Tis The Season

You know, fall usually brings many wonderful things. The Red Sox settling in for a hard playoff run, the beginning of the football season, and of course Hockey and the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Sure, for many of us start school again, or those of us with S.A.D. begin drawing up blueprints on the best and safest ways to kill others, but by and large fall brings about the rich and creamy goodness of padded violence, sweaters, falling leaves, and the chance to bag a hot chick as she's hoping against all hope that this isn't the last time she gets to wear something ridiculously slutty in the sun and have it count as normal wear. (Note: It's not. If you live anywhere near a college campus, girls are still "fucking retarded" enough to think that skirts and ugz boots with bugeye sunglasses and some sort of faux-hip jacket qualify as "in" winter-wear.)

But there's something that is really pissing me off. Go ahead, call me a homer, call me blind to the realities of sports, or unable to look at a situation objectively. In true fitzy fashion, I say GFY. That's "Go Fuck Yourself" for those of you unfortunate enough to be familiar with Fitzy. (Hint: www.townienews.com)

Can you be serious though? This much outrage about the Patriots possibly videotaping Jets signals? I mean...honestly? People are going to call for the coach to be suspended? Terrell Davis (former Denver Donkey's RB) says that they should be banned from the playoffs for two years? Some of the Eagles have said that they think the Pats should be forced to forfeit their Superbowl victory and the Eagles should get their rings. Really? Go fuck yourself.

I hate Philadelphia. I've been there once or twice or too many times. It's dirty, it's gross, and it produces the worst sports fans in the world. True, New England fans can be obnoxious, but at least we have a reason for it. And we're still not New York, that waste of a fucking state. Think Mexico would buy it? Anyway, the Eagles are so down on themselves because they cannot produce a team anywhere near championship quality that they have to find something to bring down a team that beat them? Goddammit I hate you Philadelphia. Why do you have to be such a worthless city? Your fucking nickname is "city of brotherly love." What? Not only are you gay, but you condone incest? Holy god I hate Philadelphia. I never ever ever thought Benjamin Franklin was wrong, until I just checked to make sure on Wikipedia that he helped to start the American Revolution there.

Anyway, enough about how shitty Philly is. If you've ever been to Pennsylvania, you know pretty much the entire state sucks. If only charm was toothless...

Of course, objectively one has to be upset at this Pats thing. The absolute hands down best team of the last 6 years was caught cheating. It makes a modicum of sense to assume that they've been doing it a while, but when it comes down to it, taping defensive signals can't make people run faster, jump higher, remember patterns, catch or hold the ball better. There are so many fucking variables in the game, that it's asinine to assume that stealing a couple defensive signals will win a game for you. And it's ALSO asinine to assume that they were able to get all the defensive signals, interpret them all, and then adequately see the signal, call in a change of play, and get the offense to pull of the perfect play around the called defense. It's called Occham's Razor folks, lex parsimonae. The simplest explanation is the truest one. They are just the better team.

Now take off your jealous pants and get ready for another ass-whooping. I hope as they cross the podium and hold the Lombardi Trophy in February, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady both have video cameras.

GFY.

I know nobody reads this...

I know that nobody reads this thing...

But I just read the most distressing thing on CNN.com. Apparently the United States is working on a $10 billion arms package for Saudi Arabia. What? Excuse me? Do I look like I'm fucking stupid? Does the rest of the country look like they are fucking stupid?

Very quickly, I'd like to say this: 17 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi. Which to me is reason enough not to give those motherfuckers weapons... The reason they were Saudi but joined up with those who like to attack America is because they had firsthand experience with the grubby and greedy hands of American capitalist enterprise trying to weasel their way into controlling Saudi oil interests. THAT'S why they don't like us. Because we put our noses where they don't belong, and try and control things that we have no business controlling. So now we're going to give money to S.A. in an effort to help them fight Iran? You must be fucking stupid. Here's what's going to happen: We're going to make MORE war in the Middle East (which is NEVER GOOD FOR ANYONE) and we're going to give Iran a better case for hating us -- we're helping other people fight them.

I do not hold Iran in high esteem, but I do not hold the Saudi's in high esteem either. Quite simply, the United States is spending ANOTHER $10 billion to directly finance terrorism.

How in the name of all that I find holy (bagels and doughnuts) is this going to Help America? If there was a god, he/she would never let this shit happen.

ESPN -- You suck.

Dear ESPN:

I want to start with this: I love you. You are the source of so much joy in my life. You allow me to learn so many pointless stats about sports that I don't even like so that I may impress male strangers and force many an attractive woman to roll her eyes at my dorkiness.

I would like to continue with this: You fucking suck. I check your website probably 600 times a day. 650 if it's a slow day at work, and 550 if I found a fun porn site when I got home from work, and every time that I do, I get your sportscenter sound. You know, "da-duh-da, da-duh-da." At first this sound made me smile, I got all happy about getting to hear something new from the sports-world that day. But on these past billion occasions, it has been on your website, with this little banner updating me on Barry Bonds and his chase for the Home Run Record. ESPN, I don't give a shit. ESPN, the majority of America does not give a shit.

Honestly. I feel like the SportsNation polls you put on your website daily should ask this question, "Do you care about the Barry Bonds HomeRun Chase?" Overwhelmingly the nation will answer NO. NO. HELL NO. I WOULD RATHER GO LONG MOONLIT STROLL WITH PARIS HILTON than hear about Barry Bonds. Absolutely disgusting. Nobody cares, stop promoting it. The worst part about it is that the people who DO care, only care because SC pimps it like David Beckham coming to America.

Please. Stop. He used to do Steroids. He's a cheater. Nobody cares.

I would like to close with this: Despite your programming supersaturated with coverage of shitty sports (especially basketball) I still love you. It's just unfortunate that the reporter has become bigger than the game, and their ego shows it. Shame on you ESPN. But I still love you...

This, is Rocky Mountain Golfer.

So in the spirit of being all high on myself, I've embedded a segment from Rocky Mountain Golfer, the show that I work on. The voice is mine, and the segment I edited a large portion of. Comment if you want, I guess. It is what it is, I just feel like being a showoff.









And just for your internet enjoyment, Rocky Mountain Golfer is a production of SportsHD in Denver, CO. You can find out more at SportsHD.com, as well as Rockymtngolfer.com.

What you think you know often has nothing to do with reality...

For some DUMBASS reason last night, after getting back from dinner and some bar action, I had a ridic amount of completely horrible dreams. Like...dreams about throwing up, dreams about Paris Hilton trying to have sex with me (directly preceded the throwing up dream, ironically enough.) Umm...I also had a dream about being a celebrity...this kind of goes along with the Paris Hilton thing. I was at a party all cool and hanging out with celebs and people wanted to talk to me...really random.

I guess it has something to do with the fact that I do the voice-over for a show called Rocky Mountain Golfer that airs out here in the west on Fox Sports Rocky Mountain. I just felt really cool, and I really enjoy that what started as an unpaid internship has turned into a full-time job that has some really cool perks, is a lot of fun, and I get to do voice talent stuff. What Mike Rowe is to Deadliest Catch, I am to Rocky Mountain Golfer. Except...not even close to as cool as he.

It's Saturday...and I have to fucking work at the restaurant tonight, and I am PISSED. Cannot fathom (aside from keeping my discount) why in the world I volunteer to give up my Saturday nights. Not only that, but when I originally asked for every other Saturday and they said no, I said I'd do every Saturday as long as they gave me a good shift. So that means a cocktail shift (come late, leave early) Open Dinner (start at 3, out by 9) or a Swing (start at 1, first cut at night around 8) So those shifts let me have some of my night free, while helping me to maximize my time and money. So I call yesterday to find out when indeed I do work, and it turns the fuck out that I had a meeting at 11 (no way in hell I'm attending) and I also have to work at 4:15, so what that means I'm a dinner single. Dinner Singles (only working a single shift all day) is the worst thing to be because you have to stay there forever. I will be there all night, and have no free time this evening. Not that I really had a lot going on, but I am ridiculously protective of my free time.

Okay, enough bitching. Shit has been great lately.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.

~J

mmmm clubbin!

There's nothing like being in a club, being white, with your polo shirt tucked in, not knowing any single song that comes on, but dancing with a ridic hot blonde because you told her you were an astronaut and she bought it like a fkn claiborne blouse on sale at Saks.

That is all.

~J

Part hit, part run...

Everyone hears about hit and run accidents. They see it on TV, or a friend of a friend of a friend's pool cleaner got involved in a hit and run. Nobody ever thinks it'll happen to them. They happen in Boston or LA or Dallas or the ghetto, they don't happen in Denver.

Si, they do.

In fact they happen in the parking lot at the Bull and Bush right down in Cherry Creek (and apparently semi-frequently.) My dad is out for Father's day, my uncle is as well (since my roommate is my cousin.) So our dads are brothers. They fly out, we're having a fantastic time. Enjoying the weather and the sights and sounds of Denver and meeting people and eating too much food and going to sporting events and the mountains and everything. So we're at the Bull and Bush having dinner and some beers (PHENOMENAL create your own burger section on the menu, by the way,) when the waitress comes out and says, hey do any of you happen to drive a black Ford Focus?

Why yes I do, I say, expecting to hear that I left my lights on, or that she just happens to think people who drive Focuses (foci?) are sexy. Someone just hit your car, she informs me. So I hop up from my seat and speed-exit the patio in order to check things out. I'm fully ready to throw punches at this point.

I get out there, with my crew in tow, turns out someone backed up from a parking spot located behind my car, and to the passenger side, and put their right rear bumper corner into my door, along the entire length of the door. So, I need a new door. Hooray. It could've been worse, nobody was hurt, I wasn't driving it, it's not completely out commission, even if the door doesn't close properly. The waitress comes out and says "I have some good news." Excellent, hopefully they know who it is, and they're holding him in the tap room for me to punch repeatedly. Close. There were two witnesses who saw the whole thing happen and not only got the make of the car, but the license plate as well! Sweet! It was a black Jaguar that hit me, license plate # yada yada yada. Bartender gave me the info, passed from the other patron. Cops come, take statements, license plate does indeed go to a Jaguar, all is well.

So now I just need to get my car in the shop, get things taken care of post haste, and get my car back for next weekend (just in time for more friends to come out and visit all weekend.

This should be an interesting week...

Copyright Infringement

For the first time in my life, though I'm not sure why that timetable is a surprise to me, I have apparently been accused of copyright infringement. Posted below is a YouTube/Paramount Studios email to me.


"This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Paramount Pictures Corporation claiming that this material is infringing:

Anchorman Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K7eMSu5mic

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube's copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

Please note that under Section 512(f) of the Copyright Act, any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification may be subject to liability.

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc."



In one of the previous posts on this blog, I made a link to a video on YouTube that was a parody of Anchorman. It was a trailer I created for a graduate class, and was displayed on the web. I am simultaneously proud and pissed off at its removal.

The trailer was created under both educational fair use, and fair use for parody. It was a non-profit creation, and was displayed on the web to illustrate educational achievement. But apparently Paramount Studios disagreed with me, and chose to force YouTube to remove my trailer.

It's a form of educational free speech, and a form of parody. Parody in that I made fun of the character of Ron Burgundy in the movie, and worked to illustrate him as a character of deep emotion while still inept at love -- which is similar to the way he was truly portrayed in the movie, but I did it in a different way.

So despite that my trailer was legally made, and posted under the auspices of legal use, Paramount had an issue with it. I feel ridiculously excited to fight this, and to see what Paramount thinks they can do to me. I'm not rich, I'm not a genius, and I'm not some superstar artist, but I'm willing to fight, even if it's minor. And this could be very fun.

Stay tuned.

15 Minute Performance

This video, albeit long, is something I'm actually rather proud of. The more I watch it, the more I find to like about it. The third and final project (after a live in-class performance that was not recorded) for my Digital Cinema Theory class, this 15 minute piece is made up of videos from other projects, as well as videos that I simply felt fit the music. The music is a combination of three songs by an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros. The First song is Untitled 4 off the album (), the second song is called Avalon, and the third song is called Untitled 3 also off the album, (). Please watch the video, then read my synopsis below.





The idea behind this video was to overcome my previous inability to get a message across by honing my skills and making images more clear. While there are a lot of muddled images where it's difficult to tell what's going on, when that happens that's kind of the point. The ones you see clearly, are the ones I want you to see clearly. Given the fact that this is constructed of three different songs, there are three distinct movements to the piece, and there is also a bit of storytelling as the work goes on. The first movement has music that is happy, but careful, and by the end turns downright wistful and sad. We are carried through the second movement by a more somber and dangerous sounding track and we get to a part where the video shows us war, bombs exploding, and a president making a speech. Without being too much of an overt political statement (I never show the actual face of the man in the foreground) the viwer can infer that something is going desperately wrong with the happiness that occurred in the first act. The second act ends with shots of a space shuttle flying away, presumably to another planet or another place -- the act matters little, it's the metaphor of escape and departure from the previous movement that is the most important. The third and final act of the piece returns to a happy state and employs much of the same imagery of the first act while still remaining unique.

Feel free to comment.


:-)

Timeline VJ Performance

For this project, the second in a series of three video pieces for my Digital Cinema class, I used both Sony Vegas and Resolume to create a timeline based digital video remix to sound. My attempt was to send certain messages by the visual imagery in the piece, but I ran into a problem where, quite simply, I had too much to say for the digital video vocabulary I posessed to be able to say anything effectively. It comes out repetitive, dull, and pedantic in a way that seems like I tried to hard but looks as if I didn't try at all. All video, images, and audio are used under Educational Fair Use, and the song is Canon in D (strings) by Johann Pachelbel.

The music serves as an antithetic to the reactions the visual imagery suggests, it also happens to be one of my favorite classical songs.





It moves way too fast, and the audio editing is horrible. If you promise never to watch this again, so will I.