Monday morning. Sleep deprived (4.5 hours---with no apparent reason why I'm not still in bed.) Sitting on the floor in the living-room listening to Klaus Nomi and wondering if I should, maybe, go back to bed. BUT!!! It’s all nice outside, and I don’t get many opportunities to just sit and write or draw or whatever (lately), so I’ve got a big cup ‘o’ coffee, a couple of mini-chocolate chip muffins, and a hankerin’ for creation---even if it’s just in a limited, besmirched capacity!
First thing's first: I drew that thing up above this A.M. It’s sort of a digital self-portrait of the moment. I’m tempted to do an animated gif version---but not tempted enough to actually DO it. (I'm not feeling particularly animated today, so a static image probably fits best right now anyway.)
Next topic!
I’ve “signed up” (it wasn’t difficult) for a D-Tube account. For the uninitiated, D-Tube is a platform similar to You-Tube, but it’s decentralized---meaning the “company” can’t decide to shut the creator down… (I think... I still fuzzy on the whole “good / bad” thing. I'm not EXACTLY sure how ANY of this works, I just know it has something to do with a giant Twinkie.) D-Tube is based on the Steem blockchain (you Steem folks probably already know this), and it’s got the whole “an upvote = you get cryptocurrency” thing going for it. The PROBLEM is that I am inept, particularly when it comes to manipulating gadgets, so my career as a video star isn't exactly kicking into high gear any time soon. In fact, I tried to record a video on Saturday afternoon of me “unboxing” the new art prints that I picked up from the print shop, and I sang a little song and filmed myself drawing a picture, and then I was planning to “flip” the camera view around and talk into the screen for a bit before switching the view back and filming the opening of the box and revealing the juicy artwork nuggets within---but I couldn’t figure out how to switch the camera view around…and it was taking a long time…and then, even though I was pretty happy with the video of the song and the drawing that I did---I accidentally erased the whole video...somehow.
At that point, frustration kicked in and I gave up. (Sometimes, I have learned over the years, it’s better to walk away from something that isn’t working and try again later, as opposed to sticking with it until steam is boiling out of your ears and something goes crashing through a window and the cussing and blood start to flow… Although, from what I can tell, that might make a fairly popular video series…) Now, I still want to make some video blogs, (I’m inspired by Jack Black, who’s Jablinski Games YouTube channel has been on heavy rotation at our house lately), but I’m either going to need HELP making them (something I’m not good at requesting) or I’m going to have to settle for weird/bad production values. (If you’ve seen my artwork, you’ll know I’m okay with the “trash” aesthetic. DO IT YOURSELF is one of the slogans I’ve really run with in my life. Quality comes as you perfect your technique, but you can still have fun and entertain a few folks while you’re learning and, necessarily, doing things badly!)
Where was I???
Oh, yeah… Videos. I’m interested in the form---that crazy combination of sound and movement and color and speech. There’s just so much you can DO with video---unless, like me, you don’t know what you’re doing… Then there’s so LITTLE that you can do with video, but it still might be fun to give it a try!
So, let’s see… I've mentioned the new drawing and the video thing… Was there something else I wanted to talk about??? I don’t know. There are so many thoughts careening, full tilt, through my head: I’ve got books to finish writing and editing, I’ve got several canvases waiting to be painted, I’ve got an RPG / board game that I started about a year ago that’s just sitting (incomplete) in a drawer, I’ve got a Nintendo Classic and a Super NES Classic that have hardly been played with, I’ve got books and comics to read and review, I’ve got music playlists to compile and share, and I have all these weird ideas involving mini-monophonic synthesizers and battery operated disco lights and black light reactive duct tape and that old Christmas tree in the back yard that I keep meaning to saw into fire-pit fuel and strange places around town that I want to photograph (like the gas station with the giant chicken on top of it---for some reason) and a grandma I need to go visit and art documentaries to watch and sleep to catch up on and trips to Northwest oddities and roadside attractions to plan and chores to do and invading ants to drive out of the kitchen and purchased artwork that I still need to get framed (and find wall-space to hang it on) and forty years’ worth of journals to digitize and archive and image files to compress and monsters to invent and alternative religions to promote and communities to corrupt and and and and and… And I really should probably go take a nap…
Maybe after I make (real quick like) a new CD for the car…
Anyway, happy Monday, folks. Keep thinkin’ (it ain’t illegal yet) and never stop the DOing!!!
---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)
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