The Odd Inspiring Interconnectedness of Things
So.
Right when I've hit a low re: the inevitable end of everything good, the hoplessness of creating something genuine, true, good, worth seeing, etc. against the all-consuming powerful market forces that propel our culture, our very world, towards Purchasing Goods and substituting Consumer Decisions for happiness, love, joy, interaction, and how no matter what we do to resist and circumnavigate the Choad, we have to pay the motherfucking goddamn landlord at the end of the month and however sad and difficult and unbelievable it may be the fact remains that joy, love, community, etc. are not feelings or events that generate the money needed to pay said motherfucking goddamn landlord, and yet somehow all of the things that dehumanize us as a race, the things that divide us and commodify us, change us from people into 8 hour chunks of Work Units to be used up and distributed and fed, housed, and clothed just enough to return to the workplace the following day to become once again Daily Work Units in exchange for just enough food and warmth and fashion to encourage us to return the following day but never enough to permanently or even temporarily free us, those are the things the somehow Generate Income.
Right when all this is crushing me, emotionally, inside, and causing me to seriously contemplate returning home, going back to Massachusetts or perhaps Los Angeles to live rent-free with family members while I continue to try and sort out why I'm here on this wretched ball of dirt infected (the ball of dirt is, not me) by a virus with shoes determined to turn every river, tree, and emotion into a dollar until, ultimately, there is nothing left on the planet but money and the bones of the virus that struggled to horde it...
Well.
So. Right then.
Dylan, my friend, confidant, and co-blogger, lives in a building in Bushwick. He studied the History and Creation of Narrative Forms (or something) at the Hippie-Dippie-Doo Bennington College (where I met him) and is now attempting, valiantly, to eke out a living doing this freelance style, and so far it seems to be working, but meanwhile after he's done putting together DVDs about how best to win the finances of the soon-to-be-retiring-and-sometimes-already-retired baby boomer generation for some bank whose business it is to collect the aforementioned money, so but AFTER he's done doing things like that for the day so he can pay his landlord, AFTER all that is taken care of he and I and Sam and Sena and Karen and several others are brainstorming about how best to express ourselves because really at the end of the day that's what we like to do, masturbatory and self-congratulatory a pursuit it may be.
So he was thinking about Video Podcasts and while he was browsing he stumbled upon Four Eyed Monsters Video Podcast. He shared it with me and Karen and I said "holy shit. these guys are really doing something. they have vision and talent. I mean, nothing is exploding, no breasts are exposed, no laugh track is applied as cues to the viewer about when and how hard to laugh and I am totally emotionally, visually, and aurally engaged." as opposed to the Tiki Bar podcast which mostly consists of some hot girl running around being hot while nerds stand around looking and talking and acting nerdy.
Just for the record: Intelligent people with not a lot of time on their hands can no longer accept "hot girl running around" as a substitute for actual entertainment. It's not just intelligent people, either. It's a lot of people. E.g. the Miss America Pageant got kicked off the networks and, I speculate, had to suck, in total, about a mile of cock before they were allowed to squeeze on to a suffering 3rd-tier merchant of reminiscence.
So but it (Four Eyed Monsters) is great. Their video podcast is great. And now I really want to see the movie. So, for a taste, I went to their website to watch the trailer.
Dylan suspected that they lived in his building. Which hardly seems out of the question because there's a shot in the trailer of the C-Town right outside his front door.
Not only that, but the music for the trailer itself is none other than Oh Mandy by The Spinto Band, longtime musical project of Thomas Hughes, also a Bennington head and friend to many of us.
My excitement over the film goes above and beyond simply wanting to see it, which I do. The film is extra-extra exciting because it's mere existence is proof that such things are possible.
It makes me want to quit my job and throw myself fully into a project. But not yet. Not quite yet.
After all, rent is due in just twenty-four days.
Hey,
So glad you guys discovered what we are doing. As far as our building, it's 950 Hart St. in bushwick brooklyn. Funny you mentioned the family in Mass, thats actually what we've done recently, we are staying in Malden MA with susan's parents. I hope that doesn't shatter the inspiration. But we do hope to be back very soon, and are optimistic about being able to release our film. I would encourage you guys to jump into the video podcasting thing, we made a tutorial at: foureyedmonsters.com/tutorial that should covers the technical aspect. God luck with the projects and breaking out of the 8 hour unit monkey mode.
Arin
This is a great Blog!