Elusid Dreaming

And then there’s this. This guy has two Launchpads...

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:16:00 -0400

And then there’s this. This guy has two Launchpads daisy-chained running Ableton Live. Brilliant.

#NSFLSD

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:14:02 -0400

#NSFLSD

Wow, this is rad. Now I really want a Launchpad.

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 02:05:00 -0400

Wow, this is rad. Now I really want a Launchpad.

Then there’s always this. (Taken with Instagram)

Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:06:49 -0400

Then there’s always this. (Taken with Instagram)

Browser Girls

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:46:11 -0400

Browser Girls

IKEA: Bright, Shiny Colours I love this. And I love the fact...

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:25:47 -0400

IKEA: Bright, Shiny Colours

I love this. And I love the fact that it goes animated in the middle. Brilliant.

Really clever commercial from Toyota.

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:32:10 -0400

Really clever commercial from Toyota.

Just this…

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:28:59 -0400

Just this…

Italian Festival + beautiful weather = Win! (Taken with...

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 19:32:29 -0400

Italian Festival + beautiful weather = Win! (Taken with Instagram)

MSG (Taken with Instagram)

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 22:39:21 -0400

MSG (Taken with Instagram)

Soul Paint™ = Brilliant idea & great ad

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 20:08:45 -0400

I really love what they’ve done here. Really smart ad – hits the target demo on the spot. I love her look of total in-love-ed-ness at the end, too.

Sailor Jerry/Misfits Commercial

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 17:24:00 -0400

I really like this commercial. I think this is perfectly executed in every way. This hits the target demographic (tattooed, late 20s/early 30s) and features a really awesome Misfits song. The way it’s all edited together gives a frantic, kinetic vibe, epitomized by the music. This makes me want to drink some Sailor Jerry…

Just found this random Dream Journal Entry in my Google Docs from Nov 30, 2009

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:41:00 -0400

Last night/this morning I had the most vivid, lucid dreams I’ve had in a long time.

Dream #1: Running down Madison Ave in NYC by the park. Trying to catch up w/ someone—a girl—my shoelace comes undone.

I drop down to tie it & lose sight of the girl. Now I’m in the park and it’s nearly sunset. It’s cold out & I need a coat.

I have no money to hail a cab & just as I realize I’m dreaming I wonder why I was chasing after someone in the first place.

I lie awake in bed. I want to get back to the dream b/c I like NYC & I want to know whom I was chasing. I decide to go back to sleep.

But I’m still in my room. Someone has left a giant Polaroid camera on a tripod. It is aimed at my window. I look at it & realize it is digital.

(I didn’t even know there were digital Polaroid cameras until I looked it up on Google later that morning). I realize I’m in Dream #2.

In my dream, I call my mom to tell her about my dreams and to let her know I’m still dreaming.

Somehow in telling her, I make up Dream #3. It occurs as I tell the story.

Now I’m in a grocery store parking lot. I walk into the store to do some shopping, but the shopping carts are all weird & require assembly.

I finally find a normal shopping cart.

Halfway through the blur of picking up items, I realize I don’t have my wallet, so I leave, abandoning my cart & its contents.

Frustrated, I walk back towards my car & I notice two cops, both on bikes. Something is happening. There is a brawl in the parking lot.

The brawl involves men, women, & children, which is strange. It appears to be a family w/ mentally disabled kids fighting a cadre of men dressed in 70s clothing.

The men in 70s clothing look like A-Team rejects & I wonder just what the hell is going on.

I notice the cops are riding their bikes away from the brawl, which is disconcerting to say the least.

I get back to my car & notice the brawl is moving my way. I get inside & see a sheepdog in my backseat.

The sheepdog is cool. I immediate like this animal & am happy he has joined me. I realize that I need to drive off now.

As the realization hits me, I wake up. I miss the sheepdog, so I decide to go back asleep to find him.

I’m back in midtown Manhattan floating above the tide of ppl. I enjoy this & I glide along. I am a buzzing bee. Then my alarm goes off.

I wake up & decide not to go back to sleep. And that’s all I have. Sorry if it was boring. Nothing amazing, just extremely vivid.

When the Lights Go Down in the City

Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:48:00 -0400

“New York remains what it has always been: a city of ebb and flow, a city of constant shifts of population and economics, a city of virtually no rest. It is harsh, dirty, and dangerous, it is whimsical and fanciful, it is beautiful and soaring - it is not one or another of these things but all of them, all at once, and to fail to accept this paradox is to deny the reality of city existence.” —Paul Goldberger

Like many a blog owner, I am a neglectful, absentee blogger, a rolling stone, wherever I lay my words are my blog’s home. However, I do manage to chirp in from time to time with a strange worldview, or a crazy story, or something I feel could possibly be significant. It all sort of depends on what’s going on in my life I suppose, & right now the goings on in my life say that I should write a blog post about my experience in moving to New York.

It came about from a desire I’ve had for a long time to live in New York & be a part of the fast-paced, kinetic energy that seems to encompass everything here. It’s a magical city full of order out of chaos and mayhem out of sheer volume. It’s also a city full of excellent opportunities for a person like me, so I set my mind to moving, leaving Hampton Roads, VA, and coming to this giant sprawl. I landed a job doing web design for an excellent company on the 55th floor of the Empire State Building. The view is amazing, and the pay is great, even despite the cost of living adjustment. I’m not saying this to brag—certainly if you have a job skill & you’ve become good at it, you can probably make a lot more money here as well—but rather I’m saying it to underscore the fact that the move is something not only mentally satisfying, but financially rewarding as well.

Bah! But never mind all that. The important facts about the job are that I did multiple interviews over the phone with the company, culminating in them flying me out for a face-to-face. That went exceedingly well & they made me the offer. It was stellar. Things started picking up quickly & I had to make a move, figure things out, & relocate my happy ass. This became the challenge.

Finding an apartment in New York requires you to be there. Things move fast in the city; apartments come & go, deals evaporate as quickly as they condense. Sometimes a sign in a window is all it takes, & then it’s gone before it even has time to make it to Craigslist. So I knew I had to get up there to figure out where I was going to live. This being the case I only packed a suitcase, grabbed my laptop, & headed to Princeton, NJ, to stay with my brother & his girlfriend in their one-bedroom apartment. That’s where I’ve spent this week.

In the meantime, I’ve managed to locate a room for rent in an apartment in Astoria (a part of Queens). The location is great for me, for now. It sits on top of a really cool diner (confession: I’ve always wanted to live over top of a diner or storefront; I don’t know why). Across the street there is a gym, a pharmacy, & a fresh market grocery store. It’s also within walking distance of lots of cool bars, stores, & other odds & ends. Walking around, I felt at ease. Also, my roommates seem like they’re gonna be really cool—one of them, a girl around my age, is an actress & singer & she frequently performs in local musicals. The other, a guy, is a bartender & male model. Upon finding this out, I immediately thought of Zoolander & had to resist the urge to blurt out: “Orange Mocha Frappuccino!!!” However, I did not do this as I’m eager to get out of my brother’s apartment as quickly as possible. Not that I’m uncomfortable there—they’ve done a lot to welcome me into their home—it’s just that… okay, I’m a little uncomfortable there, though through no fault of their own.

My brother is definitely a bit unusual—extremely intelligent & computer-savvy, he’s a bit of a self-educated computer genius. I like to brag about him. He’s also six years older than I am, so we’ve actually gotten to know each other a lot better as adults than we ever really did as kids, though clearly we share a lot of common memories. My brother’s girlfriend however adds a different dimension to my temporary living arrangements. This is a good thing, though also a bit surreal. She’s easily one of the most interesting, educated, and intelligent people I’ve ever met. She’s also an internationally renowned artist.

Erika has been an artist her whole life, but she really gained fame when she started creating a body of work that she’s become well-known for in many art circles. She does these pieces where she takes a particular medium—initially cassette tapes with the ribbons pulled out—and arranges them into different compositions, mostly of celebrities and pop stars. It’s hard to explain without seeing it, so I’m dropping in a pic to see (& you can check out more here). Google her if you want to learn more. Trust me, it’s fascinating. It’s also fascinating talking to her, and seeing these pieces in person for the first time. They take on a different quality when you can actually see the tape, reflecting light & casting slight shadows on the canvas.

Sleeping my on the floor of my brother’s apartment is a strange affair. He & his girlfriend are both minimalists. They don’t have much furniture, just the bare necessities. They have no TV, only a couple laptops & an iMac. They have a couch from Ikea that is white faux-leather, and my brother’s computer chair is also stark white. The carpet is white, the walls are white, the “meditation mat” I sleep on is white (& thin, though oddly comfortable), the sheets are white, and her art is all on white canvas & on the walls, staring down at me in its clever beauty. I feel like I’m sleeping in a museum. It isn’t uncomfortable necessarily, I just feel like I’m going to stain something at any moment somehow. I certainly would not attempt eating spaghetti sauce in this apartment.

Every day this week, my routine consists of this: First, I wake up at 6:00am -6:15am. I brush my teeth, drink a tall glass of water & get dressed. I’m out the door by 6:45am. It takes almost-exactly 30 minutes to walk from the apartment to the train station at Princeton Junction. I arrive & buy a $15 ticket for Penn Station. It usually boards & takes off at 7:30am. The ride takes an hour, roughly. That sounds annoying & stupid, but it’s actually not that bad at all. I can use the time to read, mess w/ my iPhone, or even pull out my laptop & write something (as I’m doing now on the return trip). However, at some point, early morning sleepiness gets the best of me & I snooze a bit.

When I get off the train, it’s a herd of people, and I’m just one node in this giant cluster, making my way up a couple stairways & out into the city, right by Madison Square Garden. There are guys outside handing out all sorts of periodicals, papers, flyers, etc. They shout to people & bank on the law of averages. Immediately there are tours, sight-seeing busses, & all manner of tourist traps. I’m greeted by the humungous rush of midtown Manhattan. The streets are filled w/ yellow taxis, limos, & cars with mildly annoyed drivers honking incessantly. There is a metric shit ton of tourists—kids all wearing the same team shirts, groups of Asian people snapping photos, old couples looking overwhelmed, young 20-somethings on vacay trying to act nonchalant as if they live there (but you can tell they don’t), business professionals in suits & ties, & more street vendors than you could imagine. You know, New York. Except, I’m not on vacation this time. This is actually my day-to-day life.

What compounds this peculiar set of circumstances is the fact that I work in a national monument: The Empire State Building. There are people all around the base of the building trying to sell tickets for a tour that takes you to the 86th floor observatory. They have takers. I have to make my way through this to get to my desk on the 55th floor. It’s surreal, but according to my coworkers, I’ll get used to it. I guess. But every day as I make my way inside, there’s a cool-ass doorman whose accent is the essence of New York. He says to me, with zero sense of detectable irony, “Welcome to tha Empiyah State Buildin’”. If I’m the only one he’s saying it to, I usually reply, “Thanks, man.” To which he says, “My pleasah, chief.” It seems dumb & quaint, but it’s actually pretty cool, & I have to admit I like it.

The building itself has an interesting history. It’s definitely worth checking out the Wikipedia entry on. Of particular interest to my morbid curiosity side are the stories of some of the suicides that have occurred in the building from people flinging themselves from the upper floors. Most jump from the observation deck on the 86^th floor, but one guy actually made it to the 102^nd floor, snuck past a guard & leapt to his death. He didn’t make it to the ground though, as the building tapers out quite a bit towards its base. No, this poor bastard actually jumped from 102 & hit the 86^th floor observation deck. Ouchie. Still, it did the trick he was after.

A much more interesting suicide was committed by a woman named Evelyn McHale. She left some sad note about probably not making a good wife for “him”, or anybody, & then swan-dived into the Manhattan ether. When she hit, she landed on a limo, completely crumpling it in. Fortunately the driver had stepped out to get a bite to eat & was unscathed. What’s interesting about this suicide though is the fact that she did not suffer much external damage from the impact, leaving her looking completely intact. She landed in such an amazing, poetic pose, that a photography student across the street, upon hearing a great crash, ran over to check it out, & snapped a picture of her. It has since been titled “The Most Beautiful Suicide” & is well known, having at one point been incorporated into a design by Andy Warhol.

Those are the salient, interesting features of my job. Well not really, but at least for this blog post… This weekend I have to drive back now to finish getting my belongings up to New York. It’s gonna be a pain in the ass, but worth it in the long run, & always an adventure.

UPDATE: Okay so I’ve been working on this blog post this entire week, writing it here & there on the train, at my brother’s, & more recently on the Chinatown bus coming back to Virginia. The Chinatown bus I took, btw, was awesome. The company is called Coach 88 & it leaves from 87 Cynthia & drives straight to Norfolk, VA for $35 a ticket. Top that. Oh, & they show a couple of movies on four TV screens while they take you. We got to watch a bootleg of a Tyler Perry movie & some awful crap called Mercenary with Danny Trejo. Top that! No, don’t, actually.

So yeah today I’m packing up the rest of my stuff & heading back out tomorrow, back to the city. It’s been a great experience & I will continue to post in the coming months… I’m really looking forward to getting into the local comedy scene in NYC. There will be adventure, weirdness, and of course, stories to tell. I could continue writing, adding, subtracting to this post, going over details, etc., but I need to post this, and I’ve got Shit To Do…

Zoosk.com Dart Commercial

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:33:00 -0400

I love this commercial. I think they really hit the mark with it comedically. It hits hard & has several punches—first the comment about the sponsorship, then the stretching, then the dart hitting the bystander, and finally the bystander’s reaction & pratfall. So that’s four laughs in 30 seconds. The big goal in comedy according to one school of thought is to hit six laughs per minute. So this is good.

But here’s something weird about it: this commercial is banned in Europe apparently because of the “dart hit”. I don’t know what the deal is with that. Is it simply because it’s violent? Perhaps it’s a touchy subject with pub-frequenting Europeans, hitting a little too close to home because they remember that time that Finlander, Sven, drunkenly hit Nigel in the eye with a stray dart. Whatever. Weird.

Flim-Flammery, Shock-Jockery, & Why You Just Need To Breakdown & Buy An Mp3 Player Already

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:52:00 -0400

So here lately I’ve seen a bunch of my local Twitter friends change their profile pic to a crossed-out 96X logo (local radio station, for anyone who might on the off-chance be reading this & not be from/in Hampton Roads, VA). This is in protest to two relevant facts I’ve discovered: 1.) the station has changed its music format & 2.) the station also cancelled the “Mike & Bob Show”, a shock-jock-ish radio talk show. My knee-jerk reaction is to call the Mike & Bob show sophomoric, homophobic, & vaguely insulting to one’s intelligence, but I’ll reserve my judgment since I haven’t listened to the show as thoroughly as some of my friends. I want to say first that this is my take, my opinion on the matter, limited though it may be, & I have some very good friends who are indeed extremely unhappy with the recent changes at 96X. To those ppl I want to say: I still love you guys, & I hope you still love me after this diatribe, but LIGHTEN UP. Seriously. I’m just firing off an opinion here.

Okay, first I’d like to examine 96X & FM Radio in general. Let’s face it. FM is a dinosaur. I’m sure there is money still to be made, and I’m the first to admit that I haven’t studied the numbers & some of this is simply my conjecture. However, I think it’s pretty clear that FM radio goes up against a lot more adversity than it used to: satellite radio, iPods, iPhones, other mp3 players & smart phones, music-on-demand via cable, Pandora, Last.FM, GrooveShark, Soundtrckr, etc. The list goes on. When I was a kid & 96X had just started, all we had was CDs/tapes or the radio. Different times. Oh yeah & we had to walk to school five miles in the snow, uphill, both ways. Derp.

FM Radio no longer tries to hit that cool niche that some stations once could afford to. It’s all streamlined to try to fit the broadest accepted format, and so what? Who cares? I don’t listen to FM Radio because it really, really sucks, in my humblest of opinions. It’s the same songs played over & over. There are commercial interruptions. Sometimes it’s static-y, and there’s always an annoying sound compression that makes the quiet parts of songs much too loud & destroys the dynamic I truly enjoy from certain music. It’s old, crappy technology, frequency modulation, & it could be used for something so much cooler. “WEEKENDS ROCK ON BLAHBLAHBLAH FM!” followed by Hoobastank’s “The Reason.” Are you kidding? Take me now, Lord. And so what there’s a “format change”? What did people expect? What’s popular with highschoolers is what gets played, b/c that’s the target demo. Those are the ppl who actually spend disposable income on music. The rest of us have bills to pay. Or BitTorrent. Don’t like it? Get an iPod… We have ON DEMAND now. This is the age of Hulu, Netflix, & their ilk. Plus Satellite radio.

And anyways, like the music format was so great before, yeah right. Saying 96X is your favorite radio station is like saying the Optima is your favorite Kia. It’s still some garbage & you know it.

Now on to Mike & Bob: as I’ve stated before, I didn’t really listen to the show. I have heard it a few times & I’m familiar with its format & general content, but I’m trying my best to reserve my judgment. Let me just state that it never made me want to listen to it actively. However, from talking to others, I’ve heard that the show had already peaked & they were kind of phoning it in anymore. I’ve also heard that moving them from the afternoon to the morning was the kiss of death. I don’t know, these are just people’s opinions. But the fact of the matter is: they work in FM Radio. What do you expect? It’s a business first & foremost, and a business’ only purpose is to increase owner’s equity. It’s Business 101. I’m not trying to sound like a cold & calculating, shrewd businessman, friend of the corporate fat-cat, but it’s the same deal w/ any company. McDonald’s, Macy’s, Starbucks, Murray/Bunim Productions, Ocean Mystique, Busch Gardens, The Birch Bar… are all the same way, no different. They’re out to make money & increase the company’s/owner’s bottom line. Of course, said companies want to be friendly & attractive to the largest number of people possible in order to effectively reach that end & build customer loyalty, but they will always do what’s best for the company. Unless they’re morons. Or swindlers.

Regardless, Mike & Bob are going to be fine. I’m sure they were handsomely compensated, and after 10 long years of doing what I’m pretty sure was a SWEET, GRAVY-BISCUIT job, they’ll be okay. I take a bit of exception to people saying stuff like, “We just want them to know that they were appreciated & their 10 years didn’t go to waste!” What the hell are people talking about when they say that? Oh that’s right, I forgot: they were producing brilliant work with insightful social commentary, interviews with academic & business luminaries, and such eloquent, thoughtful, and articulate dialogue. They greatly enhanced the lives of those in Hampton Roads with their always-thought-provoking shows!

No, this is stupid & I’m making a point. Look, it’s not like what they did is exactly easy. They’re adept at putting on an entertaining show, and I’m sure they’ve had some high ratings in the past. Clearly, people care, but let’s not lay it on too thick, eh? Personally, I’m far more entertained listening to the local PodCast “Your Music Show”, because that corporate gloss is thankfully absent, and there’s a cool, underdog, almost-Pirate Radio feel to it. I wish everyone involved with The Mike & Bob Show all the best, but to those who are apparently soul-crushed by the show’s cancellation, I say: get over it. As for attacking Bob Sinclair: are you sure you know what you’re talking about? How much experience do YOU have running multiple FM radio stations?

Here comes a dash of Pure Speculation on my part: the new Arbitron ratings ranked Mike & Bob poorly, and thus Sinclair Communications cannot make as much money on advertising. It’s a bottom line.

Ready for this? For all you conspiracy theorists out there: this is all one big elaborate marketing campaign designed to drive ratings through the roof.

Do I believe this? No. Well… maybe, but regardless I wouldn’t wager any money on it.

That said, I’m all for the spirit of protest, rebellion, and revolution. So to everyone dedicated to bringing Mike & Bob back: good luck. I don’t personally care one way or another what happens to the show, I’ve said my piece, but if it makes you happy, then I’m with you! #pantsoff

Fast Food: Real vs Ideal. Yeah, I love this. This makes me think...

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 19:45:17 -0400

Fast Food: Real vs Ideal. Yeah, I love this. This makes me think of the movie “Falling Down”. You know, the scene where Michael Douglas kirks out with an uzi in a fastfood place for not serving him breakfast three minutes after the cutoff time?

[William “D-FENS” Foster picks up the flat hamburger he just ordered, comparing it to the picture behind the counter]

Bill Foster: It’s plump, juicy, three inches thick. Look at this sorry, miserable, squashed thing. Can anybody tell me what’s wrong with this picture?

But hey, no one complains when they use good-looking models/actors in their commercials. You don’t hear ppl cry “false advertising” when it’s some pimply-faced teenager who makes their sandwich at Subway instead of the spunky, pretty pixie from the commercial. But eh.

Lick The Rainbow

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:18:44 -0400

Man I mean seriously. This had the potential to be really funny.

The problem is that the gag didn’t switch up at the last minute. That’s a great technique for making something funny: The Bait & Switch. Charlie Chaplin’s definition of the best gag is:

Banana skin on pavement
Man walking towards banana skin
Man about to step on banana skin
Man sees banana skin at last moment
Man steps around the banana skin with a self-satisfied smile
And falls down manhole.

This is classic, and while I certainly appreciate the avant garde & those willing to push the envelope, sometimes that’s not what’s called for in a good ad. Absurdism is risky. But the thing here is that the ad already had enough of the absurd element to it, what with the cat & then the appearance of the guy in the cat suit?

What would’ve been funnier would’ve been if the cat had gone ballistic at the end & attacked the guy or something. Then it could’ve said “Lick the Rainbow (But Beware Kitteh)”. Idk. Something. But not this weirdness.

Like A Good Neighbor

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 23:37:35 -0400

I was a big fan of State Farm’s new series of commercials featuring the “Magic Jingle”. That was until recently.

I just didn’t like the one with LeBron. Nothing against him personally, or even professionally, I just thought he was oddly cast in that. Felt stilted, cold. But then I saw the really awesome one with the black couple who go all “with a new boyfriend”/”with a new girlfriend” to much hilarity.

However, this one really got me:

I don’t know what it is about it that I love so much. And really if you think about it, this has all kinds of weird elements. I mean first of all, these kids look like some kind of underground rap duo. I think they’re signed to Rhymesayers, aren’t they? And what the hell are they doing eating their burgers amidst a herd of bison? Who does that, and from what West BFE town is this would-be-rap-phenomenon from? But I think it’s funny & has a zang of adventure to it, & just an overall good feel when they are rescued in the end. Res ipsa loquitur.

Sundrop

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 02:10:00 -0400

I really hate this commercial. It’s very obvious what Sundrop is attempting to do here, but I think it misses the mark in several important ways. The first thing that bothered me was the fact that the song itself was censored. The lyrics, “When the pimp’s in the crib, ma… ” were dropped & only “Drop it like it’s hot/ Drop it like it’s hot.” was retained. This is lame. Very noticeable & lame.

Further, the girl who is dancing is vaguely annoying, not that attractive, & generally lame. Her dance is semi-pseudo-provactive, but mostly goofy, which acts as the humor point in the video.

The highpoint, & the only funny thing to me, is when she’s background-dancing in the fishing scene. Admittedly, that’s a funny gag. I’ve always loved photo-bombing & it’s ilk.

But overall, there’s something strange about the video that somehow reminds me of a commercial I’ve always hated b/c of its overall ambiguity. It’s the old Ray-Ban sunglasses commercial. The thing that killed me about the commercial is the way the one & only line is delivered, because it’s delivered ambiguously, something between an inquisitive sentence & a declarative one. “Somebody forget his Ray-Ban sunglasses.” A statement, not a question. Not: “Somebody *forgot* … ” It’s strange & nobody seemed to notice. Same thing applies with this Sundrop commercial, but I think the background/photo-bombing aspect may somehow save it.