shanenickerson.com

shards

I've been watching Caprica on SyFy.  Because I'm such a huge BSG fan, it's a no-brainer that I'm watching a prequel, which includes the story of the birth of Cylons. Anyway, one of the characters talks about the remnants we leave behind on the web, and all over computer networks and databases throughout our lives.  I've been thinking about that quite a bit lately, and I wonder if technology will eventually allow us to search for image matches within digital content.  For example, using a picture or several pictures of an individual for reference, a googlebot may someday scour YouTube videos, press clippings, news items, tv shows, and everything else it can crawl to find image matches WITHIN those videos.  How amazing would that be?  You'd find images of yourself you never knew existed.  Perhaps you'd discover yourself quoted on a news program you never knew you were a part of, or find a random untagged photo on Flickr, or even discover your face in a crowd shot at a sporting event.  Limitless possibilities. 

Until that technology exists, you'll have to rely on your own knowledge of where you might find your likeness and remnants on the web.  Or, if you're lucky, someone you work with will point you towards some embarrassing extra work you did back in the 90's for a Star Trek CD-ROM called "Starfleet Academy."  I always thought the only part of me visible in that game was my shoes (designed to match Shatner's, since I was his stand-in), but I've recently been alerted to the fact that I am visible in at least one scene. 

 

Here's the link, if you want to see some embarrassing "extra acting" (not to mention some pretty lazy "Shatner Acting.")  YouTube is incredible.  This crazy little stand-in gig made me eligible for my SAG card.  It also afforded me the opportunity to take a tour of the Star Trek wardrobe storage building, which had every single costume from every single episode of every incarnation of Star Trek ever.  This jumpsuit I'm wearing was a vintage Star Trek II era jumpsuit, I believe.  I'm sure if it's not, someone will smack me down in the comments.

That picture up there?  That's what I was doing 12 years ago.  Turns out, the internet likes to maintain a bread crumb trail of all the things we do.  I guess I'm okay with that.

one more from the Fantasy Factory

Winter in Manhattan Beach

Winter in Los Angeles

leaping off points

I am withholding information from you at the moment.  It doesn't make for a very honest or open dialogue between us (you in the comments and me in the space right here), but I'll do my best without the specifics.  You'll be okay filling in the gaps and the fuzzy areas with your own similar secrets and stories.  It's not the what, after all, but the why.  What leaping off points?

I went out with some friends last night.  We stopped at a hip, somewhat kitschy spot in Hollywood called Kitchen 24, and drank a couple of Dark and Stormy's before heading over to Largo to see some stand up comedy.  There were paparazzi stationed outside of Largo, but I'm guessing they were there a night too late.  Two nights ago, there was a star-studded line of people waiting to see Sarah Silverman's benefit show for Haiti.  Last night, it was just a bunch of other unimportant people like us trickling in, hoping some comics would make us laugh.  The rogue photographers looked through us as we walked in, unimpressed by our non-BradPittness, non-Angelinaness, and non-anyonethatmattersness.  I was again reminded of how much I love obscurity.

The show was funny.  Afterward, we went to Swingers to enjoy some late night food (and a PBR), and to postpone the end of the evening.  All three of us work on the same show, so we're all in for a gear change next week as we begin four months of shooting for our third season.  It's going to be fun, yet entirely grueling.  Nights like last night will be harder to pull off in the thick of production, so we stretched it out until 2am.

I have two major projects about to begin in my life, with a possible third that is so big I can hardly get my head around it.  I love moving forward and getting better at my job and progressing as a person and as an artist.  Sometimes, though...I try to linger in that place where nothing is happening...just for a moment before I turn to face everything head on.

I lingered there, as we drank dark, stormy drinks in dimly lit refuges around LA.  I can't hide in the pre-storm calm forever, but since I'm about to jump back into an insane schedule and a hectic life for quite a long while, I sure took my time there last night.

Fantasy Factory v.3

CLICK THE PICTURE TO EMBIGGEN

old friends

back and forth

Every now and then, I read old entries from the archives of my blog.  They provide me a glimpse back at not only where I was in life, but WHO I was.  We move through life making a series of small decisions and simple choices that have a cumulative effect on the direction our path leads.  For that reason, I think it's easy to lose sight of progress.  Old goals seem less important as we silently achieve and quickly surpass them on the way to newer, bigger, better ones.  Shifted perspective makes old gripes less valid, and old struggles less frustrating. 

Though I promised myself I wouldn't blog about why I decided to bring this blog back to life after so long away, the short version is that I miss writing for writing's sake.  I want to write entries like this again:

Hollywoodland

or:

Aging Hipsters

or this, from LA Metblogs:

Bullets over Sunset

I remember the feeling I had after writing all three of those pieces: pure release.  That's what I miss.  I'm sure an English teacher (or editor) would have a field day cutting them apart, but I'm not claiming they're perfect.  I like them because they are stream of consciousness entries that made me feel like I was on the right path to discovering my own writing voice.  It's a constant quest.  I'm trying to get back there, I think.

Hollywood

Brendan Fraser's painfully awkward laugh clap, finger guns combo.

I love this so much. It's from the Golden Globes, during Martin Scorsese's award presentation.  DeNiro makes a joke about Scorsese making love to having sex with film, and they inexplicably cut to Brendan Fraser giving perhaps the most awkward reaction to a mediocre joke ever caught on film.

 

Thanks, Ryan.