My name is Terry and this is my blog. 
09/16/2005: "With One Fist in the Air"
music: Don't Lose Touchmood: Baby, I'm an Anarchist
One word: Productivity. Shit is starting to blow up and the good news is I'm starting to find my targets again. Refocusing. It's midnight, so spelling and grammaticals will be corrected in the morning. BTW, grammatcials is probably not a real word.
Onward to the news section:
Last Friday I got to meet up with my college buddy from NYC (who still wishes to remain anonymous). She was in Cerritos production managing a show with an Afro-Latin Jazz band. It was great. I got to watch the show from backstage and the featured/guest player that night was a clarinetist, Paquito D'Rivera, who played beautifully. Truly inspiring, since I spent a good portion of my awkward teenage years playing the clarinet myself. But hey, the prettiest girl in high school at the time- Andrea Wissinger played the clarinet too so I can't kick myself too much for playing a "girlie-man" instrument (on a side note the only other guy clarinet player in the marching band was a guy named Joe Smith [really], who during senior admitted that he was a homosexual). I've been thinking lately that I should pick up the clarinet again and go all fucking jazz on the thing. At the time I was learning jazz clarinet my mind was so not there in terms of dorian scales, major and minor chords, dominant scales etc, but now that I am a super fucking genius, I may have more of an appreciation. Plus, I actually am getting into jazz, so it could be a good hobby. Or maybe I can invent a genre like "Indie-Rock Clarinet" where I play jazz clarinet while dressed as a hipster and play venues like Spaceland.
Well, back to Friday. After the first set ended I headed back to the green room where my NYC friend was watching TV and I realized that Fashion Rocks was on CBS. We switched it over just in time to catch The Arcade Fire perform "Wake Up" with David Bowie. I repeat - The Arcade Fire - "Wake Up" - David Bowie. Fucking amazing. I'm a sucker for these televised musical performances. During high school and maybe up until a year ago I was obsessive about taping these kinds of things off the TV. The performance hit me with a kind of brilliance/inspiration that I haven't felt since Suede did "Metal Mickey" on Leno, or The Strokes did "The Modern Age" on Conan O'Brien. Someday I will compile a Terry Huynh's All Star Compilation of the stuff I've taped. Suffice it to say, it was a great performance. The only shitty thing about the performance was when the camera cut to Heather Graham doing her best impression of a hipster enjoying indie-rock music. Obviously "Fashion Rocks" seems like an odd venue for The Arcade Fire, but where do you draw the line? It's like "Man, they're the best band ever, but it sucks now that my little sister and her friends dig them too?" Am I being a music snob? Dilemmas, dilemmas. Anyway, I get to see them live at the Austin City Limits Festival next weekend and I'm hoping to be blown away.
On a side note - Dolder tivo'd the event so I was able to watch Gwen Stefani's performance of "Cool." I was a bit disappointed as she seemed off that night and it was only her on the stage. I would have opted to have a live band or at least a more decorative background. Whatever, it's still the single of the year in my book.
On Sunday I saw The Constant Gardner, which I really liked. It's the beginning of the fall season for movies and for me that's when all the good shit comes out. Really excited to see Jarhead, Brokeback Mountain, Corpse Bride and a few more I can't think of off the top of my head. Oh yeah, Just Like Heaven (think Ghost Dad with Napoleon Dynamite, friggin Puddin Pops, the kidz don't understandah da jazz). Fuck it, I'll stop.
Also this week I finally got around to reading Christopher Doyle's book R34G38B25, which is about the film Hero and it's use of color. I bought it back around Christmas, so it's been a bit of a delay. A director at the company, David, had a birthday this week and when my boss asked us what we should get him as a gift, I recommended the book. A few days prior I had seen David opening up a copy of Chungking Express. This was the signal for me to switch it into geek mode and go into intense shop talk about Wong Kar Wai and Christopher Doyle. I find out that David is a huge Doyle fan. In the end he loved the gift and my bosses were very impressed with my thoughtfulness and gift accuracy. Long story short: I had to read the book this week in case I saw David at the water cooler and he's all like "Dude, remember when Doyle deconstructs the use of red for Maggie and Zhang Zi Yi's fight sequences . . ." and I'd have to be like "yeah, I remember that." If you liked the film Hero or if you like Christopher Doyle's work I highly recommend the book. Insightful thoughts on color and its meaning in film. Nicely packaged and only 55 bucks at Giant Robot.
A few final things and then I'm off to bed. I've added a link to my friend Mitch Glaser's web blog. Mitch writes about himself, Los Angeles, urban ideas, malls, what have you. Very interesting and very educational. He is a tour de force, that man. My aspiration is to have the VKLJ reach his levels of quality and quantity, satisfaction guaranteed.
Lastly, like I said at the top of the blog, things are starting to turn around for me - work-wise, life-wise. So say a prayer for your son, your friend, your bro. Pray he doesn't fuck it up.
TGIF, my darlings.