Monthly Archives: October 2006

Primate Boogie

the mindlab

While I don’t hold with Creationists (or even proponents “Intelligent Design” as the term is currently employed) my world-view is generally in line with that of mainstream Roman Catholicism, a paradigm which is still lacking enough in empirical rigor to draw a fair amount of fire from skeptics. As time goes by I’ve found more and more that prolonged confrontation over these beliefs, even when tenable, frequently causes me enough anxiety to have minor biological repercussions.

An odd byproduct of this is that I occasionally feel sort of a sympathetic anxiousness when other folks views are attacked, sometimes even if I disagree with them or hold an opposing viewpoint. As a result I don’t argue as much in general as I did in earlier years, and (as you’d probably imagine) find some of the popular topics on blogs I frequent cause my stomach to churn a little extra. Curse of Greyface at work in me no doubt.

But in spite of these occasional misgivings about rocking boats when I recently came across the New York Dolls “Dance Like a Monkey” video it somehow amused me greatly:

Click here to watch “Dance Like a Monkey”.

I really gotta hand it to them: between the actual song lyrics and the video animation this thing has got more creationist, evolutionist, religious, skeptic, political, and scientific in-jokes than I’ve ever seen crammed into a 3 minute and 25 second package previously.

The FSM gets some action (always a crowd pleaser with skeptics). But I think my favorite parts were the obvious Dubya/monkey visual humor, and a passing reference to the Scopes Monkey Trial.

I’m actually surprised it hasn’t shown up on Boing Boing yet as it is totally their bag, and will be even more surprised if someone else doesn’t point it out to them before this gets posted.

Interview with Gary Gustin, Actor

writings,

Gary Gustin is an actor who works in the Pennsylvania area. In the following interview, Gustin talks about his experiences as an actor. His most recent film is Sean McKnight’s Disturbing Images (2006).

Gary Gustin

Interview follows.

I am familiar with your work from Sean McKnight’s film Disturbing Images where you played the character of Byron Lloyd. How did you come to be involved with the film?

I learned of Disturbing Images after Director Sean McKnight started casting notices. At that time he was being assisted by Dave Von Roehm of Ningun Films. I met Dave when I worked on a trailer for the film Two of One Heart. You know working on Independent films is a pretty small universe, seems like everyone knows everyone.

Continue reading Interview with Gary Gustin, Actor →

Flying Numbers

Uncategorized

Flying Numbers (2005) is a series of 49 poems written over a two-month period or so in 2004. Originally I published them on the web, but in 2005, I edited them into a PDF book-like format. Personally, I like their web presentation a little better than their PDF presentation. Some of the pictures for example were changed in making them into a book, along with the background colors. Additionally, some friends contributed their versions of flying number poems, which I had on the web also. The PDF-book version lacks these poems, and the colors, etc, but in the end it is probably a little easier to navigate.

Thematically, each poem centers on the flying numbers 1, 2 and 3. Rather convolutedly, the poems were also connected to a project (which is currently shelved) called PJ the Robot (and who in many regards still lives on). Even more convolutedly, PJ was an acronym, standing for “propaganda jox”, both a call to arms against the current state of world affairs and an allusion to a bygone time when the only enemies on the face of the Earth were Russia and the USA. The final thing that should be noted is that both”propaganda jox” and PJ owe a lot to Stuart Gordon’s film, Robot Jox (1990).

Crash and Burn and Flying Numbers.

Flying Numbers

Click here to download a PDF version of Flying Numbers.

Today Was Painted Thin

songs

I recorded Today Was Painted Thin on the 4-track in Essex sometime around April of 2003. As with most efforts that I myself “recorded and mastered” without Tim, the quality is pretty poor. I always liked the song though and wanted to record it again with people who could actually play instruments, rather than bang them (which is typically my approach to playing instruments). However, like the Lesternomicon, this might be as good as it ever gets.

The Towers

Click here to listen to Today Was Painted Thin

Continue reading →

Uncle Nagy’s House

the mindlab

Just wanted to say that Mike and I have been watching Uncle Nagy’s House. It’s pretty entertaining. It’s cool to see that there are other people out there doing video just for the heck of it. I think we’ll probably go to the Episode 6 screening.

Warning: if you are offended by rape jokes, don’t bother watching the show.

Spoon Test Factory

videos

Spoon Test Factory (2006) is a short film about Marie, played by Beth Gillin, and Geoff, played by Brian Egendorf (MainFragger), who work in a factory where spoons are tested.

Spoon Testing

Beth Gillin as Marie and Brian Egendorf as Geoff

The idea behind the film was to shoot something that was visual and not dialogue-driven. I also wanted to write a script but not actually give the actors a copy of the screenplay. So while significant events in the film are structured, much of what happens on the screen was worked out in rehearsal through solutions the actors arrived at by improvisation. The script was written in Celtx.

The final point that bears mentioning is that Tim and I met Beth, Brian, and Andrew Salerno, the film’s director of photography, at the Philadelphia Filmmakers, Actors, & Screenwriters Syndicate, which is held at Katseye Studio in Philadelphia, PA.

Other Specs

Format: HDV
Location: Studio 5 South
Run Time: 6 minutes 20 seconds
Date of Principal Photography: September 24, 2006

Protocon 2.0 Official Announcement

the mindlab

Get ready to mark your calendars, because Protocon 2.0 is official!

When: Friday, November 17th until Sunday, November 19th. Festivities will begin at 7pm Friday Night and last until 5pm Sunday.

Where: At Webb Manor in Chestertown, MD

Webb Manor comes equipped with 2 smoke machines and a wiener dog. You do the math.

If you are not a regular contributor to this forum but are interested in attending, please leave a comment on the website and we will get back to you with details.

We will be putting up an official itinerary of events here in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, take a gander at DJ Webb’s Wicker Duck submission (we are still accepting wicker duck design submissions, so be sure to email or post yours).

Continue reading Protocon 2.0 Official Announcement →

The Lesternomicon

the mindlab

So after Tim threw up Night Caller, we got on the phone and started talking about the “archives”. Soon after, the dig began.

The thing is Night Caller isn’t all that old. Like what, maybe a year and half? I dunno. Somewhere, the debauchery of Night Caller is still fresh in my mind. The “10 years” of absolute nonsense before that is all but a forgotten prehistory. Going back another 5 beyond that, to the unlistenable 4-track years, it is like trying to decipher cave writing. If we are the late night of the web now, 15 years ago our only fan was truly our mother. Wonder why. Luckily though, all wasn’t for nought. We actually managed to make some gems during that time.

Over the next couple weeks, months, maybe years, I’m going to be posting up some of those choice gems. Tim probably will too. This will hopefully placate our readership, encourage them to come back, attract a couple new folks and maybe even writers for the forum – that is until we get around to posting the things that we are actually doing now. You can expect one of these later this week or early next. So be sure to be constantly (and I mean constantly) refreshing your browser.

For now though, I give you the first installment from the vaults:The Lesternomicon. The Lesternomicon was originally an offshoot of Chook. While not directly related to what Chook would become, or even show up on the Chook site, in a lot of ways it gets at what the spirit of Chook was. Chook, even in its early days when Dragon and I were cooking up Chung Hort stories, was originally intended to be a mythos and a universe of characters. While arguably this was never fully realized and at best half-baked, it was always working in the background. For most of us involved with the sprawling and disjointed project, the word mythos pointed dead ahead to Lovecraft. That was the genesis of The Lesternomicon. It would become part Shub, part Chook, part Lester, part Larry, massively unintelligible and also unfinished. Originally, it was to be a book unto itself, a sort of religious text, much like Lovecraft’s Necronomicon. While I don’t foresee it being finished any time soon, perhaps it one day will be. Till then, enjoy what there is of it.

Props to Chris who probably wrote more of it than I did. I’m not sure who did the PDF though. It might have been Tim (nice spider).

Click here to Download The Lesternomicon in PDF format.