A Piguana in Tijuana

This is a piguana.

He crossed the border into Tijuana.

He indulged in the local flavor.

He vandalized a car.

And then he went to church.

The End.

Songs of Experience

Today, I learned that an article I wrote for Suite101.com has received an Editor's Choice Award. It's called In the Shadow of Personal History, and is a review of sorts of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel In the Shadow of No Towers. I'm totally honored that they appreciated my writing. It's also pretty neat to see a link for your article right at the top of the homepage.
I had a similar experience last year when I poem that I'd written received an award from a different site. I believe that these 2 pieces of writing bear social significance in that they are, well, somewhat relevant to contemporary affairs. The poem is, of course, about a guy. I think he's the only guy I ever wrote volumes for. He appreciated them when we were kids. So, though poetry and emotional frivolity are not really things I indulge in anymore, I'm posting that final poem here, as a salute to Romanticism as a whole.

34th between 5th and Park

Bar stool exhibition.
Neon signs and drowning stocks.
Heavy - lidded light and languid talkers say,
"Sir, you are safe.
Argyle socks will be up again in a few days."
At a glance; At a gaze.
Looking through and not at
Out of reservation.
Playing not coy,
Rather, sarcastic;
Editing the impulse to stare,
To jump out of my chair
And exclaim,
"It's you! Right there!
You look the same,
Down to the slicked back hair!"
Awestruck and wanting to tell all-
Instead-
Only playing hours long Devil's Advocate,
Lending the wrong impression.
I am sorry for that.
You are so you,
And I-
Was so scared.

Bukowski-Mation

I decided to practice a bit more with After Effects. This time, I created some text/collage animation. After doctoring an old B&W photo in Photoshop, I pulled a line from my favorite Charles Bukowski poem Style. AE CS4 has this nifty Puppet Pin tool that lets you "rig" still photos for animation. So, I then made the man himself do a little dance to a segment of Charles Mingus' Haitian Fight Song. The video seen here has the corrections I'd proposed in an earlier version of this post (ie, fix the shoulder, add more animation to "Everything," and synch the dance better with the song). All in all, this was a simple, fun project that didn't take long, and also made me chuckle. Another successful Adobe Premiere chop job. Gee, I just plugged Adobe a lot in this post. "Can you say Adobe? Uh-doh-beeee!"

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Throughout most of the summer, and into September, I have worked with Patch.com, creating listings for small businesses in Bellmore. Basically, it's involved collecting basic data, a few little personal pieces of information, and taking photos. It's been both a fun and exhausting experience. After spending so much time (willingly) removed from Long Island, becoming what I jokingly refer to as "Miss Bellmore," has been pretty cool. I feel like helping businesses by providing free advertisements for them during a terrible economic time is a great service.
The photos posted here are some of my favorites out of the ones I took. They've all been augmented in Photoshop, and though I think that they could use more tweaks, I'm going to leave them as is for now. So, enjoy your little slice of Long Island, and feel free to visit Patch.com. A link is featured in the first sentence.

Would you bring them home to mom?

Well, kids, meet the band. They're Shut Up Sean, and this is the very beginning of what will end up being a rather extensive project. I shall say no more. Well, no more other than that the 1st clip is a raw, grainy, rough, shot under basement recessed lighting, piece of something. I'm becoming better versed in After Effects, and wanted to see what I could do to spice this up a little. So, I gave myself a "Color Correction 101" lesson, and did what I could to brighten it, balance the tones and remove blur and noise. That would be what you see in clip #2. Voila. The complete file was too large to upload here, so I've just included a clip. Now, back to work.

Hybrid Creatures

I've developed a fondness for creating ghastly hybrid beings in Photoshop. I'm starting to get pretty good at it. From top-bottom, most recent-earliest, they are the 1) Piguana; 2) Buirrel; 3) Flaminguin; 4) Gazawk. More to come!!!

Doodles allo Symposio

These are some quick sketches I did on my server notepad. This summer, I worked in a small Italian restaurant in Bellmore, NY called Cafe Symposio. I had barely spent more than a few weeks in New York in 3 years, and feel that the experience I had there was a suitable way for me to be reintegrated into my home.
One thing I've always liked about this place is the cultural diversity. Sometimes, at the restaurant, I would hear Spanish in my left ear; Greek in my right; and English in both. I also had the pleasure of hearing some Italian and Arabic, and running into customers with a broad spectrum of surnames.
I've worked in a lot of restaurants, and this place was the first time that almost everyone accepted me as a friend from the moment I walked in the door. Conversely, I also learned that not everyone revels in a multi-faceted world. Some naive part of me thought that it was common to feel genuine happiness at being surrounded by a heterogeneous group of people. I learned a valuable lesson at Cafe Symposio. It'll be there with me on my next adventure.