Category: Flotsam and Jetsam

Somehow, from one of the labyrinthine jokes and conversations between Jess, Larry and I, came this:
Would you rather spoon or be spooned by Edward James Olmos?

Jess reminded me that ‘d never updated about The Jacket. I did end up getting the Doctor Who/Das Boot jacket from Wested. Check out this thread for my perfectionist analysis and more information than you could ever want on the subject.
Short version is that it’s not perfectly screen accurate, and I have a few niggles, but overall it’s a damn cool jacket and I’m keeping it. I haven’t managed to get a good picture yet, but what I have are in the linked thread.
It’s brand new leather so it still needs some breaking in. Since it’s been pretty cold, and we keep our heat on a pretty low setting to save energy and money, I usually wear a hoodie, or warm fuzzy shirt over a T-shirt, but to help break my new jacket in, I’ve been pretty much wearing it every waking hour instead.

One day Jess and I was listening to a song when she commented about how it sounded a lot like another song we liked. Immediately my creative urge demanded that I do something with this knowledge so I fired up my music studio and started tweaking, feverishly trying to create this Frankensteinian monster. I put the first few parts together and played it for Jess and Larry. All three of us were smiling ear to ear. It was alive!
I now present to you, Call Me Doctor Who.

I upgraded this page to the newest version of Movable Type, so please report any wonkiness you may encounter. Thank you. End of line.

Let it be known that while the jackets in the previous post were vying for my position of “all-purpose”jacket that could be worn in any situation, weather, etc., Jess plans to make me an equally cool (possibly cooler in fact), if slightly less versatile coat. Behold

Many years ago, I stumbled upon Wested leather. They made all the jackets for the Indiana Jones films and they sell custom tailored authentic replicas of the jackets for extremely reasonable prices. I was very intrigued. I ended up commissioning them to make this jacket for me. Sadly, after many moons and many complications, the jacket they sent me looked absolutely nothing like that jacket whatsoever. Nothing. It was still a nice, hand made, custom fitted leather jacket though, so I kept it. Over the years I lost a lot of weight. This combined with the fact that my jacket wasn’t exactly what I was looking for cause my jacket hunger to continue to slowly build over the years.
Tonight, I was once again browsing the Indiana Jones jackets again with lust. I did some searches and was reading some forums where people were talking about their Indy jackets and posting pictures and such. That’s when I found my holy grail of jackets in this post. You can also see it on the Wested products page here. I absolutely must have it. As soon as I saw it I knew it was The Jacket. The only possible competition is the Angel jacket pictured earlier, but I don’t know any way to actually obtain that one, so the Wested wins by way of availability.

So apparently no one has been able to log in to typekey to comment since the time change in October, but unfortunately no one told me, so I didn’t know until this week. I tracked down the problem and had to lead my ISP to the solution, but typekey is once again working now.

Wow. I’ve really let my website go. I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I wrote something. I’m sure what few meager readers I had have probably given up on me. Never the less, I am going to try, in earnest, to nurture it back to health.
Life has been pretty good. I’m still managing to stay out of the clutches of “The Man” and his “real jobs” and yet we have all our bills paid and some money in the bank. We’ll how that continues to fare when unemployment runs out. I’ve got as many irons in as many fires as I can trying to get my freelancing to even remotely resemble a career. I’ve been working a lot as an extra on films, did some free Production Assistant work in hopes to cultivate some professional relationships here, and of course I still work on the Austin Movie Show. In fact, while shooting the latest Movie Musketeers piece, I had one of those moments that just crystallizes in your memory. You step back and realize that it’s just one of those unique moments in life.
Larry and I were shooting the final shots of our Casino Royale Movie Musketeers piece. It was just the two of us, his camera and a borrowed bicycle. We were dressed in disheveled tuxedos on the side of the road leading to a cul-de-sac. We would press record and I would run down the street where Larry would be waiting with the bike, and I would jump up onto the handlebars with my martini glass in hand sloshing water all over myself. Then we would ride past the camera sloshing and looking in a general state of disarray. Just we finished shooting, our friend jon drove by into the complex at the end of the cul-de-sac, where he lives. He came walking back to see what the hell we were doing.
Larry and I could not stop laughing the entire time we were shooting. We just reveled in that moment of our lives. Two grown men in disheveled tuxedos on the side of the road trying to film themselves riding by on a bike with me on the handlebars sloshing a martini. I think that pretty much sums up my life right now in a weird, surreal, but totally good way.

Apparently “The Darkness” is no more. Singer Justin Hawkins went into rehab for a serious cocaine/alcohol problem, and when he emerged, he decided he could not live the rock and roll lifestyle any more and quit the band. After quitting, the record label promptly dropped the band (not surprising since Justin was the key member in my opinion). I am bummed. I think they were one of the best bands to come along in a long time. Many people thought they were a joke, but if you could get past the novelty you’d find some great song writing, catchy riffs, infectious melodies, crunchy guitars turned up to 11 and just all around great music that would rock your face off. Sure it was all done with tongue planted firmly in cheek, and maybe this was they’re downfall, but that’s one of the things I loved. It was entertaining as well as being great music.
Of course this isn’t really surprising to me as I think the music industry has become a very sad, manufactured, plastic beast where mostly only formulaic music for the lowest common denominator finds support. The Darkness’ second album, “One Way Ticket to Hell…And Back” did not have impressive sales, which is a shame since I think it’s as good, and possibly better than their first album “Permission to Land.” Sadly it seems that success or failure these days has little to do with talent or quality. The Darkness’ two albums will forever remain amongst my favorites.