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.