Posts

Showing posts from 2016

Redemption...

Image
5 out of 5 stars (for me) So I had the gnawing feeling to go see the movie "Nocturnal Animals"  Tom Ford is, in my humbled opinion, one of the best directors/movies makers in the business.  There is a reason it took him 7 years to go from "A Single Man" to this particular movie and that word is brilliance.  He doesn't rush things and takes his time with everything.  That is exactly what he did in the making of this movie. The movie is based off the book "Tony & Susan".  The book was released in 1993 and was turned down by 11 publishers and eventually picked up by the 12th called Baskerville publishers.  (12 is a significant number in my life so it coincides nicely with this story). The movie seems to follow the book pretty closely except for some tangents to make the story possibly much more watchable (dramatic effect). As with all Tom Ford Movies, he draws you in with the grotesque and the beautiful coexisting in a space we kno

Feels like a throat punch to my heart

Image
So, I thought today was going to be just another Sunday of lounging around and netflixing.  I don't think I have ever been so wrong in my life.  To start with, Facebook reminded me of my memories.  I happened to click on a friends link and decided to follow another link to my very first girlfriends sisters page.  Its random how I got there, but I blame facebook. To my shock, I saw that her sister had passed on the 22nd of November.  I was shocked because I knew that she wasn't that old.  I reached out to an old mutual acquaintance and found out it was pretty sudden and unexpected.  That had me in some kinda mood.  Because of that, I began to text and email friends and check in and make sure then were okay. I got a text message from a close colleague I used to work with at a previous job. Beck: "whats shakin CB" Me: "Not much just wanted to say hello.  Had a wake up call today.  Found out first girlfriends sister just passed away.  So sad...she was young&qu

Movie Review: The Family Fang

Image
Narrator:  Imagine you’re dead. Feel yourself go numb. Start with your fingers, move to your hands, your wrists, right on up to your elbows. Everything is dead. If we can imagine our own death, but still manage to come back to life, then it proves we can survive, anything. This was one of the best and possibly overlooked movies of 2015 (which is why I am just now reviewing it in 2016) in my humble opinion.  Jason Bateman is not only an incredible actor, but an extremely talented director. I was never a fan of arrested development (probably because I never watched it).  However, after seeing Bad Words and now The Family Fang, I have a whole new respect for Jason Bateman The story line: Annie and Baxter, the adult children of the controversial husband and wife conceptual performance art couple famous for their quirky macabre public performances, have never got over the fact that their parents kept using them during their childhood in their often gory and disturbing satiric

Utter shock and disbelief

Image
Its 3:16 am pacific time and I can't sleep.  I tossed and turned all night.  I'm in a position of unease.  Stomach is turning, and I can't shake the fear of whats about to happen for the next 4 years.  I never believed polls, yet I wanted to.  I wanted to have a belief that the system would do the right thing, but I was wrong. My father, rest his soul, told me a long time ago..."I wouldn't want to grow up in this day and age".  I thought he was just bullshitting me as he always did or feeding me some fearful story that he often did.  I remember him telling me that certain friends weren't really friends and that I wouldn't be friends with them.  I disagreed, he was right.  I remember him saying that there would be 3 major airlines left in the world. I disagreed, he was right.  I remember him saying that Bush would win in 2000. I disagreed, he was right. We now sit at the most historical time in history, when racial tensions are so thick you coul

Impatience

This is the word for the year.  I have seen this over the past 2 years creep up like a cat getting ready to attack a toy mouse, or a feather.  My observation of people, family and friends have yielded the same response.  We are a bunch of impatient fucks. I saw someone get angry in a starbucks because their order was wrong.  They had to make a big deal to the barista that "their time is money" as if they are the most important thing in the world.  I had a friend, and myself included, get pissed off because the internet was taking to long to load, or because the computer was taking so long to respond.  I have also seen it from the other side, meaning the employee that is rushing to make an order because of an impatient customer. My advise to everyone, especially in this turbulent election year.  Slow your fucking roll.  Not just now, but forever.  Stop expecting instant results and stop being so damned impatient. If your search isn't coming up on the web, refine your s

Pen to paper...

So I have settled into my life in Oregon and haven't written in a while. Haven't felt inspired. I was grading papers tonight and decided to put on some tunes in Google play music.  A song came on as I was finishing up and about to pack up my gear.  I hadn't heard it for some time, probably since the episode of Californication. The song is called "My California" by Beth Hart.  First note transported me to moonlight beach when I was a kid and used to play from sun up to sundown with my best friend Scott.  We would create imaginary dwellings, play in the water, boogie board and play in the sand until we had to be hosed off to get the sand off out of our hair and ears.  We looked like little toe head Scott and I.  It seemed to be a ritual with either his mom taking us, or my mom taking us, or all the parents dragging us to the beach with a cooler in hand (yes you could drink on the beach back in the day. I remember the smell of the ocean and the sand in between my

The Monkey Mind and You

Image
Let me paint a picture for you. It’s morning time and you have just woken up. You are poised to start the day brilliantly. You wake up and the first thing you do is grab your trusty phone. You begin to go through facebook, Instagram, snapchat and twitter. It’s now an hour later and you are still in bed, taking in all the social media and letting it rub off on you (whether or not you like to admit it, it happens all the time) You look at the clock and it is an hour later and you decide all this reading has made you tired, so you snooze again for another 30 minutes. You wake up thinking you are refreshed and grab your phone again to “see whats going on”. You get sucked in for another 30 minutes between the texts, emails and social media. You drag yourself out of bed. Maybe you grab some coffee or tea, jump in the shower, replaying an article in your head that you read that really has you “miffed”. You finish your shower, eat and start your day 2 hours later than you really w

A Letter From Hunter S. Thompson

Image
* For those of you that still read, please read this.  It is a fantastic letter on life purpose & goals.  It was written by Hunter S. Thompson in 1958 and I will be damned if it doesn't hold true today.  I found this on facebook and am sharing it on my blog. I am not the author and do not claim to be, I share it on my blog as an informative. Your goal, your reason, your purpose, is unique and may be similar to others but not the same.  Economies have changed, and the world we view and work in is entirely different than in 1958, however this message is true for all seeking their place in the world.  Don't do something you don't want to, find what makes you centered and go from there. We have to stop being sheep Mr Gonzo aka Hunter S Thompson April 22, 1958 57 Perry Street New York City Dear Hume, You ask advice: ah, what a very human and very dangerous thing to do! For to give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close

Thoughts for the day

Image
In our time on earth, we all struggle with what we should be bringing with us and what we should be letting go of.  As many of you know, it is very hard to throw things away, however, if we don't, it becomes a heavy weight, weighing us down.  Eventually the items become so heavy, like an immovable stone that we can't lift and it keeps us from moving on. If you have ever noticed a river, you will notice how it flows and and doesn't hold anything.  The river flows through a river bed and shapes it. This is very true of life and love.  We shouldn't hold on to stuff that are deeply ingrained within us, because they have already shaped us. When we have deep feelings within us, it is good to be like the river and let them flow through us. Often times we hold things like the love from someone past, an old card from a close family member, or a picture from a specific moment in time in our life because of the memory it gives us, but in truth, we should realize these

Movie Review: Suicide Squad

Image
Synopsis:  A secret government agency is tasked with putting together really bad guys, with the intent of making them do good things.  In exchange for their service the government is willing to give some leniency on their sentencing. The subtitle is pretty "on point" : Worst Heroes Ever! Review: I have read 50 reviews of this movie and of the 50, 10% showed some love, the other 90% call this movie crap.  I disagree.  I think the director did a great job. David Ayer, director of Fury and End of Watch, to name a few, are both movies that I enjoyed. I appreciate character development and descriptions and I think this movie did a decent job of delving into the characters. Sure they could have spent more time on each, but it would have run over its 2 hour and 3 minute timeline.  I have not read a comic book in my life, so movies are not a way of comparing the comic books to the screen portrayal, rather I go to movies for entertainment value. The characters seemed t

Pokemon Go: An Observation

Image
I commend the company that started this craze exactly 13 days ago. I mean i'm all for it. It took a video game to get people off of their asses, to go outside and actually see what sunlight looks like and to explore their towns and cities. I mean it is a miracle that people are using this app to see the world they live in rather than sitting inside waiting for life to happen. I am glad it took a video game to make people walk around and stare at their phones and see whatever it is going on inside that world (truth: I don’t play nor will I ever-so I don’t really know what the hell is going on). What I do see is that here in Eugene, at any given point and time, is that you can have people staring at their phones, sometimes in groups, waiting for the next event, not necessarily being social, just staring like robots at their phone. What would make this game great is if you could do the same thing in real life, but as someone is walking down the street waiting for the next ev

Keep Trying

Image
A ray of light can give us hope It is an old record, I'm sure.  You have heard the song time and time again, but it doesn't make you feel magical or warm and fuzzy on the inside. Often times the song is more like that gut wrenching agony of the word "again".  I like to think of it as "always". I'm talking about finding passion in your work, not purpose.  I don't believe work is purpose, unless your are doing something that is altruistic and even if you didn't get paid to do it, you would still do it.  I have had more jobs than the Jamaicans on “In Living Color” , maybe not all at the same time, but I have definitely tried my hands at at few things.  A friend of mine laughed at my resume last week when they saw how many jobs I have had.  My linkedin resume is probably in the neighborhood of 8 -12 pages.  Some of the pages could be removed because they aren't relevant, or are they? My job history tells a story, maybe not to everyone, bu