Timelapse Sunset in Las Vegas

    This was at the end of the last Zinecon tape.  I used to do many time lapse experiments back then.  I used to think I was making something out of time.  Just my hanging out created something.  In reality I was mostly just getting high by myself in the desert.  I do miss that.  There are many beautiful things in Southern Nevada.  You need to look closely to find them. 

    This was looking outside my window facing South.  Take me home Country Road.  The figure walking into the frame at the end is me.  The soundtrack is incidental.  I was either listening to music or watching a movie and it got picked up by the camera.  I think it works in this case.    

Download the timelapse sunset which happened outside my window in Las Vegas on a day I'll never remember

Zinecon 2000 video post #4

     This post spotlights the live music performances at Zinecon 2000 plus a few more short interviews I managed to slip in between bands.  I'd write more stuff but I just can't be bothered right now.  Maybe I'll return to these and write more?  Maybe the videos speak for themselves?  Thanks for watching.

    Signature song by great performer Jay the Villain.



    Civic Minded 5 performing at Zinecon.

    I went to UNLV Film school with Dana Miller.  She's a cool lady and one of the few born and bred native Las Vegans I'd ever met.  I guess Drew Livingood was born there.  Shit I know there's more natives I know but it escapes me.  

    Not sure if I ever worked on any film projects with her.  UNLV film school was a funny experience.  I didn't make many friends there (surprised?) when I published an article decrying the firing of Professor O'Brien before he reached his tenure.  Ah the school memories.  I miss school.  

   Julie Wheat was a local creative type on the scene.  I always wanted to go out with her but yeah it didn't happen.  Recently befriended her on Facebook after seeing this interview.  She's still got a smokin bod and still appears to have a propensity for being a smartass.  Am I wrong in saying such things?  

    Someone stole a puppet from a table at Zinecon!  That's some fucked up shit man.  Typical of Las Vegas I gotta say.  I don't remember how this played out but I think the puppet was never returned.  If I'm wrong correct me.  I mean correct me if I'm wrong.



    My good friend James Emmanuel Stuart and I talking shop.  He had a camera as well.  His footage can be found here.  In this clip you'll see some pretty fancy psychedelic image manipulation I did in camera.  Hey look everybody I'm a film maker!  One of the few clips with no technical glitches.  What do you know about that?



    And finally the headlining musical act of the night from Austin, Texas it's Brown Whorenet!  Great band.  Stupid fucking name.  So they fit in well with this motley collection.  Nice and intricate progressive rock/funk/jazz/dance music.  Labels always get in the way.  Just get down on it.  If you really want it.



    Glad I was a part of Zinecon 2000.  Here's hoping more art and culture will find it's mark in Las Vegas again someday soon.



   Keep an eye out as I will post download links for all these videos in the near future.  G'nite.  Hey! Here's the download links below.  Click on these links to download each respective clip.

Download Jay the Villain plays Zinecon 2000
Download Brown Whorenet PART ONE
Download Brown Whorenet PART TWO


More download links coming hold your horses.

  

Zinecon 2000 video post #3

    Yep more Zinecon reporting.  I had a great time at this event.  A super cool, unpretentious attitude was present.   Maybe these vids help to capture that feeling?  There is still too much in the way of technical glitches but who gives a shit?  It's still great to see.  Hope you enjoy.

    A short interview with Corny and Larry Brough.  Panic Inc. is the record label Larry Brough started in the mid 90's.  They released quite a few records over the years and are still quite active producers of true Las Vegas Hardcore.  Much respect.  At the time him and Corny were in a band called H P Lori and they were fucking amazing.

    HP Lori played this Zinecon and I don't know why I can't find any footage of that performance because it was  fucking rad.  I seem to recall that Amy Carrelli had hired this bogus sound company to use their PA and was arguing with the sound guy who was sitting at the huge sound board before the bands started.  The sound was pretty bad and then when HP Lori came on the mics were total shit.  So Corny pushed the microphone away from him and it took the sound board and flipped it over onto the ground!  It was a total spectacle.  Damn.  Wish I'd been recording when that happened.  They were an amazing band.  Both guys are cool and I wish the best for both of them.  I'm super glad Corny is no longer going out with that psycho girl he was seeing back then.

    On a side note both those guys came through Portland years ago and we went to see Mastodon.  Just saying.

   Short chat with Sara, Mike, and Melinda.  I'm pretty sure that's her name, I didn't ask in the video.  This was probably the most casual interview so far at least from my point of view.  I'd lossened up a little bit.  I don't know.

   Wow.  Food Not Bombs!  Food Not Bombs has the strangest history in Las Vegas.  Just last month I was reading in USA Today and the supreme court in Nevada ruled that it was legal to feed the homeless which I have to assume is a direct result of the work Food Not Bombs has done in Las Vegas over the last jeez 15 years.  I'm pretty far removed from FNBLV so imagine my surprise when I saw their new website.  Awesome.  

    Interviews with three cool ladies.  God the sound quality is horrible.  There's nothing I could do to fix it so what you get is what you get.  All three of these ladies are super cool.  I'm bad with last names and will probably mess up the spelling but I remember them as Sara, Jahira, and Sierra.  Unfortunately the tape sucks.    Sorry the sound quality is pretty bad.  And the video breaks up a whole bunch on this clip.  There's nothing I can do to fix it.  Should I even upload this?  At least you can see some broken up video of three cute girls.  Also I forget that guys name who hugs Sierra.  He's cool.  I'm getting more informal here and now.

    So yeah.  The shit hits the fan as far as technical quality goes for these next few clips.  Once again you get a fuckload of jumpcuts.  An interview with Polar Bear Vixen a Sci-Fi/Horror type zine.  It gets the point across of what this guy and his zine is about but maybe you should tell me your opinion about whether I should bother to upload videos with this many glitches in em.  I think it's still a good thing to do.  Let me know if I'm wasting your time.

    Walking around at Zinecon 2000.  

    More activist friends interviewed at Zinecon.  

    Interview with Brad Crutchfield.  I sold him my copy of Bauhaus "Bela Lugosi's Dead." at a yard sale.  So that proves he's a cool guy right?  Blue vinyl too.

    Shit.  It pisses me off that this videotape got screwed up.  This guy was among the most talented people I met at Zinecon.  I think the name of his comic/magazine is Usurp Toe.  I bought an issue and it was hilarious!  His artwork seriously kicks ass.  Amazing detail plus he's really funny as well.  He also had hand painted shirts for sale with his artwork.  He's wearing one of his hand painted shirts.  What a cool guy.  Where is this guy?  Please tell me!!

    He had a solid internet presence back then.  A recent check on the GOOGLE found nothing which does not bode well.  If you have any information about this man and his work please get in touch.  I would love to know more.

  So yeah most of this footage is fucked up.  But look how young you look!

Download Zinecon more random moments

Download chat with Food Not Bombers LV

Download Panic Inc.
Download interview with three cool chicks (Sara, Jahira, Sierra)
Download interview with Brad Crutchfield

More download links coming soon don't get your panties in a bunch.

Zinecon 2000 video post #2

    The closing comment at the end of my last post couldn't have worse timing.  A few days after I wrote those words I was having a drink with a friend and four hours later he was dead.  What more can be said?  

    Looks like I had quite a few videos from Zinecon 2000.  Once again my apologies for posting this a decade after the fact.  No excuses just glad it's finally getting out there to the people who might be interested in seeing it.  I'd imagine that is mostly the people featured in the vids, although I'd go out on a limb and say that anyone interested in media created outside of commercial enterprise will find these videos/interviews and random images worth their time to watch.  You'll also get to see the limitations of no budget video production as many of these tapes have been damaged beyond repair.  I'm breaking these clips up into 3 different posts.  It's over an hour worth of material.

    I can't begin to tell you what an unbelievable pain in the ass it was to transfer these vids.  If you don't give a shit about tech talk skip this paragraph.  The tapes appear to be somewhat damaged.  Final Cut Pro, the piece of shit "PRO" software wouldn't let me transfer this shit at all so I resorted to using iMovie which somehow retrieved some of the missing pieces of the footage and did a decent job of fixing the audio problems on these tapes which were numerous.  As a result I had to transfer in iMovie import back into Final Cut do a few edits and add titles and then shoot it out using Compressor.  Add to that my discovery of the proper codec to make these vids look better on youtube.  So each clip which average 4-5 minutes easily took 45-60 minutes to render so I could upload to youtube which took an additional hour for each clip to upload due to their huge file sizes.  It wasn't so bad.  Usually I'd get these processes in place and then walk away while my computer sorted out all the shit.  I told you this paragraph was boring you shoulda skipped it.     

    IMovie could only do so much to fix these damaged tapes.  There are a number of jump cuts, dropped audio, and other weird speed issues.   It almost adds a Jean Luc Godard edge to the footage lending it a semi-New Wave feel.  It's got an unexpected arty edge in that respect.  An accident but I think it makes the footage more interesting and surprising.  It is what it is.  I've left the technical snafus in place just to keep this as a historical document.  My editing of these videos has been minimal if I edited at all.  Also I didn't catch everyones name so if you know the true names of featured individuals speak up now.  Just remember If you die you take that knowledge with you to the grave so why not speak up before you die?    

    These cute kids were entrusted to pass out information about actions which were happening at the test site.  There is a grand history of protest at the Nevada Test Site which lies just a few hundred miles north of Las Vegas.  I haven't heard of any recent protests at the test site but of course I haven't lived in Vegas for the last 8 years so I'm out of the loop.  I've tried tracking down the Shundahai Network online and they don't have a whole lot of internet presence like they once did.  I'm thinking this would be the best place to go to find out recent happenings.  

     I had forgotten about the collection of people who attended Zinecon from out of state.  Here's my bad interviewing skills put to the test interviewing some players in national underground publishing in the year 2000.  I was most familiar with Angry Thoreuan a fairly high profile zine in the mid 90's.  Rev. Randall Tin-Ear the publisher of said zine appears to be a thoughtful and funny guy if a bit inebriated.  I guess you could say this was the So Cal corner because the Rev. was joined by Theresa Turner and Kelly from Fully Lit Publishing.  I think Theresa was coming on to me but I'm probably mistaken.  Seated next to them was the dude from Martin the Satanic Racoon whose zine was very humorous although he isn't nearly that funny in this interview but that's probably due to my interviewing skills.


    I'm not trying to pat myself on the back but I'll admit to giving myself points for trying.  Could this be the only on camera interview most of these people will ever have in their life?  Makes me think I should try and interview more people.  Maybe I'll get good at it? 

    I did a recent internet check on all these cast of characters and could only find references to Rev Randall Tin-Ear and Martin the Satanic Raccoon.  I'm sure the rest of them are still out there somewhere.  They come across as smart thoughtful people.  I'm sure they are living off the grid.

    A short chat with two local zines Running In Place and Through Squishy Eyes.  I don't know these people but they seem pretty fucking cool.  If either zine is still being published I could not say.

    Whoops.  This is a clip that's coming a little late.  Interview with two cool people.  Again the audio's fucked so I don't recall the names.  Please help if you know these cool folks.

    Tower Records was a corporate sponsor of Zinecon 2000.  I think it was the only corporate sponsor of Zinecon?  Gotta admit I miss Tower.  It was the only national distribution outlet for dozens if not hundreds of zines back then. 


    This lady was the manager of Tower Records at the time I'm thinking.  I made a speech at this event in which I made some comments about the influence of corporations on American culture.  I think this lady got offended and walked out.

    I didn't watch the speech while digitizing it so I can't tell you if it's good or not.  I don't like seeing or hearing myself.  In 1999 I won the Fellowship Award from the Nevada Arts Council.  It's poisoned my view of art ever since.  As a part of the award I was required to give a presentation in a public setting.  The speech included here is my presentation. 
   I've tried uploading the speech to youtube but they said it was too long!  Seriously.  I'll try again some other time for now you can download it here if you want to see it.   After my hot air Amy got up and blew some hot air herself.  





This concludes day one of Zinecon 2000.  Download all these clips below.


Download Zinecon Kids
Download Angry Thoreauan vid
Download Running In Place/Through Squishy Eyes
Download Yaqui vid
Download Fully Lit video
Download Martin Satanic Raccoon
Download Amy gives a speech/thanks