Lab #3 - Advice to Tony at 18

1.  Everything is impossible to complete until you start it.

2.  Do not expect your life to fall into age-defined goals.  It won't.

3.  Don't worry about going to community college when everyone else is going to universities.  They seem to have everything figured out, but you will be surprised to learn that they won't be doing what they went to school for.  When you figure it out, you will be old enough with more experience behind you to do things better.  And it will be fun.

4.  Quit smoking.  You've only been doing it for a few years now, and even though you say you'll quit when you're older, older catches up quicker.  Which brings me to...

5.  Appreciate your youth.  The older you get the quicker the years pass.

6.  Take chances with the girls you like.  Talk to them.  Ask them on dates.  You will find out later that they liked you the whole time and you didn't make a move.

7.  For God's sake, stop worrying about your future.  Your were born with talents that are not going to allow your life to be plannable for the next decade.  

8.  Don't put your dreams on hold.  They are attainable and you will find that doing anything else will just make you miserable.

9.  Have confidence.  People around you don't have all the answers you think they do.

10.  Have fun.  You will find your voice simply doing what entertains you.

11.  Start reading.  You are a storyteller and films shouldn't be the only media to explore.

Lab #2 - Lost, discarded and Found!

A few years back I was reaching into my wallet to fish out some money perhaps, and someone who knew me very little asked about a picture inside.  I don't think anyone would be ready for the response, "I don't know" to the question "Who is that girl?".  But it was true.  I used to carry around a picture of a girl in my wallet that I didn't know and odds were, would never see in my life.  This is me.  

I wouldn't want things to be different.  I am proud of the fact that people could not completely understand me after talking only a few times.  I want to believe that everyone has depth but some choose not to explore it.

Anyways, this brings me to the "torch of tolerance" pictured above.  It started with a trip to Goodwill in Lakewood, Washington.  I was searching through the toy section with nothing specific in mind and landed upon a black Ken doll.  He was completely nude except for an interesting sticker on his thigh.  I began to ask myself what exactly a child would want with a nude doll.  So I purchased it.

When I got my treasures back to my dorm, I sat and tried to figure out what I had.  I removed the sticker from the thigh and relocated to his chest.  Then it hit me; I had the prototype of my own superhero.I gave him his own effeminate uniform complete with baton-twirler-type boots and a shirt that stopped just above his stomach.  The make-up completed the first transgendered black superhero I named The Darkness.  

Feeling a sense of satisfaction, I left my dorm to grab some dinner.  As I passed another dorm room, I saw something small and black lying on the ground.  It was the truncated end of a power cord to some type of electronic.  Fitting into his hand quite naturally, now The Darkness had a weapon.  His "Torch of Tolerance" assisted him in his quest to rid the world of racist, homophobic villains.

Of course this exercise in creativity was silly and without much reason but, nevertheless, exciting.  I can't say exactly what began my fascination with taking on tasks such as this or my love of thrift stores, but I can say that there is an underlying intrigue I have with objects that belonged to someone else before me.  I always imagine what kind of story these objects would tell if they had the means.  I also wonder what the original owners would think of the rebirth of their "junk".  By the way, that picture of the girl I kept in my wallet was obtained on the same trip.  It was in the frame section.  I just had to wonder why someone would give away a picture of someone that could only be close to a small number of people and why Goodwill displayed it.  I also liked the idea that I had possession of a picture of a girl that I would never meet.  I also wonder what she would think if she knew.

One of my favorite websites is http://taiga.com/~paul/ which is "The PSB Gallery of Thrift Store Art".  This person apparently has enough space and a similar fascination that he has collected vast amounts of paintings from thrift stores everywhere.  Some of the paintings are quite good but most are amateur, derivative, or unintentionally down-right creepy.  Still, you have to wonder what the stories are behind them and sometimes they can take on a mythology all their own.

"One man's trash is another man's treasure".  This rings true for me.  It really makes me understand the subjectivity of value and thankful that some put very little to things I want to put a lot into.

  

Lab #1 - The Modern Fridge Buzz

How can somebody define the time he/she lives in? Is it possible? For that matter, what would be the benefit? I asked a few friends and acquaintances how they would define "right now". Many felt we carve our place in the rings of the tree with our current politics. Others mention the advancements of communication, such as television and the internet. I, myself, tried to sum it up and arrived at simple answers myself.
This is not because I think these are the right answers, or that my interviewees felt theirs were the right answers, but the question is simply too complicated and always changing to answer in a casual manner. In many ways we are the end result of everything before us, but again that's too simple. So I asked myself, "Why, Oral B, can you not simply organize your thoughts on this?". I appear to lack the concentration to organize the thoughts. Then I remembered this...
As a child I never read. I always saw it simply as homework and therefore felt goofy enjoying it (kinda like vegetables). So as I reached my mid-twenties I begin to pick up books and seek to engage. Of course, I was a virgin to it and understood it would be uncomfortable at first, but eventually I would like it. I did, but there was one thing I had to overcome; silence. I had never thought about it before, but when I tried to read I found it difficult to concentrate without ambient noise all around me.
This brings me to the artist I would like to present to Baudelaire. In 1863 he presents his example of an artist representative of the times by the name of Constantin Guys. In 2009 I would like to present the musical group Radiohead.
1997 saw the release of one of the 100 greatest albums of all time "OK Computer", according to Time Magazine. I happen to whole-heartedly agree. I was 17 at the time of the release, so some of the subject matter took more time for me to appreciate fuller. Either way, one of the tracks on the album entitled "Karma Police" contains the lyrics:

"Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, hes like a detuned radio"

In an interview Thom Yorke, the lead singer, he spoke of the "fridge buzz" explaining that he was listening to some artist and all he really heard was a fridge buzzing sound. Of course, he was more than likely being metaphorical using this term the same way we use "white noise". He was suggesting that like a fridge buzzing in the background, this artist was creating "noise" that wasn't offensive but, also, really wasn't much of anything. Maybe this is how we could define our times. We receive so much information so rapidly on a constant basis. Our attention span is short and our patience is shorter. I'm not bashing us or one of those people that believe that everything was much better somewhere in the dead past, but Baudelaire beckoned people in "The Painter of Modern Life" to remember the awe we had as children in the smallest things and try to regain that as adults from time to time. Maybe Baudelaire would argue that there is no reason to define the present because only the past and future really exist.
I can think of times in my past I wish I could repeat and do better, but what's the point? I'm simply going to try to learn from the past, prepare for the future, and let the later generations tell me just what the hell I was doing.