With Great Weight Comes Great Responsibility

When I was in high school, I weighed an average of 95 lbs. I remember being very excited when I finally broke the 100 lb mark.I tried hard to gain weight then, to no avail. In fact, being the gangly kid I was, I always secretly wished I would one day be fat. Like really fat. Orson Welles fat.

Well, it seems my wish is coming true.

Last night I found that my brother had recently purchased a weight scale. I hopped up on the thing and found, to my dismay, that I am currently weighing in at 210 lbs.

What?!

I thought I was somewhere around 185-190. This had to be wrong!

I took off my shoes. I was sure they were responsible for adding a significant amount of poundage.

Still 210.

Well, damn. Be careful what you wish for. I calculated my BMI on the internet and discovered that I am considered "overweight" now. In fact, about 30 lbs. overweight. I am heavier that 74% of men my age and height. Ironically, I still look skinny. My arms and legs are still as bony as they were in high school. So I am probably carrying about 50-60 lbs. in that spare tire around my midsection.

I remember seeing a doctor when I lived in New Orleans and he ran some tests and he said everything was fine, but when I took off my shirt and he saw the great bulk hiding in my gut he had a look of dismay.

"You probably want to do something about that," he said. "Carrying around all that weight in one area can lead to serious health problems in the future."

But he didn't know about my secret childhood wish of being fat someday. And my lifelong aversion to exercise.

Now, I am not completely sold on all this "modern medical data" about the "proper weight" and the commonly held view that "thin-is-in". Would I be any better off if I weighed the proper 184 lbs. recommended for my height and age?

I do have a gym membership and for several months I was working out pretty religiously. I was seeing very little results, even after three months, and this "high" they talk about was always elusive. Going to the gym just became a chore. It's something I feel that I "need" to do, like going to school when you are a kid. It's not always fun. In fact, sometimes it's downright miserable, but it is supposedly something that will benefit you in "the future".

I'll probably continue to make concessions, though. I'll try to be more active and I'll cut back on the beer and fried food. But sooner or later I should learn to be content with the way things are. If I didn't feel overweight and unhealthy before I jumped on that weight scale, why did seeing that number change anything? Does being considered "overweight" in a list of averages really affect me personally? What's good for the goose is not always good for the gander.

Right now, I am a gangly guy with a huge belly.

The question is: Do I use my obesity for good? Or evil?

Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister?

I am tired of moving.

I've moved 5 times in the last six years. The process of finding a new apartment seems to be a yearly activity. And it's a stressful activity.

I would like to be able to put down at least some temporary roots. I'm 32 and I am sick of the uncertainty of not knowing where I'm going to be from year to year. There's something to be said for following the "traditional path" of getting married, buying a house, starting a family and all that. It's not for me, but it's got to be a comforting feeling. You must feel like you belong somewhere.

You Tube Shenanigans

Posted some old films and videos I've made on YouTube.

As a friend pointed out, I've now subjected myself to the barbs and criticisms of "tons of 13 year olds across the world".

To win them over, I posted a sketch about poop.

R.I.P. (1946-2006)

The Medium is the Massage

A music video I made for my friend Eli's band Los Halos is currently on this month's Timecode:NOLA. It is for the song "Blue Star". As always you can view the episode as a podcast on iTunes. To subscribe for free: click here.

The video was compiled out of found footage, particularly short industrial films and cartoons in the public domain that I found online at The Prelinger Archives.

And in unrelated news, I finally picked up the DVD of one of my favorite films of all time, Peter Jackson's zombie classic Dead Alive, hailed as "the goriest fright film of all-time". It's certainly one of the funniest.

Closed Captioning

Blasts From The Past 1

Tonight after work I got drunk and watched some old films I had either directed or shot during my college years. I realized that I was really interested in bright colors and weird compositions when I was 23. In the fall of 1998 I was, for some reason, asked to be the director of photography on quite a few student films. I remember being particularly interested in strong primary colors and I took a liking to the Kodak Vision 7246 16mm filmstock. It seemed to fit whatever style I was aiming for. Unfortunately I think my inexperience and experimental attitude worked against a lot of the films I was shooting. I didn't approach the material and adapt to what they were trying to say, but instead went my own way with the cinematography. I liked negative space and faint shadows. By contrast, with the films I directed I made sure I had an experienced Director of Photography lensing it. I wanted someone who could tell me if my experimental ideas would look like shit or not before I rolled any film. basically, when it's MY money, I'm a cheap bastard, but if someone else is footing the bill I'll try anything. It was fun to look back at some of the things I was toying with eight to ten years ago.

Here's a short B&W film I shot for my friend Reed in '98 called The Hit. We shot this one night after closing at the PJ's Coffee House on Camp Street in the CBD. I don't remember why we decided to cover the windows in newspaper. (Oh, and please check out some of Reed's other work)

Geeky aside: I remember having a discussion with an older grad student about an idea I had of of shooting an outdoor scene in daylight with tungsten balanced film and lighting the principle actors with tweenie lights, so that the actors were color balanced and the background was an off-color blue. Several weeks later the guy came into the bar where I was working to ask my permission to steal my idea for a film he was shooting that weekend. He was someone I respected and looked up to, so it made me feel somewhat validated.