Greater Satellites

As many of you know, I have a proclivity towards the creative aspects of life. I love making things, whether they’re videos, audio snippets, pictures, illustrations, or web pages, if there’s some degree of creative freedom involved, I want to be a part of it.

For the last couple of months I’ve been the opposite of inspired, but for no real reason other than lack of time. As a result, all of these (in my mind) great ideas I’ve had were placed in the crock pot that is my mind to simmer for a while and become delicious. Recently I was hit with the urge to create in a big way. It’s a writing/video project and maybe something in the vein of music making (though correlated to the original). I discussed this briefly with the lady last night, but I’d like to extrapolate upon it a little further and give it a life of it’s own, something I can reference back to when need be:

The music idea came to me while walking down Chestnut Street between 2nd & 3rd Streets. I crossed a small walkway, which I always assumed to be an alley and for the first time in my entire life walking around in this area (I’d say I’ve passed this stretch of pavement at least 50 times before), I glanced down the alley to find that it was no alley at all, but a remnant of a long forgotten street. Cobblestone lined and just slightly wider than the width of my arms extended, there was one sign hanging from a building a few yards away, it read: Bank Street Hostel.

The how’s and why’s never really dawned on me, but I instantly had melodies playing in head. Beautiful and dissonant as the phrase Bank Street Hostel swirled around my mind. I immediately began relating it back to a story that I conceptualized, but never actually began. The words started coming to me and I haven’t forgotten them yet:

SCENE: A dark basement room, lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling by a bare wire. A man is tied to a chair, bloodied and bruised. The camera pans slowly around him in a circle to reveal he’s surrounded by four men wielding pipes, bats, etc. A voice starts speaking, but it’s unclear who is actually talking.

1: “Ever hear stories about deep meditation? I wouldn’t expect you to have… The Cliff’s Notes version is this: the end-all be-all goal is reaching a higher level consciousness, a deep, spiritual sanctuary within. Buddhists are probably the most notorious meditators on the planet.”

2: “Is that a fact?”

1: “It certainly is. Get this… true story: a Buddhist monk once meditated for 10 straight years with no food and no water. When scientists heard about this, they immediately came seeking permission to study him. Their findings revealed that this monk, simply with his mind, was able to slow his heart rate and breathing down to unbelievably low levels while constantly maintaining his higher brain functions.”

3: “Sounds like a crock.”

1: “You haven’t even heard the best part. After the ten years, this guy just wakes up and tells everyone that he now has ‘a heightened sense of things’.

4: “Whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.”

1: “While walking through his hometown afterwards, he hesitates before going into a market. Moments later the market building bursts into flames. While traveling along a cliff he felt the imperative need to rest in a small cave moments before a 170 foot Cypress tree came rolling down the edge of the mountain.”

2: “And just what the fuck does this story have to do with you?”

1: “I’m also feeling a heightened sense of things, and it’s telling me you’re all going to die very soon.”

2, 3, 4, 5: [Laughter]

2: “And how do you…”

SCENE: Just at that moment, the ropes drop from the hands of the man bound to the chair. He swings his right arm up and around hard enough to send the gun hidden up his sleeve into his hand where he immediately shoots the man in front of him, quickly grabbing the pipe he once held from mid air with his left, then snapping his arm right and shooting the man frozen there, who was too paralyzed to die immediately. He simultaneously swings the pipe he’s holding in his left hand into the jaw of the man on his left and kicks the chair he was on backwards and it slams into the man, moments ago standing coolly behind him, now charging him with a nail-bat. He does all of this with a grace that would make you uneasy to watch, you can tell he’s done this before. Maybe a million times. Before either of the two remaining men have a chance to hit the ground, they have a flurry of bullets headed in their direction that they should be worrying about first. The once-bound man walks off toward a door in the distance. He exits into what appears to be an alleyway, throwing the bloodied pipe into a sewer. The sign hanging from the building is white and pronounced and defiant in this cold, midnight air. It reads: Bank Street Hostel.

And that, as they say, is a wrap. Any and all comments appreciated.

I’m making my triumphant return (for about the fifth time in two years), if only in a mediocre, bloggy kind of way. It dawned on me that I was beginning to let some meaningless things (like work, mostly) get in the way of pursuing what it is I would like to do. As a result I’m going to do some heavy-duty blogging on here and really working hard to get my site built using Wordpress as a CMS. It’s been something that, quite frankly, I’ve been adverse to doing because it’s a whole new learning experience for me, but I’m determined to get it done for myself and for everyone interested in reading what I have to say. I also thought it would be appropriate to keep my personal journal separate from the main Greater Satellites one if for no other reason than privacy.

Let’s recap since the last time I updated, which by my estimates was a brief, almost inner monologue-esque post about a month and a half ago:

Let’s start with the family. Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and a very pleasant one for the matriarch in our household. Denise and I made her dinner, bought her a nice flower arrangement, some chocolates, and two cards. Although I wasn’t there to see her face when she walked in the door (damn bowling league), secondhand accounts from Denise combined with mom’s big hug at the end of the day led me to believe that she was quite pleased. Outside of that, all family stuff is going swell.

I wish there was a synonym for the following combination of words: gorgeous, fun, inspiring, artistic, supportive, understanding, honest, and wonderful that also happened to rhyme with Jacqueline. She’s always on my mind, and not in that stalker-ish kind of way. She’s always the last person on my recent call/text list. She makes me feel better when I have a case of the Mondays. I would do anything for her, and I hope she knows it. In case you couldn’t tell I’m pretty much head over heels. Tomorrow will be our 6-month anniversary and I have something special in mind for her.

Work is going really well too. I know people don’t really celebrate month milestones at jobs, but I like to keep close tabs on where I’m spending my time and if it’s benefitting me in some long-term fashion. Cinco de Mayo was the 6 months at this job. In the past, me having a job for six months was like ice staying solid over 32 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course). In this instance, I believe I’ve found something really special and I’m glad to be a part of the team to which I currently belong. My coworkers are all cool, the bosses are great, and my pay rate is more than satisfactory. Now all I have to do is start stashing some loot and preparing for either A) a new car or B) an edifice I can call my own.

The next big thing is getting Greater Satellites launched. I’d like to start taking on some more freelance work, even if I have to hand some of it off to friends or co-workers. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great getting your check on the 1st and 15th, but it’s infinitely more rewarding to accomplish something on your own. That what I want to set out to do again.

That wasn’t really much of a recap of the past month or so… Before I wrap it up, here it is in a nutshell: Family is doing great (dad will be getting a pool installed by June… woot!), all time spent with or talking to Jackie has been fantastic, I need to reconnect with some friends I haven’t spoken with in a while, the new computer is still fucking awesome, I have a bed now for the first time in about a decade, and I think that whole “growing up” thing that I’ve heard so much about is starting to gently settle upon me. Things are really, really good.

Well, after a lot of saving, spending, saving some more, paying bills, saving yet some more, and ultimately having money stashed aside. I’ve started the process of getting my web site up and running. I’ve purchased two domain names (with a possible third on the way), signed up with a very decent (and affordable) hosting company, and got started on some possible designs. Here’s how I’m hoping things go down in the next month:

1. Get a solid, standards compliant design installed on a WordPress installation
2. Transfer all Blogger entries over to new website
3. Upload all samples of work that I am pleased with including:
   • Photos
   • Videos
   • Illustrations
   • Previous Sites I’ve Designed
   • Possibly random rantings
4. Decide on and start marketing one or all of the following services:
   • Web Design
   • Logo Design
   • Video Editing
   • Video Encoding
   • Search Engine Optimization
   • Print Design
5. Get some fancy business cards printed
6. Relax as the cash rolls in

There are probably a few more steps that I’m missing, but those are definitely some short-term, doable goals. The next time I check in… it’ll be on a new domain name. YAY!

I worked for a little bit creating a layout that reflected my personal “web style” and wasn’t a pre-packaged Blogger special. This is the outcome and though it’s not final, it’s pretty damn close. I need to tweak the bottom area a tad, but I’m really enjoying the color scheme, background, and size.

I’d appreciate any feedback about it, especially from Windows users. If something looks off, let me know so I can fix it up straight away. Let the comments fly!

Note: I’m a little stoned. This is a work in progress.

After much deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion that the American Dream is dead, or at least on life support. I suppose the dawn of the American Dream started with, well, the dawn of America. What were the hopes of the first immigrants to our great country? One could argue that it was because there were distinct social, religious, political, and economic structures in place that were totally new and innovative (see: radical) as compared to the oft-archaic policies of their former European homelands. So torrents of young, hungry families trekked across the pond here to America to pursue “the dream”. The dream, back then, was very simple: to own the land you lived on. As serfs back in fuedal Europe, the people who worked the land were never given the opportunity to own it and were taxed heavily just to dwell on it. In egalitarian America, they lived on the land, worked on the land, and were not taxed to be residents (although they were required to send goods back in the form of crops, textiles, and various other foodstuffs). It was a perfect setup because their respective governments were literally an ocean away. Do we own the land we live on nowadays? No. Furthermore, we’re (ironically, once again) taxed (in some states more heavily than others) to live on the land (history does repeat itself). So have we progressed since the days of (pre-America) America? Tough question. Let’s delve into the other definitions of the American dream for a moment…

In more recent times (19th century, so not that recent), writers like the great Horatio Alger used to pen books that glorified the American dream. He wrote about people who literally came from nothing but possessed three outstanding qualities that eventually led to their success and fortune:

1. talent
2. intelligence
3. a willingness to work extremely hard

Prime examples of this include Andrew Carnegie and the tycoon John D. Rockefeller. It seems that after the establishment of a unifed, centralized government, the definition of the American dream shifted from owning the land to making enough money to afford the land. The acquisition of money is often criticized in many works of literature, however, as not being a true American Dream. See Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” as a prime example of a story delineating the old addage “money can’t buy happiness”, a direct commentary on the modern American Dream.

The further convolution of the American Dream came after World War II. The soldiers who fought bravely to protect our country simply wanted to live in comfort, have stability, and start families. These families (the ideal archetype being happy wife, happy husband, happy son, happy daughter) were all one could hope for, a truly respectable dream: find a mate, get married, have kids, raise them well, send them to school, lather, rinse, repeat.

In current times the dream seems so superficial. People want to make the most amount of money for doing the least amount of work. At some point you should question the validity of social Darwinism. It’s nice to have dreams, but it’s even nicer and more rewarding to have a firm grasp of reality. I, too, am guilty of putting a lot of stock into gaining some sort of fame or fortune, but in the words of one of my most quotable heroes: “We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact.”

Although I’ve been jaded with naysayers, skepticism, and criticisms, I would love to spend my life looking for and documenting the American Dream, like the late Hunter S. Thompson. I enjoy entertaining the belief that it still exists in some form remniscient of it’s early stages. Maybe someday in my lifetime it will be reimagined as something greater than anyone could ever hope for.

xAndrew

This is perhaps the most innovative use of 18,500 gallons of paint EVER.

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