Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Taking Pictures

Yesterday I had a conversation with Ryan at work about special effects. And it reminded me of a thought I had last week, about taking pictures.
Two weeks ago Joey and Martin and me drove up to Wrights Lake, and then in the soft rain hiked our backpacks up to a place called Grouse Lake (which we believed to be Hemlock Lake). After setting up camp in the late afternoon, we hiked a little farther up the mountain to see what we could see. It was here that I left my camera at the campsite, thinking it would only be a burden as we climbed farther. First we came to the crest of a rocky slope that overlooked the vastness of the Sierra foothills, all the way to the valley. With clouds hanging just above us, we gathered which direction was North and what elevation we were at using a map and compass. Looking at the elevations on the map, we determined that we had not in fact yet reached Hemlock Lake and it could very well be around the next bend. We had no trail to follow and a lot of rocks and lightning-bit trees to traverse. Clambering through the forest we first discovered a false Hemlock Lake, a 15-ft by 15-foot pond that seemed like a late lake. But we kept going, nearing the vertical rocks that reached up to the tips of the nearest peak. Finally through the trees, we all simultaneously spotted the legendary Hemlock Lake, tucked just beneath the clefts of fallen rock and snow. The place was unimaginably beautiful. The lake is an oversized puddle of snowmelt, maybe 100 feet in diameter. On the downward side is a thick grove of Hemlock Trees hanging over the water, springing from tufts of white snow. Everything was dark and grey, and a heavy mist blurred the base of the trees; and there were thousands of these trees! Green and grey over white next to black water. Above us dark clouds moved swiftly, a constant of grey light. On the mountain-side of the lake were only massive jagged boulders, recently tumbled from the above degrading peak. The wall of rocks lay in a still cascade reaching down to the lake. It was undoubtedly one of the most breathtaking sights I have ever witnessed, and I found myself reaching for my camera...only to remember that I hadn't brought it! But as I stood looking back at this frighteningly beautiful scene, completely untouched by human or animal alike, I couldn't help but be grateful for not having my camera with me. I had hiked too far, been too cold, understood too little to just come up here and snap a shot of this destination, then go home and give it away as easily as I know I would do. We had worked too hard to find this place to simply compute it and bring it back so easily. So I looked at the lake and took a mental image that only I get to keep. The best I can do is write about it.....and it really got me thinking.
Last week I stood in the forest adjacent the river at River Runners, peeing into the blackberry bushes. To the right of me was a tunnel through the trees being pierced by rays of sunlight in the late morning. I had a moment of "that's gorgeous" and wanted to run to grab my camera..and then remembered what I had felt at Hemlock Lake.
I feel like we will someday move back to using our imaginations to live rather than being given everything like we do now. Hardly ten years ago the imagination was still a useful and dependable part of our lives. Now, the Imagination has given way to a wave of Captured Realism - this new kind of "experience and capture" sort of knowing. (cameras, laptops, GPS devices, cell phones, ipods) It's our ability to research the unknown from home, without ever having to head into it. Or to look at pictures of anything we want to at all times. We can access maps in seconds, call anybody in moments, photograph anything and look at photographs of EVERYTHING. We can be contacted at any time of the day, drive or fly anywhere, listen to any song whenever we want without limitations.
What is this change? How far can it really go? Importantly, I absolutely find the value in technology, and medicine and knowledge and capturing everything. There are many tools that are useful for storytelling, and for art and for moneymaking and for teaching. At the same time, I'm starting to feel a duty to limit my knowledge and bring back the mystery that was once the world to me. If I have a Swine Flu, I don't want to know all about, it I just want to let my body do what it does best: heal. If I want to visit Hemlock Lake I don't want to read a Yelp review about the hikes there and back and look at a supply of pictures showing it off - I want to feel the exhilarating pleasure of discovering it on my own in the unknown, the surprise of seeing a sight for the first time in my life without any reference or comparison. There is an invaluable experience in the mystery of the unknown, and I feel we should be careful before we expose ourselves to EVERYTHING for fear that it will actually and truly numb our imaginations from all that exists. Love will be categorizable, Sex will be material and scientific, Nature will be an enclosed container for human amusement, Friends will be commodities in instant communication, Jobs will be for making Money...everyone will have access to everything, and the mystery of living will disappear. Nothing will be valuable anymore. Living will be as banal as the dirty water running through a Los Angeles aqueduct.
But I think there's hope. Listen to The BUZZ (106.5, out of Sacramento) for about 15 minutes and you might understand what I'm talking about. There's a mystery in our pasts that was only captured by a select few songs, and all that same mystery still lies right there. Let's stop ourselves from destroying our own future memories now, as we're just getting started. Who's with me! Less pictures, more reality!

"there's something unpredictable but in the end its right, I hope you have the time of our lives"
sweet song.

Monday, June 29, 2009

oh bitter boy

Well I'm just back from 100+ degrees, making the overnight transition to 50+ degrees. Candice LOVES hearing this (not), about how much I thrive in hot temperatures and only function at about 75% in anything-less-than between the months of June-August. What IS that? Why am I so stuck on hot weather all the time? And you know what, it's not just Summer either. I could seriously go for some 85-90's anytime of the year. ANY time.
I don't know what's happening genetically in me that makes it so difficult for me to adapt to colder climates, but I think I'm becoming more aware of it as I'm getting older. Or is it in my head? No, no, there's a definite difference in experience, say, if I were playing Zelda in 50-degree weather or 100-degree weather, in the same house, on the same day. For the first, I'd be hungry and feeling anxious. The second, I'd be basically nude and smiling.
I'm just charmed by hot weather. I could bask like a piece of dried fish with all it's smell burnt off and nothing left but crispy carpskin peeling and tinting in the fiery summer sunshine. I could waddle in endless bathtub water, squinting in delight under a sweltering cap of violet and deep blue skies. I could sing and swim in the river at dusk. All year long. Give me hot/dry weather, and the happiness for a long and swimming life. Heat = longevity.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

b to the o to the r - e - d

I can eat an entire bag of tortilla chips in about two sittings, usually sitting in front of YouTube or staring blankly at my Blog.

Today I jogged/walked a good couple of miles to the top of a very tall hill overlooking some massive landscape and it was stupendous.

I wonder why things appear smaller when they are far away and bigger when they are closer? Is there scientific evidence for why that is?

I am super excited to move back to LA after this last Disney spot. I had a killer time interviewing actors and fooling around at another television studio. Most fun stuff in the world, I promise you.

Tomb Raider for the PC was one of my favorite computer games as a kid. That game is AWESOME. Remember the creepy creaks and groans that you hear somewhere in the caverns as you're meticulously walking and leaping around? And the total fear that shakes your heart when being chased by a pack of wolves or diving from a 200-ft tall ledge.

Deadwood is my new favorite show. I've watched several episodes, and I love the styles and writing. It's very gritty, and maybe a little supernatural in its events (chances are there were whores and whisky and gold-running rivers and dead injun's and smallpox at the time, but still it's a TV show and therefore at least once-removed from reality) the acting is pretty good too. I dig it.

I went back for a second haircut today (my first being Monday) and still am not totally satisfied. Typ.

Nostalgia continues to dumbfound me. Why is it that I feel a certain way about epic 80's music and someone else of my same size and stature doesn't? Nostalgia. Because they didn't "associate" good memories with that music in the same ways that I did. Nostalgia creates us as individuals but actually builds barriers by creating differences of experience for people. Will we ever be equals? the same? in total agreement and finally peaceful? Nope, thanks to Nostalgia (i.e. loyalties, loves, honor, etc).

About two months ago I was looking at a People Magazine's rendition of "Celebrity Transformations". The one that totally caught my eye was Michael Jackson's changed. They have a line-up of photos from over the years, showing his smiling face as he'd manipulate and carve away at himself. He went from a beautiful young black boy to a sickly cloth-covered pulled-skinned white man with shocking black facial hair. And today he died. I'm not sure what to make of Michael J, except to respect that he really did try to be himself. I just don't think he ever figured out which Himself he ever was.

Chacos are pretty comfortable sandals, I imagine even moreso once the straps are worn in. give em time Mikie.

Traveling is an interesting thing. I have refused to actually travel all this time because I've been waiting for an opportunity to Travel to Do Something, and not just travel for fun. I'm not sure I really believe in traveling just for fun. I remember having a long conversation with Stan once about being a Tourist, and how I think tourists are misusing their time in some way. Well the other day, I think I finally figured it all out (of course): Hobbies should not stand alone, they should be linked - both to themselves and to the goals in life as a whole. For example, I went jogging today to get more fit and gain some sunlight so that I will appear healthier and more pleasing when I serve at my job, work on the river or look for acting work. Of course, it also feels very good to do too - but that's the secret Pleasure that people abuse so frequently and never fully experience: the pleasure that comes from living with purpose, whether it be taking photographs in the mountains, working at a coffee shop, getting a haircut, reading a book, taking a swim, even relaxing. Life is so much more full when things like these are done with a greater goal in mind, a greater Good that you're constantly thinking ahead to and towards. Like in college, when everything you did somehow affected you getting your degree, whether positive or negative. And we all know the difference between the positive effects and the negative ones. This is probably why people cling to dogmatic religions - we're all living our own religions, and the greater the end-goals the more powerfully we will live our lives. It's all a matter of coming up with some incredible goal for yourself to achieve (including a reason to achieve it) and going for it. Everything else you do will fall into place in some way.
When I watch these producers and directors, I'm reminded of the men that I used to see running the church. These people are the priests and apothecaries of modern day technology and science. They're the shamans of the modern world, conducting the order of things and preaching it to the masses. And the actors are like little Messiah's, worshipped and treated like Kings and Princesses. It's crazy to watch and intensely powerful. Not too different from the religious and political leaders of out past, actually.

Alright that's enough. Seeya later

Mikie

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

In Commemoration of Times of Late















And finally
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81v0iBZC7Ns

Monday, June 15, 2009

now that my pink skin is starting to heal

I think I'm gonna take a trip.
I don't mean to make a big surprise or something, so I'm telling you now that I've been thinking about taking a long and unthought-out trip, outside of the country. My plan at this point is to go somewhere where I can meet other travelers who can introduce me to other places I can go, and so on. I'm not sure how long I want this trip to last, so I won't put down a timeframe. My responsibilities at the moment are very few, and so I think now is the best time to really think about doing something like this. Also, and coincidentally, I have lost my sense of purpose and drive that I used to pride myself in having. The reason I want to do a trip is to help myself rediscover that part of myself that took big risks out of honor and respect for my ability to Love, and to realize my total insignificance and total significance and give myself something bigger and more beautiful to think about than my current daily thoughts. I'm convinced that a trip that transplants me physiologically from here to some foreign place where I know nothing and understand very little will force me to rediscover myself, and in this discovery there will be the person I've somehow lost touch with.

Will this work? It will, because when I left Placerville to attend UCSC in 2005, I was in a very similar state to what I'm currently in now, and at 22 and moved away I found myself reigniting some Original Self and in a few months I became alive again like a strangled dog finally released. With the energy of that I took on the future at my University with total and wonderful confidence and truth.
Today I'm still the same human being as I was then.. but for some reason I don't feel the same anymore. Now I don't do things with confidence and I rarely know the truth. But there's a part of me who's yelling, "MIKIE! You're running in the mud and going nowhere! and it's killing you!!" This is the part of me that know I need to leave. I must go on a trip, and this part will not let me stop thinking about it.

What's the worst part? Watching friends and acquaintances around me go on similar trips with ease, while I sit here typing a blog about thinking about going on a trip.

Is a trip like this totally hilarious? Yes, and that's the best part. See, there's another part of me who scoffs at such nonsense. HE's the guy who shrinks like a penis wrinkle when you get him cold enough..and the outside world is cold. I want to pinch that terrible Man right out of existence, light him like the red tip of a match and blow him out. It's time to kill the demon inside of me that keeps telling me I can't do something for whatever dogdammed reason.

I have been thinking about this for a while, and it's time to start getting ready to do it. I'm not sure where to begin, so any help would be wonderful. One thing I might know is that I need to go it alone. I need foreign influences without any reminders of home, or I'll never get through this.
OK enough said. If you have something to say, pleeease say it.

Love you very much
Mikie

Oh and PS - after 3 days of work I have already paid off my doctor and medicine bills for the burn accident! Success to me! hurray! Not to mention, the beautiful pink baby's skin I've grown over the past week is absolutely stunning. you should see this stuff. I look like I've grown a new right pec! very enthusing business.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Fine Photography

I've been brushing up on my photography skills lately. Here's some examples.
























Thursday, June 11, 2009

Early Summer 09

Yo. It's thursday. So I just got back to Santa Cruz from a crazy weekend in the Ville and other such places. A few things happened, that I don't know better how to recall than by showing a few pictures.
I guess I can just say this: nothing beats good friends and memory-making injuries. Seriously. I left last weekend having no idea what I was going to do with my time, and now I'm back with a basket of crap and memories to drop in my bottomless well.
I'll organize this into a few important tidbits.

Taking off on the road, I flew like the wind in my little Kia. I'll briefly skip over the part where I opened my radiator cap when it was too hot and burned my chest and face like a loser, and frantically drove to Vacaville where I spent two days in recovery under the careful guidance of one Miss Candice Fox. I still had time on my burning drive to photograph a factory or two.

Lucy took to me this weekend in Vacaville. I don't know who's more mesmerized by the other, me or her.

A day later I find myself standing on Salmon Falls bridge, bandaged and watching a 22-year-old brohem leap with abandon.


Can you pick my sister out on the rocks? Yeah, she's there.

This trip was proceeded by a long drawn-out thought process involving art, and the rite of passage threshold that is Salmon Falls Bridge. Back in Placerville, there wasn't a moment to lose in looking for our lost Deets. His stubbornness, likely due to a new addition to the JEHD household, has left him emancipated for too long. So we've set out a search party that's as heavy-handed and hopeful as the Spanish inquisition.


This little vermicious kinid is likely the root of the problem.





Besides the troubles, Placerville is undoubtedly a lovely, fantastical and strangely comforting mix of man and nature.


As well as haunting. Check out this man-with-hanging-arms bush.

And so I came home last night, after a radical viewing of the new and excellent film The Hangover. Briefly, let me just say that this movie is deserving of an entire blog all unto itself..which is something I may do shortly. In brief, it made me realize I need more friends and a lot less care. Thank you Andy Bernard's character, and Bradley Cooper for being my new cinematic idol.
Adios amigos.

And Matt, this picture is for you

Monday, June 8, 2009

Tis blog time

Ahh the wonders of a summer day. It's Monday, but it might as well be Saturday. The sun is warm and the wind is soft and refreshing. The leaves flutter in a dance of sparkles outside my window. My chest is covered with a half-exposed gooey bandage filled with yellow and pink hues. Outside the streets are posed in quiet worship of the June-lit sky. The solstice draws nearer and the days grow longer and smell green. My right eye fuzzes out any clarity of vision through a film of medication coating its globular organ. A pretty girl is outside basking in the sun, kissing her shoulders in peace and quiet. A soft ache pokes at my left shoulder from the needle and bump of a Tetnus shot, 24-hours old. The coffee is not too hot, the air not too cool, the plants are perky and my sense of being totally refreshed. Outside there is a pink Kia, resting in its place from two days ago when I pulled it up and cranked off its engine. Under its hood is a radiator cap sadly tightened against the hot metal, knowing that in the literal half-blink of an eye he changed his owner's entire week. Life is sweet. And the regeneration of life is sweeter. The fact that a living body, unlike the pink inanimate Kia, can "heal" itself when damage occurs, continues to totally captivate me with wonder to this day.
How incredulous an experience to witness a living body healing! The cells have to rebuild one at a time, splitting and halving and making millions of little copies of themselves to fill up skin. The dead cells shed themselves, the new ones fresh and hardened to my physical reality. Your only job is to eat nutrients so the cells have something to use, sleep, allow the cells to do their job, and protect the cells from any bacteria that might try to intrude. Not too hard a task.
So the sun is yellow and blue, and in about a week I'll be running around good as new.
It's difficult to see outside of bad things when they happen. The best medicine for me personally are words of comfort from someone who knows. Yesterday I remembered how much respect I have for doctors - they are the actual magicians of our time. I used to think acting was the coolest profession, but only because it's the coolest profession that I'd ever be able to do. I could never be a doctor, and so I give them my utmost respect. I mean, how can you not totally give your life to an aged Russian man with a thick accent who's run a pharmacy for 40 years and looks at you with sunken, knowledgable eyes? Like an Obi Wan Kenobe of 2009, doctors are the real Jedi Masters.
Anyway, I love the summertime and I love my body.
Maybe I'll be nicer to you, you giant working organ of Life.
Peace
Migs

Tuesday, June 2, 2009