Music + Video + Me = Vague Memories

I did some pretty cool things during my time as an actor, and it's hard not to reminisce. Life has forced me to shift directions in recent years, but that doesn't stop me from looking back at what I did and using a combination of nostalgia and confirmation bias to exclusively remember how awesome it was. The extremely long hours, the stressful interviews, the egotistical celebrities, the asshole directors (speaking ONLY of the assholes and not the truly awesome ones), the honeywagons, the unpleasant and sometimes dangerous locations, the best parts of the scenes being edited out, the bad craft service (again, not speaking of the times it kicked ass [Orion, your sandwiches were legendary]), Southwest airlines, being sick on location, roller skating while strapped to your "conjoined twin," and all the other awful and unpleasant memories have been completely driven from my mind in favor of the good times.

So it was this extremely jaded trip down memory lane that got me searching for some of the more unique side-steps during my career: My roles in music videos.

As you're all surely aware, I'm highly-regarded for my musical and dancing skills, having enjoyed brief superstardom in Kyrgyzstan in the early '90s until... well, I'm sure you all remember the dreadful events of April, 1994 enough to guess what happened next. However, as my musical talents were never as appreciated in the states, or Europe, Australia, the rest of Asia, or, well, anywhere else outside my own head, I had to settle for appearing in several music videos for lesser-known groups such as The Devlins, Live, and The Rolling Stones (I know, I was scratching my head when they told me the names of the bands, too). So, in the spirit of sharing and shameless self-promotion, I now present you my music video collection:

"Lightning Crashes" - Live

This one was pretty fun to film. It was done in an incredibly old house that was in such bad shape you could see through the gaps in the boards that made up the floors and walls. The filming style and characters were extremely creative, and the experience was great. It was a very long day, and at one point it became clear to the production that they weren't going to get to me any time soon. Budgets on music videos are relatively tight, and overtime for kids is illegal, so they picked another option that also wasn't technically kosher and offered to let me work a split day. They sent me home for half the day, paying for whatever I wanted to do in that time period (I rented Donkey Kong Country for the SNES on their expense), and then I came back much later only to sit in a very cold trailer until they finally got around to working with me.

In case you're unclear, I'm the little boy standing at the head of his dying mother (first appearing at 1:14). One interesting note was that I swear to this day they never filmed me removing the coins from her eyes. I remember placing them ON her eyes, but I don't remember ever being directed to remove them. My motions look natural enough that I'm unconvinced they reversed the footage, but I'm just not sure. I suppose it's possible they were still rolling when I removed the coins to do a retake, but I don't think I would have stayed in-character in doing so. A personal mystery.

I did get to meet the band over lunch, although I wasn't specifically a fan at the time, so it wasn't THAT big a deal. I did receive, over time, three separate copies of the album (two of which had the red jewel-case side), and at least one of them was signed by the band. I listened to the album like crazy after that and it quickly became a favorite. It's only in recent years that I've learned they're considered Christian Rock, at least in some circles, and their lyrics began to fall into place for me with that in mind. Regardless, I still recognize that they write some damn good music, and our clashing beliefs don't prevent me from enjoying it. Two more videos after the break...

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"Out Of Tears" - The Rolling Stones

I honestly don't remember as much of the filming of this one. We were somewhere in downtown LA, and it was another very long day. We didn't get started filming until very late, with a lot of waiting around. If memory serves me, catering included the best spinach casserole I've ever had, and I went back for seconds, which is saying a lot considering my age. My costume was relatively elaborate, although made up essentially of refuse, and none of it shows in the video (I can be seen starting at 3:31). Spinning around under the rain machines at roughly 12AM (also, again, not technically kosher for my age) was not the most comfortable thing in the world, but it didn't bother me too much as it was just part of the job. Sadly I did NOT get to meet the band. They were supposed to be there to film, but by 1AM they still hadn't arrived, and we finally gave up and went home.

"Someone to Talk to" - The Devlins

First off, a big thank-you needs to go out to irishmusiccentral for tracking down and uploading this video for me. It was the only one I was missing for so long, and the only videos I could find online of the song were live concerts. Anyway, my memories of this one are also a touch fuzzy, but I remember a few bits. The set was built on a stage, instead of being filmed on-location like the other videos. They had various hotel rooms with interesting paint jobs that the lead singer walked through, and some pretty crazy make-up and wardrobe.

Most of my sequence was filmed in a stark-white bathroom. They started with me alone in the video, in my odd bellhop costume, doing a very creepy dance that I made up based on their requests. Later in the day my cohort in the video, the then-unknown Chris Owen, showed up and was added into the mix. I had to teach him the creepy dance, which we then performed together. You'll notice the complete lack of this dance sequence in the video (the silhouette of us running, starting at 3:11, is the closest it gets). I can assure you that this was likely a very good idea. I also remember that during the breaks I had my first experience with Calistoga Sparkling Juice, which later led me to Crystal Geyser Juice Squeeze, an all-time favorite drink.

So that's that. Thanks for joining me on my trip down memory lane. While you're here, though, I've got a favor to ask: Could you please write to the Kyrgyzstani government on my behalf and petition to have my Krammy award released from their evidence locker? The charges were dropped nearly seven years ago, and I'm sure the dried blood will buff out pretty easily.

And you thought spiders were freaky enough...

I always meant to post this video, but never got around to it. I've shown it to quite a few of my friends, and it never ceases to amaze them. Incredible results...

Spiders on Drugs

Something doesn't sound right

As I get more and more involved in the world of skepticism, my skills at smelling bullshit become more finely honed (and boy is there a lot of it). I have a long way to go, but I still find myself picking up on things much faster than I did before, even if I can't pinpoint what's wrong, but just feel like there's something "not right."

Lately there's been one word that, more and more, sets off my alarms whenever I see it. When I'm reading an article, or having a conversation, and this word comes up I start analyzing the subject much more closely than I might have before, and I begin to question my own instinctual reactions, opinions, and beliefs about the subject. What's the word?

"Tradition"

Anybody who knows me personally and knows my politics has to know right off the bat what the most recent example of this for me has been: California's Prop 8. That's right, the supposed "re-affirmation of traditional marriage," which is a friendlier way of saying, "we can't publically admit to being religiously-motivated bigots, so we'll pretend this isn't about keeping you homos from that last piece of equality and recognition as human beings of which you just recently managed to get a tiny taste. (whew)"

And more and more often this word seems to be the excuse for all sorts of intolerance or backward thinking. The so-called "war on Christmas" exists in the minds of Christians who see their holiday being eroded by people and businesses who recognize that, shocker, everyone's not a Christian, and it might just be a nice thing to include these people in your well-wishing. Suddenly people are forced to confront the awful realization that that one time a year (which is really one of many) that they think is all about their messiah (regardless of what history has to say about the real reasons for the season) is being filtered down to include everyone! Sure, it was already filtered down to a shopping holiday decades ago, after having been filtered from prior celebrations, but that's irrelevant, because at least the name still had "Christ" in it! So what can they do? Why, they can complain about how people are trying to ruin "tradition," and be intolerant of them! And who wants to do that?

The word "tradition" seems to strike a chord with people. Most traditions are pretty innocuous, consisting of silly things like family members taking turns setting the table for dinner, playing license plate bingo on road trips, what foods are served at what holidays, etc. These sorts of traditions are fun and harmless, of course, but they also provide stability, and stability provides comfort. The average person generally tries to stay as far-removed from change as possible (some political persuasions more than others), so anything they can do to stave off change is A-OK by them.

Now this isn't anything new. Doing things the traditional way has existed for ages (duh), and it's likely hard-wired into our brains. We're pattern-seeking beasts, and when we find something that we can recognize works, we hold onto it tightly. But it still seems like lately I'm butting up against this word more and more, and it seems less and less harmless every time. Whether it's traditional marriage, traditional holidays, traditional beliefs, etc., it just seems more and more like an excuse not to include people who don't follow your way of life, or even to force that way of life upon them regardless of whether they believe it. And for me it's turning into a bright, flashing bulb of a clue that whatever follows that word may be completely worthless.

Has anyone else had trouble with this, or any other words or concepts lately? Are there any other common signs you use to pick out fruitless, lazy arguments from the genuine ones? I'd love to get some feedback on your own experiences with these types of buzzwords, or anything else that makes a blip on your skeptical radar when it comes to social and societal concepts. Or maybe you disagree with my opinion on this word and feel there's greater value to it than I'm taking into account. Let me know.

Born again (no, not that way)

So, I finally took the plunge and upgraded WordPress to 2.7. Considering I haven't updated my blog since, apparently, January, why did I care? Well, I decided to make more of an effort to USE the darn thing.

See, for one thing, I've started getting into Twitter. Besides that, I've been commenting a lot more on a lot of cool blogs, and it'd be nice if people followed my link back to my site not to find out that it, well, completely sucks. Plus, as long as I feel like I have comments worth making, I probably have blog posts worth writing. So if I'm going to start using it anyway, I might as well do it right and work from the latest (and incredibly awesome) version of WordPress.

Now with the upgrade came changes I knew I'd have to make. The version I had pre-dated tags, so I was using categories in their place (this change was why I held off so long in updating). So I had to tag and un-categorize all my posts and makes some changes to my layout. As well, my theme didn't support widgets, the author's web site is gone so there are no updates, and was way too thin for modern screens, so I tracked down a new one that I liked. I also tied in some of the main reasons I needed an update, which included my Google Reader shared list and my Twitter feed. This way even if I don't have time to write entire blog posts, people can still keep tabs on what blog posts I find interesting or what I'm doing. I'm not entirely sure if or why anyone would care, but in case they do, I've got my bases covered.

There's still a few adjustments that need to be made, of course. I need to update my blogroll (currently at the bottom) with more current sites of interest, and possibly rearrange elements of the page a bit. This theme seems to have a lot of the widgets built right into it, so I need to experiment with how, if at all, I can disable those and replace them with the widgets put wherever I want them. I also need my Out Campaign red A back, and need to find a good spot to emblazon it. I'm also thinking about tweaking the colors and/or fonts a bit, but that will take time. It's been so long since I've done web design that the current standards are completely beyond my knowledge. I just don't have the time to try to piece them together these days.

All-in-all I'm happy with the change, and I'm hoping the new look and new WordPress version and new focus will help me actually make some use of this blog for once, and maybe make me feel like I'm contributing to this world. Or just give me a place to fuck around a little. You know, whatever.