By The Dream Power of The Truth Beast

minimalism, structure and content...

 

 

My friend Jeff Pensiero just posted this a few minutes ago. So I'm gonna re-blast it here, like a good spazz. Though not at all previously familiar with director of photography Chris Bryan's longstanding career in the field of high speed cinematography, I am now truly dumbstruck by his work, (particularly at the 4:38-to-6:01-minute mark). Even if you don't give a wet rat's ass about surfing, the footage is absolutely hair-raising and beautiful. Those Phantom HD cameras are amazing. Watching the world go by in slow-motion never looked so good. Mr. Bryan, thank you.

And Jeff, thank you too! Say hi to Paula and the babies!

becoming miracled....

the world is a coproduction....

WOOF!

Been reading Sidney Lumet's memoir "Making Movies" and watching a pile of his films lately. Randomly picked it up in a bookstore a few weeks ago while killing time before a film at The Grove. The following morning I awoke to news that he'd passed away. Sorta strange, that. His memoir is marvelously insightful, fun to read, and deeply relatable. Particularly this excerpt:

"I don't know how to choose work that illuminates what my life is about. I don't know what my life is about and don't examine it. My life will define itself as I live it. The movies will define themselves as I make them. As long as the theme is something I care about at the moment, it's enough for me to start work. Maybe work itself is what my life is about." —Sidney Lumet

Since coming across it, I've gone back to that paragraph at least twenty times now. Never perhaps has another person so sussinctly articulated my own thoughts on how creative work fits within the larger context of life. Thanks Sidney.

 

Spectrum. Keeping it murky.

Teenage Survival Manual.

The mercurial Cheriel. Good job!

Agreed, let's do it.

Yeah, man.

Serious considerations.

(m)Anthony (m)Anzalone. Baby brother becomes a man.

Tender vibes.

Terry Burbank. Perhaps more so than anyone else I know, this dude's got his priorities straight.

Actually, the G8 is your CEO.

Just sayin'.

Self-explanatory.

Today is Memorial Day. While it may have made more sense to blast a brog more in keeping with the spirit of the holiday, instead I'm posting photos of the Terri & Gary opening at THIS los angeles a few weeks back. Sure enough, the faux-Self Help exhibit made for a thoroughly nice time. Heavy bros, snarky art, piercing noise... Yet, within the context of remembering our war dead, it perhaps doesn't make for such a solid brog on this rather somber day.

As our country is at war in at least five countries (Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and now Libya), and as Japan continues to grapple with the aftermath of the earthquake—tsunami—reactor meltdowns, the idea of Memorial Day feels somewhat more pronounced this year, somehow nearer than in years past. It is not all backyard BBQs, wine coolers, parades, cheeseballs riding wild hogs down the PCH, squirt guns, and sweet shopping discounts at all major department stores.

Our collective memories of war are not distant memories. These days it lays upon us like a too-hot blanket, smothering our economy and overheating our public discourse. But even the Roman Empire had to come to an end one day. Memories fade and history repeats. Human nature is to change our nature, true enough. But sadly never too much, nor too quickly enough.

All pseudo-deep thoughts aside, I'm trying to plow through the past two months as quickly as possible here on the Trufths Beasths Brog. One a day, at least. Not a lot of rhyme or reason to it other than to archive the photos, the folks, and the faintest flicker of what it was, (whatever it was that was). Once I'm done collapsing all space and time, (actually March-April-May) into this poorly rendered series I'll try to get back to life in progress... as it semi-actually happens.

For example, this was yesterday:

Hi Isac, nice frontside rock.

And this, two nights ago:

Schram. Keeping it Canadian.

Rene & The DSS... Party dawgs on the dark side of town.

 

Be well, Happy Memorial Day!

-A

 

in a heartbeat...

A couple of months ago my dad came down to visit an old friend from his teen years way back in the 1950s. WOW! On the way home from Olivenhain we sprung Medieval Times on him. He was confused. Fair enough, Buena Park is totally not King Arthur's court. Not even close, which is exactly what makes it so awesome.

At turns, our time at the tournament was hilarious and entirely worthwhile, if only because it was so bizarrely corny and creepy. But I just gotta say I felt terrible for the horses. Particularly the sweet boo boo horse that had to do all that bullshit prancing around.

*REAL TALK: Honestly, what horse wants to bounce around on its hind legs while some long-haired fake olden times hessian whips its ass with a twig? Zero. None. Not even one horse wants to do that. Walking backwards and sideways... c'mon. So embarrassing. Really, people wanna see that? Dumb. And man, it made that poor horse so tired. Like, just exhausted. Rivers of hot white snot streaming from its nostrils. Foam flying from the mouth. Hind quarters shuddering from the strain of hopping around on those rear hooves. So dumb. Soooooooo excruciatingly dumb.

And the whole time an annoying announcer asshole wearing a headset blabbing about "the tradition of horse and master... blah blah blah...."

Fuck all that noise.

Bubbas should be freeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

 

the bullshit piled up so fast... you needed wings to stay above it....

A few weeks ago NASA's JPL Laboratory had its annual open house.

A self-contained city of several thousand researchers and auxilary personnel, everyone working on weirdness far beyond my feeble powers of comprehension. While we're schlepping our asses back and forth to the corner store for packs of whatever, just 12-miles from Echo Park, those folks are building robots to crawl across the face of Mars. 

Robots, nantubes, satellites, rovers, spacecrafts, rockets, lasers...

...gamma rays, solar winds, meteoric dust, chemical gases, orbiters, telescopes, isotopes, etc...

I walked through the buildings and watched the films, smiling all the while. Truly, you've never seen such a clueless boob so utterly entranced. I stared blankly as robots meticulously moved across barren landscapes a billion miles away. I pondered ice crystals harvested from distant moons.

The day presented a whole other realm of possibilities, rewards and realities. Not merely in esoteric or conceptual ways, but in real and tangible ways. I came away feeling awed and refreshed. The notion that all those fabulous nerds spend their days on campus exploring the boundaries of places and things most of us can't even begin to understand, it just touched my heart in a really nice way. It gave me a newfound appreciation for their efforts and passions.

The facility moves to the pulse of its own mysterious mechanics, the thrum of its own internal concerns. Its own conundrums, its own failures. Its own solutions and jubilations. It is a place tasked with the job of forever looking outward, which is rather inspiring.

No tube amps. No dirty socks. No Echoplex. No Brite Spot brownies. No Arby's horsey sauce. No used car lots. No bungee jumping. No bad memories. false horizons. No sensitive gums or half-assed bridge work. No vegan cookies. No Apples-to-Apples. No neighborhood watch. No iPod nano. No Burberry. No bums. No bullshit DirecTV ads. No zines. No Medicare Debate. No Curves diet plans. No dance parties of the damned. No rye, no ham. No Coke in cans. None of that crap. Just stars and planets. Just darkness and light. Just solar flares and moons made of ice.

"Do you know why you can never step into the same river twice?" —Roxanne

"Yeah, 'cause it's always moving." —Willard 

"All that matters is that you are alive. You are alive, Captain. That's the truth." —Roxanne, ANR

 

Late on a Saturday night there's really nothing like the incomprehensible vastness of all space and time to put things in perspective. That, and Joseph Conrad by way of Francis Ford Coppolla. Halfway to enlightenment, halfway to the horror.

The next time you gaze up at the moon, maybe give it a good look. The arc of its existence is so long. Trace its edges, consider its craters.

This 'being alive' thing we do, really it makes so little sense. Your life is the life of the universe, if only for a little while.

Thanks JPL, Tammy, Luis, Karina, Kevin, and Phil.

Good night,

-A

 

the rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast....

Working my way backwards through time...

Heavy bros eternal.

Salba... explains the universe.

Ancient history.

A couple of weeks ago the annual Transworld Skateboarding Awards again made its way to the Avalon. Per usual it was a total chaos pile. Raging drunks, fist fights, flying chairs, crisp hats and chiseled jaws, bad speeches, flannel, cigs, wobbly hoochies in awkward high heels, dumb dummies, grizzled pool vets, and sweet angel babies...

Emerica & Altamont won best video of the year for Minor's "Stay Gold." Rad. Well-deserved. Other than that, Grant Taylor is perhaps the best skateboarder alive right now. Lil dude got robbed. Other than that (Part II), Dill broke his wrist 36 hours prior to the ceremony. Showed up on stage with a shaved head, arm in a sling, and wearing a fur-collared parka over a dirty wife-beater. Classic and wonderful. Quite possibly the highlight of the evening.

Skateboarding is sublime and sub par all at once. Transcendant. Malignant. Profound in its own unique way, and yet profoundly mundane. Super-dupes and sup-stoops. Entertaining beyond compare, yet drool-level boring beyond belief. Basically, same as it ever was.

 

rapture ready...

80s hardcore.

Posi-vibes.

Intellectual pursuits.

Fashionable knits.

Tender mercies.

 

All in all, that pretty much did not happen last week, but this did.

a great place to live if you're an orange...

Divine math. The golden ratio. Inspired geometry.

Gnar-bros and bowl trolls schralped the Vans/Pro-Tec Pool Party in Orange, California this past Saturday. Sixteen-year old Pedro Barros won the Pro division with speed lines and huge airs on the hips and corner pockets. *[note the above frame]. The kid deserved it.

Per usual, Chris Miller destroyed everyone and took home his sixth Masters win. It is a joy to watch such a nice person blow so many minds year after year. Even in his mid-40s, Chris is still the perfect bowl skater. Unfortunately I didn't get any shots of him, I was too busy screaming and clapping like a child.

However, I did get a blurry shot of this huevos rancheros beauty pile at Anepalco's Mexican-Parisian Cafe:

I honestly believe it might be the best, most delicious plate of food in all of Orange County. Truly.

Hi Salman, good to see you. We pizza soon.

Rune Glifberg. So incredibly good.

Hi Phewwwwwl, congratulations on the office. Have fun in Spain.

 

 

 

inner landscapes...

Since approximately late-March I've been almost too busy to even just occasionally think about anything even remotely hilarious or halfway interesting. All been a bit of a blur. Some good, some bad. 

For those of you busting my ballz about it, I get it. 

One's writing is only good if one bothers to write. True enough. In a day or two I'll blast a blob of photos and crappy captions from the past several weeks. 

Other than all that, today we're off to the semi-lovely city of Orange, CA for the annual bowl contest at the Vans Skatepark. Should be a real pile-up of old friends and cornball gnar-bros in hella big shorts. 

Be well! 

-A

 

something smells fishy...

Hasty burial at sea... hmmm.... uhhh... Not so much.

In Islam, if you die on land, you're buried on land. You definitely aren't given a few scrubbing bubbles aboard a U.S. warship and then plopped into the North Arabian Sea. Just one of several weird moves that've played out over the past 36 hours or so.

To paraphrase (sorry, it's after 5AM, I'm tired):

A reported 24 Navy SEALS arrived at Osama's home in Abbottabad, Pakistan via two gigantic "quiet helicopters"... one of which mysteriously crashed on an 18-ft high perimeter wall upon descent, (and yet almost no debris or scorched earth is to be found in the aerial photos of the courtyard crash site)... errrr... uh....

Moreover, despite the home having no hard-wired phone lines or Internet service, and despite Osama's long-detailed policy of strictly prohibiting the use of computers, mobile phones or other electronic devices anywhere near him... newswires around the world are reporting that computers, hard drives, compact discs and other forensics were removed from the compound... As well as a DNA sample purportedly matching the deceased to various members of the extended bin Laden family...  wheeze...

Shot twice through the left eyeball at point-blank range during a purported "fire fight" in his remarkably untidy bedroom on the 3rd floor... gurgle... while less than one mile away... the entire Pakistan Military Academy blissfully snored... Zzzzz....

Love him or hate him, that's your business. Not mine. However, the chorus of reports coming from the White House, intelligence community, and US news media all somehow feel way too chummy and more than a bit dubious. More holes than the lies of Pervez Musharaff and all the caves of Tora Bora combined.

Totally not buying it.

Not a lot of questions are being asked, which never bodes well for the truth. Just a whole lotta half-assed vindications of the CIA's secret prisons and sketchy interrogation techniques. A whole lotta cheering and rah-rah fist pumping. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so... not hilarious.

All this cornball elation at Osama's passing won't ever bring back any of those 3,000 people killed during the WTC and Pentagon attacks. I know because I was there and I can recall the horror and weirdness of those weeks as if it only happened yesterday. And it sure as hell won't bring back all of those dead U.S. soldiers or Coalition forces. Nor the estimated 300,000 dead Iraqi civilians. Nor the untold numbers of dead Afghans. Nor will it give all those thousands of amputees their limbs back.

Only time will tell if Osama's death will bring about Al-Qaeda's eventual demise or if it'll simply open a door for the next martyr to pass through, and then the next, and the next... Either way, I have a feeling the Pakistan problem is about to become much more public. Cat's now out of the bag on that one, boys.

Later days, Geronimo. You finally hit the jackpot.