birthday post

Last night, summer beer, delicious bbq... It was one of those occasional, unanticipated grand evenings of perfect indulgence. I am reminded of the sentence Geoff often repeats when he's having just such an experience: I have reached maximum sufficiency; any more would be a superfluent abundity. I don't know if he "got" that from somewhere, or if he composed it himself (I should ask!); but the level of drunkenness required to trigger its recitation (and to appreciate it) raises mirthful doubts of whether any abundance could ever truly be superfluous.

As I'm prone to do in the throes of such satiety, I lingered too long. People begged off at or near the typical Thursday witching hour of 10pm, and I was left in Craig's living room virtually alone, with Craig and Andy wanting to play video games. I must make note to myself that this is always a good time to leave -- I have some level of psychic resistance to social video gaming, which I'm not yet willing to either explore or overcome. It may help me to bear in mind how much this mental block resembles, in practice, my father's resistance to any technological development, and how elderly he seems as a result -- but whatever! If I'm just simple, well, "'tis a gift to be simple", so nyah, nyah, nyah and shut up!

Anyway, while Andy took a piss, Craig helped set me up a "mii", a video avatar, on Wii Bowling, after that was determined to be the only game suitable for a party of three -- another hint that it's time to leave at this point: I'm pretty sure these two would rather be engaged in a first-person shooter escapade. When it came time to actually pay attention to the process, my feelings of carefree abandon started to attach a lot more weight to the "I-don't-care" end of the Happiness Equation, the other variables for which are slipping my mind*. Minimal effort and focus on entering my name into the system resulted in my inadvertently making a mii named Damp -- which crystallized my attitude about the whole venture, yet paradoxically brought me as much cheer as I anticipate a Wii is ever likely to do. I was further delighted to find, when Andy came back from the toilet, that the mii he'd already created for himself on some previous night, is named Stank! So, it was Damp and Stank, rocking the lanes on league night!

Nbsigns' Secret Blog Arises; Defies Recalcitrant Neglect

I started a blog for the sign shop. I don't imagine I'll update that one any more frequently than I do this one, but whatever -- a bee in the bonnet one day, becomes a blog the next. On that blog, at least, I can hope that, eventually, once I admit it exists, other people at the shop might update it. It might be a good repository of sign shots from day to day, from which the best will be culled for the website. Or so I might imagine. At any rate, I can document my biz-related creative output there, since I don't seem so inclined to do so here.

I set it up on Wordpress. I don't have a clear reason why, other than variety. I got the impression that it's a little less bell 'n' whistley, imperceptibly more refined. At the very least, it's name isn't onomatopoeic of puking. Blat! belongs on Blog-ger -- it's coming out both ends! But New Bohemia posts updates from its "wordpress". It's friggin' professional! Wordpressional! Plus, in the FAQs it said I could import whole blogs from Blogger, should I so desire. I'm sure the reverse is true, but I've already written in excess of my concern for the topic.

So, as a result, I'm thinking maybe a change of tack (or is it tact? Does the phrase originate in ethics, or is it a sailing metaphor?) might be appropriate for this blog; a lowering of sights that might reduce how intimidating it seems to be for me to just tap out a few words and publish. I.e., perhaps I'll just make this more of a diary type thing -- the sort of thing I guess that people typically blog for anyway, right? I mean, I imagine that's what "Livejournal" is. I don't think I know anybody blogging on that -- no, wait: Dave, I think, has a page there... I vaguely recall him posting updates from a trip to Hawaii, or something like that. Oh, see now -- that doesn't bode well. I mean, that's the same sort of thing I was trying to do on the Honeymoon blog: I don't think that was a very studiously updated effort, and it was only 3 weeks...

But see: Livejournal, as I understand, has a reputation for being the home of tortured, depressed adolescents. And I think that might be just who I am, trapped in the broken-down body of a lazy, lower-middle-aged man. Well, anyway, I read Dick Cavett's column about depression, in the Times this past week, and it resonated. Specifically applicable was the coin-op fortune-vendor diagnosis, "Two prime victims of the disease are your libido and your ability to read" (hence, you have the disease). I've had the same three books on my bedside stand for over a year, with minimal desire to finish and no retention of what I've read; and my libido rarely comes up for air from its cozy cave in the briny deep, double entendres be damned -- hence, I have the disease!

I think the cure is to just do things. My two problems with that are (1) I just don't, and (2) if and when I do, I really don't appreciate it much. Somewhere, I've gotten the idea that writing a blog will help with both of these, but the notion has a couple problems of its own: it compounds my resistance to writing with the responsibility to publish; and it diffuses (confuses?) my responsibility to appreciate what I do with the hope that someone else can appreciate it in my stead.

Anyway, now I've got a couple of blogs to both claim and ignore, as befits the occasion. And with them I shall write me either a recipe for psychological disaster, or a roadmap to redemptive wholeness! Or I'll just keep on keeping on, as I have been.

(UPDATE: long about April or May of 2009, Scott, the shop manager, finally discovered, in his interweb meanderings among online occurrences of "nbsigns", the New Bohemia Signs Weblog. Now, everyone at the shop knows about it, too, but since then, not one of us has seen fit to add any postings. Without looking, I think the last post was from about the same time as this one, in July 2008. Anyway, we've done a much, much better job of uploading pictures of our work to a New Bohemia flickr set, which has attracted us some fans and followers, and makes lots more sense as a sign shop web presence, being more visual than verbal).

(UPDATE UPDATE: about a couple months ago, say, June of 2010, I hired a friend, Rani, to help us in "online marketing", and went on a bender of blogging as a result.  So, now there are a lot more posts up over there, but I still haven't been able to convince anyone else in the organization to contribute...  I need to devise some sort of encouragement...)

Niggle Amplitude Exceeding Stagnation Threshold

There comes a point you just can't keep doing nothing.

Fate/circumstance/that-which-blows-past-my-face has in the past week launched a multifaceted attack on my journaling slack. Since I maintain a constant low-level angst about slack, it's hard to say when it began, but I guess it was after I swiped a bunch of material off Jeff's iPod at work -- lotsa stuff, much of which I still haven't and may never listen to. But I'm slowly working my way through it, mostly in the background as I'm out working on location. I grabbed a smorgasbord of stand-up comedy, which makes for a pleasant break from the usual spoken word menu of Fresh Air podcasts, Radio Lab, and This American Life.

Well, but -- speaking of that: there were also included a slew of readings by David Sedaris. And I was listening to Naked last Friday while I painted logos on the side panels of a homeless health services mini-van. He read a story about growing up with OCD symptoms. At some point it reminded me of the story I wrote for an assignment in a class at art school to "describe a ritual". I described the method by which I ate Cheerios every morning. I don't think it was symptomatic of obsession or compulsion; it was just habit, reinforced by repetition every time I ate Cheerios (which, for breakfast, was far more often than not) throughout childhood, up until I left for college and moved in with roommates. Coincidentally, this is the same time in Sedaris' life when his OCD symptoms retreated, although he attributes his relief to starting smoking. My change of habit was just to avoid getting caught being weird. And, of course, the way I was playing with o's in the bowl and on the spoon was nowhere near as weird or 'sick' as the behavior he describes in Naked. Nonetheless, the feedback I got from the teacher about my Cheerios story was that it wasn't "believable". I have to take that as more a comment on my writing style, than on the plausibility of tracing a Union Jack into the cereal bowl, or raising the last spoonful while silently chanting "pyramidpyramidpyramidpyramid..."

and another year goes by

Here's an abbreviated list of creative doings since the last time I posted:

I designed a beer label for Aaron's home-brew, and painted a magnetic sign for him to stick on the front of his kegerator (both of which were given him at his bachelor party).

I designed the panel for the SFMOMA's bi-monthly mailer for Sep/Oct 2007 (I think...). The taped on strip of tracing paper over "Modern Art" is where the address is to be pasted.

I designed wedding invitations (oh yeah -- I got married). We had a vaguely Bollywood theme, so I intended the invitation to look like a movie poster, or rather, a series of movie posters rolling off the printer. The picture above is of both front and back of the 4x6 postcard we mailed out. I guess the whole wedding thing was a bit on the creative side. Deb handled most of it. I just got myself absorbed in the invitation design, and in compiling 5 1/2 hours of music to dance to at the reception (of which barely an hour ended up getting played). But we worked together on a Bollywood dance routine for the introduction at the start of the party:



What else...what else... We honeymooned in India and took a bunch of pictures.

Yeah, and that's about it... well, I mean, phew... I don't want to go into it all now. What was that last post called? Flushing May's pipes, or something? Yeah, well: times twelve... Hopefully, the details will come out naturally, as I fill in the blanks in whatever narrative I swear -- I swear! -- I'm going to start constructing here.

Write it, publish, move on.

Flushing May's pipes

I don't think all of what's clogging these pipes'll be drained tonight, but I figger I'll at least get the robot head project accounted for, somewhat. I've spent a long time tonight sorting and tweaking photos, so I'll get 'em up here, even if I don't find the energy to report the details.

That's how the heads turned out, up top. The photo of me, top right, and Eddy Demon, bottom left, were taken by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid. All the other photos in this post are by Deb. There're only a couple of James, bottom right, in his robot head, because at both gigs he took it off before the first song was through. Here's the other photo:
He had trouble seeing out of it. This is actually the second iteration of his. I made a new one after the 12 Galaxies gig, with a bigger mouth hole to look out from, and better ventilation up top. But the adjustments weren't enough to suit him on either count. Of course, he was the only one of us who didn't have a hand in the construction or decoration of our robot heads: he was much more into wearing his cowboy hat and real live genuine rodeo shirt! But I don't wanna be snippy -- it looked alright. And we all had fun. Next post, I'll cover the SFMOMA newsletter calendar page project, and the Malenbrau label, just to make it seem like I've been doing something.

Robot Heads

Alright, so this is how this is gonna go: I'll take a couple months off, thinking about writing this 'n' that, getting ideas for different directions in which to take the blogging endeavor, forgetting most of the details about anything creative I've done, and then I'll make a half-assed effort to document it all one night when I have a few hours home alone. Agreed? So, it's end of June. At least I won't have gone an entire calendar month without posting. I wrote the following sometime mid-May (apparently the 15th -- I didn't realize it would get published with the original draft date up top -- now I have to add another post before June is through!), already moaning about how unlikely I am to stay on top of this blog. However, I didn't have photos to post, so I let it go fallow. But nevermind -- enjoy some old news!:

Okay, right off the bat (right off the blat?) I can see the two main problems this blog will present. First, of course, is the challenge to do something creative every week (or so); second, and perhaps more formidable, is the challenge to document it and report it here... but enough whining. Get bizzow!

The past week's been a hectic one. We had the last three nights of The Good Doctor's run, with the wrap party Saturday night, then a Total Annihilation gig on Sunday afternoon at 12 Galaxies, for the Mission Creek Music Fest. TA has another gig coming up this Saturday morning at the MakerFaire, at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. I think we got that gig through Jesse's connections with the BoingBoing crowd, who overlap with the Make magazine crowd, who are behind the fair. All of which leads me to the past week's creative project: cardboard robot helmets for us to wear at the MakerFaire show.

I followed a BoingBoing link to a Scopitone by Les 5 Gentlemen, "Cara-Lin". It warranted a link, I guess, due to what was described as the "Stendhal syndrome-like" dancing of the nightclub crowd in the video. The song wasn't all that interesting, but it did rock (actually, watching it again now, it's got some pretty interesting playing on it), and the atmosphere of the club reminded me of the video for The New Pornographers' "The Laws Have Changed", a fave of mine (which, watching again now to research the link, is a fucking blast). Also, the whole Scopitone phenomenon was kinda intriguing. Apparently these things were like video jukeboxes back in the '60s. So, I flipped through a few of the videos on the site's archive, looking for other scorchers and came across The Tornados' "Robot". Now, here again, the song ain't all that, but the video is absolutely goofy. The guys in the band are milling about in the woods, with robot helmets on, playing their instruments and making out with some girls. Then they take the helmets off, presumably to make out more efficiently -- it turns out they're just regular guys! -- and shortly thereafter, the cops come wandering by and chase them all off with some canine back-up. So, anyway, the robot head thing was intriguing, what with TA's robotic MySpace tag line from Mr. Demon's "Rock and Roll on a Friday" lyrics, and the robotic headline from TA's own BoingBoing link last year. I showed the boys the Scopitone, got them into the idea, and tried to convince Eddy to start making some helmets. He, however, insisted he didn't know how, so I stepped in to fashion them myself. Here's some pictures. I gave Eddy the first two I made, for Pete and himself, and unfortunately forgot to photograph them in their raw un-foiled state. Then, of course I forgot to photograph any of them in their earliest stages. Here's some preliminary sketches...

...And that's as far as that post got. I didn't have the preliminary sketches photographed yet, so nothing happened 'til today. Now, I've got photos of the MakerFaire gig, and plenty more to talk about, but it's getting late. I'll post this and address the rest later, so I can jam up my post count!

...why?

Good Doctor

The play we've been working on at ACSF since the beginning of the year opens tonight. We had a dress rehearsal run through last night, open to the public. Most of the audience were friends of mine who came as part of Kevin's 26th birthday celebration. I was happy to have them there. What I didn't expect was that they'd be a very quiet crowd. They insisted they enjoyed the show, were very impressed, etc., but I think they were too intimidated by the unusual surroundings (small theater, amateur acting?) to express their reactions audibly. They were excessively polite, to the point that the cast was bewildered by their silence. We all figure the people who pay full price for the main show will probably be a little more savvy about audience response.

Anyway, I'm thrilled to be at a point where this whole process is almost through. It's a bit of a rush for me to have started this blog thing while the play is going on, because I literally have no spare time for this nonsense. But just to keep some creative endeavors in evidence, here's a snapshot, above left, of the flyer I laid out for the show. With minor changes, we arranged it in a two sided 4x6 postcard and printed up a few to pass out. I'm a little curious about copyright concerning this. I didn't draw the image of the woman and the bear. It's from a poster for a magazine (I think) called Berliner Secession, from April 1907. The artist is anonymous, and the magazine, I would guess, is defunct (I haven't researched), but I found the image in a book of graphic design from that era. So, by copying the image from that book, am I violating their publisher's copyright? Also, the woman was originally holding a palate with paintbrushes. I erased that, and did a Google image search for "theater masks", which yielded a black and white jpeg of masks similar to those you see her holding here. I cleaned them up a little, altered some details, much like I did for the lady and the bear; but beyond that, they're just ripped off the web and pasted. Oh, and then I went back looking for the source, but a new Google image search didn't turn up these particular masks.

I'm not making any money on this (the flyer, or the play), and it was a useful learning tool for Photoshop, which I'm only recently becoming familiar with.

Oh, and I picked the image because -- besides looking good -- it featured a woman and a bear. Shelley inserted a scene into the play, that in itself is a smaller one-act play, by Chekhov himself, called, alternatively, The Bear, or The Boor (which brings up it's own copyright issues -- she paid for the rights to perform The Good Doctor, but we've cut a number of scenes and added this one, without expressed written consent. What's it matter?). Shelley liked the idea of using the bear for the flyer. Unfortunately, in the program, and in the lines of the scene, for this production, the character is referred to only as the Boor. So, there's really no connection. Incidentally, what's a boor? How is it different from a bore, or a boar, as those are used to describe certain people? Is there any connection to the Boers? Were they boorish, or boarish, or boring?

addendum

I just wanted to add that somewhere recently, I think probably in an interview with some young actor (if I can figure out where, and it's online, I'll post a link), I heard someone enthusing about just wanting to work with people who love what they're doing, who are passionate about what they're doing. I felt pretty indicted by it, 'cuz, well, not only would I enjoy loving what I'm doing, but how much joy am I detracting from everyone's work experience around me? The guys who work with me at the shop, the cast in this play, the boys in the band, and not least, the woman I'm planning to marry -- finding joy in what I'm up to is a social responsibility!

Inaugural Post

Every step of this process is straining against the ever growing conviction that it'll never work, it's just gonna be a big stress ball, I'm only gonna learn how truly I suck, I'll end up talking myself into some kind of obligation I'll soon sorely regret, and I'm bound to do something that'll upset a friend at some point. But, carrying on!...

This was borne of a conversation yesterday with Deb that covered a lot of territory. It started, maybe, because I'd been awake much of the night trying to work out the particulars of an "e-mail chain game" I imagined, called Re:anonymizer/de-anonymizer, that was supposed to somehow reveal that personal observations of friends are re-shaped in the public sphere--reveal, in other words, the obvious--or was supposed to accumulate interesting stories about the participants. I'm not sure what it was supposed to do, but in trying to describe it aloud to Deb once she woke up, it quickly lost the appeal it'd had with the lights out. Anyway, I said I'd been watching SNL and MadTV the night before, and was noticing in the commercial ads between segments how many goofy skits there were. It struck me that that's a good way to get into the comedy writing business, by devising goofy skits for ads and marketing them to the ad agencies. After a while, I had to remind myself that I wasn't trying to get in to the comedy writing business. But talking about it led to talking about a couple of Jesse's TSOYA shows I'd listened to recently; one, interviewing Roz Chast and Bill Hader, described their processes for generating a half-dozen or so comics every week, in Roz's case, for the New Yorker, and skits, in Bill's case, for SNL; and the other, with Jonathan Coulton, related some of his experiences with his Thing-a-Week project, wherein he committed himself to writing a song every week and posting it on his website.

And so, here we are. By the end of that conversation, I'd decided to try to post something on a blog every week (or so?), that manifests some sort of creative expression. Something more than just a journal entry, although I s'pose the regular journalling is probably a good base for generating something more creative. Anyway, I don't know what format it'll be in from time to time. I imagine I'll be figuring out how to post a lot of photographs of stuff I'm doing. I imagine, too, that I'll be filling some weeks in with stuff I've already done in the past. Wait... that sounds like a cop-out. Okay, not in the past, but stuff I'm working on now... or, say, within the past month -- so at the start, here, I can clear the vaults of things I've been recently up to, while I get myself up to speed. Or, I can post old stuff, but it doesn't absolve my responsibility for up-to-date creativity.

The point here, is that I've got a lot of creative outlets in my life, and a fair-sized dollop of creative talent, but I don't feel (a) like I'm using it nearly as much, or in the way that might be best suited to me; and (b) (probably synonymous with (a)) like I'm enjoying the creative process even a fraction as much as I'd like to. This is where all the growing convictions I mentioned in the first sentence come in. See, I own a sign shop that only makes hand-painted, hand-crafted signs, a real anomaly in the current urban landscape. I got involved with it eight years ago, when I resolved to get myself into a "creative work ethic", wherein I was using creative energy on a daily basis. And, a couple years back, I helped an eight-year-old friend form a band, to pursue his dreams of rock'n'roll superstardom. He writes all the songs, and even though he's eleven now, he's still bringing back warped missives from whatever planet his brain resides on. Oh, and I go to an acting class, have done for two years now. We're putting on a play starting this week; a two week run of The Good Doctor, a Neil Simon play based on Chekhov stories. And an old band I was in, in the '90s, is coming out with a 'retrospective' CD/DVD package, for which I'm designing the packaging. And SFMOMA has asked me to design the calendar page for an upcoming newsletter.

So, there's a lot to do, right? A lot of ways to be all arty. I don't know why I'm finding it so hard to enjoy any of it. In fact, I can go down the list and itemize why I find each venture baleful. I apparently have an 'attitude problem'. Anyway, I just want to shake this shit up, and re-jigger how I'm looking at it, so here goes. I don't particularly want to add more responsibility to the plate, but more to organize what I'm up to in a manageable fashion, maybe. I'm not sure what I'm doing here, really. But I sure as hell can't spend hours and days composing long-ass blog entries like this. Consider yourself introduced. I've got to quit this and spend some time focussing on characterization for my roles in the play. It's opening in 2 nights, and I'm way behind the ball!