Ever Have Unexplained Fear?

I have that feeling right now. A tight turning of a ghost sensation, and it's making me sit in the dark morning and feel like the future is surprisingly, endlessly, open and empty.

Ah, the joys of the movement of time. What's past is long gone, and what's to come is not even halfway real.

The Future is Sweden...

...and I've known this since I was trapped there during 9/11/2001.
Swedish Trends
Once more reason why America is most definitely not on the cutting edge.

This is madness...

From IMDB:

Video Stores Buying From Wal-Mart Instead of Distributors

Video rental outlets are discovering that they can purchase new movies from mass merchants like Wal-Mart, Costco, and Best Buy at a lower cost than what distributors charge, Video Store magazine reported today (Monday). It quoted one "rentailer" as saying that he could cut his budget by 27 percent simply by buying from Wal-Mart and other discount chains. The trade publication disclosed that a survey that it coordinated showed that more than 41 percent of rental outfits are purchasing from mass merchants.

The Screen Writers' Marching Song

Rise up and sing!
Courtesy of the latest issue of the WGA magazine "Written By," start marching to this ditty penned in 1934 - back in the days of witty socialism, alcoholism and spry assholes.

I.
Arise, ye movie writers, and cast away your chains!
Executives are human after all!
Shall they still rewrite our scripts, the children of our brains?
And shall we be a supervisor's thrall?
NO! NO! NO! NO! A million million no's!
Not in vain our fountain pens are filled!
The writers all will join
And executives will loin
To monkey with the Screen Writers' Guild!

II.
They pay us weekly salaries, a measly grand or two.
And think we ought to work because we're paid!
Shall we yield and do our job? Will YOU? Will YOU? Will YOU?
Defend the rights the tyrant would invade!
UP! UP! UP! UP! Attack them from the rear!
Never shall the voice of art be stilled!
Through gory battle scenes
Drive your gleaming limousines!
Ye heroes of the Screen Writers' Guild!

III.
Ye gentlemen and ladies that push the fervent pen,
The time has come and Freedom is in sight!
The cudgeled brain grows weary. When a bottle is your yen,
Have at it! And remember: write is write!
DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! Write a masterpiece
Till twenty thousand pages have been filled.
They'll all be thrown away,
But the producers have to pay
To members of the Screen Writers' Guild!

Can you feel the beat?

More Bad Album Art!

More, including "The Braillettes" and "Roger."

Worst Album Covers Ever

This is magnificent fun. I like "Joyce." I use it now as my desktop.

When I Have a Theater Company, I'm Naming It The Jellyfish

Jellyfish Theater Company. Sounds good, no?
Don't take it, it's mine. Mine!

Poor Little Asian Boy...continued

By the way, notice in the previous link how, by the bottom of the long scroll, he's already become a kind of celebrity?

This is funny...and a little sad

First Found Magazine. Now, we revel in undressing people photographically as well as textually.
Poor little Asian boy.
Is our age an age of public humiliation?
By the way, I find the animation quite amusing.

Ugly Celebs!

These pics are hideous. Which ones do you still find attractive now, eh? (I still thought some were cute.)

Buffalo Wingmen Article Online

Check out the whole thing on Maxim Online:
Buffalo Wingmen
The pictures, well, those you have to see in the issue itself.

Southland Tales: Donnie Darko followup film

Director Richard Kelly has a weird and captivating website for his next film, Southland Tales, which apparently takes place in 2008 Los Angeles. Can you explain what's going on in this website?

Wanna See Me Do Theater in LA or San Diego This Weekend?

Friday: Come see Fast N Loose at Sacred Fools Theater at 11 pm. I'll have a short play performed that I haven't written yet - a subject and some "things" are assigned Thursday night, I write it by Friday morning, it's rehearsed and performed Friday evening. More info: http://www.sacredfools.org

Saturday: See me in an elimination improv match at San Diego TheatreSports' 26-hour Improvathon! I am performing at 6 pm, at 6822B El Cajon Blvd. near San Diego State. More info: Improvathon

Two spontaneous theater happenings!

Um...Bar Codes on People?

It's articles like this that make me realize that we are gleefully ignoring all sci-fi signpost warnings.

"What do you do with Semacodes? In theory, you can stick a Semacode on any physical object about which people want more information. At San Francisco Bay Area transit stops, people have pasted Semacodes linking to real-time arrival information from NextBus. This week, the art group etoy will issue Semacoded uniforms to 500 children participating in its etoy.Day-Care-2 project at the Nieuwe Domeinen arts and architecture festival in Amsterdam. A quick scan of the uniform would link to the children's Web page with real-time information about them."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63493,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_2

Neat idea, chilling execution.

Mmmm...Pork Faggots.

Eat Mr. Brain's Pork Faggots.

Going Buffalo Hunting in Maxim

Check out an article I wrote with my good friend and adventuring partner Josh Metnick in this month's June Maxim. Link will be added when available. Eating raw buffalo liver is one of life's more disgusting pursuits.
For pics of the hunt, look at some I shot that day in Crow Nation, Montana:
Buffalo Pics

E3: Are Videogames Getting Boring?

I just came back from E3 2004 in Los Angeles, and I'm reflecting on what was a largely unremarkable show. I wasn't phased by much, and I saw no game that I "had" to go buy. The PSP device by Sony is amazing, however, and the only part of this year's show that wowed me. It'll kill the Nintendo portable market instantly. Its screen is beautiful.

I think the videogame industry is facing a lack of new ideas. MMO games and portable networked devices are the next wave for the mainstream, but innovation is rare right now.

Could this be the beginning of a glut that leads to a videogame recession?