Art
Salvador Dali
His life, told by school children
Then turned into song
23
Apr
2020
0:24
Author: Heath
19
Apr
2020
0:46
The Timeless And The Modern
I previously wrote about how sometimes I want to express something and yet simultaneously don’t necessarily want a lot of attention on it and so this rarely (if ever) visited website is a perfect medium in some ways.
Sometimes, a little snippet of poetry (though for some reason, I hesitate to call it that) comes to my mind. It always feels a bit strange writing poetry or lyrics about modern things like texts or social media. I’m not sure why. I guess, art feels so ancient and powerful and it feels strange or somehow shallow or dumb to write about that stuff, though I know that’s ridiculous. We live in a modern age and art can express anything we want it to, so why should modern subject be any less valid or meaningful?
Anyway, if this is about you, I apologize. I checked my analytics and I’m fairly positive the subject that inspired this mental snippet on my walk tonight never comes to this site, so I don’t think there’s any risk of guilt or poking sore places.
Do you ever secretly hope it’s me?
Do you feel a phantom vibration and reach for it, somewhere deep in the electricity of your brain, the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs, hoping to see my name?
A faint, strongly denied and resisted flicker of desire to see the combination of letters representing my being on one of your digital avenues?
Or have you really so thoroughly deleted me from your neurons that not a single synapse fires on my behalf any longer?
Null.
19
Apr
2020
0:27
16
Apr
2020
21:18
16
Apr
2020
21:14
15
Apr
2020
14:00
Thriving In Quarantine
Things I’ve done since lockdown that you should definitely (I mean, if you wanna) check out. #shamelessselfpromotionedition
- Recorded and released a new song. Here’s all the details including the story of its making. I also thought of a few last-minute production things that made me cackle with glee even though most likely no one will detect them but me so it was just updated today with the final version. I say final because if it isn’t I’ll have to rename the song “Someday, I’ll Stop Tweaking This song, But Not tonight.”
- Redesigned my website. You’re looking at it now.
- Re-wrote the problematic lyrics to the Rolling Stones song “Brown Sugar” into something tasty and useful.
- Wrote a special Quarantine Love Song.
- Covered an apropos Jellyfish song.
- Recorded a dramatic monologue for the #OneMinuteMonologueChallenge on Instagram.
- Live streamed a dramatic reading of Masque Of The Red Death and then a very not-dramatic reading of it.
- Re-mixed the Friends Theme to have way more claps because of an off-hand silly comment on a friend’s post
Recorded VO as a foul-mouthed pirate cat for a web series, began recording audiobook narration for 4th book in a series by Andrew Hunter (I also narrated the previous 3). Played a lot of video games. Slept a lot. Took lots of walks. Got my diet in much better shape. Have stuck to a regular push-up regimen. Edited a series of videos for a friend and re-formatted his book. And probably a lot of other stuff I’m forgetting.
I”m not bragging or trying to detract from the seriousness going on in the world, but for me keeping track of the good and the light is the best, most productive and positive thing I can do. Everyone’ handles things in their own way, and however you are handling it, it’s right and okay. Maybe some of the stuff I’ve done can entertain, make you smile, or have some positive impact. That’s all I can really hope for is to try and put my little orbs of light out into the world. #quarantinethrive
15
Apr
2020
13:52
14
Apr
2020
0:23
A Love Letter To TikTok
This is what I love about TikTok. It feels like an open playground. A creative sandbox where you can just play with any old idea that pops into your head no matter how inane, random, stupid, or absurd. It’s so freeing and has made me realize how often we stomp down or throttle our own creativity because we deem it “not good enough” for a million different reasons or just cerebral flotsam and jetsam. I feel it’s good for the mental muscles to just let it run free like we did as children. This video was literally just a spur of the moment random neurons firing based on a song that was trending in Tik Tok at the time. I talked myself out of actually capturing it 3, 4, maybe 5 times because it was stupid, nonsense, meaningless, and of no value.
Then I just did it. And I kind of liked it. It made me smile. A lot of humor I like has those same flavors. Much of Monty Python could possibly be described similarly (not that I’m at all comparing myself or this to their genius). It felt good to let go of that fear of judgment and just let my brain spit out the piece of absurdity it wanted to play with. Because this is me. And I have a thousand moments like this or more every day.
When I joined TikTok to check it out, I really thought I’d hate it. I thought that it was an app that teens used. I thought I’d check it out and pretty much immediately determine it was not for me and delete it (which is exactly what happened with Snapchat) but to my surprise I fell in love. There are all kinds of people making all kinds of videos and I find myself endlessly sucked in and scrolling and getting crushes on all kinds of awesome people I wish were my friends. But most of all it feels like a wonderful outlet for literally anything my mind wants to express. It doesn’t have to be genius, or fully formed, or polished. Or even good. It just feels so good to stretch those creative muscles and the worst case scenarios is that you get a few views, maybe a crappy comment and then the moment is over. But it still felt good to let it out into the universe.
14
Apr
2020
0:22
11
Apr
2020
14:37
Clapocalypse
You ever spend way too much time and effort on a throwaway joke? Like when a post by a friend makes you jokingly say that you want to create a version of the Friends theme that has claps through the whole song? So you get the Friends theme and painstakingly find some group claps in your drum software, and then tune them and tweak the Abbey Road Chambers reverb plugin trying to perfectly match the sound and tone of the original claps? And they’re still not perfect but you realize how much effort you’ve put into this and all the much better things you could have put that effort into so you call it “good enough” and move on with your life?
No? Just me?