Tag Archives: rant

global empathy

please standby

It seems my blog lobe is broken – as is the pretty custom template mojobear has programed for me.

While I’m sure correcting the template will require a few keystrokes, my blog-apathy may require mental CPR.

Correction – I don’t think it’s “blog-apathy” – (especially since I don’t have a blog)… No.. it’s like “cosmic apathy” or something.

I’d write this off to groove-thang misplacement – but I’m starting to think otherwise.

We stopped out for a quick beverage after work yesterday at the watering hole to run into cubpower who’s in EXACTLY the same mental boat. He summed it up pretty well:

“It’s like I can’t get excited about anything.. There’s absolutely nothing to be happy about – if only I could turn on the radio and hear SOME good news.. I’m fighting urges to move to a commune and become a recluse. That and it seems I can’t deal with people right now – without fighting the urge the smack the shit out of them.”

Commiserating with him made me feel a lot better. At least I’m not the only person with this mindset as of late. We plan to have an “Apathy Luncheon” later this week.

I believe in a collective consciousness. Some folks are more sensitive to it than others. Since college I’ve always seemed to be, at times annoyingly, tuned into it. This would probably explain why I enjoy a certain level of success in my soulless career as a extremely marketing-savvy designer.

I’m way better at determining what people want to see and hear than I am at actual “Art”.

“Artist” is just a fancy title I can wear out to parties.. Like a smart handbag – it goes with all of my shoes.

In all brutal abstract honesty: I’m a marginally gifted empath who has a working knowledge of Macromedia FreeHandâ„¢ and PhotoShopâ„¢ and an overworked vocabulary.

wow.. this is all really hurting to write.

I’m stopping now.

alien

Generation X’s Boogie-Man

Just got back from seeing the spookiest movie I’ve ever seen for the first time on the big screen.

I can’t remember how old I was the first time I saw Alien, but it was on television. The film infected my subconscious from that moment forward and either full grown xenomorphs or face huggers have been making sporadic appearances in my nightmares ever since. (*I’m sure I’ll have one tonight).

The extra footage is the same you’ll find on the DVD.

Revisiting the film after several years, I still think it’s rock solid. (Aside from some downright silly editing decisions).

I did notice one thing that I’m baffled about that maybe someone with film industry experience or who’s ever worked for a movie theater may be able to help with.

And here’s my question in newly learned.

There’s this phenomena we’ve noticed lately – but don’t know if it’s just us, the medium or the theater.

Two theaters: small independent and big super-mega plex.

Premiss to discussion: Films “should” look better on the big screen than on your television.

We’ve “closely” noted two films now that we’ve watched at home on DVD and recently saw at the mega-plex.. The Matrix 2.0 and Alien….

For both of those – the film in the theater “seemed” muddy and dark. I paid close attention to this tonight while watching Alien on the big screen. As soon as I got home – I popped in Alien on DVD and skipped to the scenes that I paid careful attention to in at the mega-plex..

Unquestionably – the DVD image, on my standard (non-HDTV) has superior image quality, brightness and detail.

Same goes for Matrix 2.0, (shown on a different screen at the mega-plex than Alien)… I remembered leaving the theater thinking – “why did they print the damn film so fucking dark? – it gave me a headache to watch a lot of it”. I re-watched the film on DVD and the image was much brighter, crisper and had more detail.

NOW… That said.

When they re-released 2001: A Space Odyssey – it ran at the small independent theater.

The image fidelity was so breathtaking that I LITERALLY was brought to tears at the theater. I was seeing subtle color hues and details I’d never seen before. (When we returned home, I popped in the DVD to compare… Hands down – what we just saw on the big screen was much better).

I “think” it was the same for One Hour Photo which we also saw at the smaller movie house. I remember it being beautiful to look at – and didn’t notice any difference really when we bought it on DVD. *note – I wasn’t really paying attention to this phenomena at this point.

So… Any ideas on this one?

Does the mega-plex use crappier projectors? Do they need to replace their projector bulbs? Do they have cheeper screens? Did they simply get bad prints of the film?

I thought to ask someone at the mega-plex, but I couldn’t find an employee over the age of 30 so I didn’t bother.

This is a plea for an answer to a question – not a blog entry.

nice guy

lets do lunch

Nice guys finish last… Mean guys are devoured from the inside.

I could never deal with nasty people.

It’s probably this fact that has in one form or another always kept me working for myself:

In Jr.-High I ran a small “rental business” from the pilfered girly magazine stash I found in my father’s personal effects.

In high-school I ran a DJ company.

In college I wrote other people’s papers.

Today, I move pixels around on computer screens and charge a modest hourly fee.

My primary client has hired a new “P.R Team” – who I had to meet for the first time today.

I personally think Public Relations folks reside in the same ring of hell as attorneys, used car salesmen and petty larcens.

The two woman “team” was your stereotypical “well-off, connected society housewives who got bored and started their own PR firm” type. I can normally charm this type… but not the one. A brutish, smug, unattractive, pushing-50-something dripping in gaudy jewelry and a pant-suit.

As soon as I sat down at the table, she bristled…

Apparently my client had failed to mention that they already had a designer and therefore would not need them for their design needs.. Only PR and marketing.

The meeting continued as they outlined their spin-campaign and kept referencing the big brochure they were doing as well as a few other pieces. When my client would wimpishly attempt to mention my involvement with design – the brutish one would simply bulldoze the notion and cite that she had her own “design firm” who she works best with and would then continue on with her presentation.

My pissed barometer continued to climb through the meeting. When we got to my part of the meeting I started off by nicely noting that I’ve done the “regime change” thing before and think it’d be good to take a few moments to outline each vendor’s involvement and roles…. My nice-guy approach was interupted by the brutish one:

“I’m detecting some hostility here” – she attacked.

*Great tactic to disarm and devalidate one’s adversary..

Three years ago I would have avoided confrontation at all costs and most likely let this woman bully my client into allowing them onto turf which is indisputably mine. I’ve lost accounts through similar antics… but something happened… In just a few moments my mind perceived things as it has never done so before:

I wasn’t worried about my client’s design vision being possibly distorted by the involvement of another firm…. No… I saw this bully sitting there, confident in her forcefulness, preparing to take close to $4000 away from me. And then I thought of Kevin… And of Chad… And our house.. And keeping a roof over our heads and keeping food in our bellies….

I snapped.

I returned her intended disarming attack with a ferocity and coldness that still makes me wonder who in the fuck I am.

The bulldozer conceded, (vaguely apologetic), that she didn’t know of my involvement.

The rest of the meeting I was uncharacteristically outspoken, aggressive.

The bulldozer left with a schniss and a chipped shoulder.

I’m not looking forward to having to deal with these people.

It’s interesting to note that for the first time in my career – “higher design” ideals and principles were not the source of my piss off. It was way more base and primal than that.. It was as if we lived in a cave and I was faced with the instinctual reflex to kill the invading saber-tooth tiger who had come to eat my family.

I guess I’m coming to grips with the idea that sometimes you “have” to be an aggressive asshole – which saddens me.

I said I’m not blogging… Now go fuck yourself.

paprika, vampires and the death of film.

I want my money back

So… Some FAT FUCK sitting in Hollywood is sitting around with his other FAT FUCK friend:

“Hey Sal – Let’s make some money”… “Great idea Ira – what do we do?” – “Well… We’ve got this gothy little number the studio picked up for a song from some starving screen writer.”

“Oh yeah? What’s it about?”

“Well – it’s about an ancient war between werewolves and vampires,…. oooo scarry hu?”

“Sounds like it could have legs – but we need to hit the buttons that will sell.. What do we do…” Sal?

“Urr… Well – audiences tests suggest that the brain dead American Film goers really like a lot of slow motion wire work.. You know… That Matrix stuff..”

“GREAT! Run with that! But don’t get one of the wire work masters from Hong Kong… Too Expensive… My wife’s nephew pulled ropes for Peter Pan in his High School Play… That will work.. We’ll just over-crank the camera and it will be slow-mo.. Nobody will ever notice the difference”

“Oh yeah – and we need to put the protagonist in a leather clad outfit just like Carrie-Anne Moss.:

“GREAT! That’s perfect – I love that Tomb Raider chick.. She’s got some real feeders on her”

“But I thought Moss was in. . . ”

“Oh yeah – and we need some fake internal medical landscape shots like Fight Club that one guy did…. oh what’s that guy’s name… The faggot.. Fintcher somebody.. right? YEAH.. Let’s do that.”

“While you’re at it we should shoot everything with a full stop blue on the lens to give it that Fincher look…. yeah yeah… No.. We don’t need an experienced DP – just find someone’s will we can break. We’re not interested in his vision or talent. The test scores show that audiences think a muddy print and monochromatic light makes the audience think they’re watching an edgy film. Look at all that green in the Matrix?”

“You’re on a roll Ira! But how do we keep the overhead down?”

“Fuck it – let’s shoot it in Budapest. They don’t have unions over there, we can do location shoots only and hire a lot of inexperienced eastern-block production help. I heard they work for sandwiches.”

“I smell money Ira!!!” – “Get the PR / Marketing firm on the horn and let them know we’re going to need a good name and a snappy trailer and some cool posters” –

—-

I now have irrefutable proof that:
a: HOLLYWOOD IS EVIL.
and
b: HUNGARY SHOULD ONLY EXPORT PAPRIKA – NOT FILM.

I’d like to appologize to the following people for laying down eight bucks to sit through UNDERWORLD:
DAVID FINCHER
ANDY AND LARRY WACHOWSKI
STEPHEN NORINGTON
GUILLERMO DEL TORO
*and the many men and women who work their asses off in the film industry and still believe in their hearts that if they stick with it they can overcome the glutted, filthy, money-greased, homogenizing machine which is the mainstream American movie industry.

I’m too pissed to blog.