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chase the light

I’m All Artsy Fartsy

Since I’ve been on a bit of a shopping spree as of late, I headed over to Wacko / Soap Plant / La Luz De Jesus [LINK]. They’re always good for some cash outlay by me. Being a fan of low brow art, a couple prints caught my eye. Well, almost anything with tikis on it catches my eye. I bought one by the artist Aaron Marshall [LINK] from Canada. It’s called “You Think I’ll Take Your Order, Boy? You Must Be Fucking Dreaming!”. The ultimate goal though is to secure 7 particular Mark Ryden [LINK] paintings. Four of which are tiki themed and one of girls on a carousel. Pele, Exotica, Tiki God, Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers, The Debutante, Princess Sputnik and another which is fairly rare.

Anna-nanna-banana-fana-fo-fana

[BANANA SPLIT PARTY AT IMAGEWORKS GALLERY]

Guised as Ken Ralston’s birthday, it was banana split time again at Imageworks. Anything to get away from the desk.

The Day The Circus Of Heaven Came To Town

I got out of work pre-sunset and when I pulled out of the parking structure the world was going through a filter. It was just bizarre. The sky was going nuts and everything had a red glow. Buildings, people, cars, green grass. It was all red from the fiery clouds. No need to enhance this one tonight. An au natural sunset.

Bug Suicide, Sunset And City Lights

Don’t do it little bug! Life is worth living. You are loved. You’re kinda ugly, but that’s no reason to leap. It’s 7 stories straight down. After talking to him a bit I found out he was just their to enjoy the sunset and city lights. Kinda like me, but with a much more dangerous viewing spot. Crazy lil’ bug. Super panoramic of out of focus Hollywood lights.

Imageworks Is For Real Now

For years we had the most pathetic excuse for a website. [LINK] For a visual effects company you’d expect so much more. They finally got their act together and it looks like the real thing now. [LINK] I’m glad they kept the Flash to a minimum.

Singing About Good Things And The Sun That Lights The Day

L.A. has the best sunsets during the summer. Brilliant colors when there are no clouds, and brilliant colors when there are clouds. It doesn’t matter. I had to pick my parents up from Union Station in downtown for their trip to Michigan. I went a little early and walked over to Olvera Street and hung out on a bench to people watched. Or they walked by and watched me.

The Jacuzzi Dogs

Every other night or so I go out the the jacuzzi and there’s a regular crowd out there that shoots the shit. It’s usually comprised of some combination of the Actor(s), the Director, the Editor, the Graphic Designer, the Visual Effects Artist (me), and Roger. It’s the epitome of what you’d expect from a crowd in L.A. Everybody’s in the business, except for Roger who soaks it all in. Roger is a large black man who has so many wild stories I start to wonder if he’s making half of them up. He’s sort of the unofficial overseer of the jacuzzi. There’s also an older lady who speaks way to frankly and says she’s dated Warren Beattie, Timothy Leary and Robert Atkins the diet guru. Anway, tonight, Actor says he’s going to be on the show “Monk” [LINK] at 10:00. His role? A bad actor in a stage play that gets accidently killed when a prop knife is swapped with a real one. The episode is called “Mr. Monk Goes To The Theater”. [LINK] Since the pool closes at 10:00 we all scurried off to watch. Too funny. Just 5 minutes ago I was sitting in the jacuzzi with Actor, and next thing you know he’s dying on my TV. I love L.A.

No Strings Attached

Today the Gods of Wireless Networking looked down upon me and smiled. With no real place for my new Apple Airport Extreme, the only logical space seemed to be in the center of my chain of tea lights. It needs its own shrine anyway. The umbilical cord has been cut, I’m all grown up now.

Chuck’s Chicks Explained

There were two fairly identical stories that came out about “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” this week. One focusing on just the Mongolian Dam including my shot. [LINK] The other on my shot and a few others. [LINK] Of course artists are never mentioned in these things, but that’s the way it goes. I never knew they referred to it as “The Blossom Shot”. I knew it as md09. Imageworks gives random names to shots and sequences in their films. md09 stood for Mongolian Dam #09. The naming of shots is not brain surgery.

Sagebrush Cantina

A color study of lunch at the Sagebrush Cantina. [LINK] The food is really pretty crappy here.

Le Beach Pawty

Jen and Carey celebrated their birthdays with a Beach Blanket Bingo [LINK] pawty.

Independence Day

People have short term memories. Every year I hear the same complaint. “We can’t see the fireworks because of the smoke. It wasn’t this bad last year.” Um, yes it was. And the year before that, and the year before that. Personally I think it makes the fireworks look cooler. All this over a 227 year old piece of paper? [LINK] Ya can’t even read the thing! The short version… “We the people don’t like your tea, having a Queen, bangers and mash, that you put “u” in words like colour, that whole lack of religious freedom thing, and lawyers who wear wigs. We’re even going rename football to soccer, and every year we will shoot red rockets that glare into the sky just so you don’t forget. Oh and that whole heavy duty tax thing which brings us back to your crappy tea. Signed, John Hancock and a bunch of other early people who write small.”

Eddie the Cat

One cool cat. As soon as I get home and open the back door, neighbor cat Eddie comes comes a runnin’. He hangs out with me a lot when I’m eating on the patio. While my Mom was visiting once she fed him some cheese and he immediately barfed it back up along with a weeks worth of hairballs. We lost our appetite right then.

Attack Of The Killer Neighbour Katt

10 second horror flick. See what happens when you’re sittin’ bored at home armed with a video camera. Fun with the neighbors cat, Nicky.

iChat AV

Yesterday Apple released their new iChat AV software and the new iSight camera. Which I had to have to add to the new 30gb iPod and Dual 1.42 machine. Apple has a lot of my money right now. Anyway, hooked the camera up, installed the software, and lo and behold less than 2 hours later someone rings me up! Tah dah, it works like a charm. I love Apple. So if ya got iChat AV and a camera send me an email.

“Alex & Emma” Premiere

Woo hoo! Off to another red carpet premiere and free food at the after party. Tonight was Rob Reiner’s new romantic comedy “Alex & Emma”. Lot’s of stars, but I was particularly happy to see Chris Robinson of the The Black Crowes. He’s in one of my favorite bands, married to Kate Hudson and living a charmed life. Bastard. Star list: Albert Brooks, Carl Reiner, David Paymer, Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson, Luke Wilson, Nicky and Paris Hilton, Rip Taylor, Rob Reiner, Sara Rue, Pete Sampras, Bridgett Wilson, Busy Phillips, Mindy Burbano, Christopher Guest, Alec Baldwin and Larry David. The after party was at White Lotus [LINK] in Hollywood. A velvet rope kinda place I would never go to as my tastes differ from that, but the food was amazing. The valet parking was out of control so we parked down at the Arclight Cinemas and walked up Cahuenga a few blocks instead of sitting in the car waiting. The place was just packed and mingling through the crowd was brutal. I made Alec Baldwin nervous by coming at him with a plate a food so he got out of my way. I asked for a bottle of water at the bar and they gave me a bottle of Voss [LINK]. This is the most ridiculous water ever produced. They even have nutrition facts on their website. It’s friggin’ water not wine! If you’re buying this overpriced crap, shame on you. The movie? A suck fest.

Be My Girl. Please. I Beg Of You.

More video fun. I found this buried deep in a box in the back of a closet today. Back in 1992 I was taking some classes at UCLA and got hooked up with this video director from Germany. His name was Oliver. He was going to be shooting a video for this artist from Denver in the coming weeks and wanted to know if I could shoot it. I agreed. This turned out to be the sole reason I never got into making music videos. You have to spend 2 days listening to the same damn song over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over… With a piece of crap song like this it’s just brutal. Now, you’re only going to spend a few minutes watching this frightening thing but I had to spend two long days listening to this and watching this moron “act”. I hated every single moment of those two days. This led to a gig on a rap video which I’ll try and post a bit of some other time. Oh man, kill me all over again. You really have to watch it all just to see how many times you cringe. Like this guy would ever have a chance with her. Even on set she would have nothing to do with him. Please, don’t choke on your own vomit while you watch this skeleton from my closet. No tapping your toes or spontaneous dancing. I present to you… “Be My Girl”. Oh man, it’s bad.

Why I Loathe Orange County

Why do I loathe Orange County? Let me count the ways. Also known as O.C.. Also also known as “Only Caucasions”. I grew up in Orange County and one of my priorities was to get out of there as soon as I could. It’s a place you run away from. After a friends party I stopped by to see some other friends and I actually knocked on the wrong door. How could I tell? All the houses look the same down there. The guy who answered the door said “Oh, they live 2 houses down in the house with the bigger palm trees”. It’s not like I haven’t been to this house a bunch of times either. I just couldn’t tell. Which brings me to the single scariest statues I’ve ever seen. At the entrance to a housing tract down there are these two statues. A man with a daughter, and a woman with a son. I’m not going to go on about why I hate these statues, they speak for themselves. The amount of American flags and SUV’s in this place is astounding. Ah, my hometown, gotta love it. Now get me the hell out of here.

Straight A’s. Imagine That.

For your Friday the 13th viewing pleasure I’ve decided to take you back 14 years to the classic “Straight A’s”. Set in the Bay Area at a large seaside University, the story revolves around the long held belief that if your college roommate dies they’ll give you straight A’s. This is long before that stupid MTV movie. While going to school with a collective of fellow film geeks we gathered in the very place we live and put together this movie in a few days. As it turns out it came out quite good considering the technology at the time. One being a camera and recorder that were separate. I had to carry the recorder with a strap on my shoulder. Other production highlights include the smoke machine that wouldn’t stop firing after we shut it off. Rod Reed’s effects work during the climax. Brilliant. If you like your horror fun, like “Bad Taste” from Peter Jackson, then this is for you. Does that mean we’re only four more films away from making “Lord of the Rings”? This is also a good look into where I lived holed up in a dorm for two years. If you look closely you’ll see my desk is in the closet. I really didn’t use it much for studying. Some things I did learn in college; how to juggle, how to ride a unicycle, and how to play “The Rain Song” by Led Zeppelin in it’s entirety. Now that’s college tuition spent right. And I wonder why I was a “C” student? Jeff, Keith, Ben and Fahim are the main characters, with Keith putting in a bravura performance as the wayward student. It ended up getting edited at the local cable station in Contra Costa county for free. It even won 2nd place in a contest from “Video Review” magazine. I think the prize was a camera bag. Ah… those were the days. Not a care in the world and looking for handouts. 15:45 secs. After 14 years, sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the killin’.

Peter Gabriel At Irvine Meadows

The last of the four concerts tonight. Peter Gabriel on his 2nd leg of the Growing Up tour. Concert highlights? He played “Games Without Frontiers” and “Don’t Give Up”. The 2 Kate Bush songs in his repertoire. He also did the song “The Tower That Ate People”. A song from the Millennium Dome show “OVO”. During “Games Without Frontiers” he and his daughter Melanie rode Segway scooters around the stage. The Zorb was back again during “Growing Up”. I left during the “In Your Eyes” encore to get a headstart on the traffic. I can really do without hearing that song again for the umteenth billion time. Hey, no mirrorball tonight. Oh, and here’s a rather uninteresting photo of the parking lot. This is the “Hey look at me I went to Peter Gabriel tonight” page. Seeing how his last tour was 11 years ago, that’s kinda a big deal. Setlist for tonight: Red Rain – More Than This – Secret World – Games Without Frontiers – Mercy Street – Darkness – Digging in the Dirt – Don’t Give Up – The Tower That Ate People – Growing Up – Shock The Monkey – Solsbury Hill – Sledgehammer – Signal To Noise. Encores 1: In Your Eyes – Come Talk To Me – Father, Son.