clips

Started collecting my favorite skate clips on You Tube - they took down Video Days and the Powell rubber boys clip, but the rest of the stuff is still great.

two stereos wrapped in an old t-shirt

I haven't had the time to skate much recently with the pre-Christmas bullshit bottleneck, but last week I managed to get out for a bit, and get an early Christmas present to boot. Ursula was occupied with Christmas shopping on Saturday, so I skated to Chango’s again for some lunch, then headed to Sunset Blvd. Along the way I see two 45 symbols from Stereo thrown up near the House of Spirits. I happen to ride a Stereo myself.

Skating around Sunset and Echo Park Blvd. was fun, so I decide to make my way down to the parking blocks in front of the 4100 bar that I always spy on my work commute. Unfortunately, it starts raining – hard – so I start to walk back home. As I walk past the fire station to cross the street, Chris Pastras rolls up to the corner. We talk for a second, and he actually gets out of his rig in the rain and gives me a deck from the trunk. Not only is this supercool, but pretty ironic, considering every time I skate kids ask me for gear; if you're old and on a board they assume you're a pro.

I trudged the rest of the way home, two stereos in hand, wrapped in an old t-shirt.

skateboarding

Norma & Margie now showing at Newgrounds

"Norma & Margie" is now showing at Newgrounds, a kickass animation portal by the makers of Alien Hominid. Please stop by & cast your vote for your two favorite extra-dimensional couriers!

Thanks.

Echo Park

About a month ago I had a brilliant idea; get back into skating...despite the fact that I'm 34, and stopped skating regularly when I was 19 - right when street skating really got big (see H Street). Back then I lived in Fall River, a sleepy hallow south of Boston famous for Lizzie Borden, Emeril, and Hank the angry dwarf. Now I live in Echo Park.

I guess you'd call Echo Park a borough in you lived in New York. A gritty bunch of hills and broken sidewalks off of Sunset Blvd., Echo Park is a demolition derby of arthouse, poor house, and hot chicks with ugly boots.

Today's session was just a trip to the ATM and lunch at Chango, where I always have the roasted veggie sandwich, and always forget to say no olives. The afternoon heat and traffic kept me off-balance; I didn't really land anything until I got home, throwing down some bonelesses in the cul-de-sac near my house. The next session will probably be at night.

skateboarding

Screenwriting

I finishing reading Making a good script great by Linda Seger, now it's off to Hero with a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell (again). The last time I read Campbell it was for story structure and character psychology; this time it's for application to some of the surreal moments I write.

I also finished Getting things done by David Allen, and I've started to apply some of his thinking to how I write (you can find some of my favorite GTD-related links here).

For example, one of the general principles in GTD in keeping cleanly defined lists in order to stay organized. I decided to apply this somehow to my notes, which are always a rat's nest. After rereading my notes, I discovered that I write four different types of entries in my notebook:

1. Questions - "why does character x do this?"
2. Ideas - "maybe character x does this because of reason x"
3. Research Notes - either relating to craft or a topic
4. Next Actions - "debug outline" (next actions is a GTD term/concept)

I then rewrote my notes, giving each type of entry it's own page. The "Next Action" page is key, because it keep me focus on making progess. I'm also using this classification when I'm dictating into my microcasette recorder on the road because it makes transcribing my notes much easier.

screenwriting
GTD

Cash


Check out Cash and other paintings at Sonic Nova’s myspace page.

painting

Stuff I dig: the Amazing Screw-On Head

I've decided not to go back to the toolbox entries for a while because I don't really have the time and I'm trying to keep my thinking/style flexible for the next cartoon...so for now this blog will just be about stuff I dig.

I caught the half-hour pilot of the Amazing Screw-on Head on Sci-Fi this week; it's worth checking out. An adaptation of a Dark Horse comic by Mike Mignola, it has a Lovecraft/Gorey sensibility. The color palette for the cartoon is just right, and they animated the shadows on the characters, so it doesn't look like Mignola's inking style is static. The pilot is available for viewing online.

animation

Now playing: Norma & Margie!

...After a year of toiling on weeknights and through weekends, Norma & Margie is finished and online. The past few weeks were spent polishing the cartoon on a couple of different machines to measure performance. Special thanks go to Khoi Pham, Jeff Godek, Gordon Barber, Tim Tran, Kevin Grant, Charlie Chu, and Andy Khouri, who were kind enough to download dev versions of N&M and let me know how it performed on their systems. I probably have a few more grey hairs in my goatee now from the overall experience, but it was worth it.

I created a myspace page for N&M, but can't upload the QT version to the page at the moment ("transmission error"), so a link to the flash version will have to do for now. I'll also be posting the cartoon to you tube, google video, etc.


animation

ON SCREENWRITING

Well, the toolbox stuff came to a halt because of the focus on Norma & Margie and the screenwriting. That said, two books that have helped me out alot recently are King's book on writing and Linda Seger's book Making a good script great. Also, here are links to a few helpful screenwriting sites.

screenwriting