INCREASE-DECREASE

Yesterday I had a meeting with Griffin. We try to meet up at least once a week, but thing have been so crazy in both of our lives lately that we haven’t really had much time to. But yesterday, we made it happen.

What was discussed?

I can’t go into EVERYTHING, but one thing we know is that we’re gonna start working on another project soon, and you’ll all be apart of the process…so stay tuned.

The rest of the conversation was about how art is actualized most through consistency, and that the challenge for most artists is just that - being consistent.

To be consistent you have to work around the other stuff in life, sacrifice some things, better manage your time, and work harder at working smarter. You really gotta be in it even when life doesn’t “allow” for it. The two of us have been “in it” for a long time, and doesn’t look like it’ll be letting up anytime soon, but instead expanding into more.

See, through consistency, you also discover other part of your own discipline (personally and artistically) and some of those “I only do this” walls come tumbling down. The Warholian way. The R&G way.

Griffs gonna post a short vid he’s been working on, in a bit (maybe even later today). It’s awesome, and different, and hilarious.

And a little nuts, but if any of you know Griffin…well…

I watch as jump ropes turned double dutch, and little girls come running from inside their homes, and inside themselves, to outside with eachother for a turn, and a jump.

Such a beautiful thing.

Yesterday at the McNally bookstore on Prince St. there was an interview with Ray Bradbury (author of Fahrenheit 451, the Martian Chronicles and hundreds of others). I was actually just stopping in to read some magazines and kill some time, but the place was so packed I knew something had to be going on. Once I found out it was a Ray Bradbury interview, I was kinda perplexed only because I know that Mr. Bradbury is pretty old, and because, well, he’s a legend. Like, LEGENDARY. Like, I doubt he’s leaving California to do a quick talk at a tiny bookstore that by no means, has the money to pay for this guy. And I was right, and wrong.

Ray is old now. 90 to be exact. And he wasn’t actually there. They skyped him!  To see the face of arguably the father of science fiction, to witness the man who “predicted” so much, like the mind control that television and technology would and now does have over so much of us, to see him there talking with such candor and humility was amazing.

Some gems he dropped:

The original draft of Fairhenheit 451 (which Farhenheit 911 got its name) was written in nine days! He didn’t have a typewriter at the time, so he had to go to the library and use theirs for 10cents a half hour. Knocked it out in nine days, because if not it would’ve gotten expensive.

 He believes that love is everything.

His favorite story is Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol. He said it’s about death in the center of life, and life in the center of death. A reawakening, and reckoning so to speak. He said, he is Scrooge telling everyone to come live with him forever.

He’s working on a new collection of short stories right now. At 90!

He told the crowd to never think, just to do. Don’t think, just do. “If there are any students in that room, get the hell outta there and go do it!”

Amazing.

Oh, he also cracked a joke about Mel Gibson, which was poignant and right on time.

Well, there really is no Terry Richardson and I. Just Terry Richardson. And I. See, I see Terry all the time walking around SoHo, with random people, usually beautiful women, and I always say, “Hey Terry! Love the work, man!” in some sort of lame way. Oh wait, for those of you who don’t know who the hell I’m talking about, he’s a super famous photographer. Dude is the man! Click here.

So anyway, yesterday I’m eating pizza outside of the famous Ray’s Pizza, when Terry Richardson walks by. AGAIN! I was just telling myself earlier in the day, that if I saw him again, I was gonna ask him to shoot me (with his camera) and low and behold (whatever that means) there he was, walking lazily down Prince Street with some model chick dressed in summer plaid and dirty denim.

Can’t break promises made to self. So, I asked him.

“Yo Terry! Love the work man! You should shoot me!” Just like that. Ridiculous.

His response, “Hey man, thanks. Yeah let’s make that happen!”

And he kept walking. And I finished my pizza, and thought, “yeah right Terry.” But I appreciated him not being a jerk about it. I appreciated him humoring me. And to be honest, there is a little part of me (a very little part of me) that thinks that the next time I see him, he just might take a snap.

…Is what a wack person would say.

Movie was friggin awesome! AWESOME!!

Telling you anything about the movie would be telling too much, but just know it’s about dreams.

And stuff.

Just something interesting…

Hmph.

This morning I’m sitting in the window of my favorite neighborhood coffee shop. While working tirelessly, as usual, I glance up for a moment to give my eyes and mind a breather. Across the street was a man and his daughter. She dressed in all pink, and sitting on an all pink bike, with matching training wheels, was having a bit of trouble propelling the bike forward just by pedaling.

The father smiled, and placed his hand on the back of the seat, and gave it a little bump. Just enough to get her going.

And off she went.

I have nothing more to say.

A book by Paolo Coelho. One of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read, and possibly one of the most beautiful stories ever written.

Just to show how incredible it is, check out the FIRST paragraph:

“By the River Piedra I sat down and wept. There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river- leaves, insects, the feathers of birds- is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed. If only I could tear out my heart and hurl it into the current, then pain and longing would be over, and I could finally forget.”

See? Wow.