Archive for December, 2007
I’ve been slacking on the updates because I’ve been way too busy eating all day every day. I posted the clip of the 16mm film I mentioned in the last post, so check it out on the videos page. Speaking of the videos page, I just spent like 2 hours fixing it… I thought it would only take 10 minutes. It’s 4:45 a.m. and I probably won’t be getting to bed for another 3 or 4 hours. This is my normal sleep schedule for about 50% of my life. It’s pretty weird. More stuff coming in a week or two…
Saturday, Dec 15th, 2007
Categories: Life
I can’t believe it.
Less than a week after Evan dies in a drunk driving accident, another Moorestown High School senior is killed by a drunk driver. Their car was hit head-on by a drunk driver on 38. I didn’t know Eric Messick well but from what I know he was a hell of a lot like me. Here is a kid who always wanted to have fun and do crazy life-risking things, and now his life has ended by something completely out of his control. In high school I was good friends with Tom McCue, who was driving the car that was hit. I hope he makes it out okay, I haven’t heard any details on the condition he’s in. I talked to Tom online about a week ago… we were planning to film some fun and wild stuff like we used to in high school. He wanted me to film him drifting his car and we were planning on going to the quarry during my winter break, which started yesterday. I am terrified to think that that is exactly where they were going. The accident happened halfway between Moorestown and the quarry. I can’t believe any of this is real. I could have very easily been in Eric’s place last night. The only hope I have is that something positive will come of these events. After Evan died, I spent a lot of time thinking… about life, death, everything. Gordon, Kyle, and I talked about everything imaginable from about midnight-6 a.m. one night. Over the past week, I have grown so much as a human, and this second tragedy will only help continue that growth. I made a 16mm short film essentially about life for my filmmaking class. We screened all of the films in a small movie theater yesterday for our final, and the reaction to my project was pretty unreal. The film professor and the TAs were speechless for about 10 seconds and then there was nothing but positivity from them. It was a great feeling and it was only intensified by my deliriousness as I hadn’t slept for 2 days up to that point. Anyway, the point of this entry was basically for me to get some feelings off my chest and to help people realize that terrible and negative events can be transformed into various forms of positivity. I could go on a philosophical rant for days, but I think I should save that for another time. Enjoy your life and be thankful for what you have. Please.
Sunday, Dec 9th, 2007
Categories: Life
I don’t know how to put my thoughts into words right now but I’m going to try… Two nights ago I was walking around the city with Gordon and we were talking about all kinds of stuff for like 2 hours. We started talking about all the stupid things we did in high school and I brought up how it bothered me that we used to drive 100mph+ on random roads around town late at night. I had never mentioned that before, but recently I’ve been realizing how dangerous my life was in high school and how many times I could have died. While talking about driving down streets like Garwood road at full speed, I literally said “we could have died.” As I said this, the only other person on the street near us turned around and looked at us… keep in mind we were in the middle of the ghetto in North Philly. This person was really tall and thin, and wearing a black trench coat with a hood. We couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. We only saw one half of their face but the look they gave us was creepy to say the least. Feeling threatened by this figure, we quickly ran ahead and didn’t look back.
The next night, Gordon’s neighbor was killed in a car accident on Garwood Road. I cannot describe the way I’ve been feeling since 2 a.m. last night, when I found out. I feel like I’ve been in a dream for the past 2 days. Growing up, we used to walk over to Evan’s house almost everyday after school and jump on his trampoline. Over the past few years our friendship drifted apart like most of them do at this age, but I still have so many childhood memories from his backyard and the neighborhood in general. This is about all I can say right now. I am so sorry for anyone who was directly or indirectly affected by this accident, and for Evan’s entire family.
This is one of my favorite photos ever. Taken in Evan’s backyard - 2006. 
and another… 
Rest in peace Evan.
We’ll miss you.
I was basically over this sidekick contest by the second day of voting because some of the finalists were already very well-known and had a ridiculous amount of myspace friends, but I was told today that I won 3rd place, so I’m definitely psyched on that… I got $2,500 and a new sidekick out of a couple hours of enjoyable work. I said I would eat a $100 bill if I got 1st place, and I may still do it even though I’d be taking a much bigger chunk out of my 3rd place check… We’ll see how I’m feeling when the money is in my hand.
Thank you so much to everyone who voted. It’s a shame it had to be a contest ruled by votes, but you all pulled through and helped me get this extra chunk of cash. Honestly, I only voted on the first day because I just didn’t care enough, so to the people who voted every day - you are amazing. Thanks.
In other news, for some reason my Videos page decided to get totally messed up on its own, so right now it looks like a complete mess because I don’t have the time to fix it at the moment. I did have time to add 2 new videos though, both were filmed for punkrockvids and the RX Bandits at the TLA in Philadelphia. Maybe you’ll enjoy them - I tried to make the videos as visually entertaining as possible.
This was pretty much the coldest experience ever.
Well, I’m heading out, and I’m glad to say I have a smile on my face even though the next two weeks are going to be complete hell as the fall semester is ending and I have projects outside of school to take care of too. Moving on…
All of the videos on the site are now streaming, so if you ever had trouble viewing a video in quicktime or didn’t feel like waiting for it to load, the problems should now be solved. I have some new stuff coming soon but not quite yet… give it a week.
I wish these colors would last longer:
