all things mau

Props to Victor Schwanke for this edit.

the remix

The instrumental

The story behind this post

If you don’t understand this post, it’s ok. I forgive you.

red team representing.

I swear we do some work at revision3 as well. Sometimes. This was my easiest edit ever, minus the green screen tracking and my shoddy performance.

Lip Dub - Need You Tonight by INXS from sarahlane on Vimeo.

I remember my brother once made a music video when he was home alone and bored. It consisted of him basically dancing like an idiot in front of our over the shoulder VHS camcorder, to a popular Mexican cumbia of sorts. The man had balls of steel for sharing that with us. This one’s for you bro.

This is a spoof of Dan Deacon’s video here.

Dan Deacon Spoof from Maubrowncow on Vimeo.

See more of this kind of sillyness at revision3.com, the source of this sillyness.

He may be intense, maybe a bit nutty, nonetheless Gary Vaynerchuck manages to encapsulate some truth regarding tech culture, and life in general, in this one concise lil video.

I’m preparing to entertain my 10 year old nephew from LA next weekend, and I can’t help but to feel the pressure of being a good uncle and giving him a memorable, meaningful experience. Last week, he told me over the phone that he “wants to be just like me”. That boy sure knows how to weigh down a man with words. I hope I can pass on concise wisdom to him, If he should ask.

Greenhecks with us on Easter Weekend, originally uploaded by maubrowncow.

The Greenhecks and us in Alamo Square.

In case you missed it the first time… Here’s my latest editing dork venture at Revision3.com. Having fun with Rock Band:

It’s unfortunate that I had to embed this using youtube. If any web geeks have a good wordpress video embedding solution, don’t hold back.

Shame on me. When I think of niche film festivals, I imagine entries normally rejected for lack of content, admitted for the ability to find the niche theme laced in it’s unwatchability. Shame on me. I need to go to more film festivals. At least return to San Francisco’s Bicycle Film Festival next year.

Our Sunset friends joined Ali and I on Friday evening to watch Program 1 of many. The first film, Street Fighter, was a HD/16mm/8mm beautiful look at Toronto’s Critical Mass, directed by the festival creator Benny Zenga. I missjudged the youtubesque intro. Shame on me. It was gorgeous and captivating.
the main event was, Monkey Warfare. Disguised initially as a low budget, film school flunky, the film’s content quickly made up for the lack of production design polish. The films activist theme couldn’t have come at a better time in my life, finding myself in a city filled with a movement for every cause. From gutter punks to bicycle gangs. From Neo-Ludites, to Singularity Summits. From Vegans to causeless self important bloggers. Shame on me.

It’s a match made in heaven from the depths of segue hell. Ali and I made it over to, what the residents call the “Ghost House” in Fruitville last night. These New York natives hosted a night consisting of a barbershop sextet, a hip hop act, a folk singer and… puppets.

Chadwick Lombardi started thing’s off with the barbershop styling’s of “Hello my Baby” made famous by Warner Brothers/Bugs Bunny era agonizing tale of a construction worker and his talented frog, (and again in Spaceball’s homage to Alien and Warner Brothers). Their attire were appropriate, and joke’s atrocious. Just the way they wanted.

Height and Jones tested the sound system with their explosive “I hate hip hop” hip hop act. At one point Jones calls us the “gee wiz” nicest hip hop crowd he’s had in a while. Look out hip hop, here come the white boys.

Hanalei wrapped up the music act with his self proclaimed apathetic cynical self demoralizing twenty something folk music. I feared hippie dippy artsy fartsy. I ended up being touched by honesty and beautiful vocal and guitar work on a stolen acoustic.

Showbeast wrapped it up with an Amazing multimedia, multicast, multipuppet show so damn psychedelic, it hurts. The absurdity was hilarious and the puppets fuzzy, just the way I like em. check out their youtubeness alone so all those around you won’t interrupt with their WTFs.

Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they’ve known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? Why climb this Mount Everest of formalities that makes you feel like a beggar? Why enter this jungle of foreignness where everything is new, strange and difficult?

The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life. - Yann Martel

There has been a disappointing aspect of moving to the Bay Area. I don’t miss LA. Not because the fog penetrated and stole my soul in the Sunset district the first three weeks of my time here. Not because I had been busy helping plan my marriage to my best friend in Oakland. And not because it’s only been 61 days.

I’m disappointed to learn, or rather, confirm, that I’m OK with missing LA, but not my LA friends. I was half hoping I’d find my homesickness remedied with In N’ Out and a daily dosage of LAist.com and Curbed LA. Instead I find comfort in the streets of San Francisco, or at least down in Lakeshore here in Oakland, quenching my rare need of gregariousness. The equivalent of turning on the friendly TV when home alone. I’m not really watching the scene, I just need a chatty noise of friends with friends.

I’ve never been the kind of guy that had a clique. Never had a buddy that I made a ceremonial blood oath with, or called everyday, and eventually his wingman in singlehood. As a child I preferred to play by myself, never joined sports teams, or any local gang. I lived in my head. I thought me strange for the longest time. I imagine this untethered life is what got me out of my home town, and into LA. This occurred to me this past weekend home with mom in Pomona. I sat in the front yard listening for familiarity and nostalgia. I heard a distant freight train, chickens and the trees. I heard a simple childhood that grounded me in reality while in reality, and allowed me to dream in dreams. I heard the comforting silence that allowed me to be the budding ADD kid who didn’t quite fit in the puzzle of Pomona. I had the isolated eccentric childhood any doctor today would be proud to prescribe Ritalin.

In LA my obtuse ends fit into the puzzle. I found friends with matching obtuse edges. I moved to San Francisco to learn. My first lesson is that it isn’t a city that brings the pieces together, it’s friends themselves. I’m just happy I married and moved up with the best fitting piece, showing a hint of a picture other puzzle pieces might want to help complete.

People move because of the wear and tear of anxiety. Because of the gnawing feeling that no matter how hard they work their efforts will yield nothing, that what they build up in one year will be torn down in one day by others. Because of the impression that the future is blocked up, that they might do all right but not their children. Because of the feeling that nothing will change, that happiness and prosperity are possible only somewhere else.