misspacman08 wrote an interesting blog today that ended up covering some interesting ground.  Aside from mentioning me (which I know we ALL love), she debates the desire to produce creative videos against the vehement lack of interest over a public spotlight.

I can understand as no too long ago, I literally went mad from the insanity that is producing videos for youtube.

First and foremost, there's a need to write.  My theory was that if I can channel that need into a book project of sorts, I could alleviate the need to write scripts for youtube.  Theoretically, this is a good idea ... practically, not so much.  The problem is that writing a script for a video and writing a book are two different sort of things.  There's an instant gratification in writing videos and no matter how much you convince yourself that you create FOR YOURSELF, art is still a social element.  In other words, yes, we create art because of an unexplainable driving force, but that art is virtually useless if no one sees it.  And we are motivated to continue based on the feedback we receive.

The other thing that Heather talks about is the technical aspect of producing videos--the editing.  Again, I agree with her because for the longest time I simply shot stupid projects to edit them.  I enjoy cutting a video together.  Lately, however, the magic has begun to dwindle.  It's because of the complexities that come with multi-layered dialogue and rapid pace conversations.  An average episode of Talking Heads took about 8 to 10 hours to edit.  I enjoy editing, but sometimes it's too much for one person to handle ... at least, the way I do it.

The question that comes up is whether or not we can truly abandon youtube.  When I asked this of myself a little while ago (back during my brush with insanity) my conclusion was "yes ... as long as I find something to replace it."

As far as I can tell, there's not too much out there to replace the youtube experience.  My goal is to one day have this website capable of standing independent from youtube, but should that day arrive, it will be because of the foundation that was established through youtube--the shows, videos, and production models that were proven there and the people that I've connected with through the site.

So can misspacman08 abandon youtube?  In my opinion, faster than anybody could imagine.  I wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to log on this evening and see that she deleted her account.

But if she did that, you can be damn sure that she'd be popping up somewhere else.  Because everybody needs something.  For myself and Heather, that something is writing and on a lesser extent, producing videos.

Hasn't the arrogance of humanity gone far enough?

When you no longer care about spending the money you earn, how are you supposed to deal with the sheer pointlessness of your job?

Surely, if I can sell two books, I can sell three.

All done!  I'm super-excited about the new cover.  This is officially the first novel I'm publishing--while the books have either been scriptbooks or "novelty" fare like d8 w/ d34th.  Explorers of the Unknown: Vampires! has been well-reviewed and greatly-enjoyed in it's earlier iteration ... now it's even better!

Here's the description:

The Explorers of the Unknown, an elite investigatory team that specializes in the strange and unusual, must uncover the truth behind the library vampires and reveal their nefarious plot. With their entire existence at stake, the Explorers of the Unknown are in for one hell of a ride.

Buy it here!

Weebly, with whom I manage this website, only allows very small animated gifs.  Which is sad, because I have a supremely cool animated banner for the official Explorers of the Unknown novel ... but it's too big.

Anyway, the point of groovy graphics in the corner there is to announce that I've finally finished the third and final draft of EotU: Vampires! and the book will be available shortly.

... collabs are the future.

Seriously ... one of the greatest draw-backs of producing video-based entertainment is the eventual, sometimes unfortunate need to collaborate with other people.

This is why I do krumbinesBRAIN--nobody to rely on but myself.

This is not to say that I don't enjoy working and collaborating with other people, but I hate having to put myself in a situation where my project relies on someone else in order to be complete.

I dealt with this a lot during the Talking Heads youtube series, and through the bulk of it was able to rely on deadlines to keep people on track with their contributions to the show.  There were hiccups, however, and it usually really threw me for a loop.  For example, for one episode, after all but one person turned in their footage, I got word from the remaining person that they weren't going to do it.  I was forced with the decision to either scrap the entire episode or try and "make it work".  Fortunately, there were enough pieces of the puzzle to make it work, and the pressure to be creative with the footage probably helped the episode a great deal.

But that doesn't change the fact that it still sucks to put the fate of your creative baby in other people's hands.

I've got a new episode of krumbinesBRAIN uploading ... I've just spend the last hour or so trying to fix that glitch that's been in the last few episodes where it skips over the "krumbinesBRAIN" title.  The master AVI of the episode is glitch free, but when I encode the smaller version through Dr. DivX, it skips those few frames.  I've checked and checked, but can't find out why it's doing this.

I tried to encode through something else, but that resulted in audio synch issues.  Dr. DivX, on the whole, just WORKS.  Minus this small glitch.  So, I'm uploading the video as is ... there's just nothing more that I can do for it right now.


(Oh, and the reason for the giving up--it's like 3:15 in the monring.  I'm fucking beat.)

... I'm trying out the new title that Middlebrook suggested for the daily videos feature.  If you have a better idea, let me have it in the comments.  In other news, the temporary run of Talking Heads has reached its end ... and I've removed all but a select few.  See some of my favorite episodes in the Talking Heads Playlist.

This one is cool.  Middlebrook, circa 2003:

You might be wondering where the term "guru" is coming from ... well, it's how I've labelled myself on youtube.  And it's feeling more appropriate as I start producing mini-shows for other 'tubers.  So, in honor of my aptitude of producing videos, I've started a new section of the website called "The Guru Pages" wherein you'll find articles and how-to's that pull back the curtain behind magical shows like Talking Heads and krumbinesBRAIN.

Forgot to mention that there are two new features I'm getting ready to unwrap.  One is a "Guru" section for the website while will be home to a series of articles and videos I'm working on ... a little inside glimpse at how I write and produce my shows.

The second section is a story I work on, here and there, when I'm bored.  Or depressed.  Or both.  It's called "Peter & the Dark Wolf" and I did a little teaser for it on my old channel (sorry, no links ... that shit has all been DELETED!!!)  I'm putting it together as an "internet novel", so look for it in the sidebar (the other sidebar, dummies.  On the left).  I'll get you into the story fairly quickly, but then I'll only post the new material as I write it ... which likely won't be that often.

Yes, I missed a day of VYSBW (Videos You Should Be Watching).  Hm ... maybe I should rename that feature?  Any ideas?  VYOTBW (Videos You Ought to be Watching)?  Nah, we can do better than that.  Gimme your thoughts in the comments ... it's a good feature but a horrible name--let's fix it!

My other question that you're more than welcome to answer in the comments: exactly how lame is it to have a hangover from drinking two light beers the night before?

I mentioned previously that the best thing I received for Devilmas was an opportunity to produce a Talking Heads miniseries for a fairly well-renowned youtube partner.  The second best part of Devilmas has been AIR HOCKEY.

That's right.  No, I didn't get it as a gift, but GAVE it.  And have been reaping the benefits since.  Okay, fine--so maybe it isn't "regulation size" ... but there's a fucking air hockey table in my living room!  How cool is that?

(hm ... I think I'm starting to see why I got a hangover from two light beers ...)

I have two (or three) krumbinesBRAIN scripts ready to shoot ... new episodes are forthcoming.  And it occurs to me that I've been using that phrase WAY too often: "New Episodes are Forthcoming".  You know, after the TH miniseries is wrapped, I'm moving on to a small project for misspacman08's channel--sorry, I don't want to give away any major details just yet--but it occurs to me that after we finish that, a show titled "New Episodes are Forthcoming" might be fucking hilarious.  Who wants to host another miniseries?  Takers?  Anybody?

Haha ... I should really work on some tJ&Js, huh?

I'm such an ass ... :)