Category: Blog

Silent Voices - where I got to play a complete jerk. Conservatives would say this would influence me to become one.

Nearly A Weigh-In Wednesday and I’m Angry

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Yes, indeed, my little snowflake. No one is saying “free.” The majority of Americans want these things – it’s isn’t just small radicalized pockets of progressives. We realize these programs cost money; the government collects plenty from us to cover the programs, we just keep hearing about how they’re not affordable, while wars, tax-cuts for the wealthy, and bail-outs to covers shitty (Republican!) economic policies are never questioned as to their cost. Spend our taxes on the things that will benefit the tax payers. I’m sorry your feeble, simple mind can’t understand that people want their taxes to benefit them.

Weigh-In Wednesday – The Uniqueness of You

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

I learned in time, that’s just how it is, and I need to have patience with myself, more than patience with others. In those times when you’re stopped worrying about it, and start focusing on other things, amazing people come into your life. When you’re forcing it, less than amazing people come into your life.

Just my two-cents of my old age wisdom. Picture me peeling an apple and eating slices off the blade of my pocket knife while sitting in a porch rocker while telling you this. It might make more of an impact.

A straw hat, and denim overalls are also nice additions.

Weigh-In Wednesday – It’s Obviously Autumn Again

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

I’ve often said, the worst changes, challenges, and things I have to adapt to happen in Autumn. Every year, it seems like something new, and increasingly awful. Maybe it has become self-fulfilling prophecy, but often the challenges I face aren’t even things on the radar. Nothing I’m dwelling on, or fearing. Just, random awful crap.

My Autumn has begun in just that way. Let’s see what else it can throw at me by December.

Weigh-In Wednesday – Searching for the Sun

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Sometimes, being positive isn’t about finding the silver lining in the storm clouds, or seeing the sun from behind the rain. It’s about appreciating the rain, and how refreshing it can be while it is coming down. It’s about appreciating the dancing shadows in the storm clouds as they roll, and flow. It’s about recognizing your pain, embracing it, and realizing it will pass. 

Not everything is good all of the time, but even when things aren’t good, they’re useful. Flowers rarely grow from sunshine alone. It takes a balance of rain, and some lumps of shit, along with the sunshine for them to thrive.

If you spend your time trying to only be positive, not only do you fail to learn to deal with your problems, but you lose the experience of the pain your problems bring. Without being able to feel, embrace, and deal with pain, you can’t fully appreciate the happiness, and the good. As I’ve said many times, the valleys help define the mountains.  The oceans help to define the land. Contrasts exist to show us what can be, what is important, what we should value, and the things, and people that deserve our greatest efforts.

Stages - 5 Award Nominations at the Buffalo 48-Hour Film Project

Weigh-In Wednesday – September 11

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Yes, we all know it’s September 11th.  As we have been told, we haven’t forgotten. We’re not allowed to forget, and with that, many aren’t allowed to reconcile the grief that day has caused.

It is a tragedy that honestly started our nation on a downward spiral of economic disarray, and increased ethnocentrism. Which is probably exactly what the terrorists wanted. Yes, honor the fallen, honor the first responders, remember them on this day. But maybe also realize our current state of affairs, and the endless wars that have further demonized us in the Middle East, and the breakdown of our alliances that we now have is evidence the terrorist got what they wanted. In that respect, we’ve failed to honor the fallen, and first responders correctly.

Symbolic memorials mean nothing if you don’t live in a nation that upholds the values it wrote into its Constitution.

But, who am I to say? After all, most conservatives still blame Obama for not being in the Oval Office when 9/11 happened.

Ridiculous Workday Notes

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

I have discovered my job is literally Peter Gibbons’s job in the movie Office Space.  Now, I love the movie Office Space, and in fact,traveled with a digital copy on my laptop to watch while on flights, in my hotel, etc..  while I had a contract that required weekly travel from 2006 through 2009. That job was a high-pressure job, and working from the road all the time wasn’t always easy, but back then, running my own business, and experiencing so many different places was so much better than just being in an Office Space type work environment.  Why do I say that my  current job is Peter Gibbons’s? Because the job doesn’t seem matter, at all. I do my work, which is completely trite, unrewarding, and for the most part without meaning, or consequence, good or bad. I get direction from management, but it’s rarely ever followed-up on, or consistent. I have eight different bosses who will all tell me the same thing, or in most cases, nothing at all. My presence is required, but at the same time, completely optional as long as work gets done. My only fulfillment comes via direct deposit, which isn’t great, but the flip-side is, once I leave the office I don’t have to think about my job at all. Not a single bit. No worries, no over-hang of stress, no wondering how I will solve problems, or make anything work. Nothing. I can completely focus on things that actually matter to me.

There is a certain serenity in that. I’m not changing the world here, but it keeps the bills paid while I work on changing my world elsewhere. When I’m here I hate it, and I want to leave, or find something new. But at the same time, I realize such jobs are pretty rare.

Adversity

Weigh-In Wednesday – What’s New?

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Just a note: if you find yourself in a debate over which fast-food chain’s chicken sandwiches are better, you might want to consider that you have the diet preferences of a 10-year old, and perhaps work on finding a little more culinary culture, or at least a healthier diet.

Am I one to talk? Is my diet perfectly healthy? Hell no. But deep fried chicken sandwiches aren’t a point of debate for me, and I would rather patronize locally owned, and developed establishments rather than a national chain that either doesn’t give two shits about the markets they invade, or spread bigotry against marginalized groups through their religious rhetoric, while using their employees’ generous nature as a national marketing campaign as if the company is the good-doers, and not the individual slaving for them at minimum wage.

Movie Poster for Stages

Weigh-In Wednesday – Back to Routine

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

The previous weekend was the 48-Hour Film Project. Our movie titled, Stages was filmed in record fashion. Our first year leading our own team; we kept the production streamlined, the story easy to follow, and sensible, and our production schedule stayed very close to schedule for the entire day. Because I directed it,  filmed it, and edited it, it was less of a challenge keeping the vision on point.  The Premier Screening was this past weekend, and I have to say, I think it played well. Not as flashy as some films, but given our small team, and limited technical resources, it still came out clean, and cohesive, and seemed to have the emotional impact we were going for. Confirmed by a few different viewers, some even said it appeared on screen as one of the best looking, best filmed movies of the day.

A Manifesto of Love

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

To this city, and this region – Buffalo – the City of Good Neighbors. We don’t always exemplify that, but I would like to think we exemplify it more often than not. Yes, you’ll see more examples in the media of us not being good to each other, but the media doesn’t often tells us about the acts of kindness we see, and perform every day. Rarely do you hear stories of the success of our refugee programs, of the community organizations that help welcome the world to Buffalo, and give them the help they need when they get here. Rarely do you hear of how those same refugees are building their own communities, and running successful businesses while adding to Buffalo’s diverse culture. There is no coverage of neighbors helping neighbors daily, not out of obligation, but out of a want to be helpful, and to foster a kind, and cooperative community. 

I want to be a bigger part of this. I want to show love to my neighbors, those who come here seeking a better life, and the future generations who will call this region home.

Weigh-In Wednesday – Three Decades Later

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

By far, the people who complain the most, and about the most trivial, nonsensical things are Conservatives/Republicans/The Religious Right.

While they sit back, and call others “snowflakes” for things like, not wanting to be shot while in school, or not wanting the police to kill you during a routine arrest (often a BS arrest), or things like justice, and civil rights, those on the other side worry about coffee cups not being Christmassy enough, religious symbols not being allowed on public (tax funded) buildings, and scream about their faux persecution in the face of others demanding equal rights. They live on socialist ideals, and taxes, yet complain the policies they don’t want are all socialist, and therefore evil. They stump over free-market ideals, but when the free-market puts them in their place they complain they’re being discriminated against.

It’s a shopping list covering every aisle of hypocrisy, and irony when you think about it.