the rewards of music....

The learning of a musical instrument is a great metaphor to our shifting world. An instrument by its nature is difficult. You learn it through discipline, one small step after another, till one day, many years later, you feel comfortable holding it and skilled at playing; it but still, the nagging feeling that you know absolutely nothing about it persists.  A guitar, piano, the trumpet, the tabla, they're infinite in regards to mastery.

Now, as we shift from an analog world to a digital one in all aspects of life, we also change the relationships of process with regards to analog tools. Our traditional instruments are analog. Our most recent instruments however are software (and in fact, they don't have to represent an analog doppelgänger), and as is the nature of digital tools, constantly changing and updating. Although the base of said software might remain the same through the course of its development, it is in continual iterations. Software instrumentation is also non-linear, automated, capable of interacting with many inputs and outputs and sometimes capable of creating its own musicality with just a set of parameters without even being "played" (a theremin on binary steroids). Our analog instruments do not work in this capacity, for the most part.  

The other key difference is that often, the actual recording software (DAW) is the instrument. This mixes both the instrument(s), and the recording, in one space. This obvious insight might not seem important, but think it through. When I first picked up a guitar, I had no idea that one day I might learn how to record music. But, kids with an iphone or ipad start recording immediately. The instrument is just one piece of the recording puzzle. And we are now handed the recording capability first (without even asking for it in many cases), then the instrument.  This is a complete flip of process. This gives precedent to the making of music, as opposed to the playing of music. 

So, the process is different. Software is by it's nature, much easier to understand, and the brevity of it's learning curve makes proficiency come at a much swifter rate. People do not spend a decade learning a piece of software and then suddenly coming to an "aw haw", a moment of absolute clarity that happens periodically to players of analog instruments.  Mostly because software gives a much swifter response to hardship. With software, you are ready to go after browsing a manual, checking some tutorials, and chugging a huge cup of coffee blended. Of course it helps to have a musical background, but its not a necessity to get started. Sure it gets more difficult when you expand your range and tools, but, it wants you to learn it fast. Your muscle memory is never tested. 

This is a non-judgmental observation.  This is the reality. If you are a teenager thinking about music, a small investment (or, ripping) will get you started, almost immediately. In fact, an intro software is probably included on your phone or computer already for free.  In roughly two years, with some tenacity, talent and luck, you might have uploaded a song on Youtube or Soundcloud and have thousands of people hear it.  In the old world, two years on a guitar might not even be enough time to get you in front of 10 people at your local open mic'd coffee shop. Just look at the ultra youngster electronic producers who are making hit songs, all by themselves and in record time.  

Just like everything else in this new world; we are glued to our screens and creating everything inside a little box with a backlight.

those failing bullet points....

The mind and body work in mysterious ways in the "projects" realm.  One of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten about life in the arts is that, "your story is never linear".  You cannot force your idea of plot unto the real thing.  And when you do, life is a constant and consistent burden, one that always fails to satisfy, along with falling short of these preexisting narratives.

creatives in a world of more creatives....

It's hard to imagine sustaining the creative class as the numbers inflate and the capital diminishes.  But, we are also in the throws of the chopped hierarchical tree, in which a select few where given the whole share of resources and attention for their creative endeavors.

Length, size, genre, mediums, fidelity, production values are just some of the things that seem to matter less and less, as ultimately, attention becomes the trophy creatives seek, sometimes in the most desperate ways.

The death of the critical class is inevitable because the distribution of the voice is constant. An opinion is an opinion after all, and control of content doesn't exist.  What you ultimately get is the good with the bad.  Then this naturally follows, "what is good and what is bad". Nobody gets to decide for you anymore. 

Japanese cinema, "now" now, and then....

I've been on a Japanese kick of late.  I happen to return to this culture, frequently, for a vast bouquet of inspiration.  Simply, the well is never dry.

The last five films I've watched this week were Japanese. One observation I've made is that the Western Cinematic tradition has lifted heavily from this world, and Akira Kurosawa ( i feel silly leaving a link here, but I'm going to assume that a good percentage of people are not that familiar with him, and do not give the same unwavering adulation to say, Stanley Kubrick) being on the receiving end of this homage ripping, while also being the most universally influential. But aside from the good type of artistic stealing which is mostly an "influential" lifting, there has been a much more malignant form of culture appropriation, which comprises of the more serious form of perjury. And yes, this bad form of stealing is rampant in cinema.

In the prior decades, distribution was the real barrier to familiarity with international cinema. The world, before NETFLIX and the web was a localized arena.  So localized in fact, that believe it or not, you'd have to go to a movie theater to see a movie (perhaps a film festival, or art-house theater, school, etc).  And, if you didn't catch it, then you'd have to hope for some form of taped distribution.  It wasn't till the late 70's whereby people were actually renting and buying movies.  At this juncture in the space time continuum, the selection was incredible limited.

With the explosion of VHS and the video store, more titles could be discovered. But, media was not ubiquitous, and our reference points were limited to stuff we heard about, or actually saw; which again, had serious limitations in breath, scope, and in memory. Image those days, in which Wikipedia, Google and Youtube were not at your beckon call, and did not serve as your assistant brain (soon to be, First Brain). Yes, scary indeed.       

Say you saw something really interesting in an obscure Japanese movie from the early 70's, and were a filmmaker in the 80's and even early 90's, and you happened to steal heavily from it.  In fact, even go so far as to purge it's images, its style, its flow.   People would hardly know.  Only a relative few.  And surprisingly, unlike music and other types of arts, this type of heavy lifting would not even be frowned upon critically, and certainly not by the general movie going audience.  For the most part.

The idea of originality in Western Cinema has long been a secondary by-product; a term Hollywood tried to bury (and successfully) in the 50's (purely conjecture here).  It's worked.  This is one of the only arts where familiarity gets a pass almost every-time.  And as the post-modern infiltrated movie making in the early nineties, it was even considered cool.  

But on a personal level, I always felt a more kindred liking to original works (herein I'm referring to a more direct style of moviemaking) then post modern assemblies of those styles.  But that was then, and now is now.      

But, "now" now, is not like the 90's now.  People dream up movement phrases like, "The New Sincerity", and while this might last for "now", it can never congeal into anything resembling the classical arts movements of a prior century.  Because we have moved past time oriented "movements".  We are in a post-movement world; better yet, post-mechanical-watch.  Human time doesn't neatly pack itself into bubbles anymore, because it's umbilical cord to our evolutionary clock has been cut.  

And "now" is like the scene from the Mel Brooks film SPACEBALLS:  Now "Now", Not "Then" Now.  This sentence above, however is not my own, i'll gladly admit.  In fact, I lifted it from a wonderful conversation between media theorist David Ryan Polgar and Douglas Rushoff.  If only cinema were so nice to attribute.

I'll leave you with this apropos image from Kinji Fukasaku's BATTLES WITHOUT HONOR AND HUMANITY

a quantum question....

Birthdays & national tragedies....

Today is one of my best friends birthdays. His is never forgotten. Although I forget many other birthdays, a habit I am not proud of given the breadth of technology available to remind you, his is my second thought of the day.  The first is reserved to 911, the American Tragedy.

It's been 13 years, a fact equally astonishing to realize the unequivocal changes throughout the world since. Their was no youtube, iphones, gopros, twitter or facebook.  We didn't personally document everything like a desperate hoarder, grasping to no avail at a slipping life.

The memories now of that horrific date are living and breathing ones.  They feel tangible, and although they might not be accurate given our subjective and changing memory, they can be as raw as the real thing. In this case, that's a truth. It burns. The heart.

the future: a robot, the human....

Last night, towards the end of an intimate wedding, three men huddled together at the back of a fancy hotel courtyard, cocktails in hand, discussing THE SINGULARITY. An almost spontaneous conversation with very little pre-talk. Straight faced, and committed.     

Two days prior, in a small downtown bar, the patron and bartender sparked up several conversations. It was obvious that these talks happened quite regularly. As one conversation bounced to the next, THE SINGULARITY reared its once ambiguous head into the dialogue seconds before serialized Japanese Yakuza movies from the 70's.   

A week before this, in a large cafe with a direct path to the Hollywood sign, a man and a women, after a lemonade and espresso chatted about the robotic overlords; one part jest, one part contemplative certainty.  

THE SINGULARITY: no longer relegated to sci-fi dork-hood, or computer scientist savants and futurist with lots of time on their hands.  It is now part of the dialogue. Maybe not with the same rapidity as The Kardashians, but in enough minds to infer that it's manifestation is inevitable. Lets just make sure we can become friendly enough to make room, because our time as the top of the chain is limited.  As Douglas Rushkoff states, "I'm on team human".

what is awake?

"out of insecurity"

"attached" 

"amazing" 

"that being said" 

"you don't have to prove anything to anyone" 

"i got some black in me, I'll fuck a bitch up" 

"she's not stupid, and she works in finance" 

Those were the few phrases I heard late afternoon, while sitting in a downtown LA bar yesterday as two middle aged women raged on about relationships.  It seems one of them was in a revolving door situation, and she mostly remained quiet.  The married one, without any loss of words and an unsettling bravado.  A natural, one might say.

Much later that night, I watched Satoshi Kon's 2006 anime masterwork PAPRIKA.  

Throughout the day, starting as early as my first coffee run, I was told that I looked like someone.  This happened a total of 9 times yesterday.  The people of said doppelgänger lineage, a bewildering and confusing range.

All these things coalesced into one hellish nightmare with a pedantic, but truthful message. Acoustically all those phrases above made entrances.  The rest is too personal and solipsistic to dictate here but I did wake up with a profound insight into my recent life.

We are all fragments of what happens to us, and in reverse, we are also the producers of such happenings.   No separation exists within the dream and the awake.  They are the same expression.  They are like the head and the body, a singular unit.

the in the out....

melatonin days - some type of way

the day was filled with heaps of molasses
brain function, enslaved by an under the influence and angry source
a day where "you just can't fucking do anything"
except think of the scattered-ness of everything
and all worldly things
like an old, cool nikon lens you found in your grandma's attic
that just doesn't focus 
and even though it's kind of hip with that softness, deep down you know
it's only producing shit
but where do you take it
are there such things as camera stores anymore

.....

The grand illusion sets in
that you are a you
and that I am an I
but then what is left
other then a whole?

days of yesteryear.

the thing is, time evaporates.  and this is compounded, unjustly, with the cumulative gathering of it's fleeting essence.  so, it's probably best to keep your days completely full, or, just the opposite, floating on a hammock. the middle, you know, that 9-5, clock in clock out, the thing that the entire industrial age was built on.  that's the fastest ticket onto the bullet train to older.  here in the middle, grey haired the next. 

making plans

whenever in doubt
times it by 2
whenever you're sure
times it by 3
because time is not yours to keep
after all, it doesn't really exist
anymore then 
that diploma you're holding onto

An ANIMALS promo trailer for YOUNG BUCK

Here it is, the first exclusive clip from a major motion picture event! ANIMALS presents YOUNG BUCK.  In internet speak, #youngbuck

dot dot dot

three days, out of a routine
and it seems like it will never work again
that blank screen
agonizing
blinking
white
a story-less story
a myth
a trope
loveless as a Bloody Valentine

technology.

the woman worked at a bar in little tokyo

and she loved her phone so much

and one day, on a cold and rare rainy night in Los Angeles, she made love through her phone 

but the very next day, the phone broke

and it broke her heart

"love is fleeting" , she concluded

but I think she's a bit immature

park.

he looked straight ahead, as far as his eyes could see in the middle of the warm summer night.  this was where he spent his childhood.  a park, in the middle of the quietest suburb on planet earth.  the grass felt nice.

it was here that he tasted alcohol, and it was here that he first tried marijuana.  It was here that he saw his best friend Arthur body slam Robbie the bully.  it was here, that he and Arthur would discuss what they would do to girls, had they had the chance.  and this certainly changed from year to year.  drastically in fact.

it was at this location that he lay, sprawled out on the grass, looking up at the sky for countless hours, wondering if life would ever change.  It was here that the legion of emotional experiences tickled his bored soul.

and now, if only he could crawl back into that tiny space, and feel those feelings once more, everything would be ok.