Misguided Distortion

Cats Are Weird People

2013-04-18T16:28:00.003-05:00

To my buddy, my pal, Mars.

You make it overly obvious that you like things your way.

You stay quiet, tucked away in dark corners of the house.

You sleep all day and only want my attention on your terms.

You figured out that the most effective acoustics for your range is in the bathtub.

You know how to get a rise from us.

Now I see the lunch you never ate spin around in your automatic feeder.

I see your toys hanging from every doorknob.

I see your fur still linger in the places you loved the most.

I feel the spot in the hallway where your eyes dilated with your last breath.

It’s so quiet now. I miss you, jerk.

Love ya, Fatty.
~John

Industrial Agriculture’s CAFO: What Did I Just Eat?

2013-01-20T20:46:00.000-06:00

We are bombarded daily by corporations telling us when and what to eat. They appeal to our basic human instincts with savory fats and sugary sweets. We buy our perfectly packaged food adorned with happy cows and golden arches from red-headed clowns and candy-coated cartoons. We’re so obsessed with how our food looks on the outside, we never think to look at what’s happening inside. Sadly, food corporations don’t want you looking inside. Your basic McDonald’s cheeseburger has meat from nearly 1,000 different cows. This cow meat was pulverized and stamped into the all-too-familiar circular medallion, flash-frozen and shipped hundreds of miles all so that any slobbering idiot can cook you and your family a hot dinner at a decent profit. Would you like to see where your dinner came from? No problem, come right in, just don’t bring any cameras; photographing or videotaping inside a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) is illegal.

They call it industrial agriculture: industry meets agriculture. The term seems harmless, but what does it really mean? It means big business has their grubby little hands on every last bit of food we eat. For food companies, turning a profit requires lawyers and lobbyists to hide the truth about how they’re really making their money. Copyrighting crop genes, fighting food labeling laws, buying politicians, and slaughtering billions of animals yearly is what industrial agriculture is all about (not to mention paying for those labels they put on your breakfast sausage showing happy little chickens and cows frolicking in a green field next to a red barn). Even the innocent looking gummy bears you buy at the store aren’t safe from industrial agriculture byproducts. Gelatin, a major ingredient in gummy bears, is actually derived from boiling the connective tissues, bones and skin of pigs and sometimes cows, yum! Unfortunately, it’s easy to fool people with beautiful, colorful packaging all the while shoving the ingredients to the bottom in small print. Is an ingredient like gelatin harmful to your health? Gelatin won’t kill you, but purchasing it, and products containing it, feeds a corrupt and environmentally hazardous industry.

Everyone loves bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits from McDonald’s, but where did the ingredients come from? McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of pork; naturally, this pork comes from concentrated animal feeding operations (Kenner, 2009). Consider the life of a piglet within a CAFO (we’ll call him Charlie). Charlie is born on a concrete floor where he stays until he’s weaned from his mother. Charlie’s mother is confined to a gestation cage that keeps her pinned to the floor so Charlie can nurse. Once weaned, Charlie gets his teeth and tail cut off so he and his fellow CAFO buddies don’t maim or cannibalize each other. Charlie has his testicles cut off and is force fed to gain weight quickly. He spends the next few weeks gnawing on the metal bars that keep him caged, nearly immobilized without even enough room to lie down. This is where Charlie reaches a fork in the road; does he end up with an infected abscess on his spine from a poorly executed mutilation, or does he get tasered and beaten into an overcrowded truck. If Charlie ends up with an infection, he is not given medical attention, he’s left to stew in his own bacteria and eventually is thrown onto the growing death pile deemed the 4-D by the industry (4-D is short for dead, dying, diseased, and disabled (Imhoff, 2009), that’s right, they throw living, disabled animals into a pile of dead and diseased animals). Should Charlie dodge any infections or diseases and end up on the truck to the slaughterhouse, he will most likely suffocate or freeze in transit.

Transported to slaughterhouses through all extremes of weather, pigs sometimes suffocate in summer or freeze to the sides and floors of trucks in winter. To cram as many animals as possible into the eighteen-wheelers, workers have been reported to resort to beatings or electrical shock. Up to 1 million pigs are estimated to die every year during transport in the United States (Imhoff, 2009).

Charlie’s daunting travels are far from over. Should he make it to the slaughterhouse alive, the workers may or may not stun him sufficiently enough to ease the suffering of death. The worker may not even do a decent job at killing Charlie as he is sent into the mechanized teeth of the pork processing plant alive and fully aware. If Charlie happens to be a little too sick to make it to the killing floor standing up, the factory farm will pump him full of steroids; laws prevent animals that are unable to stand from being slaughtered for the market. Once an innocent little piglet, Charlie has endured horrid living conditions, displayed abnormal behavior due to extreme confinement, suffered mutilation, and is ultimately torn to shreds by high tech machines.

Things can’t change overnight. As one of McDonald’s largest pork suppliers, Smithfield has attempted to appear revolutionary in its treatment of animals. However, a scathing report from Rolling Stone about waste overflow and scattered pig corpses tarnished that facade, prompting a rebuttal from Smithfield on their website, “as we read through the article, the half-truths and distortions eventually grew to outright misinformation” (Smithfield, n.d.). Even Temple Grandin, a pioneer in animal welfare handling, has defended Smithfield to an extent. “They've gotten a whole lot better over the years - there's no question about that… One of the things they've cut down on is electric prodding" (Walzer, 2011). Murphy-Brown LLC, Smithfield’s livestock subsidiary, has even pledged to lower its use of gestation cages at Grandin’s request. Is cutting down on animal cruelty really enough? Smithfield brings 17 million hogs to slaughter yearly (Smithfield, n.d.). That’s like taking the whole population of Mumbai, India (one of the most populous cities in the world) and sending them all to slaughter, but only using an electric prod on a couple million of them. Smithfield is currently posting record profits and the Humane Society has filed a suit saying they’re not changing fast enough. Keeping shareholders happy while improving livestock welfare requires a delicate balance and it is by no means a quick process. Logic would dictate that continuing to purchase Smithfield’s products would only help the company continue its cash flow for improving the conditions at their CAFOs, but who really wants to buy sick and tortured bacon? The true cost of industrial agriculture is proving to be more than monetary.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (n.d.) admits CAFOs pollute the environment and can potentially harm humans.

Combined, the beef, dairy, pork, and poultry industries generate six to ten times as much waste as humans. The major stressors associated with the generation and disposal of these wastes include nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous), sediments from runoff, veterinary pharmaceuticals (e.g., endocrine disrupting chemicals, arsenic, ivermectin, and antibiotics), pathogenic organisms, and atmospheric emissions of gases and particulates. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [USEPA], n.d)

All of the above pollutants easily make their way into all of our major water sources due to “poop lagoon” overload. Heavy rain and floods can spread these chemicals and pathogenic organisms to lakes and rivers, ultimately being washed into our oceans. Especially disconcerting is the amount of antibiotics entering our water sources. The majority of the antibiotics manufactured here in the U.S. aren’t even produced for human consumption; they’re given to cows, chickens and pigs being raised on factory farms. Why do industrial farm animals get all of our antibiotics, you ask? When animals are confined in concentrated feeding operations, disease spreads quickly due to close quarters and unhealthy living conditions, and rather than isolating and treating the illnesses as needed, the animals are given a constant low dose of antibiotics whether they are necessary or not. Overuse of low-dose antibiotics promotes the growth of resistant strains of bacteria and can have implications beyond the scope of the barnyard. Since these same antibiotics are used for human consumption, the risk of incurable infections in humans increases (National Center for Biotechnology Information, n.d.).

CAFOs came about in the 1950s when there was a need to increase the efficiency of meat production, in other words, to widen the profit margin. There’s a lot of science and planning involved with these large scale feeding operations and some CAFOs probably run like a well-oiled machine. Waste management by some CAFOs is extremely innovative and in a depressed economy, a job at a factory farm probably looks pretty enticing. The problem is a small-time farmer can’t compete with a CAFO that moves into their area. The farmers either go out of business or are swayed by a large company to become independent contractors. According to Food, Inc., these small time farmers are given large loans to start the operation, but can never get out from under the loan because the company is constantly changing their regulations, causing the farmer to take out more loans. There’s no doubt CAFOs can produce a product and turn a profit for the company, but is it worth it? Human exploitation is also prevalent throughout the meat production system. Even the processing plants exploit their workers. Food, Inc. exposed Smithfield again for using illegal workers in their processing plants. Smithfield deliberately hires illegal workers for a period of time, and then tips off the immigration authorities to have the workers deported only to send a bus back across the border to pick up more illegal immigrants. Apparently Smithfield keeps their costs down by paying illegals below minimum wage, not giving raises, and they certainly don’t have to provide their workers with benefits if they’re being deported every few weeks. It's no wonder Smithfield constantly posts huge profits.

“Big Food” is a huge industry and controls the majority of what we consume. What exactly can be done to help make a change? Without having to resort to drastic diet changes, a first step is to think local. Getting to know your local butcher or meat supplier will help you track down exactly where your meat comes from. Many small farmers have decided to fill a market niche for the local buyer. Instead of feeding their cows grain (contrary to popular belief, corn is not a natural food source for ruminants), the cows are allowed to graze in their innate environment. In fact, small farmer Joel Salatin has gone back to the true agrarian method of farming. Food, Inc. has an extensive interview with Salatin and his fully free-range organic livestock method. All of Joel’s livestock are free to move around all they want outside, which is a big difference from the windowless, festering, steel buildings CAFOs present. He lets cows graze, and then he brings in his free-range chickens to feed on the cows’ dried excrement. Once the chickens have cleared the cow dung, their excrement serves as fertilizer for crops or grass and the cycle continues. His way seems like a natural way of doing things. Unfortunately, Salatin has been accosted by the USDA many times for having unsanitary conditions for slaughtering his chickens out in the open air. Rest assured, Salatin’s product is a far cry from the arsenic-laden chicken meat you buy from the store (arsenic is added to chicken feed to help turn their skin pink, which is more appealing to customers at the local grocery). Joel’s product may be a little more pricey, but his hands-on approach to meat processing sounds much more appealing than the chewed up, ammonia-soaked cuts of beef you find at the store (ammonia, which isn’t always effective considering numerous beef recalls, is used to help destroy bacteria and other pathogens that arise from the mechanical production of cows). If CAFO beef, pork and chicken are too accessible to avoid, or if you would rather not pay more for local meat, changing your diet may be the way to go.

Cutting out animal products altogether can be difficult, but it can have a positive impact on your health and your state of mind. The quickest way to stop feeding your cash to CAFOs is to quit buying their products. Vegetarianism, along with veganism, has been around for centuries and still thrives today in certain cultures. The United States has seen growing numbers of vegetarians because of health concerns and the reluctance to support animal cruelty. The documentary Forks Over Knives spotlights The China Study, a study on millions of Chinese people and how their diets relate to their health. Depending on how many animal products a certain group eats, there is a direct correlation with higher cancer rates. Even tests on mice show that animal products effectively “turn on” carcinogens while consuming less meat and more vegetables and grains renders carcinogens much less effective. Ailing meat-eaters have lowered and even eliminated their need for prescription medication by switching to an all plant-based diet according to Forks Over Knives.

One of the biggest problems society faces is the convenience of modern food. Convenient foods are mass-marketed, manufactured for a profit, and are loaded with all sorts of unhealthy ingredients. If we would just stop and think about the food we eat, and especially read labels every once in a while, we may be better off. We eat at least three times a day and we do less research on what goes into our mouth than we do deciding which snazzy iWidget we should purchase next. You can’t digest or get any nutrients from an iWidget, and that ammonia-bathed, diseased cheeseburger you just ate probably is doing just as good at providing nourishment. The USDA has revised their food pyramid several times, but where do I put a double Quarter-Pounder with cheese and bacon in my daily food journal? What about that 94 ounce glass of high fructose corn-syrup? Diets are a touchy subject for most people, and the divide of omnivores and herbivores is as heated a topic as universal health care. A fundamental change in the standard American diet is needed if we are to ever see cheaper health care, more jobs in the agricultural sector, less polluted rivers, or children without diabetes. More money spent on free range grass-fed beef or shifting to a plant-based diet are two ways to steer away from the mass slaughtering and gene modification of billions of animals every year. It is understood that you must kill an animal to eat it; but do we need to confine it and abuse it beforehand?

References

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency CAFOs Pollution Prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved November 15, 2011,

Campbell, T. C., & Campbell, T. M. (2005). The China Study. Texas: Benbella Books.

Fulkerson, L. (Director). (2011). Forks Over Knives [Documentary]. United States: Virgil Films & Entertainment.

Imhoff, D. (2010). CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation): the tragedy of industrial animal factories. Sausalito: Earth Aware.

Kenner, R. (Director). (2009). Food, Inc. [Documentary]. United States: Magnolia Home Entertainment.

National Center for Biotechnology Information. (n.d) Airborne Bacteria in CAFOs: Transfer of Resistance from Animals to Humans. U.S. National Library of Information.

Smithfield Foods (n.d.) Rolling Stone's "Bosshog" article: Fact vs. Fiction. (n.d.). Smithfield Foods Company Information. Retrieved December 7, 2011

Salatin, J. (2007). Everything I want to do is illegal. Swoope, Va.: Polyface, Inc.

Walzer, P. (2011, April 10). Temple Grandin appears in Smithfield Foods Videos. Virginian-Pilot, The (Norfolk, VA).

Futura Specimen Book - Space and Junk

2012-12-11T15:10:00.001-06:00

I admit it. I used to be a huge fan of Helvetica. Alas, my love has fallen to Futura. Digging deeper into the history of Futura brought on the theme for my type specimen book. Futura was used on many of the plaques attached to the lunar modules back in the day when going to the moon was cool and stuff. I couldn't help it, space is awesome and stuff.

The Sun Also Rises - Book Cover Design (ART205)

2012-11-13T21:30:00.003-06:00

Here's a recent project I worked on for Typography class with Sharon Conlee as the instructor. I chose Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I haven’t read the book, but I’m familiar with his work. I like how short the title is, and how short the words are within it; I thought this would help out the design. I did some quick skimming and read a full book summary at Sparknotes.com. Having some idea as to what the book entails would no doubt drive my design.

I looked at a lot of full layout book covers online to see what kind of basic elements are involved. I also looked at other designs of the same cover. Most of these designs involved bullfighting and some sort of shadow to emphasize the “sun” part of the title. I know I wanted the title to take up most of the cover, as with a lot of popular titles in stores, and to only keep Hemingway’s last name on the cover.

I found a sun illustration on Sxc.hu (free royalty-free images) and also a photo of a bullfighter and bull. I liked the color scheme of the sun photo and decided to use that as a basis for the rest of the spread. Using the bullfight photo with lowered opacity as my extra texture I added a little more interest to the sun. The other design elements I used were an author photo, some basic shapes using a dark orange rectangle with lowered opacity, and finally the UPC and original publisher’s logo. I added an illustration of Hemingway’s signature on the back flap.

I used Futura as my title font; it’s bold and has a modern feel to it, which would go well with today’s bookstore. I used Georgia, in regular, bold, and italic to give hierarchy to the copy and review blurbs. Georgia was used because of its’ serifs, to contrast with the san-serif font Futura. I kerned a larger portion of the text, mostly the title and some of the copy, leading adjustments were also used to push text into a cleaner state within the rectangular design elements.

Here's the full jacket.

These are the days, my friends and these are the days, my friends.

2012-10-04T15:53:00.001-05:00

I *@&#ing HATE cables.

Well, I officially started at Bradley University in August. My first semester itinerary is a buffet of media and art oriented classes. Typography, Sound Design, New Media Theory, Interactive Media, and Video. I am currently enrolled at 15 credit hours Mon. - Thurs. Then I volunteer as a production assistant for Bradley's Midstate Magazine (a student production). I also work my regular job Fri-Sun. Unfortunately, WTVP and their production schedules seem to mesh with my current schedule, I hope I can get back down there again one day and put some time in.

Ever since I bought my first video camera many years ago I've been completely in love with shooting and editing. I'm looking forward to learning, creating, meeting new people, and last but not least, earning my second degree.

I have yet to make my official "thank you" video for all of the people that donated and helped me get the MacBook that has been so wonderfully helpful here. I'm waiting for the day I have enough time and the right skills to truly thank the people who have helped. It's sad, but in the Interactive Media program, PC users stick out like a sore thumb. Obviously they are often flogged by teachers and/or service bureau employees for attempting to sneak by the rules and bring a PC to class... it just doesn't work that way.

Have I become a Mac snob? No, I love both PCs and Macs. Maybe I've just never spent enough on a PC laptop for it to be considered professional, but this MacBook Pro is putting all my other laptops, combined, to utter shame. This thing is truly a fine piece of machinery. I only hope the people who manufactured and assembled it haven't killed themselves yet and are getting fair pay, I can dream, can't I?

I'm going to be posting some of my larger projects here, along with some of my favorites. So, here's a few projects I've put together. Nothing special, just trying to get this blog rolling again.

Silly, I know, but it was all done with code (processing.org)

Help Me Get Funding for a Macbook Pro

2012-07-17T14:19:00.001-05:00

At the risk of pandering, I’ve started a campaign to raise money so that I may purchase a laptop. Of course this is not just any laptop, but a Macbook Pro. I’m attending my first semester at Bradley University in August and they recently changed their Slane College laptop requirement. This requirement went from your run-of-the-mill “any laptop with the speed to edit videos” (which, in the PC market is relatively affordable) to “you must now turn to the dark side and spend at minimum $1,800 for a fancy schmancy Steve Jobs prodigal brainchild” laptop. I’m reaching out to friends and family to help meet my monetary goal so I can go to Bradley with the real thing instead of painting my current (perfectly capable) laptop grey and affixing a glow-in-the-dark white apple decal. Yes, I will be spamming all of you for dinero, every little bit will help. Please go to my campaign link and read the goodies you will get for your donations. There’s only 15 days left of the campaign, so please, please, please share this with your friends. In the humble word of Hunter S. Thompson “We can't stop here, this is bat country!”

Short Summary

Hello, my name is John Farmer; I am a 34 year old college student who also works two jobs in the television industry. After working the run-of-the-mill service and retail jobs I decided to pursue my college education at the ripe old age of 32. I’ve had several people encourage me and give me support throughout my plight for my first degree (Associate’s Degree). I worked hard and graduated from Illinois Central College with honors. The scholarships and grants began to pile up and I was encouraged to go to Bradley University. While I did not get a full ride to Bradley, I have received a large chunk of my tuition. Now that I’ve lined everything up to go to Bradley, I was notified that the laptop requirement for the Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts has changed strictly to a 15”-17” Macbook Pro.

I’m going to be majoring in Interactive Media & Animation with a minor in Journalism. I’m sincerely excited about taking the next step for my education; unfortunately I don’t have the resources to fulfill the laptop requirement.

Bradley has a stellar interactive media program and I have a passion for creating music, film and all media. I have written, recorded, filmed and edited many videos on YouTube under Blue Civilian and The Aposematics. I really want to take the next step and increase my knowledge, eventually hoping to get into a creative and challenging career.

What I Need and What You Get

I need $1,1800 to purchase a brand new, no frills Macbook Pro. I really need whatever I can get to help take off the burden. I am getting some aid money back, but it’s not enough to cover my books and the laptop. If my goal is not reached, whatever has been gathered will go directly to my purchasing of a Macbook Pro (every little bit helps).

$5 – You will get a personal thank you from me

$20 – You will get my expertise with Photoshop. This will include photo editing and/or color correction for up to 3 images.

$100 – You will get my expertise with Video Editing. This will include photo slideshows or some creative editing for short videos.

Other Ways You Can Help

Please spread the word about my project, every last dollar will help me finish my education with a bang and fulfill a thirty-something’s dream of becoming the next Interactive Media Bradley University Graduate.

Please remember to use Indiegogo.com’s share tools to spread the word.

Please got to my campaign on Indiegogo.com and give a donation!

Here's the link!

http://www.indiegogo.com/jfarmer1978?a=866967

President Obama Can No Longer Ignore Iran?

2011-12-11T11:17:00.000-06:00

Sure, this is a bit dated, considering the recent drone incident, but the issue is the same. Back in October, FOXNews columnist Micheal Goodwin wanted Obama to stand up and make a clear statement on Iran. The drone only forced Obama's hand. The following is a refutation to Goodwin's article I wrote for class before the drone was captured. -

Obama is dodging a clear stance on Iran in the media; however, the Bush administration’s plans for Iran carried over and even intensified when Obama took office. Iran being the “Greatest Threat on Earth” seems a bit out of the ballpark. The United States’ sordid affair with Iraq and Iran in the past only confuses the issue of whether or not we should even be involved in the Middle East. Blaming the Iranian threat on the “unintended consequence” of killing Saddam Hussein is like saying the unintended consequence of installing a door is that it opens to the other side. The “gates to the Arab world were opened” long before Saddam was a factor.

Obama is no fool; the same weapons being used by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq are readily available to us should Iran become a serious threat.

“They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran," according to Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London. "US bombers and long range missiles are ready today to destroy 10,000 targets in Iran in a few hours," he said. "The firepower of US forces has quadrupled since 2003," accelerating under Obama (Chomsky).

Does Goodwin want Obama to come out and be completely transparent? Clearly, the current sanctions and trigger fingers trembling to blow the holy hell out of Iran are in place; don’t fret Goodwin, we got this.

Is Iran our greatest threat? A quick Google search has no mention of Ahmadinejad or Iran being the pinnacle of evil. In fact, a search for “the greatest threat on earth” describes everything from global warming and asteroids to the actions of the entire human race. Maybe I’m being susceptible to mainstream media, but my understanding is Iran is a threat only because of direct U.S. influence in the past. Maybe we should just leave them alone. Sometimes it’s hard for the U.S. to look in the mirror and recognize the evil that lies within.

The United States has been treating Iran and Iraq like marionettes long before Hussein was ever around. In 1953 the CIA staged a coup d’état in Iran to place a pro-American Shah in power under the guise of stopping communism involvement, but it was mostly to gain more access to Iran’s oil resources. The U.S. continued to support the new Shah until all hell broke loose because of human rights violations and a very angry anti-American public. The people revolted, and guess who decided to sell weapons of mass destruction to Iraq in order to keep Iran in a destabilized state while they tried to get a better grasp on the situation? You guessed it… good old America. Better yet, we pissed off both countries by selling weapons to both sides. So we backed Iran, we backed Iraq, we backed Iran, we backed Iraq, we backed and sold weapons to the Taliban when Afghanistan was at war with the Russians...sigh. It’s exhausting how many red-headed stepchildren the U.S. has produced, supported, and subsequently had to squash within a couple decades. It’s starting to sound like that Brady Bunch episode when Bobbie didn’t want to play on the soccer team. Carol Brady approves while Mike Brady does not. Alice (we’ll call her the U.N.) balanced it all out.

The consequences involved with Hussein were pretty evident; an angry sibling of a not-so “Reaganesque” H.W. Bush had a horrible rapport with Iraq. Sure, Reagan ended the cold war, but he still sold weapons to Iran when it should have been a no-no, poor Oliver North, he’s Lee Harvey Oswald all over again. Jump-the-gun Bush Jr. decided the root of all evil and 9/11 was all Saddam Hussein’s fault. Bush, being an oil and lumber man, decided Iraq’s resources were worth fighting for. “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction” (duh, we sold them to him) unfortunately, he had used them all up on his own people by the time we got there. The only terrorism in Iraq was the fact that they weren’t giving us all of their oil and Hussein had the audacity to wear “tighty-whiteys” in captivity. No. Hussein had nothing to do with Iran’s threat, aside from Saddam being our sadistic little puppet for a decade. Hussein was our man, we created him, we supported his fight with Iran, these things don’t just happen out of the blue.

Does Iran need nuclear weapons? Does a 4 year old boy need a firecracker? Does an imperialist entity need to police the earth? Is the United States in a constant juggle to keep its past mistakes in check? Don’t get me wrong, the U.S. is the greatest place on earth (aside from Disneyworld), but should we continue to misinform the populace as to why we’re cleaning up messes that are half a century old? Does the public even know why Israel exists? Are the “Arabs” all that scary? Where does propaganda play a role? You think Iran is scary? Turn the camera around and see our mistakes, our atrocities. Is Iran really a threat, or are we the biggest threat?

Chomsky, Noam. "The Iranian Threat." chomsky.info : The Noam Chomsky Website. Noam Chomsky, 2 July 2010. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.

The Continuing Misadventures of Captain Cake and the Hammerstrings Theory

2011-10-27T17:58:00.000-05:00

The captain has a new ride and he's fighting the evils of randomness across the universe. I'm really starting to question my sense of humor. (This is actually a photo I put together for photography class.)

And here's part one of Captain Cake's ongoing battle with absurdity (from two years ago).

Analysis of a Magazine Advertisement

2011-10-04T16:13:00.000-05:00

Thrown into Elle Magazine is a “Lollipop Bling” ad that attacks the senses with color and candy. Had anyone other than Mariah Carey been the center of attention, slinging candy and cleavage, they would have probably been arrested (picture a creep in a dark blue van without windows and the acrid scent of exhaust in need of a trip to the muffler shop). An air-brushed Carey wears gleaming ring pops as she sits on a pink cloud of teenage girl delight. This is clearly not an ad for women past their prime, or is it?

The last time I heard Mariah Carey having a breakthrough on the car radio was twenty years ago or maybe it was when I was at my mother’s house on her 54th birthday. Do teen girls even know who Mariah Carey is? Does she have that kind of sway over the target audience of the ad? Does my mother really want to wear candy rings and smell like a bomb-pop? I shudder to think. I had to dig deeper to really get the goods on “three irresistible flavor inspired fragrances.”

Sold exclusively at Wal-Mart for around thirty-five bucks, it’s clearly a product for teenage girls or twenty-somethings that haven’t quite made it out of the dance club scene. Carey is almost saying “you work too much” or “you study too hard, you should just relax and be more sexually active.” Carey is clearly not wearing any pants and her shirt is completely unbuttoned, all the while smelling like candy and adrift in some kind of creepy drug-induced ‘60s dreamland. Maybe I have the target audience all wrong; this is looking more and more like a strip-club flier. I wonder how many exotic dancers purchase these perfumes; maybe I should do some more research on that. Maybe I’ll just assume Carey is not attempting to get girls to dance naked and smell like candy.

All-in-all the ad is certainly inviting, with its bright colors and star power it entices you to relax and enjoy the sweeter things in life. Purple and pink bubbles rise and float around the page suggesting that maybe, just maybe, wearing this perfume will give you a bubbly personality and you’ll stick out from the drab gray faceless masses. Apparently candy is no longer just a treat, it’s also an accessory.

It has also come to my attention (from various web sources) that the image used in this ad is actually just a Photoshopped version of an old promo picture of Carey.

A few photos I took for digital photography class.

2011-09-08T20:47:00.001-05:00

New Peoria Blog - Real Food Peoria

2011-08-14T11:43:00.001-05:00

Blogger Lori Koch and I have started a brand new blog named Real Food Peoria. Food and related issues have become a bit of a passion for us and we're eager to share the love. We'll be posting recipes, news and product reviews, and we'll even be discussing the occasional food documentary. Have questions or post suggestions? Email us at realfoodpeoria@yahoo.com. We're looking for guest bloggers as well so hit us up!

Tarantino: The Rise of the New Violence

2011-07-30T13:07:00.009-05:00

Reincarnating the Spaghetti Western and exploitation films from the 1970s, Quentin Tarantino has injected an overdose of violence and non-linear scripts into mainstream cinema. Some of his writing and directing techniques have influenced other filmmakers and his glorification of violence has spawned a whirlwind of controversy, real-life violence, and heated political debates. Tarantino’s mark on cinema triggered a new era of bad conquering good and the opposite of the happily ever after Hollywood ending. Blurring the lines between good and evil by injecting sympathy for the enemy and provoking emotion through music and violence, Quentin immersed the viewer into the counter-culture underworld.

Born in 1963 and named after a character played by Burt Reynolds, Tarantino dropped out of high school and pursued his film addiction by working in a video rental store (Walker). Eventually he made it the Cannes Film Festival with his film Reservoir Dogs and subsequently started the A Band Apart production company to continue his film career. Tarantino’s influences range from J.D. Salinger, fast-food culture, and French New Wave cinema, to Akira Kurosawa (Phillips). Although Quentin mostly wanted to become an actor, his disjointed scriptwriting and films became his calling card.

Tarantino’s signature writing style often portrays plots and characters in no linear chronological order, unlike most films, it’s almost as if he writes a normal script and then throws the pages into the air letting them fall and gathering them up in no particular order. While Tarantino did not invent non-linear narrative, he has definitely brought it back into the mainstream.

In the past fifteen years, Tarantino’s “wild” techniques are probably the most visible influence on unorthodox film narration, and to that extent we can speak broadly of a “Tarantino effect” to indicate the rising number of alternative narratives over that time. This is not to say that other filmmakers… all did not have an impact, just to credit Tarantino with leading the latest parade. (Berg)

Many successful films have been influenced after Tarantino’s lead of non-linear narrative, although they have not been nearly as influential. Young directors and writers today cite Tarantino as a major influence, and this will not likely change soon. Some may say Tarantino has only regurgitated already over-used plot formulas, while this may be true; Tarantino has simply made movies he already loves but with a newer twist. In fifty years, it would be laughable to see Michael Bay’s Transformers being cited as the main influence for cinema in the late twenty-first century. Not only has Quentin’s writing been an influence, but his directing techniques have gone on to influence others as well.

One weapon in Tarantino’s directing arsenal is the “trunk shot.” A “trunk shot” is a scene where the camera is placed inside the trunk of a car or in a briefcase (at least that is what Tarantino wants you to believe) with the camera pointing outwards at the actors as they stare down towards it. This gives the viewer the illusion they are actually in the trunk, immersed in the scene. Tarantino did not invent the “trunk shot” but he has made it a more popular technique in modern cinema. “The very trunk shot is a kind of in-joke for the director’s (Tarantino’s) fans” (Lyman) since Quentin uses the angle in nearly all his films. Even the recent comedy The Hangover employs this technique, while there is not much research on the origin of this angle it will certainly be an easy to pull off homage to Tarantino in the future. While new film techniques are difficult to invent, one thing Tarantino has no trouble inventing is controversy.

The most controversial film Tarantino is responsible for is Natural Born Killers. Written by Roger Avery and co-written by Tarantino, the film was again rewritten to suit Oliver Stone’s needs when he directed it (Phillips). Although Quentin Tarantino has tried to distance himself from the film as Peter Travers finds in his interview “‘It’s just kind of out there, and it doesn’t have anything to do with me’ he says after being coaxed to elaborate.” It’s undeniable the film was Quentin’s brainchild. The film involves two outlaws deeply in love with one another, all the while on a murderous rampage. Natural Born Killers has been blamed for many real life murders including “the decapitation of a thirteen-year-old girl by a fourteen-year-old boy in Texas” (Phillips). Oliver Stone even ended up in court because of the controversy surrounding these murders. Senator Bob Dole used the film to attack violence in mainstream cinema along with the loss of values in America. (Phillips) Regardless of whether or not this was all truly Oliver Stone’s fault, or whether or not you can cite a violent act as being an immoral addition to humanities, Tarantino could only feel like a scientist who worked on the first atomic bomb without realizing it.

Quentin is certainly no angel when portraying violence in the films he writes and directs. Reservoir Dogs shows a torture scene where the bad guy cuts off an undercover cop’s ear, the movie ends with nearly all the characters being shot to death. Tarantino’s Kill Bill series often shows heads and arms being cut off, and then voluminous fountains of blood spurting in all directions from the wounded area. Inglorious Basterds shows a military group shooting Nazis with machine guns nonstop for nearly two minutes. Obviously, Tarantino was not the only one portraying violence in his films. Violence in the media is an age-old debate, but the debate has not deterred many from continuing to show it. Was Tarantino responsible for the rise in the portrayal of violence in film? He is certainly not responsible for all of it, although he did make it “cool”. The Persian Gulf War had just ended in 1991, it being the first most televised war in history because of twenty-four hour news channels and other technologies. Reservoir Dogs came out only a year after the war ended. Our culture allowed Tarantino’s portrayal of violence because we were becoming immune to it. Tarantino may have merely jumped on the bandwagon, but his films secured ultra-violence at the movie theaters for another twenty years. Aside from romanticizing brutality, Quentin also swayed the industry for years to come through his meticulous casting.

Steve Buscemi had appeared in a few floundering movies along with some bit parts on television, but Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction thrust him into a life-long career where he is usually identified by his odd face and crazy teeth. John Travolta’s career was jump started again after appearing in Pulp Fiction. Even Uma Thurman could give a nod to Tarantino for pulling her out of the superhero, comic book based movie trenches. Quentin Tarantino has had a wide influence on all aspects of the movie industry and on pop culture.

The best way to judge Tarantino’s influence on our current culture is to imagine if he never wrote or directed any movies. Where would cinema be today had he not written so well or not been so successful in his endeavors? How would we make fun of the French name for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, or the audacity of a five dollar milkshake? Would we even know who Samuel L. Jackson is? Would we have been able to laugh at violence so easily? Where would the attraction of empowerment come from if Uma Thurman had not single-handedly killed dozens of ninjas in a matter of seconds with a sword? What about smiling like a child as we watched Hitler being pumped full of lead? Tarantino made, and continues to make his mark, just as violence in cinema continues to spread.

Works Cited

Berg, Charles Ramírez. "A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films: Classifying the “Tarantino Effect”." Film Criticism 31.1/2 (2006): 5-61. OmniFile Full Text Mega. Web. 27 July 2011.

Lyman, Rick. "Tarantino." The New York Times (n.d.): LexisNexis Academic. EBSCO. Web. 27 July 2011.

Phillips, Kendall R.. Controversial cinema the films that outraged America. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008. Print.

Travers, Peter. The Rolling stone film reader: the best film writing from Rolling stone magazine. New York: Pocket Books, 1996. Print.

Walker, Andrew. "Faces of the week ." BBC News. BBC, 14 May 2004. Web. 27 July 2011. .

Gavra Lynn's Downtown Peoria Gallery

2011-07-28T21:03:00.001-05:00

I attended an art and music showcase at Gavra Lynn’s gallery down on Jefferson across from the Civic Center (the storefront that says "Art Show"). The gallery is a great spot to see work by local artists and hear some local musicians; from time to time Gavra has even hosted some local filmmaker’s events.

The gallery is quite large and there are paintings and sculptures all over the place. To keep the gallery running, Gavra hosts benefit events and invites musicians to play and even show their own art work. The admission fee is usually not required but is encouraged as a donation. While the crowd size varied throughout the night there were usually about fifteen people wandering about and eventually settling to hear the next music set. Overall, Gavra had invited ten bands to play over the course of seven hours and the genres involved varied from folk and progressive rock to experimental.

If you weren’t listening to music you were either chatting about the artists or grabbing a beer or some wine from the mini-kitchen. The evening was great but I only watched a handful of bands, I did not plan on attending for all seven hours. I was there to play a quick set with my band and then hang out for a bit to chat with friends. I haven’t really been to this kind of event in the past, but I have seen galleries and concerts. One series of paintings by Anthony Couri has caught my eye every time I have visited Gavra’s gallery.

Anthony has created some interesting works using merlot and cigarette ashes as his media. The red splashes of wine almost look like accidental spills and the black ash marks contrast with the white paper (or canvas) he uses. The pieces almost seem as if the fallout from a late night party has found its way on to an open sketch book sitting on a coffee table. Most of the shapes seem random and organic so it’s quite pleasing to the eye, any tension may be derived from the overall appearance of a spill or a mess needing to be cleaned up. Anthony was present at the event to play some music as well.

Unfortunately I only caught the tail end of Anthony’s music set. His band Gypsy Gypsy Gypsy is labeled “Psychedelic, Trance, Visual” and I could certainly tell this was an appropriate assignment. Anthony sat surrounded by percussion instruments ranging from a small hand drum to a rather small gong cymbal. It was a very trippy mix of shimmering chimes and gong howls all sitting nicely with an electric bass guitar drone. If you’re expecting some catchy hooks or pop lyrics, look elsewhere, this music was truly psychedelic with no discernible structure. It was a nice display of the genre and it would have been very enjoyable to anyone who is into that sort of thing.

Gavra and her gallery are a breath of fresh air for Peoria, and the community she has created is unique. It’s about time downtown Peoria has a nightlife other than a bar. I would suggest a visit to anyone who hasn’t been down there yet.

Forks Over Knives at the Peoria Theater

2011-07-13T15:20:00.003-05:00

I attended a showing of Forks Over Knives at the Peoria Theater, located within the Landmark Recreation building just off of University. The Peoria Theater is host to cult films, documentaries, independent films, and even the occasional concert. The audience at five-fifteen in the afternoon on a Sunday was by no means large, let alone rowdy or overly social.

While Peoria is not known for its receptiveness to plant-based diets, there were several people at the theater ready to “fork over” seven bucks to reinforce their veggie-friendly mindsets (me included). The showing of Forks Over Knives is one of many trendy films and events informing the public about the industrialization of our food sources, diets, Western medicine, and the overall embarrassing health statistics in our society. Some other recent mentionable films are Food, Inc, Go Further and Farm to Fridge. While the Peoria Theater does not have the most high tech equipment or the biggest screen in town, their mission is to communicate the message of the film they’re showing, not to wow audiences with giant 3-D stadium seating, IMAX spectacular, or THX approved subwoofers. Forks Over Knives, I believe, has a different demographic from most of the hip vegetarian documentaries currently available.

Forks Over Knives has a different message than most of the recent documentaries pertaining to meat consumption, mistreatment of livestock, the definition of “Grade A” meat, and CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations). Forks Over Knives addresses the overall health of Americans, their diets, and the pharmaceutical companies directly. Most of the experts and patients involved are middle-aged or older. Instead of using abused animals to tug on your heart strings, they make it more humanistic by discussing obesity, cancer, heart disease and diabetes as examples of the downfalls of animal-based diets. Most documentaries have a bevy of graphics, interviews, and testimonials; this film was no different.

The graphics used in the film were satisfactory, but not revolutionary. The promotional advertising used to spread the word about the film was miles above anything used within the film. The 3D graphics used to portray statistics were clear, consistent, and easily understood. The lower-third graphics used during the interviews and datasets worked, but they weren’t very flashy or as professional as you would see on networks such as CNN or FOX News.

The interview progression throughout the film was well thought out and kept the movie flowing at a decent pace. The framing of interviewees was never fully centered, thus using the rule of thirds effectively. The interviews consisted of quick snippets and were never monotonous. However, there were no dramatic B-rolls or flashy zoom techniques which may have emphasized certain aspects. Like most informational documentaries, this film used interviews of experts to push opinions. Interviews with experts in the appropriate fields (PHDs, MDs, and political figureheads) as well as patient testimonials were used to provide the information and results in layman’s terms.

Unlike most infomercials, documentaries give you an in-depth approach to a consumer’s start and end point; Forks Over Knives was no different. The film used several examples of patients facing dire consequences, which were reversed with extreme diet changes. The beginning of the film showed the first patient, who drove to his destination while drinking two Red Bulls and nearly two Coca-Colas. He met with an expert in nutritional health, switched to an all plant-based diet, and within several weeks began showing vast improvement. The film never touched on whether or not the patient strayed from his diet, but the end result played straight into the film’s message. All of the patients portrayed in the film had similar positive results. However, patients with detrimental reactions to the diet (if any) were never addressed. This film may not have had the highest budget or flashiest graphics but I felt as though there were no loose ends once the film had ended.

In my opinion, Forks Over Knives is most likely the bearer of bad news to the human race. As we all eventually suffer from some kind of ailment, and we see our loved ones pass away from preventable diseases, we must question what we have been taught for generations or suffer the consequences. As they said in the film, we must learn to "eat to live, not live to eat."

Quick and Easy Editing To Make Your Images A Whole Lot Better

2011-02-25T14:30:00.000-06:00

MM140 - Multimedia Production - Photography Project

A recent project involving a photo shoot and some post production in Photoshop has greatly improved the appearance of my photographs. My instructor threw in a tutorial mostly involving adjusting levels, burn, dodge, and sponge tool options, along with applying an unsharp mask.

Adjusting Levels (image~adjustments~levels)

Bring in more black by sliding the black arrow over until it reaches a peak

Unsharp Mask (filter~sharpen~unsharp mask)

Use to sharpen your photos

Amount - 50-60%

Radius - 1-2 pixels

- The following tools can be found by clicking and holding the dodge tool on the toolbar. -

Dodge Tool (toolbar)

Use to lighten areas

Set range to highlights or midtones

15-20% exposure

Burn Tool (toolbar)

Use to darken areas/shadows

Set range to shadows

15-20% exposure

Sponge Tool (toolbar)

Use to saturate/desaturate areas

15-20% flow

Using this too much can make your photos look "shopped"

Using these fairly basic tools you can make your pictures brighter and sharper. The flow and exposures are set pretty low, so as not to dramatically change the areas you apply them to. Minimal changes can make a big difference to your photos. Another rule of thumb our instructor gave us was spend no more than five minutes overall adjusting your photos with these tools. Spending too much time on them will make them look overworked and unnatural. The images below are the photos I used for the project. See the comparison side by side, to give you an idea as to what little you need to do to improve the look of your photos.

Graphic Design 140 - Tivoli Project - Workflow

2011-01-09T14:54:00.001-06:00

This last semester at ICC I attended a Graphic Design class taught by Roseann Tomko. The class was a bit slow at first, as our first teacher Zachary Bean decided to leave and begin his career in law enforcement. Roseann took his place and picked up the pace considerably. Since I haven't blogged in a bit, I figured I might as well blog a design workflow as instructed by Tomko.

Roseann, having some friends in New York, decided the class would work on a new poster for the Tivoli Bread & Baking Co. Annual Pie Contest. First off, we had to do our research on the town and the baking company, then write a paper showing we did. Here's my paper:

About an hour’s drive north of New York City, nestled along the Hudson River, lies Tivoli, NY. The village of Tivoli was incorporated in 1872 and was coined “Brooklyn on the Hudson” by New York Times’ Griffin Dunne in 2006. Before President Roosevelt took Eleanor as his wife, you may have caught her in Tivoli on a Saturday night enjoying the evening with her rich family in the 1920’s. Today, Tivoli often welcomes the overflow of autumn leaf hunters during the fall, and provides a small town feel to visiting tourists. A quick drive around town and along the outskirts shows a collection of large, gorgeous properties with wrap-around, covered porches, and small businesses far from the prying eyes of a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Nearly Norman Rockwell in flavor, Tivoli is New England’s delight. Aside from the local, liberal Bard college, Tivoli hides a quaint little bakery with delicious, highly sought after baked goods.

Tivoli Bread & Baking Co., owned by Mikee Gonnella, just might be the baking capital of the world. At least that’s what you’d expect from reading customer reviews online. Lemon squares to die for, baguette, cinnamon buns, scones, and brioche line the counter and fill the air with sweet hints of sugar and fresh baked bread. Although Tivoli Bread & Baking Co. does not have an official web page, Mikee stays connected online as “Mikeethebaker” through various sites including Twitter and YouTube. “I love you from the bottom of my flour bin,” he tweets with a true baker’s tone of humor. Mikee also judges the annual Tivoli Pie Contest along with his eleven-year-old nephew Alex Gonnella.

Every year on Tivoli Yard Sale Day, Tivoli Bread & Baking Co. sponsors the Annual Tivoli Pie Contest. Contestants from around town come up with their best pie ideas, bake them up, and rush them to the drooling judges. There’s no sign up fee, and keep your canned filling away! Don’t expect to take first place unless you’re using local fresh fruits. You may slide your canned fruit past a couple judges, but I highly doubt it’ll blow past Mikee’s palate. The contest boasts celebrity judges, and to the winner a $100 gift certificate for dinner at Mercato in Red Hook.

If you’re looking to run away from the daily grind, the hustle and bustle of New York City and its sobering, grey, concrete rivers, you might just want to rent a car and head north. Keep driving until you can see the sun reflecting off the Hudson, take a right, and rent a room at a B&B in Tivoli. You may gain a few pounds, but you won’t regret it.

________________________________End

Once the research was done, pencil, paper, Adobe Illustrator, and InDesign finished the job.

Thumbnails (25 all together - some not pictured)

Roughs:

Final: (Illustrations done in Illustrator, layout in InDesign)
(this is a scan, so the quality isn't great)

The final class project - A "clean" Abercrombie & Fitch ad.
Using Adobe Photoshop to isolate the girl (using quick select) and a text align clipping path.

Production Notes - The Aposematics - Hands On - Stop Motion - A Blue Civilian Production

2010-11-19T12:00:00.000-06:00

The latest release from The Aposematics and Blue Civilian Productions is the 2:40 stop motion video set to the tune of "Hands On". Weighing in at about 1,200 still shots after editing, I ended up cutting out about 300 photos. The majority of the video was shot sequentially, making most of the editing easier.

After experimenting with a little bit of stop motion I decided to shoot a full music video. We shot the stills exclusively on Lori's Nikon D40 with an attached SB-400 Speedlight. Unfortunately, continuous shooting ate up the flash's batteries quickly and caused darker frames to litter the video. External static umbrella lighting was used when necessary. A laminated sticker and dry erase marker were used for the doll's face and Hershey's dark chocolate syrup was used to simulate what little blood is present in the film. The stop motion action shots of Ken and Dan playing bass and drums were shot in the Morton building we use as a practice space (partially). The higher angles were achieved by attaching the Nikon to a tripod and triggering the shutter with a remote. Lori cleverly thought up the paper hearts and confetti for her kill scene finale. Some thought went into picking colors that would show up appropriately in black and white. Ken, being the “man behind the curtain” was potentially the hardest message to get across, but we easily conveyed the idea by transposing the last bit of paper hearts over the blank monitor, and then again by cutting back to the doll with a similar facial expression.

All of the images were resized, cropped, auto-adjusted, and converted to grayscale with Adobe Photoshop batching. The images were then imported into Adobe Premiere Pro at 2 frames per still at 24fps. My ramshackle attempt at stop motion ran too quickly and was a little confusing at 2 frames per still. I eventually extended the stills to 3 frames per second; this effectively slowed down the action but made the video a bit choppy. The graphics were then added at the final stage and everything was nested and exported out at 720p.

Overall, this shoot was an incredible learning experience and required more precise edits than the other Aposematics videos. I really loved putting this video together, but it will take much more than just a whim for me to attempt another stop motion film anytime soon. I only have the utmost respect for the real kings and queens of stop motion. I have no doubt their patience is greater than mine.

James R. Minchin III

2010-10-28T18:50:00.002-05:00

The Verdugo Mountains softened the horizon and grazed the high cotton clouds. The wooded peaks surrounding the valley appeared more like crumpled blankets than their true unforgiving dirt, mud, and stone. It was noontime in the spring on Lake St. in Burbank, California and the sun was glowing, reflecting softly off the hoards of dusty windshields in the used car district. Barreling down the street with a loud muffler-less growl crawled a large, red, rusty Ford truck. It was making its way to the side parking lot of a very unassuming, fly-by-night, built in a couple of days, pre-fabricated steel and cinder block building which housed Tranzformer Studios. Inside the truck, gripping the wheel and scanning house numbers was James R. Minchin III, Rolling Stone photographer.

The rusty red truck with South Dakota plates and a mismatched topper slowly bellowed into the parking lot. It coughed and wheezed as James cut the engine and exited. The door protested with a loud creak as he pushed his long, skinny, denim-covered leg out and to the ground. His worn, gray Converse shoe twisted on the pavement as he stood up and out of the truck cab. A tall man, James looked to be in his mid-forties with an early graying of his short, messy hair and trim, yet bushy beard. His long face was accented by his receding hairline and low, dark brows. A large, rounded nose made him look more like a professor of Biology than a rock star photographer. If not for his inked arms, wrinkly t-shirt, and flower child pendant you’d probably want to raise your hand before addressing him. In a relaxed stride, James made his way over to the side wall of the building and leaned back, kicking his knee up and crossing his arms like some plywood cut-out cowboy.

Inside the building was the large, open space studio that Bryan Carlstrom and Dave Jerden called home. Carlstrom and Jerden were audio pioneers in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, recording everyone from the Rolling Stones and Talking Heads to Alice in Chains and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Gold and platinum records dotted the walls, along with works from local painters from Los Angeles. Mood lighting, accent walls, uncoordinated couches and an abundance of recording equipment filled the inside to give a cozy atmosphere and fuel any creative sparks. James was commissioned by Rolling Stone magazine to be there for a photo shoot that day.

James has photographed the likes of Tom Waits, Avril Lavigne, and Kings of Leon; a quick Google search would show you just about any popular artist’s photograph accredited to him. James has been working with Rolling Stone for many years and has the stories to prove it. “I spent a day shooting Kings of Leon during rehearsal and then afterward getting to know how they are outside of the band,” James reminisced. “It would take a lot for me to do it again. Those guys are crazy; they’re all brothers and they fight like it, too,” he claimed in his soft, mid-range, relaxed voice. “They would go out to drink and get in to knock-down-drag-out fights, leaving each other bloody and bruised when the smoke cleared,” he went on, “but that was back when they first started to gain popularity.” James was done talking; it was time for him to survey the studio and get ready to shoot.

A plain, oversized, white van rolled into the parking lot and several guys jumped out to begin unloading all of James’ photography equipment. First to be hefted inside was lighting. Two short trolleys were pulled out of the back of the van full of car batteries, lighting stands, umbrellas, cables and anything else you can imagine that would be needed. There was so much equipment scattered about, it looked as though they were about to light up an entire stadium for a major baseball game. Heavy-duty, black and silver cargo cases poured out as the men unloaded. A cart loaded with a dozen cameras ranging from high-end digital SLRs to expensive instant Polaroids sat in waiting near the entrance of the building. This was when it became clear James meant business. His busted truck and disheveled appearance were misleading. He was there to work.

Once everything was set up, James grabbed a Polaroid and started snapping test shots to get a feel for the lighting and color. Two of his equipment handlers acted as stand-ins for the shoot, and the three of them joked and laughed as the test subjects struck strange, dramatic poses and sang into the microphone prop. James would snap a shot, move, snap another, grab a different camera, then snap some more. Once he was happy with how things were turning out, he asked for the real models to come out from the makeup area. He shot through five rolls of film and filled a couple of memory cards as he danced around the set, grabbing sideways shots at all different angles, remaining professional and courteous at all times. James would tell jokes when he wanted smiles and asked for seriousness when he didn’t. Hot lights in umbrellas, strobe flashes, and quick clicks of the shutter filled the room as he held up his camera, signaling his assistants for a change in medium or lenses. James was talented and ran a well-oiled machine. I’m certain any number of the thousands of shots he took that day would have fit the bill.

After a few hours the magic subsided, the equipment slowly disappeared, and there was James, helping to break it all down and carry it outside. In the past, I have only heard of big time photographers barking orders, throwing their arms up in frustration, and ultimately storming off the set. Seeing one up close, I realize they’re just hard-working human beings with an eye for art and a need to pay the mortgage. I’m sure James pays his bills like everyone else; the difference is he has a passion and a love for his career and is talented enough to do it for one of the most creative industries on earth. I didn’t see James leave, but his old truck announced it clearly as it rumbled off into the tepid evening air. The next time you see a flower child past his prime choking down the highway in a broken down truck, assume nothing. It might just be James on his way to photograph your next big obsession.

Insight into a (many self-deprecating adjectives erased) middle-aged student.

2010-10-21T02:32:00.001-05:00

These bones they fuckin’ clink and crackle, smearing the mud about. Buried below are the programmed television past times, scratching at our too little, too lates. Technological daydream distractions swallow you up and spit you out in your mid-thirties.

The fear and urgency swells up to a rage – you realize the only skill set you’ve acquired is how not to drunk text your ex-girlfriend at four a.m. on a Monday morning. Your penniless fortune of plastic and steel, DVDs and mp3 players piled high in the corner, sold off by the pound at two percent of the original cost.

84 billion channels to watch and nothing’s on, but you watch anyway. Drooling your way through four-hour-long-variety-show-marathons where they spackle on the makeup, and everyone sounds like Christina Aguilera on methamphetamines…

Facebooking non-existent words in run-on sentences about your 3-D, Blu-Ray, laser-guided edition of the 2015 remake of “Encino Man.” You doze off on your computerized couch as your robotic cat malfunctions, sparks, and sets fire to your living room rug.

The firemen sit and watch as you crisp alive, because you forgot to pay a parking ticket from six years ago.

Go BOLDLY, fruitful friggin’ youth, and don’t forget to write your god damn congress man. As if the congress actually turned someone into a man... hallelujah! Jesus was born!

One Year Ago Today in Burbank

2010-04-14T23:28:00.000-05:00

"We didn't call him Eno, we called him Brian" said Jerden. I had just asked THE Dave Jerden what it was like working with Brian Eno. Dave was rough around the edges, quick phrased, and he had a harsh voice, so he didn't waste it on words. "They ripped off an African soul musician on that album, completely ripped him off", Dave balked about Talking Heads' fourth studio album "Remain In Light". Apparently Dave was wary to admit how groundbreaking David Byrne and Brian Eno's creation really was. I could have disagreed, but obviously Dave knew way more about it than I did. I actually didn't like the album the first time I heard it, but it grew on me, and before I knew it, it was my favorite Talking Heads album. There I was sitting in Burbank and right before my eyes was the man who engineered and mixed that very album. He was tall, grey haired, and the whole time I was there he was wearing his black leather jacket and often sitting out under the gazebo with a cigarette. I remember him saying that "things are different now", which I suppose he couldn't be more right. I can't really give the guy any justice in a blog post, the man has worked with more influential artists than I have fingers and toes. Either way, here was a man that had a direct influence on my musical teens and twenties. At this point I couldn't even imagine the headache of mixing "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)", I'd only wish to have the caffeine and the patience to deal with that much content.

Lori and I saw little of Dave while we were in Burbank, but when he was there he made quick decisions and was gone in a flash. Our final day in the studio was made up of mostly vocals and that was the day Dave sat down and worked with Bryan to comp out several of my vocal tracks. It's a brave new world when someone like Dave is talking out the lyrics you wrote and saying which parts of which take should go in the final mix. I remember many times during our few days in California looking at Lori with that "Holy Crappuccino, I can't believe this is happening" look.

When it came to the nitty gritty Bryan Carlstrom was the workhorse. Bryan was either sitting at the studio's gorgeous giant analog console, tapping on his iPhone, clicking at Pro Tools, adjusting a mic here and there, or puffing at a cigar out under the gazebo(actually Bryan's right-hand man John Nuss was the one making mic adjustments and fixing cord issues most of the time). Bryan seemed the more personable man between him and Dave. Bryan waxed philosophical about his days at Capitol Records, when reverb was made with speakers in empty concrete bunkers in a basement on Hollywood & Vine. These had in turn become the smoking dens for many an artist once digital reverb came along. I also remember a mention of the maintenance elevator that went to a secret floor where the booze was kept. The illustrious red light on the top of the Capitol Records building that flashed ever so steadily in the California midnights was actually Morse code for something or other (a certain vulgar phrase about a particular studio manager comes to mind).

Bryan, who was from the Midwest, just happened to be the pioneer of Pro Tools. He singlehandedly had a stress attack, an epiphany, and then re-routed a few wires to make the first hit album using Pro Tools, turning it into an industry standard. He has worked with just about any hit '90s act you can think of, and, to me, seemed full of steam to keep working for another ten decades, if it was at all possible.

The one wish I have now, a full year later, is that I could have heard what Lori and I created in the midst of such genius. Unfortunately, Konami created a sub-par game, and had an even more sub-par development department. The game had already flopped by the time we hit the tarmac at LAX. Our song never saw the light of day. I still feel, however, that this was my greatest musical achievement, I came, I saw, I conquered. Here's to the future!

For more information on this event please see the following posts:

Day 1 - Chasing The Sun

Day 2 - Into The Studio

Day 3 - The Work (The Fun)

Revolving Eyes - ART111, ART120

2010-02-20T16:49:00.000-06:00

My First Charcoal Drawing - 18x24 - Soft Vine Charcoal on Strathmore Drawing Paper-

I've been attending two art classes at ICC and have decided to chronicle my progress on my blog. The two classes include "Color & Design" and "Basic Drawing". I also have one other class at ICC, but it's math, so it's clearly not worth blogging about. A big thanks to Lori for taking the time to photograph the various projects.

Third Charcoal Drawing from home - 18x24 - Soft Vine Charcoal on Strathmore Drawing Paper

Second Charcoal Drawing - 18x24 - Soft Vine Charcoal on Strathmore Drawing Paper

Kimberly Graphite on Strathmore Drawing Paper - Balloon Animals - 11x14

Several more early Kimberly Graphite Drawings on Strathmore Drawing Paper- 11x14 - Rendering/Shading

Graphite Dust Eraser Drawing - Rendering - 11x14

Color & Design

Symmetry/Dominance Project - Tempera on Strathmore Drawing Paper - 18x24

Scissor Project - Tempera on Strathmore Drawing Paper

Materials Project - 18x24 - Prang Watercolor, Kimberly Graphite, Crayola Crayon, Bombay India Ink, Newsprint on Strathmore Drawing Paper

Figure/Ground Projects - Tempera on Strathmore Drawing Paper

Blue Civilian Stock Footage Compilations Featuring The Music of The Aposematics

2009-12-02T15:16:00.000-06:00

I take stock footage that I've shot and put it to music by The Aposematics (a Peoria based band). Check it out! These were all shot with my Sony DCR-DVD403 Handycam.

Find more of The Aposematics at theaposematics.com

Halloween '09 - Making of a Mad Hatter

2009-11-02T10:19:00.001-06:00

With great help from Lori, I decided to turn into the Mad Hatter this year, mostly based on Johnny Depp's character from the new movie of Tim Burton's take on 'Alice In Wonderland' (due to release next year).

I had it in my mind that I would make the hat out of a lamp shade, turned upside down. Here's my first draft prototype (made with two vinyl albums, and a lamp shade). The hat eventually ended up using no vinyl albums in the completed project.

A little cardboard, spray adhesive, and black cloth later, the hat starts to take shape.

While letting the initial coat of cloth dry I made up the hat pins, and broach made out of a trinket, some green gems, and some feathers I found at Michael's craft store. (along with a few wooden skewers colored with Sharpies.)

Once these were finished, I continued to layer cloth onto the lamp shade. Some green felt cut in strips and shapes first. Then two layers of black lace (found at Joanne's fabrics). Top it off with one of Lori's scarves and the flair, and I had myself a nice topper to go over any Fedora I choose.

Add plenty of white makeup, some eye liner, eye shadow, lipstick, hair teasing and coloring (all done by Lori of course) and I've got a face. After that, add a blue bow tie cut out of remnants, a ladies frilly blouse from the Salvation Army, some dress pants. some fingerless gloves, a 10/6 paper sign, gauze for my thumb, glow in the dark fingernail polish, a couple of burnt blister digits, and you've got a homemade Mad Hatter:

American English - September 11th, 2009, Peoria, IL - Summer Serenade Concert

2009-09-13T17:35:00.000-05:00

Lori and I headed to Lakeview Museum this last Friday night to check out American English. We both got some great footage and photos. They play Peoria at least once or twice every year, and they're definitely worth seeing. If you like the Beatles, you'll love the American English experience!

Video Pizza Unboxing

2009-09-11T09:06:00.000-05:00

Robbie Augspurger, an old friend of mine, recently sent me a free copy of "Video Pizza". This is a product of Wolf Choir, a small comedy/parody/anything under the sun group from Portland, OR. When you get a chance, check them out, they're all over the web and have many mediums to pass along their comedy goodness.

Here's a video of the unboxing Video Pizza:

http://www.videopizza.biz
http://www.wolfchoir.com