Xmas Shout-Outs!

Just a little something for all the people I know and whom I've made memories with.

Happy Holidays!

Xmas Shout-Outs!

An Icon (James Rolfe)

I find it very unique of human beings to be able to assign so much spiritual value to something that, were it to be freed of the circumstance, would be as unimportant as the next thing. Take James Rolfe, for example, a budding indie filmmaker and one of my favorite Internet and film producers. His film works are incredible pieces of indie filmmaking, as impressive as the ones that maybe get more airtime in film festivals or other big events. But while I applaud his work, that's not the reason why I've continued to track him and his progress ever since about 8th grade.

One day at a friend's house, we were looking at Youtube videos of retro video games when we came across something called the "Angry Nintendo Nerd" and his review of Spiderman for the Atari 2600. That "Angry Nintendo Nerd" was none other than James Rolfe. From the moment we saw that, through now, I have found reason after reason to come back to his website for nearly any video Rolfe makes, however trivial or "stupid".

Some of those reasons are easier to guess than others. Being in 8th grade at the time, and hearing the Nerd spewing curse word after curse word was enough novelty to keep my eyes glued to the screen. But as I began to watch more of his videos, and even play some of the games that he talked about myself, I began to come to terms with some of the other qualities of his work that drew me to them and to him - a nostalgia factor, a 'bygone years' factor, a 'memories' factor.

Every time the Nerd does a review, he makes a comedy skit out of it and generally spews unnecessary amounts of less than honorable language; still, between all that, he makes earnest comments on what these games mean to him. This guy's a collector - his basement is a 1980s teenager's dream game room, with shelf after shelf filled to the brim with cartridges and original game boxes, all in pristine condition - and so a sense of warmth and affection towards the games he sometimes ridicules and sometimes appreciates gets through to the viewer, me.

And I've connected with that on a very personal level. Rolfe conveys these feelings through these hilarious comedy sketches about vintage video games, while other filmmakers convey through perhaps more conventional fiction tales. Either way, I know exactly what he's talking about, because I feel it too. For example, in addition to the sketches, Rolfe loves to review old cartoons and movies from his childhood, always managing to, foe example place a comment about how he'd wake up earlier than usual before school to watch the latest episode of whatever cartoon he's talking about. The earnest tone inherent to these retellings makes me think of my own childhood stories, of my own middle school memories or time spent playing with my toys or time spent lounging around in the morning before the bus came to take me to school.

And just because the guy makes a fool of himself for the game reviews doesn't mean he's not a cognizant soul. He produced film called "Rocky Jumped a Park Bench" that, even though it's really little more than a location tour of the different locations used to shoot the Rocky films, it ends up being both a tribute to the Rocky series as well as some of its underlying motifs like hard work, passion, love, the American dream ... the editing and shots and certainly script all make these things stand out, giving a new dimension to location tours.

So every time Rolfe releases a video - even if it's just a video of him and his filmmaker friends standing outside the house from Family Matters, say - I make time to see it and enjoy it, because in a way, Rolfe's nostalgic yet at the same time front-facing spirit (as an indie filmmaker) connects with my own mindset and philosophy, and seeing the fruit of such an attitude on my computer screen is in and of itself the most rewarding experience possible.

An Icon (James Rolfe)

Private in Public

There are very many different types of personalities you can adopt when you're in middle school. You can concentrate full-time on your studies, concentrate full-time on your video games or playing cards ... while I wouldn't call myself a full-on nerd, I was the kind of middle schooler who talked a lot, had a lot of friends, knew a lot of names and faces, but was also substantially closed. In a way, I was private in public.

I did indeed have lots of friends. In fact, my Facebook friend count was well into the 400s before I even started high school. But somehow, I still managed to be quite closed when it came to socializing outside of school, when it came to doing things like hanging out after school on the benches right outside, or walking to the train station with a friend, or joining a sport or club. I was very concentrated on my studies, but it wasn't really the academia that was keeping me from being as properly social as I now feel I should've been.

What was at fault was - though I'm only making guesses now - a combination of a desire to achieve independence, a belief that doing stuff like the aforementioned was pointless, and perhaps also a dose of anxiety.

Back then - and now I realize this - I couldn't help rejecting the stereotype that I was a part of. In 6th grade I was appalled by the 5th graders, in 7th grade I was appalled by the 6th graders, and in 8th grade I was appalled by the 7th graders. When I say appalled, I mean turned off by the idea of being just a kid. Mind you, I enjoyed my childhood habits - playing video games, watching cartoons; standard fare - but the idea of being part of that stereotype was much less alluring than being say, of high school age or just being 18, 20, or older. So, whenever I would make a choice to walk on my own two feet with no one beside me to the bus stop, or the train station; whenever I would make a choice to go home right after school and play video games for hours instead of chilling outside with friends as they waited to get picked up; whenever I made such choices, I was making progress on my goal of independence. Doing the opposite would exacerbate the stereotype.

What a fool I was.

I thought hanging out was pointless. I thought of the term - "hanging out" - and just dwelled on how stupid doing that would be. I pretended that going home and doing stuff by myself was a way of showing I was better for doing it.

In retrospect, the rationale was quite pointless itself.

For example, one time I had the thought that hanging out with friends afterschool would be detrimental to my studies because it meant less time for homework.

Like playing video games and watching TV at home until six o' clock was any better.

But now I realize that what really was at fault was my own fear of trying something new. Of following my heart and not my brain at the moment where I had to. I was, quite honestly, nervous about the entire enterprise ... just hanging out, talking to people. Somehow, somehow I was nervous about it, about all of it.

What's worse, I feel that having made such choices, day after day after day, constitutes one of my greatest regrets. I can think of many examples where I had the opportunity to chill afterschool with some friends and I passed it up. I can think of only some times where I actually agreed.

I can only hope that I make better, much better choices now and in the future.

Private in Public

Say the RIght Thing!

As a part of being in charge of making fun activities for the freshman Journalism/TV Production class at my school, today I moderated a pretend debate on the issue of homework and whether there should be homework every night, a topic they and I could relate to easily. After 10 or so minutes of prep time, they let their ideas free and voiced them against each others'.

While the activity ended up being one of those classic, way too loud classroom arguments between two groups of kids trying to one up the other, what happened afterwards gave me some, quite frankly, frustrating food for thought.

Right after I finished up with the freshmen, it was lunchtime. I sat down next to a girl I like and her friends, and I swear; I couldn't come up with anything interesting to say! I said a few obnoxious comments about the sodium content in my Ramen noodle soup, accompanied by an outburst of pretend joy when a friend of mine passed by me and gave me his sandwich, which he didn't plan on eating.

But that's about it.

It's incredible to think, in retrospect, how I could have thought myself capable of leading a classroom session whose focus is eloquence and substantiation in public speaking when I couldn't even come up with something remotely fascinating to say to a person right in front of me at lunchtime.

In fact, a few days ago, I did a full-on lecture about Internet journalism for more than half an hour to the freshmen, and managed to keep most of them remotely interested for the duration of the damn thing - and yet, I can't manage to come up with something cool in front of one person?

But what's even more elusive is just what it is that keeps me from having the Gift of Gab at the most inopportune time possible. I mean, I guess it's cause I'm nervous (not shy, certainly) or worried about what my impression will be, but could I possibly be that nervous so as to lose my otherwise natural ability to dole out remotely interesting things to say?

What a mess.

Say the RIght Thing!