The Day After....

The good thing about this year's Day After The Oscars is that it doesn't feel like a societal hangover. Usually the show is sooooo long and sooooo boring and sooooo insulting to humanity with it's excess that the day afterward I always wake up feeling ashamed, like I was run over slowly by a steamroller as penance for living in a country that so blatantly flies in the face of global poverty and despair. But this year, thanks to - I don't know, Ellen Degeneres? - I didn't wake up feeling that way. So many celebrities spoke out about global warming and the need for something to be done; Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" won Best Documentary; the Oscars themselves were supposedly "green," although I need to check up on that...

Today is about editing. New Orleans. I've written the outline and it feels good. This morning I'm going through the footage and making notes about the good soundbites are. Next, after lunch, I'll throw the outline together in what's called a Radio Cut. Basically, the radio cut is the story told in audio only - soundbites, music, pacing. You pay no attention to the visual. You just lay out the story in your outline and see if it holds together if you close your eyes and listen.

I'm also researching hosting this blog somewhere else because I'd like to upload video examples of what I'm working on or at least screenshots of it. It'd be good to see a progression of each project.

Alright, I gotta get back to it. have a great day, y'all!

Home Again

I've been away for a very long time. Although there were pockets of time when I was home, they were short and always spent preparing to go on the road again. Most of the places I visited were for work and I enjoyed them a lot. One great exception was the Sundance Film festival. I hated it, but even there there was something good to do. I co-produced a video with my colleague, Karina Longworth, about the Iraq documentary "No End In Sight." You can find all of my videos on http://www.netscape.com/member/alexia/activity/videos. Every video I do for Netscape ends up here. Some I'm not so proud of and some I can't stop watching... :)

New Orleans, my most recent trip, was an incredibly rewarding experience. I saw a lot of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, and met a lot of locals affected. truly, though, everyone in New Orleans was affected, even if they didn't lose anything personal, they lost a lot of the city, and for New Orleanians, that's almost worse than losing your house. Check the above URL regularly for videos from my trip there as well as more from the India trip. Awesome, amazing stuff.

Overall, my three months of travel have been so eye-opening to me societally, certainly, but also personally. I've seen things I never imagined, and experienced things I couldn't prepare for. Now it's good to be home where I can rest and look out the window at the lake and be grateful about where and how I live.

Everyone should visit Kolkata. And everyone should visit New Orleans. But, truly, everyone should visit somewhere new whenever they get the chance. It's the only way we're going to learn about each other so we can grow and evolve.

"Difficulty shared is difficulty halved, Joy shared is Joy doubled." -Chinese proverb

I've Had A Lot of Espresso

I’ve had a lot of espresso. And it prompted me to have this conversation with this guy who’s out of work and newly moved to the area. He’s a mama’s boy. He told me himself. Calls her everyday and talks about everything. You know about that, right? Some of you have that. I used to have that, but my mother’s dead. I know… “BOOM!” right? It’s not that weird. It’s COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY FUCKED UP, but it’s not that weird. It’s part of the cycle, although, as an aside, I really hate people who hear about my mom and tell me things like: “I’m sorry your mother has transitioned.”

“TRANSITIONED”?????????? You’re sorry my mother has TRANSITIONED????? Well, I’m sorry that I can’t get a decent cup of coffee in the suburbs, can’t fit into a size 10 anymore, and that the price of gas in Los Angeles is un-fucking real. TRANSITIONED?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To WHAT?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

People who push their new age agenda make me absolutely, fucking crazy. If I wanted to hide from the facts, reject her death, live in denial that I can never, ever, EVER hear her voice again unless I play recordings of her over and over, I’d curl up into an ASANA, chant “Om,” and pretend I loved everyone TOO! BUT I DON’T!!!!!!!!!

I WANT to be miserable about my mom,
I WANT to miss her,
I WANT to rage as out-fucking-loud as I can because
I
HURT
SO
MUCH.

I’ve… had a lot of espresso… And none of it, and nothing else, can ever bring my mother back. So when I talk to a nice guy about how much HE loves HIS mom, it makes me feel

alive.

And like I’m here, and will be here, to speak of her and her beautiful deeds, forever.

Death isn't a "transition." It's black, and it’s bad, and it’s lonely-making,
and it’s okay. And I've had a lot of espresso, and you know what?
Mom LOVED espresso...