The Adventures of a Digital Sensei
We have just been having a great run of good fortune lately. My daughter received her first college acceptance letter this weekend. I am just overjoyed that her first acceptance letter is from a school that my daughter really likes and that we can send her to and still afford to retire one day! This is sure to be the first of many positive letters because she has worked really hard over the past few years. It is nice to know that she will have options.
After a really crappy week I was surprised by my old friend and former music producer, Stacy Burkett, who called me out of the blue. He was back in NYC for a few days and was reacquainting himself with NYC. It has been probably five more years since we have been in the same place so it was great to catch up with him. The last time we spoke at length was after he found one of my New York Cine podcast sessions online and heard me discussing our time working on my hip-hop demo over 20 years back.
Truth be told, he needs to move his @$$ back to NYC after so many years on the left coast.
The annual family trip to Nerd Mecca was great! I am always amazed that the wife and kids still indulge me in our yearly ritual. The best part of Comic Con this year was that I got to see the pilot episodes for new series like Supergirl, Lucifer, Containment, Ash vs the Evil Dead, and Jessica Jones. The 2015-16 TV season is going to be amazing for comic nerds like myself.
Everyone of the pilots, with the exception of Supergirl, left me excited for the new television season. Supergirl looked great from a visual and special effects perspective but the tone of the show seems too “Ally McBeal” for my tastes. In contrast, Jessica Jones and Containment took a much darker direction by focusing on flawed characters who are forced to come to grips with serious and deadly challenges. No so much the case for the “girl of steel”.
The 2015 New York Comic Con tickets have arrived! I could only get tickets for Thursday this year. I guess it is better than not getting tickets at all. Still, let me know if anyone has extras that they are willing to sell. I would rather not have to deal with scalpers. Because, to paraphrase the great Obi-Wan Kenobi, “never will you find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”.
My rotator cuff injury got worked on today by my acupuncturist. I have been having shoulder pains for a few months now and it was getting to the point where I had to do something. I figured I would look into alternative therapies like acupuncture. And yes, it really does work. Well, at least it works if your practitioner knows what they are doing. Luckily mine does. I am feeling pretty good! My shoulder feels much better after only a couple of sessions. My practitioner is named Lisa Sumption and I would definitely recommend her. It was relatively painless. And keep in mind that I am a person that absolutely hates needles.
I had just returned from one of the many meetings that I have during the week to find a Facebook instant message from a former student of mine. I hadn’t seen or heard from Juan directly since a few months after he graduated. It was great to hear that he was doing fantastic and that I was able to play a small role in his success. At the end of the day this is essentially why I continue to teach. None of my other responsibilities as a professor even comes close to the satisfaction of helping students find their way in life, both personally and professionally.
Star Trek was such a huge part of my formative years. It is from this show that I first learned what would become my models for determination, friendship, tolerance, logic, courage and sacrifice. The portrayal of Spock by Leonard Nimoy was a large part of the reason that the show resonated so deeply with me and millions of others. At a time when people throw around the words like “iconic”, Leonard Nimoy’s Spock was exactly that.
The depth of the Spock character, and the philosophy inspired by the series, never Continue reading “He lived long and prospered!”
Today is the birthday of William Griffith, better known in hip hop circles as Rakim, also known as Rakim Allah, a.k.a. the microphone fiend, a.k.a. the God MC, a.k.a the Greatest MC of ALL TIME in my humble opinion. He is turning 47 today.
Rakim took his name from Sun God RA and the ancient Egyptian kingdom of KIM. He was one of the first MCs to move from simplified verses into a style that blended complex metaphors with internal and multisyllabic rhymes culminating in a laid back delivery. At a time when other contemporaries like LL Cool J, KRS-One, and Run-DMC. delivered their vocals with screams and force, Rakim defied those conventions by developing a flowing style capable of verbally deconstructing an opponent all while making it seem like he wasn’t even breaking a sweat.
When he released the track “Follow the Leader” and I heard how Continue reading “Happy Birthday to The Microphone Fiend”
This is my boy’s first pass at shooting and editing his own skate video. He wants to get sponsored as an amateur skater and he figures that creating a promotional video is a great start. I had already given him a copy of Sony Vegas Movie Studio Suite, the video editing software that I recommend to people starting out. So he took a few of my low profile cameras and captured video of his skating runs around different parts of the city.
It had been a few months since I last saw him skate and it was shocking to see how much better he had become in such a short amount of time. My knees hurt just looking at most of the jumps and tricks he is now rocking. However what really impressed me was how good I the video was for a first timer. His use of wide angle shots and effective movement really added to the overall production value.
Now if he can just keep from breaking his @$$ again I will be happy.
