mykle systems labs

Whee!  We just had a great organizational meeting, and the weatherman says we’re ON for tomorrow morning’s shoot for SNAZZY PORTLAND!  Again I beg your wacky assistance: please come if you can.  Fun times are assured!

The shoot starts at 10am on Sunday January 10th — tomorrow morning, as I write this.  We will be shooting by the Japanese Memorial Sculpture on the West Side Esplanade, next to the Steel Bridge.  Here’s a map link:

http://bit.ly/snazzyshoot1

We need a variety of costume items in order to create the illusion of Venice Beach, which will then dissolve into the reality of Tom McCall Waterfront Park.

If you just want to be part of the pack of smiling Portland bicyclists in this shot, simply come as yourself and bring your bicycle.  So easy!

BUT, if you’re willing to be a Californian-Portlander transformer in this shot, please bring AT LEAST these things:

– dark glasses
– cell phone (does not have to work)
– beachwear, lawyerwear or moviestarwear
– proper Portland rain attire, especially a coat and hat, to fit over your other attire.
– your bicycle

In addition, it would be helpful if you wore or lent us

– a blonde wig
– a bikini
– zinc sunblock
– sweat bands and/or leggings
– a small dog in a beach outfit
– a brightly colored jogging suit
– a ponytail
– iguana boots
– board shorts
– flip flops
– spandex in any color, but the brighter the better
– a surfboard
– a skateboard or inline skates (please know how to use)
– any other obviously Californian items you have.

If you have extra of any of the above, we’d love to borrow it for this shot.

Also: please bring enough layers, books, whiskey, etc. that you will be comfortable waiting around outdoors between takes.  There will be hot coffee and snacks.  There will be mirth and hijinks.  There will not be cocaine or groupies, but I’m still looking forward to a good Hollywood-style video-making time.

Thank you a million, billion times over!

-mykle-

Okay, it’s on!  This weekend we begin shooting the WORLD’S MOST AWESOMEST MUSIC VIDEO!  Please come be a part of the weirdness that is SNAZZY PORTLAND! 

This weekend’s shooting schedule:
Read the rest of this entry »

Hello 2010, and hello to everybody who’s expressed interest in helping make the Snazzy Portland video.  If you are reading this and you’re still interested, please reply with these three important pieces of info: Read the rest of this entry »

Just kidding.  It’s not really a project, just a tradition.  For the third year running, I’m going to forego any alcohol for the month of January.  I got the idea from my friend David Trappe, who is no teetotaler.  It seems like a good idea: I give my liver a month off from processing the toxin alcohol, and prove to myself that I don’t have a drinking problem. Read the rest of this entry »

For the last two months I’ve held to a strict schedule of drinking coffee every other day.  I can’t decide if this represents a laudable achievement of self-discipline or just a new format for an old habit.  Probably both.  But I’m definitely in a way better place than when I started this Project. Read the rest of this entry »

About 18 months ago I started using Zenbe Lists, a nifty list-manager system available for free from zenbe.com.  I liked everything about it: it was clean, fast, beautifully designed, and allowed me to organize and consult my many lists both on my phone and on my laptop.  I began to put more and more of my personal organization into it, but eventually I hit a wall: I found it didn’t scale well.  Furthermore it has a few bugs that I have trouble working around, and I slowly became aware that the developers have stopped developing it; it exists in a sad limbo of the nearly-awesome but dead.  So it’s with deep regret that I announce it’s time to jump ship. Read the rest of this entry »

Drama alert!  If you’ve ever wanted to portray an annoying Californian, a lumberjack or a stoner on the big screen — and by big I mean at least laptop-sized — then read on.

The Bad Mintons – that street-hustling superbusker band of Chet Lyster, myself and a cast of dozens — will be shooting a pop video this January for our super-mega-ultra-hit cassingle “Snazzy Portland.” It is our most popular song ever, and we believe that with the right video it might actually sell one or two copies of our nearly-released record, or at least amuse more of our friends.

But it’s 2009 in Portland and we’re all unemployed.  We have no budget — but we do have a plan.  Right now I’m asking you, our friends and fans and friends-of-fans, for a little help with that. Read the rest of this entry »

I am buzzed to report that our first cider-making efforts have borne fruity booze.  The five-way apple tree I planted nine years ago yielded enough fruit this year to fill a 5-gallon carboy with juice.  Add yeast, secure airlock and stand back!

Hard cider may be the easiest alcoholic beverage there is to make.  Unlike with beer, no boiling or cooling is involved.  The internet is replete with conflicting advice on how best to ferment cider, and almost all of the available instructions seem to give fine results.  Here’s what we did: Read the rest of this entry »

Latest observations:

The feeling coffee gives me is a lot like terror: my heart pounds, my chest tightens, my muscles clench.  This makes sense, because caffeine stimulates the release of adrenaline and stress hormones – it’s like a cup of artificial stress, basically. (Read that link: it’s kinda scary.)

But my life is artificially low on stress: I live in Portland.  And this month I’ve really gotten to know the positive side of coffee, too.  It can give me focus and motivation, but it’s not a sure thing.  I have to want to focus, and have the time and space, before coffee can help me. And I can still focus without coffee … sometimes.  The long and short of it is, I wrote almost nothing while I had no caffeine in me.  I am a professional writer, and that is a real problem. Read the rest of this entry »

(Sorry if this is getting tedious, but I continue to observe and experiment with coffee, and continue to assure myself that this is all good science and not just well-rationalized backsliding.  You judge.)

This week I’ve had three more cups of coffee.  That’s one cup every two or three days, which feels moderate.  But this takes discipline, because I crave a lot more than that, and my neighborhood is a minefield of coffeeshops.  Abstinence was easier.

Today, during lunch with my daughter, I had a 12oz latte.  It was delicious.  It kicked my linguistic lobes into overdrive; I talked my mom’s ear off, talked my wife’s ear off, spent a productive afternoon clearing my inbox and replying to correspondence, plotted several upcoming pieces of writing, read Cometbus, read Facebook … soon it was eleven PM. Read the rest of this entry »