i was working in a blind womans appartmet today and every time im in her place i seem to wonder what it would be like to be someone who is born into a world and taught rules and a way to live based on the way other people live. shes not born into a place where it is common to not have sight. everything she does is based, not on the fact that she doesnt have sight, but on the fact that to have sight is a state of being and a majority of people have that ability and she does not. people are so used to calling things normal just because that is what they have observed to be the majority, but that doesnt make it an absolute. as though having sight is normal, or being born with the ability to hear is normal, or any other state that people assume to be normal because they probably have those abilities and so did their neighbor.

in any case, i was thinking about something that einstien said about the moon. he once asked someone if they really thought the moon existed only when they looked at it. this was probably a rehtorical question which came from his contemplating the peculiar nature of electrons which act as waves until they are viewed, then they act as particles. theres an experiment called the double-slit experiment where scientists shoot electrons at a sheet to try and understand if it acts like a wave or a particle. where it should act like a particle, it acts like a wave. so they decided to actually put a measuring divice at the object being shot threw. they found out that by simply trying to measure or by observing they changed the outcome of the electrons. it went back to acting differently. this might not make any sense. i mean it sort of doesnt anyway. i explained it poorly but thats alright, no one reads this so im confusing no one. but in any case, einstien asked if he thought the moon existed only when he looked at it, cause by simply viewing or observing particles, there is an effect that changes other particles, even if only on the quantum level. and i thought, well what makes anyone think the moon exists even when you do look at it? if it were in laymans terms, which state would be the normal one? just a thought i spose

thanksgiving

i was thinking about thankgiving and what people are celebrating when they celebrate thanksgiving. and how its suppose to be about the settlers and the natives kind of living together and whatnot. and it got me thinking about teaching a kid about thanksgiving, or any holiday really. its interesting to me to think that the world we live in is filled with rituals that we are just born into and we have no idea why we do them, but we do and they become a habit. then, years later, we learn about why it is we do these things. its easier to use something like a holiday as an example in this case. i was wondering what it would be like if we lived the other way around though, and i wondered what exactly that would be. and i think it would be, i suppose, making up rituals for one self and then executing them to the rules set forth. like i said, its sort of easy to use holidays as an example, but my initial holiday example can be related to all aspects of life. common social conventions and everyday life, from designating a room as a bathroom to saying hello and shaking hands when greeting someone. what if there were a world in which one lived, where they created everything for themselves instead of being born into it? i dont believe this has ever existed, truely. even before there were social conventions of being polite and intimate relationships, people were born into a hostile world where they were subject to the rules of life and death, and all the possabilities that could designate one being safe or in danger.i dont know why i thought this. i suppose i am interested in what this world would be like. this wont make sense to people. not that it matters because im the only one who reads it. but it sounds like what im saying is just stupid. of course there have to be rules that we cant even control before we ever enter any realm. small examples like say going to a dance. you are expected to arrive in certain atire, and while you are there it is expected that the atmosphere will be somewhat darker than the previous setting occupied, there will be music playing, and it is typical that one will dance at the event. this seems simple, but they are rules we inherently fall under. a much broader example is the way someone lives their life, and every single consiquence that is a result of the decisions we make, however i am only talking about man made rules, such as laws and colloquial protocol. on an even broader scale, there are the rules that are governed by science or perhaps i should say physics, both of which can be related to almost anything and everything. the rules we follow are only this way because of the planet we live on, and the existence of the planet is only because of the sun and the atmosphere, the space, and the other planets around it. and then there are rules that govern the way our solar system exists and then i suppose it goes on forever. maybe the idea that there was ever a world in which someone was born with no rules but the ones they created could be related to the notion of a god. it might be foolish to believe that in this world the person being born into the world is a person or that they were born at all, at least in the way we think. they may be relatable though. perhaps we are the rules and social convention of a person who was born into a world with no rules. just a thought. happy thanksgiving!

those days when all the fleeting whims, which started out as such and continued to burn much longer than just the simple strike of the match they should have been. those days when the actions you should have taken overshadow the mundane safe decisions youve made, the decisions youve robotically made, the ones that were made for you by mother culture, by mainstream, the decisions that werent decisions at all but in reality the lack of a decision and the acceptance of a path that has already been determined. those days when you dont wish to be still any longer, after you realize that even though youve spent dollars on gas and youve travelled 50, 60, 70 miles, you have simply been still all along, for far too long. those days when you question the exact reasons you are just where you are, the reasons you are not doing what you want, the reasons you let your refrigerator control where you go, the reasons your cell phone determines whether you can do this or not, the reasons you let your computer tell you where to live. those days when you realize youve listened to mainstream and, although you played dumb while pretending to believe what mother culture said, youve been the one fooled into just what she wanted, although you arent the true mindless believer, she turned you into a tool and a hypocrit. those days when the little music you make, when the few paintings you produce, when the chicken skratch youve sparcely kept skattered about, when the collections of photographs, the sketchbooks turned notebooks used as a constant reminder of new endeavors to pursue, when the mountain of songs used to bring you around the world is no longer enough. those days when you look at everything you own and no longer try to find a proper place for it to go, but realize that you are hold up in a room, in a building, and in a world filled with trash, with items used to keep humans and the mainstream obsessed with themselves, with their own progressive past that progresses to what really?, items used to keep the mainstream focussed on the desire to make money for the sake of making it, for the sake of occumulating the garbage they make, so that one can buy a piece of trash to help support another who must use that money to buy their own piece of trash so that they can feel the power of ownership, of calling something theirs because in reality they are all afraid of death and coming into the world with nothing and afraid of the unavoidable inevitability of leaving this world with nothing. those days when the inescapable notion of death does NOT scare you but the idea of death coming before you truly attempted to learn as much as you could about the world which you live for only a short time in does, and before youve broken from mainstream and showed the others what its like to be free, those who go to war and fight for freedom just to return to watch on a television what the freedom they protected means, those who would fire a gun in the face of freedom should they ever really come face to face with it because they all are just afraid of what they dont know and dont understand. those days when the plans youve made for the future, for your future, for a house, a garage, two cars, for a career, plenty of money, for a stable relationship and marriage, for a stable family and a stable life, when the safe plan for your life seems as though it has fallen from the face of the earth, with the only hope of a future existing in the whims which woke you in the first place, woke you from the false sleep and false dream impossed and willingly accepted. those days when you are sick of theoretical life kept traped in your head and wish to just bring it to the tangible world already, to live as you think and not as others think, to experince what you have in your head, but finally to pursue the mental in the physical world, to make yourself an honest person and to do what you will of yourself. those days when those hills which boarder the limits of your tangible mind, which frame the picture of your current safe life, when the horizon and the mountains in the distance seem to be calling to you for the last time, in their last effort to save you from the mountain of garbage you allow to keep you flustered and busy organizing, to save you from the money that does not exist but which is owed to the world. those days when you realize that the ties youve kept to all those who youve found to be beautiful, to those whove shared or learned about even a sliver of yourself and became interested, when the connections youve made to the ones youve shared something with are not as strong as you thought, but you still hold on because, although they hold you back from pursuing certain dreams, you also keep them there because you actually want to take them all with you, to show them what you think might be beautiful, to learn alongside them and share the beauty of the world with them. those days when the cold and the heat dont bother you not because it is a thing of beauty but because it has truly fallen into the realm of unchangables, because it keeps you in your thought and because the alternative would be the safe bet, because it is actually more work to remain so and because altering the self to feel as though you have power to alter the conditions of the environment is a lie and brings no new knowledge. those days when you simply wish to disconnect yourself from mother culture, but know that it can not be ignored, that mainstream has turned into a nuturer, one that helps support you so that you may ultimately support it. those days when you come to realize that as little as you are, as insignifigant as you may be and as minimal of an impact youve made on the world, what you feel is reaching to you from individuals years in the past and years to come, what you feel is branching out to you through out the FALSE invention of time, and that what is going through you and what you are going through is happening because you have become a vessel for the opposition, and you sit as a time bomb. those days when your silence is too loud, when the clouds are too beautiful, when the wind is too inviting and the weather too perfect, those days when the suitcase is empty or the suitcase is full, when the page is empty or the page is full, when youve nothing to say or youve said it all, when youre pulled by the song of mainstream as well as from natures call, those days when the paint just appears on the canvas as gold, those days when the extreme heat doesnt bother you, and neither does the cold, those days when you yearn for a friend wholl understand what you feel, those days when youd rather live existance alone because only the conclusions youve come to have ever been real, those days when you shake your head in disbelief of the beauty of everything in sight, those days when you finally have something to say but its grown too dark to write, those days when youre searching for an answer that you will never find, when the notes on your guitar will reach all of mankind, when youve mountains to write and it all means nothing to anyone but you, but it doesnt matter because youre finally saying something to yourself that you really believe to be true, those days that stretch longer than 24 hours, that come to a jubilant early morning end even though it started off sour, when you wake up and the pillow still smells like her hair and youd grab her hand and ask her to join if you thought she cared, those days when the mountains miles away whisper to you over oceans of time and the land promises a life of fulfillment where you can reach the sublime, when you rock back and forth, palms pressed to your head trying to forget the words that she said, when the moon shines so bright you could stay out till sun rise, when the warmth washes over your skin and the wind brings tears to your eyes. those days can be hard and leave you clutching your brow, asking yourself what happened and how. those days with those whims wont live forever but they will never die. theyll come back no matter your attempt to forget and no matter how hard you try. those days will be silent, those days will be loud. theyll bring you to shame and theyll make you feel proud. those days will come on at night and move you from sleep, theyll destroy all youve worked for and everything you reap. those days will come and leave you breathless with nothing to say. dont ever forget those days. those days are today.

you looked too comfortable by yourself. anyone would have wished they could join you, but would my company have ruined the comfort? or the appearance of comfort? maybe youre just right the way you are. you are as you are. you left a memory there in any case

what is happening? things have just sucked lately. i dont really know what it is, well thats not true i kinda do know, but whatever, stuff sucks lately.

anyway, ive been outside all the time lately, installing windows and it gets cold out there. i enjoy the winter though. sometimes when im out there i wonder how people could want it warmer, which is wierd cause its been about 2o degrees or so. i guess im just getting used to it. also my hand looks neat typing this now. the only light in the room is from the puter and its just dramatic lighting for my hand to type by.

speaking of hands, i saw a cool pair of hands today. i took a lead safety course and now im certified. well there was a guy there who was also taking the course and he was awesome looking. he had a beard that sorta hung from his face, his hair was kinda parted in the middle and later i noticed that although he seemed to have a lot of hair, it was kind of thining. his hair was slightly long, not to his sholders, but curled up under his ears and he was pretty thin and short. he had a very friendly face and his voice was incredibley calm and innocently coloquial. he had big eyes, a rather large nose, and long eye lashes, and i realized sometime in the day, i had just been thinking about this guy doing stuff, as if i was imagining him in a movie or something. i wanted him to be an actor or something. i just thought he had great potential for a character, or maybe he just seemed like he would be a great guy to be friends with. i dont know what it was but i started to relate him to a work of art and different definitions of art that ive heard before. he reminded me of something i had heard about why art is art and what makes art art.

apparently art is supposed to invoke a feeling, something that moves you. It supposed to be something that cant quite be explained but something you just feel, i suppose. i dont really know about this. i like to be able to explain things in words often, even if i dont often explain myself, so im not so sure about this definition of art. but seeing this guy almost made me laugh inside, cause he reminded me of that definition. and it made me think of another thing that i remember thinking about art. about how i feel that art, even if it isnt intentional, tends to be produced so that people can simply come together, and thats about it. there art the categories that art often falls under of course, politics, art about art, the zeitgeist of the time. most of the time, an artist is interested in how the public will view what it is they have to say through art, and it brings people together to discuss it, even if they are just brought together to disgree, they are at least coming together. there are always the artists who just produce work for themselves, because they feel like they have to make something regardless if anyone will see it. i admit i do this often, most of my music is this way. but for some reason this man made me think of that.

anyway, he reminded me of a work of art, however i heard that it is not very permissable to refer to non art objects as art, because it takes away from the meaning of the object and even more to the word. its like this friend i had who used to call everything beautiful. that wasnt the only word he would use to describe something but he did use it almost everytime he was talking about something. it agrivated me because i felt that if he really thought something was beautiful, he might try for a more eloquent and unique description of the object, because he had started to lessen the importance of the word beautiful. if everything fell under that word to him, then to be beautiful wasnt so special anymore.

so maybe this guy was just neat looking. whatever it was, i think i am the weirdest person you know. and by you i mean me cause im the only one who reads what i write. soooooo, im the wierdest person i know, becuase i thought about this guy all day, drew his hands and his profile, and at the end of the day told him that i painted and drew and asked if i could take his picture on my phone. so i took a picture of a man named shannon today. his name was shannon.

other than that im trying to be up beat about stuff and have fun, but its just not coming all that easy to me. and ive been writing songs and stupid stuff like a maniac. i sorta miss hanging out with people and friends. i went to caz the past couple of weekends and had a lot of fun but sorta blew that. o well, ill keep making songs about the same stuff and watching...the oc...online. yep, thats what im doin.

art art do art

cant even write anything. dammit

what the hell is wrong with me. trying to take a sigh of relief but relief never comes

writing

welp im at it again i spose. holy mac afore i talk about writing, i went to caz!

visited caz again this past weekend. alberts, the local and just about only bar in town is closing and there was a little getogether for it. it ended up being a lot littler than expected.
well kyle decided to go to caz on friday and i was thinking about going, but i didnt want to invit myself to stay anywhere, so i was kind of unsure about going. but saturday morning kyle called and said he was coming to pick me up. i couldnt argue.

i walked around a bunch with kyle when we got there and it was nice walking around with my freshman room mate, just talking about the same stuff kyle usually talks about. we walked passed our freshman room window, went to visit his cousin who is an ra (he wasnt there, we talked with his girlfriend for a bit) and recalled all of the places we've been on campus that most people havent and the goonies adventures we'd taken. o yeah, then i went and got some clay from south campus. and im not aprehensive at all about putting that down cause no one reads this, so it wont get back to anyone. i think im just saying that so i can write whatever i want without interference of a possible reader. someone reading my blog, ha! its a joke i tell.

well then he took the clay and went back to the apts where we were staying and i went to go visit some people. i played guitar for a bit with some friends or maybe for a friend rather. it was nice cause i havent been playing at all and i was feeling kinda crummy about it. well anyway i went back to the apts and saw a bunch of people i missed. it was nice being there. somehow they do a very good job of making us feel welcome there. kyle and i went to the alberts event and there were only a handful of people who showed up for it. we left after awhile and went back to the apts and danced around a bunch. the whole night ended up being pretty fun. we all went back to the bar for karaoke and i saw some people who came back to say so long to alberts. shoot im not sure if i really feel like writing about the night in detail but there were some things that stood out that just made me melt. i think its nothing really, but whatever, it felt great.

darn. anyway, i ended up sleeping on a couch even though i think there mighta been an air mattress for me. in the morning we went to brunch and it was the first time ive been in the cafe for a while. i had the same thing i always had when i used to get breakfast, yogurt and cottage cheese and pineapple. yep its weird but whatever. we hung out some more aaaaaaand then left. there were a bunch of little things of course that happened that i could probably write novels about, but thats cause im dumb.

anyhootnany, ive been writing kind of a lot lately. the other night at dinner i had a sudden thought in my head about a song and wrote it in my phone. i tried figuring out something on the guitar and couldnt quit get it. i kind of found something that was working and then something neat happened which happens sometimes and its awesome when it does. i have these little chord progressions that i play that are really short but pretty catchy and i like them. well sometimes when im making a song they just seem to fit in with what im playing and this time i think i hit the jackpot in a way.

i have this little diddy i play that sounds very neat. but playing it with the other little diddy i just made up it sounds so much better. i dont know what it is but its great. and i started writing lyrics. they are a bit melodramatic but thats how i write sometimes. its not as if everything is 100% accurate, but it makes for a good song sometimes.

im reaching over oceans but i dont know how to swim
the light that shines on what was us is starting now to dim
now my only inspirations are the things i never said
im left in pangs of hunger from the things u never fed

what a sound what a sound
its in my mind now
what a sound what a sound
all in due time

in silence there u crept to me wishing on a well
i dont recall what i wished for then but now id go through hell
i see u watching from the stands is it me your hear to see
im treading in my murkey thoughts howd the water get so deep

i see my father yell at me
what did i do now
i was born just like he
and its the same sound

i see your name in flashing lights its the fuel that keeps me warm
your the shelter from my rumbling thoughts the calming of the storm
through the streets and off to class fading memories soon to pass
whislting at your window but the sound it just wont last

a conscience that he cant outrun
where did my time go
what happened to the games and fun
the sound goes down now

ill sing her dreams of concrete love, cherry blossom skies
ill tell her what comes over me when she looks into me eyes
just speak a single word to me its all i long to hear
the sound of your voice so sweet is the only thing thats clear

a pit of passion in the room
beneath the sky light
an artist rendering of you
lost in hindsight

what a sound what a sound
in my mind now
what a sound what a sound

i think ive been going a little crazy lately. been acting sort of dramatic. well not really acting it, but it would seem so by the stuff ive been writing. and more little things. anyway, i think that song is called what a sound. i was working on another song that im thinking of calling never greener. after writing most of it, it reminded me of another bag of bones. not as good obviously, well probably not good at all actually.

relentless tune plays in my head
exposing my angst as i sleep in bed
a figgure of gold stands alone in a field
while the onlookng protegy cant make if its real
on the pillars of earth he stands in wonder
while the world looks to him to remove them from plunder

k well i was gunna copy and paste a website on here just as a reminder for myself, but i cant copy and paste anything on this computer?

mm mhm mhm

so i think i realized why i like to work alone and dislike when the boss shows up.

its probably pretty common for most guys on the job to dislike the boss showing up, kind of a cliche thing i think. ive been working for this guy fixing up an apt. hes a nice guy and seems pretty patient as far as most of my bosses go, hes pretty good about showing me how to do something that ive never done before and ya its a good situation. so my disliking his presence on the job has nothing to do with his personality. i think i realized that it comes from being at home and hearing my dad pull up in the drive way and when he came home, that sorta thing.

i didnt get along very well with my dad growing up, we've always had a really strained and awkward relationship, car rides are typically silent still but thats just the way it is i guess. well when he came home i think i probably just went to my room to draw. i think i spent a lot of time by myself when i was a kid and i guess i got used to doing things with no boss around. now, when im on the job, i work really well when no one else is there, or maybe just one other person, or actually, i think the room could be full of people and id still do fine. theres just something about the boss being there that messes with me. maybe its because i dont recall being encouraged by my dad very much.

like i said i used to spend a lot of time alone and drawing. well when he was younger he did a lot of sports and drove dirt bikes around and was into hunting. i wasnt as interested in hunting when i was younger, and aside from that, my dad really never tried getting me to do anything, he also didnt really think much about my drawing. the only memories i have of any comments from my dad about my art work: when i was younger and showed him a picture he asked why i didnt draw a mountain man or something like that, this happened a couple times, and when i got a little older he asked me why i would draw women wearing no clothes. maybe i mistook my dad, as i said we didnt really talk that much, but his questions seemed less like a curiousity and more like a critisism.

so i suppose at some point i didnt want to draw in front of my dad because i was worried he would ask what i was drawing and i wouldnt have the right answer. well i think the same thing goes for working on the job. i dont think im going to dissapoint the boss, ive been told im not a bad worker, but i suppose i just get this feeling that im doing something wrong. and i guess thats one of the things i can add to the list of things my dad gave me, a constant feeling of being wrong and always on the fringe of dissapointing someone. so thats neat i guess.

but as long as im talking about work i might as well say i work with this other guy, frank, and hes awesome. i was thinking about it the other day and i think that he might be the perfect person for me to work around. he likes to talk, but not too much, he doesnt have to talk to fill the silence, and when he does talk, its not with the intention of getting a response from me, which is good. i really hate working with someone who likes talking but stops doing what they're doing and stops you so they can tell you something. i really hate that. i like being busy at work and i dont like standing around with nothing to do. i would much rather have something to do at every point in the day than taking breaks constantly. and thats whats good about frank too, hes got a good work ethic. a hard working person is actually a turn on for me, something about that is just really really attractive to me. not in franks case however, hes just a pleasure to work around. i really like working with people who have a good work ethic, someone who cares about getting the job done. hes very nice too, and thats great to work with people who are polite and always nice. it makes work a lot better. i was thinking about how i dont really want to do construction stuff anymore cause im just kind of tired of it. but now that i think about it, this job could be a lot worse. i hope i have this kind of impact on people, making their lives a little better. hmm.

today at work i remembered that i could play music on my phone. i got pumped cause i was wondering if the day would go by quicker if i listened to music i like. there were a couple songs that made me think of people and made me nostalgic and o yeah, i had a really interesting thought that was just, i dont know, kinda crazy.

i always have a lot of meaning placed on songs and sets of songs. they usually remind me of someone and a time of year. while listening to some songs and painting a baseboard at work today, i was curious if i just place my effection for people based only on the way things were at a certain place and the convenience of the circumstance. that might be a bit of a mouthful.

i often feel nostlgic when listening to certain songs because it reminds me of a time and a place and people. usually i miss people and start missing them a lot when i listen to this music. this made me wonder if my effection for people isnt based on how i feel about them, but the fact that i want to feel that. like maybe someone who loves being in love, and isnt really inlove. i wondered if i just like remembering the times and the fact that i had these times, and im always stuck on stuff that happened in the past. i dont know i just became cusious if i really have a real effection for anyone, like if maybe i got married to someone and somewhere down the line i hear a song and suddenly feel the same feelings that are as strong as they always are, about someone else. but maybe real people are actually like that. felicity said on her twitter that she wondered if people really love other people the way they do in the movies. i suppose i wonder if my feelings for people mean anything or not.

learned how to play two by the antlers on the piano...kinda. it would sound GREAT if i had more than just a piano though, like a guitar and drums. made me remember when i went and saw them with ben and brian and felicity. dang.

dream i had

Buried my face in your hair, lost in your soft mane, it carried me on a warm breeze beneath a cherry tree, where the deep red blossoms that filled the sweet air danced across my lips as we lay on the concrete floor of my old art room. My nose settled on yours for an eternity, each of us waiting for the other. Your lips brushed mine and a smile broke across your face and mine as you retreated from the embrace. I extended my neck for our first long awaited kiss beneath the sky light, shrouded in the waining light of the evening, alone together in the art room. Just as our lips would meet for the first time I woke.

i had one of those feelings this morning when i woke up, as if something had been pulled from my hands, like a precious, coveted item had slipped from my grasp, falling into the ocean while i was admiring the view. its funny how you can go through so much work, what seems like hours and days and maybe more, of dedication, fooling yourself into thinking youd created and lived within the rules and oh so very fortunate circumstances that have befallen you and grown to become your life, just to wake up and loose it all. its funny how we fool ourselves sometimes, into thinking we had it or still have it, when i probably never had it at all.

mas

so i did some stuff today.

i had an interview...?today for a construction job. i just rode in a truck with a guy who was showing me a few places he was working on and after he had gone through his list of questions he said "well thats it, interviews over" and jokingly i said " im hired" and he agreed, telling me that i was hired before i even got in the truck. neat! but i still have an actual interview for another place tomorrow. Im sure that i wont be working at this other place though, seeing as how i would be getting higher pay starting off at the construction place and how i have more experience in the construction business than i do working at an insurance place.

after getting back from my little snowy ride around the city, i felt like making something or painting or drawing. i think i actually felt like drawing on cardboard, so i did. Doug had showed me a couple boxes i could use to paint on. You might be thinking "wow is that the best he could do? cardboard?" and you might also not be thinking anything cause you arent reading this...cause NO ONE reads this thing but me, and i dont even read it really! i just kinda write in it, sometimes. But anyway, he was being very helpful. I told him that i wanted to create a series out of a few piece i already have which are paintings on cardbaord and that i need more.

last week or so i was in the car with camille, we were driving back from dropping my mother off at her house. I kinda blurted out to camille that i wish we had had maybe a little more guidance or resources when we were younger. I felt like camille rita and myself all had a great ability to acomplish a lot at a young age, but werent given the resources or taken to much of an interest in. i told her that maybe if we had a piano at the house i would have been playing a lot by the time i was ten. it suddenly accured to me that all three of us seemed to have been good at almost anything we tried. Camille was very bright, finding her way to MIT at the end of high school. Rita did very well in school too, she was very smart, got good grades, and was an awesome athlete. Camille did sports too, but i feel like rita had a bit more ability in athletics than camille. camille worked hard to get her grades, but not as hard as rita had to work. and vis versa for athletics. Camille worked hard in basketball and track, but she was never going to be as good as rita ended up being. I feel like rita just excelled at anything she picked up, playing volleyball in the winter, for a very very good marcellus volleyball team, a team that usually went undeafeated. she also picked up tennis and thinking about it now, i almost want to laugh at how awesome it is that she played tennis and was great at it. I think she was just about the best singles player on the team. And then of course she did track. She was always a pretty good thrower, doing shot and disk, but it wasnt until senior year when she started to get a little more confidence in herself that she made some leaps and bounds. she ended up going to states and being one of the best throwers in the highschools history. both camille and rita were outstanding musicians as well. camille first chair flute and rita first chair clarinette. I felt like i was kind of the dud, i didnt do great in school. i was pretty average. i was pretty good at art though i suppose. I was interested in drawing ever since i was about 2 i think. being an artist was probably one of the first things that i hoped to one day become. that and a ninja. it wasnt until the end of highschool and start of college that i realized i could control my abilities pretty well. that is, i felt like i had the ability to pick up anything and excelle at it. i adopted a mentality that i wasnt being arrogant but rather exploring what people are capable of acomplishing, thinking that if someone in the world can do something, there should be no reason why i, or anyone for that matter, couldnt do it as well. I decided i wanted to learn to play the guitar, so i started teaching myself in january of my freshman year of college and improved very quickly, playing complicated fingerpicking songs before leaving for the summer break.

I think i started to get hung up at this point in the way we were brought up, and how if we had parents who had showed just a bit more interest in what we were interested in, we could have done really well. we werent discouraged from doing the things we liked, but there wasnt much interest.

anyway, theres a lot more i could write, buuuuut, camille expressed that she felt the same way i did. She said that she and doug were looking at a little slip of paper i had written little piano notes on. it wasnt sheet music, because i dont know how to read sheet music, it was just little notes that i made up so that i could remember some chords on the piano for a song, and doug asked what it was, and camille could tell they were my notes. doug looked at the paper and said"what a waste" his son goes to berkly for music and was given all sorts of resources to pursue his interest in music as a kid. he got lessons and at one point even had 2 guitar teachers. he is very good at guitar now, but he isnt such a great student. doug was feeling bad that i had all these intense interests in the arts that were never really recognized to their fullest potential.

so later that night, im assuming camille had said to doug what i was talking about in the car, about my parents, doug expressed a great interest in finding a room in the house i could use as a studio for painting and drawing and sculpture, should i get my hands on some clay. i told him that i really didnt need that much room and that the attic would be fine. the only thing is the attic is pretty cold. its a great big room that isnt heated or insulated so i gets to about 30 something or 40 degrees in the winter. i still told him it would be fine, but he suggested that we rearrange one of the rooms in the house so that i can set up a studio room for myself, saying that at some point we can construct an easle. later he was getting slightly worked up about the different business ventures i could take using my art as a means of financial income. it felt nice to see that he was taking an interest.

so basically all of this was just to say that doug showed me some cardboard in the attic that i could use for a canvas. well i didnt think it was going to be big enough for what i wanted, but i still just felt compelled to draw something on cardboard, so i bundled up and slowly started moving my other paintings up there, then my painting bag, then i brought my computer up there and cut the box open and decided that it would work out. i wish i had a camera here so i could upload some pictures of the attic and the drawing i did. i drew a woman laying on the floor, it shows her naked from behind, curled up in a ball sort of, and it shows her bottom half, with her feet sticking out a bit. i get kind of upset when i do this stuff, because i really enjoy drawing and working on it, and when i finish i dont really feel like being done. but what really gets me is this is just the priliminary sketch for what will become a painting. i often paint over fairly well rendered drawings that i would like to keep as drawings, but thats just not what its meant to be.

So anyway, i worked on the drawing and it took me longer than usual, it typically only takes about 20 minutes to 30 minutes to do the initial sketch, but this one might have taken about an hour. i was kind of having a blast up in the attic. i was really cold but i liked working up there a lot, i had my music playing off my computer and used a single light bulb to do my work by.

good grief i write too much on this thing. that is when i do decide to write. but yeah, anyway i ended up repairing a few keys on the piano here with dougs help, actually it was mainly doug who did it, since he had a piano repair kit and took a course on piano maintenance and repairing and knows all about it, but i still helped. then i shaved for my interview tomorrow. to be honest i actually think id like to try working in an office for once in my life. i usually do manual labor, but im not really all that fond of construction work, a lot of the time people have their egos and try and show you the right way to do a job when it just slows you down. i dont know, not saying that office work doesnt have its faults, but really i wouldnt know. its just something id like to try. well ima go to the interview tomorrow and find out what the pay would start out as, hear that its under ten bucks an hour, and tell them thanks for the opportunity but im going to have to accept another job. but who knows.

this just in

really interested in acting again. but i get interested in things that just happen to be in my line of site very often so its no wonder i wanna be an actor again. Watched inside the actors studio with jim carey and it was entertaining. talked about playing andy kaufman and i liked it. made me wonder if there was an inside the actors studio with mickey rourke, so i looked it up and there it was! really like mickey rourke even though i havent seen...any? of his early films. something funny though.

He said that he became interested in acting after watching a movie with marlon brando where he played the captain of a ship. he said the scene where he was burnt seemed very real to him and he liked it or at least it was memerable for him. He didnt know who the actor was at the time but it stuck with him. An interesting thing about this is that i was talking to my mom a few weeks ago about her and my dad and how they were different. She is very animated, not as much anymore now that she moves slower and is inhibited because of her increasing reumitoid arthritis afliction, but she is still very vocal in her emotions and physical with her reactions to any situation. i told her that she would be a great actor because she does it all the time. i told her how the acting she did was very mainstream contemporary acting, almost typecast in a way. it was explosive and expectant, with a lot of passion. i told her it was interesting that she and my dad seemed like 2 different actors, because i was now refuring their personalities to acting and actors. i told my mom that i considered her to be more of a modern actor someone fairly popular but not outlandishly at the forefront of breakthrough acting. someone like meg ryan or a type cast actor like tom cruise. i told her that my dad was much more quiet and reserved but with a lot of built up emotion that streams through the cracks of a tougher exterior. I said he was more of a marlon brando or mickey rourke actor, because i thought they were very similar. the difference between marlon brando/mickey rourke and other actors is what i think of as acting.

I think i remember my friend sam once saying to me that he watched an interview or read about an interview with marlon brando and that he didnt think of acting to really be an art or maybe a skill, because it was something that everyone did. and in this is why i think marlon brando and mickey rourke stand out for me as great actors. i believe that a typical actor is acting in a way so that their intention is felt. that is of course the point of acting, to understand your intention and portray it to the audience. but most actors are acting, they know what they are supposed to portray to the audience and i think they let their intention guide them. but i think that a marlon brando or mickey rourke arent led with their intention and they dont seem to be acting, at least in some of their roles. it often feels as though they arent acting at all and that this is simply just the way they are, which it very well might be, but it is much more believable and interesting to watch than someone who has their heart on their sleeve everytime someone cuts them off in the street or in a conversation. less action often makes for better acting i think. that is, less of a certain kind of action.

My acting teacher, who i adored and felt tremendous gratitude toward, feeling as though he was much more interested in the goal of his students understanding and learning the craft of acting rather than getting a good grade, often told us to go bigger or do more. he would say stakes ten, which means that if the circunstances were dire, how would that change the way a line was delivered. i feel like a lot of actors follow this general rule, but fail to acknowledge the ways in which subtle bodylanguage can create a much more real stakes ten than say a screaming person waving their arms in the air. these are things which i feel make marlon brando and mickey rourke stand out for me as great actors. it feels as though they are acting in a very real way and thus feeling the emotions of the character and bringing these emotions from a very real place.

when my teacher told us stakes ten, this was aslo, i should say, to a class of students who had never acted before. well, not everyone was a complete novice. some of the students had been in a few musicals and high school plays. my acting career at that point had consisted of a few years of stage crew in high school with an off stage voice fill in in the production of...something, dont remember. basically i howled off stage. that and i played the king in my 3rd grade class' production of the dragon and the king er something like that. soooo ya i had no experience. but i had been thinking of acting a lot at the time and felt myself in a strange place. i was becoming more and more aware of the way people acted around eachother and interested in the involuntary action of people, the way our bodies can do almost incredible things without thinking about it, simply because we have done them often. for example throwing a baseball to a friend. the action of throwing a baseball to someone is actually very incredible when thinking about it. to be able to get an object from one point in space to another through the action of throwing is astounding when broken down to all the factors involved. the weight of the ball is taken into consideration, the distance it must travel to reach its destination, the force that must be applied to make the object get there, how to manuver ones body and arm in order to make the ball get to the friend. all of these things in just a matter of seconds and its done. and its all done without really thinking about it at all, just involuntary movements and adjustments from the muscles.

When i broke this down, i guess it made me think of the things we do that arent so involuntary, but try to make seem like nothing. for example the way a girl flips her hair when a boy walks by, or the way a chubby guy sucks in his stomach when a woman enters the room, things like that. this is what got me very interested in acting, because of all the very little things that people do to try and get the attention of someone else. a good actor, i believe, understands these things. a good actor understands the way people work and knows that people often act all the time. it is rare however to watch an actor portray someone who is not like that though. this goes back to the marlon brandos and mickey rourkes. i suppose the people they portray are often filled with some sort of heavey emotional burden. They are under a lot of stress and personal anguish and dont seem to respond well to the people around them, there for they have no acting front when it comes to others. others playing in action roles often ham it up, screaming and whatnot or maybe haming it up in the other direction as most villians do, by playing it cool all the time, even when explosions are going off just over their sholder.

anyway i digress, even though theres actually no point in this whole post, and once again, no one reads this so i can say what i want. Well after watching mickey rourke on inside the actors studio which was pretty neat, i saw that there was a link to sylvestor stallone on inside the actors studio. I really liked rocky and thought rocky II was also pretty good and thought that he did a very good job of acting in it as rocky, and i was very influenced by rambo my senior year in college. I believe i watched rambo for the first time the summer before my senior year of college. I watched it at seans house. we made a list of movies we wanted to see and just started watching them. It doesnt seem like we were accomplishing much, but at the time it felt pretty good to get through the list. Most of them were horror films, like the friday the thirteenth films and what not. actually i think we had a few movies that had numerous sequals. thus both rocky and rambo were on the list. there were a few classics like dr strange love and the great escape and north by northwest. unfortunately north by northwest was unavailable to us that summer, but we still saw some good movies. i remember the striking thing about rambo being the way in which it was very different from what i thought and i believe most people think of rambo. hearing the name rambo brings to mind muscles and mindless explosions for the sake of money in the boxoffice. it might have been that way in the later films, but the first one was very different. i felt as though it were a work of art, or a piece of music. a great bulk of the film followed the character rambo through a mountainous wild montana or colorado terrain, with little dialouge and lots of chasing and hiding and later in the movie, shooting and the explosions expected from a rambo film. his acting wasnt horendous and the other actors at times played a very convinsing role. there was a scene where rambo runs through the woods being chased by a group of officers, who find that they are soon being stalked by rambo. he runs passed one of them and cuts him on the leg and it was a much more brutal and real scary situation than any of the other larger than life gun fights and car chases in the rest of the movie. the amount of restraint in the wound that rambo showed the man made it much more real of the kind of damage that could be done. this part just seemed to stand out at me. But the final coup d'etat in the film is of course the final scene where rambo breaks down. The whole of the movie was filled with action from this character who was going berzerk through the mountainous community, capable of killing everyone but still showing some bit of restraint, and remaining silent through all of it. then, he finally just exploded all of the things that had been kept in his head and on his mind for seven years, as he says in the movie i believe. it was much more interesting to see a man who breaks down and cries after seeing him destroying a town with little more than a bat of an eye. it made the movie so much more interesting and it felt to me like the very outstanding beautiful part in a piece of music, much like the way i think of racmaninovs adagio sustuneto or certain sports in paintings that stand out from the rest. it made me think of the relationship between and within singular works of art, like perhaps purposely making most of a guitar piece lack luster to make the dramatic climax that much more intriguing, or the same with a painting. leaving most of the canvas a dull mix of colors so that one specific spot stands out, to make the whole piece seem like it stands out as beautiful.

That scene from rambo was my final monolague for my acting class. I was the last to go and went on stage telling the class that i chose the final scene from rambo. almost everyone laughed when i said this, thinking, i can only imagine, that it would be a goofy hamming it up impression of a guy blazing guns shooting off bullets and one liners. when i had finished most of the class was crying. thats the extent of my acting career however. I might be interested in it and think about it more than i even know, but really that was the only time i acted on stage. I would still very much like to be an actor.

by the way i can remember watching a movie with marlon brando playing a captain of a ship when i was younger, thinking it was brilliant.