Branding

So it is with great consternation that I address the issue of branding myself. In the online landscape it is important to have a recognizable presence, especially if you plan on contributing to the web in a meaningful way. As an up-and-coming person in media production, it is doubly important to build awareness for myself, my potential future companies, and projects. Online I have used many names, but in the last couple of years I settled on “Hoodie Weather” as the brand I wanted to claim as my own. I love hoodies, I love the crisp temperature perfect for hoodies, and I think it expresses a lot about my personal style.

Problem: I am not the first person to utilize this phrase. I am not the first person online to use this phrase. I am not even the first person on social media and blog sites to use this as a name. Hence my twitter containing an underscore, my blog containing a hyphen, etc etc. This inconsistency means not every Hoodie_Weather online is me, just on Twitter. Every Hoodie-Weather isn’t me either, that’s just on blogspot. None of the HoodieWeathers out there are me. If I ever want to truly claim that as my brand, I will need to fork out a lot of dough to buy up these permutations, or just settle on one. And the issue here is some sites allow the hyphen but not the underscore, and some vice-versa. For consistency’s sake I really need a name without punctuation I can use everywhere. And there is the rub: to do that, I really have to give up Hoodie Weather. And that, my dears, pains me.

Long have I used the online moniker of MissilePenguin; it comes from a childhood creation of mine, a heroic penguin who could fly thanks to a rocket pack on his back. Think the Rocketeer in small, feathered form. Thankfully this name has remained mostly mine, having rarely seen anyone else take it from me. The typical google search will just bring up the ‘Penguin’ missile used by the army during the Gulf War. Maybe this is the solution I have always been looking for? I have the Missilepenguin AIM name, the gmail, yahoomail, and numerous forum names as Missilepenguin. Is it any wonder I should just make MissilePenguin the brand of Marshall James?

For a long time I considered “Island of Buffalo” for my production company name, it even graces a few of the short films I made in high school. It again come from from my childhood; I had recurring dreams of this same surreal island and being really into ‘Peter Pan’ I naturally assumed that this island was my Neverland, and in the way you just ‘know’ certain things in dreams, I just ‘knew’ the island was named Buffalo and that it had no living buffaloes on it. I described this place in several short fictions and poems in high school and college and thought the name really exemplified me in this raw creative state.

I’ve received various nicknames over the years, but none have really stuck. Recently, the girlfriend branded me “Marshupial” and I like it. I really like the idea of the brand containing something i truly identify with just myself, and what better thing than my very name?

It is late. She told me to sleep on it, it might come to me then. Good advice. Buffalo, here I come.

Looking Backward, Looking Forward

4/13/11

So over the weekend I finally bought an iPhone and have really taken a liking to it over the old Blackberry I used ever since my arrival in LA. Funny side-note: when I first asked my now-girlfriend for her phone number whilst fishing out my phone, her apparent thought was, “Wow, who under 40 still uses a blackberry?” One major difference between the two smartphones is that Blackberry only receives new emails from the moment you tie an account to it; iPhone goes and gets all your old emails in your inbox.

Now, I’m not terribly anal about these sort of things, but several of my more tech-y friends (gf included) have long balked at my inbox filled with 2000+ emails. Most are read, don’t get confused, its just, I read them and then don’t delete them. When confronted about why I don’t ‘Archive’ them, I was simply bewildered as to how an archive is any different than my inbox. To me, they are the same. I guess some use the contents of their inbox to tell them what they have and haven’t checked/responded to, but I figure that out well enough without needing to archive everything. I did this same thing when I played WoW, using the in-game mail box as a sort of second bank, mailing things to an alt and letting them slowly bounce back to me and sit in the ol’ inbox.

Well now that my iPhone was freaking out about the 100+ emails I had unread in my various accounts, I decided to go in and archive them all. In doing so, I was faced with a sort of history of the past. My gmail account goes back to my last 2 years of undergrad, 2008 and forward, and that was kind of cute to be confronted with emails about old projects with classmates now already forgotten and left behind and kind of sad to be confronted with a few messy relationships now long over. The yahoo account proved even stranger, as I had gotten it back in 2003 and had emails from then to prove it. Heck, I had emails from “The Marshall University Facebook” which had a school colors banner, the words ‘the facebook’ in white on Kelly green.

This combined with my attempts to consolidate my digital life have forced me to reflect on what a different person I feel like now than I did then. I feel like if I were to meet the Marshall of 2003, I wouldn’t know him. Some people say how ‘I’ve always been me’ and I just never really feel that way. I mean sure, there are parts of my life that I look back upon fondly or maybe a bit enviously, but its like, I remember that part of my life as though I were not in it. Like I have dissociative disorder, but only for my memories.

As if to coincide with this slogging through the past, today I was invited to a new Facebook group by my highschool creative writing teacher. I went to a school with a special arts program called SCAPA (School for Creative And Performing Arts) and there I majored in theatre and creative writing. The SCAPA kids were like most arty, brooding teens: we hung together in packs, didn’t associate with many non-SCAPA types, and took ourselves and our chosen artform way too seriously. The group was a collective of all the students from the creative writing division which the professor could find, and so here I am transported back to high school, with the whole cast of characters, a completely different world than the one I am in now. I don’t know if I would be recognized by any of these people, I don’t know if I’d recognize myself. I sift through writings from junior year, senior year, and I try to remember what it was like writing them, how did I come up with some of this stuff, did I really get up in front of a coffee house of strangers to ‘perform’ this?

I’m sure I will post some of ‘this stuff’ at some point on here. Was just talking with the girlfriend and asking her ‘mom technical support’ questions like “How did you get your domain for your website?” because I am some kind of retarded old man who has tricked himself and the world into believing he is 27. Maybe soon this link [link removed, thanks Meredith for explaining yet again how the intertubes work ;) ] will work and I will really have one of those self-indulgent, fill-up-cyberspace-with-me style pages that everyone else has. Gotta keep up with them joneses.

Violence

4/12/11

I would like to not besmirch my new blog with tales of woe relating to my legal troubles, but suffice it to say I decided today that perhaps I need to let it go. For my mental health. It was 5 weeks pay robbed of me by an employer, and I have since then spent as much time trying to get it back from him through the proper legal channels to no avail, and the court fees ended up costing me over $500. Even as I type this I feel my blood pressure starting to rise, so…

Anyway, in discussing my decision to let it go with the girlfriend this morning, my dander was raised and I began to vent about my anger and my desire for some kind of justice. I lamented that the same legal system that was so inept at protecting me from fraud and theft would swiftly come to his aid if I were to act out my aggression physically upon his person. This made her very upset as she is very opposed to violence in any real form. She expressed in no uncertain terms that she would not appreciate dating a man who thought physical violence was ever a recourse for monetary loss.

I tried to explain that violence is part of being a man, and I felt like here was a point where maybe we could have a discussion on masculinity in the same vein as our frequent discussions on femininity. I told her to think of two of her close guy friends, both married, both passive, easy-going dudes. I know that were they or their wives threatened, either of these mild-mannered guys are capable of extreme amounts of violence. Rare is the man who can truly ignore his emotions and instincts and remain completely passive in a threatening situation.

She responded that there is a difference: I was not threatened. But I feel worse than threatened here. I feel violated. I was taken-advantage-of. I was used, abused, demeaned, degraded, insulted. I was robbed and humiliated, and am now left with no option but either to give up on my right or to continue to suffer the abuses of this awful man.

I felt like it might be worthy to voice my thoughts on violence as a means to an end and to ask any reader or friend for thoughts on it as well. So this will be the beginning of a recurring segment on violence and its part in the human condition and what function I feel it still plays in my life and such.

The climb

4/8/11

Old and regretful. That’s how I feel this fine if chilly Friday morning in LA. I have been working for a major worldwide television production company for the past 3 weeks and only today did I glean the little bit of information about my fellow co-workers that I had feared. One of the casting associates is 26, one of the casting producers, 28. Here I am, nearly 28 myself and I am still just a production assistant. I have done plenty of work as a production coordinator and I have the expertise to be a production manager or an associate producer, but the nature of the beast out here has saddled me with setbacks.

Don’t get me wrong; I am happy to be working and steady paychecks are such a relief on my strained mind. But I overheard them discussing some work opportunity one might be able to hook the other up with “But its only for $[X] a week, so I understand that’s, like, nothing” where X is twice what I make per week. I feel silly quibbling about this, money is only a means to an end for me; I don’t need money, I just want to not have to worry about it so much. Thankfully, my paychecks from this gig are covering all my costs and actually allowing me to accrue some capital so my standard of living is going to go up. Hooray.

I just worry that I am doing something wrong. Probably my most paralyzing fear I have is that I am always missing opportunities; that if I just knew where to look, who to talk to, where to be; then maybe I could feel a bit more satisfied by my current station. I don’t feel like I deserve to be a producer right now or anything like that, but something a bit higher, a bit stabler, a bit more directional.

I’ve had to climb this ladder before, and here I start to do it again. Hopefully this time I don’t get kicked off again. A year ago this time, I was in line to become a coordinator at another company I’d moved out here to work for. After a month of training for the position, everyone stopped calling. I found out after a week of calling around that the contract with the network was being renegotiated. No one bothered to tell me. Month went by with me checking in every week or so; no news. Around September I learn that the show’d been back on for over a month and that another PA, Titus, had been given the coordinator job. He had been their original first pick for it, but he told them he didn’t really want to work in tv and was planning on leaving the company at the end of the year anyway. Regardless, they had reneged their offer to me and gave him the job. Titus did not particularly care for me, and so I never got hired there again to do freelance work. Come January, Titus had left as he said he would and I dropped by the company to let them know I’d been doing some coordinator work for a major television show and would like the opportunity to pick up where we’d left off. The company had let Titus pick his replacement, however, and he chose a friend with no coordinator experience. That’s the Hollywood game.

So I’m grateful to be employed, and for the chance to climb again.

Write Nite

4/1/11

She's upset with me. I can tell it on her face. I am close to 30 minutes late. This is the second time we have purposely gotten together to write at Coffee Bean. To be fair, I spent most of last 'Write Nite' posting on the wall of a Facebook group I'd founded, but she took the time to write a blog entry and I think now that I can take a moment to breathe and not spend every waking moment trying to find employment or companionship or escape, I feel a desire to continue broadening my thoughtspace with some introspection. And what better, more modern and hip way to do that than to blog about it?

So here I am, not-so-covertly eating a turkey burger from Carl’s Jr. (made with the people at Men’s Health’s ‘Eat This, Not That’ the little sign assured me) and typing this while she stares into her computer screen. She reminded me, politely but firmly, when I first blustered in that I should probably buy a coffee. Good point, don’t want to be an asshole, blundering about, using the free wifi and eating another establishments' food whilst not patronizing the business whose facilities I am using. So I bought today’s coffee, the cheapest thing on the menu. Verdict: I’m still an asshole, but at least I’m a little less of one now.

I am almost done with my turkey burger (which is simultaneously tasty and gross, go figure) and I wonder what shes spending her time writing. Her blog? Poetry? A short story? An angry rant about how slowly but surely the boyfriend she was once totally crazy about is driving her legit crazy with his subtle undercutting of her expectations for him?

Burger done. Coffee time. And it tastes like it needs more sugar, but I will resist the urge. 2 packets seem enough. Sugar is one thing I have taken a dogmatic stance on: its real sugar all the way, thank you. Keep that chemical stuff that tastes sweet but has a five-syllable name out of me. Yes I was just drinking a Dr. Pepper with my Carl’s Jr. turkey burger and fries. Yes, I am aware it has high-fructose corn syrup instead of sugar. Yes that makes me a hypocrite. I accept this. I can’t really see an alternative other than not getting a drink since the only non-sodas they offer are flavored with aspartame and food dyes, and then there is water, but they charge $3.00 a bottle and fuck that noise.

Ugly man who is a game designer apparently just approached the two female students sitting by themselves in the corner. They are nursing students. I saw they were reading large medical text books, discussing the pros and cons of radiation therapy, and have previously informed three different men of this. I find this curious and right as I am typing about it Meredith leans forward and quietly comments “Have you been keeping track of how often these girls get approached by men?” and then sends me a link to this article [http://www.metafilter.com/85667/Hi-Whatcha-reading] and gives me a brief synopsis: that it is about how women without male companions are constantly harassed in public by strange men.

This brings me to the first extemporaneous writing I had begun but not finished a few weeks back when I and Ere first started dating. As I am trying to broaden my horizons mentally and philosophically, she has enlightened my view on feminism, or at least made me regard how much wider the topic is than I once considered. I will find and finish that note I was working on and post it, but the gist of it is I realize now, more than ever before, how much of a man I am in the sense that I really don’t know much about a woman’s life and thoughts. I considered myself enlightened, or at least empathic enough to say “I can understand. The deck is definitely stacked against women: physically, sexually, emotionally, socially, economically, culturally, and more. Women have to worry more about their personal safety…”

We interrupt this self-reflection to break this latest story: a strange man just walked into the coffee shop, slammed down a pack of peanut butter M&Ms on the the table with the two nursing students, and then promptly walked out saying nothing. The girls said “oh thank you” and “wait, come back” but he did not. I looked at Ere who was staring dead at me. I could not believe what I’d seen. The following chat conversation transpired:

Meredith: random guy

just bought them m*ms

dropped them off

and then left

WHY DOES THIS EXIST

me: was that guy really a random dude?

like, seriously?

Meredith: yes he was way too shy guy

to talk to them

me: he wasn't in here just now?

Meredith: no he was

but he doesn't know them

me: Meredith

seriously

this is by far the most bizarre men-interacting-with-women-in-public I have ever witnessed i htink

like seriously

and I went to college twice

and its all happening to the same 2 girls

Meredith: yes

it is

a thing

that happens

to women

alone in public

me: and they are not even, like, super hot or anyhting

me: but i thought the two of them together would be a deterrent

Meredith: obviously not

me: but seriously

have i really been blind?

like, this blind?

Meredith: yes

yes

me: well fuck me

And I was being serious. I mean, I am of course aware the awkward, unwanted public attention and approaches happen to women all the time, but THIS awkward, and with this frequency?

And yes, as soon as I typed the “and they are not even, like, super hot or anything” I considered what a typically douchey guy-thing it was to say. But I guess my mind was trying to think of a motivation for no less than 4 men to harass the same two girls in less than an hour, and the only thing I could think of was a strong sexual desire, which I don’t really feel toward either of them. Yes, its gross and sexist but its also the truth: dudes like to have sex with women, dudes often flirt with women in the hopes of getting to do just that. I find myself now glancing at every person who walks in the coffee shop to see if one will be creepy guy #5, not out of fear but out of morbid curiosity. What drives these men?

You see, while I am quite an extrovert around my friends and co-workers, I am ultimately horribly awkward around new people when I have no context to speak to them. I have approached a woman cold to speak with her less than five times in my life. At a party or rock show, its easier; we are there to interact with others, its not weird to interact with her out of the blue. But to approach a girl, much less two of them, out of the blue in a coffee shop is completely foreign to me.

First!

Ok, so I endeavor once again to do this blog thing, and I think this time I may succeed. I've reached a kind of personal breakthrough lately that may or may not be tied to concurrence of a new romance and some solid work. So now that I don't have to spend so much energy hunting work and companionship, I am free to get around to that "personal growth/horizon broadening" part of the move to LA that I really meant to get into a while ago.

You see, I moved to LA from Kentucky just a little over a year ago to work in television and film. It has been a pretty constant struggle to find work and stay on top of debt, obligations, networking, etc. Now I've got a pretty stable situation and have time to do some navel-gazing and self-improvement. And I will likely be doing it stream of consciousness style. So here goes...