209. Preliminary Question List for Charlie the Academic-oriented Fisherman, World's Easiest Catch

http://stokastika2.googlepages.com/charliefisherman1.pdf

Above is a preliminary question list I made for Charlie. I was supposed to contact him on Monday but I had a very stressful meeting with Dr. John Melack, but after two hours, ended out to be just fine. I decided to make the question lists more "rough" in version and not include the "visual continuity" exercises that I wrote down for Sam Shrout's and Kamron Sackolov's interviews. I will just bring the old visual continuity checklists with me. Charlie is the UCSB-geography-majored fisherman who has an understanding of what it means to think like a fisherman and to think like an academic. His viewpoint is SO crucial to this film. Besides, Charlie spent a great amount of time introducing me to the rock crab industry and hooking me up to Phil Freemand and Kent Schiff.

I had a hard time contacting Charlie yesterday, so I truly hope I will be able to contact him soon. I will try and call him later today after I finish Phil's question list, and a couple of other items.

139. Blue Horizons Continued: A Philosophy Toward Human Interactions Mediated by the Film Camera

Kristin Hepper, my geology friend at UC Riverside, has a young black lab by the name of Billie. Billie goes along with Kristin wherever she goes. Quite a few times, whether at dog parks or random dog walks around campus, people would approach Kristin simply because of Billie: they wanted to pet this loveable dog! In general, people are closed off to each other. People don't randomly approach other random people. There's nothing in common. You're just another human being. Another object. You pass by thousands of them every single day. But then, with the simple agent of a dog, people stop in their tracks and are gravitated toward a four-legged, bouncing, drooling, hyper-tail-wagging creature. Through my experiences with Kristin, I have come to realize the power of having a pet, not only for individual psychology (I have written a poem called "the dogs" in which I will share in a future blog), but in terms of opening doors to random people under the common subject "umbrella" of pets. I guess you can call this organism-mediated human interactions. Or more specifically, dog-mediated human interactions. I actually felt very sad upon this epiphany. I wished so badly I myself had some form of "agent" that allowed me to open doors to meeting new, random people.

Then... I met Charlie. Charlie the film camera. Charlie the Sony DVX 2100 film camera D from the UCSB Film and Media Studies Department. Oh man, things changed pretty quick. Charlie and I got chummy fairly quick and once both of us became one unified, functional piece, I took Charlie out to start my filming for the rock crab project. I soon had come to realize that Charlie was very much like Billie: an agent for opening doors to meeting new, random people. I was exhilerated by this. Absolutely thrilled. Before, I had my Nikon D80 digital SLR camera in operation. Still photography doesn't appeal to people the same way as film cameras do. The first reaction is usually avoidance. Perhaps because SLR cameras are just "snapshots" and not-longer term recordings.... Though, yesterday, due to my photographying the graphic abortion-baby images by the Arbor at UCSB, I actually had a man approach me and give me a brochure of the entire display.

Throughout my filming of the Zen of Rock Crab, I have come to a few conclusions about my interaction with humans mediated through the film camera. There are three possible responses to the film camera: attraction (interest, curiosity), neutral (attempted apathy :-), and negative (aversion to the camera). I could say overall, people were mostly attracted and interested by the presence of the film camera. Not to mention, having a film camera opened up MY mind, and made me open and receptive to meeting new people and experiencing new things. It's like a defense mechanism. I feel safe when I hide behind a camera.... At first, people have an impulsive, aversive response just like the film camera. I am assuming because (1) they are shy (2) they become self aware of themselves and how they look and how they behave (since they're being watched and recorded). Even when learning how to voice record myself and film myself, I had a heightened awareness and level of distraction. I couldn't do it. Then after repeated encounter and interaction with these technologies, I have become desensitized. It's probably the same with my main characters of the film. They got very used to me. Very bored of me and my camera. So they just do what they do, and don't think about my being there anymore....

Some people were just neutral and standoffish. And even some people were instantly attracted by the camera. They would give me their business cards and had some ideas for projects... paid... of course. Many people thought I was a Brooks student. Nope. UCSB. Dah Bomb! A more affordable, public university! Amen! And finally, some people had a chronic, negative reaction to the film camera. This only happened to me once. Over the summer. There was actually a butcher in one of the Ranch 99 markets who approached me and angrily state, "You cannot film in this store! Go talk to the manager! Go talk to the manager!" And I stopped recording, covering the lens of the camera with black protectors. I talked to Kent (the rock crab distributor) about this, and he said this guy was probably antsy simply because there is a possibility that a lot of the Asians working at Ranch 99 don't have US Citizenship and might be here illegally. Oh. I guess that's a good reason to be aversive to the presence of a film camera. *Sigh*

So, given the notion that the presence of the film camera has altered human interactions (largely in a positive way), I am assuming that you can even scale out beyond a simple system of my interacting with rock-crab associated individuals. A hypothesis out there is that film is a technique for community building and social problem solving, and perhaps, even social re-organizing. I think film is the medium for bridging together all forms of irrational, neurotic dichotomies that I have encountered growing up. "An Inconvenient Truth" is a case in point, the re-integration of "education" and "entertaiment" (marginally) for human-environmental change. Film goes beyond cheap thrill and expands toward neurological development and behavioral change. I have case studies for this phenomenon, but not any "scholarly literature" (in which people scold me for, people in the university tell me that I operate "reversely," such that I first have experiences and come to my own conclusions, and then my brain is tagged with pre-existing literature... but I think people in the university act "reversely" in which most of them sit in the office reading other people's stuff, and then they expect to go out into the world and experience things. I feel that if you have no experience in a certain field, then you will have no ability to detect, collect, and organize any pre-existing literature in a unique way). So, I will have to collect such scholarly literature (so I can be "socially acceptable" within the university) and then film can be used as a human-environmental problem-solving method. I spoke with Maria Gordon (UCSB) and Kiki Williams? (a science-technology policy fellow for NOAA up on Capitol Hill) about this and they were both supportive of such an idea. This could be a technique used for fisheries management issues. Oh boy! I'm getting excited. For the Goleta Beach film, every single person was interviewed in isolation, but I think the trick is that a problem-solving film would involve three steps: (1) isolated interviews (2) everyone in the same room for interaction (3) then iniatiation of "collaborative scripting," as Maria Gordon called it. Then a longer-term followup.

An another example of using film for social and environmental change is... of course... Michel Gondry. His latest works have involved the theme of social and political change: (1) Bjork's brilliantly sadistic "Declare Independence" music video (2) "Be Kind, Rewind" the movie (3) and "Dave Chappelle's Block Party" (documentary). Gondry just radiates and captures positive energy, energy, ENERGY!!! The living cinematic human electric shock system! I remember Gondry stating that he was influenced by film and local community building efforts in France. He has recently delt with themes of re-integrating racial, social, class structures through film. I just saw the trailer for "Dave Chappelle's Block Party" and a few issues stuck out of my mind: (1) the movie captures not just an artist-centric view, but focuses on the artists' interaction with the audience, therefore bridging the class dichotomy between internationally renowned musicians and their fans (2) the movie deals with the skewing of messaging on the radio such that the musicians had the ability to express themselves and their concerns for their communities and serious social issues. All that is being heard on the radio is shallow, you're-hot-i-wanna-kiss-you-and-all-things-that-follow-and-he-she-broke-up-with-me-boo-hoo. Just mindless happy-go-lucky music to play in the grocery store and at bars. Of course, businesses don't want to depress their customers and raise awareness. They just want consumers to continue shopping at their store until they're dead.

One last thought. It's funny, though Lauren (my model for the above shoots, ha ha!) is a Ph.D. student in Film and Media at UCSB, she reminds me in several ways of Kristin at UCR. Thinkers, sensitive, yet strong-minded. Personable. Great to talk to.

One MORE last thought: film as a technology for social organization IN FRONT and BEHIND the camera. As I have said with the Goleta Beach situation, creating film is like an experiment in micro-government at the tribal (small) scale....

Charlie my camera is my pet dog. And we shall live happily ever after....

114. The Stigma of Yahoo Personals, Data Collection for N = 7/11 and the Science of Dating

http://stokastika.googlepages.com/yahoopersonals.pdf

Above is data for the future manuscript N = 7/11.

One thing I hate doing is repeating myself. Lately, since life has been going by so fast, I have come to lose track of what I have said to whom. But if I talk about the newest and latest intellectual drama in my life, then there are good chances I am not repeating myself, but engaging a specific audience in new variations of the same underlying inter-related themes of being a human being on planet Earth. Since I have largely figured out these main themes, I decided that science fiction can foreseeably play a huge role in my future life, simply because I am fascinated by and interested in discovering/creating mechanisms and matrices (structures of knowledge) rather than figuring out the Jeopardy details that get classified within these frameworks.

Another reason why I need science fiction in my life is so that I can engage in a series of thought experiments that I could not feasibly implement on human beings and human society, simply because it would be deemed "unethical." As a science fiction writer, I would have the ability to play the role of "alien" and attempt to objectively experiment with human/environmental behavior and processes and dream of outcomes of such experiments. It would be wonderful. I think we need some serious science fiction to progress humanity to "the next step" of self-system sufficiency. But this whole science fiction is an aside. Back to the point.

Five Points.

#1. I just looked up whether I discussed on this blog my primal mammalian condition. Apparently I have not done a very thorough job. So, I have a bit of a license to discuss this issue a bit here.

#2. This is in part an embarassing blog (partly yes, partly no). The above pdf is something I wrote a while ago (2003?). Yahoo personals profile with no image (thank goodness), and I do admit it's highly out of date, but captures my mentality at a given point in space and time.

#3. Date for book / script N = 7/11. One day Vic will write an essay in which a female protagonist treats dating as a series of scientific experiments. I am considering that there might be two parallel universes in which the female has a chip inserted in her mind by an alien species that objectively studies human behavior. Maybe this alien species will have three sexes, two sexes can symbiotically combine in a mutualistic physiology, and only on this condition of symbiosis, can there be genetic exchange with the third sex. Hmmm, wow, I'm trying to focus here. Seriously. So, the female human would go through a certain set of interpretational responses to her dating experiments, the alien would document all physical and mental responses of the female human, but would also go through its own set of interpretations of the experiment. Which would be utterly fascinating sci fi experiment on human behavior. I think the ending would be ultimately dark.

#4. What is my recent trial of N = 7/11. A lame one, I'd say. Never done Craigslist before, but met a UCSB Media Arts Technology (MAT) graduate student through Craigslist. It was so comedy. I read the geeky profile and emailed the random guy: "Do you go to UCSB? By any chance, are you affiliated with the MAT department?" And out of all randomness, these questions were answered as yes both times. So this mysterious male specimen, by the name of Charlie, sounded good on paper and well... a bit dull and apathetic in person. No emotional and crazy energetic enthusiasm that I have. Though this is just one trial on Craigslist, I am already establishing phobia of deriving sample specimens from the internet. "On-line mate shopping" is just a bit disturbing for me, as this American culture stigmatizes any individual who remains single and uninvolved in a meaningless, waste-of-time relationship. Not the cool thing to do for gringos. So, I'm uncool.

#5. I discovered recently that I could be classified as "quirky-alone" but I think this label is negative and unrepresentative of my condition. So, I invented a new label called ISI, or Intellectually Self Indulgent. Which can partially mean "I am the slave to my own ideas, otherwise I would be the slave to others." My brain self-employs itself. My brain it its own boss of other parts of my brain. ISI is also known as the Jim Carrey Syndrome, which is defined by this approximate quote, "How can anyone be involved in a relationship when he or she is so in love with his/her own ideas?" Amen to that. At first ISI meant Intellectually Self Infatuated. But, uh, that sounds... uh... something that would go on a self-inflicting porn site, so we must change the lingo here. Intellectually Self Indulgent versus Quirky Alone is white versus black. "Quirky alone" is an "externalized label" / exterior perception of a "single" person. Intellectually Self Indulgent is an "interalized label" such that the person who is his/her sole piece is indulged in his her own scientific/artistic/infinitely creative construction of reality, and that it's a very colorful, fulfilling life. Quirky-alones seem to stand for socially dysfunctional homeless people off the streets of downtown San Francisco. If the inventor of Quirky-alone terminology is so adamant to create a singles-lifestyle-culture, she better make a more "positive and uplifting" label for her cult, not some stigmatic tone of psychological disorder. Sorry for being so opinionated, but it's just me :-)

Run-off points, as usual.

#6. Back to this Charlie guy off of Craigslist. I thought his name would bring good luck because I named my camera (Sony DVX 2100) Charlie (there's actually twins, one Charlie is camera D at the Film and Media Studies Department, and I have this Charlie at home). Charlie the camera is named after this plant I bought at the 99 cent store during my senior year at the College of Creative Studies at UCSB. I placed a tape on the plant pot that said "Charlie" and it also said "a metapopulation of independent apices" (quoting Bruce Tiffney). The thing that is so special about Charlie the Plant is that no matter how much I neglected it (which included low sun and close to no water), Charlie still managed to survive throughout the entire year. I am not going to ask how or why. I was actually pissed it would never die, becuase I don't like taking care of other living organisms. I actually chucked Charlie out in the front of my university apartment area... and I bet Charlie is so determined to survive he probably took root there, even though I made no efforts to dig a hole for him in the ground. So, yes, Charlie is a good luck name in its own absurd ways. Charlie off of Craigslist met me at a state of emotional uproar. I just found out I received two Cs for Blue Horizons film program and I lost 1450 on Craigslist for trying to buy a macbook pro computer. Charlie was so placid while I was bipolarly rambling, it was in part disturbing. Charlie said he was six feet tall. He lied. I am taller than him and I am 5'11.5" or maybe even shorter (gravity takes it toll over time, even on twenty-something-year-olds). I even felt GUILTY for lying to the DMV, that I was six feet tall. They even advocated that I do this for logistical purposes. They don't have enough place holders on the card for "5'11.5."" I have encountered several guys who have lied about their height and it drives me off the wall in a subliminal way. I am asking "why"? What's the point? What are you trying to prove? To whom? It seems like male-overestimation of height is just another chest-beating, ape-like, alpha-male practice. Sheesh.

#7. Dxmmit. I'm human and I need a hug sometimes, okay? Maybe that's why I look up Craigslist. I teased my dad one time, "How much do you charge for a hug?" Hugs are rare in my life. At one point at UCLA I went 6 months without a hug from anyone, and then I got hugs from my mom and my dad and I felt this strange tingled sensation all over my body, an immense release of built-up stress and anxiety I didn't know that otherwise existed. Primitive mammalian needs are just built into my system. Dxmmit. Then again, maybe that's why I love Mini, Lisa's and Kyle's new dog. I get hugs and licks from Mini once a day or once every other day, and it satisfies that stupid requirement of my primitive brain needing hugs to relieve anxiety. I hate being a mammal sometimes. Those stupid biological prerequisites for sanity....

#8. Internet and Dating. Hot topic in the news, eh? Hot topic for new movie twists, eh? Eventually, time must be devoted to an essay on the Philosophy of Human Communication and the Philosophy of Technology-Mediated Human Communication: Relationships in Altered Space and Time. There needs to be an extensive matrix comparing the different modes of communication (person to person, snail mail, email, phone call, internet chatrooms, etcetera), neutrally, positively, negatively, and why humans have a tendency to resort to certain modes of communication over other modes. Advantages and disadvantages of certain modes of communication. In this essay, I must not forget to mention about this new disease (which I partly possess) called ECP or ElectronoCommunicatiPhobia. And there needs to be some type of column or short paper on why I am anti-one-laptop-per-child, this imperialistic "non-profit" effort at MIT in which the leader feels that every child on this planet needs a laptop. To me, this is a chauvinistic effort to impose American lifestyle and culture onto the lives and cultures of other countries, which alters human communication regimes, maybe not necessarily for the net-good of anything. Studying human behavior to me is like studying how leaf cutter ants communicate. Simple as that. Ever since my own psychological disorder, I have been establishing a way on how to systematically deconstruct and reconstruct humans from an alien point of view.

Key Words: stigma, yahoo personals, N = 7, repetition, science fiction, mammal, Charlie, quirky alone, intellectually self indulgent, ISI, Jim Carrey Syndrome, lying about height, mini DV tapes, technology-mediated communication, electronocommunicatiphobia, ECP

Spacetime Orientation aka Anatomy and Physiology of Charlie the Camera D, Sony VX 2100, Property of UCSB Film and Media Studies

http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa109/stokastika/spacetimeorientanatphyscharliecamD/?start=all.

:-)

:-) Charlie is my mental hero! "My knight-and-shining-*whatever*!"

:-)

Click above to view my photoessay upon my "first encounter," and ultimately my "developing compatibility" with Charlie, Camera D, Sony VX-2100. The relationship was a little bit rocky at first, but now has smoothed out to a point such as Charlie is an external body appendage of mine: perhaps a technological surrogate to my dominant right brain!