I’m back from Miami.

The weather, as expected, was great. A nice breezy 80 degrees each day. It’s a treat to wear shorts comfortably in December when you live in the North.

It was an interesting week. I mainly played the role of silent cameraman, while everything went on around me. (Plenty went on, I’ve got almost 10 hours of footage to dump!) The trip was valuable; it helped me recenter my focus and realize the “Art Scene” isn’t really for me.

I’m not a traditional artist, that breed is dying. At this point, I even hesitate to categorize my self as an ‘artist’ since so much of my design aesthetic has nothing to do with the traditional fine arts. I’m a bit of a fish out of water working on a Web TV show about drawing the figure.

The truth is I’m working very hard (with little pay!) to help other people realize their creative visions. There is a generational schism taking place between ‘old media’ and ‘new media’ - I can see the writing on the wall and I’m not so sure others do.

It’s an strange (natural?) progression I’m taking - when I first came to New York I was happy just taking work any production work, anyone’s creative vision really. It is beginning to wear thin. I’m learning I don’t like standing in the shadows of others. I guess somethings never change once you leave the corporate world.

Come January I will kick my screenplay into high gear as I start attending the New York Film Academy Screenwriting workshop. Then I think it’s time to start looking to work with the best people of my generation.

This was all heavy on my mind as the plane made its ascent above the clouds. The clouds almost looked painted - it was beautiful and just for a moment I forgot about what a silly little mess life can be.

!Warning! - Non-Creative Boring Life Post. Approach with Caution!

*PLOP*

Just back from an excursion to Virginia and Maryland. The trip down wasn’t too bad, I made great time and didn’t hit much traffic. Driving home tonight, however, was a series of unfortunate and aggravating events - some of which I’ll share with you now!

I’ll begin by saying weather sucked, this contributed to my first bottle neck in Northern Virginia. A black Acura TSX lost control, hit a truck and did a 360 into the side-wall at an underpass. +1 gawking holiday traveler +2 stupid Virginia Drivers. I braved the traffic, and about 25 minutes later I was across the state line into Maryland.

It was in this slow moving traffic I began frantically looking for my iPod. Damnit! I left it in Virginia. This was going to make the rest of the trip very long. It was a shame really, I had a bunch of Doctor Who Audio Books  lined up to keep me busy. (Tom Baker all the way to David Tennant, baby.)

I was instead forced to listen to the incessant chatter of the top 100 radio stations to keep myself sane. After I lost all hope in humanity, I scanned the FM range for anything tolerable. Fourteen different versions of “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” It was beginning to look a lot like I was going to kill myself.

To kill some time I called some friends, caught up with them for a bit until I hit Delaware - or rather I didn’t “hit” Delaware as much as I crept at speeds in an excess of 5 miles an hour. But it was once I got over the Delaware Memorial Bridge that my personal hell truly began.

I. Hate. The. New. Jersey. Turnpike.

And no, it’s not that silly little “Hey you always hit traffic on the turnpike” kind of hate. You can always expect to hit some traffic there.

OK, I should say the Jersey Turnpike traveler can share some of the blame - the way men piss with reckless abandon on the floor of at every single rest-stop. Let me be clear; these bathrooms were about as clean as the ones in Silent Hill. On my first stop I slid, on a sheet of urine. Each toliet was sprayed top to bottom with piss. Even the toliet paper was soaked and dripping.

However, it is in times like these that I am glad I am not a woman. I can’t even begin to imagine the horror that is the Women’s room on the Jersey Turnpike.  Now you may say “But Merrel, That was an isolated incident! Surely not every bathroom along the Jersey Turnpike is like this.” Well, you’re wrong - about two hours later in the thick of traffic, I pulled off into the Woodrow Wilson Service Area.

Ice Skating on piss was bad enough - but I swear I saw an impatient traveler pissing in the sink. The sink! As a grown man, are your that incapable of waiting the additional 3.4 seconds it takes before you just end up going on the floor anyway?

Then there was the food, oh the food. Rest-stop food is always expensive, $13 for half a sub and drink anyone? Lucky me, I got stuck in line with the self proclaimed ‘produce inspector of Turnpike land.’ Her job as she saw fit was to continually warn me that the carrots and broccoli I picked up from the refrigerated section were “dead” and “no good.”  I politely told her “They look fine to me.” She insisted again as we walked to register that I should get “fresher” carrots. I’m not shopping at Trader Joe’s, I’m in the middle of the Jersey Turnpike on a Sunday night. Trying to be diplomatic I said - “I’ll live, thank you though” and paid for my food.

Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say. The produce inspector followed me to the condiments bar and loudly proclaimed to no one in particular that I had just purchased “bad carrots.”  She turned to somebody “Can you believe this idiot! I told him he was getting bad carrots and he bought them anyway!” I waited for her to find a seat. I found one close by and looked her dead in the eye as I ate each-and-every carrot and broccoli. The look of incredulity on her face was priceless. Considering how out of my mind on Christmas Carols this was definitely the right choice.

There is plenty more, but I have to be in Manhattan fairly early tomorrow… This ends my delirious stream of consciousness post. Cheers!

The next 2 weeks will be hectic - I’ll be visiting family next week for Thanksgiving in the DC Metro area and then two days after I come back to New York, I’ll be flying out to Miami for Art Basel Miami. The Telegraph once referred to the event as “The Olympics of the Art World.”

The event in Florida is huge, and I’ll be going as part of the production team to capture some events the studio I work for is putting on. This means I’ll be traveling with all my gear. I’m a little nervous about my lights, camera, and a couple of microphones. Once there, I’ll be doing lots of prep work and largely focus on the video shoot, which involves models and possibly a raised staged. Alternately, I’ll be promoting the studio and show to people.

After I’m back, it will be time for decompression and post-production. Speaking of which, I may have mentioned I’m an AVID guy, but the studio uses FCP. I’ve always been partial to AVID, but I’m glad I can fiinally say I have equal proficiency with both. There are a couple of things I find are much easier to do in AVID (keyframing for example)

Oh, almost forgot. I signed up for that New York Film Academy Screenwriting workshop I talked about. It begins next year January and it runs 12 weeks. In the mean time, I haven’t had much time to work on the screenplay, but I figure I’ll be devoting a lot of energy to it in the coming months.

-M

It’s almost 2 am and I just got in from the city. After an exciting election party I headed to Times Square to watch Obama’s acceptance speech, in what I can only described as one of the most surreal moments of my life. The energy in the city was electrifying. The din of the crowd was overwhelming, as the chanting and sheer volume swirled around my head.

The crowd roared as some stood on top of telephone boxes, others focused intensely on the video screens as Obama gave his acceptance. I observed the instant comradeship between all these people chanting and hugging, and in all this elation was moment of true clarity.

It was here, in this sea of people, as I watched history unfold in front of me - that I thought to myself for the very first time in a long time,  “I’m proud to be an American.“

I’m contemplating plunking down $2,500 to do a 12 week screenwriting course at the New York Film Academy. One of the goals of the course is to “finish the course with a first draft of an original screenplay.”

Honestly, I could continue developing my screenplay on my own, but I think this would be an excellent exercise in refining my process, and would allow me to apply some more personal pressure to completing this project.

I’m a glutton for punishment I guess - I have plenty to keep my hands full with other personal creative projects and my work at the studio, where my role is expanding rapidly. Despite this, I want to put more on my plate.

For example, earlier this year I did something I’d wanted to do since I was a kid; learn Japanese. It was hell, I was studying the language four to six hours a day, studying all day during the weekends. But I was committed to the process, and came out of a six month period with a good fundamental understanding of the language.

I hope this course will do the same for my screenwriting ability.

-Merrel

Hello. I’m actually very good at keeping up on other blogs I maintain. It’s just this one I can’t seem to update. Oh and pardon the post title - StrangeLove has been running through my head all day.

So what’s going on?

Work:
I’m in the thick of producing a web-tv show - it’s a small operation, but I’m truly enjoying the work right now. We’re getting good bit of traffic on youtube, and the aforementioned blog. It is busy, the studio also has outside clients, so on any given day I’m working on everything from web and video production for nude women to high fashion women’s shoes.

On the art side recently interviewed a fine art photographer friend, Sid Ceaser, for a post and just today I was shooting interviews at a Gallery in SoHo. I still haven’t seen much of the city, but that’s ok right now.

Play:
To address my insatiable need to play something with keys I recently picked up a Yamaha Cs1x synth on the cheap. There are some great sounds in it, but it could be a little bit before I can use them the way I’d like. I’m still learning how to program it. I’m also digging the tactile knobs. It gives the board a great analog feel.

Here’s a quick snapshot - as you can see, I was in a hurry to try it out. [For those wondering, that's an M-audio FastTrack Pro in the background]

With this purchase, I’ve given up on buying a Yamaha DX7. Though the DX7 is a great synth, it is heavy, and notoriously difficult to program. Instead I picked up FM8, a full featured software synthesizer, that supposedly does a good job of emulating the DX7. We’ll see - up until I’ve been mostly using Reason as my primary software synth.

When I do sit down to compose, I find myself creating landscapes that sound like they belong in an episode of The X-Files. Coincidentally, I’ve been watching quite a bit of X-Files lately. Maybe I’ll gush about Mark Snow in a different post…

Somewhere in between:
My screen writing endeavor is ongoing. It is slow, but I hope to have a completed draft before January. I’m encouraged by the responses that I’ve received from people so far. When I described the opening shots of the film, one friend said it was “brilliant.” I believe she was drunk and well meaning! I don’t think this is “brilliant” material - at least not yet. I suppose at some point I should register my work with the Writers Guild.

Other projects are not faring so well. One of the casualties of moving to New York is a podcast I’d been producing since 2006.  It was my first foray into podcasting and focused on Japanese Culture, specifically anime and manga. I’m still very much interested in those things - but I just don’t have the time to work on something I essentially started as a lark. I’ve learned lots of great lessons on producing serial audio though.

Warning! Life Post:

I put my MIDI controllers and my upright piano into storage before heading to New York and I’m hurting now. I’m in a temporary living situation and I wasn’t about to bring the whole calvary.

And in true Merrel fashion, I’m scattered as usual! Entrenched in multiple creative endeavors, but now I feel like I need to write some music. I have the opportunity to do some fun music for a web-tv show I’m working on. I’d like just to fire up Reason and pop-out a couple tracks - but I need a new keyboard. I was looking at the something like the M-Audio Oxygen-49 to hold me over,  but I don’t really like only having 49 keys.  I need those extra octaves when I’m playing. Still, I’m ok with having less keys, after all a while back I said I wanted a Little Phatty, along with some other “toys” - all of which I still can’t afford.

The New York City Craigslist is chock full of good deals on this type of equip, even saw a great deal on a Yamaha DX7 II. But I’ll have to wait. I’ve got to bring some of my current projects to a close before I begin buying equipment for new ones.

I’ve got to stay focused! Does anyone else have this kind-of creative scatter brain?

-M

It really has hit me. I’m working in Manhattan, I’m up to my eyeballs in the Olympics and other projects. A month out, and it feels like I’ve been here forever, and that’s a good thing.

I wanted to share the sheer absurdity and tranquility that is New York through a series of (sometimes blurry) pictorials and stories.

People in New York City do smile

On Saturday night, I was walking down 9th Ave, around 45th or so toward Penn Station. Ahead of me was a huge crowd of people surrounding the opening of about 4 different restaurants/bars. Naturally curious, I went to see what the hell was going on.  As it turns out, each bar had the 4×100 meter medley (otherwise known as the “Phelps 8th gold race”) showing on their televisions. Lucky me, I had walked up with less than a minute left in the race. I stopped, joined the crowd and got swept away. Every time Phelps touched a wall, there were uproarious cheers down 9th Ave.  By this point, some cars had stopped, and were watching from their windows.

The last 100 meters of the race were intense in their own right. As Phelps fought through and touched his hand on the final wall, the collective crowd -  patrons, pedestrians and drivers all - exploded into raucous cheering and applause. Admittedly, I was caught up in the moment.  I jubilantly cheered, feeling I had just experienced a strange and unique camaraderie that would be difficult to manufacture.  It was over as quickly as it began, as though a work whistle had been blown, the crowd dispersed almost immediately. I walked with a slight spring in my step for the rest of the way to Penn Station.

Slightly aged, non-mutant, certainly not ninja turtles (in Manhattan!)

Later in the week, I was walking around West 50th St and 9th and I was astounded to see a huge freaking turtle walking down the street! The turtle was followed by a meek non-English speaking woman pushing a cart. She smiled, did not respond to any English, and continued walking with the turtle. During this time I also had the following dialog with a passerby “Whoa, it’s a turtle.” “Yeah, It’s Manhattan what do you expect?” “Umm. A turtle apparently?”

New York is beautiful

I may have mentioned I’m staying in Long Island right now. In my (very little) down time, I’ve taken to walking the area. Staying in Long Island has done wonders for establishing an equilibrium between my old life and new. I need trees. I need to see grass, I didn’t grow up in the city, so it’s just one of those strange things that may be slightly comforting on a sub-concious level.

I managed to find a nice park area that opens up to the water. It has a rec center, pools, and various other amenities. I found it to be a great place just to chill out after spending alot of time in the city. As the sun was setting I snapped this on my cell phone. (Translation: “pardon the picture qaulity, but the moment shouldn’t have been lost, so I took the picture with my cell phone.”)

Ugly Betty tows cars, people!

I’ve been working in the Tribeca area the past two weeks.  I pass Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca Grill on a daily basis and I’ve had the opportunity to visit the firehouse used in Ghostbusters. But what really put a smile on my face was this notice posted on Monday morning this week on Franklin St:

That’s right. The third season of the ABC show Ugly Betty has moved production to New York City. Quite amusingly, the note reads “Vehicles will be TOWED to the nearest legal spot..” That’s great, they don’t actually tow you to a yard, just down 4 blocks! How will you ever know? Note the cones along side the street.

Raccoon’s love cat food too

Bless my dear Grandmother. She is something of a good samaritan when it comes to feeding stray cats and catching them to be neutered. As such she feeds a mini-colony of cats who come to her home on a nightly basis. Most of them are adorable, and skittish, some feral, but all definitely CATS. Except on Tuesday night, when her customers were a little less friendly.

Meet “Mr & Mrs. Screaming Hissing Raccoon.” No, that is not a two-headed raccoon. Rather it is two of the five raccoons that were chomping down on some cat food.  They were not happy by my presence and immediately began hissing and showing their teeth. They stood their ground, and ultimately I opted to leave the house from a side door. (I’m cool like that)

Ouch, I’m dragging ass.

I’ve been working nights since Sunday and it has put my schedule on its head. Actually, right now (it’s 2 a.m.) I have a little bit of a lull in work, but for the most part it has been pretty busy since Sunday. One of the great benefits of this gig though is I am watching many Olympic sporting events I probably would have missed otherwise. Like the pommel horse…

The last Olympics that I watched with any level of regularity was the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics and that was mostly because of my great interest in Japanese culture and geography and the debut of the Snowboarding and the Half-Pipe as events. With the 2008 Beijing Olympics, I’m equally as enamored with the culture of China.

Speaking of China, I have another post up over at The Great Nude.tv website. It is part one of a multiple series of posts that explore some of the contemporary Chinese painters as they relate to figurative arts. It is a great time to explore some Chinese culture as it relates to the arts, don’t you agree?

-M

My birthday is tomorrow, August 2nd. For those who are rusty with their zodiac signs, I’m a Leo. In the interest in self exploration and understanding, I’ve taken to the trashy, yet somehow slightly accurate horoscopes an examined some choice descriptors of a “Leo.”

You tend to live your live straightforwardly and with a flair for drama. In fact, many Leos are attracted to the theater, the performing arts. (source)

Ok, I can see that. After all, I am (I hesitate to use this word) a fledgling creative professional.

[The] Leo is very independent but they need something to control and someone to admire them and appreciate them. They are fully capable of being greatly successful on their own but they are much happier if they have an audience and a following of people who look up to them. (source)

I think there is is a bit of truth to that. I create art, music, video, and audio not specifically for my own edification. Part of my creation relies on the tactile response to my work.

Leo’s are boisterous assholes who must get their way always. They think they are better than you, and most of the time they are right. Don’t stand to close to a Leo or his blaze of glory with terminally sear your eyeballs (source)

Umm, why don’t we stop this exercise before I’ve completely exposed the intricate clockwork that is my artistic and emotional psyche.

However, during my searches I did uncover an interesting little tidbit. I share my birthday with Kevin Smith. It all makes sense now. I’ve always identified with his work on many levels, but it didn’t click until recently why his movies (particularly his earlier works) resonated so well with me.

When I was a freshman in high school, I worked in this Mom-n’-Pop video store. It was next to a pizzeria and just a few short steps from convenience store. And the year that I worked there, I lived Clerks. I didn’t hate my job per se, I just had no sense of responsibility. I watched videos all day, and ate popcorn out of the popcorn machine. I was helpful, but I learned to be utterly disdainful to all of the customers through a series of interactions.

The store rented porno videos in the back. It was a tacky room with a beaded doorway, that opened up to posters of Caligula and John Wayne Bobbit Uncut. For my part, I got to see the interesting cross section of people renting pornography in my town.

I had nick-names for most of the customers that rented pornography. Like “Little Woody Allen“, he was about 4 feet 7 inches tall, and look so much like Woody Allen it was hard not to quote something from Annie Hall to his face. “Little Woody” would come in to the store and spend 3 hours browsing in the adult room. The thing is, we only got new video shipments every month for porn, and usually it was only one or two movies. Amusingly, the room was only 7×10, and would only take 15 minutes to see all the videos. It was my job to enter the room after 2 hours or so and remind him to rent or leave. Every time, “Little Woody” would be startled and jump as though I had just walked in on him in the bathroom. But creepiest of all, is how he would bring 8 tapes of porno and then also grab a Disney movie, like The Little Mermaid, and put it on the top of the stack.

There was also “Crazy Soccer Mom” or the “MILNF” (Mom I’d like not to fuck.) She’d bring her 3 raucous bundles of joy to the store and let them run rampant, as she stepped into the Adult section to presumably find a video aide to patch her already shattered marriage. Her children did as they pleased, once urinating in the corner of the store. (Guess who cleaned that one up!) Another time, I received a returned video from her that had a dum dum sealing the case shut. But the best was when she (accidentally?) returned a very personal “home-movie” in place of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. John Candy, was not how I remembered him…

And so, another quandary that is my convoluted appreciation for others creations is demystified. Smith’s work spoke to me on a very real tactile level, I was just to caught up in being a young guy working at a video store and hating customers to sit back and analyze it. To you Kevin Smith, born on the same day as I was, I salute you. Your ability to take the taboo and scatological and make surprisingly topical is appreciated by many and loathed by many more. Way to be a Leo.

-M