My parents kept a notebook I had for piano lessons when I was 5, and there’s this revealing apology written by my dear mother to my teacher.
So different from Roger.
SORRY
Story of my life as the youngest child, disappointing teachers year after year when they expected a rule follower and got a smartass.
SORRY
SXSW Film is my favorite part of SXSW. For 5 years now I’ve gotten the Film wristband ($80 or so) and seen basically everything I’ve wanted to see, with little hassle. This year I saw some ammaaaazzzziinng movies. It might be my favorite year yet.
If you live in Austin and like to watch moving pictures that make you feel things, you should get a wristband next year. I’d been nagging my friend Andy to get one since 2013, and this year he finally did. Besides getting his bike stolen (classic SX), he had no regrets and says he’s going to do this every year.
Join the club.
Here’s a too-long breakdown of everything I saw that’s worth mentioning. You should see these 7 full length documentaries, 7 documentary shorts, and 2 narrative feature films. Or at least watch the trailers.
###The Bandit
It’s about the making of Smokey and the Bandit, and it was fascinating even to non Smokey and the Bandit fans. These guys found some crazy amazing archival footage.
Even though I once had the very short term nickname “Smokeypedia”, I didn’t know half of what was in this documentary. Had no idea of Hal Needham’s huge role in making it, or that most of the lines were ad-libbed. Mainly though, this movie made me want to leave another button or two undone on my shirts this summer.
No movie has made me more curious about LSD than this one. What an incredible story about a group of people who wanted to turn the world on, and ended up being some of the biggest drug dealers the world has ever seen.
Remember that Duke LaCrosse team rape thing? Turns out they were all innocent, and maybe you didn’t realize that due to the media shitstorm about how 100% guilty they were…without having the proper evidence to back that claim. When they were proven innocent, there wasn’t nearly as much coverage.
This is about that media shitstorm, and how the public and media can attach themselves to a fantastic lie, and be hellbent on its truth.
###The Incomparable Rose Hartman
This lady took some great photos, and it’s because she just didn’t give a single fuck about what people thought about her. Still doesn’t. She put herself out there, snuck in there, and got the shot.
“How can you hate me, when you don’t even know me?”
An accomplished black musician who befriends members of the KKK, many of whom have never met a black person. When some of these people decide to leave the Klan, Daryl keeps their robes and hoods.
###Tower
About the UT tower sniper in 1968. A friend of mine worked on the animation for this movie, and the entire thing was really well done. A partially animated documentary seems odd on paper, but it turned out great.
###Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru
Honestly, I knew nothing about Tony Robbins walking into this movie. The movie was basically behind the scenes at one of his 5 day seminars, boiled down to two hours. I thought it was really fascinating and inspiring. Andy absolutely despised everything about it. YMMV.
A 90 year old jewish woman tries bacon for the first time and gets her beliefs shattered by the internet.
This guy wanted to hike the Camino de Santiago trail in Spain, and when he found out he had cancer, he recreated the experience in his backyard. Then he went and did the real thing. This was really beautiful, and he had some great things to say about life and death. I cried. I fucking wept.
###Love Bite: Laurie Lipton and her disturbing black & white drawings
I can’t find a trailer for this, but this gives you a sense of who she is and what she does. She had this great quote that I wrote down because I loved it so much, and it was about how when computers were coming around in the 60s, the dream was that they were going to save us so much time. Now, we’re turning into slaves to our devices, she said “We’re feeding the beast that will probably destroy us”.
###The Shining Star Of Losers Everywhere
The strange but true story of how Japanese racehorse Haru Urara became a nationally celebrated symbol of perseverance while enduring a losing streak of epic proportions. Director and artist Mickey Duzyj traveled to Japan to uncover the story behind the horse’s unlikely rise to fame, and presents this animated short as the answer to how an undersized horse who vowed to “Never Give Up” became known as The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere.
In 1973, the son of a tenant dairy farmer released the first and only gay-themed country music album. But with only 1000 copies made, the album soon disappeared and became a gay urban myth.
I’d never heard of this, and the songs on the album are really good. Maybe you saw that article that was all over the place a while back called ‘Don’t Sneak’: Dad’s Unexpected Advice To His Gay Son In The ’50s? That’s this guy!
Both of these movies are gonna be up for some awards in 2016, I’m sure.
###Born To Be Blue
The life of Chet Baker. Ethan Hawke is was amazing in this.
###Miles Ahead
A couple of scenes in this movie blew me away, and overall I loved the whole thing.
Oh man, the last few weeks have been pretty rough, health-wise. Was it bronchitis? Was it my first bout of Austin allergies? Who can say, but I haven’t felt better in what feels like years, and I can sing again. This is good news for my overall happiness, and my will to live.
There were some dark days in there, where wallowing in my misery got the best of me and I didn’t have the will to do much of anything. There are people in this world who get sick and carry on like nothing is wrong, and I tip my hat to those people. Much respect, as they are much tougher than this delicate flower of a man.
It’s raining this week in Austin, and I’m loving it. It stormed and poured last night, and the thunder was so loud it rattled my bones. The best. And it’s supposed to be like this all week. My british isles roots are strong, and it’s rare Austin rainy days like this that make me question how I’m living in one of the hottest and driest cities in the US, when I thrive in sweater weather and have no aversions to umbrellas. I’m going to Portland for conference soon, so hopefully I’ll get some more rainy and cool weather before Austin delivers consistent crippling heat for the next seven months.
Maybe it’s the novelty, and having rain all the time would be soul crushing in its own way, but today I’m savoring it. I’ve been camped out in a couple of favorite coffee shop windows, enjoying the weather, working on things, and feeling thrilled to be able to breathe again. It’s the little things.
Why do we as humans always laugh when eating a nice bowl of mixed greens?
Check this out: my great grandparents’ wedding in 1904. Those mustaches! My great great grandfather (seated) looking so much like Daniel Day Lewis! The sheer and utter joy spilling out of their faces!
I did a little research on the lack of smiles in Victorian-era photos, and what I assumed originally was a result of having to stand perfectly still for a photo turns out to be incorrect. Instead, smiling in a photo back then was viewed in the same way as today’s duckface: totally unacceptable.
“A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever.” - Mark Twain
Sometimes it’s pretty easy to get caught up in the minutia and forget about the amazing night sky. Last weekend I took a little camping trip out to Colorado Bend State Park—off the grid—and got up at 2:30 in the AM after the moon set to do some stargazing. And it was in-fucking-credible. I’m not new to this, and have set late night alarms set to go catch a meteor shower, a space station passing, or a lunar eclipse. But last weekend’s pitch black and perfectly clear night might just take the cake for best star gazing I’ve ever done.
I only took mental photos, but they are fantastic. Now I want more. I might be making a trip out to West Texas in the next couple of weeks to take catch this spectacle before it’s gone.
Maybe I’m so interested in things like this because for my entire life my parents have made fun of the time in 1986 when, alledgedly, I “wouldn’t wake up” to see Halley’s comet while my family was at a friend’s beach house in South Africa, where the viewing conditions were perfect.
5-year-old-me “slept through Halley’s comet”, and now almost 35-year-old me is into going to great lengths to appreciate the stars—like by crawling out of a warm sleeping bag on a 29º night just to stare up at the sky.
Hopefully I’ll make it to July 28th, 2061 when Halley’s comet returns. But until then, the night sky is not lost on me.
This was my Facebook new years post this year:
Let’s make 2016 a lateral year.
Maintain the status quo. Stay in your comfort zone. Avoid challenges, and stay away from new experiences that might change you. Avoid vulnerability at all costs. Dare NOTHING.
Stasis is the magic word.
2015: You were a heartbreaker, and it’s been a fucking experience. But now I’m done with you.
2016: I’m coming for you.
The last couple of months here have been consumed with work, travel, and creativity. And not so much on the website updating, obviously. I finished up some pretty big projects last year that left me feeling burned out, and the feeling hasn’t really subsided. Way more into exploring places and writing music lately, but it all ebbs and flows.
So far 2016 is off to a solid start. I had a pretty fan-fucking-tastic trip to San Francisco and Tahoe over the New Year, best photos below.
Other recent experiences documented on my Instagram.
There was a pretty cool reddit story the other day about an internet stranger casually solving a huge song mystery for another redditor. After a year of the mystery lingering, one day a stranger sent a link to the song, and it blew the original searcher’s mind.
Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. I’m actually freaking out.
Who are you? How did you know? WHAT IS GOING ON?
Thank you so much. But also, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON
And the kind stranger just responded with:
Shh bby is ok
And, just like that, a meme is born. The internet is amazing, sometimes.
But I can totally relate to the poster’s original excitement. Sometimes a song just gets under your skin, and you’ll do anything to find it. Before the modern internet, finally locating a song felt just as satisfying, and I remember distinctly trying to hunt down the following songs in the following ways, and feeling just as excited once each of them was in my possession.
###1989
“Girl I’m Gonna Miss You”, by Milli Vanilli. I’d hear this on the radio, and the melody line in the chorus (1m 24s) rocked my little 8 year old heart so much I just had to find the geniuses who created it.
I called up the local radio station and hummed the melody on the phone in order to figure out what it was. I was gifted the tape by a family friend shortly afterwards.
(And listen, I realized the error in my ways regarding Milli Vanilli not much later. We all did. We all did.)
###1997
“Incense and Peppermints” by The Strawberry Alarm Clock. I heard this song in Austin Powers, and it blew my teenaged mind. I wanted more. More Strawberry Alarm Clock.
I searched far and wide for a recording of this song during Christmas break of ‘97, and had to go up to the Sam Goody in The Mall Of America in order to finally find the truth: that there was no available back catalog of Strawberry Alarm Clock, that they were basically a one hit wonder, and I’d have to settle for the Austin Power’s soundtrack. Which I did.
###1998
I heard this song every so often on the radio for months and months and months, and it would haunt me. I wanted it. But every time, the DJ would say nothing about it. I delayed plans and waited patiently in my Mom’s 1995 Dodge Neon for a song set to end, hoping to get a clue about the song that had been captivating me.
I tried to savor every second the song was playing, knowing it might be weeks before hearing it again. At night after getting back on the 1998 internet in my parent’s basement, I’d Altavista the shit out of the lyrics that I scribbled down earlier in my pocket-sized memo pad.
I don’t even remember exactly how I ended up finding the song, but I do remember that when I finally did locate the MP3, it was named incorrectly. I went around for years afterwards thinking the song was called something else, but I was also thrilled to have it.
###2015
Yesterday, I held up my phone up for a few seconds and it identified a Barbara Lynn song from 1963 that was playing on the radio.
I was satisfied.
I got in a conversation about urinal design today, and got to talking (and then googling) about urinal flies.
First, in case you don’t know:
More information about them can be found in this 2009 NPR story, There’s a fly in my urinal, which contains this gem where the originator of the fly-in-the-urinal idea explains why a fly:
“..guys want to directly aim at an animal they can immobilize. The ability to use one’s natural gifts and achieve victory over the foe while standing is the key, he explained. Guys, he felt, can always beat flies. That’s why flies are so satisfying.”
Amazing.
I have a hard time saying no. I still do it, but often times depending on the request, the lead-up to giving an answer is filled with inner turmoil.
First, I must seek out my true feelings on the matter: Do I really want to? What is my hesitation?
Then I do a brief to lengthy internal debate about the pros and cons of saying yes and saying no, and whether I should listen to my internal feelings, or set them aside this time.
“Will I be my best self if I say yes? Am I feeling compelled to say yes just so I don’t disappoint the asker? Have I said no enough times to this person so that if by saying no again they may feel compelled to never extend an invite in the future? Do I want that? Am I overthinking this entirely, and by just saying yes, I might do something that may be slightly uncomfortable in the short-term, but highly beneficial in the long-term? Would saying yes provide a more interesting story?”
This is my brain.
After reaching a conclusion internally, then it comes the matter of telling the person. How can I decline without sounding rude, and without sounding like I’m making too many excuses?
Well, found one.
There are other good ones here along with actual good advice on how to graciously turn someone down.