No. 52 @no-52 - Tumblr Blog

Posts

hello, it’s me. I’ve thought about you for a long, long time… time for my 3 year update… Every once in a while I just think about tumblr and get extremely sentimental. Made so many friends on here and one day we just all decided to never speak again, I guess. My account got hacked and I lost a lot of followers because of it. Oh well, hope they’re fine. I no longer live in Nashville. I still am working with the artist that I was referring to in my previous post (Penny Lame, pictured here), except now we’ve been in a deeply committed relationship for a year and a half, and we live in Los Angeles with our dog (made a goofy video with him that accidentally went viral in China, Koda, and our cat, Joni. I love Gracen dearly and she apparently loves me.

I kept making music videos for all these years. After surviving COVID, I took a step back from that. It was the same situation where I felt like I wasn’t making what I need to make for my soul. I was getting lazy and pumping out thoughtless drivel and wasn’t happy with it. Last one I made was in November of last year. I liked that one a great deal. I got a job, instead, making videos for a tech company. I hate this job with every bone in my body, but it sure is nice not being a freelancer anymore. I’m saving up money to make a short film that I think is going to change my life. It’s hard to save much of anything right now though. Have a lot of debt hanging over me and California is expensive. I don’t get paid nearly as much as I was led to believe I was going to make, but I like the guys I work with.

I drive a motorcycle now. Bought as a pile of scrap and fixed it up to be my dream motorcycle from when I saw it on this very website when I was 13. A yellow 1973 Honda CB500. It’s pictured here, on a road trip to Utah that ended with my bike on fire and me stranded in the most nothing town in America (think Radiator Springs from Cars, that’s exactly it, mechanic that helped me was even named Doc) for 5 days, truly a life changing experience.

I also recently bought a 1983 Porsche 944 to learn how to work on cars. It broke down the second day I had it and it’s been a 4 month struggle trying to get it to run again. Wish me luck there.

As of right now, I don’t feel especially happy, nor do I feel an immense sense of sadness. I feel like I’m on the cusp of something really good happening to me, and I’m just in an awkward waiting period. California has been hard. I’ve lived here for 2 years now. I’ve been mugged (but you should see the other guys), hit by 2 cars, then COVID started and my car was stolen, tires on motorcycle blew out while I was riding, and I am exhausted. I’m treading water as hard as I possibly can, trying to stay afloat. I think everything will turn out alright. Sometimes it does. I can’t wait for my next 3 year update. If I remember, maybe we’ll go for a yearly post.

Godspeed.

#update

*extremely Staind voice* It’s been awhiiiiiiile!

Wow! I started this Tumblr 6 years ago when I was a Sophmore in high school, living in Birmingham, AL. I totally forgot about it, but something reminded me of it this morning and I decided to hop on and see what’s happening! Looking back at some of my older posts definitely made me cringe, but it’s not as bad as I thought it might be.

I guess I’ll deliver a small update for anyone that may still follow me and care, just because I’m here!

I live in Nashville now. I’ve been out of high school for several years. Went to college for a year, then stopped because I was sick of school. I worked in the film industry as a gaffer for a few years. That was fun and the money was good, but I eventually got tired of working for other people. For the past year, I’ve been directing music videos. I’ve worked with some great artists that I’ve always been a huge fan of, and some artists that no one has heard of, but have become dear friends. I’ve got a film I’m pitching to a studio in a month or two, so that’ll be fun. Also, moving to Los Angeles in January with someone I like a lot.

Technically, things are nice. I don’t have a lot to complain about, but I’m pretty depressed. I’ve been struggling with off-and-on depression of varying intensities since February. I got the biggest project of my career and (due to circumstances outside of my control) really messed it up. Everyone says they like the video, but I think it’s pretty terrible. Definitely not what it should’ve been. It could be fine, who knows... I couldn’t eat for weeks without feeling like I wanted to vomit and I went through 14 cuts with the label that they kept changing until it was unrecognizable from my original cut. The artist and I joke about it to this day. Everyone tells us how much they love the song and video, and we hate both. She and I were in LA for the month of March (a week after the release of the video) and we’d just walk into the kitchen and find people listening to the song or watching the video. It felt terrible to have to hear the song or see the video, but it was also nice to see that someone liked it, I guess.

Anyway, I’m over all of that nonsense. It happened, I learned a lot from that experience and have subsequently made some of my best work. Making music videos (and being able to live off of doing so) is the best thing in the world (next to movies, I guess. I don’t really care about music videos in the same way I care about those)... But it also has the ability to be the worst... I think my current bout with depression is mostly due to the stress of trying to juggle 4 or 5 projects every month and not being able to devote my attention to one at a time to make the best possible thing, so they all come out mediocre. Doesn’t seem like it should be a big deal, but it feels like it is.

There are some personal things also contributing to it, but I won’t get into that complicated situation on here.

Anyway, I’m doing great, besides all that stuff! How are you?