The Path Of Nothing

I've been suffering from writer's block/laze as of late. For the last couple weeks as I've been transitioning from few hours to none to unemployment I've been struggling to write a piece on how albums can be translated into five seasons, little theory I thought of months ago that I've been trying to coherently put out there to the masses to possibly turn them on to a new way to think about music in a collective fashion. Now with something this abstract it does require a heightened degree of focus as you're trying to pull references in order to make your point and also the structure of where to take it is also quite tricky. In conversation I'd have no problem delivering it as I have reactions to go off of and also the thought is fluid as you are talking about it so there's not as much criticism and editing involved to make sure that everything makes sense. As of now I'm currently shelving the idea for perhaps an abstract art/video piece to better get the idea across and play around in the sandbox a bit. However this is not what I wanted to talk about for this piece, what I really wanted to write about is simply nothing. Let my conscious mind wander through my fingers to the keyboard and onto the screen so that something eventually make sense. And also to get that stupid voice in my head to shut the fuck up.
I'll elaborate so you don't think I'm totally crazy. (Too late.) One of my favorite movies is "Revolver" by Guy Ritchie and if nobody here has seen it you should. Think of it as "The Godfather" version of "Inception." Not knocking the movie just trying to give you a rough idea. At any rate, the movie is about a con man, Jake Green (played by Jason Statham WITH HAIR. WHAT?!,) who is released from prison after seven years and sets out to get revenge on the man who put him there only to find myself in the middle of a game beyond his comprehension. Now this movie plays heavy with abstracts as it deals heavily with the mind and all the psychological theories that pertain to it, specifically the concept that is the ego. Without hopefully spoiling anything there is a pivotal moment where Statham's character must confront his true enemy which is his ego, represented by the narrative we hear throughout the movie. At the credits several psychologists speak into the camera about the concept of the ego saying how it hides behind itself so that you don't even know it's there and that it disguises it's thoughts as yours, basically saying how that voice in your head is not truly your own. And truly anyone outside the mind you perceive to be an enemy is a false projection by the ego in an effort to further disguise itself. ("The only enemy to ever exist is an eternal one.") A very huge and elaborate concept that I think is very profound and very good to know as if there is any truth to life it is that we are constantly trying to avoid something in ourselves that is an issue by casting a light on something that doesn't matter. (Politics, money, material possessions, etc.) My writer's block/laze I believe is a current manifestation of something wrong since for the last month I've been pissed off about my lousy job and blaming the corporation for it. Not unsound but the toll that it's taken carrying around that baggage sure as hell isn't healthy physically or mentally, partially why for the last week or so I've been slumming rather than busting my ass to find another job or accomplishing any of what I've been wanting to. This is my confrontation of my ego as I'm typing, going head to head with it saying how I don't need it right now. Several months ago for almost three weeks that voice didn't exist and came up in the middle of the week my lady flew up fro California as I had done/said something stupid so my ego popped up and said, "Hey buddy, what's up? Vacation over already? Time for me to fuck some shit up." And since then it's been a tight rope of trying to lose the ego and him scratching that itch in my head. I won't promise to myself that from now I'm gonna ditch the ego and change my situation cause if I can't keep that promise for whatever reason I am to blame which only feeds the ego and that does nobody any good, but you can bet your ass I'm gonna do everything I can until the battery dies out in my ego's mic.
One thing I plan to do is revisit a script that I aim to get made for which I won't talk too much about at this point but it does involve dealing with confronting yourself with a problem that has been slowly manifesting to the point where you get consumed. And that is very essentially, not anyone forcing or helping you to confront yourself, only you can do it. There may be outside influences to bring yourself to do it but ultimately it comes down to you, your actions, your thoughts, to determine the outcome. Anyone who thinks they can change a person or truly help them is diluted because you're not the one who is truly making them change. Irrelevant the issue, it all comes down to you and your choice to recognize it and do something. This is also a problem, either not recognizing it or not acknowledging it which if you don't does no good what so ever.
And sadly such a thing has left me with a sense of hopelessness as I, like many of you I assume, have some friends who are in need of some kind of awakening but we're not the ones to give it to them, they have to get themselves to wake up. The trick is finding a way to get them to realize this in a way that they are willing to listen, get them inspired to change themselves because if you supply the right stimuli anyone can handle themselves. This will be my effort, to tell a story in which others can relate to and have a possible moment of clarity. Now I don't wanna get my hopes up in thinking everyone will walk away from it thinking this, at most I just want them to dig the film I've made and if they can take the message with them and pass it along then rock on to them. However this is a consciousness to what I do and what I want to do that I would like others to at least say, "Hey, not bad," if nothing else. But as I said, it all comes down to my choice and thoughts so let's let the reigns loose and see where this ride will take us.

The Path Of Nothing

Acknowledge a fault within one's self

Confront that fault

Admit to yourself that even by confrontation you have no control

Admit that no one person has control over anything or any one

Upon all of this think of the path up ahead as an endless spiral

Not bad, eh? Sorry if any of my grammar sucks.

Photoshop Phriday - First Layer

Here's the first installment to Photoshop Phriday where I post up something I've drummed up in Photoshop. Sadly I received no challenges for this one but here's a couple to test the waters and try it out. These are also either new or unreleased work of mine.

Weird Wednesdays - The Quickening

Greetings again for our third installment on our WW segment, sorry for missing out on last week had a lot of crap to do very quick before seeing Mushroomhead in Portland. Quick capsule review on that: fucking awesome. ON WITH THE LINKS!

Bioshock Fishtank Case Mod - A guy submerged his motherboard in a fish tank with a big daddy and it works... WHAT?

Michelle Rodriguez' "Citizen Jane" - A trailer for an upcoming movie to be released on the 70th anniversary of "Citizen Kane" with a version of that movie that apparently is going to be like that but full of violence and really shitty CG. It's a minute and a half of, "WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST WATCH?"

Additionally if anyone has any suggestions or challenges for my first Photoshop Phriday let me know.

When The Hell Was "Facebook" A Verb? - Review on "The Social Network"

Seriously, when was this period I missed out on? Not because I regret not being in on it but because that's one of the dumbest thing's I've heard, "Facebook me." Oh well, Twitter's got the latest hold on having their website's name as a verb. Good thing about "Twittering" someone is that inside you're probably chuckling a little. (Perv.)
Anywho, I've just come back from seeing David Fincher's latest cinematic capsule known as "The Social Network", or to the snarky "Facebook: The Movie." I'll admit I being a Fincher fan and a general roamer of the internet when discovering this film thought, "Seriously? This has to be a joke." Then as time went by that dwindled up to the trailer's debut and it changed to, "Now I gotta see this movie." And I'm sure many people who still were iffy after that and saw it ate their own words, I can only hope so. For those who don't know of this project, it centers around the creators of the popular social network site (Get the title now?) Facebook and how success tore their friendship apart featuring Jesse Eisenberg (The Michael Cera that can act) as the founder and public wanker number one Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Garfield as the CFO Eduardo Saverin who got screwed harder than a Thai hooker, and Justin Timberlake as huge blowhard Napster founder Sean Parker.

Stupid Corporations, Audiences Hate You

Evening kids, it's your good old pal Sketch E. Whiteface reporting from his new home to pollute the beloved Internets with a mass of text to be read by one person who will spend six hours after crying for reading so much about something that could be very mundane. Please take this moment the stretch your eyes after that eyesore and the coming one. For those who don't know how to stretch your eyes, sorry, but you're on your own.

Hit the jump for the full article.

And we press onward to the meat of the matter, the heart of it if you will. For a while now I've been hearing complaints from everyone I know saying how there's nothing original being put out in TV, music and more specifically movies and how the content that IS being put out is very stupid. I've also heard from people, and neither this nor the previous is anything new, that people are stupid and therefore the content is geared toward them. Although I disagree with the first half of that statement, the second part is spot on. What's being put out sucks not because audiences are stupid but because the powers that be green lighting this thinks we're stupid.
On October 1, 1993 comedian Bill Hicks was scheduled to appear on "The Late Show with Dave Letterman" to fill in last minute for a guest who had canceled, ironically he had been bumped from the show the week prior. (This would be his final television performance as he would die from pancreatic cancer five months later.) He did an eight minute long set before a live studio audience recorded for the show. Cut to a few hours later, Hicks' set was not included in the broadcast having been removed by Letterman and the producers who denied being responsible. Although the show or CBS never commented on why it was removed Hicks stated, amongst other reasons, that they felt the viewers at home were too stupid to realize that "they're just jokes" even though the studio audience laughed at his material. The following is a phone call Hicks received to let him know his set had been removed by CBS' "Standards and Practices," a mere hour after the taping had finished, taken from Hicks' 23 page hand written letter to John Lahr.
"Well why do you think the crowd at home is different than the one in your studio? They're all watching your show," said Hicks.
"Bill, you have to understand our audiences," said producer Robert Morton.
"What do you grow them on farms? Your audience is comprised of 'people', right? Well, I understand 'people,' being a person myself. People are who I play to every night, Bob, and we get along fine."
...
"We taped the show the show at 5:30 in the afternoon, and your audience had no problem with the material then. What... does the audience become overly sensitive between the hours of 11:30 PM and 12:30 AM? And by the way, Bob, when I'm not performing on your show, I'm a member of the audience for your show. Are you saying my material is not suitable for me? That doesn't make sense, why do you underestimate the intelligence of your audience?"