8.26.2003
haha, the last time i really wrote in this thing was 26 days ago. much has happened, so this will be long...
so my film shoot took place without any major problems. the only bad part was that the main guy i was supposed to follow around did not register in time and therefore could not compete. but ill work around that. anyways, im going to summarize the shoot in a list of numbers since ive already talked about it so much to so many different people. everything went perfectly as planned, even though the plan wasnt perfect.
2 summer grants
5 days
25 crew members (half camera operators, half camera assistants)
8 locations total
5 simultaneous locations
8 cameras
90 hours of footage
over 4 hours of interviews
countless friends made
countless minutes over my cell plan
0 people killed
0 parking tickets/cars towed
0 problems
i think thats enough numbers. it was a big shoot, and the only reason it worked was because i had an amazing crew and an amazing family helping me out all week. thank you everyone that helped me out.
let's move on...
adam moved out and ricardo moved in. for some reason, really dumb shit keeps happening to us. i'll give a couple examples of stupid things and then a demonstration of our humor.
ex. 1
someone decided they didnt want their couch, and decided they wanted to put it in one of our parking spaces. in the middle of the night, someone wheeled the couch into one of our spots on a red wagon. we didnt have anywhere to put it, so we just left it there. then about a week later, they took their wagon back. one night (the last night of the shoot) ricardo and i were coming back from the chopin theater owned by Zigmunt* when i decided i wanted to park the car in one of our parking spots. I pulled in (forgetting for a minute that theres a couch there) and ended up scratching the side of my cousins van. the next day, i kicked the couch and then we moved it next to another persons garage. it was there for about a week, and then today, those people moved the couch so that it blocked in all of our cars. i hate that couch, and am very glad im moving away from it in a week. away from the stupid couch and all the damn spider webs.
*Zigmunt is the owner of the Chopin Theater on Division Street, but he wasn't always a theater owner. Zigmunt came to the US about 20 years ago as a scientist from Eastern Europe studying a certain species of killer bees somewhere around Texas. After following the bees around for 10 years, he decided to quit being a scientist, moved to Chicago, bought a building, and created the Chopin Theater. Also, during all that he found the time to marry black model named Lila.
ex. 2
i had to go home this past weekend to watch my dog while my parents took my sister to college (Butler University). ricardo decided to come home with me instead of playing video games all day or studying all day or doing whatever he does all day. we watched a lot of soccer, played some basketball at the shorewood courts, watched some movies, and drank a case of brisk in a day. on saturday night, while driving back from blockbuster, we came to a 3 way stop sign. a guy on a motorcycle stopped before me, so it was his turn to go. except instead of going, he just fell on his side. so he just layed there on the ground with his bike on top of him for about 10 seconds. ricardo thought he was dead and asked me if we should 'call the authorities.' but then he started to move and stood up slowly. i pulled up along side the guy to ask him if he was ok. he picked up his bike, and then fell over the other side. by this time, he was all scraped up and had blood on his head and clothes. after he got up again i asked him if he was alright. he said he 'was fine' in a kind of mean way, so i let him know that his cellphone was still on the ground and we just decided to go. ridiculous.
demonstration
on sunday, at my house, ricardo and i prepared a feast of cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, chips, grapes, cantelope, and brisk. we decided to eat outside, because thats what you do when its nice out and you have a deck. so we were enjoying our feast when these bees decided to mess with us. this is what happened:
(a bee starts flying around ricardo's head. he gets up and tries to get away from the bee.)
matt: just relax, the bee will leave you alone.
(another bee starts flying around matt. matt tries to get away from it.)
ricardo: yeah, just relax.
(the two bees decide they want to drink matt's brisk, they both land on the top of the can.)
m: that's right, just go in, see what happens.
(the bees go in, matt covers the can with a napkin, and then puts another can on top of it.)
m: that'll teach em to mess with us.
(two more bees show up and start flying on the food.)
r: i guess you didn't see what we did to your friends.
m: maybe we should just go inside.
r: yeah.
m: it kind of sucks that we are just going to let them win.
r: yeah, them bees is lucky it's sunday.
m: haha.
r: see what happens when they pull this shit on a saturday.
thus, 'you're lucky it's sunday' has become a frequently used quote around here along with 'no beds, no records, no deal' and several others that i dont feel like explaining.
ricardo has been busy putting the evanston bums to work. mainly benny. one day, he got benny to bind some copies he had made into a packet. a week later, benny helped me push ricardo's car down the street when he ran out of gas. in other bum news, the twisted beard bum confronted us outside of the ridge and davis apartments the other week. he is kind of old, but has a crew of skinny high school kids to back him up. all five of them stopped us on the sidewalk at about 2am. i think he was pissed at ricardo for lying about where he lived a few weeks earlier at a party that this bum happened to be at. anyways, we were allowed to pass without conflict, but if we ever see that twisted beard guy again, somethings gonna happen, even if it's sunday.
onto music...
so the album has been out for 3 weeks and has been getting rave reviews... i guess. people seem to keep listening to it, so that is good. i think i've given out about 35 copies so far. i have no idea how many copies of shorewood sessions were made and distributed before i came to northwestern. but i do know that a bunch of younger kids copied my cd for themselves and that i am a junior high celebrity. although im mostly happy with my second album, the new stuff is so much better that even the best tracks on inspired by mediocrity pale in comparison.
there are a few reasons the new stuff (to be released sometime in late september) will be so much better.
1. the other day i went out and bought a turntable and a mixer. i got the stuff on sale, but it's still some quality equipment. i took all my parents records and make frequent trips to the thrift store and second hand tunes to buy used records and a few new ones. in the first 24 hours i had my tables, i made the music for 3 songs. the plan is to produce 6 or more tracks, and record the vox in september with adam (francis brownstone) and harrel ((mf) drawstring).
2. when we record, we will have all (or most) of the lyrics written when we go to record, which is a stark contrast to our practiced style of just deciding to make a song and making it entirely in 6 hours without ever perfecting or memorizing the words. this will be very evident in our delivery and content.. i hope.
3. everything that we make just keeps getting better. this is true on all levels: production and rhyming. and this time, we will have a better quality recording as well. jon monteverde of northwest passage productions is going to record us at his home studio in beautiful EV, IL - meaning it won't be recorded on my computer mic in my living room.
so, with everything written and produced beforehand, and then a quality recording, this new stuff should be good. good enough for me to not be embarrassed about.
i guess i've written enough. i basically covered everything. i'm going to be up all night copying poetry slam tapes. tomorrow ricardo and i start training, and this time, its actually going to happen. leave some comments about the album, even if you have to force them.
(0) comments
so my film shoot took place without any major problems. the only bad part was that the main guy i was supposed to follow around did not register in time and therefore could not compete. but ill work around that. anyways, im going to summarize the shoot in a list of numbers since ive already talked about it so much to so many different people. everything went perfectly as planned, even though the plan wasnt perfect.
2 summer grants
5 days
25 crew members (half camera operators, half camera assistants)
8 locations total
5 simultaneous locations
8 cameras
90 hours of footage
over 4 hours of interviews
countless friends made
countless minutes over my cell plan
0 people killed
0 parking tickets/cars towed
0 problems
i think thats enough numbers. it was a big shoot, and the only reason it worked was because i had an amazing crew and an amazing family helping me out all week. thank you everyone that helped me out.
let's move on...
adam moved out and ricardo moved in. for some reason, really dumb shit keeps happening to us. i'll give a couple examples of stupid things and then a demonstration of our humor.
ex. 1
someone decided they didnt want their couch, and decided they wanted to put it in one of our parking spaces. in the middle of the night, someone wheeled the couch into one of our spots on a red wagon. we didnt have anywhere to put it, so we just left it there. then about a week later, they took their wagon back. one night (the last night of the shoot) ricardo and i were coming back from the chopin theater owned by Zigmunt* when i decided i wanted to park the car in one of our parking spots. I pulled in (forgetting for a minute that theres a couch there) and ended up scratching the side of my cousins van. the next day, i kicked the couch and then we moved it next to another persons garage. it was there for about a week, and then today, those people moved the couch so that it blocked in all of our cars. i hate that couch, and am very glad im moving away from it in a week. away from the stupid couch and all the damn spider webs.
*Zigmunt is the owner of the Chopin Theater on Division Street, but he wasn't always a theater owner. Zigmunt came to the US about 20 years ago as a scientist from Eastern Europe studying a certain species of killer bees somewhere around Texas. After following the bees around for 10 years, he decided to quit being a scientist, moved to Chicago, bought a building, and created the Chopin Theater. Also, during all that he found the time to marry black model named Lila.
ex. 2
i had to go home this past weekend to watch my dog while my parents took my sister to college (Butler University). ricardo decided to come home with me instead of playing video games all day or studying all day or doing whatever he does all day. we watched a lot of soccer, played some basketball at the shorewood courts, watched some movies, and drank a case of brisk in a day. on saturday night, while driving back from blockbuster, we came to a 3 way stop sign. a guy on a motorcycle stopped before me, so it was his turn to go. except instead of going, he just fell on his side. so he just layed there on the ground with his bike on top of him for about 10 seconds. ricardo thought he was dead and asked me if we should 'call the authorities.' but then he started to move and stood up slowly. i pulled up along side the guy to ask him if he was ok. he picked up his bike, and then fell over the other side. by this time, he was all scraped up and had blood on his head and clothes. after he got up again i asked him if he was alright. he said he 'was fine' in a kind of mean way, so i let him know that his cellphone was still on the ground and we just decided to go. ridiculous.
demonstration
on sunday, at my house, ricardo and i prepared a feast of cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, chips, grapes, cantelope, and brisk. we decided to eat outside, because thats what you do when its nice out and you have a deck. so we were enjoying our feast when these bees decided to mess with us. this is what happened:
(a bee starts flying around ricardo's head. he gets up and tries to get away from the bee.)
matt: just relax, the bee will leave you alone.
(another bee starts flying around matt. matt tries to get away from it.)
ricardo: yeah, just relax.
(the two bees decide they want to drink matt's brisk, they both land on the top of the can.)
m: that's right, just go in, see what happens.
(the bees go in, matt covers the can with a napkin, and then puts another can on top of it.)
m: that'll teach em to mess with us.
(two more bees show up and start flying on the food.)
r: i guess you didn't see what we did to your friends.
m: maybe we should just go inside.
r: yeah.
m: it kind of sucks that we are just going to let them win.
r: yeah, them bees is lucky it's sunday.
m: haha.
r: see what happens when they pull this shit on a saturday.
thus, 'you're lucky it's sunday' has become a frequently used quote around here along with 'no beds, no records, no deal' and several others that i dont feel like explaining.
ricardo has been busy putting the evanston bums to work. mainly benny. one day, he got benny to bind some copies he had made into a packet. a week later, benny helped me push ricardo's car down the street when he ran out of gas. in other bum news, the twisted beard bum confronted us outside of the ridge and davis apartments the other week. he is kind of old, but has a crew of skinny high school kids to back him up. all five of them stopped us on the sidewalk at about 2am. i think he was pissed at ricardo for lying about where he lived a few weeks earlier at a party that this bum happened to be at. anyways, we were allowed to pass without conflict, but if we ever see that twisted beard guy again, somethings gonna happen, even if it's sunday.
onto music...
so the album has been out for 3 weeks and has been getting rave reviews... i guess. people seem to keep listening to it, so that is good. i think i've given out about 35 copies so far. i have no idea how many copies of shorewood sessions were made and distributed before i came to northwestern. but i do know that a bunch of younger kids copied my cd for themselves and that i am a junior high celebrity. although im mostly happy with my second album, the new stuff is so much better that even the best tracks on inspired by mediocrity pale in comparison.
there are a few reasons the new stuff (to be released sometime in late september) will be so much better.
1. the other day i went out and bought a turntable and a mixer. i got the stuff on sale, but it's still some quality equipment. i took all my parents records and make frequent trips to the thrift store and second hand tunes to buy used records and a few new ones. in the first 24 hours i had my tables, i made the music for 3 songs. the plan is to produce 6 or more tracks, and record the vox in september with adam (francis brownstone) and harrel ((mf) drawstring).
2. when we record, we will have all (or most) of the lyrics written when we go to record, which is a stark contrast to our practiced style of just deciding to make a song and making it entirely in 6 hours without ever perfecting or memorizing the words. this will be very evident in our delivery and content.. i hope.
3. everything that we make just keeps getting better. this is true on all levels: production and rhyming. and this time, we will have a better quality recording as well. jon monteverde of northwest passage productions is going to record us at his home studio in beautiful EV, IL - meaning it won't be recorded on my computer mic in my living room.
so, with everything written and produced beforehand, and then a quality recording, this new stuff should be good. good enough for me to not be embarrassed about.
i guess i've written enough. i basically covered everything. i'm going to be up all night copying poetry slam tapes. tomorrow ricardo and i start training, and this time, its actually going to happen. leave some comments about the album, even if you have to force them.
8.10.2003
i won. stories to come shortly.
(0) comments
8.01.2003
its august 1st, the album is out. email me at m-cozza@northwestern.edu with your mailing address to get a copy (and by email i mean not instant message).
film stuff is keeping me busy, too busy to write in here. sam wrote a nice album release article. i hope to have the website up and running soon, but i also don't really care because i have many more important things to do for the next week and a half.
(0) comments
film stuff is keeping me busy, too busy to write in here. sam wrote a nice album release article. i hope to have the website up and running soon, but i also don't really care because i have many more important things to do for the next week and a half.
