Stuck

This is called static progress. Or it's called being a stupid turtle.

I've been having a lot of homesickness

lately, at least I assume that's what it is. I haven't been "home" in 7 years, and in that time I've grown up (lie) and lived a whole separate life. The people I knew and loved are almost all

scattered across the globe and seem to be different people now, some for better, others for worse - how judgmental am I?

I didn't mean for this post to be whiny or morose, I think discussing nostalgia is cursed with that. In fact, while we're on it, I hate the word nostalgia. Makes me feel groggy, and not in a pirate way.

I think we make our own catalysts even when we're not trying, and that's the hardest part, not to focus on fueling your own fire. I suppose the heart of it is loneliness, when you're not distracted you center around yourself and it's so tempting to grab the wheel and force your own path, lazy pedestrians be damned! But more often than not this course tends to be rather disastrous.

There are a squidjillion things to do and improve upon so there's hope, but the jungle's still calling to me, and reading these dozens of Louis L'Amour books is not helping my sense of longing. The jungle was my desert, and maybe what's in my head is no longer what's there, but we'll find out someday soon.

Burning

Working on a short western at the moment, well actually two. One to film, and a longer, novel length story. I've always liked the setting, and recently I've been burning through Louis L'Amour's books and short stories and avidly watching movies like Fistful of Dollars and 3:10 to Yuma.

The draw to me is the building conflict in the characters, and the eventually violent explosion you know is coming but are never prepared for. People who know me remark sometimes that they've never seen me angry, and the truth is I don't get angry often. Annoyed yes, frustrated double yes, but I rarely get truly angry. When I do, I usually feel like this charming fellow, cold, wet, unkempt and pissed off. I've heard it's bad to bottle up your anger, and even worse to drink it, but I imagine punching every person who pissed you off in the throat wouldn't be sociable.

"We are nothing if not creatures of conflict"

"Fuck catharsis, I'm going to punch you in the throat"

Tunage

That is a pretty sweet leaf you might say.

Hokay, so, here are some songs that I think are pretty flippin meritorious

(I put outstanding in the synonym finder) for finishing your run. Most of them build up into awesomeness which is then distilled into pure kick-ass.

Led Zeppelin- Stairway to Heaven

ACDC- Son of a Bitch

Balmorhea - Settler

Balmorhea- Truth

Now there's something to be said here about Truth. this song bu

ilds and builds and when you get to the end everything seems to disappear, and you're just running through oblivion. Everything gathers around you, and then shoots into you and now you're back and you are just burning the ground behind you, you're fast and unstoppable and you're flying. The low keys are thrumming in your ears and you can feel your core being pulled forward with the crashing piano. This, is a great song.

Sigur Rios - Med Sud I Eyrum

Christopher Tin and Stanford Talisman - Baba Yetu

Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori - Halo

Randy Edelman - I Will Find You (Last of the Mohicans)

Bryan Tyler- House Atreides

Goo Goo Dolls- Here Is Gone

Passion Pit- Little Secrets

The Decemberists- The Crane Wife 3

Cage the Elephant- Aint No Rest For The Wicked

Phoenix- Love Like A Sunset

Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over

Florence and the Machine- Cosmic Love

Cosmic Love is an amazing song, Florence Welch just howls out the lyrics and the drums really pound out the scope of the track. This one will get your blood pumping.

The Offspring- Original Prankster

My favorite thing to do is run footy (Australian Football) montages in my head while listening to Original Prankster. I picture my team in our games and in practice and we're kickin' arse.

Dave Matthews- Ants Marching

The Proclaimers- 500 Miles

Jerry Goldsmith- Tryouts (From Rudy)

The Rolling Stones- Sympathy for the Devil

The Rolling Stones- Gimme Shelter

Michael Kamen- Band of Brothers Suite One

Michael Kamen- Training/Prince of Thieves

Sam and Dave- Hold On, I'm Coming (BB King and Eric Clapton version good too)

The Spencer Davis Group- Gimme Some Lovin'

Broken Social Scene- Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl

Peter Gabriel- Solsbury Hill

Explosions in the Sky- Your Hand in Mine

Of these, my favorite is definitely Truth. The daytrotter version is incredible as well, at the end the violin's part is brought to the front and you get a different feel, a more purposeful drive that transforms you into a badass with an agenda. I love music.

If you only look up a few of these, TRUTH and COSMIC LOVE. Do it. Hmmm, those look funny capitalized together...

Pretty Sure That Falcon Tried To Poop On Me

I was trying (unsuccessfully) to photograph this falcon while I was kayaking and it is incredibly hard to get a good shot while in a rocking boat. It didn't help that the smarmy bastard was taunting me, at one point I passed directly underneath him, not more than three feet below, and it's now dawning on me that my feathery nemesis was most likely trying to excrement bomb me.

I'm trying to think of a good method to anchor myself without flipping the kayak and becoming bayou entertainment. There's always a situation where I see something very picture-worthy but not until it's too late to get the camera out before I pass it. I suppose me paddling frantically yet discreetly, so as not to frighten the bird away, back up river would probably appear humorous to anybody watching (creepos).

BUT, the beauty of 10 megapixels and a telephoto macro lens is that you can always crop stuff to zoom in and still have a decent 5-8 megapixel shot. This does not interfere with my personal ethics on post-processing in photography, 'cause I figure everything was in the shot I took, I just needed to be closer, I didn't add anything in or take anything away from the subject. Of course as I say this the little cartoon devil on my shoulder is giggling to himself. His name is Huggy by the way. Huggy McGubbins. The angel is Joe.

ANYWHOO, there's the bird, enjoy.

Jungle

I wrote this, well I'm not sure when, just jotted it down one night:

He looked up.

Gold refracting through the most unreal greens. Shades of the color you’d never see in movies or paintings, shades you can’t even fully describe with these words. Bright lime, dark sage, imperfect splotches of Heaven’s pastel, blending together as he gazed at them, through them. Refraction from the dew, and the soft, hazy glow rising to the canopy. A quick shadow, the outline of wings on the trunks, trunks covered with cities of moss. Vines clinging and hugging their posts, little highways for ants and other things.

He felt it too.

The cold splash, expected but never prepared for, of each drop from the sunshower. Each breath, slowly quickening in the anticipation, thick in the humidity, sea level. The tingle from the rolling sweat beads, that itch when it mingles with the dirt on the back of his arm. Irises burning, but strong, they open in welcome anyway. Legs are numb, and all sense of direction is irrelevant, as long as the light stays, doesn’t matter how he’s standing.

He knows it will be over soon, in fact he’s almost excited for the end, so he can think back on what’s happening and understand it. The rain is heavy now, but he can’t feel the cold. All he feels is warmth and joy and hope. Great things are at work here, beyond his understanding or control, but he knows he must be part of them, he must wake up. The time for loneliness and sadness is ended, indecision and despair are dead and done.

He can hear the music growing, a slow and powerful crescendo. A smile creeps onto his face and he closes his eyes for a moment. The music is calling to him, and he knows he must wake up. The sound is in the rain, in the leaves, in the distant mountains. It flows along the thick air and rises all around him. His arms are raised high, open, his smile spans his face. He can feel the light all the brighter now, knows it is shining directly on him. The music is so great, it’s everywhere, even inside him now. He can do this.

He must wake up.

It’s all rumbling now, everything cascading together into the light. Doom is gone and Hope is here. He reaches out for it, and everything quakes as forces colossal and unimaginable roar and rush around him. He reaches out for this fair hope, his fingers touch it, his eyes are opening.

He wakes up.

Do Not Poke a Snapping Turtle

As it turns out, turtles are not very slow. So, screw you cartoons! Tortoises may be another matter, but turtles, turtles will take your hand off and leave you waving a blood-spurting stump around until a Norwegian vampire comes to finish you off. Hmmm, might be watching too much True Blood.

Okay but seriously, please heed my warning, do NOT mess with these bastards. This picture is preceeded by a rather weird night. I decided I wanted to buy a videogame

around midnight (Transformers: War for Cybertron -awesomeness), so as I was heading out the neighborhood I see this giant black german shepherd in the median. He has tags so I try to call out and he bolts. I follow him to the back of the neighborhood where I suddenly enter Mario Kart world and barely dodge a giant f*%#ing snapping turtle!

Now my stupid bleeding heart (you stay back Northman!) prevented me from taking off without pushing this beauty to the side of the road where he'd be safe, so I grabbed a coat hanger that happened to be in my car and tried to shoo him along. Who knew, you can't shoo giant snapping turtles. I tried to hook his side and flip him so I could maybe shuffleboard him to the side, but surprise! No go.

Thus, I began to tap his shell to try and direct his movement, and this is where the fun begins. I accidentally tapped the gooey portion that was his head and before I know what the hell has

happened Blastoise here has half of my coat hanger in his mouth.

So, um yes, I left him in the middle of the road.

Shows, Shows, Shows

So I have a lot of tv to watch and catch up on. So without much preamble I'm just gonna list 'em:

Mad Men

True Blood

Glee

Dexter

Futurama

Star Wars: Clone Wars

Deadwood (need to re-watch)

Burn Notice

Psych

Damages

Breaking Bad

Shows I'm looking forward to:

Pillars of the Earth(!)

A Game of Thrones

Rubicon

Damages (renewed)

Chuck (Season 4)

30 Rock (Season 5 (?))

Parenthood (2)

Modern Family (2)

Community (2)

So, a good amount of tv, and I need to catch up soon! I want to put it out there that Ian McShane (Deadwood) is very likely the best actor I've ever seen, and although I have no acting/theater/critic credentials to speak of, I am amazing and that should suffice. I'm a huge Pirates of the Caribbean fan, yes all three, and McShane is playing Blackbeard in the fourth!! WOOT! If you haven't seen this burly bear of beastliness in action, I suggest you go beat your head against a wall, then go watch Deadwood. Please.

Now, can we talk about what giant showerbags the Mad Men are? It's almost depressing to watch, and I can't help but think, damn were my grandfathers like this?? I highly doubt it, but you'd have to assume that someone that age watching this show now would be ashamed. There don't seem to be many men on the show who are loyal to their wives and families. Unfortunately some of the women aren't much better, but when you see how they're treated it makes you wonder. I'm not trying to bash the show, this behavior is what makes it so much damn fun to watch. Plus, the acting is great, the tension is everywhere and the glib remarks are freaking hilarious. One of my favorite moments has been when Joan comes into Sterling's office and he's furiously whacking a paddle ball back and forth and he says, "nobody knows what I'm doing, it adds to the mystique."

Plan B

Okay okay okay, I am aware that I'm a week or so behind on this. So, executive decision: no more 365 photo project!

This will of course still be a photo blog, I just know I can't get out and get a new picture everyday for a post, so I'm not gonna try to play the catch up game and be 30 days behind.

So this is a baby elephant. Elephaunt. Elefaunt? Houston Zoo, quite some time ago, but it's definitely one of my favorite photos, I suppose because of the shade and the tired eyes. I'm not gonna get to technical and artsy here, because I'm really neither, kind of a dummy, I just like taking pictures and showing them to people. Hmmm, did that come off as dirty?

I hope to have a buttload of more photos after this weekend, now that my brother has acquired a driver's license (I think he just paid the DPS off) I can get him to drop me off in my kayak, the SS RAMBO, and pick me up. Which is a very frustrating problem with kayaking. You can't just teleport yourself back to where you began your trip, so it becomes an idiotic logic problem and an exercise in patience/beating someone to death with a platypus.

So, I've been watching this True Blood show, and I've been told it's shaking up the way the novels went. Which sounds good to me considering the description of the novels I was given, "slightly ridiculous reading material for 40 year old southern housewives who'd like to obsess over Eric Northman, and identify with Sookie being a size 10." So yes, I'm liking the show, and my vote is in for Alcide, who gives the impression of a bona fide badass, plus I'm sorry, but I'm always gonna side with the wolves over the vampires in these things. Dead, walk around only at night, drink blood to sustain animation- naw, I just turn into a $%#@ing wolf man! Gimme a bag of milk bones and I'm good! Vampires, pssh, I can smell deersh#* from ten miles awa...ball? Ball?

Day 4: I Love the Rain the Most

Old pic, yes, but it's one of my favorites. I'll be filling this 365 photos thing with new photos, or at least I'll try to, but every now and then I'm gonna pop in a good oldie.

Nothing beats a good thunderstorm when you're tired and cozy and ready for some sleepage. Doesn't matter where you are, the rain seems to make everything feel immediate and close. In my mind thunderstorms present you with dual opportunities: You can find a safe place to get warm and nap, feeling secure behind the pitter pattering windows, or you can kick down the door and kick that rain's ass! clothing optional.

80% of my childhood was going ballistic in the rain. Sunny days are great and all, but rain made everything so much better. Who cares about some dirt and mud when you've got a constant stream of angel pee pourin' down nonstop? Ants. That's who. Not sure why that's relevant, moving on. My town had a system of giant storm drains running through it, and good gracious guacamole Michael Jackson could not have designed a better playground for adventurous kids with no sense. And lightning? Hell yeah!

Rain washes all, and man is it good to just stand in it every once in a while.

Day 3: I Need a Hat...And a Bear to Wear it

Things have been happening so fast lately, it'd be nice to sit back once in a while and just doodle away on the guitar. Who am I kidding, I do that all the time. Truth is, even with all the nuttiness swirling around and the insanity of other people's demands I always find more than enough time everyday for the guitar, or the piano or any other thing that makes funny sounds. Music has always been the humming center of my life, from as early as I can remember.

My first instrument was a harmonica my mom put in my easter basket, I must've been around 4-5 years old. I loved that thing. I always carried it in my pocket and would try to "compose" orchestral themes with it, as opposed to blues or familiar tunes. I dunno why, but I've always just liked playing what comes to mind first, on any instrument, rather than learning already written songs. It's become a real problem now that I give lessons though, because I constantly have to practice what I'm teaching the kids beforehand, just to make sure I know the song. I've spent my young life honing the skill of winging it, and now I'm channeling that for all I'm worth.

Well I know this was a disjointed and somewhat pointless post, kinda self indulgent too now that I read it, but oh well what the hell, I wanted to get my post for day 3 in so here ya go. As for the bear though, I see him everyday on my bookshelf and he does have a certain calming quality to him, big jolly bastard.

Day 2: Foot Gloves

They get you where you need to go, and how you need to go there. Here is my vast arsenal of podiatritarian (real word (not really)) tools. Each one of these shoesies have specific operational ranges:

-Sandals-

Also known semi-erotically as 'thongs' (I mean, c'mon), these rubber soles are not actually limited to al types of sand. In fact, sandals can range in use from beach excursions to grocery shopping to classy dinners. A true jack-of-all trades, sandals are A-okay in my book. Book of shoes, that is.

-Boots-

What the rest of the world refers to as cleats, I follow in the grand Australian tradition of naming things while inebriated. So, boots. These workhorses enable me to attempt to play Australian Football (no, not Rugby. Ruck Fugby). Their design, originally for soccer or futball, is perfect for smacking the hell out of an unsuspecting football, or crunching a wrongly placed hand. Traction is a plus as well - not suggested: cement -also not suggested: quick sand. Icing on the cake here is the bright red coloring, because as we all know, da red ones go fasta!

-Running Shoes-

These guys. These guys. These guys have given me life, blisters too, but mainly sweet, sweet life. Running shoes will get you anywhere you wanna go, and in a hurry too! Fat people rejoice! Your salvation is here! Plug your elephant stumps into these bad boys and feel the wind! Running shoes will transform the laziest slob who doesn't run into a slob who does run (a guy who chows down McDonalds and runs is still a guy who chows down McDonalds, seriously people). Now, unfortunately these particular grey geronimoes have reached the end of their lifespan. Decrepit and foamy support stuff-less, they are now a pathetic mockery of their former glory. Just shoes you say? No, no, titans. Titans of running. Titans of running speedily!!!

And to think the soles of these jokers were first concocted on a waffle iron...

-Vans-

I recently discovered that I only owned two pairs of athletic shoes and a pair of sandals. Thus, a trip to the mall with my style-informed 16 year old brother, which led to the purchase of "shoes" that, as graciously put by a friend, "reveal my inner 10 year old." Despite this, or perhaps in a strange way because of this, I love these goofy bastards. They make me feel like a skateboarder, without the hassle of actually learning to skateboard. Oddly enough, they also instill in me the urge to become a parkour champion and race up the sides of buildings and do triple flips over fire hydrants. I see great and terrible injury in my future.

-Dress Shoes-

Surprisingly, dresses are not to be worn with these shoes. Well, I suppose you could, but those are your identity issues to work out. Nope, these big brown sonsofbitches with their lopsided yet irremovable Dr. Scholls Comfort insoles are to be worn with nice clothes. Which I do not own. So in my mind they deserve a slow and uncomfortable demise. Which is why I leave them next to the dog bones.

Day 1: The Problem With Monkey Pirates

They steal your beer, and drink it right in front of you.

So I'm new to this blog thingy, but I figure like the other 92 percent of people who blog I'll use this as an outlet for pretty much anything that wanders into my mind. Need to re-arrange the clutter up there anyways, looks like the attic from The Goonies, half expect Sean Astin to barge in my room and grill me for One-Eyed Willy's map.

Hokay, so to kind of get me rolling I'm going to start with the 365 days-photo a day project. It's highly likely that most of the pictures I post will be horrendously stupid and pointless, but they'll give me something to write about and who knows, out of 365 photos I'm bound to get a keeper (unless I'm just that bad)

Alrighty so that's enough for now, I've gotta post this and see what the hell a blog is supposed to look like. Happy Kick Aliens Ass Day!

...and keep your beer safe!