Hello darkness

You want to talk a bout a crazy week, talk about my week. Well, to be honest it wasn’t so much crazy as it was busy. The first week back from spring beak is always a little hectic I suppose, but this week seemed to be abnormally difficult. Hopefully, next week will not be as bad. Still, I had a few good moments here and there. I saw the Graduate for the first time in my life, the film with Dustan Hoffman. I personally liked it a lot, and now I can understand a lot of the satirical references in the Simpson’s that pertain to this film, I.E. getting on the back of a bus, playing The Sound of Silence, etc…

So I think I’m going to just give you a run-down of the music I listened to this week, which, wasn’t a whole lot. Mostly I repeated Jets to Brazil’s “Orange Rhyming Dictionary” and Radiohead’s “Amnesiac”.

I’ll talk to you soon!

-Brock

Don't I Hold You

We missed a weekday! Oh well, I've been feeling unmotivated and lathargic. That also means I haven't done any further work on the story. Perhaps that will all change with the delivery of my brand new acoustic guitar. I should get that today or tomorrow.

I've also forgot to list the past week's albums! Last week I actually listened to the complete Braid discography!! Want a nice, sad song? Wheat - Don't I Hold You.
Albums:
Jeff Buckley - Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk
The Casket Lottery - Survival Is For Cowards

Kiss and make up

First and foremost, yesterday's post by yours truly, Looser was supposed to have a funny picture to go with it. However, because of some hiccup in the code, the picture failed to post, and the edit feature on that post bombed out. I don’t know what happened, but this is my formal apology for that atrocity of a red X that you see below.

Man Gabe, great commentary on the Oscars! Kathy Bates cracks me up... I personally didn't watch the Oscars, yet it wasn't because of a personal stance or anything. Rather, I forgot that they were on. That's pretty sad, when an aspiring movie director neglects the biggest awards show in film. Nevertheless, the second I found out that I had missed out on the Oscars I jetted online to check out who the winners and losers were. No surprise regarding Nicole Kidman and her best actress award. While I will denote that her performance as Virginia Wolf in The Hours was pretty good, it's probably not her best moment. Let's face it; this was a make-up Oscar for last year when she lost to Halle Berry.
I really can't say too much else aside from the fact that I'm disappointed John C. Riley lost. Not surprised, I expected him to loose, but that doesn't make the fact any less disappointing. Still, maybe his being nominated will raise awareness among the public of his prolific career and skills. Word to the wise for the new "hip" Oscar judges: Next year I want to see Philip Seymour Hoffman get nominated for his sure to be amazing performance in Cold Mountain. Right on.

Today I'm off for my first real cinema class. No mishaps like last time, I'm in it for sure now. Currently I'm debating on what to make of my summer semester in college. I'll probably pick up the first two classes that will factor into my choice of profession: Screenwriting and Photography. Hoo boy...

Back on the Attack

Hello! I'm back from my brief vacation in Flagstaff. It was fun and relaxing. I was able to write more material on The Study of Leonard Hughes thanks to the flowing sound of Oak Creek and the relaxing setting of the La Quinta courtyard. Unfortunately it wasn't as much as I'd like to have written, but I had other things to do as well. That included a quick trip to Sedona and snowboarding at AZ Snowbowl on Sunday. We also caught a movie on Saturday night, A View From the Top. It was a decent and fun movie. Funny as well.

I got back in time Sunday night for the 75th Annual Academy Awards. I watched the entire thing! I can't remember the last time I did that. One of the main reasons for that was it actually finished on time!! Kudos to the Academy and Gil Cates for setting a time limit of 45 seconds for speeches! The Oscars actually finished a couple minutes after it was scheduled to end. Last year it ended, something like an hour and a half after! Boo to Adrien Brody for feeling he was worth more than 45 seconds, which also suggests he was more important than the other winners who used 45 seconds or less. I'd have to say, though, that the Academy surprised me with some of their selections. Just a few, though. It wasn't surprising to see Chicago as the big winner, however, as it was the big buzz movie. The biggest surprise was the award for Best Song, which went to Eminem. Do you think the Academy chose that song because they truly felt it was the Best Song, over established song writers U2 and Paul Simon? Do you? Keep in mind the Academy is mostly made up of members that are seniors. My personal opinion of that selection, was that the Academy was trying to display an apparent open mindedness and sense of "hipness" by that selection.

Overall, the award show was watchable and entertaining. One thing that bothered me was that piece the Academy did, with bits from past winners, on how winning an Oscar has affected them. Some of them were a little too emphatic that an Oscar made such a huge impact on them. Perhaps it does financially, since winners are "hot commodities" in the industry. It was like a campaign commercial, validating the importance of the awards. Cheers to Kathy Bates, who in her piece said "Here's his ass (the Oscar statue's) and here's my lips." She then proceeded to kiss the ass of the Oscar statue. At least she can admit to what the Oscars really boil down to. But, like I said, the Academy is made up of members, mostly senior, that are in or have been in the film industry for years. It still comes down to their personal opinions. If actors/directors/writers, etc. don't feel their career is validated without an Oscar, they're in the business for the wrong reasons. The Academy Awards aren't much different than the Grammys and other award shows, which are mostly influenced by popularity and politics.

Looser

So today was the first day back to school after Spring Break. It was kind of a mixed feeling: on one hand I really looked forward to getting back into the swing of things, and on the other hand I enjoyed being lazy and incoherent. However, it all turned out well, and my Spring Break was fairly productive. One of the things I did on Spring Break was write a short story, the first non-science fiction story that I finished on my own accord. I encountered a few writing difficulties here and there, mainly on Friday last week when a horrible case of writer's block prevailed throughout the day. Thankfully, by the end of the night, the writer's block cleared up and I got back to writing the story, more motivated then ever. That night I finished it, and now all I have to do is edit it and clean the paragraphs up a bit!

What is this story about you say? Well, it's about a man...and to be more specific it's about a looser. This looser of a person is crushed by a romantic mishap that slowly ate away at his being for the course of a few months. Distraught and saddened by loosing the girl of his dreams to another man, he finds solace in attending the concert of his favorite band of all time. This is where my take on the story picks up as we find the man moping about around the concert venue, only to run into his personal idol - the lead singer of his favorite band. The two talk over his problems and find a kind of kindred spirit in one another as they both share similar circumstances in their life. So what? Big deal you say... we've heard the story about the romantic looser a million times over. The big kicker comes in the end of the story, an ironic (and fairly unsatisfying) twist leaves the reader feeling sad and in hysterics at the same time. Well, that is to say, I can only hope it will leave the reader feeling that way. Whenever I write down a story or a concept for a story and share it with someone else, their reaction is usually completely different from my own reaction to the story...so what may seem funny and tragic to me will probably just seem stupid to everyone else. For that matter, it's really not a lover's lament story, it's a commentary on the strange relationship between an artist and his/her fan.

I'm going to try and submit the story to some publications or something, however, I have no idealistic expectations of it being accepted and published. In fact, chances are it'll get shot down and by the end of April I'll have a stack of rejection slips that reach the ceiling of the house. Yet, since I really enjoyed writing the story, I'll probably post it on the blog at one point or another, just so you can read it. I'm sort of proud of it, in my own minor way.

Oh yes, and I need to think of a title for it. So far I’ve got a couple of ideas:

• Venue


• Willow and I


• Smoke Stack


• The New Pollution


I suppose in order to understand a few of those title ideas you’d have to read the story. Soon enough, soon enough…

Last week I listened to a lot of Beck's Sea Change as well as Zwan. I'm not a big fan of Zwan's CD, Mary, Star of the Sea, but I'm trying to get revved up to see Billy Corgan and his new crew in concert come April.