Blues Project

A few months ago, I got this great notion, to get the blues... I started finding old ass blues standards I liked and recording them. I got my close friend Michael Dunston involved, as he is the king of sultry guitaring and an audio engineer of great talent. Since then, the two of us have got about seven or eight songs at or near completion. In another few months, we will have a whole album worth of blues material. This post is pointless, as at this point, I am not yet ready to speak at lengths about the material on the album... I am excited however, and couldn't contain my enthusiasm much longer. In summation, look forward to having your sphincter blown out at the sonic gravity of our heavy hearted blues...

Painting...

This is a painting I did a few months ago... It was at the University of Tampa for the last few months, as it was in the UT Alumni art show, and then I didn't bother to go back and pick it up from the school for another month or two. But now it's home again, so perhaps I'll get around to finishing it. Originally I had intended there to be at least twice as many of the blue figures pulling on the yellow persons strings... Maybe I'll get around to adding some more...

Get What You Give

No Parking:

I fractured my clavicle a couple of days ago, and as such, have been eating a good bit of pain killers. A thought crossed my mind today and I found it to be so hilarious, in my drug induced euphoria, I spent about ten minutes making it in photoshop...

Drawing @ Work

Sometimes when I'm bored at my place of occupation, Rigatoni italian restaurant in south Tampa, Florida, I take some time to relax and draw in the host book. I took some pictures recently because I figured one or two of them would be worth posting.


Hari-kiri because of no restaurant reservations... Death before dishonor, ha ha ha...


"Chia" business man ?


I think I saw a drawing like this in my friend Cory's notebook. I liked it, so I imitated it...


The cook at work drew a green shirt on this guy whom I had intended to be topless. He also gave him a drum stick as well for some reason?


I always wished I had stalks...


Random...


Stalks and Pincers... a dream come true.


Pollo Retardo I


Pollo Retardo II


Furclops


And my personal favorite, "Sword and Sorcery Dog"...

Some old videos...

I recently stumbled across a couple of videos of me singing and playing guitar from about two years ago. They are particularly sentimental to me, as I had recorded them exclusively for the purpose of e-mailing them to my girl friend Julia, whom I was courting at the time. In an effort to force myself out of the crazy, self contained universe I've created in my head, I put these up here. I imagine i would have been terribly embarrassed in the past about how bad I suck as a singer/guitarist or how lame I am in general as a person. As it stands though, these videos are old, and I don't really give a fuck what any body else thinks anymore. Haha, on that note... enjoy:

Julia

I think this song is a bit high for my vocal range, hence my eyebrows furrowing up into a grotesque expression of stupidity through out the duration of this song. Hilarious and by far my favorite thing about this...

First day of my Life

On second thought, maybe I just do the Cro-Magnon brow when ever I sing & play? Who knows, it's not like I usually watch myself, haha...

Beat to the Punch Again...

I was in a store the other day and saw the coolest thing in the "one dollar" aisle:



Immediately I thought: "I should throw a party and provide everybody with free 'drugs' to enjoy"



The next time my guests had a bowel movement, it would hilariously resemble something more like this:



Unfortunatly, somebody else already had that Idea and it turned out something like this: Boston Ravers Hospitalized

New Animation & an Art Show

Above is something I've been working on for a few weeks here and there while I have been teaching my animation classes at that summer camp. It was made using that free, open source software called "Pencil", I talked about in a previous post, since that is what we were using at camp. Because of that, the quality suffers versus something I could do on Flash... One of my old UT professors contacted me today though and told me I should submit something to the UT Alumni Art show, so I slapped credits and music and on it and turned it in. It is not necessarily what I would consider "finished", but it's good enough for now I suppose. I also submitted a painting, but that too wasn't finished, and I hadn't taken a photograph of it yet. I'm kind of excited because it's my first show in 2010. Perhaps I'll post some photographs from the show on Saturday or something. Opening night is Friday at 7:00 @ the Scarfone-Hartley gallery on the UT campus. Come on over and enjoy the free wine while it lasts!

Metrocon 2010

I don't know why, for some reason the right side of the video gets cut off. You can just click on it though, to watch it play in youtube....

I recently attended Metrocon for the first time, Florida's largest anime convention. Held in Tampa Bay's convention center, it was a mecca for all things cartoon, video game, anime, Japanese, and just nerd in general. I must say I left the event feeling perfectly charmed, like I'd finally stumbled home. The thing about it that I found most touching was looking into the faces of the people there that were there cosplaying. For those unaware, cosplay is defined by Urban Dictionary as "Literally "Costume Play." Dressing up and pretending to be a fictional character (usually a sci-fi, comic book, or anime character)." Looking in to the [real] eyes of these awesome, super flamboyantly costumed people, I realized, underneath their costumes, they are just like you or I. Most of these people lead quiet, unassuming lives. It was as if, for one weekend, all the shy, quiet nerds of the earth could come together and be loud crazy freaks. It was great to see so many people with such an interesting culture come together and celebrate. This is a sentiment I can truly appreciate; When you are that fucking weird, it's great to know that there are other people like you out there, that you are not alone....

Oil Spill Documentary

This is a rough outline of some ideas that I sent out to some friends, maybe someone smart will step up with good ideas to sculpt this in to more than just a generic project...

Focus
-The facts about the oil spill, timeline
-Follow Oil Spill through Florida
-Effects of the oil spill on a local community [Tampa bay]
-Effects on local Business
-Who is Profiting?

“Characters” [for interviews]
-Business Owner
-Beachfront property owner
-Person being compensated for losses
-Recent retiree to Clearwater area, [ruined retirement dreams]
-A child
-Homeless [person from opposite caste than Beachfront owners]
-Artist on the artist walk at pier 60?
-Charter Boat Captain?

Interview Questions
-How has this affected you personally? [Past]
-How do you think it will affect you? [Future]
-What do you think will happen to the oil?
-How do you think the recovery will go? How long?

Staff
-Mike Dunston - Camera, Editing, Music, Excel Spreadsheet Stuff, webmaster
-Drake Arnold - Camera, Edit, Music, Graphics/Animation, webmaster... graphs, charts
-David Arnold - Executive Producer... Project Guru, Camera Man, Business Master
-Dave Arnold III - Head of Research, webmaster... Facts Checker, Research Master
-Cory Cook - Sound and Lighting... Technical Wizardry,

Oil Spill to do list
-Dedicated website, either unique domain url or blog / tumblr
-Find Investors?
-Book ritz resort motel
-Set up more interviews
-Develop contact list
-Get film release forms / Clip Board Materials

Documentary Chronological Shot Sequence [Rough Draft]
Opening credits - start with chaotic news casts to build up a sense of the magnitude of disaster?
Pre Intro - People saying poignant things, enigmatic [at this point] because the movie hasn't been set up yet
Intro - Tell about oil spill, go over timeline of events so that viewers know exactly what events occurred and what is being discussed. Created using royalty free footage of the disaster from news and media outlets.
Interviews 1 - First session of interviews, people’s earliest responses, etc.
Filler 1 – Talk about economic impact local/state… tourism, etc. Who is gaining from this tragedy?
Interviews 2 – Peoples continued responses to the oil spill
Filler 2 - Talk about other stuff, Ecological Impact, Environment, animals, Mental and physical health of residents
Interviews 3 – Final session of interviews
Filler 3 – What people are doing to help, looking to the future.
Documentary Statement – We make some sort of point about what ever it is we are trying to say, whatever we have been building up to.
Closing Statements – One last powerful “quote” from each interviewee’s, [maybe same “quote” from the preintro, but now that it’s in context it makes sense]
End Credits

Contacts
-Jane?
-Susan?
-Markus – Local Artist
-Kendra Kelly- Directed an Enviornmental Non-profit group about the gulf
*** *** 2804
kckelly2@*******
-Adam Freeman Local news reporter for channel 10
***-***-7046
adfreeman@******

To be filmed
- Interview Footage
- Consecutive shots from same vantage points of beaches?
- Same shot from balcony of Ritz resort room 30
- Pier 60, Nightly local Artists walk on the pier…

Michael Brainstorm Session
-Try to find people in the process of getting compensation from BP as opposed to the way BP makes it seem easy peasy. Stipulations, rules and regulations are strict and show people struggling to get funds for months.
-BP executive yacht playboy dude gets replaced by Mississippi homeboy guy that wants to appease his fellow down south redneck boys
-Animal rescue services… call them …show people at the source, not what is glossed over by the major media outlets. Bursts of animals moving in shore, away from contaminated water, etc…
-One set of initial questions, establish most interesting “characters”. Their story will be the most interesting… follow up with making their story as a “character” part of the over all story
- Follow increments, as they hear more news, what the environmental and economic impact will be. What the general consensus about the people will be. How things are affected.
-Health issues, physical and emotional. Anxiety from local people who are effected by the day to day news. Physical health, carcinogenic, food supplies contaminated… basic health issues associated with toxic sludge washing up on your shore
-Dead and dying endangered sea Turtles… Turtle eggs relocated to avoid species loss
- Someone that just moved, life dream to retire from NY, NJ to Clearwater… their ironic, sad retirement story…
-Charter Boat Captains-craigslist ad-

Kill yourselves now, why wait?...

Even the greatest religions of the past are now no more than mythology. There is no purpose, no reason, nothing to cling to in this abysmal existence... There is no karma... You never get back what you've put in... May our ever expanding sun gobble us up all the sooner...