My website (www.heathallyn.com for those of you reading this on Facebook) has just undergone a drastic transformation much like Doctor Who does from time to time. It will be “under construction” for quite some time while I fill out the pages and then try to go back and fix all the broken links that will now litter my past entries. Just a word of warning!
Last week: performed and filmed “North By Nortwest” scene.
This week-
Tue: 6 videos for Compass Learning
Wed: Voiceovers for Compass
Thu: 4 videos for Compass
Fri: 4 auditions
Sat: shooting on the feature “Hank In Time”
Sun: film “Catch Me If You Can” scene.
Additionally, “Whispers In The Night” and “Violet” filming in the next two months, band gigs, murder mystery shows, a scene from “Eyes Wide Shut” and who knows what else! I’m actually having to start passing up projects due to already being booked. Not to mention going to Yoga regularly (3-5 times a week). Nice start to the year.
Between Twitter and Facebook it seems my poor old webpage here is growing cobwebs from neglect.
So in lieu of any real kind of entry I present a collection of cool links:
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band broken down into the 4 isolated master tracks
In a similar vein, a BBC special all about “The 5th Beatle”, Sir George Martin wherein they analyze several Beatles master tapes. Haven’t listened to it yet, but am looking forward to doing so with great anticipation! This is a link to a BitTorrent file so you’ll need a program such as uTorrent to download it.
An expensive but AWESOME book I just ordered all about recording the Beatles in great detail.
And in non-Beatles related news: gloves that keep your hands warm AND let you still use your iPhone or iPod touch!
I have been going through a period lately where I have been highly obsessed with the band “Muse”. They are definitely among my favorite all time bands now. Their sound is unique and instantly recognizable. Their style, textured, layered, huge and theatrical (mostly, but with some variety too). The songwriting and musicianship, amazing.
So imagine my surprise and joy when my friend Karla told me that her son Coleman had said that I reminded him of Matt Bellamy (lead singer, guitarist and songwriter). Coleman has actually seen me play with my band so he has something there to go on. Now, while I don’t think we’re twins or anything, this is one comparison that I could actually see having at least some merit (there are several I’ve had throughout my life that I just can’t really understand or see myself). I could see some similarities. Further discussions with various folk and thinking about this myself drew comparisons between our foreheads, and in my opinion certain aspects of our profile. Our stage presence could also be compared, I think. So I decided to throw together a quick comparison pic. It is by no means perfect or conclusive, but being that I threw it together in a couple of minutes with little effort and the few pictures at hand and off the net, I think it lends some credence to this theory.
I tend to go for long periods without blogging (especially since I twitter so much now) and as time goes on and more and more things accumulate it becomes more daunting to try and write about it all to play catch up. So inevitably I end up with a post like this that just spills out a dense summary of my recent life.
First, as most of you probably already know, Jess and I split up a while back now. She moved out and is moving to Seattle this week for a great opportunity with her job. There’s no big drama, no bombshells to drop or anything like that. It’s all very cool and amicable, just a case of us not being right for each other. I’ve been incredibly public in the past about my entire life including relationships but there was a point when I started playing things closer to the chest and keeping some elements of my life a little more private. Still, I’m pretty much an open book so no need to walk on eggshells or anything. I’m fine. In fact all in all my life is pretty great. Which leads me to…
Now with that news out of the way, the next development in my life is that I’ve met someone. After Jess and I split up, I got to talking tosomeone on Facebook that I’d actually gone to school with up through 9th grade. Being that my 20th high School reunion is coming up, a bunch of us have been reconnecting on Facebook. I never really knew her in school. I knew who she was (her name is Tina for future reference) but we weren’t actual friends or anything. I don’t think we ever even actually met or spoke to each other but we knew a lot of the same people and as it turns out grew up less than a mile or two from each other and went to a lot of the same places frequently. The more we’ve talked the more we’re can’t believe that we never managed to really know each other back then. At the moment, it’s a long distance relationship (though we have met in person and will be seeing each other again in July) but still amazing and totally fulfilling.
As most of you know I live my life very publicly. If you read my blog/twitter/facebook then I think it’s pretty easy to get a good idea of who I really am and what I’m really like. Apparently Tina had found me very intriguing from the moment she added me as a friend. Of course, at the time I was also married so she didn’t really pursue that line of thought. Quite often there are fun comment threads on her page involving lots of cool folks. I started participating and leaving more comments and such and once she found out I was available, we started some pretty heavy flirting. Facebook comments led to messages, texts and then phone conversations. We very quickly realized there was some serious and rare chemistry between us. We had a LOT in common and yet just enough differences to make us interesting and have areas in which we could enrich and educate each other. And she’s hot. Seriously, like Kelvin scale hot. She makes the sun sweat. Part of me wants to just go on and on about it here and part of me wants to not say too much as it’s still new and sort of special and precious to me. Suffice to say we formed a fast, intense, deep bond for a lot of different reasons.
Next up in all the news that’s fit to print: Lars and I filmed three scenes from the feature film we’re trying to get funding for “Brimstone Orphans”. We wanted to film some samples to submit for various grants and to use for further fundraising purposes. It was by far he most ambitious and most professional thing we’ve ever done. We had an awesome crew of about 25 people who were all immensely talented and more than that, were genuinely excited and enthusiastic about the project and being a part of it. Thanks to many generous donations of time, equipment and materials, we shot for about $2500 what should have cost more like $10,000 or more. We picked three scenes from the script that we thought showed the various tones and atmospheres of the story and that would make a good sample of what we wanted to do with the full feature.
Life has been very turbulent, wonderful and magical for me for a long time now. As I’ve said before, there’s something in the air lately. I believe big things are just over the horizon. Even though life can be full of vertiginous highs and heart-wrenching lows, I am incredibly lucky and happy to be who I am. Who wants to live a life of mediocrity in the middle anyway?
A couple of times over the past week or two, “Boys of Summer” has come up on my iPod or on the radio. I’ve always like the song but these recent listenings really struck me with the idea that I thought it would make a really cool, slow, haunting acoustic version.
And so, here ya go.
I took a long walk late tonight, as I do on many a night, pondering life’s little mysteries and journeys. It was beautiful night. A great temperature, if a little bit on the humid side. There was a big round moon lighting my way and keeping me company, surrounded by a slight caused by the light cloud cover. A cool breeze was blowing in that way that makes it feel just perfect across your face. I searched through myself looking to discover just what it was I wanted at that very moment. What was my core desire at this particular and unique point of existence in time?
And I discovered that one of the strongest desires that came to the surface was this: I wanted to know that everyone I cared about, everyone I knew really, hell everyone who deserves it (I’ll let you decide for yourself what criteria define that)…I wanted to know that everyone was happy and good. That throughout whatever else might be going on in your lives, I hope you are as happy, fulfilled, loved and lucky as I am.
As I crested the top of the hill in my neighborhood, I could see my city beyond the treetops. I love my city. I love the people in it. I love all of you. Tears came to my eyes and I smiled. I smiled knowing that this is my time. Something is in the air. I can’t explain it. I hope it’s your time too.