Saturday, September 11, 2010
El Cholum is here!
Here's a sneak peak at concept art for El Cholum... an Aztec demon who love junkfood, beer, tequila, and the sound of potato chips being eaten on the couch!
Friday, September 10, 2010
Death Spirit that loves Junkfood!
I am in the process of designing and dreaming up two crazy beasts for two short films that I am planning. This one is a Death spirit that is attracted to junkfood, cigaretts, beer, and the sound of potato chips being crunched on the couch. I saw this Demon in a dream once and I am trying to conjure it into this realm. The dream had a creepy comedic feel to it... almost like a cross between Terry Gilliam, Andrey Tarkovski, and Evil Dead. With some old school Twilight zone and Tales from the Darkside mixed in. These are the inspirational elements for the puppet that I am currently designing. It will have to be run by three puppeteers. One for the Head and one for each arm. I will have design art up soon. Polo! Ayuda Me!
The Muse Bytes... O.D. is with Scylla...
Thursday, September 9, 2010
The House of the Spirits... Denver!
Here is a sneak peak at the latest play that I am working on. The House of the Spirits by Caridad Svich based off the book by Isabell Allende. We just started Tech today... but it's very visually stunning!
a memory...(a year ago) Mom, Night Ravens, Steve Winwood, and Struggles.
This is a journal entry from a year ago... I find it fascinating in hindsight. Its a memory of my mother and her vibrant spirit, as well as my own struggles in grappling with the memory.
August 9th. 2009
I was listening to this Steve Winwood album that I bought the other day. Back in the high life. It was the album that my mom loved to listen to in fall of 86. This song... The finer things... I loved that song.
Upon listening to this beautiful vinyl pressing, all these memories came flaming anew.
I associate that song with a morning in Alaska in late October 86.
Maybe early November before my birthday. It was a typical grey morning with a partial remnant of a snow fall. Mom and me were going out to run an errand. I remember that she had asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I said the Night raven, which was a GI JOE SR 71 replica for Cobra.
A beautiful toy that I had been dreaming about in all of its compartments and possibilities. I had an idea that we were going to sears to pick it up, and she was going to have to hide the fact that she was picking it up. I had some associations with the vehicle having some piece to my dream of finding freedom from the tyranny of my father and the inevitable fate of my moms battle with cancer. I had a savior complex. I thought I would be some hybrid of Luke Skywalker and Mad Max and I would find a way to save my mother from death and my fathers alcoholism. As well as save my father like Luke did Darth Vader.
So we get in her Subaru and the music starts. The song starts with this synth sound scape that in my mind fit the morning perfectly.
And the lyrics are all about hope and dreams and going out and living life while there is time. Time.
I just wanted to find a way to be free with my mother. I was just happy to be spending time with her and enjoying some music. she would share her dreams with me. About how she wanted to have a little girl. I knew this probably wouldn't happen. But the dream is enough. Hope. This song, the finer things keep shinning through, the way my soul gets lost in you... exemplified my love for my mother. How this woman was the light of my life and unbeknownst to my self she was dying. And in two months she would be dead.
Yet in this moment she was alive. Humorous, and full of joy. She loved that album. so did my uncle tom. And listening to this song alone with my mother on an open stretch of Alaskan road made me feel the hope and possibility that lives in imagination. How a song can take you out of your circumstances and lift you to another place. Transportation of consciousness.
Hearing this song now made me cry bitter tears.
I couldn't save her.
I am 30 years old.
I have done so much in life, yet I feel like no matter what I do, doors of success slam in my face.
I auditioned for regular on a TV show the other day. one of my friends is a writer on the show. I had a great audition. No fear. I know I am good enough. I haven't heard anything. (I didn't get it... It went to a "name.")
I watched a segment on Shawnne Merriman and how he survived 3 home fires as a child and how he now gives back to causes that relates to.
Fire.
Fuck.
I have fought so hard just to survive. I am good enough to play these parts. I have so much to give. It just hurts. To be judged. To be counted out of the fight before I am even given the opportunity to throw a punch.
Listening to that song , I just felt, how the hell can I keep going on. Life has been so damn hard, and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier.
I want to be in the financial position to be able to help out the kids I have been working with over the years. Luthando in South Africa. Lungiswa, Siabonga,...every one of them.
All of them lost their parents. Fuck!
I feel that my tanks are getting low. it has taken so much energy just to get here, I just feel burned out, and my hopes are dying a slow death, as I am told, I am too old, or not good enough, or not scary enough or not hansom enough, or not Latin enough, or not white enough...or what ever.
Please fate be kind.
I have gone down this path believing it was the one I was destined for. Only to be lead to a brick wall with barbed wire and machine gun turrets. Fuck I want to break that mother fucker down.
and my more fortunate friends from Juilliard are led through the gates without a struggle. (What the fuck do I know! Every ones struggles are different)
and I am only getting older. ( I wouldn't give a fuck except that this business I am in loves neophyte metro sexual Anglo looking men. All of which I am not. )
Does my story even matter?
My fathers? Does it even matter?
Do I have enough in me to keep going?
-This was written about a year ago... I Don't know how much I have changed... except that I recognize the realities of my business a little bit better and see that griping about the perceived injustices does nothing...
The only thing that matters is to keep running,
To keep punching,
Not for anyone else... or comparing myself to any one else...
But to just keep moving forward for the sake of doing it.
One step at a time. One punch at a time.
Just keep swinging away, with beautiful defiance, and tribute to the ancestors firing the jabs.
And this last year... I have been fortunate enough to go from theater job to theater job. Just no film and TV.
I am a fortunate man this year.
-Odysseus and the Muse Bytes
Ark-Ives: A Shrine I made for a friend
I made this Shrine for my good friend Mauricio.
I like the idea that the virgin Mary would not like Tom Brady! haha!
But its not about that... Its more a shrine dedicated to my friends Multiple Churches. when I say "Church" I mean anything that a person is passionately dedicated to or a follower of. This is based off of the shrines for the dead that you see in latin households sometimes. My friend is not dead... this shrine is to protect the important things in his life.
It's about the Sacred and the Mundane. How a football team can somehow occupy a sacred place in ones life alongside family and The Red Hot Chilly Peppers, and the Virgin Mary.
I created this in one night with possessed hand that operated on their own sometimes.
When the Muse calls you have to listen...
Surf the creative energy and be surprised where it takes you. I have to give props to my late cousin Chris Corcovelos for the style... He used to make these amazing collages with a mixture of Heavy metal mags, porno mags, and horror movie mags! They were amazing! But he would always destroy them not long after he created them...
Notice the Dolphins Helmet on the Cherub on the top, as well as the Jets helmet in the pit with Tom Brady.
I put some Chicano art stuff on the bottom left side, even though he is Colombian not mexican... Brown is still Brown. And the Zapata pin is just to represent my friends rebel spirit.
Upper left hand corner has a Pin that I got in South Africa when we went to work with kids in the townships outside of Port Elizabeth.(Teaching self empowerment through the arts) That was my favorite Pin. I like the AIDS solidarity ribbon in it. Mauricio and his wife Cindy are on the bottom corners, almost as if in the foreground, and the epic-ness is happening in the background. His family is scattered around the upper heavenly top part.
Stay posted for more Ark-Ives of old art experiments.
The Muse Bytes
This is a Test...WWIII...EBB and flow of Energy...And Hyborian Moments (philosophy of Conan)
It's all a test isn't it?
I remember when I was a boy, in the 1980's and those Emergency Broadcast Network alarm tests would go on tv... There was always a slight fear that it might be real, and that "The Soviet's" were launching missiles at us. Alaska was very close to The USSR. So there was extra fear. For my money... WWIII was talked about so much that I thought it had already happened. ( I watched a lot of documentary TV as well as Red Dawn!) in pop culture it was an inevitable conclusion for the the US and the Commies to duke it out to prove who is the biggest bully on the block. "This is a Test of the Emergency Broadcast Network..."
This is a test...
It's not the same now...
Well living in NYC... Loud and deep explosive sounds have the same quality... but still different.
Doesn't quite have the Fire and Brimstone fear spike that Mutual Assured Destruction has.
This is a Test...
Life is funny, in that the events of crisis always amount to a Test...
and how we process the testing amounts to the grade we get...
It's all a Test.
I have this Anti Hero streak in me that makes me say "Fuck it!" I have been tested so many times that I could care less about who is giving the grades... all that matters to me is that I can look myself in the mirror and know that I did it for my own reasons... most of my reasons are to honor the dead...
I believe that the creation of something demands a spiritual libation, or tribute of sorts. The energy of creation must be received from somewhere, and given somewhere in return. The energy of creation was not meant to be kept in a cave. light if for the illumination of others. A Fire might destroy a forest, but in its wake, life will be more abundant. The Ebb and Flow of Energy.
Cause and Effect.
A test is meant to make one stronger, or wiser.
A test is not for inducing fear.
In Contemplative religions, the seeker of wisdom would retreat to solitude to receive the vision he/she seeks. Yet the gift of the vision is worthless if the receiver doesn't share it with others to facilitate their liberation.
Where would we be without tests?
Right now... Conan the Barbarian (1982) is on... I Love this Movie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVXBNWlCUB4&feature=related
In this film Conan's life amounts to a series of tests.
His parents were killed
He is sold into slavery
He has to fight is way out of slavery as a Pitfighter
He fights his way out of Pitfighting by becoming the best at it
He gets so good that He is taken to the east and given a classical education in Swordsmanship
Because of his prowess, his slave master frees him
He then embarks on his adventure to avenge his parents death!
More tests ensue... He is even Crucified!
He has great successes and failures
Through all of this you witness the forging of the steel of his character.
Just like the Samurai sword smiths would pound and fold the steel in order to extract all Impurities and weakness'
Conan is pounded and forged by the brutal tests of his life.
He is not Conan the Victim! ...
My Brother and I ask each other sometimes..."So, what part of Conan are you?"
Meaning... what part of the Conan The Barbarian movie best describes your life right now...
Some days you feel like Pit fighter Conan, Beset on all sides by endless oppositions and Kicking Ass!
Somedays you feel like Running free Conan. Wandering the World with Subotai looking for Adventure!
Somedays you Feel like Tree of Woe Conan, contemplating on the Tree of Woe...
Sometimes you are in Chains
Sometimes you are Crushing the Snakes of the Earth!!!
And Sometimes you are drowning in the hubris of victory!
I feel that right now... Sept 2010 I am resurrected from the dead Conan, returning to the discipline of his classical samurai sword training, while brooding about his revenge...
To give you a little historical back ground into my philosophy of Conan I will share with you this deleted scene from my life in 1986
My Mother was in the hospice... in the terminal stage of her battle with brain cancer. She only had a few days left at most. I was 8 years old. I can not tell you how hard it was for me as a little boy to witness the slow and humiliating death that my mother had to endure... excruciating. Day after day watching her slowly lose control of her body as her brain was shutting down. I longed for the days of innocence and the dreams of childhood, full of heros, swords, space ships, and damsels in distress.
I was in the habit of staying up real late and watching my favorite moves. I longed for escapism. Conan the Barbarian was on at midnight... and my dad and uncle were out doing adult stuff pertaining to the coming passage of my mother. I remember watching this film and Conan's story resonating with me very deeply. His parents died... He was cast into a life without a home... hunted... outcast... forsaken... with only his will to forge him into something other than a victim. In the end of the film, it's just 2 men fighting against many... for me... that was me and my Brother. Two boys fighting against an uncertain future and the impending death of both parents (Dad was slowly killing himself with Alcohol).
For us, our Hero's showed us the way out of the endless spiral of despair. The Conan's and Rambo's showed us the keys to survival. Discipline, and dedication to something greater. Sacrifice. The riddle of Steel. Honor. and being true to ones self. Great Anti Heros... outcast and forsaken, yet called to achieve their own greatness, and slay their own demons.
My brother and I have known this life.
At the end of Conan... Conan and his friend Subotai are about to battle the marauding hoards of Thusa Doom's snake cult. They are hopelessly out numbered.
Conan then prays to his god Crom...
This is his prayer;
"Crom, I have never prayed to you before...
I have no tongue for it...
No one
not even you will remember
If we were good men or bad,
why we fought, why we died,
all that matters is that two stood against many
Thats what's important.
Battle pleases you Crom
So grant me one request...
Grant me revenge!...
and if you do not listen...
Then to Hell with you!"
hahahahah!!!!! I love this!
It's all a test. This is a Test.
For me the test right now is to stay positive in the face of insurmountable odds. It's what it always was. I was born into this.
It's how you live thats important, not wether you win or lose. Its the Journey.
Odysseus is still out there... lost... and that's ok.
The Muse Bytes
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