recently, i uncovered all my old documents from grade 8-12, and i found some hilarious stuff, when i was in grade ten, i was collecting poems and short stories for a book that i had grand ideas for, so i got a whole bunch from an outstanding talent pool known as enriched english. it's okay to laugh, they are funny, it's very nostalgic to read them, remembering sitting at the corner table in the cafeteria some days, others walking over to jeremy's with trevor...trippy shit, the realization is that was nearly 9 years ago...1996-1999 was high school...i feel old, and depressed...

We, the sheep are controlled
not by our will, as meek as our
own lambs
but by his
we bow on withered woolen knees
to be sheered of our wool
taken to slaughter
try me
all powerful shephard hiding behind
rebts of legislation
while sheering our wool
To the shephard I warn you, do not
sleep under the tree of lies
for too long
There may be a wolf in sheep's clothing
or so we hope

Nathan Binns -- circa 1997


John "Peace is the only hope
for the children of tommorrow"
Died; during World War II

Sandy "We'll burn alive if we
don't keep the environment clean"
Died; swerved off the road while reaching for a styrofoam burger container

Rachel "People today care way too
much about their looks"
Died; at the weight of 85 lbs. due to anorexia

Paul "I'm not a racist, to me all
people are the same"
Died; told a racial joke in a bar

Bree "People who do drugs with needles are
so stupid, think of the diseases"
Died; of AIDS due to unprotected sex

Luke "Any man that even tries to
beat his wife should be locked away"
Died; his wife defended herself

Jen "I love myself and promise
to be true to my voice"
Died; happy

By: Stephanie Knibbs -- circa 1997

Somnambulist

Bright red eyes open in the pitch black waters of the
night and flare their hypnotic windows of the soul at
me and that's when I realize these windows are closed
from this Earth on which I live but this being does
not appear native to this world on which I inhabit so
freely but maybe from some place where red eyes are as
common as blue and brown and green and gray and aqua
and turquoise and hazel and all those funky colors that
may make up our rainbow but not this creature's for he
or she or it must see everything in a different hazy
perspective and everything must darken into red or maybe
brighten into ultra-violet but that doesn't matter
because it's here to kill me past death and it is now
that I run and even as I do the eyes stay right beside
me and fear kicks in and grips me with it's cold dark
hands and the little freeze demons poke their spears at
my heavily beating heart and then it reaches out a large
claw-like hand and then I awaken out in the cold dark
waters of night because I have been sleepwalking again.


Rob Hillstead -- circa 1997

there's a couple more, one of jeremy's i'm working on formatting as it doesn't translate well into bloghtml...

but until then, for your amusement, here's a picture of brian binns with his head stuck in some sort of ancient machine...

howdy, to my large readership i know i have (all five of you), i'd like to do up a photo set for shutterfly involving the best-of souris valley pictures...we all got 'em, now go through them, and pick your ten favourite, if they are in print form and you don't have access to a scanner, then just give me the prints and i'll make a copy...

got an external burner this past weekend, making dvds, jeff gave me his copy of psychedelic pioneers which i'm trying to get burned to a disc and available for mass production...this newly aquired machine is making me become more effecient space and storage wise, i'm going through every disc i've burned for the last 8 years and i'm compiling them to my external drive and backing them up to dvd...the real goal is to ditch the 200 some burned cds i have floating around the house...hopefully i can get rid of my cd collection as well (most of it anyhow)...

technology is cool...not necessary, but cool...

random photograph i recently found:

Tool, 10,000 Days, May 2 2006

the idea of universal care is something we take for granted, if it is a basic need, then all people have the right to access it equally, regardless of race, political belief, or financial status. this is something we've taken for granted for the last 50 years, it has so far survived through several conservative governments who try as they might to reduce funding. it's shape is whithering, increases in corporate tax cuts to foreign investors which often destroy more local small businesses than assist, hire at wages much smaller than if it were opened in the US, and act more as a vacuum of money out of the provinces rather than into them. the suffering has been our universal care. health care suffers because they don't have the money to pay doctors or nurses competitive wages, to keep beds open, to sustain enough staff and beds to alleviate the long lines that happen when your system is underfunded. the only reason health care isn't functional is because of the funding CUTS that the governments have made over the last twenty years. other care suffers as well, child care for instance. you don't improve the system by cutting money to it. if you don't think that these services are necessary, step outside in an urban centre. walk downtown to where there are people who've slipped through the cracks. kids on the street, kids out of control because they have grown up without parents around, parents who have to work to sustain their own bills, which leaves these kids to grow up on their own, and some don't manage. to say that this is the reason for pain and suffering in this country is being a little bit zealous, but i can tell you for sure, that it would sure help if our public services stayed in tact.

Support Child Care

this is a petition in response to the conservatives announcements to cut as much as $4 billion dollars away from childcare, reducing the public system to tax credits and loose change. read it, know it, sign it...

***NON RANTING PORTION OF BLOG ENTRY***

on another, less somber note...PARTY!!! at our place starting 9ish tomorrow (friday) night...kat's got her show at the MacKenzie Art Gallery from March 17-April 23, and you should go check it out...there will be some surprise guests, carla wannop (nee ror), and her husband renny will be in town, so come, load up on guns, bring your friends, it'll be a good time.

as well, this has been a busy week for me (ha ha ha haa ha haha hahah ha), in the sense that i've decided to use my unemployment to make shit happen. the edmonton gig, coupled with a short video i'm shooting tomorrow has launched me a couple months ahead of bills, the point is i can last til cornergas without working if need be, and thus i have nearly two months to work on my own stuff, guilt-free and focused. so, what to work on? on the 24-25, i'm shooting a comedy with colleague mauricio carvajal and peter brass, which is going to be fun. this weekend we're getting together to brainstorm an idea for a big rock commercial contest (short, simple, $10000 prize), though the due date is soon (march 31), so i'm a little skeptical that we can pull off something that quickly. we'll see, i have the time, so i should use it...

two other deadlines approach, the filmpool offers $2500 to a project (which i'm considering applying for with my documentary idea about the infrastructure (or lack thereof) set out in saskatchewan to cope with drug and alcohol addiction...) $2500 buys a lot of film. the other is a short project from SCN, and this is something y'all should check out. they are giving $750 away to make a short documentary (15 minutes) on a group, person, institution, town, or place, which is really open. you don't need to be a filmmaker, you just have to have an idea, and i'm willing (at a small fee of course :)) to assist you in the creation of such a thing...

check it out

longwinded post, but likely my last for a few days, come to the party, it'll be a blast...

a long four weeks has come to a close. it seems all i've achieved this last month is to lose the time to oblivion. way too much lost time. got to meet some cool people, hopefully some day i will be able to introduce. A very cool individual, editor, outdoorsman. as for now, i'm vegging, picking what to do now, winnipeg sounds busy, but apparently there's a few shows going on here in the near future. resuming work w/ mauricio on "laugh at last"...debating whether or not to attend a camera trainee course in calgary in early april. it would be something that would be a great shift in my professional career, to go from lighting to camera is to essentially switch departments.

watched a few interesting movies in the last few days to make up for my lack of worldly interest:

hell house: - a southern church's opposition to halloween is expressed in haunted house form, the difference with this house being that it is their warped yet socially acceptable illustration of hell. remember kids, if you go to raves, you'll take the date rape drug, get gang-raped, and then commit suicide, which of course will take you to hell. pretty good documentary, gets you thinking about morality and its subjectiveness.

grizzly man: - an intimate portrait of a man who lived with grizzly bears for nearly 10 years, only to be killed by them in the end. he of course carried video cameras which he taped his alaskan expeditions, depicting a complicated man engaged in the beauty of nature. shocking, yet beautiful. what i like about it is the open dialogue at the end, rare is it the filmmaker will sit down and address the issues that the film raised.

mysterious skin: - awesome acting, pretty good story, shocking content, but you should check it out, the acting is incredible. Joseph Gordon-Levitt blew the hell out of Phillip-Seymour Hoffman, not saying that he's bad, but i saw Capote as well, good, but nothing fantastic. people made fun of me for saying the oscars are meaningless, but when you see films that escape that sort of recognition, it makes you really question who makes those decisions.

check 'em out, quite cool. rather than turning off your brain to watch movies, stimulate it. what casts those shadows on the wall? and why is it the shadows we interpret from?

give justin a shout, he's feeling down and needs our support...robson420@hotmail.com

hello friends, it's been a while, i've had a really busy week, as i ended off the last week with a pay upgrade to best boy electric while in the studio shooting nude scenes this week. don't be too jealous, as i spent no time on set. however, the really interesting thing that i'd like to talk about is something that happens on every show, and every show is different. the party at that signifies the end of the show, a time where all the people you've gotten to become friends with all get together and drink copious amounts of free booze.

the positive:

-you get one last hurrah with the people who you've spent the last three weeks with at close quarters for as much time as you've worked throughout the course of the week, which is a lot, and often you've become close friends.
-free food
-free booze

the negatives:

-some people shouldn't drink
-some random people drop in and go around asking everybody if they have any weed (i got asked twice by strangers who just wandered in off the streets of edmonton because there was a door open and there was a party going on).
-gold-diggers trying to sleep with producers, directors, or anyone that they think is important enough on the movie (men and women).
-drunk people who you know have wives and husbands hooking up with other people you know have wives and husbands.
-drunk people do things they shouldn't, like karate sparring at the top of a stone staircase, though luckily no one fell down the staircase, someone did however break their arm on the stone floor. the two who were sparring (for drunken fun of course), were the director and the caterer (damn, he makes the best eggs).
-seedy teamsters falling on their ass trying to sell everybody cocaine.
-large groups of people doing cocaine in the bathrooms.
-drunken arguments with the production manager and producer which will probably wind up costing them their next job, if not all the jobs in the city that they ever apply for.
-random drunken arguments over pretty much everything.
-smashed people driving home.

because of my derelect behaviour last weekend, i decided to hold back on the drinking, to a meer pair of stellas, and i walked home. but the party was too wild for me. this one has been the most blatant of what can happen when people who can't control their habits get together. what can i say? some of it was fun, most of it was a sad display of people's personal problems coming out. not all are the same, but most of the above occurs at most of the wrap parties i've attended, maybe minus the broken arm part, that was new :)

anyhow, i'll be back on thursday or friday, there better be a party happening, sans the wrap party stigma.

peace out homies
rob