Incubator, 001

Jerry the Security Guard at the office I work at has Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Receptive aphasia is a crystal ball to the universe.

Raymond Carver is dated, but still economical.

Shift.

Documenting past narratives and sharing them is important, and I often feel obligated to convey these narratives in a ‘true,’ form.

I’m referring to a recent entry regarding my upcoming trip to San Diego. Initially, the trip would be an opportune time for me to update an asset mapping project. This included scheduled interviews in the short time window.

However, I’m fickle, and expressing my ’selfish-ness’ once more, I’ve decided to take the opportunity to revisit memories more intimately, document these on stills, on film (as opposed to digital – to build a self-inflicted method of torture)… I’m being more meticulous about my pre-production methodology so I can write the damn script already.

Just know that it’s a film about San Diego, all of it.

So again with the process of filmmaking… in solitude… with a better attitude…

…I’m going to own this shit.

Running.

I love it.

Running a very flexible act to either share with somebody, or completely solo.

Running is a very intimate act as well. I’ve learned so much about my body, what I give it, and what it gives to me…

Running clears the mind, yet permits all sorts of thoughts to re-fill it.

I have musical accompaniment when I run, it’s helpful – today I was trying to figure out whether a certain Stevie Wonder song was for faith, music, or a woman:

You And I – Stevie Wonder

Conclusion: It’s all three. Which makes the damn thing so lovely.

I also thought of Haruki Murakami and an interview on running. I thought about my first encounter with Murakami – The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle right out of high school (1999), and with every subsequent book penned by him solidified the beauty within melancholy and my continued fascination with infusing it in my daily thoughts (which is detrimental sometimes, only sometimes).

I finally thought about how horrible my post-run stretching and habits are, and forced myself to sit and press out tension in my calves, which is a trouble spot for me, and affect my long runs (Thanks to Juju for inviting on her long run and amenities from her running group).

I’m training for another marathon, and hopefully my training regimen will show better results:

1st year – SF Marathon 2007: 5:35

2nd year – SD Rock N Roll Marathon 2008: 4:35

3rd year – ??

Who wants to train with me?

Speculating San Diego

I’ll be heading back home for a couple of days at the end of this month for a wedding. So far I’m dateless, and my misadventures and missteps have led me to a position where I could be dateless for the wedding altogether.

So what to do other than cause a spike in my cholesterol level?

Update old projects!

Early in my career I signed on with the Voices PROJECT based in the Sherman Heights Community in San Diego. During my very short tenure with Voices, we worked on, what could be termed as today, an asset map. We went around to City Heights, and Sherman Heights documenting folks that worked in the non-profit sector of said communities and served immigrant and seriously underserved communities in these areas. Most of the folks we interviewed were people of color, and usually scraping by. These are requisite to create or foster a sustainable change within a community. It’s not a pull em’ up by the bootstraps kind of mantra — far from it, usually the folks we’ve documented operated within an infrastructure that let them shine.

Here’s Sherman:

View Larger Map

Here’s City Heights:

View Larger Map

Needless to say, we finished up the project, and it was up on the internet for a bit, but then the organization folded, because our ED got into a graduate program. Subsequently, the website also went off-line as did those narratives. Luckily, I have the raw footage, and the edited footage sitting in a hard drive at home and it got me thinking that perhaps I can do several follow-up interviews, or at least some supplemental material to update what’s been going on in San Diego, especially within these two communities. It’d be interesting to track how their work is fairing, but also how certain external factors have affected the nature of the work, primarily redevelopment and other city planning issues. Plus it’d be nice to visit a few friends that I haven’t seen in a minute…

However, if I do get a date, then I throw this out the window… ;P Just kidding… kinda.

I need to break.

One of my favorite rivalries, I like this one more than the year after…

Happy Friday y’all… somebody please rest on my behalf, because lord knows that I cannot!

Above Water

“Can I live?” Stevie Wonder.

I’m mad busy, but I just wanted to take a quick break to let off some steam — no worries, no one’s on blast, not that I have much of any ammunition to begin with.

Yesterday, I came away from the second silkscreening workshop over at AND. Once more, and for the remainder of the classes, I brought my camera to document the last 40 minutes of the class. The class runs from 4 – 6PM, and I’m usually off of work round 5, so my ass gotta trek for several blocks. On any other day I wouldn’t mind, but when anyone compounds 4.5 hours of sleep the night before, 80 degree dry heat, and an overzealous attitude to run in the sun, and an even stringent MO to eat less at the office, AND insufficient funds equals one drained brutha.

I couldn’t be drained though, and I tried my best to fake da funk — thanks especially to all the youth that attended the workshop. The youth components of PODER, CPA, and SOMCAN came out with guns ablazing, responding to my questions regarding their work, their camaraderie, and being privy to their nature of being vibrant how could I not smile?

So dope.

Afterwards, I had to switch gears once more to prep for a late rehearsal with two of the four cast members for the Stories High production. Theatre collabos are a wonderful thing, it’s a different animal than film, and the missing camera is replaced/supplement by the bodies and faces of the actors. And these two brought it.

By the time I got home it was 10pmish, I handled some administrative things: sent out emails, wrote checks, and began to log the footage from the afternoon. I talked shop online with some good peeps, jumping back and forth to the FB account…

I finally ended up in bed by midnight – exhausted, but relieved that my feet were still firmly planted on the ground, head above water.

Weekend Debauchery, well… not really

Friday: 4th of July, celebrated American conquest and independence by watching Mongol. Makes me wanna go back to film school to learn cinematography.

Also makes me wanna go horseback in the Steppes of Asia…

Epic. Landloving.

Pastoral? A little.

Stoic? All great people are, dammit.

I also kicked it with good peeps at the Cottage over good grub, good grooves, good beats. Went to bed happy.

**

Saturday: I was pleased to find that the short video I’d worked on for the other blog did upload after all — peep the other blog please: somasfwalkabout.blogspot.com

Went on to attempt to change the oil in my car — and what was to be an easy 15 – 30 minutes, ended up being a 3 hour headache that culminated in a very risky 1.6 mile drive from my spot to the Lube spot. They were good folks, and I was reprimanded by several of the employees (younger than me, mind you) for getting my car from A to B, but what could I do? One of the tricks to remove the oil filter was straight up punching a hole in the filter to get a better grip, so it didn’t matter if I put hella oil, ish would leak… Anyway, they got my money, and gratitude.

I went on to appreciate the lord’s booming and loving voice manifested through the most humble and able world’s servants.

Yup. Stevlan Hardaway Judkins.

Better known as Stevie Wonder.

It seemed that everyone and their mother was at this show… which was totally dope.

Stevie truly brought it, and calmed me down like hella. I got all reminiscent in a good way, and proceeded to call significant exes when certain songs played. I was both amused at my audacity, and sobered by the reality (that I was single, and neither of them were not).

All good though, I was with good friends, and I sang my muthafuckin’ heart out, because I knew every word!

**

Sunday.

Breakfast, Corned Beef Hash ala Red Cafe. Go there.

Ended up in the SoMa. Went to the Westfield where the big ass urban tumor that Bloomingdales is, I visited my old workplace (Borders) and acted the loyal ex-employee and patronized the area with a few purchases, including the current issue of Atlantic Monthly because of the headline feature. The story absolutely confirmed what many of us realize about ourselves: that we never really liked to read books as they take too long, and the internet is the response to such short attention spans. And I’m still surprised if y’all made it this far in my blog…

I kicked it outside my work spot to meet up with the cast and crew for Brothers and Sisters, the short piece that I’m directing for Bindlestiff’s Stories High. It was our first read, and I had a whole script that included my bio, my ambitions, my favorite dishes to cook, blah, blah, blah — but we ended up just sitting in the sun for a bit, and I shared nearly nothing.

I took them through a warm up that was mostly for me, we read through the script together, and I conferred with them about making significant changes/revisions. We parted ways, and that’s when more of the work continued.

I posted at a cafe and invoked the name Jenkins. We connected via facebook and peeped a film together, and in his kindness, imparted me with his writing MO, and MO in general…

“FILMMAKERS MAKE FILMS.”

So I sat there, and although I didn’t make/write a film, I sat and wrote and wrote till every gesture played in front of me…

I went home to retype it, and proudly finished, sent the script on its merry way to the cast (as promised), and proceeded to kick it with good friends at some bars.

So yes, Monday is good.

I’m riding high.

Nothing ever stopped me, I don’t know why I ever thought anything did….

Binge and Purge

I’ve migrated some of my efforts here. I had a previous attempt at blogging the SoMa last year, but due to lack of resources, mostly time, I couldn’t keep up. Now that I have “more time,” I’m “doing the damn thing” (as my sister would so proudly announce about me).

I’ve been having a hell of a time these last couple of weeks, wrapped shooting for Unveiled, a short film about a Persian family in Anytown, U.S.A. that experiences the backlash of nationhood as a result of the Oklahoma City Bombings. I’m not going to give away too much else, but it’s officially wrapped, and onward to the editing table. I’m hoping that it’ll be done before next spring. Some of my growth has shown on the production, and I was only able to really stretch myself out because of the wonderful crew involved — including long time collaborators Chris Woon, and Melissa Chow.

Some production notes/lessons:

Drink lots of water.

Video is not film, don’t act like it could be.

I still wish we had the budget capacity to rent a 35mm rig and that I could use prime lenses. I need those experience points to be a well-rounded DP.

And yes, you are your best tripod.

With these mantras, and some administrative epiphanies, I’ll be DP on another short – we’ll be shooting in July and August. I’m again excited, and eager to see how I can learn from this production.

Stories High is in motion, and I’m most definitely apprehensive. The jump from DP to Director for theatre are several cousins removed perhaps, and it’s that separation that’s causing some lost hours of sleep. I’ve been graced with an experienced cast, and have been given the green light to make some changes. So it’s all about getting the work done there too, bottom line.

That’s about it though, making some additional changes because life and my mom are wanting to collect on their loans — and here I was already thinking that I’ve been paying my dues since 15, I guess I gotta drop more…