The Eyes Are The Groin Of The Head

I was going to go into detail about the Ben Harper show and how not amazing it was, but I kind of lost steam. I love Ben Harper (although I have barely heard the new record), but the show was very lack-luster. By saying this, I am even factoring out the fact that he played "Use Me" which, let's face it, is a song that is covered by probably 90% of the local cover bands and the last thing I want to hear any band play ever. Even with that out of the picture, it still didn't have the bite that I remember when I saw him the first time. To say nothing of the fact that the Orpheum is a terrible place to see a rock show. It is pretty, but when you can hear the conversation (MUCH conversation) of the people around you more plainly than you can hear the band, this is not a good sign.

I am not saying that there weren't moments of brilliance because there were. In midshow, he played a long instrumental which was beautiful, but even more than that, the crowd actually shut up for a few minutes. All I can say is that I am glad it was free.

There. Aren't you glad I condensed this down to a small paragraph (and a half)? Had I been overly motivated, it would have been much longer, and a much bigger waste of everyone's time. Anyway, in case you people haven't noticed, I have added The Official Website of Jeffrey Combs to my links to the right. You will probably soon see this picture on there:



I wrote a some words a couple of posts down about my time in Little Rock and getting to meet, not only Jeff Combs, but this guy:



And to top it all off, I found out that the Norse god of thunder is taken:



Sorry, ladies. Well, I suppose that will be all for the time being. Hopefully, I'll be getting to use my plastic Big Shot camera soon. Oh, and pretty, pretty trees/moon/houses/night/stars picture pretty, pretty.

Unrelated

New pictures that I love that have nothing to do with my latest batch of words:









All but the last are the Fuji film I was raving about. Man, I love it!

Unholy Crap!

This past weekend has been AMAZING! I just got back today, and even apart from the Full Moon Horror Con, the trip was a much needed, thoroughly enjoyed time away. There was great company: Mike; Mike's brother Steve and girlfriend, Sally; and Mike's buddy, Ron and wife, Kim. They were a blast. Guitar Hero, bad horror movies, Trivial Pursuit (80's edition), and great food.

First night - DamnGood Pizza (the name says it all)

Second night - Whole Hog BBQ (6 sauces to choose from and potato salad that will change your life)

And last, but obviously not least, the Con. We did go there to play a show, and our show was what it was supposed to be: background music. Not bad. Not incredible. Completely worth the drive. I didn't get as much time as I would have liked to have a total geek out (or more appropriately, I wish I had more time to work up the courage to have a total geek out and talk to everyone). I did, however, get to talk to two people who I couldn't have left without talking to and getting their picture.

Michael Graves and Jeffrey Combs, on top of being awesome at what they do (and as far as I know, have no connection with each other), are very, very cool guys. Both completely approachable. With respect to Mr. Graves and Mr. Combs, I would say I am an entry-level fanboy so I couldn't bore them all day about their own catalogues of work, but there was nonetheless some nice conversation. I told Michael Graves that when I saw The Misfits at the New Daisy, it was the first I had ever even heard the band (I was there with a friend to see Earth Crisis) and to date, still the loudest show I had ever seen. I was surprised to hear him say the name of the venue before I did. To Jeff Combs, I gave the glory of being the "redeeming factor" of The Frieghteners (which is not to say the movie was bad. He was just incredibly good). He told me about how much of a joy it was to work with Peter Jackson. Both of these guys were completely mezmerized by my camera (the Mamiya C33 TLR) so both conversations lead to photography and this beauty of a photo-taking machine. You really couldn't ask for a nicer couple of guys.

Plethora of other horror celebs. Horror posters. Horror toys. Horror anything collectible. Filmmakers. Artists. Half-naked girl wearing monster bra (which are stupid - especially a bra in the shape of breasts). Half-naked other girl working at the tattoo booth. Guy in awesome Thor costume. Etc., etc. All of these were icing on a very delicious cake (if I had to be more specific, I would say red velvet cake in the shape of a severed head).

In case you skipped the first sentence and every word of this entire post: It was a tremendous weekend.

A Quick One, While I'm Away

I am about to go out of town. Playing a show in Little Rock for a horror convention - more specifically, the Full Moon Horror Con. It should be a bounty of awesomeness as big names synonymous with the genre will be there: Linda Blair, Jeffrey Combs, Tony Todd, Michael Berryman, and Michael Graves(!) just to name a few. So, wow...I'm excited now...talking about it. Anyway, I have stuff to post, but I haven't posted and I apologize to the very minute amount of people who read this blog o'mine. Here's a bunch:











I just got new shots in yesterday so I'll probably post again Sunday...maybe. If I may make a suggestion for you film shooters out there, Fuji Pro 800(Z) is a very nice, fast film. The said shots I got yesterday look pretty dang nice (and that's not exclusively on behalf of the picture-taker).

Made With Not From

Concentrate. I got another photo posted on the Film Is Not Dead It Just Smells Funny blog. Once again, I am honored. They have a lot of really great work on there of a very wide array - from toy cameras to large format, polaroids to pinholes, interiors to portraits, abstract to street photography. Even if you are not a photonerd (like me), I'm sure you'd find a handful of pictures to catch your eye. The first photo posted here is the one featured:







Oh, I can finally afford comics again. The Goon #19, Brit #1, All-star Superman #8, and Batman #667 were my first two purchases back into the world comic-nerdery (two separate comic store visits - same week).

A movie of cinematic brilliance (especially if you have any appreciation for the camerawork in Boogie Nights): I Am Cuba

Song to help you get angry (in that good way): "You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire" by Queens of the Stone Age

Song to calm you down after the rampage: "Caminho Das Aquas" by Maria Rita

Prefix/suffix of the day: Nerd, apparently.

New Post on Your Face

So, I shot some stuff today that I feel will yield some very pleasing results. Who knows when I'll get them developed, but either way...I even took some polaroids. Anyway, here's new stuff:









I'm actually fairly fond of these, but the flickr community doesn't seem to think as highly of them. Not that I'm out to win a popularity contest, but I suppose criticism would be better than nothing.

I have watched quite a few things lately. Extras - amazing, Freaks and Geeks (discs 1 & 2) - also amazing, Penitentiary - unbelievable, and Art School Confidential - eh, it was okay...just to name a few.

Oh, and Saturday, I went to a hayride thing with some friends of the family. It was pretty wonderful. One tends to forget how something so simple and (I suppose) childish can be so pleasant. Just watching the kids get so jazzed was, in itself, a joy. Anyway, I guess that's the short version. It was rather enjoyable.

Monkey Banana Raffle

So, washing windows is fun. Okay, not fun, persay, but it isn't bad. Part timing it has been nice. Although, I may have second job lined up soon. Anyway, here are some square pictures that I've had for a week, but I have delayed posting them for hope that some inspiring or humorous words could be conjured...by...my...um, brain. Anyway, here you go:







So, I saw Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. It was very well done, but I don't know what to make of it. The happenings in the movie are majorily ficticious (if not entirely). I suppose if I knew the facts of her life, I could appreciate it more. It had a lot of photography stuff in it which was pretty darn cool. The acting was very good to amazing - Robert Downey Jr. is always good. Beautifully shot. Like I said, I don't know what to make of it, but it was definately worth watching. Shutting up now.

"I Ain't Got No Car To Take You On A Date"

So, as grammatically horrendous as it may be, I can't get enough of Timbaland (in this case, "The Way I Are"). At the very, very least, he is a beat writing master. If all hip hop was at least this good, maybe it wouldn't suck so much. Speaking of sucky hip hop, by stark contrast, Kanye West is an over-hyped, under-talented idiot responsible for raping one of my favorite songs. I can't even listen to "Harder, Better..." by Daft Punk without remembering what he did to it. I can't say that I've heard a tremendous amount of this hack's work, but from what I have heard, he certainly doesn't deserve all this praise and adoration that I perceive him getting. For all I know, Timbaland and Kanye West are no different and I'M the idiot, but you shut up. You...just shut up and look at this kitten:




A brief and satisfying rant by Adam Dodds about...hip hop?

Concrete And Blue, Heartache Or Party

So, I saw these concrete things and became inspired enough to turn around. This film I used was Great Moments (which I assume is a knock-off of Kodak via its similar canister). I bought four rolls of the stuff at a gas station for $2. I didn't have any kind of professional expectations for this film, but being that it was expired and stored in a fairly improper environment for who knows how long, I did hope to see some wacky-ness happen. But alas:







I even went a step further to abuse this film and had it pushed to ISO800 (warning: photonerd alert). Ah, well, I dig these shots regardless. I also shot some Fuji slide film called Provia (for those not film-inclined), and for the most part, I gotta say that I wasn't too impressed. It could have been that I used a different camera, or I didn't use this film in it's most profitable setting, but Velvia is the winner thus far. Anyway, I said all that to not post any of these pictures from that roll in this post (although the first two in the last post were from the Provia). These two shots were from Kodak Portra 400VC which I have had subpar results with as well (as far as negative film, Portra NC is what I like best). Blah, blah. Photo-babble, blah, blah:





Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the photos of my Mom in the hospital in a previous post were from about a month ago, and she is currently doing fine. She had some gastro-condition which prevents her from eating things like peanuts, corn, etc. It acted up (she may have eaten something she shouldn't have), but it is all better now.

Shades of Green, Shades of Grey

I've uploaded a lot, and I've been debating what to post. The idea for the title of this post helped me narrow it down. As far as 35mm, slides scan so much better! Watched Oldboy again this past week. Initially, I thought it was the weaker of the Vengence trilogy films, but upon second viewing, I'll really have to rewatch the other two for my opinion not to change because it is an amazing film. Anyway, without further doodoo:







Also, here are a couple of shots (the only two that I took) from the last movie night we had at Danny and Megan's former apartment/townhouse. That was the time we watched The Story of Ricky (I don't think that's how you spell "Ricky" in this movie, but you get the idea):





I forget what song Megan was singing to Chris that night.