Uncategorized

Truth be told, I didn’t feel like writing you this week. But I have developed tricks to outwit myself, and they really work… AS PROVEN BY THE FACT THAT YOU’RE READING THIS RIGHT NOW.

So here’s four good ones.

1 MAKE IT FUN / GREASE YOUR WHEELS.

I had some calls to make this morning, like paying bills and stuff. I said, “I’ll do it if I can do it on the old phone.” So I hooked up this device I have called an Xlink Bluetooth Gateway that allows me to make calls on an old rotary telephone through my normal cell phone, without paying for a landline. That shit is stupid. But I like it. So I got the calls made ’cause it was funner for me.

2 TEN MINUTES.

If you have to do something potentially awful and tedious, just commit to doing it for ten minutes. Set a timer on your phone. After the ten minutes you can stop if you want to, but you may find that you pass most of the resistance after just a few minutes.

3 PUT ON MUSIC WHICH CONVEYS HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL, NOT HOW YOU CURRENTLY FEEL.

This really works… just play it loud until you’re done with your thing. It primes the pump.

4 DON’T QUIT TILL YOU’VE FAILED 1O TIMES

For larger tasks, this is a pretty great one. Before you first try anything, just commit to fail at it nine times before you give up, trying something slightly different each time. Studies have shown that a human is ALMOST INCAPABLE of failing ten times in a row at the same thing. (That’s why they have bet maximums in Vegas, ’cause otherwise you could just keep betting more than the total that you’d already lost, and after ten hands you’d be up.) I have done this with many different things now, and on average I fail six times and succeed on the seventh.

Anyway, here’s a classic of me that I just rescanned. I spent nine consecutive hours in Soup Plantation cutting those eyes out of that one piece of black paper. RIP, Soup Plantation. ✌🏻

Also I know what it’s like to struggle or feel undervalued as an artist, so I thought it’d be cool to highlight some people I like in these emails that you may not have heard about.

Thanks for reading,

Ryan

Turns out that while The Shining wasn’t shot at The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite, Kubrick copied the interior of it almost exactly. Check out this article for clarification.

I went last week, and it was pretty great. There are even other spooky elements that look exactly LIKE they would be in The Shining, but aren’t, such as these black doors here.

The rooms at The Ahwahnee are pricey, and my understanding is that the lobby interiors and other public rooms are the coolest parts, so I stayed at a cheap but great Air BnB nearby and just visited The Ahwahnee.

They were totally cool with randos like me just coming in and taking photos. I even moved the antique spooky chairs around to use them as tripods and such and nobody on staff gave me a second look.

Ask me if you want the Air BnB link to where I stayed or any other info.

Also I thought it’d be cool to highlight people I like who you may not have heard about in these emails. Check out Pear Juice Productions. They also make really cool films and visual art.

Thanks for reading,
Ryan

Got two new film picks for you this week on the free movie site… a pair of extremely visual movies featuring ladies in danger! Chosen with love by associate Madeline (she’s @op.67 on IG) and me.

VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS:

https://www3.bflix.to/movie/valerie-and-her-week-of-wonders-29914

HOUSE:

https://www3.bflix.to/movie/house-3r969

Also I thought it’d be cool to highlight people I like who you may not have heard about in these emails. Check out painter Tom Loffill.

Also I’ve said it before, but if you do that free movie site, I would recommend installing these pop-up blockers to Chrome first.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pop-up-blocker-for-chrome/bkkbcggnhapdmkeljlodobbkopceiche?hl=en

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock-for-youtube/cmedhionkhpnakcndndgjdbohmhepckk

Thanks for reading,

Ryan

Other people wake up in the morning, “Ah, new day, up and at ’em.” I wake up, the heaviness is right there waiting for me. And sometimes I even talk to it. I say, “Hi, heaviness.” And the heaviness looks back at me. “Today you’re gonna get it good. You’ll be drinkin’ early today.”

Rodney Dangerfield said that.

But I was always super depressed in the morning, so what I did was start getting up earlier so that the sun woke me up in a gradual way, like what was probably natural for cavemen.

Then I started doing my “Hour of Power,” which I know is a corny name, but I found it really helps. So here’s what you do:

1. LEARN CLEAN – Set a timer on your phone and clean the space around you for 20 minutes while listening to something educational or inspiring.
2. MEDITATE – Again set a timer, meditate for 20 minutes.
3. IDEAS – Again set a timer, spend 20 minutes writing down bad ideas of how you might improve what you’re already doing now.

The ideas are my favorite part. You’ll find that if you set out to just write bad ideas, good ones start slipping through, and knowing you will do this every day gives a good feeling, like you’ve built a fountain which will continue producing forever.

I wrote the list out and put it where I could easily see it every day, ’cause naturally in the morning I’m just super out of it and confused.

Also I know what it’s like to struggle or feel undervalued as an artist, so I thought it’d be cool to highlight people I like who you may not have heard about in these emails.

Check out Jessalyn Brooks. I really like how her stuff looks controlled and uncontrolled at the same time. (Click for her IG.)

Thanks for reading,

Ryan

My friend John just sent me this free movie site, and I’ve been watching a lot of stuff on it lately. I’m not associated with them or anything, just spreading the love… pretty great if you’re cheap like me and don’t like to pay for a bunch of subscription services.

If you end up finding cool movies on there, will you send me some recommendations back? Here are a couple of mine.

FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES:

https://www3.bflix.to/movie/funeral-parade-of-roses-k3jz9/z1r189w

MEATBALLS:

https://www3.bflix.to/movie/meatballs-yqjj0/zl067mw

Also if you’re interested, here are the first two pages of my script. (I’ve unfortunately had to work super hard on non-visual things lately.) Right click and “open image in new tab” if you want to make it bigger.

Also I thought it’d be cool to highlight people I like who you may not have heard about in these emails.

Check out the films of Jodie Mack. She’s @jodiemack on Instagram.  

PS: If you do that free movie site, I would recommend installing these pop-up blockers to Chrome first.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pop-up-blocker-for-chrome/bkkbcggnhapdmkeljlodobbkopceiche?hl=enhttps://www3.bflix.to/movie/funeral-parade-of-roses-k3jz9/z1r189w

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adblock-for-youtube/cmedhionkhpnakcndndgjdbohmhepckk

Thanks for reading,

Ryan

Do you know what NFT art is? I just heard about it from my friend Roger last week.

People are saying NFTs could change the art and music industries forever.

It’s basically like the stock market for artists. Like bitcoin assigned to digital art that doesn’t have to have any physical representation.

So just in the way that you could take a picture of the Mona Lisa and it would be worthless, yet the real Mona Lisa is priceless, it’s the same thing with digital art now, even though they’re just corny 10mb jpeg files.

One of the main reasons they’re great for artists though is that when you make an NFT (non-fungible token), you set a percentage of the price which you, the creator, will always receive forever in the future. So, unlike a real Picasso, each time your NFT is traded and sold, you get say 10% of the sale price.

And NFTs can be visual art, video clips, or original music. And all these things are already happening. Pretty crazy.

Here’s a video about it, if you’re interested.  

I also followed along with this video, which gives you the nuts and bolts of how to go about actually getting set up to be able to make your own, but I am not advising you to do ANYTHING. I’m just hearing about all this for the first time myself. I just find it interesting.  

I should also say that I JUST found out from a fellow photographer named Sam that apparently NFTs are terrible for the real physical world environment, because, for now, they take an abnormally high amount of real-life terawatt-hours of electricity to “mint.” So keep all that in mind.

And none of this changes the fact that people have to already know you in order to buy anything from you, so that should still be our focus.

I like that it’s hard to even wrap your head around, though, like a new genre in film or music.

Unrelated, I know what it’s like to struggle or feel undervalued as an artist, so I thought it’d be cool to highlight people I like who you may not have heard about in these emails.

Check out the insanely great rugs my friend Taylor makes.

​

What did the actor get when he fell off the stage? A casting call.

Thanks for reading,

Ryan