To Victory!

Hello everybody. This summer I was introduced to Victory Brewing Company out of Downingtown, PA and all of their great beers. It's an awesome brewery and you can tell that they truly love what they do over there. They've seen a lot of well deserved success, with a lot of their beers winning awards at various competitions. A couple of weeks ago I found out they were having a video contest and immediately the ideas started flowing. After bouncing around several different concepts, we came up with a game show spoof about that moment in front of the beer fridge when it seems impossible to make a decision. The videos are all up at Victory's website and I'd love it if you head over there to check out all of the great entries. Leave a comment to let them know what you think of our video!

http://victorybeer.com/inspired/2011-video-contest/entry-hoose-your-brew/

When you're done come back here and check out this clip of outtakes from filming. It was a fun day, filming in 103 degree heat. Casey, a great character actor, would not take the leather jacket off until filming was done and almost suffered a heat stroke. Almost.


Choose Your Brew! Outtakes from Alex Smith on Vimeo.

To find out more about Victory check out there site here.

Thanks for your support, and thanks for watching.


This has been an All Smiles Production.

SUPER DELAYED FOLLOWUP:


We won.

I don’t have time for this but…

What time is it, anyway? As I try to wake up I sip on some coffee wondering just what time it is. My coffeepot tells me it’s 7:41, while my microwave believes that it’s 7:56. My cell phone reassures me that it’s 7:44, even though the hands on the clock above my sink seems convinced that it’s 10:26. I briefly entertain the idea that I’m living in some sort of limbo of fifteen minutes, but I know that there’s an explanation.  My cell phone is linked up to a satellite, so that gives it some credibility. The different times on the appliances can probably be attributed to faulty programming or the age of the beaten-up machines. And the clock above the sink, well that’s been broken for some time now.  The point is, however, are one of these times more correct than the others, or does it even really matter?

Time, and the way we relate to it, is a very strange phenomenon. You may think back to a day a couple of years ago and say “Feels like yesterday” even though yesterday feels like an eternity ago.  It happens to me all the time.  On Monday I feel as if Friday will never come, but by Friday I can’t believe how fast the week has gone by. Truth is, time is something we experience, something we perceive, and like most experiences and perceptions, it is different depending on the individual.  You may have a day that seems to drag on forever, minutes seeming like hours, while for someone else in the same room the hours may fly by like minutes. Time, as we know it today, has become another institution of society, a social creation that we have learned to live by.

Many, many moons ago humanity considered time as cyclical. We would mark the progression of time by the cycles and patterns we could observe; the rise and fall of the sun, the waning of the moon, the passing of the seasons. We were in touch with the natural flow of the world, the real rhythm of time, and in this way, we had a relaxed order to the chaos of our lives.  We would work for the necessities of life as we needed them and enjoy the down time together when we were content and satisfied. As our lives became more structured, more regulated, order has only resulted in more chaos. The varying religious and governing organizations began to record events that they thought to be important and, in doing so, established a past, a present, and a future. This marked a shift in our relationship with time from cyclical to linear, no longer flowing but constantly marching forward.  While this understanding of time gave a sense of significance and weight to history, it also created the sense of time as a finite commodity.

As society progressed, our needs have become more complex, ever more complicated, while the time available to us has only seemed to dwindle. With so much more to do, we’ve had to take advantage of every second, literally. The clock evolved from the simplicity of the sundial to the precision of mechanical cog-driven watches.  Eventually, in addition to the hour and minute hands, the second hand was added so that we can keep track of every second ticking into the future.  Technology has brought precision to a whole new level with digital clocks, as now we see nanoseconds fly by.  This has once again changed our relationship with time from a linear perspective to what sociologists John Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey refer to as psychological time. Time is not just a finite commodity, but one that we are quickly running out of, and as those nanoseconds continue to fly by we try to use every last one, multitasking in any way possible. We speed through drive thru fast food joints and even Starbucks while chatting on the phone, watch TV while surfing the web, diminishing our attention spans to the point where self expression is confined to 140 letter tweets and keeping in touch is now just checking Facebook for status updates. We rush through our lives as if our time is more important than everyone else’s, with little patience or understanding when there’s a traffic block or someone takes too long at the bank.

I know, because I do this too. On a recent drive to Vermont, I was stuck in traffic while merging onto the NY Thruway. Traffic was backed up all the way into the E-Z Pass lane, the FAST PASS E-Z pass lane. In this situation Dave got to witness a little bit of road rage come out. I couldn’t believe the NERVE of that traffic, slowing me to a standstill in the E-Z pass lane. However, with a deep breath I was able to regain my composure and instead of being frustrated and impatient, I enjoyed the comedic stylings of David Cross and a conversation with a good friend.  I think it’s about time that we all relax and learn to go with the flow. Forget all the nanoseconds you might be wasting and give your full attention to the matter at hand. It’s a cliché, sure, but stop and smell the roses.

This has been an All Smiles Production.

Broviet Russia

In Broviet Russia, revolution starts you. Broviet Russia was the first sketch we filmed for The Debonaires and, in some ways, was sort of the driving force of the whole show. Once we started writing it the ideas kept pouring out and Broviet Russia seemed destined for a spin off. However, as the show progressed we had such a wealth of material we wanted to make and the ambitious plans for Broviet Russia had to take a back seat. For now, all we can do is spread the word and shake our groove things at the Communist Party! Originally, the first episode of Broviet Russia was split in three parts but now, for the first time, you can watch the whole story in one fell swoop.



You can now watch any sketch from The Debonaires at your leisure at vimeo.com/thedebonaires, and full episodes can still be found at the Debonaires' blog.

This has been an All Smiles Production.

From the Curb of Your Suburb

For those that don't know, my name is A Smiles. In the summer of 2008, after listening to mainstream hip hop on the radio, I decided that popular hip hop seemed to lack some of the same vibe and energy that made the genre so enjoyable for me. While there was definitely the influence of party rap, there was nothing like the stylings of Jurassic 5 or A Tribe Called Quest that made me fall in love with the music. Always looking for new outlets of creative expression, I decided to get in the game. So I donned the name A Smiles and collaborated with my friend, C Money. With the help of a talented young producer, C Bones, we began to churn out hit after chart topping hit. That chart might have been most played in my iTunes, but that's alright. I'm just glad we're topping charts. First recording the dance sensation "Swivel and Snap" C Money and I have continued to make progress on our debut LP "From the Curb of Your Suburb" over the years. The album is slated to drop at, uh, some time in the future. Here's a quick preview of a track titled "Fuck Banks, Get to the Deli":

04 Fuck Banks, Get to the Deli

As the album continues to come together with some fun-loving jams keep your ears to the ground for songs to pop up as they are finished. To build the hype a little more, here's a random verse that might find its way into the mix:

I can sense your affliction
You've got that East Coast addiction
But if you come to me for your fix
You best be ready to get your kicks
cuz I'm the East Coast overdose
I'll leave you comatose,
seismic flows, rocking the Atlantic coast,
triple double just like Derek Rose,
leave you on the floor, burnt as toast
cuz I'm a killa, always chasing that skrilla
rock steady, sturdy as a pillar
Holding up the pantheon
Even when the gods are gone
Ancient as the legends go,
but Fresh as the story unfolds
So if you think you can rock like this,
Then go ahead, embrace the sickness
You got that East Coast addiction
Carry it with conviction


Thanks for listening. This has been an All Smiles Production.

UVMtv Presents: An Interview With Jon Kilik

Thanks to my work with UVMtv and being a Film and Television Studies minor at the University of Vermont, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to interview Jon Kilik. It was a really incredible experience for me, being able to sit down and learn something from an Academy Award nominated producer that graduated from UVM with the class of '78.  Soon to be an alumni myself, it was inspiring to talk with someone who pursued their love of film and became one of the most sought after independent producers in the industry. After graduating from UVM, Kilik moved to New York where he worked on movie sets and eventually met up with Spike Lee to produce Do the Right Thing. From there he built a career producing very powerful films, working on most of the other Spike Lee joints as well as Robert DeNiro's A Bronx Tale, Dead Man Walking, and the aforementioned Academy recognized Babel and Biutiful. I could go on but instead of me telling you all about him, why don't I let him speak for himself:

This has been an All Smiles Production.

I, Robot?: The Post-Human Condition

Here’s a scenario you can probably relate to: You are sitting around with your friends, discussing movies, and there’s a name on the tip of your tongue but, Oh! What is that name? He’s that dude, he plays that character, yeah, in that movie, with that director, and it may have been in theaters. Your probing remains too vague for there to be any hope of an answer, even with your collective brain power, and yet, Thank Zeus! Your friend has the latest smart phone, the most up-to-date iProduct. With a few carefully worded Google searches you can successfully remember that it was John Turturro that played the butler in Big Daddy. With the power of Google in your pocket, unlimited access to trivial information goes from the tip of your tongue to the tips of your fingers. My fear, however, is that that is where the information remains.

With this kind of unabated access to information, there is no longer a need for retention. Retention goes straight out the window. Thanks to the speed and ease of connectivity made possible by today’s phones, there no longer seems any purpose in trying to remember all of the roles John Turturro has played in his long-winded career. Especially since IMDB is a few clicks away, no matter where you are. And it’s not just actors and their roles, but all information—Why is there any need to waste the storage space in your brain when the phone can serve us as an external hard drive, of sorts.

It might seem like I’m being extreme, but think about the calculator.  As calculators became more commonly used, the need to understand and do math became diminished to the point where even divvying up a bill or determining how much to tip a waiter is a challenge (but don’t worry, our phone can do that too). An overreliance on the calculator has reduced our ability to the most simple of math skills.

What’s to stop the same thing from happening to our memory? Do you even remember what happened last year, this past summer, or even last weekend without flipping through Facebook pictures first? Now that our phones are capable of giving us directions, downloading and storing entire libraries of books, paying our bills... they are almost as capable as us. If this reliance on our phones continues, our minds will become mush.

As an avid viewer, and stay at home contestant, of Jeopardy I tend to worry about the show’s future. A couple of months back, when I was in my living room, obnoxiously shouting out answers, competing for prize money I had no stake in, a commercial came on for IBM’s Jeopardy contest.  An IBM supercomputer named Watson was designed and built to compete with the show’s best competitors. Not only did it compete, it destroyed them. Over the course of two matches, Watson earned $77,147, compared to the $24,000 and $21,600 that the mere humans racked up. While Jeopardy continues on for now, I wonder when the contestant pool will dry up. I mean, we already have shows such as Jeff Foxworthy’s “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?” I would hate to see the day when Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader, the answer to which determines if you are a redneck, becomes Are You Smarter than Your Smart Phone, the answer to which will be no.

And yet, there is a solution. Just as you can still do math by learning and practicing and applying those skills, you can still exercise your brains. Turn off the cell phones, log off Facebook, and use your mind instead. Write a letter, memorize a poem, do the crosswords, play Sudoku. Anything to fight the technologic revolution. At the beginning, as technology and computers progressed, each new model was heralded as even more “user-friendly” than before. And yet, as technology surpasses what we once thought possible, it feels as if we are being forced to become more “computer-friendly” in every aspect of our daily lives

This has been an All Smiles Production.

When Lightning Strikes Twice

Here's a quick excerpt from a short story I'm wrapping up, for now. Definitely something I'll be continuing to work on as a larger piece...

When Lightning Strikes Twice.

Children are crying while their mothers try to quiet them down. The teenage barista spills yet another cup, her third attempt to make me one simple espresso, as she fumbles clumsily around the machinery. Her brown hair is done up in a bun and I can tell she had put a lot of time into her make up; but now her mascara bleeds down her face with her tears. The last thing she expected to happen today was a coffeehouse takeover by a supervillain. Supervillain, what a laughable moniker—but, he calls himself a Superhero so I play the game. Luckily, it’s game over today.

It is like a jungle in here; fake plants beside every table, trees hanging from the ceiling, vines tangled about. I can see the courage boiling up in the eyes of the man at the corner table. He is clenching and unclenching his fist, planning just how he’s going to be a hero today. He has a wrestler’s build but his balding head and the vine draped over his left shoulder make it hard to take him seriously. The espresso tastes like shit so I throw it away and make my way to the large store front windows. With my back turned he sees his opportunity. He rushes, but in one swift motion I turn, side step his advances, and put my knee right into his gut. He falls to all fours, searching for breath he won’t find as I kick him in the ribs. He grunts, then collapses on the floor.

“That was foolish,” I say to him and the rest of the coffee shop. “There will be no stopping me today. If you cherish your lives you’ll stay calm and quiet. It is too early to draw attention this way. Soon you will see how powerful I’ve become. And soon, the world will bend to my will. I have no interest in killing my future subjects…” I pause as they hang on my every word; it is hard to resist being dramatic at a time like this. “…but don’t get me wrong. I will kill anyone that gets in my way.”

I signal to my men to bring the failed hero into the back, giving him one last kick as they drag him away. Across the street, the alarms of the World Bank go off on schedule. Only a minute later the first squad cars show up, also on schedule. It doesn’t take much longer for the rest of the force to show up and set up a basic perimeter. My men have successfully established themselves in a high stakes hostage situation. With the amount of ammunition I have provided for my men, this little standoff with the local police could play out for hours, maybe even days. But, this is the dawn of a new day and it won’t last long at all. News vans swarm in from all directions, ready to make a spectacle of the situation. Anchors and cameramen scramble to situate themselves close enough to cover the story, staying just beyond the perimeter of harm’s way. Channel 5, Channel 7. ABC, CBS. They’re all here. Little do they know they’re about to break the story of a lifetime.

Their broadcasts will fill the national media and people all over the country will watch, some praying for the safe release of the hostages, others pretending that they don’t want to see a violent shootout. However, this will not be a matter for just the local law enforcement. As word spreads, there is no doubt that he will rear his ugly head. Sergeant Supreme will parachute down, ready to diffuse the situation with minimal casualties or collateral damage. And on any other day he would succeed. Any other day, he would defeat my men, secure the safety of all the hostages, and continue to be worshipped as the “great” hero of this nation. But today is not any other day. Today is my day. Today, Sgt Supreme dies. Today, I, Dark Nimbus, will kill Sgt Supreme.

~~~

Thanks for your time. This has been an All Smiles Production.

Starting the conversation...

The act of writing is an art of personal expression. It is an opportunity for the writer to share what’s on their mind; their observations, their beliefs, their message—whether it be a simple passing thought or something weighing on the brain, something fully developed over time or something they just feel the need to blurt out. But, while it is sometimes important to consider the intentions of the author, the most important part of writing is the reading.

As a reader, whether you’re part of an audience of millions or an audience of just one, you are engaging in a conversation with that writer. No matter what the writer had in mind when writing, each reader brings a different view to the table. That is the true beauty of the individual. And it is only by critically engaging with a work that a reader can find the meaning within a text. To do a critical reading is to fully participate with the material; read every word, read it twice, ask questions, look up words you don’t know… really process what is in front of you.

It is so essential to read critically these days because it is necessary to fully understand the texts around you. With the advent of the age of information and technological connectivity, we are increasingly subject to a barrage of texts and it is important to be a part of the conversation. You can, and should, read everything critically. Not just books and poems, but songs and movies, newspapers, commercials, even cereal boxes. Accept nothing at face value but analyze it. This kind of critical thinking is fundamental in relating to the world around you, in finding meaning, and understanding relations.

I try to exercise this critical engagement at every chance possible. It has been an immense part of my development as a student, as a writer, and as a person. By always seeking to understand I discover a lot about myself by simply what sticks out to me. What interests me? What kind of questions do I have? What emotions and meaning arises from a text.

For me, this blog is a chance for me to contribute to the greater conversation that is taking place around us. I will be posting a wide assortment of material; snippets of short stories I’m working on, maybe a poem or a song, shameless plugs of a television show that I write and produce (thedebonaires.wordpress.com), or random observations I want to share. It may be my writing or someone else’s work that has caught my attention. This blog will be my way of collecting and sharing the creative ramblings that flow from my pen. Instead of keeping them within the pages of my notebook, they will now be readily available on the internet.

To start it off, here’s one of my favorite poems. Engage with it:

Q & A by Kenneth Fearing

Where analgesia may be found to ease the infinite, minute scars of the day;

What final interlude will result, picked bit by bit from the morning's hurry, the lunch-hour boredom, the fevers of the night;

Why this one is cherished by the gods, and that one not;

How to win, and win again, and again, staking wit alone against a sea of time;

Which man to trust and, once found, how far—

Will not be found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John,

Nor Blackstone, nor Gray's, nor Dun & Bradstreet, nor Freud, nor Marx,

Nor the sage of the evening news, nor the corner astrologist, nor in any poet,

Nor what sort of laughter should greet the paid pronouncements of the great,

Nor what pleasure the mulitudes have, brining lunch and the children to watch the condemned to be plunged into death,

Nor why the sun should rise tomorrow,

Nor how the moon still weaves upon the ground, through the leaves, so much silence and so much peace.

Beautiful. Thanks for your time and now go on, surf the web, read a magazine, go outside, but remember to give the world your full attention. And I hope you come back soon to see what else makes its way onto the blog.

This has been an All Smiles Production.