Train of Something

I watched Mr. & Mrs. White's kids tonight, which was enjoyable considering I technically supervised them for all of two hours before they went to bed. I read a lot of On the Road -- I'm feeling all introspective and shit as a result. Weird. Uncomfortable.

I sort of feel like I've been on the wrong path -- not for terribly long or anything -- and the thought of effort involved in the return trip has me shuddering left and and right. It's hard to explain. Impossible probably. These thoughts are not wordy enough to make sense outside of my head.

There are these bazaar surreal phrases penned by Jack Kerouac that are really summing me up a lot lately. The way he describes the electricty of the night and this and that. I wish I could do that kind of thing with words. There are all sorts of things I'm reading that are things I've been trying to articulate for a long time. I'm glad somebody said it at least even if it's depressing to read it in someone elses book.

Controlled Variety

I like coffee and late-night conversations. I hate to-do lists.
I like roadtrips. I hate illness of any kind.
I like independent movies. I hate sleeping.
I like going out to eat. I hate eating.
I like advertisements. I hate reality television.
I like bookshelves. I hate clutter.
I like excessive plans. I hate the lack of follow through.
I like two in the morning. I hate seven at night.
I like the floor. I hate chairs.
I like experimental art. I hate bad experimental art.
I like culture. I hate cultured jerks.
I like bookbags. I hate empty walls.
I like communication. I hate cell phones.
I like cereal. I hate english muffins.
I like apartments. I hate window washers.
I like baseball. I hate hockey.
I like music. I hate bad sound systems at local concerts.
I like small wacky shops with bazaar window displays. I hate shrunken shirts.
I like freetime. I hate the Target they're building near my house.
I like camping. I hate forest fires.
I like controlled variety. I hate broken patterns.

I like broken patterns.

The Church of Blood

I just watched the Spike Lee documentary, Four Little Girls, and, I dunno, there was this one part -- a very quiet, subdued, unemphasized part -- in the middle somewhere, where a childhood friend of one of the girls remembered and spoke about a conversation he'd had with her afterschool the Friday before the bombing on Sunday. It was very simple and very human. That seems like the best way to put it. All they said was "see you Monday," and parted. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III, the childhood friend, described it, laughed, repeated it again solemnly, and looked down at his hands. Something about that is very striking to me. I'm not entirely sure why I was compelled to write about it either.

The documentary is about the bombing of a Birmingham Church, the 16th Street Baptist Church, which was a kind of center for the Birmingham Civil Rights movement, and the resulting death of four African-American girls. It bothers me that this sort of stuff repeats itself all the time. We have such a bloody history. Barely even time to wash the hands.

Be Ready For A Rundown

It's always bad policy to begin a journal entry without anything important to say, in my opinion anyway, but here I am doing just that.

Ahem.

Well, I suppose now is as good of a time as any to describe my mixed, extremely mixed, feelings about the routine (I italicize to bring attention to the fact that I do not in any way intend to use the word routine in a, you know, purely negative connotation) that July manifested and I fully suspect August will carry on. It's not a bad thing really. Far from, in fact. Boredom is my main enemy in life, I think, and I can't really remember the last time I was bored this summer. I hesitate to say it, but, perhaps, I've not been. So, strike that up as a tally on the benefits side and scratch it in hard because it's a very important one.

The only problem worth mentioning is that I'm not workng on the movie, Sandstorm, a tenth of the amount I should be. In fact, I should be in real crisis mode right now, using every spare moment to bring the thing together. But I'm not. And the really "scary" part is that it doesn't really bother me. I really, really enjoy the thirty minute section that is completed. I like it so much that I would never consider not finishing the film. The only important factor is when or how soon or how dramatically later than the original projected completion date I finish. So, we'll see.

I haven't made a list of things I need to do in -- I dunno, several days, which has been an excellent improvement sanity-wise. Although, there is the strong chance that I'm probably not doing a lot of things I should be. Again though, doesn't matter to me at the moment. It's much nicer, in the short run anyway, to just be content, selfish, and unproductive. This may be the last summer I have the ability to do that. I'm going to cash in now, just in case.

I have, contradictary to the previous paragraph, been extremely productive when it comes to taking care of things for school next year. I'm so excited for it that as soon as I get anything in the mail about it I pounce on it and expedite the completion of any forms or what have you that arrive. For example, as boring and tedious as it may have been, I turned around my medical immunization business in two days and that included going to the doctor's. I've almost completed the list of recommended films because I'm lame and value sleep an indescribably small amount. I'm not sure if it's the best policy to watch really artistic/foreign/classical films on two hours of sleep after a night of poker, spontaneous travellings, or other micellaneous social adventures, but that's how I've been managing and the only people that seem to be complaining are my parents when I'm short with them after be woken up at the "reasonable" time of nine in the morning. I think as soon as I knock off the last three or four films, I'm going to watch notihng but stupid comedies and action movies for the rest of the summer. I don't want watching tasteful films to become a chore afterall.

I love it when time is something that feels very limited and hate when it is more like something that needs to be filled up. It's difficult to complain when you don't have time to.

Outburst

I want to go to college!

Boo!

Tim 3 - Dave 0

Nostalgia is the name of the weekend. From playing Scrabble with Eric & Kevin to diving into a Power Rangers conversation today at Jason's graduation party to a trio of Starcraft games with Dave Same, I've been thinking a lot about the past lately. I used to spend a lot of time at home, I suppose. I was thinking about how much television I used to watch and how many video games I used to play and how in the last five years I've reduced my television intake to about an hour or so a week and until today I hadn't touched a video game. Back then, though, I would come home from school at three o'clock or whatever and watch hours and hours of television. Ironman, Spiderman, X-Men, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, King of the Hill, et cetera. I get all my ages and phases mixed up, however. I don't think I watched all those action comic book-type shows at the same time I was watching old school Nickeloden, but it runs together in my mind. I guess it's not very important.

I guess when you're this close to the end (of childhood, I mean -- I don't plan on croaking anytime in the near future) you start to cling to the things that used to domiante your time. It's good though. I wish I kept better records of how I spent my time when I was younger, but that can't be helped and this is medium fixes that problem remarkebly well.

I'm tired. I've lived in the same room since I was born. I'm going to go sleep in it.

35mm And Counting

I've been reading this book, On the Road (care of Melissa, as my brother was unwilling to loan it to me), and it's reignited my interest in the whole Beat Generation thing and, furthermore, released the full fury of my hitchhiking-or-lack-there-of related grief. I'm a huge supporter of the wanderer, the self-made hobo, or what have you -- the guy who travels back and forth across the country with like three dollars in his pocket. I want to be that guy, but I've got these goddamn career aspirations that keep on getting in the way. Plus, as previously noted, hitchhking is no longer a thing you can do, not in this country anyway, and not very succesfully. Maybe in Europe. I don't know. It seems like things are a little looser over there. Less sensationalism about rape and axe-murderers. I could be totally off, though. What do I know?

Anyway, to revert from my usual digressions, I really need to find someone who was in to the whole travelling lifestyle back in the early sixties, chat it up with them, hear their stories, et cetera. I get such a kick out of the whole artist living in New York City thing, poor as can be, but surrounded by adventures, laugther, and friends. That pretty much goes hand in hand with what I was talking about before, anyway. I mean, I really don't like Bob Dylan's music or even his poetry or whatever -- what draws me to him and others like him is entirely dominated by their lifestyle. Half the reason I'm going to NYU is to get a taste of that Greenwich Village vibe, and I hope that my early adult life is chock full of shitty apartments, late night diner conversations, weird performance art, music, and scraping together money for bills.

A lot of what inspires these "aspirations" in me are those great black and white photos that are always floating around of a guy just chilling with a weird grin next to a brick wall. Or the browned, color-faded polaroids of a group of friends in wool coats and mittens posing on a New York City street, with nowhere to be, but plenty to do. Or a guitarist who's just playing on a stoop, not begging for money or anything, just hanging out. A crowd clustered into a small apartment surrounded in smoke and self-made bliss. Maybe it's just me, but I get such a great feeling flipping through photobooks with those kind of pictures in them. Of course, they're not framed "right," the light is way off, blah blah blah, but they're great. I absolutely love them.

I am so good to go as far as college is concerned. Everyone once in a while I just feel so happy that I get to be an artist and a writer in New York City in the beginning of the century. I mean, come on, cool stuff always happens in the first decades of centuries, right? I have these hopes for an enormous artistic renaissance exploding in the next dozen or so years and I want to be right in the center of the whole thing. Not the center or anything. This is, in all seriousness, not an ego thing. I just want to be surrounded by it.

I'm pretty sure I'll probably be turned bitter by reality and the over commericialism of blah blah blah, but at this point my head is so full of visions and hopes that I'm sort of numb to that possibility.

And I think I must sound absolutely ridiculous. Freakin' punch me in the head if I ever make a count down.

Does Anyone Know How Many Triples David Ortiz Has Career-Wise?

This has been what one could characteristically deem "a good summer for baseball." The Boston trip was beyond pleasant (I have a feeling these brief weekend exodousi are going to become addiction-level before the end of these golden months) and the Red Sox game was the greatest sports experience of my life -- well, that's a bit strong, but it's up there on the Tim's Favorite Sport Experiences chart, which, I swear to God, does not actually exist in any physical (or mentally specific) way.

I'm so far behind in pictures that I'd like to post that I figure I'll just give up on the whole idea of posting them at all. I've got pictures dating back to the White Mountains and even the trip to Rogers Centre that I'd like to caption, but the backup is really just providing a mental block for me to post new picures, so...I've lost interest in that sentence. Moving on.

Back to the main point at hand, I am quite (excessively) pleased that Kevin and I have managed to arrange so many major league baseball outings for ourselves (2) in such a short amount of time and for such a (relatively) small amount of cash. Kevin expressed an interest in going back to Rogers Centre for another Toronto game and I'm certainly inclined to tag along. We're not even limited to the Tuesday games since the idea of Tuesday discounted tickets is an evil sham.

In other news, I've been watching a bit of Curb Your Enthusiasm lately, now that I've gotten past the first (horrible) episode that prevented me from watching any others. The only problem is that as a result I'm finding myself feeling extremely socially awkward as a result of exposing myself to too much Larry David. It's just like when I was watching all that West Wing and I felt like a brilliant, political professional for a while. Hopefully it will pass. I'm sure the next television show box set I dive into will color my personality in a new direction (that was the worst mixture of cliche phrases I've ever encountered).

I know it's usually my intention to at least make an attempt to avoid mentioning Sandstorm-related news, but I'm really (extremely, completely, 100%) nervous about its completion. First of all, the editing is extremely slow going -- even by what I thought was my conservative estimates -- and to add insult to injury, Ms. Starkweather forced me to return the cameras, so I'm not sure exactly how we're going to finish up those scenes we left hanging. Poor planning all around, I guess. I should've gone to Kevin's to edit today, but I had so much work stuff to take care of it wasn't really an option. I'll figure something out.

The following is merely a list of items I need to complete and is entirely, purely for my benefit and my benefit only. I strongly encourage the average reader (and by that I mean readers who aren't me) to cease their role as a reader and move on to other tasks instead of reading the following:

1. Seek out new camera possabilties.
2. Continue to edit (and finish extremely soon-like).
3. Record and dub the audio from everyone.
4. Collect the necessary sound effects to complete the sound track.
5. Film the remaining scenes.
6. Create the liner notes for the new Shade album.
7. Eagle Project.

State of the Summer

This is really cool. I've been home alone for a couple of days and it's ridiculously nice. I've spent most of the time in my room anyway, since it (with the implementation of my new computer) is completely perfect now, but I find the atmosphere of the empty house to be pleasant and quiet. I've just been imagining this whole time that I live alone and that this is not a temporary situation, but my permanent surroundings. Unfortunately I doubt very much that I'll live alone anytime soon, although the environment suits me. I'll have roommates in college and, since apartments are so expensive in New York City, I'll probably have to have roommates until later in my career when I can afford to live on my own (according to that ridiculous Economics project that I don't like to think about, it won't be until the ten-year stage that I'll have the income to support my own apartment).

I've been relaxing a lot the past few days, but I'm about ready to break out of that mode and go beserk and get some stuff done. I'm certainly going to pound out some hours in the editing room working on Sandstorm and I need to go into work-work a bunch this week before Kevin and I leave for Boston on Thursday. I'd also like to get a little more productive about everything, as I described at the beginning of the summer. However, as far as recesses go, I feel that I've spent the time relatively well. I feel that I may accomplish a small fraction of my goals before leaving for school and, in comparisson to other years, that is really quite noteworthy.

What is my general opinion on the way the summer is rolling along? Socially it's up to par, I'd say. However, that facet of the summer lifestyle may be taking it's toll on the other regions of importance. My job is going well -- I like the work experience I'm getting -- but I could be reading and writing more. At least I've already had on serious camping trip this summer. A few more and I'll be satisfied with the level of wilderness in my life. I haven't had a chance to take the new camera out for a serious spin yet. I'm still trying to figure out some things about it, but I feel that enough progress is being made to put that checkpoint to bed. Pretty much it's just the reading. There is a serious pile of books I want to get through and I doubt, at this rate anyway, that that's going to happen. We'll see. There's plenty of time left and I imagine that once everyone starts popping off to college I'll have some more time for it. I'm not studying art history at all, but that's okay because I'm taking a class on it next semester. I should practice the piano more. That's a major one. I'm running at least.

Ah, whatever. I spend too much time thinking about what I should be doing and not nearly enough actually doing anything. I should just go read now, but I'll probably pass out.

This Is What I Get For Watching Daytime Television

I was just watching some television -- The Cosby Show to be exact -- and a commerical came on for pills to deal with overactive bladders or something and they referred to the condition as a "real medical disorder." It reminded me of my old rants about how baffling it is to me that people are relieved to find out that their issues are "real medical disorder[s]." For example, I was reading a book about ADD a while back and it contained all sorts of anecdotes about people being intensely relieved to find out that all their organizational problems, troubles in school, et cetera, were the result of "real medical condition."

I don't understand how that brings someone relief. Well, I guess I can understand why putting the blame for organization failings on something else can be relieving. "It's not my fault. I can't help it," but, for me, I would be extremely distraught to find out that I had a condition that caused the problems, as if I had no ability to fix the symptoms myself. I'd much rather think that I was the cause of the problems, but that I could fix them myself, than to think a chemical imbalance or whatever is the cause and it would take medication or external treatment to bring about changes.

To me the idea of a "real medical disorder" is quite the opposite of relieving, but the way the commerical put it, the overactive bladder commerical if I must remind you, the embarrassment involved with such a condition should be reduced by the idea that it's a sanctioned, official, board certified medical problem. I don't see what the difference is.

A Tiger Can Smile

So, I know this is a trivial item when compared to a myriad of things that could or should be troubling me -- world hunger, the AIDS epidemic, et cetera -- but the I finally, after seventeen years, have my room set up the way I want it and it is bringing me a ridiculous amount of joy. We moved the couch that was in the computer room in there and I've -- oh, there is no point in describing it, but it makes me ever so happy. I just keep sitting in there thinking there is no way to improve on this. I mean, the leaving for college in a few weeks eliminates most of the pragmatism of the setup, but for now I'm quite content with the whole thing. My new computer is coming tomorrow so, hopefully, in twenty-four hours the last piece of the puzzle will be in place and I'll have found complete and utter satisfaction. I am such a materialist sometimes, are't I?

Today I watched Fedrico Fellini's 8 1/2 because I'm on an obscure, elitist foreign films kick as part of my attempt to watch all the movies recommended by the university. It was quite enjoyable (mostly because the dilemmas of the main character are extremely similar to my own as unlikely as that may sound) and I'm thinking about watching it again. There are a lot of people, you know the type of people, that believe this movie is the finest film ever made. They're the same sort of people, I assume, that get a real big kick out of films like Citizen Kane, for example. The American Film Institue ranks Citizen Kane as the number one movie of all time, but there list, in accordance with the name of the institute, only included American films. Most international lists, or so I'm told, put 8 1/2 firmly on the top. The movie if one of those deep, intellectual affairs where the conflict pertains directly (and only) to the the lack of emotional and philisophical satisfaction for the protagonist. There was a monologue or whatever that the main character delivers towards the end that I really dug:

"Could you leave everything behind and start from zero again? Pick one thing, and only one, and be absolutely devoted to it? Make it the reason for your existence, the thing that contains everything, that becomes everything, because your dedication to it makes it last forever? Could you?" The movie is autobiographical. Apparenlty Fellini (the director) was going through the same kind of things as the main character in the film (also a director). Fellini (and the main character, for that matter) was trying to make a genuine film that had something important to say, but his inability to command his own life makes it impossible for him to feel justified in trying to help others. And there are all sorts of pressures -- the press, producers, his crew and actors -- pushing him to articulate his ideas. Meanwhile he's having problems with his wife and his many mistresses and deciding if he wants to follow through on this film or not.

Anyway, he's talking to one of the actresses, trying to explain himself (and the funny thing is that the main character's movie is autobiographical too, so the actress thinks he's talking about the film, not his life) and she asks him if the main character of his film is capable of what he just asked her (in the quote above) -- this is the part I really like -- and he replies, still talking about himself:

"No, this guy here, he couldn't. He wants to grab everything, can't give up a single thing. He changes his mind everyday, because he's afraid he might take the wrong path. And he's slowly bleeding to death." I don't know, that was the roughest explanation ever. It's tricky to explain. Actually the structure is a lot like Adaptation in that it's a film about the writer of the film whose writing a film about writing a film...

Yea, instead of me babbling on trying to explain you should probably just see both films. Or at least 8 1/2. It's a little over two hours, black and white, in Italian, and heavily philisophical so don't expect Diehard. It's a good watch though.

Anyway, this has been a relatively relaxing week. Camping was mentally calming (although I'm still physically sore) and I've spent most of the days of this week reading, watching films, and taking care of a few odds and ends. I can feel that old Sandstorm-related anxiety resurfacing, but I'll take care of it. One way or another this film is going to be done and a thing of the past. There's "plenty" of time for it. I just need to work.

Watching white moon face
The stars never feel anger
Blah, blah blah, the end

A Long Line of Cars

I'm back from the mountains. Pictures will follow soon, although I already have an album devoted to it on Facebook. It was a pretty interesting/tiring adventure, but I think I'll go into more detail with the added visual element at a later date. Instead, I'd like to discuss the Fourth of July, or more specifically the appropriately-timed exodus of my good friend Tony Rampello.

Actually, to back track, yesterday's "goodbye" was the second I witnessed in the past few days. On the way to New Hampshire we dropped off Raffy in Boston to take a flight back to Brazil. I didn't know him that well, certainly not as well as Tony, but it was still pretty un-cool. And an airport is a icky place to say goodbye to someone with all the security and stuff. You see a person off and then they round some fenced corridors and you're standing right next to them again, albeit separted by a cloth partition. Pretty soon they're on the other side of the metal detectors, but the physical closeness does not go well with the first proclamations of departure, so you exclaim a second half-goodbye, a deeply insufficient final outburst, and watch as they vanish around a corner. Yea, an airport is an icky place to say goodbye.

I'm not really looking forward to August -- though, I am very much am looking forward to college -- because it seems like it will be dominated by going-away gatherings, partings, et cetera, and since I'm probably the last to leave for school I'm going to have to be party to every one of them. Last night Kevin said that he hoped he was the next one to leave, admitting that he didn't want to have to keep on seeing people off. I share the sentiment, but accept that I'm certainly not the next one to leave or even somewhere in the middle of the lineup. Thanks NYU for the late start date, I'm right smackdab at the end. I forgot how close Eric is leaving, which makes me really nervous about movie completion, but I'll just have to find a way to get it done. I think I'll edit like a machine the next few days, taking this last day as my final day off for a while, and just get through it.

Ah, well. I've really lost the desire to discuss any more of this for the time being. It's the first goodbye, not the last, so I'm sure there will be plenty more opportunities to bring it up. I'm proud of Tony, though, even if I never agreed with his decisions about the Army. It's his life, and I've always thought that determination and drive towards anyting is more valuable than weak movement towards a "superior" goal.

Nature, Partings, & Memories

I'm packed and intensely excited for my little incommunicado excursion into New Hampshire. I'm leaving my cell phone and all methods of communication behind to maximize the recovery potential of nature. Basically, I'm burned out from working and filming and this and that, so I fully intend to return from camping much happier, healthier, et cetera. Then I'll be back to see Tony off before he leaves for the Army and be able to reevalute the rest of the summer with a clear head. My uncle offered me yet another job. While the logical, pragmatic Tim says I need money for college, the self-concerned Tim insists that I need to occasionally see the sun.

The whole "goodbye" thing sort of hit me today, seeing Tony out the door after my party today. I mean, potentially, if we get stuck in New Hampshire or something and come back a day late, I may never see Tony again. He's out of touch for several weeks and I have no idea where I'll be when he gets his two weeks off before he ships out. It's very strange, the concept of a permanent goodbye. How often in my life have I been forced to go through that? It's a very foreign thing to me. It's so rare that you get the opportunity to say goodbye to someone you'll most likely never see again. When people die there are always regrets assosciated with not being able to see them off, but even when someone is leaving for controllable, human reasons it's hard to avoid a strange feeling of failure. At least for me. I'm always seeking the perfect way to communicate things, but when it comes to "goodbye" I always feel like I missed the mark. No goodbye is perfect.

Regardless, I'm pushing forward. I'm not letting anything ruin the hiking and the wilderness. Besides the liklihood of coming back a whole day late is extremely tiny. Anyway, since this entry is lightly Tony themed it only seems appropriate that I post the pictures from the Eric and Tim excursion that featured him. I've been neglecting to post these pictures for a while, but I've got some freetime for once (as I wait for departure time) so, as they say, no time like the present.

Ahem, I give you: Eric and Tim Do Irondequoit, Part II(ish)

We were driving around, Eric, Tony, and I, thinking about what other sort of places stuck out in our childhoods in Irondequoit as landmarks and we decided to head down to the Seabreeze area with the water and all that.


Tony suggested that we snag some ice cream and, of course...


...being in the Seabreeze area and all, we went to Don's Original.


Eric suggested that I indulge in this chocholate and almond deal, insisting that it was an important memory from his childhood and I should quickly incoperate it into mine.


A financial transaction occured. That subtle unwillingess to let go of a hard earned greenback always intriques me when caught on camera. I believe Eric needed to borrow some money from Tony or something.


Eric managed his ice cream and a serving of onion rings like a professional, while I (off camera) struggled helplessly to avoid ice cream drips even without the additional challenge of a second food item.


What kind of ice cream outing would it be without a picture of Tony chowing down?


At this point, Tony wanted something else to eat so he crossed over to Vic & Irvs. Eric and I had a strange discussion about what happened to "Bob" from Don & Bob's (now Don's Original) and wondered if either Vic or Irv were likely to suffer a similar fate.


Tony made his purchase and I realized that this, perhaps, was not the most interesting of adventures, but continued to snap off photographs anyway.


This is a picture from the intermediate excursion in between Part I and Part II that I struck from the record. I like it, so deal with it.

A-Rod

A-Rod can't sleep without a nightlight.
A-Rod will pout all day if you don't acknowledge him at a party.
A-Rod still has a security blanket.
A-Rod does not have permission to use scissors or cross the street unsupervised.
A-Rod becomes a cranky little guy if he doesn't get in an afternoon nap.
A-Rod sometimes has to be reminded of his potty training.
A-Rod wants to be a firefighter when he grows up.