Regret

"The funny thing about regret is it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done." - The Butthole Surfers "Sweat Loaf"

Friday I hung out with a friend I hadn't seen since the mid-90's. It was nice to see Bella, and I look forward to doing so again next time she and her beau visit from Denver. However, the first time I see someone I haven't seen in a long time, I start to get into a nostalgic mood -- and with nostalgia, comes regret.

Bella was part of a group of friends that included my ex-girlfriend Beth. While my relationship with Beth was doomed to fail for a variety of reasons, and my breaking up with her was inevitable, the way in which I broke up with her is one of the stupidest, worst things I've ever done. Twenty-three year olds are prone to being stupid, particularly about relationships, and I was no exception. She has never communicated with me again, and thus I've never been able to apologize. I regret having dumped her in a letter, without calling, and for the truly idiotic reasons I gave for ending the relationship.

But, the Butthole Surfers are right -- it is better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done. While I regret the way that relationship ended, and also that with two of my other previous girlfriends, those pale in comparison to how much I regret not seeing my grandmother again before she died. That is the one thing I regret the most in my life. I had reasons for not seeing her: I couldn't deal with seeing someone who'd always being so strong on her deathbed, and I tried to convince her (and myself) that the treatments would work and there was no urgency to the matter anyway. Sure, I talked to her on the phone several times, but I refused to go see her. My mother claims she understood and loved me all the same, and with all my grandmother had seen in her life (which included 16 years in labor and DP camps), I suspect that she really did -- but I have never been able to forgive myself (and I probably never will, so don't bother with any comments intended to be helpful in that regard). My inability to confront death head-on continues to plague me, but it hasn't caused any worse remorse than this incident.

That is the funny thing about regret, after all. Who knew Gibby Haynes was such a sage? So my advice to everyone out there is this: do everything you can do, because one time you don't do something because you choose not to, that'll be the worst regret you ever have.

Cats: All Your Base Are Belong To Us!

When I am angry or depressed, one of the things that most helps me get back into a more productive mindset is our five cats. I've pretty much always had cats, and always will. In other words, all my base are belong to Cats.

My mother adopted (I prefer the term "swindled") my last two cats away from me, Ragnarok and Thelema, when we moved out of New York (she claimed she was going to watch them until I got settled-in back in California, then guilt tripped me into letting her keep her "grandcats"). Prior to Ragnarok and Thelema, I had cats named William Gibson Nyarlathotep Haynes (Gibby), Fuzzbass, Matey, Molly (and her eight kittens, who were born on top of me as I slept, and who all died before I could name them, tragically), and Daisy (people who don't know me very well don't realize that I'm also a huge fan of flowers).

I miss all my previous cats, deceased or living with relatives, but thankfully Anu and I now have five wonderful cats to help keep us company. Originally, when we married, I thought we wouldn't be able to have cats, because Anu was allergic. I planned to secretly keep cats, buying them a fancy home in the country like an investment banker's mistress. However, after introducing her to cats (she'd had only dogs as a kid), she decided to try to get treatment for her allergies. Fortunately, it worked.

To keep up with all the latest Internet memes of 1998, I present the latest of my traditional lame Net Nerd postings of "pictures of my cats." Like record and comic book collection lists, absolutely nobody cares about pictures of other peoples' cats -- except the Japanese, preteen girls, frumpy female clerical workers, Cat Fancy subscribers, and all manner of other people like myself who regularly visit sites like Kittenwar, Cute Overload, Cats In Sinks, Lolcats, (the sometimes mean) Stuff on my Cat, both competing Cute Cats, etc.

People who aren't familiar with cats often don't believe that our cats are capable of affection, enjoy the company of other cats, or have distinct personalities. Unfortunately, these myths about cats continue, even though cats are now the most numerous pet in the US. Cats are in fact quite capable of affection, and are not destructive or aloof if properly nurtured and cared for. Most types of cats do exhibit cooperative group behavior in the wild, though males will indeed fight over females (a behavior that is reduced by spaying and neutering, though my experience has also borne out the wisdom of the folks who say the most harmonious multi-cat households are all-male ones). Properly cared for cats are affectionate and well behaved, though they do indeed not like to be forced into a behavior, and will resist doing so. Badly behaved cats are almost always the result of bad cat owner behavior.

Here, then, are our well behaved cats and a brief description of their individual personalities:

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is technically our first cat, though Sim actually made it into the house first. We adopted him privately, from friends at work. His name comes from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, as do all our black cats' names. In those mythos, Cthulhu reigns as the "great priest" of the Great Old Ones, waiting to awake and devour the universe. Our Cthulhu is nearly blind, with some kind of cataracts on both his eyes. No vet has been able to tell us why (the theories range from losing a fight with another animal to some kind of congenital defect), but it doesn't effect his ability to jump on me, climb me like a tree, and snuggle (his favorite things). Cthulhu is an utter affection hound, and will sit on a lap indefinitely so long as you're paying attention to him and petting him. He'll chase other cats away to get lap time, and often makes rounds from lap-to-lap if several people are around. At 18lbs, his proclivity for jumping on my head and shoulders can be a bit dangerous, so I try to grab him and put him on my lap before he gets a chance to leap.

Narasimha, aka Sim

Sim, he of the Pyothorax story, was the first cat in our San Pablo home. He came from Berkeley Humane Society, and is our resident chatty, cantankerous cat. His name comes from Hindu mythology, which is how we name our orange cats. Narasimha is a half-man, half-lion incarnation of Vishnu who outwits the the demon Hiranyakashipu and destroys him. Narasimha is considered a "god" of protection. Our Narasimha frequently follows us around the house, and often meows. Apparently he has a lot to tell us, if only we'd pay attention. He's also an affection hound, and especially likes to be petted on our living room bean bag chair (his chair), and in our home office (his room). Sim is the only one of our cats who is calm enough to sit on my lap while I write (I try with Cthulhu, and about once a month, he calms down enough that he'll stop climbing me and just nap while I write). Sim has staked out a cardboard box in our garage as his box. Definitely our most territorial cat, when he's healthy he still loves playing with the other cats and they often all sleep in a big pile, so he's not ornery to the point of being antisocial.

Shub Nuggurath, aka Shub

Shub came to us at the same time as Yog, both from Tri-Valley Animal Rescue. They were originally to be adopted by our friend Mattbot, but his landlord balked. Shub's name comes from a character popular with Cthulhu aficionados, despite not being described very clearly in the stories (more so in the so-called "revision tales"). Our Shub is very shy and skittish, and peculiar in that his favorite time to be petted is while he's eating (in fact, he occasionally won't eat at all unless one of us pets him). His favorite activity is hiding somewhere and watching over us, and the other cats. He doesn't like snuggling very often, and when he does, usually not for very long. But, when he does want affection, he demands it by running around us, rubbing against us, and then flopping over and showing his belly.

Yog Sothoth, aka Yog

Yog, arriving on the same day and from the same place as Shub, is our resident space cadet. His name comes from an "Outer God," said to be coterminus with all time and space, existing outside our known universe. Our Yog was probably weaned too young, and likes to try to nurse from Cthulhu, even now that he's an adult, and also follows Cthulhu everywhere. Despite our constant efforts to provide a good home, good food, and preventative medical care for our cats, Yog also almost died once from illness (a blocked urinary tract). Fortunately, he seems to be fine now. Yog is skittish and easily confused, and often freaks out and runs away when you give him the attention he's just requested by nuzzling you and then flipping over to show his belly, or by jumping on your lap. Other times, though, he will sit still long enough to be quite sweet and loving, before a bug, cat fight or Cthulhu's presence distracts him. With his short attention span, though, he'll usually be back over for another round of petting before too long.

Manashthala, aka Ash

Ash was the most recent addition to our home, and he came to us because someone at work who fosters cats for Hopalong / Second Chance Animal Rescue e-mailed out his photo. I forwarded it to Anu, with a message saying that it had been a mistake for me to open the mail in the first place as we were now doomed to a fifth cat. She resisted mightily, for about an hour. In Hindu mythology Manashthala is the lion steed of Durga who helps her destroy the demon Mahishasura. Our Manashthala is a hyperactive ball of energy who perpetually bounces around playing with other cats, his own tail, cat toys, boxes, the laser pointer, and pretty much anything else. However, he doesn't destroy stuff that's not given to him as a toy. None of our cats do (Yog used to eat fabric but has stopped, and they all scratch the couch now and then, but it's covered and we don't really care much anyway). Ash rarely sits still long enough to be petted, but sometimes he'll cuddle up on Anu's lap for the duration of a movie. Like Shub, he prefers to be petted while on the floor, especially in the hallway. He also employs the nuzzle-and-show-belly technique, and enjoys trying to wake us up in the morning with rather incessant meowing (a problem we solved by putting an old quilt behind the bedroom door to block the sound).

If you made it this far, (a) you're a total cat nerd (welcome, brethren), or (b) you're one of those reading addicts who can't stop reading a piece once they start and now you know much more about our cats than you ever wanted to.

My Week of Chaos

The last week or so has sucked.

Really, the last two weeks have sucked, but this week a dollop of feces icing on little slab of hatecake. As the two or so regular readers of this blog already know: Anu lost her job. It was known that there were financial difficulties at the organization, but Anu had been working extremely hard to help make the place viable (see the HCA 08 Auction post below for one example), and was very excited to work with the incoming roster of artists that she and her colleague Holly Blake had organized for the following year. Since it seems non-profit arts organizations are unable to thrive in the current economic and political climate (Anu got laid off previously a couple years ago as the once venerable Richmond Art Center withered into poverty and irrelevance), perhaps the best thing for those interested in the arts to do is vote for Barack Obama. He is the only candidate with a sensible arts platform that explicitly addresses contemporary art, and his desire to curtail war spending and put that money back into the domestic economy is another potential boon for both for-profit and non-profit organizations.

As also mentioned below, one of our cats (Sim) nearly died. He developed a condition called Pyothorax which led to a long and expensive vet visit. It also led to us getting very little sleep, as we nursed him back to health. Today is the last day of his medication routine, thankfully. He is doing better now, but he's still too skinny and a bit lethargic (and he has ridiculous looking shaved spots on him, from IVs and the suction tube for removing the fluids from around his lungs -- which leaves him more vulnerable to the other cats, and thus quite irritable with them). It didn't help in dealing with the shock and disappointment of Anu losing her job to pile-on lack of sleep and worry about Sim (yes, he's "just a cat" -- but he's our cat and we love him).

Narasimha, aka "Sim"

It's also been a bit stressful at work. I'm finally learning something about our effects pipeline (which I've wanted to for a while), and have been doing modeling and set dressing as well. Shading has taken a back seat for a few weeks. I thoroughly enjoy learning new things and having new challenges, but doing it on the timeline and budget of a short film rather than a feature makes it a bit tense. My lead and manager are great guys, it's me who is putting the pressure on myself since I like to get things right, not merely completed, and I also like to feel like I'm working at an equal or greater pace as my peers -- which I'm not when I'm reading manuals and exploring new systems, but that time spent learning gets lost in the noise on a feature project.

Finally, I was supposed to be in Poland right now. However, due to a mistake I made, that is now unable to happen until July. I was very excited for the trip, and anxious to see friends, give a few presentations about my work (including a preview of the SIGGRAPH talk I'm giving this year with my fabulously named friend Max Planck), and have meetings with some folks. It was going to be a great trip, and I have been beating myself up about the dumb mistake that prevented it from happening (and at the last possible minute). I can't undo the mistake, but I hope my friend Marcin who organized the trip will forgive me for screwing it up, and I also hope that the folks I'm supposed to visit still find it worthwhile when I come in July.

There was some other nonsense as well, best forgotten about. All in all, I'd just as soon this last week hadn't happened. It's a bummer that life doesn't come with "save", "redo" and "undo" options (and a "healing brush" would also be quite keen). Many years of computing has warped my expectations of the ease with which stupidity can be ameliorated, causing a lot of cognitive dissonance not just in my own life, but in dealing in the corporate and political arena as well.

Busy as a Bee

I've been quite busy. In addition to my day job I was busy rewriting and sending a feature script called "Welcome To Akron" to a wide variety of contests, fellowships, agents and managers. I've also been taking an advanced cinematography class, working on a new feature script, brainstorming ideas and writing treatments for a pitches to an interested producing partner, doing some event photography (which I don't really like doing, but it was a favor), and working on two short films. One of the shorts is a "making of" documentary for another short film (this weekend I think I finally re-focused on the idea that "cracked" the making of project in terms of making it not be as boring as most other making of docs), and the other is the next installment of a Noir comedy serial that I've developed with my friends Bill Zahn and Jason Topolski (and am creating with help from a whole bunch of friends). Here are a couple production stills:

Me and Bill Zahn, my directing and writing partner, on location trying to figure out
what the heck to do about the zillion production problems that cropped-up
in that grove of trees (the smiles came after we accepted compromise).

Jason Topolski, our star, looking noir as all get-out.

However, we won't be setting-up the site and releasing the first webisode until some time later this year. The plan is to have at least 3 (I'd prefer 4) in the can before we start releasing them. Thanks to a fantastic crew, we managed to get through some really rough patches and get most of our shooting done. We will do a pick-up day, but given the ambition of some of our set-ups, that was probably to be expected.

I've also been preparing for a trip to Poland next week. To cap it all off Sim, one of our cats, got very sick with Pyothorax (a potentially fatal condition). $4000 in vet bills later he is on the road to recovery, but Anu has now been laid off by yet another non-profit arts institution going down the path to destitution and cultural irrelevance (the timing of which, coming on the heels of such a large and unexpected expense, was doubly inauspicious).

I did have a couple minutes to "write" this review of Denon's absurd $500 ethernet cable (which some of you will recognizes as a riff on the Turbo Encabulator meme, with a few changes to fit the application), so I guess the chaos is subsiding a wee bit.

Teaching Film: Don't Let Ambition Stand in the Way of Pedagogy

Tonight was the short film class I'm teaching. I've never really taught a class before, and teaching is itself a learning experience. I allowed the class to select an overly ambitious script, because I felt a class of overachievers deserved it. They are all motivated to finish, but I can see that it's stressing them out (and then that stress has led to my getting openly ticked off on one occasion, which didn't help). Unfortunate scheduling has led to the class corresponding with a time when several students (plus myself) are in the height of production crunch in our real jobs, so that's not helping either. It's hindering me from doing the level of preparation between classes that an ambitious project like this requires -- but then again, if I did the kind of preparation I'm thinking of (such as shot breakdowns, and some rewrites to deal with reigning in some things) I'd basically be co-Directing. The idea was to have someone in the class Direct. Perhaps that was a bad idea, but more likely that being a new teacher I just botched the implementation.

The class was structured as a "give them a minimum of lectures and then throw them into the fire" kind of class, which is popular at film schools these days. However, I think the script was too ambitious (I lobbied for them to do a weekend shoot, but not enough people could / wanted to -- and I failed as a teacher in that I didn't immediately require a rewrite to shorten and constrain the scenario). In the future, I'll probably restrict the length and number of characters in the script, do a minimal shot breakdown myself, and include enough time in the class for me to give a 15-30 minute pedagogical lecture at the beginning of each shoot day. I think I also need to have much more detailed examples for all materials (breakdown sheets, camera reports, etc.) available. The suggestion that there also be an hour of follow-up lecture, Q&A and "dailies" is also good. I'm inclined to suggest that we have a "30 second storytelling" class, as well as an equipment and setiquette class, as prerequisites for this class in the future. This way, people can come more prepared to actually make a real short film, which is what the class description promises.

For the future (provided anyone would even want me to teach this class again in the future), I'm keen to have comments in the comments section from any of you who have taught (especially taught film production) on what you think a good balance is between learning by doing (including failing at doing) a more realistic project, versus constrained, carefully instructed "toy" projects.

Anger and Amazon.com

I lost my temper twice today. I'm very stressed right now, but that's no real excuse. The problem with losing my temper is that not only does it make other people feel bad (and generally they don't deserve it), but it makes me feel bad the rest of the day. Not only do I feel angry about whatever made me angry in the first place, but I feel guilty and upset that I've hurt the feelings of people I like and respect. It rarely accomplishes anything to get angry, except to make a bad situation worse, and it undermines the working relationship and requires lots of energy be spent to smooth things over. Getting angry gets in the way of the person getting angry, even more so than the person they've gotten angry at. All in all, it's the wrong thing to do 99% of the time.


I went looking for Anger Management books because I'm often pissed off about something. Sure, the state of the world is such that this isn't unreasonable -- but it's also not very utilitarian of me.

I know getting more exercise will help more than a book, but reading generally makes me feel better. So I went looking for books, and found this one:

Which leads to my simple discussion of how I shop on Amazon:

Search by keywords. Then, open each link in a new Firefox tab, based on:
1. I recognize the author as an authority on the subject.
2. Highest reviews with the most number of reviews contributing (the # in parenthesis next to the stars)

Usually, this nets ten to fifteen books, except on obscure topics.

I then read the reviews, always starting with the one-star reviews. If the one-star reviews all make compelling arguments for why the book is terrible, I quickly skim the five-star reviews for rebuttals. Most books get cut in this pass.

Then I "look inside" if available. If I don't think the table of contents covers sufficient ground, or if the writing samples are bad, the book gets cut.

For the three to five survivors, I read both Amazon and off-site reviews until I'm sick of them. I generally prefer off-site reviews in legitimate publications, but those can be hard to come by for many kinds of books.

Then, I buy the one or two best choices.

Often I move "almost rans" into "save for later" in my shopping cart. The idea is that I can recover those options quickly if I get the book, further reading shows that it's bad, and I decide to return it. The problem is, my "saved for later" list has grown to almost 500 books. There appears to be no tool for editing this list other than the web page checkboxes, one page at a time, with the list continually shifting under you as you remove items. This is very tedious. And it makes me angry. Which makes this post come full circle.

Anyone know of an "Amazon management" tool that would allow this, and also better management of wishlists and reviews? If so, please post in the comments.

The Travails Of Making Timely Sketch Comedy

Friday night some friends helped me shoot a political satire. We wanted to get it up online this weekend for the run up to Super Tuesday, but it may never see the light of day owing to legitimate concerns of our employer (who did not participate in its production, but has a right to approve or deny our side projects).

It was good fun anyway.

It's not much of a film, per se, but rather it's a skit committed to tape. There are only 3 shot setups, and they're all medium shots with fairly poorly thought out options for cutting (my fault -- I wanted to compress shooting time and keep the actors lines fresh, so I didn't instruct them to leave many pregnant pauses or other actions to cut on). The actors ultimately saved the day by finally declaring that they could do the entire piece (over 5 minutes) in one continuous take. In about ten heroic attempts, the pulled off at least two successful reads. They also did a version of the last two pages that omitted the most potentially offensive material (a satire of the crypto-racist underpinnings of a certain kind of political argument). Since I'd given them almost no time to learn the material, I was very impressed. My DP did a credible job with what he was given to work with, which was basically noting -- it's just static shots of two people talking at a water cooler.

Anu and I thought of the idea Wednesday, wrote it Thursday night, and gave it to the actors on Friday. That didn't leave much time for preparation, and we spent 4 of the 8 hours shooting it rehearsing and dealing with technical issues caused by scrambling to get everything together too quickly. The piece is about the text and the performance, not the visuals, but it definitely was another lesson in the difficulties of extremely rapid filmmaking. It also pointed out what a Director truly needs to be thinking about (performance first, then shot design in conjunction with the DP), and why producers are such critical partners in the creative process. I should have delegated more of dealing with practical and technical issues to someone else, and focused on bouncing between my actors and my DP.

We gave up shooting some shots that would have made the piece less static and more visually interest, because it was 2AM and we had to shoot the angles we had so many times because I'd tortured the actors with 6 pages of very dense, yet rhythymic, dialog. What we gave up was close-ups / over-the-shoulder shots. We shouldn't have done that. But, I felt obligated to let my fabulous crew, who responded to my crazy call to "make a short tomorrow," go home and have a weekend with their families. Given either two or three more shooting hours, we would have nailed that. I could try to fake it with cropped push-ins in Digital Fusion or Shake, but MiniDV isn't much of an image to work with to begin with so I'm reluctant to push it.

Preparation is always key to successful filmmaking. I need to replace the missing items in my kit, and work with my DP and others to always keep the proper cables, power supplies, and so on with our gear. We could have done all our shots had we spent less time dealing with the equipment. If you're going to do run-and-gun or any other style of fast filmmaking, make sure your kit is complete and well organized.

All in all, I still like the piece, but it's not much of a film. It's more like a hurriedly put together sketch from a low-budget TV comedy show (the TV feel is further created by the lighting, which was as flat as we could get in our short setup time so we could move the camera with minimal adjustment of lights). None of this reflects on the talent of my crew, but on the following decisions: (1) do the whole thing very fast, (2) focus on the text and performance, and let other things go by the wayside, and (3) let the cast and crew go home. The entire project came together in about 14 hours -- which will increase to about 20 or so if I decide to go ahead and try to edit the 3 setups into some kind of a shot flow rather than sticking with one of the end-to-end takes (but those were so impressive, I feel a compunction to want to use one).

Everyone was a joy to work with, and I hope they will join me in further filmmaking (or, as in this case, skitmaking) pursuits.