This can't be happening.

"This can't be happening," has to be one of my favorite phrases of all time.

In other news... look over there. What is that?

Fantasy

I saw John Carter last week. It was good. I wanted it to be great, which made it worse. Some people saw that movie and didn't like it at all. Some people saw it and it filled them with awe, which is what a movie like that partially aims to do. Take 700 people and $350 million dollars, 500 shots, 70,000 special effects, 12 script drafts, and combine them just the right way and it pierces something deep inside us. The ads for the Christopher Reeves Superman movie said, "You'll believe a man can fly!" And that's what we want. Childlike awe. We want to believe in Santa Claus and King Arthur and the Green Lantern. What Star Wars and Indiana Jones did to us when we were children, that's what we want from John Carter.

Some people did feel that. I didn't. I took a bus home and went to sleep. A couple days later, I started watching the 6th series of Doctor Who on Netflix. And what I saw on my laptop did for me what I had wanted from John Carter 3-D. I believed a man could travel through time and space in a box that's bigger on the inside. I believed two time travelers in love could travel in opposite directions and reach one perfect moment in the middle of their relationship, but every other one would always mean more to one than the other. I believed in anti-matter prisons and the most deadly foe in the history of Earth, who everyone has seen but no one can remember. I also believed that these things were fucking awesome.

What's cool about it is that one strip of cinema hit someone's brain in a movie theater this week and did the same thing to them that a compressed digital streaming tv show did for me in my apartment. What's cool is that there is no formula for awe. It hits you right and you're there and it does something for you unlike any other experience I know. A rarer sensation than some of the best ones out there. It's better that it's different for everyone. Your favorite lover usually isn't your neighbor's favorite and blue moon ice cream does for him what only mint chocolate chip can do for you.

Fantasy is delicate and it's intimate. In a balanced world, Spielberg and Lucas would get hundreds of kisses everyday instead of millions of dollars

Rivers/Museums

The river walk. Past docked empty cruise boats, reminded of Boston. The smell, the breeze, the thick ropes. How long have these boats been the same? The upper level cage, folded up chairs. Great-grandparents rode the same boats.

Another city with a river. Do all great cities have rivers? Is there a great land-locked city. We still live in the world mapped out by pre-industrial civilization. In hand-drawn maps.

Museums make you feel time, not just because of the history but because it's the place you went as a child. Don't know if it was time or fantasy I felt then.

I Wrote My Name On It

(Me, a record, a turntable and my homie Wayne Coyne)

Photo by Erik Ljung

Here’s what’s happening.

I mean everything happening.

Sometimes, when I’m stomping around the office cursing because I wasn't paying attention in high school when Mrs. Jewwet (sp?) was teaching me photo shop, I just need to stop and remember that everything will be OK.

And it will be. Today starts the Heavy Hands Kickstarter Campaign. Woot Woot!

I feel really, really, really good about this project. I know that in the end it will be much more than I ever thought it could be. So there’s that.

Tonight Altos are having a listening party at Burnhearts (where I work) and Katie Rose is bar tending (and she’s awesome!) and then...

This coming saturday they are having their record release show (Stonefly Brewery March 10th 8 PM) where the album they created, where the music video I directed, “Sing (for trouble)” off their new album, will be premiering.

Altos’ album is amazing, as people - they are amazing, the rest of the lineup for the album release is amazing. (including the Larry Bird of storytelling, Jim Winship)

I’d like to say a lot of things about everyone in that band and everyone who helped on the music video and a lot of things right now but really, really, I’ve been sitting in front of a computer for a few weeks now and I just can’t put into words how I feel about anything.

I know working on this video and working on Heavy Hands and making all these new friends has been one of the best things in my entire life. So, there’s that.

When I was a kid my dad had a bunch of records in the basement. (this collection has since been pillaged by my brother, then by me) On the back of each record there would be a name. Nothing complicated, just a simple marking “Fil” or “Jon”, for “Phil”(my dad) and “John”(my uncle).

I’ve never been much of a collector. In fact, there are very few things that I carry from one destination to another. I usually just throw out what I don’t need and move on...I’m sure that says something about me - but let’s not get into it.

But the other day I stopped by dan’s house and he gave me a copy of the new Altos record and for the first time I found myself writing my own name on the back of something. Which, I guess, means it’s something I don’t want to lose - or throw away.

And I don’t.

So maybe, just maybe, this is the start of holding onto things for old Sean. Oh boy. Here we go.

KICKSTARTER (it has begun)