What better way to follow up a rambling, incoherent post about videogames and the Iraq situation than by blogging about going to the Grammys? More on that later when I get the photos transferred. I want to say that I did, despite cynicism and so on, have a complete blast going to the thing. I was down about some things in my personal life but it was great.

So the Tacoma, WA area newspaper that covers the town where Nick and I grew up did a nice article about us. Shameless self promotion, but I like this piece cause the guy tried to really get it right when it came to Nick and I's friendship and how it started. It's all here.

Read it at the Tacoma News Tribune.

And... Finally, finally... The latest video for The Decemberists.

Pitchfork has a high quality copy of the video and an interview with me about the video.

Here's a low quality youtube of the thing.

Apophenia: recognizing patterns in seemingly unrelated phenomenon. What's wrong with our military presence in Iraq in 2 and a half minutes.



The NYTimes writes on this year's Super Bowl ads noting an upsurge in violence for comic effect. I can't even keep track of let alone name the number of torture based horror films that seem to pop up every weekend. Here in the US we live in such a strange society: militarized with institutional violence, but comfortably divorced and insulated from it, but our culture, as a funhouse mirror, gives us instaneous permission to spectate it. Coke ran their Grand Theft Auto ad, in which the game is recreated but in a show of peace and kindness; creatives love that one and the article states it's one of the few kindly ones. People I've seen it with get the ad only if they've played the brilliant, despicable ultraviolent videogame.

Up late with grim thoughts. I just sat through Jarhead on cable (didn't like it, miscast and overtly dramatized when it should've been a scruffy, dogeared kind of thing - aiming for portentious meaning but just coming across as ham fisted and way too pretty. That's coming from someone who read and liked the book when it was released). Sometimes, I think like most of us this age, I'm overwhelmed by what is possible to know immediately and make connections with, and an inability and frustration to see any sort of exit from the labyrinth. Nothing infuriates me more than sensing I must give up on the personal sense of hope and optimism I'd like to carry. I like to think all of us have late nights where we feel the same.

I've been sitting on my ass, waiting for the Grammys. I'd love to show you the Decemberists video, but the release has been held up. Not sure how or why. There is a super low quality version floating around at places like Pitchfork but it's a cut we did only for MTV that I'm not happy with. Soon I hope.

Other than that I really have been doing absolutely nothing.

Here's a great interview with my favorite cinemtographer of all time, Emmanuel Lubezki. Who deserves the Oscar not just for Children of Men this year but Terence Malick's The New World last year. I think Lubezki is single handedly redefining what cinematography is meant to be by truly pushing at its boundaries. I love the ephemeral moments in his work - the flash of real lightning in The New World, the tilt up to the breeze passing through the trees in Children of Men. There's such a firmament of truth coupled with the artistry of photography in his work, and as a true hallmark of genius he's brave enough not to light things.

So I twiddle my thumb(sticks) and gain weight and just wait for the Grammys to pass. I think I've earned some time off. I realized doing a press interview yesterday that I started working on Directions about a year and a half ago. Since then I have worked full tilt on something or other ceaselessly. Right now it's really enjoyable to ignore my blackberry and just let my brain step down a notch. And then... Post Grammys hopefully come back out swinging, reenergized. I think we're going to lose the Grammy. I am just so happy to bring Nick there and be together with him since we started making films on VHS when we were twelve. It's a good moment to pause, and take stock, and realize that anything is possible. Cynicism aside I didn't think I'd get this far, and yet I have. I have even just signed to a company to rep me as a director. For years I'd been plagued by self doubt, the machinations of life, the need to get a real job, and also an adherence to reality and observation of the odds, knowing full well I was going to try but dreading most of all the day I'd have to give up. Hoping, crossing my fingers, daring to think someday I'd get to be at this point.

So here I am. This is good - it's all new territory ahead.