The Jonestown Defense

This weekend was amazing. I worked on a movie called "The Jonestown Defense." I have finally found what I want to do granted this is only the second time I've worked in this industry. It's quite surprising how much you can bond with people over a very short period of time. The weekend went by so fast, yet, I feel like I've been away from this desk job for weeks.

I tried to take a lot of pictures of the shoot, but alas I failed. Anyway, the photos start from the first day on the job, 7am, breakfast, lounging at Tandem's office on 5th ave.

Great spread of bagels, cream cheese, and sliced tomatoes.

Dennis Ostermaier as Christopher Waite.

Cinematographer Andrew Wonder and Director Greg Takoudes.

Dennis and Co-Producer Jeremiah Kipp about to have a heartfelt hug!

After a long day on location I got my freak on and painted myself gold for Brandon's birthday. Check out the stripper shoes.

The next day I turned green, had to wash up, and get back at 7am.

George Alvarez deep in thought.

Jackie Dribbon, Archie McCallister, Matt Timms, and me in a joint effort to finish the jumbo crossword!

Somehow, I went from PA to extra...and thank goodness there are no embarassing photos of that, but I guess there's footage... uh oh. Great experience. Lots of fun. Awesome people. All that followed by a drunken night of beer, bourbon, and GI Joe

Another weekend gone by

So I bought a keyboard last week during my slight mental breakdown. I decided I needed to be musical. The problem with this is that I am not and now own a keyboard but have nothing to play. I was tempted to ask my next door neighbor, a pianist, knowing he offers piano lessons, but probably my horrific lack of talent would shock him so much he may move... This being said, I set off Friday afternoon to go to a music store to try and purchase music books, maybe Jazz piano, or just random sheet music (possibly Twilight score to fuel my obsession.)

Somehow I was distracted from this, oh food with that Boostier and shopping with that Samool might have done me in. I accomplished nothing but getting sweaty as hell and ofcourse running into an elementary school friend looking like ass, not having showered ofcourse, cause I figured why bother...it was hot.

The weather took a turn for the worse later in the afternoon, but thankfully, because actually the rain made it less humid and hot, if possible. The sky looked like it was coming down though. Pretty scary.

The "cool" didn't last for long, as the next morning, setting out for breakfast at Mike's and some Luigi's pizza, it was hot as hell again. We spent most of the afternoon chilling indoors at a friends place sweating on ourselves and hanging out.

This hanging out business did not exactly help my need to figure out how to play the musical instrument I just purchased. I was still stuck playing part of the only song I know. I ended up on the phone with a drunk friend who did tell me 10 notes of a song by the Decemberists. So pathetic. If only I had perfect pitch.

So this store opened up on the corner of Vanderbilt and Prospect Place called Milk Bar. It was a restaurant that had been closed for what may be years called Garden cafe, and now finally, it has been replaced by something that is at least open. Since it's opened I've passed it every morning, but had not brought myself to betray my usual morning spot, Joyce. So, this weekend was my first time trying it out. Maybe I'll make it my Monday spot as the people that I like at Joyce only work Tuesday through Friday. Anyway, they have this great "australian iced coffee" which is essentially a coffee float. So good. The place is done up pretty nicely and I guess serves food.

Rest

This weekend I went back to the original "weekend ride" plan. Going away for two weekends in a row was too much for my quarter age body to handle. So it is Brooklyn. In all it's glory.

Since some seem confused by this image. These are pupusas.

I spent most of this weekend being overly contemplative about life, existence, ambition, accomplishment, fulfillment, desire etc.

Architecture in practice is vastly different from the word, or at least the meaning people believe. Someone left off the fine print. In practice it is like beating a dead horse with a stick. Everything takes TIME, lots of TIME. It is surprising how sick of a project you can be when it has not even hit construction. They tell you to enjoy school, make the most of each semester, do as much as you can. You don't realize how much better it was to have a time limit and to only go as far as maybe 'DD' until 2 years later you've memorized sprinkler and diffuser locations for a job that has no visible end in sight. They don't warn you. Or, maybe they do but, no one listens.

What do I want?

Now that's the key question. I only know one thing for certain and that it is not this. I know that in 20 years I better not be sitting here polylining.

Will someone pay me $2000 a month to find my calling?

Maybe I'll take up something that I've never been good at, something that is so drastically different from my area of expertise (if i have an area at all) and try that, something that isn't easy, something embarassing.

Boston

Before Twilight hit me with a ton of repetition, I went to Boston. In a few days I felt like I had seen everything there. Of course to someone that has lived there I'm sure I'm dead wrong but, it definitely felt small; as if one took a block from a few neighborhoods in NYC, cleaned them, and stuck them in a clump.

The Hotel Colonnade.

We chose this place as it boasted that it had a nice roof top pool. Little did we know that it was merely a motel pool with plastic lawn chairs, placed on a roof. However, the rubber ducky, who's name has escaped me, made up for this deficiancy. The Hotel was in a convenient location between Back Bay and South End, near the Prudential Center. Our first afternoon we managed to walk up and down Newberry and see Boston Commons before going back and finding a nice seafood restaurant to eat at.

B & G Oysters on Tremont Street was recommended by "Best of Boston" after Neptune Oyster, but as it was closer and said to be more 'casual' we chose it instead. The lobster bisque was delicious!

The second day we took the T to visit cambridge and see Harvard, which seems to have influenced our own campus at Pratt quite a bit.

The images for the quad could almost be interchangable, but Pratt, having more recently landscaped, opted for brick. Being in somewhat familiar territory we felt quite at ease here and moved on to the more wild and stark campus at MIT. We went to see the monstrosity by Frank Gehry and stood at a driveway entrance wondering where it might be when we turned around and saw this. It looks like Dr Suess invaded this austere, technical, campus...

Not realizing the scale of the city we managed to squeeze in basically the rest of Boston into out 1st full day.

That evening we tried very hard to have a nice meal at, I suppose, a famous Boston restaurant: No.9 Park. However, we were forgotten at the bar and waited almost an hour, got drunk and became annoyed when the hostess sat us in a emptying room. We walked out and realized we had been in close proximity to what may be the greatest restaurant of all time

Too bad it was too late to eat there =( I think it would've been GLORRRIOUSSSS. GLOOORRRIOUS.

I guess the last day I didn't even bother to take pictures cause we just biked around the whole city again and ended at ICA. I found it less impressive and compelling in real life.