gotta find a new place where the kids are hip

1. Phoenix is the perfect band for confused era which thinks that keytars sideburns, suspenders spandex gypsy caravan music and plaid go together. They don’t. They do.

Anyone who writes a song about the effect Liszt had on his fans, and a track named 1901, should perform at every high school history class from here to eternity.

Sorry math you don’t have anyone doing this for ya.

2. Of the 334343837 things I’ve been invited and alerted to this week I have no clue which ones I should go to. HELP. Being sick for a long weekend re-acquainted me with the perverse joys of Law & Order and serial killer’s torture rooms, but I can’t just do that this week, it’s literally on every channel. I started to choose between which murder would be more interesting. Today I chose a charred burn victim over a stabbing. Oh man.

3. Walking around Park Slope under the moon listening to Leonard Bernstein is thrilling. Really thrilling. Take a 1 1/2 hr 3 mile walk thrilling. OK whatever throw Goodbye Earl in there somewhere.

History repeats itself unless we pay attention. Only the characters change.

Seriously world. Figure it out.

Climate change is real and it is deadly.

God bless the Philippines.

So I’ve always had aspirations to Ira Glass-dom. Many a night have I accosted cabbies, a hairlength away from asking the metaphorical implications of the neon light pollution of Bombay and how it affects their work.

Nevertheless, I figured I might as well start with  those who I admire close to home.

First up, and inaugural guinea pig, Chris Hassan, filmmaker. You can find his work here: Shattered Glass Films.

I first met Chris when I transferred to UMass Dartmouth and he and some other folks made up the film community. I was in my cinema-verite stage but happily stalked the Woody Allen discussions on Facebook (back in the dayyyy oh boy), and soon ingested all things Allen. Good influence! But watching Chris’ short films soon became a favorite way of procrastinating from homework.

I think all artists have a moment or a string of revelations when they realized they wanted to be an artist.  What was that for you?

There was no real moment for me. My older brother made movies with the family video camera, drew his own comic books and wrote his own stories. So from a very young age I just observed, did the same and never outgrew it I guess. When I was in grade school, I wasn’t playing sports after school, I was in my basement building sets, writing screenplays and filming action figures.

Your work captures the idiosyncrasies in people very well and can sometimes be pretty dark, lots of death and awkward triangles — where does this come from?  Do you ever base characters on real people?

Everything I write comes from life. Most of the time, my life, but also other people’s lives. Very rarely do I write something that’s directly from real life.  It’s usually exaggerated in some way for entertainment purposes.  When I sit down to write, I try to think of people I know who could play the roles, and that helps me give the characters a voice.  If I can’t picture that particular person saying whatever I’m writing, then I’m probably doing a bad job.

What is your view on working with friends? Some people warn against it, some people work well with friends, some people get into artistic differences, some compliment each other…

I pretty much only work with friends, but it hasn’t always been easy. Early on, before I’d really proven myself, it was a struggle to get people onboard a project. Also, everybody (myself included) has egos and attitude in the beginnings of their careers, but you just grow up eventually.  I pretty much know if someone’s going to be a problem now, and I just drop them if that’s the case.  The key is to find people who are as serious about what you’re doing as you are, and to not work with the ones who think making a movie is just playtime.

Do you like making your art spontaneous or prepared?

For me, the planning process (writing, storyboarding, scheduling) is the most boring part.  I love filming, and editing and watching it all come together.  But I’ve also made a lot of films on the spot with friends, and it’s always a ton of fun.  I don’t crack up when I’m writing a script alone at my computer, but when you get an idea with a group of friends and put it on film right away, it’s always an enjoyable experience.  I feel filming with no script also keeps you sharp. It forces you to think on your toes and you find out how good you really are.

We all have slumps, I have slumps, how do you kick start yourself out of a slump?

In the past, when I’ve been slumpin’, I tend to take a couple of months off and just not think about film.  Then one day I get an idea and start working again.  I used to care more about what people thought of my work, and get really down about negative comments.  But I’ve reached a point in my life where enough people like what I do, so I must be doing something right.  You’ve got the natural born critics, the haters who just want to bring you down for petty reasons, and the people who will never understand me no matter what I do. So now I just do what makes me happy.

Chris, give us a weird event, night, walk down the street of your life.  I’d like to know which one is worthy of repetition.

Hm, a few of them have probably ended up in my movies, or will eventually.  I tend to find the humor in every situation, so it’d be hard to zero in on one particular weird event, night or walk down the street. Maybe I’ve just walked down too many streets.

Favorite pizza, and why. Be metaphorical about the toppings. Or not.

Okay, my top three pizzas.

Pepperoni and onion pizza from Pa Raffa’s in my hometown of New Bedford.

Pepperoni, onion and kalamata olive pizza from Not Your Average Joe’s.

Roasted Garlic Chicken from California Pizza Kitchen

So many people hate onions and olives, but the stomach wants what the stomach wants. I also HAVE to get a slice of pepperoni pizza when I’m in New York City. Best pizza in the world!

I like onions and olives. Do you drink coffee?

I don’t. I don’t like cream or milk. I drink Diet Pepsi every morning for my caffeine fix.

Why Diet Pepsi? Why never Diet Coke?

Because it tastes better.

Something not many people may know about you.

I’m a fast runner.

I did not know that. I guess we’ve never had to run from anything together. If I was gonna shuffle through your iPod….5 songs. NO LYING. I know Miley Cyrus is on there right next to Of Montreal.

“Party in the USA” is a pretty awesome song. I like to listen to pop music or anything with a lot of drums and attitude when I’m on the treadmill.  Rihanna just pumps me up more than Elliott Smith when I’m trying to burn calories.  Okay, I’m firing up my iPod and hitting the shuffle button…here’s what I got.

1. The Feelies – Loveless Love

2. Barenaked Ladies – Off the Hook

3. Ash – Kung Fu

4. David Bowie & Mick Jagger – Dancing in the Street

5. The Beach Boys – Never Learn Not to Love

Haha, I’ll be honest, I have no idea what three of those songs sound like based off those titles.

What are you working on right now?

I make a Christmas movie every year, so right now I’m working on my biggest yet. It’s going to be one giant Christmas Special filled with these 2-4 minute Christmas vignettes, along with some other fun stuff.  I’ve been collaborating with different writers on the vignettes, so it’s been a fun experience so far. There’s going to be a Michael Bay-like action film, a really sweet romance…I can’t wait for people to see it all.

What is some project you’d like to accomplish?

I don’t really have a dream project, I just have lots of ideas and I do them when I can. When I’m long gone, I don’t want people to watch my films in order and look for patterns or signs of growth.  I want each film to stand on it’s own and reflect a different feeling, or time in that person’s life.  Most of all, I just want to make films that people can relate to, or watch and walk away feeling good about themselves. I choose to write stories about social pariahs, flawed individuals or people in ridiculous situations because they’re just more appealing to me as a writer, but also because they’re realistic. I think the greatest thing any art can do is let people know they’re not alone and they’re just human…and that’s okay. If my films do that, then I’m a successful filmmaker.

Very nice Massachusetts, very nice.

No, you’re blessed to be struggling for something so meaningful. What’s a struggling accountant?

— Sabrina, on the merits of being a struggling artist. Apologies to accountants.

“I like you drunk AND sober!”

- Goodbyes in Brian’s kitchen, post-recording and midst the Chinese food + beer breakdown.

“Take a minute, Mercy. I’m always just taking a minute.”

-Sabrina, after I committed a traffic violation.

“INTERVALS! The INTERVALS!”

-Drunk Berklee music theory student who befriended me at the Regina Spektor show.

My brother explaining his feminist literary thesis late on the ride back, reminding me of one of my favorite literary motifs, dynamism vs staticity:

dy·na·mism

n.

1. Any of various theories or philosophical systems that explain the universe in terms of force or energy.

2. A process or mechanism responsible for the development or motion of a system.

3. Continuous change, activity, or progress; vigor.

// ]]>

You know what’s fun? Walking into a room all alone, kinda freaked out because you’re flying solo in that world, but be devil may care about it because you need to get you some people. For me it’s been classrooms, activist organizational meetings, bars, gigs, parties, street corners, open sings.

You know what’s surreal? Seeing someone and kinda knowing immediately they’ll be your friend because you just KNOW, you’re floating on the same wavelength.

You know what’s heartwarming? Fast forwarding to some random time and place in the future, in some random apartment in Somerville underneath a highway on a crystalline day, and in between chugging beers and recording harmonies and picking up friends in Davis Square, looking around the room or looking in the rear view mirror and realizing that 4 or 5 different friendship-at-first-sight friends that you met this way in totally different places are now chillaxing. And then realizing they brought their own friends to the party that you really dig.

You know what makes me feel like I’m in 5th grade? WHEN THEY PARTY WITHOUT YOU LATER ON THAT NIGHT BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO GO HOME EARLY.

But it all made me wake up really thankful this morning.

Going back to watching cool geeky Mythbusters Planet Earth Wild Pacific stuff with my little brother.

PS: Someone please build a train between Brooklyn and Cambridge. There are too many good people in both places not to knit together.

What happened to you as a kid that made you such a barnacle pocked scumbag?

http://xurl.jp/hf4a

In my slumming non-prof activist intern days I drove Mr. Jones to breakfast. There aren’t really heroes, but he is.