Piece

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As a sort of an honor for Saul I decided to bring this lounge chair to life, birthed from paper towel sketches, maturing to conceptual mixed media renderings on 11×17 marker paper, then finally becoming a ½ scale cardboard prototype.  This is just the way he would have wanted it – not an actual full scale working piece of furniture that would be used for actual lounging, no.  Knowing him, it would’ve just been cornered in his humble apartment to be used occasionally, prisoned in between mounds of his dirty laundry and boxes filled with kitchen appliances and photo albums he failed to unpack since his move into that place near two years ago.  I mean, Saul owns furniture and finds them useful.  His appreciation for them, however, was on a different level when they were displayed as downscaled models.

“They’re fucking adorable man,” Saul said about my furniture prototypes.  This was always an honor for me to hear from him, no matter how many times he said it, and he said it a lot.  He never even used the word “adorable” to describe playful newborn babies.”
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This is from an unfinished project (a novel, yes you read that right) I started several years ago that I need to really be more serious about completing.  Even with the amount of work I do, there’s too much time in a day for me to ignore things like this – things that make me, me.

As a sort of jump start for myself I dug into my other sides of design and film and provided a short visual for this segment in my chapter one, titled ‘The Lounge Chair.’  The video features the song “Misty Mountain Hop” from one of my all-time favorite bands, Led Zeppelin (and I might have a problem with you if you just asked yourself who Led Zeppelin is).

Piece by piece.  That usually gets it done.

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F&S

‘Father and Son’ by Cat Stevens is a very important song for me.  If you asked me to put together the soundtrack of my life, this song would make the album.  Might even be the first track.

On a creative level I’ve always wanted to be able to tell this song visually while being able to tell my own connection to this song as well.

Since day one through a good chunk of my childhood, I did not have a dad.  I had the best mom in history, amazing grandparents, and lots of aunts and uncles.  But that father figure was never there.  While I do have a step-dad (he too, is the greatest), there’s a certain level of egg shells that the relationship walks through, and the gloves aren’t put on and duked out between a step-dad/son relationship the way it would if it were a biological connection.

And it was actually my step-dad that introduced me to this song back when I was in college.  On first listen, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  The lyrics, the emotion, the performance, everything about it.  Even if the song is packed with resent and expresses revolution (from the verses from the son), that’s what makes it beautiful.  Opposition is large part of a father/son relationship.  In fact, I saw it unfold so clearly during this time, seeing my step-dad and my half-brother duke it out the way I never did.

They fought often, but even so I was envious.  I knew, I knew I would never play that part of the son.  That time and opportunity for me went out the window on my first day.

But I do have plans on playing the father.  That chance will not pass me by.

PS. How about them acting skills of mine on this though?!  #bomchickawahwah

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MOTUS

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. I am the MOTUS.

The Mike of the United States.

We are roughly 24 hours away from concluding this rather heavy, grueling, painful, and head-shaking laced 2016 Presidential Election. Don’t worry, I’m not here with attempts to sway your vote one way or another. This country has been built on being able to make our own choices. Albeit good choices, like learning how to read, or not doing crystal meth.

That really should be in the top three for everyone’s list of good choices to make.

So, in light of our election, as my blog gets flagged by the FBI I would still like to find the lighter side of things as we trek our way in choosing our next President of the United States with random facts, questions, and wonders amongst our Presidents of yesteryears as well as the two vying to take the Oval Office, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump.

MOTUS on POTUS

  1. Our current POTUS, Barack Obama, was born August 4, 1961 at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii. Your MOTUS was born March 14, 1983 at, get this – Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children, Honolulu, Hawaii. And we’re both left-handed.  POTUS and MOTUS, basically brothers from different mothers. You can’t script greatness like this.
  2. Speaking of left handers, James Garfield was the first left-handed President. It only took 20 elections to get a southpaw in there.
  3. Who is the one President I would love to meet the most? Without question, number 26 Theodore Roosevelt. When he was younger he suffered from a breathing condition, and his father would actually take him to the outdoors in nature amongst the trees with clean, fresh and true air. You can say that leaning on nature kept him alive, in which he returned the favor as POTUS when he signed the Antiquities Act of 1906, which is the reason why we have national parks.
  4. What does J stand for in Donald J. Trump? If it stands for Juan, how ironic and hilarious would that be.
  5. This country has elected a President with the first name Grover. Twice.
  6. Does anyone remember President John Tyler? Fuck, me neither.
  7. Who had the best initials – FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), JFK (John Fitzgerald Kennedy), or LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson)? I’m going to go with FDR.
  8. Rutherford Hayes was the first POTUS to visit the West Coast while he was in office. The city he touched down? San Francisco.
  9. President James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” was a little guy. He clocked in at 5’4”, and weighed 100 pounds. I’m pretty sure William Taft’s right arm alone weighed that much.
  10. Bill was not the first Clinton to hold any Presidential title. A George Clinton (no, not that George Clinton) was the Vice President to the aforementioned James Madison.
  11. Do you know which POTUS graces the defunct $500 bill? William McKinley.
  12. He never became POTUS, but Bob Dole is still alive at 93 years old. What a guy! He also talked in third person, “If something happened along the route and you had to leave your children with Bob Dole or Bill Clinton, I think you would probably leave them with Bob Dole.” Burn.
  13. Do you know who the POTUS was in 1985? Ronald Reagan.  Do you know why I know that so easily? From watching Back to the Future all my life.
  14. Abe Lincoln – First POTUS to have a beard. Abolished slavery. Led the country through the Civil War. Carried an axe, and hunted vampires.  That was real, right?
  15. Do you remember the difference between President George W. Bush and almost-President Al Gore in the 2000 election? Just 537 more Bush votes in the state of Florida.

With that said, don’t ever think your vote doesn’t count. Get yourself a sticker tomorrow.

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Problems

Video

Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is, as he states, “a counterintuitive approach to living a good life.”  Regardless if you need/want this hand in self-help, it’s a wonderful read as he bluntly sheds light on the modern everyday life, revealing dark corners that most of us aren’t aware of or just blatantly ignore.  His rip on “The Feedback Loop from Hell” (Facebook) is especially encouraging, as I shared very similar ideas in my previous post “Bookend” this past August.

It’s always nice to know when you aren’t alone in thoughts and ideas.

My narration in this video is an excerpt from his book, something I believe everyone needs to hear (and something I wish I wrote, because it’s so damn good).​  Hope you enjoy.

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