Dave "The Man" Weaver

Life is good. I've given away two big desks that were cluttering up my back room, and the room is spacious for the first time since I moved in six years ago. I've got a new computer/video-production desk in a box behind me that I plan on assembling today or tomorrow, and will spend the rest of the week starting to put together my new production studio. I feel good. I knew that I would. So nice. So nice.

Anyway, that revelation wasn't the reason for this post. What prompted me to whip out the scanner and upload some photos to Flickr was the discovery of this ancient printout. I found it in a random stack of papers somewhere in the depths of my cluttered back room. It happens to be a dot-matrix printout of a poem my old college buddy Dave Weaver wrote in November of 1986, and "emailed" me via the semi-proto-internet we had on campus. (see the end of this post for a transcript.) Dave was a card; a funny guy from Urbana, Illinois with a talent for learning Chinese and playing bass. Actually, he could play lots of instruments, and was always trying to play his music for his friends. Problem is, our crowd was into punk, hardcore, and rockin' out, and Dave tended to write heartfelt emotional music, so most people didn't really want to hear Dave's latest creation. I, on the other hand, loved Dave's music. So much so, that when Dave borrowed my old Fostex four-track and let me hear his demo songs, I pressed him to allow me to engineer an album of his original tunes, which we did during Oberlin's Winter Term one year.

Since I needed to have a pic of ol' Dave on this post, I dug up a few pics from my archives and scanned 'em in. If you really want to shudder, go check out a few of the others I found in my "Oberlin College In The 1980s" Flicker set. I know I wasn't a Don Juan back in those days, but I can't believe my friends actually allowed me to run around loose looking quite that bad. You can also see our old dining hall, and even a shot or three from the TIMARA studios, where I worked on getting my electronic music degree.

I've lost track of all my old Oberlin buddies. My original roommates and best pals were Roger "The Party Mutant" White (who was an ethnomusicology genius who introduced me to Motorhead, Judas Priest, and James Brown; I think he's married now), Jeremy "Jer-Bro" Tompkins (who was a Bio/Chem double-major, which is ridiculous at a top-rank school like Oberlin, I used to have great fun typing his papers for him as he dictated to me, and got me drunk for the first time, as well as many times afterwards.), and my good buddy Tom "Thomas C From Across The Sea/The Might Of One And The Libido Of Three" Manion (who always insisted Cleveland was America's North Coast, shared my love of surrealism, and loved The Floyd more than anybody. Last I heard he had packed two dufflebags and gone to seek his fame and fortune in the theater world of NYC). I also shared great times with Pat Wehner from West By God Virginia who drank and watched Twin Peaks with me, Jim "I'm An Actor" Thompson who would always be willing to stand up during poker games and recite horrendous paragraphs from porn novels I had clipped out for him, Jonathan "SuperJew" Silverman who was the life of every party and invented the rewording of the Run DMC lyric "not bad meaning bad but bad meaning HOBGOOD!" which he would scream out no matter where the song was playing, Kathy Thompson and Cathy Gale who I had massive crushes on, Matthew "Hello" White who was just the nicest guy you'd ever meet and was embarrassed at the birthday rap I wrote for him (he was born on 5-5, the fifth of May--as he liked to tell us), Larry "The Axe-Man" Axtell who cohosted a wrestling radio show with me and fled from Oberlin to join the Ringling Brothers Clown College, and Mike Soohoo who was head of the Asian American Alliance and taught me how important it was to not to overuse the word "hate". Two quick bits about Mike Soohoo: he made the mistake of telling us a story about how he had been teaching at a summer camp before the semester, and how the kids made fun of his name, calling him "Soo Who?" and "Soohoobaru". Oh, how we used that against him for the rest of the year! Mike and I also had an ongoing war over which of Prince's rejects were hotter: Appolonia or Vanity. (I was a big Vanity fan. I have all her records!) Oh, and so many others I'm forgetting: Casey, Terra, Jon Fine, Douglas, Jenny Seltzer, Marti, Kevin, Reid, Harm Farm, Bitch Magnet, Jenny Douglass (who I had a crush on in sixth grade, and then was surprised to discover at Oberlin!), and my brain can't cope with the hundreds of othes I knew and loved to be around.

For posterity, here's the text of the poem Dave Weaver wrote off the top of his head to amuse me:

Ted, Ted, he has no fear
Born and raised with a pack o' bears,
Bigger than you ever did see
Can eat his way through a factory,
Faster than the lightning strikes,
Slyer than the Devil's tikes,
Ted, Ted, he has no fear.

Ted, Ted, the ladies' man,
Got one in the closet and one in the van,
Take his cane and overcoat,
Show them gals the roundabout,
Don't look now, he's looking fine,
Big leather hat, he wines and dines,
Ted, Ted the ladies' man.

Ted, Ted, the master o' rap,
Can put you down better than tiger trap,
He knows the ins and out of the world,
The city stops when he says a word,
He can do the numchucks and the figure four too,
You better watch out when he's comin' after you,
Ted, Ted, the master o' rap.

For the record, I did tend to wear an overcoat and suede cowboy hat, and carry a cane as an affectation. What can I say, Oberlin was a pretty alternative college, and I was a big dork. I did literally sleep in a closet for a semester, as our dorm room had a huge walk in closet, and we converted it into a second bedroom. I never had a "lady" in there though. And I can "do the numchucks" as well as the figure four. Watch out, Chuck Norris.

Fisher-Price Barack Obama

My mom is great. As a gift for my sister for Christmas, she made a little shadowbox of the Obama family, as portrayed by Fisher-Price Little People. Genius!

The Michelle Obama figure is Susan from the Sesame Street set, the only FPLP character to have textured hair. The Barack figure actually came from my collection, and was a bald hospital figure all in white. Mom painted the suit on, and used puff paint to give a little texture to his hair as well. Click the links above to see more.

CageMatch 12/13/08

CageMatch time again. This happened last week, but I've been busy lately and forgot to blog about it. Here we go!

View video here first. Go now.

Now let's chat. The original idea for the video came from one Kit FitzSimons, who pointed out the lyrics in the Kate Perry song "Hot and Cold" and how they mirrored the up-and-down romance of the characters in Honkey Kong. Then Alyssa said she had a good idea for a video. I said, "sorry, but Kit already has an idea." "Let me tell you the idea anyway." She said she'd love to see something like the new Target commercial from Christina Aguilera. I took a look at it and loved the comic book-y Lichtenstein-y imagery, and decided we could combine both ideas into one.

This involved a lot of lugging lights and other equipment around for a video shoot at Alyssa's and one at Kit's. Unfortunately, my lighting skills are not up to the highest notch, and so the bluescreening I tried to do was a bit shoddy. I really need to get a real greenscreen and a crash course on lighting. Anyhoo, we had a lot of fun with Kyle and Alyssa being playful with each other and then hating each other. Highlights were the bit where Kyle throws the flowers at Alyssa from off-camera, and the impromptu bootydancin' bit. Banana Breakup was fun to film (as always). The fight scene amused me terribly, and the high-five bit made them look totally cool. I was happy that my coatrack idea worked okay. That amused me.

Back in The Studio, I drew up some comic panels in Photoshop and textured them with benday dots from a Lichtenstein painting. I also found some old comic book ads that I used for the opposing pages; you only see them for a moment, but I think they add to the feel of the video. If I had a bit more time and energy, I would've put some Adam West-esque "BAM!"s and "POW!"s in there, and maybe some explosions where Kyle and Alyssa are having the pointing war at the end, but I think it turned out generally okay.

Oh, forgot to mention that I wrote the entire voiceover script while attending my dad's Really Terrible Orchestra Of The Triangle concert earlier in the week. He provided colouring pages for people to amuse themselves with while the "bad" music was performed, and I took him at his word and scribbled down text while the music played, then rehearsed it during the reception afterwards while all the bigwigs hobnobbed and got drunk. Hah! (And I later noticed that I channelled the spirit of Jeremy Clarkson at the end there. Sweet.)

This was the first video in a long time that people wanted to watch again immediately after the show, so that felt good. We rescreened it both at the theater and back at Kit's place.

You can also see the comic book cover promo I made here, featuring the visages of Kyle, Alyssa, Kit, and Eitan. It's an adaptation from an old 1950s romance comic which you can see here. (Yes, I made Alyssa's cleavage more pronounced. Pervert.)

Cooking By The Book

This has to be one of the funniest mashups I've seen in a while. Brantley turned me on to this piece of genius, which he found via this page. The video tends to get rapidly taken down by copyright claims by Lazytown, so if the link I've provided doesn't work, try searching YouTube for "lil jon lazy" or "lil jon lazytown". You'll be glad you did.

I had to mp3 this one for my eternal listening pleasure.

CageMatch 10/25/08

Well this is WAY overdue. Here's the CageMatch video from 10/25/08, over a month ago. My apologies. Watch it and come back for commentary. Be sure to click the "high quality" links!

Ok, I felt whimsical when I made this. I brought PT over and threw my pith helmet on him, and we invented the character of Julian Partridge, world-renowned explorer and entrepreneur. Basically, I just wanted to be wacky with PT. Not the most dramatic video I've made, but it amused me. PT and I might need to make a weekly podcast video series with Julian Partridge...we had fun with it.

On that same evening, we saw the departure of Troy Sterling from the show. He made his farewell in video form, which you can see here.

I put a lot more effort into the Troy video. Me and Remi spent a good deal of time filming all the various segments. It was his idea to do the "Back In Black" bit, which worked real well. I loved the soft vignette effect of the black and white sections. BTW, that's a CageMatch bumper sticker he's kicking in that one scene. We did another take where he spit on it, which was hilarious, but I thought might be too subtle in a short video. Troy throwing a brick is just great. And I loved the bit at the end where he walks off and has to step down off the box he stands on to be tall enough to frame correctly on the bluescreen. All in all, a fun video.

While we're at it, here's two new videos I made recently, which aren't CageMatch videos per se, but are promos for a former CageMatch champion team: Banana Breakup. Here's video #1 and video #2.

#1 was my idea, Banana Breakup returning from an exploration in outer space to come back and perform at the DSI Comedy Theater again. I like coming up with nonsensical cartoony adventures for the Banana Boys to participate in. The backdrop for the space capsule was inspired by the walls of the Satellite Of Love from MST3K; I gathered together a lot of plastic toys and flotsam and glued them to a huge piece of stiff cardboard and then spraypainted the whole thing white. That was great fun, and the guys seemed to be amused by it. The #2 video was commissioned by Kit, and an idea of Zach Ward's. Easy to film, and a cute video to advertise their shows.

And that's it for today!

Bad Choices in Retail

I haven't blogged in a month. Been busy, a bit worn out, a bit stressed (more on all that later). So I promise to do better.

Let's start back with a new photo set I've created on my Flickr account, entitled "Consumer Culture Gone Wrong". It's along the lines of something Kit FitzSimons used to do that amused me greatly. He would take pictures of odd items on store shelves and then make fun of them on his blog. I can't promise to be as clever or as funny, but I can promise that I will amuse myself.

Check out the set here; look through them one by one to see the descriptions I've typed up. I'll add to the set as the mood strikes me.

The Mariner's Revenge

If you're not doing anything for Halloween, my friends and I are putting on a play I wrote based on a song by The Decemberists. It was all Jackson's idea, and will be performed by The Fenario Players with live music from The Dead Canaries and a special appearance by PT Scarborough. Anyway, the party starts at 8:00, and the play will be performed later in the evening, once everybody is warmed by alcohol consumption. It's at Fenario, a house at 2321 NC Hwy 54 W. Call me for details.

Dictionaraoke

Now here's a genius idea somebody had. I think I heard one of these songs a long while ago, and thought it was brilliant. Today I tripped over an entire site full of 'em.

What the fine folks at Dictionaraoke have come up with is the blend of karaoke music with the mechanical hilarity that is the computer voice of online dictionary pronunciations. So head on over and check out the wealth of musical comedy at Dictionaraoke. You'll be glad you did.

At-the-co-pa. Co-pa-ca-ba-na.

I Just Spent $77.00 On This Book

I've always been a big fan of Hoogerbrugge. His clean drawings, surrealistic style, and eyecatching animations has always been entertaining and inspiring. His sort of stuff is one of the many things I dream of doing but probably never will. But given the chance to read about it, and I'll drop the bucks. My ebay auctions have been going well lately, so it's not even like I'm spending real money--it all just gets sucked out of my Paypal account.

Hoogerbrugge just came out with a book of drawings, cartoons, and essays--there's even a chapter where he explains (Scott McCloud-style, through comics) how he made his animations, so maybe I will learn how to do it! There's also a dvd of animations included, which is a big bonus. Looking forward to getting my package from the Netherlands.

Toy Oddities

I haven't been shopping in a while; I had a little irregularity with my bank account and have been feeling poor. At the same time, I've been saving up for a copy of Ableton Live so I can realize my next career as a godlike mashup DJ, so my shopping trips have been few and far between. But I needed to get some stuff for this weekend's DUAL DUEL finals, and ventured out into the wild world. Walking the aisles of WalMart, I was amazed at some of the things they're pushing on kids these days. Enjoy them with me now.


Okay, I just can't get behind cruelty to animals. It's wrong, man. The Force is not with this one.


This one is actually pretty cool. If I were a kid and saw this, my parents would hear more whining and pleading than the last time Britney Spears ran out of cigarettes and found herself at a 7-11 at 3 am with nothing but an empty pocketbook and an autograph pen.


Look close at this one; yes, it's Barbie. An official Barbie product, in serious dangers of having her eyeballs pecked out and regurgitated back into the throats of little creatures fresh from breaking out of their eggs. This is the creepiest toy I've seen since the NAMBLA version of the electronic Operation game.


Here's another in the Barbie line. There's a whole series of dolls showing Barbie in various occupations, supposed to be inspiring to young girls who aspire to enter the workforce. Of course, they're always aiming sort of low and fairly stereotypical, like pet shop owner or swim instructor or something. Let's take a closer look at this one:

Ahhh..."Baby Doctor". Is that even a real job title? Don't they prefer to be called pediatricians? I guess they needed to dream up a more cutesie, more demeaning name for Barbie. The first thing I thought of when I saw "Baby Doctor" was "Baby Mama", which is actually what the doll looks more like, wearing her denim capris, baby placed on one hip at some negligent angle. Check out the other shot:

Nice blank stare, horrendous dress, and leaving the other kid on a shelf somewhere.


Last but not least, the kiddy tattoo gun. C'mon kids, enter the world of punks and whores! Share needles and mark yourself up with the shakiest of devil tattoos and chinese characters that may mean "courage" or might read "Fuck This Cracker"! And guess what, kiddies? It's called the "I-Tattoo"! That's right! You like the iPod? The iMac? The iPhone your daddy bought you? Well this is JUST like those, but in tattoo form! Plus, it's a vibrating tattoo pen--you know what potential that has, ladies! To quote the box, "GET INKED!" Radical!

Plus, the fact that they measure the markers by the gram worries me. Oh, kids today!

Photo Meme Thing

courtesy of Senor Alex Wilson
The Rules of the Meme:
Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don’t fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

DUAL DUEL videos

Hey, my last blog post was my 666th, and I missed the opportunity to be Satanic. Damn.

So this weekend I produced two more shows at the theater and cranked out two more videos. It was the annual DUAL DUEL tournament that we have during our charity marathon. I didn't get the names of the participants as early as I did last year, so this year's offerings were a bit rushed.

The videos are here and here.

No big technical tricks to reveal this time around. These are pretty formulaic. Kit FitzSimons was kind enough to help me design a bunch of the identity screens. My favourite of his was Dem Nillas. Of mine, I was quite proud of the crisp simplicity of Chinese Scientist, but Honkey Kong seemed to be the most popular, due obviously to the contributions of Alyssa Mander and Kyle Chorpening.

All the identity screens for the teams are in the usual place.

Humour Writing

So I'm reading this book called "The Laugh Crafters", about writing for comedy in the oldtime radio days and the early days of television. There's an interview with Bob Schiller, who wrote for Duffy's Tavern, Abbot & Costello, The Carol Burnett Show, The Flip Wilson Show, and All In The Family (among others).

Anyway, Schiller had a quote in there that I thought some of y'all out there might be interested in. He compares comedy writing for print vs comedy writing for performance:

There's a major difference, as you know, between writing to be read and writing to be said. Writing to be said, you have to have a strong enough--it's a technique--a punchline that's got enough muscle, that will arouse a laugh in an audience. You can't just do whimsy, the kind of stuff you do in columns. You have to have whamsy, really.

I like that distinction. Makes sense. For the written word, you can be more subtle, more clever, let the individual reader soak in the humour. Whereas for audible or visual humour, you need to have more energy, more punch, more yuks. Something to think about.

PS

PS: Just in case anybody reads the previous post and thinks I may be sitting around my darkened apartment alone and depressed, thinking of doing myself a mischief, I'm not. I'm sitting here taking pictures of things to sell on ebay, drinking lemonade, listening to Superchick and the Smokey and the Bandit soundtrack, and mentally preparing to teach a session at the theater on how to voice ComedySportz.

No, everything is not rosy in my life, no I'm not particularly enthused about anything these days, but also no I'm not moping or depressed, and no I'm not looking on Google maps for the nearest high cliff face. I am a bit interested in some music I'm composing, looking forward to clearing out my back room and making a studio, and I posted a funny mp3 earlier today. So there.

Ticket To Ride

Hi again. Two posts in one day? It must be the apocalypse.

I normally don't talk about myself on this blog; that is to say, I don't make it a diary or soapbox or psychiatrist's couch to talk about my personal feelings and level of depression or anything like that. The blog is generally just a forum to share the creative stuff I've done with the few people who are interested, or to mention something I find particularly amusing or useful that I think my friends might also find amusing or useful. I'm not really one to talk about what's going on in my heart or my head on public forums, and rarely in private ones as well.

But suddenly I'm in the mood to do a personal entry, so here it is. Most will probably want to skip over the rest of this--it's more something I feel I have to write for myself rather than one for public comment. Maybe it's something I'll look back on later or maybe it'll just be catharsis.

I haven't been a particularly social person in my life; I'm more comfortable alone or with one or two good friends. As far as romantic relationships go, I was quite the late bloomer, not having a girlfriend or anything close until late in college. I was shy, unsure, and didn't really think I handled myself well around the opposite. I've always been a bit awkward, a weird mix of being raised ultra-liberal and wanting to treat women like any other people, and being raised in the South and wanting to treat women like special princesses and be the gentleman and all. I'm also the type of person that wants to give other people their space and value their opinions, and don't want to impose my desires on somebody else. When I did start having romantic relationships, those two conflicts resulted in the relationships in question not lasting particularly long, maybe three to six months. And then I was also always one to believe in love as an important and rare thing, so I never did what I think most do, which is to jump right into another relationship or another fuck or whatever. I took myself too seriously and took romance too seriously and would go for months or years without another relationship. After all, it took quite a long time for the first one, so I was used to life without that sort of companionship, much as I wanted it.

Anyway, I've told two women I loved them. The first was a girl named Dee McQuade, who I met interestingly enough while ordering digital video hardware from one of those big computer catalog firms. We chatted on the company's 1-800 ordering line, and clicked immediately. We talked for hours every day and ran up quite a phone bill on both sides before we finally decided to meet. She lived in Connecticut, so it was a pretty ballsy move to fly up there to meet someone I had only talked to on the phone. We hit it off quite nicely, thank you. She was the seemingly perfect blend of naughty and nice and funny and intellectual and tough and girly, and she ended up flying down to see me a few weeks later and I even introduced her to my mom (!). But in the end, the distance was trying, and she had been seeing somebody else who she fell in with once more, and we broke up. It was very hard for me, as she was the first girl I said "I love you" to, and that meant a lot to me. But though it hurt, and I thought I was heartbroken at the time, I came to realize that I wasn't. I had just met someone I really enjoyed being with, and it didn't work out, and that sucked.

I went a long time before even seeing anybody again, hooked up with somebody for a week at a party my friend Larry threw, then another year or so, and then as the bug caught me, I met a person in some chatroom or somewhere that I ended up seeing regularly. The same sort of double-conflict that was mentioned above came into play. I tried my best to be the greatest boyfriend ever, and she even told me that I gave her the best birthday she ever had, but I think my tendency to not speak up for myself and impose my desires ended up with her wanting someone more demanding and less giving, and she started seeing somebody else at the same time. Funny thing is, when I did find out about it and broke up with her, she ended up calling me one night to come get some of my stuff, and since I didn't really care for her anymore, I ended up being more relaxed and we had impromptu growling animalistic sex that night, which probably would've saved the relationship if I had been that way all the time.

Another year or so passed, and I met a really nice girl who I had a lot of fun with, but we seemed to obviously be better suited as friends, even friends with benefits, than a true romantic couple. I was really happy to hear a few years ago that she had gotten out of her abusive relationship she had been in for a long time, and escaped to a much better job in Charlotte where she met the boy of her dreams. Last I heard, everything was great for her and she was smiling and happy and having a dirty good time. (Hi Dawny!)

Time passed, and I did what I had never thought I would do: put up a personal ad on one of those dating sites. (Turns out it's not so bad; I know two absolutely decent people who met the mate of their dreams on that sort of thing, and they're not losers or anything!) Anyway, I had a date or two, and nothing came of it. There are a lot of weirdos on there. Then I got a match with a girl named Leesa. Leesa Meagher. She lived in Greensboro--geez, that was a long way away. I don't recall that she had a picture either, and that usually spells disaster in these sorts of situations. But she had dark hair and she was short, and for me, that's worth an email at least. So we got to chatting, and after a while decided to go on a date. (I think this was the first real "date" date I had been on!) So I drove the hour or so out to Greensboro to meet her and go to dinner.

I remember the first moment I saw Leesa. We had agreed to meet on the steps of the library at Guilford. It was drizzling a little, and as I turned the corner around the building, I saw a tiny figure in a hooded jacket sitting alone in the middle of this huge staircase. She heard my footsteps, and turned towards me while at the same time pushing her hood back to reveal a nervous gaze and long jet-black hair. It felt almost like a cinematic cliche--the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. The rain stopped for me, and I saw the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life. Doe eyes and rounded lips with the hint of a downturn to them to betray her own nervousness. She stood up and met me for the first time, and I think I loved her at that moment. She was small in both stature and presence, and I wanted to take her in my arms and protect her from the world. At the same time, I knew from our conversations that she was a tough, independent woman and had proved that she could hold her own no matter what life had thrown at her. Sound familiar? There was both the "treat her like a princess" and "treat her like a human being" thing going on. I already thought that perhaps I had met someone that could be both those things for me and understand what I meant by both those approaches.

So we went to dinner, and I felt like a king. When she excused herself at the restaurant to go to the bathroom, I felt like everyone was looking at me and either thinking to themselves "wow, that guy is one lucky bastard" or perhaps "what the hell is a woman like that doing with a guy like THAT?". Anyway, I had one of my bold moments when I did the right thing at the right time, and ended up kissing her in my car. She sighed against me and I was hooked.

Long story short, I fell deeply, deeply in love with her. I frequently told her she was my dream girl--beautiful, fun, sexually tantalizing, and a woman I felt I could both worship and hang out with. I really did want to protect her from the world and show her that life could be so much better than she had experienced thus far. She had grown up as a baby from Korea brought up in America by a conservative white family. She never could recognize her own beauty, and always dreamed of being 5'9", blue-eyed, and blonde-haired. A tragedy. She had grown up with a chip on her shoulder, always having to prove herself, always rebelling, and fell into a life of heavy drugs and abuse. Her previous relationships were usually based on both of those, dating pushers who would flip her skirt up and finish off without a thought for her pleasure or her emotions. She had had a hard life, and I wanted to give her everything.

I had asked her what her fantasy was, and she said it was to get a massage in a candlelit room. On one of our early dates, we ended up at my place and I asked her to wait outside for a minute. She was never used to trusting anybody, so she wasn't sure, but she let me go into the room alone and close the door. When I opened it again, the room was lit solely by candles and I had prepared a place for her to lie down. She asked if she needed to get naked, and I said whatever she was comfortable with. She asked me to wait outside this time, and a few minutes later she shyly came to the door wearing just about nothing. I was very careful to give her a massage without making it sexual, trying to show her that someone could care about her for her. Later, when she made it clear that she wanted to be more physical, I went down on her first, and she tried to pull me back up, saying that I didn't have to. I told her I enjoyed it, and continued. Then she got worried and told me I could stop, as she couldn't orgasm that way, that she never had anyway. Well, that was just encouragement to me.

Over the next few months, as we learned more about each other emotionally and physically, we had the most amazing sex either of us had ever had. And I had a deeper relationship than I had ever had. The distance between Chapel Hill and Greensboro was a barrier, but whenever we were together, we could just *be* with each other, and it all seemed *right*. We could watch a movie, cook, talk, shop, or just hang out. It felt comfortable, and I felt relaxed and special around her. I wanted to let her know how special she was to me as well. She loved Snickers bars, and every time we met I had a different kind of Snickers for her. I tried to make the special days extra-special for her. February was a smorgasbord, as her birthday was the 9th, Valentine's Day was the 14th, and the anniversary of our first date was the 22nd. I tried to make each one a memory for her. Every once in a while I would do something that would really touch her, and her face would break out in an honest warm smile that came directly from her soul, bare of any of the armour or walls she usually had erected around her. I would make any gargantuan effort necessary to see that smile, to have her slip her arms around me as she became my little kitten.

There were problems, of course. The distance thing got in the way, and even when she eventually got a car, it was hard to get together. And her lifetime of bad experiences and lack of trust was a barrier. She assumed that the moment she left my house, I was out getting laid with some other chick. I don't think she ever understood how much loyalty meant to me, or how focussed I was when I really cared for someone. And I didn't just care for her, I truly loved her. She was used to men using her and moving on, only returning when they needed a lay or some weed. So why should I be any different?

Then there were my own shortcomings as well. Too much to fully cover here, but the aforementioned double conflict has its problems. I wanted to put her on a pedestal, and so sometimes treated her as if she was breakable. At other times, I treated her as I would anybody else, when what she probably needed at that moment was someone to stroke her hair. And I did stroke her hair. I loved to run my hands over her skin and soothe her to sleep. I think another problem, strange though it may seem, is that I wasn't demanding enough. I sort of alluded to this quality in myself earlier--I tend to want to make other people happy. I don't speak up about my own wants very much, and would rather find out what the other person desires and help them achieve it and enjoy it. In trying not to impose my own will on someone else, I can come off as a bit of a wuss. And thought the liberal side of myself loathes to say it, in my experience, women want a man to take charge at times. And while I myself do love to take charge at times, it seems that at the times I really should take charge the most, my worry of offending the person I love and crossing a line seems to have prevented me from doing so. In antiquated parlance that I can't really explain in a better fashion, I wasn't "a man".

Anyway, Leesa and I ended up going out for three years. The longest relationship I had had before that was six months (if I count generously). Now, she and I broke up for a month or two a few times in there, each time her breaking up with me because she didn't believe I could remain faithful to her. We always ended up getting back together once she had a few rebellious flings with other guys and realized (I think) how much I meant to her, and hopefully how much she meant to me. She was an angry girl, wronged by life, and was impulsive and had to erupt violently like that and break up the relationship. The weird thing is, that just made me love her all the more. She could be difficult, bratty, unreasonable, unable to trust, and argumentative, but all of that was part of her and all of it came honestly. All of that was part of who Leesa Meagher was, and I accepted that and loved all of her, both her virtues and her human failings.

The beginning of the real end was when one of our breakups was initiated by me. The first time it was initiated by me, actually. We hadn't seen each other in a few weeks, and our phonecalls tended to revolve around her job and how busy she was and how much she hated it. I tried to give her what advice I could, but it didn't seem to sit well. She was coming up towards the end of college, and I know the stress on her was huge. She would call me up and read some of her papers to me and ask what I thought. She wrote pretty well, and was really pleased when they would come back with a good grade. I tried to be supportive, but was feeling like she wasn't thinking about me a lot, and that I was giving more support than I got. I'm afraid I may have chosen to be a bit more distant as a result, hoping she would recognize it and pull back closer to me.

In any case, my birthday came and went, and she completely forgot it. I got upset, and said maybe we needed to take a break from each other. As she tended to do in such situations, she just said, "fine, whatever", and we broke up. I think I thought this would just be like the other times, that we'd get back together in a few weeks once we noticed how much we missed each other. It wasn't, though. I think that it was more final for her this time since she wasn't the one who initiated it. I think she felt that once someone rejected her (as men had done many times before) that it was utter rejection of her and who she was and there was no coming back from it. I tried emailing her to check on her as I had done in the past, sending out feelers to see if she wanted to talk, but got nothing. Then in January, the day after New Year's, I think, I got an email or a call or something from her. She was at her mother's hotel up in New England somewhere. She had gotten drunk at a party, and some guy took advantage of her. Wasn't the first time it had happened, but I could tell this had upset her more than the other times. We talked, and over the next couple of days, she decided she wanted to see me again. We set a date for her to come over when she got back to North Carolina, and she even started to get really happy about it, looking forward to seeing me again.

Then two days before that Thursday when we were supposed to meet again, I got an email that said "sorry, I just can't do it. I just can't see you again. I'm sorry." I'll never really know why there was such a sudden turnaround in her mood. Maybe it was because she really didn't think we'd work out. Maybe somebody convinced her that if it was over, it needed to stay that way. I think it may have been that she was seeing somebody else at the time, and things were getting better or appearing to get better with them. The only reason I think that is that a few months later, I was still feeling bad and sent out a mass email to everyone on my address book asking for a little support. I sent it to everybody really as an excuse to send it to her. A few of my friends sent back nice messages. From her I got a cheery email asking how I was doing and saying she was engaged.

So the reason I felt the urge to type all of this rambling today was for a couple of reasons that all sort of converged. Yesterday the Beatles song "A Ticket To Ride" popped up on the iPod. I've never really been one to listen to lyrics and interpret them; I just sort of blindly sing along. Well, yesterday those lyrics suddenly made sense to me, and I applied them to my own experience with Leesa. Plus, she was always a big Beatles fan, the loveable little hippie. She did get a ticket to ride...she met someone who she believed was better for her, and she moved on. She had a lifelong experience with people moving on from her, so she could move from relationship to relationship pretty easily. Fool that I am, I tend to attach a lot more meaning to relationships, and that can be both positive and negative. I took a long time after Leesa before I even went out with another girl. I had a couple of dates, a shallow relationship for a few weeks with somebody who announced on our first meeting that I would be her "summer fling", and a short session with somebody who ended up taking me to parties as a sort of ornament where I felt uncomfortable.

In the end, the first girl I said "I love you" too was somebody I fell out of love with, if I ever did love her in the first place. With Leesa, I know I really, truly, deeply loved her. Because I never fell out of love with her. When we were in bed together going at it like animals, I loved her. When I was kissing her cheek as she slept, I loved her. When she was mad at me and told me I was an idiot, I loved her. When she had broken up with me and started sleeping around with other guys, I loved her. And a few months ago, when she tracked me down on Facebook and emailed me, telling me her name was Lisa Lacsz now, and had just had a baby, and wanted to know how I was doing....I loved her. And that meant I couldn't talk to her anymore even though I wanted nothing more than for her to reach out as she was doing, nothing more than to hear about her and her baby and her happiness, nothing more than to just hear her voice or see her words. I couldn't have anything from her...because I couldn't have her as my own. And I wanted her still. Because I loved her still. And she really didn't need that kind of person in what her life was now.

That first girl I loved didn't break my heart. Leesa did. In many ways, really. I was hurt, and I felt lost and lonely and depressed. And I developed a physical problem as well. There's a family history of something called a mitrial valve prolapse. It's a problem with a valve in the heart that makes it beat irregularly and makes your blood pressure explode. My heart developed one after that first week in January when Leesa apologized and said she couldn't see me again. It's not a huge deal; the doctor said it's not a risk of heart attack or anything--I just need to calm down when it happens. But it's a broken heart nonetheless. And finally, I think my figurative, romantic heart is just plain broken now. I've tried going out with different women, but just have felt weird doing it. It may sound pitiful, sad, and completely stupid, but three years later, I still feel like I'm cheating on the woman I love. I *know* it's pitiful, sad, and completely stupid, but I still think of the little kitten of a dream girl I once had, every single day. It's gotten to the point where I don't get depressed when I think of her, I don't get weepy and forlorn, but her name and her memory still pops into my head every day, even if just for a moment. I don't feel depressed about it, but I do think I feel a little dead inside, and I don't see that getting any better. I think it's just what honestly, naturally has happened, and the type of ridiculous romantic I am at the core of my being, I think that's the way it's going to remain. Now, I'm not shutting any doors. They say that when you least expect it, that's when someone will come into your life that's perfect for you. So maybe that will happen. I have a feeling that that has already happened to me though, and that she's moved on.

So today I was cleaning out my closet, trying to sell things on ebay to make some money to build myself a little audio/video studio. Up on one of the shelves, way in the back, I found a stack of picture frames. I took a very brief glance at them and realized they were pictures of Leesa and me back when we were both at the height of happiness together. I didn't really feel anything other than a bit of regret that things couldn't have been a bit different. That, and I felt sure that I should just throw them away without really looking at them. So I did.

Yeah, we're turning off the comments for this post for sure.

Chapped Jesus

Hey folks.

So a while back, when I was rich, I bought a nice car stereo from Crutchfield, one that let me connect my iPod directly to the car speakers. It was pretty sweet, just sit down, jack in, and boom, I'm listening to my own music AND charging my iPod. Well, these 115 degree North Carolina days have taken their toll on my system, and it's fucked. So I've had nothing to listen to for a while.

The other day I decided to turn on the radio--I must've been desperate, 'cause I can't stand radio djs of any genre. So I'm flipping through the channels, and come across a station where I hear the word "Jesus"--whups! Time to keep going! But something about the guy's voice made me come back. He was rambling on and on about the same sorta thing these guys always do, but there was something about the way he would get out a sentence and then quickly quote the chapter and verse he was referencing, rushing it almost under his breath. I was fascinated and listened all the way into work.

I wrote down the website they referenced, and yes indeedy, they had mp3s of the speech or preach or whatever you call it, available for download as long as you registered. One fake name and dummy GMail account later, and I had 'em. I plan on cutting them up and making some musical mashup out of them for an album I plan on coming out with later (more on that upon request from my legion of fans, if indeed you're out there.) In the meantime, I did a quick edit and just took a section of this guy's rave-on and cut out everything except the breathy chapter and verse. Listen to it here.

Now please somebody fix my stereo.

Dragnet Haikus

This is hilarious to me.

CageMatch 8/30/08

Big show, big competition, it was one of the best CageMatches of all time. Both Elaine and Banana Breakup blew away a sellout crowd with amazing performances, and at the end, Elaine emerged as seven time CageMatch champions. And here's the video.

I was pleased with the way this one turned out. Lots of music editing that worked. Pretapes done well in advance. Greenscreening that looked to be a nightmare but fell together rather nicely. I liked the way the BB silhouette logo had the red fade out and then the black zoomed out to infinity to reveal Kit looking very confident against the brick wall. Eitan leaping in was funny. The pan along the ladies in boots went over real well, and althought the hair-swishing part didn't work exactly like I planned, I think it came off even better since I had to overlap and rush them.

The music playing over the bit where the girls come in and do the "they tried to keep us down" bit was the opening rhythm of "Hey Ladies" by Destiny's Child. I was pleased that I managed to loop it nicely. I *loved* the way the girls' bit turned out. I had them each come back into the the cluttered but green-walled back room of the theater, and just repeat each line as I read it. Everybody had a different delivery, so it worked out really nicely to bounce between them. I particularly liked Becky's bright enthusiasm, Katie's "yeah, we're cool" sly delivery, and Clare's saucy lolita confidence.

The end bit with the bananas was Becky's idea (the words were mine though). That got a big pop from the crowd. The part you see is a second take. In the first take, Colette's banana flew off when she pulled it from behind her back, and while everybody else was looking tough, she looked like a little child who dropped her ice cream. Hilarious. Look for that on the blooper dvd at Christmas. Finally, the end music worked really well--it was "Not Done Yet" by Superchick, and the lyrics were quite apropos.

Thanks for dropping by.

CageMatch 8/16/08

Just a quick report this time. Had another show yesterday. This time around I didn't get news of the challenging team until this past Tuesday, and the name was a hard one to form a video concept around. The team was called "Flâneur", and I just didn't know what to do with it. In the end, I decided to just make fun of the name and let the natural comedic hilarity of John Loftin make the video. So go watch it here and then come back for a chat.

So the first part of the video is centered around Banana Breakup and their historic fifth win. I liked having the scroll with the win records for each team--lends a bit of historic importance to the whole thing. I used the old Sesame Street clip to amuse myself and buck up my spirits.

The Flâneur identity screen baffled me at first, but in the end I just found a cool old drawing of Paris with a superimposition of old clip art. The Raven was a joke I threw in for Kit, as every time I heard the name "Flâneur", I thought of Lenore from the Poe poem "The Raven". The Wikipedia segment seemed to go over quite well-- just a quick capture with ScreenFlick and a few text overlays. Another bit just to amuse myself was to have the covers the books by the high-class authors mentioned in the Wikipedia article. I knew it would bring the energy of the video to a grinding halt, but it made me laugh.

The surprise reveal of Loftin and Lillith at the end worked surprisingly well. All it is is me holding a copy of the Banana Breakup picture (printed on a piece of paper) in front of the camera lens. Loftin reachs out and crumples it and starts his diatribe. The trick is to pick the exact frame to switch from the in-computer picture to the held-in-front-of-the-camera picture, and the whole thing is dramatic and seamless. I was sorta proud of that.

And now it's 11:30 at night and time for bed. Good night Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.

The identity screen for Flâneur can be seen at the usual place.

CageMatch 7/26/08

Yayyyyyy...blogging drunk, there's nuthin' like it!

CageMatch has happened again--it couldn't be prevented! We had the Banana Breakup boys, excellent as always, making us both laugh and gasp, taking on Robots Are Human Too, hilarity incarnate involving people dressed in cardboard and styrofoam. The video is right here, go check it out, and then I'll start rambling. HEY! Be a peach and click the link in the video to watch it in High Quality, won't you? This video is particularly artifacted for some reason.

Quick question: why does spellcheck not recognize "styrofoam"? For that matter, it doesn't recognize "spellcheck". Bastards.

Ah, upon further review, it looks like styrofoam (I ain't changin' the spelling, boys!) is a trademark. Bastards.

Okay, let's start with the Robots identity screen, since it is pictured above. I need more cider. The picture was drawn by yours truly whilst hangin' out iwht my good buddy Jackson on Friday night. The robot in the pic is based on one my mom owned s a wee lass, and I now am proud to have in my possession. Crayola crayons, activate!

Okay, quick break: I'm watching Mock The Week's new season, and Frankie Boyle continues to be amazing. Best Scottish standup EVER. (Sorry, Loftin.) Here's what he just said: "George Bush says that when he retires, he's going to make his living from speaking. Yeah, play to your strengths, eh George? That's like Abu Hamza having a career doing shadow puppets."

Okay, back to me. The video! It seemed to go over well. We had a fun time shooting all the Banana Breakup stuff out in to 100 degree heat at McDougle. The music in the background. believe it or not, is Madonna. I had a bit of a giggle doing the forward-and-reverse stuff. I was pleased that the end of that segment turned out well, with Eitan leaping off the table and then Kit flying off the swing, and the two of them supposedly landing in the shot. Then the robot attack! That turned out great. Mary Sasson looks evil smacking the water tower out of the way. This whole segment was hard, as there are like ten or eleven special effects going on in there, so it wouldn't render in Final Cut, and I had to play around a lot to get the sound effects to match up. I was quite proud of the sparks on the broken water tower legs. Thank you, Apple Motion! All the rays and lasers and whatnot were fun to place. The sound effects of the blast include no less than the laugh of one Eitan Lees. And we finish up with the dulcet tones of Tatu and "Robot".

And this week I got the idea for a new project I may be doing soon with the energetic Banana Breakup fellows. Stay tuned to see what Ted, Kit, and Eitan will be up to!

The Batslap Meme

Corey Brown challenged me ("New Mimi for you," was all he said, actually,) and I accepted.

It's a lot like the Angry J. Jonah Jameson meme we did a while back. Corey sent me this panel of Batman slapping Robin and invited me to go wild. Here's what I came up with: one, two, three, four, cinco, six.

Here's a blank version if any of you folks want to participate. Don't forget to link to your work in the comments of this entry!

CageMatch 7/7/08

Another quick entry here, about last Saturday's CageMatch. There's a bunch of videos involved here, so watch them when prompted and we'll discuss each one.

First, early in the week we had a statement from CageMatch President Jack Tunney. View it here. Basically, this was a promo for the show, and a vain attempt to get people wondering about what was going on with CageMatch. (That's "vain" in every sense of the word.) It was also a setup for what would happen with the opening of the actual show on Saturday--I planned WAY ahead for this one. This was another one of those fabulous pretapes with Bill Henderson. The phraseology at the end of Tunney's speech was meant to echo an exchange between Tunney and Biff Hobgood in Biff's last appearance. It's what we dramatic experts call "foreshadowing". And I wrote and recorded a rap about Troy Sterling. Yep. Go watch the video again. (Only Kit caught it the first time.)

So on to the show proper. This week's episode started with this video. Go watch it. I used a banana tree pic I had made for the BB boys a few weeks ago and never got to use, and then used stock photos of pretty boys to make up the members of Formula X. (As you will soon see, Formula X didn't actually exist, and to my knowledge, there isn't really a "By Golly Improv Theater" in Minneapolis.) By the way, the Formula X guys are all named after wrestlers from the glory days of All Japan Wrestling.

Okay, so then yours truly as Scott Sullivan comes out to introduce the show. I mention that Jack Tunney had released a statement, and show them the above-described video. Then after reiterating that Jack Tunney said if Troy didn't show up this week, that he'd "take care of him", I tell the crowd that I had not seen Sterling around the dressing rooms, but that he did release a statement of his own. It is here. Seen it? Good. So now you see the reveal--we basically did a callback to the way Biff was killed off way back when. And then we gave it a little twist to make it dramatic and hilarious. I loved the way it turned out, and when the crowd saw the opening with Troy in front of the massage parlour, they freaked. They knew what I was trying to do, so that was a good feeling. One funny thing: University Massage took their sign off the front door, so I had to replace it in post. Remi did a great job delivering the threat at the end, and then having the strains of "Money Money Money" come in just before the bill slid across the screen came off perfectly.

So now Troy Sterling has made his entrance, and he goes into a rage, proclaiming that CageMatch has gotten too expensive, and so he's firing Scott Sullivan, he's firing tech Tommy Dynamite, and he's even firing the challengers, Formula X. He's decided to replace us all with inexpensive Mexican labourers. So Joe Stanton makes his entrance as Don Sullivan, which is hilarious. And then Troy orders that the show be restarted, and we get this video. Enjoyed that? So yes, Senor Bueno is the real challenger this week. The footage was from "Los Campeones Justicieros" and "Vuelven Los Campeones Justicieros", and I was terribly amused to actually find a shot with Blue Demon in a suit at a desk, as Business Bueno. I had a blast making the identity screen for Senior Bueno, with the parody of "Meet The Beatles". I also loved making the "Perro Lucha" logo, playing on the "Los Perros del Mal" group.

The great thing about this show? I was under one of the masks. So I performed as two characters on the same show. Great fun. Tommy ended up hitting me with a chair, and I got him in the sleeper. There was some improv in there somewhere, and apparently I delivered a half-decent contribution to the group, according to commenters after the show. Banana Breakup premiered their shirts that I helped design. We all had a blast.

Stills aplenty from the videos are in the usual place, here.

Addendum: Forgot to mention, I also recorded a special version of the Hall of Champions for this show, where I did the whole "Since the dawn of humanity..." speech in Spanish, and all the champion identity screens were wearing bandito mustaches. It got a good series of laughs. I'm not uploading that video though. You really need to attend the show more often.

Also: I calculated that there was almost TEN MINUTES of video in this show. YOW!

CageMatch 6/28/08

Hey! I've been slack...I haven't blogged since 6/12--TWO CageMatches ago. That's pretty lame. Suffice to say I've been too busy doing things rather than write about them. But I know my rabid public wants to know what I've been up to, so stay tuned for three swift blog entries in a row.

This entry will be about the CageMatch before last, which took place on 6/28/08. It was the first CageMatch on our new night, Saturday at 9:30 as part of "Best Show Ever". Hopefully this'll help us get better crowds, and it's much better for me as it gives me all day on Saturday to do last-minute video work.

Check out the video here, and then we shall discuss. Back? Excellent. I'll be honest, I didn't have much of an idea for this one. What does one do with a name like "White Trash"? So basically I decided I'd just spend time making one good picture, and then pan across closeups before the big reveal. I had a fun time putting the tattoos on Becky and Zach, and making Becky pregnant and Zach goofy lookin'. It's always nice to throw a little Freebird in there as well.

Addendum: Forgot to mention, my boss Mel came up with the idea for the spartan identity screen for White Trash. View that stuff here.

CageMatch 6/12/08

Hmm. Today is the 26th, and I'm just getting around to doing an entry on a show that took place on the 12th. Either I'm getting really lazy, or I've been really busy.

A bit of both, really. And not so much lazy as just tired. I'm still getting used to the new job--I work a little later, getting off ostensibly at 6:00, and I'm working a lot harder than I did with the Town. I tend to work late, and then I get home and am a bit exhausted mentally if not physically. F'r'instance, I came home today and thought I'd lay down for a bit with the laptop and get caught up on RSS feeds. Next thing you know, I wake up and figure I've slept ten hours and it's 6 am--nope, it's midnight. So here I am at quarter to one, drinking lemonade and trying to get relaxed so that I might sleep again.

Okay, enough whining. On to the main event! Check out the video here. You might note that this is on my own YouTube account, rather than DSI's. That's because the version on the DSI page is actually a bit wonkity, as I was rushed and the lipsynching got screwed up between Flash and Final Cut. This version is fixed so it's a bit smoother. You might also want to click the "watch in high quality" button on the YouTube page.

I probably worked harder on this video than I have on any since the famed Night Of The Living Improv video with its animated linocuts. This one might've even been more work. Once we determined that Doom Buddies was playing CageMatch, Remi and I started brewing up ideas. It all started with the picture I had in my head for a Doom Buddies logo, featuring Remi and Joe leaping up towards each other in a sort of "high-five" motion. Remi came up with the genius idea that they'd both be doing crossed "thumbs up", their hands forming a lowercase "d" and "b". Subtle, but fabulous. (That logo eventually came out to be awesome.)

From there, the idea morphed into creating The Doom Buddies as a sort of Venture Bros/Jonny Quest like tv show. Then I figured that if The Doom Buddies had their own show, the wacky Banana Breakup boys should have their own show too! And it should be like Scooby Doo! And since it was my friend Brantley's birthday the week before, and he's a big Scoob fan, he should be in it! So that's why Brantley is behind the Witch Doctor mask (Brantley loves him some Scooby Witch Doctor!)

I rotoscoped the animation for the BB segments. We had pretaped the segment where Kit and Eitan are watching tv at Kit's house, but I forgot to shoot the material for rotoscoping. So I called Kit frantically late one night and asked him to use his little digital still camera to video him and Eitan doing the post-show segment. Not even a question in his mind, he just taped what I asked him to. He sent that along to me, and then the next day, I called again and asked him to get a group together and pretend to unmask someone and then say "Old Man Brantley". That at least netted a quizzical laugh. Even that one was too far out for Kit to not question. Both segments turned out great and were fun to animate.

I spent a long time on the lipsynching. This is the first time I've tried full hand-drawn animation, and I wanted to do the best I could. I was terribly irked when I went to export the animation from Flash and bring it into Final Cut, as there was a lot of frame skipping and my hard work was for naught. There was no time to fix it for the show, but as outlined above, this version is smoother.

The Doom Buddies opening was even more work. I had it all in my head, and just needed to find a way to get it out onto video. I got together some friends to collaborate with and split up the duties. First I got together with Remi and Joe and we did a pretape and photoshoot over where Joe works. Remi used some posed shots I took to draw the figures for the Doom Buddies logo, which I later took and fleshed out into what you saw in the link above. We also posed some shots for the interstitials with the Buddies running away from the lava man and hangin' out in the comic shop. I described what I wanted them to look like, and Remi painted them in Photoshop. His lava man picture was so awesome, I had a print made to hang on my wall. There was also to be an underwater scene with Remi in a Daffy-Duck-like greedy pose with a pearl and a giant clam, while Shaggy-like nervous Joe looked back to see creepy frogmen coming towards them, but we ran out of time. While at Joe's workplace, we also took some video of the boys running like idiots, which I used for the silhouette run cycle used in the video.

My friend Mel drew all the villains that the boys are running in front of, the mummy, the pirate, and the space gorilla. I cleaned them up a bit and did the colouring.

The halftoned duotones that introduce Joe and Remi are also ideas I had early on. I actually took those pictures before anything else was done. I liked the idea of three-frame animation with that coloured halftone look, with a object flying from the guy's hand to fill the screen. For some reason, I could just picture Joe Stanton with this crazy look on his face with his arm outstretched, a 20-sider flying into the camera. And it turned out just like I pictured.

The backgrounds during the BB segment are from Scooby Doo, and the music cues there are from Jonny Quest. The Doom Buddies theme is from the KPM Library, the same source for all the music from the 1960s Spiderman cartoon.

Oh, and by the way, I have no idea what "Adventure just made friends with danger" is supposed to mean. That was just something I typed up off the top of my head as a bumper between the voiceover and the start of the Doom Buddies show, but now it amuses me terribly. I want t-shirts with the Doom Buddies logo on the front and that text on the back.

There are more stills from the video here.

The Wrath of Grapes Is Complete!

The movie I've been editing for the past month-plus is finally complete! I got together last Monday with the rest of the folks who created "The Wrath of Grapes", and we had the world premiere. Everybody seemed to like it. Ryan Locante's performance as the cyclist was the biggest hit. Jackson showed up for most of the film, but I don't think people really realized how much he contributed until we watched the rough cut later (without the soundtrack). Also on hand were the star, Nick Borgerding, Megan Stein, Joe Stanton, and our host Lisa Palmisano. We all worked together to create the film, born from a long-distance suggestion by Austin Nava. The whole thing was brainstormed, written, storyboarded, costumed, and filmed in twelve hours. Then I took a little longer to edit it.

Now you, too, can enjoy our little ten-minute film. If you haven't seen the trailer (and why the hell haven't you?), you can view it here if you'd like. The finished film is here, and the outtakes are here.

Done? Excellent. I had fun editing this together. The opening logo for the movie was created by Ryan, and then I tweaked it a bit. He also came up with the logo for Scrambled Video Eggs and 80 Acres Productions. I took the latter and came up with the idea of flipping and animating the clouds in the background, which made it look even cooler.

I agonized over what to do with the opening interview segments. I wanted to set them apart from the rest of the film, but when I tried them in black and white, they didn't have the contrast against the intercut logos that Ryan made. Then I tried doing basically a duotone in a dark shade of green and a light shade, along with a sort of "stamp" effect to reduce everything down to two tones. Loved the way that turned out.

This was the first live action semi-dramatic type project I've tried to edit, and I now have a greater respect for movie editors. When I do the CageMatch videos, they're all played out in my head already, but with this project, I had to think of dialogue and dramatic effect and camera angles and all that. I did most of the original camera direction when we filmed, but still had a lot of work to do back on the computer trying to figure out how to place the different cuts and scenes. I had a lot of fun doing it though.

One bit that took a lot of work that nobody would notice is editing out the "talkover" in the filmed scenes, either where I was verbally directing actor and thus ruining the audio of the shot, or other people were talking in the background. Luckily, I remembered to record a little bit of the amibent noise at each scene, so I had stuff to dub over and replace the tainted bits. Took a while, though.

The scene where Ryan was riding his bike was hilarious to film, and I think it shows in the final cut. He has such a unique flair for facial acting and body movement, plus his costume was fabulous. It took me a while to figure out that I needed to show the crash in slomo and repeat it over and over to get a good bit of comedy out of it. The three "flying through the air" shots, by contrast, are three DIFFERENT takes, and are just Ryan jumping off a park bench. The closeup of the grape fouling up the bike's gears was shot later, but happens so quickly, you can't tell there's even a grape there.

Megan's scene was fun. It took several takes to get the final "trip on the fallen grapes" shot, but the one used was fabulous.

Lisa's scene in the van was hilarious. The very idea that grapes could blow up a car was funny. We forgot to shoot an insert shot so you could see he was actually putting grapes in the engine, so that angle is actually my hand and my little Honda. The scream was shot earlier in the day, and if you go back and watch it closely, you can tell it's a different location. The explosion and fire was done in Motion, and I was lucky enough to find a burned hulk of a similar vehicle on Google. The hilarious "gas pump as evil mustache" shot was Ryan's idea, and he shot that.

The "family flashback" scene was probably the most fun. It took some careful thought at filming time to set that up. Somehow the camera moved during the shoot for "Ma Myrd"'s bit, so that had to be adjusted in post. The whole scene was shot three times, with vocal stand-ins, and then composited with masks. It looked crappy at first, but a simple bit of feathering on the masks and it clicked together beautifully. The fade from Young Myrd to Present Day Myrd was shaky, but I added a slowed-down growl at the transition that made it flow nicely.

The bluescreen for the grape-throwing scene was really primitive, as we had horrible lighting, and there was a window *behind* the screen casting light onto it. In my death, there wasn't nearly enough blood on my forehead, so I put more in in post. You can tell if you look closely--I couldn't match it up well enough where I moved my head slightly. (It's hard to be dead and push karo syrup out your mouth without moving!)

The final scene was a bit daunting, as I had to insert the mocked-up Raisin Bran ingredients label in post, and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. There are several jokes hidden in that bit. The whole scene was capped off with that incredible long scream by Nick.

Even the credits were harder to do than I thought they'd be. I really need to spend more time learning Motion. Maybe after Rape Stove is finished. (The shoot is this Wednesday!)

So anyway, this was probably the most complicated video project I've ever worked on. I'm pretty proud of it though. Couldn't have done it without all the other actors who were all involved with the writing and creation of the movie---definitely a big group effort. And the movie wouldn't have been a tenth as effective without the soundtrack born from the musical minds of Jackson and Scotts. All in all, a big success, methinks.

CageMatch Report

Quick report, as today has gotten crazily busy. Here's the video.

Nothing particularly special this time. Lots of Photoshoppery, a little bit of stock video, and a bit of amusement sticking Mary's face on a piece of Catholic schoolgirl clipart. Had to change the script halfway through the process, as it was going to end by saying "Mano A Mary is well-grounded in improv comedy, but Banana Breakup will be flying high," followed by Ozzy Osbourne's "Flying High Again" off the album "Tribute". But it didn't rock hard enough, so I switched to the "breaking the law of gravity" ending with "Breaking The Law" by Judas Priest. Rock on.

Oh, and another triple-meaning audio intro this time! Do ya get it?

Open Letter To My Mysterious Benefactor

I've been meaning to do this for a long time--I think more than a year now--and keep getting distracted. But now I'm wired on stimulants and working through the night to finish a video, and decided I better go ahead and do this and quit putting it off!

Sometime last year (year before, maybe?) I mentioned somewhere (no idea where; thought it was here on the blog, but damned if I can find the post now) that if somebody wanted to be a nice person and buy me a present, they could get me "Autumn Thunder", the boxed set of cds featuring music from NFL Films. I love that music; uber-dramatic and ovr the top and everything I adore. I already owned "The Power And The Glory", but that's a single disc. This set had TEN CDS full of music.

Anyway, I mentioned it as sort of a joke. Who the hell would buy me a $100 boxed set of music? Well, somebody did. It arrived anonymously in the mail one day. I tried my best to figure out who had got it for me, but all my choices for kindness candidates denied it was them.

So now, far too long after somebody was amazingly thoughtful and giving, I take this time to thank you. You've made me both curious and happy, and have inspired lots of creative moments and CageMatch video drama. Many thanks.

-Your pal,
Ted

The Wrath of Grapes: The Trailer

So a few weeks ago, my friend Ryan Locante invited me to join in on a project he had devised. He came up with an idea he called "Scrambled Video Eggs", where a bunch of folks would get together, divide into teams, get a suggestion, and then have 24 hours to script, produce, film, and edit a short film. Well, only a handful of folks showed up, so we just made up one team, and decided to leave the editing until later.

The personnel assembled were Ryan, Megan Stein, Nick Borgerding, Joe Stanton, Lisa Palmisano, and myself. Our suggestion came from the great state of Ohio and one Austin Nava. We started brainstorming, and with such a diverse bunch of minds, we came up with some wacky ideas. We ended up making a movie about a guy who really hates it when people eat grapes, so much so that he murders them...using grapes.

I've just finished editing the trailer, with music from the fine folks at Fenario Sound Recording. You can view ninety seconds of thrills and chills here. The full movie should be finished within the week, and I'll notify you loyal readers when it's up. Enjoy!

From Government To Creativity

So I just sent out this mass email to the folks I like at work:

Pardon the impartiality of a mass email, but I wanted to make sure my nearest and dearest got the news all at once. Soon, I will be a free man. Yes, after six years with the Town of Chapel Hill, I’m a-movin’ on. My friend Mel has asked me to come work as a graphic artist in her t-shirt store, and it looks like it will be a fun and creative opportunity for me. Yippee and hallelujah, I say. I’ll be working on a Macintosh (and escaping my desk here before they install Vista on machine—don’t you dare try it, Cantrell!), able to listen to music while I work, be creative all day, AND helping out a friend. All for more money (and less insurance). Plus, I’ll never have to hear another phone call about how we’re all heathens for sponsoring Halloween, or explain to people that no, you can’t vote at Town Hall. I’ll be working at Bread & Butter Screenprinting in Glen Lennox, so I’ll still be around (and don’t you dare get your shirts printed anywhere else!)

So yes, I'm finally quitting my job at the Town of Chapel Hill. The job was never that great, but once Cal Horton retired from his post as Town Manager, the atmosphere of the place just died away and it just wasn't fun to come to work anymore. The duties I had been doing all along, like making coffee and filling up the copier, became really demeaning for someone who has a Master's degree. There was a tension in the air as everybody seemed to start grabbing for power and didn't want to work smoothly together anymore, and the whole atmosphere in the building just became oppressive. They kept tempting me with carrots of new positions and higher salaries that never materialized, and I had been wanting to move on for some time.

I'm not good at searching for new jobs, so I was just sort of languishing at Town Hall. But fortunately for me, my friend Mel suddenly had an opening for a graphic artist position at her screenprinting store, and we talked about the possibility of me coming in to fill the spot. I told her I'd have to think about it, but after telling a few folks about the situation, I felt such an amazing load lift from my shoulders that I thought, "ah, apparently the decision has been made, and I never noticed!" It'll be a much more fun place to work, more creative, and I'll be helping out my friend, which always makes me feel good. I like helping people.

Anyway, my last day at the Town Of Chapel Hill is May 29. (A Thursday? Well, that's what they asked of me...) Then on to better things.

CageMatch Report

Ah, I keep forgetting to put this up. My mind seems overwhelmed by pollen, so I've been quite absent-minded lately.

Anyway, here's the poop on the latest CageMatch video. Go watch it here, and then we will discuss.

So this whole concept was dreamed up and executed in 24 hours. I've been busy working on a short movie for another project, and wasn't able to even think about CageMatch until Wednesday. Fortunately, it all seemed to come together rather nicely. Mano is Greek, and when I was doing the "Flavor Shot European Tour" video a few weeks back, I had intended to have one of the European teams be from Greece, naming them "Mano A Mano" and just putting two pictures of Mano's face up there. I ran out of time on that video, so I was pleased as punch to be able to do a flashback to the European Tour and use it as a part of the plot for this video.

I agonized over what to call the Greek team for this video...I made a list of all sorts of terms and names that popped into mind when I thought about Greece, and even asked other folks what they thought of when I said "Greece". Then I started thinking about Greek mythology, and looked at a list of Greek gods. When I got to Ares, the choice seemed obvious: good pun, Greece is also known for pottery, and I love the game "God of War". Thus was born "Ares Potter".

The rest of the video was pretty straightforward. I liked the two shots of the amphitheatre, with the voiceover about how the rioting crowd destroyed the place. The rippling effect on Flavor Shot that was overlaid on the soldier picture turned out rather nicely. I had to buy a screen-capturing program (ScreenFlick) to get Mary's video off the Rooftop Comedy webpage so I could use it in the CageMatch video. That part went over well. The final logo animation wasn't quite as fancy as I had originally planned, but I ran out of time.

The music at the end was a mashup of the Knight Rider theme and Eminem ('cause Mano A Mary is M and M). The opening sound was "Proud Mary" by CCR. "But Ted," you say, "you left out the other half of the team!" Nope--it wasn't the stereo version of "Proud Mary"....it was the mono version. (Man, I'm so clever!)

I got nice compliments from Mano after the video was shown. He said his mother would love it because it made him look like a good Greek boy, and that I used traditional Greek music. I thought that was darling.