Ambivalence

COTTATTTOTW (Collection of Things That Are Trying to Take Over the World)

2009-01-30T08:10:29Z

http://austinist.com/2009/01/25/snapshots_zombie_defense_league_co-.php
(http://i.gizmodo.com/5136970/hacking-road-signs-is-frightningly-easy-and-funny-and-illegal)

http://community.livejournal.com/wtf_nature/386245.html

http://community.livejournal.com/wtf_nature/385387.html

http://images.smarter.com/blogs/carrottop.jpg

Frozen by indecision and ambiguity?

2009-01-04T12:06:01Z

I look in the mirror and I don't even know who I see anymore. It feels like I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out who that person is, but also a lot of time trying to drown out who I know that person to be.

I'm applying for grad school right now, in photography, but I've already applied in student affairs and social work. I got in to the schools I wanted both times, but turned them down because I decided to work on different things. They were both things I know I'd be good at and that I'd like to do, but I turned them down. Turned down student affairs because decided social work would be a more flexible degree for what I wanted to do (which meant it would give me the flexibility to do lots of things and not be forced to make a decision about what I would actually do). Turned down social work because decided wanted to pursue my passion in photography. Now I'm dragging my feet with applications for photography, maybe because I'm afraid I won't be able to make it. But what do I have to lose? And what happens if I get accepted to photography and suddenly turn it down because I've decided to do something else? That'd be fucked up in a "flush life down the toilet" kind of way. I don't think I'd do that... I'm more worried that I'll get all locked up about applying that I won't actually get any good applications in and I'll have no options. Maybe the whole procrastinator thing where if I don't try, then I won't have something to fail at, and if I do fail, then I can blame that fact that I waited until the last minute and had a lot going on and blah blah blah?

Until recently I was going to apply to both social work and photography and then decide which to do. Now I'm only applying to photography because it's what I really really want to do. But I'm so terrified that I'll keep going down that path and either not be good enough, or be good enough but not be able to leverage it into an actual career. What if I spend all this time working toward this, and then it just doesn't go anywhere?

I think I've noticed something in me that I've noticed in a lot of other people. The belief deep down that we're amazing and talented, and feel that we should do great things with our life... while at the same time being terrified that we won't achieve greatness, so we sit and worry and get neurotic, and in the process we don't do shit with our time because we're too afraid to channel our talent into working 110% at getting to the point where we can convince the world that we're destined for greatness. If we just got over it and realized that 99% of humanity does ok with their lives without being a superstar, maybe we'd spend our time doing something rather than having a mentality where it's either all or nothing. Superstar or nothing.... but there's a lot in between the two extremes.

I've talked about it with my roommate a lot, and also I think indirectly with my two best friends M & C, and with others, about how when we're young we feel like we're so full of potential and we have so many options, and then as we get older those options seem to dwindle, but we still feel like we have this well of potential, and it can be frustrating when we don't feel like we're living up to that potential.

I think a lot of us are very talented but we don't always have the self marketing skills to do something with that talent and have our talent recognized. Because talent that doesn't get out of our brain really won't take us anywhere.

I'm sitting here with way too much caffeine in my system, unable to sleep, while my beautiful girlfriend sleeps in my bed, and I won't let her know most of the things that are bothering me. I need to be getting all my application stuff done for grad school, but I'm afraid to talk to her about it because going to grad school means eventually leaving Texas and I have no idea what that means for our relationship. We have strong feelings for each other that we rarely discuss because we don't know what effect it will have on the other. She tries to bring it up occasionally, and I avoid it because committing to feelings about a person scares the shit out of me right now. I'm too afraid to even think about and even figure out how I feel about her, because I'm afraid I'll hurt her someday no matter how I feel.

And when went home for Christmas and New Years, felt like I barely opened up for my family, even though it's something I've been working on. Lots of opportunities, and even had lots of conversations in my head with them, but never opened my mouth. I've been so shut off from everyone lately. I'm being torn up inside, and I've been around the people who I can talk to the most (sister, mom, family, my best friend C, my girlfriend A, etc), but I just keep my mouth shut and think about it in my head, even though that gets me nowhere without bouncing it off others. Plus just opening myself up to find out what's going on with them... something I've neglected.

Damn, too much going on in my head to feel like I'm making any sense here. I feel like I'm squishing 4 or 5 different topics together and not figuring out the details of any of them. Should just try to sleep again, but I know there's too much in my head to do that. And too much caffeine. Could try to stay up and work on stuff, but don't want to wake A up. Could take a Tylenol PM and see if that'll put me to sleep, but don't know if that'll mix well with all that alcohol I had earlier (and the beer I'm working on now). I just know that I need to do something about it all and stop just wining in my own head and turning myself into a victim of myself.

Two pix I uploaded recently. I have thousands of images from the last few years that I haven't edited and done anything with. I spend all my time concentrating on my "art" stuff, when I have tons of other stuff I'm ignoring in my hard drive.

First one is from a workshop last year with Scott Church (look him up, he's awesome), and the other one is of my roommate when we were just messing around in the studio:

Hmmm....

2008-09-04T07:10:16Z

Kind of an interesting thing to think about, actually...

"It took seventy-five years to bring democracy to Europe, from 1914 to 1989. At some point, the entire European continent was governed by either communists, fascists, or Nazis. Two hot wars, one cold one. Tens of millions of people killed. The good news is, I don't think the Middle East will take as long."
-R. James Woolsey (Former CIA director)

Politics Are Funny

2008-09-04T04:59:06Z

I'm jealous of Republicans because they can use this sticker on their car, while I can't because then i feel like I'd be unintentionally endorsing McCain :-(

(oh, saw it on "RiotClitShave"s blog, but hosted it myself to spare her bandwidth)

New Photos

2008-07-16T06:50:02Z

Finally got my summer body of work posted on Flickr. At first I wasn't sure about it, kept thinking back to the previous set and comparing. But now I'm pretty into the new stuff, too.

This time used the 8x10 view camera instead of the 4x5 one. Again, contact prints toned in the dark room.

Singing? No?

2008-07-09T07:02:12Z

So I know I'm basically tone deaf and can't sing. But I've been singing a lot in the truck, because some ass face stole my radio and I have nothing else to listen to. And then I get home and my roommate is out of town and I walk around singing. So I decided to sit down with Garageband and record some vocals while listening to Round Here by the Counting Crows, one of my favorite songs.

Thought it would be maybe at least semi decent and not total rubbish when I went back and listened to it. No, it was total rubbish. I should now stop singing around anyone at all. Fuck.

At least when I looked up the notes and started playing along with the Garageband organ, I could at least tell that it was working. I know I'm good at instrument, and I've now confirmed that I'm horrible at singing. Suck.

Oh well. Also, I've been addicted to Monica Bellucci this week! Can't help it, love the older hotter women.

http://community.livejournal.com/foto_decadent/1825025.html#cutid1

Against the Grain

2008-05-31T04:34:24Z

I think it's really weird how snobbery and status works sometimes. When digital photography first came out, "serious" photographer and pros sneered at it and thought of it as an amateurish fad that might eventually turn into something but for now sucked and lacked personality. And now, many pros have turned to digital and have dumped film and a lot of manufacturers have stopped making film. And now I hear pros and people at camera stores talking about how "film is only used by amateurs now". Which there might be a little to it, since a lot of pros use good digital stuff now but photo departments do tend to still have students learn on film. But a lot of fine art, product, and fashion photographers still use it, and it's still pretty awesome. Just because a lot of pros have stopped using it, doesn't make it bad, but to them they can keep their self-important status by looking down on those who do still use it.

Anyway, not bitter, just something I've been thinking about today while tracking down 8x10 film and having my professor lend me his huge awesome view camera. Can't wait to start using it!!!!!

Well...

2008-05-30T07:50:37Z

Ok, this is a great link to a posting of a bunch of pictures by Dan Flood:

http://community.livejournal.com/foto_decadent/1777778.html?#cutid1

And it reinforces my long held beliefs that:
1) a woman wearing a man's button-up shirt and barely anything on the bottom is automatically 500% sexier,
2) it's easy to take a sexy picture of a girl who has really sexy eyes,
3) if a photo features a star of a recent TV show, people will pay attention to it,
4) pictures of "model types" can be really fucking boring.
5) the picture on the left is mother fucking hot and has no nudity:

Tom Petty's song Wildflowers is awesome.

2008-05-30T05:54:11Z

So, had a nice break but class started again this week. It's going to be good but busy. Just one class, called Concept to Exhibition, which is exactly how it sounds. Come up with a concept for a body of work and then get it ready for a gallery exhibition. I'll be switching to the 8x10 view camera instead of the 4x5, which will make awesomely detailed contact prints. Still going with the mask theme and empty, creepy, yet approachable and pretty scenes. And I'll be using a new toner that turns the silver in a darkroom print from black to metallic silver.

Spent the night drinking and hanging out with my roommate, listening to a bunch of music and using his dog as a pillow. It was a nice night after spending all day scrounging online for the film I need, and going around to stores in town to find new masks and props. It's surprising how hard it is to find fetish masks in Arlington, TX!

Anyway, I think i started this post with something in particular I wanted to talk about, but i don't remember what it was. Guess I'll watch some Lost and go to bed...

Awesome how our faces look just like little jiggling bags of meat sometimes:
Super Slow Motion Punch Fest

Alcohol Usually Isn't a Depressing Depressant

2008-05-17T01:01:52Z

Last night went out on the town with a bunch of other photo folks in Ft Worth. The first place was really fun. Not too crowded, and a kind of lighthearted vibe. There was a group of bros near us who a few times tried to hit on the girls in the group (2/8 or 1/4 of our group), but it was lighthearted and not creepy. We had about 1/3 of the basement area pretty much to ourselves, and we drank and did crazy dancing (see last post for examples) and took shitloads of funny pictures (give a camera to a drunk photo major you'll be blind within five minutes from the flashes).

Then we went to a place across the street because the other birthday person's ex-boss wanted to go. That place bothered me. Crowded, pretentious, peacocky, overpriced, etc. Some people were too drunk, I had to persuade assholes to leave my gal friends alone, etc.

Don't worry, this post kind of has a point, and I'll get to it eventually :-)

So time to go, I walk 3 of my gal friends to their car, some asshole bros in the parking lot are asking me why I'm not getting in the car with them to "at least get a BJ", etc. Then I have to walk about 5 blocks to where I'm parked. All the bars were closing at 2:00, so the streets were filled with little mobs of overly drunk people spilling out on to the streets. I wasn't too drunk, though I drank a lot (made sure we all drank a lot of water after a few friends started getting overly sloppy drunk).

Had to wade through crowds of these people who were acting very idiotic. Every cross walk was like a perverted version of the movie Death Race 2000 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVqJIsJrfQA). Every light was being completely run by drunk drivers. While at the same time there were tons of drunk pedestrians jay-walking into the same streets without really watching the traffic flow first. I'm surprised I wasn't run over, let alone the people not paying attention. There were people stopping cars to talk to the people inside.

Anyway, it was really annoying and obnoxious and reminds me of why I hate drunk people as a general rule. Get a few drinks into a frustrated urban robot, and they suddenly don't give a shit about themselves or others.

Or maybe I'm just getting old and have gotten a little fed up with people?

I love drinking as much as the next person, but isn't it a good idea to at least keep some situational awareness?

Just kidding, I guess there isn't a coherent point to this, just wanted to rant and think about it ;-)

Birthday Time!

2008-05-16T23:05:23Z

Just throwing it out there even though I don't know if many Texas friends read this, but my birthday is tomorrow, so you should all come out and celebrate! Probably something here in Arlington, but if enough crazy people are interested, maybe a trip to Dallas or Ft Worth.

You'll get to see my Birthday Dance™ in person!

Rubber Legs

Time to wrap it up and move on.

2008-05-10T00:40:12Z

I keep forgetting which ones I've already posted, so I should just make one post with all of them! Or just keep them coming intermittently so they last? Or who cares?

Anyway, been trying to get caught up on organizing and uploading photos lately. I've got shit tons from the past 6 months. The abandoned hotel, the photo workshop with some good nudes and body paint shots, wild nights out on the town, etc. If I don't organize it all soon, it'll be too late!

Anyway, the main body of work is at this link. It's the basic 10 or so prints that won Wishful Wings for the gallery show last week. Some of them are scans from the negatives, which are better looking than the other ones that are quick scans from the prints.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angrybuddha/sets/72157603972569273/

And here are some digital shots I did while setting stuff up in the studio, finally uploaded a bunch of them as "Outtakes and B-Sides":

http://www.flickr.com/photos/angrybuddha/sets/72157604956826344/

Anyway, enjoy. I'm gonna go eat some food and buy some booze to hang out with some friends. Got my tax refund today, so I can afford some fast food again, yay!

Weird Sightings

2008-05-09T00:06:27Z

Across from my apartment are two little league fields, and one of the teams has an all black uniform. Shirt, pants, hats, everything. And it gets hot and sunny in TX during baseball season. That's just mean.

Also, in other news, my neighbors little tiny annoying chihuahua loves to have staring contests. Except that it's more of a glaring contest than a staring contest. And it has a huge penis, too. If I had one in the same proportions to my body, it's be about a foot long. Scary.

A shot from my recent work, some of which was up in a gallery this past week for a contest I won. More to come!

No wait, officer, you pronounced it wrong!

2008-05-07T02:24:45Z

So all week I've been wondering what the official word is for foot fetishism is. Because the prefix for foot is podi or something. I was worried that such a person would be a podiphile or along those lines, which would put it dangerously close to sounding like pedophile. Finally looked it up, and it's podophilia... which still with the wrong pronunciation would sound unfortunately similar to the sadder obsession.

Anyway, mystery solved, now I can put my brain power back into more important ponderings :-)

Along those lines, this was in the airport in S Korea I think:

Sexy

2008-05-01T09:47:24Z

Lego Man takes a picture of himself every day for a year :-)

Quack.

2008-03-24T02:16:02Z

1) This is awesome, just be patient because it's a little long but it pays off:

2) Sitting in a completely pitch black room for hours developing sheet film is fun but also very tiring. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that there is a radio in there.

2a) My latest shoot involved a big fatty beef heart, and I think they're going to turn out awesomely! She was wearing a feathery flapper dress and a feathered mask.

3) Saw Creedence Clearwater Revisited last night at Billy Bob's (the world's biggest honky tonk or something), and they were pretty good! It's the original drummer and bassist from Creedence Clearwater Revival, with some newer guys. Good stuff. Chris and I kept sneaking away because we were there with Ashley's mom and brother, and she doesn't smoke or drink, so we'd go down a few beers and puff a few cigarettes then come back with just one beer each so that it didn't look like we were complete alcoholics.

4) Speaking of, yeah, met A's mom and brother for the first time this weekend. They decided to go on a roadtrip to Austin and Dallas, so that was nice. I kind of expected that it would have happened sooner than 7ish months into dating, but then again they do live like 5 hours away.

5) It is really cold in this computer lab.

6) Still printing my latest photos in the darkroom and selenium toning them. About to start cross toning with copper and blue, when I have time. I also fiddled with getting the selenium look digitally, and this is what I came up with. I like it :-)

Ok, good night everyone, I'm about to go back into the darkness to finish the last batch of negatives. Woo hoo, I might actually have time for dinner before going in to print them!

LJ Strike?

2008-03-21T01:03:11Z

Apparently there is going to be a strike on Friday having to do with LJ's new owners and how they want to make a bunch of changes, including messing with Basic account holders and all that.

Don't know too much about it yet, but when I get a chance I'm going to go read more about it.

Some basic information:
http://beckyzoole.livejournal.com/395310.html

Yummy.

2008-03-18T21:00:59Z

My Bermuda Triangle

2008-03-18T19:31:03Z

If you were to draw some lines between LA, New York, and Arlington (TX), you'd have a huge triangle that covers a good portion of the United States. This is my Bermuda Triangle. I've spent a good amount of time bouncing around inside that triangle, confused and searching and never quite finding a destination. I don't know if it's weird weather patterns, or magnetic disturbances in the Earth's ley lines, or aliens, or something else, but it's hard to fly a plane through this place.

It's not a perfect metaphor, I confess. There are a lot of places that have been important in my life that aren't within the bounds of that three sided beast. If you wanted to be specific, it would be kind of big Bermuda Amoeba. But I can't use that because no one has ever seen a Discovery Channel special on the Bermuda Amoeba. So we'll stick with imperfect for now. It's a fitting word.

And hey, what the fuck, I thought a triangle was supposed to be the most stable basic shape?

I don't know what I'm looking for. I guess sometimes we spend our whole lives figuring that out, so I guess I can't assume I'll have it nailed down by the time I'm almost 27. Wow. 27. Starting to knock on 30's door. But hey, no need to put unfair and artificial expectations on a number.

I don't even know what I'm trying to write here. Got a bunch of stuff swirling around in my head and still trying to piece it together into some sort of coherent idea. So I'm going to just stop now because these things get rambly and boring after about two paragraphs.

Oh, and I've been obsessed the past few days with the show Californication. It's fucking awesome!

Don't have any recent photos on Flickr to put down here, they're all on my hard drive at school and I haven't gotten around to putting them online. But I like them. So for now I'll put one that I think I've posted before, but I've been thinking about it so here it is again:

Recent Studio Work

2008-02-23T23:20:32Z

Just finally got some new negatives scanned. I'm loving the 4x5 view camera with Polaroid Type 55 film! Started out with "The Four Debutants of the Apocalypse" in my head, but don't know if I'll continue with that exact theme :-)

These are purposely dark and contrasty, so view it on a correctly calibrated monitor with the brightness turned up, otherwise they might look funny!

Sex.

2008-02-14T03:53:05Z

I'm in the middle of scanning a whole bunch of negatives, so hopefully I'll have some new stuff soon to post on here. For now, here's someone elses art!

I love asofterworld.com :-)

Send in the clowns.

2008-01-24T08:06:24Z

Good lord... how long has it been since we've all known this, and it's just now MSN front page fodder?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22794451/?GT1=10755

Sixty Nine

2008-01-24T04:23:49Z

Holy shit. I just found a live version where Ryan Adams actually plays Summer of '69! The song by BRYAN Adams that people always yell out requests for with RYAn, and it usually pisses him off and sometimes he accosts audience members or just stops the gig.

And then he goes and covers it in a concert. But makes up a lot of his own lyrics to it, some of which make fun of Brian Adams.

I really really love Ryan Adams :-)

I can't find a way to link to it online. I found in on page 6 of a Ryan Adams search on Playlist.com.

But damn... this guy does sound like Bryan Adams...

WTF?

2008-01-23T08:54:21Z

Wait.... this kid is taking a little advantage of things... but is it right to wish he'll die soon? Wait... I thought Make a Wish Foundation was like a "one wish and only one wish" kind of thing... which makes me think that this video is bullshit...

Child Bankrupts Make-A-Wish Foundation

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Week/Weak (this is the dichotomy that lost me a spelling bee once, because I did not stop and think)

2008-01-23T06:37:29Z

Feel the urge to write a friends only post, which of course means there's a lot on my mind and all is especially emo or something. It's a weird week, in terms of current endeavors as well as past ones that crashed and burned. But I should really type (talk) about it rather than just drinking a bunch and holding it inside. that would be healthier, I guess. Even if it's just online with 3 -4 people I know in person, 3-4 semi-strangers, and whoever else might happen upon it. i guess just to write it, even if no one reads it, is cathartic.

So anyway, I need to go refill my beer and take a leak, and maybe a cigarette, and say goodnight to my roommate, and then I think I need to vent :-(