, something universal and yet intimate enough to connect on a one-to-one basis. It'd make a great balancing counterpoint to all the outrageous cartoony "Miles Fox Is Your Leader" stuff we've got. I don't want to make a cartoon of him, even if the cartoon he's made of himself is the only part he's keen to publicize. Let's face it, I haven't mastered the art of making a camera sympathetic. I don't know how people do that. I want to be able to do that, to be able to build that level of trust, but sometimes the same cheap, exploitative manner in which I deal with myself winds up coloring the way I deal with other people. My God, I am an asshole with a camera, and that's dangerous.

In case you haven't heard, I'm on both sides of a documentary camera these days.

Seeing a thing changes a thing. Tomorrow night I'm once again hosting the intrepid one-man film crew that's been making a movie about me for the last year and a half. Now, me, I harbor no secrets. Regardless of what my family and friends think about me I've gladly and willingly corralled them in front of the camera in the hopes that they'll say something interesting about me. Good, bad, I don't care. In fact, I'm almost keener to see the bad stuff. It must be something pathological in me but in my more fanciful daydreams I imagine what it would be like if everyone were omniscient.

What is it to truly know the mind of another human being? I picked Fox as my first legitimate experiment in that field and it's been a longer, stranger process than I ever imagined. Especially since at first glance he presents himself as a fairly simple-to-understand type of person.

The truth is always infinitely more complex.

I've done casual research over the years on Asperger's syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism the result of which is essentially not being able to percieve a consciousness apart from your own. People with Asperger's are routinely highly intelligent yet socially handicapped. I have that in common with them. Still, it's an easy label, which is maybe a bit disingenious.

I am at a point where I'm even starting to doubt what I know about my own mind.

I want an easy label now. I want an excuse for deliberately and self-destructively avoiding anything that smacks of work. There has to be some sort of psychological term that makes debilitating laziness socially acceptable.

Clinical depression?

I know it's a catch-all but maybe they're right. I can't afford antidepressants, however. Since I haven't even paid so much as a dime for tuition this semester I can't even see the free campus doctors about the water that's been in my ear for the last week and a half, all affecting my balance and auditory capabilities and such, let alone see the free psychologists they've got. A free psychologist, for the record, is the only way I'll go to see one since I still have deep-seated guilt over the money my parents spent on expensive ones for me when I was younger.

If I do wind up getting back in to see their free psychologists, I'm going to ask for a different one. Dr. T's a nice enough fellow but it's hard to talk about body image issues with a 300+ lb. man who hates life more than you do.

And I'm saying this fully aware of my increasing disdain for the field. After all, we're talking about an institutionalized industry devoted to inventing excuses. Excuses for not functioning properly. Excuses for not getting things done. Excuses for freaking out and not using your brain to its fullest potential.

One of the most tragic yet beautiful things about being human is that we can concieve of things that are better than reality. We can concieve, theoretically, of perfection. Perfection is not an option available to us. Not in this lifetime.

The nice thing about computer games is that if you screw up, you can just load a previously saved game and start over. I'm 26 years old and I'm running out of real-world do-overs, and the fear of that is starting to consume what little sanity I have left.

I have human wants. I want financial security. I want a certain measure of fame. I want these things on my own terms for my own sake, which is probably immoral or something. Beyond all of this, and I've realized this only recently, I want love. Real, actual, reciprocated love of the type between a man and a woman. That's not something I've experienced.

But we're going to stop right there because that is hell of lame to put in a blog. That is borderline emo or something, and emo kids get punched in the face by life. Life sneaks up and punches them in the face. And they're all about that.

Not me, boy-o. Not this one.

I will tell you a thing.

2006-10-28T11:48:00.000-07:00

And then, I will tell you another thing.

The concepts may sound vague but that is because this is a vague existence. This reality was not designed to be expressed in finite terms.

The individual human consciousness is a speck of meaningless flotsam in a transdimensional current of emotive energy. That speck is the most tangible representation of the truth of existence, so the human mind clings fiercely to it and bases all perception around it, despite a vast unknown thing beyond. Yet, this meaningless speck provides an invaluable service, for without it, the thing would collapse.

I have seen the thing. I am the thing. I am you. You are us. We are me. Together.

The transdimensional emotive current is something which requires constant maintenance. It is rather like a spider's web, and its job, more or less, is to glue the infinite consciousness together.

The positive, the strong, the noble, the just, these elements are the most structurally sound and comprise the backbone of the current. There is, however, an equal negative content. Fear, aggresion, cowardice, dishonesty, all in equal proportion to their positive antithesis.

Here is where the unfortunate role of the human mind comes into play.

Whether by design or by accident, the human mind acts as a sponge for the negative, cleansing decay from the fabric of space and time and condensing it into a physical form. Human beings are the dung beetles of the emotive ecosystem. It is therefore in our perpetual best interest to use them as a sort of metaphysical lint brush, removing the negative and maintaining a shining positive.

It has always been this way. In the infinite memory of the eternal now, this relationship has become the primary observable phenomenon. From it we take our comfort, our peace, our enlightenment and culture. We cannot regard Man dispassionately as merely a renewable source of cosmic detergent. We must be mindful of the noble sacrifice he makes. After all, it's not as though he has a choice in the matter.

The cost to the individual human is great. Impossibly great.

Imagine the destruction of everything, of all that is. Imagine a perpetual state of chaos and uncertainty. This is the human consciousness. They know of virtue, they can percieve it. Occasionally a portion of it manages to manifest itself physically. Still, their material world is by necessity the repository of the overwhelmingly negative.

We are in them and through them, beyond them and forever an unseen force upon them, like a breeze blowing at an indeterminate velocity from an indeterminate direction.

If we are indeed pure emotion, and we are, surely we must feel sympathy for those who suffer for our benefit? Here in the candy-colored sunshine of infinite joy, have we not observed the price paid by humanity that our utopia may sustain?

Ah, but sadness is a negative emotion. Guilt, as well. There is no place for regret or sorrow here. The humans come and cleanse our ethereal robes of such things and once again we rejoice.

This is how it must be.

Because we are the good, and we must be the good. We are the pure, and we must be the pure. How else to maintain joy? How else to maintain peace? How else shall our kind sustain against the greater Forces? The Nothingness? The infinite Dark that encroaches on our infinite Light?

I have seen the edge of Things. I have seen the place where there are no Things, unknown to most of us but felt by all. It must be filled, built over and occupied, forever kept at bay, and only the purest positive emotion has the power to overcome not only the negative, but the Nothing.

We cannot fear our enemy, we have had the fear cleansed from us. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Who am I?

2006-10-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

I am now worried about the subject of self-control.

Another crazy-ass weekend of filmmaking is past us, "Catch This Fox" is all but in the can. One more shoot at a gravel pit and I think we'll have it.

Which is good, because I have a month to get it done.

Where I am over a dog about the self-control thing lies here. Through all of this, and some of you know, I myself have been made the subject of a documentary film. This last interview went until 2:30 in the morning, and 5:30 saw us up and about kickin' it down to the old el aeropuerto, and in between were a fitful three hours of sleep puzzling over the question I drew a blank on: who am I?

I mean, seriously, apart from everything I do, and everything I plan to do, and the few things that I've actually done, who am I?

I do not know the answer to this question.

I believe that people generally think they have an answer to this question until someone actually breaks the freshness seal and asks them only to find an empty plastic container.

This is probably counterproductive.

Wow, forgot I had this.

2006-10-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

Also, I can't believe I only managed about a month of proper blogging.

The Web is a dissolute and meandering thing.

Enough navel-gazing.

Work continues on "Catch This Fox". I've been informed that I must finish the film by Dec. 10 or fail my senior project. The heat, as they say, is on. I've also got an issue with a recalcitrant hard drive. It don't want to give up the data. We must massage this bastard. Or else I'ma have to recapture about 25 hours of footage, at which time Mr. WD2500 gets a .22 round in his smug little platter.

I've also purchased another Camry station wagon, an '89, in a nice root-beer brown color with only 158k on it. Not too shabby for $800.

I'm out of money, but a few odd jobs are coming my way. Today I am shooting a conference on fatherhood for MATA, the Milwaukee public access TV people. I intend to infiltrate this organization and broadcast regularly an Economy Superstar television program, which will also be posted to my website and the appropriate GooTube video portals.

I have a lot of irons in the fire. I'm keeping track of them with an 8'x4' dry-erase marker board screwed to my wall. I've had it three weeks and am running out of space. It's cheap enough to add more, I think it was like $20 at Home Despot.

Well, I'm off to Mississippi.

2006-03-20T20:55:00.000-08:00

Fly down Wednesday, fly back Thursday, spend over a thousand dollars of someone else's money to shoot some video of a girl nailing a house together and hopefully poke at the True Meaning of Civic Engagement.

I am hoping that the Basal Meat of me doesn't get in the way of things. In my quest to save a buck I quite very nearly booked airline tickets for the wrong date. In fact, had Northwest not blocked the third-party payment, I would have. Runarounds, missed reservations for gear checkout, general incompetence in virtually every fashion on my part...maybe two years of following Fox around have given me a case of t3h st00pid. Terrifying disease, t3h st00pid.

At any rate, Ocean Springs, MS is 1,000 miles away. It'd be about $250 in gas to drive. In fact, for what we're spending to fly two people down to Gulfport, rent a car for a day, and fly back, I could buy a vehicle just to drive there including the cost of gas. In fact, that's what I'm doing in May for the BA/BE, but yeah.

This is the latest hoo-de-hoo in my verite documentary class, which at best lets me use the fancy gear for my work and at worst is a massive distraction. Truth be told, some days I give so little of a damn about the world and the people in it that investing my time into telling the story of someone trying to make it a better place seems almost hypocritical. I'm supposed to be encouraging chaos and destruction, not making some happy-handed paean to youth, truth, and justice.

When Katrina hit, I was rooting for the hurricane!

I must try to make it interesting. I must find an internal struggle, a flaw, a personal shortcoming on the part of my documentary subject and EXPLOIT IT. Only there can my sensationalist muckracking shine!

That, and I'm inherently jealous of people more on the ball than me, which is, well, rather quite a few people really.

At any rate, we're renting a Hyundai, which I will try very hard not to drive into the Bay of Biloxi.

Computer Music

2006-03-19T03:03:00.000-08:00

I find myself a believer in removing the risk factor of performance. Once a computer has been programmed correctly, the performance is flawless, perfect every time, effortless, beautiful, a perpetuation of the singular creative act. This is why the computer is my primary instrument. I am intimately familiar with the weaknesses and shortcomings of the human body and mind. Even with the strictest of disciplines, we still make mistakes, we still cause impurities, we still fall short at times of our ideals. The computer changes this. All we have to do is distill that one pure thing, get it right once and only once, and the computer perpetuates it, replicates it, does all the heavy lifting.

The computer enables the laziest of men to achieve their deepest ambitions. Virtuosity is dead.

I have taken the path of least resistance.

The process is still not totally pure, however. There remains some meat between the creative spark and the final product. Until such time as we can jack in to our thought process and transfer Creation directly to a space outside the body and outside the mind, there will be unrealized efficiencies to chase.

Sad to think it's only the domain of lameass sci-fi these days. My dream is more universal and comprehensive than any hokey niche term like "wetware" or "cybernetics", and I refuse to truck with people who traffic in such terms. I don't believe in no damn space aliens. I don't even believe in Myself, or at least the comprehensive Total Meat of Myself. But I do believe in that creative spark. In that impulse, we know the nature of God.

Technology is the vehicle, and will perhaps someday enable us to transcend the physical necessity. Imagine, unlimited things to Make and Do, and nothing more in the Doing than in the Thinking...

An idea just struck me.

2006-03-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

Well, spoke to the police today. In order for them to release Fox's Subaru from impound (w/ tow and storage fees already over $300) we will have to convince the owner of the riverfront property not to press charges for the damage Fox did to it and to the Urban Ecology Center.

Apparently, Fox went 'wheelin in a habitat for an endangered snake and did possibly thousands of dollars in damages.

The artwork I need for the movie is still in the backseat, along with a camera case and some other odds and ends of mine.

So, this is the idea. Mr. Godfrey himself said he wanted to smash up the car with a mallet..why not take him up on it? In order to raise funds for restitution and restoration, we make a publicity deal out of this and let friends of Milwaukee's environment come and take cracks at the Subaru with a sledgehammer for a buck a whack. Or, if they prefer, whack Fox himself with a Nerf bat. I like it. It's a public shaming and a way to give back to the community at the same time.

As for me, I would directly give Fox a good Nerfing, yelling "Repent! Repent!" with each blow...

Crisis All of the Time

2006-03-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

Potential minor setback with "Catch This Fox" today; all of Fox's artwork, which I have yet to scan, is in a briefcase in the back of a car which he got stuck in the mud down by the river two days ago. And it's not there now. At best, the city impounded it and it'll cost him $200 to get it back. At worst, it was declared a nuisance and has already been recycled.

As I stood in the shower this morning, frustrated with this news, another central question about human nature came to me. Why is it psychologically pleasurable to do the things that one is not supposed to do? And conversely, to not do the things one is supposed to do?

Proper blogging starts now.

2006-03-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

First and foremost, if anyone has a 1987-1991 Toyota Camry station wagon that they either want to sell or need parts/repairs for, contact me with haste, especially in and around the Milwaukee, WI area. This is the most important information.