Fail, fail, fail, fail, succeed

Monthly Archives: September 2021

ER Alert (Part 1)

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NYC ERs are seeing unusually high numbers of overdoses, a sure sign of heroin (or cocaine) cut with Fentanyl, an opioid approximately 100 times the potency of morphine.

Narcan is the drug of choice for reversing opioid overdose, and is available from any pharmacy – no prescription needed. Method of administration couldn’t be easier: it’s an intranasal spray, given like Afrin.

Carrying this with you might save someone’s life. See someone slumped over and not breathing? Give ‘em a squirt and watch them come back to life!

Handy tip: Watch from a distance, it works fast and they’re not happy when it kicks in.

It’s completely benign, so you’ll never have to worry about hurting them – besides, if they’re not breathing they’re already dead!

I wrapped up a 25 year-old in a body bag today.

If someone had given him Narcan he’d still be alive.

Going Along for the Ride

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I don’t know if it’s the same for other writers, but I’m coming down the home stretch of my first novel and pretty much all I think about are the characters in it. I don’t mean think as in “I wonder how I can develop this character…” I mean I think about them as if they’re real people.

Instead of me defining the characters, they’re telling me who they are.

This is such an interesting experience — whether or not it’s any good remains to be seen, but I’m having fun growing and learning how to become a better writer.

The scarcity of posts to this blog reflects my total immersion in this experience.

How to be a Successful Artist

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Hint: You have to make a lot of shit. Like, really a lot.

Let’s put it another way: As soon as you complete one piece, the next day you want start a new one. Better yet – keep a notebook of ideas for new stuff so you have a backlog of projects waiting to be completed.

And if no one seems interested in what you’re doing, all the better. ‘Cause then you get to walk around thinking about these new worlds you’re creating and feeling sorry for everyone who doesn’t get to live like this.

The act of discovery and personal growth is a very potent high.

As a bonus, it’s a buzz with no negative side effects.

Does the world need new art?

Who gives a fuck! I’ll tell you what the world does need. It needs more people creating cool shit.

So yeah – there’s that.

Asking the Wrong Question

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Why is CGI in movies so often irritating?

Hint: Why does attempting to recreate acoustic instruments with sampling or physical modeling always fall short of the visceral impact of hearing the real thing?

The answer to the first question lies in the second.

It’s a doomed mistake to use the incredibly powerful digital tools at our disposal to try and recreate known reality.

The answer is to use this technology to create new worlds we’ve never experienced, not to weakly attempt to recreate something we’ve already seen.

With film, you might think, “Well, I’ve never seen a 300 foot tall dinosaur that breathes radioactive fire before.”

Fair enough – IMHO the 300 foot tall dinosaur works precisely because it doesn’t exist in real life. But even in this case, if the CGI doesn’t convincingly create a believable world with its own sense of logic, it too fails.

What we want here is a total immersion in a new reality we’ve never seen before.

That’s what technology is for.

Not to recreate something that’s already been done.