Head Over Heels - Tears for Fears [AMV]

Might Tell You Tonight - Scissor Sisters

When you're quiet, but your eyes
Are saying everything I need to know
I want to burrow like a sparrow
Dodging alley cats and whiskers
Why do we talk in whispers?
Is it painful hearing voices ring
So early in the morning?

I've been waiting for the day
When I can throw away these numbers
That line my dresser drawers and cupboards
Start me over
Life seems so much slower
With your toothbrush by the mirror
Can I make it any clearer?

And I just might say it tonight
I just might say it tonight
I just might tell you tonight
That I love you
And you should stay all my life

They'll tell you that you'll maybe make it
If you just cut your clothes and change your hair
But I won't fuss and moan
'bout what you wear
I feel so much better
When I read your dirty letters
Just wear your sweaters in the winter
'Cause I wouldn't want you to get cold
I hope that we're together when we're old
I would have sold all my possessions
Never took piano lessons
But baby you're a grand
And I will learn to play the good notes
And tune you up the best I can

And I just might say it tonight
I just might say it tonight
I just might tell you tonight
That I love you
And you should stay all my life

Box of Rain - Genesis - Phil Lesh/ R. Hunter

Throwing Heat

Russ Hennings is the guy who shot this cover. For a cousin, you could do alot worse. Lately I've been wondering just how it might be possible to get some of my family together and shoot a film.

I think I've found a way to shoot a film for less than 5,000.00 bucks in total funding. A full feature film with all kinds of cool angle shots, good sound, good image. Fully edited down. Here's how.

First, the camera. A modified Nikon D-90 that can shoot high and long enough for us to get dailies off it. Pull cards on it while you shoot, probably. I am concerned about resolution and ISO. And other stuff. This thing isn't technically a movie camera. For stills, its great. Not sure about continuous movie. Total cost: 1400.00 but I think I can get it for like. 1000.00. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I can get a good camera for less than 2,000.00 somewhere.

For Dolly shots, use a Skateboard. For Louma shots, just spin the boom down (the camera is light). If you want angle shots (rotating pan) bolt the camera onto the handlebars of a bike.

Next, the sound: A-Reel, an H-4 connected to shotgun mike on a boom. Don't forget the dead cat. Then the B-Reel , an H-2. All phantom power. Yes! Total there is only 500.00 bucks, and about another 300 for the mikes. 800.00 on the outside.

Editing? I am testing either Mystik Media's Blaze or one other. I'm divided about the editing software. I've used Moviemaker and That other damn thing I can't remember its name, that crashed all the time. Key thing is to get insane amounts of RAM into the machine, and get a really good processor in the workstation then figure it out from there. I expect to spend about 500, 600.00 on the software.

Ok, I'm off to work like hell. No kids in the picture today. This means I will get into something today that either I should be doing, or most definitely.. shouldn't.

Peace.

Bjork Interview - Japan

I slept with Tarot and Scarlet

I slept with Tarot and Scarlet last night. I woke up to find them nipping me. You have been warned.



Colorless Green Ideas was originally designed to be an exploration of Thomas Mann's question regarding the acceptance of pretty bizarre things - like , the rise of the Third Reich and what the German University System did when the Aryan myth started going around. It was meant to ask questions. It began in 2004, and then I decided to shut it down. For two years. Then again in 2006, I ran until late 2007 and shut it down for months.

The basic idea behind the title of this blog, comes from a quote from Noam Chomsky - who , when asked at a conference - to produce a sentence that had no meaning whatsoever - said "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

If I am writing about kittens, it is probably time to hang it up. Those little nerds keep tearing into my quilt.

Last night I did Carmichaels Trainright Spin Class and I walked off before they hit the mountains (did about 30, 40 minutes of it) but my daughter was watching in rapt attention. This spin class starts taking it out of you right at about 5 minutes into it. Ever wondered how you could pray that 10 seconds wouldn't last so long? Try doing 3 minute simulated attack on the peloton at max heart rate and a cadence of 100 plus.

Its obvious I don't have enough to do.

Stars, Songs, Faces

Gather the stars if you wish it so.
Gather the songs and keep them.
Gather the faces of women.
Gather for keeping years and years.

And then …
Loosen your hands, let go and say good-by.
Let the stars and songs go.
Let the faces and years go.
Loosen your hands and say good-by

Carl Sandburg

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
         I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
         What place is this?
         Where are we now?

         I am the grass.
         Let me work



Carl Sandburg

Clarence Thomas/SNL

Disintegration

Pretty in Pink - The Psychedelic Furs

Lets do...

One night one of my friends said. Lets go do crimes. I said. No.

When he came back, he figured out what was going on with his girlfriend and I. I didn't have to tell him. He just turned to me and said..

Keep her.

I did.

She and I figured out that our souls were kind of like patchwork quilts. She wanted to cut a few pieces out and see. Kink goes on.

She got arrested, and somehow I didn't. They thought I was stable. Maybe I was.

Today I taught my daughter about IM. I said. Slow it down. Make them make a statement they can back up. They're not real. Neither are you. Learn.

Then I put her on computer restriction. She doesn't care she's going down to the islands tomorrow.

Yesterday a business partner of mine I have been working with for 12 years accused me of armed robbery. Pretty good way to start off a monday, wouldn't you think ?

I actually prevented from being a disaster because I was working in his building at 4 am. I happened to be the only one in the building, so I could see his logic.

My response was to give the detective my cellphone number and made sure they dusted for prints. They won't find mine. The people who stole from the building couldn't figure out the difference between a compact brainscanner (don't even ask) and a laptop.



Its that whole. Laptop. Complex medical equipment thing, you know? I guess he thinks I'm still trying to get that one down.

Where's the Music? - Medeski Martin and Wood

Aunt Beast

It was a dark and stormy night
the wind blowing so hard
it shook concrete and reinforced steel of our wall
lightning when it struck, filled the whole of the sky
when she arrived and said Tesseracts are real

And when my unborn son told me to go

It was like walking but really riding through a veil
if you touched it , it felt like a gel
It had no form and it shined like water
It feels like rainfall on a sunny day
and as you passed through , cool to touch
with the sun coming out
and all the colors of sound

If you passed through one
you may have heard
waves on the shore of Iceland
or the drums of Catalon

Its kind of like holding a cup
or a kitten
the moment before the sunrise

And then came the Black thing

That was when I thought I heard a voice say
God made
Foolish things
to shame the wise
And weak things
to shame the strong

The black thing was entropy

Its strange to tell the story
because it wasn't just a journey
it was , instead, sort of like meeting someone
it was a moment of hope
the tesseract

It was a dark and stormy night
when Ms. Whatsit arrived
she didn't tell us
she once a star
that went supernova
to drive the darkness back
she just showed up one day

It almost killed us
if it weren't for Aunt Beast
the caring one
who helped us mend
because even at a distance
the black thing
hit us

it was so cold
all heat drained from us
and warmth she to return

A Wrinkle in Time teaches us
to love someone so intensely
that it actually changes us and them
easy to understand

by anyone who has ever held
a new life in their own hand

Let me tell you about the camera..

.. that girds the flame in my loins.

I am going name her Scarlet. when I get her? I know she's just a ... I'm sorry I can't say it. Colorless reader, would you look differently upon me if I told you that... I want to have .. um.. a relationship... with a battery powered electrical device?

I have already told my mom I met the woman who changed my life. You may see a camera. I see... long walks on the beach at sunset. "Scarlet" and I , drinking together at the soda shoppe (woops scarlet, is that a spot on you? let me clean that off.) I hear.. the song... "If you like Pina Coladas" ...

Is it so wrong, I ask you?

IronMan Preplan

I am focussed on a training plan for my IronMan upcoming early next year. There's got to be a way to do it without fragmenting the family, under fifteen hundred dollars. This is a discussion.

First, the majority of this money should go to the bike. Clearing your travel overhead, registration, a good pair of shoes, etc. - you're looking at basically 1000 left over for the bike.

How do you get a good triathlon bike, under 1,000.00? Well first you have to set a few goals about what the bike is meant to do. It will not be meant to be the lightest thing in the world, you just can't get a 15 pound bike for less than 2,000.00.

So be happy with a 20 pound , even a 23 pound bike. At that point, its going to be all about comfort. Take some time to find a bike that fits you like a glove. Measure your inseam, and actually have that number in your head as you make it over to the bike shop.

You'll hit a 1300.00 wall in the new bike shops, and you might as well forget trying to find a good one under 1100.00 there. I mean, there are a few but by and large you're just not going to make it. Settle for maybe a three or four year old bike off Craigslist.

There are three brands I think work well. First, I'm a big fan of Cannondale. Their bikes are really nicely done - they do little things like sand the welds and they just fly. Then, of course, there's Trek. Trek will be really, really hard to find under 1k. Finally you have some pretty elite bikes like Quintana Roo. Lets not even look for a Quintana. Stick to things like Trek, Specialized, Cannondale or Felt.

Next, set your price point at around 800.00 bucks , because you will need about 100.00 bucks worth of tuning, and repairs - spare tires, that kind of thing. And then about 175.00 bucks worth of just supplies for the 9 month long training - include the price of a low end heart rate monitor that just does one thing - measures your heart rate.

Finally, nuke your gym membership. 50 bucks a month - not needed. Now you're set to begin. Besides, you were only there have an excuse to train, anyway. Wait. I didn't say that.

Now your goal should be to train without big expenses or hospitalization. Train indoors, watching TV or something. Eliminates the possibility of getting hit by a car. Think it can't happen? It happened to my best friend. Also, the plan is going to take you away from your family - training in - helps you to be around them. Use the Fartlek technique and play games off TV shows or films or training clips (like Carmichael's train right). I did one today that was really fun - I set up a Bond flick? That one called 'The world is not enough?' and as soon as it hit tits o'clock I hit 19 mph on the bike. Worked great. Thats Fartlek - these really intense bursts of speed, interspersed through a pretty good run. Galloway also says to try walking during your runs (which amounts to a cooldown phase on the bike), and that works too but make damn sure to do it in only in the first half of the run or bike. Finish strong.

A good regimen is Swim on Monday. Run on Tuesday. Bike on Wednesday. Walk out Thursday, R+R. Friday do a big run. Saturday, swim. Sunday big bike. That means with at least one big bike run and one big run, you're looking at - between those two alone, at least 10 hours of training. Altogether you've got about a 40 hour a week training regimen and then you taper, down to the final event. We ramp this up, but remember your plan is going to be stretched out over like. 9 , maybe 12 months - and so the biggest time demand is going to be towards the end.

The way I'm doing the pool is to use public pools and bring the kids and let them swim along. They'll want to play for a couple of hours and that works fine. Plus, I'm GOING to learn how to do a flip. I can't believe I am this age and I don't know how to do one.

The way I've started out is to shed weight up front because I just don't want to carry it. I kind of hate the run. I re-zeroed pretty fast. Also, I have a reason to do it. I am doing this run for the memory of my mother in law - who was a wonderful person (she will be written on me).

Starting off by dropping weight saves you some cash on groceries. Then once you hit BMI (not fat percentage, just weight) you can carb load. Get carbed before your big run on Friday and your big Bike on Sunday. That means Pasta Thursday and Saturday nights. I used slimfasts to nuke off my breakfast and drank these propel waters through the day - eliminated ALL sugar drinks. The only real way to lose weight is to run a calorie deficit and wake your body up to using energy from fat cells. It will take alot of water so stay hydrated. Use regular water. Not perrier.

If you set up your bike in front of your TV, I recommend getting Carmichael's Train Right series. He will murder you. Also, get an ipod and load things other than just songs on it. You will go slightly crazy out there on 20 mile runs every week. You're going to need it. I listen to Jack Benny. It helps me feel good about myself.

Finally, the really big thing to take care of is your mental state. You've decided to do an ironman. Ok, this means you. have. a. death. wish.

Fall back on the people you really care about. Tell them you're going to do this but leave your ego at the door. At first, they'll think you're slightly nuts - remember to have a reason to begin with - and then help them share in the journey. Its going to hurt. They'll make it so you deal. Also, you're probably going to get injured or get stuck somewhere. A full 120 mile bike for me, is to leave my home in Atlanta, bike to Alabama and back. We were out there one day doing that, and my best friend's tire blew. And he fixed it and it blew again. And he was smart enough to look at the tire itself and not the tube and found that the tire was ballooning out - he had exactly one more patch left in his patch kit. We were just this close to losing a 120 mile bike and having to call his fiance to come pick up him all the way out in BFE.

Finally. A personal note. I'm scared to death.

I'm going to do this. Once I register, there's no turning back. I'm kind of crazy like that. I have run away from relationships - because I felt like I was falling in love. I have taken out entire parts of my life for two or three words in a Zen Koan somewhere. I have hit the slow realization that I am going to do this. Not to show off. But for the memory of my mother in law. She wanted me to do this.

Namaste.

A Romantic Moment

For me, one of the most romantic and fascinating moments that could be found from any film, is the moment in 'the professional' where mathilde and leon are in his apartment and they have a conversation about a pig.

Mathilde uses the term disparagingly. Leon insists, no, pigs are very clean animals. I have one in my kitchen. She says no you don't I was just there. Dont move. He says.

She realizes, as his pig oven mitt peers over the edge of the wall... that she has affection for him. That he won't hurt her.

The scene is split. Later that night, Leon gets up in the middle of the night, puts a silencer on the gun and walks quickly and purposefully to her room, levels the gun to her head .

And doesn't pull the trigger.

Pretty in Pink

Caroline laughs and
It's raining all day
She loves to be one of the girls
She lives in the place
In the side of our lives
Where nothing is
Ever put straight


She turns herself round
And she smiles and she says
'This is it'
'That's the end of the joke'
And loses herself
In her dreaming and sleep
And her lovers walk
Through in their coats

All of her lovers
All talk of her notes
And the flowers
That they never sent
And wasn't she .. easy?
And isn't she
Pretty in pink?


The one who insists
He was first in the line
Is the last to
Remember her name
He's walking around
In this dress
That she wore
She's gone
But the joke's the same


Caroline talks to you
Softly sometimes
She says
'I love you' and
'Too much'
She doesn't have anything
You want to steal
Well
Nothing you can touch


Isn't She?
Pretty In Pink

Don't Cha - Pussycat Dolls

Mary's Tale

Lord Ganesh is the remover of all obstacles
born at a moment where his head itself would be torn off
he finds a baby elephant
and lives

There is no problem in business big money can't solve
no barrier to wealth or shares or the love of a child
no reason we cannot stay or go
worship by the light

We take her toe and lead her around the fire
as the sun also rises
beautiful
to take control



At the end of the ritual - we both reach for something that looks
kind of like a spitball
whoever gets it
gets to be boss
:D

We should be able to live a graceful life that is full of mutual love and warmth.
Our sentiments should be auspicious.
We should be able to see for a hundred years, live a healthy life of a hundred years
and listen the music of spring for a hundred years.

Te santu jard—istayah sampriyau royisnu sumansyamanau
Pasyema sharadah shatam jivema sharadah shatam shrunuyam shardah shatam

And then we pay him
A wealthy young man
and a wealthy young woman
Ganesh smile upon them

In meditation
In aesthetic
In the unpredictable

History has shown
The way of the tyrant has fallen to love
always

Think of it. Always.

The Professional - End Sequence

Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla

Have a party favor .

This administration's Energy policy will not be written behind closed doors by executives from the Enron corporation.

Strict Machine - GoldFrapp

The Glory of Friendship

"The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, not the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

In keeping with the precepts of openness here's a list of my partners. No incidence of serious disease but a few of them have been known to use Virus as a vector.

• Amber - if you're alive, we're good.
• John - Someone who hit me in the mouth, so hard it gave me a concussion. I lost three days - they told me I went around the neighborhood picking fights. We are still best friends, but we've not spoken in nearly .. uhm.... 25 years. I am pretty sure he became an Artist but he might just be a drug addict instead.
• The little boy that I had the conversation with in the sandbox, when I was four. You can remember things that far back. Try it. His specific sentence was " I don't believe in God. " .. My first lost weekend...
  1. I tried to eat flowers.
  2. At the age of 5, I tried to play in the masters golf tournament. I was found on the highway walking to Augusta with my toy golf clubs.
  3. At 6, I jumped from a 90 foot bridge along with a bunch of daredevils. The water felt hard when it hit. My mom found my shoes there on the top of the bridge. Her boyfriend at the time jumped in after me, getting up the nerve
  4. Later that year 'the talk'. Pieced together from fragments of what my mom would say - and my friends. so that when they gave me the book where little baby chicks came from , at 9, or so - I skipped the whole vaginal intercourse part and went straight for "which came first, the chicken or the egg"
• The Cocteau Twins, for the song 'Heaven or Las Vegas' . Beethoven, for 'The Moonlight Sonata'. Boston for 'Don't Look Back'. Daft Punk for 'Da Funk'. And the Beatles for 'A Day in the Life'. Again, not necessarily in that order
• Krazy Kat, the first openly Satomasochistic (masochist) comic. I have read them all. The entire scope of his or her vision of pleasure in life is to be hit with a brick.
• My wife. She'll be pissed off discovering she's under a comicbook character, but then again, she took two masters degrees in College before she was 24 and she spent the majority of her academic career pretending to read while she was reading comics behind the book. One time her father found her doing so, and quietly offered to turn the book rightside up. She went to the beach in a full length dress. And held my firstborn child.
• The comfort in the sea. Distracting. Reacting. Against my will I stand beside my own reflection.
• CallerID. I now, no longer answer the phone. Whoever invented it is my friend. If you have business with me, I will know about it. And the person who invented the technique called Graylisting - which is surprisingly effective against spam. Thanks guys!
• A Biography of Abraham Lincoln, by Carl Sandburg.
• The lights of LA County. Because they look like Diamonds in the sky, Lyle
• Sean, in whom I hope he's truly found the love of his life - in Costa Rica. If he's still there. Hard to hear the sound of gunshots anymore, when you live by the beach. I promise we'll go windsurfing someday amigo
• That girl in black leotards. The one who climbed right past me free climbing that wall I was one. The one who pushed with her legs.
• The bottle of Tequila I drank when I was 14. And the, and the front wheel of my bike . Which I discovered , strangely - that I couldn't feel when my head went through it.
• A poster of Linda Rondstadt. Carefully retouched, in ball point pen and marker.
• The Leitz and Red Camera Companies. The Bose Corporation. And the Vince Guarabaldi Trio
  
  
• The church-sponsored and tacitly endorsed Orgy known as the Catholic Youth Organization sleepover.
• Justin. Green and wiggly. And Black. And White.
• Andrew. A hacker.
• The B-17 Bomber, the Messerschmitt BF 109e , the Focke-Wolf 190, the Heinkel He 177 bomber and The Junkers JU 87 Stuka. In that order.
• Teresa, Janet, Beth, Jennifer , Christina, and Ruby. Measure twice. Cut once.
• A shabby couch on a porch overlooking a hill and a pool in Topanga Canyon.

Haven't been allowed to have friends for quite a while, but I've recently made the decision that friends are ok and this list needs to change.

I just realized, as I wrote this - that I have never lost a friend, which is to say some of them are MIA but never really broke anything between any of us. I guess its because I am not really one to be full of surprises.

I like long walks on beach and listing things like the ingredients to make an atomic bomb. I have been described as being like a Mother Cat who is always moving her kittens. If I was a Horse, I would be the one that might listen to the leg when you're on, but try to buck you off .

Tie a knot and press it into the side of my mouth, and spend time running me around in circles.

Here's a playlist that I built - for anyone out there that I'm talking to currently (ie "thrashing") kindly tune to the song by L-7 for a good starting point. Here's where I tweet, and I never tweet where I live.

Lets see. What else? Hm. A couple of hookers, one of them named Kim, and the other one I'd like to forget (no more hookers!) and a Submissive who wants to be a slave. Thats it. Full disclosure.

I hope to change this list in the near future, but it will take a skydiving jump I think to make sure. Or another 29 mile run. Whichever comes first.