obit blogs

Even though this is my fourth entry that has touched on the topic of death, I swear I'm not obsessed with it. At least not in a Harold and Maude "I go to funerals" kind of way.



I will admit to being somewhat fascinated by death as well as pretty scared of it too. But one thing that I actually enjoy and find a kind of comfort in is obituaries. I love the idea that everyone's life is a story and after you die it can all be summed up into a few paragraphs to be shared with everyone. With celebrities, it's always interesting to see what aspects of their lives are focused on. Even if said celebrity (I'm not mentioning names, but I'm sure you can guess) lived a life of secrecy and accusation of things we will never know if they were guilty of or not, their obituary will only remember what was good about them. In fact, we can end up feeling really good about a celebrity on a personal level after reading their obituary.

I noticed a while back that the Los Angeles Times has an obituary blog in the blogs section of their website. Brilliant! This makes even more sense than their paper obits. It seems like a more permanent and meaningful tribute to the deceased. Sometimes the blog will be about the anniversary of someone's death or sometimes it will just be a simple link to a story that has something to do with obituaries in general. today I found such a link...Stint On the Obit Beat Reveals Dangers of Incuriosity.

A happy story about obituary writing with a positive message at the end. We should all remember to be curious and to go out and live our lives.

"A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they're not dead, really. They're just... backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt, even! Play as well as you can. Go team! Go! Give me an L! Give me an I! Give me a V! Give me an E! L. I. V. E. LIVE! ...Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room."

-Maude (Ruth Gordon) in Harold and Maude

Monday again.

Remember when people actually used Myspace? I know it wasn't that long ago, but for some reason it feels like it's been forever. You go on there now and it's like a ghost town of abandoned profiles with status updates frozen in time. They had a really great feature on there called Bulletins. It's probably where the Twitter guys got their idea and now Facebook works pretty much the same way. It was just a way to write something short or share a link and all of the people on your friends list see it at the same time. Kind of like sky writing on the internet. When I was at my most active on Myspace, back when I had lots of time on my hands (oh like I don't still have too much time on my hands) I had a daily bulletin that I would post called Quin's Daily Youtube Bulletin. I would post everything from old music videos to short films to trailers or just something bizarre and random. I enjoyed it and i actually got tons of feedback from people. That was where I came up with the idea for this blog. I figured it was more space to post things and write about them and that there would be a potentially bigger audience. I'm sure that's still a possibility but it hasn't happened yet. So until all of the people show up this is just a place for me to work on my writing skills and be a little silly. It's so much easier to be silly when there's no one watching, even though you know there's a possibility that someone might walk in at any time.

So I was thinking back on some of the youtube videos I had found and posted and thought I would put together a few that stand out as some of my favorites.

old music video:

Yello "I Love You"



short film:

Bambi Meets Godzilla



trailer:

"Who's Afraid of VIrginia Woolf?"



bizarre:

"Skateboarding Girls"



Well, I think that's about all for today. Class is dismissed.

Rest in Peace, John Wooden

There are going to be a lot of these in the next few days. Many will be more personal, with more detail. Most of them will be more well written. But the one thing they will all have in common is the honesty. It's hard to feel great sadness when someone who lived for 99 years passes away. Thinking back on what I know about John Wooden, I feel mostly gratitude. I am grateful that I was fortunate enough to get his message. There is a John Wooden quote that pertains to almost any situation. All of these words will live forever and will hopefully continue to inspire people. Thank you, John Wooden.





"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you."
-John Wooden

Awakening The Beast

In the past few months my interest in creative writing has popped back up again. I've always enjoyed the process of writing, but sometimes my laziness takes over and the writing just stays inside my head. Until they figure out a way to hook a brain up to a printer, this is just called thinking. This week I finally decided to take action. I was thinking about how to start the process up again when the lightbulb went on...I HAVE A BLOG!!! Yes, my neglected blog is clearly the best place to practice my writing and to create the discipline I need so badly (desperately) to make sure I do it every day.

This is an experiment. But I really need to do this. I'm even taking extra measures this time and having a few people check up on me here to see that I am keeping up the daily writing. The great thing about this blog is that it can be about pretty much anything that I think is cool that I find somewhere on the internet. There is obviously an endless amount of material for this. But in the next few days I will also be starting a second blog that is a bit more focused. That blog will specifically feature film reviews. I watch a ton of movies and I always have something to say about them. As soon as I have something written and I think of a catchy name for the blog, I will post a link here.

See you tomorrow.

A Ken Burns Film

I am hopelessly enamored with the films of Ken Burns. I've seen about half of them so far, and I intend on seeing them all. After I watch one of his films, I feel like an expert on that subject. It makes me wish that every time I looked someone up on Wikipedia, instead a Ken Burns documentary on that person would magically appear. This may be sort of strange, but the two films of his that I enjoyed the least were the two that got him an Oscar nomination, The Brooklyn Bridge and The Statue of Liberty (but they are still very interesting). I think he is best at capturing the human spirit on film. He doesn't leave out the negative aspects of his subjects, but he always makes you identify with them in some way. We are all people and we are all flawed, but we all have the capacity and capability to do something extraordinary, significant and change the world. 

You can probably find all of his films at your local library...go get a library card right now!

but first, watch this...

P.S. Karen from The Office is portrayed by Quincy Jones' daughter.

she is dreamy. :)

Uncle Forry, R.I.P.

It makes me so sad that Forrest J. Ackerman has passed on to... I should have a pun there that has something to do with monsters in the afterlife, but I am just not that clever. But, like I said, I am sad. He had such an amazing life that every nerd dreams of having. He coined the term "Sci-Fi" and he knew Ed Wood, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and even Fritz Lang. For years he lived in the Ackermansion, near Hollywood, Karloffornia. His home housed the largest Sci-Fi and Horror film memorabilia collection on earth. I first heard of him in an American Lit class in high school. The teacher I had took two weeks out of the year to devote it entirely to the history of science fiction. (As a side note, I have to mention that over the summer I found out that teacher had passed away. Maybe someday I will write and entry for him.) After telling us that the first science fiction book was Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and talking in great detail about Ursula Leguin and the Big Four (Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein and Clark) he wrote a phone number on the blackboard. It said 213-Moon Fan. That was Forry's home phone number. You could call after 6 to make reservations to take a tour of his place. I really regret that I never called that number. I met Forry in 1995. I got to chat with him for a bit. I asked him about Ed Wood and what he thought of the Tim Burton film. He made it very clear that Bela Lugosi NEVER said the F word. But other than that, that Depp guy was a pretty good actor. He then gave me his card and I put it in my wallet and still never called to make arrangements go see his collection. damn. Lucky for you, and me, there is a ton of stuff on youtube about him and his Ackermansion. Let's enjoy that now, shall we?

Forrest J Ackerman is truly one of the greatest people I have ever known.

Gary Busey

I've been watching Celebrity Rehab on VH1 and i am continually fascinated by the craziness of Gary Busey. While it is completely insane that Rod Stewart's son has no idea who Buddy Holly was, when his dad was in The Faces, I just can't stop watching this damn show. 

I want to post some great Gary Busey videos, but first here is The Faces performing "Maybe I'm Amazed."

And now here's some Gary Busey...

Absolutely fascinating! it's like watching an episode of Wild Kingdom or Nova.

And now, here is the greatest thing that Gary Busey has ever done.