Saturday, January 28, 2012

Timeout Boy's Bad Dream

Timeout Boy usually wakes up about 5 to 10 minutes before the alarm goes off.  (And by alarm, I mean "Sesame Street" on Channel Thirteen.)  Sometimes, he'll just lie there in his crib.  Or he'll play and we'll hear him saying cute things to his stuffed toys.  Sometimes he'll go back to sleep, and sometimes he'll climb into our bed and cuddle.

Not too long ago, he woke up around five in the morning crying.  He climbed into our bed, and when I hugged him, I felt that his heart was beating real fast.  So I asked him what was the matter.

"Are you scared?"   He nodded his head.

"Did you have a bad dream?"  He nodded again.

"What did you dream about?"  He didn't say anything.  I didn't want to probe further and remind him of his bad dream, so I let it go.  I comforted him and told him everything was all right now.

After a while, I knew I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep.  And I saw that he wasn't sleeping either.   So I asked him if he wanted to watch Sesame Street.  He nodded yes, and we went over to the other room so we don't disturb Mommy.

We had an early breakfast, and I made hot chocolate and toast for when my wife wakes up.  When Timeout Boy had calmed down, I asked again what his dream was about.  I guess I wanted to get some insight into his subconscious, maybe learn what's weighing on his two year old mind, and maybe it'll help me somehow to respond to him better.

He didn't seem interested in talking about it.  "Did you dream about a monster?"

"Yes," he said.  Then we watched "Sesame Street" together.  (I recorded a bunch of them so we can watch them back to back without him going nuts when the show is over.)  It was a particularly cold day that day, and I warmed up the car so it was nice and toasty when my wife got in.

Later that day after work, I decided to ask my son again about his dream.  He just pointed quietly towards the wall.  There's this picture of a playful monkey with the words "Monkey at Play" that we bought from the dollar store when we were still expecting.  "The monkey?" I said.  He nodded his head again.  "The monster was a monkey?"

"Yes," he said.  I laughed.  I told him that monkey was nice.  I was trying to figure out what my son thinks about, and what goes on in his dream psyche and stuff like that.  I guess maybe he was staring at the monkey before falling asleep or something.  I don't know.



Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Memory Gland: A lucid dream.

Sometimes I think too much.  I am also a light sleeper.  This is not a good combination.

I wake up at least a couple of times a night.  I don't mind when I can get back to sleep right away.  But sometimes a thought will pop into my head, and my mind will wander.  And then an hour or two will pass, and I haven't gotten back to sleep yet.

(This is one reason why I write this blog even though no one really reads it.  It's good to be able to dump some of these things and clear my head.)

Anyway, last night I had such a rough time trying to get sleep that I went into a half-asleep, half-awake mode.  If that even makes any sense.  I ended up working on a video slideshow for Timeout Boy's third birthday.  And then my wife sat beside me and started giving me suggestions on the edit.

And then somehow, she turned into my client.  It was about three in the morning, and I told her I understood her directions but I was just about to sleep.  So then she lay back down in bed and faced towards her side of the bed.  I really don't think this is anything sexual because she is this old lady who looks and sounds like Lorraine from "MadTV".  I hope it's not, anyway.

And then Timeout Boy, like he sometimes does, rolled in his crib and talked in his sleep.  He said something like, "We have to play again!"  And we both laughed.

So then I reached for the standing floor lamp to turn off the light.  For some reason, its metal pole was wrapped tightly in an old faded beach towel.   I then noticed that on the wall near the ceiling were some big staple like thingies.  So then I realized the landlord or some workers must have been there to fix something up.

I lay down on the bed facing towards my side.  I then felt the need to pee.  But I didn't want to get up.  I wanted to sleep.  I thought about it for a minute or so.  And then I finally got up and headed to the bathroom.

I walked past the kitchen and noticed a couple of lines on the wall to my left.  I thought maybe they were more of those big staple thingies, so I wanted to touch them.  However, I couldn't move my left arm.  I used my right hand to lift my left arm from the elbow.  When I touched the lines, I saw that they were tiny cracks on the wall.

I stood in front of the toilet, just about to go, when I glanced behind me at the tub.  But it wasn't the tub.  It was another bed,  and my wife in it.  So I start thinking this isn't right, that there shouldn't be a bed in the bathroom.  So I guess I'm seeing things.

I reach for the light so I could see the room clearly.  But the light doesn't turn on.  I look at my wife and she smiles at me.

That's when I realized I was dreaming.  It was pretty scary and pretty cool at the same time.  How often do you know you're dreaming while you're in the dream?  Not often for me, so that part was pretty exciting.

But of course, I'm just not used to that, so I was kind of worried.  I yelled out loud, "I want to wake up!"

And then I was standing outside the bathroom door, looking towards the bed and the crib.  Suddenly, it was like I was in a DVD that was skipping.  Facing forward, then backward.  Forward, backward.

And there were a few seconds of black.  And then I woke up back in bed.  My wife was sleeping soundly next to me, and my son was snoring quietly in his crib.

It was actually a pretty awesome little adventure.  I just might be capable of having a real lucid dream someday.  But at the same time, to be honest, it's pretty terrifying.

And now here is a scene from "Waking Life":



Thursday, January 19, 2012

Final Cut Bro: Queer queries.

Through my years at work, I've been pretty good at small talk with clients.  It's a pretty useful skill when you have to kill some time while fiddling around with wires like a blind man in an orgy rendering, compressing, burning, uploading, downloading, etc.  And usually it's just nice to get to know them a little more.

One of my regulars usually comes and sits with me for a few hours.  Recently, however, he booked time for two days straight.  Things have always gone relatively smooth before because most of the projects had been just a few minutes long.  This time, however, the video we edited was about an hour.

That means it would take at least that amount of time to compress it to DVD.  And then some more to burn it and make copies.  I explained all this to him.  But wouldn't you know it, he wanted to wait anyway.  He paid for the studio time, of course.

What followed was a barrage of non sequiturs in the form of questions.  I was already aware of this character's quirk, but it was fairly manageable in small doses.  He was endlessly thinking out loud in interrogative sentences.  In the words of The Dude, he's like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know.

Here are some examples:
Do they still make CD burners? 
Why do you have two monitors? 
Who supplies your DVDs? 
Are these Halls for me?  (This is after he has been digging into the bowl all morning.  He then points out that there's an empty wrapper in there and that I should throw it out.  I tell him I didn't put that there.  He says he put it there.  And then he throws it out.) 
Did you see the Woody Allen documentary?  (I say no.)  Do you know if it was on film or digital?  (I tell him that I wouldn't know, seeing as I wasn't even aware of it.) 
Do you get DHL coming in here? Who do you use for your deliveries? Do you use the post office? UPS? 
Are you working Thursday and Friday? 
How long is "The Godfather"? 
(Before we take a lunch break)  Is it gonna be the Greek place today or McDonald's? 
(Reading Rolling Stone) Who do you think has a longer career, rock musician or classical musician? 
(After his phone rings) How do you make this off?  (He presses a button.) I just learned something. 
Do you have one of those iPhones?  (I say no, blackberry.) Oh, a blackberry. But can you talk on it, too? What does your wife have?

The next day, I come to the office and find him waiting for me, and he says, "David, you're always on time.  Did you know I was coming?"  And finally at the end of the session: "What are you gonna do next?"

It might seem pretty benign, but there were plenty more mind-numbing questions that I've left out.  This is why they pay me the big bucks to be a Final Cut editor.  And so, my friends, as the old proverb goes, if you don't know, you better ax somebody!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Queue Tips: No Takers

A friend of mine was kind enough to let me borrow "Takers", so I watched it.  I didn't really know much about it, but apparently, it's not the sequel to "Taken".  Idris Elba of "The Wire" fame is in it, and it was pretty cool to watch him in his English accent.  The guy who played the mayor had a small part in it as well.  Am I just me, or do these guys from that show always seem to appear with other actors from the cast?

Anyways, I can imagine some teenage kid watching this and really enjoying it.  I, however, thought it was pretty corny.  It's about a group of criminals who at the beginning look so calm and cool as they carry out a very elaborate plan to rob a bank.  They really seem professional, like they've been there before.  They even walk away from an explosion nonchalantly.  Like as though there's no exploding helicopter just a few feet behind them, they just walk away ever so slowly.  Oh, wait, that's slow motion.  You know, like that shot in John Carpenter's "Vampires" and a million other movies since.

And then there's a cop and his partner who are tracking down the group.  So we follow along with their subplot as the movie goes.  I'm not going to spoil the ending for you, but let me just say, there's really no payoff in the end.  There's really no point in showing the lives of these guys apart from the fact that it takes up time and distracts you from the main plot.

And then there's the ex-con who convinces the group to go along with his one great big score.  It's played by rap star Tip Harris.  I don't know.  Maybe I'm just me, but I don't think every rap star can be an actor.

One good one I could think of is Mos Def, who apparently is not the founding member of Def Leppard.  Not that I ever heard any of his music anyway, but I thought he was pretty good in "16 Blocks", "Be Kind Rewind" and especially "Cadillac Records".  And oh yeah, he had a very funny cameo in "I'm Still Here", the plot of which is the vice versa of this topic, an actor trying to be a rap star.  But I digress.

During the big score, the very cool criminals get into one minor snag, and everybody loses it.  There's cussing and finger pointing and plenty of confusing camera angles and quick edits.  And through all this action, Harris' character is describing everything to the rest of his group.  I don't know, but for some reason I was wishing the dialogue rhymed.

"Takers" also stars Hayden Christensen, known for playing Anakin Skywalker.  His previous movie was called "Jumper".  He has another movie called "Vanishing on 7th Street", but I don't think I'm going to watch it because it's in the wrong tense.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Memory Gland: Under where?

Well, you know, growing up in the Philippines, we never really got a lot of Christmas presents.  You were lucky to get one gift.  Unless of course, you were very rich, which we were not.  And of course, we were taught that it was better to give than to receive and all that good stuff.

You didn't really expect to get a ton of presents on Christmas morning.  We certainly didn't feel entitled to be writing to Santa with our demands.  My cousins and friends and I mostly just enjoyed being out of school and singing carols and seeing decorations and stuff. 

Well, on my first December in America, somebody gave me a present.  Only I don't remember who it came from.  It may have been from some aunt or my mom's co-worker or something.

At the same time, I had told my mom that our sixth grade class was planning on a gift exchange, also known as Secret Santa or Kris Kringle.  As a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant, I had no idea what to get an American boy for a present.  And then days later my mom comes home with that gift for me.

So I thought, you know, I don't really want anything, so why don't I just give this gift for Secret Santa?  Problem solved.  It made perfect sense to my 12-year-old mind.

I didn't think anything wrong with re-gifting either.  The gift was still new.  I certainly didn't use it.  I re-wrapped it and brought it to school on the last day before Christmas Break.

I had done gift exchanges with my classmates in the Philippines, but those were pretty much token gifts.  Generally, it would be some kind of candy or something, maybe a pen or some kind of school supply.  And it was always conducted by us kids amongst ourselves and done after class.  So I knew this time it would be different with it being kind of formal with everyone at their desks and everything.

I don't remember what I myself got as a present.  I was busy opening it, or examining it, or talking about it to somebody when suddenly someone in class exclaimed aloud.  It was my Secret Santa.

"Underwear???!!!!!"

It got everybody's attention.  The whole class couldn't believe it.  I did not expect that reaction.  In fact, I didn't expect any reaction.

Suddenly some kids were snickering and wanting to see the pack of briefs.  And I was being questioned about what I could possibly have been thinking.  And then there were jokes that I may have been sexually attracted to the guy.  That kind of stuff.

I just shrugged and laughed it off.  I didn't really think too much about it after.  I told my mom, and we laughed about it.  Even today, I started writing this because I of course thought it was funny.

But now I'm kind of wondering, how my life could actually be totally different had that not happened.  I wonder if any potential friendships may have been forestalled because of this incident.  I can think back to some of the boys who were not close to me after that winter, but that could all be coincidental.  If I did become friends with them, of course, I would inevitably be a different person.  And of course, some girl could have been less inclined to talk to me after that, and I could have had my first kiss and first other things way, way sooner.

But anyways, it happened and I don't really regret it.  It's just funny how writing about memories brings up so many other thoughts.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Timeout Boy Begins

It was Labor Day in 2008, and my then-girlfriend and future-wife wanted to do something with the day off.  We had decided on going to the Bronx Zoo earlier that weekend, and on Monday morning, and as usual, I woke up early and my wife woke up late.  That kind of got me upset because I didn't want to drive through traffic.

Even though it was already late, we decided to go anyway, and the vibe was pretty tense.  When we got there, the parking lots were full, so we had to drive around and settle on parking on some street in the Bronx.  I was not very happy about that.

When we got there, we only had an hour until closing, but we managed to walk around and take some pictures.  Then we left, I ended getting all turned around and going in the wrong direction.  I was very angry by this time, and in turn she was getting angry at me as well, but we both managed to keep our composure by the time we righted ourselves.

And then she checked her voice mail.

Let me rewind back a few days, and I'll warn you this might be just a bit TMI.  So it's up to you if you want to keep reading.


Monday, January 9, 2012

Queue Tips: 50/50

Fifty divided by fifty equals one.  As in, one great movie.  Well, I guess it depends on your expectations.  A friend of mine thought it was too slow, but I think he had the impression that this would be one of those hilarious, laugh out loud Seth Rogen movies.

That's why I don't like to watch trailers and commercials.  I knew I would check it out because Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in it, and he gave an excellent performance, by the way.  Seeing Anjelica Huston as his mother was also a nice surprise.  I have to say, I think she's pretty awesome.  In addition, it was pleasant to see Matt Frewer (Bob Moody from "Shaky Ground") and Philip Baker Hall (Lt. Bookman from from "Seinfeld").

I think the reason why I really liked this is that it was apparently based on a real-life experience by the screenwriter Will Reiser.  The rest of his work doesn't seem in line with this type of drama.  I think it reinforces the old saying that you should write about what you know.

I also didn't know who directed it, but it turned out to be Jonathan Levine, who was behind "The Wackness", which I don't recommend at all.  Or maybe I just had different expectations from it because it was a Ben Kingsley movie or something.  But anyways, definitely put "50/50" on your queue.  There's an equal chance you might like it.

Oh, and one last thing, I like the fact that they have an Asian doctor and and Indian nurse in one of the hospital scenes.

Oh yeah, and one other last thing.  Am I just me, or did anybody else find the musical choices of Radiohead's "High and Dry" and Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter" kind of strange?  I don't know.  I guess I've just listened to those songs so much that finding them in any other context seems out of place.

More queue tips: