Japanese Design and my song of the day/morning

So I'm going to this fancy art school in Atlanta. I'm doing my best to grow out my hair so I can pretentiously wag it away from my eyes. Lately I've spent a lot of time looking at design, art and architecture. I have taken quite a liking to ultra-modern Japanese design. To a certain extent, I've always liked clean aesthetics, but there's something about modern Japanese design that I find simply amazing. There's a book called Wonderwall about Masamichi Katayama. He's the dude that designed some of the BAPE stores. His use of minimalism in his work fascinates me. He solves the problem of creating just a regular-ass store into a real destination. A place where you can go and be in awe of the rad design of the space.

My SOD (Song Of the Day) is Groove Armada's The Girls Say. Seriously. Check this one out.

I Like SCARY Movies

They really don't make 'em like they used to. Every contemporary movie that's supposed to be scary is either overdone, or just really stupid. Hostel II- I crap scarier stuff than that. Don't get me wrong, that movie is about as gnarcore as it gets, but it's just too overdone. I expect more from Eli Roth. I want him to go ahead and make a full-length version of Thanksgiving (the trailer in Planet Terror). Sure, it'd be campy, but at least it would be a good romp and a surefire cult classic. 28 Weeks Later and 28 Days Later are an exception to the rule. I love em.

I bitch and moan about this quite a bit, but it's true. Director's nowadays opt for the easy way out and just CG the piss out of horror movies. Take it back to the old school. Take some cues from William Friedkin circa Exorcist (not Bug. It should've been called Queef). Or Kubrick's The Shining.

Here's one of my favorite scenes from The Shining.. It still scares the Bejesus out of me.


Because of that scene, I look at twins with a wary eye... Not even kidding.

New Fire from 10Deep

Normally I'm not a fan of overly graphic tees, but 10 Deep brings the heat on this one. Great image of Lee Harvey Oswald getting capped by Jack Ruby. If you haven't checked out NikeLab, I encourage you to do so in an expedient manner. This is one of the hottest lines out this fall.



My song of the day is Done With You by The Whitest Boy Alive. Great indie rock.

Nothin' on TV? Honey, pack up the Astrovan, let's go watch the suicide jumper.

About seven thirty, I was getting acquainted with my new cable setup in my roach-ridden apartment, when the unmistakable drone of a helicopter rotor interrupted me. At first, I shrugged off the ruckus due to the proximity of my apartment to the a nearby hospital, but the sound went on for way too long for a normal medivac flyby. There had to be something going on. The whirlibird was hovering way too low for way too long. I let it ride, and continued bathing in the bluish glow of cable TV. Later on, I went out for a bite to eat. I knew something was really up when the fire engine blocked the path to my fast food dinner. A motorcycle cop inside Wendy's noted that there was a "Guy that was gonna jump off a crane up on Peachtree." I got my frosty to go. I had to see this.

By the crowd gathered around the area, you'd thought that Peter Jackson, or at least Burt Reynolds, was eating filet mignon and scallops at Benihana across the street. Nope. Everyone was peering upward at the guy contemplating ending his life. From my vantage point, the guy looked like a sugar ant perched on the end of the construction crane's boom. The talking teeth on the news later said the crane was at least 300 feet tall. I knew that a fall from that height to pavement would not be pretty. Have we made any progress from the days of the Roman Colosseum?

The entire scene was one of contrasts. On one hand, you have a dedicated crew of people who shut down a major Thouroughfare in Atlanta to save this person's life. Then you have the crowd of people in their crazy creek lounge chairs waiting with baited breath to see the termination of a life.

I scanned the ever-growing crowd, I noticed families show up to watch the man do a 300-foot swan dive onto Peachtree Road. A mom posted up a patch of grass with her son- the kid couldn't have been more than 8 years old. Dad showed up later with a Diet Coke purchased from the adjacent Blockbuster Video. Folks even setup camp chairs to make an evening of it. Big burly dudes showed up arm-in-arm with their girlfriends. Yuppie White collar guys in Bruno Magli loafers showed with expensive Japanese cameras. The police set up an entire section for the media. And Everyone occasionally took cellphone “pics” of the guy on the crane. I suppose, deep down, everyone wanted to see the pretty pink mist. Whether it was all the transfats in my fast food dinner or this spectacle, I don’t know. The whole thing made me sick.

The entire scene was one of contrasts. On one hand, you have a dedicated crew of people who shut down a major Thouroughfare in Atlanta to save this person's life. Then you have the crowd of people in their crazy creek lounge chairs waiting with baited breath to see the termination of a life.

I couldn’t leave, though. I was transfixed. Some folks set up lawn chairs. Some cracked jokes about work in the morning, “So get on with it and jump already.” I chuffed at a few of the jokes. But WHAT IF? What if I saw a guy fall like an unwanted rag-doll right into the street from that height? What would that sound like? Would I be able to feel the impact? I wasn't sure I wanted to find out.

So I left. Sad thing is, I went back to bathe in the bluish glow of cable TV. I took great care monitor the ticker updates of the man on the crane. Somehow, the four blocks and the scene on TV was enough buffer zone for me to watch the events unfold. I'm no better than the rest of 'em.

Straight (Road) Trippin'

I've gone and done it. I'm making the move to ATL. So I crammed all my stuff into a U-Haul, and headed out for the Souf. I've made a few observations along the way. America has a vast array of amazing landscapes. Well, let me rephrase that. Most of everything east of the Rockies, and west of the Mississippi River is remarkably unremarkable. I'm gonna start a petition to get Oklahoma's motto renamed to "We're America's literal taint (taint quite the West Coast, and it taint the East either)." I did, however, eat at the Roadside BBQ tonight, just outside of Memphis, Tennessee. That one plate of pulled pork redeemed America's Taint. I mean, everyone needs a little taint now and again. Earlier today, I was told by a gas clerk in Butthole, Arkansas (who was working towards earning a degree as a pharmacist*) that I would get shot if I moved to Atlanta. This man with the nude woman tattooed on his left arm said this with an uncomfortable level of positivity.

All crap-talkery aside, I've learned a lot about America in just a few short days. Despite how toothless, and assumingly uneducated people are in their various walks of life, everyone has a point of view. And I learned that even amazingly good things can come from the that place where the sun don't shine.

Tomorrow, I'll dine at a Waffle House, and make my final approach to ATL. I plan on throwing my fair share of 'bows while I'm in the 404.

*stifling laughter

What gives music UNIVERSAL appeal?

Think about your favorite album. Can you remember the first time you heard it? How did you feel? I remember the first time I heard one of my favorite albums. It was ATLiens by Outkast. I bought the record from Tom Tom Music (Now a Curves Fitness) in Sandy, Utah. That was in 1996. This was also the first CD I purchased with a parental advisory label smacked on it (back in the day they were stickers you could peel off, so Mom wouldn't get pissed at you for owning a record that "cussed"). I promptly took the CD over to my homie, Kristjan Morgan's. At the time, Kristjan had the best AIWA 3 disk system for listening to rap. We put the CD in and listened to history. To me, it sounded like an album from the future. I'd never heard beats or lyrics like that. Almost 12 years and three copies of the CD later, I still have ATLiens playing- I listened to it today in my car. I still have the same reaction to that CD as I did on first listen. That, my blogospheric comrades, is a record with Universal appeal.

I suppose I'm getting into this due to a recent dust-up with a few good buddies on a road trip back from Colorado. We nearly got into a shoving match over what makes a band great. I couldn't quite articulate what makes a band universally appealing in the heat of the argument, but I think I'm nailing it down.

Without venturing into a variation of You might be a redneck if..., I'll name some characteristics of timeless album.

If you can't tell when an album was made (80s was fraught with overuse of synth, seventies had that overuse of the octave disco bass riff, early 90s grunge, and so on and so on)it's on the route to Universal appeal. Of course, some of the best albums (SGT. Peppers) are great due to the particular en vogue style.

If as many people in New York or L.A. know about the album as they do in Adelaide Australia, the record has global appeal. (case in point, 50 cent's music can be heard bumpin' by any number of Aboriginal folks in AUS)

If you can name a tune from simply listening to a two-second snippet, the song has potential for Universal Appeal (Arcade Fire's Neon Bible).

Music Means different things to different people. For me, I like music that arouses an emotional impact. Depending on the mood I'm in, I'll bust out some music that reflects my moods. I'd dare say that's about par for the course for most people too.

I love checking out albums of potentially epic proportions. For now, marinade on one of the greatest of all time.

Breaking out of the comfort zone

What happens when you reach a pivotal moment when you have to choose between staying cozy in your little rut, or really setting out to pave a course for a new phase of your life?

Well turns out, that's what I'm facing right now. Tomorrow I'm boarding a plane for Atlanta Georgia to check out a tremendous graduate level art school called the Portfolio Center. More than likely, I'll come out of this program with some really rad credentials and a portfolio that'll help land me a job in advertising anywhere in the country- maybe even the world. This sounds really dope, right? Truth is, I'm scared to death to go to this school. Long term, this path would provide me with a really lucrative career in advertising as a writer, or an art director. So what's holding me back? I love living where I'm at. I'm digging my hometown and I don't like drastic change. Moving from Salt Lake City to Hotlanta is a huge step for me. A step that will provide me with tremendous opportunities to enter a vocation that I love. But that means another two years of living on a college student's budget.

I'll throw in another variable to make things a little tougher. I could possibly have a great job at an good company. If I were to land said job, I could probably buy a nice condo and furnish it with all the latest IKEA furniture. I'd work away, BBQ on the weekends and amass some great toys...but would this be the long term best route for me? Perhaps not. Maybe I'll just end up hating life in my cubicle- eventually my life will become the personification of a Dilbert cartoon or an episode of the Office. I found a quote by Mark Twain (and I normally can't stand quotes like this) that says

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

It all comes down to whether I can man up and make the move to Atlanta. I know that this is probably the right thing to do, and I know I'll experience some fantastic growth as I venture out on my own. I once told a good friend not to settle in life. Get a job you love. Success will follow. Do I have the balls to take my own advice?

Time will tell what happens. Meanwhile I'm hedging my bets by continuing to interview for jobs in my safe harbor. I'm kind of a wuss.