Bicycle, Denver, Film & a Lady

I got my mountain bike back up and running again today. It had been sitting in storage since last September when it rode on the roof of my car from upstate NY to Los Angeles and then back to Denver. I’m not much of a biker in the fixed gear hardcore biker scene sense of the word but I do like riding.


This is me, circa the fall of 2005 in Crested Butte, CO. This photo is tough and cool, although the fact that I’m posting it on my blog calling it tough and cool probably negates all original intention. I’m going to have to call my lawyer on this one.

There is a giant mesa across the road from my studio and everyday I look up this nice gravel road that goes to the top and wonder what the view of the Front Range looks like. I’m going to find out tomorrow. Out the front door of my afore mentioned warehouse is an access point to the Platte River and Cherry Creek trail systems. This is a whole new side of Denver that while I knew existed had no real concept of what it looked like. I rode for miles without seeing any cars or the hustle and the bustle of a city, just other bikers, runners, dog walkers and beautiful girls. As long as I can remember the warm weather always brings the beautiful girls out of the woodwork. Granted it was almost in the 80’s today. Back in college (does that sound a little too old to be said like that) when spring hit the quads were always full of dirty trust fund hippies throwing the Frisbee around listening to crappy reggae music pumped out of the third story of some nearby dorm room. I hate reggae music. I use the word hate here in every strong sense of the word. But then there were always the girls sunning on the quad that we’d never seen before. Its like they’d been locked in the basement of some obscure academic building and then brought out with the warm weather as to ensure that we all would no longer want to study and therefore fail our courses. This was for sure a scheme instituted by the institution in order to force us to return for an additional semester so that they could once again pillage my bank account.

Speaking of beautiful girls I’m sure someone might be wondering what happened with my whole Valentine’s Day date search thing. Here’s what I can tell you. I met this great girl from Texas, we hung out a few times, but it didn’t seem natural and we both kind of feel apart in a completely normal way. We haven’t talked in a bit but there is a chance she might be reading this. She was great but obviously it wasn’t the right thing and that’s okay sometimes. Have to try to know right?

I did however meet this great woman two weekends ago at the Vail Film Festival. My friend Chris flew into town so we could go paint the mountains red as his film about the Damnwells, Golden Days , was playing in Vail. I was having a crappy time at the closing night party (its tough watching a room full of less than exceptional wanna be filmmaker patrons talk to themselves about how cool they are for supporting independent film) when all of a sudden I happened to start talking with these two women. Long story short I meet Kristen (she might be reading this too). She’s 37, lives here in Denver and I’m totally smitten. She thinks its kind of weird that she’s 10 years older than me. On Sunday we got a bite to eat and then saw Juno. I e-mailed her today to see if we could see the film Chansons D'Amour this weekend:



Anyway, I like this girl.

(is that an appropriate way to end this blog?)

Hopping Freight To Denver

After having been gone for most of February and all of March I arrived back in Denver two weeks ago in need of a place to live. My eight boxes of assorted clothes, books, records and movies were in storage at my friend Patrick’s warehouse, and seeing as there were already two other people renting space from him I said why not. I’m sure that the hopeless romanticism associated with warehouse living will probably soon come to pass as I approach the end of my late twenties in the next few years and so perhaps this occasion will be my only chance to live in the oddest of spaces.

The former Pride Electric Company, which went bankrupt in 2004, is situated almost directly off the interchange of I-25 and I-70, the two major North South and East West Highways that meet in Denver. Globeville, as this area of town is known, also includes the small communities on the eastern side of 25 just off Washington Ave. When industry was booming in Denver post World War II there was a smelting factory just north up Washington that spewed pollutants into the Denver air, unregulated for years. Once the factory closed down it was discovered that the homes in this area had become highly contaminated with a myriad of bad stuff that had been falling from the sky. I don’t live on that side of the highway.

My new roommates include the musician Eric Bachmann. You should probably know his band Crooked Fingers. They’re on MERGE Records, a small true indie label that incidentally also happens to be home to Spoon and the Arcade Fire among others. His mere presence in the warehouse increases the appeal of my warehouse living experience, although he is currently away producing a record for a friend. There are occasionally packages in the front lobby from his other record label, Saddle Creek (yeah, he’s a Saddle Creek solo artist too). I’d like to think to myself that he’s receiving super top secret transmissions from Conor Oberst regarding either the state of the Omaha underground music scene or highly classified and rare Bright Eyes recordings. I mean I know that they aren’t but its kind of nice to imagine.

On the western side of Globeville are the railroad tracks that technically separate my part of the ghetto from the Highlands. As I was driving back from my studio today to the warehouse I noticed, an out of place man walking down a dead end street that dead ends at those tracks. He was wearing a heavy jacket and shouldering a knapsack, the old fashioned kind. He was trying to blend in but without any other foot traffic or cars in the area he was hard to miss. The nervousness of his pose and glances as he cross Fox Ave in my rear view made me wonder if he was hopping freight. Then about 15 minutes later as I was headed downtown to meet my friend for dinner and a movie I noticed a few other random individuals scattered about through the industrial void that exists along Park Ave between 25 and the ballpark. The train tracks also run right along the Platte River through there and then it occurred to me that all these guys were hopping freight and a train must have just come in. They were all walking away from the vicinity of the rail yard, hands jammed in pockets, heads down, looking their best to look like they belonged there, ducking in and out of holes in the chain link that hides the rails from the rest of the gentry.

Last night at the Hi-Dive, where my friends Elin and Audrey were playing, I ran into the Denver photographer, Gary Isaacs. Gary is a creative and visual force and as we met for the first time he asked me if I’d like to join him on some street walking missions around the city. He suggested that I film his encounters with random people as he tries to convince them to let him take their photograph. I eagerly said yes. I stumbled through my conversation with him and felt like an idiot for not fully being able to express my knowledge of film and photographs like I wanted to be able to. He’s taken photographs of everyone from Garrison Keillor to Mikhail Gorbachev.

Over the course of the past few weeks, as I left Sausalito and headed down to sunnier parts in Southern California, I began writing down some adventures that I’d like to embark on. While the idea of a Greyhound Bus adventure coast to coast does sound nice I’ll have to admit that there is a small fear of the claustrophobia of being stuck next to the recent parole who’s headed to Sandusky to scare up rent money by selling his body. Greyhound has its charms but its unpredictable makes it totally out of my control. So I proposed to my friend Brian that I hop in a van with him and Bon Iver on his summer/fall tour for two weeks. I’ll take photographs and shoot super 8mm. We will shower in truck stops, share one hotel room a night, and drink like fish. Nothing makes me smile more than the thought of driving around the country at the end of summer when the nights are short and the days are long. I’m hoping that they say yes.

ALESANA from the Marquis Theatre

Wednesday April 9th
Alesana, The Marquis Theatre, Denver, CO

this is slightly embarassing

but why not. we found it today whilst looking through several thousand photographs for the coffee table book. i'm okay with the fact that i look like an idiot.

Chevelle Photos

Dear you,

Too much time has passed since I last wrote. However today I just want to share a photo composition from a show I photographed last night here in Denver. Been ages since I'd been to a rock concert and as my friend Rikki is on the road with Finger 11 and Chevelle she hooked it up with the photo pass. There is one subtle difference in the pictures below. I'd love to know which one you like better. Until then be well. I promise I'll write soon.

Love Rod

I'm Always In Love

photographs

if you're bored you can visit The Fray to see some new photographs. if you keep reloading the page new images will appear.

i took some photos of my friends recently and need to share them with you.

caught grazing 1


caught grazing 2


"this might be the game of my life"

Mike Rowe Was Once An Opera Singer Too

Seals Around Sausalito: Spring in San Francisco

San Francisco smelled today the way I always remember it.

I've taken to eating breakfast at Fred's Place, this diner that resembles the country store from O Brother Where Art Thou in the scene where George Clooney's character finds his wife and his daughters trying to convince him that she's marrying someone who is "bonafide". My first morning there the old men in the corner were all reading the newspaper whilst carrying on a conversation about public radio, their noses still buried in their respective journals. If the counter is full you share the four large oak tables with the other customers. On Friday morning Dave, Jeff, and I sat with a set of odd looking twin brothers and their wives. We didn't say anything to each other but we were talking about roughly the same thing (what it would be like to be living in Brooklyn). Odd right? The coffee cups are made of thick white ceramic. I've only ever seen them at the Miss Albany Diner in Albany, NY. I've taken a few photographs with my new medium format Bronica but they won't be ready for a bit. Need to take them to the lab and get some contact sheets made. This is a poor man's develop. I love hash browns with breakfast because I can smother them in hot sauce. Breakfast food is a vehicle for hot sauce. I don't put hot sauce in my coffee though. Just cream.

The sun has paid us visit every day this past week but the nights are still crisp. There are seals in the harbor which is no more than one hundred yards from the studio. The salt air does wonders for your mental state. We've all been drinking Kombucha. Smells like the bottom of a bar trash can, doesn't taste much better, but does great things for your well being.

We're living in a giant house in the San Rafael hills.



There are three huge sliding glass doors in my room that open to the north, onto the deck and every morning I watch the valley that has filled with fog overnight burn off as the sun slips back into our lives. I won't be depressed when the rain comes, because this is San Francisco, and it will come. It'll be a nice change of pace. I've been feeling under the weather for the past two days. Could this be the old-man-in-the-rocking-chair-on-the-porch me talking?

This morning we all cooked breakfast. I made croque madames for Isaac and myself. Lavery and I picked up Jeff and we drove to the upper Haight where we had coffee at my favorite communist coffee shop. Then I spent $219 at Amoeba Music. My purchases include The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses on vinyl. I've been trying to find this record for six months. Amoeba had four copies.

We all showed up back at the house tonight heavily laden with our purchases, books from SFMOMA, movies, records, new leather boots, and hard to find organic soaps. Our home away from home feels rich. I'm happy.

************************************************

Back around Thanksgiving I was hired to direct a short documentary about new Columbia Records artist Newton Faulkner. So I flew over to England where he was on tour and spent 4 days on the road for the piece. Guess the powers that be liked the video so much that they asked me to create a viral video for his first American single, Dream Catch Me. Newton told me while on the road with him that the song is about "waking up one day and realizing how much the person next to you (married to) has become a part of you". My concept was to create a neo-american gothic image of the harsh upper American midwest during the dead of winter combined with the images of a couple that had been married for 54 years. Everlasting love and disappearing America.

We also threw in a few special effects. Kelly helped me create this scene in our studio in Denver. The "folks" in the video are also his grandparents.







Here's what I came up with...

When You Get Stranded In A Snow Storm In Wyoming This Is What You Think About

untitled

Me (Rod) Needs Your Help Looking for a Date

This is crazy. We should all know that from the start but the other day as I was flying back home from shooting this reality TV episode in Southern California I thought to myself “Why not?” The idea is simple. I have 218 friends on myspace, 51 of these include 45 bands/artists/musicians, 1 TV channel, 1 radio program, 3 film festival and industry associations and 1 comedy troupe. In order for this to work I need you, my 167 friends, to repost this entire bulletin. Yes, this is crazy because it functions like a pyramid scheme but without the sketchy family friend or uncle trying to get you to sell light bulbs door to door. Once you post it I need your friends to read it and then for them to post it again. And so on and so on. Of course I don’t know your friends or your friends friends but I’m asking for your help in finding me a girlfriend, or at least a date, by Valentine’s Day. I’m going to put all my information below and all people will need to do is send me an e-mail we'll see what happens.

About Me:

My name is Rod Blackhurst. I’m a 27 year old filmmaker living in Denver, CO although this has been the third state I’ve lived in this year, the others including Albany, NY and Los Angeles, CA. I’ve spent the better part of the last two years touring with the band The Fray as their photographer, filmmaker, and even the “t-shirt guy. I’ve made ski films, documentaries, low budget projects for friends, and been paid to shoot two weddings. My true love is narrative film and could watch anything by JP Jeunet, Joel & Ethan Coen, Terrance Malick, PT Anderson, and Wes Anderson.

I’m a secular realist and a humanist idealist all at the same time. I like brushing my teeth twice a day and staying hydrated. I have a degree in French Literature from Colgate University and almost made a career in architectural theater design after graduating. I’ve lived in Dijon, France, Lake Tahoe, CA and Burlington, VT. I’ve worked at MTV and spent two years waiting tables at a snobby overpriced restaurant. As a teenager I loved Third Eye Blind and still keep it in my list of acceptable bands. My current musical favorites include The National, Josh Ritter, and Broken Social Scene. I started collection vinyl two years ago and only purchase hard to find records that should be listened to on vinyl (ie originally recorded in the 60’s, 70’s, and early 80’s). I don’t buy digital music, I like the case art. I’m a casual dresser who likes to cook when possible although I can never afford my dream grocery store, Whole Foods.

I buy lots of books, journals and magazines, but never have time to read them all. Saturday evenings are given over to episodes of Prairie Home Companion and Sunday afternoons to This American Life (or Podcasts). My favorite magazine is the New Yorker but I’m about two months behind on issues right now. I’m concerned about the environment but also concerned that I’m not doing much to help. I love playing tennis but enjoy watching football.

I like small towns, the rust belt, abandoned structures and would like to spend a summer driving a beat up car through Eastern Europe working on old farms and staying in run down cottages.

In the future...

I’d like to have a large family. My family is small and I would love to find someone whose family I can share with them as my own extended family.

I’d like to live and work wherever we want to live, not necessarily where we have to work.

I’d like to build my own house or at least restore some old gas station or piece of a barn into a creative and original living and working space.

I’d like to live in and around a community of like-minded creative individuals who support and feed off each other.

I don’t need to be wealthy, only make enough money to support my family and to find creative fulfillment in my work.

Who I’m Looking For:

Women who don't drink a lot and never ever want to go to Las Vegas on a vacation, only if we’re old and with nothing else to do.

Intelligent, self-motivated, kind hearted and nurturing women.

No social climbers or “scenesters” who are trying to be hip.

Attractive, elegant women with an understated beauty and the girl next door.

That’s it for now. MySpace is HERE. I was going to post some photos here but I’m hoping maybe you’ll just visit my page and then click on the photos if you’re interested. Send me a message or write me an e-mail to rodblackhurst@hotmail.com It doesn’t matter if you live in Denver or not. I know I know, this whole idea is rather far fetched but I need your help (my initial 167 and your friends beyond…). I’ll respond to you all. Then we’ll set a date for Valentine’s Day and see where that takes us….

Rod

This is the last thing I'll say

As I tried to decide between Ry Cooder and Ryan Adams on the record player I found myself thinking of the men who shovel the snow at the Washington & Emerson St light rail station. Through blistering cold and white out four men keep the sidewalks and station entrance clear and clean. Nary a wayward snowflake can land without one of the four attacking it with a vigor that would make the criminals from Home Alone scared. They lurk in the bus stop over the interstate, eyes peeled for rogue flakes. While the rest of the city struggles to keep up with the seemingly never ending snowfall these four men shovel in the dark and through the day to keep the façade of the transit system ready to receive the passengers that she never will. Nobody rides the light rail, I’m sure that it is some bureaucratic wear-it-on-your-sleeve public works program that some self proclaimed liberal Subaru driving, Ben Harper CD listening politician earmarked in some state budget somewhere to make himself feel better about the plight of the atmosphere. As if he even knew where to begin. But this idea looked good on paper. At least it keeps four anonymous snow shovelers employed.

The delicate sounds of Love is Hell Part 2 creep out of my bedroom from Washington Park I’m wondering if I really want to be writing this all down. I’m superstitious. I do things because once those things led to good things. This is my way. I also don’t like to reflect out loud that often on what good has come my way in fear that perhaps it will only lead then to bad. But I do want to say a few things before I officially sign off for 2007.

I left some friends behind this year. I was rude and disrespectful to a few folks along the way and I’m sorry for that. Often it was because I wasn’t mature enough to know when to stop leading you astray. More often than often it was because I was going to let you down at some point and that would have been harder if I’d kept leading you astray.

I calculated my existence in frequent flyer miles. As an official Silver Medallion Delta Sky Miles customer and a Premiere United member I must say that I do enjoy the perks of being a regular. Flying first class is great and all when it happens but perhaps the best part about being a frequent flyer is that I can cut the security line and board the plane first always ensuring that my rather large camera bag carry on can fit in the overhead. And I never sit in the wrong seat.

I made some great new friends. Some is the wrong word. I made a lot of great new friends. What a blessing to cross paths with so many wonderful people and to reconnect with long lost friends. If I hadn’t written an e-mail to a man named Mark Cunningham as a 17 year old college freshman I’d never be where I am right now. Truly unbelievable and amazing as I think that I owe a fair bit to this connection that I made ten years ago.

Nobody will ever write a better blog than my friend Alex. He’s a wordsmith, a songsmith and a gem of a friend. You should read his blog. He’s got a lot to say and the right to say it all.

I must now do some laundry and pack my bags for a shoot over the next five days in Big Bear Lake, CA. You probably haven’t heard of the Block or the G4 network but from my understanding its about a group of Scotts and Todds who didn’t quite make the cut at the Real World living and working in a hotel called The Block who spend their days snowboarding and their nights partying. Maybe they don’t actually work. I’ve heard that all they do is party and chase women. Should be funny at least. I’ll have a camera in my hand. And boy oh boy the things people do for the camera. I do find it rather reassuring that I’ll close out the last seconds of my year shooting an awful reality TV show for an equally as awful cable TV channel. There’s no glory there, there’s no guts, just excess that I’m witnessing through the lens of my camera. Going out the way I came in. And that’s a good feeling. No pressure right up to the end, just doing my job, paying the rent and looking forward to the coming year.

a photo of a friend

He's going to hate me, but I just found this photograph of him. And I love it. You should too.

this is how i feel this morning

Falling out of touch with all my
friends are somewhere getting wasted,
hope they're staying glued together,
I have arms for them.

Take another sip of them,
it floats around and takes me over
like a little drop of ink in a glass of water.

Politics, Religion & The Presidency

To those non-secular friends of mine.

Mitt Romney yesterday said that "No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths."

In the same speech he then went on to add that he "do not define my candidacy by my religion" and eventually went on to add that he "will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."

How then, would Mitt Romney, or any other non-secular candidate, including our current President, in their next breath explain their views on Abortion and Gay Marriage, issues which for them are clearly explained through their religious views?

Is this not serving not just one religion, but most religions?

What about the majority of Americans who are secular like myself?

Why does no reporter or person ever ask this simple question of non-secular politicians? You believe in a separation of church and state yet your religious views cloud your judgment on such major issues as abortion and gay marriage; how is this separation of church and state and how do you then seek to include the majority of your constituents who would then be cast aside by your non-secular views?

a small piece of fiction

The gray was nailed tight to the sky above Old Sodom. Winter was fast coming and the late afternoon air was sharp, getting sharper. Musing under his breath that the Quality Inn was not quality, and therefore either pretentious or ironic, Dan wondered if he should write that bit down, save it for later, in some short story or something that he'd never actually get around to writing. He hadn't written anything in years and it was going to be years till he did. It just sounded good, on paper.

Letting the bath fill, Dan beat the love out of his lap in the next room. Returning to the bathroom he drained the tub and sat down to let it fill up again. That was the best part about taking a bath, listening to the water gurgle out the faucet. Soaking was disgusting, just laying there in your own dead skin cells and soaped suds. But listening to the water, that was about as good as it got, at least in the Quality Inn. The ash tray tub side hadn't been cleaned since the tub's last occupant had laid there in their own filth but Dan wasn't about to complain. He was lucky to have the room for the night.

He had two things to accomplish that night. First, he was going to go see Ree down at Sportsman's, ask her where the fuck she'd be for the past two months. Then he was going to work on getting his handicap down up at the Bowl-a-Lane. Figured with a whiskey or two in him he'd have a good game there as well.

Funny how things work out like this he thought.

Ritter, Springsteen

In the middle of October I joined my friends Ben, Kelly, and Aaron for a trip up north to see Josh Ritter play at the Fox, a tiny old concert hall, with acoustics that are second to none, packed to the gills with sweaty music fans. The show was unlike any musical experience that I'd ever been a part of. With a grin a mile wide carved into his face, and wiry red hair flying everywhere, Josh was in control of the room, along with my right foot which tapped out time incessantly.

I first heard of Josh in the fall of 2004, through my friend Bill Heath, a filmmaker from British Columbia, who had scored a beautiful ski film called Sinners with Josh's music. It was love at first listen. And then I realized that whilst a senior in college I had reviewed Josh's debut album, The Golden Age of Radio, for the Colgate Maroon News, showering it with equally golden praise. Josh's cousin Zach was living in my dorm and had encouraged me to write about his relative and so I sought out the album and threw it in my CD player.

There is a song on Josh's newest album, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, called The Temptation of Adam. You should listen to this song. It'll change your mind. I'm posting the lyrics below.

The Temptation of Adam

If this was the Cold War we could keep each other warm I said on the first occasion that I met Marie We were crawling through the hatch that was the missile silo door And I don¹t think that she really thought that much of me

I never had to learn to love her like I learned to love the Bomb She just came along and started to ignore me But as we waited for the Big One I started singing her my songs And I think she started feeling something for me

We passed the time with crosswords that she thought to bring inside What five letters spell "apocalypse" she asked me I won her over saying "W.W.I.I.I." She smiled and we both knew that she'd misjudged me

Oh Marie it was so easy to fall in love with you It felt almost like a home of sorts or something And you would keep the warhead missile silo good as new And I'd watch you with my thumb above the button

Then one night you found me in my army issue cot And you told me of your flash of inspiration You said fusion was the broken heart that's lonely's only thought And all night long you drove me wild with your equations

Oh Marie do you remember all the time we used to take We'd make our love and then ransack the rations I think about you leaving now and the avalanche cascades And my eyes get washed away in chain reactions

Oh Marie if you would stay then we could stick pins in the map Of all the places where you thought that love would be found But I would only need one pin to show where my heart's at In a top secret location three hundred feet under the ground

We could hold each other close and stay up every night Looking up into the dark like it's the night sky And pretend this giant missile is an old oak tree instead And carve our name in hearts into the warhead

Oh Marie there's something tells me things just won't work out above That our love would live a half-life on the surface So at night while you are sleeping I hold you closer just because As our time grows short I get a little nervous

I think about the Big One, W.W.I.I.I. Would we ever really care the world had ended You could hold me here forever like you're holding me tonight I look at that great big red button and I'm tempted.

Josh also played an acoustic version of Springsteen's The River. Separated in time by twenty five years from The Temptation of Adam, The River might be one of the blue collar love songs ever. And I'll stand behind those words.

Again the lyrics.

The River

I come from down in the valley
where mister when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We'd ride out of that valley down to where the fields were green

We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we'd ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

That night we went down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we did ride

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
Mary acts like she don't care

But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride

You should put these two songs on your iPod or on a cassette tape, or on a blank CD, put them in your car and go drive some back country road.

home for 4 days

After 18 hours in airplanes and airports on Wednesday I made it back to Denver close to midnight, which technically my body thought was closer to 8 AM European time. I'm still exhausted. Thursday morning Gregg called me and asked if I wanted to go back to England later that day. I replied that all my laundry was still dirty but yes I'd go. So, I'm going back Friday for five days with another Sony artist. Flying to NY tomorrow for the Thanksgiving holiday and then leaving from NY for Manchester. After these flights I'll be Gold Medallion on Delta. This means that I may make first class for free on every flight I purchase on Delta next year. I'm savvy. The only odd thing about this trip is that not only will I be visiting Norwich for the second time in my life, when I especially imagined that city to be the last city I'd visit twice, but I'll be spending my birthday there. As I've never been one to attach too much value to my birthday this technically shouldn't phase me. In fact I do find it more humorous than anything. Just add this to the list of stories that someday I can tell my children.

In preparation for my 5 AM wakeup tomorrow I bought myself a spa treatment today. Self indulgent but totally great and relaxing. Maybe I'll just consider it my birthday present to myself. Oh and the new video iPod too. Probably the most money I've spent on myself in a while. Sometimes I think that I spend all my money on myself but them remember that while that could be true, I'm really just purchasing film and technical equipment which allows me to better do my job. So goes the old adage, you have to spend money to make money.

I'm managing to squeak in a little football tonight after missing the past four weeks. I won't last much longer. Still need to pack.

a photograph

My friend Dawn sent me this two days ago.

today i'm in Birmingham

Birmingham pales in comparison to Newcastle. By the end of this tour I will have been to every major city in the United Kingdom this year. Leeds, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Plymouth, Norwich, Birmingham, Newcastle, Bournemouth, you name it and we've been there. Dave and I went for a walk yesterday to the river Tyne and were very impressed not only with the sunny fall weather, which did hold over until today, but with the architecture and historical value of Newcastle.

Today we are off. I managed to get the best of both worlds today, group walk to breakfast, then dinner plans for 6:30 which gave me time to get on with my own bit for the afternoon. I picked up the new The Thrills disc and some stationary and pens from a Japanese paper store. Its hard to not get wrapped up in the herd mentality on these days off. Usually we're all hungover and then stumble around all day together not really getting anything accomplished, and then all of a sudden the day is over and we have to get up and go back to work. You always end up spending all of your time making plans to make plans, a very frustrating feeling. We're meeting at 6:30 for curry which is my jam. Why does every English city claim to be the curry capital of the world? Would India not be the curry capital of the world? It seems that because England briefly colonized India for a few hundred years they now claim ownership of curry. All I can conclude from this is a certain amount of typical British snobbery built into titling and alleged ownership. Its nearly 5 and this leaves me enough time to read for a little bit, maybe take a bath, and then wander down to the lobby of our posh hotel.

Our last day off was tough. After closing down an old pub in Dublin we stumbled into bed around 3 in the morning only to be awoken at 7 for the ferry crossing to Scotland. We all deliriously tried to enjoy the trip across the Irish Sea. I took some photographs and some video but when we hit land we all threw ourselves into our bunks for another two hours of shut eye before reaching Glasgow. Dave and I claim that this schedule and lack of sleep led us to be hallucinating when we finally checked into our hotel. Most of that day off was lost to some wandering around with Dan and Joel before meeting up (well technically running into) Ben Hales on the streets of Glasgow. What an unusual but great city full of drunks and blue collar history. Just the type of place that I can agree with.

When I pictured England in the fall I thought of John Steinbeck describing the sky as "wet gray aluminum" and I liked that too. I'll take the sun these past few days. But I'll take the autumn as well.

something old and something new

I found this photograph on my computer and remembered our three wonderful days off in Portland Oregon this summer. Jeff took this in a hotel room there and because there's a chance she's reading this, this is Kari, this rad girl we met there.



Jeff also took this photograph of a potted plant out front of the same hotel. What a great image.



I'm working on a TV show right now, a STARZ concert series, right now 6 episodes, maybe turning into 12. I'm helping create it, shoot it, and edit it. My creative partner in crime, Kelly, captured these photographs from some of the HD footage we've shot at our past two shows. The first is of two members of the Kaiser Chiefs in the subway system of NYC and the second is Sam of the Bravery at an acoustic performance we went to in Los Angeles. The images are so powerful and seeing that they are screen captures from video blows my mind.

two new photographs

from our weekend trip to NYC to film the kaiser chiefs at the beacon theatre.

early morning driving down the west side highway.



nyc subway. it'll always smell the way i'll always remember.

Los Angeles in early September.

I wanted to write a witty blog about my recent cross country drive. North River, NY to North Hollywood, 5 days, three bags of beef jerky (3 different brands, I did some rather unofficial taste testing to pass the time), a dozen assorted apples, a case of water, 4 vitamin waters, 3 ClifBars, 1 bag of pita chips, four diet cokes (both DC Plus and Coke Zero), one Motel 6, one Holiday Inn Express, two friend's houses, breakfast at Perkins in Kearney Nebraska, one dinner at Delice in downtown Omaha, four CDs purchased at Homers in Omaha (Eisley, The National, Okkervil River, and Earlimart), one Panera Bread breakfast, two Starbucks coffees, one Chipolte burrito bowl, one big breakfast with friends at Watercourse in Denver, and a lunch at Thai Basil in Denver with Brian and Jeff.

Maybe this is a good place to start with the photographs. My brain is tired, its growing late here. I've been hoarding some candids from the past few months that I should like to share. See, I have hundreds of photos that not a soul has seen from the past eight months of photo taking. These hundreds were narrowed down from thousands. I really need to put a website and portfolio together. There's never enough time. So in the lack of mean time (remember, no time at all) I'm going to put a couple up here.


Brian and Jeff.


In late May we spent two weeks in Europe, ten countries in fourteen days. I woke up one morning in Hamburg and went to a grocery store where I acquired the strawberries, museli, and bottle of water. It was everything I wanted and then I made still life with a book I purchased at an old print shop. While I don't read German I've concluded that the book is a small retrospective of a printmaker's cartoons and engravings. I'm going to tear the images out and make prints for my wall.


Toronto Summer 2007. I played a lot of air guitar guitar hero on stage this summer. Benji took this photo of the mayhem from the back corner. I'm suspended in mid air.


These four men were responsible for feeding us this summer. And they did a damn good job at it. Plus they were maniacs in tuxedos.


Just because someone needs to see this. Messina and Lavery.


Steve was known to make appearances on stage to booty quake while the "Milkshake Song" pumped through the PA. At the end of every show Isaac would trigger the post show mix through a CD player attached under the keyboard of his piano. Joel W suck a CD of the "Milkshake Song" into the player in Seattle and right as the song started, with the band still saying bye, Steve booty quaked his way across stage. He's such a player.

That's it. I have to go get my laundry out of the dryer in the apartment complex before someone throws it on top of the dryer (Pet Peeve #43).

Are you well?

Planes, Burscough, and Beyond

Planes, Burscough, and Beyond
Yesterday I flew back to the states. I put my iPod on shuffle. I never do this but my friend Ben told me once that if I can't put my iPod on shuffle and listen to anything that comes on then I should delete that artist/band out of the Pod. So I tried it. This is what I listened to:

1. Stars - On Peak Hill
2. Neutral Milk Hotel - Ghost
3. Ryan Adams - Rock N Roll
4. Bloc Party - Uniform
5. Nada Surf - What is Your Secret
6. The Faint - Posed to Death
7. Yann Tiersan - La Vase D'Amelie
8. Andrew Bird - Scythian Empires
9. Edit Piaf - Toujours Aimer
10. Mason Jennings - Be Here Now
11. The Decemberists - Los Angeles, I'm Yours
12. Iron & Wine - Fever Dream
13. Figurine - Let's Make Our Love Song
14. Bloc Party - Song for Clay
15. Kiss Me Deadly - Ballads
16. Joseph Arthur - Tattoo
17. Kiss Me Deadly - Distress Call
18. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals - Friends
19. Dinosaur Jr. - Gettin Rough
20. Jason Collett - I'll Bring The Sun

Now I'm not one to read into tea leaves pooled in the bottom of a cup or to look for planetary alignments but what does this mean. Two songs by both Bloc Party, Kiss Me Deadly, and Ryan Adams, two songs by fiercely French artists, a blast from the past, with a taste of romance and a little bit of storytelling from this past week in England. Taking the cake might be the Decemberists song though. What does this mean?

If you'd be the air in my lungs I'd smoke a lot.

Cross Country: Making Jack Proud

Little League was just a ruse to mask my addiction to Big League Chew. When it came time for the annual little league lottery I was selected by the Sodom Tigers, an expansion team in a small town nearly twenty-five miles from my house. The Rotary and Gore teams held down a yearly rotating monopoly on the Adirondack Division Championship and in an unsuccessful antitrust adventure the Division created two other teams in the town of Johnsburg, The Tigers and The Wildcats. Our teams shared a brand new diamond in the town of Sodom while the champs split time at the field in North Creek. The draft was a setup from the beginning, coaches had been scouting talent from the days of t-ball and even though it was noted in the Enterprise, the small circulation free weekly paper, that the draft was based purely on pulls of numbers from a hat, each team in order, four players at a time, followed by four players at a time, Gore and Rotary always ended up with the future superstars of the Johnsburg Jaguars baseball team. I was drafted out of pity. My scouting report detailed my fascination with random wildflowers and dandelions that grew in the right field of the t-ball track. Perhaps it touched on my all-consuming passion for the small one scoop free ice cream cones that we enjoyed after every game at Stewarts. Or, maybe it talked about how I would sneak my way out of the dugout mid-inning, I was always warming the pine, to buy some penny candy at the parking lot concession stand.

With my advancement to the bush leagues came a new found love of Big League Chew, the plain flavored shredded gum, that came in the foil, resealable pouch decorated with a juiced up Mark McGwire look-a-like cartoon character. After a thorough trouncing from the Dunkley family clan, who fielded generations of Rotary team players, I asked coach if Kyle had been dipping the entire game. During a trip to pick up some Kit Kat bars in the fifth I thought I spied Kyle picking tobacco out of a pouch, placing a wad in his cheek. Maybe that was how he hit all those home runs I thought. Coach said he wasn’t dipping, that was just Big League Chew. I just had to have some. Everyone wanted to be like Kyle.

Stores these days just aren’t the same. Coca Cola has a new soft drink product that hits the market every time I made a pit stop on my recent drive from Los Angeles to upstate NY, but I couldn’t find a pouch of the Chew anywhere. 2,876 miles coast to coast. Thirty six hours. One shattered moon roof. Two moments of panic when I thought I had run out of gas. Three blinding rainstorms. Ten green apples and a few hundred roasted almonds. Eleven diet cokes (new flavor Coke Plus included) and no pouches of Big League Chew.

I stuck Little League out through three years of a .078 batting average and numerous fielding errors. After playing one year of modified baseball in the seventh grade I promptly switched to tennis the following year. Maybe this was Big League Chew’s revenge.

************************************************************************************

They call Montana big sky country. I think Texas deserves the title. Out the driver side window at 75 miles per hour.


Somewhere in New Mexico. A train on a fast moving horizon.


Delmar - The water is fine! C'mon in.


I was tired and so I stopped for some rest and relaxation.


That is my car on an empty strech of the real Route 66 somewhere in eastern California. I stopped to take a photograph of the trailer below.

I couldn't figure out the last time this had been used although there were piles of rotting clothes inside. I didn't see another living soul for sixty miles in either direction.

you are the air in my lungs and i smoke a lot

Whole Foods should be called Whole Paycheck, aptly. As wives wandered the isles filling their shopping carts with vegan treats and soy alternatives, whilst sipping on their non-fat mocha soy chai lattes I checked prices and cost per ounces. An entire cart would be worth $150 based on my advanced calculations so I stuck to the hand basket.

“How are you today?”

“Good, just out spending my husband’s hard earned money?”

“Oh!?! Sounds good!”

“Sure is! Oh and did I tell you I’m working on a script right now with my free time!”

Somehow Whole Foods has regulars, people who can consistently afford $150 carts of overpriced organic food. Don’t get me wrong, I like naturally produced and procured foods, but I can’t afford it. I managed to get away today with three bags (paper, never plastic) of sundries today.

The list included:
1.51lb package of baby carrots
2.5lb large white peaches
1lb organic spring mix (with rocket!)
2.37lb red grapefruit
tofurkey sausage
1 dozen organic free-range eggs
jalapeño garlic hummus
roasted almonds (7.99 for the smallest amount of almonds ever)
5 boxes of organic 365 alfredo mac and cheese
1 can black eye peas
2 cans organic black beans
pita chips
pirates booty, cheddar flavored
frozen veggie okra patties
frozen okra

This cost $50.55. Had I shopped with the same reckless abandon applied at normal supermarkets I could have easily melted my credit card on swipe.

Pretty soon the clock will start running forward. Seconds will pass in half the time it would take normally and the world will begin blurring by in wide aperture settings. The light will soften and the days will grow longer, evenings drawing out while crowds fill thousands of empty seats that the day before were home to thousands of others who drank beer, spilled popcorn and combined their voices in song. Their sound will remind us that we are all human and that we all want to be remembered and loved. And I’ll listen to it and wonder how I fit in.

The reality is that I don’t know any reality anymore. I’m a wandering soul. The euphemism goes that while you may not be lost, it’s just that you aren’t found. I’m lost and I’m not found. But, I am open to both of those things happening. Any time. Any time now.

all around Europe in two weeks. again.

“Well Dan, I guess I’ll see you in Alabama.”

Tell me the last time you imagined yourself saying that. Hell, the last time I woke up in Alabama was after a battle with a gentleman named Jack at a watering hole on the south side of Chicago. But that is another story for another time. The point here is that there won’t be, and shouldn’t be too many times in your life when you plan on waking up in Alabama.

The past few weeks have been long. Some time off which results in me being busy for the first week or so and then going stir crazy. I’ve got to get out of LA. Took a trip to San Francisco and a trip to the Phoenix Film Festival in Scottsdale. Huh? Yes, the Phoenix Film Festival isn’t in Phoenix it is in Scottsdale. Marketing.

This two-week jaunt started Thursday in Orlando at Walt Disney World. What an awful place. The pool was full of little children and I’m positive that I saw a filmy layer of urine floating on the surface. We had these super top secret, plaid clad tour guides to the Magic Kingdom. They were in possession of key cards which allowed us top priority access to all the rides. We cut the line. Budged in front of little children whose families had paid top dollar to enter the park. Our admission fee was waived, of course. A bizarre experience getting to see the underbelly of Disney World, we walked through the tunnels underground, the city beneath the city as they call it, from ride to ride, location to location. I wrote my mother and father an e mail the other day thanking them for having never taken us on a “vacation” to Orlando. I am glad that they spent money instead on summer enrichment schools and camps.

Our summer tour is shaping up to be a banger. It appears that I will be involved in the creation of the video content for the live show. Art. Art. Art.

Just found out that on May 14th I’ll be flying to NYC, playing Good Morning America on the 15th, then flying to the Netherlands arriving on the 16th. On the 17th we fly to London for two days where the band will take part in a BBC documentary for the anniversary recording of the Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper’s album. The band is one of 12 bands chosen to rerecord tracks from the album with the original engineer on the original equipment. Wow. On Sunday we will fly to Hamburg Germany and then go to Zurich on Tuesday, London on Wednesday, Madrid on Thursday, Blogona on Friday and Milan on Saturday, and then back to the states on Sunday. I am going around the world, again.

Did I mention that our next five shows are with Aqualung? Great people. Good to be out here with them.

Any day I'm here could be the day I die.

I was going to write something about purchasing only white v neck t shirts so that I never have to choose what to wear, or write about how one of my roommate's cats is mentally retarded, a fact they can't seem to accept, or post the eharmony.com personal profile I've been working on, until I read an April 7th, 2007 issue of Newsweek that my friend Alex let me borrow today.

It is a special issue called Voices of the Fallen: Every day I'm here could be the day I die

It contains writings to family members, loved ones, and friends made by US soldiers serving in Iraq. I cried my way through the issue. All the words reprinted in there belong to soliders who have been killed in the line of duty. Alex had warned me that it would be tough to read but I was not prepared for the sadness that I felt when done.

I have typed up a letter from Lance CPL. Lance Graham that was left behind whey he was killed on May 7th, 2005.

"Well if your reading this I guess this deployment was a one way trip. I just have a few things to ask. Please don't be made at the Marine Corps. It was my choice to join and come here. I honestly believe this is what I was meant to do. I don't care what the media says we are making a difference here. Know that I did not die in vain or for some worthless cause. I died in memory of all those who gave their lives before me. We are fighting for those who can't fight for themselves and I think that is the right thing to do. Not all the people here are bad, so please don't fill your hearts with anger and hate. When I was a kid my dad gave me a Louis Lamour book and in the back of the book was a quote from all his books. One that really suck in head and I tried to live by sinnce the day I read it was on courage - "When ever there was trouble you never had to look back to see if he was there, you knew damn well he was". I hope I lived up to the that. Another thing I ask is that at my funeral the Marine Corps Hymn and Amazing Grace is played with the bag pipes. Nothing sounds better than the bag pipes playing Amazing Grace. I know that I haven't been the best son, brother, friend or boyfriend and I'm sorry if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. Ashley can keep my H5 if she wants. Another thing I ask is at least one of you travel see the world and do the things I never got to do. This is really hard writing this. Theres so much I want to say and I'm at a loss of words. Just know that I have a god in my life and I'm in a better place. Marines guard the streets in heaven. Who else would god trust? Tell Ashley, Nathan, Kevin, Jason, David, Denis that I could not have had better friends. Tell Ashley that I was sorry and I'm stuipd and I really did love her. To my Family I love you all.

Semper Fi,
Love Lance."

We are fighting an unpopular war, orchestrated by a President who the majority of Americans did not elect to office. We have no exit strategy and every day innocent Iraqi men women and children die. The US military is responsible for the deaths of nearly 10,000 innocent Iraqis. Everyday US soldiers are dying and still we fight a way started for reasons that have sinced been revealed to have been falsified reports and documents about alleged weapons of mass destruction. I'm saddened by the state of our world.

My friend Brian is currently serving in Iraq, his second tour of duty. He doesn't know when he is coming home. My friend Kevin Kimmerly was killed in Iraq in the fall of 2003.

A letter to Paul Auster

Dear Mr. Auster,

I first read Leviathan as a student living and studying in Dijon, France. My mother was a French teacher at a small rural public school in upstate NY, and having grown up speaking the language it seemed a fitting course of study given my general lack of early twenty-something direction. At the time, I was boarding with a dysfunctional French family, the Bresseau’s, who were each on their second marriage. They had a rambunctious young demon son between the two of them and an older introverted son, with an all-consuming passion for comic books and mid-90’s rock music, from Madame Bresseau’s previous marriage. Dinners were always interesting, a breeding ground for awkwardly priceless moments. To avoid prolonged contact with this cast of characters, whose idiosyncrasies I scribbled furiously into my journal, I spent the evenings locked in my bedroom. Having grown tired of the bread and butter staples of French literature that I had been assigned to read, I rescued three English books from the Bresseau’s bookshelf and read them back to back to back as quickly as possible. I read your novel first and then moved on to the first two Harry Potter books. Madame was an English ex patriot, Leviathan happened to be one of her favorites.

I’ve read most of your novels, having enjoyed every word of each of them.
But it wasn’t until this past year, when I picked up Hand to Mouth that I felt the need to write you. My father is a small town jack-of-all-trades. He does snow removal in the winter and builds furniture in the summer. He doesn’t like people and recently began playing the banjo during what I’d like to call his third mid-life crisis. The first was forgetting that my mother and my two younger siblings existed once I moved away from home, and the second was trying to play the upright bass. He plays the banjo every Sunday afternoon at the deli in town with Tom “Buckshot” Butler on bass and the cross-dressing Steve Sverchek on fiddle. Steve is the father of the girl I thought was my first real girlfriend. She eventually informed me that we weren’t dating at all.

My mother is a prim and proper, pessimistic, tiny conservative woman from
Anderson, South Carolina. She became a French teacher to escape the grips of the poor rural south. If she couldn’t physically leave, this was second best. We didn’t own a television so instead I was raised on NPR and trips to the book mobile.

I’ve always enjoyed telling stories and feel confident telling you that I’m a filmmaker working on creating my first narrative short. I have worked on documentary shorts and features for the past few years. Your ability to describe characters, places, and situations is truly inspiring. It was while reading the Brooklyn Follies that I discovered the urgent desire and need to begin remembering the people and places of my youth, a place and time that I once long ago swore to forget.

There is no doubt in my mind that you will continue to write, so I don’t have to implore you to do so. I look forward to reading more of your work in the future. You have inspired me, and for that I should like to say thank you.

Sincerely,

Rod Blackhurst

Carson Daly Show & Advertising

The homeless men are practicing advertising. They twirl the corrugated, laminated signs with pomp and circumstance.

“We Buy Ugly Homes For Cash!”

“Shaw’s Going Out of Business Sale! All Wigs 75% Off!”

Advertising pays minimum wage, and so does seat filling at NBC. As I sat with my roommate in the North Hollywood park, killing time for two hours, I wondered if the same people who were offering “Free Yum Yum Donuts with Every 12oz Coffee Purchased”, were sitting next to me at Carson Daly yesterday. I don’t know why I went to the taping of the show. Wait, I do know, it paid $7.50 an hour and when you’re suffering from workers block (that is mental blockage from doing any sort of work), you’ll do just about anything to get out of the house. The ad I responded to asked that we wear casual business attire, polo shirts, button ups, no ripped jeans, and defiantly no sandals. Based upon my advanced mathematical calculations, mainly some cheap addition, I was able to determine that 10% of the seat fillers lined up at Soundstage 9 on the northwest corner of Bob Hope and Warner, were wearing sandals. Additionally 18% of the line were wearing shirts with logos, 7% were wearing ripped jeans, 22% of them smelled awful and 36% of them were not sane. Waiting in line, inside a security area, having gone through a metal detector, would normally not be the place to sell drugs, drink beer, and shout at the scantily dressed woman at the head of the line (they had obviously been there for a few hours, waiting for those precious front row seats, in hopes that they would be noticed by Carson or one of the 15 people who watch the show).

But they were all crazy. And they smelled. One woman was toting six plastic bags full of clothes. Her hair was dreaded up and she was wearing a black windbreaker. It was 85 degrees outside. Several people were missing teeth and had random shaved patches on the sides of their heads. I didn’t ask questions. I was there to collect my $7.50 an hour and get the hell out of dodge. I clapped like a madman, cheered when prompted, and laughed when prodded with the branding iron.

The MC shouted, “This is late night television. The jokes are always funny.”

And I laughed.

The past few days have been tedious. Los Angeles has me spinning my wheels. Too much stimulation. Did I really just say that? You can’t take time off. This city moves, not in the way that New York moves, at a breakneck speed, but rather with a slow deliberate pace. Everyone says they are busy all the time. What are they actually doing? Everywhere I look the coffee shops are full of young people talking away, sipping mocha crappa lattes, reading scripts behind sunglasses that look like they were stolen from the U2 Zoo Tour of ’95. People say that to provide the illusion that they are actually important, that they are actually in a meeting, busy making deals, authorizing mergers, writing scripts. Everyone is working on a script. Everyone.

I’m leaving for tour on Monday. Flying LAX to Edmonton, then Edmonton to Calgary, then Calgary to Vancouver, then Vancouver to Las Vegas, then Las Vegas to London, then London to Paris, Paris to London, London to LAX, LAX to Phoenix, and then finally Phoenix to LAX, arriving back home two weeks later. I’m packing a vial of Vicodin. That should do it. One night in Paris, c’mon?

Yeah, I know.

photos in the valley

I met my friend Alex for lunch at Canter’s yesterday. We talked about bands, music, films, people, and Los Angeles. I’d been thinking about making a trip out to the Salton Sea. Having recently come into the possession of a Polaroid Spectra AF via eBay, for the sweet ass low price of $38, I found myself itching to use it. The Sea seemed like the best bet. An abandoned city on the edge of a dead man made lake, 125 feet below sea level. But then I started thinking about the vagabonds and meth labs that are scattered throughout the area and decided that I shouldn’t go alone.

But I have this camera. And I told him I'd go take some photos and show him. My friend Brian was in town last night and he said I should go, if it felt safe. I'll make it up to you both.

So today I walked around for an hour, and took some photographs.

This is a montage of the Polaroids, laid out in no particular order on my living room floor. I don’t have a scanner so this is a digital photograph (you can see the flash and the light glare from the lamp).
A digital still of the same area in one of the Polaroids.

My hand holding a photo of a Laundromat.

return to LA (so this is normal)

The paper in the copy machines at Kinko's is already pre hole punched. Ready for one inch brass brads to hold together the weight of somewhere between seventy five and one hundred and ten pages of size twelve courier new font screen direction and play. I didn't want paper that was pre punched and so I investigated each of the nine machines only to find that every single one of them held the same three holes. Granted I was there to make copies of my writing, but it was rather depressing to watch as each of the other eight machines made copies of screenplays. Can't these people punch their own holes? I did. Who were those people? What is their story, where do they come from? The young man at the machine behind me wore his frost tipped hair perfectly and his clothing reeked of mass produced, but still slightly cool, the because-i-bought-it-at-urban-outfitters, feel. The stubble on his face was an industry standard suggested three days old. I imagined him shaving tonight and then having to hide out for two days before making appearances on the third when his look would be back up to par.

So I made four copies of the short film and headed to the grocery store. Having not been to a grocery store in well over two months, maybe even almost three, I found myself lost. I couldn't remember what I liked to eat. Well I could remember, I just couldn't remember what would go into each meal. I ended up with breakfast burritos for breakfast and some combinations of salad and pasta for dinner. Depressing right? I still can't remember what I really like to eat. I went to Whole Foods (i.e., Whole Paycheck) yesterday and purchased two paper bags of assorted lunch and dinner items for $54.94. When the cashier announced the total I'm almost positive I saw a little toy gun extend out the side of the register, fire, and a flag with BANG written on it popped out.

My home has started to feel like home. I spent some paper at Ikea and worked a bookshelf into the room. It is tall, six shelves, and is painted a dark black stain. Being from Ikea, it is made of MDF. But the stain helps.

I've been working pretty religiously on some videos for the band. Going to spend today finishing up three of them before moving onto the final blog from the UK. Then comes the photo editing. I drove by the Burbank airport yesterday evening to try and shoot some super 8 of the plans taking off. Van Owen runs right perpendicular to the end of the north-south runway and so the plans take off right overhead. My super 8 camera looks like a small Uzi and I decided that it probably wasn't the best idea to be standing at the end of the runway, pointing my black hand held item at the plans overhead, so I drove back home, shooting the setting sun against two miles of overhead power lines.

Had lunch yesterday with two friends and talked shop on the screenplay. Their advice and criticisms are going to be much appreciated. The story needs some reworking, some changes to direction and description and I feel up to the task.

so this is the sound of nostalgia

Our trip is coming to an end. Twenty days. Four hundred eighty hours. Twenty eight thousand eight hundred minutes. Fifteen thousand six hundred twenty seven miles. As all tours wrap up I realize that maybe I will miss the road. Sometimes it is the feeling of relief that the end is in sight that overwhelms my senses. The same feeling that makes you think the last hour of a thirty seven hour work day isn't that bad, you're almost there. So maybe it is that feeling. Maybe I really do miss it when it's all done.

We've been in London for three days now, staying at the K West Hotel, which at this point feels like a home away from home, having stayed here so many times in the past few months. This is a rock n roll hotel, on par with the Riot House (Hyatt) on Sunset in Hollywood or the Roosevelt. Our first evening here, the lobby was home to too many wanna be rock stars dressed in tight black jeans and pointy shoes. With the NME awards taking place in town that night every band in the world was staying here, along with us. The lobby was littered with hipsters; the Kaiser Chiefs, Idlewild, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, We are Scientists, the Arctic Monkeys, etc. Imagine a giant circle of people standing together, each turns to his left and then one at a time everyone tells the person on their left that they are cooler than that person, and so forth. Where does it end?

Too many pretentious assholes, not enough talent and so we retired. The morning brought a visit to Capital Radio for some interviews and then a walking trip through the major tourist attractions where I filmed a short piece for lastminute.com. Our tour ended with a ride on the London Eye, the giant eye sore (so appropriately titled) on the bank of the Thames. The view was beautiful and while I can't vouch for the discount airfare that the website offers (I'm a Travelocity man), the piece will look good. I know it.

My work is almost done here. I've shot three video blogs, five summer tour announcement videos, one lastminute.com piece, and three webisodes for some online TV network. Yes, the brain needs a rest. Not a rest, maybe just a break from what has become the usual over the course of the past three weeks.

I'm going back to Los Angeles and for the first time, calling it home. I'll be there for two weeks. I've got lots of ideas, plans. Need to decorate my room, need to purchase a bookshelf. The walls are bare, off white, stained with marks from previous tenants moving furniture. Trying to think about a trip to San Francisco to see a show, but I don't feel like traveling that much. Hoping to have some meetings, rendezvous, get-togethers, a power lunch or three. I will stock up on energy and I will work on the band's video projects. I will write and gain ground. I will ride my bike along Mulholland Drive and watch the sun get dirty over downtown. I will grocery shop for the first time. And I will spend time with people that make me happy. This much I hope to be true.

having to go a short ways, having it take a long time

having to go a short ways, having it take a long time
Current mood: mischievous

I cried twice in the past week, once on the beach in Bournemouth, late at night, then again last night in a crowded theatre.

I'm tired of stubborn advice. The kind your mother would give you. "It's going to be alright honey, everything will work out." "How about you just keep trying?" or "Don't worry, things will get better." Advice like that is cheap, easy. Small talk.

I'm tired of adages and euphemisms. For the first time in my life I'm starting to feel like I'm doing it just for the money. And I've never had the money to do anything for.

We are driving through the countryside, from Sheffield to Derby. Almost the end of February but the grass is green and the sky is littered with sun lit cotton balls. Last night, my friend Glen told me that the island of England has this dark, black force that drags you down, makes you feel weary, uninspired, uncomfortable. I've been feeling that for a week, just didn't know how to put my finger on it. But this morning, with weather typical of a early spring day in New England, somehow my mind doesn't hurt per the usual.

Yesterday Isaac and I talked about what we want, if wishes were being granted. A year ago he wanted a wife and a career in music. Now he has both and said he doesn't need anything else. I want to be happy and I want to find a place to live. Moving around is taking its toll. Finding a community, a small town, with brick buildings and old storefronts habited by mom and pop breakfast joints, book stores, a river, characters.

Sometimes I just need a change of pace.

Bournemouth: Lost in Translation

Even though we all speak the same language, I'm lost in translation. Simple conversations often take a few "Pardon me"'s before I can decipher what we're actually trying to discuss. Bournemouth is on the ocean, or maybe the channel. I still have no idea where we are. But I see water. And gulls. I guess that makes me feel a little better. If I need an escape route I know where to go.

The Feeling may not be my type of band but they are great performers and musicians. They outperformed the Fray in the states this past fall and they are 100% outperforming them here. This is exactly what needed to happen. The Feeling rehearsed before their tour even began. What a novel concept. There is a lot to be said for professionalism. Most people in life don't expect anything to just happen to them or to come their way. I've seen it work the other way and it is nice to realize again that we are all just as good as we actually are, and no better until we make it that way ourselves.

My creative juices have stopped flowing. Imagine being on point all day long, every day, using every synapse in your mind to make things look intriguing and fascinating, no matter your subject matter. I wish people would respond to the camera, use it, interact with it. You can't tell a story with no words and no actions. Well, maybe no words, but the actions have to be pretty powerful and they just aren't.

Where are you? What are you doing?

a record review from the UK

“They’ve sold more than one million albums in America, and it isn’t hard to see why: the Denver band make music that would struggle to wake the horses, never mind frighten them. They are co-managed by the son of a former Sony BMG bigwig, and you might conclude that they’d have to be spectacularly bad not to go platinum with a leg-up like that. What’s truly offensive about the Fray is the complacency and lack of invention in the music: song after song rolls by, with Isaac Slade pounding his piano and emoting emptily in his Curtis Stigers whine, and each is as crease-free, as people-pleasing, as the last. These are songs for the shopping mall and the elevator; life and nature observed from an air-conditioned automobile. Sadly, they’re going to be huge.”

pounds for pounds

“It’s a giant sausage party in here”, said one security guard to another.

Touched down in Norwich on Thursday afternoon. Everything looked sunny and I wore just a sweatshirt comfortably. Found Brian and Jimmy in a Public House (Pub to you blokes), saddled up to a pint or three of beer and I joined them. We wandered back to the Maid’s Head hotel in the early afternoon to catch a few winks of sleep before dinner with the rest of the wild bunch. The Maid’s Head was a hotel put together of several buildings dated pre 1850 and it was as if the architect of the place had completely disregarded the fact that none of these structures had been built on the same levels, heights, and dimensions. At points you’d cross through a crouched doorway and stumble upon another hall of rooms, with a floor that was either a few steps up or a few steps down.

“Here! Knock a hole through this wall chap, we’ll put more rooms here. The floors don’t match up. Don’t worry about it mate. Pint?”

We tasted sweet Indian food that evening. Curry was originally introduced to the British as a way to disguise the nasty rotted meat that the colonials were eating; disguising the maggots and other various animals living in a block of salt pork. I ate red curry with vigor.

Woke up in the morning to the arrival of the rest of my friends who needed a shower and thus our day had begun. Taxi rides on the other side of the road and hello Norwich University.

Fioana knows how to cook. Just follow your nose to Taste Buds Catering from Glasgow whenever you are in this neck of the international woods. They travel with the headlining band and prepare up fresh, new meals daily. Every day a new run to the grocery store or market to conjure up a menu that you wouldn’t even cook at your own home (unless you have a cook who cooks at your own home). I enjoyed cups of tea and assorted nibbles from the dining room all day while we set about getting the show in order. There were t-shirts to count, e-mails to write, cups of tea to brew, gear to unpack, camera batteries to charge, cups of tea to drink (that’s been about a five minute seep right?).
The evening was less inspired than I might have imagined given all of the professional circumstances and experience collected over the past year but folks were generally tired and overwhelmed from a day spent figuring out this new country to be home for the next three weeks. Afterwards I shared a drink with Dave, Jimmy, and Steve. We drank to something witty, which I can’t recall, and then Jimmy chimed in “To being single, seeing double, and sleeping triple.”

It was then fitting that we walked back to the bus alone, a double decker bus with fourteen beds, two lounges, one up, one down, three flat screen TVs, a full kitchen, and no heating system that my slumbering body could remember how to turn on.

I awoke but fifteen minutes ago and the tile of the kitchen floor gave me an ice cream headache. We’re in Wolverhampton. Wherever that might be. It is rainy outside, foggy, and I’m drinking proper tea.